"Yes, that is the time my father works, and I work for him—on the pants."
"My God! A sweatshop!" I murmured. "Don't you ever have any fun?"
"Sure I do. Saturdays we don't do no work an' I take the little feller down to Coney, an' sit on the sand all day with him. Do we have fun? Well, say, I guess!"
"What does your father give you a week?"
"Sometimes a dollar. Sometimes a dollar and a half. Sometimes nothin'."
"What does your father say about putting Isaac in the asylum?"
"My father!" answered Abraham, his eyes flashing. "He don't want him. Isaac won't work. He's an American boy. He's only eight. He just hangs around the house and musses things up and won't do nothin' they tell him. My father would be glad to get rid of him."
"Well, if he makes all this trouble, why do you want to keep him?" I asked.
"Because I love him!" responded Abraham with a sob. "He's all I've got—that little feller. I want him to grow up a good boy. If they don't want to take care of him, I will. I'll earn the money. I'll send him to school, maybe, by and by, and make a lawyer of him." Abraham spoke eagerly. "The old folks, my father and mother, they ain't like me and you, they ain't real Americans, they don't understand these things. All they think about is work and the synagogue. I'm up against it, I know. I've got to work. But the little feller—I want that little feller to come out on top and have a chance."
"McCarthy," said I to the county detective assigned to the office, "kindly step into the next room. I want to speak to this boy alone.