“Not a word. Do you hear me? Not a word will I listen to. In five minutes if you are not in bed you go out of this house. Remember, this is my house.”
Then he turned to Abel. Abel was calmly smoking a cigar.
“Throw that cigar away,” his father commanded, sternly.
Abel gasped and looked at his father in dismay.
“Marta, take that cigar out of his mouth and throw it into the fire. If he objects he goes out of the house.”
With a smile of intense delight Marta plucked the cigar from Abel’s unresisting lips, and incidentally trod heavily upon his toes. Shadrach gazed long and earnestly at his sons.
“To-morrow, my sons,” he said, slowly, “you will begin to lead a new life.”
In the morning Abel and Gottlieb, full of dread forebodings, left the house as hastily as they could. They wanted to get to the store to talk matters over. They had hardly entered the place, however, when the figure of their father loomed up in the doorway. He had never been in the place before. He looked around him with great satisfaction at the many evidences of prosperity which the place presented. When he beheld the name “Shadrach Cohen, Proprietor” over the door he chuckled. Ere his sons had recovered from the shock of his appearance a pale-faced clerk, smoking a cigarette, approached Shadrach, and in a sharp tone asked:
“Well, sir, what do you want?” Shadrach looked at him with considerable curiosity. Was he Americanised, too? The young man frowned impatiently.
“Come, come! I can’t stand here all day. Do you want anything?”