"See, Hochenheimer, when you get a wife how henpecked you get!"
"A henpeck never drew much blood, Shongut."
"Come, Adolph; it is a long car-ride to Meena's."
They pushed back from the table, the four of them, smiling-lipped. With his short-fingered, hairy-backed hands Mr. Hochenheimer dusted at his coat lapels, then shook his bulging trousers knees into place.
The lamp of inner sanctity burns in strange temples. A carpenter in haircloth shirt first turned men's hearts outward. Who can know, who does not first cross the plain of the guide with gold, that behind the moldy panels at Ara Coeli reigns the jeweled bambino, robed in the glittering gems of sacrifice?
Who could know, as Mr. Hochenheimer stood there in the curtailed dignity of his five feet five, that behind his speckled and slightly rotund waistcoat a choir sang of love, and that the white flame of his spirit burned high?
"I tell you, Mrs. Shongut, it is a pleasure to be invited out to your house. You should know how this old bachelor hates hotels."
"And you should know how welcome you always are, Mr. Hochenheimer.
To-morrow night you take supper with us too. We don't take 'no'—eh,
Adolph? Renie?"
"I appreciate that, Mrs. Shongut; but I—I don't know yet—if—if I stay over."
Mr. Shongut batted a playful hand and shuffled toward the door. "You stay, Hochenheimer! I bet you a good cigar you stay. Ain't I right, Renie, that he stays? Ain't I right?"