Merely to read the names of these good things made my mouth water. The prices seemed reasonable. I walked into the ladies' and gents' dining parlor—which was rather shabby and dingy, I thought, for a parlor—and asked for a beefsteak and some fried potatoes; a burly, villainous-looking colored man, in his shirt-sleeves, having demanded, “Wall, Boss, wottle you have?” His shirt-sleeves were not immaculately clean; neither was the dark red cloth that covered my table; neither, I feared, was the fork he gave me to eat with. To make sure, I picked this last-named object up, and examined it; whereupon the waiter, with a horrid loud laugh, cried, “Oh! yassah, it's sawlid, sawlid silvah, sah,” which made me feel wretchedly silly and uncomfortable. The beefsteak was pretty tough, and not especially toothsome in its flavor; the potatoes were lukewarm and greasy; the bread was soggy, the butter rancid; the waiter took up a position close at hand, and stared at me with his wicked little eyes as steadily as if he had never seen a boy before: so, despite my hunger, I ate with a poor appetite, and was glad enough when by and by I left the ladies' and gents' dining parlor behind me, and resumed my journey through the streets. As I was crossing the threshold, the waiter called after me, “Say, Johnny, where joo hook the sword?”
Inquiring my way of each new policeman that I passed—for I distrusted my memory of the directions I had received from the first—I finally reached No. ——, Franklin Street and read the name of Krauskopf, Sollinger & Co., engraved in Old English letters upon a shining metal sign. I entered, and with a trembling heart inquired for Mr. Marx. Ten seconds later I stood before him.
“Mr. Marx,” I ventured, in rather a timid voice.
He was seated in a swivel-chair, reading a newspaper, and smoking a cigar. At the sound of his name, he glanced up, and looked at me for a moment with an absent-minded and indifferent face, showing no glimmer of recognition. But then, suddenly, his eyes lighted; he sprang from his chair, started back, and cried:—
“My kracious! was dot you, Bubby? Was dot yourself? Was dot—well, my koodness!”