“O, no, sir!” I answered, and proceeded to explain my status in Mr. Finkelstein's household.
“Well, Sonny, you'll have a mighty easy time of it,” Mr. Flisch informed me. “You won't die of hard work. Mr. Finkelstein don't do no business. He don't need to. He only keeps that store for fun.”
“Now, Kraikory,” said my employer, when we had reached his door, “me and Mr. Flisch, we'll go in de parlor and play a little game of pinochle togedder; and now you sit down outside here in de store; and if any customers come, you call me.”
I sat in the store, with nothing to do, all the rest of the forenoon; but, idle though I was, the time passed quickly enough. What between looking out of the window at the busy life upon the street—a spectacle of extreme novelty and interest to me—and thinking about my own affairs and the great change that had suddenly come over them, my mind had plenty to occupy it; and I was quite surprised when all at once the clocks, of which there must have been at least a dozen in the shop, began to strike twelve. Thus far not one customer had presented himself. Just at this instant, however, the shop door opened, and the bell above it sounded. I got up to go and call Mr. Finkelstein; but when I looked at the person who had entered, I saw that it was no customer, after all. It was that same pretty little girl whom I had noticed behind the counter at Mr. Flisch's.
“I came to tell Mr. Flisch that his dinner is ready,” she announced, in that clear, sweet voice of hers.
“I'll go tell him,” said I.
I went into the back room, where the air was blue with tobacco smoke, and where the two old gentlemen were seated over their cards, and spoke to Mr. Flisch.
“All right, Sonny; I come right away,” he answered; and I returned to the store.
The little girl was still there, standing where I had left her.
“Mr. Flisch will come right away,” said I.