Before long Mr. Koch came in. He wore alligator-skin slippers, and a jacket of pongee silk. Between the fingers of his left hand, he carried a half-smoked cigar. He was a short, thick-set, pale-complexioned man, of forty, or thereabouts; inclined to baldness; with clear, light-gray eyes, and a straw-colored mustache waxed in the style of the Second Empire. He looked very clean, very alert, very good-tempered, and yet as though he could become as hard and as sharp as flint, if occasion demanded. He welcomed the rabbi with warm and deferential courtesy. Then, turning to Elias, in hearty, jovial, hail-fellow-well-met manner: “Well, Mr. Bacharach, how goes it? It's a dog's age since we've seen you, and no mistake. Have a cigar?”
With one hand, he was subjecting Elias's arm to a vigorous pumping. With the other, he offered him a tortoise-shell cigar-case.
“They're genuine,” he remarked. “I'll warrant them. Imported by my brother-in-law for his private consumption. Cost you a quarter apiece straight, if you bought them in New York. Hoyo de Montereys.”
Elias selected one. Mr. Koch produced a silver match-box, extracted a wax match, scratched it, and held it while his guest got his cigar alight.
“Now,” said he, flirting the match flame into extinction, “I'm going to ask you gentlemen to step down stairs to the basement. You'll find the whole family down there, engaged in an impressive ceremony. They're bidding good-night to the baby, whom my wife is about to put to bed.”
In the basement, or dining-room (which, in the Koch establishment, pursuant to a common Jewish habit, was made to serve also as a general sitting-room), as many as seven or eight ladies and gentlemen, some seated, some standing, were gathered around the extension-table, upon which, in the approximate center of it, sprawled a fair, fat, two-year-old baby. The spectators were all smiling benevolently at him, addressing complimentary remarks to him, and exchanging complimentary notes about him among themselves. All the gentlemen were smoking.
“Lester, was you a good boy?”
“Mein Gott! He kroes bigger every day.”
“Laistair, was you sleeby?”
“Tust look at that smile! Ain't it perfectly grand?”