“They, with their strident voices, and vulgar manners, and untutored ways of thinking, are the sort of Jews that Gentiles judge the race by,” he reflected. “It is a comfort to know that underneath all their superficial roughness and unrefinement, the core is sound and sweet.”
It was with a sense of agreeable anticipation that, on the following Thursday evening, he started out to pay his digestion visit.
The maid-servant showed him into the parlor, and went off to announce him. Returning a moment later, she asked him to step down-stairs to the basement. There he was very cordially welcomed; and Mr. Koch explained, “I thought you'd rather join us down here, than have us come up to the show-room. (That's my nick-name for the parlor; pretty good, hey?) Down here it's more comfortable and homey.”
Mr. and Mrs. Blum smiled and swayed their heads at him; and Mrs. Koch, clasping Lester to her bosom with one hand, offered him the other.
“We don't want to make company of you, Mr. Bacharach,” Mr. Koch went on; “and so, after my wife has put Lester to bed, you must come around with us to Winkum's. We're going to meet my brother-in-law and my sisters around there.”
“I shall be very happy,” Elias responded. “But Winkum's—what is it? and where?”
“Oh, Winkum's is Terrace Garden. I always call it Winkum's, because a man named Winkum kept it when I first began to go there, years ago; and I've never got used to calling it by its new name. Force of habit.”
Mrs. Koch passed Lester around, and everybody kissed him good-night. Then she carried him from the room.
“Have a cigar?” asked Mr. Koch. “They're genuine—Hoyo de Montereys.”
Elias took a cigar.