“Not when I have worked like a coal miner,” implored Bardek. “Who would give me my ol’ back back?—Oof! wass für eine Sprache! What a language!—give a back back! Ho!”
“That’s good business,” Kate nodded her head, satisfied. “I’m glad they elected you. It will boom Top-o’-the-Hill immensely. I’ll have it easy financing this job. The trouble will be to keep the money from swamping us.”
“‘The President of Holden College resigns to become a kindergartner,’” exclaimed Gorgas. “Allen Blynn, that’s too funny. It’s almost as funny as the waggle-waggle beard!”
“You minx!” he shook a finger at her. “Are you cogitating another sonnet?”
“I may get on my poet-bonnet!” she smiled at him.
XXV
DAGO
For-ty year on when a-far and a-sunder.
AT the suggestion of Gorgas, Leopold became a member of the staff of “Top-o’-the-Hill.” Of all the old group that used to make rendezvous of the Levering house, Leopold and Blynn were the only two who kept up the relationship; but both men were rather intermittent visitors. Leopold—everyone said “Leopold,” possibly because of the impossible surname, Hayim—called punctiliously upon Mrs. Levering, although Mrs. Levering saw little of him. Gorgas and he spent the time exercising their French. He was a silent, grave man, with a far-off friendly smile; and, once enticed, he could talk out of a rare life. On festival occasions he could always be counted upon for a plaintive song.