Wilfred walked away quickly. Joe’s parting shot rankled like a barbed dart. It was true! It was true! He had not yet become a man!
III
Joe was rich enough now, to come out into the open. He had lately taken two rooms high up in the newest building on lower Broadway. The marble entrance hall with its uniformed attendants, and its ranks of velvet-running elevators, was the most imposing in town. It gave Joe a standing with the public to have his name listed in the telephone book; moreover, it pleased him to have men twice his age coming to see him hat in hand, and talking humble. They never got anything out of him; for Joe dug up his own business in his own way. In the outer room were installed a shiny-haired clerk, and a crisply-laundered stenographer; Joe’s own room was furnished with waxed mahogany and a Bokhara rug. The windows looked out over the Upper Bay.
One morning, shortly after Joe had arrived at his office, the gentlemanly clerk (Joe would not have Jews about him; Jews around an office were too suggestive of sharp business) came in to say that an old woman wanted to see him.
“What have I got to do with old women?” asked Joe, with lifted eyebrows. “What sort of old woman?”
“A real poor old woman, Mr. Kaplan. I couldn’t get anything out of her. Just said she wanted to see you. She must have seen you come in. She was here before, this morning.”
“Even so, do I have to see her?” asked Joe with a hard look. He enjoyed putting the clerk out of countenance; a fair lad, prone to blush and to turn pale; the two of them were the same age.
“No, sir. Certainly not, sir. I’ll send her away.”
“Wait a minute,” said Joe harshly. A slight uneasiness had made itself felt. The old woman had seen him come in, the clerk said; that sounded as if she knew him. “Let her come in,” said Joe carelessly. “A beggar, I suppose.”
When his clerk opened the door a second time, Joe beheld his mother. Oh well, he had always expected it to happen sooner or later. He saw in a glance that the old woman was stupid with terror, and that he should have no trouble with her. So it was all right. The clerk was disposed to linger.