"Put it in your pocket and smoke it after dinner," Abe insisted, and Mr. Steuermann smilingly obliged.
Together the two partners escorted him into the elevator; and when the door closed behind him Morris turned to Abe with an ironical smile.
"You got a whole lot of manners, Abe, I must say," he commented bitterly.
"Whatd'ye mean, manners?" Abe asked. "What did I done?"
"Tell a millionaire like Mr. Steuermann he should smoke the cigar after dinner!" Morris replied.
"Don't you suppose he's got plenty cigars of his own?"
"Maybe he did got 'em and maybe he didn't," Abe retorted; "but, in the first place, Mawruss, I noticed he took the cigar, y'understand; and, in the second place, Mawruss, them cigars cost thirty-five cents apiece, Mawruss, and there's few millionaires, Mawruss, which is too proud to smoke a thirty-five-cent cigar."
When Morris Perlmutter entered the subway that evening en route for the lower East Side, he was in none too cheerful mood; for, in the excitement attending Steuermann's visit, he had forgotten to telephone Mrs. Perlmutter that he would be late for dinner. Consequently there had been a painful scene upon his arrival home that evening, nor had Mrs. Perlmutter's wrath been appeased when he informed her that he was obliged to go right downtown again.
Indeed, his sympathy for Cesar Kovalenko had well-nigh evaporated as he entered the subway, and he reflected bitterly upon the circumstance that first led him to hire that unfortunate young man. Thus there was something doubly irritating in the coincidence which seated him next to Louis Kleiman in the crowded express train he had boarded, and he had made up his mind to ignore his competitor's presence when Louis caught sight of him.