For one brief moment Aaron gazed at his uncle and then he linked his arm in that of the old man. "Come over to Twenty-third Street and drink anyhow a cup of coffee," he said, and ten minutes later they entered an enamelled brick dairy restaurant.
"You say you think you sold the house?" Aaron said, after a waitress had served them.
Uncle Mosha nodded. He was emptying a cup of coffee in long, noisy inhalations and at the same time consuming cheese sandwiches with uncommonly keen appetite—for a man who never ate in the middle of the day.
"Yes, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said, as he emerged all dripping from the cup, "I think I sold the house, and I guess I would have another cup coffee."
"Go ahead," Aaron replied. "But what for you want to sell the house, Uncle Mosha? It brings you in anyhow a good income."
"A good income for some people, Aaron, but for me not. What is one thousand a year, Aaron?"
"One thousand a year, uncle, is a whole lot, especially to a man like you, what lives simple."
"My living expenses is very little, I admit, Aaron," Uncle Mosha replied, after he had disposed of the second cup of coffee with noises approximating a bathtubful of soapy water disappearing down the wastepipe. "I don't make no fuss about my living, Aaron, but you got to remember, Aaron, that a man couldn't live on living expenses alone. Oncet in a while a feller likes to take a little flyer in the market and try and make a few dollars. Ain't it?"
"What!" Aaron exclaimed. This was a phase of his uncle's character that had never been exposed before.
"Yes, Aaron," Uncle Mosha continued; "living ain't only having a room to sleep in and food to eat, Aaron. Other things is living, Aaron. Stocks is living and auction pinocle is also living, and going oncet in a while on theayter is living too, Aaron. I may be an old man, Aaron, but I ain't dead yet."