"You ain't got maybe a cigar about you, Max?" he said.
"Smoke this, Uncle Mosha," Alex Kronberg cried, pulling a large satiny invincible from his waistcoat pocket and thrusting it at his uncle. For one hesitating minute the old man looked from Alex to the cigar, but at last its glossy perfection overcame his scruples.
"Much obliged, Alex," he said.
"That's all right," Alex mumbled as he struck a match. "How do you feel now, uncle?"
"First rate," Uncle Mosha replied as he blew out great clouds of smoke; "although I ought to feel a whole lot worse, Alex, when I see Maxie Gershon here. Twenty-five years ago I seen him last and he looks the same fat-faced feller with the black eyes. Only to think he now comes back and takes away half my house from me."
"I ain't come back to do no such thing!" Max cried. "I could assure you, Mr. Kronberg, although me and Alex Kronberg is going as partners together, I never knew until I seen you here that you was any relation of his. As for your house, Mr. Kronberg, I don't know nothing about it at all."
"Don't you?" Uncle Mosha exclaimed. "Well, I'll tell you. It's like this."
"Stigun!" Aaron hissed. "Don't open your mouth, Uncle Mosha."
"What d'ye mean, don't open my mouth?" Uncle Mosha retorted. "D'ye think I'm a crook? If I got a house which it don't belong to me at all, then I don't want it."
He turned his back on Aaron and straightway he narrated the full circumstances surrounding his purchase of the Madison Street house.