"Of course, Max," Abe added, using his partner's metaphor, "it ain't no skin off my nose, y'understand."
"Ain't it?" Max growled as he turned on Abe with a menacing glare. "Well, it's a wonder it ain't, the way you are sticking it into other people's business. If you think I care what you think about what my boy eats for his lunch you are making a big mistake. I could take care of my own boy, Potash, and I am just as much obliged if you would do the same."
Abe flushed a fiery red and rose to his feet.
"I guess I would go into the next car," he said.
"You could go a whole lot farther for all I care!" Max retorted, and immediately buried his head between the open pages of a conservative evening paper.
Abe had not offended in vain, however, for after dinner that night, when Sidney sought his father in the Koblins' suite at Riesenberger's cottage, the King was in an ugly mood.
"Say, Pop," Sidney began, "how about you for twenty till Saturday night?"
"What d'ye mean?" Max bellowed. "Ain't I given you ten dollars only this morning?"
Sidney laughed uncomfortably. "Ain't you the old tightwad!" he said.
Max's reply to this observation was quite unprecedented in all Sidney's experience. It took the form of an open-handed blow on the cheek, the first ever administered by his indulgent parent since Sidney's infancy. Forthwith began a family row that brought the entire household—guests, servants and proprietress—on the run to the Koblin apartments. When Mrs. Koblin's frightened screams had ceased, and Max Koblin had calmed down sufficiently to offer an evasive explanation, the guests trooped back to the piazza, and three games of auction pinocle, which had started in the dining-room after the tables had been cleared, came to an abrupt close. Instead, the players foregathered with the other guests in the porch rockers.