"What you call loafers they call interesting characters, Mr. Marculescu," he continued, "and what you call stuff they call good music—and that's the way it goes, Mr. Marculescu. You are a goose which is killing its own golden eggs!"
"So!" Marculescu roared. "I am a goose, am I? You loafer, you! Out of here before I kick you out!"
"You wouldn't kick nothing," Max rejoined, "because I am happy to go out from here! Where all the time is being played such Machshovos like 'Wildcat Rag,' I don't want to stay at all."
He rose from his chair and flung ten cents on to the table.
"And furthermore," he cried by way of peroration, "people don't got to come five miles down to Delancey Street to hear 'Wildcat Rag,' Mr. Marculescu; so, if you keep on playing it, Mr. Marculescu, you will quick find that it's an elegant tune to bust up to—and that's all I got to say!"
As he walked away, Marculescu made a sign to his pianist.
"Go ahead, Volkovisk—play 'Wildcat Rag!'" he said. Then he followed Max to the front of the café; and before they reached the front tables, at which sat the slummers from uptown, Volkovisk began to pound out the hackneyed melody.
"That's what I think of your arguments, Merech!" Marculescu said, walking behind the cashier's desk.
Max paused to crush him with a final retort; but even as he began to deliver it his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, for at that instant the door opened and there entered a party of four, with Elkan Lubliner in the van. A moment later, however, Milton Jassy pushed his guests to one side and strode angrily toward Marculescu.
"Koosh!" he bellowed and stamped his foot on the floor, whereat the music ceased and even the uptown revellers were startled into silence. Only Marculescu remained unabashed.