"You got that account on the brain," Redman interrupted. "If you don't feel so good you should go home. Leave me fix it for you."
As he spoke he hastily buttoned on his collar and left the cutting room, while Elkan could not forego a delighted grin. After all, he reflected, he had worked steadily for over a year and a half with only such holidays as the orthodox ritual ordained; and he was so busy making plans for his first afternoon of freedom that he nearly forgot to groan again when Redman came back with Marcus Polatkin at his heels.
"Nu, Elkan!" Marcus said. "What's the matter? Don't you feel good?"
"I got a krank right here," Elkan replied, placing his hand on his right side. "I got it now pretty near a week already."
"Well, maybe you should sit down for the rest of the afternoon and file away the old cutting slips," Marcus said, whereat Elkan moaned and closed his eyes.
"I filed 'em away last week already," he murmured. "I think maybe if I would lay in bed the rest of the afternoon I would be all right to-morrow."
Marcus gazed earnestly at his cousin, whose sufferings seemed to be intensified thereby.
"All right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead. Go home and tell Mrs. Feinermann she should give you a little Brusttee; and if you don't feel better in the morning don't take it so particular to get here early."
Elkan nodded weakly and five minutes later walked slowly out of the factory. He took the stairs only a little less slowly, but he gradually increased his speed as he proceeded along Wooster Street, until by the time he was out of sight of the firm's office windows he was fairly running. Thus he arrived at his boarding place on Pitt Street in less than half an hour—just in time to interrupt Mrs. Sarah Feinermann as she was about to start on a shopping excursion uptown. Mrs. Feinermann exclaimed aloud at the sight of him, and her complexion grew perceptibly less florid, for his advent in Pitt Street at that early hour could have but one meaning.
"What's the matter—you are getting fired?" she asked.