"What could I do for you, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he said respectfully.
"You could put on your hat and coat and get out of here before I kick you out," Philip replied without disclosing the nature of his abandoned question. "And, furthermore, if my brother-in-law Borrochson is such a lowlife bum which you say he is, when he is coming here Saturday he would pretty near kill you, because, Gifkin, a lowlife gambler and a thief could easily be a murderer too. Aber if he ain't a such thief and gambler which you say he is, then I would make you arrested."
"Me arrested?" Gifkin cried. "What for?"
"Because for calling some one a thief which he ain't one you could sit in prison," Scheikowitz concluded. "So you should get right out of here before I am sending for a policeman."
"But, Mr. Scheikowitz," Gifkin protested, "who did I told it your brother-in-law is a thief and a gambler?"
"You know very well who you told it," Scheikowitz retorted. "You told it my partner, Gifkin. That's who you told it."
"But I says to him he shouldn't tell nobody," Gifkin continued. "Is it my fault your partner is such a Klatsch? And, anyhow, Mr. Scheikowitz, supposing I did say your brother-in-law is a gambler and a thief, I know what I'm talking about; and, furthermore, if I got to work in a place where I couldn't open my mouth at all, Mr. Scheikowitz, I don't want to work there, and that's all there is to it."
He assumed his hat and coat in so dignified a manner that for the moment Scheikowitz felt as though he were losing an old and valued employee, and this impression was subsequently heightened by Polatkin's behaviour when he heard of Gifkin's departure. Indeed a casual observer might have supposed that Polatkin's wife, mother, and ten children had all perished in a common disaster and that the messenger had been indiscreet in breaking the news, for during a period of almost half an hour Polatkin rocked and swayed in his chair and beat his forehead with his clenched fist.
"You are shedding my blood," he moaned to Scheikowitz.
"What the devil you are talking nonsense!" Scheikowitz declared. "The way you are acting you would think we are paying the feller five thousand dollars a year instead of fifteen dollars a week."