"Kid you!" Philip repeated. "Why should I want to kid you?"
And then for the first time it occurred to him that not only was One-eye Feigenbaum proprietor of the H. F. Cloak Company and its six stores in the northern-tier counties of Pennsylvania, but that he was also a bachelor. Moreover, a bachelor with one eye and the singularly unprepossessing appearance of Henry Feigenbaum would be just the kind of person to present to Fannie Goldblatt, for Feigenbaum, by reason of his own infirmity, could not cavil at Fannie's black moustache, and as for Fannie—well, Fannie would be glad to take what she could get.
"Come over to Hammersmith's and take a little something, Mr. Feigenbaum," he said. "You and me hasn't had a talk together in a long time."
Feigenbaum followed him across the street and a minute later sat down at a table in Hammersmith's rear café.
"What will you take, Mr. Feigenbaum?" Philip asked as the waiter bent over them solicitously.
"Give me a package of all-tobacco cigarettes," Feigenbaum ordered, "and a rye-bread tongue sandwich."
Philip asked for a cup of coffee.
"Looky here, Feigenbaum," Philip commenced after they had been served, "you and me is known each other now since way before the Spanish War already, when I made my first trip by Sol Unterberg. Why is it I ain't never sold you a dollar's worth of goods?"
"No, and you never will, Margolius," Feigenbaum said as he licked the crumbs from his fingers; "and I ain't got a thing against you, because I think you're a decent, respectable young feller."
Having thus endorsed the character of his host, Feigenbaum lit a cigarette and grinned amiably.