III
On his way to the office of Schindler & Baum, his employers, he was a prey to misgivings of the gloomiest kind.
"I got such a chance of getting a feller for that Fannie like I would never try at all," he murmured to himself; but, as he turned the corner of Nineteenth Street, Fortune, which occasionally favours the brave, brought him into violent contact with a short, stout person proceeding in the opposite direction.
"Why don't you hire it a whole sidewalk for yourself?" Philip began, and then he recognized the stout gentleman.
"Why, hallo, Mr. Feigenbaum!" he cried.
"Hallo yourself, Margolius!" Feigenbaum grunted. "It's a wonder you wouldn't murder me yet, the way you go like a steam engine already."
"Excuse me," Philip said. "Excuse me, Mr. Feigenbaum. I didn't see you coming. I got to wear glasses, too."
Mr. Feigenbaum glared at Philip with his left eye, the glare in his right eye being entirely beyond control, since it was fixed and constant as the day it was made.
"What are you trying to do, Margolius?" he asked. "Kid me?"