"What d'ye mean, y'ain't going home?" Max said threateningly.
"I mean what I say!" Sam declared. "I mean I ain't going home never again. You are throwing me out of my business, Max, and you would soon try to throw me out of my home, too, if I couldn't protect myself. But I ain't so old and I ain't so sick but what I could take care of myself, Max."
"Why, Doctor Eichendorfer says——" Sidney began.
"Doctor Eichendorfer!" Sam roared. "Who is Doctor Eichendorfer? He is a doctor, not a lawyer, Max, and maybe he knows about kidneys, Max; but he don't know nothing about business, Max! And, so help me, Max, I would give you till Wednesday afternoon three o'clock; if you don't send me a certified check for five thousand dollars over to Henry Schrimm's place, I would go right down and see Henry D. Feldman, and I would bust your business—my business!—open from front to rear, so that there wouldn't be a penny left for nobody—except Henry D. Feldman."
Here he drew a deep breath.
"And, furthermore, Max," he concluded, as he made for the door, "don't try any monkey business with spreading reports I am gone crazy or anything, because I know that's just what you would do, Max! And if you would, Max, instead of five thousand dollars I would want ten thousand dollars. And if I wouldn't get it, Max, Henry D. Feldman would—so what is the difference?"
He paused with his hand on the elevator bell and faced his sons again.
"Solomon was right, Max," he concluded. "He was an old-timer, Max; but, just the same, he knew what he was talking about when he said that you bring up a child in the way he should go and when he gets old he bites you like a serpent's tooth yet!"
At this juncture the elevator door opened and Sam delivered his ultimatum.
"But you got a different proposition here, boys," he said; "and before you get through with me I would show you that oncet in a while a father could got a serpent's tooth, too—and don't you forget it!"