He pointed to a tall, simian-armed operator who stood listening intently to the conversation between Golnik and Birsky.
"You, there," Jonas said to him, "you would play right field—and get a move on!"
The operator nodded solemnly and flipped his fingers in a deprecatory gesture.
"It don't go so quick, Mr. Eschenbach," he said, "because, speaking for myself and these other fellers here, Mr. Eschenbach, I would like to ask Mr. Birsky something a question."
He paused impressively, and even Golnik ceased his moaning as the remaining members of the baseball team gathered round their spokesman.
"I would like to ask," the operator continued, "supposing Gott soll hüten I am getting also Makkas in this here baseball, Mr. Birsky, which I would be losing time from the shop, Mr. Birsky, what for a sick benefit do I draw?"
Birsky grew livid with indignation.
"What for a sick benefit do you draw?" he sputtered. "A question! You don't draw nothing for a sick benefit." He appealed to Eschenbach, who stood close by. "An idee, Mr. Eschenbach," he said. "Did y'ever hear the like we should pay a sick benefit because some one gets hurted spieling from baseball already? The first thing you know, Mr. Eschenbach, we would be called upon we should pay a benefit that a feller breaks his fingers leading two aces and the ten of trumps, or melding a round trip and a hundred aces, understand me; because, if a feller behaves like a loafer, y'understand, he could injure himself just so much in pinochle as in baseball."
"Schon gut, Mr. Birsky," the operator continued amid the approving murmurs of his fellow players, "that's all I want to know."
As they moved off in the direction of the West Farms subway station, Golnik's resentment, which for the time had rendered him speechless, gave way to profanity.