"I was laying out some work for the operators over there, Mr. Seiden," Philip replied. "Oncet in a while a feller must got to think, Mr. Seiden."
"What d'ye mean, think?" Seiden exclaimed. "Who asks you you should think, Sternsilver? You get all of a sudden such grossartig notions. 'Must got to think,' sagt er! I am the only one which does the thinking here, Sternsilver. Now you go right ahead and tend to them basters."
Sternsilver retired at once to the far end of the workroom, where he proceeded to relieve his outraged feeling by criticising Hillel Fatkin's work in excellent imitation of his employer's bullying manner.
"What is the matter, Mr. Sternsilver, you are all the time picking on me so?" Hillel demanded. "I am doing my best here and certainly if you don't like my work I could quick go somewheres else. I ain't a Schnorrer exactly, Mr. Sternsilver. I got in savings bank already a couple hundred dollars which I could easy start a shop of my own; so I ain't asking no favours from nobody."
"You shouldn't worry yourself, Fatkin," Sternsilver said. "Nobody is going to do you no favours around here. On the contrary, Fatkin, the way you are ruining garments around here, sooner as do you favours we would sue you in the courts yet, and you could kiss yourself good-bye with your two hundred dollars in savings bank. Furthermore, for an operator you are altogether too independent, Fatkin."
"Maybe I am and maybe I ain't," Fatkin retorted with simple dignity. "My father was anyhow from decent, respectable people in Grodno, Sternsilver; and even if I wouldn't got a sister which she is married to Sam Kupferberg's cousin, y'understand, Sam would quick fix me up by the Madison Street court. You shouldn't throw me no bluffs, Sternsilver. Go ahead and sue."
He waited for his foreman to utter a suitable rejoinder, but none came, for in Fatkin's disclosure of a two-hundred dollar deposit in the savings bank and his sister's relationship to Sam Kupferberg, the well-known legal practitioner of Madison Street, Philip Sternsilver conceived a brilliant idea.
"I ain't saying we would sue you exactly, understand me," he replied. "All I am saying, Hillel, is you should try and be a little more careful with your work, y'understand."
Here Sternsilver looked over from Hillel's bovine features to the dull countenance of Miss Bessie Saphir.
"A feller which he has got money in the bank and comes from decent, respectable people like you, Hillel," he concluded, "if they work hard there is nothing which they couldn't do, y'understand. All they got to look out for is they shouldn't Jonah themselves with their bosses, y'understand."