For answer Babette brought in a covered tray, on which were arranged two pieces of dry toast and a glass of buttermilk.
"What's this?" Sam cried.
"That's your dinner," Babette replied, "and you should thank Gawd you are able to eat it."
"You don't got to told me who I should thank for such slops which you are bringing me," he said, with every trace of convalescence gone from his tones. "Take that damn thing away and give me something to eat. Ain't that gedämpftes Kalbfleisch I smell?"
Babette made no reply, but gazed sadly at her father as she placed the tray on a chair beside his bed.
"You don't know yourself how sick you are," she said. "Doctor Eichendorfer says you should be very quiet."
This admonition produced no effect on Sam, who immediately started on an abusive criticism of physicians in general and Dr. Sigmund Eichendorfer in particular.
"What does that dummer Esel know?" he demanded. "I bet yer that the least he tells you is I got Bright's Disease!"
Babette shook her head slowly.
"So you know it yourself all the time," she commented bitterly; "and yet you want to eat gedämpftes Kalbfleisch, when you know as well as I do it would pretty near kill you."