His face was very red, his hat was on the back of his head, his hair was wildly rumpled. He clinched his two fists and shook them ferociously at Miss Martha. At Miss Martha.
“Dummkopf!” he shouted with extreme loudness; and then “Tausendonfer!” or something like it in German.
The young man tried to draw him away.
“I vill not go,” he said angrily, “else I shall told her.”
He made a bass drum of Miss Martha’s counter.
“You haf shpoilt me,” he cried, his blue eyes blazing behind his spectacles. “I vill tell you. You vas von meddingsome old cat!”
Miss Martha leaned weakly against the shelves and laid one hand on her blue-dotted silk waist. The young man took the other by the collar.
“Come on,” he said, “you’ve said enough.” He dragged the angry one out at the door to the sidewalk, and then came back.
“Guess you ought to be told, ma’am,” he said, “what the row is about. That’s Blumberger. He’s an architectural draftsman. I work in the same office with him.
“He’s been working hard for three months drawing a plan for a new city hall. It was a prize competition. He finished inking the lines yesterday. You know, a draftsman always makes his drawing in pencil first. When it’s done he rubs out the pencil lines with handfuls of stale bread crumbs. That’s better than India rubber.