“Say, who d’yeh think you’re talkin’ to?” retorted Skidder, his eyes snapping furiously. “Grab this from me, old scout?––I’m half owner of that hall and I’m telling you to get out! Is that plain?”
“So?” Kastner sneered at him and nudged Sondheim, who immediately sat up in bed and levelled an unwashed hand at Skidder.
“You think you fire us?” he shouted, his eyes inflamed and his dirty fingers crisping to a talon. “You go home and tell Puma what you say to us. Then you learn something maybe, what you don’t know already!”
“I’ll learn you something!” retorted Skidder. “Just wait till I show Puma the wreckage–––”
“Let him look at it and be damned!” roared Bromberg. “Go home and show it to him! And see if he talks about firing us!”
“Say,” demanded Skidder, astonished, “do you fellows think you got any drag with Angy Puma?”
“Go back and ask him!” growled Bromberg. “And don’t try to come around here and get fresh again. Listen! You go buy what benches you say we broke and send the bill to me, and keep your mouth shut and mind your fool business!”
“I’ll mind my own and yours too!” screamed Skidder, seized by an ungovernable access of fury. “Say, you poor nut!––you sick mink!––you stale hunk of cheese!––if you come down my way again I’ll kick your shirttail 198 for you! Get that?” And he slammed the door and strode out in a flaming rage.
But when, still furiously excited, he arrived once more at the office,––and when Puma, who had just entered, had listened in sullen consternation to his story, he received another amazing and most unpleasant shock. For Puma told him flatly that the tenancy of the Red Flag Club suited him; that no lease could be broken, except by mutual consent of partners; and that he, Skidder, had had no business to go to Sondheim with any such threat of eviction unless he had first consulted his partner’s wishes.
“Well, what––what––” stammered Skidder––“what the hell drag have those guys got with you?”