in a while a few minutes I should eat my lunch,
Mr. Seiden?" Sternsilver replied. "I am entitled to eat, ain't I, Mr.
Seiden?"

"'Entitled to eat,' _sagt er_, when the operators is carrying on so
they pretty near tear the place to pieces already!" Seiden exclaimed.
"A foreman must got to be in the workroom, lunch-hour _oder_ no
lunch-hour, Sternsilver. Me, I do everything here. I get no assistance
at all."

He walked off toward the office; and after Sternsilver had started up
the motor, which supplied power for the sewing-machines, he followed
his employer.

"Mr. Seiden," he began, "I don't know what comes over you lately.
Seemingly nothing suits you at all--and me I am all the time doing my
very best to help you out."

"Is that so?" Seiden replied ironically. "Since when is the foreman
helping out the boss if he would go and spend a couple hours for his
lunch, making a hog out of himself, Sternsilver?"

"I ain't making a hog out of myself, Mr. Seiden," Philip continued. "If
I am going out of the factory for my lunch, Mr. Seiden, I got my
reasons for it."

Seiden glared at his foreman for some minutes; ordinarily Sternsilver's
manner was diffident to the point of timidity, and this newborn courage
temporarily silenced Mr. Seiden.

"The way you are talking, Sternsilver," he said at last, "to hear you
go on any one would think you are the boss and I am the foreman."

"In business, yes," Philip rejoined, "you are the boss, Mr. Seiden; but
outside of business a man could be a _Mensch_ as well as a foreman.
Ain't it?"

Seiden stared at the unruffled Sternsilver, who allowed no opportunity
for a retort by immediately going on with his dissertation.

"Even operators also," he said. "Hillel Fatkin is an operator,
y'understand, but he has got anyhow a couple hundred dollars in the
savings bank; and when it comes to family, Mr. Seiden, he's from
decent, respectable people in the old country. His own grandfather was
a rabbi, y'understand."

"What the devil's that got to do with me, Sternsilver?" Seiden asked.
"I don't know what you are talking about at all."

Sternsilver disregarded the interruption.

"Operator _oder_ foreman, Mr. Seiden, what is the difference when it
comes to a poor girl like Miss Bessie Saphir, which, even supposing she
is a relation from your wife, she ain't so young no longer? Furthermore,
with some faces which a girl got it she could have a heart from gold,
y'understand, and what is it? Am