your first start. Now you are too good
for us with your uptown _Takeefim_. Why, them same _Takeefim_ only comes
here, in the first place, because they want to see what it looks like in
one of the East Side cafes, where they got such good music and such
interesting characters, which sits and drinks coffee and plays chess
_und Tarrok_."

He glared at the enraged Marculescu and waved his hands excitedly.

"What you call loafers they call interesting characters, Mr.
Marculescu," he continued, "and what you call stuff they call good
music--and that's the way it goes, Mr. Marculescu. You are a goose which
is killing its own golden eggs!"

"So!" Marculescu roared. "I am a goose, am I? You loafer, you! Out of
here before I kick you out!"

"You wouldn't kick nothing," Max rejoined, "because I am happy to go out
from here! Where all the time is being played such _Machshovos_ like
'Wildcat Rag,' I don't want to stay at all."

He rose from his chair and flung ten cents on to the table.

"And furthermore," he cried by way of peroration, "people don't got to
come five miles down to Delancey Street to hear 'Wildcat Rag,' Mr.
Marculescu; so, if you keep on playing it, Mr. Marculescu, you will
quick find that it's an elegant tune to bust up to--and that's all I got
to say!"

As he walked away, Marculescu made a sign to his pianist.

"Go ahead, Volkovisk--play 'Wildcat Rag!'" he said. Then he followed Max
to the front of the cafe; and before they reached the front tables, at
which sat the slummers from uptown, Volkovisk began to pound out the
hackneyed melody.

"That's what I think of your arguments, Merech!" Marculescu said,
walking behind the cashier's desk.

Max paused to crush him with a final retort; but even as he began to
deliver it his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, for at that
instant the door opened and there entered a party of four, with Elkan
Lubliner in the van. A moment later, however, Milton Jassy pushed his
guests to one side and strode angrily toward Marculescu.

"_Koosh!_" he bellowed and stamped his foot on the floor, whereat the
music ceased and even the uptown revellers were startled into silence.
Only Marculescu remained unabashed.

"Say," he shouted as he rushed from behind his desk, "what do you think
this joint is?--a joint!"

"I think what I please, Marculescu," Milton said, "and you should tell
Volkovisk to play something decent. Also you should bring us two quarts
from the best Tchampa