kowitz, I must say
I'm surprised at you. A poor boy saves up a hundred dollars out of the
little we are paying him here, and actually you are taking the money
from him. Couldn't you afford it to spend on the boy a hundred dollars?"

"Sure I could," Philip replied as he pocketed the bills. "Sure I could
and I'm going to too. I'm going to take this here money and put it in
the bank for the boy, with a hundred dollars to boot, Polatkin, and when
the boy gets to be twenty-one he would anyhow got in savings bank a
couple hundred dollars."

Polatkin nodded shamefacedly.

"Furthermore, Polatkin," Philip continued, "if you got such a regard for
the boy which you say you got it, understand me, I would like to make
you a proposition. Ever since Gifkin leaves us, y'understand, we got in
our cutting room one _Schlemiel_ after another. Ain't it? Only yesterday
we got to fire that young feller we took on last week, understand me,
and if we get somebody else in his place to-day, Polatkin, the chances
is we would get rid of him to-morrow, and so it goes."

Again Polatkin nodded.

"So, therefore, what is the use talking, Polatkin?" Philip concluded.
"Let us take Joe Borrochson and learn him he should be a cutter, and in
six months' time, Polatkin, I bet yer he would be just so good a cutter
as anybody."

At this juncture Polatkin raised his hand with the palm outward.

"Stop right there, Scheikowitz," he said. "You are making a fool of
yourself, Scheikowitz, because, Scheikowitz, admitting for the sake of
no arguments about it that the boy is a good boy, understand me, after
all he's only a boy, ain't it, and if you are coming to make a
sixteen-year-old boy an assistant cutter, y'understand, the least that
we could expect is that our customers fires half our goods back at us."

"But----" Scheikowitz began.

"But, nothing, Scheikowitz," Polatkin interrupted. "This morning I seen
it Meyer Gifkin on Canal Street and he ain't working for them suckers no
more; and I says to him is he willing to come back here at the same
wages, and he says yes, providing you would see that this here feller
Borrochson wouldn't pretty near kill him."

"What do you mean pretty near kill him?" Scheikowitz cried. "Do you mean
to say he is afraid of a boy like Joe Borrochson?"

"Not Joe Borrochson," Polatkin replied. "He is all the time thinking
that your brother-in-law Borrochson comes over here with his boy and is
working in our place yet, and when