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Otto listened gravely, his fat features frozen into calm. This clerk of his had made him many startling propositions, and every surrender had brought him profit. But turning over Beesving to him meant something so different that the father in him stood aghast. Yet his old habit of deference did not desert him when at last he spoke: "Vell, vat vill I do? You knew I don't got notin' but Beesving.
Ain't dot a good vun? And all I pay for it vas tventy tollars." The detective loosened the folds, shook out the flounce, held it up to the light, and ran his thumb through the tear in the mesh. "Of course dere's a hole I buy him cheaper for dot hole my little Beesving like it better for dot. If it vas new she vouldn't have it." Pickert was now caressing the soft lace, his satisfaction complete.
Don't she get everytin' vere she is? I do all de schoolin' and de clothes and Aunty Gossburger look after her. Vhen she gets older maybe perhaps she vould like a trip. And den maybe ve both go and leave you here to mind de shop in de summer-time. But now she's notin' but jus' Beesving, vid her head full of skippin' aroun'. No, I don't tink I can do dat for you.
I do most anytin' for you, but my little girl, you see, dat come pretty close. Dat make a awful hole in me if Beesving go avay. No, you mustn't ask me dot." "Not if it were for her good?" "Yes, vell, of course, but how do I know dot? And vot you vant to go avay for? Dot's more vorse as Beesving. Ain't I pay you enough? Maybe you vants a little interest in de business?
I told him I should be glad to get half that amount or even less." Otto took the bundle and loosened the roll again. "I got a little girl, Beesving dot was her dog make such foolishness who likes dese t'ings. But dot is not business, for I doan sell it again once I gif it to her. I joost put it around her shoulders for a New Year's gift.
He'll be back maybe in an hour maybe he don't come back at all. He don't know noddin about dis bis'ness and nobody don't let him know noddin about it until to-morrow. Den my little Beesving know de first. Half de fun is in de surprise." The detective at once lost interest in Kling, and turned to the tramp again the two moving out of Otto's hearing.
They were too far off, and spoke too low, for Otto to catch the drift of the talk, and it was only when Felix, who had followed the priest outside the door, had returned that he called, from his high seat under the gas-jet: "Vell, vat did Father Cruse say?" Felix drew his brows together. "Say about what?" he asked, as if the question had surprised him. "About Beesving. Didn't you ask him?"
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