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"You won't like that any better than Ersten," commented Johnny. "I think I'll have to make another guess for you." "I like your work," replied Lofty with a smile. "Let's hear it." "All right. I guess I'll buy Ersten's lease for you." "You'll have to find another answer, I'm afraid," Lofty hopelessly stated.
"Lofty intends building an extension." "They won't tear down Ersten's shop," Polly confidently asserted. "They'll move him in a wheelbarrow some night," Johnny prophesied. "If I could grab his lease I could play a few hours." Both the girls laughed at him for that speech. "You'll be gray before the thirty-first of May," warned Polly. "It turns anybody gray to dig up a million," agreed Johnny.
"I have just come from Ersten's. He wants you to come back." "Did he say it?" asked Heinrich with no disguise of his eagerness. "Not exactly," admitted Johnny, "but he said that you are the best coat cutter in New York and that your job's waiting for you." "I know it," asserted Heinrich. "Is he going to move?" "Not just yet," was the diplomatic return. "He will after you go back to work, I think."
Ersten listened carefully with frowns at some parts. "Well, I try it," he dubiously promised. They were in front of Schoppenvoll's now; and Johnny, noting Ersten's fretfulness, proved himself a keen student of psychology by suggesting: "I'm thirsty for that special drink of yours, Ersten; but suppose we put it off till after I've brought Schnitt."
He doesn't look well." "He don't work. It makes him sick!" Ersten's voice was as gruff as ever; but Johnny, watching narrowly, saw that he was concerned, nevertheless. "His eyes are bad," went on Johnny, "but I think he would like to come back to work." "Did he say it?" asked Ersten with a haste which betrayed the eagerness he did not want to show.
"Well, I say it anyhow," admitted Schnitt reluctantly. "Ersten, you offer him a month to rest his eyes, don't you?" "I don't promise him I move!" bristled Ersten. "We understand that," soothed Johnny, "all of us. Schnitt, you'll take some of Mr. Ersten's work home with you from this place, won't you?" "Sure, I do that," consented Schnitt eagerly. "Louis, what is in the shop?"
Heinrich's face had lighted with pleasure at the sight of Constance, but there was a trace of sadness in his voice. "You must tell Louis Ersten," he politely advised her. "I did," protested Constance. "He's holding it back on account of the coat, and that's your affair." "It is Louis Ersten's," insisted Heinrich with dignity. "I have retired from business."
"I take it easy in my old days," he stoutly maintained, but with such inward distress that, without a protest, he allowed the waiter to remove his half-emptied glass of beer. "I'm glad you can take it easy," declared Constance, "but Ersten's customers will miss you very much and I am sure Ersten will, too." "We worked together thirty-seven years," said Schnitt wistfully.
"My eyes are like a young man's yet!" he stoutly maintained. "You don't read much any more," charged Mama Schnitt. "My glasses don't fit," he retorted to that. "You changed them last winter," she insisted. "Now, papa, don't be foolish! You know your eyes got bad in Louis Ersten's dark workroom. You never tell lies. Say it!" Heinrich struggled for a moment between his pride and his honesty.
Ersten's cheeks suddenly puffed and his forehead purpled, while every hair on his head and face stuck straight out. "My workroom is good enough!" he exploded. "I told it to Schnitt!" "Is Schnitt your coat cutter?" asked Johnny, remembering what Constance and Close had said. Ersten glowered at him. "He was. Thirty-seven years he worked with me; then he tried to run my business. He is gone.
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