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And they would have, Father chucklingly declared, "a bang-up dinner at Bomberghof Terrace, with music, and yes, by Jiminy! and cocktails!" For a week he awaited an answer, waited anxiously, though he kept reassuring himself that old Pilkings had promised to keep the job open for him. He received a reply. But it was from Pilkings's son.
Father was a perfectly able clerk in Pilkings's shoe-store on Sixth Avenue, and Pilkings was so much older than Father that he still called him, "Hey you, Seth!" and still gave him advice about handling lady customers. For three or four years, some ten years back, Father and Mr. Pilkings had displayed ill-feeling over the passing of the amiable elastic-sided Congress shoe.
Mother did without her chocolate peppermints, and Father cut his smoking down to one cigarette after each meal though occasionally, being but a mortal man, he would fall into sinful ways and smoke up three or four cigarettes while engaged in an enthralling conversation regarding Mr. Pilkings's meanness with fellow-clerks at lunch at the Automat.
Edward Pilkings's voice crackled like wood in a fireplace. Desperately Father tried again. "Fact is, Mr. Edward, I've given up my tea-room on Cape Cod. Didn't go so very well. I guess my forty, like the fellow says, is sticking to selling shoes. Mrs. Appleby and I have just got back to town and got settled down and Fact is, I'd be glad to go back to work." His hesitant manner invited refusal.
So sat Father and Mother, but they were gloriously conscious of each other, and now and then, when he was sure that no one was looking, he whispered: "Old honey, there's nothing holding us apart now no more. We're partners again, and Lord! how we'll fight! I'll go in and I'll take Pilkings's business clean away from him, I will! Old honey, we're free again! And we're going to see New York! Lord!
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