III

III

Mr. Isadore Abrahams, the founder and proprietor of that deservedly popular dancing resort poetically named “The Flower Garden,” leaned back in his chair with a contented sigh and laid down the knife and fork with which he had been assailing a plateful of succulent goulash. He was dining, as was his admirable custom, in the bosom of his family at his residence at Far Rockaway. Across the table, his wife, Rebecca, beamed at him over her comfortable plinth of chins, and round the table his children, David, Jacob, Morris and Saide, would have beamed at him if they had not been too busy at the moment ingurgitating goulash. A genial, honest, domestic man was Mr. Abrahams, a credit to the community.

“Mother,” he said.

“Pa?” said Mrs. Abrahams.

“Knew there was something I’d meant to tell you,” said Mr. Abrahams, absently chasing a piece of bread round his plate with a stout finger. “You remember that girl I told you about some time back⁠—girl working at the Garden⁠—girl called Nicholas, who came into a bit of money and threw up her job⁠ ⁠…”

“I remember. You liked her. Jakie, dear, don’t gobble.”

“Ain’t gobbling,” said Master Abrahams.

“Everybody liked her,” said Mr. Abrahams. “The nicest girl I ever hired, and I don’t hire none but nice girls, because the Garden’s a nice place, and I like to run it nice. I wouldn’t give you a nickel for any of your tough joints where you get nothing but lowlifes and scare away all the real folks. Everybody liked Sally Nicholas. Always pleasant and always smiling, and never anything but the lady. It was a treat to have her around. Well, what do you think?”

“Dead?” inquired Mrs. Abrahams, apprehensively. The story had sounded to her as though it were heading that way. “Wipe your mouth, Jakie dear.”

“No, not dead,” said Mr. Abrahams, conscious for the first time that the remainder of his narrative might be considered by a critic something of an anticlimax and lacking in drama. “But she was in to see me this afternoon and wants her job back.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Abrahams, rather tonelessly. An ardent supporter of the local motion-picture palace, she had hoped for a slightly more gingery denouement, something with a bit more punch.

“Yes, but don’t it show you?” continued Mr. Abrahams, gallantly trying to work up the interest. “There’s this girl, goes out of my place not more’n a year ago, with a good bankroll in her pocket, and here she is, back again, all of it spent. Don’t it show you what a tragedy life is, if you see what I mean, and how careful one ought to be about money? It’s what I call a human document. Goodness knows how she’s been and gone and spent it all. I’d never have thought she was the sort of girl to go gadding around. Always seemed to me to be kind of sensible.”

“What’s gadding, Pop?” asked Master Jakie, the goulash having ceased to chain his interest.

“Well, she wanted her job back and I gave it to her, and glad to get her back again. There’s class to that girl. She’s the sort of girl I want in the place. Don’t seem quite to have so much get-up in her as she used to⁠ ⁠… seems kind of quieted down⁠ ⁠… but she’s got class, and I’m glad she’s back. I hope she’ll stay. But don’t it show you?”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Abrahams, with more enthusiasm than before. It had not worked out such a bad story after all. In its essentials it was not unlike the film she had seen the previous evening⁠—Gloria Gooch in A Girl Against the World.

“Pop!” said Master Abrahams.

“Yes, Jakie?”

“When I’m grown up, I won’t never lose no money. I’ll put it in the bank and save it.”

The slight depression caused by the contemplation of Sally’s troubles left Mr. Abrahams as mist melts beneath a sunbeam.

“That’s a good boy, Jakie,” he said.

He felt in his waistcoat pocket, found a dime, put it back again, and bent forward and patted Master Abrahams on the head.