Five Thousand an Hour: How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress Part 27

"That's what I told Ersten," stated Johnny. "He's worried stiff about it! I think he'll move so you have a lighter workroom if you go back."

"When he moves I come."

"He won't move till you do."

"Then there is nothing," concluded Schnitt resignedly, and stooped over to pull another weed. "Mama, maybe Mr. Gamble likes some of that wine Carrie's husband made the year he died."

"Ja voll," a.s.sented Mamma Schnitt heartily, and toddled away to get it.

"I'll fix it for you," offered Johnny. "You go to Ersten and say you will come back; then Ersten will get a new place before you start to work."

Heinrich straightened up with alacrity this time, his face fairly shining with pleasure.

"I do that much," he agreed.

"Good!" approved Johnny. "You want to be careful what you say, though, for Ersten is stubborn."

"He is stubborn like a mule," Schnitt pointed out with sober gravity.

"You must say you have come back to work in that place."

"I'll never do it!" indignantly declared Heinrich, his face lengthening.

"Certainly not," agreed Johnny hurriedly. "You tell him you want a month to rest up your eyes."

"I don't need it!" protested Heinrich.

"You only say that so you won't have to work in that shop, but, never mind, I'll fix it so he offers it," patiently explained Johnny, and proceeded to make it perfectly plain. "You say that you have come back to work. Don't say another word."

"I have come back to work," repeated Schnitt.

"Then Ersten will ask you: 'In this place?' You say: 'Yes.'"

Heinrich began to shake his head vigorously, but Johnny gave him no chance to refuse.

"You say: 'Yes'!" he emphatically insisted. "Ersten will tell you to take a month off to rest your eyes."

Again Heinrich started to shake his head, and again Johnny hurried on.

"You say: 'Thank you'," he directed; "then you go away. Before your month is up, Ersten will send for you in a new shop!"

"Will he promise it?"

"No," confessed Johnny. "I promised it but Ersten will do it."

Heinrich pondered the matter long and soberly.

"All right; I try it," he agreed.

"Three cheers!" said Johnny with a huge sigh of relief. "I'll be back after you in about an hour." And he reluctantly paused long enough to drink some of the wine which Carrie's husband helped to make. It was probably good wine.

Ersten was in the cutting room when Johnny again arrived at the store, and a clerk took his name up very dubiously. The clerk returned, smiling with extreme graciousness, and informed the caller that he was to walk straight back. Johnny found Ersten in spectacles and ap.r.o.n, with a tape-line round his neck and a piece of chalk in his hand, and wearing a very worried look, while all the workmen in the room appeared subdued but highly nervous.

"Did you see him?" Ersten asked immediately.

"He is anxious to come back," Johnny was happy to state.

"When?" This very eagerly.

"To-day."

Ersten took his ap.r.o.n and the tape and threw them on a table with a slam.

"I invite you to have a gla.s.s of Rheinthranen," he offered.

"Thanks," returned Johnny carelessly, not quite appreciating the priceless honor. "I'll have Mr. Schnitt here in an hour, but you must be careful what you say to him. He is stubborn."

"Sure, I know it," impetuously agreed Ersten. "He is an old a.s.sel. What is to be said?" Johnny could feel the nervous tension of the room lighten as Ersten walked out with him.

"It will be like this," Johnny explained: "Schnitt will come in with me and say: 'I have come back to work.'"

"In this place?" demanded Ersten.

"Ask him that. He will say: 'Yes.'"

"Will he?" cried Ersten, unable to believe his ears.

"That's what he will say--but he won't do it."

"What is it?" exploded the shocked Ersten. "You say he says he will come back to work in this place, but he won't do it! That is foolishness!"

"No, it isn't," insisted Johnny. "Now listen carefully. Schnitt says: 'I have come back to work.' You say: 'In this place?' Schnitt says: 'Yes.' Then you tell him that he must take a month to rest up his eyes."

"But must I do his coat cutting for a month yet?" protested the abused Ersten. "n.o.body can do it in New York for my customers but Heinrich Schnitt and me."

"It may not be a month. Just now he might take some of your more important work home, where the light is better. That would be working for you in this place."

"Well, maybe," admitted Ersten puffing out his cheeks in frowning consideration.

Johnny held his breath as he approached the crucial observation.

"By the time his eyes are rested you may have a better shop for the old man to work in."

Ersten fixed him with a burning glare.

"I see it!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "You put this job up to make me sell my lease!"

Johnny looked him in the eye with a frank smile.