The Competitive Nephew Part 18

"Ain't it funny?" she murmured, "I could almost swear I smell stale cigar smoke here."

Sam turned his face to the wall.

"You're crazy!" he said.

During the ensuing week Sam Gembitz became an adept in the art of legerdemain; and the skill with which he palmed tablets under the very nose of his daughter was only equalled by the ingenuity he displayed in finally disposing of them. At least three dozen disappeared through a crack in the wainscoting behind Sam's bed, while as many more were poked through a hole in the mattress; and thus Sam became gradually stronger, until Doctor Eichendorfer himself could not ignore the improvement in his patient's condition.

"All right; you can sit up," he said to Sam; "but, remember, the least indiscretion and back to bed you go."

Sam nodded, for Babette was in the room at the time; and, albeit Sam had gained new courage through his nightly raids on the ice-box, he lacked the boldness that three square meals a day engender.

"I would take good care of myself, Doctor," he said, "and the day after to-morrow might I could go downtown, maybe?"

"The day after to-morrow!" Doctor Eichendorfer exclaimed. "Why, you wouldn't be downtown for a month yet."

"The idea!" Babette cried indignantly. "As if the boys couldn't look after the place without you! What d'ye want to go downtown for at all?"

"What d'ye mean, what do I want to go downtown for at all?" Sam demanded sharply, and Miss Babette Gembitz blushed; whereupon Sam rose from his chair and stood unsteadily on his feet.

"You are up to some monkey business here--all of you!" he declared.

"What is it about?"

Babette exchanged glances with Doctor Eichendorfer, who shrugged his shoulders in reply.

"Well, if you want to know what it is, popper," she said, "I'll tell you. You're a very sick man and the chances are you'll never go downtown again." Doctor Eichendorfer nodded his approval and Sam sat down again.

"So we may as well tell you right out plain," Babette continued; "the boys have given out to the trade that you've retired on account of sickness--and here it is in the paper and all."

She handed Sam a copy of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_ and indicated with her finger an item headed "Personals." It read as follows:

NEW YORK.--Samuel Gembitz, of S. Gembitz & Sons, whose serious illness was reported recently, has retired from the firm, and the business will be carried on by Max Gembitz, Lester Gembitz, and Sidney Gembitz, under the firm style of Gembitz Brothers.

As Sam gazed at the item the effect of one week's surrept.i.tious feeding was set at naught, and once more Babette and Doctor Eichendorfer a.s.sisted him to his bed. That night he had neither the strength nor the inclination to make his accustomed raid on the ice-box, nor could he resist the administration of Doctor Eichendorfer's tablets; so that the following day found him weaker than ever. It was not until another week had elapsed that his appet.i.te began to a.s.sert itself; but when it did he convalesced rapidly. Indeed, at the end of the month, Doctor Eichendorfer permitted him to take short walks with Babette. Gradually the length of these promenades increased until Babette found her entire forenoons monopolized by her father.

"Ain't it awful!" she said to Sam one Sunday morning as they paced slowly along Lenox Avenue. "I am so tied down."

"You ain't tied down," Sam replied ungraciously. "For my part, I would as lief hang around this here place by myself."

"It's all very well for you to talk," Babette rejoined; "but you know very well that in your condition you could drop in the street at any time yet."

"_Schmooes!_" Sam cried. "I am walking by myself for sixty-five years yet and I guess I could continue to do it."

"But Doctor Eichendorfer says----" Babette began.

"What do I care what Doctor Eichendorfer says!" Sam interrupted. "And, furthermore, supposing I would drop in the street--which anybody could slip oncet in a while on a banana peel, understand me--ain't I got cards in my pocket?"

Babette remained silent for a moment, whereat Sam plucked up new courage.

"Why should you bother yourself to _schlepp_ me along like this?" he said. "There's lots of people I could go out with. Ain't it? Take old man Herz _oder_ Mrs. Krakauer--they would be glad to go out walking with me; and oncet in a while I could go and call on Mrs. Schrimm maybe."

"Mrs. Schrimm!" Babette exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you talk that way. Mrs. Schrimm for years goes around telling everybody that mommer _selig_ leads you a dawg's life."

"Everybody's got a right to their opinion, Babette," Sam said; "but, anyhow, that ain't here nor there. If you wouldn't want me to go around and see Mrs. Schrimm I wouldn't."

Babette snorted.

"In the first place," she said, "you couldn't go unless I go with you; and, in the second place, you couldn't get me to go there for a hundred dollars."

Beyond suggesting that a hundred dollars was a lot of money, Sam made no further attempt to secure his liberty that morning; but on the following day he discreetly called his daughter's attention to a full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt in the morning paper.

"Ain't you was telling me the other evening you need to got some table napkins, Babette?" he asked.

Babette nodded.

"Well, here it is in the paper that new concern, Weldon, Jones & Company, is selling to-day napkins at three dollars a dozen--the best damask napkins," he concluded.

Babette seized the paper and five minutes later she was poking hatpins into her scalp with an energy that made Sam's eyes water.

"Where are you going, Babette?" he said.

"I'm going downtown to that sale of linens," she said, "and I'll be back to take you out at one o'clock."

"Don't hurry on my account," Sam said. "I've got enough here in the paper to keep me busy until to-night yet."

Five minutes later the bas.e.m.e.nt door banged and Sam jumped to his feet.

With the agility of a man half his age he ran upstairs to the parlour floor and put on his hat and coat; and by the time Babette had turned the corner of Lenox Avenue Sam walked out of the areaway of his old-fashioned, three-story-and-bas.e.m.e.nt, high-stoop residence on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street en route for Mrs. Schrimm's equally old-fashioned residence on One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street. There he descended the area steps; and finding the door ajar he walked into the bas.e.m.e.nt dining-room.

"_Wie gehts_, Mrs. Schrimm!" he cried cheerfully.

"Oo-ee! What a _Schreck_ you are giving me!" Mrs. Schrimm exclaimed.

"This is Sam Gembitz, ain't it?"

"Sure it is," Sam replied. "Ain't you afraid somebody is going to come in and steal something on you?"

"That's that girl again!" Mrs. Schrimm said as she bustled out to the areaway and slammed the door. "That's one of them _Ungarischer_ girls, Mr. Gembitz, which all they could do is to eat up your whole ice-box empty and go out dancing on _Bauern_ b.a.l.l.s till all hours of the morning. Housework is something they don't know nothing about at all.

Well, Mr. Gembitz, I am hearing such tales about you--you are dying, and so on."

"_Warum_ Mister Gembitz?" Sam said. "Ain't you always called me Sam, Henrietta?"

Mrs. Schrimm blushed. In the lifetime of the late Mrs. Gembitz she had been a constant visitor at the Gembitz house, but under Babette's chilling influence the friendship had withered until it was only a memory.

"Why not?" she said. "I certainly know you long enough, Sam."

"Going on thirty-five years, Henrietta," Sam said, "when you and me and Regina come over here together. Things is very different nowadays, Henrietta. Me, I am an old man already."

"What do you mean old?" Mrs. Schrimm cried. "When my _Grossvater selig_ was sixty-eight he gets married for the third time yet."

"Them old-timers was a different proposition entirely, Henrietta," Sam said. "If I would be talking about getting married, Henrietta, the least that happens to me is my children would put me in a lunatic asylum yet."