“I have also to thank you, Mr. Kling.  It was very kind of you, and I am sure I shall be very happy here.  After I am settled I shall come over and see whether I can be of some service to you in going through your stock.  There may be some other things that are valuable which you have mislaid.  And then, again, I should like to see something more of your little daughter—­she is very lovable, and so is her dog.”

“Vell, vy don’t you come now?  Masie don’t go to school to-day, and I keep her in de shop.  I been tinkin’ since you and Kitty been talkin’—­Kitty don’t make no mistakes:  vot Kitty says goes.  Look here, Kitty, vun minute—­come close vunce—­I vant to speak to you.”

O’Day, who had been about to give a reason why he could not “come now,” and who had halted in his reply in order to hunt his pockets for a card on which to write his address, hearing Kling’s last words, withdrew to the office in search of both paper and pencil.

“Now, see here, Kitty!  Dot mans is a vunderful man—­de most vunderful man I have seen since I been in 445.  You know dem cups and saucers vat I bought off dot olt vomans who came up from Baltimore?  Do you know dot two of ’em is vorth more as ten dollars?  He find dot out joost as soon as he pick ’em up, and he find out about my chairs, and vich vas fakes and vich vas goot.  Vot you tink of my givin’ him a job takin’ my old cups and my soup tureens and stuff and go sell ’em someveres?  I don’t got nobody since dot tam fool of a Svede go avay.  Vat you tink?”

“He can have my room—­that’s what I think!  You heard what I said to him!  That’s all the answer you’ll get out of me, Otto Kling.”

“An’ you don’t tink dot he’d git avay vid de stuff und ve haf to hunt up or down Second Avenue in the pawn-shops to git ’em back?”

“No, I don’t!”

“Den, by golly, I take him on, und I gif him every veek vat he pay you in board.”

Kitty broke into one of her derisive laughs.  “You will!  Ain’t that good of ye?  Ye’ll give him enough to starve on, that’s what it is.  Ye ought to be ashamed of yourself, Otto Kling!”

“Vell, but I don’t know vat he is vurth yet.”

“Well, then, tell him so, but don’t cheat him out of everything but his bare board; and that’s what ye’d be doin’.  Ye know he’s pawnin’ his stuff; ye know ye got five times the worth of your money in the dressing-case he give up to ye!  See here, Otto!  Before ye offer him that five dollars a week ye better get on the other side of big John there, where ye’ll be safe, and holler it at him over them trunks, or ye’ll find yourself flat on your back.”

“All right, Kitty, all right!  Don’t git oxcited.  I didn’t mean nudding.  I do just vat you say.  I gif him more.  Oh!  Here you are!  Mr. O’Day, vud you let me speak to you vun minute?  Suppose dot I ask you to come into my shop as a clerk, like, and pay you vat I can—­of course, you are new und it vill take some time, but I can pay sometings—­vud you come?”