Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/274

 shel's acquaintance. He sidled over to the switchboard on his lunch hour, a thing that is as much against the St. Moe rules as hitting the manager with a slapstick. That, however, didn't appear to bother Hershel.

"They call me Hershel Rosenberg," he says, without any preliminaries.

"I can't help it," I says truthfully. "Take the air, Hershel, you're on a busy wire!"

"Say, don't put on dog vit me," says Hershel. "I ain't exactly vot I look like."

"See if I care," I says. "Do you know any more jokes?"

"Say, if I vos a goil and as pretty as you, I'd nevaire be no operator from a telephone," remarks this inveterate fool. "I'd go to work and, now, marry a rich millionaire and"

"Tend to your own sewing, will you?" I butt in frigidly. "When I wish advice I'll go to a lawyer and when I wish to get married I'll marry whoever I please!"

"Vell, you please me!" grins Hershel. "So ve got that all settled!"

If I had Hershel's nerve I'd throw up my job and go through Gehenna with a line of foot warmers. But honestly, you couldn't get sore at him.

"What do you mean by saying you're not exactly