Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/275

 what you look like?" I asked him, to change the subject and also the predicate.

"Vell, I look like a bellboy, but I ain't," he explains. "I'm only a bellboy in the, now, vintaire time. In the summaire time it's too hot I should be vorkin' from a hotel. So from June to August I'm a fightaire. I'm Kid Rose, the sensational middleweight. In twenty-four fights I only been knocked out twenty times."

"Wonderful!" I says, trying without any success to keep from laughing in his face. "Did you win the other four?"

"No," says Hershel. "By a odd coincidence, I lose 'em on rotten decisions from rotten referees. But vait til"

"Don't tell me any more about that, I can't afford to get hysterical on the job," I shut him off, wiping my eyes. "What was the idea of trying to sell the party in five-o-two that pitcher of ice water? If you hadn't been so grasping he might have given you a nice tip."

"Vot do I want vit a tip?" says Hershel. "I vouldn't play the races and I'm off from Vall Street. Say, a couple months ago a cousin of mine took a tip he should buy, now, Mexican Pete. Oy oy, vot a tip! You couldn't trust them Mexicans. My cousin lost his store, his car, his insurance policy, his house and his, now, vife!"