"_Nu_, Elkan!" Marcus said. "What's the matter? Don't you feel good?"
"I got a _krank_ right here," Elkan replied, placing his hand on his right side. "I got it now pretty near a week already."
"Well, maybe you should sit down for the rest of the afternoon and file away the old cutting slips," Marcus said, whereat Elkan moaned and closed his eyes.
"I filed 'em away last week already," he murmured. "I think maybe if I would lay in bed the rest of the afternoon I would be all right to-morrow."
Marcus gazed earnestly at his cousin, whose sufferings seemed to be intensified thereby.
"All right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead. Go home and tell Mrs. Feinermann she should give you a little _Brusttee_; and if you don't feel better in the morning don't take it so particular to get here early."
Elkan nodded weakly and five minutes later walked slowly out of the factory. He took the stairs only a little less slowly, but he gradually increased his speed as he proceeded along Wooster Street, until by the time he was out of sight of the firm's office windows he was fairly running. Thus he arrived at his boarding place on Pitt Street in less than half an hour--just in time to interrupt Mrs. Sarah Feinermann as she was about to start on a shopping excursion uptown. Mrs. Feinermann exclaimed aloud at the sight of him, and her complexion grew perceptibly less florid, for his advent in Pitt Street at that early hour could have but one meaning.
"What's the matter--you are getting fired?" she asked.
"What d'ye mean--getting fired?" Elkan replied. "I ain't fired. I got an afternoon off."
Mrs. Feinermann heaved a sigh of relief. As the recipient of Elkan's five dollars a week board-money, payable strictly in advance, she naturally evinced a hearty interest in his financial affairs. Moreover, she was distantly related to Elkan's father; and owing to this kinship her husband, Marx Feinermann, foreman for Kupferberg Brothers, was of the impression that she charged Elkan only three dollars and fifty cents a week. The underestimate more than paid Mrs. Feinermann's millinery bill, and she was consequently under the necessity of buying Elkan's silence with small items of laundry work and an occasional egg for breakfast. This arrangement suited Elkan very well indeed; and though he had eaten his lunch only an hour previously he thought it the part of prudence to insist that she prepare a meal for him, by way of maintaining his privileges as Mrs. Feinermann's fellow conspirator.