For one brief moment Polatkin's eyes flashed angrily, and then with a resounding smack his open hand struck Gifkin's cheek.
"Liar!" he shouted. "What do you mean by it?"
Scheikowitz, who had been tenderly bathing Joe Borrochson's head with water, rushed forward at the sound of the blow.
"Marcus," he cried, "for Heaven's sake, what are you doing? You shouldn't kill the feller just because he makes a mistake and thinks the boy ain't Joe Borrochson."
"He makes too many mistakes," Polatkin roared. "Calls Pincus Lubliner a crook and a murderer yet, which his mother was my own father's a sister. Did you ever hear the like?"
He made a threatening gesture toward Gifkin, who cowered in a chair.
"Say, lookyhere, Marcus," Scheikowitz asked, "what has Pincus Lubliner got to do with this?"
"He's got a whole lot to do with it," Marcus replied, and then his eyes rested on Joe Borrochson, who had again lapsed into unconsciousness.
"Oo-ee!" Marcus cried. "The poor boy is dead."
He swept Philip aside and ran to the water-cooler, whence he returned with the drip-bucket brimming over. This he emptied on Joe Borrochson's recumbent form, and after a quarter of an hour the recovery was permanent. In the meantime Philip had interviewed Meyer Gifkin to such good purpose that when he entered the firm's office with Meyer Gifkin at his heels he was fairly spluttering with rage.
"Thief!" he yelled. "Out of here before I make you arrested."
"Who the devil you think you are talking to?" Marcus demanded.
"I am talking to Joseph Borrochson," Scheikowitz replied. "That's who I'm talking to."
"Well, there ain't no such person here," Polatkin retorted. "There's here only a young fellow by the name Elkan Lubliner, which he is my own father's sister a grandson, and he ain't no more a thief as you are."
"Ain't he?" Philip retorted. "Well, all I can say is he is a thief and his whole family is thieves, the one worser as the other."
"You should be careful what you are speaking about," he said. "Maybe you ain't aware that this here boy's grandfather on his father's side was _Reb_ Mosha, the big _Lubliner Rav_, a _Chosid_ and a _Tzadek_ if ever there was one."
"What difference does that make?" Philip demanded. "He is stealing my brother-in-law's passage ticket anyhow."