"Say!" I says to him. "If all that stuff you claim for this roll foundry is on the level, it must take a lot of dough to run it, eh?"
"No!" I comes back. "But speakin' of bakeries, I'd sacrifice my sacred silk socks for a flash at them skilled Scandinavians assemblin' that bread, before I move on to nasty New York!"
"Go on, Foolish!" he says. "You got this bird on the ropes!" He turns to the runt. "All I want," he goes on, "is one peep at them likable Lithuanians--can I git that?"
"You guys is as funny as pneumonia to me!" snorts the little guy, gettin' red in the face. "That stuff may pass for comedy in Yonkers or wherever you hicks blowed in from, but it don't git no laugh outa me! D'ye wanna see this shop or don't you--yes or no?"
"Let's go!" I tells him. "You got me all worked up about it!"
"Same here!" says the Kid. "I only wish I could talk like you can, but I guess it's a gift, ain't it?"
The little guy grunts somethin' and nods for us to fall in behind him, and we lock step along till we come to another joint from which was issuin' what I'll lay eight to five was all the noise in the world. How they ever gathered it up and got it in the buildin' I don't know, but I do know it was there! If you'd take a bowlin' alley on Turnverein night, a boiler factory workin' on a rush order and the battle of Gettysburg, wind 'em up and set 'em all off at once, you might get a faint idea of how the inmates of that buildin' was ruinin' the peace and quiet of the surroundin' country. A dynamite explosion in the next block would have attracted as much attention as a whisper in a steamfittin' shop.
"I thought the war was all over!" hollers the Kid, holdin' his ears. "Has the police been tipped off about this?"
"What d'ye mean the police?" screams back the runt. "That there is the mixin' and bakin' shop."
"Yeh?" I cuts in. "Well, I don't know what them skilled Scandinavians of yours is at, but, believe me, they're _tryin'_ all right!"
"You must be a fine pair of hicks!" he says. "D'ye mean to say you never heard of the Eureka Mixin' and Bakin' machine?"
"I can hear it now, all right!" I tells him, noddin' to the buildin' where the boilermakers was havin' a field day, "but--"
"Sufferin' salmon, what boobs!" he interrupts me. Then he gives us both the once over and starts his sneerer workin' again. "Say!" he asks me. "Who d'ye like to win the battle of Santiago and d'ye think Lincoln will git elected again?"