"_Gan-éden!_" he declared as he reached across the table and shook hands with Mrs. Lesengeld.
"Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, "my mother _olav hasholom_ was a good _cook_, understand me, _aber_ you are a _good cook_, Mrs. Lesengeld, and that's all there is to it."
Forthwith he resumed his knife and fork, and with only two pauses for the necessary replenishments, he polished off three platefuls of the fish, after which he heaved a great sigh of contentment, and as a prelude to conversation he lit one of B. Gans' choicest cigars.
"There's some dessert coming," Mrs. Lesengeld said.
"Dessert after this, Mrs. Lesengeld," he replied, through clouds of contented smoke, "would be a sacrilege, ain't it?"
"That's something I couldn't make at all," Mrs. Lesengeld admitted. "All I got it here is some _frimsel kugel_."
"_Frimsel kugel!_" Scharley exclaimed, laying down his cigar. "Why ain't you told me that before?"
A quarter of an hour later he again lighted his cigar, and this time he settled back in his campstool for conversation, while Mrs. Lesengeld busied herself about the oil stove. Instantly, however, he straightened up as another and more delicious odour assailed his nostrils, for Mrs. Lesengeld made coffee by a mysterious process, that conserved in the flavour of the decoction the delicious fragrance of the freshly ground bean.
"And are you staying down here with Mrs. Lesengeld?" Scharley asked Yetta after he had finished his third cup.
"In this little place here?" Mrs. Lesengeld cried indignantly. "Well, I should say not. She's stopping at the Salisbury, ain't you, Yetta?"
"It ain't so comfortable as here," she said.
"I bet yer," Scharley added fervently. "I am stopping there too, and them Chinese Lantern Dinners which they are putting up!"
"Poison ain't no word for it, Missus Er----" he concluded lamely as he tried to remember Yetta's name, which after so much soup, fish and coffee had completely escaped him.
"Lubliner," Yetta said. "I guess you know my husband, Mr. Scharley, Elkan Lubliner of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company."
Scharley struck the table with his open hand.
"Zoitenly, I do," he cried. "Why, he is the feller which Sol Klinger is telling me about."
Yetta coloured slightly and bit her lips.
