The little guy throws out his chest and bows with a "I-thank-you" look all over his face. He got me sore just watchin' him. Y'know that runt hated himself!
"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?"
"Are you tryin' to kid me?" he sneers.
"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!"
The Kid slaps me on the back and grins.
"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.