Yekl | Page 8

that institution. "Dot'sh de vay, look!" With which Jake seized from Charley a lanky fourteen-year-old Miss Jacobs, and proceeded to set an example of correct waltzing, much to the unconcealed delight of the girl, who let her head rest on his breast with an air of reverential gratitude and bliss, and to the embarrassment of her cavalier, who looked at the evolutions of Jake's feet without seeing.
Presently Jake was beckoned away to a corner by Joe, where upon Miss Jacobs, looking daggers at the little professor, sulked off to a distant seat.
"Dzake, do me a faver; hask Mamie to gib dot feller a couple a dantzes," Joe said imploringly, pointing to an ungainly young man who was timidly viewing the pandemonium-like spectacle from the further end of the "gent's bench." "I hasked 'er myself, but se don' vonted. He's a beesness man, you 'destan', an' he kan a lot o' fellers an' I vonted make him satetzfiet."
"Dot monkey?" said Jake. "Vot you talkin' aboyt! She vouldn't lishn to me neider, honesht."
"Say dot you don' vonted and dot's ull."
"Alla right; I'm goin' to ashk her, but I know it vouldn't be of naw used."
"Never mm, you hask 'er foist. You knaw se vouldn't refuse you!" Joe urged, with a knowing grin.
"Hoy much vill you bet she will refushe shaw?" Jake rejoined with insincere vehemence, as he whipped out a handful of change.
"Vot kin' foon a man you are! Ulleways like to bet!" said Joe, deprecatingly. "'F cuss it depend mit vot kin' a mout' you vill hask, you 'destan'?"
"By gum, Jaw! Vot you take me for? Ven I shay I ashk, I ashk. You knaw I don' like no monkey beeshnesh. Ven I promish anytink I do it shquare, dot'sh a kin' a man I am!" And once more protesting his firm conviction that Mamie would disregard his request, he started to prove that she would not.
He had to traverse nearly the entire length of the hall, and, notwithstanding that he was compelled to steer clear of the dancers, he contrived to effect the passage at the swellest of his gaits, which means that he jauntily bobbed and lurched, after the manner of a blacksmith tugging at the bellows, and held up his enormous bullet head as if he were bidding defiance to the whole world. Finally he paused in front of a girl with a superabundance of pitch-black side bangs and with a pert, ill-natured, pretty face of the most strikingly Semitic cast in the whole gathering. She looked twenty-three or more, was inclined to plumpness, and her shrewd deep dark eyes gleamed out of a warm gipsy complexion. Jake found her seated in a fatigued attitude on a chair near the piano.
"Good-evenig, Mamie!" he said, bowing with mock gallantry.
"Rats!"
"Shay, Mamie, give dot feller a tvisht, vill you?"
"Dot slob again? Joe must tink if you ask me I'll get scared, ain't it? Go and tell him he is too fresh," she said with a contemptuous grimace. Like the majority of the girls of the academy, Mamie's English was a much nearer approach to a justification of its name than the gibberish spoken by the men.
Jake felt routed; but he put a bold face on it and broke out with studied resentment:
"Vot you kickin' aboyt, anyhoy? Jaw don' mean notin' at ull. If you don' vonted never min', an' dot'sh ull. It don' cut a figger, shee?" And he feignedly turned to go.
"Look how kvick he gets excited!" she said, surrenderingly. "I ain't get ekshitet at ull; but vot'sh de used a makin' monkey beesnesh?" he retorted with triumphant acerbity.
"You are a monkey you'self," she returned with a playful pout.
The compliment was acknowledged by one of Jake's blandest grins.
"An' you are a monkey from monkeyland," he said. "Vill you dansh mit dot feller?"
"Rats! Vot vill you give me?"
"Vot should I give you?" he asked impatiently.
"Vill you treat?"
"Treat? Ger--rr oyt!" he replied with a sweeping kick at space.
"Den I von't dance."
"Alla right. I'll treat you mit a coupel a waltch."
"Is dot so? You must really tink I am swooning to dance vit you," she said, dividing the remark between both jargons.
"Look at her, look! she is a regely getzke [note]: one must take off one's cap to speak to her. Don't you always say you like to dansh with me becush I am a good dansher?"
[note] getzke: A crucifix.
"You must tink you are a peach of a dancer, am' it? Bennie can dance a sight better dan you," she recurred to her English.
"Alla right!" he said tartly. "So you don' vonted?"
"O sugar! He is gettin' mad again. Vell, who is de getzke, me or you? All right, I'll dance vid de slob. But it's only becuss you ask me, mind you!" she added fawningly.
"Dot'sh alla right!" he rejoined, with an affectation of