THE OLD-TIMER
Dr. Haberfeld, the lawyer, sat in the Café Imperial and crossly pushed
aside the newspapers which Josef, the old head-waiter, had brought him.
“Say, Josef, it’s so empty here, a fellow could freeze next to the
stove! In the old days it was a hard job to scare up a seat, and
now--now you could stage a Derby race here, there’s so much room!”
Josef stroked his grayish muttonchops, gazed sorrowfully at the other,
wiped off the table with his napkin, and said with a worried air:
“The Ring cafés are closing one after the other--I guess we won’t last
much longer either. Y’know, Herr Doktor, what the Hebrew gentlemen--beg
pardon, the Jews--were, they always liked to go to the high-class
places, where there’s something doing and something to see. But the
Christian gentlemen, they go to a coffee-house in the suburbs, and
play tarot or billiards there--or else they go to a cheap barroom. Yes,
sir, times have changed.”
“A deaf, dumb and blind man could see that,” growled the lawyer. “Look
here, Josef, we two have known each other long enough not to pretend
that things are what they aren’t. To tell you the truth, I don’t like
the whole business. Vienna’s going to the dogs without the Jews!”
Josef started, and looked around with frightened air.
“Don’t worry, nobody’ll hear us! Vienna’s going to the dogs, I say;
and when I, a veteran anti-Semite, say that, it’s true, I tell you!
And I’ll tell you something more, Josef. You know, better than anyone
else, that after I eat I always have to take some bicarbonate of soda,
to counteract the wretched acid in my stomach. But if I had no acid in
my stomach, I wouldn’t be able to eat anything any more, and I’d kick
the bucket. Now, y’see, that anti-Semitism of ours was only the soda
to counteract the Jews, to keep ’em from becoming a nuisance! Now we
have no acid any more--that is, no Jews--but only soda; and I’m afraid
that’ll be the end of us.”
Josef, who had listened with breathless and reverential attention,
dejectedly flicked a chair with his napkin as he whispered miserably:
“Right you are, Herr Doktor, though a fellow don’t dare say so out
loud. My finish has started already. In the last six months I’ve spent
half my savings. Between ourselves, Herr Doktor--and because you
yourself are a liberal gentleman, so the shoe don’t fit you. The Hebrew
gentlemen--beg pardon, I mean the Jews--were real generous with their
tips!”
Josef cleared away the papers which had been boring Dr. Haberfeld,
and, on his request, brought him the Prague and Berlin papers. Then he
attended to some other patrons who had just come in, and who ordered a
pint of wine each.
“Like in a saloon,” Josef whispered as he passed the attorney. The
latter nodded understandingly, lighted a cigar, and fell to dreaming
of the days when he had sat there every evening with a group of Jewish
colleagues and, political enmity notwithstanding, had exchanged with
them many clever and original ideas.