"Don't you like it? I do," Jake declared tartly. "Once I live in America," he pursued, on the defensive, "I want to know that I live in America. _Dot'sh a' kin' a man I am!_ One must not be a _greenhorn_. Here a Jew is as good as a Gentile. How, then, would you have it? The way it is in Russia, where a Jew is afraid to stand within four ells of a Christian?" "Are there no other Christians than _fighters_ in America?" Bernstein objected with an amused smile. "Why don't you look for the educated ones?" "Do you mean to say the _fighters_ are not _ejecate_? Better than you, _anyhoy_," Jake said with a Yankee wink, followed by his Semitic smile. "Here you read the papers, and yet _I'll betch you_ you don't know that Corbett _findished college_." "I never read about fighters," Bernstein replied with a bored gesture, and turned to his paper. "Then say that you don't know, and _dot'sh ull_!" Bernstein made no reply. In his heart Jake respected him, and was now anxious to vindicate his tastes in the judgment of his scholarly shopmate and in his own. "_Alla right_, let it be as you say; the _fighters_ are not _ejecate_. No, not a bit!" he said ironically, continuing to address himself to Bernstein. "But what will you say to _baseball_? All _college boys_ and _tony peoplesh_ play it," he concluded triumphantly. Bernstein remained silent, his eyes riveted to his newspaper. "Ah, you don't answer, _shee_?" said Jake, feeling put out. The awkward pause which followed was relieved by one of the playgoers who wanted to know whether it was true that to pitch a ball required more skill than to catch one. "_Sure!_ You must know how to _peetch_," Jake rejoined with the cloud lingering on his brow, as he lukewarmly delivered an imaginary ball. "And I, for my part, don't see what wisdom there is to it," said the presser with a shrug. "I think I could throw, too." "He can do everything!" laughingly remarked a girl named Pessé. "How hard can you hit?" Jake demanded sarcastically, somewhat warming up to the subject. "As hard as you at any time." "_I betch you a dullar to you' ten shent_ you can not," Jake answered, and at the same moment he fished out a handful of coin from his trousers pocket and challengingly presented it close to his interlocutor's nose. "There he goes!--betting!" the presser exclaimed, drawing slightly back. "For my part, your _pitzers_ and _catzers_ may all lie in the earth. A nice entertainment, indeed! Just like little children--playing ball! And yet people say America is a _smart_ country. I don't see it." "_'F caush_ you don't, _becaush_ you are a bedraggled _greenhorn_, afraid to budge out of Heshter Shtreet." As Jake thus vented his bad humour on his adversary, he cast a glance at Bernstein, as if anxious to attract his attention and to re-engage him in the discussion. "Look at the Yankee!" the presser shot back. "More of a one than you, _anyhoy_." "He thinks that _shaving_ one's mustache makes a Yankee!"