Who’s Bitter?

I met my friend Phil Mandelbaum the other day in Gertner’s Restaurant, and I see that he is glum so I order him a special corned beef sandwich, but Phil puts his hand up to his vest pocket and he tells me that in addition to all his troubles he has heart burn. So, he won’t have corned beef with mustard, and no sour tomatoes. He will drink tea and toast. I ask him why he comes downtown to Gertner’s to find tea and toast, and he says to me that when he travels to get a meal he feels better.

Well, to go from 36th (Phil is a dress man) to 22nd isn’t my idea of travelling, but if it makes him feel good, a bie gesint, Who am I to tell “Farfel” how to enjoy himself? Why, he was a man who could lose at cards and mean it when he said he had a good time, or when the dress business was so slow that he would gladly sell an 8.95 to a scarecrow he told you to be happy the sun was shining and you walked the earth a free man. Farfel never knew a sad day—or if he did, he would never let you know. If I didn’t know that East Side Farfel had become Fifth Avenue Phil Mandelbaum and that the only time he prayed to God was on Yom Kippur, I would say he made a religion out of joy, like a Hasid. But now.