Finally he offered to introduce me to an operator who would teach
me the trade, and to pay him my tuition fee
He went into details. He continued to address me as Mr. Levinsky
and tried to show me esteem as his intellectual superior, but, in
spite of himself, as it were, he gradually took a respectfully
contemptuous tone with me
"Don't be a lobster, Mr. Levinsky." (" Lobster" he said in English.)
"This is not Russia. Here a fellow must be no fool. There is no
sense in living the way you do. Do as Gitelson tells you, and you'll
live decently, dress decently, and lay by a dollar or two. There are
lots of educated fellows in the shops." He told me of some of
these, particularly of one young man who was a shopmate of his.
"He never comes to work without some book" he said.
"When there is not enough to do he reads. When he has to wait for
a new 'bundle,' as we call it, he reads. Other fellows carry on, but
he is always reading. He is so highly educated he could read any
kind of book, and I don't believe there is a book in the world that
he has not read.
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