Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

WAGE EARNERS 35

Insiders know where they can get specialities. At De Haas the warm calf meat sandwiches taste best when they have been dipped in fat gravy.

Says a customer " Miss Abrams, will you please dip my calf meat sandwich not once but twice in the gravy?"

Says the waitress sarcastically "What are you—a Jew or an Anabaptist?"

The old-fashioned sandwich shops have disappeared in Amsterdam along with the customers. Although nowadays there are still some sandwich shops they've been reduced from individual institutions to places where they sell anything ranging from Hamburgers to French fries. Ways of earning a living have changed, also. Today, who knows what a real old-fashioned "tout" used to be? That was a strange and fascinating profession, closely connected to the interest of Jews for clothes...

The women seldom buy their clothes in a shop. They do a little dress making themselves, but usually they are customers of some cheap seamstress who lives nearby.

By contrast, the clothes for boys and men are bought in shops, but not directly. Between shopkeeper and customer the tout has claimed his place. Touts invariably are small men, perhaps because the shopkeeper is aware that his customers do not want to feel overwhelmed by their formidable dimensions. The tout has to make the customers believe he has their best interest at heart, to engender trust. So he acts in a subtle manner. His working place is the sidewalk in front of the tailor shop. There are no female touts, not