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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Elkan Lubliner, American, by Montague Glass
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Elkan Lubliner, American
+
+Author: Montague Glass
+
+Release Date: December 5, 2008 [EBook #27423]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by C. St. Charleskindt, Suzanne Shell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN
+
+
+
+
+ELKAN LUBLINER,
+AMERICAN
+
+BY MONTAGUE GLASS
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"Potash & Perlmutter," "Abe & Mawruss,"
+"Object: Matrimony," etc.
+
+[Illustration: Frucus Quam Folia]
+
+GARDEN CITY    NEW YORK
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+1912
+
+
+
+
+_Copyright, 1911, 1912, by_
+THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+_Copyright, 1912, by_
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
+_All rights reserved, including that of
+translation into foreign languages,
+including the Scandinavian_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                PAGE
+
+Noblesse Oblige                    3
+
+Appenweier's Account              33
+
+A Match for Elkan Lubliner        81
+
+Highgrade Lines                  147
+
+One of Esau's Fables             196
+
+A Tale of Two Jacobean Chairs    250
+
+Sweet and Sour                   288
+
+
+
+
+ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN
+
+
+
+
+ELKAN LUBLINER
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+NOBLESSE OBLIGE
+
+POLATKIN & SCHEIKOWITZ CONSERVE THE HONOUR OF THEIR FAMILIES
+
+
+"Nu, Philip," cried Marcus Polatkin to his partner, Philip Scheikowitz,
+as they sat in the showroom of their place of business one June morning,
+"even if the letter does got bad news in it you shouldn't take on so
+hard. When a feller is making good over here and the _Leute im Russland_
+hears about it, understand me, they are all the time sending him bad
+news. I got in Minsk a cousin by the name Pincus Lubliner, understand
+me, which every time he writes me, y'understand, a relation dies on him
+and he wants me I should help pay funeral expenses. You might think I
+was a Free Burial Society, the way that feller acts."
+
+"Sure, I know," Philip replied as he folded the letter away; "but this
+here is something else again. Mind you, with his own landlord he is
+sitting playing cards, Marcus, and comes a pistol through the window
+and the landlord drops dead."
+
+"What have you got to do with the landlord?" Polatkin retorted. "If it
+was your brother-in-law was killed that's a difference matter entirely;
+but when a feller is a landlord _im Russland_, understand me, the least
+he could expect is that he gets killed once in a while."
+
+"I ain't saying nothing about the landlord," Philip protested, "but my
+brother-in-law writes they are afraid for their lives there and I should
+send 'em quick the passage money for him and his boy Yosel to come to
+America."
+
+Polatkin rose to his feet and glared angrily at his partner.
+
+"Do you mean to told me you are going to send that loafer money he
+should come over here and bum round our shop yet?"
+
+"What do you mean bum round our shop?" Philip demanded. "In the
+first place, Polatkin, I ain't said I am going to send him money,
+y'understand; and, in the second place, if I want to send the feller
+money to come over here, understand me, that's my business. Furthermore,
+when you are coming to call my brother-in-law a loafer and a bum,
+Polatkin, you don't know what you are talking about. His _Grossvater_,
+_olav hasholem_, was the great Harkavy Rav, Jochannon Borrochson."
+
+"I heard that same tale before," Polatkin interrupted. "A feller is a
+_Schlemiel_ and a lowlife which he couldn't support his wife and
+children, understand me, and it always turns out his grandfather was a
+big rabbi in the old country. The way it is with me, Scheikowitz, just
+so soon as I am hearing a feller's grandfather was a big rabbi in the
+old country, Scheikowitz, I wouldn't got nothing more to do with him. If
+he works for you in your place, understand me, then he fools away your
+time telling the operators what a big rabbi his grandfather was; and if
+he's a customer, Scheikowitz, and you write him ten days after the
+account is overdue he should pay you what he owes you, instead he sends
+you a check, understand me, he comes down to the store and tells you
+what a big rabbi he's got it for a grandfather. _Gott sei Dank_ I ain't
+got no _Rabonim_ in my family."
+
+"Sure, I know," Philip cried, "your father would be glad supposing he
+could sign his name even."
+
+Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It would _oser_ worry me if my whole family couldn't read or write. So
+long as I can sign my name and the money is in the bank to make the
+check good from five to ten thousand dollars, y'understand, what do I
+care if my grandfather would be deef, dumb and blind, Scheikowitz?
+Furthermore, Scheikowitz, believe me I would sooner got one good live
+business man for a partner, Scheikowitz, than a million dead rabbis for
+a grandfather, and don't you forget it. So if you are going to spend
+the whole morning making a _Geschreierei_ over that letter, Scheikowitz,
+we may as well close up the store _und fertig_."
+
+With this ultimatum Marcus Polatkin walked rapidly away toward the
+cutting room, while Philip Scheikowitz sought the foreman of their
+manufacturing department and borrowed a copy of a morning paper. It was
+printed in the vernacular of the lower East Side, and Philip bore it to
+his desk, where for more than half an hour he alternately consulted the
+column of steamboat advertising and made figures on the back of an
+envelope. These represented the cost of a journey for two persons from
+Minsk to New York, based on Philip's hazy recollection of his own
+emigration, fifteen years before, combined with his experience as
+travelling salesman in the Southern States for a popular-price line of
+pants.
+
+At length he concluded his calculations and with a heavy sigh he put on
+his hat just as his partner returned from the cutting room.
+
+"Nu!" Polatkin cried. "Where are you going now?"
+
+"I am going for a half an hour somewheres," Philip replied.
+
+"What for?" Polatkin demanded.
+
+"What for is my business," Philip answered.
+
+"Your business?" Polatkin exclaimed. "At nine o'clock in the morning
+one partner puts on his hat and starts to go out, _verstehst du_, and
+when the other partner asks him where he is going it's his business,
+_sagt er_! What do you come down here at all for, Scheikowitz?"
+
+"I am coming down here because I got such a partner, Polatkin, which if
+I was to miss one day even I wouldn't know where I stand at all,"
+Scheikowitz retorted. "Furthermore, you shouldn't worry yourself,
+Polatkin; for my own sake I would come back just so soon as I could."
+
+Despite the offensive repartee that accompanied Philip's departure,
+however, he returned to find Polatkin entirely restored to good humour
+by a thousand-dollar order that had arrived in the ten-o'clock mail; and
+as Philip himself felt the glow of conscious virtue attendant upon a
+good deed economically performed, he immediately fell into friendly
+conversation with his partner.
+
+"Well, Marcus," he said, "I sent 'em the passage tickets, and if you
+ain't agreeable that Borrochson comes to work here I could easy find him
+a job somewheres else."
+
+"If we got an opening here, Philip, what is it skin off my face if the
+feller comes to work here," Polatkin answered, "so long as he gets the
+same pay like somebody else?"
+
+"What could I do, Marcus?" Philip rejoined, as he took off his hat and
+coat preparatory to plunging into the assortment of a pile of samples.
+"My own flesh and blood I must got to look out for, ain't it? And if my
+sister Leah, _olav hasholem_, would be alive to-day I would of got 'em
+all over here long since ago already. Ain't I am right?"
+
+Polatkin shrugged. "In family matters one partner couldn't advise the
+other at all," he said.
+
+"Sure, I know," Philip concluded, "but when a feller has got such a
+partner which he is a smart, up-to-date feller and means good by his
+partner, understand me, then I got a right to take an advice from him
+about family matters, ain't it?"
+
+And with these honeyed words the subject of the Borrochson family's
+assisted emigration was dismissed until the arrival of another letter
+from Minsk some four weeks later.
+
+"Well, Marcus," Philip cried after he had read it, "he'll be here
+Saturday."
+
+"Who'll be here Saturday?" Polatkin asked.
+
+"Borrochson," Philip replied; "and the boy comes with him."
+
+Polatkin raised his eyebrows.
+
+"I'll tell you the honest truth, Philip," he said--"I'm surprised to
+hear it."
+
+"What d'ye mean you're surprised to hear it?" Philip asked. "Ain't I am
+sending him the passage tickets?"
+
+"Sure, I know you are sending him the tickets," Polatkin continued, "but
+everybody says the same, Philip, and that's why I am telling you,
+Philip, I'm surprised to hear he is coming; because from what everybody
+is telling me it's a miracle the feller ain't sold the tickets and
+gambled away the money."
+
+"What are you talking nonsense, selling the tickets!" Philip cried
+indignantly. "The feller is a decent, respectable feller even if he
+would be a poor man."
+
+"He ain't so poor," Polatkin retorted. "A thief need never got to be
+poor, Scheikowitz."
+
+"A thief!" Philip exclaimed.
+
+"That's what I said," Polatkin went on, "and a smart thief too,
+Scheikowitz. Gifkin says he could steal the buttons from a policeman's
+pants and pass 'em off for real money, understand me, and they couldn't
+catch him anyhow."
+
+"Gifkin?" Philip replied.
+
+"Meyer Gifkin which he is working for us now two years, Scheikowitz, and
+a decent, respectable feller," Polatkin said relentlessly. "If Gifkin
+tells you something you could rely on it, Scheikowitz, and he is telling
+me he lives in Minsk one house by the other with this feller Borrochson,
+and such a lowlife gambler bum as this here feller Borrochson is you
+wouldn't believe at all."
+
+"Meyer Gifkin says that?" Philip gasped.
+
+"So sure as he is working here as assistant cutter," Polatkin continued.
+"And if you think that this here feller Borrochson comes to work in our
+place, Scheikowitz, you've got another think coming, and that's all I
+got to say."
+
+But Philip had not waited to hear the conclusion of his partner's
+ultimatum, and by the time Polatkin had finished Philip was at the
+threshold of the cutting room.
+
+"Gifkin!" he bellowed. "I want to ask you something a question."
+
+The assistant cutter laid down his shears.
+
+"What could I do for you, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he said respectfully.
+
+"You could put on your hat and coat and get out of here before I kick
+you out," Philip replied without disclosing the nature of his abandoned
+question. "And, furthermore, if my brother-in-law Borrochson is such a
+lowlife bum which you say he is, when he is coming here Saturday he
+would pretty near kill you, because, Gifkin, a lowlife gambler and a
+thief could easily be a murderer too. _Aber_ if he ain't a such thief
+and gambler which you say he is, then I would make you arrested."
+
+"Me arrested?" Gifkin cried. "What for?"
+
+"Because for calling some one a thief which he ain't one you could sit
+in prison," Scheikowitz concluded. "So you should get right out of here
+before I am sending for a policeman."
+
+"But, Mr. Scheikowitz," Gifkin protested, "who did I told it your
+brother-in-law is a thief and a gambler?"
+
+"You know very well who you told it," Scheikowitz retorted. "You told it
+my partner, Gifkin. That's who you told it."
+
+"But I says to him he shouldn't tell nobody," Gifkin continued. "Is it
+my fault your partner is such a _Klatsch_? And, anyhow, Mr. Scheikowitz,
+supposing I did say your brother-in-law is a gambler and a thief, I know
+what I'm talking about; and, furthermore, if I got to work in a place
+where I couldn't open my mouth at all, Mr. Scheikowitz, I don't want to
+work there, and that's all there is to it."
+
+He assumed his hat and coat in so dignified a manner that for the moment
+Scheikowitz felt as though he were losing an old and valued employee,
+and this impression was subsequently heightened by Polatkin's behaviour
+when he heard of Gifkin's departure. Indeed a casual observer might have
+supposed that Polatkin's wife, mother, and ten children had all perished
+in a common disaster and that the messenger had been indiscreet in
+breaking the news, for during a period of almost half an hour Polatkin
+rocked and swayed in his chair and beat his forehead with his clenched
+fist.
+
+"You are shedding my blood," he moaned to Scheikowitz.
+
+"What the devil you are talking nonsense!" Scheikowitz declared. "The
+way you are acting you would think we are paying the feller five
+thousand dollars a year instead of fifteen dollars a week."
+
+"It ain't what a feller makes from you, Scheikowitz; it's what you make
+from him what counts," he wailed. "Gifkin was really worth to us a year
+five thousand dollars."
+
+"Five thousand buttons!" Scheikowitz cried. "You are making a big fuss
+about nothing at all."
+
+But when the next day Polatkin and Scheikowitz heard that Gifkin had
+found employment with their closest competitors Philip began to regret
+the haste with which he had discharged his assistant cutter, and he bore
+his partner's upbraidings in chastened silence. Thus by Friday afternoon
+Polatkin had exhausted his indignation.
+
+"Well, Philip," he said as closing-time approached, "it ain't no use
+crying over sour milk. What time does the boat arrive?"
+
+"To-night," Philip replied, "and the passengers comes off the island
+to-morrow. Why did you ask?"
+
+"Because," Marcus said with the suspicion of a blush, "Saturday ain't
+such a busy day and I was thinking I would go over with you. Might I
+could help you out."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Philip's trip with his partner to Ellis Island the following morning
+tried his temper to the point where he could barely refrain from
+inquiring if the expected immigrant were his relation or Polatkin's,
+for during the entire journey Marcus busied himself making plans for the
+Borrochsons' future.
+
+"The first thing you got to look out for with a greenhorn, Philip," he
+said, "is that you learn 'em good the English language. If a feller
+couldn't talk he couldn't do nothing, understand me, so with the young
+feller especially you shouldn't give him no encouragement to keep on
+talking _Manerloschen_." Philip nodded politely.
+
+"Look at me for instance," Marcus continued; "six months after I landed,
+Philip, I am speaking English already just so good as a doctor or a
+lawyer. And how did I done it? To night school I am going only that they
+should learn me to write, _verstehst du_, _aber_ right at the start old
+man Feinrubin takes me in hand and he talks to me only in English. And
+if I am understanding him, _schon gut_; and if I don't understand him
+then he gives me a _potch_ on the side of the head, Philip, which the
+next time he says it I could understand him good. And that's the way you
+should do with the young feller, Philip. I bet yer he would a damsight
+sooner learn English as get a _Schlag_ every ten minutes."
+
+Again Philip nodded, and by the time they had arrived at the enclosure
+for the relations of immigrants he had become so accustomed to the hum
+of Marcus' conversation that he refrained from uttering even a
+perfunctory "Uh-huh." They sat on a hard bench for more than half an
+hour, while the attendants bawled the common surnames of every country
+from Ireland to Asiatic Turkey, and at length the name Borrochson
+brought Philip to his feet. He rushed to the gateway, followed by
+Marcus, just as a stunted lad of fifteen emerged, staggering under the
+burden of a huge cloth-covered bundle.
+
+"Uncle Philip," the lad cried, dropping the bundle. Then clutching
+Marcus round the neck he showered kisses on his cheeks until Philip
+dragged him away.
+
+"I am your uncle," Philip said in _Jüdisch Deutsch_. "Where is your
+father?"
+
+Without answering the question Yosel Borrochson took a stranglehold of
+Philip and subjected him to a second and more violent osculation. It was
+some minutes before Philip could disengage himself from his nephew's
+embrace and then he led him none too gently to a seat.
+
+"Never mind the kissing," he said; "where's your father?"
+
+"He is not here," Yosel Borrochson replied with a vivid blush.
+
+"I see he is not here," Philip rejoined. "Where is he?"
+
+"He is in Minsk," said young Borrochson.
+
+"In Minsk?" Philip and Marcus cried with one voice, and then Marcus sat
+down on the bench and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy of mirth.
+
+"In Minsk!" he gasped hysterically, and slapped his thighs by way of
+giving expression to his emotions. "Did you ever hear the like?"
+
+"Polatkin, do me the favour," Philip begged, "and don't make a damn fool
+of yourself."
+
+"What did I told you?" Polatkin retorted, but Philip turned to his
+nephew.
+
+"What did your father do with the ticket and the money I sent him?" he
+asked.
+
+"He sold the ticket and he used all the money for the wedding," the boy
+replied.
+
+"The wedding?" Philip exclaimed. "What wedding?"
+
+"The wedding with the widow," said the boy.
+
+"The widow?" Philip and Marcus shouted in unison. "What widow?"
+
+"The landlord's widow," the boy answered shyly.
+
+And then as there seemed nothing else to do he buried his face in his
+hands and wept aloud.
+
+"Nu, Philip," Marcus said, sitting down beside young Borrochson, "could
+the boy help it if his father is a _Ganef_?"
+
+Philip made no reply, and presently Marcus stooped and picked up the
+bundle.
+
+"Come," he said gently, "let's go up to the store."
+
+The journey uptown was not without its unpleasant features, for the size
+of the bundle not only barred them from both subway and elevated, but
+provoked a Broadway car conductor to exhibit what Marcus considered to
+be so biased and illiberal an attitude toward unrestricted immigration
+that he barely avoided a cerebral hemorrhage in resenting it. They
+finally prevailed on the driver of a belt-line car to accept them as
+passengers, and nearly half an hour elapsed before they arrived at
+Desbrosses Street; but after a dozen conductors in turn had declined to
+honour their transfer tickets they made the rest of their journey on
+foot.
+
+Philip and young Borrochson carried the offending bundle, for Marcus
+flatly declined to assist them. Indeed with every block his enthusiasm
+waned, so that when they at length reached Wooster Street his feelings
+toward his partner's nephew had undergone a complete change.
+
+"Don't fetch that thing in here," he said as Philip and young Borrochson
+entered the showroom with the bundle; "leave it in the shop. You got no
+business to bring the young feller up here in the first place."
+
+"What do you mean bring him up here?" Philip cried. "If you wouldn't
+butt in at all I intended to take him to my sister's a cousin on Pitt
+Street."
+
+Marcus threw his hat on a sample table and sat down heavily.
+
+"That's all the gratitude I am getting!" he declared with bitter
+emphasis. "Right in the busy season I dropped everything to help you
+out, and you turn on me like this."
+
+He rose to his feet suddenly, and seizing the bundle with both hands he
+flung it violently through the doorway.
+
+"Take him to Pitt Street," he said. "Take him to the devil for all I
+care. I am through with him."
+
+But Philip conducted his nephew no farther than round the corner on
+Canal Street, and when an hour later Yosel Borrochson returned with his
+uncle his top-boots had been discarded forever, while his wrinkled,
+semi-military garb had been exchanged for a neat suit of Oxford gray.
+Moreover, both he and Philip had consumed a hearty meal of coffee and
+rolls and were accordingly prepared to take a more cheerful outlook upon
+life, especially Philip.
+
+"_Bleib du hier_," he said as he led young Borrochson to a chair in the
+cutting room. "_Ich Komm bald zurück._"
+
+Then mindful of his partner's advice he broke into English. "Shtay
+here," he repeated in loud, staccato accents. "I would be right back.
+_Verstehst du?_"
+
+"Yess-ss," Yosel replied, uttering his first word of English.
+
+With a delighted grin Philip walked to the showroom, where Polatkin sat
+wiping away the crumbs of a belated luncheon of two dozen zwieback and a
+can of coffee.
+
+"_Nu_," he said conciliatingly, "what is it now?"
+
+"Marcus," Philip began with a nod of his head in the direction of the
+cutting room, "I want to show you something a picture."
+
+"A picture!" Polatkin repeated as he rose to his feet. "What do you mean
+a picture?"
+
+"Come," Philip said; "I'll show you."
+
+He led the way to the cutting room, where Yosel sat awaiting his uncle's
+return.
+
+"What do you think of him now?" Philip demanded. "Ain't he a
+good-looking young feller?"
+
+Marcus shrugged in a non-committal manner.
+
+"Look what a bright eye he got it," Philip insisted. "You could tell by
+looking at him only that he comes from a good family."
+
+"He looks a boy like any other boy," said Marcus.
+
+"But even if no one would told you, Marcus, you could see from his
+forehead yet--and the big head he's got it--you could see that
+somewheres is _Rabonim_ in the family."
+
+"Yow!" Marcus exclaimed. "You could just so much see from his head that
+his grandfather is a rabbi as you could see from his hands that his
+father is a crook." He turned impatiently away. "So instead you should
+be talking a lot of nonsense, Philip, you should set the boy to work
+sweeping the floor," he continued. "Also for a beginning we would start
+him in at three dollars a week, and if the boy gets worth it pretty soon
+we could give him four."
+
+In teaching his nephew the English language Philip Scheikowitz adopted
+no particular system of pedagogy, but he combined the methods of
+Ollendorf, Chardenal, Ahn and Polatkin so successfully that in a few
+days Joseph possessed a fairly extensive vocabulary. To be sure, every
+other word was acquired at the cost of a clump over the side of the
+head, but beyond a slight ringing of the left ear that persisted for
+nearly six months the Polatkin method of instruction vindicated itself,
+and by the end of the year Joseph's speech differed in no way from that
+of his employers.
+
+"Ain't it something which you really could say is wonderful the way that
+boy gets along?" Philip declared to his partner, as the first
+anniversary of Joseph's landing approached. "Honestly, Marcus, that boy
+talks English like he would be born here already."
+
+"Sure, I know," Marcus agreed. "He's got altogether too much to say for
+himself. Only this morning he tells me he wants a raise to six dollars a
+week."
+
+"Could you blame him?" Philip asked mildly. "He's doing good work here,
+Marcus."
+
+"Yow! he's doing good work!" Marcus exclaimed. "He's fresh like
+anything, Scheikowitz. If you give him the least little encouragement,
+Scheikowitz, he would stand there and talk to you all day yet."
+
+"Not to me he don't," Philip retorted. "Lots of times I am asking him
+questions about the folks in the old country and always he tells me:
+'With greenhorns like them I don't bother myself at all.' Calls his
+father a greenhorn yet!"
+
+Marcus flapped his right hand in a gesture of impatience.
+
+"He could call his father a whole lot worse," he said. "Why, that
+_Ganef_ ain't even wrote you at all since the boy comes over here. Not
+only he's a crook, Scheikowitz, but he's got a heart like a brick."
+
+Philip shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What difference does it make if he is a crook?" he rejoined. "The boy's
+all right anyway. Yes, Marcus, the boy is something which you could
+really say is a jewel."
+
+"_Geh weg!_" Marcus cried disgustedly--"a jewel!"
+
+"That's what I said," Philip continued--"a jewel. Tell me, Marcus, how
+many boys would you find it which they are getting from three to five
+dollars a week and in one year saves up a hundred dollars, y'understand,
+and comes to me only this morning and says to me I should take the money
+for what it costs to keep him while he is learning the language, and for
+buying him his clothes when he first comes here. Supposing his father is
+a crook, Marcus, am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Talk is cheap, Scheikowitz," Marcus retorted. "He only says he would
+pay you the money, Scheikowitz, ain't it?"
+
+Philip dug down into his pocket and produced a roll of ragged one and
+two dollar bills, which he flung angrily on to a sample table.
+
+"Count 'em," he said.
+
+Marcus shrugged again.
+
+"What is it my business?" he said. "And anyhow, Scheikowitz, I must say
+I'm surprised at you. A poor boy saves up a hundred dollars out of the
+little we are paying him here, and actually you are taking the money
+from him. Couldn't you afford it to spend on the boy a hundred dollars?"
+
+"Sure I could," Philip replied as he pocketed the bills. "Sure I could
+and I'm going to too. I'm going to take this here money and put it in
+the bank for the boy, with a hundred dollars to boot, Polatkin, and when
+the boy gets to be twenty-one he would anyhow got in savings bank a
+couple hundred dollars."
+
+Polatkin nodded shamefacedly.
+
+"Furthermore, Polatkin," Philip continued, "if you got such a regard for
+the boy which you say you got it, understand me, I would like to make
+you a proposition. Ever since Gifkin leaves us, y'understand, we got in
+our cutting room one _Schlemiel_ after another. Ain't it? Only yesterday
+we got to fire that young feller we took on last week, understand me,
+and if we get somebody else in his place to-day, Polatkin, the chances
+is we would get rid of him to-morrow, and so it goes."
+
+Again Polatkin nodded.
+
+"So, therefore, what is the use talking, Polatkin?" Philip concluded.
+"Let us take Joe Borrochson and learn him he should be a cutter, and in
+six months' time, Polatkin, I bet yer he would be just so good a cutter
+as anybody."
+
+At this juncture Polatkin raised his hand with the palm outward.
+
+"Stop right there, Scheikowitz," he said. "You are making a fool of
+yourself, Scheikowitz, because, Scheikowitz, admitting for the sake of
+no arguments about it that the boy is a good boy, understand me, after
+all he's only a boy, ain't it, and if you are coming to make a
+sixteen-year-old boy an assistant cutter, y'understand, the least that
+we could expect is that our customers fires half our goods back at us."
+
+"But----" Scheikowitz began.
+
+"But, nothing, Scheikowitz," Polatkin interrupted. "This morning I seen
+it Meyer Gifkin on Canal Street and he ain't working for them suckers no
+more; and I says to him is he willing to come back here at the same
+wages, and he says yes, providing you would see that this here feller
+Borrochson wouldn't pretty near kill him."
+
+"What do you mean pretty near kill him?" Scheikowitz cried. "Do you mean
+to say he is afraid of a boy like Joe Borrochson?"
+
+"Not Joe Borrochson," Polatkin replied. "He is all the time thinking
+that your brother-in-law Borrochson comes over here with his boy and is
+working in our place yet, and when I told him that that crook didn't
+come over at all Meyer says that's the first he hears about it or he
+would have asked for his job back long since already. So he says he
+would come in here to see us this afternoon."
+
+"But----" Scheikowitz began again.
+
+"Furthermore," Polatkin continued hastily, "if I would got a nephew in
+my place, Scheikowitz, I would a damsight sooner he stays working on the
+stock till he knows enough to sell goods on the road as that he learns
+to be a cutter. Ain't it?"
+
+Scheikowitz sighed heavily by way of surrender.
+
+"All right, Polatkin," he said; "if you're so dead set on taking this
+here feller Gifkin back go ahead. But one thing I must got to tell you:
+If you are taking a feller back which you fired once, understand me, he
+acts so independent you couldn't do nothing with him at all."
+
+"Leave that to me," Polatkin said, as he started for the cutting room,
+and when Scheikowitz followed him he found that Gifkin had already
+arrived.
+
+"_Wie gehts_, Mister Scheikowitz?" Gifkin cried, and Philip received the
+salutation with a distant nod.
+
+"I hope you don't hold no hard feelings for me," Gifkin began.
+
+"Me hold hard feelings for you?" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "I guess you
+forget yourself, Gifkin. A boss don't hold no hard feelings for a feller
+which is working in the place, Gifkin; otherwise the feller gets fired
+and stays fired, Gifkin."
+
+At this juncture Polatkin in the rôle of peacemaker created a diversion.
+
+"Joe," he called to young Borrochson, who was passing the cutting-room
+door, "come in here a minute."
+
+He turned to Gifkin as Joe entered.
+
+"I guess you seen this young feller before?" he said.
+
+Gifkin looked hard at Joe for a minute.
+
+"I think I seen him before somewheres," he replied.
+
+"Sure you seen him before," Polatkin rejoined. "His name is Borrochson."
+
+"Borrochson!" Gifkin cried, and Joe, whose colour had heightened at the
+close scrutiny to which he had been subjected, began to grow pale.
+
+"Sure, Yosel Borrochson, the son of your old neighbour," Polatkin
+explained, but Gifkin shook his head slowly.
+
+"That ain't Yosel Borrochson," he declared, and then it was that
+Polatkin and Scheikowitz first noticed Joe's embarrassment. Indeed even
+as they gazed at him his features worked convulsively once or twice and
+he dropped unconscious to the floor.
+
+In the scene of excitement that ensued Gifkin's avowed discovery was
+temporarily forgotten, but when Joe was again restored to consciousness
+Polatkin drew Gifkin aside and requested an explanation.
+
+"What do you mean the boy ain't Yosel Borrochson?" he demanded.
+
+"I mean the boy ain't Yosel Borrochson," Gifkin replied deliberately. "I
+know this here boy, Mr. Polatkin, and, furthermore, Borrochson's boy is
+got one bum eye, which he gets hit with a stone in it when he was only
+four years old already. Don't I know it, Mr. Polatkin, when with my own
+eyes I seen this here boy throw the stone yet?"
+
+"Well, then, who is this boy?" Marcus Polatkin insisted.
+
+"He's a boy by the name Lubliner," Gifkin replied, "which his father was
+Pincus Lubliner, also a crook, Mr. Polatkin, which he would steal
+anything from a toothpick to an oitermobile, understand me."
+
+"Pincus Lubliner!" Polatkin repeated hoarsely.
+
+"That's who I said," Gifkin continued, rushing headlong to his
+destruction. "Pincus Lubliner, which honestly, Mr. Polatkin, there's
+nothing that feller wouldn't do--a regular _Rosher_ if ever there was
+one."
+
+For one brief moment Polatkin's eyes flashed angrily, and then with a
+resounding smack his open hand struck Gifkin's cheek.
+
+"Liar!" he shouted. "What do you mean by it?"
+
+Scheikowitz, who had been tenderly bathing Joe Borrochson's head with
+water, rushed forward at the sound of the blow.
+
+"Marcus," he cried, "for Heaven's sake, what are you doing? You
+shouldn't kill the feller just because he makes a mistake and thinks the
+boy ain't Joe Borrochson."
+
+"He makes too many mistakes," Polatkin roared. "Calls Pincus Lubliner a
+crook and a murderer yet, which his mother was my own father's a sister.
+Did you ever hear the like?"
+
+He made a threatening gesture toward Gifkin, who cowered in a chair.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Marcus," Scheikowitz asked, "what has Pincus Lubliner
+got to do with this?"
+
+"He's got a whole lot to do with it," Marcus replied, and then his eyes
+rested on Joe Borrochson, who had again lapsed into unconsciousness.
+
+"Oo-ee!" Marcus cried. "The poor boy is dead."
+
+He swept Philip aside and ran to the water-cooler, whence he returned
+with the drip-bucket brimming over. This he emptied on Joe Borrochson's
+recumbent form, and after a quarter of an hour the recovery was
+permanent. In the meantime Philip had interviewed Meyer Gifkin to such
+good purpose that when he entered the firm's office with Meyer Gifkin at
+his heels he was fairly spluttering with rage.
+
+"Thief!" he yelled. "Out of here before I make you arrested."
+
+"Who the devil you think you are talking to?" Marcus demanded.
+
+"I am talking to Joseph Borrochson," Scheikowitz replied. "That's who
+I'm talking to."
+
+"Well, there ain't no such person here," Polatkin retorted. "There's
+here only a young fellow by the name Elkan Lubliner, which he is my own
+father's sister a grandson, and he ain't no more a thief as you are."
+
+"Ain't he?" Philip retorted. "Well, all I can say is he is a thief and
+his whole family is thieves, the one worser as the other."
+
+Marcus glowered at his partner.
+
+"You should be careful what you are speaking about," he said. "Maybe you
+ain't aware that this here boy's grandfather on his father's side was
+_Reb_ Mosha, the big _Lubliner Rav_, a _Chosid_ and a _Tzadek_ if ever
+there was one."
+
+"What difference does that make?" Philip demanded. "He is stealing my
+brother-in-law's passage ticket anyhow."
+
+"I didn't steal it," the former Joseph Borrochson cried. "My father paid
+him good money for it, because Borrochson says he wanted it to marry the
+widow with; and you also I am paying a hundred dollars."
+
+"Yow! Your father paid him good money for it!" Philip jeered. "A _Ganef_
+like your father is stealing the money, too, I bet yer."
+
+"_Oser a Stück_," Polatkin declared. "I am sending him the money myself
+to help bury his aunt, Mrs. Lebowitz."
+
+"You sent him the money?" Philip cried. "And your own partner you didn't
+tell nothing about it at all!"
+
+"What is it your business supposing I am sending money to the old
+country?" Marcus retorted. "Do you ask me an advice when you are sending
+away money to the old country?"
+
+"But the feller didn't bury his aunt at all," Philip said.
+
+"Yes, he did too," the former Joseph Borrochson protested. "Instead of a
+hundred dollars the funeral only costs fifty. Anybody could make an
+overestimate. Ain't it?"
+
+Marcus nodded.
+
+"The boy is right, Philip," he said, "and anyhow what does this loafer
+come butting in here for?"
+
+As he spoke he indicated Meyer Gifkin with a jerk of the chin.
+
+"He ain't butting in here," Philip declared; "he comes in here because I
+told him to. I want you should make an end of this nonsense, Polatkin,
+and hire a decent assistant cutter. Gifkin is willing to come back for
+twenty dollars a week."
+
+"He is, is he?" Marcus cried. "Well, if he was willing to come back for
+twenty dollars a week why didn't he come back before? Now it's too
+late; I got other plans. Besides, twenty dollars is too much."
+
+"You know very well why I ain't come back before, Mr. Polatkin," Gifkin
+protested. "I was afraid for my life from that murderer Borrochson."
+
+Philip scowled suddenly.
+
+"My partner is right, Gifkin," he said. "Twenty dollars is too much."
+
+"No, it ain't," Gifkin declared. "If I would be still working for you,
+Mr. Scheikowitz, I would be getting more as twenty dollars by now. And
+was it my fault you are firing me? By rights I should have sued you in
+the courts yet."
+
+"What d'ye mean sue us in the courts?" Philip exclaimed. He was growing
+increasingly angry, but Gifkin heeded no warning.
+
+"Because you are firing me just for saying a crook is a crook," Gifkin
+replied, "and here lately you found out for yourself this here
+Borrochson is nothing but a _Schwindler_--a _Ganef_."
+
+"What are you talking about--a _Schwindler_?" Philip cried, now
+thoroughly aroused. "Ain't you heard the boy says Borrochson is marrying
+the landlord's widow? Could a man get married on wind, Gifkin?"
+
+"Yow! he married the landlord's widow!" Gifkin said. "I bet yer that
+crook gambles away the money; and, anyhow, could you believe anything
+this here boy tells you, Mr. Scheikowitz?"
+
+The question fell on deaf ears, however, for at the repetition of the
+word crook Philip flung open the office door.
+
+"Out of here," he roared, "before I kick you out."
+
+Simultaneously Marcus grabbed the luckless Gifkin by the collar, and
+just what occurred between the office and the stairs could be deduced
+from the manner in which Marcus limped back to the office.
+
+"_Gott sei Dank_ we are rid of the fellow," he said as he came in.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Although Philip Scheikowitz arrived at his place of business at
+half-past seven the following morning he found that Marcus and Elkan
+Lubliner had preceded him, for when he entered the showroom Marcus
+approached with a broad grin on his face and pointed to the cutting
+room, where stood Elkan Lubliner. In the boy's right hand was clutched a
+pair of cutter's shears, and guided by chalked lines he was laboriously
+slicing up a roll of sample paper.
+
+"Ain't he a picture?" Marcus exclaimed.
+
+"A picture!" Philip repeated. "What d'ye mean a picture?"
+
+"Why, the way he stands there with them shears, Philip," Marcus replied.
+"He's really what you could call a born cutter if ever there was one."
+
+"A cutter!" Philip cried.
+
+"Sure," Marcus went on. "It's never too soon for a young feller to
+learn all sides of his trade, Philip. He's been long enough on the
+stock. Now he should learn to be a cutter, and I bet yer in six months'
+time yet he would be just so good a cutter as anybody."
+
+Philip was too dazed to make any comment before Marcus obtained a fresh
+start.
+
+"A smart boy like him, Philip, learns awful quick," he said. "Ain't it
+funny how blood shows up? Now you take a boy like him which he comes
+from decent, respectable family, Philip, and he's got real gumption. I
+think I told you his grandfather on his father's side was a big rabbi,
+the _Lubliner Rav_."
+
+Philip nodded.
+
+"And even if I didn't told you," Marcus went on, "you could tell it from
+his face."
+
+Again Philip nodded.
+
+"And another thing I want to talk to you about," Marcus said, hastening
+after him: "the hundred dollars the boy gives you you should keep,
+Philip. And if you are spending more than that on the boy I would make
+it good."
+
+Philip dug down absently into his trousers pocket and brought forth the
+roll of dirty bills.
+
+"Take it," he said, throwing it toward his partner. "I don't want it."
+
+"What d'ye mean you don't want it?" Marcus cried.
+
+"I mean I ain't got no hard feelings against the boy," Philip replied.
+"I am thinking it over all night, and I come to the conclusion so long
+as I started in being the boy's uncle I would continue that way. So you
+should put the money in the savings bank like I says yesterday."
+
+"But----" Marcus protested.
+
+"But nothing," Philip interrupted. "Do what I am telling you."
+
+Marcus blinked hard and cleared his throat with a great, rasping noise.
+
+"After all," he said huskily, "it don't make no difference how many
+crooks _oder Ganevim_ is in a feller's family, Philip, so long as he's
+got a good, straight business man for a partner."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+APPENWEIER'S ACCOUNT
+
+HOW ELKAN LUBLINER GRADUATED INTO SALESMANSHIP
+
+
+"When I hire a salesman, Mr. Klugfels," said Marcus Polatkin, senior
+partner of Polatkin & Scheikowitz, "I hire him because he's a salesman,
+not because he's a nephew."
+
+"But it don't do any harm for a salesman to have an uncle whose concern
+would buy in one season from you already ten thousand dollars goods, Mr.
+Polatkin," Klugfels insisted. "Furthermore, Harry is a bright, smart
+boy; and you can take it from me, Mr. Polatkin, not alone he would get
+my trade, but us buyers is got a whole lot of influence one with the
+other, understand me; so, if there's any other concern you haven't on
+your books at present, you could rely on me I should do my best for
+Harry and you."
+
+Thus spoke Mr. Felix Klugfels, buyer for Appenweier & Murray's
+Thirty-second Street store, on the first Monday of January; and in
+consequence on the second Monday of January Harry Flaxberg came to work
+as city salesman for Polatkin & Scheikowitz. He also maintained the rôle
+of party of the second part in a contract drawn by Henry D. Feldman,
+whose skill in such matters is too well known for comment here.
+Sufficient to say it fixed Harry Flaxberg's compensation at thirty
+dollars a week and moderate commissions. At Polatkin's request, however,
+the document was so worded that it excluded Flaxberg from selling any of
+the concerns already on Polatkin & Scheikowitz's books; for not only did
+he doubt Flaxberg's ability as a salesman, but he was quite conscious of
+the circumstance that, save for the acquisition of Appenweier & Murray's
+account, there was no need of their hiring a city salesman at all, since
+the scope of their business operations required only one salesman--to
+wit, as the lawyers say, Marcus Polatkin himself. On the other hand,
+Klugfels had insisted upon the safeguarding of his nephew's interests,
+so that the latter was reasonably certain of a year's steady employment.
+Hence, when, on the first Monday of February, Appenweier & Murray
+dispensed with the services of Mr. Klugfels before he had had the
+opportunity of bestowing even one order on his nephew as a mark of his
+favour, the business premises of Polatkin & Scheikowitz became forthwith
+a house of mourning. From the stricken principals down to and including
+the shipping clerk nothing else was spoken of or thought about for a
+period of more than two weeks. Neither was it a source of much
+consolation to Marcus Polatkin when he heard that Klugfels had been
+supplanted by Max Lapin, a third cousin of Leon Sammet of the firm of
+Sammet Brothers.
+
+"Ain't it terrible the way people is related nowadays?" he said to
+Scheikowitz, who had just read aloud the news of Max Lapin's hiring in
+the columns of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_.
+
+"Honestly, Scheikowitz, if a feller ain't got a lot of retailers _oder_
+buyers for distance relations, understand me, he might just so well go
+out of business and be done with it!"
+
+Scheikowitz threw down the paper impatiently.
+
+"That's where you are making a big mistake, Polatkin," he said. "A
+feller which he expects to do business with relations is just so good as
+looking for trouble. You could never depend on relations that they are
+going to keep on buying goods from you, Polatkin. The least little thing
+happens between relations, understand me, and they are getting right
+away enemies for life; while, if it was just between friends, Polatkin,
+one friend makes for the other a blue eye, understand me, and in two
+weeks' time they are just so good friends as ever. So, even if
+Appenweier & Murray wouldn't fire him, y'understand, Klugfels would have
+dumped this young feller on us anyway."
+
+As he spoke he looked through the office door toward the showroom,
+where Harry Flaxberg sat with his feet cocked up on a sample table
+midway in the perusal of the sporting page.
+
+"Flaxberg," Scheikowitz cried, "what are we showing here
+anyway--garments _oder_ shoes? You are ruining our sample tables the way
+you are acting!"
+
+Flaxberg replaced his feet on the floor and put down his paper.
+
+"It's time some one ruined them tables on you, Mr. Scheikowitz," he
+said. "With the junk fixtures you got it here I'm ashamed to bring a
+customer into the place at all."
+
+"That's all right," Scheikowitz retorted; "for all the customers you are
+bringing in here, Flaxberg, we needn't got no fixtures at all. Come
+inside the office--my partner wants to speak to you a few words
+something."
+
+Flaxberg rose leisurely to his feet and, carefully shaking each leg in
+turn to restore the unwrinkled perfection of his trousers, walked toward
+the office.
+
+"Tell me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried as he entered, "what are you going
+to do about this here account of Appenweier & Murray's?"
+
+"What am I going to do about it?" Flaxberg repeated. "Why, what could I
+do about it? Every salesman is liable to lose one account, Mr.
+Polatkin."
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin answered; "but most every other salesman is got
+some other accounts to fall back on. Whereas if a salesman is just got
+one account, Flaxberg, and he loses it, understand me, then he ain't a
+salesman no longer, Flaxberg. Right away he becomes only a loafer,
+Flaxberg, and the best thing he could do, understand me, is to go and
+find a job somewheres else."
+
+"Not when he's got a contract, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg retorted
+promptly. "And specially a contract which the boss fixes up
+himself--ain't it?"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded and scowled savagely at his partner.
+
+"Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried. "Do you mean to told me
+that, even if a salesman would got ever so much a crazy contract,
+understand me, it allows the salesman he should sit all the time doing
+nothing in the showroom without we got a right to fire him?"
+
+"Well," Flaxberg replied calmly, "it gives him the privilege to go out
+to lunch once in a while."
+
+He pulled down his waistcoat with exaggerated care and turned on his
+heel.
+
+"So I would be back in an hour," he concluded; "and if any customers
+come in and ask for me tell 'em to take a seat till I am coming back."
+
+The two partners watched him until he put on his hat and coat in the
+rear of the showroom and then Polatkin rose to his feet.
+
+"Flaxberg," he cried, "wait a minute!"
+
+Flaxberg returned to the office and nonchalantly lit a cigarette.
+
+"Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin began. "Take from us a hundred
+and fifty dollars and quit!"
+
+Flaxberg continued the operation of lighting his cigarette and blew a
+great cloud of smoke before replying.
+
+"What for a piker do you think I am anyhow?" he asked.
+
+"What d'ye mean--piker?" Polatkin said. "A hundred and fifty ain't to be
+sneezed at, Flaxberg."
+
+"Ain't it?" Flaxberg retorted. "Well, with me, I got a more delicate
+nose as most people, Mr. Polatkin. I sneeze at everything under five
+hundred dollars--and that's all there is to it."
+
+Once more he turned on his heel and walked out of the office; but this
+time his progress toward the stairs was more deliberate, for, despite
+his defiant attitude, Flaxberg's finances were at low ebb owing to a
+marked reversal of form exhibited the previous day in the third race at
+New Orleans. Moreover, he felt confident that a judicious investment of
+a hundred and fifty dollars would net him that very afternoon at least
+five hundred dollars, if any reliance were to be placed on the selection
+of Merlando, the eminent sporting writer of the _Morning Wireless_.
+
+Consequently he afforded every opportunity for Marcus to call him back,
+and he even paused at the factory door and applied a lighted match to
+his already burning cigarette. The expected summons failed, however,
+and instead he was nearly precipitated to the foot of the stairs by no
+less a person than Elkan Lubliner.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Flaxberg," Elkan said. "I ain't seen you at all."
+
+Flaxberg turned suddenly, but at the sight of Elkan his anger evaporated
+as he recalled a piece of gossip retailed by Sam Markulies, the shipping
+clerk, to the effect that, despite his eighteen years, Elkan had at
+least two savings-bank accounts and kept in his pocket a bundle of bills
+as large as a roll of piece goods.
+
+"That's all right," Flaxberg cried with a forced grin. "I ain't
+surprised you are pretty near blinded when you are coming into the
+daylight out of the cutting room. It's dark in there like a tomb."
+
+"I bet yer," Elkan said fervently.
+
+"You should get into the air more often," Flaxberg went on. "A feller
+could get all sorts of things the matter with him staying in a hole like
+that."
+
+"_Gott sei dank_ I got, anyhow, my health," Elkan commented.
+
+"Sure, I know," Flaxberg said as they reached the street; "but you must
+got to take care of it too. A feller which he don't get no exercise
+should ought to eat well, Lubliner. For instance, I bet yer you are
+taking every day your lunch in a bakery--ain't it?"
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"Well, there you are!" Flaxberg cried triumphantly. "A feller works all
+the time in a dark hole like that cutting room, and comes lunchtime he
+_fresses_ a bunch of _Kuchen_ and a cup of coffee, _verstehst du_--and
+is it any wonder you are looking sick?"
+
+"I feel all right," Elkan said.
+
+"I know you feel all right," Flaxberg continued, "but you look something
+terrible, Lubliner. Just for to-day, Lubliner, take my advice and try
+Wasserbauer's regular dinner."
+
+Elkan laughed aloud.
+
+"Wasserbauer's!" he exclaimed. "Why, what do you think I am, Mr.
+Flaxberg? If I would be a salesman like you, Mr. Flaxberg, I would say,
+'Yes; eat once in a while at Wasserbauer's'; _aber_ for an assistant
+cutter, Mr. Flaxberg, Wasserbauer's is just so high like the Waldorfer."
+
+"That's all right," Flaxberg retorted airily. "No one asks you you
+should pay for it. Come and have a decent meal with me."
+
+For a brief interval Elkan hesitated, but at length he surrendered, and
+five minutes later he found himself seated opposite Harry Flaxberg in
+the rear of Wasserbauer's café.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Flaxberg," he said as he commenced the fourth of a series of
+dill pickles, "compared with a salesman, a cutter is a dawg's
+life--ain't it?"
+
+"Well," Flaxberg commented, "he is and he isn't. There's no reason why a
+cutter shouldn't enjoy life too, Lubliner. A cutter could make money on
+the side just so good as a salesman. I am acquainted already with a
+pants cutter by the name Schmul Kleidermann which, one afternoon last
+week, he pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars yet."
+
+"Pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars!" Elkan exclaimed. "From where
+he pulls it down, Mr. Flaxberg?"
+
+"Not from the pants business _oser_," Flaxberg replied. "The feller
+reads the papers, Lubliner, and that's how he makes his money."
+
+"You mean he is speculating in these here stocks from stock exchanges?"
+Elkan asked.
+
+"Not stocks," Flaxberg replied in shocked accents. "From _spieling_ the
+stock markets a feller could lose his shirt yet. Never play the stock
+markets, Lubliner. That's something which you could really say a feller
+ruins himself for life with."
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"Even _im Russland_ it's the same," he said.
+
+"Sure," Flaxberg went on. "_Aber_ this feller Kleidermann he makes a
+study of it. The name of the horse was Prince Faithful. On New Year's
+Day he runs fourth in a field of six. The next week he is in the money
+for a show with such old-timers as Aurora Borealis, Dixie Lad and
+Ramble Home--and last week he gets away with it six to one a winner,
+understand me; and this afternoon yet, over to Judge Crowley's, I could
+get a price five to two a place, understand me, which it is like picking
+up money in the street already."
+
+Elkan paused in the process of commencing the sixth pickle and gazed in
+wide-eyed astonishment at his host.
+
+"So you see, Lubliner," Flaxberg concluded, "if you would put up twenty
+dollars, understand me, you could make fifty dollars more, like turning
+your hand over."
+
+Elkan laid down his half-eaten pickle.
+
+"Do you mean to say you want me I should put up twenty dollars on a
+horse which it is running with other horses a race?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well," Flaxberg replied, "of course, if you got objections to putting
+up money on a horse, Lubliner, why, don't do it. Lend it me instead the
+twenty dollars and I would play it; and if the horse should--_Gott soll
+hüten_--not be in the money, y'understand, then I would give you the
+twenty dollars back Saturday at the latest. _Aber_ if the horse makes a
+place, understand me, then I would give you your money back this
+afternoon yet and ten dollars to boot."
+
+For one wavering moment Elkan raised the pickle to his lips and then
+replaced it on the table. Then he licked off his fingers and explored
+the recess of his waistcoat pocket.
+
+"Here," he said, producing a dime--"here is for the dill pickles, Mr.
+Flaxberg."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" Flaxberg cried.
+
+"I mean this," Elkan said, putting on his hat--"I mean you should save
+your money with me and blow instead your friend Kleidermann to dinner,
+because the proposition ain't attractive."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Yes, Mr. Redman," Elkan commented when he resumed his duties as
+assistant cutter after the five and a half dill pickles had been
+supplemented with a hasty meal of rolls and coffee, "for a _Schlemiel_
+like him to call himself a salesman--honestly, it's a disgrace!"
+
+He addressed his remarks to Joseph Redman, head cutter for Polatkin &
+Scheikowitz, who plied his shears industriously at an adjoining table.
+Joseph, like every other employee of Polatkin & Scheikowitz, was
+thoroughly acquainted with the details of Flaxberg's hiring and its
+dénouement. Nevertheless, in his quality of head cutter, he professed a
+becoming ignorance.
+
+"Who is this which you are knocking now?" he asked.
+
+"I am knocking some one which he's got a right to be knocked," Elkan
+replied. "I am knocking this here feller Flaxberg, which he calls
+himself a salesman. That feller couldn't sell a drink of water in the
+Sahara Desert, Mr. Redman. All he cares about is gambling and going on
+theaytres. Why, if I would be in his shoes, Mr. Redman, I wouldn't eat
+or I wouldn't sleep till I got from Appenweier & Murray an order. Never
+mind if my uncle would be fired and Mr. Lapin, the new buyer, is a
+relation from Sammet Brothers, Mr. Redman, I would get that account,
+understand me, or I would _verplatz_."
+
+"_Yow_, you would do wonders!" Redman said. "The best thing you could
+do, Lubliner, is to close up your face and get to work. You shouldn't
+got so much to say for yourself. A big mouth is only for a salesman,
+Lubliner. For a cutter it's nix, understand me; so you should give me a
+rest with this here Appenweier & Murray's account and get busy on them
+2060's. We are behind with 'em as it is."
+
+Thus admonished, Elkan lapsed into silence; and for more than half an
+hour he pursued his duties diligently.
+
+"_Nu!_" Redman said at length. "What's the matter you are acting so
+quiet this afternoon?"
+
+"What d'ye mean I am acting quiet, Mr. Redman?" Elkan asked. "I am
+thinking--that's all. Without a feller would think once in a while, Mr.
+Redman, he remains a cutter all his life."
+
+"There's worser things as cutters," Redman commented. "For
+instance--assistant cutters."
+
+"Sure, I know," Elkan agreed; "but salesmen is a whole lot better as
+cutters _oder_ assistant cutters. A salesman sees life, Mr. Redman. He
+meets oncet in a while people, Mr. Redman; while, with us, what is it?
+We are shut up here like we would be sitting in prison--ain't it?"
+
+"You ain't got no kick coming," Redman said. "A young feller only going
+on eighteen, understand me, is getting ten dollars a week and he kicks
+yet. Sitting in prison, _sagt er_! Maybe you would like the concern they
+should be putting in moving pictures here or a phonygraft!"
+
+Elkan sighed heavily by way of reply and for a quarter of an hour longer
+he worked in quietness, until Redman grew worried at his assistant's
+unusual taciturnity.
+
+"What's the trouble you ain't talking, Lubliner?" he said. "Don't you
+feel so good?"
+
+Elkan looked up. He was about to say that he felt all right when
+suddenly he received the germ of an inspiration, and in the few seconds
+that he hesitated it blossomed into a well-defined plan of action. He
+therefore emitted a faint groan and laid down his shears.
+
+"I got a _krank_ right here," he said, placing his hand on his left
+side. "Ever since last week I got it."
+
+"Well, why don't you say something about it before?" Redman cried
+anxiously; for be it remembered that Elkan Lubliner was not only the
+cousin of Marcus Polatkin but the adopted nephew of Philip Scheikowitz
+as well. "You shouldn't let such things go."
+
+"The fact is," Elkan replied, "I didn't want to say nothing about it to
+Mr. Polatkin on account he's got enough to worry him with this here
+Appenweier & Murray's account; and----"
+
+"You got that account on the brain," Redman interrupted. "If you don't
+feel so good you should go home. Leave me fix it for you."
+
+As he spoke he hastily buttoned on his collar and left the cutting room,
+while Elkan could not forego a delighted grin. After all, he reflected,
+he had worked steadily for over a year and a half with only such
+holidays as the orthodox ritual ordained; and he was so busy making
+plans for his first afternoon of freedom that he nearly forgot to groan
+again when Redman came back with Marcus Polatkin at his heels.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan!" Marcus said. "What's the matter? Don't you feel good?"
+
+"I got a _krank_ right here," Elkan replied, placing his hand on his
+right side. "I got it now pretty near a week already."
+
+"Well, maybe you should sit down for the rest of the afternoon and file
+away the old cutting slips," Marcus said, whereat Elkan moaned and
+closed his eyes.
+
+"I filed 'em away last week already," he murmured. "I think maybe if I
+would lay in bed the rest of the afternoon I would be all right
+to-morrow."
+
+Marcus gazed earnestly at his cousin, whose sufferings seemed to be
+intensified thereby.
+
+"All right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead. Go home and tell Mrs. Feinermann
+she should give you a little _Brusttee_; and if you don't feel better in
+the morning don't take it so particular to get here early."
+
+Elkan nodded weakly and five minutes later walked slowly out of the
+factory. He took the stairs only a little less slowly, but he gradually
+increased his speed as he proceeded along Wooster Street, until by the
+time he was out of sight of the firm's office windows he was fairly
+running. Thus he arrived at his boarding place on Pitt Street in less
+than half an hour--just in time to interrupt Mrs. Sarah Feinermann as
+she was about to start on a shopping excursion uptown. Mrs. Feinermann
+exclaimed aloud at the sight of him, and her complexion grew perceptibly
+less florid, for his advent in Pitt Street at that early hour could have
+but one meaning.
+
+"What's the matter--you are getting fired?" she asked.
+
+"What d'ye mean--getting fired?" Elkan replied. "I ain't fired. I got an
+afternoon off."
+
+Mrs. Feinermann heaved a sigh of relief. As the recipient of Elkan's
+five dollars a week board-money, payable strictly in advance, she
+naturally evinced a hearty interest in his financial affairs. Moreover,
+she was distantly related to Elkan's father; and owing to this kinship
+her husband, Marx Feinermann, foreman for Kupferberg Brothers, was of
+the impression that she charged Elkan only three dollars and fifty cents
+a week. The underestimate more than paid Mrs. Feinermann's millinery
+bill, and she was consequently under the necessity of buying Elkan's
+silence with small items of laundry work and an occasional egg for
+breakfast. This arrangement suited Elkan very well indeed; and though he
+had eaten his lunch only an hour previously he thought it the part of
+prudence to insist that she prepare a meal for him, by way of
+maintaining his privileges as Mrs. Feinermann's fellow conspirator.
+
+"But I am just now getting dressed to go uptown," she protested.
+
+"Where to?" he demanded.
+
+"I got a little shopping to do," she said; and Elkan snapped his fingers
+in the conception of a brilliant idea.
+
+"Good!" he exclaimed. "I would go with you. In three minutes I would
+wash myself and change my clothes--and I'll be right with you."
+
+"But I got to stop in and see Marx first," she insisted. "I want to tell
+him something."
+
+"I wanted to tell him something lots of times already," Elkan said
+significantly; and Mrs. Feinermann sat down in the nearest chair while
+Elkan disappeared into the adjoining room and performed a hasty toilet.
+
+"_Schon gut_," he said as he emerged from his room five minutes later;
+"we would go right up to Appenweier & Murray's."
+
+"But I ain't said I am going up to Appenweier & Murray's," Mrs.
+Feinermann cried. "Such a high-price place I couldn't afford to deal
+with at all."
+
+"I didn't say you could," Elkan replied; "but it don't do no harm to get
+yourself used to such places, on account might before long you could
+afford to deal there maybe."
+
+"What d'ye mean I could afford to deal there before long?" Mrs.
+Feinermann inquired.
+
+"I mean this," Elkan said, and they started down the stairs--"I mean, if
+things turn out like the way I want 'em to, instead of five dollars a
+week I would give you five dollars and fifty cents a week." Here he
+paused on the stair-landing to let the news sink in.
+
+"And furthermore, if you would act the way I tell you to when we get up
+there I would also pay your carfare," he concluded--"one way."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Mrs. Feinermann entered Appenweier & Murray's store that afternoon
+she was immediately accosted by a floorwalker.
+
+"What do you wish, madam?" he said.
+
+"I want to buy something a dress for my wife," Elkan volunteered,
+stepping from behind the shadow of Mrs. Feinermann, who for her
+thirty-odd years was, to say the least, buxom.
+
+"Your wife?" the floorwalker repeated.
+
+"Sure; why not?" Elkan replied. "Maybe I am looking young, but in
+reality I am old; so you should please show us the dress department,
+from twenty-two-fifty to twenty-eight dollars the garment."
+
+The floorwalker ushered them into the elevator and they alighted at the
+second floor.
+
+"Miss Holzmeyer!" the floorwalker cried; and in response there
+approached a lady of uncertain age but of no uncertain methods of
+salesmanship. She was garbed in a silk gown that might have graced the
+person of an Austrian grand duchess, and she rustled and swished as she
+walked toward them in what she had always found to be a most impressive
+manner.
+
+"The lady wants to see some dresses," the floorwalker said; and Miss
+Holzmeyer smiled by a rather complicated process, in which her nose
+wrinkled until it drew up the corners of her mouth and made her eyes
+appear to rest like shoe-buttons on the tops of her powdered cheeks.
+
+"This way, madam," she said as she swung her skirts round noisily.
+
+"One moment," Elkan interrupted, for again he had been totally eclipsed
+by Mrs. Feinermann's bulky figure. "You ain't heard what my wife wants
+yet."
+
+"Your wife!" Miss Holzmeyer exclaimed.
+
+"Sure, my wife," Elkan replied calmly. "This is my wife if it's all the
+same to you and you ain't got no objections."
+
+He gazed steadily at Miss Holzmeyer, who began to find her definite
+methods of salesmanship growing less definite, until she blushed
+vividly.
+
+"Not at all," she said. "Step this way, please."
+
+"Yes, Miss Holzmeyer," Elkan went on without moving, "as I was telling
+you, you ain't found out yet what my wife wants, on account a dress
+could be from twenty dollars the garment up to a hundred and fifty."
+
+"We have dresses here as high as three hundred!" Miss Holzmeyer snapped.
+She had discerned that she was beginning to be embarrassed in the
+presence of this self-possessed benedick of youthful appearance, and she
+resented it accordingly.
+
+"I ain't doubting it for a minute," Elkan replied. "New York is full of
+suckers, Miss Holzmeyer; but me and my wife is looking for something
+from twenty-two-fifty to twenty-eight dollars, Miss Holzmeyer."
+
+Miss Holzmeyer's temper mounted with each repetition of her surname, and
+her final "Step this way, please!" was uttered in tones fairly tremulous
+with rage.
+
+Elkan obeyed so leisurely that by the time Mrs. Feinermann and he had
+reached the rear of the showroom Miss Holzmeyer had hung three dresses
+on the back of a chair.
+
+"H'allow me," Elkan said as he took the topmost gown by the shoulders
+and held it up in front of him. He shook out the folds and for more than
+five minutes examined it closely.
+
+"I didn't want to see nothing for seventeen-fifty," he announced at
+last--"especially from last year's style."
+
+"What do you mean?" Miss Holzmeyer cried angrily. "That dress is marked
+twenty-eight dollars and it just came in last week. It's a very smart
+model indeed."
+
+"The model I don't know nothing about," Elkan replied, "but the salesman
+must of been pretty smart to stuck you folks like that."
+
+He subjected another gown to a careful scrutiny while Miss Holzmeyer
+sought the showcases for more garments.
+
+"Now, this one here," he said, "is better value. How much you are asking
+for this one, please?"
+
+Miss Holzmeyer glanced at the price ticket.
+
+"Twenty-eight dollars," she replied, with an indignant glare.
+
+Elkan whistled incredulously.
+
+"You don't tell me," he said. "I always heard it that the expenses is
+high uptown, but even if the walls was hung _mit_ diamonds yet, Miss
+Holzmeyer, your bosses wouldn't starve neither. Do you got maybe a dress
+for twenty-eight dollars which it is worth, anyhow, twenty-five
+dollars?"
+
+This last jibe was too much for Miss Holzmeyer.
+
+"Mis-ter Lap-in!" she howled, and immediately a glazed mahogany door in
+an adjoining partition burst open and Max Lapin appeared on the floor of
+the showroom.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+Miss Holzmeyer sat down in the nearest chair and fanned herself with her
+pocket handkerchief.
+
+"This man insulted me!" she said; whereat Max Lapin turned savagely to
+Elkan.
+
+"What for you are insulting this lady?" he demanded as he made a rapid
+survey of Elkan's physical development. He was quite prepared to defend
+Miss Holzmeyer's honour in a fitting and manly fashion; but, during the
+few seconds that supervened his question, Max reflected that you can
+never tell about a small man.
+
+"What d'ye mean insult this lady?" Elkan asked stoutly. "I never says a
+word to her. Maybe I ain't so long in the country as you are, but I got
+just so much respect for the old folks as anybody. Furthermore, she is
+showing me here garments which, honest, Mister--er----"
+
+"Lapin," Max said.
+
+"Mister Lapin, a house with the reputation of Appenweier & Murray
+shouldn't ought to got in stock at all."
+
+"Say, lookyhere, young feller," Lapin cried, "what are you driving into
+anyway? I am buyer here, and if you got any kick coming tell it to me,
+and don't go insulting the salesladies."
+
+"I ain't insulted no saleslady, Mr. Lapin," Elkan declared. "I am coming
+here to buy for my wife a dress and certainly I want to get for my money
+some decent value; and when this lady shows me a garment like this"--he
+held up the topmost garment--"and says it is from this year a model,
+understand me, naturally I got my own idees on the subject."
+
+Lapin looked critically at the garment in question.
+
+"Did you get this style from that third case there, Miss Holzmeyer?" he
+asked, and Miss Holzmeyer nodded.
+
+"Well, that whole case is full of leftovers and I don't want it
+touched," Lapin said. "Now go ahead and show this gentleman's wife some
+more models; and if he gets fresh let me know--that's all."
+
+"One minute, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said. "Will you do me the favour and let
+me show you something?"
+
+He held up the garment last exhibited by Miss Holzmeyer and pointed to
+the yoke and its border.
+
+"This here garment Miss Holzmeyer shows me for twenty-eight dollars,
+Mr. Lapin," he said, "and with me and my wife here a dollar means to us
+like two dollars to most people, Mr. Lapin. So when I am seeing the
+precisely selfsame garment like this in Fine Brothers' for twenty-six
+dollars, but the border is from silk embroidery, a peacock's tail
+design, and the yoke is from gilt net yet, understand me, I got to say
+something--ain't it?"
+
+Lapin paused in his progress toward his office and even as he did so
+Elkan's eyes strayed to a glass-covered showcase.
+
+"Why, there is a garment just like Fine Brothers' model!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Say, lookyhere!" Lapin demanded as he strode up to the showcase and
+pulled out the costume indicated by Elkan. "What are you trying to tell
+me? This here model is thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents; so, if you
+can get it for twenty-six at Fine Brothers', go ahead and do it!"
+
+"But, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, "that ain't no way for a buyer of a big
+concern like this to talk. I am telling you, so sure as you are standing
+there and I should never move from this spot, the identical selfsame
+style Fine Brothers got it for twenty-six dollars. I know it, Mr. Lapin,
+because we are making up that garment in our factory yet, and Fine
+Brothers takes from us six of that model at eighteen-fifty apiece."
+
+At this unguarded disclosure Lapin's face grew crimson with rage.
+
+"You are making it up in your factory!" he cried. "Why, you dirty faker
+you, what the devil you are coming round here bluffing that you want to
+buy a dress for your wife for?"
+
+Elkan broke into a cold perspiration and looked round for Mrs.
+Feinermann, the substantial evidence of his marital state; but at the
+very beginning of Max Lapin's indignant outburst she had discreetly
+taken the first stairway to the right.
+
+"Bring that woman back here!" Max roared. Miss Holzmeyer made a dash for
+the stairway, and before Elkan had time to formulate even a tentative
+plan of escape she had returned with her quarry.
+
+"What do you want from me?" Mrs. Feinermann gasped. Her hat was awry,
+and what had once been a modish pompadour was toppled to one side and
+shed hairpins with every palsied nod of her head. "I ain't done
+nothing!" she protested.
+
+"Sure, you ain't," Elkan said; "so you should keep your mouth
+shut--that's all."
+
+"I would keep my mouth shut _oder_ not as I please," Mrs. Feinermann
+retorted. "Furthermore, you ain't got no business to get me mixed up in
+this _Geschichte_ at all!"
+
+"Who are you two anyway?" Max demanded.
+
+"This here feller is a young feller by the name of Elkan Lubliner which
+he is working by Polatkin & Scheikowitz," Mrs. Feinermann announced;
+"and what he is bringing me up here for is more than I could tell you."
+
+"Ain't he your husband?" Max asked.
+
+"_Oser a Stück!_" Mrs. Feinermann declared fervently. "A kid like him
+should be my husband! An idee!"
+
+"That's all right," Elkan rejoined. "_Im Russland_ at my age many a
+young feller is got twins yet!"
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" Max Lapin demanded.
+
+"It ain't got nothing to do with it," Elkan said, "but it shows that a
+young feller like me which he is raised in the old country ain't such a
+kid as you think for, Mr. Lapin. And when I am telling you that the
+concern which sells you them goods to retail for twenty-eight dollars is
+sticking you good, understand me, you could take my word for it just the
+same like I would be fifty-five even."
+
+Again he seized one of the garments.
+
+"And what's more," he went on breathlessly, "the workmanship is rotten.
+Look at here!--the seams is falling to pieces already!"
+
+He thrust the garment under Lapin's nose with one hand, while with the
+other he dug down into his trousers pocket.
+
+"Here!" he shouted. "Here is money--fifty dollars!"
+
+He dropped the gown and held out a roll of bills toward Lapin.
+
+"Take it!" he said hysterically. "Take it all; and if I don't bring you
+to-morrow morning, first thing, this same identical style, only
+A-number-one workmanship, which you could retail for twenty dollars a
+garment, understand me, keep the money and _fertig_."
+
+At this juncture the well-nourished figure of Louis Appenweier, senior
+member of Appenweier & Murray, appeared in the door of the elevator and
+Max Lapin turned on his heel.
+
+"Come into my office," he hissed; and as he started for the glazed
+mahogany door he gathered up the remaining garments and took them with
+him.
+
+For more than half an hour Elkan and Max Lapin remained closeted
+together, and during that period Elkan conducted a clinic over each
+garment to such good purpose that Max sent out from time to time for
+more expensive styles. All of these were in turn examined by Elkan, who
+recognized in at least six models the designs of Joseph Redman, slightly
+altered in the stealing by Leon Sammet.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, "them models was all designed by our own
+designer and some one _ganvered_ 'em on us. Furthermore, I could bring
+you here to-morrow morning at eight o'clock from our sample racks these
+same identical models, with the prices on 'em marked plain like the
+figures on a ten-dollar bill, understand me; and if they ain't from
+twenty to thirty per cent. lower as you paid for these here garments I'd
+eat 'em!"
+
+For at least ten minutes Max Lapin sat with knitted brows and pondered
+Elkan's words.
+
+"Eight o'clock is too early," he announced at last. "Make it half-past
+nine."
+
+"Six, even, ain't too early for an up-to-date buyer to look at some
+genuine bargains," Elkan insisted; "and, besides, I must got to get back
+to the shop at nine."
+
+"But----" Lapin began.
+
+"But nothing, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, rising to his feet. "Make it eight
+o'clock, and the next time I would come round at half-past nine."
+
+"What d'ye mean the next time?" Lapin exclaimed.
+
+"I mean this wouldn't be the last time we do business together, because
+the job as assistant cutter which I got it is just temporary, Mr.
+Lapin," he said as he started for the door--"just temporary--that's
+all."
+
+He paused with his hand on the doorknob.
+
+"See you at eight o'clock to-morrow morning," he said cheerfully; and
+five minutes later he was having hard work to keep from dancing his way
+down Thirty-third Street to the subway.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+From half-past seven in the morning until six at night were the working
+hours of all Polatkin & Scheikowitz's employees, save only Sam
+Markulies, the shipping clerk, whose duty it was to unlock the shop at
+quarter-past seven sharp. This hour had been fixed by Philip Scheikowitz
+himself, who, on an average of once a month, would stroll into the
+shipping department at closing-time and announce his intention of going
+to a wedding that evening. Sometimes the proposed excursion was a
+pinocle party or a visit to the theatre, but the dénouement was always
+the same. The next morning Scheikowitz would arrive at the factory door
+precisely at quarter-past seven to find Markulies from five to ten
+minutes late; whereupon Markulies would receive his discharge, to take
+effect the following Saturday night--and for the ensuing month his
+punctuality was assured.
+
+During the quarter of an hour which preceded the arrival of the other
+employees, Markulies usually dusted the office and showroom; and on the
+morning following Elkan's holiday this solitary duty was cheered by the
+presence of Harry Flaxberg. Harry had sought the advice of counsel the
+previous day and had been warned against tardiness as an excuse for his
+discharge; so he was lounging on the sidewalk long before Markulies's
+arrival that morning.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Flaxberg," Markulies cried, "what brings you round so early?"
+
+"I couldn't sleep last night," Flaxberg said; "so I thought I might just
+so well be here as anywhere."
+
+"Ain't that the funniest thing!" Markulies cried. "Me I couldn't sleep
+neither. I got something on my mind."
+
+He unlocked the door as he spoke; and as he passed up the stairs he
+declared again that he had something on his mind.
+
+"_Yow!_" Flaxberg said. "I should got your worries, Markulies. The
+simple little things which a shipping clerk must got to do would _oser_
+give anybody the nervous prostration."
+
+"Is that so?" Markulies retorted. "Well, I ain't just the shipping clerk
+here, Mr. Flaxberg. You must remember I am in charge with the keys also,
+Mr. Flaxberg; and I got responsibilities if some one _ganvers_ a couple
+sample garments once in a while, y'understand--right away they would
+accuse me that I done it."
+
+"Don't worry yourself, Markulies," Flaxberg said. "I ain't going to
+_ganver_ no garments on you--not this morning anyhow."
+
+"You I ain't worrying about at all," Markulies rejoined; "but that young
+bloodsucker, Lubliner, Mr. Flaxberg--that's something else again.
+Actually that young feller is to me something which you could really
+call a thorn in my pants, Mr. Flaxberg. Just because he is assistant
+cutter here and I am only the shipping clerk he treats me like I would
+be the dirt under his feet. Only last night, Mr. Flaxberg, I am locking
+up the place when that feller comes up the stairs and says to me I
+should give him the key, as he forgets a package which he left behind
+him. Mind you, it is already half-past six, Mr. Flaxberg; and ever since
+I am living up in the Bronix, Mr. Flaxberg, I am getting kicked out of
+six places where I am boarding on account no respectable family would
+stand it, Mr. Flaxberg, that a feller comes, night after night, nine
+o'clock to his dinner."
+
+"You was telling me about Lubliner," Flaxberg reminded him.
+
+"Sure, I know," Markulies continued. "So I says to him the place is
+closed and that's all there is to it. With that, Mr. Flaxberg, the
+feller takes back his hand--so--and he gives me a _schlag_ in the
+stummick, which, honest, if he wouldn't be from Mr. Polatkin a relation,
+Mr. Flaxberg, I would right then and there killed him."
+
+For two minutes he patted gently that portion of his anatomy where
+Elkan's blow had landed.
+
+"He's a dangerous feller, Mr. Flaxberg," he went on, "because, just so
+soon as he opens the door after I am giving him the key, Mr. Flaxberg,
+he shuts it in my face and springs the bolt on me, Mr. Flaxberg--and
+there I am standing _bis_ pretty near eight o'clock, understand me, till
+that feller comes out again. By the time I am at my room on Brook
+Avenue, Mr. Flaxberg, the way Mrs. Kaller speaks to me you would think I
+was a dawg yet. How should I know she is getting tickets for the
+theaytre that evening, Mr. Flaxberg? And anyhow, Mr. Flaxberg, if people
+could afford to spend their money going on theaytre, understand me, they
+don't need to keep boarders at all--especially when I am getting night
+after night boiled _Brustdeckel_ only. I says to her, 'Mrs. Kaller,' I
+says to her, 'why don't you give me once in a while a change?' I
+says----"
+
+"Did Lubliner have anything with him when he came out?" Flaxberg
+interrupted.
+
+"Well, sure; he'd got the package he forgets, and how a feller could
+forget a package that size, Mr. Flaxberg--honestly, you wouldn't believe
+at all! That's what it is to be a relation to the boss, Mr. Flaxberg.
+If I would got such a memory, understand me, I would of been fired long
+since already. Yes, Mr. Flaxberg, I says to Mrs. Kaller, 'For three
+and a half dollars a week a feller should get night after night
+_Brustdeckel_--it's a shame--honest!' I says; and--_stiegen_! There's
+Mr. Scheikowitz!"
+
+As he spoke he seized a feather duster and began to wield it vigorously,
+so that by the time Philip Scheikowitz reached the showroom door a dense
+cloud of dust testified to Markulies's industry.
+
+"That'll do, Sam!" Philip cried. "What do you want to do here--choke us
+all to death?"
+
+Gradually the dust subsided and disclosed to Philip's astonished gaze
+Harry Flaxberg seated on a sample table and apparently lost in the
+perusal of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Scheikowitz," he said heartily, but Philip only
+grunted in reply. Moreover, he walked hurriedly past Flaxberg and closed
+the office door behind him with a resounding bang, for he, too, had
+sought the advice of counsel the previous evening; and on that advice he
+had left his bed before daylight, only to find himself forestalled by
+the wily Flaxberg. Nor was his chagrin at all decreased by Polatkin, who
+had promised to meet his partner at quarter-past seven. Instead he
+arrived an hour later and immediately proceeded to upbraid Scheikowitz
+for Flaxberg's punctuality.
+
+"What do you mean that feller gets here before you?" he cried. "Didn't
+you hear it the lawyer distinctively told you you should get here before
+Flaxberg, and when Flaxberg arrives you should tell him he is fired on
+account he is late? Honestly, Scheikowitz, I don't know what comes over
+you lately the way you are acting. Here we are paying the lawyer ten
+dollars he should give us an advice, understand me, and we might just so
+well throw our money in the streets!"
+
+"But Flaxberg wasn't late, Polatkin," Scheikowitz protested. "He was
+early."
+
+"Don't argue with me, Scheikowitz," Polatkin said. "Let's go outside and
+talk to him."
+
+Philip shrugged despairingly as they walked to the office door.
+
+"Flaxberg," he began as he discerned the city salesman again using a
+sample table for a footstool, "don't let us disturb you if you ain't
+through reading the paper yet."
+
+"Yes, Flaxberg," Polatkin added, "you could get down here so early like
+you would be sleeping in the place all night yet, and what is it? Take
+from the table the feet, Flaxberg, and be a man. We got something to say
+to you."
+
+"Go ahead, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg said as he leisurely brought his feet
+to the floor. "I'm listening."
+
+"In the first place, Flaxberg," Polatkin said, "did it ever occur to you
+that, even if your uncle would got fired up to Appenweier & Murray's,
+Redman designs for us a line of garments here which them people might be
+interested in anyhow?"
+
+"_Yow_, they would be interested in our line!" Flaxberg cried. "Lapin
+wouldn't buy only Sammet Brothers' line if we got Worth and Paquin both
+working for us as designers. You couldn't convince him otherwise, Mr.
+Polatkin."
+
+"That's all right," Polatkin went on; "but it wouldn't do no harm for
+you to anyhow see the feller and show him a couple garments which we got
+it here. Take for instance them 1080's, which we are selling Fine
+Brothers, _oder_ that 2060--that overskirt effect with the gilt net
+yoke and peacock-feather-design braid, Flaxberg. Them two styles made a
+big hit, Flaxberg. They are all hanging on that end rack there,
+Flaxberg, and you could look at 'em for yourself."
+
+Polatkin walked across the showroom to the rack in question.
+
+"Especially the 2060's," he said as he pulled aside the heavy denim
+curtain which protected the contents of the rack, "which you could
+really say is----"
+
+Here he paused abruptly--for, with the exception of a dozen wooden
+hangers, the rack was empty.
+
+"What's this, Scheikowitz?" he cried with a sweep of his hand in the
+direction of the rack. "Where is all them 1080's and 2060's?"
+
+Hastily the two partners examined every rack in the showroom; and not
+only did they fail to discover the missing samples, but they ascertained
+that, in addition, seven other choice styles had disappeared.
+
+"See maybe is Redman using 'em in the cutting room," Scheikowitz
+suggested; and forthwith they made a canvass of the cutting room and
+factory, in which they were joined by Markulies.
+
+"What is the matter, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he asked.
+
+"We are missing a dozen sample garments," Scheikowitz replied.
+
+"Missing!" Markulies loudly exclaimed. "What d'ye mean--missing, Mr.
+Scheikowitz? Last night, when I was covering up the racks, everything
+was in place."
+
+Suddenly a wave of recollection swept over him and he gave tongue like a
+foxhound.
+
+"Oo-oo-ee!" he wailed and sank into the nearest chair.
+
+"Markulies," Polatkin cried out, "for Heaven's sake, what is it?"
+
+"He must of _ganvered_ 'em!" Markulies wailed. "Right in front of my
+eyes he done it."
+
+"Who done it?" Scheikowitz cried.
+
+"Lubliner," Markulies moaned.
+
+"Lubliner!" Polatkin cried. "Do you mean Elkan Lubliner?"
+
+"That's what I said," Markulies went on. "Comes half-past six last
+night, and that _ganef_ makes me a _schlag_ in the stummick, Mr.
+Polatkin; and the first thing you know he goes to work and steals from
+me my keys, Mr. Polatkin, and cleans out the whole place yet."
+
+"Lubliner was here last night after we are going home?" Polatkin asked.
+
+"Sure, he was," Markulies replied--"at half-past six yet."
+
+"Then that only goes to show what a liar you are," Polatkin declared,
+"because myself I am letting Elkan go home at one o'clock on account the
+feller is so sick, understand me, he could hardly walk out of the place
+at all. Furthermore, he says he is going right straight to bed when he
+leaves here; so, if you want to explain how it is the garments disappear
+when you are in the place here alone, Markulies, go ahead with your
+lies. Might Mr. Scheikowitz stole 'em maybe--or I did! What?"
+
+Markulies began to rock and sway in an agony of woe.
+
+"I should never stir from this here chair, Mr. Polatkin," Markulies
+protested, "and my mother also, which I am sending her to
+Kalvaria--regular like clockwork--ten dollars a month, she should
+never walk so far from here _bis_ that door, if that _ganef_ didn't
+come in here last night and make away with the garments!"
+
+"_Koosh!_" Polatkin bellowed, and made a threatening gesture toward
+Markulies just as Scheikowitz stepped forward.
+
+"That'll do, Polatkin," he said. "If the feller lies we could easy prove
+it--ain't it? In the first place, where is Elkan?"
+
+"He must of been sick this morning on account he ain't here yet,"
+Polatkin said.
+
+"_Schon gut_," Scheikowitz rejoined; "if he ain't here he ain't here,
+_verstehst du_, _aber_ he is boarding with Mrs. Feinermann, which her
+husband is Kupferberg Brothers' foreman--ain't it?"
+
+Polatkin nodded and Scheikowitz turned to Markulies.
+
+"Markulies," he said, "do me the favour and stop that! You are making me
+dizzy the way you are acting. Furthermore, Markulies, you should put on
+right away your hat and run over to Kupferberg Brothers' and say to Mr.
+B. Kupferberg you are coming from Polatkin & Scheikowitz, and ask him is
+he agreeable he should let Marx Feinermann come over and see us--and if
+he wants to know what for tell him we want to get from him a
+recommendation for a feller which is working for us."
+
+He turned to his partner as Markulies started for the stairway.
+
+"And a helluva recommendation we would get from him, too, I bet yer!" he
+added. "Wasserbauer tells me Elkan was in his place yesterday, and,
+though he don't watch every bit of food a customer puts into his mouth,
+understand me, he says that he eats dill pickles one right after the
+other; and then, Polatkin, the young feller gets right up and walks
+right out of the place without giving any order even. Wasserbauer says
+he knows it was Elkan because one day I am sending him over to look for
+you there. Wasserbauer asks him the simple question what he wants you
+for, and right away Elkan acts fresh to him like anything."
+
+"He done right to act fresh," Polatkin said as they walked back to the
+showroom. "What is it Wasserbauer's business what you want me for?"
+
+"But how comes a young feller like him to be eating at Wasserbauer's?"
+Scheikowitz continued. "Where does he get the money from he should eat
+there?"
+
+"The fact is"--said Flaxberg, who up to this point had remained a silent
+listener to the entire controversy--"the fact is, Mr. Scheikowitz,
+yesterday I am taking pity on the feller on account he is looking sick;
+and I took him into Wasserbauer's and invited him he should eat a little
+something."
+
+Here he paused and licked his lips maliciously.
+
+"And though I don't want to say nothing against the feller, understand
+me," he continued, "he begins right away to talk about horseracing."
+
+"Horseracing?" Polatkin cried.
+
+Flaxberg nodded and made a gesture implying more plainly than the words
+themselves: "Can you beat it?"
+
+"Horseracing!" Scheikowitz repeated. "Well, what do you think of that
+for a lowlife bum?"
+
+"And when I called him down for gambling, Mr. Polatkin, he walks right
+out, so independent he is. Furthermore, though it's none of my business,
+Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg went on, "Markulies tells me this morning early
+the same story like he tells you--before he knew the goods was missing
+even."
+
+"Sure, I believe you," Polatkin retorted. "He was getting the whole
+thing fixed up beforehand. That's the kind of _Rosher_ he is."
+
+As he spoke Markulies entered, and there followed on his heels the
+short, stout figure of Marx Feinermann.
+
+"What did I told you?" Markulies cried. "The feller ain't home sick at
+all. He eats his supper last night, and this morning he is got two eggs
+for his breakfast even."
+
+"S'nough, Markulies!" Polatkin interrupted. "You got too much to say for
+yourself. Sit down, Feinermann, and tell us what is the reason Elkan
+ain't here this morning."
+
+"You tell me and I would tell you," Feinermann replied. "All I know is
+the feller leaves my house the usual time this morning; only before he
+goes he acts fresh to my wife like anything, Mr. Polatkin. He kicks the
+coffee ain't good, even when my wife is giving him two eggs to his
+breakfast anyhow. What some people expects for three-fifty a week you
+wouldn't believe at all!"
+
+"What do you mean--three-fifty a week?" Polatkin demanded. "He pays your
+wife five dollars a week _schon_ six months ago already. He told me so
+himself."
+
+"I ain't responsible for what that boy tells you," Feinermann said
+stolidly. "All I know is he pays me three-fifty a week; and you would
+think he is used to eating chicken every day from _zu Hause_ yet, the
+way he is all the time kicking about his food."
+
+Markulies snorted indignantly.
+
+"He should got the _Machshovos_ Mrs. Kaller hands it to me," he
+said--"_gekochte Brustdeckel_ day in, day out; and then I am accused
+that I steal samples yet! I am sick and tired of it!"
+
+"_Stiegen!_" Polatkin cried. "Listen here to me, Feinermann. Do you mean
+to told me the boy ain't paying you five dollars a week board?"
+
+As Feinermann opened his mouth to reply the showroom door opened and
+Elkan himself entered.
+
+"Loafer!" Scheikowitz roared. "Where was you?"
+
+Elkan made no reply, but walked to the centre of the showroom.
+
+"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "could I speak to you a few words something?"
+
+Polatkin jumped to his feet.
+
+"Before you speak to me a few words something," he said, "I want to ask
+you what the devil you are telling me lies that you pay Mrs. Feinermann
+five dollars a week board?"
+
+"What are you bothering about that for now?" Scheikowitz interrupted.
+"And, anyhow, you could see by the way the feller is red like blood that
+he lies to you."
+
+"Furthermore," Feinermann added, "my wife complains to me last night
+that young loafer takes her uptown yesterday on a wild fool's errand,
+understand me, and together they get pretty near kicked out of a
+drygoods store."
+
+"She told you that, did she?" Elkan cried.
+
+"That's what I said!" Feinermann retorted.
+
+"Then, if that's the case, Feinermann," Elkan replied, "all I can say
+is, I am paying your wife five dollars a week board _schon_ six months
+already, and if she is holding out on you a dollar and a half a week
+that's her business--not mine."
+
+"Don't make things worser as they are, Lubliner," Flaxberg advised. "You
+are in bad, anyhow, and lying don't help none. What did you done with
+the samples you took away from here?"
+
+"What is it your business what I done with 'em?" Elkan retorted.
+
+"Don't get fresh, Elkan!" Polatkin said. "What is all this about,
+anyhow? First, you are leaving here yesterday on account you are sick;
+next, you are going uptown with Mrs. Feinermann and get kicked out of a
+drygoods store; then you come back here and steal our samples."
+
+"Steal your samples!" Elkan cried.
+
+"You admitted it yourself just now," Flaxberg interrupted. "You are a
+thief as well as a liar!"
+
+Had Flaxberg's interest in sport extended to pugilism, he would have
+appreciated the manner in which Elkan's chest and arm muscles began to
+swell under his coat, even if the ominous gleam in Elkan's dark eyes had
+provided no other warning. As it was, however, Elkan put into practice
+the knowledge gained by a nightly attendance at the gymnasium on East
+Broadway. He stepped back two paces, and left followed right so rapidly
+to the point of Flaxberg's jaw that the impact sounded like one blow.
+
+Simultaneously Flaxberg fell back over the sample tables and landed with
+a crash against the office partition just as the telephone rang loudly.
+Perhaps it was as well for Flaxberg that he was unprepared for the
+onslaught, since, had he been in a rigid posture, he would have
+assuredly taken the count. Beyond a cut lip, however, and a lump on the
+back of his head, he was practically unhurt; and he jumped to his feet
+immediately. Nor was he impeded by a too eager audience, for Markulies
+and Feinermann had abruptly fled to the farthermost corner of the
+cutting room, while Marcus and Philip had ducked behind a sample rack;
+so that he had a clear field for the rush he made at Elkan. He yelled
+with rage as he dashed wildly across the floor, but the yell terminated
+with an inarticulate grunt when Elkan stopped the rush with a drive
+straight from the shoulder. It found a target on Flaxberg's nose, and he
+crumpled up on the showroom floor.
+
+For two minutes Elkan stood still and then he turned to the sample
+racks.
+
+"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "the telephone is ringing."
+
+Polatkin came from behind the rack and automatically proceeded to the
+office, while Scheikowitz peeped out of the denim curtains.
+
+"You got to excuse me, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan murmured. "I couldn't
+help myself at all."
+
+"You've killed him!" Scheikowitz gasped.
+
+"_Yow!_ I've killed him!" Elkan exclaimed. "It would take a whole lot
+more as that to kill a bum like him."
+
+He bent over Flaxberg and shook him by the shoulder.
+
+"Hey!" he shouted in his ear. "You are ruining your clothes!"
+
+Flaxberg raised his drooping head and, assisted by Elkan, regained his
+feet and staggered to the water-cooler, where Elkan bathed his streaming
+nostrils with the icy fluid.
+
+At length Scheikowitz stirred himself to action just as Polatkin
+relinquished the 'phone.
+
+"Markulies," Scheikowitz shouted, "go out and get a policeman!"
+
+"Don't do nothing of the kind, Markulies!" Polatkin declared. "I got
+something to say here too."
+
+He turned severely to Elkan.
+
+"Leave that loafer alone and listen to me," he said. "What right do you
+got to promise deliveries on them 2060's in a week?"
+
+"I thought----" Elkan began.
+
+"You ain't got no business to think," Polatkin interrupted. "The next
+time you are selling a concern like Appenweier & Murray don't promise
+nothing in the way of deliveries, because with people like them it's
+always the same. If you tell 'em a week they ring you up and insist on
+it they would got to got the goods in five days."
+
+He put his hand on Elkan's shoulder; and the set expression of his face
+melted until his short dark moustache disappeared between his nose and
+his under lip in a widespread grin.
+
+"Come inside the office," he said--"you too, Scheikowitz. Elkan's got a
+long story he wants to tell us."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Half an hour later, Sam Markulies knocked timidly at the office door.
+
+"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "Marx Feinermann says to me to ask you if he
+should wait any longer on account they're very busy over to Kupferberg
+Brothers'."
+
+"Tell him he should come in here," Polatkin said; and Markulies withdrew
+after gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the spectacle of Elkan Lubliner
+seated at Polatkin's desk, with one of Polatkin's mildest cigars in his
+mouth, while the two partners sat in adjacent chairs and smiled on Elkan
+admiringly.
+
+"You want to speak to me, Mr. Polatkin?" Feinermann asked, as he came in
+a moment afterward.
+
+"Sure," Polatkin replied as he handed the astonished Feinermann a cigar.
+"Sit down, Feinermann, and listen to me. In the first place, Feinermann,
+what for a neighborhood is Pitt Street to live in? Why don't you move
+uptown, Feinermann?"
+
+"A foreman is lucky if he could live in Pitt Street even," Feinermann
+said. "You must think I got money, Mr. Polatkin."
+
+"How much more a month would it cost you to live uptown?" Polatkin
+continued. "At the most ten dollars--ain't it?"
+
+Feinermann nodded sadly.
+
+"To a man which he is only a foreman, Mr. Polatkin, ten dollars is ten
+dollars," he commented.
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin said; "but instead of five dollars a week
+board, Elkan would pay you seven dollars a week, supposing you would
+move up to Lenox Avenue. Ain't that right, Elkan?"
+
+"Sure, that's right," Elkan said. "Only, if I am paying him seven
+dollars a week board, he must got to give Mrs. Feinermann a dollar and a
+half extra housekeeping money. Is that agreeable, Feinermann?"
+
+Again Feinermann nodded.
+
+"Then that's all we want from you, Feinermann," Polatkin added, "except
+I want to tell you this much: I am asking Elkan he should come uptown
+and live with me; and he says no--he would prefer to stick where he
+is."
+
+Feinermann shrugged complacently.
+
+"I ain't got no objections," he said as he withdrew.
+
+"And now, Elkan," Polatkin cried, "we got to fix it up with the other
+feller."
+
+Hardly had he spoken when there stood framed in the open doorway the
+disheveled figure of Flaxberg.
+
+"_Nu_, Flaxberg," Polatkin said. "What d'ye want from us now?"
+
+"I am coming to tell you this, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg said thickly
+through his cut and swollen lips: "I am coming to tell you that I'm sick
+and so you must give me permission to go home."
+
+"Nobody wants you to stay here, Flaxberg," Polatkin answered.
+
+"Sure, I know," Flaxberg rejoined; "but if I would go home without your
+consent you would claim I made a breach of my contract."
+
+"Don't let that worry you in the least, Flaxberg," Polatkin retorted,
+"because, so far as that goes, we fire you right here and now, on
+account you didn't make no attempt to sell Appenweier & Murray, when a
+boy like Elkan, which up to now he wasn't even a salesman at all, could
+sell 'em one thousand dollars goods."
+
+Flaxberg's puffed features contorted themselves in an expression of
+astonishment.
+
+"Lubliner sells Appenweier & Murray a bill of goods!" he exclaimed.
+
+By way of answer Polatkin held out the order slip for Flaxberg's
+inspection.
+
+"That's all right," Flaxberg declared. "I would make it hot for you
+anyhow! You put this young feller up to it that he pretty near kills
+me."
+
+"_Yow!_ We put him up to it!" Polatkin retorted. "You put him up to it
+yourself, Flaxberg. You are lucky he didn't break your neck for you;
+because, if you think you could sue anybody in the courts yet, we got
+for witness Feinermann, Markulies and ourselves that you called him a
+liar and a thief."
+
+"_Nu_, Polatkin," Scheikowitz said, "give him say a hundred dollars and
+call it square."
+
+"You wouldn't give me five hundred dollars," Flaxberg shouted as he
+started for the door, "because I would sue you in the courts for five
+thousand dollars yet."
+
+Flaxberg banged the door violently behind him, whereat Polatkin shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"Bluffs he is making it!" he declared; and forthwith he began to unfold
+plans for Elkan's new campaign as city salesman. He had not proceeded
+very far, however, when there came another knock at the door. It was Sam
+Markulies.
+
+"Mr. Flaxberg says to me I should ask you if he should wait for the
+hundred dollars a check, or might you would mail it to him maybe!" he
+said.
+
+Scheikowitz looked inquiringly at his partner.
+
+"Put on it, 'In full of all claims against Polatkin & Scheikowitz or
+Elkan Lubliner to date,'" he said. "And when you get through with that,
+Scheikowitz, write an 'ad' for an assistant cutter. We've got to get
+busy on that Appenweier & Murray order right away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+A MATCH FOR ELKAN LUBLINER
+
+MADE IN HEAVEN, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF MAX KAPFER
+
+
+"I wouldn't care if Elkan Lubliner was only eighteen even," declared
+Morris Rashkind emphatically; "he ain't too young to marry B. Maslik's a
+_Tochter_. There's a feller which he has got in improved property alone,
+understand me, an equity of a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars; and if you would count second mortgages and Bronix lots, Mr.
+Polatkin, the feller is worth easy his quarter of a million dollars."
+
+"Sure I know," Polatkin retorted. "With such a feller, he gives his
+daughter when she gets married five thousand dollars a second mortgage,
+understand me; and the most the _Chosan_ could expect is that some day
+he forecloses the mortgage and gets a deficiency judgment against a
+dummy bondsman which all his life he never got money enough to pay his
+laundry bills even!"
+
+"_Oser a Stück!_" Rashkind protested. "He says to me, so sure as you are
+sitting there, 'Mr. Rashkind,' he says, 'my dear friend,' he says,
+'Birdie is my only _Tochter_. I ain't got no other one,' he says, '_Gott
+sei Dank_,' he says; 'and the least I could do for her is five thousand
+dollars cash,' he says, 'in a certified check,' he says, 'before the
+feller goes under the _Chuppah_ at all.'"
+
+"With a feller like B. Maslik," Polatkin commented, "it ain't necessary
+for him to talk that way, Rashkind, because if he wants to get an
+up-to-date business man for his daughter, understand me, he couldn't
+expect the feller is going to take chances on an uncertified check
+_oder_ a promissory note."
+
+"That's all right, Mr. Polatkin," Rashkind said. "B. Maslik's promissory
+note is just so good as his certified check, Mr. Polatkin. With that
+feller I wouldn't want his promissory note even. His word in the
+presence of a couple of bright, level-headed witnesses, which a lawyer
+couldn't rattle 'em on the stand, _verstehst du_, would be good enough
+for me, Mr. Polatkin. B. Maslik, y'understand, is absolutely good like
+diamonds, Mr. Polatkin."
+
+"All right," Polatkin said. "I'll speak to Elkan about it. He'll be back
+from the road Saturday."
+
+"Speak nothing," Rashkind cried excitedly. "Saturday would be too late.
+Everybody is working on this here proposition, Mr. Polatkin. Because the
+way property is so dead nowadays all the real estaters tries to be a
+_Shadchen_, understand me; so if you wouldn't want Miss Maslik to slip
+through Elkan's fingers, write him this afternoon yet. I got a fountain
+pen right here."
+
+As he spoke he produced a fountain pen of formidable dimensions and
+handed it to Polatkin.
+
+"I'll take the letter along with me and mail it," Rashkind continued as
+Marcus made a preliminary flourish.
+
+"Tell him," Rashkind went on, "that the girl is something which you
+could really call beautiful."
+
+"I wouldn't tell him nothing of the sort," Polatkin said, "because, in
+the first place, what for a _Schreiber_ you think I am anyway? And, in
+the second place, Rashkind, Elkan is so full of business, understand me,
+if I would write him to come home on account this here Miss Maslik is
+such a good-looker he wouldn't come at all."
+
+Rashkind shrugged.
+
+"Go ahead," he said. "Do it your own way."
+
+For more than five minutes Polatkin indited his message to Elkan and at
+last he inclosed it in an envelope.
+
+"How would you spell Bridgetown?" he asked.
+
+"Which Bridgetown?" Rashkind inquired--"Bridgetown, Pennsylvania, _oder_
+Bridgetown, Illinois?"
+
+"What difference does that make?" Polatkin demanded.
+
+"About the spelling it don't make no difference," Rashkind replied.
+"Bridgetown is spelt B-r-i-d-g-e-t-a-u-n, all the world over; _aber_ if
+it's Bridgetown, Pennsylvania, that's a very funny quincidence, on
+account I am just now talking to a feller which formerly keeps a store
+there by the name Flixman."
+
+"Do you mean Julius Flixman?" Marcus asked as he licked the envelope.
+
+"That's the feller," Rashkind said with a sigh as he pocketed the letter
+to Elkan. "It's a funny world, Mr. Polatkin. Him and me comes over
+together in one steamer yet, thirty years ago; and to-day if that
+feller's worth a cent he's worth fifty thousand dollars."
+
+"Sure, I know," Marcus agreed; "and _Gott soll hüten_ you and I should
+got what he's got it. He could drop down in the streets any moment,
+Rashkind." Rashkind nodded as he rose to his feet.
+
+"In a way, it's his own fault," he said, "because a feller which he
+could afford to ride round in taxicabs yet ain't got no business walking
+the streets in his condition. I told him this morning: 'Julius,' I says,
+'if I was one of your heirs,' I says to him, 'I wouldn't want nothing
+better as to see you hanging round the real-estate exchange, looking the
+way you look!' And he says to me: 'Rashkind,' he says, 'there is a whole
+lot worser things I could wish myself as you should be my heir,' he
+says. 'On account,' he says, 'if a _Schlemiel_ like you would got a
+relation which is going to leave you money, Rashkind,' he says, 'it
+would be just your luck that the relation dies one day after you do,
+even if you would live to be a hundred.'"
+
+He walked toward the door and paused on the threshold.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Polatkin," he concluded, "you could take it from me, if that
+feller's got heart disease, Mr. Polatkin, it ain't from overworking it.
+So I would ring you up to-morrow afternoon three o'clock and see if
+Elkan's come yet."
+
+"I'm agreeable," Polatkin declared; "only one thing I got to ask you:
+you should keep your mouth shut to my partner, on account if he hears it
+that I am bringing back Elkan from the road just for this here Miss
+Maslik, understand me, he would never let me hear the end of it."
+
+Rashkind made a reassuring gesture with his right arm after the fashion
+of a swimmer who employs the overhand stroke.
+
+"What have I got to do with your partner?" he said as he started for the
+elevator. "If I meet him in the place, I am selling buttons and you
+don't want to buy none. Ain't it?"
+
+Polatkin nodded and turned to the examination of a pile of monthly
+statements by way of dismissing the marriage broker. Moreover, he felt
+impelled to devise some excuse for sending for Elkan, so that he might
+have it pat upon the return from lunch of his partner, Philip
+Scheikowitz, who at that precise moment was seated in the rear of
+Wasserbauer's café, by the side of Charles Fischko.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Scheikowitz," Fischko said, "if you would really got the
+feller's interest in heart, understand me, you wouldn't wait till
+Saturday at all. Write him to-day yet, because this proposition is
+something which you could really call remarkable, on account most girls
+which they got five thousand dollars dowries, Mr. Scheikowitz, ain't got
+five-thousand-dollar faces; _aber_ this here Miss Maslik is something
+which when you are paying seventy-five cents a seat on theaytre,
+understand me, you don't see such an elegant-looking _Gesicht_. She's a
+regular doll, Mr. Scheikowitz!"
+
+"Sure, I know," Scheikowitz agreed; "that's the way it is with them
+dolls, Fischko--takes a fortune already to dress 'em."
+
+Fischko flapped the air indignantly with both hands.
+
+"That's where you are making a big mistake," he declared. "The Masliks
+got living in the house with 'em a girl which for years already she
+makes all Miss Maslik's dresses and Mrs. Maslik's also. B. Maslik told
+me so himself, Mr. Scheikowitz. He says to me: 'Fischko,' he says, 'my
+Birdie is a girl which she ain't accustomed she should got a lot of
+money spent on her,' he says; 'the five thousand dollars is practically
+net,' he says, 'on account his expenses would be small.'"
+
+"Is she a good cook?" Scheikowitz asked.
+
+"A good cook!" Fischko cried. "Listen here to me, Mr. Scheikowitz. You
+know that a _Shadchen_ eats sometimes in pretty swell houses. Ain't it?"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded.
+
+"Well, I am telling you, Mr. Scheikowitz, so sure as I am sitting here,
+that I got in B. Maslik's last Tuesday a week ago already a piece of
+plain everyday _gefüllte Hechte_, Mr. Scheikowitz, which honestly, if
+you would go to Delmonico's _oder_ the Waldorfer, understand me, you
+could pay as high as fifty cents for it, Mr. Scheikowitz, and it
+wouldn't be--I am not saying better--but so good even as that there
+_gefüllte Hechte_ which I got it by B. Maslik."
+
+Scheikowitz nodded again.
+
+"All right, Fischko," he said, "I will write the boy so soon as I get
+back to the office yet; but one thing I must beg of you: don't say a
+word about this to my partner, y'understand, because if he would hear
+that I am bringing home Elkan from the road just on account of this
+_Shidduch_ you are proposing, understand me, he would make my life
+miserable."
+
+Fischko shrugged his shoulders until his head nearly disappeared into
+his chest.
+
+"What would I talk to your partner for, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he said. "I am
+looking to you in this here affair; so I would stop round the day after
+to-morrow afternoon, Mr. Scheikowitz, and if your partner asks me
+something a question, I would tell him I am selling thread _oder_
+buttons."
+
+"Make it buttons," Scheikowitz commented, as he rose to his feet;
+"because we never buy buttons from nobody but the Prudential Button
+Company."
+
+On his way back to his office Scheikowitz pondered a variety of reasons
+for writing Elkan to return, and he had tentatively adopted the most
+extravagant one when, within a hundred feet of his business premises, he
+encountered no less a personage than Julius Flixman.
+
+"_Wie geht's_, Mr. Flixman?" he cried. "What brings you to New York?"
+
+Flixman saluted Philip with a limp handclasp.
+
+"I am living here now," he said. "I am giving up my store in Bridgetown
+_schon_ six months ago already, on account I enjoyed such poor health
+there. So I sold out to a young feller by the name Max Kapfer, which was
+for years working by Paschalson, of Sarahcuse; and I am living here, as
+I told you."
+
+"With relations maybe?" Philip asked.
+
+"_Yow_, relations!" Flixman replied. "I used to got one sister living in
+Bessarabia, Mr. Scheikowitz, and I ain't heard from her in more as
+thirty years, and I guess she is dead all right by this time. I am
+living at a hotel which I could assure you the prices they soak me is
+something terrible."
+
+"And what are you doing round this neighborhood, Mr. Flixman?" Philip
+continued by way of making conversation.
+
+"I was just over to see a lawyer over on Center Street," Flixman
+replied.
+
+"A lawyer on Center Street!" Philip exclaimed. "A rich man like you
+should got a lawyer on Wall Street, Mr. Flixman. Henry D. Feldman is our
+lawyer, and----"
+
+"Don't mention that sucker to me!" Flixman interrupted. "Actually the
+feller is got the nerve to ask me a hundred dollars for drawing a will,
+and this here feller on Center Street wants only fifty. I bet yer if I
+would go round there to-morrow or the next day he takes twenty-five
+even."
+
+"But a will is something which is really important, Mr. Flixman."
+
+"Not to me it ain't, Scheikowitz, because, while I couldn't take my
+money with me, Scheikowitz, I ain't got no one to leave it to; so, if I
+wouldn't make a will it goes to the state--ain't it?"
+
+"Maybe," Philip commented.
+
+"So I am leaving it to a Talmud Torah School, which it certainly don't
+do no harm that all them young loafers over on the East Side should
+learn a little _Loschen Hakodesch_. Ain't it?"
+
+"Sure not," Philip said.
+
+"Well," Flixman concluded as he took a firmer grasp on his cane
+preparatory to departing, "that's the way it goes. If I would got
+children to leave my money to I would say: 'Yes; give the lawyer a
+hundred dollars.' But for a Talmud Torah School I would see 'em all dead
+first before I would pay fifty even."
+
+He nodded savagely in farewell and shuffled off down the street, while
+Philip made his way toward the factory, with his half-formed excuse to
+his partner now entirely forgotten.
+
+He tried in vain to recall it when he entered his office a few minutes
+later, but the sight of his partner spurred him to action and
+immediately he devised a new and better plan.
+
+"Marcus," he said, "write Elkan at once he should come back to the
+store. I just seen Flixman on the street and he tells me he's got a
+young feller by the name Karpfer _oder_ Kapfer now running his store;
+and," he continued in an access of inspiration, "the stock is awful run
+down there; so, if Elkan goes right back to Bridgetown with a line of
+low-priced goods he could do a big business with Kapfer."
+
+Polatkin had long since concocted what he had conceived to be a
+perfectly good excuse for his letter, and he had intended to lend it
+color by prefacing it with an abusive dissertation on "Wasting the Whole
+Afternoon over Lunch"; but Scheikowitz' greeting completely disarmed
+him. His jaw dropped and he gazed stupidly at his partner.
+
+"What's the matter?" Scheikowitz cried. "Is it so strange we should
+bring Elkan back here for the chance of doing some more business? Three
+dollars carfare between here and Bridgetown wouldn't make or break us,
+Polatkin."
+
+"Sure! Sure!" Marcus said at last. "I would--now--write him as soon as I
+get back from lunch."
+
+"Write him right away!" Scheikowitz insisted; and, though Marcus had
+breakfasted before seven that morning and it was then half-past two, he
+turned to his desk without further parley. There, for the second time
+that day, he penned a letter to Elkan; and, after exhibiting it to his
+partner, he inclosed it in an addressed envelope. Two minutes later he
+paused in front of Wasserbauer's café and, taking the missive from his
+pocket, tore it into small pieces and cast it into the gutter.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"I suppose, Elkan, you are wondering why we wrote you to come home from
+Bridgetown when you would be back on Saturday anyway," Scheikowitz began
+as Elkan laid down his suitcase in the firm's office the following
+afternoon.
+
+"Naturally," Elkan replied. "I had an appointment for this morning to
+see a feller there, which we could open maybe a good account; a feller
+by the name Max Kapfer."
+
+"Max Kapfer?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz exclaimed with one voice.
+
+"That's what I said," Elkan repeated. "And in order I shouldn't lose the
+chance I got him to promise he would come down here this afternoon yet
+on a late train and we would pay his expenses."
+
+"Do you mean Max Kapfer, the feller which took over Flixman's store?"
+Polatkin asked.
+
+"There's only one Max Kapfer in Bridgetown," Elkan replied, and Polatkin
+immediately assumed a pose of righteous indignation.
+
+"That's from yours an idee, Scheikowitz," he said. "Not only you make
+the boy trouble to come back to the store, but we also got to give this
+feller Kapfer his expenses yet."
+
+"What are you kicking about?" Scheikowitz demanded. "You seemed
+agreeable to the proposition yesterday."
+
+"I got to seem agreeable," Polatkin retorted as he started for the door
+of the factory, "otherwise it would be nothing but fight, fight, fight
+_mit_ you, day in, day out."
+
+He paused at the entrance and winked solemnly at Elkan.
+
+"I am sick and tired of it," he concluded as he supplemented the wink
+with a significant frown, and when he passed into the factory Elkan
+followed him.
+
+"What's the matter now?" Elkan asked anxiously.
+
+"I want to speak to you a few words something," Polatkin began; but
+before he could continue Scheikowitz entered the factory.
+
+"Did you got your lunch on the train, Elkan?" Scheikowitz said;
+"because, if not, come on out and we'll have a cup coffee together."
+
+"Leave the boy alone, can't you?" Polatkin exclaimed.
+
+"I'll go right out with you, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan said as he edged
+away to the rear of the factory. "Go and put on your hat and I'll be
+with you in a minute."
+
+When Scheikowitz had reëntered the office Elkan turned to Marcus
+Polatkin.
+
+"You ain't scrapping again," he said, "are you?"
+
+"_Oser a Stück_," Polatkin answered. "We are friendly like lambs; but
+listen here to me, Elkan. I ain't got no time before he'll be back
+again, so I'll tell you. As a matter of fact, it was me that wrote you
+to come back, really. I got an elegant _Shidduch_ for you."
+
+"_Shidduch!_" Elkan exclaimed. "For me?"
+
+"Sure," Polatkin whispered. "A fine-looking girl by the name Birdie
+Maslik, _mit_ five thousand dollars. Don't say nothing to Scheikowitz
+about it."
+
+"But," Elkan said, "I ain't looking for no _Shidduch_."
+
+"S-ssh!" Polatkin hissed. "Her father is B. Maslik, the 'Pants King.'
+To-morrow night you are going up to see her _mit_ Rashkind, the
+_Shadchen_."
+
+"What the devil you are talking about?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Not a word," Polatkin whispered out of one corner of his mouth. "Here
+comes Scheikowitz--and remember, don't say nothing to him about it.
+Y'understand?"
+
+Elkan nodded reluctantly as Scheikowitz reappeared from the office.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan," Scheikowitz demanded, "are you coming?"
+
+"Right away," Elkan said, and together they proceeded downstairs.
+
+"Well, Elkan," Scheikowitz began when they reached the sidewalk, "you
+must think we was crazy to send for you just on account of this here
+Kapfer. Ain't it?"
+
+Elkan shrugged in reply.
+
+"But, as a matter of fact," Scheikowitz continued, "Kapfer ain't got no
+more to do with it than Elia Hanové; and, even though Polatkin would be
+such a crank that I was afraid for my life to suggest a thing, it was my
+idee you should come home, Elkan, because in a case like this delays is
+dangerous."
+
+"Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan pleaded, "do me the favour and don't go beating
+bushes round. What are you trying to drive into?"
+
+"I am trying to drive into this, Elkan," Scheikowitz replied: "I have
+got for you an elegant _Shidduch_."
+
+"_Shidduch!_" Elkan exclaimed. "For me? Why, Mr. Scheikowitz, I don't
+want no _Shidduch_ yet a while; and anyhow, Mr. Scheikowitz, if I would
+get married I would be my own _Shadchen_."
+
+"_Schmooes_, Elkan!" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "A feller which is his own
+_Shadchen_ remains single all his life long."
+
+"That suits me all right," Elkan commented as they reached
+Wasserbauer's. "I would remain single _und fertig_."
+
+"What d'ye mean, you would remain single?" Scheikowitz cried. "Is some
+one willing to pay you five thousand dollars you should remain single,
+Elkan? _Oser a Stück_, Elkan; and, furthermore, this here Miss Birdie
+Maslik is got such a face, Elkan, which, honest, if she wouldn't have a
+cent to her name, understand me, you would say she is beautiful anyhow."
+
+"Miss Birdie Maslik!" Elkan murmured.
+
+"B. Maslik's a _Tochter_," Scheikowitz added; "and remember, Elkan,
+don't breathe a word of this to Polatkin, otherwise he would never get
+through talking about it. Moreover, you will go up to Maslik's house
+to-morrow night with Charles Fischko, the _Shadchen_."
+
+"Now listen here to me, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan protested. "I ain't
+going nowheres with no _Shadchen_--and that's all there is to it."
+
+"_Aber_, Elkan," Scheikowitz said, "this here Fischko ain't a _Shadchen_
+exactly. He's really a real-estater, _aber_ real estate is so dead
+nowadays the feller must got to make a living somehow; so it ain't like
+you would be going somewheres _mit_ a _Shadchen_, Elkan. Actually you
+are going somewheres _mit_ a real-estater. Ain't it?"
+
+"It don't make no difference," Elkan answered stubbornly. "If I would go
+and see a girl I would go alone, otherwise not at all. So, if you insist
+on it I should go and see this here Miss Maslik to-morrow night, Mr.
+Scheikowitz, I would do so, but not with Rashkind."
+
+"Fischko," Scheikowitz interrupted.
+
+"Fischko _oder_ Rashkind," Elkan said--"that's all there is to it. And
+if I would get right back to the store I got just time to go up to the
+Prince Clarence and meet Max Kapfer; so you would excuse me if I skip."
+
+"Think it over Elkan," Scheikowitz called after him as Elkan left the
+café, and three quarters of an hour later he entered Polatkin &
+Scheikowitz' showroom accompanied by a fashionably attired young man.
+
+"Mr. Polatkin," Elkan said, "shake hands with Mr. Kapfer."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Kapfer?" Polatkin cried. "This here is my partner,
+Philip Scheikowitz."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Kapfer said. "You are very
+conveniently located here. Right in the heart of things, so to speak. I
+see across the street is Bleimauer & Gittelmann. Them people was in to
+see me last week already and offered me a big bargain in velvet suits,
+but I was all stocked up along that line so I didn't hand them no
+orders."
+
+"Velvet suits ain't our specialty at all," Polatkin replied; "but I bet
+yer if we never seen a velvet suit in all our lives, Mr. Kapfer, we
+could work you up a line of velvet suits which would make them velvet
+suits of Bleimauer & Gittelmann look like a bundle of rags."
+
+"I don't doubt it," Kapfer rejoined; "but, as I said before, velvet
+suits I am all stocked up in, as I couldn't afford to carry very many of
+'em."
+
+"That's all right," Polatkin said as he led the way to the showroom. "We
+got a line of garments here, Mr. Kapfer, which includes all prices and
+styles." He handed Max a large mild cigar as he spoke. "So let's see if
+we couldn't suit you," he concluded.
+
+For more than two hours Max Kapfer examined Polatkin & Scheikowitz'
+sample line and made so judicious a selection of moderate-priced
+garments that Polatkin could not forbear expressing his admiration,
+albeit the total amount of the purchase was not large.
+
+"You certainly got the right buying idee, Mr. Kapfer," he said. "Them
+styles is really the best value we got."
+
+"I know it," Kapfer agreed. "I was ten years with Paschalson, of
+Sarahcuse, Mr. Polatkin, and what I don't know about a popular-price
+line of ladies' ready-to-wear garments, underwear and millinery,
+Paschalson couldn't learn me. But that ain't what I'm after, Mr.
+Polatkin. I'd like to do some high-price business too. If I had the
+capital I would improve my store building and put in new fixtures,
+understand me, and I could increase my business seventy-five per cent
+and carry a better class of goods too."
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin said as they returned to the office. "Everybody
+needs more capital, Mr. Kapfer. We ourselves could do with a few
+thousand dollars more."
+
+He looked significantly at Elkan, who colored slightly as he recognized
+the allusion.
+
+"I bet yer," Scheikowitz added fervently. "Five thousand dollars would
+be welcome to us also." He nodded almost imperceptibly at Elkan, who
+forthwith broke into a gentle perspiration.
+
+"Five thousand was just the figure I was thinking of myself," Kapfer
+said. "With five thousand dollars I could do wonders in Bridgetown, Mr.
+Scheikowitz."
+
+"I'm surprised Flixman don't help you out a bit," Elkan suggested by way
+of changing the subject, and Kapfer emitted a mirthless laugh.
+
+"That bloodsucker!" he said. "What, when I bought his store, Mr.
+Scheikowitz, he took from me in part payment notes at two, four, and six
+months; and, though I got the cash ready to pay him the last note,
+which it falls due this week already, I asked him he should give me two
+months an extension, on account I want to put in a few fixtures on the
+second floor. Do you think that feller would do it? He's got a heart
+like a rock, Mr. Polatkin; and any one which could get from him his
+money must got to blast it out of him with dynamite yet."
+
+Polatkin nodded solemnly.
+
+"You couldn't tell me nothing about Flixman," he said as he offered
+Kapfer a consolatory cigar. "It's wasting your lungs to talk about such
+a feller at all; so let's go ahead and finish up this order, Mr. Kapfer,
+and afterward Elkan would go uptown with you." He motioned Kapfer to a
+seat and then looked at his watch. "I didn't got no idee it was so
+late," he said. "Scheikowitz, do me the favor and go over Mr. Kapfer's
+order with him while I give a look outside and see what's doing in the
+shop."
+
+As he walked toward the door he jerked his head sideways at Elkan, who a
+moment later followed him into the factory.
+
+"Listen, Elkan," he began. "While you and Scheikowitz was out for your
+coffee, Rashkind rings me up and says you should meet him on the corner
+of One Hundred and Twentieth Street and Lenox Avenue to-night--not
+to-morrow night--at eight o'clock sure."
+
+"But Kapfer ain't going back to Bridgetown to-night," Elkan protested.
+"He told me so himself on account he is got still to buy underwear,
+millinery and shoes."
+
+"What is that our business?" Polatkin asked. "He's already bought from
+us all he's going to; so, if he stays here, let them underwear and
+millinery people entertain him. Blow him to dinner and that would be
+plenty."
+
+Once more Elkan shrugged despairingly.
+
+"You didn't say nothing to Scheikowitz about it, did you?" Polatkin
+inquired.
+
+"Sure I didn't say nothing to him about it," Elkan said; "because----"
+
+"Elkan," Scheikowitz called from the office, "Mr. Kapfer is waiting for
+you."
+
+Elkan had been about to disclose the conversation between himself and
+Scheikowitz at Wasserbauer's that afternoon, but Marcus, at the
+appearance of his partner, turned abruptly and walked into the cutting
+room; and thus, when Elkan accompanied Max Kapfer uptown that evening,
+his manner was so preoccupied by reason of his dilemma that Kapfer was
+constrained to comment on it.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"What's worrying you, Lubliner?" he asked as they seated themselves in
+the café of the Prince Clarence. "You look like you was figuring out the
+interest on the money you owe."
+
+"I'll tell you the truth, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan began, "I would like to
+ask you an advice about something."
+
+"Go as far as you like," Kapfer replied. "It don't make no difference if
+a feller would be broke _oder_ in jail, he could always give somebody
+advice."
+
+"Well, it's like this," Elkan said, and forthwith he unfolded the
+circumstances attending his return from Bridgetown.
+
+"_Nu!_" Kapfer commented when Elkan concluded his narrative. "What is
+that for something to worry about?"
+
+"But the idee of the thing is wrong," Elkan protested. "In the first
+place, I got lots of time to get married, on account I am only
+twenty-one, Mr. Kapfer; and though a feller couldn't start in too early
+in business, Mr. Kapfer, getting married is something else again. To my
+mind a feller should be anyhow twenty-five before he jumps right in and
+gets married."
+
+"With some people, yes, and others, no," Kapfer rejoined.
+
+"And in the second place," Elkan went on, "I don't like this here
+_Shadchen_ business. We are living in America, not _Russland_; and in
+America if a feller gets married he don't need no help from a
+_Shadchen_, Mr. Kapfer."
+
+"No," Kapfer said, "he don't need no help, Lubliner; but, just the same,
+if some one would come to me any time these five years and says to me,
+here is something a nice girl, understand me, with five thousand
+dollars, y'understand, I would have been married _schon_ long since
+already." He cleared his throat judicially and sat back in his chair
+until it rested against the wall. "The fact is, Lubliner," he said, "you
+are acting like a fool. What harm would it do supposing you would go up
+there to-night with this here Rashkind?"
+
+"What, and go there to-morrow night with Fischko!" Elkan exclaimed.
+"Besides, if I would go up there to-night with Rashkind and the deal is
+closed, understand me, might Fischko would sue Mr. Scheikowitz in the
+court yet."
+
+"Not at all," Kapfer declared. "Fischko couldn't sue nobody but B.
+Maslik; so never mind waiting here for dinner. Hustle uptown and keep
+your date with Rashkind." He shook Elkan by the hand. "Good luck to you,
+Lubliner," he concluded heartily; "and if you got the time stop in on
+your way down to-morrow morning and let me know how you come out."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Elkan Lubliner arrived at the corner of One Hundred and Twentieth
+Street and Lenox Avenue that evening, it might well be supposed that he
+would have difficulty in recognizing Mr. Rashkind, since neither he nor
+Rashkind had any previous acquaintance. However, he accosted without
+hesitation a short, stout person arrayed in a wrinkled frock coat and
+wearing the white tie and gold spectacles that invariably garb the
+members of such quasi-clerical professions as a _Shadchen_, a sexton or
+the collector of subscriptions for a charitable institution. Indeed, as
+Rashkind combined all three of these callings with the occupation of a
+real-estate broker, he also sported a high silk hat of uncertain vintage
+and a watch-chain bearing a Masonic emblem approximating in weight and
+size a tailor's goose.
+
+"This is Mr. Rashkind, ain't it?" Elkan asked, and Rashkind bowed
+solemnly.
+
+"My name is Mr. Lubliner," Elkan continued, "and Mr. Polatkin says you
+would be here at eight."
+
+For answer Mr. Rashkind drew from his waistcoat pocket what appeared to
+be a six-ounce boxing glove, but which subsequently proved to be the
+chamois covering of his gold watch, the gift of Rambam Lodge, No. 142,
+I. O. M. A. This Mr. Rashkind consulted with knit brows.
+
+"That's right," he said, returning the watch and its covering to his
+pocket--"eight o'clock to the minute; so I guess we would just so well
+go round to B. Maslik's house if you ain't got no objections."
+
+"I'm agreeable," Elkan said; "but, before we start, you should please be
+so good and tell me what I must got to do."
+
+"What you must got to do?" Rashkind exclaimed. "A question! You mustn't
+got to do nothing. Act natural and leave the rest to me."
+
+"But," Elkan insisted as they proceeded down Lenox Avenue, "shouldn't I
+say something to the girl?"
+
+"Sure, you should say something to the girl," Rashkind replied; "but, if
+you couldn't find something to say to a girl like Miss Birdie Maslik,
+all I could tell you is you're a bigger _Schlemiel_ than you look."
+
+With this encouraging ultimatum, Mr. Rashkind entered the portals of a
+hallway that glittered with lacquered bronze and plaster porphyry, and
+before Elkan had time to ask any more questions he found himself seated
+with Mr. Rashkind in the front parlour of a large apartment on the
+seventh floor.
+
+"Mr. Maslik says you should be so good and step into the dining room,"
+the maid said to Mr. Rashkind. Forthwith he rose to his feet and left
+Elkan alone in the room, save for the presence of the maid, who drew
+down the shades and smiled encouragingly on Elkan.
+
+"Ain't it a fine weather?" she asked.
+
+Elkan looked up, and he could not resist smiling in return.
+
+"Elegant," he replied. "It don't seem like summer was ever going to
+quit."
+
+"It couldn't last too long for me," the maid continued. "Might some
+people would enjoy cold weather maybe; but when it comes to going up on
+the roof, understand me, and hanging out a big wash, the summer is good
+enough for me."
+
+Elkan gazed for a moment at her oval face, with its kindly, intelligent
+brown eyes.
+
+"You mean to say you got to do washing here?" he asked in shocked
+accents.
+
+"Sure I do," she replied; "_aber_ this winter I am going to night school
+again and next summer might I would get a job as bookkeeper maybe."
+
+"But why don't you get a job in a store somewheres?" he asked.
+
+"I see myself working in a store all day, standing on my feet yet, and
+when I get through all my wages goes for board!" she replied. "Whereas,
+here I got anyhow a good room and board, and all what I earn I could put
+away in savings bank. I worked in a store long enough, Mr.----"
+
+"Lubliner," Elkan said.
+
+"----Mr. Lubliner; and I could assure you I would a whole lot sooner do
+housework," she went on. "Why should a girl think it's a disgrace she
+should do housework for a living is more as I could tell you. Sooner or
+later a girl gets married, and then she must got to do her own
+housework."
+
+"Not if her husband makes a good living," Elkan suggested.
+
+"Sure, I know," she rejoined; "but how many girls which they are working
+in stores gets not a rich man, understand me, but a man which is only
+making, say, for example, thirty dollars a week. The most that a poor
+girl expects is that she marries a poor man, y'understand, and then they
+work their way up together."
+
+Elkan nodded. Unconsciously he was indorsing not so much the matter as
+the manner of her conversation, for she spoke with the low voice that
+distinguishes the Rumanian from the Pole or Lithuanian.
+
+"You are coming from Rumania, ain't it?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Pretty near there," the maid replied. "Right on the border. I am coming
+here an orphan five years ago; and----"
+
+"_Nu_, Lubliner," cried a rasping voice from the doorway, "we got our
+appointment for nothing--Miss Maslik is sick."
+
+"That's too bad," Elkan said perfunctorily.
+
+"Only a little something she eats gives her a headache," Rashkind went
+on. "We could come round the day after to-morrow night."
+
+"That's too bad also," Elkan commented, "on account the day after
+to-morrow night I got a date with a customer."
+
+"Well, anyhow, B. Maslik would be in in a minute and----"
+
+Elkan rose to his feet so abruptly that he nearly sent his chair through
+a cabinet behind him.
+
+"If I want to be here Friday night," he said, "I must see my customer
+to-night yet; so, young lady, if you would be so kind to tell Mr. Maslik
+I couldn't wait, but would be here Friday night with this
+here--now--gentleman. Come on, Rashkind."
+
+He started for the hall door almost on a run, with Rashkind
+gesticulating excitedly behind him; but, before the _Shadchen_ could
+even grasp his coattails he had let himself hurriedly out and was taking
+the stairs three at a jump.
+
+"Hey!" Rashkind shouted as he plunged down the steps after Elkan.
+"What's the matter with you? Don't you want to meet Mr. Maslik?"
+
+Elkan only hurried the faster, however, for in the few minutes he had
+been alone in the room with the little brown-eyed maid he had made the
+discovery that marriage with the aid of a _Shadchen_ was impossible for
+him. Simultaneously he conceived the notion that marriage without the
+aid of a _Shadchen_ might after all be well worth trying; and, as this
+idea loomed in his mind, his pace slackened until the _Shadchen_
+overtook him at the corner of One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner!" Rashkind said. "What is the matter with you
+anyway?"
+
+Elkan professed to misunderstand the question.
+
+"I've lost my address book," he said. "I had it in my hand when you left
+me alone there and I must of forgotten it; so I guess I'll go back and
+get it."
+
+"All right," Rashkind replied. "I'll go with you."
+
+Elkan wheeled round and glared viciously at the _Shadchen_.
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind!" he roared. "You get right down them
+subway steps or I wouldn't come up with you Friday night."
+
+"But what harm----" Rashkind began, when Elkan seized him by the
+shoulder and led him firmly downstairs to the ticket office. There Elkan
+bought a ticket and, dropping it in the chopper's box, he pushed
+Rashkind on to the platform. A few minutes later a downtown express bore
+the _Shadchen_ away and Elkan ascended the stairs in three tremendous
+bounds. Unwaveringly he started up the street for B. Maslik's apartment
+house, where, by the simple expedient of handing the elevator boy a
+quarter, he averted the formality of being announced. Thus, when he rang
+the doorbell of B. Maslik's flat, though it was opened by the little
+brown-eyed maid in person, she had discarded the white apron and cap
+that she had worn a few minutes before, and her hair was fluffed up in
+becoming disorder.
+
+"You was telling me you are coming originally from somewheres near
+Rumania," Elkan began without further preface, "and--why, what's the
+matter? You've been crying?"
+
+She put her fingers to her lips and closed the door softly behind her.
+"They says I didn't got no business talking to you at all," she replied,
+"and they called me down something terrible!"
+
+Elkan's eyes flashed angrily.
+
+"Who calls you down?" he demanded.
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Maslik," she answered; "and they says I ain't got no shame
+at all!"
+
+She struggled bravely to retain her composure; but just one little
+half-strangled sob escaped her, and forthwith Elkan felt internally a
+peculiar sinking sensation.
+
+"What do they mean you ain't got no shame?" he protested. "I got a right
+to talk to you and you got a right to talk to me--ain't it?"
+
+She nodded and sobbed again, whereat Elkan winced and dug his nails into
+the palms of his hands.
+
+"Listen!" he pleaded. "Don't worry yourself at all. After this I
+wouldn't got no use for them people. I didn't come here on my own
+account in the first place, but----"
+
+Here he paused.
+
+"But what?" the little maid asked.
+
+"But I'm glad I came now," Elkan went on defiantly, "and I don't care
+who knows it. _Wir sind alles Jehudim_, anyhow, and one is just as good
+as the other."
+
+"Better even," she said. "What was B. Maslik in the old country? He
+could _oser_ sign his name when he came here, while I am anyhow from
+decent, respectable people, Mr. Lubliner."
+
+"I don't doubt it," Elkan replied.
+
+"My father was a learned man, Mr. Lubliner; but that don't save him. One
+day he goes to Kishinef on business, Mr. Lubliner, and----"
+
+Here her composure entirely forsook her and she covered her face with
+her hands and wept. Elkan struggled with himself no longer. He took the
+little maid in his arms; and, as it seemed the most natural thing in the
+world to do, she laid her head against his shoulder and had her whole
+cry out.
+
+Elkan spoke no word, but patted her shoulder gently with his right hand.
+
+"I guess I'm acting like a baby, Mr. Lubliner," she said, after a
+quarter of an hour had elapsed. To Elkan it seemed like an acquaintance
+of many months as he clasped her more closely.
+
+"My name is Elkan, _Liebchen_," he said, "and we would send all the
+heavy washing out."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Well, Lubliner," Kapfer cried as Elkan came into the café of the Prince
+Clarence the following morning, "you didn't like her--what?"
+
+"Didn't like her!" Elkan exclaimed. "What d'ye mean I didn't like her?"
+
+"Why, the way you look, I take it you had a pretty rotten time last
+night," Kapfer rejoined.
+
+"What are you talking about--rotten time?" Elkan protested. "The only
+thing is I feel so happy I didn't sleep a wink, that's all."
+
+Kapfer jumped to his feet and slapped Elkan on the shoulder.
+
+"Do you mean you're engaged!" he asked.
+
+"Sure!" Elkan replied.
+
+"Then I congradulate you a thousand times," Kapfer said gleefully.
+
+"Once is plenty," Elkan replied.
+
+"No, it ain't," Kapfer rejoined. "You should got to be congradulated
+more as you think, because this morning I am talking to a feller in the
+clothing business here and he says B. Maslik is richer as most people
+believe. The feller says he is easy worth a quarter of a million
+dollars."
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" Elkan asked.
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" Kapfer repeated. "Why, it's got
+everything to do with it, considering you are engaged to his only
+daughter."
+
+"I am engaged to his only daughter? Who told you that, Mr. Kapfer?"
+
+"Why, you did!" Kapfer said.
+
+"I never said nothing of the kind," Elkan declared, "because I ain't
+engaged to Miss Maslik at all; in fact, I never even seen her."
+
+Kapfer gazed earnestly at Elkan and then sat down suddenly.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," he said. "Are you crazy or am I? Last night
+you says you are going up with a _Shadchen_ to see Birdie Maslik, and
+now you tell me you are engaged, but not to Miss Maslik."
+
+"That's right," Elkan replied.
+
+"Then who in thunder are you engaged to?"
+
+"That's just the point," Elkan said, as he passed his hand through his
+hair. "I ain't slept a wink all night on account of it; in fact, this
+morning I wondered should I go round there and ask--and then I thought
+to myself I would get from you an advice first."
+
+"Get from me an advice!" Kapfer exclaimed. "You mean you are engaged to
+a girl and you don't know her name, and so you come down here to ask me
+an advice as to how you should find out her name?"
+
+Elkan nodded sadly and leaned his elbow on the table.
+
+"It's like this," he said; and for more than half an hour he regaled
+Kapfer with a story that, stripped of descriptive and irrelevant
+material concerning Elkan's own feelings in the matter, ought to have
+taken only five minutes in the telling.
+
+"And that's the way it is, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan concluded. "I don't know
+her name; but a poor little girl like her, which she is so good--and
+so--and so----"
+
+Here he became all choked up and Kapfer handed him a cigar.
+
+"Don't go into that again, Lubliner," Kapfer said; "you told me how
+good she is six times already. The point is you are in a hole and you
+want me I should help you out--ain't it?"
+
+Elkan nodded wearily.
+
+"Well, then, my advice to you is: _Stiegen_," Kapfer continued. "Don't
+say a word about this to nobody until you would, anyhow, find out the
+girl's name."
+
+"I wasn't going to," Elkan replied; "but there's something else, Mr.
+Kapfer. To-night I am to meet this here other _Shadchen_ by the name
+Fischko, who is going to take me up to Maslik's house."
+
+"But I thought Miss Maslik was sick," Kapfer said.
+
+"She was sick," Elkan answered, "but she would be better by to-night. So
+that's the way it stands. If I would go downtown now and explain to Mr.
+Scheikowitz that I am not going up there to-night and that I was there
+last night--and----" Here Elkan paused and made an expressive gesture
+with both hands. "The fact is," he almost whimpered, "the whole thing is
+such a _Mischmasch_ I feel like I was going crazy!"
+
+Kapfer leaned across the table and patted him consolingly on the arm.
+
+"Don't make yourself sick over it," he advised. "Put it up to Polatkin.
+You don't got to keep Scheikowitz's idee a secret now, Lubliner, because
+sooner or later Polatkin must got to find it out. So you should let
+Polatkin know how you was up there last night, and that Rashkind wants
+you to go up there Friday night on account Miss Maslik was sick, and
+leave it to Polatkin to flag Scheikowitz and this here Fischko."
+
+"But----" Elkan began, when the strange expression of Kapfer's face made
+him pause. Indeed, before he could proceed further, Kapfer jumped up
+from his chair.
+
+"Cheese it!" he said. "Here comes Polatkin."
+
+As he spoke, Polatkin caught sight of them and almost ran across the
+room.
+
+"Elkan!" he exclaimed. "_Gott sei Dank_ I found you here."
+
+"What's the matter?" Elkan asked.
+
+Polatkin drew forward a chair and they all sat down.
+
+"I just had a terrible fuss with Scheikowitz," he said. "This morning,
+when I got downtown, I thought I would tell him what I brought you back
+for; so I says to him: 'Philip,' I says, 'I want to tell you something,'
+I says. 'I got an elegant _Shidduch_ for Elkan.'" He stopped and let his
+hand fall with a loud smack on his thigh. "Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What a
+row that feller made it! You would think, Elkan, I told him I got a
+pistol to shoot you with, the way he acts. I didn't even got the
+opportunity to tell him who the _Shidduch_ was. He tells me I should
+mind my own business and calls me such names which honestly I wouldn't
+call a shipping clerk even. And what else d'ye think he says?"
+
+Elkan and Kapfer shook their heads.
+
+"Why, he says that to-night, at eight o'clock, he himself is going to
+have a _Shadchen_ by the name Fischko take you up to see a girl in
+Harlem which the name he didn't tell me at all; but he says she's got
+five thousand dollars a dowry. Did he say to you anything about it,
+Elkan?"
+
+"The first I hear of it!" Elkan replied in husky tones as he averted his
+eyes from Polatkin. "Why, I wouldn't know the feller Fischko if he stood
+before me now, and he wouldn't know me neither."
+
+"Didn't he tell you her name?" Kapfer asked cautiously.
+
+"No," Polatkin replied, "because I says right away that the girl I had
+in mind would got a dowry of five thousand too; and then and there
+Scheikowitz gets so mad he smashes a chair on us--one of them new ones
+we just bought, Elkan. So I didn't say nothing more, but I rung up
+Rashkind right away and asks him how things turns out, and he says
+nothing is settled yet."
+
+Elkan nodded guiltily.
+
+"So I got an idee," Polatkin continued. "I thought, Elkan, we would do
+this: Don't come downtown to-day at all, and to-night I would go up and
+meet Fischko and tell him you are practically engaged and the whole
+thing is off. Also I would _schenk_ the feller a ten-dollar bill he
+shouldn't bother us again."
+
+Elkan grasped the edge of the table. He felt as if consciousness were
+slipping away from him, when suddenly Kapfer emitted a loud exclamation.
+
+"By jiminy!" he cried. "I got an idee! Why shouldn't I go up there and
+meet this here Fischko?"
+
+"You go up there?" Polatkin said.
+
+"Sure; why not? A nice girl like Miss--whatever her name is--ain't too
+good for me, Mr. Polatkin. I got a good business there in Bridgetown,
+and----"
+
+"But I don't know what for a girl she is at all," Polatkin protested.
+
+"She's got anyhow five thousand dollars," Kapfer retorted, "and when a
+girl's got five thousand dollars, Mr. Polatkin, beauty ain't even
+skin-deep."
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin agreed; "but so soon as you see Fischko and
+tell him you ain't Elkan Lubliner he would refuse to take you round to
+see the girl at all."
+
+"Leave that to me," Kapfer declared. "D'ye know what I'll tell him?" He
+looked hard at Elkan Lubliner before he continued. "I'll tell him," he
+said, "that Elkan is already engaged."
+
+"Already engaged!" Polatkin cried.
+
+"Sure!" Kapfer said--"secretly engaged unbeknownst to everybody."
+
+"But right away to-morrow morning Fischko would come down and tell
+Scheikowitz that you says Elkan is secretly engaged, and Scheikowitz
+would know the whole thing was a fake and that I am at the bottom of
+it."
+
+"No, he wouldn't," Kapfer rejoined, "because Elkan would then and there
+say that he is secretly engaged and that would let you out."
+
+"Sure it would," Polatkin agreed; "and then Scheikowitz would want to
+kill Elkan."
+
+Suddenly Elkan struck the table with his clenched fist.
+
+"I've got the idee!" he said. "I wouldn't come downtown till
+Saturday--because we will say, for example, I am sick. Then, when
+Fischko says I am secretly engaged, you can say you don't know nothing
+about it; and by the time I come down on Saturday morning I would be
+engaged all right, and nobody could do nothing any more."
+
+"That's true too," Kapfer said, "because your date with Rashkind is for
+to-morrow night and by Saturday the whole thing would be over."
+
+Polatkin nodded doubtfully, but after a quarter of an hour's earnest
+discussion he was convinced of the wisdom of Elkan's plan.
+
+"All right, Elkan," he said at last. "Be down early on Saturday."
+
+"Eight o'clock sure," Elkan replied as he shook Polatkin's hand; "and
+by that time I hope you'll congratulate me on my engagement."
+
+"I hope so," Polatkin said.
+
+"Me too," Kapfer added after Polatkin departed; "and I also hope, Elkan,
+this would be a warning to you that the next time you get engaged you
+should find out the girl's name in advance."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Yes, siree, sir," said Charles Fischko emphatically, albeit a trifle
+thickly. "I guess you made a big hit there, Mr. Kapfer, and I don't
+think I am acting previously when I drink to the health of Mrs. Kapfer."
+He touched glasses with Max Kapfer, who sat opposite to him at a
+secluded table in the Harlem Winter Garden, flanked by two bottles of
+what had been a choice brand of California champagne. "Née Miss Maslik,"
+he added as he put down his glass; "and I think you are getting a young
+lady which is not only good-looking but she is got also a heart like
+gold. Look at the way she treats the servant girl they got there!
+Honestly, when I was round there this morning them two girls was talking
+like sisters already!"
+
+"That's all right," Kapfer rejoined; "she's got a right to treat that
+girl like a sister. She's a nice little girl--that servant girl."
+
+"Don't I know it!" Fischko protested as he poured himself out another
+glass of wine. "It was me that got her the job there two years ago
+already; and before I would recommend to a family like B. Maslik's a
+servant girl, understand me, I would make sure she comes from decent,
+respectable people. Also the girl is a wonderful cook, Mr. Kapfer,
+simple, plain, everyday dish like _gefüllte Hechte_, Mr. Kapfer; she
+makes it like it would be roast goose already--so fine she cooks it. She
+learned it from her mother, Mr. Kapfer, also a wonderful cook. Why,
+would you believe it, Mr. Kapfer, that girl's own mother and me comes
+pretty near being engaged to be married oncet?"
+
+"You don't say!" Kapfer commented.
+
+"That was from some years ago in the old country already," Fischko
+continued; "and I guess I ought to be lucky I didn't do so, on account
+she marries a feller by the name Silbermacher, _olav hasholem_, which he
+is got the misfortune to get killed in Kishinef. Poor Mrs. Silbermacher,
+she didn't live long, and the daughter, Yetta, comes to America an
+orphan five years ago. Ever since then the girl looks out for herself;
+and so sure as you are sitting there she's got in savings bank already
+pretty near eight hundred dollars."
+
+"Is that so?" Kapfer interrupted.
+
+"Yes, sir," Fischko replied; "and when she is got a thousand, understand
+me, I would find for her a nice young man, Mr. Kapfer, which he is got
+anyhow twenty-five machines a contracting shop, y'understand, and she
+will get married _und fertig_. With such good friends which I got it
+like Polatkin & Scheikowitz, I could throw a little business their way,
+and the first thing you know she is settled for life."
+
+Here Fischko drained his glass and reached out his hand toward the
+bottle; but Kapfer anticipated the move and emptied the remainder of the
+wine into his own glass.
+
+"Before I order another bottle, Fischko," he said, "I would like to talk
+a little business with you."
+
+"Never mind another bottle," Fischko said. "I thought we was through
+with our business for the evening."
+
+"With our business, yes," Kapfer announced; "but this story which you
+are telling me about Miss Silbermacher interests me, Fischko, and I know
+a young feller which he is got more as twenty-five machines a
+contracting shop; in fact, Fischko, he is a salesman which he makes
+anyhow his fifty to seventy-five dollars a week, and he wants to get
+married bad."
+
+"He couldn't want to get married so bad as all that," Fischko commented,
+"because there's lots of girls which would be only too glad to marry a
+such a young feller--girls with money even."
+
+"I give you right, Mr. Fischko," Kapfer agreed; "but this young feller
+ain't the kind that marries for money. What he wants is a nice girl
+which she is good-looking like this here Miss Silbermacher and is a good
+housekeeper, understand me; and from what I've seen of Miss
+Silbermacher she would be just the person."
+
+"What's his name?" Fischko asked.
+
+"His name," said Kapfer, "is Ury Shemansky, a close friend from mine;
+and I got a date with him at twelve o'clock on the corner drug store at
+One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street that I should tell him how I came
+out this evening." He seized his hat from an adjoining hook. "So, if
+you'd wait here a few minutes," he said, "I would go and fetch him right
+round here. Shall I order another bottle before I go?"
+
+Fischko shook his head.
+
+"I got enough," he said; "and don't be long on account I must be going
+home soon."
+
+Kapfer nodded, and five minutes later he entered the all-night drug
+store in question and approached a young man who was seated at the soda
+fountain. In front of him stood a large glass of "Phospho-Nervino,"
+warranted to be "A Speedy and Reliable Remedy for Nervous Headache,
+Sleeplessness, Mental Fatigue and Depression following Over-Brainwork";
+and as he was about to raise the glass to his lips Kapfer slapped him on
+the shoulder.
+
+"Cheer up, Elkan," he exclaimed. "Her name is Yetta Silbermacher and
+she's got in savings bank eight hundred dollars."
+
+"What d'ye mean she's got money in savings bank?" Elkan protested
+wearily, for the sleepless, brain-fatigued and depressed young man was
+none other than Elkan Lubliner. "Did you seen her?"
+
+"I did," Kapfer replied; "and Miss Maslik's a fine, lovely girl. The old
+man ain't so bad either. He treated me elegant and Fischko thinks I made
+quite a hit there."
+
+"I ain't asking you about Miss Maslik at all," Elkan said. "I mean Miss
+Silbermacher"--he hesitated and blushed--"Yetta," he continued, and
+buried his confusion in the foaming glass of "Phospho-Nervino."
+
+"That's just what I want to talk to you about," Kapfer went on. "Did I
+understand you are telling Polatkin that you never seen Fischko the
+_Shadchen_ and he never seen you neither?"
+
+"That's right," Elkan replied.
+
+"Then come right down with me to the Harlem Winter Garden," Kapfer said.
+"I want you to meet him. He ain't a bad sort, even if he would be a
+_Shadchen_."
+
+"But what should I want to meet him for?" Elkan cried.
+
+"Because," Kapfer explained, "I am going to marry this here Miss Maslik,
+Elkan; and I'm going to improve my store property, so that my trade will
+be worth to Polatkin & Scheikowitz anyhow three thousand dollars a
+year--ain't it?"
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" Elkan asked.
+
+"It's got this much to do with it," Kapfer continued: "To-morrow
+afternoon two o'clock I would have Polatkin and Scheikowitz at my room
+in the Prince Clarence. You also would be there--and d'ye know who else
+would be there?"
+
+Elkan shook his head.
+
+"Miss Yetta Silbermacher," Kapfer went on; "because I am going to get
+Fischko to bring her down there to meet an eligible party by the name
+Ury Shemansky."
+
+"What?" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"Ssh-sh!" Kapfer cried reassuringly. "I am going to introduce you to
+Fischko right away as Ury Shemansky, provided he ain't so _shikker_ when
+I get back that he wouldn't recognize you at all."
+
+Elkan nodded and paid for his restorative, and on their way down to the
+Harlem Winter Garden they perfected the details of the appointment for
+the following afternoon.
+
+"The reason why I am getting Fischko to bring her down," Kapfer
+explained, "is because, in the first place, it looks pretty _schlecht_
+that a feller should meet a girl only once and, without the help of a
+_Shadchen_, gets right away engaged to her; and so, with Fischko the
+_Shadchen_ there, it looks better for you both. Furthermore, in the
+second place, a girl which is doing housework, Elkan, must got to have
+an excuse, understand me; otherwise she couldn't get away from her work
+at all."
+
+"But," Elkan said, "how do you expect that Yetta would go with a
+_Shadchen_ to see this here Ury Shemansky when she is already engaged to
+me?"
+
+"_Schafskopf!_" Kapfer exclaimed. "Telephone her the first thing
+to-morrow morning that you are this here Ury Shemansky and she would
+come quick enough!"
+
+"That part's all right," Elkan agreed; "but I don't see yet how you are
+going to get Polatkin and Scheikowitz there."
+
+Kapfer nodded his head with spurious confidence; for of this, perhaps
+the most important part of his plan, he felt extremely doubtful.
+
+"Leave that to me," he said sagely, and the next moment they entered the
+Harlem Winter Garden to find Charles Fischko gazing sadly at a solution
+of bicarbonate of soda and ammonia, a tumblerful of which stood in front
+of him on the table.
+
+"Mr. Fischko," Kapfer said, "this is my friend Ury Shemansky, the
+gentleman I was speaking to you about."
+
+"No relation to Shemansky who used to was in the customer pedler
+business on Ridge Street?" Fischko asked.
+
+"Not as I've heard," Elkan said.
+
+"Because there's a feller, understand me, which he went to work and
+married a poor girl; and ever since he's got nothing but _Mazel_. The
+week afterward he found in the street a diamond ring worth two hundred
+dollars, and the next month a greenhorn comes over with ten thousand
+rubles and wants to go as partners together with him in business. In a
+year's time Shemansky dissolves the partnership and starts in the
+remnant business with five thousand dollars net capital. He ain't been
+established two weeks, understand me, when a liquor saloon next door
+burns out and he gets a thousand dollars smoke damage; and one thing
+follows another, y'understand, till to-day he's worth easy his fifty
+thousand dollars. That's what it is to marry a poor girl, Mr.
+Shemansky." He took a pull at the tumbler of bicarbonate and made an
+involuntary grimace. "Furthermore, I am knowing this here Miss
+Silbermacher ever since she is born, pretty nearly!" Fischko cried.
+
+"You did!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, why didn't you tell me that, Kapfer?"
+
+"I couldn't think of everything," Kapfer protested.
+
+"Go ahead," Elkan said, turning to Fischko; "let me know all about
+her--everything! I think I got a right to know--ain't it?"
+
+"Sure you have," Fischko said as he cleared his throat oratorically; and
+therewith he began a laudatory biography of Yetta Silbermacher, while
+Elkan settled himself to listen. With parted lips and eyes shining his
+appreciation, he heard a narrative that justified beyond peradventure
+his choice of a wife, and when Fischko concluded he smote the table with
+his fist.
+
+"By jiminy!" he cried. "A feller should ought to be proud of a wife like
+that!"
+
+"Sure he should," Kapfer said; "and her and Fischko would be down at my
+room at the Prince Clarence to-morrow at two."
+
+He beckoned to the waiter. "So let's pay up and go home," he concluded;
+"and by to-morrow night Fischko would got two matches to his credit."
+
+"_K'mo she-néemar_," Fischko said as he rose a trifle laboriously to his
+feet, "it is commanded to promote marriages, visit the sick and bury the
+dead."
+
+"And," Kapfer added, "you'll notice that promoting marriages comes ahead
+of the others."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Marcus Polatkin arrived at his place of business the following
+morning he looked round him anxiously for his partner, who had departed
+somewhat early the previous day with the avowed intention of seeing just
+how sick Elkan was. As a matter of fact, Scheikowitz had discovered
+Elkan lying on the sofa at his boarding place, vainly attempting to
+secure his first few minutes' sleep in over thirty-six hours; and he had
+gone home truly shocked at Elkan's pallid and careworn appearance,
+though Elkan had promised to keep the appointment with Fischko. Polatkin
+felt convinced, however, that his partner must have discovered the
+pretence of Elkan's indisposition, and his manner was a trifle
+artificial when he inquired after the absentee.
+
+"How was he feeling, Philip?" he asked.
+
+"Pretty bad, I guess," Scheikowitz replied, whereat a blank expression
+came over Polatkin's face. "The boy works too hard, I guess. He ain't
+slept a wink for two days."
+
+"Why, he seemed all right yesterday when I seen him," Polatkin declared.
+
+"Yesterday?" Scheikowitz exclaimed.
+
+"I mean the day before yesterday," Polatkin added hastily as the
+elevator door opened and a short, stout person alighted. He wore a
+wrinkled frock coat and a white tie which perched coquettishly under his
+left ear; and as he approached the office he seemed to be labouring
+under a great deal of excitement.
+
+"Oo-ee!" he wailed as he caught sight of Polatkin, and without further
+salutation he sank into the nearest chair. There he bowed his head in
+his hands and rocked to and fro disconsolately.
+
+"Who's this crazy feller?" Scheikowitz demanded of his partner.
+
+Polatkin shrugged.
+
+"He's a button salesman by the name Rashkind," Polatkin said. "Leave me
+deal with him." He walked over to the swaying _Shadchen_ and shook him
+violently by the shoulder. "Rashkind," he said, "stop that nonsense and
+tell me what's the matter."
+
+Rashkind ceased his moanings and looked up with bloodshot eyes.
+
+"She's engaged!" he said.
+
+"She's engaged!" Polatkin repeated. "And you call yourself a
+_Shadchen_!" he said bitterly.
+
+"A _Shadchen_!" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, I thought you said he was a
+button salesman."
+
+"Did I?" Polatkin retorted. "Well, maybe he is, Scheikowitz; but he
+ain't no _Shadchen_. Actually the feller goes to work and takes Elkan up
+to see the girl, and they put him off by saying the girl was sick; and
+now he comes down here and tells me the girl is engaged."
+
+"Well," Scheikowitz remarked, "you couldn't get no sympathy from me,
+Polatkin. A feller which acts underhand the way you done, trying to make
+up a _Shidduch_ for Elkan behind my back yet--you got what you
+deserved."
+
+"What d'ye mean I got what I deserved?" Polatkin said indignantly. "Do
+you think it would be such a bad thing for us--you and me both,
+Scheikowitz--if I could of made up a match between Elkan and B. Maslik's
+a daughter?"
+
+"B. Maslik's a daughter!" Scheikowitz cried. "Do you mean that this here
+feller was trying to make up a match between Elkan and Miss Birdie
+Maslik?"
+
+"That's just what I said," Polatkin announced.
+
+"Then I can explain the whole thing," Scheikowitz rejoined
+triumphantly. "Miss Maslik had a date to meet Elkan last night yet with
+a _Shadchen_ by the name Charles Fischko, and that's why B. Maslik told
+this here button salesman that his daughter was engaged."
+
+Rashkind again raised his head and regarded Scheikowitz with a
+malevolent grin.
+
+"_Schmooes!_" he jeered. "Miss Maslik is engaged and the _Shadchen_ was
+Charles Fischko, but the _Chosan_ ain't Elkan Lubliner by a damsight."
+
+It was now Polatkin's turn to gloat, and he shook his head slowly up and
+down.
+
+"So, Scheikowitz," he said, "you are trying to fix up a _Shidduch_
+between Elkan and Miss Maslik without telling me a word about it, and
+you get the whole thing so mixed up that it is a case of trying to sit
+between two chairs! You come down _mit_ a big bump and I ain't got no
+sympathy for you neither."
+
+"What was the feller's name?" Scheikowitz demanded hoarsely of Rashkind,
+who was straightening out his tie and smoothing his rumpled hair.
+
+"It's a funny quincidence," Rashkind replied; "but you remember, Mr.
+Polatkin, I was talking to you the other day about Julius Flixman?"
+
+"Yes," Polatkin said, and his heart began to thump in anticipation of
+the answer.
+
+"Well, Julius Flixman, as I told you, sold out his store to a feller by
+the name Max Kapfer," Rashkind said and paused again.
+
+"_Nu!_" Scheikowitz roared. "What of it?"
+
+"Well, this here Max Kapfer is engaged to be married to Miss Birdie
+Maslik," Rashkind concluded; and when Scheikowitz looked from Rashkind
+toward his partner the latter had already proceeded more than halfway to
+the telephone.
+
+"And that's what your _Shadchen_ done for you, Mr. Scheikowitz!"
+Rashkind said as he put on his hat. He walked to the elevator and rang
+the bell.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Scheikowitz," Rashkind added, "as a _Shadchen_, maybe I am a
+button salesman; but I'd a whole lot sooner be a button salesman as a
+thief and don't you forget it!"
+
+After the elevator had borne Rashkind away Scheikowitz went back to the
+office in time to hear Marcus engaged in a noisy altercation with the
+telephone operator of the Prince Clarence Hotel.
+
+"What d'ye mean he ain't there?" he bellowed. "With you it's always the
+same--I could never get nobody at your hotel."
+
+He hung up the receiver with force almost sufficient to wreck the
+instrument.
+
+"That'll do, Polatkin!" Scheikowitz said. "We already got half our
+furniture smashed."
+
+"Did I done it?" Polatkin growled--the allusion being to the chair
+demolished by Scheikowitz on the previous day.
+
+"You was the cause of it," Scheikowitz retorted; "and, anyhow, who are
+you ringing up at the Prince Clarence?"
+
+"I'm ringing up that feller Kapfer," Polatkin replied. "I want to tell
+that sucker what I think of him."
+
+Then it was that Kapfer's theory as to the effect of his engagement on
+his relations with Polatkin & Scheikowitz became justified in fact.
+
+"You wouldn't do nothing of the kind," Scheikowitz declared. "It ain't
+bad enough that Elkan loses this here _Shidduch_, but you are trying to
+Jonah a good account also! Why, that feller Kapfer's business after he
+marries Miss Maslik would be easy worth to us three thousand dollars a
+year."
+
+"I don't care what his business is worth," Polatkin shouted. "I would
+say what I please to that highwayman!"
+
+"What do you want to do?" Scheikowitz pleaded--"bite off your nose to
+spoil your face?"
+
+Polatkin made no reply and he was about to go into the showroom when the
+telephone bell rang.
+
+"Leave me answer it," Scheikowitz said; and a moment later he picked up
+the desk telephone and placed the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello!" he said. "Yes, this is Polatkin & Scheikowitz. This is Mr.
+Scheikowitz talking."
+
+Suddenly the instrument dropped with a clatter to the floor; and while
+Scheikowitz was stooping to pick it up Polatkin rushed into the office.
+
+"Scheikowitz!" he cried. "What are you trying to do--break up our whole
+office yet? Ain't it enough you are putting all our chairs on the bum
+already?"
+
+Scheikowitz contented himself by glaring viciously at his partner and
+again placed the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello, Mr. Kapfer," he said. "Yes, I heard it this morning already.
+Them things travels fast, Mr. Kapfer. No, I don't blame you--I blame
+this here Fischko. He gives me a dirty deal--that's all."
+
+Here there was a long pause, while Polatkin stood in the middle of the
+office floor like a bird-dog pointing at a covey of partridges.
+
+"But why couldn't you come down here, Mr. Kapfer?" Scheikowitz asked.
+Again there was a long pause, at the end of which Scheikowitz said:
+"Wait a minute--I'll ask my partner."
+
+"Listen here, Polatkin," he said, placing his hand over the transmitter.
+"Kapfer says he wants to give us from two thousand five hundred dollars
+an order, and he wants you and me to go up to the Prince Clarence at two
+o'clock to see him. He wants us both there because he wants to arrange
+terms of credit."
+
+"I would see him hung first!" Polatkin roared, and Scheikowitz took his
+hand from the transmitter.
+
+"All right, Mr. Kapfer," he answered in dulcet tones; "me and Polatkin
+will both be there. Good-bye."
+
+He hung up the receiver with exaggerated care.
+
+"And you would just bet your life that we will be there!" he said. "And
+that's all there is to it!"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+At half-past one that afternoon, while Max Kapfer was enjoying a good
+cigar in the lobby of the Prince Clarence, he received an unexpected
+visitor in the person of Julius Flixman.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flixman?" he cried, dragging forth a chair.
+
+Flixman extended a thin, bony hand in greeting and sat down wearily.
+
+"I don't do so good, Kapfer," he said. "I guess New York don't agree
+with me." He distorted his face in what he intended to be an amiable
+smile. "But I guess it agrees with you all right," he continued. "I
+suppose I must got to congradulate you on account you are going to be
+engaged to Miss Birdie Maslik."
+
+"Why, who told you about it?" Kapfer asked.
+
+"I met this morning a real-estater by the name Rashkind, which he is
+acquainted with the Maslik family," Flixman replied, "and he says it
+happened yesterday. Also they told me up at the hotel you was calling
+there this morning to see me."
+
+"That's right," Kapfer said; "and you was out."
+
+"I was down to see a feller on Center Street," Flixman went on, "and so
+I thought, so long as you wanted to fix up about the note, I might just
+as well come down here."
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," Kapfer interrupted.
+
+"Not at all," Flixman continued. "When a feller wants to pay you money
+and comes to see you once to do it and you ain't in, understand me, then
+it's up to you to go to him; so here I am."
+
+"But the fact is," Kapfer said, "I didn't want to see you about paying
+the money exactly. I wanted to see you about not paying it."
+
+"About not paying it?" Flixman cried.
+
+"Sure!" Kapfer replied. "I wanted to see if you wouldn't give me a
+year's extension for that last thousand on account I am going to get
+married; and with what Miss Maslik would bring me, y'understand, and
+your thousand dollars which I got here, I would just have enough to fix
+up my second floor and build a twenty-five-foot extension on the rear.
+You see, I figure it this way." He searched his pocket for a piece of
+paper and produced a fountain pen. "I figure that the fixtures cost me
+twenty-two hundred," he began, "and----"
+
+At this juncture Flixman flipped his fingers derisively.
+
+"Pipe dreams you got it!" he said. "That store as it stands was good
+enough for me, and it should ought to be good enough for you.
+Furthermore, Kapfer, if you want to invest Maslik's money and your own
+money, _schon gut_; but me, I could always put a thousand dollars into a
+bond, Kapfer. So, if it's all the same to you, I'll take your check and
+call it square."
+
+Kapfer shrugged resignedly.
+
+"I had an idee you would," he said, "so I got it ready for you; because,
+Mr. Flixman, you must excuse me when I tell you that you got the
+reputation of being a good collector."
+
+"Am I?" Flixman snapped out. "Well, maybe I am, Kapfer, but I could give
+my money up, too, once in a while; and, believe me or not, Kapfer, this
+afternoon yet I am going to sign a will which I am leaving all my money
+to a Talmud Torah School."
+
+"You don't say so?" Kapfer said as he drew out his checkbook.
+
+"That's what I am telling you," Flixman continued, "because there's a
+lot of young loafers running round the streets which nobody got any
+control over 'em at all; and if they would go to a Talmud Torah School,
+understand me, not only they learn 'em there a little _Loschen
+Hakodesch_, y'understand, but they would also pretty near club the life
+out of 'em."
+
+"I'll write out a receipt on some of the hotel paper here," Kapfer said
+as he signed and blotted the check.
+
+"Write out two of 'em, so I would have a copy of what I am giving you,"
+Flixman rejoined. "It's always just so good to be businesslike. That's
+what I told that lawyer to-day. He wants me I should remember a couple
+of orphan asylums he's interested in, and I told him that if all them
+suckers would train up their children they would learn a business and
+not holler round the streets and make life miserable for people, they
+wouldn't got to be orphans at all. Half the orphans is that way on
+account they worried their parents to death with their carryings-on, and
+when they go to orphan asylums they get treated kind yet. And people is
+foolish enough to pay a lawyer fifty dollars if he should draw up a will
+to leave the orphan asylum their good hard-earned money."
+
+He snorted indignantly as he examined Kapfer's receipt and compared it
+with the original.
+
+"Well," he concluded as he appended his signature to the receipt, "I got
+him down to twenty-five dollars and I'll have that will business settled
+up this afternoon yet."
+
+He placed the check and the receipt in his wallet and shook hands with
+Kapfer.
+
+"Good-bye," he said. "And one thing let me warn you against: A _Chosan_
+should always get his money in cash _oder_ certified check before he
+goes under the _Chuppah_ at all; otherwise, after you are married and
+your father-in-law is a crook, understand me, you could kiss yourself
+good-bye with your wife's dowry--and don't you forget it!"
+
+Max walked with him down the lobby; and they had barely reached the
+entrance when Charles Fischko and Miss Yetta Silbermacher arrived.
+
+"Hello, Fischko!" Max cried, as Flixman tottered out into the
+street; but Fischko made no reply. Instead he suddenly let go Miss
+Silbermacher's arm and dashed hurriedly to the sidewalk. Max led Miss
+Silbermacher to a chair and engaged her immediately in conversation. She
+was naturally a little embarrassed by her unusual surroundings, though
+she was becomingly--not to say fashionably--attired in garments of her
+own making; and she gazed timidly about her for her absent lover.
+
+"Elkan ain't here yet," Max explained, "on account you are a little
+ahead of time."
+
+Miss Silbermacher's brown eyes sparkled merrily.
+
+"I ain't the only one," she said as she jumped to her feet; for, though
+the hands of the clock on the desk pointed to ten minutes to two, Elkan
+Lubliner approached from the direction of the café. He caught sight of
+them while he was still some distance away, and two overturned chairs
+marked the last of his progress toward them.
+
+At first he held out his hand in greeting; but the two little dimples
+that accompanied Yetta's smile overpowered his sense of propriety, and
+he embraced her affectionately.
+
+"Where's Fischko?" he asked.
+
+Both Kapfer and Miss Silbermacher looked toward the street entrance.
+
+"He was here a minute ago," Kapfer said.
+
+"Did you tell him that I wasn't Ury Shemansky at all?" Elkan inquired.
+
+"Sure I did," Miss Silbermacher replied, "and he goes on something
+terrible, on account he says Mr. Kapfer told him last night you was
+already engaged; so I told him I know you was engaged because I am the
+party you are engaged to."
+
+She squeezed Elkan's hand.
+
+"And he says then," she continued, "that if that's the case what do we
+want him down here for? So I told him we are going to meet Mr. Polatkin
+and Mr. Scheikowitz, and----"
+
+"And they'll be right here in a minute," Kapfer interrupted; "so you go
+upstairs to my room and I'll find Fischko and bring him up also."
+
+He conducted them to the elevator, and even as the door closed behind
+them Fischko came running up the hall.
+
+"Kapfer," he said, "who was that feller which he was just here talking
+to you?"
+
+"What d'ye want to know for?" Kapfer asked.
+
+"Never mind what I want to know for!" Fischko retorted. "Who is he?"
+
+"Well, if you must got to know," Kapfer said, "he's a feller by the name
+Julius Flixman."
+
+"What?" Fischko shouted.
+
+"Fischko," Kapfer protested, "you ain't in no Canal Street coffee house
+here. This is a first-class hotel."
+
+Fischko nodded distractedly.
+
+"Sure, I know," he said. "Is there a place we could sit down here? I
+want to ask you something a few questions."
+
+Kapfer led the way to the café and they sat down at a table near the
+door.
+
+"Go ahead, Fischko," he said. "Polatkin and Scheikowitz will be here any
+minute."
+
+"Well," Fischko began falteringly, "if this here feller is Julius
+Flixman, which he is coming from Bessarabia _schon_ thirty years ago
+already, I don't want to do nothing in a hurry, Mr. Kapfer, on account I
+want to investigate first how things stand."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" Kapfer demanded.
+
+"Why, I mean this," Fischko cried: "If this here Flixman is well fixed,
+Kapfer, I want to know it, on account Miss Yetta Silbermacher is from
+Flixman's sister a daughter, understand me!"
+
+Kapfer lit a cigar deliberately before replying. He was thinking hard.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he said at last, "that this here Miss
+Silbermacher is Julius Flixman's a niece?"
+
+"That's what I said," Fischko replied. "He comes here from Bessarabia
+thirty years ago already and from that day to this I never heard a word
+about him--Miss Silbermacher neither."
+
+"Ain't the rest of his family heard from him?" Kapfer asked guardedly.
+
+"There ain't no rest of his family," Fischko said. "Mrs. Silbermacher
+was his only sister, and she's dead over ten years since."
+
+Kapfer nodded and drew reflectively on his cigar.
+
+"Well, Fischko," he said finally, "I wouldn't let Flixman worry me none.
+He's practically a _Schnorrer_; he was in here just now on account he
+hears I am going to marry a rich girl and touches me for some money on
+the head of it. I guess you noticed that he looks pretty shabby--ain't
+it?"
+
+"And sick too," Fischko added, just as a bellboy came into the café.
+
+"Mr. Copper!" he bawled, and Max jumped to his feet.
+
+"Right here," he said, and the bellboy handed him a card.
+
+"Tell them I'll be with them in a minute," he continued; "and you stay
+here till I come back, Fischko. I won't be long."
+
+He followed the bellboy to the desk, where stood Polatkin and
+Scheikowitz.
+
+"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said.
+
+"Well, Mr. Kapfer," Scheikowitz replied, "I guess I got to congradulate
+you."
+
+"Sure!" Kapfer murmured perfunctorily. "Let's go into the Moorish Room."
+
+"What's the matter with the café?" Polatkin asked; but Scheikowitz
+settled the matter by leading the way to the Moorish Room, where they
+all sat down at a secluded table.
+
+"The first thing I want to tell you, gentlemen," Kapfer said, "is that I
+know you feel that I turned a dirty trick on you about Elkan."
+
+Scheikowitz shrugged expressively.
+
+"The way we feel about it, Mr. Kapfer," he commented, "is that bygones
+must got to be bygones--and that's all there is to it."
+
+"But," Kapfer said, "I don't want the bygones to be all on my side; so I
+got a proposition to make you. How would it be if I could fix up a good
+_Shidduch_ for Elkan myself?"
+
+"What for a _Shidduch_?" Polatkin asked.
+
+"The girl is an orphan," Kapfer replied, "_aber_ she's got one uncle, a
+bachelor, which ain't got no relation in the world but her, and he's
+worth anyhow seventy-five thousand dollars."
+
+"How do you know he's worth that much?" Polatkin demanded.
+
+"Because I got some pretty close business dealings with him," Kapfer
+replied; "and not only do I know he's worth that much, but I guess you
+do too, Mr. Polatkin, on account his name is Julius Flixman."
+
+"Julius Flixman?" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, Julius Flixman ain't got a
+relation in the world--he told me so himself."
+
+"When did he told you that?" Kapfer asked.
+
+"A couple of days ago," Scheikowitz replied.
+
+"Then that accounts for it," Kapfer said. "A couple of days ago nobody
+knows he had a niece--not even Flixman himself didn't; but to-day yet he
+would know it and he would tell you so himself."
+
+"But----" Scheikowitz began, when once again a page entered the room,
+bawling a phonetic imitation of Kapfer's name.
+
+"Wanted at the 'phone," he called as he caught sight of Kapfer.
+
+"Excuse me," Kapfer said. "I'll be right back."
+
+He walked hurriedly out of the room, and Polatkin turned with a shrug to
+his partner.
+
+"Well, Scheikowitz," he began, "what did I told you? We are up here on a
+fool's errand--ain't it?"
+
+Scheikowitz made no reply.
+
+"I'll tell you, Polatkin," he said at length, "Flixman himself says to
+me he did got one sister living in Bessarabia, and he ain't heard from
+her in thirty years; and----"
+
+At this juncture Kapfer rushed into the room.
+
+"Scheikowitz," he gasped, "I just now got a telephone message from a
+lawyer on Center Street, by the name Goldenfein, I should come right
+down there. Flixman is taken sick suddenly and they find in his pocket
+my check and a duplicate receipt which he gives me, written on the hotel
+paper. Do me the favour and come with me."
+
+Fifteen minutes later they stepped out of a taxicab in front of an
+old-fashioned office building in Center Street and elbowed their way
+through a crowd of over a hundred people toward the narrow doorway.
+
+"Where do yous think you're going?" asked a policeman whose broad
+shoulders completely blocked the little entrance.
+
+"We was telephoned for, on account a friend of ours by the name Flixman
+is taken sick here," Kapfer explained.
+
+"Go ahead," the policeman said more gently; "but I guess you're too
+late."
+
+"Is he dead?" Scheikowitz cried, and the policeman nodded solemnly as he
+stood to one side.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+More than two hours elapsed before Kapfer, Polatkin, and Scheikowitz
+returned to the Prince Clarence. With them was Kent J. Goldenfein.
+
+"Mr. Kapfer," the clerk said, "there's a man been waiting for you in the
+café for over two hours."
+
+"I'll bring him right in," Kapfer said, and two minutes afterward he
+brought the gesticulating Fischko out of the café.
+
+"Do you think I am a dawg?" Fischko cried. "I've been here two hours!"
+
+"Well, come into the Moorish Room a minute," Kapfer pleaded, "and I'll
+fix everything up with you afterward."
+
+He led the protesting _Shadchen_ through the lobby, and when they
+entered the Moorish Room an impressive scene awaited them. On a divan,
+beneath some elaborate plush draperies, sat Kent J. Goldenfein, flanked
+on each side by Polatkin and Scheikowitz respectively, while spread on
+the table in front of them were the drafts of Flixman's will and the
+engrossed, unsigned copy, together with such other formidable-looking
+documents as Goldenfein happened to find in his pockets. He rose
+majestically as Fischko entered and turned on him a beetling frown.
+
+"Is this the fellow?" he demanded sepulchrally, and Kapfer nodded.
+
+"Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein went on, "I am an officer of the Supreme Court
+and I have been retained to investigate the affairs of Mr. Julius
+Flixman."
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Kapfer," Fischko cried. "What is all this?"
+
+Kapfer drew forward a chair.
+
+"Sit down, Fischko," he said, "and answer the questions that he is
+asking you."
+
+"But----" Fischko began.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein boomed, "you are wasting our time
+here. Raise your right hand!"
+
+Fischko glanced despairingly at Kapfer and then obeyed.
+
+"Do you solemnly swear," said Goldenfein, who, besides being an
+attorney-at-law was also a notary public, "that the affidavit you will
+hereafter sign will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
+truth, so help you God?"
+
+"But----" Fischko began again.
+
+"Do you?" Goldenfein roared, and Fischko nodded. Forthwith Goldenfein
+plied him with such ingeniously fashioned questions concerning the
+Flixman family that the answers presented a complete history of all its
+branches. Furthermore, the affidavit which Goldenfein immediately drew
+up lacked only such confirmatory evidence as could easily be supplied to
+establish the identity of Miss Yetta Silbermacher as Julius Flixman's
+only heir-at-law; and, after Fischko had meekly signed the jurat,
+Goldenfein rose ponderously to his feet.
+
+"I congratulate you, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "I think there is no doubt
+that your nephew's fiancée will inherit Flixman's estate, thanks to my
+professional integrity."
+
+"What d'ye mean your professional integrity?" Kapfer asked.
+
+"Why, if I hadn't refused to accept twenty-two dollars for drawing the
+will and insisted on the twenty-five we had agreed upon," Goldenfein
+explained, "he would never have suffered the heart attack which
+prevented his signing the will before he died."
+
+"Died!" Fischko exclaimed. "Is Julius Flixman dead?"
+
+"_Koosh_, Fischko!" Polatkin commanded. "You would think you was one of
+the family the way you are acting. Come down to our store to-morrow and
+we would arrange things with you." He turned to Kapfer.
+
+"Let's go upstairs and see Elkan--and Yetta," he said.
+
+Immediately they trooped to the elevator and ascended to the seventh
+floor.
+
+"All of you wait here in the corridor," Kapfer whispered, "and I'll go
+and break it to them." He tiptoed to his room and knocked gently at the
+door.
+
+"Come!" Elkan cried, and Kapfer turned the knob.
+
+On a sofa near the window sat Elkan, with his arm surrounding his
+fiancée's waist and her head resting on his shoulder.
+
+"Hello, Max!" he cried. "What's kept you? We must have been waiting here
+at least a quarter of an hour!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+HIGHGRADE LINES
+
+
+"Sure, I know, Mr. Scheikowitz," cried Elkan Lubliner, junior partner of
+Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company, as he sat in the firm's office late one
+February afternoon; "but if you want to sell a highgrade concern like
+Joseph Kammerman you must got to got a highgrade line of goods."
+
+"Ain't I am telling you that all the time?" Scheikowitz replied. "_Aber_
+we sell here a popular-price line, Elkan. So what is the use talking we
+ain't ekvipt for a highgrade line."
+
+"What d'ye mean we ain't equipped, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan protested.
+"We got here machines and we got here fixtures, and all we need it now
+is a highgrade designer and a couple really good cutters like that new
+feller which is working for us."
+
+"That's all right, too, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin interrupted; "but it
+ain't the ekvipment which it is so important. The reputation which we
+got for selling a popular-price line we couldn't get rid of so easy,
+understand me, and that _Bétzimmer_ buyer of Kammerman's wouldn't got no
+confidence in us at all. The way he figures it we could just so much
+turn out a highgrade line of goods here as you could expect a feller
+which is acting in a moving pictures to all of a sudden sing like
+Charuso."
+
+"Besides," Scheikowitz added, "highgrade designers and really good
+cutters means more capital, Elkan."
+
+"The capital you shouldn't worry about at all," Elkan retorted. "Next
+week my Yetta gets falling due a second mortgage from old man Flixman
+for five thousand dollars, and----"
+
+Polatkin made a flapping gesture with his right hand.
+
+"Keep your money, Elkan," he said. "You could got lots of better ways to
+invest it for Yetta as fixing ourselves up to sell big _Machers_ like
+Joseph Kammerman."
+
+"But it don't do no harm I should drop in and see them people. Ain't
+it?"
+
+"Sure not," Scheikowitz continued as he swung round in his revolving
+chair and seized a pile of cutting clips. "They got an elegant store
+there on Fifth Avenue which it is a pleasure to go into even; and the
+worst that happens you, Elkan, is you are out a good cigar for that Mr.
+Dalzell up there."
+
+Elkan nodded gloomily, and as he left the office Polatkin's face relaxed
+in an indulgent smile.
+
+"The boy is getting awful ambitious lately, Scheikowitz," he said.
+
+"What d'ye mean, ambitious?" Philip Scheikowitz cried angrily. "If you
+would be only twenty-three years of age, Polatkin, and married to a rich
+girl, understand me--and also partner in a good concern, which the whole
+thing he done it himself, Polatkin--you would act a whole lot more
+ambitious as he does. Instead of knocking the boy, Polatkin, you should
+ought to give him credit for what he done."
+
+"Who is knocking the boy?" Polatkin demanded. "All I says is the boy is
+ambitious, Scheikowitz--which, if you don't think it's ambitious a
+feller tries to sell goods to Joseph Kammerman, Scheikowitz, what is it
+then?"
+
+"There's worser people to sell goods to as Joseph Kammerman, Polatkin,
+which he is a millionaire concern, understand me," Scheikowitz declared;
+"and you could take it from me, Polatkin, even if you would accuse him
+he is ambitious _oder_ not, that boy always got idees to do big
+things--and he works hard till he lands 'em. So if you want to call that
+ambitious, Polatkin, go ahead and do so. When a loafer knocks it's a
+boost every time."
+
+With this ultimatum Scheikowitz followed his junior partner to the rear
+of the loft, where Elkan regarded with a critical eye the labors of his
+cutting-room staff.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan," Scheikowitz asked, "what's biting you now?"
+
+Elkan winked significantly--and a moment later he tapped an assistant
+cutter on the shoulder.
+
+"Max," he said, "do you got maybe a grudge against that piece of goods,
+the way you are slamming it round?"
+
+The assistant cutter smiled in an embarrassed fashion.
+
+"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I wasn't thinking about them
+goods at all. When you are laying out goods for cutting, Mr. Lubliner,
+you don't got to think much--especially pastel shades."
+
+"Pastel shades?" Elkan repeated.
+
+"That's what I said," the cutter replied. "_Mit_ colors like reds and
+greens, which they are hitting you right in the face, so to speak, you
+couldn't get your mind off of 'em at all; but pastel shades, that's
+something else again. They quiet you like smoking a cigarette."
+
+Elkan turned to his partner with a shrug.
+
+"When I was working by B. Gans," the cutter went on, "I am laying out a
+piece of old gold crêpe _mit_ a silver-thread border, and I assure you,
+Mr. Lubliner, it has an effect on me like some one would give me a glass
+of schnapps already."
+
+"_Stiegen_, Max," said Elkan, moving away, "you got too much to say for
+yourself."
+
+Max nodded resignedly and continued the spreading of the goods on the
+cutting table, while Elkan and Scheikowitz walked out of the room.
+
+"That's the new feller I was telling you about," Elkan said.
+"_Meshugganeh_ Max Merech they call him."
+
+"_Meshugga_ he may be," Scheikowitz replied, "but just the same he's got
+a couple of good idees also, Elkan. Only this morning he makes Redman
+the designer pretty near crazy when he says that the blue soutache on
+that new style 2060 kills the blue in the yoke, y'understand; and he was
+right too, Elkan. Polatkin and me made Redman change it over."
+
+Elkan shrugged again as he put on his hat and coat preparatory to going
+home.
+
+"A lot our class of trade worries about such things!" he exclaimed. "So
+far as they are concerned the soutache could be crimson and the yoke
+green, and if the price was right they'd buy it anyhow."
+
+"Don't you fool yourself, Elkan," Scheikowitz said while Elkan rang for
+the elevator. "The price is never right if the workmanship ain't good."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+That Elkan Lubliner's progress in business had not kept pace with his
+social achievements was a source of much disappointment to both Mrs.
+Lubliner and himself; for though the firm of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &
+Company was still rated seventy-five thousand dollars to one hundred
+thousand dollars--credit good--Elkan and Mrs. Lubliner moved in the
+social orbit of no less a personage than of Max Koblin, the Raincoat
+King, whose credit soared triumphantly among the A's and B's of
+old-established commission houses.
+
+Indeed it was a party at Max Koblin's house that evening which caused
+Elkan to leave his place of business at half-past five; and when Mrs.
+Lubliner and he sallied forth from the gilt and porphyry hallway of
+their apartment dwelling they were fittingly arrayed to meet Max's
+guests, none of whom catered to the popular-price trade of Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz & Company.
+
+"Why didn't you told him we are getting next week paid off for five
+thousand dollars a second mortgage?" Yetta said, continuing a
+conversation begun at dinner that evening.
+
+"I did told him," Elkan insisted; "but what is the use talking to a
+couple of old-timers like them?"
+
+Yetta sniffed contemptuously with the impatience of youth at the foibles
+of senility, as exemplified by the doddering Philip Scheikowitz, aged
+forty-five, and the valetudinarian Marcus Polatkin, whose hair, albeit
+unfrosted, had been blighted and in part swept away by the vicissitudes
+of forty-two winters.
+
+"You can't learn an old dawg young tricks," Elkan declared, "and we
+might just as well make up our minds to it, Yetta, we would never
+compete with such highgrade concerns like B. Gans _oder_ Schwefel &
+Zucker."
+
+They walked over two blocks in silence and then Elkan broke out anew.
+
+"I tell you," he said, "I am sick and tired of it. B. Gans talks all the
+time about selling this big _Macher_ and that big _Macher_, and him and
+Mr. Schwefel gets telling about what a millionaire like Kammerman says
+to him the other day, or what he says to Mandelberger, of Chicago,
+y'understand--and I couldn't say nothing! If I would commence to tell
+'em what I says to such customers of ours like One-Eye Feigenbaum _oder_
+H. Margonin, of Bridgetown, understand me, they would laugh me in my
+face yet."
+
+Yetta pressed his arm consolingly as they ascended the stoop of Max
+Koblin's house on Mount Morris Park West, and two minutes later they
+entered the front parlour of that luxurious residence.
+
+"And do you know what he says to me?" a penetrating barytone voice
+announced as they came in. "He says to me, 'Benson,' he says, 'I've been
+putting on musical shows now for fifteen years, and an idee like that
+comes from a genius already. There's a fortune in it!'"
+
+At this juncture Mrs. Koblin noted the arrival of the last of her
+guests.
+
+"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried, rising to her feet. "Ain't you
+fashionable getting here so late?"
+
+She kissed Yetta and held out a hand to Elkan as she spoke.
+
+"Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Elkan, keeping Yetta's dinner waiting
+because you claim you're so busy downtown?" she went on. "I guess you
+know everybody here except Mr. Benson."
+
+She nodded toward the promulgator of Heaven-born ideas, who bowed
+solemnly.
+
+"Pleased to meet you, Mister----"
+
+"Lubliner," Elkan said.
+
+"Mister Lubliner," Benson repeated, passing his begemmed fingers through
+a shock of black, curly hair. "And the long and short of it is," he
+continued, addressing the company, "to-morrow I'm getting a scenario
+along them lines I just indicated to you from one of the highest-grade
+fellers that's writing."
+
+Here ensued a pause, during which B. Gans searched his mind for an
+anecdote concerning some retailer of sufficiently good financial
+standing, while Joseph Schwefel, of Schwefel & Zucker, cleared his
+throat preparatory to launching a verbatim report of a conversation
+between himself and a buyer for one of the most exclusive costume houses
+on Fifth Avenue; but even as Schwefel rounded his lips to enunciate an
+introductory "Er," Benson obtained a fresh start.
+
+"Now you remember 'The Diners Out,' Ryan & Bernbaum's production last
+season?" he said, addressing Elkan. "In that show they had an idee like
+this: Eight ponies is let down from the flies--see?--and George DeFrees
+makes his entrance in a practical airyoplane--I think it was George
+DeFrees was working for Ryan & Bernbaum last year, or was it Sammy
+Potter?"
+
+At this point he screwed up his face and leaning his elbow on the arm of
+his chair he placed four fingers on his forehead in the attitude known
+theatrically as Business of Deep Consideration.
+
+"No," he said at last--"it was George DeFrees. George jumps out of the
+airyoplane and says: 'They followed me to earth, I see.'"
+
+Benson raised his eyebrows at the assembled guests.
+
+"Angels!" he announced. "Get the idee? 'They followed me to earth, I
+see.' Cue. And then he sings the song hit of the show: 'Come Take a Ride
+in My Airyoplane.'"
+
+B. Gans shuffled his feet uneasily and Joseph Schwefel pulled down his
+waistcoat. As manufacturers of highgrade garments they had accompanied
+more than one customer to the entertainment described by Benson; but to
+Elkan the term "ponies" admitted of only one meaning, and this
+conversational arabesque of flies, little horses, aeroplanes and George
+DeFrees made him fairly dizzy.
+
+"And," M. Sidney Benson said before B. Gans could head him off, "just
+that there entrance boomed the show. Ryan & Bernbaum up to date clears
+a hundred and twenty thousand dollars over and above all expenses."
+
+"Better as the garment business!" Max Koblin commented--and B. Gans
+nodded and yawned.
+
+"Ain't we going to have no pinocle?" he asked. Max rose and threw open
+the sliding doors leading to the dining room, where cards and chips were
+in readiness.
+
+"Will you join us, Mr. Benson?" he asked.
+
+"That'll make five with Mr. Lubliner," Benson replied; "so supposing
+you, Gans and Schwefel go ahead, and Mr. Lubliner and me will join you
+later. Otherwise you would got to deal two of us out--which it makes a
+pretty slow game that way."
+
+"Just as you like," Max said; and after Mrs. Koblin and Yetta had
+retired abovestairs to view the most recent accession to Mrs. Koblin's
+wardrobe, Benson pulled up the points of his high collar and adjusted
+his black stock necktie. Then he lit a fresh cigar and prepared to lay
+bare to Elkan the arcana of the theatrical business.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the show business is a business like any
+other business. It ain't like you got an idee it is--opening wine for a
+bunch of chickens, understand me, and running round the streets till all
+hours of the morning."
+
+"I never got no such idee," Elkan protested.
+
+"You ain't, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued, "because it's very
+evidence to me that you don't know nothing about it; but there's a whole
+lot of people got that idee anyhow, y'understand; and what I am always
+trying to tell everybody is that the show business is like the garment
+business _oder_ the drygoods business--a business for a business man,
+not a loafer!"
+
+Elkan made an inarticulate noise which Benson took to be an expression
+of interest and encouragement.
+
+"At the same time art has got a whole lot to do with it," he went
+on--"art and idees; and when you take a feller like Ryan, which he could
+write a show, write the music, put it on and play the leading part all
+by himself, y'understand, and a feller like Bernbaum, which used to was
+Miller, Bernbaum & Company in the pants business--you got there an ideel
+combination!"
+
+Elkan nodded and looked helplessly round him at the Circassian walnut,
+of which half a forestful had gone to make up the furnishings of
+Koblin's front parlor.
+
+"But," Benson said emphatically, "you take me, for instance--and what
+was I?"
+
+He told off his former occupations with the index finger of his right
+hand on each digit of his left.
+
+"First I was a salesman; second I was for myself in the infants' wear
+business; third I was _noch einmal_ a salesman. Then I become an actor,
+because everybody knows my act, which I called it 'Your Old Friend
+Maslowsky.' For four years I played all the first-class vaudeville
+circuits here and on the other side in England. But though I made good
+money, Mr. Lubliner, the real big money is in the producing end."
+
+"Huh-huh!" Elkan ejaculated.
+
+"So that's the way it is with me, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued. "I am
+just like Ryan & Bernbaum, only instead of two partners there is only
+just one; which I got the art, the idees and the business ability all in
+myself!"
+
+"That must make it very handy for you," Elkan commented.
+
+"Handy ain't no name for it," Benson replied. "It's something you don't
+see nowheres else in the show business; but I'll tell you the truth, Mr.
+Lubliner--the work is too much for me!"
+
+"Why don't you get a partner?" Elkan asked.
+
+Benson made a circular gesture with his right hand.
+
+"I could get lots of partners with big money, Mr. Lubliner," he said,
+"but why should I divide my profits? Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Well, that depends how you are looking at it," Elkan said.
+
+"I am looking at it from the view of a business man, Mr. Lubliner,"
+Benson rejoined. "Here I got a proposition which I am going to put on--a
+show of idees--a big production, understand me; which if Ryan &
+Bernbaum makes from their 'Diners Out' a hundred thousand dollars,
+_verstehst du_, I could easily make a hundred and fifty thousand! And
+yet, Mr. Lubliner, all I invest is five thousand dollars and five
+thousand more which I am making a loan at a bank."
+
+"Which bank?" Elkan asked--so quickly that Benson almost jumped in his
+seat.
+
+"I--I didn't decide which bank yet," he replied. "You see, Mr. Lubliner,
+I got accounts in three banks. First I belonged to the Fifteenth
+National Bank. Then they begged me I should go in the Minuit National
+Bank. All right. I went in the Minuit National Bank. H'afterward Sam
+Feder comes to me and says: 'Benson,' he says, 'you are an old friend
+from mine,' he says. 'Why do you bother yourself you should go into this
+bank and that bank?' he says. 'Why don't you come to my bank?' he says,
+'and I would give you all the money you want.' So you see, Mr. Lubliner,
+it is immaterial to me which bank I get my money from."
+
+Again he passed his jewelled fingers through his hair.
+
+"No, Mr. Lubliner," he announced after a pause, "my own brother even I
+wouldn't give a look-in."
+
+Elkan made no reply. As a result of Benson's gesture he was busy
+estimating the value of eight and a quarter carats at eighty-seven
+dollars and fifty cents a carat.
+
+"Because," Benson continued, "the profits is something you could really
+call enormous! If you got the time I would like to show you a few
+figures."
+
+"I got all evening," Elkan answered, whereat Benson pulled from his
+waistcoat pocket a fountain pen ornamented with gold filigree.
+
+"First," he said, "is the costumes."
+
+And therewith he plunged into a maze of calculation that lasted for
+nearly an hour. Moreover, at the end of that period he entered into a
+new series of figures, tending to show that by the investment of an
+additional five thousand dollars the profits could be increased
+seventy-five per cent.
+
+"But I'm satisfied to invest my ten thousand," he said, "because five
+thousand is my own and the other five thousand I could get easy from the
+Kosciuscko Bank, whereas the additional five thousand I must try to
+interest somebody he should invest it with me. And so far as that goes I
+wouldn't bother myself at all."
+
+"You're dead right," Elkan said by way of making himself agreeable,
+whereat Benson grew crimson with chagrin.
+
+"Sure I'm dead right," he said; "and if you and Mrs. Lubliner would come
+down to my office in the Siddons Theatre Building to-morrow night, eight
+o'clock, I would send one of my associates round with you and he will
+get you tickets for the 'Diners Out,' understand me; and then you would
+see for yourself what a big house they got there. Even on Monday night
+they turn 'em away!"
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," Elkan replied. "I'm sure Mrs. Lubliner and me
+would enjoy it very much."
+
+"I'm sorry for you if you wouldn't," Benson retorted; "and that
+there 'Diners Out' ain't a marker to the show I'm putting on, Mr.
+Lubliner--which you can see for yourself, a business proposition,
+which pans out pretty near two hundred thousand dollars on a
+fifteen-thousand-dollar investment, is got to be right up to the mark.
+Ain't it?"
+
+"I thought you said ten thousand dollars was the investment," Elkan
+remarked.
+
+"I did," Benson replied with some heat; "but if some one comes along and
+wants to invest the additional five thousand dollars I wouldn't turn him
+down, Mr. Lubliner."
+
+He rose to his feet to join the pinocle players in the dining room.
+
+"So I hope you enjoy the show to-morrow night," he added as he strolled
+away.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+From six to eight every evening Max Merech underwent a gradual
+transformation, for six o'clock was the closing hour at Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz & Company's establishment, while eight marked the advent of
+the Sarasate Trio at the Café Román, on Delancey Street. Thus, at six,
+Max Merech was an assistant cutter; and, indeed, until after he ate his
+supper he still bore the outward appearance of an assistant cutter,
+though inwardly he felt a premonitory glow. After half-past seven,
+however, he buttoned on a low, turned-down collar with its concomitant
+broad Windsor tie, and therewith he assumed his real character--that of
+a dilettante.
+
+At the Café Román each evening he specialized on music; but with the
+spirit of the true dilettante he neglected no one of the rest of the
+arts, and was ever to be found at the table next to the piano, a warm
+advocate of the latest movement in painting and literature, as well as
+an appreciative listener to the ultramodern music discoursed by the
+Sarasate Trio.
+
+"If that ain't a winner I ain't no judge!" he said to Boris Volkovisk,
+the pianist, on the evening of the conversation with Elkan set forth
+above. He referred to a violin sonata of Boris' own composition which
+the latter and Jacob Rekower, the violinist, had just concluded.
+
+Boris smiled and wiped away the perspiration from his bulging forehead,
+for the third movement of the sonata, marked in the score _Allegro con
+fuoco_, had taxed even the technic of its composer.
+
+"A winner of what?" Boris asked--"money? Because supposing a miracle
+happens that somebody would publish it nobody buys it."
+
+Max nodded his head slowly in sympathetic acquiescence.
+
+"But anyhow you ain't so bad off like some composers," he said. "You've
+anyhow got a good musician to play your stuff for you."
+
+He smiled at Jacob Rekower, who plunged his hands into his trousers
+pockets and shrugged deprecatingly.
+
+"Sure, I know," Rekower said; "and if we play too much good stuff
+Marculescu raises the devil with us we should play more popular music."
+
+He spat out the words "popular music" with an emphasis that made a
+_Tarrok_ player at the next table jump in his seat.
+
+"_Nu_," said the latter as the deal passed, "what is the matter with
+popular music? If it wouldn't be for writing popular music, understand
+me, many a decent, respectable composer would got to starve!"
+
+He turned his chair round and abandoned the card game the better to air
+his views on popular music.
+
+"Furthermore," he said, "I know a young feller by the name Milton Jassy
+which last year he makes two thousand dollars already from syncopating
+_Had gadyo_ and calling it the "Wildcat Rag," and this year he is
+writing the music for a new show and I bet yer the least he makes out of
+it is five thousand dollars."
+
+"Yow! Five thousand dollars!" Merech exclaimed. "Such people you hear
+about, but you _oser_ see 'em."
+
+"Don't you?" said the _Tarrok_ player, drawing a cardcase from his
+breast pocket. "Well, you see one now."
+
+He laid face upward on the table a card which read:
+
+     +============================================+
+     |                                            |
+     |          "THE SONGS YOU ALL SING"          |
+     |                                            |
+     |                                            |
+     |               MILTON JASSY                 |
+     |          SIDDONS THEATRE BUILDING          |
+     |                ROOM 1400                   |
+     |                                            |
+     |            "STUFF WITH A PUNCH"            |
+     |                                            |
+     |  LAZY DAISY              EDDIE             |
+     |  WILDCAT RAG    ALL ABOARD FOR SLEEPYTOWN  |
+     |                                            |
+     +============================================+
+
+For a brief interval Volkovisk, Rekower, and Merech regarded Jassy's
+card in silence.
+
+"Well," Merech said at last, "what of it?"
+
+Jassy shrugged and waved his hand significantly.
+
+"Nothing of it," he said, "only your friend there is knocking popular
+music; and though I admit that I didn't got to go to the _Wiener_
+conservatory so as I could write popular music exactly, y'understand,
+still I could write sonatas and trios and quartets and even concerti and
+symphonies till I am black in the face already and I couldn't pay my
+laundry bill even."
+
+For answer Volkovisk turned to the piano and seized from the pile of
+music a blue-covered volume. It was the violin sonata of Richard
+Strauss, and handing the violin part to Rekower he seated himself on the
+stool. Then with a premonitory nod to Rekower he struck the opening
+chords, and for more than ten minutes Jassy and Merech sat motionless
+until the first movement was finished.
+
+"When Strauss wrote that he could _oser_ pay his laundry bill either,"
+Volkovisk said, rising from the stool. He sat down wearily at the table
+and lit a cigarette.
+
+"So you see," he began, "Richard Strauss----"
+
+"Richard Strauss nothing!" cried an angry voice at his elbow. "If you
+want to practise, practise at home. I pay you here to play for my
+customers, not for yourselves, Volkovisk; and once and for all I am
+telling you you should cut out this nonsense and _spiel_ a little music
+once in a while."
+
+It was the proprietor, Marculescu, who spoke, and Volkovisk immediately
+seated himself at the piano. This time he took from the pile of music
+three small sheets, one of which he placed on the reading desk and the
+other on Rekower's violin stand. After handing the other sheet to the
+'cellist he plunged into a furious rendition of "Wildcat Rag."
+
+In the front part of the café a group of men and women, whose clothes
+and manners proclaimed them to be slummers from the upper West Side,
+broke into noisy applause as the vulgar composition came to an end, and
+in the midst of their shouting and stamping Jassy rose trembling from
+his seat. He slunk between tables to the door, while Volkovisk began a
+repetition of the number, and it was not until he had turned the corner
+of the street and the melody had ceased to sound in his ears that he
+slackened his pace. When he did so, however, a friendly hand fell on his
+shoulder and he turned to find Max Merech close behind him.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Jassy," Max said, "you shouldn't be so broke up because you
+couldn't write so good as Richard Strauss."
+
+Jassy stood still and looked Max squarely in the eye.
+
+"That's just the point," he said in hollow tones. "Might I could if I
+tried; but I am such an _Epikouros_ that I don't want to try. I would
+sooner make money out of rubbish than be an artist like Volkovisk."
+
+Max shrugged and elevated his eyebrows.
+
+"A man must got to live," he said as he seized Jassy's arm and began
+gently to propel him back to the Café Román.
+
+"Sure, I know," Jassy said; "but living ain't all having good clothes to
+wear and good food to eat. Living for an artist like Volkovisk is
+composing music worthy of an artist. _Aber_ what do I do, Mister----"
+
+"Merech," Max said.
+
+"What do I do, Mr. Merech?" Jassy continued. "I am all the time throwing
+away my art in the streets with this rotten stuff I am composing."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Well, I tell you," Max said after they had reëntered the café and had
+seated themselves at a table remote from the piano, "composing music is
+like manufacturing garments, Mr. Jassy. Some one must got to cater to
+the popular-price trade and only a few manufacturers gets to the point
+where they make up a highgrade line for the exclusive retailers. Ain't
+it?"
+
+Jassy nodded as the waiter brought the cups of coffee.
+
+"Now you take me, for instance," Max continued. "Once I worked by B.
+Gans, which I assure you, Mr. Jassy, it was a pleasure to handle the
+goods in that place. What an elegant line of silks and embroidery they
+got it there! Believe me, Mr. Jassy, every day I went to work there like
+I would be going to a wedding already, such a beautiful goods they made
+it! _Aber_ now I am working by a popular-price concern, Mr. Jassy,
+which, you could take it from me, the colors them people puts together
+in one garment gives me the indigestion already!"
+
+Again Jassy nodded sympathetically.
+
+"And why did I make a change?" Max went on. "Because them people pays
+me seven dollars a week more as B. Gans, Mr. Jassy; and though art is
+art, understand me, seven dollars a week ain't to be coughed at
+neither."
+
+For a few minutes Jassy sipped his coffee in silence.
+
+"That's all right, too," he said; "but with garments you could make just
+so much money manufacturing a highgrade line as you could if you are
+making a popular-price line."
+
+Max nodded sapiently.
+
+"I give you right there," he agreed, "and that's because the
+manufacturer of the highgrade line does business in the same way as the
+popular-price concern. _Aber_ you take the composer of highgrade music
+and all he does is compose. He's too proud to poosh it, Mr. Jassy;
+whereas the feller what composes popular music he's just the same like
+the feller what manufacturers a popular-price line of garments--he not
+only manufacturers his line but he pooshes it till he gets a market for
+it."
+
+"There ain't no market for a highclass line of music," Jassy said
+hopelessly.
+
+"Why ain't there?" Max demanded. "Did you ever try to market a symphony?
+Did Volkovisk ever try to get anybody with money interested in his
+stuff? No, sirree, sir! All that feller does is to play it to a lot of
+_Schnorrers_ like me, which no matter how much we like his work we
+couldn't help him none. Now you take your own case, for instance. You
+told us a few minutes ago you are writing some music for a new show.
+Now, if you wouldn't mind my asking, who is putting in the capital for
+that show?"
+
+"Well," Jassy replied, "a feller called Benson is putting it in and part
+of the capital is from his own money and the rest he borrows."
+
+"Just like a new beginner would do in the garment business," Max
+commented. "_Aber_ who does he borrow it from? A bank maybe--what?"
+
+"Some he gets from a bank," Jassy replied, "and the rest is he trying to
+raise elsewheres. To-night he tells me he is getting an introduction to
+a business man which he hopes to lend from him five _oder_ ten thousand
+dollars."
+
+"Five _oder_ ten thousand dollars!" Max cried. "_Shema beni._ For five
+thousand dollars Volkovisk could publish all the music he ever wrote and
+give a whole lot of recitals in the bargain. One thousand dollars would
+be enough even."
+
+"That I wouldn't deny at all," Jassy rejoined. "_Aber_ who would you
+find stands willing he should invest in Volkovisk's music a thousand
+dollars? Would he ever get back his thousand dollars even, let alone any
+profits?"
+
+"It's a speculation, I admit," Max commented; "but you take Richard
+Strauss, for instance, and if some feller would staked Strauss to a
+thousand dollars capital when he needed it, understand me, not alone he
+would got his money back but if we would say, for example, the thousand
+dollars represents a ten-per-cent interest in Strauss' business, to-day
+yet the feller would be worth his fifty thousand dollars, because
+everybody knows what a big success Strauss made. Actually the feller
+must got orders at least six months ahead. Why for one song alone they
+pay him a couple thousand dollars!"
+
+"Well," Jassy asked, "if you feel there's such a future in it why don't
+you raise a thousand dollars and finance Volkovisk?"
+
+Max laughed aloud.
+
+"Me--I couldn't raise nothing," he said; "_aber_ you--you are feeling
+sore at yourself because you are writing popular stuff. Here's a chance
+for you to square yourself with your art. Why don't you help Volkovisk
+out? All you got to do is to find out who is loaning this here Benson
+the ten thousand dollars and get him to stake Volkovisk to a thousand."
+
+Jassy tapped the table with his fingers.
+
+"For that matter I could say the same thing to you," he declared. "You
+consider Volkovisk's talent so high as a business proposition, Merech,
+why don't you get some business man interested--one of your bosses, for
+instance?"
+
+He rose from his chair as he spoke and placed ten cents on the table as
+his share of the evening's expenses.
+
+"Think it over," he said; and long after he had closed the door behind
+him Max sat still with his hands in his trousers pocket and pondered the
+suggestion.
+
+"After all," he mused as Marculescu began to turn out the lights one by
+one, "why shouldn't I--the very first thing in the morning?"
+
+It was not, however, until Polatkin and Scheikowitz had gone out to
+lunch the following day, leaving Elkan alone in the office, that Max
+could bring his courage to the sticking point; and so fearful was he
+that he might regret his boldness before it was too late, he fairly ran
+from the cutting room to the office and delivered his preparatory
+remarks in the outdoor tones of a political spellbinder.
+
+"Mr. Lubliner," he cried, "could I speak to you a few words something?"
+
+Elkan rose and slammed the door.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Merech," he said, "if you want a raise don't let the
+whole factory know about it, otherwise we would be pestered to death
+here. Remember, also," he continued as he sat down again, "you are only
+working for us a few weeks--and don't go so quick as all that."
+
+"What d'ye mean, a raise?" Max asked. "I ain't said nothing at all about
+a raise. I am coming to see you about something entirely different
+already."
+
+Elkan looked ostentatiously at his watch.
+
+"I ain't got too much time, Merech," he said.
+
+"Nobody's got too much time when it comes to fellers asking for raises,
+Mr. Lubliner," Max retorted; "_aber_ this here is something else again,
+as I told you."
+
+"Well, don't beat no bushes round, Merech!" Elkan cried impatiently.
+"What is it you want from me?"
+
+"I want from you this," Max began huskily: "Might you know Tschaikovsky
+maybe _oder_ Rimsky-Korsakoff."
+
+"Tschaikovsky I never heard of," Elkan replied, "nor the other concern
+neither. Must be new beginners in the garment business--ain't it?"
+
+"They never was in the garment business, so far as I know," Max
+continued; "_aber_ they made big successes even if they wasn't, because
+all the money ain't in the garment business, Mr. Lubliner, and
+Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff, even in the old country, made so much
+money they lived in palaces yet. Once when I was a boy already,
+Tschaikovsky comes to Minsk and they got up a parade for him--such a big
+_Macher_ he was!"
+
+"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Merech; _aber_ what is all this
+got to do _mit_ me?"
+
+"It ain't got nothing to do with you, Mr. Lubliner," Max declared--"only
+I got a friend by the name Boris Volkovisk, and believe me or not, Mr.
+Lubliner, in some respects Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff could learn
+from that feller, because, you could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner,
+there's some passages in the Fifth Symphony, understand me, which I hate
+to say it you could call rotten!"
+
+Elkan stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+"I don't know what you are talking about at all," he said.
+
+"I am talking about this," Max replied; and therewith he began to
+explain to Elkan the aspirations and talent of Boris Volkovisk and
+his--Max'--scheme for their successful development. For more than half
+an hour he unfolded a plan by which one thousand dollars might be
+judiciously expended so as to secure the maximum benefit to Volkovisk's
+career--a plan that during the preceding two years Volkovisk and he had
+thoroughly discussed over many a cup of coffee in Marculescu's café.
+"And so you see, Mr. Lubliner," he concluded, "it's a plain business
+proposition; and if you was to take for your thousand dollars, say, for
+example, a one-tenth interest in the business Volkovisk expects to do,
+understand me, you would get a big return for your investment."
+
+Elkan lit a cigar and puffed away reflectively before speaking.
+
+"_Nu_," he said at last; "so that is what you wanted to talk to me
+about?"
+
+Max nodded.
+
+"Well, then, all I could say is," Elkan went on, "you are coming to the
+wrong shop. A business proposition like that is for a banker, which he
+is got so much money he don't know what to do with it, Merech."
+
+Max' face fell and he turned disconsolately away.
+
+"At the same time, Max," Elkan added, "I ain't feeling sore that you
+come to me with the proposition, understand me. The trouble ain't with
+you that you got such an idee, Max; the trouble is with me that I
+couldn't see it. It's like a feller by the name Dalzell, a buyer for
+Kammerman's store, says to me this morning. 'Lubliner,' he says, 'I
+couldn't afford to take no chances buying highgrade garments from a
+feller that is used to making a popular-price line,' he says, 'because
+no matter how well equipped your factory would be the trouble is a
+popular-price manufacturer couldn't think big enough to turn out
+expensive garments. To such a manufacturer goods at two dollars a yard
+is the limit, and goods at ten dollars a yard he couldn't imagine at
+all. And even if he could induce himself to use stuff at ten dollars a
+yard, y'understand, it goes against him to be liberal with such
+high-priced goods, so he skimps the garment.'"
+
+He blew a great cloud of smoke as a substitute for a sigh.
+
+"And Dalzell was right, Max," he concluded. "You couldn't expect that a
+garment manufacturer like me is going to got such big idees as investing
+a thousand dollars in a highgrade scheme like yours. With me a thousand
+dollars means so many yards piece goods, so many sewing machines or a
+week's payroll; _aber_ it don't mean giving a musician a show he should
+compose highgrade music. I ain't educated up to it, Max; so I wish you
+luck that you should raise the money somewheres else."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When M. Sidney Benson entered his office in the Siddons Theatre Building
+late that afternoon he found Jassy seated at his desk in the mournful
+contemplation of some music manuscript.
+
+"_Nu_, Milton," Benson cried, "you shouldn't look so _rachmonos_. I
+surely think I got 'em coming!"
+
+"You think you got 'em coming!" Jassy repeated with bitter emphasis.
+"You said that a dozen times already--and always the feller wasn't so
+big a sucker like he looked!"
+
+"That was because I didn't work it right," Benson replied. "This time I
+am making out to do the feller a favour by letting him in on the show,
+and right away he becomes interested. His name is Elkan Lubliner, a
+manufacturer by cloaks and suits, and to-night he is coming down with
+his wife yet, and you are going to take 'em round to the 'Diners Out.'"
+
+"I am going to the 'Diners Out' _mit_ 'em?" Milton ejaculated with every
+inflection of horror and disgust.
+
+"Sure!" Benson replied cheerfully. "Six dollars it'll cost us, because
+Ryan pretty near laughs in my face when I asked him for three seats. But
+never mind, Milton, it'll be worth the money."
+
+"Will it?" Jassy retorted. "Well, not for me, Mr. Benson. Why, the last
+time I seen that show I says I wouldn't sit through it again for a
+hundred dollars."
+
+"A hundred dollars is a lot of money, Milton," Benson said. "_Aber_ I
+think if you work it right you will get a hundred times a hundred
+dollars before we are through, on account I really got this feller
+going. So you should listen to me and I would tell you just what you
+want to say to the feller between the acts."
+
+Therewith Benson commenced to unfold a series of "talking points" which
+he had spent the entire day in formulating; and, as he proceeded,
+Jassy's eyes wandered from the title page of the manuscript music
+inscribed "Opus 47--Trio in G moll," and began to glow in sympathy with
+Benson's well-laid plan.
+
+"There's no use shilly-shallying, Milton," Benson concluded. "The season
+is getting late, and if we're ever going to put on that show now is the
+time."
+
+Milton nodded eagerly.
+
+"_Aber_ why don't you take 'em to the show yourself, Mr. Benson?" he
+asked hopefully. "Because, not to jolly you at all, Mr. Benson, I must
+got to say it you are a wonderful talker."
+
+Benson shrugged his shoulders and smiled weakly.
+
+"I am a wonderful talker, I admit," he agreed; "but I got a hard face,
+Milton, whereas you, anyhow, look honest. So you should meet me at
+Hanley's afterward, understand me, and we would try to close the deal
+there and then."
+
+He dug his hand into his trousers pocket and produced a modest roll of
+bills, from which he detached six dollars.
+
+"Here is the money," he added, "and you should be here to meet them
+people at eight o'clock sharp."
+
+On the stroke of eight Milton Jassy returned to Benson's office in the
+Siddons Theatre Building and again seated himself at his desk in front
+of the pile of manuscript music. This time, however, he brushed aside
+the title page of his Opus 47 and spread out an evening paper to beguile
+the tedium of awaiting Benson's "prospects." Automatically he turned to
+the department headed Music and Musicians, and at the top of the column
+his eye fell on the following item:
+
+    Ferencz Lánczhid, the Budapest virtuoso, will be the soloist
+    at the concert this evening of the Philharmonic Society. He
+    will play the Tschaikovsky Violin Concerto, Opus 35, and the
+    remainder of the program will consist of Dvorák's Symphony,
+    _Aus der Neuen Welt_, and the ever-popular Meistersinger
+    Overture.
+
+Jassy heaved a tremulous sigh as he concluded the paragraph and
+leaned back in his chair, while in his ears sounded the adagio passage
+that introduces the first movement of the "New World Symphony."
+Simultaneously the occupant of the next office slammed down his rolltop
+desk and began to whistle a lively popular melody. It was "Wildcat Rag,"
+and Milton struck the outspread newspaper with his clenched fist. Then
+rising to his feet he gathered together the loose pages of his "Opus 47"
+and placed them tenderly in a leather case just as the door opened and
+Elkan and Yetta entered.
+
+"I hope we ain't late," Elkan said.
+
+"Not at all," Milton replied. "This is Mr. and Mrs. Lubliner--ain't it?"
+
+As he drew forward a chair for Yetta he saluted his visitors with a
+slight, graceful bow, a survival of his conservatory days.
+
+"Sit down," he said; "we got lots and lots of time."
+
+"I thought the show started at a quarter-past eight--ain't it?" Elkan
+asked.
+
+"It does and it doesn't," Milton replied hesitatingly; "that is to say,
+some shows start at a quarter-past eight and others not till half-past
+eight."
+
+"But I mean this here 'Diners Out' starts at a quarter-past eight--ain't
+it?" Elkan insisted.
+
+"'The Diners Out!'" Milton exclaimed as though he heard the name for the
+first time. "Oh, sure, the 'Diners Out' starts at a quarter-past eight,
+and that's just what I wanted to talk to you about."
+
+He turned to Yetta with an engaging smile which, with his black hair and
+his dark, melancholy eyes, completely won over that far from
+unimpressionable lady.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Lubliner," he began, "your husband is a business man--ain't
+it? And if some one comes to him and says, 'Mr. Lubliner, I got here two
+garments for the same price--say, for example, two dollars. One of 'em
+is made of cheap material, _aber_ plenty of it _mit_ cheap embroidery on
+it, understand me; while the other is from finest silk a garment--not
+much of it, y'understand, but plain and beautiful.'"
+
+"What for a garment could you got for two dollars?" Elkan
+asked--"especially a silk garment?"
+
+"He's only saying for example, Elkan," Yetta interrupted.
+
+"Garments I am only using, so to speak," Milton explained. "What I
+really mean is: You got your choice to go to a popular show like the
+'Diners Out' or to a really highgrade show, Mr. Lubliner. So I leave it
+to you, Mr. Lubliner. Which shall it be?"
+
+Once again he smiled at Yetta.
+
+"Why, to the highgrade show, sure," Yetta replied, and she seized her
+husband by the arm. "Come along, Elkan!" she cried; and after Milton
+had secured the leather portfolio containing his "Opus 47" they
+proceeded immediately to the elevator.
+
+"We could walk over there from here," Milton said when they reached the
+sidewalk, and he led the way across town toward Carnegie Hall.
+
+"What for a show is this we are going to see?" Elkan asked. "Also a
+musical show?"
+
+Milton nodded.
+
+"The best musical show there is," he declared. "Do you like maybe to
+hear good music?"
+
+"I'm crazy about it," Yetta replied.
+
+"Symphonies, concerti and such things?" Milton inquired.
+
+"Symphonies?" Elkan repeated. "What is symphonies?"
+
+"I couldn't explain it to you," Milton said, "because we ain't got time;
+_aber_ you would see for yourself. Only one thing I must tell you, Mr.
+Lubliner--when the orchestra plays you shouldn't speak nothing--Mrs.
+Lubliner neither."
+
+"I wouldn't open my mouth at all," Elkan assured him solemnly; and a few
+minutes later Milton seated himself in the last row of the parterre at
+Carnegie Hall, with Elkan and Yetta--one each side of him.
+
+"So you ain't never been to a symphony concert before?" Milton began,
+leaning toward Elkan; and, as the latter shook his head, a short, stout
+person in the adjoining seat raised his eyebrows involuntarily. "Well,
+you got a big pleasure in store for you," Milton went on; "and another
+thing I must got to tell you: Might you would hear some pretty jumpy
+music which you would want to keep time to _mit_ your foot. Don't you do
+it!"
+
+Elkan's neighbour concealed a smile with one hand, and then, he, too,
+turned to Elkan, who had received Milton's warning with a sulky frown.
+
+"You're friend is right," he said. "People always have to be told that
+the first time they go to a symphony concert; and the next time they go
+they not only see the wisdom of such advice, but they want to get up and
+lick the man that does beat time with his foot."
+
+He accompanied his remark with so gracious a smile that Elkan's frown
+immediately relaxed.
+
+"A new beginner couldn't get too much advice," he said, and his
+neighbour leaned farther forward and addressed Milton.
+
+"You've chosen a fine program to introduce your friend to good music
+with," he said; and therewith began a lively conversation that lasted
+until a round of applause signalized the appearance of the conductor.
+The next moment he raised his baton and the celli began to sigh the
+mournful phrase which ushers in the symphony. Milton leaned back
+luxuriously as the woodwind commenced the next phrase; and then, while
+the introduction ended with a sweeping crescendo and the tempo suddenly
+increased, Elkan sat up and his eyes became fixed on the trombone and
+trumpet players.
+
+He maintained this attitude throughout the entire first movement, and it
+was not until the conductor's arm fell motionless at his side that he
+settled back in his seat.
+
+"Well," Milton asked, "what do you think of it?"
+
+"A-Number-One!" Elkan answered hoarsely. "It would suit me just so well
+if it would last the whole evening and we wouldn't have no singing and
+dancing at all."
+
+"What do you mean--no singing and dancing!" Milton exclaimed.
+
+"Sure!" Elkan continued. "I wish them fellers would play the whole
+evening."
+
+The conductor tapped his desk with his baton.
+
+"Don't worry," Milton commented as he settled himself for the next
+movement. "You'll get your wish all right."
+
+Elkan looked inquiringly at his mentor, but Milton only placed his
+forefinger to his lips; and thereafter, until the conclusion of the
+symphony, the pauses between the movements of the symphony were so brief
+that Elkan had no opportunity to make further inquiries.
+
+"Well, neighbour," asked the gentleman on his right, as the musicians
+filed off the stage for the ten-minutes' intermission, "what do you
+think of your first symphony?"
+
+Elkan smiled and concealed his shyness by clearing his throat.
+
+"The symphony is all right," he said; "but, with all them operators
+there, what is the use they are trying to save money hiring only one
+foreman?"
+
+"One foreman?" his neighbour cried.
+
+"Sure--the feller with the stick," Elkan went on blandly. "Naturally he
+couldn't keep his eye on all them people at oncet--ain't it? I am
+watching them fellers, which they are working them big brass machines,
+for the last half hour, and except for five or ten minutes they sit
+there doing absolutely nothing--just fooling away their time."
+
+"Them fellers ain't fooling away their time," Milton said gravely. "They
+ain't got nothing to do only at intervals."
+
+"Then I guess they must pay 'em by piecework--ain't it?" Elkan asked.
+
+"They pay 'em so much a night," Milton explained.
+
+"Well, in that case, Mr. Jassy," Elkan continued, "all I could say is if
+I would got working in my place half a dozen fellers which I am paying
+by the day, understand me, and the foreman couldn't keep 'em busy only
+half the time, _verstehst du_, he would quick look for another job."
+
+Elkan's neighbour on the right had been growing steadily more crimson,
+and at last he hurriedly seized his hat and passed out into the aisle.
+
+"That's a pretty friendly feller," Elkan said as he gazed after him. "Do
+you happen to know his name?"
+
+"I ain't never heard his name," Milton replied; "but he is seemingly
+crazy about music. I seen him here every time I come."
+
+"Well, I don't blame him none," Elkan commented; "because you take the
+Harlem Winter Garden, for instance, and though the music is rotten,
+understand me, they got the nerve to charge you yet for a lot of food
+which half the time you don't want at all; whereas here they didn't even
+ask us we should buy so much as a glass beer."
+
+At this juncture the short, stout person returned and proceeded to
+entertain Elkan and Yetta by pointing out among the audience the figures
+of local and international millionaires.
+
+"And all them fellers is crazy about music too?" Elkan asked.
+
+"So crazy," his neighbour said, "that the little man over there, with
+the white beard, spends almost twenty thousand a year on it!"
+
+"And yet," Milton said bitterly, "there's plenty fellers in the city
+which year in and year out composes chamber music and symphonic music
+which they couldn't themselves make ten dollars a week; and, when it
+comes right down to it, none of them millionaires would loosen up to
+such new beginners for even five hundred dollars to help them get a
+hearing."
+
+The short person received Milton's outburst with a faint smile.
+
+"I've heard that before," he commented, "but I never had the pleasure of
+meeting any of those great unknown composers."
+
+"That's because most of 'em is so bashful they ain't got sense enough to
+push themselves forward," Milton replied; "_aber_ if you really want to
+meet one I could take you to-night yet to a café on Delancey Street
+where there is playing a trio which the pianist is something you could
+really call a genius."
+
+"You don't tell me!" Elkan's neighbour cried. "Why, I should be
+delighted to go with you."
+
+"How about it, Mr. Lubliner?" Milton asked. "Are you and Mrs. Lubliner
+agreeable to go downtown after the show to the café on Delancey Street?
+It's a pretty poor neighbourhood already."
+
+Yetta smiled.
+
+"Sure, I know," she said; "but it wouldn't be the first time me and
+Elkan was in Delancey Street."
+
+"Then it's agreed that we're all going to hear the genius," Elkan's
+neighbour added. "I heard you call one another Jassy and Lubliner--it's
+hardly fair you shouldn't know my name too."
+
+He felt in his waistcoat pocket and finally handed a visiting card to
+Elkan, who glanced at it hurriedly and with trembling fingers passed it
+on to his wife, for it was inscribed in old English type as follows:
+
+     +==============================+
+     |                              |
+     |    =Mr. Joseph Kammerman=    |
+     |                              |
+     |       =Fostoria Hotel=       |
+     |                              |
+     |               =New York=     |
+     |                              |
+     +==============================+
+
+"Once and for all, I am telling you, Volkovisk, either you would got to
+play music here or quit!" Marculescu cried at eleven o'clock that
+evening. "The customers is all the time kicking at the stuff you give
+us."
+
+"What d'ye mean, stuff?" Max Merech protested. "That was no stuff, Mr.
+Marculescu. That was from Brahms a trio, and it suits me down to the
+ground."
+
+"Suits you!" Marculescu exclaimed. "Who in blazes are you?"
+
+"I am _auch_ a customer, Mr. Marculescu," Max replied with dignity.
+
+"_Yow_, a customer!" Marculescu jeered. "You sit here all night on
+one cup coffee. A customer, _sagt er_! A loafer--that's what you are!
+It ain't you I am making my money from, Merech--it's from them
+_Takeefim_[A] uptown; and they want to hear music, not Brahms. So you
+hear what I am telling you, Volkovisk! You should play something
+good--like 'Wildcat Rag'."
+
+[Footnote A: _Takeefim_--Aristocracy.]
+
+"Wait a minute, Mr. Marculescu," Max interrupted. "Do you mean to told
+me them lowlife bums in front there, which makes all that _Geschrei_
+over 'Dixerlie' and such like _Narrischkeit_, is _Takeefim_ yet?"
+
+"I don't want to listen to you at all, Merech!" Marculescu shouted.
+
+"I don't care if you want to listen to me _oder_ not," Merech said. "I
+was a customer here when you got one little store _mit_ two waiters; and
+it was me and all the other fellers you are calling loafers now what
+give you, with our few pennies, your first start. Now you are too good
+for us with your uptown _Takeefim_. Why, them same _Takeefim_ only comes
+here, in the first place, because they want to see what it looks like in
+one of the East Side cafés, where they got such good music and such
+interesting characters, which sits and drinks coffee and plays chess
+_und Tarrok_."
+
+He glared at the enraged Marculescu and waved his hands excitedly.
+
+"What you call loafers they call interesting characters, Mr.
+Marculescu," he continued, "and what you call stuff they call good
+music--and that's the way it goes, Mr. Marculescu. You are a goose which
+is killing its own golden eggs!"
+
+"So!" Marculescu roared. "I am a goose, am I? You loafer, you! Out of
+here before I kick you out!"
+
+"You wouldn't kick nothing," Max rejoined, "because I am happy to go out
+from here! Where all the time is being played such _Machshovos_ like
+'Wildcat Rag,' I don't want to stay at all."
+
+He rose from his chair and flung ten cents on to the table.
+
+"And furthermore," he cried by way of peroration, "people don't got to
+come five miles down to Delancey Street to hear 'Wildcat Rag,' Mr.
+Marculescu; so, if you keep on playing it, Mr. Marculescu, you will
+quick find that it's an elegant tune to bust up to--and that's all I got
+to say!"
+
+As he walked away, Marculescu made a sign to his pianist.
+
+"Go ahead, Volkovisk--play 'Wildcat Rag!'" he said. Then he followed Max
+to the front of the café; and before they reached the front tables, at
+which sat the slummers from uptown, Volkovisk began to pound out the
+hackneyed melody.
+
+"That's what I think of your arguments, Merech!" Marculescu said,
+walking behind the cashier's desk.
+
+Max paused to crush him with a final retort; but even as he began to
+deliver it his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, for at that
+instant the door opened and there entered a party of four, with Elkan
+Lubliner in the van. A moment later, however, Milton Jassy pushed his
+guests to one side and strode angrily toward Marculescu.
+
+"_Koosh!_" he bellowed and stamped his foot on the floor, whereat the
+music ceased and even the uptown revellers were startled into silence.
+Only Marculescu remained unabashed.
+
+"Say," he shouted as he rushed from behind his desk, "what do you think
+this joint is?--a joint!"
+
+"I think what I please, Marculescu," Milton said, "and you should tell
+Volkovisk to play something decent. Also you should bring us two quarts
+from the best Tchampanyer wine--from French wine Tchampanyer, not
+_Amerikanischer_."
+
+He waved his hand impatiently and three waiters--half of Marculescu's
+entire staff--came on the jump; so that, a moment later, Jassy and his
+guests were divested of their wraps and seated at one of the largest
+tables facing the piano. It was not until then that Milton descried Max
+Merech hovering round the door.
+
+"Merech!" he called. "_Kommen sie 'r über!_"
+
+Max shook his head shyly and half-opened the door, but Elkan forestalled
+him. He fairly bounded from the table and caught his assistant cutter by
+the arm just as he was disappearing on to the sidewalk.
+
+"Max," he said, "what's the matter with you? Ain't you coming in to meet
+my wife?"
+
+Max shrugged in embarrassment.
+
+"You don't want me to butt into your party, Mr. Lubliner!" he said.
+
+"Listen, Max," Elkan almost pleaded; "not only do I want you to, but you
+would be doing me a big favour if you would come in and join us. Also,
+Max, I am going to introduce you as our designer. You ain't got no
+objections?"
+
+"Not at all," Max replied, and he followed his employer into the café.
+
+"Yetta," Elkan began, "I think you seen Mr. Merech before--ain't it?"
+
+Mrs. Lubliner smiled and extended her hand.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Merech?" she said; and Max bowed awkwardly.
+
+"Mr. Kammerman," Elkan continued, "this is our designer, Max Merech; and
+I could assure you, Mr. Kammerman, a very good one too. He's got a great
+eye for colour."
+
+"And a good ear for music," Milton added as Kammerman shook the blushing
+dilettante by the hand.
+
+"In fact, Mr. Kammerman, if he has got such taste in designing as he is
+showing in music," Milton went on, "he must be a wonder! Nothing suits
+him but the best. And now, if you will excuse me, I'll get Volkovisk he
+should play you his sonata."
+
+He left the table with his leather portfolio under his arm, and for more
+than five minutes he held an earnest consultation with Volkovisk and
+the cellist, after which he returned smiling to his seat.
+
+"First Volkovisk plays his sonata, 'Opus 30,'" he explained, "and then
+he would do a little thing of my own."
+
+He nodded briskly to Volkovisk, and Kammerman settled himself resignedly
+to a hearing of what he anticipated would be a commonplace piece of
+music. After the first six measures, however, he sat up straight in his
+chair and his face took on an expression of wonder and delight. Then,
+resting his elbow on the table, he nursed his cheek throughout the first
+movement in a posture of earnest attention.
+
+"Why," he cried as the musician paused, "this man is a genius!"
+
+Max Merech nodded. His face was flushed and his eyes were filled with
+tears.
+
+"What did I told you, Mr. Lubliner?" he said; and Jassy raised his hand
+for silence while Volkovisk began the second movement. This and the
+succeeding movements fully sustained the promise of the earlier portions
+of the composition; and when at length Volkovisk rose from the piano
+stool and approached the table Kammerman jumped from his chair and wrung
+the composer's hand.
+
+"Sit in my chair," he insisted, and snapped his fingers at Marculescu,
+who fumed impotently behind the cashier's desk.
+
+"Here," he called; "more wine--and look sharp about it!"
+
+Marculescu obeyed sulkily and again the glasses were filled.
+
+"Gentlemen," Kammerman said, "and Mrs. Lubliner, I ask you to drink to a
+great career just beginning."
+
+"Lots of people said that before," Max murmured after he had emptied his
+glass.
+
+"They said it," Kammerman replied, "but I pledge it. You shall play no
+more in this place, Volkovisk--and here is my hand on it."
+
+Max Merech beamed across the table at his employer.
+
+"Well, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "you lost your chance."
+
+Elkan shrugged and smiled.
+
+"Might you could find another of them genius fellers for me maybe, Max?"
+he said.
+
+And therewith Kammerman slapped Milton Jassy on the back.
+
+"By Jove! We forgot your trio," he said. "Play it, Volkovisk, as your
+valedictory here."
+
+Again Volkovisk sought the piano, and after whispered instructions to
+his assistants he began a rendition of Jassy's "Opus 47," from the
+manuscript Milton had brought with him; but, allowing for the faulty
+technic of the 'cellist and the uncertainty that attends the first
+reading from manuscript of any composition, there was little to
+recommend Jassy's work.
+
+"Very creditable!" Kammerman said at the end of the movement. "Perhaps
+we might hear the rest."
+
+Max kept his eyes fixed on the table to avoid looking at Jassy, and even
+Volkovisk seemed embarrassed as he swung round on the piano stool.
+
+"Well?" he said inquiringly.
+
+Jassy emitted a bitter laugh.
+
+"That'll do, Volkovisk," he replied hoarsely. "I guess it needs
+rehearsing."
+
+At this point Max attempted to create a diversion.
+
+"Look at that lady sitting there!" he said. "She puts on a yellow hat to
+an old-gold dress. She's committing murder and she don't know it!"
+
+Kammerman seized on the incident as a way of escape from criticising
+Jassy's trio.
+
+"That reminds me, Lubliner," he said. "Give me your business card if you
+have one with you. I must tell Mr. Dalzell, my cloak buyer, to look over
+your line. I'm sure, with a designer of Mr. Merech's artistic instincts
+working for you, you will be making up just the highgrade line of goods
+we need."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+One year later, the usual crowd of first-nighters lounged in the lobby
+of the Siddons Theatre during the intermission between the second and
+third acts of M. Sidney Benson's newest musical comedy, "Marjory from
+Marguery's," and commented with enthusiasm on the song hit of the
+show--"My Blériot Maid." A number of the more gifted even whistled the
+melody, skipping the hard part and proceeding by impromptu and
+conventional modulation to the refrain, which had been expressly
+designed by its composer, Milton Jassy, so as to present no technical
+difficulties to the most modest whistler.
+
+Through this begemmed and piping throng, Kammerman and Volkovisk elbowed
+their way to the street for a breath of fresh air; and as they reached
+the sidewalk Kammerman heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+"What a terrible melody!" he ejaculated.
+
+"But the plot ain't bad," Volkovisk suggested, and Kammerman grinned
+involuntarily.
+
+"To be exact, the two plots aren't bad," he said. "It's made up of two
+old farces. One of them is '_Embrassons nous, Duval_,' and the other
+'_Un Garçon, de chez Gaillard_.'"
+
+"But the costumes are really something which you could call beautiful!"
+Volkovisk declared.
+
+"Merech approved the costumes too," Kammerman agreed with a laugh. "He
+left after the first act; and he said that if you endured it to the end
+you were to be sure to tell Jassy the colorings were splendid!" He lit a
+cigarette reflectively. "That man is a regular shark for coloring!" he
+said. "It seems that when I first met him that night he was only an
+assistant cutter; but Elkan Lubliner made him designer very shortly
+afterward--and it has proved a fine thing for both of them. I understand
+we bought fifteen thousand dollars' worth of goods from them during the
+past year!"
+
+"He deserved all the good luck that came to him," Volkovisk cried; and
+Kammerman placed his hand affectionately on his protégé's shoulder.
+
+"There's a special Providence that looks after artists," he said as they
+reëntered the theatre, "whether they paint, write, compose, or design
+garments."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+ONE OF ESAU'S FABLES
+
+THE MOUSE SCRATCHES THE LION'S BACK; THE LION SCRATCHES THE MOUSE'S BACK
+
+
+"No, Elkan," said Louis Stout, of Flugel & Stout. "When you are coming
+to compare Johnsonhurst _mit_ Burgess Park it's already a molehill to a
+mountain."
+
+"Burgess Park ain't such high ground neither," Elkan Lubliner retorted.
+"Max Kovner says he lives out there on Linden Boulevard three months
+only and he gets full up with malaria something terrible."
+
+"Malaria we ain't got it in Burgess Park!" Louis declared. "I am living
+there now six years, Elkan, and I never bought so much as a two-grain
+quinine pill. Furthermore, Elkan, Kovner's malaria you could catch in
+Denver, Colorado, or on an ocean steamer, y'understand; because, with a
+lowlife bum like Max Kovner, which he sits up till all hours of the
+night--a drinker and a gambler, understand me--you don't got to be a
+professor exactly to diagonize his trouble. It ain't malaria, Elkan,
+it's _Katzenjammer!_"
+
+"But my Yetta is stuck on Johnsonhurst," Elkan protested, "and she
+already makes up her mind we would move out there."
+
+"That was just the way with my wife," Louis said. "For six months she is
+crying all the time Ogden Estates; and if I would listen to her, Elkan,
+and bought out there, y'understand, instead we would be turning down
+offers on our house at an advance of twenty per cent. on the price we
+paid for it, we would be considering letting the property go under
+foreclosure! You ought to see that place Ogden Estates nowadays,
+Elkan--nothing but a bunch of Italieners lives there."
+
+"But----" Elkan began.
+
+"Another thing," Louis Stout broke in: "Out in Johnsonhurst what kind of
+society do you got? Moe Rabiner lives there, and Marks Pasinsky lives
+there--and _Gott weiss wer noch_. My partner, Mr. Flugel, is approached
+the other day with an offer of some property in Johnsonhurst, and I was
+really in favour he should take it up; but he says to me, 'Louis,' he
+says, 'a place where such people lives like Pasinsky and Rabiner I
+wouldn't touch at all!' And he was right, Elkan. Salesmen and designers
+only lives in Johnsonhurst; while out in Burgess Park we got a nice
+class of people living, Elkan. You know J. Kamin, of the Lee Printemps,
+Pittsburgh?"
+
+"Used to was one of our best customers," Philip Scheikowitz replied,
+"though he passed us up last year."
+
+"His sister, Mrs. Benno Ortelsburg, lives one house by the other with
+me," Louis went on. "Her husband does a big real-estate business there.
+Might you also know Julius Tarnowitz, of the Tarnowitz-Wixman Department
+Store, Rochester?"
+
+"Bought from us a couple years a small bill," Marcus Polatkin said. "I
+wish we could sell him more."
+
+"Well, his brother, Sig Tarnowitz, lives across the street from us,"
+Louis cried triumphantly. "Sig's got a fine business there on Fifth
+Avenue, Brooklyn."
+
+"What for a business?"
+
+"A furniture business," Louis replied. "And might you would know also
+Joel Ribnik, which he is running the McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company,
+of Cyprus, Pennsylvania?"
+
+"That's the feller what you nearly sold that big bill to last month,
+Elkan," Scheikowitz commented.
+
+"Well, his sister is married to a feller by the name Robitscher, of
+Robitscher, Smith & Company, the wallpaper house and interior
+decorators. They got an elegant place down the street from us."
+
+"But----" Elkan began again.
+
+"But nothing, Elkan!" Marcus Polatkin interrupted with a ferocious wink;
+for Louis Stout, as junior partner in the thriving Williamsburg store
+of Flugel & Stout, was viewing Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's line
+preparatory to buying his spring line of dresses. "But nothing, Elkan!
+Mr. Stout knows what he is talking about, Elkan; and if I would be you,
+instead I would argue with him, understand me, I would take Yetta out to
+Burgess Park on Sunday and give the place a look."
+
+"That's the idea!" Louis cried. "And you should come and take dinner
+with us first. Mrs. Stout would be delighted."
+
+"What time do you eat dinner?" Philip Scheikowitz asked, frowning
+significantly at Elkan.
+
+"Two o'clock," Louis replied, and Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in
+unison.
+
+"He'll be there," Polatkin declared.
+
+"At a quarter before two," Scheikowitz added and Elkan smiled
+mechanically by way of assent.
+
+"So come along, Mr. Stout," Polatkin said, "and look at them Ethel
+Barrymore dresses. I think you'll like 'em."
+
+He led Stout from the office as he spoke while Scheikowitz remained
+behind with Elkan.
+
+"Honest, Elkan," he said, "I'm surprised to see the way you are acting
+with Louis Stout!"
+
+"What do you mean, the way I'm acting, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan
+protested. "Do you think I am going to buy a house in a neighbourhood
+which I don't want to live in at all just to oblige a customer?"
+
+"_Schmooes_, Elkan!" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "No one asks you you should
+buy a house there. Be a little reasonable, Elkan. What harm would it do
+you, supposing you and Yetta should go out to Burgess Park next Sunday?
+Because you know the way Louis Stout is, Elkan. He will look over our
+line for two weeks yet before he decides on his order--and meantime we
+shouldn't entegonize him."
+
+"I don't want to antagonize him," Elkan said; "but me and Yetta made our
+arrangements to go out to Johnsonhurst next Sunday."
+
+"Go out there the Sunday after," cried Scheikowitz. "Johnsonhurst would
+still be on the map, Elkan. It ain't going to run away exactly."
+
+Thus persuaded, Elkan and Yetta on the following Sunday elbowed their
+way through the crowd at the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge, and after
+a delay of several minutes boarded a train for Burgess Park.
+
+"Well, all I can say is," Yetta gasped, after they had seized on the
+only vacant seats in the car, "if it's this way on Sunday what would it
+be on weekdays?"
+
+"There must have been a block," Elkan said meekly. Only by the exercise
+of the utmost marital diplomacy had he induced his wife to make the
+visit to Louis Stout's home, and one of his most telling arguments had
+been the advantage of the elevated railroad journey to Burgess Park
+over the subway ride to Johnsonhurst.
+
+"Furthermore," Yetta insisted, referring to another of Elkan's plausible
+reasons for visiting Burgess Park, "I suppose all these Italieners and
+_Bétzimmers_ are customers of yours which we was going to run across on
+our way down there. Ain't it?"
+
+Elkan blushed guiltily as he looked about him at the carload of
+holiday-makers; but a moment later he exclaimed aloud as he recognized
+in a seat across the aisle no less a person than Joseph Kamin, of Le
+Printemps, Pittsburgh.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Kamin?" he said.
+
+"Not Elkan Lubliner, from Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company?" Mr. Kamin
+exclaimed. "Well, who would think to meet you here!"
+
+He rose from his seat, whereat a bulky Italian immediately sank into it;
+and as livery of seizin he appropriated the comic section of Mr. Kamin's
+Sunday paper, which had fallen to the floor of the car, and spread it
+wide open in front of him.
+
+"Now you lost your seat," Elkan said; "so you should take mine."
+
+He jumped to his feet and Kamin sat down in his place, while a
+Neapolitan who hung on an adjacent strap viciously scowled his
+disappointment.
+
+"You ain't acquainted with Mrs. Lubliner?" Elkan said.
+
+"Pleased to meetcher," Kamin murmured.
+
+Yetta bowed stiffly and Elkan hastened to make conversation by way of
+relieving Mr. Kamin's embarrassment.
+
+"Looks like an early spring the way people is going to the country in
+such crowds," he said.
+
+"I bet yer," Kamin rejoined emphatically. "I arrived in New York two
+weeks ahead of my schedule, because I simply got to do my buying now or
+lose a lot of early spring trade."
+
+"Have you been in town long?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Only this morning," Kamin answered; "and I am going down to eat dinner
+with my sister, Mrs. Ortelsburg. She lives in Burgess Park."
+
+"Is that so?" Elkan exclaimed. "We ourselves are going to Burgess
+Park--to visit a friend."
+
+"A customer," Yetta corrected.
+
+"A customer could also be a friend," Kamin declared, "especially if he's
+a good customer."
+
+"This is a very good customer," Elkan went on, "by the name Louis
+Stout."
+
+"Louis Stout, from Flugel & Stout?" Kamin cried. "Why, him and Benno
+Ortelsburg is like brothers already! Well, then, I'll probably see you
+down in Burgess Park this afternoon, on account every Sunday afternoon
+Louis plays pinocle at my brother-in-law's house. Why don't he fetch you
+round to take a hand?"
+
+"I should be delighted," Elkan said; but Yetta sniffed audibly.
+
+"I guess we would be going home right after dinner, before the crowd
+starts back," she said.
+
+"Not on a fine day like this you wouldn't," Kamin protested; "because
+once you get out to Burgess Park you ain't in such a hurry to come back.
+I wish we would got such a place near Pittsburgh, Mrs. Lubliner. I bet
+yer I would quick move out there. The smoke gets worser and worser in
+Pittsburgh; in fact, it's so nowadays we couldn't sell a garment in
+pastel shades."
+
+"Well, we got plenty blacks, navy blues, Copenhagen blues and brown in
+our spring line, Mr. Kamin," Elkan said; and therewith he commenced so
+graphically to catalogue Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's new stock
+that, by the time the train drew into Burgess Park, Kamin was making
+figures on the back of an envelope in an effort to convince Elkan that
+his prices were all wrong.
+
+"But, anyhow," Kamin said, as they parted in front of the Ortelsburgs'
+colonial residence, "I will see you in the store to-morrow morning
+sure."
+
+"You'll see me before then, because me and Yetta is coming round this
+afternoon sure--ain't we, Yetta?"
+
+Mrs. Lubliner nodded, for her good humour had been restored by Elkan's
+splendid exhibition of salesmanship.
+
+"This afternoon is something else again," Kamin said, "because a feller
+which tries to mix pinocle with business is apt to overplay his hand in
+both games."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"No, Joe; you're wrong," Benno Ortelsburg said to his brother-in-law,
+Joseph Kamin, as they sipped their after-dinner coffee in the Ortelsburg
+library that day. "It wouldn't be taking advantage of the feller at all.
+You say yourself he tries to sell goods to you on the car already. Why
+shouldn't we try to sell Glaubmann's house to him while he's down here?
+And we'll split the commission half and half."
+
+Kamin hesitated before replying.
+
+"In business, Joe--it's Esau's fable of the lion and the mouse every
+time!" Ortelsburg continued. "The mouse scratches the lion's back and
+the lion scratches the mouse's back! Ain't it?"
+
+"But you know so well as I do, Benno, that Glaubmann's house on Linden
+Boulevard ain't worth no eighteen thousand dollars," Kamin said.
+
+"Why ain't it?" Benno retorted. "Glaubmann's Linden Boulevard house is
+precisely the same house as this, built from the same plans and
+everything--and this house costs me thirteen thousand five hundred
+dollars. Suburban real estate is worth just so much as you can get some
+sucker to pay for it, Joe. So I guess I better get the cards and chips
+ready, because I see Glaubmann coming up the street now."
+
+A moment later Glaubmann entered the library and greeted Kamin
+uproariously.
+
+"Hello, Joe!" he cried. "How's the drygoods business in Pittsburgh?"
+
+"Not so good as the real-estate business in Burgess Park, Barney," Kamin
+replied. "They tell me you are selling houses hand over fist."
+
+"_Yow_--hand over fist!" Barnett cried. "If I carry a house six months
+and sell it at a couple thousand dollars' profit, what is it?"
+
+"I got to get rid of a whole lot of garments to make a couple thousand
+dollars, Barney," Kamin said; "and, anyhow, if you sell a house for
+eighteen thousand dollars which it cost you thirteen-five you would be
+making a little more as four thousand dollars."
+
+"Sure I would," Glaubmann replied; "_aber_ the people which buys
+green-goods and gold bricks ain't investing in eighteen-thousand-dollar
+propositions! Such yokels you could only interest in hundred-dollar lots
+between high and low water on some of them Jersey sandbars."
+
+"There is all kinds of come-ons, Barney," Joe said, "and the biggest
+one, understand me, is the business man who is willing to be played for
+a sucker, so as he can hold his customers' trade."
+
+"You got the proper real-estate spirit, Joe," Benno declared, as he
+returned with the cards and chips. "You don't allow the ground to grow
+under your feet. Just at present, though, we are going to spiel a
+little pinocle and we would talk business afterward."
+
+"Real estate ain't business," Kamin retorted. "It's a game like pinocle;
+and I got a little Jack of Diamonds and Queen of Spades coming round
+here in a few minutes which I would like to meld."
+
+"Now you are talking poetry," Barnett said.
+
+"Take it from me, Barney," Benno Ortelsburg interrupted, "this ain't no
+poetry. It's a fact; and if you could see your way clear to pay a
+thousand dollars' commission, y'understand, me and Joe is got a customer
+for your Linden Boulevard house at eighteen thousand dollars."
+
+"Jokes you are making me!" Barnett cried. "You shouldn't drink so much
+schnapps after dinner, Benno, because I could as much get eighteen
+thousand for that Linden Boulevard house as I would pay you a thousand
+dollars commission if I got it."
+
+"You ain't paying me the thousand dollars," Benno protested. "Don't you
+suppose Joe's got a look-in-here?"
+
+"And furthermore," Joe said, "you also got Louis Stout to consider. If
+you think Louis Stout is going to sit by and see a commission walk past
+him, Benno, you are making a big mistake."
+
+"I'm willing we should give Louis a hundred or so," Benno agreed. "We
+got to remember Louis is a customer of his also."
+
+"A customer of who's?" Barnett asked, as the doorbell rang.
+
+"_Stiegen!_" Benno hissed; and a moment later he ushered Elkan and Yetta
+into the library, while Mr. Stout brought up the rear.
+
+Benno cleared his throat preparatory to introducing the newcomers, but
+Louis Stout brushed hastily past him.
+
+"Mr. Glaubmann," Louis said, "this is my friend, Elkan Lubliner."
+
+"And you forget Mrs. Lubliner," cried Mrs. Ortelsburg, who had hurried
+downstairs at the sound of voices in the hall. "I'm Mrs. Ortelsburg,"
+she continued, turning to Yetta. "Won't you come upstairs and take your
+things off?"
+
+"Elkan," Louis Stout continued, "you better go along with her. I want
+you to see what an elegant lot of clothes-closets they got upstairs. You
+know most houses is designed by archytecks which all they are trying to
+do is to save money for the builder. _Aber_ this archyteck was an
+exception. The way he figures it he tries to build the house to please
+the women, _mit_ lots of closet room, and--excuse me, ladies--to hell
+with the expenses! I'll go upstairs with you and show you what I mean."
+
+Benno frowned angrily.
+
+"'Tain't necessary, Louis," he said. "Mrs. Ortelsburg would show him."
+
+He drew forward chairs; and, after Elkan and Yetta had followed Mrs.
+Ortelsburg upstairs, he closed the library door.
+
+"Couldn't I introduce people in my own house, Stout?" he demanded.
+
+Louis Stout shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If you mean as a matter of ettykit--yes," he retorted; "_aber_ if it's
+a real-estate transaction--no. When I bring a customer to Mr. Glaubmann
+for his Linden Boulevard house, Ortelsburg, I do the introducing myself,
+which afterward I don't want no broker to claim he earned the commission
+by introducing the customer first--understand me?"
+
+He seated himself and smiled calmly at Kamin, Glaubmann, and his host.
+
+"I ain't living in the country for my health exactly," he declared, "and
+don't you forget it."
+
+"Where's your written authorization from the owner?" Ortelsburg
+demanded, raising a familiar point of real-estate brokerage law; and
+Stout tapped his breast pocket.
+
+"Six months ago already," Stout replied, "Mr. Glaubmann writes me if I
+hear of a customer for his house he would protect me, and I got the
+letter here in my pocket. Ain't that right, Mr. Glaubmann?"
+
+Glaubmann had walked toward the window and was looking out upon the
+budding white poplars that spread their branches at a height of six
+feet above the sidewalks of Burgess Park. He nodded in confirmation of
+Louis' statement; and as he did so a short, stout person, who was
+proceeding hurriedly down the street in the direction of the station,
+paused in front of the Ortelsburg residence. A moment later he rang the
+bell and Ortelsburg himself opened the door.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Kovner!" he said. "What could I do for you?"
+
+"Mr. Glaubmann just nods to me out of your window," Max Kovner replied,
+"and I thought he wants to speak to me."
+
+Benno returned to the library with Max at his heels.
+
+"Do you want to speak to Mr. Kovner, Glaubmann?" he asked, and Glaubmann
+started perceptibly. During the months of Max Kovner's tenancy Glaubmann
+had not only refrained from visiting his Linden Boulevard house, but he
+had also performed feats of disappearance resembling Indian warfare in
+his efforts to avoid Max Kovner on the streets of Burgess Park. All this
+was the result of Max Kovner's taking possession of the Linden Boulevard
+house upon Glaubmann's agreement to make necessary plumbing repairs and
+to paint and repaper the living rooms; and Glaubmann's complete breach
+of this agreement was reflected in the truculency of Max Kovner's manner
+as he entered the Ortelsburg library.
+
+"Maybe Glaubmann don't want to speak to me," he cried, "but I want to
+speak to him, and in the presence of you gentlemen here also."
+
+He banged Ortelsburg's library table with his clenched fist.
+
+"Once and for all, Mr. Glaubmann," he said, "either you would fix that
+plumbing and do that painting, understand me, or I would move out of
+your Linden Boulevard house the first of next month sure!"
+
+Glaubmann received this ultimatum with a defiant grin.
+
+"_Schmooes_, Kovner," he said, "you wouldn't do nothing of the kind! You
+got _mit_ me a verbal lease for one year in the presence of my wife,
+your wife and a couple of other people which the names I forget."
+
+"And how about the repairs?" Kovner demanded.
+
+"If you seen the house needs repairs and you go into possession anyhow,"
+Glaubmann retorted, "you waive the repairs, because the agreement to
+repair merges in the lease. That's what Kent J. Goldstein, my lawyer,
+says, Kovner; and ask any other lawyer, Kovner, and he could tell you
+the same."
+
+"So," Kovner exclaimed, "I am stuck with that rotten house for a year!
+Is that the idee?"
+
+Glaubmann nodded.
+
+"All right, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner concluded. "You are here in a strange
+house to me and I couldn't do nothing; but I am coming over to your
+office to-morrow, and if I got to sit there all day, understand me, we
+would settle this thing up."
+
+"That's all right," Ortelsburg interrupted. "When you got real-estate
+business with Glaubmann, Mr. Kovner, his office is the right place to
+see him. _Aber_ here is a private house and Sunday, Mr. Kovner, and we
+ain't doing no real-estate business here. So, if you got a pressing
+engagement somewheres else, Mr. Kovner, don't let me hurry you."
+
+He opened the library door, and with a final glare at his landlord Max
+passed slowly out.
+
+"That's a dangerous feller," Glaubmann said as his tenant banged the
+street door behind him. "He goes into possession for one year without a
+written lease containing a covenant for repairs by the landlord,
+y'understand, and now he wants to blame me for it! Honestly, the way
+some people acts so unreasonable, Kamin, it's enough to sicken me with
+the real-estate business!"
+
+Kamin nodded sympathetically, but Louis Stout made an impatient gesture
+by way of bringing the conversation back to its original theme.
+
+"That ain't here or there," he declared. "The point is I am fetching you
+a customer for your Linden Boulevard house, Glaubmann, and I want this
+here matter of the commission settled right away."
+
+Ortelsburg rose to his feet as a shuffling on the stairs announced the
+descent of his guests.
+
+"Commissions we would talk about afterward," he said. "First let us sell
+the house."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+In Benno Ortelsburg's ripe experience there were as many methods of
+selling suburban residences as there were residences for sale; and, like
+the born salesman he was, he realized that each transaction possessed
+its individual obstacles, to be overcome by no hard-and-fast rules of
+salesmanship. Thus he quickly divined that whoever sought to sell Elkan
+a residence in Burgess Park must first convince Yetta, and he proceeded
+immediately to apportion the chips for a five-handed game of auction
+pinocle, leaving Yetta to be entertained by his wife. Mrs. Ortelsburg's
+powers of persuasion in the matter of suburban property were second only
+to her husband's, and the game had not proceeded very far when Benno
+looked into the adjoining room and observed with satisfaction that Yetta
+was listening open-mouthed to Mrs. Ortelsburg's fascinating narrative of
+life in Burgess Park.
+
+"Forty hens we got it," she declared; "and this month alone they are
+laying on us every day a dozen eggs--some days ten, or nine at the
+least. Then, of course, if we want a little fricassee once in a while we
+could do that also."
+
+"How do you do when you are getting all of a sudden company?" Yetta
+asked. "I didn't see no delicatessen store round here."
+
+"You didn't?" Mrs. Ortelsburg exclaimed. "Why, right behind the depot is
+Mrs. J. Kaplan's a delicatessen store, which I am only saying to her
+yesterday, 'Mrs. Kaplan,' I says, 'how do you got all the time such
+fresh, nice smoke-tongue here?' And she says, 'It's the country air,'
+she says, 'which any one could see; not alone smoke-tongue keeps fresh,
+_aber_ my daughter also, when she comes down here,' she says, 'she is
+pale like anything--and look at her now!' And it's a fact, Mrs.
+Lubliner, the daughter did look sick, and to-day yet she's got a
+complexion fresh like a tomato already. That's what Burgess Park done
+for her!"
+
+"But don't you got difficulty keeping a girl, Mrs. Ortelsburg?" Yetta
+inquired.
+
+"Difficulty?" Mrs. Ortelsburg cried. "Why, just let me show you my
+kitchen. The girls love it here. In the first place, we are only twenty
+minutes from Coney Island; and, in the second place, with all the eggs
+which we got it, they could always entertain their fellers here in such
+a fine, big kitchen, which I am telling my girl, Lena: 'So long as you
+give 'em omelets or fried eggs _mit_ fat, Lena, I don't care how many
+eggs you use--_aber_ butter is butter in Burgess Park _oder_ Harlem.'"
+
+In this vein Mrs. Ortelsburg continued for more than an hour, while she
+conducted Yetta to the kitchen and cellar and back again to the
+bedrooms above stairs, until she decided that sufficient interest had
+been aroused to justify the more robust method of her husband. She
+therefore returned to the library, and therewith began for Benno
+Ortelsburg the real business of the afternoon.
+
+"Well, boys," he said, "I guess we would quit pinocle for a while and
+join the ladies."
+
+He chose for this announcement a moment when Elkan's chips showed a
+profit of five dollars; and as, in his capacity of banker, he adjusted
+the losses of the other players, he kept up a merry conversation
+directed at Mrs. Lubliner.
+
+"Here in Burgess Park," he said, "we play pinocle and we leave it alone;
+while in the city when a couple business men play pinocle they spend a
+day at it--and why? Because they only get a chance to play pinocle once
+in a while occasionally. Every night they are going to theatre _oder_ a
+lodge affair, understand me; whereas here, the train service at night
+not being so extra elegant, y'understand, we got good houses and we stay
+in 'em; which in Burgess Park after half-past seven in the evening any
+one could find a dozen pinocle games to play in--and all of 'em breaks
+up by half-past ten already."
+
+With this tribute to the transit facilities and domesticity of Burgess
+Park, he concluded stacking up the chips and turned to Mrs. Lubliner.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Lubliner," he continued with an amiable smile, "if you
+wouldn't persuade your husband to move out to Burgess Park, understand
+me, I shall consider it you don't like our house here at all."
+
+"But I do like your house!" Yetta protested.
+
+"I should hope so," Benno continued, "on account it would be a poor
+compliment to a lot of people which could easy be good customers of your
+husband. For instance, this house was decorated by Robitscher, Smith &
+Company, which Robitscher lives across the street already; and his wife
+is Joel Ribnik's--the McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company's--a sister
+already."
+
+"You don't tell me?" Yetta murmured.
+
+"And Joel is staying with 'em right now," Benno went on. "Furthermore,
+we got our furniture and carpets by Sig Tarnowitz, which he lives a
+couple of doors down from here--also got relatives in the retail
+drygoods business by the name Tarnowitz-Wixman Drygoods Company. The
+brother, Julius Tarnowitz, is eating dinner with 'em to-day."
+
+"It's a regular buyers' colony here, so to speak," Louis Stout said, and
+Joseph Kamin nodded.
+
+"Tell you what you do, Benno," Joseph suggested. "Get Tarnowitz and
+Ribnik to come over here. I think Elkan would like to meet them."
+
+Benno slapped his thigh with a resounding blow.
+
+"That's a great idee!" he cried; and half an hour later the Ortelsburg
+library was thronged with visitors, for not only Joel Ribnik and Julius
+Tarnowitz had joined Benno's party, but seated in easy chairs were
+Robitscher, the decorator, and Tarnowitz, the furniture dealer.
+
+"Yes, siree, sir!" Robitscher cried. "Given the same decorative
+treatment to that Linden Boulevard house, Mr. Lubliner, and it would got
+Ortelsburg's house here skinned to pieces, on account over there it is
+more open and catches the sun afternoon and morning both."
+
+During this pronouncement Elkan's face wore a ghastly smile and he
+underwent the sensations of the man in the tonneau of a touring car
+which is beginning to skid toward a telegraph pole.
+
+"In that case I should recommend you don't buy a Kermanshah rug for the
+front room," Sigmund Tarnowitz interrupted. "I got in my place right now
+an antique Beloochistan, which I would let go at only four hundred
+dollars."
+
+"_Aber_ four hundred dollars is an awful lot of money to pay for a rug,"
+Elkan protested. He had avoided looking at Yetta for the past half-hour;
+but now he glanced fearfully at her, and in doing so received a distinct
+shock, for Yetta sat with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, inoculated
+beyond remedy with the virus of the artistic-home fever.
+
+"Four hundred ain't so much for a rug," she declared.
+
+"Not for an antique Beloochistan," Sig Tarnowitz said, "because every
+year it would increase in value on you."
+
+"Just the same like that Linden Boulevard house," Ortelsburg added,
+"which you could take it from me, Mrs. Lubliner, if you don't get right
+away an offer of five hundred dollars advance on your purchase price I
+would eat the house, plumbing and all."
+
+At the word "plumbing" Glaubmann started visibly.
+
+"The plumbing would be fixed so good as new," he said; "and I tell you
+what I would do also, Mr. Lubliner--I would pay fifty per cent. of the
+decorations if Mr. Ortelsburg would make me an allowance of a hundred
+dollars on the commission!"
+
+"Could anything be fairer than this?" Ortelsburg exclaimed; and he
+grinned maliciously as Louis Stout succumbed to a fit of coughing.
+
+"But we ain't even seen the house!" Elkan cried.
+
+"Never mind we ain't seen it," Yetta said; "if the house is the same
+like this that's all I care about."
+
+"Sure, I know," Elkan replied; "but I want to see the house first before
+I would even commence to think of buying it."
+
+"_Schon gut!_" Glaubmann said. "I ain't got no objection to show you the
+house from the outside; _aber_ there is at present people living in the
+house, understand me, which for the present we couldn't go inside."
+
+"Mr. Lubliner don't want to see the inside, Glaubmann!" Ortelsburg
+cried, in tones implying that he deprecated Glaubmann's suggestion as
+impugning Elkan's good faith in the matter. "The inside would be
+repaired and decorated to suit, Mr. Glaubmann, but the outside he's got
+a right to see; so we would all go round there and give a look."
+
+Ten minutes afterward a procession of nine persons passed through the
+streets of Burgess Park and lingered on the sidewalk opposite
+Glaubmann's house. There Ortelsburg descanted on the comparatively high
+elevation of Linden Boulevard and Mrs. Ortelsburg pointed out the
+chicken-raising possibilities of the back lot; and, after gazing at the
+shrubbery and incipient shade trees that were planted in the front yard,
+the line of march was resumed in the direction of Burgess Park's
+business neighbourhood. Another pause was made at Mrs. J. Kaplin's
+delicatessen store; and, laden with packages of smoked tongue, Swiss
+cheese and dill pickles, the procession returned to the Ortelsburg
+residence marshalled by Benno Ortelsburg, who wielded as a baton a
+ten-cent loaf of rye bread.
+
+Thus the remainder of the evening was spent in feasting and more
+pinocle until nearly midnight, when Elkan and Yetta returned to town on
+the last train. Hence, with his late homecoming and the Ortelsburgs'
+delicatessen supper, Elkan slept ill that night, so that it was past
+nine o'clock before he arrived at his office the following morning.
+Instead of the satirical greeting which he anticipated from his senior
+partner, however, he was received with unusual cordiality by Polatkin,
+whose face was spread in a grin.
+
+"Well, Elkan," he said, "you done a good job when you decided to buy
+that house."
+
+"When I decided to buy the house? Who says I decided to buy the house?"
+Elkan cried.
+
+"J. Kamin did," Polatkin explained. "He was here by a quarter to eight
+already; and not alone J. Kamin was here, but Joel Ribnik and Julius
+Tarnowitz comes in also. Scheikowitz and me has been on the jump, I bet
+yer; in fact, Scheikowitz is in there now with J. Kamin and Tarnowitz.
+Between 'em, those fellers has picked out four thousand dollars' goods."
+
+Elkan looked at his partner in unfeigned astonishment.
+
+"So soon?" he said.
+
+"Ribnik too," Polatkin continued. "He makes a selection of nine hundred
+dollars' goods--among 'em a couple stickers like them styles 2040 and
+2041. He says he is coming back in half an hour, on account he's got an
+appointment with a brother-in-law of his."
+
+"By the name Robitscher?" Elkan asked.
+
+"That's the feller," Polatkin answered. "Ribnik says you promised
+Robitscher the decorations from the house you are buying."
+
+"What d'ye mean I promised him the decorations from the house I am
+buying?" Elkan exclaimed in anguished tones. "In the first place, I
+ain't promised him nothing of the kind; and, in the second place, I
+ain't even bought the house yet."
+
+"That part will be fixed up all right," Polatkin replied, "because Mr.
+Glaubmann rings up half an hour ago, and he says that so soon as we need
+him and the lawyer we should telephone for 'em."
+
+For a brief interval Elkan choked with rage.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Polatkin," he sputtered at last, "who is going to
+live in this house--you _oder_ me?"
+
+"You are going to live in the house, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "because
+me I don't need a house. I already got one house, Elkan, and I ain't
+twins exactly; and also them fellers is very plain about it, Elkan,
+which they told me and Scheikowitz up and down, that if you wouldn't buy
+the house they wouldn't confirm us the orders."
+
+At this juncture Scheikowitz entered the office. From the doorway of the
+showroom he had observed the discussion between Elkan and his partner;
+and he had entirely deserted his prospective customers to aid in
+Elkan's coercion.
+
+"Polatkin is right, Elkan!" he cried. "You got to consider Louis Stout
+also. Kamin said he would never forgive us if the deal didn't go
+through."
+
+Elkan bit his lips irresolutely.
+
+"I don't see what you are hesitating about," Polatkin went on. "Yetta
+likes the house--ain't it?"
+
+"She's crazy about it," Elkan admitted.
+
+"Then what's the use talking?" Scheikowitz declared; and he glanced
+anxiously toward Tarnowitz and Kamin, who were holding a whispered
+conference in the showroom. "Let's make an end and get the thing over.
+Telephone this here Glaubmann he should come right over with Ortelsburg
+and the lawyer."
+
+"But ain't I going to have no lawyer neither?" Elkan demanded.
+
+"Sure you are," Scheikowitz replied. "I took a chance, Elkan, and I
+telephoned Henry D. Feldman half an hour since already. He says he would
+send one up of his assistants, Mr. Harvey J. Sugarberg, right away."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When it came to drawing a real-estate contract there existed for Kent J.
+Goldstein no incongruities of time and place. Kent was the veteran of a
+dozen real-estate booms, during which he had drafted agreements at all
+hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a
+liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of
+any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief
+though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the vendor's
+back.
+
+Thus the transaction between Glaubmann and Elkan Lubliner presented no
+difficulties to Kent J. Goldstein; and he handled the details with such
+care and dispatch that the contract was nearly finished before Harvey J.
+Sugarberg remembered the instructions of his principal. As attorney for
+the buyer, it was Henry D. Feldman's practice to see that the contract
+of sale provided every opportunity for his client lawfully to avoid
+taking title should he desire for any reason, lawful or unlawful, to
+back out; and this rule of his principal occurred to Harvey just as he
+and Goldstein were writing the clause relating to incumbrances.
+
+"The premises are to be conveyed free and clear of all incumbrances,"
+Kent read aloud, "except the mortgage and covenant against nuisances
+above described and the present tenancies of said premises."
+
+He had brought with him two blank forms of agreement; and as he filled
+in the blanks on one of them he read aloud what he was writing and
+Harvey Sugarberg inserted the same clause in the other. Up to this
+juncture Harvey had taken Kent's dictation with such remarkable docility
+that Elkan and his partners had frequently exchanged disquieting
+glances, and they were correspondingly elated when Harvey at length
+balked.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Goldstein," he said--and, but for a slight nervousness,
+he reproduced with histrionic accuracy the tone and gesture of his
+employer--"as _locum tenens_ for my principal I must decline to insert
+the phrase, 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"
+
+Kent wasted no time in forensic dispute when engaged in a real-estate
+transaction, though, if necessary, he could make kindling of the
+strongest rail that ever graced the front of a jury-box.
+
+"How 'bout it, Glaubmann?" he said. "The premises is occupied--ain't
+they?"
+
+Glaubmann flapped his right hand in a gesture of _laissez-faire_.
+
+"The feller moves out by the first of next month," he said; and Kent
+turned to Elkan.
+
+"Are you satisfied that the tenant stays in the house until the first?"
+he asked. "That will be three days after the contract is closed."
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Why not?" he said.
+
+"All right, Mr.----Forget your name!" Kent cried. "Cut out 'and the
+present tenancies of said premises.'"
+
+At this easy victory a shade of disappointment passed over the faces of
+Harvey Sugarberg and his clients, and the contract proceeded without
+further objection to its rapid conclusion.
+
+"Now then, my friends," Kent announced briskly, "we're ready for the
+signatures."
+
+At this, the crucial point of all real-estate transactions, a brief
+silence fell upon the assembled company, which included not only the
+attorneys and the clients, but Ortelsburg, Kamin, Tarnowitz and Ribnik
+as well. Finally Glaubmann seized a pen, and, jabbing it viciously in an
+inkpot, he made a John Hancock signature at the foot of the agreement's
+last page.
+
+"Now, Mr. Lubliner," Kent said--and Elkan hesitated.
+
+"Ain't we going to wait for Louis Stout?" he asked; and immediately
+there was a roar of protest that sounded like a mob scene in a Drury
+Lane melodrama.
+
+"If Louis Stout ain't here it's his own fault," Ortelsburg declared; and
+Ribnik, Tarnowitz, and Kamin glowered in unison.
+
+"I guess he's right, Elkan," Polatkin murmured.
+
+"It is his own fault if he ain't here," Scheikowitz agreed feebly; and,
+thus persuaded, Elkan appended a small and, by contrast with
+Glaubmann's, a wholly unimpressive signature to the agreement.
+Immediately thereafter Elkan passed over a certified check for eight
+hundred dollars, according to the terms of the contract, which provided
+that the title be closed in twenty days at the office of Henry D.
+Feldman.
+
+"Well, Mr. Lubliner," Glaubmann said, employing the formula hallowed by
+long usage in all real-estate transactions involving improved property,
+"I wish you luck in your new house."
+
+"Much obliged," Elkan said; and after a general handshaking the entire
+assemblage crowded into one elevator, so that finally Elkan was left
+alone with his partners.
+
+Polatkin was the first to break a silence of over five minutes'
+duration.
+
+"Ain't it funny," he said, "that we ain't heard from Louis?"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded; and as he did so the elevator door creaked noisily
+and there alighted a short, stout person, who, having once been
+described in the I. O. M. A. Monthly as Benjamin J. Flugel, the Merchant
+Prince, had never since walked abroad save in a freshly ironed silk hat
+and a Prince Albert coat.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flugel?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz cried with
+one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged within his
+breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of business; and, as
+Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's impressive partner, he
+could not help congratulating himself on the mercantile sagacity that
+had made him buy Glaubmann's house.
+
+"And this is Mr. Lubliner?" Flugel said in even tones.
+
+"Pleased to meet you," Elkan said. "I had dinner with your partner only
+yesterday."
+
+Flugel gulped convulsively in an effort to remain calm.
+
+"I know it," he said; "and honestly the longer I am in business with
+that feller the more I got to wonder what a _Schlemiel_ he is. Actually
+he goes to work and tries to do his own partner without knowing it at
+all. Mind you, if he would be doing it from spite I could understand it;
+but when one partner don't know that the other partner practically
+closes a deal for a tract of a hundred lots and six houses in
+Johnsonhurst, and then persuades a prospective purchaser that, instead
+of buying in Johnsonhurst, he should buy in Burgess Park, understand me,
+all I got to say is that if Louis Stout ain't crazy the least he
+deserves is that the feller really and truly should buy in Burgess
+Park."
+
+"But, Mr. Flugel," Elkan interrupted, "I did buy in Burgess Park."
+
+"What!" Flugel shouted.
+
+"I say that I made a contract for a house out there this morning only,"
+Elkan said.
+
+For a few seconds it seemed as though Benjamin J. Flugel's heirs-at-law
+would collect a substantial death benefit from the I. O. M. A., but the
+impending apoplexy was warded off by a tremendous burst of profanity.
+
+"_Aber_, Mr. Flugel," Scheikowitz protested, "Louis tells us only last
+Saturday, understand me, you told him that Johnsonhurst you wouldn't
+touch at all, on account such lowlifes like Rabiner and Pasinsky lives
+out there!"
+
+"I know I told him that," Flugel yelled; "because, if I would say I am
+going to buy out there, Stout goes to work and blabs it all over the
+place, and the first thing you know they would jump the price on me a
+few thousand dollars. He's a dangerous feller, Louis is, Mr.
+Scheikowitz!"
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That may be, Mr. Flugel," he said, "but I signed the contract with
+Glaubmann for his house on Linden Boulevard--and that's all there is to
+it!"
+
+Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in melancholy unison.
+
+"Do you got the contract here?" Flugel asked; and Elkan picked up the
+document from his desk, where it had been placed by Goldstein.
+
+"You paid a fancy price for the house," Flugel continued, as he examined
+the agreement.
+
+"I took your partner's advice, Mr. Flugel," Elkan retorted.
+
+"Why, for eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, in Johnsonhurst,"
+Flugel continued, "I could give you a palace already!"
+
+He scanned the various clauses of the contract with the critical eye of
+an experienced real-estate operator; and before he had completed his
+examination the elevator door again creaked open.
+
+"Is Glaubmann gone?" cried a voice from the interior of the car, and the
+next moment Kovner alighted.
+
+Flugel looked up from the contract.
+
+"Hello, Kovner," he said, "are you in this deal too?"
+
+"I ain't in any deal," Kovner replied. "I am looking for Barnett
+Glaubmann. They told me in his office he is coming over here and would
+be here all the morning."
+
+"Well, he was here," Elkan replied, "but he went away again."
+
+Kovner sat down without invitation.
+
+"It ain't no more as I expected," he began in the dull, resigned tones
+of a man with a grievance. "That swindler has been dodging me for four
+months now, and I guess he will keep on dodging me for the rest of the
+year that he claims I got a lease on his house for."
+
+"What house?" Flugel asked.
+
+"The house which I am living in it," Max replied--"on Linden Boulevard,
+Burgess Park."
+
+"On Linden Boulevard, Burgess Park!" Flugel repeated. "Why, then it's
+the same house--ain't it, Lubliner?"
+
+Elkan nodded, and as he did so Flugel struck the desk a tremendous blow
+with his fist.
+
+"Fine!" he ejaculated.
+
+"Fine!" Kovner repeated. "What the devil you are talking about, fine? Do
+you think it's fine I should got to live a whole year in a house which
+the least it must got to be spent on it is for plumbing a hundred
+dollars and for painting a couple hundred more?"
+
+"That's all right," Flugel declared with enthusiasm. "It ain't so bad as
+it looks; because if you can show that you got a right to stay in that
+house for the rest of the year, understand me, I'll make a proposition
+to you."
+
+"Show it?" Kovner exclaimed. "I don't got to show it, because I couldn't
+help myself, Mr. Flugel. Glaubmann claims that I made a verbal lease for
+one year, and he's right. I was fool enough to do so."
+
+Flugel glanced inquiringly at Polatkin and Scheikowitz.
+
+"How about that?" he asked. "The contract don't say nothing about a
+year's lease."
+
+"I know it don't," Elkan replied, "because when our lawyer raises the
+question about the tenant Glaubmann says he could get him out at any
+time."
+
+"And he can too," Kovner declared with emphasis, but Flugel shook his
+head.
+
+"No, he can't, Kovner," he said; "or, anyway, he ain't going to, because
+you are going to stay in that house."
+
+"With the rotten plumbing it's got?" Kovner cried. "Not by a whole lot I
+ain't."
+
+"The plumbing could be fixed and the painting also," Flugel retorted.
+
+"By Glaubmann?" Kovner asked.
+
+"No, sir," Flugel replied; "by me, with a hundred dollars cash to boot.
+I would even give you an order on my plumber he should fix up the
+plumbing and on my house painter he should fix up the painting, Kovner;
+_aber_ you got to stick it out that you are under lease for the rest of
+the year."
+
+"And when do I get the work done?" Kovner demanded.
+
+"To-day," Flugel announced--"this afternoon if you want it."
+
+"But hold on there a minute!" Elkan protested. "If I am going to take
+that house I don't want no painting done there till I am good and
+ready."
+
+Flugel smiled loftily at Elkan.
+
+"You ain't going to take that house at all," he said, "because the
+contract says that it is to be conveyed free and clear, except the
+mortgage and a covenant against nuisances. So you reject the title on
+the grounds that the house is leased for a year. Do you get the idee?"
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"And next Sunday," Flugel continued, "I wish you'd take a run down with
+me in my oitermobile to Johnsonhurst. It's an elegant, high-class
+suburb."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Insomnia bears the same relation to the calling of real-estate operators
+that fossyjaw does to the worker in the match industry; and, during the
+twenty days that preceded the closing of his contract with Elkan,
+Barnett Glaubmann spent many a sleepless night in contemplation of
+disputed brokerage claims by Kamin, Stout and Ortelsburg. Moreover, the
+knowledge that Henry D. Feldman represented the purchaser was an
+influence far from sedative; and what little sleep Glaubmann secured was
+filled with nightmares of fence encroachments, defects in the legal
+proceedings for opening of Linden Boulevard as a public highway, and a
+score of other technical objections that Feldman might raise to free
+Elkan from his contract.
+
+Not once, however, did Glaubmann consider the tenancy of Max Kovner as
+any objection to title. Indeed, he was so certain of Kovner's
+willingness to move out that he even pondered the advisability of
+gouging Max for twenty-five or fifty dollars as a consideration for
+accepting a surrender of the verbal lease; and to that end he avoided
+the Linden Boulevard house until the morning before the date set for the
+closing of the title.
+
+Then, having observed Max board the eight-five train for Brooklyn
+Bridge, he sauntered off to interview Mrs. Kovner; and as he turned the
+corner of Linden Boulevard he sketched out a plan of action that had for
+its foundation the complete intimidation of Mrs. Kovner. This being
+secured, he would proceed to suggest the payment of fifty dollars as the
+alternative of strong measures against Max Kovner for allowing the
+Linden Boulevard premises to fall into such bad repair; and he was so
+full of his idea that he had begun to ascend the front stoop of the
+Kovner house before he noticed the odour of fresh paint.
+
+Never in the history of the Kovner house had the electric bell been in
+working order. Hence Glaubmann knocked with his naked fist and left the
+imprint of his four knuckles on the wet varnish just as Mrs. Kovner
+flung wide the door. It was at this instant that Glaubmann's well-laid
+plans were swept away.
+
+"Now see what you done, you dirty slob you!" she bellowed. "What's the
+matter with you? Couldn't you ring the bell?"
+
+"Why, Mrs. Kovner," Glaubmann stammered, "the bell don't ring at all.
+Ain't it?"
+
+"The bell don't ring?" Mrs. Kovner exclaimed. "Who says it don't?"
+
+She pressed the button with her finger and a shrill response came from
+within.
+
+"Who fixed it?" Glaubmann asked.
+
+"Who fixed it?" Mrs. Kovner repeated. "Who do you suppose fixed it?
+Do you think we got from charity to fix it? _Gott sei Dank_, we
+ain't exactly beggars, Mr. Glaubmann. Ourselves we fixed it, Mr.
+Glaubmann--and the painting and the plumbing also; because if you
+would got in savings bank what I got it, Mr. Glaubmann, you wouldn't
+make us so much trouble about paying for a couple hundred dollars'
+repairs."
+
+"_Aber_," Glaubmann began, "you shouldn't of done it!"
+
+"I know we shouldn't," Mrs. Kovner replied. "We should of stayed here
+the rest of the year with the place looking like a pigsty already!
+_Aber_ don't kick till you got to, Mr. Glaubmann. It would be time
+enough to say something when we sue you by the court yet that you should
+pay for the repairs we are making here."
+
+Glaubmann pushed his hat back from his forehead and wiped his streaming
+brow.
+
+"_Nu_, Mrs. Kovner," he said at last, "it seems to me we got a
+misunderstanding all round here. I would like to talk the matter over
+with you."
+
+With this conciliatory prelude he assumed an easy attitude by crossing
+his legs and supporting himself with one hand on the freshly painted
+doorjamb, whereat Mrs. Kovner uttered a horrified shriek, and the rage
+which three weeks of housepainters' clutter had fomented in her bosom
+burst forth unchecked.
+
+"Out from here, you dirty loafer you!" she shrieked, and grabbed a
+calcimining brush from one of the many paintpots that bestrewed the
+hallway. Glaubmann bounded down the front stoop to the sidewalk just
+as Mrs. Kovner made a frenzied pass at him with the brush; and
+consequently, when he entered Kent J. Goldstein's office on Nassau
+Street an hour later, his black overcoat was speckled like the hide of
+an axis deer.
+
+"Goldstein," he said hoarsely, "is it assault that some one paints you
+from head to foot with calcimine?"
+
+"It is if you got witnesses," Goldstein replied; "otherwise it's
+misfortune. Who did it?"
+
+"That she-devil--the wife of the tenant in that house I sold Lubliner,"
+Glaubmann replied. "I think we're going to have trouble with them
+people, Goldstein."
+
+"You will if you try to sue 'em without witnesses, Glaubmann," Goldstein
+observed; "because suing without witnesses is like trying to play
+pinocle without cards. It can't be done."
+
+Glaubmann shook his head sadly.
+
+"I ain't going to sue 'em," he said. "I ain't so fond of lawsuits like
+all that; and, besides, a little calcimine is nothing, Goldstein, to
+what them people can do to me. They're going to claim they got there a
+year's verbal lease."
+
+Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That's all right," he commented. "They want to gouge you for fifty
+dollars or so; and, with the price you're getting for the house,
+Glaubmann, you can afford to pay 'em."
+
+"Gouge nothing!" Glaubmann declared. "They just got done there a couple
+hundred dollars' painting and plumbing, y'understand, and they're going
+to stick it out."
+
+Goldstein pursed his lips in an ominous whistle.
+
+"A verbal lease, hey?" he muttered.
+
+Glaubmann nodded sadly.
+
+"And this time there is witnesses," he said; and he related to his
+attorney the circumstances under which the original lease was made,
+together with the incident attending Kovner's visit to Ortelsburg's
+house.
+
+"It looks like you're up against it, Glaubmann," Goldstein declared.
+
+"But couldn't I claim that I was only bluffing the feller?" Glaubmann
+asked.
+
+"Sure you could," Goldstein replied; "but when Kovner went to work and
+painted the house and fixed the plumbing he called your bluff,
+Glaubmann; so the only thing to do is to ask for an adjournment
+to-morrow."
+
+"And suppose they won't give it to us?" Glaubmann asked.
+
+Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I'm a lawyer, Glaubmann--not a prophet," he said; "but if I know Henry
+D. Feldman you won't get any adjournment--so you may as well make your
+plans accordingly."
+
+For a brief interval Glaubmann nodded his head slowly, and then he burst
+into a mirthless laugh.
+
+"Real estate," he said, "that's something to own. Rheumatism is a fine
+asset compared to it; in fact if some one gives me my choice, Goldstein,
+I would say rheumatism every time. Both of 'em keep you awake nights;
+but there's one thing about rheumatism, Goldstein"--here he indulged in
+another bitter laugh--"you don't need a lawyer to get rid of it!" he
+said, and banged the door behind him.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+If there was any branch of legal practice in which Henry D. Feldman
+excelled it was conveyancing, and he brought to it all the histrionic
+ability that made him so formidable as a trial lawyer. Indeed, Feldman
+was accustomed to treat the conveyancing department of his office as a
+business-getter for the more lucrative field of litigation, and he
+spared no pains to make each closing of title an impressive and dramatic
+spectacle.
+
+Thus the _mise-en-scène_ of the Lubliner closing was excellent. Feldman
+himself sat in a baronial chair at the head of his library table, while
+to a seat on his right he had assigned Kent J. Goldstein. On his left
+he had placed Mr. Jones, the representative of the title company, a
+gaunt, sandy-haired man of thirty-five who, by the device of a pair of
+huge horn spectacles, had failed to distract public attention from an
+utterly stupendous Adam's apple.
+
+Next to the title company's representative were placed Elkan Lubliner
+and his partners, and it was to them that Henry D. Feldman addressed his
+opening remarks.
+
+"Mr. Lubliner," he said in the soft accents in which he began all his
+crescendos, "the examination of the record title to Mr. Glaubmann's
+Linden Boulevard premises has been made at my request by the Law Title
+Insurance and Guaranty Company."
+
+He made a graceful obeisance toward Mr. Jones, who acknowledged it with
+a convulsion of his Adam's apple.
+
+"I have also procured a survey to be made," Feldman continued; and, amid
+a silence that was broken only by the heavy breathing of Barnett
+Glaubmann, he held up an intricate design washed with watercolour on
+glazed muslin.
+
+"Finally I have done this," he declared, and his brows gathered in a
+tragic frown as his glance swept in turn the faces of Kent J. Goldstein,
+Benno Ortelsburg, J. Kamin, and Glaubmann--"I have procured an
+inspector's report upon the occupation of the _locus in quo_."
+
+"Oo-ee!" Glaubmann murmured, and Louis Stout exchanged triumphant
+glances with Polatkin and Scheikowitz.
+
+"And I find," Feldman concluded, "there is a tenant in possession,
+claiming under a year's lease which will not expire until October first
+next."
+
+Mr. Jones nodded and cleared his throat so noisily that, to relieve his
+embarrassment, he felt obliged to crack each of his knuckles in turn. As
+for Ribnik and Tarnowitz, they sat awestruck in the rear of Feldman's
+spacious library and felt vaguely that they were in a place of worship.
+Only Kent J. Goldstein remained unimpressed; and in order to show it he
+scratched a parlour match on the leg of Feldman's library table; whereat
+Feldman's _ex-cathedra_ manner forsook him.
+
+"Where in blazes do you think you are, Goldstein?" he asked in
+colloquial tones--"in a barroom?"
+
+"If it's solid mahogany," Goldstein retorted, "it'll rub up like new. I
+think you were talking about the tenancy of the premises here."
+
+Feldman choked down his indignation and once more became the dignified
+advocate.
+
+"That is not the only objection to title, Mr. Goldstein," he said. "Mr.
+Jones, kindly read the detailed objections contained in your report of
+closing."
+
+Mr. Jones nodded again and responded to Feldman's demand in a voice
+that profoundly justified the size of his larynx.
+
+"Description in deed dated January 1, 1783," he began, "from Joost van
+Gend to William Wauters, is defective; one course reading 'thence along
+said ditch north to a white-oak tree' should be 'south to a white-oak
+tree.'"
+
+"Well, what's the difference?" Goldstein interrupted. "It's monumented
+by the white-oak tree."
+
+"That was cut down long ago," Mr. Jones said.
+
+"Not by me!" Glaubmann declared. "I give you my word, gentlemen, the
+trees on the lot is the same like I bought it."
+
+Feldman allowed his eyes to rest for a moment on the protesting
+Glaubmann, who literally crumpled in his chair.
+
+"Proceed, Mr. Jones," Feldman said to the title company's
+representative, who continued without further interruption to the end of
+his list. This included all the technical objections which Glaubmann had
+feared, as well as a novel and interesting point concerning a partition
+suit in Chancery, brought in 1819, and affecting Glaubmann's chain of
+title to a strip in the rear of his lot, measuring one quarter of an
+inch in breadth by seven feet in length.
+
+"So far as I can see, Feldman," Goldstein commented as Mr. Jones laid
+down his report, "the only objection that will hold water is the one
+concerning Max Kovner's tenancy. As a matter of fact, I have witnesses
+to show that Kovner has always claimed that he didn't hold a lease."
+
+For answer, Feldman touched the button of an electric bell.
+
+"Show in Mr. and Mrs. Kovner," he said to the boy who responded. "We'll
+let them speak for themselves."
+
+This, it would appear, they were more than willing to do; for as soon as
+they entered the room and caught sight of Glaubmann, who by this time
+was fairly cowering in his chair, they immediately began a concerted
+tirade that was only ended when Goldstein banged vigorously on the
+library table, using as a gavel one of Feldman's metal-tipped rulers.
+
+"That'll do, Goldstein!" Feldman said hoarsely. "I think I can preserve
+order in my own office."
+
+"Why don't you then?" Goldstein retorted, as he leaned back in his chair
+and regarded with a malicious smile the damage he had wrought.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner began anew, "you thought you got us
+helpless there in your house; but----"
+
+"Shut up!" Feldman roared again, forgetting his rôle of the polished
+advocate; and Goldstein fairly beamed with satisfaction.
+
+"Don't bully your own witness," he said. "Let me do it for you."
+
+He turned to Kovner with a beetling frown.
+
+"Now, Kovner," he commenced, "you claim you've got a verbal lease for a
+year of this Linden Boulevard house, don't you?"
+
+"I sure do," Kovner replied, "and I got witnesses to prove it."
+
+"That's all right," Goldstein rejoined; "so long as there's Bibles
+there'll always be witnesses to swear on 'em. The point is: How do you
+claim the lease was made?"
+
+"I don't claim nothing," Kovner replied. "I got a year's lease on that
+property because, in the presence of my wife and his wife, Mr.
+Goldstein, he says to me I must either take the house for a year from
+last October to next October or I couldn't take it at all."
+
+Feldman smiled loftily at his opponent.
+
+"The art of cross-examination is a subtle one, Goldstein," he said, "and
+if you don't understand it you're apt to prove the other fellow's case."
+
+"Nevertheless," Goldstein continued, "I'm going to ask him one more
+question, and that is this: When was this verbal agreement made--before
+or after you moved into the house?"
+
+"Before I moved in, certainly," Kovner answered. "I told you that he
+says to me I couldn't move in unless I would agree to take the place for
+a year."
+
+"And when did you move in?" Goldstein continued.
+
+"On the first of October," Kovner said.
+
+"No, popper," Mrs. Kovner interrupted; "we didn't move in on the first.
+We moved in the day before."
+
+"That's right," Kovner said--"we moved in on the thirtieth of
+September."
+
+"So," Goldstein declared, "you made a verbal agreement before September
+thirtieth for a lease of one year from October first?"
+
+Kovner nodded and Goldstein turned to Henry D. Feldman, whose lofty
+smile had completely disappeared.
+
+"Well, Feldman," he said, "you pulled a couple of objections on me from
+'way back in the last century, understand me; so I guess it won't hurt
+if I remind you of a little statute passed in the reign of Charles the
+Second, which says: 'All contracts which by their terms are not to be
+performed within one year must be in writing and signed by the party to
+be charged.' I mean the Statute of Frauds."
+
+"I know what you mean all right," Feldman replied; "but you'll have to
+prove that before a court and jury. Just now we are confronted with
+Kovner, who claims to have a year's lease; and my client is relieved
+from his purchase in the circumstances. No man is bound to buy a
+lawsuit, Goldstein."
+
+"I know he ain't," Goldstein retorted; "but what's the difference,
+Feldman? He'll have a lawsuit on his hands, anyhow, because if he don't
+take title now, understand me, I'll bring an action to compel him to do
+so this very afternoon."
+
+At this juncture a faint croaking came from the vicinity of Louis Stout,
+who throughout had been as appreciative a listener as though he were
+occupying an orchestra chair and had bought his seat from a speculator.
+
+"Speak up, Mr. Stout!" Feldman cried.
+
+"I was saying," Louis replied faintly, "that with my own ears I heard
+Glaubmann say to Kovner that he's got a verbal lease for one year."
+
+"And when was this?" Feldman asked.
+
+"About three weeks ago," Stout replied.
+
+"Then, in that case, Mr. Goldstein," Feldman declared, "let me present
+to you another proposition of law."
+
+He paused to formulate a sufficiently impressive "offer" as the lawyers
+say, and in the silence that followed Elkan shuffled to his feet.
+
+"It ain't necessary, Mr. Feldman," he said. "I already made up my mind
+about it."
+
+"About what?" Louis Stout exclaimed.
+
+"About taking the house," Elkan replied. "If you'll let me have the
+figures, Mr. Feldman, I'll draw a check and have it certified and we'll
+close this thing up."
+
+"_Aber_, Elkan," Louis cried, "first let me communicate with Flugel."
+
+"That ain't necessary neither," Elkan retorted. "I'm going to make an
+end right here and now; and you should be so good, Mr. Feldman, and fix
+me up the statement of what I owe here. I want to get through."
+
+Polatkin rose shakily to his feet.
+
+"What's the matter, Elkan?" he said huskily. "Are you crazy, _oder_
+what?"
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Polatkin," Elkan commanded, and there was a ring of
+authority in his tone that made Polatkin collapse into his chair. "I am
+buying this house."
+
+"But, Elkan," Louis Stout implored, "why don't you let me talk to Flugel
+over the 'phone? Might he would got a suggestion to make maybe."
+
+"That's all right," Elkan said. "The only suggestion he makes is that if
+I go to work and close this contract, y'understand, he would never buy
+another dollar's worth of goods from us so long as he lives. So you
+shouldn't bother to ring him up, Mr. Stout."
+
+Louis Stout flushed angrily.
+
+"So far as that goes, Lubliner," he says, "I don't got to ring up Mr.
+Flugel to tell you the same thing, so you know what you could do."
+
+"Sure I know what I could do," Elkan continued. "I could either do
+business like a business man or do business like a muzhik, Mr. Stout.
+_Aber_ this ain't _Russland_, Mr. Stout--this is America; and if I got
+to run round wiping people's shoes to sell goods, then I don't want to
+do it at all."
+
+J. Kamin took a cigar out of his mouth and spat vigorously.
+
+"You're dead right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead and close the contract
+and I assure you you wouldn't regret it."
+
+Elkan's eyes blazed and he turned on Kamin.
+
+"You assure me!" he said. "Who in thunder are you? Do you think I'm
+looking for your business now, Kamin? Why, if you was worth your salt as
+a merchant, understand me, instead you would be fooling away your time
+trying to make a share of a commission, which the most you would get out
+of it is a hundred dollars, y'understand, you would be attending to your
+business buying your spring line. You are wasting two whole days on this
+deal, Kamin; and if two business days out of your spring buying is only
+worth a hundred dollars to you, Kamin, go ahead and get your goods
+somewheres else than in our store. I don't need to be Dun or Bradstreet
+to get a line on you, Kamin--and don't you forget it!"
+
+At this juncture a faint cough localized Joel Ribnik, who had remained
+with Julius Tarnowitz in the obscurity cast by several bound volumes of
+digests and reports.
+
+"Seemingly, Mr. Polatkin," he said, "you are a millionaire concern, the
+way your partner talks! Might you don't need our business, neither,
+maybe?"
+
+Polatkin was busy checking the ravages made upon his linen by the
+perspiration that literally streamed down his face and neck; but
+Scheikowitz, who had listened open-mouthed to Elkan's pronunciamento,
+straightened up in his chair and his face grew set with determination.
+
+"We ain't millionaires, Mr. Ribnik," he said--"far from it; and we ain't
+never going to be, understand me, if we got to buy eighteen-thousand
+dollar houses for every bill of goods we sell to _Schnorrers_ and
+deadbeats!"
+
+"Scheikowitz!" Polatkin pleaded.
+
+"Never mind, Polatkin," Scheikowitz declared. "The boy is right,
+Polatkin; and if we are making our living in America we got to act like
+Americans--not peasants. So, go ahead, Stout. Telephone Flugel and tell
+him from me that if he wants to take it that way he should do so; and
+you, too, Stout--and that's all there is to it!"
+
+"Then I apprehend, gentlemen, that we had better proceed to close,"
+Feldman said; and Elkan nodded, for as Scheikowitz finished speaking a
+ball had risen in Elkan's throat which, blink as he might, he could not
+down for some minutes.
+
+"All right, Goldstein," Feldman continued. "Let's fix up the statement
+of closing."
+
+"One moment, gentlemen," Max Kovner said. "Do I understand that, if
+Elkan Lubliner buys the house to-day, we've got to move out?"
+
+Feldman raised his eyebrows.
+
+"I think Mr. Goldstein will agree with me, Kovner, when I say you
+haven't a leg to stand on," he declared. "You're completely out of court
+on your own testimony."
+
+"You mean we ain't got a lease for a year?" Mrs. Kovner asked.
+
+"That's right," Goldstein replied.
+
+"And I am working my fingers to the bone getting rid of them
+_verfluchte_ painters and all!" she wailed. "What do you think I am
+anyway?"
+
+"Well, if you don't want to move right away," Elkan began, "when would
+it be convenient for you to get out, Mrs. Kovner?"
+
+"I don't want to get out at all," she whimpered. "Why should I want to
+get out? The house is an elegant house, which I just planted yesterday
+string beans and tomatoes; and the parlor looks elegant now we got the
+old paper off."
+
+"Supposing we say the first of May," Elkan suggested--"not that I am so
+crazy to move out to Burgess Park, y'understand; but I don't see what is
+the sense buying a house in the country and then not living in it."
+
+There was a brief silence, broken only by the soft weeping of Mrs.
+Kovner; and at length Max Kovner shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan," he said, "what is the use beating bushes round? Mrs.
+Kovner is stuck on the house and so am I. So long as you don't want the
+house, and there's been so much trouble about it and all, I tell you
+what I'll do: Take back two thousand dollars a second mortgage on the
+house, payable in one year at six per cent., which it is so good as
+gold, understand me, and I'll relieve you of your contract and give you
+two hundred dollars to boot."
+
+A smile spread slowly over Elkan's face as he looked significantly at
+Louis Stout.
+
+"I don't want your two hundred dollars, Max," he said. "You can have the
+house and welcome; and you should use the two hundred to pay your
+painting and plumbing bills."
+
+"That's all right," Louis Stout said; "there is people which will see to
+it that he does. Also, gentlemen, I want everybody to understand that I
+claim full commission here from Glaubmann as the only broker in the
+transaction!"
+
+"_Nu_, gentlemen," Glaubmann said; "I'll leave this to the lawyers if it
+ain't so: From one transaction I can only be liable for one
+commission--ain't it?"
+
+Feldman and Goldstein nodded in unison.
+
+"Then all I could say is that yous brokers and drygoods merchants should
+fight it out between yourselves," he declared; "because I'm going to
+pay the money for the commission into court--and them which is entitled
+to it can have it."
+
+"But ain't you going to protect me, Glaubmann?" Ortelsburg demanded.
+
+Glaubmann raised his hand for silence.
+
+"One moment, Ortelsburg," he said. "I think it was you and Kamin told me
+that real estate is a game the same like auction pinocle?"
+
+Ortelsburg nodded sulkily.
+
+"Then you fellers should go ahead and play it," Glaubmann concluded.
+"And might the best man win!"[B]
+
+[Footnote B: In the face of numerous decisions to the contrary, the
+author holds for the purposes of this story that a verbal lease for one
+year, to commence in the future, is void.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+A TALE OF TWO JACOBEAN CHAIRS
+
+NOT A DETECTIVE STORY
+
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," said Max Merech as he sat in the front parlour of
+Elkan's flat one April Sunday; "if you are going to work to buy
+furniture, understand me, it's just so easy to select good-looking
+chairs as bad-looking chairs."
+
+"_Aber_ sometimes it's a whole lot harder to sit on 'em comfortably,"
+Elkan retorted sourly. On the eve of moving to a larger apartment he and
+Yetta had invited Max to suggest a plan for furnishing and decorating
+their new dwelling; and it seemed to Elkan that Max had taken undue
+advantage of the privilege thus accorded him. Indeed, Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz & Company's æsthetic designer held such pronounced views on
+interior decoration, and had expressed them so freely to Elkan and
+Yetta, that after the first half-hour of his visit the esteem which they
+had always felt toward their plush furniture and Wilton rugs had
+changed--first to indifference and then, in the case of Yetta, at least,
+to loathing.
+
+"I always told you that the couch over there was hideous, Elkan," Yetta
+said.
+
+"Hideous it ain't," Max interrupted; "_aber_ it ain't so beautiful."
+
+"Well, stick the couch in the bedroom, then," Elkan said. "It makes no
+difference to me."
+
+"Sure, I know," Yetta exclaimed: "but what would we put in its place?"
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What d'ye ask me for?" Elkan cried. "Like as not I'd say another
+couch."
+
+"There is couches and couches," Max said with an apologetic smile, "but
+if you would ask my advice I would say why not a couple nice chairs
+there--something in monhogany, like Shippendaler _oder_ Sheratin."
+
+Suddenly he slapped his thigh in an access of inspiration.
+
+"I came pretty near forgetting!" he cried. "I got the very thing you
+want--and a big bargain too! Do you know Louis Dishkes, which runs the
+Villy dee Paris Store in Amsterdam Avenue?"
+
+"I think I know him," Elkan said with ironic emphasis. "He owes us four
+hundred dollars for two months already."
+
+"Well, Dishkes is got a brother-in-law by the name Ringentaub, on Allen
+Street, which he is a dealer in antics."
+
+"Antics?" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"Sure!" Max explained. "Antics--old furniture and old silver."
+
+"You mean a second-hand store?" Elkan suggested.
+
+"Not a second-hand store," Max declared. "A second-hand store is got old
+furniture from two years old _oder_ ten years old, understand me; _aber_
+an antic store carries old furniture from a hundred years old already."
+
+"And this here Ringentaub is got furniture from a hundred years old
+already?" Elkan cried.
+
+"From older even," answered Max; "from two hundred and fifty years old
+also."
+
+"_Ich glaub's!_" Elkan cried.
+
+"You can believe it _oder_ not, Mr. Lubliner," Max continued; "but
+Ringentaub got in his store a couple Jacobean chairs, which they are two
+hundred and fifty years old already. And them chairs you could buy at a
+big sacrifice yet."
+
+Elkan and Yetta exchanged puzzled glances, and Elkan even tapped his
+forehead significantly.
+
+"They was part of a whole set," Max went on, not noticing his employer's
+gesture; "the others Ringentaub sold to a collector."
+
+Elkan flipped his right hand.
+
+"A collector is something else again," he said; "but me I ain't no
+collector, Max, _Gott sei Dank_! I got my own business, Max, and I ain't
+got to buy from two hundred and fifty years old furniture."
+
+"Why not?" Max asked. "B. Gans is got his own business, too, Mr. Lubliner,
+and a good business also; and he buys yet from Ringentaub--only last
+week already--an angry cat cabinet which it is three hundred years old
+already."
+
+"An angry cat cabinet?" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"That's what I said," Max continued; "'angry' is French for 'Henry' and
+'cat' is French for 'fourth'; so this here cabinet was made three
+hundred years ago when Henry the Fourth was king of France--and B. Gans
+buys it last week already for five hundred dollars!"
+
+Therewith Max commenced a half-hour dissertation upon antique furniture
+which left Yetta and Elkan more undecided than ever.
+
+"And you are telling me that big people like B. Gans and Andrew Carnegie
+buys this here antics for their houses?" Elkan asked.
+
+"J. P. Morgan also," Max replied. "And them Jacobean chairs there you
+could get for fifty dollars already."
+
+"Well, it wouldn't do no harm supposing we would go down and see 'em,"
+Yetta suggested.
+
+"Some night next week," Elkan added, "_oder_ the week after."
+
+"For that matter, we could go to-night too," Max rejoined. "Sunday is
+like any other night down on Allen Street, and you got to remember that
+Jacobean chairs is something which you couldn't get whenever you want
+'em. Let me tell you just what they look like."
+
+Here he descanted so successfully on the beauty of Jacobean furniture
+that Yetta added her persuasion to his, and Elkan at length surrendered.
+
+"All right," he said. "First we would have a little something to eat and
+then we would go down there."
+
+Hence, a few minutes after eight that evening they alighted at the
+Spring Street subway station; and Max Merech piloted Elkan and Yetta
+beneath elevated railroads and past the windows of brass shops, with
+their gleaming show of candlesticks and samovars, to a little basement
+store near the corner of Rivington Street.
+
+"It don't look like much," Max apologized as he descended the few steps
+leading to the entrance; "_aber_ he's got an elegant stock inside."
+
+When he opened the door a trigger affixed to the door knocked against a
+rusty bell, but no one responded. Instead, from behind a partition in
+the rear came sounds of an angry dispute; and as Elkan closed the door
+behind him one of the voices rose higher than the rest.
+
+"Take my life--take my blood, Mr. Sammet!" it said; "because I am making
+you the best proposition I can, and that's all there is to it."
+
+Max was about to stamp his foot when Elkan laid a restraining hand on
+his shoulder; and, in the pause that followed, the heavy, almost
+hysterical breathing of the last speaker could be heard in the front of
+the store.
+
+"I don't want your life _oder_ your blood, Dishkes," came the answer in
+bass tones, which Elkan recognized as the voice of his competitor, Leon
+Sammet. "I am your heaviest creditor, and all I want is that you should
+protect me."
+
+"I know you are my heaviest creditor," Louis Dishkes replied. "To my
+sorrow I know it! If it wouldn't be for your rotten stickers which I got
+in my place, might I would be doing a good business there to-day,
+maybe!"
+
+"_Schmooes_, Dishkes!" Sammet replied. "The reason you didn't done a
+good business there is that you ain't no business man, Dishkes--and
+anyhow, Dishkes, it don't do no good you should insult me!"
+
+"What d'ye mean insult you?" Dishkes cried angrily. "I ain't insulting
+you, Sammet. You are insulting me. You want me I should protect you and
+let my other creditors go to the devil--ain't it? What d'ye take me
+for--a crook?"
+
+"That's all right," Sammet declared. "I wouldn't dandy words with you,
+Dishkes. For the last time I am asking you: Will you take advantage of
+the offer I am getting for you from the Mercantile Outlet Company, of
+Nashville, for your entire stock? Otherwise I would got nothing more to
+say to you."
+
+There was a sound of scuffling feet as the party in the rear of the
+store rose from their chairs.
+
+"You ain't got no need to say nothing more to me, Mr. Sammet," Dishkes
+announced firmly, "because I am through with you, Mr. Sammet. Your
+account ain't due till to-morrow, and you couldn't do nothing till
+Tuesday. Ain't it? So Tuesday morning early you should go ahead and sue
+me, and if I couldn't raise money to save myself I will go _mechullah_;
+but it'll be an honest _mechullah_, and that's all there is to it."
+
+As Dishkes finished speaking Elkan drew Max and Yetta into the shadow
+cast by a tall highboy; and, without noticing their presence, Leon
+Sammet plunged toward the door and let himself out into the street.
+
+Immediately Elkan tiptoed to the door and threw it wide open, after
+which he shuffled his feet with sufficient noise to account for the
+entrance of three people. Thereat Ringentaub emerged from behind the
+partition.
+
+"Hello, Ringentaub," Max cried. "I am bringing you here some customers."
+
+Ringentaub bowed and coughed a warning to Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub,
+who continued to talk in hoarse whispers behind the partition.
+
+"What's the matter, Ringentaub?" Max Merech asked; "couldn't you afford
+it here somehow a little light?"
+
+Ringentaub reached into the upper darkness and turned on a gas jet which
+had been burning a blue point of flame.
+
+"I keep it without light here on purpose," he said, "on account Sundays
+is a big night for the candlestick fakers up the street and I don't want
+to be bothered with their trade. What could I show your friends, Mr.
+Merech?"
+
+Max winked almost imperceptibly at Elkan and prepared to approach the
+subject of the Jacobean chairs by a judicious detour.
+
+"Do you got maybe a couple Florentine frames, Ringentaub?" he asked; and
+Ringentaub shook his head.
+
+"Florentine frames is hard to find nowadays, Mr. Merech," he said; "and
+I guess I told it you Friday that I ain't got none."
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
+
+"I thought might you would of picked up a couple since then, maybe," Max
+rejoined, glancing round him. "You got a pretty nice highboy over there,
+Ringentaub, for a reproduction."
+
+Ringentaub nodded satirically.
+
+"That only goes to show how much you know about such things, Mr.
+Merech," he retorted, "when you are calling reproductions something
+which it is a gen-wine Shippendaler, understand me, in elegant
+condition."
+
+It was now Elkan's turn to nod, and he did so with just the right
+degree of skepticism as at last he broached the object of his visit.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "that them chairs over there is also gen-wine
+Jacobean chairs?"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do with you, Mr. Merech," Ringentaub declared.
+"You could bring down here any of them good Fourth Avenue or Fifth
+Avenue dealers, understand me, or any conoozer you want to name, like
+Jacob Paul, _oder_ anybody, y'understand; and if they would say them
+chairs ain't gen-wine Jacobean I'll make 'em a present to you free for
+nothing."
+
+"I ain't _schnorring_ for no presents, Mr. Ringentaub," Max declared.
+"Bring 'em out in the light and let's give a look at 'em."
+
+Ringentaub drew the chairs into the centre of the floor, and placing
+them beneath the gas jet he stepped backward and tilted his head to one
+side in silent admiration.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Merech," he said at last, "am I right or am I wrong? Is the
+chairs gen-wine _oder_ not? I leave it to your friends here."
+
+Max turned to Elkan, who had been edging away toward the partition, from
+which came scraps of conversation between Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub.
+
+"What do you think, Mr. Lubliner?" Max asked; and Elkan frowned his
+annoyance at the interruption, for he had just begun to catch a few
+words of the conversation in the rear room.
+
+"Sure--sure!" he said absently. "I leave it to you and Mrs. Lubliner."
+
+Yetta's face had fallen as she viewed the apparently decayed and rickety
+furniture.
+
+"Ain't they terrible shabby-looking!" she murmured, and Ringentaub
+shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
+
+"You would look shabby, too, lady," he said, "if you would be two
+hundred and fifty years old; _aber_ if you want to see what they look
+like after they are restored, y'understand, I got back there one of the
+rest of the set which I already sold to Mr. Paul; and I am fixing it up
+for him."
+
+As he finished speaking he walked to the rear and dragged forward a
+reseated and polished duplicate of the two chairs.
+
+"I dassent restore 'em before I sell 'em," Ringentaub explained;
+"otherwise no one believes they are gen-wine."
+
+"And how much do you say you want for them chairs, Ringentaub?" Max
+asked.
+
+"I didn't say I wanted nothing," Ringentaub replied. "The fact is, I
+don't know whether I want to keep them chairs _oder_ not. You see, Mr.
+Merech, Jacobean chairs is pretty near so rare nowadays that it would
+pay me to wait a while. In a couple of years them chairs double in value
+already."
+
+"Sure, I know," Max said. "You could say the same thing about your whole
+stock, Ringentaub; and so, if I would be you, Ringentaub, I would take a
+little vacation of a couple years or so. Go round the world _mit_ Mrs.
+Ringentaub, understand me, and by the time you come back you are worth
+twicet as much as you got to-day; but just to help pay your rent while
+you are away, Mr. Ringentaub, I'll make you an offer of thirty-five
+dollars for the chairs."
+
+Ringentaub seized a chair in each hand and dragged them noisily to one
+side.
+
+"As I was saying," he announced, "I ain't got no Florentine frames, Mr.
+Merech; so I am sorry we couldn't do no business."
+
+"Well, then, thirty-seven-fifty, Mr. Ringentaub," Max continued; and
+Ringentaub made a flapping gesture with both hands.
+
+"Say, lookyhere," he growled, "what is the use talking nonsense,
+Mr. Merech? For ten dollars apiece you could get on Twenty-third
+Street a couple chairs, understand me, made in some big factory,
+y'understand--A-Number-One pieces of furniture--which would suit you
+a whole lot better as gen-wine pieces. These here chairs is for
+conoozers, Mr. Merech; so, if you want any shiny candlesticks _oder_
+Moskva samovars from brass-spinners on Center Street, y'understand, a
+couple doors uptown you would find plenty fakers. _Aber_ here is all
+gen-wine stuff, y'understand; and for gen-wine stuff you got to pay
+full price, understand me, which if them chairs stays in my store
+till they are five hundred years old already I wouldn't take a cent
+less for 'em as fifty dollars."
+
+Max turned inquiringly to Mrs. Lubliner; and, during the short pause
+that followed, the agonized voice of Louis Dishkes came once more from
+the back room.
+
+"What could I do?" he said to Mrs. Ringentaub. "I want to be square
+_mit_ everybody, and I must got to act quick on account that sucker
+Sammet will close me up sure."
+
+"_Ai, tzuris!_" Mrs. Ringentaub moaned; at which her husband coughed
+noisily and Elkan moved nearer to the partition.
+
+"Would you go as high as fifty dollars, Mrs. Lubliner?" Max asked, and
+Yetta nodded.
+
+"All right, Mr. Ringentaub," Max concluded; "we'll take 'em at fifty
+dollars."
+
+"And you wouldn't regret it neither," Ringentaub replied. "I'll make you
+out a bill right away."
+
+He darted into the rear room and slammed the partition door behind him.
+
+"_Koosh_, Dishkes!" he hissed. "Ain't you got no sense at all--blabbing
+out your business in front of all them strangers?"
+
+It was at this juncture that Elkan rapped on the door.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Ringentaub," he said, "but I ain't no stranger to Mr.
+Dishkes--not by four hundred dollars already."
+
+He opened the door as he spoke, and Dishkes, who was sitting at a table
+with his head bowed on his hands, looked up mournfully.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Lubliner!" he said. "You are after me, too, ain't it?"
+
+Elkan shook his head.
+
+"Not only I ain't after you, Dishkes," he said, "but I didn't even know
+you was in trouble until just now."
+
+"And you never would of known," Ringentaub added, "if he ain't been such
+a _dummer Ochs_ and listened to people's advice. He got a good chance to
+sell out, and he wouldn't took it."
+
+"Sure, I know," Elkan said, "to an auction house; the idee being to run
+away _mit_ the proceeds and leave his creditors in the lurches!"
+
+Dishkes again buried his head in his hands, while Ringentaub blushed
+guiltily.
+
+"That may be all right in the antic business, Mr. Ringentaub," Elkan
+went on, "but in the garment business we ain't two hundred and fifty
+years behind the times exactly. We got associations of manufacturers and
+we got good lawyers, too, understand me; and we get right after crooks
+like Sammet, just the same as some of us helps out retailers that want
+to be decent, like Dishkes here."
+
+Louis Dishkes raised his head suddenly.
+
+"Then you heard the whole thing?" he cried; and Elkan nodded.
+
+"I heard enough, Dishkes," he said; "and if you want my help you could
+come down to my place to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."
+
+At this juncture the triggered bell rang loudly, and raising his hand
+for silence Ringentaub returned to the store.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Paul!" he said.
+
+He addressed a broad-shouldered figure arrayed in the height of Canal
+Street fashion.
+
+Aside from his clothing, however, there was little to betray the
+connoisseur of fine arts and antiques in the person of Jacob Paul, who
+possessed the brisk, businesslike manner and steel-blue eyes of a
+detective sergeant.
+
+"Hello, Ringentaub!" he said. "You are doing a rushing business
+here--ain't it? More customers in the back room too?"
+
+He glanced sharply at the open doorway in the partition, through which
+Elkan and Dishkes could be seen engaged in earnest conversation.
+
+"_Yow_--customers!" Ringentaub exclaimed. "You know how it is in the
+antic business, Mr. Paul. For a hundred that looks, understand me, one
+buys; and that one, Mr. Paul, he comes into your place a dozen times
+before he makes up his mind yet."
+
+"Well," Paul said with a smile, "I've made up my mind at last,
+Ringentaub, and I'll take them other two chairs at forty-five dollars."
+
+Ringentaub nodded his head slowly.
+
+"I thought you would, Mr. Paul," he said; "but just the same you are a
+little late, on account this here gentleman already bought 'em for fifty
+dollars."
+
+A shade of disappointment passed over Paul's face as he turned to Max
+Merech.
+
+"I congratulate you, Mister----"
+
+"Merech," Max suggested.
+
+"Merech," Paul continued. "You paid a high price for a couple of good
+pieces."
+
+"I ain't paying nothing," Max replied. "I bought 'em for this lady here
+and her husband."
+
+It was then that Jacob Paul for the first time noticed Yetta's presence,
+and he bowed apologetically.
+
+"Is he also a collector?" he asked, and Max shook his head.
+
+"He's in the garment business," Yetta volunteered, "for himself."
+
+A puzzled expression wrinkled Paul's flat nose.
+
+"I guess I ain't caught the name," he said.
+
+"Lubliner," Yetta replied; "Elkan Lubliner, of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &
+Company."
+
+"You don't tell me?" Jacob Paul said. "And so Mr. Lubliner is interested
+in antiques. That's quite a jump, from cloaks and suits to antiques
+already."
+
+"Well," Merech explained, "Mr. Lubliner is refurnishing his house."
+
+"Maybe," Elkan added as he appeared in the doorway of the partition,
+followed by Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub. "Buying a couple pieces of
+furniture is one thing, Merech, and refurnishing your house is another."
+
+"You made a good start anyhow," Paul interrupted. "A couple chairs like
+them gives a tone to a room which is got crayon portraits hanging in it
+even."
+
+Yetta blushed in the consciousness of what she had always considered to
+be a fine likeness of Elkan's grandfather--the Lubliner _Rav_--which
+hung in a silver-and-plush frame over the mantelpiece of the Lubliner
+front parlour. Elkan was unashamed, however, and he glared angrily at
+the connoisseur, who had started to leave the store.
+
+"I suppose," he cried, "it ain't up to date that a feller should
+have hanging in his flat a portrait of his grandfather--_olav
+hasholem!_--which he was a learned man and a _Tzadek_, if there ever
+was one."
+
+Paul hesitated, with his hand on the doorknob.
+
+"I'll tell you, Mr. Lubliner," he said solemnly; "to me a crayon
+portrait is rotten, understand me, if it would be of a _Tzadek oder_ a
+murderer."
+
+And with a final bow to Mrs. Lubliner he banged the door behind him.
+
+"Well, what d'ye think for a _Rosher_ like that?" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"The fellow is disappointed that you got ahead of him buying the chairs,
+Mr. Lubliner," Ringentaub explained; "so he takes a chance that you and
+Mrs. Lubliner is that kind of people which is got hanging in the parlour
+crayon portraits, understand me, and he knocks you for it."
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What could you expect from a feller which is content at fifty years of
+age to be a collector only?" he asked, and Dishkes nodded
+sympathetically.
+
+"I bet yer, Mr. Lubliner," he agreed; "and so I would be at your store
+to-morrow morning at ten o'clock sure."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin said the
+following morning when Elkan related to him the events of the preceding
+night; "_aber_ you couldn't blame Sammet none. Concerns like Sammet
+Brothers, which they are such dirty crooks that everybody is got
+suspicions of 'em, y'understand, must got to pay their bills prompt to
+the day, Elkan; because if they wouldn't be themselves good collectors,
+understand me, they would bust up quick."
+
+"Sammet Brothers ain't in no danger of busting up," Elkan declared.
+
+"Ain't they?" Marcus rejoined. "Well, you would be surprised, Elkan, if
+I would tell you that only yesterday already I am speaking to a feller
+by the name Hirsch, which works for years by the Hamsuckett Mills as
+city salesman, understand me, and he says that the least Sammet Brothers
+owes them people is ten thousand dollars."
+
+"That shows what a big business they must do," Elkan said.
+
+"_Yow_--a big business!" Marcus concluded. "This here Hirsch says not
+only Sammet Brothers' business falls off something terrible,
+y'understand, but they are also getting to be pretty slow pay; and if it
+wouldn't be that the Hamsuckett people is helping 'em along, _verstehst
+du_, they would of gone up _schon_ long since already."
+
+"And a good job too," Elkan said. "The cloak-and-suit trade could worry
+along without 'em, Mr. Polatkin; but anyhow, Mr. Polatkin, I ain't
+concerned with Sammet Brothers. The point is this: Dishkes says he has
+got a good stand there on Amsterdam Avenue, and if he could only hold on
+a couple months longer he wouldn't got no difficulty in pulling
+through."
+
+Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"For my part," he said, "it wouldn't make no difference if Dishkes
+busts up now _oder_ two months from now."
+
+"But the way he tells me yesterday," Elkan replied, "not only he
+wouldn't got to bust up on us if he gets his two months' extension, but
+he says he would be doing a good business at that time."
+
+Polatkin nodded skeptically.
+
+"Sure, I know, Elkan," he said. "If everybody which is asking an
+extension would do the business they hope to do before the extension is
+up, Elkan," he said, "all the prompt-pay fellows must got to close up
+shop on account there wouldn't be enough business to go round."
+
+"Well, anyhow," Elkan rejoined, "he's coming here to see us this
+morning, Mr. Polatkin, and he could show you how he figures it that he's
+got hopes to pull through."
+
+Polatkin made a deprecatory gesture with his hand.
+
+"If a feller is going to bust up on me, Elkan, I'd just as lief he ain't
+got no hopes at all," he grumbled; "otherwise he wastes your whole day
+on you figuring out his next season's profits if he can only stall off
+his creditors. With such a hoping feller, if you don't want to be out
+time as well as money, understand me, you should quick file a petition
+in bankruptcy against him; otherwise he wouldn't give you no peace at
+all."
+
+Nevertheless, when Dishkes arrived, half an hour later, Polatkin
+ushered him into the firm's office and summoned Scheikowitz and Elkan to
+the conference.
+
+"Well, Dishkes," he said in kindly accents, "you are up against it."
+
+Dishkes nodded. He was by no means of a robust physical type, and his
+hands trembled so nervously as he fumbled for his papers in his breast
+pocket that he dropped its contents on the office floor. Elkan stooped
+to assist in retrieving the scattered papers, and among the documents he
+gathered together was a cabinet photograph.
+
+"My wife!" Dishkes murmured hoarsely. "She ain't so strong, and I am
+sending her up to the country a couple months ago. I've been meaning I
+should go up and see her ever since, but----"
+
+Here he gulped dismally; and there was an embarrassed silence, broken
+only by the faint noise occasioned by Philip Scheikowitz scratching his
+chin.
+
+"That's a _Rosher_--that feller Sammet," Polatkin said at length.
+"Honestly, the way some business men ain't got no mercy at all for the
+other feller, you would think, Scheikowitz, they was living back in the
+old country yet!"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded and glanced nervously from the photograph to Elkan.
+
+"I think you was telling me you got a couple idees about helping Dishkes
+out, Elkan," he said. "So, in the first place, Dishkes, you should
+please let us see a list of your creditors."
+
+With this prelude Scheikowitz drew forward his chair and plunged into a
+discussion of Dishkes' affairs that lasted for more than two hours; and
+when Dishkes at length departed he took with him notices of a meeting
+addressed to his twenty creditors, prepared for immediate mailing by
+Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's stenographer.
+
+"And that's what we let ourselves in for," Scheikowitz declared after
+the elevator door had closed behind Dishkes. "To-morrow morning at
+eleven o'clock the place here would look like the waiting room of a
+depot, and all our competitors would be rubbering at our stock already."
+
+"Let 'em rubber!" Elkan said. "If I don't get an extension for that
+feller my name ain't Elkan Lubliner at all; because between now and then
+I am going round to see them twenty creditors, and I bet yer they will
+sign an extension agreement, with the figures I am going to put up to
+them!"
+
+"Figures!" Scheikowitz jeered. "What good is figures to them fellers?
+Showing figures to a bankrupt's creditors is like taking to a restaurant
+a feller which is hungry and letting him look at the knives and forks
+and plates, understand me!"
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"Sure, I know," he said; "but the figures ain't all."
+
+Surreptitiously he drew from his pocket a faded cabinet photograph.
+
+"I sneaked this away from Dishkes when he wasn't noticing," Elkan
+declared; "and if this don't fix 'em nothing will!"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," Leon Sammet cried after Elkan had broached
+the reason for his visit late that afternoon, "don't give me that tale
+of woe again. Every time we are asking Dishkes for money he pulls this
+here sick-wife story on us, understand me; and it don't go down with me
+no more."
+
+"What d'ye mean don't go down with you?" Elkan demanded. "Do you claim
+his wife ain't sick?"
+
+"I don't claim nothing," Sammet retorted. "I ain't no doctor, Lubliner.
+I am in the cloak-and-suit business, and I got to pay my creditors with
+United States money, Lubliner, if my wife would be dying yet."
+
+"Which you ain't got no wife," Elkan added savagely.
+
+"_Gott sei Dank!_" Sammet rejoined. "_Aber_ if I did got one,
+y'understand, I would got _Verstand_ enough to pick out a healthy woman,
+which Dishkes does everything the same. He picks out a store there on an
+avenue when it is a dead neighbourhood, understand me--and he wants us
+we should suffer for it."
+
+"The neighbourhood wouldn't be dead after three months," Elkan
+said. "Round the corner on both sides of the street is building
+thirty-three-foot, seven-story elevator apartments yet; and when they
+are occupied, Dishkes would do a rushing business."
+
+"That's all right," Sammet answered. "I ain't speculating in real-estate
+futures, Lubliner; so you might just so well go ahead and attend to your
+business, Lubliner, because me I am going to do the same."
+
+"But lookyhere, Sammet," Elkan still pleaded. "I seen pretty near every
+one of Dishkes' creditors and they all agree the feller should have a
+three months' extension."
+
+"Let 'em agree," Sammet shouted. "They are their own bosses and so am I,
+Lubliner; so if they want to give him an extension of their account I
+ain't got nothing to say. All I want is eight hundred dollars he owes
+me; and the rest of them suckers could agree till they are black in the
+face."
+
+"_Aber_, anyhow, Sammet," Elkan said, "come to the meeting to-morrow
+morning and we would see what we could do."
+
+"See what we could do!" Sammet bellowed. "You will see what I could do,
+Lubliner; and I will come to the meeting to-morrow and I'll do it too.
+So, if you don't mind, Lubliner, I could still do a little work before
+we close up here."
+
+For a brief interval Elkan dug his nails into the palms of his hands,
+and his eyes unconsciously sought a target for a right swing on Sammet's
+bloated face; but at length he nodded and forced himself to smile.
+
+"_Schon gut_, Mr. Sammet," he said; "then I will see you to-morrow."
+
+A moment later he strode down lower Fifth Avenue toward the place of
+business of the last creditor on Dishkes' list. This was none other than
+Elkan's distinguished friend, B. Gans, the manufacturer of high-grade
+dresses; and it required less than ten minutes to procure his consent to
+the proposed extension.
+
+"And I hope," Elkan said, "that we could count on you to be at the
+meeting to-morrow."
+
+"That's something I couldn't do," B. Gans replied; "but I'll write you a
+letter and give you full authority you should represent me there. Excuse
+me a minute and I'll dictate it to Miss Scheindler." When he returned,
+five minutes later, he sat down at his desk and, crossing his legs,
+prepared to beguile the tedium of waiting.
+
+"Well, Elkan," he said, "what you been doing with yourself lately?
+Thee-aytres and restaurants, I suppose?"
+
+"Thee-aytres I ain't so much interested in no more," Elkan said. "The
+fact is, I am going in now for antics."
+
+"Antics!" B. Gans exclaimed.
+
+"Sure," Elkan replied; and there was a certain pride in his tones.
+"Antics is what I said, Mr. Gans--Jacobson chairs and them--now--cat's
+furniture."
+
+"Cat's furniture?" Gans repeated. "What d'ye mean cat's furniture?"
+
+"Angry cats," Elkan explained; and then a great light broke upon B.
+Gans.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You mean Henri Quatre furniture?"
+
+"Hungry cat _oder_ angry cat," Elkan said. "All I know is we are
+refurnishing our flat, Mr. Gans, and we are taking an advice from Max
+Merech, our designer. It's a funny thing about that feller, Mr.
+Gans--with garments he is right up to the minute, _aber mit_ furniture
+nothing suits him unless it would be anyhow a hundred years old."
+
+"So you are buying some antique furniture for your flat?" B. Gans
+commented, and Elkan nodded.
+
+"We made a start anyhow," he said. "We bought a couple Jacobson
+chairs--two hundred and fifty years old already."
+
+"Good!" B. Gans exclaimed. "I want to tell you, Elkan, you couldn't go
+far wrong if you would buy any piece of furniture over a hundred years
+old. They didn't know how to make things ugly in them days--and Jacobean
+chairs especially. I am furnishing my whole dining room in that period
+and my library in Old French. It costs money, Elkan, but it's worth
+it."
+
+Elkan nodded and steered the conversation into safer channels; so that
+by the time Miss Scheindler had brought in the letter they were
+discussing familiar business topics.
+
+"Also," Gans said as he appended his neat signature to the letter, "I
+wish you and Dishkes luck, Elkan; and keep up the good work about the
+antique furniture. Even when you would get stuck with a reproduction
+instead of a genuine piece once in a while, if it looks just as good as
+the original and no one tells you differently, understand me, you feel
+just as happy."
+
+Thus encouraged, Elkan went home that evening full of a determination to
+acquire all the antique furniture his apartment would hold; and he and
+Yetta sat up until past midnight conning the pages of a heavy volume on
+the subject, which Yetta had procured from the neighbouring public
+library. Accordingly Elkan rose late the following morning, and it was
+almost nine o'clock before he reached his office and observed on the
+very top of his morning mail a slip of paper containing a message in the
+handwriting of Sam, the office boy.
+
+"A man called about Jacobowitz," it read, and Elkan immediately rang his
+deskbell.
+
+"What Jacobowitz is this?" he demanded as Sam entered, and the office
+boy shrugged.
+
+"I should know!" he said.
+
+"What d'ye mean you should know?" Elkan cried. "Ain't I always told it
+you you should write down always the name when people call?"
+
+"Ain't Jacobowitz a name?" Sam replied. "Furthermore, you couldn't
+expect me I should get the family history from everybody which is coming
+in the place, Mr. Lubliner--especially when the feller says he would
+come back."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me he is coming back?" Elkan asked, and again Sam
+shrugged.
+
+"When the feller is coming back, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "it don't make
+no difference if I tell you _oder_ not. He would come back anyhow."
+
+Having thus disposed of the matter to his entire satisfaction, Sam
+withdrew and banged the door triumphantly behind him, while Elkan fell
+to examining his mail. He had hardly cut the first envelope, however,
+when his door opened to admit Dishkes.
+
+"_Nu_, Dishkes!" Elkan said. "You are pretty early, ain't it?"
+
+Dishkes nodded.
+
+"I'm a _Schlemiel_, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and that's all there is to
+it. Yesterday I went to work and lost my wife's picture."
+
+Elkan slapped his thigh with his hand.
+
+"Well, ain't I a peach?" he said. "I am getting so mixed up with these
+here antics I completely forgot to tell Yetta anything about it. I
+didn't even show it to her, Dishkes; so you must leave me have it for a
+day longer, Dishkes."
+
+As he spoke he drew the cabinet photograph from his breast pocket and
+handed it to Dishkes, who gazed earnestly at it for a minute. Then,
+resting his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands and
+burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing, whereat Elkan jumped from his
+seat and passed hurriedly out of the room. As he walked toward the
+showroom the strains of a popular song came from behind a rack.
+
+"Sam," he bellowed, "who asks you you should whistle round here?"
+
+The whistling ceased and Sam emerged from his hiding-place with a
+feather brush.
+
+"I could whistle without being asked," Sam replied; "and furthermore,
+Mr. Lubliner, when I am dusting the samples I must got to whistle;
+otherwise the dust gets in my lungs, which I value my lungs the same
+like you do, Mr. Lubliner, even if I would be here only a boy working on
+stock!"
+
+With this decisive rejoinder he resumed dusting the samples, while Elkan
+returned to his office, where he found that Dishkes had regained his
+composure.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Despite the fact that all of Dishkes' creditors save one had signed an
+extension agreement, the meeting in Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's
+showroom was well attended; and when Leon Sammet came in, at
+quarter-past eleven, the assemblage had already elected Charles Finkman,
+of Maisener & Finkman, as chairman. He had just taken his seat in Philip
+Scheikowitz's new revolving chair and was in the act of noisily clearing
+his throat in lieu of pounding the table with a gavel.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "first, I want to thank you for the signal honour
+you are doing me in appointing me your chairman. For sixteen years now
+my labours in the Independent Order Mattai Aaron ain't unknown to most
+of you here. Ten years ago, at the national convention held in
+Sarahcuse, gentlemen, I was unanimously elected by the delegates from
+sixty lodges to be your National Grand Master; and----"
+
+At this juncture Leon Sammet rose ponderously to his feet.
+
+"Say, Finkman!" retorted Sammet. "What has all this _Stuss_ about the I.
+O. M. A. got to do _mit_ Dishkes here?"
+
+Again Finkman cleared his throat, and this time he produced a note of
+challenge that caused the members of the I. O. M. A. there present to
+lean forward in their seats. They expected a crushing rejoinder and they
+were not disappointed.
+
+"What is the motto of the I. O. M. A., Sammet?" Finkman thundered.
+"'Justice, Fraternity and Charity!' And I say to you now that, as
+chairman of this meeting, as well as Past National Grand Master of that
+noble order to which you and I both belong, _verstehst du_, I will see
+that justice be done, fraternity be encouraged and charity dispensed on
+each and every occasion.
+
+"Now, my brothers, here is a fellow member of our organization in
+distress, y'understand; and I ask you one and all this question"--he
+raised his voice to a pitch that made the filaments tremble in the
+electric-light bulbs--"Who," he roared, "who will come to his
+assistance?"
+
+He paused dramatically just as Sam, the office boy, stuck his head in
+the showroom doorway and rent the silence with his high, piping voice.
+
+"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the man is here about Jacobowitz."
+
+Elkan flapped his hand wildly, but it was too late to prevent the
+entrance of no less a person than Jacob Paul--the connoisseur of
+antiques and fine arts.
+
+"Hello, Finkman!" he said; "what's the trouble here?"
+
+Elkan started from his seat to interrupt his visitor, but there was
+something in Finkman's manner that made him sit down again.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Paul?" Finkman exclaimed; and the clarion note
+had deserted his voice, leaving only a slight hoarseness to mark its
+passing. "What brings you here?"
+
+"I might ask the same of you, Finkman," Jacob Paul replied; and as his
+keen eyes scanned the assembled company they rested for a minute on Leon
+Sammet, who forthwith began to perspire.
+
+"The fact is," Finkman began, "this here is a meeting of creditors of
+Louis Dishkes, of the Villy dee Paris Store on Amsterdam Avenue."
+
+Paul turned to Louis Dishkes, proprietor of the Ville de Paris Store,
+who sat at the side of the room behind Scheikowitz's desk in an
+improvised prisoner's dock.
+
+"What's the matter, Dishkes?" Paul asked. "Couldn't you make it go up
+there?"
+
+Dishkes shrugged hopelessly.
+
+"Next month, when them houses round the corner is rented," he said, "I
+could do a good business there."
+
+"You ought to," Paul agreed. "You ain't got no competitors, so far as I
+could see."
+
+"That's what we all think!" Elkan broke in--"that is to say, all of us
+except Mr. Sammet; and he ain't willing to wait for his money."
+
+Leon Sammet moved uneasily in his chair as Jacob Paul faced about in his
+direction.
+
+"Why ain't you willing to wait, Sammet?" he asked; and Leon mopped his
+face with his handkerchief.
+
+"Well, it's like this, Mr. Paul----" he began, but the connoisseur of
+antiques raised his hand.
+
+"One moment, Sammet," he said. "You know as well as anybody else, and
+better even, that a millionaire concern like the Hamsuckett Mills must
+got to wait once in a while." He paused significantly. "If we didn't,"
+he continued, "there's plenty of solvent concerns would be forced to the
+wall--ain't it? Furthermore, if the Hamsuckett Mills did business the
+way you want to, Sammet, I wouldn't keep my job as credit man and
+treasurer very long."
+
+Sammet nodded weakly and plied his handkerchief with more vigour, while
+Elkan sat and stared at his acquaintance of Sunday night in unfeigned
+astonishment.
+
+"Then what is the use of talking, Sammet?" Paul said. "So long as you
+are the only one standing out, why don't you make an end of it? How long
+an extension does Dishkes want?"
+
+"Two months," Finkman answered.
+
+"And where is the agreement you fellows all signed?" Paul continued.
+
+Elkan took a paper from the desk in front of Dishkes and passed it to
+Paul, who drew from his waistcoat pocket an opulent gold-mounted
+fountain pen. Then he walked over to Leon Sammet and handed him the pen
+and the agreement.
+
+"_Schreib_, Sammet," he said, "and don't make no more fuss about it."
+
+A moment later Sammet appended a shaky signature to the agreement and
+returned it, with the pen, to Paul.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Jacob Paul sat in Elkan's office and smoked
+one of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's best cigars.
+
+"Now I put it up to you, Lubliner," he said: "them Jacobean chairs are
+pretty high at fifty dollars, but I want 'em, and I'm willing to give
+you sixty for 'em."
+
+Elkan smiled and made a wide gesture with both hands.
+
+"My dear Mr. Paul," he said, "after what you done to-day for Dishkes
+I'll make you a present of 'em--free for nothing."
+
+"No, you won't do no such thing," Paul declared; "because I'm going to
+sell 'em again and at a profit, as I may as well tell you."
+
+"My worries what you are going to do with 'em!" Elkan declared. "But one
+thing I ain't going to do, Mr. Paul--I ain't going to make no profit on
+you; so go ahead and take the chairs at what I paid for 'em--and that's
+the best I could do for you."
+
+It required no further persuasion for Jacob Paul to draw a fifty-dollar
+check to Elkan's order; and as he rose to leave Elkan pressed his hand
+warmly.
+
+"Come up and see me, Mr. Paul, when we get through refurnishing," he
+said. "I promise you you would see a flat furnished to your taste--no
+crayon portraits nor nothing."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Elkan's office door opened to admit
+Sam, the office boy.
+
+"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "another feller is here about this
+here--now--Jacobowitz."
+
+Elkan glanced through the half-open door and recognized the figure of
+Ringentaub, the antiquarian.
+
+"Tell him to come in," he said; and a moment later Ringentaub was
+wringing Elkan's hand and babbling his gratitude for his
+brother-in-law's deliverance from bankruptcy.
+
+"God will bless you for it, Mr. Lubliner," he said; "and I am ashamed of
+myself when I think of it. I am a dawg, Mr. Lubliner--and that's all
+there is to it."
+
+Here he drew a greasy wallet from his breast-pocket and extracted three
+ten-dollar bills.
+
+"Take 'em, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and forgive me."
+
+He pressed the bills into Elkan's hand.
+
+"What's this?" Elkan demanded.
+
+"That's the change from your fifty dollars," Ringentaub replied;
+"because, so help me, Mr. Lubliner, there is first-class material in
+them chairs and the feller that makes 'em for me is a highgrade
+cabinetmaker. Then you got to reckon it stands me in a couple of dollars
+also to get 'em fixed up antique, y'understand; so, if you get them
+chairs for twenty dollars you are buying a bargain, Mr. Lubliner."
+
+"Why, what d'ye mean?" Elkan cried. "Ain't them chairs gen-wine Jacobean
+chairs?"
+
+"Not by a whole lot they ain't," Ringentaub declared fervently.
+
+"But Mr. Paul thinks they are!" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"Sure, I know," Ringentaub answered; "and that shows what a lot a
+collector knows about such things. Paul is a credit man for the
+Hamsuckett Mills, Mr. Lubliner; but he collects old furniture on the
+side."
+
+For a moment Elkan gazed open-mouthed at the antiquarian and a great
+light began to break in on him.
+
+"So-o-o!" he cried. "That's what you mean by a collector!"
+
+Ringentaub nodded.
+
+"And furthermore, Mr. Lubliner, when collectors knows more about
+antiques as dealers does, Mr. Lubliner," he said with his hand on the
+doorknob, "I'll go into the woollen piece-goods business too--which you
+could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner, it wouldn't be soon, by a hundred
+years even."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Elkan emerged from the One-Hundred-and-Sixteenth Street station of
+the subway that evening a familiar voice hailed him from the rear.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan!" cried B. Gans, for it was none other than he. "You made
+out fine at the meeting this morning--ain't it?"
+
+"Who told you?" Elkan asked as he linked arms with the highgrade
+manufacturer.
+
+"Never mind who told me," B. Gans said jokingly; "but all I could say is
+you made a tremendous hit with Jacob Paul, Elkan--and if that ain't no
+compliment, understand me, I don't know what is. Why, there ain't a
+better judge of men _oder_ antique furniture in this here city than
+Paul, Elkan. He's an A-Number-One credit man, too, and I bet yer he gets
+a big salary from them Hamsuckett Mills people, which the least his
+income could be--considering what he picks up selling antiques--is
+fifteen thousand a year."
+
+"Does Paul sell all the antiques he collects?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Does he?" B. Gans rejoined. "Well, I should say he does! Myself I
+bought from him in the past two weeks half a dozen chairs, understand
+me--four last week and two to-day--which I am paying him five hundred
+dollars for the lot. They're worth it, too, Elkan. I never seen finer
+examples of the period."
+
+"But are you sure they're gen-wine?" Elkan asked as they reached the
+entrance to his apartment house.
+
+"Paul says they are," B. Gans answered, slapping Elkan's shoulder in
+farewell; "and if he's mistaken, Elkan, then I'm content that I should
+be."
+
+Two hours later, however, after Elkan had recounted to Yetta all the
+incidents of Dishkes' meeting and the resulting sale of the chairs, his
+conscience smote him.
+
+"What d'ye think, Yetta?" he asked. "Should I tell Paul and Gans the
+chairs ain't gen-wine, _oder_ not?"
+
+For more than ten minutes Yetta wrinkled her forehead over this knotty
+ethical point; then she delivered her opinion.
+
+"Mr. Gans tells you he is just as happy if they ain't gen-wine--ain't
+it?" she said.
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"And Mr. Paul acted honest, because he didn't know they wasn't gen-wine
+neither, ain't it?" she continued.
+
+Again Elkan nodded.
+
+"Then," Yetta declared, "if you are taking it so particular as all that,
+Elkan, there's only one thing for you to do--give me the thirty
+dollars!"
+
+"Is that so!" Elkan exclaimed ironically. "And what will you do with the
+money?"
+
+"The only thing I can do with it, _Schlemiel_," she said. "Ten dollars I
+will give Louis Dishkes he should take a trip up to the country over
+Sunday and visit his wife."
+
+"And what will we do with the other twenty?" Elkan asked.
+
+"We'll send a present with him to Mrs. Dishkes," Yetta concluded with a
+smile, "and it wouldn't be no antics neither!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+SWEET AND SOUR
+
+ARE THE USES OF COMPETITIVE SALESMANSHIP
+
+
+"_Aber_ me and Yetta is got it all fixed up we would go to Mrs. Kotlin's
+already," Elkan Lubliner protested as he mopped his forehead one hot
+Tuesday morning in July. "The board there is something elegant, Mr.
+Scheikowitz. Everybody says so."
+
+"_Yow!_ everybody!" Philip Scheikowitz retorted. "Who is everybody,
+Elkan? A couple drummers like Marks Pasinsky, one or two real estaters,
+understand me, and the rest of 'em is wives from J to L retailers, third
+credit, which every time their husbands comes down to spend Sunday with
+'em, y'understand, he must pretty near got to pawn the shirt from his
+back for car fare already."
+
+"Scheikowitz is right, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin joined in. "A feller
+shouldn't make a god from his stomach, Elkan, especially when money
+don't figure at all, so if you would be going down to Egremont Beach,
+understand me, there's only one place you should stay, y'understand, and
+that's the New Salisbury."
+
+"Which if you wouldn't take our word for it, Elkan," Scheikowitz added,
+"just give a look here."
+
+He drew from his coat pocket the summer resort section of the previous
+day's paper and thrust it toward his junior partner, indicating as he
+did so a half column headed:
+
+     MIDSEASON GAIETY AT
+        EGREMONT BEACH
+
+which reads as follows:
+
+    The season is in full swing here.
+
+    On Saturday night Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Gans gave a Chinese
+    Lantern Dinner in the Hanging Gardens at which were present
+    Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and Mrs.
+    Henry D. Feldman, Mr. Jacob Scharley and Miss Hortense
+    Feldman.
+
+    Among those who registered Friday at the New Salisbury were
+    Mr. Jacob Scharley of San Francisco, Mr. and Mrs. Sol Klinger,
+    Mr. Leon Sammet and his mother, Mrs. Leah Sammet.
+
+
+"I thought that Leon's brother Barney was staying down at Egremont,"
+Polatkin said after he and Elkan had read the item.
+
+"Barney is at Mrs. Kotlin's," Scheikowitz explained, "because _mit_ Leon
+Sammet, Polatkin, nothing is too rotten for Barney to stay at, and
+besides he thinks Barney would get a little _small_ business there,
+which the way Sammet Brothers figures, understand me, if they could
+stick a feller with three bills of goods for a couple hundred dollars
+apiece, y'understand, so long as he pays up on the first two, he
+couldn't eat up their profits if he would bust up on 'em _mit_ the
+third."
+
+"Sure I know," Elkan said, "_aber_ I ain't going down to Egremont for
+business, Mr. Scheikowitz, I'm going because it ain't so warm down
+there."
+
+"_Schmooes_, Elkan!" Scheikowitz retorted. "It wouldn't make it not one
+degrees warmer in Egremont supposing you could get a couple new accounts
+down there."
+
+"B. Gans don't take it so particular about the weather," Polatkin
+commented. "I bet yer he would a whole lot sooner take off his coat and
+shirt and _spiel_ a little auction pinocle _mit_ Sol Klinger and Leon
+Sammet and all them fellers as be giving dinners already in a tuxedo
+suit to Sam Feder. I bet yer he gets a fine accommodation from the
+Kosciusko Bank out of that dinner yet."
+
+"The other people also he ain't _schencking_ no dinners to 'em for
+nothing neither," Scheikowitz declared. "Every one of 'em means
+something to B. Gans, I bet yer."
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"Particularly Scharley," he said.
+
+"What d'ye mean, particularly Scharley?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz
+inquired with one voice.
+
+"Why, ain't you heard about Scharley?" Elkan asked. "It's right there in
+the _Daily Cloak and Suit Journal_."
+
+He indicated the front sheet of that newsy trade paper, where under the
+heading of "Incorporations" appeared the following item:
+
+    The Scharley, Oderburg Drygoods Company, San Francisco, Cal.,
+    has filed articles of incorporation, giving its capital stock
+    as $500,000, and expects to open its new store in September
+    next.
+
+"And you are talking about staying by Mrs. Kotlin's!" Scheikowitz
+exclaimed in injured tones. "You should ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Elkan."
+
+Elkan received his senior partner's upbraiding with a patient smile.
+
+"What show do we stand against a concern like B. Gans?" he asked.
+
+"B. Gans sells him only highgrade goods, Elkan," Scheikowitz declared.
+"I bet yer the least the feller buys is for twenty thousand dollars
+garments here, and a good half would be popular price lines, which if we
+would get busy, we stand an elegant show there, Elkan."
+
+"You should ought to go down there to-morrow yet," Polatkin cried,
+"because the first thing you know Leon Sammet would entertain him _mit_
+oitermobiles yet, and Sol Klinger gets also busy, understand me, and the
+consequences is we wouldn't be in it at all."
+
+"Next Saturday is the earliest Yetta could get ready," Elkan replied
+positively, and Polatkin strode up and down the floor in an access of
+despair.
+
+"All right, Elkan," he said, "if you want to let such an opportunity
+slip down your fingers, y'understand, all right. _Aber_ if I would be
+you, Elkan, I would go down there to-night yet."
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I couldn't get Yetta she should close up the flat under the very least
+_two_ days, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "She must got to fix everything just
+right, _mit_ moth-camphor and _Gott weisst was nach_, otherwise she
+wouldn't go at all. The rugs alone takes a whole day to fix."
+
+"Do as you like, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "_aber_ you mark my words,
+if Leon Sammet ain't shoving heaven and earth right now, y'understand, I
+don't know nothing about the garment business at all."
+
+In fulfilment of this prophecy, when Elkan entered his office the
+following morning Polatkin waved in his face a copy of the morning
+paper.
+
+"Well," he said, "what did I told you, Elkan?"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded slowly.
+
+"My partner is right, Elkan," he added, "so stubborn you are."
+
+"What's the matter now?" Elkan asked, and for answer Polatkin handed him
+the paper with his thumb pressed against a paragraph as follows:
+
+    Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and Mrs.
+    Henry D. Feldman, Miss Hortense Feldman, and Mr. Jacob
+    Scharley were guests of Mr. Leon Sammet at a Chinese Lantern
+    Dinner this evening given in the Hanging Gardens of the New
+    Salisbury.
+
+"I thought it would be at the least an oitermobile ride," Polatkin said
+in melancholy tones, "but with that sucker all he could do is stealing a
+competitor's idees. B. Gans gives Scharley a dinner and Leon Sammet is
+got to do it, too, _mit_ the same guests and everything."
+
+"Even to Feldman's sister already," Scheikowitz added, "which it must be
+that Feldman is trying to marry her off to Scharley even if he would be
+a widower _mit_ two sons in college. She's a highly educated young lady,
+too."
+
+"Young she ain't no longer," Polatkin interrupted, "and if a girl
+couldn't cook even a pertater, understand me, it don't make no
+difference if she couldn't cook it in six languages, y'understand,
+Feldman would got a hard job marrying her off _anyhow_."
+
+Scheikowitz made an impatient gesture with both hands, suggestive of a
+dog swimming.
+
+"That's neither here or there, Polatkin," he said. "The point is Elkan
+should go right uptown and _geschwind_ pack his grip and be down at the
+Salisbury this afternoon yet, if Yetta would be ready _oder_ not. We
+couldn't afford to let the ground grow under our feet and that's all
+there is _to_ it."
+
+Thus, shortly after six o'clock that evening, Elkan and Yetta alighted
+from the 5:10 special from Flatbush Avenue and picked their way through
+a marital throng that kissed and embraced with as much ardour as though
+the reunion had concluded a parting of ten years instead of ten hours.
+At length the happy couples dragged themselves apart and crowded into
+the automobile 'bus of the New Salisbury, sweeping Elkan and Yetta
+before them, so that when the 'bus arrived at the hotel Elkan and Yetta
+were the last to descend.
+
+A burly yellow-faced porter seized the baggage with the contemptuous
+manner that Ham nowadays evinces toward Shem, and Elkan and Yetta
+followed him through the luxurious social hall to the desk. There the
+room clerk immediately shot out a three-carat diamond ring, and when
+Elkan's eyes became accustomed to the glare he saw that beneath it was a
+fat white hand extended in cordial greeting.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Williams," Elkan cried, as he shook hands
+fervently. "Ain't you in the Pitt House, Sarahcuse, no more?"
+
+"I'm taking a short vacation in a sensible manner, Mr. Lubliner," Mr.
+Williams replied in the rounded tones that only truly great actors,
+clergymen, and room clerks possess. "Which means that I am interested in
+a real-estate development near here, and I'm combining business with
+pleasure for a couple of months."
+
+Elkan nodded admiringly.
+
+"You got the right idee, Mr. Williams," he said. "This is my wife, Mr.
+Williams."
+
+The room clerk acknowledged the introduction with a bow that combined
+the grace of Paderewski and the dignity of Prince Florizel in just the
+right proportions.
+
+"Delighted to know you, Madame," he declared. "Have you made
+reservations, Mr. Lubliner?"
+
+Elkan shook his head and after an exchange of confidential murmurs Mr.
+Williams assigned them a room with an ocean view, from which they
+emerged less than half an hour later to await on the veranda the welcome
+sound of the dinner gong. A buzz of animated conversation filled the
+air, above which rose a little shriek of welcome as Mrs. Gans rushed
+toward Yetta with outstretched hands.
+
+"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried. "I didn't know you was coming down
+here."
+
+They exchanged the kiss of utter peace that persists between the kin of
+highgrade and popular-priced manufacturers.
+
+"I read about you in the newspapers," Yetta said, as they seated
+themselves in adjoining rockers, and Mrs. Gans flashed all the gems of
+her right hand in a gesture of deprecation.
+
+"I tell you," she said, "it makes me sick here the way people carries
+on. Honestly, Yetta, I don't see Barney only at meals and when he's
+getting dressed. Everything is Mister _Scharley_, Mister _Scharley_. You
+would think he was H. P. Morgan _oder_ the Czar of _Russland_ from the
+fuss everybody makes over him."
+
+Yetta nodded in sympathy and suddenly Mrs. Gans clutched the arm of her
+chair.
+
+"There he is now," she hissed.
+
+"Where?" Yetta asked, and Mrs. Gans nodded toward a doorway at the end
+of the veranda, on which in electric bulbs was outlined the legend,
+"Hanging Gardens." Yetta descried a short, stout personage between fifty
+and sixty years of age, arrayed in a white flannel suit of which the
+coat and waistcoat were cut in imitation of an informal evening costume.
+On his arm there drooped a lady no longer in her twenties, and from the
+V-shaped opening in the rear of her dinner gown a medical student could
+have distinguished with more or less certainty the bones of the cervical
+vertebræ, the right and left scapula and the articulation of each with
+the humerus and clavicle.
+
+"That's Miss Feldman," Mrs. Gans whispered. "She's refined like
+anything, Yetta, and she talks French better as a waiter already."
+
+At this juncture the dinner gong sounded and Yetta rejoined Elkan in the
+social hall.
+
+"What is the trouble you are looking so _rachmonos_, Elkan?" she asked
+as she pressed his arm consolingly.
+
+"To-night it's Sol Klinger," Elkan replied. "He's got a dinner on in the
+Hanging Gardens for Scharley, Yetta, and I guess I wouldn't get a
+look-in even."
+
+"You've got six weeks before you," Yetta assured him, "and you
+shouldn't worry. Something is bound to turn up, ain't it?"
+
+She gave his arm another little caress and they proceeded immediately to
+the dining room, where the string orchestra and the small talk of two
+hundred and fifty guests strove vainly for the ascendency in one
+maddening cacophony. It was nearly eight o'clock before Elkan and Yetta
+arose from the table and repaired to the veranda whose rockers were
+filled with a chattering throng.
+
+"Let's get out of this," Elkan said, and they descended the veranda
+steps to the sidewalk. Five minutes later they were seated on a remote
+bench of the boardwalk, and until nine o'clock they watched the beauty
+of the moon and sea, which is constant even at Egremont Beach. When they
+rose to go Yetta noticed for the first time a shawl-clad figure on the
+adjacent bench, and immediately a pair of keen eyes flashed from a face
+whose plump contentment was framed in a jet black wig of an early
+Victorian design.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Why, if it ain't Mrs. Lesengeld," Yetta exclaimed and the next moment
+she enfolded the little woman in a cordial embrace.
+
+"You grown a _bisschen_ fat, Yetta," Mrs. Lesengeld said. "I wouldn't
+knew you at all, if you ain't speaking to me first."
+
+"This is my husband, Mrs. Lesengeld--Mr. Lubliner," Yetta went on. "He
+heard me talk often from you, Mrs. Lesengeld, and what a time you got it
+learning me I should speak English yet."
+
+Elkan beamed at Mrs. Lesengeld.
+
+"And not only _that_," he said, "but also how good to her you was when
+she was sick already. There ain't many boarding-house ladies like you,
+Mrs. Lesengeld."
+
+"And there ain't so many boarders like Yetta, neither," Mrs. Lesengeld
+retorted.
+
+"And do you got a boarding-house down here, Mrs. Lesengeld?" Yetta
+asked.
+
+"I've gone out of the boarding-house business," Mrs. Lesengeld replied,
+"which you know what a trouble I got it _mit_ that lowlife Lesengeld,
+_olav hasholom_, after he failed in the pants business, how I am working
+my fingers to the bones already keeping up his insurings in the I. O. M.
+A. and a couple thousand dollars in a company already."
+
+Yetta nodded.
+
+"Which I got my reward at last," Mrs. Lesengeld concluded. "Quick
+diabetes, Yetta, and so I bought for ten thousand dollars a mortgage,
+understand me, and my son-in-law allows me also four dollars a week
+which I got it a whole lot easier nowadays."
+
+"And are you staying down here?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Me, I got for twenty dollars a month a little house _mit_ two rooms
+only, right on the sea, which they call it there Bognor Park. You must
+come over and see us, Yetta. Such a _gemütlich_ little house we got it
+you wouldn't believe at all, and every Sunday my daughter Fannie and my
+son-in-law comes down and stays with us."
+
+"And are you going all the way home alone?" Elkan asked anxiously.
+
+"Fannie is staying down with me to-night. She meets me on the corner of
+the Boulevard, where the car stops, at ten o'clock already," Mrs.
+Lesengeld replied.
+
+"Then you must got to come right along with us," Elkan said, "and we'll
+see you would get there on time."
+
+"Where are you going?" Mrs. Lesengeld asked.
+
+"Over to the Salisbury," Elkan answered, and Mrs. Lesengeld sank back on
+to the bench.
+
+"_Geh weg_, Mr. Lubliner," she cried. "I am now fifty years old and I
+was never in such a place in my life, especially which under this shawl
+I got only a plain cotton dress yet."
+
+Elkan flapped his hand reassuringly.
+
+"A fine-looking lady like you, Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, as he seized
+her hands and drew her gently to her feet, "looks well in anything."
+
+"And you'll have a water ice in the Hanging Gardens with us," Yetta
+persisted as she slipped a hand under Mrs. Lesengeld's shawl and pressed
+her arm affectionately. Ten minutes later they arrived at the stoop of
+the New Salisbury, to the scandalization and horror of the three score
+A to F first credit manufacturers and their wives. Moreover,
+approximately a hundred and fifty karats of blue white diamonds rose and
+fell indignantly on the bosoms of twenty or thirty credit-high
+retailers' wives, when the little, toilworn woman with her shawl and
+ritualistic wig entered the Hanging Gardens chatting pleasantly with
+Elkan and Yetta; and as they seated themselves at a table the buzz of
+conversation hushed into silence and then roared out anew with an
+accompaniment of titters.
+
+At the next table Sol Klinger plied with liquors and cigars the
+surviving guests of his dinner, and when Elkan nodded to him, he ignored
+the salutation with a blank stare. He raged inwardly, not so much at
+Elkan's invasion of that fashionable precinct as at the circumstance
+that his guest of honour had departed with Miss Feldman for a stroll on
+the boardwalk some ten minutes previously, and he was therefore unable
+to profit by Elkan's _faux pas_.
+
+"The feller ain't got no manners at all," he said to Max Koblin, who
+nodded gloomily.
+
+"It's getting terrible mixed down here, Sol," Max commented as he
+hiccoughed away a slight flatulency. "Honestly if you want to be in
+striking distance of your business, Sol, so's you could come in and out
+every day, you got to rub shoulders with everybody, ain't it?"
+
+He soothed his outraged sensibilities with a great cloud of smoke that
+drifted over Elkan's table, and Mrs. Lesengeld broke into a fit of
+coughing which caused a repetition of the titters.
+
+"And do you still make that brown stewed fish sweet and sour, Mrs.
+Lesengeld?" Yetta asked by way of putting the old lady at her ease.
+
+"Make it!" Mrs. Lesengeld answered. "I should say I do. Why you wouldn't
+believe the way my son-in-law is crazy about it. We got it every Sunday
+regular, and I tell you what I would do, Yetta."
+
+She laid her hand on Yetta's arm and her face broke into a thousand tiny
+wrinkles of hospitality.
+
+"You should come Friday to lunch sure," she declared, "and we would got
+some brown stewed fish sweet and sour and a good plate of _Bortch_ to
+begin with."
+
+Sol Klinger had been leaning back in his chair in an effort to overhear
+their conversation, and at this announcement he broke into a broad
+guffaw, which ran around the table after he had related the cause of it
+to his guests. Indeed, so much did Sol relish the joke that with it he
+entertained the occupants of about a dozen seats in the smoking car of
+the 8:04 express the next morning, and he was so full of it when he
+entered Hammersmith's Restaurant the following noon that he could not
+forego the pleasure of visiting Marcus Polatkin's table and relating it
+to Polatkin himself.
+
+Polatkin heard him through without a smile and when at its conclusion
+Klinger broke into a hysterical appreciation of his own humour, Polatkin
+shrugged.
+
+"I suppose, Klinger," he said, "your poor mother, _olav hasholom_,
+didn't wear a _sheitel_ neither, ain't it?"
+
+"My mother, _olav hasholom_, would got more sense as to butt in to a
+place like that," Klinger retorted.
+
+"Even if you wouldn't of been ashamed to have taken her there, Klinger,"
+he added.
+
+Klinger flushed angrily.
+
+"That ain't here or there, Polatkin," he said. "You should ought to put
+your partner wise, Polatkin, that he shouldn't go dragging in an old
+_Bubé_ into a place like the Salisbury and talking such nonsense like
+brown stewed fish sweet and sour."
+
+He broke into another laugh at the recollection of it--a laugh that was
+louder but hardly as unforced as the first one.
+
+"What's the matter _mit_ brown stewed fish sweet and sour, Klinger?"
+Polatkin asked. "I eat already a lot of _a-la's_ and _en cazzerolls_ in
+a whole lot of places just so _grossartig_ as the Salisbury, understand
+me, and I would _schenck_ you a million of 'em for one plate of brown
+stewed fish sweet and sour like your mother made it from _zu Hause_
+yet."
+
+"But what for an interest does a merchant like Scharley got to hear such
+things," Klinger protested lamely. "Honestly, I was ashamed for your
+partner's sake to hear such a talk going on there."
+
+"Did Scharley got any objections?" Polatkin asked.
+
+"Fortunately the feller had gone away from the table," Klinger replied,
+"so he didn't hear it at all."
+
+"Well," Polatkin declared, taking up his knife and fork as a signal that
+the matter was closed, "ask him and see if he wouldn't a whole lot
+sooner eat some good brown stewed fish sweet and sour as a Chinese
+Lantern Dinner--whatever for a bunch of poison that might be,
+Klinger--and don't you forget it."
+
+Nevertheless when Polatkin returned to his place of business he
+proceeded at once to Elkan's office.
+
+"Say, lookyhere Elkan," he demanded, "what is all this I hear about you
+and Yetta taking an old _Bubé_ into the Hanging Gardens already, and
+making from her laughing stocks out of the whole place."
+
+Elkan looked up calmly.
+
+"It's a free country, Mr. Polatkin," he said, "and so long as I pay my
+board _mit_ U. S. money, already I would take in there any of my friends
+I would please."
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin expostulated, "but I seen Klinger around at
+Hammersmith's and he says----"
+
+"Klinger!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, you could say to Klinger for me, Mr.
+Polatkin, that if he don't like the way I am acting around there,
+understand me, he should just got the nerve to tell it me to my face
+yet."
+
+Polatkin flapped the air with his right hand.
+
+"Never mind Klinger, Elkan," he said. "You got to consider you shouldn't
+make a fool of yourself before Scharley and all them people. How do you
+expect you should get such a merchant as Scharley he should accept from
+you entertainment like a Chinese Lantern Dinner, if you are acting that
+way?"
+
+"Chinese Lantern Dinner be damned!" Elkan retorted. "When we got the
+right goods at the right price, Mr. Polatkin, why should we got to give
+a merchant dinners yet to convince him of it?"
+
+"Dinners is nothing, Elkan," Polatkin interrupted with a wave of his
+hand. "You got to give him dyspepsha even, the way business is
+nowadays."
+
+"_Aber_ I was talking to the room clerk last night," Elkan went on, "and
+he tells me so sure as you are standing there, Mr. Polatkin, a Chinese
+Lantern Dinner would stand us in twenty dollars a head."
+
+"Twenty dollars a head!" Polatkin exclaimed and indulged himself in a
+low whistle.
+
+"So even if I _would_ be staying at the Salisbury, understand me," Elkan
+said, "I ain't going to throw away our money out of the window exactly."
+
+"_Aber_ how are you going to get the feller down here, if you wouldn't
+entertain him or something?"
+
+Elkan slapped his chest with a great show of confidence.
+
+"Leave that to _me_, Mr. Polatkin," he said, and put on his hat
+preparatory to going out to lunch.
+
+Nevertheless when he descended from his room at the New Salisbury that
+evening and prepared to take a turn on the boardwalk before dinner, his
+confidence evaporated at the coolness of his reception by the assembled
+guests of the hotel. Leon Sammet cut him dead, and even B. Gans greeted
+him with half jovial reproach.
+
+"Well, Elkan," he said, "going to entertain any more _fromme Leute_ in
+the Garden to-night?"
+
+"Seemingly, Mr. Gans," Elkan said, "it was a big shock to everybody here
+to see for the first time an old lady wearing a _sheitel_. I suppose
+nobody here never seen it before, ain't it?"
+
+B. Gans put a fatherly hand on Elkan's shoulder.
+
+"I'll tell yer, Elkan," he said, "if I would be such a _rosher_,
+understand me, that I would hold it against you because you ain't
+forgetting an old friend, like this here lady must be, y'understand, I
+should never sell a dollar's worth more goods so long as I live, _aber_
+if Klinger and Sammet would start kidding you in front of Scharley,
+understand me, it would look bad."
+
+"Why would it look bad, Mr. Gans?" Elkan broke in.
+
+"Because it don't do nobody no good to have funny stories told about
+'em, except an actor _oder_ a politician, Elkan," Gans replied as the
+dinner gong began to sound, "which if a customer wouldn't take _you_
+seriously, he wouldn't take your goods seriously neither, Elkan, and
+that's all there is _to_ it."
+
+He smiled reassuringly as he walked toward the dining room and left
+Elkan a prey to most uncomfortable reflections, which did not abate when
+he overheard Klinger and Sammet hail Gans at the end of the veranda.
+
+"Well, Mr. Gans," Klinger said with a sidelong glance at Elkan, "what
+are you going to eat to-night--brown stewed fish sweet _und_ sour?"
+
+Elkan could not distinguish B. Gans' reply, but he scowled fiercely at
+the trio as they entered the hotel lobby, and he still frowned as he
+sauntered stolidly after them to await Yetta in the social hall.
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Lubliner," the room clerk asked when Elkan
+passed the desk. "Aren't you feeling well to-day?"
+
+"I feel all right, Mr. Williams," Elkan replied, "but this here place is
+getting on my nerves. It's too much like a big hotel out on the road
+somewheres. Everybody looks like they would got something to sell,
+understand me, and was doing their level best to sell it."
+
+"You're quite right, Mr. Lubliner," the clerk commented, "and that's the
+reason why I came down here. In fact," he added with a guilty smile, "I
+made a date to show some of my lots to-morrow to a prospective
+customer."
+
+At this juncture a porter appeared bearing a basket of champagne and
+followed by two waiters with ice buckets, and the room clerk jerked his
+head sideways in the direction toward which the little procession had
+disappeared.
+
+"That's for Suite 27, the Feldmans' rooms," he explained. "Miss Feldman
+is giving a little chafing-dish dinner there to Mr. Scharley and a few
+friends."
+
+He accepted with a graceful nod Elkan's proffered cigar.
+
+"Which goes to show that it's as you say, Mr. Lubliner," he concluded.
+"If you have drygoods, real estate or marriageable relatives to dispose
+of, Mr. Lubliner, Egremont's the place to market them."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Yes, Mr. Williams," said Jacob Scharley at two o'clock the following
+afternoon as they trudged along the sands of Bognor Park, one of
+Egremont Beach's new developments, "I was trying to figure out how these
+here Chinese Lantern Dinners stands in a sucker like Leon Sammet twenty
+dollars a head, when by the regular bill of fare it comes exactly to
+seven dollars and fifty cents including drinks."
+
+"You can't figure on a special dinner according to the prices on the
+regular bill of fare," said Mr. Williams, the room clerk, who in
+his quality of real-estate operator was attempting to shift the
+conversation from hotel matters to the topic of seaside lots. "Why, ice
+cream is twenty-five cents on the bill of fare, but at one of those
+dinners it's served in imitation Chinese lanterns, which makes it worth
+double at least."
+
+"For my part," Scharley broke in, "they could serve it in kerosene
+lamps, Mr. Williams, because I never touch the stuff."
+
+"It's a parallel case to lots here and lots on Mizzentop Beach, which is
+the next beach below," Williams continued. "Here we have a boardwalk
+extending right down to our property, and we are getting seven hundred
+and fifty dollars a lot, while there, with practically the same transit
+facilities but no boardwalk or electric lights, they get only four
+hundred and----"
+
+"_Aber_ you take a piece of tenderloin steak a half an inch thick and
+about the size of a price ticket, understand me," Scharley interrupted,
+"and even if you _would_ fix it up with half a cent's worth of peas and
+spill on it a bottle cough medicine and glue, _verstehst du mich_, how
+could you make it figure up more as a dollar and a quarter, Mr.
+Williams? Then the clams, Mr. Williams, must got to have inside of 'em
+at the very least a half a karat pink pearl in 'em, otherwise
+thirty-five cents would be big yet."
+
+"Very likely," Mr. Williams agreed as a shade of annoyance passed over
+his well modelled features, "but just now, Mr. Scharley, I'm anxious to
+show you the advantage of these lots of ours, and you won't mind if I
+don't pursue the topic of Chinese Lantern Dinners any farther."
+
+"I'm only too glad not to talk about it at all," Scharley agreed. "In
+fact if any one else tries to ring in another one of them dinners on me,
+Mr. Williams, I'll turn him down on the spot. Shaving-dish parties
+neither, which I assure you, Mr. Williams, even if Miss Feldman would be
+an elegant, refined young lady, understand me, she fixes something in
+that shaving dish of hers last night, understand me, which I thought I
+was poisoned already."
+
+Williams deemed it best to ignore this observation and therefore made no
+comment.
+
+"But anyhow," Scharley concluded as they approached a little wooden
+shack on the margin of the water, "I'm sick and tired of things to eat,
+so let's talk about something else."
+
+Having delivered this ultimatum, his footsteps lagged and he stopped
+short as he began to sniff the air like a hunting dog.
+
+"M-m-m-m!" he exclaimed. "What _is_ that?"
+
+"That's a two-room shed we rent for twenty dollars a month," Williams
+explained. "We have eight of them and they help considerably to pay our
+office rent over in New York."
+
+"Sure I know," Scharley agreed, "_aber_, m-m-m-m!"
+
+Once more he expanded his nostrils to catch a delicious fragrance that
+emanated from the little shack.
+
+"_Aber_, who lives there?" he insisted, and Mr. Williams could not
+restrain a laugh.
+
+"Why, it's that old lady with the wig that Lubliner brought over to the
+hotel the other night," he replied. "I thought I saw Sol Klinger telling
+you about it yesterday."
+
+"He started to tell me something about it," Scharley said, "when Barney
+Gans butted in and wouldn't let him. What _was_ it about this here old
+lady?"
+
+"There isn't anything to it particularly," Williams replied, "excepting
+that it seemed a little strange to see an old lady in a shawl and one of
+those religious wigs in the Hanging Gardens, and there was something
+else Klinger told me about Mrs. Lubliner and the old lady talking about
+brown stewed fish sweet and----"
+
+At this juncture Scharley snapped his fingers excitedly.
+
+"Brown stewed fish sweet and sour!" he almost shouted. "I ain't smelled
+it since I was a boy already."
+
+He wagged his head and again murmured, "M-m-m-m-m!"
+
+Suddenly he received an inspiration.
+
+"How much did you say them shanties rents for, Mr. Williams?" he said.
+
+"Twenty dollars a month," Williams replied.
+
+"You don't tell me!" Scharley exclaimed solemnly. "I wonder if I could
+give a look at the inside of one of 'em--this one here, for instance."
+
+"I don't think there'd be any objection," Williams said, and no sooner
+were the words out of his mouth than Scharley started off on a half trot
+for the miniature veranda on the ocean side of the little house.
+
+"Perhaps I'd better inquire first if it's convenient for them to let us
+in now," Williams said, as he bounded after his prospective customer and
+knocked gently on the doorjamb. There was a sound of scurrying feet
+within, and at length the door was opened a few inches and the bewigged
+head of Mrs. Lesengeld appeared in the crack.
+
+"_Nu_," she said, "what _is_ it?"
+
+"I represent the Bognor Park Company," Williams replied, "and if it's
+perfectly convenient for you, Mrs.----"
+
+"Lesengeld," she added.
+
+"Used to was Lesengeld & Schein in the pants business?" Scharley asked,
+and Mrs. Lesengeld nodded.
+
+"Why, Lesengeld and me was lodge brothers together in the I. O. M. A.
+before I went out to the Pacific Coast years ago already," Scharley
+declared. "I guess he's often spoken to you about Jake Scharley, ain't
+it?"
+
+"Maybe he did, Mr. Scharley, _aber_ he's dead _schon_ two years since
+already," Mrs. Lesengeld said, and then added the pious hope, "_olav
+hasholom_."
+
+"You don't say so," Scharley cried in shocked accents. "Why, he wasn't
+no older as me already."
+
+"Fifty-three when he died," Mrs. Lesengeld said. "Quick diabetes, Mr.
+Scharley. Wouldn't you step inside?"
+
+Scharley and Williams passed into the front room, which was used as a
+living room and presented an appearance of remarkable neatness and
+order. In the corner stood an oil stove on which two saucepans bubbled
+and steamed, and as Mrs. Lesengeld turned to follow her visitors one of
+the saucepans boiled over.
+
+"Oo-ee!" she exclaimed. "_Mein fisch._"
+
+"Go ahead and tend to it," Scharley cried excitedly; "don't mind us. It
+might get burned already."
+
+He watched her anxiously while she turned down the flame.
+
+"Brown stewed fish sweet and sour, ain't it?" he asked, and Mrs.
+Lesengeld nodded as she lowered the flame to just the proper height.
+
+"I _thought_ it was," Scharley continued. "I ain't smelled it in forty
+years already. My poor mother, _olav hasholom_, used to fix it something
+elegant."
+
+He heaved a sigh as he sat down on a nearby campstool.
+
+"This smells just like it," he added. In front of the window a table
+had been placed, spread with a spotless white cloth and laid for two
+persons, and Scharley glanced at it hastily and turned his head away.
+
+"Forty years ago come next _Shevuos_ I ain't tasted it already," he
+concluded.
+
+Mrs. Lesengeld coloured slightly and clutched at her apron in an agony
+of embarrassment.
+
+"The fact is we only got three knives and forks," she said, "otherwise
+there is plenty fish for everybody."
+
+"Why, we just had our lunch at the hotel before we started," Mr.
+Williams said.
+
+"_You_ did," Scharley corrected him reproachfully, "_aber_ I ain't
+hardly touched a thing since last night. That shaving-dish party pretty
+near killed me, already."
+
+"Well, then, we got just enough knives and forks," Mrs. Lesengeld cried.
+"Do you like maybe also _Bortch_, Mr. Scharley?"
+
+"_Bortch!_" Mr. Scharley exclaimed, and his voice trembled with
+excitement. "Do you mean a sort of soup _mit_ beets and--and--all that?"
+
+"That's it," Mrs. Lesengeld replied, and Scharley nodded his head
+slowly.
+
+"Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, "would you believe me, it's so long since I
+tasted that stuff I didn't remember such a thing exists even."
+
+"And do you like it?" Mrs. Lesengeld repeated.
+
+"Do I _like_ it!" Scharley cried. "_Um Gottes Willen_, Mrs. Lesengeld, I
+_love_ it."
+
+"Then sit right down," she said heartily. "Everything is ready."
+
+"If you don't mind, Mr. Scharley," Williams interrupted, "I'll wait for
+you at the office of the company. It's only a couple of hundred yards
+down the beach."
+
+"Go as far as you like, Mr. Williams," Scharley said as he tucked a
+napkin between his collar and chin. "I'll be there when I get through."
+
+After Mrs. Lesengeld had ushered out Mr. Williams, she proceeded to the
+door of the rear room and knocked vigorously.
+
+"Don't be foolish, Yetta, and come on out," she called. "It ain't nobody
+but an old friend of my husband's."
+
+A moment later Yetta entered the room, and Scharley scrambled to his
+feet, a knife grasped firmly in one hand, and bobbed his head cordially.
+
+"Pleased to meetcher," he said.
+
+"This is Mrs. Lubliner, Mr. Scharley," Mrs. Lesengeld said.
+
+"Don't make no difference, Mrs. Lesengeld," Scharley assured her, "any
+friend of yours is a friend of mine, so you should sit right down, Mrs.
+Lubliner, on account we are all ready to begin."
+
+Then followed a moment of breathless silence while Mrs. Lesengeld dished
+up the beetroot soup, and when she placed a steaming bowlful in front
+of Scharley he immediately plunged his spoon into it. A moment later he
+lifted his eyes to the ceiling.
+
+"Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What an elegant soup!"
+
+Mrs. Lesengeld blushed, and after the fashion of a _cordon bleu_ the
+world over, she began to decry her own handiwork.
+
+"It should ought to got just a _Bisschen_ more pepper into it," she
+murmured.
+
+"_Oser a Stück_," Scharley declared solemnly, as he consumed the
+contents of his bowl in great gurgling inhalations. "There's only one
+thing I got to say against it."
+
+He scraped his bowl clean and handed it to Mrs. Lesengeld.
+
+"And that is," he concluded, "that it makes me eat so much of it,
+understand me, I'm scared I wouldn't got no room for the brown stewed
+fish."
+
+Again he emptied the bowl, and at last the moment arrived when the brown
+stewed fish smoked upon the table. Mrs. Lesengeld helped Scharley to a
+heaping plateful, and both she and Yetta watched him intently, as with
+the deftness of a Japanese juggler he balanced approximately a half
+pound of the succulent fish on the end of his fork. For nearly a minute
+he blew on it, and when it reached an edible temperature he opened wide
+his mouth and thrust the fork load home. Slowly and with great smacking
+of his moist lips he chewed away, and then his eyes closed and he laid
+down his knife and fork.
+
+"_Gan-éden!_" he declared as he reached across the table and shook hands
+with Mrs. Lesengeld.
+
+"Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, "my mother _olav hasholom_ was a good _cook_,
+understand me, _aber_ you are a _good cook_, Mrs. Lesengeld, and that's
+all there is to it."
+
+Forthwith he resumed his knife and fork, and with only two pauses for
+the necessary replenishments, he polished off three platefuls of the
+fish, after which he heaved a great sigh of contentment, and as a
+prelude to conversation he lit one of B. Gans' choicest cigars.
+
+"There's some dessert coming," Mrs. Lesengeld said.
+
+"Dessert after this, Mrs. Lesengeld," he replied, through clouds of
+contented smoke, "would be a sacrilege, ain't it?"
+
+"That's something I couldn't make at all," Mrs. Lesengeld admitted. "All
+I got it here is some _frimsel kugel_."
+
+"_Frimsel kugel!_" Scharley exclaimed, laying down his cigar. "Why ain't
+you told me that before?"
+
+A quarter of an hour later he again lighted his cigar, and this time he
+settled back in his campstool for conversation, while Mrs. Lesengeld
+busied herself about the oil stove. Instantly, however, he straightened
+up as another and more delicious odour assailed his nostrils, for Mrs.
+Lesengeld made coffee by a mysterious process, that conserved in the
+flavour of the decoction the delicious fragrance of the freshly ground
+bean.
+
+"And are you staying down here with Mrs. Lesengeld?" Scharley asked
+Yetta after he had finished his third cup.
+
+"In this little place here?" Mrs. Lesengeld cried indignantly. "Well, I
+should say not. She's stopping at the Salisbury, ain't you, Yetta?"
+
+Yetta nodded and sighed.
+
+"It ain't so comfortable as here," she said.
+
+"I bet yer," Scharley added fervently. "I am stopping there too, and
+them Chinese Lantern Dinners which they are putting up!"
+
+He waved his hand eloquently.
+
+"Poison ain't no word for it, Missus Er----" he concluded lamely as he
+tried to remember Yetta's name, which after so much soup, fish and
+coffee had completely escaped him.
+
+"Lubliner," Yetta said. "I guess you know my husband, Mr. Scharley,
+Elkan Lubliner of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company."
+
+Scharley struck the table with his open hand.
+
+"Zoitenly, I do," he cried. "Why, he is the feller which Sol Klinger is
+telling me about."
+
+Yetta coloured slightly and bit her lips.
+
+"What did he tell you about him?" she asked.
+
+"Why," Scharley said, drawing vigorously on his imagination, "he says to
+me what a bright young feller he is and----"
+
+Here he reflected that in a highly competitive trade like the cloak and
+suit business this statement sounded a trifle exaggerated.
+
+"And," he went on hurriedly, "he told me how he saw you and him with
+Mrs. Lesengeld up at the hotel the other evening, and I says, 'What,' I
+says, 'you don't mean Mrs. Lesengeld whose husband used to was in the
+pants business?' and he said he didn't know, 'because,' I says, 'if
+that's the same party,' I says, 'I would like for her to come up to the
+hotel and take dinner with me some time,' I says."
+
+He smiled cordially at Mrs. Lesengeld.
+
+"And I hope you will," he concluded earnestly, "to-morrow night sure."
+
+Mrs. Lesengeld shook her head.
+
+"I ain't fixed to go to no swell hotel," she demurred. "I ain't got no
+clothes nor nothing."
+
+"What do you care about clothes, Mrs. Lesengeld?" Scharley protested.
+
+"And besides," Yetta said with sudden inspiration, "we could get up a
+little chafing-dish dinner in our room, ain't it?"
+
+"For that matter we could do it in my room," Scharley cried, as there
+sounded a vigorous knocking on the outside of the door leading to the
+veranda, and a moment later Williams entered.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Scharley," he said, "but I have to be getting back to
+the hotel and if you're quite through we'll go and look at that map of
+the lots down in the office."
+
+Scharley waved his hand airily.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Williams," he said, "and drink the cup of coffee of your
+life."
+
+He handed the room clerk a cigar.
+
+"I could promise you one thing, Mr. Williams," he went on, "I got a
+great idee of buying some lots here and building a little house on 'em,
+_gemütlich_ just like this, and if I do, Williams, I would take them
+lots from you for certain sure. Only one thing, Williams, I want you to
+do me for a favour."
+
+He paused and puffed carefully on his cigar.
+
+"I want you to pick me out a couple good vacant rooms on the top floor
+of the Salisbury for Saturday night," he said, "where I could give a
+shaving-dish party, so if any of the guests of the hotel objects,
+understand me, they wouldn't get the smell of the _Bortch_, coffee, and
+brown stewed fish sweet and sour."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+On the following Wednesday afternoon Elkan sat at his desk, while Marcus
+Polatkin and Philip Scheikowitz leaned over his left shoulder and right
+shoulder respectively, and watched carefully the result of a pencilled
+addition which Elkan was making.
+
+"With them crêpe meteors," Elkan said at last, "Scharley's order comes
+to four thousand three hundred dollars."
+
+Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in unison.
+
+"It ain't bad for a start," Scheikowitz volunteered as he sat down and
+lit a cigar.
+
+"For a finish, neither," Polatkin added, "so far as that's concerned."
+
+Elkan wheeled round in his chair and grinned delightedly.
+
+"And you ought to seen Sol Klinger when we walked into the Hanging
+Gardens," he said. "He got white like a sheet. It tickled Scharley to
+death, and he went right to work and put his arm through Mrs.
+Lesengeld's arm and took her right down to the middle table, like she
+would be a queen already."
+
+"Sure," Scheikowitz agreed, "what does a real merchant like Scharley
+care if she would wear a _sheitel oder_ not, so long as she is a lady
+already."
+
+Elkan's grin spread until it threatened to engulf his ears.
+
+"She didn't wear no _sheitel_," he said.
+
+"What!" Scheikowitz cried. "I didn't think a religious woman like Mrs.
+Lesengeld would take off her _sheitel_ at _her_ time of life."
+
+"What d'ye mean _her_ time of life?" Elkan cried indignantly. "Friday
+afternoon yet before Yetta went home from her place there at Bognor
+Park, Mrs. Lesengeld says to her that a widder don't got to wear no
+_sheitel_ if she don't want to, which if you think, Mr. Scheikowitz,
+that fifty-three is a time of life, understand me, I think differencely,
+especially when I seen her with her hair all fixed up on Saturday
+night."
+
+"Who fixed it?" Marcus Polatkin asked, and Elkan grinned again.
+
+"Who d'ye suppose?" he replied. "Why, her and Yetta spent pretty near an
+hour up in our room before they got through, and I tell yer with the way
+they turned up the hem and fixed the sleeves of one of Yetta's black
+dresses, it fitted her like it would be made for her."
+
+"And did she look good in it?" Scheikowitz inquired.
+
+"Did she look good in it!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, you can just bet your
+life, Mr. Polatkin, that there Hortense Feldman wasn't one, two, six
+with her. In fact, Mr. Polatkin, you would take your oath already that
+there wasn't two years between 'em. I had a good chance to compare 'em
+on account when we went down to the Hanging Gardens, understand me, Miss
+Feldman sits at the next table already."
+
+Polatkin smiled broadly.
+
+"She must have had a big _Schreck_," he commented. "Why, B. Gans told me
+last Saturday that Henry D. Feldman thinks that he's going to fix the
+whole thing up between her and Scharley."
+
+"I guess he ain't got that idee no longer," Elkan declared, "because
+everybody in Egremont knows Scharley was down visiting Mrs. Lesengeld
+over Sunday, and takes her and her daughter Fannie and Fannie's husband
+out oitermobiling."
+
+"You don't tell me?" Scheikowitz exclaimed.
+
+"Furthermore, on Monday," Elkan continued, "he goes down there to dinner
+with me and Yetta, and Mrs. Lesengeld cooks some _Tebeches_ which fairly
+melts in your mouth already."
+
+He smacked his lips over the recollection.
+
+"Yesterday, as you know," he went on, "I took Scharley and Mrs.
+Lesengeld over to Coney Island in an oitermobile and to-night yet we are
+all going sailing on Egremont Bay."
+
+Polatkin rose to his feet and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well," he said, "why not? They're about the same age."
+
+"He's two years older as she is," Elkan declared, "and I bet yer they
+wouldn't lose no time. It'll be next fall sure."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+One busy morning three months later Elkan ripped open a heavy cream-laid
+envelope and drew out the following announcement, engraved in shaded
+old English type:
+
+               =Mrs. Fannie Stubin=
+    =has the honor of announcing the marriage=
+                  =of her mother=
+
+              =Mrs. Sarah Lesengeld=
+                       =to=
+               =Mr. Jacob Scharley=
+
+         =On Tuesday the first of October=
+          =at San Francisco, California=
+
+"And what are we going to send them for a present?" Polatkin asked.
+
+Elkan smiled serenely.
+
+"A solid silver chafing dish," he replied without hesitation, "at the
+very least, big enough to hold five pounds of brown stewed fish sweet
+and sour."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Printer's Mark]
+
+THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
+GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Transcriber's Notes:                                               |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | The 1912 edition of this text contains numerous words and phrases  |
+  | with variant spellings. For the most part these variations have    |
+  | been retained to maintain the flavor of the original text, and     |
+  | only obvious spelling and puncuation errors have been corrected,   |
+  | as detailed below. A few changes have also been made with          |
+  | formatting of punctuation for text consistency.                    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | The name of character Kent J. Goldenfein, who is introduced on     |
+  | pages 142-145, changes on page 210 to Kent J. "Goldstein" and      |
+  | subsequently remains "Goldstein" for the remainder of the story.   |
+  | This inconsistency has been retained to match the 1912 text.       |
+  |                                                                    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Typographical Corrections:                                         |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 4. Added close-quotes. ("... Yosel to come to America.")      |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 10. Removed close-quotes. (threshold of the cutting room.)    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 14. Changed question mark to comma. ("He is in Minsk," said   |
+  | young Borrochson.)                                                 |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 27. Changed "de,manded" to "demanded". (Philip demanded.)     |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 27. Changed "jerred" to "jeered". (Philip jeered.)            |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 37. Removed close-quotes. (Polatkin rose to his feet.)        |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 50. Added period. (the tops of her powdered cheeks.)          |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 64. Changed "Scheikowizt" to "Scheikowitz". (Scheikowitz      |
+  | protested.)                                                        |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 87. Changed "Sheikowitz" to "Scheikowitz". ("... Mr.          |
+  | Scheikowitz, so sure as I am sitting here....")                    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 91. Added open-quotes. ("I suppose, Elkan, you are            |
+  | wondering....")                                                    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 92. Changed "Poltakin" to "Polatkin". ("... Flixman's store?" |
+  | Polatkin asked.)                                                   |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 97. Changed "Mr" to "Mr." ("... right buying idee, Mr.        |
+  | Kapfer....")                                                       |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 152. Removed close-quotes. (begun at dinner that evening.)    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 153. Added close-quotes. ("... oder Schwefel & Zucker.")      |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 153. Changed "Kolbin's" to "Koblin's". (Max Koblin's house)   |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 182. Removed end-quotes. (to make further inquiries.)         |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 199. Added close-quotes. ("What time do you eat dinner?")     |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 225. Changed "tansactions" to "transactions". (all            |
+  | real-estate transactions involving)                                |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 241. Added close-quotes. ("... the other fellow's case.")     |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 263. Added period. ("... makes up his mind yet.")             |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 279. Added period. (his high, piping voice.)                  |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 281. Added comma. ("If we didn't," he continued....)          |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 294. Added close-quotes. ("... for a couple of months.")      |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 295. Changed "deprecatio" to "deprecation." (gesture of       |
+  | deprecation.)                                                      |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 312. Corrected open-quotes. ("Brown stewed fish....")         |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 317. Added close-quotes. ("... Scheikowitz & Company.")       |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 320. Added close-quotes. ("... three hundred dollars.")       |
+  |                                                                    |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Elkan Lubliner, American, by Montague Glass
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Elkan Lubliner, American, by Montague Glass.
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Elkan Lubliner, American, by Montague Glass
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Elkan Lubliner, American
+
+Author: Montague Glass
+
+Release Date: December 5, 2008 [EBook #27423]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by C. St. Charleskindt, Suzanne Shell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN</h1>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px">
+<img src="images/elkancover.jpg" width="375" height="600" alt="Cover" title="Cover" />
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1>ELKAN LUBLINER,<br />
+AMERICAN</h1>
+
+<div class="center">
+<span class="smcap">By MONTAGUE GLASS</span>
+<br />
+<br />
+AUTHOR OF<br />
+"Potash &amp; Perlmutter," "Abe &amp; Mawruss,"<br />
+"Object: Matrimony," etc.
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px">
+<img src="images/fructusquamfolia.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="FRUCTUS QUAM FOLIA" title="FRUTCUS QUAM FOLIA" />
+</div>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Garden City&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;New York</span><br />
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &amp; COMPANY<br />
+1912<br />
+
+<hr />
+
+<br /><i>Copyright, 1911, 1912, by</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Curtis Publishing Company</span>
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Copyright, 1912, by</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Doubleday, Page &amp; Co.</span><br />
+<i>All rights reserved, including that of<br />
+translation into foreign languages,<br />
+including the Scandinavian</i>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="lt"><a href="#CHAPTER_ONE">Noblesse Oblige</a></td><td class="rt">3</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="lt"><a href="#CHAPTER_TWO">Appenweier's Account</a></td><td class="rt">33</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="lt"><a href="#CHAPTER_THREE">A Match for Elkan Lubliner</a></td><td class="rt">81</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="lt"><a href="#CHAPTER_FOUR">Highgrade Lines</a></td><td class="rt">147</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="lt"><a href="#CHAPTER_FIVE">One of Esau's Fables</a></td><td class="rt">196</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="lt"><a href="#CHAPTER_SIX">A Tale of Two Jacobean Chairs</a></td><td class="rt">250</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="lt"><a href="#CHAPTER_SEVEN">Sweet and Sour</a></td><td class="rt">288</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><a name="ELKAN_LUBLINER" id="ELKAN_LUBLINER"></a>ELKAN LUBLINER</h1>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_ONE" id="CHAPTER_ONE"></a>CHAPTER ONE</h2>
+<h2>NOBLESSE OBLIGE</h2>
+<h3>POLATKIN &amp; SCHEIKOWITZ CONSERVE THE HONOUR OF THEIR FAMILIES</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"NU, PHILIP," cried Marcus Polatkin to his partner, Philip
+Scheikowitz, as they sat in the showroom of their place of
+business one June morning, "even if the letter does got bad news
+in it you shouldn't take on so hard. When a feller is making good
+over here and the <i>Leute im Russland</i> hears about it, understand
+me, they are all the time sending him bad news. I got in Minsk a
+cousin by the name Pincus Lubliner, understand me, which every
+time he writes me, y'understand, a relation dies on him and he
+wants me I should help pay funeral expenses. You might think I
+was a Free Burial Society, the way that feller acts."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Philip replied as he folded the letter away; "but
+this here is something else again. Mind you, with his own
+landlord he is sitting playing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+cards, Marcus, and comes a pistol
+through the window and the landlord drops dead."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got to do with the landlord?" Polatkin retorted.
+"If it was your brother-in-law was killed that's a difference
+matter entirely; but when a feller is a landlord <i>im Russland</i>,
+understand me, the least he could expect is that he gets killed
+once in a while."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't saying nothing about the landlord," Philip protested,
+"but my brother-in-law writes they are afraid for their lives
+there and I should send 'em quick the passage money for him and
+his boy Yosel to come to America."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin rose to his feet and glared angrily at his partner.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to told me you are going to send that loafer money
+he should come over here and bum round our shop yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean bum round our shop?" Philip demanded. "In the
+first place, Polatkin, I ain't said I am going to send him money,
+y'understand; and, in the second place, if I want to send the
+feller money to come over here, understand me, that's my
+business. Furthermore, when you are coming to call my
+brother-in-law a loafer and a bum, Polatkin, you don't know what
+you are talking about. His <i>Grossvater</i>, <i>olav hasholem</i>, was the
+great Harkavy Rav, Jochannon Borrochson."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard that same tale before," Polatkin inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>rupted. "A feller
+is a <i>Schlemiel</i> and a lowlife which he couldn't support his wife
+and children, understand me, and it always turns out his
+grandfather was a big rabbi in the old country. The way it is
+with me, Scheikowitz, just so soon as I am hearing a feller's
+grandfather was a big rabbi in the old country, Scheikowitz, I
+wouldn't got nothing more to do with him. If he works for you in
+your place, understand me, then he fools away your time telling
+the operators what a big rabbi his grandfather was; and if he's a
+customer, Scheikowitz, and you write him ten days after the
+account is overdue he should pay you what he owes you, instead he
+sends you a check, understand me, he comes down to the store and
+tells you what a big rabbi he's got it for a grandfather. <i>Gott
+sei Dank</i> I ain't got no <i>Rabonim</i> in my family."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Philip cried, "your father would be glad
+supposing he could sign his name even."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"It would <i>oser</i> worry me if my whole family couldn't read or
+write. So long as I can sign my name and the money is in the bank
+to make the check good from five to ten thousand dollars,
+y'understand, what do I care if my grandfather would be deef,
+dumb and blind, Scheikowitz? Furthermore, Scheikowitz, believe me
+I would sooner got one good live business man for a partner,
+Scheikowitz, than a million dead rabbis for a grand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>father, and
+don't you forget it. So if you are going to spend the whole
+morning making a <i>Geschreierei</i> over that letter, Scheikowitz, we
+may as well close up the store <i>und fertig</i>."</p>
+
+<p>With this ultimatum Marcus Polatkin walked rapidly away toward
+the cutting room, while Philip Scheikowitz sought the foreman of
+their manufacturing department and borrowed a copy of a morning
+paper. It was printed in the vernacular of the lower East Side,
+and Philip bore it to his desk, where for more than half an hour
+he alternately consulted the column of steamboat advertising and
+made figures on the back of an envelope. These represented the
+cost of a journey for two persons from Minsk to New York, based
+on Philip's hazy recollection of his own emigration, fifteen
+years before, combined with his experience as travelling salesman
+in the Southern States for a popular-price line of pants.</p>
+
+<p>At length he concluded his calculations and with a heavy sigh he
+put on his hat just as his partner returned from the cutting
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Nu!" Polatkin cried. "Where are you going now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going for a half an hour somewheres," Philip replied.</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" Polatkin demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"What for is my business," Philip answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Your business?" Polatkin exclaimed. "At nine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> o'clock in the
+morning one partner puts on his hat and starts to go out,
+<i>verstehst du</i>, and when the other partner asks him where he is
+going it's his business, <i>sagt er</i>! What do you come down here at
+all for, Scheikowitz?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am coming down here because I got such a partner, Polatkin,
+which if I was to miss one day even I wouldn't know where I stand
+at all," Scheikowitz retorted. "Furthermore, you shouldn't worry
+yourself, Polatkin; for my own sake I would come back just so
+soon as I could."</p>
+
+<p>Despite the offensive repartee that accompanied Philip's
+departure, however, he returned to find Polatkin entirely
+restored to good humour by a thousand-dollar order that had
+arrived in the ten-o'clock mail; and as Philip himself felt the
+glow of conscious virtue attendant upon a good deed economically
+performed, he immediately fell into friendly conversation with
+his partner.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Marcus," he said, "I sent 'em the passage tickets, and if
+you ain't agreeable that Borrochson comes to work here I could
+easy find him a job somewheres else."</p>
+
+<p>"If we got an opening here, Philip, what is it skin off my face
+if the feller comes to work here," Polatkin answered, "so long as
+he gets the same pay like somebody else?"</p>
+
+<p>"What could I do, Marcus?" Philip rejoined, as he took off his
+hat and coat preparatory to plunging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> into the assortment of a
+pile of samples. "My own flesh and blood I must got to look out
+for, ain't it? And if my sister Leah, <i>olav hasholem</i>, would be
+alive to-day I would of got 'em all over here long since ago
+already. Ain't I am right?"</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin shrugged. "In family matters one partner couldn't advise
+the other at all," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Philip concluded, "but when a feller has got such
+a partner which he is a smart, up-to-date feller and means good
+by his partner, understand me, then I got a right to take an
+advice from him about family matters, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>And with these honeyed words the subject of the Borrochson
+family's assisted emigration was dismissed until the arrival of
+another letter from Minsk some four weeks later.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Marcus," Philip cried after he had read it, "he'll be here
+Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>"Who'll be here Saturday?" Polatkin asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Borrochson," Philip replied; "and the boy comes with him."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin raised his eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you the honest truth, Philip," he said&mdash;"I'm surprised
+to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean you're surprised to hear it?" Philip asked.
+"Ain't I am sending him the passage tickets?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know you are sending him the tickets," Polatkin
+continued, "but everybody says the same,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> Philip, and that's why
+I am telling you, Philip, I'm surprised to hear he is coming;
+because from what everybody is telling me it's a miracle the
+feller ain't sold the tickets and gambled away the money."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking nonsense, selling the tickets!" Philip
+cried indignantly. "The feller is a decent, respectable feller
+even if he would be a poor man."</p>
+
+<p>"He ain't so poor," Polatkin retorted. "A thief need never got to
+be poor, Scheikowitz."</p>
+
+<p>"A thief!" Philip exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said," Polatkin went on, "and a smart thief too,
+Scheikowitz. Gifkin says he could steal the buttons from a
+policeman's pants and pass 'em off for real money, understand me,
+and they couldn't catch him anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"Gifkin?" Philip replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Meyer Gifkin which he is working for us now two years,
+Scheikowitz, and a decent, respectable feller," Polatkin said
+relentlessly. "If Gifkin tells you something you could rely on
+it, Scheikowitz, and he is telling me he lives in Minsk one house
+by the other with this feller Borrochson, and such a lowlife
+gambler bum as this here feller Borrochson is you wouldn't
+believe at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Meyer Gifkin says that?" Philip gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"So sure as he is working here as assistant cutter," Polatkin
+continued. "And if you think that this here feller Borrochson
+comes to work in our place,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> Scheikowitz, you've got another
+think coming, and that's all I got to say."</p>
+
+<p>But Philip had not waited to hear the conclusion of his partner's
+ultimatum, and by the time Polatkin had finished Philip was at
+the threshold of the cutting room.</p>
+
+<p>"Gifkin!" he bellowed. "I want to ask you something a question."</p>
+
+<p>The assistant cutter laid down his shears.</p>
+
+<p>"What could I do for you, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he said respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You could put on your hat and coat and get out of here before I
+kick you out," Philip replied without disclosing the nature of
+his abandoned question. "And, furthermore, if my brother-in-law
+Borrochson is such a lowlife bum which you say he is, when he is
+coming here Saturday he would pretty near kill you, because,
+Gifkin, a lowlife gambler and a thief could easily be a murderer
+too. <i>Aber</i> if he ain't a such thief and gambler which you say he
+is, then I would make you arrested."</p>
+
+<p>"Me arrested?" Gifkin cried. "What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because for calling some one a thief which he ain't one you
+could sit in prison," Scheikowitz concluded. "So you should get
+right out of here before I am sending for a policeman."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Scheikowitz," Gifkin protested, "who did I told it your
+brother-in-law is a thief and a gambler?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>"You know very well who you told it," Scheikowitz retorted. "You
+told it my partner, Gifkin. That's who you told it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I says to him he shouldn't tell nobody," Gifkin continued.
+"Is it my fault your partner is such a <i>Klatsch</i>? And, anyhow,
+Mr. Scheikowitz, supposing I did say your brother-in-law is a
+gambler and a thief, I know what I'm talking about; and,
+furthermore, if I got to work in a place where I couldn't open my
+mouth at all, Mr. Scheikowitz, I don't want to work there, and
+that's all there is to it."</p>
+
+<p>He assumed his hat and coat in so dignified a manner that for the
+moment Scheikowitz felt as though he were losing an old and
+valued employee, and this impression was subsequently heightened
+by Polatkin's behaviour when he heard of Gifkin's departure.
+Indeed a casual observer might have supposed that Polatkin's
+wife, mother, and ten children had all perished in a common
+disaster and that the messenger had been indiscreet in breaking
+the news, for during a period of almost half an hour Polatkin
+rocked and swayed in his chair and beat his forehead with his
+clenched fist.</p>
+
+<p>"You are shedding my blood," he moaned to Scheikowitz.</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil you are talking nonsense!" Scheikowitz declared.
+"The way you are acting you would think we are paying the feller
+five thou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>sand dollars a year instead of fifteen dollars a week."</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't what a feller makes from you, Scheikowitz; it's what
+you make from him what counts," he wailed. "Gifkin was really
+worth to us a year five thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Five thousand buttons!" Scheikowitz cried. "You are making a big
+fuss about nothing at all."</p>
+
+<p>But when the next day Polatkin and Scheikowitz heard that Gifkin
+had found employment with their closest competitors Philip began
+to regret the haste with which he had discharged his assistant
+cutter, and he bore his partner's upbraidings in chastened
+silence. Thus by Friday afternoon Polatkin had exhausted his
+indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Philip," he said as closing-time approached, "it ain't no
+use crying over sour milk. What time does the boat arrive?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-night," Philip replied, "and the passengers comes off the
+island to-morrow. Why did you ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," Marcus said with the suspicion of a blush, "Saturday
+ain't such a busy day and I was thinking I would go over with
+you. Might I could help you out."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Philip's trip with his partner to Ellis Island the following
+morning tried his temper to the point where he could barely
+refrain from inquiring if the expected immigrant were his
+relation or Polatkin's,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> for during the entire journey Marcus
+busied himself making plans for the Borrochsons' future.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing you got to look out for with a greenhorn,
+Philip," he said, "is that you learn 'em good the English
+language. If a feller couldn't talk he couldn't do nothing,
+understand me, so with the young feller especially you shouldn't
+give him no encouragement to keep on talking <i>Manerloschen</i>."
+Philip nodded politely.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me for instance," Marcus continued; "six months after I
+landed, Philip, I am speaking English already just so good as a
+doctor or a lawyer. And how did I done it? To night school I am
+going only that they should learn me to write, <i>verstehst du</i>,
+<i>aber</i> right at the start old man Feinrubin takes me in hand and
+he talks to me only in English. And if I am understanding him,
+<i>schon gut</i>; and if I don't understand him then he gives me a
+<i>potch</i> on the side of the head, Philip, which the next time he
+says it I could understand him good. And that's the way you
+should do with the young feller, Philip. I bet yer he would a
+damsight sooner learn English as get a <i>Schlag</i> every ten
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Again Philip nodded, and by the time they had arrived at the
+enclosure for the relations of immigrants he had become so
+accustomed to the hum of Marcus' conversation that he refrained
+from uttering even a perfunctory "Uh-huh." They sat on a hard
+bench for more than half an hour, while the attend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>ants bawled
+the common surnames of every country from Ireland to Asiatic
+Turkey, and at length the name Borrochson brought Philip to his
+feet. He rushed to the gateway, followed by Marcus, just as a
+stunted lad of fifteen emerged, staggering under the burden of a
+huge cloth-covered bundle.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Philip," the lad cried, dropping the bundle. Then
+clutching Marcus round the neck he showered kisses on his cheeks
+until Philip dragged him away.</p>
+
+<p>"I am your uncle," Philip said in <i>J&uuml;disch Deutsch</i>. "Where is
+your father?"</p>
+
+<p>Without answering the question Yosel Borrochson took a
+stranglehold of Philip and subjected him to a second and more
+violent osculation. It was some minutes before Philip could
+disengage himself from his nephew's embrace and then he led him
+none too gently to a seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind the kissing," he said; "where's your father?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is not here," Yosel Borrochson replied with a vivid blush.</p>
+
+<p>"I see he is not here," Philip rejoined. "Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is in Minsk," said young Borrochson.</p>
+
+<p>"In Minsk?" Philip and Marcus cried with one voice, and then
+Marcus sat down on the bench and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy
+of mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"In Minsk!" he gasped hysterically, and slapped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> his thighs by
+way of giving expression to his emotions. "Did you ever hear the
+like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Polatkin, do me the favour," Philip begged, "and don't make a
+damn fool of yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"What did I told you?" Polatkin retorted, but Philip turned to
+his nephew.</p>
+
+<p>"What did your father do with the ticket and the money I sent
+him?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He sold the ticket and he used all the money for the wedding,"
+the boy replied.</p>
+
+<p>"The wedding?" Philip exclaimed. "What wedding?"</p>
+
+<p>"The wedding with the widow," said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"The widow?" Philip and Marcus shouted in unison. "What widow?"</p>
+
+<p>"The landlord's widow," the boy answered shyly.</p>
+
+<p>And then as there seemed nothing else to do he buried his face in
+his hands and wept aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Nu, Philip," Marcus said, sitting down beside young Borrochson,
+"could the boy help it if his father is a <i>Ganef</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Philip made no reply, and presently Marcus stooped and picked up
+the bundle.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said gently, "let's go up to the store."</p>
+
+<p>The journey uptown was not without its unpleasant features, for
+the size of the bundle not only barred them from both subway and
+elevated, but provoked a Broadway car conductor to exhibit what
+Marcus considered to be so biased and illiberal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> an attitude
+toward unrestricted immigration that he barely avoided a cerebral
+hemorrhage in resenting it. They finally prevailed on the driver
+of a belt-line car to accept them as passengers, and nearly half
+an hour elapsed before they arrived at Desbrosses Street; but
+after a dozen conductors in turn had declined to honour their
+transfer tickets they made the rest of their journey on foot.</p>
+
+<p>Philip and young Borrochson carried the offending bundle, for
+Marcus flatly declined to assist them. Indeed with every block
+his enthusiasm waned, so that when they at length reached Wooster
+Street his feelings toward his partner's nephew had undergone a
+complete change.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fetch that thing in here," he said as Philip and young
+Borrochson entered the showroom with the bundle; "leave it in the
+shop. You got no business to bring the young feller up here in
+the first place."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean bring him up here?" Philip cried. "If you
+wouldn't butt in at all I intended to take him to my sister's a
+cousin on Pitt Street."</p>
+
+<p>Marcus threw his hat on a sample table and sat down heavily.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all the gratitude I am getting!" he declared with bitter
+emphasis. "Right in the busy season I dropped everything to help
+you out, and you turn on me like this."</p>
+
+<p>He rose to his feet suddenly, and seizing the bundle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> with both
+hands he flung it violently through the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Take him to Pitt Street," he said. "Take him to the devil for
+all I care. I am through with him."</p>
+
+<p>But Philip conducted his nephew no farther than round the corner
+on Canal Street, and when an hour later Yosel Borrochson returned
+with his uncle his top-boots had been discarded forever, while
+his wrinkled, semi-military garb had been exchanged for a neat
+suit of Oxford gray. Moreover, both he and Philip had consumed a
+hearty meal of coffee and rolls and were accordingly prepared to
+take a more cheerful outlook upon life, especially Philip.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bleib du hier</i>," he said as he led young Borrochson to a chair
+in the cutting room. "<i>Ich Komm bald zur&uuml;ck.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Then mindful of his partner's advice he broke into English.
+"Shtay here," he repeated in loud, staccato accents. "I would be
+right back. <i>Verstehst du?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yess-ss," Yosel replied, uttering his first word of English.</p>
+
+<p>With a delighted grin Philip walked to the showroom, where
+Polatkin sat wiping away the crumbs of a belated luncheon of two
+dozen zwieback and a can of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>," he said conciliatingly, "what is it now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marcus," Philip began with a nod of his head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> in the direction
+of the cutting room, "I want to show you something a picture."</p>
+
+<p>"A picture!" Polatkin repeated as he rose to his feet. "What do
+you mean a picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come," Philip said; "I'll show you."</p>
+
+<p>He led the way to the cutting room, where Yosel sat awaiting his
+uncle's return.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of him now?" Philip demanded. "Ain't he a
+good-looking young feller?"</p>
+
+<p>Marcus shrugged in a non-committal manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Look what a bright eye he got it," Philip insisted. "You could
+tell by looking at him only that he comes from a good family."</p>
+
+<p>"He looks a boy like any other boy," said Marcus.</p>
+
+<p>"But even if no one would told you, Marcus, you could see from
+his forehead yet&mdash;and the big head he's got it&mdash;you could see
+that somewheres is <i>Rabonim</i> in the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Yow!" Marcus exclaimed. "You could just so much see from his
+head that his grandfather is a rabbi as you could see from his
+hands that his father is a crook." He turned impatiently away.
+"So instead you should be talking a lot of nonsense, Philip, you
+should set the boy to work sweeping the floor," he continued.
+"Also for a beginning we would start him in at three dollars a
+week, and if the boy gets worth it pretty soon we could give him
+four."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>In teaching his nephew the English language Philip Scheikowitz
+adopted no particular system of pedagogy, but he combined the
+methods of Ollendorf, Chardenal, Ahn and Polatkin so successfully
+that in a few days Joseph possessed a fairly extensive
+vocabulary. To be sure, every other word was acquired at the cost
+of a clump over the side of the head, but beyond a slight ringing
+of the left ear that persisted for nearly six months the Polatkin
+method of instruction vindicated itself, and by the end of the
+year Joseph's speech differed in no way from that of his
+employers.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't it something which you really could say is wonderful the
+way that boy gets along?" Philip declared to his partner, as the
+first anniversary of Joseph's landing approached. "Honestly,
+Marcus, that boy talks English like he would be born here
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Marcus agreed. "He's got altogether too much to
+say for himself. Only this morning he tells me he wants a raise
+to six dollars a week."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you blame him?" Philip asked mildly. "He's doing good work
+here, Marcus."</p>
+
+<p>"Yow! he's doing good work!" Marcus exclaimed. "He's fresh like
+anything, Scheikowitz. If you give him the least little
+encouragement, Scheikowitz, he would stand there and talk to you
+all day yet."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>"Not to me he don't," Philip retorted. "Lots of times I am asking
+him questions about the folks in the old country and always he
+tells me: 'With greenhorns like them I don't bother myself at
+all.' Calls his father a greenhorn yet!"</p>
+
+<p>Marcus flapped his right hand in a gesture of impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"He could call his father a whole lot worse," he said. "Why, that
+<i>Ganef</i> ain't even wrote you at all since the boy comes over
+here. Not only he's a crook, Scheikowitz, but he's got a heart
+like a brick."</p>
+
+<p>Philip shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"What difference does it make if he is a crook?" he rejoined.
+"The boy's all right anyway. Yes, Marcus, the boy is something
+which you could really say is a jewel."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Geh weg!</i>" Marcus cried disgustedly&mdash;"a jewel!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said," Philip continued&mdash;"a jewel. Tell me,
+Marcus, how many boys would you find it which they are getting
+from three to five dollars a week and in one year saves up a
+hundred dollars, y'understand, and comes to me only this morning
+and says to me I should take the money for what it costs to keep
+him while he is learning the language, and for buying him his
+clothes when he first comes here. Supposing his father is a
+crook, Marcus, am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Talk is cheap, Scheikowitz," Marcus retorted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> "He only says he
+would pay you the money, Scheikowitz, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Philip dug down into his pocket and produced a roll of ragged one
+and two dollar bills, which he flung angrily on to a sample
+table.</p>
+
+<p>"Count 'em," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Marcus shrugged again.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it my business?" he said. "And anyhow, Scheikowitz, I
+must say I'm surprised at you. A poor boy saves up a hundred
+dollars out of the little we are paying him here, and actually
+you are taking the money from him. Couldn't you afford it to
+spend on the boy a hundred dollars?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I could," Philip replied as he pocketed the bills. "Sure I
+could and I'm going to too. I'm going to take this here money and
+put it in the bank for the boy, with a hundred dollars to boot,
+Polatkin, and when the boy gets to be twenty-one he would anyhow
+got in savings bank a couple hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin nodded shamefacedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore, Polatkin," Philip continued, "if you got such a
+regard for the boy which you say you got it, understand me, I
+would like to make you a proposition. Ever since Gifkin leaves
+us, y'understand, we got in our cutting room one <i>Schlemiel</i>
+after another. Ain't it? Only yesterday we got to fire that young
+feller we took on last week, understand me, and if we get
+somebody else in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> place to-day, Polatkin, the chances is we
+would get rid of him to-morrow, and so it goes."</p>
+
+<p>Again Polatkin nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"So, therefore, what is the use talking, Polatkin?" Philip
+concluded. "Let us take Joe Borrochson and learn him he should be
+a cutter, and in six months' time, Polatkin, I bet yer he would
+be just so good a cutter as anybody."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Polatkin raised his hand with the palm outward.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop right there, Scheikowitz," he said. "You are making a fool
+of yourself, Scheikowitz, because, Scheikowitz, admitting for the
+sake of no arguments about it that the boy is a good boy,
+understand me, after all he's only a boy, ain't it, and if you
+are coming to make a sixteen-year-old boy an assistant cutter,
+y'understand, the least that we could expect is that our
+customers fires half our goods back at us."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Scheikowitz began.</p>
+
+<p>"But, nothing, Scheikowitz," Polatkin interrupted. "This morning
+I seen it Meyer Gifkin on Canal Street and he ain't working for
+them suckers no more; and I says to him is he willing to come
+back here at the same wages, and he says yes, providing you would
+see that this here feller Borrochson wouldn't pretty near kill
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean pretty near kill him?" Scheikowitz cried. "Do
+you mean to say he is afraid of a boy like Joe Borrochson?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>"Not Joe Borrochson," Polatkin replied. "He is all the time
+thinking that your brother-in-law Borrochson comes over here with
+his boy and is working in our place yet, and when I told him that
+that crook didn't come over at all Meyer says that's the first he
+hears about it or he would have asked for his job back long since
+already. So he says he would come in here to see us this
+afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Scheikowitz began again.</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore," Polatkin continued hastily, "if I would got a
+nephew in my place, Scheikowitz, I would a damsight sooner he
+stays working on the stock till he knows enough to sell goods on
+the road as that he learns to be a cutter. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz sighed heavily by way of surrender.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Polatkin," he said; "if you're so dead set on taking
+this here feller Gifkin back go ahead. But one thing I must got
+to tell you: If you are taking a feller back which you fired
+once, understand me, he acts so independent you couldn't do
+nothing with him at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that to me," Polatkin said, as he started for the cutting
+room, and when Scheikowitz followed him he found that Gifkin had
+already arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Wie gehts</i>, Mister Scheikowitz?" Gifkin cried, and Philip
+received the salutation with a distant nod.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you don't hold no hard feelings for me," Gifkin began.</p>
+
+<p>"Me hold hard feelings for you?" Scheikowitz<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> exclaimed. "I guess
+you forget yourself, Gifkin. A boss don't hold no hard feelings
+for a feller which is working in the place, Gifkin; otherwise the
+feller gets fired and stays fired, Gifkin."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Polatkin in the r&ocirc;le of peacemaker created a
+diversion.</p>
+
+<p>"Joe," he called to young Borrochson, who was passing the
+cutting-room door, "come in here a minute."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Gifkin as Joe entered.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you seen this young feller before?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Gifkin looked hard at Joe for a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I seen him before somewheres," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure you seen him before," Polatkin rejoined. "His name is
+Borrochson."</p>
+
+<p>"Borrochson!" Gifkin cried, and Joe, whose colour had heightened
+at the close scrutiny to which he had been subjected, began to
+grow pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, Yosel Borrochson, the son of your old neighbour," Polatkin
+explained, but Gifkin shook his head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't Yosel Borrochson," he declared, and then it was that
+Polatkin and Scheikowitz first noticed Joe's embarrassment.
+Indeed even as they gazed at him his features worked convulsively
+once or twice and he dropped unconscious to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>In the scene of excitement that ensued Gifkin's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> avowed discovery
+was temporarily forgotten, but when Joe was again restored to
+consciousness Polatkin drew Gifkin aside and requested an
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean the boy ain't Yosel Borrochson?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean the boy ain't Yosel Borrochson," Gifkin replied
+deliberately. "I know this here boy, Mr. Polatkin, and,
+furthermore, Borrochson's boy is got one bum eye, which he gets
+hit with a stone in it when he was only four years old already.
+Don't I know it, Mr. Polatkin, when with my own eyes I seen this
+here boy throw the stone yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, who is this boy?" Marcus Polatkin insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a boy by the name Lubliner," Gifkin replied, "which his
+father was Pincus Lubliner, also a crook, Mr. Polatkin, which he
+would steal anything from a toothpick to an oitermobile,
+understand me."</p>
+
+<p>"Pincus Lubliner!" Polatkin repeated hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"That's who I said," Gifkin continued, rushing headlong to his
+destruction. "Pincus Lubliner, which honestly, Mr. Polatkin,
+there's nothing that feller wouldn't do&mdash;a regular <i>Rosher</i> if
+ever there was one."</p>
+
+<p>For one brief moment Polatkin's eyes flashed angrily, and then
+with a resounding smack his open hand struck Gifkin's cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Liar!" he shouted. "What do you mean by it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>Scheikowitz, who had been tenderly bathing Joe Borrochson's head
+with water, rushed forward at the sound of the blow.</p>
+
+<p>"Marcus," he cried, "for Heaven's sake, what are you doing? You
+shouldn't kill the feller just because he makes a mistake and
+thinks the boy ain't Joe Borrochson."</p>
+
+<p>"He makes too many mistakes," Polatkin roared. "Calls Pincus
+Lubliner a crook and a murderer yet, which his mother was my own
+father's a sister. Did you ever hear the like?"</p>
+
+<p>He made a threatening gesture toward Gifkin, who cowered in a
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, Marcus," Scheikowitz asked, "what has Pincus
+Lubliner got to do with this?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's got a whole lot to do with it," Marcus replied, and then
+his eyes rested on Joe Borrochson, who had again lapsed into
+unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oo-ee!" Marcus cried. "The poor boy is dead."</p>
+
+<p>He swept Philip aside and ran to the water-cooler, whence he
+returned with the drip-bucket brimming over. This he emptied on
+Joe Borrochson's recumbent form, and after a quarter of an hour
+the recovery was permanent. In the meantime Philip had
+interviewed Meyer Gifkin to such good purpose that when he
+entered the firm's office with Meyer Gifkin at his heels he was
+fairly spluttering with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Thief!" he yelled. "Out of here before I make you arrested."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>"Who the devil you think you are talking to?" Marcus demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I am talking to Joseph Borrochson," Scheikowitz replied. "That's
+who I'm talking to."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there ain't no such person here," Polatkin retorted.
+"There's here only a young fellow by the name Elkan Lubliner,
+which he is my own father's sister a grandson, and he ain't no
+more a thief as you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't he?" Philip retorted. "Well, all I can say is he is a
+thief and his whole family is thieves, the one worser as the
+other."</p>
+
+<p>Marcus glowered at his partner.</p>
+
+<p>"You should be careful what you are speaking about," he said.
+"Maybe you ain't aware that this here boy's grandfather on his
+father's side was <i>Reb</i> Mosha, the big <i>Lubliner Rav</i>, a <i>Chosid</i>
+and a <i>Tzadek</i> if ever there was one."</p>
+
+<p>"What difference does that make?" Philip demanded. "He is
+stealing my brother-in-law's passage ticket anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't steal it," the former Joseph Borrochson cried. "My
+father paid him good money for it, because Borrochson says he
+wanted it to marry the widow with; and you also I am paying a
+hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Yow! Your father paid him good money for it!" Philip jeered. "A
+<i>Ganef</i> like your father is stealing the money, too, I bet yer."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>"<i>Oser a St&uuml;ck</i>," Polatkin declared. "I am sending him the money
+myself to help bury his aunt, Mrs. Lebowitz."</p>
+
+<p>"You sent him the money?" Philip cried. "And your own partner you
+didn't tell nothing about it at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it your business supposing I am sending money to the old
+country?" Marcus retorted. "Do you ask me an advice when you are
+sending away money to the old country?"</p>
+
+<p>"But the feller didn't bury his aunt at all," Philip said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he did too," the former Joseph Borrochson protested.
+"Instead of a hundred dollars the funeral only costs fifty.
+Anybody could make an overestimate. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Marcus nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"The boy is right, Philip," he said, "and anyhow what does this
+loafer come butting in here for?"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he indicated Meyer Gifkin with a jerk of the chin.</p>
+
+<p>"He ain't butting in here," Philip declared; "he comes in here
+because I told him to. I want you should make an end of this
+nonsense, Polatkin, and hire a decent assistant cutter. Gifkin is
+willing to come back for twenty dollars a week."</p>
+
+<p>"He is, is he?" Marcus cried. "Well, if he was willing to come
+back for twenty dollars a week why didn't he come back before?
+Now it's too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> late; I got other plans. Besides, twenty dollars is
+too much."</p>
+
+<p>"You know very well why I ain't come back before, Mr. Polatkin,"
+Gifkin protested. "I was afraid for my life from that murderer
+Borrochson."</p>
+
+<p>Philip scowled suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"My partner is right, Gifkin," he said. "Twenty dollars is too
+much."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it ain't," Gifkin declared. "If I would be still working for
+you, Mr. Scheikowitz, I would be getting more as twenty dollars
+by now. And was it my fault you are firing me? By rights I should
+have sued you in the courts yet."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean sue us in the courts?" Philip exclaimed. He was
+growing increasingly angry, but Gifkin heeded no warning.</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are firing me just for saying a crook is a crook,"
+Gifkin replied, "and here lately you found out for yourself this
+here Borrochson is nothing but a <i>Schwindler</i>&mdash;a <i>Ganef</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about&mdash;a <i>Schwindler</i>?" Philip cried, now
+thoroughly aroused. "Ain't you heard the boy says Borrochson is
+marrying the landlord's widow? Could a man get married on wind,
+Gifkin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yow! he married the landlord's widow!" Gifkin said. "I bet yer
+that crook gambles away the money; and, anyhow, could you believe
+anything this here boy tells you, Mr. Scheikowitz?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>The question fell on deaf ears, however, for at the repetition of
+the word crook Philip flung open the office door.</p>
+
+<p>"Out of here," he roared, "before I kick you out."</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously Marcus grabbed the luckless Gifkin by the collar,
+and just what occurred between the office and the stairs could be
+deduced from the manner in which Marcus limped back to the
+office.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Gott sei Dank</i> we are rid of the fellow," he said as he came
+in.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Although Philip Scheikowitz arrived at his place of business at
+half-past seven the following morning he found that Marcus and
+Elkan Lubliner had preceded him, for when he entered the showroom
+Marcus approached with a broad grin on his face and pointed to
+the cutting room, where stood Elkan Lubliner. In the boy's right
+hand was clutched a pair of cutter's shears, and guided by
+chalked lines he was laboriously slicing up a roll of sample
+paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't he a picture?" Marcus exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"A picture!" Philip repeated. "What d'ye mean a picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the way he stands there with them shears, Philip," Marcus
+replied. "He's really what you could call a born cutter if ever
+there was one."</p>
+
+<p>"A cutter!" Philip cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," Marcus went on. "It's never too soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> for a young feller
+to learn all sides of his trade, Philip. He's been long enough on
+the stock. Now he should learn to be a cutter, and I bet yer in
+six months' time yet he would be just so good a cutter as
+anybody."</p>
+
+<p>Philip was too dazed to make any comment before Marcus obtained a
+fresh start.</p>
+
+<p>"A smart boy like him, Philip, learns awful quick," he said.
+"Ain't it funny how blood shows up? Now you take a boy like him
+which he comes from decent, respectable family, Philip, and he's
+got real gumption. I think I told you his grandfather on his
+father's side was a big rabbi, the <i>Lubliner Rav</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Philip nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And even if I didn't told you," Marcus went on, "you could tell
+it from his face."</p>
+
+<p>Again Philip nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And another thing I want to talk to you about," Marcus said,
+hastening after him: "the hundred dollars the boy gives you you
+should keep, Philip. And if you are spending more than that on
+the boy I would make it good."</p>
+
+<p>Philip dug down absently into his trousers pocket and brought
+forth the roll of dirty bills.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it," he said, throwing it toward his partner. "I don't want
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean you don't want it?" Marcus cried.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>"I mean I ain't got no hard feelings against the boy," Philip
+replied. "I am thinking it over all night, and I come to the
+conclusion so long as I started in being the boy's uncle I would
+continue that way. So you should put the money in the savings
+bank like I says yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Marcus protested.</p>
+
+<p>"But nothing," Philip interrupted. "Do what I am telling you."</p>
+
+<p>Marcus blinked hard and cleared his throat with a great, rasping
+noise.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," he said huskily, "it don't make no difference how
+many crooks <i>oder Ganevim</i> is in a feller's family, Philip, so
+long as he's got a good, straight business man for a partner."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_TWO" id="CHAPTER_TWO"></a>CHAPTER TWO</h2>
+<h2>APPENWEIER'S ACCOUNT</h2>
+<h3>HOW ELKAN LUBLINER GRADUATED INTO SALESMANSHIP</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"WHEN I hire a salesman, Mr. Klugfels," said Marcus Polatkin,
+senior partner of Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz, "I hire him because
+he's a salesman, not because he's a nephew."</p>
+
+<p>"But it don't do any harm for a salesman to have an uncle whose
+concern would buy in one season from you already ten thousand
+dollars goods, Mr. Polatkin," Klugfels insisted. "Furthermore,
+Harry is a bright, smart boy; and you can take it from me, Mr.
+Polatkin, not alone he would get my trade, but us buyers is got a
+whole lot of influence one with the other, understand me; so, if
+there's any other concern you haven't on your books at present,
+you could rely on me I should do my best for Harry and you."</p>
+
+<p>Thus spoke Mr. Felix Klugfels, buyer for Appenweier &amp; Murray's
+Thirty-second Street store, on the first Monday of January; and
+in consequence on the second Monday of January Harry Flaxberg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+came to work as city salesman for Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz. He also
+maintained the r&ocirc;le of party of the second part in a contract
+drawn by Henry D. Feldman, whose skill in such matters is too
+well known for comment here. Sufficient to say it fixed Harry
+Flaxberg's compensation at thirty dollars a week and moderate
+commissions. At Polatkin's request, however, the document was so
+worded that it excluded Flaxberg from selling any of the concerns
+already on Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz's books; for not only did he
+doubt Flaxberg's ability as a salesman, but he was quite
+conscious of the circumstance that, save for the acquisition of
+Appenweier &amp; Murray's account, there was no need of their hiring
+a city salesman at all, since the scope of their business
+operations required only one salesman&mdash;to wit, as the lawyers
+say, Marcus Polatkin himself. On the other hand, Klugfels had
+insisted upon the safeguarding of his nephew's interests, so that
+the latter was reasonably certain of a year's steady employment.
+Hence, when, on the first Monday of February, Appenweier &amp; Murray
+dispensed with the services of Mr. Klugfels before he had had the
+opportunity of bestowing even one order on his nephew as a mark
+of his favour, the business premises of Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz
+became forthwith a house of mourning. From the stricken
+principals down to and including the shipping clerk nothing else
+was spoken of or thought about for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> period of more than two
+weeks. Neither was it a source of much consolation to Marcus
+Polatkin when he heard that Klugfels had been supplanted by Max
+Lapin, a third cousin of Leon Sammet of the firm of Sammet
+Brothers.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't it terrible the way people is related nowadays?" he said
+to Scheikowitz, who had just read aloud the news of Max Lapin's
+hiring in the columns of the <i>Daily Cloak and Suit Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly, Scheikowitz, if a feller ain't got a lot of retailers
+<i>oder</i> buyers for distance relations, understand me, he might
+just so well go out of business and be done with it!"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz threw down the paper impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"That's where you are making a big mistake, Polatkin," he said.
+"A feller which he expects to do business with relations is just
+so good as looking for trouble. You could never depend on
+relations that they are going to keep on buying goods from you,
+Polatkin. The least little thing happens between relations,
+understand me, and they are getting right away enemies for life;
+while, if it was just between friends, Polatkin, one friend makes
+for the other a blue eye, understand me, and in two weeks' time
+they are just so good friends as ever. So, even if Appenweier &amp;
+Murray wouldn't fire him, y'understand, Klugfels would have
+dumped this young feller on us anyway."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he looked through the office door<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> toward the
+showroom, where Harry Flaxberg sat with his feet cocked up on a
+sample table midway in the perusal of the sporting page.</p>
+
+<p>"Flaxberg," Scheikowitz cried, "what are we showing here
+anyway&mdash;garments <i>oder</i> shoes? You are ruining our sample tables
+the way you are acting!"</p>
+
+<p>Flaxberg replaced his feet on the floor and put down his paper.</p>
+
+<p>"It's time some one ruined them tables on you, Mr. Scheikowitz,"
+he said. "With the junk fixtures you got it here I'm ashamed to
+bring a customer into the place at all."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Scheikowitz retorted; "for all the customers
+you are bringing in here, Flaxberg, we needn't got no fixtures at
+all. Come inside the office&mdash;my partner wants to speak to you a
+few words something."</p>
+
+<p>Flaxberg rose leisurely to his feet and, carefully shaking each
+leg in turn to restore the unwrinkled perfection of his trousers,
+walked toward the office.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried as he entered, "what are you
+going to do about this here account of Appenweier &amp; Murray's?"</p>
+
+<p>"What am I going to do about it?" Flaxberg repeated. "Why, what
+could I do about it? Every salesman is liable to lose one
+account, Mr. Polatkin."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Polatkin answered; "but most every other salesman
+is got some other accounts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> to fall back on. Whereas if a
+salesman is just got one account, Flaxberg, and he loses it,
+understand me, then he ain't a salesman no longer, Flaxberg.
+Right away he becomes only a loafer, Flaxberg, and the best thing
+he could do, understand me, is to go and find a job somewheres
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"Not when he's got a contract, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg retorted
+promptly. "And specially a contract which the boss fixes up
+himself&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz nodded and scowled savagely at his partner.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried. "Do you mean to
+told me that, even if a salesman would got ever so much a crazy
+contract, understand me, it allows the salesman he should sit all
+the time doing nothing in the showroom without we got a right to
+fire him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Flaxberg replied calmly, "it gives him the privilege to
+go out to lunch once in a while."</p>
+
+<p>He pulled down his waistcoat with exaggerated care and turned on
+his heel.</p>
+
+<p>"So I would be back in an hour," he concluded; "and if any
+customers come in and ask for me tell 'em to take a seat till I
+am coming back."</p>
+
+<p>The two partners watched him until he put on his hat and coat in
+the rear of the showroom and then Polatkin rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Flaxberg," he cried, "wait a minute!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>Flaxberg returned to the office and nonchalantly lit a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin began. "Take from us a
+hundred and fifty dollars and quit!"</p>
+
+<p>Flaxberg continued the operation of lighting his cigarette and
+blew a great cloud of smoke before replying.</p>
+
+<p>"What for a piker do you think I am anyhow?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean&mdash;piker?" Polatkin said. "A hundred and fifty
+ain't to be sneezed at, Flaxberg."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't it?" Flaxberg retorted. "Well, with me, I got a more
+delicate nose as most people, Mr. Polatkin. I sneeze at
+everything under five hundred dollars&mdash;and that's all there is to
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Once more he turned on his heel and walked out of the office; but
+this time his progress toward the stairs was more deliberate,
+for, despite his defiant attitude, Flaxberg's finances were at
+low ebb owing to a marked reversal of form exhibited the previous
+day in the third race at New Orleans. Moreover, he felt confident
+that a judicious investment of a hundred and fifty dollars would
+net him that very afternoon at least five hundred dollars, if any
+reliance were to be placed on the selection of Merlando, the
+eminent sporting writer of the <i>Morning Wireless</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Consequently he afforded every opportunity for Marcus to call him
+back, and he even paused at the factory door and applied a
+lighted match to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> already burning cigarette. The expected
+summons failed, however, and instead he was nearly precipitated
+to the foot of the stairs by no less a person than Elkan
+Lubliner.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Mr. Flaxberg," Elkan said. "I ain't seen you at all."</p>
+
+<p>Flaxberg turned suddenly, but at the sight of Elkan his anger
+evaporated as he recalled a piece of gossip retailed by Sam
+Markulies, the shipping clerk, to the effect that, despite his
+eighteen years, Elkan had at least two savings-bank accounts and
+kept in his pocket a bundle of bills as large as a roll of piece
+goods.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Flaxberg cried with a forced grin. "I ain't
+surprised you are pretty near blinded when you are coming into
+the daylight out of the cutting room. It's dark in there like a
+tomb."</p>
+
+<p>"I bet yer," Elkan said fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"You should get into the air more often," Flaxberg went on. "A
+feller could get all sorts of things the matter with him staying
+in a hole like that."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Gott sei dank</i> I got, anyhow, my health," Elkan commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Flaxberg said as they reached the street; "but
+you must got to take care of it too. A feller which he don't get
+no exercise should ought to eat well, Lubliner. For instance, I
+bet yer you are taking every day your lunch in a bakery&mdash;ain't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there you are!" Flaxberg cried triumphantly. "A feller
+works all the time in a dark hole like that cutting room, and
+comes lunchtime he <i>fresses</i> a bunch of <i>Kuchen</i> and a cup of
+coffee, <i>verstehst du</i>&mdash;and is it any wonder you are looking
+sick?"</p>
+
+<p>"I feel all right," Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you feel all right," Flaxberg continued, "but you look
+something terrible, Lubliner. Just for to-day, Lubliner, take my
+advice and try Wasserbauer's regular dinner."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Wasserbauer's!" he exclaimed. "Why, what do you think I am, Mr.
+Flaxberg? If I would be a salesman like you, Mr. Flaxberg, I
+would say, 'Yes; eat once in a while at Wasserbauer's'; <i>aber</i>
+for an assistant cutter, Mr. Flaxberg, Wasserbauer's is just so
+high like the Waldorfer."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Flaxberg retorted airily. "No one asks you
+you should pay for it. Come and have a decent meal with me."</p>
+
+<p>For a brief interval Elkan hesitated, but at length he
+surrendered, and five minutes later he found himself seated
+opposite Harry Flaxberg in the rear of Wasserbauer's caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Flaxberg," he said as he commenced the fourth of a
+series of dill pickles, "compared with a salesman, a cutter is a
+dawg's life&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>"Well," Flaxberg commented, "he is and he isn't. There's no
+reason why a cutter shouldn't enjoy life too, Lubliner. A cutter
+could make money on the side just so good as a salesman. I am
+acquainted already with a pants cutter by the name Schmul
+Kleidermann which, one afternoon last week, he pulls down two
+hundred and fifty dollars yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars!" Elkan exclaimed.
+"From where he pulls it down, Mr. Flaxberg?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not from the pants business <i>oser</i>," Flaxberg replied. "The
+feller reads the papers, Lubliner, and that's how he makes his
+money."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean he is speculating in these here stocks from stock
+exchanges?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not stocks," Flaxberg replied in shocked accents. "From
+<i>spieling</i> the stock markets a feller could lose his shirt yet.
+Never play the stock markets, Lubliner. That's something which
+you could really say a feller ruins himself for life with."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Even <i>im Russland</i> it's the same," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," Flaxberg went on. "<i>Aber</i> this feller Kleidermann he
+makes a study of it. The name of the horse was Prince Faithful.
+On New Year's Day he runs fourth in a field of six. The next week
+he is in the money for a show with such old-timers as Aurora
+Borealis, Dixie Lad and Ramble Home&mdash;and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> last week he gets away
+with it six to one a winner, understand me; and this afternoon
+yet, over to Judge Crowley's, I could get a price five to two a
+place, understand me, which it is like picking up money in the
+street already."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan paused in the process of commencing the sixth pickle and
+gazed in wide-eyed astonishment at his host.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see, Lubliner," Flaxberg concluded, "if you would put up
+twenty dollars, understand me, you could make fifty dollars more,
+like turning your hand over."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan laid down his half-eaten pickle.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say you want me I should put up twenty dollars on
+a horse which it is running with other horses a race?" he
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Flaxberg replied, "of course, if you got objections to
+putting up money on a horse, Lubliner, why, don't do it. Lend it
+me instead the twenty dollars and I would play it; and if the
+horse should&mdash;<i>Gott soll h&uuml;ten</i>&mdash;not be in the money,
+y'understand, then I would give you the twenty dollars back
+Saturday at the latest. <i>Aber</i> if the horse makes a place,
+understand me, then I would give you your money back this
+afternoon yet and ten dollars to boot."</p>
+
+<p>For one wavering moment Elkan raised the pickle to his lips and
+then replaced it on the table. Then he licked off his fingers and
+explored the recess of his waistcoat pocket.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>"Here," he said, producing a dime&mdash;"here is for the dill pickles,
+Mr. Flaxberg."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean?" Flaxberg cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean this," Elkan said, putting on his hat&mdash;"I mean you should
+save your money with me and blow instead your friend Kleidermann
+to dinner, because the proposition ain't attractive."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Redman," Elkan commented when he resumed his duties as
+assistant cutter after the five and a half dill pickles had been
+supplemented with a hasty meal of rolls and coffee, "for a
+<i>Schlemiel</i> like him to call himself a salesman&mdash;honestly, it's a
+disgrace!"</p>
+
+<p>He addressed his remarks to Joseph Redman, head cutter for
+Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz, who plied his shears industriously at an
+adjoining table. Joseph, like every other employee of Polatkin &amp;
+Scheikowitz, was thoroughly acquainted with the details of
+Flaxberg's hiring and its d&eacute;nouement. Nevertheless, in his
+quality of head cutter, he professed a becoming ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is this which you are knocking now?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am knocking some one which he's got a right to be knocked,"
+Elkan replied. "I am knocking this here feller Flaxberg, which he
+calls himself a salesman. That feller couldn't sell a drink of
+water in the Sahara Desert, Mr. Redman. All he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> cares about is
+gambling and going on theaytres. Why, if I would be in his shoes,
+Mr. Redman, I wouldn't eat or I wouldn't sleep till I got from
+Appenweier &amp; Murray an order. Never mind if my uncle would be
+fired and Mr. Lapin, the new buyer, is a relation from Sammet
+Brothers, Mr. Redman, I would get that account, understand me, or
+I would <i>verplatz</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow</i>, you would do wonders!" Redman said. "The best thing you
+could do, Lubliner, is to close up your face and get to work. You
+shouldn't got so much to say for yourself. A big mouth is only
+for a salesman, Lubliner. For a cutter it's nix, understand me;
+so you should give me a rest with this here Appenweier &amp; Murray's
+account and get busy on them 2060's. We are behind with 'em as it
+is."</p>
+
+<p>Thus admonished, Elkan lapsed into silence; and for more than
+half an hour he pursued his duties diligently.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu!</i>" Redman said at length. "What's the matter you are acting
+so quiet this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean I am acting quiet, Mr. Redman?" Elkan asked. "I
+am thinking&mdash;that's all. Without a feller would think once in a
+while, Mr. Redman, he remains a cutter all his life."</p>
+
+<p>"There's worser things as cutters," Redman commented. "For
+instance&mdash;assistant cutters."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Elkan agreed; "but salesmen is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> a whole lot
+better as cutters <i>oder</i> assistant cutters. A salesman sees life,
+Mr. Redman. He meets oncet in a while people, Mr. Redman; while,
+with us, what is it? We are shut up here like we would be sitting
+in prison&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't got no kick coming," Redman said. "A young feller only
+going on eighteen, understand me, is getting ten dollars a week
+and he kicks yet. Sitting in prison, <i>sagt er</i>! Maybe you would
+like the concern they should be putting in moving pictures here
+or a phonygraft!"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan sighed heavily by way of reply and for a quarter of an hour
+longer he worked in quietness, until Redman grew worried at his
+assistant's unusual taciturnity.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the trouble you ain't talking, Lubliner?" he said. "Don't
+you feel so good?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan looked up. He was about to say that he felt all right when
+suddenly he received the germ of an inspiration, and in the few
+seconds that he hesitated it blossomed into a well-defined plan
+of action. He therefore emitted a faint groan and laid down his
+shears.</p>
+
+<p>"I got a <i>krank</i> right here," he said, placing his hand on his
+left side. "Ever since last week I got it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why don't you say something about it before?" Redman cried
+anxiously; for be it remembered that Elkan Lubliner was not only
+the cousin of Marcus Polatkin but the adopted nephew of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> Philip
+Scheikowitz as well. "You shouldn't let such things go."</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," Elkan replied, "I didn't want to say nothing about
+it to Mr. Polatkin on account he's got enough to worry him with
+this here Appenweier &amp; Murray's account; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You got that account on the brain," Redman interrupted. "If you
+don't feel so good you should go home. Leave me fix it for you."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he hastily buttoned on his collar and left the
+cutting room, while Elkan could not forego a delighted grin.
+After all, he reflected, he had worked steadily for over a year
+and a half with only such holidays as the orthodox ritual
+ordained; and he was so busy making plans for his first afternoon
+of freedom that he nearly forgot to groan again when Redman came
+back with Marcus Polatkin at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Elkan!" Marcus said. "What's the matter? Don't you feel
+good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I got a <i>krank</i> right here," Elkan replied, placing his hand on
+his right side. "I got it now pretty near a week already."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, maybe you should sit down for the rest of the afternoon
+and file away the old cutting slips," Marcus said, whereat Elkan
+moaned and closed his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I filed 'em away last week already," he murmured. "I think maybe
+if I would lay in bed the rest of the afternoon I would be all
+right to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>Marcus gazed earnestly at his cousin, whose sufferings seemed to
+be intensified thereby.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead. Go home and tell Mrs.
+Feinermann she should give you a little <i>Brusttee</i>; and if you
+don't feel better in the morning don't take it so particular to
+get here early."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded weakly and five minutes later walked slowly out of
+the factory. He took the stairs only a little less slowly, but he
+gradually increased his speed as he proceeded along Wooster
+Street, until by the time he was out of sight of the firm's
+office windows he was fairly running. Thus he arrived at his
+boarding place on Pitt Street in less than half an hour&mdash;just in
+time to interrupt Mrs. Sarah Feinermann as she was about to start
+on a shopping excursion uptown. Mrs. Feinermann exclaimed aloud
+at the sight of him, and her complexion grew perceptibly less
+florid, for his advent in Pitt Street at that early hour could
+have but one meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter&mdash;you are getting fired?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean&mdash;getting fired?" Elkan replied. "I ain't fired. I
+got an afternoon off."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Feinermann heaved a sigh of relief. As the recipient of
+Elkan's five dollars a week board-money, payable strictly in
+advance, she naturally evinced a hearty interest in his financial
+affairs. Moreover,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> she was distantly related to Elkan's father;
+and owing to this kinship her husband, Marx Feinermann, foreman
+for Kupferberg Brothers, was of the impression that she charged
+Elkan only three dollars and fifty cents a week. The
+underestimate more than paid Mrs. Feinermann's millinery bill,
+and she was consequently under the necessity of buying Elkan's
+silence with small items of laundry work and an occasional egg
+for breakfast. This arrangement suited Elkan very well indeed;
+and though he had eaten his lunch only an hour previously he
+thought it the part of prudence to insist that she prepare a meal
+for him, by way of maintaining his privileges as Mrs.
+Feinermann's fellow conspirator.</p>
+
+<p>"But I am just now getting dressed to go uptown," she protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Where to?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I got a little shopping to do," she said; and Elkan snapped his
+fingers in the conception of a brilliant idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" he exclaimed. "I would go with you. In three minutes I
+would wash myself and change my clothes&mdash;and I'll be right with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"But I got to stop in and see Marx first," she insisted. "I want
+to tell him something."</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to tell him something lots of times already," Elkan
+said significantly; and Mrs. Feinermann sat down in the nearest
+chair while Elkan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> disappeared into the adjoining room and
+performed a hasty toilet.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schon gut</i>," he said as he emerged from his room five minutes
+later; "we would go right up to Appenweier &amp; Murray's."</p>
+
+<p>"But I ain't said I am going up to Appenweier &amp; Murray's," Mrs.
+Feinermann cried. "Such a high-price place I couldn't afford to
+deal with at all."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say you could," Elkan replied; "but it don't do no harm
+to get yourself used to such places, on account might before long
+you could afford to deal there maybe."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean I could afford to deal there before long?" Mrs.
+Feinermann inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean this," Elkan said, and they started down the stairs&mdash;"I
+mean, if things turn out like the way I want 'em to, instead of
+five dollars a week I would give you five dollars and fifty cents
+a week." Here he paused on the stair-landing to let the news sink
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"And furthermore, if you would act the way I tell you to when we
+get up there I would also pay your carfare," he concluded&mdash;"one
+way."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>When Mrs. Feinermann entered Appenweier &amp; Murray's store that
+afternoon she was immediately accosted by a floorwalker.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you wish, madam?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to buy something a dress for my wife,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> Elkan
+volunteered, stepping from behind the shadow of Mrs. Feinermann,
+who for her thirty-odd years was, to say the least, buxom.</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife?" the floorwalker repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure; why not?" Elkan replied. "Maybe I am looking young, but in
+reality I am old; so you should please show us the dress
+department, from twenty-two-fifty to twenty-eight dollars the
+garment."</p>
+
+<p>The floorwalker ushered them into the elevator and they alighted
+at the second floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Holzmeyer!" the floorwalker cried; and in response there
+approached a lady of uncertain age but of no uncertain methods of
+salesmanship. She was garbed in a silk gown that might have
+graced the person of an Austrian grand duchess, and she rustled
+and swished as she walked toward them in what she had always
+found to be a most impressive manner.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady wants to see some dresses," the floorwalker said; and
+Miss Holzmeyer smiled by a rather complicated process, in which
+her nose wrinkled until it drew up the corners of her mouth and
+made her eyes appear to rest like shoe-buttons on the tops of her
+powdered cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"This way, madam," she said as she swung her skirts round
+noisily.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment," Elkan interrupted, for again he had been totally
+eclipsed by Mrs. Feinermann's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> bulky figure. "You ain't heard
+what my wife wants yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife!" Miss Holzmeyer exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, my wife," Elkan replied calmly. "This is my wife if it's
+all the same to you and you ain't got no objections."</p>
+
+<p>He gazed steadily at Miss Holzmeyer, who began to find her
+definite methods of salesmanship growing less definite, until she
+blushed vividly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," she said. "Step this way, please."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Miss Holzmeyer," Elkan went on without moving, "as I was
+telling you, you ain't found out yet what my wife wants, on
+account a dress could be from twenty dollars the garment up to a
+hundred and fifty."</p>
+
+<p>"We have dresses here as high as three hundred!" Miss Holzmeyer
+snapped. She had discerned that she was beginning to be
+embarrassed in the presence of this self-possessed benedick of
+youthful appearance, and she resented it accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't doubting it for a minute," Elkan replied. "New York is
+full of suckers, Miss Holzmeyer; but me and my wife is looking
+for something from twenty-two-fifty to twenty-eight dollars, Miss
+Holzmeyer."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Holzmeyer's temper mounted with each repetition of her
+surname, and her final "Step this way, please!" was uttered in
+tones fairly tremulous with rage.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>Elkan obeyed so leisurely that by the time Mrs. Feinermann and he
+had reached the rear of the showroom Miss Holzmeyer had hung
+three dresses on the back of a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"H'allow me," Elkan said as he took the topmost gown by the
+shoulders and held it up in front of him. He shook out the folds
+and for more than five minutes examined it closely.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't want to see nothing for seventeen-fifty," he announced
+at last&mdash;"especially from last year's style."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" Miss Holzmeyer cried angrily. "That dress is
+marked twenty-eight dollars and it just came in last week. It's a
+very smart model indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"The model I don't know nothing about," Elkan replied, "but the
+salesman must of been pretty smart to stuck you folks like that."</p>
+
+<p>He subjected another gown to a careful scrutiny while Miss
+Holzmeyer sought the showcases for more garments.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, this one here," he said, "is better value. How much you are
+asking for this one, please?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Holzmeyer glanced at the price ticket.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-eight dollars," she replied, with an indignant glare.</p>
+
+<p>Elkan whistled incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me," he said. "I always heard it that the
+expenses is high uptown, but even if the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> walls was hung <i>mit</i>
+diamonds yet, Miss Holzmeyer, your bosses wouldn't starve
+neither. Do you got maybe a dress for twenty-eight dollars which
+it is worth, anyhow, twenty-five dollars?"</p>
+
+<p>This last jibe was too much for Miss Holzmeyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Mis-ter Lap-in!" she howled, and immediately a glazed mahogany
+door in an adjoining partition burst open and Max Lapin appeared
+on the floor of the showroom.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Holzmeyer sat down in the nearest chair and fanned herself
+with her pocket handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"This man insulted me!" she said; whereat Max Lapin turned
+savagely to Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"What for you are insulting this lady?" he demanded as he made a
+rapid survey of Elkan's physical development. He was quite
+prepared to defend Miss Holzmeyer's honour in a fitting and manly
+fashion; but, during the few seconds that supervened his
+question, Max reflected that you can never tell about a small
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean insult this lady?" Elkan asked stoutly. "I never
+says a word to her. Maybe I ain't so long in the country as you
+are, but I got just so much respect for the old folks as anybody.
+Furthermore, she is showing me here garments which, honest,
+Mister&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lapin," Max said.</p>
+
+<p>"Mister Lapin, a house with the reputation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> Appenweier &amp;
+Murray shouldn't ought to got in stock at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, young feller," Lapin cried, "what are you
+driving into anyway? I am buyer here, and if you got any kick
+coming tell it to me, and don't go insulting the salesladies."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't insulted no saleslady, Mr. Lapin," Elkan declared. "I am
+coming here to buy for my wife a dress and certainly I want to
+get for my money some decent value; and when this lady shows me a
+garment like this"&mdash;he held up the topmost garment&mdash;"and says it
+is from this year a model, understand me, naturally I got my own
+idees on the subject."</p>
+
+<p>Lapin looked critically at the garment in question.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get this style from that third case there, Miss
+Holzmeyer?" he asked, and Miss Holzmeyer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that whole case is full of leftovers and I don't want it
+touched," Lapin said. "Now go ahead and show this gentleman's
+wife some more models; and if he gets fresh let me know&mdash;that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"One minute, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said. "Will you do me the favour
+and let me show you something?"</p>
+
+<p>He held up the garment last exhibited by Miss Holzmeyer and
+pointed to the yoke and its border.</p>
+
+<p>"This here garment Miss Holzmeyer shows me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> for twenty-eight
+dollars, Mr. Lapin," he said, "and with me and my wife here a
+dollar means to us like two dollars to most people, Mr. Lapin. So
+when I am seeing the precisely selfsame garment like this in Fine
+Brothers' for twenty-six dollars, but the border is from silk
+embroidery, a peacock's tail design, and the yoke is from gilt
+net yet, understand me, I got to say something&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Lapin paused in his progress toward his office and even as he did
+so Elkan's eyes strayed to a glass-covered showcase.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there is a garment just like Fine Brothers' model!" he
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere!" Lapin demanded as he strode up to the showcase
+and pulled out the costume indicated by Elkan. "What are you
+trying to tell me? This here model is thirty-seven dollars and
+fifty cents; so, if you can get it for twenty-six at Fine
+Brothers', go ahead and do it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, "that ain't no way for a buyer of a
+big concern like this to talk. I am telling you, so sure as you
+are standing there and I should never move from this spot, the
+identical selfsame style Fine Brothers got it for twenty-six
+dollars. I know it, Mr. Lapin, because we are making up that
+garment in our factory yet, and Fine Brothers takes from us six
+of that model at eighteen-fifty apiece."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>At this unguarded disclosure Lapin's face grew crimson with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"You are making it up in your factory!" he cried. "Why, you dirty
+faker you, what the devil you are coming round here bluffing that
+you want to buy a dress for your wife for?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan broke into a cold perspiration and looked round for Mrs.
+Feinermann, the substantial evidence of his marital state; but at
+the very beginning of Max Lapin's indignant outburst she had
+discreetly taken the first stairway to the right.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring that woman back here!" Max roared. Miss Holzmeyer made a
+dash for the stairway, and before Elkan had time to formulate
+even a tentative plan of escape she had returned with her quarry.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want from me?" Mrs. Feinermann gasped. Her hat was
+awry, and what had once been a modish pompadour was toppled to
+one side and shed hairpins with every palsied nod of her head. "I
+ain't done nothing!" she protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, you ain't," Elkan said; "so you should keep your mouth
+shut&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"I would keep my mouth shut <i>oder</i> not as I please," Mrs.
+Feinermann retorted. "Furthermore, you ain't got no business to
+get me mixed up in this <i>Geschichte</i> at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you two anyway?" Max demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"This here feller is a young feller by the name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> of Elkan
+Lubliner which he is working by Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz," Mrs.
+Feinermann announced; "and what he is bringing me up here for is
+more than I could tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't he your husband?" Max asked.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oser a St&uuml;ck!</i>" Mrs. Feinermann declared fervently. "A kid
+like him should be my husband! An idee!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Elkan rejoined. "<i>Im Russland</i> at my age many
+a young feller is got twins yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that got to do with it?" Max Lapin demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't got nothing to do with it," Elkan said, "but it shows
+that a young feller like me which he is raised in the old country
+ain't such a kid as you think for, Mr. Lapin. And when I am
+telling you that the concern which sells you them goods to retail
+for twenty-eight dollars is sticking you good, understand me, you
+could take my word for it just the same like I would be
+fifty-five even."</p>
+
+<p>Again he seized one of the garments.</p>
+
+<p>"And what's more," he went on breathlessly, "the workmanship is
+rotten. Look at here!&mdash;the seams is falling to pieces already!"</p>
+
+<p>He thrust the garment under Lapin's nose with one hand, while
+with the other he dug down into his trousers pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" he shouted. "Here is money&mdash;fifty dollars!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>He dropped the gown and held out a roll of bills toward Lapin.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it!" he said hysterically. "Take it all; and if I don't
+bring you to-morrow morning, first thing, this same identical
+style, only A-number-one workmanship, which you could retail for
+twenty dollars a garment, understand me, keep the money and
+<i>fertig</i>."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture the well-nourished figure of Louis Appenweier,
+senior member of Appenweier &amp; Murray, appeared in the door of the
+elevator and Max Lapin turned on his heel.</p>
+
+<p>"Come into my office," he hissed; and as he started for the
+glazed mahogany door he gathered up the remaining garments and
+took them with him.</p>
+
+<p>For more than half an hour Elkan and Max Lapin remained closeted
+together, and during that period Elkan conducted a clinic over
+each garment to such good purpose that Max sent out from time to
+time for more expensive styles. All of these were in turn
+examined by Elkan, who recognized in at least six models the
+designs of Joseph Redman, slightly altered in the stealing by
+Leon Sammet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, "them models was all designed by
+our own designer and some one <i>ganvered</i> 'em on us. Furthermore,
+I could bring you here to-morrow morning at eight o'clock from
+our sample racks these same identical models, with the prices on
+'em marked plain like the figures on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> a ten-dollar bill,
+understand me; and if they ain't from twenty to thirty per cent.
+lower as you paid for these here garments I'd eat 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>For at least ten minutes Max Lapin sat with knitted brows and
+pondered Elkan's words.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight o'clock is too early," he announced at last. "Make it
+half-past nine."</p>
+
+<p>"Six, even, ain't too early for an up-to-date buyer to look at
+some genuine bargains," Elkan insisted; "and, besides, I must got
+to get back to the shop at nine."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Lapin began.</p>
+
+<p>"But nothing, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, rising to his feet. "Make
+it eight o'clock, and the next time I would come round at
+half-past nine."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean the next time?" Lapin exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean this wouldn't be the last time we do business together,
+because the job as assistant cutter which I got it is just
+temporary, Mr. Lapin," he said as he started for the door&mdash;"just
+temporary&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+<p>He paused with his hand on the doorknob.</p>
+
+<p>"See you at eight o'clock to-morrow morning," he said cheerfully;
+and five minutes later he was having hard work to keep from
+dancing his way down Thirty-third Street to the subway.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>From half-past seven in the morning until six at night were the
+working hours of all Polatkin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> &amp; Scheikowitz's employees, save
+only Sam Markulies, the shipping clerk, whose duty it was to
+unlock the shop at quarter-past seven sharp. This hour had been
+fixed by Philip Scheikowitz himself, who, on an average of once a
+month, would stroll into the shipping department at closing-time
+and announce his intention of going to a wedding that evening.
+Sometimes the proposed excursion was a pinocle party or a visit
+to the theatre, but the d&eacute;nouement was always the same. The next
+morning Scheikowitz would arrive at the factory door precisely at
+quarter-past seven to find Markulies from five to ten minutes
+late; whereupon Markulies would receive his discharge, to take
+effect the following Saturday night&mdash;and for the ensuing month
+his punctuality was assured.</p>
+
+<p>During the quarter of an hour which preceded the arrival of the
+other employees, Markulies usually dusted the office and
+showroom; and on the morning following Elkan's holiday this
+solitary duty was cheered by the presence of Harry Flaxberg.
+Harry had sought the advice of counsel the previous day and had
+been warned against tardiness as an excuse for his discharge; so
+he was lounging on the sidewalk long before Markulies's arrival
+that morning.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Mr. Flaxberg," Markulies cried, "what brings you round so
+early?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't sleep last night," Flaxberg said; "so I thought I
+might just so well be here as anywhere."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>"Ain't that the funniest thing!" Markulies cried. "Me I couldn't
+sleep neither. I got something on my mind."</p>
+
+<p>He unlocked the door as he spoke; and as he passed up the stairs
+he declared again that he had something on his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow!</i>" Flaxberg said. "I should got your worries, Markulies.
+The simple little things which a shipping clerk must got to do
+would <i>oser</i> give anybody the nervous prostration."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" Markulies retorted. "Well, I ain't just the
+shipping clerk here, Mr. Flaxberg. You must remember I am in
+charge with the keys also, Mr. Flaxberg; and I got
+responsibilities if some one <i>ganvers</i> a couple sample garments
+once in a while, y'understand&mdash;right away they would accuse me
+that I done it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry yourself, Markulies," Flaxberg said. "I ain't going
+to <i>ganver</i> no garments on you&mdash;not this morning anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"You I ain't worrying about at all," Markulies rejoined; "but
+that young bloodsucker, Lubliner, Mr. Flaxberg&mdash;that's something
+else again. Actually that young feller is to me something which
+you could really call a thorn in my pants, Mr. Flaxberg. Just
+because he is assistant cutter here and I am only the shipping
+clerk he treats me like I would be the dirt under his feet. Only
+last night, Mr. Flaxberg, I am locking up the place when that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+feller comes up the stairs and says to me I should give him the
+key, as he forgets a package which he left behind him. Mind you,
+it is already half-past six, Mr. Flaxberg; and ever since I am
+living up in the Bronix, Mr. Flaxberg, I am getting kicked out of
+six places where I am boarding on account no respectable family
+would stand it, Mr. Flaxberg, that a feller comes, night after
+night, nine o'clock to his dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"You was telling me about Lubliner," Flaxberg reminded him.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Markulies continued. "So I says to him the place
+is closed and that's all there is to it. With that, Mr. Flaxberg,
+the feller takes back his hand&mdash;so&mdash;and he gives me a <i>schlag</i> in
+the stummick, which, honest, if he wouldn't be from Mr. Polatkin
+a relation, Mr. Flaxberg, I would right then and there killed
+him."</p>
+
+<p>For two minutes he patted gently that portion of his anatomy
+where Elkan's blow had landed.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a dangerous feller, Mr. Flaxberg," he went on, "because,
+just so soon as he opens the door after I am giving him the key,
+Mr. Flaxberg, he shuts it in my face and springs the bolt on me,
+Mr. Flaxberg&mdash;and there I am standing <i>bis</i> pretty near eight
+o'clock, understand me, till that feller comes out again. By the
+time I am at my room on Brook Avenue, Mr. Flaxberg, the way Mrs.
+Kaller speaks to me you would think I was a dawg yet. How<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> should
+I know she is getting tickets for the theaytre that evening, Mr.
+Flaxberg? And anyhow, Mr. Flaxberg, if people could afford to
+spend their money going on theaytre, understand me, they don't
+need to keep boarders at all&mdash;especially when I am getting night
+after night boiled <i>Brustdeckel</i> only. I says to her, 'Mrs.
+Kaller,' I says to her, 'why don't you give me once in a while a
+change?' I says&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Did Lubliner have anything with him when he came out?" Flaxberg
+interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sure; he'd got the package he forgets, and how a feller
+could forget a package that size, Mr. Flaxberg&mdash;honestly, you
+wouldn't believe at all! That's what it is to be a relation to
+the boss, Mr. Flaxberg. If I would got such a memory, understand
+me, I would of been fired long since already. Yes, Mr. Flaxberg,
+I says to Mrs. Kaller, 'For three and a half dollars a week a
+feller should get night after night <i>Brustdeckel</i>&mdash;it's a
+shame&mdash;honest!' I says; and&mdash;<i>stiegen</i>! There's Mr. Scheikowitz!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he seized a feather duster and began to wield it
+vigorously, so that by the time Philip Scheikowitz reached the
+showroom door a dense cloud of dust testified to Markulies's
+industry.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do, Sam!" Philip cried. "What do you want to do
+here&mdash;choke us all to death?"</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the dust subsided and disclosed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Philip's astonished
+gaze Harry Flaxberg seated on a sample table and apparently lost
+in the perusal of the <i>Daily Cloak and Suit Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Scheikowitz," he said heartily, but Philip
+only grunted in reply. Moreover, he walked hurriedly past
+Flaxberg and closed the office door behind him with a resounding
+bang, for he, too, had sought the advice of counsel the previous
+evening; and on that advice he had left his bed before daylight,
+only to find himself forestalled by the wily Flaxberg. Nor was
+his chagrin at all decreased by Polatkin, who had promised to
+meet his partner at quarter-past seven. Instead he arrived an
+hour later and immediately proceeded to upbraid Scheikowitz for
+Flaxberg's punctuality.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean that feller gets here before you?" he cried.
+"Didn't you hear it the lawyer distinctively told you you should
+get here before Flaxberg, and when Flaxberg arrives you should
+tell him he is fired on account he is late? Honestly,
+Scheikowitz, I don't know what comes over you lately the way you
+are acting. Here we are paying the lawyer ten dollars he should
+give us an advice, understand me, and we might just so well throw
+our money in the streets!"</p>
+
+<p>"But Flaxberg wasn't late, Polatkin," Scheikowitz protested. "He
+was early."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't argue with me, Scheikowitz," Polatkin said. "Let's go
+outside and talk to him."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Philip shrugged despairingly as they walked to the office door.</p>
+
+<p>"Flaxberg," he began as he discerned the city salesman again
+using a sample table for a footstool, "don't let us disturb you
+if you ain't through reading the paper yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Flaxberg," Polatkin added, "you could get down here so
+early like you would be sleeping in the place all night yet, and
+what is it? Take from the table the feet, Flaxberg, and be a man.
+We got something to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg said as he leisurely brought
+his feet to the floor. "I'm listening."</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place, Flaxberg," Polatkin said, "did it ever occur
+to you that, even if your uncle would got fired up to Appenweier
+&amp; Murray's, Redman designs for us a line of garments here which
+them people might be interested in anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow</i>, they would be interested in our line!" Flaxberg cried.
+"Lapin wouldn't buy only Sammet Brothers' line if we got Worth
+and Paquin both working for us as designers. You couldn't
+convince him otherwise, Mr. Polatkin."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Polatkin went on; "but it wouldn't do no harm
+for you to anyhow see the feller and show him a couple garments
+which we got it here. Take for instance them 1080's, which we are
+selling Fine Brothers, <i>oder</i> that 2060&mdash;that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> overskirt effect
+with the gilt net yoke and peacock-feather-design braid,
+Flaxberg. Them two styles made a big hit, Flaxberg. They are all
+hanging on that end rack there, Flaxberg, and you could look at
+'em for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin walked across the showroom to the rack in question.</p>
+
+<p>"Especially the 2060's," he said as he pulled aside the heavy
+denim curtain which protected the contents of the rack, "which
+you could really say is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here he paused abruptly&mdash;for, with the exception of a dozen
+wooden hangers, the rack was empty.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this, Scheikowitz?" he cried with a sweep of his hand in
+the direction of the rack. "Where is all them 1080's and 2060's?"</p>
+
+<p>Hastily the two partners examined every rack in the showroom; and
+not only did they fail to discover the missing samples, but they
+ascertained that, in addition, seven other choice styles had
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"See maybe is Redman using 'em in the cutting room," Scheikowitz
+suggested; and forthwith they made a canvass of the cutting room
+and factory, in which they were joined by Markulies.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We are missing a dozen sample garments," Scheikowitz replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Missing!" Markulies loudly exclaimed. "What<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> d'ye mean&mdash;missing,
+Mr. Scheikowitz? Last night, when I was covering up the racks,
+everything was in place."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a wave of recollection swept over him and he gave tongue
+like a foxhound.</p>
+
+<p>"Oo-oo-ee!" he wailed and sank into the nearest chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Markulies," Polatkin cried out, "for Heaven's sake, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He must of <i>ganvered</i> 'em!" Markulies wailed. "Right in front of
+my eyes he done it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who done it?" Scheikowitz cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Lubliner," Markulies moaned.</p>
+
+<p>"Lubliner!" Polatkin cried. "Do you mean Elkan Lubliner?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said," Markulies went on. "Comes half-past six
+last night, and that <i>ganef</i> makes me a <i>schlag</i> in the stummick,
+Mr. Polatkin; and the first thing you know he goes to work and
+steals from me my keys, Mr. Polatkin, and cleans out the whole
+place yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Lubliner was here last night after we are going home?" Polatkin
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, he was," Markulies replied&mdash;"at half-past six yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that only goes to show what a liar you are," Polatkin
+declared, "because myself I am letting Elkan go home at one
+o'clock on account the feller is so sick, understand me, he could
+hardly walk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> out of the place at all. Furthermore, he says he is
+going right straight to bed when he leaves here; so, if you want
+to explain how it is the garments disappear when you are in the
+place here alone, Markulies, go ahead with your lies. Might Mr.
+Scheikowitz stole 'em maybe&mdash;or I did! What?"</p>
+
+<p>Markulies began to rock and sway in an agony of woe.</p>
+
+<p>"I should never stir from this here chair, Mr. Polatkin,"
+Markulies protested, "and my mother also, which I am sending her
+to Kalvaria&mdash;regular like clockwork&mdash;ten dollars a month, she
+should never walk so far from here <i>bis</i> that door, if that
+<i>ganef</i> didn't come in here last night and make away with the
+garments!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Koosh!</i>" Polatkin bellowed, and made a threatening gesture
+toward Markulies just as Scheikowitz stepped forward.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do, Polatkin," he said. "If the feller lies we could
+easy prove it&mdash;ain't it? In the first place, where is Elkan?"</p>
+
+<p>"He must of been sick this morning on account he ain't here yet,"
+Polatkin said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schon gut</i>," Scheikowitz rejoined; "if he ain't here he ain't
+here, <i>verstehst du</i>, <i>aber</i> he is boarding with Mrs. Feinermann,
+which her husband is Kupferberg Brothers' foreman&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin nodded and Scheikowitz turned to Markulies.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>"Markulies," he said, "do me the favour and stop that! You are
+making me dizzy the way you are acting. Furthermore, Markulies,
+you should put on right away your hat and run over to Kupferberg
+Brothers' and say to Mr. B. Kupferberg you are coming from
+Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz, and ask him is he agreeable he should let
+Marx Feinermann come over and see us&mdash;and if he wants to know
+what for tell him we want to get from him a recommendation for a
+feller which is working for us."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to his partner as Markulies started for the stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"And a helluva recommendation we would get from him, too, I bet
+yer!" he added. "Wasserbauer tells me Elkan was in his place
+yesterday, and, though he don't watch every bit of food a
+customer puts into his mouth, understand me, he says that he eats
+dill pickles one right after the other; and then, Polatkin, the
+young feller gets right up and walks right out of the place
+without giving any order even. Wasserbauer says he knows it was
+Elkan because one day I am sending him over to look for you
+there. Wasserbauer asks him the simple question what he wants you
+for, and right away Elkan acts fresh to him like anything."</p>
+
+<p>"He done right to act fresh," Polatkin said as they walked back
+to the showroom. "What is it Wasserbauer's business what you want
+me for?"</p>
+
+<p>"But how comes a young feller like him to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> eating at
+Wasserbauer's?" Scheikowitz continued. "Where does he get the
+money from he should eat there?"</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is"&mdash;said Flaxberg, who up to this point had remained a
+silent listener to the entire controversy&mdash;"the fact is, Mr.
+Scheikowitz, yesterday I am taking pity on the feller on account
+he is looking sick; and I took him into Wasserbauer's and invited
+him he should eat a little something."</p>
+
+<p>Here he paused and licked his lips maliciously.</p>
+
+<p>"And though I don't want to say nothing against the feller,
+understand me," he continued, "he begins right away to talk about
+horseracing."</p>
+
+<p>"Horseracing?" Polatkin cried.</p>
+
+<p>Flaxberg nodded and made a gesture implying more plainly than the
+words themselves: "Can you beat it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Horseracing!" Scheikowitz repeated. "Well, what do you think of
+that for a lowlife bum?"</p>
+
+<p>"And when I called him down for gambling, Mr. Polatkin, he walks
+right out, so independent he is. Furthermore, though it's none of
+my business, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg went on, "Markulies tells me
+this morning early the same story like he tells you&mdash;before he
+knew the goods was missing even."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I believe you," Polatkin retorted. "He was getting the
+whole thing fixed up beforehand. That's the kind of <i>Rosher</i> he
+is."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>As he spoke Markulies entered, and there followed on his heels
+the short, stout figure of Marx Feinermann.</p>
+
+<p>"What did I told you?" Markulies cried. "The feller ain't home
+sick at all. He eats his supper last night, and this morning he
+is got two eggs for his breakfast even."</p>
+
+<p>"S'nough, Markulies!" Polatkin interrupted. "You got too much to
+say for yourself. Sit down, Feinermann, and tell us what is the
+reason Elkan ain't here this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me and I would tell you," Feinermann replied. "All I
+know is the feller leaves my house the usual time this morning;
+only before he goes he acts fresh to my wife like anything, Mr.
+Polatkin. He kicks the coffee ain't good, even when my wife is
+giving him two eggs to his breakfast anyhow. What some people
+expects for three-fifty a week you wouldn't believe at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;three-fifty a week?" Polatkin demanded. "He
+pays your wife five dollars a week <i>schon</i> six months ago
+already. He told me so himself."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't responsible for what that boy tells you," Feinermann
+said stolidly. "All I know is he pays me three-fifty a week; and
+you would think he is used to eating chicken every day from <i>zu
+Hause</i> yet, the way he is all the time kicking about his food."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>Markulies snorted indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"He should got the <i>Machshovos</i> Mrs. Kaller hands it to me," he
+said&mdash;"<i>gekochte Brustdeckel</i> day in, day out; and then I am
+accused that I steal samples yet! I am sick and tired of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stiegen!</i>" Polatkin cried. "Listen here to me, Feinermann. Do
+you mean to told me the boy ain't paying you five dollars a week
+board?"</p>
+
+<p>As Feinermann opened his mouth to reply the showroom door opened
+and Elkan himself entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Loafer!" Scheikowitz roared. "Where was you?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan made no reply, but walked to the centre of the showroom.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "could I speak to you a few words
+something?"</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Before you speak to me a few words something," he said, "I want
+to ask you what the devil you are telling me lies that you pay
+Mrs. Feinermann five dollars a week board?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you bothering about that for now?" Scheikowitz
+interrupted. "And, anyhow, you could see by the way the feller is
+red like blood that he lies to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore," Feinermann added, "my wife complains to me last
+night that young loafer takes her uptown yesterday on a wild
+fool's errand, understand me, and together they get pretty near
+kicked out of a drygoods store."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>"She told you that, did she?" Elkan cried.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said!" Feinermann retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if that's the case, Feinermann," Elkan replied, "all I can
+say is, I am paying your wife five dollars a week board <i>schon</i>
+six months already, and if she is holding out on you a dollar and
+a half a week that's her business&mdash;not mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make things worser as they are, Lubliner," Flaxberg
+advised. "You are in bad, anyhow, and lying don't help none. What
+did you done with the samples you took away from here?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it your business what I done with 'em?" Elkan retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't get fresh, Elkan!" Polatkin said. "What is all this about,
+anyhow? First, you are leaving here yesterday on account you are
+sick; next, you are going uptown with Mrs. Feinermann and get
+kicked out of a drygoods store; then you come back here and steal
+our samples."</p>
+
+<p>"Steal your samples!" Elkan cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You admitted it yourself just now," Flaxberg interrupted. "You
+are a thief as well as a liar!"</p>
+
+<p>Had Flaxberg's interest in sport extended to pugilism, he would
+have appreciated the manner in which Elkan's chest and arm
+muscles began to swell under his coat, even if the ominous gleam
+in Elkan's dark eyes had provided no other warning. As it was,
+however, Elkan put into practice the knowledge gained by a
+nightly attendance at the gymnasium on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> East Broadway. He stepped
+back two paces, and left followed right so rapidly to the point
+of Flaxberg's jaw that the impact sounded like one blow.</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously Flaxberg fell back over the sample tables and
+landed with a crash against the office partition just as the
+telephone rang loudly. Perhaps it was as well for Flaxberg that
+he was unprepared for the onslaught, since, had he been in a
+rigid posture, he would have assuredly taken the count. Beyond a
+cut lip, however, and a lump on the back of his head, he was
+practically unhurt; and he jumped to his feet immediately. Nor
+was he impeded by a too eager audience, for Markulies and
+Feinermann had abruptly fled to the farthermost corner of the
+cutting room, while Marcus and Philip had ducked behind a sample
+rack; so that he had a clear field for the rush he made at Elkan.
+He yelled with rage as he dashed wildly across the floor, but the
+yell terminated with an inarticulate grunt when Elkan stopped the
+rush with a drive straight from the shoulder. It found a target
+on Flaxberg's nose, and he crumpled up on the showroom floor.</p>
+
+<p>For two minutes Elkan stood still and then he turned to the
+sample racks.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "the telephone is ringing."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin came from behind the rack and auto<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>matically proceeded
+to the office, while Scheikowitz peeped out of the denim
+curtains.</p>
+
+<p>"You got to excuse me, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan murmured. "I
+couldn't help myself at all."</p>
+
+<p>"You've killed him!" Scheikowitz gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow!</i> I've killed him!" Elkan exclaimed. "It would take a whole
+lot more as that to kill a bum like him."</p>
+
+<p>He bent over Flaxberg and shook him by the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" he shouted in his ear. "You are ruining your clothes!"</p>
+
+<p>Flaxberg raised his drooping head and, assisted by Elkan,
+regained his feet and staggered to the water-cooler, where Elkan
+bathed his streaming nostrils with the icy fluid.</p>
+
+<p>At length Scheikowitz stirred himself to action just as Polatkin
+relinquished the 'phone.</p>
+
+<p>"Markulies," Scheikowitz shouted, "go out and get a policeman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do nothing of the kind, Markulies!" Polatkin declared. "I
+got something to say here too."</p>
+
+<p>He turned severely to Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that loafer alone and listen to me," he said. "What right
+do you got to promise deliveries on them 2060's in a week?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought&mdash;&mdash;" Elkan began.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't got no business to think," Polatkin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> interrupted. "The
+next time you are selling a concern like Appenweier &amp; Murray
+don't promise nothing in the way of deliveries, because with
+people like them it's always the same. If you tell 'em a week
+they ring you up and insist on it they would got to got the goods
+in five days."</p>
+
+<p>He put his hand on Elkan's shoulder; and the set expression of
+his face melted until his short dark moustache disappeared
+between his nose and his under lip in a widespread grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Come inside the office," he said&mdash;"you too, Scheikowitz. Elkan's
+got a long story he wants to tell us."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Half an hour later, Sam Markulies knocked timidly at the office
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "Marx Feinermann says to me to ask you
+if he should wait any longer on account they're very busy over to
+Kupferberg Brothers'."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him he should come in here," Polatkin said; and Markulies
+withdrew after gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the spectacle of
+Elkan Lubliner seated at Polatkin's desk, with one of Polatkin's
+mildest cigars in his mouth, while the two partners sat in
+adjacent chairs and smiled on Elkan admiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to speak to me, Mr. Polatkin?" Feinermann asked, as he
+came in a moment afterward.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>"Sure," Polatkin replied as he handed the astonished Feinermann a
+cigar. "Sit down, Feinermann, and listen to me. In the first
+place, Feinermann, what for a neighborhood is Pitt Street to live
+in? Why don't you move uptown, Feinermann?"</p>
+
+<p>"A foreman is lucky if he could live in Pitt Street even,"
+Feinermann said. "You must think I got money, Mr. Polatkin."</p>
+
+<p>"How much more a month would it cost you to live uptown?"
+Polatkin continued. "At the most ten dollars&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Feinermann nodded sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"To a man which he is only a foreman, Mr. Polatkin, ten dollars
+is ten dollars," he commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Polatkin said; "but instead of five dollars a
+week board, Elkan would pay you seven dollars a week, supposing
+you would move up to Lenox Avenue. Ain't that right, Elkan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, that's right," Elkan said. "Only, if I am paying him seven
+dollars a week board, he must got to give Mrs. Feinermann a
+dollar and a half extra housekeeping money. Is that agreeable,
+Feinermann?"</p>
+
+<p>Again Feinermann nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Then that's all we want from you, Feinermann," Polatkin added,
+"except I want to tell you this much: I am asking Elkan he should
+come uptown and live with me; and he says no&mdash;he would prefer to
+stick where he is."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>Feinermann shrugged complacently.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't got no objections," he said as he withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Elkan," Polatkin cried, "we got to fix it up with the
+other feller."</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had he spoken when there stood framed in the open doorway
+the disheveled figure of Flaxberg.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Flaxberg," Polatkin said. "What d'ye want from us now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am coming to tell you this, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg said
+thickly through his cut and swollen lips: "I am coming to tell
+you that I'm sick and so you must give me permission to go home."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody wants you to stay here, Flaxberg," Polatkin answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Flaxberg rejoined; "but if I would go home
+without your consent you would claim I made a breach of my
+contract."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let that worry you in the least, Flaxberg," Polatkin
+retorted, "because, so far as that goes, we fire you right here
+and now, on account you didn't make no attempt to sell Appenweier
+&amp; Murray, when a boy like Elkan, which up to now he wasn't even a
+salesman at all, could sell 'em one thousand dollars goods."</p>
+
+<p>Flaxberg's puffed features contorted themselves in an expression
+of astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Lubliner sells Appenweier &amp; Murray a bill of goods!" he
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>By way of answer Polatkin held out the order slip for Flaxberg's
+inspection.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Flaxberg declared. "I would make it hot for
+you anyhow! You put this young feller up to it that he pretty
+near kills me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow!</i> We put him up to it!" Polatkin retorted. "You put him up
+to it yourself, Flaxberg. You are lucky he didn't break your neck
+for you; because, if you think you could sue anybody in the
+courts yet, we got for witness Feinermann, Markulies and
+ourselves that you called him a liar and a thief."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Polatkin," Scheikowitz said, "give him say a hundred
+dollars and call it square."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't give me five hundred dollars," Flaxberg shouted as
+he started for the door, "because I would sue you in the courts
+for five thousand dollars yet."</p>
+
+<p>Flaxberg banged the door violently behind him, whereat Polatkin
+shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Bluffs he is making it!" he declared; and forthwith he began to
+unfold plans for Elkan's new campaign as city salesman. He had
+not proceeded very far, however, when there came another knock at
+the door. It was Sam Markulies.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Flaxberg says to me I should ask you if he should wait for
+the hundred dollars a check, or might you would mail it to him
+maybe!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz looked inquiringly at his partner.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>"Put on it, 'In full of all claims against Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz
+or Elkan Lubliner to date,'" he said. "And when you get through
+with that, Scheikowitz, write an 'ad' for an assistant cutter.
+We've got to get busy on that Appenweier &amp; Murray order right
+away."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_THREE" id="CHAPTER_THREE"></a>CHAPTER THREE</h2>
+<h2>A MATCH FOR ELKAN LUBLINER</h2>
+<h3>MADE IN HEAVEN, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF MAX KAPFER</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"I WOULDN'T care if Elkan Lubliner was only eighteen even,"
+declared Morris Rashkind emphatically; "he ain't too young to
+marry B. Maslik's a <i>Tochter</i>. There's a feller which he has got
+in improved property alone, understand me, an equity of a hundred
+to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and if you would count
+second mortgages and Bronix lots, Mr. Polatkin, the feller is
+worth easy his quarter of a million dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know," Polatkin retorted. "With such a feller, he gives
+his daughter when she gets married five thousand dollars a second
+mortgage, understand me; and the most the <i>Chosan</i> could expect
+is that some day he forecloses the mortgage and gets a deficiency
+judgment against a dummy bondsman which all his life he never got
+money enough to pay his laundry bills even!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oser a St&uuml;ck!</i>" Rashkind protested. "He says to me, so sure as
+you are sitting there, 'Mr. Rash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>kind,' he says, 'my dear
+friend,' he says, 'Birdie is my only <i>Tochter</i>. I ain't got no
+other one,' he says, '<i>Gott sei Dank</i>,' he says; 'and the least I
+could do for her is five thousand dollars cash,' he says, 'in a
+certified check,' he says, 'before the feller goes under the
+<i>Chuppah</i> at all.'"</p>
+
+<p>"With a feller like B. Maslik," Polatkin commented, "it ain't
+necessary for him to talk that way, Rashkind, because if he wants
+to get an up-to-date business man for his daughter, understand
+me, he couldn't expect the feller is going to take chances on an
+uncertified check <i>oder</i> a promissory note."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, Mr. Polatkin," Rashkind said. "B. Maslik's
+promissory note is just so good as his certified check, Mr.
+Polatkin. With that feller I wouldn't want his promissory note
+even. His word in the presence of a couple of bright,
+level-headed witnesses, which a lawyer couldn't rattle 'em on the
+stand, <i>verstehst du</i>, would be good enough for me, Mr. Polatkin.
+B. Maslik, y'understand, is absolutely good like diamonds, Mr.
+Polatkin."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," Polatkin said. "I'll speak to Elkan about it. He'll
+be back from the road Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>"Speak nothing," Rashkind cried excitedly. "Saturday would be too
+late. Everybody is working on this here proposition, Mr.
+Polatkin. Because the way property is so dead nowadays all the
+real estaters tries to be a <i>Shadchen</i>, understand me; so if you
+wouldn't want Miss Maslik to slip through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> Elkan's fingers, write
+him this afternoon yet. I got a fountain pen right here."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he produced a fountain pen of formidable dimensions
+and handed it to Polatkin.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take the letter along with me and mail it," Rashkind
+continued as Marcus made a preliminary flourish.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him," Rashkind went on, "that the girl is something which
+you could really call beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't tell him nothing of the sort," Polatkin said,
+"because, in the first place, what for a <i>Schreiber</i> you think I
+am anyway? And, in the second place, Rashkind, Elkan is so full
+of business, understand me, if I would write him to come home on
+account this here Miss Maslik is such a good-looker he wouldn't
+come at all."</p>
+
+<p>Rashkind shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead," he said. "Do it your own way."</p>
+
+<p>For more than five minutes Polatkin indited his message to Elkan
+and at last he inclosed it in an envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"How would you spell Bridgetown?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Which Bridgetown?" Rashkind inquired&mdash;"Bridgetown, Pennsylvania,
+<i>oder</i> Bridgetown, Illinois?"</p>
+
+<p>"What difference does that make?" Polatkin demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"About the spelling it don't make no difference," Rashkind
+replied. "Bridgetown is spelt B-r-i-d-g-e-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>t-a-u-n, all the world
+over; <i>aber</i> if it's Bridgetown, Pennsylvania, that's a very
+funny quincidence, on account I am just now talking to a feller
+which formerly keeps a store there by the name Flixman."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean Julius Flixman?" Marcus asked as he licked the
+envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the feller," Rashkind said with a sigh as he pocketed the
+letter to Elkan. "It's a funny world, Mr. Polatkin. Him and me
+comes over together in one steamer yet, thirty years ago; and
+to-day if that feller's worth a cent he's worth fifty thousand
+dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Marcus agreed; "and <i>Gott soll h&uuml;ten</i> you and I
+should got what he's got it. He could drop down in the streets
+any moment, Rashkind." Rashkind nodded as he rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"In a way, it's his own fault," he said, "because a feller which
+he could afford to ride round in taxicabs yet ain't got no
+business walking the streets in his condition. I told him this
+morning: 'Julius,' I says, 'if I was one of your heirs,' I says
+to him, 'I wouldn't want nothing better as to see you hanging
+round the real-estate exchange, looking the way you look!' And he
+says to me: 'Rashkind,' he says, 'there is a whole lot worser
+things I could wish myself as you should be my heir,' he says.
+'On account,' he says, 'if a <i>Schlemiel</i> like you would got a
+relation which is going to leave you money, Rashkind,' he says,
+'it would be just your luck that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> the relation dies one day after
+you do, even if you would live to be a hundred.'"</p>
+
+<p>He walked toward the door and paused on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Polatkin," he concluded, "you could take it from me, if
+that feller's got heart disease, Mr. Polatkin, it ain't from
+overworking it. So I would ring you up to-morrow afternoon three
+o'clock and see if Elkan's come yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm agreeable," Polatkin declared; "only one thing I got to ask
+you: you should keep your mouth shut to my partner, on account if
+he hears it that I am bringing back Elkan from the road just for
+this here Miss Maslik, understand me, he would never let me hear
+the end of it."</p>
+
+<p>Rashkind made a reassuring gesture with his right arm after the
+fashion of a swimmer who employs the overhand stroke.</p>
+
+<p>"What have I got to do with your partner?" he said as he started
+for the elevator. "If I meet him in the place, I am selling
+buttons and you don't want to buy none. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin nodded and turned to the examination of a pile of
+monthly statements by way of dismissing the marriage broker.
+Moreover, he felt impelled to devise some excuse for sending for
+Elkan, so that he might have it pat upon the return from lunch of
+his partner, Philip Scheikowitz, who at that precise moment was
+seated in the rear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> of Wasserbauer's caf&eacute;, by the side of Charles
+Fischko.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Scheikowitz," Fischko said, "if you would really got
+the feller's interest in heart, understand me, you wouldn't wait
+till Saturday at all. Write him to-day yet, because this
+proposition is something which you could really call remarkable,
+on account most girls which they got five thousand dollars
+dowries, Mr. Scheikowitz, ain't got five-thousand-dollar faces;
+<i>aber</i> this here Miss Maslik is something which when you are
+paying seventy-five cents a seat on theaytre, understand me, you
+don't see such an elegant-looking <i>Gesicht</i>. She's a regular
+doll, Mr. Scheikowitz!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Scheikowitz agreed; "that's the way it is with
+them dolls, Fischko&mdash;takes a fortune already to dress 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Fischko flapped the air indignantly with both hands.</p>
+
+<p>"That's where you are making a big mistake," he declared. "The
+Masliks got living in the house with 'em a girl which for years
+already she makes all Miss Maslik's dresses and Mrs. Maslik's
+also. B. Maslik told me so himself, Mr. Scheikowitz. He says to
+me: 'Fischko,' he says, 'my Birdie is a girl which she ain't
+accustomed she should got a lot of money spent on her,' he says;
+'the five thousand dollars is practically net,' he says, 'on
+account his expenses would be small.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>"Is she a good cook?" Scheikowitz asked.</p>
+
+<p>"A good cook!" Fischko cried. "Listen here to me, Mr.
+Scheikowitz. You know that a <i>Shadchen</i> eats sometimes in pretty
+swell houses. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am telling you, Mr. Scheikowitz, so sure as I am sitting
+here, that I got in B. Maslik's last Tuesday a week ago already a
+piece of plain everyday <i>gef&uuml;llte Hechte</i>, Mr. Scheikowitz, which
+honestly, if you would go to Delmonico's <i>oder</i> the Waldorfer,
+understand me, you could pay as high as fifty cents for it, Mr.
+Scheikowitz, and it wouldn't be&mdash;I am not saying better&mdash;but so
+good even as that there <i>gef&uuml;llte Hechte</i> which I got it by B.
+Maslik."</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Fischko," he said, "I will write the boy so soon as I
+get back to the office yet; but one thing I must beg of you:
+don't say a word about this to my partner, y'understand, because
+if he would hear that I am bringing home Elkan from the road just
+on account of this <i>Shidduch</i> you are proposing, understand me,
+he would make my life miserable."</p>
+
+<p>Fischko shrugged his shoulders until his head nearly disappeared
+into his chest.</p>
+
+<p>"What would I talk to your partner for, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he
+said. "I am looking to you in this here affair; so I would stop
+round the day after to-morrow afternoon, Mr. Scheikowitz, and if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+your partner asks me something a question, I would tell him I am
+selling thread <i>oder</i> buttons."</p>
+
+<p>"Make it buttons," Scheikowitz commented, as he rose to his feet;
+"because we never buy buttons from nobody but the Prudential
+Button Company."</p>
+
+<p>On his way back to his office Scheikowitz pondered a variety of
+reasons for writing Elkan to return, and he had tentatively
+adopted the most extravagant one when, within a hundred feet of
+his business premises, he encountered no less a personage than
+Julius Flixman.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Wie geht's</i>, Mr. Flixman?" he cried. "What brings you to New
+York?"</p>
+
+<p>Flixman saluted Philip with a limp handclasp.</p>
+
+<p>"I am living here now," he said. "I am giving up my store in
+Bridgetown <i>schon</i> six months ago already, on account I enjoyed
+such poor health there. So I sold out to a young feller by the
+name Max Kapfer, which was for years working by Paschalson, of
+Sarahcuse; and I am living here, as I told you."</p>
+
+<p>"With relations maybe?" Philip asked.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow</i>, relations!" Flixman replied. "I used to got one sister
+living in Bessarabia, Mr. Scheikowitz, and I ain't heard from her
+in more as thirty years, and I guess she is dead all right by
+this time. I am living at a hotel which I could assure you the
+prices they soak me is something terrible."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are you doing round this neighborhood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> Mr. Flixman?"
+Philip continued by way of making conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I was just over to see a lawyer over on Center Street," Flixman
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"A lawyer on Center Street!" Philip exclaimed. "A rich man like
+you should got a lawyer on Wall Street, Mr. Flixman. Henry D.
+Feldman is our lawyer, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mention that sucker to me!" Flixman interrupted. "Actually
+the feller is got the nerve to ask me a hundred dollars for
+drawing a will, and this here feller on Center Street wants only
+fifty. I bet yer if I would go round there to-morrow or the next
+day he takes twenty-five even."</p>
+
+<p>"But a will is something which is really important, Mr. Flixman."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to me it ain't, Scheikowitz, because, while I couldn't take
+my money with me, Scheikowitz, I ain't got no one to leave it to;
+so, if I wouldn't make a will it goes to the state&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," Philip commented.</p>
+
+<p>"So I am leaving it to a Talmud Torah School, which it certainly
+don't do no harm that all them young loafers over on the East
+Side should learn a little <i>Loschen Hakodesch</i>. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure not," Philip said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Flixman concluded as he took a firmer grasp on his cane
+preparatory to departing, "that's the way it goes. If I would got
+children to leave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> my money to I would say: 'Yes; give the lawyer
+a hundred dollars.' But for a Talmud Torah School I would see 'em
+all dead first before I would pay fifty even."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded savagely in farewell and shuffled off down the street,
+while Philip made his way toward the factory, with his
+half-formed excuse to his partner now entirely forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>He tried in vain to recall it when he entered his office a few
+minutes later, but the sight of his partner spurred him to action
+and immediately he devised a new and better plan.</p>
+
+<p>"Marcus," he said, "write Elkan at once he should come back to
+the store. I just seen Flixman on the street and he tells me he's
+got a young feller by the name Karpfer <i>oder</i> Kapfer now running
+his store; and," he continued in an access of inspiration, "the
+stock is awful run down there; so, if Elkan goes right back to
+Bridgetown with a line of low-priced goods he could do a big
+business with Kapfer."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin had long since concocted what he had conceived to be a
+perfectly good excuse for his letter, and he had intended to lend
+it color by prefacing it with an abusive dissertation on "Wasting
+the Whole Afternoon over Lunch"; but Scheikowitz' greeting
+completely disarmed him. His jaw dropped and he gazed stupidly at
+his partner.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" Scheikowitz cried. "Is it so strange we
+should bring Elkan back here for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> the chance of doing some more
+business? Three dollars carfare between here and Bridgetown
+wouldn't make or break us, Polatkin."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! Sure!" Marcus said at last. "I would&mdash;now&mdash;write him as
+soon as I get back from lunch."</p>
+
+<p>"Write him right away!" Scheikowitz insisted; and, though Marcus
+had breakfasted before seven that morning and it was then
+half-past two, he turned to his desk without further parley.
+There, for the second time that day, he penned a letter to Elkan;
+and, after exhibiting it to his partner, he inclosed it in an
+addressed envelope. Two minutes later he paused in front of
+Wasserbauer's caf&eacute; and, taking the missive from his pocket, tore
+it into small pieces and cast it into the gutter.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"I suppose, Elkan, you are wondering why we wrote you to come
+home from Bridgetown when you would be back on Saturday anyway,"
+Scheikowitz began as Elkan laid down his suitcase in the firm's
+office the following afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," Elkan replied. "I had an appointment for this
+morning to see a feller there, which we could open maybe a good
+account; a feller by the name Max Kapfer."</p>
+
+<p>"Max Kapfer?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz exclaimed with one voice.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said," Elkan repeated. "And in order I shouldn't
+lose the chance I got him to promise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> he would come down here
+this afternoon yet on a late train and we would pay his
+expenses."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean Max Kapfer, the feller which took over Flixman's
+store?" Polatkin asked.</p>
+
+<p>"There's only one Max Kapfer in Bridgetown," Elkan replied, and
+Polatkin immediately assumed a pose of righteous indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"That's from yours an idee, Scheikowitz," he said. "Not only you
+make the boy trouble to come back to the store, but we also got
+to give this feller Kapfer his expenses yet."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you kicking about?" Scheikowitz demanded. "You seemed
+agreeable to the proposition yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"I got to seem agreeable," Polatkin retorted as he started for
+the door of the factory, "otherwise it would be nothing but
+fight, fight, fight <i>mit</i> you, day in, day out."</p>
+
+<p>He paused at the entrance and winked solemnly at Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sick and tired of it," he concluded as he supplemented the
+wink with a significant frown, and when he passed into the
+factory Elkan followed him.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter now?" Elkan asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to speak to you a few words something," Polatkin began;
+but before he could continue Scheikowitz entered the factory.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you got your lunch on the train, Elkan?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> Scheikowitz said;
+"because, if not, come on out and we'll have a cup coffee
+together."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave the boy alone, can't you?" Polatkin exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go right out with you, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan said as he
+edged away to the rear of the factory. "Go and put on your hat
+and I'll be with you in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>When Scheikowitz had re&euml;ntered the office Elkan turned to Marcus
+Polatkin.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't scrapping again," he said, "are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oser a St&uuml;ck</i>," Polatkin answered. "We are friendly like lambs;
+but listen here to me, Elkan. I ain't got no time before he'll be
+back again, so I'll tell you. As a matter of fact, it was me that
+wrote you to come back, really. I got an elegant <i>Shidduch</i> for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Shidduch!</i>" Elkan exclaimed. "For me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," Polatkin whispered. "A fine-looking girl by the name
+Birdie Maslik, <i>mit</i> five thousand dollars. Don't say nothing to
+Scheikowitz about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," Elkan said, "I ain't looking for no <i>Shidduch</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"S-ssh!" Polatkin hissed. "Her father is B. Maslik, the 'Pants
+King.' To-morrow night you are going up to see her <i>mit</i>
+Rashkind, the <i>Shadchen</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil you are talking about?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word," Polatkin whispered out of one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> corner of his mouth.
+"Here comes Scheikowitz&mdash;and remember, don't say nothing to him
+about it. Y'understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded reluctantly as Scheikowitz reappeared from the
+office.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Elkan," Scheikowitz demanded, "are you coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right away," Elkan said, and together they proceeded downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Elkan," Scheikowitz began when they reached the sidewalk,
+"you must think we was crazy to send for you just on account of
+this here Kapfer. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged in reply.</p>
+
+<p>"But, as a matter of fact," Scheikowitz continued, "Kapfer ain't
+got no more to do with it than Elia Hanov&eacute;; and, even though
+Polatkin would be such a crank that I was afraid for my life to
+suggest a thing, it was my idee you should come home, Elkan,
+because in a case like this delays is dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan pleaded, "do me the favour and don't go
+beating bushes round. What are you trying to drive into?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to drive into this, Elkan," Scheikowitz replied: "I
+have got for you an elegant <i>Shidduch</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Shidduch!</i>" Elkan exclaimed. "For me? Why, Mr. Scheikowitz, I
+don't want no <i>Shidduch</i> yet a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> while; and anyhow, Mr.
+Scheikowitz, if I would get married I would be my own
+<i>Shadchen</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Elkan!" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "A feller which is
+his own <i>Shadchen</i> remains single all his life long."</p>
+
+<p>"That suits me all right," Elkan commented as they reached
+Wasserbauer's. "I would remain single <i>und fertig</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean, you would remain single?" Scheikowitz cried. "Is
+some one willing to pay you five thousand dollars you should
+remain single, Elkan? <i>Oser</i> a <i>St&uuml;ck</i>, Elkan; and, furthermore,
+this here Miss Birdie Maslik is got such a face, Elkan, which,
+honest, if she wouldn't have a cent to her name, understand me,
+you would say she is beautiful anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Birdie Maslik!" Elkan murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"B. Maslik's a <i>Tochter</i>," Scheikowitz added; "and remember,
+Elkan, don't breathe a word of this to Polatkin, otherwise he
+would never get through talking about it. Moreover, you will go
+up to Maslik's house to-morrow night with Charles Fischko, the
+<i>Shadchen</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Now listen here to me, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan protested. "I
+ain't going nowheres with no <i>Shadchen</i>&mdash;and that's all there is
+to it."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i>, Elkan," Scheikowitz said, "this here Fischko ain't a
+<i>Shadchen</i> exactly. He's really a real-estater, <i>aber</i> real
+estate is so dead nowadays<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> the feller must got to make a living
+somehow; so it ain't like you would be going somewheres <i>mit</i> a
+<i>Shadchen</i>, Elkan. Actually you are going somewheres <i>mit</i> a
+real-estater. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It don't make no difference," Elkan answered stubbornly. "If I
+would go and see a girl I would go alone, otherwise not at all.
+So, if you insist on it I should go and see this here Miss Maslik
+to-morrow night, Mr. Scheikowitz, I would do so, but not with
+Rashkind."</p>
+
+<p>"Fischko," Scheikowitz interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Fischko <i>oder</i> Rashkind," Elkan said&mdash;"that's all there is to
+it. And if I would get right back to the store I got just time to
+go up to the Prince Clarence and meet Max Kapfer; so you would
+excuse me if I skip."</p>
+
+<p>"Think it over Elkan," Scheikowitz called after him as Elkan left
+the caf&eacute;, and three quarters of an hour later he entered Polatkin
+&amp; Scheikowitz' showroom accompanied by a fashionably attired
+young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Polatkin," Elkan said, "shake hands with Mr. Kapfer."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mr. Kapfer?" Polatkin cried. "This here is my
+partner, Philip Scheikowitz."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Kapfer said. "You are very
+conveniently located here. Right in the heart of things, so to
+speak. I see across the street is Bleimauer &amp; Gittelmann. Them
+people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> was in to see me last week already and offered me a big
+bargain in velvet suits, but I was all stocked up along that line
+so I didn't hand them no orders."</p>
+
+<p>"Velvet suits ain't our specialty at all," Polatkin replied; "but
+I bet yer if we never seen a velvet suit in all our lives, Mr.
+Kapfer, we could work you up a line of velvet suits which would
+make them velvet suits of Bleimauer &amp; Gittelmann look like a
+bundle of rags."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it," Kapfer rejoined; "but, as I said before,
+velvet suits I am all stocked up in, as I couldn't afford to
+carry very many of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Polatkin said as he led the way to the
+showroom. "We got a line of garments here, Mr. Kapfer, which
+includes all prices and styles." He handed Max a large mild cigar
+as he spoke. "So let's see if we couldn't suit you," he
+concluded.</p>
+
+<p>For more than two hours Max Kapfer examined Polatkin &amp;
+Scheikowitz' sample line and made so judicious a selection of
+moderate-priced garments that Polatkin could not forbear
+expressing his admiration, albeit the total amount of the
+purchase was not large.</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly got the right buying idee, Mr. Kapfer," he said.
+"Them styles is really the best value we got."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," Kapfer agreed. "I was ten years with Paschalson, of
+Sarahcuse, Mr. Polatkin, and what I don't know about a
+popular-price line<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> of ladies' ready-to-wear garments, underwear
+and millinery, Paschalson couldn't learn me. But that ain't what
+I'm after, Mr. Polatkin. I'd like to do some high-price business
+too. If I had the capital I would improve my store building and
+put in new fixtures, understand me, and I could increase my
+business seventy-five per cent and carry a better class of goods
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Polatkin said as they returned to the office.
+"Everybody needs more capital, Mr. Kapfer. We ourselves could do
+with a few thousand dollars more."</p>
+
+<p>He looked significantly at Elkan, who colored slightly as he
+recognized the allusion.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet yer," Scheikowitz added fervently. "Five thousand dollars
+would be welcome to us also." He nodded almost imperceptibly at
+Elkan, who forthwith broke into a gentle perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Five thousand was just the figure I was thinking of myself,"
+Kapfer said. "With five thousand dollars I could do wonders in
+Bridgetown, Mr. Scheikowitz."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm surprised Flixman don't help you out a bit," Elkan suggested
+by way of changing the subject, and Kapfer emitted a mirthless
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"That bloodsucker!" he said. "What, when I bought his store, Mr.
+Scheikowitz, he took from me in part payment notes at two, four,
+and six months; and, though I got the cash ready to pay him the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+last note, which it falls due this week already, I asked him he
+should give me two months an extension, on account I want to put
+in a few fixtures on the second floor. Do you think that feller
+would do it? He's got a heart like a rock, Mr. Polatkin; and any
+one which could get from him his money must got to blast it out
+of him with dynamite yet."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin nodded solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't tell me nothing about Flixman," he said as he
+offered Kapfer a consolatory cigar. "It's wasting your lungs to
+talk about such a feller at all; so let's go ahead and finish up
+this order, Mr. Kapfer, and afterward Elkan would go uptown with
+you." He motioned Kapfer to a seat and then looked at his watch.
+"I didn't got no idee it was so late," he said. "Scheikowitz, do
+me the favor and go over Mr. Kapfer's order with him while I give
+a look outside and see what's doing in the shop."</p>
+
+<p>As he walked toward the door he jerked his head sideways at
+Elkan, who a moment later followed him into the factory.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Elkan," he began. "While you and Scheikowitz was out for
+your coffee, Rashkind rings me up and says you should meet him on
+the corner of One Hundred and Twentieth Street and Lenox Avenue
+to-night&mdash;not to-morrow night&mdash;at eight o'clock sure."</p>
+
+<p>"But Kapfer ain't going back to Bridgetown to-night," Elkan
+protested. "He told me so him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>self on account he is got still to
+buy underwear, millinery and shoes."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that our business?" Polatkin asked. "He's already bought
+from us all he's going to; so, if he stays here, let them
+underwear and millinery people entertain him. Blow him to dinner
+and that would be plenty."</p>
+
+<p>Once more Elkan shrugged despairingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't say nothing to Scheikowitz about it, did you?"
+Polatkin inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I didn't say nothing to him about it," Elkan said;
+"because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Elkan," Scheikowitz called from the office, "Mr. Kapfer is
+waiting for you."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan had been about to disclose the conversation between himself
+and Scheikowitz at Wasserbauer's that afternoon, but Marcus, at
+the appearance of his partner, turned abruptly and walked into
+the cutting room; and thus, when Elkan accompanied Max Kapfer
+uptown that evening, his manner was so preoccupied by reason of
+his dilemma that Kapfer was constrained to comment on it.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"What's worrying you, Lubliner?" he asked as they seated
+themselves in the caf&eacute; of the Prince Clarence. "You look like you
+was figuring out the interest on the money you owe."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you the truth, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> began, "I would
+like to ask you an advice about something."</p>
+
+<p>"Go as far as you like," Kapfer replied. "It don't make no
+difference if a feller would be broke <i>oder</i> in jail, he could
+always give somebody advice."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's like this," Elkan said, and forthwith he unfolded the
+circumstances attending his return from Bridgetown.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu!</i>" Kapfer commented when Elkan concluded his narrative.
+"What is that for something to worry about?"</p>
+
+<p>"But the idee of the thing is wrong," Elkan protested. "In the
+first place, I got lots of time to get married, on account I am
+only twenty-one, Mr. Kapfer; and though a feller couldn't start
+in too early in business, Mr. Kapfer, getting married is
+something else again. To my mind a feller should be anyhow
+twenty-five before he jumps right in and gets married."</p>
+
+<p>"With some people, yes, and others, no," Kapfer rejoined.</p>
+
+<p>"And in the second place," Elkan went on, "I don't like this here
+<i>Shadchen</i> business. We are living in America, not <i>Russland</i>;
+and in America if a feller gets married he don't need no help
+from a <i>Shadchen</i>, Mr. Kapfer."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Kapfer said, "he don't need no help, Lubliner; but, just
+the same, if some one would come to me any time these five years
+and says to me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> here is something a nice girl, understand me,
+with five thousand dollars, y'understand, I would have been
+married <i>schon</i> long since already." He cleared his throat
+judicially and sat back in his chair until it rested against the
+wall. "The fact is, Lubliner," he said, "you are acting like a
+fool. What harm would it do supposing you would go up there
+to-night with this here Rashkind?"</p>
+
+<p>"What, and go there to-morrow night with Fischko!" Elkan
+exclaimed. "Besides, if I would go up there to-night with
+Rashkind and the deal is closed, understand me, might Fischko
+would sue Mr. Scheikowitz in the court yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," Kapfer declared. "Fischko couldn't sue nobody but
+B. Maslik; so never mind waiting here for dinner. Hustle uptown
+and keep your date with Rashkind." He shook Elkan by the hand.
+"Good luck to you, Lubliner," he concluded heartily; "and if you
+got the time stop in on your way down to-morrow morning and let
+me know how you come out."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>When Elkan Lubliner arrived at the corner of One Hundred and
+Twentieth Street and Lenox Avenue that evening, it might well be
+supposed that he would have difficulty in recognizing Mr.
+Rashkind, since neither he nor Rashkind had any previous
+acquaintance. However, he accosted without hesitation a short,
+stout person arrayed in a wrinkled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> frock coat and wearing the
+white tie and gold spectacles that invariably garb the members of
+such quasi-clerical professions as a <i>Shadchen</i>, a sexton or the
+collector of subscriptions for a charitable institution. Indeed,
+as Rashkind combined all three of these callings with the
+occupation of a real-estate broker, he also sported a high silk
+hat of uncertain vintage and a watch-chain bearing a Masonic
+emblem approximating in weight and size a tailor's goose.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mr. Rashkind, ain't it?" Elkan asked, and Rashkind bowed
+solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Mr. Lubliner," Elkan continued, "and Mr. Polatkin
+says you would be here at eight."</p>
+
+<p>For answer Mr. Rashkind drew from his waistcoat pocket what
+appeared to be a six-ounce boxing glove, but which subsequently
+proved to be the chamois covering of his gold watch, the gift of
+Rambam Lodge, No. 142, I. O. M. A. This Mr. Rashkind consulted
+with knit brows.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," he said, returning the watch and its covering to
+his pocket&mdash;"eight o'clock to the minute; so I guess we would
+just so well go round to B. Maslik's house if you ain't got no
+objections."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm agreeable," Elkan said; "but, before we start, you should
+please be so good and tell me what I must got to do."</p>
+
+<p>"What you must got to do?" Rashkind exclaimed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> "A question! You
+mustn't got to do nothing. Act natural and leave the rest to me."</p>
+
+<p>"But," Elkan insisted as they proceeded down Lenox Avenue,
+"shouldn't I say something to the girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, you should say something to the girl," Rashkind replied;
+"but, if you couldn't find something to say to a girl like Miss
+Birdie Maslik, all I could tell you is you're a bigger
+<i>Schlemiel</i> than you look."</p>
+
+<p>With this encouraging ultimatum, Mr. Rashkind entered the portals
+of a hallway that glittered with lacquered bronze and plaster
+porphyry, and before Elkan had time to ask any more questions he
+found himself seated with Mr. Rashkind in the front parlour of a
+large apartment on the seventh floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Maslik says you should be so good and step into the dining
+room," the maid said to Mr. Rashkind. Forthwith he rose to his
+feet and left Elkan alone in the room, save for the presence of
+the maid, who drew down the shades and smiled encouragingly on
+Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't it a fine weather?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Elkan looked up, and he could not resist smiling in return.</p>
+
+<p>"Elegant," he replied. "It don't seem like summer was ever going
+to quit."</p>
+
+<p>"It couldn't last too long for me," the maid continued. "Might
+some people would enjoy cold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> weather maybe; but when it comes to
+going up on the roof, understand me, and hanging out a big wash,
+the summer is good enough for me."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan gazed for a moment at her oval face, with its kindly,
+intelligent brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say you got to do washing here?" he asked in shocked
+accents.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I do," she replied; "<i>aber</i> this winter I am going to night
+school again and next summer might I would get a job as
+bookkeeper maybe."</p>
+
+<p>"But why don't you get a job in a store somewheres?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I see myself working in a store all day, standing on my feet
+yet, and when I get through all my wages goes for board!" she
+replied. "Whereas, here I got anyhow a good room and board, and
+all what I earn I could put away in savings bank. I worked in a
+store long enough, Mr.&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lubliner," Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash;Mr. Lubliner; and I could assure you I would a whole lot
+sooner do housework," she went on. "Why should a girl think it's
+a disgrace she should do housework for a living is more as I
+could tell you. Sooner or later a girl gets married, and then she
+must got to do her own housework."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if her husband makes a good living," Elkan suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," she rejoined; "but how many girls which they are
+working in stores gets not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> rich man, understand me, but a man
+which is only making, say, for example, thirty dollars a week.
+The most that a poor girl expects is that she marries a poor man,
+y'understand, and then they work their way up together."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded. Unconsciously he was indorsing not so much the
+matter as the manner of her conversation, for she spoke with the
+low voice that distinguishes the Rumanian from the Pole or
+Lithuanian.</p>
+
+<p>"You are coming from Rumania, ain't it?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty near there," the maid replied. "Right on the border. I am
+coming here an orphan five years ago; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Lubliner," cried a rasping voice from the doorway, "we got
+our appointment for nothing&mdash;Miss Maslik is sick."</p>
+
+<p>"That's too bad," Elkan said perfunctorily.</p>
+
+<p>"Only a little something she eats gives her a headache," Rashkind
+went on. "We could come round the day after to-morrow night."</p>
+
+<p>"That's too bad also," Elkan commented, "on account the day after
+to-morrow night I got a date with a customer."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, B. Maslik would be in in a minute and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan rose to his feet so abruptly that he nearly sent his chair
+through a cabinet behind him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>"If I want to be here Friday night," he said, "I must see my
+customer to-night yet; so, young lady, if you would be so kind to
+tell Mr. Maslik I couldn't wait, but would be here Friday night
+with this here&mdash;now&mdash;gentleman. Come on, Rashkind."</p>
+
+<p>He started for the hall door almost on a run, with Rashkind
+gesticulating excitedly behind him; but, before the <i>Shadchen</i>
+could even grasp his coattails he had let himself hurriedly out
+and was taking the stairs three at a jump.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" Rashkind shouted as he plunged down the steps after Elkan.
+"What's the matter with you? Don't you want to meet Mr. Maslik?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan only hurried the faster, however, for in the few minutes he
+had been alone in the room with the little brown-eyed maid he had
+made the discovery that marriage with the aid of a <i>Shadchen</i> was
+impossible for him. Simultaneously he conceived the notion that
+marriage without the aid of a <i>Shadchen</i> might after all be well
+worth trying; and, as this idea loomed in his mind, his pace
+slackened until the <i>Shadchen</i> overtook him at the corner of One
+Hundred and Sixteenth Street.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner!" Rashkind said. "What is the matter
+with you anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan professed to misunderstand the question.</p>
+
+<p>"I've lost my address book," he said. "I had it in my hand when
+you left me alone there and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> must of forgotten it; so I guess
+I'll go back and get it."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," Rashkind replied. "I'll go with you."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan wheeled round and glared viciously at the <i>Shadchen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll do nothing of the kind!" he roared. "You get right down
+them subway steps or I wouldn't come up with you Friday night."</p>
+
+<p>"But what harm&mdash;&mdash;" Rashkind began, when Elkan seized him by the
+shoulder and led him firmly downstairs to the ticket office.
+There Elkan bought a ticket and, dropping it in the chopper's
+box, he pushed Rashkind on to the platform. A few minutes later a
+downtown express bore the <i>Shadchen</i> away and Elkan ascended the
+stairs in three tremendous bounds. Unwaveringly he started up the
+street for B. Maslik's apartment house, where, by the simple
+expedient of handing the elevator boy a quarter, he averted the
+formality of being announced. Thus, when he rang the doorbell of
+B. Maslik's flat, though it was opened by the little brown-eyed
+maid in person, she had discarded the white apron and cap that
+she had worn a few minutes before, and her hair was fluffed up in
+becoming disorder.</p>
+
+<p>"You was telling me you are coming originally from somewheres
+near Rumania," Elkan began without further preface, "and&mdash;why,
+what's the matter? You've been crying?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>She put her fingers to her lips and closed the door softly behind
+her. "They says I didn't got no business talking to you at all,"
+she replied, "and they called me down something terrible!"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan's eyes flashed angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Who calls you down?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. and Mrs. Maslik," she answered; "and they says I ain't got
+no shame at all!"</p>
+
+<p>She struggled bravely to retain her composure; but just one
+little half-strangled sob escaped her, and forthwith Elkan felt
+internally a peculiar sinking sensation.</p>
+
+<p>"What do they mean you ain't got no shame?" he protested. "I got
+a right to talk to you and you got a right to talk to me&mdash;ain't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded and sobbed again, whereat Elkan winced and dug his
+nails into the palms of his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" he pleaded. "Don't worry yourself at all. After this I
+wouldn't got no use for them people. I didn't come here on my own
+account in the first place, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here he paused.</p>
+
+<p>"But what?" the little maid asked.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm glad I came now," Elkan went on defiantly, "and I don't
+care who knows it. <i>Wir sind alles Jehudim</i>, anyhow, and one is
+just as good as the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Better even," she said. "What was B. Maslik in the old country?
+He could <i>oser</i> sign his name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> when he came here, while I am
+anyhow from decent, respectable people, Mr. Lubliner."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it," Elkan replied.</p>
+
+<p>"My father was a learned man, Mr. Lubliner; but that don't save
+him. One day he goes to Kishinef on business, Mr. Lubliner,
+and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here her composure entirely forsook her and she covered her face
+with her hands and wept. Elkan struggled with himself no longer.
+He took the little maid in his arms; and, as it seemed the most
+natural thing in the world to do, she laid her head against his
+shoulder and had her whole cry out.</p>
+
+<p>Elkan spoke no word, but patted her shoulder gently with his
+right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'm acting like a baby, Mr. Lubliner," she said, after a
+quarter of an hour had elapsed. To Elkan it seemed like an
+acquaintance of many months as he clasped her more closely.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Elkan, <i>Liebchen</i>," he said, "and we would send all
+the heavy washing out."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Well, Lubliner," Kapfer cried as Elkan came into the caf&eacute; of the
+Prince Clarence the following morning, "you didn't like
+her&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't like her!" Elkan exclaimed. "What d'ye mean I didn't like
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the way you look, I take it you had a pretty rotten time
+last night," Kapfer rejoined.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about&mdash;rotten time?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> Elkan protested. "The
+only thing is I feel so happy I didn't sleep a wink, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer jumped to his feet and slapped Elkan on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean you're engaged!" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" Elkan replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I congradulate you a thousand times," Kapfer said
+gleefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Once is plenty," Elkan replied.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it ain't," Kapfer rejoined. "You should got to be
+congradulated more as you think, because this morning I am
+talking to a feller in the clothing business here and he says B.
+Maslik is richer as most people believe. The feller says he is
+easy worth a quarter of a million dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that got to do with it?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that got to do with it?" Kapfer repeated. "Why, it's got
+everything to do with it, considering you are engaged to his only
+daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"I am engaged to his only daughter? Who told you that, Mr.
+Kapfer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you did!" Kapfer said.</p>
+
+<p>"I never said nothing of the kind," Elkan declared, "because I
+ain't engaged to Miss Maslik at all; in fact, I never even seen
+her."</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer gazed earnestly at Elkan and then sat down suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," he said. "Are you crazy or am I? Last
+night you says you are going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> up with a <i>Shadchen</i> to see Birdie
+Maslik, and now you tell me you are engaged, but not to Miss
+Maslik."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," Elkan replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then who in thunder are you engaged to?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just the point," Elkan said, as he passed his hand
+through his hair. "I ain't slept a wink all night on account of
+it; in fact, this morning I wondered should I go round there and
+ask&mdash;and then I thought to myself I would get from you an advice
+first."</p>
+
+<p>"Get from me an advice!" Kapfer exclaimed. "You mean you are
+engaged to a girl and you don't know her name, and so you come
+down here to ask me an advice as to how you should find out her
+name?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded sadly and leaned his elbow on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"It's like this," he said; and for more than half an hour he
+regaled Kapfer with a story that, stripped of descriptive and
+irrelevant material concerning Elkan's own feelings in the
+matter, ought to have taken only five minutes in the telling.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's the way it is, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan concluded. "I don't
+know her name; but a poor little girl like her, which she is so
+good&mdash;and so&mdash;and so&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here he became all choked up and Kapfer handed him a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go into that again, Lubliner," Kapfer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> said; "you told me
+how good she is six times already. The point is you are in a hole
+and you want me I should help you out&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, my advice to you is: <i>Stiegen</i>," Kapfer continued.
+"Don't say a word about this to nobody until you would, anyhow,
+find out the girl's name."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't going to," Elkan replied; "but there's something else,
+Mr. Kapfer. To-night I am to meet this here other <i>Shadchen</i> by
+the name Fischko, who is going to take me up to Maslik's house."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought Miss Maslik was sick," Kapfer said.</p>
+
+<p>"She was sick," Elkan answered, "but she would be better by
+to-night. So that's the way it stands. If I would go downtown now
+and explain to Mr. Scheikowitz that I am not going up there
+to-night and that I was there last night&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;" Here Elkan
+paused and made an expressive gesture with both hands. "The fact
+is," he almost whimpered, "the whole thing is such a <i>Mischmasch</i>
+I feel like I was going crazy!"</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer leaned across the table and patted him consolingly on the
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make yourself sick over it," he advised. "Put it up to
+Polatkin. You don't got to keep Scheikowitz's idee a secret now,
+Lubliner, because sooner or later Polatkin must got to find it
+out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> So you should let Polatkin know how you was up there last
+night, and that Rashkind wants you to go up there Friday night on
+account Miss Maslik was sick, and leave it to Polatkin to flag
+Scheikowitz and this here Fischko."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Elkan began, when the strange expression of Kapfer's
+face made him pause. Indeed, before he could proceed further,
+Kapfer jumped up from his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheese it!" he said. "Here comes Polatkin."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Polatkin caught sight of them and almost ran across
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Elkan!" he exclaimed. "<i>Gott sei Dank</i> I found you here."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin drew forward a chair and they all sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"I just had a terrible fuss with Scheikowitz," he said. "This
+morning, when I got downtown, I thought I would tell him what I
+brought you back for; so I says to him: 'Philip,' I says, 'I want
+to tell you something,' I says. 'I got an elegant <i>Shidduch</i> for
+Elkan.'" He stopped and let his hand fall with a loud smack on
+his thigh. "Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What a row that feller made
+it! You would think, Elkan, I told him I got a pistol to shoot
+you with, the way he acts. I didn't even got the opportunity to
+tell him who the <i>Shidduch</i> was. He tells me I should mind my own
+business<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> and calls me such names which honestly I wouldn't call
+a shipping clerk even. And what else d'ye think he says?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan and Kapfer shook their heads.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he says that to-night, at eight o'clock, he himself is
+going to have a <i>Shadchen</i> by the name Fischko take you up to see
+a girl in Harlem which the name he didn't tell me at all; but he
+says she's got five thousand dollars a dowry. Did he say to you
+anything about it, Elkan?"</p>
+
+<p>"The first I hear of it!" Elkan replied in husky tones as he
+averted his eyes from Polatkin. "Why, I wouldn't know the feller
+Fischko if he stood before me now, and he wouldn't know me
+neither."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't he tell you her name?" Kapfer asked cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"No," Polatkin replied, "because I says right away that the girl
+I had in mind would got a dowry of five thousand too; and then
+and there Scheikowitz gets so mad he smashes a chair on us&mdash;one
+of them new ones we just bought, Elkan. So I didn't say nothing
+more, but I rung up Rashkind right away and asks him how things
+turns out, and he says nothing is settled yet."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded guiltily.</p>
+
+<p>"So I got an idee," Polatkin continued. "I thought, Elkan, we
+would do this: Don't come downtown to-day at all, and to-night I
+would go up and meet Fischko and tell him you are practically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+engaged and the whole thing is off. Also I would <i>schenk</i> the
+feller a ten-dollar bill he shouldn't bother us again."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan grasped the edge of the table. He felt as if consciousness
+were slipping away from him, when suddenly Kapfer emitted a loud
+exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"By jiminy!" he cried. "I got an idee! Why shouldn't I go up
+there and meet this here Fischko?"</p>
+
+<p>"You go up there?" Polatkin said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure; why not? A nice girl like Miss&mdash;whatever her name
+is&mdash;ain't too good for me, Mr. Polatkin. I got a good business
+there in Bridgetown, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't know what for a girl she is at all," Polatkin
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>"She's got anyhow five thousand dollars," Kapfer retorted, "and
+when a girl's got five thousand dollars, Mr. Polatkin, beauty
+ain't even skin-deep."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Polatkin agreed; "but so soon as you see Fischko
+and tell him you ain't Elkan Lubliner he would refuse to take you
+round to see the girl at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that to me," Kapfer declared. "D'ye know what I'll tell
+him?" He looked hard at Elkan Lubliner before he continued. "I'll
+tell him," he said, "that Elkan is already engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"Already engaged!" Polatkin cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" Kapfer said&mdash;"secretly engaged unbeknownst to
+everybody."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>"But right away to-morrow morning Fischko would come down and
+tell Scheikowitz that you says Elkan is secretly engaged, and
+Scheikowitz would know the whole thing was a fake and that I am
+at the bottom of it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he wouldn't," Kapfer rejoined, "because Elkan would then and
+there say that he is secretly engaged and that would let you
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure it would," Polatkin agreed; "and then Scheikowitz would
+want to kill Elkan."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Elkan struck the table with his clenched fist.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got the idee!" he said. "I wouldn't come downtown till
+Saturday&mdash;because we will say, for example, I am sick. Then, when
+Fischko says I am secretly engaged, you can say you don't know
+nothing about it; and by the time I come down on Saturday morning
+I would be engaged all right, and nobody could do nothing any
+more."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true too," Kapfer said, "because your date with Rashkind
+is for to-morrow night and by Saturday the whole thing would be
+over."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin nodded doubtfully, but after a quarter of an hour's
+earnest discussion he was convinced of the wisdom of Elkan's
+plan.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Elkan," he said at last. "Be down early on Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>"Eight o'clock sure," Elkan replied as he shook<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> Polatkin's hand;
+"and by that time I hope you'll congratulate me on my
+engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," Polatkin said.</p>
+
+<p>"Me too," Kapfer added after Polatkin departed; "and I also hope,
+Elkan, this would be a warning to you that the next time you get
+engaged you should find out the girl's name in advance."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Yes, siree, sir," said Charles Fischko emphatically, albeit a
+trifle thickly. "I guess you made a big hit there, Mr. Kapfer,
+and I don't think I am acting previously when I drink to the
+health of Mrs. Kapfer." He touched glasses with Max Kapfer, who
+sat opposite to him at a secluded table in the Harlem Winter
+Garden, flanked by two bottles of what had been a choice brand of
+California champagne. "N&eacute;e Miss Maslik," he added as he put down
+his glass; "and I think you are getting a young lady which is not
+only good-looking but she is got also a heart like gold. Look at
+the way she treats the servant girl they got there! Honestly,
+when I was round there this morning them two girls was talking
+like sisters already!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Kapfer rejoined; "she's got a right to treat
+that girl like a sister. She's a nice little girl&mdash;that servant
+girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I know it!" Fischko protested as he poured himself out
+another glass of wine. "It was me that got her the job there two
+years ago already; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> before I would recommend to a family like
+B. Maslik's a servant girl, understand me, I would make sure she
+comes from decent, respectable people. Also the girl is a
+wonderful cook, Mr. Kapfer, simple, plain, everyday dish like
+<i>gef&uuml;llte Hechte</i>, Mr. Kapfer; she makes it like it would be
+roast goose already&mdash;so fine she cooks it. She learned it from
+her mother, Mr. Kapfer, also a wonderful cook. Why, would you
+believe it, Mr. Kapfer, that girl's own mother and me comes
+pretty near being engaged to be married oncet?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say!" Kapfer commented.</p>
+
+<p>"That was from some years ago in the old country already,"
+Fischko continued; "and I guess I ought to be lucky I didn't do
+so, on account she marries a feller by the name Silbermacher,
+<i>olav hasholem</i>, which he is got the misfortune to get killed in
+Kishinef. Poor Mrs. Silbermacher, she didn't live long, and the
+daughter, Yetta, comes to America an orphan five years ago. Ever
+since then the girl looks out for herself; and so sure as you are
+sitting there she's got in savings bank already pretty near eight
+hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" Kapfer interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," Fischko replied; "and when she is got a thousand,
+understand me, I would find for her a nice young man, Mr. Kapfer,
+which he is got anyhow twenty-five machines a contracting shop,
+y'understand, and she will get married <i>und fertig</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> With such
+good friends which I got it like Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz, I could
+throw a little business their way, and the first thing you know
+she is settled for life."</p>
+
+<p>Here Fischko drained his glass and reached out his hand toward
+the bottle; but Kapfer anticipated the move and emptied the
+remainder of the wine into his own glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Before I order another bottle, Fischko," he said, "I would like
+to talk a little business with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind another bottle," Fischko said. "I thought we was
+through with our business for the evening."</p>
+
+<p>"With our business, yes," Kapfer announced; "but this story which
+you are telling me about Miss Silbermacher interests me, Fischko,
+and I know a young feller which he is got more as twenty-five
+machines a contracting shop; in fact, Fischko, he is a salesman
+which he makes anyhow his fifty to seventy-five dollars a week,
+and he wants to get married bad."</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't want to get married so bad as all that," Fischko
+commented, "because there's lots of girls which would be only too
+glad to marry a such a young feller&mdash;girls with money even."</p>
+
+<p>"I give you right, Mr. Fischko," Kapfer agreed; "but this young
+feller ain't the kind that marries for money. What he wants is a
+nice girl which she is good-looking like this here Miss
+Silbermacher and is a good housekeeper, understand me; and from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+what I've seen of Miss Silbermacher she would be just the
+person."</p>
+
+<p>"What's his name?" Fischko asked.</p>
+
+<p>"His name," said Kapfer, "is Ury Shemansky, a close friend from
+mine; and I got a date with him at twelve o'clock on the corner
+drug store at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street that I should
+tell him how I came out this evening." He seized his hat from an
+adjoining hook. "So, if you'd wait here a few minutes," he said,
+"I would go and fetch him right round here. Shall I order another
+bottle before I go?"</p>
+
+<p>Fischko shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I got enough," he said; "and don't be long on account I must be
+going home soon."</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer nodded, and five minutes later he entered the all-night
+drug store in question and approached a young man who was seated
+at the soda fountain. In front of him stood a large glass of
+"Phospho-Nervino," warranted to be "A Speedy and Reliable Remedy
+for Nervous Headache, Sleeplessness, Mental Fatigue and
+Depression following Over-Brainwork"; and as he was about to
+raise the glass to his lips Kapfer slapped him on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer up, Elkan," he exclaimed. "Her name is Yetta Silbermacher
+and she's got in savings bank eight hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean she's got money in savings bank?" Elkan protested
+wearily, for the sleepless,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> brain-fatigued and depressed young
+man was none other than Elkan Lubliner. "Did you seen her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did," Kapfer replied; "and Miss Maslik's a fine, lovely girl.
+The old man ain't so bad either. He treated me elegant and
+Fischko thinks I made quite a hit there."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't asking you about Miss Maslik at all," Elkan said. "I
+mean Miss Silbermacher"&mdash;he hesitated and blushed&mdash;"Yetta," he
+continued, and buried his confusion in the foaming glass of
+"Phospho-Nervino."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I want to talk to you about," Kapfer went on.
+"Did I understand you are telling Polatkin that you never seen
+Fischko the <i>Shadchen</i> and he never seen you neither?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," Elkan replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come right down with me to the Harlem Winter Garden,"
+Kapfer said. "I want you to meet him. He ain't a bad sort, even
+if he would be a <i>Shadchen</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But what should I want to meet him for?" Elkan cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," Kapfer explained, "I am going to marry this here Miss
+Maslik, Elkan; and I'm going to improve my store property, so
+that my trade will be worth to Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz anyhow
+three thousand dollars a year&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that got to do with it?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It's got this much to do with it," Kapfer con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>tinued: "To-morrow
+afternoon two o'clock I would have Polatkin and Scheikowitz at my
+room in the Prince Clarence. You also would be there&mdash;and d'ye
+know who else would be there?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Yetta Silbermacher," Kapfer went on; "because I am going to
+get Fischko to bring her down there to meet an eligible party by
+the name Ury Shemansky."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" Elkan exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ssh-sh!" Kapfer cried reassuringly. "I am going to introduce you
+to Fischko right away as Ury Shemansky, provided he ain't so
+<i>shikker</i> when I get back that he wouldn't recognize you at all."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded and paid for his restorative, and on their way down
+to the Harlem Winter Garden they perfected the details of the
+appointment for the following afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"The reason why I am getting Fischko to bring her down," Kapfer
+explained, "is because, in the first place, it looks pretty
+<i>schlecht</i> that a feller should meet a girl only once and,
+without the help of a <i>Shadchen</i>, gets right away engaged to her;
+and so, with Fischko the <i>Shadchen</i> there, it looks better for
+you both. Furthermore, in the second place, a girl which is doing
+housework, Elkan, must got to have an excuse, understand me;
+otherwise she couldn't get away from her work at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But," Elkan said, "how do you expect that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Yetta would go with a
+<i>Shadchen</i> to see this here Ury Shemansky when she is already
+engaged to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schafskopf!</i>" Kapfer exclaimed. "Telephone her the first thing
+to-morrow morning that you are this here Ury Shemansky and she
+would come quick enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"That part's all right," Elkan agreed; "but I don't see yet how
+you are going to get Polatkin and Scheikowitz there."</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer nodded his head with spurious confidence; for of this,
+perhaps the most important part of his plan, he felt extremely
+doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that to me," he said sagely, and the next moment they
+entered the Harlem Winter Garden to find Charles Fischko gazing
+sadly at a solution of bicarbonate of soda and ammonia, a
+tumblerful of which stood in front of him on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Fischko," Kapfer said, "this is my friend Ury Shemansky, the
+gentleman I was speaking to you about."</p>
+
+<p>"No relation to Shemansky who used to was in the customer pedler
+business on Ridge Street?" Fischko asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not as I've heard," Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>"Because there's a feller, understand me, which he went to work
+and married a poor girl; and ever since he's got nothing but
+<i>Mazel</i>. The week afterward he found in the street a diamond ring
+worth two hundred dollars, and the next month a green<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>horn comes
+over with ten thousand rubles and wants to go as partners
+together with him in business. In a year's time Shemansky
+dissolves the partnership and starts in the remnant business with
+five thousand dollars net capital. He ain't been established two
+weeks, understand me, when a liquor saloon next door burns out
+and he gets a thousand dollars smoke damage; and one thing
+follows another, y'understand, till to-day he's worth easy his
+fifty thousand dollars. That's what it is to marry a poor girl,
+Mr. Shemansky." He took a pull at the tumbler of bicarbonate and
+made an involuntary grimace. "Furthermore, I am knowing this here
+Miss Silbermacher ever since she is born, pretty nearly!" Fischko
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You did!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, why didn't you tell me that,
+Kapfer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't think of everything," Kapfer protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead," Elkan said, turning to Fischko; "let me know all
+about her&mdash;everything! I think I got a right to know&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure you have," Fischko said as he cleared his throat
+oratorically; and therewith he began a laudatory biography of
+Yetta Silbermacher, while Elkan settled himself to listen. With
+parted lips and eyes shining his appreciation, he heard a
+narrative that justified beyond peradventure his choice of a
+wife, and when Fischko concluded he smote the table with his
+fist.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>"By jiminy!" he cried. "A feller should ought to be proud of a
+wife like that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure he should," Kapfer said; "and her and Fischko would be down
+at my room at the Prince Clarence to-morrow at two."</p>
+
+<p>He beckoned to the waiter. "So let's pay up and go home," he
+concluded; "and by to-morrow night Fischko would got two matches
+to his credit."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>K'mo she-n&eacute;emar</i>," Fischko said as he rose a trifle laboriously
+to his feet, "it is commanded to promote marriages, visit the
+sick and bury the dead."</p>
+
+<p>"And," Kapfer added, "you'll notice that promoting marriages
+comes ahead of the others."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>When Marcus Polatkin arrived at his place of business the
+following morning he looked round him anxiously for his partner,
+who had departed somewhat early the previous day with the avowed
+intention of seeing just how sick Elkan was. As a matter of fact,
+Scheikowitz had discovered Elkan lying on the sofa at his
+boarding place, vainly attempting to secure his first few
+minutes' sleep in over thirty-six hours; and he had gone home
+truly shocked at Elkan's pallid and careworn appearance, though
+Elkan had promised to keep the appointment with Fischko. Polatkin
+felt convinced, however, that his partner must have discovered
+the pretence of Elkan's indisposition, and his manner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> was a
+trifle artificial when he inquired after the absentee.</p>
+
+<p>"How was he feeling, Philip?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty bad, I guess," Scheikowitz replied, whereat a blank
+expression came over Polatkin's face. "The boy works too hard, I
+guess. He ain't slept a wink for two days."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he seemed all right yesterday when I seen him," Polatkin
+declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday?" Scheikowitz exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean the day before yesterday," Polatkin added hastily as the
+elevator door opened and a short, stout person alighted. He wore
+a wrinkled frock coat and a white tie which perched coquettishly
+under his left ear; and as he approached the office he seemed to
+be labouring under a great deal of excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Oo-ee!" he wailed as he caught sight of Polatkin, and without
+further salutation he sank into the nearest chair. There he bowed
+his head in his hands and rocked to and fro disconsolately.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's this crazy feller?" Scheikowitz demanded of his partner.</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a button salesman by the name Rashkind," Polatkin said.
+"Leave me deal with him." He walked over to the swaying
+<i>Shadchen</i> and shook him violently by the shoulder. "Rashkind,"
+he said, "stop that nonsense and tell me what's the matter."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>Rashkind ceased his moanings and looked up with bloodshot eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"She's engaged!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"She's engaged!" Polatkin repeated. "And you call yourself a
+<i>Shadchen</i>!" he said bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>Shadchen</i>!" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, I thought you said he
+was a button salesman."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I?" Polatkin retorted. "Well, maybe he is, Scheikowitz; but
+he ain't no <i>Shadchen</i>. Actually the feller goes to work and
+takes Elkan up to see the girl, and they put him off by saying
+the girl was sick; and now he comes down here and tells me the
+girl is engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Scheikowitz remarked, "you couldn't get no sympathy from
+me, Polatkin. A feller which acts underhand the way you done,
+trying to make up a <i>Shidduch</i> for Elkan behind my back yet&mdash;you
+got what you deserved."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean I got what I deserved?" Polatkin said
+indignantly. "Do you think it would be such a bad thing for
+us&mdash;you and me both, Scheikowitz&mdash;if I could of made up a match
+between Elkan and B. Maslik's a daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"B. Maslik's a daughter!" Scheikowitz cried. "Do you mean that
+this here feller was trying to make up a match between Elkan and
+Miss Birdie Maslik?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I said," Polatkin announced.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I can explain the whole thing," Scheiko<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>witz rejoined
+triumphantly. "Miss Maslik had a date to meet Elkan last night
+yet with a <i>Shadchen</i> by the name Charles Fischko, and that's why
+B. Maslik told this here button salesman that his daughter was
+engaged."</p>
+
+<p>Rashkind again raised his head and regarded Scheikowitz with a
+malevolent grin.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schmooes!</i>" he jeered. "Miss Maslik is engaged and the
+<i>Shadchen</i> was Charles Fischko, but the <i>Chosan</i> ain't Elkan
+Lubliner by a damsight."</p>
+
+<p>It was now Polatkin's turn to gloat, and he shook his head slowly
+up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"So, Scheikowitz," he said, "you are trying to fix up a
+<i>Shidduch</i> between Elkan and Miss Maslik without telling me a
+word about it, and you get the whole thing so mixed up that it is
+a case of trying to sit between two chairs! You come down <i>mit</i> a
+big bump and I ain't got no sympathy for you neither."</p>
+
+<p>"What was the feller's name?" Scheikowitz demanded hoarsely of
+Rashkind, who was straightening out his tie and smoothing his
+rumpled hair.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a funny quincidence," Rashkind replied; "but you remember,
+Mr. Polatkin, I was talking to you the other day about Julius
+Flixman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Polatkin said, and his heart began to thump in
+anticipation of the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Julius Flixman, as I told you, sold out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> his store to a
+feller by the name Max Kapfer," Rashkind said and paused again.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu!</i>" Scheikowitz roared. "What of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this here Max Kapfer is engaged to be married to Miss
+Birdie Maslik," Rashkind concluded; and when Scheikowitz looked
+from Rashkind toward his partner the latter had already proceeded
+more than halfway to the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's what your <i>Shadchen</i> done for you, Mr. Scheikowitz!"
+Rashkind said as he put on his hat. He walked to the elevator and
+rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Scheikowitz," Rashkind added, "as a <i>Shadchen</i>, maybe I
+am a button salesman; but I'd a whole lot sooner be a button
+salesman as a thief and don't you forget it!"</p>
+
+<p>After the elevator had borne Rashkind away Scheikowitz went back
+to the office in time to hear Marcus engaged in a noisy
+altercation with the telephone operator of the Prince Clarence
+Hotel.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean he ain't there?" he bellowed. "With you it's
+always the same&mdash;I could never get nobody at your hotel."</p>
+
+<p>He hung up the receiver with force almost sufficient to wreck the
+instrument.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do, Polatkin!" Scheikowitz said. "We already got half
+our furniture smashed."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I done it?" Polatkin growled&mdash;the allusion being to the
+chair demolished by Scheikowitz on the previous day.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>"You was the cause of it," Scheikowitz retorted; "and, anyhow,
+who are you ringing up at the Prince Clarence?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ringing up that feller Kapfer," Polatkin replied. "I want to
+tell that sucker what I think of him."</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that Kapfer's theory as to the effect of his
+engagement on his relations with Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz became
+justified in fact.</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't do nothing of the kind," Scheikowitz declared. "It
+ain't bad enough that Elkan loses this here <i>Shidduch</i>, but you
+are trying to Jonah a good account also! Why, that feller
+Kapfer's business after he marries Miss Maslik would be easy
+worth to us three thousand dollars a year."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care what his business is worth," Polatkin shouted. "I
+would say what I please to that highwayman!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want to do?" Scheikowitz pleaded&mdash;"bite off your
+nose to spoil your face?"</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin made no reply and he was about to go into the showroom
+when the telephone bell rang.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me answer it," Scheikowitz said; and a moment later he
+picked up the desk telephone and placed the receiver to his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!" he said. "Yes, this is Polatkin &amp; Scheikowitz. This is
+Mr. Scheikowitz talking."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the instrument dropped with a clatter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> to the floor; and
+while Scheikowitz was stooping to pick it up Polatkin rushed into
+the office.</p>
+
+<p>"Scheikowitz!" he cried. "What are you trying to do&mdash;break up our
+whole office yet? Ain't it enough you are putting all our chairs
+on the bum already?"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz contented himself by glaring viciously at his partner
+and again placed the receiver to his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Mr. Kapfer," he said. "Yes, I heard it this morning
+already. Them things travels fast, Mr. Kapfer. No, I don't blame
+you&mdash;I blame this here Fischko. He gives me a dirty deal&mdash;that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Here there was a long pause, while Polatkin stood in the middle
+of the office floor like a bird-dog pointing at a covey of
+partridges.</p>
+
+<p>"But why couldn't you come down here, Mr. Kapfer?" Scheikowitz
+asked. Again there was a long pause, at the end of which
+Scheikowitz said: "Wait a minute&mdash;I'll ask my partner."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen here, Polatkin," he said, placing his hand over the
+transmitter. "Kapfer says he wants to give us from two thousand
+five hundred dollars an order, and he wants you and me to go up
+to the Prince Clarence at two o'clock to see him. He wants us
+both there because he wants to arrange terms of credit."</p>
+
+<p>"I would see him hung first!" Polatkin roared, and Scheikowitz
+took his hand from the transmitter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>"All right, Mr. Kapfer," he answered in dulcet tones; "me and
+Polatkin will both be there. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>He hung up the receiver with exaggerated care.</p>
+
+<p>"And you would just bet your life that we will be there!" he
+said. "And that's all there is to it!"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>At half-past one that afternoon, while Max Kapfer was enjoying a
+good cigar in the lobby of the Prince Clarence, he received an
+unexpected visitor in the person of Julius Flixman.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flixman?" he cried, dragging forth a
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>Flixman extended a thin, bony hand in greeting and sat down
+wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't do so good, Kapfer," he said. "I guess New York don't
+agree with me." He distorted his face in what he intended to be
+an amiable smile. "But I guess it agrees with you all right," he
+continued. "I suppose I must got to congradulate you on account
+you are going to be engaged to Miss Birdie Maslik."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, who told you about it?" Kapfer asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I met this morning a real-estater by the name Rashkind, which he
+is acquainted with the Maslik family," Flixman replied, "and he
+says it happened yesterday. Also they told me up at the hotel you
+was calling there this morning to see me."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," Kapfer said; "and you was out."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>"I was down to see a feller on Center Street," Flixman went on,
+"and so I thought, so long as you wanted to fix up about the
+note, I might just as well come down here."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm much obliged to you," Kapfer interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," Flixman continued. "When a feller wants to pay you
+money and comes to see you once to do it and you ain't in,
+understand me, then it's up to you to go to him; so here I am."</p>
+
+<p>"But the fact is," Kapfer said, "I didn't want to see you about
+paying the money exactly. I wanted to see you about not paying
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"About not paying it?" Flixman cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" Kapfer replied. "I wanted to see if you wouldn't give me
+a year's extension for that last thousand on account I am going
+to get married; and with what Miss Maslik would bring me,
+y'understand, and your thousand dollars which I got here, I would
+just have enough to fix up my second floor and build a
+twenty-five-foot extension on the rear. You see, I figure it this
+way." He searched his pocket for a piece of paper and produced a
+fountain pen. "I figure that the fixtures cost me twenty-two
+hundred," he began, "and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Flixman flipped his fingers derisively.</p>
+
+<p>"Pipe dreams you got it!" he said. "That store as it stands was
+good enough for me, and it should ought to be good enough for
+you. Furthermore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> Kapfer, if you want to invest Maslik's money
+and your own money, <i>schon gut</i>; but me, I could always put a
+thousand dollars into a bond, Kapfer. So, if it's all the same to
+you, I'll take your check and call it square."</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer shrugged resignedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I had an idee you would," he said, "so I got it ready for you;
+because, Mr. Flixman, you must excuse me when I tell you that you
+got the reputation of being a good collector."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?" Flixman snapped out. "Well, maybe I am, Kapfer, but I
+could give my money up, too, once in a while; and, believe me or
+not, Kapfer, this afternoon yet I am going to sign a will which I
+am leaving all my money to a Talmud Torah School."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so?" Kapfer said as he drew out his checkbook.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I am telling you," Flixman continued, "because
+there's a lot of young loafers running round the streets which
+nobody got any control over 'em at all; and if they would go to a
+Talmud Torah School, understand me, not only they learn 'em there
+a little <i>Loschen Hakodesch</i>, y'understand, but they would also
+pretty near club the life out of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll write out a receipt on some of the hotel paper here,"
+Kapfer said as he signed and blotted the check.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>"Write out two of 'em, so I would have a copy of what I am giving
+you," Flixman rejoined. "It's always just so good to be
+businesslike. That's what I told that lawyer to-day. He wants me
+I should remember a couple of orphan asylums he's interested in,
+and I told him that if all them suckers would train up their
+children they would learn a business and not holler round the
+streets and make life miserable for people, they wouldn't got to
+be orphans at all. Half the orphans is that way on account they
+worried their parents to death with their carryings-on, and when
+they go to orphan asylums they get treated kind yet. And people
+is foolish enough to pay a lawyer fifty dollars if he should draw
+up a will to leave the orphan asylum their good hard-earned
+money."</p>
+
+<p>He snorted indignantly as he examined Kapfer's receipt and
+compared it with the original.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he concluded as he appended his signature to the receipt,
+"I got him down to twenty-five dollars and I'll have that will
+business settled up this afternoon yet."</p>
+
+<p>He placed the check and the receipt in his wallet and shook hands
+with Kapfer.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," he said. "And one thing let me warn you against: A
+<i>Chosan</i> should always get his money in cash <i>oder</i> certified
+check before he goes under the <i>Chuppah</i> at all; otherwise, after
+you are married and your father-in-law is a crook, understand me,
+you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> could kiss yourself good-bye with your wife's dowry&mdash;and
+don't you forget it!"</p>
+
+<p>Max walked with him down the lobby; and they had barely reached
+the entrance when Charles Fischko and Miss Yetta Silbermacher
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Fischko!" Max cried, as Flixman tottered out into the
+street; but Fischko made no reply. Instead he suddenly let go
+Miss Silbermacher's arm and dashed hurriedly to the sidewalk. Max
+led Miss Silbermacher to a chair and engaged her immediately in
+conversation. She was naturally a little embarrassed by her
+unusual surroundings, though she was becomingly&mdash;not to say
+fashionably&mdash;attired in garments of her own making; and she gazed
+timidly about her for her absent lover.</p>
+
+<p>"Elkan ain't here yet," Max explained, "on account you are a
+little ahead of time."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Silbermacher's brown eyes sparkled merrily.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't the only one," she said as she jumped to her feet; for,
+though the hands of the clock on the desk pointed to ten minutes
+to two, Elkan Lubliner approached from the direction of the caf&eacute;.
+He caught sight of them while he was still some distance away,
+and two overturned chairs marked the last of his progress toward
+them.</p>
+
+<p>At first he held out his hand in greeting; but the two little
+dimples that accompanied Yetta's smile overpowered his sense of
+propriety, and he embraced her affectionately.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>"Where's Fischko?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Both Kapfer and Miss Silbermacher looked toward the street
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"He was here a minute ago," Kapfer said.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you tell him that I wasn't Ury Shemansky at all?" Elkan
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I did," Miss Silbermacher replied, "and he goes on
+something terrible, on account he says Mr. Kapfer told him last
+night you was already engaged; so I told him I know you was
+engaged because I am the party you are engaged to."</p>
+
+<p>She squeezed Elkan's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"And he says then," she continued, "that if that's the case what
+do we want him down here for? So I told him we are going to meet
+Mr. Polatkin and Mr. Scheikowitz, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And they'll be right here in a minute," Kapfer interrupted; "so
+you go upstairs to my room and I'll find Fischko and bring him up
+also."</p>
+
+<p>He conducted them to the elevator, and even as the door closed
+behind them Fischko came running up the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Kapfer," he said, "who was that feller which he was just here
+talking to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye want to know for?" Kapfer asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind what I want to know for!" Fischko retorted. "Who is
+he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you must got to know," Kapfer said, "he's a feller by
+the name Julius Flixman."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>"What?" Fischko shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Fischko," Kapfer protested, "you ain't in no Canal Street coffee
+house here. This is a first-class hotel."</p>
+
+<p>Fischko nodded distractedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," he said. "Is there a place we could sit down
+here? I want to ask you something a few questions."</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer led the way to the caf&eacute; and they sat down at a table near
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead, Fischko," he said. "Polatkin and Scheikowitz will be
+here any minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Fischko began falteringly, "if this here feller is Julius
+Flixman, which he is coming from Bessarabia <i>schon</i> thirty years
+ago already, I don't want to do nothing in a hurry, Mr. Kapfer,
+on account I want to investigate first how things stand."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean?" Kapfer demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I mean this," Fischko cried: "If this here Flixman is well
+fixed, Kapfer, I want to know it, on account Miss Yetta
+Silbermacher is from Flixman's sister a daughter, understand me!"</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer lit a cigar deliberately before replying. He was thinking
+hard.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to tell me," he said at last, "that this here Miss
+Silbermacher is Julius Flixman's a niece?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said," Fischko replied. "He comes here from
+Bessarabia thirty years ago already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> and from that day to this I
+never heard a word about him&mdash;Miss Silbermacher neither."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't the rest of his family heard from him?" Kapfer asked
+guardedly.</p>
+
+<p>"There ain't no rest of his family," Fischko said. "Mrs.
+Silbermacher was his only sister, and she's dead over ten years
+since."</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer nodded and drew reflectively on his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Fischko," he said finally, "I wouldn't let Flixman worry
+me none. He's practically a <i>Schnorrer</i>; he was in here just now
+on account he hears I am going to marry a rich girl and touches
+me for some money on the head of it. I guess you noticed that he
+looks pretty shabby&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"And sick too," Fischko added, just as a bellboy came into the
+caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Copper!" he bawled, and Max jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Right here," he said, and the bellboy handed him a card.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell them I'll be with them in a minute," he continued; "and you
+stay here till I come back, Fischko. I won't be long."</p>
+
+<p>He followed the bellboy to the desk, where stood Polatkin and
+Scheikowitz.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Kapfer," Scheikowitz replied, "I guess I got to
+congradulate you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>"Sure!" Kapfer murmured perfunctorily. "Let's go into the Moorish
+Room."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with the caf&eacute;?" Polatkin asked; but
+Scheikowitz settled the matter by leading the way to the Moorish
+Room, where they all sat down at a secluded table.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing I want to tell you, gentlemen," Kapfer said, "is
+that I know you feel that I turned a dirty trick on you about
+Elkan."</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz shrugged expressively.</p>
+
+<p>"The way we feel about it, Mr. Kapfer," he commented, "is that
+bygones must got to be bygones&mdash;and that's all there is to it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," Kapfer said, "I don't want the bygones to be all on my
+side; so I got a proposition to make you. How would it be if I
+could fix up a good <i>Shidduch</i> for Elkan myself?"</p>
+
+<p>"What for a <i>Shidduch</i>?" Polatkin asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The girl is an orphan," Kapfer replied, "<i>aber</i> she's got one
+uncle, a bachelor, which ain't got no relation in the world but
+her, and he's worth anyhow seventy-five thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know he's worth that much?" Polatkin demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I got some pretty close business dealings with him,"
+Kapfer replied; "and not only do I know he's worth that much, but
+I guess you do too, Mr. Polatkin, on account his name is Julius
+Flixman."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>"Julius Flixman?" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, Julius Flixman ain't
+got a relation in the world&mdash;he told me so himself."</p>
+
+<p>"When did he told you that?" Kapfer asked.</p>
+
+<p>"A couple of days ago," Scheikowitz replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then that accounts for it," Kapfer said. "A couple of days ago
+nobody knows he had a niece&mdash;not even Flixman himself didn't; but
+to-day yet he would know it and he would tell you so himself."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Scheikowitz began, when once again a page entered the
+room, bawling a phonetic imitation of Kapfer's name.</p>
+
+<p>"Wanted at the 'phone," he called as he caught sight of Kapfer.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," Kapfer said. "I'll be right back."</p>
+
+<p>He walked hurriedly out of the room, and Polatkin turned with a
+shrug to his partner.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Scheikowitz," he began, "what did I told you? We are up
+here on a fool's errand&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you, Polatkin," he said at length, "Flixman himself
+says to me he did got one sister living in Bessarabia, and he
+ain't heard from her in thirty years; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Kapfer rushed into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Scheikowitz," he gasped, "I just now got a telephone message
+from a lawyer on Center Street, by the name Goldenfein, I should
+come right down there. Flixman is taken sick suddenly and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+find in his pocket my check and a duplicate receipt which he
+gives me, written on the hotel paper. Do me the favour and come
+with me."</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen minutes later they stepped out of a taxicab in front of
+an old-fashioned office building in Center Street and elbowed
+their way through a crowd of over a hundred people toward the
+narrow doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do yous think you're going?" asked a policeman whose broad
+shoulders completely blocked the little entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"We was telephoned for, on account a friend of ours by the name
+Flixman is taken sick here," Kapfer explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead," the policeman said more gently; "but I guess you're
+too late."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he dead?" Scheikowitz cried, and the policeman nodded
+solemnly as he stood to one side.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>More than two hours elapsed before Kapfer, Polatkin, and
+Scheikowitz returned to the Prince Clarence. With them was Kent
+J. Goldenfein.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kapfer," the clerk said, "there's a man been waiting for you
+in the caf&eacute; for over two hours."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bring him right in," Kapfer said, and two minutes afterward
+he brought the gesticulating Fischko out of the caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I am a dawg?" Fischko cried. "I've been here two
+hours!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, come into the Moorish Room a minute,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> Kapfer pleaded,
+"and I'll fix everything up with you afterward."</p>
+
+<p>He led the protesting <i>Shadchen</i> through the lobby, and when they
+entered the Moorish Room an impressive scene awaited them. On a
+divan, beneath some elaborate plush draperies, sat Kent J.
+Goldenfein, flanked on each side by Polatkin and Scheikowitz
+respectively, while spread on the table in front of them were the
+drafts of Flixman's will and the engrossed, unsigned copy,
+together with such other formidable-looking documents as
+Goldenfein happened to find in his pockets. He rose majestically
+as Fischko entered and turned on him a beetling frown.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the fellow?" he demanded sepulchrally, and Kapfer
+nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein went on, "I am an officer of the
+Supreme Court and I have been retained to investigate the affairs
+of Mr. Julius Flixman."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, Kapfer," Fischko cried. "What is all this?"</p>
+
+<p>Kapfer drew forward a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Fischko," he said, "and answer the questions that he
+is asking you."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Fischko began.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein boomed, "you are wasting
+our time here. Raise your right hand!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>Fischko glanced despairingly at Kapfer and then obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you solemnly swear," said Goldenfein, who, besides being an
+attorney-at-law was also a notary public, "that the affidavit you
+will hereafter sign will be the truth, the whole truth and
+nothing but the truth, so help you God?"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Fischko began again.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you?" Goldenfein roared, and Fischko nodded. Forthwith
+Goldenfein plied him with such ingeniously fashioned questions
+concerning the Flixman family that the answers presented a
+complete history of all its branches. Furthermore, the affidavit
+which Goldenfein immediately drew up lacked only such
+confirmatory evidence as could easily be supplied to establish
+the identity of Miss Yetta Silbermacher as Julius Flixman's only
+heir-at-law; and, after Fischko had meekly signed the jurat,
+Goldenfein rose ponderously to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "I think there is no
+doubt that your nephew's fianc&eacute;e will inherit Flixman's estate,
+thanks to my professional integrity."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean your professional integrity?" Kapfer asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, if I hadn't refused to accept twenty-two dollars for
+drawing the will and insisted on the twenty-five we had agreed
+upon," Goldenfein explained, "he would never have suffered the
+heart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> attack which prevented his signing the will before he
+died."</p>
+
+<p>"Died!" Fischko exclaimed. "Is Julius Flixman dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Koosh</i>, Fischko!" Polatkin commanded. "You would think you was
+one of the family the way you are acting. Come down to our store
+to-morrow and we would arrange things with you." He turned to
+Kapfer.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go upstairs and see Elkan&mdash;and Yetta," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately they trooped to the elevator and ascended to the
+seventh floor.</p>
+
+<p>"All of you wait here in the corridor," Kapfer whispered, "and
+I'll go and break it to them." He tiptoed to his room and knocked
+gently at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" Elkan cried, and Kapfer turned the knob.</p>
+
+<p>On a sofa near the window sat Elkan, with his arm surrounding his
+fianc&eacute;e's waist and her head resting on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Max!" he cried. "What's kept you? We must have been
+waiting here at least a quarter of an hour!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_FOUR" id="CHAPTER_FOUR"></a>CHAPTER FOUR</h2>
+<h2>HIGHGRADE LINES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"SURE, I know, Mr. Scheikowitz," cried Elkan Lubliner, junior
+partner of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp; Company, as he sat in the
+firm's office late one February afternoon; "but if you want to
+sell a highgrade concern like Joseph Kammerman you must got to
+got a highgrade line of goods."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't I am telling you that all the time?" Scheikowitz replied.
+"<i>Aber</i> we sell here a popular-price line, Elkan. So what is the
+use talking we ain't ekvipt for a highgrade line."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean we ain't equipped, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan
+protested. "We got here machines and we got here fixtures, and
+all we need it now is a highgrade designer and a couple really
+good cutters like that new feller which is working for us."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, too, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin interrupted; "but
+it ain't the ekvipment which it is so important. The reputation
+which we got for selling a popular-price line we couldn't get rid
+of so easy, understand me, and that <i>B&eacute;tzimmer</i> buyer of
+Kammerman's wouldn't got no confidence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> in us at all. The way he
+figures it we could just so much turn out a highgrade line of
+goods here as you could expect a feller which is acting in a
+moving pictures to all of a sudden sing like Charuso."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," Scheikowitz added, "highgrade designers and really
+good cutters means more capital, Elkan."</p>
+
+<p>"The capital you shouldn't worry about at all," Elkan retorted.
+"Next week my Yetta gets falling due a second mortgage from old
+man Flixman for five thousand dollars, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin made a flapping gesture with his right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your money, Elkan," he said. "You could got lots of better
+ways to invest it for Yetta as fixing ourselves up to sell big
+<i>Machers</i> like Joseph Kammerman."</p>
+
+<p>"But it don't do no harm I should drop in and see them people.
+Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure not," Scheikowitz continued as he swung round in his
+revolving chair and seized a pile of cutting clips. "They got an
+elegant store there on Fifth Avenue which it is a pleasure to go
+into even; and the worst that happens you, Elkan, is you are out
+a good cigar for that Mr. Dalzell up there."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded gloomily, and as he left the office Polatkin's face
+relaxed in an indulgent smile.</p>
+
+<p>"The boy is getting awful ambitious lately, Scheikowitz," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>"What d'ye mean, ambitious?" Philip Scheikowitz cried angrily.
+"If you would be only twenty-three years of age, Polatkin, and
+married to a rich girl, understand me&mdash;and also partner in a good
+concern, which the whole thing he done it himself, Polatkin&mdash;you
+would act a whole lot more ambitious as he does. Instead of
+knocking the boy, Polatkin, you should ought to give him credit
+for what he done."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is knocking the boy?" Polatkin demanded. "All I says is the
+boy is ambitious, Scheikowitz&mdash;which, if you don't think it's
+ambitious a feller tries to sell goods to Joseph Kammerman,
+Scheikowitz, what is it then?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's worser people to sell goods to as Joseph Kammerman,
+Polatkin, which he is a millionaire concern, understand me,"
+Scheikowitz declared; "and you could take it from me, Polatkin,
+even if you would accuse him he is ambitious <i>oder</i> not, that boy
+always got idees to do big things&mdash;and he works hard till he
+lands 'em. So if you want to call that ambitious, Polatkin, go
+ahead and do so. When a loafer knocks it's a boost every time."</p>
+
+<p>With this ultimatum Scheikowitz followed his junior partner to
+the rear of the loft, where Elkan regarded with a critical eye
+the labors of his cutting-room staff.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Elkan," Scheikowitz asked, "what's biting you now?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>Elkan winked significantly&mdash;and a moment later he tapped an
+assistant cutter on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Max," he said, "do you got maybe a grudge against that piece of
+goods, the way you are slamming it round?"</p>
+
+<p>The assistant cutter smiled in an embarrassed fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I wasn't thinking about
+them goods at all. When you are laying out goods for cutting, Mr.
+Lubliner, you don't got to think much&mdash;especially pastel shades."</p>
+
+<p>"Pastel shades?" Elkan repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said," the cutter replied. "<i>Mit</i> colors like reds
+and greens, which they are hitting you right in the face, so to
+speak, you couldn't get your mind off of 'em at all; but pastel
+shades, that's something else again. They quiet you like smoking
+a cigarette."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan turned to his partner with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was working by B. Gans," the cutter went on, "I am laying
+out a piece of old gold cr&ecirc;pe <i>mit</i> a silver-thread border, and I
+assure you, Mr. Lubliner, it has an effect on me like some one
+would give me a glass of schnapps already."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stiegen</i>, Max," said Elkan, moving away, "you got too much to
+say for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Max nodded resignedly and continued the spreading of the goods on
+the cutting table, while Elkan and Scheikowitz walked out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>"That's the new feller I was telling you about," Elkan said.
+"<i>Meshugganeh</i> Max Merech they call him."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Meshugga</i> he may be," Scheikowitz replied, "but just the same
+he's got a couple of good idees also, Elkan. Only this morning he
+makes Redman the designer pretty near crazy when he says that the
+blue soutache on that new style 2060 kills the blue in the yoke,
+y'understand; and he was right too, Elkan. Polatkin and me made
+Redman change it over."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged again as he put on his hat and coat preparatory to
+going home.</p>
+
+<p>"A lot our class of trade worries about such things!" he
+exclaimed. "So far as they are concerned the soutache could be
+crimson and the yoke green, and if the price was right they'd buy
+it anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you fool yourself, Elkan," Scheikowitz said while Elkan
+rang for the elevator. "The price is never right if the
+workmanship ain't good."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>That Elkan Lubliner's progress in business had not kept pace with
+his social achievements was a source of much disappointment to
+both Mrs. Lubliner and himself; for though the firm of Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz &amp; Company was still rated seventy-five thousand
+dollars to one hundred thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> dollars&mdash;credit good&mdash;Elkan and
+Mrs. Lubliner moved in the social orbit of no less a personage
+than of Max Koblin, the Raincoat King, whose credit soared
+triumphantly among the A's and B's of old-established commission
+houses.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed it was a party at Max Koblin's house that evening which
+caused Elkan to leave his place of business at half-past five;
+and when Mrs. Lubliner and he sallied forth from the gilt and
+porphyry hallway of their apartment dwelling they were fittingly
+arrayed to meet Max's guests, none of whom catered to the
+popular-price trade of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you told him we are getting next week paid off for
+five thousand dollars a second mortgage?" Yetta said, continuing
+a conversation begun at dinner that evening.</p>
+
+<p>"I did told him," Elkan insisted; "but what is the use talking to
+a couple of old-timers like them?"</p>
+
+<p>Yetta sniffed contemptuously with the impatience of youth at the
+foibles of senility, as exemplified by the doddering Philip
+Scheikowitz, aged forty-five, and the valetudinarian Marcus
+Polatkin, whose hair, albeit unfrosted, had been blighted and in
+part swept away by the vicissitudes of forty-two winters.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't learn an old dawg young tricks," Elkan declared, "and
+we might just as well make up our minds to it, Yetta, we would
+never compete<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> with such highgrade concerns like B. Gans <i>oder</i>
+Schwefel &amp; Zucker."</p>
+
+<p>They walked over two blocks in silence and then Elkan broke out
+anew.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," he said, "I am sick and tired of it. B. Gans talks
+all the time about selling this big <i>Macher</i> and that big
+<i>Macher</i>, and him and Mr. Schwefel gets telling about what a
+millionaire like Kammerman says to him the other day, or what he
+says to Mandelberger, of Chicago, y'understand&mdash;and I couldn't
+say nothing! If I would commence to tell 'em what I says to such
+customers of ours like One-Eye Feigenbaum <i>oder</i> H. Margonin, of
+Bridgetown, understand me, they would laugh me in my face yet."</p>
+
+<p>Yetta pressed his arm consolingly as they ascended the stoop of
+Max Koblin's house on Mount Morris Park West, and two minutes
+later they entered the front parlour of that luxurious residence.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you know what he says to me?" a penetrating barytone
+voice announced as they came in. "He says to me, 'Benson,' he
+says, 'I've been putting on musical shows now for fifteen years,
+and an idee like that comes from a genius already. There's a
+fortune in it!'"</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Mrs. Koblin noted the arrival of the last of her
+guests.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried, rising to her feet. "Ain't you
+fashionable getting here so late?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>She kissed Yetta and held out a hand to Elkan as she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Elkan, keeping Yetta's dinner
+waiting because you claim you're so busy downtown?" she went on.
+"I guess you know everybody here except Mr. Benson."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded toward the promulgator of Heaven-born ideas, who bowed
+solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"Pleased to meet you, Mister&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lubliner," Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>"Mister Lubliner," Benson repeated, passing his begemmed fingers
+through a shock of black, curly hair. "And the long and short of
+it is," he continued, addressing the company, "to-morrow I'm
+getting a scenario along them lines I just indicated to you from
+one of the highest-grade fellers that's writing."</p>
+
+<p>Here ensued a pause, during which B. Gans searched his mind for
+an anecdote concerning some retailer of sufficiently good
+financial standing, while Joseph Schwefel, of Schwefel &amp; Zucker,
+cleared his throat preparatory to launching a verbatim report of
+a conversation between himself and a buyer for one of the most
+exclusive costume houses on Fifth Avenue; but even as Schwefel
+rounded his lips to enunciate an introductory "Er," Benson
+obtained a fresh start.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you remember 'The Diners Out,' Ryan &amp; Bernbaum's production
+last season?" he said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> addressing Elkan. "In that show they had
+an idee like this: Eight ponies is let down from the
+flies&mdash;see?&mdash;and George DeFrees makes his entrance in a practical
+airyoplane&mdash;I think it was George DeFrees was working for Ryan &amp;
+Bernbaum last year, or was it Sammy Potter?"</p>
+
+<p>At this point he screwed up his face and leaning his elbow on the
+arm of his chair he placed four fingers on his forehead in the
+attitude known theatrically as Business of Deep Consideration.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said at last&mdash;"it was George DeFrees. George jumps out
+of the airyoplane and says: 'They followed me to earth, I see.'"</p>
+
+<p>Benson raised his eyebrows at the assembled guests.</p>
+
+<p>"Angels!" he announced. "Get the idee? 'They followed me to
+earth, I see.' Cue. And then he sings the song hit of the show:
+'Come Take a Ride in My Airyoplane.'"</p>
+
+<p>B. Gans shuffled his feet uneasily and Joseph Schwefel pulled
+down his waistcoat. As manufacturers of highgrade garments they
+had accompanied more than one customer to the entertainment
+described by Benson; but to Elkan the term "ponies" admitted of
+only one meaning, and this conversational arabesque of flies,
+little horses, aeroplanes and George DeFrees made him fairly
+dizzy.</p>
+
+<p>"And," M. Sidney Benson said before B. Gans could head him off,
+"just that there entrance boomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> the show. Ryan &amp; Bernbaum up to
+date clears a hundred and twenty thousand dollars over and above
+all expenses."</p>
+
+<p>"Better as the garment business!" Max Koblin commented&mdash;and B.
+Gans nodded and yawned.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't we going to have no pinocle?" he asked. Max rose and threw
+open the sliding doors leading to the dining room, where cards
+and chips were in readiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you join us, Mr. Benson?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll make five with Mr. Lubliner," Benson replied; "so
+supposing you, Gans and Schwefel go ahead, and Mr. Lubliner and
+me will join you later. Otherwise you would got to deal two of us
+out&mdash;which it makes a pretty slow game that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you like," Max said; and after Mrs. Koblin and Yetta had
+retired abovestairs to view the most recent accession to Mrs.
+Koblin's wardrobe, Benson pulled up the points of his high collar
+and adjusted his black stock necktie. Then he lit a fresh cigar
+and prepared to lay bare to Elkan the arcana of the theatrical
+business.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the show business is a business
+like any other business. It ain't like you got an idee it
+is&mdash;opening wine for a bunch of chickens, understand me, and
+running round the streets till all hours of the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I never got no such idee," Elkan protested.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> "because it's very
+evidence to me that you don't know nothing about it; but there's
+a whole lot of people got that idee anyhow, y'understand; and
+what I am always trying to tell everybody is that the show
+business is like the garment business <i>oder</i> the drygoods
+business&mdash;a business for a business man, not a loafer!"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan made an inarticulate noise which Benson took to be an
+expression of interest and encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time art has got a whole lot to do with it," he went
+on&mdash;"art and idees; and when you take a feller like Ryan, which
+he could write a show, write the music, put it on and play the
+leading part all by himself, y'understand, and a feller like
+Bernbaum, which used to was Miller, Bernbaum &amp; Company in the
+pants business&mdash;you got there an ideel combination!"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded and looked helplessly round him at the Circassian
+walnut, of which half a forestful had gone to make up the
+furnishings of Koblin's front parlor.</p>
+
+<p>"But," Benson said emphatically, "you take me, for instance&mdash;and
+what was I?"</p>
+
+<p>He told off his former occupations with the index finger of his
+right hand on each digit of his left.</p>
+
+<p>"First I was a salesman; second I was for myself in the infants'
+wear business; third I was <i>noch einmal</i> a salesman. Then I
+become an actor, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> everybody knows my act, which I called
+it 'Your Old Friend Maslowsky.' For four years I played all the
+first-class vaudeville circuits here and on the other side in
+England. But though I made good money, Mr. Lubliner, the real big
+money is in the producing end."</p>
+
+<p>"Huh-huh!" Elkan ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"So that's the way it is with me, Mr. Lubliner," Benson
+continued. "I am just like Ryan &amp; Bernbaum, only instead of two
+partners there is only just one; which I got the art, the idees
+and the business ability all in myself!"</p>
+
+<p>"That must make it very handy for you," Elkan commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Handy ain't no name for it," Benson replied. "It's something you
+don't see nowheres else in the show business; but I'll tell you
+the truth, Mr. Lubliner&mdash;the work is too much for me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you get a partner?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>Benson made a circular gesture with his right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I could get lots of partners with big money, Mr. Lubliner," he
+said, "but why should I divide my profits? Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that depends how you are looking at it," Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am looking at it from the view of a business man, Mr.
+Lubliner," Benson rejoined. "Here I got a proposition which I am
+going to put on&mdash;a show of idees&mdash;a big production, understand
+me; which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> if Ryan &amp; Bernbaum makes from their 'Diners Out' a
+hundred thousand dollars, <i>verstehst du</i>, I could easily make a
+hundred and fifty thousand! And yet, Mr. Lubliner, all I invest
+is five thousand dollars and five thousand more which I am making
+a loan at a bank."</p>
+
+<p>"Which bank?" Elkan asked&mdash;so quickly that Benson almost jumped
+in his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I didn't decide which bank yet," he replied. "You see, Mr.
+Lubliner, I got accounts in three banks. First I belonged to the
+Fifteenth National Bank. Then they begged me I should go in the
+Minuit National Bank. All right. I went in the Minuit National
+Bank. H'afterward Sam Feder comes to me and says: 'Benson,' he
+says, 'you are an old friend from mine,' he says. 'Why do you
+bother yourself you should go into this bank and that bank?' he
+says. 'Why don't you come to my bank?' he says, 'and I would give
+you all the money you want.' So you see, Mr. Lubliner, it is
+immaterial to me which bank I get my money from."</p>
+
+<p>Again he passed his jewelled fingers through his hair.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mr. Lubliner," he announced after a pause, "my own brother
+even I wouldn't give a look-in."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan made no reply. As a result of Benson's gesture he was busy
+estimating the value of eight and a quarter carats at
+eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents a carat.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>"Because," Benson continued, "the profits is something you could
+really call enormous! If you got the time I would like to show
+you a few figures."</p>
+
+<p>"I got all evening," Elkan answered, whereat Benson pulled from
+his waistcoat pocket a fountain pen ornamented with gold
+filigree.</p>
+
+<p>"First," he said, "is the costumes."</p>
+
+<p>And therewith he plunged into a maze of calculation that lasted
+for nearly an hour. Moreover, at the end of that period he
+entered into a new series of figures, tending to show that by the
+investment of an additional five thousand dollars the profits
+could be increased seventy-five per cent.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm satisfied to invest my ten thousand," he said, "because
+five thousand is my own and the other five thousand I could get
+easy from the Kosciuscko Bank, whereas the additional five
+thousand I must try to interest somebody he should invest it with
+me. And so far as that goes I wouldn't bother myself at all."</p>
+
+<p>"You're dead right," Elkan said by way of making himself
+agreeable, whereat Benson grew crimson with chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I'm dead right," he said; "and if you and Mrs. Lubliner
+would come down to my office in the Siddons Theatre Building
+to-morrow night, eight o'clock, I would send one of my associates
+round with you and he will get you tickets for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> 'Diners Out,'
+understand me; and then you would see for yourself what a big
+house they got there. Even on Monday night they turn 'em away!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm much obliged to you," Elkan replied. "I'm sure Mrs. Lubliner
+and me would enjoy it very much."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry for you if you wouldn't," Benson retorted; "and that
+there 'Diners Out' ain't a marker to the show I'm putting on, Mr.
+Lubliner&mdash;which you can see for yourself, a business proposition,
+which pans out pretty near two hundred thousand dollars on a
+fifteen-thousand-dollar investment, is got to be right up to the
+mark. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you said ten thousand dollars was the investment,"
+Elkan remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"I did," Benson replied with some heat; "but if some one comes
+along and wants to invest the additional five thousand dollars I
+wouldn't turn him down, Mr. Lubliner."</p>
+
+<p>He rose to his feet to join the pinocle players in the dining
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"So I hope you enjoy the show to-morrow night," he added as he
+strolled away.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>From six to eight every evening Max Merech underwent a gradual
+transformation, for six o'clock was the closing hour at Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz &amp; Company's establishment, while eight marked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> the
+advent of the Sarasate Trio at the Caf&eacute; Rom&aacute;n, on Delancey
+Street. Thus, at six, Max Merech was an assistant cutter; and,
+indeed, until after he ate his supper he still bore the outward
+appearance of an assistant cutter, though inwardly he felt a
+premonitory glow. After half-past seven, however, he buttoned on
+a low, turned-down collar with its concomitant broad Windsor tie,
+and therewith he assumed his real character&mdash;that of a
+dilettante.</p>
+
+<p>At the Caf&eacute; Rom&aacute;n each evening he specialized on music; but with
+the spirit of the true dilettante he neglected no one of the rest
+of the arts, and was ever to be found at the table next to the
+piano, a warm advocate of the latest movement in painting and
+literature, as well as an appreciative listener to the
+ultramodern music discoursed by the Sarasate Trio.</p>
+
+<p>"If that ain't a winner I ain't no judge!" he said to Boris
+Volkovisk, the pianist, on the evening of the conversation with
+Elkan set forth above. He referred to a violin sonata of Boris'
+own composition which the latter and Jacob Rekower, the
+violinist, had just concluded.</p>
+
+<p>Boris smiled and wiped away the perspiration from his bulging
+forehead, for the third movement of the sonata, marked in the
+score <i>Allegro con fuoco</i>, had taxed even the technic of its
+composer.</p>
+
+<p>"A winner of what?" Boris asked&mdash;"money?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Because supposing a
+miracle happens that somebody would publish it nobody buys it."</p>
+
+<p>Max nodded his head slowly in sympathetic acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>"But anyhow you ain't so bad off like some composers," he said.
+"You've anyhow got a good musician to play your stuff for you."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at Jacob Rekower, who plunged his hands into his
+trousers pockets and shrugged deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Rekower said; "and if we play too much good stuff
+Marculescu raises the devil with us we should play more popular
+music."</p>
+
+<p>He spat out the words "popular music" with an emphasis that made
+a <i>Tarrok</i> player at the next table jump in his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>," said the latter as the deal passed, "what is the matter
+with popular music? If it wouldn't be for writing popular music,
+understand me, many a decent, respectable composer would got to
+starve!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned his chair round and abandoned the card game the better
+to air his views on popular music.</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore," he said, "I know a young feller by the name Milton
+Jassy which last year he makes two thousand dollars already from
+syncopating <i>Had gadyo</i> and calling it the "Wildcat Rag," and
+this year he is writing the music for a new show and I bet yer
+the least he makes out of it is five thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>"Yow! Five thousand dollars!" Merech exclaimed. "Such people you
+hear about, but you <i>oser</i> see 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you?" said the <i>Tarrok</i> player, drawing a cardcase from
+his breast pocket. "Well, you see one now."</p>
+
+<p>He laid face upward on the table a card which read:</p>
+
+<div class="cardbus">
+<span class="size75">"THE SONGS YOU ALL SING"</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+MILTON JASSY<br />
+<span class="size75">SIDDONS THEATRE BUILDING</span><br />
+<span class="size60">ROOM 1400</span><br />
+<span class="size75">"STUFF WITH A PUNCH"</span><br />
+<div>
+<table summary="business card">
+<tr><td class="center"><span class="size60">LAZY DAISY</span></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td class="center"><span class="size60">EDDIE</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center"><span class="size60">WILDCAT RAG</span></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td class="center"><span class="size60">ALL ABOARD FOR SLEEPYTOWN</span></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>For a brief interval Volkovisk, Rekower, and Merech regarded
+Jassy's card in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Merech said at last, "what of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Jassy shrugged and waved his hand significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing of it," he said, "only your friend there is knocking
+popular music; and though I admit that I didn't got to go to the
+<i>Wiener</i> conservatory so as I could write popular music exactly,
+y'understand, still I could write sonatas and trios and quartets
+and even concerti and symphonies till I am black in the face
+already and I couldn't pay my laundry bill even."</p>
+
+<p>For answer Volkovisk turned to the piano and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> seized from the
+pile of music a blue-covered volume. It was the violin sonata of
+Richard Strauss, and handing the violin part to Rekower he seated
+himself on the stool. Then with a premonitory nod to Rekower he
+struck the opening chords, and for more than ten minutes Jassy
+and Merech sat motionless until the first movement was finished.</p>
+
+<p>"When Strauss wrote that he could <i>oser</i> pay his laundry bill
+either," Volkovisk said, rising from the stool. He sat down
+wearily at the table and lit a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see," he began, "Richard Strauss&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Richard Strauss nothing!" cried an angry voice at his elbow. "If
+you want to practise, practise at home. I pay you here to play
+for my customers, not for yourselves, Volkovisk; and once and for
+all I am telling you you should cut out this nonsense and <i>spiel</i>
+a little music once in a while."</p>
+
+<p>It was the proprietor, Marculescu, who spoke, and Volkovisk
+immediately seated himself at the piano. This time he took from
+the pile of music three small sheets, one of which he placed on
+the reading desk and the other on Rekower's violin stand. After
+handing the other sheet to the 'cellist he plunged into a furious
+rendition of "Wildcat Rag."</p>
+
+<p>In the front part of the caf&eacute; a group of men and women, whose
+clothes and manners proclaimed them to be slummers from the upper
+West Side, broke into noisy applause as the vulgar composition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+came to an end, and in the midst of their shouting and stamping
+Jassy rose trembling from his seat. He slunk between tables to
+the door, while Volkovisk began a repetition of the number, and
+it was not until he had turned the corner of the street and the
+melody had ceased to sound in his ears that he slackened his
+pace. When he did so, however, a friendly hand fell on his
+shoulder and he turned to find Max Merech close behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Mr. Jassy," Max said, "you shouldn't be so broke up
+because you couldn't write so good as Richard Strauss."</p>
+
+<p>Jassy stood still and looked Max squarely in the eye.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just the point," he said in hollow tones. "Might I could
+if I tried; but I am such an <i>Epikouros</i> that I don't want to
+try. I would sooner make money out of rubbish than be an artist
+like Volkovisk."</p>
+
+<p>Max shrugged and elevated his eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>"A man must got to live," he said as he seized Jassy's arm and
+began gently to propel him back to the Caf&eacute; Rom&aacute;n.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Jassy said; "but living ain't all having good
+clothes to wear and good food to eat. Living for an artist like
+Volkovisk is composing music worthy of an artist. <i>Aber</i> what do
+I do, Mister&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Merech," Max said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>"What do I do, Mr. Merech?" Jassy continued. "I am all the time
+throwing away my art in the streets with this rotten stuff I am
+composing."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Well, I tell you," Max said after they had re&euml;ntered the caf&eacute;
+and had seated themselves at a table remote from the piano,
+"composing music is like manufacturing garments, Mr. Jassy. Some
+one must got to cater to the popular-price trade and only a few
+manufacturers gets to the point where they make up a highgrade
+line for the exclusive retailers. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Jassy nodded as the waiter brought the cups of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you take me, for instance," Max continued. "Once I worked by
+B. Gans, which I assure you, Mr. Jassy, it was a pleasure to
+handle the goods in that place. What an elegant line of silks and
+embroidery they got it there! Believe me, Mr. Jassy, every day I
+went to work there like I would be going to a wedding already,
+such a beautiful goods they made it! <i>Aber</i> now I am working by a
+popular-price concern, Mr. Jassy, which, you could take it from
+me, the colors them people puts together in one garment gives me
+the indigestion already!"</p>
+
+<p>Again Jassy nodded sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"And why did I make a change?" Max went on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> "Because them people
+pays me seven dollars a week more as B. Gans, Mr. Jassy; and
+though art is art, understand me, seven dollars a week ain't to
+be coughed at neither."</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes Jassy sipped his coffee in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, too," he said; "but with garments you could
+make just so much money manufacturing a highgrade line as you
+could if you are making a popular-price line."</p>
+
+<p>Max nodded sapiently.</p>
+
+<p>"I give you right there," he agreed, "and that's because the
+manufacturer of the highgrade line does business in the same way
+as the popular-price concern. <i>Aber</i> you take the composer of
+highgrade music and all he does is compose. He's too proud to
+poosh it, Mr. Jassy; whereas the feller what composes popular
+music he's just the same like the feller what manufacturers a
+popular-price line of garments&mdash;he not only manufacturers his
+line but he pooshes it till he gets a market for it."</p>
+
+<p>"There ain't no market for a highclass line of music," Jassy said
+hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why ain't there?" Max demanded. "Did you ever try to market a
+symphony? Did Volkovisk ever try to get anybody with money
+interested in his stuff? No, sirree, sir! All that feller does is
+to play it to a lot of <i>Schnorrers</i> like me, which no matter how
+much we like his work we couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> help him none. Now you take
+your own case, for instance. You told us a few minutes ago you
+are writing some music for a new show. Now, if you wouldn't mind
+my asking, who is putting in the capital for that show?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Jassy replied, "a feller called Benson is putting it in
+and part of the capital is from his own money and the rest he
+borrows."</p>
+
+<p>"Just like a new beginner would do in the garment business," Max
+commented. "<i>Aber</i> who does he borrow it from? A bank
+maybe&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some he gets from a bank," Jassy replied, "and the rest is he
+trying to raise elsewheres. To-night he tells me he is getting an
+introduction to a business man which he hopes to lend from him
+five <i>oder</i> ten thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Five <i>oder</i> ten thousand dollars!" Max cried. "<i>Shema beni.</i> For
+five thousand dollars Volkovisk could publish all the music he
+ever wrote and give a whole lot of recitals in the bargain. One
+thousand dollars would be enough even."</p>
+
+<p>"That I wouldn't deny at all," Jassy rejoined. "<i>Aber</i> who would
+you find stands willing he should invest in Volkovisk's music a
+thousand dollars? Would he ever get back his thousand dollars
+even, let alone any profits?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a speculation, I admit," Max commented; "but you take
+Richard Strauss, for instance, and if some feller would staked
+Strauss to a thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> dollars capital when he needed it,
+understand me, not alone he would got his money back but if we
+would say, for example, the thousand dollars represents a
+ten-per-cent interest in Strauss' business, to-day yet the feller
+would be worth his fifty thousand dollars, because everybody
+knows what a big success Strauss made. Actually the feller must
+got orders at least six months ahead. Why for one song alone they
+pay him a couple thousand dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Jassy asked, "if you feel there's such a future in it why
+don't you raise a thousand dollars and finance Volkovisk?"</p>
+
+<p>Max laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Me&mdash;I couldn't raise nothing," he said; "<i>aber</i> you&mdash;you are
+feeling sore at yourself because you are writing popular stuff.
+Here's a chance for you to square yourself with your art. Why
+don't you help Volkovisk out? All you got to do is to find out
+who is loaning this here Benson the ten thousand dollars and get
+him to stake Volkovisk to a thousand."</p>
+
+<p>Jassy tapped the table with his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"For that matter I could say the same thing to you," he declared.
+"You consider Volkovisk's talent so high as a business
+proposition, Merech, why don't you get some business man
+interested&mdash;one of your bosses, for instance?"</p>
+
+<p>He rose from his chair as he spoke and placed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> ten cents on the
+table as his share of the evening's expenses.</p>
+
+<p>"Think it over," he said; and long after he had closed the door
+behind him Max sat still with his hands in his trousers pocket
+and pondered the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," he mused as Marculescu began to turn out the lights
+one by one, "why shouldn't I&mdash;the very first thing in the
+morning?"</p>
+
+<p>It was not, however, until Polatkin and Scheikowitz had gone out
+to lunch the following day, leaving Elkan alone in the office,
+that Max could bring his courage to the sticking point; and so
+fearful was he that he might regret his boldness before it was
+too late, he fairly ran from the cutting room to the office and
+delivered his preparatory remarks in the outdoor tones of a
+political spellbinder.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lubliner," he cried, "could I speak to you a few words
+something?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan rose and slammed the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, Merech," he said, "if you want a raise don't let
+the whole factory know about it, otherwise we would be pestered
+to death here. Remember, also," he continued as he sat down
+again, "you are only working for us a few weeks&mdash;and don't go so
+quick as all that."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean, a raise?" Max asked. "I ain't said nothing at
+all about a raise. I am coming to see you about something
+entirely different already."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>Elkan looked ostentatiously at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't got too much time, Merech," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody's got too much time when it comes to fellers asking for
+raises, Mr. Lubliner," Max retorted; "<i>aber</i> this here is
+something else again, as I told you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't beat no bushes round, Merech!" Elkan cried
+impatiently. "What is it you want from me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want from you this," Max began huskily: "Might you know
+Tschaikovsky maybe <i>oder</i> Rimsky-Korsakoff."</p>
+
+<p>"Tschaikovsky I never heard of," Elkan replied, "nor the other
+concern neither. Must be new beginners in the garment
+business&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"They never was in the garment business, so far as I know," Max
+continued; "<i>aber</i> they made big successes even if they wasn't,
+because all the money ain't in the garment business, Mr.
+Lubliner, and Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff, even in the old
+country, made so much money they lived in palaces yet. Once when
+I was a boy already, Tschaikovsky comes to Minsk and they got up
+a parade for him&mdash;such a big <i>Macher</i> he was!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Merech; <i>aber</i> what is all
+this got to do <i>mit</i> me?"</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't got nothing to do with you, Mr. Lubliner," Max
+declared&mdash;"only I got a friend by the name Boris Volkovisk, and
+believe me or not, Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> Lubliner, in some respects Tschaikovsky
+and Rimsky-Korsakoff could learn from that feller, because, you
+could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner, there's some passages in the
+Fifth Symphony, understand me, which I hate to say it you could
+call rotten!"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan stirred uneasily in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you are talking about at all," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am talking about this," Max replied; and therewith he began to
+explain to Elkan the aspirations and talent of Boris Volkovisk
+and his&mdash;Max'&mdash;scheme for their successful development. For more
+than half an hour he unfolded a plan by which one thousand
+dollars might be judiciously expended so as to secure the maximum
+benefit to Volkovisk's career&mdash;a plan that during the preceding
+two years Volkovisk and he had thoroughly discussed over many a
+cup of coffee in Marculescu's caf&eacute;. "And so you see, Mr.
+Lubliner," he concluded, "it's a plain business proposition; and
+if you was to take for your thousand dollars, say, for example, a
+one-tenth interest in the business Volkovisk expects to do,
+understand me, you would get a big return for your investment."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan lit a cigar and puffed away reflectively before speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>," he said at last; "so that is what you wanted to talk to
+me about?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>Max nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, all I could say is," Elkan went on, "you are coming
+to the wrong shop. A business proposition like that is for a
+banker, which he is got so much money he don't know what to do
+with it, Merech."</p>
+
+<p>Max' face fell and he turned disconsolately away.</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time, Max," Elkan added, "I ain't feeling sore that
+you come to me with the proposition, understand me. The trouble
+ain't with you that you got such an idee, Max; the trouble is
+with me that I couldn't see it. It's like a feller by the name
+Dalzell, a buyer for Kammerman's store, says to me this morning.
+'Lubliner,' he says, 'I couldn't afford to take no chances buying
+highgrade garments from a feller that is used to making a
+popular-price line,' he says, 'because no matter how well
+equipped your factory would be the trouble is a popular-price
+manufacturer couldn't think big enough to turn out expensive
+garments. To such a manufacturer goods at two dollars a yard is
+the limit, and goods at ten dollars a yard he couldn't imagine at
+all. And even if he could induce himself to use stuff at ten
+dollars a yard, y'understand, it goes against him to be liberal
+with such high-priced goods, so he skimps the garment.'"</p>
+
+<p>He blew a great cloud of smoke as a substitute for a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"And Dalzell was right, Max," he concluded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> "You couldn't expect
+that a garment manufacturer like me is going to got such big
+idees as investing a thousand dollars in a highgrade scheme like
+yours. With me a thousand dollars means so many yards piece
+goods, so many sewing machines or a week's payroll; <i>aber</i> it
+don't mean giving a musician a show he should compose highgrade
+music. I ain't educated up to it, Max; so I wish you luck that
+you should raise the money somewheres else."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>When M. Sidney Benson entered his office in the Siddons Theatre
+Building late that afternoon he found Jassy seated at his desk in
+the mournful contemplation of some music manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Milton," Benson cried, "you shouldn't look so <i>rachmonos</i>.
+I surely think I got 'em coming!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think you got 'em coming!" Jassy repeated with bitter
+emphasis. "You said that a dozen times already&mdash;and always the
+feller wasn't so big a sucker like he looked!"</p>
+
+<p>"That was because I didn't work it right," Benson replied. "This
+time I am making out to do the feller a favour by letting him in
+on the show, and right away he becomes interested. His name is
+Elkan Lubliner, a manufacturer by cloaks and suits, and to-night
+he is coming down with his wife yet, and you are going to take
+'em round to the 'Diners Out.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>"I am going to the 'Diners Out' <i>mit</i> 'em?" Milton ejaculated
+with every inflection of horror and disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" Benson replied cheerfully. "Six dollars it'll cost us,
+because Ryan pretty near laughs in my face when I asked him for
+three seats. But never mind, Milton, it'll be worth the money."</p>
+
+<p>"Will it?" Jassy retorted. "Well, not for me, Mr. Benson. Why,
+the last time I seen that show I says I wouldn't sit through it
+again for a hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred dollars is a lot of money, Milton," Benson said.
+"<i>Aber</i> I think if you work it right you will get a hundred times
+a hundred dollars before we are through, on account I really got
+this feller going. So you should listen to me and I would tell
+you just what you want to say to the feller between the acts."</p>
+
+<p>Therewith Benson commenced to unfold a series of "talking points"
+which he had spent the entire day in formulating; and, as he
+proceeded, Jassy's eyes wandered from the title page of the
+manuscript music inscribed "Opus 47&mdash;Trio in G moll," and began
+to glow in sympathy with Benson's well-laid plan.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no use shilly-shallying, Milton," Benson concluded. "The
+season is getting late, and if we're ever going to put on that
+show now is the time."</p>
+
+<p>Milton nodded eagerly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>"<i>Aber</i> why don't you take 'em to the show yourself, Mr. Benson?"
+he asked hopefully. "Because, not to jolly you at all, Mr.
+Benson, I must got to say it you are a wonderful talker."</p>
+
+<p>Benson shrugged his shoulders and smiled weakly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a wonderful talker, I admit," he agreed; "but I got a hard
+face, Milton, whereas you, anyhow, look honest. So you should
+meet me at Hanley's afterward, understand me, and we would try to
+close the deal there and then."</p>
+
+<p>He dug his hand into his trousers pocket and produced a modest
+roll of bills, from which he detached six dollars.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the money," he added, "and you should be here to meet
+them people at eight o'clock sharp."</p>
+
+<p>On the stroke of eight Milton Jassy returned to Benson's office
+in the Siddons Theatre Building and again seated himself at his
+desk in front of the pile of manuscript music. This time,
+however, he brushed aside the title page of his Opus 47 and
+spread out an evening paper to beguile the tedium of awaiting
+Benson's "prospects." Automatically he turned to the department
+headed Music and Musicians, and at the top of the column his eye
+fell on the following item:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote"><p>Ferencz L&aacute;nczhid, the Budapest virtuoso, will be the
+soloist at the concert this evening of the Philharmonic
+Society. He will play the Tschaikovsky Violin Concerto,
+Opus 35, and the remainder of the program will consist of
+Dvor&aacute;k's Symphony, <i>Aus der Neuen Welt</i>, and the
+ever-popular Meistersinger Overture.</p></div><p></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>Jassy heaved a tremulous sigh as he concluded the paragraph and
+leaned back in his chair, while in his ears sounded the adagio
+passage that introduces the first movement of the "New World
+Symphony." Simultaneously the occupant of the next office slammed
+down his rolltop desk and began to whistle a lively popular
+melody. It was "Wildcat Rag," and Milton struck the outspread
+newspaper with his clenched fist. Then rising to his feet he
+gathered together the loose pages of his "Opus 47" and placed
+them tenderly in a leather case just as the door opened and Elkan
+and Yetta entered.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope we ain't late," Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," Milton replied. "This is Mr. and Mrs.
+Lubliner&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>As he drew forward a chair for Yetta he saluted his visitors with
+a slight, graceful bow, a survival of his conservatory days.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," he said; "we got lots and lots of time."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought the show started at a quarter-past eight&mdash;ain't it?"
+Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It does and it doesn't," Milton replied hesitatingly; "that is
+to say, some shows start at a quarter-past eight and others not
+till half-past eight."</p>
+
+<p>"But I mean this here 'Diners Out' starts at a quarter-past
+eight&mdash;ain't it?" Elkan insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"'The Diners Out!'" Milton exclaimed as though he heard the name
+for the first time. "Oh, sure,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> the 'Diners Out' starts at a
+quarter-past eight, and that's just what I wanted to talk to you
+about."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Yetta with an engaging smile which, with his black
+hair and his dark, melancholy eyes, completely won over that far
+from unimpressionable lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mrs. Lubliner," he began, "your husband is a business
+man&mdash;ain't it? And if some one comes to him and says, 'Mr.
+Lubliner, I got here two garments for the same price&mdash;say, for
+example, two dollars. One of 'em is made of cheap material,
+<i>aber</i> plenty of it <i>mit</i> cheap embroidery on it, understand me;
+while the other is from finest silk a garment&mdash;not much of it,
+y'understand, but plain and beautiful.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What for a garment could you got for two dollars?" Elkan
+asked&mdash;"especially a silk garment?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's only saying for example, Elkan," Yetta interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Garments I am only using, so to speak," Milton explained. "What
+I really mean is: You got your choice to go to a popular show
+like the 'Diners Out' or to a really highgrade show, Mr.
+Lubliner. So I leave it to you, Mr. Lubliner. Which shall it be?"</p>
+
+<p>Once again he smiled at Yetta.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to the highgrade show, sure," Yetta replied, and she seized
+her husband by the arm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> "Come along, Elkan!" she cried; and
+after Milton had secured the leather portfolio containing his
+"Opus 47" they proceeded immediately to the elevator.</p>
+
+<p>"We could walk over there from here," Milton said when they
+reached the sidewalk, and he led the way across town toward
+Carnegie Hall.</p>
+
+<p>"What for a show is this we are going to see?" Elkan asked. "Also
+a musical show?"</p>
+
+<p>Milton nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"The best musical show there is," he declared. "Do you like maybe
+to hear good music?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm crazy about it," Yetta replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Symphonies, concerti and such things?" Milton inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Symphonies?" Elkan repeated. "What is symphonies?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't explain it to you," Milton said, "because we ain't
+got time; <i>aber</i> you would see for yourself. Only one thing I
+must tell you, Mr. Lubliner&mdash;when the orchestra plays you
+shouldn't speak nothing&mdash;Mrs. Lubliner neither."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't open my mouth at all," Elkan assured him solemnly;
+and a few minutes later Milton seated himself in the last row of
+the parterre at Carnegie Hall, with Elkan and Yetta&mdash;one each
+side of him.</p>
+
+<p>"So you ain't never been to a symphony concert before?" Milton
+began, leaning toward Elkan;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> and, as the latter shook his head,
+a short, stout person in the adjoining seat raised his eyebrows
+involuntarily. "Well, you got a big pleasure in store for you,"
+Milton went on; "and another thing I must got to tell you: Might
+you would hear some pretty jumpy music which you would want to
+keep time to <i>mit</i> your foot. Don't you do it!"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan's neighbour concealed a smile with one hand, and then, he,
+too, turned to Elkan, who had received Milton's warning with a
+sulky frown.</p>
+
+<p>"You're friend is right," he said. "People always have to be told
+that the first time they go to a symphony concert; and the next
+time they go they not only see the wisdom of such advice, but
+they want to get up and lick the man that does beat time with his
+foot."</p>
+
+<p>He accompanied his remark with so gracious a smile that Elkan's
+frown immediately relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>"A new beginner couldn't get too much advice," he said, and his
+neighbour leaned farther forward and addressed Milton.</p>
+
+<p>"You've chosen a fine program to introduce your friend to good
+music with," he said; and therewith began a lively conversation
+that lasted until a round of applause signalized the appearance
+of the conductor. The next moment he raised his baton and the
+celli began to sigh the mournful phrase which ushers in the
+symphony. Milton leaned back luxuriously as the woodwind
+commenced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> the next phrase; and then, while the introduction
+ended with a sweeping crescendo and the tempo suddenly increased,
+Elkan sat up and his eyes became fixed on the trombone and
+trumpet players.</p>
+
+<p>He maintained this attitude throughout the entire first movement,
+and it was not until the conductor's arm fell motionless at his
+side that he settled back in his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Milton asked, "what do you think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A-Number-One!" Elkan answered hoarsely. "It would suit me just
+so well if it would last the whole evening and we wouldn't have
+no singing and dancing at all."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;no singing and dancing!" Milton exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" Elkan continued. "I wish them fellers would play the
+whole evening."</p>
+
+<p>The conductor tapped his desk with his baton.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry," Milton commented as he settled himself for the
+next movement. "You'll get your wish all right."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan looked inquiringly at his mentor, but Milton only placed
+his forefinger to his lips; and thereafter, until the conclusion
+of the symphony, the pauses between the movements of the symphony
+were so brief that Elkan had no opportunity to make further
+inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, neighbour," asked the gentleman on his right, as the
+musicians filed off the stage for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> ten-minutes' intermission,
+"what do you think of your first symphony?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan smiled and concealed his shyness by clearing his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"The symphony is all right," he said; "but, with all them
+operators there, what is the use they are trying to save money
+hiring only one foreman?"</p>
+
+<p>"One foreman?" his neighbour cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure&mdash;the feller with the stick," Elkan went on blandly.
+"Naturally he couldn't keep his eye on all them people at
+oncet&mdash;ain't it? I am watching them fellers, which they are
+working them big brass machines, for the last half hour, and
+except for five or ten minutes they sit there doing absolutely
+nothing&mdash;just fooling away their time."</p>
+
+<p>"Them fellers ain't fooling away their time," Milton said
+gravely. "They ain't got nothing to do only at intervals."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I guess they must pay 'em by piecework&mdash;ain't it?" Elkan
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They pay 'em so much a night," Milton explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in that case, Mr. Jassy," Elkan continued, "all I could
+say is if I would got working in my place half a dozen fellers
+which I am paying by the day, understand me, and the foreman
+couldn't keep 'em busy only half the time, <i>verstehst du</i>, he
+would quick look for another job."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan's neighbour on the right had been growing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> steadily more
+crimson, and at last he hurriedly seized his hat and passed out
+into the aisle.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a pretty friendly feller," Elkan said as he gazed after
+him. "Do you happen to know his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't never heard his name," Milton replied; "but he is
+seemingly crazy about music. I seen him here every time I come."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't blame him none," Elkan commented; "because you
+take the Harlem Winter Garden, for instance, and though the music
+is rotten, understand me, they got the nerve to charge you yet
+for a lot of food which half the time you don't want at all;
+whereas here they didn't even ask us we should buy so much as a
+glass beer."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture the short, stout person returned and proceeded
+to entertain Elkan and Yetta by pointing out among the audience
+the figures of local and international millionaires.</p>
+
+<p>"And all them fellers is crazy about music too?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"So crazy," his neighbour said, "that the little man over there,
+with the white beard, spends almost twenty thousand a year on
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," Milton said bitterly, "there's plenty fellers in the
+city which year in and year out composes chamber music and
+symphonic music which they couldn't themselves make ten dollars a
+week; and, when it comes right down to it, none of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+millionaires would loosen up to such new beginners for even five
+hundred dollars to help them get a hearing."</p>
+
+<p>The short person received Milton's outburst with a faint smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard that before," he commented, "but I never had the
+pleasure of meeting any of those great unknown composers."</p>
+
+<p>"That's because most of 'em is so bashful they ain't got sense
+enough to push themselves forward," Milton replied; "<i>aber</i> if
+you really want to meet one I could take you to-night yet to a
+caf&eacute; on Delancey Street where there is playing a trio which the
+pianist is something you could really call a genius."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me!" Elkan's neighbour cried. "Why, I should be
+delighted to go with you."</p>
+
+<p>"How about it, Mr. Lubliner?" Milton asked. "Are you and Mrs.
+Lubliner agreeable to go downtown after the show to the caf&eacute; on
+Delancey Street? It's a pretty poor neighbourhood already."</p>
+
+<p>Yetta smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," she said; "but it wouldn't be the first time me
+and Elkan was in Delancey Street."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's agreed that we're all going to hear the genius,"
+Elkan's neighbour added. "I heard you call one another Jassy and
+Lubliner&mdash;it's hardly fair you shouldn't know my name too."</p>
+
+<p>He felt in his waistcoat pocket and finally handed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> a visiting
+card to Elkan, who glanced at it hurriedly and with trembling
+fingers passed it on to his wife, for it was inscribed in old
+English type as follows:</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="cardsmall">
+<p><br /></p>
+<table summary="old English bus card">
+<tr><td class="lt">Mr. Joseph Kammerman</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">Fostoria Hotel</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rt">New York</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><br />"Once and for all, I am telling you, Volkovisk, either you would
+got to play music here or quit!" Marculescu cried at eleven
+o'clock that evening. "The customers is all the time kicking at
+the stuff you give us."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean, stuff?" Max Merech protested. "That was no
+stuff, Mr. Marculescu. That was from Brahms a trio, and it suits
+me down to the ground."</p>
+
+<p>"Suits you!" Marculescu exclaimed. "Who in blazes are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>auch</i> a customer, Mr. Marculescu," Max replied with
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow</i>, a customer!" Marculescu jeered. "You sit here all night
+on one cup coffee. A customer, <i>sagt er</i>! A loafer&mdash;that's what
+you are! It ain't you I am making my money from, Merech&mdash;it's
+from them <i>Takeefim</i><a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> uptown; and they want to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> hear music, not
+Brahms. So you hear what I am telling you, Volkovisk! You should
+play something good&mdash;like 'Wildcat Rag'."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> <i>Takeefim</i>&mdash;Aristocracy.</p></div>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute, Mr. Marculescu," Max interrupted. "Do you mean to
+told me them lowlife bums in front there, which makes all that
+<i>Geschrei</i> over 'Dixerlie' and such like <i>Narrischkeit</i>, is
+<i>Takeefim</i> yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to listen to you at all, Merech!" Marculescu
+shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care if you want to listen to me <i>oder</i> not," Merech
+said. "I was a customer here when you got one little store <i>mit</i>
+two waiters; and it was me and all the other fellers you are
+calling loafers now what give you, with our few pennies, your
+first start. Now you are too good for us with your uptown
+<i>Takeefim</i>. Why, them same <i>Takeefim</i> only comes here, in the
+first place, because they want to see what it looks like in one
+of the East Side caf&eacute;s, where they got such good music and such
+interesting characters, which sits and drinks coffee and plays
+chess <i>und Tarrok</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He glared at the enraged Marculescu and waved his hands
+excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"What you call loafers they call interesting characters, Mr.
+Marculescu," he continued, "and what you call stuff they call
+good music&mdash;and that's the way it goes, Mr. Marculescu. You are a
+goose which is killing its own golden eggs!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>"So!" Marculescu roared. "I am a goose, am I? You loafer, you!
+Out of here before I kick you out!"</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't kick nothing," Max rejoined, "because I am happy to
+go out from here! Where all the time is being played such
+<i>Machshovos</i> like 'Wildcat Rag,' I don't want to stay at all."</p>
+
+<p>He rose from his chair and flung ten cents on to the table.</p>
+
+<p>"And furthermore," he cried by way of peroration, "people don't
+got to come five miles down to Delancey Street to hear 'Wildcat
+Rag,' Mr. Marculescu; so, if you keep on playing it, Mr.
+Marculescu, you will quick find that it's an elegant tune to bust
+up to&mdash;and that's all I got to say!"</p>
+
+<p>As he walked away, Marculescu made a sign to his pianist.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead, Volkovisk&mdash;play 'Wildcat Rag!'" he said. Then he
+followed Max to the front of the caf&eacute;; and before they reached
+the front tables, at which sat the slummers from uptown,
+Volkovisk began to pound out the hackneyed melody.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I think of your arguments, Merech!" Marculescu said,
+walking behind the cashier's desk.</p>
+
+<p>Max paused to crush him with a final retort; but even as he began
+to deliver it his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, for at
+that instant the door opened and there entered a party of four,
+with Elkan Lubliner in the van. A moment later, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>ever, Milton
+Jassy pushed his guests to one side and strode angrily toward
+Marculescu.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Koosh!</i>" he bellowed and stamped his foot on the floor, whereat
+the music ceased and even the uptown revellers were startled into
+silence. Only Marculescu remained unabashed.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," he shouted as he rushed from behind his desk, "what do you
+think this joint is?&mdash;a joint!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think what I please, Marculescu," Milton said, "and you should
+tell Volkovisk to play something decent. Also you should bring us
+two quarts from the best Tchampanyer wine&mdash;from French wine
+Tchampanyer, not <i>Amerikanischer</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand impatiently and three waiters&mdash;half of
+Marculescu's entire staff&mdash;came on the jump; so that, a moment
+later, Jassy and his guests were divested of their wraps and
+seated at one of the largest tables facing the piano. It was not
+until then that Milton descried Max Merech hovering round the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Merech!" he called. "<i>Kommen sie 'r &uuml;ber!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Max shook his head shyly and half-opened the door, but Elkan
+forestalled him. He fairly bounded from the table and caught his
+assistant cutter by the arm just as he was disappearing on to the
+sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>"Max," he said, "what's the matter with you? Ain't you coming in
+to meet my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>Max shrugged in embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>"You don't want me to butt into your party, Mr. Lubliner!" he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Max," Elkan almost pleaded; "not only do I want you to,
+but you would be doing me a big favour if you would come in and
+join us. Also, Max, I am going to introduce you as our designer.
+You ain't got no objections?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," Max replied, and he followed his employer into the
+caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"Yetta," Elkan began, "I think you seen Mr. Merech before&mdash;ain't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lubliner smiled and extended her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mr. Merech?" she said; and Max bowed awkwardly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kammerman," Elkan continued, "this is our designer, Max
+Merech; and I could assure you, Mr. Kammerman, a very good one
+too. He's got a great eye for colour."</p>
+
+<p>"And a good ear for music," Milton added as Kammerman shook the
+blushing dilettante by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, Mr. Kammerman, if he has got such taste in designing as
+he is showing in music," Milton went on, "he must be a wonder!
+Nothing suits him but the best. And now, if you will excuse me,
+I'll get Volkovisk he should play you his sonata."</p>
+
+<p>He left the table with his leather portfolio under his arm, and
+for more than five minutes he held an earnest consultation with
+Volkovisk and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> cellist, after which he returned smiling to
+his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"First Volkovisk plays his sonata, 'Opus 30,'" he explained, "and
+then he would do a little thing of my own."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded briskly to Volkovisk, and Kammerman settled himself
+resignedly to a hearing of what he anticipated would be a
+commonplace piece of music. After the first six measures,
+however, he sat up straight in his chair and his face took on an
+expression of wonder and delight. Then, resting his elbow on the
+table, he nursed his cheek throughout the first movement in a
+posture of earnest attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he cried as the musician paused, "this man is a genius!"</p>
+
+<p>Max Merech nodded. His face was flushed and his eyes were filled
+with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"What did I told you, Mr. Lubliner?" he said; and Jassy raised
+his hand for silence while Volkovisk began the second movement.
+This and the succeeding movements fully sustained the promise of
+the earlier portions of the composition; and when at length
+Volkovisk rose from the piano stool and approached the table
+Kammerman jumped from his chair and wrung the composer's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit in my chair," he insisted, and snapped his fingers at
+Marculescu, who fumed impotently behind the cashier's desk.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>"Here," he called; "more wine&mdash;and look sharp about it!"</p>
+
+<p>Marculescu obeyed sulkily and again the glasses were filled.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," Kammerman said, "and Mrs. Lubliner, I ask you to
+drink to a great career just beginning."</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of people said that before," Max murmured after he had
+emptied his glass.</p>
+
+<p>"They said it," Kammerman replied, "but I pledge it. You shall
+play no more in this place, Volkovisk&mdash;and here is my hand on
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Max Merech beamed across the table at his employer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "you lost your chance."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Might you could find another of them genius fellers for me
+maybe, Max?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>And therewith Kammerman slapped Milton Jassy on the back.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! We forgot your trio," he said. "Play it, Volkovisk, as
+your valedictory here."</p>
+
+<p>Again Volkovisk sought the piano, and after whispered
+instructions to his assistants he began a rendition of Jassy's
+"Opus 47," from the manuscript Milton had brought with him; but,
+allowing for the faulty technic of the 'cellist and the
+uncertainty that attends the first reading from manuscript of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+any composition, there was little to recommend Jassy's work.</p>
+
+<p>"Very creditable!" Kammerman said at the end of the movement.
+"Perhaps we might hear the rest."</p>
+
+<p>Max kept his eyes fixed on the table to avoid looking at Jassy,
+and even Volkovisk seemed embarrassed as he swung round on the
+piano stool.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he said inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>Jassy emitted a bitter laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do, Volkovisk," he replied hoarsely. "I guess it needs
+rehearsing."</p>
+
+<p>At this point Max attempted to create a diversion.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at that lady sitting there!" he said. "She puts on a yellow
+hat to an old-gold dress. She's committing murder and she don't
+know it!"</p>
+
+<p>Kammerman seized on the incident as a way of escape from
+criticising Jassy's trio.</p>
+
+<p>"That reminds me, Lubliner," he said. "Give me your business card
+if you have one with you. I must tell Mr. Dalzell, my cloak
+buyer, to look over your line. I'm sure, with a designer of Mr.
+Merech's artistic instincts working for you, you will be making
+up just the highgrade line of goods we need."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>One year later, the usual crowd of first-nighters lounged in the
+lobby of the Siddons Theatre during the intermission between the
+second and third acts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> of M. Sidney Benson's newest musical
+comedy, "Marjory from Marguery's," and commented with enthusiasm
+on the song hit of the show&mdash;"My Bl&eacute;riot Maid." A number of the
+more gifted even whistled the melody, skipping the hard part and
+proceeding by impromptu and conventional modulation to the
+refrain, which had been expressly designed by its composer,
+Milton Jassy, so as to present no technical difficulties to the
+most modest whistler.</p>
+
+<p>Through this begemmed and piping throng, Kammerman and Volkovisk
+elbowed their way to the street for a breath of fresh air; and as
+they reached the sidewalk Kammerman heaved a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"What a terrible melody!" he ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"But the plot ain't bad," Volkovisk suggested, and Kammerman
+grinned involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>"To be exact, the two plots aren't bad," he said. "It's made up
+of two old farces. One of them is '<i>Embrassons nous, Duval</i>,' and
+the other '<i>Un Gar&ccedil;on, de chez Gaillard</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But the costumes are really something which you could call
+beautiful!" Volkovisk declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Merech approved the costumes too," Kammerman agreed with a
+laugh. "He left after the first act; and he said that if you
+endured it to the end you were to be sure to tell Jassy the
+colorings were splendid!" He lit a cigarette reflectively. "That
+man is a regular shark for coloring!" he said. "It seems that
+when I first met him that night he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> only an assistant cutter;
+but Elkan Lubliner made him designer very shortly afterward&mdash;and
+it has proved a fine thing for both of them. I understand we
+bought fifteen thousand dollars' worth of goods from them during
+the past year!"</p>
+
+<p>"He deserved all the good luck that came to him," Volkovisk
+cried; and Kammerman placed his hand affectionately on his
+prot&eacute;g&eacute;'s shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a special Providence that looks after artists," he said
+as they re&euml;ntered the theatre, "whether they paint, write,
+compose, or design garments."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_FIVE" id="CHAPTER_FIVE"></a>CHAPTER FIVE</h2>
+<h2>ONE OF ESAU'S FABLES</h2>
+<h3>THE MOUSE SCRATCHES THE LION'S BACK; THE LION SCRATCHES THE
+MOUSE'S BACK</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"NO, ELKAN," said Louis Stout, of Flugel &amp; Stout. "When you are
+coming to compare Johnsonhurst <i>mit</i> Burgess Park it's already a
+molehill to a mountain."</p>
+
+<p>"Burgess Park ain't such high ground neither," Elkan Lubliner
+retorted. "Max Kovner says he lives out there on Linden Boulevard
+three months only and he gets full up with malaria something
+terrible."</p>
+
+<p>"Malaria we ain't got it in Burgess Park!" Louis declared. "I am
+living there now six years, Elkan, and I never bought so much as
+a two-grain quinine pill. Furthermore, Elkan, Kovner's malaria
+you could catch in Denver, Colorado, or on an ocean steamer,
+y'understand; because, with a lowlife bum like Max Kovner, which
+he sits up till all hours of the night&mdash;a drinker and a gambler,
+understand me&mdash;you don't got to be a professor exactly to
+diagonize his trouble. It ain't malaria, Elkan, it's
+<i>Katzenjammer!</i>"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>"But my Yetta is stuck on Johnsonhurst," Elkan protested, "and
+she already makes up her mind we would move out there."</p>
+
+<p>"That was just the way with my wife," Louis said. "For six months
+she is crying all the time Ogden Estates; and if I would listen
+to her, Elkan, and bought out there, y'understand, instead we
+would be turning down offers on our house at an advance of twenty
+per cent. on the price we paid for it, we would be considering
+letting the property go under foreclosure! You ought to see that
+place Ogden Estates nowadays, Elkan&mdash;nothing but a bunch of
+Italieners lives there."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Elkan began.</p>
+
+<p>"Another thing," Louis Stout broke in: "Out in Johnsonhurst what
+kind of society do you got? Moe Rabiner lives there, and Marks
+Pasinsky lives there&mdash;and <i>Gott weiss wer noch</i>. My partner, Mr.
+Flugel, is approached the other day with an offer of some
+property in Johnsonhurst, and I was really in favour he should
+take it up; but he says to me, 'Louis,' he says, 'a place where
+such people lives like Pasinsky and Rabiner I wouldn't touch at
+all!' And he was right, Elkan. Salesmen and designers only lives
+in Johnsonhurst; while out in Burgess Park we got a nice class of
+people living, Elkan. You know J. Kamin, of the Lee Printemps,
+Pittsburgh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Used to was one of our best customers," Philip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> Scheikowitz
+replied, "though he passed us up last year."</p>
+
+<p>"His sister, Mrs. Benno Ortelsburg, lives one house by the other
+with me," Louis went on. "Her husband does a big real-estate
+business there. Might you also know Julius Tarnowitz, of the
+Tarnowitz-Wixman Department Store, Rochester?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bought from us a couple years a small bill," Marcus Polatkin
+said. "I wish we could sell him more."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, his brother, Sig Tarnowitz, lives across the street from
+us," Louis cried triumphantly. "Sig's got a fine business there
+on Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn."</p>
+
+<p>"What for a business?"</p>
+
+<p>"A furniture business," Louis replied. "And might you would know
+also Joel Ribnik, which he is running the McKinnon-Weldon
+Drygoods Company, of Cyprus, Pennsylvania?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the feller what you nearly sold that big bill to last
+month, Elkan," Scheikowitz commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, his sister is married to a feller by the name Robitscher,
+of Robitscher, Smith &amp; Company, the wallpaper house and interior
+decorators. They got an elegant place down the street from us."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Elkan began again.</p>
+
+<p>"But nothing, Elkan!" Marcus Polatkin interrupted with a
+ferocious wink; for Louis Stout, as junior partner in the
+thriving Williamsburg store<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> of Flugel &amp; Stout, was viewing
+Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp; Company's line preparatory to buying his
+spring line of dresses. "But nothing, Elkan! Mr. Stout knows what
+he is talking about, Elkan; and if I would be you, instead I
+would argue with him, understand me, I would take Yetta out to
+Burgess Park on Sunday and give the place a look."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the idea!" Louis cried. "And you should come and take
+dinner with us first. Mrs. Stout would be delighted."</p>
+
+<p>"What time do you eat dinner?" Philip Scheikowitz asked, frowning
+significantly at Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"Two o'clock," Louis replied, and Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded
+in unison.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll be there," Polatkin declared.</p>
+
+<p>"At a quarter before two," Scheikowitz added and Elkan smiled
+mechanically by way of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"So come along, Mr. Stout," Polatkin said, "and look at them
+Ethel Barrymore dresses. I think you'll like 'em."</p>
+
+<p>He led Stout from the office as he spoke while Scheikowitz
+remained behind with Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"Honest, Elkan," he said, "I'm surprised to see the way you are
+acting with Louis Stout!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, the way I'm acting, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan
+protested. "Do you think I am going to buy a house in a
+neighbourhood which I don't want to live in at all just to oblige
+a customer?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Elkan!" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "No one asks you you
+should buy a house there. Be a little reasonable, Elkan. What
+harm would it do you, supposing you and Yetta should go out to
+Burgess Park next Sunday? Because you know the way Louis Stout
+is, Elkan. He will look over our line for two weeks yet before he
+decides on his order&mdash;and meantime we shouldn't entegonize him."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to antagonize him," Elkan said; "but me and Yetta
+made our arrangements to go out to Johnsonhurst next Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"Go out there the Sunday after," cried Scheikowitz. "Johnsonhurst
+would still be on the map, Elkan. It ain't going to run away
+exactly."</p>
+
+<p>Thus persuaded, Elkan and Yetta on the following Sunday elbowed
+their way through the crowd at the entrance of the Brooklyn
+Bridge, and after a delay of several minutes boarded a train for
+Burgess Park.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all I can say is," Yetta gasped, after they had seized on
+the only vacant seats in the car, "if it's this way on Sunday
+what would it be on weekdays?"</p>
+
+<p>"There must have been a block," Elkan said meekly. Only by the
+exercise of the utmost marital diplomacy had he induced his wife
+to make the visit to Louis Stout's home, and one of his most
+telling arguments had been the advantage of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> elevated
+railroad journey to Burgess Park over the subway ride to
+Johnsonhurst.</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore," Yetta insisted, referring to another of Elkan's
+plausible reasons for visiting Burgess Park, "I suppose all these
+Italieners and <i>B&eacute;tzimmers</i> are customers of yours which we was
+going to run across on our way down there. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan blushed guiltily as he looked about him at the carload of
+holiday-makers; but a moment later he exclaimed aloud as he
+recognized in a seat across the aisle no less a person than
+Joseph Kamin, of Le Printemps, Pittsburgh.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Kamin?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not Elkan Lubliner, from Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp; Company?" Mr.
+Kamin exclaimed. "Well, who would think to meet you here!"</p>
+
+<p>He rose from his seat, whereat a bulky Italian immediately sank
+into it; and as livery of seizin he appropriated the comic
+section of Mr. Kamin's Sunday paper, which had fallen to the
+floor of the car, and spread it wide open in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you lost your seat," Elkan said; "so you should take mine."</p>
+
+<p>He jumped to his feet and Kamin sat down in his place, while a
+Neapolitan who hung on an adjacent strap viciously scowled his
+disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't acquainted with Mrs. Lubliner?" Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>"Pleased to meetcher," Kamin murmured.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>Yetta bowed stiffly and Elkan hastened to make conversation by
+way of relieving Mr. Kamin's embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like an early spring the way people is going to the
+country in such crowds," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet yer," Kamin rejoined emphatically. "I arrived in New York
+two weeks ahead of my schedule, because I simply got to do my
+buying now or lose a lot of early spring trade."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been in town long?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Only this morning," Kamin answered; "and I am going down to eat
+dinner with my sister, Mrs. Ortelsburg. She lives in Burgess
+Park."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" Elkan exclaimed. "We ourselves are going to Burgess
+Park&mdash;to visit a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"A customer," Yetta corrected.</p>
+
+<p>"A customer could also be a friend," Kamin declared, "especially
+if he's a good customer."</p>
+
+<p>"This is a very good customer," Elkan went on, "by the name Louis
+Stout."</p>
+
+<p>"Louis Stout, from Flugel &amp; Stout?" Kamin cried. "Why, him and
+Benno Ortelsburg is like brothers already! Well, then, I'll
+probably see you down in Burgess Park this afternoon, on account
+every Sunday afternoon Louis plays pinocle at my brother-in-law's
+house. Why don't he fetch you round to take a hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be delighted," Elkan said; but Yetta sniffed audibly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>"I guess we would be going home right after dinner, before the
+crowd starts back," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not on a fine day like this you wouldn't," Kamin protested;
+"because once you get out to Burgess Park you ain't in such a
+hurry to come back. I wish we would got such a place near
+Pittsburgh, Mrs. Lubliner. I bet yer I would quick move out
+there. The smoke gets worser and worser in Pittsburgh; in fact,
+it's so nowadays we couldn't sell a garment in pastel shades."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we got plenty blacks, navy blues, Copenhagen blues and
+brown in our spring line, Mr. Kamin," Elkan said; and therewith
+he commenced so graphically to catalogue Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp;
+Company's new stock that, by the time the train drew into Burgess
+Park, Kamin was making figures on the back of an envelope in an
+effort to convince Elkan that his prices were all wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"But, anyhow," Kamin said, as they parted in front of the
+Ortelsburgs' colonial residence, "I will see you in the store
+to-morrow morning sure."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see me before then, because me and Yetta is coming round
+this afternoon sure&mdash;ain't we, Yetta?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lubliner nodded, for her good humour had been restored by
+Elkan's splendid exhibition of salesmanship.</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon is something else again," Kamin said, "because a
+feller which tries to mix pinocle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> with business is apt to
+overplay his hand in both games."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"No, Joe; you're wrong," Benno Ortelsburg said to his
+brother-in-law, Joseph Kamin, as they sipped their after-dinner
+coffee in the Ortelsburg library that day. "It wouldn't be taking
+advantage of the feller at all. You say yourself he tries to sell
+goods to you on the car already. Why shouldn't we try to sell
+Glaubmann's house to him while he's down here? And we'll split
+the commission half and half."</p>
+
+<p>Kamin hesitated before replying.</p>
+
+<p>"In business, Joe&mdash;it's Esau's fable of the lion and the mouse
+every time!" Ortelsburg continued. "The mouse scratches the
+lion's back and the lion scratches the mouse's back! Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you know so well as I do, Benno, that Glaubmann's house on
+Linden Boulevard ain't worth no eighteen thousand dollars," Kamin
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why ain't it?" Benno retorted. "Glaubmann's Linden Boulevard
+house is precisely the same house as this, built from the same
+plans and everything&mdash;and this house costs me thirteen thousand
+five hundred dollars. Suburban real estate is worth just so much
+as you can get some sucker to pay for it, Joe. So I guess I
+better get the cards and chips ready, because I see Glaubmann
+coming up the street now."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>A moment later Glaubmann entered the library and greeted Kamin
+uproariously.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Joe!" he cried. "How's the drygoods business in
+Pittsburgh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so good as the real-estate business in Burgess Park,
+Barney," Kamin replied. "They tell me you are selling houses hand
+over fist."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow</i>&mdash;hand over fist!" Barnett cried. "If I carry a house six
+months and sell it at a couple thousand dollars' profit, what is
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I got to get rid of a whole lot of garments to make a couple
+thousand dollars, Barney," Kamin said; "and, anyhow, if you sell
+a house for eighteen thousand dollars which it cost you
+thirteen-five you would be making a little more as four thousand
+dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I would," Glaubmann replied; "<i>aber</i> the people which buys
+green-goods and gold bricks ain't investing in
+eighteen-thousand-dollar propositions! Such yokels you could only
+interest in hundred-dollar lots between high and low water on
+some of them Jersey sandbars."</p>
+
+<p>"There is all kinds of come-ons, Barney," Joe said, "and the
+biggest one, understand me, is the business man who is willing to
+be played for a sucker, so as he can hold his customers' trade."</p>
+
+<p>"You got the proper real-estate spirit, Joe," Benno declared, as
+he returned with the cards and chips. "You don't allow the ground
+to grow under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> your feet. Just at present, though, we are going
+to spiel a little pinocle and we would talk business afterward."</p>
+
+<p>"Real estate ain't business," Kamin retorted. "It's a game like
+pinocle; and I got a little Jack of Diamonds and Queen of Spades
+coming round here in a few minutes which I would like to meld."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you are talking poetry," Barnett said.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it from me, Barney," Benno Ortelsburg interrupted, "this
+ain't no poetry. It's a fact; and if you could see your way clear
+to pay a thousand dollars' commission, y'understand, me and Joe
+is got a customer for your Linden Boulevard house at eighteen
+thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Jokes you are making me!" Barnett cried. "You shouldn't drink so
+much schnapps after dinner, Benno, because I could as much get
+eighteen thousand for that Linden Boulevard house as I would pay
+you a thousand dollars commission if I got it."</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't paying me the thousand dollars," Benno protested.
+"Don't you suppose Joe's got a look-in-here?"</p>
+
+<p>"And furthermore," Joe said, "you also got Louis Stout to
+consider. If you think Louis Stout is going to sit by and see a
+commission walk past him, Benno, you are making a big mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm willing we should give Louis a hundred or so," Benno agreed.
+"We got to remember Louis is a customer of his also."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>"A customer of who's?" Barnett asked, as the doorbell rang.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stiegen!</i>" Benno hissed; and a moment later he ushered Elkan
+and Yetta into the library, while Mr. Stout brought up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>Benno cleared his throat preparatory to introducing the
+newcomers, but Louis Stout brushed hastily past him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Glaubmann," Louis said, "this is my friend, Elkan Lubliner."</p>
+
+<p>"And you forget Mrs. Lubliner," cried Mrs. Ortelsburg, who had
+hurried downstairs at the sound of voices in the hall. "I'm Mrs.
+Ortelsburg," she continued, turning to Yetta. "Won't you come
+upstairs and take your things off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Elkan," Louis Stout continued, "you better go along with her. I
+want you to see what an elegant lot of clothes-closets they got
+upstairs. You know most houses is designed by archytecks which
+all they are trying to do is to save money for the builder.
+<i>Aber</i> this archyteck was an exception. The way he figures it he
+tries to build the house to please the women, <i>mit</i> lots of
+closet room, and&mdash;excuse me, ladies&mdash;to hell with the expenses!
+I'll go upstairs with you and show you what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>Benno frowned angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't necessary, Louis," he said. "Mrs. Ortelsburg would show
+him."</p>
+
+<p>He drew forward chairs; and, after Elkan and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> Yetta had followed
+Mrs. Ortelsburg upstairs, he closed the library door.</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't I introduce people in my own house, Stout?" he
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Louis Stout shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean as a matter of ettykit&mdash;yes," he retorted; "<i>aber</i>
+if it's a real-estate transaction&mdash;no. When I bring a customer to
+Mr. Glaubmann for his Linden Boulevard house, Ortelsburg, I do
+the introducing myself, which afterward I don't want no broker to
+claim he earned the commission by introducing the customer
+first&mdash;understand me?"</p>
+
+<p>He seated himself and smiled calmly at Kamin, Glaubmann, and his
+host.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't living in the country for my health exactly," he
+declared, "and don't you forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's your written authorization from the owner?" Ortelsburg
+demanded, raising a familiar point of real-estate brokerage law;
+and Stout tapped his breast pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Six months ago already," Stout replied, "Mr. Glaubmann writes me
+if I hear of a customer for his house he would protect me, and I
+got the letter here in my pocket. Ain't that right, Mr.
+Glaubmann?"</p>
+
+<p>Glaubmann had walked toward the window and was looking out upon
+the budding white poplars that spread their branches at a height
+of six feet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> above the sidewalks of Burgess Park. He nodded in
+confirmation of Louis' statement; and as he did so a short, stout
+person, who was proceeding hurriedly down the street in the
+direction of the station, paused in front of the Ortelsburg
+residence. A moment later he rang the bell and Ortelsburg himself
+opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Mr. Kovner!" he said. "What could I do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Glaubmann just nods to me out of your window," Max Kovner
+replied, "and I thought he wants to speak to me."</p>
+
+<p>Benno returned to the library with Max at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to speak to Mr. Kovner, Glaubmann?" he asked, and
+Glaubmann started perceptibly. During the months of Max Kovner's
+tenancy Glaubmann had not only refrained from visiting his Linden
+Boulevard house, but he had also performed feats of disappearance
+resembling Indian warfare in his efforts to avoid Max Kovner on
+the streets of Burgess Park. All this was the result of Max
+Kovner's taking possession of the Linden Boulevard house upon
+Glaubmann's agreement to make necessary plumbing repairs and to
+paint and repaper the living rooms; and Glaubmann's complete
+breach of this agreement was reflected in the truculency of Max
+Kovner's manner as he entered the Ortelsburg library.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>"Maybe Glaubmann don't want to speak to me," he cried, "but I
+want to speak to him, and in the presence of you gentlemen here
+also."</p>
+
+<p>He banged Ortelsburg's library table with his clenched fist.</p>
+
+<p>"Once and for all, Mr. Glaubmann," he said, "either you would fix
+that plumbing and do that painting, understand me, or I would
+move out of your Linden Boulevard house the first of next month
+sure!"</p>
+
+<p>Glaubmann received this ultimatum with a defiant grin.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Kovner," he said, "you wouldn't do nothing of the
+kind! You got <i>mit</i> me a verbal lease for one year in the
+presence of my wife, your wife and a couple of other people which
+the names I forget."</p>
+
+<p>"And how about the repairs?" Kovner demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"If you seen the house needs repairs and you go into possession
+anyhow," Glaubmann retorted, "you waive the repairs, because the
+agreement to repair merges in the lease. That's what Kent J.
+Goldstein, my lawyer, says, Kovner; and ask any other lawyer,
+Kovner, and he could tell you the same."</p>
+
+<p>"So," Kovner exclaimed, "I am stuck with that rotten house for a
+year! Is that the idee?"</p>
+
+<p>Glaubmann nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner concluded. "You are here in a
+strange house to me and I couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> do nothing; but I am coming
+over to your office to-morrow, and if I got to sit there all day,
+understand me, we would settle this thing up."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Ortelsburg interrupted. "When you got
+real-estate business with Glaubmann, Mr. Kovner, his office is
+the right place to see him. <i>Aber</i> here is a private house and
+Sunday, Mr. Kovner, and we ain't doing no real-estate business
+here. So, if you got a pressing engagement somewheres else, Mr.
+Kovner, don't let me hurry you."</p>
+
+<p>He opened the library door, and with a final glare at his
+landlord Max passed slowly out.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a dangerous feller," Glaubmann said as his tenant banged
+the street door behind him. "He goes into possession for one year
+without a written lease containing a covenant for repairs by the
+landlord, y'understand, and now he wants to blame me for it!
+Honestly, the way some people acts so unreasonable, Kamin, it's
+enough to sicken me with the real-estate business!"</p>
+
+<p>Kamin nodded sympathetically, but Louis Stout made an impatient
+gesture by way of bringing the conversation back to its original
+theme.</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't here or there," he declared. "The point is I am
+fetching you a customer for your Linden Boulevard house,
+Glaubmann, and I want this here matter of the commission settled
+right away."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>Ortelsburg rose to his feet as a shuffling on the stairs
+announced the descent of his guests.</p>
+
+<p>"Commissions we would talk about afterward," he said. "First let
+us sell the house."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>In Benno Ortelsburg's ripe experience there were as many methods
+of selling suburban residences as there were residences for sale;
+and, like the born salesman he was, he realized that each
+transaction possessed its individual obstacles, to be overcome by
+no hard-and-fast rules of salesmanship. Thus he quickly divined
+that whoever sought to sell Elkan a residence in Burgess Park
+must first convince Yetta, and he proceeded immediately to
+apportion the chips for a five-handed game of auction pinocle,
+leaving Yetta to be entertained by his wife. Mrs. Ortelsburg's
+powers of persuasion in the matter of suburban property were
+second only to her husband's, and the game had not proceeded very
+far when Benno looked into the adjoining room and observed with
+satisfaction that Yetta was listening open-mouthed to Mrs.
+Ortelsburg's fascinating narrative of life in Burgess Park.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty hens we got it," she declared; "and this month alone they
+are laying on us every day a dozen eggs&mdash;some days ten, or nine
+at the least. Then, of course, if we want a little fricassee once
+in a while we could do that also."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do when you are getting all of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> sudden company?"
+Yetta asked. "I didn't see no delicatessen store round here."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't?" Mrs. Ortelsburg exclaimed. "Why, right behind the
+depot is Mrs. J. Kaplan's a delicatessen store, which I am only
+saying to her yesterday, 'Mrs. Kaplan,' I says, 'how do you got
+all the time such fresh, nice smoke-tongue here?' And she says,
+'It's the country air,' she says, 'which any one could see; not
+alone smoke-tongue keeps fresh, <i>aber</i> my daughter also, when she
+comes down here,' she says, 'she is pale like anything&mdash;and look
+at her now!' And it's a fact, Mrs. Lubliner, the daughter did
+look sick, and to-day yet she's got a complexion fresh like a
+tomato already. That's what Burgess Park done for her!"</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you got difficulty keeping a girl, Mrs. Ortelsburg?"
+Yetta inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Difficulty?" Mrs. Ortelsburg cried. "Why, just let me show you
+my kitchen. The girls love it here. In the first place, we are
+only twenty minutes from Coney Island; and, in the second place,
+with all the eggs which we got it, they could always entertain
+their fellers here in such a fine, big kitchen, which I am
+telling my girl, Lena: 'So long as you give 'em omelets or fried
+eggs <i>mit</i> fat, Lena, I don't care how many eggs you use&mdash;<i>aber</i>
+butter is butter in Burgess Park <i>oder</i> Harlem.'"</p>
+
+<p>In this vein Mrs. Ortelsburg continued for more than an hour,
+while she conducted Yetta to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> kitchen and cellar and back
+again to the bedrooms above stairs, until she decided that
+sufficient interest had been aroused to justify the more robust
+method of her husband. She therefore returned to the library, and
+therewith began for Benno Ortelsburg the real business of the
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, boys," he said, "I guess we would quit pinocle for a while
+and join the ladies."</p>
+
+<p>He chose for this announcement a moment when Elkan's chips showed
+a profit of five dollars; and as, in his capacity of banker, he
+adjusted the losses of the other players, he kept up a merry
+conversation directed at Mrs. Lubliner.</p>
+
+<p>"Here in Burgess Park," he said, "we play pinocle and we leave it
+alone; while in the city when a couple business men play pinocle
+they spend a day at it&mdash;and why? Because they only get a chance
+to play pinocle once in a while occasionally. Every night they
+are going to theatre <i>oder</i> a lodge affair, understand me;
+whereas here, the train service at night not being so extra
+elegant, y'understand, we got good houses and we stay in 'em;
+which in Burgess Park after half-past seven in the evening any
+one could find a dozen pinocle games to play in&mdash;and all of 'em
+breaks up by half-past ten already."</p>
+
+<p>With this tribute to the transit facilities and domesticity of
+Burgess Park, he concluded stacking up the chips and turned to
+Mrs. Lubliner.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>"Yes, Mrs. Lubliner," he continued with an amiable smile, "if you
+wouldn't persuade your husband to move out to Burgess Park,
+understand me, I shall consider it you don't like our house here
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do like your house!" Yetta protested.</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope so," Benno continued, "on account it would be a
+poor compliment to a lot of people which could easy be good
+customers of your husband. For instance, this house was decorated
+by Robitscher, Smith &amp; Company, which Robitscher lives across the
+street already; and his wife is Joel Ribnik's&mdash;the
+McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company's&mdash;a sister already."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me?" Yetta murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"And Joel is staying with 'em right now," Benno went on.
+"Furthermore, we got our furniture and carpets by Sig Tarnowitz,
+which he lives a couple of doors down from here&mdash;also got
+relatives in the retail drygoods business by the name
+Tarnowitz-Wixman Drygoods Company. The brother, Julius Tarnowitz,
+is eating dinner with 'em to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a regular buyers' colony here, so to speak," Louis Stout
+said, and Joseph Kamin nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you what you do, Benno," Joseph suggested. "Get Tarnowitz
+and Ribnik to come over here. I think Elkan would like to meet
+them."</p>
+
+<p>Benno slapped his thigh with a resounding blow.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>"That's a great idee!" he cried; and half an hour later the
+Ortelsburg library was thronged with visitors, for not only Joel
+Ribnik and Julius Tarnowitz had joined Benno's party, but seated
+in easy chairs were Robitscher, the decorator, and Tarnowitz, the
+furniture dealer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, siree, sir!" Robitscher cried. "Given the same decorative
+treatment to that Linden Boulevard house, Mr. Lubliner, and it
+would got Ortelsburg's house here skinned to pieces, on account
+over there it is more open and catches the sun afternoon and
+morning both."</p>
+
+<p>During this pronouncement Elkan's face wore a ghastly smile and
+he underwent the sensations of the man in the tonneau of a
+touring car which is beginning to skid toward a telegraph pole.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case I should recommend you don't buy a Kermanshah rug
+for the front room," Sigmund Tarnowitz interrupted. "I got in my
+place right now an antique Beloochistan, which I would let go at
+only four hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i> four hundred dollars is an awful lot of money to pay for
+a rug," Elkan protested. He had avoided looking at Yetta for the
+past half-hour; but now he glanced fearfully at her, and in doing
+so received a distinct shock, for Yetta sat with shining eyes and
+flushed cheeks, inoculated beyond remedy with the virus of the
+artistic-home fever.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>"Four hundred ain't so much for a rug," she declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for an antique Beloochistan," Sig Tarnowitz said, "because
+every year it would increase in value on you."</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same like that Linden Boulevard house," Ortelsburg
+added, "which you could take it from me, Mrs. Lubliner, if you
+don't get right away an offer of five hundred dollars advance on
+your purchase price I would eat the house, plumbing and all."</p>
+
+<p>At the word "plumbing" Glaubmann started visibly.</p>
+
+<p>"The plumbing would be fixed so good as new," he said; "and I
+tell you what I would do also, Mr. Lubliner&mdash;I would pay fifty
+per cent. of the decorations if Mr. Ortelsburg would make me an
+allowance of a hundred dollars on the commission!"</p>
+
+<p>"Could anything be fairer than this?" Ortelsburg exclaimed; and
+he grinned maliciously as Louis Stout succumbed to a fit of
+coughing.</p>
+
+<p>"But we ain't even seen the house!" Elkan cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind we ain't seen it," Yetta said; "if the house is the
+same like this that's all I care about."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Elkan replied; "but I want to see the house first
+before I would even commence to think of buying it."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schon gut!</i>" Glaubmann said. "I ain't got no objection to show
+you the house from the outside;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> <i>aber</i> there is at present
+people living in the house, understand me, which for the present
+we couldn't go inside."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lubliner don't want to see the inside, Glaubmann!"
+Ortelsburg cried, in tones implying that he deprecated
+Glaubmann's suggestion as impugning Elkan's good faith in the
+matter. "The inside would be repaired and decorated to suit, Mr.
+Glaubmann, but the outside he's got a right to see; so we would
+all go round there and give a look."</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes afterward a procession of nine persons passed through
+the streets of Burgess Park and lingered on the sidewalk opposite
+Glaubmann's house. There Ortelsburg descanted on the
+comparatively high elevation of Linden Boulevard and Mrs.
+Ortelsburg pointed out the chicken-raising possibilities of the
+back lot; and, after gazing at the shrubbery and incipient shade
+trees that were planted in the front yard, the line of march was
+resumed in the direction of Burgess Park's business
+neighbourhood. Another pause was made at Mrs. J. Kaplin's
+delicatessen store; and, laden with packages of smoked tongue,
+Swiss cheese and dill pickles, the procession returned to the
+Ortelsburg residence marshalled by Benno Ortelsburg, who wielded
+as a baton a ten-cent loaf of rye bread.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the remainder of the evening was spent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> in feasting and more
+pinocle until nearly midnight, when Elkan and Yetta returned to
+town on the last train. Hence, with his late homecoming and the
+Ortelsburgs' delicatessen supper, Elkan slept ill that night, so
+that it was past nine o'clock before he arrived at his office the
+following morning. Instead of the satirical greeting which he
+anticipated from his senior partner, however, he was received
+with unusual cordiality by Polatkin, whose face was spread in a
+grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Elkan," he said, "you done a good job when you decided to
+buy that house."</p>
+
+<p>"When I decided to buy the house? Who says I decided to buy the
+house?" Elkan cried.</p>
+
+<p>"J. Kamin did," Polatkin explained. "He was here by a quarter to
+eight already; and not alone J. Kamin was here, but Joel Ribnik
+and Julius Tarnowitz comes in also. Scheikowitz and me has been
+on the jump, I bet yer; in fact, Scheikowitz is in there now with
+J. Kamin and Tarnowitz. Between 'em, those fellers has picked out
+four thousand dollars' goods."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan looked at his partner in unfeigned astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"So soon?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ribnik too," Polatkin continued. "He makes a selection of nine
+hundred dollars' goods&mdash;among 'em a couple stickers like them
+styles 2040 and 2041. He says he is coming back in half an hour, on
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>account he's got an appointment with a brother-in-law of his."</p>
+
+<p>"By the name Robitscher?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the feller," Polatkin answered. "Ribnik says you promised
+Robitscher the decorations from the house you are buying."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean I promised him the decorations from the house I
+am buying?" Elkan exclaimed in anguished tones. "In the first
+place, I ain't promised him nothing of the kind; and, in the
+second place, I ain't even bought the house yet."</p>
+
+<p>"That part will be fixed up all right," Polatkin replied,
+"because Mr. Glaubmann rings up half an hour ago, and he says
+that so soon as we need him and the lawyer we should telephone
+for 'em."</p>
+
+<p>For a brief interval Elkan choked with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Polatkin," he sputtered at last, "who is
+going to live in this house&mdash;you <i>oder</i> me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to live in the house, Elkan," Polatkin declared,
+"because me I don't need a house. I already got one house, Elkan,
+and I ain't twins exactly; and also them fellers is very plain
+about it, Elkan, which they told me and Scheikowitz up and down,
+that if you wouldn't buy the house they wouldn't confirm us the
+orders."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Scheikowitz entered the office. From the doorway
+of the showroom he had observed the discussion between Elkan and
+his partner; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> he had entirely deserted his prospective
+customers to aid in Elkan's coercion.</p>
+
+<p>"Polatkin is right, Elkan!" he cried. "You got to consider Louis
+Stout also. Kamin said he would never forgive us if the deal
+didn't go through."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan bit his lips irresolutely.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what you are hesitating about," Polatkin went on.
+"Yetta likes the house&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's crazy about it," Elkan admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what's the use talking?" Scheikowitz declared; and he
+glanced anxiously toward Tarnowitz and Kamin, who were holding a
+whispered conference in the showroom. "Let's make an end and get
+the thing over. Telephone this here Glaubmann he should come
+right over with Ortelsburg and the lawyer."</p>
+
+<p>"But ain't I going to have no lawyer neither?" Elkan demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure you are," Scheikowitz replied. "I took a chance, Elkan, and
+I telephoned Henry D. Feldman half an hour since already. He says
+he would send one up of his assistants, Mr. Harvey J. Sugarberg,
+right away."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>When it came to drawing a real-estate contract there existed for
+Kent J. Goldstein no incongruities of time and place. Kent was
+the veteran of a dozen real-estate booms, during which he had
+drafted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> agreements at all hours of the day and night,
+improvising as his office the back room of a liquor saloon or the
+cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of any other
+writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief though
+binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the vendor's
+back.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the transaction between Glaubmann and Elkan Lubliner
+presented no difficulties to Kent J. Goldstein; and he handled
+the details with such care and dispatch that the contract was
+nearly finished before Harvey J. Sugarberg remembered the
+instructions of his principal. As attorney for the buyer, it was
+Henry D. Feldman's practice to see that the contract of sale
+provided every opportunity for his client lawfully to avoid
+taking title should he desire for any reason, lawful or unlawful,
+to back out; and this rule of his principal occurred to Harvey
+just as he and Goldstein were writing the clause relating to
+incumbrances.</p>
+
+<p>"The premises are to be conveyed free and clear of all
+incumbrances," Kent read aloud, "except the mortgage and covenant
+against nuisances above described and the present tenancies of
+said premises."</p>
+
+<p>He had brought with him two blank forms of agreement; and as he
+filled in the blanks on one of them he read aloud what he was
+writing and Harvey Sugarberg inserted the same clause in the
+other. Up to this juncture Harvey had taken Kent's dictation with
+such remarkable docility that Elkan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> and his partners had
+frequently exchanged disquieting glances, and they were
+correspondingly elated when Harvey at length balked.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, Mr. Goldstein," he said&mdash;and, but for a slight
+nervousness, he reproduced with histrionic accuracy the tone and
+gesture of his employer&mdash;"as <i>locum tenens</i> for my principal I
+must decline to insert the phrase, 'and the present tenancies of
+said premises.'"</p>
+
+<p>Kent wasted no time in forensic dispute when engaged in a
+real-estate transaction, though, if necessary, he could make
+kindling of the strongest rail that ever graced the front of a
+jury-box.</p>
+
+<p>"How 'bout it, Glaubmann?" he said. "The premises is
+occupied&mdash;ain't they?"</p>
+
+<p>Glaubmann flapped his right hand in a gesture of <i>laissez-faire</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The feller moves out by the first of next month," he said; and
+Kent turned to Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you satisfied that the tenant stays in the house until the
+first?" he asked. "That will be three days after the contract is
+closed."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Mr.&mdash;&mdash;Forget your name!" Kent cried. "Cut out 'and
+the present tenancies of said premises.'"</p>
+
+<p>At this easy victory a shade of disappointment passed over the
+faces of Harvey Sugarberg and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> clients, and the contract
+proceeded without further objection to its rapid conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then, my friends," Kent announced briskly, "we're ready for
+the signatures."</p>
+
+<p>At this, the crucial point of all real-estate transactions, a
+brief silence fell upon the assembled company, which included not
+only the attorneys and the clients, but Ortelsburg, Kamin,
+Tarnowitz and Ribnik as well. Finally Glaubmann seized a pen,
+and, jabbing it viciously in an inkpot, he made a John Hancock
+signature at the foot of the agreement's last page.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. Lubliner," Kent said&mdash;and Elkan hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't we going to wait for Louis Stout?" he asked; and
+immediately there was a roar of protest that sounded like a mob
+scene in a Drury Lane melodrama.</p>
+
+<p>"If Louis Stout ain't here it's his own fault," Ortelsburg
+declared; and Ribnik, Tarnowitz, and Kamin glowered in unison.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he's right, Elkan," Polatkin murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"It is his own fault if he ain't here," Scheikowitz agreed
+feebly; and, thus persuaded, Elkan appended a small and, by
+contrast with Glaubmann's, a wholly unimpressive signature to the
+agreement. Immediately thereafter Elkan passed over a certified
+check for eight hundred dollars, according to the terms of the
+contract, which provided that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> title be closed in twenty days
+at the office of Henry D. Feldman.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Lubliner," Glaubmann said, employing the formula
+hallowed by long usage in all real-estate transactions involving
+improved property, "I wish you luck in your new house."</p>
+
+<p>"Much obliged," Elkan said; and after a general handshaking the
+entire assemblage crowded into one elevator, so that finally
+Elkan was left alone with his partners.</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin was the first to break a silence of over five minutes'
+duration.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't it funny," he said, "that we ain't heard from Louis?"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz nodded; and as he did so the elevator door creaked
+noisily and there alighted a short, stout person, who, having
+once been described in the I. O. M. A. Monthly as Benjamin J.
+Flugel, the Merchant Prince, had never since walked abroad save
+in a freshly ironed silk hat and a Prince Albert coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flugel?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz cried
+with one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged
+within his breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of
+business; and, as Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's
+impressive partner, he could not help congratulating himself on
+the mercantile sagacity that had made him buy Glaubmann's house.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>"And this is Mr. Lubliner?" Flugel said in even tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Pleased to meet you," Elkan said. "I had dinner with your
+partner only yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>Flugel gulped convulsively in an effort to remain calm.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," he said; "and honestly the longer I am in business
+with that feller the more I got to wonder what a <i>Schlemiel</i> he
+is. Actually he goes to work and tries to do his own partner
+without knowing it at all. Mind you, if he would be doing it from
+spite I could understand it; but when one partner don't know that
+the other partner practically closes a deal for a tract of a
+hundred lots and six houses in Johnsonhurst, and then persuades a
+prospective purchaser that, instead of buying in Johnsonhurst, he
+should buy in Burgess Park, understand me, all I got to say is
+that if Louis Stout ain't crazy the least he deserves is that the
+feller really and truly should buy in Burgess Park."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Flugel," Elkan interrupted, "I did buy in Burgess
+Park."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" Flugel shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"I say that I made a contract for a house out there this morning
+only," Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>For a few seconds it seemed as though Benjamin J. Flugel's
+heirs-at-law would collect a substantial death benefit from the
+I. O. M. A., but the impending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> apoplexy was warded off by a
+tremendous burst of profanity.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i>, Mr. Flugel," Scheikowitz protested, "Louis tells us only
+last Saturday, understand me, you told him that Johnsonhurst you
+wouldn't touch at all, on account such lowlifes like Rabiner and
+Pasinsky lives out there!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know I told him that," Flugel yelled; "because, if I would say
+I am going to buy out there, Stout goes to work and blabs it all
+over the place, and the first thing you know they would jump the
+price on me a few thousand dollars. He's a dangerous feller,
+Louis is, Mr. Scheikowitz!"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"That may be, Mr. Flugel," he said, "but I signed the contract
+with Glaubmann for his house on Linden Boulevard&mdash;and that's all
+there is to it!"</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in melancholy unison.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you got the contract here?" Flugel asked; and Elkan picked up
+the document from his desk, where it had been placed by
+Goldstein.</p>
+
+<p>"You paid a fancy price for the house," Flugel continued, as he
+examined the agreement.</p>
+
+<p>"I took your partner's advice, Mr. Flugel," Elkan retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, for eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, in
+Johnsonhurst," Flugel continued, "I could give you a palace
+already!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>He scanned the various clauses of the contract with the critical
+eye of an experienced real-estate operator; and before he had
+completed his examination the elevator door again creaked open.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Glaubmann gone?" cried a voice from the interior of the car,
+and the next moment Kovner alighted.</p>
+
+<p>Flugel looked up from the contract.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Kovner," he said, "are you in this deal too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't in any deal," Kovner replied. "I am looking for Barnett
+Glaubmann. They told me in his office he is coming over here and
+would be here all the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he was here," Elkan replied, "but he went away again."</p>
+
+<p>Kovner sat down without invitation.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't no more as I expected," he began in the dull, resigned
+tones of a man with a grievance. "That swindler has been dodging
+me for four months now, and I guess he will keep on dodging me
+for the rest of the year that he claims I got a lease on his
+house for."</p>
+
+<p>"What house?" Flugel asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The house which I am living in it," Max replied&mdash;"on Linden
+Boulevard, Burgess Park."</p>
+
+<p>"On Linden Boulevard, Burgess Park!" Flugel repeated. "Why, then
+it's the same house&mdash;ain't it, Lubliner?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>Elkan nodded, and as he did so Flugel struck the desk a
+tremendous blow with his fist.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine!" he ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine!" Kovner repeated. "What the devil you are talking about,
+fine? Do you think it's fine I should got to live a whole year in
+a house which the least it must got to be spent on it is for
+plumbing a hundred dollars and for painting a couple hundred
+more?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Flugel declared with enthusiasm. "It ain't so
+bad as it looks; because if you can show that you got a right to
+stay in that house for the rest of the year, understand me, I'll
+make a proposition to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Show it?" Kovner exclaimed. "I don't got to show it, because I
+couldn't help myself, Mr. Flugel. Glaubmann claims that I made a
+verbal lease for one year, and he's right. I was fool enough to
+do so."</p>
+
+<p>Flugel glanced inquiringly at Polatkin and Scheikowitz.</p>
+
+<p>"How about that?" he asked. "The contract don't say nothing about
+a year's lease."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it don't," Elkan replied, "because when our lawyer raises
+the question about the tenant Glaubmann says he could get him out
+at any time."</p>
+
+<p>"And he can too," Kovner declared with emphasis, but Flugel shook
+his head.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>"No, he can't, Kovner," he said; "or, anyway, he ain't going to,
+because you are going to stay in that house."</p>
+
+<p>"With the rotten plumbing it's got?" Kovner cried. "Not by a
+whole lot I ain't."</p>
+
+<p>"The plumbing could be fixed and the painting also," Flugel
+retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"By Glaubmann?" Kovner asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," Flugel replied; "by me, with a hundred dollars cash to
+boot. I would even give you an order on my plumber he should fix
+up the plumbing and on my house painter he should fix up the
+painting, Kovner; <i>aber</i> you got to stick it out that you are
+under lease for the rest of the year."</p>
+
+<p>"And when do I get the work done?" Kovner demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day," Flugel announced&mdash;"this afternoon if you want it."</p>
+
+<p>"But hold on there a minute!" Elkan protested. "If I am going to
+take that house I don't want no painting done there till I am
+good and ready."</p>
+
+<p>Flugel smiled loftily at Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't going to take that house at all," he said, "because
+the contract says that it is to be conveyed free and clear,
+except the mortgage and a covenant against nuisances. So you
+reject the title on the grounds that the house is leased for a
+year. Do you get the idee?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>"And next Sunday," Flugel continued, "I wish you'd take a run
+down with me in my oitermobile to Johnsonhurst. It's an elegant,
+high-class suburb."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Insomnia bears the same relation to the calling of real-estate
+operators that fossyjaw does to the worker in the match industry;
+and, during the twenty days that preceded the closing of his
+contract with Elkan, Barnett Glaubmann spent many a sleepless
+night in contemplation of disputed brokerage claims by Kamin,
+Stout and Ortelsburg. Moreover, the knowledge that Henry D.
+Feldman represented the purchaser was an influence far from
+sedative; and what little sleep Glaubmann secured was filled with
+nightmares of fence encroachments, defects in the legal
+proceedings for opening of Linden Boulevard as a public highway,
+and a score of other technical objections that Feldman might
+raise to free Elkan from his contract.</p>
+
+<p>Not once, however, did Glaubmann consider the tenancy of Max
+Kovner as any objection to title. Indeed, he was so certain of
+Kovner's willingness to move out that he even pondered the
+advisability of gouging Max for twenty-five or fifty dollars as a
+consideration for accepting a surrender of the verbal lease; and
+to that end he avoided the Linden Boulevard house until the
+morning before the date set for the closing of the title.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>Then, having observed Max board the eight-five train for Brooklyn
+Bridge, he sauntered off to interview Mrs. Kovner; and as he
+turned the corner of Linden Boulevard he sketched out a plan of
+action that had for its foundation the complete intimidation of
+Mrs. Kovner. This being secured, he would proceed to suggest the
+payment of fifty dollars as the alternative of strong measures
+against Max Kovner for allowing the Linden Boulevard premises to
+fall into such bad repair; and he was so full of his idea that he
+had begun to ascend the front stoop of the Kovner house before he
+noticed the odour of fresh paint.</p>
+
+<p>Never in the history of the Kovner house had the electric bell
+been in working order. Hence Glaubmann knocked with his naked
+fist and left the imprint of his four knuckles on the wet varnish
+just as Mrs. Kovner flung wide the door. It was at this instant
+that Glaubmann's well-laid plans were swept away.</p>
+
+<p>"Now see what you done, you dirty slob you!" she bellowed.
+"What's the matter with you? Couldn't you ring the bell?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mrs. Kovner," Glaubmann stammered, "the bell don't ring at
+all. Ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The bell don't ring?" Mrs. Kovner exclaimed. "Who says it
+don't?"</p>
+
+<p>She pressed the button with her finger and a shrill response came
+from within.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>"Who fixed it?" Glaubmann asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Who fixed it?" Mrs. Kovner repeated. "Who do you suppose fixed
+it? Do you think we got from charity to fix it? <i>Gott sei Dank</i>,
+we ain't exactly beggars, Mr. Glaubmann. Ourselves we fixed it,
+Mr. Glaubmann&mdash;and the painting and the plumbing also; because if
+you would got in savings bank what I got it, Mr. Glaubmann, you
+wouldn't make us so much trouble about paying for a couple
+hundred dollars' repairs."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i>," Glaubmann began, "you shouldn't of done it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know we shouldn't," Mrs. Kovner replied. "We should of stayed
+here the rest of the year with the place looking like a pigsty
+already! <i>Aber</i> don't kick till you got to, Mr. Glaubmann. It
+would be time enough to say something when we sue you by the
+court yet that you should pay for the repairs we are making
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Glaubmann pushed his hat back from his forehead and wiped his
+streaming brow.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Mrs. Kovner," he said at last, "it seems to me we got a
+misunderstanding all round here. I would like to talk the matter
+over with you."</p>
+
+<p>With this conciliatory prelude he assumed an easy attitude by
+crossing his legs and supporting himself with one hand on the
+freshly painted doorjamb, whereat Mrs. Kovner uttered a horrified
+shriek, and the rage which three weeks of housepainters'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> clutter
+had fomented in her bosom burst forth unchecked.</p>
+
+<p>"Out from here, you dirty loafer you!" she shrieked, and grabbed
+a calcimining brush from one of the many paintpots that bestrewed
+the hallway. Glaubmann bounded down the front stoop to the
+sidewalk just as Mrs. Kovner made a frenzied pass at him with the
+brush; and consequently, when he entered Kent J. Goldstein's
+office on Nassau Street an hour later, his black overcoat was
+speckled like the hide of an axis deer.</p>
+
+<p>"Goldstein," he said hoarsely, "is it assault that some one
+paints you from head to foot with calcimine?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is if you got witnesses," Goldstein replied; "otherwise it's
+misfortune. Who did it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That she-devil&mdash;the wife of the tenant in that house I sold
+Lubliner," Glaubmann replied. "I think we're going to have
+trouble with them people, Goldstein."</p>
+
+<p>"You will if you try to sue 'em without witnesses, Glaubmann,"
+Goldstein observed; "because suing without witnesses is like
+trying to play pinocle without cards. It can't be done."</p>
+
+<p>Glaubmann shook his head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't going to sue 'em," he said. "I ain't so fond of lawsuits
+like all that; and, besides, a little calcimine is nothing,
+Goldstein, to what them people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> can do to me. They're going to
+claim they got there a year's verbal lease."</p>
+
+<p>Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," he commented. "They want to gouge you for
+fifty dollars or so; and, with the price you're getting for the
+house, Glaubmann, you can afford to pay 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Gouge nothing!" Glaubmann declared. "They just got done there a
+couple hundred dollars' painting and plumbing, y'understand, and
+they're going to stick it out."</p>
+
+<p>Goldstein pursed his lips in an ominous whistle.</p>
+
+<p>"A verbal lease, hey?" he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>Glaubmann nodded sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"And this time there is witnesses," he said; and he related to
+his attorney the circumstances under which the original lease was
+made, together with the incident attending Kovner's visit to
+Ortelsburg's house.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks like you're up against it, Glaubmann," Goldstein
+declared.</p>
+
+<p>"But couldn't I claim that I was only bluffing the feller?"
+Glaubmann asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure you could," Goldstein replied; "but when Kovner went to
+work and painted the house and fixed the plumbing he called your
+bluff, Glaubmann; so the only thing to do is to ask for an
+adjournment to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"And suppose they won't give it to us?" Glaubmann asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a lawyer, Glaubmann&mdash;not a prophet," he said; "but if I know
+Henry D. Feldman you won't get any adjournment&mdash;so you may as
+well make your plans accordingly."</p>
+
+<p>For a brief interval Glaubmann nodded his head slowly, and then
+he burst into a mirthless laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Real estate," he said, "that's something to own. Rheumatism is a
+fine asset compared to it; in fact if some one gives me my
+choice, Goldstein, I would say rheumatism every time. Both of 'em
+keep you awake nights; but there's one thing about rheumatism,
+Goldstein"&mdash;here he indulged in another bitter laugh&mdash;"you don't
+need a lawyer to get rid of it!" he said, and banged the door
+behind him.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>If there was any branch of legal practice in which Henry D.
+Feldman excelled it was conveyancing, and he brought to it all
+the histrionic ability that made him so formidable as a trial
+lawyer. Indeed, Feldman was accustomed to treat the conveyancing
+department of his office as a business-getter for the more
+lucrative field of litigation, and he spared no pains to make
+each closing of title an impressive and dramatic spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the <i>mise-en-sc&egrave;ne</i> of the Lubliner closing was excellent.
+Feldman himself sat in a baronial chair at the head of his
+library table, while to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> seat on his right he had assigned Kent
+J. Goldstein. On his left he had placed Mr. Jones, the
+representative of the title company, a gaunt, sandy-haired man of
+thirty-five who, by the device of a pair of huge horn spectacles,
+had failed to distract public attention from an utterly
+stupendous Adam's apple.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the title company's representative were placed Elkan
+Lubliner and his partners, and it was to them that Henry D.
+Feldman addressed his opening remarks.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lubliner," he said in the soft accents in which he began all
+his crescendos, "the examination of the record title to Mr.
+Glaubmann's Linden Boulevard premises has been made at my request
+by the Law Title Insurance and Guaranty Company."</p>
+
+<p>He made a graceful obeisance toward Mr. Jones, who acknowledged
+it with a convulsion of his Adam's apple.</p>
+
+<p>"I have also procured a survey to be made," Feldman continued;
+and, amid a silence that was broken only by the heavy breathing
+of Barnett Glaubmann, he held up an intricate design washed with
+watercolour on glazed muslin.</p>
+
+<p>"Finally I have done this," he declared, and his brows gathered
+in a tragic frown as his glance swept in turn the faces of Kent
+J. Goldstein, Benno Ortelsburg, J. Kamin, and Glaubmann&mdash;"I have
+procured an inspector's report upon the occupation of the <i>locus
+in quo</i>."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>"Oo-ee!" Glaubmann murmured, and Louis Stout exchanged triumphant
+glances with Polatkin and Scheikowitz.</p>
+
+<p>"And I find," Feldman concluded, "there is a tenant in
+possession, claiming under a year's lease which will not expire
+until October first next."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jones nodded and cleared his throat so noisily that, to
+relieve his embarrassment, he felt obliged to crack each of his
+knuckles in turn. As for Ribnik and Tarnowitz, they sat awestruck
+in the rear of Feldman's spacious library and felt vaguely that
+they were in a place of worship. Only Kent J. Goldstein remained
+unimpressed; and in order to show it he scratched a parlour match
+on the leg of Feldman's library table; whereat Feldman's
+<i>ex-cathedra</i> manner forsook him.</p>
+
+<p>"Where in blazes do you think you are, Goldstein?" he asked in
+colloquial tones&mdash;"in a barroom?"</p>
+
+<p>"If it's solid mahogany," Goldstein retorted, "it'll rub up like
+new. I think you were talking about the tenancy of the premises
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Feldman choked down his indignation and once more became the
+dignified advocate.</p>
+
+<p>"That is not the only objection to title, Mr. Goldstein," he
+said. "Mr. Jones, kindly read the detailed objections contained
+in your report of closing."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jones nodded again and responded to Feld<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>man's demand in a
+voice that profoundly justified the size of his larynx.</p>
+
+<p>"Description in deed dated January 1, 1783," he began, "from
+Joost van Gend to William Wauters, is defective; one course
+reading 'thence along said ditch north to a white-oak tree'
+should be 'south to a white-oak tree.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's the difference?" Goldstein interrupted. "It's
+monumented by the white-oak tree."</p>
+
+<p>"That was cut down long ago," Mr. Jones said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not by me!" Glaubmann declared. "I give you my word, gentlemen,
+the trees on the lot is the same like I bought it."</p>
+
+<p>Feldman allowed his eyes to rest for a moment on the protesting
+Glaubmann, who literally crumpled in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Proceed, Mr. Jones," Feldman said to the title company's
+representative, who continued without further interruption to the
+end of his list. This included all the technical objections which
+Glaubmann had feared, as well as a novel and interesting point
+concerning a partition suit in Chancery, brought in 1819, and
+affecting Glaubmann's chain of title to a strip in the rear of
+his lot, measuring one quarter of an inch in breadth by seven
+feet in length.</p>
+
+<p>"So far as I can see, Feldman," Goldstein commented as Mr. Jones
+laid down his report, "the only objection that will hold water is
+the one con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>cerning Max Kovner's tenancy. As a matter of fact, I
+have witnesses to show that Kovner has always claimed that he
+didn't hold a lease."</p>
+
+<p>For answer, Feldman touched the button of an electric bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Show in Mr. and Mrs. Kovner," he said to the boy who responded.
+"We'll let them speak for themselves."</p>
+
+<p>This, it would appear, they were more than willing to do; for as
+soon as they entered the room and caught sight of Glaubmann, who
+by this time was fairly cowering in his chair, they immediately
+began a concerted tirade that was only ended when Goldstein
+banged vigorously on the library table, using as a gavel one of
+Feldman's metal-tipped rulers.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do, Goldstein!" Feldman said hoarsely. "I think I can
+preserve order in my own office."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you then?" Goldstein retorted, as he leaned back in
+his chair and regarded with a malicious smile the damage he had
+wrought.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner began anew, "you thought you got us
+helpless there in your house; but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up!" Feldman roared again, forgetting his r&ocirc;le of the
+polished advocate; and Goldstein fairly beamed with satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bully your own witness," he said. "Let me do it for you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>He turned to Kovner with a beetling frown.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Kovner," he commenced, "you claim you've got a verbal lease
+for a year of this Linden Boulevard house, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I sure do," Kovner replied, "and I got witnesses to prove it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Goldstein rejoined; "so long as there's
+Bibles there'll always be witnesses to swear on 'em. The point
+is: How do you claim the lease was made?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't claim nothing," Kovner replied. "I got a year's lease on
+that property because, in the presence of my wife and his wife,
+Mr. Goldstein, he says to me I must either take the house for a
+year from last October to next October or I couldn't take it at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Feldman smiled loftily at his opponent.</p>
+
+<p>"The art of cross-examination is a subtle one, Goldstein," he
+said, "and if you don't understand it you're apt to prove the
+other fellow's case."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless," Goldstein continued, "I'm going to ask him one
+more question, and that is this: When was this verbal agreement
+made&mdash;before or after you moved into the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Before I moved in, certainly," Kovner answered. "I told you that
+he says to me I couldn't move in unless I would agree to take the
+place for a year."</p>
+
+<p>"And when did you move in?" Goldstein continued.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>"On the first of October," Kovner said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, popper," Mrs. Kovner interrupted; "we didn't move in on the
+first. We moved in the day before."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," Kovner said&mdash;"we moved in on the thirtieth of
+September."</p>
+
+<p>"So," Goldstein declared, "you made a verbal agreement before
+September thirtieth for a lease of one year from October first?"</p>
+
+<p>Kovner nodded and Goldstein turned to Henry D. Feldman, whose
+lofty smile had completely disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Feldman," he said, "you pulled a couple of objections on
+me from 'way back in the last century, understand me; so I guess
+it won't hurt if I remind you of a little statute passed in the
+reign of Charles the Second, which says: 'All contracts which by
+their terms are not to be performed within one year must be in
+writing and signed by the party to be charged.' I mean the
+Statute of Frauds."</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you mean all right," Feldman replied; "but you'll
+have to prove that before a court and jury. Just now we are
+confronted with Kovner, who claims to have a year's lease; and my
+client is relieved from his purchase in the circumstances. No man
+is bound to buy a lawsuit, Goldstein."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he ain't," Goldstein retorted; "but what's the
+difference, Feldman? He'll have a law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>suit on his hands, anyhow,
+because if he don't take title now, understand me, I'll bring an
+action to compel him to do so this very afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture a faint croaking came from the vicinity of Louis
+Stout, who throughout had been as appreciative a listener as
+though he were occupying an orchestra chair and had bought his
+seat from a speculator.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak up, Mr. Stout!" Feldman cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I was saying," Louis replied faintly, "that with my own ears I
+heard Glaubmann say to Kovner that he's got a verbal lease for
+one year."</p>
+
+<p>"And when was this?" Feldman asked.</p>
+
+<p>"About three weeks ago," Stout replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, in that case, Mr. Goldstein," Feldman declared, "let me
+present to you another proposition of law."</p>
+
+<p>He paused to formulate a sufficiently impressive "offer" as the
+lawyers say, and in the silence that followed Elkan shuffled to
+his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't necessary, Mr. Feldman," he said. "I already made up my
+mind about it."</p>
+
+<p>"About what?" Louis Stout exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"About taking the house," Elkan replied. "If you'll let me have
+the figures, Mr. Feldman, I'll draw a check and have it certified
+and we'll close this thing up."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i>, Elkan," Louis cried, "first let me communicate with
+Flugel."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>"That ain't necessary neither," Elkan retorted. "I'm going to
+make an end right here and now; and you should be so good, Mr.
+Feldman, and fix me up the statement of what I owe here. I want
+to get through."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin rose shakily to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Elkan?" he said huskily. "Are you crazy,
+<i>oder</i> what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Mr. Polatkin," Elkan commanded, and there was a ring
+of authority in his tone that made Polatkin collapse into his
+chair. "I am buying this house."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Elkan," Louis Stout implored, "why don't you let me talk to
+Flugel over the 'phone? Might he would got a suggestion to make
+maybe."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Elkan said. "The only suggestion he makes is
+that if I go to work and close this contract, y'understand, he
+would never buy another dollar's worth of goods from us so long
+as he lives. So you shouldn't bother to ring him up, Mr. Stout."</p>
+
+<p>Louis Stout flushed angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"So far as that goes, Lubliner," he says, "I don't got to ring up
+Mr. Flugel to tell you the same thing, so you know what you could
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know what I could do," Elkan continued. "I could either
+do business like a business man or do business like a muzhik, Mr.
+Stout. <i>Aber</i> this ain't <i>Russland</i>, Mr. Stout&mdash;this is Amer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>ica;
+and if I got to run round wiping people's shoes to sell goods,
+then I don't want to do it at all."</p>
+
+<p>J. Kamin took a cigar out of his mouth and spat vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>"You're dead right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead and close the
+contract and I assure you you wouldn't regret it."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan's eyes blazed and he turned on Kamin.</p>
+
+<p>"You assure me!" he said. "Who in thunder are you? Do you think
+I'm looking for your business now, Kamin? Why, if you was worth
+your salt as a merchant, understand me, instead you would be
+fooling away your time trying to make a share of a commission,
+which the most you would get out of it is a hundred dollars,
+y'understand, you would be attending to your business buying your
+spring line. You are wasting two whole days on this deal, Kamin;
+and if two business days out of your spring buying is only worth
+a hundred dollars to you, Kamin, go ahead and get your goods
+somewheres else than in our store. I don't need to be Dun or
+Bradstreet to get a line on you, Kamin&mdash;and don't you forget it!"</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture a faint cough localized Joel Ribnik, who had
+remained with Julius Tarnowitz in the obscurity cast by several
+bound volumes of digests and reports.</p>
+
+<p>"Seemingly, Mr. Polatkin," he said, "you are a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> millionaire
+concern, the way your partner talks! Might you don't need our
+business, neither, maybe?"</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin was busy checking the ravages made upon his linen by the
+perspiration that literally streamed down his face and neck; but
+Scheikowitz, who had listened open-mouthed to Elkan's
+pronunciamento, straightened up in his chair and his face grew
+set with determination.</p>
+
+<p>"We ain't millionaires, Mr. Ribnik," he said&mdash;"far from it; and
+we ain't never going to be, understand me, if we got to buy
+eighteen-thousand dollar houses for every bill of goods we sell
+to <i>Schnorrers</i> and deadbeats!"</p>
+
+<p>"Scheikowitz!" Polatkin pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, Polatkin," Scheikowitz declared. "The boy is right,
+Polatkin; and if we are making our living in America we got to
+act like Americans&mdash;not peasants. So, go ahead, Stout. Telephone
+Flugel and tell him from me that if he wants to take it that way
+he should do so; and you, too, Stout&mdash;and that's all there is to
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I apprehend, gentlemen, that we had better proceed to
+close," Feldman said; and Elkan nodded, for as Scheikowitz
+finished speaking a ball had risen in Elkan's throat which, blink
+as he might, he could not down for some minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Goldstein," Feldman continued. "Let's fix up the
+statement of closing."</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, gentlemen," Max Kovner said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> "Do I understand that,
+if Elkan Lubliner buys the house to-day, we've got to move out?"</p>
+
+<p>Feldman raised his eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>"I think Mr. Goldstein will agree with me, Kovner, when I say you
+haven't a leg to stand on," he declared. "You're completely out
+of court on your own testimony."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean we ain't got a lease for a year?" Mrs. Kovner asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," Goldstein replied.</p>
+
+<p>"And I am working my fingers to the bone getting rid of them
+<i>verfluchte</i> painters and all!" she wailed. "What do you think I
+am anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you don't want to move right away," Elkan began, "when
+would it be convenient for you to get out, Mrs. Kovner?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to get out at all," she whimpered. "Why should I
+want to get out? The house is an elegant house, which I just
+planted yesterday string beans and tomatoes; and the parlor looks
+elegant now we got the old paper off."</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing we say the first of May," Elkan suggested&mdash;"not that I
+am so crazy to move out to Burgess Park, y'understand; but I
+don't see what is the sense buying a house in the country and
+then not living in it."</p>
+
+<p>There was a brief silence, broken only by the soft weeping of
+Mrs. Kovner; and at length Max Kovner shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>"<i>Nu</i>, Elkan," he said, "what is the use beating bushes round?
+Mrs. Kovner is stuck on the house and so am I. So long as you
+don't want the house, and there's been so much trouble about it
+and all, I tell you what I'll do: Take back two thousand dollars
+a second mortgage on the house, payable in one year at six per
+cent., which it is so good as gold, understand me, and I'll
+relieve you of your contract and give you two hundred dollars to
+boot."</p>
+
+<p>A smile spread slowly over Elkan's face as he looked
+significantly at Louis Stout.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want your two hundred dollars, Max," he said. "You can
+have the house and welcome; and you should use the two hundred to
+pay your painting and plumbing bills."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Louis Stout said; "there is people which will
+see to it that he does. Also, gentlemen, I want everybody to
+understand that I claim full commission here from Glaubmann as
+the only broker in the transaction!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, gentlemen," Glaubmann said; "I'll leave this to the
+lawyers if it ain't so: From one transaction I can only be liable
+for one commission&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Feldman and Goldstein nodded in unison.</p>
+
+<p>"Then all I could say is that yous brokers and drygoods merchants
+should fight it out between yourselves," he declared; "because
+I'm going to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> pay the money for the commission into court&mdash;and
+them which is entitled to it can have it."</p>
+
+<p>"But ain't you going to protect me, Glaubmann?" Ortelsburg
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Glaubmann raised his hand for silence.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, Ortelsburg," he said. "I think it was you and Kamin
+told me that real estate is a game the same like auction
+pinocle?"</p>
+
+<p>Ortelsburg nodded sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you fellers should go ahead and play it," Glaubmann
+concluded. "And might the best man win!"<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> In the face of numerous decisions to the contrary,
+the author holds for the purposes of this story that a verbal
+lease for one year, to commence in the future, is void.</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_SIX" id="CHAPTER_SIX"></a>CHAPTER SIX</h2>
+<h2>A TALE OF TWO JACOBEAN CHAIRS</h2>
+<h3>NOT A DETECTIVE STORY</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"YES, Mr. Lubliner," said Max Merech as he sat in the front
+parlour of Elkan's flat one April Sunday; "if you are going to
+work to buy furniture, understand me, it's just so easy to select
+good-looking chairs as bad-looking chairs."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i> sometimes it's a whole lot harder to sit on 'em
+comfortably," Elkan retorted sourly. On the eve of moving to a
+larger apartment he and Yetta had invited Max to suggest a plan
+for furnishing and decorating their new dwelling; and it seemed
+to Elkan that Max had taken undue advantage of the privilege thus
+accorded him. Indeed, Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp; Company's &aelig;sthetic
+designer held such pronounced views on interior decoration, and
+had expressed them so freely to Elkan and Yetta, that after the
+first half-hour of his visit the esteem which they had always
+felt toward their plush furniture and Wilton rugs had
+changed&mdash;first to indifference and then, in the case of Yetta, at
+least, to loathing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>"I always told you that the couch over there was hideous, Elkan,"
+Yetta said.</p>
+
+<p>"Hideous it ain't," Max interrupted; "<i>aber</i> it ain't so
+beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, stick the couch in the bedroom, then," Elkan said. "It
+makes no difference to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Yetta exclaimed: "but what would we put in its
+place?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye ask me for?" Elkan cried. "Like as not I'd say another
+couch."</p>
+
+<p>"There is couches and couches," Max said with an apologetic
+smile, "but if you would ask my advice I would say why not a
+couple nice chairs there&mdash;something in monhogany, like
+Shippendaler <i>oder</i> Sheratin."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he slapped his thigh in an access of inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"I came pretty near forgetting!" he cried. "I got the very thing
+you want&mdash;and a big bargain too! Do you know Louis Dishkes, which
+runs the Villy dee Paris Store in Amsterdam Avenue?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I know him," Elkan said with ironic emphasis. "He owes
+us four hundred dollars for two months already."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Dishkes is got a brother-in-law by the name Ringentaub, on
+Allen Street, which he is a dealer in antics."</p>
+
+<p>"Antics?" Elkan exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>"Sure!" Max explained. "Antics&mdash;old furniture and old silver."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean a second-hand store?" Elkan suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a second-hand store," Max declared. "A second-hand store is
+got old furniture from two years old <i>oder</i> ten years old,
+understand me; <i>aber</i> an antic store carries old furniture from a
+hundred years old already."</p>
+
+<p>"And this here Ringentaub is got furniture from a hundred years
+old already?" Elkan cried.</p>
+
+<p>"From older even," answered Max; "from two hundred and fifty
+years old also."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ich glaub's!</i>" Elkan cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You can believe it <i>oder</i> not, Mr. Lubliner," Max continued;
+"but Ringentaub got in his store a couple Jacobean chairs, which
+they are two hundred and fifty years old already. And them chairs
+you could buy at a big sacrifice yet."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan and Yetta exchanged puzzled glances, and Elkan even tapped
+his forehead significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"They was part of a whole set," Max went on, not noticing his
+employer's gesture; "the others Ringentaub sold to a collector."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan flipped his right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"A collector is something else again," he said; "but me I ain't
+no collector, Max, <i>Gott sei Dank</i>! I got my own business, Max,
+and I ain't got to buy from two hundred and fifty years old
+furniture."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>"Why not?" Max asked. "B. Gans is got his own business, too, Mr.
+Lubliner, and a good business also; and he buys yet from
+Ringentaub&mdash;only last week already&mdash;an angry cat cabinet which it
+is three hundred years old already."</p>
+
+<p>"An angry cat cabinet?" Elkan exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said," Max continued; "'angry' is French for
+'Henry' and 'cat' is French for 'fourth'; so this here cabinet
+was made three hundred years ago when Henry the Fourth was king
+of France&mdash;and B. Gans buys it last week already for five hundred
+dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>Therewith Max commenced a half-hour dissertation upon antique
+furniture which left Yetta and Elkan more undecided than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are telling me that big people like B. Gans and Andrew
+Carnegie buys this here antics for their houses?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"J. P. Morgan also," Max replied. "And them Jacobean chairs there
+you could get for fifty dollars already."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it wouldn't do no harm supposing we would go down and see
+'em," Yetta suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Some night next week," Elkan added, "<i>oder</i> the week after."</p>
+
+<p>"For that matter, we could go to-night too," Max rejoined.
+"Sunday is like any other night down on Allen Street, and you got
+to remember that Jacobean chairs is something which you couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+get whenever you want 'em. Let me tell you just what they look
+like."</p>
+
+<p>Here he descanted so successfully on the beauty of Jacobean
+furniture that Yetta added her persuasion to his, and Elkan at
+length surrendered.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said. "First we would have a little something to
+eat and then we would go down there."</p>
+
+<p>Hence, a few minutes after eight that evening they alighted at
+the Spring Street subway station; and Max Merech piloted Elkan
+and Yetta beneath elevated railroads and past the windows of
+brass shops, with their gleaming show of candlesticks and
+samovars, to a little basement store near the corner of Rivington
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>"It don't look like much," Max apologized as he descended the few
+steps leading to the entrance; "<i>aber</i> he's got an elegant stock
+inside."</p>
+
+<p>When he opened the door a trigger affixed to the door knocked
+against a rusty bell, but no one responded. Instead, from behind
+a partition in the rear came sounds of an angry dispute; and as
+Elkan closed the door behind him one of the voices rose higher
+than the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Take my life&mdash;take my blood, Mr. Sammet!" it said; "because I am
+making you the best proposition I can, and that's all there is to
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Max was about to stamp his foot when Elkan laid a restraining
+hand on his shoulder; and, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> pause that followed, the
+heavy, almost hysterical breathing of the last speaker could be
+heard in the front of the store.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want your life <i>oder</i> your blood, Dishkes," came the
+answer in bass tones, which Elkan recognized as the voice of his
+competitor, Leon Sammet. "I am your heaviest creditor, and all I
+want is that you should protect me."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are my heaviest creditor," Louis Dishkes replied. "To
+my sorrow I know it! If it wouldn't be for your rotten stickers
+which I got in my place, might I would be doing a good business
+there to-day, maybe!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Dishkes!" Sammet replied. "The reason you didn't
+done a good business there is that you ain't no business man,
+Dishkes&mdash;and anyhow, Dishkes, it don't do no good you should
+insult me!"</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean insult you?" Dishkes cried angrily. "I ain't
+insulting you, Sammet. You are insulting me. You want me I should
+protect you and let my other creditors go to the devil&mdash;ain't it?
+What d'ye take me for&mdash;a crook?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Sammet declared. "I wouldn't dandy words with
+you, Dishkes. For the last time I am asking you: Will you take
+advantage of the offer I am getting for you from the Mercantile
+Outlet Company, of Nashville, for your entire stock? Otherwise I
+would got nothing more to say to you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>There was a sound of scuffling feet as the party in the rear of
+the store rose from their chairs.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't got no need to say nothing more to me, Mr. Sammet,"
+Dishkes announced firmly, "because I am through with you, Mr.
+Sammet. Your account ain't due till to-morrow, and you couldn't
+do nothing till Tuesday. Ain't it? So Tuesday morning early you
+should go ahead and sue me, and if I couldn't raise money to save
+myself I will go <i>mechullah</i>; but it'll be an honest <i>mechullah</i>,
+and that's all there is to it."</p>
+
+<p>As Dishkes finished speaking Elkan drew Max and Yetta into the
+shadow cast by a tall highboy; and, without noticing their
+presence, Leon Sammet plunged toward the door and let himself out
+into the street.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately Elkan tiptoed to the door and threw it wide open,
+after which he shuffled his feet with sufficient noise to account
+for the entrance of three people. Thereat Ringentaub emerged from
+behind the partition.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Ringentaub," Max cried. "I am bringing you here some
+customers."</p>
+
+<p>Ringentaub bowed and coughed a warning to Dishkes and Mrs.
+Ringentaub, who continued to talk in hoarse whispers behind the
+partition.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Ringentaub?" Max Merech asked; "couldn't you
+afford it here somehow a little light?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>Ringentaub reached into the upper darkness and turned on a gas
+jet which had been burning a blue point of flame.</p>
+
+<p>"I keep it without light here on purpose," he said, "on account
+Sundays is a big night for the candlestick fakers up the street
+and I don't want to be bothered with their trade. What could I
+show your friends, Mr. Merech?"</p>
+
+<p>Max winked almost imperceptibly at Elkan and prepared to approach
+the subject of the Jacobean chairs by a judicious detour.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you got maybe a couple Florentine frames, Ringentaub?" he
+asked; and Ringentaub shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Florentine frames is hard to find nowadays, Mr. Merech," he
+said; "and I guess I told it you Friday that I ain't got none."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged his shoulders and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought might you would of picked up a couple since then,
+maybe," Max rejoined, glancing round him. "You got a pretty nice
+highboy over there, Ringentaub, for a reproduction."</p>
+
+<p>Ringentaub nodded satirically.</p>
+
+<p>"That only goes to show how much you know about such things, Mr.
+Merech," he retorted, "when you are calling reproductions
+something which it is a gen-wine Shippendaler, understand me, in
+elegant condition."</p>
+
+<p>It was now Elkan's turn to nod, and he did so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> with just the
+right degree of skepticism as at last he broached the object of
+his visit.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he said, "that them chairs over there is also
+gen-wine Jacobean chairs?"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what I'll do with you, Mr. Merech," Ringentaub
+declared. "You could bring down here any of them good Fourth
+Avenue or Fifth Avenue dealers, understand me, or any conoozer
+you want to name, like Jacob Paul, <i>oder</i> anybody, y'understand;
+and if they would say them chairs ain't gen-wine Jacobean I'll
+make 'em a present to you free for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't <i>schnorring</i> for no presents, Mr. Ringentaub," Max
+declared. "Bring 'em out in the light and let's give a look at
+'em."</p>
+
+<p>Ringentaub drew the chairs into the centre of the floor, and
+placing them beneath the gas jet he stepped backward and tilted
+his head to one side in silent admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Mr. Merech," he said at last, "am I right or am I wrong?
+Is the chairs gen-wine <i>oder</i> not? I leave it to your friends
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Max turned to Elkan, who had been edging away toward the
+partition, from which came scraps of conversation between Dishkes
+and Mrs. Ringentaub.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think, Mr. Lubliner?" Max asked; and Elkan frowned
+his annoyance at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> interruption, for he had just begun to
+catch a few words of the conversation in the rear room.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure&mdash;sure!" he said absently. "I leave it to you and Mrs.
+Lubliner."</p>
+
+<p>Yetta's face had fallen as she viewed the apparently decayed and
+rickety furniture.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't they terrible shabby-looking!" she murmured, and
+Ringentaub shrugged his shoulders and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You would look shabby, too, lady," he said, "if you would be two
+hundred and fifty years old; <i>aber</i> if you want to see what they
+look like after they are restored, y'understand, I got back there
+one of the rest of the set which I already sold to Mr. Paul; and
+I am fixing it up for him."</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking he walked to the rear and dragged forward
+a reseated and polished duplicate of the two chairs.</p>
+
+<p>"I dassent restore 'em before I sell 'em," Ringentaub explained;
+"otherwise no one believes they are gen-wine."</p>
+
+<p>"And how much do you say you want for them chairs, Ringentaub?"
+Max asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say I wanted nothing," Ringentaub replied. "The fact
+is, I don't know whether I want to keep them chairs <i>oder</i> not.
+You see, Mr. Merech, Jacobean chairs is pretty near so rare
+nowadays that it would pay me to wait a while. In a couple of
+years them chairs double in value already."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>"Sure, I know," Max said. "You could say the same thing about
+your whole stock, Ringentaub; and so, if I would be you,
+Ringentaub, I would take a little vacation of a couple years or
+so. Go round the world <i>mit</i> Mrs. Ringentaub, understand me, and
+by the time you come back you are worth twicet as much as you got
+to-day; but just to help pay your rent while you are away, Mr.
+Ringentaub, I'll make you an offer of thirty-five dollars for the
+chairs."</p>
+
+<p>Ringentaub seized a chair in each hand and dragged them noisily
+to one side.</p>
+
+<p>"As I was saying," he announced, "I ain't got no Florentine
+frames, Mr. Merech; so I am sorry we couldn't do no business."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, thirty-seven-fifty, Mr. Ringentaub," Max continued;
+and Ringentaub made a flapping gesture with both hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere," he growled, "what is the use talking nonsense,
+Mr. Merech? For ten dollars apiece you could get on Twenty-third
+Street a couple chairs, understand me, made in some big factory,
+y'understand&mdash;A-Number-One pieces of furniture&mdash;which would suit
+you a whole lot better as gen-wine pieces. These here chairs is
+for conoozers, Mr. Merech; so, if you want any shiny candlesticks
+<i>oder</i> Moskva samovars from brass-spinners on Center Street,
+y'understand, a couple doors uptown you would find plenty fakers.
+<i>Aber</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> here is all gen-wine stuff, y'understand; and for
+gen-wine stuff you got to pay full price, understand me, which if
+them chairs stays in my store till they are five hundred years
+old already I wouldn't take a cent less for 'em as fifty
+dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Max turned inquiringly to Mrs. Lubliner; and, during the short
+pause that followed, the agonized voice of Louis Dishkes came
+once more from the back room.</p>
+
+<p>"What could I do?" he said to Mrs. Ringentaub. "I want to be
+square <i>mit</i> everybody, and I must got to act quick on account
+that sucker Sammet will close me up sure."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ai, tzuris!</i>" Mrs. Ringentaub moaned; at which her husband
+coughed noisily and Elkan moved nearer to the partition.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you go as high as fifty dollars, Mrs. Lubliner?" Max
+asked, and Yetta nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Mr. Ringentaub," Max concluded; "we'll take 'em at
+fifty dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"And you wouldn't regret it neither," Ringentaub replied. "I'll
+make you out a bill right away."</p>
+
+<p>He darted into the rear room and slammed the partition door
+behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Koosh</i>, Dishkes!" he hissed. "Ain't you got no sense at
+all&mdash;blabbing out your business in front of all them strangers?"</p>
+
+<p>It was at this juncture that Elkan rapped on the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>"Excuse me, Mr. Ringentaub," he said, "but I ain't no stranger to
+Mr. Dishkes&mdash;not by four hundred dollars already."</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door as he spoke, and Dishkes, who was sitting at a
+table with his head bowed on his hands, looked up mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Mr. Lubliner!" he said. "You are after me, too, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Not only I ain't after you, Dishkes," he said, "but I didn't
+even know you was in trouble until just now."</p>
+
+<p>"And you never would of known," Ringentaub added, "if he ain't
+been such a <i>dummer Ochs</i> and listened to people's advice. He got
+a good chance to sell out, and he wouldn't took it."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Elkan said, "to an auction house; the idee being
+to run away <i>mit</i> the proceeds and leave his creditors in the
+lurches!"</p>
+
+<p>Dishkes again buried his head in his hands, while Ringentaub
+blushed guiltily.</p>
+
+<p>"That may be all right in the antic business, Mr. Ringentaub,"
+Elkan went on, "but in the garment business we ain't two hundred
+and fifty years behind the times exactly. We got associations of
+manufacturers and we got good lawyers, too, understand me; and we
+get right after crooks like Sammet, just the same as some of us
+helps out retailers that want to be decent, like Dishkes here."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>Louis Dishkes raised his head suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you heard the whole thing?" he cried; and Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard enough, Dishkes," he said; "and if you want my help you
+could come down to my place to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture the triggered bell rang loudly, and raising his
+hand for silence Ringentaub returned to the store.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Paul!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>He addressed a broad-shouldered figure arrayed in the height of
+Canal Street fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Aside from his clothing, however, there was little to betray the
+connoisseur of fine arts and antiques in the person of Jacob
+Paul, who possessed the brisk, businesslike manner and steel-blue
+eyes of a detective sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Ringentaub!" he said. "You are doing a rushing business
+here&mdash;ain't it? More customers in the back room too?"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced sharply at the open doorway in the partition, through
+which Elkan and Dishkes could be seen engaged in earnest
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow</i>&mdash;customers!" Ringentaub exclaimed. "You know how it is in
+the antic business, Mr. Paul. For a hundred that looks,
+understand me, one buys; and that one, Mr. Paul, he comes into
+your place a dozen times before he makes up his mind yet."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>"Well," Paul said with a smile, "I've made up my mind at last,
+Ringentaub, and I'll take them other two chairs at forty-five
+dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Ringentaub nodded his head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would, Mr. Paul," he said; "but just the same you
+are a little late, on account this here gentleman already bought
+'em for fifty dollars."</p>
+
+<p>A shade of disappointment passed over Paul's face as he turned to
+Max Merech.</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you, Mister&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Merech," Max suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Merech," Paul continued. "You paid a high price for a couple of
+good pieces."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't paying nothing," Max replied. "I bought 'em for this
+lady here and her husband."</p>
+
+<p>It was then that Jacob Paul for the first time noticed Yetta's
+presence, and he bowed apologetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he also a collector?" he asked, and Max shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"He's in the garment business," Yetta volunteered, "for himself."</p>
+
+<p>A puzzled expression wrinkled Paul's flat nose.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I ain't caught the name," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Lubliner," Yetta replied; "Elkan Lubliner, of Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz &amp; Company."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me?" Jacob Paul said. "And so Mr. Lubliner is
+interested in antiques. That's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> quite a jump, from cloaks and
+suits to antiques already."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Merech explained, "Mr. Lubliner is refurnishing his
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," Elkan added as he appeared in the doorway of the
+partition, followed by Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub. "Buying a
+couple pieces of furniture is one thing, Merech, and refurnishing
+your house is another."</p>
+
+<p>"You made a good start anyhow," Paul interrupted. "A couple
+chairs like them gives a tone to a room which is got crayon
+portraits hanging in it even."</p>
+
+<p>Yetta blushed in the consciousness of what she had always
+considered to be a fine likeness of Elkan's grandfather&mdash;the
+Lubliner <i>Rav</i>&mdash;which hung in a silver-and-plush frame over the
+mantelpiece of the Lubliner front parlour. Elkan was unashamed,
+however, and he glared angrily at the connoisseur, who had
+started to leave the store.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he cried, "it ain't up to date that a feller should
+have hanging in his flat a portrait of his grandfather&mdash;<i>olav
+hasholem!</i>&mdash;which he was a learned man and a <i>Tzadek</i>, if there
+ever was one."</p>
+
+<p>Paul hesitated, with his hand on the doorknob.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you, Mr. Lubliner," he said solemnly; "to me a crayon
+portrait is rotten, understand me, if it would be of a <i>Tzadek
+oder</i> a murderer."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>And with a final bow to Mrs. Lubliner he banged the door behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what d'ye think for a <i>Rosher</i> like that?" Elkan
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"The fellow is disappointed that you got ahead of him buying the
+chairs, Mr. Lubliner," Ringentaub explained; "so he takes a
+chance that you and Mrs. Lubliner is that kind of people which is
+got hanging in the parlour crayon portraits, understand me, and
+he knocks you for it."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"What could you expect from a feller which is content at fifty
+years of age to be a collector only?" he asked, and Dishkes
+nodded sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet yer, Mr. Lubliner," he agreed; "and so I would be at your
+store to-morrow morning at ten o'clock sure."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin
+said the following morning when Elkan related to him the events
+of the preceding night; "<i>aber</i> you couldn't blame Sammet none.
+Concerns like Sammet Brothers, which they are such dirty crooks
+that everybody is got suspicions of 'em, y'understand, must got
+to pay their bills prompt to the day, Elkan; because if they
+wouldn't be themselves good collectors, understand me, they would
+bust up quick."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>"Sammet Brothers ain't in no danger of busting up," Elkan
+declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't they?" Marcus rejoined. "Well, you would be surprised,
+Elkan, if I would tell you that only yesterday already I am
+speaking to a feller by the name Hirsch, which works for years by
+the Hamsuckett Mills as city salesman, understand me, and he says
+that the least Sammet Brothers owes them people is ten thousand
+dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"That shows what a big business they must do," Elkan said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow</i>&mdash;a big business!" Marcus concluded. "This here Hirsch says
+not only Sammet Brothers' business falls off something terrible,
+y'understand, but they are also getting to be pretty slow pay;
+and if it wouldn't be that the Hamsuckett people is helping 'em
+along, <i>verstehst du</i>, they would of gone up <i>schon</i> long since
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"And a good job too," Elkan said. "The cloak-and-suit trade could
+worry along without 'em, Mr. Polatkin; but anyhow, Mr. Polatkin,
+I ain't concerned with Sammet Brothers. The point is this:
+Dishkes says he has got a good stand there on Amsterdam Avenue,
+and if he could only hold on a couple months longer he wouldn't
+got no difficulty in pulling through."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"For my part," he said, "it wouldn't make no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> difference if
+Dishkes busts up now <i>oder</i> two months from now."</p>
+
+<p>"But the way he tells me yesterday," Elkan replied, "not only he
+wouldn't got to bust up on us if he gets his two months'
+extension, but he says he would be doing a good business at that
+time."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin nodded skeptically.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know, Elkan," he said. "If everybody which is asking an
+extension would do the business they hope to do before the
+extension is up, Elkan," he said, "all the prompt-pay fellows
+must got to close up shop on account there wouldn't be enough
+business to go round."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow," Elkan rejoined, "he's coming here to see us this
+morning, Mr. Polatkin, and he could show you how he figures it
+that he's got hopes to pull through."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin made a deprecatory gesture with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"If a feller is going to bust up on me, Elkan, I'd just as lief
+he ain't got no hopes at all," he grumbled; "otherwise he wastes
+your whole day on you figuring out his next season's profits if
+he can only stall off his creditors. With such a hoping feller,
+if you don't want to be out time as well as money, understand me,
+you should quick file a petition in bankruptcy against him;
+otherwise he wouldn't give you no peace at all."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, when Dishkes arrived, half an hour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> later, Polatkin
+ushered him into the firm's office and summoned Scheikowitz and
+Elkan to the conference.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Dishkes," he said in kindly accents, "you are up against
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Dishkes nodded. He was by no means of a robust physical type, and
+his hands trembled so nervously as he fumbled for his papers in
+his breast pocket that he dropped its contents on the office
+floor. Elkan stooped to assist in retrieving the scattered
+papers, and among the documents he gathered together was a
+cabinet photograph.</p>
+
+<p>"My wife!" Dishkes murmured hoarsely. "She ain't so strong, and I
+am sending her up to the country a couple months ago. I've been
+meaning I should go up and see her ever since, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here he gulped dismally; and there was an embarrassed silence,
+broken only by the faint noise occasioned by Philip Scheikowitz
+scratching his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a <i>Rosher</i>&mdash;that feller Sammet," Polatkin said at length.
+"Honestly, the way some business men ain't got no mercy at all
+for the other feller, you would think, Scheikowitz, they was
+living back in the old country yet!"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz nodded and glanced nervously from the photograph to
+Elkan.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you was telling me you got a couple idees about helping
+Dishkes out, Elkan," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> "So, in the first place, Dishkes,
+you should please let us see a list of your creditors."</p>
+
+<p>With this prelude Scheikowitz drew forward his chair and plunged
+into a discussion of Dishkes' affairs that lasted for more than
+two hours; and when Dishkes at length departed he took with him
+notices of a meeting addressed to his twenty creditors, prepared
+for immediate mailing by Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp; Company's
+stenographer.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's what we let ourselves in for," Scheikowitz declared
+after the elevator door had closed behind Dishkes. "To-morrow
+morning at eleven o'clock the place here would look like the
+waiting room of a depot, and all our competitors would be
+rubbering at our stock already."</p>
+
+<p>"Let 'em rubber!" Elkan said. "If I don't get an extension for
+that feller my name ain't Elkan Lubliner at all; because between
+now and then I am going round to see them twenty creditors, and I
+bet yer they will sign an extension agreement, with the figures I
+am going to put up to them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Figures!" Scheikowitz jeered. "What good is figures to them
+fellers? Showing figures to a bankrupt's creditors is like taking
+to a restaurant a feller which is hungry and letting him look at
+the knives and forks and plates, understand me!"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," he said; "but the figures ain't all."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>Surreptitiously he drew from his pocket a faded cabinet
+photograph.</p>
+
+<p>"I sneaked this away from Dishkes when he wasn't noticing," Elkan
+declared; "and if this don't fix 'em nothing will!"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," Leon Sammet cried after Elkan had
+broached the reason for his visit late that afternoon, "don't
+give me that tale of woe again. Every time we are asking Dishkes
+for money he pulls this here sick-wife story on us, understand
+me; and it don't go down with me no more."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean don't go down with you?" Elkan demanded. "Do you
+claim his wife ain't sick?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't claim nothing," Sammet retorted. "I ain't no doctor,
+Lubliner. I am in the cloak-and-suit business, and I got to pay
+my creditors with United States money, Lubliner, if my wife would
+be dying yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Which you ain't got no wife," Elkan added savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Gott sei Dank!</i>" Sammet rejoined. "<i>Aber</i> if I did got one,
+y'understand, I would got <i>Verstand</i> enough to pick out a healthy
+woman, which Dishkes does everything the same. He picks out a
+store there on an avenue when it is a dead neighbourhood,
+understand me&mdash;and he wants us we should suffer for it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>"The neighbourhood wouldn't be dead after three months," Elkan
+said. "Round the corner on both sides of the street is building
+thirty-three-foot, seven-story elevator apartments yet; and when
+they are occupied, Dishkes would do a rushing business."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Sammet answered. "I ain't speculating in
+real-estate futures, Lubliner; so you might just so well go ahead
+and attend to your business, Lubliner, because me I am going to
+do the same."</p>
+
+<p>"But lookyhere, Sammet," Elkan still pleaded. "I seen pretty near
+every one of Dishkes' creditors and they all agree the feller
+should have a three months' extension."</p>
+
+<p>"Let 'em agree," Sammet shouted. "They are their own bosses and
+so am I, Lubliner; so if they want to give him an extension of
+their account I ain't got nothing to say. All I want is eight
+hundred dollars he owes me; and the rest of them suckers could
+agree till they are black in the face."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i>, anyhow, Sammet," Elkan said, "come to the meeting
+to-morrow morning and we would see what we could do."</p>
+
+<p>"See what we could do!" Sammet bellowed. "You will see what I
+could do, Lubliner; and I will come to the meeting to-morrow and
+I'll do it too. So, if you don't mind, Lubliner, I could still do
+a little work before we close up here."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>For a brief interval Elkan dug his nails into the palms of his
+hands, and his eyes unconsciously sought a target for a right
+swing on Sammet's bloated face; but at length he nodded and
+forced himself to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schon gut</i>, Mr. Sammet," he said; "then I will see you
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later he strode down lower Fifth Avenue toward the place
+of business of the last creditor on Dishkes' list. This was none
+other than Elkan's distinguished friend, B. Gans, the
+manufacturer of highgrade dresses; and it required less than ten
+minutes to procure his consent to the proposed extension.</p>
+
+<p>"And I hope," Elkan said, "that we could count on you to be at
+the meeting to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"That's something I couldn't do," B. Gans replied; "but I'll
+write you a letter and give you full authority you should
+represent me there. Excuse me a minute and I'll dictate it to
+Miss Scheindler." When he returned, five minutes later, he sat
+down at his desk and, crossing his legs, prepared to beguile the
+tedium of waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Elkan," he said, "what you been doing with yourself
+lately? Thee-aytres and restaurants, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thee-aytres I ain't so much interested in no more," Elkan said.
+"The fact is, I am going in now for antics."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>"Antics!" B. Gans exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," Elkan replied; and there was a certain pride in his
+tones. "Antics is what I said, Mr. Gans&mdash;Jacobson chairs and
+them&mdash;now&mdash;cat's furniture."</p>
+
+<p>"Cat's furniture?" Gans repeated. "What d'ye mean cat's
+furniture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Angry cats," Elkan explained; and then a great light broke upon
+B. Gans.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You mean Henri Quatre furniture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hungry cat <i>oder</i> angry cat," Elkan said. "All I know is we are
+refurnishing our flat, Mr. Gans, and we are taking an advice from
+Max Merech, our designer. It's a funny thing about that feller,
+Mr. Gans&mdash;with garments he is right up to the minute, <i>aber mit</i>
+furniture nothing suits him unless it would be anyhow a hundred
+years old."</p>
+
+<p>"So you are buying some antique furniture for your flat?" B. Gans
+commented, and Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"We made a start anyhow," he said. "We bought a couple Jacobson
+chairs&mdash;two hundred and fifty years old already."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" B. Gans exclaimed. "I want to tell you, Elkan, you
+couldn't go far wrong if you would buy any piece of furniture
+over a hundred years old. They didn't know how to make things
+ugly in them days&mdash;and Jacobean chairs especially. I am
+furnishing my whole dining room in that period and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> my library in
+Old French. It costs money, Elkan, but it's worth it."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded and steered the conversation into safer channels; so
+that by the time Miss Scheindler had brought in the letter they
+were discussing familiar business topics.</p>
+
+<p>"Also," Gans said as he appended his neat signature to the
+letter, "I wish you and Dishkes luck, Elkan; and keep up the good
+work about the antique furniture. Even when you would get stuck
+with a reproduction instead of a genuine piece once in a while,
+if it looks just as good as the original and no one tells you
+differently, understand me, you feel just as happy."</p>
+
+<p>Thus encouraged, Elkan went home that evening full of a
+determination to acquire all the antique furniture his apartment
+would hold; and he and Yetta sat up until past midnight conning
+the pages of a heavy volume on the subject, which Yetta had
+procured from the neighbouring public library. Accordingly Elkan
+rose late the following morning, and it was almost nine o'clock
+before he reached his office and observed on the very top of his
+morning mail a slip of paper containing a message in the
+handwriting of Sam, the office boy.</p>
+
+<p>"A man called about Jacobowitz," it read, and Elkan immediately
+rang his deskbell.</p>
+
+<p>"What Jacobowitz is this?" he demanded as Sam entered, and the
+office boy shrugged.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>"I should know!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean you should know?" Elkan cried. "Ain't I always
+told it you you should write down always the name when people
+call?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't Jacobowitz a name?" Sam replied. "Furthermore, you
+couldn't expect me I should get the family history from everybody
+which is coming in the place, Mr. Lubliner&mdash;especially when the
+feller says he would come back."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me he is coming back?" Elkan asked, and
+again Sam shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"When the feller is coming back, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "it
+don't make no difference if I tell you <i>oder</i> not. He would come
+back anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>Having thus disposed of the matter to his entire satisfaction,
+Sam withdrew and banged the door triumphantly behind him, while
+Elkan fell to examining his mail. He had hardly cut the first
+envelope, however, when his door opened to admit Dishkes.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Dishkes!" Elkan said. "You are pretty early, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Dishkes nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a <i>Schlemiel</i>, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and that's all there
+is to it. Yesterday I went to work and lost my wife's picture."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan slapped his thigh with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ain't I a peach?" he said. "I am getting so mixed up with
+these here antics I completely forgot to tell Yetta anything
+about it. I didn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> even show it to her, Dishkes; so you must
+leave me have it for a day longer, Dishkes."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he drew the cabinet photograph from his breast pocket
+and handed it to Dishkes, who gazed earnestly at it for a minute.
+Then, resting his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his
+hands and burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing, whereat Elkan
+jumped from his seat and passed hurriedly out of the room. As he
+walked toward the showroom the strains of a popular song came
+from behind a rack.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam," he bellowed, "who asks you you should whistle round here?"</p>
+
+<p>The whistling ceased and Sam emerged from his hiding-place with a
+feather brush.</p>
+
+<p>"I could whistle without being asked," Sam replied; "and
+furthermore, Mr. Lubliner, when I am dusting the samples I must
+got to whistle; otherwise the dust gets in my lungs, which I
+value my lungs the same like you do, Mr. Lubliner, even if I
+would be here only a boy working on stock!"</p>
+
+<p>With this decisive rejoinder he resumed dusting the samples,
+while Elkan returned to his office, where he found that Dishkes
+had regained his composure.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Despite the fact that all of Dishkes' creditors save one had
+signed an extension agreement, the meeting in Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz &amp; Company's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> showroom was well attended; and when
+Leon Sammet came in, at quarter-past eleven, the assemblage had
+already elected Charles Finkman, of Maisener &amp; Finkman, as
+chairman. He had just taken his seat in Philip Scheikowitz's new
+revolving chair and was in the act of noisily clearing his throat
+in lieu of pounding the table with a gavel.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," he said, "first, I want to thank you for the signal
+honour you are doing me in appointing me your chairman. For
+sixteen years now my labours in the Independent Order Mattai
+Aaron ain't unknown to most of you here. Ten years ago, at the
+national convention held in Sarahcuse, gentlemen, I was
+unanimously elected by the delegates from sixty lodges to be your
+National Grand Master; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Leon Sammet rose ponderously to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Finkman!" retorted Sammet. "What has all this <i>Stuss</i> about
+the I. O. M. A. got to do <i>mit</i> Dishkes here?"</p>
+
+<p>Again Finkman cleared his throat, and this time he produced a
+note of challenge that caused the members of the I. O. M. A.
+there present to lean forward in their seats. They expected a
+crushing rejoinder and they were not disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the motto of the I. O. M. A., Sammet?" Finkman
+thundered. "'Justice, Fraternity and Charity!' And I say to you
+now that, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> chairman of this meeting, as well as Past National
+Grand Master of that noble order to which you and I both belong,
+<i>verstehst du</i>, I will see that justice be done, fraternity be
+encouraged and charity dispensed on each and every occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my brothers, here is a fellow member of our organization in
+distress, y'understand; and I ask you one and all this
+question"&mdash;he raised his voice to a pitch that made the filaments
+tremble in the electric-light bulbs&mdash;"Who," he roared, "who will
+come to his assistance?"</p>
+
+<p>He paused dramatically just as Sam, the office boy, stuck his
+head in the showroom doorway and rent the silence with his high,
+piping voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the man is here about Jacobowitz."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan flapped his hand wildly, but it was too late to prevent the
+entrance of no less a person than Jacob Paul&mdash;the connoisseur of
+antiques and fine arts.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Finkman!" he said; "what's the trouble here?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan started from his seat to interrupt his visitor, but there
+was something in Finkman's manner that made him sit down again.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Paul?" Finkman exclaimed; and the
+clarion note had deserted his voice, leaving only a slight
+hoarseness to mark its passing. "What brings you here?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>"I might ask the same of you, Finkman," Jacob Paul replied; and
+as his keen eyes scanned the assembled company they rested for a
+minute on Leon Sammet, who forthwith began to perspire.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," Finkman began, "this here is a meeting of
+creditors of Louis Dishkes, of the Villy dee Paris Store on
+Amsterdam Avenue."</p>
+
+<p>Paul turned to Louis Dishkes, proprietor of the Ville de Paris
+Store, who sat at the side of the room behind Scheikowitz's desk
+in an improvised prisoner's dock.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Dishkes?" Paul asked. "Couldn't you make it
+go up there?"</p>
+
+<p>Dishkes shrugged hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Next month, when them houses round the corner is rented," he
+said, "I could do a good business there."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to," Paul agreed. "You ain't got no competitors, so
+far as I could see."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we all think!" Elkan broke in&mdash;"that is to say, all
+of us except Mr. Sammet; and he ain't willing to wait for his
+money."</p>
+
+<p>Leon Sammet moved uneasily in his chair as Jacob Paul faced about
+in his direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Why ain't you willing to wait, Sammet?" he asked; and Leon
+mopped his face with his handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's like this, Mr. Paul&mdash;&mdash;" he began, but the
+connoisseur of antiques raised his hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>"One moment, Sammet," he said. "You know as well as anybody else,
+and better even, that a millionaire concern like the Hamsuckett
+Mills must got to wait once in a while." He paused significantly.
+"If we didn't," he continued, "there's plenty of solvent concerns
+would be forced to the wall&mdash;ain't it? Furthermore, if the
+Hamsuckett Mills did business the way you want to, Sammet, I
+wouldn't keep my job as credit man and treasurer very long."</p>
+
+<p>Sammet nodded weakly and plied his handkerchief with more vigour,
+while Elkan sat and stared at his acquaintance of Sunday night in
+unfeigned astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is the use of talking, Sammet?" Paul said. "So long as
+you are the only one standing out, why don't you make an end of
+it? How long an extension does Dishkes want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two months," Finkman answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And where is the agreement you fellows all signed?" Paul
+continued.</p>
+
+<p>Elkan took a paper from the desk in front of Dishkes and passed
+it to Paul, who drew from his waistcoat pocket an opulent
+gold-mounted fountain pen. Then he walked over to Leon Sammet and
+handed him the pen and the agreement.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schreib</i>, Sammet," he said, "and don't make no more fuss about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later Sammet appended a shaky sig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>nature to the
+agreement and returned it, with the pen, to Paul.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later Jacob Paul sat in Elkan's office and
+smoked one of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp; Company's best cigars.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I put it up to you, Lubliner," he said: "them Jacobean
+chairs are pretty high at fifty dollars, but I want 'em, and I'm
+willing to give you sixty for 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan smiled and made a wide gesture with both hands.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mr. Paul," he said, "after what you done to-day for
+Dishkes I'll make you a present of 'em&mdash;free for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you won't do no such thing," Paul declared; "because I'm
+going to sell 'em again and at a profit, as I may as well tell
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"My worries what you are going to do with 'em!" Elkan declared.
+"But one thing I ain't going to do, Mr. Paul&mdash;I ain't going to
+make no profit on you; so go ahead and take the chairs at what I
+paid for 'em&mdash;and that's the best I could do for you."</p>
+
+<p>It required no further persuasion for Jacob Paul to draw a
+fifty-dollar check to Elkan's order; and as he rose to leave
+Elkan pressed his hand warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come up and see me, Mr. Paul, when we get through refurnishing,"
+he said. "I promise you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> you would see a flat furnished to your
+taste&mdash;no crayon portraits nor nothing."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>It was late in the afternoon when Elkan's office door opened to
+admit Sam, the office boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "another feller is here about this
+here&mdash;now&mdash;Jacobowitz."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan glanced through the half-open door and recognized the
+figure of Ringentaub, the antiquarian.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to come in," he said; and a moment later Ringentaub was
+wringing Elkan's hand and babbling his gratitude for his
+brother-in-law's deliverance from bankruptcy.</p>
+
+<p>"God will bless you for it, Mr. Lubliner," he said; "and I am
+ashamed of myself when I think of it. I am a dawg, Mr.
+Lubliner&mdash;and that's all there is to it."</p>
+
+<p>Here he drew a greasy wallet from his breast pocket and extracted
+three ten-dollar bills.</p>
+
+<p>"Take 'em, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>He pressed the bills into Elkan's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?" Elkan demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the change from your fifty dollars," Ringentaub replied;
+"because, so help me, Mr. Lubliner, there is first-class material
+in them chairs and the feller that makes 'em for me is a
+highgrade cabinetmaker. Then you got to reckon it stands me in a
+couple of dollars also to get 'em fixed up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> antique,
+y'understand; so, if you get them chairs for twenty dollars you
+are buying a bargain, Mr. Lubliner."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what d'ye mean?" Elkan cried. "Ain't them chairs gen-wine
+Jacobean chairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not by a whole lot they ain't," Ringentaub declared fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"But Mr. Paul thinks they are!" Elkan exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Ringentaub answered; "and that shows what a lot a
+collector knows about such things. Paul is a credit man for the
+Hamsuckett Mills, Mr. Lubliner; but he collects old furniture on
+the side."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Elkan gazed open-mouthed at the antiquarian and a
+great light began to break in on him.</p>
+
+<p>"So-o-o!" he cried. "That's what you mean by a collector!"</p>
+
+<p>Ringentaub nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And furthermore, Mr. Lubliner, when collectors knows more about
+antiques as dealers does, Mr. Lubliner," he said with his hand on
+the doorknob, "I'll go into the woollen piece-goods business
+too&mdash;which you could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner, it wouldn't
+be soon, by a hundred years even."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>When Elkan emerged from the One-Hundred-and-Sixteenth Street
+station of the subway that evening a familiar voice hailed him
+from the rear.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>"<i>Nu</i>, Elkan!" cried B. Gans, for it was none other than he. "You
+made out fine at the meeting this morning&mdash;ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you?" Elkan asked as he linked arms with the highgrade
+manufacturer.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind who told me," B. Gans said jokingly; "but all I could
+say is you made a tremendous hit with Jacob Paul, Elkan&mdash;and if
+that ain't no compliment, understand me, I don't know what is.
+Why, there ain't a better judge of men <i>oder</i> antique furniture
+in this here city than Paul, Elkan. He's an A-Number-One credit
+man, too, and I bet yer he gets a big salary from them Hamsuckett
+Mills people, which the least his income could be&mdash;considering
+what he picks up selling antiques&mdash;is fifteen thousand a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Does Paul sell all the antiques he collects?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Does he?" B. Gans rejoined. "Well, I should say he does! Myself
+I bought from him in the past two weeks half a dozen chairs,
+understand me&mdash;four last week and two to-day&mdash;which I am paying
+him five hundred dollars for the lot. They're worth it, too,
+Elkan. I never seen finer examples of the period."</p>
+
+<p>"But are you sure they're gen-wine?" Elkan asked as they reached
+the entrance to his apartment house.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>"Paul says they are," B. Gans answered, slapping Elkan's shoulder
+in farewell; "and if he's mistaken, Elkan, then I'm content that
+I should be."</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later, however, after Elkan had recounted to Yetta all
+the incidents of Dishkes' meeting and the resulting sale of the
+chairs, his conscience smote him.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye think, Yetta?" he asked. "Should I tell Paul and Gans
+the chairs ain't gen-wine, <i>oder</i> not?"</p>
+
+<p>For more than ten minutes Yetta wrinkled her forehead over this
+knotty ethical point; then she delivered her opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gans tells you he is just as happy if they ain't
+gen-wine&mdash;ain't it?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Paul acted honest, because he didn't know they wasn't
+gen-wine neither, ain't it?" she continued.</p>
+
+<p>Again Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," Yetta declared, "if you are taking it so particular as
+all that, Elkan, there's only one thing for you to do&mdash;give me
+the thirty dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so!" Elkan exclaimed ironically. "And what will you do
+with the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"The only thing I can do with it, <i>Schlemiel</i>," she said. "Ten
+dollars I will give Louis Dishkes he should take a trip up to the
+country over Sunday and visit his wife."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>"And what will we do with the other twenty?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll send a present with him to Mrs. Dishkes," Yetta concluded
+with a smile, "and it wouldn't be no antics neither!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_SEVEN" id="CHAPTER_SEVEN"></a>CHAPTER SEVEN</h2>
+<h2>SWEET AND SOUR</h2>
+<h3>ARE THE USES OF COMPETITIVE SALESMANSHIP</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dcitalic">"A<i>BER</i> me and Yetta is got it all fixed up we would go to Mrs.
+Kotlin's already," Elkan Lubliner protested as he mopped his
+forehead one hot Tuesday morning in July. "The board there is
+something elegant, Mr. Scheikowitz. Everybody says so."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow!</i> everybody!" Philip Scheikowitz retorted. "Who is
+everybody, Elkan? A couple drummers like Marks Pasinsky, one or
+two real estaters, understand me, and the rest of 'em is wives
+from J to L retailers, third credit, which every time their
+husbands comes down to spend Sunday with 'em, y'understand, he
+must pretty near got to pawn the shirt from his back for car fare
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"Scheikowitz is right, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin joined in. "A
+feller shouldn't make a god from his stomach, Elkan, especially
+when money don't figure at all, so if you would be going down to
+Egremont Beach, understand me, there's only one place you should
+stay, y'understand, and that's the New Salisbury."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>"Which if you wouldn't take our word for it, Elkan," Scheikowitz
+added, "just give a look here."</p>
+
+<p>He drew from his coat pocket the summer resort section of the
+previous day's paper and thrust it toward his junior partner,
+indicating as he did so a half column headed:</p>
+
+<div class="blockcenter">
+MIDSEASON GAIETY AT<br />
+EGREMONT BEACH
+</div>
+
+<p>which reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>The season is in full swing here.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday night Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Gans gave a
+Chinese Lantern Dinner in the Hanging Gardens at which
+were present Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max
+Koblin, Mr. and Mrs. Henry D. Feldman, Mr. Jacob Scharley
+and Miss Hortense Feldman.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who registered Friday at the New Salisbury
+were Mr. Jacob Scharley of San Francisco, Mr. and Mrs.
+Sol Klinger, Mr. Leon Sammet and his mother, Mrs. Leah
+Sammet.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I thought that Leon's brother Barney was staying down at
+Egremont," Polatkin said after he and Elkan had read the item.</p>
+
+<p>"Barney is at Mrs. Kotlin's," Scheikowitz explained, "because
+<i>mit</i> Leon Sammet, Polatkin, nothing is too rotten for Barney to
+stay at, and besides he thinks Barney would get a little <i>small</i>
+business there, which the way Sammet Brothers figures, understand
+me, if they could stick a feller with three bills of goods for a
+couple hundred dollars apiece, y'understand, so long as he pays
+up on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> first two, he couldn't eat up their profits if he
+would bust up on 'em <i>mit</i> the third."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know," Elkan said, "<i>aber</i> I ain't going down to Egremont
+for business, Mr. Scheikowitz, I'm going because it ain't so warm
+down there."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Elkan!" Scheikowitz retorted. "It wouldn't make it
+not one degrees warmer in Egremont supposing you could get a
+couple new accounts down there."</p>
+
+<p>"B. Gans don't take it so particular about the weather," Polatkin
+commented. "I bet yer he would a whole lot sooner take off his
+coat and shirt and <i>spiel</i> a little auction pinocle <i>mit</i> Sol
+Klinger and Leon Sammet and all them fellers as be giving dinners
+already in a tuxedo suit to Sam Feder. I bet yer he gets a fine
+accommodation from the Kosciusko Bank out of that dinner yet."</p>
+
+<p>"The other people also he ain't <i>schencking</i> no dinners to 'em
+for nothing neither," Scheikowitz declared. "Every one of 'em
+means something to B. Gans, I bet yer."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Particularly Scharley," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean, particularly Scharley?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz
+inquired with one voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, ain't you heard about Scharley?" Elkan asked. "It's right
+there in the <i>Daily Cloak and Suit Journal</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He indicated the front sheet of that newsy trade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> paper, where
+under the heading of "Incorporations" appeared the following
+item:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote"><p>The Scharley, Oderburg Drygoods Company, San Francisco,
+Cal., has filed articles of incorporation, giving its
+capital stock as $500,000, and expects to open its new
+store in September next.</p></div>
+
+<p>"And you are talking about staying by Mrs. Kotlin's!" Scheikowitz
+exclaimed in injured tones. "You should ought to be ashamed of
+yourself, Elkan."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan received his senior partner's upbraiding with a patient
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"What show do we stand against a concern like B. Gans?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"B. Gans sells him only highgrade goods, Elkan," Scheikowitz
+declared. "I bet yer the least the feller buys is for twenty
+thousand dollars garments here, and a good half would be popular
+price lines, which if we would get busy, we stand an elegant show
+there, Elkan."</p>
+
+<p>"You should ought to go down there to-morrow yet," Polatkin
+cried, "because the first thing you know Leon Sammet would
+entertain him <i>mit</i> oitermobiles yet, and Sol Klinger gets also
+busy, understand me, and the consequences is we wouldn't be in it
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Next Saturday is the earliest Yetta could get ready," Elkan
+replied positively, and Polatkin strode up and down the floor in
+an access of despair.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Elkan," he said, "if you want to let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> such an
+opportunity slip down your fingers, y'understand, all right.
+<i>Aber</i> if I would be you, Elkan, I would go down there to-night
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't get Yetta she should close up the flat under the very
+least <i>two</i> days, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "She must got to fix
+everything just right, <i>mit</i> moth-camphor and <i>Gott weisst was
+nach</i>, otherwise she wouldn't go at all. The rugs alone takes a
+whole day to fix."</p>
+
+<p>"Do as you like, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "<i>aber</i> you mark my
+words, if Leon Sammet ain't shoving heaven and earth right now,
+y'understand, I don't know nothing about the garment business at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>In fulfilment of this prophecy, when Elkan entered his office the
+following morning Polatkin waved in his face a copy of the
+morning paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "what did I told you, Elkan?"</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz nodded slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"My partner is right, Elkan," he added, "so stubborn you are."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter now?" Elkan asked, and for answer Polatkin
+handed him the paper with his thumb pressed against a paragraph
+as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote"><p>Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and
+Mrs. Henry D. Feldman, Miss Hortense Feldman, and Mr.
+Jacob Scharley were guests of Mr. Leon Sammet at a
+Chinese Lantern Dinner this evening given in the Hanging
+Gardens of the New Salisbury.</p></div><p></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>"I thought it would be at the least an oitermobile ride,"
+Polatkin said in melancholy tones, "but with that sucker all he
+could do is stealing a competitor's idees. B. Gans gives Scharley
+a dinner and Leon Sammet is got to do it, too, <i>mit</i> the same
+guests and everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Even to Feldman's sister already," Scheikowitz added, "which it
+must be that Feldman is trying to marry her off to Scharley even
+if he would be a widower <i>mit</i> two sons in college. She's a
+highly educated young lady, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Young she ain't no longer," Polatkin interrupted, "and if a girl
+couldn't cook even a pertater, understand me, it don't make no
+difference if she couldn't cook it in six languages,
+y'understand, Feldman would got a hard job marrying her off
+<i>anyhow</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Scheikowitz made an impatient gesture with both hands, suggestive
+of a dog swimming.</p>
+
+<p>"That's neither here or there, Polatkin," he said. "The point is
+Elkan should go right uptown and <i>geschwind</i> pack his grip and be
+down at the Salisbury this afternoon yet, if Yetta would be ready
+<i>oder</i> not. We couldn't afford to let the ground grow under our
+feet and that's all there is <i>to</i> it."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, shortly after six o'clock that evening, Elkan and Yetta
+alighted from the 5:10 special from Flatbush Avenue and picked
+their way through a marital throng that kissed and embraced with
+as much ardour as though the reunion had concluded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> a parting of
+ten years instead of ten hours. At length the happy couples
+dragged themselves apart and crowded into the automobile 'bus of
+the New Salisbury, sweeping Elkan and Yetta before them, so that
+when the 'bus arrived at the hotel Elkan and Yetta were the last
+to descend.</p>
+
+<p>A burly yellow-faced porter seized the baggage with the
+contemptuous manner that Ham nowadays evinces toward Shem, and
+Elkan and Yetta followed him through the luxurious social hall to
+the desk. There the room clerk immediately shot out a three-carat
+diamond ring, and when Elkan's eyes became accustomed to the
+glare he saw that beneath it was a fat white hand extended in
+cordial greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Williams," Elkan cried, as he shook
+hands fervently. "Ain't you in the Pitt House, Sarahcuse, no
+more?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm taking a short vacation in a sensible manner, Mr. Lubliner,"
+Mr. Williams replied in the rounded tones that only truly great
+actors, clergymen, and room clerks possess. "Which means that I
+am interested in a real-estate development near here, and I'm
+combining business with pleasure for a couple of months."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan nodded admiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"You got the right idee, Mr. Williams," he said. "This is my
+wife, Mr. Williams."</p>
+
+<p>The room clerk acknowledged the introduction with a bow that
+combined the grace of Paderewski<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> and the dignity of Prince
+Florizel in just the right proportions.</p>
+
+<p>"Delighted to know you, Madame," he declared. "Have you made
+reservations, Mr. Lubliner?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan shook his head and after an exchange of confidential
+murmurs Mr. Williams assigned them a room with an ocean view,
+from which they emerged less than half an hour later to await on
+the veranda the welcome sound of the dinner gong. A buzz of
+animated conversation filled the air, above which rose a little
+shriek of welcome as Mrs. Gans rushed toward Yetta with
+outstretched hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried. "I didn't know you was coming
+down here."</p>
+
+<p>They exchanged the kiss of utter peace that persists between the
+kin of highgrade and popular-priced manufacturers.</p>
+
+<p>"I read about you in the newspapers," Yetta said, as they seated
+themselves in adjoining rockers, and Mrs. Gans flashed all the
+gems of her right hand in a gesture of deprecation.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," she said, "it makes me sick here the way people
+carries on. Honestly, Yetta, I don't see Barney only at meals and
+when he's getting dressed. Everything is Mister <i>Scharley</i>,
+Mister <i>Scharley</i>. You would think he was H. P. Morgan <i>oder</i> the
+Czar of <i>Russland</i> from the fuss everybody makes over him."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>Yetta nodded in sympathy and suddenly Mrs. Gans clutched the arm
+of her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"There he is now," she hissed.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" Yetta asked, and Mrs. Gans nodded toward a doorway at
+the end of the veranda, on which in electric bulbs was outlined
+the legend, "Hanging Gardens." Yetta descried a short, stout
+personage between fifty and sixty years of age, arrayed in a
+white flannel suit of which the coat and waistcoat were cut in
+imitation of an informal evening costume. On his arm there
+drooped a lady no longer in her twenties, and from the V-shaped
+opening in the rear of her dinner gown a medical student could
+have distinguished with more or less certainty the bones of the
+cervical vertebr&aelig;, the right and left scapula and the
+articulation of each with the humerus and clavicle.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Miss Feldman," Mrs. Gans whispered. "She's refined like
+anything, Yetta, and she talks French better as a waiter
+already."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture the dinner gong sounded and Yetta rejoined Elkan
+in the social hall.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the trouble you are looking so <i>rachmonos</i>, Elkan?" she
+asked as she pressed his arm consolingly.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night it's Sol Klinger," Elkan replied. "He's got a dinner on
+in the Hanging Gardens for Scharley, Yetta, and I guess I
+wouldn't get a look-in even."</p>
+
+<p>"You've got six weeks before you," Yetta assured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> him, "and you
+shouldn't worry. Something is bound to turn up, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave his arm another little caress and they proceeded
+immediately to the dining room, where the string orchestra and
+the small talk of two hundred and fifty guests strove vainly for
+the ascendency in one maddening cacophony. It was nearly eight
+o'clock before Elkan and Yetta arose from the table and repaired
+to the veranda whose rockers were filled with a chattering
+throng.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get out of this," Elkan said, and they descended the
+veranda steps to the sidewalk. Five minutes later they were
+seated on a remote bench of the boardwalk, and until nine o'clock
+they watched the beauty of the moon and sea, which is constant
+even at Egremont Beach. When they rose to go Yetta noticed for
+the first time a shawl-clad figure on the adjacent bench, and
+immediately a pair of keen eyes flashed from a face whose plump
+contentment was framed in a jet black wig of an early Victorian
+design.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Why, if it ain't Mrs. Lesengeld," Yetta exclaimed and the next
+moment she enfolded the little woman in a cordial embrace.</p>
+
+<p>"You grown a <i>bisschen</i> fat, Yetta," Mrs. Lesengeld said. "I
+wouldn't knew you at all, if you ain't speaking to me first."</p>
+
+<p>"This is my husband, Mrs. Lesengeld&mdash;Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> Lubliner," Yetta went
+on. "He heard me talk often from you, Mrs. Lesengeld, and what a
+time you got it learning me I should speak English yet."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan beamed at Mrs. Lesengeld.</p>
+
+<p>"And not only <i>that</i>," he said, "but also how good to her you was
+when she was sick already. There ain't many boarding-house ladies
+like you, Mrs. Lesengeld."</p>
+
+<p>"And there ain't so many boarders like Yetta, neither," Mrs.
+Lesengeld retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you got a boarding-house down here, Mrs. Lesengeld?"
+Yetta asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I've gone out of the boarding-house business," Mrs. Lesengeld
+replied, "which you know what a trouble I got it <i>mit</i> that
+lowlife Lesengeld, <i>olav hasholom</i>, after he failed in the pants
+business, how I am working my fingers to the bones already
+keeping up his insurings in the I. O. M. A. and a couple thousand
+dollars in a company already."</p>
+
+<p>Yetta nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Which I got my reward at last," Mrs. Lesengeld concluded. "Quick
+diabetes, Yetta, and so I bought for ten thousand dollars a
+mortgage, understand me, and my son-in-law allows me also four
+dollars a week which I got it a whole lot easier nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"And are you staying down here?" Elkan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Me, I got for twenty dollars a month a little house <i>mit</i> two
+rooms only, right on the sea, which they call it there Bognor
+Park. You must come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> over and see us, Yetta. Such a <i>gem&uuml;tlich</i>
+little house we got it you wouldn't believe at all, and every
+Sunday my daughter Fannie and my son-in-law comes down and stays
+with us."</p>
+
+<p>"And are you going all the way home alone?" Elkan asked
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Fannie is staying down with me to-night. She meets me on the
+corner of the Boulevard, where the car stops, at ten o'clock
+already," Mrs. Lesengeld replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must got to come right along with us," Elkan said, "and
+we'll see you would get there on time."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?" Mrs. Lesengeld asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Over to the Salisbury," Elkan answered, and Mrs. Lesengeld sank
+back on to the bench.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Geh weg</i>, Mr. Lubliner," she cried. "I am now fifty years old
+and I was never in such a place in my life, especially which
+under this shawl I got only a plain cotton dress yet."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan flapped his hand reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>"A fine-looking lady like you, Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, as he
+seized her hands and drew her gently to her feet, "looks well in
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"And you'll have a water ice in the Hanging Gardens with us,"
+Yetta persisted as she slipped a hand under Mrs. Lesengeld's
+shawl and pressed her arm affectionately. Ten minutes later they
+arrived at the stoop of the New Salisbury, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> the scandalization
+and horror of the three score A to F first credit manufacturers
+and their wives. Moreover, approximately a hundred and fifty
+karats of blue white diamonds rose and fell indignantly on the
+bosoms of twenty or thirty credit-high retailers' wives, when the
+little, toilworn woman with her shawl and ritualistic wig entered
+the Hanging Gardens chatting pleasantly with Elkan and Yetta; and
+as they seated themselves at a table the buzz of conversation
+hushed into silence and then roared out anew with an
+accompaniment of titters.</p>
+
+<p>At the next table Sol Klinger plied with liquors and cigars the
+surviving guests of his dinner, and when Elkan nodded to him, he
+ignored the salutation with a blank stare. He raged inwardly, not
+so much at Elkan's invasion of that fashionable precinct as at
+the circumstance that his guest of honour had departed with Miss
+Feldman for a stroll on the boardwalk some ten minutes
+previously, and he was therefore unable to profit by Elkan's
+<i>faux pas</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The feller ain't got no manners at all," he said to Max Koblin,
+who nodded gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"It's getting terrible mixed down here, Sol," Max commented as he
+hiccoughed away a slight flatulency. "Honestly if you want to be
+in striking distance of your business, Sol, so's you could come
+in and out every day, you got to rub shoulders with everybody,
+ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>He soothed his outraged sensibilities with a great cloud of smoke
+that drifted over Elkan's table, and Mrs. Lesengeld broke into a
+fit of coughing which caused a repetition of the titters.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you still make that brown stewed fish sweet and sour,
+Mrs. Lesengeld?" Yetta asked by way of putting the old lady at
+her ease.</p>
+
+<p>"Make it!" Mrs. Lesengeld answered. "I should say I do. Why you
+wouldn't believe the way my son-in-law is crazy about it. We got
+it every Sunday regular, and I tell you what I would do, Yetta."</p>
+
+<p>She laid her hand on Yetta's arm and her face broke into a
+thousand tiny wrinkles of hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>"You should come Friday to lunch sure," she declared, "and we
+would got some brown stewed fish sweet and sour and a good plate
+of <i>Bortch</i> to begin with."</p>
+
+<p>Sol Klinger had been leaning back in his chair in an effort to
+overhear their conversation, and at this announcement he broke
+into a broad guffaw, which ran around the table after he had
+related the cause of it to his guests. Indeed, so much did Sol
+relish the joke that with it he entertained the occupants of
+about a dozen seats in the smoking car of the 8:04 express the
+next morning, and he was so full of it when he entered
+Hammersmith's Restaurant the following noon that he could not
+forego the pleasure of visiting Marcus Polatkin's table and
+relating it to Polatkin himself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>Polatkin heard him through without a smile and when at its
+conclusion Klinger broke into a hysterical appreciation of his
+own humour, Polatkin shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, Klinger," he said, "your poor mother, <i>olav
+hasholom</i>, didn't wear a <i>sheitel</i> neither, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"My mother, <i>olav hasholom</i>, would got more sense as to butt in
+to a place like that," Klinger retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Even if you wouldn't of been ashamed to have taken her there,
+Klinger," he added.</p>
+
+<p>Klinger flushed angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't here or there, Polatkin," he said. "You should ought
+to put your partner wise, Polatkin, that he shouldn't go dragging
+in an old <i>Bub&eacute;</i> into a place like the Salisbury and talking such
+nonsense like brown stewed fish sweet and sour."</p>
+
+<p>He broke into another laugh at the recollection of it&mdash;a laugh
+that was louder but hardly as unforced as the first one.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter <i>mit</i> brown stewed fish sweet and sour,
+Klinger?" Polatkin asked. "I eat already a lot of <i>a-la's</i> and
+<i>en cazzerolls</i> in a whole lot of places just so <i>grossartig</i> as
+the Salisbury, understand me, and I would <i>schenck</i> you a million
+of 'em for one plate of brown stewed fish sweet and sour like
+your mother made it from <i>zu Hause</i> yet."</p>
+
+<p>"But what for an interest does a merchant like Scharley got to
+hear such things," Klinger protested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> lamely. "Honestly, I was
+ashamed for your partner's sake to hear such a talk going on
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Scharley got any objections?" Polatkin asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately the feller had gone away from the table," Klinger
+replied, "so he didn't hear it at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Polatkin declared, taking up his knife and fork as a
+signal that the matter was closed, "ask him and see if he
+wouldn't a whole lot sooner eat some good brown stewed fish sweet
+and sour as a Chinese Lantern Dinner&mdash;whatever for a bunch of
+poison that might be, Klinger&mdash;and don't you forget it."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless when Polatkin returned to his place of business he
+proceeded at once to Elkan's office.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere Elkan," he demanded, "what is all this I hear
+about you and Yetta taking an old <i>Bub&eacute;</i> into the Hanging Gardens
+already, and making from her laughing stocks out of the whole
+place."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan looked up calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a free country, Mr. Polatkin," he said, "and so long as I
+pay my board <i>mit</i> U. S. money, already I would take in there any
+of my friends I would please."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Polatkin expostulated, "but I seen Klinger around
+at Hammersmith's and he says&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Klinger!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, you could say to Klinger for
+me, Mr. Polatkin, that if he don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> like the way I am acting
+around there, understand me, he should just got the nerve to tell
+it me to my face yet."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin flapped the air with his right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind Klinger, Elkan," he said. "You got to consider you
+shouldn't make a fool of yourself before Scharley and all them
+people. How do you expect you should get such a merchant as
+Scharley he should accept from you entertainment like a Chinese
+Lantern Dinner, if you are acting that way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chinese Lantern Dinner be damned!" Elkan retorted. "When we got
+the right goods at the right price, Mr. Polatkin, why should we
+got to give a merchant dinners yet to convince him of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dinners is nothing, Elkan," Polatkin interrupted with a wave of
+his hand. "You got to give him dyspepsha even, the way business
+is nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i> I was talking to the room clerk last night," Elkan went
+on, "and he tells me so sure as you are standing there, Mr.
+Polatkin, a Chinese Lantern Dinner would stand us in twenty
+dollars a head."</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty dollars a head!" Polatkin exclaimed and indulged himself
+in a low whistle.</p>
+
+<p>"So even if I <i>would</i> be staying at the Salisbury, understand
+me," Elkan said, "I ain't going to throw away our money out of
+the window exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i> how are you going to get the feller down here, if you
+wouldn't entertain him or something?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>Elkan slapped his chest with a great show of confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that to <i>me</i>, Mr. Polatkin," he said, and put on his hat
+preparatory to going out to lunch.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless when he descended from his room at the New Salisbury
+that evening and prepared to take a turn on the boardwalk before
+dinner, his confidence evaporated at the coolness of his
+reception by the assembled guests of the hotel. Leon Sammet cut
+him dead, and even B. Gans greeted him with half jovial reproach.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Elkan," he said, "going to entertain any more <i>fromme
+Leute</i> in the Garden to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seemingly, Mr. Gans," Elkan said, "it was a big shock to
+everybody here to see for the first time an old lady wearing a
+<i>sheitel</i>. I suppose nobody here never seen it before, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>B. Gans put a fatherly hand on Elkan's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell yer, Elkan," he said, "if I would be such a <i>rosher</i>,
+understand me, that I would hold it against you because you ain't
+forgetting an old friend, like this here lady must be,
+y'understand, I should never sell a dollar's worth more goods so
+long as I live, <i>aber</i> if Klinger and Sammet would start kidding
+you in front of Scharley, understand me, it would look bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Why would it look bad, Mr. Gans?" Elkan broke in.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it don't do nobody no good to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> funny stories told
+about 'em, except an actor <i>oder</i> a politician, Elkan," Gans
+replied as the dinner gong began to sound, "which if a customer
+wouldn't take <i>you</i> seriously, he wouldn't take your goods
+seriously neither, Elkan, and that's all there is <i>to</i> it."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled reassuringly as he walked toward the dining room and
+left Elkan a prey to most uncomfortable reflections, which did
+not abate when he overheard Klinger and Sammet hail Gans at the
+end of the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Gans," Klinger said with a sidelong glance at Elkan,
+"what are you going to eat to-night&mdash;brown stewed fish sweet
+<i>und</i> sour?"</p>
+
+<p>Elkan could not distinguish B. Gans' reply, but he scowled
+fiercely at the trio as they entered the hotel lobby, and he
+still frowned as he sauntered stolidly after them to await Yetta
+in the social hall.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Mr. Lubliner," the room clerk asked when
+Elkan passed the desk. "Aren't you feeling well to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I feel all right, Mr. Williams," Elkan replied, "but this here
+place is getting on my nerves. It's too much like a big hotel out
+on the road somewheres. Everybody looks like they would got
+something to sell, understand me, and was doing their level best
+to sell it."</p>
+
+<p>"You're quite right, Mr. Lubliner," the clerk commented, "and
+that's the reason why I came down here. In fact," he added with a
+guilty smile, "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> made a date to show some of my lots to-morrow
+to a prospective customer."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture a porter appeared bearing a basket of champagne
+and followed by two waiters with ice buckets, and the room clerk
+jerked his head sideways in the direction toward which the little
+procession had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"That's for Suite 27, the Feldmans' rooms," he explained. "Miss
+Feldman is giving a little chafing-dish dinner there to Mr.
+Scharley and a few friends."</p>
+
+<p>He accepted with a graceful nod Elkan's proffered cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Which goes to show that it's as you say, Mr. Lubliner," he
+concluded. "If you have drygoods, real estate or marriageable
+relatives to dispose of, Mr. Lubliner, Egremont's the place to
+market them."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Williams," said Jacob Scharley at two o'clock the
+following afternoon as they trudged along the sands of Bognor
+Park, one of Egremont Beach's new developments, "I was trying to
+figure out how these here Chinese Lantern Dinners stands in a
+sucker like Leon Sammet twenty dollars a head, when by the
+regular bill of fare it comes exactly to seven dollars and fifty
+cents including drinks."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't figure on a special dinner according to the prices on
+the regular bill of fare," said Mr. Williams, the room clerk, who
+in his quality of real-estate operator was attempting to shift
+the conver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>sation from hotel matters to the topic of seaside
+lots. "Why, ice cream is twenty-five cents on the bill of fare,
+but at one of those dinners it's served in imitation Chinese
+lanterns, which makes it worth double at least."</p>
+
+<p>"For my part," Scharley broke in, "they could serve it in
+kerosene lamps, Mr. Williams, because I never touch the stuff."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a parallel case to lots here and lots on Mizzentop Beach,
+which is the next beach below," Williams continued. "Here we have
+a boardwalk extending right down to our property, and we are
+getting seven hundred and fifty dollars a lot, while there, with
+practically the same transit facilities but no boardwalk or
+electric lights, they get only four hundred and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i> you take a piece of tenderloin steak a half an inch thick
+and about the size of a price ticket, understand me," Scharley
+interrupted, "and even if you <i>would</i> fix it up with half a
+cent's worth of peas and spill on it a bottle cough medicine and
+glue, <i>verstehst du mich</i>, how could you make it figure up more
+as a dollar and a quarter, Mr. Williams? Then the clams, Mr.
+Williams, must got to have inside of 'em at the very least a half
+a karat pink pearl in 'em, otherwise thirty-five cents would be
+big yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely," Mr. Williams agreed as a shade of annoyance passed
+over his well modelled features,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> "but just now, Mr. Scharley,
+I'm anxious to show you the advantage of these lots of ours, and
+you won't mind if I don't pursue the topic of Chinese Lantern
+Dinners any farther."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only too glad not to talk about it at all," Scharley agreed.
+"In fact if any one else tries to ring in another one of them
+dinners on me, Mr. Williams, I'll turn him down on the spot.
+Shaving-dish parties neither, which I assure you, Mr. Williams,
+even if Miss Feldman would be an elegant, refined young lady,
+understand me, she fixes something in that shaving dish of hers
+last night, understand me, which I thought I was poisoned
+already."</p>
+
+<p>Williams deemed it best to ignore this observation and therefore
+made no comment.</p>
+
+<p>"But anyhow," Scharley concluded as they approached a little
+wooden shack on the margin of the water, "I'm sick and tired of
+things to eat, so let's talk about something else."</p>
+
+<p>Having delivered this ultimatum, his footsteps lagged and he
+stopped short as he began to sniff the air like a hunting dog.</p>
+
+<p>"M-m-m-m!" he exclaimed. "What <i>is</i> that?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a two-room shed we rent for twenty dollars a month,"
+Williams explained. "We have eight of them and they help
+considerably to pay our office rent over in New York."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know," Scharley agreed, "<i>aber</i>, m-m-m-m!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>Once more he expanded his nostrils to catch a delicious fragrance
+that emanated from the little shack.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aber</i>, who lives there?" he insisted, and Mr. Williams could
+not restrain a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's that old lady with the wig that Lubliner brought over
+to the hotel the other night," he replied. "I thought I saw Sol
+Klinger telling you about it yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"He started to tell me something about it," Scharley said, "when
+Barney Gans butted in and wouldn't let him. What <i>was</i> it about
+this here old lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't anything to it particularly," Williams replied,
+"excepting that it seemed a little strange to see an old lady in
+a shawl and one of those religious wigs in the Hanging Gardens,
+and there was something else Klinger told me about Mrs. Lubliner
+and the old lady talking about brown stewed fish sweet and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Scharley snapped his fingers excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Brown stewed fish sweet and sour!" he almost shouted. "I ain't
+smelled it since I was a boy already."</p>
+
+<p>He wagged his head and again murmured, "M-m-m-m-m!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he received an inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"How much did you say them shanties rents for, Mr. Williams?" he
+said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>"Twenty dollars a month," Williams replied.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me!" Scharley exclaimed solemnly. "I wonder if I
+could give a look at the inside of one of 'em&mdash;this one here, for
+instance."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there'd be any objection," Williams said, and no
+sooner were the words out of his mouth than Scharley started off
+on a half trot for the miniature veranda on the ocean side of the
+little house.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I'd better inquire first if it's convenient for them to
+let us in now," Williams said, as he bounded after his
+prospective customer and knocked gently on the doorjamb. There
+was a sound of scurrying feet within, and at length the door was
+opened a few inches and the bewigged head of Mrs. Lesengeld
+appeared in the crack.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>," she said, "what <i>is</i> it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I represent the Bognor Park Company," Williams replied, "and if
+it's perfectly convenient for you, Mrs.&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lesengeld," she added.</p>
+
+<p>"Used to was Lesengeld &amp; Schein in the pants business?" Scharley
+asked, and Mrs. Lesengeld nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Lesengeld and me was lodge brothers together in the I. O.
+M. A. before I went out to the Pacific Coast years ago already,"
+Scharley declared. "I guess he's often spoken to you about Jake
+Scharley, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>"Maybe he did, Mr. Scharley, <i>aber</i> he's dead <i>schon</i> two years
+since already," Mrs. Lesengeld said, and then added the pious
+hope, "<i>olav hasholom</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so," Scharley cried in shocked accents. "Why, he
+wasn't no older as me already."</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty-three when he died," Mrs. Lesengeld said. "Quick diabetes,
+Mr. Scharley. Wouldn't you step inside?"</p>
+
+<p>Scharley and Williams passed into the front room, which was used
+as a living room and presented an appearance of remarkable
+neatness and order. In the corner stood an oil stove on which two
+saucepans bubbled and steamed, and as Mrs. Lesengeld turned to
+follow her visitors one of the saucepans boiled over.</p>
+
+<p>"Oo-ee!" she exclaimed. "<i>Mein fisch.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead and tend to it," Scharley cried excitedly; "don't mind
+us. It might get burned already."</p>
+
+<p>He watched her anxiously while she turned down the flame.</p>
+
+<p>"Brown stewed fish sweet and sour, ain't it?" he asked, and Mrs.
+Lesengeld nodded as she lowered the flame to just the proper
+height.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>thought</i> it was," Scharley continued. "I ain't smelled it in
+forty years already. My poor mother, <i>olav hasholom</i>, used to fix
+it something elegant."</p>
+
+<p>He heaved a sigh as he sat down on a nearby campstool.</p>
+
+<p>"This smells just like it," he added. In front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> of the window a
+table had been placed, spread with a spotless white cloth and
+laid for two persons, and Scharley glanced at it hastily and
+turned his head away.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty years ago come next <i>Shevuos</i> I ain't tasted it already,"
+he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lesengeld coloured slightly and clutched at her apron in an
+agony of embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is we only got three knives and forks," she said,
+"otherwise there is plenty fish for everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we just had our lunch at the hotel before we started," Mr.
+Williams said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> did," Scharley corrected him reproachfully, "<i>aber</i> I
+ain't hardly touched a thing since last night. That shaving-dish
+party pretty near killed me, already."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, we got just enough knives and forks," Mrs. Lesengeld
+cried. "Do you like maybe also <i>Bortch</i>, Mr. Scharley?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bortch!</i>" Mr. Scharley exclaimed, and his voice trembled with
+excitement. "Do you mean a sort of soup <i>mit</i> beets and&mdash;and&mdash;all
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it," Mrs. Lesengeld replied, and Scharley nodded his head
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, "would you believe me, it's so long
+since I tasted that stuff I didn't remember such a thing exists
+even."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you like it?" Mrs. Lesengeld repeated.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>"Do I <i>like</i> it!" Scharley cried. "<i>Um Gottes Willen</i>, Mrs.
+Lesengeld, I <i>love</i> it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then sit right down," she said heartily. "Everything is ready."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind, Mr. Scharley," Williams interrupted, "I'll
+wait for you at the office of the company. It's only a couple of
+hundred yards down the beach."</p>
+
+<p>"Go as far as you like, Mr. Williams," Scharley said as he tucked
+a napkin between his collar and chin. "I'll be there when I get
+through."</p>
+
+<p>After Mrs. Lesengeld had ushered out Mr. Williams, she proceeded
+to the door of the rear room and knocked vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be foolish, Yetta, and come on out," she called. "It ain't
+nobody but an old friend of my husband's."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later Yetta entered the room, and Scharley scrambled to
+his feet, a knife grasped firmly in one hand, and bobbed his head
+cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"Pleased to meetcher," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mrs. Lubliner, Mr. Scharley," Mrs. Lesengeld said.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make no difference, Mrs. Lesengeld," Scharley assured her,
+"any friend of yours is a friend of mine, so you should sit right
+down, Mrs. Lubliner, on account we are all ready to begin."</p>
+
+<p>Then followed a moment of breathless silence while Mrs. Lesengeld
+dished up the beetroot soup,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> and when she placed a steaming
+bowlful in front of Scharley he immediately plunged his spoon
+into it. A moment later he lifted his eyes to the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What an elegant soup!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lesengeld blushed, and after the fashion of a <i>cordon bleu</i>
+the world over, she began to decry her own handiwork.</p>
+
+<p>"It should ought to got just a <i>Bisschen</i> more pepper into it,"
+she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oser a St&uuml;ck</i>," Scharley declared solemnly, as he consumed the
+contents of his bowl in great gurgling inhalations. "There's only
+one thing I got to say against it."</p>
+
+<p>He scraped his bowl clean and handed it to Mrs. Lesengeld.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is," he concluded, "that it makes me eat so much of it,
+understand me, I'm scared I wouldn't got no room for the brown
+stewed fish."</p>
+
+<p>Again he emptied the bowl, and at last the moment arrived when
+the brown stewed fish smoked upon the table. Mrs. Lesengeld
+helped Scharley to a heaping plateful, and both she and Yetta
+watched him intently, as with the deftness of a Japanese juggler
+he balanced approximately a half pound of the succulent fish on
+the end of his fork. For nearly a minute he blew on it, and when
+it reached an edible temperature he opened wide his mouth and
+thrust the fork load home. Slowly and with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> great smacking of his
+moist lips he chewed away, and then his eyes closed and he laid
+down his knife and fork.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Gan-&eacute;den!</i>" he declared as he reached across the table and
+shook hands with Mrs. Lesengeld.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, "my mother <i>olav hasholom</i> was a good
+<i>cook</i>, understand me, <i>aber</i> you are a <i>good cook</i>, Mrs.
+Lesengeld, and that's all there is to it."</p>
+
+<p>Forthwith he resumed his knife and fork, and with only two pauses
+for the necessary replenishments, he polished off three platefuls
+of the fish, after which he heaved a great sigh of contentment,
+and as a prelude to conversation he lit one of B. Gans' choicest
+cigars.</p>
+
+<p>"There's some dessert coming," Mrs. Lesengeld said.</p>
+
+<p>"Dessert after this, Mrs. Lesengeld," he replied, through clouds
+of contented smoke, "would be a sacrilege, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's something I couldn't make at all," Mrs. Lesengeld
+admitted. "All I got it here is some <i>frimsel kugel</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Frimsel kugel!</i>" Scharley exclaimed, laying down his cigar.
+"Why ain't you told me that before?"</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later he again lighted his cigar, and this
+time he settled back in his campstool for conversation, while
+Mrs. Lesengeld busied herself about the oil stove. Instantly,
+however, he straight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>ened up as another and more delicious odour
+assailed his nostrils, for Mrs. Lesengeld made coffee by a
+mysterious process, that conserved in the flavour of the
+decoction the delicious fragrance of the freshly ground bean.</p>
+
+<p>"And are you staying down here with Mrs. Lesengeld?" Scharley
+asked Yetta after he had finished his third cup.</p>
+
+<p>"In this little place here?" Mrs. Lesengeld cried indignantly.
+"Well, I should say not. She's stopping at the Salisbury, ain't
+you, Yetta?"</p>
+
+<p>Yetta nodded and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't so comfortable as here," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet yer," Scharley added fervently. "I am stopping there too,
+and them Chinese Lantern Dinners which they are putting up!"</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand eloquently.</p>
+
+<p>"Poison ain't no word for it, Missus Er&mdash;&mdash;" he concluded lamely
+as he tried to remember Yetta's name, which after so much soup,
+fish and coffee had completely escaped him.</p>
+
+<p>"Lubliner," Yetta said. "I guess you know my husband, Mr.
+Scharley, Elkan Lubliner of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &amp; Company."</p>
+
+<p>Scharley struck the table with his open hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Zoitenly, I do," he cried. "Why, he is the feller which Sol
+Klinger is telling me about."</p>
+
+<p>Yetta coloured slightly and bit her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"What did he tell you about him?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>"Why," Scharley said, drawing vigorously on his imagination, "he
+says to me what a bright young feller he is and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here he reflected that in a highly competitive trade like the
+cloak and suit business this statement sounded a trifle
+exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>"And," he went on hurriedly, "he told me how he saw you and him
+with Mrs. Lesengeld up at the hotel the other evening, and I
+says, 'What,' I says, 'you don't mean Mrs. Lesengeld whose
+husband used to was in the pants business?' and he said he didn't
+know, 'because,' I says, 'if that's the same party,' I says, 'I
+would like for her to come up to the hotel and take dinner with
+me some time,' I says."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled cordially at Mrs. Lesengeld.</p>
+
+<p>"And I hope you will," he concluded earnestly, "to-morrow night
+sure."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lesengeld shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't fixed to go to no swell hotel," she demurred. "I ain't
+got no clothes nor nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you care about clothes, Mrs. Lesengeld?" Scharley
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>"And besides," Yetta said with sudden inspiration, "we could get
+up a little chafing-dish dinner in our room, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"For that matter we could do it in my room," Scharley cried, as
+there sounded a vigorous knocking on the outside of the door
+leading to the veranda, and a moment later Williams entered.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>"Excuse me, Mr. Scharley," he said, "but I have to be getting
+back to the hotel and if you're quite through we'll go and look
+at that map of the lots down in the office."</p>
+
+<p>Scharley waved his hand airily.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Mr. Williams," he said, "and drink the cup of coffee
+of your life."</p>
+
+<p>He handed the room clerk a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"I could promise you one thing, Mr. Williams," he went on, "I got
+a great idee of buying some lots here and building a little house
+on 'em, <i>gem&uuml;tlich</i> just like this, and if I do, Williams, I
+would take them lots from you for certain sure. Only one thing,
+Williams, I want you to do me for a favour."</p>
+
+<p>He paused and puffed carefully on his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to pick me out a couple good vacant rooms on the top
+floor of the Salisbury for Saturday night," he said, "where I
+could give a shaving-dish party, so if any of the guests of the
+hotel objects, understand me, they wouldn't get the smell of the
+<i>Bortch</i>, coffee, and brown stewed fish sweet and sour."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>On the following Wednesday afternoon Elkan sat at his desk, while
+Marcus Polatkin and Philip Scheikowitz leaned over his left
+shoulder and right shoulder respectively, and watched carefully
+the result of a pencilled addition which Elkan was making.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>"With them cr&ecirc;pe meteors," Elkan said at last, "Scharley's order
+comes to four thousand three hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in unison.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't bad for a start," Scheikowitz volunteered as he sat
+down and lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"For a finish, neither," Polatkin added, "so far as that's
+concerned."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan wheeled round in his chair and grinned delightedly.</p>
+
+<p>"And you ought to seen Sol Klinger when we walked into the
+Hanging Gardens," he said. "He got white like a sheet. It tickled
+Scharley to death, and he went right to work and put his arm
+through Mrs. Lesengeld's arm and took her right down to the
+middle table, like she would be a queen already."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," Scheikowitz agreed, "what does a real merchant like
+Scharley care if she would wear a <i>sheitel oder</i> not, so long as
+she is a lady already."</p>
+
+<p>Elkan's grin spread until it threatened to engulf his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't wear no <i>sheitel</i>," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" Scheikowitz cried. "I didn't think a religious woman like
+Mrs. Lesengeld would take off her <i>sheitel</i> at <i>her</i> time of
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean <i>her</i> time of life?" Elkan cried indignantly.
+"Friday afternoon yet before Yetta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> went home from her place
+there at Bognor Park, Mrs. Lesengeld says to her that a widder
+don't got to wear no <i>sheitel</i> if she don't want to, which if you
+think, Mr. Scheikowitz, that fifty-three is a time of life,
+understand me, I think differencely, especially when I seen her
+with her hair all fixed up on Saturday night."</p>
+
+<p>"Who fixed it?" Marcus Polatkin asked, and Elkan grinned again.</p>
+
+<p>"Who d'ye suppose?" he replied. "Why, her and Yetta spent pretty
+near an hour up in our room before they got through, and I tell
+yer with the way they turned up the hem and fixed the sleeves of
+one of Yetta's black dresses, it fitted her like it would be made
+for her."</p>
+
+<p>"And did she look good in it?" Scheikowitz inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Did she look good in it!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, you can just
+bet your life, Mr. Polatkin, that there Hortense Feldman wasn't
+one, two, six with her. In fact, Mr. Polatkin, you would take
+your oath already that there wasn't two years between 'em. I had
+a good chance to compare 'em on account when we went down to the
+Hanging Gardens, understand me, Miss Feldman sits at the next
+table already."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin smiled broadly.</p>
+
+<p>"She must have had a big <i>Schreck</i>," he commented. "Why, B. Gans
+told me last Saturday<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> that Henry D. Feldman thinks that he's
+going to fix the whole thing up between her and Scharley."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he ain't got that idee no longer," Elkan declared,
+"because everybody in Egremont knows Scharley was down visiting
+Mrs. Lesengeld over Sunday, and takes her and her daughter Fannie
+and Fannie's husband out oitermobiling."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me?" Scheikowitz exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore, on Monday," Elkan continued, "he goes down there to
+dinner with me and Yetta, and Mrs. Lesengeld cooks some
+<i>Tebeches</i> which fairly melts in your mouth already."</p>
+
+<p>He smacked his lips over the recollection.</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday, as you know," he went on, "I took Scharley and Mrs.
+Lesengeld over to Coney Island in an oitermobile and to-night yet
+we are all going sailing on Egremont Bay."</p>
+
+<p>Polatkin rose to his feet and shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "why not? They're about the same age."</p>
+
+<p>"He's two years older as she is," Elkan declared, "and I bet yer
+they wouldn't lose no time. It'll be next fall sure."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>One busy morning three months later Elkan ripped open a heavy
+cream-laid envelope and drew out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> the following announcement,
+engraved in shaded old English type:</p>
+
+<div class="cardnobdr">
+<span class="size75">Mrs. Fannie Stubin<br />
+has the honor of announcing the marriage<br />
+of her mother</span>
+<br />
+<br />
+Mrs. Sarah Lesengeld<br />
+<span class="size75">to</span><br />
+Mr. Jacob Scharley<br />
+<br />
+<span class="size75">On Tuesday the first of October<br />
+at San Francisco, California</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"And what are we going to send them for a present?" Polatkin
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Elkan smiled serenely.</p>
+
+<p>"A solid silver chafing dish," he replied without hesitation, "at
+the very least, big enough to hold five pounds of brown stewed
+fish sweet and sour."</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="size75"><br /><br />THE END</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 115px">
+<img src="images/printermark.jpg" width="115" height="105" alt="Printer's Mark" title="Printer's Mark" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="center">
+<span class="smcap">The Country Life Press</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Garden City, N. Y.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3>
+
+<p>The 1912 edition of this text contains numerous words and phrases
+with variant spellings. For the most part these variations have
+been retained to maintain the flavor of the original text, and
+only obvious spelling and puncuation errors have been corrected,
+as detailed below. A few changes have also been made with
+formatting of punctuation for text consistency.</p>
+
+<p>The name of character Kent J. Goldenfein, who is introduced on
+pages 142-145, changes on page 210 to Kent J. "Goldstein" and
+subsequently remains "Goldstein" for the remainder of the story.
+This inconsistency has been retained to match the 1912 text.</p>
+
+<p><br />Typographical Corrections:</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_4">Page 4</a>. Added close-quotes. ("... Yosel to come to America.")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_10">Page 10</a>. Removed close-quotes. (threshold of the cutting room.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_14">Page 14</a>. Changed question mark to comma. ("He is in Minsk," said
+young Borrochson.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_27">Page 27</a>. Changed "de,manded" to "demanded". (Philip demanded.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_27">Page 27</a>. Changed "jerred" to "jeered". (Philip jeered.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_37">Page 37</a>. Removed close-quotes. (Polatkin rose to his feet.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_50">Page 50</a>. Added period. (the tops of her powdered cheeks.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_64">Page 64</a>. Changed "Scheikowizt" to "Scheikowitz". (Scheikowitz
+protested.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_87">Page 87</a>. Changed "Sheikowitz" to "Scheikowitz". ("... Mr.
+Scheikowitz, so sure as I am sitting here....")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_91">Page 91</a>. Added open-quotes. ("I suppose, Elkan, you are
+wondering....")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_92">Page 92</a>. Changed "Poltakin" to "Polatkin". ("... Flixman's store?"
+Polatkin asked.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_97">Page 97</a>. Changed "Mr" to "Mr." ("... right buying idee, Mr.
+Kapfer....")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_152">Page 152</a>. Removed close-quotes. (begun at dinner that evening.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_153">Page 153</a>. Added close-quotes. ("... oder Schwefel &amp; Zucker.")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_153">Page 153</a>. Changed "Kolbin's" to "Koblin's". (Max Koblin's house)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_182">Page 182</a>. Removed end-quotes. (to make further inquiries.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_199">Page 199</a>. Added close-quotes. ("What time do you eat dinner?")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_225">Page 225</a>. Changed "tansactions" to "transactions". (all
+real-estate transactions involving)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_241">Page 241</a>. Added close-quotes. ("... the other fellow's case.")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_263">Page 263</a>. Added period. ("... makes up his mind yet.")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_279">Page 279</a>. Added period. (his high, piping voice.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_281">Page 281</a>. Added comma. ("If we didn't," he continued....)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_294">Page 294</a>. Added close-quotes. ("... for a couple of months.")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_295">Page 295</a>. Changed "deprecatio" to "deprecation." (gesture of
+deprecation.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_312">Page 312</a>. Corrected open-quotes. ("Brown stewed fish....")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_317">Page 317</a>. Added close-quotes. ("... Scheikowitz &amp; Company.")</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_320">Page 320</a>. Added close-quotes. ("... three hundred dollars.")</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Elkan Lubliner, American, by Montague Glass
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,9794 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Elkan Lubliner, American, by Montague Glass
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Elkan Lubliner, American
+
+Author: Montague Glass
+
+Release Date: December 5, 2008 [EBook #27423]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by C. St. Charleskindt, Suzanne Shell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN
+
+
+
+
+ELKAN LUBLINER,
+AMERICAN
+
+BY MONTAGUE GLASS
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"Potash & Perlmutter," "Abe & Mawruss,"
+"Object: Matrimony," etc.
+
+[Illustration: Frucus Quam Folia]
+
+GARDEN CITY    NEW YORK
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+1912
+
+
+
+
+_Copyright, 1911, 1912, by_
+THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+_Copyright, 1912, by_
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
+_All rights reserved, including that of
+translation into foreign languages,
+including the Scandinavian_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                PAGE
+
+Noblesse Oblige                    3
+
+Appenweier's Account              33
+
+A Match for Elkan Lubliner        81
+
+Highgrade Lines                  147
+
+One of Esau's Fables             196
+
+A Tale of Two Jacobean Chairs    250
+
+Sweet and Sour                   288
+
+
+
+
+ELKAN LUBLINER, AMERICAN
+
+
+
+
+ELKAN LUBLINER
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+NOBLESSE OBLIGE
+
+POLATKIN & SCHEIKOWITZ CONSERVE THE HONOUR OF THEIR FAMILIES
+
+
+"Nu, Philip," cried Marcus Polatkin to his partner, Philip Scheikowitz,
+as they sat in the showroom of their place of business one June morning,
+"even if the letter does got bad news in it you shouldn't take on so
+hard. When a feller is making good over here and the _Leute im Russland_
+hears about it, understand me, they are all the time sending him bad
+news. I got in Minsk a cousin by the name Pincus Lubliner, understand
+me, which every time he writes me, y'understand, a relation dies on him
+and he wants me I should help pay funeral expenses. You might think I
+was a Free Burial Society, the way that feller acts."
+
+"Sure, I know," Philip replied as he folded the letter away; "but this
+here is something else again. Mind you, with his own landlord he is
+sitting playing cards, Marcus, and comes a pistol through the window
+and the landlord drops dead."
+
+"What have you got to do with the landlord?" Polatkin retorted. "If it
+was your brother-in-law was killed that's a difference matter entirely;
+but when a feller is a landlord _im Russland_, understand me, the least
+he could expect is that he gets killed once in a while."
+
+"I ain't saying nothing about the landlord," Philip protested, "but my
+brother-in-law writes they are afraid for their lives there and I should
+send 'em quick the passage money for him and his boy Yosel to come to
+America."
+
+Polatkin rose to his feet and glared angrily at his partner.
+
+"Do you mean to told me you are going to send that loafer money he
+should come over here and bum round our shop yet?"
+
+"What do you mean bum round our shop?" Philip demanded. "In the
+first place, Polatkin, I ain't said I am going to send him money,
+y'understand; and, in the second place, if I want to send the feller
+money to come over here, understand me, that's my business. Furthermore,
+when you are coming to call my brother-in-law a loafer and a bum,
+Polatkin, you don't know what you are talking about. His _Grossvater_,
+_olav hasholem_, was the great Harkavy Rav, Jochannon Borrochson."
+
+"I heard that same tale before," Polatkin interrupted. "A feller is a
+_Schlemiel_ and a lowlife which he couldn't support his wife and
+children, understand me, and it always turns out his grandfather was a
+big rabbi in the old country. The way it is with me, Scheikowitz, just
+so soon as I am hearing a feller's grandfather was a big rabbi in the
+old country, Scheikowitz, I wouldn't got nothing more to do with him. If
+he works for you in your place, understand me, then he fools away your
+time telling the operators what a big rabbi his grandfather was; and if
+he's a customer, Scheikowitz, and you write him ten days after the
+account is overdue he should pay you what he owes you, instead he sends
+you a check, understand me, he comes down to the store and tells you
+what a big rabbi he's got it for a grandfather. _Gott sei Dank_ I ain't
+got no _Rabonim_ in my family."
+
+"Sure, I know," Philip cried, "your father would be glad supposing he
+could sign his name even."
+
+Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It would _oser_ worry me if my whole family couldn't read or write. So
+long as I can sign my name and the money is in the bank to make the
+check good from five to ten thousand dollars, y'understand, what do I
+care if my grandfather would be deef, dumb and blind, Scheikowitz?
+Furthermore, Scheikowitz, believe me I would sooner got one good live
+business man for a partner, Scheikowitz, than a million dead rabbis for
+a grandfather, and don't you forget it. So if you are going to spend
+the whole morning making a _Geschreierei_ over that letter, Scheikowitz,
+we may as well close up the store _und fertig_."
+
+With this ultimatum Marcus Polatkin walked rapidly away toward the
+cutting room, while Philip Scheikowitz sought the foreman of their
+manufacturing department and borrowed a copy of a morning paper. It was
+printed in the vernacular of the lower East Side, and Philip bore it to
+his desk, where for more than half an hour he alternately consulted the
+column of steamboat advertising and made figures on the back of an
+envelope. These represented the cost of a journey for two persons from
+Minsk to New York, based on Philip's hazy recollection of his own
+emigration, fifteen years before, combined with his experience as
+travelling salesman in the Southern States for a popular-price line of
+pants.
+
+At length he concluded his calculations and with a heavy sigh he put on
+his hat just as his partner returned from the cutting room.
+
+"Nu!" Polatkin cried. "Where are you going now?"
+
+"I am going for a half an hour somewheres," Philip replied.
+
+"What for?" Polatkin demanded.
+
+"What for is my business," Philip answered.
+
+"Your business?" Polatkin exclaimed. "At nine o'clock in the morning
+one partner puts on his hat and starts to go out, _verstehst du_, and
+when the other partner asks him where he is going it's his business,
+_sagt er_! What do you come down here at all for, Scheikowitz?"
+
+"I am coming down here because I got such a partner, Polatkin, which if
+I was to miss one day even I wouldn't know where I stand at all,"
+Scheikowitz retorted. "Furthermore, you shouldn't worry yourself,
+Polatkin; for my own sake I would come back just so soon as I could."
+
+Despite the offensive repartee that accompanied Philip's departure,
+however, he returned to find Polatkin entirely restored to good humour
+by a thousand-dollar order that had arrived in the ten-o'clock mail; and
+as Philip himself felt the glow of conscious virtue attendant upon a
+good deed economically performed, he immediately fell into friendly
+conversation with his partner.
+
+"Well, Marcus," he said, "I sent 'em the passage tickets, and if you
+ain't agreeable that Borrochson comes to work here I could easy find him
+a job somewheres else."
+
+"If we got an opening here, Philip, what is it skin off my face if the
+feller comes to work here," Polatkin answered, "so long as he gets the
+same pay like somebody else?"
+
+"What could I do, Marcus?" Philip rejoined, as he took off his hat and
+coat preparatory to plunging into the assortment of a pile of samples.
+"My own flesh and blood I must got to look out for, ain't it? And if my
+sister Leah, _olav hasholem_, would be alive to-day I would of got 'em
+all over here long since ago already. Ain't I am right?"
+
+Polatkin shrugged. "In family matters one partner couldn't advise the
+other at all," he said.
+
+"Sure, I know," Philip concluded, "but when a feller has got such a
+partner which he is a smart, up-to-date feller and means good by his
+partner, understand me, then I got a right to take an advice from him
+about family matters, ain't it?"
+
+And with these honeyed words the subject of the Borrochson family's
+assisted emigration was dismissed until the arrival of another letter
+from Minsk some four weeks later.
+
+"Well, Marcus," Philip cried after he had read it, "he'll be here
+Saturday."
+
+"Who'll be here Saturday?" Polatkin asked.
+
+"Borrochson," Philip replied; "and the boy comes with him."
+
+Polatkin raised his eyebrows.
+
+"I'll tell you the honest truth, Philip," he said--"I'm surprised to
+hear it."
+
+"What d'ye mean you're surprised to hear it?" Philip asked. "Ain't I am
+sending him the passage tickets?"
+
+"Sure, I know you are sending him the tickets," Polatkin continued, "but
+everybody says the same, Philip, and that's why I am telling you,
+Philip, I'm surprised to hear he is coming; because from what everybody
+is telling me it's a miracle the feller ain't sold the tickets and
+gambled away the money."
+
+"What are you talking nonsense, selling the tickets!" Philip cried
+indignantly. "The feller is a decent, respectable feller even if he
+would be a poor man."
+
+"He ain't so poor," Polatkin retorted. "A thief need never got to be
+poor, Scheikowitz."
+
+"A thief!" Philip exclaimed.
+
+"That's what I said," Polatkin went on, "and a smart thief too,
+Scheikowitz. Gifkin says he could steal the buttons from a policeman's
+pants and pass 'em off for real money, understand me, and they couldn't
+catch him anyhow."
+
+"Gifkin?" Philip replied.
+
+"Meyer Gifkin which he is working for us now two years, Scheikowitz, and
+a decent, respectable feller," Polatkin said relentlessly. "If Gifkin
+tells you something you could rely on it, Scheikowitz, and he is telling
+me he lives in Minsk one house by the other with this feller Borrochson,
+and such a lowlife gambler bum as this here feller Borrochson is you
+wouldn't believe at all."
+
+"Meyer Gifkin says that?" Philip gasped.
+
+"So sure as he is working here as assistant cutter," Polatkin continued.
+"And if you think that this here feller Borrochson comes to work in our
+place, Scheikowitz, you've got another think coming, and that's all I
+got to say."
+
+But Philip had not waited to hear the conclusion of his partner's
+ultimatum, and by the time Polatkin had finished Philip was at the
+threshold of the cutting room.
+
+"Gifkin!" he bellowed. "I want to ask you something a question."
+
+The assistant cutter laid down his shears.
+
+"What could I do for you, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he said respectfully.
+
+"You could put on your hat and coat and get out of here before I kick
+you out," Philip replied without disclosing the nature of his abandoned
+question. "And, furthermore, if my brother-in-law Borrochson is such a
+lowlife bum which you say he is, when he is coming here Saturday he
+would pretty near kill you, because, Gifkin, a lowlife gambler and a
+thief could easily be a murderer too. _Aber_ if he ain't a such thief
+and gambler which you say he is, then I would make you arrested."
+
+"Me arrested?" Gifkin cried. "What for?"
+
+"Because for calling some one a thief which he ain't one you could sit
+in prison," Scheikowitz concluded. "So you should get right out of here
+before I am sending for a policeman."
+
+"But, Mr. Scheikowitz," Gifkin protested, "who did I told it your
+brother-in-law is a thief and a gambler?"
+
+"You know very well who you told it," Scheikowitz retorted. "You told it
+my partner, Gifkin. That's who you told it."
+
+"But I says to him he shouldn't tell nobody," Gifkin continued. "Is it
+my fault your partner is such a _Klatsch_? And, anyhow, Mr. Scheikowitz,
+supposing I did say your brother-in-law is a gambler and a thief, I know
+what I'm talking about; and, furthermore, if I got to work in a place
+where I couldn't open my mouth at all, Mr. Scheikowitz, I don't want to
+work there, and that's all there is to it."
+
+He assumed his hat and coat in so dignified a manner that for the moment
+Scheikowitz felt as though he were losing an old and valued employee,
+and this impression was subsequently heightened by Polatkin's behaviour
+when he heard of Gifkin's departure. Indeed a casual observer might have
+supposed that Polatkin's wife, mother, and ten children had all perished
+in a common disaster and that the messenger had been indiscreet in
+breaking the news, for during a period of almost half an hour Polatkin
+rocked and swayed in his chair and beat his forehead with his clenched
+fist.
+
+"You are shedding my blood," he moaned to Scheikowitz.
+
+"What the devil you are talking nonsense!" Scheikowitz declared. "The
+way you are acting you would think we are paying the feller five
+thousand dollars a year instead of fifteen dollars a week."
+
+"It ain't what a feller makes from you, Scheikowitz; it's what you make
+from him what counts," he wailed. "Gifkin was really worth to us a year
+five thousand dollars."
+
+"Five thousand buttons!" Scheikowitz cried. "You are making a big fuss
+about nothing at all."
+
+But when the next day Polatkin and Scheikowitz heard that Gifkin had
+found employment with their closest competitors Philip began to regret
+the haste with which he had discharged his assistant cutter, and he bore
+his partner's upbraidings in chastened silence. Thus by Friday afternoon
+Polatkin had exhausted his indignation.
+
+"Well, Philip," he said as closing-time approached, "it ain't no use
+crying over sour milk. What time does the boat arrive?"
+
+"To-night," Philip replied, "and the passengers comes off the island
+to-morrow. Why did you ask?"
+
+"Because," Marcus said with the suspicion of a blush, "Saturday ain't
+such a busy day and I was thinking I would go over with you. Might I
+could help you out."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Philip's trip with his partner to Ellis Island the following morning
+tried his temper to the point where he could barely refrain from
+inquiring if the expected immigrant were his relation or Polatkin's,
+for during the entire journey Marcus busied himself making plans for the
+Borrochsons' future.
+
+"The first thing you got to look out for with a greenhorn, Philip," he
+said, "is that you learn 'em good the English language. If a feller
+couldn't talk he couldn't do nothing, understand me, so with the young
+feller especially you shouldn't give him no encouragement to keep on
+talking _Manerloschen_." Philip nodded politely.
+
+"Look at me for instance," Marcus continued; "six months after I landed,
+Philip, I am speaking English already just so good as a doctor or a
+lawyer. And how did I done it? To night school I am going only that they
+should learn me to write, _verstehst du_, _aber_ right at the start old
+man Feinrubin takes me in hand and he talks to me only in English. And
+if I am understanding him, _schon gut_; and if I don't understand him
+then he gives me a _potch_ on the side of the head, Philip, which the
+next time he says it I could understand him good. And that's the way you
+should do with the young feller, Philip. I bet yer he would a damsight
+sooner learn English as get a _Schlag_ every ten minutes."
+
+Again Philip nodded, and by the time they had arrived at the enclosure
+for the relations of immigrants he had become so accustomed to the hum
+of Marcus' conversation that he refrained from uttering even a
+perfunctory "Uh-huh." They sat on a hard bench for more than half an
+hour, while the attendants bawled the common surnames of every country
+from Ireland to Asiatic Turkey, and at length the name Borrochson
+brought Philip to his feet. He rushed to the gateway, followed by
+Marcus, just as a stunted lad of fifteen emerged, staggering under the
+burden of a huge cloth-covered bundle.
+
+"Uncle Philip," the lad cried, dropping the bundle. Then clutching
+Marcus round the neck he showered kisses on his cheeks until Philip
+dragged him away.
+
+"I am your uncle," Philip said in _Juedisch Deutsch_. "Where is your
+father?"
+
+Without answering the question Yosel Borrochson took a stranglehold of
+Philip and subjected him to a second and more violent osculation. It was
+some minutes before Philip could disengage himself from his nephew's
+embrace and then he led him none too gently to a seat.
+
+"Never mind the kissing," he said; "where's your father?"
+
+"He is not here," Yosel Borrochson replied with a vivid blush.
+
+"I see he is not here," Philip rejoined. "Where is he?"
+
+"He is in Minsk," said young Borrochson.
+
+"In Minsk?" Philip and Marcus cried with one voice, and then Marcus sat
+down on the bench and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy of mirth.
+
+"In Minsk!" he gasped hysterically, and slapped his thighs by way of
+giving expression to his emotions. "Did you ever hear the like?"
+
+"Polatkin, do me the favour," Philip begged, "and don't make a damn fool
+of yourself."
+
+"What did I told you?" Polatkin retorted, but Philip turned to his
+nephew.
+
+"What did your father do with the ticket and the money I sent him?" he
+asked.
+
+"He sold the ticket and he used all the money for the wedding," the boy
+replied.
+
+"The wedding?" Philip exclaimed. "What wedding?"
+
+"The wedding with the widow," said the boy.
+
+"The widow?" Philip and Marcus shouted in unison. "What widow?"
+
+"The landlord's widow," the boy answered shyly.
+
+And then as there seemed nothing else to do he buried his face in his
+hands and wept aloud.
+
+"Nu, Philip," Marcus said, sitting down beside young Borrochson, "could
+the boy help it if his father is a _Ganef_?"
+
+Philip made no reply, and presently Marcus stooped and picked up the
+bundle.
+
+"Come," he said gently, "let's go up to the store."
+
+The journey uptown was not without its unpleasant features, for the size
+of the bundle not only barred them from both subway and elevated, but
+provoked a Broadway car conductor to exhibit what Marcus considered to
+be so biased and illiberal an attitude toward unrestricted immigration
+that he barely avoided a cerebral hemorrhage in resenting it. They
+finally prevailed on the driver of a belt-line car to accept them as
+passengers, and nearly half an hour elapsed before they arrived at
+Desbrosses Street; but after a dozen conductors in turn had declined to
+honour their transfer tickets they made the rest of their journey on
+foot.
+
+Philip and young Borrochson carried the offending bundle, for Marcus
+flatly declined to assist them. Indeed with every block his enthusiasm
+waned, so that when they at length reached Wooster Street his feelings
+toward his partner's nephew had undergone a complete change.
+
+"Don't fetch that thing in here," he said as Philip and young Borrochson
+entered the showroom with the bundle; "leave it in the shop. You got no
+business to bring the young feller up here in the first place."
+
+"What do you mean bring him up here?" Philip cried. "If you wouldn't
+butt in at all I intended to take him to my sister's a cousin on Pitt
+Street."
+
+Marcus threw his hat on a sample table and sat down heavily.
+
+"That's all the gratitude I am getting!" he declared with bitter
+emphasis. "Right in the busy season I dropped everything to help you
+out, and you turn on me like this."
+
+He rose to his feet suddenly, and seizing the bundle with both hands he
+flung it violently through the doorway.
+
+"Take him to Pitt Street," he said. "Take him to the devil for all I
+care. I am through with him."
+
+But Philip conducted his nephew no farther than round the corner on
+Canal Street, and when an hour later Yosel Borrochson returned with his
+uncle his top-boots had been discarded forever, while his wrinkled,
+semi-military garb had been exchanged for a neat suit of Oxford gray.
+Moreover, both he and Philip had consumed a hearty meal of coffee and
+rolls and were accordingly prepared to take a more cheerful outlook upon
+life, especially Philip.
+
+"_Bleib du hier_," he said as he led young Borrochson to a chair in the
+cutting room. "_Ich Komm bald zurueck._"
+
+Then mindful of his partner's advice he broke into English. "Shtay
+here," he repeated in loud, staccato accents. "I would be right back.
+_Verstehst du?_"
+
+"Yess-ss," Yosel replied, uttering his first word of English.
+
+With a delighted grin Philip walked to the showroom, where Polatkin sat
+wiping away the crumbs of a belated luncheon of two dozen zwieback and a
+can of coffee.
+
+"_Nu_," he said conciliatingly, "what is it now?"
+
+"Marcus," Philip began with a nod of his head in the direction of the
+cutting room, "I want to show you something a picture."
+
+"A picture!" Polatkin repeated as he rose to his feet. "What do you mean
+a picture?"
+
+"Come," Philip said; "I'll show you."
+
+He led the way to the cutting room, where Yosel sat awaiting his uncle's
+return.
+
+"What do you think of him now?" Philip demanded. "Ain't he a
+good-looking young feller?"
+
+Marcus shrugged in a non-committal manner.
+
+"Look what a bright eye he got it," Philip insisted. "You could tell by
+looking at him only that he comes from a good family."
+
+"He looks a boy like any other boy," said Marcus.
+
+"But even if no one would told you, Marcus, you could see from his
+forehead yet--and the big head he's got it--you could see that
+somewheres is _Rabonim_ in the family."
+
+"Yow!" Marcus exclaimed. "You could just so much see from his head that
+his grandfather is a rabbi as you could see from his hands that his
+father is a crook." He turned impatiently away. "So instead you should
+be talking a lot of nonsense, Philip, you should set the boy to work
+sweeping the floor," he continued. "Also for a beginning we would start
+him in at three dollars a week, and if the boy gets worth it pretty soon
+we could give him four."
+
+In teaching his nephew the English language Philip Scheikowitz adopted
+no particular system of pedagogy, but he combined the methods of
+Ollendorf, Chardenal, Ahn and Polatkin so successfully that in a few
+days Joseph possessed a fairly extensive vocabulary. To be sure, every
+other word was acquired at the cost of a clump over the side of the
+head, but beyond a slight ringing of the left ear that persisted for
+nearly six months the Polatkin method of instruction vindicated itself,
+and by the end of the year Joseph's speech differed in no way from that
+of his employers.
+
+"Ain't it something which you really could say is wonderful the way that
+boy gets along?" Philip declared to his partner, as the first
+anniversary of Joseph's landing approached. "Honestly, Marcus, that boy
+talks English like he would be born here already."
+
+"Sure, I know," Marcus agreed. "He's got altogether too much to say for
+himself. Only this morning he tells me he wants a raise to six dollars a
+week."
+
+"Could you blame him?" Philip asked mildly. "He's doing good work here,
+Marcus."
+
+"Yow! he's doing good work!" Marcus exclaimed. "He's fresh like
+anything, Scheikowitz. If you give him the least little encouragement,
+Scheikowitz, he would stand there and talk to you all day yet."
+
+"Not to me he don't," Philip retorted. "Lots of times I am asking him
+questions about the folks in the old country and always he tells me:
+'With greenhorns like them I don't bother myself at all.' Calls his
+father a greenhorn yet!"
+
+Marcus flapped his right hand in a gesture of impatience.
+
+"He could call his father a whole lot worse," he said. "Why, that
+_Ganef_ ain't even wrote you at all since the boy comes over here. Not
+only he's a crook, Scheikowitz, but he's got a heart like a brick."
+
+Philip shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What difference does it make if he is a crook?" he rejoined. "The boy's
+all right anyway. Yes, Marcus, the boy is something which you could
+really say is a jewel."
+
+"_Geh weg!_" Marcus cried disgustedly--"a jewel!"
+
+"That's what I said," Philip continued--"a jewel. Tell me, Marcus, how
+many boys would you find it which they are getting from three to five
+dollars a week and in one year saves up a hundred dollars, y'understand,
+and comes to me only this morning and says to me I should take the money
+for what it costs to keep him while he is learning the language, and for
+buying him his clothes when he first comes here. Supposing his father is
+a crook, Marcus, am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Talk is cheap, Scheikowitz," Marcus retorted. "He only says he would
+pay you the money, Scheikowitz, ain't it?"
+
+Philip dug down into his pocket and produced a roll of ragged one and
+two dollar bills, which he flung angrily on to a sample table.
+
+"Count 'em," he said.
+
+Marcus shrugged again.
+
+"What is it my business?" he said. "And anyhow, Scheikowitz, I must say
+I'm surprised at you. A poor boy saves up a hundred dollars out of the
+little we are paying him here, and actually you are taking the money
+from him. Couldn't you afford it to spend on the boy a hundred dollars?"
+
+"Sure I could," Philip replied as he pocketed the bills. "Sure I could
+and I'm going to too. I'm going to take this here money and put it in
+the bank for the boy, with a hundred dollars to boot, Polatkin, and when
+the boy gets to be twenty-one he would anyhow got in savings bank a
+couple hundred dollars."
+
+Polatkin nodded shamefacedly.
+
+"Furthermore, Polatkin," Philip continued, "if you got such a regard for
+the boy which you say you got it, understand me, I would like to make
+you a proposition. Ever since Gifkin leaves us, y'understand, we got in
+our cutting room one _Schlemiel_ after another. Ain't it? Only yesterday
+we got to fire that young feller we took on last week, understand me,
+and if we get somebody else in his place to-day, Polatkin, the chances
+is we would get rid of him to-morrow, and so it goes."
+
+Again Polatkin nodded.
+
+"So, therefore, what is the use talking, Polatkin?" Philip concluded.
+"Let us take Joe Borrochson and learn him he should be a cutter, and in
+six months' time, Polatkin, I bet yer he would be just so good a cutter
+as anybody."
+
+At this juncture Polatkin raised his hand with the palm outward.
+
+"Stop right there, Scheikowitz," he said. "You are making a fool of
+yourself, Scheikowitz, because, Scheikowitz, admitting for the sake of
+no arguments about it that the boy is a good boy, understand me, after
+all he's only a boy, ain't it, and if you are coming to make a
+sixteen-year-old boy an assistant cutter, y'understand, the least that
+we could expect is that our customers fires half our goods back at us."
+
+"But----" Scheikowitz began.
+
+"But, nothing, Scheikowitz," Polatkin interrupted. "This morning I seen
+it Meyer Gifkin on Canal Street and he ain't working for them suckers no
+more; and I says to him is he willing to come back here at the same
+wages, and he says yes, providing you would see that this here feller
+Borrochson wouldn't pretty near kill him."
+
+"What do you mean pretty near kill him?" Scheikowitz cried. "Do you mean
+to say he is afraid of a boy like Joe Borrochson?"
+
+"Not Joe Borrochson," Polatkin replied. "He is all the time thinking
+that your brother-in-law Borrochson comes over here with his boy and is
+working in our place yet, and when I told him that that crook didn't
+come over at all Meyer says that's the first he hears about it or he
+would have asked for his job back long since already. So he says he
+would come in here to see us this afternoon."
+
+"But----" Scheikowitz began again.
+
+"Furthermore," Polatkin continued hastily, "if I would got a nephew in
+my place, Scheikowitz, I would a damsight sooner he stays working on the
+stock till he knows enough to sell goods on the road as that he learns
+to be a cutter. Ain't it?"
+
+Scheikowitz sighed heavily by way of surrender.
+
+"All right, Polatkin," he said; "if you're so dead set on taking this
+here feller Gifkin back go ahead. But one thing I must got to tell you:
+If you are taking a feller back which you fired once, understand me, he
+acts so independent you couldn't do nothing with him at all."
+
+"Leave that to me," Polatkin said, as he started for the cutting room,
+and when Scheikowitz followed him he found that Gifkin had already
+arrived.
+
+"_Wie gehts_, Mister Scheikowitz?" Gifkin cried, and Philip received the
+salutation with a distant nod.
+
+"I hope you don't hold no hard feelings for me," Gifkin began.
+
+"Me hold hard feelings for you?" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "I guess you
+forget yourself, Gifkin. A boss don't hold no hard feelings for a feller
+which is working in the place, Gifkin; otherwise the feller gets fired
+and stays fired, Gifkin."
+
+At this juncture Polatkin in the role of peacemaker created a diversion.
+
+"Joe," he called to young Borrochson, who was passing the cutting-room
+door, "come in here a minute."
+
+He turned to Gifkin as Joe entered.
+
+"I guess you seen this young feller before?" he said.
+
+Gifkin looked hard at Joe for a minute.
+
+"I think I seen him before somewheres," he replied.
+
+"Sure you seen him before," Polatkin rejoined. "His name is Borrochson."
+
+"Borrochson!" Gifkin cried, and Joe, whose colour had heightened at the
+close scrutiny to which he had been subjected, began to grow pale.
+
+"Sure, Yosel Borrochson, the son of your old neighbour," Polatkin
+explained, but Gifkin shook his head slowly.
+
+"That ain't Yosel Borrochson," he declared, and then it was that
+Polatkin and Scheikowitz first noticed Joe's embarrassment. Indeed even
+as they gazed at him his features worked convulsively once or twice and
+he dropped unconscious to the floor.
+
+In the scene of excitement that ensued Gifkin's avowed discovery was
+temporarily forgotten, but when Joe was again restored to consciousness
+Polatkin drew Gifkin aside and requested an explanation.
+
+"What do you mean the boy ain't Yosel Borrochson?" he demanded.
+
+"I mean the boy ain't Yosel Borrochson," Gifkin replied deliberately. "I
+know this here boy, Mr. Polatkin, and, furthermore, Borrochson's boy is
+got one bum eye, which he gets hit with a stone in it when he was only
+four years old already. Don't I know it, Mr. Polatkin, when with my own
+eyes I seen this here boy throw the stone yet?"
+
+"Well, then, who is this boy?" Marcus Polatkin insisted.
+
+"He's a boy by the name Lubliner," Gifkin replied, "which his father was
+Pincus Lubliner, also a crook, Mr. Polatkin, which he would steal
+anything from a toothpick to an oitermobile, understand me."
+
+"Pincus Lubliner!" Polatkin repeated hoarsely.
+
+"That's who I said," Gifkin continued, rushing headlong to his
+destruction. "Pincus Lubliner, which honestly, Mr. Polatkin, there's
+nothing that feller wouldn't do--a regular _Rosher_ if ever there was
+one."
+
+For one brief moment Polatkin's eyes flashed angrily, and then with a
+resounding smack his open hand struck Gifkin's cheek.
+
+"Liar!" he shouted. "What do you mean by it?"
+
+Scheikowitz, who had been tenderly bathing Joe Borrochson's head with
+water, rushed forward at the sound of the blow.
+
+"Marcus," he cried, "for Heaven's sake, what are you doing? You
+shouldn't kill the feller just because he makes a mistake and thinks the
+boy ain't Joe Borrochson."
+
+"He makes too many mistakes," Polatkin roared. "Calls Pincus Lubliner a
+crook and a murderer yet, which his mother was my own father's a sister.
+Did you ever hear the like?"
+
+He made a threatening gesture toward Gifkin, who cowered in a chair.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Marcus," Scheikowitz asked, "what has Pincus Lubliner
+got to do with this?"
+
+"He's got a whole lot to do with it," Marcus replied, and then his eyes
+rested on Joe Borrochson, who had again lapsed into unconsciousness.
+
+"Oo-ee!" Marcus cried. "The poor boy is dead."
+
+He swept Philip aside and ran to the water-cooler, whence he returned
+with the drip-bucket brimming over. This he emptied on Joe Borrochson's
+recumbent form, and after a quarter of an hour the recovery was
+permanent. In the meantime Philip had interviewed Meyer Gifkin to such
+good purpose that when he entered the firm's office with Meyer Gifkin at
+his heels he was fairly spluttering with rage.
+
+"Thief!" he yelled. "Out of here before I make you arrested."
+
+"Who the devil you think you are talking to?" Marcus demanded.
+
+"I am talking to Joseph Borrochson," Scheikowitz replied. "That's who
+I'm talking to."
+
+"Well, there ain't no such person here," Polatkin retorted. "There's
+here only a young fellow by the name Elkan Lubliner, which he is my own
+father's sister a grandson, and he ain't no more a thief as you are."
+
+"Ain't he?" Philip retorted. "Well, all I can say is he is a thief and
+his whole family is thieves, the one worser as the other."
+
+Marcus glowered at his partner.
+
+"You should be careful what you are speaking about," he said. "Maybe you
+ain't aware that this here boy's grandfather on his father's side was
+_Reb_ Mosha, the big _Lubliner Rav_, a _Chosid_ and a _Tzadek_ if ever
+there was one."
+
+"What difference does that make?" Philip demanded. "He is stealing my
+brother-in-law's passage ticket anyhow."
+
+"I didn't steal it," the former Joseph Borrochson cried. "My father paid
+him good money for it, because Borrochson says he wanted it to marry the
+widow with; and you also I am paying a hundred dollars."
+
+"Yow! Your father paid him good money for it!" Philip jeered. "A _Ganef_
+like your father is stealing the money, too, I bet yer."
+
+"_Oser a Stueck_," Polatkin declared. "I am sending him the money myself
+to help bury his aunt, Mrs. Lebowitz."
+
+"You sent him the money?" Philip cried. "And your own partner you didn't
+tell nothing about it at all!"
+
+"What is it your business supposing I am sending money to the old
+country?" Marcus retorted. "Do you ask me an advice when you are sending
+away money to the old country?"
+
+"But the feller didn't bury his aunt at all," Philip said.
+
+"Yes, he did too," the former Joseph Borrochson protested. "Instead of a
+hundred dollars the funeral only costs fifty. Anybody could make an
+overestimate. Ain't it?"
+
+Marcus nodded.
+
+"The boy is right, Philip," he said, "and anyhow what does this loafer
+come butting in here for?"
+
+As he spoke he indicated Meyer Gifkin with a jerk of the chin.
+
+"He ain't butting in here," Philip declared; "he comes in here because I
+told him to. I want you should make an end of this nonsense, Polatkin,
+and hire a decent assistant cutter. Gifkin is willing to come back for
+twenty dollars a week."
+
+"He is, is he?" Marcus cried. "Well, if he was willing to come back for
+twenty dollars a week why didn't he come back before? Now it's too
+late; I got other plans. Besides, twenty dollars is too much."
+
+"You know very well why I ain't come back before, Mr. Polatkin," Gifkin
+protested. "I was afraid for my life from that murderer Borrochson."
+
+Philip scowled suddenly.
+
+"My partner is right, Gifkin," he said. "Twenty dollars is too much."
+
+"No, it ain't," Gifkin declared. "If I would be still working for you,
+Mr. Scheikowitz, I would be getting more as twenty dollars by now. And
+was it my fault you are firing me? By rights I should have sued you in
+the courts yet."
+
+"What d'ye mean sue us in the courts?" Philip exclaimed. He was growing
+increasingly angry, but Gifkin heeded no warning.
+
+"Because you are firing me just for saying a crook is a crook," Gifkin
+replied, "and here lately you found out for yourself this here
+Borrochson is nothing but a _Schwindler_--a _Ganef_."
+
+"What are you talking about--a _Schwindler_?" Philip cried, now
+thoroughly aroused. "Ain't you heard the boy says Borrochson is marrying
+the landlord's widow? Could a man get married on wind, Gifkin?"
+
+"Yow! he married the landlord's widow!" Gifkin said. "I bet yer that
+crook gambles away the money; and, anyhow, could you believe anything
+this here boy tells you, Mr. Scheikowitz?"
+
+The question fell on deaf ears, however, for at the repetition of the
+word crook Philip flung open the office door.
+
+"Out of here," he roared, "before I kick you out."
+
+Simultaneously Marcus grabbed the luckless Gifkin by the collar, and
+just what occurred between the office and the stairs could be deduced
+from the manner in which Marcus limped back to the office.
+
+"_Gott sei Dank_ we are rid of the fellow," he said as he came in.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Although Philip Scheikowitz arrived at his place of business at
+half-past seven the following morning he found that Marcus and Elkan
+Lubliner had preceded him, for when he entered the showroom Marcus
+approached with a broad grin on his face and pointed to the cutting
+room, where stood Elkan Lubliner. In the boy's right hand was clutched a
+pair of cutter's shears, and guided by chalked lines he was laboriously
+slicing up a roll of sample paper.
+
+"Ain't he a picture?" Marcus exclaimed.
+
+"A picture!" Philip repeated. "What d'ye mean a picture?"
+
+"Why, the way he stands there with them shears, Philip," Marcus replied.
+"He's really what you could call a born cutter if ever there was one."
+
+"A cutter!" Philip cried.
+
+"Sure," Marcus went on. "It's never too soon for a young feller to
+learn all sides of his trade, Philip. He's been long enough on the
+stock. Now he should learn to be a cutter, and I bet yer in six months'
+time yet he would be just so good a cutter as anybody."
+
+Philip was too dazed to make any comment before Marcus obtained a fresh
+start.
+
+"A smart boy like him, Philip, learns awful quick," he said. "Ain't it
+funny how blood shows up? Now you take a boy like him which he comes
+from decent, respectable family, Philip, and he's got real gumption. I
+think I told you his grandfather on his father's side was a big rabbi,
+the _Lubliner Rav_."
+
+Philip nodded.
+
+"And even if I didn't told you," Marcus went on, "you could tell it from
+his face."
+
+Again Philip nodded.
+
+"And another thing I want to talk to you about," Marcus said, hastening
+after him: "the hundred dollars the boy gives you you should keep,
+Philip. And if you are spending more than that on the boy I would make
+it good."
+
+Philip dug down absently into his trousers pocket and brought forth the
+roll of dirty bills.
+
+"Take it," he said, throwing it toward his partner. "I don't want it."
+
+"What d'ye mean you don't want it?" Marcus cried.
+
+"I mean I ain't got no hard feelings against the boy," Philip replied.
+"I am thinking it over all night, and I come to the conclusion so long
+as I started in being the boy's uncle I would continue that way. So you
+should put the money in the savings bank like I says yesterday."
+
+"But----" Marcus protested.
+
+"But nothing," Philip interrupted. "Do what I am telling you."
+
+Marcus blinked hard and cleared his throat with a great, rasping noise.
+
+"After all," he said huskily, "it don't make no difference how many
+crooks _oder Ganevim_ is in a feller's family, Philip, so long as he's
+got a good, straight business man for a partner."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+APPENWEIER'S ACCOUNT
+
+HOW ELKAN LUBLINER GRADUATED INTO SALESMANSHIP
+
+
+"When I hire a salesman, Mr. Klugfels," said Marcus Polatkin, senior
+partner of Polatkin & Scheikowitz, "I hire him because he's a salesman,
+not because he's a nephew."
+
+"But it don't do any harm for a salesman to have an uncle whose concern
+would buy in one season from you already ten thousand dollars goods, Mr.
+Polatkin," Klugfels insisted. "Furthermore, Harry is a bright, smart
+boy; and you can take it from me, Mr. Polatkin, not alone he would get
+my trade, but us buyers is got a whole lot of influence one with the
+other, understand me; so, if there's any other concern you haven't on
+your books at present, you could rely on me I should do my best for
+Harry and you."
+
+Thus spoke Mr. Felix Klugfels, buyer for Appenweier & Murray's
+Thirty-second Street store, on the first Monday of January; and in
+consequence on the second Monday of January Harry Flaxberg came to work
+as city salesman for Polatkin & Scheikowitz. He also maintained the role
+of party of the second part in a contract drawn by Henry D. Feldman,
+whose skill in such matters is too well known for comment here.
+Sufficient to say it fixed Harry Flaxberg's compensation at thirty
+dollars a week and moderate commissions. At Polatkin's request, however,
+the document was so worded that it excluded Flaxberg from selling any of
+the concerns already on Polatkin & Scheikowitz's books; for not only did
+he doubt Flaxberg's ability as a salesman, but he was quite conscious of
+the circumstance that, save for the acquisition of Appenweier & Murray's
+account, there was no need of their hiring a city salesman at all, since
+the scope of their business operations required only one salesman--to
+wit, as the lawyers say, Marcus Polatkin himself. On the other hand,
+Klugfels had insisted upon the safeguarding of his nephew's interests,
+so that the latter was reasonably certain of a year's steady employment.
+Hence, when, on the first Monday of February, Appenweier & Murray
+dispensed with the services of Mr. Klugfels before he had had the
+opportunity of bestowing even one order on his nephew as a mark of his
+favour, the business premises of Polatkin & Scheikowitz became forthwith
+a house of mourning. From the stricken principals down to and including
+the shipping clerk nothing else was spoken of or thought about for a
+period of more than two weeks. Neither was it a source of much
+consolation to Marcus Polatkin when he heard that Klugfels had been
+supplanted by Max Lapin, a third cousin of Leon Sammet of the firm of
+Sammet Brothers.
+
+"Ain't it terrible the way people is related nowadays?" he said to
+Scheikowitz, who had just read aloud the news of Max Lapin's hiring in
+the columns of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_.
+
+"Honestly, Scheikowitz, if a feller ain't got a lot of retailers _oder_
+buyers for distance relations, understand me, he might just so well go
+out of business and be done with it!"
+
+Scheikowitz threw down the paper impatiently.
+
+"That's where you are making a big mistake, Polatkin," he said. "A
+feller which he expects to do business with relations is just so good as
+looking for trouble. You could never depend on relations that they are
+going to keep on buying goods from you, Polatkin. The least little thing
+happens between relations, understand me, and they are getting right
+away enemies for life; while, if it was just between friends, Polatkin,
+one friend makes for the other a blue eye, understand me, and in two
+weeks' time they are just so good friends as ever. So, even if
+Appenweier & Murray wouldn't fire him, y'understand, Klugfels would have
+dumped this young feller on us anyway."
+
+As he spoke he looked through the office door toward the showroom,
+where Harry Flaxberg sat with his feet cocked up on a sample table
+midway in the perusal of the sporting page.
+
+"Flaxberg," Scheikowitz cried, "what are we showing here
+anyway--garments _oder_ shoes? You are ruining our sample tables the way
+you are acting!"
+
+Flaxberg replaced his feet on the floor and put down his paper.
+
+"It's time some one ruined them tables on you, Mr. Scheikowitz," he
+said. "With the junk fixtures you got it here I'm ashamed to bring a
+customer into the place at all."
+
+"That's all right," Scheikowitz retorted; "for all the customers you are
+bringing in here, Flaxberg, we needn't got no fixtures at all. Come
+inside the office--my partner wants to speak to you a few words
+something."
+
+Flaxberg rose leisurely to his feet and, carefully shaking each leg in
+turn to restore the unwrinkled perfection of his trousers, walked toward
+the office.
+
+"Tell me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried as he entered, "what are you going
+to do about this here account of Appenweier & Murray's?"
+
+"What am I going to do about it?" Flaxberg repeated. "Why, what could I
+do about it? Every salesman is liable to lose one account, Mr.
+Polatkin."
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin answered; "but most every other salesman is got
+some other accounts to fall back on. Whereas if a salesman is just got
+one account, Flaxberg, and he loses it, understand me, then he ain't a
+salesman no longer, Flaxberg. Right away he becomes only a loafer,
+Flaxberg, and the best thing he could do, understand me, is to go and
+find a job somewheres else."
+
+"Not when he's got a contract, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg retorted
+promptly. "And specially a contract which the boss fixes up
+himself--ain't it?"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded and scowled savagely at his partner.
+
+"Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried. "Do you mean to told me
+that, even if a salesman would got ever so much a crazy contract,
+understand me, it allows the salesman he should sit all the time doing
+nothing in the showroom without we got a right to fire him?"
+
+"Well," Flaxberg replied calmly, "it gives him the privilege to go out
+to lunch once in a while."
+
+He pulled down his waistcoat with exaggerated care and turned on his
+heel.
+
+"So I would be back in an hour," he concluded; "and if any customers
+come in and ask for me tell 'em to take a seat till I am coming back."
+
+The two partners watched him until he put on his hat and coat in the
+rear of the showroom and then Polatkin rose to his feet.
+
+"Flaxberg," he cried, "wait a minute!"
+
+Flaxberg returned to the office and nonchalantly lit a cigarette.
+
+"Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin began. "Take from us a hundred
+and fifty dollars and quit!"
+
+Flaxberg continued the operation of lighting his cigarette and blew a
+great cloud of smoke before replying.
+
+"What for a piker do you think I am anyhow?" he asked.
+
+"What d'ye mean--piker?" Polatkin said. "A hundred and fifty ain't to be
+sneezed at, Flaxberg."
+
+"Ain't it?" Flaxberg retorted. "Well, with me, I got a more delicate
+nose as most people, Mr. Polatkin. I sneeze at everything under five
+hundred dollars--and that's all there is to it."
+
+Once more he turned on his heel and walked out of the office; but this
+time his progress toward the stairs was more deliberate, for, despite
+his defiant attitude, Flaxberg's finances were at low ebb owing to a
+marked reversal of form exhibited the previous day in the third race at
+New Orleans. Moreover, he felt confident that a judicious investment of
+a hundred and fifty dollars would net him that very afternoon at least
+five hundred dollars, if any reliance were to be placed on the selection
+of Merlando, the eminent sporting writer of the _Morning Wireless_.
+
+Consequently he afforded every opportunity for Marcus to call him back,
+and he even paused at the factory door and applied a lighted match to
+his already burning cigarette. The expected summons failed, however,
+and instead he was nearly precipitated to the foot of the stairs by no
+less a person than Elkan Lubliner.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Flaxberg," Elkan said. "I ain't seen you at all."
+
+Flaxberg turned suddenly, but at the sight of Elkan his anger evaporated
+as he recalled a piece of gossip retailed by Sam Markulies, the shipping
+clerk, to the effect that, despite his eighteen years, Elkan had at
+least two savings-bank accounts and kept in his pocket a bundle of bills
+as large as a roll of piece goods.
+
+"That's all right," Flaxberg cried with a forced grin. "I ain't
+surprised you are pretty near blinded when you are coming into the
+daylight out of the cutting room. It's dark in there like a tomb."
+
+"I bet yer," Elkan said fervently.
+
+"You should get into the air more often," Flaxberg went on. "A feller
+could get all sorts of things the matter with him staying in a hole like
+that."
+
+"_Gott sei dank_ I got, anyhow, my health," Elkan commented.
+
+"Sure, I know," Flaxberg said as they reached the street; "but you must
+got to take care of it too. A feller which he don't get no exercise
+should ought to eat well, Lubliner. For instance, I bet yer you are
+taking every day your lunch in a bakery--ain't it?"
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"Well, there you are!" Flaxberg cried triumphantly. "A feller works all
+the time in a dark hole like that cutting room, and comes lunchtime he
+_fresses_ a bunch of _Kuchen_ and a cup of coffee, _verstehst du_--and
+is it any wonder you are looking sick?"
+
+"I feel all right," Elkan said.
+
+"I know you feel all right," Flaxberg continued, "but you look something
+terrible, Lubliner. Just for to-day, Lubliner, take my advice and try
+Wasserbauer's regular dinner."
+
+Elkan laughed aloud.
+
+"Wasserbauer's!" he exclaimed. "Why, what do you think I am, Mr.
+Flaxberg? If I would be a salesman like you, Mr. Flaxberg, I would say,
+'Yes; eat once in a while at Wasserbauer's'; _aber_ for an assistant
+cutter, Mr. Flaxberg, Wasserbauer's is just so high like the Waldorfer."
+
+"That's all right," Flaxberg retorted airily. "No one asks you you
+should pay for it. Come and have a decent meal with me."
+
+For a brief interval Elkan hesitated, but at length he surrendered, and
+five minutes later he found himself seated opposite Harry Flaxberg in
+the rear of Wasserbauer's cafe.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Flaxberg," he said as he commenced the fourth of a series of
+dill pickles, "compared with a salesman, a cutter is a dawg's
+life--ain't it?"
+
+"Well," Flaxberg commented, "he is and he isn't. There's no reason why a
+cutter shouldn't enjoy life too, Lubliner. A cutter could make money on
+the side just so good as a salesman. I am acquainted already with a
+pants cutter by the name Schmul Kleidermann which, one afternoon last
+week, he pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars yet."
+
+"Pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars!" Elkan exclaimed. "From where
+he pulls it down, Mr. Flaxberg?"
+
+"Not from the pants business _oser_," Flaxberg replied. "The feller
+reads the papers, Lubliner, and that's how he makes his money."
+
+"You mean he is speculating in these here stocks from stock exchanges?"
+Elkan asked.
+
+"Not stocks," Flaxberg replied in shocked accents. "From _spieling_ the
+stock markets a feller could lose his shirt yet. Never play the stock
+markets, Lubliner. That's something which you could really say a feller
+ruins himself for life with."
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"Even _im Russland_ it's the same," he said.
+
+"Sure," Flaxberg went on. "_Aber_ this feller Kleidermann he makes a
+study of it. The name of the horse was Prince Faithful. On New Year's
+Day he runs fourth in a field of six. The next week he is in the money
+for a show with such old-timers as Aurora Borealis, Dixie Lad and
+Ramble Home--and last week he gets away with it six to one a winner,
+understand me; and this afternoon yet, over to Judge Crowley's, I could
+get a price five to two a place, understand me, which it is like picking
+up money in the street already."
+
+Elkan paused in the process of commencing the sixth pickle and gazed in
+wide-eyed astonishment at his host.
+
+"So you see, Lubliner," Flaxberg concluded, "if you would put up twenty
+dollars, understand me, you could make fifty dollars more, like turning
+your hand over."
+
+Elkan laid down his half-eaten pickle.
+
+"Do you mean to say you want me I should put up twenty dollars on a
+horse which it is running with other horses a race?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well," Flaxberg replied, "of course, if you got objections to putting
+up money on a horse, Lubliner, why, don't do it. Lend it me instead the
+twenty dollars and I would play it; and if the horse should--_Gott soll
+hueten_--not be in the money, y'understand, then I would give you the
+twenty dollars back Saturday at the latest. _Aber_ if the horse makes a
+place, understand me, then I would give you your money back this
+afternoon yet and ten dollars to boot."
+
+For one wavering moment Elkan raised the pickle to his lips and then
+replaced it on the table. Then he licked off his fingers and explored
+the recess of his waistcoat pocket.
+
+"Here," he said, producing a dime--"here is for the dill pickles, Mr.
+Flaxberg."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" Flaxberg cried.
+
+"I mean this," Elkan said, putting on his hat--"I mean you should save
+your money with me and blow instead your friend Kleidermann to dinner,
+because the proposition ain't attractive."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Yes, Mr. Redman," Elkan commented when he resumed his duties as
+assistant cutter after the five and a half dill pickles had been
+supplemented with a hasty meal of rolls and coffee, "for a _Schlemiel_
+like him to call himself a salesman--honestly, it's a disgrace!"
+
+He addressed his remarks to Joseph Redman, head cutter for Polatkin &
+Scheikowitz, who plied his shears industriously at an adjoining table.
+Joseph, like every other employee of Polatkin & Scheikowitz, was
+thoroughly acquainted with the details of Flaxberg's hiring and its
+denouement. Nevertheless, in his quality of head cutter, he professed a
+becoming ignorance.
+
+"Who is this which you are knocking now?" he asked.
+
+"I am knocking some one which he's got a right to be knocked," Elkan
+replied. "I am knocking this here feller Flaxberg, which he calls
+himself a salesman. That feller couldn't sell a drink of water in the
+Sahara Desert, Mr. Redman. All he cares about is gambling and going on
+theaytres. Why, if I would be in his shoes, Mr. Redman, I wouldn't eat
+or I wouldn't sleep till I got from Appenweier & Murray an order. Never
+mind if my uncle would be fired and Mr. Lapin, the new buyer, is a
+relation from Sammet Brothers, Mr. Redman, I would get that account,
+understand me, or I would _verplatz_."
+
+"_Yow_, you would do wonders!" Redman said. "The best thing you could
+do, Lubliner, is to close up your face and get to work. You shouldn't
+got so much to say for yourself. A big mouth is only for a salesman,
+Lubliner. For a cutter it's nix, understand me; so you should give me a
+rest with this here Appenweier & Murray's account and get busy on them
+2060's. We are behind with 'em as it is."
+
+Thus admonished, Elkan lapsed into silence; and for more than half an
+hour he pursued his duties diligently.
+
+"_Nu!_" Redman said at length. "What's the matter you are acting so
+quiet this afternoon?"
+
+"What d'ye mean I am acting quiet, Mr. Redman?" Elkan asked. "I am
+thinking--that's all. Without a feller would think once in a while, Mr.
+Redman, he remains a cutter all his life."
+
+"There's worser things as cutters," Redman commented. "For
+instance--assistant cutters."
+
+"Sure, I know," Elkan agreed; "but salesmen is a whole lot better as
+cutters _oder_ assistant cutters. A salesman sees life, Mr. Redman. He
+meets oncet in a while people, Mr. Redman; while, with us, what is it?
+We are shut up here like we would be sitting in prison--ain't it?"
+
+"You ain't got no kick coming," Redman said. "A young feller only going
+on eighteen, understand me, is getting ten dollars a week and he kicks
+yet. Sitting in prison, _sagt er_! Maybe you would like the concern they
+should be putting in moving pictures here or a phonygraft!"
+
+Elkan sighed heavily by way of reply and for a quarter of an hour longer
+he worked in quietness, until Redman grew worried at his assistant's
+unusual taciturnity.
+
+"What's the trouble you ain't talking, Lubliner?" he said. "Don't you
+feel so good?"
+
+Elkan looked up. He was about to say that he felt all right when
+suddenly he received the germ of an inspiration, and in the few seconds
+that he hesitated it blossomed into a well-defined plan of action. He
+therefore emitted a faint groan and laid down his shears.
+
+"I got a _krank_ right here," he said, placing his hand on his left
+side. "Ever since last week I got it."
+
+"Well, why don't you say something about it before?" Redman cried
+anxiously; for be it remembered that Elkan Lubliner was not only the
+cousin of Marcus Polatkin but the adopted nephew of Philip Scheikowitz
+as well. "You shouldn't let such things go."
+
+"The fact is," Elkan replied, "I didn't want to say nothing about it to
+Mr. Polatkin on account he's got enough to worry him with this here
+Appenweier & Murray's account; and----"
+
+"You got that account on the brain," Redman interrupted. "If you don't
+feel so good you should go home. Leave me fix it for you."
+
+As he spoke he hastily buttoned on his collar and left the cutting room,
+while Elkan could not forego a delighted grin. After all, he reflected,
+he had worked steadily for over a year and a half with only such
+holidays as the orthodox ritual ordained; and he was so busy making
+plans for his first afternoon of freedom that he nearly forgot to groan
+again when Redman came back with Marcus Polatkin at his heels.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan!" Marcus said. "What's the matter? Don't you feel good?"
+
+"I got a _krank_ right here," Elkan replied, placing his hand on his
+right side. "I got it now pretty near a week already."
+
+"Well, maybe you should sit down for the rest of the afternoon and file
+away the old cutting slips," Marcus said, whereat Elkan moaned and
+closed his eyes.
+
+"I filed 'em away last week already," he murmured. "I think maybe if I
+would lay in bed the rest of the afternoon I would be all right
+to-morrow."
+
+Marcus gazed earnestly at his cousin, whose sufferings seemed to be
+intensified thereby.
+
+"All right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead. Go home and tell Mrs. Feinermann
+she should give you a little _Brusttee_; and if you don't feel better in
+the morning don't take it so particular to get here early."
+
+Elkan nodded weakly and five minutes later walked slowly out of the
+factory. He took the stairs only a little less slowly, but he gradually
+increased his speed as he proceeded along Wooster Street, until by the
+time he was out of sight of the firm's office windows he was fairly
+running. Thus he arrived at his boarding place on Pitt Street in less
+than half an hour--just in time to interrupt Mrs. Sarah Feinermann as
+she was about to start on a shopping excursion uptown. Mrs. Feinermann
+exclaimed aloud at the sight of him, and her complexion grew perceptibly
+less florid, for his advent in Pitt Street at that early hour could have
+but one meaning.
+
+"What's the matter--you are getting fired?" she asked.
+
+"What d'ye mean--getting fired?" Elkan replied. "I ain't fired. I got an
+afternoon off."
+
+Mrs. Feinermann heaved a sigh of relief. As the recipient of Elkan's
+five dollars a week board-money, payable strictly in advance, she
+naturally evinced a hearty interest in his financial affairs. Moreover,
+she was distantly related to Elkan's father; and owing to this kinship
+her husband, Marx Feinermann, foreman for Kupferberg Brothers, was of
+the impression that she charged Elkan only three dollars and fifty cents
+a week. The underestimate more than paid Mrs. Feinermann's millinery
+bill, and she was consequently under the necessity of buying Elkan's
+silence with small items of laundry work and an occasional egg for
+breakfast. This arrangement suited Elkan very well indeed; and though he
+had eaten his lunch only an hour previously he thought it the part of
+prudence to insist that she prepare a meal for him, by way of
+maintaining his privileges as Mrs. Feinermann's fellow conspirator.
+
+"But I am just now getting dressed to go uptown," she protested.
+
+"Where to?" he demanded.
+
+"I got a little shopping to do," she said; and Elkan snapped his fingers
+in the conception of a brilliant idea.
+
+"Good!" he exclaimed. "I would go with you. In three minutes I would
+wash myself and change my clothes--and I'll be right with you."
+
+"But I got to stop in and see Marx first," she insisted. "I want to tell
+him something."
+
+"I wanted to tell him something lots of times already," Elkan said
+significantly; and Mrs. Feinermann sat down in the nearest chair while
+Elkan disappeared into the adjoining room and performed a hasty toilet.
+
+"_Schon gut_," he said as he emerged from his room five minutes later;
+"we would go right up to Appenweier & Murray's."
+
+"But I ain't said I am going up to Appenweier & Murray's," Mrs.
+Feinermann cried. "Such a high-price place I couldn't afford to deal
+with at all."
+
+"I didn't say you could," Elkan replied; "but it don't do no harm to get
+yourself used to such places, on account might before long you could
+afford to deal there maybe."
+
+"What d'ye mean I could afford to deal there before long?" Mrs.
+Feinermann inquired.
+
+"I mean this," Elkan said, and they started down the stairs--"I mean, if
+things turn out like the way I want 'em to, instead of five dollars a
+week I would give you five dollars and fifty cents a week." Here he
+paused on the stair-landing to let the news sink in.
+
+"And furthermore, if you would act the way I tell you to when we get up
+there I would also pay your carfare," he concluded--"one way."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Mrs. Feinermann entered Appenweier & Murray's store that afternoon
+she was immediately accosted by a floorwalker.
+
+"What do you wish, madam?" he said.
+
+"I want to buy something a dress for my wife," Elkan volunteered,
+stepping from behind the shadow of Mrs. Feinermann, who for her
+thirty-odd years was, to say the least, buxom.
+
+"Your wife?" the floorwalker repeated.
+
+"Sure; why not?" Elkan replied. "Maybe I am looking young, but in
+reality I am old; so you should please show us the dress department,
+from twenty-two-fifty to twenty-eight dollars the garment."
+
+The floorwalker ushered them into the elevator and they alighted at the
+second floor.
+
+"Miss Holzmeyer!" the floorwalker cried; and in response there
+approached a lady of uncertain age but of no uncertain methods of
+salesmanship. She was garbed in a silk gown that might have graced the
+person of an Austrian grand duchess, and she rustled and swished as she
+walked toward them in what she had always found to be a most impressive
+manner.
+
+"The lady wants to see some dresses," the floorwalker said; and Miss
+Holzmeyer smiled by a rather complicated process, in which her nose
+wrinkled until it drew up the corners of her mouth and made her eyes
+appear to rest like shoe-buttons on the tops of her powdered cheeks.
+
+"This way, madam," she said as she swung her skirts round noisily.
+
+"One moment," Elkan interrupted, for again he had been totally eclipsed
+by Mrs. Feinermann's bulky figure. "You ain't heard what my wife wants
+yet."
+
+"Your wife!" Miss Holzmeyer exclaimed.
+
+"Sure, my wife," Elkan replied calmly. "This is my wife if it's all the
+same to you and you ain't got no objections."
+
+He gazed steadily at Miss Holzmeyer, who began to find her definite
+methods of salesmanship growing less definite, until she blushed
+vividly.
+
+"Not at all," she said. "Step this way, please."
+
+"Yes, Miss Holzmeyer," Elkan went on without moving, "as I was telling
+you, you ain't found out yet what my wife wants, on account a dress
+could be from twenty dollars the garment up to a hundred and fifty."
+
+"We have dresses here as high as three hundred!" Miss Holzmeyer snapped.
+She had discerned that she was beginning to be embarrassed in the
+presence of this self-possessed benedick of youthful appearance, and she
+resented it accordingly.
+
+"I ain't doubting it for a minute," Elkan replied. "New York is full of
+suckers, Miss Holzmeyer; but me and my wife is looking for something
+from twenty-two-fifty to twenty-eight dollars, Miss Holzmeyer."
+
+Miss Holzmeyer's temper mounted with each repetition of her surname, and
+her final "Step this way, please!" was uttered in tones fairly tremulous
+with rage.
+
+Elkan obeyed so leisurely that by the time Mrs. Feinermann and he had
+reached the rear of the showroom Miss Holzmeyer had hung three dresses
+on the back of a chair.
+
+"H'allow me," Elkan said as he took the topmost gown by the shoulders
+and held it up in front of him. He shook out the folds and for more than
+five minutes examined it closely.
+
+"I didn't want to see nothing for seventeen-fifty," he announced at
+last--"especially from last year's style."
+
+"What do you mean?" Miss Holzmeyer cried angrily. "That dress is marked
+twenty-eight dollars and it just came in last week. It's a very smart
+model indeed."
+
+"The model I don't know nothing about," Elkan replied, "but the salesman
+must of been pretty smart to stuck you folks like that."
+
+He subjected another gown to a careful scrutiny while Miss Holzmeyer
+sought the showcases for more garments.
+
+"Now, this one here," he said, "is better value. How much you are asking
+for this one, please?"
+
+Miss Holzmeyer glanced at the price ticket.
+
+"Twenty-eight dollars," she replied, with an indignant glare.
+
+Elkan whistled incredulously.
+
+"You don't tell me," he said. "I always heard it that the expenses is
+high uptown, but even if the walls was hung _mit_ diamonds yet, Miss
+Holzmeyer, your bosses wouldn't starve neither. Do you got maybe a dress
+for twenty-eight dollars which it is worth, anyhow, twenty-five
+dollars?"
+
+This last jibe was too much for Miss Holzmeyer.
+
+"Mis-ter Lap-in!" she howled, and immediately a glazed mahogany door in
+an adjoining partition burst open and Max Lapin appeared on the floor of
+the showroom.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+Miss Holzmeyer sat down in the nearest chair and fanned herself with her
+pocket handkerchief.
+
+"This man insulted me!" she said; whereat Max Lapin turned savagely to
+Elkan.
+
+"What for you are insulting this lady?" he demanded as he made a rapid
+survey of Elkan's physical development. He was quite prepared to defend
+Miss Holzmeyer's honour in a fitting and manly fashion; but, during the
+few seconds that supervened his question, Max reflected that you can
+never tell about a small man.
+
+"What d'ye mean insult this lady?" Elkan asked stoutly. "I never says a
+word to her. Maybe I ain't so long in the country as you are, but I got
+just so much respect for the old folks as anybody. Furthermore, she is
+showing me here garments which, honest, Mister--er----"
+
+"Lapin," Max said.
+
+"Mister Lapin, a house with the reputation of Appenweier & Murray
+shouldn't ought to got in stock at all."
+
+"Say, lookyhere, young feller," Lapin cried, "what are you driving into
+anyway? I am buyer here, and if you got any kick coming tell it to me,
+and don't go insulting the salesladies."
+
+"I ain't insulted no saleslady, Mr. Lapin," Elkan declared. "I am coming
+here to buy for my wife a dress and certainly I want to get for my money
+some decent value; and when this lady shows me a garment like this"--he
+held up the topmost garment--"and says it is from this year a model,
+understand me, naturally I got my own idees on the subject."
+
+Lapin looked critically at the garment in question.
+
+"Did you get this style from that third case there, Miss Holzmeyer?" he
+asked, and Miss Holzmeyer nodded.
+
+"Well, that whole case is full of leftovers and I don't want it
+touched," Lapin said. "Now go ahead and show this gentleman's wife some
+more models; and if he gets fresh let me know--that's all."
+
+"One minute, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said. "Will you do me the favour and let
+me show you something?"
+
+He held up the garment last exhibited by Miss Holzmeyer and pointed to
+the yoke and its border.
+
+"This here garment Miss Holzmeyer shows me for twenty-eight dollars,
+Mr. Lapin," he said, "and with me and my wife here a dollar means to us
+like two dollars to most people, Mr. Lapin. So when I am seeing the
+precisely selfsame garment like this in Fine Brothers' for twenty-six
+dollars, but the border is from silk embroidery, a peacock's tail
+design, and the yoke is from gilt net yet, understand me, I got to say
+something--ain't it?"
+
+Lapin paused in his progress toward his office and even as he did so
+Elkan's eyes strayed to a glass-covered showcase.
+
+"Why, there is a garment just like Fine Brothers' model!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Say, lookyhere!" Lapin demanded as he strode up to the showcase and
+pulled out the costume indicated by Elkan. "What are you trying to tell
+me? This here model is thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents; so, if you
+can get it for twenty-six at Fine Brothers', go ahead and do it!"
+
+"But, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, "that ain't no way for a buyer of a big
+concern like this to talk. I am telling you, so sure as you are standing
+there and I should never move from this spot, the identical selfsame
+style Fine Brothers got it for twenty-six dollars. I know it, Mr. Lapin,
+because we are making up that garment in our factory yet, and Fine
+Brothers takes from us six of that model at eighteen-fifty apiece."
+
+At this unguarded disclosure Lapin's face grew crimson with rage.
+
+"You are making it up in your factory!" he cried. "Why, you dirty faker
+you, what the devil you are coming round here bluffing that you want to
+buy a dress for your wife for?"
+
+Elkan broke into a cold perspiration and looked round for Mrs.
+Feinermann, the substantial evidence of his marital state; but at the
+very beginning of Max Lapin's indignant outburst she had discreetly
+taken the first stairway to the right.
+
+"Bring that woman back here!" Max roared. Miss Holzmeyer made a dash for
+the stairway, and before Elkan had time to formulate even a tentative
+plan of escape she had returned with her quarry.
+
+"What do you want from me?" Mrs. Feinermann gasped. Her hat was awry,
+and what had once been a modish pompadour was toppled to one side and
+shed hairpins with every palsied nod of her head. "I ain't done
+nothing!" she protested.
+
+"Sure, you ain't," Elkan said; "so you should keep your mouth
+shut--that's all."
+
+"I would keep my mouth shut _oder_ not as I please," Mrs. Feinermann
+retorted. "Furthermore, you ain't got no business to get me mixed up in
+this _Geschichte_ at all!"
+
+"Who are you two anyway?" Max demanded.
+
+"This here feller is a young feller by the name of Elkan Lubliner which
+he is working by Polatkin & Scheikowitz," Mrs. Feinermann announced;
+"and what he is bringing me up here for is more than I could tell you."
+
+"Ain't he your husband?" Max asked.
+
+"_Oser a Stueck!_" Mrs. Feinermann declared fervently. "A kid like him
+should be my husband! An idee!"
+
+"That's all right," Elkan rejoined. "_Im Russland_ at my age many a
+young feller is got twins yet!"
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" Max Lapin demanded.
+
+"It ain't got nothing to do with it," Elkan said, "but it shows that a
+young feller like me which he is raised in the old country ain't such a
+kid as you think for, Mr. Lapin. And when I am telling you that the
+concern which sells you them goods to retail for twenty-eight dollars is
+sticking you good, understand me, you could take my word for it just the
+same like I would be fifty-five even."
+
+Again he seized one of the garments.
+
+"And what's more," he went on breathlessly, "the workmanship is rotten.
+Look at here!--the seams is falling to pieces already!"
+
+He thrust the garment under Lapin's nose with one hand, while with the
+other he dug down into his trousers pocket.
+
+"Here!" he shouted. "Here is money--fifty dollars!"
+
+He dropped the gown and held out a roll of bills toward Lapin.
+
+"Take it!" he said hysterically. "Take it all; and if I don't bring you
+to-morrow morning, first thing, this same identical style, only
+A-number-one workmanship, which you could retail for twenty dollars a
+garment, understand me, keep the money and _fertig_."
+
+At this juncture the well-nourished figure of Louis Appenweier, senior
+member of Appenweier & Murray, appeared in the door of the elevator and
+Max Lapin turned on his heel.
+
+"Come into my office," he hissed; and as he started for the glazed
+mahogany door he gathered up the remaining garments and took them with
+him.
+
+For more than half an hour Elkan and Max Lapin remained closeted
+together, and during that period Elkan conducted a clinic over each
+garment to such good purpose that Max sent out from time to time for
+more expensive styles. All of these were in turn examined by Elkan, who
+recognized in at least six models the designs of Joseph Redman, slightly
+altered in the stealing by Leon Sammet.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, "them models was all designed by our own
+designer and some one _ganvered_ 'em on us. Furthermore, I could bring
+you here to-morrow morning at eight o'clock from our sample racks these
+same identical models, with the prices on 'em marked plain like the
+figures on a ten-dollar bill, understand me; and if they ain't from
+twenty to thirty per cent. lower as you paid for these here garments I'd
+eat 'em!"
+
+For at least ten minutes Max Lapin sat with knitted brows and pondered
+Elkan's words.
+
+"Eight o'clock is too early," he announced at last. "Make it half-past
+nine."
+
+"Six, even, ain't too early for an up-to-date buyer to look at some
+genuine bargains," Elkan insisted; "and, besides, I must got to get back
+to the shop at nine."
+
+"But----" Lapin began.
+
+"But nothing, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, rising to his feet. "Make it eight
+o'clock, and the next time I would come round at half-past nine."
+
+"What d'ye mean the next time?" Lapin exclaimed.
+
+"I mean this wouldn't be the last time we do business together, because
+the job as assistant cutter which I got it is just temporary, Mr.
+Lapin," he said as he started for the door--"just temporary--that's
+all."
+
+He paused with his hand on the doorknob.
+
+"See you at eight o'clock to-morrow morning," he said cheerfully; and
+five minutes later he was having hard work to keep from dancing his way
+down Thirty-third Street to the subway.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+From half-past seven in the morning until six at night were the working
+hours of all Polatkin & Scheikowitz's employees, save only Sam
+Markulies, the shipping clerk, whose duty it was to unlock the shop at
+quarter-past seven sharp. This hour had been fixed by Philip Scheikowitz
+himself, who, on an average of once a month, would stroll into the
+shipping department at closing-time and announce his intention of going
+to a wedding that evening. Sometimes the proposed excursion was a
+pinocle party or a visit to the theatre, but the denouement was always
+the same. The next morning Scheikowitz would arrive at the factory door
+precisely at quarter-past seven to find Markulies from five to ten
+minutes late; whereupon Markulies would receive his discharge, to take
+effect the following Saturday night--and for the ensuing month his
+punctuality was assured.
+
+During the quarter of an hour which preceded the arrival of the other
+employees, Markulies usually dusted the office and showroom; and on the
+morning following Elkan's holiday this solitary duty was cheered by the
+presence of Harry Flaxberg. Harry had sought the advice of counsel the
+previous day and had been warned against tardiness as an excuse for his
+discharge; so he was lounging on the sidewalk long before Markulies's
+arrival that morning.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Flaxberg," Markulies cried, "what brings you round so early?"
+
+"I couldn't sleep last night," Flaxberg said; "so I thought I might just
+so well be here as anywhere."
+
+"Ain't that the funniest thing!" Markulies cried. "Me I couldn't sleep
+neither. I got something on my mind."
+
+He unlocked the door as he spoke; and as he passed up the stairs he
+declared again that he had something on his mind.
+
+"_Yow!_" Flaxberg said. "I should got your worries, Markulies. The
+simple little things which a shipping clerk must got to do would _oser_
+give anybody the nervous prostration."
+
+"Is that so?" Markulies retorted. "Well, I ain't just the shipping clerk
+here, Mr. Flaxberg. You must remember I am in charge with the keys also,
+Mr. Flaxberg; and I got responsibilities if some one _ganvers_ a couple
+sample garments once in a while, y'understand--right away they would
+accuse me that I done it."
+
+"Don't worry yourself, Markulies," Flaxberg said. "I ain't going to
+_ganver_ no garments on you--not this morning anyhow."
+
+"You I ain't worrying about at all," Markulies rejoined; "but that young
+bloodsucker, Lubliner, Mr. Flaxberg--that's something else again.
+Actually that young feller is to me something which you could really
+call a thorn in my pants, Mr. Flaxberg. Just because he is assistant
+cutter here and I am only the shipping clerk he treats me like I would
+be the dirt under his feet. Only last night, Mr. Flaxberg, I am locking
+up the place when that feller comes up the stairs and says to me I
+should give him the key, as he forgets a package which he left behind
+him. Mind you, it is already half-past six, Mr. Flaxberg; and ever since
+I am living up in the Bronix, Mr. Flaxberg, I am getting kicked out of
+six places where I am boarding on account no respectable family would
+stand it, Mr. Flaxberg, that a feller comes, night after night, nine
+o'clock to his dinner."
+
+"You was telling me about Lubliner," Flaxberg reminded him.
+
+"Sure, I know," Markulies continued. "So I says to him the place is
+closed and that's all there is to it. With that, Mr. Flaxberg, the
+feller takes back his hand--so--and he gives me a _schlag_ in the
+stummick, which, honest, if he wouldn't be from Mr. Polatkin a relation,
+Mr. Flaxberg, I would right then and there killed him."
+
+For two minutes he patted gently that portion of his anatomy where
+Elkan's blow had landed.
+
+"He's a dangerous feller, Mr. Flaxberg," he went on, "because, just so
+soon as he opens the door after I am giving him the key, Mr. Flaxberg,
+he shuts it in my face and springs the bolt on me, Mr. Flaxberg--and
+there I am standing _bis_ pretty near eight o'clock, understand me, till
+that feller comes out again. By the time I am at my room on Brook
+Avenue, Mr. Flaxberg, the way Mrs. Kaller speaks to me you would think I
+was a dawg yet. How should I know she is getting tickets for the
+theaytre that evening, Mr. Flaxberg? And anyhow, Mr. Flaxberg, if people
+could afford to spend their money going on theaytre, understand me, they
+don't need to keep boarders at all--especially when I am getting night
+after night boiled _Brustdeckel_ only. I says to her, 'Mrs. Kaller,' I
+says to her, 'why don't you give me once in a while a change?' I
+says----"
+
+"Did Lubliner have anything with him when he came out?" Flaxberg
+interrupted.
+
+"Well, sure; he'd got the package he forgets, and how a feller could
+forget a package that size, Mr. Flaxberg--honestly, you wouldn't believe
+at all! That's what it is to be a relation to the boss, Mr. Flaxberg.
+If I would got such a memory, understand me, I would of been fired long
+since already. Yes, Mr. Flaxberg, I says to Mrs. Kaller, 'For three
+and a half dollars a week a feller should get night after night
+_Brustdeckel_--it's a shame--honest!' I says; and--_stiegen_! There's
+Mr. Scheikowitz!"
+
+As he spoke he seized a feather duster and began to wield it vigorously,
+so that by the time Philip Scheikowitz reached the showroom door a dense
+cloud of dust testified to Markulies's industry.
+
+"That'll do, Sam!" Philip cried. "What do you want to do here--choke us
+all to death?"
+
+Gradually the dust subsided and disclosed to Philip's astonished gaze
+Harry Flaxberg seated on a sample table and apparently lost in the
+perusal of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Scheikowitz," he said heartily, but Philip only
+grunted in reply. Moreover, he walked hurriedly past Flaxberg and closed
+the office door behind him with a resounding bang, for he, too, had
+sought the advice of counsel the previous evening; and on that advice he
+had left his bed before daylight, only to find himself forestalled by
+the wily Flaxberg. Nor was his chagrin at all decreased by Polatkin, who
+had promised to meet his partner at quarter-past seven. Instead he
+arrived an hour later and immediately proceeded to upbraid Scheikowitz
+for Flaxberg's punctuality.
+
+"What do you mean that feller gets here before you?" he cried. "Didn't
+you hear it the lawyer distinctively told you you should get here before
+Flaxberg, and when Flaxberg arrives you should tell him he is fired on
+account he is late? Honestly, Scheikowitz, I don't know what comes over
+you lately the way you are acting. Here we are paying the lawyer ten
+dollars he should give us an advice, understand me, and we might just so
+well throw our money in the streets!"
+
+"But Flaxberg wasn't late, Polatkin," Scheikowitz protested. "He was
+early."
+
+"Don't argue with me, Scheikowitz," Polatkin said. "Let's go outside and
+talk to him."
+
+Philip shrugged despairingly as they walked to the office door.
+
+"Flaxberg," he began as he discerned the city salesman again using a
+sample table for a footstool, "don't let us disturb you if you ain't
+through reading the paper yet."
+
+"Yes, Flaxberg," Polatkin added, "you could get down here so early like
+you would be sleeping in the place all night yet, and what is it? Take
+from the table the feet, Flaxberg, and be a man. We got something to say
+to you."
+
+"Go ahead, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg said as he leisurely brought his feet
+to the floor. "I'm listening."
+
+"In the first place, Flaxberg," Polatkin said, "did it ever occur to you
+that, even if your uncle would got fired up to Appenweier & Murray's,
+Redman designs for us a line of garments here which them people might be
+interested in anyhow?"
+
+"_Yow_, they would be interested in our line!" Flaxberg cried. "Lapin
+wouldn't buy only Sammet Brothers' line if we got Worth and Paquin both
+working for us as designers. You couldn't convince him otherwise, Mr.
+Polatkin."
+
+"That's all right," Polatkin went on; "but it wouldn't do no harm for
+you to anyhow see the feller and show him a couple garments which we got
+it here. Take for instance them 1080's, which we are selling Fine
+Brothers, _oder_ that 2060--that overskirt effect with the gilt net
+yoke and peacock-feather-design braid, Flaxberg. Them two styles made a
+big hit, Flaxberg. They are all hanging on that end rack there,
+Flaxberg, and you could look at 'em for yourself."
+
+Polatkin walked across the showroom to the rack in question.
+
+"Especially the 2060's," he said as he pulled aside the heavy denim
+curtain which protected the contents of the rack, "which you could
+really say is----"
+
+Here he paused abruptly--for, with the exception of a dozen wooden
+hangers, the rack was empty.
+
+"What's this, Scheikowitz?" he cried with a sweep of his hand in the
+direction of the rack. "Where is all them 1080's and 2060's?"
+
+Hastily the two partners examined every rack in the showroom; and not
+only did they fail to discover the missing samples, but they ascertained
+that, in addition, seven other choice styles had disappeared.
+
+"See maybe is Redman using 'em in the cutting room," Scheikowitz
+suggested; and forthwith they made a canvass of the cutting room and
+factory, in which they were joined by Markulies.
+
+"What is the matter, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he asked.
+
+"We are missing a dozen sample garments," Scheikowitz replied.
+
+"Missing!" Markulies loudly exclaimed. "What d'ye mean--missing, Mr.
+Scheikowitz? Last night, when I was covering up the racks, everything
+was in place."
+
+Suddenly a wave of recollection swept over him and he gave tongue like a
+foxhound.
+
+"Oo-oo-ee!" he wailed and sank into the nearest chair.
+
+"Markulies," Polatkin cried out, "for Heaven's sake, what is it?"
+
+"He must of _ganvered_ 'em!" Markulies wailed. "Right in front of my
+eyes he done it."
+
+"Who done it?" Scheikowitz cried.
+
+"Lubliner," Markulies moaned.
+
+"Lubliner!" Polatkin cried. "Do you mean Elkan Lubliner?"
+
+"That's what I said," Markulies went on. "Comes half-past six last
+night, and that _ganef_ makes me a _schlag_ in the stummick, Mr.
+Polatkin; and the first thing you know he goes to work and steals from
+me my keys, Mr. Polatkin, and cleans out the whole place yet."
+
+"Lubliner was here last night after we are going home?" Polatkin asked.
+
+"Sure, he was," Markulies replied--"at half-past six yet."
+
+"Then that only goes to show what a liar you are," Polatkin declared,
+"because myself I am letting Elkan go home at one o'clock on account the
+feller is so sick, understand me, he could hardly walk out of the place
+at all. Furthermore, he says he is going right straight to bed when he
+leaves here; so, if you want to explain how it is the garments disappear
+when you are in the place here alone, Markulies, go ahead with your
+lies. Might Mr. Scheikowitz stole 'em maybe--or I did! What?"
+
+Markulies began to rock and sway in an agony of woe.
+
+"I should never stir from this here chair, Mr. Polatkin," Markulies
+protested, "and my mother also, which I am sending her to
+Kalvaria--regular like clockwork--ten dollars a month, she should
+never walk so far from here _bis_ that door, if that _ganef_ didn't
+come in here last night and make away with the garments!"
+
+"_Koosh!_" Polatkin bellowed, and made a threatening gesture toward
+Markulies just as Scheikowitz stepped forward.
+
+"That'll do, Polatkin," he said. "If the feller lies we could easy prove
+it--ain't it? In the first place, where is Elkan?"
+
+"He must of been sick this morning on account he ain't here yet,"
+Polatkin said.
+
+"_Schon gut_," Scheikowitz rejoined; "if he ain't here he ain't here,
+_verstehst du_, _aber_ he is boarding with Mrs. Feinermann, which her
+husband is Kupferberg Brothers' foreman--ain't it?"
+
+Polatkin nodded and Scheikowitz turned to Markulies.
+
+"Markulies," he said, "do me the favour and stop that! You are making me
+dizzy the way you are acting. Furthermore, Markulies, you should put on
+right away your hat and run over to Kupferberg Brothers' and say to Mr.
+B. Kupferberg you are coming from Polatkin & Scheikowitz, and ask him is
+he agreeable he should let Marx Feinermann come over and see us--and if
+he wants to know what for tell him we want to get from him a
+recommendation for a feller which is working for us."
+
+He turned to his partner as Markulies started for the stairway.
+
+"And a helluva recommendation we would get from him, too, I bet yer!" he
+added. "Wasserbauer tells me Elkan was in his place yesterday, and,
+though he don't watch every bit of food a customer puts into his mouth,
+understand me, he says that he eats dill pickles one right after the
+other; and then, Polatkin, the young feller gets right up and walks
+right out of the place without giving any order even. Wasserbauer says
+he knows it was Elkan because one day I am sending him over to look for
+you there. Wasserbauer asks him the simple question what he wants you
+for, and right away Elkan acts fresh to him like anything."
+
+"He done right to act fresh," Polatkin said as they walked back to the
+showroom. "What is it Wasserbauer's business what you want me for?"
+
+"But how comes a young feller like him to be eating at Wasserbauer's?"
+Scheikowitz continued. "Where does he get the money from he should eat
+there?"
+
+"The fact is"--said Flaxberg, who up to this point had remained a silent
+listener to the entire controversy--"the fact is, Mr. Scheikowitz,
+yesterday I am taking pity on the feller on account he is looking sick;
+and I took him into Wasserbauer's and invited him he should eat a little
+something."
+
+Here he paused and licked his lips maliciously.
+
+"And though I don't want to say nothing against the feller, understand
+me," he continued, "he begins right away to talk about horseracing."
+
+"Horseracing?" Polatkin cried.
+
+Flaxberg nodded and made a gesture implying more plainly than the words
+themselves: "Can you beat it?"
+
+"Horseracing!" Scheikowitz repeated. "Well, what do you think of that
+for a lowlife bum?"
+
+"And when I called him down for gambling, Mr. Polatkin, he walks right
+out, so independent he is. Furthermore, though it's none of my business,
+Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg went on, "Markulies tells me this morning early
+the same story like he tells you--before he knew the goods was missing
+even."
+
+"Sure, I believe you," Polatkin retorted. "He was getting the whole
+thing fixed up beforehand. That's the kind of _Rosher_ he is."
+
+As he spoke Markulies entered, and there followed on his heels the
+short, stout figure of Marx Feinermann.
+
+"What did I told you?" Markulies cried. "The feller ain't home sick at
+all. He eats his supper last night, and this morning he is got two eggs
+for his breakfast even."
+
+"S'nough, Markulies!" Polatkin interrupted. "You got too much to say for
+yourself. Sit down, Feinermann, and tell us what is the reason Elkan
+ain't here this morning."
+
+"You tell me and I would tell you," Feinermann replied. "All I know is
+the feller leaves my house the usual time this morning; only before he
+goes he acts fresh to my wife like anything, Mr. Polatkin. He kicks the
+coffee ain't good, even when my wife is giving him two eggs to his
+breakfast anyhow. What some people expects for three-fifty a week you
+wouldn't believe at all!"
+
+"What do you mean--three-fifty a week?" Polatkin demanded. "He pays your
+wife five dollars a week _schon_ six months ago already. He told me so
+himself."
+
+"I ain't responsible for what that boy tells you," Feinermann said
+stolidly. "All I know is he pays me three-fifty a week; and you would
+think he is used to eating chicken every day from _zu Hause_ yet, the
+way he is all the time kicking about his food."
+
+Markulies snorted indignantly.
+
+"He should got the _Machshovos_ Mrs. Kaller hands it to me," he
+said--"_gekochte Brustdeckel_ day in, day out; and then I am accused
+that I steal samples yet! I am sick and tired of it!"
+
+"_Stiegen!_" Polatkin cried. "Listen here to me, Feinermann. Do you mean
+to told me the boy ain't paying you five dollars a week board?"
+
+As Feinermann opened his mouth to reply the showroom door opened and
+Elkan himself entered.
+
+"Loafer!" Scheikowitz roared. "Where was you?"
+
+Elkan made no reply, but walked to the centre of the showroom.
+
+"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "could I speak to you a few words something?"
+
+Polatkin jumped to his feet.
+
+"Before you speak to me a few words something," he said, "I want to ask
+you what the devil you are telling me lies that you pay Mrs. Feinermann
+five dollars a week board?"
+
+"What are you bothering about that for now?" Scheikowitz interrupted.
+"And, anyhow, you could see by the way the feller is red like blood that
+he lies to you."
+
+"Furthermore," Feinermann added, "my wife complains to me last night
+that young loafer takes her uptown yesterday on a wild fool's errand,
+understand me, and together they get pretty near kicked out of a
+drygoods store."
+
+"She told you that, did she?" Elkan cried.
+
+"That's what I said!" Feinermann retorted.
+
+"Then, if that's the case, Feinermann," Elkan replied, "all I can say
+is, I am paying your wife five dollars a week board _schon_ six months
+already, and if she is holding out on you a dollar and a half a week
+that's her business--not mine."
+
+"Don't make things worser as they are, Lubliner," Flaxberg advised. "You
+are in bad, anyhow, and lying don't help none. What did you done with
+the samples you took away from here?"
+
+"What is it your business what I done with 'em?" Elkan retorted.
+
+"Don't get fresh, Elkan!" Polatkin said. "What is all this about,
+anyhow? First, you are leaving here yesterday on account you are sick;
+next, you are going uptown with Mrs. Feinermann and get kicked out of a
+drygoods store; then you come back here and steal our samples."
+
+"Steal your samples!" Elkan cried.
+
+"You admitted it yourself just now," Flaxberg interrupted. "You are a
+thief as well as a liar!"
+
+Had Flaxberg's interest in sport extended to pugilism, he would have
+appreciated the manner in which Elkan's chest and arm muscles began to
+swell under his coat, even if the ominous gleam in Elkan's dark eyes had
+provided no other warning. As it was, however, Elkan put into practice
+the knowledge gained by a nightly attendance at the gymnasium on East
+Broadway. He stepped back two paces, and left followed right so rapidly
+to the point of Flaxberg's jaw that the impact sounded like one blow.
+
+Simultaneously Flaxberg fell back over the sample tables and landed with
+a crash against the office partition just as the telephone rang loudly.
+Perhaps it was as well for Flaxberg that he was unprepared for the
+onslaught, since, had he been in a rigid posture, he would have
+assuredly taken the count. Beyond a cut lip, however, and a lump on the
+back of his head, he was practically unhurt; and he jumped to his feet
+immediately. Nor was he impeded by a too eager audience, for Markulies
+and Feinermann had abruptly fled to the farthermost corner of the
+cutting room, while Marcus and Philip had ducked behind a sample rack;
+so that he had a clear field for the rush he made at Elkan. He yelled
+with rage as he dashed wildly across the floor, but the yell terminated
+with an inarticulate grunt when Elkan stopped the rush with a drive
+straight from the shoulder. It found a target on Flaxberg's nose, and he
+crumpled up on the showroom floor.
+
+For two minutes Elkan stood still and then he turned to the sample
+racks.
+
+"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "the telephone is ringing."
+
+Polatkin came from behind the rack and automatically proceeded to the
+office, while Scheikowitz peeped out of the denim curtains.
+
+"You got to excuse me, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan murmured. "I couldn't
+help myself at all."
+
+"You've killed him!" Scheikowitz gasped.
+
+"_Yow!_ I've killed him!" Elkan exclaimed. "It would take a whole lot
+more as that to kill a bum like him."
+
+He bent over Flaxberg and shook him by the shoulder.
+
+"Hey!" he shouted in his ear. "You are ruining your clothes!"
+
+Flaxberg raised his drooping head and, assisted by Elkan, regained his
+feet and staggered to the water-cooler, where Elkan bathed his streaming
+nostrils with the icy fluid.
+
+At length Scheikowitz stirred himself to action just as Polatkin
+relinquished the 'phone.
+
+"Markulies," Scheikowitz shouted, "go out and get a policeman!"
+
+"Don't do nothing of the kind, Markulies!" Polatkin declared. "I got
+something to say here too."
+
+He turned severely to Elkan.
+
+"Leave that loafer alone and listen to me," he said. "What right do you
+got to promise deliveries on them 2060's in a week?"
+
+"I thought----" Elkan began.
+
+"You ain't got no business to think," Polatkin interrupted. "The next
+time you are selling a concern like Appenweier & Murray don't promise
+nothing in the way of deliveries, because with people like them it's
+always the same. If you tell 'em a week they ring you up and insist on
+it they would got to got the goods in five days."
+
+He put his hand on Elkan's shoulder; and the set expression of his face
+melted until his short dark moustache disappeared between his nose and
+his under lip in a widespread grin.
+
+"Come inside the office," he said--"you too, Scheikowitz. Elkan's got a
+long story he wants to tell us."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Half an hour later, Sam Markulies knocked timidly at the office door.
+
+"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "Marx Feinermann says to me to ask you if he
+should wait any longer on account they're very busy over to Kupferberg
+Brothers'."
+
+"Tell him he should come in here," Polatkin said; and Markulies withdrew
+after gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the spectacle of Elkan Lubliner
+seated at Polatkin's desk, with one of Polatkin's mildest cigars in his
+mouth, while the two partners sat in adjacent chairs and smiled on Elkan
+admiringly.
+
+"You want to speak to me, Mr. Polatkin?" Feinermann asked, as he came in
+a moment afterward.
+
+"Sure," Polatkin replied as he handed the astonished Feinermann a cigar.
+"Sit down, Feinermann, and listen to me. In the first place, Feinermann,
+what for a neighborhood is Pitt Street to live in? Why don't you move
+uptown, Feinermann?"
+
+"A foreman is lucky if he could live in Pitt Street even," Feinermann
+said. "You must think I got money, Mr. Polatkin."
+
+"How much more a month would it cost you to live uptown?" Polatkin
+continued. "At the most ten dollars--ain't it?"
+
+Feinermann nodded sadly.
+
+"To a man which he is only a foreman, Mr. Polatkin, ten dollars is ten
+dollars," he commented.
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin said; "but instead of five dollars a week
+board, Elkan would pay you seven dollars a week, supposing you would
+move up to Lenox Avenue. Ain't that right, Elkan?"
+
+"Sure, that's right," Elkan said. "Only, if I am paying him seven
+dollars a week board, he must got to give Mrs. Feinermann a dollar and a
+half extra housekeeping money. Is that agreeable, Feinermann?"
+
+Again Feinermann nodded.
+
+"Then that's all we want from you, Feinermann," Polatkin added, "except
+I want to tell you this much: I am asking Elkan he should come uptown
+and live with me; and he says no--he would prefer to stick where he
+is."
+
+Feinermann shrugged complacently.
+
+"I ain't got no objections," he said as he withdrew.
+
+"And now, Elkan," Polatkin cried, "we got to fix it up with the other
+feller."
+
+Hardly had he spoken when there stood framed in the open doorway the
+disheveled figure of Flaxberg.
+
+"_Nu_, Flaxberg," Polatkin said. "What d'ye want from us now?"
+
+"I am coming to tell you this, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg said thickly
+through his cut and swollen lips: "I am coming to tell you that I'm sick
+and so you must give me permission to go home."
+
+"Nobody wants you to stay here, Flaxberg," Polatkin answered.
+
+"Sure, I know," Flaxberg rejoined; "but if I would go home without your
+consent you would claim I made a breach of my contract."
+
+"Don't let that worry you in the least, Flaxberg," Polatkin retorted,
+"because, so far as that goes, we fire you right here and now, on
+account you didn't make no attempt to sell Appenweier & Murray, when a
+boy like Elkan, which up to now he wasn't even a salesman at all, could
+sell 'em one thousand dollars goods."
+
+Flaxberg's puffed features contorted themselves in an expression of
+astonishment.
+
+"Lubliner sells Appenweier & Murray a bill of goods!" he exclaimed.
+
+By way of answer Polatkin held out the order slip for Flaxberg's
+inspection.
+
+"That's all right," Flaxberg declared. "I would make it hot for you
+anyhow! You put this young feller up to it that he pretty near kills
+me."
+
+"_Yow!_ We put him up to it!" Polatkin retorted. "You put him up to it
+yourself, Flaxberg. You are lucky he didn't break your neck for you;
+because, if you think you could sue anybody in the courts yet, we got
+for witness Feinermann, Markulies and ourselves that you called him a
+liar and a thief."
+
+"_Nu_, Polatkin," Scheikowitz said, "give him say a hundred dollars and
+call it square."
+
+"You wouldn't give me five hundred dollars," Flaxberg shouted as he
+started for the door, "because I would sue you in the courts for five
+thousand dollars yet."
+
+Flaxberg banged the door violently behind him, whereat Polatkin shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"Bluffs he is making it!" he declared; and forthwith he began to unfold
+plans for Elkan's new campaign as city salesman. He had not proceeded
+very far, however, when there came another knock at the door. It was Sam
+Markulies.
+
+"Mr. Flaxberg says to me I should ask you if he should wait for the
+hundred dollars a check, or might you would mail it to him maybe!" he
+said.
+
+Scheikowitz looked inquiringly at his partner.
+
+"Put on it, 'In full of all claims against Polatkin & Scheikowitz or
+Elkan Lubliner to date,'" he said. "And when you get through with that,
+Scheikowitz, write an 'ad' for an assistant cutter. We've got to get
+busy on that Appenweier & Murray order right away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+A MATCH FOR ELKAN LUBLINER
+
+MADE IN HEAVEN, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF MAX KAPFER
+
+
+"I wouldn't care if Elkan Lubliner was only eighteen even," declared
+Morris Rashkind emphatically; "he ain't too young to marry B. Maslik's a
+_Tochter_. There's a feller which he has got in improved property alone,
+understand me, an equity of a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars; and if you would count second mortgages and Bronix lots, Mr.
+Polatkin, the feller is worth easy his quarter of a million dollars."
+
+"Sure I know," Polatkin retorted. "With such a feller, he gives his
+daughter when she gets married five thousand dollars a second mortgage,
+understand me; and the most the _Chosan_ could expect is that some day
+he forecloses the mortgage and gets a deficiency judgment against a
+dummy bondsman which all his life he never got money enough to pay his
+laundry bills even!"
+
+"_Oser a Stueck!_" Rashkind protested. "He says to me, so sure as you are
+sitting there, 'Mr. Rashkind,' he says, 'my dear friend,' he says,
+'Birdie is my only _Tochter_. I ain't got no other one,' he says, '_Gott
+sei Dank_,' he says; 'and the least I could do for her is five thousand
+dollars cash,' he says, 'in a certified check,' he says, 'before the
+feller goes under the _Chuppah_ at all.'"
+
+"With a feller like B. Maslik," Polatkin commented, "it ain't necessary
+for him to talk that way, Rashkind, because if he wants to get an
+up-to-date business man for his daughter, understand me, he couldn't
+expect the feller is going to take chances on an uncertified check
+_oder_ a promissory note."
+
+"That's all right, Mr. Polatkin," Rashkind said. "B. Maslik's promissory
+note is just so good as his certified check, Mr. Polatkin. With that
+feller I wouldn't want his promissory note even. His word in the
+presence of a couple of bright, level-headed witnesses, which a lawyer
+couldn't rattle 'em on the stand, _verstehst du_, would be good enough
+for me, Mr. Polatkin. B. Maslik, y'understand, is absolutely good like
+diamonds, Mr. Polatkin."
+
+"All right," Polatkin said. "I'll speak to Elkan about it. He'll be back
+from the road Saturday."
+
+"Speak nothing," Rashkind cried excitedly. "Saturday would be too late.
+Everybody is working on this here proposition, Mr. Polatkin. Because the
+way property is so dead nowadays all the real estaters tries to be a
+_Shadchen_, understand me; so if you wouldn't want Miss Maslik to slip
+through Elkan's fingers, write him this afternoon yet. I got a fountain
+pen right here."
+
+As he spoke he produced a fountain pen of formidable dimensions and
+handed it to Polatkin.
+
+"I'll take the letter along with me and mail it," Rashkind continued as
+Marcus made a preliminary flourish.
+
+"Tell him," Rashkind went on, "that the girl is something which you
+could really call beautiful."
+
+"I wouldn't tell him nothing of the sort," Polatkin said, "because, in
+the first place, what for a _Schreiber_ you think I am anyway? And, in
+the second place, Rashkind, Elkan is so full of business, understand me,
+if I would write him to come home on account this here Miss Maslik is
+such a good-looker he wouldn't come at all."
+
+Rashkind shrugged.
+
+"Go ahead," he said. "Do it your own way."
+
+For more than five minutes Polatkin indited his message to Elkan and at
+last he inclosed it in an envelope.
+
+"How would you spell Bridgetown?" he asked.
+
+"Which Bridgetown?" Rashkind inquired--"Bridgetown, Pennsylvania, _oder_
+Bridgetown, Illinois?"
+
+"What difference does that make?" Polatkin demanded.
+
+"About the spelling it don't make no difference," Rashkind replied.
+"Bridgetown is spelt B-r-i-d-g-e-t-a-u-n, all the world over; _aber_ if
+it's Bridgetown, Pennsylvania, that's a very funny quincidence, on
+account I am just now talking to a feller which formerly keeps a store
+there by the name Flixman."
+
+"Do you mean Julius Flixman?" Marcus asked as he licked the envelope.
+
+"That's the feller," Rashkind said with a sigh as he pocketed the letter
+to Elkan. "It's a funny world, Mr. Polatkin. Him and me comes over
+together in one steamer yet, thirty years ago; and to-day if that
+feller's worth a cent he's worth fifty thousand dollars."
+
+"Sure, I know," Marcus agreed; "and _Gott soll hueten_ you and I should
+got what he's got it. He could drop down in the streets any moment,
+Rashkind." Rashkind nodded as he rose to his feet.
+
+"In a way, it's his own fault," he said, "because a feller which he
+could afford to ride round in taxicabs yet ain't got no business walking
+the streets in his condition. I told him this morning: 'Julius,' I says,
+'if I was one of your heirs,' I says to him, 'I wouldn't want nothing
+better as to see you hanging round the real-estate exchange, looking the
+way you look!' And he says to me: 'Rashkind,' he says, 'there is a whole
+lot worser things I could wish myself as you should be my heir,' he
+says. 'On account,' he says, 'if a _Schlemiel_ like you would got a
+relation which is going to leave you money, Rashkind,' he says, 'it
+would be just your luck that the relation dies one day after you do,
+even if you would live to be a hundred.'"
+
+He walked toward the door and paused on the threshold.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Polatkin," he concluded, "you could take it from me, if that
+feller's got heart disease, Mr. Polatkin, it ain't from overworking it.
+So I would ring you up to-morrow afternoon three o'clock and see if
+Elkan's come yet."
+
+"I'm agreeable," Polatkin declared; "only one thing I got to ask you:
+you should keep your mouth shut to my partner, on account if he hears it
+that I am bringing back Elkan from the road just for this here Miss
+Maslik, understand me, he would never let me hear the end of it."
+
+Rashkind made a reassuring gesture with his right arm after the fashion
+of a swimmer who employs the overhand stroke.
+
+"What have I got to do with your partner?" he said as he started for the
+elevator. "If I meet him in the place, I am selling buttons and you
+don't want to buy none. Ain't it?"
+
+Polatkin nodded and turned to the examination of a pile of monthly
+statements by way of dismissing the marriage broker. Moreover, he felt
+impelled to devise some excuse for sending for Elkan, so that he might
+have it pat upon the return from lunch of his partner, Philip
+Scheikowitz, who at that precise moment was seated in the rear of
+Wasserbauer's cafe, by the side of Charles Fischko.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Scheikowitz," Fischko said, "if you would really got the
+feller's interest in heart, understand me, you wouldn't wait till
+Saturday at all. Write him to-day yet, because this proposition is
+something which you could really call remarkable, on account most girls
+which they got five thousand dollars dowries, Mr. Scheikowitz, ain't got
+five-thousand-dollar faces; _aber_ this here Miss Maslik is something
+which when you are paying seventy-five cents a seat on theaytre,
+understand me, you don't see such an elegant-looking _Gesicht_. She's a
+regular doll, Mr. Scheikowitz!"
+
+"Sure, I know," Scheikowitz agreed; "that's the way it is with them
+dolls, Fischko--takes a fortune already to dress 'em."
+
+Fischko flapped the air indignantly with both hands.
+
+"That's where you are making a big mistake," he declared. "The Masliks
+got living in the house with 'em a girl which for years already she
+makes all Miss Maslik's dresses and Mrs. Maslik's also. B. Maslik told
+me so himself, Mr. Scheikowitz. He says to me: 'Fischko,' he says, 'my
+Birdie is a girl which she ain't accustomed she should got a lot of
+money spent on her,' he says; 'the five thousand dollars is practically
+net,' he says, 'on account his expenses would be small.'"
+
+"Is she a good cook?" Scheikowitz asked.
+
+"A good cook!" Fischko cried. "Listen here to me, Mr. Scheikowitz. You
+know that a _Shadchen_ eats sometimes in pretty swell houses. Ain't it?"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded.
+
+"Well, I am telling you, Mr. Scheikowitz, so sure as I am sitting here,
+that I got in B. Maslik's last Tuesday a week ago already a piece of
+plain everyday _gefuellte Hechte_, Mr. Scheikowitz, which honestly, if
+you would go to Delmonico's _oder_ the Waldorfer, understand me, you
+could pay as high as fifty cents for it, Mr. Scheikowitz, and it
+wouldn't be--I am not saying better--but so good even as that there
+_gefuellte Hechte_ which I got it by B. Maslik."
+
+Scheikowitz nodded again.
+
+"All right, Fischko," he said, "I will write the boy so soon as I get
+back to the office yet; but one thing I must beg of you: don't say a
+word about this to my partner, y'understand, because if he would hear
+that I am bringing home Elkan from the road just on account of this
+_Shidduch_ you are proposing, understand me, he would make my life
+miserable."
+
+Fischko shrugged his shoulders until his head nearly disappeared into
+his chest.
+
+"What would I talk to your partner for, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he said. "I am
+looking to you in this here affair; so I would stop round the day after
+to-morrow afternoon, Mr. Scheikowitz, and if your partner asks me
+something a question, I would tell him I am selling thread _oder_
+buttons."
+
+"Make it buttons," Scheikowitz commented, as he rose to his feet;
+"because we never buy buttons from nobody but the Prudential Button
+Company."
+
+On his way back to his office Scheikowitz pondered a variety of reasons
+for writing Elkan to return, and he had tentatively adopted the most
+extravagant one when, within a hundred feet of his business premises, he
+encountered no less a personage than Julius Flixman.
+
+"_Wie geht's_, Mr. Flixman?" he cried. "What brings you to New York?"
+
+Flixman saluted Philip with a limp handclasp.
+
+"I am living here now," he said. "I am giving up my store in Bridgetown
+_schon_ six months ago already, on account I enjoyed such poor health
+there. So I sold out to a young feller by the name Max Kapfer, which was
+for years working by Paschalson, of Sarahcuse; and I am living here, as
+I told you."
+
+"With relations maybe?" Philip asked.
+
+"_Yow_, relations!" Flixman replied. "I used to got one sister living in
+Bessarabia, Mr. Scheikowitz, and I ain't heard from her in more as
+thirty years, and I guess she is dead all right by this time. I am
+living at a hotel which I could assure you the prices they soak me is
+something terrible."
+
+"And what are you doing round this neighborhood, Mr. Flixman?" Philip
+continued by way of making conversation.
+
+"I was just over to see a lawyer over on Center Street," Flixman
+replied.
+
+"A lawyer on Center Street!" Philip exclaimed. "A rich man like you
+should got a lawyer on Wall Street, Mr. Flixman. Henry D. Feldman is our
+lawyer, and----"
+
+"Don't mention that sucker to me!" Flixman interrupted. "Actually the
+feller is got the nerve to ask me a hundred dollars for drawing a will,
+and this here feller on Center Street wants only fifty. I bet yer if I
+would go round there to-morrow or the next day he takes twenty-five
+even."
+
+"But a will is something which is really important, Mr. Flixman."
+
+"Not to me it ain't, Scheikowitz, because, while I couldn't take my
+money with me, Scheikowitz, I ain't got no one to leave it to; so, if I
+wouldn't make a will it goes to the state--ain't it?"
+
+"Maybe," Philip commented.
+
+"So I am leaving it to a Talmud Torah School, which it certainly don't
+do no harm that all them young loafers over on the East Side should
+learn a little _Loschen Hakodesch_. Ain't it?"
+
+"Sure not," Philip said.
+
+"Well," Flixman concluded as he took a firmer grasp on his cane
+preparatory to departing, "that's the way it goes. If I would got
+children to leave my money to I would say: 'Yes; give the lawyer a
+hundred dollars.' But for a Talmud Torah School I would see 'em all dead
+first before I would pay fifty even."
+
+He nodded savagely in farewell and shuffled off down the street, while
+Philip made his way toward the factory, with his half-formed excuse to
+his partner now entirely forgotten.
+
+He tried in vain to recall it when he entered his office a few minutes
+later, but the sight of his partner spurred him to action and
+immediately he devised a new and better plan.
+
+"Marcus," he said, "write Elkan at once he should come back to the
+store. I just seen Flixman on the street and he tells me he's got a
+young feller by the name Karpfer _oder_ Kapfer now running his store;
+and," he continued in an access of inspiration, "the stock is awful run
+down there; so, if Elkan goes right back to Bridgetown with a line of
+low-priced goods he could do a big business with Kapfer."
+
+Polatkin had long since concocted what he had conceived to be a
+perfectly good excuse for his letter, and he had intended to lend it
+color by prefacing it with an abusive dissertation on "Wasting the Whole
+Afternoon over Lunch"; but Scheikowitz' greeting completely disarmed
+him. His jaw dropped and he gazed stupidly at his partner.
+
+"What's the matter?" Scheikowitz cried. "Is it so strange we should
+bring Elkan back here for the chance of doing some more business? Three
+dollars carfare between here and Bridgetown wouldn't make or break us,
+Polatkin."
+
+"Sure! Sure!" Marcus said at last. "I would--now--write him as soon as I
+get back from lunch."
+
+"Write him right away!" Scheikowitz insisted; and, though Marcus had
+breakfasted before seven that morning and it was then half-past two, he
+turned to his desk without further parley. There, for the second time
+that day, he penned a letter to Elkan; and, after exhibiting it to his
+partner, he inclosed it in an addressed envelope. Two minutes later he
+paused in front of Wasserbauer's cafe and, taking the missive from his
+pocket, tore it into small pieces and cast it into the gutter.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"I suppose, Elkan, you are wondering why we wrote you to come home from
+Bridgetown when you would be back on Saturday anyway," Scheikowitz began
+as Elkan laid down his suitcase in the firm's office the following
+afternoon.
+
+"Naturally," Elkan replied. "I had an appointment for this morning to
+see a feller there, which we could open maybe a good account; a feller
+by the name Max Kapfer."
+
+"Max Kapfer?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz exclaimed with one voice.
+
+"That's what I said," Elkan repeated. "And in order I shouldn't lose the
+chance I got him to promise he would come down here this afternoon yet
+on a late train and we would pay his expenses."
+
+"Do you mean Max Kapfer, the feller which took over Flixman's store?"
+Polatkin asked.
+
+"There's only one Max Kapfer in Bridgetown," Elkan replied, and Polatkin
+immediately assumed a pose of righteous indignation.
+
+"That's from yours an idee, Scheikowitz," he said. "Not only you make
+the boy trouble to come back to the store, but we also got to give this
+feller Kapfer his expenses yet."
+
+"What are you kicking about?" Scheikowitz demanded. "You seemed
+agreeable to the proposition yesterday."
+
+"I got to seem agreeable," Polatkin retorted as he started for the door
+of the factory, "otherwise it would be nothing but fight, fight, fight
+_mit_ you, day in, day out."
+
+He paused at the entrance and winked solemnly at Elkan.
+
+"I am sick and tired of it," he concluded as he supplemented the wink
+with a significant frown, and when he passed into the factory Elkan
+followed him.
+
+"What's the matter now?" Elkan asked anxiously.
+
+"I want to speak to you a few words something," Polatkin began; but
+before he could continue Scheikowitz entered the factory.
+
+"Did you got your lunch on the train, Elkan?" Scheikowitz said;
+"because, if not, come on out and we'll have a cup coffee together."
+
+"Leave the boy alone, can't you?" Polatkin exclaimed.
+
+"I'll go right out with you, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan said as he edged
+away to the rear of the factory. "Go and put on your hat and I'll be
+with you in a minute."
+
+When Scheikowitz had reentered the office Elkan turned to Marcus
+Polatkin.
+
+"You ain't scrapping again," he said, "are you?"
+
+"_Oser a Stueck_," Polatkin answered. "We are friendly like lambs; but
+listen here to me, Elkan. I ain't got no time before he'll be back
+again, so I'll tell you. As a matter of fact, it was me that wrote you
+to come back, really. I got an elegant _Shidduch_ for you."
+
+"_Shidduch!_" Elkan exclaimed. "For me?"
+
+"Sure," Polatkin whispered. "A fine-looking girl by the name Birdie
+Maslik, _mit_ five thousand dollars. Don't say nothing to Scheikowitz
+about it."
+
+"But," Elkan said, "I ain't looking for no _Shidduch_."
+
+"S-ssh!" Polatkin hissed. "Her father is B. Maslik, the 'Pants King.'
+To-morrow night you are going up to see her _mit_ Rashkind, the
+_Shadchen_."
+
+"What the devil you are talking about?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Not a word," Polatkin whispered out of one corner of his mouth. "Here
+comes Scheikowitz--and remember, don't say nothing to him about it.
+Y'understand?"
+
+Elkan nodded reluctantly as Scheikowitz reappeared from the office.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan," Scheikowitz demanded, "are you coming?"
+
+"Right away," Elkan said, and together they proceeded downstairs.
+
+"Well, Elkan," Scheikowitz began when they reached the sidewalk, "you
+must think we was crazy to send for you just on account of this here
+Kapfer. Ain't it?"
+
+Elkan shrugged in reply.
+
+"But, as a matter of fact," Scheikowitz continued, "Kapfer ain't got no
+more to do with it than Elia Hanove; and, even though Polatkin would be
+such a crank that I was afraid for my life to suggest a thing, it was my
+idee you should come home, Elkan, because in a case like this delays is
+dangerous."
+
+"Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan pleaded, "do me the favour and don't go beating
+bushes round. What are you trying to drive into?"
+
+"I am trying to drive into this, Elkan," Scheikowitz replied: "I have
+got for you an elegant _Shidduch_."
+
+"_Shidduch!_" Elkan exclaimed. "For me? Why, Mr. Scheikowitz, I don't
+want no _Shidduch_ yet a while; and anyhow, Mr. Scheikowitz, if I would
+get married I would be my own _Shadchen_."
+
+"_Schmooes_, Elkan!" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "A feller which is his own
+_Shadchen_ remains single all his life long."
+
+"That suits me all right," Elkan commented as they reached
+Wasserbauer's. "I would remain single _und fertig_."
+
+"What d'ye mean, you would remain single?" Scheikowitz cried. "Is some
+one willing to pay you five thousand dollars you should remain single,
+Elkan? _Oser a Stueck_, Elkan; and, furthermore, this here Miss Birdie
+Maslik is got such a face, Elkan, which, honest, if she wouldn't have a
+cent to her name, understand me, you would say she is beautiful anyhow."
+
+"Miss Birdie Maslik!" Elkan murmured.
+
+"B. Maslik's a _Tochter_," Scheikowitz added; "and remember, Elkan,
+don't breathe a word of this to Polatkin, otherwise he would never get
+through talking about it. Moreover, you will go up to Maslik's house
+to-morrow night with Charles Fischko, the _Shadchen_."
+
+"Now listen here to me, Mr. Scheikowitz," Elkan protested. "I ain't
+going nowheres with no _Shadchen_--and that's all there is to it."
+
+"_Aber_, Elkan," Scheikowitz said, "this here Fischko ain't a _Shadchen_
+exactly. He's really a real-estater, _aber_ real estate is so dead
+nowadays the feller must got to make a living somehow; so it ain't like
+you would be going somewheres _mit_ a _Shadchen_, Elkan. Actually you
+are going somewheres _mit_ a real-estater. Ain't it?"
+
+"It don't make no difference," Elkan answered stubbornly. "If I would go
+and see a girl I would go alone, otherwise not at all. So, if you insist
+on it I should go and see this here Miss Maslik to-morrow night, Mr.
+Scheikowitz, I would do so, but not with Rashkind."
+
+"Fischko," Scheikowitz interrupted.
+
+"Fischko _oder_ Rashkind," Elkan said--"that's all there is to it. And
+if I would get right back to the store I got just time to go up to the
+Prince Clarence and meet Max Kapfer; so you would excuse me if I skip."
+
+"Think it over Elkan," Scheikowitz called after him as Elkan left the
+cafe, and three quarters of an hour later he entered Polatkin &
+Scheikowitz' showroom accompanied by a fashionably attired young man.
+
+"Mr. Polatkin," Elkan said, "shake hands with Mr. Kapfer."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Kapfer?" Polatkin cried. "This here is my partner,
+Philip Scheikowitz."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Kapfer said. "You are very
+conveniently located here. Right in the heart of things, so to speak. I
+see across the street is Bleimauer & Gittelmann. Them people was in to
+see me last week already and offered me a big bargain in velvet suits,
+but I was all stocked up along that line so I didn't hand them no
+orders."
+
+"Velvet suits ain't our specialty at all," Polatkin replied; "but I bet
+yer if we never seen a velvet suit in all our lives, Mr. Kapfer, we
+could work you up a line of velvet suits which would make them velvet
+suits of Bleimauer & Gittelmann look like a bundle of rags."
+
+"I don't doubt it," Kapfer rejoined; "but, as I said before, velvet
+suits I am all stocked up in, as I couldn't afford to carry very many of
+'em."
+
+"That's all right," Polatkin said as he led the way to the showroom. "We
+got a line of garments here, Mr. Kapfer, which includes all prices and
+styles." He handed Max a large mild cigar as he spoke. "So let's see if
+we couldn't suit you," he concluded.
+
+For more than two hours Max Kapfer examined Polatkin & Scheikowitz'
+sample line and made so judicious a selection of moderate-priced
+garments that Polatkin could not forbear expressing his admiration,
+albeit the total amount of the purchase was not large.
+
+"You certainly got the right buying idee, Mr. Kapfer," he said. "Them
+styles is really the best value we got."
+
+"I know it," Kapfer agreed. "I was ten years with Paschalson, of
+Sarahcuse, Mr. Polatkin, and what I don't know about a popular-price
+line of ladies' ready-to-wear garments, underwear and millinery,
+Paschalson couldn't learn me. But that ain't what I'm after, Mr.
+Polatkin. I'd like to do some high-price business too. If I had the
+capital I would improve my store building and put in new fixtures,
+understand me, and I could increase my business seventy-five per cent
+and carry a better class of goods too."
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin said as they returned to the office. "Everybody
+needs more capital, Mr. Kapfer. We ourselves could do with a few
+thousand dollars more."
+
+He looked significantly at Elkan, who colored slightly as he recognized
+the allusion.
+
+"I bet yer," Scheikowitz added fervently. "Five thousand dollars would
+be welcome to us also." He nodded almost imperceptibly at Elkan, who
+forthwith broke into a gentle perspiration.
+
+"Five thousand was just the figure I was thinking of myself," Kapfer
+said. "With five thousand dollars I could do wonders in Bridgetown, Mr.
+Scheikowitz."
+
+"I'm surprised Flixman don't help you out a bit," Elkan suggested by way
+of changing the subject, and Kapfer emitted a mirthless laugh.
+
+"That bloodsucker!" he said. "What, when I bought his store, Mr.
+Scheikowitz, he took from me in part payment notes at two, four, and six
+months; and, though I got the cash ready to pay him the last note,
+which it falls due this week already, I asked him he should give me two
+months an extension, on account I want to put in a few fixtures on the
+second floor. Do you think that feller would do it? He's got a heart
+like a rock, Mr. Polatkin; and any one which could get from him his
+money must got to blast it out of him with dynamite yet."
+
+Polatkin nodded solemnly.
+
+"You couldn't tell me nothing about Flixman," he said as he offered
+Kapfer a consolatory cigar. "It's wasting your lungs to talk about such
+a feller at all; so let's go ahead and finish up this order, Mr. Kapfer,
+and afterward Elkan would go uptown with you." He motioned Kapfer to a
+seat and then looked at his watch. "I didn't got no idee it was so
+late," he said. "Scheikowitz, do me the favor and go over Mr. Kapfer's
+order with him while I give a look outside and see what's doing in the
+shop."
+
+As he walked toward the door he jerked his head sideways at Elkan, who a
+moment later followed him into the factory.
+
+"Listen, Elkan," he began. "While you and Scheikowitz was out for your
+coffee, Rashkind rings me up and says you should meet him on the corner
+of One Hundred and Twentieth Street and Lenox Avenue to-night--not
+to-morrow night--at eight o'clock sure."
+
+"But Kapfer ain't going back to Bridgetown to-night," Elkan protested.
+"He told me so himself on account he is got still to buy underwear,
+millinery and shoes."
+
+"What is that our business?" Polatkin asked. "He's already bought from
+us all he's going to; so, if he stays here, let them underwear and
+millinery people entertain him. Blow him to dinner and that would be
+plenty."
+
+Once more Elkan shrugged despairingly.
+
+"You didn't say nothing to Scheikowitz about it, did you?" Polatkin
+inquired.
+
+"Sure I didn't say nothing to him about it," Elkan said; "because----"
+
+"Elkan," Scheikowitz called from the office, "Mr. Kapfer is waiting for
+you."
+
+Elkan had been about to disclose the conversation between himself and
+Scheikowitz at Wasserbauer's that afternoon, but Marcus, at the
+appearance of his partner, turned abruptly and walked into the cutting
+room; and thus, when Elkan accompanied Max Kapfer uptown that evening,
+his manner was so preoccupied by reason of his dilemma that Kapfer was
+constrained to comment on it.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"What's worrying you, Lubliner?" he asked as they seated themselves in
+the cafe of the Prince Clarence. "You look like you was figuring out the
+interest on the money you owe."
+
+"I'll tell you the truth, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan began, "I would like to
+ask you an advice about something."
+
+"Go as far as you like," Kapfer replied. "It don't make no difference if
+a feller would be broke _oder_ in jail, he could always give somebody
+advice."
+
+"Well, it's like this," Elkan said, and forthwith he unfolded the
+circumstances attending his return from Bridgetown.
+
+"_Nu!_" Kapfer commented when Elkan concluded his narrative. "What is
+that for something to worry about?"
+
+"But the idee of the thing is wrong," Elkan protested. "In the first
+place, I got lots of time to get married, on account I am only
+twenty-one, Mr. Kapfer; and though a feller couldn't start in too early
+in business, Mr. Kapfer, getting married is something else again. To my
+mind a feller should be anyhow twenty-five before he jumps right in and
+gets married."
+
+"With some people, yes, and others, no," Kapfer rejoined.
+
+"And in the second place," Elkan went on, "I don't like this here
+_Shadchen_ business. We are living in America, not _Russland_; and in
+America if a feller gets married he don't need no help from a
+_Shadchen_, Mr. Kapfer."
+
+"No," Kapfer said, "he don't need no help, Lubliner; but, just the same,
+if some one would come to me any time these five years and says to me,
+here is something a nice girl, understand me, with five thousand
+dollars, y'understand, I would have been married _schon_ long since
+already." He cleared his throat judicially and sat back in his chair
+until it rested against the wall. "The fact is, Lubliner," he said, "you
+are acting like a fool. What harm would it do supposing you would go up
+there to-night with this here Rashkind?"
+
+"What, and go there to-morrow night with Fischko!" Elkan exclaimed.
+"Besides, if I would go up there to-night with Rashkind and the deal is
+closed, understand me, might Fischko would sue Mr. Scheikowitz in the
+court yet."
+
+"Not at all," Kapfer declared. "Fischko couldn't sue nobody but B.
+Maslik; so never mind waiting here for dinner. Hustle uptown and keep
+your date with Rashkind." He shook Elkan by the hand. "Good luck to you,
+Lubliner," he concluded heartily; "and if you got the time stop in on
+your way down to-morrow morning and let me know how you come out."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Elkan Lubliner arrived at the corner of One Hundred and Twentieth
+Street and Lenox Avenue that evening, it might well be supposed that he
+would have difficulty in recognizing Mr. Rashkind, since neither he nor
+Rashkind had any previous acquaintance. However, he accosted without
+hesitation a short, stout person arrayed in a wrinkled frock coat and
+wearing the white tie and gold spectacles that invariably garb the
+members of such quasi-clerical professions as a _Shadchen_, a sexton or
+the collector of subscriptions for a charitable institution. Indeed, as
+Rashkind combined all three of these callings with the occupation of a
+real-estate broker, he also sported a high silk hat of uncertain vintage
+and a watch-chain bearing a Masonic emblem approximating in weight and
+size a tailor's goose.
+
+"This is Mr. Rashkind, ain't it?" Elkan asked, and Rashkind bowed
+solemnly.
+
+"My name is Mr. Lubliner," Elkan continued, "and Mr. Polatkin says you
+would be here at eight."
+
+For answer Mr. Rashkind drew from his waistcoat pocket what appeared to
+be a six-ounce boxing glove, but which subsequently proved to be the
+chamois covering of his gold watch, the gift of Rambam Lodge, No. 142,
+I. O. M. A. This Mr. Rashkind consulted with knit brows.
+
+"That's right," he said, returning the watch and its covering to his
+pocket--"eight o'clock to the minute; so I guess we would just so well
+go round to B. Maslik's house if you ain't got no objections."
+
+"I'm agreeable," Elkan said; "but, before we start, you should please be
+so good and tell me what I must got to do."
+
+"What you must got to do?" Rashkind exclaimed. "A question! You mustn't
+got to do nothing. Act natural and leave the rest to me."
+
+"But," Elkan insisted as they proceeded down Lenox Avenue, "shouldn't I
+say something to the girl?"
+
+"Sure, you should say something to the girl," Rashkind replied; "but, if
+you couldn't find something to say to a girl like Miss Birdie Maslik,
+all I could tell you is you're a bigger _Schlemiel_ than you look."
+
+With this encouraging ultimatum, Mr. Rashkind entered the portals of a
+hallway that glittered with lacquered bronze and plaster porphyry, and
+before Elkan had time to ask any more questions he found himself seated
+with Mr. Rashkind in the front parlour of a large apartment on the
+seventh floor.
+
+"Mr. Maslik says you should be so good and step into the dining room,"
+the maid said to Mr. Rashkind. Forthwith he rose to his feet and left
+Elkan alone in the room, save for the presence of the maid, who drew
+down the shades and smiled encouragingly on Elkan.
+
+"Ain't it a fine weather?" she asked.
+
+Elkan looked up, and he could not resist smiling in return.
+
+"Elegant," he replied. "It don't seem like summer was ever going to
+quit."
+
+"It couldn't last too long for me," the maid continued. "Might some
+people would enjoy cold weather maybe; but when it comes to going up on
+the roof, understand me, and hanging out a big wash, the summer is good
+enough for me."
+
+Elkan gazed for a moment at her oval face, with its kindly, intelligent
+brown eyes.
+
+"You mean to say you got to do washing here?" he asked in shocked
+accents.
+
+"Sure I do," she replied; "_aber_ this winter I am going to night school
+again and next summer might I would get a job as bookkeeper maybe."
+
+"But why don't you get a job in a store somewheres?" he asked.
+
+"I see myself working in a store all day, standing on my feet yet, and
+when I get through all my wages goes for board!" she replied. "Whereas,
+here I got anyhow a good room and board, and all what I earn I could put
+away in savings bank. I worked in a store long enough, Mr.----"
+
+"Lubliner," Elkan said.
+
+"----Mr. Lubliner; and I could assure you I would a whole lot sooner do
+housework," she went on. "Why should a girl think it's a disgrace she
+should do housework for a living is more as I could tell you. Sooner or
+later a girl gets married, and then she must got to do her own
+housework."
+
+"Not if her husband makes a good living," Elkan suggested.
+
+"Sure, I know," she rejoined; "but how many girls which they are working
+in stores gets not a rich man, understand me, but a man which is only
+making, say, for example, thirty dollars a week. The most that a poor
+girl expects is that she marries a poor man, y'understand, and then they
+work their way up together."
+
+Elkan nodded. Unconsciously he was indorsing not so much the matter as
+the manner of her conversation, for she spoke with the low voice that
+distinguishes the Rumanian from the Pole or Lithuanian.
+
+"You are coming from Rumania, ain't it?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Pretty near there," the maid replied. "Right on the border. I am coming
+here an orphan five years ago; and----"
+
+"_Nu_, Lubliner," cried a rasping voice from the doorway, "we got our
+appointment for nothing--Miss Maslik is sick."
+
+"That's too bad," Elkan said perfunctorily.
+
+"Only a little something she eats gives her a headache," Rashkind went
+on. "We could come round the day after to-morrow night."
+
+"That's too bad also," Elkan commented, "on account the day after
+to-morrow night I got a date with a customer."
+
+"Well, anyhow, B. Maslik would be in in a minute and----"
+
+Elkan rose to his feet so abruptly that he nearly sent his chair through
+a cabinet behind him.
+
+"If I want to be here Friday night," he said, "I must see my customer
+to-night yet; so, young lady, if you would be so kind to tell Mr. Maslik
+I couldn't wait, but would be here Friday night with this
+here--now--gentleman. Come on, Rashkind."
+
+He started for the hall door almost on a run, with Rashkind
+gesticulating excitedly behind him; but, before the _Shadchen_ could
+even grasp his coattails he had let himself hurriedly out and was taking
+the stairs three at a jump.
+
+"Hey!" Rashkind shouted as he plunged down the steps after Elkan.
+"What's the matter with you? Don't you want to meet Mr. Maslik?"
+
+Elkan only hurried the faster, however, for in the few minutes he had
+been alone in the room with the little brown-eyed maid he had made the
+discovery that marriage with the aid of a _Shadchen_ was impossible for
+him. Simultaneously he conceived the notion that marriage without the
+aid of a _Shadchen_ might after all be well worth trying; and, as this
+idea loomed in his mind, his pace slackened until the _Shadchen_
+overtook him at the corner of One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner!" Rashkind said. "What is the matter with you
+anyway?"
+
+Elkan professed to misunderstand the question.
+
+"I've lost my address book," he said. "I had it in my hand when you left
+me alone there and I must of forgotten it; so I guess I'll go back and
+get it."
+
+"All right," Rashkind replied. "I'll go with you."
+
+Elkan wheeled round and glared viciously at the _Shadchen_.
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind!" he roared. "You get right down them
+subway steps or I wouldn't come up with you Friday night."
+
+"But what harm----" Rashkind began, when Elkan seized him by the
+shoulder and led him firmly downstairs to the ticket office. There Elkan
+bought a ticket and, dropping it in the chopper's box, he pushed
+Rashkind on to the platform. A few minutes later a downtown express bore
+the _Shadchen_ away and Elkan ascended the stairs in three tremendous
+bounds. Unwaveringly he started up the street for B. Maslik's apartment
+house, where, by the simple expedient of handing the elevator boy a
+quarter, he averted the formality of being announced. Thus, when he rang
+the doorbell of B. Maslik's flat, though it was opened by the little
+brown-eyed maid in person, she had discarded the white apron and cap
+that she had worn a few minutes before, and her hair was fluffed up in
+becoming disorder.
+
+"You was telling me you are coming originally from somewheres near
+Rumania," Elkan began without further preface, "and--why, what's the
+matter? You've been crying?"
+
+She put her fingers to her lips and closed the door softly behind her.
+"They says I didn't got no business talking to you at all," she replied,
+"and they called me down something terrible!"
+
+Elkan's eyes flashed angrily.
+
+"Who calls you down?" he demanded.
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Maslik," she answered; "and they says I ain't got no shame
+at all!"
+
+She struggled bravely to retain her composure; but just one little
+half-strangled sob escaped her, and forthwith Elkan felt internally a
+peculiar sinking sensation.
+
+"What do they mean you ain't got no shame?" he protested. "I got a right
+to talk to you and you got a right to talk to me--ain't it?"
+
+She nodded and sobbed again, whereat Elkan winced and dug his nails into
+the palms of his hands.
+
+"Listen!" he pleaded. "Don't worry yourself at all. After this I
+wouldn't got no use for them people. I didn't come here on my own
+account in the first place, but----"
+
+Here he paused.
+
+"But what?" the little maid asked.
+
+"But I'm glad I came now," Elkan went on defiantly, "and I don't care
+who knows it. _Wir sind alles Jehudim_, anyhow, and one is just as good
+as the other."
+
+"Better even," she said. "What was B. Maslik in the old country? He
+could _oser_ sign his name when he came here, while I am anyhow from
+decent, respectable people, Mr. Lubliner."
+
+"I don't doubt it," Elkan replied.
+
+"My father was a learned man, Mr. Lubliner; but that don't save him. One
+day he goes to Kishinef on business, Mr. Lubliner, and----"
+
+Here her composure entirely forsook her and she covered her face with
+her hands and wept. Elkan struggled with himself no longer. He took the
+little maid in his arms; and, as it seemed the most natural thing in the
+world to do, she laid her head against his shoulder and had her whole
+cry out.
+
+Elkan spoke no word, but patted her shoulder gently with his right hand.
+
+"I guess I'm acting like a baby, Mr. Lubliner," she said, after a
+quarter of an hour had elapsed. To Elkan it seemed like an acquaintance
+of many months as he clasped her more closely.
+
+"My name is Elkan, _Liebchen_," he said, "and we would send all the
+heavy washing out."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Well, Lubliner," Kapfer cried as Elkan came into the cafe of the Prince
+Clarence the following morning, "you didn't like her--what?"
+
+"Didn't like her!" Elkan exclaimed. "What d'ye mean I didn't like her?"
+
+"Why, the way you look, I take it you had a pretty rotten time last
+night," Kapfer rejoined.
+
+"What are you talking about--rotten time?" Elkan protested. "The only
+thing is I feel so happy I didn't sleep a wink, that's all."
+
+Kapfer jumped to his feet and slapped Elkan on the shoulder.
+
+"Do you mean you're engaged!" he asked.
+
+"Sure!" Elkan replied.
+
+"Then I congradulate you a thousand times," Kapfer said gleefully.
+
+"Once is plenty," Elkan replied.
+
+"No, it ain't," Kapfer rejoined. "You should got to be congradulated
+more as you think, because this morning I am talking to a feller in the
+clothing business here and he says B. Maslik is richer as most people
+believe. The feller says he is easy worth a quarter of a million
+dollars."
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" Elkan asked.
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" Kapfer repeated. "Why, it's got
+everything to do with it, considering you are engaged to his only
+daughter."
+
+"I am engaged to his only daughter? Who told you that, Mr. Kapfer?"
+
+"Why, you did!" Kapfer said.
+
+"I never said nothing of the kind," Elkan declared, "because I ain't
+engaged to Miss Maslik at all; in fact, I never even seen her."
+
+Kapfer gazed earnestly at Elkan and then sat down suddenly.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," he said. "Are you crazy or am I? Last night
+you says you are going up with a _Shadchen_ to see Birdie Maslik, and
+now you tell me you are engaged, but not to Miss Maslik."
+
+"That's right," Elkan replied.
+
+"Then who in thunder are you engaged to?"
+
+"That's just the point," Elkan said, as he passed his hand through his
+hair. "I ain't slept a wink all night on account of it; in fact, this
+morning I wondered should I go round there and ask--and then I thought
+to myself I would get from you an advice first."
+
+"Get from me an advice!" Kapfer exclaimed. "You mean you are engaged to
+a girl and you don't know her name, and so you come down here to ask me
+an advice as to how you should find out her name?"
+
+Elkan nodded sadly and leaned his elbow on the table.
+
+"It's like this," he said; and for more than half an hour he regaled
+Kapfer with a story that, stripped of descriptive and irrelevant
+material concerning Elkan's own feelings in the matter, ought to have
+taken only five minutes in the telling.
+
+"And that's the way it is, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan concluded. "I don't know
+her name; but a poor little girl like her, which she is so good--and
+so--and so----"
+
+Here he became all choked up and Kapfer handed him a cigar.
+
+"Don't go into that again, Lubliner," Kapfer said; "you told me how
+good she is six times already. The point is you are in a hole and you
+want me I should help you out--ain't it?"
+
+Elkan nodded wearily.
+
+"Well, then, my advice to you is: _Stiegen_," Kapfer continued. "Don't
+say a word about this to nobody until you would, anyhow, find out the
+girl's name."
+
+"I wasn't going to," Elkan replied; "but there's something else, Mr.
+Kapfer. To-night I am to meet this here other _Shadchen_ by the name
+Fischko, who is going to take me up to Maslik's house."
+
+"But I thought Miss Maslik was sick," Kapfer said.
+
+"She was sick," Elkan answered, "but she would be better by to-night. So
+that's the way it stands. If I would go downtown now and explain to Mr.
+Scheikowitz that I am not going up there to-night and that I was there
+last night--and----" Here Elkan paused and made an expressive gesture
+with both hands. "The fact is," he almost whimpered, "the whole thing is
+such a _Mischmasch_ I feel like I was going crazy!"
+
+Kapfer leaned across the table and patted him consolingly on the arm.
+
+"Don't make yourself sick over it," he advised. "Put it up to Polatkin.
+You don't got to keep Scheikowitz's idee a secret now, Lubliner, because
+sooner or later Polatkin must got to find it out. So you should let
+Polatkin know how you was up there last night, and that Rashkind wants
+you to go up there Friday night on account Miss Maslik was sick, and
+leave it to Polatkin to flag Scheikowitz and this here Fischko."
+
+"But----" Elkan began, when the strange expression of Kapfer's face made
+him pause. Indeed, before he could proceed further, Kapfer jumped up
+from his chair.
+
+"Cheese it!" he said. "Here comes Polatkin."
+
+As he spoke, Polatkin caught sight of them and almost ran across the
+room.
+
+"Elkan!" he exclaimed. "_Gott sei Dank_ I found you here."
+
+"What's the matter?" Elkan asked.
+
+Polatkin drew forward a chair and they all sat down.
+
+"I just had a terrible fuss with Scheikowitz," he said. "This morning,
+when I got downtown, I thought I would tell him what I brought you back
+for; so I says to him: 'Philip,' I says, 'I want to tell you something,'
+I says. 'I got an elegant _Shidduch_ for Elkan.'" He stopped and let his
+hand fall with a loud smack on his thigh. "Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What a
+row that feller made it! You would think, Elkan, I told him I got a
+pistol to shoot you with, the way he acts. I didn't even got the
+opportunity to tell him who the _Shidduch_ was. He tells me I should
+mind my own business and calls me such names which honestly I wouldn't
+call a shipping clerk even. And what else d'ye think he says?"
+
+Elkan and Kapfer shook their heads.
+
+"Why, he says that to-night, at eight o'clock, he himself is going to
+have a _Shadchen_ by the name Fischko take you up to see a girl in
+Harlem which the name he didn't tell me at all; but he says she's got
+five thousand dollars a dowry. Did he say to you anything about it,
+Elkan?"
+
+"The first I hear of it!" Elkan replied in husky tones as he averted his
+eyes from Polatkin. "Why, I wouldn't know the feller Fischko if he stood
+before me now, and he wouldn't know me neither."
+
+"Didn't he tell you her name?" Kapfer asked cautiously.
+
+"No," Polatkin replied, "because I says right away that the girl I had
+in mind would got a dowry of five thousand too; and then and there
+Scheikowitz gets so mad he smashes a chair on us--one of them new ones
+we just bought, Elkan. So I didn't say nothing more, but I rung up
+Rashkind right away and asks him how things turns out, and he says
+nothing is settled yet."
+
+Elkan nodded guiltily.
+
+"So I got an idee," Polatkin continued. "I thought, Elkan, we would do
+this: Don't come downtown to-day at all, and to-night I would go up and
+meet Fischko and tell him you are practically engaged and the whole
+thing is off. Also I would _schenk_ the feller a ten-dollar bill he
+shouldn't bother us again."
+
+Elkan grasped the edge of the table. He felt as if consciousness were
+slipping away from him, when suddenly Kapfer emitted a loud exclamation.
+
+"By jiminy!" he cried. "I got an idee! Why shouldn't I go up there and
+meet this here Fischko?"
+
+"You go up there?" Polatkin said.
+
+"Sure; why not? A nice girl like Miss--whatever her name is--ain't too
+good for me, Mr. Polatkin. I got a good business there in Bridgetown,
+and----"
+
+"But I don't know what for a girl she is at all," Polatkin protested.
+
+"She's got anyhow five thousand dollars," Kapfer retorted, "and when a
+girl's got five thousand dollars, Mr. Polatkin, beauty ain't even
+skin-deep."
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin agreed; "but so soon as you see Fischko and
+tell him you ain't Elkan Lubliner he would refuse to take you round to
+see the girl at all."
+
+"Leave that to me," Kapfer declared. "D'ye know what I'll tell him?" He
+looked hard at Elkan Lubliner before he continued. "I'll tell him," he
+said, "that Elkan is already engaged."
+
+"Already engaged!" Polatkin cried.
+
+"Sure!" Kapfer said--"secretly engaged unbeknownst to everybody."
+
+"But right away to-morrow morning Fischko would come down and tell
+Scheikowitz that you says Elkan is secretly engaged, and Scheikowitz
+would know the whole thing was a fake and that I am at the bottom of
+it."
+
+"No, he wouldn't," Kapfer rejoined, "because Elkan would then and there
+say that he is secretly engaged and that would let you out."
+
+"Sure it would," Polatkin agreed; "and then Scheikowitz would want to
+kill Elkan."
+
+Suddenly Elkan struck the table with his clenched fist.
+
+"I've got the idee!" he said. "I wouldn't come downtown till
+Saturday--because we will say, for example, I am sick. Then, when
+Fischko says I am secretly engaged, you can say you don't know nothing
+about it; and by the time I come down on Saturday morning I would be
+engaged all right, and nobody could do nothing any more."
+
+"That's true too," Kapfer said, "because your date with Rashkind is for
+to-morrow night and by Saturday the whole thing would be over."
+
+Polatkin nodded doubtfully, but after a quarter of an hour's earnest
+discussion he was convinced of the wisdom of Elkan's plan.
+
+"All right, Elkan," he said at last. "Be down early on Saturday."
+
+"Eight o'clock sure," Elkan replied as he shook Polatkin's hand; "and
+by that time I hope you'll congratulate me on my engagement."
+
+"I hope so," Polatkin said.
+
+"Me too," Kapfer added after Polatkin departed; "and I also hope, Elkan,
+this would be a warning to you that the next time you get engaged you
+should find out the girl's name in advance."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Yes, siree, sir," said Charles Fischko emphatically, albeit a trifle
+thickly. "I guess you made a big hit there, Mr. Kapfer, and I don't
+think I am acting previously when I drink to the health of Mrs. Kapfer."
+He touched glasses with Max Kapfer, who sat opposite to him at a
+secluded table in the Harlem Winter Garden, flanked by two bottles of
+what had been a choice brand of California champagne. "Nee Miss Maslik,"
+he added as he put down his glass; "and I think you are getting a young
+lady which is not only good-looking but she is got also a heart like
+gold. Look at the way she treats the servant girl they got there!
+Honestly, when I was round there this morning them two girls was talking
+like sisters already!"
+
+"That's all right," Kapfer rejoined; "she's got a right to treat that
+girl like a sister. She's a nice little girl--that servant girl."
+
+"Don't I know it!" Fischko protested as he poured himself out another
+glass of wine. "It was me that got her the job there two years ago
+already; and before I would recommend to a family like B. Maslik's a
+servant girl, understand me, I would make sure she comes from decent,
+respectable people. Also the girl is a wonderful cook, Mr. Kapfer,
+simple, plain, everyday dish like _gefuellte Hechte_, Mr. Kapfer; she
+makes it like it would be roast goose already--so fine she cooks it. She
+learned it from her mother, Mr. Kapfer, also a wonderful cook. Why,
+would you believe it, Mr. Kapfer, that girl's own mother and me comes
+pretty near being engaged to be married oncet?"
+
+"You don't say!" Kapfer commented.
+
+"That was from some years ago in the old country already," Fischko
+continued; "and I guess I ought to be lucky I didn't do so, on account
+she marries a feller by the name Silbermacher, _olav hasholem_, which he
+is got the misfortune to get killed in Kishinef. Poor Mrs. Silbermacher,
+she didn't live long, and the daughter, Yetta, comes to America an
+orphan five years ago. Ever since then the girl looks out for herself;
+and so sure as you are sitting there she's got in savings bank already
+pretty near eight hundred dollars."
+
+"Is that so?" Kapfer interrupted.
+
+"Yes, sir," Fischko replied; "and when she is got a thousand, understand
+me, I would find for her a nice young man, Mr. Kapfer, which he is got
+anyhow twenty-five machines a contracting shop, y'understand, and she
+will get married _und fertig_. With such good friends which I got it
+like Polatkin & Scheikowitz, I could throw a little business their way,
+and the first thing you know she is settled for life."
+
+Here Fischko drained his glass and reached out his hand toward the
+bottle; but Kapfer anticipated the move and emptied the remainder of the
+wine into his own glass.
+
+"Before I order another bottle, Fischko," he said, "I would like to talk
+a little business with you."
+
+"Never mind another bottle," Fischko said. "I thought we was through
+with our business for the evening."
+
+"With our business, yes," Kapfer announced; "but this story which you
+are telling me about Miss Silbermacher interests me, Fischko, and I know
+a young feller which he is got more as twenty-five machines a
+contracting shop; in fact, Fischko, he is a salesman which he makes
+anyhow his fifty to seventy-five dollars a week, and he wants to get
+married bad."
+
+"He couldn't want to get married so bad as all that," Fischko commented,
+"because there's lots of girls which would be only too glad to marry a
+such a young feller--girls with money even."
+
+"I give you right, Mr. Fischko," Kapfer agreed; "but this young feller
+ain't the kind that marries for money. What he wants is a nice girl
+which she is good-looking like this here Miss Silbermacher and is a good
+housekeeper, understand me; and from what I've seen of Miss
+Silbermacher she would be just the person."
+
+"What's his name?" Fischko asked.
+
+"His name," said Kapfer, "is Ury Shemansky, a close friend from mine;
+and I got a date with him at twelve o'clock on the corner drug store at
+One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street that I should tell him how I came
+out this evening." He seized his hat from an adjoining hook. "So, if
+you'd wait here a few minutes," he said, "I would go and fetch him right
+round here. Shall I order another bottle before I go?"
+
+Fischko shook his head.
+
+"I got enough," he said; "and don't be long on account I must be going
+home soon."
+
+Kapfer nodded, and five minutes later he entered the all-night drug
+store in question and approached a young man who was seated at the soda
+fountain. In front of him stood a large glass of "Phospho-Nervino,"
+warranted to be "A Speedy and Reliable Remedy for Nervous Headache,
+Sleeplessness, Mental Fatigue and Depression following Over-Brainwork";
+and as he was about to raise the glass to his lips Kapfer slapped him on
+the shoulder.
+
+"Cheer up, Elkan," he exclaimed. "Her name is Yetta Silbermacher and
+she's got in savings bank eight hundred dollars."
+
+"What d'ye mean she's got money in savings bank?" Elkan protested
+wearily, for the sleepless, brain-fatigued and depressed young man was
+none other than Elkan Lubliner. "Did you seen her?"
+
+"I did," Kapfer replied; "and Miss Maslik's a fine, lovely girl. The old
+man ain't so bad either. He treated me elegant and Fischko thinks I made
+quite a hit there."
+
+"I ain't asking you about Miss Maslik at all," Elkan said. "I mean Miss
+Silbermacher"--he hesitated and blushed--"Yetta," he continued, and
+buried his confusion in the foaming glass of "Phospho-Nervino."
+
+"That's just what I want to talk to you about," Kapfer went on. "Did I
+understand you are telling Polatkin that you never seen Fischko the
+_Shadchen_ and he never seen you neither?"
+
+"That's right," Elkan replied.
+
+"Then come right down with me to the Harlem Winter Garden," Kapfer said.
+"I want you to meet him. He ain't a bad sort, even if he would be a
+_Shadchen_."
+
+"But what should I want to meet him for?" Elkan cried.
+
+"Because," Kapfer explained, "I am going to marry this here Miss Maslik,
+Elkan; and I'm going to improve my store property, so that my trade will
+be worth to Polatkin & Scheikowitz anyhow three thousand dollars a
+year--ain't it?"
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" Elkan asked.
+
+"It's got this much to do with it," Kapfer continued: "To-morrow
+afternoon two o'clock I would have Polatkin and Scheikowitz at my room
+in the Prince Clarence. You also would be there--and d'ye know who else
+would be there?"
+
+Elkan shook his head.
+
+"Miss Yetta Silbermacher," Kapfer went on; "because I am going to get
+Fischko to bring her down there to meet an eligible party by the name
+Ury Shemansky."
+
+"What?" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"Ssh-sh!" Kapfer cried reassuringly. "I am going to introduce you to
+Fischko right away as Ury Shemansky, provided he ain't so _shikker_ when
+I get back that he wouldn't recognize you at all."
+
+Elkan nodded and paid for his restorative, and on their way down to the
+Harlem Winter Garden they perfected the details of the appointment for
+the following afternoon.
+
+"The reason why I am getting Fischko to bring her down," Kapfer
+explained, "is because, in the first place, it looks pretty _schlecht_
+that a feller should meet a girl only once and, without the help of a
+_Shadchen_, gets right away engaged to her; and so, with Fischko the
+_Shadchen_ there, it looks better for you both. Furthermore, in the
+second place, a girl which is doing housework, Elkan, must got to have
+an excuse, understand me; otherwise she couldn't get away from her work
+at all."
+
+"But," Elkan said, "how do you expect that Yetta would go with a
+_Shadchen_ to see this here Ury Shemansky when she is already engaged to
+me?"
+
+"_Schafskopf!_" Kapfer exclaimed. "Telephone her the first thing
+to-morrow morning that you are this here Ury Shemansky and she would
+come quick enough!"
+
+"That part's all right," Elkan agreed; "but I don't see yet how you are
+going to get Polatkin and Scheikowitz there."
+
+Kapfer nodded his head with spurious confidence; for of this, perhaps
+the most important part of his plan, he felt extremely doubtful.
+
+"Leave that to me," he said sagely, and the next moment they entered the
+Harlem Winter Garden to find Charles Fischko gazing sadly at a solution
+of bicarbonate of soda and ammonia, a tumblerful of which stood in front
+of him on the table.
+
+"Mr. Fischko," Kapfer said, "this is my friend Ury Shemansky, the
+gentleman I was speaking to you about."
+
+"No relation to Shemansky who used to was in the customer pedler
+business on Ridge Street?" Fischko asked.
+
+"Not as I've heard," Elkan said.
+
+"Because there's a feller, understand me, which he went to work and
+married a poor girl; and ever since he's got nothing but _Mazel_. The
+week afterward he found in the street a diamond ring worth two hundred
+dollars, and the next month a greenhorn comes over with ten thousand
+rubles and wants to go as partners together with him in business. In a
+year's time Shemansky dissolves the partnership and starts in the
+remnant business with five thousand dollars net capital. He ain't been
+established two weeks, understand me, when a liquor saloon next door
+burns out and he gets a thousand dollars smoke damage; and one thing
+follows another, y'understand, till to-day he's worth easy his fifty
+thousand dollars. That's what it is to marry a poor girl, Mr.
+Shemansky." He took a pull at the tumbler of bicarbonate and made an
+involuntary grimace. "Furthermore, I am knowing this here Miss
+Silbermacher ever since she is born, pretty nearly!" Fischko cried.
+
+"You did!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, why didn't you tell me that, Kapfer?"
+
+"I couldn't think of everything," Kapfer protested.
+
+"Go ahead," Elkan said, turning to Fischko; "let me know all about
+her--everything! I think I got a right to know--ain't it?"
+
+"Sure you have," Fischko said as he cleared his throat oratorically; and
+therewith he began a laudatory biography of Yetta Silbermacher, while
+Elkan settled himself to listen. With parted lips and eyes shining his
+appreciation, he heard a narrative that justified beyond peradventure
+his choice of a wife, and when Fischko concluded he smote the table with
+his fist.
+
+"By jiminy!" he cried. "A feller should ought to be proud of a wife like
+that!"
+
+"Sure he should," Kapfer said; "and her and Fischko would be down at my
+room at the Prince Clarence to-morrow at two."
+
+He beckoned to the waiter. "So let's pay up and go home," he concluded;
+"and by to-morrow night Fischko would got two matches to his credit."
+
+"_K'mo she-neemar_," Fischko said as he rose a trifle laboriously to his
+feet, "it is commanded to promote marriages, visit the sick and bury the
+dead."
+
+"And," Kapfer added, "you'll notice that promoting marriages comes ahead
+of the others."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Marcus Polatkin arrived at his place of business the following
+morning he looked round him anxiously for his partner, who had departed
+somewhat early the previous day with the avowed intention of seeing just
+how sick Elkan was. As a matter of fact, Scheikowitz had discovered
+Elkan lying on the sofa at his boarding place, vainly attempting to
+secure his first few minutes' sleep in over thirty-six hours; and he had
+gone home truly shocked at Elkan's pallid and careworn appearance,
+though Elkan had promised to keep the appointment with Fischko. Polatkin
+felt convinced, however, that his partner must have discovered the
+pretence of Elkan's indisposition, and his manner was a trifle
+artificial when he inquired after the absentee.
+
+"How was he feeling, Philip?" he asked.
+
+"Pretty bad, I guess," Scheikowitz replied, whereat a blank expression
+came over Polatkin's face. "The boy works too hard, I guess. He ain't
+slept a wink for two days."
+
+"Why, he seemed all right yesterday when I seen him," Polatkin declared.
+
+"Yesterday?" Scheikowitz exclaimed.
+
+"I mean the day before yesterday," Polatkin added hastily as the
+elevator door opened and a short, stout person alighted. He wore a
+wrinkled frock coat and a white tie which perched coquettishly under his
+left ear; and as he approached the office he seemed to be labouring
+under a great deal of excitement.
+
+"Oo-ee!" he wailed as he caught sight of Polatkin, and without further
+salutation he sank into the nearest chair. There he bowed his head in
+his hands and rocked to and fro disconsolately.
+
+"Who's this crazy feller?" Scheikowitz demanded of his partner.
+
+Polatkin shrugged.
+
+"He's a button salesman by the name Rashkind," Polatkin said. "Leave me
+deal with him." He walked over to the swaying _Shadchen_ and shook him
+violently by the shoulder. "Rashkind," he said, "stop that nonsense and
+tell me what's the matter."
+
+Rashkind ceased his moanings and looked up with bloodshot eyes.
+
+"She's engaged!" he said.
+
+"She's engaged!" Polatkin repeated. "And you call yourself a
+_Shadchen_!" he said bitterly.
+
+"A _Shadchen_!" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, I thought you said he was a
+button salesman."
+
+"Did I?" Polatkin retorted. "Well, maybe he is, Scheikowitz; but he
+ain't no _Shadchen_. Actually the feller goes to work and takes Elkan up
+to see the girl, and they put him off by saying the girl was sick; and
+now he comes down here and tells me the girl is engaged."
+
+"Well," Scheikowitz remarked, "you couldn't get no sympathy from me,
+Polatkin. A feller which acts underhand the way you done, trying to make
+up a _Shidduch_ for Elkan behind my back yet--you got what you
+deserved."
+
+"What d'ye mean I got what I deserved?" Polatkin said indignantly. "Do
+you think it would be such a bad thing for us--you and me both,
+Scheikowitz--if I could of made up a match between Elkan and B. Maslik's
+a daughter?"
+
+"B. Maslik's a daughter!" Scheikowitz cried. "Do you mean that this here
+feller was trying to make up a match between Elkan and Miss Birdie
+Maslik?"
+
+"That's just what I said," Polatkin announced.
+
+"Then I can explain the whole thing," Scheikowitz rejoined
+triumphantly. "Miss Maslik had a date to meet Elkan last night yet with
+a _Shadchen_ by the name Charles Fischko, and that's why B. Maslik told
+this here button salesman that his daughter was engaged."
+
+Rashkind again raised his head and regarded Scheikowitz with a
+malevolent grin.
+
+"_Schmooes!_" he jeered. "Miss Maslik is engaged and the _Shadchen_ was
+Charles Fischko, but the _Chosan_ ain't Elkan Lubliner by a damsight."
+
+It was now Polatkin's turn to gloat, and he shook his head slowly up and
+down.
+
+"So, Scheikowitz," he said, "you are trying to fix up a _Shidduch_
+between Elkan and Miss Maslik without telling me a word about it, and
+you get the whole thing so mixed up that it is a case of trying to sit
+between two chairs! You come down _mit_ a big bump and I ain't got no
+sympathy for you neither."
+
+"What was the feller's name?" Scheikowitz demanded hoarsely of Rashkind,
+who was straightening out his tie and smoothing his rumpled hair.
+
+"It's a funny quincidence," Rashkind replied; "but you remember, Mr.
+Polatkin, I was talking to you the other day about Julius Flixman?"
+
+"Yes," Polatkin said, and his heart began to thump in anticipation of
+the answer.
+
+"Well, Julius Flixman, as I told you, sold out his store to a feller by
+the name Max Kapfer," Rashkind said and paused again.
+
+"_Nu!_" Scheikowitz roared. "What of it?"
+
+"Well, this here Max Kapfer is engaged to be married to Miss Birdie
+Maslik," Rashkind concluded; and when Scheikowitz looked from Rashkind
+toward his partner the latter had already proceeded more than halfway to
+the telephone.
+
+"And that's what your _Shadchen_ done for you, Mr. Scheikowitz!"
+Rashkind said as he put on his hat. He walked to the elevator and rang
+the bell.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Scheikowitz," Rashkind added, "as a _Shadchen_, maybe I am a
+button salesman; but I'd a whole lot sooner be a button salesman as a
+thief and don't you forget it!"
+
+After the elevator had borne Rashkind away Scheikowitz went back to the
+office in time to hear Marcus engaged in a noisy altercation with the
+telephone operator of the Prince Clarence Hotel.
+
+"What d'ye mean he ain't there?" he bellowed. "With you it's always the
+same--I could never get nobody at your hotel."
+
+He hung up the receiver with force almost sufficient to wreck the
+instrument.
+
+"That'll do, Polatkin!" Scheikowitz said. "We already got half our
+furniture smashed."
+
+"Did I done it?" Polatkin growled--the allusion being to the chair
+demolished by Scheikowitz on the previous day.
+
+"You was the cause of it," Scheikowitz retorted; "and, anyhow, who are
+you ringing up at the Prince Clarence?"
+
+"I'm ringing up that feller Kapfer," Polatkin replied. "I want to tell
+that sucker what I think of him."
+
+Then it was that Kapfer's theory as to the effect of his engagement on
+his relations with Polatkin & Scheikowitz became justified in fact.
+
+"You wouldn't do nothing of the kind," Scheikowitz declared. "It ain't
+bad enough that Elkan loses this here _Shidduch_, but you are trying to
+Jonah a good account also! Why, that feller Kapfer's business after he
+marries Miss Maslik would be easy worth to us three thousand dollars a
+year."
+
+"I don't care what his business is worth," Polatkin shouted. "I would
+say what I please to that highwayman!"
+
+"What do you want to do?" Scheikowitz pleaded--"bite off your nose to
+spoil your face?"
+
+Polatkin made no reply and he was about to go into the showroom when the
+telephone bell rang.
+
+"Leave me answer it," Scheikowitz said; and a moment later he picked up
+the desk telephone and placed the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello!" he said. "Yes, this is Polatkin & Scheikowitz. This is Mr.
+Scheikowitz talking."
+
+Suddenly the instrument dropped with a clatter to the floor; and while
+Scheikowitz was stooping to pick it up Polatkin rushed into the office.
+
+"Scheikowitz!" he cried. "What are you trying to do--break up our whole
+office yet? Ain't it enough you are putting all our chairs on the bum
+already?"
+
+Scheikowitz contented himself by glaring viciously at his partner and
+again placed the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello, Mr. Kapfer," he said. "Yes, I heard it this morning already.
+Them things travels fast, Mr. Kapfer. No, I don't blame you--I blame
+this here Fischko. He gives me a dirty deal--that's all."
+
+Here there was a long pause, while Polatkin stood in the middle of the
+office floor like a bird-dog pointing at a covey of partridges.
+
+"But why couldn't you come down here, Mr. Kapfer?" Scheikowitz asked.
+Again there was a long pause, at the end of which Scheikowitz said:
+"Wait a minute--I'll ask my partner."
+
+"Listen here, Polatkin," he said, placing his hand over the transmitter.
+"Kapfer says he wants to give us from two thousand five hundred dollars
+an order, and he wants you and me to go up to the Prince Clarence at two
+o'clock to see him. He wants us both there because he wants to arrange
+terms of credit."
+
+"I would see him hung first!" Polatkin roared, and Scheikowitz took his
+hand from the transmitter.
+
+"All right, Mr. Kapfer," he answered in dulcet tones; "me and Polatkin
+will both be there. Good-bye."
+
+He hung up the receiver with exaggerated care.
+
+"And you would just bet your life that we will be there!" he said. "And
+that's all there is to it!"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+At half-past one that afternoon, while Max Kapfer was enjoying a good
+cigar in the lobby of the Prince Clarence, he received an unexpected
+visitor in the person of Julius Flixman.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flixman?" he cried, dragging forth a chair.
+
+Flixman extended a thin, bony hand in greeting and sat down wearily.
+
+"I don't do so good, Kapfer," he said. "I guess New York don't agree
+with me." He distorted his face in what he intended to be an amiable
+smile. "But I guess it agrees with you all right," he continued. "I
+suppose I must got to congradulate you on account you are going to be
+engaged to Miss Birdie Maslik."
+
+"Why, who told you about it?" Kapfer asked.
+
+"I met this morning a real-estater by the name Rashkind, which he is
+acquainted with the Maslik family," Flixman replied, "and he says it
+happened yesterday. Also they told me up at the hotel you was calling
+there this morning to see me."
+
+"That's right," Kapfer said; "and you was out."
+
+"I was down to see a feller on Center Street," Flixman went on, "and so
+I thought, so long as you wanted to fix up about the note, I might just
+as well come down here."
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," Kapfer interrupted.
+
+"Not at all," Flixman continued. "When a feller wants to pay you money
+and comes to see you once to do it and you ain't in, understand me, then
+it's up to you to go to him; so here I am."
+
+"But the fact is," Kapfer said, "I didn't want to see you about paying
+the money exactly. I wanted to see you about not paying it."
+
+"About not paying it?" Flixman cried.
+
+"Sure!" Kapfer replied. "I wanted to see if you wouldn't give me a
+year's extension for that last thousand on account I am going to get
+married; and with what Miss Maslik would bring me, y'understand, and
+your thousand dollars which I got here, I would just have enough to fix
+up my second floor and build a twenty-five-foot extension on the rear.
+You see, I figure it this way." He searched his pocket for a piece of
+paper and produced a fountain pen. "I figure that the fixtures cost me
+twenty-two hundred," he began, "and----"
+
+At this juncture Flixman flipped his fingers derisively.
+
+"Pipe dreams you got it!" he said. "That store as it stands was good
+enough for me, and it should ought to be good enough for you.
+Furthermore, Kapfer, if you want to invest Maslik's money and your own
+money, _schon gut_; but me, I could always put a thousand dollars into a
+bond, Kapfer. So, if it's all the same to you, I'll take your check and
+call it square."
+
+Kapfer shrugged resignedly.
+
+"I had an idee you would," he said, "so I got it ready for you; because,
+Mr. Flixman, you must excuse me when I tell you that you got the
+reputation of being a good collector."
+
+"Am I?" Flixman snapped out. "Well, maybe I am, Kapfer, but I could give
+my money up, too, once in a while; and, believe me or not, Kapfer, this
+afternoon yet I am going to sign a will which I am leaving all my money
+to a Talmud Torah School."
+
+"You don't say so?" Kapfer said as he drew out his checkbook.
+
+"That's what I am telling you," Flixman continued, "because there's a
+lot of young loafers running round the streets which nobody got any
+control over 'em at all; and if they would go to a Talmud Torah School,
+understand me, not only they learn 'em there a little _Loschen
+Hakodesch_, y'understand, but they would also pretty near club the life
+out of 'em."
+
+"I'll write out a receipt on some of the hotel paper here," Kapfer said
+as he signed and blotted the check.
+
+"Write out two of 'em, so I would have a copy of what I am giving you,"
+Flixman rejoined. "It's always just so good to be businesslike. That's
+what I told that lawyer to-day. He wants me I should remember a couple
+of orphan asylums he's interested in, and I told him that if all them
+suckers would train up their children they would learn a business and
+not holler round the streets and make life miserable for people, they
+wouldn't got to be orphans at all. Half the orphans is that way on
+account they worried their parents to death with their carryings-on, and
+when they go to orphan asylums they get treated kind yet. And people is
+foolish enough to pay a lawyer fifty dollars if he should draw up a will
+to leave the orphan asylum their good hard-earned money."
+
+He snorted indignantly as he examined Kapfer's receipt and compared it
+with the original.
+
+"Well," he concluded as he appended his signature to the receipt, "I got
+him down to twenty-five dollars and I'll have that will business settled
+up this afternoon yet."
+
+He placed the check and the receipt in his wallet and shook hands with
+Kapfer.
+
+"Good-bye," he said. "And one thing let me warn you against: A _Chosan_
+should always get his money in cash _oder_ certified check before he
+goes under the _Chuppah_ at all; otherwise, after you are married and
+your father-in-law is a crook, understand me, you could kiss yourself
+good-bye with your wife's dowry--and don't you forget it!"
+
+Max walked with him down the lobby; and they had barely reached the
+entrance when Charles Fischko and Miss Yetta Silbermacher arrived.
+
+"Hello, Fischko!" Max cried, as Flixman tottered out into the
+street; but Fischko made no reply. Instead he suddenly let go Miss
+Silbermacher's arm and dashed hurriedly to the sidewalk. Max led Miss
+Silbermacher to a chair and engaged her immediately in conversation. She
+was naturally a little embarrassed by her unusual surroundings, though
+she was becomingly--not to say fashionably--attired in garments of her
+own making; and she gazed timidly about her for her absent lover.
+
+"Elkan ain't here yet," Max explained, "on account you are a little
+ahead of time."
+
+Miss Silbermacher's brown eyes sparkled merrily.
+
+"I ain't the only one," she said as she jumped to her feet; for, though
+the hands of the clock on the desk pointed to ten minutes to two, Elkan
+Lubliner approached from the direction of the cafe. He caught sight of
+them while he was still some distance away, and two overturned chairs
+marked the last of his progress toward them.
+
+At first he held out his hand in greeting; but the two little dimples
+that accompanied Yetta's smile overpowered his sense of propriety, and
+he embraced her affectionately.
+
+"Where's Fischko?" he asked.
+
+Both Kapfer and Miss Silbermacher looked toward the street entrance.
+
+"He was here a minute ago," Kapfer said.
+
+"Did you tell him that I wasn't Ury Shemansky at all?" Elkan inquired.
+
+"Sure I did," Miss Silbermacher replied, "and he goes on something
+terrible, on account he says Mr. Kapfer told him last night you was
+already engaged; so I told him I know you was engaged because I am the
+party you are engaged to."
+
+She squeezed Elkan's hand.
+
+"And he says then," she continued, "that if that's the case what do we
+want him down here for? So I told him we are going to meet Mr. Polatkin
+and Mr. Scheikowitz, and----"
+
+"And they'll be right here in a minute," Kapfer interrupted; "so you go
+upstairs to my room and I'll find Fischko and bring him up also."
+
+He conducted them to the elevator, and even as the door closed behind
+them Fischko came running up the hall.
+
+"Kapfer," he said, "who was that feller which he was just here talking
+to you?"
+
+"What d'ye want to know for?" Kapfer asked.
+
+"Never mind what I want to know for!" Fischko retorted. "Who is he?"
+
+"Well, if you must got to know," Kapfer said, "he's a feller by the name
+Julius Flixman."
+
+"What?" Fischko shouted.
+
+"Fischko," Kapfer protested, "you ain't in no Canal Street coffee house
+here. This is a first-class hotel."
+
+Fischko nodded distractedly.
+
+"Sure, I know," he said. "Is there a place we could sit down here? I
+want to ask you something a few questions."
+
+Kapfer led the way to the cafe and they sat down at a table near the
+door.
+
+"Go ahead, Fischko," he said. "Polatkin and Scheikowitz will be here any
+minute."
+
+"Well," Fischko began falteringly, "if this here feller is Julius
+Flixman, which he is coming from Bessarabia _schon_ thirty years ago
+already, I don't want to do nothing in a hurry, Mr. Kapfer, on account I
+want to investigate first how things stand."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" Kapfer demanded.
+
+"Why, I mean this," Fischko cried: "If this here Flixman is well fixed,
+Kapfer, I want to know it, on account Miss Yetta Silbermacher is from
+Flixman's sister a daughter, understand me!"
+
+Kapfer lit a cigar deliberately before replying. He was thinking hard.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he said at last, "that this here Miss
+Silbermacher is Julius Flixman's a niece?"
+
+"That's what I said," Fischko replied. "He comes here from Bessarabia
+thirty years ago already and from that day to this I never heard a word
+about him--Miss Silbermacher neither."
+
+"Ain't the rest of his family heard from him?" Kapfer asked guardedly.
+
+"There ain't no rest of his family," Fischko said. "Mrs. Silbermacher
+was his only sister, and she's dead over ten years since."
+
+Kapfer nodded and drew reflectively on his cigar.
+
+"Well, Fischko," he said finally, "I wouldn't let Flixman worry me none.
+He's practically a _Schnorrer_; he was in here just now on account he
+hears I am going to marry a rich girl and touches me for some money on
+the head of it. I guess you noticed that he looks pretty shabby--ain't
+it?"
+
+"And sick too," Fischko added, just as a bellboy came into the cafe.
+
+"Mr. Copper!" he bawled, and Max jumped to his feet.
+
+"Right here," he said, and the bellboy handed him a card.
+
+"Tell them I'll be with them in a minute," he continued; "and you stay
+here till I come back, Fischko. I won't be long."
+
+He followed the bellboy to the desk, where stood Polatkin and
+Scheikowitz.
+
+"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said.
+
+"Well, Mr. Kapfer," Scheikowitz replied, "I guess I got to congradulate
+you."
+
+"Sure!" Kapfer murmured perfunctorily. "Let's go into the Moorish Room."
+
+"What's the matter with the cafe?" Polatkin asked; but Scheikowitz
+settled the matter by leading the way to the Moorish Room, where they
+all sat down at a secluded table.
+
+"The first thing I want to tell you, gentlemen," Kapfer said, "is that I
+know you feel that I turned a dirty trick on you about Elkan."
+
+Scheikowitz shrugged expressively.
+
+"The way we feel about it, Mr. Kapfer," he commented, "is that bygones
+must got to be bygones--and that's all there is to it."
+
+"But," Kapfer said, "I don't want the bygones to be all on my side; so I
+got a proposition to make you. How would it be if I could fix up a good
+_Shidduch_ for Elkan myself?"
+
+"What for a _Shidduch_?" Polatkin asked.
+
+"The girl is an orphan," Kapfer replied, "_aber_ she's got one uncle, a
+bachelor, which ain't got no relation in the world but her, and he's
+worth anyhow seventy-five thousand dollars."
+
+"How do you know he's worth that much?" Polatkin demanded.
+
+"Because I got some pretty close business dealings with him," Kapfer
+replied; "and not only do I know he's worth that much, but I guess you
+do too, Mr. Polatkin, on account his name is Julius Flixman."
+
+"Julius Flixman?" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, Julius Flixman ain't got a
+relation in the world--he told me so himself."
+
+"When did he told you that?" Kapfer asked.
+
+"A couple of days ago," Scheikowitz replied.
+
+"Then that accounts for it," Kapfer said. "A couple of days ago nobody
+knows he had a niece--not even Flixman himself didn't; but to-day yet he
+would know it and he would tell you so himself."
+
+"But----" Scheikowitz began, when once again a page entered the room,
+bawling a phonetic imitation of Kapfer's name.
+
+"Wanted at the 'phone," he called as he caught sight of Kapfer.
+
+"Excuse me," Kapfer said. "I'll be right back."
+
+He walked hurriedly out of the room, and Polatkin turned with a shrug to
+his partner.
+
+"Well, Scheikowitz," he began, "what did I told you? We are up here on a
+fool's errand--ain't it?"
+
+Scheikowitz made no reply.
+
+"I'll tell you, Polatkin," he said at length, "Flixman himself says to
+me he did got one sister living in Bessarabia, and he ain't heard from
+her in thirty years; and----"
+
+At this juncture Kapfer rushed into the room.
+
+"Scheikowitz," he gasped, "I just now got a telephone message from a
+lawyer on Center Street, by the name Goldenfein, I should come right
+down there. Flixman is taken sick suddenly and they find in his pocket
+my check and a duplicate receipt which he gives me, written on the hotel
+paper. Do me the favour and come with me."
+
+Fifteen minutes later they stepped out of a taxicab in front of an
+old-fashioned office building in Center Street and elbowed their way
+through a crowd of over a hundred people toward the narrow doorway.
+
+"Where do yous think you're going?" asked a policeman whose broad
+shoulders completely blocked the little entrance.
+
+"We was telephoned for, on account a friend of ours by the name Flixman
+is taken sick here," Kapfer explained.
+
+"Go ahead," the policeman said more gently; "but I guess you're too
+late."
+
+"Is he dead?" Scheikowitz cried, and the policeman nodded solemnly as he
+stood to one side.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+More than two hours elapsed before Kapfer, Polatkin, and Scheikowitz
+returned to the Prince Clarence. With them was Kent J. Goldenfein.
+
+"Mr. Kapfer," the clerk said, "there's a man been waiting for you in the
+cafe for over two hours."
+
+"I'll bring him right in," Kapfer said, and two minutes afterward he
+brought the gesticulating Fischko out of the cafe.
+
+"Do you think I am a dawg?" Fischko cried. "I've been here two hours!"
+
+"Well, come into the Moorish Room a minute," Kapfer pleaded, "and I'll
+fix everything up with you afterward."
+
+He led the protesting _Shadchen_ through the lobby, and when they
+entered the Moorish Room an impressive scene awaited them. On a divan,
+beneath some elaborate plush draperies, sat Kent J. Goldenfein, flanked
+on each side by Polatkin and Scheikowitz respectively, while spread on
+the table in front of them were the drafts of Flixman's will and the
+engrossed, unsigned copy, together with such other formidable-looking
+documents as Goldenfein happened to find in his pockets. He rose
+majestically as Fischko entered and turned on him a beetling frown.
+
+"Is this the fellow?" he demanded sepulchrally, and Kapfer nodded.
+
+"Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein went on, "I am an officer of the Supreme Court
+and I have been retained to investigate the affairs of Mr. Julius
+Flixman."
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Kapfer," Fischko cried. "What is all this?"
+
+Kapfer drew forward a chair.
+
+"Sit down, Fischko," he said, "and answer the questions that he is
+asking you."
+
+"But----" Fischko began.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein boomed, "you are wasting our time
+here. Raise your right hand!"
+
+Fischko glanced despairingly at Kapfer and then obeyed.
+
+"Do you solemnly swear," said Goldenfein, who, besides being an
+attorney-at-law was also a notary public, "that the affidavit you will
+hereafter sign will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
+truth, so help you God?"
+
+"But----" Fischko began again.
+
+"Do you?" Goldenfein roared, and Fischko nodded. Forthwith Goldenfein
+plied him with such ingeniously fashioned questions concerning the
+Flixman family that the answers presented a complete history of all its
+branches. Furthermore, the affidavit which Goldenfein immediately drew
+up lacked only such confirmatory evidence as could easily be supplied to
+establish the identity of Miss Yetta Silbermacher as Julius Flixman's
+only heir-at-law; and, after Fischko had meekly signed the jurat,
+Goldenfein rose ponderously to his feet.
+
+"I congratulate you, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "I think there is no doubt
+that your nephew's fiancee will inherit Flixman's estate, thanks to my
+professional integrity."
+
+"What d'ye mean your professional integrity?" Kapfer asked.
+
+"Why, if I hadn't refused to accept twenty-two dollars for drawing the
+will and insisted on the twenty-five we had agreed upon," Goldenfein
+explained, "he would never have suffered the heart attack which
+prevented his signing the will before he died."
+
+"Died!" Fischko exclaimed. "Is Julius Flixman dead?"
+
+"_Koosh_, Fischko!" Polatkin commanded. "You would think you was one of
+the family the way you are acting. Come down to our store to-morrow and
+we would arrange things with you." He turned to Kapfer.
+
+"Let's go upstairs and see Elkan--and Yetta," he said.
+
+Immediately they trooped to the elevator and ascended to the seventh
+floor.
+
+"All of you wait here in the corridor," Kapfer whispered, "and I'll go
+and break it to them." He tiptoed to his room and knocked gently at the
+door.
+
+"Come!" Elkan cried, and Kapfer turned the knob.
+
+On a sofa near the window sat Elkan, with his arm surrounding his
+fiancee's waist and her head resting on his shoulder.
+
+"Hello, Max!" he cried. "What's kept you? We must have been waiting here
+at least a quarter of an hour!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+HIGHGRADE LINES
+
+
+"Sure, I know, Mr. Scheikowitz," cried Elkan Lubliner, junior partner of
+Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company, as he sat in the firm's office late one
+February afternoon; "but if you want to sell a highgrade concern like
+Joseph Kammerman you must got to got a highgrade line of goods."
+
+"Ain't I am telling you that all the time?" Scheikowitz replied. "_Aber_
+we sell here a popular-price line, Elkan. So what is the use talking we
+ain't ekvipt for a highgrade line."
+
+"What d'ye mean we ain't equipped, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan protested.
+"We got here machines and we got here fixtures, and all we need it now
+is a highgrade designer and a couple really good cutters like that new
+feller which is working for us."
+
+"That's all right, too, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin interrupted; "but it
+ain't the ekvipment which it is so important. The reputation which we
+got for selling a popular-price line we couldn't get rid of so easy,
+understand me, and that _Betzimmer_ buyer of Kammerman's wouldn't got no
+confidence in us at all. The way he figures it we could just so much
+turn out a highgrade line of goods here as you could expect a feller
+which is acting in a moving pictures to all of a sudden sing like
+Charuso."
+
+"Besides," Scheikowitz added, "highgrade designers and really good
+cutters means more capital, Elkan."
+
+"The capital you shouldn't worry about at all," Elkan retorted. "Next
+week my Yetta gets falling due a second mortgage from old man Flixman
+for five thousand dollars, and----"
+
+Polatkin made a flapping gesture with his right hand.
+
+"Keep your money, Elkan," he said. "You could got lots of better ways to
+invest it for Yetta as fixing ourselves up to sell big _Machers_ like
+Joseph Kammerman."
+
+"But it don't do no harm I should drop in and see them people. Ain't
+it?"
+
+"Sure not," Scheikowitz continued as he swung round in his revolving
+chair and seized a pile of cutting clips. "They got an elegant store
+there on Fifth Avenue which it is a pleasure to go into even; and the
+worst that happens you, Elkan, is you are out a good cigar for that Mr.
+Dalzell up there."
+
+Elkan nodded gloomily, and as he left the office Polatkin's face relaxed
+in an indulgent smile.
+
+"The boy is getting awful ambitious lately, Scheikowitz," he said.
+
+"What d'ye mean, ambitious?" Philip Scheikowitz cried angrily. "If you
+would be only twenty-three years of age, Polatkin, and married to a rich
+girl, understand me--and also partner in a good concern, which the whole
+thing he done it himself, Polatkin--you would act a whole lot more
+ambitious as he does. Instead of knocking the boy, Polatkin, you should
+ought to give him credit for what he done."
+
+"Who is knocking the boy?" Polatkin demanded. "All I says is the boy is
+ambitious, Scheikowitz--which, if you don't think it's ambitious a
+feller tries to sell goods to Joseph Kammerman, Scheikowitz, what is it
+then?"
+
+"There's worser people to sell goods to as Joseph Kammerman, Polatkin,
+which he is a millionaire concern, understand me," Scheikowitz declared;
+"and you could take it from me, Polatkin, even if you would accuse him
+he is ambitious _oder_ not, that boy always got idees to do big
+things--and he works hard till he lands 'em. So if you want to call that
+ambitious, Polatkin, go ahead and do so. When a loafer knocks it's a
+boost every time."
+
+With this ultimatum Scheikowitz followed his junior partner to the rear
+of the loft, where Elkan regarded with a critical eye the labors of his
+cutting-room staff.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan," Scheikowitz asked, "what's biting you now?"
+
+Elkan winked significantly--and a moment later he tapped an assistant
+cutter on the shoulder.
+
+"Max," he said, "do you got maybe a grudge against that piece of goods,
+the way you are slamming it round?"
+
+The assistant cutter smiled in an embarrassed fashion.
+
+"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I wasn't thinking about them
+goods at all. When you are laying out goods for cutting, Mr. Lubliner,
+you don't got to think much--especially pastel shades."
+
+"Pastel shades?" Elkan repeated.
+
+"That's what I said," the cutter replied. "_Mit_ colors like reds and
+greens, which they are hitting you right in the face, so to speak, you
+couldn't get your mind off of 'em at all; but pastel shades, that's
+something else again. They quiet you like smoking a cigarette."
+
+Elkan turned to his partner with a shrug.
+
+"When I was working by B. Gans," the cutter went on, "I am laying out a
+piece of old gold crepe _mit_ a silver-thread border, and I assure you,
+Mr. Lubliner, it has an effect on me like some one would give me a glass
+of schnapps already."
+
+"_Stiegen_, Max," said Elkan, moving away, "you got too much to say for
+yourself."
+
+Max nodded resignedly and continued the spreading of the goods on the
+cutting table, while Elkan and Scheikowitz walked out of the room.
+
+"That's the new feller I was telling you about," Elkan said.
+"_Meshugganeh_ Max Merech they call him."
+
+"_Meshugga_ he may be," Scheikowitz replied, "but just the same he's got
+a couple of good idees also, Elkan. Only this morning he makes Redman
+the designer pretty near crazy when he says that the blue soutache on
+that new style 2060 kills the blue in the yoke, y'understand; and he was
+right too, Elkan. Polatkin and me made Redman change it over."
+
+Elkan shrugged again as he put on his hat and coat preparatory to going
+home.
+
+"A lot our class of trade worries about such things!" he exclaimed. "So
+far as they are concerned the soutache could be crimson and the yoke
+green, and if the price was right they'd buy it anyhow."
+
+"Don't you fool yourself, Elkan," Scheikowitz said while Elkan rang for
+the elevator. "The price is never right if the workmanship ain't good."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+That Elkan Lubliner's progress in business had not kept pace with his
+social achievements was a source of much disappointment to both Mrs.
+Lubliner and himself; for though the firm of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &
+Company was still rated seventy-five thousand dollars to one hundred
+thousand dollars--credit good--Elkan and Mrs. Lubliner moved in the
+social orbit of no less a personage than of Max Koblin, the Raincoat
+King, whose credit soared triumphantly among the A's and B's of
+old-established commission houses.
+
+Indeed it was a party at Max Koblin's house that evening which caused
+Elkan to leave his place of business at half-past five; and when Mrs.
+Lubliner and he sallied forth from the gilt and porphyry hallway of
+their apartment dwelling they were fittingly arrayed to meet Max's
+guests, none of whom catered to the popular-price trade of Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz & Company.
+
+"Why didn't you told him we are getting next week paid off for five
+thousand dollars a second mortgage?" Yetta said, continuing a
+conversation begun at dinner that evening.
+
+"I did told him," Elkan insisted; "but what is the use talking to a
+couple of old-timers like them?"
+
+Yetta sniffed contemptuously with the impatience of youth at the foibles
+of senility, as exemplified by the doddering Philip Scheikowitz, aged
+forty-five, and the valetudinarian Marcus Polatkin, whose hair, albeit
+unfrosted, had been blighted and in part swept away by the vicissitudes
+of forty-two winters.
+
+"You can't learn an old dawg young tricks," Elkan declared, "and we
+might just as well make up our minds to it, Yetta, we would never
+compete with such highgrade concerns like B. Gans _oder_ Schwefel &
+Zucker."
+
+They walked over two blocks in silence and then Elkan broke out anew.
+
+"I tell you," he said, "I am sick and tired of it. B. Gans talks all the
+time about selling this big _Macher_ and that big _Macher_, and him and
+Mr. Schwefel gets telling about what a millionaire like Kammerman says
+to him the other day, or what he says to Mandelberger, of Chicago,
+y'understand--and I couldn't say nothing! If I would commence to tell
+'em what I says to such customers of ours like One-Eye Feigenbaum _oder_
+H. Margonin, of Bridgetown, understand me, they would laugh me in my
+face yet."
+
+Yetta pressed his arm consolingly as they ascended the stoop of Max
+Koblin's house on Mount Morris Park West, and two minutes later they
+entered the front parlour of that luxurious residence.
+
+"And do you know what he says to me?" a penetrating barytone voice
+announced as they came in. "He says to me, 'Benson,' he says, 'I've been
+putting on musical shows now for fifteen years, and an idee like that
+comes from a genius already. There's a fortune in it!'"
+
+At this juncture Mrs. Koblin noted the arrival of the last of her
+guests.
+
+"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried, rising to her feet. "Ain't you
+fashionable getting here so late?"
+
+She kissed Yetta and held out a hand to Elkan as she spoke.
+
+"Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Elkan, keeping Yetta's dinner waiting
+because you claim you're so busy downtown?" she went on. "I guess you
+know everybody here except Mr. Benson."
+
+She nodded toward the promulgator of Heaven-born ideas, who bowed
+solemnly.
+
+"Pleased to meet you, Mister----"
+
+"Lubliner," Elkan said.
+
+"Mister Lubliner," Benson repeated, passing his begemmed fingers through
+a shock of black, curly hair. "And the long and short of it is," he
+continued, addressing the company, "to-morrow I'm getting a scenario
+along them lines I just indicated to you from one of the highest-grade
+fellers that's writing."
+
+Here ensued a pause, during which B. Gans searched his mind for an
+anecdote concerning some retailer of sufficiently good financial
+standing, while Joseph Schwefel, of Schwefel & Zucker, cleared his
+throat preparatory to launching a verbatim report of a conversation
+between himself and a buyer for one of the most exclusive costume houses
+on Fifth Avenue; but even as Schwefel rounded his lips to enunciate an
+introductory "Er," Benson obtained a fresh start.
+
+"Now you remember 'The Diners Out,' Ryan & Bernbaum's production last
+season?" he said, addressing Elkan. "In that show they had an idee like
+this: Eight ponies is let down from the flies--see?--and George DeFrees
+makes his entrance in a practical airyoplane--I think it was George
+DeFrees was working for Ryan & Bernbaum last year, or was it Sammy
+Potter?"
+
+At this point he screwed up his face and leaning his elbow on the arm of
+his chair he placed four fingers on his forehead in the attitude known
+theatrically as Business of Deep Consideration.
+
+"No," he said at last--"it was George DeFrees. George jumps out of the
+airyoplane and says: 'They followed me to earth, I see.'"
+
+Benson raised his eyebrows at the assembled guests.
+
+"Angels!" he announced. "Get the idee? 'They followed me to earth, I
+see.' Cue. And then he sings the song hit of the show: 'Come Take a Ride
+in My Airyoplane.'"
+
+B. Gans shuffled his feet uneasily and Joseph Schwefel pulled down his
+waistcoat. As manufacturers of highgrade garments they had accompanied
+more than one customer to the entertainment described by Benson; but to
+Elkan the term "ponies" admitted of only one meaning, and this
+conversational arabesque of flies, little horses, aeroplanes and George
+DeFrees made him fairly dizzy.
+
+"And," M. Sidney Benson said before B. Gans could head him off, "just
+that there entrance boomed the show. Ryan & Bernbaum up to date clears
+a hundred and twenty thousand dollars over and above all expenses."
+
+"Better as the garment business!" Max Koblin commented--and B. Gans
+nodded and yawned.
+
+"Ain't we going to have no pinocle?" he asked. Max rose and threw open
+the sliding doors leading to the dining room, where cards and chips were
+in readiness.
+
+"Will you join us, Mr. Benson?" he asked.
+
+"That'll make five with Mr. Lubliner," Benson replied; "so supposing
+you, Gans and Schwefel go ahead, and Mr. Lubliner and me will join you
+later. Otherwise you would got to deal two of us out--which it makes a
+pretty slow game that way."
+
+"Just as you like," Max said; and after Mrs. Koblin and Yetta had
+retired abovestairs to view the most recent accession to Mrs. Koblin's
+wardrobe, Benson pulled up the points of his high collar and adjusted
+his black stock necktie. Then he lit a fresh cigar and prepared to lay
+bare to Elkan the arcana of the theatrical business.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the show business is a business like any
+other business. It ain't like you got an idee it is--opening wine for a
+bunch of chickens, understand me, and running round the streets till all
+hours of the morning."
+
+"I never got no such idee," Elkan protested.
+
+"You ain't, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued, "because it's very
+evidence to me that you don't know nothing about it; but there's a whole
+lot of people got that idee anyhow, y'understand; and what I am always
+trying to tell everybody is that the show business is like the garment
+business _oder_ the drygoods business--a business for a business man,
+not a loafer!"
+
+Elkan made an inarticulate noise which Benson took to be an expression
+of interest and encouragement.
+
+"At the same time art has got a whole lot to do with it," he went
+on--"art and idees; and when you take a feller like Ryan, which he could
+write a show, write the music, put it on and play the leading part all
+by himself, y'understand, and a feller like Bernbaum, which used to was
+Miller, Bernbaum & Company in the pants business--you got there an ideel
+combination!"
+
+Elkan nodded and looked helplessly round him at the Circassian walnut,
+of which half a forestful had gone to make up the furnishings of
+Koblin's front parlor.
+
+"But," Benson said emphatically, "you take me, for instance--and what
+was I?"
+
+He told off his former occupations with the index finger of his right
+hand on each digit of his left.
+
+"First I was a salesman; second I was for myself in the infants' wear
+business; third I was _noch einmal_ a salesman. Then I become an actor,
+because everybody knows my act, which I called it 'Your Old Friend
+Maslowsky.' For four years I played all the first-class vaudeville
+circuits here and on the other side in England. But though I made good
+money, Mr. Lubliner, the real big money is in the producing end."
+
+"Huh-huh!" Elkan ejaculated.
+
+"So that's the way it is with me, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued. "I am
+just like Ryan & Bernbaum, only instead of two partners there is only
+just one; which I got the art, the idees and the business ability all in
+myself!"
+
+"That must make it very handy for you," Elkan commented.
+
+"Handy ain't no name for it," Benson replied. "It's something you don't
+see nowheres else in the show business; but I'll tell you the truth, Mr.
+Lubliner--the work is too much for me!"
+
+"Why don't you get a partner?" Elkan asked.
+
+Benson made a circular gesture with his right hand.
+
+"I could get lots of partners with big money, Mr. Lubliner," he said,
+"but why should I divide my profits? Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Well, that depends how you are looking at it," Elkan said.
+
+"I am looking at it from the view of a business man, Mr. Lubliner,"
+Benson rejoined. "Here I got a proposition which I am going to put on--a
+show of idees--a big production, understand me; which if Ryan &
+Bernbaum makes from their 'Diners Out' a hundred thousand dollars,
+_verstehst du_, I could easily make a hundred and fifty thousand! And
+yet, Mr. Lubliner, all I invest is five thousand dollars and five
+thousand more which I am making a loan at a bank."
+
+"Which bank?" Elkan asked--so quickly that Benson almost jumped in his
+seat.
+
+"I--I didn't decide which bank yet," he replied. "You see, Mr. Lubliner,
+I got accounts in three banks. First I belonged to the Fifteenth
+National Bank. Then they begged me I should go in the Minuit National
+Bank. All right. I went in the Minuit National Bank. H'afterward Sam
+Feder comes to me and says: 'Benson,' he says, 'you are an old friend
+from mine,' he says. 'Why do you bother yourself you should go into this
+bank and that bank?' he says. 'Why don't you come to my bank?' he says,
+'and I would give you all the money you want.' So you see, Mr. Lubliner,
+it is immaterial to me which bank I get my money from."
+
+Again he passed his jewelled fingers through his hair.
+
+"No, Mr. Lubliner," he announced after a pause, "my own brother even I
+wouldn't give a look-in."
+
+Elkan made no reply. As a result of Benson's gesture he was busy
+estimating the value of eight and a quarter carats at eighty-seven
+dollars and fifty cents a carat.
+
+"Because," Benson continued, "the profits is something you could really
+call enormous! If you got the time I would like to show you a few
+figures."
+
+"I got all evening," Elkan answered, whereat Benson pulled from his
+waistcoat pocket a fountain pen ornamented with gold filigree.
+
+"First," he said, "is the costumes."
+
+And therewith he plunged into a maze of calculation that lasted for
+nearly an hour. Moreover, at the end of that period he entered into a
+new series of figures, tending to show that by the investment of an
+additional five thousand dollars the profits could be increased
+seventy-five per cent.
+
+"But I'm satisfied to invest my ten thousand," he said, "because five
+thousand is my own and the other five thousand I could get easy from the
+Kosciuscko Bank, whereas the additional five thousand I must try to
+interest somebody he should invest it with me. And so far as that goes I
+wouldn't bother myself at all."
+
+"You're dead right," Elkan said by way of making himself agreeable,
+whereat Benson grew crimson with chagrin.
+
+"Sure I'm dead right," he said; "and if you and Mrs. Lubliner would come
+down to my office in the Siddons Theatre Building to-morrow night, eight
+o'clock, I would send one of my associates round with you and he will
+get you tickets for the 'Diners Out,' understand me; and then you would
+see for yourself what a big house they got there. Even on Monday night
+they turn 'em away!"
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," Elkan replied. "I'm sure Mrs. Lubliner and me
+would enjoy it very much."
+
+"I'm sorry for you if you wouldn't," Benson retorted; "and that
+there 'Diners Out' ain't a marker to the show I'm putting on, Mr.
+Lubliner--which you can see for yourself, a business proposition,
+which pans out pretty near two hundred thousand dollars on a
+fifteen-thousand-dollar investment, is got to be right up to the mark.
+Ain't it?"
+
+"I thought you said ten thousand dollars was the investment," Elkan
+remarked.
+
+"I did," Benson replied with some heat; "but if some one comes along and
+wants to invest the additional five thousand dollars I wouldn't turn him
+down, Mr. Lubliner."
+
+He rose to his feet to join the pinocle players in the dining room.
+
+"So I hope you enjoy the show to-morrow night," he added as he strolled
+away.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+From six to eight every evening Max Merech underwent a gradual
+transformation, for six o'clock was the closing hour at Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz & Company's establishment, while eight marked the advent of
+the Sarasate Trio at the Cafe Roman, on Delancey Street. Thus, at six,
+Max Merech was an assistant cutter; and, indeed, until after he ate his
+supper he still bore the outward appearance of an assistant cutter,
+though inwardly he felt a premonitory glow. After half-past seven,
+however, he buttoned on a low, turned-down collar with its concomitant
+broad Windsor tie, and therewith he assumed his real character--that of
+a dilettante.
+
+At the Cafe Roman each evening he specialized on music; but with the
+spirit of the true dilettante he neglected no one of the rest of the
+arts, and was ever to be found at the table next to the piano, a warm
+advocate of the latest movement in painting and literature, as well as
+an appreciative listener to the ultramodern music discoursed by the
+Sarasate Trio.
+
+"If that ain't a winner I ain't no judge!" he said to Boris Volkovisk,
+the pianist, on the evening of the conversation with Elkan set forth
+above. He referred to a violin sonata of Boris' own composition which
+the latter and Jacob Rekower, the violinist, had just concluded.
+
+Boris smiled and wiped away the perspiration from his bulging forehead,
+for the third movement of the sonata, marked in the score _Allegro con
+fuoco_, had taxed even the technic of its composer.
+
+"A winner of what?" Boris asked--"money? Because supposing a miracle
+happens that somebody would publish it nobody buys it."
+
+Max nodded his head slowly in sympathetic acquiescence.
+
+"But anyhow you ain't so bad off like some composers," he said. "You've
+anyhow got a good musician to play your stuff for you."
+
+He smiled at Jacob Rekower, who plunged his hands into his trousers
+pockets and shrugged deprecatingly.
+
+"Sure, I know," Rekower said; "and if we play too much good stuff
+Marculescu raises the devil with us we should play more popular music."
+
+He spat out the words "popular music" with an emphasis that made a
+_Tarrok_ player at the next table jump in his seat.
+
+"_Nu_," said the latter as the deal passed, "what is the matter with
+popular music? If it wouldn't be for writing popular music, understand
+me, many a decent, respectable composer would got to starve!"
+
+He turned his chair round and abandoned the card game the better to air
+his views on popular music.
+
+"Furthermore," he said, "I know a young feller by the name Milton Jassy
+which last year he makes two thousand dollars already from syncopating
+_Had gadyo_ and calling it the "Wildcat Rag," and this year he is
+writing the music for a new show and I bet yer the least he makes out of
+it is five thousand dollars."
+
+"Yow! Five thousand dollars!" Merech exclaimed. "Such people you hear
+about, but you _oser_ see 'em."
+
+"Don't you?" said the _Tarrok_ player, drawing a cardcase from his
+breast pocket. "Well, you see one now."
+
+He laid face upward on the table a card which read:
+
+     +============================================+
+     |                                            |
+     |          "THE SONGS YOU ALL SING"          |
+     |                                            |
+     |                                            |
+     |               MILTON JASSY                 |
+     |          SIDDONS THEATRE BUILDING          |
+     |                ROOM 1400                   |
+     |                                            |
+     |            "STUFF WITH A PUNCH"            |
+     |                                            |
+     |  LAZY DAISY              EDDIE             |
+     |  WILDCAT RAG    ALL ABOARD FOR SLEEPYTOWN  |
+     |                                            |
+     +============================================+
+
+For a brief interval Volkovisk, Rekower, and Merech regarded Jassy's
+card in silence.
+
+"Well," Merech said at last, "what of it?"
+
+Jassy shrugged and waved his hand significantly.
+
+"Nothing of it," he said, "only your friend there is knocking popular
+music; and though I admit that I didn't got to go to the _Wiener_
+conservatory so as I could write popular music exactly, y'understand,
+still I could write sonatas and trios and quartets and even concerti and
+symphonies till I am black in the face already and I couldn't pay my
+laundry bill even."
+
+For answer Volkovisk turned to the piano and seized from the pile of
+music a blue-covered volume. It was the violin sonata of Richard
+Strauss, and handing the violin part to Rekower he seated himself on the
+stool. Then with a premonitory nod to Rekower he struck the opening
+chords, and for more than ten minutes Jassy and Merech sat motionless
+until the first movement was finished.
+
+"When Strauss wrote that he could _oser_ pay his laundry bill either,"
+Volkovisk said, rising from the stool. He sat down wearily at the table
+and lit a cigarette.
+
+"So you see," he began, "Richard Strauss----"
+
+"Richard Strauss nothing!" cried an angry voice at his elbow. "If you
+want to practise, practise at home. I pay you here to play for my
+customers, not for yourselves, Volkovisk; and once and for all I am
+telling you you should cut out this nonsense and _spiel_ a little music
+once in a while."
+
+It was the proprietor, Marculescu, who spoke, and Volkovisk immediately
+seated himself at the piano. This time he took from the pile of music
+three small sheets, one of which he placed on the reading desk and the
+other on Rekower's violin stand. After handing the other sheet to the
+'cellist he plunged into a furious rendition of "Wildcat Rag."
+
+In the front part of the cafe a group of men and women, whose clothes
+and manners proclaimed them to be slummers from the upper West Side,
+broke into noisy applause as the vulgar composition came to an end, and
+in the midst of their shouting and stamping Jassy rose trembling from
+his seat. He slunk between tables to the door, while Volkovisk began a
+repetition of the number, and it was not until he had turned the corner
+of the street and the melody had ceased to sound in his ears that he
+slackened his pace. When he did so, however, a friendly hand fell on his
+shoulder and he turned to find Max Merech close behind him.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Jassy," Max said, "you shouldn't be so broke up because you
+couldn't write so good as Richard Strauss."
+
+Jassy stood still and looked Max squarely in the eye.
+
+"That's just the point," he said in hollow tones. "Might I could if I
+tried; but I am such an _Epikouros_ that I don't want to try. I would
+sooner make money out of rubbish than be an artist like Volkovisk."
+
+Max shrugged and elevated his eyebrows.
+
+"A man must got to live," he said as he seized Jassy's arm and began
+gently to propel him back to the Cafe Roman.
+
+"Sure, I know," Jassy said; "but living ain't all having good clothes to
+wear and good food to eat. Living for an artist like Volkovisk is
+composing music worthy of an artist. _Aber_ what do I do, Mister----"
+
+"Merech," Max said.
+
+"What do I do, Mr. Merech?" Jassy continued. "I am all the time throwing
+away my art in the streets with this rotten stuff I am composing."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Well, I tell you," Max said after they had reentered the cafe and had
+seated themselves at a table remote from the piano, "composing music is
+like manufacturing garments, Mr. Jassy. Some one must got to cater to
+the popular-price trade and only a few manufacturers gets to the point
+where they make up a highgrade line for the exclusive retailers. Ain't
+it?"
+
+Jassy nodded as the waiter brought the cups of coffee.
+
+"Now you take me, for instance," Max continued. "Once I worked by B.
+Gans, which I assure you, Mr. Jassy, it was a pleasure to handle the
+goods in that place. What an elegant line of silks and embroidery they
+got it there! Believe me, Mr. Jassy, every day I went to work there like
+I would be going to a wedding already, such a beautiful goods they made
+it! _Aber_ now I am working by a popular-price concern, Mr. Jassy,
+which, you could take it from me, the colors them people puts together
+in one garment gives me the indigestion already!"
+
+Again Jassy nodded sympathetically.
+
+"And why did I make a change?" Max went on. "Because them people pays
+me seven dollars a week more as B. Gans, Mr. Jassy; and though art is
+art, understand me, seven dollars a week ain't to be coughed at
+neither."
+
+For a few minutes Jassy sipped his coffee in silence.
+
+"That's all right, too," he said; "but with garments you could make just
+so much money manufacturing a highgrade line as you could if you are
+making a popular-price line."
+
+Max nodded sapiently.
+
+"I give you right there," he agreed, "and that's because the
+manufacturer of the highgrade line does business in the same way as the
+popular-price concern. _Aber_ you take the composer of highgrade music
+and all he does is compose. He's too proud to poosh it, Mr. Jassy;
+whereas the feller what composes popular music he's just the same like
+the feller what manufacturers a popular-price line of garments--he not
+only manufacturers his line but he pooshes it till he gets a market for
+it."
+
+"There ain't no market for a highclass line of music," Jassy said
+hopelessly.
+
+"Why ain't there?" Max demanded. "Did you ever try to market a symphony?
+Did Volkovisk ever try to get anybody with money interested in his
+stuff? No, sirree, sir! All that feller does is to play it to a lot of
+_Schnorrers_ like me, which no matter how much we like his work we
+couldn't help him none. Now you take your own case, for instance. You
+told us a few minutes ago you are writing some music for a new show.
+Now, if you wouldn't mind my asking, who is putting in the capital for
+that show?"
+
+"Well," Jassy replied, "a feller called Benson is putting it in and part
+of the capital is from his own money and the rest he borrows."
+
+"Just like a new beginner would do in the garment business," Max
+commented. "_Aber_ who does he borrow it from? A bank maybe--what?"
+
+"Some he gets from a bank," Jassy replied, "and the rest is he trying to
+raise elsewheres. To-night he tells me he is getting an introduction to
+a business man which he hopes to lend from him five _oder_ ten thousand
+dollars."
+
+"Five _oder_ ten thousand dollars!" Max cried. "_Shema beni._ For five
+thousand dollars Volkovisk could publish all the music he ever wrote and
+give a whole lot of recitals in the bargain. One thousand dollars would
+be enough even."
+
+"That I wouldn't deny at all," Jassy rejoined. "_Aber_ who would you
+find stands willing he should invest in Volkovisk's music a thousand
+dollars? Would he ever get back his thousand dollars even, let alone any
+profits?"
+
+"It's a speculation, I admit," Max commented; "but you take Richard
+Strauss, for instance, and if some feller would staked Strauss to a
+thousand dollars capital when he needed it, understand me, not alone he
+would got his money back but if we would say, for example, the thousand
+dollars represents a ten-per-cent interest in Strauss' business, to-day
+yet the feller would be worth his fifty thousand dollars, because
+everybody knows what a big success Strauss made. Actually the feller
+must got orders at least six months ahead. Why for one song alone they
+pay him a couple thousand dollars!"
+
+"Well," Jassy asked, "if you feel there's such a future in it why don't
+you raise a thousand dollars and finance Volkovisk?"
+
+Max laughed aloud.
+
+"Me--I couldn't raise nothing," he said; "_aber_ you--you are feeling
+sore at yourself because you are writing popular stuff. Here's a chance
+for you to square yourself with your art. Why don't you help Volkovisk
+out? All you got to do is to find out who is loaning this here Benson
+the ten thousand dollars and get him to stake Volkovisk to a thousand."
+
+Jassy tapped the table with his fingers.
+
+"For that matter I could say the same thing to you," he declared. "You
+consider Volkovisk's talent so high as a business proposition, Merech,
+why don't you get some business man interested--one of your bosses, for
+instance?"
+
+He rose from his chair as he spoke and placed ten cents on the table as
+his share of the evening's expenses.
+
+"Think it over," he said; and long after he had closed the door behind
+him Max sat still with his hands in his trousers pocket and pondered the
+suggestion.
+
+"After all," he mused as Marculescu began to turn out the lights one by
+one, "why shouldn't I--the very first thing in the morning?"
+
+It was not, however, until Polatkin and Scheikowitz had gone out to
+lunch the following day, leaving Elkan alone in the office, that Max
+could bring his courage to the sticking point; and so fearful was he
+that he might regret his boldness before it was too late, he fairly ran
+from the cutting room to the office and delivered his preparatory
+remarks in the outdoor tones of a political spellbinder.
+
+"Mr. Lubliner," he cried, "could I speak to you a few words something?"
+
+Elkan rose and slammed the door.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Merech," he said, "if you want a raise don't let the
+whole factory know about it, otherwise we would be pestered to death
+here. Remember, also," he continued as he sat down again, "you are only
+working for us a few weeks--and don't go so quick as all that."
+
+"What d'ye mean, a raise?" Max asked. "I ain't said nothing at all about
+a raise. I am coming to see you about something entirely different
+already."
+
+Elkan looked ostentatiously at his watch.
+
+"I ain't got too much time, Merech," he said.
+
+"Nobody's got too much time when it comes to fellers asking for raises,
+Mr. Lubliner," Max retorted; "_aber_ this here is something else again,
+as I told you."
+
+"Well, don't beat no bushes round, Merech!" Elkan cried impatiently.
+"What is it you want from me?"
+
+"I want from you this," Max began huskily: "Might you know Tschaikovsky
+maybe _oder_ Rimsky-Korsakoff."
+
+"Tschaikovsky I never heard of," Elkan replied, "nor the other concern
+neither. Must be new beginners in the garment business--ain't it?"
+
+"They never was in the garment business, so far as I know," Max
+continued; "_aber_ they made big successes even if they wasn't, because
+all the money ain't in the garment business, Mr. Lubliner, and
+Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff, even in the old country, made so much
+money they lived in palaces yet. Once when I was a boy already,
+Tschaikovsky comes to Minsk and they got up a parade for him--such a big
+_Macher_ he was!"
+
+"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Merech; _aber_ what is all this
+got to do _mit_ me?"
+
+"It ain't got nothing to do with you, Mr. Lubliner," Max declared--"only
+I got a friend by the name Boris Volkovisk, and believe me or not, Mr.
+Lubliner, in some respects Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff could learn
+from that feller, because, you could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner,
+there's some passages in the Fifth Symphony, understand me, which I hate
+to say it you could call rotten!"
+
+Elkan stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+"I don't know what you are talking about at all," he said.
+
+"I am talking about this," Max replied; and therewith he began to
+explain to Elkan the aspirations and talent of Boris Volkovisk and
+his--Max'--scheme for their successful development. For more than half
+an hour he unfolded a plan by which one thousand dollars might be
+judiciously expended so as to secure the maximum benefit to Volkovisk's
+career--a plan that during the preceding two years Volkovisk and he had
+thoroughly discussed over many a cup of coffee in Marculescu's cafe.
+"And so you see, Mr. Lubliner," he concluded, "it's a plain business
+proposition; and if you was to take for your thousand dollars, say, for
+example, a one-tenth interest in the business Volkovisk expects to do,
+understand me, you would get a big return for your investment."
+
+Elkan lit a cigar and puffed away reflectively before speaking.
+
+"_Nu_," he said at last; "so that is what you wanted to talk to me
+about?"
+
+Max nodded.
+
+"Well, then, all I could say is," Elkan went on, "you are coming to the
+wrong shop. A business proposition like that is for a banker, which he
+is got so much money he don't know what to do with it, Merech."
+
+Max' face fell and he turned disconsolately away.
+
+"At the same time, Max," Elkan added, "I ain't feeling sore that you
+come to me with the proposition, understand me. The trouble ain't with
+you that you got such an idee, Max; the trouble is with me that I
+couldn't see it. It's like a feller by the name Dalzell, a buyer for
+Kammerman's store, says to me this morning. 'Lubliner,' he says, 'I
+couldn't afford to take no chances buying highgrade garments from a
+feller that is used to making a popular-price line,' he says, 'because
+no matter how well equipped your factory would be the trouble is a
+popular-price manufacturer couldn't think big enough to turn out
+expensive garments. To such a manufacturer goods at two dollars a yard
+is the limit, and goods at ten dollars a yard he couldn't imagine at
+all. And even if he could induce himself to use stuff at ten dollars a
+yard, y'understand, it goes against him to be liberal with such
+high-priced goods, so he skimps the garment.'"
+
+He blew a great cloud of smoke as a substitute for a sigh.
+
+"And Dalzell was right, Max," he concluded. "You couldn't expect that a
+garment manufacturer like me is going to got such big idees as investing
+a thousand dollars in a highgrade scheme like yours. With me a thousand
+dollars means so many yards piece goods, so many sewing machines or a
+week's payroll; _aber_ it don't mean giving a musician a show he should
+compose highgrade music. I ain't educated up to it, Max; so I wish you
+luck that you should raise the money somewheres else."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When M. Sidney Benson entered his office in the Siddons Theatre Building
+late that afternoon he found Jassy seated at his desk in the mournful
+contemplation of some music manuscript.
+
+"_Nu_, Milton," Benson cried, "you shouldn't look so _rachmonos_. I
+surely think I got 'em coming!"
+
+"You think you got 'em coming!" Jassy repeated with bitter emphasis.
+"You said that a dozen times already--and always the feller wasn't so
+big a sucker like he looked!"
+
+"That was because I didn't work it right," Benson replied. "This time I
+am making out to do the feller a favour by letting him in on the show,
+and right away he becomes interested. His name is Elkan Lubliner, a
+manufacturer by cloaks and suits, and to-night he is coming down with
+his wife yet, and you are going to take 'em round to the 'Diners Out.'"
+
+"I am going to the 'Diners Out' _mit_ 'em?" Milton ejaculated with every
+inflection of horror and disgust.
+
+"Sure!" Benson replied cheerfully. "Six dollars it'll cost us, because
+Ryan pretty near laughs in my face when I asked him for three seats. But
+never mind, Milton, it'll be worth the money."
+
+"Will it?" Jassy retorted. "Well, not for me, Mr. Benson. Why, the last
+time I seen that show I says I wouldn't sit through it again for a
+hundred dollars."
+
+"A hundred dollars is a lot of money, Milton," Benson said. "_Aber_ I
+think if you work it right you will get a hundred times a hundred
+dollars before we are through, on account I really got this feller
+going. So you should listen to me and I would tell you just what you
+want to say to the feller between the acts."
+
+Therewith Benson commenced to unfold a series of "talking points" which
+he had spent the entire day in formulating; and, as he proceeded,
+Jassy's eyes wandered from the title page of the manuscript music
+inscribed "Opus 47--Trio in G moll," and began to glow in sympathy with
+Benson's well-laid plan.
+
+"There's no use shilly-shallying, Milton," Benson concluded. "The season
+is getting late, and if we're ever going to put on that show now is the
+time."
+
+Milton nodded eagerly.
+
+"_Aber_ why don't you take 'em to the show yourself, Mr. Benson?" he
+asked hopefully. "Because, not to jolly you at all, Mr. Benson, I must
+got to say it you are a wonderful talker."
+
+Benson shrugged his shoulders and smiled weakly.
+
+"I am a wonderful talker, I admit," he agreed; "but I got a hard face,
+Milton, whereas you, anyhow, look honest. So you should meet me at
+Hanley's afterward, understand me, and we would try to close the deal
+there and then."
+
+He dug his hand into his trousers pocket and produced a modest roll of
+bills, from which he detached six dollars.
+
+"Here is the money," he added, "and you should be here to meet them
+people at eight o'clock sharp."
+
+On the stroke of eight Milton Jassy returned to Benson's office in the
+Siddons Theatre Building and again seated himself at his desk in front
+of the pile of manuscript music. This time, however, he brushed aside
+the title page of his Opus 47 and spread out an evening paper to beguile
+the tedium of awaiting Benson's "prospects." Automatically he turned to
+the department headed Music and Musicians, and at the top of the column
+his eye fell on the following item:
+
+    Ferencz Lanczhid, the Budapest virtuoso, will be the soloist
+    at the concert this evening of the Philharmonic Society. He
+    will play the Tschaikovsky Violin Concerto, Opus 35, and the
+    remainder of the program will consist of Dvorak's Symphony,
+    _Aus der Neuen Welt_, and the ever-popular Meistersinger
+    Overture.
+
+Jassy heaved a tremulous sigh as he concluded the paragraph and
+leaned back in his chair, while in his ears sounded the adagio passage
+that introduces the first movement of the "New World Symphony."
+Simultaneously the occupant of the next office slammed down his rolltop
+desk and began to whistle a lively popular melody. It was "Wildcat Rag,"
+and Milton struck the outspread newspaper with his clenched fist. Then
+rising to his feet he gathered together the loose pages of his "Opus 47"
+and placed them tenderly in a leather case just as the door opened and
+Elkan and Yetta entered.
+
+"I hope we ain't late," Elkan said.
+
+"Not at all," Milton replied. "This is Mr. and Mrs. Lubliner--ain't it?"
+
+As he drew forward a chair for Yetta he saluted his visitors with a
+slight, graceful bow, a survival of his conservatory days.
+
+"Sit down," he said; "we got lots and lots of time."
+
+"I thought the show started at a quarter-past eight--ain't it?" Elkan
+asked.
+
+"It does and it doesn't," Milton replied hesitatingly; "that is to say,
+some shows start at a quarter-past eight and others not till half-past
+eight."
+
+"But I mean this here 'Diners Out' starts at a quarter-past eight--ain't
+it?" Elkan insisted.
+
+"'The Diners Out!'" Milton exclaimed as though he heard the name for the
+first time. "Oh, sure, the 'Diners Out' starts at a quarter-past eight,
+and that's just what I wanted to talk to you about."
+
+He turned to Yetta with an engaging smile which, with his black hair and
+his dark, melancholy eyes, completely won over that far from
+unimpressionable lady.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Lubliner," he began, "your husband is a business man--ain't
+it? And if some one comes to him and says, 'Mr. Lubliner, I got here two
+garments for the same price--say, for example, two dollars. One of 'em
+is made of cheap material, _aber_ plenty of it _mit_ cheap embroidery on
+it, understand me; while the other is from finest silk a garment--not
+much of it, y'understand, but plain and beautiful.'"
+
+"What for a garment could you got for two dollars?" Elkan
+asked--"especially a silk garment?"
+
+"He's only saying for example, Elkan," Yetta interrupted.
+
+"Garments I am only using, so to speak," Milton explained. "What I
+really mean is: You got your choice to go to a popular show like the
+'Diners Out' or to a really highgrade show, Mr. Lubliner. So I leave it
+to you, Mr. Lubliner. Which shall it be?"
+
+Once again he smiled at Yetta.
+
+"Why, to the highgrade show, sure," Yetta replied, and she seized her
+husband by the arm. "Come along, Elkan!" she cried; and after Milton
+had secured the leather portfolio containing his "Opus 47" they
+proceeded immediately to the elevator.
+
+"We could walk over there from here," Milton said when they reached the
+sidewalk, and he led the way across town toward Carnegie Hall.
+
+"What for a show is this we are going to see?" Elkan asked. "Also a
+musical show?"
+
+Milton nodded.
+
+"The best musical show there is," he declared. "Do you like maybe to
+hear good music?"
+
+"I'm crazy about it," Yetta replied.
+
+"Symphonies, concerti and such things?" Milton inquired.
+
+"Symphonies?" Elkan repeated. "What is symphonies?"
+
+"I couldn't explain it to you," Milton said, "because we ain't got time;
+_aber_ you would see for yourself. Only one thing I must tell you, Mr.
+Lubliner--when the orchestra plays you shouldn't speak nothing--Mrs.
+Lubliner neither."
+
+"I wouldn't open my mouth at all," Elkan assured him solemnly; and a few
+minutes later Milton seated himself in the last row of the parterre at
+Carnegie Hall, with Elkan and Yetta--one each side of him.
+
+"So you ain't never been to a symphony concert before?" Milton began,
+leaning toward Elkan; and, as the latter shook his head, a short, stout
+person in the adjoining seat raised his eyebrows involuntarily. "Well,
+you got a big pleasure in store for you," Milton went on; "and another
+thing I must got to tell you: Might you would hear some pretty jumpy
+music which you would want to keep time to _mit_ your foot. Don't you do
+it!"
+
+Elkan's neighbour concealed a smile with one hand, and then, he, too,
+turned to Elkan, who had received Milton's warning with a sulky frown.
+
+"You're friend is right," he said. "People always have to be told that
+the first time they go to a symphony concert; and the next time they go
+they not only see the wisdom of such advice, but they want to get up and
+lick the man that does beat time with his foot."
+
+He accompanied his remark with so gracious a smile that Elkan's frown
+immediately relaxed.
+
+"A new beginner couldn't get too much advice," he said, and his
+neighbour leaned farther forward and addressed Milton.
+
+"You've chosen a fine program to introduce your friend to good music
+with," he said; and therewith began a lively conversation that lasted
+until a round of applause signalized the appearance of the conductor.
+The next moment he raised his baton and the celli began to sigh the
+mournful phrase which ushers in the symphony. Milton leaned back
+luxuriously as the woodwind commenced the next phrase; and then, while
+the introduction ended with a sweeping crescendo and the tempo suddenly
+increased, Elkan sat up and his eyes became fixed on the trombone and
+trumpet players.
+
+He maintained this attitude throughout the entire first movement, and it
+was not until the conductor's arm fell motionless at his side that he
+settled back in his seat.
+
+"Well," Milton asked, "what do you think of it?"
+
+"A-Number-One!" Elkan answered hoarsely. "It would suit me just so well
+if it would last the whole evening and we wouldn't have no singing and
+dancing at all."
+
+"What do you mean--no singing and dancing!" Milton exclaimed.
+
+"Sure!" Elkan continued. "I wish them fellers would play the whole
+evening."
+
+The conductor tapped his desk with his baton.
+
+"Don't worry," Milton commented as he settled himself for the next
+movement. "You'll get your wish all right."
+
+Elkan looked inquiringly at his mentor, but Milton only placed his
+forefinger to his lips; and thereafter, until the conclusion of the
+symphony, the pauses between the movements of the symphony were so brief
+that Elkan had no opportunity to make further inquiries.
+
+"Well, neighbour," asked the gentleman on his right, as the musicians
+filed off the stage for the ten-minutes' intermission, "what do you
+think of your first symphony?"
+
+Elkan smiled and concealed his shyness by clearing his throat.
+
+"The symphony is all right," he said; "but, with all them operators
+there, what is the use they are trying to save money hiring only one
+foreman?"
+
+"One foreman?" his neighbour cried.
+
+"Sure--the feller with the stick," Elkan went on blandly. "Naturally he
+couldn't keep his eye on all them people at oncet--ain't it? I am
+watching them fellers, which they are working them big brass machines,
+for the last half hour, and except for five or ten minutes they sit
+there doing absolutely nothing--just fooling away their time."
+
+"Them fellers ain't fooling away their time," Milton said gravely. "They
+ain't got nothing to do only at intervals."
+
+"Then I guess they must pay 'em by piecework--ain't it?" Elkan asked.
+
+"They pay 'em so much a night," Milton explained.
+
+"Well, in that case, Mr. Jassy," Elkan continued, "all I could say is if
+I would got working in my place half a dozen fellers which I am paying
+by the day, understand me, and the foreman couldn't keep 'em busy only
+half the time, _verstehst du_, he would quick look for another job."
+
+Elkan's neighbour on the right had been growing steadily more crimson,
+and at last he hurriedly seized his hat and passed out into the aisle.
+
+"That's a pretty friendly feller," Elkan said as he gazed after him. "Do
+you happen to know his name?"
+
+"I ain't never heard his name," Milton replied; "but he is seemingly
+crazy about music. I seen him here every time I come."
+
+"Well, I don't blame him none," Elkan commented; "because you take the
+Harlem Winter Garden, for instance, and though the music is rotten,
+understand me, they got the nerve to charge you yet for a lot of food
+which half the time you don't want at all; whereas here they didn't even
+ask us we should buy so much as a glass beer."
+
+At this juncture the short, stout person returned and proceeded to
+entertain Elkan and Yetta by pointing out among the audience the figures
+of local and international millionaires.
+
+"And all them fellers is crazy about music too?" Elkan asked.
+
+"So crazy," his neighbour said, "that the little man over there, with
+the white beard, spends almost twenty thousand a year on it!"
+
+"And yet," Milton said bitterly, "there's plenty fellers in the city
+which year in and year out composes chamber music and symphonic music
+which they couldn't themselves make ten dollars a week; and, when it
+comes right down to it, none of them millionaires would loosen up to
+such new beginners for even five hundred dollars to help them get a
+hearing."
+
+The short person received Milton's outburst with a faint smile.
+
+"I've heard that before," he commented, "but I never had the pleasure of
+meeting any of those great unknown composers."
+
+"That's because most of 'em is so bashful they ain't got sense enough to
+push themselves forward," Milton replied; "_aber_ if you really want to
+meet one I could take you to-night yet to a cafe on Delancey Street
+where there is playing a trio which the pianist is something you could
+really call a genius."
+
+"You don't tell me!" Elkan's neighbour cried. "Why, I should be
+delighted to go with you."
+
+"How about it, Mr. Lubliner?" Milton asked. "Are you and Mrs. Lubliner
+agreeable to go downtown after the show to the cafe on Delancey Street?
+It's a pretty poor neighbourhood already."
+
+Yetta smiled.
+
+"Sure, I know," she said; "but it wouldn't be the first time me and
+Elkan was in Delancey Street."
+
+"Then it's agreed that we're all going to hear the genius," Elkan's
+neighbour added. "I heard you call one another Jassy and Lubliner--it's
+hardly fair you shouldn't know my name too."
+
+He felt in his waistcoat pocket and finally handed a visiting card to
+Elkan, who glanced at it hurriedly and with trembling fingers passed it
+on to his wife, for it was inscribed in old English type as follows:
+
+     +==============================+
+     |                              |
+     |    =Mr. Joseph Kammerman=    |
+     |                              |
+     |       =Fostoria Hotel=       |
+     |                              |
+     |               =New York=     |
+     |                              |
+     +==============================+
+
+"Once and for all, I am telling you, Volkovisk, either you would got to
+play music here or quit!" Marculescu cried at eleven o'clock that
+evening. "The customers is all the time kicking at the stuff you give
+us."
+
+"What d'ye mean, stuff?" Max Merech protested. "That was no stuff, Mr.
+Marculescu. That was from Brahms a trio, and it suits me down to the
+ground."
+
+"Suits you!" Marculescu exclaimed. "Who in blazes are you?"
+
+"I am _auch_ a customer, Mr. Marculescu," Max replied with dignity.
+
+"_Yow_, a customer!" Marculescu jeered. "You sit here all night on
+one cup coffee. A customer, _sagt er_! A loafer--that's what you are!
+It ain't you I am making my money from, Merech--it's from them
+_Takeefim_[A] uptown; and they want to hear music, not Brahms. So you
+hear what I am telling you, Volkovisk! You should play something
+good--like 'Wildcat Rag'."
+
+[Footnote A: _Takeefim_--Aristocracy.]
+
+"Wait a minute, Mr. Marculescu," Max interrupted. "Do you mean to told
+me them lowlife bums in front there, which makes all that _Geschrei_
+over 'Dixerlie' and such like _Narrischkeit_, is _Takeefim_ yet?"
+
+"I don't want to listen to you at all, Merech!" Marculescu shouted.
+
+"I don't care if you want to listen to me _oder_ not," Merech said. "I
+was a customer here when you got one little store _mit_ two waiters; and
+it was me and all the other fellers you are calling loafers now what
+give you, with our few pennies, your first start. Now you are too good
+for us with your uptown _Takeefim_. Why, them same _Takeefim_ only comes
+here, in the first place, because they want to see what it looks like in
+one of the East Side cafes, where they got such good music and such
+interesting characters, which sits and drinks coffee and plays chess
+_und Tarrok_."
+
+He glared at the enraged Marculescu and waved his hands excitedly.
+
+"What you call loafers they call interesting characters, Mr.
+Marculescu," he continued, "and what you call stuff they call good
+music--and that's the way it goes, Mr. Marculescu. You are a goose which
+is killing its own golden eggs!"
+
+"So!" Marculescu roared. "I am a goose, am I? You loafer, you! Out of
+here before I kick you out!"
+
+"You wouldn't kick nothing," Max rejoined, "because I am happy to go out
+from here! Where all the time is being played such _Machshovos_ like
+'Wildcat Rag,' I don't want to stay at all."
+
+He rose from his chair and flung ten cents on to the table.
+
+"And furthermore," he cried by way of peroration, "people don't got to
+come five miles down to Delancey Street to hear 'Wildcat Rag,' Mr.
+Marculescu; so, if you keep on playing it, Mr. Marculescu, you will
+quick find that it's an elegant tune to bust up to--and that's all I got
+to say!"
+
+As he walked away, Marculescu made a sign to his pianist.
+
+"Go ahead, Volkovisk--play 'Wildcat Rag!'" he said. Then he followed Max
+to the front of the cafe; and before they reached the front tables, at
+which sat the slummers from uptown, Volkovisk began to pound out the
+hackneyed melody.
+
+"That's what I think of your arguments, Merech!" Marculescu said,
+walking behind the cashier's desk.
+
+Max paused to crush him with a final retort; but even as he began to
+deliver it his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, for at that
+instant the door opened and there entered a party of four, with Elkan
+Lubliner in the van. A moment later, however, Milton Jassy pushed his
+guests to one side and strode angrily toward Marculescu.
+
+"_Koosh!_" he bellowed and stamped his foot on the floor, whereat the
+music ceased and even the uptown revellers were startled into silence.
+Only Marculescu remained unabashed.
+
+"Say," he shouted as he rushed from behind his desk, "what do you think
+this joint is?--a joint!"
+
+"I think what I please, Marculescu," Milton said, "and you should tell
+Volkovisk to play something decent. Also you should bring us two quarts
+from the best Tchampanyer wine--from French wine Tchampanyer, not
+_Amerikanischer_."
+
+He waved his hand impatiently and three waiters--half of Marculescu's
+entire staff--came on the jump; so that, a moment later, Jassy and his
+guests were divested of their wraps and seated at one of the largest
+tables facing the piano. It was not until then that Milton descried Max
+Merech hovering round the door.
+
+"Merech!" he called. "_Kommen sie 'r ueber!_"
+
+Max shook his head shyly and half-opened the door, but Elkan forestalled
+him. He fairly bounded from the table and caught his assistant cutter by
+the arm just as he was disappearing on to the sidewalk.
+
+"Max," he said, "what's the matter with you? Ain't you coming in to meet
+my wife?"
+
+Max shrugged in embarrassment.
+
+"You don't want me to butt into your party, Mr. Lubliner!" he said.
+
+"Listen, Max," Elkan almost pleaded; "not only do I want you to, but you
+would be doing me a big favour if you would come in and join us. Also,
+Max, I am going to introduce you as our designer. You ain't got no
+objections?"
+
+"Not at all," Max replied, and he followed his employer into the cafe.
+
+"Yetta," Elkan began, "I think you seen Mr. Merech before--ain't it?"
+
+Mrs. Lubliner smiled and extended her hand.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Merech?" she said; and Max bowed awkwardly.
+
+"Mr. Kammerman," Elkan continued, "this is our designer, Max Merech; and
+I could assure you, Mr. Kammerman, a very good one too. He's got a great
+eye for colour."
+
+"And a good ear for music," Milton added as Kammerman shook the blushing
+dilettante by the hand.
+
+"In fact, Mr. Kammerman, if he has got such taste in designing as he is
+showing in music," Milton went on, "he must be a wonder! Nothing suits
+him but the best. And now, if you will excuse me, I'll get Volkovisk he
+should play you his sonata."
+
+He left the table with his leather portfolio under his arm, and for more
+than five minutes he held an earnest consultation with Volkovisk and
+the cellist, after which he returned smiling to his seat.
+
+"First Volkovisk plays his sonata, 'Opus 30,'" he explained, "and then
+he would do a little thing of my own."
+
+He nodded briskly to Volkovisk, and Kammerman settled himself resignedly
+to a hearing of what he anticipated would be a commonplace piece of
+music. After the first six measures, however, he sat up straight in his
+chair and his face took on an expression of wonder and delight. Then,
+resting his elbow on the table, he nursed his cheek throughout the first
+movement in a posture of earnest attention.
+
+"Why," he cried as the musician paused, "this man is a genius!"
+
+Max Merech nodded. His face was flushed and his eyes were filled with
+tears.
+
+"What did I told you, Mr. Lubliner?" he said; and Jassy raised his hand
+for silence while Volkovisk began the second movement. This and the
+succeeding movements fully sustained the promise of the earlier portions
+of the composition; and when at length Volkovisk rose from the piano
+stool and approached the table Kammerman jumped from his chair and wrung
+the composer's hand.
+
+"Sit in my chair," he insisted, and snapped his fingers at Marculescu,
+who fumed impotently behind the cashier's desk.
+
+"Here," he called; "more wine--and look sharp about it!"
+
+Marculescu obeyed sulkily and again the glasses were filled.
+
+"Gentlemen," Kammerman said, "and Mrs. Lubliner, I ask you to drink to a
+great career just beginning."
+
+"Lots of people said that before," Max murmured after he had emptied his
+glass.
+
+"They said it," Kammerman replied, "but I pledge it. You shall play no
+more in this place, Volkovisk--and here is my hand on it."
+
+Max Merech beamed across the table at his employer.
+
+"Well, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "you lost your chance."
+
+Elkan shrugged and smiled.
+
+"Might you could find another of them genius fellers for me maybe, Max?"
+he said.
+
+And therewith Kammerman slapped Milton Jassy on the back.
+
+"By Jove! We forgot your trio," he said. "Play it, Volkovisk, as your
+valedictory here."
+
+Again Volkovisk sought the piano, and after whispered instructions to
+his assistants he began a rendition of Jassy's "Opus 47," from the
+manuscript Milton had brought with him; but, allowing for the faulty
+technic of the 'cellist and the uncertainty that attends the first
+reading from manuscript of any composition, there was little to
+recommend Jassy's work.
+
+"Very creditable!" Kammerman said at the end of the movement. "Perhaps
+we might hear the rest."
+
+Max kept his eyes fixed on the table to avoid looking at Jassy, and even
+Volkovisk seemed embarrassed as he swung round on the piano stool.
+
+"Well?" he said inquiringly.
+
+Jassy emitted a bitter laugh.
+
+"That'll do, Volkovisk," he replied hoarsely. "I guess it needs
+rehearsing."
+
+At this point Max attempted to create a diversion.
+
+"Look at that lady sitting there!" he said. "She puts on a yellow hat to
+an old-gold dress. She's committing murder and she don't know it!"
+
+Kammerman seized on the incident as a way of escape from criticising
+Jassy's trio.
+
+"That reminds me, Lubliner," he said. "Give me your business card if you
+have one with you. I must tell Mr. Dalzell, my cloak buyer, to look over
+your line. I'm sure, with a designer of Mr. Merech's artistic instincts
+working for you, you will be making up just the highgrade line of goods
+we need."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+One year later, the usual crowd of first-nighters lounged in the lobby
+of the Siddons Theatre during the intermission between the second and
+third acts of M. Sidney Benson's newest musical comedy, "Marjory from
+Marguery's," and commented with enthusiasm on the song hit of the
+show--"My Bleriot Maid." A number of the more gifted even whistled the
+melody, skipping the hard part and proceeding by impromptu and
+conventional modulation to the refrain, which had been expressly
+designed by its composer, Milton Jassy, so as to present no technical
+difficulties to the most modest whistler.
+
+Through this begemmed and piping throng, Kammerman and Volkovisk elbowed
+their way to the street for a breath of fresh air; and as they reached
+the sidewalk Kammerman heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+"What a terrible melody!" he ejaculated.
+
+"But the plot ain't bad," Volkovisk suggested, and Kammerman grinned
+involuntarily.
+
+"To be exact, the two plots aren't bad," he said. "It's made up of two
+old farces. One of them is '_Embrassons nous, Duval_,' and the other
+'_Un Garcon, de chez Gaillard_.'"
+
+"But the costumes are really something which you could call beautiful!"
+Volkovisk declared.
+
+"Merech approved the costumes too," Kammerman agreed with a laugh. "He
+left after the first act; and he said that if you endured it to the end
+you were to be sure to tell Jassy the colorings were splendid!" He lit a
+cigarette reflectively. "That man is a regular shark for coloring!" he
+said. "It seems that when I first met him that night he was only an
+assistant cutter; but Elkan Lubliner made him designer very shortly
+afterward--and it has proved a fine thing for both of them. I understand
+we bought fifteen thousand dollars' worth of goods from them during the
+past year!"
+
+"He deserved all the good luck that came to him," Volkovisk cried; and
+Kammerman placed his hand affectionately on his protege's shoulder.
+
+"There's a special Providence that looks after artists," he said as they
+reentered the theatre, "whether they paint, write, compose, or design
+garments."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+ONE OF ESAU'S FABLES
+
+THE MOUSE SCRATCHES THE LION'S BACK; THE LION SCRATCHES THE MOUSE'S BACK
+
+
+"No, Elkan," said Louis Stout, of Flugel & Stout. "When you are coming
+to compare Johnsonhurst _mit_ Burgess Park it's already a molehill to a
+mountain."
+
+"Burgess Park ain't such high ground neither," Elkan Lubliner retorted.
+"Max Kovner says he lives out there on Linden Boulevard three months
+only and he gets full up with malaria something terrible."
+
+"Malaria we ain't got it in Burgess Park!" Louis declared. "I am living
+there now six years, Elkan, and I never bought so much as a two-grain
+quinine pill. Furthermore, Elkan, Kovner's malaria you could catch in
+Denver, Colorado, or on an ocean steamer, y'understand; because, with a
+lowlife bum like Max Kovner, which he sits up till all hours of the
+night--a drinker and a gambler, understand me--you don't got to be a
+professor exactly to diagonize his trouble. It ain't malaria, Elkan,
+it's _Katzenjammer!_"
+
+"But my Yetta is stuck on Johnsonhurst," Elkan protested, "and she
+already makes up her mind we would move out there."
+
+"That was just the way with my wife," Louis said. "For six months she is
+crying all the time Ogden Estates; and if I would listen to her, Elkan,
+and bought out there, y'understand, instead we would be turning down
+offers on our house at an advance of twenty per cent. on the price we
+paid for it, we would be considering letting the property go under
+foreclosure! You ought to see that place Ogden Estates nowadays,
+Elkan--nothing but a bunch of Italieners lives there."
+
+"But----" Elkan began.
+
+"Another thing," Louis Stout broke in: "Out in Johnsonhurst what kind of
+society do you got? Moe Rabiner lives there, and Marks Pasinsky lives
+there--and _Gott weiss wer noch_. My partner, Mr. Flugel, is approached
+the other day with an offer of some property in Johnsonhurst, and I was
+really in favour he should take it up; but he says to me, 'Louis,' he
+says, 'a place where such people lives like Pasinsky and Rabiner I
+wouldn't touch at all!' And he was right, Elkan. Salesmen and designers
+only lives in Johnsonhurst; while out in Burgess Park we got a nice
+class of people living, Elkan. You know J. Kamin, of the Lee Printemps,
+Pittsburgh?"
+
+"Used to was one of our best customers," Philip Scheikowitz replied,
+"though he passed us up last year."
+
+"His sister, Mrs. Benno Ortelsburg, lives one house by the other with
+me," Louis went on. "Her husband does a big real-estate business there.
+Might you also know Julius Tarnowitz, of the Tarnowitz-Wixman Department
+Store, Rochester?"
+
+"Bought from us a couple years a small bill," Marcus Polatkin said. "I
+wish we could sell him more."
+
+"Well, his brother, Sig Tarnowitz, lives across the street from us,"
+Louis cried triumphantly. "Sig's got a fine business there on Fifth
+Avenue, Brooklyn."
+
+"What for a business?"
+
+"A furniture business," Louis replied. "And might you would know also
+Joel Ribnik, which he is running the McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company,
+of Cyprus, Pennsylvania?"
+
+"That's the feller what you nearly sold that big bill to last month,
+Elkan," Scheikowitz commented.
+
+"Well, his sister is married to a feller by the name Robitscher, of
+Robitscher, Smith & Company, the wallpaper house and interior
+decorators. They got an elegant place down the street from us."
+
+"But----" Elkan began again.
+
+"But nothing, Elkan!" Marcus Polatkin interrupted with a ferocious wink;
+for Louis Stout, as junior partner in the thriving Williamsburg store
+of Flugel & Stout, was viewing Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's line
+preparatory to buying his spring line of dresses. "But nothing, Elkan!
+Mr. Stout knows what he is talking about, Elkan; and if I would be you,
+instead I would argue with him, understand me, I would take Yetta out to
+Burgess Park on Sunday and give the place a look."
+
+"That's the idea!" Louis cried. "And you should come and take dinner
+with us first. Mrs. Stout would be delighted."
+
+"What time do you eat dinner?" Philip Scheikowitz asked, frowning
+significantly at Elkan.
+
+"Two o'clock," Louis replied, and Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in
+unison.
+
+"He'll be there," Polatkin declared.
+
+"At a quarter before two," Scheikowitz added and Elkan smiled
+mechanically by way of assent.
+
+"So come along, Mr. Stout," Polatkin said, "and look at them Ethel
+Barrymore dresses. I think you'll like 'em."
+
+He led Stout from the office as he spoke while Scheikowitz remained
+behind with Elkan.
+
+"Honest, Elkan," he said, "I'm surprised to see the way you are acting
+with Louis Stout!"
+
+"What do you mean, the way I'm acting, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan
+protested. "Do you think I am going to buy a house in a neighbourhood
+which I don't want to live in at all just to oblige a customer?"
+
+"_Schmooes_, Elkan!" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "No one asks you you should
+buy a house there. Be a little reasonable, Elkan. What harm would it do
+you, supposing you and Yetta should go out to Burgess Park next Sunday?
+Because you know the way Louis Stout is, Elkan. He will look over our
+line for two weeks yet before he decides on his order--and meantime we
+shouldn't entegonize him."
+
+"I don't want to antagonize him," Elkan said; "but me and Yetta made our
+arrangements to go out to Johnsonhurst next Sunday."
+
+"Go out there the Sunday after," cried Scheikowitz. "Johnsonhurst would
+still be on the map, Elkan. It ain't going to run away exactly."
+
+Thus persuaded, Elkan and Yetta on the following Sunday elbowed their
+way through the crowd at the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge, and after
+a delay of several minutes boarded a train for Burgess Park.
+
+"Well, all I can say is," Yetta gasped, after they had seized on the
+only vacant seats in the car, "if it's this way on Sunday what would it
+be on weekdays?"
+
+"There must have been a block," Elkan said meekly. Only by the exercise
+of the utmost marital diplomacy had he induced his wife to make the
+visit to Louis Stout's home, and one of his most telling arguments had
+been the advantage of the elevated railroad journey to Burgess Park
+over the subway ride to Johnsonhurst.
+
+"Furthermore," Yetta insisted, referring to another of Elkan's plausible
+reasons for visiting Burgess Park, "I suppose all these Italieners and
+_Betzimmers_ are customers of yours which we was going to run across on
+our way down there. Ain't it?"
+
+Elkan blushed guiltily as he looked about him at the carload of
+holiday-makers; but a moment later he exclaimed aloud as he recognized
+in a seat across the aisle no less a person than Joseph Kamin, of Le
+Printemps, Pittsburgh.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Kamin?" he said.
+
+"Not Elkan Lubliner, from Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company?" Mr. Kamin
+exclaimed. "Well, who would think to meet you here!"
+
+He rose from his seat, whereat a bulky Italian immediately sank into it;
+and as livery of seizin he appropriated the comic section of Mr. Kamin's
+Sunday paper, which had fallen to the floor of the car, and spread it
+wide open in front of him.
+
+"Now you lost your seat," Elkan said; "so you should take mine."
+
+He jumped to his feet and Kamin sat down in his place, while a
+Neapolitan who hung on an adjacent strap viciously scowled his
+disappointment.
+
+"You ain't acquainted with Mrs. Lubliner?" Elkan said.
+
+"Pleased to meetcher," Kamin murmured.
+
+Yetta bowed stiffly and Elkan hastened to make conversation by way of
+relieving Mr. Kamin's embarrassment.
+
+"Looks like an early spring the way people is going to the country in
+such crowds," he said.
+
+"I bet yer," Kamin rejoined emphatically. "I arrived in New York two
+weeks ahead of my schedule, because I simply got to do my buying now or
+lose a lot of early spring trade."
+
+"Have you been in town long?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Only this morning," Kamin answered; "and I am going down to eat dinner
+with my sister, Mrs. Ortelsburg. She lives in Burgess Park."
+
+"Is that so?" Elkan exclaimed. "We ourselves are going to Burgess
+Park--to visit a friend."
+
+"A customer," Yetta corrected.
+
+"A customer could also be a friend," Kamin declared, "especially if he's
+a good customer."
+
+"This is a very good customer," Elkan went on, "by the name Louis
+Stout."
+
+"Louis Stout, from Flugel & Stout?" Kamin cried. "Why, him and Benno
+Ortelsburg is like brothers already! Well, then, I'll probably see you
+down in Burgess Park this afternoon, on account every Sunday afternoon
+Louis plays pinocle at my brother-in-law's house. Why don't he fetch you
+round to take a hand?"
+
+"I should be delighted," Elkan said; but Yetta sniffed audibly.
+
+"I guess we would be going home right after dinner, before the crowd
+starts back," she said.
+
+"Not on a fine day like this you wouldn't," Kamin protested; "because
+once you get out to Burgess Park you ain't in such a hurry to come back.
+I wish we would got such a place near Pittsburgh, Mrs. Lubliner. I bet
+yer I would quick move out there. The smoke gets worser and worser in
+Pittsburgh; in fact, it's so nowadays we couldn't sell a garment in
+pastel shades."
+
+"Well, we got plenty blacks, navy blues, Copenhagen blues and brown in
+our spring line, Mr. Kamin," Elkan said; and therewith he commenced so
+graphically to catalogue Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's new stock
+that, by the time the train drew into Burgess Park, Kamin was making
+figures on the back of an envelope in an effort to convince Elkan that
+his prices were all wrong.
+
+"But, anyhow," Kamin said, as they parted in front of the Ortelsburgs'
+colonial residence, "I will see you in the store to-morrow morning
+sure."
+
+"You'll see me before then, because me and Yetta is coming round this
+afternoon sure--ain't we, Yetta?"
+
+Mrs. Lubliner nodded, for her good humour had been restored by Elkan's
+splendid exhibition of salesmanship.
+
+"This afternoon is something else again," Kamin said, "because a feller
+which tries to mix pinocle with business is apt to overplay his hand in
+both games."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"No, Joe; you're wrong," Benno Ortelsburg said to his brother-in-law,
+Joseph Kamin, as they sipped their after-dinner coffee in the Ortelsburg
+library that day. "It wouldn't be taking advantage of the feller at all.
+You say yourself he tries to sell goods to you on the car already. Why
+shouldn't we try to sell Glaubmann's house to him while he's down here?
+And we'll split the commission half and half."
+
+Kamin hesitated before replying.
+
+"In business, Joe--it's Esau's fable of the lion and the mouse every
+time!" Ortelsburg continued. "The mouse scratches the lion's back and
+the lion scratches the mouse's back! Ain't it?"
+
+"But you know so well as I do, Benno, that Glaubmann's house on Linden
+Boulevard ain't worth no eighteen thousand dollars," Kamin said.
+
+"Why ain't it?" Benno retorted. "Glaubmann's Linden Boulevard house is
+precisely the same house as this, built from the same plans and
+everything--and this house costs me thirteen thousand five hundred
+dollars. Suburban real estate is worth just so much as you can get some
+sucker to pay for it, Joe. So I guess I better get the cards and chips
+ready, because I see Glaubmann coming up the street now."
+
+A moment later Glaubmann entered the library and greeted Kamin
+uproariously.
+
+"Hello, Joe!" he cried. "How's the drygoods business in Pittsburgh?"
+
+"Not so good as the real-estate business in Burgess Park, Barney," Kamin
+replied. "They tell me you are selling houses hand over fist."
+
+"_Yow_--hand over fist!" Barnett cried. "If I carry a house six months
+and sell it at a couple thousand dollars' profit, what is it?"
+
+"I got to get rid of a whole lot of garments to make a couple thousand
+dollars, Barney," Kamin said; "and, anyhow, if you sell a house for
+eighteen thousand dollars which it cost you thirteen-five you would be
+making a little more as four thousand dollars."
+
+"Sure I would," Glaubmann replied; "_aber_ the people which buys
+green-goods and gold bricks ain't investing in eighteen-thousand-dollar
+propositions! Such yokels you could only interest in hundred-dollar lots
+between high and low water on some of them Jersey sandbars."
+
+"There is all kinds of come-ons, Barney," Joe said, "and the biggest
+one, understand me, is the business man who is willing to be played for
+a sucker, so as he can hold his customers' trade."
+
+"You got the proper real-estate spirit, Joe," Benno declared, as he
+returned with the cards and chips. "You don't allow the ground to grow
+under your feet. Just at present, though, we are going to spiel a
+little pinocle and we would talk business afterward."
+
+"Real estate ain't business," Kamin retorted. "It's a game like pinocle;
+and I got a little Jack of Diamonds and Queen of Spades coming round
+here in a few minutes which I would like to meld."
+
+"Now you are talking poetry," Barnett said.
+
+"Take it from me, Barney," Benno Ortelsburg interrupted, "this ain't no
+poetry. It's a fact; and if you could see your way clear to pay a
+thousand dollars' commission, y'understand, me and Joe is got a customer
+for your Linden Boulevard house at eighteen thousand dollars."
+
+"Jokes you are making me!" Barnett cried. "You shouldn't drink so much
+schnapps after dinner, Benno, because I could as much get eighteen
+thousand for that Linden Boulevard house as I would pay you a thousand
+dollars commission if I got it."
+
+"You ain't paying me the thousand dollars," Benno protested. "Don't you
+suppose Joe's got a look-in-here?"
+
+"And furthermore," Joe said, "you also got Louis Stout to consider. If
+you think Louis Stout is going to sit by and see a commission walk past
+him, Benno, you are making a big mistake."
+
+"I'm willing we should give Louis a hundred or so," Benno agreed. "We
+got to remember Louis is a customer of his also."
+
+"A customer of who's?" Barnett asked, as the doorbell rang.
+
+"_Stiegen!_" Benno hissed; and a moment later he ushered Elkan and Yetta
+into the library, while Mr. Stout brought up the rear.
+
+Benno cleared his throat preparatory to introducing the newcomers, but
+Louis Stout brushed hastily past him.
+
+"Mr. Glaubmann," Louis said, "this is my friend, Elkan Lubliner."
+
+"And you forget Mrs. Lubliner," cried Mrs. Ortelsburg, who had hurried
+downstairs at the sound of voices in the hall. "I'm Mrs. Ortelsburg,"
+she continued, turning to Yetta. "Won't you come upstairs and take your
+things off?"
+
+"Elkan," Louis Stout continued, "you better go along with her. I want
+you to see what an elegant lot of clothes-closets they got upstairs. You
+know most houses is designed by archytecks which all they are trying to
+do is to save money for the builder. _Aber_ this archyteck was an
+exception. The way he figures it he tries to build the house to please
+the women, _mit_ lots of closet room, and--excuse me, ladies--to hell
+with the expenses! I'll go upstairs with you and show you what I mean."
+
+Benno frowned angrily.
+
+"'Tain't necessary, Louis," he said. "Mrs. Ortelsburg would show him."
+
+He drew forward chairs; and, after Elkan and Yetta had followed Mrs.
+Ortelsburg upstairs, he closed the library door.
+
+"Couldn't I introduce people in my own house, Stout?" he demanded.
+
+Louis Stout shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If you mean as a matter of ettykit--yes," he retorted; "_aber_ if it's
+a real-estate transaction--no. When I bring a customer to Mr. Glaubmann
+for his Linden Boulevard house, Ortelsburg, I do the introducing myself,
+which afterward I don't want no broker to claim he earned the commission
+by introducing the customer first--understand me?"
+
+He seated himself and smiled calmly at Kamin, Glaubmann, and his host.
+
+"I ain't living in the country for my health exactly," he declared, "and
+don't you forget it."
+
+"Where's your written authorization from the owner?" Ortelsburg
+demanded, raising a familiar point of real-estate brokerage law; and
+Stout tapped his breast pocket.
+
+"Six months ago already," Stout replied, "Mr. Glaubmann writes me if I
+hear of a customer for his house he would protect me, and I got the
+letter here in my pocket. Ain't that right, Mr. Glaubmann?"
+
+Glaubmann had walked toward the window and was looking out upon the
+budding white poplars that spread their branches at a height of six
+feet above the sidewalks of Burgess Park. He nodded in confirmation of
+Louis' statement; and as he did so a short, stout person, who was
+proceeding hurriedly down the street in the direction of the station,
+paused in front of the Ortelsburg residence. A moment later he rang the
+bell and Ortelsburg himself opened the door.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Kovner!" he said. "What could I do for you?"
+
+"Mr. Glaubmann just nods to me out of your window," Max Kovner replied,
+"and I thought he wants to speak to me."
+
+Benno returned to the library with Max at his heels.
+
+"Do you want to speak to Mr. Kovner, Glaubmann?" he asked, and Glaubmann
+started perceptibly. During the months of Max Kovner's tenancy Glaubmann
+had not only refrained from visiting his Linden Boulevard house, but he
+had also performed feats of disappearance resembling Indian warfare in
+his efforts to avoid Max Kovner on the streets of Burgess Park. All this
+was the result of Max Kovner's taking possession of the Linden Boulevard
+house upon Glaubmann's agreement to make necessary plumbing repairs and
+to paint and repaper the living rooms; and Glaubmann's complete breach
+of this agreement was reflected in the truculency of Max Kovner's manner
+as he entered the Ortelsburg library.
+
+"Maybe Glaubmann don't want to speak to me," he cried, "but I want to
+speak to him, and in the presence of you gentlemen here also."
+
+He banged Ortelsburg's library table with his clenched fist.
+
+"Once and for all, Mr. Glaubmann," he said, "either you would fix that
+plumbing and do that painting, understand me, or I would move out of
+your Linden Boulevard house the first of next month sure!"
+
+Glaubmann received this ultimatum with a defiant grin.
+
+"_Schmooes_, Kovner," he said, "you wouldn't do nothing of the kind! You
+got _mit_ me a verbal lease for one year in the presence of my wife,
+your wife and a couple of other people which the names I forget."
+
+"And how about the repairs?" Kovner demanded.
+
+"If you seen the house needs repairs and you go into possession anyhow,"
+Glaubmann retorted, "you waive the repairs, because the agreement to
+repair merges in the lease. That's what Kent J. Goldstein, my lawyer,
+says, Kovner; and ask any other lawyer, Kovner, and he could tell you
+the same."
+
+"So," Kovner exclaimed, "I am stuck with that rotten house for a year!
+Is that the idee?"
+
+Glaubmann nodded.
+
+"All right, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner concluded. "You are here in a strange
+house to me and I couldn't do nothing; but I am coming over to your
+office to-morrow, and if I got to sit there all day, understand me, we
+would settle this thing up."
+
+"That's all right," Ortelsburg interrupted. "When you got real-estate
+business with Glaubmann, Mr. Kovner, his office is the right place to
+see him. _Aber_ here is a private house and Sunday, Mr. Kovner, and we
+ain't doing no real-estate business here. So, if you got a pressing
+engagement somewheres else, Mr. Kovner, don't let me hurry you."
+
+He opened the library door, and with a final glare at his landlord Max
+passed slowly out.
+
+"That's a dangerous feller," Glaubmann said as his tenant banged the
+street door behind him. "He goes into possession for one year without a
+written lease containing a covenant for repairs by the landlord,
+y'understand, and now he wants to blame me for it! Honestly, the way
+some people acts so unreasonable, Kamin, it's enough to sicken me with
+the real-estate business!"
+
+Kamin nodded sympathetically, but Louis Stout made an impatient gesture
+by way of bringing the conversation back to its original theme.
+
+"That ain't here or there," he declared. "The point is I am fetching you
+a customer for your Linden Boulevard house, Glaubmann, and I want this
+here matter of the commission settled right away."
+
+Ortelsburg rose to his feet as a shuffling on the stairs announced the
+descent of his guests.
+
+"Commissions we would talk about afterward," he said. "First let us sell
+the house."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+In Benno Ortelsburg's ripe experience there were as many methods of
+selling suburban residences as there were residences for sale; and, like
+the born salesman he was, he realized that each transaction possessed
+its individual obstacles, to be overcome by no hard-and-fast rules of
+salesmanship. Thus he quickly divined that whoever sought to sell Elkan
+a residence in Burgess Park must first convince Yetta, and he proceeded
+immediately to apportion the chips for a five-handed game of auction
+pinocle, leaving Yetta to be entertained by his wife. Mrs. Ortelsburg's
+powers of persuasion in the matter of suburban property were second only
+to her husband's, and the game had not proceeded very far when Benno
+looked into the adjoining room and observed with satisfaction that Yetta
+was listening open-mouthed to Mrs. Ortelsburg's fascinating narrative of
+life in Burgess Park.
+
+"Forty hens we got it," she declared; "and this month alone they are
+laying on us every day a dozen eggs--some days ten, or nine at the
+least. Then, of course, if we want a little fricassee once in a while we
+could do that also."
+
+"How do you do when you are getting all of a sudden company?" Yetta
+asked. "I didn't see no delicatessen store round here."
+
+"You didn't?" Mrs. Ortelsburg exclaimed. "Why, right behind the depot is
+Mrs. J. Kaplan's a delicatessen store, which I am only saying to her
+yesterday, 'Mrs. Kaplan,' I says, 'how do you got all the time such
+fresh, nice smoke-tongue here?' And she says, 'It's the country air,'
+she says, 'which any one could see; not alone smoke-tongue keeps fresh,
+_aber_ my daughter also, when she comes down here,' she says, 'she is
+pale like anything--and look at her now!' And it's a fact, Mrs.
+Lubliner, the daughter did look sick, and to-day yet she's got a
+complexion fresh like a tomato already. That's what Burgess Park done
+for her!"
+
+"But don't you got difficulty keeping a girl, Mrs. Ortelsburg?" Yetta
+inquired.
+
+"Difficulty?" Mrs. Ortelsburg cried. "Why, just let me show you my
+kitchen. The girls love it here. In the first place, we are only twenty
+minutes from Coney Island; and, in the second place, with all the eggs
+which we got it, they could always entertain their fellers here in such
+a fine, big kitchen, which I am telling my girl, Lena: 'So long as you
+give 'em omelets or fried eggs _mit_ fat, Lena, I don't care how many
+eggs you use--_aber_ butter is butter in Burgess Park _oder_ Harlem.'"
+
+In this vein Mrs. Ortelsburg continued for more than an hour, while she
+conducted Yetta to the kitchen and cellar and back again to the
+bedrooms above stairs, until she decided that sufficient interest had
+been aroused to justify the more robust method of her husband. She
+therefore returned to the library, and therewith began for Benno
+Ortelsburg the real business of the afternoon.
+
+"Well, boys," he said, "I guess we would quit pinocle for a while and
+join the ladies."
+
+He chose for this announcement a moment when Elkan's chips showed a
+profit of five dollars; and as, in his capacity of banker, he adjusted
+the losses of the other players, he kept up a merry conversation
+directed at Mrs. Lubliner.
+
+"Here in Burgess Park," he said, "we play pinocle and we leave it alone;
+while in the city when a couple business men play pinocle they spend a
+day at it--and why? Because they only get a chance to play pinocle once
+in a while occasionally. Every night they are going to theatre _oder_ a
+lodge affair, understand me; whereas here, the train service at night
+not being so extra elegant, y'understand, we got good houses and we stay
+in 'em; which in Burgess Park after half-past seven in the evening any
+one could find a dozen pinocle games to play in--and all of 'em breaks
+up by half-past ten already."
+
+With this tribute to the transit facilities and domesticity of Burgess
+Park, he concluded stacking up the chips and turned to Mrs. Lubliner.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Lubliner," he continued with an amiable smile, "if you
+wouldn't persuade your husband to move out to Burgess Park, understand
+me, I shall consider it you don't like our house here at all."
+
+"But I do like your house!" Yetta protested.
+
+"I should hope so," Benno continued, "on account it would be a poor
+compliment to a lot of people which could easy be good customers of your
+husband. For instance, this house was decorated by Robitscher, Smith &
+Company, which Robitscher lives across the street already; and his wife
+is Joel Ribnik's--the McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company's--a sister
+already."
+
+"You don't tell me?" Yetta murmured.
+
+"And Joel is staying with 'em right now," Benno went on. "Furthermore,
+we got our furniture and carpets by Sig Tarnowitz, which he lives a
+couple of doors down from here--also got relatives in the retail
+drygoods business by the name Tarnowitz-Wixman Drygoods Company. The
+brother, Julius Tarnowitz, is eating dinner with 'em to-day."
+
+"It's a regular buyers' colony here, so to speak," Louis Stout said, and
+Joseph Kamin nodded.
+
+"Tell you what you do, Benno," Joseph suggested. "Get Tarnowitz and
+Ribnik to come over here. I think Elkan would like to meet them."
+
+Benno slapped his thigh with a resounding blow.
+
+"That's a great idee!" he cried; and half an hour later the Ortelsburg
+library was thronged with visitors, for not only Joel Ribnik and Julius
+Tarnowitz had joined Benno's party, but seated in easy chairs were
+Robitscher, the decorator, and Tarnowitz, the furniture dealer.
+
+"Yes, siree, sir!" Robitscher cried. "Given the same decorative
+treatment to that Linden Boulevard house, Mr. Lubliner, and it would got
+Ortelsburg's house here skinned to pieces, on account over there it is
+more open and catches the sun afternoon and morning both."
+
+During this pronouncement Elkan's face wore a ghastly smile and he
+underwent the sensations of the man in the tonneau of a touring car
+which is beginning to skid toward a telegraph pole.
+
+"In that case I should recommend you don't buy a Kermanshah rug for the
+front room," Sigmund Tarnowitz interrupted. "I got in my place right now
+an antique Beloochistan, which I would let go at only four hundred
+dollars."
+
+"_Aber_ four hundred dollars is an awful lot of money to pay for a rug,"
+Elkan protested. He had avoided looking at Yetta for the past half-hour;
+but now he glanced fearfully at her, and in doing so received a distinct
+shock, for Yetta sat with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, inoculated
+beyond remedy with the virus of the artistic-home fever.
+
+"Four hundred ain't so much for a rug," she declared.
+
+"Not for an antique Beloochistan," Sig Tarnowitz said, "because every
+year it would increase in value on you."
+
+"Just the same like that Linden Boulevard house," Ortelsburg added,
+"which you could take it from me, Mrs. Lubliner, if you don't get right
+away an offer of five hundred dollars advance on your purchase price I
+would eat the house, plumbing and all."
+
+At the word "plumbing" Glaubmann started visibly.
+
+"The plumbing would be fixed so good as new," he said; "and I tell you
+what I would do also, Mr. Lubliner--I would pay fifty per cent. of the
+decorations if Mr. Ortelsburg would make me an allowance of a hundred
+dollars on the commission!"
+
+"Could anything be fairer than this?" Ortelsburg exclaimed; and he
+grinned maliciously as Louis Stout succumbed to a fit of coughing.
+
+"But we ain't even seen the house!" Elkan cried.
+
+"Never mind we ain't seen it," Yetta said; "if the house is the same
+like this that's all I care about."
+
+"Sure, I know," Elkan replied; "but I want to see the house first before
+I would even commence to think of buying it."
+
+"_Schon gut!_" Glaubmann said. "I ain't got no objection to show you the
+house from the outside; _aber_ there is at present people living in the
+house, understand me, which for the present we couldn't go inside."
+
+"Mr. Lubliner don't want to see the inside, Glaubmann!" Ortelsburg
+cried, in tones implying that he deprecated Glaubmann's suggestion as
+impugning Elkan's good faith in the matter. "The inside would be
+repaired and decorated to suit, Mr. Glaubmann, but the outside he's got
+a right to see; so we would all go round there and give a look."
+
+Ten minutes afterward a procession of nine persons passed through the
+streets of Burgess Park and lingered on the sidewalk opposite
+Glaubmann's house. There Ortelsburg descanted on the comparatively high
+elevation of Linden Boulevard and Mrs. Ortelsburg pointed out the
+chicken-raising possibilities of the back lot; and, after gazing at the
+shrubbery and incipient shade trees that were planted in the front yard,
+the line of march was resumed in the direction of Burgess Park's
+business neighbourhood. Another pause was made at Mrs. J. Kaplin's
+delicatessen store; and, laden with packages of smoked tongue, Swiss
+cheese and dill pickles, the procession returned to the Ortelsburg
+residence marshalled by Benno Ortelsburg, who wielded as a baton a
+ten-cent loaf of rye bread.
+
+Thus the remainder of the evening was spent in feasting and more
+pinocle until nearly midnight, when Elkan and Yetta returned to town on
+the last train. Hence, with his late homecoming and the Ortelsburgs'
+delicatessen supper, Elkan slept ill that night, so that it was past
+nine o'clock before he arrived at his office the following morning.
+Instead of the satirical greeting which he anticipated from his senior
+partner, however, he was received with unusual cordiality by Polatkin,
+whose face was spread in a grin.
+
+"Well, Elkan," he said, "you done a good job when you decided to buy
+that house."
+
+"When I decided to buy the house? Who says I decided to buy the house?"
+Elkan cried.
+
+"J. Kamin did," Polatkin explained. "He was here by a quarter to eight
+already; and not alone J. Kamin was here, but Joel Ribnik and Julius
+Tarnowitz comes in also. Scheikowitz and me has been on the jump, I bet
+yer; in fact, Scheikowitz is in there now with J. Kamin and Tarnowitz.
+Between 'em, those fellers has picked out four thousand dollars' goods."
+
+Elkan looked at his partner in unfeigned astonishment.
+
+"So soon?" he said.
+
+"Ribnik too," Polatkin continued. "He makes a selection of nine hundred
+dollars' goods--among 'em a couple stickers like them styles 2040 and
+2041. He says he is coming back in half an hour, on account he's got an
+appointment with a brother-in-law of his."
+
+"By the name Robitscher?" Elkan asked.
+
+"That's the feller," Polatkin answered. "Ribnik says you promised
+Robitscher the decorations from the house you are buying."
+
+"What d'ye mean I promised him the decorations from the house I am
+buying?" Elkan exclaimed in anguished tones. "In the first place, I
+ain't promised him nothing of the kind; and, in the second place, I
+ain't even bought the house yet."
+
+"That part will be fixed up all right," Polatkin replied, "because Mr.
+Glaubmann rings up half an hour ago, and he says that so soon as we need
+him and the lawyer we should telephone for 'em."
+
+For a brief interval Elkan choked with rage.
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Polatkin," he sputtered at last, "who is going to
+live in this house--you _oder_ me?"
+
+"You are going to live in the house, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "because
+me I don't need a house. I already got one house, Elkan, and I ain't
+twins exactly; and also them fellers is very plain about it, Elkan,
+which they told me and Scheikowitz up and down, that if you wouldn't buy
+the house they wouldn't confirm us the orders."
+
+At this juncture Scheikowitz entered the office. From the doorway of the
+showroom he had observed the discussion between Elkan and his partner;
+and he had entirely deserted his prospective customers to aid in
+Elkan's coercion.
+
+"Polatkin is right, Elkan!" he cried. "You got to consider Louis Stout
+also. Kamin said he would never forgive us if the deal didn't go
+through."
+
+Elkan bit his lips irresolutely.
+
+"I don't see what you are hesitating about," Polatkin went on. "Yetta
+likes the house--ain't it?"
+
+"She's crazy about it," Elkan admitted.
+
+"Then what's the use talking?" Scheikowitz declared; and he glanced
+anxiously toward Tarnowitz and Kamin, who were holding a whispered
+conference in the showroom. "Let's make an end and get the thing over.
+Telephone this here Glaubmann he should come right over with Ortelsburg
+and the lawyer."
+
+"But ain't I going to have no lawyer neither?" Elkan demanded.
+
+"Sure you are," Scheikowitz replied. "I took a chance, Elkan, and I
+telephoned Henry D. Feldman half an hour since already. He says he would
+send one up of his assistants, Mr. Harvey J. Sugarberg, right away."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When it came to drawing a real-estate contract there existed for Kent J.
+Goldstein no incongruities of time and place. Kent was the veteran of a
+dozen real-estate booms, during which he had drafted agreements at all
+hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a
+liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of
+any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief
+though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the vendor's
+back.
+
+Thus the transaction between Glaubmann and Elkan Lubliner presented no
+difficulties to Kent J. Goldstein; and he handled the details with such
+care and dispatch that the contract was nearly finished before Harvey J.
+Sugarberg remembered the instructions of his principal. As attorney for
+the buyer, it was Henry D. Feldman's practice to see that the contract
+of sale provided every opportunity for his client lawfully to avoid
+taking title should he desire for any reason, lawful or unlawful, to
+back out; and this rule of his principal occurred to Harvey just as he
+and Goldstein were writing the clause relating to incumbrances.
+
+"The premises are to be conveyed free and clear of all incumbrances,"
+Kent read aloud, "except the mortgage and covenant against nuisances
+above described and the present tenancies of said premises."
+
+He had brought with him two blank forms of agreement; and as he filled
+in the blanks on one of them he read aloud what he was writing and
+Harvey Sugarberg inserted the same clause in the other. Up to this
+juncture Harvey had taken Kent's dictation with such remarkable docility
+that Elkan and his partners had frequently exchanged disquieting
+glances, and they were correspondingly elated when Harvey at length
+balked.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Goldstein," he said--and, but for a slight nervousness,
+he reproduced with histrionic accuracy the tone and gesture of his
+employer--"as _locum tenens_ for my principal I must decline to insert
+the phrase, 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"
+
+Kent wasted no time in forensic dispute when engaged in a real-estate
+transaction, though, if necessary, he could make kindling of the
+strongest rail that ever graced the front of a jury-box.
+
+"How 'bout it, Glaubmann?" he said. "The premises is occupied--ain't
+they?"
+
+Glaubmann flapped his right hand in a gesture of _laissez-faire_.
+
+"The feller moves out by the first of next month," he said; and Kent
+turned to Elkan.
+
+"Are you satisfied that the tenant stays in the house until the first?"
+he asked. "That will be three days after the contract is closed."
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Why not?" he said.
+
+"All right, Mr.----Forget your name!" Kent cried. "Cut out 'and the
+present tenancies of said premises.'"
+
+At this easy victory a shade of disappointment passed over the faces of
+Harvey Sugarberg and his clients, and the contract proceeded without
+further objection to its rapid conclusion.
+
+"Now then, my friends," Kent announced briskly, "we're ready for the
+signatures."
+
+At this, the crucial point of all real-estate transactions, a brief
+silence fell upon the assembled company, which included not only the
+attorneys and the clients, but Ortelsburg, Kamin, Tarnowitz and Ribnik
+as well. Finally Glaubmann seized a pen, and, jabbing it viciously in an
+inkpot, he made a John Hancock signature at the foot of the agreement's
+last page.
+
+"Now, Mr. Lubliner," Kent said--and Elkan hesitated.
+
+"Ain't we going to wait for Louis Stout?" he asked; and immediately
+there was a roar of protest that sounded like a mob scene in a Drury
+Lane melodrama.
+
+"If Louis Stout ain't here it's his own fault," Ortelsburg declared; and
+Ribnik, Tarnowitz, and Kamin glowered in unison.
+
+"I guess he's right, Elkan," Polatkin murmured.
+
+"It is his own fault if he ain't here," Scheikowitz agreed feebly; and,
+thus persuaded, Elkan appended a small and, by contrast with
+Glaubmann's, a wholly unimpressive signature to the agreement.
+Immediately thereafter Elkan passed over a certified check for eight
+hundred dollars, according to the terms of the contract, which provided
+that the title be closed in twenty days at the office of Henry D.
+Feldman.
+
+"Well, Mr. Lubliner," Glaubmann said, employing the formula hallowed by
+long usage in all real-estate transactions involving improved property,
+"I wish you luck in your new house."
+
+"Much obliged," Elkan said; and after a general handshaking the entire
+assemblage crowded into one elevator, so that finally Elkan was left
+alone with his partners.
+
+Polatkin was the first to break a silence of over five minutes'
+duration.
+
+"Ain't it funny," he said, "that we ain't heard from Louis?"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded; and as he did so the elevator door creaked noisily
+and there alighted a short, stout person, who, having once been
+described in the I. O. M. A. Monthly as Benjamin J. Flugel, the Merchant
+Prince, had never since walked abroad save in a freshly ironed silk hat
+and a Prince Albert coat.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flugel?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz cried with
+one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged within his
+breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of business; and, as
+Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's impressive partner, he
+could not help congratulating himself on the mercantile sagacity that
+had made him buy Glaubmann's house.
+
+"And this is Mr. Lubliner?" Flugel said in even tones.
+
+"Pleased to meet you," Elkan said. "I had dinner with your partner only
+yesterday."
+
+Flugel gulped convulsively in an effort to remain calm.
+
+"I know it," he said; "and honestly the longer I am in business with
+that feller the more I got to wonder what a _Schlemiel_ he is. Actually
+he goes to work and tries to do his own partner without knowing it at
+all. Mind you, if he would be doing it from spite I could understand it;
+but when one partner don't know that the other partner practically
+closes a deal for a tract of a hundred lots and six houses in
+Johnsonhurst, and then persuades a prospective purchaser that, instead
+of buying in Johnsonhurst, he should buy in Burgess Park, understand me,
+all I got to say is that if Louis Stout ain't crazy the least he
+deserves is that the feller really and truly should buy in Burgess
+Park."
+
+"But, Mr. Flugel," Elkan interrupted, "I did buy in Burgess Park."
+
+"What!" Flugel shouted.
+
+"I say that I made a contract for a house out there this morning only,"
+Elkan said.
+
+For a few seconds it seemed as though Benjamin J. Flugel's heirs-at-law
+would collect a substantial death benefit from the I. O. M. A., but the
+impending apoplexy was warded off by a tremendous burst of profanity.
+
+"_Aber_, Mr. Flugel," Scheikowitz protested, "Louis tells us only last
+Saturday, understand me, you told him that Johnsonhurst you wouldn't
+touch at all, on account such lowlifes like Rabiner and Pasinsky lives
+out there!"
+
+"I know I told him that," Flugel yelled; "because, if I would say I am
+going to buy out there, Stout goes to work and blabs it all over the
+place, and the first thing you know they would jump the price on me a
+few thousand dollars. He's a dangerous feller, Louis is, Mr.
+Scheikowitz!"
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That may be, Mr. Flugel," he said, "but I signed the contract with
+Glaubmann for his house on Linden Boulevard--and that's all there is to
+it!"
+
+Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in melancholy unison.
+
+"Do you got the contract here?" Flugel asked; and Elkan picked up the
+document from his desk, where it had been placed by Goldstein.
+
+"You paid a fancy price for the house," Flugel continued, as he examined
+the agreement.
+
+"I took your partner's advice, Mr. Flugel," Elkan retorted.
+
+"Why, for eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, in Johnsonhurst,"
+Flugel continued, "I could give you a palace already!"
+
+He scanned the various clauses of the contract with the critical eye of
+an experienced real-estate operator; and before he had completed his
+examination the elevator door again creaked open.
+
+"Is Glaubmann gone?" cried a voice from the interior of the car, and the
+next moment Kovner alighted.
+
+Flugel looked up from the contract.
+
+"Hello, Kovner," he said, "are you in this deal too?"
+
+"I ain't in any deal," Kovner replied. "I am looking for Barnett
+Glaubmann. They told me in his office he is coming over here and would
+be here all the morning."
+
+"Well, he was here," Elkan replied, "but he went away again."
+
+Kovner sat down without invitation.
+
+"It ain't no more as I expected," he began in the dull, resigned tones
+of a man with a grievance. "That swindler has been dodging me for four
+months now, and I guess he will keep on dodging me for the rest of the
+year that he claims I got a lease on his house for."
+
+"What house?" Flugel asked.
+
+"The house which I am living in it," Max replied--"on Linden Boulevard,
+Burgess Park."
+
+"On Linden Boulevard, Burgess Park!" Flugel repeated. "Why, then it's
+the same house--ain't it, Lubliner?"
+
+Elkan nodded, and as he did so Flugel struck the desk a tremendous blow
+with his fist.
+
+"Fine!" he ejaculated.
+
+"Fine!" Kovner repeated. "What the devil you are talking about, fine? Do
+you think it's fine I should got to live a whole year in a house which
+the least it must got to be spent on it is for plumbing a hundred
+dollars and for painting a couple hundred more?"
+
+"That's all right," Flugel declared with enthusiasm. "It ain't so bad as
+it looks; because if you can show that you got a right to stay in that
+house for the rest of the year, understand me, I'll make a proposition
+to you."
+
+"Show it?" Kovner exclaimed. "I don't got to show it, because I couldn't
+help myself, Mr. Flugel. Glaubmann claims that I made a verbal lease for
+one year, and he's right. I was fool enough to do so."
+
+Flugel glanced inquiringly at Polatkin and Scheikowitz.
+
+"How about that?" he asked. "The contract don't say nothing about a
+year's lease."
+
+"I know it don't," Elkan replied, "because when our lawyer raises the
+question about the tenant Glaubmann says he could get him out at any
+time."
+
+"And he can too," Kovner declared with emphasis, but Flugel shook his
+head.
+
+"No, he can't, Kovner," he said; "or, anyway, he ain't going to, because
+you are going to stay in that house."
+
+"With the rotten plumbing it's got?" Kovner cried. "Not by a whole lot I
+ain't."
+
+"The plumbing could be fixed and the painting also," Flugel retorted.
+
+"By Glaubmann?" Kovner asked.
+
+"No, sir," Flugel replied; "by me, with a hundred dollars cash to boot.
+I would even give you an order on my plumber he should fix up the
+plumbing and on my house painter he should fix up the painting, Kovner;
+_aber_ you got to stick it out that you are under lease for the rest of
+the year."
+
+"And when do I get the work done?" Kovner demanded.
+
+"To-day," Flugel announced--"this afternoon if you want it."
+
+"But hold on there a minute!" Elkan protested. "If I am going to take
+that house I don't want no painting done there till I am good and
+ready."
+
+Flugel smiled loftily at Elkan.
+
+"You ain't going to take that house at all," he said, "because the
+contract says that it is to be conveyed free and clear, except the
+mortgage and a covenant against nuisances. So you reject the title on
+the grounds that the house is leased for a year. Do you get the idee?"
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"And next Sunday," Flugel continued, "I wish you'd take a run down with
+me in my oitermobile to Johnsonhurst. It's an elegant, high-class
+suburb."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Insomnia bears the same relation to the calling of real-estate operators
+that fossyjaw does to the worker in the match industry; and, during the
+twenty days that preceded the closing of his contract with Elkan,
+Barnett Glaubmann spent many a sleepless night in contemplation of
+disputed brokerage claims by Kamin, Stout and Ortelsburg. Moreover, the
+knowledge that Henry D. Feldman represented the purchaser was an
+influence far from sedative; and what little sleep Glaubmann secured was
+filled with nightmares of fence encroachments, defects in the legal
+proceedings for opening of Linden Boulevard as a public highway, and a
+score of other technical objections that Feldman might raise to free
+Elkan from his contract.
+
+Not once, however, did Glaubmann consider the tenancy of Max Kovner as
+any objection to title. Indeed, he was so certain of Kovner's
+willingness to move out that he even pondered the advisability of
+gouging Max for twenty-five or fifty dollars as a consideration for
+accepting a surrender of the verbal lease; and to that end he avoided
+the Linden Boulevard house until the morning before the date set for the
+closing of the title.
+
+Then, having observed Max board the eight-five train for Brooklyn
+Bridge, he sauntered off to interview Mrs. Kovner; and as he turned the
+corner of Linden Boulevard he sketched out a plan of action that had for
+its foundation the complete intimidation of Mrs. Kovner. This being
+secured, he would proceed to suggest the payment of fifty dollars as the
+alternative of strong measures against Max Kovner for allowing the
+Linden Boulevard premises to fall into such bad repair; and he was so
+full of his idea that he had begun to ascend the front stoop of the
+Kovner house before he noticed the odour of fresh paint.
+
+Never in the history of the Kovner house had the electric bell been in
+working order. Hence Glaubmann knocked with his naked fist and left the
+imprint of his four knuckles on the wet varnish just as Mrs. Kovner
+flung wide the door. It was at this instant that Glaubmann's well-laid
+plans were swept away.
+
+"Now see what you done, you dirty slob you!" she bellowed. "What's the
+matter with you? Couldn't you ring the bell?"
+
+"Why, Mrs. Kovner," Glaubmann stammered, "the bell don't ring at all.
+Ain't it?"
+
+"The bell don't ring?" Mrs. Kovner exclaimed. "Who says it don't?"
+
+She pressed the button with her finger and a shrill response came from
+within.
+
+"Who fixed it?" Glaubmann asked.
+
+"Who fixed it?" Mrs. Kovner repeated. "Who do you suppose fixed it?
+Do you think we got from charity to fix it? _Gott sei Dank_, we
+ain't exactly beggars, Mr. Glaubmann. Ourselves we fixed it, Mr.
+Glaubmann--and the painting and the plumbing also; because if you
+would got in savings bank what I got it, Mr. Glaubmann, you wouldn't
+make us so much trouble about paying for a couple hundred dollars'
+repairs."
+
+"_Aber_," Glaubmann began, "you shouldn't of done it!"
+
+"I know we shouldn't," Mrs. Kovner replied. "We should of stayed here
+the rest of the year with the place looking like a pigsty already!
+_Aber_ don't kick till you got to, Mr. Glaubmann. It would be time
+enough to say something when we sue you by the court yet that you should
+pay for the repairs we are making here."
+
+Glaubmann pushed his hat back from his forehead and wiped his streaming
+brow.
+
+"_Nu_, Mrs. Kovner," he said at last, "it seems to me we got a
+misunderstanding all round here. I would like to talk the matter over
+with you."
+
+With this conciliatory prelude he assumed an easy attitude by crossing
+his legs and supporting himself with one hand on the freshly painted
+doorjamb, whereat Mrs. Kovner uttered a horrified shriek, and the rage
+which three weeks of housepainters' clutter had fomented in her bosom
+burst forth unchecked.
+
+"Out from here, you dirty loafer you!" she shrieked, and grabbed a
+calcimining brush from one of the many paintpots that bestrewed the
+hallway. Glaubmann bounded down the front stoop to the sidewalk just
+as Mrs. Kovner made a frenzied pass at him with the brush; and
+consequently, when he entered Kent J. Goldstein's office on Nassau
+Street an hour later, his black overcoat was speckled like the hide of
+an axis deer.
+
+"Goldstein," he said hoarsely, "is it assault that some one paints you
+from head to foot with calcimine?"
+
+"It is if you got witnesses," Goldstein replied; "otherwise it's
+misfortune. Who did it?"
+
+"That she-devil--the wife of the tenant in that house I sold Lubliner,"
+Glaubmann replied. "I think we're going to have trouble with them
+people, Goldstein."
+
+"You will if you try to sue 'em without witnesses, Glaubmann," Goldstein
+observed; "because suing without witnesses is like trying to play
+pinocle without cards. It can't be done."
+
+Glaubmann shook his head sadly.
+
+"I ain't going to sue 'em," he said. "I ain't so fond of lawsuits like
+all that; and, besides, a little calcimine is nothing, Goldstein, to
+what them people can do to me. They're going to claim they got there a
+year's verbal lease."
+
+Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That's all right," he commented. "They want to gouge you for fifty
+dollars or so; and, with the price you're getting for the house,
+Glaubmann, you can afford to pay 'em."
+
+"Gouge nothing!" Glaubmann declared. "They just got done there a couple
+hundred dollars' painting and plumbing, y'understand, and they're going
+to stick it out."
+
+Goldstein pursed his lips in an ominous whistle.
+
+"A verbal lease, hey?" he muttered.
+
+Glaubmann nodded sadly.
+
+"And this time there is witnesses," he said; and he related to his
+attorney the circumstances under which the original lease was made,
+together with the incident attending Kovner's visit to Ortelsburg's
+house.
+
+"It looks like you're up against it, Glaubmann," Goldstein declared.
+
+"But couldn't I claim that I was only bluffing the feller?" Glaubmann
+asked.
+
+"Sure you could," Goldstein replied; "but when Kovner went to work and
+painted the house and fixed the plumbing he called your bluff,
+Glaubmann; so the only thing to do is to ask for an adjournment
+to-morrow."
+
+"And suppose they won't give it to us?" Glaubmann asked.
+
+Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I'm a lawyer, Glaubmann--not a prophet," he said; "but if I know Henry
+D. Feldman you won't get any adjournment--so you may as well make your
+plans accordingly."
+
+For a brief interval Glaubmann nodded his head slowly, and then he burst
+into a mirthless laugh.
+
+"Real estate," he said, "that's something to own. Rheumatism is a fine
+asset compared to it; in fact if some one gives me my choice, Goldstein,
+I would say rheumatism every time. Both of 'em keep you awake nights;
+but there's one thing about rheumatism, Goldstein"--here he indulged in
+another bitter laugh--"you don't need a lawyer to get rid of it!" he
+said, and banged the door behind him.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+If there was any branch of legal practice in which Henry D. Feldman
+excelled it was conveyancing, and he brought to it all the histrionic
+ability that made him so formidable as a trial lawyer. Indeed, Feldman
+was accustomed to treat the conveyancing department of his office as a
+business-getter for the more lucrative field of litigation, and he
+spared no pains to make each closing of title an impressive and dramatic
+spectacle.
+
+Thus the _mise-en-scene_ of the Lubliner closing was excellent. Feldman
+himself sat in a baronial chair at the head of his library table, while
+to a seat on his right he had assigned Kent J. Goldstein. On his left
+he had placed Mr. Jones, the representative of the title company, a
+gaunt, sandy-haired man of thirty-five who, by the device of a pair of
+huge horn spectacles, had failed to distract public attention from an
+utterly stupendous Adam's apple.
+
+Next to the title company's representative were placed Elkan Lubliner
+and his partners, and it was to them that Henry D. Feldman addressed his
+opening remarks.
+
+"Mr. Lubliner," he said in the soft accents in which he began all his
+crescendos, "the examination of the record title to Mr. Glaubmann's
+Linden Boulevard premises has been made at my request by the Law Title
+Insurance and Guaranty Company."
+
+He made a graceful obeisance toward Mr. Jones, who acknowledged it with
+a convulsion of his Adam's apple.
+
+"I have also procured a survey to be made," Feldman continued; and, amid
+a silence that was broken only by the heavy breathing of Barnett
+Glaubmann, he held up an intricate design washed with watercolour on
+glazed muslin.
+
+"Finally I have done this," he declared, and his brows gathered in a
+tragic frown as his glance swept in turn the faces of Kent J. Goldstein,
+Benno Ortelsburg, J. Kamin, and Glaubmann--"I have procured an
+inspector's report upon the occupation of the _locus in quo_."
+
+"Oo-ee!" Glaubmann murmured, and Louis Stout exchanged triumphant
+glances with Polatkin and Scheikowitz.
+
+"And I find," Feldman concluded, "there is a tenant in possession,
+claiming under a year's lease which will not expire until October first
+next."
+
+Mr. Jones nodded and cleared his throat so noisily that, to relieve his
+embarrassment, he felt obliged to crack each of his knuckles in turn. As
+for Ribnik and Tarnowitz, they sat awestruck in the rear of Feldman's
+spacious library and felt vaguely that they were in a place of worship.
+Only Kent J. Goldstein remained unimpressed; and in order to show it he
+scratched a parlour match on the leg of Feldman's library table; whereat
+Feldman's _ex-cathedra_ manner forsook him.
+
+"Where in blazes do you think you are, Goldstein?" he asked in
+colloquial tones--"in a barroom?"
+
+"If it's solid mahogany," Goldstein retorted, "it'll rub up like new. I
+think you were talking about the tenancy of the premises here."
+
+Feldman choked down his indignation and once more became the dignified
+advocate.
+
+"That is not the only objection to title, Mr. Goldstein," he said. "Mr.
+Jones, kindly read the detailed objections contained in your report of
+closing."
+
+Mr. Jones nodded again and responded to Feldman's demand in a voice
+that profoundly justified the size of his larynx.
+
+"Description in deed dated January 1, 1783," he began, "from Joost van
+Gend to William Wauters, is defective; one course reading 'thence along
+said ditch north to a white-oak tree' should be 'south to a white-oak
+tree.'"
+
+"Well, what's the difference?" Goldstein interrupted. "It's monumented
+by the white-oak tree."
+
+"That was cut down long ago," Mr. Jones said.
+
+"Not by me!" Glaubmann declared. "I give you my word, gentlemen, the
+trees on the lot is the same like I bought it."
+
+Feldman allowed his eyes to rest for a moment on the protesting
+Glaubmann, who literally crumpled in his chair.
+
+"Proceed, Mr. Jones," Feldman said to the title company's
+representative, who continued without further interruption to the end of
+his list. This included all the technical objections which Glaubmann had
+feared, as well as a novel and interesting point concerning a partition
+suit in Chancery, brought in 1819, and affecting Glaubmann's chain of
+title to a strip in the rear of his lot, measuring one quarter of an
+inch in breadth by seven feet in length.
+
+"So far as I can see, Feldman," Goldstein commented as Mr. Jones laid
+down his report, "the only objection that will hold water is the one
+concerning Max Kovner's tenancy. As a matter of fact, I have witnesses
+to show that Kovner has always claimed that he didn't hold a lease."
+
+For answer, Feldman touched the button of an electric bell.
+
+"Show in Mr. and Mrs. Kovner," he said to the boy who responded. "We'll
+let them speak for themselves."
+
+This, it would appear, they were more than willing to do; for as soon as
+they entered the room and caught sight of Glaubmann, who by this time
+was fairly cowering in his chair, they immediately began a concerted
+tirade that was only ended when Goldstein banged vigorously on the
+library table, using as a gavel one of Feldman's metal-tipped rulers.
+
+"That'll do, Goldstein!" Feldman said hoarsely. "I think I can preserve
+order in my own office."
+
+"Why don't you then?" Goldstein retorted, as he leaned back in his chair
+and regarded with a malicious smile the damage he had wrought.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner began anew, "you thought you got us
+helpless there in your house; but----"
+
+"Shut up!" Feldman roared again, forgetting his role of the polished
+advocate; and Goldstein fairly beamed with satisfaction.
+
+"Don't bully your own witness," he said. "Let me do it for you."
+
+He turned to Kovner with a beetling frown.
+
+"Now, Kovner," he commenced, "you claim you've got a verbal lease for a
+year of this Linden Boulevard house, don't you?"
+
+"I sure do," Kovner replied, "and I got witnesses to prove it."
+
+"That's all right," Goldstein rejoined; "so long as there's Bibles
+there'll always be witnesses to swear on 'em. The point is: How do you
+claim the lease was made?"
+
+"I don't claim nothing," Kovner replied. "I got a year's lease on that
+property because, in the presence of my wife and his wife, Mr.
+Goldstein, he says to me I must either take the house for a year from
+last October to next October or I couldn't take it at all."
+
+Feldman smiled loftily at his opponent.
+
+"The art of cross-examination is a subtle one, Goldstein," he said, "and
+if you don't understand it you're apt to prove the other fellow's case."
+
+"Nevertheless," Goldstein continued, "I'm going to ask him one more
+question, and that is this: When was this verbal agreement made--before
+or after you moved into the house?"
+
+"Before I moved in, certainly," Kovner answered. "I told you that he
+says to me I couldn't move in unless I would agree to take the place for
+a year."
+
+"And when did you move in?" Goldstein continued.
+
+"On the first of October," Kovner said.
+
+"No, popper," Mrs. Kovner interrupted; "we didn't move in on the first.
+We moved in the day before."
+
+"That's right," Kovner said--"we moved in on the thirtieth of
+September."
+
+"So," Goldstein declared, "you made a verbal agreement before September
+thirtieth for a lease of one year from October first?"
+
+Kovner nodded and Goldstein turned to Henry D. Feldman, whose lofty
+smile had completely disappeared.
+
+"Well, Feldman," he said, "you pulled a couple of objections on me from
+'way back in the last century, understand me; so I guess it won't hurt
+if I remind you of a little statute passed in the reign of Charles the
+Second, which says: 'All contracts which by their terms are not to be
+performed within one year must be in writing and signed by the party to
+be charged.' I mean the Statute of Frauds."
+
+"I know what you mean all right," Feldman replied; "but you'll have to
+prove that before a court and jury. Just now we are confronted with
+Kovner, who claims to have a year's lease; and my client is relieved
+from his purchase in the circumstances. No man is bound to buy a
+lawsuit, Goldstein."
+
+"I know he ain't," Goldstein retorted; "but what's the difference,
+Feldman? He'll have a lawsuit on his hands, anyhow, because if he don't
+take title now, understand me, I'll bring an action to compel him to do
+so this very afternoon."
+
+At this juncture a faint croaking came from the vicinity of Louis Stout,
+who throughout had been as appreciative a listener as though he were
+occupying an orchestra chair and had bought his seat from a speculator.
+
+"Speak up, Mr. Stout!" Feldman cried.
+
+"I was saying," Louis replied faintly, "that with my own ears I heard
+Glaubmann say to Kovner that he's got a verbal lease for one year."
+
+"And when was this?" Feldman asked.
+
+"About three weeks ago," Stout replied.
+
+"Then, in that case, Mr. Goldstein," Feldman declared, "let me present
+to you another proposition of law."
+
+He paused to formulate a sufficiently impressive "offer" as the lawyers
+say, and in the silence that followed Elkan shuffled to his feet.
+
+"It ain't necessary, Mr. Feldman," he said. "I already made up my mind
+about it."
+
+"About what?" Louis Stout exclaimed.
+
+"About taking the house," Elkan replied. "If you'll let me have the
+figures, Mr. Feldman, I'll draw a check and have it certified and we'll
+close this thing up."
+
+"_Aber_, Elkan," Louis cried, "first let me communicate with Flugel."
+
+"That ain't necessary neither," Elkan retorted. "I'm going to make an
+end right here and now; and you should be so good, Mr. Feldman, and fix
+me up the statement of what I owe here. I want to get through."
+
+Polatkin rose shakily to his feet.
+
+"What's the matter, Elkan?" he said huskily. "Are you crazy, _oder_
+what?"
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Polatkin," Elkan commanded, and there was a ring of
+authority in his tone that made Polatkin collapse into his chair. "I am
+buying this house."
+
+"But, Elkan," Louis Stout implored, "why don't you let me talk to Flugel
+over the 'phone? Might he would got a suggestion to make maybe."
+
+"That's all right," Elkan said. "The only suggestion he makes is that if
+I go to work and close this contract, y'understand, he would never buy
+another dollar's worth of goods from us so long as he lives. So you
+shouldn't bother to ring him up, Mr. Stout."
+
+Louis Stout flushed angrily.
+
+"So far as that goes, Lubliner," he says, "I don't got to ring up Mr.
+Flugel to tell you the same thing, so you know what you could do."
+
+"Sure I know what I could do," Elkan continued. "I could either do
+business like a business man or do business like a muzhik, Mr. Stout.
+_Aber_ this ain't _Russland_, Mr. Stout--this is America; and if I got
+to run round wiping people's shoes to sell goods, then I don't want to
+do it at all."
+
+J. Kamin took a cigar out of his mouth and spat vigorously.
+
+"You're dead right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead and close the contract
+and I assure you you wouldn't regret it."
+
+Elkan's eyes blazed and he turned on Kamin.
+
+"You assure me!" he said. "Who in thunder are you? Do you think I'm
+looking for your business now, Kamin? Why, if you was worth your salt as
+a merchant, understand me, instead you would be fooling away your time
+trying to make a share of a commission, which the most you would get out
+of it is a hundred dollars, y'understand, you would be attending to your
+business buying your spring line. You are wasting two whole days on this
+deal, Kamin; and if two business days out of your spring buying is only
+worth a hundred dollars to you, Kamin, go ahead and get your goods
+somewheres else than in our store. I don't need to be Dun or Bradstreet
+to get a line on you, Kamin--and don't you forget it!"
+
+At this juncture a faint cough localized Joel Ribnik, who had remained
+with Julius Tarnowitz in the obscurity cast by several bound volumes of
+digests and reports.
+
+"Seemingly, Mr. Polatkin," he said, "you are a millionaire concern, the
+way your partner talks! Might you don't need our business, neither,
+maybe?"
+
+Polatkin was busy checking the ravages made upon his linen by the
+perspiration that literally streamed down his face and neck; but
+Scheikowitz, who had listened open-mouthed to Elkan's pronunciamento,
+straightened up in his chair and his face grew set with determination.
+
+"We ain't millionaires, Mr. Ribnik," he said--"far from it; and we ain't
+never going to be, understand me, if we got to buy eighteen-thousand
+dollar houses for every bill of goods we sell to _Schnorrers_ and
+deadbeats!"
+
+"Scheikowitz!" Polatkin pleaded.
+
+"Never mind, Polatkin," Scheikowitz declared. "The boy is right,
+Polatkin; and if we are making our living in America we got to act like
+Americans--not peasants. So, go ahead, Stout. Telephone Flugel and tell
+him from me that if he wants to take it that way he should do so; and
+you, too, Stout--and that's all there is to it!"
+
+"Then I apprehend, gentlemen, that we had better proceed to close,"
+Feldman said; and Elkan nodded, for as Scheikowitz finished speaking a
+ball had risen in Elkan's throat which, blink as he might, he could not
+down for some minutes.
+
+"All right, Goldstein," Feldman continued. "Let's fix up the statement
+of closing."
+
+"One moment, gentlemen," Max Kovner said. "Do I understand that, if
+Elkan Lubliner buys the house to-day, we've got to move out?"
+
+Feldman raised his eyebrows.
+
+"I think Mr. Goldstein will agree with me, Kovner, when I say you
+haven't a leg to stand on," he declared. "You're completely out of court
+on your own testimony."
+
+"You mean we ain't got a lease for a year?" Mrs. Kovner asked.
+
+"That's right," Goldstein replied.
+
+"And I am working my fingers to the bone getting rid of them
+_verfluchte_ painters and all!" she wailed. "What do you think I am
+anyway?"
+
+"Well, if you don't want to move right away," Elkan began, "when would
+it be convenient for you to get out, Mrs. Kovner?"
+
+"I don't want to get out at all," she whimpered. "Why should I want to
+get out? The house is an elegant house, which I just planted yesterday
+string beans and tomatoes; and the parlor looks elegant now we got the
+old paper off."
+
+"Supposing we say the first of May," Elkan suggested--"not that I am so
+crazy to move out to Burgess Park, y'understand; but I don't see what is
+the sense buying a house in the country and then not living in it."
+
+There was a brief silence, broken only by the soft weeping of Mrs.
+Kovner; and at length Max Kovner shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan," he said, "what is the use beating bushes round? Mrs.
+Kovner is stuck on the house and so am I. So long as you don't want the
+house, and there's been so much trouble about it and all, I tell you
+what I'll do: Take back two thousand dollars a second mortgage on the
+house, payable in one year at six per cent., which it is so good as
+gold, understand me, and I'll relieve you of your contract and give you
+two hundred dollars to boot."
+
+A smile spread slowly over Elkan's face as he looked significantly at
+Louis Stout.
+
+"I don't want your two hundred dollars, Max," he said. "You can have the
+house and welcome; and you should use the two hundred to pay your
+painting and plumbing bills."
+
+"That's all right," Louis Stout said; "there is people which will see to
+it that he does. Also, gentlemen, I want everybody to understand that I
+claim full commission here from Glaubmann as the only broker in the
+transaction!"
+
+"_Nu_, gentlemen," Glaubmann said; "I'll leave this to the lawyers if it
+ain't so: From one transaction I can only be liable for one
+commission--ain't it?"
+
+Feldman and Goldstein nodded in unison.
+
+"Then all I could say is that yous brokers and drygoods merchants should
+fight it out between yourselves," he declared; "because I'm going to
+pay the money for the commission into court--and them which is entitled
+to it can have it."
+
+"But ain't you going to protect me, Glaubmann?" Ortelsburg demanded.
+
+Glaubmann raised his hand for silence.
+
+"One moment, Ortelsburg," he said. "I think it was you and Kamin told me
+that real estate is a game the same like auction pinocle?"
+
+Ortelsburg nodded sulkily.
+
+"Then you fellers should go ahead and play it," Glaubmann concluded.
+"And might the best man win!"[B]
+
+[Footnote B: In the face of numerous decisions to the contrary, the
+author holds for the purposes of this story that a verbal lease for one
+year, to commence in the future, is void.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+A TALE OF TWO JACOBEAN CHAIRS
+
+NOT A DETECTIVE STORY
+
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," said Max Merech as he sat in the front parlour of
+Elkan's flat one April Sunday; "if you are going to work to buy
+furniture, understand me, it's just so easy to select good-looking
+chairs as bad-looking chairs."
+
+"_Aber_ sometimes it's a whole lot harder to sit on 'em comfortably,"
+Elkan retorted sourly. On the eve of moving to a larger apartment he and
+Yetta had invited Max to suggest a plan for furnishing and decorating
+their new dwelling; and it seemed to Elkan that Max had taken undue
+advantage of the privilege thus accorded him. Indeed, Polatkin,
+Scheikowitz & Company's aesthetic designer held such pronounced views on
+interior decoration, and had expressed them so freely to Elkan and
+Yetta, that after the first half-hour of his visit the esteem which they
+had always felt toward their plush furniture and Wilton rugs had
+changed--first to indifference and then, in the case of Yetta, at least,
+to loathing.
+
+"I always told you that the couch over there was hideous, Elkan," Yetta
+said.
+
+"Hideous it ain't," Max interrupted; "_aber_ it ain't so beautiful."
+
+"Well, stick the couch in the bedroom, then," Elkan said. "It makes no
+difference to me."
+
+"Sure, I know," Yetta exclaimed: "but what would we put in its place?"
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What d'ye ask me for?" Elkan cried. "Like as not I'd say another
+couch."
+
+"There is couches and couches," Max said with an apologetic smile, "but
+if you would ask my advice I would say why not a couple nice chairs
+there--something in monhogany, like Shippendaler _oder_ Sheratin."
+
+Suddenly he slapped his thigh in an access of inspiration.
+
+"I came pretty near forgetting!" he cried. "I got the very thing you
+want--and a big bargain too! Do you know Louis Dishkes, which runs the
+Villy dee Paris Store in Amsterdam Avenue?"
+
+"I think I know him," Elkan said with ironic emphasis. "He owes us four
+hundred dollars for two months already."
+
+"Well, Dishkes is got a brother-in-law by the name Ringentaub, on Allen
+Street, which he is a dealer in antics."
+
+"Antics?" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"Sure!" Max explained. "Antics--old furniture and old silver."
+
+"You mean a second-hand store?" Elkan suggested.
+
+"Not a second-hand store," Max declared. "A second-hand store is got old
+furniture from two years old _oder_ ten years old, understand me; _aber_
+an antic store carries old furniture from a hundred years old already."
+
+"And this here Ringentaub is got furniture from a hundred years old
+already?" Elkan cried.
+
+"From older even," answered Max; "from two hundred and fifty years old
+also."
+
+"_Ich glaub's!_" Elkan cried.
+
+"You can believe it _oder_ not, Mr. Lubliner," Max continued; "but
+Ringentaub got in his store a couple Jacobean chairs, which they are two
+hundred and fifty years old already. And them chairs you could buy at a
+big sacrifice yet."
+
+Elkan and Yetta exchanged puzzled glances, and Elkan even tapped his
+forehead significantly.
+
+"They was part of a whole set," Max went on, not noticing his employer's
+gesture; "the others Ringentaub sold to a collector."
+
+Elkan flipped his right hand.
+
+"A collector is something else again," he said; "but me I ain't no
+collector, Max, _Gott sei Dank_! I got my own business, Max, and I ain't
+got to buy from two hundred and fifty years old furniture."
+
+"Why not?" Max asked. "B. Gans is got his own business, too, Mr. Lubliner,
+and a good business also; and he buys yet from Ringentaub--only last
+week already--an angry cat cabinet which it is three hundred years old
+already."
+
+"An angry cat cabinet?" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"That's what I said," Max continued; "'angry' is French for 'Henry' and
+'cat' is French for 'fourth'; so this here cabinet was made three
+hundred years ago when Henry the Fourth was king of France--and B. Gans
+buys it last week already for five hundred dollars!"
+
+Therewith Max commenced a half-hour dissertation upon antique furniture
+which left Yetta and Elkan more undecided than ever.
+
+"And you are telling me that big people like B. Gans and Andrew Carnegie
+buys this here antics for their houses?" Elkan asked.
+
+"J. P. Morgan also," Max replied. "And them Jacobean chairs there you
+could get for fifty dollars already."
+
+"Well, it wouldn't do no harm supposing we would go down and see 'em,"
+Yetta suggested.
+
+"Some night next week," Elkan added, "_oder_ the week after."
+
+"For that matter, we could go to-night too," Max rejoined. "Sunday is
+like any other night down on Allen Street, and you got to remember that
+Jacobean chairs is something which you couldn't get whenever you want
+'em. Let me tell you just what they look like."
+
+Here he descanted so successfully on the beauty of Jacobean furniture
+that Yetta added her persuasion to his, and Elkan at length surrendered.
+
+"All right," he said. "First we would have a little something to eat and
+then we would go down there."
+
+Hence, a few minutes after eight that evening they alighted at the
+Spring Street subway station; and Max Merech piloted Elkan and Yetta
+beneath elevated railroads and past the windows of brass shops, with
+their gleaming show of candlesticks and samovars, to a little basement
+store near the corner of Rivington Street.
+
+"It don't look like much," Max apologized as he descended the few steps
+leading to the entrance; "_aber_ he's got an elegant stock inside."
+
+When he opened the door a trigger affixed to the door knocked against a
+rusty bell, but no one responded. Instead, from behind a partition in
+the rear came sounds of an angry dispute; and as Elkan closed the door
+behind him one of the voices rose higher than the rest.
+
+"Take my life--take my blood, Mr. Sammet!" it said; "because I am making
+you the best proposition I can, and that's all there is to it."
+
+Max was about to stamp his foot when Elkan laid a restraining hand on
+his shoulder; and, in the pause that followed, the heavy, almost
+hysterical breathing of the last speaker could be heard in the front of
+the store.
+
+"I don't want your life _oder_ your blood, Dishkes," came the answer in
+bass tones, which Elkan recognized as the voice of his competitor, Leon
+Sammet. "I am your heaviest creditor, and all I want is that you should
+protect me."
+
+"I know you are my heaviest creditor," Louis Dishkes replied. "To my
+sorrow I know it! If it wouldn't be for your rotten stickers which I got
+in my place, might I would be doing a good business there to-day,
+maybe!"
+
+"_Schmooes_, Dishkes!" Sammet replied. "The reason you didn't done a
+good business there is that you ain't no business man, Dishkes--and
+anyhow, Dishkes, it don't do no good you should insult me!"
+
+"What d'ye mean insult you?" Dishkes cried angrily. "I ain't insulting
+you, Sammet. You are insulting me. You want me I should protect you and
+let my other creditors go to the devil--ain't it? What d'ye take me
+for--a crook?"
+
+"That's all right," Sammet declared. "I wouldn't dandy words with you,
+Dishkes. For the last time I am asking you: Will you take advantage of
+the offer I am getting for you from the Mercantile Outlet Company, of
+Nashville, for your entire stock? Otherwise I would got nothing more to
+say to you."
+
+There was a sound of scuffling feet as the party in the rear of the
+store rose from their chairs.
+
+"You ain't got no need to say nothing more to me, Mr. Sammet," Dishkes
+announced firmly, "because I am through with you, Mr. Sammet. Your
+account ain't due till to-morrow, and you couldn't do nothing till
+Tuesday. Ain't it? So Tuesday morning early you should go ahead and sue
+me, and if I couldn't raise money to save myself I will go _mechullah_;
+but it'll be an honest _mechullah_, and that's all there is to it."
+
+As Dishkes finished speaking Elkan drew Max and Yetta into the shadow
+cast by a tall highboy; and, without noticing their presence, Leon
+Sammet plunged toward the door and let himself out into the street.
+
+Immediately Elkan tiptoed to the door and threw it wide open, after
+which he shuffled his feet with sufficient noise to account for the
+entrance of three people. Thereat Ringentaub emerged from behind the
+partition.
+
+"Hello, Ringentaub," Max cried. "I am bringing you here some customers."
+
+Ringentaub bowed and coughed a warning to Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub,
+who continued to talk in hoarse whispers behind the partition.
+
+"What's the matter, Ringentaub?" Max Merech asked; "couldn't you afford
+it here somehow a little light?"
+
+Ringentaub reached into the upper darkness and turned on a gas jet which
+had been burning a blue point of flame.
+
+"I keep it without light here on purpose," he said, "on account Sundays
+is a big night for the candlestick fakers up the street and I don't want
+to be bothered with their trade. What could I show your friends, Mr.
+Merech?"
+
+Max winked almost imperceptibly at Elkan and prepared to approach the
+subject of the Jacobean chairs by a judicious detour.
+
+"Do you got maybe a couple Florentine frames, Ringentaub?" he asked; and
+Ringentaub shook his head.
+
+"Florentine frames is hard to find nowadays, Mr. Merech," he said; "and
+I guess I told it you Friday that I ain't got none."
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
+
+"I thought might you would of picked up a couple since then, maybe," Max
+rejoined, glancing round him. "You got a pretty nice highboy over there,
+Ringentaub, for a reproduction."
+
+Ringentaub nodded satirically.
+
+"That only goes to show how much you know about such things, Mr.
+Merech," he retorted, "when you are calling reproductions something
+which it is a gen-wine Shippendaler, understand me, in elegant
+condition."
+
+It was now Elkan's turn to nod, and he did so with just the right
+degree of skepticism as at last he broached the object of his visit.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "that them chairs over there is also gen-wine
+Jacobean chairs?"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do with you, Mr. Merech," Ringentaub declared.
+"You could bring down here any of them good Fourth Avenue or Fifth
+Avenue dealers, understand me, or any conoozer you want to name, like
+Jacob Paul, _oder_ anybody, y'understand; and if they would say them
+chairs ain't gen-wine Jacobean I'll make 'em a present to you free for
+nothing."
+
+"I ain't _schnorring_ for no presents, Mr. Ringentaub," Max declared.
+"Bring 'em out in the light and let's give a look at 'em."
+
+Ringentaub drew the chairs into the centre of the floor, and placing
+them beneath the gas jet he stepped backward and tilted his head to one
+side in silent admiration.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Merech," he said at last, "am I right or am I wrong? Is the
+chairs gen-wine _oder_ not? I leave it to your friends here."
+
+Max turned to Elkan, who had been edging away toward the partition, from
+which came scraps of conversation between Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub.
+
+"What do you think, Mr. Lubliner?" Max asked; and Elkan frowned his
+annoyance at the interruption, for he had just begun to catch a few
+words of the conversation in the rear room.
+
+"Sure--sure!" he said absently. "I leave it to you and Mrs. Lubliner."
+
+Yetta's face had fallen as she viewed the apparently decayed and rickety
+furniture.
+
+"Ain't they terrible shabby-looking!" she murmured, and Ringentaub
+shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
+
+"You would look shabby, too, lady," he said, "if you would be two
+hundred and fifty years old; _aber_ if you want to see what they look
+like after they are restored, y'understand, I got back there one of the
+rest of the set which I already sold to Mr. Paul; and I am fixing it up
+for him."
+
+As he finished speaking he walked to the rear and dragged forward a
+reseated and polished duplicate of the two chairs.
+
+"I dassent restore 'em before I sell 'em," Ringentaub explained;
+"otherwise no one believes they are gen-wine."
+
+"And how much do you say you want for them chairs, Ringentaub?" Max
+asked.
+
+"I didn't say I wanted nothing," Ringentaub replied. "The fact is, I
+don't know whether I want to keep them chairs _oder_ not. You see, Mr.
+Merech, Jacobean chairs is pretty near so rare nowadays that it would
+pay me to wait a while. In a couple of years them chairs double in value
+already."
+
+"Sure, I know," Max said. "You could say the same thing about your whole
+stock, Ringentaub; and so, if I would be you, Ringentaub, I would take a
+little vacation of a couple years or so. Go round the world _mit_ Mrs.
+Ringentaub, understand me, and by the time you come back you are worth
+twicet as much as you got to-day; but just to help pay your rent while
+you are away, Mr. Ringentaub, I'll make you an offer of thirty-five
+dollars for the chairs."
+
+Ringentaub seized a chair in each hand and dragged them noisily to one
+side.
+
+"As I was saying," he announced, "I ain't got no Florentine frames, Mr.
+Merech; so I am sorry we couldn't do no business."
+
+"Well, then, thirty-seven-fifty, Mr. Ringentaub," Max continued; and
+Ringentaub made a flapping gesture with both hands.
+
+"Say, lookyhere," he growled, "what is the use talking nonsense,
+Mr. Merech? For ten dollars apiece you could get on Twenty-third
+Street a couple chairs, understand me, made in some big factory,
+y'understand--A-Number-One pieces of furniture--which would suit you
+a whole lot better as gen-wine pieces. These here chairs is for
+conoozers, Mr. Merech; so, if you want any shiny candlesticks _oder_
+Moskva samovars from brass-spinners on Center Street, y'understand, a
+couple doors uptown you would find plenty fakers. _Aber_ here is all
+gen-wine stuff, y'understand; and for gen-wine stuff you got to pay
+full price, understand me, which if them chairs stays in my store
+till they are five hundred years old already I wouldn't take a cent
+less for 'em as fifty dollars."
+
+Max turned inquiringly to Mrs. Lubliner; and, during the short pause
+that followed, the agonized voice of Louis Dishkes came once more from
+the back room.
+
+"What could I do?" he said to Mrs. Ringentaub. "I want to be square
+_mit_ everybody, and I must got to act quick on account that sucker
+Sammet will close me up sure."
+
+"_Ai, tzuris!_" Mrs. Ringentaub moaned; at which her husband coughed
+noisily and Elkan moved nearer to the partition.
+
+"Would you go as high as fifty dollars, Mrs. Lubliner?" Max asked, and
+Yetta nodded.
+
+"All right, Mr. Ringentaub," Max concluded; "we'll take 'em at fifty
+dollars."
+
+"And you wouldn't regret it neither," Ringentaub replied. "I'll make you
+out a bill right away."
+
+He darted into the rear room and slammed the partition door behind him.
+
+"_Koosh_, Dishkes!" he hissed. "Ain't you got no sense at all--blabbing
+out your business in front of all them strangers?"
+
+It was at this juncture that Elkan rapped on the door.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Ringentaub," he said, "but I ain't no stranger to Mr.
+Dishkes--not by four hundred dollars already."
+
+He opened the door as he spoke, and Dishkes, who was sitting at a table
+with his head bowed on his hands, looked up mournfully.
+
+"_Nu_, Mr. Lubliner!" he said. "You are after me, too, ain't it?"
+
+Elkan shook his head.
+
+"Not only I ain't after you, Dishkes," he said, "but I didn't even know
+you was in trouble until just now."
+
+"And you never would of known," Ringentaub added, "if he ain't been such
+a _dummer Ochs_ and listened to people's advice. He got a good chance to
+sell out, and he wouldn't took it."
+
+"Sure, I know," Elkan said, "to an auction house; the idee being to run
+away _mit_ the proceeds and leave his creditors in the lurches!"
+
+Dishkes again buried his head in his hands, while Ringentaub blushed
+guiltily.
+
+"That may be all right in the antic business, Mr. Ringentaub," Elkan
+went on, "but in the garment business we ain't two hundred and fifty
+years behind the times exactly. We got associations of manufacturers and
+we got good lawyers, too, understand me; and we get right after crooks
+like Sammet, just the same as some of us helps out retailers that want
+to be decent, like Dishkes here."
+
+Louis Dishkes raised his head suddenly.
+
+"Then you heard the whole thing?" he cried; and Elkan nodded.
+
+"I heard enough, Dishkes," he said; "and if you want my help you could
+come down to my place to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."
+
+At this juncture the triggered bell rang loudly, and raising his hand
+for silence Ringentaub returned to the store.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Paul!" he said.
+
+He addressed a broad-shouldered figure arrayed in the height of Canal
+Street fashion.
+
+Aside from his clothing, however, there was little to betray the
+connoisseur of fine arts and antiques in the person of Jacob Paul, who
+possessed the brisk, businesslike manner and steel-blue eyes of a
+detective sergeant.
+
+"Hello, Ringentaub!" he said. "You are doing a rushing business
+here--ain't it? More customers in the back room too?"
+
+He glanced sharply at the open doorway in the partition, through which
+Elkan and Dishkes could be seen engaged in earnest conversation.
+
+"_Yow_--customers!" Ringentaub exclaimed. "You know how it is in the
+antic business, Mr. Paul. For a hundred that looks, understand me, one
+buys; and that one, Mr. Paul, he comes into your place a dozen times
+before he makes up his mind yet."
+
+"Well," Paul said with a smile, "I've made up my mind at last,
+Ringentaub, and I'll take them other two chairs at forty-five dollars."
+
+Ringentaub nodded his head slowly.
+
+"I thought you would, Mr. Paul," he said; "but just the same you are a
+little late, on account this here gentleman already bought 'em for fifty
+dollars."
+
+A shade of disappointment passed over Paul's face as he turned to Max
+Merech.
+
+"I congratulate you, Mister----"
+
+"Merech," Max suggested.
+
+"Merech," Paul continued. "You paid a high price for a couple of good
+pieces."
+
+"I ain't paying nothing," Max replied. "I bought 'em for this lady here
+and her husband."
+
+It was then that Jacob Paul for the first time noticed Yetta's presence,
+and he bowed apologetically.
+
+"Is he also a collector?" he asked, and Max shook his head.
+
+"He's in the garment business," Yetta volunteered, "for himself."
+
+A puzzled expression wrinkled Paul's flat nose.
+
+"I guess I ain't caught the name," he said.
+
+"Lubliner," Yetta replied; "Elkan Lubliner, of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &
+Company."
+
+"You don't tell me?" Jacob Paul said. "And so Mr. Lubliner is interested
+in antiques. That's quite a jump, from cloaks and suits to antiques
+already."
+
+"Well," Merech explained, "Mr. Lubliner is refurnishing his house."
+
+"Maybe," Elkan added as he appeared in the doorway of the partition,
+followed by Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub. "Buying a couple pieces of
+furniture is one thing, Merech, and refurnishing your house is another."
+
+"You made a good start anyhow," Paul interrupted. "A couple chairs like
+them gives a tone to a room which is got crayon portraits hanging in it
+even."
+
+Yetta blushed in the consciousness of what she had always considered to
+be a fine likeness of Elkan's grandfather--the Lubliner _Rav_--which
+hung in a silver-and-plush frame over the mantelpiece of the Lubliner
+front parlour. Elkan was unashamed, however, and he glared angrily at
+the connoisseur, who had started to leave the store.
+
+"I suppose," he cried, "it ain't up to date that a feller should
+have hanging in his flat a portrait of his grandfather--_olav
+hasholem!_--which he was a learned man and a _Tzadek_, if there ever
+was one."
+
+Paul hesitated, with his hand on the doorknob.
+
+"I'll tell you, Mr. Lubliner," he said solemnly; "to me a crayon
+portrait is rotten, understand me, if it would be of a _Tzadek oder_ a
+murderer."
+
+And with a final bow to Mrs. Lubliner he banged the door behind him.
+
+"Well, what d'ye think for a _Rosher_ like that?" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"The fellow is disappointed that you got ahead of him buying the chairs,
+Mr. Lubliner," Ringentaub explained; "so he takes a chance that you and
+Mrs. Lubliner is that kind of people which is got hanging in the parlour
+crayon portraits, understand me, and he knocks you for it."
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What could you expect from a feller which is content at fifty years of
+age to be a collector only?" he asked, and Dishkes nodded
+sympathetically.
+
+"I bet yer, Mr. Lubliner," he agreed; "and so I would be at your store
+to-morrow morning at ten o'clock sure."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin said the
+following morning when Elkan related to him the events of the preceding
+night; "_aber_ you couldn't blame Sammet none. Concerns like Sammet
+Brothers, which they are such dirty crooks that everybody is got
+suspicions of 'em, y'understand, must got to pay their bills prompt to
+the day, Elkan; because if they wouldn't be themselves good collectors,
+understand me, they would bust up quick."
+
+"Sammet Brothers ain't in no danger of busting up," Elkan declared.
+
+"Ain't they?" Marcus rejoined. "Well, you would be surprised, Elkan, if
+I would tell you that only yesterday already I am speaking to a feller
+by the name Hirsch, which works for years by the Hamsuckett Mills as
+city salesman, understand me, and he says that the least Sammet Brothers
+owes them people is ten thousand dollars."
+
+"That shows what a big business they must do," Elkan said.
+
+"_Yow_--a big business!" Marcus concluded. "This here Hirsch says not
+only Sammet Brothers' business falls off something terrible,
+y'understand, but they are also getting to be pretty slow pay; and if it
+wouldn't be that the Hamsuckett people is helping 'em along, _verstehst
+du_, they would of gone up _schon_ long since already."
+
+"And a good job too," Elkan said. "The cloak-and-suit trade could worry
+along without 'em, Mr. Polatkin; but anyhow, Mr. Polatkin, I ain't
+concerned with Sammet Brothers. The point is this: Dishkes says he has
+got a good stand there on Amsterdam Avenue, and if he could only hold on
+a couple months longer he wouldn't got no difficulty in pulling
+through."
+
+Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"For my part," he said, "it wouldn't make no difference if Dishkes
+busts up now _oder_ two months from now."
+
+"But the way he tells me yesterday," Elkan replied, "not only he
+wouldn't got to bust up on us if he gets his two months' extension, but
+he says he would be doing a good business at that time."
+
+Polatkin nodded skeptically.
+
+"Sure, I know, Elkan," he said. "If everybody which is asking an
+extension would do the business they hope to do before the extension is
+up, Elkan," he said, "all the prompt-pay fellows must got to close up
+shop on account there wouldn't be enough business to go round."
+
+"Well, anyhow," Elkan rejoined, "he's coming here to see us this
+morning, Mr. Polatkin, and he could show you how he figures it that he's
+got hopes to pull through."
+
+Polatkin made a deprecatory gesture with his hand.
+
+"If a feller is going to bust up on me, Elkan, I'd just as lief he ain't
+got no hopes at all," he grumbled; "otherwise he wastes your whole day
+on you figuring out his next season's profits if he can only stall off
+his creditors. With such a hoping feller, if you don't want to be out
+time as well as money, understand me, you should quick file a petition
+in bankruptcy against him; otherwise he wouldn't give you no peace at
+all."
+
+Nevertheless, when Dishkes arrived, half an hour later, Polatkin
+ushered him into the firm's office and summoned Scheikowitz and Elkan to
+the conference.
+
+"Well, Dishkes," he said in kindly accents, "you are up against it."
+
+Dishkes nodded. He was by no means of a robust physical type, and his
+hands trembled so nervously as he fumbled for his papers in his breast
+pocket that he dropped its contents on the office floor. Elkan stooped
+to assist in retrieving the scattered papers, and among the documents he
+gathered together was a cabinet photograph.
+
+"My wife!" Dishkes murmured hoarsely. "She ain't so strong, and I am
+sending her up to the country a couple months ago. I've been meaning I
+should go up and see her ever since, but----"
+
+Here he gulped dismally; and there was an embarrassed silence, broken
+only by the faint noise occasioned by Philip Scheikowitz scratching his
+chin.
+
+"That's a _Rosher_--that feller Sammet," Polatkin said at length.
+"Honestly, the way some business men ain't got no mercy at all for the
+other feller, you would think, Scheikowitz, they was living back in the
+old country yet!"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded and glanced nervously from the photograph to Elkan.
+
+"I think you was telling me you got a couple idees about helping Dishkes
+out, Elkan," he said. "So, in the first place, Dishkes, you should
+please let us see a list of your creditors."
+
+With this prelude Scheikowitz drew forward his chair and plunged into a
+discussion of Dishkes' affairs that lasted for more than two hours; and
+when Dishkes at length departed he took with him notices of a meeting
+addressed to his twenty creditors, prepared for immediate mailing by
+Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's stenographer.
+
+"And that's what we let ourselves in for," Scheikowitz declared after
+the elevator door had closed behind Dishkes. "To-morrow morning at
+eleven o'clock the place here would look like the waiting room of a
+depot, and all our competitors would be rubbering at our stock already."
+
+"Let 'em rubber!" Elkan said. "If I don't get an extension for that
+feller my name ain't Elkan Lubliner at all; because between now and then
+I am going round to see them twenty creditors, and I bet yer they will
+sign an extension agreement, with the figures I am going to put up to
+them!"
+
+"Figures!" Scheikowitz jeered. "What good is figures to them fellers?
+Showing figures to a bankrupt's creditors is like taking to a restaurant
+a feller which is hungry and letting him look at the knives and forks
+and plates, understand me!"
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"Sure, I know," he said; "but the figures ain't all."
+
+Surreptitiously he drew from his pocket a faded cabinet photograph.
+
+"I sneaked this away from Dishkes when he wasn't noticing," Elkan
+declared; "and if this don't fix 'em nothing will!"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," Leon Sammet cried after Elkan had broached
+the reason for his visit late that afternoon, "don't give me that tale
+of woe again. Every time we are asking Dishkes for money he pulls this
+here sick-wife story on us, understand me; and it don't go down with me
+no more."
+
+"What d'ye mean don't go down with you?" Elkan demanded. "Do you claim
+his wife ain't sick?"
+
+"I don't claim nothing," Sammet retorted. "I ain't no doctor, Lubliner.
+I am in the cloak-and-suit business, and I got to pay my creditors with
+United States money, Lubliner, if my wife would be dying yet."
+
+"Which you ain't got no wife," Elkan added savagely.
+
+"_Gott sei Dank!_" Sammet rejoined. "_Aber_ if I did got one,
+y'understand, I would got _Verstand_ enough to pick out a healthy woman,
+which Dishkes does everything the same. He picks out a store there on an
+avenue when it is a dead neighbourhood, understand me--and he wants us
+we should suffer for it."
+
+"The neighbourhood wouldn't be dead after three months," Elkan
+said. "Round the corner on both sides of the street is building
+thirty-three-foot, seven-story elevator apartments yet; and when they
+are occupied, Dishkes would do a rushing business."
+
+"That's all right," Sammet answered. "I ain't speculating in real-estate
+futures, Lubliner; so you might just so well go ahead and attend to your
+business, Lubliner, because me I am going to do the same."
+
+"But lookyhere, Sammet," Elkan still pleaded. "I seen pretty near every
+one of Dishkes' creditors and they all agree the feller should have a
+three months' extension."
+
+"Let 'em agree," Sammet shouted. "They are their own bosses and so am I,
+Lubliner; so if they want to give him an extension of their account I
+ain't got nothing to say. All I want is eight hundred dollars he owes
+me; and the rest of them suckers could agree till they are black in the
+face."
+
+"_Aber_, anyhow, Sammet," Elkan said, "come to the meeting to-morrow
+morning and we would see what we could do."
+
+"See what we could do!" Sammet bellowed. "You will see what I could do,
+Lubliner; and I will come to the meeting to-morrow and I'll do it too.
+So, if you don't mind, Lubliner, I could still do a little work before
+we close up here."
+
+For a brief interval Elkan dug his nails into the palms of his hands,
+and his eyes unconsciously sought a target for a right swing on Sammet's
+bloated face; but at length he nodded and forced himself to smile.
+
+"_Schon gut_, Mr. Sammet," he said; "then I will see you to-morrow."
+
+A moment later he strode down lower Fifth Avenue toward the place of
+business of the last creditor on Dishkes' list. This was none other than
+Elkan's distinguished friend, B. Gans, the manufacturer of high-grade
+dresses; and it required less than ten minutes to procure his consent to
+the proposed extension.
+
+"And I hope," Elkan said, "that we could count on you to be at the
+meeting to-morrow."
+
+"That's something I couldn't do," B. Gans replied; "but I'll write you a
+letter and give you full authority you should represent me there. Excuse
+me a minute and I'll dictate it to Miss Scheindler." When he returned,
+five minutes later, he sat down at his desk and, crossing his legs,
+prepared to beguile the tedium of waiting.
+
+"Well, Elkan," he said, "what you been doing with yourself lately?
+Thee-aytres and restaurants, I suppose?"
+
+"Thee-aytres I ain't so much interested in no more," Elkan said. "The
+fact is, I am going in now for antics."
+
+"Antics!" B. Gans exclaimed.
+
+"Sure," Elkan replied; and there was a certain pride in his tones.
+"Antics is what I said, Mr. Gans--Jacobson chairs and them--now--cat's
+furniture."
+
+"Cat's furniture?" Gans repeated. "What d'ye mean cat's furniture?"
+
+"Angry cats," Elkan explained; and then a great light broke upon B.
+Gans.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You mean Henri Quatre furniture?"
+
+"Hungry cat _oder_ angry cat," Elkan said. "All I know is we are
+refurnishing our flat, Mr. Gans, and we are taking an advice from Max
+Merech, our designer. It's a funny thing about that feller, Mr.
+Gans--with garments he is right up to the minute, _aber mit_ furniture
+nothing suits him unless it would be anyhow a hundred years old."
+
+"So you are buying some antique furniture for your flat?" B. Gans
+commented, and Elkan nodded.
+
+"We made a start anyhow," he said. "We bought a couple Jacobson
+chairs--two hundred and fifty years old already."
+
+"Good!" B. Gans exclaimed. "I want to tell you, Elkan, you couldn't go
+far wrong if you would buy any piece of furniture over a hundred years
+old. They didn't know how to make things ugly in them days--and Jacobean
+chairs especially. I am furnishing my whole dining room in that period
+and my library in Old French. It costs money, Elkan, but it's worth
+it."
+
+Elkan nodded and steered the conversation into safer channels; so that
+by the time Miss Scheindler had brought in the letter they were
+discussing familiar business topics.
+
+"Also," Gans said as he appended his neat signature to the letter, "I
+wish you and Dishkes luck, Elkan; and keep up the good work about the
+antique furniture. Even when you would get stuck with a reproduction
+instead of a genuine piece once in a while, if it looks just as good as
+the original and no one tells you differently, understand me, you feel
+just as happy."
+
+Thus encouraged, Elkan went home that evening full of a determination to
+acquire all the antique furniture his apartment would hold; and he and
+Yetta sat up until past midnight conning the pages of a heavy volume on
+the subject, which Yetta had procured from the neighbouring public
+library. Accordingly Elkan rose late the following morning, and it was
+almost nine o'clock before he reached his office and observed on the
+very top of his morning mail a slip of paper containing a message in the
+handwriting of Sam, the office boy.
+
+"A man called about Jacobowitz," it read, and Elkan immediately rang his
+deskbell.
+
+"What Jacobowitz is this?" he demanded as Sam entered, and the office
+boy shrugged.
+
+"I should know!" he said.
+
+"What d'ye mean you should know?" Elkan cried. "Ain't I always told it
+you you should write down always the name when people call?"
+
+"Ain't Jacobowitz a name?" Sam replied. "Furthermore, you couldn't
+expect me I should get the family history from everybody which is coming
+in the place, Mr. Lubliner--especially when the feller says he would
+come back."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me he is coming back?" Elkan asked, and again Sam
+shrugged.
+
+"When the feller is coming back, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "it don't make
+no difference if I tell you _oder_ not. He would come back anyhow."
+
+Having thus disposed of the matter to his entire satisfaction, Sam
+withdrew and banged the door triumphantly behind him, while Elkan fell
+to examining his mail. He had hardly cut the first envelope, however,
+when his door opened to admit Dishkes.
+
+"_Nu_, Dishkes!" Elkan said. "You are pretty early, ain't it?"
+
+Dishkes nodded.
+
+"I'm a _Schlemiel_, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and that's all there is to
+it. Yesterday I went to work and lost my wife's picture."
+
+Elkan slapped his thigh with his hand.
+
+"Well, ain't I a peach?" he said. "I am getting so mixed up with these
+here antics I completely forgot to tell Yetta anything about it. I
+didn't even show it to her, Dishkes; so you must leave me have it for a
+day longer, Dishkes."
+
+As he spoke he drew the cabinet photograph from his breast pocket and
+handed it to Dishkes, who gazed earnestly at it for a minute. Then,
+resting his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands and
+burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing, whereat Elkan jumped from his
+seat and passed hurriedly out of the room. As he walked toward the
+showroom the strains of a popular song came from behind a rack.
+
+"Sam," he bellowed, "who asks you you should whistle round here?"
+
+The whistling ceased and Sam emerged from his hiding-place with a
+feather brush.
+
+"I could whistle without being asked," Sam replied; "and furthermore,
+Mr. Lubliner, when I am dusting the samples I must got to whistle;
+otherwise the dust gets in my lungs, which I value my lungs the same
+like you do, Mr. Lubliner, even if I would be here only a boy working on
+stock!"
+
+With this decisive rejoinder he resumed dusting the samples, while Elkan
+returned to his office, where he found that Dishkes had regained his
+composure.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Despite the fact that all of Dishkes' creditors save one had signed an
+extension agreement, the meeting in Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's
+showroom was well attended; and when Leon Sammet came in, at
+quarter-past eleven, the assemblage had already elected Charles Finkman,
+of Maisener & Finkman, as chairman. He had just taken his seat in Philip
+Scheikowitz's new revolving chair and was in the act of noisily clearing
+his throat in lieu of pounding the table with a gavel.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "first, I want to thank you for the signal honour
+you are doing me in appointing me your chairman. For sixteen years now
+my labours in the Independent Order Mattai Aaron ain't unknown to most
+of you here. Ten years ago, at the national convention held in
+Sarahcuse, gentlemen, I was unanimously elected by the delegates from
+sixty lodges to be your National Grand Master; and----"
+
+At this juncture Leon Sammet rose ponderously to his feet.
+
+"Say, Finkman!" retorted Sammet. "What has all this _Stuss_ about the I.
+O. M. A. got to do _mit_ Dishkes here?"
+
+Again Finkman cleared his throat, and this time he produced a note of
+challenge that caused the members of the I. O. M. A. there present to
+lean forward in their seats. They expected a crushing rejoinder and they
+were not disappointed.
+
+"What is the motto of the I. O. M. A., Sammet?" Finkman thundered.
+"'Justice, Fraternity and Charity!' And I say to you now that, as
+chairman of this meeting, as well as Past National Grand Master of that
+noble order to which you and I both belong, _verstehst du_, I will see
+that justice be done, fraternity be encouraged and charity dispensed on
+each and every occasion.
+
+"Now, my brothers, here is a fellow member of our organization in
+distress, y'understand; and I ask you one and all this question"--he
+raised his voice to a pitch that made the filaments tremble in the
+electric-light bulbs--"Who," he roared, "who will come to his
+assistance?"
+
+He paused dramatically just as Sam, the office boy, stuck his head in
+the showroom doorway and rent the silence with his high, piping voice.
+
+"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the man is here about Jacobowitz."
+
+Elkan flapped his hand wildly, but it was too late to prevent the
+entrance of no less a person than Jacob Paul--the connoisseur of
+antiques and fine arts.
+
+"Hello, Finkman!" he said; "what's the trouble here?"
+
+Elkan started from his seat to interrupt his visitor, but there was
+something in Finkman's manner that made him sit down again.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Paul?" Finkman exclaimed; and the clarion note
+had deserted his voice, leaving only a slight hoarseness to mark its
+passing. "What brings you here?"
+
+"I might ask the same of you, Finkman," Jacob Paul replied; and as his
+keen eyes scanned the assembled company they rested for a minute on Leon
+Sammet, who forthwith began to perspire.
+
+"The fact is," Finkman began, "this here is a meeting of creditors of
+Louis Dishkes, of the Villy dee Paris Store on Amsterdam Avenue."
+
+Paul turned to Louis Dishkes, proprietor of the Ville de Paris Store,
+who sat at the side of the room behind Scheikowitz's desk in an
+improvised prisoner's dock.
+
+"What's the matter, Dishkes?" Paul asked. "Couldn't you make it go up
+there?"
+
+Dishkes shrugged hopelessly.
+
+"Next month, when them houses round the corner is rented," he said, "I
+could do a good business there."
+
+"You ought to," Paul agreed. "You ain't got no competitors, so far as I
+could see."
+
+"That's what we all think!" Elkan broke in--"that is to say, all of us
+except Mr. Sammet; and he ain't willing to wait for his money."
+
+Leon Sammet moved uneasily in his chair as Jacob Paul faced about in his
+direction.
+
+"Why ain't you willing to wait, Sammet?" he asked; and Leon mopped his
+face with his handkerchief.
+
+"Well, it's like this, Mr. Paul----" he began, but the connoisseur of
+antiques raised his hand.
+
+"One moment, Sammet," he said. "You know as well as anybody else, and
+better even, that a millionaire concern like the Hamsuckett Mills must
+got to wait once in a while." He paused significantly. "If we didn't,"
+he continued, "there's plenty of solvent concerns would be forced to the
+wall--ain't it? Furthermore, if the Hamsuckett Mills did business the
+way you want to, Sammet, I wouldn't keep my job as credit man and
+treasurer very long."
+
+Sammet nodded weakly and plied his handkerchief with more vigour, while
+Elkan sat and stared at his acquaintance of Sunday night in unfeigned
+astonishment.
+
+"Then what is the use of talking, Sammet?" Paul said. "So long as you
+are the only one standing out, why don't you make an end of it? How long
+an extension does Dishkes want?"
+
+"Two months," Finkman answered.
+
+"And where is the agreement you fellows all signed?" Paul continued.
+
+Elkan took a paper from the desk in front of Dishkes and passed it to
+Paul, who drew from his waistcoat pocket an opulent gold-mounted
+fountain pen. Then he walked over to Leon Sammet and handed him the pen
+and the agreement.
+
+"_Schreib_, Sammet," he said, "and don't make no more fuss about it."
+
+A moment later Sammet appended a shaky signature to the agreement and
+returned it, with the pen, to Paul.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Jacob Paul sat in Elkan's office and smoked
+one of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's best cigars.
+
+"Now I put it up to you, Lubliner," he said: "them Jacobean chairs are
+pretty high at fifty dollars, but I want 'em, and I'm willing to give
+you sixty for 'em."
+
+Elkan smiled and made a wide gesture with both hands.
+
+"My dear Mr. Paul," he said, "after what you done to-day for Dishkes
+I'll make you a present of 'em--free for nothing."
+
+"No, you won't do no such thing," Paul declared; "because I'm going to
+sell 'em again and at a profit, as I may as well tell you."
+
+"My worries what you are going to do with 'em!" Elkan declared. "But one
+thing I ain't going to do, Mr. Paul--I ain't going to make no profit on
+you; so go ahead and take the chairs at what I paid for 'em--and that's
+the best I could do for you."
+
+It required no further persuasion for Jacob Paul to draw a fifty-dollar
+check to Elkan's order; and as he rose to leave Elkan pressed his hand
+warmly.
+
+"Come up and see me, Mr. Paul, when we get through refurnishing," he
+said. "I promise you you would see a flat furnished to your taste--no
+crayon portraits nor nothing."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Elkan's office door opened to admit
+Sam, the office boy.
+
+"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "another feller is here about this
+here--now--Jacobowitz."
+
+Elkan glanced through the half-open door and recognized the figure of
+Ringentaub, the antiquarian.
+
+"Tell him to come in," he said; and a moment later Ringentaub was
+wringing Elkan's hand and babbling his gratitude for his
+brother-in-law's deliverance from bankruptcy.
+
+"God will bless you for it, Mr. Lubliner," he said; "and I am ashamed of
+myself when I think of it. I am a dawg, Mr. Lubliner--and that's all
+there is to it."
+
+Here he drew a greasy wallet from his breast-pocket and extracted three
+ten-dollar bills.
+
+"Take 'em, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and forgive me."
+
+He pressed the bills into Elkan's hand.
+
+"What's this?" Elkan demanded.
+
+"That's the change from your fifty dollars," Ringentaub replied;
+"because, so help me, Mr. Lubliner, there is first-class material in
+them chairs and the feller that makes 'em for me is a highgrade
+cabinetmaker. Then you got to reckon it stands me in a couple of dollars
+also to get 'em fixed up antique, y'understand; so, if you get them
+chairs for twenty dollars you are buying a bargain, Mr. Lubliner."
+
+"Why, what d'ye mean?" Elkan cried. "Ain't them chairs gen-wine Jacobean
+chairs?"
+
+"Not by a whole lot they ain't," Ringentaub declared fervently.
+
+"But Mr. Paul thinks they are!" Elkan exclaimed.
+
+"Sure, I know," Ringentaub answered; "and that shows what a lot a
+collector knows about such things. Paul is a credit man for the
+Hamsuckett Mills, Mr. Lubliner; but he collects old furniture on the
+side."
+
+For a moment Elkan gazed open-mouthed at the antiquarian and a great
+light began to break in on him.
+
+"So-o-o!" he cried. "That's what you mean by a collector!"
+
+Ringentaub nodded.
+
+"And furthermore, Mr. Lubliner, when collectors knows more about
+antiques as dealers does, Mr. Lubliner," he said with his hand on the
+doorknob, "I'll go into the woollen piece-goods business too--which you
+could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner, it wouldn't be soon, by a hundred
+years even."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Elkan emerged from the One-Hundred-and-Sixteenth Street station of
+the subway that evening a familiar voice hailed him from the rear.
+
+"_Nu_, Elkan!" cried B. Gans, for it was none other than he. "You made
+out fine at the meeting this morning--ain't it?"
+
+"Who told you?" Elkan asked as he linked arms with the highgrade
+manufacturer.
+
+"Never mind who told me," B. Gans said jokingly; "but all I could say is
+you made a tremendous hit with Jacob Paul, Elkan--and if that ain't no
+compliment, understand me, I don't know what is. Why, there ain't a
+better judge of men _oder_ antique furniture in this here city than
+Paul, Elkan. He's an A-Number-One credit man, too, and I bet yer he gets
+a big salary from them Hamsuckett Mills people, which the least his
+income could be--considering what he picks up selling antiques--is
+fifteen thousand a year."
+
+"Does Paul sell all the antiques he collects?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Does he?" B. Gans rejoined. "Well, I should say he does! Myself I
+bought from him in the past two weeks half a dozen chairs, understand
+me--four last week and two to-day--which I am paying him five hundred
+dollars for the lot. They're worth it, too, Elkan. I never seen finer
+examples of the period."
+
+"But are you sure they're gen-wine?" Elkan asked as they reached the
+entrance to his apartment house.
+
+"Paul says they are," B. Gans answered, slapping Elkan's shoulder in
+farewell; "and if he's mistaken, Elkan, then I'm content that I should
+be."
+
+Two hours later, however, after Elkan had recounted to Yetta all the
+incidents of Dishkes' meeting and the resulting sale of the chairs, his
+conscience smote him.
+
+"What d'ye think, Yetta?" he asked. "Should I tell Paul and Gans the
+chairs ain't gen-wine, _oder_ not?"
+
+For more than ten minutes Yetta wrinkled her forehead over this knotty
+ethical point; then she delivered her opinion.
+
+"Mr. Gans tells you he is just as happy if they ain't gen-wine--ain't
+it?" she said.
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"And Mr. Paul acted honest, because he didn't know they wasn't gen-wine
+neither, ain't it?" she continued.
+
+Again Elkan nodded.
+
+"Then," Yetta declared, "if you are taking it so particular as all that,
+Elkan, there's only one thing for you to do--give me the thirty
+dollars!"
+
+"Is that so!" Elkan exclaimed ironically. "And what will you do with the
+money?"
+
+"The only thing I can do with it, _Schlemiel_," she said. "Ten dollars I
+will give Louis Dishkes he should take a trip up to the country over
+Sunday and visit his wife."
+
+"And what will we do with the other twenty?" Elkan asked.
+
+"We'll send a present with him to Mrs. Dishkes," Yetta concluded with a
+smile, "and it wouldn't be no antics neither!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+SWEET AND SOUR
+
+ARE THE USES OF COMPETITIVE SALESMANSHIP
+
+
+"_Aber_ me and Yetta is got it all fixed up we would go to Mrs. Kotlin's
+already," Elkan Lubliner protested as he mopped his forehead one hot
+Tuesday morning in July. "The board there is something elegant, Mr.
+Scheikowitz. Everybody says so."
+
+"_Yow!_ everybody!" Philip Scheikowitz retorted. "Who is everybody,
+Elkan? A couple drummers like Marks Pasinsky, one or two real estaters,
+understand me, and the rest of 'em is wives from J to L retailers, third
+credit, which every time their husbands comes down to spend Sunday with
+'em, y'understand, he must pretty near got to pawn the shirt from his
+back for car fare already."
+
+"Scheikowitz is right, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin joined in. "A feller
+shouldn't make a god from his stomach, Elkan, especially when money
+don't figure at all, so if you would be going down to Egremont Beach,
+understand me, there's only one place you should stay, y'understand, and
+that's the New Salisbury."
+
+"Which if you wouldn't take our word for it, Elkan," Scheikowitz added,
+"just give a look here."
+
+He drew from his coat pocket the summer resort section of the previous
+day's paper and thrust it toward his junior partner, indicating as he
+did so a half column headed:
+
+     MIDSEASON GAIETY AT
+        EGREMONT BEACH
+
+which reads as follows:
+
+    The season is in full swing here.
+
+    On Saturday night Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Gans gave a Chinese
+    Lantern Dinner in the Hanging Gardens at which were present
+    Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and Mrs.
+    Henry D. Feldman, Mr. Jacob Scharley and Miss Hortense
+    Feldman.
+
+    Among those who registered Friday at the New Salisbury were
+    Mr. Jacob Scharley of San Francisco, Mr. and Mrs. Sol Klinger,
+    Mr. Leon Sammet and his mother, Mrs. Leah Sammet.
+
+
+"I thought that Leon's brother Barney was staying down at Egremont,"
+Polatkin said after he and Elkan had read the item.
+
+"Barney is at Mrs. Kotlin's," Scheikowitz explained, "because _mit_ Leon
+Sammet, Polatkin, nothing is too rotten for Barney to stay at, and
+besides he thinks Barney would get a little _small_ business there,
+which the way Sammet Brothers figures, understand me, if they could
+stick a feller with three bills of goods for a couple hundred dollars
+apiece, y'understand, so long as he pays up on the first two, he
+couldn't eat up their profits if he would bust up on 'em _mit_ the
+third."
+
+"Sure I know," Elkan said, "_aber_ I ain't going down to Egremont for
+business, Mr. Scheikowitz, I'm going because it ain't so warm down
+there."
+
+"_Schmooes_, Elkan!" Scheikowitz retorted. "It wouldn't make it not one
+degrees warmer in Egremont supposing you could get a couple new accounts
+down there."
+
+"B. Gans don't take it so particular about the weather," Polatkin
+commented. "I bet yer he would a whole lot sooner take off his coat and
+shirt and _spiel_ a little auction pinocle _mit_ Sol Klinger and Leon
+Sammet and all them fellers as be giving dinners already in a tuxedo
+suit to Sam Feder. I bet yer he gets a fine accommodation from the
+Kosciusko Bank out of that dinner yet."
+
+"The other people also he ain't _schencking_ no dinners to 'em for
+nothing neither," Scheikowitz declared. "Every one of 'em means
+something to B. Gans, I bet yer."
+
+Elkan nodded.
+
+"Particularly Scharley," he said.
+
+"What d'ye mean, particularly Scharley?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz
+inquired with one voice.
+
+"Why, ain't you heard about Scharley?" Elkan asked. "It's right there in
+the _Daily Cloak and Suit Journal_."
+
+He indicated the front sheet of that newsy trade paper, where under the
+heading of "Incorporations" appeared the following item:
+
+    The Scharley, Oderburg Drygoods Company, San Francisco, Cal.,
+    has filed articles of incorporation, giving its capital stock
+    as $500,000, and expects to open its new store in September
+    next.
+
+"And you are talking about staying by Mrs. Kotlin's!" Scheikowitz
+exclaimed in injured tones. "You should ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Elkan."
+
+Elkan received his senior partner's upbraiding with a patient smile.
+
+"What show do we stand against a concern like B. Gans?" he asked.
+
+"B. Gans sells him only highgrade goods, Elkan," Scheikowitz declared.
+"I bet yer the least the feller buys is for twenty thousand dollars
+garments here, and a good half would be popular price lines, which if we
+would get busy, we stand an elegant show there, Elkan."
+
+"You should ought to go down there to-morrow yet," Polatkin cried,
+"because the first thing you know Leon Sammet would entertain him _mit_
+oitermobiles yet, and Sol Klinger gets also busy, understand me, and the
+consequences is we wouldn't be in it at all."
+
+"Next Saturday is the earliest Yetta could get ready," Elkan replied
+positively, and Polatkin strode up and down the floor in an access of
+despair.
+
+"All right, Elkan," he said, "if you want to let such an opportunity
+slip down your fingers, y'understand, all right. _Aber_ if I would be
+you, Elkan, I would go down there to-night yet."
+
+Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I couldn't get Yetta she should close up the flat under the very least
+_two_ days, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "She must got to fix everything just
+right, _mit_ moth-camphor and _Gott weisst was nach_, otherwise she
+wouldn't go at all. The rugs alone takes a whole day to fix."
+
+"Do as you like, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "_aber_ you mark my words,
+if Leon Sammet ain't shoving heaven and earth right now, y'understand, I
+don't know nothing about the garment business at all."
+
+In fulfilment of this prophecy, when Elkan entered his office the
+following morning Polatkin waved in his face a copy of the morning
+paper.
+
+"Well," he said, "what did I told you, Elkan?"
+
+Scheikowitz nodded slowly.
+
+"My partner is right, Elkan," he added, "so stubborn you are."
+
+"What's the matter now?" Elkan asked, and for answer Polatkin handed him
+the paper with his thumb pressed against a paragraph as follows:
+
+    Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and Mrs.
+    Henry D. Feldman, Miss Hortense Feldman, and Mr. Jacob
+    Scharley were guests of Mr. Leon Sammet at a Chinese Lantern
+    Dinner this evening given in the Hanging Gardens of the New
+    Salisbury.
+
+"I thought it would be at the least an oitermobile ride," Polatkin said
+in melancholy tones, "but with that sucker all he could do is stealing a
+competitor's idees. B. Gans gives Scharley a dinner and Leon Sammet is
+got to do it, too, _mit_ the same guests and everything."
+
+"Even to Feldman's sister already," Scheikowitz added, "which it must be
+that Feldman is trying to marry her off to Scharley even if he would be
+a widower _mit_ two sons in college. She's a highly educated young lady,
+too."
+
+"Young she ain't no longer," Polatkin interrupted, "and if a girl
+couldn't cook even a pertater, understand me, it don't make no
+difference if she couldn't cook it in six languages, y'understand,
+Feldman would got a hard job marrying her off _anyhow_."
+
+Scheikowitz made an impatient gesture with both hands, suggestive of a
+dog swimming.
+
+"That's neither here or there, Polatkin," he said. "The point is Elkan
+should go right uptown and _geschwind_ pack his grip and be down at the
+Salisbury this afternoon yet, if Yetta would be ready _oder_ not. We
+couldn't afford to let the ground grow under our feet and that's all
+there is _to_ it."
+
+Thus, shortly after six o'clock that evening, Elkan and Yetta alighted
+from the 5:10 special from Flatbush Avenue and picked their way through
+a marital throng that kissed and embraced with as much ardour as though
+the reunion had concluded a parting of ten years instead of ten hours.
+At length the happy couples dragged themselves apart and crowded into
+the automobile 'bus of the New Salisbury, sweeping Elkan and Yetta
+before them, so that when the 'bus arrived at the hotel Elkan and Yetta
+were the last to descend.
+
+A burly yellow-faced porter seized the baggage with the contemptuous
+manner that Ham nowadays evinces toward Shem, and Elkan and Yetta
+followed him through the luxurious social hall to the desk. There the
+room clerk immediately shot out a three-carat diamond ring, and when
+Elkan's eyes became accustomed to the glare he saw that beneath it was a
+fat white hand extended in cordial greeting.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Williams," Elkan cried, as he shook hands
+fervently. "Ain't you in the Pitt House, Sarahcuse, no more?"
+
+"I'm taking a short vacation in a sensible manner, Mr. Lubliner," Mr.
+Williams replied in the rounded tones that only truly great actors,
+clergymen, and room clerks possess. "Which means that I am interested in
+a real-estate development near here, and I'm combining business with
+pleasure for a couple of months."
+
+Elkan nodded admiringly.
+
+"You got the right idee, Mr. Williams," he said. "This is my wife, Mr.
+Williams."
+
+The room clerk acknowledged the introduction with a bow that combined
+the grace of Paderewski and the dignity of Prince Florizel in just the
+right proportions.
+
+"Delighted to know you, Madame," he declared. "Have you made
+reservations, Mr. Lubliner?"
+
+Elkan shook his head and after an exchange of confidential murmurs Mr.
+Williams assigned them a room with an ocean view, from which they
+emerged less than half an hour later to await on the veranda the welcome
+sound of the dinner gong. A buzz of animated conversation filled the
+air, above which rose a little shriek of welcome as Mrs. Gans rushed
+toward Yetta with outstretched hands.
+
+"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried. "I didn't know you was coming down
+here."
+
+They exchanged the kiss of utter peace that persists between the kin of
+highgrade and popular-priced manufacturers.
+
+"I read about you in the newspapers," Yetta said, as they seated
+themselves in adjoining rockers, and Mrs. Gans flashed all the gems of
+her right hand in a gesture of deprecation.
+
+"I tell you," she said, "it makes me sick here the way people carries
+on. Honestly, Yetta, I don't see Barney only at meals and when he's
+getting dressed. Everything is Mister _Scharley_, Mister _Scharley_. You
+would think he was H. P. Morgan _oder_ the Czar of _Russland_ from the
+fuss everybody makes over him."
+
+Yetta nodded in sympathy and suddenly Mrs. Gans clutched the arm of her
+chair.
+
+"There he is now," she hissed.
+
+"Where?" Yetta asked, and Mrs. Gans nodded toward a doorway at the end
+of the veranda, on which in electric bulbs was outlined the legend,
+"Hanging Gardens." Yetta descried a short, stout personage between fifty
+and sixty years of age, arrayed in a white flannel suit of which the
+coat and waistcoat were cut in imitation of an informal evening costume.
+On his arm there drooped a lady no longer in her twenties, and from the
+V-shaped opening in the rear of her dinner gown a medical student could
+have distinguished with more or less certainty the bones of the cervical
+vertebrae, the right and left scapula and the articulation of each with
+the humerus and clavicle.
+
+"That's Miss Feldman," Mrs. Gans whispered. "She's refined like
+anything, Yetta, and she talks French better as a waiter already."
+
+At this juncture the dinner gong sounded and Yetta rejoined Elkan in the
+social hall.
+
+"What is the trouble you are looking so _rachmonos_, Elkan?" she asked
+as she pressed his arm consolingly.
+
+"To-night it's Sol Klinger," Elkan replied. "He's got a dinner on in the
+Hanging Gardens for Scharley, Yetta, and I guess I wouldn't get a
+look-in even."
+
+"You've got six weeks before you," Yetta assured him, "and you
+shouldn't worry. Something is bound to turn up, ain't it?"
+
+She gave his arm another little caress and they proceeded immediately to
+the dining room, where the string orchestra and the small talk of two
+hundred and fifty guests strove vainly for the ascendency in one
+maddening cacophony. It was nearly eight o'clock before Elkan and Yetta
+arose from the table and repaired to the veranda whose rockers were
+filled with a chattering throng.
+
+"Let's get out of this," Elkan said, and they descended the veranda
+steps to the sidewalk. Five minutes later they were seated on a remote
+bench of the boardwalk, and until nine o'clock they watched the beauty
+of the moon and sea, which is constant even at Egremont Beach. When they
+rose to go Yetta noticed for the first time a shawl-clad figure on the
+adjacent bench, and immediately a pair of keen eyes flashed from a face
+whose plump contentment was framed in a jet black wig of an early
+Victorian design.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Why, if it ain't Mrs. Lesengeld," Yetta exclaimed and the next moment
+she enfolded the little woman in a cordial embrace.
+
+"You grown a _bisschen_ fat, Yetta," Mrs. Lesengeld said. "I wouldn't
+knew you at all, if you ain't speaking to me first."
+
+"This is my husband, Mrs. Lesengeld--Mr. Lubliner," Yetta went on. "He
+heard me talk often from you, Mrs. Lesengeld, and what a time you got it
+learning me I should speak English yet."
+
+Elkan beamed at Mrs. Lesengeld.
+
+"And not only _that_," he said, "but also how good to her you was when
+she was sick already. There ain't many boarding-house ladies like you,
+Mrs. Lesengeld."
+
+"And there ain't so many boarders like Yetta, neither," Mrs. Lesengeld
+retorted.
+
+"And do you got a boarding-house down here, Mrs. Lesengeld?" Yetta
+asked.
+
+"I've gone out of the boarding-house business," Mrs. Lesengeld replied,
+"which you know what a trouble I got it _mit_ that lowlife Lesengeld,
+_olav hasholom_, after he failed in the pants business, how I am working
+my fingers to the bones already keeping up his insurings in the I. O. M.
+A. and a couple thousand dollars in a company already."
+
+Yetta nodded.
+
+"Which I got my reward at last," Mrs. Lesengeld concluded. "Quick
+diabetes, Yetta, and so I bought for ten thousand dollars a mortgage,
+understand me, and my son-in-law allows me also four dollars a week
+which I got it a whole lot easier nowadays."
+
+"And are you staying down here?" Elkan asked.
+
+"Me, I got for twenty dollars a month a little house _mit_ two rooms
+only, right on the sea, which they call it there Bognor Park. You must
+come over and see us, Yetta. Such a _gemuetlich_ little house we got it
+you wouldn't believe at all, and every Sunday my daughter Fannie and my
+son-in-law comes down and stays with us."
+
+"And are you going all the way home alone?" Elkan asked anxiously.
+
+"Fannie is staying down with me to-night. She meets me on the corner of
+the Boulevard, where the car stops, at ten o'clock already," Mrs.
+Lesengeld replied.
+
+"Then you must got to come right along with us," Elkan said, "and we'll
+see you would get there on time."
+
+"Where are you going?" Mrs. Lesengeld asked.
+
+"Over to the Salisbury," Elkan answered, and Mrs. Lesengeld sank back on
+to the bench.
+
+"_Geh weg_, Mr. Lubliner," she cried. "I am now fifty years old and I
+was never in such a place in my life, especially which under this shawl
+I got only a plain cotton dress yet."
+
+Elkan flapped his hand reassuringly.
+
+"A fine-looking lady like you, Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, as he seized
+her hands and drew her gently to her feet, "looks well in anything."
+
+"And you'll have a water ice in the Hanging Gardens with us," Yetta
+persisted as she slipped a hand under Mrs. Lesengeld's shawl and pressed
+her arm affectionately. Ten minutes later they arrived at the stoop of
+the New Salisbury, to the scandalization and horror of the three score
+A to F first credit manufacturers and their wives. Moreover,
+approximately a hundred and fifty karats of blue white diamonds rose and
+fell indignantly on the bosoms of twenty or thirty credit-high
+retailers' wives, when the little, toilworn woman with her shawl and
+ritualistic wig entered the Hanging Gardens chatting pleasantly with
+Elkan and Yetta; and as they seated themselves at a table the buzz of
+conversation hushed into silence and then roared out anew with an
+accompaniment of titters.
+
+At the next table Sol Klinger plied with liquors and cigars the
+surviving guests of his dinner, and when Elkan nodded to him, he ignored
+the salutation with a blank stare. He raged inwardly, not so much at
+Elkan's invasion of that fashionable precinct as at the circumstance
+that his guest of honour had departed with Miss Feldman for a stroll on
+the boardwalk some ten minutes previously, and he was therefore unable
+to profit by Elkan's _faux pas_.
+
+"The feller ain't got no manners at all," he said to Max Koblin, who
+nodded gloomily.
+
+"It's getting terrible mixed down here, Sol," Max commented as he
+hiccoughed away a slight flatulency. "Honestly if you want to be in
+striking distance of your business, Sol, so's you could come in and out
+every day, you got to rub shoulders with everybody, ain't it?"
+
+He soothed his outraged sensibilities with a great cloud of smoke that
+drifted over Elkan's table, and Mrs. Lesengeld broke into a fit of
+coughing which caused a repetition of the titters.
+
+"And do you still make that brown stewed fish sweet and sour, Mrs.
+Lesengeld?" Yetta asked by way of putting the old lady at her ease.
+
+"Make it!" Mrs. Lesengeld answered. "I should say I do. Why you wouldn't
+believe the way my son-in-law is crazy about it. We got it every Sunday
+regular, and I tell you what I would do, Yetta."
+
+She laid her hand on Yetta's arm and her face broke into a thousand tiny
+wrinkles of hospitality.
+
+"You should come Friday to lunch sure," she declared, "and we would got
+some brown stewed fish sweet and sour and a good plate of _Bortch_ to
+begin with."
+
+Sol Klinger had been leaning back in his chair in an effort to overhear
+their conversation, and at this announcement he broke into a broad
+guffaw, which ran around the table after he had related the cause of it
+to his guests. Indeed, so much did Sol relish the joke that with it he
+entertained the occupants of about a dozen seats in the smoking car of
+the 8:04 express the next morning, and he was so full of it when he
+entered Hammersmith's Restaurant the following noon that he could not
+forego the pleasure of visiting Marcus Polatkin's table and relating it
+to Polatkin himself.
+
+Polatkin heard him through without a smile and when at its conclusion
+Klinger broke into a hysterical appreciation of his own humour, Polatkin
+shrugged.
+
+"I suppose, Klinger," he said, "your poor mother, _olav hasholom_,
+didn't wear a _sheitel_ neither, ain't it?"
+
+"My mother, _olav hasholom_, would got more sense as to butt in to a
+place like that," Klinger retorted.
+
+"Even if you wouldn't of been ashamed to have taken her there, Klinger,"
+he added.
+
+Klinger flushed angrily.
+
+"That ain't here or there, Polatkin," he said. "You should ought to put
+your partner wise, Polatkin, that he shouldn't go dragging in an old
+_Bube_ into a place like the Salisbury and talking such nonsense like
+brown stewed fish sweet and sour."
+
+He broke into another laugh at the recollection of it--a laugh that was
+louder but hardly as unforced as the first one.
+
+"What's the matter _mit_ brown stewed fish sweet and sour, Klinger?"
+Polatkin asked. "I eat already a lot of _a-la's_ and _en cazzerolls_ in
+a whole lot of places just so _grossartig_ as the Salisbury, understand
+me, and I would _schenck_ you a million of 'em for one plate of brown
+stewed fish sweet and sour like your mother made it from _zu Hause_
+yet."
+
+"But what for an interest does a merchant like Scharley got to hear such
+things," Klinger protested lamely. "Honestly, I was ashamed for your
+partner's sake to hear such a talk going on there."
+
+"Did Scharley got any objections?" Polatkin asked.
+
+"Fortunately the feller had gone away from the table," Klinger replied,
+"so he didn't hear it at all."
+
+"Well," Polatkin declared, taking up his knife and fork as a signal that
+the matter was closed, "ask him and see if he wouldn't a whole lot
+sooner eat some good brown stewed fish sweet and sour as a Chinese
+Lantern Dinner--whatever for a bunch of poison that might be,
+Klinger--and don't you forget it."
+
+Nevertheless when Polatkin returned to his place of business he
+proceeded at once to Elkan's office.
+
+"Say, lookyhere Elkan," he demanded, "what is all this I hear about you
+and Yetta taking an old _Bube_ into the Hanging Gardens already, and
+making from her laughing stocks out of the whole place."
+
+Elkan looked up calmly.
+
+"It's a free country, Mr. Polatkin," he said, "and so long as I pay my
+board _mit_ U. S. money, already I would take in there any of my friends
+I would please."
+
+"Sure, I know," Polatkin expostulated, "but I seen Klinger around at
+Hammersmith's and he says----"
+
+"Klinger!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, you could say to Klinger for me, Mr.
+Polatkin, that if he don't like the way I am acting around there,
+understand me, he should just got the nerve to tell it me to my face
+yet."
+
+Polatkin flapped the air with his right hand.
+
+"Never mind Klinger, Elkan," he said. "You got to consider you shouldn't
+make a fool of yourself before Scharley and all them people. How do you
+expect you should get such a merchant as Scharley he should accept from
+you entertainment like a Chinese Lantern Dinner, if you are acting that
+way?"
+
+"Chinese Lantern Dinner be damned!" Elkan retorted. "When we got the
+right goods at the right price, Mr. Polatkin, why should we got to give
+a merchant dinners yet to convince him of it?"
+
+"Dinners is nothing, Elkan," Polatkin interrupted with a wave of his
+hand. "You got to give him dyspepsha even, the way business is
+nowadays."
+
+"_Aber_ I was talking to the room clerk last night," Elkan went on, "and
+he tells me so sure as you are standing there, Mr. Polatkin, a Chinese
+Lantern Dinner would stand us in twenty dollars a head."
+
+"Twenty dollars a head!" Polatkin exclaimed and indulged himself in a
+low whistle.
+
+"So even if I _would_ be staying at the Salisbury, understand me," Elkan
+said, "I ain't going to throw away our money out of the window exactly."
+
+"_Aber_ how are you going to get the feller down here, if you wouldn't
+entertain him or something?"
+
+Elkan slapped his chest with a great show of confidence.
+
+"Leave that to _me_, Mr. Polatkin," he said, and put on his hat
+preparatory to going out to lunch.
+
+Nevertheless when he descended from his room at the New Salisbury that
+evening and prepared to take a turn on the boardwalk before dinner, his
+confidence evaporated at the coolness of his reception by the assembled
+guests of the hotel. Leon Sammet cut him dead, and even B. Gans greeted
+him with half jovial reproach.
+
+"Well, Elkan," he said, "going to entertain any more _fromme Leute_ in
+the Garden to-night?"
+
+"Seemingly, Mr. Gans," Elkan said, "it was a big shock to everybody here
+to see for the first time an old lady wearing a _sheitel_. I suppose
+nobody here never seen it before, ain't it?"
+
+B. Gans put a fatherly hand on Elkan's shoulder.
+
+"I'll tell yer, Elkan," he said, "if I would be such a _rosher_,
+understand me, that I would hold it against you because you ain't
+forgetting an old friend, like this here lady must be, y'understand, I
+should never sell a dollar's worth more goods so long as I live, _aber_
+if Klinger and Sammet would start kidding you in front of Scharley,
+understand me, it would look bad."
+
+"Why would it look bad, Mr. Gans?" Elkan broke in.
+
+"Because it don't do nobody no good to have funny stories told about
+'em, except an actor _oder_ a politician, Elkan," Gans replied as the
+dinner gong began to sound, "which if a customer wouldn't take _you_
+seriously, he wouldn't take your goods seriously neither, Elkan, and
+that's all there is _to_ it."
+
+He smiled reassuringly as he walked toward the dining room and left
+Elkan a prey to most uncomfortable reflections, which did not abate when
+he overheard Klinger and Sammet hail Gans at the end of the veranda.
+
+"Well, Mr. Gans," Klinger said with a sidelong glance at Elkan, "what
+are you going to eat to-night--brown stewed fish sweet _und_ sour?"
+
+Elkan could not distinguish B. Gans' reply, but he scowled fiercely at
+the trio as they entered the hotel lobby, and he still frowned as he
+sauntered stolidly after them to await Yetta in the social hall.
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Lubliner," the room clerk asked when Elkan
+passed the desk. "Aren't you feeling well to-day?"
+
+"I feel all right, Mr. Williams," Elkan replied, "but this here place is
+getting on my nerves. It's too much like a big hotel out on the road
+somewheres. Everybody looks like they would got something to sell,
+understand me, and was doing their level best to sell it."
+
+"You're quite right, Mr. Lubliner," the clerk commented, "and that's the
+reason why I came down here. In fact," he added with a guilty smile, "I
+made a date to show some of my lots to-morrow to a prospective
+customer."
+
+At this juncture a porter appeared bearing a basket of champagne and
+followed by two waiters with ice buckets, and the room clerk jerked his
+head sideways in the direction toward which the little procession had
+disappeared.
+
+"That's for Suite 27, the Feldmans' rooms," he explained. "Miss Feldman
+is giving a little chafing-dish dinner there to Mr. Scharley and a few
+friends."
+
+He accepted with a graceful nod Elkan's proffered cigar.
+
+"Which goes to show that it's as you say, Mr. Lubliner," he concluded.
+"If you have drygoods, real estate or marriageable relatives to dispose
+of, Mr. Lubliner, Egremont's the place to market them."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Yes, Mr. Williams," said Jacob Scharley at two o'clock the following
+afternoon as they trudged along the sands of Bognor Park, one of
+Egremont Beach's new developments, "I was trying to figure out how these
+here Chinese Lantern Dinners stands in a sucker like Leon Sammet twenty
+dollars a head, when by the regular bill of fare it comes exactly to
+seven dollars and fifty cents including drinks."
+
+"You can't figure on a special dinner according to the prices on the
+regular bill of fare," said Mr. Williams, the room clerk, who in
+his quality of real-estate operator was attempting to shift the
+conversation from hotel matters to the topic of seaside lots. "Why, ice
+cream is twenty-five cents on the bill of fare, but at one of those
+dinners it's served in imitation Chinese lanterns, which makes it worth
+double at least."
+
+"For my part," Scharley broke in, "they could serve it in kerosene
+lamps, Mr. Williams, because I never touch the stuff."
+
+"It's a parallel case to lots here and lots on Mizzentop Beach, which is
+the next beach below," Williams continued. "Here we have a boardwalk
+extending right down to our property, and we are getting seven hundred
+and fifty dollars a lot, while there, with practically the same transit
+facilities but no boardwalk or electric lights, they get only four
+hundred and----"
+
+"_Aber_ you take a piece of tenderloin steak a half an inch thick and
+about the size of a price ticket, understand me," Scharley interrupted,
+"and even if you _would_ fix it up with half a cent's worth of peas and
+spill on it a bottle cough medicine and glue, _verstehst du mich_, how
+could you make it figure up more as a dollar and a quarter, Mr.
+Williams? Then the clams, Mr. Williams, must got to have inside of 'em
+at the very least a half a karat pink pearl in 'em, otherwise
+thirty-five cents would be big yet."
+
+"Very likely," Mr. Williams agreed as a shade of annoyance passed over
+his well modelled features, "but just now, Mr. Scharley, I'm anxious to
+show you the advantage of these lots of ours, and you won't mind if I
+don't pursue the topic of Chinese Lantern Dinners any farther."
+
+"I'm only too glad not to talk about it at all," Scharley agreed. "In
+fact if any one else tries to ring in another one of them dinners on me,
+Mr. Williams, I'll turn him down on the spot. Shaving-dish parties
+neither, which I assure you, Mr. Williams, even if Miss Feldman would be
+an elegant, refined young lady, understand me, she fixes something in
+that shaving dish of hers last night, understand me, which I thought I
+was poisoned already."
+
+Williams deemed it best to ignore this observation and therefore made no
+comment.
+
+"But anyhow," Scharley concluded as they approached a little wooden
+shack on the margin of the water, "I'm sick and tired of things to eat,
+so let's talk about something else."
+
+Having delivered this ultimatum, his footsteps lagged and he stopped
+short as he began to sniff the air like a hunting dog.
+
+"M-m-m-m!" he exclaimed. "What _is_ that?"
+
+"That's a two-room shed we rent for twenty dollars a month," Williams
+explained. "We have eight of them and they help considerably to pay our
+office rent over in New York."
+
+"Sure I know," Scharley agreed, "_aber_, m-m-m-m!"
+
+Once more he expanded his nostrils to catch a delicious fragrance that
+emanated from the little shack.
+
+"_Aber_, who lives there?" he insisted, and Mr. Williams could not
+restrain a laugh.
+
+"Why, it's that old lady with the wig that Lubliner brought over to the
+hotel the other night," he replied. "I thought I saw Sol Klinger telling
+you about it yesterday."
+
+"He started to tell me something about it," Scharley said, "when Barney
+Gans butted in and wouldn't let him. What _was_ it about this here old
+lady?"
+
+"There isn't anything to it particularly," Williams replied, "excepting
+that it seemed a little strange to see an old lady in a shawl and one of
+those religious wigs in the Hanging Gardens, and there was something
+else Klinger told me about Mrs. Lubliner and the old lady talking about
+brown stewed fish sweet and----"
+
+At this juncture Scharley snapped his fingers excitedly.
+
+"Brown stewed fish sweet and sour!" he almost shouted. "I ain't smelled
+it since I was a boy already."
+
+He wagged his head and again murmured, "M-m-m-m-m!"
+
+Suddenly he received an inspiration.
+
+"How much did you say them shanties rents for, Mr. Williams?" he said.
+
+"Twenty dollars a month," Williams replied.
+
+"You don't tell me!" Scharley exclaimed solemnly. "I wonder if I could
+give a look at the inside of one of 'em--this one here, for instance."
+
+"I don't think there'd be any objection," Williams said, and no sooner
+were the words out of his mouth than Scharley started off on a half trot
+for the miniature veranda on the ocean side of the little house.
+
+"Perhaps I'd better inquire first if it's convenient for them to let us
+in now," Williams said, as he bounded after his prospective customer and
+knocked gently on the doorjamb. There was a sound of scurrying feet
+within, and at length the door was opened a few inches and the bewigged
+head of Mrs. Lesengeld appeared in the crack.
+
+"_Nu_," she said, "what _is_ it?"
+
+"I represent the Bognor Park Company," Williams replied, "and if it's
+perfectly convenient for you, Mrs.----"
+
+"Lesengeld," she added.
+
+"Used to was Lesengeld & Schein in the pants business?" Scharley asked,
+and Mrs. Lesengeld nodded.
+
+"Why, Lesengeld and me was lodge brothers together in the I. O. M. A.
+before I went out to the Pacific Coast years ago already," Scharley
+declared. "I guess he's often spoken to you about Jake Scharley, ain't
+it?"
+
+"Maybe he did, Mr. Scharley, _aber_ he's dead _schon_ two years since
+already," Mrs. Lesengeld said, and then added the pious hope, "_olav
+hasholom_."
+
+"You don't say so," Scharley cried in shocked accents. "Why, he wasn't
+no older as me already."
+
+"Fifty-three when he died," Mrs. Lesengeld said. "Quick diabetes, Mr.
+Scharley. Wouldn't you step inside?"
+
+Scharley and Williams passed into the front room, which was used as a
+living room and presented an appearance of remarkable neatness and
+order. In the corner stood an oil stove on which two saucepans bubbled
+and steamed, and as Mrs. Lesengeld turned to follow her visitors one of
+the saucepans boiled over.
+
+"Oo-ee!" she exclaimed. "_Mein fisch._"
+
+"Go ahead and tend to it," Scharley cried excitedly; "don't mind us. It
+might get burned already."
+
+He watched her anxiously while she turned down the flame.
+
+"Brown stewed fish sweet and sour, ain't it?" he asked, and Mrs.
+Lesengeld nodded as she lowered the flame to just the proper height.
+
+"I _thought_ it was," Scharley continued. "I ain't smelled it in forty
+years already. My poor mother, _olav hasholom_, used to fix it something
+elegant."
+
+He heaved a sigh as he sat down on a nearby campstool.
+
+"This smells just like it," he added. In front of the window a table
+had been placed, spread with a spotless white cloth and laid for two
+persons, and Scharley glanced at it hastily and turned his head away.
+
+"Forty years ago come next _Shevuos_ I ain't tasted it already," he
+concluded.
+
+Mrs. Lesengeld coloured slightly and clutched at her apron in an agony
+of embarrassment.
+
+"The fact is we only got three knives and forks," she said, "otherwise
+there is plenty fish for everybody."
+
+"Why, we just had our lunch at the hotel before we started," Mr.
+Williams said.
+
+"_You_ did," Scharley corrected him reproachfully, "_aber_ I ain't
+hardly touched a thing since last night. That shaving-dish party pretty
+near killed me, already."
+
+"Well, then, we got just enough knives and forks," Mrs. Lesengeld cried.
+"Do you like maybe also _Bortch_, Mr. Scharley?"
+
+"_Bortch!_" Mr. Scharley exclaimed, and his voice trembled with
+excitement. "Do you mean a sort of soup _mit_ beets and--and--all that?"
+
+"That's it," Mrs. Lesengeld replied, and Scharley nodded his head
+slowly.
+
+"Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, "would you believe me, it's so long since I
+tasted that stuff I didn't remember such a thing exists even."
+
+"And do you like it?" Mrs. Lesengeld repeated.
+
+"Do I _like_ it!" Scharley cried. "_Um Gottes Willen_, Mrs. Lesengeld, I
+_love_ it."
+
+"Then sit right down," she said heartily. "Everything is ready."
+
+"If you don't mind, Mr. Scharley," Williams interrupted, "I'll wait for
+you at the office of the company. It's only a couple of hundred yards
+down the beach."
+
+"Go as far as you like, Mr. Williams," Scharley said as he tucked a
+napkin between his collar and chin. "I'll be there when I get through."
+
+After Mrs. Lesengeld had ushered out Mr. Williams, she proceeded to the
+door of the rear room and knocked vigorously.
+
+"Don't be foolish, Yetta, and come on out," she called. "It ain't nobody
+but an old friend of my husband's."
+
+A moment later Yetta entered the room, and Scharley scrambled to his
+feet, a knife grasped firmly in one hand, and bobbed his head cordially.
+
+"Pleased to meetcher," he said.
+
+"This is Mrs. Lubliner, Mr. Scharley," Mrs. Lesengeld said.
+
+"Don't make no difference, Mrs. Lesengeld," Scharley assured her, "any
+friend of yours is a friend of mine, so you should sit right down, Mrs.
+Lubliner, on account we are all ready to begin."
+
+Then followed a moment of breathless silence while Mrs. Lesengeld dished
+up the beetroot soup, and when she placed a steaming bowlful in front
+of Scharley he immediately plunged his spoon into it. A moment later he
+lifted his eyes to the ceiling.
+
+"Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What an elegant soup!"
+
+Mrs. Lesengeld blushed, and after the fashion of a _cordon bleu_ the
+world over, she began to decry her own handiwork.
+
+"It should ought to got just a _Bisschen_ more pepper into it," she
+murmured.
+
+"_Oser a Stueck_," Scharley declared solemnly, as he consumed the
+contents of his bowl in great gurgling inhalations. "There's only one
+thing I got to say against it."
+
+He scraped his bowl clean and handed it to Mrs. Lesengeld.
+
+"And that is," he concluded, "that it makes me eat so much of it,
+understand me, I'm scared I wouldn't got no room for the brown stewed
+fish."
+
+Again he emptied the bowl, and at last the moment arrived when the brown
+stewed fish smoked upon the table. Mrs. Lesengeld helped Scharley to a
+heaping plateful, and both she and Yetta watched him intently, as with
+the deftness of a Japanese juggler he balanced approximately a half
+pound of the succulent fish on the end of his fork. For nearly a minute
+he blew on it, and when it reached an edible temperature he opened wide
+his mouth and thrust the fork load home. Slowly and with great smacking
+of his moist lips he chewed away, and then his eyes closed and he laid
+down his knife and fork.
+
+"_Gan-eden!_" he declared as he reached across the table and shook hands
+with Mrs. Lesengeld.
+
+"Mrs. Lesengeld," he said, "my mother _olav hasholom_ was a good _cook_,
+understand me, _aber_ you are a _good cook_, Mrs. Lesengeld, and that's
+all there is to it."
+
+Forthwith he resumed his knife and fork, and with only two pauses for
+the necessary replenishments, he polished off three platefuls of the
+fish, after which he heaved a great sigh of contentment, and as a
+prelude to conversation he lit one of B. Gans' choicest cigars.
+
+"There's some dessert coming," Mrs. Lesengeld said.
+
+"Dessert after this, Mrs. Lesengeld," he replied, through clouds of
+contented smoke, "would be a sacrilege, ain't it?"
+
+"That's something I couldn't make at all," Mrs. Lesengeld admitted. "All
+I got it here is some _frimsel kugel_."
+
+"_Frimsel kugel!_" Scharley exclaimed, laying down his cigar. "Why ain't
+you told me that before?"
+
+A quarter of an hour later he again lighted his cigar, and this time he
+settled back in his campstool for conversation, while Mrs. Lesengeld
+busied herself about the oil stove. Instantly, however, he straightened
+up as another and more delicious odour assailed his nostrils, for Mrs.
+Lesengeld made coffee by a mysterious process, that conserved in the
+flavour of the decoction the delicious fragrance of the freshly ground
+bean.
+
+"And are you staying down here with Mrs. Lesengeld?" Scharley asked
+Yetta after he had finished his third cup.
+
+"In this little place here?" Mrs. Lesengeld cried indignantly. "Well, I
+should say not. She's stopping at the Salisbury, ain't you, Yetta?"
+
+Yetta nodded and sighed.
+
+"It ain't so comfortable as here," she said.
+
+"I bet yer," Scharley added fervently. "I am stopping there too, and
+them Chinese Lantern Dinners which they are putting up!"
+
+He waved his hand eloquently.
+
+"Poison ain't no word for it, Missus Er----" he concluded lamely as he
+tried to remember Yetta's name, which after so much soup, fish and
+coffee had completely escaped him.
+
+"Lubliner," Yetta said. "I guess you know my husband, Mr. Scharley,
+Elkan Lubliner of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company."
+
+Scharley struck the table with his open hand.
+
+"Zoitenly, I do," he cried. "Why, he is the feller which Sol Klinger is
+telling me about."
+
+Yetta coloured slightly and bit her lips.
+
+"What did he tell you about him?" she asked.
+
+"Why," Scharley said, drawing vigorously on his imagination, "he says to
+me what a bright young feller he is and----"
+
+Here he reflected that in a highly competitive trade like the cloak and
+suit business this statement sounded a trifle exaggerated.
+
+"And," he went on hurriedly, "he told me how he saw you and him with
+Mrs. Lesengeld up at the hotel the other evening, and I says, 'What,' I
+says, 'you don't mean Mrs. Lesengeld whose husband used to was in the
+pants business?' and he said he didn't know, 'because,' I says, 'if
+that's the same party,' I says, 'I would like for her to come up to the
+hotel and take dinner with me some time,' I says."
+
+He smiled cordially at Mrs. Lesengeld.
+
+"And I hope you will," he concluded earnestly, "to-morrow night sure."
+
+Mrs. Lesengeld shook her head.
+
+"I ain't fixed to go to no swell hotel," she demurred. "I ain't got no
+clothes nor nothing."
+
+"What do you care about clothes, Mrs. Lesengeld?" Scharley protested.
+
+"And besides," Yetta said with sudden inspiration, "we could get up a
+little chafing-dish dinner in our room, ain't it?"
+
+"For that matter we could do it in my room," Scharley cried, as there
+sounded a vigorous knocking on the outside of the door leading to the
+veranda, and a moment later Williams entered.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Scharley," he said, "but I have to be getting back to
+the hotel and if you're quite through we'll go and look at that map of
+the lots down in the office."
+
+Scharley waved his hand airily.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Williams," he said, "and drink the cup of coffee of your
+life."
+
+He handed the room clerk a cigar.
+
+"I could promise you one thing, Mr. Williams," he went on, "I got a
+great idee of buying some lots here and building a little house on 'em,
+_gemuetlich_ just like this, and if I do, Williams, I would take them
+lots from you for certain sure. Only one thing, Williams, I want you to
+do me for a favour."
+
+He paused and puffed carefully on his cigar.
+
+"I want you to pick me out a couple good vacant rooms on the top floor
+of the Salisbury for Saturday night," he said, "where I could give a
+shaving-dish party, so if any of the guests of the hotel objects,
+understand me, they wouldn't get the smell of the _Bortch_, coffee, and
+brown stewed fish sweet and sour."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+On the following Wednesday afternoon Elkan sat at his desk, while Marcus
+Polatkin and Philip Scheikowitz leaned over his left shoulder and right
+shoulder respectively, and watched carefully the result of a pencilled
+addition which Elkan was making.
+
+"With them crepe meteors," Elkan said at last, "Scharley's order comes
+to four thousand three hundred dollars."
+
+Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in unison.
+
+"It ain't bad for a start," Scheikowitz volunteered as he sat down and
+lit a cigar.
+
+"For a finish, neither," Polatkin added, "so far as that's concerned."
+
+Elkan wheeled round in his chair and grinned delightedly.
+
+"And you ought to seen Sol Klinger when we walked into the Hanging
+Gardens," he said. "He got white like a sheet. It tickled Scharley to
+death, and he went right to work and put his arm through Mrs.
+Lesengeld's arm and took her right down to the middle table, like she
+would be a queen already."
+
+"Sure," Scheikowitz agreed, "what does a real merchant like Scharley
+care if she would wear a _sheitel oder_ not, so long as she is a lady
+already."
+
+Elkan's grin spread until it threatened to engulf his ears.
+
+"She didn't wear no _sheitel_," he said.
+
+"What!" Scheikowitz cried. "I didn't think a religious woman like Mrs.
+Lesengeld would take off her _sheitel_ at _her_ time of life."
+
+"What d'ye mean _her_ time of life?" Elkan cried indignantly. "Friday
+afternoon yet before Yetta went home from her place there at Bognor
+Park, Mrs. Lesengeld says to her that a widder don't got to wear no
+_sheitel_ if she don't want to, which if you think, Mr. Scheikowitz,
+that fifty-three is a time of life, understand me, I think differencely,
+especially when I seen her with her hair all fixed up on Saturday
+night."
+
+"Who fixed it?" Marcus Polatkin asked, and Elkan grinned again.
+
+"Who d'ye suppose?" he replied. "Why, her and Yetta spent pretty near an
+hour up in our room before they got through, and I tell yer with the way
+they turned up the hem and fixed the sleeves of one of Yetta's black
+dresses, it fitted her like it would be made for her."
+
+"And did she look good in it?" Scheikowitz inquired.
+
+"Did she look good in it!" Elkan exclaimed. "Well, you can just bet your
+life, Mr. Polatkin, that there Hortense Feldman wasn't one, two, six
+with her. In fact, Mr. Polatkin, you would take your oath already that
+there wasn't two years between 'em. I had a good chance to compare 'em
+on account when we went down to the Hanging Gardens, understand me, Miss
+Feldman sits at the next table already."
+
+Polatkin smiled broadly.
+
+"She must have had a big _Schreck_," he commented. "Why, B. Gans told me
+last Saturday that Henry D. Feldman thinks that he's going to fix the
+whole thing up between her and Scharley."
+
+"I guess he ain't got that idee no longer," Elkan declared, "because
+everybody in Egremont knows Scharley was down visiting Mrs. Lesengeld
+over Sunday, and takes her and her daughter Fannie and Fannie's husband
+out oitermobiling."
+
+"You don't tell me?" Scheikowitz exclaimed.
+
+"Furthermore, on Monday," Elkan continued, "he goes down there to dinner
+with me and Yetta, and Mrs. Lesengeld cooks some _Tebeches_ which fairly
+melts in your mouth already."
+
+He smacked his lips over the recollection.
+
+"Yesterday, as you know," he went on, "I took Scharley and Mrs.
+Lesengeld over to Coney Island in an oitermobile and to-night yet we are
+all going sailing on Egremont Bay."
+
+Polatkin rose to his feet and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well," he said, "why not? They're about the same age."
+
+"He's two years older as she is," Elkan declared, "and I bet yer they
+wouldn't lose no time. It'll be next fall sure."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+One busy morning three months later Elkan ripped open a heavy cream-laid
+envelope and drew out the following announcement, engraved in shaded
+old English type:
+
+               =Mrs. Fannie Stubin=
+    =has the honor of announcing the marriage=
+                  =of her mother=
+
+              =Mrs. Sarah Lesengeld=
+                       =to=
+               =Mr. Jacob Scharley=
+
+         =On Tuesday the first of October=
+          =at San Francisco, California=
+
+"And what are we going to send them for a present?" Polatkin asked.
+
+Elkan smiled serenely.
+
+"A solid silver chafing dish," he replied without hesitation, "at the
+very least, big enough to hold five pounds of brown stewed fish sweet
+and sour."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Printer's Mark]
+
+THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
+GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Transcriber's Notes:                                               |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | The 1912 edition of this text contains numerous words and phrases  |
+  | with variant spellings. For the most part these variations have    |
+  | been retained to maintain the flavor of the original text, and     |
+  | only obvious spelling and puncuation errors have been corrected,   |
+  | as detailed below. A few changes have also been made with          |
+  | formatting of punctuation for text consistency.                    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | The name of character Kent J. Goldenfein, who is introduced on     |
+  | pages 142-145, changes on page 210 to Kent J. "Goldstein" and      |
+  | subsequently remains "Goldstein" for the remainder of the story.   |
+  | This inconsistency has been retained to match the 1912 text.       |
+  |                                                                    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Typographical Corrections:                                         |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 4. Added close-quotes. ("... Yosel to come to America.")      |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 10. Removed close-quotes. (threshold of the cutting room.)    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 14. Changed question mark to comma. ("He is in Minsk," said   |
+  | young Borrochson.)                                                 |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 27. Changed "de,manded" to "demanded". (Philip demanded.)     |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 27. Changed "jerred" to "jeered". (Philip jeered.)            |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 37. Removed close-quotes. (Polatkin rose to his feet.)        |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 50. Added period. (the tops of her powdered cheeks.)          |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 64. Changed "Scheikowizt" to "Scheikowitz". (Scheikowitz      |
+  | protested.)                                                        |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 87. Changed "Sheikowitz" to "Scheikowitz". ("... Mr.          |
+  | Scheikowitz, so sure as I am sitting here....")                    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 91. Added open-quotes. ("I suppose, Elkan, you are            |
+  | wondering....")                                                    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 92. Changed "Poltakin" to "Polatkin". ("... Flixman's store?" |
+  | Polatkin asked.)                                                   |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 97. Changed "Mr" to "Mr." ("... right buying idee, Mr.        |
+  | Kapfer....")                                                       |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 152. Removed close-quotes. (begun at dinner that evening.)    |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 153. Added close-quotes. ("... oder Schwefel & Zucker.")      |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 153. Changed "Kolbin's" to "Koblin's". (Max Koblin's house)   |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 182. Removed end-quotes. (to make further inquiries.)         |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 199. Added close-quotes. ("What time do you eat dinner?")     |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 225. Changed "tansactions" to "transactions". (all            |
+  | real-estate transactions involving)                                |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 241. Added close-quotes. ("... the other fellow's case.")     |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 263. Added period. ("... makes up his mind yet.")             |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 279. Added period. (his high, piping voice.)                  |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 281. Added comma. ("If we didn't," he continued....)          |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 294. Added close-quotes. ("... for a couple of months.")      |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 295. Changed "deprecatio" to "deprecation." (gesture of       |
+  | deprecation.)                                                      |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 312. Corrected open-quotes. ("Brown stewed fish....")         |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 317. Added close-quotes. ("... Scheikowitz & Company.")       |
+  |                                                                    |
+  | Page 320. Added close-quotes. ("... three hundred dollars.")       |
+  |                                                                    |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Elkan Lubliner, American, by Montague Glass
+
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