"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."