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?"