"Elkan," Louis Stout continued, "you better go along with her. I want you to see what an elegant lot of clothes-closets they got upstairs. You know most houses is designed by archytecks which all they are trying to do is to save money for the builder. Aber this archyteck was an exception. The way he figures it he tries to build the house to please the women, mit lots of closet room, and—excuse me, ladies—to hell with the expenses! I'll go upstairs with you and show you what I mean."

Benno frowned angrily.

"'Tain't necessary, Louis," he said. "Mrs. Ortelsburg would show him."

He drew forward chairs; and, after Elkan and Yetta had followed Mrs. Ortelsburg upstairs, he closed the library door.

"Couldn't I introduce people in my own house, Stout?" he demanded.

Louis Stout shrugged his shoulders.

"If you mean as a matter of ettykit—yes," he retorted; "aber if it's a real-estate transaction—no. When I bring a customer to Mr. Glaubmann for his Linden Boulevard house, Ortelsburg, I do the introducing myself, which afterward I don't want no broker to claim he earned the commission by introducing the customer first—understand me?"

He seated himself and smiled calmly at Kamin, Glaubmann, and his host.

"I ain't living in the country for my health exactly," he declared, "and don't you forget it."

"Where's your written authorization from the owner?" Ortelsburg demanded, raising a familiar point of real-estate brokerage law; and Stout tapped his breast pocket.

"Six months ago already," Stout replied, "Mr. Glaubmann writes me if I hear of a customer for his house he would protect me, and I got the letter here in my pocket. Ain't that right, Mr. Glaubmann?"

Glaubmann had walked toward the window and was looking out upon the budding white poplars that spread their branches at a height of six feet above the sidewalks of Burgess Park. He nodded in confirmation of Louis' statement; and as he did so a short, stout person, who was proceeding hurriedly down the street in the direction of the station, paused in front of the Ortelsburg residence. A moment later he rang the bell and Ortelsburg himself opened the door.

"Nu, Mr. Kovner!" he said. "What could I do for you?"

"Mr. Glaubmann just nods to me out of your window," Max Kovner replied, "and I thought he wants to speak to me."

Benno returned to the library with Max at his heels.

"Do you want to speak to Mr. Kovner, Glaubmann?" he asked, and Glaubmann started perceptibly. During the months of Max Kovner's tenancy Glaubmann had not only refrained from visiting his Linden Boulevard house, but he had also performed feats of disappearance resembling Indian warfare in his efforts to avoid Max Kovner on the streets of Burgess Park. All this was the result of Max Kovner's taking possession of the Linden Boulevard house upon Glaubmann's agreement to make necessary plumbing repairs and to paint and repaper the living rooms; and Glaubmann's complete breach of this agreement was reflected in the truculency of Max Kovner's manner as he entered the Ortelsburg library.

"Maybe Glaubmann don't want to speak to me," he cried, "but I want to speak to him, and in the presence of you gentlemen here also."

He banged Ortelsburg's library table with his clenched fist.

"Once and for all, Mr. Glaubmann," he said, "either you would fix that plumbing and do that painting, understand me, or I would move out of your Linden Boulevard house the first of next month sure!"

Glaubmann received this ultimatum with a defiant grin.

"Schmooes, Kovner," he said, "you wouldn't do nothing of the kind! You got mit me a verbal lease for one year in the presence of my wife, your wife and a couple of other people which the names I forget."

"And how about the repairs?" Kovner demanded.

"If you seen the house needs repairs and you go into possession anyhow," Glaubmann retorted, "you waive the repairs, because the agreement to repair merges in the lease. That's what Kent J. Goldstein, my lawyer, says, Kovner; and ask any other lawyer, Kovner, and he could tell you the same."

"So," Kovner exclaimed, "I am stuck with that rotten house for a year! Is that the idee?"

Glaubmann nodded.

"All right, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner concluded. "You are here in a strange house to me and I couldn't do nothing; but I am coming over to your office to-morrow, and if I got to sit there all day, understand me, we would settle this thing up."

"That's all right," Ortelsburg interrupted. "When you got real-estate business with Glaubmann, Mr. Kovner, his office is the right place to see him. Aber here is a private house and Sunday, Mr. Kovner, and we ain't doing no real-estate business here. So, if you got a pressing engagement somewheres else, Mr. Kovner, don't let me hurry you."

He opened the library door, and with a final glare at his landlord Max passed slowly out.

"That's a dangerous feller," Glaubmann said as his tenant banged the street door behind him. "He goes into possession for one year without a written lease containing a covenant for repairs by the landlord, y'understand, and now he wants to blame me for it! Honestly, the way some people acts so unreasonable, Kamin, it's enough to sicken me with the real-estate business!"

Kamin nodded sympathetically, but Louis Stout made an impatient gesture by way of bringing the conversation back to its original theme.

"That ain't here or there," he declared. "The point is I am fetching you a customer for your Linden Boulevard house, Glaubmann, and I want this here matter of the commission settled right away."

Ortelsburg rose to his feet as a shuffling on the stairs announced the descent of his guests.

"Commissions we would talk about afterward," he said. "First let us sell the house."

* * * * *

In Benno Ortelsburg's ripe experience there were as many methods of selling suburban residences as there were residences for sale; and, like the born salesman he was, he realized that each transaction possessed its individual obstacles, to be overcome by no hard-and-fast rules of salesmanship. Thus he quickly divined that whoever sought to sell Elkan a residence in Burgess Park must first convince Yetta, and he proceeded immediately to apportion the chips for a five-handed game of auction pinocle, leaving Yetta to be entertained by his wife. Mrs. Ortelsburg's powers of persuasion in the matter of suburban property were second only to her husband's, and the game had not proceeded very far when Benno looked into the adjoining room and observed with satisfaction that Yetta was listening open-mouthed to Mrs. Ortelsburg's fascinating narrative of life in Burgess Park.

"Forty hens we got it," she declared; "and this month alone they are laying on us every day a dozen eggs—some days ten, or nine at the least. Then, of course, if we want a little fricassee once in a while we could do that also."

"How do you do when you are getting all of a sudden company?" Yetta asked. "I didn't see no delicatessen store round here."

"You didn't?" Mrs. Ortelsburg exclaimed. "Why, right behind the depot is Mrs. J. Kaplan's a delicatessen store, which I am only saying to her yesterday, 'Mrs. Kaplan,' I says, 'how do you got all the time such fresh, nice smoke-tongue here?' And she says, 'It's the country air,' she says, 'which any one could see; not alone smoke-tongue keeps fresh, aber my daughter also, when she comes down here,' she says, 'she is pale like anything—and look at her now!' And it's a fact, Mrs. Lubliner, the daughter did look sick, and to-day yet she's got a complexion fresh like a tomato already. That's what Burgess Park done for her!"

"But don't you got difficulty keeping a girl, Mrs. Ortelsburg?" Yetta inquired.

"Difficulty?" Mrs. Ortelsburg cried. "Why, just let me show you my kitchen. The girls love it here. In the first place, we are only twenty minutes from Coney Island; and, in the second place, with all the eggs which we got it, they could always entertain their fellers here in such a fine, big kitchen, which I am telling my girl, Lena: 'So long as you give 'em omelets or fried eggs mit fat, Lena, I don't care how many eggs you use—aber butter is butter in Burgess Park oder Harlem.'"

In this vein Mrs. Ortelsburg continued for more than an hour, while she conducted Yetta to the kitchen and cellar and back again to the bedrooms above stairs, until she decided that sufficient interest had been aroused to justify the more robust method of her husband. She therefore returned to the library, and therewith began for Benno Ortelsburg the real business of the afternoon.

"Well, boys," he said, "I guess we would quit pinocle for a while and join the ladies."

He chose for this announcement a moment when Elkan's chips showed a profit of five dollars; and as, in his capacity of banker, he adjusted the losses of the other players, he kept up a merry conversation directed at Mrs. Lubliner.

"Here in Burgess Park," he said, "we play pinocle and we leave it alone; while in the city when a couple business men play pinocle they spend a day at it—and why? Because they only get a chance to play pinocle once in a while occasionally. Every night they are going to theatre oder a lodge affair, understand me; whereas here, the train service at night not being so extra elegant, y'understand, we got good houses and we stay in 'em; which in Burgess Park after half-past seven in the evening any one could find a dozen pinocle games to play in—and all of 'em breaks up by half-past ten already."

With this tribute to the transit facilities and domesticity of Burgess Park, he concluded stacking up the chips and turned to Mrs. Lubliner.

"Yes, Mrs. Lubliner," he continued with an amiable smile, "if you wouldn't persuade your husband to move out to Burgess Park, understand me, I shall consider it you don't like our house here at all."

"But I do like your house!" Yetta protested.

"I should hope so," Benno continued, "on account it would be a poor compliment to a lot of people which could easy be good customers of your husband. For instance, this house was decorated by Robitscher, Smith & Company, which Robitscher lives across the street already; and his wife is Joel Ribnik's—the McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company's—a sister already."

"You don't tell me?" Yetta murmured.

"And Joel is staying with 'em right now," Benno went on. "Furthermore, we got our furniture and carpets by Sig Tarnowitz, which he lives a couple of doors down from here—also got relatives in the retail drygoods business by the name Tarnowitz-Wixman Drygoods Company. The brother, Julius Tarnowitz, is eating dinner with 'em to-day."

"It's a regular buyers' colony here, so to speak," Louis Stout said, and Joseph Kamin nodded.

"Tell you what you do, Benno," Joseph suggested. "Get Tarnowitz and Ribnik to come over here. I think Elkan would like to meet them."

Benno slapped his thigh with a resounding blow.

"That's a great idee!" he cried; and half an hour later the Ortelsburg library was thronged with visitors, for not only Joel Ribnik and Julius Tarnowitz had joined Benno's party, but seated in easy chairs were Robitscher, the decorator, and Tarnowitz, the furniture dealer.

"Yes, siree, sir!" Robitscher cried. "Given the same decorative treatment to that Linden Boulevard house, Mr. Lubliner, and it would got Ortelsburg's house here skinned to pieces, on account over there it is more open and catches the sun afternoon and morning both."

During this pronouncement Elkan's face wore a ghastly smile and he underwent the sensations of the man in the tonneau of a touring car which is beginning to skid toward a telegraph pole.

"In that case I should recommend you don't buy a Kermanshah rug for the front room," Sigmund Tarnowitz interrupted. "I got in my place right now an antique Beloochistan, which I would let go at only four hundred dollars."

"Aber four hundred dollars is an awful lot of money to pay for a rug," Elkan protested. He had avoided looking at Yetta for the past half-hour; but now he glanced fearfully at her, and in doing so received a distinct shock, for Yetta sat with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, inoculated beyond remedy with the virus of the artistic-home fever.

"Four hundred ain't so much for a rug," she declared.

"Not for an antique Beloochistan," Sig Tarnowitz said, "because every year it would increase in value on you."

"Just the same like that Linden Boulevard house," Ortelsburg added, "which you could take it from me, Mrs. Lubliner, if you don't get right away an offer of five hundred dollars advance on your purchase price I would eat the house, plumbing and all."

At the word "plumbing" Glaubmann started visibly.

"The plumbing would be fixed so good as new," he said; "and I tell you what I would do also, Mr. Lubliner—I would pay fifty per cent. of the decorations if Mr. Ortelsburg would make me an allowance of a hundred dollars on the commission!"

"Could anything be fairer than this?" Ortelsburg exclaimed; and he grinned maliciously as Louis Stout succumbed to a fit of coughing.

"But we ain't even seen the house!" Elkan cried.

"Never mind we ain't seen it," Yetta said; "if the house is the same like this that's all I care about."

"Sure, I know," Elkan replied; "but I want to see the house first before I would even commence to think of buying it."

"Schon gut!" Glaubmann said. "I ain't got no objection to show you the house from the outside; aber there is at present people living in the house, understand me, which for the present we couldn't go inside."

"Mr. Lubliner don't want to see the inside, Glaubmann!" Ortelsburg cried, in tones implying that he deprecated Glaubmann's suggestion as impugning Elkan's good faith in the matter. "The inside would be repaired and decorated to suit, Mr. Glaubmann, but the outside he's got a right to see; so we would all go round there and give a look."

Ten minutes afterward a procession of nine persons passed through the streets of Burgess Park and lingered on the sidewalk opposite Glaubmann's house. There Ortelsburg descanted on the comparatively high elevation of Linden Boulevard and Mrs. Ortelsburg pointed out the chicken-raising possibilities of the back lot; and, after gazing at the shrubbery and incipient shade trees that were planted in the front yard, the line of march was resumed in the direction of Burgess Park's business neighbourhood. Another pause was made at Mrs. J. Kaplin's delicatessen store; and, laden with packages of smoked tongue, Swiss cheese and dill pickles, the procession returned to the Ortelsburg residence marshalled by Benno Ortelsburg, who wielded as a baton a ten-cent loaf of rye bread.

Thus the remainder of the evening was spent in feasting and more pinocle until nearly midnight, when Elkan and Yetta returned to town on the last train. Hence, with his late homecoming and the Ortelsburgs' delicatessen supper, Elkan slept ill that night, so that it was past nine o'clock before he arrived at his office the following morning. Instead of the satirical greeting which he anticipated from his senior partner, however, he was received with unusual cordiality by Polatkin, whose face was spread in a grin.

"Well, Elkan," he said, "you done a good job when you decided to buy that house."

"When I decided to buy the house? Who says I decided to buy the house?" Elkan cried.

"J. Kamin did," Polatkin explained. "He was here by a quarter to eight already; and not alone J. Kamin was here, but Joel Ribnik and Julius Tarnowitz comes in also. Scheikowitz and me has been on the jump, I bet yer; in fact, Scheikowitz is in there now with J. Kamin and Tarnowitz. Between 'em, those fellers has picked out four thousand dollars' goods."

Elkan looked at his partner in unfeigned astonishment.

"So soon?" he said.

"Ribnik too," Polatkin continued. "He makes a selection of nine hundred dollars' goods—among 'em a couple stickers like them styles 2040 and 2041. He says he is coming back in half an hour, on account he's got an appointment with a brother-in-law of his."

"By the name Robitscher?" Elkan asked.

"That's the feller," Polatkin answered. "Ribnik says you promised Robitscher the decorations from the house you are buying."

"What d'ye mean I promised him the decorations from the house I am buying?" Elkan exclaimed in anguished tones. "In the first place, I ain't promised him nothing of the kind; and, in the second place, I ain't even bought the house yet."

"That part will be fixed up all right," Polatkin replied, "because Mr. Glaubmann rings up half an hour ago, and he says that so soon as we need him and the lawyer we should telephone for 'em."

For a brief interval Elkan choked with rage.

"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Polatkin," he sputtered at last, "who is going to live in this house—you oder me?"

"You are going to live in the house, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "because me I don't need a house. I already got one house, Elkan, and I ain't twins exactly; and also them fellers is very plain about it, Elkan, which they told me and Scheikowitz up and down, that if you wouldn't buy the house they wouldn't confirm us the orders."

At this juncture Scheikowitz entered the office. From the doorway of the showroom he had observed the discussion between Elkan and his partner; and he had entirely deserted his prospective customers to aid in Elkan's coercion.

"Polatkin is right, Elkan!" he cried. "You got to consider Louis Stout also. Kamin said he would never forgive us if the deal didn't go through."

Elkan bit his lips irresolutely.

"I don't see what you are hesitating about," Polatkin went on. "Yetta likes the house—ain't it?"

"She's crazy about it," Elkan admitted.

"Then what's the use talking?" Scheikowitz declared; and he glanced anxiously toward Tarnowitz and Kamin, who were holding a whispered conference in the showroom. "Let's make an end and get the thing over. Telephone this here Glaubmann he should come right over with Ortelsburg and the lawyer."

"But ain't I going to have no lawyer neither?" Elkan demanded.

"Sure you are," Scheikowitz replied. "I took a chance, Elkan, and I telephoned Henry D. Feldman half an hour since already. He says he would send one up of his assistants, Mr. Harvey J. Sugarberg, right away."

* * * * *

When it came to drawing a real-estate contract there existed for Kent J. Goldstein no incongruities of time and place. Kent was the veteran of a dozen real-estate booms, during which he had drafted agreements at all hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the vendor's back.

Thus the transaction between Glaubmann and Elkan Lubliner presented no difficulties to Kent J. Goldstein; and he handled the details with such care and dispatch that the contract was nearly finished before Harvey J. Sugarberg remembered the instructions of his principal. As attorney for the buyer, it was Henry D. Feldman's practice to see that the contract of sale provided every opportunity for his client lawfully to avoid taking title should he desire for any reason, lawful or unlawful, to back out; and this rule of his principal occurred to Harvey just as he and Goldstein were writing the clause relating to incumbrances.

"The premises are to be conveyed free and clear of all incumbrances," Kent read aloud, "except the mortgage and covenant against nuisances above described and the present tenancies of said premises."

He had brought with him two blank forms of agreement; and as he filled in the blanks on one of them he read aloud what he was writing and Harvey Sugarberg inserted the same clause in the other. Up to this juncture Harvey had taken Kent's dictation with such remarkable docility that Elkan and his partners had frequently exchanged disquieting glances, and they were correspondingly elated when Harvey at length balked.

"One moment, Mr. Goldstein," he said—and, but for a slight nervousness, he reproduced with histrionic accuracy the tone and gesture of his employer—"as locum tenens for my principal I must decline to insert the phrase, 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"

Kent wasted no time in forensic dispute when engaged in a real-estate transaction, though, if necessary, he could make kindling of the strongest rail that ever graced the front of a jury-box.

"How 'bout it, Glaubmann?" he said. "The premises is occupied—ain't they?"

Glaubmann flapped his right hand in a gesture of laissez-faire.

"The feller moves out by the first of next month," he said; and Kent turned to Elkan.

"Are you satisfied that the tenant stays in the house until the first?" he asked. "That will be three days after the contract is closed."

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"Why not?" he said.

"All right, Mr.——Forget your name!" Kent cried. "Cut out 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"

At this easy victory a shade of disappointment passed over the faces of Harvey Sugarberg and his clients, and the contract proceeded without further objection to its rapid conclusion.

"Now then, my friends," Kent announced briskly, "we're ready for the signatures."

At this, the crucial point of all real-estate transactions, a brief silence fell upon the assembled company, which included not only the attorneys and the clients, but Ortelsburg, Kamin, Tarnowitz and Ribnik as well. Finally Glaubmann seized a pen, and, jabbing it viciously in an inkpot, he made a John Hancock signature at the foot of the agreement's last page.

"Now, Mr. Lubliner," Kent said—and Elkan hesitated.

"Ain't we going to wait for Louis Stout?" he asked; and immediately there was a roar of protest that sounded like a mob scene in a Drury Lane melodrama.

"If Louis Stout ain't here it's his own fault," Ortelsburg declared; and Ribnik, Tarnowitz, and Kamin glowered in unison.

"I guess he's right, Elkan," Polatkin murmured.

"It is his own fault if he ain't here," Scheikowitz agreed feebly; and, thus persuaded, Elkan appended a small and, by contrast with Glaubmann's, a wholly unimpressive signature to the agreement. Immediately thereafter Elkan passed over a certified check for eight hundred dollars, according to the terms of the contract, which provided that the title be closed in twenty days at the office of Henry D. Feldman.

"Well, Mr. Lubliner," Glaubmann said, employing the formula hallowed by long usage in all real-estate transactions involving improved property, "I wish you luck in your new house."

"Much obliged," Elkan said; and after a general handshaking the entire assemblage crowded into one elevator, so that finally Elkan was left alone with his partners.

Polatkin was the first to break a silence of over five minutes' duration.

"Ain't it funny," he said, "that we ain't heard from Louis?"

Scheikowitz nodded; and as he did so the elevator door creaked noisily and there alighted a short, stout person, who, having once been described in the I. O. M. A. Monthly as Benjamin J. Flugel, the Merchant Prince, had never since walked abroad save in a freshly ironed silk hat and a Prince Albert coat.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flugel?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz cried with one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged within his breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of business; and, as Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's impressive partner, he could not help congratulating himself on the mercantile sagacity that had made him buy Glaubmann's house.

"And this is Mr. Lubliner?" Flugel said in even tones.

"Pleased to meet you," Elkan said. "I had dinner with your partner only yesterday."

Flugel gulped convulsively in an effort to remain calm.

"I know it," he said; "and honestly the longer I am in business with that feller the more I got to wonder what a Schlemiel he is. Actually he goes to work and tries to do his own partner without knowing it at all. Mind you, if he would be doing it from spite I could understand it; but when one partner don't know that the other partner practically closes a deal for a tract of a hundred lots and six houses in Johnsonhurst, and then persuades a prospective purchaser that, instead of buying in Johnsonhurst, he should buy in Burgess Park, understand me, all I got to say is that if Louis Stout ain't crazy the least he deserves is that the feller really and truly should buy in Burgess Park."

"But, Mr. Flugel," Elkan interrupted, "I did buy in Burgess Park."

"What!" Flugel shouted.

"I say that I made a contract for a house out there this morning only," Elkan said.

For a few seconds it seemed as though Benjamin J. Flugel's heirs-at-law would collect a substantial death benefit from the I. O. M. A., but the impending apoplexy was warded off by a tremendous burst of profanity.

"Aber, Mr. Flugel," Scheikowitz protested, "Louis tells us only last Saturday, understand me, you told him that Johnsonhurst you wouldn't touch at all, on account such lowlifes like Rabiner and Pasinsky lives out there!"

"I know I told him that," Flugel yelled; "because, if I would say I am going to buy out there, Stout goes to work and blabs it all over the place, and the first thing you know they would jump the price on me a few thousand dollars. He's a dangerous feller, Louis is, Mr. Scheikowitz!"

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"That may be, Mr. Flugel," he said, "but I signed the contract with Glaubmann for his house on Linden Boulevard—and that's all there is to it!"

Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in melancholy unison.

"Do you got the contract here?" Flugel asked; and Elkan picked up the document from his desk, where it had been placed by Goldstein.

"You paid a fancy price for the house," Flugel continued, as he examined the agreement.

"I took your partner's advice, Mr. Flugel," Elkan retorted.

"Why, for eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, in Johnsonhurst," Flugel continued, "I could give you a palace already!"

He scanned the various clauses of the contract with the critical eye of an experienced real-estate operator; and before he had completed his examination the elevator door again creaked open.

"Is Glaubmann gone?" cried a voice from the interior of the car, and the next moment Kovner alighted.

Flugel looked up from the contract.

"Hello, Kovner," he said, "are you in this deal too?"

"I ain't in any deal," Kovner replied. "I am looking for Barnett Glaubmann. They told me in his office he is coming over here and would be here all the morning."

"Well, he was here," Elkan replied, "but he went away again."

Kovner sat down without invitation.

"It ain't no more as I expected," he began in the dull, resigned tones of a man with a grievance. "That swindler has been dodging me for four months now, and I guess he will keep on dodging me for the rest of the year that he claims I got a lease on his house for."

"What house?" Flugel asked.

"The house which I am living in it," Max replied—"on Linden Boulevard, Burgess Park."

"On Linden Boulevard, Burgess Park!" Flugel repeated. "Why, then it's the same house—ain't it, Lubliner?"

Elkan nodded, and as he did so Flugel struck the desk a tremendous blow with his fist.

"Fine!" he ejaculated.

"Fine!" Kovner repeated. "What the devil you are talking about, fine? Do you think it's fine I should got to live a whole year in a house which the least it must got to be spent on it is for plumbing a hundred dollars and for painting a couple hundred more?"

"That's all right," Flugel declared with enthusiasm. "It ain't so bad as it looks; because if you can show that you got a right to stay in that house for the rest of the year, understand me, I'll make a proposition to you."

"Show it?" Kovner exclaimed. "I don't got to show it, because I couldn't help myself, Mr. Flugel. Glaubmann claims that I made a verbal lease for one year, and he's right. I was fool enough to do so."

Flugel glanced inquiringly at Polatkin and Scheikowitz.

"How about that?" he asked. "The contract don't say nothing about a year's lease."

"I know it don't," Elkan replied, "because when our lawyer raises the question about the tenant Glaubmann says he could get him out at any time."

"And he can too," Kovner declared with emphasis, but Flugel shook his head.

"No, he can't, Kovner," he said; "or, anyway, he ain't going to, because you are going to stay in that house."

"With the rotten plumbing it's got?" Kovner cried. "Not by a whole lot I ain't."

"The plumbing could be fixed and the painting also," Flugel retorted.

"By Glaubmann?" Kovner asked.

"No, sir," Flugel replied; "by me, with a hundred dollars cash to boot. I would even give you an order on my plumber he should fix up the plumbing and on my house painter he should fix up the painting, Kovner; aber you got to stick it out that you are under lease for the rest of the year."

"And when do I get the work done?" Kovner demanded.

"To-day," Flugel announced—"this afternoon if you want it."

"But hold on there a minute!" Elkan protested. "If I am going to take that house I don't want no painting done there till I am good and ready."

Flugel smiled loftily at Elkan.

"You ain't going to take that house at all," he said, "because the contract says that it is to be conveyed free and clear, except the mortgage and a covenant against nuisances. So you reject the title on the grounds that the house is leased for a year. Do you get the idee?"

Elkan nodded.

"And next Sunday," Flugel continued, "I wish you'd take a run down with me in my oitermobile to Johnsonhurst. It's an elegant, high-class suburb."

* * * * *

Insomnia bears the same relation to the calling of real-estate operators that fossyjaw does to the worker in the match industry; and, during the twenty days that preceded the closing of his contract with Elkan, Barnett Glaubmann spent many a sleepless night in contemplation of disputed brokerage claims by Kamin, Stout and Ortelsburg. Moreover, the knowledge that Henry D. Feldman represented the purchaser was an influence far from sedative; and what little sleep Glaubmann secured was filled with nightmares of fence encroachments, defects in the legal proceedings for opening of Linden Boulevard as a public highway, and a score of other technical objections that Feldman might raise to free Elkan from his contract.

Not once, however, did Glaubmann consider the tenancy of Max Kovner as any objection to title. Indeed, he was so certain of Kovner's willingness to move out that he even pondered the advisability of gouging Max for twenty-five or fifty dollars as a consideration for accepting a surrender of the verbal lease; and to that end he avoided the Linden Boulevard house until the morning before the date set for the closing of the title.

Then, having observed Max board the eight-five train for Brooklyn Bridge, he sauntered off to interview Mrs. Kovner; and as he turned the corner of Linden Boulevard he sketched out a plan of action that had for its foundation the complete intimidation of Mrs. Kovner. This being secured, he would proceed to suggest the payment of fifty dollars as the alternative of strong measures against Max Kovner for allowing the Linden Boulevard premises to fall into such bad repair; and he was so full of his idea that he had begun to ascend the front stoop of the Kovner house before he noticed the odour of fresh paint.

Never in the history of the Kovner house had the electric bell been in working order. Hence Glaubmann knocked with his naked fist and left the imprint of his four knuckles on the wet varnish just as Mrs. Kovner flung wide the door. It was at this instant that Glaubmann's well-laid plans were swept away.

"Now see what you done, you dirty slob you!" she bellowed. "What's the matter with you? Couldn't you ring the bell?"

"Why, Mrs. Kovner," Glaubmann stammered, "the bell don't ring at all. Ain't it?"

"The bell don't ring?" Mrs. Kovner exclaimed. "Who says it don't?"

She pressed the button with her finger and a shrill response came from within.

"Who fixed it?" Glaubmann asked.

"Who fixed it?" Mrs. Kovner repeated. "Who do you suppose fixed it? Do you think we got from charity to fix it? Gott sei Dank, we ain't exactly beggars, Mr. Glaubmann. Ourselves we fixed it, Mr. Glaubmann—and the painting and the plumbing also; because if you would got in savings bank what I got it, Mr. Glaubmann, you wouldn't make us so much trouble about paying for a couple hundred dollars' repairs."

"Aber," Glaubmann began, "you shouldn't of done it!"

"I know we shouldn't," Mrs. Kovner replied. "We should of stayed here the rest of the year with the place looking like a pigsty already! Aber don't kick till you got to, Mr. Glaubmann. It would be time enough to say something when we sue you by the court yet that you should pay for the repairs we are making here."

Glaubmann pushed his hat back from his forehead and wiped his streaming brow.

"Nu, Mrs. Kovner," he said at last, "it seems to me we got a misunderstanding all round here. I would like to talk the matter over with you."

With this conciliatory prelude he assumed an easy attitude by crossing his legs and supporting himself with one hand on the freshly painted doorjamb, whereat Mrs. Kovner uttered a horrified shriek, and the rage which three weeks of housepainters' clutter had fomented in her bosom burst forth unchecked.

"Out from here, you dirty loafer you!" she shrieked, and grabbed a calcimining brush from one of the many paintpots that bestrewed the hallway. Glaubmann bounded down the front stoop to the sidewalk just as Mrs. Kovner made a frenzied pass at him with the brush; and consequently, when he entered Kent J. Goldstein's office on Nassau Street an hour later, his black overcoat was speckled like the hide of an axis deer.

"Goldstein," he said hoarsely, "is it assault that some one paints you from head to foot with calcimine?"

"It is if you got witnesses," Goldstein replied; "otherwise it's misfortune. Who did it?"

"That she-devil—the wife of the tenant in that house I sold Lubliner," Glaubmann replied. "I think we're going to have trouble with them people, Goldstein."

"You will if you try to sue 'em without witnesses, Glaubmann," Goldstein observed; "because suing without witnesses is like trying to play pinocle without cards. It can't be done."

Glaubmann shook his head sadly.

"I ain't going to sue 'em," he said. "I ain't so fond of lawsuits like all that; and, besides, a little calcimine is nothing, Goldstein, to what them people can do to me. They're going to claim they got there a year's verbal lease."

Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.

"That's all right," he commented. "They want to gouge you for fifty dollars or so; and, with the price you're getting for the house, Glaubmann, you can afford to pay 'em."

"Gouge nothing!" Glaubmann declared. "They just got done there a couple hundred dollars' painting and plumbing, y'understand, and they're going to stick it out."

Goldstein pursed his lips in an ominous whistle.

"A verbal lease, hey?" he muttered.

Glaubmann nodded sadly.

"And this time there is witnesses," he said; and he related to his attorney the circumstances under which the original lease was made, together with the incident attending Kovner's visit to Ortelsburg's house.

"It looks like you're up against it, Glaubmann," Goldstein declared.

"But couldn't I claim that I was only bluffing the feller?" Glaubmann asked.

"Sure you could," Goldstein replied; "but when Kovner went to work and painted the house and fixed the plumbing he called your bluff, Glaubmann; so the only thing to do is to ask for an adjournment to-morrow."

"And suppose they won't give it to us?" Glaubmann asked.

Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm a lawyer, Glaubmann—not a prophet," he said; "but if I know Henry D. Feldman you won't get any adjournment—so you may as well make your plans accordingly."

For a brief interval Glaubmann nodded his head slowly, and then he burst into a mirthless laugh.

"Real estate," he said, "that's something to own. Rheumatism is a fine asset compared to it; in fact if some one gives me my choice, Goldstein, I would say rheumatism every time. Both of 'em keep you awake nights; but there's one thing about rheumatism, Goldstein"—here he indulged in another bitter laugh—"you don't need a lawyer to get rid of it!" he said, and banged the door behind him.

* * * * *

If there was any branch of legal practice in which Henry D. Feldman excelled it was conveyancing, and he brought to it all the histrionic ability that made him so formidable as a trial lawyer. Indeed, Feldman was accustomed to treat the conveyancing department of his office as a business-getter for the more lucrative field of litigation, and he spared no pains to make each closing of title an impressive and dramatic spectacle.

Thus the mise-en-scene of the Lubliner closing was excellent. Feldman himself sat in a baronial chair at the head of his library table, while to a seat on his right he had assigned Kent J. Goldstein. On his left he had placed Mr. Jones, the representative of the title company, a gaunt, sandy-haired man of thirty-five who, by the device of a pair of huge horn spectacles, had failed to distract public attention from an utterly stupendous Adam's apple.

Next to the title company's representative were placed Elkan Lubliner and his partners, and it was to them that Henry D. Feldman addressed his opening remarks.

"Mr. Lubliner," he said in the soft accents in which he began all his crescendos, "the examination of the record title to Mr. Glaubmann's Linden Boulevard premises has been made at my request by the Law Title Insurance and Guaranty Company."

He made a graceful obeisance toward Mr. Jones, who acknowledged it with a convulsion of his Adam's apple.

"I have also procured a survey to be made," Feldman continued; and, amid a silence that was broken only by the heavy breathing of Barnett Glaubmann, he held up an intricate design washed with watercolour on glazed muslin.

"Finally I have done this," he declared, and his brows gathered in a tragic frown as his glance swept in turn the faces of Kent J. Goldstein, Benno Ortelsburg, J. Kamin, and Glaubmann—"I have procured an inspector's report upon the occupation of the locus in quo."

"Oo-ee!" Glaubmann murmured, and Louis Stout exchanged triumphant glances with Polatkin and Scheikowitz.

"And I find," Feldman concluded, "there is a tenant in possession, claiming under a year's lease which will not expire until October first next."

Mr. Jones nodded and cleared his throat so noisily that, to relieve his embarrassment, he felt obliged to crack each of his knuckles in turn. As for Ribnik and Tarnowitz, they sat awestruck in the rear of Feldman's spacious library and felt vaguely that they were in a place of worship. Only Kent J. Goldstein remained unimpressed; and in order to show it he scratched a parlour match on the leg of Feldman's library table; whereat Feldman's ex-cathedra manner forsook him.

"Where in blazes do you think you are, Goldstein?" he asked in colloquial tones—"in a barroom?"

"If it's solid mahogany," Goldstein retorted, "it'll rub up like new. I think you were talking about the tenancy of the premises here."

Feldman choked down his indignation and once more became the dignified advocate.

"That is not the only objection to title, Mr. Goldstein," he said. "Mr. Jones, kindly read the detailed objections contained in your report of closing."

Mr. Jones nodded again and responded to Feldman's demand in a voice that profoundly justified the size of his larynx.

"Description in deed dated January 1, 1783," he began, "from Joost van Gend to William Wauters, is defective; one course reading 'thence along said ditch north to a white-oak tree' should be 'south to a white-oak tree.'"

"Well, what's the difference?" Goldstein interrupted. "It's monumented by the white-oak tree."

"That was cut down long ago," Mr. Jones said.

"Not by me!" Glaubmann declared. "I give you my word, gentlemen, the trees on the lot is the same like I bought it."

Feldman allowed his eyes to rest for a moment on the protesting Glaubmann, who literally crumpled in his chair.

"Proceed, Mr. Jones," Feldman said to the title company's representative, who continued without further interruption to the end of his list. This included all the technical objections which Glaubmann had feared, as well as a novel and interesting point concerning a partition suit in Chancery, brought in 1819, and affecting Glaubmann's chain of title to a strip in the rear of his lot, measuring one quarter of an inch in breadth by seven feet in length.

"So far as I can see, Feldman," Goldstein commented as Mr. Jones laid down his report, "the only objection that will hold water is the one concerning Max Kovner's tenancy. As a matter of fact, I have witnesses to show that Kovner has always claimed that he didn't hold a lease."

For answer, Feldman touched the button of an electric bell.

"Show in Mr. and Mrs. Kovner," he said to the boy who responded. "We'll let them speak for themselves."

This, it would appear, they were more than willing to do; for as soon as they entered the room and caught sight of Glaubmann, who by this time was fairly cowering in his chair, they immediately began a concerted tirade that was only ended when Goldstein banged vigorously on the library table, using as a gavel one of Feldman's metal-tipped rulers.

"That'll do, Goldstein!" Feldman said hoarsely. "I think I can preserve order in my own office."

"Why don't you then?" Goldstein retorted, as he leaned back in his chair and regarded with a malicious smile the damage he had wrought.

"Yes, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner began anew, "you thought you got us helpless there in your house; but——"

"Shut up!" Feldman roared again, forgetting his role of the polished advocate; and Goldstein fairly beamed with satisfaction.

"Don't bully your own witness," he said. "Let me do it for you."

He turned to Kovner with a beetling frown.

"Now, Kovner," he commenced, "you claim you've got a verbal lease for a year of this Linden Boulevard house, don't you?"

"I sure do," Kovner replied, "and I got witnesses to prove it."

"That's all right," Goldstein rejoined; "so long as there's Bibles there'll always be witnesses to swear on 'em. The point is: How do you claim the lease was made?"

"I don't claim nothing," Kovner replied. "I got a year's lease on that property because, in the presence of my wife and his wife, Mr. Goldstein, he says to me I must either take the house for a year from last October to next October or I couldn't take it at all."

Feldman smiled loftily at his opponent.

"The art of cross-examination is a subtle one, Goldstein," he said, "and if you don't understand it you're apt to prove the other fellow's case."

"Nevertheless," Goldstein continued, "I'm going to ask him one more question, and that is this: When was this verbal agreement made—before or after you moved into the house?"

"Before I moved in, certainly," Kovner answered. "I told you that he says to me I couldn't move in unless I would agree to take the place for a year."

"And when did you move in?" Goldstein continued.

"On the first of October," Kovner said.

"No, popper," Mrs. Kovner interrupted; "we didn't move in on the first. We moved in the day before."

"That's right," Kovner said—"we moved in on the thirtieth of September."

"So," Goldstein declared, "you made a verbal agreement before September thirtieth for a lease of one year from October first?"

Kovner nodded and Goldstein turned to Henry D. Feldman, whose lofty smile had completely disappeared.

"Well, Feldman," he said, "you pulled a couple of objections on me from 'way back in the last century, understand me; so I guess it won't hurt if I remind you of a little statute passed in the reign of Charles the Second, which says: 'All contracts which by their terms are not to be performed within one year must be in writing and signed by the party to be charged.' I mean the Statute of Frauds."

"I know what you mean all right," Feldman replied; "but you'll have to prove that before a court and jury. Just now we are confronted with Kovner, who claims to have a year's lease; and my client is relieved from his purchase in the circumstances. No man is bound to buy a lawsuit, Goldstein."

"I know he ain't," Goldstein retorted; "but what's the difference, Feldman? He'll have a lawsuit on his hands, anyhow, because if he don't take title now, understand me, I'll bring an action to compel him to do so this very afternoon."

At this juncture a faint croaking came from the vicinity of Louis Stout, who throughout had been as appreciative a listener as though he were occupying an orchestra chair and had bought his seat from a speculator.

"Speak up, Mr. Stout!" Feldman cried.

"I was saying," Louis replied faintly, "that with my own ears I heard Glaubmann say to Kovner that he's got a verbal lease for one year."

"And when was this?" Feldman asked.

"About three weeks ago," Stout replied.

"Then, in that case, Mr. Goldstein," Feldman declared, "let me present to you another proposition of law."

He paused to formulate a sufficiently impressive "offer" as the lawyers say, and in the silence that followed Elkan shuffled to his feet.

"It ain't necessary, Mr. Feldman," he said. "I already made up my mind about it."

"About what?" Louis Stout exclaimed.

"About taking the house," Elkan replied. "If you'll let me have the figures, Mr. Feldman, I'll draw a check and have it certified and we'll close this thing up."

"Aber, Elkan," Louis cried, "first let me communicate with Flugel."

"That ain't necessary neither," Elkan retorted. "I'm going to make an end right here and now; and you should be so good, Mr. Feldman, and fix me up the statement of what I owe here. I want to get through."

Polatkin rose shakily to his feet.

"What's the matter, Elkan?" he said huskily. "Are you crazy, oder what?"

"Sit down, Mr. Polatkin," Elkan commanded, and there was a ring of authority in his tone that made Polatkin collapse into his chair. "I am buying this house."

"But, Elkan," Louis Stout implored, "why don't you let me talk to Flugel over the 'phone? Might he would got a suggestion to make maybe."

"That's all right," Elkan said. "The only suggestion he makes is that if I go to work and close this contract, y'understand, he would never buy another dollar's worth of goods from us so long as he lives. So you shouldn't bother to ring him up, Mr. Stout."

Louis Stout flushed angrily.

"So far as that goes, Lubliner," he says, "I don't got to ring up Mr. Flugel to tell you the same thing, so you know what you could do."

"Sure I know what I could do," Elkan continued. "I could either do business like a business man or do business like a muzhik, Mr. Stout. Aber this ain't Russland, Mr. Stout—this is America; and if I got to run round wiping people's shoes to sell goods, then I don't want to do it at all."

J. Kamin took a cigar out of his mouth and spat vigorously.

"You're dead right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead and close the contract and I assure you you wouldn't regret it."

Elkan's eyes blazed and he turned on Kamin.

"You assure me!" he said. "Who in thunder are you? Do you think I'm looking for your business now, Kamin? Why, if you was worth your salt as a merchant, understand me, instead you would be fooling away your time trying to make a share of a commission, which the most you would get out of it is a hundred dollars, y'understand, you would be attending to your business buying your spring line. You are wasting two whole days on this deal, Kamin; and if two business days out of your spring buying is only worth a hundred dollars to you, Kamin, go ahead and get your goods somewheres else than in our store. I don't need to be Dun or Bradstreet to get a line on you, Kamin—and don't you forget it!"

At this juncture a faint cough localized Joel Ribnik, who had remained with Julius Tarnowitz in the obscurity cast by several bound volumes of digests and reports.

"Seemingly, Mr. Polatkin," he said, "you are a millionaire concern, the way your partner talks! Might you don't need our business, neither, maybe?"

Polatkin was busy checking the ravages made upon his linen by the perspiration that literally streamed down his face and neck; but Scheikowitz, who had listened open-mouthed to Elkan's pronunciamento, straightened up in his chair and his face grew set with determination.

"We ain't millionaires, Mr. Ribnik," he said—"far from it; and we ain't never going to be, understand me, if we got to buy eighteen-thousand dollar houses for every bill of goods we sell to Schnorrers and deadbeats!"

"Scheikowitz!" Polatkin pleaded.

"Never mind, Polatkin," Scheikowitz declared. "The boy is right, Polatkin; and if we are making our living in America we got to act like Americans—not peasants. So, go ahead, Stout. Telephone Flugel and tell him from me that if he wants to take it that way he should do so; and you, too, Stout—and that's all there is to it!"

"Then I apprehend, gentlemen, that we had better proceed to close," Feldman said; and Elkan nodded, for as Scheikowitz finished speaking a ball had risen in Elkan's throat which, blink as he might, he could not down for some minutes.

"All right, Goldstein," Feldman continued. "Let's fix up the statement of closing."

"One moment, gentlemen," Max Kovner said. "Do I understand that, if Elkan Lubliner buys the house to-day, we've got to move out?"

Feldman raised his eyebrows.

"I think Mr. Goldstein will agree with me, Kovner, when I say you haven't a leg to stand on," he declared. "You're completely out of court on your own testimony."

"You mean we ain't got a lease for a year?" Mrs. Kovner asked.

"That's right," Goldstein replied.

"And I am working my fingers to the bone getting rid of them verfluchte painters and all!" she wailed. "What do you think I am anyway?"

"Well, if you don't want to move right away," Elkan began, "when would it be convenient for you to get out, Mrs. Kovner?"

"I don't want to get out at all," she whimpered. "Why should I want to get out? The house is an elegant house, which I just planted yesterday string beans and tomatoes; and the parlor looks elegant now we got the old paper off."

"Supposing we say the first of May," Elkan suggested—"not that I am so crazy to move out to Burgess Park, y'understand; but I don't see what is the sense buying a house in the country and then not living in it."

There was a brief silence, broken only by the soft weeping of Mrs. Kovner; and at length Max Kovner shrugged his shoulders.

"Nu, Elkan," he said, "what is the use beating bushes round? Mrs. Kovner is stuck on the house and so am I. So long as you don't want the house, and there's been so much trouble about it and all, I tell you what I'll do: Take back two thousand dollars a second mortgage on the house, payable in one year at six per cent., which it is so good as gold, understand me, and I'll relieve you of your contract and give you two hundred dollars to boot."

A smile spread slowly over Elkan's face as he looked significantly at Louis Stout.

"I don't want your two hundred dollars, Max," he said. "You can have the house and welcome; and you should use the two hundred to pay your painting and plumbing bills."

"That's all right," Louis Stout said; "there is people which will see to it that he does. Also, gentlemen, I want everybody to understand that I claim full commission here from Glaubmann as the only broker in the transaction!"

"Nu, gentlemen," Glaubmann said; "I'll leave this to the lawyers if it ain't so: From one transaction I can only be liable for one commission—ain't it?"

Feldman and Goldstein nodded in unison.

"Then all I could say is that yous brokers and drygoods merchants should fight it out between yourselves," he declared; "because I'm going to pay the money for the commission into court—and them which is entitled to it can have it."

"But ain't you going to protect me, Glaubmann?" Ortelsburg demanded.

Glaubmann raised his hand for silence.

"One moment, Ortelsburg," he said. "I think it was you and Kamin told me that real estate is a game the same like auction pinocle?"

Ortelsburg nodded sulkily.

"Then you fellers should go ahead and play it," Glaubmann concluded. "And might the best man win!"[B]

[Footnote B: In the face of numerous decisions to the contrary, the author holds for the purposes of this story that a verbal lease for one year, to commence in the future, is void.]



CHAPTER SIX

A TALE OF TWO JACOBEAN CHAIRS

NOT A DETECTIVE STORY

"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," said Max Merech as he sat in the front parlour of Elkan's flat one April Sunday; "if you are going to work to buy furniture, understand me, it's just so easy to select good-looking chairs as bad-looking chairs."

"Aber sometimes it's a whole lot harder to sit on 'em comfortably," Elkan retorted sourly. On the eve of moving to a larger apartment he and Yetta had invited Max to suggest a plan for furnishing and decorating their new dwelling; and it seemed to Elkan that Max had taken undue advantage of the privilege thus accorded him. Indeed, Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's aesthetic designer held such pronounced views on interior decoration, and had expressed them so freely to Elkan and Yetta, that after the first half-hour of his visit the esteem which they had always felt toward their plush furniture and Wilton rugs had changed—first to indifference and then, in the case of Yetta, at least, to loathing.

"I always told you that the couch over there was hideous, Elkan," Yetta said.

"Hideous it ain't," Max interrupted; "aber it ain't so beautiful."

"Well, stick the couch in the bedroom, then," Elkan said. "It makes no difference to me."

"Sure, I know," Yetta exclaimed: "but what would we put in its place?"

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"What d'ye ask me for?" Elkan cried. "Like as not I'd say another couch."

"There is couches and couches," Max said with an apologetic smile, "but if you would ask my advice I would say why not a couple nice chairs there—something in monhogany, like Shippendaler oder Sheratin."

Suddenly he slapped his thigh in an access of inspiration.

"I came pretty near forgetting!" he cried. "I got the very thing you want—and a big bargain too! Do you know Louis Dishkes, which runs the Villy dee Paris Store in Amsterdam Avenue?"

"I think I know him," Elkan said with ironic emphasis. "He owes us four hundred dollars for two months already."

"Well, Dishkes is got a brother-in-law by the name Ringentaub, on Allen Street, which he is a dealer in antics."

"Antics?" Elkan exclaimed.

"Sure!" Max explained. "Antics—old furniture and old silver."

"You mean a second-hand store?" Elkan suggested.

"Not a second-hand store," Max declared. "A second-hand store is got old furniture from two years old oder ten years old, understand me; aber an antic store carries old furniture from a hundred years old already."

"And this here Ringentaub is got furniture from a hundred years old already?" Elkan cried.

"From older even," answered Max; "from two hundred and fifty years old also."

"Ich glaub's!" Elkan cried.

"You can believe it oder not, Mr. Lubliner," Max continued; "but Ringentaub got in his store a couple Jacobean chairs, which they are two hundred and fifty years old already. And them chairs you could buy at a big sacrifice yet."

Elkan and Yetta exchanged puzzled glances, and Elkan even tapped his forehead significantly.

"They was part of a whole set," Max went on, not noticing his employer's gesture; "the others Ringentaub sold to a collector."

Elkan flipped his right hand.

"A collector is something else again," he said; "but me I ain't no collector, Max, Gott sei Dank! I got my own business, Max, and I ain't got to buy from two hundred and fifty years old furniture."

"Why not?" Max asked. "B. Gans is got his own business, too, Mr. Lubliner, and a good business also; and he buys yet from Ringentaub—only last week already—an angry cat cabinet which it is three hundred years old already."

"An angry cat cabinet?" Elkan exclaimed.

"That's what I said," Max continued; "'angry' is French for 'Henry' and 'cat' is French for 'fourth'; so this here cabinet was made three hundred years ago when Henry the Fourth was king of France—and B. Gans buys it last week already for five hundred dollars!"

Therewith Max commenced a half-hour dissertation upon antique furniture which left Yetta and Elkan more undecided than ever.

"And you are telling me that big people like B. Gans and Andrew Carnegie buys this here antics for their houses?" Elkan asked.

"J. P. Morgan also," Max replied. "And them Jacobean chairs there you could get for fifty dollars already."

"Well, it wouldn't do no harm supposing we would go down and see 'em," Yetta suggested.

"Some night next week," Elkan added, "oder the week after."

"For that matter, we could go to-night too," Max rejoined. "Sunday is like any other night down on Allen Street, and you got to remember that Jacobean chairs is something which you couldn't get whenever you want 'em. Let me tell you just what they look like."

Here he descanted so successfully on the beauty of Jacobean furniture that Yetta added her persuasion to his, and Elkan at length surrendered.

"All right," he said. "First we would have a little something to eat and then we would go down there."

Hence, a few minutes after eight that evening they alighted at the Spring Street subway station; and Max Merech piloted Elkan and Yetta beneath elevated railroads and past the windows of brass shops, with their gleaming show of candlesticks and samovars, to a little basement store near the corner of Rivington Street.

"It don't look like much," Max apologized as he descended the few steps leading to the entrance; "aber he's got an elegant stock inside."

When he opened the door a trigger affixed to the door knocked against a rusty bell, but no one responded. Instead, from behind a partition in the rear came sounds of an angry dispute; and as Elkan closed the door behind him one of the voices rose higher than the rest.

"Take my life—take my blood, Mr. Sammet!" it said; "because I am making you the best proposition I can, and that's all there is to it."

Max was about to stamp his foot when Elkan laid a restraining hand on his shoulder; and, in the pause that followed, the heavy, almost hysterical breathing of the last speaker could be heard in the front of the store.

"I don't want your life oder your blood, Dishkes," came the answer in bass tones, which Elkan recognized as the voice of his competitor, Leon Sammet. "I am your heaviest creditor, and all I want is that you should protect me."

"I know you are my heaviest creditor," Louis Dishkes replied. "To my sorrow I know it! If it wouldn't be for your rotten stickers which I got in my place, might I would be doing a good business there to-day, maybe!"

"Schmooes, Dishkes!" Sammet replied. "The reason you didn't done a good business there is that you ain't no business man, Dishkes—and anyhow, Dishkes, it don't do no good you should insult me!"

"What d'ye mean insult you?" Dishkes cried angrily. "I ain't insulting you, Sammet. You are insulting me. You want me I should protect you and let my other creditors go to the devil—ain't it? What d'ye take me for—a crook?"

"That's all right," Sammet declared. "I wouldn't dandy words with you, Dishkes. For the last time I am asking you: Will you take advantage of the offer I am getting for you from the Mercantile Outlet Company, of Nashville, for your entire stock? Otherwise I would got nothing more to say to you."

There was a sound of scuffling feet as the party in the rear of the store rose from their chairs.

"You ain't got no need to say nothing more to me, Mr. Sammet," Dishkes announced firmly, "because I am through with you, Mr. Sammet. Your account ain't due till to-morrow, and you couldn't do nothing till Tuesday. Ain't it? So Tuesday morning early you should go ahead and sue me, and if I couldn't raise money to save myself I will go mechullah; but it'll be an honest mechullah, and that's all there is to it."

As Dishkes finished speaking Elkan drew Max and Yetta into the shadow cast by a tall highboy; and, without noticing their presence, Leon Sammet plunged toward the door and let himself out into the street.

Immediately Elkan tiptoed to the door and threw it wide open, after which he shuffled his feet with sufficient noise to account for the entrance of three people. Thereat Ringentaub emerged from behind the partition.

"Hello, Ringentaub," Max cried. "I am bringing you here some customers."

Ringentaub bowed and coughed a warning to Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub, who continued to talk in hoarse whispers behind the partition.

"What's the matter, Ringentaub?" Max Merech asked; "couldn't you afford it here somehow a little light?"

Ringentaub reached into the upper darkness and turned on a gas jet which had been burning a blue point of flame.

"I keep it without light here on purpose," he said, "on account Sundays is a big night for the candlestick fakers up the street and I don't want to be bothered with their trade. What could I show your friends, Mr. Merech?"

Max winked almost imperceptibly at Elkan and prepared to approach the subject of the Jacobean chairs by a judicious detour.

"Do you got maybe a couple Florentine frames, Ringentaub?" he asked; and Ringentaub shook his head.

"Florentine frames is hard to find nowadays, Mr. Merech," he said; "and I guess I told it you Friday that I ain't got none."

Elkan shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"I thought might you would of picked up a couple since then, maybe," Max rejoined, glancing round him. "You got a pretty nice highboy over there, Ringentaub, for a reproduction."

Ringentaub nodded satirically.

"That only goes to show how much you know about such things, Mr. Merech," he retorted, "when you are calling reproductions something which it is a gen-wine Shippendaler, understand me, in elegant condition."

It was now Elkan's turn to nod, and he did so with just the right degree of skepticism as at last he broached the object of his visit.

"I suppose," he said, "that them chairs over there is also gen-wine Jacobean chairs?"

* * * * *

"I'll tell you what I'll do with you, Mr. Merech," Ringentaub declared. "You could bring down here any of them good Fourth Avenue or Fifth Avenue dealers, understand me, or any conoozer you want to name, like Jacob Paul, oder anybody, y'understand; and if they would say them chairs ain't gen-wine Jacobean I'll make 'em a present to you free for nothing."

"I ain't schnorring for no presents, Mr. Ringentaub," Max declared. "Bring 'em out in the light and let's give a look at 'em."

Ringentaub drew the chairs into the centre of the floor, and placing them beneath the gas jet he stepped backward and tilted his head to one side in silent admiration.

"Nu, Mr. Merech," he said at last, "am I right or am I wrong? Is the chairs gen-wine oder not? I leave it to your friends here."

Max turned to Elkan, who had been edging away toward the partition, from which came scraps of conversation between Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub.

"What do you think, Mr. Lubliner?" Max asked; and Elkan frowned his annoyance at the interruption, for he had just begun to catch a few words of the conversation in the rear room.

"Sure—sure!" he said absently. "I leave it to you and Mrs. Lubliner."

Yetta's face had fallen as she viewed the apparently decayed and rickety furniture.

"Ain't they terrible shabby-looking!" she murmured, and Ringentaub shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"You would look shabby, too, lady," he said, "if you would be two hundred and fifty years old; aber if you want to see what they look like after they are restored, y'understand, I got back there one of the rest of the set which I already sold to Mr. Paul; and I am fixing it up for him."

As he finished speaking he walked to the rear and dragged forward a reseated and polished duplicate of the two chairs.

"I dassent restore 'em before I sell 'em," Ringentaub explained; "otherwise no one believes they are gen-wine."

"And how much do you say you want for them chairs, Ringentaub?" Max asked.

"I didn't say I wanted nothing," Ringentaub replied. "The fact is, I don't know whether I want to keep them chairs oder not. You see, Mr. Merech, Jacobean chairs is pretty near so rare nowadays that it would pay me to wait a while. In a couple of years them chairs double in value already."

"Sure, I know," Max said. "You could say the same thing about your whole stock, Ringentaub; and so, if I would be you, Ringentaub, I would take a little vacation of a couple years or so. Go round the world mit Mrs. Ringentaub, understand me, and by the time you come back you are worth twicet as much as you got to-day; but just to help pay your rent while you are away, Mr. Ringentaub, I'll make you an offer of thirty-five dollars for the chairs."

Ringentaub seized a chair in each hand and dragged them noisily to one side.

"As I was saying," he announced, "I ain't got no Florentine frames, Mr. Merech; so I am sorry we couldn't do no business."

"Well, then, thirty-seven-fifty, Mr. Ringentaub," Max continued; and Ringentaub made a flapping gesture with both hands.

"Say, lookyhere," he growled, "what is the use talking nonsense, Mr. Merech? For ten dollars apiece you could get on Twenty-third Street a couple chairs, understand me, made in some big factory, y'understand—A-Number-One pieces of furniture—which would suit you a whole lot better as gen-wine pieces. These here chairs is for conoozers, Mr. Merech; so, if you want any shiny candlesticks oder Moskva samovars from brass-spinners on Center Street, y'understand, a couple doors uptown you would find plenty fakers. Aber here is all gen-wine stuff, y'understand; and for gen-wine stuff you got to pay full price, understand me, which if them chairs stays in my store till they are five hundred years old already I wouldn't take a cent less for 'em as fifty dollars."

Max turned inquiringly to Mrs. Lubliner; and, during the short pause that followed, the agonized voice of Louis Dishkes came once more from the back room.

"What could I do?" he said to Mrs. Ringentaub. "I want to be square mit everybody, and I must got to act quick on account that sucker Sammet will close me up sure."

"Ai, tzuris!" Mrs. Ringentaub moaned; at which her husband coughed noisily and Elkan moved nearer to the partition.

"Would you go as high as fifty dollars, Mrs. Lubliner?" Max asked, and Yetta nodded.

"All right, Mr. Ringentaub," Max concluded; "we'll take 'em at fifty dollars."

"And you wouldn't regret it neither," Ringentaub replied. "I'll make you out a bill right away."

He darted into the rear room and slammed the partition door behind him.

"Koosh, Dishkes!" he hissed. "Ain't you got no sense at all—blabbing out your business in front of all them strangers?"

It was at this juncture that Elkan rapped on the door.

"Excuse me, Mr. Ringentaub," he said, "but I ain't no stranger to Mr. Dishkes—not by four hundred dollars already."

He opened the door as he spoke, and Dishkes, who was sitting at a table with his head bowed on his hands, looked up mournfully.

"Nu, Mr. Lubliner!" he said. "You are after me, too, ain't it?"

Elkan shook his head.

"Not only I ain't after you, Dishkes," he said, "but I didn't even know you was in trouble until just now."

"And you never would of known," Ringentaub added, "if he ain't been such a dummer Ochs and listened to people's advice. He got a good chance to sell out, and he wouldn't took it."

"Sure, I know," Elkan said, "to an auction house; the idee being to run away mit the proceeds and leave his creditors in the lurches!"

Dishkes again buried his head in his hands, while Ringentaub blushed guiltily.

"That may be all right in the antic business, Mr. Ringentaub," Elkan went on, "but in the garment business we ain't two hundred and fifty years behind the times exactly. We got associations of manufacturers and we got good lawyers, too, understand me; and we get right after crooks like Sammet, just the same as some of us helps out retailers that want to be decent, like Dishkes here."

Louis Dishkes raised his head suddenly.

"Then you heard the whole thing?" he cried; and Elkan nodded.

"I heard enough, Dishkes," he said; "and if you want my help you could come down to my place to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."

At this juncture the triggered bell rang loudly, and raising his hand for silence Ringentaub returned to the store.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Paul!" he said.

He addressed a broad-shouldered figure arrayed in the height of Canal Street fashion.

Aside from his clothing, however, there was little to betray the connoisseur of fine arts and antiques in the person of Jacob Paul, who possessed the brisk, businesslike manner and steel-blue eyes of a detective sergeant.

"Hello, Ringentaub!" he said. "You are doing a rushing business here—ain't it? More customers in the back room too?"

He glanced sharply at the open doorway in the partition, through which Elkan and Dishkes could be seen engaged in earnest conversation.

"Yow—customers!" Ringentaub exclaimed. "You know how it is in the antic business, Mr. Paul. For a hundred that looks, understand me, one buys; and that one, Mr. Paul, he comes into your place a dozen times before he makes up his mind yet."

"Well," Paul said with a smile, "I've made up my mind at last, Ringentaub, and I'll take them other two chairs at forty-five dollars."

Ringentaub nodded his head slowly.

"I thought you would, Mr. Paul," he said; "but just the same you are a little late, on account this here gentleman already bought 'em for fifty dollars."

A shade of disappointment passed over Paul's face as he turned to Max Merech.

"I congratulate you, Mister——"

"Merech," Max suggested.

"Merech," Paul continued. "You paid a high price for a couple of good pieces."

"I ain't paying nothing," Max replied. "I bought 'em for this lady here and her husband."

It was then that Jacob Paul for the first time noticed Yetta's presence, and he bowed apologetically.

"Is he also a collector?" he asked, and Max shook his head.

"He's in the garment business," Yetta volunteered, "for himself."

A puzzled expression wrinkled Paul's flat nose.

"I guess I ain't caught the name," he said.

"Lubliner," Yetta replied; "Elkan Lubliner, of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company."

"You don't tell me?" Jacob Paul said. "And so Mr. Lubliner is interested in antiques. That's quite a jump, from cloaks and suits to antiques already."

"Well," Merech explained, "Mr. Lubliner is refurnishing his house."

"Maybe," Elkan added as he appeared in the doorway of the partition, followed by Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub. "Buying a couple pieces of furniture is one thing, Merech, and refurnishing your house is another."

"You made a good start anyhow," Paul interrupted. "A couple chairs like them gives a tone to a room which is got crayon portraits hanging in it even."

Yetta blushed in the consciousness of what she had always considered to be a fine likeness of Elkan's grandfather—the Lubliner Rav—which hung in a silver-and-plush frame over the mantelpiece of the Lubliner front parlour. Elkan was unashamed, however, and he glared angrily at the connoisseur, who had started to leave the store.

"I suppose," he cried, "it ain't up to date that a feller should have hanging in his flat a portrait of his grandfather—olav hasholem!—which he was a learned man and a Tzadek, if there ever was one."

Paul hesitated, with his hand on the doorknob.

"I'll tell you, Mr. Lubliner," he said solemnly; "to me a crayon portrait is rotten, understand me, if it would be of a Tzadek oder a murderer."

And with a final bow to Mrs. Lubliner he banged the door behind him.

"Well, what d'ye think for a Rosher like that?" Elkan exclaimed.

"The fellow is disappointed that you got ahead of him buying the chairs, Mr. Lubliner," Ringentaub explained; "so he takes a chance that you and Mrs. Lubliner is that kind of people which is got hanging in the parlour crayon portraits, understand me, and he knocks you for it."

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"What could you expect from a feller which is content at fifty years of age to be a collector only?" he asked, and Dishkes nodded sympathetically.

"I bet yer, Mr. Lubliner," he agreed; "and so I would be at your store to-morrow morning at ten o'clock sure."

* * * * *

"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin said the following morning when Elkan related to him the events of the preceding night; "aber you couldn't blame Sammet none. Concerns like Sammet Brothers, which they are such dirty crooks that everybody is got suspicions of 'em, y'understand, must got to pay their bills prompt to the day, Elkan; because if they wouldn't be themselves good collectors, understand me, they would bust up quick."

"Sammet Brothers ain't in no danger of busting up," Elkan declared.

"Ain't they?" Marcus rejoined. "Well, you would be surprised, Elkan, if I would tell you that only yesterday already I am speaking to a feller by the name Hirsch, which works for years by the Hamsuckett Mills as city salesman, understand me, and he says that the least Sammet Brothers owes them people is ten thousand dollars."

"That shows what a big business they must do," Elkan said.

"Yow—a big business!" Marcus concluded. "This here Hirsch says not only Sammet Brothers' business falls off something terrible, y'understand, but they are also getting to be pretty slow pay; and if it wouldn't be that the Hamsuckett people is helping 'em along, verstehst du, they would of gone up schon long since already."

"And a good job too," Elkan said. "The cloak-and-suit trade could worry along without 'em, Mr. Polatkin; but anyhow, Mr. Polatkin, I ain't concerned with Sammet Brothers. The point is this: Dishkes says he has got a good stand there on Amsterdam Avenue, and if he could only hold on a couple months longer he wouldn't got no difficulty in pulling through."

Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.

"For my part," he said, "it wouldn't make no difference if Dishkes busts up now oder two months from now."

"But the way he tells me yesterday," Elkan replied, "not only he wouldn't got to bust up on us if he gets his two months' extension, but he says he would be doing a good business at that time."

Polatkin nodded skeptically.

"Sure, I know, Elkan," he said. "If everybody which is asking an extension would do the business they hope to do before the extension is up, Elkan," he said, "all the prompt-pay fellows must got to close up shop on account there wouldn't be enough business to go round."

"Well, anyhow," Elkan rejoined, "he's coming here to see us this morning, Mr. Polatkin, and he could show you how he figures it that he's got hopes to pull through."

Polatkin made a deprecatory gesture with his hand.

"If a feller is going to bust up on me, Elkan, I'd just as lief he ain't got no hopes at all," he grumbled; "otherwise he wastes your whole day on you figuring out his next season's profits if he can only stall off his creditors. With such a hoping feller, if you don't want to be out time as well as money, understand me, you should quick file a petition in bankruptcy against him; otherwise he wouldn't give you no peace at all."

Nevertheless, when Dishkes arrived, half an hour later, Polatkin ushered him into the firm's office and summoned Scheikowitz and Elkan to the conference.

"Well, Dishkes," he said in kindly accents, "you are up against it."

Dishkes nodded. He was by no means of a robust physical type, and his hands trembled so nervously as he fumbled for his papers in his breast pocket that he dropped its contents on the office floor. Elkan stooped to assist in retrieving the scattered papers, and among the documents he gathered together was a cabinet photograph.

"My wife!" Dishkes murmured hoarsely. "She ain't so strong, and I am sending her up to the country a couple months ago. I've been meaning I should go up and see her ever since, but——"

Here he gulped dismally; and there was an embarrassed silence, broken only by the faint noise occasioned by Philip Scheikowitz scratching his chin.

"That's a Rosher—that feller Sammet," Polatkin said at length. "Honestly, the way some business men ain't got no mercy at all for the other feller, you would think, Scheikowitz, they was living back in the old country yet!"

Scheikowitz nodded and glanced nervously from the photograph to Elkan.

"I think you was telling me you got a couple idees about helping Dishkes out, Elkan," he said. "So, in the first place, Dishkes, you should please let us see a list of your creditors."

With this prelude Scheikowitz drew forward his chair and plunged into a discussion of Dishkes' affairs that lasted for more than two hours; and when Dishkes at length departed he took with him notices of a meeting addressed to his twenty creditors, prepared for immediate mailing by Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's stenographer.

"And that's what we let ourselves in for," Scheikowitz declared after the elevator door had closed behind Dishkes. "To-morrow morning at eleven o'clock the place here would look like the waiting room of a depot, and all our competitors would be rubbering at our stock already."

"Let 'em rubber!" Elkan said. "If I don't get an extension for that feller my name ain't Elkan Lubliner at all; because between now and then I am going round to see them twenty creditors, and I bet yer they will sign an extension agreement, with the figures I am going to put up to them!"

"Figures!" Scheikowitz jeered. "What good is figures to them fellers? Showing figures to a bankrupt's creditors is like taking to a restaurant a feller which is hungry and letting him look at the knives and forks and plates, understand me!"

Elkan nodded.

"Sure, I know," he said; "but the figures ain't all."

Surreptitiously he drew from his pocket a faded cabinet photograph.

"I sneaked this away from Dishkes when he wasn't noticing," Elkan declared; "and if this don't fix 'em nothing will!"

* * * * *

"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," Leon Sammet cried after Elkan had broached the reason for his visit late that afternoon, "don't give me that tale of woe again. Every time we are asking Dishkes for money he pulls this here sick-wife story on us, understand me; and it don't go down with me no more."

"What d'ye mean don't go down with you?" Elkan demanded. "Do you claim his wife ain't sick?"

"I don't claim nothing," Sammet retorted. "I ain't no doctor, Lubliner. I am in the cloak-and-suit business, and I got to pay my creditors with United States money, Lubliner, if my wife would be dying yet."

"Which you ain't got no wife," Elkan added savagely.

"Gott sei Dank!" Sammet rejoined. "Aber if I did got one, y'understand, I would got Verstand enough to pick out a healthy woman, which Dishkes does everything the same. He picks out a store there on an avenue when it is a dead neighbourhood, understand me—and he wants us we should suffer for it."

"The neighbourhood wouldn't be dead after three months," Elkan said. "Round the corner on both sides of the street is building thirty-three-foot, seven-story elevator apartments yet; and when they are occupied, Dishkes would do a rushing business."

"That's all right," Sammet answered. "I ain't speculating in real-estate futures, Lubliner; so you might just so well go ahead and attend to your business, Lubliner, because me I am going to do the same."

"But lookyhere, Sammet," Elkan still pleaded. "I seen pretty near every one of Dishkes' creditors and they all agree the feller should have a three months' extension."

"Let 'em agree," Sammet shouted. "They are their own bosses and so am I, Lubliner; so if they want to give him an extension of their account I ain't got nothing to say. All I want is eight hundred dollars he owes me; and the rest of them suckers could agree till they are black in the face."

"Aber, anyhow, Sammet," Elkan said, "come to the meeting to-morrow morning and we would see what we could do."

"See what we could do!" Sammet bellowed. "You will see what I could do, Lubliner; and I will come to the meeting to-morrow and I'll do it too. So, if you don't mind, Lubliner, I could still do a little work before we close up here."

For a brief interval Elkan dug his nails into the palms of his hands, and his eyes unconsciously sought a target for a right swing on Sammet's bloated face; but at length he nodded and forced himself to smile.

"Schon gut, Mr. Sammet," he said; "then I will see you to-morrow."

A moment later he strode down lower Fifth Avenue toward the place of business of the last creditor on Dishkes' list. This was none other than Elkan's distinguished friend, B. Gans, the manufacturer of high-grade dresses; and it required less than ten minutes to procure his consent to the proposed extension.

"And I hope," Elkan said, "that we could count on you to be at the meeting to-morrow."

"That's something I couldn't do," B. Gans replied; "but I'll write you a letter and give you full authority you should represent me there. Excuse me a minute and I'll dictate it to Miss Scheindler." When he returned, five minutes later, he sat down at his desk and, crossing his legs, prepared to beguile the tedium of waiting.

"Well, Elkan," he said, "what you been doing with yourself lately? Thee-aytres and restaurants, I suppose?"

"Thee-aytres I ain't so much interested in no more," Elkan said. "The fact is, I am going in now for antics."

"Antics!" B. Gans exclaimed.

"Sure," Elkan replied; and there was a certain pride in his tones. "Antics is what I said, Mr. Gans—Jacobson chairs and them—now—cat's furniture."

"Cat's furniture?" Gans repeated. "What d'ye mean cat's furniture?"

"Angry cats," Elkan explained; and then a great light broke upon B. Gans.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You mean Henri Quatre furniture?"

"Hungry cat oder angry cat," Elkan said. "All I know is we are refurnishing our flat, Mr. Gans, and we are taking an advice from Max Merech, our designer. It's a funny thing about that feller, Mr. Gans—with garments he is right up to the minute, aber mit furniture nothing suits him unless it would be anyhow a hundred years old."

"So you are buying some antique furniture for your flat?" B. Gans commented, and Elkan nodded.

"We made a start anyhow," he said. "We bought a couple Jacobson chairs—two hundred and fifty years old already."

"Good!" B. Gans exclaimed. "I want to tell you, Elkan, you couldn't go far wrong if you would buy any piece of furniture over a hundred years old. They didn't know how to make things ugly in them days—and Jacobean chairs especially. I am furnishing my whole dining room in that period and my library in Old French. It costs money, Elkan, but it's worth it."

Elkan nodded and steered the conversation into safer channels; so that by the time Miss Scheindler had brought in the letter they were discussing familiar business topics.

"Also," Gans said as he appended his neat signature to the letter, "I wish you and Dishkes luck, Elkan; and keep up the good work about the antique furniture. Even when you would get stuck with a reproduction instead of a genuine piece once in a while, if it looks just as good as the original and no one tells you differently, understand me, you feel just as happy."