"Don't be excited," I was saying to myself. "Speak in a calm, low voice, as these Americans do. And for goodness' sake don't gesticulate!"

I went on to speak with exaggerated apathy, my hands so strenuously still that they fairly tingled with the effort, and, of course, I was so conscious of the whole performance that I did not know what I was talking about. This state of my mind soon wore off, however

Neither the meal nor the appointments of the car contained anything that I had not enjoyed scores of times before—in the hotels at which I stopped or at the restaurants at which I would dine and wine some of my customers; but to eat such a meal amid such surroundings while on the move was a novel experience. The electric lights, the soft red glint of the mahogany walls, the whiteness of the table linen, the silent efficiency of the colored waiters, coupled with the fact that all this was speeding onward through the night, made me feel as though I were partaking of a repast in an enchanted palace. The easy urbanity of the three well-dressed Americans gave me a sense of uncanny gentility and bliss

"Can it be that I am I?" I seemed to be wondering

The gaunt, elderly man, who was a member of a wholesale butcher concern, was seated diagonally across the table from me, but my eye was for the most part fixed on him rather than on the fat man who occupied the seat directly opposite mine. He was the most refined-looking man of the three and his vocabulary matched his appearance and manner. He fascinated me. His cultured English and ways conflicted in my mind with the character of his business. I could not help thinking of raw beef, bones, and congealed blood. I said to myself, "It takes a country like America to produce butchers who look and speak like noblemen." The United States was still full of surprises for me.

I was still discovering America

After dinner, when we were in the smoking-room again, it seemed to me that the three Gentiles were tired of me. Had I talked too much? Had I made a nuisance of myself? I was wretched



CHAPTER V

I LOST track of Loeb before the train reached Chicago, but about a fortnight later, when I was in St. Louis, I encountered him again. It was on a Monday morning. With sample-case in hand, I was crossing one of the busiest spots in the shopping district with preoccupied mien, when he hailed me: "Hello, Levinsky! How long have you been here?"

"Just arrived," I answered

"Where are you stopping?"

I named my hotel. I could see that he was taking note of the fact that I was crossing the street to the Great Bazar, one of the largest department stores in St. Louis

"I am going to tackle Huntington this morning," I said, with mild defiance

"Are you? Wish you luck," he remarked, quite gravely. "You'll find him a pretty tough customer, though." He was apparently too busy to indulge in raillery. "Wish you luck," he repeated, and was off

Huntington was the new head of the cloak-and-suit department in the Great Bazar, and in this capacity he was said to be doing wonders. It was not true that I had just arrived. I had been in the city nearly three days, and the day before I had mailed a letter to Huntington upon which I was building great hopes. I knew but too well that he was a "tough customer," my previous efforts to obtain an interview with him—in New York as well as here, in St.

Louis—having proven futile. I was too small a fish for him. Nor, indeed, was the Great Bazar the only large department store in the country whose door was closed to me. Barring six or seven such stores, in as many cities, with which I was in touch largely through the good offices of Eaton, my business was almost confined to small concerns. Eaton had given me letters to many other large firms, but these had brought no result. For one thing, my Russian name was against me. As I have said before, the American business world had not yet learned to take our people seriously

And so I had written Huntington, making a special plea for a few minutes of his "most valuable time." All I asked for was an opportunity "to point out some specific conditions that enable our house to reduce the cost of production to an unheard-of level." If he had only read that letter! I had bestowed so much effort on it, and I gave myself credit for having made a fine job of it

Arriving at the big store, I made my way to the sample-rooms. I did so by a freight-elevator, the passenger-cars being denied to men carrying sample-cases. In the waiting-room of the buyers' offices I found four or five men, all of them accompanied by colored porters who carried their sample-cases for them. A neat-looking office-boy, behind a small desk, was rocking on the hind legs of his chair with an air of supreme indifference.

"Will you take it in?" I said to him, handing him my card. "I want to see Mr. Huntington."

"Mr. Huntington is busy," he answered, mechanically, without ceasing to rock.

"Take it in, please," I whispered, imploringly. But he took no heed of me.

Had I been the only salesman in the room, I should have offered him a bribe.

As it was, there was nothing to do but to take a seat and wait

"These office-boys treat salesmen like so many dogs," I muttered, addressing myself to the man by my side

He sized me up, without deigning an answer.

Other salesmen made their appearance, some modestly, others with a studied air of confidence, loudly greeting those they knew. The presence of so many rivals and the frigidity of the office-boy made my heart heavy. I was still a novice at the game, and the least mark of hostility was apt to have a depressing effect on my spirits, though, as a rule, it only added fuel to my ambition

Some of the other salesmen were chatting and cracking jokes, for all the world like a group of devoted friends gathered for some common purpose. The ostensible meaning of it all was that the competition in which they were engaged was a "mere matter of business," of civilized rivalry; that it was not supposed to interfere with their friendship and mutual sense of fair play. But I thought that all this was mere pretense, and that at the bottom of their hearts each of them felt like wiping the rest of us off the face of the earth

Presently the office-boy gathered up our cards and disappeared behind a door. He was gone quite a few minutes. They were hours to me. I was in the toils of suspense, in a fever of eagerness and anxiety. As I sat gazing at the door through which the office-boy had vanished, Mr. Huntington loomed in my imagination large and formidable, mighty and stern. To be admitted to his presence was at this moment the highest aim of my life. Running through my anxious mind were various phrases from the letter I had sent him. Some of these seemed to be highly felicitous. The epistle was bound to make an impression. "Provided he has read it," I thought, anxiously. "But why should he have bothered with it? He probably receives scores like it. No, he has not read it."

The next moment it became clear to me that the opening sentence of my plea was sure to have arrested Huntington's attention, that he had read it to the end, and would let me not only show him my samples, but explain matters as well. Of a sudden, however, it struck me, to my horror, that I had no recollection of having signed that letter of mine

A middle-aged woman with a Jewish cast of features passed through the waiting-room. I knew that she was Huntington's assistant and she was apparently going to his compartment of the sample-room. The fact that she had a Jewish face seemed encouraging. Not that the Jews I had met in business had shown me more leniency or cordiality than the average Gentile.

Nor was an assistant buyer, as a rule, in a position to do something for a salesman unless his samples had been referred to her by her superior.

Nevertheless, her Jewish features spoke of kinship to me. They softened the grimness of the atmosphere around me

Finally the office-boy came back. My heart beat violently. Pausing at his desk, with only two or three of all the cards he had taken to the potentate, he looked at them, as he called out, with great dignity: "Mr. Huntington will see Mr. Sallinger, Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Feltman."

My heart sank. I suspected that my poor card had never reached its destination, that the boy had simply thrown it away, together with some of the other cards, perhaps, on his way to Mr. Huntington's room. Indeed, I knew that this was the fate of many a salesman's card

The boy called out Sallinger's name again, this time admitting him to the inner precincts. All those whose cards had been ignored except myself—there were about a dozen of them—picked up their sample-cases or had their porters do so and passed out without ado. As for me, I simply could not bring myself to leave

"He didn't mark my card, did he?" I said to the boy

"No, sir," he snapped, with a scowl.

When I reached the street I paused for some minutes, as though glued to the sidewalk. Was it all over? Was there no hope of my seeing Huntington? My mind would not be reconciled to such an outcome. I stood racking my brains for some subterfuge by which I might be able to break through the Chinese wall that separated me from the great Mogul, and when I finally set out on my way to other stores I was still brooding over the question. I visited several smaller places that day and I made some sales, but all the while I was displaying my samples, quoting prices, arguing, cajoling, explaining, jesting, the background of my brain never ceased bothering about Huntington and devising means of getting at him

The next morning I was in Huntington's waiting-room again. I fared no better than on the previous occasion. I tried to speak to Huntington on the telephone, but I only succeeded in speaking to a telephone-girl and she told me that he was busy

"Please tell Mr. Huntington I have a job to close out, a seventeen-dollar garment for seven fifty."

"Mr. Huntington is busy."

At this moment it seemed to me that all talk of American liberty was mere cant

I asked the manager of the hotel at which I was stopping to give me a letter of introduction to him, and received a polite no for an answer. I discovered the restaurant where Huntington was in the habit of taking lunch and I went there for my next noon-hour meal for the purpose of asking him for an interview. I knew him by sight, for I had seen him twice in New York, so when he walked into the restaurant there was a catch at my heart. He was a spare little man with a face, mustache, and hair that looked as though he had just been dipped in a pail of saffron paint. He was accompanied by another man. I was determined first to let him have his lunch and then, on his way out, to accost him. Presently, lo and behold! Loeb entered the restaurant and walked straight up to Huntington's table, evidently by appointment. I nearly groaned. I knew that Loeb had a spacious sample-room at his hotel, with scores of garments hung out, and even with wire figures.

It was clear that Huntington had visited it or was going to, while I could not even get him to hear my prices. Was that fair? I saw the law of free competition, the great law of struggle and the survival of the fittest, defied, violated, desecrated

I discovered the residence of Huntington's assistant, and called on her. I had offered presents to other assistant buyers and some of them had been accepted, so I tried the same method in this case—with an unfortunate result. Huntington's assistant not only rejected my bribe, but flew into a passion to boot, and it was all my powers of pleading could do to have her promise me not to report the matter to her principal

I learned that Huntington was a member of the Elks and a frequenter of their local club-house, but, unfortunately, I was not a member of that order

I went to the Yiddish-speaking quarter of St. Louis, made the acquaintance of a man who was ready to sell me, on the instalment plan, everything under the sun, from a house lot and a lottery ticket to a divorce, and who undertook to find me (for ten dollars) somebody who would give me a "first-class introduction" to Huntington; but his eager eloquence failed to convince me. I had my coat pressed by a Jewish tailor whose place was around the corner from Huntington's residence and who pressed his suits for him. I had a shave in the barber shop at which Huntington kept his shaving-cup. I learned something of the great man's family life, of his character, ways, habits. It proved that he lived quite modestly, and that his income was somewhere between sixty and seventy dollars a week. Mine was three times as large. That I should have to rack my brains, do detective work, and be subjected to all sorts of humiliation in an effort to obtain an audience with him seemed to be a most absurd injustice

I was losing precious time, but I could not bring myself to get away from St. Louis without having had the desired interview. Huntington's name was buzzing in my mind like an insect. It was a veritable obsession

My talk with his barber led me to a bowling-alley. Being a passionate bowler, the cloak-buyer visited the place for an hour or so three or four times a week. As a consequence of this discovery I spent two afternoons and an evening there, practising a game which I had never even heard of before

My labors were not thrown away. The next evening I saw Huntington and a son of his in the place and we bowled some games together. Seen at close range, the cloak-buyer was a commonplace-looking fellow. I thought that he did not look much older than his son, and that both of them might have just stepped out from behind a necktie counter. I searched the older man's countenance for marks of astuteness, initiative, or energy, without being able to find any. But he certainly was a forcible bowler

When he made a sensational hit and there broke out a roar of admiration I surpassed all the other bystanders in exuberance. "I must not overdo it, though," I cautioned myself. "He cannot be a fool. He'll see through me." His son was apparently very proud of him, so I said to the young man: "Anybody can see your father is an energetic man."

"You bet he is," the young man returned, appreciatively. I led him on and he told me about his father's baseball record. I dropped a remark about his being "successful in business as well as in athletics" and wound up by introducing myself and asking to be introduced to his father. It was a rather dangerous venture, for the older Huntington was apt to remember my name, in which case my efforts might bring me nothing but a rebuff. Anyhow, I took the plunge and, to my great delight, he did not seem ever to have heard of me

Ten minutes later the three of us were seated over glasses of lager in the beer-garden with which the bowling-alley was connected. I told them that I was from New York and that I had come to St. Louis partly on business and partly to visit a sister who lived in their neighborhood. The elder Huntington said something of the rapid growth of New York, of its new high buildings. His English was curiously interspersed with a bookish phraseology that seemed to be traceable to the high-flown advertisements of his department in the newspapers. I veered the conversation from the architectural changes that had come over New York to changes of an ethnographic character.

"Our people, immigrants from Russia, I mean, are beginning to play a part in the business life of the city," I said

"Are you a Russian?" he asked

"I used to be," I answered, with a smile. "I am an American now."

"That's right."

"You see, we are only new-comers. The German Jews began coming a great many years ahead of us, but we can't kick, either."

"I suppose not," he said, genially.

"For one thing, we are the early bird that gets, or is bound to get, the worm. I mean it in a literal sense. Our people go to business at a much earlier hour and go home much later. There is quite a number of them in your line of business, too."

"I know," he said. "Of course, the 'hands' are mostly Russian Hebrews, but some of them have gone into manufacturing, and I don't doubt but they'll make a success of it."

"Why, they are making a success of it, Mr. Huntington."

I felt that I was treading on risky gound, that he might smell a rat at any moment; but I felt, also, that when he heard why manufacturers of my type were able to undersell the big old firms he would find my talk too tempting to cut it short. And so I rushed on. I explained that the Russian cloak-manufacturer operated on a basis of much lower profits and figured down expenses to a point never dreamed of before; that the German-American cloak-manufacturer was primarily a merchant, not a tailor; that he was compelled to leave things to his designer and a foreman, whereas his Russian competitor was a tailor or cloak-operator himself, and was, therefore, able to economize in ways that never occurred to the heads of the old houses.

"I see," Huntington said, with a queer stare at me

"Besides, our people content themselves with small profits," I pursued. "We are modest."

Here I plagiarized an epigram I had heard from Meyer Nodelman: "Our German co-religionists will spend their money before they have made it, while we try to make it first."

I expected Huntington to smile, but he did not. He was listening with sphinx-like gravity. When I paused, my face and my ears burning, he said, with some embarrassment: "What is your business, may I ask?" "I am in the same line. Cloaks." "Are you?" With another stare

Tense with excitement, I said, with daredevil recklessness: "The trouble is that successful men like yourself are so hard to get at, Mr.

Huntington."

"What do you mean?" he said, with a cryptic laugh

I made a clean breast of it

Perhaps he was flattered by my picture of him as an inaccessible magnate; perhaps he simply appreciated the joke of the thing and the energy and tenacity I had brought to it, but he let me narrate the adventure in detail.

I told him the bare truth, and I did so with conscious simple-heartedness, straining every nerve to make a favorable impression

As he listened he repeatedly broke into laughter, and when I had finished he said to his son: "Sounds like a detective story, doesn't it?"

But his demeanor was still enigmatic, and I anxiously wondered whether I impressed him as an energetic business man or merely as an adventurer, a crank, or even a crook

"All I ask for is an opportunity to show you my samples, Mr. Huntington," I said.

"Well," he answered, deliberately, "there can be no harm in that." And after a pause, "You've bagged your game so far as that's concerned."

And he merrily made me an appointment for the next morning

About a month later I came across Loeb on Broadway, New York

"By the way," he said, in the course of our brief talk, with a twinkle in his eve, "did you sell anything to Huntington?" "Huntington? St. Louis? Why, he really is a hard man to reach," I answered, glumly.

At that very moment my cutters were at work on a big order from Huntington, largely for copies from Loeb's styles. I had filled a test order of his so promptly and so completely to his satisfaction, and my prices were so overwhelmingly below those in Loeb's bill, that the St. Louis buyer had wired me a "duplicate" for eight hundred suits

There was a buyer in Cleveland, a bright, forceful little man who would not let a salesman quote his price until he had made a guess at it. His name was Lemmelmann. He was an excellent business man and a charming fellow, but he had a weakness for parading his ability to estimate the price of a garment "down to a cent." The salesmen naturally humored this ambition of his and every time he made a correct guess they would applaud him without stint, and I would follow their example. On one occasion I came to Cleveland with two especially prepared compliments in my mind

"Every human being has five senses," I said to the little buyer. "You have six, Mr. Lemmelmann. You were born with a price sense besides the ordinary five."

"My, but it's a good one," he returned, jovially

"Yes, you have more senses than anybody else, Mr. Lemmelmann," I added.

"You're the most sensible man in the world."

"Why—why, you can send stuff like that to Puck or Judge and get a five-dollar bill for it. How much will you charge me? Will that do?" he asked, handing me a cigar

The two compliments cemented our friendship. At least, I thought they did

Another buyer, in Atlanta, Georgia, had a truly wonderful memory. He seemed to remember every sample he had ever seen—goods, lines, trimmings, price, and all. He was an eccentric man. Sometimes he would receive a crowd of salesmen in rapid succession, inspect their merchandise and hear their prices without making any purchase. Later, sometimes on the same day, he would send out orders for the "numbers" that had taken his fancy

While showing him my samples one morning I essayed to express amazement at his unusual memory. But in this case I mistook my man

"If everybody had your marvelous memory there would be little work for bookkeepers," I jested

Whereupon he darted an impatient glance at me and growled: "Never mind my memory. You sell cloaks and suits, don't you? If you deal in taffy, you'll have to see the buyer of the candy department."



CHAPTER VI

HUNTINGTON was a rising man and the other cloak-buyers were watchng him.

When it became known that there was a young manufacturer named Levinsky with whom he was placing heavy orders I began to attract general attention. My reputation for selling "first-rate stuff" for the lowest prices quoted spread. Buyers would call at my rookery of a shop before I had time to seek an interview with them. The appearance of my place and the crudity of my office facilities, so far from militating against my progress, helped to accelerate it. Skeptical buyers who had doubted my ability to undersell the old-established houses became convinced of it when they inspected my primitive-looking establishment.

The place became far too small for me. I moved to much larger quarters, consisting of the two uppermost floors and garret of a double tenement-house of the old type. A hall bedroom was converted into an office, the first separate room I ever had for the purpose, and I enjoyed the possession of it as much as I had done my first check-book. I had a lounge put in it, and often, at the height of the manufacturing season, when I worked from daybreak far into the night and lived on sandwiches, I would, instead of going home for the night, snatch three or four hours' sleep on it. The only thing that annoyed me was a faint odor of mold which filled my bedroom-office and which kept me in mind of the Margolises' old apartment.

There was the pain of my second love-affair in that odor, for, although I had not seen Dora nor heard of her for more than two years, I still thought of her often, and when I did her image still gave me pangs of yearning.

There was an air of prosperity and growth about my new place, but this did not interfere with the old air of skimpiness and cheapness as to running expenses and other elements that go to make up the cost of production

Bender's salary had been raised substantially, so much so that he had resigned his place as evening-school teacher, devoting himself exclusively to my shop and office. He was provokingly childish as ever, but he had learned a vast deal about the cloak business, its mechanical branch as well as the commercial end of it, and his usefulness had grown enormously

One morning I was hustling about my garret floor, vibrating with energy and self-importance, when he came up the stairs, saying: "There is a woman on the main floor who wants to see you. She says you know her." Was it Dora? I descended the stairs in a flutter

I was mistaken. It was Mrs. Chaikin. She looked haggard and more than usually frowsy. The cause of her pitiable appearance was no riddle to me. I knew that her husband's partner had made a mess of their business and that Chaikin had lost all his savings. "Does she want a loan?" I speculated

My first impulse was to take her to my little office, but I instantly realized that it would not be wise to flaunt such a mark of my advancement before her. I offered her a chair in a corner of the room in which I found her

"How is Chaikin? How is Maxie?"

"Thank God, Maxie is quite a boy," she answered, coyly. "Why don't you come to see him? Have you forgotten him? He has not forgotten you. Always asking about 'Uncle Levinsky.' Some little children have a better memory than some grown people."

Having delivered this thrust, she swept my shop with a sepulchral glance, followed by a succession of nods. Then she said, with a grin at once wheedling and malicious: "There are two more floors, aren't there? And I see you're very busy, thank God. Plenty of orders, hey? Thank God. Well, when Chaikin gets something started and there is nobody to spoil it, it's sure to go well. Isn't it?"

"Chaikin is certainly a fine designer," I replied, noncommittally, wondering what she was driving at

"A fine designer! Is that all?" she protested, with exquisite sarcasm. "And who fixed up this whole business? styles got the business started and gave it the name it has? Only 'a fine designer,' indeed! It's a good thing you admit that much at least. Well, but what's the use quarreling? I am here as a friend, not to make threats. That's not in my nature."

She gave me a propitiating look, and paused for my reply. "What do you mean, Mrs. Chaikin?" I asked, with an air of complaisant perplexity

"'What do you mean?'" she mocked me, suavely. "Poor fellow, he doesn't understand what a person means. He has no head on his shoulders, the poor thing. But what's the good beating about the bush, Levinsky? I am here to tell you that we have decided to come back and be partners again."

I did not burst into laughter. I just looked her over, and said, in the calmest and most business-like manner: "That's impossible, Mrs. Chaikin. The business doesn't need any partner."

"Doesn't need any partner! But it's ours, this business, as much as yours; even more. It is our sweat and our blood. Why, you hadn't a cent to your name when we started it, and you know it. And what did you have, pray? Did you know anything about cloaks? Could you do anything without Chaikin?"

"We won't argue about it, Mrs. Chaikin."

"Not argue about it?"

She was working herself into a rage, but she nipped it in the bud. "Now, look here, Levinsky," she said, with fresh suavity. "I have told you I haven't come here to pick a quarrel. Maxie misses you very much. He's always speaking about you." She tried a tone of persuasion. "When Chaikin and you are together again the business will go like grease. You know it will. He'll be the inside man and you'll attend to the outside business. You won't have to worry about anything around the shop, and, well, I needn't tell you what his designs will do for the business. Why, the Manheimers are just begging him to become their partner" (this was a lie, of course), "but I say: 'No, Chaikin! Better let us stick to our own business, even if it is much smaller, and let's be satisfied with whatever God is pleased to give us.'" Her protestations and pleadings proving ineffectual, she burst into another fury and made an ugly scene, threatening to retain "the biggest lawyer in the 'Nited States" and to commence action against me

I smiled

"Look at him! He's smiling!" she said, addressing herself to some of my men.

"He thinks he can swindle people and be left alone."

"Better go home, Mrs. Chaikin," I said, impatiently. "I have no time." "All right. We shall see!" she snapped, flouncing out. Before she closed the door on herself she returned and, stalking up to the chair which she had occupied a minute before, she seated herself again, defiantly. "Chase me out, if you dare," she said, with a sneer, her chin in the air. "I should just like to see you do it. Should like to see you chase me out of my own shop. It's all mine! all mine!" she shouted, her voice mounting hysterically. "All mine! Chaikin's sweat and blood. You're a swindler, a thief! I'll put you in Sing Sing."

She went off into a swoon, more or less affected, and when I had brought her to herself she shed a flood of quiet tears

"Take pity, oh, do take pity!" she besought, patting my hand. "You have a Jewish heart; you'll take pity."

There was nothing for it but to edge out of the room and to hide myself

A week later she came again, this time with Maxie, whom I had not seen for nearly three years and who seemed to have grown to double his former size.

On this occasion she threatened to denounce me to the Cloak-makers' Union for employing scab labor. Finally she made a scene that caused me to whisper to Bender to telephone for a policeman. Before complying, however, he tried persuasion.

"You had better go, madam," he said to her, meekly. "You are excited."

Partly because he was a stranger to her, but mainly, I think, because of his American appearance and English, she obeyed him at once.

The next day her husband came. He looked so worn and wretched and he was so ill at ease as he attempted to explain his errand that I could scarcely make out his words, but I received him well and my manner was encouraging, so he soon found his tongue

"Don't you care to have it in the old way again?" he said, piteously

"Why, I wish I could, Mr. Chaikin. I should be very glad to have you here. I mean what I say. But it's really impossible."

"I should try my best, you know." "I know you would."

After a pause he said: "She'll drive me into the grave. She makes my life so miserable."

"But it was she who made you get out of our partnership," I remarked, sympathetically

"Yes, and now she blames it all on me. When she heard you had moved to a larger place she fainted. Couldn't you take me back?"

He finally went to work as a designer for one of the old firms, at a smaller salary than his former employers had paid him

For the present I continued to worry along with my free-lance designer, but as a matter of fact Chaikin's wonderful feeling for line and color was, unbeknown to himself, in my service. The practice of pirating designs was rapidly becoming an open secret, in fact. Styles put out by the big houses were copied by some of their tailors, who would sell the drawing for a few dollars to some of the smaller houses in plenty of time before the new cloak or suit had been placed on the market. In this manner it was that I obtained, almost regularly, copies of Chaikin's latest designs

The period of dire distress that smote the country about this time—the memorable crisis of 1893—dealt me a staggering blow, but I soon recovered from it. The crisis had been preceded by a series of bitter conflicts between the old manufacturers and the Cloak-makers' Union, in the form of lockouts, strikes, and criminal proceedings against the leaders of the union, which had proved fatal to both. The union was still in existence, but it was a mere shadow of the formidable body that it had been three years before. And, as work was scarce, labor could be had for a song, as the phrase goes. This enabled me to make a number of comparatively large sales.

To tell the truth, the decay of the union was a source of regret to me, as the special talents I had developed for dodging it while it was powerful had formerly given me an advantage over a majority of my competitors which I now did not enjoy. Everybody was now practically free from its control.

Everybody could have all the cheap labor he wanted.

Still, I was one of a minority of cloak-manufacturers who contrived to bring down the cost of production to an extraordinarily low level, and so I gradually obtained considerable business, rallying from the shock of the panic before it was well over.



CHAPTER VII

THE panic was followed by a carnival of prosperity of which I received a generous share. My business was progressing with leaps and bounds

The factory and office were moved to Broadway. This time it was a real office, with several bookkeepers, stenographers, model girls, and golden legends on the doors. These legends were always glittering in my mind

People were loading me with flattery. Everybody was telling me that I had "got there," and some were hinting, or saying in so many words, that I was a man of rare gifts, of exceptional character. I accepted it all as my due.

Nay, I regarded myself as rather underestimated. "They don't really understand me," I would think to myself. "They know that I possess brains and grit and all that sort of thing, but they are too commonplace to appreciate the subtlety of my thoughts and feelings."

Every successful man is a Napoleon in one thing at least—in believing himself the ward of a lucky star. I was no exception to this rule. I came to think myself infallible

In short, prosperity had turned my head

I looked upon poor people with more contempt than ever. I still called them "misfits," in a Darwinian sense. The removal of my business to Broadway was an official confirmation of my being one of the fittest, and those golden inscriptions on my two office doors seemed to proclaim it solemnly

At the same time I did not seem to be successful enough. I felt as though my rewards were inadequate. I was now worth more than one hundred thousand dollars, and the sum did not seem to be anything to rejoice over. My fortune was not climbing rapidly enough. I was almost tempted to stamp my foot and snarlingly urge it on. Only one hundred thousand! Why, there were so many illiterate dunces who had not even heard of Darwin and Spencer and who were worth more

There were moments, however, when my success would seem something incredible. That was usually when I chanced to think of some scene of my past life with special vividness. Could it be possible that I was worth a hundred thousand dollars, that I wore six-dollar shoes, ate dollar lunches, and had an army of employees at my beck and call? I never recalled my unrealized dreams of a college education without experiencing a qualm of regret

One day—it was a drizzly afternoon in April—as I walked along Broadway under my umbrella I came across Jake Mindels, the handsome young man who had been my companion during the period when I was preparing for City College. I had not seen him for over two years, but I had kept track of his career and I knew that he had recently graduated from the University Medical College and had opened a doctor's office on Rivington Street. His studiously dignified carriage, his Prince Albert coat, the way he wore his soft hat, the way he held his open umbrella, and, above all, the beard he was growing, betrayed a desire to look his new part. And he did look it, too. The nascent beard, the frock-coat, and the soft hat became him. He was handsomer than ever, and there was a new air of quiet, though conscious, intellectual importance about him.

The sight of him as I beheld him coming toward me gave me a pang of envy

"Levinsky! How are you? How are you?" he shouted, flinging himself at me effusively

"I hear you're practising medicine," I returned. And, looking him over gaily, I added, "A doctor every inch of you."

He blushed

"And you're a rich man, I hear."

"Vanderbilt is richer, I can assure you. I should change places with you any time." In my heart I remarked, "Yes, I am worth a hundred thousand dollars, while he is probably struggling to make a living, but I can beat him at his own intellectual game, too, even if he has studied anatomy and physiology."

"Well, you will be a Vanderbilt some day. You're only beginning to make money. People say you are a great success. I was so glad to hear of it."

"And I am glad to hear that you were glad," I jested, gratefully. "And how are things with you?"

"All right," he answered, firmly. "I can't complain. For the time I've been practising I am doing very well. Very well, indeed."

He told me of a case in which one of the oldest and most successful physicians on the East Side had made a false diagnosis, and where he, Mindels, had made the correct one and saved the patient's life

"The family wouldn't hear of another doctor now. They would give their lives for me," he said, with a simper

I took him up to my factory and showed him about. He was lavish in his expressions of surprise at the magnitude of my concern, and when I asked him to have dinner with me that evening he seemed to be more than pleased. Apart from other feelings, he was probably glad to renew acquaintance with a man who could afford to pay a decent doctor's bill, and through whom he might get in touch with other desirable patrons

Presently he wrinkled his forehead, as though he had suddenly remembered something

"Oh! Let me see!" he said. "Couldn't we postpone it? I have a confinement this evening. I expect to be called at any moment."

We changed the date, and he departed. I was left somewhat excited by the reminiscences that the meeting had evoked in me. I fell to pacing the floor of my office, ruminating upon the change which the past few years had wrought in his life and in mine. His boastful garrulity was something new in him. Was it the struggle for existence which was forcing it upon him? I wondered whether that confinement story was not a fib invented to flaunt his professional success. Thereupon I gave myself credit for my knowledge of human nature. "That's one of the secrets of my success," I thought. I complimented myself upon the possession of all sorts of talents, but my keenest ambition was to be recognized as an unerring judge of men

The amusing part of it was that in 1894, for example, I found that in 1893 my judgment of men and things had been immature and puerile. I was convinced that now at last my insight was a thoroughly reliable instrurnent, only a year later to look back upon my opinions of 1894 with contempt. I was everlastingly revising my views of people, including my own self



BOOK XI

MATRIMONY

CHAPTER I

ONE afternoon in January or February I was on a Lexington Avenue car going up-town. At Sixty-seventh Street the car was invaded by a vivacious crowd of young girls, each with a stack of books under one of her arms. It was evident that they were returning home from Normal College, which was on that corner. Some of them preferred to stand, holding on to straps, so as to face and converse with their seated chums

I was watching them as they chattered, laughed, or whispered, bubbling over with the joy of being young and with the consciousness of their budding womanhood, when my attention was attracted to one of their number—a tall, lanky, long-necked lass of fifteen or sixteen. She was hanging on to a strap directly across the car from me. I could not see her face, but the shape of her head and a certain jerk of it, when she laughed, looked strikingly familiar to me. Presently she chanced to turn half-way around, and I recognized her. It was Lucy. I had not seen her for six years. She was completely changed and yet the same. Not yet fully formed, elongated, attenuated, angular, ridiculously too tall for her looks, and not quite so pretty as she had been at nine or ten, but overflowing with color, with light, with blossoming life, she thrilled me almost to tears. I was aching to call out her name, to hear myself say "Lucy" as I had once been wont to do, but I was not sure that it would be advisable to let her father hear of my lingering interest in his family. While I was thus debating with myself whether I should accost her, her glance fell on me. She transferred it to one of the windows, and the next moment she fell to eying me furtively.

"She has recognized me, but she won't come over to me," I thought. "She seems to be aware of her father's jealousy." It was a painful moment

Presently her fresh, youthful face brightened up. She bent over to two of her girl friends and whispered something to them, and then these threw glances at me. After some more whispering Lucy faced about boldly and stepped over to me

"I beg your pardon. Aren't you Mr. Levinsky?" she asked, with sweet, girlish shyness

"Of course I am, Lucy! Lucy dear, how are you? Quite a young lady!"

"I was wondering," she went on without answering. "At first I did not know.

You did seem familiar to me, but I could not locate your face. But then, all at once, don't you know, I said to myself, 'Why, it's Mr. Levinsky.' Oh, I'm so glad to see you."

She was all flushed and beaming with the surprise of the meeting, with consciousness of the eyes of her classmates who were watching her, and with something else which seemed to say: "I am Lucy, but not the little girl you used to play with. I am a young woman."

"And I was wondering who that tall, charming young lady was," I said. "Lord! how you have grown, Lucy!"

"Yes, I'm already taller than mother and father," she answered

"Than both together?"

"No, not as bad as all that," she giggled

For children of our immigrants to outgrow their parents, not only intellectually, but physically as well, is a common phenomenon. Perhaps it is due to their being fed far better than their parents were in their childhood and youth

I asked Lucy to take a seat by my side and she did, cheerfully. (" Maybe she does not know anything," I wondered.) "How is Danny?" I asked. "Still fat?"

"No, not very," she laughed. "He goes to school. I have a little sister, too," she added, blushing the least bit.

I winced. It was as though I had heard something revoltingly unseemly. Then a thought crossed my mind, and, seized with an odd feeling of curiosity, I asked: "How old is she?"

"Oh, a little less than a year," Lucy replied. "She's awful cute," she laughed

"And how is papa?" I inquired, to turn the conversation

"He's all right, thank you," she answered, gravely. "Only he lost a lot of money on account of the hard times. Many of his customers were out of work.

Business is picking up, though."

"And how is Becky? Are you still great friends?"

"Why, she ought to be here!" she replied, gazing around the car. "Must be in the next car."

"In another car!" I exclaimed, in mock amazement. "Not by your side?" Lucy laughed. "We are in the same class," she said

"And, of course, the families still live in the same house?" She nodded affirmatively, adding that they lived at One Hundred and Second Street near Madison Avenue, about a block and a half from the Park

"Come up some time, won't you?" she gurgled, with childish amiability, yet with apparent awkwardness

I wondered whether she was aware of her father's jealousy. "If she were she certainly would not invite me to the house," I reflected

I made no answer to her invitation

"Won't you come up?" she insisted.

I thought: "She doesn't seem to know anything about it. She has only heard that I had a quarrel with her mother." I shook my head, smiling affectionately

"Why, are you still angry at mother?" she pursued, shaking her head, deprecatingly, as who should say, "You're a bad boy."

I thought, "Of course she doesn't know." I smiled again. Then I said: "You're a sweet girl, all the same. And a big one, too."

"Thank you. Do come. Will you?" I shook my head

"Will you never come?" she asked, playfully. "Never? Never?"

"I have told you you're a charming girl, haven't I? What more do you want?"

The American children of the Ghetto are American not only in their language, tastes, and ambitions, but in outward appearance as well. Their bearing, gestures, the play of their features, and something in the very expression of their Semitic faces proclaim the land of their birth. All this was true of Lucy. She was fascinatingly American, and I told her so

"You're not simply a charming girl. You're a charming American girl," I said.

I wondered whether Dora had been keeping up her studies, and by questioning Lucy about the books under her arm I contrived to elicit the information that her mother had read not only such works as the Vicar of Wakefield, Washington Irving's Sketch Book, and Lamb's Shakespeare Stories, which had been part of Lucy's course during her first year at college, but that she had also read some of the works of Cooper, George Eliot, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and all sorts of cheaper novels

"Mother is a great reader," Lucy said. "She reads more than I do. Why, she reads newspapers and magazines—everything she can lay her hands on! Father calls her Professor."

She also told me that her mother had read a good deal of poetry, that she knew the "Ancient Mariner" and "The Raven" by heart

"She's always at me because I don't care for poetry as much as she does," she laughed.

"Well, you're not taller than your mother in this respect, are you?"

"N-no," she assented, with an appreciative giggle

She left the car on the corner of One Hundred and Second Street. I was in a queer state of excitement

It flashed upon my mind that the section of Central Park in the vicinity of One Hundred and Second Street teemed with women and baby-carriages, and that it was but natural to suppose that Dora would be out every day wheeling her baby in that locality, and reading a book, perhaps. I visioned myself meeting her there some afternoon and telling her of my undying love. I even worked out the details of the plan, but I felt that I should never carry it out

I still loved Dora, but that was the Dora of six years before, an image of an enshrined past. She was a dear, sad memory scarcely anything more, and it seemed as though to disturb that sadness were sacrilege

"I shall probably run up against her some day," I said to myself, dolefully

And an echo seemed to add, "You are all alone in the world!"



CHAPTER II

I WAS a lonely man. I was pulsating with activity and with a sense of triumph. I was receiving multitudes of new impressions and enjoying life in a multitude of ways, with no dearth of woman and song in the program. But at the bottom of my consciousness I was always lonely

There were moments when my desolation would assert itself rather violently.

This happened nearly every time I returned to New York from the road. As the train entered the great city my sense of home-coming would emphasize a feeling that the furnished two-room apartment on Lexington Avenue which was waiting to receive me was not a home

Meyer Nodelman, whom I often met in a Broadway restaurant at the lunch hour these days, would chaff or lecture me earnestly upon my unmarried state

"You don't know who you're working for," he would say, his sad, Oriental face taking on an affectionate expression. "Life is short at best, but when a fellow has nobody to bear his name after he is gone it is shorter still.

Get married, my boy. Get married." He took a lively interest in the growth of my business. He rejoiced in it as though he ascribed my successes to the loans he had given me when I struggled for a foothold. He often alluded to those favors, but he was a devoted friend, all the same. Moreover, he was a most attractive man to talk to, especially when the conversation dealt with one's intimate life. With all his illiteracy and crudity of language he had rare insight into the human heart and was full of subtle sympathy. He was the only person in America with whom I often indulged in a heart-to-heart confab. He was keenly aware of my loneliness. It seemed as though it disturbed him

"You are not a happy man, Levinsky," he once said to me. "You feel more alone than any bachelor I ever knew. You're an orphan, poor thing. You have a fine business and plenty of money and all sorts of nice times, but you are an orphan, just the same. You're still a child. You need a mother. Well, but what's the use? Your own mother—peace upon her—cannot be brought to life until the coming of the Messiah, so do the next best thing, Levinsky. Get married and you will have a mother—for your children. It isn't the same kind, but you won't feel lonesome any longer."

I laughed

"Laugh away, Levinsky. But you can't help it. And the smart books you read won't help you, either. You've got to get married whether you want it or not. This is a bill that must be paid."

I had lunch with him a day or two after my meeting with Lucy. The sight of his affectionate, melancholy face and the warmth of his greeting somehow made me think of the sentimental mood in which I had been left by that encounter

"I do feel lonesome," I said, with a smile, in the course of our chat. "I met a girl the other day—"

"Did you?" he said, expectantly.

"Oh, she is a mere child, not the kind of girl you mean, Mr. Nodelman. I once boarded in her mother's house. She was a mere child then. She is still a child, but she goes to college now, and she is taller than her mother.

When I saw her I felt old."

"Is that anything to be sad about? Pshaw! Get married, and you'll have a daughter of your own, and when she grows up you won't be sorry. Take it from me, Levinsky. There can be no greater pleasure than to watch your kids grow." And he added, in a lower tone, "I do advise you to get married."

"Perhaps I ought to," I said, listlessly. "But then it takes two to make a bargain."

"Oh, there are lots of good girls, and you can have the best piece of goods there is." "Oh, I don't know. It wouldn't be hard to find a good girl, perhaps. The question is whether she'll be good after the honeymoon is over."

"You don't want a bond and mortgage to guarantee that you'll be happy, do you? A fellow must be ready to take a chance."

There is an old story of a rabbi who, upon being asked by a bachelor whether he should marry, said: "If you do you will regret it, my son; but then if you remain single you are sure to regret it just as much; perhaps more. So get married like everybody else and regret it like everybody else." Nodelman now quoted that rabbi. I had heard the anecdote more than once before, but it seemed as though its meaning had now revealed itself to me for the first time.

"According to that rabbi, marriage is not a pleasure, but a miserable necessity," I urged

"Well, it isn't all misery, either. People are fond of saying that the best marriage is a curse. But it's the other way around. The worst marriage has some blessing in it, Levinsky."

"Oh, I don't know."

"Get married and you will. There is plenty of pleasure in the worst of homes. Take it from me,. Levinsky. When I come home and feel that I have somebody to live for, that it is not the devil I am working for, then—take it from me, Levinsky—I should not give one moment like that for all the other pleasures in the world put together."

I thought of his wife whom his mother had repeatedly described to me as a "meat-ball face" and a virago, and of his home which I had always pictured as hell. His words touched me

"It isn't that I don't want to take chances, Mr. Nodelman. It's something else. Were you ever in love, Mr. Nodelman?"

"What? Was I in love? Why?" he demanded, coloring. "What put it in your head to ask me such a funny question?"

"Funny! There's more pain than fun in it. Well, I have loved, Mr. Nodelman, and that's why it's so hard for me to think of marriage as a cold proposition. I don't think I could marry a girl I did not love."

I expected an argument against love-marriages, but Nodelman had none to offer. Instead, he had me dilate on the bliss and the agony of loving. He asked me questions and eagerly listened to my answers. I told him of my own two love-affairs, particularly of my relations with Dora. I omitted names and other details that might have pointed, ever so remotely, to Mrs.

Margolis's identity. Nodelman was interested intensely. His interrogations were of the kind that a girl of sixteen who had not yet loved might address to a bosom friend who had. How does it feel to be in doubt whether one's passion had found an echo? How did I feel when our lips were joined in our first kiss? How did she carry herself the next time I saw her? Was she shy? Did she look happy? Was she afraid of her husband? Was I afraid? The restaurant had been nearly deserted for about an hour, and we still sat smoking cigars and whispering.



CHAPTER III

ONE day, as Nodelman took his seat across the table from me at the restaurant, he said: "Well, Levinsky, it's no use, you'll have to get married now. There will be no wriggling out of it. My wife has set her mind on it."

"Your wife?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes. I have an order to bring you up to the house, and that's all there is to it. Don't blame her, though. The fault is mine. I have told her so much about you she wants to know you."

"To know me and to marry me off, hey? And yet you claim to be a friend of mine."

"Well, it's no use talking. You'll have to come."

I received a formal invitation, written in English by Mrs. Nodelman, and on a Friday night in May I was in my friend's house for supper, as Nodelman called it, or "dinner," as his wife would have it

The family occupied one of a small group of lingering, brownstone, private dwellings in a neighborhood swarming with the inmates of new tenement "barracks."

"Glad to meechye," Mrs. Nodelman welcomed me. "Meyer should have broughchye up long ago. Why did you keep Mr. Levinsky away, Meyer? Was you afraid you might have reason to be jealous?"

"That's just it. She hit it right. I told you she was a smart girl, didn't I, Levinsky?"

"Don't be uneasy, Meyer. Mr. Levinsky won't even look at an old woman like me. It's a pretty girl he's fishin' for. Ainchye, Mr. Levinsky?"

She was middle-aged, with small features inconspicuously traced in a bulging mass of full-blooded flesh. This was why her mother-in-law called her "meat-ball face." She had a hoarse voice, and altogether she might have given me the impression of being drunk had there not been something pleasing in her hoarseness as well as in that droll face of hers. That she was American-born was clear from the way she spoke her unpolished English. Was Nodelman the henpecked husband that his mother advertised him to be? I wondered whether the frequency with which his wife used his first name could be accepted as evidence to the contrary

They had six children: a youth of nineteen named Maurice who was the image of his father and, having spent two years at college, was with him in the clothing business; a high-school boy who had his mother's face and whose name was Sidney—an appellation very popular among our people as "swell American"; and four smaller children, the youngest being a little girl of six.

"What do you think of my stock, Levinsky?" Nodelman asked. "Quite a lot, isn't it? May no evil eye strike them. What do you think of the baby? Come here, Beatrice! Recite something for uncle!" The command had barely left his mouth when Beatrice sprang to her feet and burst out mumbling something in a kindergarten singsong. This lasted some minutes Then she courtesied, shook her skirts, and slipped back into her seat

"She is only six and she is already more educated than her father," Nodelman said. "And Sidney he's studyin' French at high school. Sidney, talk some French to Mr. Levinsky. He'll understand you. Come on, show Mr. Levinsky you ain't going to be as ignorant as your pa."

The scene was largely a stereotyped copy of the one I had witnessed upon my first call at the Margolises'

Sidney scowled

"Come on, Sidney, be a good boy," Nodelman urged, taking him by the sleeve

"Let me alone," Sidney snarled, breaking away and striking the air a fierce backward blow with his elbow

"What do you want of him?" Mrs. Nodelman said to her husband, frigidly

My friend desisted, sheepishly

"He does seem to be afraid of his American household," I said to myself

After the meal, when we were all in the parlor again, Nodelman said to his wife, winking at me: "Poor fellow, his patience has all given out. He wants to know about the girl you've got for him. He has no strength any longer. Can't you see it, Bella? Look at him! Look at him! Another minute and he'll faint."

"What girl? Oh, I see! Why, there is more than one!" Mrs. Nodelman returned, confusedly. "I didn't mean anybody in particular. There are plenty of young ladies."

"That's the trouble. There are plenty, and no one in particular," I said

"Don't cry," Nodelman said. "Just be a good boy and Mrs. Nodelman will get you a peach of a young lady. Won't you, Bella?"

"I guess so," she answered, with a smile

"Don't you understand?" he proceeded to explain. "She first wants to know the kind of customer you are. Then she'll know what kind of merchandise to look for. Isn't that it, Bella?"

She made no answer

"I hope Mrs. Nodelman will find me a pretty decent sort of customer," I put in.

"You're all right," she said, demurely. "I'm afraid it won't be an easy job to get a young lady to suit a customer like you."

"Try your best, will you?" I said.

"I certainly will."

She was less talkative now, and certainly less at her ease than she had been before the topic was broached, which impressed me rather favorably.

Altogether she was far from the virago or "witch" her mother-in-law had described her to be. As to her attitude toward her husband, I subsequently came to the conclusion that it was a blend of affection and contempt.

Nodelman was henpecked, but not badly so

I called on them three or four times more during that spring. Somehow the question of my marriage was never mentioned on these occasions, and then Mrs. Nodelman and the children, all except Maurice, went to the seashore for the summer



CHAPTER IV

"YOU'LL examine the merchandise, and if you don't like it nobody is going to make you buy it," said Nodelman to me one day in January of the following winter. By "merchandise" he meant a Miss Kalmanovitch, the daughter of a wealthy furniture-dealer, to whom I was to be introduced at the Nodelman residence four days later. "She is a peach of a girl, beautiful as the sun, and no runt, either; a lovely girl." "Good looks aren't everything. Beauty is skin deep, and handsome is as handsome does," I paraded my English

"Oh, she is a good girl every way: a fine housekeeper, good-natured, and educated. Gee! how educated she is! Why, she has a pile of books in her room, Bella says, a pile that high." He raised his hand above his head. "She is dead stuck on her, Bella is."

Owing to an illness in the Kalmanovitch family, the projected meeting could not take place, but Nodelman's birthday was to be celebrated in March, so the gathering was to serve as a match-making agency as well as a social function

The great event came to pass on a Sunday evening. The prospect of facing a girl who offered herself as a candidate for becoming my wife put me all in a flutter. It took me a long time to dress and I made my appearance at the Nodelmans' rather late in the evening. Mrs. Nodelman, who met me in the hall, offered me a tempestuous welcome

"Here he is! Better late than never," she shrieked, hoarsely, as I entered the hall at the head of the high stoop. "I was gettin' uneasy. Honest I was." And dropping her voice: "Miss Kalmanovitch came on time. She's a good girl. Always." And she gave me a knowing look that brought the color to my face and a coy smile into hers

Her husband appeared a minute later. After greeting me warmly he whispered into my ear: "Nobody knows anything about it, not even the young lady. Only her mother does."

But I soon discovered that he was mistaken. My appearance produced a sensation, and the telltale glances of the women from me to a large girl with black eyes who stood at the mantelpiece not only showed plainly that they knew all about "it," but also indicated who of the young women present was Miss Kalmanovitch

The spacious parlor was literally jammed. The hostess led the way through the throng, introducing me to the guests as we proceeded. There were Nodelman's father and mother among them, the gigantic old tailor grinning childishly by the side of his wife, who looked glum

"That one, with the dark eves, by the mantelpiece," Meyer Nodelman whispered to me, eagerly

The girl pointed out was large and plump, with full ivory-hued cheeks, and a dimple in her fleshy chin. Her black eyes were large and round. That the object of my coming, and of her own, was no secret to her was quite evident.

She was blushing to the roots of her glossy black hair, and in her apparent struggle with her constraint she put her stout, long arm around the waist of a girl who stood by her side against the mantelpiece

Upon the whole, Miss Kalmanovitch impressed me more than favorably; but a minute later, when I was introduced to her and saw her double chin and shook her gently by a hand that was fat and damp with perspiration, I all but shuddered. I felt as though she exuded oil. I was introduced to her mother, a spare, hatchet-face little woman with bad teeth, who looked me over in a most business-like way, and to her father, a gray man with a goatee

Miss Kalmanovitch and I soon found ourselves seated side by side. Conscious of being the target of many eyes, I was as disconcerted as I had been twelve years before, when Matilda played her first practical joke upon my sidelocks. My would-be fiance was the first to recover her ease. She asked me if I was related to a white-goods man named Levinsky, and when I said no she passed to other topics. She led the conversation, and I scarcely followed her. At one moment, for example, as I looked her in the face, endeavoring to listen to what she was saying about the Purim ball she had attended, I remarked to myself that the name Kalmanovitch somehow seemed to go well with her face and figure, and that she was too self-possessed for a "bridal candidate."

Presently we heard Mrs. Nodelman's hoarse voice: "Now Miss Kalmanovitch will oblige us with some music. Won't you, please, Miss Kalmanovitch?"

A swarthy, middle-aged woman, with features that somewhat resembled those of the host, whose cousin she was, and with huge golden teeth that glistened good-naturedly, took Miss Kalmanovitch by the arm, saying in a mannish voice: "Come on, Ray! Show them what you can do!"

My companion rose and, throwing gay glances at some of the other girls, she walked over to the piano and seated herself. Then, with some more smiles at the girls, she cold-bloodedly attacked the keyboard

"A nauctourrn by Chopin," her mother explained to me in an audible whisper across the room

Miss Kalmanovitch was banging away with an effect of showing how quickly she could get through the nocturne. I am not musical in the accepted meaning of the term, and in those days I was even less so than I am now, perhaps, but I was always fond of music, and had a discriminating feeling for it. At all events, I knew enough to realize that my would-be fiance was playing execrably. But her mother, her father, the hostess, and the swarthy woman with the golden teeth, were shooting glances at me that seemed to say: "What do you think of that? Did you ever see such fast playing?" and there was nothing for it but to simulate admiration

The woman with the great golden teeth, Meyer Nodelman's cousin, was even more strenuous in her efforts to arouse my exultation than Ray's mother. She was the wife of a prosperous teamster whose moving-vans were seen all over the East Side. Gaunt, flat-chested, with a solemn masculine face, she was known for her jolly disposition and good-natured sarcasm. There was something suggestive of Meyer Nodelman in her manner of speaking as well as in her looks. She was childless and took an insatiable interest in the love-affairs and matrimonial politics of young people. Her name was Mrs.

Kalch, but everybody called her Auntie Yetta

When Ray finished playing Auntie Yetta led the applause, for all the world like a ward heeler. When the acclaim had died down she rushed at Ray, pressed her ample bosom to her own flat one, kissed her a sounding smack on the lips, and exclaimed, with a wink to me: "Ever see such a tasty duck of a girl?"

Miss Kalmanovitch was followed by a bespectacled, anemic boy of thirteen who played something by Wieniavsky on the violin, and then Miss Kalmanovitch "obliged" us with a recitation from "Macbeth." There were four other solos on the piano and on the violin by boys and girls, children of the invited guests, the violinists having brought their instruments with them. Not that the concert was part of a preconceived program, although it might have been taken for granted. The mothers of the performers had simply seized the opportunity to display the talents of their offspring before an audience.

Only one boy—a curly-headed, long-necked little pianist, introduced as Bennie Saminsky—played with much feeling and taste. All the rest grated on my nerves

I beguiled the time by observing the women. I noticed, for instance, that Auntie Yetta, whose fingers were a veritable jewelry-store, now and again made a pretense of smoothing her grayish hair for the purpose of exhibiting her flaming rings. Another elderly woman, whose fingers were as heavily laden, kept them prominently interlaced across her breast. From time to time she would flirt her interlocked hands, in feigned absent-mindedness, thus flashing her diamonds upon the people around her. At one moment it became something like a race between her and Auntie Yetta. Nodelman's cousin caught me watching it, whereupon she winked to me merrily and interlaced her own begemmed fingers, as much as to say, "What do you think of our contest?" and burst into a voiceless laugh

I tried to listen to the music again. To add to my ordeal, I had to lend an ear to the boastful chatter of the mothers or fathers on the virtuosity of Bennie, Sidney, Beckie, or Sadie. The mother of the curly-headed pianist, the illiterate wife of a baker, first wore out my patience and then enlisted my interest by a torrent of musical terminology which she apparently had picked up from talks with her boy's piano-teacher. She interspersed her unsophisticated Yiddish with English phrases like "rare technique," "vonderful touch," "bee-youtiful tone," or "poeytic temperament." She assured me that her son was the youngest boy in the United States to play Brahms and Beethoven successfully. At first I thought that she was prattling these words parrot fashion, but I soon realized that, to a considerable extent, at least, she used them intelligently

She had set her heart upon making the greatest pianist in the world of Bennie, and by incessantly discussing him with people who were supposed to know something about music she had gradually accumulated a smattering acquaintance with the subject. That she was full of it there could be no doubt. Perhaps she had a native intuition for music. Perhaps, too, it was from her that her son had inherited his feeling for the poetry of sound. She certainly had imagination

"Some boys play like monkeys," she said in Yiddish. "They don't know what they are at. May I know evil if they do. My Bennie is not that sort of a pianist, thank God! He knows what he is talking about—on his piano, I mean.

You saw for yourself that he played with head and heart, didn't you?"

"Indeed, I did," I said, with ardor. "I liked his playing very much."

"Yes, it comes right from his heart," she pursued. "He has a golden temperament. The piano just talks under his fingers. I mean what I say.

People think a piano is just a row of dead pieces of bone or wood. It is not. No, sirrah. It has speech just like a human being, provided you know how to get it out of the keyboard. Bennie does."

In a certain sense this unlettered woman was being educated by her little boy in the same manner as Dora had been and still was, perhaps, by Lucy

There were at least three girls in the gathering who were decidedly pretty.

One of these was a graduate of Normal College. She was dark-eyed, like Miss Kalmanovitch, but slender and supple and full of life. Everybody called her affectionately by her first name, which was Stella. At the supper-table, in the dining-room, I was placed beside Miss Kalmanovitch, but I gave most of my attention to Stella, who was seated diagonally across the table from us.

I felt quite at home now

"What was your favorite subject at college?" I questioned Stella, facetiously.

"That's my secret," she answered.

"I can guess it, though."

"Try."

"Dancing."

"That's right," she shouted, amidst an outburst of laughter

"Well, have you learned it well?" I went on

"Why don't you ask me for a waltz and find out for yourself?"

"I wish I could, but unfortunately they did not take up dancing at my college."

"Did you go to college?" Stella asked, seriously

"I don't look like one who did, I suppose. Well, I should like to say I did, but I haven't the heart to tell you a lie."

"Never mind," Nodelman broke in. "He's an educated fellar, all the same.

He's awful educated. That's what makes him such a smart business man. By the way, Levinsky, how is the merchandise?"

"This is no place to talk shop," I replied, deprecatingly. "Especially when there are so many pretty ladies around."

"That's right!" several of the women chimed in in chorus

Mrs. Nodelman, the hostess, who stood in the doorway, beckoned to her husband, and he jumped up from the table. As he passed by my seat I seized him by an arm and whispered into his ear: "The merchandise is too heavy. I want lighter goods." With this I released him and he disappeared with Mrs. Nodelman

A few minutes later he came back

"Be a good boy. Show Ray a little more attention," he whispered into my ear.

"Do it for my sake. Will you?"

"All right."

I became aware of Mrs. Kalmanovitch's fire-flashing eyes, and my efforts to entertain her daughter were a poor performance

The Kalmanovitch family left immediately after supper, scarcely making their farewells. Portentous sounds came from the hallway. We could hear Mrs.

Kalmanovitch's angry voice. A nervous hush fell over the parlor. Auntie Yetta gave us all an eloquent wink

"There's a woman with a tongue for you," she said in an undertone. "Pitch and sulphur. When she opens her mouth people had better sound the fire-alarm." After a pause she added: "Do you know why her teeth are so bad? Her mouth is so full of poison, it has eaten them up."

Presently the younger Mrs. Nodelman made her appearance. Her ruddy "meat-ball" face was fairly ablaze with excitement. Her husband followed with a guilty air

"What's the matter with you folks?" the hostess said. "Why ainchye doin' somethin'?"

"What shall we do?" the baker's wife answered in Yiddish. "We have eaten a nice supper and we have heard music and now we are enjoying ourselves quietly, like the gentlemen and the ladies we are. What more do you want?" "Come, folks, let's have a dance. Bennie will play us a waltz. Quick, Bennie darling! Girls, get a move on you!"

I called the hostess aside. "May I ask you a question, Mrs. Nodelman?" I said, in the manner of a boy addressing his teacher

"What is it?" she asked, awkwardly.

"No, I won't ask any questions. I see you are angry at me."

"I ain't angry at all," she returned, making an effort to look me straight in the face.

"Sure?"

"Sure," with a laugh. "What is it you want to ask me about?"

And again assuming the tone of a penitent pupil, I said, "May I ask Stella to dance with me?"

"But you don't dance."

"Let her teach me, then."

"Let her, if she wants to. I ain't her mother, am I?"

"But you have no objection, have you?"

"Where do I come in? On my part, you can dance with every girl in the house."

"Oh, you don't like me this evening, Mrs. Nodelman. You are angry witn me.

Else you wouldn't talk the way you do."

She burst into a laugh, and said, "You're a hell of a fellow, you are."

"I know I misbehaved myself, but I couldn't help it. Miss Kalmanovitch is too fat, you know, and her hands perspire so."

"She's a charmin' girl," she returned, with a hearty laugh. "I wish her mother was half so good."

"Was she angry, her mother?"

"Was she! She put all the blame on me. I invited her daughter on purpose to make fun of her, she says. My, how she carried on!"

"I'm really sorry, but it's a matter of taste, you know."

"I know it is. I don't blame you at all."

"So you and I are friends again, aren't we?"

She laughed

"Well, then, you have no objection to my being sweet on Stella, have you?"

"You are a hell of a fellow. That's just what you are. But I might as well tell you it's no use trying to get Stella. She's already engaged."

"Is she really?"

"Honest."

"Well, I don't care. I'll take her away from her fellow. That's all there is to it." "You can't do it," she said, gaily. "She is dead stuck on her intended.

They'll be married in June."

I went home a lovesick man, but the following evening I went to Boston for a day, and my feeling did not survive the trip



CHAPTER V

THAT journey to Boston is fixed in my memory by an incident which is one of my landmarks in the history of my financial evolution and, indeed, in the history of the American cloak industry. It occurred in the afternoon of the Monday which I spent in that city, less than two days after that birthday party at the Nodelmans'. I was lounging in an easy-chair in the lobby of my hotel, when I beheld Loeb, the "star" salesman of what had been the "star" firm in the cloak-and-suit business. I had not seen him for some time, but I knew that his employers were on their last legs and that he had a hard struggle trying to make a living. Nor was that firm the only one of the old-established cloak-and-suit concerns that found itself in this state at the period in question—that is, at the time of the economic crisis and the burst of good times that had succeeded it. Far from filling their coffers from the golden flood of those few years, they were drowned in it almost to a man. The trade was now in the hands of men from the ranks of their former employees, tailors or cloak operators of Russian or Galician origin, some of whom were Talmudic scholars like myself. It was the passing of the German Jew from the American cloak industry

We did profit by the abundance of the period. Moreover, there were many among us to whom the crisis of 1893 had proved a blessing. To begin with, some of our tailors, being unable to obtain employment in that year, had been driven to make up a garment or two and to offer it for sale in the street, huckster fashion—a venture which in many instances formed a stepping-stone to a cloak-factory. Others of our workmen had achieved the same evolution by employing their days of enforced idleness in taking lessons in cloak-designing, and then setting up a small shop of their own

Newfangled manufacturers of this kind were now springing up like mushrooms.

Joe, my old-time instructor in cloak-making, was one of the latest additions to their number. They worked—often assisted by their wives and children—in all sorts of capacities and at all hours. They lived on bread and salmon and were content with almost a nominal margin of profit. There were instances when the clippings from the cutting-table constituted all the profit the business yielded them. Pitted against "manufacturers" of this class or against a fellow like myself were the old-established firms, with their dignified office methods and high profit-rates, firms whose fortunes had been sorely tried, to boot, by their bitter struggle with the union

Loeb swaggered up to me with quizzical joviality as usual. But the smug luster of his face was faded and his kindly black eyes had an unsteady glance in them that belied his vivacity. I could see at once that he felt nothing but hate for me

"Hello, Get-Rich-Quick Levinsky!" he greeted me. "Haven't seen you for an age."

"How are you, Loeb?" I asked, genially, my heart full of mixed triumph and compassion

We had not been talking five minutes before he grew sardonic and venomous.

As Division Street—a few blocks on the lower East Side—was the center of the new type of cloak-manufacturing, he referred to us by the name of that street. My business was on Broadway, yet I was included in the term, "Division Street manufacturer."

"What is Division Street going to do next?" he asked. "Sell a fifteen-dollar suit for fifteen cents?"

I smiled

"That's a great place, that is. There are two big business streets in New York—Wall Street and Division." He broke into a laugh at his own joke and I charitably joined in. I endeavored to take his thrusts good-naturedly and for many minutes I succeeded, but at one point when he referred to us as "manufacturers," with a sneering implication of quotation marks over the word, I flared up

"You don't seem to like the Division Street manufacturers, do you?" I said.

"I suppose you have a reason for it." "I have a reason? Of course I have," he retorted. "So has every other decent man in the business."

"It depends on what you call decent. Every misfit claims to be more decent than the fellow who gets the business."

He grew pale. It almost looked as though we were coming to blows. After a pause he said, with an effect of holding himself in leash: "Business! Do you call that business? I call it peanuts."

"Well, the peanuts are rapidly growing in size while the oranges and the apples are shrinking and rotting. The fittest survives." ("A lot he knows about the theory of the survival of the fittest!" I jeered in my heart. "He hasn't even heard the name of Herbert Spencer.") "Peanuts are peanuts, that's all there's to it," he returned

"Then why are you excited? How can we hurt you if we are only peanuts?"

He made no answer

"We don't steal the trade we're getting, do we? If the American people prefer to buy our product they probably like it."

"Oh, chuck your big words, Levinsky. You fellows are killing the trade, and you know it."

He laughed, but what I said was true. The old cloak-manufacturers, the German Jews, were merely merchant. Our people, on the other hand, were mostly tailors or cloak operators who had learned the mechanical part of the industry, and they were introducing a thousand innovations into it, perfecting, revolutionizing it. We brought to our work a knowledge, a taste, and an ardor which the men of the old firms did not possess. And we were shedding our uncouthness, too. In proportion as we grew we adapted American business ways

Speaking in a semi-amicable vein, Loeb went on citing cases of what he termed cutthroat competition on our part, till he worked himself into a passion and became abusive again. The drift of his harangue was that "smashing" prices was something distasteful to the American spirit, that we were only foreigners, products of an inferior civilization, and that we ought to know our place.

"This way of doing business may be all right in Russia, but it won't do in this country," he said. "I tell you, it won't do."

"But it does do. So it seems."

As he continued to fume and rail at us, and I sat listening with a bored air, an idea flashed upon my mind, and, acting upon it on the spur of the moment, I suddenly laid a friendly hand on his arm

"Look here, Loeb," I said. "What's the use being excited? I have a scheme.

What's the matter with you selling goods for me?"

He was taken aback, but I could see that he was going to accept it

"What do you mean?" he asked, flushing

"I mean what I say. I want you to come with me. You will make more money than you have ever made before. You're a first-rate salesman, Loeb, and—well, it will pay you to make the change. What do you say?"

He contemplated the floor for a minute or two, and then, looking up awkwardly, he said: "I'll think it over. But you're a smart fellow, Levinsky. I can tell you that."

We proceeded to discuss details, and I received his answer—a favorable one—before we left our seats

To celebrate the event I had him dine with me that evening, our pledges of mutual loyalty being solemnized by a toast which we drank in the costliest champagne the hotel restaurant could furnish

It was not a year and a half after this episode that Chaikin entered my employ as designer



CHAPTER VI

I SAW other girls with a view to marriage, but I was "too particular," as my friends, the Nodelmans, would have it. I had two narrow escapes from breach-of-promise suits.

"He has too much education," Nodelman once said to his wife in my presence.

"Too much in his head, don't you know. You think too much, Levinsky. That's what's the matter. First marry, and do your thinking afterward. If you stopped to think before eating you would starve to death, wouldn't you? Well, and if you keep on thinking and figuring if this girl's nose is nice enough and if that girl's eyes are nice enough, you'll die before you get married, and there are no weddings among the dead, you know."

My matrimonial aspirations made themselves felt with fits and starts. There were periods when I seemed to be completely in their grip, when I was restless and as though ready to marry the first girl I met. Then there would be many months during which I was utterly indifferent, enjoying my freedom and putting off the question indefinitely

Year after year slid by. When my thirty-ninth birthday became a thing of the past and I saw myself entering upon my fortieth year without knowing who I worked for I was in something like a state of despair. When I was a boy forty years had seemed to be the beginning of old age. This notion I now repudiated as ridiculous, for I felt as young as I had done ten, fifteen, or twenty years before; and yet the words "forty years" appalled me. The wish to "settle down" then grew into a passion in me. The vague portrait of a woman in the abstract seemed never to be absent from my mind. Coupled with that portrait was a similarly vague image of a window and a table set for dinner. That, somehow, was my symbol of home. Home and woman were one, a complex charm joining them into an inseparable force. There was the glamour of sex, shelter, and companionship in that charm, and of something else that promised security and perpetuity to the successes that fate was pouring into my lap. It whispered of a future that was to continue after I was gone

My loneliness often took on the pungence of acute physical discomfort. The more I achieved, the more painful was my self-pity

Nothing seemed to matter unless it was sanctified by marriage, and marriage now mattered far more than love

Girls had acquired a new meaning. They were not merely girls. They were matrimonial possibilities

Odd as it may appear, my romantic ideals of twenty years ago now reasserted their claim upon me. It was my ambition to marry into some orthodox family, well-to-do, well connected, and with an atmosphere of Talmudic education—the kind of match of which I had dreamed before my mother died, with such modifications as the American environment rendered natural

There were two distinct circumstances to account for this new mood in me

In the first place, my sense of approaching middle age somehow rekindled my yearning interest in the scenes of my childhood and boyhood. Memories of bygone days had become ineffably dear to me. I seemed to remember things of my boyhood more vividly than I did things that had happened only a year before

I was homesick for Antomir again

To revisit Abner's Court or the Preacher's Synagogue, to speak to Reb Sender, or to the bewhiskered old soldier, the skeepskin tailor, if they were still living, was one of my day-dreams.

Eliakim Zunzer, the famous wedding-bard whose songs my mother used to sing in her dear, sonorous contralto, had emigrated to America several years before and I had heard of it at the time of his arrival, yet I had never thought of going to see him. Now, however, I could not rest until I looked him up. It appeared that he owned a small printing-shop in a basement on East Broadway, so I called at his place one afternoon on the pretext of ordering some cards. When I saw the poet—an aged little man with a tragic, tired look on a cadaverous face—I was so unstrung that when a young man in the shop asked me something about the cards, he had to repeat the question before I understood it

"My mother used to sing your beautiful songs, Mr. Zunzer," I said to the poet some minutes later, my heart beating violently again.

"Did she? Where do you come from?" he asked, with a smile that banished the tired look, but deepened the tragic sadness of his death-like countenance