Elkan Lubliner, American

"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!"²

CHAPTER SIX
A TALE OF TWO JACOBEAN CHAIRS

NOT A DETECTIVE STORY

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

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

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

Suddenly he slapped his thigh in an access of inspiration.

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

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

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

"Antics?" Elkan exclaimed.

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

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

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

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

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

"Ich glaub's!" Elkan cried.

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

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

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

Elkan flipped his right hand.

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

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

"An angry cat cabinet?" Elkan exclaimed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elkan shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

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

Ringentaub nodded satirically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elkan shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

Louis Dishkes raised his head suddenly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ringentaub nodded his head slowly.

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

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

"I congratulate you, Mister – "

"Merech," Max suggested.

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

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

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

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

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

A puzzled expression wrinkled Paul's flat nose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul hesitated, with his hand on the doorknob.

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

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

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

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

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.

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

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

Polatkin nodded skeptically.

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

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

Polatkin made a deprecatory gesture with his hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scheikowitz nodded and glanced nervously from the photograph to Elkan.