"You're in the same line as Mr. Margolius, ain't you?" Fannie
continued.
"Cloaks and suits, retail," Feigenbaum replied. "I got six stores in the
northern-tier counties of Pennsylvania."
"Then you don't live in New York?" Fannie hazarded.
"No, I live in Pennsylvania," said Feigenbaum. "But I used to live in
New York when I was a young feller."
"Why, you're a young feller yet," Fannie suggested coyly.
"Me, I ain't so young no longer," Feigenbaum answered. "At my age I
could have it already grandchildren old enough to bring in a couple
dollars a week selling papers."
"I believe you should bring up children sensible, too," Miss Goldblatt
agreed heartily. "If I had children I would teach 'em they should earn
and save money young."
"So?" Feigenbaum said.
"Sure," Miss Goldblatt continued. "I always say that if you make
children to be economical when they're young they're economical when
they grow up. My poor mother, _selig_, always impressed it on me I
should be economical, and so I am economical."
"Is that so?" Feigenbaum gasped. He felt that he was a drowning man and
looked around him for floating straws.
"I ain't so helpless like some other ladies that I know," Miss Goldblatt
went on. "My poor mother, _selig_, was a good housekeeper, and she
taught me everything what she knew. She used to say: 'The feller what
gets my Fannie won't never die of the indigestion.'"
Feigenbaum nodded gloomily.
"Did you ever suffer from stummick trouble, Mr. Feigenbaum?" she asked.
The composer of the Lily of Constantinople came to Feigenbaum's
assistance by scoring the opening measure of the overture for brass and
woodwind with heavy passages for the _cassa grande_ and cymbals, and
when the uproar gave way to a simple rendition of the song hit of the
show, My Bosphorus Queen, Fannie surrendered herself to the spell of its
marked rhythm and forgot to press Feigenbaum for an answer.
During the entire first act Feigenbaum fixed his eyes on the stage, and
as soon as the curtain fell for the first _entr'acte_ he uttered no word
of apology, but made a hurried exit to the smoking-room. There Philip
found him a moment later.
"Well, Feigenbaum," Philip cried, "how do you like the show?"
"The show is all right, Margolius," Feigenbaum replied, "but the next
time you are going to steer me up against something like that Miss
Fannie Goldblatt, Margolius, let me know. That's all."
"Why, what's the matter with her?" Philip asked.
"There's nothing the matter with her," Feigenbaum said, "only she
reminds me of a feller what used to work by me up in Sylvania by the
name Pincus Lurie. I had to get rid of him because trade fell off on
account the children complained he made snoots at 'em to scare 'em. He
didn't make no snoots, Margolius; that was his natural face what he got
it, the same like Miss Goldblatt."
"You don't know that girl, Feigenbaum," Philip replied. "That girl's got
a heart. Oi! what a heart that girl got--like a watermelon."
"I know, Margolius," Feigenbaum replied; "but she also got it a
moustache like a dago. Why don't she shave herself, Margolius?"
"Why don't you ask her yourself?" Philip said coldly.
"I don't know her good enough yet," Feigenbaum retorted, "and how it
looks now I ain't never going to."
But the way to Feigenbaum's heart lay through his stomach just as
accurately as it avoided his pocketbook, so that when Miss Fannie
Goldblatt suggested, after the final curtain, that they all go up to One
Hundred and Eighteenth Street and have a supper at home instead of at a
restaurant, she made a dent in Feigenbaum's affections.
"Looky here, Birdie," Philip whispered, "how about the old man?"
"Don't you worry about him," she said. "He went to Brownsville to play
auction pinocle, and I bet yer he don't get home till five o'clock."
Half an hour afterward they sat around the dining-room table, and
Fannie helped Feigenbaum to a piece of _gefuellte Fische_, a delicacy
which never appears on the menus of rural hotels in Pennsylvania. At the
first mouthful Feigenbaum looked at Fannie Goldblatt, and while, to be
sure, she did have some hair on her upper lip, it was only a slight down
which at the second mouthful became still slighter. Indeed, after the
third slice of fish Feigenbaum was ready to declare it to be a most
becoming down, very bewitching and Spanish in appearance.
Following the _gefuellte Fische_ came a species of _tripe farcie_, the
whole being washed down with coffee and topped off with delicious
cake--cake which could be adequately described only by kissing the tips
of one's fingers.
"After all, Margolius," Feigenbaum commented as he lit an all-tobacco
cigarette on their way down the front stoop of the Goldblatt
residence--"after all, she ain't such a bad-looking woman. I seen it
lots worser, Margolius."
"That's nothing what we got it this evening," Philip said as they
started off for the subway; "you should taste the _Kreploch_ what that
girl makes it."
"I'm going to," Feigenbaum said; "they asked me I should come to dinner
to-morrow night."
But Philip knew from his own experience that the glamour engendered of
Fannie's _gefuellte Fische_ would soon be dispelled, and then Henry
Feigenbaum would hie him to the northern-tier counties of Pennsylvania,
leaving Philip's love affair in worse condition than before.
"I got to cinch it," he murmured to himself as he went downtown next
morning, "before that one-eyed feller skips out on me."
As soon as he reached Schindler & Baum's office he rang up the Goldblatt
house, assuming for that purpose a high tenor voice lest Goldblatt
himself answer the 'phone; but again fortune favoured him, and it was
Birdie who responded.
"Birdie," he said, "do me the favour and come to lunch with me at the
Park Row Building."
"Why so far downtown?" Birdie asked.
"Reasons I got it," Philip replied. "Come at twelve o'clock at the Park
Row Building, sure."
Thus it happened at quarter past twelve Philip and Birdie sat at a table
in the Park Row Building in such earnest conversation that a tureenful
of soup remained unserved before them at a temperature of seventy
degrees.
"An engagement party ain't nothing to me," Philip cried. "What do I care
for such things?"
"But it's something to me, Philip," Birdie declared. "Think of the
presents, Philip."
"Presents!" Philip repeated. "What for presents would we get it?
Bargains in cut glass what would make our flat look like a
five-and-ten-cent store."
"But Popper would be crazy if I did a thing like that," Birdie
protested. "And, besides, I ain't got no clothes."
"Why, you look like a--like a--now--queen," Philip exclaimed. "And,
anyhow, what would you want new clothes for when you got this?"
He dug his hand into his trousers pocket and produced a ring containing
a solitaire diamond as big as a hazelnut.
"I took a chance on the size already," he said, "but I bet yer it will
fit like it was tailor-made."
He seized her left hand in both of his and passed the ring on to the
third finger, while Birdie's cheeks were aglow and her eyes rivalled the
brilliancy of the ring itself.
"But----" she began.
"But nothing," Philip interrupted. He rose from his seat and helped
Birdie on with her coat. "Waiter," he called, "we come right back here.
We are just going over to Jersey for a couple of hours."
He pressed a bill into the waiter's hand.
"Send that soup to the kitchen," he said, "and tell 'em to serve it hot
when we come back."
Two hours later they reappeared at the same table, and the grinning
waiter immediately went off to the kitchen. When he returned he bore a
glass bowl containing a napkin elaborately folded in the shape of a
flower, and inside the napkin was a little heap of rice.
V
There was something about Mr. Elkan Goldblatt's face that would make the
most hardy real-estater pause before entering into a business deal with
him. He had an eye like a poll-parrot with its concomitant beak, and his
closely cropped beard and moustache accentuated rather than mollified
his harsh appearance.
"Such fellers I wouldn't have no more mercy on than a dawg," he said to
his attorney, Eleazer Levy. "Oncet already I practically kicked him out
from my house, and then he's got the nerve to come back, and two weeks
ago he brings yet a feller with him and makes bluffs that the feller
wants to marry my daughter Fannie."
"He was just trying to get you to extend those second mortgages, I
suppose," Levy said.
"Sure he was, because this here feller--a homely looking feller with one
eye, mind you--says he got to go back to Pennsylvania where his stores
is, and we ain't seen nor heard a word from him since," Goldblatt
concluded. "And him eating two meals a day by us for ten days yet!"
Eleazer Levy clucked with his tongue in sympathy.
"But, anyhow, now I want we should go right straight ahead and foreclose
on Margolius," Goldblatt continued. "Don't lose no time, Levy, and get
out the papers to-day. How long would it be before we can sell the
property?"
"Six weeks," said Levy, "if I serve the summons to-morrow. I put in a
search some days ago, and the feller ain't got a judgment against him."
"So much the better," Goldblatt commented. "The property won't bring the
amount of the first mortgage and I suppose I got to buy it in. Then I
will get deficiency judgments against that feller, and I'll make him
sorry he ever tried any monkey business with me and my daughters. Why,
that feller actually turned my own children against me, Levy."
"Is that so?" Levy murmured.
"My Birdie abused me, I assure you, like I was a pickpocket when I says
I would foreclose on him," Goldblatt replied. "And even my Fannie,
although she is all broke up about that one-eyed feller, she says I
should give the young feller a show. What d'ye think of that, hey?"
"Terrible!" Levy replied. "A feller like that deserves all he gets, and
you can bet yer sweet life he won't have any let-up from me, Mr.
Goldblatt."
Levy was as good as his word, for that very afternoon he filed a notice
of pendency of action against the Heidenfeld Avenue property, and the
next morning, as Philip left his house, a clerk from Levy's office
served him with four copies of the summons and complaint in the
foreclosure suit of Goldblatt vs. Margolius, actions numbers 1, 2, 3
and 4. But Philip stuffed them into his pocket unread; he had other and
more poignant woes than foreclosure suits. Only ten days wed, and he was
denied even the sight of his wife longer than five minutes; for she was
not endangering future prospects in favour of present happiness.
"We could, anyway, get the furniture out of him," she argued when she
saw Philip that day, "and, maybe, a couple of thousand dollars."
"I don't care a pinch of snuff for his furniture," Philip cried. "I will
buy the furniture myself."
"But I can't leave Fannie just now," she declared; "she's all broke up
about that feller."
"What about me?" Philip protested. "Ain't I broke up, too?"
"So long you waited, you could wait a little longer yet," she replied;
"but poor Fannie, you got no idea how that girl takes on."
"She shouldn't worry," Philip cried. "I promised I would fix her up, and
I will fix her up."
Daily the same scene was enacted at the Goldblatt residence on One
Hundred and Eighteenth Street, and daily Birdie refused to forsake her
sister, until six weeks had elapsed.
"But, Birdie," Philip announced for the hundredth time, "so sure as you
stand there I couldn't keep this up no longer. I will either go crazy or
either I will jump in the river."
Birdie patted him on the back.
"Don't think about it," she said. "Take your mind off it. To-day your
property gets sold and Popper says he will be down at the salesroom at
twelve o'clock."
"Let 'em sell it," Philip cried; "I don't care."
He turned away after a hurried embrace, and was proceeding down Lenox
Avenue toward the subway when Marks Henochstein, the real-estate broker,
encountered him. Marks clutched him by the shoulder.
"Well, Philip," Henochstein cried, "you are in luck at last."
"In luck!" Philip exclaimed bitterly. "A dawg shouldn't have the luck
what I got it."
"Well, if you don't call it lucky," Henochstein continued, "what would
you call it lucky?"
"Excuse me, Henochstein," said Philip; "I ain't good at guessing
puzzles. What am I lucky for?"
"Why, ain't you heard it yet?"
"I ain't heard nothing," Philip replied. "Do me the favour and don't
keep me on suspension."
"Why, the city is going to widen Two Hundred and Sixty-fourth Street in
front of them houses of yours, and you will get damages. Oi! what
damages you will get!"
Philip stared blankly at his informant for one hesitating moment; then
he dashed off for the nearest subway station.
Half an hour later he sat in the office of Henry D. Feldman and gasped
out his story.
"In three quarters of an hour, Mr. Feldman," he cried, "that property
will be sold, and, if it is, the feller what buys it will get damages
for the street opening and I will get nix."
"This is a fine time to tell me about it, Margolius," Feldman said. "You
came in here six weeks ago and asked me to help you out, and I haven't
seen you since. The time to do something was six weeks ago. Why didn't
you come back to see me before the suit was started?"
"Because I was busy, Mr. Feldman," Margolius replied. "A whole lot of
things happened to me about that time. In the first place, the next day
after I saw you I got married."
"What!" Feldman exclaimed, "you got married? Well, Margolius, you
recovered pretty quickly from that affair with Birdie Goldblatt."
Margolius stared gloomily at his attorney.
"What d'ye mean I recover from it?" he echoed. "I didn't recover from
it, Mr. Feldman. That's who I married--Miss Birdie Goldblatt."
Feldman sat back in his chair.
"Well, of all the unfatherly brutes," he said, "to shut down on his own
daughter's husband!"
"Hold on there, Mr. Feldman," Philip interrupted; "he don't know he's
shutting down on his daughter's husband, because we was secretly
married, y' understand? And even to-day yet the old man don't know
nothing about it."
"What do you mean?" Feldman asked. "Why wouldn't he know his own
daughter was married?"
"Because she's living home yet," Philip replied, and "I can't persuade
her to go housekeeping, neither."
Feldman frowned for a moment and then he struck the desk with his fist.
"By jiminy!" he shouted, "you've got the old man by the whiskers!"
It was now Philip's turn to ask what Feldman meant.
"Why," the latter explained, "your wife's inchoate right of dower is
still outstanding."
"That's where you make a big mistake, Mr. Feldman," Philip corrected.
"My Birdie is a neat dresser and never so much as a pin out of place."
"You don't understand," Feldman continued. "As soon as Birdie and you
got married she took an interest in your property."
"Sure she took an interest in my property," Philip assented. "Why, if it
wouldn't be for her I wouldn't know nothing about this here sale
to-day."
"But I mean that as soon as she married you she became vested with the
right to receive the rents of a third of that property during her
lifetime as soon as you died," said Feldman.
"Well, we won't worry about that," Philip said with a deprecatory wave
of his hand, "because, in the first place, that property is pretty near
vacant and don't bring in enough rents to pay the taxes, and, in the
second place, I'm still good and healthy and I wouldn't die for a long
time yet."
"Oh, what's the use!" Feldman cried. "What I mean is that they can't
foreclose those second mortgages unless they make Birdie a party to the
suit and serve her with the summons; so, all you have to do to stop the
sale is to go down to the salesroom and, when the auctioneer starts to
ask for bids, get up and tell 'em all about it. Why, they'll have to
begin their suit all over again."
"But," Philip protested, "if I tell 'em all about it the old man will
throw Birdie out of the house."
"Hold on!" Feldman broke in. "You mustn't tell them you're married to
Birdie. Just tell them you're married, and let them find out your wife's
name for themselves. Although, to be sure, that won't take long, for the
record of marriage licenses at the city hall will show it."
"License nothing!" Philip cried. "We didn't get no license at the city
hall. We got married by a justice of the peace in Jersey City."
"Fine!" Feldman exclaimed, his professional ethics thrown to the winds.
"That'll keep 'em guessing as long as you want."
"All I want is a month, and by that time I can raise the money and fix
the whole thing up," Margolius replied.
Feldman looked at his watch.
"Chase yourself," he said; "it's a quarter of twelve, and the
foreclosure sale begins at noon."