Scheikowitz at Wasserbauer's that afternoon, but Marcus, at the
appearance of his partner, turned abruptly and walked into the cutting
room; and thus, when Elkan accompanied Max Kapfer uptown that evening,
his manner was so preoccupied by reason of his dilemma that Kapfer was
constrained to comment on it.
* * * * *
"What's worrying you, Lubliner?" he asked as they seated themselves in
the cafe of the Prince Clarence. "You look like you was figuring out the
interest on the money you owe."
"I'll tell you the truth, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan began, "I would like to
ask you an advice about something."
"Go as far as you like," Kapfer replied. "It don't make no difference if
a feller would be broke _oder_ in jail, he could always give somebody
advice."
"Well, it's like this," Elkan said, and forthwith he unfolded the
circumstances attending his return from Bridgetown.
"_Nu!_" Kapfer commented when Elkan concluded his narrative. "What is
that for something to worry about?"
"But the idee of the thing is wrong," Elkan protested. "In the first
place, I got lots of time to get married, on account I am only
twenty-one, Mr. Kapfer; and though a feller couldn't start in too early
in business, Mr. Kapfer, getting married is something else again. To my
mind a feller should be anyhow twenty-five before he jumps right in and
gets married."
"With some people, yes, and others, no," Kapfer rejoined.
"And in the second place," Elkan went on, "I don't like this here
_Shadchen_ business. We are living in America, not _Russland_; and in
America if a feller gets married he don't need no help from a
_Shadchen_, Mr. Kapfer."
"No," Kapfer said, "he don't need no help, Lubliner; but, just the same,
if some one would come to me any time these five years and says to me,
here is something a nice girl, understand me, with five thousand
dollars, y'understand, I would have been married _schon_ long since
already." He cleared his throat judicially and sat back in his chair
until it rested against the wall. "The fact is, Lubliner," he said, "you
are acting like a fool. What harm would it do supposing you would go up
there to-night with this here Rashkind?"
"What, and go there to-morrow night with Fischko!" Elkan exclaimed.
"Besides, if I would go up there to-night with Rashkind and the deal is
closed, understand me, might Fischko would sue Mr. Scheikowitz in the
court yet."
"Not at all," Kapfer declared. "Fischko couldn't sue nobody but B.
Maslik; so never mind waiting here for dinner. Hustle uptown and keep
your date with Rashkind." He shook Elkan by the hand. "Good luck to you,
Lubliner," he concluded heartily; "and if you got the time stop in on
your way down to-morrow morning and let me know how you come out."
* * * * *
When Elkan Lubliner arrived at the corner of One Hundred and Twentieth
Street and Lenox Avenue that evening, it might well be supposed that he
would have difficulty in recognizing Mr. Rashkind, since neither he nor
Rashkind had any previous acquaintance. However, he accosted without
hesitation a short, stout person arrayed in a wrinkled frock coat and
wearing the white tie and gold spectacles that invariably garb the
members of such quasi-clerical professions as a _Shadchen_, a sexton or
the collector of subscriptions for a charitable institution. Indeed, as
Rashkind combined all three of these callings with the occupation of a
real-estate broker, he also sported a high silk hat of uncertain vintage
and a watch-chain bearing a Masonic emblem approximating in weight and
size a tailor's goose.
"This is Mr. Rashkind, ain't it?" Elkan asked, and Rashkind bowed
solemnly.
"My name is Mr. Lubliner," Elkan continued, "and Mr. Polatkin says you
would be here at eight."
For answer Mr. Rashkind drew from his waistcoat pocket what appeared to
be a six-ounce boxing glove, but which subsequently proved to be the
chamois covering of his gold watch, the gift of Rambam Lodge, No. 142,
I. O. M. A. This Mr. Rashkind consulted with knit brows.
"That's right," he said, returning the watch and its covering to his
pocket--"eight o'clock to the minute; so I guess we would just so well
go round to B. Maslik's house if you ain't got no objections."
"I'm agreeable," Elkan said; "but, before we start, you should please be
so good and tell me what I must got to do."
"What you must got to do?" Rashkind exclaimed. "A question! You mustn't
got to do nothing. Act natural and leave the rest to me."
"But," Elkan insisted as they proceeded down Lenox Avenue, "shouldn't I
say something to the girl?"
"Sure, you should say something to the girl," Rashkind replied; "but, if
you couldn't find something to say to a girl like Miss Birdie Maslik,
all I could tell you is you're a bigger _Schlemiel_ than you look."
With this encouraging ultimatum, Mr. Rashkind entered the portals of a
hallway that glittered with lacquered bronze and plaster porphyry, and
before Elkan had time to ask any more questions he found himself seated
with Mr. Rashkind in the front parlour of a large apartment on the
seventh floor.
"Mr. Maslik says you should be so good and step into the dining room,"
the maid said to Mr. Rashkind. Forthwith he rose to his feet and left
Elkan alone in the room, save for the presence of the maid, who drew
down the shades and smiled encouragingly on Elkan.
"Ain't it a fine weather?" she asked.
Elkan looked up, and he could not resist smiling in return.
"Elegant," he replied. "It don't seem like summer was ever going to
quit."
"It couldn't last too long for me," the maid continued. "Might some
people would enjoy cold weather maybe; but when it comes to going up on
the roof, understand me, and hanging out a big wash, the summer is good
enough for me."
Elkan gazed for a moment at her oval face, with its kindly, intelligent
brown eyes.
"You mean to say you got to do washing here?" he asked in shocked
accents.
"Sure I do," she replied; "_aber_ this winter I am going to night school
again and next summer might I would get a job as bookkeeper maybe."
"But why don't you get a job in a store somewheres?" he asked.
"I see myself working in a store all day, standing on my feet yet, and
when I get through all my wages goes for board!" she replied. "Whereas,
here I got anyhow a good room and board, and all what I earn I could put
away in savings bank. I worked in a store long enough, Mr.----"
"Lubliner," Elkan said.
"----Mr. Lubliner; and I could assure you I would a whole lot sooner do
housework," she went on. "Why should a girl think it's a disgrace she
should do housework for a living is more as I could tell you. Sooner or
later a girl gets married, and then she must got to do her own
housework."
"Not if her husband makes a good living," Elkan suggested.
"Sure, I know," she rejoined; "but how many girls which they are working
in stores gets not a rich man, understand me, but a man which is only
making, say, for example, thirty dollars a week. The most that a poor
girl expects is that she marries a poor man, y'understand, and then they
work their way up together."
Elkan nodded. Unconsciously he was indorsing not so much the matter as
the manner of her conversation, for she spoke with the low voice that
distinguishes the Rumanian from the Pole or Lithuanian.
"You are coming from Rumania, ain't it?" Elkan asked.
"Pretty near there," the maid replied. "Right on the border. I am coming
here an orphan five years ago; and----"
"_Nu_, Lubliner," cried a rasping voice from the doorway, "we got our
appointment for nothing--Miss Maslik is sick."
"That's too bad," Elkan said perfunctorily.
"Only a little something she eats gives her a headache," Rashkind went
on. "We could come round the day after to-morrow night."
"That's too bad also," Elkan commented, "on account the day after
to-morrow night I got a date with a customer."
"Well, anyhow, B. Maslik would be in in a minute and----"
Elkan rose to his feet so abruptly that he nearly sent his chair through
a cabinet behind him.
"If I want to be here Friday night," he said, "I must see my customer
to-night yet; so, young lady, if you would be so kind to tell Mr. Maslik
I couldn't wait, but would be here Friday night with this
here--now--gentleman. Come on, Rashkind."
He started for the hall door almost on a run, with Rashkind
gesticulating excitedly behind him; but, before the _Shadchen_ could
even grasp his coattails he had let himself hurriedly out and was taking
the stairs three at a jump.
"Hey!" Rashkind shouted as he plunged down the steps after Elkan.
"What's the matter with you? Don't you want to meet Mr. Maslik?"
Elkan only hurried the faster, however, for in the few minutes he had
been alone in the room with the little brown-eyed maid he had made the
discovery that marriage with the aid of a _Shadchen_ was impossible for
him. Simultaneously he conceived the notion that marriage without the
aid of a _Shadchen_ might after all be well worth trying; and, as this
idea loomed in his mind, his pace slackened until the _Shadchen_
overtook him at the corner of One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.
"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner!" Rashkind said. "What is the matter with you
anyway?"
Elkan professed to misunderstand the question.
"I've lost my address book," he said. "I had it in my hand when you left
me alone there and I must of forgotten it; so I guess I'll go back and
get it."
"All right," Rashkind replied. "I'll go with you."
Elkan wheeled round and glared viciously at the _Shadchen_.
"You'll do nothing of the kind!" he roared. "You get right down them
subway steps or I wouldn't come up with you Friday night."
"But what harm----" Rashkind began, when Elkan seized him by the
shoulder and led him firmly downstairs to the ticket office. There Elkan
bought a ticket and, dropping it in the chopper's box, he pushed
Rashkind on to the platform. A few minutes later a downtown express bore
the _Shadchen_ away and Elkan ascended the stairs in three tremendous
bounds. Unwaveringly he started up the street for B. Maslik's apartment
house, where, by the simple expedient of handing the elevator boy a
quarter, he averted the formality of being announced. Thus, when he rang
the doorbell of B. Maslik's flat, though it was opened by the little
brown-eyed maid in person, she had discarded the white apron and cap
that she had worn a few minutes before, and her hair was fluffed up in
becoming disorder.
"You was telling me you are coming originally from somewheres near
Rumania," Elkan began without further preface, "and--why, what's the
matter? You've been crying?"
She put her fingers to her lips and closed the door softly behind her.
"They says I didn't got no business talking to you at all," she replied,
"and they called me down something terrible!"
Elkan's eyes flashed angrily.
"Who calls you down?" he demanded.
"Mr. and Mrs. Maslik," she answered; "and they says I ain't got no shame
at all!"
She struggled bravely to retain her composure; but just one little
half-strangled sob escaped her, and forthwith Elkan felt internally a
peculiar sinking sensation.
"What do they mean you ain't got no shame?" he protested. "I got a right
to talk to you and you got a right to talk to me--ain't it?"
She nodded and sobbed again, whereat Elkan winced and dug his nails into
the palms of his hands.
"Listen!" he pleaded. "Don't worry yourself at all. After this I
wouldn't got no use for them people. I didn't come here on my own
account in the first place, but----"
Here he paused.
"But what?" the little maid asked.
"But I'm glad I came now," Elkan went on defiantly, "and I don't care
who knows it. _Wir sind alles Jehudim_, anyhow, and one is just as good
as the other."
"Better even," she said. "What was B. Maslik in the old country? He
could _oser_ sign his name when he came here, while I am anyhow from
decent, respectable people, Mr. Lubliner."
"I don't doubt it," Elkan replied.
"My father was a learned man, Mr. Lubliner; but that don't save him. One
day he goes to Kishinef on business, Mr. Lubliner, and----"
Here her composure entirely forsook her and she covered her face with
her hands and wept. Elkan struggled with himself no longer. He took the
little maid in his arms; and, as it seemed the most natural thing in the
world to do, she laid her head against his shoulder and had her whole
cry out.
Elkan spoke no word, but patted her shoulder gently with his right hand.
"I guess I'm acting like a baby, Mr. Lubliner," she said, after a
quarter of an hour had elapsed. To Elkan it seemed like an acquaintance
of many months as he clasped her more closely.
"My name is Elkan, _Liebchen_," he said, "and we would send all the
heavy washing out."
* * * * *
"Well, Lubliner," Kapfer cried as Elkan came into the cafe of the Prince
Clarence the following morning, "you didn't like her--what?"
"Didn't like her!" Elkan exclaimed. "What d'ye mean I didn't like her?"
"Why, the way you look, I take it you had a pretty rotten time last
night," Kapfer rejoined.
"What are you talking about--rotten time?" Elkan protested. "The only
thing is I feel so happy I didn't sleep a wink, that's all."
Kapfer jumped to his feet and slapped Elkan on the shoulder.
"Do you mean you're engaged!" he asked.
"Sure!" Elkan replied.
"Then I congradulate you a thousand times," Kapfer said gleefully.
"Once is plenty," Elkan replied.
"No, it ain't," Kapfer rejoined. "You should got to be congradulated
more as you think, because this morning I am talking to a feller in the
clothing business here and he says B. Maslik is richer as most people
believe. The feller says he is easy worth a quarter of a million
dollars."
"What's that got to do with it?" Elkan asked.
"What's that got to do with it?" Kapfer repeated. "Why, it's got
everything to do with it, considering you are engaged to his only
daughter."
"I am engaged to his only daughter? Who told you that, Mr. Kapfer?"
"Why, you did!" Kapfer said.
"I never said nothing of the kind," Elkan declared, "because I ain't
engaged to Miss Maslik at all; in fact, I never even seen her."
Kapfer gazed earnestly at Elkan and then sat down suddenly.
"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," he said. "Are you crazy or am I? Last night
you says you are going up with a _Shadchen_ to see Birdie Maslik, and
now you tell me you are engaged, but not to Miss Maslik."
"That's right," Elkan replied.
"Then who in thunder are you engaged to?"
"That's just the point," Elkan said, as he passed his hand through his
hair. "I ain't slept a wink all night on account of it; in fact, this
morning I wondered should I go round there and ask--and then I thought
to myself I would get from you an advice first."
"Get from me an advice!" Kapfer exclaimed. "You mean you are engaged to
a girl and you don't know her name, and so you come down here to ask me
an advice as to how you should find out her name?"
Elkan nodded sadly and leaned his elbow on the table.
"It's like this," he said; and for more than half an hour he regaled
Kapfer with a story that, stripped of descriptive and irrelevant
material concerning Elkan's own feelings in the matter, ought to have
taken only five minutes in the telling.
"And that's the way it is, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan concluded. "I don't know
her name; but a poor little girl like her, which she is so good--and
so--and so----"
Here he became all choked up and Kapfer handed him a cigar.
"Don't go into that again, Lubliner," Kapfer said; "you told me how
good she is six times already. The point is you are in a hole and you
want me I should help you out--ain't it?"
Elkan nodded wearily.
"Well, then, my advice to you is: _Stiegen_," Kapfer continued. "Don't
say a word about this to nobody until you would, anyhow, find out the
girl's name."
"I wasn't going to," Elkan replied; "but there's something else, Mr.
Kapfer. To-night I am to meet this here other _Shadchen_ by the name
Fischko, who is going to take me up to Maslik's house."
"But I thought Miss Maslik was sick," Kapfer said.
"She was sick," Elkan answered, "but she would be better by to-night. So
that's the way it stands. If I would go downtown now and explain to Mr.
Scheikowitz that I am not going up there to-night and that I was there
last night--and----" Here Elkan paused and made an expressive gesture
with both hands. "The fact is," he almost whimpered, "the whole thing is
such a _Mischmasch_ I feel like I was going crazy!"
Kapfer leaned across the table and patted him consolingly on the arm.
"Don't make yourself sick over it," he advised. "Put it up to Polatkin.
You don't got to keep Scheikowitz's idee a secret now, Lubliner, because
sooner or later Polatkin must got to find it out. So you should let
Polatkin know how you was up there last night, and that Rashkind wants
you to go up there Friday night on account Miss Maslik was sick, and
leave it to Polatkin to flag Scheikowitz and this here Fischko."
"But----" Elkan began, when the strange expression of Kapfer's face made
him pause. Indeed, before he could proceed further, Kapfer jumped up
from his chair.
"Cheese it!" he said. "Here comes Polatkin."
As he spoke, Polatkin caught sight of them and almost ran across the
room.
"Elkan!" he exclaimed. "_Gott sei Dank_ I found you here."
"What's the matter?" Elkan asked.
Polatkin drew forward a chair and they all sat down.
"I just had a terrible fuss with Scheikowitz," he said. "This morning,
when I got downtown, I thought I would tell him what I brought you back
for; so I says to him: 'Philip,' I says, 'I want to tell you something,'
I says. 'I got an elegant _Shidduch_ for Elkan.'" He stopped and let his
hand fall with a loud smack on his thigh. "Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What a
row that feller made it! You would think, Elkan, I told him I got a
pistol to shoot you with, the way he acts. I didn't even got the
opportunity to tell him who the _Shidduch_ was. He tells me I should
mind my own business and calls me such names which honestly I wouldn't
call a shipping clerk even. And what else d'ye think he says?"
Elkan and Kapfer shook their heads.
"Why, he says that to-night, at eight o'clock, he himself is going to
have a _Shadchen_ by the name Fischko take you up to see a girl in
Harlem which the name he didn't tell me at all; but he says she's got
five thousand dollars a dowry. Did he say to you anything about it,
Elkan?"
"The first I hear of it!" Elkan replied in husky tones as he averted his
eyes from Polatkin. "Why, I wouldn't know the feller Fischko if he stood
before me now, and he wouldn't know me neither."
"Didn't he tell you her name?" Kapfer asked cautiously.
"No," Polatkin replied, "because I says right away that the girl I had
in mind would got a dowry of five thousand too; and then and there
Scheikowitz gets so mad he smashes a chair on us--one of them new ones
we just bought, Elkan. So I didn't say nothing more, but I rung up
Rashkind right away and asks him how things turns out, and he says
nothing is settled yet."
Elkan nodded guiltily.
"So I got an idee," Polatkin continued. "I thought, Elkan, we would do
this: Don't come downtown to-day at all, and to-night I would go up and
meet Fischko and tell him you are practically engaged and the whole
thing is off. Also I would _schenk_ the feller a ten-dollar bill he
shouldn't bother us again."
Elkan grasped the edge of the table. He felt as if consciousness were
slipping away from him, when suddenly Kapfer emitted a loud exclamation.
"By jiminy!" he cried. "I got an idee! Why shouldn't I go up there and
meet this here Fischko?"
"You go up there?" Polatkin said.
"Sure; why not? A nice girl like Miss--whatever her name is--ain't too
good for me, Mr. Polatkin. I got a good business there in Bridgetown,
and----"
"But I don't know what for a girl she is at all," Polatkin protested.
"She's got anyhow five thousand dollars," Kapfer retorted, "and when a
girl's got five thousand dollars, Mr. Polatkin, beauty ain't even
skin-deep."
"Sure, I know," Polatkin agreed; "but so soon as you see Fischko and
tell him you ain't Elkan Lubliner he would refuse to take you round to
see the girl at all."
"Leave that to me," Kapfer declared. "D'ye know what I'll tell him?" He
looked hard at Elkan Lubliner before he continued. "I'll tell him," he
said, "that Elkan is already engaged."
"Already engaged!" Polatkin cried.
"Sure!" Kapfer said--"secretly engaged unbeknownst to everybody."
"But right away to-morrow morning Fischko would come down and tell
Scheikowitz that you says Elkan is secretly engaged, and Scheikowitz
would know the whole thing was a fake and that I am at the bottom of
it."
"No, he wouldn't," Kapfer rejoined, "because Elkan would then and there
say that he is secretly engaged and that would let you out."
"Sure it would," Polatkin agreed; "and then Scheikowitz would want to
kill Elkan."
Suddenly Elkan struck the table with his clenched fist.
"I've got the idee!" he said. "I wouldn't come downtown till
Saturday--because we will say, for example, I am sick. Then, when
Fischko says I am secretly engaged, you can say you don't know nothing
about it; and by the time I come down on Saturday morning I would be
engaged all right, and nobody could do nothing any more."
"That's true too," Kapfer said, "because your date with Rashkind is for
to-morrow night and by Saturday the whole thing would be over."
Polatkin nodded doubtfully, but after a quarter of an hour's earnest
discussion he was convinced of the wisdom of Elkan's plan.
"All right, Elkan," he said at last. "Be down early on Saturday."
"Eight o'clock sure," Elkan replied as he shook Polatkin's hand; "and
by that time I hope you'll congratulate me on my engagement."
"I hope so," Polatkin said.
"Me too," Kapfer added after Polatkin departed; "and I also hope, Elkan,
this would be a warning to you that the next time you get engaged you
should find out the girl's name in advance."
* * * * *
"Yes, siree, sir," said Charles Fischko emphatically, albeit a trifle
thickly. "I guess you made a big hit there, Mr. Kapfer, and I don't
think I am acting previously when I drink to the health of Mrs. Kapfer."
He touched glasses with Max Kapfer, who sat opposite to him at a
secluded table in the Harlem Winter Garden, flanked by two bottles of
what had been a choice brand of California champagne. "Nee Miss Maslik,"
he added as he put down his glass; "and I think you are getting a young
lady which is not only good-looking but she is got also a heart like
gold. Look at the way she treats the servant girl they got there!
Honestly, when I was round there this morning them two girls was talking
like sisters already!"
"That's all right," Kapfer rejoined; "she's got a right to treat that
girl like a sister. She's a nice little girl--that servant girl."
"Don't I know it!" Fischko protested as he poured himself out another
glass of wine. "It was me that got her the job there two years ago
already; and before I would recommend to a family like B. Maslik's a
servant girl, understand me, I would make sure she comes from decent,
respectable people. Also the girl is a wonderful cook, Mr. Kapfer,
simple, plain, everyday dish like _gefuellte Hechte_, Mr. Kapfer; she
makes it like it would be roast goose already--so fine she cooks it. She
learned it from her mother, Mr. Kapfer, also a wonderful cook. Why,
would you believe it, Mr. Kapfer, that girl's own mother and me comes
pretty near being engaged to be married oncet?"
"You don't say!" Kapfer commented.
"That was from some years ago in the old country already," Fischko
continued; "and I guess I ought to be lucky I didn't do so, on account
she marries a feller by the name Silbermacher, _olav hasholem_, which he
is got the misfortune to get killed in Kishinef. Poor Mrs. Silbermacher,
she didn't live long, and the daughter, Yetta, comes to America an
orphan five years ago. Ever since then the girl looks out for herself;
and so sure as you are sitting there she's got in savings bank already
pretty near eight hundred dollars."
"Is that so?" Kapfer interrupted.
"Yes, sir," Fischko replied; "and when she is got a thousand, understand
me, I would find for her a nice young man, Mr. Kapfer, which he is got
anyhow twenty-five machines a contracting shop, y'understand, and she
will get married _und fertig_. With such good friends which I got it
like Polatkin & Scheikowitz, I could throw a little business their way,
and the first thing you know she is settled for life."
Here Fischko drained his glass and reached out his hand toward the
bottle; but Kapfer anticipated the move and emptied the remainder of the
wine into his own glass.
"Before I order another bottle, Fischko," he said, "I would like to talk
a little business with you."
"Never mind another bottle," Fischko said. "I thought we was through
with our business for the evening."