Silbermacher is Julius Flixman's a niece?"
"That's what I said," Fischko replied. "He comes here from Bessarabia
thirty years ago already and from that day to this I never heard a word
about him--Miss Silbermacher neither."
"Ain't the rest of his family heard from him?" Kapfer asked guardedly.
"There ain't no rest of his family," Fischko said. "Mrs. Silbermacher
was his only sister, and she's dead over ten years since."
Kapfer nodded and drew reflectively on his cigar.
"Well, Fischko," he said finally, "I wouldn't let Flixman worry me none.
He's practically a _Schnorrer_; he was in here just now on account he
hears I am going to marry a rich girl and touches me for some money on
the head of it. I guess you noticed that he looks pretty shabby--ain't
it?"
"And sick too," Fischko added, just as a bellboy came into the cafe.
"Mr. Copper!" he bawled, and Max jumped to his feet.
"Right here," he said, and the bellboy handed him a card.
"Tell them I'll be with them in a minute," he continued; "and you stay
here till I come back, Fischko. I won't be long."
He followed the bellboy to the desk, where stood Polatkin and
Scheikowitz.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said.
"Well, Mr. Kapfer," Scheikowitz replied, "I guess I got to congradulate
you."
"Sure!" Kapfer murmured perfunctorily. "Let's go into the Moorish Room."
"What's the matter with the cafe?" Polatkin asked; but Scheikowitz
settled the matter by leading the way to the Moorish Room, where they
all sat down at a secluded table.
"The first thing I want to tell you, gentlemen," Kapfer said, "is that I
know you feel that I turned a dirty trick on you about Elkan."
Scheikowitz shrugged expressively.
"The way we feel about it, Mr. Kapfer," he commented, "is that bygones
must got to be bygones--and that's all there is to it."
"But," Kapfer said, "I don't want the bygones to be all on my side; so I
got a proposition to make you. How would it be if I could fix up a good
_Shidduch_ for Elkan myself?"
"What for a _Shidduch_?" Polatkin asked.
"The girl is an orphan," Kapfer replied, "_aber_ she's got one uncle, a
bachelor, which ain't got no relation in the world but her, and he's
worth anyhow seventy-five thousand dollars."
"How do you know he's worth that much?" Polatkin demanded.
"Because I got some pretty close business dealings with him," Kapfer
replied; "and not only do I know he's worth that much, but I guess you
do too, Mr. Polatkin, on account his name is Julius Flixman."
"Julius Flixman?" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, Julius Flixman ain't got a
relation in the world--he told me so himself."
"When did he told you that?" Kapfer asked.
"A couple of days ago," Scheikowitz replied.
"Then that accounts for it," Kapfer said. "A couple of days ago nobody
knows he had a niece--not even Flixman himself didn't; but to-day yet he
would know it and he would tell you so himself."
"But----" Scheikowitz began, when once again a page entered the room,
bawling a phonetic imitation of Kapfer's name.
"Wanted at the 'phone," he called as he caught sight of Kapfer.
"Excuse me," Kapfer said. "I'll be right back."
He walked hurriedly out of the room, and Polatkin turned with a shrug to
his partner.
"Well, Scheikowitz," he began, "what did I told you? We are up here on a
fool's errand--ain't it?"
Scheikowitz made no reply.
"I'll tell you, Polatkin," he said at length, "Flixman himself says to
me he did got one sister living in Bessarabia, and he ain't heard from
her in thirty years; and----"
At this juncture Kapfer rushed into the room.
"Scheikowitz," he gasped, "I just now got a telephone message from a
lawyer on Center Street, by the name Goldenfein, I should come right
down there. Flixman is taken sick suddenly and they find in his pocket
my check and a duplicate receipt which he gives me, written on the hotel
paper. Do me the favour and come with me."
Fifteen minutes later they stepped out of a taxicab in front of an
old-fashioned office building in Center Street and elbowed their way
through a crowd of over a hundred people toward the narrow doorway.
"Where do yous think you're going?" asked a policeman whose broad
shoulders completely blocked the little entrance.
"We was telephoned for, on account a friend of ours by the name Flixman
is taken sick here," Kapfer explained.
"Go ahead," the policeman said more gently; "but I guess you're too
late."
"Is he dead?" Scheikowitz cried, and the policeman nodded solemnly as he
stood to one side.
* * * * *
More than two hours elapsed before Kapfer, Polatkin, and Scheikowitz
returned to the Prince Clarence. With them was Kent J. Goldenfein.
"Mr. Kapfer," the clerk said, "there's a man been waiting for you in the
cafe for over two hours."
"I'll bring him right in," Kapfer said, and two minutes afterward he
brought the gesticulating Fischko out of the cafe.
"Do you think I am a dawg?" Fischko cried. "I've been here two hours!"
"Well, come into the Moorish Room a minute," Kapfer pleaded, "and I'll
fix everything up with you afterward."
He led the protesting _Shadchen_ through the lobby, and when they
entered the Moorish Room an impressive scene awaited them. On a divan,
beneath some elaborate plush draperies, sat Kent J. Goldenfein, flanked
on each side by Polatkin and Scheikowitz respectively, while spread on
the table in front of them were the drafts of Flixman's will and the
engrossed, unsigned copy, together with such other formidable-looking
documents as Goldenfein happened to find in his pockets. He rose
majestically as Fischko entered and turned on him a beetling frown.
"Is this the fellow?" he demanded sepulchrally, and Kapfer nodded.
"Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein went on, "I am an officer of the Supreme Court
and I have been retained to investigate the affairs of Mr. Julius
Flixman."
"Say, lookyhere, Kapfer," Fischko cried. "What is all this?"
Kapfer drew forward a chair.
"Sit down, Fischko," he said, "and answer the questions that he is
asking you."
"But----" Fischko began.
"Come, come, Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein boomed, "you are wasting our time
here. Raise your right hand!"
Fischko glanced despairingly at Kapfer and then obeyed.
"Do you solemnly swear," said Goldenfein, who, besides being an
attorney-at-law was also a notary public, "that the affidavit you will
hereafter sign will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, so help you God?"
"But----" Fischko began again.
"Do you?" Goldenfein roared, and Fischko nodded. Forthwith Goldenfein
plied him with such ingeniously fashioned questions concerning the
Flixman family that the answers presented a complete history of all its
branches. Furthermore, the affidavit which Goldenfein immediately drew
up lacked only such confirmatory evidence as could easily be supplied to
establish the identity of Miss Yetta Silbermacher as Julius Flixman's
only heir-at-law; and, after Fischko had meekly signed the jurat,
Goldenfein rose ponderously to his feet.
"I congratulate you, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "I think there is no doubt
that your nephew's fiancee will inherit Flixman's estate, thanks to my
professional integrity."
"What d'ye mean your professional integrity?" Kapfer asked.
"Why, if I hadn't refused to accept twenty-two dollars for drawing the
will and insisted on the twenty-five we had agreed upon," Goldenfein
explained, "he would never have suffered the heart attack which
prevented his signing the will before he died."
"Died!" Fischko exclaimed. "Is Julius Flixman dead?"
"_Koosh_, Fischko!" Polatkin commanded. "You would think you was one of
the family the way you are acting. Come down to our store to-morrow and
we would arrange things with you." He turned to Kapfer.
"Let's go upstairs and see Elkan--and Yetta," he said.
Immediately they trooped to the elevator and ascended to the seventh
floor.
"All of you wait here in the corridor," Kapfer whispered, "and I'll go
and break it to them." He tiptoed to his room and knocked gently at the
door.
"Come!" Elkan cried, and Kapfer turned the knob.
On a sofa near the window sat Elkan, with his arm surrounding his
fiancee's waist and her head resting on his shoulder.
"Hello, Max!" he cried. "What's kept you? We must have been waiting here
at least a quarter of an hour!"
CHAPTER FOUR
HIGHGRADE LINES
"Sure, I know, Mr. Scheikowitz," cried Elkan Lubliner, junior partner of
Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company, as he sat in the firm's office late one
February afternoon; "but if you want to sell a highgrade concern like
Joseph Kammerman you must got to got a highgrade line of goods."
"Ain't I am telling you that all the time?" Scheikowitz replied. "_Aber_
we sell here a popular-price line, Elkan. So what is the use talking we
ain't ekvipt for a highgrade line."
"What d'ye mean we ain't equipped, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan protested.
"We got here machines and we got here fixtures, and all we need it now
is a highgrade designer and a couple really good cutters like that new
feller which is working for us."
"That's all right, too, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin interrupted; "but it
ain't the ekvipment which it is so important. The reputation which we
got for selling a popular-price line we couldn't get rid of so easy,
understand me, and that _Betzimmer_ buyer of Kammerman's wouldn't got no
confidence in us at all. The way he figures it we could just so much
turn out a highgrade line of goods here as you could expect a feller
which is acting in a moving pictures to all of a sudden sing like
Charuso."
"Besides," Scheikowitz added, "highgrade designers and really good
cutters means more capital, Elkan."
"The capital you shouldn't worry about at all," Elkan retorted. "Next
week my Yetta gets falling due a second mortgage from old man Flixman
for five thousand dollars, and----"
Polatkin made a flapping gesture with his right hand.
"Keep your money, Elkan," he said. "You could got lots of better ways to
invest it for Yetta as fixing ourselves up to sell big _Machers_ like
Joseph Kammerman."
"But it don't do no harm I should drop in and see them people. Ain't
it?"
"Sure not," Scheikowitz continued as he swung round in his revolving
chair and seized a pile of cutting clips. "They got an elegant store
there on Fifth Avenue which it is a pleasure to go into even; and the
worst that happens you, Elkan, is you are out a good cigar for that Mr.
Dalzell up there."
Elkan nodded gloomily, and as he left the office Polatkin's face relaxed
in an indulgent smile.
"The boy is getting awful ambitious lately, Scheikowitz," he said.
"What d'ye mean, ambitious?" Philip Scheikowitz cried angrily. "If you
would be only twenty-three years of age, Polatkin, and married to a rich
girl, understand me--and also partner in a good concern, which the whole
thing he done it himself, Polatkin--you would act a whole lot more
ambitious as he does. Instead of knocking the boy, Polatkin, you should
ought to give him credit for what he done."
"Who is knocking the boy?" Polatkin demanded. "All I says is the boy is
ambitious, Scheikowitz--which, if you don't think it's ambitious a
feller tries to sell goods to Joseph Kammerman, Scheikowitz, what is it
then?"
"There's worser people to sell goods to as Joseph Kammerman, Polatkin,
which he is a millionaire concern, understand me," Scheikowitz declared;
"and you could take it from me, Polatkin, even if you would accuse him
he is ambitious _oder_ not, that boy always got idees to do big
things--and he works hard till he lands 'em. So if you want to call that
ambitious, Polatkin, go ahead and do so. When a loafer knocks it's a
boost every time."
With this ultimatum Scheikowitz followed his junior partner to the rear
of the loft, where Elkan regarded with a critical eye the labors of his
cutting-room staff.
"_Nu_, Elkan," Scheikowitz asked, "what's biting you now?"
Elkan winked significantly--and a moment later he tapped an assistant
cutter on the shoulder.
"Max," he said, "do you got maybe a grudge against that piece of goods,
the way you are slamming it round?"
The assistant cutter smiled in an embarrassed fashion.
"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I wasn't thinking about them
goods at all. When you are laying out goods for cutting, Mr. Lubliner,
you don't got to think much--especially pastel shades."
"Pastel shades?" Elkan repeated.
"That's what I said," the cutter replied. "_Mit_ colors like reds and
greens, which they are hitting you right in the face, so to speak, you
couldn't get your mind off of 'em at all; but pastel shades, that's
something else again. They quiet you like smoking a cigarette."
Elkan turned to his partner with a shrug.
"When I was working by B. Gans," the cutter went on, "I am laying out a
piece of old gold crepe _mit_ a silver-thread border, and I assure you,
Mr. Lubliner, it has an effect on me like some one would give me a glass
of schnapps already."
"_Stiegen_, Max," said Elkan, moving away, "you got too much to say for
yourself."
Max nodded resignedly and continued the spreading of the goods on the
cutting table, while Elkan and Scheikowitz walked out of the room.
"That's the new feller I was telling you about," Elkan said.
"_Meshugganeh_ Max Merech they call him."
"_Meshugga_ he may be," Scheikowitz replied, "but just the same he's got
a couple of good idees also, Elkan. Only this morning he makes Redman
the designer pretty near crazy when he says that the blue soutache on
that new style 2060 kills the blue in the yoke, y'understand; and he was
right too, Elkan. Polatkin and me made Redman change it over."
Elkan shrugged again as he put on his hat and coat preparatory to going
home.
"A lot our class of trade worries about such things!" he exclaimed. "So
far as they are concerned the soutache could be crimson and the yoke
green, and if the price was right they'd buy it anyhow."
"Don't you fool yourself, Elkan," Scheikowitz said while Elkan rang for
the elevator. "The price is never right if the workmanship ain't good."
* * * * *
That Elkan Lubliner's progress in business had not kept pace with his
social achievements was a source of much disappointment to both Mrs.
Lubliner and himself; for though the firm of Polatkin, Scheikowitz &
Company was still rated seventy-five thousand dollars to one hundred
thousand dollars--credit good--Elkan and Mrs. Lubliner moved in the
social orbit of no less a personage than of Max Koblin, the Raincoat
King, whose credit soared triumphantly among the A's and B's of
old-established commission houses.
Indeed it was a party at Max Koblin's house that evening which caused
Elkan to leave his place of business at half-past five; and when Mrs.
Lubliner and he sallied forth from the gilt and porphyry hallway of
their apartment dwelling they were fittingly arrayed to meet Max's
guests, none of whom catered to the popular-price trade of Polatkin,
Scheikowitz & Company.
"Why didn't you told him we are getting next week paid off for five
thousand dollars a second mortgage?" Yetta said, continuing a
conversation begun at dinner that evening.
"I did told him," Elkan insisted; "but what is the use talking to a
couple of old-timers like them?"
Yetta sniffed contemptuously with the impatience of youth at the foibles
of senility, as exemplified by the doddering Philip Scheikowitz, aged
forty-five, and the valetudinarian Marcus Polatkin, whose hair, albeit
unfrosted, had been blighted and in part swept away by the vicissitudes
of forty-two winters.
"You can't learn an old dawg young tricks," Elkan declared, "and we
might just as well make up our minds to it, Yetta, we would never
compete with such highgrade concerns like B. Gans _oder_ Schwefel &
Zucker."
They walked over two blocks in silence and then Elkan broke out anew.
"I tell you," he said, "I am sick and tired of it. B. Gans talks all the
time about selling this big _Macher_ and that big _Macher_, and him and
Mr. Schwefel gets telling about what a millionaire like Kammerman says
to him the other day, or what he says to Mandelberger, of Chicago,
y'understand--and I couldn't say nothing! If I would commence to tell
'em what I says to such customers of ours like One-Eye Feigenbaum _oder_
H. Margonin, of Bridgetown, understand me, they would laugh me in my
face yet."
Yetta pressed his arm consolingly as they ascended the stoop of Max
Koblin's house on Mount Morris Park West, and two minutes later they
entered the front parlour of that luxurious residence.
"And do you know what he says to me?" a penetrating barytone voice
announced as they came in. "He says to me, 'Benson,' he says, 'I've been
putting on musical shows now for fifteen years, and an idee like that
comes from a genius already. There's a fortune in it!'"
At this juncture Mrs. Koblin noted the arrival of the last of her
guests.
"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried, rising to her feet. "Ain't you
fashionable getting here so late?"
She kissed Yetta and held out a hand to Elkan as she spoke.
"Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Elkan, keeping Yetta's dinner waiting
because you claim you're so busy downtown?" she went on. "I guess you
know everybody here except Mr. Benson."
She nodded toward the promulgator of Heaven-born ideas, who bowed
solemnly.
"Pleased to meet you, Mister----"
"Lubliner," Elkan said.
"Mister Lubliner," Benson repeated, passing his begemmed fingers through
a shock of black, curly hair. "And the long and short of it is," he
continued, addressing the company, "to-morrow I'm getting a scenario
along them lines I just indicated to you from one of the highest-grade
fellers that's writing."
Here ensued a pause, during which B. Gans searched his mind for an
anecdote concerning some retailer of sufficiently good financial
standing, while Joseph Schwefel, of Schwefel & Zucker, cleared his
throat preparatory to launching a verbatim report of a conversation
between himself and a buyer for one of the most exclusive costume houses
on Fifth Avenue; but even as Schwefel rounded his lips to enunciate an
introductory "Er," Benson obtained a fresh start.
"Now you remember 'The Diners Out,' Ryan & Bernbaum's production last
season?" he said, addressing Elkan. "In that show they had an idee like
this: Eight ponies is let down from the flies--see?--and George DeFrees
makes his entrance in a practical airyoplane--I think it was George
DeFrees was working for Ryan & Bernbaum last year, or was it Sammy
Potter?"
At this point he screwed up his face and leaning his elbow on the arm of
his chair he placed four fingers on his forehead in the attitude known
theatrically as Business of Deep Consideration.
"No," he said at last--"it was George DeFrees. George jumps out of the
airyoplane and says: 'They followed me to earth, I see.'"
Benson raised his eyebrows at the assembled guests.
"Angels!" he announced. "Get the idee? 'They followed me to earth, I
see.' Cue. And then he sings the song hit of the show: 'Come Take a Ride
in My Airyoplane.'"
B. Gans shuffled his feet uneasily and Joseph Schwefel pulled down his
waistcoat. As manufacturers of highgrade garments they had accompanied
more than one customer to the entertainment described by Benson; but to
Elkan the term "ponies" admitted of only one meaning, and this
conversational arabesque of flies, little horses, aeroplanes and George
DeFrees made him fairly dizzy.
"And," M. Sidney Benson said before B. Gans could head him off, "just
that there entrance boomed the show. Ryan & Bernbaum up to date clears
a hundred and twenty thousand dollars over and above all expenses."
"Better as the garment business!" Max Koblin commented--and B. Gans
nodded and yawned.
"Ain't we going to have no pinocle?" he asked. Max rose and threw open
the sliding doors leading to the dining room, where cards and chips were
in readiness.
"Will you join us, Mr. Benson?" he asked.
"That'll make five with Mr. Lubliner," Benson replied; "so supposing
you, Gans and Schwefel go ahead, and Mr. Lubliner and me will join you
later. Otherwise you would got to deal two of us out--which it makes a
pretty slow game that way."
"Just as you like," Max said; and after Mrs. Koblin and Yetta had
retired abovestairs to view the most recent accession to Mrs. Koblin's
wardrobe, Benson pulled up the points of his high collar and adjusted
his black stock necktie. Then he lit a fresh cigar and prepared to lay
bare to Elkan the arcana of the theatrical business.
"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the show business is a business like any
other business. It ain't like you got an idee it is--opening wine for a
bunch of chickens, understand me, and running round the streets till all
hours of the morning."
"I never got no such idee," Elkan protested.
"You ain't, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued, "because it's very
evidence to me that you don't know nothing about it; but there's a whole
lot of people got that idee anyhow, y'understand; and what I am always
trying to tell everybody is that the show business is like the garment
business _oder_ the drygoods business--a business for a business man,
not a loafer!"
Elkan made an inarticulate noise which Benson took to be an expression
of interest and encouragement.
"At the same time art has got a whole lot to do with it," he went
on--"art and idees; and when you take a feller like Ryan, which he could
write a show, write the music, put it on and play the leading part all
by himself, y'understand, and a feller like Bernbaum, which used to was
Miller, Bernbaum & Company in the pants business--you got there an ideel
combination!"
Elkan nodded and looked helplessly round him at the Circassian walnut,
of which half a forestful had gone to make up the furnishings of
Koblin's front parlor.
"But," Benson said emphatically, "you take me, for instance--and what
was I?"
He told off his former occupations with the index finger of his right
hand on each digit of his left.
"First I was a salesman; second I was for myself in the infants' wear
business; third I was _noch einmal_ a salesman. Then I become an actor,
because everybody knows my act, which I called it 'Your Old Friend
Maslowsky.' For four years I played all the first-class vaudeville
circuits here and on the other side in England. But though I made good
money, Mr. Lubliner, the real big money is in the producing end."
"Huh-huh!" Elkan ejaculated.
"So that's the way it is with me, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued. "I am
just like Ryan & Bernbaum, only instead of two partners there is only
just one; which I got the art, the idees and the business ability all in
myself!"
"That must make it very handy for you," Elkan commented.
"Handy ain't no name for it," Benson replied. "It's something you don't
see nowheres else in the show business; but I'll tell you the truth, Mr.
Lubliner--the work is too much for me!"
"Why don't you get a partner?" Elkan asked.
Benson made a circular gesture with his right hand.
"I could get lots of partners with big money, Mr. Lubliner," he said,
"but why should I divide my profits? Am I right or wrong?"
"Well, that depends how you are looking at it," Elkan said.
"I am looking at it from the view of a business man, Mr. Lubliner,"
Benson rejoined. "Here I got a proposition which I am going to put on--a
show of idees--a big production, understand me; which if Ryan &
Bernbaum makes from their 'Diners Out' a hundred thousand dollars,
_verstehst du_, I could easily make a hundred and fifty thousand! And
yet, Mr. Lubliner, all I invest is five thousand dollars and five
thousand more which I am making a loan at a bank."
"Which bank?" Elkan asked--so quickly that Benson almost jumped in his
seat.
"I--I didn't decide which bank yet," he replied. "You see, Mr. Lubliner,
I got accounts in three banks. First I belonged to the Fifteenth
National Bank. Then they begged me I should go in the Minuit National
Bank. All right. I went in the Minuit National Bank. H'afterward Sam
Feder comes to me and says: 'Benson,' he says, 'you are an old friend
from mine,' he says. 'Why do you bother yourself you should go into this
bank and that bank?' he says. 'Why don't you come to my bank?' he says,
'and I would give you all the money you want.' So you see, Mr. Lubliner,
it is immaterial to me which bank I get my money from."
Again he passed his jewelled fingers through his hair.