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.
"I think you was telling me you got a couple idees about helping Dishkes
out, Elkan," he said. "So, in the first place, Dishkes, you should
please let us see a list of your creditors."
With this prelude Scheikowitz drew forward his chair and plunged into a
discussion of Dishkes' affairs that lasted for more than two hours; and
when Dishkes at length departed he took with him notices of a meeting
addressed to his twenty creditors, prepared for immediate mailing by
Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's stenographer.
"And that's what we let ourselves in for," Scheikowitz declared after
the elevator door had closed behind Dishkes. "To-morrow morning at
eleven o'clock the place here would look like the waiting room of a
depot, and all our competitors would be rubbering at our stock already."
"Let 'em rubber!" Elkan said. "If I don't get an extension for that
feller my name ain't Elkan Lubliner at all; because between now and then
I am going round to see them twenty creditors, and I bet yer they will
sign an extension agreement, with the figures I am going to put up to
them!"
"Figures!" Scheikowitz jeered. "What good is figures to them fellers?
Showing figures to a bankrupt's creditors is like taking to a restaurant
a feller which is hungry and letting him look at the knives and forks
and plates, understand me!"
Elkan nodded.
"Sure, I know," he said; "but the figures ain't all."
Surreptitiously he drew from his pocket a faded cabinet photograph.
"I sneaked this away from Dishkes when he wasn't noticing," Elkan
declared; "and if this don't fix 'em nothing will!"
* * * * *
"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," Leon Sammet cried after Elkan had broached
the reason for his visit late that afternoon, "don't give me that tale
of woe again. Every time we are asking Dishkes for money he pulls this
here sick-wife story on us, understand me; and it don't go down with me
no more."
"What d'ye mean don't go down with you?" Elkan demanded. "Do you claim
his wife ain't sick?"
"I don't claim nothing," Sammet retorted. "I ain't no doctor, Lubliner.
I am in the cloak-and-suit business, and I got to pay my creditors with
United States money, Lubliner, if my wife would be dying yet."
"Which you ain't got no wife," Elkan added savagely.
"_Gott sei Dank!_" Sammet rejoined. "_Aber_ if I did got one,
y'understand, I would got _Verstand_ enough to pick out a healthy woman,
which Dishkes does everything the same. He picks out a store there on an
avenue when it is a dead neighbourhood, understand me--and he wants us
we should suffer for it."
"The neighbourhood wouldn't be dead after three months," Elkan
said. "Round the corner on both sides of the street is building
thirty-three-foot, seven-story elevator apartments yet; and when they
are occupied, Dishkes would do a rushing business."
"That's all right," Sammet answered. "I ain't speculating in real-estate
futures, Lubliner; so you might just so well go ahead and attend to your
business, Lubliner, because me I am going to do the same."
"But lookyhere, Sammet," Elkan still pleaded. "I seen pretty near every
one of Dishkes' creditors and they all agree the feller should have a
three months' extension."
"Let 'em agree," Sammet shouted. "They are their own bosses and so am I,
Lubliner; so if they want to give him an extension of their account I
ain't got nothing to say. All I want is eight hundred dollars he owes
me; and the rest of them suckers could agree till they are black in the
face."
"_Aber_, anyhow, Sammet," Elkan said, "come to the meeting to-morrow
morning and we would see what we could do."
"See what we could do!" Sammet bellowed. "You will see what I could do,
Lubliner; and I will come to the meeting to-morrow and I'll do it too.
So, if you don't mind, Lubliner, I could still do a little work before
we close up here."
For a brief interval Elkan dug his nails into the palms of his hands,
and his eyes unconsciously sought a target for a right swing on Sammet's
bloated face; but at length he nodded and forced himself to smile.
"_Schon gut_, Mr. Sammet," he said; "then I will see you to-morrow."
A moment later he strode down lower Fifth Avenue toward the place of
business of the last creditor on Dishkes' list. This was none other than
Elkan's distinguished friend, B. Gans, the manufacturer of high-grade
dresses; and it required less than ten minutes to procure his consent to
the proposed extension.
"And I hope," Elkan said, "that we could count on you to be at the
meeting to-morrow."
"That's something I couldn't do," B. Gans replied; "but I'll write you a
letter and give you full authority you should represent me there. Excuse
me a minute and I'll dictate it to Miss Scheindler." When he returned,
five minutes later, he sat down at his desk and, crossing his legs,
prepared to beguile the tedium of waiting.
"Well, Elkan," he said, "what you been doing with yourself lately?
Thee-aytres and restaurants, I suppose?"
"Thee-aytres I ain't so much interested in no more," Elkan said. "The
fact is, I am going in now for antics."
"Antics!" B. Gans exclaimed.
"Sure," Elkan replied; and there was a certain pride in his tones.
"Antics is what I said, Mr. Gans--Jacobson chairs and them--now--cat's
furniture."
"Cat's furniture?" Gans repeated. "What d'ye mean cat's furniture?"
"Angry cats," Elkan explained; and then a great light broke upon B.
Gans.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You mean Henri Quatre furniture?"
"Hungry cat _oder_ angry cat," Elkan said. "All I know is we are
refurnishing our flat, Mr. Gans, and we are taking an advice from Max
Merech, our designer. It's a funny thing about that feller, Mr.
Gans--with garments he is right up to the minute, _aber mit_ furniture
nothing suits him unless it would be anyhow a hundred years old."
"So you are buying some antique furniture for your flat?" B. Gans
commented, and Elkan nodded.
"We made a start anyhow," he said. "We bought a couple Jacobson
chairs--two hundred and fifty years old already."
"Good!" B. Gans exclaimed. "I want to tell you, Elkan, you couldn't go
far wrong if you would buy any piece of furniture over a hundred years
old. They didn't know how to make things ugly in them days--and Jacobean
chairs especially. I am furnishing my whole dining room in that period
and my library in Old French. It costs money, Elkan, but it's worth
it."
Elkan nodded and steered the conversation into safer channels; so that
by the time Miss Scheindler had brought in the letter they were
discussing familiar business topics.
"Also," Gans said as he appended his neat signature to the letter, "I
wish you and Dishkes luck, Elkan; and keep up the good work about the
antique furniture. Even when you would get stuck with a reproduction
instead of a genuine piece once in a while, if it looks just as good as
the original and no one tells you differently, understand me, you feel
just as happy."
Thus encouraged, Elkan went home that evening full of a determination to
acquire all the antique furniture his apartment would hold; and he and
Yetta sat up until past midnight conning the pages of a heavy volume on
the subject, which Yetta had procured from the neighbouring public
library. Accordingly Elkan rose late the following morning, and it was
almost nine o'clock before he reached his office and observed on the
very top of his morning mail a slip of paper containing a message in the
handwriting of Sam, the office boy.
"A man called about Jacobowitz," it read, and Elkan immediately rang his
deskbell.
"What Jacobowitz is this?" he demanded as Sam entered, and the office
boy shrugged.
"I should know!" he said.
"What d'ye mean you should know?" Elkan cried. "Ain't I always told it
you you should write down always the name when people call?"
"Ain't Jacobowitz a name?" Sam replied. "Furthermore, you couldn't
expect me I should get the family history from everybody which is coming
in the place, Mr. Lubliner--especially when the feller says he would
come back."
"Why didn't you tell me he is coming back?" Elkan asked, and again Sam
shrugged.
"When the feller is coming back, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "it don't make
no difference if I tell you _oder_ not. He would come back anyhow."
Having thus disposed of the matter to his entire satisfaction, Sam
withdrew and banged the door triumphantly behind him, while Elkan fell
to examining his mail. He had hardly cut the first envelope, however,
when his door opened to admit Dishkes.
"_Nu_, Dishkes!" Elkan said. "You are pretty early, ain't it?"
Dishkes nodded.
"I'm a _Schlemiel_, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and that's all there is to
it. Yesterday I went to work and lost my wife's picture."
Elkan slapped his thigh with his hand.
"Well, ain't I a peach?" he said. "I am getting so mixed up with these
here antics I completely forgot to tell Yetta anything about it. I
didn't even show it to her, Dishkes; so you must leave me have it for a
day longer, Dishkes."
As he spoke he drew the cabinet photograph from his breast pocket and
handed it to Dishkes, who gazed earnestly at it for a minute. Then,
resting his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands and
burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing, whereat Elkan jumped from his
seat and passed hurriedly out of the room. As he walked toward the
showroom the strains of a popular song came from behind a rack.
"Sam," he bellowed, "who asks you you should whistle round here?"
The whistling ceased and Sam emerged from his hiding-place with a
feather brush.
"I could whistle without being asked," Sam replied; "and furthermore,
Mr. Lubliner, when I am dusting the samples I must got to whistle;
otherwise the dust gets in my lungs, which I value my lungs the same
like you do, Mr. Lubliner, even if I would be here only a boy working on
stock!"
With this decisive rejoinder he resumed dusting the samples, while Elkan
returned to his office, where he found that Dishkes had regained his
composure.
* * * * *
Despite the fact that all of Dishkes' creditors save one had signed an
extension agreement, the meeting in Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's
showroom was well attended; and when Leon Sammet came in, at
quarter-past eleven, the assemblage had already elected Charles Finkman,
of Maisener & Finkman, as chairman. He had just taken his seat in Philip
Scheikowitz's new revolving chair and was in the act of noisily clearing
his throat in lieu of pounding the table with a gavel.