Elkan Lubliner, American Part 20

Suddenly the instrument dropped with a clatter to the floor; and while Scheikowitz was stooping to pick it up Polatkin rushed into the office.

"Scheikowitz!" he cried. "What are you trying to do--break up our whole office yet? Ain't it enough you are putting all our chairs on the b.u.m already?"

Scheikowitz contented himself by glaring viciously at his partner and again placed the receiver to his ear.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Kapfer," he said. "Yes, I heard it this morning already.

Them things travels fast, Mr. Kapfer. No, I don't blame you--I blame this here Fischko. He gives me a dirty deal--that's all."

Here there was a long pause, while Polatkin stood in the middle of the office floor like a bird-dog pointing at a covey of partridges.

"But why couldn't you come down here, Mr. Kapfer?" Scheikowitz asked.

Again there was a long pause, at the end of which Scheikowitz said: "Wait a minute--I'll ask my partner."

"Listen here, Polatkin," he said, placing his hand over the transmitter.

"Kapfer says he wants to give us from two thousand five hundred dollars an order, and he wants you and me to go up to the Prince Clarence at two o'clock to see him. He wants us both there because he wants to arrange terms of credit."

"I would see him hung first!" Polatkin roared, and Scheikowitz took his hand from the transmitter.

"All right, Mr. Kapfer," he answered in dulcet tones; "me and Polatkin will both be there. Good-bye."

He hung up the receiver with exaggerated care.

"And you would just bet your life that we will be there!" he said. "And that's all there is to it!"

At half-past one that afternoon, while Max Kapfer was enjoying a good cigar in the lobby of the Prince Clarence, he received an unexpected visitor in the person of Julius Flixman.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flixman?" he cried, dragging forth a chair.

Flixman extended a thin, bony hand in greeting and sat down wearily.

"I don't do so good, Kapfer," he said. "I guess New York don't agree with me." He distorted his face in what he intended to be an amiable smile. "But I guess it agrees with you all right," he continued. "I suppose I must got to congradulate you on account you are going to be engaged to Miss Birdie Maslik."

"Why, who told you about it?" Kapfer asked.

"I met this morning a real-estater by the name Rashkind, which he is acquainted with the Maslik family," Flixman replied, "and he says it happened yesterday. Also they told me up at the hotel you was calling there this morning to see me."

"That's right," Kapfer said; "and you was out."

"I was down to see a feller on Center Street," Flixman went on, "and so I thought, so long as you wanted to fix up about the note, I might just as well come down here."

"I'm much obliged to you," Kapfer interrupted.

"Not at all," Flixman continued. "When a feller wants to pay you money and comes to see you once to do it and you ain't in, understand me, then it's up to you to go to him; so here I am."

"But the fact is," Kapfer said, "I didn't want to see you about paying the money exactly. I wanted to see you about not paying it."

"About not paying it?" Flixman cried.

"Sure!" Kapfer replied. "I wanted to see if you wouldn't give me a year's extension for that last thousand on account I am going to get married; and with what Miss Maslik would bring me, y'understand, and your thousand dollars which I got here, I would just have enough to fix up my second floor and build a twenty-five-foot extension on the rear.

You see, I figure it this way." He searched his pocket for a piece of paper and produced a fountain pen. "I figure that the fixtures cost me twenty-two hundred," he began, "and----"

At this juncture Flixman flipped his fingers derisively.

"Pipe dreams you got it!" he said. "That store as it stands was good enough for me, and it should ought to be good enough for you.

Furthermore, Kapfer, if you want to invest Maslik's money and your own money, _schon gut_; but me, I could always put a thousand dollars into a bond, Kapfer. So, if it's all the same to you, I'll take your check and call it square."

Kapfer shrugged resignedly.

"I had an idee you would," he said, "so I got it ready for you; because, Mr. Flixman, you must excuse me when I tell you that you got the reputation of being a good collector."

"Am I?" Flixman snapped out. "Well, maybe I am, Kapfer, but I could give my money up, too, once in a while; and, believe me or not, Kapfer, this afternoon yet I am going to sign a will which I am leaving all my money to a Talmud Torah School."

"You don't say so?" Kapfer said as he drew out his checkbook.

"That's what I am telling you," Flixman continued, "because there's a lot of young loafers running round the streets which n.o.body got any control over 'em at all; and if they would go to a Talmud Torah School, understand me, not only they learn 'em there a little _Loschen Hakodesch_, y'understand, but they would also pretty near club the life out of 'em."

"I'll write out a receipt on some of the hotel paper here," Kapfer said as he signed and blotted the check.

"Write out two of 'em, so I would have a copy of what I am giving you,"

Flixman rejoined. "It's always just so good to be businesslike. That's what I told that lawyer to-day. He wants me I should remember a couple of orphan asylums he's interested in, and I told him that if all them suckers would train up their children they would learn a business and not holler round the streets and make life miserable for people, they wouldn't got to be orphans at all. Half the orphans is that way on account they worried their parents to death with their carryings-on, and when they go to orphan asylums they get treated kind yet. And people is foolish enough to pay a lawyer fifty dollars if he should draw up a will to leave the orphan asylum their good hard-earned money."

He snorted indignantly as he examined Kapfer's receipt and compared it with the original.

"Well," he concluded as he appended his signature to the receipt, "I got him down to twenty-five dollars and I'll have that will business settled up this afternoon yet."

He placed the check and the receipt in his wallet and shook hands with Kapfer.

"Good-bye," he said. "And one thing let me warn you against: A _Chosan_ should always get his money in cash _oder_ certified check before he goes under the _Chuppah_ at all; otherwise, after you are married and your father-in-law is a crook, understand me, you could kiss yourself good-bye with your wife's dowry--and don't you forget it!"

Max walked with him down the lobby; and they had barely reached the entrance when Charles Fischko and Miss Yetta Silbermacher arrived.

"h.e.l.lo, Fischko!" Max cried, as Flixman tottered out into the street; but Fischko made no reply. Instead he suddenly let go Miss Silbermacher's arm and dashed hurriedly to the sidewalk. Max led Miss Silbermacher to a chair and engaged her immediately in conversation. She was naturally a little embarra.s.sed by her unusual surroundings, though she was becomingly--not to say fas.h.i.+onably--attired in garments of her own making; and she gazed timidly about her for her absent lover.

"Elkan ain't here yet," Max explained, "on account you are a little ahead of time."

Miss Silbermacher's brown eyes sparkled merrily.

"I ain't the only one," she said as she jumped to her feet; for, though the hands of the clock on the desk pointed to ten minutes to two, Elkan Lubliner approached from the direction of the cafe. He caught sight of them while he was still some distance away, and two overturned chairs marked the last of his progress toward them.

At first he held out his hand in greeting; but the two little dimples that accompanied Yetta's smile overpowered his sense of propriety, and he embraced her affectionately.

"Where's Fischko?" he asked.

Both Kapfer and Miss Silbermacher looked toward the street entrance.

"He was here a minute ago," Kapfer said.