CHAPTER FIVEONE OF ESAU'S FABLESTHE MOUSE SCRATCHES THE LION'S BACK; THE LION SCRATCHES THE MOUSE'S BACK
"NO, ELKAN," said Louis Stout, of Flugel & Stout. "When you are coming to compare JohnsonhurstmitBurgess Park it's already a molehill to a mountain."
"Burgess Park ain't such high ground neither," Elkan Lubliner retorted. "Max Kovner says he lives out there on Linden Boulevard three months only and he gets full up with malaria something terrible."
"Malaria we ain't got it in Burgess Park!" Louis declared. "I am living there now six years, Elkan, and I never bought so much as a two-grain quinine pill. Furthermore, Elkan, Kovner's malaria you could catch in Denver, Colorado, or on an ocean steamer, y'understand; because, with a lowlife bum like Max Kovner, which he sits up till all hours of the night—a drinker and a gambler, understand me—you don't got to be a professor exactly to diagonize his trouble. It ain't malaria, Elkan, it'sKatzenjammer!"
"But my Yetta is stuck on Johnsonhurst," Elkan protested, "and she already makes up her mind we would move out there."
"That was just the way with my wife," Louis said. "For six months she is crying all the time Ogden Estates; and if I would listen to her, Elkan, and bought out there, y'understand, instead we would be turning down offers on our house at an advance of twenty per cent. on the price we paid for it, we would be considering letting the property go under foreclosure! You ought to see that place Ogden Estates nowadays, Elkan—nothing but a bunch of Italieners lives there."
"But——" Elkan began.
"Another thing," Louis Stout broke in: "Out in Johnsonhurst what kind of society do you got? Moe Rabiner lives there, and Marks Pasinsky lives there—andGott weiss wer noch. My partner, Mr. Flugel, is approached the other day with an offer of some property in Johnsonhurst, and I was really in favour he should take it up; but he says to me, 'Louis,' he says, 'a place where such people lives like Pasinsky and Rabiner I wouldn't touch at all!' And he was right, Elkan. Salesmen and designers only lives in Johnsonhurst; while out in Burgess Park we got a nice class of people living, Elkan. You know J. Kamin, of the Lee Printemps, Pittsburgh?"
"Used to was one of our best customers," PhilipScheikowitz replied, "though he passed us up last year."
"His sister, Mrs. Benno Ortelsburg, lives one house by the other with me," Louis went on. "Her husband does a big real-estate business there. Might you also know Julius Tarnowitz, of the Tarnowitz-Wixman Department Store, Rochester?"
"Bought from us a couple years a small bill," Marcus Polatkin said. "I wish we could sell him more."
"Well, his brother, Sig Tarnowitz, lives across the street from us," Louis cried triumphantly. "Sig's got a fine business there on Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn."
"What for a business?"
"A furniture business," Louis replied. "And might you would know also Joel Ribnik, which he is running the McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company, of Cyprus, Pennsylvania?"
"That's the feller what you nearly sold that big bill to last month, Elkan," Scheikowitz commented.
"Well, his sister is married to a feller by the name Robitscher, of Robitscher, Smith & Company, the wallpaper house and interior decorators. They got an elegant place down the street from us."
"But——" Elkan began again.
"But nothing, Elkan!" Marcus Polatkin interrupted with a ferocious wink; for Louis Stout, as junior partner in the thriving Williamsburg storeof Flugel & Stout, was viewing Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's line preparatory to buying his spring line of dresses. "But nothing, Elkan! Mr. Stout knows what he is talking about, Elkan; and if I would be you, instead I would argue with him, understand me, I would take Yetta out to Burgess Park on Sunday and give the place a look."
"That's the idea!" Louis cried. "And you should come and take dinner with us first. Mrs. Stout would be delighted."
"What time do you eat dinner?" Philip Scheikowitz asked, frowning significantly at Elkan.
"Two o'clock," Louis replied, and Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in unison.
"He'll be there," Polatkin declared.
"At a quarter before two," Scheikowitz added and Elkan smiled mechanically by way of assent.
"So come along, Mr. Stout," Polatkin said, "and look at them Ethel Barrymore dresses. I think you'll like 'em."
He led Stout from the office as he spoke while Scheikowitz remained behind with Elkan.
"Honest, Elkan," he said, "I'm surprised to see the way you are acting with Louis Stout!"
"What do you mean, the way I'm acting, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan protested. "Do you think I am going to buy a house in a neighbourhood which I don't want to live in at all just to oblige a customer?"
"Schmooes, Elkan!" Scheikowitz exclaimed. "No one asks you you should buy a house there. Be a little reasonable, Elkan. What harm would it do you, supposing you and Yetta should go out to Burgess Park next Sunday? Because you know the way Louis Stout is, Elkan. He will look over our line for two weeks yet before he decides on his order—and meantime we shouldn't entegonize him."
"I don't want to antagonize him," Elkan said; "but me and Yetta made our arrangements to go out to Johnsonhurst next Sunday."
"Go out there the Sunday after," cried Scheikowitz. "Johnsonhurst would still be on the map, Elkan. It ain't going to run away exactly."
Thus persuaded, Elkan and Yetta on the following Sunday elbowed their way through the crowd at the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge, and after a delay of several minutes boarded a train for Burgess Park.
"Well, all I can say is," Yetta gasped, after they had seized on the only vacant seats in the car, "if it's this way on Sunday what would it be on weekdays?"
"There must have been a block," Elkan said meekly. Only by the exercise of the utmost marital diplomacy had he induced his wife to make the visit to Louis Stout's home, and one of his most telling arguments had been the advantage of theelevated railroad journey to Burgess Park over the subway ride to Johnsonhurst.
"Furthermore," Yetta insisted, referring to another of Elkan's plausible reasons for visiting Burgess Park, "I suppose all these Italieners andBétzimmersare customers of yours which we was going to run across on our way down there. Ain't it?"
Elkan blushed guiltily as he looked about him at the carload of holiday-makers; but a moment later he exclaimed aloud as he recognized in a seat across the aisle no less a person than Joseph Kamin, of Le Printemps, Pittsburgh.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Kamin?" he said.
"Not Elkan Lubliner, from Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company?" Mr. Kamin exclaimed. "Well, who would think to meet you here!"
He rose from his seat, whereat a bulky Italian immediately sank into it; and as livery of seizin he appropriated the comic section of Mr. Kamin's Sunday paper, which had fallen to the floor of the car, and spread it wide open in front of him.
"Now you lost your seat," Elkan said; "so you should take mine."
He jumped to his feet and Kamin sat down in his place, while a Neapolitan who hung on an adjacent strap viciously scowled his disappointment.
"You ain't acquainted with Mrs. Lubliner?" Elkan said.
"Pleased to meetcher," Kamin murmured.
Yetta bowed stiffly and Elkan hastened to make conversation by way of relieving Mr. Kamin's embarrassment.
"Looks like an early spring the way people is going to the country in such crowds," he said.
"I bet yer," Kamin rejoined emphatically. "I arrived in New York two weeks ahead of my schedule, because I simply got to do my buying now or lose a lot of early spring trade."
"Have you been in town long?" Elkan asked.
"Only this morning," Kamin answered; "and I am going down to eat dinner with my sister, Mrs. Ortelsburg. She lives in Burgess Park."
"Is that so?" Elkan exclaimed. "We ourselves are going to Burgess Park—to visit a friend."
"A customer," Yetta corrected.
"A customer could also be a friend," Kamin declared, "especially if he's a good customer."
"This is a very good customer," Elkan went on, "by the name Louis Stout."
"Louis Stout, from Flugel & Stout?" Kamin cried. "Why, him and Benno Ortelsburg is like brothers already! Well, then, I'll probably see you down in Burgess Park this afternoon, on account every Sunday afternoon Louis plays pinocle at my brother-in-law's house. Why don't he fetch you round to take a hand?"
"I should be delighted," Elkan said; but Yetta sniffed audibly.
"I guess we would be going home right after dinner, before the crowd starts back," she said.
"Not on a fine day like this you wouldn't," Kamin protested; "because once you get out to Burgess Park you ain't in such a hurry to come back. I wish we would got such a place near Pittsburgh, Mrs. Lubliner. I bet yer I would quick move out there. The smoke gets worser and worser in Pittsburgh; in fact, it's so nowadays we couldn't sell a garment in pastel shades."
"Well, we got plenty blacks, navy blues, Copenhagen blues and brown in our spring line, Mr. Kamin," Elkan said; and therewith he commenced so graphically to catalogue Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's new stock that, by the time the train drew into Burgess Park, Kamin was making figures on the back of an envelope in an effort to convince Elkan that his prices were all wrong.
"But, anyhow," Kamin said, as they parted in front of the Ortelsburgs' colonial residence, "I will see you in the store to-morrow morning sure."
"You'll see me before then, because me and Yetta is coming round this afternoon sure—ain't we, Yetta?"
Mrs. Lubliner nodded, for her good humour had been restored by Elkan's splendid exhibition of salesmanship.
"This afternoon is something else again," Kamin said, "because a feller which tries to mix pinoclewith business is apt to overplay his hand in both games."
"No, Joe; you're wrong," Benno Ortelsburg said to his brother-in-law, Joseph Kamin, as they sipped their after-dinner coffee in the Ortelsburg library that day. "It wouldn't be taking advantage of the feller at all. You say yourself he tries to sell goods to you on the car already. Why shouldn't we try to sell Glaubmann's house to him while he's down here? And we'll split the commission half and half."
Kamin hesitated before replying.
"In business, Joe—it's Esau's fable of the lion and the mouse every time!" Ortelsburg continued. "The mouse scratches the lion's back and the lion scratches the mouse's back! Ain't it?"
"But you know so well as I do, Benno, that Glaubmann's house on Linden Boulevard ain't worth no eighteen thousand dollars," Kamin said.
"Why ain't it?" Benno retorted. "Glaubmann's Linden Boulevard house is precisely the same house as this, built from the same plans and everything—and this house costs me thirteen thousand five hundred dollars. Suburban real estate is worth just so much as you can get some sucker to pay for it, Joe. So I guess I better get the cards and chips ready, because I see Glaubmann coming up the street now."
A moment later Glaubmann entered the library and greeted Kamin uproariously.
"Hello, Joe!" he cried. "How's the drygoods business in Pittsburgh?"
"Not so good as the real-estate business in Burgess Park, Barney," Kamin replied. "They tell me you are selling houses hand over fist."
"Yow—hand over fist!" Barnett cried. "If I carry a house six months and sell it at a couple thousand dollars' profit, what is it?"
"I got to get rid of a whole lot of garments to make a couple thousand dollars, Barney," Kamin said; "and, anyhow, if you sell a house for eighteen thousand dollars which it cost you thirteen-five you would be making a little more as four thousand dollars."
"Sure I would," Glaubmann replied; "aberthe people which buys green-goods and gold bricks ain't investing in eighteen-thousand-dollar propositions! Such yokels you could only interest in hundred-dollar lots between high and low water on some of them Jersey sandbars."
"There is all kinds of come-ons, Barney," Joe said, "and the biggest one, understand me, is the business man who is willing to be played for a sucker, so as he can hold his customers' trade."
"You got the proper real-estate spirit, Joe," Benno declared, as he returned with the cards and chips. "You don't allow the ground to grow underyour feet. Just at present, though, we are going to spiel a little pinocle and we would talk business afterward."
"Real estate ain't business," Kamin retorted. "It's a game like pinocle; and I got a little Jack of Diamonds and Queen of Spades coming round here in a few minutes which I would like to meld."
"Now you are talking poetry," Barnett said.
"Take it from me, Barney," Benno Ortelsburg interrupted, "this ain't no poetry. It's a fact; and if you could see your way clear to pay a thousand dollars' commission, y'understand, me and Joe is got a customer for your Linden Boulevard house at eighteen thousand dollars."
"Jokes you are making me!" Barnett cried. "You shouldn't drink so much schnapps after dinner, Benno, because I could as much get eighteen thousand for that Linden Boulevard house as I would pay you a thousand dollars commission if I got it."
"You ain't paying me the thousand dollars," Benno protested. "Don't you suppose Joe's got a look-in-here?"
"And furthermore," Joe said, "you also got Louis Stout to consider. If you think Louis Stout is going to sit by and see a commission walk past him, Benno, you are making a big mistake."
"I'm willing we should give Louis a hundred or so," Benno agreed. "We got to remember Louis is a customer of his also."
"A customer of who's?" Barnett asked, as the doorbell rang.
"Stiegen!" Benno hissed; and a moment later he ushered Elkan and Yetta into the library, while Mr. Stout brought up the rear.
Benno cleared his throat preparatory to introducing the newcomers, but Louis Stout brushed hastily past him.
"Mr. Glaubmann," Louis said, "this is my friend, Elkan Lubliner."
"And you forget Mrs. Lubliner," cried Mrs. Ortelsburg, who had hurried downstairs at the sound of voices in the hall. "I'm Mrs. Ortelsburg," she continued, turning to Yetta. "Won't you come upstairs and take your things off?"
"Elkan," Louis Stout continued, "you better go along with her. I want you to see what an elegant lot of clothes-closets they got upstairs. You know most houses is designed by archytecks which all they are trying to do is to save money for the builder.Aberthis archyteck was an exception. The way he figures it he tries to build the house to please the women,mitlots of closet room, and—excuse me, ladies—to hell with the expenses! I'll go upstairs with you and show you what I mean."
Benno frowned angrily.
"'Tain't necessary, Louis," he said. "Mrs. Ortelsburg would show him."
He drew forward chairs; and, after Elkan andYetta had followed Mrs. Ortelsburg upstairs, he closed the library door.
"Couldn't I introduce people in my own house, Stout?" he demanded.
Louis Stout shrugged his shoulders.
"If you mean as a matter of ettykit—yes," he retorted; "aberif it's a real-estate transaction—no. When I bring a customer to Mr. Glaubmann for his Linden Boulevard house, Ortelsburg, I do the introducing myself, which afterward I don't want no broker to claim he earned the commission by introducing the customer first—understand me?"
He seated himself and smiled calmly at Kamin, Glaubmann, and his host.
"I ain't living in the country for my health exactly," he declared, "and don't you forget it."
"Where's your written authorization from the owner?" Ortelsburg demanded, raising a familiar point of real-estate brokerage law; and Stout tapped his breast pocket.
"Six months ago already," Stout replied, "Mr. Glaubmann writes me if I hear of a customer for his house he would protect me, and I got the letter here in my pocket. Ain't that right, Mr. Glaubmann?"
Glaubmann had walked toward the window and was looking out upon the budding white poplars that spread their branches at a height of six feetabove the sidewalks of Burgess Park. He nodded in confirmation of Louis' statement; and as he did so a short, stout person, who was proceeding hurriedly down the street in the direction of the station, paused in front of the Ortelsburg residence. A moment later he rang the bell and Ortelsburg himself opened the door.
"Nu, Mr. Kovner!" he said. "What could I do for you?"
"Mr. Glaubmann just nods to me out of your window," Max Kovner replied, "and I thought he wants to speak to me."
Benno returned to the library with Max at his heels.
"Do you want to speak to Mr. Kovner, Glaubmann?" he asked, and Glaubmann started perceptibly. During the months of Max Kovner's tenancy Glaubmann had not only refrained from visiting his Linden Boulevard house, but he had also performed feats of disappearance resembling Indian warfare in his efforts to avoid Max Kovner on the streets of Burgess Park. All this was the result of Max Kovner's taking possession of the Linden Boulevard house upon Glaubmann's agreement to make necessary plumbing repairs and to paint and repaper the living rooms; and Glaubmann's complete breach of this agreement was reflected in the truculency of Max Kovner's manner as he entered the Ortelsburg library.
"Maybe Glaubmann don't want to speak to me," he cried, "but I want to speak to him, and in the presence of you gentlemen here also."
He banged Ortelsburg's library table with his clenched fist.
"Once and for all, Mr. Glaubmann," he said, "either you would fix that plumbing and do that painting, understand me, or I would move out of your Linden Boulevard house the first of next month sure!"
Glaubmann received this ultimatum with a defiant grin.
"Schmooes, Kovner," he said, "you wouldn't do nothing of the kind! You gotmitme a verbal lease for one year in the presence of my wife, your wife and a couple of other people which the names I forget."
"And how about the repairs?" Kovner demanded.
"If you seen the house needs repairs and you go into possession anyhow," Glaubmann retorted, "you waive the repairs, because the agreement to repair merges in the lease. That's what Kent J. Goldstein, my lawyer, says, Kovner; and ask any other lawyer, Kovner, and he could tell you the same."
"So," Kovner exclaimed, "I am stuck with that rotten house for a year! Is that the idee?"
Glaubmann nodded.
"All right, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner concluded. "You are here in a strange house to me and I couldn'tdo nothing; but I am coming over to your office to-morrow, and if I got to sit there all day, understand me, we would settle this thing up."
"That's all right," Ortelsburg interrupted. "When you got real-estate business with Glaubmann, Mr. Kovner, his office is the right place to see him.Aberhere is a private house and Sunday, Mr. Kovner, and we ain't doing no real-estate business here. So, if you got a pressing engagement somewheres else, Mr. Kovner, don't let me hurry you."
He opened the library door, and with a final glare at his landlord Max passed slowly out.
"That's a dangerous feller," Glaubmann said as his tenant banged the street door behind him. "He goes into possession for one year without a written lease containing a covenant for repairs by the landlord, y'understand, and now he wants to blame me for it! Honestly, the way some people acts so unreasonable, Kamin, it's enough to sicken me with the real-estate business!"
Kamin nodded sympathetically, but Louis Stout made an impatient gesture by way of bringing the conversation back to its original theme.
"That ain't here or there," he declared. "The point is I am fetching you a customer for your Linden Boulevard house, Glaubmann, and I want this here matter of the commission settled right away."
Ortelsburg rose to his feet as a shuffling on the stairs announced the descent of his guests.
"Commissions we would talk about afterward," he said. "First let us sell the house."
In Benno Ortelsburg's ripe experience there were as many methods of selling suburban residences as there were residences for sale; and, like the born salesman he was, he realized that each transaction possessed its individual obstacles, to be overcome by no hard-and-fast rules of salesmanship. Thus he quickly divined that whoever sought to sell Elkan a residence in Burgess Park must first convince Yetta, and he proceeded immediately to apportion the chips for a five-handed game of auction pinocle, leaving Yetta to be entertained by his wife. Mrs. Ortelsburg's powers of persuasion in the matter of suburban property were second only to her husband's, and the game had not proceeded very far when Benno looked into the adjoining room and observed with satisfaction that Yetta was listening open-mouthed to Mrs. Ortelsburg's fascinating narrative of life in Burgess Park.
"Forty hens we got it," she declared; "and this month alone they are laying on us every day a dozen eggs—some days ten, or nine at the least. Then, of course, if we want a little fricassee once in a while we could do that also."
"How do you do when you are getting all of asudden company?" Yetta asked. "I didn't see no delicatessen store round here."
"You didn't?" Mrs. Ortelsburg exclaimed. "Why, right behind the depot is Mrs. J. Kaplan's a delicatessen store, which I am only saying to her yesterday, 'Mrs. Kaplan,' I says, 'how do you got all the time such fresh, nice smoke-tongue here?' And she says, 'It's the country air,' she says, 'which any one could see; not alone smoke-tongue keeps fresh,abermy daughter also, when she comes down here,' she says, 'she is pale like anything—and look at her now!' And it's a fact, Mrs. Lubliner, the daughter did look sick, and to-day yet she's got a complexion fresh like a tomato already. That's what Burgess Park done for her!"
"But don't you got difficulty keeping a girl, Mrs. Ortelsburg?" Yetta inquired.
"Difficulty?" Mrs. Ortelsburg cried. "Why, just let me show you my kitchen. The girls love it here. In the first place, we are only twenty minutes from Coney Island; and, in the second place, with all the eggs which we got it, they could always entertain their fellers here in such a fine, big kitchen, which I am telling my girl, Lena: 'So long as you give 'em omelets or fried eggsmitfat, Lena, I don't care how many eggs you use—aberbutter is butter in Burgess ParkoderHarlem.'"
In this vein Mrs. Ortelsburg continued for more than an hour, while she conducted Yetta to thekitchen and cellar and back again to the bedrooms above stairs, until she decided that sufficient interest had been aroused to justify the more robust method of her husband. She therefore returned to the library, and therewith began for Benno Ortelsburg the real business of the afternoon.
"Well, boys," he said, "I guess we would quit pinocle for a while and join the ladies."
He chose for this announcement a moment when Elkan's chips showed a profit of five dollars; and as, in his capacity of banker, he adjusted the losses of the other players, he kept up a merry conversation directed at Mrs. Lubliner.
"Here in Burgess Park," he said, "we play pinocle and we leave it alone; while in the city when a couple business men play pinocle they spend a day at it—and why? Because they only get a chance to play pinocle once in a while occasionally. Every night they are going to theatreodera lodge affair, understand me; whereas here, the train service at night not being so extra elegant, y'understand, we got good houses and we stay in 'em; which in Burgess Park after half-past seven in the evening any one could find a dozen pinocle games to play in—and all of 'em breaks up by half-past ten already."
With this tribute to the transit facilities and domesticity of Burgess Park, he concluded stacking up the chips and turned to Mrs. Lubliner.
"Yes, Mrs. Lubliner," he continued with an amiable smile, "if you wouldn't persuade your husband to move out to Burgess Park, understand me, I shall consider it you don't like our house here at all."
"But I do like your house!" Yetta protested.
"I should hope so," Benno continued, "on account it would be a poor compliment to a lot of people which could easy be good customers of your husband. For instance, this house was decorated by Robitscher, Smith & Company, which Robitscher lives across the street already; and his wife is Joel Ribnik's—the McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company's—a sister already."
"You don't tell me?" Yetta murmured.
"And Joel is staying with 'em right now," Benno went on. "Furthermore, we got our furniture and carpets by Sig Tarnowitz, which he lives a couple of doors down from here—also got relatives in the retail drygoods business by the name Tarnowitz-Wixman Drygoods Company. The brother, Julius Tarnowitz, is eating dinner with 'em to-day."
"It's a regular buyers' colony here, so to speak," Louis Stout said, and Joseph Kamin nodded.
"Tell you what you do, Benno," Joseph suggested. "Get Tarnowitz and Ribnik to come over here. I think Elkan would like to meet them."
Benno slapped his thigh with a resounding blow.
"That's a great idee!" he cried; and half an hour later the Ortelsburg library was thronged with visitors, for not only Joel Ribnik and Julius Tarnowitz had joined Benno's party, but seated in easy chairs were Robitscher, the decorator, and Tarnowitz, the furniture dealer.
"Yes, siree, sir!" Robitscher cried. "Given the same decorative treatment to that Linden Boulevard house, Mr. Lubliner, and it would got Ortelsburg's house here skinned to pieces, on account over there it is more open and catches the sun afternoon and morning both."
During this pronouncement Elkan's face wore a ghastly smile and he underwent the sensations of the man in the tonneau of a touring car which is beginning to skid toward a telegraph pole.
"In that case I should recommend you don't buy a Kermanshah rug for the front room," Sigmund Tarnowitz interrupted. "I got in my place right now an antique Beloochistan, which I would let go at only four hundred dollars."
"Aberfour hundred dollars is an awful lot of money to pay for a rug," Elkan protested. He had avoided looking at Yetta for the past half-hour; but now he glanced fearfully at her, and in doing so received a distinct shock, for Yetta sat with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, inoculated beyond remedy with the virus of the artistic-home fever.
"Four hundred ain't so much for a rug," she declared.
"Not for an antique Beloochistan," Sig Tarnowitz said, "because every year it would increase in value on you."
"Just the same like that Linden Boulevard house," Ortelsburg added, "which you could take it from me, Mrs. Lubliner, if you don't get right away an offer of five hundred dollars advance on your purchase price I would eat the house, plumbing and all."
At the word "plumbing" Glaubmann started visibly.
"The plumbing would be fixed so good as new," he said; "and I tell you what I would do also, Mr. Lubliner—I would pay fifty per cent. of the decorations if Mr. Ortelsburg would make me an allowance of a hundred dollars on the commission!"
"Could anything be fairer than this?" Ortelsburg exclaimed; and he grinned maliciously as Louis Stout succumbed to a fit of coughing.
"But we ain't even seen the house!" Elkan cried.
"Never mind we ain't seen it," Yetta said; "if the house is the same like this that's all I care about."
"Sure, I know," Elkan replied; "but I want to see the house first before I would even commence to think of buying it."
"Schon gut!" Glaubmann said. "I ain't got no objection to show you the house from the outside;aberthere is at present people living in the house, understand me, which for the present we couldn't go inside."
"Mr. Lubliner don't want to see the inside, Glaubmann!" Ortelsburg cried, in tones implying that he deprecated Glaubmann's suggestion as impugning Elkan's good faith in the matter. "The inside would be repaired and decorated to suit, Mr. Glaubmann, but the outside he's got a right to see; so we would all go round there and give a look."
Ten minutes afterward a procession of nine persons passed through the streets of Burgess Park and lingered on the sidewalk opposite Glaubmann's house. There Ortelsburg descanted on the comparatively high elevation of Linden Boulevard and Mrs. Ortelsburg pointed out the chicken-raising possibilities of the back lot; and, after gazing at the shrubbery and incipient shade trees that were planted in the front yard, the line of march was resumed in the direction of Burgess Park's business neighbourhood. Another pause was made at Mrs. J. Kaplin's delicatessen store; and, laden with packages of smoked tongue, Swiss cheese and dill pickles, the procession returned to the Ortelsburg residence marshalled by Benno Ortelsburg, who wielded as a baton a ten-cent loaf of rye bread.
Thus the remainder of the evening was spentin feasting and more pinocle until nearly midnight, when Elkan and Yetta returned to town on the last train. Hence, with his late homecoming and the Ortelsburgs' delicatessen supper, Elkan slept ill that night, so that it was past nine o'clock before he arrived at his office the following morning. Instead of the satirical greeting which he anticipated from his senior partner, however, he was received with unusual cordiality by Polatkin, whose face was spread in a grin.
"Well, Elkan," he said, "you done a good job when you decided to buy that house."
"When I decided to buy the house? Who says I decided to buy the house?" Elkan cried.
"J. Kamin did," Polatkin explained. "He was here by a quarter to eight already; and not alone J. Kamin was here, but Joel Ribnik and Julius Tarnowitz comes in also. Scheikowitz and me has been on the jump, I bet yer; in fact, Scheikowitz is in there now with J. Kamin and Tarnowitz. Between 'em, those fellers has picked out four thousand dollars' goods."
Elkan looked at his partner in unfeigned astonishment.
"So soon?" he said.
"Ribnik too," Polatkin continued. "He makes a selection of nine hundred dollars' goods—among 'em a couple stickers like them styles 2040 and 2041. He says he is coming back in half an hour, onaccount he's got an appointment with a brother-in-law of his."
"By the name Robitscher?" Elkan asked.
"That's the feller," Polatkin answered. "Ribnik says you promised Robitscher the decorations from the house you are buying."
"What d'ye mean I promised him the decorations from the house I am buying?" Elkan exclaimed in anguished tones. "In the first place, I ain't promised him nothing of the kind; and, in the second place, I ain't even bought the house yet."
"That part will be fixed up all right," Polatkin replied, "because Mr. Glaubmann rings up half an hour ago, and he says that so soon as we need him and the lawyer we should telephone for 'em."
For a brief interval Elkan choked with rage.
"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Polatkin," he sputtered at last, "who is going to live in this house—youoderme?"
"You are going to live in the house, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "because me I don't need a house. I already got one house, Elkan, and I ain't twins exactly; and also them fellers is very plain about it, Elkan, which they told me and Scheikowitz up and down, that if you wouldn't buy the house they wouldn't confirm us the orders."
At this juncture Scheikowitz entered the office. From the doorway of the showroom he had observed the discussion between Elkan and his partner; andhe had entirely deserted his prospective customers to aid in Elkan's coercion.
"Polatkin is right, Elkan!" he cried. "You got to consider Louis Stout also. Kamin said he would never forgive us if the deal didn't go through."
Elkan bit his lips irresolutely.
"I don't see what you are hesitating about," Polatkin went on. "Yetta likes the house—ain't it?"
"She's crazy about it," Elkan admitted.
"Then what's the use talking?" Scheikowitz declared; and he glanced anxiously toward Tarnowitz and Kamin, who were holding a whispered conference in the showroom. "Let's make an end and get the thing over. Telephone this here Glaubmann he should come right over with Ortelsburg and the lawyer."
"But ain't I going to have no lawyer neither?" Elkan demanded.
"Sure you are," Scheikowitz replied. "I took a chance, Elkan, and I telephoned Henry D. Feldman half an hour since already. He says he would send one up of his assistants, Mr. Harvey J. Sugarberg, right away."
When it came to drawing a real-estate contract there existed for Kent J. Goldstein no incongruities of time and place. Kent was the veteran of a dozen real-estate booms, during which he had draftedagreements at all hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the vendor's back.
Thus the transaction between Glaubmann and Elkan Lubliner presented no difficulties to Kent J. Goldstein; and he handled the details with such care and dispatch that the contract was nearly finished before Harvey J. Sugarberg remembered the instructions of his principal. As attorney for the buyer, it was Henry D. Feldman's practice to see that the contract of sale provided every opportunity for his client lawfully to avoid taking title should he desire for any reason, lawful or unlawful, to back out; and this rule of his principal occurred to Harvey just as he and Goldstein were writing the clause relating to incumbrances.
"The premises are to be conveyed free and clear of all incumbrances," Kent read aloud, "except the mortgage and covenant against nuisances above described and the present tenancies of said premises."
He had brought with him two blank forms of agreement; and as he filled in the blanks on one of them he read aloud what he was writing and Harvey Sugarberg inserted the same clause in the other. Up to this juncture Harvey had taken Kent's dictation with such remarkable docility that Elkanand his partners had frequently exchanged disquieting glances, and they were correspondingly elated when Harvey at length balked.
"One moment, Mr. Goldstein," he said—and, but for a slight nervousness, he reproduced with histrionic accuracy the tone and gesture of his employer—"aslocum tenensfor my principal I must decline to insert the phrase, 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"
Kent wasted no time in forensic dispute when engaged in a real-estate transaction, though, if necessary, he could make kindling of the strongest rail that ever graced the front of a jury-box.
"How 'bout it, Glaubmann?" he said. "The premises is occupied—ain't they?"
Glaubmann flapped his right hand in a gesture oflaissez-faire.
"The feller moves out by the first of next month," he said; and Kent turned to Elkan.
"Are you satisfied that the tenant stays in the house until the first?" he asked. "That will be three days after the contract is closed."
Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
"Why not?" he said.
"All right, Mr.——Forget your name!" Kent cried. "Cut out 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"
At this easy victory a shade of disappointment passed over the faces of Harvey Sugarberg and hisclients, and the contract proceeded without further objection to its rapid conclusion.
"Now then, my friends," Kent announced briskly, "we're ready for the signatures."
At this, the crucial point of all real-estate transactions, a brief silence fell upon the assembled company, which included not only the attorneys and the clients, but Ortelsburg, Kamin, Tarnowitz and Ribnik as well. Finally Glaubmann seized a pen, and, jabbing it viciously in an inkpot, he made a John Hancock signature at the foot of the agreement's last page.
"Now, Mr. Lubliner," Kent said—and Elkan hesitated.
"Ain't we going to wait for Louis Stout?" he asked; and immediately there was a roar of protest that sounded like a mob scene in a Drury Lane melodrama.
"If Louis Stout ain't here it's his own fault," Ortelsburg declared; and Ribnik, Tarnowitz, and Kamin glowered in unison.
"I guess he's right, Elkan," Polatkin murmured.
"It is his own fault if he ain't here," Scheikowitz agreed feebly; and, thus persuaded, Elkan appended a small and, by contrast with Glaubmann's, a wholly unimpressive signature to the agreement. Immediately thereafter Elkan passed over a certified check for eight hundred dollars, according to the terms of the contract, which provided that thetitle be closed in twenty days at the office of Henry D. Feldman.
"Well, Mr. Lubliner," Glaubmann said, employing the formula hallowed by long usage in all real-estate transactions involving improved property, "I wish you luck in your new house."
"Much obliged," Elkan said; and after a general handshaking the entire assemblage crowded into one elevator, so that finally Elkan was left alone with his partners.
Polatkin was the first to break a silence of over five minutes' duration.
"Ain't it funny," he said, "that we ain't heard from Louis?"
Scheikowitz nodded; and as he did so the elevator door creaked noisily and there alighted a short, stout person, who, having once been described in the I. O. M. A. Monthly as Benjamin J. Flugel, the Merchant Prince, had never since walked abroad save in a freshly ironed silk hat and a Prince Albert coat.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flugel?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz cried with one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged within his breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of business; and, as Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's impressive partner, he could not help congratulating himself on the mercantile sagacity that had made him buy Glaubmann's house.
"And this is Mr. Lubliner?" Flugel said in even tones.
"Pleased to meet you," Elkan said. "I had dinner with your partner only yesterday."
Flugel gulped convulsively in an effort to remain calm.
"I know it," he said; "and honestly the longer I am in business with that feller the more I got to wonder what aSchlemielhe is. Actually he goes to work and tries to do his own partner without knowing it at all. Mind you, if he would be doing it from spite I could understand it; but when one partner don't know that the other partner practically closes a deal for a tract of a hundred lots and six houses in Johnsonhurst, and then persuades a prospective purchaser that, instead of buying in Johnsonhurst, he should buy in Burgess Park, understand me, all I got to say is that if Louis Stout ain't crazy the least he deserves is that the feller really and truly should buy in Burgess Park."
"But, Mr. Flugel," Elkan interrupted, "I did buy in Burgess Park."
"What!" Flugel shouted.
"I say that I made a contract for a house out there this morning only," Elkan said.
For a few seconds it seemed as though Benjamin J. Flugel's heirs-at-law would collect a substantial death benefit from the I. O. M. A., but the impendingapoplexy was warded off by a tremendous burst of profanity.
"Aber, Mr. Flugel," Scheikowitz protested, "Louis tells us only last Saturday, understand me, you told him that Johnsonhurst you wouldn't touch at all, on account such lowlifes like Rabiner and Pasinsky lives out there!"
"I know I told him that," Flugel yelled; "because, if I would say I am going to buy out there, Stout goes to work and blabs it all over the place, and the first thing you know they would jump the price on me a few thousand dollars. He's a dangerous feller, Louis is, Mr. Scheikowitz!"
Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
"That may be, Mr. Flugel," he said, "but I signed the contract with Glaubmann for his house on Linden Boulevard—and that's all there is to it!"
Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in melancholy unison.
"Do you got the contract here?" Flugel asked; and Elkan picked up the document from his desk, where it had been placed by Goldstein.
"You paid a fancy price for the house," Flugel continued, as he examined the agreement.
"I took your partner's advice, Mr. Flugel," Elkan retorted.
"Why, for eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, in Johnsonhurst," Flugel continued, "I could give you a palace already!"
He scanned the various clauses of the contract with the critical eye of an experienced real-estate operator; and before he had completed his examination the elevator door again creaked open.
"Is Glaubmann gone?" cried a voice from the interior of the car, and the next moment Kovner alighted.
Flugel looked up from the contract.
"Hello, Kovner," he said, "are you in this deal too?"
"I ain't in any deal," Kovner replied. "I am looking for Barnett Glaubmann. They told me in his office he is coming over here and would be here all the morning."
"Well, he was here," Elkan replied, "but he went away again."
Kovner sat down without invitation.
"It ain't no more as I expected," he began in the dull, resigned tones of a man with a grievance. "That swindler has been dodging me for four months now, and I guess he will keep on dodging me for the rest of the year that he claims I got a lease on his house for."
"What house?" Flugel asked.
"The house which I am living in it," Max replied—"on Linden Boulevard, Burgess Park."
"On Linden Boulevard, Burgess Park!" Flugel repeated. "Why, then it's the same house—ain't it, Lubliner?"
Elkan nodded, and as he did so Flugel struck the desk a tremendous blow with his fist.
"Fine!" he ejaculated.
"Fine!" Kovner repeated. "What the devil you are talking about, fine? Do you think it's fine I should got to live a whole year in a house which the least it must got to be spent on it is for plumbing a hundred dollars and for painting a couple hundred more?"
"That's all right," Flugel declared with enthusiasm. "It ain't so bad as it looks; because if you can show that you got a right to stay in that house for the rest of the year, understand me, I'll make a proposition to you."
"Show it?" Kovner exclaimed. "I don't got to show it, because I couldn't help myself, Mr. Flugel. Glaubmann claims that I made a verbal lease for one year, and he's right. I was fool enough to do so."
Flugel glanced inquiringly at Polatkin and Scheikowitz.
"How about that?" he asked. "The contract don't say nothing about a year's lease."
"I know it don't," Elkan replied, "because when our lawyer raises the question about the tenant Glaubmann says he could get him out at any time."
"And he can too," Kovner declared with emphasis, but Flugel shook his head.
"No, he can't, Kovner," he said; "or, anyway, he ain't going to, because you are going to stay in that house."
"With the rotten plumbing it's got?" Kovner cried. "Not by a whole lot I ain't."
"The plumbing could be fixed and the painting also," Flugel retorted.
"By Glaubmann?" Kovner asked.
"No, sir," Flugel replied; "by me, with a hundred dollars cash to boot. I would even give you an order on my plumber he should fix up the plumbing and on my house painter he should fix up the painting, Kovner;aberyou got to stick it out that you are under lease for the rest of the year."
"And when do I get the work done?" Kovner demanded.
"To-day," Flugel announced—"this afternoon if you want it."
"But hold on there a minute!" Elkan protested. "If I am going to take that house I don't want no painting done there till I am good and ready."
Flugel smiled loftily at Elkan.
"You ain't going to take that house at all," he said, "because the contract says that it is to be conveyed free and clear, except the mortgage and a covenant against nuisances. So you reject the title on the grounds that the house is leased for a year. Do you get the idee?"
Elkan nodded.
"And next Sunday," Flugel continued, "I wish you'd take a run down with me in my oitermobile to Johnsonhurst. It's an elegant, high-class suburb."
Insomnia bears the same relation to the calling of real-estate operators that fossyjaw does to the worker in the match industry; and, during the twenty days that preceded the closing of his contract with Elkan, Barnett Glaubmann spent many a sleepless night in contemplation of disputed brokerage claims by Kamin, Stout and Ortelsburg. Moreover, the knowledge that Henry D. Feldman represented the purchaser was an influence far from sedative; and what little sleep Glaubmann secured was filled with nightmares of fence encroachments, defects in the legal proceedings for opening of Linden Boulevard as a public highway, and a score of other technical objections that Feldman might raise to free Elkan from his contract.
Not once, however, did Glaubmann consider the tenancy of Max Kovner as any objection to title. Indeed, he was so certain of Kovner's willingness to move out that he even pondered the advisability of gouging Max for twenty-five or fifty dollars as a consideration for accepting a surrender of the verbal lease; and to that end he avoided the Linden Boulevard house until the morning before the date set for the closing of the title.
Then, having observed Max board the eight-five train for Brooklyn Bridge, he sauntered off to interview Mrs. Kovner; and as he turned the corner of Linden Boulevard he sketched out a plan of action that had for its foundation the complete intimidation of Mrs. Kovner. This being secured, he would proceed to suggest the payment of fifty dollars as the alternative of strong measures against Max Kovner for allowing the Linden Boulevard premises to fall into such bad repair; and he was so full of his idea that he had begun to ascend the front stoop of the Kovner house before he noticed the odour of fresh paint.
Never in the history of the Kovner house had the electric bell been in working order. Hence Glaubmann knocked with his naked fist and left the imprint of his four knuckles on the wet varnish just as Mrs. Kovner flung wide the door. It was at this instant that Glaubmann's well-laid plans were swept away.
"Now see what you done, you dirty slob you!" she bellowed. "What's the matter with you? Couldn't you ring the bell?"
"Why, Mrs. Kovner," Glaubmann stammered, "the bell don't ring at all. Ain't it?"
"The bell don't ring?" Mrs. Kovner exclaimed. "Who says it don't?"
She pressed the button with her finger and a shrill response came from within.
"Who fixed it?" Glaubmann asked.
"Who fixed it?" Mrs. Kovner repeated. "Who do you suppose fixed it? Do you think we got from charity to fix it?Gott sei Dank, we ain't exactly beggars, Mr. Glaubmann. Ourselves we fixed it, Mr. Glaubmann—and the painting and the plumbing also; because if you would got in savings bank what I got it, Mr. Glaubmann, you wouldn't make us so much trouble about paying for a couple hundred dollars' repairs."
"Aber," Glaubmann began, "you shouldn't of done it!"
"I know we shouldn't," Mrs. Kovner replied. "We should of stayed here the rest of the year with the place looking like a pigsty already!Aberdon't kick till you got to, Mr. Glaubmann. It would be time enough to say something when we sue you by the court yet that you should pay for the repairs we are making here."
Glaubmann pushed his hat back from his forehead and wiped his streaming brow.
"Nu, Mrs. Kovner," he said at last, "it seems to me we got a misunderstanding all round here. I would like to talk the matter over with you."
With this conciliatory prelude he assumed an easy attitude by crossing his legs and supporting himself with one hand on the freshly painted doorjamb, whereat Mrs. Kovner uttered a horrified shriek, and the rage which three weeks of housepainters'clutter had fomented in her bosom burst forth unchecked.
"Out from here, you dirty loafer you!" she shrieked, and grabbed a calcimining brush from one of the many paintpots that bestrewed the hallway. Glaubmann bounded down the front stoop to the sidewalk just as Mrs. Kovner made a frenzied pass at him with the brush; and consequently, when he entered Kent J. Goldstein's office on Nassau Street an hour later, his black overcoat was speckled like the hide of an axis deer.
"Goldstein," he said hoarsely, "is it assault that some one paints you from head to foot with calcimine?"
"It is if you got witnesses," Goldstein replied; "otherwise it's misfortune. Who did it?"
"That she-devil—the wife of the tenant in that house I sold Lubliner," Glaubmann replied. "I think we're going to have trouble with them people, Goldstein."
"You will if you try to sue 'em without witnesses, Glaubmann," Goldstein observed; "because suing without witnesses is like trying to play pinocle without cards. It can't be done."
Glaubmann shook his head sadly.
"I ain't going to sue 'em," he said. "I ain't so fond of lawsuits like all that; and, besides, a little calcimine is nothing, Goldstein, to what them peoplecan do to me. They're going to claim they got there a year's verbal lease."
Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.
"That's all right," he commented. "They want to gouge you for fifty dollars or so; and, with the price you're getting for the house, Glaubmann, you can afford to pay 'em."
"Gouge nothing!" Glaubmann declared. "They just got done there a couple hundred dollars' painting and plumbing, y'understand, and they're going to stick it out."
Goldstein pursed his lips in an ominous whistle.
"A verbal lease, hey?" he muttered.
Glaubmann nodded sadly.
"And this time there is witnesses," he said; and he related to his attorney the circumstances under which the original lease was made, together with the incident attending Kovner's visit to Ortelsburg's house.
"It looks like you're up against it, Glaubmann," Goldstein declared.
"But couldn't I claim that I was only bluffing the feller?" Glaubmann asked.
"Sure you could," Goldstein replied; "but when Kovner went to work and painted the house and fixed the plumbing he called your bluff, Glaubmann; so the only thing to do is to ask for an adjournment to-morrow."
"And suppose they won't give it to us?" Glaubmann asked.
Goldstein shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm a lawyer, Glaubmann—not a prophet," he said; "but if I know Henry D. Feldman you won't get any adjournment—so you may as well make your plans accordingly."
For a brief interval Glaubmann nodded his head slowly, and then he burst into a mirthless laugh.
"Real estate," he said, "that's something to own. Rheumatism is a fine asset compared to it; in fact if some one gives me my choice, Goldstein, I would say rheumatism every time. Both of 'em keep you awake nights; but there's one thing about rheumatism, Goldstein"—here he indulged in another bitter laugh—"you don't need a lawyer to get rid of it!" he said, and banged the door behind him.
If there was any branch of legal practice in which Henry D. Feldman excelled it was conveyancing, and he brought to it all the histrionic ability that made him so formidable as a trial lawyer. Indeed, Feldman was accustomed to treat the conveyancing department of his office as a business-getter for the more lucrative field of litigation, and he spared no pains to make each closing of title an impressive and dramatic spectacle.
Thus themise-en-scèneof the Lubliner closing was excellent. Feldman himself sat in a baronial chair at the head of his library table, while to aseat on his right he had assigned Kent J. Goldstein. On his left he had placed Mr. Jones, the representative of the title company, a gaunt, sandy-haired man of thirty-five who, by the device of a pair of huge horn spectacles, had failed to distract public attention from an utterly stupendous Adam's apple.
Next to the title company's representative were placed Elkan Lubliner and his partners, and it was to them that Henry D. Feldman addressed his opening remarks.
"Mr. Lubliner," he said in the soft accents in which he began all his crescendos, "the examination of the record title to Mr. Glaubmann's Linden Boulevard premises has been made at my request by the Law Title Insurance and Guaranty Company."
He made a graceful obeisance toward Mr. Jones, who acknowledged it with a convulsion of his Adam's apple.
"I have also procured a survey to be made," Feldman continued; and, amid a silence that was broken only by the heavy breathing of Barnett Glaubmann, he held up an intricate design washed with watercolour on glazed muslin.
"Finally I have done this," he declared, and his brows gathered in a tragic frown as his glance swept in turn the faces of Kent J. Goldstein, Benno Ortelsburg, J. Kamin, and Glaubmann—"I have procured an inspector's report upon the occupation of thelocus in quo."
"Oo-ee!" Glaubmann murmured, and Louis Stout exchanged triumphant glances with Polatkin and Scheikowitz.
"And I find," Feldman concluded, "there is a tenant in possession, claiming under a year's lease which will not expire until October first next."
Mr. Jones nodded and cleared his throat so noisily that, to relieve his embarrassment, he felt obliged to crack each of his knuckles in turn. As for Ribnik and Tarnowitz, they sat awestruck in the rear of Feldman's spacious library and felt vaguely that they were in a place of worship. Only Kent J. Goldstein remained unimpressed; and in order to show it he scratched a parlour match on the leg of Feldman's library table; whereat Feldman'sex-cathedramanner forsook him.
"Where in blazes do you think you are, Goldstein?" he asked in colloquial tones—"in a barroom?"
"If it's solid mahogany," Goldstein retorted, "it'll rub up like new. I think you were talking about the tenancy of the premises here."
Feldman choked down his indignation and once more became the dignified advocate.
"That is not the only objection to title, Mr. Goldstein," he said. "Mr. Jones, kindly read the detailed objections contained in your report of closing."
Mr. Jones nodded again and responded to Feldman's demand in a voice that profoundly justified the size of his larynx.
"Description in deed dated January 1, 1783," he began, "from Joost van Gend to William Wauters, is defective; one course reading 'thence along said ditch north to a white-oak tree' should be 'south to a white-oak tree.'"
"Well, what's the difference?" Goldstein interrupted. "It's monumented by the white-oak tree."
"That was cut down long ago," Mr. Jones said.
"Not by me!" Glaubmann declared. "I give you my word, gentlemen, the trees on the lot is the same like I bought it."
Feldman allowed his eyes to rest for a moment on the protesting Glaubmann, who literally crumpled in his chair.
"Proceed, Mr. Jones," Feldman said to the title company's representative, who continued without further interruption to the end of his list. This included all the technical objections which Glaubmann had feared, as well as a novel and interesting point concerning a partition suit in Chancery, brought in 1819, and affecting Glaubmann's chain of title to a strip in the rear of his lot, measuring one quarter of an inch in breadth by seven feet in length.
"So far as I can see, Feldman," Goldstein commented as Mr. Jones laid down his report, "the only objection that will hold water is the one concerning Max Kovner's tenancy. As a matter of fact, I have witnesses to show that Kovner has always claimed that he didn't hold a lease."
For answer, Feldman touched the button of an electric bell.
"Show in Mr. and Mrs. Kovner," he said to the boy who responded. "We'll let them speak for themselves."
This, it would appear, they were more than willing to do; for as soon as they entered the room and caught sight of Glaubmann, who by this time was fairly cowering in his chair, they immediately began a concerted tirade that was only ended when Goldstein banged vigorously on the library table, using as a gavel one of Feldman's metal-tipped rulers.
"That'll do, Goldstein!" Feldman said hoarsely. "I think I can preserve order in my own office."
"Why don't you then?" Goldstein retorted, as he leaned back in his chair and regarded with a malicious smile the damage he had wrought.
"Yes, Mr. Glaubmann," Kovner began anew, "you thought you got us helpless there in your house; but——"
"Shut up!" Feldman roared again, forgetting his rôle of the polished advocate; and Goldstein fairly beamed with satisfaction.
"Don't bully your own witness," he said. "Let me do it for you."
He turned to Kovner with a beetling frown.
"Now, Kovner," he commenced, "you claim you've got a verbal lease for a year of this Linden Boulevard house, don't you?"
"I sure do," Kovner replied, "and I got witnesses to prove it."
"That's all right," Goldstein rejoined; "so long as there's Bibles there'll always be witnesses to swear on 'em. The point is: How do you claim the lease was made?"
"I don't claim nothing," Kovner replied. "I got a year's lease on that property because, in the presence of my wife and his wife, Mr. Goldstein, he says to me I must either take the house for a year from last October to next October or I couldn't take it at all."
Feldman smiled loftily at his opponent.
"The art of cross-examination is a subtle one, Goldstein," he said, "and if you don't understand it you're apt to prove the other fellow's case."
"Nevertheless," Goldstein continued, "I'm going to ask him one more question, and that is this: When was this verbal agreement made—before or after you moved into the house?"
"Before I moved in, certainly," Kovner answered. "I told you that he says to me I couldn't move in unless I would agree to take the place for a year."
"And when did you move in?" Goldstein continued.
"On the first of October," Kovner said.
"No, popper," Mrs. Kovner interrupted; "we didn't move in on the first. We moved in the day before."
"That's right," Kovner said—"we moved in on the thirtieth of September."
"So," Goldstein declared, "you made a verbal agreement before September thirtieth for a lease of one year from October first?"
Kovner nodded and Goldstein turned to Henry D. Feldman, whose lofty smile had completely disappeared.
"Well, Feldman," he said, "you pulled a couple of objections on me from 'way back in the last century, understand me; so I guess it won't hurt if I remind you of a little statute passed in the reign of Charles the Second, which says: 'All contracts which by their terms are not to be performed within one year must be in writing and signed by the party to be charged.' I mean the Statute of Frauds."
"I know what you mean all right," Feldman replied; "but you'll have to prove that before a court and jury. Just now we are confronted with Kovner, who claims to have a year's lease; and my client is relieved from his purchase in the circumstances. No man is bound to buy a lawsuit, Goldstein."
"I know he ain't," Goldstein retorted; "but what's the difference, Feldman? He'll have a lawsuit on his hands, anyhow, because if he don't take title now, understand me, I'll bring an action to compel him to do so this very afternoon."
At this juncture a faint croaking came from the vicinity of Louis Stout, who throughout had been as appreciative a listener as though he were occupying an orchestra chair and had bought his seat from a speculator.
"Speak up, Mr. Stout!" Feldman cried.
"I was saying," Louis replied faintly, "that with my own ears I heard Glaubmann say to Kovner that he's got a verbal lease for one year."
"And when was this?" Feldman asked.
"About three weeks ago," Stout replied.
"Then, in that case, Mr. Goldstein," Feldman declared, "let me present to you another proposition of law."
He paused to formulate a sufficiently impressive "offer" as the lawyers say, and in the silence that followed Elkan shuffled to his feet.
"It ain't necessary, Mr. Feldman," he said. "I already made up my mind about it."
"About what?" Louis Stout exclaimed.
"About taking the house," Elkan replied. "If you'll let me have the figures, Mr. Feldman, I'll draw a check and have it certified and we'll close this thing up."
"Aber, Elkan," Louis cried, "first let me communicate with Flugel."
"That ain't necessary neither," Elkan retorted. "I'm going to make an end right here and now; and you should be so good, Mr. Feldman, and fix me up the statement of what I owe here. I want to get through."
Polatkin rose shakily to his feet.
"What's the matter, Elkan?" he said huskily. "Are you crazy,oderwhat?"
"Sit down, Mr. Polatkin," Elkan commanded, and there was a ring of authority in his tone that made Polatkin collapse into his chair. "I am buying this house."
"But, Elkan," Louis Stout implored, "why don't you let me talk to Flugel over the 'phone? Might he would got a suggestion to make maybe."