Counsel for the complainant jumped to his feet.

"This is preposterous!" he declared.

"By no means," Feldman continued. "Will you direct counsel not to interrupt me, sir, if you please?"

"I so direct," the commissioner replied, whereat Feldman again cleared his throat and coughed twice, and, in answer to this cue, Yosel Levin, alias Joseph Harkavy, entered the room.

"The person so bribed, Mr. Commissioner, is named in the pet.i.tion as the _corpus delicti_ of the crime alleged to have been committed," Feldman said.

"What!" Munjoy and opposing counsel cried in unison, and the clerk to the consulate reached for his hat and started for the door. His counsel leaped after him, however, and succeeded in catching his coat-tails just as he was about to disappear into the hall.

With one hand still grasping the consular clerk, counsel for the complainant turned to the commissioner.

"I think my client wants to consult me outside for one minute," he said.

"Have I your consent to withdraw?"

The commissioner nodded and Munjoy turned to Feldman.

"What the deuce are you trying to do, Feldman?" he asked as complainant's counsel returned.

"If the commissioner pleases," Feldman said, "we consent to a dismissal of the extradition proceedings and to a discharge of the prisoner."

The imperturbable commissioner bowed and rose to his feet.

"Submit the necessary papers for the prisoner's discharge, gentlemen,"

he said. "The hearing is closed."

"Five dollars for doing what that feller done is like picking it up in the street, Mawruss!" Abe declared to Mawruss when they received the doctor's bill a month later.

"How could we be small about it, Abe?" Morris rejoined. "Look at what Steuermann done! Not only he is paying his lawyers for getting this Kovalenko out of prison but he is taking that young feller and paying for him he should go on with his studying for a doctor."

"Well, the way doctors soak you, Mawruss," Abe said, looking at the bill which he held in his hand, "it wouldn't be long before Kovalenko pays him back with interest, I bet yer."

"But, anyhow, Abe," Morris continued, "now we got Yosel Levin working for us as cutter, it would be a better feeling all around supposing we pay the bill and say nothing about it."

"I am agreeable we should say nothing more about it, Mawruss," Abe retorted, "because we already wasted more time and trouble than the whole thing is worth; but one thing I would like to know, Mawruss, before I shut up my mouth: Why did this here feller, Yosel Levin, call himself Harkavy?"

"Say!" Morris said, using three inflections to the monosyllable: "he's got just so much right to call himself Harkavy as all them other guys has to call themselves Breslauer, Hamburger, Leipziger _oder_ Berliner.

He anyhow does come from Harkav, Abe--which you could take it from me, Abe, there's many a feller calls himself Hamburger which he don't come from no nearer Hamburg than Vilna _oder_ Kovno."

Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively in reply.

"My worries where them fellers comes from, Mawruss!" he commented.

"Because, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, if a feller attends to his own business, Mawruss, and don't monkey with politics, y'understand, where could he make a better living than right here in New York, N. Y.?"

CHAPTER EIGHT

"R. S. V. P."

It was the tenth of the month, and Abe Potash, of Potash & Perlmutter, was going through the firm mail with an exploratory thumb and finger, looking for checks.

"Well, Mawruss," he said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, "all them hightone customers of yours they don't take it so particular that they should pay on the day, Mawruss. If they was only so prompt with checks as they was to claim deductions, Mawruss, you and me would have no worries. I think some of 'em finds a shortage in the shipment before they open the packing-case that the goods come in. Take your friend Hyman Maimin, of Sarahcuse--nothing suits him. He always kicks that the goods ain't made up right, or we ain't sent him enough fancies, or something like that. Five or six letters he writes us, Mawruss, when he gets the goods; but when he got to pay for 'em, Mawruss, that's something else again. You might think postage stamps was solitaire diamonds, and that he da.s.sen't use 'em!"

"Quit your kicking," Perlmutter broke in. "This is only the tenth of the month."

"I know it," said Abe. "We should have had a check by the tenth of last month, but"--here Abe's eye lit upon an envelope directed in the handwriting of Hyman Maimin--"I guess there was some good reason for the delay," he went on evenly. "Anyhow, here's a letter from him now."

He tore open the envelope and hurriedly removed the enclosed letter.

Then he took the envelope, blew it wide open, and shook it up and down, but no check fell out.

"Did y'ever see the like?" he exclaimed. "Sends us a letter and no check!"

"Why, it ain't a letter," Morris said. "It's an advertis.e.m.e.nt."

Abe's face grew white.

"A meeting of creditors!" he gasped.

Morris grabbed the missive from his partner and spread it out on the table.

"h.e.l.lo!" he exclaimed, a great smile of relief spreading itself about his ears. "It's a wedding invitation!" He held it up to the light. "'Mr.

and Mrs. Marcus Bramson,'" he read, "'request the pleasure of Potash & Perlmutter's company at the marriage of their daughter Tillie to Mr.

Hyman Maimin, Sunday, March 19, at seven o'clock, P.M., Wiedermayer's Hall, 2099 South Oswego Street. R.S.V.P. to residence of bride, care of Advance Credit Clothing Company, 2097 South Oswego Street.'"

"What is that 'R.S.V.P. to residence of bride'?" Abe Potash asked.

Morris reflected for a moment.

"That means," he said at length, "that we should know where to send the present to."

"How do you make that out?" said Abe.

"'R.S.V.P.'," Morris replied, emphasizing each letter with a motion of his hand, "means 'Remember to send vedding present.'"

"But," Abe rejoined, "when I went to night school, we spelt 'wedding'

with a W."

"A greenhorn like Maimin," said Morris, "don't know no better."

"He knows enough to ask for a wedding present, Mawruss," Abe commented, "even if he don't know how to spell it. We'll send him a wedding present, Mawruss! We'll send him a summons from the court, that's what we'll send him!"

Morris shook his head.