A MATCH FOR ELKAN LUBLINER

MADE IN HEAVEN, WITH THE a.s.sISTANCE OF MAX KAPFER

"I wouldn't care if Elkan Lubliner was only eighteen even," declared Morris Rashkind emphatically; "he ain't too young to marry B. Maslik's a _Tochter_. There's a feller which he has got in improved property alone, understand me, an equity of a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and if you would count second mortgages and Bronix lots, Mr.

Polatkin, the feller is worth easy his quarter of a million dollars."

"Sure I know," Polatkin retorted. "With such a feller, he gives his daughter when she gets married five thousand dollars a second mortgage, understand me; and the most the _Chosan_ could expect is that some day he forecloses the mortgage and gets a deficiency judgment against a dummy bondsman which all his life he never got money enough to pay his laundry bills even!"

"_Oser a Stuck!_" Rashkind protested. "He says to me, so sure as you are sitting there, 'Mr. Rashkind,' he says, 'my dear friend,' he says, 'Birdie is my only _Tochter_. I ain't got no other one,' he says, '_Gott sei Dank_,' he says; 'and the least I could do for her is five thousand dollars cash,' he says, 'in a certified check,' he says, 'before the feller goes under the _Chuppah_ at all.'"

"With a feller like B. Maslik," Polatkin commented, "it ain't necessary for him to talk that way, Rashkind, because if he wants to get an up-to-date business man for his daughter, understand me, he couldn't expect the feller is going to take chances on an uncertified check _oder_ a promissory note."

"That's all right, Mr. Polatkin," Rashkind said. "B. Maslik's promissory note is just so good as his certified check, Mr. Polatkin. With that feller I wouldn't want his promissory note even. His word in the presence of a couple of bright, level-headed witnesses, which a lawyer couldn't rattle 'em on the stand, _verstehst du_, would be good enough for me, Mr. Polatkin. B. Maslik, y'understand, is absolutely good like diamonds, Mr. Polatkin."

"All right," Polatkin said. "I'll speak to Elkan about it. He'll be back from the road Sat.u.r.day."

"Speak nothing," Rashkind cried excitedly. "Sat.u.r.day would be too late.

Everybody is working on this here proposition, Mr. Polatkin. Because the way property is so dead nowadays all the real estaters tries to be a _Shadchen_, understand me; so if you wouldn't want Miss Maslik to slip through Elkan's fingers, write him this afternoon yet. I got a fountain pen right here."

As he spoke he produced a fountain pen of formidable dimensions and handed it to Polatkin.

"I'll take the letter along with me and mail it," Rashkind continued as Marcus made a preliminary flourish.

"Tell him," Rashkind went on, "that the girl is something which you could really call beautiful."

"I wouldn't tell him nothing of the sort," Polatkin said, "because, in the first place, what for a _Schreiber_ you think I am anyway? And, in the second place, Rashkind, Elkan is so full of business, understand me, if I would write him to come home on account this here Miss Maslik is such a good-looker he wouldn't come at all."

Rashkind shrugged.

"Go ahead," he said. "Do it your own way."

For more than five minutes Polatkin indited his message to Elkan and at last he inclosed it in an envelope.

"How would you spell Bridgetown?" he asked.

"Which Bridgetown?" Rashkind inquired--"Bridgetown, Pennsylvania, _oder_ Bridgetown, Illinois?"

"What difference does that make?" Polatkin demanded.

"About the spelling it don't make no difference," Rashkind replied.

"Bridgetown is spelt B-r-i-d-g-e-t-a-u-n, all the world over; _aber_ if it's Bridgetown, Pennsylvania, that's a very funny quincidence, on account I am just now talking to a feller which formerly keeps a store there by the name Flixman."

"Do you mean Julius Flixman?" Marcus asked as he licked the envelope.

"That's the feller," Rashkind said with a sigh as he pocketed the letter to Elkan. "It's a funny world, Mr. Polatkin. Him and me comes over together in one steamer yet, thirty years ago; and to-day if that feller's worth a cent he's worth fifty thousand dollars."

"Sure, I know," Marcus agreed; "and _Gott soll huten_ you and I should got what he's got it. He could drop down in the streets any moment, Rashkind." Rashkind nodded as he rose to his feet.

"In a way, it's his own fault," he said, "because a feller which he could afford to ride round in taxicabs yet ain't got no business walking the streets in his condition. I told him this morning: 'Julius,' I says, 'if I was one of your heirs,' I says to him, 'I wouldn't want nothing better as to see you hanging round the real-estate exchange, looking the way you look!' And he says to me: 'Rashkind,' he says, 'there is a whole lot worser things I could wish myself as you should be my heir,' he says. 'On account,' he says, 'if a _Schlemiel_ like you would got a relation which is going to leave you money, Rashkind,' he says, 'it would be just your luck that the relation dies one day after you do, even if you would live to be a hundred.'"

He walked toward the door and paused on the threshold.

"Yes, Mr. Polatkin," he concluded, "you could take it from me, if that feller's got heart disease, Mr. Polatkin, it ain't from overworking it.

So I would ring you up to-morrow afternoon three o'clock and see if Elkan's come yet."

"I'm agreeable," Polatkin declared; "only one thing I got to ask you: you should keep your mouth shut to my partner, on account if he hears it that I am bringing back Elkan from the road just for this here Miss Maslik, understand me, he would never let me hear the end of it."

Rashkind made a rea.s.suring gesture with his right arm after the fashion of a swimmer who employs the overhand stroke.

"What have I got to do with your partner?" he said as he started for the elevator. "If I meet him in the place, I am selling b.u.t.tons and you don't want to buy none. Ain't it?"

Polatkin nodded and turned to the examination of a pile of monthly statements by way of dismissing the marriage broker. Moreover, he felt impelled to devise some excuse for sending for Elkan, so that he might have it pat upon the return from lunch of his partner, Philip Scheikowitz, who at that precise moment was seated in the rear of Wa.s.serbauer's cafe, by the side of Charles Fischko.

"Yes, Mr. Scheikowitz," Fischko said, "if you would really got the feller's interest in heart, understand me, you wouldn't wait till Sat.u.r.day at all. Write him to-day yet, because this proposition is something which you could really call remarkable, on account most girls which they got five thousand dollars dowries, Mr. Scheikowitz, ain't got five-thousand-dollar faces; _aber_ this here Miss Maslik is something which when you are paying seventy-five cents a seat on theaytre, understand me, you don't see such an elegant-looking _Gesicht_. She's a regular doll, Mr. Scheikowitz!"

"Sure, I know," Scheikowitz agreed; "that's the way it is with them dolls, Fischko--takes a fortune already to dress 'em."

Fischko flapped the air indignantly with both hands.

"That's where you are making a big mistake," he declared. "The Masliks got living in the house with 'em a girl which for years already she makes all Miss Maslik's dresses and Mrs. Maslik's also. B. Maslik told me so himself, Mr. Scheikowitz. He says to me: 'Fischko,' he says, 'my Birdie is a girl which she ain't accustomed she should got a lot of money spent on her,' he says; 'the five thousand dollars is practically net,' he says, 'on account his expenses would be small.'"

"Is she a good cook?" Scheikowitz asked.

"A good cook!" Fischko cried. "Listen here to me, Mr. Scheikowitz. You know that a _Shadchen_ eats sometimes in pretty swell houses. Ain't it?"

Scheikowitz nodded.

"Well, I am telling you, Mr. Scheikowitz, so sure as I am sitting here, that I got in B. Maslik's last Tuesday a week ago already a piece of plain everyday _gefullte Hechte_, Mr. Scheikowitz, which honestly, if you would go to Delmonico's _oder_ the Waldorfer, understand me, you could pay as high as fifty cents for it, Mr. Scheikowitz, and it wouldn't be--I am not saying better--but so good even as that there _gefullte Hechte_ which I got it by B. Maslik."

Scheikowitz nodded again.

"All right, Fischko," he said, "I will write the boy so soon as I get back to the office yet; but one thing I must beg of you: don't say a word about this to my partner, y'understand, because if he would hear that I am bringing home Elkan from the road just on account of this _Shidduch_ you are proposing, understand me, he would make my life miserable."

Fischko shrugged his shoulders until his head nearly disappeared into his chest.

"What would I talk to your partner for, Mr. Scheikowitz?" he said. "I am looking to you in this here affair; so I would stop round the day after to-morrow afternoon, Mr. Scheikowitz, and if your partner asks me something a question, I would tell him I am selling thread _oder_ b.u.t.tons."

"Make it b.u.t.tons," Scheikowitz commented, as he rose to his feet; "because we never buy b.u.t.tons from n.o.body but the Prudential b.u.t.ton Company."

On his way back to his office Scheikowitz pondered a variety of reasons for writing Elkan to return, and he had tentatively adopted the most extravagant one when, within a hundred feet of his business premises, he encountered no less a personage than Julius Flixman.

"_Wie geht's_, Mr. Flixman?" he cried. "What brings you to New York?"

Flixman saluted Philip with a limp handclasp.

"I am living here now," he said. "I am giving up my store in Bridgetown _schon_ six months ago already, on account I enjoyed such poor health there. So I sold out to a young feller by the name Max Kapfer, which was for years working by Paschalson, of Sarahcuse; and I am living here, as I told you."