"Don't go into that again, Lubliner," Kapfer said; "you told me how good she is six times already. The point is you are in a hole and you want me I should help you out--ain't it?"

Elkan nodded wearily.

"Well, then, my advice to you is: _Stiegen_," Kapfer continued. "Don't say a word about this to n.o.body until you would, anyhow, find out the girl's name."

"I wasn't going to," Elkan replied; "but there's something else, Mr.

Kapfer. To-night I am to meet this here other _Shadchen_ by the name Fischko, who is going to take me up to Maslik's house."

"But I thought Miss Maslik was sick," Kapfer said.

"She was sick," Elkan answered, "but she would be better by to-night. So that's the way it stands. If I would go downtown now and explain to Mr.

Scheikowitz that I am not going up there to-night and that I was there last night--and----" Here Elkan paused and made an expressive gesture with both hands. "The fact is," he almost whimpered, "the whole thing is such a _Mischmasch_ I feel like I was going crazy!"

Kapfer leaned across the table and patted him consolingly on the arm.

"Don't make yourself sick over it," he advised. "Put it up to Polatkin.

You don't got to keep Scheikowitz's idee a secret now, Lubliner, because sooner or later Polatkin must got to find it out. So you should let Polatkin know how you was up there last night, and that Rashkind wants you to go up there Friday night on account Miss Maslik was sick, and leave it to Polatkin to flag Scheikowitz and this here Fischko."

"But----" Elkan began, when the strange expression of Kapfer's face made him pause. Indeed, before he could proceed further, Kapfer jumped up from his chair.

"Cheese it!" he said. "Here comes Polatkin."

As he spoke, Polatkin caught sight of them and almost ran across the room.

"Elkan!" he exclaimed. "_Gott sei Dank_ I found you here."

"What's the matter?" Elkan asked.

Polatkin drew forward a chair and they all sat down.

"I just had a terrible fuss with Scheikowitz," he said. "This morning, when I got downtown, I thought I would tell him what I brought you back for; so I says to him: 'Philip,' I says, 'I want to tell you something,'

I says. 'I got an elegant _Shidduch_ for Elkan.'" He stopped and let his hand fall with a loud smack on his thigh. "Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What a row that feller made it! You would think, Elkan, I told him I got a pistol to shoot you with, the way he acts. I didn't even got the opportunity to tell him who the _Shidduch_ was. He tells me I should mind my own business and calls me such names which honestly I wouldn't call a shipping clerk even. And what else d'ye think he says?"

Elkan and Kapfer shook their heads.

"Why, he says that to-night, at eight o'clock, he himself is going to have a _Shadchen_ by the name Fischko take you up to see a girl in Harlem which the name he didn't tell me at all; but he says she's got five thousand dollars a dowry. Did he say to you anything about it, Elkan?"

"The first I hear of it!" Elkan replied in husky tones as he averted his eyes from Polatkin. "Why, I wouldn't know the feller Fischko if he stood before me now, and he wouldn't know me neither."

"Didn't he tell you her name?" Kapfer asked cautiously.

"No," Polatkin replied, "because I says right away that the girl I had in mind would got a dowry of five thousand too; and then and there Scheikowitz gets so mad he smashes a chair on us--one of them new ones we just bought, Elkan. So I didn't say nothing more, but I rung up Rashkind right away and asks him how things turns out, and he says nothing is settled yet."

Elkan nodded guiltily.

"So I got an idee," Polatkin continued. "I thought, Elkan, we would do this: Don't come downtown to-day at all, and to-night I would go up and meet Fischko and tell him you are practically engaged and the whole thing is off. Also I would _schenk_ the feller a ten-dollar bill he shouldn't bother us again."

Elkan grasped the edge of the table. He felt as if consciousness were slipping away from him, when suddenly Kapfer emitted a loud exclamation.

"By jiminy!" he cried. "I got an idee! Why shouldn't I go up there and meet this here Fischko?"

"You go up there?" Polatkin said.

"Sure; why not? A nice girl like Miss--whatever her name is--ain't too good for me, Mr. Polatkin. I got a good business there in Bridgetown, and----"

"But I don't know what for a girl she is at all," Polatkin protested.

"She's got anyhow five thousand dollars," Kapfer retorted, "and when a girl's got five thousand dollars, Mr. Polatkin, beauty ain't even skin-deep."

"Sure, I know," Polatkin agreed; "but so soon as you see Fischko and tell him you ain't Elkan Lubliner he would refuse to take you round to see the girl at all."

"Leave that to me," Kapfer declared. "D'ye know what I'll tell him?" He looked hard at Elkan Lubliner before he continued. "I'll tell him," he said, "that Elkan is already engaged."

"Already engaged!" Polatkin cried.

"Sure!" Kapfer said--"secretly engaged unbeknownst to everybody."

"But right away to-morrow morning Fischko would come down and tell Scheikowitz that you says Elkan is secretly engaged, and Scheikowitz would know the whole thing was a fake and that I am at the bottom of it."

"No, he wouldn't," Kapfer rejoined, "because Elkan would then and there say that he is secretly engaged and that would let you out."

"Sure it would," Polatkin agreed; "and then Scheikowitz would want to kill Elkan."

Suddenly Elkan struck the table with his clenched fist.

"I've got the idee!" he said. "I wouldn't come downtown till Sat.u.r.day--because we will say, for example, I am sick. Then, when Fischko says I am secretly engaged, you can say you don't know nothing about it; and by the time I come down on Sat.u.r.day morning I would be engaged all right, and n.o.body could do nothing any more."

"That's true too," Kapfer said, "because your date with Rashkind is for to-morrow night and by Sat.u.r.day the whole thing would be over."

Polatkin nodded doubtfully, but after a quarter of an hour's earnest discussion he was convinced of the wisdom of Elkan's plan.

"All right, Elkan," he said at last. "Be down early on Sat.u.r.day."

"Eight o'clock sure," Elkan replied as he shook Polatkin's hand; "and by that time I hope you'll congratulate me on my engagement."

"I hope so," Polatkin said.

"Me too," Kapfer added after Polatkin departed; "and I also hope, Elkan, this would be a warning to you that the next time you get engaged you should find out the girl's name in advance."

"Yes, siree, sir," said Charles Fischko emphatically, albeit a trifle thickly. "I guess you made a big hit there, Mr. Kapfer, and I don't think I am acting previously when I drink to the health of Mrs. Kapfer."

He touched gla.s.ses with Max Kapfer, who sat opposite to him at a secluded table in the Harlem Winter Garden, flanked by two bottles of what had been a choice brand of California champagne. "Nee Miss Maslik,"

he added as he put down his gla.s.s; "and I think you are getting a young lady which is not only good-looking but she is got also a heart like gold. Look at the way she treats the servant girl they got there!

Honestly, when I was round there this morning them two girls was talking like sisters already!"

"That's all right," Kapfer rejoined; "she's got a right to treat that girl like a sister. She's a nice little girl--that servant girl."

"Don't I know it!" Fischko protested as he poured himself out another gla.s.s of wine. "It was me that got her the job there two years ago already; and before I would recommend to a family like B. Maslik's a servant girl, understand me, I would make sure she comes from decent, respectable people. Also the girl is a wonderful cook, Mr. Kapfer, simple, plain, everyday dish like _gefullte Hechte_, Mr. Kapfer; she makes it like it would be roast goose already--so fine she cooks it. She learned it from her mother, Mr. Kapfer, also a wonderful cook. Why, would you believe it, Mr. Kapfer, that girl's own mother and me comes pretty near being engaged to be married oncet?"