"Excuse me," Kapfer said. "I'll be right back."

He walked hurriedly out of the room, and Polatkin turned with a shrug to his partner.

"Well, Scheikowitz," he began, "what did I told you? We are up here on a fool's errand--ain't it?"

Scheikowitz made no reply.

"I'll tell you, Polatkin," he said at length, "Flixman himself says to me he did got one sister living in Bessarabia, and he ain't heard from her in thirty years; and----"

At this juncture Kapfer rushed into the room.

"Scheikowitz," he gasped, "I just now got a telephone message from a lawyer on Center Street, by the name Goldenfein, I should come right down there. Flixman is taken sick suddenly and they find in his pocket my check and a duplicate receipt which he gives me, written on the hotel paper. Do me the favour and come with me."

Fifteen minutes later they stepped out of a taxicab in front of an old-fashioned office building in Center Street and elbowed their way through a crowd of over a hundred people toward the narrow doorway.

"Where do yous think you're going?" asked a policeman whose broad shoulders completely blocked the little entrance.

"We was telephoned for, on account a friend of ours by the name Flixman is taken sick here," Kapfer explained.

"Go ahead," the policeman said more gently; "but I guess you're too late."

"Is he dead?" Scheikowitz cried, and the policeman nodded solemnly as he stood to one side.

More than two hours elapsed before Kapfer, Polatkin, and Scheikowitz returned to the Prince Clarence. With them was Kent J. Goldenfein.

"Mr. Kapfer," the clerk said, "there's a man been waiting for you in the cafe for over two hours."

"I'll bring him right in," Kapfer said, and two minutes afterward he brought the gesticulating Fischko out of the cafe.

"Do you think I am a dawg?" Fischko cried. "I've been here two hours!"

"Well, come into the Moorish Room a minute," Kapfer pleaded, "and I'll fix everything up with you afterward."

He led the protesting _Shadchen_ through the lobby, and when they entered the Moorish Room an impressive scene awaited them. On a divan, beneath some elaborate plush draperies, sat Kent J. Goldenfein, flanked on each side by Polatkin and Scheikowitz respectively, while spread on the table in front of them were the drafts of Flixman's will and the engrossed, unsigned copy, together with such other formidable-looking doc.u.ments as Goldenfein happened to find in his pockets. He rose majestically as Fischko entered and turned on him a beetling frown.

"Is this the fellow?" he demanded sepulchrally, and Kapfer nodded.

"Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein went on, "I am an officer of the Supreme Court and I have been retained to investigate the affairs of Mr. Julius Flixman."

"Say, lookyhere, Kapfer," Fischko cried. "What is all this?"

Kapfer drew forward a chair.

"Sit down, Fischko," he said, "and answer the questions that he is asking you."

"But----" Fischko began.

"Come, come, Mr. Fischko," Goldenfein boomed, "you are wasting our time here. Raise your right hand!"

Fischko glanced despairingly at Kapfer and then obeyed.

"Do you solemnly swear," said Goldenfein, who, besides being an attorney-at-law was also a notary public, "that the affidavit you will hereafter sign will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you G.o.d?"

"But----" Fischko began again.

"Do you?" Goldenfein roared, and Fischko nodded. Forthwith Goldenfein plied him with such ingeniously fashioned questions concerning the Flixman family that the answers presented a complete history of all its branches. Furthermore, the affidavit which Goldenfein immediately drew up lacked only such confirmatory evidence as could easily be supplied to establish the ident.i.ty of Miss Yetta Silbermacher as Julius Flixman's only heir-at-law; and, after Fischko had meekly signed the jurat, Goldenfein rose ponderously to his feet.

"I congratulate you, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "I think there is no doubt that your nephew's fiancee will inherit Flixman's estate, thanks to my professional integrity."

"What d'ye mean your professional integrity?" Kapfer asked.

"Why, if I hadn't refused to accept twenty-two dollars for drawing the will and insisted on the twenty-five we had agreed upon," Goldenfein explained, "he would never have suffered the heart attack which prevented his signing the will before he died."

"Died!" Fischko exclaimed. "Is Julius Flixman dead?"

"_Koosh_, Fischko!" Polatkin commanded. "You would think you was one of the family the way you are acting. Come down to our store to-morrow and we would arrange things with you." He turned to Kapfer.

"Let's go upstairs and see Elkan--and Yetta," he said.

Immediately they trooped to the elevator and ascended to the seventh floor.

"All of you wait here in the corridor," Kapfer whispered, "and I'll go and break it to them." He tiptoed to his room and knocked gently at the door.

"Come!" Elkan cried, and Kapfer turned the k.n.o.b.

On a sofa near the window sat Elkan, with his arm surrounding his fiancee's waist and her head resting on his shoulder.

"h.e.l.lo, Max!" he cried. "What's kept you? We must have been waiting here at least a quarter of an hour!"

CHAPTER FOUR

HIGHGRADE LINES

"Sure, I know, Mr. Scheikowitz," cried Elkan Lubliner, junior partner of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company, as he sat in the firm's office late one February afternoon; "but if you want to sell a highgrade concern like Joseph Kammerman you must got to got a highgrade line of goods."

"Ain't I am telling you that all the time?" Scheikowitz replied. "_Aber_ we sell here a popular-price line, Elkan. So what is the use talking we ain't ekvipt for a highgrade line."

"What d'ye mean we ain't equipped, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan protested.

"We got here machines and we got here fixtures, and all we need it now is a highgrade designer and a couple really good cutters like that new feller which is working for us."

"That's all right, too, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin interrupted; "but it ain't the ekvipment which it is so important. The reputation which we got for selling a popular-price line we couldn't get rid of so easy, understand me, and that _Betzimmer_ buyer of Kammerman's wouldn't got no confidence in us at all. The way he figures it we could just so much turn out a highgrade line of goods here as you could expect a feller which is acting in a moving pictures to all of a sudden sing like Charuso."

"Besides," Scheikowitz added, "highgrade designers and really good cutters means more capital, Elkan."