"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 p.r.o.nouncement 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."

"_Aber_ four 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 succ.u.mbed 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; _aber_ there 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 pa.s.sed 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 spent in 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 antic.i.p.ated 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, on account 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--you _oder_ me?"

"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; and he 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 a.s.sistants, Mr. Harvey J. Sugarberg, right away."