When it came to drawing a real-estate contract there existed for Kent J.

Goldstein no incongruities of time and place. Kent was the veteran of a dozen real-estate booms, during which he had drafted agreements at all hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the vendor's back.

Thus the transaction between Glaubmann and Elkan Lubliner presented no difficulties to Kent J. Goldstein; and he handled the details with such care and dispatch that the contract was nearly finished before Harvey J.

Sugarberg remembered the instructions of his princ.i.p.al. As attorney for the buyer, it was Henry D. Feldman's practice to see that the contract of sale provided every opportunity for his client lawfully to avoid taking t.i.tle should he desire for any reason, lawful or unlawful, to back out; and this rule of his princ.i.p.al occurred to Harvey just as he and Goldstein were writing the clause relating to inc.u.mbrances.

"The premises are to be conveyed free and clear of all inc.u.mbrances,"

Kent read aloud, "except the mortgage and covenant against nuisances above described and the present tenancies of said premises."

He had brought with him two blank forms of agreement; and as he filled in the blanks on one of them he read aloud what he was writing and Harvey Sugarberg inserted the same clause in the other. Up to this juncture Harvey had taken Kent's dictation with such remarkable docility that Elkan and his partners had frequently exchanged disquieting glances, and they were correspondingly elated when Harvey at length balked.

"One moment, Mr. Goldstein," he said--and, but for a slight nervousness, he reproduced with histrionic accuracy the tone and gesture of his employer--"as _loc.u.m tenens_ for my princ.i.p.al I must decline to insert the phrase, 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"

Kent wasted no time in forensic dispute when engaged in a real-estate transaction, though, if necessary, he could make kindling of the strongest rail that ever graced the front of a jury-box.

"How 'bout it, Glaubmann?" he said. "The premises is occupied--ain't they?"

Glaubmann flapped his right hand in a gesture of _laissez-faire_.

"The feller moves out by the first of next month," he said; and Kent turned to Elkan.

"Are you satisfied that the tenant stays in the house until the first?"

he asked. "That will be three days after the contract is closed."

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"Why not?" he said.

"All right, Mr.----Forget your name!" Kent cried. "Cut out 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"

At this easy victory a shade of disappointment pa.s.sed over the faces of Harvey Sugarberg and his clients, and the contract proceeded without further objection to its rapid conclusion.

"Now then, my friends," Kent announced briskly, "we're ready for the signatures."

At this, the crucial point of all real-estate transactions, a brief silence fell upon the a.s.sembled company, which included not only the attorneys and the clients, but Ortelsburg, Kamin, Tarnowitz and Ribnik as well. Finally Glaubmann seized a pen, and, jabbing it viciously in an inkpot, he made a John Hanc.o.c.k signature at the foot of the agreement's last page.

"Now, Mr. Lubliner," Kent said--and Elkan hesitated.

"Ain't we going to wait for Louis Stout?" he asked; and immediately there was a roar of protest that sounded like a mob scene in a Drury Lane melodrama.

"If Louis Stout ain't here it's his own fault," Ortelsburg declared; and Ribnik, Tarnowitz, and Kamin glowered in unison.

"I guess he's right, Elkan," Polatkin murmured.

"It is his own fault if he ain't here," Scheikowitz agreed feebly; and, thus persuaded, Elkan appended a small and, by contrast with Glaubmann's, a wholly unimpressive signature to the agreement.

Immediately thereafter Elkan pa.s.sed over a certified check for eight hundred dollars, according to the terms of the contract, which provided that the t.i.tle be closed in twenty days at the office of Henry D.

Feldman.

"Well, Mr. Lubliner," Glaubmann said, employing the formula hallowed by long usage in all real-estate transactions involving improved property, "I wish you luck in your new house."

"Much obliged," Elkan said; and after a general handshaking the entire a.s.semblage crowded into one elevator, so that finally Elkan was left alone with his partners.

Polatkin was the first to break a silence of over five minutes'

duration.

"Ain't it funny," he said, "that we ain't heard from Louis?"

Scheikowitz nodded; and as he did so the elevator door creaked noisily and there alighted a short, stout person, who, having once been described in the I. O. M. A. Monthly as Benjamin J. Flugel, the Merchant Prince, had never since walked abroad save in a freshly ironed silk hat and a Prince Albert coat.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flugel?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz cried with one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged within his breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of business; and, as Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's impressive partner, he could not help congratulating himself on the mercantile sagacity that had made him buy Glaubmann's house.

"And this is Mr. Lubliner?" Flugel said in even tones.

"Pleased to meet you," Elkan said. "I had dinner with your partner only yesterday."

Flugel gulped convulsively in an effort to remain calm.

"I know it," he said; "and honestly the longer I am in business with that feller the more I got to wonder what a _Schlemiel_ he is. Actually he goes to work and tries to do his own partner without knowing it at all. Mind you, if he would be doing it from spite I could understand it; but when one partner don't know that the other partner practically closes a deal for a tract of a hundred lots and six houses in Johnsonhurst, and then persuades a prospective purchaser that, instead of buying in Johnsonhurst, he should buy in Burgess Park, understand me, all I got to say is that if Louis Stout ain't crazy the least he deserves is that the feller really and truly should buy in Burgess Park."

"But, Mr. Flugel," Elkan interrupted, "I did buy in Burgess Park."

"What!" Flugel shouted.

"I say that I made a contract for a house out there this morning only,"

Elkan said.

For a few seconds it seemed as though Benjamin J. Flugel's heirs-at-law would collect a substantial death benefit from the I. O. M. A., but the impending apoplexy was warded off by a tremendous burst of profanity.

"_Aber_, Mr. Flugel," Scheikowitz protested, "Louis tells us only last Sat.u.r.day, understand me, you told him that Johnsonhurst you wouldn't touch at all, on account such lowlifes like Rabiner and Pasinsky lives out there!"

"I know I told him that," Flugel yelled; "because, if I would say I am going to buy out there, Stout goes to work and blabs it all over the place, and the first thing you know they would jump the price on me a few thousand dollars. He's a dangerous feller, Louis is, Mr.

Scheikowitz!"

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"That may be, Mr. Flugel," he said, "but I signed the contract with Glaubmann for his house on Linden Boulevard--and that's all there is to it!"

Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in melancholy unison.

"Do you got the contract here?" Flugel asked; and Elkan picked up the doc.u.ment from his desk, where it had been placed by Goldstein.

"You paid a fancy price for the house," Flugel continued, as he examined the agreement.

"I took your partner's advice, Mr. Flugel," Elkan retorted.

"Why, for eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, in Johnsonhurst,"

Flugel continued, "I could give you a palace already!"

He scanned the various clauses of the contract with the critical eye of an experienced real-estate operator; and before he had completed his examination the elevator door again creaked open.