"Antics?" Elkan exclaimed.

"Sure!" Max explained. "Antics--old furniture and old silver."

"You mean a second-hand store?" Elkan suggested.

"Not a second-hand store," Max declared. "A second-hand store is got old furniture from two years old _oder_ ten years old, understand me; _aber_ an antic store carries old furniture from a hundred years old already."

"And this here Ringentaub is got furniture from a hundred years old already?" Elkan cried.

"From older even," answered Max; "from two hundred and fifty years old also."

"_Ich glaub's!_" Elkan cried.

"You can believe it _oder_ not, Mr. Lubliner," Max continued; "but Ringentaub got in his store a couple Jacobean chairs, which they are two hundred and fifty years old already. And them chairs you could buy at a big sacrifice yet."

Elkan and Yetta exchanged puzzled glances, and Elkan even tapped his forehead significantly.

"They was part of a whole set," Max went on, not noticing his employer's gesture; "the others Ringentaub sold to a collector."

Elkan flipped his right hand.

"A collector is something else again," he said; "but me I ain't no collector, Max, _Gott sei Dank_! I got my own business, Max, and I ain't got to buy from two hundred and fifty years old furniture."

"Why not?" Max asked. "B. Gans is got his own business, too, Mr. Lubliner, and a good business also; and he buys yet from Ringentaub--only last week already--an angry cat cabinet which it is three hundred years old already."

"An angry cat cabinet?" Elkan exclaimed.

"That's what I said," Max continued; "'angry' is French for 'Henry' and 'cat' is French for 'fourth'; so this here cabinet was made three hundred years ago when Henry the Fourth was king of France--and B. Gans buys it last week already for five hundred dollars!"

Therewith Max commenced a half-hour dissertation upon antique furniture which left Yetta and Elkan more undecided than ever.

"And you are telling me that big people like B. Gans and Andrew Carnegie buys this here antics for their houses?" Elkan asked.

"J. P. Morgan also," Max replied. "And them Jacobean chairs there you could get for fifty dollars already."

"Well, it wouldn't do no harm supposing we would go down and see 'em,"

Yetta suggested.

"Some night next week," Elkan added, "_oder_ the week after."

"For that matter, we could go to-night too," Max rejoined. "Sunday is like any other night down on Allen Street, and you got to remember that Jacobean chairs is something which you couldn't get whenever you want 'em. Let me tell you just what they look like."

Here he descanted so successfully on the beauty of Jacobean furniture that Yetta added her persuasion to his, and Elkan at length surrendered.

"All right," he said. "First we would have a little something to eat and then we would go down there."

Hence, a few minutes after eight that evening they alighted at the Spring Street subway station; and Max Merech piloted Elkan and Yetta beneath elevated railroads and past the windows of bra.s.s shops, with their gleaming show of candlesticks and samovars, to a little bas.e.m.e.nt store near the corner of Rivington Street.

"It don't look like much," Max apologized as he descended the few steps leading to the entrance; "_aber_ he's got an elegant stock inside."

When he opened the door a trigger affixed to the door knocked against a rusty bell, but no one responded. Instead, from behind a part.i.tion in the rear came sounds of an angry dispute; and as Elkan closed the door behind him one of the voices rose higher than the rest.

"Take my life--take my blood, Mr. Sammet!" it said; "because I am making you the best proposition I can, and that's all there is to it."

Max was about to stamp his foot when Elkan laid a restraining hand on his shoulder; and, in the pause that followed, the heavy, almost hysterical breathing of the last speaker could be heard in the front of the store.

"I don't want your life _oder_ your blood, Dishkes," came the answer in ba.s.s tones, which Elkan recognized as the voice of his compet.i.tor, Leon Sammet. "I am your heaviest creditor, and all I want is that you should protect me."

"I know you are my heaviest creditor," Louis Dishkes replied. "To my sorrow I know it! If it wouldn't be for your rotten stickers which I got in my place, might I would be doing a good business there to-day, maybe!"

"_Schmooes_, Dishkes!" Sammet replied. "The reason you didn't done a good business there is that you ain't no business man, Dishkes--and anyhow, Dishkes, it don't do no good you should insult me!"

"What d'ye mean insult you?" Dishkes cried angrily. "I ain't insulting you, Sammet. You are insulting me. You want me I should protect you and let my other creditors go to the devil--ain't it? What d'ye take me for--a crook?"

"That's all right," Sammet declared. "I wouldn't dandy words with you, Dishkes. For the last time I am asking you: Will you take advantage of the offer I am getting for you from the Mercantile Outlet Company, of Nashville, for your entire stock? Otherwise I would got nothing more to say to you."

There was a sound of scuffling feet as the party in the rear of the store rose from their chairs.

"You ain't got no need to say nothing more to me, Mr. Sammet," Dishkes announced firmly, "because I am through with you, Mr. Sammet. Your account ain't due till to-morrow, and you couldn't do nothing till Tuesday. Ain't it? So Tuesday morning early you should go ahead and sue me, and if I couldn't raise money to save myself I will go _mechullah_; but it'll be an honest _mechullah_, and that's all there is to it."

As Dishkes finished speaking Elkan drew Max and Yetta into the shadow cast by a tall highboy; and, without noticing their presence, Leon Sammet plunged toward the door and let himself out into the street.

Immediately Elkan tiptoed to the door and threw it wide open, after which he shuffled his feet with sufficient noise to account for the entrance of three people. Thereat Ringentaub emerged from behind the part.i.tion.

"h.e.l.lo, Ringentaub," Max cried. "I am bringing you here some customers."

Ringentaub bowed and coughed a warning to Dishkes and Mrs. Ringentaub, who continued to talk in hoa.r.s.e whispers behind the part.i.tion.

"What's the matter, Ringentaub?" Max Merech asked; "couldn't you afford it here somehow a little light?"

Ringentaub reached into the upper darkness and turned on a gas jet which had been burning a blue point of flame.

"I keep it without light here on purpose," he said, "on account Sundays is a big night for the candlestick fakers up the street and I don't want to be bothered with their trade. What could I show your friends, Mr.

Merech?"

Max winked almost imperceptibly at Elkan and prepared to approach the subject of the Jacobean chairs by a judicious detour.

"Do you got maybe a couple Florentine frames, Ringentaub?" he asked; and Ringentaub shook his head.

"Florentine frames is hard to find nowadays, Mr. Merech," he said; "and I guess I told it you Friday that I ain't got none."

Elkan shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"I thought might you would of picked up a couple since then, maybe," Max rejoined, glancing round him. "You got a pretty nice highboy over there, Ringentaub, for a reproduction."

Ringentaub nodded satirically.

"That only goes to show how much you know about such things, Mr.