Elkan Lubliner, American

"What d'ye want to know for?" Kapfer asked.

"Never mind what I want to know for!" Fischko retorted. "Who is he?"

"Well, if you must got to know," Kapfer said, "he's a feller by the name Julius Flixman."

"What?" Fischko shouted.

"Fischko," Kapfer protested, "you ain't in no Canal Street coffee house here. This is a first-class hotel."

Fischko nodded distractedly.

"Sure, I know," he said. "Is there a place we could sit down here? I want to ask you something a few questions."

Kapfer led the way to the café and they sat down at a table near the door.

"Go ahead, Fischko," he said. "Polatkin and Scheikowitz will be here any minute."

"Well," Fischko began falteringly, "if this here feller is Julius Flixman, which he is coming from Bessarabia schon thirty years ago already, I don't want to do nothing in a hurry, Mr. Kapfer, on account I want to investigate first how things stand."

"What d'ye mean?" Kapfer demanded.

"Why, I mean this," Fischko cried: "If this here Flixman is well fixed, Kapfer, I want to know it, on account Miss Yetta Silbermacher is from Flixman's sister a daughter, understand me!"

Kapfer lit a cigar deliberately before replying. He was thinking hard.

"Do you mean to tell me," he said at last, "that this here Miss Silbermacher is Julius Flixman's a niece?"

"That's what I said," Fischko replied. "He comes here from Bessarabia thirty years ago already and from that day to this I never heard a word about him – Miss Silbermacher neither."

"Ain't the rest of his family heard from him?" Kapfer asked guardedly.

"There ain't no rest of his family," Fischko said. "Mrs. Silbermacher was his only sister, and she's dead over ten years since."

Kapfer nodded and drew reflectively on his cigar.

"Well, Fischko," he said finally, "I wouldn't let Flixman worry me none. He's practically a Schnorrer; he was in here just now on account he hears I am going to marry a rich girl and touches me for some money on the head of it. I guess you noticed that he looks pretty shabby – ain't it?"

"And sick too," Fischko added, just as a bellboy came into the café.

"Mr. Copper!" he bawled, and Max jumped to his feet.

"Right here," he said, and the bellboy handed him a card.

"Tell them I'll be with them in a minute," he continued; "and you stay here till I come back, Fischko. I won't be long."

He followed the bellboy to the desk, where stood Polatkin and Scheikowitz.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said.

"Well, Mr. Kapfer," Scheikowitz replied, "I guess I got to congradulate you."

"Sure!" Kapfer murmured perfunctorily. "Let's go into the Moorish Room."

"What's the matter with the café?" Polatkin asked; but Scheikowitz settled the matter by leading the way to the Moorish Room, where they all sat down at a secluded table.

"The first thing I want to tell you, gentlemen," Kapfer said, "is that I know you feel that I turned a dirty trick on you about Elkan."

Scheikowitz shrugged expressively.

"The way we feel about it, Mr. Kapfer," he commented, "is that bygones must got to be bygones – and that's all there is to it."

"But," Kapfer said, "I don't want the bygones to be all on my side; so I got a proposition to make you. How would it be if I could fix up a good Shidduch for Elkan myself?"

"What for a Shidduch?" Polatkin asked.

"The girl is an orphan," Kapfer replied, "aber she's got one uncle, a bachelor, which ain't got no relation in the world but her, and he's worth anyhow seventy-five thousand dollars."

"How do you know he's worth that much?" Polatkin demanded.

"Because I got some pretty close business dealings with him," Kapfer replied; "and not only do I know he's worth that much, but I guess you do too, Mr. Polatkin, on account his name is Julius Flixman."

"Julius Flixman?" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, Julius Flixman ain't got a relation in the world – he told me so himself."

"When did he told you that?" Kapfer asked.

"A couple of days ago," Scheikowitz replied.

"Then that accounts for it," Kapfer said. "A couple of days ago nobody knows he had a niece – not even Flixman himself didn't; but to-day yet he would know it and he would tell you so himself."

"But – " Scheikowitz began, when once again a page entered the room, bawling a phonetic imitation of Kapfer's name.

"Wanted at the 'phone," he called as he caught sight of Kapfer.

"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 café for over two hours."

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

"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 documents 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 God?"

"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 identity 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 fiancée 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 knob.

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

"Hello, 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 Bétzimmer 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."

"The capital you shouldn't worry about at all," Elkan retorted. "Next week my Yetta gets falling due a second mortgage from old man Flixman for five thousand dollars, and – "

Polatkin made a flapping gesture with his right hand.

"Keep your money, Elkan," he said. "You could got lots of better ways to invest it for Yetta as fixing ourselves up to sell big Machers like Joseph Kammerman."

"But it don't do no harm I should drop in and see them people. Ain't it?"

"Sure not," Scheikowitz continued as he swung round in his revolving chair and seized a pile of cutting clips. "They got an elegant store there on Fifth Avenue which it is a pleasure to go into even; and the worst that happens you, Elkan, is you are out a good cigar for that Mr. Dalzell up there."

Elkan nodded gloomily, and as he left the office Polatkin's face relaxed in an indulgent smile.

"The boy is getting awful ambitious lately, Scheikowitz," he said.

"What d'ye mean, ambitious?" Philip Scheikowitz cried angrily. "If you would be only twenty-three years of age, Polatkin, and married to a rich girl, understand me – and also partner in a good concern, which the whole thing he done it himself, Polatkin – you would act a whole lot more ambitious as he does. Instead of knocking the boy, Polatkin, you should ought to give him credit for what he done."

"Who is knocking the boy?" Polatkin demanded. "All I says is the boy is ambitious, Scheikowitz – which, if you don't think it's ambitious a feller tries to sell goods to Joseph Kammerman, Scheikowitz, what is it then?"

"There's worser people to sell goods to as Joseph Kammerman, Polatkin, which he is a millionaire concern, understand me," Scheikowitz declared; "and you could take it from me, Polatkin, even if you would accuse him he is ambitious oder not, that boy always got idees to do big things – and he works hard till he lands 'em. So if you want to call that ambitious, Polatkin, go ahead and do so. When a loafer knocks it's a boost every time."

With this ultimatum Scheikowitz followed his junior partner to the rear of the loft, where Elkan regarded with a critical eye the labors of his cutting-room staff.

"Nu, Elkan," Scheikowitz asked, "what's biting you now?"

Elkan winked significantly – and a moment later he tapped an assistant cutter on the shoulder.

"Max," he said, "do you got maybe a grudge against that piece of goods, the way you are slamming it round?"

The assistant cutter smiled in an embarrassed fashion.

"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I wasn't thinking about them goods at all. When you are laying out goods for cutting, Mr. Lubliner, you don't got to think much – especially pastel shades."

"Pastel shades?" Elkan repeated.

"That's what I said," the cutter replied. "Mit colors like reds and greens, which they are hitting you right in the face, so to speak, you couldn't get your mind off of 'em at all; but pastel shades, that's something else again. They quiet you like smoking a cigarette."

Elkan turned to his partner with a shrug.

"When I was working by B. Gans," the cutter went on, "I am laying out a piece of old gold crêpe mit a silver-thread border, and I assure you, Mr. Lubliner, it has an effect on me like some one would give me a glass of schnapps already."

"Stiegen, Max," said Elkan, moving away, "you got too much to say for yourself."

Max nodded resignedly and continued the spreading of the goods on the cutting table, while Elkan and Scheikowitz walked out of the room.

"That's the new feller I was telling you about," Elkan said. "Meshugganeh Max Merech they call him."

"Meshugga he may be," Scheikowitz replied, "but just the same he's got a couple of good idees also, Elkan. Only this morning he makes Redman the designer pretty near crazy when he says that the blue soutache on that new style 2060 kills the blue in the yoke, y'understand; and he was right too, Elkan. Polatkin and me made Redman change it over."

Elkan shrugged again as he put on his hat and coat preparatory to going home.

"A lot our class of trade worries about such things!" he exclaimed. "So far as they are concerned the soutache could be crimson and the yoke green, and if the price was right they'd buy it anyhow."

"Don't you fool yourself, Elkan," Scheikowitz said while Elkan rang for the elevator. "The price is never right if the workmanship ain't good."

That Elkan Lubliner's progress in business had not kept pace with his social achievements was a source of much disappointment to both Mrs. Lubliner and himself; for though the firm of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company was still rated seventy-five thousand dollars to one hundred thousand dollars – credit good – Elkan and Mrs. Lubliner moved in the social orbit of no less a personage than of Max Koblin, the Raincoat King, whose credit soared triumphantly among the A's and B's of old-established commission houses.

Indeed it was a party at Max Koblin's house that evening which caused Elkan to leave his place of business at half-past five; and when Mrs. Lubliner and he sallied forth from the gilt and porphyry hallway of their apartment dwelling they were fittingly arrayed to meet Max's guests, none of whom catered to the popular-price trade of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company.

"Why didn't you told him we are getting next week paid off for five thousand dollars a second mortgage?" Yetta said, continuing a conversation begun at dinner that evening.

"I did told him," Elkan insisted; "but what is the use talking to a couple of old-timers like them?"

Yetta sniffed contemptuously with the impatience of youth at the foibles of senility, as exemplified by the doddering Philip Scheikowitz, aged forty-five, and the valetudinarian Marcus Polatkin, whose hair, albeit unfrosted, had been blighted and in part swept away by the vicissitudes of forty-two winters.

"You can't learn an old dawg young tricks," Elkan declared, "and we might just as well make up our minds to it, Yetta, we would never compete with such highgrade concerns like B. Gans oder Schwefel & Zucker."

They walked over two blocks in silence and then Elkan broke out anew.

"I tell you," he said, "I am sick and tired of it. B. Gans talks all the time about selling this big Macher and that big Macher, and him and Mr. Schwefel gets telling about what a millionaire like Kammerman says to him the other day, or what he says to Mandelberger, of Chicago, y'understand – and I couldn't say nothing! If I would commence to tell 'em what I says to such customers of ours like One-Eye Feigenbaum oder H. Margonin, of Bridgetown, understand me, they would laugh me in my face yet."

Yetta pressed his arm consolingly as they ascended the stoop of Max Koblin's house on Mount Morris Park West, and two minutes later they entered the front parlour of that luxurious residence.

"And do you know what he says to me?" a penetrating barytone voice announced as they came in. "He says to me, 'Benson,' he says, 'I've been putting on musical shows now for fifteen years, and an idee like that comes from a genius already. There's a fortune in it!'"

At this juncture Mrs. Koblin noted the arrival of the last of her guests.

"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried, rising to her feet. "Ain't you fashionable getting here so late?"

She kissed Yetta and held out a hand to Elkan as she spoke.

"Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Elkan, keeping Yetta's dinner waiting because you claim you're so busy downtown?" she went on. "I guess you know everybody here except Mr. Benson."

She nodded toward the promulgator of Heaven-born ideas, who bowed solemnly.

"Pleased to meet you, Mister – "

"Lubliner," Elkan said.

"Mister Lubliner," Benson repeated, passing his begemmed fingers through a shock of black, curly hair. "And the long and short of it is," he continued, addressing the company, "to-morrow I'm getting a scenario along them lines I just indicated to you from one of the highest-grade fellers that's writing."

Here ensued a pause, during which B. Gans searched his mind for an anecdote concerning some retailer of sufficiently good financial standing, while Joseph Schwefel, of Schwefel & Zucker, cleared his throat preparatory to launching a verbatim report of a conversation between himself and a buyer for one of the most exclusive costume houses on Fifth Avenue; but even as Schwefel rounded his lips to enunciate an introductory "Er," Benson obtained a fresh start.

"Now you remember 'The Diners Out,' Ryan & Bernbaum's production last season?" he said, addressing Elkan. "In that show they had an idee like this: Eight ponies is let down from the flies – see? – and George DeFrees makes his entrance in a practical airyoplane – I think it was George DeFrees was working for Ryan & Bernbaum last year, or was it Sammy Potter?"

At this point he screwed up his face and leaning his elbow on the arm of his chair he placed four fingers on his forehead in the attitude known theatrically as Business of Deep Consideration.

"No," he said at last – "it was George DeFrees. George jumps out of the airyoplane and says: 'They followed me to earth, I see.'"

Benson raised his eyebrows at the assembled guests.

"Angels!" he announced. "Get the idee? 'They followed me to earth, I see.' Cue. And then he sings the song hit of the show: 'Come Take a Ride in My Airyoplane.'"

B. Gans shuffled his feet uneasily and Joseph Schwefel pulled down his waistcoat. As manufacturers of highgrade garments they had accompanied more than one customer to the entertainment described by Benson; but to Elkan the term "ponies" admitted of only one meaning, and this conversational arabesque of flies, little horses, aeroplanes and George DeFrees made him fairly dizzy.

"And," M. Sidney Benson said before B. Gans could head him off, "just that there entrance boomed the show. Ryan & Bernbaum up to date clears a hundred and twenty thousand dollars over and above all expenses."

"Better as the garment business!" Max Koblin commented – and B. Gans nodded and yawned.

"Ain't we going to have no pinocle?" he asked. Max rose and threw open the sliding doors leading to the dining room, where cards and chips were in readiness.

"Will you join us, Mr. Benson?" he asked.

"That'll make five with Mr. Lubliner," Benson replied; "so supposing you, Gans and Schwefel go ahead, and Mr. Lubliner and me will join you later. Otherwise you would got to deal two of us out – which it makes a pretty slow game that way."

"Just as you like," Max said; and after Mrs. Koblin and Yetta had retired abovestairs to view the most recent accession to Mrs. Koblin's wardrobe, Benson pulled up the points of his high collar and adjusted his black stock necktie. Then he lit a fresh cigar and prepared to lay bare to Elkan the arcana of the theatrical business.

"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the show business is a business like any other business. It ain't like you got an idee it is – opening wine for a bunch of chickens, understand me, and running round the streets till all hours of the morning."

"I never got no such idee," Elkan protested.

"You ain't, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued, "because it's very evidence to me that you don't know nothing about it; but there's a whole lot of people got that idee anyhow, y'understand; and what I am always trying to tell everybody is that the show business is like the garment business oder the drygoods business – a business for a business man, not a loafer!"

Elkan made an inarticulate noise which Benson took to be an expression of interest and encouragement.

"At the same time art has got a whole lot to do with it," he went on – "art and idees; and when you take a feller like Ryan, which he could write a show, write the music, put it on and play the leading part all by himself, y'understand, and a feller like Bernbaum, which used to was Miller, Bernbaum & Company in the pants business – you got there an ideel combination!"

Elkan nodded and looked helplessly round him at the Circassian walnut, of which half a forestful had gone to make up the furnishings of Koblin's front parlor.

"But," Benson said emphatically, "you take me, for instance – and what was I?"

He told off his former occupations with the index finger of his right hand on each digit of his left.

"First I was a salesman; second I was for myself in the infants' wear business; third I was noch einmal a salesman. Then I become an actor, because everybody knows my act, which I called it 'Your Old Friend Maslowsky.' For four years I played all the first-class vaudeville circuits here and on the other side in England. But though I made good money, Mr. Lubliner, the real big money is in the producing end."

"Huh-huh!" Elkan ejaculated.

"So that's the way it is with me, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued. "I am just like Ryan & Bernbaum, only instead of two partners there is only just one; which I got the art, the idees and the business ability all in myself!"

"That must make it very handy for you," Elkan commented.

"Handy ain't no name for it," Benson replied. "It's something you don't see nowheres else in the show business; but I'll tell you the truth, Mr. Lubliner – the work is too much for me!"

"Why don't you get a partner?" Elkan asked.