ughed away a slight huskiness. When he had started from his
luxuriously appointed office on lower Nassau Street to visit Mr.
Lesengeld on East Broadway, he had felt a trifle sorry for Lesengeld,
so soon to feel the embarrassment and awkwardness incidental to meeting
for the first time, and all combined under one frockcoat, the District
Grand Master of the I.O.M.A., the President of the Bella Hirshkind Home
for Indigent Females, and director and trustee of three orphan asylums
and of an eye, ear, and throat infirmary. With the first reference to
the defunct underwear business, however, Max began to lose the sense of
confidence that the dignity of his various offices lent him; and by the
time Lesengeld had mentioned the elevator apartment houses he had
assumed to Max all the majesty of, say, for example, the Federal Grand
Master of the I.O.M.A., with Jacob H. Schiff and Andrew Carnegie thrown
in for good measure.

"The fact is," Max stammered, "I called to see you about the
three-thousand dollar mortgage you are holding on Rudnik's house--the
second mortgage."

Lesengeld nodded.

"First mortgages I ain't got any," he said, "and if you are coming to
insinivate that I am a second-mortgage shark, Mr. Schindelberger, go
ahead and do so. I am dealing in second mortgages now twenty years
already, and I hear myself called a shark so often, Mr. Schindelberger,
that it sounds like it would be a compliment already. I come pretty
near getting it printed on my letterheads."

"I didn't said you was a second-mortgage shark, Mr. Lesengeld; a man
could be a whole lot worse as a second-mortgage shark, understand me,
and do a charity once in awhile, anyhow. You know what it stands in
_Gemara_ yet?"

Schindelberger settled himself in his chair preparatory to intoning a
Talmudical quotation, but Lesengeld forestalled him.

"Sure, I know," he said, "it stands in _Gemara_ a whole lot about
charity, Mr. Schindelberger, but it don't say no more about second
mortgages as it does about composition notes, for instance. So if you
are coming to me to ask me I should give Rudnik an extension on his
Clinton Street house, you could learn _Gemara_ to me till I would
become so big a _Melammed_ as you are, understand me, and it wouldn't
make no difference. I never extend no mortgages for nobody."

"But, Mr. Lesengeld, you got to remember this is an exception,
otherwise I wouldn't bother myself I should come up here at all. I am
interesting myself