w many girls which they are working
in stores gets not a rich man, understand me, but a man which is only
making, say, for example, thirty dollars a week. The most that a poor
girl expects is that she marries a poor man, y'understand, and then they
work their way up together."

Elkan nodded. Unconsciously he was indorsing not so much the matter as
the manner of her conversation, for she spoke with the low voice that
distinguishes the Rumanian from the Pole or Lithuanian.

"You are coming from Rumania, ain't it?" Elkan asked.

"Pretty near there," the maid replied. "Right on the border. I am coming
here an orphan five years ago; and----"

"_Nu_, Lubliner," cried a rasping voice from the doorway, "we got our
appointment for nothing--Miss Maslik is sick."

"That's too bad," Elkan said perfunctorily.

"Only a little something she eats gives her a headache," Rashkind went
on. "We could come round the day after to-morrow night."

"That's too bad also," Elkan commented, "on account the day after
to-morrow night I got a date with a customer."

"Well, anyhow, B. Maslik would be in in a minute and----"

Elkan rose to his feet so abruptly that he nearly sent his chair through
a cabinet behind him.

"If I want to be here Friday night," he said, "I must see my customer
to-night yet; so, young lady, if you would be so kind to tell Mr. Maslik
I couldn't wait, but would be here Friday night with this
here--now--gentleman. Come on, Rashkind."

He started for the hall door almost on a run, with Rashkind
gesticulating excitedly behind him; but, before the _Shadchen_ could
even grasp his coattails he had let himself hurriedly out and was taking
the stairs three at a jump.

"Hey!" Rashkind shouted as he plunged down the steps after Elkan.
"What's the matter with you? Don't you want to meet Mr. Maslik?"

Elkan only hurried the faster, however, for in the few minutes he had
been alone in the room with the little brown-eyed maid he had made the
discovery that marriage with the aid of a _Shadchen_ was impossible for
him. Simultaneously he conceived the notion that marriage without the
aid of a _Shadchen_ might after all be well worth trying; and, as this
idea loomed in his mind, his pace slackened until the _Shadchen_
overtook him at the corner of One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.

"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner!" Rashkind said. "What is the matter with you
anyway?"

Elkan professed to misunderstand the question.

"I've lost my a