up to Polatkin.
You don't got to keep Scheikowitz's idee a secret now, Lubliner, because
sooner or later Polatkin must got to find it out. So you should let
Polatkin know how you was up there last night, and that Rashkind wants
you to go up there Friday night on account Miss Maslik was sick, and
leave it to Polatkin to flag Scheikowitz and this here Fischko."

"But----" Elkan began, when the strange expression of Kapfer's face made
him pause. Indeed, before he could proceed further, Kapfer jumped up
from his chair.

"Cheese it!" he said. "Here comes Polatkin."

As he spoke, Polatkin caught sight of them and almost ran across the
room.

"Elkan!" he exclaimed. "_Gott sei Dank_ I found you here."

"What's the matter?" Elkan asked.

Polatkin drew forward a chair and they all sat down.

"I just had a terrible fuss with Scheikowitz," he said. "This morning,
when I got downtown, I thought I would tell him what I brought you back
for; so I says to him: 'Philip,' I says, 'I want to tell you something,'
I says. 'I got an elegant _Shidduch_ for Elkan.'" He stopped and let his
hand fall with a loud smack on his thigh. "Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What a
row that feller made it! You would think, Elkan, I told him I got a
pistol to shoot you with, the way he acts. I didn't even got the
opportunity to tell him who the _Shidduch_ was. He tells me I should
mind my own business and calls me such names which honestly I wouldn't
call a shipping clerk even. And what else d'ye think he says?"

Elkan and Kapfer shook their heads.

"Why, he says that to-night, at eight o'clock, he himself is going to
have a _Shadchen_ by the name Fischko take you up to see a girl in
Harlem which the name he didn't tell me at all; but he says she's got
five thousand dollars a dowry. Did he say to you anything about it,
Elkan?"

"The first I hear of it!" Elkan replied in husky tones as he averted his
eyes from Polatkin. "Why, I wouldn't know the feller Fischko if he stood
before me now, and he wouldn't know me neither."

"Didn't he tell you her name?" Kapfer asked cautiously.

"No," Polatkin replied, "because I says right away that the girl I had
in mind would got a dowry of five thousand too; and then and there
Scheikowitz gets so mad he smashes a chair on us--one of them new ones
we just bought, Elkan. So I didn't say nothing more, but I rung up
Rashkind right away and asks him how things turns out, and he says
nothing is settled yet."

Elkan nodde