d guiltily.

"So I got an idee," Polatkin continued. "I thought, Elkan, we would do
this: Don't come downtown to-day at all, and to-night I would go up and
meet Fischko and tell him you are practically engaged and the whole
thing is off. Also I would _schenk_ the feller a ten-dollar bill he
shouldn't bother us again."

Elkan grasped the edge of the table. He felt as if consciousness were
slipping away from him, when suddenly Kapfer emitted a loud exclamation.

"By jiminy!" he cried. "I got an idee! Why shouldn't I go up there and
meet this here Fischko?"

"You go up there?" Polatkin said.

"Sure; why not? A nice girl like Miss--whatever her name is--ain't too
good for me, Mr. Polatkin. I got a good business there in Bridgetown,
and----"

"But I don't know what for a girl she is at all," Polatkin protested.

"She's got anyhow five thousand dollars," Kapfer retorted, "and when a
girl's got five thousand dollars, Mr. Polatkin, beauty ain't even
skin-deep."

"Sure, I know," Polatkin agreed; "but so soon as you see Fischko and
tell him you ain't Elkan Lubliner he would refuse to take you round to
see the girl at all."

"Leave that to me," Kapfer declared. "D'ye know what I'll tell him?" He
looked hard at Elkan Lubliner before he continued. "I'll tell him," he
said, "that Elkan is already engaged."

"Already engaged!" Polatkin cried.

"Sure!" Kapfer said--"secretly engaged unbeknownst to everybody."

"But right away to-morrow morning Fischko would come down and tell
Scheikowitz that you says Elkan is secretly engaged, and Scheikowitz
would know the whole thing was a fake and that I am at the bottom of
it."

"No, he wouldn't," Kapfer rejoined, "because Elkan would then and there
say that he is secretly engaged and that would let you out."

"Sure it would," Polatkin agreed; "and then Scheikowitz would want to
kill Elkan."

Suddenly Elkan struck the table with his clenched fist.

"I've got the idee!" he said. "I wouldn't come downtown till
Saturday--because we will say, for example, I am sick. Then, when
Fischko says I am secretly engaged, you can say you don't know nothing
about it; and by the time I come down on Saturday morning I would be
engaged all right, and nobody could do nothing any more."

"That's true too," Kapfer said, "because your date with Rashkind is for
to-morrow night and by Saturday the whole thing would be over."

Polatkin nodded doubtfully, but after a quarter of an hour's earnest
dis