Lubliner?" Milton asked. "Are you and Mrs. Lubliner
agreeable to go downtown after the show to the cafe on Delancey Street?
It's a pretty poor neighbourhood already."

Yetta smiled.

"Sure, I know," she said; "but it wouldn't be the first time me and
Elkan was in Delancey Street."

"Then it's agreed that we're all going to hear the genius," Elkan's
neighbour added. "I heard you call one another Jassy and Lubliner--it's
hardly fair you shouldn't know my name too."

He felt in his waistcoat pocket and finally handed a visiting card to
Elkan, who glanced at it hurriedly and with trembling fingers passed it
on to his wife, for it was inscribed in old English type as follows:

+==============================+
| |
| =Mr. Joseph Kammerman= |
| |
| =Fostoria Hotel= |
| |
| =New York= |
| |
+==============================+

"Once and for all, I am telling you, Volkovisk, either you would got to
play music here or quit!" Marculescu cried at eleven o'clock that
evening. "The customers is all the time kicking at the stuff you give
us."

"What d'ye mean, stuff?" Max Merech protested. "That was no stuff, Mr.
Marculescu. That was from Brahms a trio, and it suits me down to the
ground."

"Suits you!" Marculescu exclaimed. "Who in blazes are you?"

"I am _auch_ a customer, Mr. Marculescu," Max replied with dignity.

"_Yow_, a customer!" Marculescu jeered. "You sit here all night on
one cup coffee. A customer, _sagt er_! A loafer--that's what you are!
It ain't you I am making my money from, Merech--it's from them
_Takeefim_[A] uptown; and they want to hear music, not Brahms. So you
hear what I am telling you, Volkovisk! You should play something
good--like 'Wildcat Rag'."

[Footnote A: _Takeefim_--Aristocracy.]

"Wait a minute, Mr. Marculescu," Max interrupted. "Do you mean to told
me them lowlife bums in front there, which makes all that _Geschrei_
over 'Dixerlie' and such like _Narrischkeit_, is _Takeefim_ yet?"

"I don't want to listen to you at all, Merech!" Marculescu shouted.

"I don't care if you want to listen to me _oder_ not," Merech said. "I
was a customer here when you got one little store _mit_ two waiters; and
it was me and all the other fellers you are calling loafers now what
give you, with our few pennies,