xchanged disquieting
glances, and they were correspondingly elated when Harvey at length
balked.

"One moment, Mr. Goldstein," he said--and, but for a slight nervousness,
he reproduced with histrionic accuracy the tone and gesture of his
employer--"as _locum tenens_ for my principal I must decline to insert
the phrase, 'and the present tenancies of said premises.'"

Kent wasted no time in forensic dispute when engaged in a real-estate
transaction, though, if necessary, he could make kindling of the
strongest rail that ever graced the front of a jury-box.

"How 'bout it, Glaubmann?" he said. "The premises is occupied--ain't
they?"

Glaubmann flapped his right hand in a gesture of _laissez-faire_.

"The feller moves out by the first of next month," he said; and Kent
turned to Elkan.

"Are you satisfied that the tenant stays in the house until the first?"
he asked. "That will be three days after the contract is closed."

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"Why not?" he said.

"All right, Mr.----Forget your name!" Kent cried. "Cut out 'and the
present tenancies of said premises.'"

At this easy victory a shade of disappointment passed over the faces of
Harvey Sugarberg and his clients, and the contract proceeded without
further objection to its rapid conclusion.

"Now then, my friends," Kent announced briskly, "we're ready for the
signatures."

At this, the crucial point of all real-estate transactions, a brief
silence fell upon the assembled company, which included not only the
attorneys and the clients, but Ortelsburg, Kamin, Tarnowitz and Ribnik
as well. Finally Glaubmann seized a pen, and, jabbing it viciously in an
inkpot, he made a John Hancock signature at the foot of the agreement's
last page.

"Now, Mr. Lubliner," Kent said--and Elkan hesitated.

"Ain't we going to wait for Louis Stout?" he asked; and immediately
there was a roar of protest that sounded like a mob scene in a Drury
Lane melodrama.

"If Louis Stout ain't here it's his own fault," Ortelsburg declared; and
Ribnik, Tarnowitz, and Kamin glowered in unison.

"I guess he's right, Elkan," Polatkin murmured.

"It is his own fault if he ain't here," Scheikowitz agreed feebly; and,
thus persuaded, Elkan appended a small and, by contrast with
Glaubmann's, a wholly unimpressive signature to the agreement.
Immediately thereafter Elkan passed over a certified check for eight
hundred dollars, according to the terms of the contract, which provided