he I. O. M. A., but the
impending apoplexy was warded off by a tremendous burst of profanity.

"_Aber_, Mr. Flugel," Scheikowitz protested, "Louis tells us only last
Saturday, understand me, you told him that Johnsonhurst you wouldn't
touch at all, on account such lowlifes like Rabiner and Pasinsky lives
out there!"

"I know I told him that," Flugel yelled; "because, if I would say I am
going to buy out there, Stout goes to work and blabs it all over the
place, and the first thing you know they would jump the price on me a
few thousand dollars. He's a dangerous feller, Louis is, Mr.
Scheikowitz!"

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"That may be, Mr. Flugel," he said, "but I signed the contract with
Glaubmann for his house on Linden Boulevard--and that's all there is to
it!"

Polatkin and Scheikowitz nodded in melancholy unison.

"Do you got the contract here?" Flugel asked; and Elkan picked up the
document from his desk, where it had been placed by Goldstein.

"You paid a fancy price for the house," Flugel continued, as he examined
the agreement.

"I took your partner's advice, Mr. Flugel," Elkan retorted.

"Why, for eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, in Johnsonhurst,"
Flugel continued, "I could give you a palace already!"

He scanned the various clauses of the contract with the critical eye of
an experienced real-estate operator; and before he had completed his
examination the elevator door again creaked open.

"Is Glaubmann gone?" cried a voice from the interior of the car, and the
next moment Kovner alighted.

Flugel looked up from the contract.

"Hello, Kovner," he said, "are you in this deal too?"

"I ain't in any deal," Kovner replied. "I am looking for Barnett
Glaubmann. They told me in his office he is coming over here and would
be here all the morning."

"Well, he was here," Elkan replied, "but he went away again."

Kovner sat down without invitation.

"It ain't no more as I expected," he began in the dull, resigned tones
of a man with a grievance. "That swindler has been dodging me for four
months now, and I guess he will keep on dodging me for the rest of the
year that he claims I got a lease on his house for."

"What house?" Flugel asked.

"The house which I am living in it," Max replied--"on Linden Boulevard,
Burgess Park."

"On Linden Boulevard, Burgess Park!" Flugel repeated. "Why, then it's
the same house--ain't it, Lubliner?"

Elkan nodded, and as he did so Flugel struck the