within.

"Who fixed it?" Glaubmann asked.

"Who fixed it?" Mrs. Kovner repeated. "Who do you suppose fixed it?
Do you think we got from charity to fix it? _Gott sei Dank_, we
ain't exactly beggars, Mr. Glaubmann. Ourselves we fixed it, Mr.
Glaubmann--and the painting and the plumbing also; because if you
would got in savings bank what I got it, Mr. Glaubmann, you wouldn't
make us so much trouble about paying for a couple hundred dollars'
repairs."

"_Aber_," Glaubmann began, "you shouldn't of done it!"

"I know we shouldn't," Mrs. Kovner replied. "We should of stayed here
the rest of the year with the place looking like a pigsty already!
_Aber_ don't kick till you got to, Mr. Glaubmann. It would be time
enough to say something when we sue you by the court yet that you should
pay for the repairs we are making here."

Glaubmann pushed his hat back from his forehead and wiped his streaming
brow.

"_Nu_, Mrs. Kovner," he said at last, "it seems to me we got a
misunderstanding all round here. I would like to talk the matter over
with you."

With this conciliatory prelude he assumed an easy attitude by crossing
his legs and supporting himself with one hand on the freshly painted
doorjamb, whereat Mrs. Kovner uttered a horrified shriek, and the rage
which three weeks of housepainters' clutter had fomented in her bosom
burst forth unchecked.

"Out from here, you dirty loafer you!" she shrieked, and grabbed a
calcimining brush from one of the many paintpots that bestrewed the
hallway. Glaubmann bounded down the front stoop to the sidewalk just
as Mrs. Kovner made a frenzied pass at him with the brush; and
consequently, when he entered Kent J. Goldstein's office on Nassau
Street an hour later, his black overcoat was speckled like the hide of
an axis deer.

"Goldstein," he said hoarsely, "is it assault that some one paints you
from head to foot with calcimine?"

"It is if you got witnesses," Goldstein replied; "otherwise it's
misfortune. Who did it?"

"That she-devil--the wife of the tenant in that house I sold Lubliner,"
Glaubmann replied. "I think we're going to have trouble with them
people, Goldstein."

"You will if you try to sue 'em without witnesses, Glaubmann," Goldstein
observed; "because suing without witnesses is like trying to play
pinocle without cards. It can't be done."

Glaubmann shook his head sadly.

"I ain't going to sue 'em," he said. "I ain't so fond of lawsuits like
all that; and, besid