shoulders.

"What d'ye ask me for?" Elkan cried. "Like as not I'd say another
couch."

"There is couches and couches," Max said with an apologetic smile, "but
if you would ask my advice I would say why not a couple nice chairs
there--something in monhogany, like Shippendaler _oder_ Sheratin."

Suddenly he slapped his thigh in an access of inspiration.

"I came pretty near forgetting!" he cried. "I got the very thing you
want--and a big bargain too! Do you know Louis Dishkes, which runs the
Villy dee Paris Store in Amsterdam Avenue?"

"I think I know him," Elkan said with ironic emphasis. "He owes us four
hundred dollars for two months already."

"Well, Dishkes is got a brother-in-law by the name Ringentaub, on Allen
Street, which he is a dealer in antics."

"Antics?" Elkan exclaimed.

"Sure!" Max explained. "Antics--old furniture and old silver."

"You mean a second-hand store?" Elkan suggested.

"Not a second-hand store," Max declared. "A second-hand store is got old
furniture from two years old _oder_ ten years old, understand me; _aber_
an antic store carries old furniture from a hundred years old already."

"And this here Ringentaub is got furniture from a hundred years old
already?" Elkan cried.

"From older even," answered Max; "from two hundred and fifty years old
also."

"_Ich glaub's!_" Elkan cried.

"You can believe it _oder_ not, Mr. Lubliner," Max continued; "but
Ringentaub got in his store a couple Jacobean chairs, which they are two
hundred and fifty years old already. And them chairs you could buy at a
big sacrifice yet."

Elkan and Yetta exchanged puzzled glances, and Elkan even tapped his
forehead significantly.

"They was part of a whole set," Max went on, not noticing his employer's
gesture; "the others Ringentaub sold to a collector."

Elkan flipped his right hand.

"A collector is something else again," he said; "but me I ain't no
collector, Max, _Gott sei Dank_! I got my own business, Max, and I ain't
got to buy from two hundred and fifty years old furniture."

"Why not?" Max asked. "B. Gans is got his own business, too, Mr. Lubliner,
and a good business also; and he buys yet from Ringentaub--only last
week already--an angry cat cabinet which it is three hundred years old
already."

"An angry cat cabinet?" Elkan exclaimed.

"That's what I said," Max continued; "'angry' is French for 'Henry' and
'cat' is French for 'fourth'; so this here cabinet was made three
hundred yea