gentaub. "Buying a couple pieces of
furniture is one thing, Merech, and refurnishing your house is another."

"You made a good start anyhow," Paul interrupted. "A couple chairs like
them gives a tone to a room which is got crayon portraits hanging in it
even."

Yetta blushed in the consciousness of what she had always considered to
be a fine likeness of Elkan's grandfather--the Lubliner _Rav_--which
hung in a silver-and-plush frame over the mantelpiece of the Lubliner
front parlour. Elkan was unashamed, however, and he glared angrily at
the connoisseur, who had started to leave the store.

"I suppose," he cried, "it ain't up to date that a feller should
have hanging in his flat a portrait of his grandfather--_olav
hasholem!_--which he was a learned man and a _Tzadek_, if there ever
was one."

Paul hesitated, with his hand on the doorknob.

"I'll tell you, Mr. Lubliner," he said solemnly; "to me a crayon
portrait is rotten, understand me, if it would be of a _Tzadek oder_ a
murderer."

And with a final bow to Mrs. Lubliner he banged the door behind him.

"Well, what d'ye think for a _Rosher_ like that?" Elkan exclaimed.

"The fellow is disappointed that you got ahead of him buying the chairs,
Mr. Lubliner," Ringentaub explained; "so he takes a chance that you and
Mrs. Lubliner is that kind of people which is got hanging in the parlour
crayon portraits, understand me, and he knocks you for it."

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"What could you expect from a feller which is content at fifty years of
age to be a collector only?" he asked, and Dishkes nodded
sympathetically.

"I bet yer, Mr. Lubliner," he agreed; "and so I would be at your store
to-morrow morning at ten o'clock sure."

* * * * *

"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin said the
following morning when Elkan related to him the events of the preceding
night; "_aber_ you couldn't blame Sammet none. Concerns like Sammet
Brothers, which they are such dirty crooks that everybody is got
suspicions of 'em, y'understand, must got to pay their bills prompt to
the day, Elkan; because if they wouldn't be themselves good collectors,
understand me, they would bust up quick."

"Sammet Brothers ain't in no danger of busting up," Elkan declared.

"Ain't they?" Marcus rejoined. "Well, you would be surprised, Elkan, if
I would tell you that only yesterday already I am speaking to a feller
by the name Hirsch, which w