when we get through refurnishing," he
said. "I promise you you would see a flat furnished to your taste--no
crayon portraits nor nothing."

* * * * *

It was late in the afternoon when Elkan's office door opened to admit
Sam, the office boy.

"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "another feller is here about this
here--now--Jacobowitz."

Elkan glanced through the half-open door and recognized the figure of
Ringentaub, the antiquarian.

"Tell him to come in," he said; and a moment later Ringentaub was
wringing Elkan's hand and babbling his gratitude for his
brother-in-law's deliverance from bankruptcy.

"God will bless you for it, Mr. Lubliner," he said; "and I am ashamed of
myself when I think of it. I am a dawg, Mr. Lubliner--and that's all
there is to it."

Here he drew a greasy wallet from his breast-pocket and extracted three
ten-dollar bills.

"Take 'em, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and forgive me."

He pressed the bills into Elkan's hand.

"What's this?" Elkan demanded.

"That's the change from your fifty dollars," Ringentaub replied;
"because, so help me, Mr. Lubliner, there is first-class material in
them chairs and the feller that makes 'em for me is a highgrade
cabinetmaker. Then you got to reckon it stands me in a couple of dollars
also to get 'em fixed up antique, y'understand; so, if you get them
chairs for twenty dollars you are buying a bargain, Mr. Lubliner."

"Why, what d'ye mean?" Elkan cried. "Ain't them chairs gen-wine Jacobean
chairs?"

"Not by a whole lot they ain't," Ringentaub declared fervently.

"But Mr. Paul thinks they are!" Elkan exclaimed.

"Sure, I know," Ringentaub answered; "and that shows what a lot a
collector knows about such things. Paul is a credit man for the
Hamsuckett Mills, Mr. Lubliner; but he collects old furniture on the
side."

For a moment Elkan gazed open-mouthed at the antiquarian and a great
light began to break in on him.

"So-o-o!" he cried. "That's what you mean by a collector!"

Ringentaub nodded.

"And furthermore, Mr. Lubliner, when collectors knows more about
antiques as dealers does, Mr. Lubliner," he said with his hand on the
doorknob, "I'll go into the woollen piece-goods business too--which you
could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner, it wouldn't be soon, by a hundred
years even."

* * * * *

When Elkan emerged from the One-Hundred-and-Sixteenth Street station of
the subway that evening a familiar voice h