get ready," Elkan replied
positively, and Polatkin strode up and down the floor in an access of
despair.

"All right, Elkan," he said, "if you want to let such an opportunity
slip down your fingers, y'understand, all right. _Aber_ if I would be
you, Elkan, I would go down there to-night yet."

Elkan shrugged his shoulders.

"I couldn't get Yetta she should close up the flat under the very least
_two_ days, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "She must got to fix everything just
right, _mit_ moth-camphor and _Gott weisst was nach_, otherwise she
wouldn't go at all. The rugs alone takes a whole day to fix."

"Do as you like, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "_aber_ you mark my words,
if Leon Sammet ain't shoving heaven and earth right now, y'understand, I
don't know nothing about the garment business at all."

In fulfilment of this prophecy, when Elkan entered his office the
following morning Polatkin waved in his face a copy of the morning
paper.

"Well," he said, "what did I told you, Elkan?"

Scheikowitz nodded slowly.

"My partner is right, Elkan," he added, "so stubborn you are."

"What's the matter now?" Elkan asked, and for answer Polatkin handed him
the paper with his thumb pressed against a paragraph as follows:

Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and Mrs.
Henry D. Feldman, Miss Hortense Feldman, and Mr. Jacob
Scharley were guests of Mr. Leon Sammet at a Chinese Lantern
Dinner this evening given in the Hanging Gardens of the New
Salisbury.

"I thought it would be at the least an oitermobile ride," Polatkin said
in melancholy tones, "but with that sucker all he could do is stealing a
competitor's idees. B. Gans gives Scharley a dinner and Leon Sammet is
got to do it, too, _mit_ the same guests and everything."

"Even to Feldman's sister already," Scheikowitz added, "which it must be
that Feldman is trying to marry her off to Scharley even if he would be
a widower _mit_ two sons in college. She's a highly educated young lady,
too."

"Young she ain't no longer," Polatkin interrupted, "and if a girl
couldn't cook even a pertater, understand me, it don't make no
difference if she couldn't cook it in six languages, y'understand,
Feldman would got a hard job marrying her off _anyhow_."

Scheikowitz made an impatient gesture with both hands, suggestive of a
dog swimming.

"That's neither here or there, Polatkin," he said. "The point is Elkan
should go right uptown and _geschwind_ p