Elkan Lubliner, American Part 15

"_Nu!_" Kapfer commented when Elkan concluded his narrative. "What is that for something to worry about?"

"But the idee of the thing is wrong," Elkan protested. "In the first place, I got lots of time to get married, on account I am only twenty-one, Mr. Kapfer; and though a feller couldn't start in too early in business, Mr. Kapfer, getting married is something else again. To my mind a feller should be anyhow twenty-five before he jumps right in and gets married."

"With some people, yes, and others, no," Kapfer rejoined.

"And in the second place," Elkan went on, "I don't like this here _Shadchen_ business. We are living in America, not _Russland_; and in America if a feller gets married he don't need no help from a _Shadchen_, Mr. Kapfer."

"No," Kapfer said, "he don't need no help, Lubliner; but, just the same, if some one would come to me any time these five years and says to me, here is something a nice girl, understand me, with five thousand dollars, y'understand, I would have been married _schon_ long since already." He cleared his throat judicially and sat back in his chair until it rested against the wall. "The fact is, Lubliner," he said, "you are acting like a fool. What harm would it do supposing you would go up there to-night with this here Rashkind?"

"What, and go there to-morrow night with Fischko!" Elkan exclaimed.

"Besides, if I would go up there to-night with Rashkind and the deal is closed, understand me, might Fischko would sue Mr. Scheikowitz in the court yet."

"Not at all," Kapfer declared. "Fischko couldn't sue n.o.body but B.

Maslik; so never mind waiting here for dinner. Hustle uptown and keep your date with Rashkind." He shook Elkan by the hand. "Good luck to you, Lubliner," he concluded heartily; "and if you got the time stop in on your way down to-morrow morning and let me know how you come out."

When Elkan Lubliner arrived at the corner of One Hundred and Twentieth Street and Lenox Avenue that evening, it might well be supposed that he would have difficulty in recognizing Mr. Rashkind, since neither he nor Rashkind had any previous acquaintance. However, he accosted without hesitation a short, stout person arrayed in a wrinkled frock coat and wearing the white tie and gold spectacles that invariably garb the members of such quasi-clerical professions as a _Shadchen_, a s.e.xton or the collector of subscriptions for a charitable inst.i.tution. Indeed, as Rashkind combined all three of these callings with the occupation of a real-estate broker, he also sported a high silk hat of uncertain vintage and a watch-chain bearing a Masonic emblem approximating in weight and size a tailor's goose.

"This is Mr. Rashkind, ain't it?" Elkan asked, and Rashkind bowed solemnly.

"My name is Mr. Lubliner," Elkan continued, "and Mr. Polatkin says you would be here at eight."

For answer Mr. Rashkind drew from his waistcoat pocket what appeared to be a six-ounce boxing glove, but which subsequently proved to be the chamois covering of his gold watch, the gift of Rambam Lodge, No. 142, I. O. M. A. This Mr. Rashkind consulted with knit brows.

"That's right," he said, returning the watch and its covering to his pocket--"eight o'clock to the minute; so I guess we would just so well go round to B. Maslik's house if you ain't got no objections."

"I'm agreeable," Elkan said; "but, before we start, you should please be so good and tell me what I must got to do."

"What you must got to do?" Rashkind exclaimed. "A question! You mustn't got to do nothing. Act natural and leave the rest to me."

"But," Elkan insisted as they proceeded down Lenox Avenue, "shouldn't I say something to the girl?"

"Sure, you should say something to the girl," Rashkind replied; "but, if you couldn't find something to say to a girl like Miss Birdie Maslik, all I could tell you is you're a bigger _Schlemiel_ than you look."

With this encouraging ultimatum, Mr. Rashkind entered the portals of a hallway that glittered with lacquered bronze and plaster porphyry, and before Elkan had time to ask any more questions he found himself seated with Mr. Rashkind in the front parlour of a large apartment on the seventh floor.

"Mr. Maslik says you should be so good and step into the dining room,"

the maid said to Mr. Rashkind. Forthwith he rose to his feet and left Elkan alone in the room, save for the presence of the maid, who drew down the shades and smiled encouragingly on Elkan.

"Ain't it a fine weather?" she asked.

Elkan looked up, and he could not resist smiling in return.

"Elegant," he replied. "It don't seem like summer was ever going to quit."

"It couldn't last too long for me," the maid continued. "Might some people would enjoy cold weather maybe; but when it comes to going up on the roof, understand me, and hanging out a big wash, the summer is good enough for me."

Elkan gazed for a moment at her oval face, with its kindly, intelligent brown eyes.

"You mean to say you got to do washing here?" he asked in shocked accents.

"Sure I do," she replied; "_aber_ this winter I am going to night school again and next summer might I would get a job as bookkeeper maybe."

"But why don't you get a job in a store somewheres?" he asked.

"I see myself working in a store all day, standing on my feet yet, and when I get through all my wages goes for board!" she replied. "Whereas, here I got anyhow a good room and board, and all what I earn I could put away in savings bank. I worked in a store long enough, Mr.----"

"Lubliner," Elkan said.

"----Mr. Lubliner; and I could a.s.sure you I would a whole lot sooner do housework," she went on. "Why should a girl think it's a disgrace she should do housework for a living is more as I could tell you. Sooner or later a girl gets married, and then she must got to do her own housework."

"Not if her husband makes a good living," Elkan suggested.

"Sure, I know," she rejoined; "but how many girls which they are working in stores gets not a rich man, understand me, but a man which is only making, say, for example, thirty dollars a week. The most that a poor girl expects is that she marries a poor man, y'understand, and then they work their way up together."

Elkan nodded. Unconsciously he was indorsing not so much the matter as the manner of her conversation, for she spoke with the low voice that distinguishes the Rumanian from the Pole or Lithuanian.

"You are coming from Rumania, ain't it?" Elkan asked.

"Pretty near there," the maid replied. "Right on the border. I am coming here an orphan five years ago; and----"

"_Nu_, Lubliner," cried a rasping voice from the doorway, "we got our appointment for nothing--Miss Maslik is sick."

"That's too bad," Elkan said perfunctorily.

"Only a little something she eats gives her a headache," Rashkind went on. "We could come round the day after to-morrow night."

"That's too bad also," Elkan commented, "on account the day after to-morrow night I got a date with a customer."

"Well, anyhow, B. Maslik would be in in a minute and----"

Elkan rose to his feet so abruptly that he nearly sent his chair through a cabinet behind him.

"If I want to be here Friday night," he said, "I must see my customer to-night yet; so, young lady, if you would be so kind to tell Mr. Maslik I couldn't wait, but would be here Friday night with this here--now--gentleman. Come on, Rashkind."

He started for the hall door almost on a run, with Rashkind gesticulating excitedly behind him; but, before the _Shadchen_ could even grasp his coattails he had let himself hurriedly out and was taking the stairs three at a jump.

"Hey!" Rashkind shouted as he plunged down the steps after Elkan.

"What's the matter with you? Don't you want to meet Mr. Maslik?"

Elkan only hurried the faster, however, for in the few minutes he had been alone in the room with the little brown-eyed maid he had made the discovery that marriage with the aid of a _Shadchen_ was impossible for him. Simultaneously he conceived the notion that marriage without the aid of a _Shadchen_ might after all be well worth trying; and, as this idea loomed in his mind, his pace slackened until the _Shadchen_ overtook him at the corner of One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.

"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner!" Rashkind said. "What is the matter with you anyway?"

Elkan professed to misunderstand the question.

"I've lost my address book," he said. "I had it in my hand when you left me alone there and I must of forgotten it; so I guess I'll go back and get it."