Elkan Lubliner, American Part 28

Elkan looked inquiringly at his mentor, but Milton only placed his forefinger to his lips; and thereafter, until the conclusion of the symphony, the pauses between the movements of the symphony were so brief that Elkan had no opportunity to make further inquiries.

"Well, neighbour," asked the gentleman on his right, as the musicians filed off the stage for the ten-minutes' intermission, "what do you think of your first symphony?"

Elkan smiled and concealed his shyness by clearing his throat.

"The symphony is all right," he said; "but, with all them operators there, what is the use they are trying to save money hiring only one foreman?"

"One foreman?" his neighbour cried.

"Sure--the feller with the stick," Elkan went on blandly. "Naturally he couldn't keep his eye on all them people at oncet--ain't it? I am watching them fellers, which they are working them big bra.s.s machines, for the last half hour, and except for five or ten minutes they sit there doing absolutely nothing--just fooling away their time."

"Them fellers ain't fooling away their time," Milton said gravely. "They ain't got nothing to do only at intervals."

"Then I guess they must pay 'em by piecework--ain't it?" Elkan asked.

"They pay 'em so much a night," Milton explained.

"Well, in that case, Mr. Ja.s.sy," Elkan continued, "all I could say is if I would got working in my place half a dozen fellers which I am paying by the day, understand me, and the foreman couldn't keep 'em busy only half the time, _verstehst du_, he would quick look for another job."

Elkan's neighbour on the right had been growing steadily more crimson, and at last he hurriedly seized his hat and pa.s.sed out into the aisle.

"That's a pretty friendly feller," Elkan said as he gazed after him. "Do you happen to know his name?"

"I ain't never heard his name," Milton replied; "but he is seemingly crazy about music. I seen him here every time I come."

"Well, I don't blame him none," Elkan commented; "because you take the Harlem Winter Garden, for instance, and though the music is rotten, understand me, they got the nerve to charge you yet for a lot of food which half the time you don't want at all; whereas here they didn't even ask us we should buy so much as a gla.s.s beer."

At this juncture the short, stout person returned and proceeded to entertain Elkan and Yetta by pointing out among the audience the figures of local and international millionaires.

"And all them fellers is crazy about music too?" Elkan asked.

"So crazy," his neighbour said, "that the little man over there, with the white beard, spends almost twenty thousand a year on it!"

"And yet," Milton said bitterly, "there's plenty fellers in the city which year in and year out composes chamber music and symphonic music which they couldn't themselves make ten dollars a week; and, when it comes right down to it, none of them millionaires would loosen up to such new beginners for even five hundred dollars to help them get a hearing."

The short person received Milton's outburst with a faint smile.

"I've heard that before," he commented, "but I never had the pleasure of meeting any of those great unknown composers."

"That's because most of 'em is so bashful they ain't got sense enough to push themselves forward," Milton replied; "_aber_ if you really want to meet one I could take you to-night yet to a cafe on Delancey Street where there is playing a trio which the pianist is something you could really call a genius."

"You don't tell me!" Elkan's neighbour cried. "Why, I should be delighted to go with you."

"How about it, Mr. Lubliner?" Milton asked. "Are you and Mrs. Lubliner agreeable to go downtown after the show to the cafe on Delancey Street?

It's a pretty poor neighbourhood already."

Yetta smiled.

"Sure, I know," she said; "but it wouldn't be the first time me and Elkan was in Delancey Street."

"Then it's agreed that we're all going to hear the genius," Elkan's neighbour added. "I heard you call one another Ja.s.sy and Lubliner--it's hardly fair you shouldn't know my name too."

He felt in his waistcoat pocket and finally handed a visiting card to Elkan, who glanced at it hurriedly and with trembling fingers pa.s.sed it on to his wife, for it was inscribed in old English type as follows:

+==============================+ | | | =Mr. Joseph Kammerman= | | | | =Fostoria Hotel= | | | | =New York= | | | +==============================+

"Once and for all, I am telling you, Volkovisk, either you would got to play music here or quit!" Marculescu cried at eleven o'clock that evening. "The customers is all the time kicking at the stuff you give us."

"What d'ye mean, stuff?" Max Merech protested. "That was no stuff, Mr.

Marculescu. That was from Brahms a trio, and it suits me down to the ground."

"Suits you!" Marculescu exclaimed. "Who in blazes are you?"

"I am _auch_ a customer, Mr. Marculescu," Max replied with dignity.

"_Yow_, a customer!" Marculescu jeered. "You sit here all night on one cup coffee. A customer, _sagt er_! A loafer--that's what you are!

It ain't you I am making my money from, Merech--it's from them _Takeefim_[A] uptown; and they want to hear music, not Brahms. So you hear what I am telling you, Volkovisk! You should play something good--like 'Wildcat Rag'."

[Footnote A: _Takeefim_--Aristocracy.]

"Wait a minute, Mr. Marculescu," Max interrupted. "Do you mean to told me them lowlife b.u.ms in front there, which makes all that _Geschrei_ over 'Dixerlie' and such like _Narrischkeit_, is _Takeefim_ yet?"

"I don't want to listen to you at all, Merech!" Marculescu shouted.

"I don't care if you want to listen to me _oder_ not," Merech said. "I was a customer here when you got one little store _mit_ two waiters; and it was me and all the other fellers you are calling loafers now what give you, with our few pennies, your first start. Now you are too good for us with your uptown _Takeefim_. Why, them same _Takeefim_ only comes here, in the first place, because they want to see what it looks like in one of the East Side cafes, where they got such good music and such interesting characters, which sits and drinks coffee and plays chess _und Tarrok_."

He glared at the enraged Marculescu and waved his hands excitedly.

"What you call loafers they call interesting characters, Mr.

Marculescu," he continued, "and what you call stuff they call good music--and that's the way it goes, Mr. Marculescu. You are a goose which is killing its own golden eggs!"

"So!" Marculescu roared. "I am a goose, am I? You loafer, you! Out of here before I kick you out!"

"You wouldn't kick nothing," Max rejoined, "because I am happy to go out from here! Where all the time is being played such _Machshovos_ like 'Wildcat Rag,' I don't want to stay at all."

He rose from his chair and flung ten cents on to the table.

"And furthermore," he cried by way of peroration, "people don't got to come five miles down to Delancey Street to hear 'Wildcat Rag,' Mr.

Marculescu; so, if you keep on playing it, Mr. Marculescu, you will quick find that it's an elegant tune to bust up to--and that's all I got to say!"

As he walked away, Marculescu made a sign to his pianist.

"Go ahead, Volkovisk--play 'Wildcat Rag!'" he said. Then he followed Max to the front of the cafe; and before they reached the front tables, at which sat the slummers from uptown, Volkovisk began to pound out the hackneyed melody.

"That's what I think of your arguments, Merech!" Marculescu said, walking behind the cashier's desk.

Max paused to crush him with a final retort; but even as he began to deliver it his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, for at that instant the door opened and there entered a party of four, with Elkan Lubliner in the van. A moment later, however, Milton Ja.s.sy pushed his guests to one side and strode angrily toward Marculescu.