igermann shows the feller the fiddle,
y'understand, and if it is worth it _oder_ it isn't worth it the feller
says nothing to Geigermann, but he comes back and reports to us."

Abe nodded again.

"If I was to tell you all the weak points of that scheme, Mawruss," he
said, "I could stand here talking till my tongue dropped out yet. But
all I got to say is, Mawruss, the idee is yours, and you should go ahead
and carry it out. Me, I got nothing to say about it either one way or
the other."

* * * * *

At seven that evening, while Professor Ladislaw Wcelak was washing down
a late breakfast with a bottle of beer, there came a violent knocking at
the hall door. The professor answered it in person, for Aaron was busily
engaged over Concone's vocalizations in the front parlour and the other
members of the family were washing dishes in the rear.

"_Nu, Landsmann!_" Ladislaw cried. "Ain't you working to-night?"

The newcomer was none other than Emil Pilz, _Konzertmeister_ of the
Palace Theatre of Varieties, if that dignified term may be applied to
the first violin of an orchestra of twenty.

"I am and I ain't," Emil replied. "I've got a job, Louis, which it would
take me till nine o'clock, so be a good feller and substitute for me at
the theayters till I am coming back."

"And who would substitute for me, Emil?" the professor asked.

"That's all right," Emil replied. "I stopped in on my way over and I
seen old man Hubai. He ain't _shikker_ yet, so I told him he should go
over and fiddle a couple _czardas_ till you come, and to tell the boss
you got a _Magenweh_ and would be a little late. Me, I am going uptown
to look at a fiddle. I got the job through an old pupil, Milton Strauss,
which he says a feller by the name Potash gives away a fiddle which he
bought, and now he thinks it's a genuine Amati. So I should please go up
and look at it; and if it is _oder_ it isn't, I get ten dollars."

"Who's this feller Potash?" the professor asked, and Emil shrugged.

"What difference does that make?" he said. "He gives a hundred and
twenty-five dollars for the fiddle only a couple days ago. What d'ye
want to know for?"

"Oh, nothing," the professor replied; "only my brother Aaron sold to a
feller by the name Potash the other day a fiddle which I myself bought
from old Hubai a couple years ago for fifteen dollars yet; and if that's
the one you are talking about, Emil, you should quick go up to the