he seized his cane, and raising
himself from the chair he hobbled to the door.

"Blooma _leben_," he cried, throwing the door wide open; and in
response Mrs. Rudnik, nee Blooma Duckman, entered.

"_Nu_, Belz," she said, "ain't you going to congradulate me?"

[Illustration: "Nu, Belz, ain't you going to congradulate me?"]

Belz sat back in his chair and stared at his wife's cousin in
unaffected astonishment, while Schindelberger noiselessly opened the
door and slid out of the room unnoticed.

"And so you run away from the Home and married this _Schnorrer_?" Belz
said at length.

"_Schnorrer_ he ain't," she retorted, "unless you would go to work and
foreclose the house."

"It would serve you right if I did," Belz rejoined.

"Then you ain't going to?" Mrs. Rudnik asked.

"What d'ye mean, he ain't going to?" Lesengeld interrupted. "Ain't I
got nothing to say here? Must I got to sacrifice myself for Belz's
wife's relations?"

"_Koosh_, Lesengeld!" Belz exploded. "You take too much on yourself. Do
you think for one moment I am going to foreclose that mortgage and have
them two old people _schnorring_ their living expenses out of me for
the rest of my days, just to oblige you? The mortgage runs at 6 per
cent., and it's going to continue to do so. Six per cent. ain't to be
sneezed at, neither."

"And ain't he going to pay us no bonus nor nothing?" Lesengeld asked in
anguished tones.

"Bonus!" Belz cried; "what are you talking about, bonus? Do you mean to
told me you would ask an old man which he nearly gets killed by a train
already a bonus yet? Honestly, Lesengeld, I'm surprised at you. The way
you talk sometimes it ain't no wonder people calls us second-mortgage
sharks."

"But, lookyhere, Belz----" Lesengeld began.

"'S enough, Lesengeld," Belz interrupted. "You're lucky I don't ask you
you should make 'em a wedding present yet."

"I suppose, Belz, you're going to make 'em a wedding present, too,
ain't it?" Lesengeld jeered.

"That's just what I'm going to do," Belz said as he turned to the safe.
He fumbled round the middle compartment and finally produced two yellow
slips of paper. "I'm going to give 'em these here composition notes of
Schindelberger's, and with what Blooma knows about the way that
_Rosher_ is running the Bella Hirshkind Home she shouldn't got no
difficulty making him pay up."

He handed the notes to Rudnik.

"And now," he said, "sit right down and tell us how it comes that you
and