nd on their way down to the
Harlem Winter Garden they perfected the details of the appointment for
the following afternoon.

"The reason why I am getting Fischko to bring her down," Kapfer
explained, "is because, in the first place, it looks pretty _schlecht_
that a feller should meet a girl only once and, without the help of a
_Shadchen_, gets right away engaged to her; and so, with Fischko the
_Shadchen_ there, it looks better for you both. Furthermore, in the
second place, a girl which is doing housework, Elkan, must got to have
an excuse, understand me; otherwise she couldn't get away from her work
at all."

"But," Elkan said, "how do you expect that Yetta would go with a
_Shadchen_ to see this here Ury Shemansky when she is already engaged to
me?"

"_Schafskopf!_" Kapfer exclaimed. "Telephone her the first thing
to-morrow morning that you are this here Ury Shemansky and she would
come quick enough!"

"That part's all right," Elkan agreed; "but I don't see yet how you are
going to get Polatkin and Scheikowitz there."

Kapfer nodded his head with spurious confidence; for of this, perhaps
the most important part of his plan, he felt extremely doubtful.

"Leave that to me," he said sagely, and the next moment they entered the
Harlem Winter Garden to find Charles Fischko gazing sadly at a solution
of bicarbonate of soda and ammonia, a tumblerful of which stood in front
of him on the table.

"Mr. Fischko," Kapfer said, "this is my friend Ury Shemansky, the
gentleman I was speaking to you about."

"No relation to Shemansky who used to was in the customer pedler
business on Ridge Street?" Fischko asked.

"Not as I've heard," Elkan said.

"Because there's a feller, understand me, which he went to work and
married a poor girl; and ever since he's got nothing but _Mazel_. The
week afterward he found in the street a diamond ring worth two hundred
dollars, and the next month a greenhorn comes over with ten thousand
rubles and wants to go as partners together with him in business. In a
year's time Shemansky dissolves the partnership and starts in the
remnant business with five thousand dollars net capital. He ain't been
established two weeks, understand me, when a liquor saloon next door
burns out and he gets a thousand dollars smoke damage; and one thing
follows another, y'understand, till to-day he's worth easy his fifty
thousand dollars. That's what it is to marry a poor girl, Mr.
Shemansky." He took a pull at t