u could kiss yourself
good-bye with your wife's dowry--and don't you forget it!"

Max walked with him down the lobby; and they had barely reached the
entrance when Charles Fischko and Miss Yetta Silbermacher arrived.

"Hello, Fischko!" Max cried, as Flixman tottered out into the
street; but Fischko made no reply. Instead he suddenly let go Miss
Silbermacher's arm and dashed hurriedly to the sidewalk. Max led Miss
Silbermacher to a chair and engaged her immediately in conversation. She
was naturally a little embarrassed by her unusual surroundings, though
she was becomingly--not to say fashionably--attired in garments of her
own making; and she gazed timidly about her for her absent lover.

"Elkan ain't here yet," Max explained, "on account you are a little
ahead of time."

Miss Silbermacher's brown eyes sparkled merrily.

"I ain't the only one," she said as she jumped to her feet; for, though
the hands of the clock on the desk pointed to ten minutes to two, Elkan
Lubliner approached from the direction of the cafe. He caught sight of
them while he was still some distance away, and two overturned chairs
marked the last of his progress toward them.

At first he held out his hand in greeting; but the two little dimples
that accompanied Yetta's smile overpowered his sense of propriety, and
he embraced her affectionately.

"Where's Fischko?" he asked.

Both Kapfer and Miss Silbermacher looked toward the street entrance.

"He was here a minute ago," Kapfer said.

"Did you tell him that I wasn't Ury Shemansky at all?" Elkan inquired.

"Sure I did," Miss Silbermacher replied, "and he goes on something
terrible, on account he says Mr. Kapfer told him last night you was
already engaged; so I told him I know you was engaged because I am the
party you are engaged to."

She squeezed Elkan's hand.

"And he says then," she continued, "that if that's the case what do we
want him down here for? So I told him we are going to meet Mr. Polatkin
and Mr. Scheikowitz, and----"

"And they'll be right here in a minute," Kapfer interrupted; "so you go
upstairs to my room and I'll find Fischko and bring him up also."

He conducted them to the elevator, and even as the door closed behind
them Fischko came running up the hall.

"Kapfer," he said, "who was that feller which he was just here talking
to you?"

"What d'ye want to know for?" Kapfer asked.

"Never mind what I want to know for!" Fischko retorted. "Who is he?"

"Well