Building to-morrow night, eight
o'clock, I would send one of my associates round with you and he will
get you tickets for the 'Diners Out,' understand me; and then you would
see for yourself what a big house they got there. Even on Monday night
they turn 'em away!"

"I'm much obliged to you," Elkan replied. "I'm sure Mrs. Lubliner and me
would enjoy it very much."

"I'm sorry for you if you wouldn't," Benson retorted; "and that
there 'Diners Out' ain't a marker to the show I'm putting on, Mr.
Lubliner--which you can see for yourself, a business proposition,
which pans out pretty near two hundred thousand dollars on a
fifteen-thousand-dollar investment, is got to be right up to the mark.
Ain't it?"

"I thought you said ten thousand dollars was the investment," Elkan
remarked.

"I did," Benson replied with some heat; "but if some one comes along and
wants to invest the additional five thousand dollars I wouldn't turn him
down, Mr. Lubliner."

He rose to his feet to join the pinocle players in the dining room.

"So I hope you enjoy the show to-morrow night," he added as he strolled
away.

* * * * *

From six to eight every evening Max Merech underwent a gradual
transformation, for six o'clock was the closing hour at Polatkin,
Scheikowitz & Company's establishment, while eight marked the advent of
the Sarasate Trio at the Cafe Roman, on Delancey Street. Thus, at six,
Max Merech was an assistant cutter; and, indeed, until after he ate his
supper he still bore the outward appearance of an assistant cutter,
though inwardly he felt a premonitory glow. After half-past seven,
however, he buttoned on a low, turned-down collar with its concomitant
broad Windsor tie, and therewith he assumed his real character--that of
a dilettante.

At the Cafe Roman each evening he specialized on music; but with the
spirit of the true dilettante he neglected no one of the rest of the
arts, and was ever to be found at the table next to the piano, a warm
advocate of the latest movement in painting and literature, as well as
an appreciative listener to the ultramodern music discoursed by the
Sarasate Trio.

"If that ain't a winner I ain't no judge!" he said to Boris Volkovisk,
the pianist, on the evening of the conversation with Elkan set forth
above. He referred to a violin sonata of Boris' own composition which
the latter and Jacob Rekower, the violinist, had just concluded.

Boris smiled and wiped away the pe