retorted; "_aber_ this here is something else again,
as I told you."

"Well, don't beat no bushes round, Merech!" Elkan cried impatiently.
"What is it you want from me?"

"I want from you this," Max began huskily: "Might you know Tschaikovsky
maybe _oder_ Rimsky-Korsakoff."

"Tschaikovsky I never heard of," Elkan replied, "nor the other concern
neither. Must be new beginners in the garment business--ain't it?"

"They never was in the garment business, so far as I know," Max
continued; "_aber_ they made big successes even if they wasn't, because
all the money ain't in the garment business, Mr. Lubliner, and
Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff, even in the old country, made so much
money they lived in palaces yet. Once when I was a boy already,
Tschaikovsky comes to Minsk and they got up a parade for him--such a big
_Macher_ he was!"

"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Merech; _aber_ what is all this
got to do _mit_ me?"

"It ain't got nothing to do with you, Mr. Lubliner," Max declared--"only
I got a friend by the name Boris Volkovisk, and believe me or not, Mr.
Lubliner, in some respects Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff could learn
from that feller, because, you could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner,
there's some passages in the Fifth Symphony, understand me, which I hate
to say it you could call rotten!"

Elkan stirred uneasily in his chair.

"I don't know what you are talking about at all," he said.

"I am talking about this," Max replied; and therewith he began to
explain to Elkan the aspirations and talent of Boris Volkovisk and
his--Max'--scheme for their successful development. For more than half
an hour he unfolded a plan by which one thousand dollars might be
judiciously expended so as to secure the maximum benefit to Volkovisk's
career--a plan that during the preceding two years Volkovisk and he had
thoroughly discussed over many a cup of coffee in Marculescu's cafe.
"And so you see, Mr. Lubliner," he concluded, "it's a plain business
proposition; and if you was to take for your thousand dollars, say, for
example, a one-tenth interest in the business Volkovisk expects to do,
understand me, you would get a big return for your investment."

Elkan lit a cigar and puffed away reflectively before speaking.

"_Nu_," he said at last; "so that is what you wanted to talk to me
about?"

Max nodded.

"Well, then, all I could say is," Elkan went on, "you are coming to the
wrong shop. A business propositio