treet already; and his wife
is Joel Ribnik's--the McKinnon-Weldon Drygoods Company's--a sister
already."

"You don't tell me?" Yetta murmured.

"And Joel is staying with 'em right now," Benno went on. "Furthermore,
we got our furniture and carpets by Sig Tarnowitz, which he lives a
couple of doors down from here--also got relatives in the retail
drygoods business by the name Tarnowitz-Wixman Drygoods Company. The
brother, Julius Tarnowitz, is eating dinner with 'em to-day."

"It's a regular buyers' colony here, so to speak," Louis Stout said, and
Joseph Kamin nodded.

"Tell you what you do, Benno," Joseph suggested. "Get Tarnowitz and
Ribnik to come over here. I think Elkan would like to meet them."

Benno slapped his thigh with a resounding blow.

"That's a great idee!" he cried; and half an hour later the Ortelsburg
library was thronged with visitors, for not only Joel Ribnik and Julius
Tarnowitz had joined Benno's party, but seated in easy chairs were
Robitscher, the decorator, and Tarnowitz, the furniture dealer.

"Yes, siree, sir!" Robitscher cried. "Given the same decorative
treatment to that Linden Boulevard house, Mr. Lubliner, and it would got
Ortelsburg's house here skinned to pieces, on account over there it is
more open and catches the sun afternoon and morning both."

During this pronouncement Elkan's face wore a ghastly smile and he
underwent the sensations of the man in the tonneau of a touring car
which is beginning to skid toward a telegraph pole.

"In that case I should recommend you don't buy a Kermanshah rug for the
front room," Sigmund Tarnowitz interrupted. "I got in my place right now
an antique Beloochistan, which I would let go at only four hundred
dollars."

"_Aber_ four hundred dollars is an awful lot of money to pay for a rug,"
Elkan protested. He had avoided looking at Yetta for the past half-hour;
but now he glanced fearfully at her, and in doing so received a distinct
shock, for Yetta sat with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, inoculated
beyond remedy with the virus of the artistic-home fever.

"Four hundred ain't so much for a rug," she declared.

"Not for an antique Beloochistan," Sig Tarnowitz said, "because every
year it would increase in value on you."

"Just the same like that Linden Boulevard house," Ortelsburg added,
"which you could take it from me, Mrs. Lubliner, if you don't get right
away an offer of five hundred dollars advance on your purchase price I
would eat