through."

Elkan bit his lips irresolutely.

"I don't see what you are hesitating about," Polatkin went on. "Yetta
likes the house--ain't it?"

"She's crazy about it," Elkan admitted.

"Then what's the use talking?" Scheikowitz declared; and he glanced
anxiously toward Tarnowitz and Kamin, who were holding a whispered
conference in the showroom. "Let's make an end and get the thing over.
Telephone this here Glaubmann he should come right over with Ortelsburg
and the lawyer."

"But ain't I going to have no lawyer neither?" Elkan demanded.

"Sure you are," Scheikowitz replied. "I took a chance, Elkan, and I
telephoned Henry D. Feldman half an hour since already. He says he would
send one up of his assistants, Mr. Harvey J. Sugarberg, right away."

* * * * *

When it came to drawing a real-estate contract there existed for Kent J.
Goldstein no incongruities of time and place. Kent was the veteran of a
dozen real-estate booms, during which he had drafted agreements at all
hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a
liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of
any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief
though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the vendor's
back.

Thus the transaction between Glaubmann and Elkan Lubliner presented no
difficulties to Kent J. Goldstein; and he handled the details with such
care and dispatch that the contract was nearly finished before Harvey J.
Sugarberg remembered the instructions of his principal. As attorney for
the buyer, it was Henry D. Feldman's practice to see that the contract
of sale provided every opportunity for his client lawfully to avoid
taking title should he desire for any reason, lawful or unlawful, to
back out; and this rule of his principal occurred to Harvey just as he
and Goldstein were writing the clause relating to incumbrances.

"The premises are to be conveyed free and clear of all incumbrances,"
Kent read aloud, "except the mortgage and covenant against nuisances
above described and the present tenancies of said premises."

He had brought with him two blank forms of agreement; and as he filled
in the blanks on one of them he read aloud what he was writing and
Harvey Sugarberg inserted the same clause in the other. Up to this
juncture Harvey had taken Kent's dictation with such remarkable docility
that Elkan and his partners had frequently e