that the title be closed in twenty days at the office of Henry D.
Feldman.

"Well, Mr. Lubliner," Glaubmann said, employing the formula hallowed by
long usage in all real-estate transactions involving improved property,
"I wish you luck in your new house."

"Much obliged," Elkan said; and after a general handshaking the entire
assemblage crowded into one elevator, so that finally Elkan was left
alone with his partners.

Polatkin was the first to break a silence of over five minutes'
duration.

"Ain't it funny," he said, "that we ain't heard from Louis?"

Scheikowitz nodded; and as he did so the elevator door creaked noisily
and there alighted a short, stout person, who, having once been
described in the I. O. M. A. Monthly as Benjamin J. Flugel, the Merchant
Prince, had never since walked abroad save in a freshly ironed silk hat
and a Prince Albert coat.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flugel?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz cried with
one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged within his
breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of business; and, as
Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's impressive partner, he
could not help congratulating himself on the mercantile sagacity that
had made him buy Glaubmann's house.

"And this is Mr. Lubliner?" Flugel said in even tones.

"Pleased to meet you," Elkan said. "I had dinner with your partner only
yesterday."

Flugel gulped convulsively in an effort to remain calm.

"I know it," he said; "and honestly the longer I am in business with
that feller the more I got to wonder what a _Schlemiel_ he is. Actually
he goes to work and tries to do his own partner without knowing it at
all. Mind you, if he would be doing it from spite I could understand it;
but when one partner don't know that the other partner practically
closes a deal for a tract of a hundred lots and six houses in
Johnsonhurst, and then persuades a prospective purchaser that, instead
of buying in Johnsonhurst, he should buy in Burgess Park, understand me,
all I got to say is that if Louis Stout ain't crazy the least he
deserves is that the feller really and truly should buy in Burgess
Park."

"But, Mr. Flugel," Elkan interrupted, "I did buy in Burgess Park."

"What!" Flugel shouted.

"I say that I made a contract for a house out there this morning only,"
Elkan said.

For a few seconds it seemed as though Benjamin J. Flugel's heirs-at-law
would collect a substantial death benefit from t