desk a tremendous blow
with his fist.

"Fine!" he ejaculated.

"Fine!" Kovner repeated. "What the devil you are talking about, fine? Do
you think it's fine I should got to live a whole year in a house which
the least it must got to be spent on it is for plumbing a hundred
dollars and for painting a couple hundred more?"

"That's all right," Flugel declared with enthusiasm. "It ain't so bad as
it looks; because if you can show that you got a right to stay in that
house for the rest of the year, understand me, I'll make a proposition
to you."

"Show it?" Kovner exclaimed. "I don't got to show it, because I couldn't
help myself, Mr. Flugel. Glaubmann claims that I made a verbal lease for
one year, and he's right. I was fool enough to do so."

Flugel glanced inquiringly at Polatkin and Scheikowitz.

"How about that?" he asked. "The contract don't say nothing about a
year's lease."

"I know it don't," Elkan replied, "because when our lawyer raises the
question about the tenant Glaubmann says he could get him out at any
time."

"And he can too," Kovner declared with emphasis, but Flugel shook his
head.

"No, he can't, Kovner," he said; "or, anyway, he ain't going to, because
you are going to stay in that house."

"With the rotten plumbing it's got?" Kovner cried. "Not by a whole lot I
ain't."

"The plumbing could be fixed and the painting also," Flugel retorted.

"By Glaubmann?" Kovner asked.

"No, sir," Flugel replied; "by me, with a hundred dollars cash to boot.
I would even give you an order on my plumber he should fix up the
plumbing and on my house painter he should fix up the painting, Kovner;
_aber_ you got to stick it out that you are under lease for the rest of
the year."

"And when do I get the work done?" Kovner demanded.

"To-day," Flugel announced--"this afternoon if you want it."

"But hold on there a minute!" Elkan protested. "If I am going to take
that house I don't want no painting done there till I am good and
ready."

Flugel smiled loftily at Elkan.

"You ain't going to take that house at all," he said, "because the
contract says that it is to be conveyed free and clear, except the
mortgage and a covenant against nuisances. So you reject the title on
the grounds that the house is leased for a year. Do you get the idee?"

Elkan nodded.

"And next Sunday," Flugel continued, "I wish you'd take a run down with
me in my oitermobile to Johnsonhurst. It's an elegant, high-class
suburb