to consciousness
Polatkin drew Gifkin aside and requested an explanation.

"What do you mean the boy ain't Yosel Borrochson?" he demanded.

"I mean the boy ain't Yosel Borrochson," Gifkin replied deliberately. "I
know this here boy, Mr. Polatkin, and, furthermore, Borrochson's boy is
got one bum eye, which he gets hit with a stone in it when he was only
four years old already. Don't I know it, Mr. Polatkin, when with my own
eyes I seen this here boy throw the stone yet?"

"Well, then, who is this boy?" Marcus Polatkin insisted.

"He's a boy by the name Lubliner," Gifkin replied, "which his father was
Pincus Lubliner, also a crook, Mr. Polatkin, which he would steal
anything from a toothpick to an oitermobile, understand me."

"Pincus Lubliner!" Polatkin repeated hoarsely.

"That's who I said," Gifkin continued, rushing headlong to his
destruction. "Pincus Lubliner, which honestly, Mr. Polatkin, there's
nothing that feller wouldn't do--a regular _Rosher_ if ever there was
one."

For one brief moment Polatkin's eyes flashed angrily, and then with a
resounding smack his open hand struck Gifkin's cheek.

"Liar!" he shouted. "What do you mean by it?"

Scheikowitz, who had been tenderly bathing Joe Borrochson's head with
water, rushed forward at the sound of the blow.

"Marcus," he cried, "for Heaven's sake, what are you doing? You
shouldn't kill the feller just because he makes a mistake and thinks the
boy ain't Joe Borrochson."

"He makes too many mistakes," Polatkin roared. "Calls Pincus Lubliner a
crook and a murderer yet, which his mother was my own father's a sister.
Did you ever hear the like?"

He made a threatening gesture toward Gifkin, who cowered in a chair.

"Say, lookyhere, Marcus," Scheikowitz asked, "what has Pincus Lubliner
got to do with this?"

"He's got a whole lot to do with it," Marcus replied, and then his eyes
rested on Joe Borrochson, who had again lapsed into unconsciousness.

"Oo-ee!" Marcus cried. "The poor boy is dead."

He swept Philip aside and ran to the water-cooler, whence he returned
with the drip-bucket brimming over. This he emptied on Joe Borrochson's
recumbent form, and after a quarter of an hour the recovery was
permanent. In the meantime Philip had interviewed Meyer Gifkin to such
good purpose that when he entered the firm's office with Meyer Gifkin at
his heels he was fairly spluttering with rage.

"Thief!" he yelled. "Out of here before I make you arrested."

"W