that's all there is to it!"

"Then I apprehend, gentlemen, that we had better proceed to close,"
Feldman said; and Elkan nodded, for as Scheikowitz finished speaking a
ball had risen in Elkan's throat which, blink as he might, he could not
down for some minutes.

"All right, Goldstein," Feldman continued. "Let's fix up the statement
of closing."

"One moment, gentlemen," Max Kovner said. "Do I understand that, if
Elkan Lubliner buys the house to-day, we've got to move out?"

Feldman raised his eyebrows.

"I think Mr. Goldstein will agree with me, Kovner, when I say you
haven't a leg to stand on," he declared. "You're completely out of court
on your own testimony."

"You mean we ain't got a lease for a year?" Mrs. Kovner asked.

"That's right," Goldstein replied.

"And I am working my fingers to the bone getting rid of them
_verfluchte_ painters and all!" she wailed. "What do you think I am
anyway?"

"Well, if you don't want to move right away," Elkan began, "when would
it be convenient for you to get out, Mrs. Kovner?"

"I don't want to get out at all," she whimpered. "Why should I want to
get out? The house is an elegant house, which I just planted yesterday
string beans and tomatoes; and the parlor looks elegant now we got the
old paper off."

"Supposing we say the first of May," Elkan suggested--"not that I am so
crazy to move out to Burgess Park, y'understand; but I don't see what is
the sense buying a house in the country and then not living in it."

There was a brief silence, broken only by the soft weeping of Mrs.
Kovner; and at length Max Kovner shrugged his shoulders.

"_Nu_, Elkan," he said, "what is the use beating bushes round? Mrs.
Kovner is stuck on the house and so am I. So long as you don't want the
house, and there's been so much trouble about it and all, I tell you
what I'll do: Take back two thousand dollars a second mortgage on the
house, payable in one year at six per cent., which it is so good as
gold, understand me, and I'll relieve you of your contract and give you
two hundred dollars to boot."

A smile spread slowly over Elkan's face as he looked significantly at
Louis Stout.

"I don't want your two hundred dollars, Max," he said. "You can have the
house and welcome; and you should use the two hundred to pay your
painting and plumbing bills."

"That's all right," Louis Stout said; "there is people which will see to
it that he does. Also, gentlemen, I want everybody to unders