rs ago when Henry the Fourth was king of France--and B. Gans
buys it last week already for five hundred dollars!"

Therewith Max commenced a half-hour dissertation upon antique furniture
which left Yetta and Elkan more undecided than ever.

"And you are telling me that big people like B. Gans and Andrew Carnegie
buys this here antics for their houses?" Elkan asked.

"J. P. Morgan also," Max replied. "And them Jacobean chairs there you
could get for fifty dollars already."

"Well, it wouldn't do no harm supposing we would go down and see 'em,"
Yetta suggested.

"Some night next week," Elkan added, "_oder_ the week after."

"For that matter, we could go to-night too," Max rejoined. "Sunday is
like any other night down on Allen Street, and you got to remember that
Jacobean chairs is something which you couldn't get whenever you want
'em. Let me tell you just what they look like."

Here he descanted so successfully on the beauty of Jacobean furniture
that Yetta added her persuasion to his, and Elkan at length surrendered.

"All right," he said. "First we would have a little something to eat and
then we would go down there."

Hence, a few minutes after eight that evening they alighted at the
Spring Street subway station; and Max Merech piloted Elkan and Yetta
beneath elevated railroads and past the windows of brass shops, with
their gleaming show of candlesticks and samovars, to a little basement
store near the corner of Rivington Street.

"It don't look like much," Max apologized as he descended the few steps
leading to the entrance; "_aber_ he's got an elegant stock inside."

When he opened the door a trigger affixed to the door knocked against a
rusty bell, but no one responded. Instead, from behind a partition in
the rear came sounds of an angry dispute; and as Elkan closed the door
behind him one of the voices rose higher than the rest.

"Take my life--take my blood, Mr. Sammet!" it said; "because I am making
you the best proposition I can, and that's all there is to it."

Max was about to stamp his foot when Elkan laid a restraining hand on
his shoulder; and, in the pause that followed, the heavy, almost
hysterical breathing of the last speaker could be heard in the front of
the store.

"I don't want your life _oder_ your blood, Dishkes," came the answer in
bass tones, which Elkan recognized as the voice of his competitor, Leon
Sammet. "I am your heaviest creditor, and all I want is that you should
prot