here, if you wouldn't
entertain him or something?"

Elkan slapped his chest with a great show of confidence.

"Leave that to _me_, Mr. Polatkin," he said, and put on his hat
preparatory to going out to lunch.

Nevertheless when he descended from his room at the New Salisbury that
evening and prepared to take a turn on the boardwalk before dinner, his
confidence evaporated at the coolness of his reception by the assembled
guests of the hotel. Leon Sammet cut him dead, and even B. Gans greeted
him with half jovial reproach.

"Well, Elkan," he said, "going to entertain any more _fromme Leute_ in
the Garden to-night?"

"Seemingly, Mr. Gans," Elkan said, "it was a big shock to everybody here
to see for the first time an old lady wearing a _sheitel_. I suppose
nobody here never seen it before, ain't it?"

B. Gans put a fatherly hand on Elkan's shoulder.

"I'll tell yer, Elkan," he said, "if I would be such a _rosher_,
understand me, that I would hold it against you because you ain't
forgetting an old friend, like this here lady must be, y'understand, I
should never sell a dollar's worth more goods so long as I live, _aber_
if Klinger and Sammet would start kidding you in front of Scharley,
understand me, it would look bad."

"Why would it look bad, Mr. Gans?" Elkan broke in.

"Because it don't do nobody no good to have funny stories told about
'em, except an actor _oder_ a politician, Elkan," Gans replied as the
dinner gong began to sound, "which if a customer wouldn't take _you_
seriously, he wouldn't take your goods seriously neither, Elkan, and
that's all there is _to_ it."

He smiled reassuringly as he walked toward the dining room and left
Elkan a prey to most uncomfortable reflections, which did not abate when
he overheard Klinger and Sammet hail Gans at the end of the veranda.

"Well, Mr. Gans," Klinger said with a sidelong glance at Elkan, "what
are you going to eat to-night--brown stewed fish sweet _und_ sour?"

Elkan could not distinguish B. Gans' reply, but he scowled fiercely at
the trio as they entered the hotel lobby, and he still frowned as he
sauntered stolidly after them to await Yetta in the social hall.

"What's the matter, Mr. Lubliner," the room clerk asked when Elkan
passed the desk. "Aren't you feeling well to-day?"

"I feel all right, Mr. Williams," Elkan replied, "but this here place is
getting on my nerves. It's too much like a big hotel out on the road
somewheres. Everybody looks li