,
"and even if you _would_ fix it up with half a cent's worth of peas and
spill on it a bottle cough medicine and glue, _verstehst du mich_, how
could you make it figure up more as a dollar and a quarter, Mr.
Williams? Then the clams, Mr. Williams, must got to have inside of 'em
at the very least a half a karat pink pearl in 'em, otherwise
thirty-five cents would be big yet."

"Very likely," Mr. Williams agreed as a shade of annoyance passed over
his well modelled features, "but just now, Mr. Scharley, I'm anxious to
show you the advantage of these lots of ours, and you won't mind if I
don't pursue the topic of Chinese Lantern Dinners any farther."

"I'm only too glad not to talk about it at all," Scharley agreed. "In
fact if any one else tries to ring in another one of them dinners on me,
Mr. Williams, I'll turn him down on the spot. Shaving-dish parties
neither, which I assure you, Mr. Williams, even if Miss Feldman would be
an elegant, refined young lady, understand me, she fixes something in
that shaving dish of hers last night, understand me, which I thought I
was poisoned already."

Williams deemed it best to ignore this observation and therefore made no
comment.

"But anyhow," Scharley concluded as they approached a little wooden
shack on the margin of the water, "I'm sick and tired of things to eat,
so let's talk about something else."

Having delivered this ultimatum, his footsteps lagged and he stopped
short as he began to sniff the air like a hunting dog.

"M-m-m-m!" he exclaimed. "What _is_ that?"

"That's a two-room shed we rent for twenty dollars a month," Williams
explained. "We have eight of them and they help considerably to pay our
office rent over in New York."

"Sure I know," Scharley agreed, "_aber_, m-m-m-m!"

Once more he expanded his nostrils to catch a delicious fragrance that
emanated from the little shack.

"_Aber_, who lives there?" he insisted, and Mr. Williams could not
restrain a laugh.

"Why, it's that old lady with the wig that Lubliner brought over to the
hotel the other night," he replied. "I thought I saw Sol Klinger telling
you about it yesterday."

"He started to tell me something about it," Scharley said, "when Barney
Gans butted in and wouldn't let him. What _was_ it about this here old
lady?"

"There isn't anything to it particularly," Williams replied, "excepting
that it seemed a little strange to see an old lady in a shawl and one of
those religious wigs in th