work here I could easy find him
a job somewheres else."

"If we got an opening here, Philip, what is it skin off my face if the
feller comes to work here," Polatkin answered, "so long as he gets the
same pay like somebody else?"

"What could I do, Marcus?" Philip rejoined, as he took off his hat and
coat preparatory to plunging into the assortment of a pile of samples.
"My own flesh and blood I must got to look out for, ain't it? And if my
sister Leah, _olav hasholem_, would be alive to-day I would of got 'em
all over here long since ago already. Ain't I am right?"

Polatkin shrugged. "In family matters one partner couldn't advise the
other at all," he said.

"Sure, I know," Philip concluded, "but when a feller has got such a
partner which he is a smart, up-to-date feller and means good by his
partner, understand me, then I got a right to take an advice from him
about family matters, ain't it?"

And with these honeyed words the subject of the Borrochson family's
assisted emigration was dismissed until the arrival of another letter
from Minsk some four weeks later.

"Well, Marcus," Philip cried after he had read it, "he'll be here
Saturday."

"Who'll be here Saturday?" Polatkin asked.

"Borrochson," Philip replied; "and the boy comes with him."

Polatkin raised his eyebrows.

"I'll tell you the honest truth, Philip," he said--"I'm surprised to
hear it."

"What d'ye mean you're surprised to hear it?" Philip asked. "Ain't I am
sending him the passage tickets?"

"Sure, I know you are sending him the tickets," Polatkin continued, "but
everybody says the same, Philip, and that's why I am telling you,
Philip, I'm surprised to hear he is coming; because from what everybody
is telling me it's a miracle the feller ain't sold the tickets and
gambled away the money."

"What are you talking nonsense, selling the tickets!" Philip cried
indignantly. "The feller is a decent, respectable feller even if he
would be a poor man."

"He ain't so poor," Polatkin retorted. "A thief need never got to be
poor, Scheikowitz."

"A thief!" Philip exclaimed.

"That's what I said," Polatkin went on, "and a smart thief too,
Scheikowitz. Gifkin says he could steal the buttons from a policeman's
pants and pass 'em off for real money, understand me, and they couldn't
catch him anyhow."

"Gifkin?" Philip replied.

"Meyer Gifkin which he is working for us now two years, Scheikowitz, and
a decent, respectable feller," Polatkin said