There was a young bookkeeper, a brother of her only girl friend, Fanny Shuman. He was nice to look at. He was also very ambitious. After she had met him at the Shumans' house he fairly invited himself for a Sunday evening at the Aaronsons'. Fanny Shuman whispered in Leah's ear "catch him. I hate Gussy Schwartz."
Things went on pretty well but slowly. Leah arranged and timed the visits of the young man in such a way that he should come when her father was absent. Yet on the third week Leib Aaronson met the visitor.
"Hello, Isaac Shuman! Look what a big man he is! How old are you, now?"
"Twenty-four, Mr. Aaronson."
"Twenty-four! Wait—I think you are older." And out he took that fatal little notebook. "You will be twenty-six, my boy, next month."
After a few minutes' silence, Leib Aaronson, the marriage broker, said to his daughter. "Make the samovar and leave us alone, please. I have something to talk to Mr. Shuman."
Leah trembled and cried as she went to the kitchen. When she returned to the front room she heard her father say to the young man:
"Fanny is nearly twenty-five. She has to marry. Without a dowry—it's a sin unto Israel. She is your sister!"
Leah cried. But Leib Aaronson could not lose a double fee. Besides the dire need, Aaronson was also urged by professional pride to turn such a clever deal and make the same money pay a double fee.
Gussy Schwartz's dowry was four thousand dollars. Out of this money Isaac Shuman gave one thousand toward his sister's dowry, who was married through Aaronson to a newly established paper box manufacturer. Both marriages took place on the same day. This was some inducement to the young manufacturer of paper boxes travelling on thin ice at his bank. It cut the wedding expenses in half.