"Sure!" Kapfer replied. "I wanted to see if you wouldn't give me a year's extension for that last thousand on account I am going to get married; and with what Miss Maslik would bring me, y'understand, and your thousand dollars which I got here, I would just have enough to fix up my second floor and build a twenty-five-foot extension on the rear. You see, I figure it this way." He searched his pocket for a piece of paper and produced a fountain pen. "I figure that the fixtures cost me twenty-two hundred," he began, "and——"
At this juncture Flixman flipped his fingers derisively.
"Pipe dreams you got it!" he said. "That store as it stands was good enough for me, and it should ought to be good enough for you. Furthermore, Kapfer, if you want to invest Maslik's money and your own money, schon gut; but me, I could always put a thousand dollars into a bond, Kapfer. So, if it's all the same to you, I'll take your check and call it square."
Kapfer shrugged resignedly.
"I had an idee you would," he said, "so I got it ready for you; because, Mr. Flixman, you must excuse me when I tell you that you got the reputation of being a good collector."
"Am I?" Flixman snapped out. "Well, maybe I am, Kapfer, but I could give my money up, too, once in a while; and, believe me or not, Kapfer, this afternoon yet I am going to sign a will which I am leaving all my money to a Talmud Torah School."
"You don't say so?" Kapfer said as he drew out his checkbook.
"That's what I am telling you," Flixman continued, "because there's a lot of young loafers running round the streets which nobody got any control over 'em at all; and if they would go to a Talmud Torah School, understand me, not only they learn 'em there a little Loschen Hakodesch, y'understand, but they would also pretty near club the life out of 'em."
"I'll write out a receipt on some of the hotel paper here," Kapfer said as he signed and blotted the check.
"Write out two of 'em, so I would have a copy of what I am giving you," Flixman rejoined. "It's always just so good to be businesslike. That's what I told that lawyer to-day. He wants me I should remember a couple of orphan asylums he's interested in, and I told him that if all them suckers would train up their children they would learn a business and not holler round the streets and make life miserable for people, they wouldn't got to be orphans at all. Half the orphans is that way on account they worried their parents to death with their carryings-on, and when they go to orphan asylums they get treated kind yet. And people is foolish enough to pay a lawyer fifty dollars if he should draw up a will to leave the orphan asylum their good hard-earned money."