"But the costumes are really something which you could call beautiful!" Volkovisk declared.
"Merech approved the costumes too," Kammerman agreed with a laugh. "He left after the first act; and he said that if you endured it to the end you were to be sure to tell Jassy the colorings were splendid!" He lit a cigarette reflectively. "That man is a regular shark for coloring!" he said. "It seems that when I first met him that night he was only an assistant cutter; but Elkan Lubliner made him designer very shortly afterward—and it has proved a fine thing for both of them. I understand we bought fifteen thousand dollars' worth of goods from them during the past year!"
"He deserved all the good luck that came to him," Volkovisk cried; and Kammerman placed his hand affectionately on his protégé's shoulder.
"There's a special Providence that looks after artists," he said as they reëntered the theatre, "whether they paint, write, compose, or design garments."
CHAPTER FIVE
ONE OF ESAU'S FABLES
THE MOUSE SCRATCHES THE LION'S BACK; THE LION SCRATCHES THE MOUSE'S BACK
"NO, ELKAN," said Louis Stout, of Flugel & Stout. "When you are coming to compare Johnsonhurst mit Burgess Park it's already a molehill to a mountain."