Polatkin was the first to break a silence of over five minutes' duration.
"Ain't it funny," he said, "that we ain't heard from Louis?"
Scheikowitz nodded; and as he did so the elevator door creaked noisily and there alighted a short, stout person, who, having once been described in the I. O. M. A. Monthly as Benjamin J. Flugel, the Merchant Prince, had never since walked abroad save in a freshly ironed silk hat and a Prince Albert coat.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flugel?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz cried with one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged within his breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of business; and, as Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's impressive partner, he could not help congratulating himself on the mercantile sagacity that had made him buy Glaubmann's house.
"And this is Mr. Lubliner?" Flugel said in even tones.
"Pleased to meet you," Elkan said. "I had dinner with your partner only yesterday."
Flugel gulped convulsively in an effort to remain calm.
"I know it," he said; "and honestly the longer I am in business with that feller the more I got to wonder what a Schlemiel he is. Actually he goes to work and tries to do his own partner without knowing it at all. Mind you, if he would be doing it from spite I could understand it; but when one partner don't know that the other partner practically closes a deal for a tract of a hundred lots and six houses in Johnsonhurst, and then persuades a prospective purchaser that, instead of buying in Johnsonhurst, he should buy in Burgess Park, understand me, all I got to say is that if Louis Stout ain't crazy the least he deserves is that the feller really and truly should buy in Burgess Park."
"But, Mr. Flugel," Elkan interrupted, "I did buy in Burgess Park."
"What!" Flugel shouted.