"Why, for eighteen thousand five hundred dollars, in Johnsonhurst," Flugel continued, "I could give you a palace already!"
He scanned the various clauses of the contract with the critical eye of an experienced real-estate operator; and before he had completed his examination the elevator door again creaked open.
"Is Glaubmann gone?" cried a voice from the interior of the car, and the next moment Kovner alighted.
Flugel looked up from the contract.
"Hello, Kovner," he said, "are you in this deal too?"
"I ain't in any deal," Kovner replied. "I am looking for Barnett Glaubmann. They told me in his office he is coming over here and would be here all the morning."
"Well, he was here," Elkan replied, "but he went away again."
Kovner sat down without invitation.
"It ain't no more as I expected," he began in the dull, resigned tones of a man with a grievance. "That swindler has been dodging me for four months now, and I guess he will keep on dodging me for the rest of the year that he claims I got a lease on his house for."
"What house?" Flugel asked.