"Supposing we say the first of May," Elkan suggested—"not that I am so crazy to move out to Burgess Park, y'understand; but I don't see what is the sense buying a house in the country and then not living in it."
There was a brief silence, broken only by the soft weeping of Mrs. Kovner; and at length Max Kovner shrugged his shoulders.
"Nu, Elkan," he said, "what is the use beating bushes round? Mrs. Kovner is stuck on the house and so am I. So long as you don't want the house, and there's been so much trouble about it and all, I tell you what I'll do: Take back two thousand dollars a second mortgage on the house, payable in one year at six per cent., which it is so good as gold, understand me, and I'll relieve you of your contract and give you two hundred dollars to boot."
A smile spread slowly over Elkan's face as he looked significantly at Louis Stout.
"I don't want your two hundred dollars, Max," he said. "You can have the house and welcome; and you should use the two hundred to pay your painting and plumbing bills."
"That's all right," Louis Stout said; "there is people which will see to it that he does. Also, gentlemen, I want everybody to understand that I claim full commission here from Glaubmann as the only broker in the transaction!"
"Nu, gentlemen," Glaubmann said; "I'll leave this to the lawyers if it ain't so: From one transaction I can only be liable for one commission—ain't it?"
Feldman and Goldstein nodded in unison.
"Then all I could say is that yous brokers and drygoods merchants should fight it out between yourselves," he declared; "because I'm going to pay the money for the commission into court—and them which is entitled to it can have it."
"But ain't you going to protect me, Glaubmann?" Ortelsburg demanded.