The floorwalker ushered them into the elevator and they alighted at the second floor.
"Miss Holzmeyer!" the floorwalker cried; and in response there approached a lady of uncertain age but of no uncertain methods of salesmanship. She was garbed in a silk gown that might have graced the person of an Austrian grand duchess, and she rustled and swished as she walked toward them in what she had always found to be a most impressive manner.
"The lady wants to see some dresses," the floorwalker said; and Miss Holzmeyer smiled by a rather complicated process, in which her nose wrinkled until it drew up the corners of her mouth and made her eyes appear to rest like shoe-buttons on the tops of her powdered cheeks.
"This way, madam," she said as she swung her skirts round noisily.
"One moment," Elkan interrupted, for again he had been totally eclipsed by Mrs. Feinermann's bulky figure. "You ain't heard what my wife wants yet."
"Your wife!" Miss Holzmeyer exclaimed.
"Sure, my wife," Elkan replied calmly. "This is my wife if it's all the same to you and you ain't got no objections."
He gazed steadily at Miss Holzmeyer, who began to find her definite methods of salesmanship growing less definite, until she blushed vividly.
"Not at all," she said. "Step this way, please."
"Yes, Miss Holzmeyer," Elkan went on without moving, "as I was telling you, you ain't found out yet what my wife wants, on account a dress could be from twenty dollars the garment up to a hundred and fifty."