"I thought——" Elkan began.
"You ain't got no business to think," Polatkin interrupted. "The next time you are selling a concern like Appenweier & Murray don't promise nothing in the way of deliveries, because with people like them it's always the same. If you tell 'em a week they ring you up and insist on it they would got to got the goods in five days."
He put his hand on Elkan's shoulder; and the set expression of his face melted until his short dark moustache disappeared between his nose and his under lip in a widespread grin.
"Come inside the office," he said—"you too, Scheikowitz. Elkan's got a long story he wants to tell us."
Half an hour later, Sam Markulies knocked timidly at the office door.
"Mr. Polatkin," he said, "Marx Feinermann says to me to ask you if he should wait any longer on account they're very busy over to Kupferberg Brothers'."
"Tell him he should come in here," Polatkin said; and Markulies withdrew after gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the spectacle of Elkan Lubliner seated at Polatkin's desk, with one of Polatkin's mildest cigars in his mouth, while the two partners sat in adjacent chairs and smiled on Elkan admiringly.
"You want to speak to me, Mr. Polatkin?" Feinermann asked, as he came in a moment afterward.
"Sure," Polatkin replied as he handed the astonished Feinermann a cigar. "Sit down, Feinermann, and listen to me. In the first place, Feinermann, what for a neighborhood is Pitt Street to live in? Why don't you move uptown, Feinermann?"