CHAPTER THREE
A MATCH FOR ELKAN LUBLINER
MADE IN HEAVEN, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF MAX KAPFER
"I WOULDN'T care if Elkan Lubliner was only eighteen even," declared Morris Rashkind emphatically; "he ain't too young to marry B. Maslik's a Tochter. There's a feller which he has got in improved property alone, understand me, an equity of a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and if you would count second mortgages and Bronix lots, Mr. Polatkin, the feller is worth easy his quarter of a million dollars."
"Sure I know," Polatkin retorted. "With such a feller, he gives his daughter when she gets married five thousand dollars a second mortgage, understand me; and the most the Chosan could expect is that some day he forecloses the mortgage and gets a deficiency judgment against a dummy bondsman which all his life he never got money enough to pay his laundry bills even!"
"Oser a Stück!" Rashkind protested. "He says to me, so sure as you are sitting there, 'Mr. Rashkind,' he says, 'my dear friend,' he says, 'Birdie is my only Tochter. I ain't got no other one,' he says, 'Gott sei Dank,' he says; 'and the least I could do for her is five thousand dollars cash,' he says, 'in a certified check,' he says, 'before the feller goes under the Chuppah at all.'"
"With a feller like B. Maslik," Polatkin commented, "it ain't necessary for him to talk that way, Rashkind, because if he wants to get an up-to-date business man for his daughter, understand me, he couldn't expect the feller is going to take chances on an uncertified check oder a promissory note."
"That's all right, Mr. Polatkin," Rashkind said. "B. Maslik's promissory note is just so good as his certified check, Mr. Polatkin. With that feller I wouldn't want his promissory note even. His word in the presence of a couple of bright, level-headed witnesses, which a lawyer couldn't rattle 'em on the stand, verstehst du, would be good enough for me, Mr. Polatkin. B. Maslik, y'understand, is absolutely good like diamonds, Mr. Polatkin."
"All right," Polatkin said. "I'll speak to Elkan about it. He'll be back from the road Saturday."