"But——" Elkan began, when the strange expression of Kapfer's face made him pause. Indeed, before he could proceed further, Kapfer jumped up from his chair.
"Cheese it!" he said. "Here comes Polatkin."
As he spoke, Polatkin caught sight of them and almost ran across the room.
"Elkan!" he exclaimed. "Gott sei Dank I found you here."
"What's the matter?" Elkan asked.
Polatkin drew forward a chair and they all sat down.
"I just had a terrible fuss with Scheikowitz," he said. "This morning, when I got downtown, I thought I would tell him what I brought you back for; so I says to him: 'Philip,' I says, 'I want to tell you something,' I says. 'I got an elegant Shidduch for Elkan.'" He stopped and let his hand fall with a loud smack on his thigh. "Oo-ee!" he exclaimed. "What a row that feller made it! You would think, Elkan, I told him I got a pistol to shoot you with, the way he acts. I didn't even got the opportunity to tell him who the Shidduch was. He tells me I should mind my own business and calls me such names which honestly I wouldn't call a shipping clerk even. And what else d'ye think he says?"
Elkan and Kapfer shook their heads.
"Why, he says that to-night, at eight o'clock, he himself is going to have a Shadchen by the name Fischko take you up to see a girl in Harlem which the name he didn't tell me at all; but he says she's got five thousand dollars a dowry. Did he say to you anything about it, Elkan?"
"The first I hear of it!" Elkan replied in husky tones as he averted his eyes from Polatkin. "Why, I wouldn't know the feller Fischko if he stood before me now, and he wouldn't know me neither."