"Sure, I know," Polatkin agreed; "but so soon as you see Fischko and tell him you ain't Elkan Lubliner he would refuse to take you round to see the girl at all."
"Leave that to me," Kapfer declared. "D'ye know what I'll tell him?" He looked hard at Elkan Lubliner before he continued. "I'll tell him," he said, "that Elkan is already engaged."
"Already engaged!" Polatkin cried.
"Sure!" Kapfer said—"secretly engaged unbeknownst to everybody."
"But right away to-morrow morning Fischko would come down and tell Scheikowitz that you says Elkan is secretly engaged, and Scheikowitz would know the whole thing was a fake and that I am at the bottom of it."
"No, he wouldn't," Kapfer rejoined, "because Elkan would then and there say that he is secretly engaged and that would let you out."
"Sure it would," Polatkin agreed; "and then Scheikowitz would want to kill Elkan."
Suddenly Elkan struck the table with his clenched fist.
"I've got the idee!" he said. "I wouldn't come downtown till Saturday—because we will say, for example, I am sick. Then, when Fischko says I am secretly engaged, you can say you don't know nothing about it; and by the time I come down on Saturday morning I would be engaged all right, and nobody could do nothing any more."
"That's true too," Kapfer said, "because your date with Rashkind is for to-morrow night and by Saturday the whole thing would be over."