Rashkind ceased his moanings and looked up with bloodshot eyes.
"She's engaged!" he said.
"She's engaged!" Polatkin repeated. "And you call yourself a Shadchen!" he said bitterly.
"A Shadchen!" Scheikowitz cried. "Why, I thought you said he was a button salesman."
"Did I?" Polatkin retorted. "Well, maybe he is, Scheikowitz; but he ain't no Shadchen. Actually the feller goes to work and takes Elkan up to see the girl, and they put him off by saying the girl was sick; and now he comes down here and tells me the girl is engaged."
"Well," Scheikowitz remarked, "you couldn't get no sympathy from me, Polatkin. A feller which acts underhand the way you done, trying to make up a Shidduch for Elkan behind my back yet—you got what you deserved."
"What d'ye mean I got what I deserved?" Polatkin said indignantly. "Do you think it would be such a bad thing for us—you and me both, Scheikowitz—if I could of made up a match between Elkan and B. Maslik's a daughter?"
"B. Maslik's a daughter!" Scheikowitz cried. "Do you mean that this here feller was trying to make up a match between Elkan and Miss Birdie Maslik?"
"That's just what I said," Polatkin announced.
"Then I can explain the whole thing," Scheikowitz rejoined triumphantly. "Miss Maslik had a date to meet Elkan last night yet with a Shadchen by the name Charles Fischko, and that's why B. Maslik told this here button salesman that his daughter was engaged."