"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."
"Didn't he tell you her name?" Kapfer asked cautiously.
"No," Polatkin replied, "because I says right away that the girl I had in mind would got a dowry of five thousand too; and then and there Scheikowitz gets so mad he smashes a chair on us--one of them new ones we just bought, Elkan. So I didn't say nothing more, but I rung up Rashkind right away and asks him how things turns out, and he says nothing is settled yet."
"So I got an idee," Polatkin continued. "I thought, Elkan, we would do this: Don't come downtown to-day at all, and to-night I would go up and meet Fischko and tell him you are practically engaged and the whole thing is off. Also I would _schenk_ the feller a ten-dollar bill he shouldn't bother us again."
Elkan grasped the edge of the table. He felt as if consciousness were slipping away from him, when suddenly Kapfer emitted a loud exclamation.
"By jiminy!" he cried. "I got an idee! Why shouldn't I go up there and meet this here Fischko?"
"Sure; why not? A nice girl like Miss--whatever her name is--ain't too good for me, Mr. Polatkin. I got a good business there in Bridgetown, and----"
"But I don't know what for a girl she is at all," Polatkin protested.
"She's got anyhow five thousand dollars," Kapfer retorted, "and when a girl's got five thousand dollars, Mr. Polatkin, beauty ain't even skin-deep."
"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."
"Sure!" Kapfer said--"secretly engaged unbeknownst to everybody."