"I did," Benson replied with some heat; "but if some one comes along and wants to invest the additional five thousand dollars I wouldn't turn him down, Mr. Lubliner."
He rose to his feet to join the pinocle players in the dining room.
"So I hope you enjoy the show to-morrow night," he added as he strolled away.
From six to eight every evening Max Merech underwent a gradual transformation, for six o'clock was the closing hour at Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's establishment, while eight marked the advent of the Sarasate Trio at the Café Román, on Delancey Street. Thus, at six, Max Merech was an assistant cutter; and, indeed, until after he ate his supper he still bore the outward appearance of an assistant cutter, though inwardly he felt a premonitory glow. After half-past seven, however, he buttoned on a low, turned-down collar with its concomitant broad Windsor tie, and therewith he assumed his real character--that of a dilettante.
At the Café Román each evening he specialized on music; but with the spirit of the true dilettante he neglected no one of the rest of the arts, and was ever to be found at the table next to the piano, a warm advocate of the latest movement in painting and literature, as well as an appreciative listener to the ultramodern music discoursed by the Sarasate Trio.
"If that ain't a winner I ain't no judge!" he said to Boris Volkovisk, the pianist, on the evening of the conversation with Elkan set forth above. He referred to a violin sonata of Boris' own composition which the latter and Jacob Rekower, the violinist, had just concluded.
Boris smiled and wiped away the perspiration from his bulging forehead, for the third movement of the sonata, marked in the score _Allegro con fuoco_, had taxed even the technic of its composer.
"A winner of what?" Boris asked--"money? Because supposing a miracle happens that somebody would publish it nobody buys it."
Max nodded his head slowly in sympathetic acquiescence.
"But anyhow you ain't so bad off like some composers," he said. "You've anyhow got a good musician to play your stuff for you."
He smiled at Jacob Rekower, who plunged his hands into his trousers pockets and shrugged deprecatingly.
"Sure, I know," Rekower said; "and if we play too much good stuff Marculescu raises the devil with us we should play more popular music."