Polatkin made no reply and he was about to go into the showroom when the telephone bell rang.
"Leave me answer it," Scheikowitz said; and a moment later he picked up the desk telephone and placed the receiver to his ear.
"Hello!" he said. "Yes, this is Polatkin & Scheikowitz. This is Mr. Scheikowitz talking."
Suddenly the instrument dropped with a clatter to the floor; and while Scheikowitz was stooping to pick it up Polatkin rushed into the office.
"Scheikowitz!" he cried. "What are you trying to do--break up our whole office yet? Ain't it enough you are putting all our chairs on the bum already?"
Scheikowitz contented himself by glaring viciously at his partner and again placed the receiver to his ear.
"Hello, Mr. Kapfer," he said. "Yes, I heard it this morning already. Them things travels fast, Mr. Kapfer. No, I don't blame you--I blame this here Fischko. He gives me a dirty deal--that's all."
Here there was a long pause, while Polatkin stood in the middle of the office floor like a bird-dog pointing at a covey of partridges.
"But why couldn't you come down here, Mr. Kapfer?" Scheikowitz asked. Again there was a long pause, at the end of which Scheikowitz said: "Wait a minute--I'll ask my partner."
"Listen here, Polatkin," he said, placing his hand over the transmitter. "Kapfer says he wants to give us from two thousand five hundred dollars an order, and he wants you and me to go up to the Prince Clarence at two o'clock to see him. He wants us both there because he wants to arrange terms of credit."
"I would see him hung first!" Polatkin roared, and Scheikowitz took his hand from the transmitter.
"All right, Mr. Kapfer," he answered in dulcet tones; "me and Polatkin will both be there. Good-bye."
He hung up the receiver with exaggerated care.
"And you would just bet your life that we will be there!" he said. "And that's all there is to it!"
At half-past one that afternoon, while Max Kapfer was enjoying a good cigar in the lobby of the Prince Clarence, he received an unexpected visitor in the person of Julius Flixman.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Flixman?" he cried, dragging forth a chair.
Flixman extended a thin, bony hand in greeting and sat down wearily.
"I don't do so good, Kapfer," he said. "I guess New York don't agree with me." He distorted his face in what he intended to be an amiable smile. "But I guess it agrees with you all right," he continued. "I suppose I must got to congradulate you on account you are going to be engaged to Miss Birdie Maslik."