"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."
Rashkind again raised his head and regarded Scheikowitz with a malevolent grin.
"_Schmooes!_" he jeered. "Miss Maslik is engaged and the _Shadchen_ was Charles Fischko, but the _Chosan_ ain't Elkan Lubliner by a damsight."
It was now Polatkin's turn to gloat, and he shook his head slowly up and down.
"So, Scheikowitz," he said, "you are trying to fix up a _Shidduch_ between Elkan and Miss Maslik without telling me a word about it, and you get the whole thing so mixed up that it is a case of trying to sit between two chairs! You come down _mit_ a big bump and I ain't got no sympathy for you neither."
"What was the feller's name?" Scheikowitz demanded hoarsely of Rashkind, who was straightening out his tie and smoothing his rumpled hair.
"It's a funny quincidence," Rashkind replied; "but you remember, Mr. Polatkin, I was talking to you the other day about Julius Flixman?"