The Competitive Nephew Part 13

"Me get married, Mr. Seiden! What are you talking nonsense, Mr. Seiden?

I ain't going to get married at all."

"Oh, yes, you are, Fatkin," Seiden replied. "You are going to get married to Miss Bessie Saphir at New Riga Hall, on Allen Street, to-night, six o'clock sharp; otherwise you wouldn't go to work as foreman at all."

Hillel rose from his chair and then sat down again.

"Do you mean to told me I must got to marry Miss Bessie Saphir before I can go to work as foreman?" he demanded.

"You got it right, Fatkin," Seiden said.

"Then I wouldn't do no such thing," Fatkin retorted and made for the door.

"Hold on!" Seiden shouted, seizing Fatkin by the arm. "Don't be a fool, Fatkin. What are you throwing away a hundred dollars cash for?"

"Me throw away a hundred dollars cash?" Fatkin blurted out.

"Sure," Seiden answered. "If you would marry Miss Bessie Saphir you would not only get by me a job as foreman, but also I am willing to give you a hundred dollars cash."

Fatkin returned to the office and again sat down opposite his employer.

"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Seiden," he said, "I want to tell you something.

You are springing on me suddenly a proposition which it is something you could really say is remarkable. Ain't it?"

Seiden nodded.

"Miss Bessie Saphir, which she is anyhow--her own best friend would got to admit it--homely like anything, Mr. Seiden," Fatkin continued, "is going to marry Sternsilver; and just because Sternsilver runs away, I should jump in and marry her like I would be n.o.body!"

Seiden nodded again.

"Another thing, Mr. Seiden," Hillel went on. "What is a hundred dollars?

My _Grossvater_, _olav hasholam_--which he was a very learned man, for years a rabbi in Tels.h.i.+----"

"Sure, I know, Fatkin," Seiden interrupted. "You told me that before."

"--for years a rabbi in Tels.h.i.+," Hillel repeated, not deigning to notice the interruption save by a malevolent glare, "used to say: 'Soon married, quick divorced.' Why should I bring _tzuris_ on myself by doing this thing, Mr. Seiden?"

Seiden treated the question as rhetorical and made no reply.

"Also I got in bank nearly three hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden," he concluded; "and even if I was a feller which wouldn't be from such fine family in the old country, understand me, three hundred dollars is three hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden, and that's all there is to it."

Seiden pondered deeply for a minute.

"All right, Fatkin," he said; "make it a hundred and fifty dollars _und fertig_."

"Three hundred dollars _oder_ nothing!" Fatkin replied firmly; and after half an hour of more or less acrid discussion Fatkin agreed to accept Miss Bessie Saphir plus three hundred dollars and a job as foreman.

An inexplicable phase of the criminal's character is the instinct which impels him to revisit the scene of his crime; and, whether he was led thither by a desire to gloat or by mere vulgar curiosity, Philip Sternsilver slunk within the shadow of an L-road pillar on Allen Street opposite New Riga Hall promptly at half-past five that evening.

First to arrive was Isaac Seiden himself. He bore a heavily laden suitcase, and his face was distorted in an expression of such intense gloom that Sternsilver almost found it in his heart to be sorry for his late employer.

Mrs. Seiden, Miss Bessie Saphir, and Mrs. Miriam Saphir next appeared.

They were chattering in an animated fas.h.i.+on and pa.s.sed into the hall in a gale of laughter.

"Must be he didn't told 'em yet," Sternsilver muttered to himself.

Then came representatives of commission houses and several L to J customers attired in appropriate wedding finery; and as they entered the hall Sternsilver deemed that the pertinent moment for disappearing had arrived. He left hurriedly before the advent of two high-grade salesmen, or he might have noticed in their wake the dignified figure of Hillel Fatkin, arrayed in a fur overcoat, which covered a suit of evening clothes and was surmounted by a high silk hat. Hillel walked slowly, as much in the realization that haste was unbecoming to a bridegroom as on account of his patent-leather shoes, which were half a size too small for him; for the silk hat, fur overcoat, patent-leather shoes, and dress suit were all hired, and formed Combination Wedding Outfit No. 6 in the catalogue of the Imperial Dress-suit Parlour on Rivington Street. It was listed at five dollars a wedding, but the proprietress, to whom Hillel had boasted of his rabbinical ancestry, concluded to allow him a clerical discount of 20 per cent. when he hesitated between his ultimate selection and the three dollar Combination No. 4, which did not include the fur overcoat.

The extra dollar was well invested, for the effect of Combination No. 6 upon Miss Bessie Saphir proved to be electrical. At first sight of it, she dismissed forever the memory of the fickle Sternsilver, who, at the very moment when Bessie and Hillel were plighting their troth, regaled himself with _mohnkuchen_ and coffee at a neighbouring cafe.

He sat in an obscure corner behind the lady cas.h.i.+er's desk; and as he consumed his supper with hearty appet.i.te he could not help overhearing the conversation she was carrying on with a rotund personage who was none other than Sam Kupferberg, the well-known Madison Street advocate.

"For a greenhorn like him," said Sam, "he certainly done well. He ain't been in the place a year, y'understand, and to-night he marries a relation of his boss and he gets a job as foreman and three hundred dollars in the bargain."

The cas.h.i.+er clucked with her tongue. "S'imagine!" she commented.

"Mind you," Sam continued, "only this afternoon yet, Seiden tells him he should marry the girl, as this other feller backed out; and he stands out for three hundred dollars, y'understand, and a job as foreman. What could Seiden do? He had to give in, and they're being married right now in New Riga Hall."

"S'imagine!" the cas.h.i.+er said again, adjusting her pompadour.

"And, furthermore," Sam continued, "the girl is a relation of Seiden's wife, y'understand."

"My Gawd, ketch him!" the cas.h.i.+er exclaimed; and Sam Kupferberg grabbed Philip Sternsilver just as he was disappearing into the street. It was some minutes before Philip could be brought to realize that he owed ten cents for his supper, but when he was at length released he made up for lost time. His progress down Allen Street was marked by two overturned pushcarts and a trail of tumbled children; and, despite this havoc, when he arrived at New Riga Hall the ceremony was finished by half an hour or more.

Indeed, the guests were gathered about the supper table and soup had just been served, when the proprietor of the hall tiptoed to the bridal table and whispered in Isaac Seiden's ear:

"A feller by the name of Sternsilver wants to speak a few words something to you," he said.

Seiden turned pale, and leaving half a plateful of soup uninhaled he rose from the table and followed the proprietor to the latter's private office. There sat Philip Sternsilver gasping for breath.

"Murderer!" he shouted as Seiden entered. "You are shedding my blood."

"_Koosh_, Sternsilver!" Seiden hissed. "Ain't you got no shame for the people at all?"

"Where is my Bessie--my life?" Sternsilver wailed. "Without you are making any inquiries at all you are marrying her to a loafer. Me, I am nothing! What is it to you I am pretty near killed in the street last night and must got to go to a hospital! For years I am working for you already, day in, day out, without I am missing a single forenoon even--and you are treating me like this!"

It was now Seiden's turn to gasp.

"What d'ye mean?" he cried, searching in his coat pocket. "Ain't you wrote me this here letter?"

He produced the missive received by him that morning and handed it to Sternsilver, who, unnoticed by the excited Seiden, returned it without even glancing at its contents.

"I never seen it before," he declared. "Why should I write printing?

Don't you suppose I can write writing, Mr. Seiden?"

"Who did send it, then?" Seiden asked.

"It looks to me"--said Sternsilver, who grew calmer as Seiden became more agitated--"it looks to me like that sucker Fatkin writes it."