Elkan Lubliner, American Part 16

"All right," Rashkind replied. "I'll go with you."

Elkan wheeled round and glared viciously at the _Shadchen_.

"You'll do nothing of the kind!" he roared. "You get right down them subway steps or I wouldn't come up with you Friday night."

"But what harm----" Rashkind began, when Elkan seized him by the shoulder and led him firmly downstairs to the ticket office. There Elkan bought a ticket and, dropping it in the chopper's box, he pushed Rashkind on to the platform. A few minutes later a downtown express bore the _Shadchen_ away and Elkan ascended the stairs in three tremendous bounds. Unwaveringly he started up the street for B. Maslik's apartment house, where, by the simple expedient of handing the elevator boy a quarter, he averted the formality of being announced. Thus, when he rang the doorbell of B. Maslik's flat, though it was opened by the little brown-eyed maid in person, she had discarded the white ap.r.o.n and cap that she had worn a few minutes before, and her hair was fluffed up in becoming disorder.

"You was telling me you are coming originally from somewheres near Rumania," Elkan began without further preface, "and--why, what's the matter? You've been crying?"

She put her fingers to her lips and closed the door softly behind her.

"They says I didn't got no business talking to you at all," she replied, "and they called me down something terrible!"

Elkan's eyes flashed angrily.

"Who calls you down?" he demanded.

"Mr. and Mrs. Maslik," she answered; "and they says I ain't got no shame at all!"

She struggled bravely to retain her composure; but just one little half-strangled sob escaped her, and forthwith Elkan felt internally a peculiar sinking sensation.

"What do they mean you ain't got no shame?" he protested. "I got a right to talk to you and you got a right to talk to me--ain't it?"

She nodded and sobbed again, whereat Elkan winced and dug his nails into the palms of his hands.

"Listen!" he pleaded. "Don't worry yourself at all. After this I wouldn't got no use for them people. I didn't come here on my own account in the first place, but----"

Here he paused.

"But what?" the little maid asked.

"But I'm glad I came now," Elkan went on defiantly, "and I don't care who knows it. _Wir sind alles Jehudim_, anyhow, and one is just as good as the other."

"Better even," she said. "What was B. Maslik in the old country? He could _oser_ sign his name when he came here, while I am anyhow from decent, respectable people, Mr. Lubliner."

"I don't doubt it," Elkan replied.

"My father was a learned man, Mr. Lubliner; but that don't save him. One day he goes to Kis.h.i.+nef on business, Mr. Lubliner, and----"

Here her composure entirely forsook her and she covered her face with her hands and wept. Elkan struggled with himself no longer. He took the little maid in his arms; and, as it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do, she laid her head against his shoulder and had her whole cry out.

Elkan spoke no word, but patted her shoulder gently with his right hand.

"I guess I'm acting like a baby, Mr. Lubliner," she said, after a quarter of an hour had elapsed. To Elkan it seemed like an acquaintance of many months as he clasped her more closely.

"My name is Elkan, _Liebchen_," he said, "and we would send all the heavy was.h.i.+ng out."

"Well, Lubliner," Kapfer cried as Elkan came into the cafe of the Prince Clarence the following morning, "you didn't like her--what?"

"Didn't like her!" Elkan exclaimed. "What d'ye mean I didn't like her?"

"Why, the way you look, I take it you had a pretty rotten time last night," Kapfer rejoined.

"What are you talking about--rotten time?" Elkan protested. "The only thing is I feel so happy I didn't sleep a wink, that's all."

Kapfer jumped to his feet and slapped Elkan on the shoulder.

"Do you mean you're engaged!" he asked.

"Sure!" Elkan replied.

"Then I congradulate you a thousand times," Kapfer said gleefully.

"Once is plenty," Elkan replied.

"No, it ain't," Kapfer rejoined. "You should got to be congradulated more as you think, because this morning I am talking to a feller in the clothing business here and he says B. Maslik is richer as most people believe. The feller says he is easy worth a quarter of a million dollars."

"What's that got to do with it?" Elkan asked.

"What's that got to do with it?" Kapfer repeated. "Why, it's got everything to do with it, considering you are engaged to his only daughter."

"I am engaged to his only daughter? Who told you that, Mr. Kapfer?"

"Why, you did!" Kapfer said.

"I never said nothing of the kind," Elkan declared, "because I ain't engaged to Miss Maslik at all; in fact, I never even seen her."

Kapfer gazed earnestly at Elkan and then sat down suddenly.

"Say, lookyhere, Lubliner," he said. "Are you crazy or am I? Last night you says you are going up with a _Shadchen_ to see Birdie Maslik, and now you tell me you are engaged, but not to Miss Maslik."

"That's right," Elkan replied.

"Then who in thunder are you engaged to?"

"That's just the point," Elkan said, as he pa.s.sed his hand through his hair. "I ain't slept a wink all night on account of it; in fact, this morning I wondered should I go round there and ask--and then I thought to myself I would get from you an advice first."

"Get from me an advice!" Kapfer exclaimed. "You mean you are engaged to a girl and you don't know her name, and so you come down here to ask me an advice as to how you should find out her name?"

Elkan nodded sadly and leaned his elbow on the table.

"It's like this," he said; and for more than half an hour he regaled Kapfer with a story that, stripped of descriptive and irrelevant material concerning Elkan's own feelings in the matter, ought to have taken only five minutes in the telling.

"And that's the way it is, Mr. Kapfer," Elkan concluded. "I don't know her name; but a poor little girl like her, which she is so good--and so--and so----"

Here he became all choked up and Kapfer handed him a cigar.