Elkan Lubliner, American Part 48

At this juncture a porter appeared bearing a basket of champagne and followed by two waiters with ice buckets, and the room clerk jerked his head sideways in the direction toward which the little procession had disappeared.

"That's for Suite 27, the Feldmans' rooms," he explained. "Miss Feldman is giving a little chafing-dish dinner there to Mr. Scharley and a few friends."

He accepted with a graceful nod Elkan's proffered cigar.

"Which goes to show that it's as you say, Mr. Lubliner," he concluded.

"If you have drygoods, real estate or marriageable relatives to dispose of, Mr. Lubliner, Egremont's the place to market them."

"Yes, Mr. Williams," said Jacob Scharley at two o'clock the following afternoon as they trudged along the sands of Bognor Park, one of Egremont Beach's new developments, "I was trying to figure out how these here Chinese Lantern Dinners stands in a sucker like Leon Sammet twenty dollars a head, when by the regular bill of fare it comes exactly to seven dollars and fifty cents including drinks."

"You can't figure on a special dinner according to the prices on the regular bill of fare," said Mr. Williams, the room clerk, who in his quality of real-estate operator was attempting to s.h.i.+ft the conversation from hotel matters to the topic of seaside lots. "Why, ice cream is twenty-five cents on the bill of fare, but at one of those dinners it's served in imitation Chinese lanterns, which makes it worth double at least."

"For my part," Scharley broke in, "they could serve it in kerosene lamps, Mr. Williams, because I never touch the stuff."

"It's a parallel case to lots here and lots on Mizzentop Beach, which is the next beach below," Williams continued. "Here we have a boardwalk extending right down to our property, and we are getting seven hundred and fifty dollars a lot, while there, with practically the same transit facilities but no boardwalk or electric lights, they get only four hundred and----"

"_Aber_ you take a piece of tenderloin steak a half an inch thick and about the size of a price ticket, understand me," Scharley interrupted, "and even if you _would_ fix it up with half a cent's worth of peas and spill on it a bottle cough medicine and glue, _verstehst du mich_, how could you make it figure up more as a dollar and a quarter, Mr.

Williams? Then the clams, Mr. Williams, must got to have inside of 'em at the very least a half a karat pink pearl in 'em, otherwise thirty-five cents would be big yet."

"Very likely," Mr. Williams agreed as a shade of annoyance pa.s.sed over his well modelled features, "but just now, Mr. Scharley, I'm anxious to show you the advantage of these lots of ours, and you won't mind if I don't pursue the topic of Chinese Lantern Dinners any farther."

"I'm only too glad not to talk about it at all," Scharley agreed. "In fact if any one else tries to ring in another one of them dinners on me, Mr. Williams, I'll turn him down on the spot. Shaving-dish parties neither, which I a.s.sure you, Mr. Williams, even if Miss Feldman would be an elegant, refined young lady, understand me, she fixes something in that shaving dish of hers last night, understand me, which I thought I was poisoned already."

Williams deemed it best to ignore this observation and therefore made no comment.

"But anyhow," Scharley concluded as they approached a little wooden shack on the margin of the water, "I'm sick and tired of things to eat, so let's talk about something else."

Having delivered this ultimatum, his footsteps lagged and he stopped short as he began to sniff the air like a hunting dog.

"M-m-m-m!" he exclaimed. "What _is_ that?"

"That's a two-room shed we rent for twenty dollars a month," Williams explained. "We have eight of them and they help considerably to pay our office rent over in New York."

"Sure I know," Scharley agreed, "_aber_, m-m-m-m!"

Once more he expanded his nostrils to catch a delicious fragrance that emanated from the little shack.

"_Aber_, who lives there?" he insisted, and Mr. Williams could not restrain a laugh.

"Why, it's that old lady with the wig that Lubliner brought over to the hotel the other night," he replied. "I thought I saw Sol Klinger telling you about it yesterday."

"He started to tell me something about it," Scharley said, "when Barney Gans b.u.t.ted in and wouldn't let him. What _was_ it about this here old lady?"

"There isn't anything to it particularly," Williams replied, "excepting that it seemed a little strange to see an old lady in a shawl and one of those religious wigs in the Hanging Gardens, and there was something else Klinger told me about Mrs. Lubliner and the old lady talking about brown stewed fish sweet and----"

At this juncture Scharley snapped his fingers excitedly.

"Brown stewed fish sweet and sour!" he almost shouted. "I ain't smelled it since I was a boy already."

He wagged his head and again murmured, "M-m-m-m-m!"

Suddenly he received an inspiration.

"How much did you say them shanties rents for, Mr. Williams?" he said.

"Twenty dollars a month," Williams replied.

"You don't tell me!" Scharley exclaimed solemnly. "I wonder if I could give a look at the inside of one of 'em--this one here, for instance."

"I don't think there'd be any objection," Williams said, and no sooner were the words out of his mouth than Scharley started off on a half trot for the miniature veranda on the ocean side of the little house.

"Perhaps I'd better inquire first if it's convenient for them to let us in now," Williams said, as he bounded after his prospective customer and knocked gently on the doorjamb. There was a sound of scurrying feet within, and at length the door was opened a few inches and the bewigged head of Mrs. Lesengeld appeared in the crack.

"_Nu_," she said, "what _is_ it?"

"I represent the Bognor Park Company," Williams replied, "and if it's perfectly convenient for you, Mrs.----"

"Lesengeld," she added.

"Used to was Lesengeld & Schein in the pants business?" Scharley asked, and Mrs. Lesengeld nodded.

"Why, Lesengeld and me was lodge brothers together in the I. O. M. A.

before I went out to the Pacific Coast years ago already," Scharley declared. "I guess he's often spoken to you about Jake Scharley, ain't it?"

"Maybe he did, Mr. Scharley, _aber_ he's dead _schon_ two years since already," Mrs. Lesengeld said, and then added the pious hope, "_olav hasholom_."

"You don't say so," Scharley cried in shocked accents. "Why, he wasn't no older as me already."

"Fifty-three when he died," Mrs. Lesengeld said. "Quick diabetes, Mr.

Scharley. Wouldn't you step inside?"

Scharley and Williams pa.s.sed into the front room, which was used as a living room and presented an appearance of remarkable neatness and order. In the corner stood an oil stove on which two saucepans bubbled and steamed, and as Mrs. Lesengeld turned to follow her visitors one of the saucepans boiled over.

"Oo-ee!" she exclaimed. "_Mein fisch._"

"Go ahead and tend to it," Scharley cried excitedly; "don't mind us. It might get burned already."

He watched her anxiously while she turned down the flame.

"Brown stewed fish sweet and sour, ain't it?" he asked, and Mrs.

Lesengeld nodded as she lowered the flame to just the proper height.

"I _thought_ it was," Scharley continued. "I ain't smelled it in forty years already. My poor mother, _olav hasholom_, used to fix it something elegant."

He heaved a sigh as he sat down on a nearby campstool.

"This smells just like it," he added. In front of the window a table had been placed, spread with a spotless white cloth and laid for two persons, and Scharley glanced at it hastily and turned his head away.