The Competitive Nephew

"Nu!" Seiden repeated. "Couldn't you open your mouth at all? What's the matter?"

Mrs. Saphir commenced to rock tentatively, but Seiden stopped her with a loud "Koosh!"

"What do you want from me?" he demanded.

"Meine Tochter Bessie," she replied, "she don't get on at all."

"What d'ye mean, she don't get on at all?" Seiden interrupted. "Ain't I doing all I could for her? I am learning her the business; and what is more, Mrs. Saphir, I got a feller which he wants to marry her, too. Ain't that right, Sternsilver?"

Philip nodded vigorously and Mrs. Saphir sat up in her chair.

"Him?" she asked.

"Sure; why not?" Seiden answered.

"But, Mr. Seiden – " Sternsilver cried.

"Koosh, Sternsilver," Seiden said. "Don't you mind that woman at all. If Bessie was my own daughter even, I would give my consent."

"Aber, Mr. Seiden – " Sternsilver cried again in anguished tones, but further protest was choked off by Mrs. Saphir, who rose from her seat with surprising alacrity and seized Philip around the neck. For several minutes she kissed him with loud smacking noises, and by the time he had disengaged himself Seiden had brought in Miss Bessie Saphir. As she blushingly laid her hand in Sternsilver's unresisting clasp Seiden patted them both on the shoulder.

"For a business man, Sternsilver," he said, "long engagements is nix; and to show you that I got a heart, Sternsilver, I myself would pay for the wedding, which would be in two weeks at the latest."

He turned to Mrs. Miriam Saphir.

"I congradulate you," he said. "And now get out of here!"

For the next ten days Mr. and Mrs. Seiden and Miss Saphir were so busy with preparations for the wedding that they had no leisure to observe Sternsilver's behaviour. He proved to be no ardent swain; and, although Bessie was withdrawn from the factory on the day following her betrothal, Sternsilver called at her residence only twice during the first week of their engagement.

"I didn't think the feller got so much sense," Seiden commented when Bessie Saphir complained of Philip's coldness.

"He sees you got your hands full getting ready, so he don't bother you at all."

As for Seiden, he determined to spare no expense, up to two hundred and fifty dollars, in making the wedding festivites greatly redound to his credit both socially and in a business way.

To that end he had dispatched over a hundred invitations to the wholesale houses from which he purchased goods.

"You see what I am doing for you," he said to Sternsilver one morning, a week before the wedding day. "Not only in postage stamps I am spending my money but the printing also costs me a whole lot, too, I bet yer."

"What is the use spending money for printing when you got a typewriter which she is setting half the time doing nothing, Mr. Seiden?" Philip protested.

"That's what I told Mrs. Seiden," his employer replied, "and she goes pretty near crazy. She even wanted me I should got 'em engraved, so grossartig she becomes all of a sudden. Printing is good enough, Sternsilver. Just lookyhere at this now, how elegant it is."

He handed Philip an invitation which read as follows:

MR. AND MRS. I. SEIDEN AND MRS. MIRIAM SAPHIR

REQUEST THE HONOUR OF

THE INTERCOLONIAL TEXTILE COMPANY'S

PRESENCE AT THE MARRIAGE OF HER DAUGHTER

BESSIE

TO

Mr. PHILIP STERNSILVER

ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1909, AT SIX O'CLOCK

NEW RIGA HALL, 522 ALLEN STREET, NEW YORK

Bride's Address:

c/o SANSPAREIL WAIST COMPANY

Isaac Seiden, Proprietor

Waists in Marquisette, Voile, Lingerie, Crepe and Novelty Silks also a Full Line of Lace and Hand-embroidered Waists

800 GREENE STREET, NEW YORK CITY

"What's the use you are inviting a corporation to a wedding, Mr. Seiden?" Philip said as he returned the invitation with a heavy sigh. "A corporation couldn't eat nothing, Mr. Seiden."

"Sure, I know," Seiden replied. "I ain't asking 'em they should eat anything, Sternsilver. All I am wanting of 'em is this: Here it is in black and white. Me and Beckie and that old Schnorrer, Mrs. Saphir, requests the honour of the Intercolonial Company's presents at the marriage of their daughter. You should know a corporation's presents is just as good as anybody else's presents, Sternsilver. Ain't it?"

Sternsilver nodded gloomily.

"Also I am sending invitations to a dozen of my best customers and to a couple of high-price sales-men. Them fellers should loosen up also oncet in a while. Ain't I right?"

Again Sternsilver nodded and returned to the factory where, at hourly intervals during the following week, Seiden accosted him and issued bulletins of the arrival of wedding presents and the acceptance of invitations to the ceremony.

"What do you think for a couple of small potatoes like Kugel & Mishkin?" he said. "If I bought a cent from them people during the last five years I must of bought three hundred dollars' worth of buttons; and they got the nerve to send a half a dozen coffee spoons, which they are so light, y'understand, you could pretty near see through 'em."

Sternsilver received this news with a manner suggesting a cramped swimmer coming up for the second time.

"Never mind, Sternsilver," Seiden continued reassuringly, "we got a whole lot of people to hear from yet. I bet yer the Binder & Baum Manufacturing Company, the least you get from 'em is a piece of cut glass which it costs, at wholesale yet, ten dollars."

Sternsilver's distress proceeded from another cause, however; for that very morning he had made a desperate resolve, which was no less than to leave the Borough of Manhattan and to begin life anew in Philadelphia. From the immediate execution of the plan he was deterred only by one circumstance – lack of funds; and this he proposed to overcome by borrowing from Fatkin. Indeed, when he pondered the situation, he became convinced that Fatkin, as the cause of his dilemma, ought to be the means of his extrication. He therefore broached the matter of a loan more in the manner of a lender than a borrower.

"Say, lookyhere, Fatkin," he said on the day before the wedding, "I got to have some money right away."

Fatkin shrugged philosophically.

"A whole lot of fellers feels the same way," he said.

"Only till Saturday week," Sternsilver continued, "and I want you should give me twenty-five dollars."

"Me?" Fatkin exclaimed.

"Sure, you," Sternsilver said; "and I want it now."

"Don't make me no jokes, Sternsilver," Fatkin replied.

"I ain't joking, Fatkin; far from it," Sternsilver declared. "To-morrow it is all fixed for the wedding and I got to have twenty-five dollars."

"What d'ye mean, to-morrow is fixed for the wedding?" Fatkin retorted indignantly. "Do you want to get married on my money yet?"

"I don't want the money to get married on," Sternsilver protested. "I want it for something else again."

"My worries! What you want it for?" Fatkin concluded, with a note of finality in his tone. "I would oser give you twenty-five cents."

"'S enough, Fatkin!" Sternsilver declared. "I heard enough from you already. You was the one which got me into this Schlemazel and now you should get me out again."

"What do you mean, getting you into a Schlemazel?"

"You know very well what I mean," Philip replied; "and, furthermore, Fatkin, you are trying to make too free with me. Who are you, anyhow, you should turn me down when I ask you for a few days twenty-five dollars? You act so independent, like you would be the foreman."

Hillel nodded slowly, not without dignity.

"Never mind, Sternsilver," he said; "if my family would got a relation, y'understand, which he is working in Poliakoff's Bank and he is got to run away on account he is missing in five thousand rubles, which it is the same name Sternsilver, and everybody in Kovno – the children even – knows about it, understand me, I wouldn't got to be so stuck up at all."

Sternsilver flushed indignantly.

"Do you mean to told me," he demanded, "that I got in my family such a man which he is stealing five thousand rubles, Fatkin?"

"That's what I said," Hillel retorted.

"Well, it only goes to show what a liar you are," Sternsilver rejoined. "Not only was it he stole ten thousand rubles, y'understand, but the bank was run by a feller by the name Louis Moser."

"All right," Fatkin said as he started up his sewing-machine by way of signifying that the interview was at an end. "All right, Sternsilver; if you got such a relation which he ganvered ten thousand rubles, y'understand, borrow from him the twenty-five dollars."

Thus Sternsilver was obliged to amend his resolution by substituting Jersey City for Philadelphia as the seat of his new start in life; and at half-past eleven that evening, when the good ferryboat Cincinnati drew out of her slip at the foot of Desbrosses Street, a short, thick-set figure leaned over her bow and gazed sadly, perhaps for the last time, at the irregular sky-line of Manhattan. It was Sternsilver.

When Mr. Seiden arrived at his factory the following morning he found his entire force of operators gathered on the stairway and overflowing on to the sidewalk.

"What is the matter you are striking on me?" he cried.

"Striking!" Hillel Fatkin said. "What do you mean, striking on you, Mr. Seiden? We ain't striking. Sternsilver ain't come down this morning and nobody was here he should open up the shop."

"Do you mean to told me Sternsilver ain't here?" Seiden exclaimed.

"All right; then I'm a liar, Mr. Seiden," Hillel replied. "You asked me a simple question, Mr. Seiden, and I give you a plain, straightforward answer. My Grossvater, olav hasholam, which he was a very learned man – for years a rabbi in Telshi – used to say: 'If some one tells you you are lying, understand me, and – "

At this juncture Seiden opened the factory door and the entire mob of workmen plunged forward, sweeping Hillel along, with his quotation from the ethical maxims of his grandfather only half finished. For the next quarter of an hour Seiden busied himself in starting up his factory and then he repaired to the office to open the mail.

In addition to three or four acceptances of invitations there was a dirty envelope bearing on its upper left-hand corner the mark of a third-rate Jersey City hotel. Seiden ripped it open and unfolded a sheet of letter paper badly scrawled in Roman capitals as follows:

"December 12.

"I. Seiden:

"We are come to tell you which Mr. Philip Sternsilver is gone out West to Kenses Citter. So don't fool yourself he would not be at the wedding. What do you think a fine man like him would marry such a cow like Miss Bessie Saphir?

"And oblige yours truly,

"A. Wellwisher."

For at least a quarter of an hour after reading the letter Mr. Seiden sat in his office doing sums in mental arithmetic. He added postage on invitations to cost of printing same and carried the result in his mind; next he visualized in one column the sum paid for furnishing Bessie's flat, the price of Mrs. Seiden's new dress – estimated; caterers' fees for serving dinner and hire of New Riga Hall. The total fairly stunned him, and for another quarter of an hour he remained seated in his chair. Then came the realization that twenty-five commission houses, two high-grade drummers, and at least five customers, rating L to J credit good, were even then preparing to attend a groomless wedding; and he spurred himself to action.

He ran to the telephone, but as he grabbed the receiver from the hook he became suddenly motionless.

"Nu," he murmured after a few seconds. "Why should I make a damn fool of myself and disappoint all them people for a greenhorn like Sternsilver?"

Once more he sought his chair, and incoherent plans for retrieving the situation chased one another through his brain until he felt that his intellect was giving way. It was while he was determining to call the whole thing off that Hillel Fatkin entered.

"Mr. Seiden," he said, "could I speak to you a few words something?"

He wore an air of calm dignity that only a long rabbinical ancestry can give, and his errand in his employer's office was to announce his impending resignation, as a consequence of Seiden's offensive indifference to the memory of Hillel's grandfather. When Seiden looked up, however, his mind reverted not to Hillel's quotation of his grandfather's maxims, but to Sternsilver's conversation on the day of the betrothal; and Hillel's dignity suggested to him, instead of distinguished ancestry, a savings-bank account of two hundred dollars. He jumped immediately to his feet.

"Sit down, Fatkin," he cried.

Hillel seated himself much as his grandfather might have done in the house of an humble disciple, blending dignity and condescension in just the right proportions.

"So," he said, referring to Mr. Seiden's supposed contrition for the affront to the late rabbi, "when it is too late, Mr. Seiden, you are sorry."

"What do you mean, sorry?" Mr. Seiden replied. "Believe me, Fatkin, I am glad to be rid of the feller. I could get just as good foremen as him without going outside this factory even – for instance, you."

"Me!" Fatkin cried.

"Sure; why not?" Seiden continued. "A foreman must got to be fresh to the operators, anyhow; and if you ain't fresh, Fatkin, I don't know who is."

"Me fresh!" Fatkin exclaimed.

"I ain't kicking you are too fresh, y'understand," Seiden said. "I am only saying you are fresh enough to be a foreman."

Fatkin shrugged. "Very well, Mr. Seiden," he said in a manner calculated to impress Seiden with the magnitude of the favour. "Very well; if you want me to I would go to work as foreman for you."

Seiden with difficulty suppressed a desire to kick Hillel and smiled blandly.

"Schon gut," he said. "You will go to work Monday morning."

"Why not to-day, Mr. Seiden?" Hillel asked.

Seiden smiled again and this time it was not so bland as it was mechanical, suggesting the pulling of an invisible string.

"Because, Fatkin, you are going to be too busy to-day," Seiden replied. "A feller couldn't start in to work as a foreman and also get married all in one day."

Hillel stared at his employer.

"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 nobody!"

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 Telshi – "

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

" – for years a rabbi in Telshi," 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 fashion and passed 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 café.

He sat in an obscure corner behind the lady cashier's desk; and as he consumed his supper with hearty appetite 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 cashier 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 cashier 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 cashier 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."

"What!" Seiden yelled. "And me I am paying him cash three hundred dollars he should marry that girl! Even a certified check he wouldn't accept."

Although this information was not new to Sternsilver, to hear it thus at first hand seemed to infuriate him.

"What!" he howled. "You are giving that greenhorn three hundred dollars yet to marry such a beautiful girl like my Bessie!"

He buried his face in his hands and rocked to and fro in his chair.

"Never mind, Sternsilver," Seiden said comfortingly; "you shouldn't take on so – she ain't so beautiful; and, as for that feller Fatkin – "

"You are talking about me, Mr. Seiden?" said a voice in the doorway.

Sternsilver looked up and once again Wedding Outfit Combination No. 6 conquered; for assuredly, had Fatkin been arrayed in his working clothes, he would have suffered a personal assault at the hands of his late foreman.

"Mr. Seiden," Fatkin continued, "never mind; I could stand it somebody calls me names, but Mr. Latz wants to know what is become of you for the last quarter of an hour. Mr. Latz tells me during November alone he buys from us eight hundred dollars goods."

"Us!" Seiden cried, employing three inflections to the monosyllable.

Before Seiden could protest further, however, Sternsilver had recovered from the partial hypnosis of Combination No. 6, and he gave tongue like a foxhound:

"Oe-ee tzuris!" he wailed.

"Koosh!" Fatkin cried, closing the door. "What do you want here?"

"You know what I want," Sternsilver sobbed. "You are stealing from me three hundred dollars."

Fatkin turned to Seiden and gazed at him reproachfully.

"Mr. Seiden," he said, "what for you are telling me that Sternsilver wouldn't get a cent with Bessie? And you are trying to get me I should be satisfied with a hundred dollars yet. Honestly, Mr. Seiden, I am surprised at you."

"Schmooes, Fatkin!" Seiden protested. "I never promised to give him nothing. Dreams he got it."

Sternsilver rose from his seat.

"Do you mean to told me that a greenhorn like him you would give three hundred dollars," he asked, "and me you wouldn't give nothing?"

"You!" Fatkin bellowed. "What are you? You are coming to me throwing a bluff that you got a relation by the name of Sternsilver, which he ganvers ten thousand rubles from Moser's Bank, in Kovno; and this afternoon yet, I find out the feller's name was Steinsilver – not Sternsilver; which he ain't got a relation in the world, y'understand. Faker!"

Sternsilver nodded his head slowly.

"Faker, am I?" he said. "All right, Mr. Fatkin; if I am a faker I will show you what I would do. You and this here Seiden fix it up between you, because I am all of a sudden sick in the hospital, that you steal away my Bessie and the three hundred dollars also. Schon gut! I would sue you both in the courts und fertig!"

"Sternsilver is right, in a way," Seiden said, "even though he is a bum. What for did you write me this letter, Fatkin?"

"Me write you that letter, Mr. Seiden!" Fatkin protested as he looked at the document in question. "Why, Mr. Seiden, I can't write printing. It is all I can do to write writing. And, besides, Mr. Seiden, until you are telling me about getting married, the idee never enters my head at all."

There could be no mistaking Fatkin's sincerity, and Seiden turned to Sternsilver with a threatening gesture.

"Out!" he cried. "Out of here before I am sending for a policeman to give you arrested."

"Don't make me no bluffs, Seiden!" Sternsilver answered calmly. "Either you would got to settle with me now oder I would go right upstairs and tell them commission houses and customers which you got there all about it. What do you take me for, Seiden – a greenhorn?"

"Fatkin," Seiden commanded, "do you hear what I am telling you? Take this loafer and throw him into the street."

"Me?" Fatkin said. "What are you talking nonsense, Mr. Seiden? I should throw him into the street when I am standing to lose on the coat alone ten dollars!"

Seiden looked at Fatkin and the validity of his objection was at once apparent.

"Nu, Sternsilver," he said. "Be a good feller. Here is five dollars. Go away and leave us alone."

Sternsilver laughed aloud.

"You are talking like I would be a child, Seiden!" he said. "Either you would give me cash a hundred dollars oder I would go right away upstairs to the customers."

Seiden turned to Fatkin.

"Fatkin," he said, "I am giving you this evening three hundred dollars. Give him a hundred dollars and be done with it."

"What d'ye mean, me give him a hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden?" Fatkin demanded. "They ain't my customers."

At this juncture the proprietor of the hall opened the door.

"Mr. Seiden," he said, "everybody is through eating; so, if you would give me the key to the suitcase which you got the cigars and Schnapps in, Mr. Seiden, I would hand 'em around."

"I'll be there in a minute," Seiden replied. He turned to Sternsilver and made one last appeal. "Nu, Sternsilver," he said, "would you take a check?"

"Oser a Stück," Sternsilver declared; but, although for five minutes he maintained his refusal, he finally relented.

"Well, Mr. Seiden," he said, offering his hand, "I congradulate you."

Seiden refused the proffered palm and started for the door. Before he reached it, however, Fatkin grabbed him by the arm.

"At such a time like this, Mr. Seiden," he said, "you couldn't afford to be small."

Once more Sternsilver held out his hand and this time Seiden shook it limply.

"No bad feelings, Mr. Seiden," Sternsilver said, and Seiden shrugged impatiently.

"You, I don't blame at all, Sternsilver," he said. "I am making from my own self a sucker yet. A feller shouldn't never even begin with his wife's relations."

At the end of a year Hillel Fatkin left the employ of the Sanspareil Waist Company to embark in the garment business on his own account. Many reasons contributed to this move, chief of which was the arrival of a son in Fatkin's household.

"And we would call him Pesach," Hillel said to his mother-in-law shortly after the birth of his heir, "after your Uncle Pesach Gubin."

"My Uncle Pesach Gubin!" Mrs. Miriam Saphir protested. "What are you talking nonsense, Hillel? That lowlife is Mrs. Seiden's uncle, not my uncle."

"Your cousin, then," Hillel continued. "What's the difference if he's your cousin oder your uncle – we would call the boy after him, anyhow."

"Call the boy after that drinker – that bum! What for? The feller ain't no relation to me at all. Why should we call the precious lamb after Beckie Seiden's relations?"

"Do you mean to told me," he said, "that Pesach Gubin ain't no relation to Bessie at all?"

Mrs. Saphir nodded and blushed.

"The way families is mixed up nowadays, Hillel," she said, "it don't do no harm to claim relation with some people."

Her face commenced to resume its normal colour.

"Especially," she added, "if they got money."