"Why, I mean this," Fischko cried: "If this here Flixman is well fixed, Kapfer, I want to know it, on account Miss Yetta Silbermacher is from Flixman's sister a daughter, understand me!"
Kapfer lit a cigar deliberately before replying. He was thinking hard.
"Do you mean to tell me," he said at last, "that this here Miss Silbermacher is Julius Flixman's a niece?"
"That's what I said," Fischko replied. "He comes here from Bessarabia thirty years ago already and from that day to this I never heard a word about him--Miss Silbermacher neither."
"Ain't the rest of his family heard from him?" Kapfer asked guardedly.
"There ain't no rest of his family," Fischko said. "Mrs. Silbermacher was his only sister, and she's dead over ten years since."
Kapfer nodded and drew reflectively on his cigar.
"Well, Fischko," he said finally, "I wouldn't let Flixman worry me none. He's practically a _Schnorrer_; he was in here just now on account he hears I am going to marry a rich girl and touches me for some money on the head of it. I guess you noticed that he looks pretty shabby--ain't it?"
"And sick too," Fischko added, just as a bellboy came into the café.
"Mr. Copper!" he bawled, and Max jumped to his feet.
"Right here," he said, and the bellboy handed him a card.
"Tell them I'll be with them in a minute," he continued; "and you stay here till I come back, Fischko. I won't be long."
He followed the bellboy to the desk, where stood Polatkin and Scheikowitz.
"Well, Mr. Kapfer," Scheikowitz replied, "I guess I got to congradulate you."
"Sure!" Kapfer murmured perfunctorily. "Let's go into the Moorish Room."
"What's the matter with the café?" Polatkin asked; but Scheikowitz settled the matter by leading the way to the Moorish Room, where they all sat down at a secluded table.
"The first thing I want to tell you, gentlemen," Kapfer said, "is that I know you feel that I turned a dirty trick on you about Elkan."
"The way we feel about it, Mr. Kapfer," he commented, "is that bygones must got to be bygones--and that's all there is to it."
"But," Kapfer said, "I don't want the bygones to be all on my side; so I got a proposition to make you. How would it be if I could fix up a good _Shidduch_ for Elkan myself?"