Object: matrimony

REAL ESTATE!" Philip Margolius cried bitterly; "that's a business for a business man! If a feller's in the clothing business and it comes bad times, Mr. Feldman, he can sell it his goods at cost and live anyhow; but if a feller's in the real-estate business, Mr. Feldman, and it comes bad times, he can't not only sell his houses, but he couldn't give 'em away yet, and when the second mortgage forecloses he gets deficiency judgments against him."

"Why don't you do this?" Mr. Feldman suggested. "Why don't you go to the second mortgagee and tell him you'll convey the houses to him in satisfaction of the mortgage? Those houses will never bring even the amount of the first mortgage in these times, and surely he would rather have the houses than a deficiency judgment against you."

"That's what I told him a hundred times. Believe me, Mr. Feldman, I used hours and hours of the best salesmanship on that feller," Margolius answered, "and all he says is that he wouldn't have to pay no interest, insurance and taxes on a deficiency judgment, while a house what stands vacant you got to all the time be paying out money."

"But as soon as they put the subway through," Mr. Feldman continued, "that property around Two Hundred and Sixty-fourth Street and Heidenfeld Avenue will go up tremendously."

"Sure I know," Margolius agreed; "but when a feller's got four double flat-houses and every flat yet vacant, futures don't cut no ice. Them tenants couldn't ride on futures, Mr. Feldman; and so, with the nearest trolley car ten blocks away, I am up against a dead proposition."

"Wouldn't he give you a year's extension?" Mr. Feldman asked.

"He wouldn't give me positively nothing," Margolius replied hopelessly. "That feller's a regular Skylark. He wants his pound of meat every time, Mr. Feldman. So I guess you got to think up some scheme for me that I should beat him out. Them mortgages falls due in ten days, Mr. Feldman, and we got to act quick."

Mr. Feldman frowned judicially. In New York, if an attorney for a realty owner knows his business and neglects his professional ethics he can so obstruct an action to foreclose a mortgage as to make Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce look like a summary proceeding. But Henry D. Feldman was a conscientious practitioner, and never did anything that might bring him before the grievance committee of the Bar Association. Moreover, he was a power in the Democratic organization and right in line for a Supreme Court judgeship, and so it behooved him to be careful if not ethical.

"Why don't you go and see Goldblatt again, and then if you can't move him I'll see what I can do for you?" Feldman suggested.

"But, Mr. Feldman," Margolius protested, "I told it you it ain't no use. Goldblatt hates me worser as poison."

Feldman leaned back in his low chair with one arm thrown over the back, after the fashion of Judge Blatchford's portrait in the United States District Courtroom.

"See here, Margolius: what's the real trouble between you and Goldblatt?" he said. "If you're going to get my advice in this matter you will have to tell me the whole truth. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, you know."

"You make a big mistake, Mr. Feldman," Margolius replied. "It ain't nothing like that, and whoever told it you is got another think coming. The trouble was about his daughter Fannie. You could bring a horse a pail of water, Mr. Feldman, but no one could make the horse drink it if he don't want to, and that's the way it was with me. Friedman, the Schatchen, took me up to see Goldblatt's daughter Fannie, and I assure you I ain't exaggeration a bit when I tell you she's got a moustache what wouldn't go bad with a dago barber yet."

"Why, I thought Goldblatt's daughter was a pretty good looker," Feldman exclaimed.

"That's Birdie Goldblatt," Margolius replied, blushing. "But Fannie – that's a different proposition, Mr. Feldman. Well, Goldblatt gives me all kinds of inducements; but I ain't that kind, Mr. Feldman. If I would marry I would marry for love, and it wouldn't make no difference to me if the girl would have it, say, for example, only two thousand dollars. I would marry her anyway."

"Very commendable," Mr. Feldman murmured.

"But Fannie Goldblatt – that is somebody a young feller wouldn't consider, not if her hair hung with diamonds, Mr. Feldman," Margolius continued. "Although I got to admit I did go up to Goldblatt's house a great many times, because, supposing she does got a moustache, she could cook gefüllte Fische and Fleischkugeln better as Delmonico's already. And then Miss Birdie Goldblatt – "

He faltered and blushed again, while Feldman nodded sympathetically.

"Anyhow, what's the use talking?" Margolius concluded. "The old man gets sore on me, and when Marks Henochstein offers him the second mortgages on them Heidenfeld Avenue houses it was yet boom-time in the Bronix, and it looked good to Goldblatt; so he made Henochstein give him a big allowance, and he bought 'em. And now when he's got me where he wants me I can kiss myself good-bye with them houses."

He rose to his feet and put on his gloves, for Philip was what is popularly known as a swell dresser. Indeed, there was no smarter-appearing salesman in the entire cloak and suit trade, nor was there a salesman more ingratiating in manner and hence more successful with lady buyers.

"If the worser comes to the worst," he said, "I will go through bankruptcy. I ain't got nothing but them houses, anyway." He fingered the two-and-a-half-carat solitaire in his scarf to find out if it were still there. "And they couldn't get my salary in advance, so that's what I'll do."

He shook hands with Mr. Feldman.

"You could send me a bill for your advice, Mr. Feldman," he said.

"That's all right," Feldman replied as he ushered his client out of the office. "I'll add it to my fee in the bankruptcy matter."

II

About Miss Birdie Goldblatt's appearance there was something of Maxine Elliott with just a dash of Anna Held, and she wore her clothes so well that she could make a blended-Kamchatka near-mink scarf look like Imperial Russian sable. Thus, when Philip Margolius encountered her on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-first Street his heart fairly jumped in admiration. Nevertheless, he raised his hat with all his accustomed grace, and Miss Goldblatt bowed and smiled in return.

"How d'ye do, Miss Goldblatt," he said. "Ain't it a fine weather?"

"Sure it's fine weather," Miss Goldblatt agreed. "Is that all you stopped me for to tell me it was fine weather?"

"No," Philip said lamely.

"Well, then, I guess I'll be moving on," Miss Goldblatt announced; "because I got a date with Fannie up on Twenty-third Street."

"One minute," Philip cried. "It was about your sister what I wanted to speak to you about."

"What have you got to do with my sister Fannie?" Miss Goldblatt demanded, glaring indignantly at Margolius.

"Why," Philip replied on the spur of the moment, "I got a friend what wants to be introduced to her, a – now – feller in the – now – cloak business."

Miss Goldblatt regarded Philip for one suspicious moment.

"What's his name?" she asked abruptly.

A gentle perspiration broke out on Philip's forehead. He searched his mind for the name of some matrimonially eligible man of his acquaintance, but none suggested itself. Hence, he sparred for time.

"Never mind his name," he said jocularly. "When the time comes I'll tell you his name. He's got it a good business, too, I bet yer."

Miss Goldblatt grew somewhat mollified.

"Why don't you bring him down to the house some night?" she suggested, whereat Philip could not forbear an ironical laugh.

"I suppose your father would be delighted to see me, I suppose. Ain't it?" he said.

"What's he got to do with it?" Miss Goldblatt asked. "Do you think because he's called in them second mortgages that me and Fannie would stand for his being fresh to you if you was to come round to the house?"

"No, I don't," Philip replied; "but just the same, anyhow, he feels sore at me."

"He's got a right to feel sore at you," Miss Goldblatt interrupted. "You come a dozen times to see my sister, and then – "

"That's where you are mistaken," Philip cried; "I come once, the first time, to see your sister, and the other times I come to see you."

"Ain't you got a nerve?" Miss Goldblatt exclaimed.

"Why do I got a nerve?" Philip asked. "Miss Goldblatt – Birdie, what's the matter with me, anyway? I'm young yet – I ain't only thirty-two – and I got a good name in the cloak and suit business as a salesman. Ask anybody. I can make it my five thousand a year easy. And supposing I am a foreigner? There's lots of up-to-date American young fellers what couldn't keep you in hairpins, Birdie."

He paused and looked pleadingly at Birdie, who tossed her head in reply.

"Them houses up in the Bronix," he said, "that's a misfortune what could happen anybody. If I got to let 'em go I'll do it. But pshaw! I could make it up what I lost in them houses with my commissions for one good season already."

"Well, my sister Fannie – " Birdie commenced.

"Never mind your sister Fannie," Philip said. "I will look out for her. If you and me can fix it up, Birdie, I give you my word and honour as a gentleman I will fix it up for Fannie a respectable feller with a good business."

He paused for an expression of opinion from Birdie, but none was forthcoming.

"What are you doing to-night?" he asked.

"Fannie and me was – " she began.

"Not Fannie —you," he broke in. "Because I was going to suggest if you ain't doing nothing might we would go to theaytre?"

"Well, sure," Birdie continued. "Fannie and me could go and we wouldn't say nothing to the old man about it."

"Looky here," Philip pleaded, "must Fannie go?"

"Sure she must go," Birdie answered. "Otherwise, if she don't go I won't go."

Philip pondered for a moment.

"Well – " he commenced.

"And why wouldn't it be a good scheme," Birdie went on, "if you was to ring in this other young feller?"

"What young feller?" Philip innocently asked her.

"What young feller!" Birdie exclaimed. "Why, ain't you just told me – "

"Oh, that's right!" Philip cried. "That's a good idee. I'll see if I can fix it."

He stopped short and looked at his watch. "I'll meet you both in front of the Casino at eight o'clock," he declared.

It was five o'clock and he only had a trifle over three hours to discover a man – young if possible, but, in any event, prosperous, who would be willing to conduct to the theatre a lady of uncertain age with a dark moustache – object: matrimony.

"You must excuse me," he said fervently as he shook Birdie's hand in farewell. "I got a lot of work to do this afternoon."

III

On his way to the office of Schindler & Baum, his employers, he was a prey to misgivings of the gloomiest kind.

"I got such a chance of getting a feller for that Fannie like I would never try at all," he murmured to himself; but, as he turned the corner of Nineteenth Street, Fortune, which occasionally favours the brave, brought him into violent contact with a short, stout person proceeding in the opposite direction.

"Why don't you hire it a whole sidewalk for yourself?" Philip began, and then he recognized the stout gentleman.

"Why, hallo, Mr. Feigenbaum!" he cried.

"Hallo yourself, Margolius!" Feigenbaum grunted. "It's a wonder you wouldn't murder me yet, the way you go like a steam engine already."

"Excuse me," Philip said. "Excuse me, Mr. Feigenbaum. I didn't see you coming. I got to wear glasses, too."

Mr. Feigenbaum glared at Philip with his left eye, the glare in his right eye being entirely beyond control, since it was fixed and constant as the day it was made.

"What are you trying to do, Margolius?" he asked. "Kid me?"

"Kid you!" Philip repeated. "Why should I want to kid you?"

And then for the first time it occurred to him that not only was One-eye Feigenbaum proprietor of the H. F. Cloak Company and its six stores in the northern-tier counties of Pennsylvania, but that he was also a bachelor. Moreover, a bachelor with one eye and the singularly unprepossessing appearance of Henry Feigenbaum would be just the kind of person to present to Fannie Goldblatt, for Feigenbaum, by reason of his own infirmity, could not cavil at Fannie's black moustache, and as for Fannie – well, Fannie would be glad to take what she could get.

"Come over to Hammersmith's and take a little something, Mr. Feigenbaum," he said. "You and me hasn't had a talk together in a long time."

Feigenbaum followed him across the street and a minute later sat down at a table in Hammersmith's rear café.

"What will you take, Mr. Feigenbaum?" Philip asked as the waiter bent over them solicitously.

"Give me a package of all-tobacco cigarettes," Feigenbaum ordered, "and a rye-bread tongue sandwich."

Philip asked for a cup of coffee.

"Looky here, Feigenbaum," Philip commenced after they had been served, "you and me is known each other now since way before the Spanish War already, when I made my first trip by Sol Unterberg. Why is it I ain't never sold you a dollar's worth of goods?"

"No, and you never will, Margolius," Feigenbaum said as he licked the crumbs from his fingers; "and I ain't got a thing against you, because I think you're a decent, respectable young feller."

Having thus endorsed the character of his host, Feigenbaum lit a cigarette and grinned amiably.

"But Schindler & Baum got it a good line, Feigenbaum," Philip protested.

"Sure I know they got it a good line," Feigenbaum agreed; "but I ain't much on going to theaytres or eating a bunch of expensive feed. No, Margolius, I like to deal with people what gives their line the benefit of the theaytres and the dinners."

"What you mean?" Philip cried.

"I mean Ellis Block, from Saracuse, New York, shows me a line of capes he bought it from you, Margolius," Feigenbaum continued, "which the precisely same thing I got it down on Division Street at a dollar less apiece from a feller what never was inside of so much as a moving pictures, with or without a customer, Margolius, and so he don't got to add the tickets to the price of the garments."

Philip washed down a tart rejoinder with a huge gulp.

"Not that I don't go to theaytre once in a while," Feigenbaum went on; "but when I go I pay for it myself."

Philip nodded.

"Supposing I should tell you, Mr. Feigenbaum," he said, "that I didn't want to sell you no goods."

"Well, if you didn't want to sell me no goods," Feigenbaum replied with a twinkle in his eye, "the best thing to do would be to take me to a show, because then I sure wouldn't buy no goods from you."

"All right," Philip replied; "come and take dinner with me and we'll go and see the Lily of Constantinople."

"I wouldn't take dinner with you because I got to see a feller on East Broadway at six o'clock," Feigenbaum said; "but if you are willing I will meet you in front of the Casino at eight o'clock."

"Sure I'm willing," Philip said; "otherwise, I wouldn't of asked you."

"All right," Feigenbaum said, rising from his chair. "Eight o'clock, look for me in front of the Casino."

At seven o'clock Philip alighted from a Forty-second Street car. He strode into a fashionable hotel and handed ten dollars to the clerk in the theatre-ticket office.

"Give me four orchestra seats for the Casino for to-night," he said.

Thence he proceeded to the grill-room and consumed a tenderloin steak, hashed-brown potatoes, a mixed salad, pastry and coffee, and washed down the whole with a pint of ebullient refreshment.

Finally, he lit a fine cigar and paid the check, after which he took a small morocco-bound book from his waistcoat pocket. He turned to the last page of a series headed, "Schindler & Baum, Expense Account," and made the following entry:

"To entertainment of Henry Feigenbaum, $15.00."

IV

The acquaintance of Henry Feigenbaum with Miss Fannie Goldblatt could hardly be called love at first sight.

"Mr. Feigenbaum," Philip said when they all met in front of the Casino, "this is a friend of mine by the name Miss Fannie Goldblatt; also, her sister Birdie."

The two ladies bowed, but Feigenbaum only blinked at them with unaffected astonishment.

"All right," he stammered at last. "All right, Margolius. Let's go inside."

During the short period before the rising of the curtain Birdie and Philip conversed in undertones, while Fannie did her best to interest her companion.

"Ain't it a pretty theaytre?" she said by way of prelude.

Feigenbaum glanced around him and grunted: "Huh, huh."

"You're in the same line as Mr. Margolius, ain't you?" Fannie continued.

"Cloaks and suits, retail," Feigenbaum replied. "I got six stores in the northern-tier counties of Pennsylvania."

"Then you don't live in New York?" Fannie hazarded.

"No, I live in Pennsylvania," said Feigenbaum. "But I used to live in New York when I was a young feller."

"Why, you're a young feller yet," Fannie suggested coyly.

"Me, I ain't so young no longer," Feigenbaum answered. "At my age I could have it already grandchildren old enough to bring in a couple dollars a week selling papers."

"I believe you should bring up children sensible, too," Miss Goldblatt agreed heartily. "If I had children I would teach 'em they should earn and save money young."

"So?" Feigenbaum said.

"Sure," Miss Goldblatt continued. "I always say that if you make children to be economical when they're young they're economical when they grow up. My poor mother, selig, always impressed it on me I should be economical, and so I am economical."

"Is that so?" Feigenbaum gasped. He felt that he was a drowning man and looked around him for floating straws.

"I ain't so helpless like some other ladies that I know," Miss Goldblatt went on. "My poor mother, selig, was a good housekeeper, and she taught me everything what she knew. She used to say: 'The feller what gets my Fannie won't never die of the indigestion.'"

Feigenbaum nodded gloomily.

"Did you ever suffer from stummick trouble, Mr. Feigenbaum?" she asked.

The composer of the Lily of Constantinople came to Feigenbaum's assistance by scoring the opening measure of the overture for brass and woodwind with heavy passages for the cassa grande and cymbals, and when the uproar gave way to a simple rendition of the song hit of the show, My Bosphorus Queen, Fannie surrendered herself to the spell of its marked rhythm and forgot to press Feigenbaum for an answer.

During the entire first act Feigenbaum fixed his eyes on the stage, and as soon as the curtain fell for the first entr'acte he uttered no word of apology, but made a hurried exit to the smoking-room. There Philip found him a moment later.

"Well, Feigenbaum," Philip cried, "how do you like the show?"

"The show is all right, Margolius," Feigenbaum replied, "but the next time you are going to steer me up against something like that Miss Fannie Goldblatt, Margolius, let me know. That's all."

"Why, what's the matter with her?" Philip asked.

"There's nothing the matter with her," Feigenbaum said, "only she reminds me of a feller what used to work by me up in Sylvania by the name Pincus Lurie. I had to get rid of him because trade fell off on account the children complained he made snoots at 'em to scare 'em. He didn't make no snoots, Margolius; that was his natural face what he got it, the same like Miss Goldblatt."

"You don't know that girl, Feigenbaum," Philip replied. "That girl's got a heart. Oi! what a heart that girl got – like a watermelon."

"I know, Margolius," Feigenbaum replied; "but she also got it a moustache like a dago. Why don't she shave herself, Margolius?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" Philip said coldly.

"I don't know her good enough yet," Feigenbaum retorted, "and how it looks now I ain't never going to."

But the way to Feigenbaum's heart lay through his stomach just as accurately as it avoided his pocketbook, so that when Miss Fannie Goldblatt suggested, after the final curtain, that they all go up to One Hundred and Eighteenth Street and have a supper at home instead of at a restaurant, she made a dent in Feigenbaum's affections.

"Looky here, Birdie," Philip whispered, "how about the old man?"

"Don't you worry about him," she said. "He went to Brownsville to play auction pinocle, and I bet yer he don't get home till five o'clock."

Half an hour afterward they sat around the dining-room table, and Fannie helped Feigenbaum to a piece of gefüllte Fische, a delicacy which never appears on the menus of rural hotels in Pennsylvania. At the first mouthful Feigenbaum looked at Fannie Goldblatt, and while, to be sure, she did have some hair on her upper lip, it was only a slight down which at the second mouthful became still slighter. Indeed, after the third slice of fish Feigenbaum was ready to declare it to be a most becoming down, very bewitching and Spanish in appearance.

Following the gefüllte Fische came a species of tripe farcie, the whole being washed down with coffee and topped off with delicious cake – cake which could be adequately described only by kissing the tips of one's fingers.

"After all, Margolius," Feigenbaum commented as he lit an all-tobacco cigarette on their way down the front stoop of the Goldblatt residence – "after all, she ain't such a bad-looking woman. I seen it lots worser, Margolius."

"That's nothing what we got it this evening," Philip said as they started off for the subway; "you should taste the Kreploch what that girl makes it."

"I'm going to," Feigenbaum said; "they asked me I should come to dinner to-morrow night."

But Philip knew from his own experience that the glamour engendered of Fannie's gefüllte Fische would soon be dispelled, and then Henry Feigenbaum would hie him to the northern-tier counties of Pennsylvania, leaving Philip's love affair in worse condition than before.

"I got to cinch it," he murmured to himself as he went downtown next morning, "before that one-eyed feller skips out on me."

As soon as he reached Schindler & Baum's office he rang up the Goldblatt house, assuming for that purpose a high tenor voice lest Goldblatt himself answer the 'phone; but again fortune favoured him, and it was Birdie who responded.

"Birdie," he said, "do me the favour and come to lunch with me at the Park Row Building."

"Why so far downtown?" Birdie asked.

"Reasons I got it," Philip replied. "Come at twelve o'clock at the Park Row Building, sure."

Thus it happened at quarter past twelve Philip and Birdie sat at a table in the Park Row Building in such earnest conversation that a tureenful of soup remained unserved before them at a temperature of seventy degrees.

"An engagement party ain't nothing to me," Philip cried. "What do I care for such things?"

"But it's something to me, Philip," Birdie declared. "Think of the presents, Philip."

"Presents!" Philip repeated. "What for presents would we get it? Bargains in cut glass what would make our flat look like a five-and-ten-cent store."

"But Popper would be crazy if I did a thing like that," Birdie protested. "And, besides, I ain't got no clothes."

"Why, you look like a – like a – now – queen," Philip exclaimed. "And, anyhow, what would you want new clothes for when you got this?"

He dug his hand into his trousers pocket and produced a ring containing a solitaire diamond as big as a hazelnut.

"I took a chance on the size already," he said, "but I bet yer it will fit like it was tailor-made."

He seized her left hand in both of his and passed the ring on to the third finger, while Birdie's cheeks were aglow and her eyes rivalled the brilliancy of the ring itself.

"But – " she began.

"But nothing," Philip interrupted. He rose from his seat and helped Birdie on with her coat. "Waiter," he called, "we come right back here. We are just going over to Jersey for a couple of hours."