knew explode. It might in fact be an elaborate anarchist’s bomb. These ostjuden were mostly anarchists, weren’t they? who targeted the wealthy with their insane ideological program. It was at this point that Wexelman returned, preceded by the medicine ball of his paunch and a pair of liverish-looking policemen whom he was shepherding with imperious gestures into the study.
“Gentlemen,” said Belmont, “these men are trespassing. Apprehend them.”
The cops, in mackintosh capes and cupola helmets, chin straps hooked beneath pursed lower lips, exchanged an arch glance between them. Then they at once commenced to lay hands on Max (still petitioning the millionaire’s patience) and Shmerl (still explaining the dynamics of mechanical refrigeration). Seeing, however, that his friend was in the grip of an arm of the law whose opposite arm brandished a nightstick—and despite being in identical straits himself—Shmerl managed to wriggle free of his captor and fling himself upon the other officer, grabbing his upraised club. Taking advantage of that cop’s distraction, Max broke free of the head-hold to make a dash as if for protection behind the financier’s desk, where he was presently joined by Shmerl who now wielded the billy club. Spitting curses despite Wexelman’s admonishments that they should watch their language in the presence of Mr. Belmont, the cops approached them from either side of the desk, while the banker stood as a hostage between the pair of imposters who flanked him. Meanwhile a steady chugging issued from Shmerl’s device, its hoarse combustion counterpointed by a silvery aria (from Tosca?) that rang throughout the mansion. It was here that August Belmont II, clapping hands to elegant temples streaked with gray like the wings on Mercury’s helmet, cried out, “This is most irregular!” Then, because he knew a good thing when he saw it, he called an immediate halt to the pandemonium—because Shmerl’s machine, coughing and sputtering, had begun to regurgitate transparent ingots, one of which cracked apart from an impossibly high note struck from somewhere beyond the study walls.
THE GRUMBLING OF Officers Golightly and McCool was soon assuaged by the banker’s generosity in compensating them for their troubles. Then, after Shmerl had returned the billy club with all the pomp of a surrendered saber, the bank was contacted and an attorney brought in to draw up the terms of the loan. Five thousand was the figure that was proposed, but as Shmerl looked to his partner to join him in nodding agreement, he was astounded to hear Max counterrecommend a cool ten. Without missing a beat the banker altered the sum to seventy-five hundred as sufficient to cover the cost of venue, equipment, and preliminary labor; it would also provide the proprietors (insolvent at present) with an adequate salary they might draw from the surplus capital. The language of the promissory note was intimidating (“For value received, the undersigned jointly and severally promise to pay to the order of the lender the sum of———, together with interest of twenty-five percent per annum on the unpaid balance, etc.”), but the new corporation of Feinshmeker & Karp was assured that the contract was pro forma; and at least one of the partners understood that the sum was a drop in the bucket for the banker, who stood to benefit disproportionately from the transaction. While business was negotiated, the two friends, their work clothes in disarray from their recent dustup, were served brandy and offered Cuban cigars by the same retainer who had set the authorities upon them earlier. Moted sunlight poured in through the high windows, making the room and its contents—the brass cartouches and crystal decanter, the nickeled pince-nez perched on the financier’s regal nose—appear as if viewed through a jar of golden honey; and it seemed to the immigrants that they had passed, in a single day, from civilization’s wild outer reaches to its very core.
The attorney, there to notarize the document and issue the check, seemed unfazed by the incongruous appearance of the partners. If he perceived any impropriety in the proceedings, as he handed the friends a gold-nibbed fountain pen, he never showed it, and his ease in officiating the affair inspired the companions to sign with unreserved zeal on the dotted line. They exchanged handshakes all around, first with lender and witness, then with each other, both tacitly acknowledging that notwithstanding the glacier of ice cakes heaped in the tray of Shmerl’s machine, a miracle had occurred, both supposing they would now live in a world where they would have to accustom themselves to