Object: matrimony   By: Montague Glass (1877-1934)

[Illustration: "DID YOU EVER SUFFER FROM STUMMICK TROUBLE?"]

OBJECT: MATRIMONY

by MONTAGUE GLASS

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1912

Copyright, 1909, by THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

Copyright, 1912, by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

All rights reserved including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian

Object: Matrimony

BY MONTAGUE GLASS

"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."