The paper lies before me as I write. The bitterness has all passed. As a matter of fact it was Sorkin who told it to me as a good story. The paper read thus:

“Agreement between Ignatz Sorkin and Nathan Bykowsky, made in Wilna, Russia, December 10, 1861: Sorkin goes to Germany and Bykowsky goes to America, in New York. In twenty years all the money they have is put together and each takes half because the lucky one loves his old friend. We swear it on the Torah.
“Ignatz Sorkin.
“Nathan Bykowsky.”

It is Sorkin’s story:

“The twenty years went by and I came to New York. My heart was heavy. I had not heard from Bykowsky for five years. Why had he not written? 274If he was poor, surely he must have heard that I was rich, and that half of all I had belonged to him. And if he was rich, did he mean to break the agreement? In either case it was bad for me. If it had not been for that last clause—‘we swear it on the Torah’! I cannot say. Perhaps I would not have come. For things had gone well with me in Germany. I owned twelve thousand dollars. And I might have forgotten the agreement. But I had sworn it on the Torah! I could not forget it.

“Still, what was the use of taking too many chances? I brought only three thousand dollars with me. The rest I left in government bonds on the other side. If Bykowsky was a poor man he should have half of three thousand dollars. Surely that was enough for a poor man. I had not sworn on the Torah to remember the nine thousand dollars.

“So I came here. I looked for Bykowsky, but could not find him. He had worked as a tailor, and I went from one shop to another asking everybody, ‘Do you know my old friend Bykowsky?’ At last I found a man who kept a tailor shop. He was a fine man. He had a big diamond in his shirt. 275Bykowsky? Yes, he remembered Bykowsky. Bykowsky used to work for him. And where was he now? He did not know. But when Bykowsky left his shop he went to open one for himself and became a boss. A boss? What was a boss? ‘I am a boss,’ the man said. Then I took a good look at his diamond. ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘if Bykowsky is a boss, he too has a diamond like that.’ So I went out to look for Bykowsky the boss.

“Then I thought to myself, ‘Why shall I be stingy? I will tell Bykowsky that I have five thousand dollars and I will give him half. He was a good friend of mine. I will be liberal.’ So I looked and looked everywhere, but nobody seemed to remember Bykowsky the boss. At last I met a policeman. He knew Bykowsky. He did not know where he lived, but he knew him when he was a tailor boss. ‘Is he not a tailor boss any more?’ I asked him. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘He sold his tailor shop and opened a saloon.’ ‘Is that a better business than a tailor shop?’ I asked him. The policeman laughed at me and said, ‘Sure. A good saloon is better than a dozen tailor shops.’

276“H’m! I was very sorry that he did not know where Bykowsky kept his saloon. I made up my mind that I would go to every saloon in the city until I found him. And when I found him I would say, ‘Bykowsky, I have come to keep the agreement. I have saved seven thousand dollars. Half is yours.’ Because I liked Bykowsky. We were the very best of friends.

“I went from saloon to saloon. I am not a drinking man. But as I did not like to ask so many questions for nothing I bought a cigar in every place. Soon I had all my pockets full of cigars. I do not smoke. I kept the cigars for Bykowsky. He is a great smoker. Then I met a man who had once been in Bykowsky’s saloon. He told me what a place it was. Such looking-glasses! Such fancy things! And he was making so much money that he had to hire a man to do nothing but sit at a desk all day and put the money in a drawer. So I says to myself, ‘Ah, ha! Dear friend Bykowsky, you are playing a joke on your dear old friend Sorkin. You want to wait until he comes and then fill him with joy by giving him half of that fine saloon business!’ So I asked the man where that saloon 277was. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that was several years ago. Bykowsky made so much money that he gave up the saloon and went into the real-estate business.’

“H’m! I began to understand it. Bykowsky had been making money so fast that he never had time to write to me. But never mind. I would go to him. I would grasp him by the hand and I would say, ‘Dearest friend of my boyhood, I have co............