THE COMPACT

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 come to you with ten thousand dollars that I have saved. Half is yours. My only hope is that you are poor, so that I can have the pleasure of sharing with you all my wealth.’ Then he will be overcome and he will get red in the face, and he will tell me that he has got many hundreds of thousands of dollars to share with me. Ah, yes!

“There are not so many people in the real-estate business as in the saloon business. And soon I found a man who knew all about my friend Bykowsky. ‘The last I heard of him,’ he said, ‘he went out of the real-estate business. He took all his money and bought a fine row of houses. And he said he was not going to work any more.’

“That was just like dear old Bykowsky. He was a regular aristocrat. As long as he had 278enough money to live on he did not care to work. But he would be glad to see his dear old friend. I would pretend that I did not know how rich he was. I would be open and honest with him. I would keep the letter and the spirit of the agreement. I would not keep back a single cent. ‘Bykowsky,’ I would say, ‘dear, good, old Bykowsky. Here I am. I have three thousand dollars in my pocket. I have nine thousand dollars in good government bonds in Germany. I also have a fine gold watch, and a gold chain and a ring, but the ring is not solid gold. Half of what I have is yours.’ And we will fall on each other’s shoulders and be, oh, so glad!

“I found Bykowsky. He was not at home where he lived. But I found him in a café. He was playing pinochle with the proprietor. I took a good long look at him. He did not know me, but I recognised him right away. I went over and held out my hand. ‘It is my old friend Bykowsky!’ I said. He looked at me and got very red in the face. ‘Ah, ha!’ I said to myself. ‘I have guessed right.’ Then he cried, ‘Sorkin!’ and we threw our arms around each other. ‘Bykowsky,’ I said, ‘I 279have come many thousand miles to keep our boyhood agreement. Maybe you and I might have forgotten it, but we swore on the Torah, and I know that you could not forget it any more than I could. I have three thousand dollars in my pocket. I have nine thousand dollars in good government bonds in Germany. I have a fine gold watch and a gold chain and a ring, but the ring is not solid gold. Half of what I have is yours. I hope—oh, Bykowsky, I am so selfish—I hope that you are poor so that I can have the pleasure of dividing with you.’ Then Bykowsky said, ‘Let me see the ring!’

“I showed him the ring, and he shook his head very sadly. ‘You are right, Sorkin,’ he said. ‘It is not solid gold.’

“‘Well, dear friend,’ I said, ‘how has the world gone with you?’

“‘Very badly,’ he said. ‘Let me see the watch and the chain.’

“Something told me he was joking. So I said, ‘Please keep the watch and chain as a token of our old friendship. We will not count it in the division. But I am sorry to hear that things have 280gone badly with you. Why did you not’ (this was only a sly hint) ‘go into the real-estate business? I hear so many people are getting rich that way.’

“Then he sighed—and I felt that something was wrong.

“‘Dear friend Sorkin,’ he said. ‘Dearest comrade of my boyhood days, I have a sad story to tell you. A year ago I owned a fine row of houses. I had nearly two hundred thousand dollars. I was looking forward to the time when I would write to you, dear, kind old friend, and ask you to come over to share with me all my wealth. But alas! The wheel of fortune turned! I began to speculate. It is a long, sad story. Two months ago I sold the last of my houses. To-day I have three hundred dollars left. Dear, sweet Sorkin, you come as a Godsend from heaven. My luck has turned!’”

Here there was a long pause in Sorkin’s story. Then he said:

“My son, even to this day when I think of that moment, I feel the sensation of choking.”

281“But did you keep the compact?”

And, in a flash, I regretted the question.

“I had sworn on the Torah,” Sorkin replied.

The firm of Sorkin & Bykowsky has recently changed its name to Sorkin, Bykowsky & Co. The Co. is young Ignatz Sorkin Bykowsky. There is also a young Nathan Bykowsky Sorkin. But he is still at school.