Potash & Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures

by Montague Glass

Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration: MR. LOUIS MINTZ WHAT COMES TO WORK BY US.]

POTASH & PERLMUTTER

THEIR COPARTNERSHIP VENTURES AND ADVENTURES

BY MONTAGUE GLASS

ILLUSTRATED

GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK

Copyright, 1909, by The Curtis Publishing Company Copyright, 1910, by Howard E. Altemus Copyrighted 1911, by Doubleday, Page & Company.

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

Potash & Perlmutter

CHAPTER I

"No, siree, sir," Abe Potash exclaimed as he drew a check to the order of his attorney for a hundred and fifty dollars, "I would positively go it alone from now on till I die, Noblestone. I got my stomach full with Pincus Vesell already, and if Andrew Carnegie would come to me and tell me he wants to go with me as partners together in the cloak and suit business, I would say 'No,' so sick and tired of partners I am."

For the twentieth time he examined the dissolution agreement which had ended the firm of Vesell & Potash, and then he sighed heavily and placed the document in his breast pocket.

"Cost me enough, Noblestone, I could assure you," he said.

"A hundred and fifty ain't much, Potash, for a big lawyer like Feldman," Noblestone commented.

Abe flipped his fingers in a gesture of deprecation.

"That is the least, Noblestone," he rejoined. "First and last I bet you I am out five thousand dollars on Vesell. That feller got an idee that there ain't nothing to the cloak and suit business but auction pinochle and taking out-of-town customers to the theayter. Hard work is something which he don't know nothing about at all. He should of been in the brokering business."

"The brokering business ain't such a cinch neither," Noblestone retorted with some show of indignation. "A feller what's in the brokering business has got his troubles, too, Potash. Here I've been trying to find an opening for a bright young feller with five thousand dollars cash, y'understand, and also there ain't a better designer in the business, y'understand, and I couldn't do a thing with the proposition. Always everybody turns me down. Either they got a partner already or they're like yourself, Potash, they just got through with a partner which done 'em up good."

"If you think Pincus Vesell done me up good, Noblestone," Potash said, "you are mistaken. I got better judgment as to let a lowlife like him get into me, Noblestone. I lost money by him, y'understand, but at the same time he didn't make nothing neither. Vesell is one of them fellers what you hear about which is nobody's enemy but his own."

"The way he talks to me, Potash," Noblestone replied, "he ain't such friends to you neither."

"He hates me worser as poison," Abe declared fervently, "but that ain't neither here nor there, Noblestone. I'm content he should be my enemy. He's the kind of feller what if we would part friends, he would come back every week and touch me for five dollars yet. The feller ain't got no money and he ain't got no judgment neither."

"But here is a young feller which he got lots of common sense and five thousand dollars cash," Noblestone went on. "Only one thing which he ain't got."

Abe nodded.

"I seen lots of them fellers in my time, Noblestone," he said. "Everything about 'em is all right excepting one thing and that's always a killer."

"Well, this one thing ain't a killer at all," Noblestone rejoined, "he knows the cloak and suit business from A to Z, and he's a first-class A number one feller for the inside, Potash, but he ain't no salesman."

"So long as he's good on the inside, Noblestone," Abe said, "it don't do no harm if he ain't a salesman, because there's lots of fellers in the cloak and suit business which calls themselves drummers, y'understand Every week regular they turn in an expense account as big as a doctor's bill already, and not only they ain't salesmen, Noblestone, but they don't know enough about the inside work to get a job as assistant shipping clerk."

"Well, Harry Federmann ain't that kind, Potash," Noblestone went on. "He's been a cutter and a designer and everything you could think of in the cloak and suit business. Also the feller's got good backing. He's married to old man Zudrowsky's daughter and certainly them people would give him a whole lot of help."

"What people do you mean?" Abe asked.

"Zudrowsky & Cohen," Noblestone answered. "Do you know 'em, Potash?"

Abe laughed raucously.

"Do I know 'em?" he said. "A question! Them people got a reputation among the trade which you wouldn't believe at all. Yes, Noblestone, if I would take it another partner, y'understand, I would as lief get a feller what's got the backing of a couple of them cut-throats up in Sing Sing, so much do I think of Zudrowsky & Cohen."

"All I got to say to that, Potash, is that you don't know them people, otherwise you wouldn't talk that way."

"Maybe I don't know 'em as good as some concerns know 'em, Noblestone, but that's because I was pretty lucky. Leon Sammet tells me he wouldn't trust 'em with the wrapping paper on a C. O. D. shipment of two dollars."

Noblestone rose to his feet and assumed an attitude of what he believed to be injured dignity.

"I hear enough from you, Potash," he said, "and some day you will be sorry you talk that way about a concern like Zudrowsky & Cohen. If you couldn't say nothing good about 'em, you should shut up your mouth."

"I could say one thing good about 'em, Noblestone," Abe retorted, as the business broker opened the store door. "They ain't ashamed of a couple of good old-time names like Zudrowsky & Cohen."

This was an allusion to the circumstance that Philip Noblestone had once been Pesach Edelstein, and the resounding bang with which the broker closed the door behind him, was gratifying evidence to Abe that his parting shot had found its target.

"Well, Noblestone," Zudrowsky cried, as the broker entered the show-room of Zudrowsky & Cohen, "what did he say?"

"He says he wouldn't consider it at all," Noblestone answered. "He ain't in no condition to talk about it anyway, because he feels too sore about his old partner, Pincus Vesell. That feller done him up to the tune of ten thousand dollars."

In Noblestone's scheme of ethics, to multiply a fact by two was to speak the truth unadorned.

"S'enough, Noblestone," Zudrowsky cried. "If Potash lost so much money as all that, I wouldn't consider him at all. One thing you got to remember, Noblestone. Me, I am putting up five thousand dollars for Harry Federmann, and what that feller don't know about business, Noblestone, you could take it from me, would make even _you_ a millionaire, if you would only got it in your head."

Noblestone felt keenly the doubtfulness of Zudrowsky's compliment, but for a lack of a suitable rejoinder he contented himself by nodding gravely.

"So I wouldn't want him to tie up with a feller like Potash, what gets done up so easy for ten thousand dollars," Zudrowsky went on. "What I would like, Noblestone, is that Harry should go as partners together with some decent, respectable feller which got it good experience in the cloak business and wouldn't be careless with my five thousand dollars. I needn't to tell you, Noblestone, if I would let Harry get his hands on it, I might as well kiss myself good-by with that five thousand dollars."

Noblestone waggled his head from side to side and made inarticulate expressions of sympathy through his nose.

"How could you marry off your daughter to a _schafskopf_ like Federmann?" he asked.

"It was a love match, Noblestone," Zudrowsky explained. "She falls in love with him, and he falls in love with her. So naturally he ain't no business man, y'understand, because you know as well as I do, Noblestone, a business man ain't got no time to fool away on such nonsense."

"Sure, I know," Noblestone agreed. "But what makes Federmann so dumb? He's been in the cloak and suit business all his life, ain't he?"

"What's that got to do with it?" Zudrowsky exclaimed. "Cohen and me got these here fixtures for fifteen years already, and you could more expect them tables and racks they should know the cloak and suit business as Harry Federmann. They ain't neither of 'em got no brains, Noblestone, and that's what I want you to get for Harry,--some young feller with brains, even though he ain't worth much money."

"Believe me, Mr. Zudrowsky," Noblestone replied. "It ain't such an easy matter these times to find a young feller with brains what ain't got no money, Mr. Zudrowsky, and such young fellers don't need no partners neither. And, anyhow, Mr. Zudrowsky, what is five thousand dollars for an inducement to a business man? When I would go around and tell my clients I got a young feller with five thousand dollars what wants to go in the cloak and suit business, they laugh at me. In the cloak and suit business five thousand dollars goes no ways."

"Five thousand ain't much if you are going to open up as a new beginner, Noblestone," Zudrowsky replied, "but if you got a going concern, y'understand, five thousand dollars is always five thousand dollars. There's lots of business men what is short of money all the time, Noblestone. Couldn't you find it maybe a young feller which is already established in business, y'understand, and what needs _doch_ a little money?"

Noblestone slapped his thigh.

"I got it!" he said. "I'll go around and see Sam Feder of the Kosciusko Bank."

Half an hour later Noblestone sat in the first vice-president's office at the Kosciusko Bank, and requested that executive officer to favor him with the names of a few good business men, who would appreciate a partner with five thousand dollars.

"I'll tell you the truth, Noblestone," Mr. Feder said, "we turn down so many people here every day, that it's a pretty hard thing for me to remember any particular name. Most of 'em is good for nothing, either for your purpose or for ours, Noblestone. The idee they got about business is that they should sell goods at any price. In figuring the cost of the output, they reckon labor, so much; material, so much; and they don't take no account of rent, light, power, insurance and so forth. The consequence is, they lose money all the time; and they put their competitors in bad too, because they make 'em meet their fool prices. The whole trade is cut up by them fellers and sooner as recommend one for a partner for your client, I'd advise him to take his money and play the ponies with it."

At this juncture a boy entered and handed Mr. Feder a card.

"Tell him to come right in," Feder said, and then he turned to Noblestone. "You got to excuse me for a few minutes, Noblestone, and I'll see you just as soon as I get through."

As Noblestone left the first vice-president's office, he encountered Feder's visitor, who wore an air of furtive apprehension characteristic of a man making his initial visit to a pawn shop. Noblestone waited on the bench outside for perhaps ten minutes, when Mr. Feder's visitor emerged, a trifle red in the face.

"That's my terms, Mr. Perlmutter," Feder said.

"Well, if I would got to accept such a proposition like that, Mr. Feder," the visitor declared, "I would sooner bust up first. That's all I got to say."

He jammed his hat down on his head and made for the door.

"Now, Mr. Noblestone, I am ready for you," Feder cried, but his summons fell on deaf ears, for Noblestone was in quick pursuit of the vanishing Perlmutter. Noblestone overtook him at the corner and touched his elbow.

"How do you do, Mr. Perlmutter!" he exclaimed.

Perlmutter stopped short and wheeled around.

"Huh?" he said.

"This is Mr. Sol Perlmutter, ain't it?" Noblestone asked.

"No, it ain't," Perlmutter replied. "My name is Morris Perlmutter, and the pair of real gold eye-glasses which you just picked up and would let me have as a bargain for fifty cents, ain't no use to me neither."

"I ain't picked up no eye-glasses," Noblestone said.

"No?" Morris Perlmutter rejoined. "Well, I don't want to buy no blue white diamond ring neither, y'understand, so if it's all the same to you I got business to attend to."

"So do I," Noblestone went on, "and this is what it is. Also my name is there too."

"Don't discount them good accounts, Mr. Perlmutter," he added, "it ain't necessary."

"Who told you I want to discount some accounts?" Morris asked.

"If I see a feller in a dentist's chair," Noblestone answered, "I don't need to be told he's got the toothache already."

After this Morris was easily persuaded to accept Noblestone's invitation to drink a cup of coffee, and they retired immediately to a neighboring bakery and lunch room.

"Yes, Mr. Noblestone," Morris said, consulting the card. "I give you right about Feder. That feller is worser as a dentist. He's a bloodsucker. Fifteen hundred dollars gilt-edged accounts I offer him as security for twelve hundred, and when I get through with paying DeWitt C. Feinholtz, his son-in-law, what is the bank's lawyer, there wouldn't be enough left from that twelve hundred dollars to pay off my operators."

"That's the way it is when a feller's short of money," Noblestone said. "Now, if you would got it a partner with backing, y'understand, you wouldn't never got to be short again."

With this introductory sentence, Noblestone launched out upon a series of persuasive arguments, which only ended when Morris Perlmutter had promised to lunch with Zudrowsky, Harry Federmann and Noblestone at Wasserbauer's Café and Restaurant the following afternoon at one o'clock.

For the remainder of the day, Philip Noblestone interviewed as much of the cloak and suit trade as he could cover, with respect to Morris Perlmutter's antecedents, and the result was entirely satisfactory. He ascertained that Morris had worked his way up from shipping clerk, through the various grades, until he had reached the comparative eminence of head cutter, and his only failing was that he had embarked in business with less capital than experience. At first he had met with moderate success, but a dull season in the cloak trade had temporarily embarrassed him, and the consensus of opinion among his competitors was that he had a growing business but was over-extended.

Thus when Noblestone repaired to the office of Zudrowsky & Cohen at closing time that afternoon, he fairly outdid himself extolling Morris Perlmutter's merits, and he presented so high colored a picture that Zudrowsky deprecated the business broker's enthusiasm.

"Say, looky here, Noblestone," he said, "enough's enough. All I want is a partner for my son-in-law which would got common sense and a little judgment. That's all. I don't expect no miracles, y'understand, and the way I understand it from you, this feller Morris Perlmutter is got a business head like Andrew Carnegie already and a shape like John Drew."

"I never mentioned his name because I don't know that feller at all," Noblestone protested. "But Perlmutter is a fine business man, Mr. Zudrowsky, and he's a swell dresser, too."

"A feller what goes to a bank looking for accommodations," Zudrowsky replied, "naturally don't put on his oldest clothes, y'understand, but anyhow, Noblestone, if you would be around here at half past twelve to-morrow, I will see that Harry gets here too, and we will go down to Wasserbauer's and meet the feller."

It was precisely one o'clock the following day when Morris Perlmutter seated himself at a table in the rear of Wasserbauer's Café and Restaurant.

"Yes, sir, right away!" Louis, the waiter, cried, as he deposited a plate of dill pickles on the adjoining table, at which sat a stout middle-aged person with a napkin tucked in his neck.

"_Koenigsberger Klops_ is good to-day, Mr. Potash," Louis announced.

"Pushing the stickers, Louis, ain't it?" the man at the next table said. "You couldn't get me to eat no chopped meat which customers left on their plates last week already. I never believe in buying seconds, Louis. Give me a piece of roast beef, well done, and a baked potato."

"Right away, Mr. Potash," Louis said, as he passed on to Perlmutter's table. "Now, sir, what could I do for you?"

"Me, I am waiting here for somebody," Morris replied. "Bring me a glass of water and we will give our order later."

"Right away!" said Louis, and hustled off to fill Abe Potash's order, whereat Abe selected a dill pickle to beguile the tedium of waiting. He grasped it firmly between his thumb and finger, and neatly bisected it with his teeth. Simultaneously the pickle squirted, and about a quarter of a pint of the acid juice struck Morris Perlmutter in the right eye.

"Excuse _me_," Abe cried. "Excuse me."

"S'all right," Morris replied. "I seen what you was doing and I should of ordered an umbrella instead of a glass of water already."

Abe laughed uproariously.

"Dill pickles is uncertain like Paris fashions," he commented. "You could never tell what they would do next."

"I bet yer," Morris replied. "Last year people was buying silks like they was crazy, y'understand, and this year you would think silks was poison. A buyer wouldn't touch 'em at all, and that's the way it goes."

Abe rose with the napkin tucked in his neck, and carrying the dish of dill pickles with him, he sat down at Morris' table, to which Louis brought the roast beef a moment later.

"I seen you was in the cloak and suit business as soon as I looked at you," Abe said. "I guess I'll eat here till your friends come."

"Go ahead," Morris replied. "It's already quarter past one, and if them fellers don't come soon, I'm going to eat, too."

"What's the use waiting?" Abe said. "Eat anyhow. This roast beef is fine. Try some of it on me."

"Why should I stick you for my lunch?" Morris rejoined. "I see them suckers ain't going to show up at all, so I guess I'll take a sandwich and a cup of coffee."

He motioned to Louis.

"Right away!" Louis cried. "Yes, sir, we got some nice _Koenigsberger Klops_ to-day _mit Kartoffel Kloes_."

"What d'ye take this gentleman for, anyway, Louis?" Abe asked. "A garbage can? Give him a nice slice of roast beef well done and a baked potato. Also bring two cups of coffee and give it the checks to me."

By a quarter to two Abe and Morris had passed from business matters to family affairs, and after they had exchanged cigars and the conversation had reached a stage where Morris had just accepted an invitation to dine at Abe's house, Noblestone and Zudrowsky entered, with Harry Federmann bringing up in the rear. Harry was evidently in disfavor, and his weak, blond face wore the crestfallen look of a whipped child, for he had been so occupied with his billing and cooing up town, that he had forgotten his business engagement.

"Hallo, Mr. Perlmutter," Noblestone cried, and then he caught sight of Morris' companion and the remains of their generous meal. "I thought you was going to take lunch with us."

"Do I got to starve, Mr. Who's-this--I lost your card--just because I was fool enough to take up your proposition yesterday? I should of known better in the first place."

"But this here young feller, Mr. Federmann, got detained uptown," Zudrowsky explained. "His wife got took suddenly sick."

"Why, she may have to have an operation," Noblestone said in a sudden burst of imaginative enthusiasm.

"You should tell your troubles to a doctor," Abe said, rising from the table. "And besides, Noblestone, Mr. Perlmutter don't want no partner just now."

"But," Perlmutter began, "but, Mr. Potash----"

"That is to say," Abe interrupted, "he don't want a partner with no business experience. Me, I got business experience, as you know, Mr. Noblestone, and so we fixed it up we would go as partners together, provided after we look each other up everything is all right."

He looked inquiringly at Perlmutter, who nodded in reply.

"And if everything _is_ all right," Perlmutter said, "we will start up next week."

"Under the firm name," Abe added, "of Potash & Perlmutter."

CHAPTER II

In less than ten days the new firm of Potash & Perlmutter were doing business in Abe Potash's old quarters on White Street with the addition of the loft on the second floor. Abe had occupied the grade floor of an old-fashioned building, and agreeable to Morris' suggestion the manufacturing and cutting departments were transferred to the second floor, leaving Abe's old quarters for show-room, office and shipping purposes. It was further arranged that Abe's share of the copartnership work should be the selling end and that Morris should take charge of the manufacturing. Both partners supervised the accounting and credit department with the competent assistance of Miss R. Cohen, who had served the firm of Vesell & Potash in the same capacity.

For more than a year Morris acted as designer, and with one or two unfortunate exceptions, the styles he originated had been entirely satisfactory to Potash & Perlmutter's growing trade.

The one or two unfortunate exceptions, however, had been a source of some loss to the firm. First, there were the tourists' coats which cost Potash & Perlmutter one thousand dollars; then came the purple directoires; total, two thousand dollars charged off to profit and loss on the firm's books.

"No, Mawruss," Abe said, when his partner spoke of a new model, which he termed the Long Branch Coatee, "I don't like that name. Anyhow, Mawruss, I got it in my mind we should hire a designer. While I figure it that you don't cost us nothing extra, Mawruss, a couple of stickers like them tourists and that directoire model puts us in the hole two thousand dollars. On the other hand, Mawruss, if we get a good designer, Mawruss, all we pay him is two thousand a year and we're through."

"I know, Abe," Morris replied, "but designers can turn out stickers, too."

"Sure, they can, Mawruss," Abe went on, "but they got a job to look out for, Mawruss, while you are one of the bosses here, whether you turn out stickers or not. No, Mawruss, I got enough of stickers already. I'm going to look out for a good, live designer, a smart young feller like Louis Grossman, what works for Sammet Brothers. I bet you they done an increased business of twenty per cent. with that young feller's designs. I met Ike Gotthelf, buyer for Horowitz & Finkelbein, and he tells me he gave Sammet Brothers a two-thousand-dollar order a couple of weeks ago, including a hundred and twenty-two garments of that new-style they got out, which they call the Arverne Sacque, one of Louis Grossman's new models."

"Is that so?" said Morris. "Well, you know what I would do if I was you, Abe? I'd see Louis Grossman and offer him ten dollars a week more than Sammet Brothers pays him, and the first thing you know he'd be working for us and not for Sammet Brothers."

"You got a great head, Mawruss," Abe rejoined ironically. "You got the same idee all of a sudden what I think about a week ago already. I seen Louis Grossman yesterday, and offered him fifteen, not ten."

"And what did he say?"

"He says he's working by Sammet Brothers under a contract, Mawruss, what don't expire for a year yet, and they're holding up a quarter of his wages under the contract, which he is to forfeit if he don't work it out."

"Don't you believe it, Abe," Morris broke in. "He's standing out for more money."

"Is he?" said Abe with some heat. "Well, I seen the contract, Mawruss, so either I'm a liar or not, Mawruss, ain't it?"

Here they were interrupted by the entrance of a customer, Ike Herzog, of the Bon Ton Credit Outfitting Company.

"Ah, Mr. Herzog!" Abe cried, rising to his feet and extending both hands in greeting. "Glad to see you. Ain't it a fine weather?"

Mr. Herzog grunted in reply.

"Potash," he said, "when I give you that order last week, I don't know whether I didn't buy a big lot of your style fifty-nine-ten, ain't it?"

"Yes, you did," said Abe.

"Well," said Herzog, "I want to cancel that part of the order."

"Cancel it!" Abe cried. "Why, what's the matter with them garments? Ain't the samples made up right?"

"Sure, they're made up right," said Herzog, "only I seen something what I like better. It's about the same style, only more attractive. I mean Sammet Brothers' style forty-one-fifty--their new Arverne Sacque."

"Mr. Herzog!" Abe cried.

Herzog raised a protesting palm.

"Now, Potash," he said, "you know whatever I buy in staples you get the preference; but when anybody's got a specialty like that Arverne Sacque, what's the use of talking?"

He shook hands cordially.

"I'll be around to see you in about a week," he said, and the next moment the door closed behind him.

"Well, Mawruss, that settles it," said Abe, putting on his hat. "When we lose a good customer like Ike Herzog, I gets busy right away."

"Where are you going, Abe?" Morris asked.

Abe struggled into his overcoat and seized his umbrella.

"Round to Sammet Brothers," he replied. "I'm going to get that young feller away from them if I got to pay 'em a thousand dollars to boot."

Leon Sammet, head of the copartnership of Sammet Brothers, sat in the firm's sample room and puffed gloomily at a Wheeling stogy. His brother, Barney Sammet, stood beside him reading aloud from a letter which he held in his hand.

"'Gents,'" he said, "'your shipment of the fourteenth instant to hand, and in reply will say we ain't satisfied with nothing but style forty-one-fifty. Our Miss Kenny is a perfect thirty-six, and she can't breathe in them Empires style 3022, in sizes 36, 38 or 40. What is the matter with you, anyway? We are returning them via Eagle Dispatch. We are yours truly, The Boston Store, Horowitz & Finkelbein, Proprietors.'"

"Yes, Barney," Leon commented, "that's a designer for you, that Louis Grossman. His Arverne Sacques is all right, Barney, but the rest is nix. He's a one garment man. Tell Miss Aaronstamm to bring in her book. I want to send them Boston Store people a letter."

A moment later Miss Aaronstamm entered, and sat down at a sample table.

"Write to the Boston Store," Leon Sammet said. "'Horowitz & Finkelbein, Proprietors, Gents'--got that? 'We received your favor of the eighteenth instant, and in reply would say we don't accept no styles what you return.' Got that? 'If your Miss Kenny can't breathe in them garments that ain't our fault. They wasn't made to breathe in; they was made to sell. You say she is a perfect thirty-six. How do we know that? We ain't never measured her, and we don't believe you have, neither. Anyway, we ain't taking back no goods what we sold once. Yours truly.' That's all, Miss Aaronstamm. I guess that'll fix 'em. What, Barney?"

Barney nodded gloomily.

"I tell you, Barney," Leon went on, "I wish I never seen that Louis Grossman. He certainly got into us good and proper."

"I don't know, Leon," said Barney. "That Arverne Sacque was a record seller."

"Arverne Sacque!" Leon cried. "That's all everybody says. We can't make a million dollars out of one garment alone, Barney. We can't even make expenses. I'm afraid we'll go in the hole over ten thousand dollars if we don't get rid of him."

"But we can't get rid of him," said Barney. "We got a contract with him."

"Don't I know it?" said Leon, sadly. "Ain't I paid Henry D. Feldman a hundred dollars for drawing it up? He's got us, Barney. Louis Grossman's got us and no mistake. Well, I got to go up to the cutting-room and see what he's doing now, Barney. He can spoil more piece-goods in an hour than I can buy in a week."

He rose wearily to his feet and was half-way to the stairs in the rear of the store when Abe Potash entered.

"Hallo, Leon!" Abe called. "Don't be in a rush. I want to talk to you."

Leon returned to the show-room and shook hands limply with Abe. It was a competitor's, not a customer's, shake.

"Well, Abe," he said, "how's business?"

"If we got a good designer like you got, Leon," Abe replied, "we would----"

"A good designer!" Barney broke in. "Why----"

His involuntary disclaimer ended almost where it began with a furtive, though painful, kick from his elder brother.

"A good designer, Abe," Leon went on hastily, "is a big asset, and Louis Grossman is a first-class A Number One designer. We done a tremendous spring business through Louis. I suppose you heard about our style forty-one-fifty?"

Abe nodded.

"Them Arverne Sacques," he said. "Yes, I heard about it from everybody I meet. He must be a gold-mine, that Louis Grossman."

"He is," Leon continued. "Our other styles, too, he turns out wonderful. Our Empire models what he designs for us, Abe, I assure you is also making a tremendous sensation. You ought to see the letter we got this morning from Horowitz & Finkelbein."

Barney blew his nose with a loud snort.

"I guess I'll go upstairs, and see what the boys is doing in the cutting-room, Leon," he said, and made a hasty exit.

"Not that Louis Grossman ain't a good cutting-room foreman, too, Abe," said Leon, "but we're just getting in some new piece-goods and Barney wants to check 'em off. But I ain't asked you yet what we can do for you? A recommendation, maybe? Our credit files is open to you, Abe."

Abe pushed his hat back from his forehead and mopped his brow. Then he sat down and lit a cigar.

"Leon," he commenced, "what's the use of making a lot of talk about it. I'm going to talk to you man to man, Leon, and no monkey-business about it nor nothing. I'm going to be plain and straightforward, Leon, and tell it to you right from the start what I want. I don't believe in no beating bushes around, Leon, and when I say a thing I mean it. I got to talk right out, Leon. That's the kind of man I am."

"All right, Abe," Leon said. "Don't spring it on me too sudden, though."

"Well," Abe continued, "it's this way."

He gave one last puff at his cigar.

"Leon," he said, "how much will you take for Louis Grossman?"

"Take!" Leon shouted. "Take! Why, Abe----"

He stopped suddenly, and, recovering his composure just in the nick of time, remained silent.

"I know, Leon, he's a valuable man," Abe said earnestly, "but I'm willing to be fair, Leon. Of course I ain't a hog, and I don't think you are."

"No, I ain't," Leon replied quite calmly; "I ain't a hog, and so I say I wouldn't take nothing for him, Abe, because, Abe, if I told you what I _would_ take for him, Abe, then, maybe, you might have reason for calling me a hog."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't, Leon," Abe protested. "I told you I know he's a valuable man, so I want you should name a price."

"_I_ should name a price!" Leon cried. "Why, Abe, I'm surprised at you. If I go to a man to sell something what I like to get rid of it, and he don't want, then I name the price. But if a man comes to me to buy something what I want to keep, and what he's got to have, Abe, then _he_ names the price. Ain't it?"

Abe looked critically at the end of his smoldering cigar.

"Well, Leon," he said at length, "if I must name a price, I suppose I must. Now I know you will think me crazy, Leon, but I want to get a good designer bad, Leon, and so I say"--here he paused to note the effect--"_five hundred dollars_."

Leon held out his hand.

"I guess you got to excuse me, Abe," he said. "I'd like it first rate to stay here and visit with you all morning but I got work to do, and so I hope you'll excuse me."

"Seven hundred and fifty," Abe said.

"Fifteen hundred dollars," Leon replied quite firmly.

For twenty minutes Abe's figure rose and Leon's fell until they finally met at ten hundred thirty-three, thirty-three.

"He's worth it, Abe, believe me," said Leon, as they shook hands on the bargain. "And now let's fix it up right away."

Half an hour later, Abe, Louis Grossman and Leon Sammet entered the spacious law offices of Henry D. Feldman, who bears the same advisory relation to the cloak and suit trade as Judge Gary did to the steel and iron business.

The drawing of the necessary papers occupied the better part of the day and it was not until three o'clock in the afternoon that the transaction was complete. By its terms Sammet Brothers in consideration of $1,033.33 paid by Potash & Perlmutter, released Louis Grossman from his contract, and Louis entered into a new agreement with Potash & Perlmutter at an advance of a thousand a year over the compensation paid him by Sammet Brothers. In addition he was to receive from Potash & Perlmutter five per cent. of the profits of their business, payable weekly, the arrangement to be in force for one year, during which time neither employer nor employee could be rid one of the other save by mutual consent.

"It comes high, Mawruss," Abe said to his partner, after he had returned to the store, "but I guess Louis's worth it."

"I hope so," Morris replied. "Now we can make up some of them Arverne Sacques."

"No, Mawruss," Abe replied, "I'm sorry to say we can't, because, by the agreement what Henry D. Feldman drew up, Sammet Brothers has the sole right to make up and sell the Arverne Sacques; but I seen to it, Mawruss, that we got the right to make up and sell every other garment what Louis Grossman originated for them this season."

He smiled triumphantly at his partner.

"And," he concluded, "he's coming to work Monday morning."

At the end of three disillusionizing weeks Abe Potash and Morris Perlmutter sat in the show-room of their place of business. Abe's hat was tilted over his eyes and he whistled a tuneless air. Morris was biting his nails.

"Well, Mawruss," Abe said at length, "when we're stuck we're stuck; ain't it? What's the use of sitting here like a couple of mummies; ain't it?"

Morris ceased biting his nails.

"Yes, Abe," he said, "ten hundred and thirty-three, thirty-three for a designer what couldn't design paper-bags for a delicatessen store. I believe he must have took lessons in designing from a correspondence school."

"Believe me, Mawruss, he learned it by telephone," Abe replied. "But cussing him out won't do no good, Mawruss. The thing to do now is to get busy and turn out some garments what we can sell. Them masquerade costumes what he gets up you couldn't sell to a five-and-ten-cent store."

"All right," Morris said. "Let's have another designer and leave Louis to do the cutting."

"_Another_ designer!" Abe exclaimed. "No, Mawruss, you're a good enough designer for me. I always said it, Mawruss, you're a first-class A Number One designer."

Thus encouraged, Morris once more took up the work of the firm's designing, and he labored with the energy of despair, for the season was far spent. At length he evolved four models that made Abe's eyes fairly bulge.

"That's snappy stuff, Mawruss," he said, as he examined the completed samples one morning. "I bet yer they sell like hot cakes."

Abe's prophecy more than justified itself, and in ten days they were completely swamped with orders. Abe and Morris went around wearing smiles that only relaxed when they remembered Louis Grossman and his hide-bound agreement, under which he drew five per cent. of the firm's profits and sixty dollars a week.

"Anyhow, Mawruss, we'll get some return from Louis Grossman," Abe said. "I advertised in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record yesterday them four styles of yours as the four best sellers of the season, originated by the creator of the Arverne Sacque. Ike Herzog was in the first thing this morning and bought two big lots of each one of the models. Ike's a great admirer of Louis Grossman, Mawruss. I bet yer when Sammet Brothers saw that ad they went crazy; ain't it?"

"But," Morris protested, "why should Louis Grossman get the credit for my work?"

"Because, Mawruss, you know them Arverne Sacques is the best sellers put out in the cloak and suit business this year," Abe replied. "And besides, Mawruss, we may be suckers, but that ain't no reason why Sammet Brothers should know it."

"Don't worry, Abe," said Morris; "they know they stuck us good and plenty when they released Louis Grossman."

"Do they?" Abe rejoined. "Well, they don't know it unless you told 'em. Louis Grossman won't tell 'em and I didn't tell 'em when I met Leon and Barney at lunch to-day."

"What did you tell 'em!" Morris asked, somewhat alarmed.

"I told 'em, Mawruss, that the season is comparatively young yet, but we already made from ten to twenty per cent. more sales by our new designer. I told Leon them new styles what Louis Grossman got up for us is selling so big we can't put 'em out fast enough."

"And what did Leon say?" Morris asked.

"He didn't say nothing," Abe replied, "but he looked like his best customer had busted up on him. Then I showed him the order what we got from Ike Herzog, and he started in right away to call Barney down for going home early the day before. I tell you, Mawruss, he was all broke up."

"I know, Abe," Morris commented, "that's all right, too, but, all the same, we ain't got much of a laugh on them two boys, so long as Louis Grossman loafs away upstairs drawing sixty dollars a week and five per cent. of the profits."

"Well," Abe replied, "what are you going to do about it? Henry D. Feldman drew up the contract, and you know, Mawruss, contracts what Henry D. Feldman makes nobody can break."

"Can't they?" Morris cried. "Well, if Henry D. Feldman made it can't Henry D. Feldman break it? What good is the lawyer, anyhow, what can't get us out of the contract what he fixed up himself?"

Abe pondered over the situation for five minutes.

"You're right, Mawruss," he said at length; "I'll go and see Henry D. Feldman the first thing to-morrow morning."

The next morning Leon Sammet sat at his roll-top desk in his private office, while Barney went over the morning mail.

"Hallo," Barney cried, "here's a check from Horowitz & Finkelbein for the full amount of their bill, Leon. I guess they thought better of that return shipment they made of them bum garments that Louis Grossman designed. They ain't made no deduction on account of it."

"Bum garments, nothing," Leon commented. "Them garments was all right, Barney. I guess we didn't know how to treat Louis Grossman when he worked by us. Look at the big success he's making by Potash & Perlmutter. I bet yer they're five thousand ahead on the season's sales already. We thought they was suckers when they paid us ten thirty-three, thirty-three for him, but I guess the shoe pinches on the other foot, Barney. I wish we had him back, that's all. Them four new designs what he made for Potash & Perlmutter is tremendous successes. What did he done for us, Barney? One garment, the Arverne Sacque, and I bet yer them four styles will put the Arverne Sacque clean out of business."

"Well, Leon," said Barney, "you traded him off so smart, why don't you get him back? Why don't you see him, Leon?"

"I _did_ see him," said Leon. "I called at his house last night."

"And what did he say?" Barney asked.

"He said he's under contract, as you know, with Potash & Perlmutter, and that if we can get him out of it he's only too glad to come back to us. But Henry D. Feldman drew up that contract, Barney, and you know as well as I do, Barney, that what Henry D. Feldman draws up is drawn up for keeps, ain't it?"

"There's loopholes in every contract, Leon," said Barney, "and a smart lawyer like Henry D. Feldman can find 'em out quick enough. Why don't you go right round and see Henry D. Feldman? Maybe he can fix it so as to get Louis back here."

Leon shut down his roll-top desk and seized his hat.

"That's a good idea, Barney," he said. "I guess I'll take your advice."

It is not so much to know the law, ran Henry D. Feldman's motto, paraphrasing a famous dictum of Judge Sharswood, as to look, act and talk as though you knew it. To this end Mr. Feldman seldom employed a word of one syllable, if it had a synonym of three or four syllables, and such phrases as _res gestæ_, _scienter_, and _lex fori delicti_ were the very life of his conversation with clients.

"The information which you now disclose, Mr. Sammet," he said, after Leon had made known his predicament, "is all _obiter dicta_."

Leon blushed. He imagined this to be somewhat harsh criticism of the innocent statement that he thought Potash & Perlmutter could be bluffed into releasing Louis Grossman.

"_Imprimis_," Mr. Feldman went on, "I have not been consulted by Mr. Grossman about what he desires done in the matter, but, speaking _ex cathedra_, I am of the opinion that some method might be devised for rescinding the contract."

"You mean we can get Potash & Perlmutter to release him?"

"Precisely," said Mr. Feldman, "and in a very elementary and efficacious fashion."

"Well, I ain't prepared to pay so much money at once," said Leon.

Now, when it came to money matters, Henry D. Feldman's language could be colloquial to the point of slang.

"What's biting you now?" he said. "I ain't going to charge you too much. Leave it to me, and if I deliver the goods it will cost you two hundred and fifty dollars."

Leon sighed heavily, but he intended getting Louis back at all costs, not, however, to exceed ten thirty-three, thirty-three.

"Well, I ain't kicking none if you can manage it," he replied. "Tell us how to go about it."

Straightway Mr. Feldman unfolded a scheme which, stripped of its technical phraseology, was simplicity itself. He rightly conjectured that the most burdensome feature of the contract, so far as Potash & Perlmutter were concerned, was the five per cent. share of the profits that fell to Louis Grossman each week. He therefore suggested that Louis approach Abe Potash and request that, instead of five per cent. of the profits, he be paid a definite sum each week, for the cloak and suit business has its dull spells between seasons, when profits occasionally turn to losses. Thus Louis could advance as a reason that he would feel safer if he be paid, say, twenty dollars a week the year round in lieu of his uncertain share of the profits.

"Abe Potash will jump at that," Leon commented.

"I anticipate that he will," Mr. Feldman went on, "and then, after he has paid Mr. Grossman the first week's installment it will constitute a rescission of the old contract and a substitution of a new one, which will be a contract of hiring from week to week. At the conclusion of the first week their contractual relations can be severed at the option of either party."

"But I don't want them to do nothing like that," Leon said. "I just want Louis to quit his job with Potash & Perlmutter and come and work by us."

"Look a-here, Sammet," Feldman broke in impatiently. "I can't waste a whole morning talking to a boob that don't understand the English language. You're wise to the part about Louis Grossman asking for twenty dollars a week steady, instead of his share of the proceeds, ain't you?"

Leon nodded.

"Then if Potash falls for it," Feldman concluded, "as soon as Grossman gets the first twenty out of him he can throw up his job on the spot. See?"

Leon nodded again.

"Then clear out of this," said Feldman and pushed a button on his desk to inform the office-boy that he was ready for the next client.

As Leon passed through the outer office he encountered Ike Herzog of the Bon Ton Credit Outfitting Company, who was solacing himself with the Daily Cloak and Suit Record in the interval of his waiting.

"Good morning, Mr. Herzog," Leon exclaimed. "So you got your troubles, too."

"I ain't got no troubles, Leon," Ike Herzog said, "but I got to use a lawyer in my business once in awhile. Just now I'm enlarging my place, and I got contracts to make and new people to hire. I hope _you_ ain't got no law suits nor nothing."

"Law suits ain't in my line, Mr. Herzog," Leon said. "Once in awhile I change my working people, too. That's why I come here."

"Sometimes you change 'em for the worse, Leon," Herzog commented, indicating Abe Potash's effective ad with a stubby forefinger. "You certainly made a mistake when you got rid of Louis Grossman. He's turning out some elegant stuff for Potash & Perlmutter."

Leon nodded gloomily.

"Well, we all make mistakes, Mr. Herzog," he said, "and that's why we got to come here."

"That's so," Herzog agreed, as Leon opened the door. "I hope I ain't making no mistake in what _I'm_ going to do."

"I hope not," Leon said as he passed out. "Good morning."

Ike Herzog's interview with Henry D. Feldman was short and very much to his satisfaction, for when he emerged from Feldman's sanctum, to find Abe Potash waiting without, he could not forbear a broad smile. Abe nodded perfunctorily and a moment later was closeted with the oracle.

"Mr. Feldman," he said, "I come to ask you an advice, and as I'm pretty busy this morning, do me the favor and leave out all them _caveat emptors_."

"Sure thing," Feldman replied. "Tell me all about it."

"Well, then, Mr. Feldman," said Abe, "I want to get rid of Louis Grossman."

Mr. Feldman almost jumped out of his chair.

"I want to fire Louis Grossman," Abe repeated. "You remember that you drew me up a burglar-proof contract between him and us a few weeks ago, and now I want you to be the burglar and bust it up for me."

Feldman touched the button on his desk.

"Bring me the draft of the contract between Potash & Perlmutter and Louis Grossman that I dictated last month," he said to the boy who answered.

In a few minutes the boy returned with a large envelope. He was instructed never to come back empty-handed when asked to bring anything, and, in this instance the envelope held six sheets of folded legal cap, some of which contained the score of a pinochle game, played after office hours on Saturday afternoon between the managing clerk and the process-server.

Feldman put the envelope in his pocket and retired to a remote corner of the room. There he examined the contents of the envelope and, knitting his brows into an impressive frown, he took from the well-stocked shelves that lined the walls book after book of digests and reports. Occasionally he made notes on the back of the envelope, and after the space of half an hour he returned to his chair and prepared to deliver himself of a weighty opinion.

"In the first place," he said, "this man Grossman ain't incompetent in his work, is he?"

"Incompetent!" Abe exclaimed. "Oh, no, he ain't incompetent. He's competent enough to sue us for five thousand dollars after we fire him, if that's what you mean."

"Then I take it that you don't want to discharge him for incompetence and risk a law suit," Mr. Feldman went on. "Now, before we go on, how much does his share of your profits amount to each week?"

"About thirty dollars in the busy season," Abe replied.

"Then here's your scheme," said Feldman. "You go to Grossman and say: 'Look a-here, Grossman, this business of figuring out profits each week is a troublesome piece of bookkeeping. Suppose we call your share of the profits forty dollars a week and let it go at that.' D'ye suppose Grossman would take it?"

"Would a cat eat liver?" said Abe.

"Well, then," Feldman now concluded, "after Grossman accepts the offer, and you pay him the first installment of forty dollars you're substituting a new weekly contract in place of the old yearly one, and you can fire Grossman just as soon as you have a mind to."

"But suppose he sues me, anyhow?" said Abe.

"If he does," Feldman replied. "I won't charge you a cent; otherwise it'll be two hundred and fifty dollars."

He touched the bell in token of dismissal.

"This fellow, Grossman, is certainly a big money-maker," he said to himself, after Abe had gone, "_for me_."

The following Saturday Abe sat in the show-room making up the weekly payroll, and with his own hand he drew a check to the order of Louis Grossman for forty dollars.

"Mawruss," he said, "do me the favor and go upstairs to Louis Grossman. You know what to say to him."

"Why should _I_ go, Abe?" Morris said. "You know the whole plan. You saw Feldman."

"But it don't look well for me," Abe rejoined. "Do me the favor and go yourself."

Morris shrugged his shoulders and departed, while Abe turned to the pages of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record to bridge over the anxious period of Morris' absence. The first item that struck his eye appeared under the heading, "Alterations and Improvements."

"The Bon Ton Credit Outfitting Company, Isaac Herzog, Proprietor," it read, "is about to open a manufacturing department, and will, on and after June 1, do all its own manufacturing and alterations in the enlarged store premises, Nos. 5940, 5942 and 5946 Second Avenue."

Abe laid down the paper with a sigh.

"There's where we lose another good customer," he said as Morris returned. A wide grin was spread over Morris' face.

"Well, Mawruss?" Abe asked.

"Yes, Abe," Morris replied. "Ten hundred and thirty-three, thirty-three you paid for him. And now you must pay him forty dollars a week. _I_ ain't so generous, Abe, believe me. I settled with him for twenty-seven-fifty."

"Well, Mawruss, it's only for one week," Abe protested.

"I know," said Morris, "but why should _he_ get the benefit of it?"

"Did you have much of a time getting him to take it?" Abe asked.

"It was like this," Morris explained. "I told him what you said about a lump sum in place of profits and asked him to name his price, and the first thing he says was twenty-seven-fifty."

"And you let him have it for that?" Abe cried. "You're a business man, Mawruss, I must say. I bet yer he would have took twenty-five."

He tore up the check for forty dollars and drew a new one for twenty-seven-fifty.

"Here, Mawruss," he said, "take it up to him like a good feller."

It was precisely noon when Morris delivered the check to Louis Grossman, and it was one o'clock when Louis went out to lunch.

Three o'clock struck before Abe first noted his absence.

"Ain't that feller come back from his dinner yet, Mawruss?" he asked.

"No," Morris replied. "I wonder what can be keeping him. He generally takes half an hour for his dinner."

At this juncture the telephone bell rang in the rear of the store and Abe answered it.

"Hello," he said; "yes, this is Potash & Perlmutter. Oh, hello, Leon, what can we do for you?"

"I want to speak to Louis Grossman. Can you call him to the 'phone?" Leon said.

"Louis ain't in," Abe said. "Do you want to leave a message for him?"

"Well," Leon hesitated, "the fact is--we had an appointment with him for two o'clock over here, and he ain't showed up yet."

"Appointment with Louis!" Abe said. "Why, what should you have an appointment with Louis for, Leon?"

"Well," Leon stammered, "I--now--got to see him--now--about them Arverne Sacques."

"Oh!" Abe said. "I understand. Well, he went to lunch about twelve o'clock, and he ain't come back yet. Is there anything what we can do for you, Leon?"

But Sammet had hung up the receiver without waiting for further conversation.

At four o'clock the telephone rang again, and once more Abe answered it.

"Hello," he said. "Yes, this is Potash & Perlmutter. Oh! hello, Leon! What can we do for you _now_?"

"Abe," Leon said, "Louis ain't showed up yet. Has he showed up at your place yet?"

"No, he ain't, Leon," Abe replied. "You seem mighty anxious to see him. Why, what for should I try to prevent him speaking to you? He ain't here, I tell you. All right, Leon; then I'm a liar."

He hung up the receiver with a bang, and an hour later when Morris and he locked up the place, Louis' absence remained a complete mystery to his employers.

On Monday morning Abe and Morris opened the store at seven-thirty, and while Morris examined the mail, Abe took up the Daily Cloak and Suit Record and scanned the business-trouble column. There were no failures of personal or firm interest to Abe, so he passed on to the new-business column. The first item caused him to gasp, and he almost swallowed the butt of his cigar. It read:

A partnership has this day been formed between Isaac Herzog and
Louis Grossman, to carry on the business of the Bon Ton Credit
Outfitting Company, under the same firm name. It is understood
that Mr. Grossman will have charge of the designing and
manufacturing end of the concern.

He handed the paper over to Morris and lit a fresh cigar.

"Another sucker for Louis Grossman," he said, "and I bet yer Henry D. Feldman drew up the copartnership papers."

CHAPTER III

When Mr. Siegmund Lowenstein, proprietor of the O'Gorman-Henderson Dry-Goods Company of Galveston, Texas, entered Potash & Perlmutter's show-room, he expected to give only a small order. Mr. Lowenstein usually transacted his business with Abe Potash, who was rather conservative in matters of credit extension, more especially since Mr. Lowenstein was reputed to play auction pinochle with poor judgment and for high stakes.

Therefore, Mr. Lowenstein intended to buy a few staples, specialties of Potash & Perlmutter, and to reserve the balance of his spring orders for other dealers who entertained more liberal credit notions than did Abe Potash. Much to his gratification, however, he was greeted by Morris Perlmutter.

"Ah, Mr. Perlmutter," he said; "glad to see you. Is Mr. Potash in?"

"He's home, sick, to-day," Morris replied.

Mr. Lowenstein clucked sympathetically.

"You don't say so," he murmured. "That's too bad. What seems to be the trouble?"

"He's been feeling mean all the winter," Morris replied. "The doctor says he needs a rest."

"That's always the way with them hard-working fellers," Mr. Lowenstein went on. "I'm feeling pretty sick myself, I assure you, Mr. Perlmutter. I've been working early and late in my store. We never put in such a season before, and we done a phenomenal holiday business. We took stock last week and we're quite cleaned out. I bet you we ain't got stuck a single garment in any line--cloaks, suits, clothing or furs."

"I'm glad to hear it," Morris said.

"And we expect this season will be a crackerjack, too," he continued. "I had to give a few emergency orders to jobbers down South before I left Galveston, we had such an early rush of spring trade."

"Is that so?" Morris commented. "I wish we could say the same in New York."

"You don't tell me!" Mr. Lowenstein rejoined. "Why, I was over by Garfunkel and Levy just now, and Mr. Levy says he is almost too busy. I looked over their line and I may place an order with them, although they ain't got too good an assortment, Mr. Perlmutter."

"Far be it from me to knock a competitor's line, Mr. Lowenstein," Morris commented, "but I honestly think they get their designers off of Ellis Island."

"Well," Mr. Lowenstein conceded, "of course I don't say they got so good an assortment what you have, Mr. Perlmutter, but they got a liberal credit policy."

"Why, what's the matter with _our_ credit policy?" Morris asked.

"Nothing," Mr. Lowenstein replied. "Only a merchant like me, what wants to enlarge his business, needs a little better terms than thirty days. Ain't it? I'm improving my departments all the time, and I got to buy more fixtures, lay in a better stock and even build a new wing to my store building. All this costs money, Mr. Perlmutter, as you know, and contractors must be paid strictly for cash. Under the circumstances, I need ready money, and, naturally, the house what gives me the most generous credit gets my biggest order."

"Excuse me for a moment," Morris broke in, "I think I hear the telephone."

He walked to the rear of the store, where the telephone bell had been trilling impatiently.

"Hello," he said, taking the receiver off the hook.

"Hello," said a voice from the other end of the line. "Is this Potash & Perlmutter?"

"It is," said Morris.

"Well, this is Garfunkel & Levy," the voice went on. "We understand Mr. Lowenstein, of Galveston, is in your store. Will you please and call him to the 'phone for a minute?"

"This ain't no public pay station," Morris cried. "And besides, Mr. Lowenstein just left here."

He banged the receiver onto the hook and returned at once to the front of the store.

"Now, Mr. Lowenstein," he said, "what can I do for you?"

And two hours later Mr. Lowenstein left the store with the duplicate of a twenty-four-hundred-dollar order in his pocket, deliveries to commence within five days; terms, ninety days net.

"Well, Abe," Morris said the next day as his partner, Abe Potash, entered the show-room, "how are you feeling to-day?"

"Mean, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I feel mean. The doctor says I need a rest. He says I got to go away to the country or I will maybe break down."

"Is _that_ so?" said Morris, deeply concerned. "Well, then, you'd better go right away, before you get real serious sick. Why not fix it so you can go away to-morrow yet?"

"To-morrow!" Abe exclaimed. "It don't go so quick as all that, Mawruss. You can't believe everything the doctors tell you. I ain't exactly dead yet, Mawruss. I'm like the feller what everybody says is going to fail, Mawruss. They give him till after Christmas to bust up, and then he does a fine holiday trade, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, he's buying real estate. No, Mawruss, I feel pretty mean, I admit, but I think a good two-thousand-dollar order would put me all right again, and so long as we wouldn't have no more trouble with designers, Mawruss, I guess I would _stay_ right too."

"Well, if that's the case," said Morris, beaming all over, "I guess I can fix you up. Siegmund Lowenstein, of Galveston, was in here yesterday, and I sold him a twenty-four-hundred-dollar order, including them forty-twenty-two's, and you know as well as I do, Abe, them forty-twenty-two's is stickers. We got 'em in stock now over two months, ever since Abe Magnus, of Nashville, turned 'em back on us."

Abe's reception of the news was somewhat disappointing to Morris. He showed no elation, but selected a slightly-damaged cigar from the K. to O. first and second credit customers' box, and lit it deliberately before replying.

"How much was that last order he give us, Mawruss?" he asked.

"Four hundred dollars," Morris replied.

"And what terms?" Abe continued.

"Five off, thirty days."

"And what terms did _you_ quote him yesterday?" asked Abe inexorably.

"Ninety days, net," Morris murmured.

Abe puffed vigorously at his cigar, and there was a long and significant silence.

"I should think, Abe," Morris said at length, "the doctor wouldn't let you smoke cigars if you was nearly breaking down."

"So long as you sell twenty-four hundred dollars at ninety days to a crook and a gambler like Siegmund Lowenstein, Mawruss," Abe replied, "one cigar more or less won't hurt me. If I can stand a piece of news like that, Mawruss, I guess I can stand anything. Why didn't you give him thirty days' dating, too, Mawruss?"

At once Morris plunged into a long account of the circumstances attending the giving of Mr. Lowenstein's order, including the telephone message from Garfunkel & Levy, and at its conclusion Abe grew somewhat mollified.

"Well, Mawruss," he said, "we took the order and I suppose we got to ship it. When you deal with a gambler like Lowenstein you got to take a gambler's chance. Anyhow, I ain't going to worry about it, Mawruss. Next week I'm going away for a fortnight."

"Where are you going, Abe?" Morris asked.

"To Dotyville, Pennsylvania," Abe replied. "We leave next Saturday. In the meantime I ain't going to worry, Mawruss."

"That's right, Abe," said Morris.

"Sure it's right," Abe rejoined. "I'm going to leave _you_ to do the worrying, and in the meantime I guess I'll look after getting out them forty-twenty-two's. Them forty-twenty-two's--them plum-color Empires was _your_ idee, Mawruss. You said they'd make a hit with the Southern trade, Mawruss, and I hope they do, Mawruss, for, if they don't, there ain't much chance of our getting paid for them."

A week later Abe Potash and his wife left for Dotyville, Pennsylvania, and two days afterward Morris received the following letter:

DOTY'S UNION HOUSE,
Dotyville, Pennsylvania.

_Dear Morris:_

How is things in the store? We got here the day before yesterday
and I have got enough already. It is a dead town. The food what
they give us reminds me when Pincus Vesell & me was partners
together as new beginners and I was making southern trips by
dollar and a half a day houses American plan. The man Doty what
keeps the hotel also runs the general store also. He says a
fellow by the name of Levy used to run it but he couldnt make it
go; he made a failure of it. I tried to sell him a few garments
but he claims to be overstocked at present and I believe him. I
seen some styles what he tries to get rid of it what me & Pincus
Vesell made up in small lots way before the Spanish war already.
It is a dead town. Me and Rosie leave tonight for Pittsburg and
we are going to stay with Rosies brother in law Hyman Margolius.
Write us how things is going in the store to the Outlet Auction
House Hyman Margolius prop 2132 4 & 6 North Potter Ave Pittsburg
Pa. You should see that Miss Cohen billed them 4022s on date we
packed them as Goldman the shipping clerk forgot to give them
to Arrow Dispatch when they called. That ain't our fault Morris.
Write and tell me how things is going in the store and dont
forget to tell Miss Cohen about the bill to S. Lowenstein
as above
Yours Truly
A. POTASH.

P. S. How is things in the store?

During the first three days of Abe Potash's vacation he had traveled by local train one hundred and twenty miles to Dotyville, and unpacked and packed two trunks under the shrill and captious supervision of Mrs. Potash. Then followed a tiresome journey to Pittsburgh with two changes of cars, and finally, on the morning of the fourth day, at seven-thirty sharp, he accompanied Hyman Margolius to the latter's place of business.

There he took off his coat and helped Hyman and his staff of assistants to pile up and mark for auction a large consignment of clothing. After this, he called off the lot numbers while Hyman checked them in a first draft of a printed catalogue, and at one o'clock, with hands and face all grimy from contact with the ill-dyed satinets of which the clothing was manufactured, he partook of a substantial luncheon at Bleistift's Restaurant and Lunch-Room.

"Well, Abe," Hyman said, "how do you like the auction business so far as you gone yet?"

"It's a good, live business, Hymie," Abe replied; "but, the way it works out, it ain't always on the square. A fellow what wants to do his creditors buys goods in New York, we'll say, for his business in--Galveston, we'll say, and then when he gets the goods he don't even bother to unpack 'em, Hymie, but ships 'em right away to you. And you examine 'em, and if they're all O. K., why, you send him a check for about half what it costs to manufacture 'em. Then he pockets the check, Hymie, and ten days later busts up on the poor sucker what sold him the goods in New York at ninety days. Ain't that right, Hymie?"

"Why, that's the funniest thing you ever seen!" Hyman exclaimed.

"What's the funniest thing I ever seen, Hymie?"

"You talking about Galveston, for instance."

Abe turned pale and choked on a piece of _rosbraten_.

"What d'ye mean?" he gasped.

"Why," said Hyman, "I just received a consignment of garments from a feller called Lowenstein in Galveston. He wrote me he was overstocked."

"Overstocked?" Abe cried. "Overstocked? What color was them garments?"

"Why, they was a kind of plum color," said Hyman.

Abe put his hand to his throat and eased his collar.

"And did you send him a check for 'em yet?" he croaked.

"Not yet," said Hyman.

Abe grabbed him by the collar.

"Come!" he said. "Come quick by a lawyer!"

"What for?" Hyman asked. "You're pulling that coat all out of shape yet."

"I'll buy you another one," Abe cried. "Them plum-color garments is mine, and I want to get 'em back."

Hyman paid the bill, and on their way down the street they passed a telegraph office.

"Wait," Abe cried, "I must send Mawruss a wire."

He entered and seized a telegraph form, which he addressed to Potash & Perlmutter.

"Don't ship no more goods to Lowenstein, Morris. Will explain by letter to-night," he wrote.

"Now, Hymie," he said after he had paid for the dispatch, "we go by your lawyer."

Five minutes later they were closeted with Max Marcus, senior member of the firm of Marcus, Weinschenck & Grab, and a lodge brother of Hymie Margolius. Max made a specialty of amputation cases. He was accustomed to cashing missing arms and legs at a thousand dollars apiece for the victims of rolling-mill and railway accidents, and when the sympathetic jury brought in their generous verdict Max paid the expert witnesses and pocketed the net proceeds. These rarely fell below five thousand dollars.

"Sit down, Hymie. Glad to see you, Mr. Potash," Max said, stroking a small gray mustache with a five-carat diamond ring. "What can I do for _you_?"

"I got some goods belonging to Mr. Potash what a fellow called Lowenstein in Galveston, Texas, shipped me," said Hymie, "and Mr. Potash wants to get 'em back."

"Replevin, hey?" Max said. "That's a little out of my line, but I guess I can fix you up." He rang for a stenographer. "Take this down," he said to her, and turned to Abe Potash. "Now, tell us the facts."

Abe recounted the tale Mr. Lowenstein had related to Morris Perlmutter, by which Lowenstein made it appear that he was completely out of stock. Next, Hyman Margolius produced Siegmund Lowenstein's letter which declared that Lowenstein was disposing of the Empire cloaks because he was overstocked.

"S'enough," Max declared. "Tell, Mr. Weinschenck to work it up into an affidavit," he continued to the stenographer, "and bring us in a jurat."

A moment later she returned with a sheet of legal cap, on the top of which was typewritten: "Sworn to before me this first day of April, 1904."

"Sign opposite the brace," said Max, pushing the paper at Abe, and Abe scrawled his name where indicated.

"Now, hold up your right hand," said Max, and Abe obeyed.

"Do you solemnly swear that the affidavit subscribed by you is true?" Max went on.

"What affidavit?" Abe asked.

"Why, the one Weinschenck is going to draw when he comes back from lunch, of course," Max replied.

"Sure it's true," said Abe.

"All right," Max concluded briskly.

"Now give me a check for fifty dollars for my fees, five dollars for a surety company bond, and five dollars sheriff's fees, and I'll get out a replevin order on the strength of that affidavit in half an hour, and have a deputy around to the store at three o'clock to transfer the goods from Hymie to you."

"Sixty dollars is pretty high for a little thing like that, ain't it, Max?" said Hymie.

"High?" Max cried indignantly. "High? Why, if you wasn't a lodge brother of mine, Hymie, I wouldn't have stirred a hand for less than a hundred."

Thus rebuked, Abe paid over the sixty dollars, and Hymie and he went back to the store. Precisely at three a deputy sheriff entered the front door and flashed a gold badge as big as a dinner-plate. His stay was brief, and in five minutes he had relieved Abe of all his spare cigars and departed, leaving only a certified copy of the replevin order and a strong smell of whisky to signalize the transfer of the Empire gowns from Hymie to Abe.

Hardly had he banged the door behind him when a messenger boy entered and handed a telegram to Abe.

"Ain't shipped no goods but the 4022's," it read. "Have wired Lowenstein to return the 4022s. MORRIS."

"Fine! Fine!" Abe exclaimed. He tipped the boy a dime and was about to acquaint Hyman with the good news, when another messenger boy entered and delivered a second telegram to Abe. It read as follows:

"Lowenstein wires he insists on delivery entire order complete, otherwise he will sue. What shall I wire him? MORRIS."

Abe seized his hat and dashed down the street to the telegraph office.

"Gimme a blank," he said to the operator, who handed him a whole padful. For the next twenty minutes Abe scribbled and tore up by turns until he finally evolved a satisfactory missive. This he handed to the operator, who read it with a broad grin and passed it back at once.

"Wot d'ye take me for?" he said. "A bum? Dere's ladies in de main office."

Abe glared at the operator and began again.

"Here," he said to the operator after another quarter of an hour of scribbling and tearing up, "send this."

It was in the following form:

_Don't send no more goods to Lowenstein
" " " " wires " nobody_

"Fourteen words," the operator said. "Fifty-four cents."

"What's that?" Abe cried. "What yer trying to do? Make money on me? That ain't no fourteen words. That's _nine_ words."

"It is, hey?" the operator rejoined. "Quit yer kiddin'. Dat's fourteen words. Ditto marks don't go, see?"

"You're a fresh young feller," said Abe, paying over fifty-four cents, "and I got a good mind to report you to the head office."

The operator laughed raucously.

"G'wan!" he said. "Beat it, or I'll sick de cops onter yer. It's agin the law to cuss in Pittsburgh, even by telegraft."

When Abe returned to the Outlet Auction House's store Hyman was busy stacking up the plum-color gowns in piles convenient for shipping.

"Well, Abe," he said, "I thought you was here for a vacation. You're doing some pretty tall hustling for a sick man, I must say."

"I'll tell you the truth, Hymie," Abe replied, "I ain't got no time to be sick. It ain't half-past three yet, and I guess I'll take a couple of them garments and see what I can do with the jobbing and retail trade in this here town."

"Don't you think you'd better take it easy for a while, Abe?" Hyman suggested.

"I am taking it easy," said Abe. "So long as I ain't working I'm resting, ain't it, Hymie? And you know as well as I do, Hymie, selling goods never was work to me. It's a pleasure, Hymie, I assure you."

He placed two of the plum-colored Empire gowns under his arm, and thrusting his hat firmly on the back of his head made straight for the dry-goods district. Two hours later he returned, wearing a broad smile that threatened to engulf his stubby black mustache between his nose and his chin.

"Hymie," he said, "I'm sorry I got to disturb that nice pile you made of them garments. I'll get right to work myself and assort the sizes."

"Why, what's the trouble now, Abe?" Hyman asked.

"I disposed of 'em, Hymie," Abe replied. "Two hundred to Hamburg and Weiss. Three hundred to the Capitol Credit Outfitting Company, and five hundred to Feinroth and Pearl."

"Hold on there, Abe!" Hymie exclaimed. "You only got six hundred, and you sold a thousand garments."

"I know, Hymie," said Abe, "but I'm going home to-morrow, and I got a month in which to ship the balance."

"Going home?" Hyman cried.

"Sure," said Abe. "I had a good long vacation, and now I got to get down to business."

One morning, two weeks later, Abe sat with his feet cocked up on his desk in the show-room of Potash & Perlmutter's spacious cloak and suit establishment. Between his teeth he held a fine Pittsburgh cheroot at an angle of about ninety-five degrees to his protruding under-lip, and he perused with relish the business-trouble column of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record.

"Now, what do you think of that?" he exclaimed.

"What do I think of what, Abe?" Morris inquired.

For answer Abe thrust the paper toward his partner with one hand, and indicated a scare headline with the other.

"Fraudulent Bankruptcy in Galveston," it read. "A petition in bankruptcy was filed yesterday against Siegmund Lowenstein, doing business as the O'Gorman-Henderson Dry-Goods Company, in Galveston, Texas. When the Federal receiver took charge of the bankrupt's premises they were apparently swept clean of stock and fixtures. It is understood that Lowenstein has fled to Matamoros, Mexico, where his wife preceded him some two weeks ago. The liabilities are estimated at fifty thousand dollars, and the only asset is the store building, which is valued at ten thousand dollars and is subject to mortgages aggregating about the same amount. The majority of the creditors are in New York City and Boston."

Morris returned the paper to his partner without comment.

"You see, Mawruss," said Abe, as he lit a fresh cheroot. "Sometimes it pays to be sick. Ain't it?"

CHAPTER IV

"Never no more, Mawruss," said Abe Potash to his partner as they sat in the show-room of their spacious cloak and suit establishment one week after Abe's return from Pittsburgh. "Never no more, Mawruss, because it ain't good policy. This is strictly a wholesale business, and if once we sell a friend _one_ garment that friend brings a friend, and that friend brings also a friend, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, we are doing a big retail business at a net loss of fifty cents a garment."

"But this ain't a friend, Abe," Morris protested. "It's my wife's servant-girl. She seen one of them samples, style forty-twenty-two, them plum-color Empires what I took it home to show M. Garfunkel on my way down yesterday, and now she's crazy to have one. If she don't get one my Minnie is afraid she'll leave."

"All right," Abe said, "let her leave. If my Rosie can cook herself and wash herself, Mawruss, I guess it won't hurt your Minnie. Let her try doing her own work for a while, Mawruss. I guess it'll do her good."

"But, anyhow, Abe, I told the girl to come down this morning and I'd give her one for two dollars, and I guess she'll be here most any time now."

"Well, Mawruss," said Abe, "this once is all right, but never no more. We ain't doing a cloak and suit business for the servant-girl trade."

Further discussion was prevented by the entrance of the retail customer herself. Morris jumped quickly to his feet and conducted her to the rear of the store, while Abe silently sought refuge in the cutting-room upstairs.

"What size do you think you wear, Lina?" Morris asked.

"Big," Lina replied. "Fat."

"Yes, I know," Morris said, "but what size?"

"Very fat," Lina replied. She was a Lithuanian and her generous figure had never known the refining influence of a corset until she had landed at Ellis Island two years before.

"That's the biggest I got, Lina," Morris said, producing the largest-size garment in stock. "Maybe if you try it on over your dress you'll get some idea of whether it's big enough."

Lina struggled feet first into the gown, which buttoned down the back, and for five minutes Morris labored with clenched teeth to fasten it for her.

"That's a fine fit," he said, as he concluded his task. He led her toward the mirror in the front of the show-room just as M. Garfunkel entered the store door.

"Hallo, Mawruss," he cried. "What's this? A new cloak model you got?"

[Illustration: WHAT'S THIS? A NEW CLOAK MODEL YOU GOT?]

Morris blushed, while Lina and M. Garfunkel both made a critical examination of the garment's eccentric fit.

"Why, that's one of them forty-twenty-two's what I ordered a lot of this morning, Mawruss. Ain't it?"

Morris gazed ruefully at the plum-color gown and nodded.

"Then don't ship that order till you hear from me," M. Garfunkel said. "I guess I got to hustle right along."

"Don't be in a hurry, Mr. Garfunkel," Morris cried. "You ain't come in the store just to tell me that, have you?"

"Yes, I have," said Garfunkel, his eye still glued to Lina's bulging figure. "That's all what I come for. I'll write you this afternoon."

He slammed the door behind him and Morris turned to the unbuttoning of the half-smothered Lina.

"That'll be two dollars for _you_, Lina," he said, "and I guess it'll be about four hundred for us."

At seven the next morning, when Abe came down the street from the subway, a bareheaded girl sat on the short flight of steps leading to Potash & Perlmutter's store door. As Abe approached, the girl rose and nodded, whereat Abe scowled.

"If a job you want it," he said, "you should go round to the back door and wait till the foreman comes."

"Me no want job," she said. "Me _coosin_."

"Cousin!" Abe cried. "Whose cousin?"

"Lina's coosin," said the girl. She held out her hand and, opening it, disclosed a two-dollar bill all damp and wrinkled. "Me want dress like Lina."

"What!" Abe cried. "So soon already!"

"Lina got nice red dress. She show it me last night," the girl said. "Me got one, too."

She smiled affably, and for the first time Abe noticed the smooth, fair hair, the oval face and the slender, girlish figure that seemed made for an Empire gown. Then, of course, there was the two-dollar bill and its promise of a cash sale, which always makes a strong appeal to a credit-harried mind like Abe's. "Oh, well," he said with a sigh, leading the way to the rack of Empire gowns in the rear of the store, "if I must I suppose I must."

He selected the smallest gown in stock and handed it to her.

"If you can get into that by your own self you can have it for two dollars," he said, pocketing the crumpled bill. "I don't button up nothing for nobody."

He gathered up the mail from the letter-box and carried it to the show-room. There was a generous pile of correspondence, and the very first letter that came to his hand bore the legend, "The Paris. Cloaks, Suits and Millinery. M. Garfunkel, Prop." Abe mumbled to himself as he tore it open.

"I bet yer he claims a shortage in delivery, when we ain't even shipped him the goods yet," he said, and commenced to read the letter; "I bet yer he----"

He froze into horrified silence as his protruding eyes took in the import of M. Garfunkel's note. Then he jumped from his chair and ran into the store, where the new retail customer was primping in front of the mirror.

"Out," he yelled, "out of my store."

She turned from the fascinating picture in the looking-glass to behold the enraged Abe brandishing the letter like a missile, and with one terrified shriek she made for the door and dashed wildly toward the corner.

Morris was smoking an after-breakfast cigar as he strolled leisurely from the subway, and when he turned into White Street Abe was still standing on the doorstep.

"What's the matter?" Morris asked.

"Matter!" Abe cried. "Matter! _Nothing's_ the matter. Everything's fine and dandy. Just look at that letter, Mawruss. That's all."

Morris took the proffered note and opened it at once.

"Gents," it read. "Your Mr. Perlmutter sold us them plum-color Empires this morning, and he said they was all the thing on Fifth Avenue. Now, gents, we sell to the First Avenue trade, like what was in your store this afternoon when our Mr. Garfunkel called, and our Mr. Garfunkel seen enough already. Please cancel the order. Your Mr. Perlmutter will understand. Truly yours, The Paris. M. Garfunkel, Prop."

M. Garfunkel lived in a stylish apartment on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street. His family consisted of himself, Mrs. Garfunkel, three children and a Lithuanian maid named Anna, and it was a source of wonder to the neighbors that a girl so slight in frame could perform the menial duties of so large a household. She cooked, washed and sewed for the entire family with such cheerfulness and application that Mrs. Garfunkel deemed her a treasure and left to her discretion almost every domestic detail. Thus Anna always rose at six and immediately awakened Mr. Garfunkel, for M. Garfunkel's breakfast was an immovable feast, scheduled for half-past six.

But on the morning after he had purchased the plum-color gowns from Potash & Perlmutter it was nearly eight before he awoke, and when he entered the dining-room, instead of the two fried eggs, the sausage and the coffee which usually greeted him, there were spread on the table only the evening papers, a brimming ash-tray and a torn envelope bearing the score of last night's pinochle game.

He was about to return to the bedroom and report Anna's disappearance when a key rattled in the hall door and Anna herself entered. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was blown about her face in unbecoming disorder. Nevertheless, she smiled the triumphant smile of the well-dressed.

"Me late," she said, but Garfunkel forgot all about his lost breakfast hour when he beheld the plum-color Empire.

"Why," he gasped, "that's one of them forty-twenty-two's I ordered yesterday."

Anna lifted both her arms the better to display the gown's perfection, and Garfunkel examined it with the eye of an expert.

"Let's see the back," he said. "That looks great on you, Anna."

He spun her round and round in his anxiety to view the gown from all angles.

"I must have been crazy to cancel that order," he went on. "Where did you get it, Anna?"

"Me buy from Potash & Perlmutter," she said. "My coosin Lina works by Mr. Perlmutter. She gets one yesterday for two dollar. Me see it last night and like it. So me get up five o'clock this morning and go downtown and buy one for two dollar, too."

M. Garfunkel made a rapid mental calculation, while Anna left to prepare the belated breakfast.

He estimated that Anna had paid a little less for her retail purchase than the price Potash & Perlmutter had quoted to him for hundred lots.

"They're worth it, too," he said to himself. "Potash & Perlmutter is a couple of pretty soft suckers, to be selling goods below cost to servant-girls. I always thought Abe Potash was a pretty hard nut, but I guess I'll be able to do business with 'em, after all."

At half-past ten M. Garfunkel entered the store of Potash & Perlmutter and greeted Abe with a smile that blended apology, friendliness and ingratiation in what M. Garfunkel deemed to be just the right proportions. Abe glared in response.

"Well, Abe," M. Garfunkel cried, "ain't it a fine weather?"

"Is it?" Abe replied. "I don't worry about the kind of weather it is when I gets cancelations, Mr. Garfunkel. What for you cancel that order, Mr. Garfunkel?"

M. Garfunkel raised a protesting palm.

"Now, Abe," he said, "if you was to go into a house what you bought goods off of and seen a garment you just hear is all the rage on Fifth Avenue being tried on by a cow----"

"A cow!" Abe said. "I want to tell you something, Mr. Garfunkel. That lady what you see trying on them Empires was Mawruss' girl what works by his wife, and while she ain't no Lillian Russell nor nothing like that, y'understand, if you think you should get out of taking them goods by calling her a cow you are mistaken."

The qualities of ingratiation and friendliness departed from M. Garfunkel's smile, leaving it wholly apologetic.

"Well, Abe, as a matter of fact," he said, "I ain't canceled that order altogether _absolutely_, y'understand. Maybe if you make inducements I might reconsider it."

"Inducements!" Abe cried. "Inducements is nix. Them gowns costs us three dollars apiece, and we give 'em to you for three-ten. If we make any inducements we land in the poorhouse. Ain't it?"

"Oh, the price is all right," M. Garfunkel protested, "but the terms is too strict. I can't buy _all_ my goods at ten days. Sammet Brothers gives me a line at sixty and ninety days, and so I do most of my business with them. Now if I could get the same terms by _you_, Abe, I should consider your line ahead of Sammet Brothers'."

"Excuse _me_," Abe interrupted. "I think I hear the telephone ringing."

He walked to the rear of the store, where the telephone bell was jingling.

"Miss Cohen," he said to the bookkeeper as he passed the office, "answer the 'phone. I'm going upstairs to speak to Mr. Perlmutter."

He proceeded to the cutting-room, where Morris was superintending the unpacking of piece-goods.

"Mawruss," he said, "M. Garfunkel is downstairs, and he says he will reconsider the cancelation and give it us a big order if we let him have better terms. What d'ye say, Mawruss?"

Morris remained silent for a minute.

"Take a chance, Abe," he said at length. "He can't bust up on us by the first bill. Can he?"

"No," Abe agreed hesitatingly, "but he _might_, Mawruss?"

"Sure he might," said Morris, "but if we don't take no chances, Abe, we might as well go out of the cloak and suit business. Sell him all he wants, Abe."

"I'll sell him all he can pay for, Mawruss," said Abe, "and I guess that ain't over a thousand dollars."

He returned to the first floor, where M. Garfunkel eagerly awaited him, and produced a box of the firm's K. to M. first and second credit customers' cigars.

"Have a smoke, Mr. Garfunkel," he said.

M. Garfunkel selected a cigar with care and sat down.

"Well, Abe," he said, "that was a long talk you had over the telephone."

"Sure it was," Abe replied. "The cashier of the Kosciusko Bank on Grand Street rang me up. He discounts some of our accounts what we sell responsible people, and he asks me that in future I get regular statements from all my customers--those that I want to discount their accounts in particular."

M. Garfunkel nodded slowly.

"Statements--you shall have it, Abe," he said, "but I may as well tell you that it's foolish to discount bills what you sell _me_. I sometimes discount them myself. I'll send you a statement, anyhow. Now let's look at your line, Abe. I wasted enough time already."

For the next hour M. Garfunkel pawed over Potash & Perlmutter's stock, and when he finally took leave of Abe he had negotiated an order of a thousand dollars; terms, sixty days net.

The statement of M. Garfunkel's financial condition, which arrived the following day, more than satisfied Morris Perlmutter and, had it not been quite so glowing in character, it might even have satisfied Abe Potash.

"I don't know, Mawruss," he said; "some things looks too good to be true, Mawruss, and I guess this is one of them."

"Always you must worry, Abe," Morris rejoined. "If Vanderbilt and Astor was partners together in the cloak and suit business, and you sold 'em a couple of hundred dollars' goods, Abe, you'd worry yourself sick till you got a check. I bet yer Garfunkel discounts his bill already."

Morris' prophecy proved to be true, for at the end of four weeks M. Garfunkel called at Potash & Perlmutter's store and paid his sixty-day account with the usual discount of ten per cent. Moreover, he gave them another order for two thousand dollars' worth of goods at the same terms.

In this instance, however, full fifty-nine days elapsed without word from M. Garfunkel, and on the morning of the sixtieth day Abe entered the store bearing every appearance of anxiety.

"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "what's the matter now? You look like you was worried."

"I bet yer I'm worried, Mawruss," Abe replied.

"Well, what's the use of worrying?" he rejoined. "M. Garfunkel's account ain't due till to-day."

"Always M. Garfunkel!" Abe cried. "M. Garfunkel don't worry me much, Mawruss. I'd like to see a check from him, too, Mawruss, but I ain't wasting no time on him. My Rosie is sick."

"Sick!" Morris exclaimed. "That's too bad, Abe. What seems to be the trouble?"

"She got the rheumatism in her shoulder," Abe replied, "and she tries to get a girl by intelligent offices to help her out, but it ain't no use. It breaks her all up to get a girl, Mawruss. Fifteen years already she cooks herself and washes herself, and now she's got to get a girl, Mawruss, but she can't get one."

Morris clucked sympathetically.

"Maybe that girl of yours, Mawruss," Abe went on as though making an innocent suggestion, "what we sell the forty-twenty-two to, maybe she got a sister or a cousin maybe, what wants a job, Mawruss."

"I'll telephone my Minnie right away," Morris said, and as he turned to do so M. Garfunkel entered. Abe and Morris rushed forward to greet him. Each seized a hand and, patting him on the back, escorted him to the show-room.

"First thing," M. Garfunkel said, "here is a check for the current bill."

"No hurry," Abe and Morris exclaimed, with what the musical critics call splendid attack.

"Now that that's out of the way," M. Garfunkel went on, "I want to give you another order. Only thing is, Mawruss, you know as well as I do that in the installment cloak and suit business a feller needs a lot of capital. Ain't it?"

Morris nodded.

"And if he buys goods only for cash or thirty or sixty days, Abe," M. Garfunkel continued, "he sometimes gets pretty cramped for money, because his own customers takes a long time to pay up. Ain't it?"

Abe nodded, too.

"Well, then," M. Garfunkel concluded, "I'll give you boys a fine order, but this time it's got to be ninety days."

Abe puffed hard on his cigar, and Morris loosened his collar, which had become suddenly tight.

"I always paid prompt my bills. Ain't it?" M. Garfunkel asked.

"Sure, Mr. Garfunkel," Abe replied. "_That_ you did do it. But ninety days is three months, and ourselves we got to pay our bills in thirty days."

"However," Morris broke in, "that is neither there nor here. A good customer is a good customer, Abe, and so _I'm_ agreeable."

This put the proposition squarely up to Abe, and he found it a difficult matter to refuse credit to a customer whose check for two thousand dollars was even then reposing in Abe's waistcoat pocket.

"All right," Abe said. "Go ahead and pick out your goods."

For two solid hours M. Garfunkel went over Potash & Perlmutter's line and, selecting hundred lots of their choicest styles, bought a three-thousand-dollar order.

"We ain't got but half of them styles in stock," said Morris, "but we can make 'em up right away."

"Then, them goods what you got in stock, Mawruss," said Garfunkel, "I must have prompt by to-morrow, and the others in ten days."

"That's all right," Morris replied, and when M. Garfunkel left the store Abe and Morris immediately set about the assorting of the ordered stock.

"Look a-here, Mawruss," Abe said, "I thought you was going to see about that girl for my Rosie."

"Why, so I was, Abe," Morris replied; "I'll attend to it right away."

He went to the telephone and rang up his wife, and five minutes later returned to the front of the store.

"Ain't that the funniest thing, Abe," he said. "My Minnie speaks to the girl, and the girl says she got a cousin what's just going to quit her job, Abe. She'll be the very girl for your Rosie."

"I don't know, Mawruss," Abe replied. "My Rosie is a particular woman. She don't want no girl what's got fired for being dirty or something like that, Mawruss. We first want to get a report on her and find out what she gets fired for."

"You're right, Abe," Morris said. "I'll find out from Lina to-night."

Once more they fell to their task of assorting and packing the major part of Garfunkel's order, and by six o'clock over fifteen hundred dollars' worth of goods was ready for delivery.

"We'll ship them to-morrow," Abe said, as they commenced to lock up for the night, "and don't forget about that girl, Mawruss."

On his way downtown the next morning Abe met Leon Sammet, senior member of the firm of Sammet Brothers. Between Abe and Leon existed the nominal truce of competition, which in the cloak and suit trade implies that while they cheerfully exchanged credit information from their office files they maintained a constant guerilla warfare for the capture of each other's customers.

Now, M. Garfunkel had been a particularly strong customer of Sammet Brothers, and since Abe assumed that M. Garfunkel had dropped Sammet Brothers in favor of Potash & Perlmutter his manner toward Leon was bland and apologetic.

"Well, Leon," he said, "how's business?"

Leon's face wrinkled into a smile.

"It could be better, of course, Abe," he said, "but we done a tremendous spring trade, anyhow, even though we ain't got no more that sucker Louis Grossman working for us. We shipped a couple of three-thousand-dollar orders last week. One of 'em to Strauss, Kahn & Baum, of Fresno."

These were old customers of Potash & Perlmutter, and Abe winced.

"They was old customers of ours, Leon," he said, "but they done such a cheap class of trade we couldn't cut our line enough to please 'em."

"Is that so?" Leon rejoined. "Maybe M. Garfunkel was an old customer of yours, too, Abe."

"M. Garfunkel?" Abe cried. "Was M. Garfunkel the other?"

"He certainly was," Leon boasted. "We shipped him three thousand dollars. One of our best customers, Abe. Always pays to the day."

For the remainder of the subway journey Abe was quite unresponsive to Leon's jibes, a condition which Leon attributed to chagrin, and as they parted at Canal Street Leon could not forbear a final gloat.

"I suppose, Abe, M. Garfunkel does too cheap a class of trade to suit you, also. Ain't it?" he said.

Abe made no reply, and as he walked south toward White Street Max Lapidus, of Lapidus & Elenbogen, another and a smaller competitor, bumped into him.

"Hallo, Abe," Max said. "What's that Leon Sammet was saying just now about M. Garfunkel?"

"Oh, M. Garfunkel is a good customer of his," Abe replied cautiously; "so he claims."

"Don't you believe it," said Max. "M. Garfunkel told me himself he used to do some business with Sammet Brothers, but he don't do it no more. We done a big business with M. Garfunkel ourselves."

"So?" Abe commented.

"We sold him a couple of thousand dollars at ninety days last week," Lapidus went on. "He's elegant pay, Abe. We sold him a good-size order every couple of months this season, and he pays prompt to the day. Once he discounted his bill."

"Is that so?" Abe said, as they reached the front of Potash & Perlmutter's store. "Glad to hear M. Garfunkel is so busy. Good-morning, Max."

Morris Perlmutter met him at the door.

"Hallo, Abe," he cried. "What's the matter? You look pale. Is Rosie worse?"

Abe shook his head.

"Mawruss," he said, "did you ship them goods to M. Garfunkel yet?"

"They'll be out in ten minutes," Morris replied.

"Hold 'em for a while till I telephone over to Klinger & Klein," Abe said.

"What you looking for, Abe?" Morris asked. "More information? You know as well as I do, Abe, that Klinger & Klein is so conservative they wouldn't sell Andrew Carnegie unless they got a certified check in advance."

"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "Maybe they wouldn't sell Andrew Carnegie, but if I ain't mistaken they _did_ sell M. Garfunkel. Everybody sold him, even Lapidus & Elenbogen. So I guess I'll telephone 'em."

"Well, wait a bit, Abe," Morris cried. "My Minnie's girl Lina is here with her cousin. I brought 'em down this morning so you could talk to her yourself."

"All right," Abe replied. "Tell 'em to come into the show-room."

A moment later Lina and her cousin Anna entered the show-room. Both were arrayed in Potash & Perlmutter's style forty-twenty-two, but while Lina wore a green hat approximating the hue of early spring foliage, Anna's head-covering was yellow with just a few crimson-lake roses--about eight large ones--on the side.

"Close the window, Mawruss," said Abe. "There's so much noise coming from outside I can't hear myself think."

"The window is closed, Abe," Morris replied. "It's your imagination."

"Well, then, which one is which, Mawruss?" Abe asked.

"The roses is Anna," Morris said. "Anna, you want to work by Mr. Potash's lady?"

"Sure she does," Abe broke in. "Only I want to ask you a few questions before I hire you. Who did you work by before, Anna?"

Anna hung her head and simpered.

"Mister M. Garfunkel," she murmured.

"Is that so?" Morris exclaimed. "Why, he's a good customer of ours."

"Don't butt in, Mawruss," Abe said. "And what did you leave him for, Anna?"

"Me don't leave _them_," Anna replied. "Mrs. Garfunkel is fine lady. Mister Garfunkel, too. They leave _me_. They goin' away next month, out to the country."

"Moving out to the country, hey?" said Abe. He was outwardly calm, but his eyes glittered. "What country?"

Anna turned to her cousin Lina and spoke a few words of Lithuanian.

"She say she don't remember," Lina explained, "but she say is something sounds like '_canned_ goods'."

"_Canned_ goods?" Morris murmured.

Abe bit the ends of his mustache for a moment, and then he leaped to his feet.

"_Canada!_" he yelled, and Lina nodded vigorously.

He darted out of the show-room and ran to the telephone. In ten minutes he returned, his face bathed in perspiration.

"Anna," he croaked, "you come to work by me. Yes? How much you get by that--that M. Garfunkel?"

"Twenty dollars a month," Anna replied.

"All right, we'll pay you twenty-two," he said. "You're cheap at the price. So I expect you this evening."

He turned to his partner after the girls had gone.

"Mawruss," he said, "put them goods for M. Garfunkel back in stock. I rung up Klinger & Klein and they sold him four thousand. I also rung up the Perfection Cloak and Suit Company--also four thousand; Margolius & Fried--two thousand; Levy, Martin & Co.--three thousand, and so on. The way I figure it, he must of bought a hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods, all in the last few days, and all at ninety days net. He couldn't get a quarter of the goods in that First Avenue building of his, Mawruss, so where is the rest? Auction houses, Mawruss, north, south, east and west, and I bet yer he got the advance checks for each consignment deposited in Montreal right now. I bet yer he didn't even unpack the cases before he reshipped. Tell Miss Cohen to come in and bring her book."

When Miss Cohen took her seat Abe rose and cleared his throat for an epistle worthy of the occasion.

"The Paris. M. Garfunkel, Proprietor," he said. "Gents: Owing to circumstances which has arose----No. Wait a bit."

He cleared his throat more vigorously.

"The Paris. M. Garfunkel, Proprietor," he said. "Gents: Owing to the fact that the _U_-nited States bankruptcy laws don't go nowheres except in the _U_-nited States, we are obliged to cancel the order what you give us. Thanking you for past favors and hoping to do a strictly-cash business with you in the future, we are truly yours, Potash & Perlmutter."

Miss Cohen shut her book and arose.

"Wait a bit, Miss Cohen. I ain't through yet," Abe said. He tilted backward and forward on his toes for a moment.

"P. S.," he concluded. "We hope you'll like it in Canada."

CHAPTER V

"Things goes pretty smooth for us lately, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked, shortly after M. Garfunkel's failure. "I guess we are due for a _schlag_ somewheres, ain't it?"

"Always you got to kick," Morris cried. "If you would only listen to what _I_ got to say oncet in a while, Abe, things would always go smooth."

Abe emitted a raucous laugh.

"Sure, I know," he said, "like this here tenement house proposition you was talking to me about, Mawruss. You ain't content we should have our troubles in the cloak and suit business, Mawruss, you got to go outside yet and find 'em. You got to go into the real estate business too."

"Real-estaters ain't got no such trouble like _we_ got it, Abe," Morris retorted. "There ain't no seasons in real estate, Abe. A tenement house this year is like a tenement house last year, Abe, also the year before. They ain't wearing stripes in tenement houses one year, Abe, and solid colors the next. All you do when you got a tenement house, Abe, is to go round and collect the rents, and when you got a customer for it you don't have to draw no report on him. Spot cash, he pays it, Abe, or else you get a mortgage as security."

"You talk like Scheuer Blumenkrohn, Mawruss, when he comes round here last year and wants to swap it two lots in Ozone Grove, Long Island, for a couple of hundred misses' reefers," Abe replied. "When I speculate, Mawruss, I take a hand at auction pinochle."

"This ain't no speculation, Abe," said Morris. "This is an investment. I seen the house, Abe, six stories and basement stores, and you couldn't get another tenant into it with a shoehorn. It brings in a fine income, Abe."

"Well, if that's the case, Mawruss," Abe rejoined, "why does Harris Rabin want to sell it? Houses ain't like cloaks and suits, Mawruss, you admit it yourself. We sell goods because we don't get no income by keepin' 'em. If we have our store full with cloaks, Mawruss, and they brought in a good income while they was in here, Mawruss, I wouldn't want to sell 'em, Mawruss; I'd want to keep 'em."

"Sure," Morris replied. "But if the income was only four hundred and fifty dollars a month, and next month you got a daughter what was getting married to Alec Goldwasser, drummer for Klinger & Klein, and you got to give Alec a couple of thousand dollars with her, but you don't have no ready cash, _then_, Abe, you'd sell them cloaks, and so that's why Harris Rabin wants to sell the house."

"I want to tell you something, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Harris Rabin could sell a phonograft to a deef-and-dummy. He could sell moving pictures to a home for the blind, Mawruss. He could also sell anything he wanted to anybody, Mawruss, for you know as well as I do, Mawruss, Harris Rabin is a first-class, A-number-one salesman. And so, if he wants to sell his house so cheap there's lots of real-estaters what know a bargain in houses when they see it. We don't, Mawruss. We ain't real-estaters. We're in the cloak and suit business, and why should Harris Rabin be looking for us to buy his house?"

"He ain't looking for us, Abe," Morris went on. "That's just the point. I was by Harris Rabin's house last night, and I seen no less than three real-estaters there. They all want that house, Abe, and if they want it, why shouldn't we? Ike Magnus makes Harris an offer of forty-eight thousand five hundred while I was sitting there already, but Harris wants forty-nine for it. I bet yer, Abe, we could get it for forty-eight seven-fifty--three thousand cash above the mortgages."

"I suppose, Mawruss, you got three thousand lying loose around your pants' pocket. What?"

"Three thousand to a firm like us is nothing, Abe. I bet yer I could go in and see Feder of the Kosciusko Bank and get it for the asking. We ain't so poor, Abe, but what we can buy a bargain when we see it."

Abe shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, Mawruss, if I got to hear about Harris Rabin's house for the rest of my life, all right. I'm agreeable, Mawruss; only, don't ask me to go to no lawyers' offices nor nothing, Mawruss. There's enough to do in the store, Mawruss, without both of us loafing around lawyers' offices."

A more grudging acquiescence than this would have satisfied Morris, and, without pausing for a cigar, he put on his hat and made straight for Harris Rabin's place of business. The Equinox Clothing Company of which Harris Rabin was president, board of directors and sole stockholder, occupied the third loft of a building on Walker Street. There was no elevator, and as Morris walked upstairs he encountered Ike Magnus at the first landing.

"Hallo, Mawruss!" Ike cried. "Are you buying clothing now? I thought you was in the cloak and suit business."

"Whatever business I'm in, Ike," Morris replied, "I'm in my own business, Ike; and what is somebody else's business ain't my business, Ike. That's the way I feel about it."

He plodded slowly up the next flight, and there stood Samuel Michaelson, another real-estate operator.

"Ah, Mr. Perlmutter!" Samuel exclaimed. "You get around to see the clothing trade once in a while, too. Ain't it?"

"I get around to see all sorts of trade, Mr. Michaelson," Morris rejoined. "I got to get around and hustle to make a living, Mr. Michaelson, because, Mr. Michaelson, I can't make no living by loafing around street corners and buildings, Mr. Michaelson."

"Don't mention it," said Mr. Michaelson as Morris started up the last flight. When he entered the Equinox Clothing Company's office the clang of the bell drowned out the last words of Marks Henochstein's sentence. Mr. Henochstein, another member of the real-estate fraternity, was in intimate conference with Harris Rabin.

"I think we got him going," he was saying. "My wife seen Mrs. Perlmutter at a _Kaffeeklatsch_ yesterday, and she told her I made you an offer of forty-eight four-fifty for the house. Last night when he came around to your place I told him the house ain't no bargain for any one what ain't a real-estater, y'understand, and he gets quite mad about it. Also, I watched him when Ike Magnus tells you he would give forty-eight five for it, and he turned pale. If he----"

At this juncture the doorbell rang and Morris entered.

"No, sir_ee_, sir," Harris Rabin bawled. "Forty-nine thousand is my figure, and that ain't forty-eight nine ninety-nine neither."

Here he recognized Morris Perlmutter with an elaborate start and extended his hand in greeting.

"Hallo, Mawruss," he said. "Them real-estaters pester the life out of a feller. 'Tain't no use your hanging around here, Henochstein," he called in sterner tones. "When I make up my mind I make up my mind, and that's all there is to it."

Henochstein turned in crestfallen silence and passed slowly out of the room.

"Them sharks ain't satisfied that you're giving away a house, Mawruss," Harris went on. "They want it you should let 'em have coupons and trading stamps with it."

"How much did he offer you?" Morris asked.

"Forty-eight five-fifty," Harris Rabin replied. "That feller's got a nerve like a horse."

"Oh, I don't know," Morris murmured. "Forty-eight five-fifty is a good price for the house, Harris."

"Is it?" Harris cried. "Well, maybe you think so, but you ain't such a _gri_terion."

Morris was visibly offended at so harsh a rejoinder.

"I know I ain't, Harris," he said. "If I was I wouldn't be here, Harris. I come here like a friend, not like one of them--them--fellers what you talk about. If it wasn't that my Minnie is such a friend to your daughter Miriam I shouldn't bother myself; but, knowing Alec Goldwasser as I do, and being a friend of yours always up to now, Harris, I come to you and say I will give you forty-eight six hundred for the house, and that is my last word."

Harris Rabin laughed aloud.

"Jokes you are making it, Mawruss," he said. "A joke is a joke, but when a feller got all the trouble what I got it, as you know, Mawruss, he got a hard time seeing a joke, Mawruss."

"That ain't no joke, Harris," Morris replied. "That's an offer, and I can sit right down now and make a memorandum if you want it, and pay you fifty dollars as a binder."

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Mawruss," Harris said. "You raised Henochstein fifty dollars, so I'll come down fifty dollars, and that'll be forty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty."

He grew suddenly excited and grabbed Morris by the arm.

"Don't let's waste no time about it," he cried. "What's the use of memorandums? We go right away by Henry D. Feldman and fix up the contract."

"Hold on." Morris said with a stare that blended frigidity and surprise in just the right proportions. "I ain't said nothing about forty-eight nine-fifty. What I said was forty-eight six."

"You don't mean that, Mawruss," Harris replied. "You mean forty-eight _nine_."

Morris saw that the psychological moment had arrived.

"Look-y here, now, Harris," he said. "Forty-eight six from forty-eight nine is three hundred. Ain't it?"

Harris nodded.

"Then," Morris announced, "we'll split the difference and make it forty-eight seven-fifty."

For one thoughtful moment Harris remained silent, and then he clapped his hand into that of Morris.

"Done!" he cried.

Twenty days elapsed, during which Potash & Perlmutter took title to Harris Rabin's house and paid the balance of the purchase price, moieties of which found their way into the pockets of Magnus, Michaelson and Henochstein. At length, the first of the month arrived and Abe and Morris left the store early so that they might collect the rents of their real property.

"_I_ seen the house, Abe, and _you_ seen the house," Morris said as they turned the corner of the crowded East Side street on which their property fronted, "but you can't tell nothing from looking at a property, Abe. When you get the rents, Abe, _that's_ when you find it out that you got a fine property, Abe."

He led the way up the front stoop of the tenement and knocked at the first door on the left-hand side. There was no response.

"They must be out. Ain't it?" Abe suggested.

Morris faced about and knocked on the opposite door, with a similar lack of response.

"I guess they go out to work and lock up their rooms," Morris explained. "We should have came here after seven o'clock."

They walked to the end of the hall and knocked on the door of one of the two rear apartments.

"Come!" said a female voice.

Morris opened the door and they entered.

"We've come for the rent," he said. "Him and me is the new landlords."

The tenant excused herself while she retired to one of the inner rooms and explored her person for the money. Then she handed Morris ten greasy one-dollar bills.

"What's this?" Morris cried. "I thought the rear rooms were fourteen dollars a month. I saw the receipts made out last month."

The tenant grinned fiendishly.

"Sure you did," she replied. "We've been getting all kinds of receipts. Oncet we got a receipt for eighteen dollars, when dere was some vacancies in de house, but one of de syndicate says he'd get some more of dem 'professional' tenants, because it didn't look so good to a feller what comes snooping around for to _buy_ the house, to see such high rents."

"Syndicate?" Abe murmured. "Professional tenants?"

"Sure," the tenant replied. "Dere was four to de syndicate. Magnus was one. Sumpin about a hen was de other, and den dere was dis here Rabin and a guy called Michaelson."

"And what is this about professional tenants?" Morris croaked.

"Oh, dere was twenty-four families in de house, includin' de housekeeper," the tenant replied. "Eighteen of 'em was professionals, and when de syndicate sold youse de house de professionals moved up to a house on Fourt' Street what de syndicate owns."

Abe pulled his hat over his eyes and thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets.

"S'enough, lady," he said; "I heard enough already."

He turned to Morris.

"Yes, Mawruss," he said bitterly. "You're right. There ain't no seasons in real estate nor in suckers neither, Mawruss. You can catch 'em every day in the year, Mawruss. I'm going home, but if you need an express wagon to carry away them rents, Mawruss, there's a livery stable around the corner."

It was at least a week before Abe could bring himself to address his partner, save in the gruffest monosyllables; but an unusual rush of spring customers brought about a reconciliation, and Abe and Morris forgot their real-estate venture in the reception of out-of-town trade. In the conduct of their business Morris devoted himself to manufacturing and shipping the goods, while Abe attended to the selling end. Twice a year Abe made a long trip to the West or South, with shorter trips down East between times, and he never tired of reminding his partner how overworked he, Abe, was.

"I got my hands full, Mawruss," he said, after he had greeted half a dozen Western customers; "I got enough to do here, Mawruss, without running around the country. We ought to do what other houses does, Mawruss. We ought to get a good salesman. We got three thousand dollars to throw away on real estate, Mawruss; why don't we make an investment like Sammet Brothers made it? Why don't we invest in a crackerjack, A-number-one salesman?"

"I ain't stopping you, Abe," Morris replied. "Why don't we? Klinger & Klein has a good boy, Alec Goldwasser. He done a big trade for 'em, Abe, and they don't pay him much, neither."

"Alec Goldwasser!" Abe cried. "I'm surprised to hear you, Mawruss, you should talk that way. We paid Alec Goldwasser enough already, Mawruss. We paid him that two thousand dollars what he got with Miriam Rabin."

Morris looked guilty.

"Ain't I told you yet, Abe?" he said. "I thought I told you."

"You ain't told me nothing," said Abe.

"Why, Alec Goldwasser and Miriam Rabin ain't engaged no longer. The way my Minnie tells me, Rabin says he don't want his daughter should marry a man without a business of his own, so the match is off."

"Well, Mawruss," Abe commented, "you can't make me feel bad by telling me _that_. But anyhow, I don't see no medals on Alec Goldwasser as a salesman, neither. He ain't such a salesman what we want it, Mawruss."

"All right," Morris replied. "It's you what goes on the road, not me, and you meet all the drummers. Suggest somebody yourself."

Abe pondered for a moment.

"There's Louis Mintz," he said finally. "He works by Sammet Brothers. He's a high-priced man, Mawruss, but he's worth it."

"Sure he's worth it," Morris rejoined, "and he knows it, too. I bet yer he's making five thousand a year by Sammet Brothers."

"I know it," said Abe, "but his contract expires in a month from now, and it ain't no cinch to work for Sammet Brothers, neither, Mawruss. I bet yer Louis' got throat trouble, talking into a customer them garments what Leon Sammet makes up, and Louis' pretty well liked in the trade, too, Mawruss."

"Well, why don't you see him, Abe?"

"I'll tell you the truth, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I _did_ see him. I offered him all what Sammet Brothers gives him, and I told him we make a better line for the price, but it ain't no use. Louis says a salesman's got to work hard anyhow, so he may as well work a little harder, and he says, too, it spoils a man's trade when he makes changes."

Here a customer entered the store and Abe was busy for more than half an hour. At the end of that time the customer departed and Morris returned to the show-room.

"Abe," he said, "I got an idea."

Abe looked up.

"More real estate?" he asked.

"Not more real estate, Abe," Morris corrected, "but the _same_ real estate. When we're stuck we're stuck, Abe, ain't it?"

Abe nodded.

"So I got an idea," Morris went on, "that we go to Louis and tell him we give him the same money what Sammet Brothers give him, only we give him a bonus."

"A bonus!" Abe cried. "How much of a bonus?"

"A _big_ bonus, Abe," Morris replied. "We'll give him the house."

Abe remained silent.

"It'll look big, anyhow," Morris continued.

"Look big!" Abe exclaimed. "It is big. It's three thousand dollars."

"Well, you can't reckon stickers by what they cost," Morris explained. "It's what they'll sell for."

"You're right, Mawruss," Abe commented bitterly. "And that house wouldn't sell for Confederate money. I'll see Louis Mintz to-night."

Abe saw Louis that very evening, and they met by appointment at the store ten days later. In the meantime Louis had inspected the house, and when he entered Potash & Perlmutter's show-room his face wore none too cheerful an expression.

"Well, Louis," Abe cried, "you come to tell us it's all right. Ain't it?"

Louis shook his head.

"Abe," he said, "the old saying is you should never look at a horse's teeth what somebody gives you, but that house is pretty near vacant."

"What of it?" Abe asked. "It's a fine house, ain't it?"

"Sure, it's a fine house," Louis agreed. "But what good is a fine house if you can't rent it? You can't eat it, can you?"

"No," Morris replied, "but you can sell it."

"Well," Louis admitted, "selling houses ain't in my line? Maybe if I knew enough about it I could sell it."

"But there's real-estaters what knows all about selling a house," Morris began.

"You bet there is," Abe interrupted savagely.

"And you could get a real-estater to sell it for you," Morris concluded with malevolent glance at his partner.

Louis consulted a list of the tenants which he had made.

"I'll think it over," he said, "and let you know to-morrow."

The next day he greeted Abe and Morris more cordially.

"I thought it over, Abe," he said, "and I guess it'll be all right."

"Fine!" Abe cried. "Let's go down and see Henry D. Feldman right away."

Just as a congenital dislocation of the hipbone suggests the name of Doctor Lorenz, so the slightest dislocation of the cloak and suit business immediately calls for Henry D. Feldman. No cloak and suit bankruptcy would be complete without his name as attorney, either for the petitioning creditors or the bankrupt, and no action for breach of contract of employment on the part of a designer or a salesman could successfully go to the jury unless Henry D. Feldman wept crocodile tears over the summing up of the plaintiff's case.

In the art of drawing agreements relative to the cloak and suit trade in all its phases of buying, selling, employing or renting, he was a virtuoso, and his income was that of six Supreme Court judges rolled into one. For the rest, he was of impressive, clean-shaven appearance, and he was of the opinion that a liberal sprinkling of Latin phrases rendered his conversation more pleasing to his clients.

Louis and Abe were ushered into his office only after half an hour's waiting at the end of a line of six clients, and they wasted no time in stating their business.

"Mr. Feldman," Abe murmured, "this is Mr. Louis Mintz what comes to work by us as a salesman."

"Mr. Mintz," Mr. Feldman said, "you are to be congratulated. Potash & Perlmutter have a reputation in the trade _nulli secundum_, and it is generally admitted that the goods they produce are _summa cum laude_."

"We make fall and winter goods, too," Abe explained. "All kinds of garments, Mr. Feldman. I don't want to give Louis no wrong impression. He's got to handle lightweights as well as heavyweights, too."

Mr. Feldman stared blankly at Abe and then continued: "No doubt you have quite settled on the terms."

"We've talked it all over," said Louis, "and this is what it is."

He then specified the salary and commission to be paid, and engaged Mr. Feldman to draw the deed for the tenement house.

"And how long is this contract to last?" Feldman asked.

"For five years," Abe replied.

"Five years nothing," said Louis. "I wouldn't work for no one on a five years' contract. One year is what I want it."

"One year!" Abe cried. "Why, Louis, that ain't no way to talk. In one year you'd just about get well enough acquainted with our trade--of course, I'm only _talking_, y'understand--to cop it out for some other house what would pay you a couple of hundred more. No, Louis, I think it ought to be for five years."

"Of course, if you think I'm the kind what takes a job to cop out the firm's trade, Abe," Louis commenced, "why----"

"I'm only saying for the sake of argument," Abe hastened to explain. "I'll tell you what I'll do, Louis: I'll make it two years, and at the end of that time if you want to quit you can do it; only, you should agree not to work as salesman for no other house for the space of one year afterward or you can go on working for us for one year afterward. How's that?"

"I think that's eminently fair," Mr. Feldman broke in hurriedly. "You can't refuse those terms, Mr. Mintz. Mr. Potash will sign for his partner, I apprehend, and then Mr. Perlmutter will be bound under the principle of _qui fecit per alium fecit per se_."

No one could stand up against such a flood of Latin, and Louis nodded.

"All right," he said. "Let her go that way."

Mr. Feldman immediately rang for a stenographer.

"Come back to-morrow at four o'clock," he said. "I shall send a clerk with the deed to be signed by Mrs. Potash and Mrs. Perlmutter to-night."

The next afternoon, at half an hour after the appointed time, the contract was executed and the deed delivered to Louis Mintz, and on the first of the following month Louis entered upon his new employment.

Louis' first season with his new employers was fraught with good results for Potash & Perlmutter, who reaped large profits from Louis' salesmanship; but for Louis it had been somewhat disappointing.

"I never see nothing like it," he complained to Abe. "That tenement house is like a summer hotel--people coming and going all the time; and every time a tenant moves yet I got to pay for painting and repapering the rooms. You certainly stuck me good on that house."

"Stuck you!" Abe cried. "We didn't stuck you, Louis. We just give you the house as a bonus. If it don't rent well, Louis, you ought to sell it."

"Don't I know I ought to sell it?" Louis cried; "but who's going to buy it? Real-estater after real-estater comes to look at it, and it all amounts to nix. They wouldn't take the house for the mortgages."

For nearly a year and a half Louis and Abe repeated this conversation every time Louis came back from the road, and on the days when Louis paid interest on mortgages and premiums on fire insurance he grew positively tearful.

"Why don't you pay me what I am short from paying carrying charges on that property?" Louis asked one day. "And I'll give you the house back."

Abe laughed.

"You should make that proposition to the feller what sold us the house," Abe said jocularly.

"Any one what sold that house once, Abe," Louis rejoined, "don't want it back again."

At length, when Louis was absent on a business trip some three months before the expiration of his contract, Abe approached Morris in the show-room and mooted the subject of taking back the house.

"That house is a sticker, Mawruss," he said, "and we certainly shouldn't let Louis suffer by it. The boy done well by us, and we don't want to lose him."

"Well, Abe," Morris replied, "the way I look at it, we should wait till his time is pretty near up. Maybe he will renew the contract without our taking back the house, Abe; but if the worst comes to the worst, Abe, we give him what he spent on the house and take it back, _providing_ he renews the contract for a couple of years. Ain't it?"

Abe nodded doubtfully.

"Maybe you're right, Mawruss," he said; "but the boy done good for us, Mawruss. We made it a big profit by him this year already, and I don't want him to think that we ain't doing the right thing by him."

"Since when was you so soft-hearted, Abe?" Morris asked satirically; and when Louis came back from the road, a week later, no mention was made of the house until Louis himself broached the topic.

"Look'y here, Abe," Louis said, "what are you going to do for me about that house? Counting the rent I collected and the money I laid out for carrying charges, I'm in the hole eight hundred and fifty dollars already."

"Do for you, Louis!" Morris replied. "Why, what can we do for you? Why don't you fix it up like this, Louis? Why don't you make one last campaign among the real-estaters, and then if you don't succeed maybe we can do something."

"That's right, Louis," Abe said. "Just try it and see what comes of it."

Then Abe handed Louis a cigar and dismissed the subject, which never again arose until Louis was on his final trip.

"Ain't it funny, Mawruss," Abe said, the morning of Louis' expected return--"ain't it funny he ain't mentioned that house to us since we spoke to him the last time he was home?"

"I know it," Morris replied, "but you needn't worry, Abe. It says in the contract that Louis can't take a job as salesman with any other house till one year is up, and the boy can't afford to stay loafing around for a whole year."

Abe nodded, and as he turned to look up the contract in the safe the store door opened and Louis himself entered.

"Hallo, Louis," Abe cried. "Glad to see you, Louis. Another good trip?"

Louis nodded, and they all passed into the show-room.

"Well, you're going to make many more of them for us before you're through, Louis," Abe said.

Louis grunted, and Abe and Morris exchanged disquieting glances.

"You know, Louis," Morris said in the dulcet accents of the sucking dove, "your contract is up next week, and Abe and me was talking about it the other day, Louis, and about the house, too, and we says we should do something about that house, Louis, and so we'll make another contract for about, say, three years, and we'll fix it up about the house when we all sign the contract, Louis. We meant to take back the house all the time, Louis. We was only kidding you along, Louis," he continued.

"So you was only kidding me along when you told me to see them real-estaters, hey?" Louis demanded.

"Sure," Abe and Morris replied.

"Then you was the ones what got kidded," Louis said, "for the last time I was in town I took your advice. Do you know a feller called Michaelson? And two other fellers by the name of Henochstein and Magnus?"

Abe nodded.

"Well, them three fellers took that house off of my hands and paid me six hundred dollars to boot, over and above the seven hundred and fifty I sunk in it."

Abe and Morris puffed vigorously at their cigars.

"And what's more," Louis went on, "they introduced me to Harris Rabin, of the Equinox Clothing Company. I guess you know him, too, don't you?"

Morris admitted sullenly that he did.

"He's got a daughter, Miss Miriam Rabin," Louis concluded. "Her and me is going to announce our engagement in next Sunday's Herald."

He paused and watched Morris and Abe, to see the news sink in.

"And as soon as we're married," he said, "back to the road for mine, but not with Potash & Perlmutter."

"I guess you're mistaken, Louis," Abe cried. "I guess you got a contract with us what will stop you going on the road for another year yet."

"Back up, Abe," Louis said. "That there contract says I can't work as a _salesman_ for any other house for a year. But Rabin and me is going as partners together in the cloak and suit business, and if there's anything in that contract about me not selling cloaks as my own boss I'll eat it."

Abe went to the safe for the contract. At last he found it, and after reading it over he handed it to Morris.

"_You_ eat it, Mawruss," he said. "Louis is right."

CHAPTER VI

"After all, Mawruss," Abe declared as he glanced over the columns of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record, "after all a feller feels more satisfied when he could see the customers himself and find out just exactly how they do business, y'understand. Maybe the way we lost Louis Mintz wasn't such a bad thing anyhow, Mawruss. I bet yer if Louis would of been selling goods for us, Mawruss, we would of been in that Cohen & Schondorf business too. Me, I am different, Mawruss. So soon as I went in that store, Mawruss, I could see that them fellers was in bad. I'm very funny that way, Mawruss."

"You shouldn't throw no bouquets at yourself because you got a little luck, Abe," Morris commented.

"Some people calls it luck, Mawruss, but I call it judgment, y'understand."

"Sure, I know," Morris continued, "but how about Hymie Kotzen, Abe? Always you said it that feller got lots of judgment, Abe."

"A feller could got so much judgment as Andrew Carnegie," Abe retorted, "and oncet in a while he could play in hard luck too. Yes, Mawruss, Hymie Kotzen is certainly playing in hard luck."

"Is he?" Morris Perlmutter replied. "Well, he don't look it when I seen him in the Harlem Winter Garden last night, Abe. Him and Mrs. Kotzen was eating a family porterhouse between 'em with tchampanyer wine yet."

"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, "he needs it tchampanyer wine, Mawruss. Last month I seen it he gets stung two thousand by Cohen & Schondorf, and to-day he's chief mourner by the Ready Pay Store, Barnet Fischman proprietor. Barney stuck him for fifteen hundred, Mawruss, so I guess he needs it tchampanyer wine to cheer him up."

"Well, maybe he needs it diamonds to cheer him up, also, Abe," Morris added. "That feller got diamonds on him, Abe, like 'lectric lights on the front of a moving-picture show."

"Diamonds never harmed nobody's credit, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "You can get your money out of diamonds most any time, Mawruss. I see by the papers diamonds increase in price thirty per cent. in six months already. Yes, Mawruss, diamonds goes up every day."

"And so does the feller what wears 'em, Abe," Morris went on. "In fact, the way that Hymie Kotzen does business I shouldn't be surprised if he goes up any day, too. Andrew Carnegie couldn't stand it the failures what that feller gets into, Abe."

"That's just hard luck, Mawruss," Abe replied; "and if he wears it diamonds, Mawruss, he paid for 'em himself, Mawruss, and he's got a right to wear 'em. So far what I hear it, Mawruss, he never stuck nobody for a cent."

"Oh, Hymie ain't no crook, Abe," Morris admitted, "but I ain't got no use for a feller wearing diamonds. Diamonds looks good on women, Abe, and maybe also on a hotel-clerk or a feller what runs a restaurant, Abe, but a business man ain't got no right wearing diamonds."

"Of course, Mawruss, people's got their likes and dislikes," Abe said; "but all the same I seen it many a decent, respectable feller with a good business, Abe, what wants a little accommodation at his bank. But he gets turned down just because he goes around looking like a slob; while a feller what can't pay his own laundry bill, Mawruss, has no trouble getting a thousand dollars because the second vice-president is buffaloed already by a stovepipe hat, a Prince Albert coat and a four-carat stone with a flaw in it."

"Well, a four-carat stone wouldn't affect me none, Abe," Morris said, "and believe me, Abe, Hymie Kotzen's diamonds don't worry me none, neither. All I'm troubling about now is that I got an appetite like a horse, so I guess I'll go to lunch."

Abe jumped to his feet. "Give me a chance oncet in a while, Mawruss," he protested. "Every day comes half-past twelve you got to go to your lunch. Ain't I got no stomach, neither, Mawruss?"

"Oh, go ahead if you want to," Morris grumbled, "only don't stay all day, Abe. Remember there's other people wants to eat, too, Abe."

"I guess the shoe pinches on the other foot now, Mawruss," Abe retorted as he put on his hat. "When I get through eating I'll be back."

He walked across the street to Wasserbauer's Café and Restaurant and seated himself at his favorite table.

"Well, Mr. Potash," Louis, the waiter, cried, dusting off the tablecloth with a red-and-white towel, "some nice _Metzelsuppe_ to-day, huh?"

"No, Louis," Abe replied as he took a dill pickle from a dishful on the table, "I guess I won't have no soup to-day. Give me some _gedämpftes Kalbfleisch mit Kartoffelklösse_."

"Right away quick, Mr. Potash," said Louis, starting to hurry away.

"Ain't I nobody here, Louis?" cried a bass voice at the table behind Abe. "Do I sit here all day?"

"Ex-cuse me, Mr. Kotzen," Louis exclaimed. "Some nice roast chicken to-day, Mr. Kotzen?"

"I'll tell you what I want it, Louis, not you me," Mr. Kotzen grunted. "If I want to eat it roast chicken I'll say so. If I don't I won't."

"Sure, sure," Louis cried, rubbing his hands in a perfect frenzy of apology.

"Gimme a _Schweizerkäse_ sandwich and a cup of coffee," Mr. Kotzen concluded, "and if you don't think you can bring it back here in half an hour, Louis, let me know, that's all, and I'll ask Wasserbauer if he can help you out."

Abe had started on his second dill pickle, and he held it in his hand as he turned around in his chair. "Hallo, Hymie," he said; "ain't you feeling good to-day?"

"Oh, hallo, Abe," Kotzen cried, glancing over; "why don't you come over and sit at my table?"

"I guess I will," Abe replied. He rose to his feet with his napkin tucked into his collar and, carrying the dish of dill pickles with him, he moved over to Kotzen's table.

"What's the matter, Hymie?" Abe asked. "You ain't sick, are you?"

"That depends what you call it sick, Abe," Hymie replied. "I don't got to see no doctor exactly, Abe, if that's what you mean. But that Sam Feder by the Kosciusko Bank, I was over to see him just now, and I bet you he makes me sick."

"I thought you always got along pretty good with Sam, Hymie," Abe mumbled through a mouthful of dill pickle.

"So I do," said Hymie; "but he heard it something about this here Ready Pay Store and how I'm in it for fifteen hundred, and also this Cohen & Schondorf sticks me also, and he's getting anxious. So, either he wants me I should give him over a couple of accounts, or either I should take up some of my paper. Well, you know Feder, Abe. He don't want nothing but A Number One concerns, and then he got the bank's lawyer what is his son-in-law, De Witt C. Feinholz, that he should draw up the papers; and so it goes. I got it bills receivable due the first of the month, five thousand dollars from such people like Heller, Blumenkrohn & Co., of Cincinnati, and The Emporium, Duluth, all gilt-edge accounts, Abe, and why should I lose it twenty per cent. on them, ain't it?"

"Sure," Abe murmured.

"Well, that's what I told Feder," Hymie went on. "If I got to take up a couple of thousand dollars I'll do it. But running a big plant like I got it, Abe, naturally it makes me a little short."

"Naturally," Abe agreed. He scented what was coming.

"But anyhow, I says to Feder, I got it lots of friends in the trade, and I ain't exactly broke yet, neither, Abe."

He lifted his Swiss-cheese sandwich in his left hand, holding out the third finger the better to display a five-carat stone, while Abe devoted himself to his veal.

"Of course, Abe," Hymie continued, "on the first of the month--that's only two weeks already--things will be running easy for me."

He looked at Abe for encouragement, but Abe's facial expression was completely hidden by veal stew, fragments of which were clinging to his eyebrows.

"But, naturally, I'm at present a little short," Hymie croaked, "and so I thought maybe you could help me out with, say a thousand dollars till the first of the month, say."

Abe laid down his knife and fork and massaged his face with his napkin.

"For my part, Hymie," he said, "you should have it in a minute. I know it you are good as gold, and if you say that you will pay on the first of the month a U-nited States bond ain't no better."

He paused impressively and laid a hand on Hymie's knee.

"Only, Hymie," he concluded, "I got it a partner. Ain't it? And you know Mawruss Perlmutter, Hymie. He's a pretty hard customer, Hymie, and if I was to draw you the firm's check for a thousand, Hymie, that feller would have a receiver by the court to-morrow morning already. He's a holy terror, Hymie, believe me."

Hymie sipped gloomily at his coffee.

"But Mawruss Perlmutter was always a pretty good friend of mine, Abe," he said. "Why shouldn't he be willing to give it me if you are agreeable? Ain't it? And, anyhow, Abe, it can't do no harm to ask him."

"Well, Hymie, he's over at the store now," Abe replied. "Go ahead and ask him."

"I know it what he'd say if I ask him, Abe. He'd tell me I should see you; but you say I should see him, and then I'm up in the air. Ain't it?"

Abe treated himself to a final rubdown with the napkin and scrambled to his feet.

"All right, Hymie," he said. "If you want me I should ask him I'll ask him."

"Remember, Abe," Hymie said as Abe turned away, "only till the first, so sure what I'm sitting here. I'll ring you up in a quarter of an hour."

When Abe entered the firm's show-room five minutes later he found Morris consuming the last of some crullers and coffee brought in from a near-by bakery by Jake, the shipping clerk.

"Well, Abe, maybe you think that's a joke you should keep me here a couple of hours already," Morris said.

"Many a time I got to say that to you already, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "But, anyhow, I didn't eat it so much, Mawruss. It was Hymie Kotzen what keeps me."

"Hymie Kotzen!" Morris cried. "What for should he keep you, Abe? Blows you to some tchampanyer wine, maybe?"

"Tchampanyer he ain't drinking it to-day, Mawruss, I bet yer," Abe replied. "He wants to lend it from us a thousand dollars."

Morris laughed raucously.

"What a chance!" he said.

"Till the first of the month, Mawruss," Abe continued, "and I thought maybe we would let him have it."

Morris ceased laughing and glared at Abe.

"Tchampanyer you must have been drinking it, Abe," he commented.

"Why shouldn't we let him have it, Mawruss?" Abe demanded. "Hymie's a good feller, Mawruss, and a smart business man, too."

"Is he?" Morris yelled. "Well, he ain't smart enough to keep out of failures like Barney Fischman's and Cohen & Schondorf's, Abe, but he's too smart to lend it us a thousand dollars, supposing we was short for a couple of days. No, Abe, I heard it enough about Hymie Kotzen already. I wouldn't positively not lend him nothing, Abe, and that's flat."

To end the discussion effectually he went to the cutting-room upstairs and remained there when Hymie rang up.

"It ain't no use, Hymie," Abe said. "Mawruss wouldn't think of it. We're short ourselves. You've no idee what trouble we got it with some of our collections."

"But, Abe," Hymie protested, "I got to have the money. I promised Feder I would give it him this afternoon."

Abe remained silent.

"I tell you what I'll do, Abe," Hymie insisted; "I'll come around and see you."

"It won't be no use, Hymie," Abe said, but Central was his only auditor, for Hymie had hung up the receiver. Indeed, Abe had hardly returned to the show-room before Hymie entered the store door.

"Where's Mawruss?" he asked.

"Up in the cutting-room," Abe replied.

"Good!" Hymie cried. "Now look'y here, Abe, I got a proposition to make it to you."

He tugged at the diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand and laid it on a sample-table. Then from his shirt-bosom he unscrewed a miniature locomotive headlight, which he deposited beside the ring.

"See them stones, Abe?" he continued. "They costed it me one thousand three hundred dollars during the panic already, and to-day I wouldn't take two thousand for 'em. Now, Abe, you sit right down and write me out a check for a thousand dollars, and so help me I should never stir out of this here office, Abe, if I ain't on the spot with a thousand dollars in hand two weeks from to-day, Abe, you can keep them stones, settings and all."

Abe's eyes fairly bulged out of his head as he looked at the blazing diamonds.

"But, Hymie," he exclaimed, "I don't want your diamonds. If I had it the money myself, Hymie, believe me, you are welcome to it like you was my own brother."

"I know all about that, Abe," Hymie replied, "but you ain't Mawruss, and if you got such a regard for me what you claim you have, Abe, go upstairs and ask Mawruss Perlmutter will he do it me the favor and let me have that thousand dollars with the stones as security."

Without further parley Abe turned and left the show-room.

"Mawruss," he called from the foot of the stairs, "come down here once. I want to show you something."

In the meantime Hymie pulled down the shades and turned on the electric lights. Then he took a swatch of black velveteen from his pocket and arranged it over the sample-table with the two gems in its folds.

"Hymie Kotzen is inside the show-room," Abe explained when Morris appeared in answer to his summons.

"Well, what have I got to do with Hymie Kotzen?" Morris demanded.

"Come inside and speak to him, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "He won't eat you."

"Maybe you think I'm scared to turn him down, Abe?" Morris concluded as he led the way to the show-room. "Well, I'll show you different."

"Hallo, Mawruss," Hymie cried. "What's the good word?"

Morris grunted an inarticulate greeting.

"What you got all the shades down for, Abe?" he asked.

"Don't touch 'em," Hymie said. "Just you have a look at this sample-table first."

Hymie seized Morris by the arm and turned him around until he faced the velveteen.

"Ain't them peaches, Mawruss?" he asked.

Morris stared at the diamonds, almost hypnotized by their brilliancy.

"Them stones belong to you, Mawruss," Hymie went on, "if I don't pay you inside of two weeks the thousand dollars what you're going to lend me."

"We ain't going to lend you no thousand dollars, Hymie," Morris said at last, "because we ain't got it to lend. We need it in our own business, Hymie, and, besides, you got the wrong idee. We ain't no pawnbrokers, Hymie; we are in the cloak and suit business."

"Hymie knows it all about that, Mawruss," Abe broke in, "and he shows he ain't no crook, neither. If he's willing to trust you with them diamonds, Mawruss, we should be willing to trust him with a thousand dollars. Ain't it?"

"He could trust me with the diamonds, Abe, because I ain't got no use for diamonds," Morris replied. "If anyone gives me diamonds that I should take care of it into the safe they go. I ain't a person what sticks diamonds all over myself, Abe, and I don't buy no tchampanyer wine one day and come around trying to lend it from people a thousand dollars the next day, Abe."

"It was my wife's birthday," Hymie explained; "and if I got to spend it my last cent, Mawruss, I always buy tchampanyer on my wife's birthday."

"All right, Hymie," Morris retorted; "if you think it so much of your wife, lend it from her a thousand dollars."

"Make an end, make an end," Abe cried; "I hear it enough already. Put them diamonds in the safe and we give Hymie a check for a thousand dollars."

Morris shrugged his shoulders.

"All right, Abe," he said. "Do what you please, but remember what I tell it you now. I don't know nothing about diamonds and I don't care nothing about diamonds, and if it should be that we got to keep it the diamonds I don't want nothing to do with them. All I want it is my share of the thousand dollars."

He turned on his heel and banged the show-room door behind him, while Abe pulled up the shades and Hymie turned off the lights.

"That's a fine crank for you, Abe," Hymie exclaimed.

Abe said nothing, but sat down and wrote out a check for a thousand dollars.

"I hope them diamonds is worth it," he murmured, handing the check to Hymie.

"If they ain't," Hymie replied as he made for the door, "I'll eat 'em, Abe, and I ain't got too good a di-gestion, neither."

At intervals of fifteen minutes during the remainder of the afternoon Morris visited the safe and inspected the diamonds until Abe was moved to criticise his partner's behavior.

"Them diamonds ain't going to run away, Mawruss."

"Maybe they will, Abe," Morris replied, "if we leave the safe open and people comes in and out all the time."

"So far, nobody ain't took nothing out of that safe, Mawruss," Abe retorted; "but if you want to lock the safe I'm agreeable."

"What for should we lock the safe?" Morris asked. "We are all the time getting things out of it what we need. Ain't it? A better idee I got it, Abe, is that you should put on the ring and I will wear the pin, or you wear the pin and I will put on the ring."

"No, siree, Mawruss," Abe replied. "If I put it on a big pin like that and I got to take it off again in a week's time might I would catch a cold on my chest, maybe. Besides, I ain't built for diamonds, Mawruss. So, you wear 'em both, Mawruss."

Morris forced a hollow laugh.

"Me wear 'em, Abe!" he exclaimed. "No, siree, Abe, I'm not the kind what wears diamonds. I leave that to sports like Hymie Kotzen."

Nevertheless, he placed the ring on the third finger of his left hand, with the stone turned in, and carefully wrapping up the pin in tissue-paper he placed it in his waistcoat pocket. The next day was Wednesday, and he screwed the pin into his shirt-front underneath a four-in-hand scarf. On Thursday he wore the ring with the stone exposed, and on Friday he discarded the four-in-hand scarf for a bow tie and shamelessly flaunted both ring and pin.

"Mawruss," Abe commented on Saturday, "must you stick out your little finger when you smoke it a cigar?"

"Habits what I was born with, Abe," Morris replied. "I can't help it none."

"Maybe you was born with a diamond ring on your little finger. What?" Abe jeered.

Morris glared at his partner.

"If you think that I enjoy it wearing that ring, Abe," he declared, "you are much mistaken. You got us to take these here diamonds, Abe, and if they got stole on us, Abe, we are not only out the thousand dollars, but we would also got to pay it so much more as Hymie Kotzen would sue us for in the courts. I got to wear this here ring, Abe, and that's all there is to it."

He walked away to the rear of the store with the air of a martyr, while Abe gazed after him in silent admiration.

Two weeks sped quickly by, during which Morris safeguarded the diamonds with the utmost zest and enjoyment, and at length the settling day arrived. Morris was superintending the unpacking of piece goods in the cutting-room when Abe darted upstairs.

"Mawruss," he hissed, "Hymie Kotzen is downstairs."

By a feat of legerdemain that a conjurer might have envied, Morris transferred the pin and ring to his waistcoat pocket and followed Abe to the show-room.

"Well, Hymie," Morris cried, "we thought you would be prompt on the day. Ain't it?"

Hymie smiled a sickly smirk in which there was as little mirth as there was friendliness.

"You got another think coming," Hymie replied.

"What d'ye mean?" Morris exclaimed.

"I'm up against it, boys," Hymie explained. "I expected to get it a check for two thousand from Heller, Blumenkrohn this morning."

"And didn't it come?" Abe asked.

"Sure it come," Hymie replied, "but it was only sixteen hundred and twenty dollars. They claim it three hundred and eighty dollars for shortage in delivery, so I returned 'em the check."

"You returned 'em the check, Hymie?" Morris cried. "And we got to wait for our thousand dollars because you made it a shortage in delivery."

"I didn't make no shortage in delivery," Hymie declared.

"Well, Hymie," Abe broke in, "you say it yourself Heller, Blumenkrohn is gilt-edge, A Number One people. They ain't going to claim no shortage if there wasn't none, Hymie."

"I guess you don't know Louis Blumenkrohn, Abe," Hymie retorted. "He claims it shortage before he unpacks the goods already."

"Well, what has that got to do with us, Hymie?" Morris burst out.

"You see how it is, boys," Hymie explained; "so I got to ask it you a couple of weeks' extension."

"A couple of weeks' extension is nix, Hymie," Abe said, and Morris nodded his head in approval.

"Either you give it us the thousand, Hymie," was Morris' ultimatum, "or either we keep the diamonds, and that's all there is to it."

"Now, Mawruss," Hymie protested, "you ain't going to shut down on me like that! Make it two weeks more and I'll give you a hundred dollars bonus and interest at six per cent."

Abe shook his head. "No, Hymie," he said firmly, "we ain't no loan sharks. If you got to get that thousand dollars to-day you will manage it somehow. So that's the way it stands. We keep open here till six o'clock, Hymie, and the diamonds will be waiting for you as soon so you bring us the thousand dollars. That's all."

There was a note of finality in Abe's tones that made Hymie put on his hat and leave without another word.

"Yes, Abe," Morris commented as the door closed behind Hymie, "so liberal you must be with my money. Ain't I told you from the very start that feller is a lowlife? Tchampanyer he must drink it on his wife's birthday, Abe, and also he got to wear it diamonds, Abe, when he ain't got enough money to pay his laundry bill yet."

"I ain't worrying, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He ain't going to let us keep them diamonds for a thousand dollars, Mawruss. They're worth a whole lot more as that, Mawruss."

"I don't know how much they're worth, Abe," Morris grunted, putting on his hat, "but one thing I do know; I'm going across the street to get a shave; and then I'm going right down to Sig Pollak on Maiden Lane, Abe, and I'll find out just how much they are worth."

A moment later he descended the basement steps into the barber-shop under Wasserbauer's Café and Restaurant.

"Hallo, Mawruss," a voice cried from the proprietor's chair. "Ain't it a hot weather?"

It was Sam Feder, vice-president of the Kosciusko Bank, who spoke. He was midway in the divided enjoyment of a shampoo and a large black cigar, while an electric fan oscillated over his head.

"I bet yer it's hot, Mr. Feder," Morris agreed, taking off his coat.

"Why don't you take your vest off, too, Mawruss?" Sam Feder suggested.

"That's a good idee," Morris replied, peeling off his waistcoat. He hung it next to his coat and relapsed with a sigh into the nearest vacant chair.

"Just once around, Phil," he said to the barber, and closed his eyes for a short nap.

When he woke up ten minutes later Phil was spraying him with witch-hazel while the proprietor stood idly in front of the mirror and curled his flowing black mustache.

"Don't take it so particular, Phil," Morris enjoined. "I ain't got it all day to sit here in this chair."

"All right, Mr. Perlmutter, all right," Phil cried, and in less than three minutes, powdered, oiled and combed, Morris climbed out of the chair. His coat was in waiting, held by a diminutive Italian brushboy, but Morris waved his hand impatiently.

"My vest," he demanded. "I don't put my coat on under my vest."

The brushboy turned to the vacant row of hooks.

"No gotta da vest," he said.

"What!" Morris gasped.

"You didn't have no vest on, did you, Mr. Perlmutter?" the proprietor asked.

"Sure I had a vest," Morris cried. "Where is it?"

On the wall hung a sign which advised customers to check their clothing with the cashier or no responsibility would be assumed by the management, and it was to this notice that the proprietor pointed before answering.

"I guess somebody must have pinched it," he replied nonchalantly.

It was not until two hours after the disappearance of his waistcoat that Morris returned to the store. In the meantime he had been to police headquarters and had inserted an advertisement in three daily newspapers. Moreover he had consulted a lawyer, the eminent Henry D. Feldman, and had received no consolation either on the score of the barber's liability to Potash & Perlmutter or of his own liability to Kotzen.

"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, "how much are them diamonds worth?"

Then he looked up and for the first time saw his partner's haggard face.

"Holy smokes!" he cried. "They're winder-glass."

Morris shook his head. "I wish they was," he croaked.

"You wish they was!" Abe repeated in accents of amazement. "What d'ye mean?"

"Somebody pinched 'em on me," Morris replied.

"What!" Abe shouted.

"S-sh," Morris hissed as the door opened. It was Hymie Kotzen who entered.

"Well, boys," he cried, "every cloud is silver-plated. Ain't it? No sooner did I get back to my store than I get a letter from Henry D. Feldman that Cohen & Schondorf want to settle for forty cents cash. On the head of that, mind you, in comes Rudolph Heller from Cincinnati, and when I tell him about the check what they sent it me he fixes it up on the spot."

He beamed at Abe and Morris.

"So, bring out them diamonds, boys," he concluded, "and we'll settle up C. O. D."

He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and toyed with them, but neither Abe nor Morris stirred.

"What's the hurry, Hymie?" Abe asked feebly.

"What's the hurry, Abe!" Hymie repeated. "Well, ain't that a fine question for you to ask it of me! Don't sit there like a dummy, Abe. Get the diamonds and we'll fix it up."

"But wouldn't to-morrow do as well?" Morris asked.

Hymie sat back and eyed Morris suspiciously.

"What are you trying to do, Mawruss?" he asked. "Make jokes with me?"

"I ain't making no jokes, Hymie," Morris replied. "The fact is, Hymie, we got it the diamonds, now--in our--now--safety-deposit box, and it ain't convenient to get at it now."

"Oh, it ain't, ain't it?" Hymie cried. "Well, it's got to be convenient; so, Abe, you get a move on you and go down to them safety-deposit vaults and fetch them."

"Let Mawruss fetch 'em," Abe replied wearily. "The safety deposit is his idee, Hymie, not mine."

Hymie turned to Morris. "Go ahead, Mawruss," he said, "you fetch 'em."

"I was only stringing you, Hymie," Morris croaked. "We ain't got 'em in no safety-deposit vault at all."

"That settles it," Hymie cried, jumping to his feet and jamming his hat down with both hands.

"Where you going, Hymie?" Abe called after him.

"For a policeman," Hymie said. "I want them diamonds and I'm going to have 'em, too."

Morris ran to the store door and grabbed Hymie by the coattails.

"Wait a minute," he yelled. "Hymie, I'm surprised at you that you should act that way."

Hymie stopped short.

"I ain't acting, Mawruss," he said. "It's you what's acting. All I want it is you should give me my ring and pin, and I am satisfied to pay you the thousand dollars."

They returned to the show-room and once more sat down.

"I'll tell you the truth, Hymie," Morris said at last. "I loaned them diamonds to somebody, and that's the way it is."

"You loaned 'em to somebody!" Hymie cried, jumping once more to his feet. "My diamonds you loaned it, Mawruss? Well, all I got to say is either you get them diamonds back right away, or either I will call a policeman and make you arrested."

"Make me arrested, then, Hymie," Morris replied resignedly, "because the feller what I loaned them diamonds to won't return 'em for two weeks anyhow."

Hymie sat down again.

"For two weeks, hey?" he said. He passed his handkerchief over his face and looked at Abe.

"That's a fine, nervy partner what you got it, Abe, I must say," he commented.

"Well, Hymie," Abe replied, "so long as you can't get them diamonds back for two weeks keep the thousand dollars for two weeks and we won't charge you no interest nor nothing."

"No, siree," Hymie said; "either I pay you the thousand now, Abe, or I don't pay it you for three months, and no interest nor nothing."

Abe looked at Morris, who nodded his head slowly.

"What do we care, Abe," he said, "two weeks or three months is no difference now, ain't it?"

"I'm agreeable, then, Hymie," Abe declared.

"All right," Hymie said eagerly; "put it down in writing and sign it, and I am satisfied you should keep the diamonds three months."

Abe sat down at his desk and scratched away for five minutes.

"Here it is, Hymie," he said at last. "Hyman Kotzen and Potash & Perlmutter agrees it that one thousand dollars what he lent it off of them should not be returned for three months from date, no interest nor nothing. And also, that Potash & Perlmutter should not give up the diamonds, neither. POTASH & PERLMUTTER."

"That's all right," Hymie said. He folded the paper into his pocketbook and turned to Morris.

"Also it is understood, Mawruss, you shouldn't lend them diamonds to nobody else," he concluded, and a minute later the store door closed behind him.

After he had gone there was an ominous silence which Abe was the first to break.

"Well, Mawruss," he said, "ain't that a fine mess you got us into it? Must you wore it them diamonds, Mawruss? Why couldn't you leave 'em in the safe?"

Morris made no answer.

"Or if you had to lose 'em, Mawruss," Abe went on, "why didn't you done it the day we loaned Hymie the money? Then we could of stopped our check by the bank. Now we can do nothing."

"I didn't lose the diamonds, Abe," Morris protested. "I left 'em in my vest in the barber-shop and somebody took it the vest."

"Well, ain't you got no suspicions, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Think, Mawruss, who was it took the vest?"

Morris raised his head and was about to reply when the store door opened and Sam Feder, vice-president of the Kosciusko Bank, entered bearing a brown paper parcel under his arm.

A personal visit from so well-known a financier covered Abe with embarrassment, and he jumped to his feet and rushed out of the show-room with both arms outstretched.

"Mr. Feder," he exclaimed, "ain't this indeed a pleasure? Come inside, Mr. Feder. Come inside into our show-room."

He brought out a seat for the vice-president and dusted it carefully.

"I ain't come to see you, Abe," Mr. Feder said; "I come to see that partner of yours."

He untied the string that bound the brown paper parcel and pulled out its contents.

"Why!" Morris gasped. "That's my vest."

"Sure it is," Mr. Feder replied, "and it just fits me, Mawruss. In fact, it fits me so good that when I went to the barber-shop in a two-piece suit this morning, Mawruss, I come away with a three-piece suit and a souvenir besides."

"A souvenir!" Abe cried. "What for a souvenir?"

Mr. Feder put his hand in his trousers pocket and tumbled the missing ring and pin on to a baize-covered sample table.

"That was the souvenir, Abe," he said. "In fact, two souvenirs."

Morris and Abe stared at the diamonds, too stunned for utterance.

"You're a fine feller, Mawruss," Mr. Feder continued, "to be carrying around valuable stones like them in your vest pocket. Why, I showed them stones to a feller what was in my office an hour ago and he says they must be worth pretty near five hundred dollars."

He paused and looked at Morris.

"And he was a pretty good judge of diamonds, too," he continued.

"Who was the feller, Mr. Feder?" Abe asked.

"I guess you know, Abe," Mr. Feder replied. "His name is Hymie Kotzen."

CHAPTER VII

"Max Fried, of the A La Mode Store, was in here a few minutes since, Mawruss," said Abe Potash, to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, after the latter had returned from lunch one busy August day, "and bought a couple of hundred of them long Trouvilles. He also wanted something to ask it of us as a favor, Mawruss."

"Sixty days is long enough, Abe," said Morris, on the principle of "once bitten, twice shy." "For a man what runs a little store like the A La Mode on Main Street, Buffalo, Abe, Max don't buy too few goods, neither. Ain't it?"

"Don't jump always for conclusions, Mawruss," Abe broke in. "This ain't no credit matter what he asks it of us. His wife got a sister what they wanted to make from her a teacher, Mawruss, but she ain't got the head. So, Max thinks we could maybe use her for a model. Her name is Miss Kreitmann and she's a perfect thirty-six, Max says, only a little fat."

"And then, when she tries on a garment for a customer," Morris rejoined, "the customer goes around telling everybody that we cut our stuff too skimpy. Ain't it? No, Abe, we got along so far good with the models what we got, and I guess we can keep it up. Besides, if Max is so anxious to get her a job, why don't he take her on himself, Abe?"

"Because she lives here in New York with her mother," Abe explained; "and what chance has a girl got in Buffalo, anyway? That's what Max says, and he also told it me that she got a very fine personality, and if we think it over maybe he gives us an introduction to Philip Hahn, of the Flower City Credit Outfitting Company. That's a million-dollar concern, Mawruss. I bet yer they're rated J to K, first credit, and Philip Hahn's wife is Miss Kreitmann's mother's sister. Leon Sammet will go crazy if he hears that we sell them people."

"That's all right, Abe," said Morris. "We ain't doing business to spite our competitors; we're doing it to please our customers so that they'll buy goods from us and maybe they'll go crazy, too, when they see her face, Abe."

"Max Fried says she is a good-looker. Nothing extraordinary, y'understand, but good, snappy stuff and up to date."

"You talk like she was a garment, Abe," said Morris.

"Well, you wouldn't buy no garment, Mawruss, just because some one told you it was good. Would you? So, Max says he would bring her around this afternoon, and if we liked her Hahn would stop in and see us later in the day. He says Hahn picks out never less than a couple of hundred of one style, and also Hahn is a liberal buyer, Mawruss."

"Of course, Abe," Morris commenced, "if we're doing this to oblige Philip Hahn----"

"We're doing it to oblige Philip Hahn and Max Fried both, Mawruss," Abe broke in. "Max says he ain't got a minute's peace since Miss Kreitmann is old enough to get married."

"So!" Morris cried. "A matrimonial agency we're running, Abe. Is that the idea?"

"The idea is that she should have the opportunity of meeting by us a business man, Mawruss, what can give her a good home and a good living, too. Max says he is pretty near broke, buying transportation from Buffalo to New York, Mawruss, so as he can bust up love matches between Miss Kreitmann and some good-looking retail salesman, Mawruss, what can dance the waltz A Number One and couldn't pay rent for light housekeeping on Chrystie Street."

"Well, Abe," Morris agreed, with a sigh of resignation, "if we got to hire her as a condition that Philip Hahn gives us a couple of good orders a season, Abe, I'm agreeable."

"Naturally," Abe replied, and carefully selecting a slightly-damaged cigar from the M to P first and second credit customers' box, he fell to assorting the sample line against Philip Hahn's coming that afternoon.

His task was hardly begun, however, when the store door opened to admit Max Fried and his sister-in-law. Abe immediately ceased his sample-assorting and walked forward to greet them.

"Hello, Max," he said.

Max stopped short, and by the simple process of thrusting out his waist-line assumed a dignity befitting the ceremony of introduction.

"Mr. Potash," he said severely, "this is Miss Gussie Kreitmann, my wife's sister, what I talked to you about."

Abe grinned shyly.

"All right," he said, and shook hands with Miss Kreitmann, who returned his grin with a dazzling smile.

"Mr. Fried tells me you like to come to work by us as a model. Ain't it?" Abe continued in the accents of the sucking dove. "So, I guess you'd better go over to Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, and she'll show you where to put your hat and coat."

"Oh, I ain't in no hurry," Miss Kreitmann replied. "To-morrow morning will do."

"Sure, sure," Abe murmured. He was somewhat shocked by Miss Kreitmann's appearance, for while Max Fried's reservation, "only a little fat," had given him some warning, he was hardly prepared to employ so pronounced an Amazon as Miss Kreitmann. True, her features, though large, were quite regular, and she had fine black eyes and the luxurious hair that goes with them; but as Abe gazed at the convex lines of her generous figure he could not help wondering what his partner would say when he saw her.

As a matter of fact, at that precise moment Morris was taking in the entire situation from behind a convenient rack of raincoats, and was mentally designing a new line of samples to be called The P & P System. He figured that he would launch it with a good, live ad in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record, to be headed: Let 'Em _All_ Come. We Can Fit _Everybody_. _Large_ Sizes a Specialty.

"Do you think you will like it here?" Abe hazarded.

"Oh, sure," Max replied for his sister-in-law. "This ain't the first time she works in a cloak and suit house. She helps me out in the store whenever she comes to Buffalo. In fact, she knows part of your line already, Abe, and the rest she learns pretty quick."

"You won't find me slow, Mr. Potash," Miss Kreitmann broke in. "Maybe I ain't such a good model except for large sizes, but I learned to sell cloaks by my brother-in-law and by my uncle, Philip Hahn, before I could talk already. What I want to do now is to meet the trade that comes into the store."

"That's what you're going to do," Abe said. "I will introduce you to everybody."

The thought that this would be, perhaps, the only way to get rid of her lent fervor to his words, and Max shook him warmly by the hand.

"I'm much obliged," he said. "Me and Philip Hahn will be in sure in a couple of hours, and Gussie comes to work to-morrow morning."

Once more Abe proffered his hand to his new model, and a moment later the door slammed behind them.

"So, that's the party, is it?" said Morris, emerging from his hiding-place. "What's she looking for a job by us for, Abe? She could make it twice as much by a circus sideshow or a dime museum."

"Philip Hahn will be here in a couple of hours, Mawruss," Abe replied, avoiding the thrust. "I guess he's going to buy a big bill of goods, Mawruss."

"I hope so, Abe, because it needs quite a few big bills to offset the damage a model like this here Miss Kreitmann can do. In fact, Abe," he concluded, "I'd be just as well satisfied if Miss Kreitmann could give us the orders, and we could get Philip Hahn to come to work by us as a model. I ain't never seen him, Abe, but I think he's got a better shape for the line."

A singular devotion to duty marked every action of Emanuel Gubin, shipping clerk in the wholesale cloak and suit establishment of Potash & Perlmutter. That is to say, it had marked every action until the commencement of Miss Kreitmann's incumbency. In the very hour that Emanuel first observed the luster of her fine black eyes his heart gave one bound and never more regained its normal gait.

As for Miss Kreitmann, she saw only a shipping clerk, collarless, coatless and with all the grime of his calling upon him. Two weeks elapsed, however, and one evening, on Lenox Avenue, she encountered Emanuel, freed from the chrysalis of his employment, a natty, lavender-trousered butterfly of fashion. Thereafter she called him Mannie, and during business hours she flashed upon him those same black eyes with results disastrous to the shipping end of Potash & Perlmutter's business.

Packages intended for the afternoon delivery of a local express company arrived in Florida two weeks later, while the irate buyer of a Jersey City store, who impatiently awaited an emergency shipment of ten heavy winter garments, received instead half a hundred gossamer wraps designed for the sub-tropical weather of Palm Beach.

"I don't know what's come over that fellow, Mawruss," Abe said at last. "Formerly he was a crackerjack--never made no mistakes nor nothing; and now I dassen't trust him at all, Mawruss. Everything we ship I got to look after it myself, Mawruss. We might as well have no shipping clerk at all."

"You're right, Abe," Morris replied. "He gets carelesser every day. And why, Abe? Because of that Miss Kreitmann. She breaks us all up, Abe. I bet yer if that feller Gubin has took her to the theayter once, Abe, he took her fifty times already. He spends every cent he makes on her, and the first thing you know, Abe, we'll be missing a couple of pieces of silk from the cutting-room. Ain't it?"

"He ain't no thief, Mawruss," said Abe, "and, besides, you can't blame a young feller if he gets stuck on a nice girl like Miss Kreitmann, Mawruss. She's a smart girl, Mawruss. Mendel Immerglick, of Immerglick & Frank, was in here yesterday, Mawruss, and she showed him the line, Mawruss, and believe me, Mawruss, Immerglick says to me I couldn't have done it better myself."

"Huh!" Morris snorted. "A young feller like Immerglick, what buys it of us a couple of hundred dollars at a time, she falls all over herself to please him, Abe. And why? Because Immerglick's got a fine _mus_tache and is a swell dresser and he ain't married. But you take it a good customer like Adolph Rothstein, Abe, and what does she do? At first she was all smiles to him, because Adolph is a good-looking feller. But then she hears him telling me a hard-luck story about his wife's operation and how his eldest boy Sammie is now seven already and ain't never been sick in his life, and last month he gets the whooping cough and all six of Adolph's boys gets it one after the other. Then, Abe, she treats Adolph like a dawg, Abe, and the first thing you know he looks at his watch and says he got an appointment and he'll be back. But he don't come back at all, Abe, and this noontime I seen Leon Sammet and Adolph in Wasserbauer's Restaurant. They was eating the regular dinner _with chicken_, Abe, and I seen Leon pay for it."

Abe received his partner's harangue in silence. His eyes gazed vacantly at the store door, which had just opened to admit the letter-carrier.

"Suppose we do lose a couple of hundred dollars trade," he said at length; "one customer like Philip Hahn will make it up ten times, Mawruss."

"Well, you'll lose him, too, Abe, if you don't look out," said Morris, who had concluded the reading of a typewritten letter with a scrawled postscript. "Just see what he writes us."

He handed over the missive, which read as follows:

MESSRS. POTASH & PERLMUTTER.

_Gents:_ We are requested by Mrs. Kreitmann of your city to ask
about a young fellow what works for you by the name of Emanuel
Gubin. Has he any future, and what is his prospects? By doing so
you will greatly oblige
Truly yours,
THE FLOWER CITY CREDIT OUTFITTING CO.

Dic. PH/K

P. S. I don't like such monkey business. I thought you knew it. I
don't want no salesman. What is the matter with you anyway?

PHILIP HAHN.

Abe folded up the letter, and his mouth became a straight line of determination under his stubby mustache.

"I guess I fix that young feller," he cried, seizing a pen. He wrote:

FLOWER CITY CREDIT OUTFITTING COMPANY.

_Gents:_ Your favor of the 14th inst. received and contents noted
and in reply would say the young fellow what you inquire about
ain't got no future with us and the prospects is he gets fired on
Saturday. We trust this is satisfactory.
Truly yours,
POTASH & PERLMUTTER.

On Saturday afternoon Morris Perlmutter was putting on his hat and coat preparatory to going home. He had just fired Mannie Gubin with a relish and satisfaction second only to what would have been his sensations if the operation had been directed toward Miss Kreitmann. As he was about to leave the show-room Abe entered.

"Oh, Mawruss," Abe cried, "you ought to see Miss Kreitmann. She's all broke up about Mannie Gubin, and she's crying something terrible."

"Is she?" Morris said, peering over his partner's shoulder at the grief-stricken model, who was giving vent to her emotions in the far corner of the salesroom. "Well, Abe, you tell her to come away from them light goods and cry over the blue satinets. They don't spot so bad."

Miss Gussie Kreitmann evidently knew how to conceal a secret sorrow, for outwardly she remained unchanged. She continued to scowl at those of her employers' customers who were men of family, and beamed upon the unmarried trade with all the partiality she had displayed during Mannie Gubin's tenure of employment. Indeed, her amiability toward the bachelors was if anything intensified, especially in the case of Mendel Immerglick.

Many times he had settled lunch checks in two figures, for Miss Kreitmann's appetite was in proportion to her size. Moreover, a prominent Broadway florist was threatening Mendel with suit for flowers supplied Miss Kreitmann at his request. Nor were there lacking other signs, such as the brilliancy of Mendel's cravats and the careful manicuring of his nails, to indicate that he was paying court to Miss Kreitmann.

"I think, Abe," Morris said finally, "we're due for an inquiry from the Flower City Company about Immerglick & Frank."

"I hope not, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I never liked them people, Mawruss. In fact, last week Mendel Immerglick struck me for new terms--ninety instead of sixty days--and he wanted to give me a couple of thousand dollar order. I turned him down cold, Mawruss. People what throw such a bluff like Mendel Immerglick don't give me no confidence, Mawruss. I'm willing to sell him up to five hundred at sixty days, but that's all."

"Oh, I don't know, Abe," Morris protested. "A couple of bright boys like Mendel Immerglick and Louis Frank can work up a nice business after a while."

"Can they?" Abe rejoined. "Well, more likely they work up a nice line of credit, Mawruss, and then, little by little, they make it a big failure, Mawruss. A feller what curls his mustache like Mendel Immerglick ain't no stranger to auction houses, Mawruss. I bet yer he's got it all figured out right now where he can get advance checks on consignments."

"I think you do the feller an injury, Abe," said Morris. "I think he means well, and besides, Abe, business people is getting so conservative that there ain't no more money in failures."

"I guess there's enough for Mendel Immerglick," Abe said, and dismissed the subject.

Two weeks later the anticipated letter arrived in the following form:

MESSRS. POTASH & PERLMUTTER.

_Gents:_ Mrs. Kreitmann of your city requests us to ask you about
one of your customers by the name of Mr. Mendel Immerglick, of
Immerglick & Frank. We drew a report on him by both commercial
agencies and are fairly well satisfied, but would be obliged if
you should make inquiries amongst the trade for us and greatly
oblige
Yours truly,
THE FLOWER CITY CREDIT OUTFITTING CO.

Dic. PH/K

P. S. I hear it this fellow is a good bright young fellow. I will
be in N. Y. next month and expect to lay in my spring goods.
PHILIP HAHN.

"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, as he finished reading the letter, "I'm sorry to get this letter. I don't know what I could tell it him about this fellow Immerglick. Now, if it was a responsible concern like Henry Feigenbaum, of the H. F. Cloak Company, it would be different."

"Henry Feigenbaum!" Morris exclaimed. "Why, he's only got one eye."

"I know it, Mawruss," Abe replied, "but he's got six stores, and they're all making out good. But, anyhow, Mawruss, I ain't going to do nothing in a hurry. I'll make good inquiries before I answer him."

"What's the use of making inquiries?" Morris protested. "Tell him it's all right. I got enough of this Miss Kreitmann already, Abe. She's killed enough trade for us."

"What!" Abe cried. "Tell him it's all right, when for all I know Mendel Immerglick is headed straight for the bankruptcy courts, Mawruss. You must be crazy, Mawruss. Ain't Hahn said he's coming down next month to buy his spring goods? What you want to do, Mawruss? Throw three to five thousand dollars in the street, Mawruss?"

"You talk foolishness, Abe," Morris rejoined. "Once a man gets married, his wife's family has got to stand for him. Suppose he does bust up; would that be our fault, Abe? Then Philip Hahn sets him up in business again, and the first thing you know, Abe, we got two customers instead of one. And I bet yer we could get Philip Hahn to guarantee the account yet."

"Them theories what you got, Mawruss, sounds good, but maybe he busts up _before_ they get married, and then, Mawruss, we lose Philip Hahn's business and Max Fried's business, and we are also out a sterling silver engagement present for Miss Kreitmann. Ain't it?"

He put on his hat and coat and lit a cigar.

"I guess, Mawruss, I'll go right now," he concluded, "and see what I can find out about him."

In three hours he returned and entered the show-room.

"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "what did you find out? Is it all right?"

Abe carefully selected a fresh cigar and shook his head solemnly.

"Nix, Mawruss," he said. "Mendel Immerglick is nix for a nice girl like Miss Kreitmann."

He took paper out of his waistcoat pocket for the purpose of refreshing his memory.

"First, I seen Moe Klein, of Klinger & Klein," he went on. "Moe says he seen Mendel Immerglick, in the back of Wasserbauer's Café, playing auction pinochle with a couple of loafer salesmen at three o'clock in the afternoon, and while Moe was standing there already them two low-lives set Immerglick back three times on four hundred hands at a dollar a hundred, _double double_."

"And what was Moe doing there?" Morris asked.

"I wasn't making no investigation of Moe, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Believe me, I got enough to do to find out about Immerglick. Also, Moe tells me that Immerglick comes into their place and wants to buy off them three thousand dollars at ninety days."

"And did they sell him?" Morris asked.

"Did they _sell_ him?" Abe cried. "If you was to meet a burglar coming into the store at midnight with a jimmy and a dark lantern, Mawruss, I suppose you'd volunteer to give him the combination of the safe. What? No, Mawruss, they didn't sell him. Such customers is for suckers like Sammet Brothers, Mawruss. Leon Sammet says they sold him three thousand at four months. Also, Elenbogen sold him a big bill, same terms, Mawruss. But big houses like Wechsel, Baum & Miller and Frederick Stettermann won't sell him at any terms, Mawruss."

"If everybody was so conservative like Wechsel, Baum & Miller," said Morris, "the retailers might as well go out of business."

"Wait a bit, Mawruss," Abe replied. "That ain't all. Louis Frank's wife is a sister to the Traders' and Merchants' Outlet, of Louisville--you know that thief, Marks Leshinsky; and Louis Frank's uncle, Mawruss, is Elkan Frank & Company, them big swindlers, them auctioneers, out in Chicago."

Abe sat down and dipped his pen in the inkwell with such force that the spotless surface of Morris' shirt, which he had donned that morning, assumed a polkadot pattern. It was, therefore, some minutes before Abe could devote himself to his task in silence. Finally, he evolved the following:

THE FLOWER CITY CREDIT OUTFITTING CO.

_Gents_: Your favor of the 16th inst. received and contents
noted, and in reply would say our Mr. Potash seen the trade
extensively and we are sorry to say it in the strictest
confidence that we ain't got no confidence in the party you name.
You should on no consideration do anything in the matter as all
accounts are very bad. We will tell your Mr. Hahn the particulars
when he is next in our city.
Yours truly,
POTASH & PERLMUTTER.

"It ain't no more than he deserves, Mawruss," Abe commented after Morris had read the letter.

"No," Morris admitted, "but after the way Miss Kreitmann got that feller Gubin in the hole and the way she treated Adolph Rothstein, Abe, it ain't no more than she deserves, neither."

For several days afterward Miss Kreitmann went about her work with nothing but scowls for Potash & Perlmutter's customers, married and unmarried alike.

"The thing goes too far, Abe," Morris protested. "She kills our entire trade. Hahn or no Hahn, Abe, I say we should fire her."

Abe shook his head. "It ain't necessary, Mawruss," he replied.

"What d'ye mean?"

"The girl gets desperate, Mawruss. She fires herself. She told me this morning she don't see no future here, so she's going to leave at the end of the week. She says she will maybe take up trained nursing. She hears it that there are lots of openings for a young woman that way."

Morris sat down and fairly beamed with satisfaction.

"That's the best piece of news I hear it in a long time, Abe," he said. "Now we can do maybe some business."

"Maybe we can," Abe admitted. "But not with Philip Hahn."

"Why not?" Morris cried. "We done our best by him. Ain't we? Through him we lost it a good customer, and we got to let go a good shipping clerk."

"Not a _good_ shipping clerk, Mawruss," Abe corrected.

"Well, he was a good one till Miss Kreitmann comes."

Abe made no reply. He took refuge in the columns of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record and perused the business troubles items.

"Was it our fault that Immerglick is N. G., Abe?" Morris went on. "Is it----"

"Ho-ly smokes!" Abe broke in. "What d'ye think of that?"

"What do I think of what?" Morris asked.

"Immerglick & Frank," Abe read aloud. "A petition in bankruptcy was this day filed against Immerglick & Frank, doing business as the 'Vienna Store.' This firm has been a heavy purchaser throughout the trade during the past two months, but when the receiver took possession there remained only a small stock of goods. The receiver has retained counsel and will examine Louis Frank under Section 21 A of the Bankruptcy Act. It is understood that Mendel Immerglick, the senior partner, sailed for Hamburg last week on the Kaiserin Luisa Victoria and intends to remain in Germany for an indefinite time."

Abe laid down the paper with a sigh of relief.

"If that don't make us solid with Philip Hahn, Mawruss," he said, "nothing will."

Miss Kreitmann left at the end of the week, and Abe and Morris wasted no time in vain regrets over her departure, but proceeded at once to assort and make up a new line of samples for Philip Hahn's inspection. For three days they jumped every time a customer entered the store, and Abe wore a genial smile of such fixity that his face fairly ached.

At length, on the Thursday following Miss Kreitmann's resignation, while Abe was flicking an imaginary grain of dust from the spotless array of samples, the store door burst open and a short, stout person entered. Abe looked up and, emitting an exclamation, rushed forward with both arms extended in hearty greeting.

"_Mis_ter Hahn," he cried, "how _do_ you do?"

The newcomer drew himself up haughtily, and his small mustache seemed to shed sparks of indignation.

Abe stopped short in hurt astonishment.

"Is th-there a-anything the matter?" he faltered.

"Is there anything the matter!" Mr. Hahn roared. "Is there anything the matter! That's a fine question for _you_ to ask."

"W-w-why?" Abe stuttered. "Ain't everything all right?"

Mr. Hahn, with an effort that bulged every vein in his bald forehead, subsided into comparative calm.

"Mr. Potash," he said, "I bought from you six bills of goods in the last few months. Ain't it?"

Abe nodded.

"And I never claimed no shortages and never made no kicks nor nothing, but always paid up prompt on the day like a gentleman. Ain't it?"

Abe nodded again.

"And this is what I get for it," Mr. Hahn went on bitterly. "My own niece on my wife's side, I put her in your care. I ask you to take it an interest in her. You promise me you will do your best. You tell me and Max Fried you will look after her"--he hesitated, almost overcome by emotion--"like a father. You said that when I bought the second bill. And what happens? The only chance she gets to make a decent match, you write me the feller ain't no good. Naturally, I think you got some sense, and so I busts the affair up."

"Well," Abe said, "I did write you he wasn't no good, and he wasn't no good, neither. Ain't he just made it a failure?"

Mr. Hahn grew once more infuriated.

"A failure!" he yelled. "I should say he did make a failure. _What_ a failure he made! Fool! Donkey! The man got away with a hundred thousand dollars and is living like a prince in the old country. And poor Gussie, she loved him, too! She cries night and day."

He stopped to wipe a sympathetic tear.

"She cries pretty easy," Abe said. "She cried when we fired Mannie Gubin, too."

Hahn bristled again.

"You insult me. What?" he cried. "You try to get funny with me. Hey? All right. I fix you. So far what I can help it, never no more do you sell me or Max or anybody what is friends of ours a button. Not a button! Y'understand?"

He wheeled about and the next moment the store door banged with cannon-like percussion. Morris came from behind a rack of raincoats and tiptoed toward Abe.

"Well, Abe," he said, "you put your foot in it that time."

Abe mopped the perspiration from his brow and bit the end off a cigar.

"We done business before we had Philip Hahn for a customer, Mawruss," he said, "and I guess we'll do it again. Ain't it?"

* * * * *

Six months later Abe was scanning the columns of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record while Morris examined the morning mail.

"Yes, Mawruss," he said at length. "Some people get only what they deserve. I always said it, some day Philip Hahn will be sorry he treated us the way he did. I bet yer he's sorry now."

"So far what I hear, Abe," Morris replied, "he ain't told us nor nobody else that he's sorry. In fact, I seen him coming out of Sammet Brothers' yesterday, and he looked at me like he would treat us worser already, if he could. What makes you think he's sorry, Abe?"

"Well," Abe went on, "if he _ain't_ sorry he _ought_ to be."

He handed the Daily Cloak and Suit Record to Morris and indicated the New Business column with his thumb.

"Rochester, N. Y.," it read. "Philip Hahn, doing business here as the Flower City Credit Outfitting Company, announces that he has taken into partnership Emanuel Gubin, who recently married Mr. Hahn's niece. The business will be conducted under the old firm style."

Morris handed back the paper with a smile.

"I seen Leon Sammet on the subway this morning and he told me all about it," he commented. "He says Gubin eloped with her."

Abe shook his head.

"You got it wrong, Mawruss. You must be mistaken," he concluded. "_She_ eloped with Gubin."

CHAPTER VIII

"You carry a fine stock, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe Potash exclaimed as he glanced around the well-filled shelves of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting Company.

"That ain't all the stock I carry," Mr. Sheitlis, the proprietor, exclaimed. "I got also another stock which I am anxious to dispose of it, Mr. Potash, and you could help me out, maybe."

Abe smiled with such forced amiability that his mustache was completely engulfed between his nose and his lower lip.

"I ain't buying no cloaks, Mr. Sheitlis," he said. "I'm selling 'em."

"Not a stock from cloaks, Mr. Potash," Mr. Sheitlis explained; "but a stock from gold and silver."

"I ain't in the jewelry business, neither," Abe said.

"That ain't the stock what I mean," Mr. Sheitlis cried. "Wait a bit and I'll show you."

He went to the safe in his private office and returned with a crisp parchment-paper certificate bearing in gilt characters the legend, Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation.

"This is what I mean it," he said; "stock from stock exchanges. I paid one dollar a share for this hundred shares."

Abe took the certificate and gazed at it earnestly with unseeing eyes. Mr. Sheitlis had just purchased a liberal order of cloaks and suits from Potash & Perlmutter, and it was, therefore, a difficult matter for Abe to turn down this stock proposition without offending a good customer.

"Well, Mr. Sheitlis," he commenced, "me and Mawruss Perlmutter we do business under a copartnership agreement, and it says we ain't supposed to buy no stocks from stock exchanges, and----"

"I ain't asking you to buy it," Mr. Sheitlis broke in. "I only want you to do me something for a favor. You belong in New York where all them stock brokers is, so I want you should be so kind and take this here stock to one of them stock brokers and see what I can get for it. Maybe I could get a profit for it, and then, of course, I should pay you something for your trouble."

"Pay me something!" Abe exclaimed in accents of relief. "Why, Mr. Sheitlis, what an idea! Me and Mawruss would be only too glad, Mr. Sheitlis, to try and sell it for you, and the more we get it for the stock the gladder we would be for your sake. I wouldn't take a penny for selling it if you should make a million out of it."

"A million I won't make it," Mr. Sheitlis replied, dismissing the subject. "I'll be satisfied if I get ten dollars for it."

He walked toward the front door of his store with Abe.

"What is the indications for spring business in the wholesale trade, Mr. Potash," he asked blandly.

Abe shook his head.

"It should be good, maybe," he replied; "only, you can't tell nothing about it. Silks is the trouble."

"Silks?" Mr. Sheitlis rejoined. "Why, silks makes goods sell high, Mr. Potash. Ain't it? Certainly, I admit it you got to pay more for silk piece goods as for cotton piece goods, but you take the same per cent. profit on the price of the silk as on the price of the cotton, and so you make more in the end. Ain't it?"

"If silk piece goods is low or middling, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe replied sadly, "there is a good deal in what you say. But silk is high this year, Mr. Sheitlis, so high you wouldn't believe me if I tell you we got to pay twicet as much this year as three years ago already."

Mr. Sheitlis clucked sympathetically.

"And if we charge the retailer twicet as much for a garment next year what he pays three years ago already, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe went on, "we won't do no business. Ain't it? So we got to cut our profits, and that's the way it goes in the cloak and suit business. You don't know where you are at no more than when you got stocks from stock exchanges."

"Well, Mr. Potash," Sheitlis replied encouragingly, "next season is next season, but now is this season, and from the prices what you quoted it me, Mr. Potash, you ain't going to the poorhouse just yet a while."

"I only hope it that you make more profit on the stock than we make it on the order you just give us," Abe rejoined as he shook his customer's hand in token of farewell. "Good-by, Mr. Sheitlis, and as soon as I get back in New York I'll let you know all about it."

Two days after Abe's return to New York he sat in Potash & Perlmutter's show-room, going over next year's models as published in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record. His partner, Morris Perlmutter, puffed disconsolately at a cigar which a competitor had given him in exchange for credit information.

"Them cigars what Klinger & Klein hands out," he said to his partner, "has asbestos wrappers and excelsior fillers, I bet yer. I'd as lief smoke a kerosene lamp."

"You got your worries, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Just look at them next year's models, Mawruss, and a little thing like cigars wouldn't trouble you at all. Silk, soutache and buttons they got it, Mawruss. I guess pretty soon them Paris people will be getting out garments trimmed with solitaire diamonds."

Morris seized the paper and examined the half-tone cuts with a critical eye.

"You're right, Abe," he said. "We'll have our troubles next season, but we take our profit on silk goods, Abe, the same as we do on cotton goods."

Abe was about to retort when a wave of recollection came over him, and he clutched wildly at his breast pocket.

"Ho-ly smokes!" he cried. "I forgot all about it."

"Forgot all about what?" Morris asked.

"B. Sheitlis, of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting Company," Abe replied. "He give me a stock in Pittsburg last week, and I forgot all about it."

"A stock!" Morris exclaimed. "What for a stock?"

"A stock from the stock exchange," Abe replied; "a stock from gold and silver mines. He wanted me I should do it a favor for him and see a stock broker here and sell it for him."

"Well, that's pretty easy," Morris rejoined. "There's lots of stock brokers in New York, Abe. There's pretty near as many stock brokers as there is suckers, Abe."

"Maybe there is, Mawruss," Abe replied, "but I don't know any of them."

"No?" Morris said. "Well, Sol Klinger, of Klinger & Klein, could tell you, I guess. I seen him in the subway this morning, and he was pretty near having a fit over the financial page of the Sun. I asked him if he seen a failure there, and he says no, but Steel has went up to seventy, maybe it was eighty. So I says to him he should let Andrew Carnegie worry about that, and he says if he would of bought it at forty he would have been in thirty thousand dollars already."

"Who?" Abe asked. "Andrew Carnegie?"

"No," Morris said; "Sol Klinger. So I says to him I could get all the excitement I wanted out of auction pinochle and he says----"

"S'enough, Mawruss," Abe broke in. "I heard enough already. I'll ring him up and ask him the name of the broker what does his business."

He went to the telephone in the back of the store and returned a moment later and put on his hat and coat.

"I rung up Sol, Mawruss," he said, "and Sol tells me that a good broker is Gunst & Baumer. They got a branch office over Hill, Arkwright & Thompson, the auctioneers, Mawruss. He says a young feller by the name Milton Fiedler is manager, and if he can't sell that stock, Mawruss, Sol says nobody can. So I guess I'll go right over and see him while I got it in my mind."

Milton Fiedler had served an arduous apprenticeship before he attained the position of branch manager for Gunst & Baumer in the dry-goods district. During the thirty odd years of his life he had been in turn stockboy, clothing salesman, bookmaker's clerk, faro dealer, poolroom cashier and, finally, bucketshop proprietor. When the police closed him up he sought employment with Gunst & Baumer, whose exchange affiliations precluded any suspicion of bucketing, but who, nevertheless, did a thriving business in curb securities of the cat-and-dog variety, and it was in this particular branch of the science of investment and speculation that Milton excelled. Despite his expert knowledge, however, he was slightly stumped, as the vernacular has it, when Abe Potash produced B. Sheitlis' stock, for in all his bucketshop and curb experience he had never even heard of the Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation.

"This is one of those smaller mines, Mr. Potash," he explained, "which sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. Of course, I can't tell you offhand what the value of the stock is, but I'll make inquiries at once. The inside market at present is very strong, as you know."

Abe nodded, as he thought was expected of him, although "inside" and "outside" markets were all one to him.

"And curb securities naturally feel the influence of the bullish sentiment," Fiedler continued. "It isn't the business of a broker to try to influence a customer's choice, but I'd like you to step outside"--they were in the manager's private office--"and look at the quotation board for a moment. Interstate Copper is remarkably active this morning."

He led Abe into an adjoining room where a tall youth was taking green cardboard numbers from a girdle which he wore, and sticking them on the quotation board.

"Hello!" Fiedler exclaimed as the youth affixed a new number. "Interstate Copper has advanced a whole point since two days ago. It's now two and an eighth."

Simultaneously, a young man in the back of the room exclaimed aloud in woeful profanity.

"What's the matter with him?" Abe asked.

"They play 'em both ways--a-hem!" Fiedler corrected himself in time. "Occasionally we have a customer who sells short of the market, and then, of course, if the market goes up he gets stung--er--he sustains a loss."

Here the door opened and Sol Klinger entered. His bulging eyes fell on the quotation board, and at once his face spread into a broad smile.

"Hello, Sol!" Abe cried. "You look like you sold a big bill of goods."

"I hope I look better than that, Abe," Sol replied. "I make it more on that Interstate Copper in two days what I could make it on ten big bills of goods. That's a great property, Abe."

"I think Mr. Klinger will have reason to congratulate himself still more by to-morrow, Mr. Potash," Fiedler broke in. "Interstate Copper is a stock with an immediate future."

"You bet," Sol agreed. "I'm going to hold on to mine. It'll go up to five inside of a week."

The young man from the rear of the room took the two rows of chairs at a jump.

"Fiedler," he said, "I'm going to cover right away. Buy me a thousand Interstate at the market."

Sol nudged Abe, and after the young man and Fiedler had disappeared into the latter's private office Sol imparted in hoarse whispers to Abe that the young man was reported to have information from the ground-floor crowd about Interstate Copper.

"Well, if that's so," Abe replied, "why does he lose money on it?"

"Because," Sol explained, "he's got an idee that if you act just contrariwise to the inside information what you get it, why then you come out right."

Abe shook his head hopelessly.

"Pinochle, I understand it," he said, "and skat a little also. But this here stocks from stock exchanges is worser than chest what they play it in coffee-houses."

"You don't need to understand it, Abe," Sol replied. "All you do is to buy a thousand Interstate Copper to-day or to-morrow at any price up to two and a half, Abe, and I give you a guarantee that you make twenty-five hundred dollars by next week."

When Abe returned to his place of business that day he had developed a typical case of stock-gambling fever, with which he proceeded to inoculate Morris as soon as the latter came back from lunch. Abe at once recounted all his experiences of the morning and dwelt particularly on the phenomenal rise of Interstate Copper.

"Sol says he guarantees that we double our money in a week," he concluded.

"Did he say he would put it in writing?" Morris asked.

Abe glared at Morris for an instant.

"Do you think I am making jokes?" he rejoined. "He don't got to put it in writing, Mawruss. It's as plain as the nose on your face. We pay twenty-five hundred dollars for a thousand shares at two and a half to-day, and next week it goes up to five and we sell it and make it twenty-five hundred dollars. Ain't it?"

"Who do we sell it to?" Morris asked.

Abe pondered for a moment, then his face brightened up.

"Why, to the stock exchange, certainly," he replied.

"_Must_ they buy it from us, Abe?" Morris inquired.

"Sure they must, Mawruss," Abe said. "Ain't Sol Klinger always selling his stocks to them people?"

"Well, Sol Klinger got his customers, Abe, and we got ours," Morris replied doubtfully. "Maybe them people would buy it from Sol and wouldn't buy it from us."

For the rest of the afternoon Morris plied Abe with questions about the technicalities of the stock market until Abe took refuge in flight and went home at half-past five. The next morning Morris resumed his quiz until Abe's replies grew personal in character.

"What's the use of trying to explain something to nobody what don't understand nothing?" he exclaimed.

"Maybe I don't understand it," Morris admitted, "but also you don't understand it, too, maybe. Ain't it?"

"I understand this much, Mawruss," Abe cried--"I understand, Mawruss, that if Sol Klinger tells me he guarantees it I make twenty-five hundred dollars, and this here Milton Fiedler, too, he also says it, and a young feller actually with my own eyes I see it buys this stock because he's got information from inside people, why shouldn't _we_ buy it and make money on it? Ain't it?"

Morris was about to reply when the letter carrier entered with the morning mail. Abe took the bundle of envelopes, and on the top of the pile was a missive from Gunst & Baumer. Abe tore open the envelope and looked at the letter hurriedly. "You see, Mawruss," he cried, "already it goes up a sixteenth." He handed the letter to Morris. It read as follows:

_Gentlemen:_

For your information we beg to advise you that Interstate Copper
advanced a sixteenth at the close of the market yesterday. Should
you desire us to execute a buying order in these securities, we
urge you to let us know before ten o'clock to-morrow morning, as
we believe that a sharp advance will follow the opening of the
market.
Truly yours,
GUNST & BAUMER,
Milton Fiedler, Mgr.

"Well," Abe said, "what do you think, Mawruss?"

"Think!" Morris cried. "Why, I think that he ain't said nothing to us about them gold and silver stocks of B. Sheitlis', Abe, so I guess he ain't sold 'em yet. If he can't sell a stock from gold and silver already, Abe, what show do we stand with a stock from copper?"

"That Sheitlis stock is only a small item, Mawruss."

"Well, maybe it is," Morris admitted, "but just you ring up and ask him. Then, if we find that he sold that gold and silver stock we take a chance on the copper."

Abe hastened to the telephone in the rear of the store.

"Listen, Abe," Morris called after him, "tell him it should be no dating or discount, strictly net cash."

In less than a minute, Abe was conversing with Fiedler.

"Mr. Fiedler!" he said. "Hello, Mr. Fiedler! Is this you? Yes. Well, me and Mawruss is about decided to buy a thousand of them stocks what you showed me down at your store--at your office yesterday, only, Mawruss says, why should we buy them goods--them stocks if you ain't sold that other stocks already. First, he says, you should sell them stocks from gold and silver, Mr. Fiedler, and then we buy them copper ones."

Mr. Fiedler, at the other end of the 'phone, hesitated before replying. The Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation was a paper mine that had long since faded from the memory of every bucketshop manager he knew, and its stock was worth absolutely nothing. Yet Gunst & Baumer, as the promoters of Interstate Copper, would clear at least two thousand dollars by the sale of the stock to Abe and Morris; hence, Fiedler took a gambler's chance.

"Why, Mr. Potash," he said, "a boy is already on the way to your store with a check for that very stock. I sold it for three hundred dollars and I sent you a check for two hundred and seventy-five dollars. Twenty-five dollars is our usual charge for selling a hundred shares of stock that ain't quoted on the curb."

"Much obliged, Mr. Fiedler," Abe said. "I'll be down there with a check for twenty-five hundred."

"All right," Mr. Fiedler replied. "I'll go ahead and buy the stock for your account."

"Well," Abe said, "don't do that until I come down. I got to fix it up with my partner first, Mr. Fiedler, and just as soon as I can get there I'll bring you the check."

Twenty minutes after Abe had rung off a messenger arrived with a check for two hundred and seventy-five dollars, and Morris included it in the morning deposits which he was about to send over to the Kosciusko Bank.

"While you're doing that, Mawruss," Abe said, "you might as well draw a check for twenty-five hundred dollars for that stock."

Morris grunted.

"That's going to bring down our balance a whole lot, Abe," he said.

"Only for a week, Mawruss," Abe corrected, "and then we'll sell it again."

"Whose order do I write it to, Abe?" Morris inquired.

"I forgot to ask that," Abe replied.

"Gunst & Baumer?" Morris asked.

"They ain't the owners of it, Mawruss," said Abe. "They're only the brokers."

"Maybe Sol Klinger is selling it to the stock-exchange people and they're selling it to us," Morris suggested.

"Sol Klinger ain't going to sell his. He's going to hang on to it. Maybe it's this young feller what I see there, Mawruss, only I don't know his name."

"Well, then, I'll make it out to Potash & Perlmutter, and you can indorse it when you get there," said Morris.

At this juncture a customer entered, and Abe took him into the show-room, while Morris wrote out the check. For almost an hour and a half Abe displayed the firm's line, from which the customer selected a generous order, and when at last Abe was free to go down to Gunst & Baumer's it was nearly twelve o'clock. He put on his hat and coat, and jumped on a passing car, and it was not until he had traveled two blocks that he remembered the check. He ran all the way back to the store and, tearing the check out of the checkbook where Morris had left it, he dashed out again and once more boarded a Broadway car. In front of Gunst & Baumer's offices he leaped wildly from the car to the street, and, escaping an imminent fire engine and a hosecart, he ran into the doorway and took the stairs three at a jump.

On the second floor of the building was Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's salesroom, where a trade sale was in progress, and the throng of buyers collected there overflowed onto the landing, but Abe elbowed his way through the crowd and made the last flight in two seconds.

"Is Mr. Fiedler in?" he gasped as he burst into the manager's office of Gunst & Baumer's suite.

"Mr. Fiedler went out to lunch," the office-boy replied. "He says you should sit down and wait, and he'll be back in ten minutes."

But Abe was too nervous for sitting down, and the thought of the customers' room with its quotation board only agitated him the more.

"I guess I'll go downstairs to Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's," he said, "and give a look around. I'll be back in ten minutes."

He descended the stairs leisurely and again elbowed his way through the crowd into the salesroom of Hill, Arkwright & Thompson. Mr. Arkwright was on the rostrum, and as Abe entered he was announcing the next lot.

"Look at them carefully, gentlemen," he said. "An opportunity like this seldom arises. They are all fresh goods, woven this season for next season's business--foulard silks of exceptionally good design and quality."

At the word silks Abe started and made at once for the tables on which the goods were piled. He examined them critically, and as he did so his mind reverted to the half-tone cuts in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record. Here was a rare chance to lay in a stock of piece goods that might not recur for several years, certainly not before next season had passed.

"It's to close an estate, gentlemen," Mr. Arkwright continued. "The proprietor of the mills died recently, and his executors have decided to wind up the business. All these silk foulards will be offered as one lot. What is the bid?"

Immediately competition became fast and furious, and Abe entered into it with a zest and excitement that completely eclipsed all thought of stock exchanges or copper shares. The bids rose by leaps and bounds, and when, half an hour later, Abe emerged from the fray his collar was melted to the consistency of a pocket handkerchief, but the light of victory shone through his perspiration. He was the purchaser of the entire lot, and by token of his ownership he indorsed the twenty-five-hundred-dollar check to the order of Hill, Arkwright & Thompson.

The glow of battle continued with Abe until he reached the show-room of his own place of business at two o'clock.

"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "did you buy the stock?"

"Huh?" Abe exclaimed, and then, for the first time since he saw the silk foulards, he remembered Interstate Copper.

"I was to Wasserbauer's Restaurant for lunch," Morris continued, "and in the café I seen that thing what the baseball comes out of it, Abe."

"The tickler," Abe croaked.

"That's it," Morris went on. "Also, Sol Klinger was looking at it, and he told me Interstate Copper was up to three already."

Abe sat down in a chair and passed his hand over his forehead.

"That's the one time when you give it us good advice, Abe," said Morris. "Sol says we may make it three thousand dollars yet."

Abe nodded. He licked his dry lips and essayed to speak, but the words of confession would not come.

"It was a lucky day for us, Abe, when you seen B. Sheitlis," Morris continued. "Of course, I ain't saying it was all luck, Abe, because it wasn't. If you hadn't seen the opportunity, Abe, and practically made me go into it, I wouldn't of done nothing, Abe."

Abe nodded again. If the guilt he felt inwardly had expressed itself in his face there would have been no need of confession. At length he braced himself to tell it all; but just as he cleared his throat by way of prelude Morris was summoned to the cutting-room and remained there until closing-time. Thus, when Abe went home his secret remained locked up within his breast, nor did he find it a comfortable burden, for when he looked at the quotations of curb securities in the evening paper he found that Interstate Copper had closed at four and a half, after a total day's business of sixty thousand shares.

The next morning Abe reached his store more than two hours after his usual hour. He had rolled on his pillow all night, and it was almost day before he could sleep.

"Why, Abe," Morris cried when he saw him, "you look sick. What's the matter?"

"I feel mean, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I guess I eat something what disagrees with me."

Ordinarily, Morris would have made rejoinder to the effect that when a man reached Abe's age he ought to know enough to take care of his stomach; but Morris had devoted himself to the financial column of a morning newspaper on his way downtown, and his feelings toward his partner were mollified in proportion.

"That's too bad, Abe," he said. "Why don't you see a doctor?"

Abe shook his head and was about to reply when the telephone bell rang.

"That's Sol Klinger," Morris exclaimed. "He said he would let me know at ten o'clock what this Interstate Copper opened at."

He darted for the telephone in the rear of the store, and when he returned his face was wreathed in smiles.

"It has come up to five already," he cried. "We make it twenty-five hundred dollars."

While Morris was talking over the 'phone Abe had been trying to bring his courage to the sticking point, and the confession was on the very tip of his tongue when the news which Morris brought forced it back again. He rose wearily to his feet.

"I guess you think we're getting rich quick, Mawruss," he said, and repaired to the bookkeeper's desk in the firm's private office. For the next two hours and a half he dodged about, with one eye on Morris and the other on the rear entrance to the store. He expected the silk to arrive at any moment, and he knew that when it did the jig would be up. It was with a sigh of relief that he saw Morris go out to lunch at half-past twelve, and almost immediately afterward Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's truckman arrived with the goods. Abe superintended the disposal of the packing cases in the cutting-room, and he was engaged in opening them when Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, entered.

"Mr. Potash," she said, "Mr. Perlmutter wants to see you in the show-room."

"Did he come back from lunch so soon?" Abe asked.

"He came in right after he went out," she replied. "I guess he must be sick. He looks sick."

Abe turned pale.

"I guess he found it out," he said to himself as he descended the stairs and made for the show-room. When he entered he found Morris seated in a chair with the first edition of an evening paper clutched in his hand.

"What's the matter, Mawruss?" Abe said.

Morris gulped once or twice and made a feeble attempt to brandish the paper.

"Matter?" he croaked. "Nothing's the matter. Only, we are out twenty-five hundred dollars. That's all."

"No, we ain't, Mawruss," Abe protested. "What we are out in one way we make in another."

Morris sought to control himself, but his pent-up emotions gave themselves vent.

"We do, hey?" he roared. "Well, maybe you think because I took your fool advice this oncet that I'll do it again?"

He grew red in the face.

"Gambler!" he yelled. "Fool! You shed my blood! What? You want to ruin me! Hey?"

Abe had expected a tirade, but nothing half as violent as this.

"Mawruss," he said soothingly, "don't take it so particular."

He might as well have tried to stem Niagara with a shovel.

"Ain't the cloak and suit business good enough for you?" Morris went on. "Must you go throwing away money on stocks from stock exchanges?"

Abe scratched his head. These rhetorical questions hardly fitted the situation, especially the one about throwing away money.

"Look-y here, Mawruss," he said, "if you think you scare me by this theayter acting you're mistaken. Just calm yourself, Mawruss, and tell me what you heard it. I ain't heard nothing."

For answer Morris handed him the evening paper.

"Sensational Failure in Wall Street," was the red-letter legend on the front page. With bulging eyes Abe took in the import of the leaded type which disclosed the news that Gunst & Baumer, promoters of Interstate Copper, having boosted its price to five, were overwhelmed by a flood of profit-taking. To support their stock Gunst & Baumer were obliged to buy in all the Interstate offered at five, and when at length their resources gave out they announced their suspension. Interstate immediately collapsed and sold down in less than a quarter of an hour from five bid, five and a thirty-second asked, to a quarter bid, three-eighths asked.

Abe handed back the paper to Morris and lit a cigar.

"For a man what has just played his partner for a sucker, Abe," Morris said, "you take it nice and quiet."

Abe puffed slowly before replying.

"After all, Mawruss," he said, "I was right."

"You was right?" Morris exclaimed. "What d'ye mean?"

"I mean, Mawruss," Abe went on, "I figured it out right. I says to myself when I got that check for twenty-five hundred dollars: If I buy this here stock from stock exchanges and we make money Mawruss will go pretty near crazy. He'll want to buy it the whole stock exchange full from stocks, and in the end it will bust us. On the other hand, Mawruss, I figured it out that if we bought this here stock and lose money on it, then Mawruss'll go crazy also, and want to murder me or something."

He paused and puffed again at his cigar.

"So, Mawruss," he concluded, "I went down to Gunst & Baumer's building, Mawruss; but instead of going to Gunst & Baumer, Mawruss, I went one flight lower down to Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's, Mawruss, and I didn't buy it Interstate Copper, Mawruss, but I bought it instead silk foulards, Mawruss--seventy-five hundred dollars' worth for twenty-five hundred dollars, and it's laying right now up in the cutting-room."

He leaned back in his chair and triumphantly surveyed his partner, who had collapsed into a crushed and perspiring heap.

"So, Mawruss," he said, "I am a gambler. Hey? I shed your blood? What? I ruin you with my fool advice? Ain't it?"

Morris raised a protesting hand.

"Abe," he murmured huskily, "I done you an injury. It's me what's the fool. I was carried away by B. Sheitlis' making his money so easy."

Abe jumped to his feet.

"Ho-ly smokes!" he cried and dashed out of the show-room to the telephone in the rear of the store. He returned a moment later with his cigar at a rakish angle to his jutting lower lip.

"It's all right, Mawruss," he said. "I rung up the Kosciusko Bank and the two-hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar check went through all right."

"Sure it did," Morris replied, his drooping spirits once more revived. "I deposited it at eleven o'clock yesterday morning. I don't take no chances on getting stuck, Abe, and I only hope you didn't get stuck on them foulards, neither."

Abe grinned broadly.

"You needn't worry about that, Mawruss," he replied. "Stocks from stock exchanges maybe I don't know it, Mawruss; but stocks from silk foulards I do know it, Mawruss, and don't you forget it."

CHAPTER IX

"Sol Klinger must think he ain't taking chances enough in these here stocks, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked a week after the slump in Interstate Copper. "He got to hire a drummer by the name Walsh yet. That feller's idee of entertaining a customer is to go into Wasserbauer's and to drink all the schnapps in stock. I bet yer when Walsh gets through, he don't know which is the customer and which is the bartender already."

"You got to treat a customer right, Abe," Morris commented, "because nowadays we are up against some stiff competition. You take this here new concern, Abe, the Small Drygoods Company of Walla Walla, Washington, Abe, and Klinger & Klein ain't lost no time. Sol tells me this morning that them Small people start in with a hundred thousand capital all paid in. Sol says also their buyer James Burke which they send it East comes from the same place in the old country as this here Frank Walsh, and I guess we got to hustle if we want to get his trade, ain't it?"

"Because a customer is a _Landsmann_ of _mine_, Mawruss," Abe replied, "ain't no reason why I shall sell him goods, Mawruss. If I could sell all my _Landsleute_ what is in the cloak and suit business, Mawruss, we would be doing a million-dollar business a month, ain't it?"

At this juncture Morris drew on his imagination. "I hear it also, Abe," he hinted darkly, "that this here James Bourke, what the Small Drygoods Company sends East, is related by marriage to this here Walsh's wife."

"Wives' relations is nix, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I got enough with wives' relations. When me and my Rosie gets married her mother was old man Smolinski's a widow. He made an honest failure of it in the customer peddler business in eighteen eighty-five, and the lodge money was pretty near gone when I got into the family. Then my wife's mother gives my wife's brother, Scheuer Smolinski, ten dollars to go out and buy some schnapps for the wedding, and that's the last we see of _him_, Mawruss. But Rosie and me gets married, anyhow, and takes the old lady to live with us, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, she gets sick on us and dies, with a professor and two trained nurses at my expense, and that's the way it goes, Mawruss."

He rose to his feet and helped himself to a cigar from the L to N first and second credit customers' box.

"No, Mawruss," he concluded, "if you can't sell a man goods on their merits, Mawruss, you'll never get him to take them because your wife is related by marriage to his wife. Ain't it? We got a good line, Mawruss, and we stand a show to sell our goods without no theayters nor dinners nor nothing."

Morris shrugged his shoulders. "All right, Abe," he said, "you can do what you like about it, but I already bought it two tickets for Saturday night."

"Of course, if you _like_ to go to shows, Mawruss," Abe declared as he rose to his feet, "I can't stop you. Only one thing I got to say it, Mawruss--if you think you should charge that up to the firm's expense account, all I got to say is you're mistaken, that's all."

Abe strode out of the show-room before a retort could formulate itself, so Morris struggled into his overcoat instead and made for the store door. As he reached it his eye fell on the clock over Wasserbauer's Café on the other side of the street. The hands pointed to two o'clock, and he broke into a run, for the Southwestern Flyer which bore the person of James Burke was due at the Grand Central Station at two-ten. Fifteen minutes later Morris darted out of the subway exit at Forty-second Street and imminently avoided being run down by a hansom. Indeed, the vehicle came to a halt so suddenly that the horse reared on its haunches, while a flood of profanity from the driver testified to the nearness of Morris' escape. Far from being grateful, however, Morris paused on the curb and was about to retaliate in kind when one of the two male occupants of the hansom leaned forward and poked a derisive finger at him.

"What's the hurry, Morris?" said the passenger.

Morris looked up and gasped, for in that fleeting moment he recognized his tormentor. It was Frank Walsh, and although Morris saw only the features of his competitor it needed no Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Frank's fellow-passenger was none other than James Burke, buyer for the Small Drygoods Company.

Two hours later he returned to the store, for he had seized the opportunity of visiting some of the firm's retail trade while uptown, and when he came in he found Abe sorting a pile of misses' reefers.

"Well, Mawruss," Abe cried, "you look worried."

"I bet you I'm worried, Abe," he said. "You and your wife's relations done it. Two thousand dollars thrown away in the street. I got to the Grand Central Station just in time to get there too late, Abe. This here Walsh was ahead of me already, and he took Burke away in a hansom. When I come out of the subway they pretty near run over me, Abe."

"A competitor will do anything, Mawruss," Abe said sympathetically. "But don't you worry. There's just as big fish swimming in the sea as what they sell by fish markets, Mawruss. Bigger even. We ain't going to fail yet a while just because we lose the Small Drygoods Company for a customer."

"We ain't lost 'em yet, Abe," Morris rejoined, and without taking off his coat he repaired to Wasserbauer's Restaurant and Café for a belated lunch. As he entered he encountered Frank Walsh, who had been congratulating himself at the bar.

"Hello, Morris," he cried. "I cut you out, didn't I?"

"You cut me out?" Morris replied stiffly. "I don't know what you mean."

"Of course you don't," Walsh broke in heartily. "I suppose you was hustling to the Grand Central Station just because you wanted to watch the engines. Well, I won't crow over you, Morris. Better luck next time!"

His words fell on unheeding ears, for Morris was busily engaged in looking around him. He sought features that might possibly belong to James Burke, but Frank seemed to be the only representative of the Emerald Isle present, and Morris proceeded to the restaurant in the rear.

"I suppose he turned him over to Klinger," he said to himself, while from the vantage of his table he saw Frank Walsh buy cigars and pass out into the street in company with another drummer _not_ of Irish extraction.

He finished his lunch without appetite, and when he reëntered the store Abe walked forward to greet him.

"Well, Mawruss," he said, "I seen Sol Klinger coming down the street a few minutes ago, so I kinder naturally just stood out on the sidewalk till he comes past, Mawruss. I saw he ain't looking any too pleased, so I asked him what's the trouble; and he says, nothing, only that Frank Walsh, what they got it for a drummer, eats 'em up with expenses. So I says, How so? And he says, this here Walsh has a customer by the name of Burke come to town, and the first thing you know, he spends it three dollars for a cab for Burke, and five dollars for lunch for Burke, and also ten dollars for two tickets for a show for Burke, before this here Burke is in town two hours already. Klinger looked pretty sore about it, Mawruss."

"What show is he taking Burke to?" Morris asked.

"It ain't a show exactly," Abe replied hastily; "it's a prize-fight."

"A fight!" Morris cried. "That's an idea, ain't it?--to take a customer to a fight."

"I know it, Mawruss," Abe rejoined, "but you got to remember that the customer's name is also Burke. What for a show did you buy it tickets for?"

Morris blushed. "Travvy-ayter," he murmured.

"Travvy-ayter!" Abe replied. "Why, that's an opera, ain't it?"

Morris nodded. He had intended to combine business with pleasure by taking Burke to hear Tetrazzini.

"Well, you got your idees, too, Mawruss," Abe continued; "and I don't know that they're much better as this here Walsh's idees."

"Ain't they, Abe?" Morris replied. "Well, maybe they ain't, Abe. But just because I got a loafer for a customer ain't no reason why I should be a loafer myself, Abe."

"Must you take a customer to a show, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Is there a law compelling it, Mawruss?"

Morris shrugged his shoulders.

"Anyhow, Abe," he said, "I don't see that _you_ got any kick coming, because I'm going to give them tickets to you and Rosie, Abe, and youse two can take in the show."

"And where are you going, Mawruss?"

"Me?" Morris replied. "I'm going to a prize-fighting, Abe. I don't give up so easy as all that."

On his way home that night Morris consulted an evening paper, and when he turned to the sporting page he found the upper halves of seven columns effaced by a huge illustration executed in the best style of Jig, the Sporting Cartoonist. In the left-hand corner crouched Slogger Atkins, the English lightweight, while opposite to him in the right-hand corner stood Young Kilrain, poised in an attitude of defense. Underneath was the legend, "The Contestants in Tomorrow Night's Battle." By reference to Jig's column Morris ascertained that the scene of the fight would be at the Polygon Club's new arena in the vicinity of Harlem Bridge, and at half past eight Saturday night he alighted from a Third Avenue L train at One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street and followed the crowd that poured over the bridge.

It was nine o'clock before Morris gained admission to the huge frame structure that housed the arena of the Polygon Club. Having just paid five dollars as a condition precedent to membership in good standing, he took his seat amid a dense fog of tobacco smoke and peered around him for Frank Walsh and his customer. At length he discerned Walsh's stalwart figure at the right hand of a veritable giant, whose square jaw and tip-tilted nose would have proclaimed the customer, even though Walsh had not assiduously plied him with cigars and engaged him continually in animated conversation. They were seated well down toward the ring, while Morris found a place directly opposite them and watched their every movement. When they laughed Morris scowled, and once when the big man slapped his thigh in uproarious appreciation of one of Walsh's stories Morris fairly turned green with envy.

Morris watched with a jaundiced eye the manner in which Frank Walsh radiated good humor. Not only did Walsh hand out cigars to the big man, but also he proffered them to the person who sat next to him on the other side. This man Morris recognized as the drummer who had been in Wasserbauer's with Frank on the previous day.

"Letting him in on it, too," Morris said to himself. "What show do I stand?"

The first of the preliminary bouts began. The combatants were announced as Pig Flanagan and Tom Evans, the Welsh coal-miner. It seemed to Morris that he had seen Evans somewhere before, but as this was his initiation into the realms of pugilism he concluded that it was merely a chance resemblance and dismissed the matter from his mind.

The opening bout more than realized Morris' conception of the sport's brutality, for Pig Flanagan was what the _cognoscenti_ call a good bleeder, and during the first second of the fight he fulfilled his reputation at the instance of a light tap from his opponent's left. There are some people who cannot stand the sight of blood; Morris was one of them, and the drummer on Frank Walsh's right was another. Both he and Morris turned pale, but the big man on Walsh's left roared his approbation.

"Eat him up!" he bellowed, and at every fresh hemorrhage from Mr. Flanagan he rocked and swayed in an ecstasy of enjoyment. For three crimson rounds Pig Flanagan and Tom Evans continued their contest, but even a good bleeder must run dry eventually, and in the first half of the fourth round Pig took the count.

By this time the arena was swimming in Morris' nauseated vision, while, as for the drummer on Frank's right, he closed his eyes and wiped a clammy perspiration from his forehead. The club meeting proceeded, however, despite the stomachs of its weaker members, and the next bout commenced with a rush. It was advertised in advance by Morris' neighboring seatholders as a scientific contest, but in pugilism, as in surgery, science is often gory. In this instance a scientific white man hit a colored savant squarely on the nose, with the inevitable sanguinary result, and as though by a prearranged signal Morris and the drummer on Walsh's right started for the door. In vain did Walsh seize his neighbor by the coat-tail. The latter shook himself loose, and he and Morris reached the sidewalk together.

"T'phooie!" said the drummer. "That's an amusement for five dollars."

Morris wiped his face and gasped like a landed fish. At length he recovered his composure. "I seen you sitting next to Walsh," he said.

The drummer nodded. "He didn't want me to go," he replied. "He said we come together and we should go together, but I told him I would wait for him till it was over. Him and that other fellow seem to enjoy it."

"Some people has got funny idees of a good time," Morris commented.

"_That's_ an idee for a loafer," said the drummer. "For my part I like it more refined."

"I believe you," Morris replied. "Might you would come and take a cup of coffee with me, maybe?"

He indicated a bathbrick dairy restaurant on the opposite side of the street.

"Much obliged," the drummer replied, "but I got to go out of town to-morrow, and coffee keeps me awake. I think I'll wait here for about half an hour, and if Walsh and his friends don't come out by then I guess I'll go home."

Morris hesitated. A sense of duty demanded that he stay and see the matter through, since his newly-made acquaintance with the _tertium quid_ of Walsh's little party might lead to an introduction to the big man, and for the rest Morris trusted to his own salesmanship. But the drummer settled the matter for him.

"On second thought," he said, "I guess I won't wait. Why should I bother with a couple like them? If you're going downtown on the L I'll go with you."

Together they walked to the Manhattan terminal of the Third Avenue road and discussed the features of the disgusting spectacle they had just witnessed. In going over its details they found sufficient conversation to cover the journey to One Hundred and Sixteenth Street, where Morris alighted. When he descended to the street it occurred to him for the first time that he had omitted to learn both the name and line of business of his new-found friend.

In the meantime Frank Walsh and his companion watched the white scientist and the colored savant conclude their exhibition and cheered themselves hoarse over the _pièce de résistance_ which followed immediately. At length Slogger Atkins disposed of Young Kilrain with a well-directed punch in the solar plexus, and Walsh and his companion rose to go.

"What become of yer friend?" the big man asked.

"He had to go out, Jim," Frank replied. "He couldn't stand the sight of the blood."

"Is that so?" the big man commented. "It beats all, the queer ideas some people has."

"Well, Mawruss," Abe cried as he greeted his partner on Monday morning, "how did it went?"

"How did what went?" Morris asked.

"The prize-fighting."

Morris shook his head. "Not for all the cloak and suit trade on the Pacific slope," he said finally, "would I go to one of them things again. First, a fat Eyetalian by the name Flanagan fights with a young feller, Tom Evans, the Welsh coal-miner, and you never seen nothing like it, Abe, outside a slaughter-house."

"Flanagan don't seem much like an Eyetalian, Mawruss," Abe commented.

"I know it," Morris replied; "but that wouldn't surprise you much if you could seen the one what they call Tom Evans, the Welsh coal-miner."

"Why not?" Abe asked.

"Well, you remember Hyman Feinsilver, what worked by us as a shipping clerk while Jake was sick?"

"Sure I do," Abe replied. "Comes from very decent, respectable people in the old country. His father was a rabbi."

"Don't make no difference about his father, Abe," Morris went on. "That Tom Evans, the Welsh coal-miner, is Hyman Feinsilver what worked by us, and the way he treated that poor Eyetalian young feller was a shame for the people. It makes me sick to think of it."

"Don't think of it, then," Abe replied, "because it won't do you no good, Mawruss. I seen Sol Klinger in the subway this morning, and he says that last Saturday morning already James Burke was in their place and picked out enough goods to stock the biggest suit department in the country. Sol says Burke went to Philadelphia yesterday to meet Sidney Small, the president of the concern, and they're coming over to Klinger & Klein's this morning and close the deal."

Morris sat down and lit a cigar. "Yes, Abe, that's the way it goes," he said bitterly. "You sit here and tell me a long story about your wife's relations, and the first thing you know, Abe, I miss the train and Frank Walsh takes away my trade. What do I care about your wife's relations, Abe?"

"That's what I told you, Mawruss. Wife's relations don't do nobody no good," Abe replied.

"Jokes!" Morris exclaimed as he moved off to the rear of the store. "Jokes he is making it, and two thousand dollars thrown into the street."

For the rest of the morning Morris sulked in the cutting-room upstairs, while Abe busied himself in assorting his samples for a forthcoming New England trip. At twelve o'clock a customer came in, and when he left at half-past twelve Abe escorted him to the store door and lingered there a few minutes to get a breath of fresh air. As he was about to reënter the store he discerned the corpulent figure of Frank Walsh making his way down the opposite sidewalk toward Wasserbauer's Café. With him were two other men, one of them about as big as Frank himself, the other a slight, dark person.

Abe darted to the rear of the store. "Mawruss," he called, "come quick! Here is this Walsh feller with Small and Burke."

Morris took the first few stairs at a leap, and had his partner not caught him he would have landed in a heap at the bottom of the flight. They covered the distance from the stairway to the store door so rapidly that when they reached the sidewalk Frank and his customers had not yet arrived in front of Wasserbauer's.

"The little feller," Morris hissed, "is the same one what was up to the fighting. I guess he's a drummer."

"Him?" Abe replied. "He ain't no drummer, Mawruss. He's Jacob Berkowitz, what used to run the Up-to-Date Store in Seattle. I sold him goods when me and Pincus Vesell was partners together, way before the Spanish War already. Who's the other feller?"

At that moment the subject of Abe's inquiry looked across the street and for the first time noticed Abe and Morris standing on the sidewalk. He stopped short and stared at Abe until his bulging eyes caught the sign above the store. For one brief moment he hesitated and then he leaped from the curb to the gutter and plunged across the roadway, with Jacob Berkowitz and Frank Walsh in close pursuit. He seized Abe by both hands and shook them up and down.

"Abe Potash!" he cried. "So sure as you live."

"That's right," Abe admitted; "that's my name."

"You don't remember me, Abe?" he went on.

"I remember Mr. Berkowitz here," Abe said, smiling at the smaller man. "I used to sell him goods oncet when he ran the Up-to-Date Store in Seattle. Ain't that so, Mr. Berkowitz?"

The smaller man nodded in an embarrassed fashion, while Frank Walsh grew red and white by turns and looked first at Abe and then at the others in blank amazement.

"But," Abe went on, "you got to excuse me, Mister--Mister----"

"Small," said the larger man, whereat Morris fairly staggered.

"Mister Small," Abe continued. "You got to excuse me. I don't remember your name. Won't you come inside?"

"Hold on!" Frank Walsh cried. "These gentlemen are going to lunch with _me_."

Small turned and fixed Walsh with a glare. "I am going to do what I please, Mr. Walsh," he said coldly. "If I want to go to lunch I go to lunch; if I don't that's something else again."

"Oh, I've got lots of time," Walsh explained. "I was just reminding you, that's all. Wasserbauer's got a few good specialties on his bill-of-fare that don't improve with waiting."

"All right," Mr. Small said. "If that's the case go ahead and have your lunch. I won't detain you none."

He put his hand on Abe's shoulder, and the little procession passed into the store with Abe and Mr. Small in the van, while Frank Walsh constituted a solitary rear-guard. He sat disconsolately on a pile of piece goods as the four others went into the show-room.

"Sit down, Mr. Small," Abe said genially. "Mr. Berkowitz, take that easy chair."

Then Morris produced the "gilt-edged" cigars from the safe, and they all lit up.

"First thing, Mr. Small," Abe went on, "I should like to know where I seen you before. Of course, I know you're running a big business in Walla Walla, Washington, and certainly, too, I know your _face_."

"Sure you know my face, Abe," Mr. Small replied. "But my _name_ ain't familiar. The last time you seen my face, Abe, was some twenty years since."

"Twenty years is a long time," Abe commented. "I seen lots of trade in twenty years."

"Trade you seen it, yes," Mr. Small said, "but I wasn't trade."

He paused and looked straight at Abe. "Think, Abe," he said. "When did you seen me last?"

Abe gazed at him earnestly and then shook his head. "I give it up," he said.

"Well, Abe," Mr. Small murmured, "the last time you seen me I went out to buy ten dollars' worth of schnapps."

"What!" Abe cried.

"But that afternoon there was a sure-thing mare going to start over to Guttenberg just as I happened to be passing Butch Thompson's old place, and I no more than got the ten dollars down than she blew up in the stretch. So I boarded a freight over to West Thirtieth Street and fetched up in Walla Walla, Washington."

"Look a-here!" Abe gasped. "You ain't Scheuer Smolinski, are you?"

Mr. Small nodded.

"That's me," he said. "I'm Scheuer Smolinski or Sidney Small, whichever you like. When me and Jake Berkowitz started this here Small Drygoods Company we decided that Smolinski and Berkowitz was too big a mouthful for the Pacific Slope, so we slipped the 'inski' and the 'owitz.' Scheuer Small and Jacob Burke didn't sound so well, neither. Ain't it? So, since there ain't no harm in it, we just changed our front names, too, and me and him is Sidney Small and James Burke."

Abe sat back in his chair too stunned for words, while Morris pondered bitterly on the events of Saturday night. Then the prize was well within his grasp, for even at that late hour he could have persuaded Mr. Burke to reconsider his decision and to bring Mr. Small over to see Potash & Perlmutter's line first. But now it was too late, Morris reflected, for Mr. Small had visited Klinger & Klein's establishment and had no doubt given the order.

"Say, my friends," Frank Walsh cried, poking his head in the door, "far from me to be buttin' in, but whenever you're ready for lunch just let me know."

Mr. Small jumped to his feet. "I'll let you know," he said--"I'll let you know right now. Half an hour since already I told Mr. Klinger I would make up my mind this afternoon about giving him the order for them goods what Mr. Burke picked out. Well, you go back and tell him I made up my mind already, sooner than I expected. I ain't going to give him the order at all."

Walsh's red face grew purple. At first he gurgled incoherently, but finally recovered sufficiently to enunciate; and for ten minutes he denounced Mr. Small and Mr. Burke, their conduct and antecedents. It was a splendid exhibition of profane invective, and when he concluded he was almost breathless.

"Yah!" he jeered, "five-dollar tickets for a prize-fight for the likes of youse!"

He fixed Morris and Mr. Burke with a final glare.

"Pearls before swine!" he bellowed, and banged the show-room door behind him.

Mr. Burke looked at Morris. "That's a lowlife for you," he said. "A respectable concern should have a salesman like him! Ain't it a shame and a disgrace?"

Morris nodded.

"He takes me to a place where nothing but loafers is," Mr. Burke continued, "and for two hours I got to sit and hear him and his friend there, that big feller--I guess you seen him, Mr. Perlmutter--he told me he keeps a beer saloon--another lowlife--for two hours I got to listen to them loafers cussing together, and then he gets mad that I don't enjoy myself yet."

Mr. Small shrugged his shoulders.

"Let's forget all about it," he said. "Come, Abe, I want to look over your line, and you and me will do business right away."

Abe and Morris spent the next two hours displaying their line, while Mr. Small and Mr. Burke selected hundred lots of every style. Finally, Abe and Mr. Small retired to the office to fill out the order, leaving Morris to replace the samples. He worked with a will and whistled a cheerful melody by way of accompaniment.

"Mister Perlmutter," James Burke interrupted, "that tune what you are whistling it, ain't that the drinking song from Travvy-ater already?"

Morris ceased his whistling. "That's right," he replied.

"I thought it was," Mr. Burke said. "I was going to see that opera last Saturday night if that lowlife Walsh wouldn't have took me to the prize-fight."

He paused and helped himself to a fresh cigar from the "gilt-edged" box.

"For anybody else but a loafer," he concluded, "prize-fighting is nix. Opera, Mr. Perlmutter, that's an amusement for a gentleman."

Morris nodded a vigorous acquiescence. He had nearly concluded his task when Abe and his new-found brother-in-law returned.

"Well, gentlemen," Mr. Small announced, "we figured it up and it comes to twenty-five hundred dollars. That ain't bad for a starter."

"You bet," Abe agreed fervently.

Mr. Burke smiled. "You got a good line, Mr. Potash," he said. "Ever so much better than Klinger & Klein's."

"That's what they have," Mr. Small agreed. "But it don't make no difference, anyhow. I'd give them the order if the line wasn't _near_ so good."

He put his arm around Abe's shoulder. "It stands in the Talmud, an old saying, but a true one," he said--"'Blood is redder than water.'"

CHAPTER X

The Small Drygoods Company's order was the forerunner of a busy season that taxed the energies of not only Abe and Morris but of their entire business staff as well, and when the hot weather set in, Morris could not help noticing the fagged-out appearance of Miss Cohen the bookkeeper.

"We should give that girl a vacation, Abe," he said. "She worked hard and we ought to show her a little consideration."

"I know, Mawruss," Abe replied; "but she ain't the only person what works hard around here, Mawruss. I work hard, too, Mawruss, but I ain't getting no vacation. That's a new _idee_ what you got, Mawruss."

"Everybody gives it their bookkeeper a vacation, Abe," Morris protested.

"Do they?" Abe rejoined. "Well, if bookkeepers gets vacations, Mawruss, where are we going to stop? First thing you know, Mawruss, we'll be giving cutters vacations, and operators vacations, and before we get through we got our workroom half empty yet and paying for full time already. If she wants a vacation for two weeks I ain't got no objections, Mawruss, only we don't pay her no wages while she's gone."

"You can't do that, Abe," Morris said. "That would be laying her off, Abe; that wouldn't be no vacation."

"But we got to have somebody here to keep our books while she's away, Mawruss," Abe cried. "We got to make it a living, Mawruss. We can't shut down just because Miss Cohen gets a vacation. And so it stands, Mawruss, we got to pay Miss Cohen wages for doing _nothing_, Mawruss, and also we got to pay it wages to somebody else for doing something what Miss Cohen should be doing when she ain't, ain't it?"

"Sure, we got to get a substitute for her while she's away," Morris agreed; "but I guess it won't break us."

"All right, Mawruss," Abe replied; "if I got to hear it all summer about this here vacation business I'm satisfied. I got enough to do in the store without worrying about that, Mawruss. Only one thing I got to say it, Mawruss: we got to have a bookkeeper to take her place while she's away, and you got to attend to _that_, Mawruss. That's all I got to say."

Morris nodded and hastened to break the good news to Miss Cohen, who for the remainder of the week divided her time between Potash & Perlmutter's accounts and a dozen multicolored railroad folders.

"Look at that, Mawruss," Abe said as he gazed through the glass paneling of the show-room toward the bookkeeper's desk. "That girl ain't done it a stroke of work since we told her she could go already. What are we running here, anyway: a cloak and suit business or a cut-rate ticket office?"

"Don't you worry about _her_, Abe," Morris replied. "She's got her cashbook and daybook posted and she also got it a substitute. He's coming this afternoon."

"_He's_ coming?" Abe said. "So she got it a young _feller_, Mawruss?"

"Well, Abe," Morris replied, "what harm is there in that? He's a decent, respectable young feller by the name Tuchman, what works as bookkeeper by the Kosciusko Bank. They give him a two weeks' vacation and he comes to work by us, Abe."

"That's a fine way to spend a vacation, Mawruss," Abe commented. "Why don't he go up to Tannersville or so?"

"Because he's got to help his father out nights in his cigar store what he keeps it on Avenue B," Morris answered. "His father is Max Tuchman's brother. You know Max Tuchman, drummer for Lapidus & Elenbogen?"

"Sure I know him--a loud-mouth feller, Mawruss; got a whole lot to say for himself. A sport and a gambler, too," Abe said. "He'd sooner play auction pinochle than eat, Mawruss. I bet you he turns in an expense account like he was on a honeymoon every trip. The last time I seen this here Max Tuchman was up in Duluth. He was riding in a buggy with the lady buyer from Moe Gerschel's cloak department."

"Well, I suppose he sold her a big bill of goods, too, Abe, ain't it?" Morris rejoined. "He's an up-to-date feller, Abe. If anybody wants to sell goods to lady buyers they got to be up-to-date, ain't it? And so far what I hear it nobody told it me you made such a big success with lady buyers, neither, Abe."

Abe shrugged his shoulders.

"That ain't here nor there, Mawruss," he grunted. "The thing is this: if this young feller by the name of Tuchman does Miss Cohen's work as good as Miss Cohen does it I'm satisfied."

There was no need for apprehension on that score, however, for when the substitute bookkeeper arrived he proved to be an accurate and industrious young fellow, and despite Miss Cohen's absence the work of Potash & Perlmutter's office proceeded with orderly dispatch.

"That's a fine young feller, Mawruss," Abe commented as he and his partner sat in the firm's show-room on the second day of Miss Cohen's vacation.

"Who's this you're talking about?" Morris asked.

"This here bookkeeper," Abe replied. "What's his first name, now, Mawruss?"

"Ralph," Morris said.

"Ralph!" Abe cried. "That's a name I couldn't remember it in a million years, Mawruss."

"Why not, Abe?" Morris replied. "Ralph ain't no harder than Moe or Jake, Abe. For my part, I ain't got no trouble in remembering that name; and anyhow, Abe, why should an up-to-date family like the Tuchmans give their boys such back-number names like Jake or Moe?"

"Jacob and Moses was decent, respectable people in the old country, Mawruss," Abe corrected solemnly.

"I know it, Abe," Morris rejoined; "but that was long since many years ago already. _Now_ is another time entirely in New York City; and anyhow, with such names what we got it in our books, Abe, you shouldn't have no trouble remembering Ralph."

"Sure not," Abe agreed, dismissing the subject. "So, I'll call him Ike. For two weeks he wouldn't mind it."

Morris shrugged. "For my part, you can call him Andrew Carnegie," he said; "only, let's not stand here talking about it all day, Abe. I see by the paper this morning that Marcus Bramson, from Syracuse, is at the Prince William Hotel, Abe, and you says you was going up to see him. That's your style, Abe: an old-fashion feller like Marcus Bramson. If you couldn't sell _him_ a bill of goods, Abe, you couldn't sell _nobody_. He ain't no lady buyer, Abe."

Abe glared indignantly at his partner. "Well, Mawruss," he said, "if you ain't satisfied with the way what I sell goods you know what you can do. I'll do the inside work and you can go out on the road. It's a dawg's life, Mawruss, any way you look at it; and maybe, Mawruss, you would have a good time taking buggy rides with lady buyers. For my part, Mawruss, I got something better to do with my time."

He seized his hat, still glaring at Morris, who remained quite unmoved by his partner's indignation.

"I heard it what you tell me now several times before already, Abe," he said; "and if you want it that Max Tuchman or Klinger & Klein or some of them other fellers should cop out a good customer of ours like Marcus Bramson, Abe, maybe you'll hang around here a little longer."

Abe retorted by banging the show-room door behind him, and as he disappeared into the street Morris indulged in a broad, triumphant grin.

When Abe returned an hour later he found Morris going over the monthly statements with Ralph Tuchman. Morris looked up as Abe entered.

"What's the matter, Abe?" he cried. "You look worried."

"Worried!" Abe replied. "I ain't worried, Mawruss."

"Did you seen Marcus Bramson?" Morris asked.

"Sure I seen him," said Abe; "he's coming down here at half-past three o'clock this afternoon. You needn't trouble yourself about _him_, Mawruss."

Abe hung up his hat, while Morris and Ralph Tuchman once more fell to the work of comparing the statements.

"Look a-here, Mawruss," Abe said at length: "who d'ye think I seen it up at the Prince William Hotel?"

"I ain't no mind reader, Abe," Morris replied. "Who _did_ you seen it?"

"Miss Atkinson, cloak buyer for the Emporium, Duluth," Abe replied. "That's Moe Gerschel's store."

Morris stopped comparing the statements, while Ralph Tuchman continued his writing.

"She's just come in from the West, Mawruss," Abe went on. "She ain't registered yet when I was going out, and she won't be in the Arrival of Buyers till to-morrow morning."

"Did you speak to her?" Morris asked.

"Sure I spoke to her," Abe said. "I says good-morning, and she recognized me right away. I asked after Moe, and she says he's well; and I says if she comes down here for fall goods; and she says she ain't going to talk no business for a couple of days, as it's a long time already since she was in New York and she wants to look around her. Then I says it's a fine weather for driving just now."

He paused for a moment and looked at Morris.

"Yes," Morris said, "and what did she say?"

"She says sure it is," Abe continued, "only, she says she got thrown out of a wagon last fall, and so she's kind of sour on horses. She says nowadays she don't go out except in oitermobiles."

"Oitermobiles!" Morris exclaimed, and Ralph Tuchman, whose protruding ears, sharp-pointed nose and gold spectacles did not belie his inquisitive disposition, ceased writing to listen more closely to Abe's story.

"That's what she said, Mawruss," Abe replied; "and so I says for my part, I liked it better oitermobiles as horses."

"Why, Abe," Morris cried, "you ain't never rode in an oitermobile in all your life."

"Sure not, Mawruss, I'm lucky if I get to a funeral oncet in a while. Ike," he broke off suddenly, "you better get them statements mailed."

Ralph Tuchman rose sadly and repaired to the office.

"That's a smart young feller, Mawruss," Abe commented, "and while you can't tell much about a feller from his face, Mawruss, I never seen them long ears on anyone that minded his own business, y'understand? And besides, I ain't taking no chances on his Uncle Max Tuchman getting advance information about this here Moe Gerschel's buyer."

Morris nodded. "Maybe you're right, Abe," he murmured.

"You was telling me what this Miss Abrahamson said, Abe."

"Miss Atkinson, Mawruss," Abe corrected, "_not_ Abrahamson."

"Well, what did she say?" Morris asked.

"So she asks me if I ever went it oitermobiling," Abe went on, "and I says sure I did, and right away quick I seen it what she means; and I says how about going this afternoon; and she says she's agreeable. So I says, Mawruss, all right, I says, we'll mix business with pleasure, I says. I told her we'll go in an oitermobile to the Bronix already, and when we come back to the store at about, say, five o'clock we'll look over the line. Then after that we'll go to dinner, and after dinner we go to theayter. How's that, Mawruss?"

"I heard it worse idees than that, Abe," Morris replied; "because if you get this here Miss Aaronson down here in the store, naturally, she thinks if she gives us the order she gets better treatment at the dinner and at the theayter afterward."

"That's the way I figured it out, Mawruss," Abe agreed; "and also, I says to myself, Mawruss will enjoy it a good oitermobile ride."

"_Me!_" Morris cried. "What have I got to do with this here oitermobile ride, Abe?"

"What have _you_ got to do with it, Mawruss?" Abe repeated. "Why, Mawruss, I'm surprised to hear you, you should talk that way. You got everything to do with it. I'm a back number, Mawruss; I don't know nothing about selling goods to lady buyers, ain't it? You say it yourself, a feller has got to be up-to-date to sell goods to lady buyers. So, naturally, you being the up-to-date member of this concern, you got to take Miss Atkinson out in the oitermobile."

"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I ain't never rode in an oitermobile, and there wouldn't be no pleasure in it for me, Abe. Why don't _you_ go, Abe? You say it yourself you lead it a dawg's life on the road. Now, here's a chance for you to enjoy yourself, Abe, and _you_ should go. Besides, Abe, you got commercial travelers' accident insurance, and I ain't."

"The oitermobile ain't coming till half-past one, Mawruss," Abe replied; "between now and then you could get it a _hundred_ policies of accident insurance. No, Mawruss, this here lady-buyer business is up to you. I got a pointer from Sol Klinger to ring up a concern on Forty-sixth Street, which I done so, and fifteen dollars it costed me. That oitermobile is coming here for you at half-past one, and after that all you got to do is to go up to the Prince William Hotel and ask for Miss Atkinson."

"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I don't even know this here Miss Isaacson."

"_Not_ Isaacson," Abe repeated; "Atkinson. You'd better write that name down, Mawruss, before you forget it."

"Never mind, Abe," Morris rejoined. "I don't need to write down things to remember 'em. I don't have to call a young feller out of his name just because my memory is bad, Abe. The name I'll remember good enough when it comes right down _to_ it. Only, why should I go out oitermobiling riding with this Miss Atkinson, Abe? I'm the inside partner, ain't it? And you're the outside man. Do you know what I think, Abe? I think you're scared to ride in an oitermobile."

"Me scared!" Abe cried. "Why should I be scared, Mawruss? A little thing like a broken leg or a broken arm, Mawruss, don't scare me. I ain't going because it ain't my business to go. It's your idee, this lady-buyer business, and if you don't want to go we'll charge the fifteen dollars what I paid out to profit and loss and call the whole thing off."

He rose to his feet, thrust out his waist-line and made a dignified exit by way of closing the discussion. A moment later, however, he returned with less dignity than haste.

"Mawruss," he hissed, "that young feller--that--that--now, Ike--is telephoning."

"Well," Morris replied, "one telephone message ain't going to put us into bankruptcy, Abe."

"Bankruptcy, nothing!" Abe exclaimed. "He's telephoning to his Uncle Max Tuchman."

Morris jumped to his feet, and on the tips of their toes they darted to the rear of the store.

"All right, Uncle Max," they heard Ralph Tuchman say. "I'll see you to-night. Good-by."

Abe and Morris exchanged significant glances, while Ralph slunk guiltily away to Miss Cohen's desk.

"Let's fire him on the spot," Abe said.

Morris shook his head. "What good will _that_ do, Abe?" Morris replied. "We ain't certain that he told Max Tuchman nothing, Abe. For all you and me know, Max may of rung _him_ up about something quite different already."

"I believe it, Mawruss," Abe said ironically. "But, anyhow, I'm going to ring up that oitermobile concern on Forty-sixth Street and tell 'em to send it around here at twelve o'clock. Then you can go up there to the hotel, and if that Miss Atkinson ain't had her lunch yet buy it for her, Mawruss, for so sure as you stand there I bet yer that young feller, Ike, has rung up this here Max Tuchman and told him all about us going up there to take her out in an oitermobile. I bet yer Max will get the biggest oitermobile he can find up there right away, and he's going to steal her away from us, sure, if we don't hustle."

"Dreams you got it, Abe," Morris said. "How should this here young feller, Ralph Tuchman, know that Miss Aaronson was a customer of his Uncle Max Tuchman, Abe?"

Abe looked at Morris more in sorrow than in anger. "Mawruss," he said, "do me the favor once and write that name down. A-T at, K-I-N kin, S-O-N son, Atkinson--_not_ Aaronson."

"That's what I said--Atkinson--Abe," Morris protested; "and if you're so scared we're going to lose her, Abe, go ahead and 'phone. We got to sell goods to lady buyers _some time_, Abe, and we may as well make the break _now_."

Abe waited to hear no more, but hastened to the 'phone, and when he returned a few minutes later he found that Morris had gone to the barber shop across the street. Twenty minutes afterward a sixty-horsepower machine arrived at the store door just as Morris came up the steps of the barber shop underneath Wasserbauer's Café and Restaurant. He almost bumped into Philip Plotkin, of Kleinberg & Plotkin, who was licking the refractory wrapper of a Wheeling stogy, with one eye fixed on the automobile in front of his competitors' store.

"Hallo, Mawruss," Philip cried. "Pretty high-toned customers you must got it when they come down to the store in oitermobiles, ain't it?"

Morris flashed his gold fillings in a smile of triumphant superiority. "That ain't no customer's oitermobile, Philip," he said. "That's for _us_ an oitermobile, what we take it out our customers riding in."

"Why don't you take it out credit men from commission houses riding, Mawruss?" Philip rejoined as Morris stepped from the curb to cross the street. This was an allusion to the well-known circumstance that with credit men a customer's automobile-riding inspires as much confidence as his betting on the horse races, and when Morris climbed into the tonneau he paid little attention to Abe's instructions, so busy was he glancing around him for prying credit men. At length, with a final jar and jerk the machine sprang forward, and for the rest of the journey Morris' mind was emptied of every other apprehension save that engendered of passing trucks or street cars. Finally, the machine drew up in front of the Prince William and Morris scrambled out, trembling in every limb. He made at once for the clerk's desk.

"Please send this to Miss Isaacson," he said, handing out a firm card.

The clerk consulted an index and shook his head. "No Miss Isaacson registered here," he said.

"Oh, sure not," Morris cried, smiling apologetically. "I mean Miss Aaronson."

Once more the clerk pawed over his card index. "You've got the wrong hotel," he declared. "I don't see any Miss Aaronson here, either."

Morris scratched his head. He mentally passed in review Jacobson, Abrahamson, and every other Biblical proper name combined with the suffix "son," but rejected them all.

"The lady what I want to see it is buyer for a department store in Duluth, what arrived here this morning," Morris explained.

"Let me see," the clerk mused; "buyer, hey? What was she a buyer of?"

"Cloaks and suits," Morris answered.

"Suits, hey?" the clerk commented. "Let me see--buyer of suits. Was that the lady that was expecting somebody with an automobile?"

Morris nodded emphatically.

"Well, that party called for her and they left here about ten minutes ago," the clerk replied.

"What!" Morris gasped.

"Maybe it was five minutes ago," the clerk continued. "A gentleman with a red tie and a fine diamond pin. His name was Tucker or Tuckerton or----"

"Tuchman," Morris cried.

"That's right," said the clerk; "he was a----"

But Morris turned on his heel and darted wildly toward the entrance.

"Say!" he cried, hailing the carriage agent, "did you seen it a lady and a gent in an oitermobile leave here five minutes ago?"

"Ladies and gents leave here in automobiles on an average of every three minutes," said the carriage agent.

"Sure, I know," Morris continued, "but the gent wore it a red tie with a big diamond."

"Red tie with a big diamond," the carriage agent repeated. "Oh, yeh--I remember now. The lady wanted to know where they was going, and the red necktie says up to the Heatherbloom Inn and something about getting back to his store afterward."

Morris nodded vigorously.

"So I guess they went up to the Heatherbloom Inn," the carriage agent said.

Once more Morris darted away without waiting to thank his informant, and again he climbed into the tonneau of the machine.

"Do you know where the Heatherbloom Inn is?" he asked the chauffeur.

"What you tryin' to do?" the chauffeur commented. "Kid me?"

"I ain't trying to do _nothing_," Morris explained. "I ask it you a simple question: Do you know where the Heatherbloom Inn is?"

"Say! do you know where Baxter Street is?" the chauffeur asked, and then without waiting for an answer he opened the throttle and they glided around the corner into Fifth Avenue. It was barely half-past twelve and the tide of fashionable traffic had not yet set in. Hence the motor car made good progress, nor was it until Fiftieth Street was reached that a block of traffic caused them to halt. An automobile had collided with a delivery wagon, and a wordy contest was waging between the driver of the wagon, the chauffeur, one of the occupants of the automobile and a traffic-squad policeman.

"You don't know your business," a loud voice proclaimed, addressing the policeman. "If you did you wouldn't be sitting up there like a dummy already. This here driver run into _us_. We didn't run into him."

It was the male occupant of the automobile that spoke, and in vain did his fair companion clutch at the tails of the linen duster that he wore; he was in the full tide of eloquence and thoroughly enjoying himself.

The mounted policeman maintained his composure--the calm of a volcano before its eruption, the ominous lull that precedes the tornado.

"And furthermore," continued the passenger, throwing out his chest, whereon sparkled a large diamond enfolded in crimson silk--"and furthermore, I'll see to it that them superiors of yours down below hears of it."

The mounted policeman jumped nimbly from his horse, and as Morris rose in the tonneau of his automobile he saw Max Tuchman being jerked bodily to the street, while his fair companion shrieked hysterically.

Morris opened the door and sprang out. With unusual energy he wormed his way through the crowd that surrounded the policeman and approached the side of the automobile.

"Lady, lady," he cried, "I don't remember your name, but I'm a friend of Max Tuchman here, and I'll get you out of this here crowd in a minute."

He opened the door opposite to the side out of which Tuchman had made his enforced exit, and offered his hand to Max's trembling companion.

The lady hesitated a brief moment. Any port in a storm, she argued to herself, and a moment later she was seated beside Morris in the latter's car, which was moving up the Avenue at a good twenty-mile gait. The chauffeur took advantage of the traffic policeman's professional engagement with Max Tuchman, and it was not until the next mounted officer hove into view that he brought his car down to its lawful gait.

"If you're a friend of Mr. Tuchman's," said the lady at length, "why didn't you go with him to the police station and bail him out?"

Morris grinned. "I guess you'll know when I tell it you that my name is Mr. Perlmutter," he announced, "of Potash & Perlmutter."

The lady turned around and glanced uneasily at Morris. "Is that so?" she said. "Well, I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Perlmutter."

"So, naturally, I don't feel so bad as I might about it," Morris went on.

"Naturally?" the lady commented. She looked about her apprehensively. "Perhaps we'd better go back to the Prince William. Don't you think so?"

"Why, you was going up to the Heatherbloom Inn with Max Tuchman, wasn't you?" Morris said.

"How did you find _that_ out?" she asked.

"A small-size bird told it me," Morris replied jocularly. "But, anyhow, no jokes nor nothing, why shouldn't we go up and have lunch at the Heatherbloom Inn? And then you can come down and look at our line, anyhow."

"Well," said the lady, "if you can show me those suits as well as Mr. Tuchman could, I suppose it really won't make any difference."

"I can show 'em to you _better_ than Mr. Tuchman could," Morris said; "and now so long as you are content to come downtown we won't talk business no more till we get there."

They had an excellent lunch at the Heatherbloom Inn, and many a hearty laugh from the lady testified to her appreciation of Morris' naïve conversation. The hour passed pleasantly for Morris, too, since the lady's unaffected simplicity set him entirely at his ease. To be sure, she was neither young nor handsome, but she had all the charm that self-reliance and ability give to a woman.

"A good, smart, business head she's got it," Morris said to himself, "and I wish I could remember that name."

Had he not feared that his companion might think it strange, he would have asked her name outright. Once he called her Miss Aaronson, but the look of amazement with which she favored him effectually discouraged him from further experiment in that direction. Thenceforth he called her "lady," a title which made her smile and seemed to keep her in excellent humor.

At length they concluded their meal--quite a modest repast and comparatively reasonable in price--and as they rose to leave Morris looked toward the door and gasped involuntarily. He could hardly believe his senses, for there blocking the entrance stood a familiar bearded figure. It was Marcus Bramson--the conservative, back-number Marcus Bramson--and against him leaned a tall, stout person not quite as young as her clothes and wearing a large picture hat. Obviously this was not Mrs. Bramson, and the blush with which Marcus Bramson recognized Morris only confirmed the latter's suspicions.

Mr. Bramson murmured a few words to the youthfully-dressed person at his side, and she glared venomously at Morris, who precipitately followed his companion to the automobile. Five minutes afterward he was chatting with the lady as they sped along Riverside Drive.

"Duluth must be a fine town," he suggested.

"It is indeed," the lady agreed. "I have some relatives living there."

"That should make it pleasant for you, lady," Morris went on, and thereafter the conversation touched on relatives, whereupon Morris favored his companion with a few intimate details of his family life that caused her to laugh until she was completely out of breath. To be sure, Morris could see nothing remarkably humorous about it himself, and when one or two anecdotes intended to be pathetic were received with tears of mirth rather than sympathy he felt somewhat annoyed. Nevertheless, he hid his chagrin, and it was not long before the familiar sign of Wasserbauer's Café and Restaurant warned Morris that they had reached their destination. He assisted his companion to alight and ushered her into the show-room.

"Just a minute, lady," he said, "and I'll bring Mr. Potash here."

"But," the lady protested, "I thought Mr. Lapidus was the gentleman who had charge of it."

"_That's_ all right," Morris said, "you just wait and I'll bring Mr. Potash here."

He took the stairs to the cutting-room three at a jump. "Abe," he cried, "Miss Aaronson is downstairs."

Abe's face, which wore a worried frown, grew darker still as he regarded his partner malevolently. "What's the matter with you, Mawruss?" he said. "Can't you remember a simple name like Atkinson?"

"Atkinson!" Morris cried. "That's it--_Atkinson_. I've been trying to remember it that name for four hours already. But, anyhow, she's downstairs, Abe."

Abe rose from his task and made at once for the stairs, with Morris following at his heels. In four strides he had reached the show-room, but no sooner had he crossed the threshold than he started back violently, thereby knocking the breath out of Morris, who was nearly precipitated to the floor.

"Morris," he hissed, "who is that there lady?"

"Why," Morris answered, "that's Miss Aaronson--I mean Atkinson--ain't it?"

"Atkinson!" Abe yelled. "That ain't Miss Atkinson."

"Then who _is_ she?" Morris asked.

"Who _is_ she?" Abe repeated. "That's a fine question for you to ask _me_. You take a lady for a fifteen-dollar oitermobile ride, and spend it as much more for lunch in her, _and you don't even know her name_!"

A cold perspiration broke out on Morris and he fairly staggered into the show-room. "Lady," he croaked, "do me a favor and tell me what is your name, please."

The lady laughed. "Well, Mr. Perlmutter," she said, "I'm sure this is most extraordinary. Of course, there is such a thing as combining business and pleasure; but, as I told Mr. Tuchman when he insisted on taking me up to the Heatherbloom Inn, the Board of Trustees control the placing of the orders. I have only a perfunctory duty to perform when I examine the finished clothing."

"Board of Trustees!" Morris exclaimed.

"Yes, the Board of Trustees of the Home for Female Orphans of Veterans, at Oceanhurst, Long Island. I am the superintendent--Miss Taylor--and I had an appointment at Lapidus & Elenbogen's to inspect a thousand blue-serge suits. Lapidus & Elenbogen were the successful bidders, you know. And there was really no reason for Mr. Tuchman's hospitality, since I had nothing whatever to do with their receiving the contract, nor could I possibly influence the placing of any future orders."

Morris nodded slowly. "So you ain't Miss Atkinson, then, lady?" he said.

The lady laughed again. "I'm very sorry if I'm the innocent recipient under false pretenses of a lunch and an automobile ride," she said, rising. "And you'll excuse me if I must hurry away to keep my appointment at Lapidus & Elenbogen's? I have to catch a train back to Oceanhurst at five o'clock, too."

She held out her hand and Morris took it sheepishly.

"I hope you'll forgive me," she said.

"I can't blame _you_, lady," Morris replied as they went toward the front door. "It ain't _your_ fault, lady."

He held the door open for her. "And as for that Max Tuchman," he said, "I hope they send him up for life."

Abe stood in the show-room doorway as Morris returned from the front of the store and fixed his partner with a terrible glare. "Yes, Mawruss," he said, "you're a fine piece of work, I must say."

Morris shrugged his shoulders and sat down. "That's what comes of not minding your own business," he retorted. "I'm the inside, Abe, and you're the outside, and it's your business to look after the out-of-town trade. I told you I don't know nothing about this here lady-buyer business. You ordered the oitermobile. I ain't got nothing to do with it, and, anyhow, I don't want to hear no more about it."

A pulse was beating in Abe's cheeks as he paced up and down before replying.

"_You_ don't want to hear no more about it, Mawruss, I know," he said; "but _I_ want to hear about it. I got a _right_ to hear about it, Mawruss. I got a right to hear it how a man could make such a fool out of himself. Tell me, Mawruss, what name did you ask it for when you went to the clerk at the Prince William Hotel?"

Morris jumped to his feet. "Lillian Russell!" he roared, and banged the show-room door behind him.

For the remainder of the day Morris and Abe avoided each other, and it was not until the next morning that Morris ventured to address his partner.

"Did you get it any word from Marcus Bramson?" he asked.

"I ain't seen nor heard nothing," Abe replied. "I can't understand it, Mawruss; the man promised me, mind you, he would be here sure. Maybe you seen him up to the hotel, Mawruss?"

"I seen him," Morris replied, "but not at the hotel, Abe. I seen him up at that Heatherbloom Inn, Abe--with a lady."

"With a lady?" Abe cried. "Are you sure it was a lady, Mawruss? Maybe she was a relation."

"Relations you don't