"A couple of hundred dollars bonus!" Abe yelled. "Do you mean to say you would offer that Italiener a bonus?"
"Sure; why not?" Morris asked. "Ain't he a good designer, Abe?"
"I don't care if he was the best designer in the world, Mawruss," Abe replied firmly. "Before I would give him a couple hundred dollars bonus, understand me, he could go to Italy and a whole lot farther too."
"Suit yourself," Morris said, as he commenced to examine the morning's mail. He was midway in the assortment of the firm's sample line when Abe approached him half an hour later.
"Mawruss," he said, "do me the favour. You speak to the feller and see what you can do. After all, a couple hundred dollars wouldn't break us."
"I'm satisfied," Morris replied, and he walked immediately to the cutting room.
"What's the matter, Henry, I hear you are leaving us?" he began.
Henry straightened up from the layer of cloth that was spread before him on the cutting table and passed one hand through his bushy black hair.
"I gotta no keek, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "Just for my contract is up, so I go. That's all. I like-a da job first-class. Mr. Potash ees ver' good man. Mr. Perlmutter ees too."
"Then why don't you stay with us?" Morris asked, and Enrico Simonetti heaved a great sigh.
"I like-a da job first-class, Mr. Perlmutter, I gotta no keek," he declared; "but I can no work. I am seek."
"Sick!" Morris exclaimed; "well, why didn't you tell us then? We'd only be too glad to let you go away for a couple of weeks, Henry."
Enrico sighed even more deeply.
"Ees not a seekness for two weeks, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "I am seek just for see my mudder. Ees old woman—my mudder, Mr. Perlmutter."
Enrico's large brown eyes grew moist as he proceeded.
"Yes, I am a-seek," he went on. "I am a-seek just for see Ischia, Posilipo, Capri, Mr. Perlmutter. You know I am a-seek for seearanci—oranges grown on a tree. I am a-seek just for see my own ceet-a, Napoli. Yes, Mr. Perlmutter, I am a-ver' seek."
He sat down on a stool and bowed his face in his hands, while his shoulders heaved up and down in the emotion of nostalgia.
"Think it over, Henry," Morris said huskily, and departed on tiptoe. He returned at once to the assorting of the sample line, nor did he look up when Abe came toward him a few minutes afterward.
"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, "what did he say?"
"He didn't say nothing," Morris replied.
"Why not?" Abe continued. "Didn't he think two hundred was enough?"
"I didn't mention the two hundred to him at all," Morris answered, "because it wouldn't be no use. You couldn't keep that feller from going back to the old country, not if you would put him into jail even. He'd break out, Abe, believe me."
Abe nodded slowly.
"Well, that's the way it goes, Mawruss," he said bitterly, as Enrico walked toward them from the cutting room.
"Mr. Potash," he said, "ascuse me, you geev-a me now leetla time for going downtown just for same like I tell-a you dis morning?"
"Go ahead, Henry," Morris replied.
"You notta mad at me, Mr. Perlmutter?" Enrico asked anxiously.
"Why should I got to be mad at you, Henry?" Morris rejoined. "If I would feel the way you do, Henry, me, I wouldn't of waited for my contract to be up even."
"Ain't that a fine way for you to talk, Mawruss?" Abe said after Enrico had gone. "You would think you would be glad to get rid of the feller right in the middle of the busy season."
Morris shrugged.
"I don't care if I would got to jump right in and work till twelve o'clock every night, Abe," he declared. "I would tell him to go home to the old country if I would got to pay for the ticket myself."
Abe thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and started to walk gloomily away.
"Furthermore, Abe, if you want to go out for your lunch, Abe," Morris concluded, "now is the time, because as I told you before, Abe, I got to go on the court at two o'clock."
"Sure you told me that before, Mawruss," Abe growled, as he put on his hat and coat; "and when a feller goes to work and deliberately fixes things so he has got to go on a court, Mawruss, d'ye know the next place he would go?"
He paused for a retort; but, as Morris made no sign, Abe supplied his own answer.
"A lunatic asylum," he said, and a minute later the elevator door clanged behind him.
For almost an hour longer Morris busied himself with the assortment of the sample line, and he had about concluded his task when a great wailing noise came from the cutting room. He jumped to his feet and ran hurriedly to the scene of the uproar. There he found Enrico Simonetti seated on a stool, clutching his hair with both hands, while around him stood a group of his assistants, voicing their anguish like a pack of foxhounds.
"Koosh!" Morris cried. "What is the trouble here?"
The wailing ceased, but Enrico remained seated, his hands still clutching his bushy hair, while his large brown eyes stared blankly from a face as white as a pierrot.
"What's the matter?" Morris repeated.
"His bank busted on him," said Nathan Schenkman, the shipping clerk.
"His bank!" Morris cried. "What bank?"
"It ain't a regular bank," Nathan explained. "He is giving his money to an Italiener which he calls himself a banker, Mr. Perlmutter; and to-day when he is going there to get him money the feller's store is locked. Nobody knows where he went to at all. The clerks also is gone."
"Is that right, Henry?" Morris asked.
Enrico nodded his head without removing his hands from his hair.
"There is a big crowd of loafers around the store," Nathan continued, "which they are saying they would kill the feller if they get him, so Henry comes back here on account he ain't that kind, Mr. Perlmutter. Henry is a decent feller, Mr. Perlmutter."
Morris looked pityingly at his cutter, who continued to stare at the floor in stony despair.
"Might you could do something to get him his money back maybe, Mr. Perlmutter?" Nathan said.
"I would see when my partner comes in from lunch," Morris replied, and as he turned to leave the cutting room Abe's bulky form blocked the doorway. Morris waved him back, and Abe tiptoed to the front of the showroom followed by Morris.
"What's the trouble?" Abe asked immediately.
"Trouble enough," Morris declared. "Henry's bank busted on him."
"What!" Abe cried, and Morris repeated the information.
"Then he wouldn't leave us at all," Abe said, and Morris nodded sadly.
"Ain't it terrible?" he commented.
"Terrible?" Abe asked. "What d'ye mean—terrible? Is it so terrible that we wouldn't got to lose our designer right in the middle of the busy season?"
"I don't mean us, Abe," Morris said. "I mean for Henry."
"Henry neither," Abe rejoined. "Henry would still got his job with two hundred dollars a year raise."
"And a bonus of two hundred dollars," Morris added.
"A bonus of nothing!" Abe almost shouted. "Do you mean to told me you would pay Henry a bonus of two hundred dollars now that he must got to stay on with us?"
"I sure do," Morris declared fiercely; "and furthermore, Abe, if you don't want to pay it I would from my own pocket, and I'm going right in to tell him about it now."
He walked away to the cutting room, and in less than five minutes Abe repented his parsimony. He went on tiptoe to the door of the cutting room, where Morris leaned over Enrico, uttering words of consolation and advice.
"Mawruss," Abe hissed, "make it three hundred, the bonus."
Morris nodded.
"And, Mawruss," Abe went on, "it's pretty near quarter of two. Ain't you going up there at all?"
"I should never walk another step if you didn't say two o'clock," Morris Perlmutter protested to Philip Sholy as they hastened up the stairway in Jefferson Market Police Court.
"Never mind what I said," Sholy cried. "It's now anyhow quarter past two, and that dago has got his wife and servant girl and two clerks waiting in court since twelve o'clock. Eichendorfer and Baskof have been here since one o'clock."
"Say, listen here, Sholy," Morris said, as they panted up the last flight, "I came just as soon as I could, and I couldn't come no sooner."
"Hats off!" the policeman at the door shouted, as Morris walked up the aisle with his attorney, and a moment later they passed into the enclosure for counsel.
"My client and his witnesses have been here since twelve o'clock," a lawyer was explaining while Morris sat down, "and in the meantime his place of business has been closed."
At this juncture the client in question caught sight of Morris and ripped out so strong an Italian expletive that the court interpreter nearly swooned.
"What business is he in?" the magistrate asked.
"He's in the banking business on Mulberry Street," the lawyer continued, "and it's impossible to say what harm all this may do him."
"Call the case again," the magistrate said.
"Witnesses in the case of Giuseppe Caraccioli please step forward," the interpreter announced, and the policeman in the rear of the courtroom repeated the injunction to the loungers in the stairway.
"Guy-seppy Scratch-oly," he bellowed, and Morris heard him from his seat in the enclosure for counsel. He jumped to his feet and made for the gate.
"Where are you going?" Sholy demanded, grabbing him by the coat.
"Leggo my coat!" Morris cried, and the next moment he was taking the stairs three at a jump. Nor had his excitement abated when he burst into his cutting room half an hour later.
"Henry," he gasped, "if I would get your money back for you would you stick out the busy season for us?"
Enrico was chalking designs on a piece of pattern paper when Morris entered. Beyond a slight pallor he appeared to be quite resigned to his loss, but at his employer's words he flushed vividly and clutched again at his hair.
"Leave your hair alone and listen to me," Morris commented.
"Sure, sure," Enrico said tremulously, "I leesten, Mr. Perlmutt."
"Did you hear what I said?" Morris went on. "If I can get your money back for you will you stay on here till the busy season is over?"
"Sure," Enrico cried; "sure. I notta geevadam how long I stay, you getta my mon', Mr. Perlmutt. I stay here one, two, t'ree years."
"All right," Morris said; "put on your coat and go back to Mulberry Street. Your banker will of opened up again by the time you get there."
Ten days afterward Abe and Morris sat in the showroom.
"Ain't it terrible a strong, healthy young feller should go off like that?" Abe Potash remarked, as he and his partner sat in their showroom one spring morning. "I give you my word I was sitting over in Hammersmith's so close to him as I am to you, Mawruss, when it happened."
"Was there much excitement?" Morris asked.
"I bet yer was there excitement!" Abe exclaimed. "Hammersmith sends across the street for a doctor, and you ought to seen Leon Sammet the way he acted. 'For Gawd's sake, doctor,' he says, 'couldn't you do nothing for him?' he says. 'He's got a wife and family,' he says, 'and we shipped him two thousand dollars goods only last Saturday.'"
"Did they?" Morris asked.
"How should I know?" Abe said. "Sammet is such a liar, Mawruss, he couldn't tell the truth no matter how surprised he would be. But one thing is sure, Mawruss—Gladstein did owe Sammet Brothers for a big bill of goods and the widder paid them out of the insurance."
"Could she do that when the feller leaves a family, Abe?" Morris inquired.
"The feller didn't leave no family, Mawruss," Abe answered. "Leon Sammet just takes a chance when he said that to the doctor. As a matter of fact, Mawruss, Gladstein was one of them fellers which he ain't got a relation in the world. Mrs. Gladstein neither, exceptimRussland. That's the way it goes, Mawruss. A feller which he has got so many cousins and uncles that he gets writer's cramp already indorsing accommodation paper for 'em, understand me, lives to be an old man yet, and all the time his relations and his wife's relations is piling up on him; while a man like Gladstein which you could really say has a chance to enjoy life, Mawruss, is got to die."
Morris nodded.
"Don't I know it?" he commented. "And I suppose the widder sells out the store."
"Oser a stück," Abe said. "She's still running the store, and making a fair success of it too."
"Is that so?" Morris replied. "Well, then, why couldn't we get some of her trade, Abe? Bridgetown ain't so far away from here. Why don't you take a run over there sometime and see what you could do with her? Might you could sell her some goods maybe."
"Yow!" Abe exclaimed derisively. "We couldn't sell that woman goods, not if we was to let her have 'em for the price of the findings, Mawruss. She's got an idee that she is getting stuck unless she would buy goods from the same concerns that sold Gladstein."
"Well, if that's the case, Abe," Morris said, "she could never make no big success there. A feller like Leon Sammet would just as lief stick a widder as not—liefer even."
"Sure, I know," Abe replied.
"Then why don't some one give her a couple pointers about that feller, Abe?" Morris inquired.
Abe nodded solemnly.
"You know a whole lot about women, Mawruss, I must say," he commented. "You could give a woman pointers by the dozen about a man, Mawruss, and swear to 'em with six affidavits yet, and what good would it do? It's like putting a 'Wet Paint' sign up. Everybody feels the paint to see if it really would be wet."
"What for a looking woman is she, Abe?" Morris asked, with an obvious effort at nonchalance.
"How should I know?" Abe said. "I only seen her a couple times; and anyhow, Mawruss, I don't take it so particular to look at women like Leon Sammet does, Mawruss. That feller's a regular Don Quicks-toe, Mawruss. He is all the time running around with women."
"A feller must got to entertain buyers once in a while, Abe," Morris said.
"Buyers is all right, Mawruss," Abe declared, "but I guess I been in this here business long enough that I could tell a buyer from a model."
"That's all right, Abe," Morris said. "Leon Sammet may run around the streets with women, Abe, but that ain't saying he is got intentions to marry Mrs. Gladstein. A feller like Leon Sammet which he is crowding fifty pretty close, Abe, ain't looking to marry no widders. Young girls is all them fellers is looking out for, Abe; and anyhow, Abe, what for a match is Mrs. Gladstein to a manufacturer? If she expects that she should get another husband, Abe, the only hope for her is some retailer would marry her as a going concern. She couldn't liquidate her business and come out even, let alone with money enough to get married, Abe."
"She don't got to got money to get married on, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "Any one would be glad to marry such a woman supposing she didn't got a cent to her name. She's an elegant-looking woman, Mawruss—not too thin and not too fat, Mawruss, and what a face she got it, Mawruss! My Rosie was a good-looking woman, Mawruss, and is to-day yet; but Mrs. Gladstein, Mawruss, that's a woman which in a theayter already you don't see such a looking woman. She could dress herself, too, I bet yer. The last time I was by Bridgetown she is wearing one of our Style 4022 which Sammetganveredfrom us and calls the Lily Langtry costume, Mawruss, in a navy shade, understand me; and I don't know nothing about this here Lily Langtry, Mawruss, but I could tell you right now, Mawruss, she ain't got nothing on Mrs. Gladstein when it comes to looks."
Morris nodded and turned to the contemplation of some cutting-slips, while Abe made ready for lunch.
"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris said, when Abe appeared with his hat on. "I've been thinking about this here Mrs. Gladstein, understand me, and I come to the conclusion: Why should we give up so easy? Gladstein always done a good business in that store, y'understand, and if the widder is such a good-looking woman like you say she is, Abe, there's an opening for her to attract a big trade in gents' furnishings and hats up there, and at the same time keep the cloak-and-suit end going."
"What d'ye mean—attract a big trade in gents' furnishings and hats, Mawruss?" Abe demanded indignantly. "If you think the woman is a flirt, Mawruss, you are making a big mistake."
"Must a woman got to be a flirt that she should sell gents' furnishings, Abe?" Morris asked with some heat.
"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said with a scowl. "A lady ain't looking to sell the gents' furnishing trade, Mawruss."
"I know she ain't," Morris replied, "but if a woman is good-looking, Abe, naturally she attracts the clothing and furnishing customers, but she don't got to sell those customers, Abe. Her husband could do that."
"Her husband could do it?" Abe repeated. "What are you talking about—her husband?"
"Sure, her husband," Morris went on, "and especially if a good-looking woman like Mrs. Gladstein would got for a husband a good-looking man like B. Gurin, understand me, the idee works both ways. Mrs. Gladstein attracts the clothing trade and B. Gurin sells 'em, y'understand, while B. Gurin attracts the women's garment trade and Mrs. Gladstein sells 'em."
Abe sat down suddenly and took off his hat.
"What are you trying to drive into, Mawruss?" he asked.
"I am trying to drive into this, Abe," Morris replied: "B. Gurin is a good-looking, up-to-date feller, but he's in wrong with that store of his in Mount Vernon. In the first place, the neighbourhood ain't right, y'understand, and in the second place Gurin don't attend to business like he should; because he ain't married and he ain't got no responsibilities. To such a feller, Abe, when it comes to taking a young lady on theayter Saturday night, business is nix, even when Saturday is a big night in Mount Vernon."
Abe nodded.
"Furthermore, Abe," Morris continued, "if we go on selling B. Gurin, Abe, sooner or later he would bust up on us, understand me, and we are not only out a customer but the least he sticks us is a couple hundred dollars. He owes us two hundred and fifty right now, Abe, since the first of the month already. Ain't it?"
Abe nodded again.
"But you take a young feller like B. Gurin, Abe," Morris went on, "which all he needs is a wife to steady him and an up-to-dateMedeenalike Bridgetown to run a store in, understand me, and if we could put this thing through, Abe, not only we are doing aMitzvahfor all concerned, Abe, but we are making a customer for life."
"You mean, Mawruss," Abe said slowly, "you would try to make up a match between B. Gurin and Mrs. Gladstein?"
"Sure, why not?" Morris said. "It stands in theGemara, Abe, we are commanded to promote marriages, visit the sick and bury the dead."
Once more Abe nodded, and this time he managed to impart the quality of irony to the gesture.
"Burying the dead is all right, Mawruss," he said. "From a dead man you don't get no comebacks, and his relations is anyhow grateful;aberif you would make up a match between a couple of people like Mrs. Gladstein and B. Gurin, what is it? Even if the marriage would be a success, Mawruss, then the couple claims they was just suited to each other, Mawruss, and we don't get no credit for it anyway. On the other hand, Mawruss, if they don't agree together, they wouldn't hate each other near so much as they'd hate us."
"Why should they hate us?" Morris asked. "Our intentions is anyhow good."
"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "From having good intentions already, many a decent, respectable feller goes broke."
Morris flapped the air impatiently with his right hand.
"Anybody could sit down and talk proverbs, Abe," he said.
"I guess I could talk proverbs in my own store, Mawruss, if I want to," Abe rejoined with dignity.
"Sure you could," Morris replied, "but one thing you got to remember, Abe. While the back-number is saying look out before you jump, the up-to-date feller has jumped already, and lands on a five-thousand-dollar ordermitboth feet already."
"I'll tell you, Mr. Perlmutter, it's like this," B. Gurin explained, as he sat in his Mount Vernon store that evening; "money don't figure at all with me."
"Where is the harm supposing she does got a little money, Gurin?" Morris protested. "And, anyhow, never mind the money, Gurin. We will say for the sake of example she ain't got no money. Does it do any harm to look at the woman?"
B. Gurin passed his hand through his wavy brown hair, cut semi-pompadour in the latest fashion. There was no denying B. Gurin's claims to beauty.
"What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he said, carefully examining his finger-nails. "I am sick and tired of looking at 'em. Believe me I ain't lying to you, if I looked at one I must of looked at hundreds. The fathers was rated at the very least D to F first credit, and what is it? The most of 'em I wouldn't marry, not if the rating was Aa 1 even, such faces they got it, understand me; and the others which is got the looks, y'understand, you could take it from me, Mr. Perlmutter, they couldn't even cook a pertater even."
"Girls which they got D to F fathers don't got to cook pertaters," Morris commented shortly.
B. Gurin shrugged.
"For that matter, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I don't take it so particular about my food neither."
"Say, lookyhere, Gurin," Morris exclaimed. "What is the trouble with you anyhow? First you are telling me you don't care about money, next you are kicking that the good-looking ones couldn't cook, y'understand, and then you say you ain't so particular about cooking anyway. What for a kind of girl do you want, Gurin?"
Gurin continued to examine his finger-nails and made no reply.
"Because, Gurin," Morris concluded, "if you are looking for a homely girl which she ain't got no money and couldn't cook, understand me, I wouldn't fool away my time with you at all. Such girls you don't need me to find for you."
B. Gurin sighed profoundly.
"You shouldn't get mad, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "if I tell you something?"
"Why should I get mad, Gurin?" Morris asked. "I am coming all the way up here, which I am leaving wife and boy at home to do so—and maybe you don't think she put up a holler, Gurin! So if you wouldn't even consent to do me the favour and look at Mrs. Gladstein, Gurin, and I don't get mad, understand me, why should I get mad if you would tell me something?"
"Well," Gurin commenced, "it ain't much to tell, Mr. Perlmutter. I guess you hear already why I am coming to this country."
Morris elevated his eyebrows.
"I suppose you are coming here like anybody else comes here," he said. "Sooner as stay in the old country and be aSchnorrerall your life, you come over here, ain't it?"
"No, siree, sir," Gurin replied emphatically.
"If I would stay in the old country, Perlmutter, I don't got to be aSchnorrer. Do you know Louis Moses, the banker in Minsk?"
Morris nodded.
"That's frommiran uncle,verstehst du?" Gurin said; "and Zachs, the big corn merchant, that's also an uncle. My father ain't aSchnorrerneither, Mr. Perlmutter; in fact, instead I am sending home money to Russland like most fellers which they come to this country, Mr. Perlmutter, my people sends me money yet."
He jumped from his chair and went to the safe, from which he extracted two crisp Russian banknotes.
"A hundred rubles apiece," he said, and his face beamed with pride. "So, you see, I don't got to leave Russland because I would be aSchnorrerover there."
"No?" Morris replied. "Then why did you leave, Gurin? So far what I could see you ain't made it such a big success over here."
"You couldn't make me mad by saying that, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin commented. "A big successodera big failure, it makes no difference to me."
"It makes a whole lot of difference to me," Morris cried.
"Yes, Mr. Perlmutter," B. Gurin went on, disregarding the interruption. "I ain't coming over here to make a big success in business. I am coming over here to forget."
"To forget!" Morris exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, forget?"
B. Gurin ran his hands once more through his pompadour and nodded slowly.
"That's what I said," he repeated—"to forget."
"Well, I hope you ain't forgetting you owe us now two hundred and fifty dollars since the first of the month yet," Morris commented in dry, matter-of-fact tones.
B. Gurin waved his hand airily.
"I could forget that easy, Mr. Perlmutter," he said—and Morris winced—"but the rest I couldn't forget at all. Day and night I see her face, Mr. Perlmutter—and such a face!"
Here he paused impressively.
"N-nah!" he exclaimed, and kissed the tips of his fingers, while Morris glanced uneasily toward the door.
"Her name was Miss Polanya and her father keeps a big flour mill in Koroleshtchevitzi, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin went on. "A fine family, understand me; and I am going out there from Minsk twice a week, when a young feller by the name Lutsky—a corn broker, y'understand—comes to sell her father goods."
Again B. Gurin paused, his left hand extended palm upward in a tremulous gesture. Suddenly it dropped on his knee with a despondent smack.
"In two weeks already they was married," he concluded, "and me, I am coming to America."
"You ain't coming to such a bad place neither," Morris rejoined; "even supposing your uncles was such bigMachersin the old country."
"Places is all the same to me now," Gurin said—"women, too, Mr. Perlmutter. I assure you, Mr. Perlmutter, since the day I am leaving Minsk one woman is the same as another to me. I ain't got no use for none of 'em."
"Geh weg, Gurin," Morris cried impatiently. "You talk like a fool. Just because one lady goes back on you, understand me, is that a reason you wouldn't got no use for no ladies at all? You might just as well say, Gurin, because one customer busts up on you, y'understand, you would never try to sell another customer so long as you live. Now this here Mrs. Gladstein, Gurin, is a lady which while I never seen this here ladyimRussland, y'understand, if you will just come out to Bridgetown with me, Gurin, I give you a guaranty Russland wouldn't figure at all."
Gurin shook his head sadly.
"You don't know me, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "While I am going with plentySchatchensto see young ladies already, Mr. Perlmutter, I assure you my heart ain't in it. People gets the impression because I am a swell dresser, Mr. Perlmutter, that I am looking to get married; but believe me, Mr. Perlmutter, it ain't so."
"Then what do you go for, Gurin?" Morris asked. "Schatchensdon't like to fool away their time no more as I do, Gurin; and you could take it from me, no girl is going to the trouble to fix herself up and make a nice supper for you and theSchatchensimply for the pleasure of seeing a swell dresser, Gurin."
"That's just the point, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin said. "A feller which runs a store like this one and eats his meals in restaurants, understand me, must got to get a little home cooking once in a while. Ain't it?"
"Why not get married and be done with it?" Morris retorted; "and then you could get home cooking all the time."
Once more Gurin shook his head.
"Without love, Mr. Perlmutter, marriage is nix," he said.
"Schmooes!" Morris exclaimed. "Do you think when I got married I loved my wife, Gurin?Oserastück. And to-day yet I am crazy about her. With a business man, Gurin, love comes after marriage."
B. Gurin rose wearily to his feet and shot his cuffs by way of showing impatience.
"What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he protested. "When I want to get married I would get married—otherwise not."
He flecked away an imaginary grain of dust from the lapel of his coat and walked slowly toward the door.
"Are you going home on the New Haven roadoderthe Harlem road?" he asked.
Morris scowled, and his indignation lent such force to the gesture with which he put on his hat that the impact sounded like a blow on a tambourine.
"Schon gut, Gurin," he said. "I am through with you."
He paused at the doorway and lit a cigar.
"And one thing I could tell you, Gurin," he concluded. "Either you would send us a check the first thing to-morrow morning,oderwe would give your account to our lawyers, and that's all there is to it."
He puffed away at his cigar as he trudged down the street, and he had nearly reached the corner when he heard a familiar voice shouting: "Mr. Perlmutter!" He turned to view B. Gurin hastening after him.
"Well, Gurin," he grunted, "what you want now?"
Gurin stopped and gasped for breath, and Morris's heart gave a triumphant leap as he noted the anxiety displayed on B. Gurin's clean-shaven features.
"Speak up, Gurin," he said; "I got to get my train."
Gurin smiled in surrender.
"All right, Mr. Perlmutter," he murmured; "make for me a date and I will look the lady over."
When Morris entered his place of business the next morning he found his partner examining the advertising columns of a morning paper with an absorption hardly justified by the tabulated list of births, marriages and deaths at which he was gazing.
"What's biting you now, Abe?" Morris demanded.
"What d'ye mean, what's biting me?" Abe rejoined, and Morris blushed in the consciousness of his oversleeping that morning by more than half an hour.
"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he cried. "I don't know what you are driving into, understand me, but if you think you could getbrogusat me just because I am ten minutes late once in a while, y'understand, let me tell you I am catching a twelve o'clock train from Mount Vernon last night, and not alone I am talking myself blue in the face to that feller Gurin, y'understand, but when I got home already I couldn't get to sleep till I told the whole thing to my Minnie yet."
Abe nodded slowly.
"Yes, Abe," Morris continued, "I got to go over the story twice over already, and even then, y'understand, my Minnie gets mad because I didn't contradict myself.
"Only one idee that woman got it in her head, Abe. If I am out of the houseschonten minutes already you couldn't tell her otherwise but I am playing auction pinocle."
"Well, you might just as well of been playing auction pinocle last night for all the good it would do us."
"What are you talking about—all the good it would do us?" Morris almost whimpered.
"I actually got the feller dead to rights, Abe, and all I must do now is to work from the other end."
Abe burst into a mirthless laugh and handed Morris the paper.
"You should of worked the other end first, Mawruss," he declared, as he indicated an advertising item with his thumb. "That's what Leon Sammet did, Mawruss."
Morris seized the paper and his face grew purple as he read the following notice:
ENGAGED: Asimof—Gladstein. Mrs. Sonia Gladstein, of Bridgetown, Pa., to Jacob Asimof, of Dotyville, Pa. At home, Sunday next 3 to 7 at the residence of Mrs. Leah Sammet, 86-3/4 West One Hundredth and Eighteenth Street. No cards.
ENGAGED: Asimof—Gladstein. Mrs. Sonia Gladstein, of Bridgetown, Pa., to Jacob Asimof, of Dotyville, Pa. At home, Sunday next 3 to 7 at the residence of Mrs. Leah Sammet, 86-3/4 West One Hundredth and Eighteenth Street. No cards.
"Leon's mother makes the engagement party for 'em, Mawruss," Abe said dryly. "Costs a whole lot of money, too, and I bet yer Mrs. Gladstein wouldn't notice it at all in the next six months' statements Leon sends to her."
Morris stifled a groan as he laid down the paper and forced himself to smile confidently.
"What difference does an engagement make, Abe?" he asked. "An engagement ain't a wedding, Abe, and it ain't too late even now."
Again Abe indulged in a bitter laugh.
"You're a regular optician, Mawruss," he said. "You never give up hope."
"That's all right, Abe," Morris retorted. "We could stand a couple opticians in this concern. Always you are ready to lay down on a proposition just as soon as things goes a little wrong, understand me, but me I think differencely."
Abe shrugged and rose to his feet.
"Well, Mawruss," he said, "take off your hat and coat and stay a while. Maybe we could do a little business here this morning for a change."
"Maybe we could and maybe we couldn't, Abe," Morris rejoined, as he buttoned up his coat; "but just the same I am going to do something which you will really be surprised."
"Not at all," Abe corrected; "we are partners together so long that I am only surprised supposing you should act sensible."
"Well, the way I look at it I am acting sensible, Abe," Morris announced. "I am acting sensible, because I am going right down to see Marcus Flachs and I would buy from him for ten dollars cut glass, and I would show that sucker Sammet he couldn't faze me none."
"What d'ye mean, couldn't faze you none?" Abe asked.
"I mean if Sammet is such a faker he goes to work and makes engagement parties for his customers and puts 'em on the paper yet, Abe," Morris declared, as he jammed his hat down more firmly on his head, "he must got to expect his competitors would take advantage of it, understand me. And you could bet your sweet life, Abe, Sunday afternoon, comes three o'clock, I am right there at his mother's house with the cut glass, and don't you forget it."
Abe nodded grimly.
"It's a free country, Mawruss," he said, "and nobody could stop you going to an engagement party which is in the paper, y'understand; but you shouldn't forget one thing, Mawruss. You got on our ledger a drawing account,verstehst du, and on your way out you should please tell Miss Cohen to enter the ten dollars cut glass in the right place."
"Don't worry, Abe," Morris cried, as he started for the elevator. "When the time comes we should post it in the ledger, if we ain't opened a new account in Bridgetown, Pa., I would pay for it myself."
Ten minutes later he entered the Twenty-third Street subway station en route to Canal Street, and no sooner had he bought his ticket than his enthusiasm began to wane. After all, he reflected as he boarded the train, ten dollars' worth of cut glass seemed rather extravagant when one considered the size of an order that in the most favourable circumstances might emanate from a store in Bridgetown. Indeed, as the train pulled into the Eighteenth Street station he had come to believe that seven dollars and fifty cents would be a generous price, and even this figure commenced to look huge as Fourteenth Street drew near. At Astor Place, Morris decided that five dollars' worth of cut glass would be more appropriate for a widow. When the guard announced the next stop as Bleecker Street, however, it occurred to Morris that the manufacturers of quadruple plate were producing some very artistic effects in knives, forks and spoons, which in appearance were undistinguishable from sterling silver; and the train was leaving Spring Street when Morris bethought himself of a certainbonbonnièrethat had cost Mrs. Perlmutter precisely four dollars at a dry-goods store. He distinctly recalled examining the trade-mark, to which were affixed the words "triple plate."
During the short walk from the Canal Street station to Marcus Flachs's place of business, he wondered vaguely if there were such a thing as double plate, and when at last he opened the door of the pawnbroker's sales store in question he approached the counter with his mind fully made up.
"Do you got maybe some sets from nutpicks?" he inquired of the proprietor.
Marcus Flachs took the question in ill part.
"What the devil do you think I am running here," he demanded by way of answer—"a five-and-ten-cent store?"
"Since when do they sell it nutpicks in a five-and-ten-cent-store?" Morris retorted.
Flachs snorted angrily.
"I don't think they sell 'em even in five-and-ten-cent stores," he said; "and anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, what for a present is nutpicks? If a feller eats nuts twice a year, that's a big average. For my part it wouldoserbreak my heart if I would never eat another nut so long as I live. Now what you want to get is something cheap, ain't it?"
Morris nodded.
"Something about two dollars and fifty cents," he said.
"That's what I thought," Flachs replied, "and for two dollars and fifty cents there ain't much choice. Olive dishes is all I could show you."
"Let me give a look at 'em," Morris said, and as Flachs led the way to the well-stocked shelves in the rear of the store Morris discerned for the first time the presence of another customer.
"How much did you say that there coffee samovar was?" cried a familiar voice.
"I told you before, Mr. Klinger," Flachs said, "that ain't no samovar. That's a perculater and it cost me, so sure as I am standing here, fifteen dollars, so I would let you have it for twelve-fifty on account its being shopworn."
"Take ten dollars and make an end," rejoined Klinger, tendering a bill.
"For ten dollars I could give you a fine piece cut glass, Mr. Klinger," Flachs insisted.
By way of answer Klinger tucked away the ten-dollar bill he had taken from his waistcoat pocket, and Flachs seized the coffee percolator with both hands.
"I'll wrap it up for you right away," he said, and then it was that Klinger recognized Morris, who had been standing unnoticed in the background.
"Hello, Perlmutter!" he said; "what are you doing here?"
"I guess I am doing the same what you are doing, Klinger," Morris replied stiffly. "I am buying for a customer a present. Ain't it?"
Klinger nodded.
"Honestly, Perlmutter," he said, "I never seen the like how things happen. No sooner you start to sell goods to a feller than somebody is engagedodermarried in his family."
"He must be a pretty good customer the way you are blowing yourself," Morris commented.
"I bet yer!" Klinger said as he walked away; "and if you would be in our place you would do the same."
For five minutes Morris examined the cut glass, and when Flachs returned he had decided upon an olive dish of most intricate design. "That's a close buyer, that Mr. Klinger," Flachs observed.
"Not near so close as I am," Morris declared.
"Well, you wouldn't anyhow kick on paying twenty-five cents express, Mr. Perlmutter," Flachs said, "but that feller actually wants me to deliver the package for nothing."
"Why not?" Morris asked. "Don't everybody deliver packages free?"
"Not a pawnbroker's-sales store," Flachs replied; "and anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, Leon Sammet this morning buys from me for thirty dollars silver to be sent to the same place on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street as that there perculater, and he didn't kick only a little that I am charging him fifty cents express."
"What!" Morris exclaimed. "Is Klinger sending that perculater up to One Hundred and Eighteenth Street too?"
"That's what I said," Flachs answered, and Morris replaced the cut-glass dish on the shelf.
"Was the name Gladstein?" he inquired, and Flachs nodded.
"Then in that case," Morris said savagely, "let me look at some sterling silver for about twenty-five dollars. If them suckers could stand it, so can I."
More than two days had elapsed before Abe had exhausted the topic of Mrs. Gladstein's ten-dollar engagement present. He discussed it satirically, profanely and earnestly, from the standpoint of business ethics, in such maddening reiterations that Morris could not help wondering how much longer Abe's criticism would have continued had he known that the cold-meat tray really cost twenty-five dollars.
"You are throwing away good money after bad, Mawruss," Abe said, renewing the subject after an interval of comparative calm, "because, so sure as you are standing there, we would never get our two hundred and fifty out of that feller Gurin."
"What has Mrs. Gladstein's present got to do with Gurin?" Morris asked. "If I told you once, Abe, in the last two days, I am telling you a dozen times, understand me, I am giving that there cold-meat tray to Mrs. Gladstein as a speculation, Abe. What difference does it make who she marries, Abe, GurinoderAsimof, so long as we could land from her an order for five hundred dollars?"
"Yow! You would land from her an order for five hundred dollars!" Abe exclaimed.
"Well, if Sol Klinger could do it, why couldn't we?" Morris asked.
"What are you talking about Sol Klinger?" Abe demanded.
Thereupon Morris related to Abe the circumstances surrounding Sol Klinger's purchase of the coffee percolator, and when he concluded Abe nodded slowly.
"So that highwayman is butting in too," he commented. "How much did you say he is paying for that samovar, Mawruss?"
Morris closed his eyes as though he were making a conscientious effort to remember the exact amount.
"Thirty dollars," he announced at last.
"What!" Abe cried. "You stood there and let Sol Klinger buy for thirty dollars a present and we ourselves only spend ten? What for a piker are you anyway, Mawruss?"
"What do you mean, what for a piker am I?" Morris said indignantly. "You are talking me black in the face on account I am spending ten dollars and now you are kicking I didn't spend thirty."
"Did you tell me before that Sol Klinger buys a present?" Abe asked. "And furthermore, Mawruss, this wouldn't be the first time we are spending money to get business. Couldn't we afford to lay out thirty dollars if we want to?"
"But, Abe—" Morris began.
"But nothing!" Abe roared. "Why should you get all of a sudden sosparsam mitour money, Mawruss? You talk like we would be new beginners on East Broadway already."
"But, Abe—" Morris protested again.
"'S enough, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "I heard enough from you already. Only one thing I got to tell you: if we lose a chance of getting some business from a lady which you could really say I know her well enough that it's a shame we ain't sold her nothing already even, don't blame me. That's all I got to say."
He walked away to the cutting room, while Morris sat down in the nearest chair, dazed to the point of temporary aphasia. For five minutes he sat still, endeavouring to trace the intricacies of a discussion that had put him so decisively in the wrong, and he was still pondering the matter when the elevator door opened and B. Gurin alighted.
"How do you do, Mr. Perlmutter?" Gurin cried.
Morris grunted inarticulately and made no attempt to take his visitor's proffered hand.
"Did you got any news for me?" Gurin asked.
Morris rose to his feet.
"Yes, I got some news for you," he said. "I got news for you that Mrs. Gladstein is engaged to be married to a feller by the name Asimof."
He looked absently at a sample rack upon which reposed the very newspaper that contained the advertisement.
"Here it is," he continued, as he seized the paper. "You could see for yourself."
He handed the advertisement to Gurin, who read it over unmoved.
"Well, I must tell you the honest truth, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "I couldn't say I am sorry." And he smiled amiably.
As Morris gazed at the fashion-plate features and the fashion-plate apparel of his visitor, he entirely forgot his optimistic scheme of supplanting Asimof with Gurin and he grew suddenly livid with a fierce rage.
"You ain't, ain't you?" he bellowed. "Well, you ought to be, because so sure as you are standing there, comes Monday morning and we don't get a check from you, we would close you up sure, y'understand."
"Now, lookyhere, Mr. Perlmutter—" Gurin began, but the reaction set up by Morris's encounter with his partner had begun to have its effect and he seized Gurin by one padded shoulder.
"Out!" he roared. "Out of my place, you rotten, cheap dude, you!"
And two minutes later B. Gurin fled wildly down the stairs, the newspaper still clutched in his hand.
Although Leon Sammet had at first been actuated by motives of a somewhat sordid nature in his negotiation of Mrs. Gladstein's betrothal, his subsequent behaviour was tempered by the traditional hospitality of his race. As for his mother, Mrs. Leah Sammet, she entered upon the preparations for the reception with an ardour that could not have been exceeded had Mrs. Gladstein been her own daughter. Thus, when Sunday afternoon arrived, Mrs. Sammet's house on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street presented an appearance of unusual festivity. The long, narrow parlor had been liberally draped with smilax and sparingly decorated with ex-table-d'hôte roses, until it resembled the mortuary chapel of a Mulberry Street undertaker; and this effect was, if anything, heightened by four dozen camp-chairs that had been procured from the sexton of Mrs. Sammet's place of worship.
A fine odour of cooking ascended from the basement kitchen, and when Jacob Asimof had entered the front door at the behest of a coloured man with white gloves he sniffed the fragrant atmosphere of the lobby like a coon dog at the base of a hollow tree.
"Am I the first here?" he asked Barney Sammet, the junior partner of Sammet Brothers, who had been detailed by his elder brother to receive the arriving guests, with strict injunction to keep an eye on the cigars.
Barney nodded gloomily.
"And ain't Mrs. Gladstein—I mean Sonia—come yet?" Jacob inquired.
"We just now got a telephone from her, the train from Bridgetown is late and she would be here in half an hour," Barney replied.
"That's a fine lookout," Asimof commented. "I bet yer by that time we would got a big crowd here."
The words were prophetic, for the shuffling of many feet on the front stoop preluded the arrival of Sol Klinger, Mrs. Klinger, Moe Klein and Mrs. Klein, who were immediately succeeded by the firm of Kleiman & Elenbogen, H. Rashkin, the coat-pad manufacturer, and Marks Pasinsky.
It must be conceded that Leon Sammet comported himself in a highly creditable manner, and he greeted his guests with a cordiality that embraced competitor and customer in one impartial, comprehensive smile.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Klinger?" he exclaimed, and then he turned to Mrs. Leah Sammet, who stood beside him. "Mommer," he said, "I want you to know Mr. Klinger. Him and me has been competitors for twenty years already."
Mrs. Sammet nodded and smiled.
"For my part twenty years longer," she murmured, as she grasped Sol's hand.
"At a time like this, Mrs. Sammet," Sol rejoined, "it don't make no difference to me if a man is ever so much a competitor; what I claim is, let a sleeping dawg alone."
Mrs. Sammet indorsed the sentiment with another smile, and Sol with his retinue passed on into the back parlour for the purpose of inspecting the presents. In the meantime other guests had preceded them, and among them was a man whose bearing and raiment proclaimed the creature of fashion. Not only were his trousers of the latest narrow design, but they were of sufficient modish brevity half to conceal and half to reveal a pair of gossamer silk socks, which in their turn were incased by patent-leather, low-cut shoes. The latter exhibited the square knobbiness that only fashion artists can impart to the footgear of their models, while the broad laces that held them by the insecure hold of two eyelets were knotted in a bow that might have been appended to the collar of Mr. Paderewski himself.
"Ain't this Mr. Gurin?" Sol Klinger asked, and the creature of fashion nodded.
"You're a friend of theKahlo, ain't it?" Klinger commented, employing the vernacular equivalent for the English word "bride."
"In a way," Gurin said evasively; "abertheKhosanI don't know at all."
Thus did Gurin imply that he was not acquainted with the future bridegroom, and Klinger volunteered the information that Asimof ran a dry-goods store in Dotyville, Pennsylvania.
"I sold him goods for years," he added, "and I guess I would continue to do so, even if that Ganef Sammet would make twenty engagement parties for 'em. Did you see the samovar I gave 'em?"
He pointed proudly to a silver-plated object, and Gurin glanced at it scornfully.
"Potash & Perlmutter gives 'em solid silver," he commented—"a wide dish."
"Sure I know," Klinger said, "thin like paper."
"Abersterling," Gurin insisted, and Klinger made a telling diversion.
"I suppose you sent 'em something sterling also," he said.
"Me?" Gurin exclaimed. "Why should I buy presents? I am a retailer myself, Mr. Klinger, so I sent 'em some flowers."
"I don't see 'em nowhere," Sol retorted.
"They're over there," B. Gurin said, making a sweeping gesture in the general direction of the mantelpiece, and as he did so a bass voice sounded at his elbow.
"Put out my eye why don't you?" cried Abe Potash, and then he recognized his assailant.
"Say, what are you doing here?" he demanded.
B. Gurin looked coldly at his creditor and shrugged his shoulders.
"I got just so much right to be here as you," he said, "and that partner of yours too."
He hurled this defiance at Morris, who had entered the room on Abe's heels; but the retort passed unnoticed so far as Morris was concerned, since he was absorbed in the contemplation of the presents.
"Well, Klinger," he said, "you are making Mrs. Gladstein a pretty fine present, ain't it?"
Klinger scowled.
"Mrs. Gladstein I ain't bothering my head about at all," he replied. "But when a cut-throat like Sammet makes out a scheme to steal away from me an old customer like Asimof I got to protect myself."
Morris whistled expressively.
"So you are making the present to Asimof?" he commented.
"Sure, I am," Sol answered. "As for Mrs. Gladstein, she got presents enough from me. The first time she was married I am sending money to the old country to my father he should make her a present on account Mrs. Gladstein's father is my father's a third cousin, understand me. And when she marries Gladstein, y'understand, I give her both an engagement and a wedding present both. And do you think that sucker,olav hasholom, ever buys from me a dollar's worth goods?OseraStück."
"And you say Mrs. Gladstein was twicet married?" Morris asked.
"Ain't I just telling you so?" Sol replied.
"What was her first husband's name?" Morris asked; but the question remained unanswered, for at that very moment a confusion of noises in the front parlour signalled the arrival of the bride.
Morris and Sol followed the other guests from the rear parlour, and then it was that Morris discerned his partner's appreciative description of Mrs. Gladstein's claim to be in no way exaggerated. She was arrayed in a black silk dress of a design well calculated to display her graceful figure, while her oval face was shaded by a black picture hat, beneath which her large dark eyes glowed and flashed by turns. Moreover, her complexion was all cream and roses, and when she smiled two rows of even white teeth were exposed between a pair of tantalizing red lips.
Morris commenced to perspire with embarrassment as he remembered how he had planned to negotiate a match for this glorious creature—a task that only a very prince of marriage brokers might have essayed. He turned away; but as his eye rested on B. Gurin, who still lingered over the presents, he was obliged to admit that he had chosen a fitting candidate, and he even felt mollified toward his delinquent customer as he reflected on Gurin's lost opportunity.
"Gurin," he said, "ain't you going to congradulate theKahlo?"
"I didn't know she was here at all," Gurin said sadly. The truth was that Gurin's presence at the reception that afternoon was not inspired by curiosity concerning either Mrs. Gladstein or Asimof. Business was undeniably bad with him, and he was making an earnest effort to keep his financial head above water. Thus he limited his personal expenses to the preservation of his wardrobe, and he had cut down his cost of living to a degree that permitted only a very low, lunch-wagon diet. He saw in Mrs. Sammet's hospitality the prospect of a meal, and although he was by no means courageous, his appetite spurred him on to brave his creditors' wrath.
"I'll take a look at her," he murmured apologetically, and he began to elbow his way through the group that surrounded the engaged couple. Morris patted him on the shoulder as he passed and was about to return to the back parlour when a shriek came from the centre of the congratulatory throng.
"Boris!" cried a female voice with a note of hysteria in its shrill tones.
"Sonia!" B. Gurin exclaimed, and the next moment he clasped Mrs. Gladstein in his arms.
"You was asking me the name of Mrs. Gladstein's first husband," said Sol Klinger to Morris Perlmutter, as they descended the stoop together half an hour later. "It was Aaron Lutsky. He died two years after they was married. I knew his family well in the old country—her's too, Perlmutter. Her father was a feller by the name Polanya, and to-day yet he runs a big flour mill in Koroleshtchevitzi."
"So I understand," Morris said; "but what's that you got there under your coat?"
He referred to a huge bulge on the right side of Sol Klinger's Prince Albert coat, which Sol was supporting with both hands.
"That's my present," Sol said, as if surprised at the question, "and if Marcus Flachs wouldn't give me my money back, understand me, I could anyhow exchange it for something useful."
"It don't make no difference, Mawruss," Abe said, as they sat in their showroom two months later. "The feller should got to pay us that two hundred and fifty dollars."
"But we would get lots of business out of them now that they are married, Abe," Morris protested.
"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and they got lots of presents out of us too, Mawruss," Abe said. "Counting the engagement and the wedding present, Mawruss, and my Rosie's new dress, and the pants which you bought it to go with your tuxedo, understand me—first and last we must be out a hundred and fifty dollars."
Morris nodded. He recognized that an opportunity was here presented to correct Abe's figures by the addition of fifteen dollars to the price of the engagement present, but he deemed it more prudent to await the arrival of Gurin's first order. In point of fact, Morris had begun to examine the mails with some anxiety for a letter postmarked Bridgetown. More than two weeks had elapsed since Gurin's wedding, and, making due allowances for honeymooning, it seemed to Morris that from an inspection of Mrs. Gladstein's stock, made by him on a congratulatory visit to Bridgetown, there was immediate need for replenishment.
"I don't understand why we don't hear from them people at all," he said.
"Give 'em a show, Mawruss. Give 'em a show," Abe replied. "A man only gets married, for the first time, once."
Morris shrugged.
"For my part, Abe, I ain't in no hurry," he said. "If you could see the way Leon Sammet gives me a look this morning when I seen him on the subway y'understand, it would be worth to you a hundred and fifty dollars. Sol Klinger is feeling sore too, Abe. I seen him in Hammersmith's yesterday, and he says to me Flachs wouldn't exchange that samovar arrangement which he bought it, so he took it home with him, and he ain't drunk nothing but coffee in two months."
"I bet yer," Abe commented; "and he also ain't got an order from Asimof in two months. The feller is heartbroken, Mawruss. He even had made arrangements to sell his store in Dotyville and move over to Bridgetown, y'understand, and when he called the deal off the purchaser sues him for breach of contract yet."
"But why should he get mad at Klinger?" Morris asked. "Klinger didn't do him nothing."
"Maybe you don't think so, Mawruss, but Asimof figures differencely; because he told me this morning, that after the engagement is off, understand me, Mrs. Gladstein and him makes a division of the presents. Asimof takes what was sent by the concerns which is sellinghimgoods, and Mrs. Gladstein takes the rest, all excepting a present they got from Marks Pasinsky.
"Pasinsky used to sell 'em both goods, y'understand; but fortunately, Mawruss, he sends 'em a dozen coffee spoons, so Asimof takes six and Mrs. Gladstein takes six."
"It's a good thing Pasinsky didn't send 'em a single piece of cut glass," Morris said thoughtfully.
"It wouldn't make no difference to Asimof," Abe said. "He would of allowed Mrs. Gladstein half cost price, give or take. He's a pretty square feller, Asimof is, Mawruss, and he said he would give a look in here this afternoon. We needn't be afraid from him, Mawruss. He's A number one up to two hundred and fifty dollars, thirty days net."
Morris nodded again and walked slowly toward the cutting room, while his partner sat down to read the trade news in theDaily Cloak and Suit Record. Morris had hardly reached the doorway, however, when a strident shout caused him to retrace his steps in a hurry.
"What's the matter now?" he exclaimed; but Abe was incapable of articulate speech. Instead he held out the paper and made noises appropriate to an apopletic seizure, which Morris construed as a request to look at something of more than ordinary interest.
"Where, where?" he demanded, and Abe stuck a trembling forefinger through the printed page. As nearly as the torn edges of the paper would permit, Morris read the following paragraph: