Abe finished reading the letter and handed it in silence to Morris, who examined it closely.
"That's a very promising letter, Abe," he said. "I'd like to know what that feller done all day in Chicago. I bet yer that assistant millinery buyer eats a good lunch on us, Abe, if she didn't also see it a theayter on us, too. What does he think he's selling, anyway, Abe, millinery or cloaks?"
"Give the feller a show, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He ain't been in Chicago forty-eight hours yet. We'll wait till we get it another letter from him, Mawruss, before we start to kick."
Another day elapsed, but no further epistle camefrom Marks Pasinsky, and when the last mail arrived without any word from Chicago Morris grew worried.
"Not even a weather report, Abe," he said. "If he couldn't sell no goods, Abe, at least he could write us a letter."
"Maybe he's too busy, Mawruss," Abe suggested.
"Busy taking assistant millinery buyers to lunch, Abe," Morris replied. "The way that feller acts, Abe, he ain't no stranger to auction pinochle, neither, I bet yer."
Abe put on his hat and coat preparatory to going home.
"What's the use knocking him yet a while, Mawruss?" he said. "A different tune you will sing it when we get a couple of orders from him to-morrow morning."
But the next forenoon's mail was barren of result, and when Abe went out to lunch that day he had little appetite for his food. Accordingly he sought an enameled-brick dairy restaurant, and he was midway in the consumption of a bowl of milk toast when Leon Sammet, senior partner of Sammet Brothers, entered.
"Well, Abe," he said, "do you got to diet, too?"
"Gott sei dank, it ain't so bad as all that, Leon," Abe replied. "No, Leon, I ain't going to die just yet a while, although that's a terrible sickness, the rheumatism. The doctor says I could only eat it certain things like chicken and chops and milk toast."
"Well, you wouldn't starve, anyhow," Leon commented.
"No, I wouldn't starve," Abe admitted, "but I also couldn't go out on the road, neither. The doctor wouldn't let me, so we got to hire a feller to take care of our Western trade. I guess he's a pretty good salesman, too. His name is Marks Pasinsky. Do you know him?"
"Sure I know him," Leon Sammet replied. "He used to work by B. Gans, and he's a very close friend of a feller what used to work for us by the name Mozart Rabiner."
"You mean that musical feller?" Abe said.
"That's the one," Leon answered. "I bet yer he was musical. That feller got the artistic temperature all right, Abe. He didn't give a damn how much of our money he spent it. Every town he makes he got to have a pianner sent up to the hotel. Costs us every time three dollars for the pianner and five dollars for trucking. We got it a decent salesman now, Abe. We hired him a couple of weeks since."
"What's his name?" Abe asked.
"Arthur Katzen," Leon Sammet replied. "He had a big week last week in Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland and Detroit. He's in Chicago this week."
"Is that so?" Abe commented.
"He turned us in a fine order to-day," Leon continued, "from Simon Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers & Co."
"What?" Abe gasped.
"Sure," Sammet went on, "and the funny thing about it is that Kuhner never bought our line before, and I guess he wouldn't of bought it now, but this here Arthur Katzen, Abe, he is sure a wonder. That feller actually booked a five-thousand-dollar order from sample garments which didn't belong to our line at all. They're some samples which I understand Kuhner had made up already."
"That's something what I never heard it before," Abe exclaimed.
"Me neither," Leon said; "but Kuhner gives him the privilege to send us the garments here, and we are to make up sample garments of our own so soon as we can copy the styles; and after we ship our samples and Kuhner's samples back to Kuhner, Kuhner sends us a confirmation. We expect Kuhner will ship us his samples to-morrow."
Abe rose wearily from his seat.
"Well, Leon," he concluded, "you certainly got it more luck with your salesman as we got it with ours. So far he ain't sent us a single, solitary order."
He passed down the aisle to the cashier's desk and had almost reached the door when a restraining hand plucked at his coat tails.
"Hallo, Abe!" a voice cried. It was Sol Klinger, whose manner of eating crullers and coffee received and merited the unfavorable attention of everybody seated at his table. "Sit down and have a cup of coffee."
"I had it my lunch already," Abe replied.
"Sit down and have a cup of coffee, anyhow," Sol Klinger coaxed.
"I wouldn't have no coffee," Abe said as he took the vacant chair next to Sol. "I'll have a cup of chocolate. To a man in my conditions, Sol, coffee is poison already."
"Why, what's the matter, Abe?" Sol asked.
"I'm a sick feller, Sol," Abe went on. "The rheumatism I got it all over my body. I assure you I couldn't go out on the road this fall. I had to hire it a salesman."
"Is that so?" Sol Klinger replied. "Well, we had to hire it a new salesman, too—a young feller by the name Moe Rabiner. Do you know him?"
"I heard about him already," Abe said. "How is he doing?"
"Well, in Buffalo, last week, he ain't done hardly nothing," said Sol; "but he's in Chicago this week and he done a little better. He sent us a nice order this morning, I bet yer. Four thousand dollars from the Arcade Mercantile Company."
Abe was swallowing a huge mouthful of cocoa, and when Sol vouchsafed this last piece of information the cocoa found its way to Abe's pharynx, whence it was violently ejected into the face of a mild-mannered errand-boy sitting opposite. The errand-boy wiped his face while Sol slapped Abe on the back.
"What's the matter, Abe?" Sol asked solicitously. "Do you got bronchitis, too, as well as rheumatism?"
"Go ahead, Sol," Abe gasped. "Tell me about this here order."
"There ain't much to tell, Abe," Sol went on, "except that this here Rabiner does something I never heard about before in all my experience in the cloak and suit business."
"No?" Abe croaked. "What was that?"
"Why, this here Rabiner gets an order from Prosnauer, of the Arcade Mercantile Company, for garments what we ain't got in our line at all," Sol Klinger explained; "and Prosnauer furnishes us the sample garments, which we are to return to him just so soon as we can copy them, and then——"
"S'enough," Abe cried. "I heard enough, Sol. Don't rub it in."
"Why, what do you mean, Abe?" Sol asked.
"I mean I got it a salesman in Chicago, Sol," Abe went on, "what ain't sent us so much as a smell of an order. I guess there's only one thing for me to do, Sol, and that's to go myself to Chicago and see what he's up to."
Sol looked shocked.
"Don't you do it, Abe," he said. "Klein got a brother-in-law what got the rheumatism like you got it, Abe, and the feller insisted on going to Boston. The railroad trip finished him, I bet yer."
"Did he die?" Abe asked.
"Well, no, he didn't die exactly," Klinger replied; "but on the train the rheumatism went to his head, and that poor, sick young feller took a whole theaytertroupe into the café car and blows 'em to tchampanyer wine yet. Two hundred dollars it costed him."
"That's all right, Sol," Abe replied. "I could stand it if it stood me in three hundred dollars, so long as I could stop Marks Pasinsky making another town."
He rose to his feet with surprising alacrity for a rheumatic patient, and returned to his office, where no communication had been received from Marks Pasinsky.
"That settles it, Mawruss," Abe said as he jammed his hat farther down on his head.
"Where are you going now?" Morris asked.
"I'm going home to pack my grip," Abe announced, "and I'll get that six o'clock train to Chicago, sure."
"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I thought the doctor says if you went out on the road he wouldn't be responsible for you."
"I know he did," Abe concluded as he passed out, "but who will be responsible for Marks Pasinsky, Mawruss?"
When Abe reached Chicago the following afternoon he repaired at once to the hotel at which Marks Pasinsky was staying.
"Mr. Pasinsky ain't in his room. What?" he said to the clerk.
"Mr. Pasinsky went out about one o'clock and hasn't been back since," the clerk replied as hehanded Abe over to a bell-boy. Fifteen minutes later Abe descended from his room with the marks of travel almost effaced, and again inquired for Marks Pasinsky.
"He ain't been back since, Mr. Potash," said the clerk.
"He didn't go out with nobody. No?" Abe asked.
"I think he went out with a short, dark gentleman," the clerk answered.
Abe pondered for a moment. Simon Kuhner stood full six feet tall and was a decided blond, while Chester Prosnauer, whom he knew by sight only, was as large as Marks Pasinsky himself.
"Who could that be, I wonder?" Abe murmured.
"It was a gentleman staying over at the Altringham," the clerk said.
"Then it couldn't be them," Abe concluded. "If Pasinsky comes back you should please tell him to wait. I will be back here at six, sure."
He made immediately for the business premises of Mandleberger Brothers & Co., where he found Simon Kuhner hard at work in his office.
"Hallo, Abe!" Kuhner cried as Abe entered. "They told me you was a fit subject for crutches when I asked for you the other day."
"Who told you?" Abe said without further preface. "Marks Pasinsky?"
"Marks Pasinsky?" Kuhner repeated. "Why, no. He didn't mention your name, Abe. Do you know Marks Pasinsky, too?"
"Do I know him, too?" Abe almost shrieked. "A question! Ain't he selling goods for me?"
"Is he?" Kuhner said.
"Is he!" Abe cried. "Why, you don't mean to tell me that feller ain't been in here yet?"
"Sure he was in here," Kuhner replied, "but he didn't say nothing about selling goods for you. In fact, he got a fine order from me, Abe, for a concern which I never done business with before. People by the name Sammet Brothers. What's the matter, Abe? Are you sick?"
Abe gurgled once or twice and clutched at his collar.
"Did you got the samples here what he shows you?" he managed to gasp.
"Why, Abe, what's troubling you?" Kuhner said. "A sick man like you shouldn't be attending to business at all."
"Never mind me," Abe cried. "What about them samples, Kuhner?"
"He left some samples with me, and I was to ship 'em to Sammet Brothers."
"Did you ship 'em yet?" Abe exclaimed.
"Why, what's the matter, Abe?" Kuhner commenced soothingly.
"The matter is," Abe shouted, "them samples is my samples, and there's some monkey business here."
"Monkey business!" Kuhner said. "What sort of monkey business?"
"I don't know," Abe replied, "but I'm going to find out right away. Promise me you wouldn't ship them samples till I come back."
"Sure I will promise you, Abe," Kuhner declared. "When will you be back?"
"To-morrow morning some time," Abe concluded as he rose to leave. "I got to see a lawyer and make this here feller Pasinsky arrested."
"Don't do nothing rash, Abe," Kuhner advised.
"I won't do nothing rash," Abe promised. "I'll kill him, that's what I'll do."
He took the stairs three at a jump and fairly ran to the dry-goods store of the Arcade Mercantile Company.
"Mr. Prosnauer," he cried as he burst into Prosnauer's office in the cloak department, "my name is Mr. Potash, of Potash & Perlmutter, from New York. Did you seen it my salesman, Marks Pasinsky?"
"Sit down, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer said, "and don't excite yourself."
"I ain't exciting myself," Abe exclaimed. "I don't got to excite myself, Mr. Prosnauer. I am excited enough already when I think to myself that that lowlife Pasinsky takes my samples out of my store and comes here with my money and gets an order from you for four thousand dollars for Klinger & Klein."
"Not so fast, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer began. "I've known Marks Pasinsky for a number of years.He and I play auction pinochle together every Saturday night when he is in Chicago, and——"
"Auction pinochle!" Abe interrupted, throwing up his hands. "Das fehlt nur noch!"
"As I was saying, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer went on with a withering glance at Abe, "those samples are outside, and Pasinsky has asked me to ship them to Klinger & Klein, and——"
"Ship 'em!" Abe cried. "You shouldn't ship nothing. Them samples belongs to me."
"How do I know that?" Prosnauer asked. "Is your name engraved on 'em?"
"All right," Abe cried, jumping to his feet. "All right, Mr. Prosnauer. If you are going to make jokes with me I got nothing to say, but I give you warning that you should do absolutely nothing with them samples till I send a sheriff round for them."
"Now you're making threats," said Prosnauer.
"With people like Marks Pasinsky," Abe retorted as he paused at the door, "I don't got to make no threats. I know who I am dealing with, Mr. Prosnauer, and so, instead I should make threats I go right away and see a lawyer, and he will deliver the goods. That's all I got to say."
"Hold on there, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer cried. "It ain't necessary for you to see a lawyer. Prove to me that you own the samples and you can have 'em."
Abe hesitated.
"Well," he said, "if you would hold it them samplestill to-morrow noon, Mr. Prosnauer, I'll give you all the proofs you want."
"Very well," Prosnauer said, "I'll hold them. When will you be back?"
"Before twelve to-morrow," Abe replied. "Believe me, Mr. Prosnauer, I ain't so stuck on paying lawyers. If I can settle this thing up nice and friendly I would do so."
They shook hands, and Abe retraced his steps to the hotel, where he again inquired for Marks Pasinsky.
"He hasn't come back yet, Mr. Potash," the clerk said, and Abe retired to the writing-room and smoked a cigar by way of a sedative.
From six o'clock that evening until midnight he smoked so many sedative cigars and made so many fruitless inquiries at the desk for Marks Pasinsky, that his own nerves as well as the night clerk's were completely shattered. Before Abe retired he paid a farewell visit to the desk, and both he and the clerk gave vent to their emotions in a great deal of spirited profanity.
There was no rest for Abe that night, and when at length he fell asleep it was almost daylight. He awoke at nine and, dressing himself fireman fashion, he hurried to the desk.
"What time did Marks Pasinsky come in?" he asked the clerk.
"Why, Mr. Pasinsky didn't come in at all," the clerk replied.
Abe pushed his hat back from his forehead.
"Say, young feller," he said, "do you got the gall to tell me that Marks Pasinsky ain't come back since he went over to the Altringham with that short, dark feller yesterday afternoon?"
"Call me a liar, why don't you?" the clerk retorted.
"You're a fresh young feller!" Abe exclaimed. "Couldn't you answer a civil question?"
"Ah, don't be worrying me with your troubles!" the clerk snarled. "Go over to the Altringham yourself, if you think I'm stringing you."
Abe turned without another word and hustled over to the Altringham.
"Do you know a feller by the name Marks Pasinsky?" he asked the clerk.
"Is he a guest of the house?" the clerk said.
"He's a big feller with a stovepipe hat and curly hair," Abe replied, "and he came in here yesterday afternoon with a short, dark feller what is stopping here. This here Pasinsky is stopping where I am, but he ain't showed up all night, and I guess he's stayed here with that short, dark feller."
The clerk touched a bell.
"Front," he said, "show this gentleman up to eighty-nine."
"Eighty-nine?" Abe cried. "Who's up in eighty-nine?"
You're a Fresh Young Feller
"Tall, curly-haired gentleman came in here yesterdayafternoon with a short, dark gentleman name of Katzen and——"
Abe clapped his hand to his forehead.
"Arthur Katzen!" he cried.
The clerk nodded.
"Short, dark feller," Abe murmured as he followed the bell-boy. "Why didn't I think of Arthur Katzen before?"
He entered the elevator, feeling as though he were walking in his sleep; nor did the jolt with which he was shot up to the eighth floor awaken him. His conductor led him down the corridor and was about to knock at room eighty-nine when Abe seized him by the arm.
"Hold on," Abe whispered. "The door is open."
They tiptoed up to the half-open door and, holding himself well within the shadow of the corridor, Abe peeped in. It was ten o'clock of a sunny fall day, but the dark shades of room eighty-nine were drawn and the electric lights were blazing away as though it were still midnight. Beneath the lights was a small, oblong table at which sat three men, and in front of each of them stood a small pile of chips. Marks Pasinsky was dealing.
"A-ah, Katzen, you ruined that hand," Marks Pasinsky said as he flipped out the cards three at a time. "Why didn't you lead it out the ace ofSchüpperight at the start? What did you expect to do with it? Eat it?"
Katzen nodded sleepily.
"The way I feel now, Pasinsky, I could eat most anything," he retorted. "I could eat a round trip, if I had a cup of coffee with it, so hungry I am. Let's have some supper."
"Supper!" Pasinsky cried. "What do you want supper for? The game is young yet."
"Shall I tell you something?" the third hand—a stranger to Abe—said. "You both played that hand likeStrohschneiders. Pasinsky sits there with two nines of trump in his hand and don't lead 'em through me. You could have beat me by a million very easy."
He waved his hand with the palm outward and flapped his four fingers derisively.
"You call yourself a pinochle player!" he jeered, and fell to twisting his huge red mustache with his fingers.
Abe nodded an involuntary approval, and then as silently as they had arrived he and the bell-boy retreated toward the elevator shaft.
"Dem guys is card fiends all right," the bell-boy commented. "Dey started in at five o'clock last night."
As they waited for the elevator the strains of a piano came from the floor below.
"What's that?" Abe exclaimed.
"Dat's anudder member of de gang," the bell-boy replied. "Dat's Mr. Rabiner. He quit a big loser about one o'clock dis mornin'."
Abe handed his informant a dime.
"Take me to his room," he said.
The bell-boy led the way to the seventh floor and conducted Abe to the door of Rabiner's room.
"Dat's a pretty said spiel dat guy is tearin' off," he commented. "It makes me tink of a dago funeral."
Abe nodded. He knocked at the door, and Liszt's transcription of theLiebestodceased immediately.
"Well?" Mozart Rabiner cried and, for answer, Abe opened the door.
"Hallo, Moe!" he said. "You don't know me. What? I'm Abe Potash."
"Oh, hello, Potash!" Rabiner said, rising from the piano stool.
"That's some pretty mournful music you was giving us, Moe," Abe went on. "Sounds like business was poor already. Ain't you working no more?"
"I am and I ain't," Mozart replied. "I'm supposed to be selling goods for Klinger & Klein, but since I only sold it one bill in two weeks I ain't got much hopes that I'll get enough more money out of 'em to move me out of town."
"What do you make next, Moe?" Abe asked.
"St. Paul and Minneapolis," Mozart replied.
Abe handed him a large cigar and, lighting the mate to it, puffed away complacently.
"That was a pretty good order you got it from Prosnauer which Sol Klinger tells me about," he said.
Mozart nodded sadly.
"Looky here, Moe," Abe went on, "how much money do you need to move you?"
Mozart lifted his eyebrows and shrugged hopelessly.
"More as you would lend me, Potash," he said. "So what's the use talking about it?"
"Well, I was going to say," Abe continued, "if it was something what you might call within reason, Moe, I might advance it if——"
"If what?" Moe inquired.
"If you would tell me the insides of just how you got it that order from Prosnauer."
Mozart gave a deprecatory wave of his right hand.
"You don't got to bribe me to tell you that, Potash," he said, "because I ain't got no concern in that order no longer. I give up my commission there to a feller by the name Ignatz Kresnick."
"A white-faced feller with a big red mustache?" Abe asked.
"That's him," Mozart replied. "The luck that feller Kresnick got it is something you wouldn't believe at all. He could fall down a sewer manhole and come up in a dress suit and a clean shave already. He cleans me out last night two hundred dollars and the commission on that Prosnauer order."
"But you didn't get that order in the first place, Moe," Abe said. "Marks Pasinsky got the order."
"Sure, I know," Mozart replied, "but he got set back a couple of four hundred hands last Tuesdaynight with Katzen and me in the game, and the way he settles up his losing is that Katzen and me should take his commissions on a couple of orders which he says he is going to get from Simon Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers & Co., and Chester Prosnauer, of the Arcade Mercantile Company. Sure enough, he gets the orders from both of 'em the very next morning. That's the kind of salesman he is."
"But why didn't Pasinsky send us along the orders, Moe," Abe protested, "and we could fix up about the commissions later? Why should he sent it the orders to Klinger & Klein and Sammet Brothers?"
"Well, you see, business was poor with me and I wanted to make good, being as this was my first trip with the concern; so, as a favor to me Pasinsky turns over the whole order to me," Mozart explained; "and then, when Katzen sees that, he wants the other order sent to his concern, too." "But this was Pasinsky's first trip by us, also," Abe cried.
"I know it," Mozart said, "but Pasinsky says that he didn't care, because a good salesman like him could always find it an opening somewhere, and anyway he wasn't stuck on working for a piker concern like yours."
Abe rose with his eyes ablaze.
"That settles it," he said, jamming his hat on his head. "I'm going for a policeman. I'll teach that sucker to steal my orders!"
He bounced out of the room and, as he rang for the elevator, Isolde's lament once more issued from beneath. Mozart Rabiner's fingers:
While from the floor above came the full, round tones of the salesman, Marks Pasinsky.
"Sixty queens," he said.
Abe ran out of the hotel lobby straight into the arms of a short, stout person.
"Excuse me," Abe exclaimed.
"I'll excuse you, Potash," said the short, stout person, "but I wouldn't run like that if I got it the rheumatism so bad."
Abe looked at the speaker and gasped. It was B. Gans.
"What are you doing in Chicago, Potash?" Gans asked.
"You should ask me that," Abe snorted indignantly. "If it wouldn't be for you I wouldn't never got to leave New York."
"What do you mean?" Gans asked.
"I mean you gives me a good reference for this feller Marks Pasinsky," Abe shouted. "And even now I am on my way out for a policeman to make this here Pasinsky arrested."
B. Gans whistled. He surrendered to a bell-boy the small valise he carried and clutched Abe's arm.
"I wouldn't do that," he said. "Come inside the café and tell me all about it."
Abe shook himself free.
"Why shouldn't I make him arrested?" he insisted. "He's a thief. He stole my samples."
"Well, he stole my samples, too, oncet," B. Gans replied. "Come inside the café and I'll give you a little sad story what I got, too."
A moment later they were seated at a marble-top table.
"Yes, Abe," B. Gans went on after they had given the order, "Marks Pasinsky stole my samples, too. Let's hear your story first."
Straightway Abe unfolded to B. Gans the tale of Marks Pasinsky's adventure with Mozart Rabiner and Arthur Katzen, and also told him how the orders based on Potash & Perlmutter's sample line had found their way into the respective establishments of Sammet Brothers and Klinger & Klein.
"Well, by jimminy!" B. Gans commented, "that's just the story I got to tell it you. This feller does the selfsame funny business with my samples. He gets orders from a couple of big concerns in St. Louis and then he gambles them away to a feller called Levy. So what do I do, Potash? He goes to work and has 'em both arrested, and then them two fellers turns around and fixes up a story and the first thing you know the police judge lets 'em go. Well, Potash, them two fellers goes down to New York and hires a lawyer, by the name HenryD. Feldman, and sue me in the courts yet that I made them false arrested. Cost me a thousand dollars to settle it, and I also got to agree that if anybody inquires about Pasinsky I should say only that he is a good salesman—which is the truth, Potash, because he is a good salesman—and that the reason he left me is by mutual consent, y'understand?"
Abe nodded.
"That's a fine piece of work, that Marks Pasinsky," he commented. "I wish I had never seen him already. What shall I do, Gans? I am in a fine mess."
"No, you ain't yet," B. Gans replied. "Prosnauer and Kuhner knows me, Potash, and I am willing, as long as I got you into this, I will get you out of it. I will go with you myself, Potash, and I think I got influence enough in the trade that I could easy get them to give you back them samples."
"I know you can," Abe said enthusiastically, "and if you would put it to 'em strong enough I think we could swing back to us them orders from Sammet Brothers and Klinger & Klein."
"That I will do for you, also," B. Gans agreed. "But now, Potash, I got troubles ahead of me, too."
"How's that?" Abe inquired, much interested.
"I got it a lowlife what I hired for a salesman, also," he replied, "and three weeks ago that feller left my place with my samples and I ain't heard a word from him since. If I got to search every gamblinghouse in Chicago I will find that loafer;and when I do find him, Potash, I will crack his neck for him."
"I wouldn't do nothing rash, Gans," Abe advised. "What for a looking feller is this salesman of yours?"
"He's a tall, white-faced loafer with a big red mustache," Gans replied, "and his name is Ignatz Kresnick."
Abe jumped to his feet.
"Come with me," he cried. Together they took the elevator to the eighth floor and, as Ignatz Kresnick dealt the cards for the five-hundredth time in that game, all unconscious of his fast-approaching Nemesis, Mozart Rabiner played the concluding measures of theLiebestodsoftly, slowly, like a benediction:
Ertrinken—Versinken—Unbewusst—Höchste Lust.
"Who do you think I seen it in Hammersmith's just now, Mawruss?" Abe Potash shouted as he burst into the show-room one Saturday afternoon in April.
"I ain't deaf, Abe," Morris replied. "Who did you seen it?"
"J. Edward Kleebaum from Minneapolis," Abe answered.
Morris shrugged.
"What d'ye wantmeto do, Abe?" he asked.
Abe ignored the question.
"He promised he would come in at two o'clock and look over the line," he announced triumphantly.
"Plenty crooks looked over our line already, Abe," Morris commented, "and so far as I'm concerned, they could look over it all they want to, Abe, so long as they shouldn't buy nothing from us."
"What d'ye mean? Crooks?" Abe cried. "The way Kleebaum talks he would give us an order for a thousand dollars goods, maybe, Mawruss. He ain't no crook."
"Ain't he?" Morris replied. "What's the reason he ain't, Abe? The way I look at it, Abe, when a feller makes it a dirty failure like that feller made it in Milwaukee, Abe, and then goes to Cleveland, Abe, and opens up as the bon march, Abe, and does another bust up, Abe, and then he goes to——"
"S'enough, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "Them things is from old times already. To-day is something else again. That feller done a tremendous business last spring, Mawruss, and this season everybody is falling over themselves to sell him goods."
"Looky here, Abe," Morris broke in, "you think the feller ain't a crook, and you're entitled to think all you want to, Abe, but I seen it Sol Klinger yesterday, and what d'ye think he told me?"
"I don't know what he told you, Mawruss," Abe replied, "but it wouldn't be the first time, Mawruss, that a feller tells lies about a concern that he couldn't sell goods to, Mawruss. It's the old story of the dawg and the grapes."
Morris looked hurt.
"I'm surprised you should call a decent, respectable feller like Sol Klinger a dawg, Abe," he said. "That feller has always been a good friend of ours, Abe, and even if he wouldn't be, Abe, that ain't no way to talk about a concern what does a business like Klinger & Klein."
"Don't make no speeches, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Go ahead and tell me what Sol Klinger told it you about J. Edward Kleebaum."
"Why, Sol Klinger says that he hears it on good authority, Abe, that that lowlife got it two oitermobiles, Abe. What d'ye think for a crook like that?"
"So far what I hear it, Mawruss, it ain't such a terrible crime that a feller should got it two oitermobiles. In that case, Mawruss, Andrew Carnegie would be a murderer yet. I bet yer he got alreadyfiftyoitermobiles."
"S'all right, Abe," Morris cried. "Andrew Carnegie ain't looking to buy off us goods, Abe, and even so, Abe, he never made it a couple of failures like Kleebaum, Abe."
"Well, Mawruss, is that all you got against him that he owns an oitermobile? Maybe he plays golluf, too, Mawruss."
"Golluf I don't know nothing about, Abe," Morris replied, "but auction pinochle he does play it, Abe. Sol Klinger says that out in Minneapolis Kleebaum hangs out with a bunch of loafers what considers a dollar a hundred chicken feed already."
Abe rose to his feet.
"Let me tell you something, Mawruss," he said. "I got over them old fashioned idees that a feller shouldn't spend the money he makes in the way what he wants to. If Kleebaum wants to buy oitermobiles, that's his business, not mine, Mawruss, and for my part, Mawruss, if that feller was to come in here and buy from us a thousand dollars goods, Mawruss, I am in favor we should sell him."
"You could do what you please, Abe," Morris declared as he put on his hat. "Only one thing I beg of you, Abe, don't never put it up to me, Abe, that I was in favor of the feller from the start."
"Sure not, Mawruss," Abe replied, "because you wouldn't never let me forget it. Where are you going now, Mawruss?"
"I told you yesterday where I was going, Abe," Morris said impatiently. "Me and Minnie is going out to Johnsonhurst to see her cousin Moe Fixman."
"Moe Fixman," Abe repeated. "Ain't that the same Fixman what was partners together with Max Gudekunst?"
Morris nodded.
"Well, you want to keep your hand on your pocketbook,Mawruss," Abe went on, "because I hear it on good authority that feller ain't above selling the milk from his baby's bottle."
Morris paused with his hand on the door knob.
"That's the first I hear about it, Abe," he said. "Certainly, when a feller gets together a little money, y'understand, always there is somebody what knocks him, Abe. Who told you all this about Fixman, Abe?"
"A feller by the name Sol Klinger, Mawruss," Abe replied, "and if you don't believe me you could——"
But Morris cut off further comment by banging the door behind him and Abe turned to his task of preparing the sample line for his prospective customer's inspection. A half an hour later J. Edward Kleebaum entered the show-room and extended his hand to Abe.
"Hallo, Potash," he said. "You got to excuse me I'm a little late on account I had to look at a machine up on Fiftieth Street."
"That's a sample I suppose, ain't it?" Abe said.
"No," Kleebaum replied, "it's one of their stock machines, a Pfingst, nineteen-nine model."
"Pfingst!" Abe exclaimed, "that's a new one on me. Certainly, I believe a feller should buy the machines what suits his purpose, but with Mawruss and me, when we was running our own shop we bought nothing but standard makes like Keeler and Silcox and them other machines."
At this juncture Kleebaum broke into a hearty laugh.
"This machine is all right for what I would want it," he said. "In fact, I got it right down in front of the door now. It's a nineteen-nine Pfingst, six cylinder roadster up to date and runs like a chronometer already."
"Oh, an oitermobile!" Abe cried. "Excuse me, Mr. Kleebaum. Oitermobiles ain't in my line, Mr. Kleebaum. I'm satisfied I should know something about the cloak and suit business, Mr. Kleebaum. Now, here is a garment which me and Mawruss don't consider one of our leaders at all, Mr. Kleebaum. But I bet yer that if another concern as us would put out a garment like that, Mr. Kleebaum, they would make such a holler about it that you would think nobody else knows how to make garments but them."
"When a feller's got the goods, Potash," Kleebaum replied, as he lit one of Abe's "gilt-edged" cigars, "he's got a right to holler. Now you take this here Pfingst car. It is made by the Pfingst Manufacturing Company, a millionaire concern, and them people advertise it to beat the band. And why shouldn't they advertise it? Them people got a car there which it is a wonder, Potash. How they could sell a car like that for twenty-five hundred dollars I don't know. The body alone must cost them people a couple of thousand dollars."
"That's always the way, Mr. Kleebaum," Abebroke in hurriedly. "Now, you take this here garment, Mr. Kleebaum, people would say, 'How is it possible that Potash & Perlmutter could turn out a garment like this for eighteen dollars?' And certainly, Mr. Kleebaum, I don't say we lose money on it, y'understand, only we got——"
"But this here car, Potash, has selective transmission, shaft drive and——"
"Say, lookyhere, Kleebaum," Abe cried, "am I trying to sell you some cloaks or are you trying to sell me an oitermobile? Because if you are, I'm sorry I got to tell you I ain't in the market for an oitermobile just at present. On the other hand, Mr. Kleebaum, I got a line of garments here which it is a pleasure for me to show you, even if you wouldn't buy so much as a button."
"Go ahead, Potash," Kleebaum said, "and we'll talk about the car after you get through."
For over two hours Abe displayed the firm's sample line and his efforts were at last rewarded by a generous order from Kleebaum.
"That makes in all twenty-one hundred dollars' worth of goods," Kleebaum announced, "and if you think you could stand the pressure, Potash, I could smoke another cigar on you already."
"Excuse me, Mr. Kleebaum!" Abe cried, producing another of his best cigars.
"Much obliged," Kleebaum mumbled as he lit up. "And now, Abe, after business comes with me pleasure. What d'ye say to a little spin uptown in thishere Pfingst car which I got it waiting for me downstairs."
Abe waved his hand with the palm out.
"You could go as far as you like, Mr. Kleebaum," he replied, "but when it comes to oitermobiles, Mr. Kleebaum, you got to excuse me. I ain't never rode in one of them things yet, and I guess you couldn't learn it an old dawg he should study new tricks. Ain't it?"
"D'ye mean to tell me you ain't never rode in an oitermobile yet?" Kleebaum exclaimed.
"You got it right," Abe said, "and what's more I ain't never going to neither."
"What you trying to give me?" Kleebaum asked. "You mean to say if I would ask you you should come riding with me now, you would turn me down?"
"I bet yer I would," Abe declared. "An up-to-date feller like you, Kleebaum, is different already from an old-timer like me. I got a wife, Kleebaum, and also I don't carry a whole lot of insurance neither, y'understand."
"Come off, Potash!" Kleebaum cried. "I rode myself in oitermobiles already millions of times and I ain't never been hurted yet."
"Some people's got all the luck, Kleebaum," Abe replied. "With me I bet yer if I would ride in an oitermobile once, y'understand, the least that would happen to me is I should break my neck."
"How could you break your neck in a brand newcar like that Pfingst car downstairs?" Kleebaum insisted.
"Never mind," Abe answered, "if things is going to turn out that way, Mr. Kleebaum, you could break your neck in a baby carriage yet."
"Well, don't get mad about it, Potash," Kleebaum said.
"Me, I don't get mad so easy," Abe declared. "Wouldn't you come downstairs to Hammersmith's and take a cup coffee or something?"
Together they descended to the sidewalk where they were saluted by a tremendous chugging from the Pfingst roadster.
"Say, my friend," the demonstrating chauffeur cried as he caught sight of Kleebaum, "what d'ye think I'm running anyway? A taxicab?"
"You shouldn't get fresh, young feller," Kleebaum retorted, "unless you would want to lose your job."
"Aw, quit your stalling," the chauffeur protested. "Is this the guy you was telling me about?"
Kleebaum frowned and contorted one side of his face with electrical rapidity.
"Say, my friend," the chauffeur replied entirely unmoved, "them gestures don't go down with me. Is this the guy you was telling the boss you would jolly into buying a car, because——"
Kleebaum turned to Abe and elaborately assumed an expression of amiable deprecation.
"That's a salesman for you," he exclaimed.
Abe surveyed Kleebaum with a puzzled stare.
"Say, lookyhere, Kleebaum," he said, "if you thought you would get me to buy an oitermobile by giving me this here order, Kleebaum, I'm satisfied you should cancel it. Because again I got to tell it you, Kleebaum, I ain't in the market for oitermobiles just yet awhile."
Kleebaum clapped Abe on the shoulder.
"The feller don't know what he's talking about, Potash," he declared. "He's thinking of somebody quite different as you. That order stands, Potash, and now if you will excuse me joining you in that cup coffee, Potash, I got to say good-by."
He wrung Abe's hand in farewell and jumped into the seat beside the chauffeur while Abe stood on the sidewalk and watched them disappear down the street.
"I bet yer that order stands," he mused. "It stands in my store until I get a couple of good reports on that feller."
"What a house that feller Fixman got it, Abe," Morris Perlmutter exclaimed on Monday morning. "A regular palace, and mind you, Abe, he don't pay ten dollars more a month as I do up in a Hundred and Eighteenth Street. And what a difference there is in the yard, Abe. Me, I look out on a bunch of fire escapes, while Fixman got a fine garden with trees and flowers pretty near as good as a cemetery."
"Well, why don't you move to Johnsonhurst, too, Mawruss," Abe Potash said. "It's an elegantneighborhood, Mawruss. Me and Rosie was over to Johnsonhurst one day last summer and it took us three hours to get out there and three hours to get back. Six cigars I busted in my vest pockets at the bridge yet and Rosie pretty near fainted in the crowd. Yes, Mawruss, it's an elegant neighborhood, I bet yer."
"That was on Sunday and the summer time, Abe, but Fixman says if he leaves his house at seven o'clock, he is in his office at a quarter to eight."
"I believe it, Mawruss," Abe commented ironically. "That feller Fixman never got downtown in his life before nine o'clock. He shouldn't tell me nothing like that, Mawruss, because I know Fixman since way before the Spanish war already, and that feller was always a big bluff, y'understand. Sol Klinger tells me he's got also an oitermobile."
"Sol Klinger could talk all he wants, Abe," Morris replied. "Fixman told it me that if he had the money what Klinger sinks in one stock already, Abe, he could run a dozen oitermobiles. Sure, Fixman's got an oitermobile. With the money that feller makes, Abe, he's got a right to got on oitermobile. Klinger should be careful what he tells about people, Abe. The feller will get himself into serious trouble some day. He's all the time knocking somebody. Ain't it?"
"Is that so?" Abe said. "I thought Klinger was such a good friend to us, Mawruss. Also,Mawruss, you say yourself on Saturday that a feller what's got an oitermobile is a crook yet."
"Me!" Morris cried indignantly. "I never said no such thing, Abe. Always you got to twist around what I say, Abe. What I told you was——"
"S'all right, Mawruss," Abe said. "I'll take your word for it. What I want to talk to you about now is this here J. Edward Kleebaum. He gives us an order for twenty-one hundred dollars, Mawruss."
"Good!" Morris exclaimed.
"Good?" Abe repeated with a rising inflection. "Say, Mawruss, what's the matter with you to-day, anyway?"
"Nothing's the matter withme, Abe. What d'ye mean?"
"I mean that on Saturday you wouldn't sell Kleebaum not a dollar's worth of goods, Mawruss, and even myself I was only willing we should go a thousand dollars on the feller, and now to-day when I tell it you he gives us an order for twenty-one hundred dollars, Mawruss, you say, 'good'."
"Sure, I say, 'good'," Morris replied. "Why not? Just because a sucker like Sol Klinger knocks a feller, Abe, that ain't saying the feller's N. G. Furthermore, Abe, suppose a feller does run a couple of oitermobiles, y'understand, Abe, does that say he's going to bust up right away? That's an idee what a back number like Klinger got it, Abe, but with me I think differently. There's worser things as oitermobiles to ride in, Abe, believe me. Fixman takesout his wife and Minnie and me on Saturday afternoon, and we had a fine time. We went pretty near to Boston, I bet yer."
"To Boston!" Abe exclaimed.
"Well, we seen the Boston boats going out, and a fine view of the City College also, and a gas factory and North Beach, too. Everything went off beautiful, Abe, and I assure you Minnie and me we come home feeling fine. I tell you, Abe, a feller has got to ride in one of them things to appreciate 'em."
"S'all right, Mawruss," Abe cried. "I take your word for it. What I am worrying about now, Mawruss, is this here Kleebaum."
"Kleebaum is A Number One, Abe," Morris said. "I was talking to Fixman about him and Fixman says that there ain't a better judge of an oitermobile between Chicago and the Pacific Coast."
"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe asked, "are we in the cloak and suit business or are we in the oitermobile business? Kleebaum buys from us cloaks, not oitermobiles. And while I ain't got such good judgment when it comes to oitermobiles, I think I know something about the cloak and suit business, and I got an idea that feller is out to do us."
"Why, Abe, you don't know the feller at all," Morris protested. "Why don't you make some investigations about the feller, Abe?"
"Investigations is nix, Mawruss," Abe replied impatiently. "When a feller is a crook, Mawruss, he could fool everybody, Mawruss. He could fix thingsso the merchantile agencies would only find out good things about him, and he buffaloes credit men so that to hear 'em talk you would think he was a millionaire already. No, Mawruss, when you are dealing with a crook, investigations is nix. You got to depend on your own judgment."
"But, Abe," Morris cried, "you got a wrong idee about that feller. Fixman tells me Kleebaum does a fine business in Minneapolis. He has an elegant trade there and he's got a system of oitermobile delivery which Fixman says is great. He's got three light runabouts fixed up with removable tonneaus, thirty horse-power, two cylinder engines and——"
At this juncture Abe rose to his feet and hurried indignantly toward the cutting-room, where Morris joined him five minutes later.
"Say, Abe," he said, "while me and Minnie was out with Fixman on Saturday I got a fine idee for an oitermobile wrap."
Abe turned and fixed his partner with a terrible glare.
"Tell it to Kleebaum," he roared.
"I did," Morris said genially, "and he thought it would make a big hit in the trade."
"Why, when did you seen it, Kleebaum?" Abe asked.
"This morning on my way over to Lenox Avenue. I met Sol Klinger and as him and me was buying papers near the subway station, comes a big oitermobile by the curb and Kleebaum is sitting withanother feller in the front seat, what they call a chauffeur, and Kleebaum says, 'Get in and I'll take you down town,' so we get in and I bet yer we come downtown in fifteen minutes."
"Ain't Klinger scared to ride in one of them things, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Scared, Abe? Why should the feller be scared? Not only he wasn't scared yet, Abe, but he took up Kleebaum's offer for a ride down to Coney Island yet. Kleebaum said they'd be back by ten o'clock and so Klinger asks me to telephone over to Klein that he would be a little late this morning."
"That's a fine way for a feller to neglect his business, Mawruss," Abe commented.
Morris nodded without enthusiasm.
"By the way, Abe," he said, "me and Minnie about decided we would rent the house next door to Fixman's down in Johnsonhurst, so I guess we will go down there again this afternoon at three o'clock."
"At three o'clock!" Abe cried. "Say, lookyhere, Mawruss, what do you think this here is anyway? A bank?"
"Must I askyou, Abe, if I want to leave early oncet in awhile?"
"Oncet in awhile is all right, Mawruss, but when a feller does it every day that's something else again."
"When did I done it every day, Abe?" Morris demanded. "Saturday is the first time I leave here early in a year already, while pretty near everyafternoon, Abe, you got an excuse you should see a customer up in Broadway and Twenty-ninth Street."
"Shall I tell you something, Mawruss," Abe cried suddenly. "You are going for an oitermobile ride with J. Edward Kleebaum."
Morris flushed vividly.
"Supposing I am, Abe," he replied. "Ain't Kleebaum a customer from ours? And how could I turn down a customer, Abe?"
"Maybehe's a customer, Mawruss, but I wouldn't be certain of it because you could go oitermobile riding with him if you want to, Mawruss, but me, I am going to do something different. I am going to look that feller up, Mawruss, and I bet yer when I get through, Mawruss, we would sooner be selling goods to some of them cut-throats up in Sing Sing already."
At three o'clock Minnie entered swathed in veils and a huge fur coat.
"Well, Abe," she said, "did you hear the latest? We are going to move to Johnsonhurst."
"I wish you joy," Abe grunted.
"We got a swell place down there," she went on. "Five bedrooms, a parlor and a library with a great big kitchen and a garage."
"A what?" Abe cried.
"A place what you put oitermobiles into it," Morris explained.
"Is that so?" Abe said as he jammed his hat on with both hands. "Well, that don't do no harm,Mawruss, because you could also use it for a dawg house."
He slammed the door behind him and five minutes later he entered the business premises of Klinger & Klein. There he found the senior member of the firm busy over the sample line.
"Hallo, Sol!" he cried. "I just seen it Mr. Brady, credit man for the Manhattan Mills, and he says he come across you riding in an oitermobile near Coney Island at nine o'clock this morning already. He says he always thought you and Klein was pretty steady people, but I says nowadays you couldn't never tell nothing about nobody. 'Because a feller is a talmudist already, Mr. Brady,' I says, 'that don't say he ain't blowing in his money on the horse races yet.'"
Klinger turned pale.
"Ain't that a fine thing," he exclaimed, "that a feller with a responsible position like Brady should be fooling away his time at Coney Island in business hours."
Abe laughed and clapped Sol Klinger on the back.
"As a matter of fact, Sol," he said, "I ain't seen Brady in a month, y'understand, but supposing Bradyshouldcome across you in an oitermobile down at Coney Island at nine o'clock in the morning, y'understand. I bet yer he would call for a new statement from you and Klein the very next day, Sol, and make you swear to it on a truck load of Bibles already. A feller shouldn't take no chances, Sol."
"I was in good company anyhow, Abe," Sol declared. "I was with J. Edward Kleebaum, but I suppose Mawruss Perlmutter told it you. Ain't it?"
"Sure, he did," Abe said, "and he also told it me last week that you says J. Edward Kleebaum was a crook because he runs a couple of oitermobiles out in Minneapolis."
"I made a mistake about Kleebaum, Abe," Klinger interrupted. "I changed my mind about him."
"That's all right, Sol," Abe said, "but if Kleebaum was a crook last week, Sol, and a gentleman this week, what I would like to know is, what he will be next week, because I got for twenty-one hundred dollars an order from that feller and I got to ship it next week. So if you got any information about Kleebaum, Sol, you would be doing me a favor if you would let me know all about it."
"All I know about him is this, Abe," Klinger replied. "We drew on him two reports and both of 'em gives him fifty to seventy-five thousand credit good. He's engaged to be married to Miss Julia Pfingst, who is Joseph Pfingst's a daughter."
"Joseph Pfingst," Abe repeated. "I don't know as I ever hear that name before."
"It used to be Pfingst & Gusthaler," Klinger went on, "in the rubber goods business on Wooster Street. First they made it raincoats, and then they went into rubber boots, and just naturally they got into bicycle tires, and then comes the oitermobile craze, and Gusthalerdies, and so Pfingst sells oitermobile tires, and now he's in the oitermobile business."
"Certainly, he got there gradually," Abe commented.
"Maybe he did, Abe," Klinger said, "but he also got pretty near a million dollars, and you know as well as I do, Abe, a feller what's a millionaire already don't got to marry off his daughter to a crook, y'understand. No, Abe, I changed my mind about that feller. I think Kleebaum's a pretty decent feller, and ourselves we sold him goods for twenty-five hundred dollars."
Abe puffed hard on his cigar for a moment.
"Couldn't you get from the old man a guarantee of the account maybe?" he asked.
"I sent Klein around there this morning, Abe," Klinger answered, "and Pfingst says if Kleebaum is good enough to marry his daughter, he's good enough for us to sell goods to, and certainly, Abe, you couldn't blame the old man neither."
Abe nodded, and a moment later he rose to leave.
"You shouldn't look so worried about it, Abe," Sol Klinger said. "Everybody is selling that feller this year."
"Well, Mawruss," Abe cried on Tuesday morning, "I got to confess that I ain't learned nothing new about that feller Kleebaum. Everybody what I seen it speaks very highly of him, Mawruss, and the way I figure it, he bought goods for fifty thousand dollars in the last four days. Klinger & Kleinsold him, Sammet Brothers sold him, and even Lapidus & Elenbogen ain't left out. I couldn't understand it at all."
"Couldn't you?" Morris retorted. "Well, I could, Abe. That feller is increasing his business, Abe, because he's got good backing, y'understand. He's engaged to be married to Julie Pfingst and her father Joseph Pfingst is a millionaire."
"Sure, I know, Mawruss, I seen lots of them millionaires in my time already. Millionaires which everyone thinks is millionaires until the first meeting of creditors, and then, Mawruss, they make a composition for twenty cents cash and thirty cents notes at three, six and nine months. Multi-millionaires sometimes pay twenty-five cents cash, but otherwise the notes is the same like millionaires, three, six and nine months, and you could wrap up dill pickles in 'em for all the good they'll do you."
"What are you talking nonsense, Abe? This feller, Pfingst, is a millionaire. He's got a big oitermobile business and sells ten cars a week at twenty-five hundred dollars apiece. Here it is only Tuesday, Abe, and that feller sold two oitermobiles already."
"Did you count 'em, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Sure, I counted 'em," Morris replied. He looked boldly into Abe's eyes as he spoke. "One of 'em he sold to Sol Klinger and the other he sold to me."
If Morris anticipated making a sensation he was not disappointed. For ten minutes Abe struggledto sort out a few enunciable oaths from the mass of profanity that surged through his brain and at length he succeeded.
"I always thought you was crazy, Mawruss," he said after the first paroxysm had exhausted itself, "and now I know it."
"Why am I crazy?" Morris asked. "When a feller lives out in Johnsonhurst you must practically got to have an oitermobile, otherwise you are a dead one. And anyhow, Abe, couldn't I spend my money the way I want to?"
"Sure, you could," Abe said. "But you didn't spend it the wayyouwanted to, Mawruss. Kleebaum got you to buy the oitermobile. Ain't it?"
"Suppose he did, Abe? Kleebaum is a customer of ours. Ain't it? And he got me also a special price on the car. Twenty-one hundred dollars he will get me the car for, Abe, and Fixman looked over the car and he says it's a great piece of work, Abe. He ain't got the slightest idee what I am paying for the car and he says it is well worth twenty-five hundred dollars."
Abe shrugged his shoulders.
"All right, Mawruss," he said. "It's your funeral. Go ahead and buy the oitermobile; only I tell you right now, Mawruss, you are sinking twenty-one hundred dollars cash."
"Not cash, Abe," Morris corrected. "Pfingst is willing to take a six months' note provided it is indorsed by Potash & Perlmutter."
It seemed hardly possible to Morris that more poignant emotion could be displayed than in Abe's first reception of his news, but this last suggestion almost finished Abe. For fifteen minutes he fought off apoplexy and then the storm burst.
"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris protested at the first lull, "you'll make yourself sick."
But Abe paused only to regain his breath, and it was at least five minutes more before his vocabulary became exhausted. Then he sat down in a chair and mopped his brow, while Morris hastened off to the cutting-room from whence he was recalled a minute later by a shout from Abe.
"By jimminy, Mawruss!" he cried slapping his knee. "I got an idee. Go ahead and buy your oitermobile from Pfingst and I will agree that Potash & Perlmutter should endorse the note, y'understand, only one thing besides. Pfingst has got to guarantee to us Kleebaum's account of twenty-one hundred dollars."
"I'm afraid he wouldn't do it, Abe," Morris said.
"All right, then I wouldn't do it neither," Abe declared. "But anyhow, Mawruss, it wouldn't do no harm to ask him. Ain't it? Where is this here feller Pfingst?"
"At Fiftieth Street and Broadway," Morris said.
"Well, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe announced jumping to his feet, "I'm going right away and fill out one of them guarantees what Henry D. Feldmanfixes up for us, and also I will write out a note at six months for twenty-one hundred dollars and indorse it with the firm's name. Then if he wants to you could exchange the note for the guarantee, Mawruss, and we could ship the goods right away."
Morris shook his head doubtfully, while Abe went into the firm's private office. He returned five minutes afterward flourishing the guarantee.
It read as follows:
In consideration of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations I do hereby agree to pay to Potash & Perlmutter Twenty-one hundred dollars ($2100) being the amount of a purchase made by J. Edward Kleebaum from them, if he fails to pay said twenty-one hundred dollars ($2100) on May 21st, 1909. I hereby waive notice of Kleebaum's default and Potash & Perlmutter shall not be required to exhaust their remedy against the said Kleebaum before recourse is had to me. If a petition in bankruptcy be filed by or against said Kleebaum in consideration aforesaid I promise to pay to Potash & Perlmutter on demand the said sum of twenty-one hundred dollars.