"That's where you are making a big mistake, Polatkin," he said. "A feller which he expects to do business with relations is just so good as looking for trouble. You could never depend on relations that they are going to keep on buying goods from you, Polatkin. The least little thing happens between relations, understand me, and they are getting right away enemies for life; while, if it was just between friends, Polatkin, one friend makes for the other a blue eye, understand me, and in two weeks' time they are just so good friends as ever. So, even if Appenweier & Murray wouldn't fire him, y'understand, Klugfels would have dumped this young feller on us anyway."

As he spoke he looked through the office door toward the showroom, where Harry Flaxberg sat with his feet c.o.c.ked up on a sample table midway in the perusal of the sporting page.

"Flaxberg," Scheikowitz cried, "what are we showing here anyway--garments _oder_ shoes? You are ruining our sample tables the way you are acting!"

Flaxberg replaced his feet on the floor and put down his paper.

"It's time some one ruined them tables on you, Mr. Scheikowitz," he said. "With the junk fixtures you got it here I'm ashamed to bring a customer into the place at all."

"That's all right," Scheikowitz retorted; "for all the customers you are bringing in here, Flaxberg, we needn't got no fixtures at all. Come inside the office--my partner wants to speak to you a few words something."

Flaxberg rose leisurely to his feet and, carefully shaking each leg in turn to restore the unwrinkled perfection of his trousers, walked toward the office.

"Tell me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried as he entered, "what are you going to do about this here account of Appenweier & Murray's?"

"What am I going to do about it?" Flaxberg repeated. "Why, what could I do about it? Every salesman is liable to lose one account, Mr.

Polatkin."

"Sure, I know," Polatkin answered; "but most every other salesman is got some other accounts to fall back on. Whereas if a salesman is just got one account, Flaxberg, and he loses it, understand me, then he ain't a salesman no longer, Flaxberg. Right away he becomes only a loafer, Flaxberg, and the best thing he could do, understand me, is to go and find a job somewheres else."

"Not when he's got a contract, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg retorted promptly. "And specially a contract which the boss fixes up himself--ain't it?"

Scheikowitz nodded and scowled savagely at his partner.

"Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried. "Do you mean to told me that, even if a salesman would got ever so much a crazy contract, understand me, it allows the salesman he should sit all the time doing nothing in the showroom without we got a right to fire him?"

"Well," Flaxberg replied calmly, "it gives him the privilege to go out to lunch once in a while."

He pulled down his waistcoat with exaggerated care and turned on his heel.

"So I would be back in an hour," he concluded; "and if any customers come in and ask for me tell 'em to take a seat till I am coming back."

The two partners watched him until he put on his hat and coat in the rear of the showroom and then Polatkin rose to his feet.

"Flaxberg," he cried, "wait a minute!"

Flaxberg returned to the office and nonchalantly lit a cigarette.

"Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin began. "Take from us a hundred and fifty dollars and quit!"

Flaxberg continued the operation of lighting his cigarette and blew a great cloud of smoke before replying.

"What for a piker do you think I am anyhow?" he asked.

"What d'ye mean--piker?" Polatkin said. "A hundred and fifty ain't to be sneezed at, Flaxberg."

"Ain't it?" Flaxberg retorted. "Well, with me, I got a more delicate nose as most people, Mr. Polatkin. I sneeze at everything under five hundred dollars--and that's all there is to it."

Once more he turned on his heel and walked out of the office; but this time his progress toward the stairs was more deliberate, for, despite his defiant att.i.tude, Flaxberg's finances were at low ebb owing to a marked reversal of form exhibited the previous day in the third race at New Orleans. Moreover, he felt confident that a judicious investment of a hundred and fifty dollars would net him that very afternoon at least five hundred dollars, if any reliance were to be placed on the selection of Merlando, the eminent sporting writer of the _Morning Wireless_.

Consequently he afforded every opportunity for Marcus to call him back, and he even paused at the factory door and applied a lighted match to his already burning cigarette. The expected summons failed, however, and instead he was nearly precipitated to the foot of the stairs by no less a person than Elkan Lubliner.

"Excuse me, Mr. Flaxberg," Elkan said. "I ain't seen you at all."

Flaxberg turned suddenly, but at the sight of Elkan his anger evaporated as he recalled a piece of gossip retailed by Sam Markulies, the shipping clerk, to the effect that, despite his eighteen years, Elkan had at least two savings-bank accounts and kept in his pocket a bundle of bills as large as a roll of piece goods.

"That's all right," Flaxberg cried with a forced grin. "I ain't surprised you are pretty near blinded when you are coming into the daylight out of the cutting room. It's dark in there like a tomb."

"I bet yer," Elkan said fervently.

"You should get into the air more often," Flaxberg went on. "A feller could get all sorts of things the matter with him staying in a hole like that."

"_Gott sei dank_ I got, anyhow, my health," Elkan commented.

"Sure, I know," Flaxberg said as they reached the street; "but you must got to take care of it too. A feller which he don't get no exercise should ought to eat well, Lubliner. For instance, I bet yer you are taking every day your lunch in a bakery--ain't it?"

Elkan nodded.

"Well, there you are!" Flaxberg cried triumphantly. "A feller works all the time in a dark hole like that cutting room, and comes lunchtime he _fresses_ a bunch of _Kuchen_ and a cup of coffee, _verstehst du_--and is it any wonder you are looking sick?"

"I feel all right," Elkan said.

"I know you feel all right," Flaxberg continued, "but you look something terrible, Lubliner. Just for to-day, Lubliner, take my advice and try Wa.s.serbauer's regular dinner."

Elkan laughed aloud.

"Wa.s.serbauer's!" he exclaimed. "Why, what do you think I am, Mr.

Flaxberg? If I would be a salesman like you, Mr. Flaxberg, I would say, 'Yes; eat once in a while at Wa.s.serbauer's'; _aber_ for an a.s.sistant cutter, Mr. Flaxberg, Wa.s.serbauer's is just so high like the Waldorfer."

"That's all right," Flaxberg retorted airily. "No one asks you you should pay for it. Come and have a decent meal with me."

For a brief interval Elkan hesitated, but at length he surrendered, and five minutes later he found himself seated opposite Harry Flaxberg in the rear of Wa.s.serbauer's cafe.

"Yes, Mr. Flaxberg," he said as he commenced the fourth of a series of dill pickles, "compared with a salesman, a cutter is a dawg's life--ain't it?"

"Well," Flaxberg commented, "he is and he isn't. There's no reason why a cutter shouldn't enjoy life too, Lubliner. A cutter could make money on the side just so good as a salesman. I am acquainted already with a pants cutter by the name Schmul Kleidermann which, one afternoon last week, he pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars yet."

"Pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars!" Elkan exclaimed. "From where he pulls it down, Mr. Flaxberg?"

"Not from the pants business _oser_," Flaxberg replied. "The feller reads the papers, Lubliner, and that's how he makes his money."

"You mean he is speculating in these here stocks from stock exchanges?"

Elkan asked.

"Not stocks," Flaxberg replied in shocked accents. "From _spieling_ the stock markets a feller could lose his shirt yet. Never play the stock markets, Lubliner. That's something which you could really say a feller ruins himself for life with."

Elkan nodded.

"Even _im Russland_ it's the same," he said.