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

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

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

Abe pondered for a moment.

"There's Louis Mintz," he said finally. "He works by Sammet Brothers.

He's a high-priced man, Mawruss, but he's worth it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abe looked up.

"More real estate?" he asked.

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

Abe nodded.

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

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

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

Abe remained silent.

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

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

"Well, you can't reckon stickers by what they cost," Morris explained.

"It's what they'll sell for."

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

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

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

Louis shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You bet there is," Abe interrupted savagely.

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

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

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

The next day he greeted Abe and Morris more cordially.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We make fall and winter goods, too," Abe explained. "All kinds of garments, Mr. Feldman. I don't want to give Louis no wrong impression.

He's got to handle lightweights as well as heavyweights, too."

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

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

He then specified the salary and commission to be paid, and engaged Mr.

Feldman to draw the deed for the tenement house.