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

"For five years," Abe replied.

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

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

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

"I'm only saying for the sake of argument," Abe hastened to explain.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Louis: I'll make it two years, and at the end of that time if you want to quit you can do it; only, you should agree not to work as salesman for no other house for the s.p.a.ce of one year afterward or you can go on working for us for one year afterward.

How's that?"

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

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

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

Mr. Feldman immediately rang for a stenographer.

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

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

Louis' first season with his new employers was fraught with good results for Potash & Perlmutter, who reaped large profits from Louis'

salesmanship; but for Louis it had been somewhat disappointing.

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

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

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

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

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

Abe laughed.

"You should make that proposition to the feller what sold us the house,"

Abe said jocularly.

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

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

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

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

Abe nodded doubtfully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Louis nodded, and they all pa.s.sed into the show-room.

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

Louis grunted, and Abe and Morris exchanged disquieting glances.

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

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

"Sure," Abe and Morris replied.

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

Abe nodded.

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

Abe and Morris puffed vigorously at their cigars.

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

Morris admitted sullenly that he did.

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