Abe hung up his hat deliberately.

"I tell you the truth, Mawruss," he said, turning around, "the loft ain't bad. It's a good-looking loft, Mawruss, only it's certain sure we couldn't have no machines in that loft."

"_Ai vai!_" Goldman exclaimed, rocking to and fro in his chair and striking his head with his clenched fist.

"_Nu_ Goldman?" Morris asked. "What's the trouble with you?"

"Troubles enough he got it, Mawruss," Abe said, as he watched Goldman's evolutions of woe. "If we do away with our machines he loses his job; ain't it?"

Sympathy seemed only to intensify Goldman's distress.

"Better than that he should make me dizzy at my stomach to watch him, Abe," Morris said. "I got a suggestion."

Goldman ceased rocking and looked up.

"I got a suggestion, Abe," Morris went on, "that we sell it our machines on long terms of credit to Goldman, and he should go into the contracting business; ain't it?"

"_Ai vai!_" Goldman cried again, and commenced to rock anew.

"Stop it, Goldman," Abe yelled. "What's the trouble now?"

"What show does a feller got it what starts as a new beginner in cloak contracting already?" Goldman wailed.

"Well," Abe replied, "you could get our work."

Morris seized on this as a happy compromise between his own advocacy of Ginsburg & Kaplan and the rival claims of Abe's wife's relations.

"Sure," he agreed. "We will give him the work what we give now to Satinstein and Ginsburg & Kaplan."

Goldman's face spread into a thousand wrinkles of joy.

"You save my life!" he exclaimed.

"Only he got to agree by a lawyer he should make it up our work a whole lot cheaper as they did," Morris concluded.

Goldman nodded vigorously.

"Sure, sure," he said.

"And also he got to help us call off this here strike," Abe added.

"I do my bestest," Goldman replied. "Only we got to see it the varking delegate first and fix it up with him."

"Who is this walking delegate, anyhow?" Morris asked.

Goldman scratched his head to aid his memory.

"I remember it now," he said at last. "It's a feller by the name Sam Slotkin."

When Abe and Morris recovered from the shock of Goldman's disclosure they vied with each other in the strength of their resolutions not to move into Sam Slotkin's loft. "I wouldn't pay it not one cent blackmail neither," Abe declared, "not if they kept it up the strike for a year."

"Better as we should let that sucker do us, Abe," Morris declared, "I would go out of the business first; ain't it?"

Abe nodded and, after a few more defiant sentiments, they went upstairs with Goldman to estimate the amount of work undone on the Fashion Store order.

"Them Fashion people was always good customers of ours, too, Mawruss,"

Abe commented, "and we couldn't send the work out by contractors in this shape. It would ruin the whole job."

Morris nodded sadly.

"If we could only get them devils of operators to finish up," he said, "they could strike till they was blue in the face yet."

"But I wouldn't pay one cent to that sucker, Slotkin, Mawruss," Abe added.

"Sure not," Morris agreed.

"Might you wouldn't have to pay him nothing, maybe," Goldman suggested.

"What d'ye mean?" Abe cried.

"Might if you would take it the loft he would call off the strike," said Goldman.

"That's so, Mawruss," Abe murmured, as though this phase of the matter had just occurred to him for the first time.

"Maybe Goldman is right, Abe," Morris replied. "Maybe if we took it the loft Slotkin would call off the strike."

"After all, Mawruss," Abe said, "the loft ain't a bad loft, Mawruss. If it wasn't such a good loft, Mawruss, I would say it no, Mawruss, we shouldn't take the loft; but the loft is a first-cla.s.s A Number One loft."

"S'enough, Abe," Morris replied. "You don't have to tell it me a hundred times already. I ain't disputing it's a good loft; and so if Slotkin calls off the strike we take the loft."

At this juncture the store door opened and Slotkin himself entered.

"Good afternoon, gents," he said.

Morris and Abe greeted him with a scowl.

"I suppose you come for an answer about that loft, huh?" Morris snorted.

Slotkin stared at Abe indignantly.

"Excuse me, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I ain't here as broker. I'll see you later about that already. I come here now as varking delegate."

"Sure, I know," Abe replied. "When you call it a strike on us this morning, that ain't got nothing to do with our taking the loft. We believe that, Slotkin; so go ahead and tell us something else."

"It makes me no difference whether you believe it or you don't believe it, Mr. Potash," Slotkin went on. "All I got to say is that you signed it an agreement with the union; ain't it?"

"Sure, we signed it," said Abe, "and we kept it, too. We pay 'em always union prices and we keep it union hours."