"Prices and hours is all right," Slotkin said, "but in the agreement stands it you should give 'em a proper place to work in it."

"Well," Morris cried, "ain't it a proper place here to work in it?"

Slotkin shook his head.

"As varking delegate I seen it already. I seen it your shop where your operators work," he commenced, "and----"

"Why, you ain't never been inside our shop," Goldman cried.

"I seen it from the outside--from the street already--and as varking delegate it is my duty to call on you a strike," Slotkin concluded.

"What's the matter with the workroom?" Abe asked.

"Well, the neighborhood ain't right," Slotkin explained. "It's a narrow street already. It should be on a wider street like Nineteenth Street."

He paused to note the effect and Morris grunted involuntarily.

"Also," Slotkin continued, "it needs it light on four sides, and two elevators."

"And I suppose if we hire it such a loft, Slotkin," Abe broke in, "you will call off the strike."

"Sure I will call it off the strike," he declared. "It would be my duty as varking delegate. I moost call it off the strike."

"All right, then," Abe said; "call off the strike. We made up our mind we will take the loft."

"You mean you will take such a loft what the union agreement calls for and which I just described it to you," Slotkin corrected in his quality of walking delegate.

"That's what we mean," Abe replied.

"Why, then, that loft what I called to your attention, as broker, this morning would be exactly what you would need it!" Slotkin exclaimed, in the hearty tones of a conscientious man, glad that for once the performance of his official duty redounded to clean-handed personal profit.

"Sure," Abe grunted.

"Then, as broker, I tell it you that the leases is ready down at Henry D. Feldman's office," Slotkin replied, "and as soon as they are signed the strike is off."

A week later the Fashion Store's order was finished, packed and shipped; and on the same day that Goldman, the foreman, dismissed the hands he went down to Henry D. Feldman's office. There he signed an agreement with Potash & Perlmutter to make up all their garments in the contracting shop which he proposed to open the first of the following month.

"Where are you going to have it your shop, Goldman?" Morris asked, after they had returned from Feldman's.

"That I couldn't tell it you just yet," Goldman replied. "We ain't quite decided yet."

"We!" Abe cried excitedly. "Who's we?"

"Well, I expect to get it a partner with a couple of hundred dollars,"

Goldman said; "but, anyhow, Mr. Potash, I get some cards printed next week and I send you one."

"All right," Abe replied. "Only let me give it you a piece of advice, Goldman: If you get it a partner, don't make no mistake and have some feller what wants to run you and the business and everybody else, Goldman."

The thrust went home and Morris stared fiercely at his partner.

"And you should see it also that his wife ain't got no relations, Goldman," he added, "otherwise he'll want you to share the profits of the business with them."

Goldman nodded.

"Oh, I got a good, smart feller picked out, and his wife's relations will be all right, too," he said, as he started to leave. "But, anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, I let you know next week."

About ten days afterward, while Morris and Abe were in the throes of packing, prior to the removal of their business, the letter-carrier entered with a batch of mail, and Morris immediately took it into the show-room.

"Here, Abe," he said, as he glanced at the first envelope, "this is for you."

Then he proceeded to go through the remainder of the pile.

"Holy smokes!" he cried, as he opened the next envelope.

"What's the matter?" Abe asked. "Is it a failure?" He had read his own letter and held it between trembling fingers as he inquired.

"Look at this," Morris said, handing him a card.

It was a fragment of cheap pasteboard and bore the following legend:

PHILIP GOLDMAN SAM SLOTKIN

GOLDMAN & SLOTKIN CLOAK AND SUIT CONTRACTORS SPONGING AND EXAMINING

PIKE STREET NEW YORK

Abe read the card and handed it back in silence.

"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "that's a fine piece of business. We not only got to take it the loft what Slotkin picks out for us, but we also got to give Slotkin our work also."

Abe shrugged his shoulders in an indifferent manner.

"You always got to run things your way, Mawruss," he said. "If you let me do it my way, Mawruss, we wouldn't of had no strike nor trouble nor nothing, and it would of been the same in the end."

"What d'ye mean?" Morris exclaimed.

"Look at this here," Abe replied, handing him the letter. It was printed in script on heavily-coated paper and read as follows:

MRS. SARAH MASHKOWITZ & MRS. BLOOMA SHEIKMAN SISTERS OF THE BRIDE REQUEST THE HONOR OF YOUR CO.

AT THE MARRIAGE OF THEIR SISTER MISS MIRIAM SMOLINSKI TO SAM SLOTKIN ON SUNDAY OCT 3 1907 at 7 P M SHARP NEW RIGA HALL ALLEN STREET

BRIDE'S RESIDENCE CARE OF ROTHMAN'S CORSET STORE 4025 MADISON AVE N Y CITY LADIES AND GENTS WARDROBE CHECK 50C

CHAPTER XII