"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner as they stood together and surveyed the wild disorder of their business premises, "one removal is worser as a fire."

"Sure it is," Morris Perlmutter agreed. "A fire you can insure it, Abe, but a removal is a risk what you got to take yourself; and you're bound to make it a loss."

"Not if you got a little system, Mawruss," Abe went on. "The trouble with us is, Mawruss, we ain't got no system. In less than three weeks already we got to move into the loft on Nineteenth Street, Mawruss, and we ain't even made up our minds about the fixtures yet."

"The fixtures!" Morris cried. "For why should we make up our minds about the fixtures, Abe?"

"We need to have fixtures, Mawruss, ain't it?"

"What's the matter with the fixtures what we got it here, Abe?" Morris asked.

"Them ain't fixtures what we got it here, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Junk is what we got it here, Mawruss, not fixtures. If we was to move them b.u.m-looking racks and tables up to Nineteenth Street, Mawruss, it would be like an insult to our customers."

"Would it?" Morris replied. "Well, we ain't asking 'em to buy the fixtures, Abe; we only sell 'em the garments. Anyhow, if our customers was so touchy, Abe, they would of been insulted long since ago. For we got them fixtures six years already, and before we had 'em yet, Abe, Pincus Vesell bought 'em, way before the Spanish War, from Kupferman & Daiches, and then Kupferman & Daiches----"

"S'enough, Mawruss," Abe protested. "I ain't asked you you should tell me the family history of them fixtures, Mawruss. I know it as well as you do, Mawruss, them fixtures is old-established back numbers, and I wouldn't have 'em in the store even if we was going to stay here yet."

"You wouldn't have 'em in the store," Morris broke in; "but how about me? Ain't I n.o.body here, Abe? I think I got something to say, too, Abe. So I made up my mind we're going to keep them fixtures and move 'em up to the new store. We done it always a good business with them fixtures, Abe."

"Yes, Mawruss, and we also lose it a good customer by 'em, too," Abe rejoined. "You know as well as I do that after one-eye Feigenbaum, of the H. F. Cloak Company, run into that big rack over by the door and busted his nose we couldn't sell him no more goods."

"Was it the rack's fault that Henry Feigenbaum only got one eye, Abe?"

Morris cried. "Anyhow, Abe, when a feller got a nose like Henry Feigenbaum, Abe, he's liable to knock it against most any thing, Abe; so you couldn't blame it on the fixtures."

"I don't know who was to blame, Mawruss," Abe said, "but I do know that he buys it always a big bill of goods from H. Rifkin, what's got that loft on the next floor above where we took it on Nineteenth Street, and Rifkin does a big business by him. I bet yer Feigenbaum's account is easy worth two thousand a year net to Rifkin, Mawruss."

"Maybe it is and maybe it ain't, Abe," Morris rejoined, "but that ain't here nor there. Instead you should be estimating Rifkin's profits, Abe, you should better be going up to Nineteenth Street and see if them people gets through painting and cleaning up. I got it my hands full down here."

Abe reached for his hat.

"I bet yer you got your hands full, Mawruss," he grumbled. "The way it looks, now, Mawruss, you got our sample lines so mixed up it'll be out of date before you get it sorted out again."

"All right," Morris retorted, "we'll get out a new one. We don't care nothing about the expenses, Abe. If the old fixtures ain't good enough our sample line ain't good enough, neither. Ain't it? What do we care about money, Abe?"

He paused to emphasize the irony.

"No, Abe," he concluded, "don't you worry about them samples, nor them fixtures, neither. You got worry enough if you tend to your own business, Abe. I'll see that them samples gets up to Nineteenth Street in good shape."

Abe shrugged his shoulders and made for the door.

"And them fixtures also, Abe," Morris shouted after him.

The loft building on Nineteenth Street into which Potash & Perlmutter proposed to move was an imposing fifteen-story structure. Burnished metal signs of its occupants flanked its wide doorway, and the entrance hall gleamed with gold leaf and plaster porphyry, while the uniform of each elevator attendant would have graced the high admiral of a South American Navy.

So impressed was Abe with the magnificence of his surroundings that he forgot to call his floor when he entered one of the elevators, and instead of alighting at the fifth story he was carried up to the sixth floor before the car stopped.

Seven or eight men stepped out with him and pa.s.sed through the door of H. Rifkin's loft, while Abe sought the stairs leading to the floor below. He walked to the westerly end of the hall, only to find that the staircase was at the extreme easterly end, and as he retraced his footsteps a young man whom he recognized as a clerk in the office of Henry D. Feldman, the prominent cloak and suit attorney, was pasting a large sheet of paper on H. Rifkin's door.

It bore the following legend:

CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE FEDERAL RECEIVER

HENRY D. FELDMAN Attorney for Pet.i.tioning Creditors

Abe stopped short and shook the sticky hand of the bill-poster.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Feinstein?" he said.

"Ah, good morning, Mr. Potash," Feinstein cried in his employer's best tone and manner.

"What's the matter? Is Rifkin in trouble?"

"Oh, no," Feinstein replied ironically. "Rifkin ain't in trouble; his creditors is in trouble, Mr. Potash. The Federal Textile Company, ten thousand four hundred and eighty-two dollars; Miller, Field & Simpson, three thousand dollars; the Koscius...o...b..nk, two thousand and fifty."

Abe whistled his astonishment.

"I always thought he done it such a fine business," he commented.

"Sure he done it a fine business," the law clerk said. "I should say he did done it a fine business. If he got away with a cent he got away with fifty thousand dollars."

"Don't n.o.body know where he skipped to?"

"Only his wife," Feinstein replied, "and she left home yesterday. Some says she went to Canada and some says to Mexico; but they mostly goes to Brooklyn, and who in blazes could find her there?"

Abe nodded solemnly.

"But come inside and give a look around," Feinstein said hospitably.

"Maybe there's something you would like to buy at the receiver's sale next week."

Abe handed Feinstein a cigar, and together they went into Rifkin's loft.

"He's got some fine fixtures, ain't it?" Abe said as he gazed upon the mahogany and plate-gla.s.s furnishings of Rifkin's office.

"Sure he has," Feinstein replied nonchalantly, scratching a parlor match on the veneered shelf under the cashier's window. The first attempt missed fire, and again he drew a match across the lower part of the part.i.tion, leaving a great scar on its polished surface.

"Ain't you afraid you spoil them fixtures?" Abe asked.

"They wouldn't bring nothing at the receiver's sale, anyhow," Feinstein replied, "even though they are pretty near new."

"They must have cost him a pretty big sum, ain't it?" Abe said.

"They didn't cost him a cent," Feinstein answered, "because he ain't paid a cent for 'em. Flaum & Bingler sold 'em to him, and they're one of the pet.i.tioning creditors. Twenty-one hundred dollars they got stung for, and they ain't got no chattel mortgage nor nothing. Look at them racks there and all them mirrors and tables! Good enough for a saloon.

I bet yer them green baize doors, what he put inside the regular door, is worth pretty near a hundred dollars."

Abe nodded again.

"And I bet the whole shooting-match don't fetch five hundred dollars at the receiver's sale," Feinstein said.