"Go ahead," he said. "I ain't jumping over you."

"Well, in the first place, Abe," Morris went on, "there's a couple of swinging doors inside the hall door."

"Just like Rifkin's," Abe interrupted.

"Better as Rifkin's," Morris exclaimed. "Them doors is covered with goods, Abe, and holes in each door with gla.s.s into it."

"Sure, I know," Abe replied. "Rifkin's doors got green cashmere onto 'em like a pool table."

"Only new, not second-hand," Morris added. "Then, when you get through them doors, on the left side is the office with mahogany part.i.tions and plated gla.s.s, with a hole into it like a bank already."

"Sure! The same what I seen it up at Rifkin's, Mawruss," Abe broke in again.

Morris drew himself up and scowled at Abe.

"How many times should I tell it you, Abe," he cried, "them fixtures what Flachsman sells it us is new, and not like Rifkin's."

"Go ahead, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Let's hear it."

"Over the hole is a sign, Cashier," Morris continued.

Abe was about to nod again, but at a warning glance from Morris he thought better of it.

"But I told it Flachsman we ain't got no cashier, only a bookkeeper,"

Morris said, "and so he says he could put it Bookkeeper over the hole.

Inside the office is two desks, one for you and me, and a high one for the bookkeeper behind the hole. On the right-hand side as you go inside them pool-table doors is another mahogany part.i.tion, and back of that is the cutting-room already. Then you walk right straight ahead, and between them two part.i.tions is like a hall-way, what leads to the front of the loft, and there is the show-room with showcases, racks and tables like what I got it a list here."

"And the whole business will cost it us two thousand dollars, Mawruss,"

Abe commented.

"Two thousand two hundred and fifty," Morris said.

"Well, all I got to say is we would get it the positively same identical thing by H. Rifkin's place for six hundred dollars," Abe concluded.

He rose to his feet and took off his hat and coat.

"What did you say this here feller Flachsman was in the district lodge of the I. O. M. A., Mawruss?" he inquired.

"Corresponding secretary," Morris replied. "What for you ask, Abe?"

"Oh, nothing," Abe replied as he turned away. "Only, I was wondering what he would soak us for them fixtures, Mawruss, if he would of been Grand Master."

Ten days afterward the receiver in bankruptcy sold Rifkin's stock and fixtures at auction, and when Abe and Morris took possession of their new business premises on the first of the following month the topic of H. Rifkin's failure had ceased to be of interest to the cloak and suit trade. Morris alone harped upon it.

"Well, Abe," he said for the twentieth time, gazing proudly around him, "what's the matter with them fixtures what we got it? Huh? Ain't them fixtures got H. Rifkin skinned to death?"

Abe shook his head solemnly.

"Mind you, Mawruss," he began, "I ain't saying them fixtures what we got it ain't good fixtures, y'understand; but they ain't one, two, six with H. Rifkin's fixtures."

"That's what you say, Abe," Morris retorted, "but Flachsman says different. I seen him at the lodge last night, and he tells me them fixtures what H. Rifkin got it was second quality, Abe. Flachsman says they wouldn't of stood being took down and put up again. He says he wouldn't sell them fixtures as second-hand to an East Broadway concern, without being afraid for a comeback."

"Flachsman don't know what he's talking about," Abe declared hotly.

"Them fixtures was A Number One. I never seen nothing like 'em before or since."

"Bluffs you are making it, Abe," Morris replied. "You seen them fixtures for ten minutes, maybe, Abe, and in such a short time you couldn't tell nothing at all about 'em."

"Couldn't I, Mawruss?" Abe said. "Well, them fixtures was the kind what you wouldn't forget it if you seen 'em for only five minutes. I bet yer I would know them anywhere, Mawruss, if I seen them again, and what we got it here from Flachsman is a weak imitation, Mawruss. That's all."

At this juncture a customer entered, and for half an hour Morris busied himself displaying the line. In the meantime Abe went out to lunch, and when he entered the building on his return a familiar, bulky figure preceded him into the doorway.

"Hallo!" Abe cried, and the bulky figure stopped and turned around.

"Hallo yourself!" he said.

"You don't know me, Mr. Feigenbaum," Abe went on.

"Why, how d'ye do, Mr. Potash?" Feigenbaum exclaimed. "What brings you way uptown here?"

"We m----" Abe commenced--"that is to say, I come up here to see a party. I bet yer we're going to the same place, Mr. Feigenbaum."

"Maybe," Mr. Feigenbaum grunted.

"Sixth floor, hey?" Abe cried jocularly, slapping Mr. Feigenbaum on the shoulder.

Mr. Feigenbaum's right eye a.s.sumed the gla.s.sy stare which was permanent in his left.

"What business is that from yours, Potash?" he asked.

"Excuse me, Mr. Feigenbaum," Abe said with less jocularity, "I didn't mean it no harm."

Together they entered the elevator, and Abe created a diversion by handing Mr. Feigenbaum a large, black cigar with a wide red-and-gold band on it. While Feigenbaum was murmuring his thanks the elevator man stopped the car at the fifth floor.

"Here we are!" Abe cried, and hustled out of the elevator ahead of Mr.

Feigenbaum. He opened the outer door of Potash & Perlmutter's loft with such rapidity that there was no time for Feigenbaum to decipher the sign on its ground-gla.s.s panel, and the next moment they stood before the green-baize swinging doors.

"After you, Mr. Feigenbaum," Abe said. He followed his late customer up the pa.s.sageway between the mahogany part.i.tions, into the show-room.

"Take a chair, Mr. Feigenbaum," Abe cried, dragging forward a comfortable, padded seat, into which Feigenbaum sank with a sigh.

"I wish we could get it furniture like this up in Bridgetown,"

Feigenbaum said. "A one-horse place like Bridgetown you can't get nothing there. Everything you got to come to New York for. We are dead ones in Bridgetown. We don't know nothing and we don't learn nothing."

"That's right, Mr. Feigenbaum," Abe said. "You got to come to New York to get the latest wrinkles about everything."

With one comprehensive motion he drew forward a chair for himself and waved a warning to Morris, who ducked behind a rack of cloaks in the rear of the show-room.

"You make yourself to home here, Potash, I must say," Feigenbaum observed.