Feigenbaum took his hat and coat preparatory to leaving.

"Well, boys," he said genially, "you got to excuse me. I must be moving on."

"Wait just a minute," Abe said. "I want you to look at something."

He led Feigenbaum out of the office and down the pa.s.sageway between the mahogany part.i.tions. In front of the little cashier's window Abe stopped and pointed to the shelf and panel beneath.

"Mr. Feigenbaum," he said in shaking tones, "do you see something down there?"

Mr. Feigenbaum examined the woodwork closely.

"Yes, Abe," he answered. "I see it that some loafer has been striking matches on it, but it's been all fixed up so that you wouldn't notice nothing."

"S'enough," Abe cried. "I'm much obliged to you."

In silence Abe and Morris ushered Mr. Feigenbaum to the outer door, and as soon as it closed behind him the two partners faced each other.

"What difference does it make, Abe?" Morris said. "A little hole and a little scratch don't amount to nothing."

Abe gulped once or twice before he could enunciate.

"It don't amount to nothing, Mawruss," he croaked. "Oh, no, it don't amount to nothing, but sixteen hundred and fifty dollars."

"What d'ye mean?" Morris exclaimed.

"I mean this," Abe thundered: "I mean, we paid twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars for what we could of bought for six hundred dollars. Them fixtures what we bought it from Flachsman, he bought it from Rifkin's bankruptcy sale. I mean that these here fixtures are the positively same identical fixtures what I seen it upstairs in H. Rifkin's loft."

It was now Morris' turn to change color, and his face a.s.sumed a sickly hue of green.

"How do you know that?" he gasped.

"Because I was in Rifkin's old place when that lowlife Feinstein, what works for Henry D. Feldman, had charge of it after the failure; and I seen Feinstein strike them matches and put his seegar on the top from the desk."

He led the way back to the office and once more examined the flaw in the mahogany.

"Yes, Mawruss," he said, "two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars we got to pay it for this here junk. Twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars, Mawruss, you throw it into the street for damaged, second-hand stuff what ain't worth two hundred."

"Why, you say it yourself you wanted to pay six hundred for it, Abe,"

Morris protested, "and you said it was first-cla.s.s, A Number One fixtures."

"Me, Mawruss!" Abe exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you should talk that way, Mawruss. I knew all the time that them fixtures was b.u.m stuff.

I only wanted to buy 'em because I thought that they would bring us some of Rifkin's old customers, Mawruss, and I was right."

"You're always right, Abe," Morris retorted. "Maybe you was right when you said Feinstein made them marks, Abe, and maybe you wasn't. Feinstein ain't the only one what scratches matches and smokes seegars, Abe. You smoke, too, Abe."

"All right, Mawruss," Abe said. "I scratched them matches and burnt that hole, if you think so; but just the same, Mawruss, if I did or if I didn't, Ike Flachsman done us, anyhow."

"How d'ye know that, Abe?" Morris blurted out. "I don't believe them fixtures is Rifkin's fixtures at all, and I don't believe that Flachsman bought 'em at Rifkin's sale. What's more, Abe, I'm going to get Feinstein on the 'phone right away and find out who did buy 'em."

He went to the telephone immediately and rang up Henry D. Feldman's office.

"Hallo, Mr. Feinstein," he said, after the connection had been made.

"This is Mawruss Perlmutter, of Potash & Perlmutter. You know them fixtures what H. Rifkin had it?"

"I sure do," Feinstein replied.

"Well, who bought it them fixtures at the receiver's sale?"

"I got to look it up," Feinstein said. "Hold the wire for a minute."

A moment later he returned to the 'phone.

"Hallo, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "They sold for three hundred dollars to a dealer by the name Isaac Flachsman."

CHAPTER XIII

"Say, looky here, Abe," Morris cried one rainy March morning, "we got to get some more insurance."

"What do you mean, insurance?" Abe asked. "We got enough insurance, Mawruss. Them Rifkin fixtures ain't so valuable as all that, Mawruss, and even if we wouldn't already got it for twenty thousand dollars insurance, Mawruss, the building is anyhow fireproof. In a fireproof building you don't got to have so much insurance."

"Is that so?" Morris replied. "Well, Pinkel Brothers' building where they got it a loft is fireproof, and they got it also oitermatic sprinklers, Abe, and they somehow get burned out anyhow."

"You couldn't prove to me nothing by Pinkel Brothers, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "Them people has already got a hundred operators and we ain't got one, Mawruss, and every operator smokes yet a cigarettel, and you know what them cigarettels is, Mawruss. They practically smokes themselves. So, if an operator throws one of them cigarettels in a bin from clippings, Mawruss, that cigarettel would burn up them clippings certain sure. For my part, I wouldn't have a cigarettel in the place; and so, Mawruss, we wouldn't have no fire, neither."

"I know, Abe," Morris protested; "but the loft upstairs is vacant and the loft downstairs is vacant, and everybody ain't so grouchy about cigarettels like you are, Abe. Might one of them lofts would be taken by a feller what is already a cigarettel fiend, Abe. And fires can start by other causes, too; and then where would we be with our twenty thousand insurance and all them piece goods what we got it?"

"But the building is fireproof, Mawruss."

"Sure I know," Morris replied; "fireproof buildings is like them gilt-edge, A Number One concerns what you sell goods to for ten years, maybe, and then all of a sudden when you don't expect it one of 'em busts up on you. And that's the way it is with fireproof buildings, Abe. They're fireproof so long as n.o.body has a fire in 'em."

Abe shrugged his shoulders and lit a fresh cigar.

"All right, Mawruss," Abe said; "I'm satisfied. If you want to get some more insurance, go ahead. I got worry enough I should bother my head about trifles. A little money for insurance we can afford to spend it, Mawruss, so long as we practically throw it in the streets otherwise."

"Otherwise?" Morris repeated. "What do you mean we throw it away otherwise, Abe?"

"I mean that new style thirty-twenty-eight what you showed it me this morning, Mawruss," Abe replied. "For a popular-price line, Mawruss, them new capes has got enough b.u.t.tons and soutache on to 'em to sell for twenty dollars already instead of twelve-fifty."

"That's where you talk without knowing nothing what you say, Abe,"

Morris replied. "That garment what you seen it is the winder sample what I made it up for Louis Feinholz's uptown store. Louis give me a big order while you was in Boston last week, a special line of capes what I got up for him to retail at eighteen-fifty. But he also wanted me to make up for him a winder sample, just one garment to hang in the winder what would look like them special capes, Abe, y'understand, something like a diamond looks like a rhinestone. Then, when a lady sees that cape in the winder, she wants to buy one just like it, so she goes into Louis' store and they show her one just like it, only three inches shorter, a yard less goods into it, about half the soutache on to it and a dozen b.u.t.tons short, Abe; because that winder garment what we make for Louis costs us ourselves twenty-five dollars, and Louis retails the garment what he sells that lady for eighteen-fifty. And that's the way it goes."

"That's a fine crook, that Louis Feinholz," Abe cried virtuously. "I wonder that you would sell people like that goods at all, Mawruss. That feller ain't no good, Mawruss. I seen him go back three times on four hundred hands up at Max Geigerman's house last week, a dollar a hundred double-double. He's a gambler, too."

"Well, Abe," Morris answered, "a feller what runs a chance on auction pinochle ain't near the gambler like a feller what is willing to run a chance on his business burning out and don't carry no insurance, Abe."