"Not even a weather report, Abe," he said. "If he couldn't sell no goods, Abe, at least he could write us a letter."

"Maybe he's too busy, Mawruss," Abe suggested.

"Busy taking a.s.sistant millinery buyers to lunch, Abe," Morris replied.

"The way that feller acts, Abe, he ain't no stranger to auction pinochle, neither, I bet yer."

Abe put on his hat and coat preparatory to going home.

"What's the use knocking him yet a while, Mawruss?" he said. "A different tune you will sing it when we get a couple of orders from him to-morrow morning."

But the next forenoon's mail was barren of result, and when Abe went out to lunch that day he had little appet.i.te for his food. Accordingly he sought an enameled-brick dairy restaurant, and he was midway in the consumption of a bowl of milk toast when Leon Sammet, senior partner of Sammet Brothers, entered.

"Well, Abe," he said, "do you got to diet, too?"

"_Gott sei dank_, it ain't so bad as all that, Leon," Abe replied. "No, Leon, I ain't going to die just yet a while, although that's a terrible sickness, the rheumatism. The doctor says I could only eat it certain things like chicken and chops and milk toast."

"Well, you wouldn't starve, anyhow," Leon commented.

"No, I wouldn't starve," Abe admitted, "but I also couldn't go out on the road, neither. The doctor wouldn't let me, so we got to hire a feller to take care of our Western trade. I guess he's a pretty good salesman, too. His name is Marks Pasinsky. Do you know him?"

"Sure I know him," Leon Sammet replied. "He used to work by B. Gans, and he's a very close friend of a feller what used to work for us by the name Mozart Rabiner."

"You mean that musical feller?" Abe said.

"That's the one," Leon answered. "I bet yer he was musical. That feller got the artistic temperature all right, Abe. He didn't give a d.a.m.n how much of our money he spent it. Every town he makes he got to have a pianner sent up to the hotel. Costs us every time three dollars for the pianner and five dollars for trucking. We got it a decent salesman now, Abe. We hired him a couple of weeks since."

"What's his name?" Abe asked.

"Arthur Katzen," Leon Sammet replied. "He had a big week last week in Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland and Detroit. He's in Chicago this week."

"Is that so?" Abe commented.

"He turned us in a fine order to-day," Leon continued, "from Simon Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers & Co."

"What?" Abe gasped.

"Sure," Sammet went on, "and the funny thing about it is that Kuhner never bought our line before, and I guess he wouldn't of bought it now, but this here Arthur Katzen, Abe, he is sure a wonder. That feller actually booked a five-thousand-dollar order from sample garments which didn't belong to our line at all. They're some samples which I understand Kuhner had made up already."

"That's something what I never heard it before," Abe exclaimed.

"Me neither," Leon said; "but Kuhner gives him the privilege to send us the garments here, and we are to make up sample garments of our own so soon as we can copy the styles; and after we ship our samples and Kuhner's samples back to Kuhner, Kuhner sends us a confirmation. We expect Kuhner will ship us his samples to-morrow."

Abe rose wearily from his seat.

"Well, Leon," he concluded, "you certainly got it more luck with your salesman as we got it with ours. So far he ain't sent us a single, solitary order."

He pa.s.sed down the aisle to the cashier's desk and had almost reached the door when a restraining hand plucked at his coat tails.

"Hallo, Abe!" a voice cried. It was Sol Klinger, whose manner of eating crullers and coffee received and merited the unfavorable attention of everybody seated at his table. "Sit down and have a cup of coffee."

"I had it my lunch already," Abe replied.

"Sit down and have a cup of coffee, anyhow," Sol Klinger coaxed.

"I wouldn't have no coffee," Abe said as he took the vacant chair next to Sol. "I'll have a cup of chocolate. To a man in my conditions, Sol, coffee is poison already."

"Why, what's the matter, Abe?" Sol asked.

"I'm a sick feller, Sol," Abe went on. "The rheumatism I got it all over my body. I a.s.sure you I couldn't go out on the road this fall. I had to hire it a salesman."

"Is that so?" Sol Klinger replied. "Well, we had to hire it a new salesman, too--a young feller by the name Moe Rabiner. Do you know him?"

"I heard about him already," Abe said. "How is he doing?"

"Well, in Buffalo, last week, he ain't done hardly nothing," said Sol; "but he's in Chicago this week and he done a little better. He sent us a nice order this morning, I bet yer. Four thousand dollars from the Arcade Mercantile Company."

Abe was swallowing a huge mouthful of cocoa, and when Sol vouchsafed this last piece of information the cocoa found its way to Abe's pharynx, whence it was violently ejected into the face of a mild-mannered errand-boy sitting opposite. The errand-boy wiped his face while Sol slapped Abe on the back.

"What's the matter, Abe?" Sol asked solicitously. "Do you got bronchitis, too, as well as rheumatism?"

"Go ahead, Sol," Abe gasped. "Tell me about this here order."

"There ain't much to tell, Abe," Sol went on, "except that this here Rabiner does something I never heard about before in all my experience in the cloak and suit business."

"No?" Abe croaked. "What was that?"

"Why, this here Rabiner gets an order from Prosnauer, of the Arcade Mercantile Company, for garments what we ain't got in our line at all,"

Sol Klinger explained; "and Prosnauer furnishes us the sample garments, which we are to return to him just so soon as we can copy them, and then----"

"S'enough," Abe cried. "I heard enough, Sol. Don't rub it in."

"Why, what do you mean, Abe?" Sol asked.

"I mean I got it a salesman in Chicago, Sol," Abe went on, "what ain't sent us so much as a smell of an order. I guess there's only one thing for me to do, Sol, and that's to go myself to Chicago and see what he's up to."

Sol looked shocked.

"Don't you do it, Abe," he said. "Klein got a brother-in-law what got the rheumatism like you got it, Abe, and the feller insisted on going to Boston. The railroad trip finished him, I bet yer."

"Did he die?" Abe asked.

"Well, no, he didn't die exactly," Klinger replied; "but on the train the rheumatism went to his head, and that poor, sick young feller took a whole theayter troupe into the cafe car and blows 'em to tchampanyer wine yet. Two hundred dollars it costed him."

"That's all right, Sol," Abe replied. "I could stand it if it stood me in three hundred dollars, so long as I could stop Marks Pasinsky making another town."

He rose to his feet with surprising alacrity for a rheumatic patient, and returned to his office, where no communication had been received from Marks Pasinsky.

"That settles it, Mawruss," Abe said as he jammed his hat farther down on his head.