"Well, by jimminy!" B. Gans commented, "that's just the story I got to tell it you. This feller does the selfsame funny business with my samples. He gets orders from a couple of big concerns in St. Louis and then he gambles them away to a feller called Levy. So what do I do, Potash? He goes to work and has 'em both arrested, and then them two fellers turns around and fixes up a story and the first thing you know the police judge lets 'em go. Well, Potash, them two fellers goes down to New York and hires a lawyer, by the name Henry D. Feldman, and sue me in the courts yet that I made them false arrested. Cost me a thousand dollars to settle it, and I also got to agree that if anybody inquires about Pasinsky I should say only that he is a good salesman--which is the truth, Potash, because he is a good salesman--and that the reason he left me is by mutual consent, y'understand?"

Abe nodded.

"That's a fine piece of work, that Marks Pasinsky," he commented. "I wish I had never seen him already. What shall I do, Gans? I am in a fine mess."

"No, you ain't yet," B. Gans replied. "Prosnauer and Kuhner knows me, Potash, and I am willing, as long as I got you into this, I will get you out of it. I will go with you myself, Potash, and I think I got influence enough in the trade that I could easy get them to give you back them samples."

"I know you can," Abe said enthusiastically, "and if you would put it to 'em strong enough I think we could swing back to us them orders from Sammet Brothers and Klinger & Klein."

"That I will do for you, also," B. Gans agreed. "But now, Potash, I got troubles ahead of me, too."

"How's that?" Abe inquired, much interested.

"I got it a lowlife what I hired for a salesman, also," he replied, "and three weeks ago that feller left my place with my samples and I ain't heard a word from him since. If I got to search every gamblinghouse in Chicago I will find that loafer; and when I do find him, Potash, I will crack his neck for him."

"I wouldn't do nothing rash, Gans," Abe advised. "What for a looking feller is this salesman of yours?"

"He's a tall, white-faced loafer with a big red mustache," Gans replied, "and his name is Ignatz Kresnick."

Abe jumped to his feet.

"Come with me," he cried. Together they took the elevator to the eighth floor and, as Ignatz Kresnick dealt the cards for the five-hundredth time in that game, all unconscious of his fast-approaching Nemesis, Mozart Rabiner played the concluding measures of the _Liebestod_ softly, slowly, like a benediction:

_Ertrinken-- Versinken-- Unbewusst-- Hochste l.u.s.t._

CHAPTER XV

"Who do you think I seen it in Hammersmith's just now, Mawruss?" Abe Potash shouted as he burst into the show-room one Sat.u.r.day afternoon in April.

"I ain't deaf, Abe," Morris replied. "Who did you seen it?"

"J. Edward Kleebaum from Minneapolis," Abe answered.

Morris shrugged.

"What d'ye want _me_ to do, Abe?" he asked.

Abe ignored the question.

"He promised he would come in at two o'clock and look over the line," he announced triumphantly.

"Plenty crooks looked over our line already, Abe," Morris commented, "and so far as I'm concerned, they could look over it all they want to, Abe, so long as they shouldn't buy nothing from us."

"What d'ye mean? Crooks?" Abe cried. "The way Kleebaum talks he would give us an order for a thousand dollars goods, maybe, Mawruss. He ain't no crook."

"Ain't he?" Morris replied. "What's the reason he ain't, Abe? The way I look at it, Abe, when a feller makes it a dirty failure like that feller made it in Milwaukee, Abe, and then goes to Cleveland, Abe, and opens up as the bon march, Abe, and does another bust up, Abe, and then he goes to----"

"S'enough, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "Them things is from old times already. To-day is something else again. That feller done a tremendous business last spring, Mawruss, and this season everybody is falling over themselves to sell him goods."

"Looky here, Abe," Morris broke in, "you think the feller ain't a crook, and you're ent.i.tled to think all you want to, Abe, but I seen it Sol Klinger yesterday, and what d'ye think he told me?"

"I don't know what he told you, Mawruss," Abe replied, "but it wouldn't be the first time, Mawruss, that a feller tells lies about a concern that he couldn't sell goods to, Mawruss. It's the old story of the dawg and the grapes."

Morris looked hurt.

"I'm surprised you should call a decent, respectable feller like Sol Klinger a dawg, Abe," he said. "That feller has always been a good friend of ours, Abe, and even if he wouldn't be, Abe, that ain't no way to talk about a concern what does a business like Klinger & Klein."

"Don't make no speeches, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Go ahead and tell me what Sol Klinger told it you about J. Edward Kleebaum."

"Why, Sol Klinger says that he hears it on good authority, Abe, that that lowlife got it two oitermobiles, Abe. What d'ye think for a crook like that?"

"So far what I hear it, Mawruss, it ain't such a terrible crime that a feller should got it two oitermobiles. In that case, Mawruss, Andrew Carnegie would be a murderer yet. I bet yer he got already _fifty_ oitermobiles."

"S'all right, Abe," Morris cried. "Andrew Carnegie ain't looking to buy off us goods, Abe, and even so, Abe, he never made it a couple of failures like Kleebaum, Abe."

"Well, Mawruss, is that all you got against him that he owns an oitermobile? Maybe he plays golluf, too, Mawruss."

"Golluf I don't know nothing about, Abe," Morris replied, "but auction pinochle he does play it, Abe. Sol Klinger says that out in Minneapolis Kleebaum hangs out with a bunch of loafers what considers a dollar a hundred chicken feed already."

Abe rose to his feet.

"Let me tell you something, Mawruss," he said. "I got over them old fashioned idees that a feller shouldn't spend the money he makes in the way what he wants to. If Kleebaum wants to buy oitermobiles, that's his business, not mine, Mawruss, and for my part, Mawruss, if that feller was to come in here and buy from us a thousand dollars goods, Mawruss, I am in favor we should sell him."

"You could do what you please, Abe," Morris declared as he put on his hat. "Only one thing I beg of you, Abe, don't never put it up to me, Abe, that I was in favor of the feller from the start."

"Sure not, Mawruss," Abe replied, "because you wouldn't never let me forget it. Where are you going now, Mawruss?"

"I told you yesterday where I was going, Abe," Morris said impatiently.

"Me and Minnie is going out to Johnsonhurst to see her cousin Moe Fixman."

"Moe Fixman," Abe repeated. "Ain't that the same Fixman what was partners together with Max Gudekunst?"

Morris nodded.

"Well, you want to keep your hand on your pocketbook, Mawruss," Abe went on, "because I hear it on good authority that feller ain't above selling the milk from his baby's bottle."

Morris paused with his hand on the door k.n.o.b.

"That's the first I hear about it, Abe," he said. "Certainly, when a feller gets together a little money, y'understand, always there is somebody what knocks him, Abe. Who told you all this about Fixman, Abe?"

"A feller by the name Sol Klinger, Mawruss," Abe replied, "and if you don't believe me you could----"

But Morris cut off further comment by banging the door behind him and Abe turned to his task of preparing the sample line for his prospective customer's inspection. A half an hour later J. Edward Kleebaum entered the show-room and extended his hand to Abe.