Then he turned to Abe and Mawruss.

"This here'll be a two hours' job, gents," he said, "and I advise you to get your supper at the hotel acrosst the street."

"But how much is it going to cost us?" Morris asked.

For five minutes the proprietor figured on the back of an envelope.

"Fifteen dollars and twenty-two cents," he said, and Abe and Morris staggered to the street, followed by their wives.

Twenty minutes later Kleebaum and the chauffeur drew up in front of a road house.

"Your blow," the chauffeur cried.

Kleebaum nodded.

"Come across with that five first," he said, and after the transfer had been made they disappeared into the sabbatical entrance.

"Well, Mawruss," Abe exclaimed when Morris entered the show-room at ten o'clock the next morning. "What did I told you last week! Wasn't I right?"

"I know you told me that one party to a swap was practically bound to get stuck, Abe," Morris admitted, "but with an oitermobile----"

"Again oitermobile!" Abe cried. "You got oitermobile on the brain, Mawruss. Whenever I open my mouth, Mawruss, you got an idee I'm going to talk about oitermobiles. This is something else again. Didn't you get a morning paper, Mawruss?"

Morris shrugged.

"When a feller lives out in a place called Johnsonhurst, Abe," he replied sadly, "he is lucky if he could get a cup of coffee before he leaves the house. Our range is busted."

"Something else is busted, too, Mawruss," Abe said as he handed the morning paper to Morris. The page which contained the "Business Troubles" column was folded at the following news item:

J. EDWARD KLEEBAUM, Minneapolis, Minn. The Wonder Cloak and Suit Store, J. Edward Kleebaum, Proprietor, was closed up by the sheriff under an execution in favor of Joseph Pfingst, who recovered a judgment yesterday in the Supreme Court for $5800, money loaned. Kleebaum is supposed to be in New York trying to make some arrangements with his creditors. Later in the day a pet.i.tion in bankruptcy was filed against him by Kugler, Jacobi and Henck representing the following New York creditors:--Klinger & Klein, $2500; Sammet Brothers, $1800; Lapidus & Elenbogen, $750.

Morris handed the paper back to his partner.

"Well, Abe," he said, "what are we going to do about it?"

"We already done it, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I sent down Pfingst's guarantee to Henry D. Feldman at nine o'clock already, and I told him he shouldn't wait, but if Pfingst wouldn't pay up to-day yet to sue him in the courts."

Morris shrugged his shoulders.

"We shouldn't be in such a hurry, Abe," he said. "Pfingst treated us right, and why shouldn't we give him a chance to make good?"

"Because he don't deserve it, Mawruss," Abe rejoined as he started off for the show-room. "If he would of took better care of his daughter she wouldn't of run off with this here chauffeur, and Kleebaum wouldn't got to fail. Also, Mawruss, you shouldn't talk that way neither, because if it wouldn't be for Pfingst you wouldn't got stuck with that oitermobile which we rode in it yesterday."

"Well, I ain't out much on it, Abe."

"What d'ye mean you ain't out much on it?" Abe exclaimed. "It stands you in six hundred dollars, ain't it?"

"Sure, I know," Morris replied, "but this morning I come downtown with the feller what rents us the house out in Johnsonhurst and you never seen a feller so crazy about oitermobiles in all your life, Abe."

"Except you, Mawruss," Abe broke in.

"Me, I ain't so crazy about 'em no longer," Morris declared. "So I fixed it up with this feller that he should take the Appalachian runabout off my hands for four hundred dollars and he should also give me a cancelation of the lease which we got of his house. Furthermore, Abe, he pays our moving expenses back to a Hundred and Eighteenth Street."

Abe sat down in the nearest chair.

"So you're going to move back to a Hundred and Eighteenth Street, Mawruss," he exclaimed. "Why, what's the matter with Johnsonhurst, Mawruss? I thought you told it me Johnsonhurst was such a fine place."

"So it is, Abe," Morris admitted. "The air is great out there, Abe, but at the same time, Abe, the air ain't so rotten on a Hundred and Eighteenth Street neither, y'understand, and the train service is a whole lot better."

"You're right, Mawruss," Abe said, "and with all these oitermobile rides and things you waste too much time already. A feller should always consider business ahead of pleasure."

Morris looked at his bruised and oil stained hands.

"Oitermobile riding!" he cried. "That's a pleasure, Abe. Believe me I'd as lief work in a rolling mill."

CHAPTER XVI

Morris Perlmutter's front parlor represented an eclectic taste, and the fine arts had been liberally patronized in its decoration. On the wall hung various subjects in oil, including still life, landscapes, marine scenes and figures, all of which had been billed to Morris by a Fourteenth Street dealer as:

8/12 dozen a.s.sorted oil paintings @ $96 $64 8/12 dozen shadow boxes for paintings @ 12 8 ___ $72

But it was not at the oil paintings that B. Rashkin gazed. His eyes sought instead the framed and glazed certificate of membership of Morris Perlmutter in Harmony Lodge 41, Independent Order Mattai Aaron.

"Them very people hold the mortgage, Mr. Perlmutter," Rashkin said, "and with the influence what you got it in the order, why----"

"Lookyhere, Rashkin," Perlmutter interrupted, "you're a real estater, and if you don't get up at eight o'clock then you get up at nine, and it's all the same; but me, I am in the cloak business, and I got to get downtown at seven o'clock, and so I'm going to tell you again what I told it you before. Go and see Abe to-morrow, and put this proposition up to him like it was something you never told me nothing about, y'understand? Then if he makes the suggestion to me, Rashkin, I would say all right. Because if it should be me what would make the suggestion to him, y'understand, he wouldn't have nothing to do with it. And even if he should consent to go into it, and if we lost money on the deal, Rashkin, I wouldn't never hear the end of it."

Rashkin nodded and seized his hat.

"All right," he said, "I will do what you say, Mr. Perlmutter. But with them three lots it's like this: they're owned by----"

Morris yawned with a noise like a performing sea lion.

"Tell it to Potash to-morrow, Rashkin," he said, and led the way to the hall door.

Accordingly the next morning Rashkin entered the salesroom of Potash & Perlmutter, where Abe was scanning the "Arrival of Buyers" column in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record.

"Good morning, Mr. Potash," B. Rashkin said. "Ain't it a fine weather?"

"Oh, good morning," Abe cried.

"You don't know my face, do you?" Rashkin said.

"I know your face," Abe said, "but your name ain't familiar. I guess I seen you in Seattle, ain't it?"