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Potash and Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures

<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> "You carry a fine stock, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe Potash exclaimed as he glanced around the well-filled shelves of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting Company. "That ain't all the stock I carry," Mr. Sheitlis, the proprietor, exclaimed. "I got also another stock which I am anxious to dispose of it, Mr. Potash, and you could help me out, maybe." Abe smiled with such forced amiability that his mustache was completely engulfed between his nose and his lower lip. "I ain't buying no cloaks, Mr. Sheitlis," he said. "I'm selling 'em." "Not a stock from cloaks, Mr. Potash," Mr. Sheitlis explained; "but a stock from gold and silver." "I ain't in the jewelry business, neither," Abe said. "That ain't the stock what I mean," Mr. Sheitlis cried. "Wait a bit and I'll show you." He went to the safe in his private office and returned with a crisp parchment-paper certificate bearing[Pg 151] in gilt characters the legend, Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation. "This is what I mean it," he said; "stock from stock exchanges. I paid one dollar a share for this hundred shares." Abe took the certificate and gazed at it earnestly with unseeing eyes. Mr. Sheitlis had just purchased a liberal order of cloaks and suits from Potash & Perlmutter, and it was, therefore, a difficult matter for Abe to turn down this stock proposition without offending a good customer. "Well, Mr. Sheitlis," he commenced, "me and Mawruss Perlmutter we do business under a copartnership agreement, and it says we ain't supposed to buy no stocks from stock exchanges, and——" "I ain't asking you to buy it," Mr. Sheitlis broke in. "I only want you to do me something for a favor. You belong in New York where all them stock brokers is, so I want you should be so kind and take this here stock to one of them stock brokers and see what I can get for it. Maybe I could get a profit for it, and then, of course, I should pay you something for your trouble." "Pay me something!" Abe exclaimed in accents of relief. "Why, Mr. Sheitlis, what an idea! Me and Mawruss would be only too glad, Mr. Sheitlis, to try and sell it for you, and the more we get it for the stock the gladder we would be for your sake. I wouldn't take a penny for selling it if you should make a million out of it." [Pg 152]"A million I won't make it," Mr. Sheitlis replied, dismissing the subject. "I'll be satisfied if I get ten dollars for it." He walked toward the front door of his store with Abe. "What is the indications for spring business in the wholesale trade, Mr. Potash," he asked blandly. Abe shook his head. "It should be good, maybe," he replied; "only, you can't tell nothing about it. Silks is the trouble." "Silks?" Mr. Sheitlis rejoined. "Why, silks makes goods sell high, Mr. Potash. Ain't it? Certainly, I admit it you got to pay more for silk piece goods as for cotton piece goods, but you take the same per cent. profit on the price of the silk as on the price of the cotton, and so you make more in the end. Ain't it?" "If silk piece goods is low or middling, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe replied sadly, "there is a good deal in what you say. But silk is high this year, Mr. Sheitlis, so high you wouldn't believe me if I tell you we got to pay twicet as much this year as three years ago already." Mr. Sheitlis clucked sympathetically. "And if we charge the retailer twicet as much for a garment next year what he pays three years ago already, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe went on, "we won't do no business. Ain't it? So we got to cut our profits, and that's the way it goes in the cloak and suit business. You don't know where you are at[Pg 153] no more than when you got stocks from stock exchanges." "Well, Mr. Potash," Sheitlis replied encouragingly, "next season is next season, but now is this season, and from the prices what you quoted it me, Mr. Potash, you ain't going to the poorhouse just yet a while." "I only hope it that you make more profit on the stock than we make it on the order you just give us," Abe rejoined as he shook his customer's hand in token of farewell. "Good-by, Mr. Sheitlis, and as soon as I get back in New York I'll let you know all about it." Two days after Abe's return to New York he sat in Potash & Perlmutter's show-room, going over next year's models as published in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record. His partner, Morris Perlmutter, puffed disconsolately at a cigar which a competitor had given him in exchange for credit information. "Them cigars what Klinger & Klein hands out," he said to his partner, "has asbestos wrappers and excelsior fillers, I bet yer. I'd as lief smoke a kerosene lamp." "You got your worries, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Just look at them next year's models, Mawruss, and a little thing like cigars wouldn't trouble you at all. Silk, soutache and buttons they got it, Mawruss. I guess pretty soon them Paris people will be getting out garments trimmed with solitaire diamonds." [Pg 154]Morris seized the paper and examined the half-tone cuts with a critical eye. "You're right, Abe," he said. "We'll have our troubles next season, but we take our profit on silk goods, Abe, the same as we do on cotton goods." Abe was about to retort when a wave of recollection came over him, and he clutched wildly at his breast pocket. "Ho-ly smokes!" he cried. "I forgot all about it." "Forgot all about what?" Morris asked. "B. Sheitlis, of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting Company," Abe replied. "He give me a stock in Pittsburg last week, and I forgot all about it." "A stock!" Morris exclaimed. "What for a stock?" "A stock from the stock exchange," Abe replied; "a stock from gold and silver mines. He wanted me I should do it a favor for him and see a stock broker here and sell it for him." "Well, that's pretty easy," Morris rejoined. "There's lots of stock brokers in New York, Abe. There's pretty near as many stock brokers as there is suckers, Abe." "Maybe there is, Mawruss," Abe replied, "but I don't know any of them." "No?" Morris said. "Well, Sol Klinger, of Klinger & Klein, could tell you, I guess. I seen him in the subway this morning, and he was pretty near having a fit over the financial page of the Sun. I[Pg 155] asked him if he seen a failure there, and he says no, but Steel has went up to seventy, maybe it was eighty. So I says to him he should let Andrew Carnegie worry about that, and he says if he would of bought it at forty he would have been in thirty thousand dollars already." "Who?" Abe asked. "Andrew Carnegie?" "No," Morris said; "Sol Klinger. So I says to him I could get all the excitement I wanted out of auction pinochle and he says——" "S'enough, Mawruss," Abe broke in. "I heard enough already. I'll ring him up and ask him the name of the broker what does his business." He went to the telephone in the back of the store and returned a moment later and put on his hat and coat. "I rung up Sol, Mawruss," he said, "and Sol tells me that a good broker is Gunst & Baumer. They got a branch office over Hill, Arkwright & Thompson, the auctioneers, Mawruss. He says a young feller by the name Milton Fiedler is manager, and if he can't sell that stock, Mawruss, Sol says nobody can. So I guess I'll go right over and see him while I got it in my mind." Milton Fiedler had served an arduous apprenticeship before he attained the position of branch manager for Gunst & Baumer in the dry-goods district. During the thirty odd years of his life he had been in turn stockboy, clothing salesman, bookmaker's clerk, faro dealer, poolroom cashier and, finally,[Pg 156] bucketshop proprietor. When the police closed him up he sought employment with Gunst & Baumer, whose exchange affiliations precluded any suspicion of bucketing, but who, nevertheless, did a thriving business in curb securities of the cat-and-dog variety, and it was in this particular branch of the science of investment and speculation that Milton excelled. Despite his expert knowledge, however, he was slightly stumped, as the vernacular has it, when Abe Potash produced B. Sheitlis' stock, for in all his bucketshop and curb experience he had never even heard of the Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation. "This is one of those smaller mines, Mr. Potash," he explained, "which sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. Of course, I can't tell you offhand what the value of the stock is, but I'll make inquiries at once. The inside market at present is very strong, as you know." Abe nodded, as he thought was expected of him, although "inside" and "outside" markets were all one to him. "And curb securities naturally feel the influence of the bullish sentiment," Fiedler continued. "It isn't the business of a broker to try to influence a customer's choice, but I'd like you to step outside"—they were in the manager's private office—"and look at the quotation board for a moment. Interstate Copper is remarkably active this morning." He led Abe into an adjoining room where a tall[Pg 157] youth was taking green cardboard numbers from a girdle which he wore, and sticking them on the quotation board. "Hello!" Fiedler exclaimed as the youth affixed a new number. "Interstate Copper has advanced a whole point since two days ago. It's now two and an eighth." Simultaneously, a young man in the back of the room exclaimed aloud in woeful profanity. "What's the matter with him?" Abe asked. "They play 'em both ways—a-hem!" Fiedler corrected himself in time. "Occasionally we have a customer who sells short of the market, and then, of course, if the market goes up he gets stung—er—he sustains a loss." Here the door opened and Sol Klinger entered. His bulging eyes fell on the quotation board, and at once his face spread into a broad smile. "Hello, Sol!" Abe cried. "You look like you sold a big bill of goods." "I hope I look better than that, Abe," Sol replied. "I make it more on that Interstate Copper in two days what I could make it on ten big bills of goods. That's a great property, Abe." "I think Mr. Klinger will have reason to congratulate himself still more by to-morrow, Mr. Potash," Fiedler broke in. "Interstate Copper is a stock with an immediate future." "You bet," Sol agreed. "I'm going to hold on to mine. It'll go up to five inside of a week." [Pg 158]The young man from the rear of the room took the two rows of chairs at a jump. "Fiedler," he said, "I'm going to cover right away. Buy me a thousand Interstate at the market." Sol nudged Abe, and after the young man and Fiedler had disappeared into the latter's private office Sol imparted in hoarse whispers to Abe that the young man was reported to have information from the ground-floor crowd about Interstate Copper. "Well, if that's so," Abe replied, "why does he lose money on it?" "Because," Sol explained, "he's got an idee that if you act just contrariwise to the inside information what you get it, why then you come out right." Abe shook his head hopelessly. "Pinochle, I understand it," he said, "and skat a little also. But this here stocks from stock exchanges is worser than chest what they play it in coffee-houses." "You don't need to understand it, Abe," Sol replied. "All you do is to buy a thousand Interstate Copper to-day or to-morrow at any price up to two and a half, Abe, and I give you a guarantee that you make twenty-five hundred dollars by next week." When Abe returned to his place of business that day he had developed a typical case of stock-gambling fever, with which he proceeded to inoculate Morris as soon as the latter came back from lunch. Abe at once recounted all his experiences of[Pg 159] the morning and dwelt particularly on the phenomenal rise of Interstate Copper. "Sol says he guarantees that we double our money in a week," he concluded. "Did he say he would put it in writing?" Morris asked. Abe glared at Morris for an instant. "Do you think I am making jokes?" he rejoined. "He don't got to put it in writing, Mawruss. It's as plain as the nose on your face. We pay twenty-five hundred dollars for a thousand shares at two and a half to-day, and next week it goes up to five and we sell it and make it twenty-five hundred dollars. Ain't it?" "Who do we sell it to?" Morris asked. Abe pondered for a moment, then his face brightened up. "Why, to the stock exchange, certainly," he replied. "Must they buy it from us, Abe?" Morris inquired. "Sure they must, Mawruss," Abe said. "Ain't Sol Klinger always selling his stocks to them people?" "Well, Sol Klinger got his customers, Abe, and we got ours," Morris replied doubtfully. "Maybe them people would buy it from Sol and wouldn't buy it from us." For the rest of the afternoon Morris plied Abe with questions about the technicalities of the stock[Pg 160] market until Abe took refuge in flight and went home at half-past five. The next morning Morris resumed his quiz until Abe's replies grew personal in character. "What's the use of trying to explain something to nobody what don't understand nothing?" he exclaimed. "Maybe I don't understand it," Morris admitted, "but also you don't understand it, too, maybe. Ain't it?" "I understand this much, Mawruss," Abe cried—"I understand, Mawruss, that if Sol Klinger tells me he guarantees it I make twenty-five hundred dollars, and this here Milton Fiedler, too, he also says it, and a young feller actually with my own eyes I see it buys this stock because he's got information from inside people, why shouldn't we buy it and make money on it? Ain't it?" Morris was about to reply when the letter carrier entered with the morning mail. Abe took the bundle of envelopes, and on the top of the pile was a missive from Gunst & Baumer. Abe tore open the envelope and looked at the letter hurriedly. "You see, Mawruss," he cried, "already it goes up a sixteenth." He handed the letter to Morris. It read as follows: <table class="tspec2" summary="correspondence"> <tr> <td class="tdleft" colspan="3">Gentlemen:</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdleft" colspan="3">For your information we beg to advise you that Interstate Copper advanced a sixteenth at the close of the market yesterday. Should you desire us to execute a buying order in these securities, we urge you to let us know before ten o'clock to-morrow morning, as we believe that a sharp advance will follow the opening of the market.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdleft"></td> <td class="tdleft" colspan="2">Truly yours,</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdright"></td> <td class="tdright1" colspan="2">Gunst & Baumer</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdright"></td> <td class="tdright" colspan="2">Milton Fiedler, Mgr.</td> </tr> </table> [Pg 161] "Well," Abe said, "what do you think, Mawruss?" "Think!" Morris cried. "Why, I think that he ain't said nothing to us about them gold and silver stocks of B. Sheitlis', Abe, so I guess he ain't sold 'em yet. If he can't sell a stock from gold and silver already, Abe, what show do we stand with a stock from copper?" "That Sheitlis stock is only a small item, Mawruss." "Well, maybe it is," Morris admitted, "but just you ring up and ask him. Then, if we find that he sold that gold and silver stock we take a chance on the copper." Abe hastened to the telephone in the rear of the store. "Listen, Abe," Morris called after him, "tell him it should be no dating or discount, strictly net cash." In less than a minute, Abe was conversing with Fiedler. "Mr. Fiedler!" he said. "Hello, Mr. Fiedler! Is this you? Yes. Well, me and Mawruss is about decided to buy a thousand of them stocks what you showed me down at your store—at your office yesterday,[Pg 162] only, Mawruss says, why should we buy them goods—them stocks if you ain't sold that other stocks already. First, he says, you should sell them stocks from gold and silver, Mr. Fiedler, and then we buy them copper ones." Mr. Fiedler, at the other end of the 'phone, hesitated before replying. The Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation was a paper mine that had long since faded from the memory of every bucketshop manager he knew, and its stock was worth absolutely nothing. Yet Gunst & Baumer, as the promoters of Interstate Copper, would clear at least two thousand dollars by the sale of the stock to Abe and Morris; hence, Fiedler took a gambler's chance. "Why, Mr. Potash," he said, "a boy is already on the way to your store with a check for that very stock. I sold it for three hundred dollars and I sent you a check for two hundred and seventy-five dollars. Twenty-five dollars is our usual charge for selling a hundred shares of stock that ain't quoted on the curb." "Much obliged, Mr. Fiedler," Abe said. "I'll be down there with a check for twenty-five hundred." "All right," Mr. Fiedler replied. "I'll go ahead and buy the stock for your account." "Well," Abe said, "don't do that until I come down. I got to fix it up with my partner first, Mr. Fiedler, and just as soon as I can get there I'll bring you the check." Twenty minutes after Abe had rung off a messenger[Pg 163] arrived with a check for two hundred and seventy-five dollars, and Morris included it in the morning deposits which he was about to send over to the Kosciusko Bank. "While you're doing that, Mawruss," Abe said, "you might as well draw a check for twenty-five hundred dollars for that stock." Morris grunted. "That's going to bring down our balance a whole lot, Abe," he said. "Only for a week, Mawruss," Abe corrected, "and then we'll sell it again." "Whose order do I write it to, Abe?" Morris inquired. "I forgot to ask that," Abe replied. "Gunst & Baumer?" Morris asked. "They ain't the owners of it, Mawruss," said Abe. "They're only the brokers." "Maybe Sol Klinger is selling it to the stock-exchange people and they're selling it to us," Morris suggested. "Sol Klinger ain't going to sell his. He's going to hang on to it. Maybe it's this young feller what I see there, Mawruss, only I don't know his name." "Well, then, I'll make it out to Potash & Perlmutter, and you can indorse it when you get there," said Morris. At this juncture a customer entered, and Abe took him into the show-room, while Morris wrote out the check. For almost an hour and a half Abe displayed[Pg 164] the firm's line, from which the customer selected a generous order, and when at last Abe was free to go down to Gunst & Baumer's it was nearly twelve o'clock. He put on his hat and coat, and jumped on a passing car, and it was not until he had traveled two blocks that he remembered the check. He ran all the way back to the store and, tearing the check out of the checkbook where Morris had left it, he dashed out again and once more boarded a Broadway car. In front of Gunst & Baumer's offices he leaped wildly from the car to the street, and, escaping an imminent fire engine and a hosecart, he ran into the doorway and took the stairs three at a jump. On the second floor of the building was Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's salesroom, where a trade sale was in progress, and the throng of buyers collected there overflowed onto the landing, but Abe elbowed his way through the crowd and made the last flight in two seconds. "Is Mr. Fiedler in?" he gasped as he burst into the manager's office of Gunst & Baumer's suite. "Mr. Fiedler went out to lunch," the office-boy replied. "He says you should sit down and wait, and he'll be back in ten minutes." [Pg 165]But Abe was too nervous for sitting down, and the thought of the customers' room with its quotation board only agitated him the more. "I guess I'll go downstairs to Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's," he said, "and give a look around. I'll be back in ten minutes." He descended the stairs leisurely and again elbowed his way through the crowd into the salesroom of Hill, Arkwright & Thompson. Mr. Arkwright was on the rostrum, and as Abe entered he was announcing the next lot. "Look at them carefully, gentlemen," he said. "An opportunity like this seldom arises. They are all fresh goods, woven this season for next season's business—foulard silks of exceptionally good design and quality." At the word silks Abe started and made at once for the tables on which the goods were piled. He examined them critically, and as he did so his mind reverted to the half-tone cuts in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record. Here was a rare chance to lay in a stock of piece goods that might not recur for several years, certainly not before next season had passed. "It's to close an estate, gentlemen," Mr. Arkwright continued. "The proprietor of the mills died recently, and his executors have decided to wind up the business. All these silk foulards will be offered as one lot. What is the bid?" Immediately competition became fast and furious, and Abe entered into it with a zest and excitement that completely eclipsed all thought of stock exchanges or copper shares. The bids rose by leaps and bounds, and when, half an hour later, Abe emerged from the fray his collar was melted to the consistency of a pocket handkerchief, but the light of victory shone through his perspiration. He was the[Pg 166] purchaser of the entire lot, and by token of his ownership he indorsed the twenty-five-hundred-dollar check to the order of Hill, Arkwright & Thompson. The glow of battle continued with Abe until he reached the show-room of his own place of business at two o'clock. "Well, Abe," Morris cried, "did you buy the stock?" "Huh?" Abe exclaimed, and then, for the first time since he saw the silk foulards, he remembered Interstate Copper. "I was to Wasserbauer's Restaurant for lunch," Morris continued, "and in the café I seen that thing what the baseball comes out of it, Abe." "The tickler," Abe croaked. "That's it," Morris went on. "Also, Sol Klinger was looking at it, and he told me Interstate Copper was up to three already." Abe sat down in a chair and passed his hand over his forehead. "That's the one time when you give it us good advice, Abe," said Morris. "Sol says we may make it three thousand dollars yet." Abe nodded. He licked his dry lips and essayed to speak, but the words of confession would not come. "It was a lucky day for us, Abe, when you seen B. Sheitlis," Morris continued. "Of course, I ain't saying it was all luck, Abe, because it wasn't. If you[Pg 167] hadn't seen the opportunity, Abe, and practically made me go into it, I wouldn't of done nothing, Abe." Abe nodded again. If the guilt he felt inwardly had expressed itself in his face there would have been no need of confession. At length he braced himself to tell it all; but just as he cleared his throat by way of prelude Morris was summoned to the cutting-room and remained there until closing-time. Thus, when Abe went home his secret remained locked up within his breast, nor did he find it a comfortable burden, for when he looked at the quotations of curb securities in the evening paper he found that Interstate Copper had closed at four and a half, after a total day's business of sixty thousand shares. The next morning Abe reached his store more than two hours after his usual hour. He had rolled on his pillow all night, and it was almost day before he could sleep. "Why, Abe," Morris cried when he saw him, "you look sick. What's the matter?" "I feel mean, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I guess I eat something what disagrees with me." Ordinarily, Morris would have made rejoinder to the effect that when a man reached Abe's age he ought to know enough to take care of his stomach; but Morris had devoted himself to the financial column of a morning newspaper on his way downtown, and his feelings toward his partner were mollified in proportion. [Pg 168]"That's too bad, Abe," he said. "Why don't you see a doctor?" Abe shook his head and was about to reply when the telephone bell rang. "That's Sol Klinger," Morris exclaimed. "He said he would let me know at ten o'clock what this Interstate Copper opened at." He darted for the telephone in the rear of the store, and when he returned his face was wreathed in smiles. "It has come up to five already," he cried. "We make it twenty-five hundred dollars." While Morris was talking over the 'phone Abe had been trying to bring his courage to the sticking point, and the confession was on the very tip of his tongue when the news which Morris brought forced it back again. He rose wearily to his feet. "I guess you think we're getting rich quick, Mawruss," he said, and repaired to the bookkeeper's desk in the firm's private office. For the next two hours and a half he dodged about, with one eye on Morris and the other on the rear entrance to the store. He expected the silk to arrive at any moment, and he knew that when it did the jig would be up. It was with a sigh of relief that he saw Morris go out to lunch at half-past twelve, and almost immediately afterward Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's truckman arrived with the goods. Abe superintended the disposal of the packing cases in the cutting-room, and he was engaged in[Pg 169] opening them when Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, entered. "Mr. Potash," she said, "Mr. Perlmutter wants to see you in the show-room." "Did he come back from lunch so soon?" Abe asked. "He came in right after he went out," she replied. "I guess he must be sick. He looks sick." Abe turned pale. "I guess he found it out," he said to himself as he descended the stairs and made for the show-room. When he entered he found Morris seated in a chair with the first edition of an evening paper clutched in his hand. "What's the matter, Mawruss?" Abe said. Morris gulped once or twice and made a feeble attempt to brandish the paper. "Matter?" he croaked. "Nothing's the matter. Only, we are out twenty-five hundred dollars. That's all." "No, we ain't, Mawruss," Abe protested. "What we are out in one way we make in another." Morris sought to control himself, but his pent-up emotions gave themselves vent. "We do, hey?" he roared. "Well, maybe you think because I took your fool advice this oncet that I'll do it again?" He grew red in the face. "Gambler!" he yelled. "Fool! You shed my blood! What? You want to ruin me! Hey?" [Pg 170]Abe had expected a tirade, but nothing half as violent as this. "Mawruss," he said soothingly, "don't take it so particular." He might as well have tried to stem Niagara with a shovel. "Ain't the cloak and suit business good enough for you?" Morris went on. "Must you go throwing away money on stocks from stock exchanges?" Abe scratched his head. These rhetorical questions hardly fitted the situation, especially the one about throwing away money. "Look-y here, Mawruss," he said, "if you think you scare me by this theayter acting you're mistaken. Just calm yourself, Mawruss, and tell me what you heard it. I ain't heard nothing." For answer Morris handed him the evening paper. "Sensational Failure in Wall Street," was the red-letter legend on the front page. With bulging eyes Abe took in the import of the leaded type which disclosed the news that Gunst & Baumer, promoters of Interstate Copper, having boosted its price to five, were overwhelmed by a flood of profit-taking. To support their stock Gunst & Baumer were obliged to buy in all the Interstate offered at five, and when at length their resources gave out they announced their suspension. Interstate immediately collapsed and sold down in less than a quarter of an hour from five bid, five and a thirty-second asked, to a quarter bid, three-eighths asked. [Pg 171]Abe handed back the paper to Morris and lit a cigar. "For a man what has just played his partner for a sucker, Abe," Morris said, "you take it nice and quiet." Abe puffed slowly before replying. "After all, Mawruss," he said, "I was right." "You was right?" Morris exclaimed. "What d'ye mean?" "I mean, Mawruss," Abe went on, "I figured it out right. I says to myself when I got that check for twenty-five hundred dollars: If I buy this here stock from stock exchanges and we make money Mawruss will go pretty near crazy. He'll want to buy it the whole stock exchange full from stocks, and in the end it will bust us. On the other hand, Mawruss, I figured it out that if we bought this here stock and lose money on it, then Mawruss'll go crazy also, and want to murder me or something." He paused and puffed again at his cigar. "So, Mawruss," he concluded, "I went down to Gunst & Baumer's building, Mawruss; but instead of going to Gunst & Baumer, Mawruss, I went one flight lower down to Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's, Mawruss, and I didn't buy it Interstate Copper, Mawruss, but I bought it instead silk foulards, Mawruss—seventy-five hundred dollars' worth for twenty-five hundred dollars, and it's laying right now up in the cutting-room." He leaned back in his chair and triumphantly[Pg 172] surveyed his partner, who had collapsed into a crushed and perspiring heap. "So, Mawruss," he said, "I am a gambler. Hey? I shed your blood? What? I ruin you with my fool advice? Ain't it?" Morris raised a protesting hand. "Abe," he murmured huskily, "I done you an injury. It's me what's the fool. I was carried away by B. Sheitlis' making his money so easy." Abe jumped to his feet. "Ho-ly smokes!" he cried and dashed out of the show-room to the telephone in the rear of the store. He returned a moment later with his cigar at a rakish angle to his jutting lower lip. "It's all right, Mawruss," he said. "I rung up the Kosciusko Bank and the two-hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar check went through all right." "Sure it did," Morris replied, his drooping spirits once more revived. "I deposited it at eleven o'clock yesterday morning. I don't take no chances on getting stuck, Abe, and I only hope you didn't get stuck on them foulards, neither." Abe grinned broadly. "You needn't worry about that, Mawruss," he replied. "Stocks from stock exchanges maybe I don't know it, Mawruss; but stocks from silk foulards I do know it, Mawruss, and don't you forget it." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 173] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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