LITMIR.BIZ

      What's This? A New Cloak Model You Got?

      Morris blushed, while Lina and M. Garfunkel both made a critical examination of the garment's eccentric fit.

      "Why, that's one of them forty-twenty-two's what I ordered a lot of this morning, Mawruss. Ain't it?"

      Morris gazed ruefully at the plum-color gown and nodded.

      "Then don't ship that order till you hear from me," M. Garfunkel said. "I guess I got to hustle right along."

      "Don't be in a hurry, Mr. Garfunkel," Morris cried. "You ain't come in the store just to tell me that, have you?"

      "Yes, I have," said Garfunkel, his eye still glued to Lina's bulging figure. "That's all what I come for. I'll write you this afternoon."

      He slammed the door behind him and Morris turned to the unbuttoning of the half-smothered Lina.

      "That'll be two dollars for you, Lina," he said, "and I guess it'll be about four hundred for us."

      At seven the next morning, when Abe came down the street from the subway, a bareheaded girl sat on the short flight of steps leading to Potash & Perlmutter's store door. As Abe approached, the girl rose and nodded, whereat Abe scowled.

      "If a job you want it," he said, "you should go round to the back door and wait till the foreman comes."

      "Me no want job," she said. "Me coosin."

      "Cousin!" Abe cried. "Whose cousin?"

      "Lina's coosin," said the girl. She held out her hand and, opening it, disclosed a two-dollar bill all damp and wrinkled. "Me want dress like Lina."

      "What!" Abe cried. "So soon already!"

      "Lina got nice red dress. She show it me last night," the girl said. "Me got one, too."

      She smiled affably, and for the first time Abe noticed the smooth, fair hair, the oval face and the slender, girlish figure that seemed made for an Empire gown. Then, of course, there was the two-dollar bill and its promise of a cash sale, which always makes a strong appeal to a credit-harried mind like Abe's. "Oh, well," he said with a sigh, leading the way to the rack of Empire gowns in the rear of the store, "if I must I suppose I must."

      He selected the smallest gown in stock and handed it to her.

      "If you can get into that by your own self you can have it for two dollars," he said, pocketing the crumpled bill. "I don't button up nothing for nobody."

      He gathered up the mail from the letter-box and carried it to the show-room. There was a generous pile of correspondence, and the very first letter that came to his hand bore the legend, "The Paris. Cloaks, Suits and Millinery. M. Garfunkel, Prop." Abe mumbled to himself as he tore it open.

      "I bet yer he claims a shortage in delivery, when we ain't even shipped him the goods yet," he said, and commenced to read the letter; "I bet yer he——"

      He froze into horrified silence as his protruding eyes took in the import of M. Garfunkel's note. Then he jumped from his chair and ran into the store, where the new retail customer was primping in front of the mirror.

      "Out," he yelled, "out of my store."

      She turned from the fascinating picture in the looking-glass to behold the enraged Abe brandishing the letter like a missile, and with one terrified shriek she made for the door and dashed wildly toward the corner.

      Morris was smoking an after-breakfast cigar as he strolled leisurely from the subway, and when he turned into White Street Abe was still standing on the doorstep.

      "What's the matter?" Morris asked.

      "Matter!" Abe cried. "Matter! Nothing's the matter. Everything's fine and dandy. Just look at that letter, Mawruss. That's all."

      Morris took the proffered note and opened it at once.

      "Gents," it read. "Your Mr. Perlmutter sold us them plum-color Empires this morning, and he said they was all the thing on Fifth Avenue. Now, gents, we sell to the First Avenue trade, like what was in your store this afternoon when our Mr. Garfunkel called, and our Mr. Garfunkel seen enough already. Please cancel the order. Your Mr. Perlmutter will understand. Truly yours, The Paris. M. Garfunkel, Prop."

      M. Garfunkel lived in a stylish apartment on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street. His family consisted of himself, Mrs. Garfunkel, three children and a Lithuanian maid named Anna, and it was a source of wonder to the neighbors that a girl so slight in frame could perform the menial duties of so large a household. She cooked, washed and sewed for the entire family with such cheerfulness and application that Mrs. Garfunkel deemed her a treasure and left to her discretion almost every domestic detail. Thus Anna always rose at six and immediately awakened Mr. Garfunkel, for M. Garfunkel's breakfast was an immovable feast, scheduled for half-past six.

      But on the morning after he had purchased the plum-color gowns from Potash & Perlmutter it was nearly eight before he awoke, and when he entered the dining-room, instead of the two fried eggs, the sausage and the coffee which usually greeted him, there were spread on the table only the evening papers, a brimming ash-tray and a torn envelope bearing the score of last night's pinochle game.

      He was about to return to the bedroom and report Anna's disappearance when a key rattled in the hall door and Anna herself entered. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was blown about her face in unbecoming disorder. Nevertheless, she smiled the triumphant smile of the well-dressed.

      "Me late," she said, but Garfunkel forgot all about his lost breakfast hour when he beheld the plum-color Empire.

      "Why,"

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