LITMIR.BIZ

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thing," M. Garfunkel said, "here is a check for the current bill."

      "No hurry," Abe and Morris exclaimed, with what the musical critics call splendid attack.

      "Now that that's out of the way," M. Garfunkel went on, "I want to give you another order. Only thing is, Mawruss, you know as well as I do that in the installment cloak and suit business a feller needs a lot of capital. Ain't it?"

      Morris nodded.

      "And if he buys goods only for cash or thirty or sixty days, Abe," M. Garfunkel continued, "he sometimes gets pretty cramped for money, because his own customers takes a long time to pay up. Ain't it?"

      Abe nodded, too.

      "Well, then," M. Garfunkel concluded, "I'll give you boys a fine order, but this time it's got to be ninety days."

      Abe puffed hard on his cigar, and Morris loosened his collar, which had become suddenly tight.

      "I always paid prompt my bills. Ain't it?" M. Garfunkel asked.

      "Sure, Mr. Garfunkel," Abe replied. "That you did do it. But ninety days is three months, and ourselves we got to pay our bills in thirty days."

      "However," Morris broke in, "that is neither there nor here. A good customer is a good customer, Abe, and so I'm agreeable."

      This put the proposition squarely up to Abe, and he found it a difficult matter to refuse credit to a customer whose check for two thousand dollars was even then reposing in Abe's waistcoat pocket.

      "All right," Abe said. "Go ahead and pick out your goods."

      For two solid hours M. Garfunkel went over Potash & Perlmutter's line and, selecting hundred lots of their choicest styles, bought a three-thousand-dollar order.

      "We ain't got but half of them styles in stock," said Morris, "but we can make 'em up right away."

      "Then, them goods what you got in stock, Mawruss," said Garfunkel, "I must have prompt by to-morrow, and the others in ten days."

      "That's all right," Morris replied, and when M. Garfunkel left the store Abe and Morris immediately set about the assorting of the ordered stock.

      "Look a-here, Mawruss," Abe said, "I thought you was going to see about that girl for my Rosie."

      "Why, so I was, Abe," Morris replied; "I'll attend to it right away."

      He went to the telephone and rang up his wife, and five minutes later returned to the front of the store.

      "Ain't that the funniest thing, Abe," he said. "My Minnie speaks to the girl, and the girl says she got a cousin what's just going to quit her job, Abe. She'll be the very girl for your Rosie."

      "I don't know, Mawruss," Abe replied. "My Rosie is a particular woman. She don't want no girl what's got fired for being dirty or something like that, Mawruss. We first want to get a report on her and find out what she gets fired for."

      "You're right, Abe," Morris said. "I'll find out from Lina to-night."

      Once more they fell to their task of assorting and packing the major part of Garfunkel's order, and by six o'clock over fifteen hundred dollars' worth of goods was ready for delivery.

      "We'll ship them to-morrow," Abe said, as they commenced to lock up for the night, "and don't forget about that girl, Mawruss."

      On his way downtown the next morning Abe met Leon Sammet, senior member of the firm of Sammet Brothers. Between Abe and Leon existed the nominal truce of competition, which in the cloak and suit trade implies that while they cheerfully exchanged credit information from their office files they maintained a constant guerilla warfare for the capture of each other's customers.

      Now, M. Garfunkel had been a particularly strong customer of Sammet Brothers, and since Abe assumed that M. Garfunkel had dropped Sammet Brothers in favor of Potash & Perlmutter his manner toward Leon was bland and apologetic.

      "Well, Leon," he said, "how's business?"

      Leon's face wrinkled into a smile.

      "It could be better, of course, Abe," he said, "but we done a tremendous spring trade, anyhow, even though we ain't got no more that sucker Louis Grossman working for us. We shipped a couple of three-thousand-dollar orders last week. One of 'em to Strauss, Kahn & Baum, of Fresno."

      These were old customers of Potash & Perlmutter, and Abe winced.

      "They was old customers of ours, Leon," he said, "but they done such a cheap class of trade we couldn't cut our line enough to please 'em."

      "Is that so?" Leon rejoined. "Maybe M. Garfunkel was an old customer of yours, too, Abe."

      "M. Garfunkel?" Abe cried. "Was M. Garfunkel the other?"

      "He certainly was," Leon boasted. "We shipped him three thousand dollars. One of our best customers, Abe. Always pays to the day."

      For the remainder of the subway journey Abe was quite unresponsive to Leon's jibes, a condition which Leon attributed to chagrin, and as they parted at Canal Street Leon could not forbear a final gloat.

      "I suppose, Abe, M. Garfunkel does too cheap a class of trade to suit you, also. Ain't it?" he said.

      Abe made no reply, and as he walked south toward White Street Max Lapidus, of Lapidus & Elenbogen, another and a smaller competitor, bumped into him.

      "Hallo, Abe," Max said. "What's that Leon Sammet was saying just now about M. Garfunkel?"

      "Oh, M. Garfunkel is a good customer of his," Abe replied cautiously; "so he claims."

      "Don't you believe it," said Max. "M. Garfunkel told me himself he used to do some business with Sammet Brothers, but he don't do it no more. We done a big business with M. Garfunkel ourselves."

      "So?" Abe commented.

      "We sold him a couple of thousand dollars at ninety days last week," Lapidus went on. "He's elegant pay, Abe. We sold him a good-size order every couple of months this season, and he pays prompt to the day. Once he discounted his bill."

      "Is that so?" Abe said, as they reached the front of Potash & Perlmutter's store. "Glad to hear M. Garfunkel is so busy. Good-morning, Max."

      Morris Perlmutter met him at the door.

      "Hallo, Abe," he cried. "What's the matter? You look pale. Is Rosie worse?"

      Abe shook his head.

      "Mawruss," he said, "did you ship them goods to M. Garfunkel yet?"

      "They'll be out in ten minutes," Morris replied.

      "Hold 'em for a while till I telephone over to Klinger & Klein," Abe said.

      "What you looking for, Abe?" Morris asked. "More information? You know as well as I do, Abe, that Klinger & Klein is so conservative they wouldn't sell Andrew Carnegie unless they got a certified check in advance."

      "That's all right, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "Maybe they wouldn't sell Andrew Carnegie, but if I ain't mistaken they did sell M. Garfunkel. Everybody sold him, even Lapidus & Elenbogen. So I guess I'll telephone 'em."

      "Well, wait a bit, Abe," Morris cried. "My Minnie's girl Lina is here with her cousin. I brought 'em down this morning so you could talk to her yourself."

      "All right," Abe replied. "Tell 'em to come into the show-room."

      A moment later Lina and her cousin Anna entered the show-room. Both were arrayed in Potash & Perlmutter's style forty-twenty-two, but while Lina wore a green hat approximating the hue of early spring foliage, Anna's head-covering was yellow with just a few crimson-lake roses—about eight large ones—on the side.

      "Close the window, Mawruss," said Abe. "There's so much noise coming from outside I can't hear myself think."

      "The window is closed, Abe," Morris replied. "It's your imagination."

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