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he gasped, "that's one of them forty-twenty-two's I ordered yesterday."

      Anna lifted both her arms the better to display the gown's perfection, and Garfunkel examined it with the eye of an expert.

      "Let's see the back," he said. "That looks great on you, Anna."

      He spun her round and round in his anxiety to view the gown from all angles.

      "I must have been crazy to cancel that order," he went on. "Where did you get it, Anna?"

      "Me buy from Potash & Perlmutter," she said. "My coosin Lina works by Mr. Perlmutter. She gets one yesterday for two dollar. Me see it last night and like it. So me get up five o'clock this morning and go downtown and buy one for two dollar, too."

      M. Garfunkel made a rapid mental calculation, while Anna left to prepare the belated breakfast.

      He estimated that Anna had paid a little less for her retail purchase than the price Potash & Perlmutter had quoted to him for hundred lots.

      "They're worth it, too," he said to himself. "Potash & Perlmutter is a couple of pretty soft suckers, to be selling goods below cost to servant-girls. I always thought Abe Potash was a pretty hard nut, but I guess I'll be able to do business with 'em, after all."

      At half-past ten M. Garfunkel entered the store of Potash & Perlmutter and greeted Abe with a smile that blended apology, friendliness and ingratiation in what M. Garfunkel deemed to be just the right proportions. Abe glared in response.

      "Well, Abe," M. Garfunkel cried, "ain't it a fine weather?"

      "Is it?" Abe replied. "I don't worry about the kind of weather it is when I gets cancelations, Mr. Garfunkel. What for you cancel that order, Mr. Garfunkel?"

      M. Garfunkel raised a protesting palm.

      "Now, Abe," he said, "if you was to go into a house what you bought goods off of and seen a garment you just hear is all the rage on Fifth Avenue being tried on by a cow——"

      "A cow!" Abe said. "I want to tell you something, Mr. Garfunkel. That lady what you see trying on them Empires was Mawruss' girl what works by his wife, and while she ain't no Lillian Russell nor nothing like that, y'understand, if you think you should get out of taking them goods by calling her a cow you are mistaken."

      The qualities of ingratiation and friendliness departed from M. Garfunkel's smile, leaving it wholly apologetic.

      "Well, Abe, as a matter of fact," he said, "I ain't canceled that order altogether absolutely, y'understand. Maybe if you make inducements I might reconsider it."

      "Inducements!" Abe cried. "Inducements is nix. Them gowns costs us three dollars apiece, and we give 'em to you for three-ten. If we make any inducements we land in the poorhouse. Ain't it?"

      "Oh, the price is all right," M. Garfunkel protested, "but the terms is too strict. I can't buy all my goods at ten days. Sammet Brothers gives me a line at sixty and ninety days, and so I do most of my business with them. Now if I could get the same terms by you, Abe, I should consider your line ahead of Sammet Brothers'."

      "Excuse me," Abe interrupted. "I think I hear the telephone ringing."

      He walked to the rear of the store, where the telephone bell was jingling.

      "Miss Cohen," he said to the bookkeeper as he passed the office, "answer the 'phone. I'm going upstairs to speak to Mr. Perlmutter."

      He proceeded to the cutting-room, where Morris was superintending the unpacking of piece-goods.

      "Mawruss," he said, "M. Garfunkel is downstairs, and he says he will reconsider the cancelation and give it us a big order if we let him have better terms. What d'ye say, Mawruss?"

      Morris remained silent for a minute.

      "Take a chance, Abe," he said at length. "He can't bust up on us by the first bill. Can he?"

      "No," Abe agreed hesitatingly, "but he might, Mawruss?"

      "Sure he might," said Morris, "but if we don't take no chances, Abe, we might as well go out of the cloak and suit business. Sell him all he wants, Abe."

      "I'll sell him all he can pay for, Mawruss," said Abe, "and I guess that ain't over a thousand dollars."

      He returned to the first floor, where M. Garfunkel eagerly awaited him, and produced a box of the firm's K. to M. first and second credit customers' cigars.

      "Have a smoke, Mr. Garfunkel," he said.

      M. Garfunkel selected a cigar with care and sat down.

      "Well, Abe," he said, "that was a long talk you had over the telephone."

      "Sure it was," Abe replied. "The cashier of the Kosciusko Bank on Grand Street rang me up. He discounts some of our accounts what we sell responsible people, and he asks me that in future I get regular statements from all my customers—those that I want to discount their accounts in particular."

      M. Garfunkel nodded slowly.

      "Statements—you shall have it, Abe," he said, "but I may as well tell you that it's foolish to discount bills what you sell me. I sometimes discount them myself. I'll send you a statement, anyhow. Now let's look at your line, Abe. I wasted enough time already."

      For the next hour M. Garfunkel pawed over Potash & Perlmutter's stock, and when he finally took leave of Abe he had negotiated an order of a thousand dollars; terms, sixty days net.

      The statement of M. Garfunkel's financial condition, which arrived the following day, more than satisfied Morris Perlmutter and, had it not been quite so glowing in character, it might even have satisfied Abe Potash.

      "I don't know, Mawruss," he said; "some things looks too good to be true, Mawruss, and I guess this is one of them."

      "Always you must worry, Abe," Morris rejoined. "If Vanderbilt and Astor was partners together in the cloak and suit business, and you sold 'em a couple of hundred dollars' goods, Abe, you'd worry yourself sick till you got a check. I bet yer Garfunkel discounts his bill already."

      Morris' prophecy proved to be true, for at the end of four weeks M. Garfunkel called at Potash & Perlmutter's store and paid his sixty-day account with the usual discount of ten per cent. Moreover, he gave them another order for two thousand dollars' worth of goods at the same terms.

      In this instance, however, full fifty-nine days elapsed without word from M. Garfunkel, and on the morning of the sixtieth day Abe entered the store bearing every appearance of anxiety.

      "Well, Abe," Morris cried, "what's the matter now? You look like you was worried."

      "I bet yer I'm worried, Mawruss," Abe replied.

      "Well, what's the use of worrying?" he rejoined. "M. Garfunkel's account ain't due till to-day."

      "Always M. Garfunkel!" Abe cried. "M. Garfunkel don't worry me much, Mawruss. I'd like to see a check from him, too, Mawruss, but I ain't wasting no time on him. My Rosie is sick."

      "Sick!" Morris exclaimed. "That's too bad, Abe. What seems to be the trouble?"

      "She got the rheumatism in her shoulder," Abe replied, "and she tries to get a girl by intelligent offices to help her out, but it ain't no use. It breaks her all up to get a girl, Mawruss. Fifteen years already she cooks herself and washes herself, and now she's got to get a girl, Mawruss, but she can't get one."

      Morris clucked sympathetically.

      "Maybe that girl of yours, Mawruss," Abe went on as though making an innocent suggestion, "what we sell the forty-twenty-two to, maybe she got a sister or a cousin maybe, what wants a job, Mawruss."

      "I'll telephone my Minnie right away," Morris said, and as he turned to do so M. Garfunkel entered. Abe and Morris rushed forward to greet him. Each seized a hand and, patting him on the back, escorted him to the show-room.

      "First

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