what?"

"What do you mean am I crazy?" Abe said. "We carry burglary insurance,
ain't it? And besides he ain't, Mawruss, Max Linkheimer says, missed so
much as a button since the feller worked for him."

"A button," Morris shouted; "let me tell you something, Abe. Max
Linkheimer could miss a thousand buttons, and what is it? But with us,
Abe, one piece of silk goods is more as a hundred dollars."

"'S all right, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "Max Linkheimer says we
shouldn't be afraid. He says he trusts the young feller in the office
with hundreds of dollars laying in the safe, and he ain't touched a cent
so far. Furthermore, the young feller's got a wife and baby, Mawruss."

"Well I got a wife and baby too, Abe."

"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and so you ought to got a little sympathy for
the feller."

Morris laughed raucously.

"Sure, I know, Abe," he replied. "A good way to lose money in business,
Abe, is to got sympathy for somebody. You sell a feller goods, Abe,
because he's a new beginner and you got sympathy for him, Abe, and the
feller busts up on you. You accommodate a concern with five hundred
dollars--a check against their check dated two weeks ahead, Abe--because
their collections is slow and you got sympathy for them, and when the
two weeks goes by, Abe, the check is N. G. You give a feller out in
Kansas City two months an extension because he done a bad spring
business, and you got sympathy for him, and the first thing you know,
Abe, a jobber out in Omaha gets a judgment against him and closes him
up. And that's the way it goes. If we would hire this young feller
because we got sympathy for him, Abe, the least that happens us is that
he gets away with a couple hundred dollars' worth of piece goods."

"Max Linkheimer says positively nothing of the kind," Abe insisted. "Max
says the feller has turned around a new leaf, and he would trust him
like a brother."

"Like a brother-in-law, you mean, Abe," Morris jeered. "That feller
Linkheimer never trusted nobody for nothing, Abe. Always by the first of
the month comes a statement, and if he don't get a check by the fifth,
Abe, he sends another with 'past due' stamped on to it."

"So much the better, Mawruss. If Max Linkheimer don't trust nobody,
Mawruss, and he lets this young feller work in his store, Mawruss, then
the feller must be O. K. Ain't it?"

Morris rose wearily to his feet.

"All right, Abe," he said. "If Linkheimer is so anxious to get rid of
t