. Hurry
up with the paper."

Ten minutes afterward the boy returned. He handed an evening paper to
Uncle Mosha, who hastily planted a pair of pince-nez on his broad, flat
nose and folded back the financial page.

"Now let's give a look," he murmured to himself as he glanced hastily at
the column marked "The Stock Market."

At the head of the list appeared the following item:

Sales Highest Lowest Closing Net Ch'g
45100 Amal. Ref. 46-5/8 38-1/2 38-1/8 --4-1/8

"Wiped again!" he muttered as he dropped the paper to the floor.

Half an hour later, when Alex and Max Gershon came out of the
adjoining room with the copartnership agreement duly executed, they
found Uncle Mosha calmly smoking the last of his cigar while he pondered
over the "News for Investors" column. The tabulated list of quotations
was not unnoticed by Max as he felt for another cigar to present to the
old man.

"Do you ever speculate in Wall Street, Mr. Kronberg?" he asked.

"Oncet upon a time I used to," Uncle Mosha replied, "but never no more,
Maxie. It's a game which you couldn't beat--take it from me, Maxie--not
if you was a hundred times so smart as Old Man Baum."

* * * * *

"Well, Abe," Morris Perlmutter remarked as they sat in their showroom
ten days after the events above noted, "I did mix up in Alex Kronberg's
family matters and, with all your croaking, what is the result? Alex has
got a good partner; Uncle Mosha has got a good home, and ourselves we
got a good order for three thousand dollars, which otherwise we wouldn't
got at all."

"What are you talking nonsense, Mawruss?" Abe said. "Things wouldn't
turned out the way they did if it wouldn't be I met Max Gershon in
Hammersmith's. That's what started it, Mawruss."

"Nothing of the kind, Abe," Morris retorted. "What started it, Abe, was
me when I went down to Madison Street and give Uncle Mosha that cigar,
Abe. I tell you, Abe, it's an old saying and a true one: Throw away a
loaf of bread in the water, y'understand, and sooner or later, Abe, it
would come home like chickens to roost."

CHAPTER FOUR

THE RAINCOAT KING

"The table is all right, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked as he consulted
the timecard of the Long Island Railroad one hot July afternoon. "The
table is all right; I ain't kicking about the table, y'understand, but
the class of people which they stay in the house, Ma