oblin wants to talk to you."

"He does, hey?" Abe replied. "Well, I don't want to talk to him."

"You should tell him that yourself," Morris said as he walked away from
the telephone. "I ain't got nothing to do with your quarrels."

Abe watched Morris disappear into the showroom and then he ran to the
telephone and slammed the receiver on to the hook with force
sufficient almost to wreck the instrument. At intervals of a few seconds
the telephone rang for more than half an hour. Fifteen minutes after it
had ceased the elevator door opened and Max Koblin entered.

"Cut-throat!" Koblin exclaimed. "I rung up my son and he wouldn't come
back. You are turning him against me--you and them two other crooks. You
think you would get my money out of me. Very well. I'll show you. I
ain't through with you yet. I'll put you fellers where you belong."

"Don't make me no threats, Koblin," Abe said calmly, "because, in the
first place, you couldn't scare me any, and, in the second place, if you
think I am trying to keep your boy away from you, you are
mistaken--that's all. I already wasted a whole morning on him and, just
to show you I ain't such a crook as you think I am, I would go right
down there now; and if I got to do it I would drag that young loafer out
of there by the hair of his head."

Twenty minutes later Abe burst into Katzberg & Schapp's business
premises and asked in loud tones for Sidney Koblin. Before the
astonished Shapolnik could reply, Max Koblin, who had followed Abe on
the next car, arrived all breathless and panted a similar demand.

"He ain't in now," Shapolnik replied; "he is just going to his lunch."

"What d'ye mean by talking to me on the 'phone the way you did this
morning?" Max shouted. "You ain't got no business to keep my boy from
me."

"I ain't keeping your boy from you," Shapolnik answered; "and I would
speak to you whichever what way I would want to. Who are you anyway?"

"_Koosh!_ Shapolnik," Abe interrupted. "You are talking too fresh. Mr.
Koblin is right. You should fire that young feller right away, because I
am telling you right here and now I wouldn't guarantee nothing for him
after this."

"What do I care what you would guarantee or what you wouldn't
guarantee?" Shapolnik replied. "The young feller already sold for us
this morning for five hundred dollars a bill of goods, and he could stay
with us _oder_ not, just as he wants. Furthermore, Mr. Potash, I don't
give a snap of my finge