up there. And mind you, Mawruss, Moe Griesman had just bought out
Sam Green's competitors, Van Buskirk & Patterson. And Max Kirschner
knows all the time that the only reason that we took on Mozart Rabiner
was on account of his uncle, Moe Griesman."

Sol Klinger was so interested in his own narrative that he completely
failed to notice its effect on Morris Perlmutter, who sat with his jaw
dropping lower and lower, while great beads of perspiration stood on his
forehead.

"Yes, Mawruss," Sol continued; "Moe Griesman even comes down himself
from Sarahcuse to Cyprus to superintend things. Five thousand dollars
fixtures he puts in and forty thousand dollars he pays them two yokels,
Van Buskirk & Patterson, for the good-will, stock, and store building;
and what happens? For a whole month Moe sits in that store and not a
hundred dollars' worth of goods goes out of the place, Mawruss; and why?
It seems that Sam Green and Max Kirschner does all the business because
Max Kirschner is born and raised in Cyprus and knows everybody in the
place."

"Max was born and raised in Cyprus?" Morris gasped.

"That's what I said," Sol replied. "That's a _Nachbarschaft_ for a
feller to be born in! What?"

Morris nodded and rose wearily to his feet.

"I never could remember the name of the place even, at all," he said.
"Well, I guess now I would be getting back to the store."

"You got my permission," Sol said as Morris started from the restaurant.
These were destined to be the last words addressed to Morris by Sol
Klinger in many a long day, for the moving incidents which awaited
Morris's return to his showroom put an end to all friendship between him
and Sol.

_Imprimis_, when Morris entered, Moe Griesman was seated in the firm's
private office, the centre of an animated group of four. "Hello, there,
Mawruss!" Moe shouted; "there's a couple of gentlemen here which would
like to talk to you."

He indicated a ruddy, clean-shaven person of approximately fifty years,
who on closer inspection proved to be Max Kirschner shorn of his white
moustache and without the attendant nimbus of his diamond pin. The other
individual was even harder to identify by reason of a neat-fitting
business suit of brown and a general air of prosperity; but in him
Morris descried the person of what had once been Sam Green.

"Morris, you old rascal," Max cried, "when you took me over to the
Prince Clarence Hotel that day why didn't you tell me that the man you