nn; and that's all there is to it."

"Well, go ahead, Abe," Morris said. "Go ahead and see him this
afternoon."

For the third time Abe put on his hat.

"First and foremost I would go out and get a bite to eat, Mawruss," he
said. "What good would it do me to get the fiddle back if I would die
from starvation first?"

* * * * *

Although the manufacturers of mechanical piano-players had never
solicited Felix Geigermann's photograph for half-tone reproductions in
the advertising section of anybody's magazine, he dressed as though he
expected the immediate arrival of the man with the camera--that is to
say, he wore his hair after Mahler, while Hollman and Moritz Rosenthal
contributed to the pattern of his moustache. Moreover, he assumed a
Paderewski tuft, a rolling collar that exposed the points of his right
and left clavicles, a Windsor tie, and, to preserve the unity of his
characterization, a slight nondescript foreign accent, despite the
circumstance that he was born in Newark, N. J. All this, however, was
not an idle pose on Felix's part. He merely applied to a dry-goods store
the business principles of the successful virtuoso, and he had found
them so efficacious that personally he sold more garments than any six
of his clerks. He was no less astute in the buying end of the business;
for in pitting Sammet Brothers, Klinger & Klein, and Potash & Perlmutter
against one another he not only secured better terms of credit, but he
found that it materially added to the quality of their garments.

Thus, had Abe but known it, his seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar order
proceeded not from the gift of the violin, but from the circumstance
that the velvet suits had sold like hot cakes; and when he entered the
Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street store that afternoon Felix greeted him
effusively. He wanted that second order badly, and if cordiality could
accelerate its shipment he was willing to try it with Abe.

"Ah, _mon ami_," he cried. "Come inside my office. What good wind blows
you here?"

Abe scowled. All this enthusiasm betokened but one thing--the violin was
a genuine Amati, after all. He sat down slowly and bit the end off a
large cigar.

"The fact is, Felix," he began, "for myself I don't care, y'understand,
but you know Mawruss Perlmutter, what a crank that feller is, Felix; and
so I am coming up here to ask you something for a question."

"Fire away, Abe; you couldn't feaze me none,