" Felix replied in the
accents of Newark, N. J.

"Well, Felix, it's like this," Abe went on: "If we would be selling
goods to J. B. Morgan, y'understand, and Mawruss here he is buying for
eight dollars a fur overcoat--understand me--he right away would want
another statement."

Felix nodded. "Nowadays you can't be too cautious," he agreed.

"So, this morning, in the paper," Abe continued, "Mawruss reads you are
buying for three thousand dollars a fiddle and----"

"But, Abe," Felix interrupted, "it was a genuine Amati."

"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but yesterday I myself am bringing you a
genu-ine Amati and I didn't pay no such figure for it."

Felix looked carefully at Abe's stolid face for some gleam of humour;
and then he broke into a fit of laughter so violent that Abe suspected
it to be a trifle forced.

"All right, Felix," he grumbled; "maybe you think it is a joke, but just
the same I am telling you I paid for that fiddle only two hundred
dollars."

Felix stopped laughing and wiped his eyes.

"Well, I'm sorry, Abe," he said seriously. "A feller should never look a
gift horse in the teeth, Abe; but that fiddle ain't worth a cent more
than a hundred at the outside."

"Do you mean to say it ain't a genu-ine Amati?" Abe asked angrily.

"Why, I don't mean to say anything, Abe," Felix began; "but there are
Amatis and Amatis. Some of them are worth little fortunes and others are
very ordinary-like."

"Say, lookyhere, Felix," Abe cried, "don't fool with me. Either that
fiddle is or it ain't a genu-ine Amati. Ain't it?"

Felix paused. He wanted those velvet suits badly, and it began to look
as though there would be a delay in the shipment.

"What is all this leading to, Abe?" he began pleasantly. "If there's
anything troubling you speak right up and I'll try to straighten it
out."

Abe shifted his cigar in his mouth and made the plunge.

"What is the use beating bushes around, Felix?" he said. "Yesterday I am
giving you a fiddle, ain't it? Inside it says the fiddle is a genu-ine
Amati. What? _Schon gut_ if that fiddle is a genu-ine Amati it is worth
three thousand dollars, ain't it? Because if it ain't, then you are
stuck with the other fiddle which you bought it. And if it is worth
three thousand, then we are stuck by giving you the fiddle, ain't it? So
that's the way it goes."

Felix nodded. It was a delicate situation, in which his credit and the
shipment of the suits seemed to be imperilled. To dec