, and in the second place I am telling
you with my own eyes I seen that fiddle and it is the selfsame,
identical article--name, lot number and everything--which that feller
Geigermann refuses thirty-five hundred dollars for."

He scowled at his partner in anticipation of a cutting rejoinder.

"But anyhow, that ain't neither here nor there," he continued as Morris
remained silent. "We would quick find out for ourselves what the fiddle
really is, because to-morrow morning I am going around to the store and
Geigermann gives me the fiddle back."

Morris paused in the folding of a velvet skirt.

"I wouldn't do that, Abe, if I was you," he said. "What is the use
giving presents and taking 'em back again? You could make from a feller
an enemy for life that way."

"Sure, I know Mawruss. An enemy for life is one thing, Mawruss, but
thirty-five hundred dollars ain't to be sniffed at neither,
y'understand."

"_Schmooes_, Abe!" Morris cried. "The fiddle ain't worth even
thirty-five hundred pins."

Following this observation there ensued a controversy of over an hour's
duration, at the end of which Morris compromised.

"Say, listen here to me, Abe!" he declared. "You say the fiddle is worth
it and I say it ain't. Now if I am right and we take the fiddle back,
then we are acting like a couple of cheap yokels, ain't it? _Aber_ if
you are right, Abe, then we are out thirty-five hundred dollars. So
what's the use talking, Abe? Only one thing we got to do. We got to find
a feller which he could right away tell whether the fiddle is _oder_ not
is genu-ine--just by looking at it, y'understand. This feller we got to
send up to Geigermann's house to look at the fiddle to-night yet, and if
he says the fiddle is, Abe, then we would take it back. _Aber_ if he
says the fiddle ain't, Abe, then, Geigermann could keep the fiddle _und
fertig_."

Abe nodded slowly.

"The idee is all right, Mawruss," he said; "but in the first place,
Mawruss, where could we find such a feller, and in the second place, if
we did found him, Mawruss, what excuse would we give Geigermann for
sending him up there in the third place?"

Morris scratched his head.

"Well, for that matter, Abe, if we found such a feller, we could send
him up there to say that he hears from you that you are giving away such
a Who's-this fiddle to Geigermann, and that the feller would like to buy
it off of him."

"And then, Mawruss?" Abe asked.

"And then," Morris went on, "Ge