ll and say nothing about it."

"I am agreeable we should say nothing more about it, Mawruss," Abe
retorted, "because we already wasted more time and trouble than the
whole thing is worth; but one thing I would like to know, Mawruss,
before I shut up my mouth: Why did this here feller, Yosel Levin, call
himself Harkavy?"

"Say!" Morris said, using three inflections to the monosyllable: "he's
got just so much right to call himself Harkavy as all them other guys
has to call themselves Breslauer, Hamburger, Leipziger _oder_ Berliner.
He anyhow does come from Harkav, Abe--which you could take it from me,
Abe, there's many a feller calls himself Hamburger which he don't come
from no nearer Hamburg than Vilna _oder_ Kovno."

Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively in reply.

"My worries where them fellers comes from, Mawruss!" he commented.
"Because, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, if a feller attends
to his own business, Mawruss, and don't monkey with politics,
y'understand, where could he make a better living than right here in New
York, N. Y.?"

CHAPTER EIGHT

"R. S. V. P."

It was the tenth of the month, and Abe Potash, of Potash & Perlmutter,
was going through the firm mail with an exploratory thumb and finger,
looking for checks.

"Well, Mawruss," he said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, "all them
hightone customers of yours they don't take it so particular that they
should pay on the day, Mawruss. If they was only so prompt with checks
as they was to claim deductions, Mawruss, you and me would have no
worries. I think some of 'em finds a shortage in the shipment before
they open the packing-case that the goods come in. Take your friend
Hyman Maimin, of Sarahcuse--nothing suits him. He always kicks that the
goods ain't made up right, or we ain't sent him enough fancies, or
something like that. Five or six letters he writes us, Mawruss, when he
gets the goods; but when he got to pay for 'em, Mawruss, that's
something else again. You might think postage stamps was solitaire
diamonds, and that he dassen't use 'em!"

"Quit your kicking," Perlmutter broke in. "This is only the tenth of the
month."

"I know it," said Abe. "We should have had a check by the tenth of last
month, but"--here Abe's eye lit upon an envelope directed in the
handwriting of Hyman Maimin--"I guess there was some good reason for the
delay," he went on evenly. "Anyhow, here's a letter from him now."

He tore open the enve