he trouble?" Abe asked immediately.

"Trouble enough," Morris declared. "Henry's bank busted on him."

"What!" Abe cried, and Morris repeated the information.

"Then he wouldn't leave us at all," Abe said, and Morris nodded sadly.

"Ain't it terrible?" he commented.

"Terrible?" Abe asked. "What d'ye mean--terrible? Is it so terrible that
we wouldn't got to lose our designer right in the middle of the busy
season?"

"I don't mean us, Abe," Morris said. "I mean for Henry."

"Henry neither," Abe rejoined. "Henry would still got his job with two
hundred dollars a year raise."

"And a bonus of two hundred dollars," Morris added.

"A bonus of nothing!" Abe almost shouted. "Do you mean to told me you
would pay Henry a bonus of two hundred dollars now that he must got to
stay on with us?"

"I sure do," Morris declared fiercely; "and furthermore, Abe, if you
don't want to pay it I would from my own pocket, and I'm going right in
to tell him about it now."

He walked away to the cutting room, and in less than five minutes Abe
repented his parsimony. He went on tiptoe to the door of the cutting
room, where Morris leaned over Enrico, uttering words of consolation and
advice.

"Mawruss," Abe hissed, "make it three hundred, the bonus."

Morris nodded.

"And, Mawruss," Abe went on, "it's pretty near quarter of two. Ain't you
going up there at all?"

* * * * *

"I should never walk another step if you didn't say two o'clock," Morris
Perlmutter protested to Philip Sholy as they hastened up the stairway in
Jefferson Market Police Court.

"Never mind what I said," Sholy cried. "It's now anyhow quarter past
two, and that dago has got his wife and servant girl and two clerks
waiting in court since twelve o'clock. Eichendorfer and Baskof have been
here since one o'clock."

"Say, listen here, Sholy," Morris said, as they panted up the last
flight, "I came just as soon as I could, and I couldn't come no sooner."

"Hats off!" the policeman at the door shouted, as Morris walked up the
aisle with his attorney, and a moment later they passed into the
enclosure for counsel.

"My client and his witnesses have been here since twelve o'clock," a
lawyer was explaining while Morris sat down, "and in the meantime his
place of business has been closed."

At this juncture the client in question caught sight of Morris and
ripped out so strong an Italian expletive that the court interpreter
nearly s