affidavit that the latter had personally served a copy
of the complaint in question, together with a summons, upon the
defendant, and place the case on the calendar for trial. Of course
no papers were in fact served upon anybody and Levine would in due
course secure judgment by default for sixty-odd dollars. Armed
with a certified copy of the judgment and a writ of attachment,
and accompanied by a burly deputy marshal selected for the ferocity
of his appearance, Levine would wait until some opportune time when
the owner of the shop was again absent and the shop had been left
in charge of the same clerk or a member of the family. Bursting
roughly in, he would demand whether or not it was the intention of
the owner to pay the judgment, while at the same moment the deputy
would levy on the stock in trade.

The owner of the shop, having been hastily summoned, would return
to demand angrily what the rumpus was all about. By this time the
clerk would have recovered his wits sufficiently to denounce the
proceeding as an outrage and the suit as baseless. But his master,
who saw judgment against himself for sixty dollars and his goods
actually under attachment, was usually in no mood to listen to,
much less believe, his clerk's explanations. At all events, they
availed naught, when Levine, with an expression of horror at such
deliberate mendacity on the part of the clerk, was wont to say:

"Ask him, pray, whether he has not got the watch in his pocket at
this very moment!"

Usually this was indeed the fact, as the clerk had no idea what
else to do with it until Levine should return.

"So-ho!" his master would shout wrathfully. "What do you mean by
saying that you did not agree to buy the watch? Why, you have kept
it all the time! What's more, you've pretended to buy it in my
name! And now my shop is turned into a bear garden and there is
a judgment against me and my goods are attached! A fine result of
your extravagance!"

"But I never agreed to buy it!" insists the clerk. "This man left
it here on approval!"

"Pish!" answers the employer. "That is all very well; but what
have you to say to the judgment of the court? Now, my fine fellow,
you will either pay up this money that you owe or I'll advance it
myself and take it out of your wages."

In every case, despite the protests of the clerk, the money would
be handed over and the shop released from levy. Unfortunately,
after working the game for several