from the top of Sam's desk.

"Wait a minute, Max," Sam said. "Don't be in such a hurry, Max,
because, after all, you boys is my sons, anyhow; and so I got a
proposition to make to you."

He pointed to a chair and Max sat down.

"First, Max," he went on, "I wouldn't ask you for cash. What I want is
you should give me a note at one year for five thousand dollars,
without interest."

"So far as I could see," Max interrupted, "we wouldn't be in no better
condition to pay you five thousand dollars in one year as we are
to-day."

"I didn't think you would be," Sam said, "but I figured that all out;
and if, before the end of one year, you three boys would turn around
and go to work and get a decent, respectable feller which he would
marry Babette and make a home for her, understand me, I would give you
back your note."

"But how could we do that?" Max exclaimed.

"I leave that to you," Sam replied; "because, anyhow, Max, there's
plenty fellers which is designers _oder_ bookkeepers which would marry
Babette in a minute if they could get a partnership in an old,
established concern like yours."

"But Babette don't want to get married," Max declared.

"Don't she?" Sam retorted. "Well, if a woman stands hours and hours in
front of the glass and rubs her face _mit_ cold cream and _Gott weiss_
what else, Max, if she don't want to get married I'd like to know what
she does want."

Again Max rose to his feet.

"I'll tell the boys what you say," he murmured.

"Sure," Sam said heartily, "and tell 'em also they should drop in oncet
in a while and see mommer and me up in One Hundred and Twenty-seventh
Street."

Max nodded.

"And tell Babette to come, also," Sam added; but Max shook his head.

"I'm afraid she wouldn't do it," he declared. "She says yesterday she
wouldn't speak to you again so long as you live."

Sam emitted a sigh that was a trifle too emphatic in its tremulousness.

"I'm sorry she feels that way, Max," he said; "but it's an old saying
and a true one, Max: you couldn't make no omelets without beating
eggs."

CHAPTER FIVE

MAKING OVER MILTON

"Take it from me, Mr. Zwiebel, that boy would never amount to nothing,"
said Levy Rothman, as they sat in the rear room of Wasserbauer's Cafe
and restaurant.

"You are mistaken, Mr. Rothman," Charles Zwiebel replied; "the boy is
only a little wild, y'understand, and if I could get him to settle down
and learn a business, Mr. Rothman, he would sett