e money."

He felt sure that the fifteen dollars a week would provoke some show of
interest, and he was not mistaken.

"Well, I can work as hard as the next one," Milton cried. "Why don't
you take me down there and give me a show to get the job?"

Mr. Zwiebel looked at his wife with an elaborate assumption of
doubtfulness.

"What could I say to a young feller like that, mommer?" he said. "Mind
you, I want to help him out. I want to make a man of him, mommer, but
all the time I know how it would turn out."

"How could you talk that way, popper?" Mrs. Zwiebel pleaded. "The boy
says he would do his best. Let him have a chance, popper."

"All right," he said heartily; "for your sake, mommer, I will do it.
Milton, _lieben_, put on your coat and hat and we will go right down to
Rothman's place."

When Mr. Zwiebel and Milton entered the sample-room of Levy Rothman &
Co., three quarters of an hour later, Mr. Rothman was scanning the
Arrival of Buyers column in the morning paper.

"Ah, Mr. Rothman," Zwiebel cried, "ain't it a fine weather?"

"I bet yer it's a fine weather," Rothman agreed, "for cancellations. We
ain't never had such a warm November in years ago already."

"This is my boy Milton, Mr. Rothman, what I was talking to you about,"
Zwiebel continued.

"Yes?" Mr. Rothman said. "All right. Let him take down his coat and
he'll find a feather duster in the corner by them misses' reefers. I
never see nothing like the way the dust gets in here."

Mr. Zwiebel fairly beamed. This was a splendid beginning.

"Go ahead, Milton," he said; "take down your coat and get to work."

But Milton showed no undue haste.

"Lookyhere, pop," he said. "I thought I was coming down here to sell
goods."

"Sell goods!" Rothman exclaimed. "Why, you was never in the cloak and
suit business before. Ain't it?"

"Sure, I know," Milton replied, "but I can sell goods all right."

"Not here, you couldn't," Rothman said. "Here, before a feller sells
goods, he's got to learn the line, y'understand, and there ain't no
better way to learn the line, y'understand, than by dusting it off."

Milton put his hat on and jammed it down with both hands.

"Then that settles it," he declared.

"What settles it?" Rothman and Zwiebel asked with one voice; but before
Milton could answer the sample-room door opened and a young woman
entered. From out the coils of her blue-black hair an indelible lead
pencil projected at a jaunty angle.

"Mr. Roth