kes me feel bad, Max, I got to swear,
y'understand. I couldn't help it. And, certainly, while I don't say
that swearing is something which a gentleman should do, especially when
there's a lady, y'understand, still, swearing a little sometimes is
good for the _gesund_. Instead a feller should make another feller
a couple blue eyes, Max, let him swear. It don't harm nobody, and
certainly nobody could sue you in the courts because you swear at him
like he could if you make for him a couple blue eyes. But you take it
when there is ladies, Max, and then you couldn't swear."

"Sure, I know," Max rejoined; "and you couldn't make it a couple blue
eyes on a feller when ladies would be present neither, Aaron. It
wouldn't be etty-kit."

"Me, I ain't so strong on the etty-kit," Sam broke in at this juncture;
"but I do know, Max, that we are fooling away our whole morning here."

Aaron Pinsky rose.

"Well, boys," he said, "I got to be going. So I wish you luck with your
new boy."

Once more he looked affectionately toward the rear of the room where
Philip industriously wielded the feather duster, and then made his way
toward the elevator. As he passed Miss Meyerson's desk she looked up
and beamed a farewell at him. He caught it out of the corner of his eye
and frowned absently.

"I wish you better," Miss Meyerson called.

"Thanks very much," Aaron replied, as the floor of the descending
elevator made a dark line across the ground-glass door of the shaft. He
half paused for a moment, but his shyness overcame him.

"Going down!" he yelled, and thrusting his hat more firmly on his head
he disappeared into the elevator.

* * * * *

Three days afterward Aaron Pinsky again visited Zaretsky & Fatkin, and
as he alighted from the elevator Miss Meyerson came out of her office
with a small package in her hand.

"Oh, Mr. Pinsky," she said, "I've got something for you."

"Me?" Aaron cried, stopping short in his progress toward the showroom.
"All right."

"You know I couldn't get to sleep the other night thinking of the way
you were coughing," she continued. "Every time I closed my eyes I could
hear it."

Evidently this remark called for comment of some kind, and Aaron
searched his brain for a suitable rejoinder.

"That's nice," he murmured at last.

"So I spoke to my cousin, Mrs. Doctor Goldenreich, about it," she went
on, "and the doctor gave me this medicine for you. You should take