joint tort-feasors in the ten-thousand dollar assault
action of Goldie Raymond, plaintiff, against J. Montgomery Fieldstone
and others, defendants. There were important changes that evening in
the cast of "Rudolph Where Have You Been."

CHAPTER TEN

CAVEAT EMPTOR

For many years Mr. Herman Wolfson had so conducted the auctioneering
business that he could look the whole world, including the district
attorney, in the eye and tell 'em to go jump on themselves. This was by
no means an easy thing to do, when the wavering line of demarcation
between right and wrong often depends on the construction of a comma in
the Code of Criminal Procedure. Nevertheless, under the competent
advice of Henry D. Feldman, that eminent legal practitioner, Mr.
Wolfson had prospered; and although his specialty was the purchasing
_en bloc_ of the stock in trade and fixtures of failing shopkeepers,
not once had he been obliged to turn over his purchases to the host of
clamouring creditors.

"My skirts I keep it clean," he explained to Philip Borrochson, whose
retail jewellery business had proved a losing venture and was,
therefore, being acquired by Mr. Wolfson at five hundred dollars less
than its actual value, "and if I got an idee you was out to do
somebody--myself or anybody else--I wouldn't have nothing to do with
you, Mr. Borrochson."

The conversation took place in the business premises of Mr. Borrochson,
a small, poorly-stocked store on Third Avenue, one Sunday morning in
January, which is always a precarious month in the jewellery trade.

"If it should be the last word what I ever told it you, Mr. Wolfson,"
Borrochson declared, "I ain't got even a piece of wrapping-paper on
memorandum. Everything in my stock is a straight purchase at sixty and
ninety days. You can take my word for it."

Mr. Wolfson nodded.

"When I close the deal to buy the place, Borrochson," he said, "I'll
take more as your word for it. You got a writing from me just now, and
I'll get a writing from you. I'll take your affidavit, the same what
Henry D. Feldman draws it in every case when I buy stores. There ain't
never no mistakes in them affidavits, neither, Borrochson, otherwise
the party what makes it is got ten years to wait before he makes
another one."

"Sure, I know it, you can make me arrested if I faked you, Mr.
Wolfson," Borrochson replied, "but this is straight goods."

"And how about them showcases?" Wolfson asked.

"Only notes I give