Well, ain't you got no suspicions, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Think,
Mawruss, who was it took the vest?"

Morris raised his head and was about to reply when the store door opened
and Sam Feder, vice-president of the Kosciusko Bank, entered bearing a
brown paper parcel under his arm.

A personal visit from so well-known a financier covered Abe with
embarrassment, and he jumped to his feet and rushed out of the show-room
with both arms outstretched.

"Mr. Feder," he exclaimed, "ain't this indeed a pleasure? Come inside,
Mr. Feder. Come inside into our show-room."

He brought out a seat for the vice-president and dusted it carefully.

"I ain't come to see you, Abe," Mr. Feder said; "I come to see that
partner of yours."

He untied the string that bound the brown paper parcel and pulled out
its contents.

"Why!" Morris gasped. "That's my vest."

"Sure it is," Mr. Feder replied, "and it just fits me, Mawruss. In fact,
it fits me so good that when I went to the barber-shop in a two-piece
suit this morning, Mawruss, I come away with a three-piece suit and a
souvenir besides."

"A souvenir!" Abe cried. "What for a souvenir?"

Mr. Feder put his hand in his trousers pocket and tumbled the missing
ring and pin on to a baize-covered sample table.

"That was the souvenir, Abe," he said. "In fact, two souvenirs."

Morris and Abe stared at the diamonds, too stunned for utterance.

"You're a fine feller, Mawruss," Mr. Feder continued, "to be carrying
around valuable stones like them in your vest pocket. Why, I showed them
stones to a feller what was in my office an hour ago and he says they
must be worth pretty near five hundred dollars."

He paused and looked at Morris.

"And he was a pretty good judge of diamonds, too," he continued.

"Who was the feller, Mr. Feder?" Abe asked.

"I guess you know, Abe," Mr. Feder replied. "His name is Hymie Kotzen."

CHAPTER VII

"Max Fried, of the A La Mode Store, was in here a few minutes since,
Mawruss," said Abe Potash, to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, after the
latter had returned from lunch one busy August day, "and bought a couple
of hundred of them long Trouvilles. He also wanted something to ask it
of us as a favor, Mawruss."

"Sixty days is long enough, Abe," said Morris, on the principle of "once
bitten, twice shy." "For a man what runs a little store like the A La
Mode on Main Street, Buffalo, Abe, Max don't buy too few goods, neither.
Ain't it?"

"Don't ju