he chrysalis of his employment, a natty,
lavender-trousered butterfly of fashion. Thereafter she called him
Mannie, and during business hours she flashed upon him those same black
eyes with results disastrous to the shipping end of Potash &
Perlmutter's business.

Packages intended for the afternoon delivery of a local express company
arrived in Florida two weeks later, while the irate buyer of a Jersey
City store, who impatiently awaited an emergency shipment of ten heavy
winter garments, received instead half a hundred gossamer wraps designed
for the sub-tropical weather of Palm Beach.

"I don't know what's come over that fellow, Mawruss," Abe said at last.
"Formerly he was a crackerjack--never made no mistakes nor nothing; and
now I dassen't trust him at all, Mawruss. Everything we ship I got to
look after it myself, Mawruss. We might as well have no shipping clerk
at all."

"You're right, Abe," Morris replied. "He gets carelesser every day. And
why, Abe? Because of that Miss Kreitmann. She breaks us all up, Abe. I
bet yer if that feller Gubin has took her to the theayter once, Abe, he
took her fifty times already. He spends every cent he makes on her, and
the first thing you know, Abe, we'll be missing a couple of pieces of
silk from the cutting-room. Ain't it?"

"He ain't no thief, Mawruss," said Abe, "and, besides, you can't blame a
young feller if he gets stuck on a nice girl like Miss Kreitmann,
Mawruss. She's a smart girl, Mawruss. Mendel Immerglick, of Immerglick &
Frank, was in here yesterday, Mawruss, and she showed him the line,
Mawruss, and believe me, Mawruss, Immerglick says to me I couldn't have
done it better myself."

"Huh!" Morris snorted. "A young feller like Immerglick, what buys it of
us a couple of hundred dollars at a time, she falls all over herself to
please him, Abe. And why? Because Immerglick's got a fine _mus_tache and
is a swell dresser and he ain't married. But you take it a good customer
like Adolph Rothstein, Abe, and what does she do? At first she was all
smiles to him, because Adolph is a good-looking feller. But then she
hears him telling me a hard-luck story about his wife's operation and
how his eldest boy Sammie is now seven already and ain't never been sick
in his life, and last month he gets the whooping cough and all six of
Adolph's boys gets it one after the other. Then, Abe, she treats Adolph
like a dawg, Abe, and the first thing you know he looks at his watch and
says