s for that stock."

Morris grunted.

"That's going to bring down our balance a whole lot, Abe," he said.

"Only for a week, Mawruss," Abe corrected, "and then we'll sell it
again."

"Whose order do I write it to, Abe?" Morris inquired.

"I forgot to ask that," Abe replied.

"Gunst & Baumer?" Morris asked.

"They ain't the owners of it, Mawruss," said Abe. "They're only the
brokers."

"Maybe Sol Klinger is selling it to the stock-exchange people and
they're selling it to us," Morris suggested.

"Sol Klinger ain't going to sell his. He's going to hang on to it. Maybe
it's this young feller what I see there, Mawruss, only I don't know his
name."

"Well, then, I'll make it out to Potash & Perlmutter, and you can
indorse it when you get there," said Morris.

At this juncture a customer entered, and Abe took him into the
show-room, while Morris wrote out the check. For almost an hour and a
half Abe displayed the firm's line, from which the customer selected a
generous order, and when at last Abe was free to go down to Gunst &
Baumer's it was nearly twelve o'clock. He put on his hat and coat, and
jumped on a passing car, and it was not until he had traveled two blocks
that he remembered the check. He ran all the way back to the store and,
tearing the check out of the checkbook where Morris had left it, he
dashed out again and once more boarded a Broadway car. In front of Gunst
& Baumer's offices he leaped wildly from the car to the street, and,
escaping an imminent fire engine and a hosecart, he ran into the doorway
and took the stairs three at a jump.

On the second floor of the building was Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's
salesroom, where a trade sale was in progress, and the throng of buyers
collected there overflowed onto the landing, but Abe elbowed his way
through the crowd and made the last flight in two seconds.

"Is Mr. Fiedler in?" he gasped as he burst into the manager's office of
Gunst & Baumer's suite.

"Mr. Fiedler went out to lunch," the office-boy replied. "He says you
should sit down and wait, and he'll be back in ten minutes."

But Abe was too nervous for sitting down, and the thought of the
customers' room with its quotation board only agitated him the more.

"I guess I'll go downstairs to Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's," he said,
"and give a look around. I'll be back in ten minutes."

He descended the stairs leisurely and again elbowed his way through the
crowd into the salesroom of Hill, A