you know, Abe, I miss the train and Frank
Walsh takes away my trade. What do I care about your wife's relations,
Abe?"

"That's what I told you, Mawruss. Wife's relations don't do nobody no
good," Abe replied.

"Jokes!" Morris exclaimed as he moved off to the rear of the store.
"Jokes he is making it, and two thousand dollars thrown into the
street."

For the rest of the morning Morris sulked in the cutting-room upstairs,
while Abe busied himself in assorting his samples for a forthcoming New
England trip. At twelve o'clock a customer came in, and when he left at
half-past twelve Abe escorted him to the store door and lingered there a
few minutes to get a breath of fresh air. As he was about to reenter the
store he discerned the corpulent figure of Frank Walsh making his way
down the opposite sidewalk toward Wasserbauer's Cafe. With him were two
other men, one of them about as big as Frank himself, the other a
slight, dark person.

Abe darted to the rear of the store. "Mawruss," he called, "come quick!
Here is this Walsh feller with Small and Burke."

Morris took the first few stairs at a leap, and had his partner not
caught him he would have landed in a heap at the bottom of the flight.
They covered the distance from the stairway to the store door so rapidly
that when they reached the sidewalk Frank and his customers had not yet
arrived in front of Wasserbauer's.

"The little feller," Morris hissed, "is the same one what was up to the
fighting. I guess he's a drummer."

"Him?" Abe replied. "He ain't no drummer, Mawruss. He's Jacob Berkowitz,
what used to run the Up-to-Date Store in Seattle. I sold him goods when
me and Pincus Vesell was partners together, way before the Spanish War
already. Who's the other feller?"

At that moment the subject of Abe's inquiry looked across the street
and for the first time noticed Abe and Morris standing on the sidewalk.
He stopped short and stared at Abe until his bulging eyes caught the
sign above the store. For one brief moment he hesitated and then he
leaped from the curb to the gutter and plunged across the roadway, with
Jacob Berkowitz and Frank Walsh in close pursuit. He seized Abe by both
hands and shook them up and down.

"Abe Potash!" he cried. "So sure as you live."

"That's right," Abe admitted; "that's my name."

"You don't remember me, Abe?" he went on.

"I remember Mr. Berkowitz here," Abe said, smiling at the smaller man.
"I used to sell him goods oncet