n dollars down than she blew up in the
stretch. So I boarded a freight over to West Thirtieth Street and
fetched up in Walla Walla, Washington."

"Look a-here!" Abe gasped. "You ain't Scheuer Smolinski, are you?"

Mr. Small nodded.

"That's me," he said. "I'm Scheuer Smolinski or Sidney Small, whichever
you like. When me and Jake Berkowitz started this here Small Drygoods
Company we decided that Smolinski and Berkowitz was too big a mouthful
for the Pacific Slope, so we slipped the 'inski' and the 'owitz.'
Scheuer Small and Jacob Burke didn't sound so well, neither. Ain't it?
So, since there ain't no harm in it, we just changed our front names,
too, and me and him is Sidney Small and James Burke."

Abe sat back in his chair too stunned for words, while Morris pondered
bitterly on the events of Saturday night. Then the prize was well within
his grasp, for even at that late hour he could have persuaded Mr. Burke
to reconsider his decision and to bring Mr. Small over to see Potash &
Perlmutter's line first. But now it was too late, Morris reflected, for
Mr. Small had visited Klinger & Klein's establishment and had no doubt
given the order.

"Say, my friends," Frank Walsh cried, poking his head in the door, "far
from me to be buttin' in, but whenever you're ready for lunch just let
me know."

Mr. Small jumped to his feet. "I'll let you know," he said--"I'll let
you know right now. Half an hour since already I told Mr. Klinger I
would make up my mind this afternoon about giving him the order for them
goods what Mr. Burke picked out. Well, you go back and tell him I made
up my mind already, sooner than I expected. I ain't going to give him
the order at all."

Walsh's red face grew purple. At first he gurgled incoherently, but
finally recovered sufficiently to enunciate; and for ten minutes he
denounced Mr. Small and Mr. Burke, their conduct and antecedents. It was
a splendid exhibition of profane invective, and when he concluded he was
almost breathless.

"Yah!" he jeered, "five-dollar tickets for a prize-fight for the likes
of youse!"

He fixed Morris and Mr. Burke with a final glare.

"Pearls before swine!" he bellowed, and banged the show-room door behind
him.

Mr. Burke looked at Morris. "That's a lowlife for you," he said. "A
respectable concern should have a salesman like him! Ain't it a shame
and a disgrace?"

Morris nodded.

"He takes me to a place where nothing but loafers is," Mr. Burke
continued,