much insurance."

"Is that so?" Morris replied. "Well, Pinkel Brothers' building where
they got it a loft is fireproof, and they got it also oitermatic
sprinklers, Abe, and they somehow get burned out anyhow."

"You couldn't prove to me nothing by Pinkel Brothers, Mawruss," Abe
rejoined. "Them people has already got a hundred operators and we ain't
got one, Mawruss, and every operator smokes yet a cigarettel, and you
know what them cigarettels is, Mawruss. They practically smokes
themselves. So, if an operator throws one of them cigarettels in a bin
from clippings, Mawruss, that cigarettel would burn up them clippings
certain sure. For my part, I wouldn't have a cigarettel in the place;
and so, Mawruss, we wouldn't have no fire, neither."

"I know, Abe," Morris protested; "but the loft upstairs is vacant and
the loft downstairs is vacant, and everybody ain't so grouchy about
cigarettels like you are, Abe. Might one of them lofts would be taken by
a feller what is already a cigarettel fiend, Abe. And fires can start by
other causes, too; and then where would we be with our twenty thousand
insurance and all them piece goods what we got it?"

"But the building is fireproof, Mawruss."

"Sure I know," Morris replied; "fireproof buildings is like them
gilt-edge, A Number One concerns what you sell goods to for ten years,
maybe, and then all of a sudden when you don't expect it one of 'em
busts up on you. And that's the way it is with fireproof buildings,
Abe. They're fireproof so long as nobody has a fire in 'em."

Abe shrugged his shoulders and lit a fresh cigar.

"All right, Mawruss," Abe said; "I'm satisfied. If you want to get some
more insurance, go ahead. I got worry enough I should bother my head
about trifles. A little money for insurance we can afford to spend it,
Mawruss, so long as we practically throw it in the streets otherwise."

"Otherwise?" Morris repeated. "What do you mean we throw it away
otherwise, Abe?"

"I mean that new style thirty-twenty-eight what you showed it me this
morning, Mawruss," Abe replied. "For a popular-price line, Mawruss, them
new capes has got enough buttons and soutache on to 'em to sell for
twenty dollars already instead of twelve-fifty."

"That's where you talk without knowing nothing what you say, Abe,"
Morris replied. "That garment what you seen it is the winder sample what
I made it up for Louis Feinholz's uptown store. Louis give me a big
order while you was in Boston