uccessful as I was, Abe," Morris rejoined.
"That feller's got so much to say for himself I couldn't get a word in
sideways."

Abe nodded.

"He's a good talker," he said, "only he's too ambitious, Mawruss."

"He shouldn't get ambitious around me, Abe," Morris retorted, "because I
wouldn't stand for it. What's he getting ambitious with you about?"

"Well, he wants it three hundred dollars for expenses one week in
Chicago already," Abe answered.

"What!" Morris cried.

"He says he got to do some tall entertaining, Mawruss," Abe went on,
"because he expects to sell Simon Kuhner a five-thousand-dollars bill of
goods, and the Arcade Mercantile Company also five thousand."

"Say, looky here, Abe: I want to tell you something," Morris broke in.
"Of course, this ain't my affair nor nothing, because you got the
rheumatism and it's your funeral. Also, I am only a partner here,
y'understand, and what I says goes for nix. But the way it looks to me
now, Abe, if this here Pasinsky sells all the goods he talks about, Abe,
we will got to have four times more capital as we are working with now.
And if he spends it three hundred dollars in every town he makes we
wouldn't have no capital left at all. And that's the way it goes."

He turned and strode angrily away, while Abe went back to the show-room.

"Well, Pasinsky," he said, "I decided I would take a chance and advance
you the three hundred; but you got to do the business, Pasinsky,
otherwise it is all off."

Pasinsky nodded and tucked away the yellowbacks which Abe gave him.

"All you've got to do, Mr. Potash, is to fill the orders," he said,
extending his hand to Abe, "and I will do the rest. And now good-by and
good luck to you."

He squeezed Abe's hand until it was completely numb, and with a
parting nod to Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, he started on his journey
for the West.

"You would thought, Mawruss," Abe said afterward, "that he was staying
home and that it was me what goes away on the trip."

"I wish you was, Abe," Morris replied fervently. "I ain't got no
confidence in that feller at all."

"I wouldn't knock the feller until I seen what he could do, Mawruss,"
Abe said. "He promised me we should hear from him so soon as he gets
there."

Four days later the expected mail arrived. Abe received the letter from
the carrier and burst it open with his thumb. Then he drew forth the
contents of the envelope and shook the folded sheet, but no order slip
fell out.