I was with J. Edward
Kleebaum, but I suppose Mawruss Perlmutter told it you. Ain't it?"

"Sure, he did," Abe said, "and he also told it me last week that you
says J. Edward Kleebaum was a crook because he runs a couple of
oitermobiles out in Minneapolis."

"I made a mistake about Kleebaum, Abe," Klinger interrupted. "I changed
my mind about him."

"That's all right, Sol," Abe said, "but if Kleebaum was a crook last
week, Sol, and a gentleman this week, what I would like to know is, what
he will be next week, because I got for twenty-one hundred dollars an
order from that feller and I got to ship it next week. So if you got any
information about Kleebaum, Sol, you would be doing me a favor if you
would let me know all about it."

"All I know about him is this, Abe," Klinger replied. "We drew on him
two reports and both of 'em gives him fifty to seventy-five thousand
credit good. He's engaged to be married to Miss Julia Pfingst, who is
Joseph Pfingst's a daughter."

"Joseph Pfingst," Abe repeated. "I don't know as I ever hear that name
before."

"It used to be Pfingst & Gusthaler," Klinger went on, "in the rubber
goods business on Wooster Street. First they made it raincoats, and then
they went into rubber boots, and just naturally they got into bicycle
tires, and then comes the oitermobile craze, and Gusthaler dies, and so
Pfingst sells oitermobile tires, and now he's in the oitermobile
business."

"Certainly, he got there gradually," Abe commented.

"Maybe he did, Abe," Klinger said, "but he also got pretty near a
million dollars, and you know as well as I do, Abe, a feller what's a
millionaire already don't got to marry off his daughter to a crook,
y'understand. No, Abe, I changed my mind about that feller. I think
Kleebaum's a pretty decent feller, and ourselves we sold him goods for
twenty-five hundred dollars."

Abe puffed hard on his cigar for a moment.

"Couldn't you get from the old man a guarantee of the account maybe?"
he asked.

"I sent Klein around there this morning, Abe," Klinger answered, "and
Pfingst says if Kleebaum is good enough to marry his daughter, he's good
enough for us to sell goods to, and certainly, Abe, you couldn't blame
the old man neither."

Abe nodded, and a moment later he rose to leave.

"You shouldn't look so worried about it, Abe," Sol Klinger said.
"Everybody is selling that feller this year."

"Well, Mawruss," Abe cried on Tuesday morning, "I got to confess that I