is, "but if we don't take no chances, Abe, we
might as well go out of the cloak and suit business. Sell him all he
wants, Abe."

"I'll sell him all he can pay for, Mawruss," said Abe, "and I guess that
ain't over a thousand dollars."

He returned to the first floor, where M. Garfunkel eagerly awaited him,
and produced a box of the firm's K. to M. first and second credit
customers' cigars.

"Have a smoke, Mr. Garfunkel," he said.

M. Garfunkel selected a cigar with care and sat down.

"Well, Abe," he said, "that was a long talk you had over the telephone."

"Sure it was," Abe replied. "The cashier of the Kosciusko Bank on Grand
Street rang me up. He discounts some of our accounts what we sell
responsible people, and he asks me that in future I get regular
statements from all my customers--those that I want to discount their
accounts in particular."

M. Garfunkel nodded slowly.

"Statements--you shall have it, Abe," he said, "but I may as well tell
you that it's foolish to discount bills what you sell _me_. I sometimes
discount them myself. I'll send you a statement, anyhow. Now let's look
at your line, Abe. I wasted enough time already."

For the next hour M. Garfunkel pawed over Potash & Perlmutter's stock,
and when he finally took leave of Abe he had negotiated an order of a
thousand dollars; terms, sixty days net.

The statement of M. Garfunkel's financial condition, which arrived the
following day, more than satisfied Morris Perlmutter and, had it not
been quite so glowing in character, it might even have satisfied Abe
Potash.

"I don't know, Mawruss," he said; "some things looks too good to be
true, Mawruss, and I guess this is one of them."

"Always you must worry, Abe," Morris rejoined. "If Vanderbilt and Astor
was partners together in the cloak and suit business, and you sold 'em a
couple of hundred dollars' goods, Abe, you'd worry yourself sick till
you got a check. I bet yer Garfunkel discounts his bill already."

Morris' prophecy proved to be true, for at the end of four weeks M.
Garfunkel called at Potash & Perlmutter's store and paid his sixty-day
account with the usual discount of ten per cent. Moreover, he gave them
another order for two thousand dollars' worth of goods at the same
terms.

In this instance, however, full fifty-nine days elapsed without word
from M. Garfunkel, and on the morning of the sixtieth day Abe entered
the store bearing every appearance of anxiety.

"Well, Abe,"