e."

This put the proposition squarely up to Abe, and he found it a difficult
matter to refuse credit to a customer whose check for two thousand
dollars was even then reposing in Abe's waistcoat pocket.

"All right," Abe said. "Go ahead and pick out your goods."

For two solid hours M. Garfunkel went over Potash & Perlmutter's line
and, selecting hundred lots of their choicest styles, bought a
three-thousand-dollar order.

"We ain't got but half of them styles in stock," said Morris, "but we
can make 'em up right away."

"Then, them goods what you got in stock, Mawruss," said Garfunkel, "I
must have prompt by to-morrow, and the others in ten days."

"That's all right," Morris replied, and when M. Garfunkel left the store
Abe and Morris immediately set about the assorting of the ordered stock.

"Look a-here, Mawruss," Abe said, "I thought you was going to see about
that girl for my Rosie."

"Why, so I was, Abe," Morris replied; "I'll attend to it right away."

He went to the telephone and rang up his wife, and five minutes later
returned to the front of the store.

"Ain't that the funniest thing, Abe," he said. "My Minnie speaks to the
girl, and the girl says she got a cousin what's just going to quit her
job, Abe. She'll be the very girl for your Rosie."

"I don't know, Mawruss," Abe replied. "My Rosie is a particular woman.
She don't want no girl what's got fired for being dirty or something
like that, Mawruss. We first want to get a report on her and find out
what she gets fired for."

"You're right, Abe," Morris said. "I'll find out from Lina to-night."

Once more they fell to their task of assorting and packing the major
part of Garfunkel's order, and by six o'clock over fifteen hundred
dollars' worth of goods was ready for delivery.

"We'll ship them to-morrow," Abe said, as they commenced to lock up for
the night, "and don't forget about that girl, Mawruss."

On his way downtown the next morning Abe met Leon Sammet, senior member
of the firm of Sammet Brothers. Between Abe and Leon existed the nominal
truce of competition, which in the cloak and suit trade implies that
while they cheerfully exchanged credit information from their office
files they maintained a constant guerilla warfare for the capture of
each other's customers.

Now, M. Garfunkel had been a particularly strong customer of Sammet
Brothers, and since Abe assumed that M. Garfunkel had dropped Sammet
Brothers in favor of Potash & Pe