haven't on
your books at present, you could rely on me I should do my best for
Harry and you."

Thus spoke Mr. Felix Klugfels, buyer for Appenweier & Murray's
Thirty-second Street store, on the first Monday of January; and in
consequence on the second Monday of January Harry Flaxberg came to work
as city salesman for Polatkin & Scheikowitz. He also maintained the role
of party of the second part in a contract drawn by Henry D. Feldman,
whose skill in such matters is too well known for comment here.
Sufficient to say it fixed Harry Flaxberg's compensation at thirty
dollars a week and moderate commissions. At Polatkin's request, however,
the document was so worded that it excluded Flaxberg from selling any of
the concerns already on Polatkin & Scheikowitz's books; for not only did
he doubt Flaxberg's ability as a salesman, but he was quite conscious of
the circumstance that, save for the acquisition of Appenweier & Murray's
account, there was no need of their hiring a city salesman at all, since
the scope of their business operations required only one salesman--to
wit, as the lawyers say, Marcus Polatkin himself. On the other hand,
Klugfels had insisted upon the safeguarding of his nephew's interests,
so that the latter was reasonably certain of a year's steady employment.
Hence, when, on the first Monday of February, Appenweier & Murray
dispensed with the services of Mr. Klugfels before he had had the
opportunity of bestowing even one order on his nephew as a mark of his
favour, the business premises of Polatkin & Scheikowitz became forthwith
a house of mourning. From the stricken principals down to and including
the shipping clerk nothing else was spoken of or thought about for a
period of more than two weeks. Neither was it a source of much
consolation to Marcus Polatkin when he heard that Klugfels had been
supplanted by Max Lapin, a third cousin of Leon Sammet of the firm of
Sammet Brothers.

"Ain't it terrible the way people is related nowadays?" he said to
Scheikowitz, who had just read aloud the news of Max Lapin's hiring in
the columns of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_.

"Honestly, Scheikowitz, if a feller ain't got a lot of retailers _oder_
buyers for distance relations, understand me, he might just so well go
out of business and be done with it!"

Scheikowitz threw down the paper impatiently.

"That's where you are making a big mistake, Polatkin," he said. "A
feller which he expects to do business with