eld up the garment last exhibited by Miss Holzmeyer and pointed to
the yoke and its border.

"This here garment Miss Holzmeyer shows me for twenty-eight dollars,
Mr. Lapin," he said, "and with me and my wife here a dollar means to us
like two dollars to most people, Mr. Lapin. So when I am seeing the
precisely selfsame garment like this in Fine Brothers' for twenty-six
dollars, but the border is from silk embroidery, a peacock's tail
design, and the yoke is from gilt net yet, understand me, I got to say
something--ain't it?"

Lapin paused in his progress toward his office and even as he did so
Elkan's eyes strayed to a glass-covered showcase.

"Why, there is a garment just like Fine Brothers' model!" he exclaimed.

"Say, lookyhere!" Lapin demanded as he strode up to the showcase and
pulled out the costume indicated by Elkan. "What are you trying to tell
me? This here model is thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents; so, if you
can get it for twenty-six at Fine Brothers', go ahead and do it!"

"But, Mr. Lapin," Elkan said, "that ain't no way for a buyer of a big
concern like this to talk. I am telling you, so sure as you are standing
there and I should never move from this spot, the identical selfsame
style Fine Brothers got it for twenty-six dollars. I know it, Mr. Lapin,
because we are making up that garment in our factory yet, and Fine
Brothers takes from us six of that model at eighteen-fifty apiece."

At this unguarded disclosure Lapin's face grew crimson with rage.

"You are making it up in your factory!" he cried. "Why, you dirty faker
you, what the devil you are coming round here bluffing that you want to
buy a dress for your wife for?"

Elkan broke into a cold perspiration and looked round for Mrs.
Feinermann, the substantial evidence of his marital state; but at the
very beginning of Max Lapin's indignant outburst she had discreetly
taken the first stairway to the right.

"Bring that woman back here!" Max roared. Miss Holzmeyer made a dash for
the stairway, and before Elkan had time to formulate even a tentative
plan of escape she had returned with her quarry.

"What do you want from me?" Mrs. Feinermann gasped. Her hat was awry,
and what had once been a modish pompadour was toppled to one side and
shed hairpins with every palsied nod of her head. "I ain't done
nothing!" she protested.

"Sure, you ain't," Elkan said; "so you should keep your mouth
shut--that's all."

"I would keep my mouth shut _oder