"You carry a fine stock, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe Potash exclaimed as he
glanced around the well-filled shelves of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting
Company.
"That ain't all the stock I carry," Mr. Sheitlis, the proprietor,
exclaimed. "I got also another stock which I am anxious to dispose of
it, Mr. Potash, and you could help me out, maybe."
Abe smiled with such forced amiability that his mustache was completely
engulfed between his nose and his lower lip.
"I ain't buying no cloaks, Mr. Sheitlis," he said. "I'm selling 'em."
"Not a stock from cloaks, Mr. Potash," Mr. Sheitlis explained; "but a
stock from gold and silver."
"I ain't in the jewelry business, neither," Abe said.
"That ain't the stock what I mean," Mr. Sheitlis cried. "Wait a bit and
I'll show you."
He went to the safe in his private office and returned with a crisp
parchment-paper certificate bearing in gilt characters the legend,
Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation.
"This is what I mean it," he said; "stock from stock exchanges. I paid
one dollar a share for this hundred shares."
Abe took the certificate and gazed at it earnestly with unseeing eyes.
Mr. Sheitlis had just purchased a liberal order of cloaks and suits from
Potash & Perlmutter, and it was, therefore, a difficult matter for Abe
to turn down this stock proposition without offending a good customer.
"Well, Mr. Sheitlis," he commenced, "me and Mawruss Perlmutter we do
business under a copartnership agreement, and it says we ain't supposed
to buy no stocks from stock exchanges, and----"
"I ain't asking you to buy it," Mr. Sheitlis broke in. "I only want you
to do me something for a favor. You belong in New York where all them
stock brokers is, so I want you should be so kind and take this here
stock to one of them stock brokers and see what I can get for it. Maybe
I could get a profit for it, and then, of course, I should pay you
something for your trouble."
"Pay me something!" Abe exclaimed in accents of relief. "Why, Mr.
Sheitlis, what an idea! Me and Mawruss would be only too glad, Mr.
Sheitlis, to try and sell it for you, and the more we get it for the
stock the gladder we would be for your sake. I wouldn't take a penny for
selling it if you should make a million out of it."
"A million I won't make it," Mr. Sheitlis replied, dismissing the
subject. "I'll be satisfied if I get ten dollars for it."
He walked toward the front door of his store with Abe.
"What is the indications for spring business in the wholesale trade, Mr.
Potash," he asked blandly.
Abe shook his head.
"It should be good, maybe," he replied; "only, you can't tell nothing
about it. Silks is the trouble."
"Silks?" Mr. Sheitlis rejoined. "Why, silks makes goods sell high, Mr.
Potash. Ain't it? Certainly, I admit it you got to pay more for silk
piece goods as for cotton piece goods, but you take the same per cent.
profit on the price of the silk as on the price of the cotton, and so
you make more in the end. Ain't it?"
"If silk piece goods is low or middling, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe replied
sadly, "there is a good deal in what you say. But silk is high this
year, Mr. Sheitlis, so high you wouldn't believe me if I tell you we got
to pay twicet as much this year as three years ago already."
Mr. Sheitlis clucked sympathetically.
"And if we charge the retailer twicet as much for a garment next year
what he pays three years ago already, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe went on, "we
won't do no business. Ain't it? So we got to cut our profits, and that's
the way it goes in the cloak and suit business. You don't know where you
are at no more than when you got stocks from stock exchanges."
"Well, Mr. Potash," Sheitlis replied encouragingly, "next season is next
season, but now is this season, and from the prices what you quoted it
me, Mr. Potash, you ain't going to the poorhouse just yet a while."
"I only hope it that you make more profit on the stock than we make it
on the order you just give us," Abe rejoined as he shook his customer's
hand in token of farewell. "Good-by, Mr. Sheitlis, and as soon as I get
back in New York I'll let you know all about it."
Two days after Abe's return to New York he sat in Potash & Perlmutter's
show-room, going over next year's models as published in the Daily Cloak
and Suit Record. His partner, Morris Perlmutter, puffed disconsolately
at a cigar which a competitor had given him in exchange for credit
information.
"Them cigars what Klinger & Klein hands out," he said to his partner,
"has asbestos wrappers and excelsior fillers, I bet yer. I'd as lief
smoke a kerosene lamp."
"You got your worries, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Just look at them next
year's models, Mawruss, and a little thing like cigars wouldn't trouble
you at all. Silk, soutache and buttons they got it, Mawruss. I guess
pretty soon them Paris people will be getting out garments trimmed with
solitaire diamonds."
Morris seized the paper and examined the half-tone cuts with a critical
eye.
"You're right, Abe," he said. "We'll have our troubles next season, but
we take our profit on silk goods, Abe, the same as we do on cotton
goods."
Abe was about to retort when a wave of recollection came over him, and
he clutched wildly at his breast pocket.
"Ho-ly smokes!" he cried. "I forgot all about it."
"Forgot all about what?" Morris asked.
"B. Sheitlis, of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting Company," Abe replied.
"He give me a stock in Pittsburg last week, and I forgot all about it."
"A stock!" Morris exclaimed. "What for a stock?"
"A stock from the stock exchange," Abe replied; "a stock from gold and
silver mines. He wanted me I should do it a favor for him and see a
stock broker here and sell it for him."
"Well, that's pretty easy," Morris rejoined. "There's lots of stock
brokers in New York, Abe. There's pretty near as many stock brokers as
there is suckers, Abe."
"Maybe there is, Mawruss," Abe replied, "but I don't know any of them."
"No?" Morris said. "Well, Sol Klinger, of Klinger & Klein, could tell
you, I guess. I seen him in the subway this morning, and he was pretty
near having a fit over the financial page of the Sun. I asked him if he
seen a failure there, and he says no, but Steel has went up to seventy,
maybe it was eighty. So I says to him he should let Andrew Carnegie
worry about that, and he says if he would of bought it at forty he would
have been in thirty thousand dollars already."
"Who?" Abe asked. "Andrew Carnegie?"
"No," Morris said; "Sol Klinger. So I says to him I could get all the
excitement I wanted out of auction pinochle and he says----"
"S'enough, Mawruss," Abe broke in. "I heard enough already. I'll ring
him up and ask him the name of the broker what does his business."
He went to the telephone in the back of the store and returned a moment
later and put on his hat and coat.
"I rung up Sol, Mawruss," he said, "and Sol tells me that a good broker
is Gunst & Baumer. They got a branch office over Hill, Arkwright &
Thompson, the auctioneers, Mawruss. He says a young feller by the name
Milton Fiedler is manager, and if he can't sell that stock, Mawruss, Sol
says nobody can. So I guess I'll go right over and see him while I got
it in my mind."
Milton Fiedler had served an arduous apprenticeship before he attained
the position of branch manager for Gunst & Baumer in the dry-goods
district. During the thirty odd years of his life he had been in turn
stockboy, clothing salesman, bookmaker's clerk, faro dealer, poolroom
cashier and, finally, bucketshop proprietor. When the police closed him
up he sought employment with Gunst & Baumer, whose exchange affiliations
precluded any suspicion of bucketing, but who, nevertheless, did a
thriving business in curb securities of the cat-and-dog variety, and it
was in this particular branch of the science of investment and
speculation that Milton excelled. Despite his expert knowledge, however,
he was slightly stumped, as the vernacular has it, when Abe Potash
produced B. Sheitlis' stock, for in all his bucketshop and curb
experience he had never even heard of the Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver
Mining Corporation.
"This is one of those smaller mines, Mr. Potash," he explained, "which
sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. Of course, I can't tell
you offhand what the value of the stock is, but I'll make inquiries at
once. The inside market at present is very strong, as you know."
Abe nodded, as he thought was expected of him, although "inside" and
"outside" markets were all one to him.
"And curb securities naturally feel the influence of the bullish
sentiment," Fiedler continued. "It isn't the business of a broker to try
to influence a customer's choice, but I'd like you to step
outside"--they were in the manager's private office--"and look at the
quotation board for a moment. Interstate Copper is remarkably active
this morning."
He led Abe into an adjoining room where a tall youth was taking green
cardboard numbers from a girdle which he wore, and sticking them on the
quotation board.
"Hello!" Fiedler exclaimed as the youth affixed a new number.
"Interstate Copper has advanced a whole point since two days ago. It's
now two and an eighth."
Simultaneously, a young man in the back of the room exclaimed aloud in
woeful profanity.
"What's the matter with him?" Abe asked.
"They play 'em both ways--a-hem!" Fiedler corrected himself in time.
"Occasionally we have a customer who sells short of the market, and
then, of course, if the market goes up he gets stung--er--he sustains a
loss."
Here the door opened and Sol Klinger entered. His bulging eyes fell on
the quotation board, and at once his face spread into a broad smile.
"Hello, Sol!" Abe cried. "You look like you sold a big bill of goods."
"I hope I look better than that, Abe," Sol replied. "I make it more on
that Interstate Copper in two days what I could make it on ten big bills
of goods. That's a great property, Abe."
"I think Mr. Klinger will have reason to congratulate himself still more
by to-morrow, Mr. Potash," Fiedler broke in. "Interstate Copper is a
stock with an immediate future."
"You bet," Sol agreed. "I'm going to hold on to mine. It'll go up to
five inside of a week."
The young man from the rear of the room took the two rows of chairs at a
jump.
"Fiedler," he said, "I'm going to cover right away. Buy me a thousand
Interstate at the market."
Sol nudged Abe, and after the young man and Fiedler had disappeared into
the latter's private office Sol imparted in hoarse whispers to Abe that
the young man was reported to have information from the ground-floor
crowd about Interstate Copper.
"Well, if that's so," Abe replied, "why does he lose money on it?"
"Because," Sol explained, "he's got an idee that if you act just
contrariwise to the inside information what you get it, why then you
come out right."
Abe shook his head hopelessly.
"Pinochle, I understand it," he said, "and skat a little also. But this
here stocks from stock exchanges is worser than chest what they play it
in coffee-houses."
"You don't need to understand it, Abe," Sol replied. "All you do is to
buy a thousand Interstate Copper to-day or to-morrow at any price up to
two and a half, Abe, and I give you a guarantee that you make
twenty-five hundred dollars by next week."
When Abe returned to his place of business that day he had developed a
typical case of stock-gambling fever, with which he proceeded to
inoculate Morris as soon as the latter came back from lunch. Abe at once
recounted all his experiences of the morning and dwelt particularly on
the phenomenal rise of Interstate Copper.
"Sol says he guarantees that we double our money in a week," he
concluded.
"Did he say he would put it in writing?" Morris asked.
Abe glared at Morris for an instant.
"Do you think I am making jokes?" he rejoined. "He don't got to put it
in writing, Mawruss. It's as plain as the nose on your face. We pay
twenty-five hundred dollars for a thousand shares at two and a half
to-day, and next week it goes up to five and we sell it and make it
twenty-five hundred dollars. Ain't it?"
"Who do we sell it to?" Morris asked.
Abe pondered for a moment, then his face brightened up.
"Why, to the stock exchange, certainly," he replied.
"_Must_ they buy it from us, Abe?" Morris inquired.
"Sure they must, Mawruss," Abe said. "Ain't Sol Klinger always selling
his stocks to them people?"
"Well, Sol Klinger got his customers, Abe, and we got ours," Morris
replied doubtfully. "Maybe them people would buy it from Sol and
wouldn't buy it from us."
For the rest of the afternoon Morris plied Abe with questions about the
technicalities of the stock market until Abe took refuge in flight and
went home at half-past five. The next morning Morris resumed his quiz
until Abe's replies grew personal in character.
"What's the use of trying to explain something to nobody what don't
understand nothing?" he exclaimed.
"Maybe I don't understand it," Morris admitted, "but also you don't
understand it, too, maybe. Ain't it?"
"I understand this much, Mawruss," Abe cried--"I understand, Mawruss,
that if Sol Klinger tells me he guarantees it I make twenty-five hundred
dollars, and this here Milton Fiedler, too, he also says it, and a young
feller actually with my own eyes I see it buys this stock because he's
got information from inside people, why shouldn't _we_ buy it and make
money on it? Ain't it?"
Morris was about to reply when the letter carrier entered with the
morning mail. Abe took the bundle of envelopes, and on the top of the
pile was a missive from Gunst & Baumer. Abe tore open the envelope and
looked at the letter hurriedly. "You see, Mawruss," he cried, "already
it goes up a sixteenth." He handed the letter to Morris. It read as
follows:
_Gentlemen:_
For your information we beg to advise you that Interstate Copper
advanced a sixteenth at the close of the market yesterday. Should
you desire us to execute a buying order in these securities, we
urge you to let us know before ten o'clock to-morrow morning, as
we believe that a sharp advance will follow the opening of the
market.
Truly yours,
GUNST & BAUMER,
Milton Fiedler, Mgr.
"Well," Abe said, "what do you think, Mawruss?"
"Think!" Morris cried. "Why, I think that he ain't said nothing to us
about them gold and silver stocks of B. Sheitlis', Abe, so I guess he
ain't sold 'em yet. If he can't sell a stock from gold and silver
already, Abe, what show do we stand with a stock from copper?"
"That Sheitlis stock is only a small item, Mawruss."
"Well, maybe it is," Morris admitted, "but just you ring up and ask him.
Then, if we find that he sold that gold and silver stock we take a
chance on the copper."
Abe hastened to the telephone in the rear of the store.
"Listen, Abe," Morris called after him, "tell him it should be no dating
or discount, strictly net cash."
In less than a minute, Abe was conversing with Fiedler.
"Mr. Fiedler!" he said. "Hello, Mr. Fiedler! Is this you? Yes. Well, me
and Mawruss is about decided to buy a thousand of them stocks what you
showed me down at your store--at your office yesterday, only, Mawruss
says, why should we buy them goods--them stocks if you ain't sold that
other stocks already. First, he says, you should sell them stocks from
gold and silver, Mr. Fiedler, and then we buy them copper ones."
Mr. Fiedler, at the other end of the 'phone, hesitated before replying.
The Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation was a paper mine
that had long since faded from the memory of every bucketshop manager he
knew, and its stock was worth absolutely nothing. Yet Gunst & Baumer, as
the promoters of Interstate Copper, would clear at least two thousand
dollars by the sale of the stock to Abe and Morris; hence, Fiedler took
a gambler's chance.
"Why, Mr. Potash," he said, "a boy is already on the way to your store
with a check for that very stock. I sold it for three hundred dollars
and I sent you a check for two hundred and seventy-five dollars.
Twenty-five dollars is our usual charge for selling a hundred shares of
stock that ain't quoted on the curb."
"Much obliged, Mr. Fiedler," Abe said. "I'll be down there with a check
for twenty-five hundred."
"All right," Mr. Fiedler replied. "I'll go ahead and buy the stock for
your account."
"Well," Abe said, "don't do that until I come down. I got to fix it up
with my partner first, Mr. Fiedler, and just as soon as I can get there
I'll bring you the check."
Twenty minutes after Abe had rung off a messenger arrived with a check
for two hundred and seventy-five dollars, and Morris included it in the
morning deposits which he was about to send over to the Kosciusko Bank.
"While you're doing that, Mawruss," Abe said, "you might as well draw a
check for twenty-five hundred dollars for that stock."
Morris grunted.
"That's going to bring down our balance a whole lot, Abe," he said.
"Only for a week, Mawruss," Abe corrected, "and then we'll sell it
again."
"Whose order do I write it to, Abe?" Morris inquired.
"I forgot to ask that," Abe replied.
"Gunst & Baumer?" Morris asked.
"They ain't the owners of it, Mawruss," said Abe. "They're only the
brokers."
"Maybe Sol Klinger is selling it to the stock-exchange people and
they're selling it to us," Morris suggested.
"Sol Klinger ain't going to sell his. He's going to hang on to it. Maybe
it's this young feller what I see there, Mawruss, only I don't know his
name."
"Well, then, I'll make it out to Potash & Perlmutter, and you can
indorse it when you get there," said Morris.
At this juncture a customer entered, and Abe took him into the
show-room, while Morris wrote out the check. For almost an hour and a
half Abe displayed the firm's line, from which the customer selected a
generous order, and when at last Abe was free to go down to Gunst &
Baumer's it was nearly twelve o'clock. He put on his hat and coat, and
jumped on a passing car, and it was not until he had traveled two blocks
that he remembered the check. He ran all the way back to the store and,
tearing the check out of the checkbook where Morris had left it, he
dashed out again and once more boarded a Broadway car. In front of Gunst
& Baumer's offices he leaped wildly from the car to the street, and,
escaping an imminent fire engine and a hosecart, he ran into the doorway
and took the stairs three at a jump.
On the second floor of the building was Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's
salesroom, where a trade sale was in progress, and the throng of buyers
collected there overflowed onto the landing, but Abe elbowed his way
through the crowd and made the last flight in two seconds.
"Is Mr. Fiedler in?" he gasped as he burst into the manager's office of
Gunst & Baumer's suite.
"Mr. Fiedler went out to lunch," the office-boy replied. "He says you
should sit down and wait, and he'll be back in ten minutes."
But Abe was too nervous for sitting down, and the thought of the
customers' room with its quotation board only agitated him the more.
"I guess I'll go downstairs to Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's," he said,
"and give a look around. I'll be back in ten minutes."
He descended the stairs leisurely and again elbowed his way through the
crowd into the salesroom of Hill, Arkwright & Thompson. Mr. Arkwright
was on the rostrum, and as Abe entered he was announcing the next lot.
"Look at them carefully, gentlemen," he said. "An opportunity like this
seldom arises. They are all fresh goods, woven this season for next
season's business--foulard silks of exceptionally good design and
quality."
At the word silks Abe started and made at once for the tables on which
the goods were piled. He examined them critically, and as he did so his
mind reverted to the half-tone cuts in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record.
Here was a rare chance to lay in a stock of piece goods that might not
recur for several years, certainly not before next season had passed.
"It's to close an estate, gentlemen," Mr. Arkwright continued. "The
proprietor of the mills died recently, and his executors have decided to
wind up the business. All these silk foulards will be offered as one
lot. What is the bid?"
Immediately competition became fast and furious, and Abe entered into
it with a zest and excitement that completely eclipsed all thought of
stock exchanges or copper shares. The bids rose by leaps and bounds, and
when, half an hour later, Abe emerged from the fray his collar was
melted to the consistency of a pocket handkerchief, but the light of
victory shone through his perspiration. He was the purchaser of the
entire lot, and by token of his ownership he indorsed the
twenty-five-hundred-dollar check to the order of Hill, Arkwright &
Thompson.
The glow of battle continued with Abe until he reached the show-room of
his own place of business at two o'clock.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "did you buy the stock?"
"Huh?" Abe exclaimed, and then, for the first time since he saw the silk
foulards, he remembered Interstate Copper.
"I was to Wasserbauer's Restaurant for lunch," Morris continued, "and in
the cafe I seen that thing what the baseball comes out of it, Abe."
"The tickler," Abe croaked.
"That's it," Morris went on. "Also, Sol Klinger was looking at it, and
he told me Interstate Copper was up to three already."
Abe sat down in a chair and passed his hand over his forehead.
"That's the one time when you give it us good advice, Abe," said Morris.
"Sol says we may make it three thousand dollars yet."
Abe nodded. He licked his dry lips and essayed to speak, but the words
of confession would not come.
"It was a lucky day for us, Abe, when you seen B. Sheitlis," Morris
continued. "Of course, I ain't saying it was all luck, Abe, because it
wasn't. If you hadn't seen the opportunity, Abe, and practically made me
go into it, I wouldn't of done nothing, Abe."
Abe nodded again. If the guilt he felt inwardly had expressed itself in
his face there would have been no need of confession. At length he
braced himself to tell it all; but just as he cleared his throat by way
of prelude Morris was summoned to the cutting-room and remained there
until closing-time. Thus, when Abe went home his secret remained locked
up within his breast, nor did he find it a comfortable burden, for when
he looked at the quotations of curb securities in the evening paper he
found that Interstate Copper had closed at four and a half, after a
total day's business of sixty thousand shares.
The next morning Abe reached his store more than two hours after his
usual hour. He had rolled on his pillow all night, and it was almost day
before he could sleep.
"Why, Abe," Morris cried when he saw him, "you look sick. What's the
matter?"
"I feel mean, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I guess I eat something what
disagrees with me."
Ordinarily, Morris would have made rejoinder to the effect that when a
man reached Abe's age he ought to know enough to take care of his
stomach; but Morris had devoted himself to the financial column of a
morning newspaper on his way downtown, and his feelings toward his
partner were mollified in proportion.
"That's too bad, Abe," he said. "Why don't you see a doctor?"
Abe shook his head and was about to reply when the telephone bell rang.
"That's Sol Klinger," Morris exclaimed. "He said he would let me know at
ten o'clock what this Interstate Copper opened at."
He darted for the telephone in the rear of the store, and when he
returned his face was wreathed in smiles.
"It has come up to five already," he cried. "We make it twenty-five
hundred dollars."
While Morris was talking over the 'phone Abe had been trying to bring
his courage to the sticking point, and the confession was on the very
tip of his tongue when the news which Morris brought forced it back
again. He rose wearily to his feet.
"I guess you think we're getting rich quick, Mawruss," he said, and
repaired to the bookkeeper's desk in the firm's private office. For the
next two hours and a half he dodged about, with one eye on Morris and
the other on the rear entrance to the store. He expected the silk to
arrive at any moment, and he knew that when it did the jig would be up.
It was with a sigh of relief that he saw Morris go out to lunch at
half-past twelve, and almost immediately afterward Hill, Arkwright &
Thompson's truckman arrived with the goods. Abe superintended the
disposal of the packing cases in the cutting-room, and he was engaged in
opening them when Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, entered.
"Mr. Potash," she said, "Mr. Perlmutter wants to see you in the
show-room."
"Did he come back from lunch so soon?" Abe asked.
"He came in right after he went out," she replied. "I guess he must be
sick. He looks sick."
Abe turned pale.
"I guess he found it out," he said to himself as he descended the stairs
and made for the show-room. When he entered he found Morris seated in a
chair with the first edition of an evening paper clutched in his hand.
"What's the matter, Mawruss?" Abe said.
Morris gulped once or twice and made a feeble attempt to brandish the
paper.
"Matter?" he croaked. "Nothing's the matter. Only, we are out
twenty-five hundred dollars. That's all."
"No, we ain't, Mawruss," Abe protested. "What we are out in one way we
make in another."
Morris sought to control himself, but his pent-up emotions gave
themselves vent.
"We do, hey?" he roared. "Well, maybe you think because I took your fool
advice this oncet that I'll do it again?"
He grew red in the face.
"Gambler!" he yelled. "Fool! You shed my blood! What? You want to ruin
me! Hey?"
Abe had expected a tirade, but nothing half as violent as this.
"Mawruss," he said soothingly, "don't take it so particular."
He might as well have tried to stem Niagara with a shovel.
"Ain't the cloak and suit business good enough for you?" Morris went on.
"Must you go throwing away money on stocks from stock exchanges?"
Abe scratched his head. These rhetorical questions hardly fitted the
situation, especially the one about throwing away money.
"Look-y here, Mawruss," he said, "if you think you scare me by this
theayter acting you're mistaken. Just calm yourself, Mawruss, and tell
me what you heard it. I ain't heard nothing."
For answer Morris handed him the evening paper.
"Sensational Failure in Wall Street," was the red-letter legend on the
front page. With bulging eyes Abe took in the import of the leaded type
which disclosed the news that Gunst & Baumer, promoters of Interstate
Copper, having boosted its price to five, were overwhelmed by a flood of
profit-taking. To support their stock Gunst & Baumer were obliged to buy
in all the Interstate offered at five, and when at length their
resources gave out they announced their suspension. Interstate
immediately collapsed and sold down in less than a quarter of an hour
from five bid, five and a thirty-second asked, to a quarter bid,
three-eighths asked.
Abe handed back the paper to Morris and lit a cigar.
"For a man what has just played his partner for a sucker, Abe," Morris
said, "you take it nice and quiet."
Abe puffed slowly before replying.
"After all, Mawruss," he said, "I was right."
"You was right?" Morris exclaimed. "What d'ye mean?"
"I mean, Mawruss," Abe went on, "I figured it out right. I says to
myself when I got that check for twenty-five hundred dollars: If I buy
this here stock from stock exchanges and we make money Mawruss will go
pretty near crazy. He'll want to buy it the whole stock exchange full
from stocks, and in the end it will bust us. On the other hand, Mawruss,
I figured it out that if we bought this here stock and lose money on it,
then Mawruss'll go crazy also, and want to murder me or something."
He paused and puffed again at his cigar.
"So, Mawruss," he concluded, "I went down to Gunst & Baumer's building,
Mawruss; but instead of going to Gunst & Baumer, Mawruss, I went one
flight lower down to Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's, Mawruss, and I didn't
buy it Interstate Copper, Mawruss, but I bought it instead silk
foulards, Mawruss--seventy-five hundred dollars' worth for twenty-five
hundred dollars, and it's laying right now up in the cutting-room."
He leaned back in his chair and triumphantly surveyed his partner, who
had collapsed into a crushed and perspiring heap.
"So, Mawruss," he said, "I am a gambler. Hey? I shed your blood? What? I
ruin you with my fool advice? Ain't it?"
Morris raised a protesting hand.
"Abe," he murmured huskily, "I done you an injury. It's me what's the
fool. I was carried away by B. Sheitlis' making his money so easy."
Abe jumped to his feet.
"Ho-ly smokes!" he cried and dashed out of the show-room to the
telephone in the rear of the store. He returned a moment later with his
cigar at a rakish angle to his jutting lower lip.
"It's all right, Mawruss," he said. "I rung up the Kosciusko Bank and
the two-hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar check went through all right."
"Sure it did," Morris replied, his drooping spirits once more revived.
"I deposited it at eleven o'clock yesterday morning. I don't take no
chances on getting stuck, Abe, and I only hope you didn't get stuck on
them foulards, neither."
Abe grinned broadly.
"You needn't worry about that, Mawruss," he replied. "Stocks from stock
exchanges maybe I don't know it, Mawruss; but stocks from silk foulards
I do know it, Mawruss, and don't you forget it."