Abe handed Feinstein a cigar, and together they went into Rifkin’s loft.

“He’s got some fine fixtures, ain’t it?” Abe said as he gazed upon the mahogany and plate-glass furnishings of Rifkin’s office.

“Sure he has,” Feinstein replied nonchalantly, scratching a parlor match on the veneered shelf under the cashier’s window.  The first attempt missed fire, and again he drew a match across the lower part of the partition, leaving a great scar on its polished surface.

“Ain’t you afraid you spoil them fixtures?” Abe asked.

“They wouldn’t bring nothing at the receiver’s sale, anyhow,” Feinstein replied, “even though they are pretty near new.”

“They must have cost him a pretty big sum, ain’t it?” Abe said.

“They didn’t cost him a cent,” Feinstein answered, “because he ain’t paid a cent for ’em.  Flaum & Bingler sold ’em to him, and they’re one of the petitioning creditors.  Twenty-one hundred dollars they got stung for, and they ain’t got no chattel mortgage nor nothing.  Look at them racks there and all them mirrors and tables!  Good enough for a saloon.  I bet yer them green baize doors, what he put inside the regular door, is worth pretty near a hundred dollars.”

Abe nodded again.

“And I bet the whole shooting-match don’t fetch five hundred dollars at the receiver’s sale,” Feinstein said.

“Why, I’d give that much for it myself,” Abe cried.

Feinstein puffed away at his cigar for a minute.

“Do you honestly mean you’d like to buy them fixtures?” he said at last.

“Sure I’d like to buy them,” Abe replied.  “When is the receiver’s sale going to be?”

“Next week, right after the order of adjudication is signed.  But that won’t do you no good.  The dealers would bid ’em up on you, and you wouldn’t stand no show at all.  What you want to do is to buy ’em from the receiver at private sale.”

“So?” Abe commented.  “Well, how would I go about that?”

Feinstein pulled his hat over his eyes and, resting his cigar on the top of Rifkin’s desk with the lighted end next to the wood, he drew Abe toward the rear of the office.

“Leave that to me,” he said mysteriously.  “Of course, you couldn’t expect to get them fixtures much under six hundred dollars at private sale, because it’s got to be done under the direction of the court; but for fifty dollars I could undertake to let you in on ’em for, say, five hundred and seventy-five dollars.  How’s that?”

Abe puffed at his cigar before replying.

“I got to see it my partner first,” he said.

“That’s all right, too,” Feinstein rejoined; “but there was one dealer in here this morning already.  As soon as the rest of ’em get on to this here failure they’ll be buzzing around them fixtures like flies in a meat market, and maybe I won’t be able to put it through for you at all.”

“I tell you what I’ll do,” Abe said.  “I’ll go right down to the store and I’ll be back here at two o’clock.”