“After you, Mr. Feigenbaum,” Abe said.  He followed his late customer up the passageway between the mahogany partitions, into the show-room.

“Take a chair, Mr. Feigenbaum,” Abe cried, dragging forward a comfortable, padded seat, into which Feigenbaum sank with a sigh.

“I wish we could get it furniture like this up in Bridgetown,” Feigenbaum said.  “A one-horse place like Bridgetown you can’t get nothing there.  Everything you got to come to New York for.  We are dead ones in Bridgetown.  We don’t know nothing and we don’t learn nothing.”

“That’s right, Mr. Feigenbaum,” Abe said.  “You got to come to New York to get the latest wrinkles about everything.”

With one comprehensive motion he drew forward a chair for himself and waved a warning to Morris, who ducked behind a rack of cloaks in the rear of the show-room.

“You make yourself to home here, Potash, I must say,” Feigenbaum observed.

Abe grunted inarticulately and handed a match to Feigenbaum, who lit his cigar, a fine imported one, and blew out great clouds of smoke with every evidence of appreciative enjoyment.

“Where’s Rifkin?” he inquired between puffs.

Abe shook his head and smiled.

“You got to ask me something easier than that, Mr. Feigenbaum,” he murmured.

“What d’ye mean?” Feigenbaum cried, jumping to his feet.

“Ain’t you heard it yet?” Abe asked.

“I ain’t heard nothing,” Feigenbaum exclaimed.

“Then sit down and I’ll tell you all about it,” Abe said.

Feigenbaum sat down again.

“You mean to tell me you ain’t heard it nothing about Rifkin?” Abe went on.

“Do me the favor, Potash, and spit it out,” Feigenbaum broke in impatiently.

“Well, Rifkin run away,” Abe announced.

“Run away!”

“That’s what I said,” Abe went on.  “He made it a big failure and skipped to the old country.”

“You don’t tell me!” Feigenbaum said.  “Why, I used to buy it all my goods from Rifkin.”

Abe leaned forward and placed his hand on Feigenbaum’s knees.

“I know it,” he murmured, “and oncet you used to buy it all your goods from us, Mr. Feigenbaum.  I assure you, Mr. Feigenbaum, I don’t want to make no bluffs nor nothing, but believe me, the line of garments what we carry and the line of garments what H. Rifkin carried, there ain’t no comparison.  Merchandise what H. Rifkin got in his place as leaders already, I wouldn’t give ’em junk room.”

Mr. Feigenbaum nodded.

“Well, the fixtures what you was carrying at one time, Potash, I wouldn’t give ’em junk room neither,” Feigenbaum declared.  “You’re lucky I didn’t sue you in the courts yet for busting my nose against that high rack of yours.  I ain’t never recovered from that accident what I had in your place, Potash.  I got it catarrh yet, I assure you.”

“Accidents could happen with the best regulations, Mr. Feigenbaum,” Abe cried, “and you see that here we got it a fine new line of fixtures.”