He led the way back to the office and once more examined the flaw in the mahogany.

“Yes, Mawruss,” he said, “two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars we got to pay it for this here junk.  Twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars, Mawruss, you throw it into the street for damaged, second-hand stuff what ain’t worth two hundred.”

“Why, you say it yourself you wanted to pay six hundred for it, Abe,” Morris protested, “and you said it was first-class, A Number One fixtures.”

“Me, Mawruss!” Abe exclaimed.  “I’m surprised to hear you should talk that way, Mawruss.  I knew all the time that them fixtures was bum stuff.  I only wanted to buy ’em because I thought that they would bring us some of Rifkin’s old customers, Mawruss, and I was right.”

“You’re always right, Abe,” Morris retorted.  “Maybe you was right when you said Feinstein made them marks, Abe, and maybe you wasn’t.  Feinstein ain’t the only one what scratches matches and smokes seegars, Abe.  You smoke, too, Abe.”

“All right, Mawruss,” Abe said.  “I scratched them matches and burnt that hole, if you think so; but just the same, Mawruss, if I did or if I didn’t, Ike Flachsman done us, anyhow.”

“How d’ye know that, Abe?” Morris blurted out.  “I don’t believe them fixtures is Rifkin’s fixtures at all, and I don’t believe that Flachsman bought ’em at Rifkin’s sale.  What’s more, Abe, I’m going to get Feinstein on the ’phone right away and find out who did buy ’em.”

He went to the telephone immediately and rang up Henry D. Feldman’s office.

“Hallo, Mr. Feinstein,” he said, after the connection had been made.  “This is Mawruss Perlmutter, of Potash & Perlmutter.  You know them fixtures what H. Rifkin had it?”

“I sure do,” Feinstein replied.

“Well, who bought it them fixtures at the receiver’s sale?”

“I got to look it up,” Feinstein said.  “Hold the wire for a minute.”

A moment later he returned to the ’phone.

“Hallo, Mr. Perlmutter,” he said.  “They sold for three hundred dollars to a dealer by the name Isaac Flachsman.”

CHAPTER XIII

“Say, looky here, Abe,” Morris cried one rainy March morning, “we got to get some more insurance.”

“What do you mean, insurance?” Abe asked.  “We got enough insurance, Mawruss.  Them Rifkin fixtures ain’t so valuable as all that, Mawruss, and even if we wouldn’t already got it for twenty thousand dollars insurance, Mawruss, the building is anyhow fireproof.  In a fireproof building you don’t got to have so much insurance.”

“Is that so?” Morris replied.  “Well, Pinkel Brothers’ building where they got it a loft is fireproof, and they got it also oitermatic sprinklers, Abe, and they somehow get burned out anyhow.”

“You couldn’t prove to me nothing by Pinkel Brothers, Mawruss,” Abe rejoined.  “Them people has already got a hundred operators and we ain’t got one, Mawruss, and every operator smokes yet a cigarettel, and you know what them cigarettels is, Mawruss.  They practically smokes themselves.  So, if an operator throws one of them cigarettels in a bin from clippings, Mawruss, that cigarettel would burn up them clippings certain sure.  For my part, I wouldn’t have a cigarettel in the place; and so, Mawruss, we wouldn’t have no fire, neither.”