Simultaneously Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, lifted up her voice in strident despair while a great cloud of black smoke puffed from the elevator shaft, and the next moment Abe, Morris, Jake and the half-dozen cutters were pushing their way downstairs, elbowed by a frenzied mob of operators, male and female.  When they arrived at the ground floor the engines were clanging around the corner, and Abe and Morris ran across the street to the opposite sidewalk.  Suddenly an inarticulate cry escaped Abe and he sank onto a convenient dry-goods box.

“What’s the trouble, Abe?” Morris asked.  “Are you sick?”

“The policies!” Abe croaked, and closed his eyes.  When he opened them a minute later his partner grinned at him reassuringly.

“I got ’em in my breast pocket, Abe,” Morris said.  “As soon as I seen the smoke I grabbed ’em, and I locked up the safe with the books inside.”

Abe revived immediately.

“That reminds me, Mawruss,” he said as he took a cigar from his waistcoat pocket:  “What become of Miss Cohen?”

Twenty minutes later the fire was extinguished, and Abe and Morris returned to their loft.  The first person to greet them was Miss Cohen, and, aside from a slight careening of her pompadour, she seemed none the worse for her dangerous experience.

“Mr. Potash,” she said in businesslike tones, “the Longchamps Store just rung up and says about them garments what they returned that it was all a mistake, and that they was all right and you should reship ’em right away.”

The show-room was flooded with sunlight and a mild spring breeze had almost dissipated the acrid smell of smoke.

“What did I tell you, Mawruss?” Abe said.  “Feinholz is like them suckers in Kansas City.  He was scared he couldn’t sell them capes in wet weather, and now it’s cleared up fine he wants ’em bad, Mawruss.  I’ll go and see what happened to ’em.”

He hustled off toward the rear of the loft while Morris turned to Miss Cohen.

“Well, Miss Cohen,” he said, “how did you make out by the fire just now?”

Miss Cohen blushed and patted her pompadour.

“Oh, Mr. Perlmutter,” she said, “I was scared stiff, and Mr. Margulies, the expressman, pretty near carried me up to the roof and we stays there till the fireman says we should come down.”

“And where’s Margulies?” Morris asked.

“He’s gone back to the cutting-room,” Miss Cohen replied.  “When he seen the smoke coming up he shuts quick the iron door on the freight elevator and everything’s all right in the cutting-room, only a little water by the elevator shaft.”

“And how about the packages from Feinholz?” Morris continued.  But before Miss Cohen could reply Abe burst into the show-room with a broad grin on his face.

“That’s a good joke on Feinholz, Mawruss,” he said.  “All the fire was in the elevator shaft and them garments what he returned it us is nothing but ashes.”