“Busy taking assistant millinery buyers to lunch, Abe,” Morris replied.  “The way that feller acts, Abe, he ain’t no stranger to auction pinochle, neither, I bet yer.”

Abe put on his hat and coat preparatory to going home.

“What’s the use knocking him yet a while, Mawruss?” he said.  “A different tune you will sing it when we get a couple of orders from him to-morrow morning.”

But the next forenoon’s mail was barren of result, and when Abe went out to lunch that day he had little appetite for his food.  Accordingly he sought an enameled-brick dairy restaurant, and he was midway in the consumption of a bowl of milk toast when Leon Sammet, senior partner of Sammet Brothers, entered.

“Well, Abe,” he said, “do you got to diet, too?”

“Gott sei dank, it ain’t so bad as all that, Leon,” Abe replied.  “No, Leon, I ain’t going to die just yet a while, although that’s a terrible sickness, the rheumatism.  The doctor says I could only eat it certain things like chicken and chops and milk toast.”

“Well, you wouldn’t starve, anyhow,” Leon commented.

“No, I wouldn’t starve,” Abe admitted, “but I also couldn’t go out on the road, neither.  The doctor wouldn’t let me, so we got to hire a feller to take care of our Western trade.  I guess he’s a pretty good salesman, too.  His name is Marks Pasinsky.  Do you know him?”

“Sure I know him,” Leon Sammet replied.  “He used to work by B. Gans, and he’s a very close friend of a feller what used to work for us by the name Mozart Rabiner.”

“You mean that musical feller?” Abe said.

“That’s the one,” Leon answered.  “I bet yer he was musical.  That feller got the artistic temperature all right, Abe.  He didn’t give a damn how much of our money he spent it.  Every town he makes he got to have a pianner sent up to the hotel.  Costs us every time three dollars for the pianner and five dollars for trucking.  We got it a decent salesman now, Abe.  We hired him a couple of weeks since.”

“What’s his name?” Abe asked.

“Arthur Katzen,” Leon Sammet replied.  “He had a big week last week in Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland and Detroit.  He’s in Chicago this week.”

“Is that so?” Abe commented.

“He turned us in a fine order to-day,” Leon continued, “from Simon Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers & Co.”

“What?” Abe gasped.

“Sure,” Sammet went on, “and the funny thing about it is that Kuhner never bought our line before, and I guess he wouldn’t of bought it now, but this here Arthur Katzen, Abe, he is sure a wonder.  That feller actually booked a five-thousand-dollar order from sample garments which didn’t belong to our line at all.  They’re some samples which I understand Kuhner had made up already.”

“That’s something what I never heard it before,” Abe exclaimed.

“Me neither,” Leon said; “but Kuhner gives him the privilege to send us the garments here, and we are to make up sample garments of our own so soon as we can copy the styles; and after we ship our samples and Kuhner’s samples back to Kuhner, Kuhner sends us a confirmation.  We expect Kuhner will ship us his samples to-morrow.”