Sol looked shocked.

“Don’t you do it, Abe,” he said.  “Klein got a brother-in-law what got the rheumatism like you got it, Abe, and the feller insisted on going to Boston.  The railroad trip finished him, I bet yer.”

“Did he die?” Abe asked.

“Well, no, he didn’t die exactly,” Klinger replied; “but on the train the rheumatism went to his head, and that poor, sick young feller took a whole theayter troupe into the cafe car and blows ’em to tchampanyer wine yet.  Two hundred dollars it costed him.”

“That’s all right, Sol,” Abe replied.  “I could stand it if it stood me in three hundred dollars, so long as I could stop Marks Pasinsky making another town.”

He rose to his feet with surprising alacrity for a rheumatic patient, and returned to his office, where no communication had been received from Marks Pasinsky.

“That settles it, Mawruss,” Abe said as he jammed his hat farther down on his head.

“Where are you going now?” Morris asked.

“I’m going home to pack my grip,” Abe announced, “and I’ll get that six o’clock train to Chicago, sure.”

“But, Abe,” Morris protested, “I thought the doctor says if you went out on the road he wouldn’t be responsible for you.”

“I know he did,” Abe concluded as he passed out, “but who will be responsible for Marks Pasinsky, Mawruss?”

When Abe reached Chicago the following afternoon he repaired at once to the hotel at which Marks Pasinsky was staying.

“Mr. Pasinsky ain’t in his room.  What?” he said to the clerk.

“Mr. Pasinsky went out about one o’clock and hasn’t been back since,” the clerk replied as he handed Abe over to a bell-boy.  Fifteen minutes later Abe descended from his room with the marks of travel almost effaced, and again inquired for Marks Pasinsky.

“He ain’t been back since, Mr. Potash,” said the clerk.

“He didn’t go out with nobody.  No?” Abe asked.

“I think he went out with a short, dark gentleman,” the clerk answered.

Abe pondered for a moment.  Simon Kuhner stood full six feet tall and was a decided blond, while Chester Prosnauer, whom he knew by sight only, was as large as Marks Pasinsky himself.

“Who could that be, I wonder?” Abe murmured.

“It was a gentleman staying over at the Altringham,” the clerk said.

“Then it couldn’t be them,” Abe concluded.  “If Pasinsky comes back you should please tell him to wait.  I will be back here at six, sure.”

He made immediately for the business premises of Mandleberger Brothers & Co., where he found Simon Kuhner hard at work in his office.

“Hallo, Abe!” Kuhner cried as Abe entered.  “They told me you was a fit subject for crutches when I asked for you the other day.”

“Who told you?” Abe said without further preface.  “Marks Pasinsky?”

“Marks Pasinsky?” Kuhner repeated.  “Why, no.  He didn’t mention your name, Abe.  Do you know Marks Pasinsky, too?”