Ertrinken—­ Versinken—­ Unbewusst—­ Hoechste Lust.

CHAPTER XV

“Who do you think I seen it in Hammersmith’s just now, Mawruss?” Abe Potash shouted as he burst into the show-room one Saturday afternoon in April.

“I ain’t deaf, Abe,” Morris replied.  “Who did you seen it?”

“J.  Edward Kleebaum from Minneapolis,” Abe answered.

Morris shrugged.

“What d’ye want me to do, Abe?” he asked.

Abe ignored the question.

“He promised he would come in at two o’clock and look over the line,” he announced triumphantly.

“Plenty crooks looked over our line already, Abe,” Morris commented, “and so far as I’m concerned, they could look over it all they want to, Abe, so long as they shouldn’t buy nothing from us.”

“What d’ye mean?  Crooks?” Abe cried.  “The way Kleebaum talks he would give us an order for a thousand dollars goods, maybe, Mawruss.  He ain’t no crook.”

“Ain’t he?” Morris replied.  “What’s the reason he ain’t, Abe?  The way I look at it, Abe, when a feller makes it a dirty failure like that feller made it in Milwaukee, Abe, and then goes to Cleveland, Abe, and opens up as the bon march, Abe, and does another bust up, Abe, and then he goes to——­”

“S’enough, Mawruss,” Abe interrupted.  “Them things is from old times already.  To-day is something else again.  That feller done a tremendous business last spring, Mawruss, and this season everybody is falling over themselves to sell him goods.”

“Looky here, Abe,” Morris broke in, “you think the feller ain’t a crook, and you’re entitled to think all you want to, Abe, but I seen it Sol Klinger yesterday, and what d’ye think he told me?”

“I don’t know what he told you, Mawruss,” Abe replied, “but it wouldn’t be the first time, Mawruss, that a feller tells lies about a concern that he couldn’t sell goods to, Mawruss.  It’s the old story of the dawg and the grapes.”

Morris looked hurt.

“I’m surprised you should call a decent, respectable feller like Sol Klinger a dawg, Abe,” he said.  “That feller has always been a good friend of ours, Abe, and even if he wouldn’t be, Abe, that ain’t no way to talk about a concern what does a business like Klinger & Klein.”

“Don’t make no speeches, Mawruss,” Abe retorted.  “Go ahead and tell me what Sol Klinger told it you about J. Edward Kleebaum.”

“Why, Sol Klinger says that he hears it on good authority, Abe, that that lowlife got it two oitermobiles, Abe.  What d’ye think for a crook like that?”

“So far what I hear it, Mawruss, it ain’t such a terrible crime that a feller should got it two oitermobiles.  In that case, Mawruss, Andrew Carnegie would be a murderer yet.  I bet yer he got already fifty oitermobiles.”

“S’all right, Abe,” Morris cried.  “Andrew Carnegie ain’t looking to buy off us goods, Abe, and even so, Abe, he never made it a couple of failures like Kleebaum, Abe.”