“Suppose he did, Abe?  Kleebaum is a customer of ours.  Ain’t it?  And he got me also a special price on the car.  Twenty-one hundred dollars he will get me the car for, Abe, and Fixman looked over the car and he says it’s a great piece of work, Abe.  He ain’t got the slightest idee what I am paying for the car and he says it is well worth twenty-five hundred dollars.”

Abe shrugged his shoulders.

“All right, Mawruss,” he said.  “It’s your funeral.  Go ahead and buy the oitermobile; only I tell you right now, Mawruss, you are sinking twenty-one hundred dollars cash.”

“Not cash, Abe,” Morris corrected.  “Pfingst is willing to take a six months’ note provided it is indorsed by Potash & Perlmutter.”

It seemed hardly possible to Morris that more poignant emotion could be displayed than in Abe’s first reception of his news, but this last suggestion almost finished Abe.  For fifteen minutes he fought off apoplexy and then the storm burst.

“Say, lookyhere, Abe,” Morris protested at the first lull, “you’ll make yourself sick.”

But Abe paused only to regain his breath, and it was at least five minutes more before his vocabulary became exhausted.  Then he sat down in a chair and mopped his brow, while Morris hastened off to the cutting-room from whence he was recalled a minute later by a shout from Abe.

“By jimminy, Mawruss!” he cried slapping his knee.  “I got an idee.  Go ahead and buy your oitermobile from Pfingst and I will agree that Potash & Perlmutter should endorse the note, y’understand, only one thing besides.  Pfingst has got to guarantee to us Kleebaum’s account of twenty-one hundred dollars.”

“I’m afraid he wouldn’t do it, Abe,” Morris said.

“All right, then I wouldn’t do it neither,” Abe declared.  “But anyhow, Mawruss, it wouldn’t do no harm to ask him.  Ain’t it?  Where is this here feller Pfingst?”

“At Fiftieth Street and Broadway,” Morris said.

“Well, lookyhere, Mawruss,” Abe announced jumping to his feet, “I’m going right away and fill out one of them guarantees what Henry D. Feldman fixes up for us, and also I will write out a note at six months for twenty-one hundred dollars and indorse it with the firm’s name.  Then if he wants to you could exchange the note for the guarantee, Mawruss, and we could ship the goods right away.”

Morris shook his head doubtfully, while Abe went into the firm’s private office.  He returned five minutes afterward flourishing the guarantee.

It read as follows: 

In consideration of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations I do hereby agree to pay to Potash & Perlmutter Twenty-one hundred dollars ($2100) being the amount of a purchase made by J. Edward Kleebaum from them, if he fails to pay said twenty-one hundred dollars ($2100) on May 21st, 1909.  I hereby waive notice of Kleebaum’s default and Potash & Perlmutter shall not be required to exhaust their remedy against the said Kleebaum before recourse is had to me.  If a petition in bankruptcy be filed by or against said Kleebaum in consideration aforesaid I promise to pay to Potash & Perlmutter on demand the said sum of twenty-one hundred dollars.

“If he signs that, Mawruss,” Abe said, “you are safe in giving him the note.”