“You don’t know my face, do you?” Rashkin said.

“I know your face,” Abe said, “but your name ain’t familiar.  I guess I seen you in Seattle, ain’t it?”

B. Rashkin nodded.  He had never been farther West than Jersey City Heights.

“Well, how is things in Seattle, Mister—­er——­”

“Rashkin,” B. Rashkin supplied.

“Rashkin?” Abe went on, and then he paused, but not for an answer.  “Rashkin—­why, I don’t know no one from that name in Seattle.”

“No?” Rashkin replied.  “Well, the fact is, Mr. Potash, I ain’t come to see you about Seattle.  I come to see you about three lots up in Two Hundred and Sixty-fourth Street.”

The urbane smile faded at once from Abe’s face and gave place to a dark scowl.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, “a real estater.  I ain’t got no time to fool away with real estaters.”

“This ain’t fooling away your time, Mr. Potash,” Rashkin said.  “Let me explain the proposition to you.”

Without waiting for permission he at once divulged the object of his visit, while Abe listened with the bored air of an unemployed leading man at a professional matinee.

“Yes, Mr. Potash,” B. Rashkin concluded, after half an hour’s conversation, “I seen it bargains in my time, but these here lots is the biggest bargains yet.”

“Vacant lots ain’t never bargains, Rashkin,” Abe commented.  “What’s the use from vacant lots, anyway?  A feller what’s got vacant lots is like I would say I am in the cloak business if I only get it an empty store with nothing in it.”

Abe glanced proudly around him at the well-stocked racks, where the new season’s goods were neatly arranged for prospective buyers.

“But the real-estate business ain’t like the cloak business, Mr. Potash,” B. Rashkin said.

“Real estate!” Abe interrupted.  “Vacant lots ain’t no real estate, Rashkin.  Vacant lots is just imitation real estate.  You couldn’t say you got it real estate when you only got vacant lots, no more as a feller what buys a gold setting could say he’s got it a diamond ring.”

“Diamonds is something else again,” said B. Rashkin.  “I ain’t no judge of diamonds, Mr. Potash, but about real estate, Mr. Potash, I ain’t no fool neither, y’understand, and these here three lots what I talk to you about is the only three vacant lots in the neighborhood.”

“Might you think that’s a recommendation, maybe, Rashkin,” Abe replied, “but I don’t.  You come around here to try to sell it me a couple of lots, and you got to admit yourself they’re stickers.”

“They ain’t stickers, Mr. Potash,” B. Rashkin protested.

“No?” Abe said.  “What’s the reason they ain’t stickers, Rashkin?  If they ain’t stickers why ain’t somebody built on ’em?”