“What d’ye mean?” Abe asked.

“Ferdy Rothschild just rung me up,” Morris explained, “and he says you went down to his office while he was out, and you seen it there a feller what he was going to sell Rashkin’s house to, and you went and broke up the deal, and that he will sue you yet in the courts.”

“Let him sue us,” Abe said.  “All he knows about is what the office-boy tells him.  I didn’t break up no deal, because there wasn’t no deal to bust up, Mawruss.”

“Why not?” Morris asked.

“Because if the deal was to sell Rashkin’s house,” Abe explained, “Rothschild ain’t in it at all, because I myself is the only person what could sell that house.”

He drew the option from his breast pocket and handed it to Morris, who read it over carefully.

“Well, Abe,” Morris commented, “that’s only throwing away good money with bad, because you couldn’t do nothing with that house in two weeks or in two years, neither.”

“I know it,” Abe said confidently, “but so long as I got an option on that house nobody else couldn’t do nothing with it, neither.  And so long as Rashkin ain’t able to undersell you, Mawruss, you got a chance to get rid of your house and to come out even, Mawruss.  My advice to you is, Mawruss, that you should get a hustle on you and sell that house for the best price you could.  For so sure as I sit here, after this option expires, and Rashkin is again offering his house at forty-five thousand, you would be positively stuck.”

“I bet yer I would be stuck, Abe,” Morris agreed.  “But I ain’t going to let no grass grow on me, Abe.  I will put in an ad. in every paper in New York this afternoon, and I’ll keep it up till I sell the house.”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be necessary, Mawruss,” Abe said, with a twinkle in his eye.

“What d’ye mean?” Morris asked.

Whereupon, Abe unfolded at great length his adventures of the day, beginning with his meeting B. Rashkin at the Real-Estate Exchange, and concluding with Mr. Marks’ penciled memorandum of Morris’ address.

“And now, Mawruss,” Abe concluded, “you seen the position what I took it, and when that feller Marks calls at your house to-night you should be careful and not make no cracks.  Remember, Mawruss, you got to tell him that as a partner I am a crank and a regular highbinder.  Also, Mawruss, you got to tell him that if I wasn’t held by a copartnership agreement I would do you for your shirt, y’understand?”

Morris nodded.

“I know you should, Abe,” he said.

“What!” Abe roared.

“I mean I know I should,” Morris explained; “I know I should tell this here Marks what you say.”

Abe grew calm immediately, but he left further tactics to Morris’ discretion; and when Mr. Marks called at the latter’s house that evening Morris showed that he possessed that discretion to a degree hardly equaled by his partner.

“Yes, Mr. Marks,” he said, after he had seated his visitor in the easiest chair in the front parlor and had supplied him with a good cigar, “it is true that I got it a house and that the house is on the market for sale.”