“Hallo, Sol,” Abe cried.  “What’s the trouble.  Ain’t the oitermobile running again?”

“Do me the favor, Abe,” Sol replied, “and cut out them so called alleged jokes.”

He turned toward a waiter who was dusting off the tablecloth in front of Abe.

“Max,” he said, stabbing at the steak with a fork held at arm’s length and leaning back in his chair as though to avoid contagion.  “What d’ye call this here mess anyway?”

The waiter examined the dish critically and nodded his head.

“Sally’s-bury steak, Mr. Klinger,” he murmured.  “Very nice to-day.”

“Is that so?” Sol Klinger rejoined.  “Well, lookyhere Max, if I would got it a dawg which I wanted to get rid of bad, y’understand, I would feed him that mess.  But me, I ain’t ready to die just yet awhile, y’understand, even though business is rotten, so you could take that thing back to the cook and bring me a slice of roast beef; and if you think I got all day to sit here, Max, and fool away my time——­”

“Right away, Mr. Klinger, right away,” Max cried as he hurried off the offending dish, and once more Sol subsided into a melancholy silence.

“Don’t take it so hard, Sol,” Abe said.  “We got bad weather like this schon lots of times yet, and none of us busted up.  Ain’t it?”

“The weather is nix, Abe,” Sol replied.  “If it’s wet to-day then it’s fine to-morrow, and if a concern ain’t buying goods now—­all right.  They’ll buy ’em later on.  Ain’t it? But, Abe, the partner which you got it to-day, Abe, that’s the same partner which you got it to-morrow, and that sucker Klein, Abe, he eats me up with expenses.  What that feller does with his money, Abe, I don’t know.”

“Maybe he buys oitermobiles, Sol,” Abe suggested.

“Supposing I did buy last spring an oitermobile, Abe,” Sol retorted.  “That is the least.  I bet yer that feller Klein spends enough on taxicab rides for customers, and also one or two of ’em which she ain’t customers, as he could buy a dozen oitermobiles already.  No, Abe, that ain’t the point.  The first year Klein and me goes as partners together, he overdraws me two hundred and fifty dollars. Schon gut. If the feller is a little extravagent, y’understand, he’s got to make it up next year.”

Sol paused to investigate the roast beef which Max had brought, and being apparently satisfied, he proceeded with his narrative.

“Next year, Abe,” he continued, “Klein not only ain’t made up the two hundred and fifty, Abe, but he gets into me three hundred dollars more.  Well, business is good, y’understand, and so I don’t kick and that’s where I am a great big fool, Abe, because every year since then, Abe, that sucker goes on and on, until to-day our balance sheet shows I got five thousand more invested in the business as Klein got it.  And if I would tell him we are no longer equal partners, Abe, he would go right down to Henry D. Feldman, and to-morrow morning there would be a receiver in the store.”