“Overstocked?” Abe cried.  “Overstocked?  What color was them garments?”

“Why, they was a kind of plum color,” said Hyman.

Abe put his hand to his throat and eased his collar.

“And did you send him a check for ’em yet?” he croaked.

“Not yet,” said Hyman.

Abe grabbed him by the collar.

“Come!” he said.  “Come quick by a lawyer!”

“What for?” Hyman asked.  “You’re pulling that coat all out of shape yet.”

“I’ll buy you another one,” Abe cried.  “Them plum-color garments is mine, and I want to get ’em back.”

Hyman paid the bill, and on their way down the street they passed a telegraph office.

“Wait,” Abe cried, “I must send Mawruss a wire.”

He entered and seized a telegraph form, which he addressed to Potash & Perlmutter.

“Don’t ship no more goods to Lowenstein, Morris.  Will explain by letter to-night,” he wrote.

“Now, Hymie,” he said after he had paid for the dispatch, “we go by your lawyer.”

Five minutes later they were closeted with Max Marcus, senior member of the firm of Marcus, Weinschenck & Grab, and a lodge brother of Hymie Margolius.  Max made a specialty of amputation cases.  He was accustomed to cashing missing arms and legs at a thousand dollars apiece for the victims of rolling-mill and railway accidents, and when the sympathetic jury brought in their generous verdict Max paid the expert witnesses and pocketed the net proceeds.  These rarely fell below five thousand dollars.

“Sit down, Hymie.  Glad to see you, Mr. Potash,” Max said, stroking a small gray mustache with a five-carat diamond ring.  “What can I do for you?”

“I got some goods belonging to Mr. Potash what a fellow called Lowenstein in Galveston, Texas, shipped me,” said Hymie, “and Mr. Potash wants to get ’em back.”

“Replevin, hey?” Max said.  “That’s a little out of my line, but I guess I can fix you up.”  He rang for a stenographer.  “Take this down,” he said to her, and turned to Abe Potash.  “Now, tell us the facts.”

Abe recounted the tale Mr. Lowenstein had related to Morris Perlmutter, by which Lowenstein made it appear that he was completely out of stock.  Next, Hyman Margolius produced Siegmund Lowenstein’s letter which declared that Lowenstein was disposing of the Empire cloaks because he was overstocked.

“S’enough,” Max declared.  “Tell, Mr. Weinschenck to work it up into an affidavit,” he continued to the stenographer, “and bring us in a jurat.”

A moment later she returned with a sheet of legal cap, on the top of which was typewritten:  “Sworn to before me this first day of April, 1904.”

“Sign opposite the brace,” said Max, pushing the paper at Abe, and Abe scrawled his name where indicated.

“Now, hold up your right hand,” said Max, and Abe obeyed.

“Do you solemnly swear that the affidavit subscribed by you is true?” Max went on.