Lina struggled feet first into the gown, which buttoned down the back, and for five minutes Morris labored with clenched teeth to fasten it for her.

“That’s a fine fit,” he said, as he concluded his task.  He led her toward the mirror in the front of the show-room just as M. Garfunkel entered the store door.

“Hallo, Mawruss,” he cried.  “What’s this?  A new cloak model you got?”

[Illustration:  WHAT’S THIS?  A NEW CLOAK MODEL YOU GOT?]

Morris blushed, while Lina and M. Garfunkel both made a critical examination of the garment’s eccentric fit.

“Why, that’s one of them forty-twenty-two’s what I ordered a lot of this morning, Mawruss.  Ain’t it?”

Morris gazed ruefully at the plum-color gown and nodded.

“Then don’t ship that order till you hear from me,” M. Garfunkel said.  “I guess I got to hustle right along.”

“Don’t be in a hurry, Mr. Garfunkel,” Morris cried.  “You ain’t come in the store just to tell me that, have you?”

“Yes, I have,” said Garfunkel, his eye still glued to Lina’s bulging figure.  “That’s all what I come for.  I’ll write you this afternoon.”

He slammed the door behind him and Morris turned to the unbuttoning of the half-smothered Lina.

“That’ll be two dollars for you, Lina,” he said, “and I guess it’ll be about four hundred for us.”

At seven the next morning, when Abe came down the street from the subway, a bareheaded girl sat on the short flight of steps leading to Potash & Perlmutter’s store door.  As Abe approached, the girl rose and nodded, whereat Abe scowled.

“If a job you want it,” he said, “you should go round to the back door and wait till the foreman comes.”

“Me no want job,” she said.  “Me coosin.”

“Cousin!” Abe cried.  “Whose cousin?”

“Lina’s coosin,” said the girl.  She held out her hand and, opening it, disclosed a two-dollar bill all damp and wrinkled.  “Me want dress like Lina.”

“What!” Abe cried.  “So soon already!”

“Lina got nice red dress.  She show it me last night,” the girl said.  “Me got one, too.”

She smiled affably, and for the first time Abe noticed the smooth, fair hair, the oval face and the slender, girlish figure that seemed made for an Empire gown.  Then, of course, there was the two-dollar bill and its promise of a cash sale, which always makes a strong appeal to a credit-harried mind like Abe’s.  “Oh, well,” he said with a sigh, leading the way to the rack of Empire gowns in the rear of the store, “if I must I suppose I must.”

He selected the smallest gown in stock and handed it to her.

“If you can get into that by your own self you can have it for two dollars,” he said, pocketing the crumpled bill.  “I don’t button up nothing for nobody.”

He gathered up the mail from the letter-box and carried it to the show-room.  There was a generous pile of correspondence, and the very first letter that came to his hand bore the legend, “The Paris.  Cloaks, Suits and Millinery.  M. Garfunkel, Prop.”  Abe mumbled to himself as he tore it open.