“Why,” he gasped, “that’s one of them forty-twenty-two’s I ordered yesterday.”

Anna lifted both her arms the better to display the gown’s perfection, and Garfunkel examined it with the eye of an expert.

“Let’s see the back,” he said.  “That looks great on you, Anna.”

He spun her round and round in his anxiety to view the gown from all angles.

“I must have been crazy to cancel that order,” he went on.  “Where did you get it, Anna?”

“Me buy from Potash & Perlmutter,” she said.  “My coosin Lina works by Mr. Perlmutter.  She gets one yesterday for two dollar.  Me see it last night and like it.  So me get up five o’clock this morning and go downtown and buy one for two dollar, too.”

M. Garfunkel made a rapid mental calculation, while Anna left to prepare the belated breakfast.

He estimated that Anna had paid a little less for her retail purchase than the price Potash & Perlmutter had quoted to him for hundred lots.

“They’re worth it, too,” he said to himself.  “Potash & Perlmutter is a couple of pretty soft suckers, to be selling goods below cost to servant-girls.  I always thought Abe Potash was a pretty hard nut, but I guess I’ll be able to do business with ’em, after all.”

At half-past ten M. Garfunkel entered the store of Potash & Perlmutter and greeted Abe with a smile that blended apology, friendliness and ingratiation in what M. Garfunkel deemed to be just the right proportions.  Abe glared in response.

“Well, Abe,” M. Garfunkel cried, “ain’t it a fine weather?”

“Is it?” Abe replied.  “I don’t worry about the kind of weather it is when I gets cancelations, Mr. Garfunkel.  What for you cancel that order, Mr. Garfunkel?”

M. Garfunkel raised a protesting palm.

“Now, Abe,” he said, “if you was to go into a house what you bought goods off of and seen a garment you just hear is all the rage on Fifth Avenue being tried on by a cow——­”

“A cow!” Abe said.  “I want to tell you something, Mr. Garfunkel.  That lady what you see trying on them Empires was Mawruss’ girl what works by his wife, and while she ain’t no Lillian Russell nor nothing like that, y’understand, if you think you should get out of taking them goods by calling her a cow you are mistaken.”

The qualities of ingratiation and friendliness departed from M. Garfunkel’s smile, leaving it wholly apologetic.

“Well, Abe, as a matter of fact,” he said, “I ain’t canceled that order altogether absolutely, y’understand.  Maybe if you make inducements I might reconsider it.”

“Inducements!” Abe cried.  “Inducements is nix.  Them gowns costs us three dollars apiece, and we give ’em to you for three-ten.  If we make any inducements we land in the poorhouse.  Ain’t it?”

“Oh, the price is all right,” M. Garfunkel protested, “but the terms is too strict.  I can’t buy all my goods at ten days.  Sammet Brothers gives me a line at sixty and ninety days, and so I do most of my business with them.  Now if I could get the same terms by you, Abe, I should consider your line ahead of Sammet Brothers’.”