“Excuse me,” Abe interrupted.  “I think I hear the telephone ringing.”

He walked to the rear of the store, where the telephone bell was jingling.

“Miss Cohen,” he said to the bookkeeper as he passed the office, “answer the ’phone.  I’m going upstairs to speak to Mr. Perlmutter.”

He proceeded to the cutting-room, where Morris was superintending the unpacking of piece-goods.

“Mawruss,” he said, “M.  Garfunkel is downstairs, and he says he will reconsider the cancelation and give it us a big order if we let him have better terms.  What d’ye say, Mawruss?”

Morris remained silent for a minute.

“Take a chance, Abe,” he said at length.  “He can’t bust up on us by the first bill.  Can he?”

“No,” Abe agreed hesitatingly, “but he might, Mawruss?”

“Sure he might,” said Morris, “but if we don’t take no chances, Abe, we might as well go out of the cloak and suit business.  Sell him all he wants, Abe.”

“I’ll sell him all he can pay for, Mawruss,” said Abe, “and I guess that ain’t over a thousand dollars.”

He returned to the first floor, where M. Garfunkel eagerly awaited him, and produced a box of the firm’s K. to M. first and second credit customers’ cigars.

“Have a smoke, Mr. Garfunkel,” he said.

M. Garfunkel selected a cigar with care and sat down.

“Well, Abe,” he said, “that was a long talk you had over the telephone.”

“Sure it was,” Abe replied.  “The cashier of the Kosciusko Bank on Grand Street rang me up.  He discounts some of our accounts what we sell responsible people, and he asks me that in future I get regular statements from all my customers—­those that I want to discount their accounts in particular.”

M. Garfunkel nodded slowly.

“Statements—­you shall have it, Abe,” he said, “but I may as well tell you that it’s foolish to discount bills what you sell me.  I sometimes discount them myself.  I’ll send you a statement, anyhow.  Now let’s look at your line, Abe.  I wasted enough time already.”

For the next hour M. Garfunkel pawed over Potash & Perlmutter’s stock, and when he finally took leave of Abe he had negotiated an order of a thousand dollars; terms, sixty days net.

The statement of M. Garfunkel’s financial condition, which arrived the following day, more than satisfied Morris Perlmutter and, had it not been quite so glowing in character, it might even have satisfied Abe Potash.

“I don’t know, Mawruss,” he said; “some things looks too good to be true, Mawruss, and I guess this is one of them.”

“Always you must worry, Abe,” Morris rejoined.  “If Vanderbilt and Astor was partners together in the cloak and suit business, and you sold ’em a couple of hundred dollars’ goods, Abe, you’d worry yourself sick till you got a check.  I bet yer Garfunkel discounts his bill already.”

Morris’ prophecy proved to be true, for at the end of four weeks M. Garfunkel called at Potash & Perlmutter’s store and paid his sixty-day account with the usual discount of ten per cent.  Moreover, he gave them another order for two thousand dollars’ worth of goods at the same terms.