He cleared his throat more vigorously.

“The Paris.  M. Garfunkel, Proprietor,” he said.  “Gents:  Owing to the fact that the U-nited States bankruptcy laws don’t go nowheres except in the U-nited States, we are obliged to cancel the order what you give us.  Thanking you for past favors and hoping to do a strictly-cash business with you in the future, we are truly yours, Potash & Perlmutter.”

Miss Cohen shut her book and arose.

“Wait a bit, Miss Cohen.  I ain’t through yet,” Abe said.  He tilted backward and forward on his toes for a moment.

“P.  S.,” he concluded.  “We hope you’ll like it in Canada.”

CHAPTER V

“Things goes pretty smooth for us lately, Mawruss,” Abe Potash remarked, shortly after M. Garfunkel’s failure.  “I guess we are due for a schlag somewheres, ain’t it?”

“Always you got to kick,” Morris cried.  “If you would only listen to what I got to say oncet in a while, Abe, things would always go smooth.”

Abe emitted a raucous laugh.

“Sure, I know,” he said, “like this here tenement house proposition you was talking to me about, Mawruss.  You ain’t content we should have our troubles in the cloak and suit business, Mawruss, you got to go outside yet and find ’em.  You got to go into the real estate business too.”

“Real-estaters ain’t got no such trouble like we got it, Abe,” Morris retorted.  “There ain’t no seasons in real estate, Abe.  A tenement house this year is like a tenement house last year, Abe, also the year before.  They ain’t wearing stripes in tenement houses one year, Abe, and solid colors the next.  All you do when you got a tenement house, Abe, is to go round and collect the rents, and when you got a customer for it you don’t have to draw no report on him.  Spot cash, he pays it, Abe, or else you get a mortgage as security.”

“You talk like Scheuer Blumenkrohn, Mawruss, when he comes round here last year and wants to swap it two lots in Ozone Grove, Long Island, for a couple of hundred misses’ reefers,” Abe replied.  “When I speculate, Mawruss, I take a hand at auction pinochle.”

“This ain’t no speculation, Abe,” said Morris.  “This is an investment.  I seen the house, Abe, six stories and basement stores, and you couldn’t get another tenant into it with a shoehorn.  It brings in a fine income, Abe.”

“Well, if that’s the case, Mawruss,” Abe rejoined, “why does Harris Rabin want to sell it?  Houses ain’t like cloaks and suits, Mawruss, you admit it yourself.  We sell goods because we don’t get no income by keepin’ ’em.  If we have our store full with cloaks, Mawruss, and they brought in a good income while they was in here, Mawruss, I wouldn’t want to sell ’em, Mawruss; I’d want to keep ’em.”

“Sure,” Morris replied.  “But if the income was only four hundred and fifty dollars a month, and next month you got a daughter what was getting married to Alec Goldwasser, drummer for Klinger & Klein, and you got to give Alec a couple of thousand dollars with her, but you don’t have no ready cash, then, Abe, you’d sell them cloaks, and so that’s why Harris Rabin wants to sell the house.”