“I want to tell you something, Mawruss,” Abe replied.  “Harris Rabin could sell a phonograft to a deef-and-dummy.  He could sell moving pictures to a home for the blind, Mawruss.  He could also sell anything he wanted to anybody, Mawruss, for you know as well as I do, Mawruss, Harris Rabin is a first-class, A-number-one salesman.  And so, if he wants to sell his house so cheap there’s lots of real-estaters what know a bargain in houses when they see it.  We don’t, Mawruss.  We ain’t real-estaters.  We’re in the cloak and suit business, and why should Harris Rabin be looking for us to buy his house?”

“He ain’t looking for us, Abe,” Morris went on.  “That’s just the point.  I was by Harris Rabin’s house last night, and I seen no less than three real-estaters there.  They all want that house, Abe, and if they want it, why shouldn’t we?  Ike Magnus makes Harris an offer of forty-eight thousand five hundred while I was sitting there already, but Harris wants forty-nine for it.  I bet yer, Abe, we could get it for forty-eight seven-fifty—­three thousand cash above the mortgages.”

“I suppose, Mawruss, you got three thousand lying loose around your pants’ pocket.  What?”

“Three thousand to a firm like us is nothing, Abe.  I bet yer I could go in and see Feder of the Kosciusko Bank and get it for the asking.  We ain’t so poor, Abe, but what we can buy a bargain when we see it.”

Abe shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, Mawruss, if I got to hear about Harris Rabin’s house for the rest of my life, all right.  I’m agreeable, Mawruss; only, don’t ask me to go to no lawyers’ offices nor nothing, Mawruss.  There’s enough to do in the store, Mawruss, without both of us loafing around lawyers’ offices.”

A more grudging acquiescence than this would have satisfied Morris, and, without pausing for a cigar, he put on his hat and made straight for Harris Rabin’s place of business.  The Equinox Clothing Company of which Harris Rabin was president, board of directors and sole stockholder, occupied the third loft of a building on Walker Street.  There was no elevator, and as Morris walked upstairs he encountered Ike Magnus at the first landing.

“Hallo, Mawruss!” Ike cried.  “Are you buying clothing now?  I thought you was in the cloak and suit business.”

“Whatever business I’m in, Ike,” Morris replied, “I’m in my own business, Ike; and what is somebody else’s business ain’t my business, Ike.  That’s the way I feel about it.”

He plodded slowly up the next flight, and there stood Samuel Michaelson, another real-estate operator.

“Ah, Mr. Perlmutter!” Samuel exclaimed.  “You get around to see the clothing trade once in a while, too.  Ain’t it?”

“I get around to see all sorts of trade, Mr. Michaelson,” Morris rejoined.  “I got to get around and hustle to make a living, Mr. Michaelson, because, Mr. Michaelson, I can’t make no living by loafing around street corners and buildings, Mr. Michaelson.”