He grew suddenly excited and grabbed Morris by the arm.

“Don’t let’s waste no time about it,” he cried.  “What’s the use of memorandums?  We go right away by Henry D. Feldman and fix up the contract.”

“Hold on.”  Morris said with a stare that blended frigidity and surprise in just the right proportions.  “I ain’t said nothing about forty-eight nine-fifty.  What I said was forty-eight six.”

“You don’t mean that, Mawruss,” Harris replied.  “You mean forty-eight nine.”

Morris saw that the psychological moment had arrived.

“Look-y here, now, Harris,” he said.  “Forty-eight six from forty-eight nine is three hundred.  Ain’t it?”

Harris nodded.

“Then,” Morris announced, “we’ll split the difference and make it forty-eight seven-fifty.”

For one thoughtful moment Harris remained silent, and then he clapped his hand into that of Morris.

“Done!” he cried.

Twenty days elapsed, during which Potash & Perlmutter took title to Harris Rabin’s house and paid the balance of the purchase price, moieties of which found their way into the pockets of Magnus, Michaelson and Henochstein.  At length, the first of the month arrived and Abe and Morris left the store early so that they might collect the rents of their real property.

“I seen the house, Abe, and you seen the house,” Morris said as they turned the corner of the crowded East Side street on which their property fronted, “but you can’t tell nothing from looking at a property, Abe.  When you get the rents, Abe, that’s when you find it out that you got a fine property, Abe.”

He led the way up the front stoop of the tenement and knocked at the first door on the left-hand side.  There was no response.

“They must be out.  Ain’t it?” Abe suggested.

Morris faced about and knocked on the opposite door, with a similar lack of response.

“I guess they go out to work and lock up their rooms,” Morris explained.  “We should have came here after seven o’clock.”

They walked to the end of the hall and knocked on the door of one of the two rear apartments.

“Come!” said a female voice.

Morris opened the door and they entered.

“We’ve come for the rent,” he said.  “Him and me is the new landlords.”

The tenant excused herself while she retired to one of the inner rooms and explored her person for the money.  Then she handed Morris ten greasy one-dollar bills.

“What’s this?” Morris cried.  “I thought the rear rooms were fourteen dollars a month.  I saw the receipts made out last month.”

The tenant grinned fiendishly.

“Sure you did,” she replied.  “We’ve been getting all kinds of receipts.  Oncet we got a receipt for eighteen dollars, when dere was some vacancies in de house, but one of de syndicate says he’d get some more of dem ‘professional’ tenants, because it didn’t look so good to a feller what comes snooping around for to buy the house, to see such high rents.”