He walked across the street to Wasserbauer’s Cafe and Restaurant and seated himself at his favorite table.

“Well, Mr. Potash,” Louis, the waiter, cried, dusting off the tablecloth with a red-and-white towel, “some nice Metzelsuppe to-day, huh?”

“No, Louis,” Abe replied as he took a dill pickle from a dishful on the table, “I guess I won’t have no soup to-day.  Give me some gedaempftes Kalbfleisch mit Kartoffelkloesse.”

“Right away quick, Mr. Potash,” said Louis, starting to hurry away.

“Ain’t I nobody here, Louis?” cried a bass voice at the table behind Abe.  “Do I sit here all day?”

“Ex-cuse me, Mr. Kotzen,” Louis exclaimed.  “Some nice roast chicken to-day, Mr. Kotzen?”

“I’ll tell you what I want it, Louis, not you me,” Mr. Kotzen grunted.  “If I want to eat it roast chicken I’ll say so.  If I don’t I won’t.”

“Sure, sure,” Louis cried, rubbing his hands in a perfect frenzy of apology.

“Gimme a Schweizerkaese sandwich and a cup of coffee,” Mr. Kotzen concluded, “and if you don’t think you can bring it back here in half an hour, Louis, let me know, that’s all, and I’ll ask Wasserbauer if he can help you out.”

Abe had started on his second dill pickle, and he held it in his hand as he turned around in his chair.  “Hallo, Hymie,” he said; “ain’t you feeling good to-day?”

“Oh, hallo, Abe,” Kotzen cried, glancing over; “why don’t you come over and sit at my table?”

“I guess I will,” Abe replied.  He rose to his feet with his napkin tucked into his collar and, carrying the dish of dill pickles with him, he moved over to Kotzen’s table.

“What’s the matter, Hymie?” Abe asked.  “You ain’t sick, are you?”

“That depends what you call it sick, Abe,” Hymie replied.  “I don’t got to see no doctor exactly, Abe, if that’s what you mean.  But that Sam Feder by the Kosciusko Bank, I was over to see him just now, and I bet you he makes me sick.”

“I thought you always got along pretty good with Sam, Hymie,” Abe mumbled through a mouthful of dill pickle.

“So I do,” said Hymie; “but he heard it something about this here Ready Pay Store and how I’m in it for fifteen hundred, and also this Cohen & Schondorf sticks me also, and he’s getting anxious.  So, either he wants me I should give him over a couple of accounts, or either I should take up some of my paper.  Well, you know Feder, Abe.  He don’t want nothing but A Number One concerns, and then he got the bank’s lawyer what is his son-in-law, De Witt C. Feinholz, that he should draw up the papers; and so it goes.  I got it bills receivable due the first of the month, five thousand dollars from such people like Heller, Blumenkrohn & Co., of Cincinnati, and The Emporium, Duluth, all gilt-edge accounts, Abe, and why should I lose it twenty per cent. on them, ain’t it?”

“Sure,” Abe murmured.

“Well, that’s what I told Feder,” Hymie went on.  “If I got to take up a couple of thousand dollars I’ll do it.  But running a big plant like I got it, Abe, naturally it makes me a little short.”