“I ain’t picked up no eye-glasses,” Noblestone said.

“No?” Morris Perlmutter rejoined.  “Well, I don’t want to buy no blue white diamond ring neither, y’understand, so if it’s all the same to you I got business to attend to.”

“So do I,” Noblestone went on, “and this is what it is.  Also my name is there too.”

He showed Morris a card, which read as follows: 
______________________________________________________
|                                                      |
| Telephone connection         real estate & insurance |
|                               in all its branches    |
|                                                      |
|                 Philip Noblestone                    |
|                  business broker                     |
|                                                      |
|                      G E T  A                        |
|                    P A R T N E R                     |
|                                                      |
| 594 east Houston street                     new York |
|______________________________________________________|
e>
“Don’t discount them good accounts, Mr.
Perlmutter,” he added, “it ain’t
necessary.”
“Who told you I want to discount some accounts?”
Morris asked.
“If I see a feller in a dentist’s chair,”
Noblestone answered, “I don’t need to
be told he’s got the toothache already.”
After this Morris was easily persuaded to accept Noblestone’s
invitation to drink a cup of coffee, and they retired
immediately to a neighboring bakery and lunch room.
“Yes, Mr. Noblestone,” Morris said, consulting
the card.  “I give you right about Feder. 
That feller is worser as a dentist.  He’s
a bloodsucker.  Fifteen hundred dollars gilt-edged
accounts I offer him as security for twelve hundred,
and when I get through with paying DeWitt C. Feinholtz,
his son-in-law, what is the bank’s lawyer, there
wouldn’t be enough left from that twelve hundred
dollars to pay off my operators.”
“That’s the way it is when a feller’s
short of money,” Noblestone said.  “Now,
if you would got it a partner with backing, y’understand,
you wouldn’t never got to be short again.”
With this introductory sentence, Noblestone launched
out upon a series of persuasive arguments, which only
ended when Morris Perlmutter had promised to lunch
with Zudrowsky, Harry Federmann and Noblestone at
Wasserbauer’s Cafe and Restaurant the following
afternoon at one o’clock.
For the remainder of the day, Philip Noblestone interviewed
as much of the cloak and suit trade as he could cover,
with respect to Morris Perlmutter’s antecedents,
and the result was entirely satisfactory.  He
ascertained that Morris had worked his way up from
shipping clerk, through the various grades, until
he had reached the comparative eminence of head cutter,
and his only failing was that he had embarked in business
with less capital than experience.  At first he
had met with moderate success, but a dull season in
the cloak trade had temporarily embarrassed him, and
the consensus of opinion among his competitors was
that he had a growing business but was over-extended.