and all six of Adolph’s boys gets it one after the other.  Then, Abe, she treats Adolph like a dawg, Abe, and the first thing you know he looks at his watch and says he got an appointment and he’ll be back.  But he don’t come back at all, Abe, and this noontime I seen Leon Sammet and Adolph in Wasserbauer’s Restaurant.  They was eating the regular dinner with chicken, Abe, and I seen Leon pay for it.”

Abe received his partner’s harangue in silence.  His eyes gazed vacantly at the store door, which had just opened to admit the letter-carrier.

“Suppose we do lose a couple of hundred dollars trade,” he said at length; “one customer like Philip Hahn will make it up ten times, Mawruss.”

“Well, you’ll lose him, too, Abe, if you don’t look out,” said Morris, who had concluded the reading of a typewritten letter with a scrawled postscript.  “Just see what he writes us.”

He handed over the missive, which read as follows: 

MESSRS.  POTASH & PERLMUTTER.

Gents: We are requested by Mrs. Kreitmann of your city to ask
about a young fellow what works for you by the name of Emanuel
Gubin.  Has he any future, and what is his prospects?  By doing so
you will greatly oblige
Truly yours,
THE FLOWER CITY CREDIT OUTFITTING CO.

Dic.  PH/K

P. S. I don’t like such monkey business.  I thought you knew it.  I
don’t want no salesman.  What is the matter with you anyway?

PHILIP HAHN.

Abe folded up the letter, and his mouth became a straight line of determination under his stubby mustache.

“I guess I fix that young feller,” he cried, seizing a pen.  He wrote: 

FLOWER CITY CREDIT OUTFITTING COMPANY.

Gents: Your favor of the 14th inst. received and contents noted
and in reply would say the young fellow what you inquire about
ain’t got no future with us and the prospects is he gets fired on
Saturday.  We trust this is satisfactory. 
Truly yours,
POTASH & PERLMUTTER.

On Saturday afternoon Morris Perlmutter was putting on his hat and coat preparatory to going home.  He had just fired Mannie Gubin with a relish and satisfaction second only to what would have been his sensations if the operation had been directed toward Miss Kreitmann.  As he was about to leave the show-room Abe entered.

“Oh, Mawruss,” Abe cried, “you ought to see Miss Kreitmann.  She’s all broke up about Mannie Gubin, and she’s crying something terrible.”

“Is she?” Morris said, peering over his partner’s shoulder at the grief-stricken model, who was giving vent to her emotions in the far corner of the salesroom.  “Well, Abe, you tell her to come away from them light goods and cry over the blue satinets.  They don’t spot so bad.”

Miss Gussie Kreitmann evidently knew how to conceal a secret sorrow, for outwardly she remained unchanged.  She continued to scowl at those of her employers’ customers who were men of family, and beamed upon the unmarried trade with all the partiality she had displayed during Mannie Gubin’s tenure of employment.  Indeed, her amiability toward the bachelors was if anything intensified, especially in the case of Mendel Immerglick.