For the rest of the morning Morris sulked in the cutting-room upstairs, while Abe busied himself in assorting his samples for a forthcoming New England trip.  At twelve o’clock a customer came in, and when he left at half-past twelve Abe escorted him to the store door and lingered there a few minutes to get a breath of fresh air.  As he was about to reenter the store he discerned the corpulent figure of Frank Walsh making his way down the opposite sidewalk toward Wasserbauer’s Cafe.  With him were two other men, one of them about as big as Frank himself, the other a slight, dark person.

Abe darted to the rear of the store.  “Mawruss,” he called, “come quick!  Here is this Walsh feller with Small and Burke.”

Morris took the first few stairs at a leap, and had his partner not caught him he would have landed in a heap at the bottom of the flight.  They covered the distance from the stairway to the store door so rapidly that when they reached the sidewalk Frank and his customers had not yet arrived in front of Wasserbauer’s.

“The little feller,” Morris hissed, “is the same one what was up to the fighting.  I guess he’s a drummer.”

“Him?” Abe replied.  “He ain’t no drummer, Mawruss.  He’s Jacob Berkowitz, what used to run the Up-to-Date Store in Seattle.  I sold him goods when me and Pincus Vesell was partners together, way before the Spanish War already.  Who’s the other feller?”

At that moment the subject of Abe’s inquiry looked across the street and for the first time noticed Abe and Morris standing on the sidewalk.  He stopped short and stared at Abe until his bulging eyes caught the sign above the store.  For one brief moment he hesitated and then he leaped from the curb to the gutter and plunged across the roadway, with Jacob Berkowitz and Frank Walsh in close pursuit.  He seized Abe by both hands and shook them up and down.

“Abe Potash!” he cried.  “So sure as you live.”

“That’s right,” Abe admitted; “that’s my name.”

“You don’t remember me, Abe?” he went on.

“I remember Mr. Berkowitz here,” Abe said, smiling at the smaller man. 
“I used to sell him goods oncet when he ran the Up-to-Date Store in
Seattle.  Ain’t that so, Mr. Berkowitz?”

The smaller man nodded in an embarrassed fashion, while Frank Walsh grew red and white by turns and looked first at Abe and then at the others in blank amazement.

“But,” Abe went on, “you got to excuse me, Mister—­Mister——­”

“Small,” said the larger man, whereat Morris fairly staggered.

“Mister Small,” Abe continued.  “You got to excuse me.  I don’t remember your name.  Won’t you come inside?”

“Hold on!” Frank Walsh cried.  “These gentlemen are going to lunch with me.”

Small turned and fixed Walsh with a glare.  “I am going to do what I please, Mr. Walsh,” he said coldly.  “If I want to go to lunch I go to lunch; if I don’t that’s something else again.”