“I know you didn’t, Abe,” Mr. Bramson replied firmly, “but either you will pay for it or I will go over to Lapidus & Elenbogen’s and they will pay for it.  They’ll be only too glad to pay for it, Abe, because I bet yer Miss Atkinson she give ’em a pretty big order already, Abe.”

Abe frowned and then shrugged.  “All right,” he said; “if I must I must.  So come on now, Mr. Bramson, and look over the line.”

In the meantime Morris had repaired to the bookkeeper’s desk and was looking over the daybook with an unseeing eye.  His mind was occupied with bitter reflections when Ralph Tuchman interrupted him.

“Mr. Perlmutter,” he said, “I’m going to leave.”

“Going to leave?” Morris cried.  “What for?”

“Well, in the first place, I don’t like it to be called out of my name,” he continued.  “Mr. Potash calls me Ike, and my name is Ralph.  If a man’s name is Ralph, Mr. Perlmutter, he naturally don’t like it to be called Ike.”

“I know it,” Morris agreed, “but some people ain’t got a good memory for names, Ralph.  Even myself I forget it names, too, oncet in a while, occasionally.”

“But that ain’t all, Mr. Perlmutter,” Ralph went on.  “Yesterday, while you was out, Mr. Potash accuses me something terrible.”

“Accuse you?” Morris said.  “What does he accuse you for?”

“He accuse me that I ring up my Uncle Max Tuchman and tell him about a Miss Atkinson at the Prince William Hotel,” Ralph continued.  “I didn’t do it, Mr. Perlmutter; believe me.  Uncle Max rung me up, and I was going to tell you and Mr. Potash what he rung me up for if you didn’t looked at me like I was a pickpocket when I was coming away from the ’phone yesterday.”

“I didn’t look at you like a pickpocket, Ralph,” Morris said.  “What did your Uncle Max ring you up for?”

“Why, he wanted me to tell you that so long as you was so kind and gives me this here vacation job I should do you a good turn, too.  He says that Miss Atkinson tells him yesterday she was going out oitermobile riding with you, and so he says I should tell you not to go to any expense by Miss Atkinson, on account that she already bought her fall line from Uncle Max when he was in Duluth three weeks ago already; and that she is now in New York strictly on her vacation only, and not to buy goods.”

Morris nodded slowly.

“Well, Ralph,” he said, “you’re a good, smart boy, and I want you to stay until Miss Cohen comes back and maybe we’ll raise you a couple of dollars a week till then.”

He bit the end off a Heatherbloom Inn cigar.  “When a man gets played it good for a sucker like we was,” he mused, “a couple of dollars more or less won’t harm him none.”

“That’s what my Uncle Max says when he seen you up at the Heatherbloom Inn yesterday,” Ralph commented.

“He seen me up at the Heatherbloom Inn!” Morris cried.  “How should he seen me up at the Heatherbloom Inn?  I thought he was made it arrested.”