"He couldn't do it and you couldn't neither, Max," Abe said. "If he goes back to you, Max, you couldn't change over the way you've been treating that boy ever since he was born, and he sure would go back to the way he has been acting. Let the boy stay where he is, Max."
"Say, lookyhere, Potash," Max burst out, "what are you butting into my affairs for? Ain't I competent to manage my own son?"
Abe deemed it the part of friendship to remain silent, but Max misconstrued his reticence.
"O-o-h!" he exclaimed. "I see the whole business now. You got an interest in this here pants factory and so you practically kidnap my son. Do you know what I think? I think you are trying to jolly me into letting him stay there because you expect maybe I would invest some money in the business."
For two minutes Abe gulped convulsively and blinked at the Raincoat King in stunned amazement. Then he rose slowly to his feet.
"All right, Koblin," he said. "I heard enough from you. I wash myself of the entire matter. For my part you and your son could go to the devil; and take it from me, it won't be your fault if he don't."
When Abe entered the firm's showroom that morning it was nearly half-past eleven and Morris Perlmutter sat behind the pages of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record in a sulky perusal of the Arrival of Buyers column. Before he looked up he permitted Abe to discard his coat for an office jacket.
"You was taking a sea bath, Abe?" he said at length. "Ain't it? I suppose we would pretty soon got to close up the store so's you could take all the sea baths you want. What?"
Abe refrained from uttering a suitable rejoinder and made straight for the office.
"Mawruss!" he yelled; "ain't the safe open yet?"