"Well, why don't you ring him up and find out what he wants?" Morris retorted.
"What do I care what he wants, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Whatever he wants he don't want it now, because them two cut-throats would suck him dry of orders. Once a feller gets into the hands of Sammet Brothers they wouldn't let him go till he bought himself blue in the face."
"Ring him up, anyhow," Morris insisted; and the next moment Abe was engaged in a heated altercation with "Central." Finally he heard Leon Sammet at the other end of the wire.
"Hello!" he yelled. "I want to speak with Mr. Griesman. Never mind what I want to speak with him about. That's my business. I ain't the fresh one—you are the fresh one. You are asking me something which you ain't got no right to ask me at all. You know well enough who it is talking."
After five minutes' further conversation, Leon relinquished his end of the wire to Griesman and immediately thereafter Abe's voice diminished in harshness till it became fairly flutelike with friendship and amiability.
"Oh, hello, Mr. Griesman!" he said. "Did you want to talk to me? Why, no, Mr. Griesman, he don't owe us nothing. He paid us this morning. Sure! What did you want to know for? Why should we sell his account, Mr. Griesman? He's a little slow, y'understand, but he's quite good. That's all right. Good-by."
When he returned to the showroom his face wore a puzzled expression.
"Well, Abe, what did he want?" Morris asked.
Abe shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know what he is up to, Mawruss," Abe said; "but he tells me he wants to buy from us Sam Green's account. So I told him Sam pays us this morning, and he rings off."