"But, Abe—"
"Another thing, Mawruss," Abe went on. "If you don't like that dish, there ain't no law compelling you to keep it, you understand. Send it back. My Rosie can use it. Maybe we ain't so stylish like your Minnie, Mawruss; but if we don't have bumbums every day, we could put dill pickles into it!"
"One moment," Morris protested. "I ain't saying anything about that bumbum dish, Abe. All I meant that if you give me such a high-price present when I get married, that's all the more reason why we should give a high-price present to a customer what we will make money on. I ain't no customer, Abe."
"I know you ain't," said Abe. "You're only a partner, and I don't make no money on you, neither."
Morris shrugged his shoulders.
"What's the use of wasting more time about it, Abe?" he said. "Go ahead and buy a present."
"Me buy it?" Abe cried. "You know yourself, Mawruss, I ain't a success with presents. You draw the check and get your Minnie to buy it. She's an up-to-date woman, Mawruss, while my Rosie is a back number. She don't know nothing but to keep a good house, Mawruss. Sterling silver bumbum dishes she don't know, Mawruss. If I took her advice, you wouldn't got no bumbum dish. Nut-picks, Mawruss, from the five-and-ten-cent store, that's what you'd got. You might appreciate them, Mawruss; but a sterling silver—"
At this juncture Morris took refuge in the outer office, where Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, was taking off her wraps.
"Miss Cohen," he said, "draw a check for twenty-five dollars to bearer, and enter it up as a gratification to Hyman Maimin."
At dinner that evening Morris handed the check over to his wife.