"It's a free country, Mawruss," he said, "and nobody could stop you going to an engagement party which is in the paper, y'understand; but you shouldn't forget one thing, Mawruss. You got on our ledger a drawing account, verstehst du, and on your way out you should please tell Miss Cohen to enter the ten dollars cut glass in the right place."
"Don't worry, Abe," Morris cried, as he started for the elevator. "When the time comes we should post it in the ledger, if we ain't opened a new account in Bridgetown, Pa., I would pay for it myself."
Ten minutes later he entered the Twenty-third Street subway station en route to Canal Street, and no sooner had he bought his ticket than his enthusiasm began to wane. After all, he reflected as he boarded the train, ten dollars' worth of cut glass seemed rather extravagant when one considered the size of an order that in the most favourable circumstances might emanate from a store in Bridgetown. Indeed, as the train pulled into the Eighteenth Street station he had come to believe that seven dollars and fifty cents would be a generous price, and even this figure commenced to look huge as Fourteenth Street drew near. At Astor Place, Morris decided that five dollars' worth of cut glass would be more appropriate for a widow. When the guard announced the next stop as Bleecker Street, however, it occurred to Morris that the manufacturers of quadruple plate were producing some very artistic effects in knives, forks and spoons, which in appearance were undistinguishable from sterling silver; and the train was leaving Spring Street when Morris bethought himself of a certain bonbonnière that had cost Mrs. Perlmutter precisely four dollars at a dry-goods store. He distinctly recalled examining the trade-mark, to which were affixed the words "triple plate."
During the short walk from the Canal Street station to Marcus Flachs's place of business, he wondered vaguely if there were such a thing as double plate, and when at last he opened the door of the pawnbroker's sales store in question he approached the counter with his mind fully made up.
"Do you got maybe some sets from nutpicks?" he inquired of the proprietor.
Marcus Flachs took the question in ill part.
"What the devil do you think I am running here," he demanded by way of answer—"a five-and-ten-cent store?"
"Since when do they sell it nutpicks in a five-and-ten-cent-store?" Morris retorted.
Flachs snorted angrily.
"I don't think they sell 'em even in five-and-ten-cent stores," he said; "and anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, what for a present is nutpicks? If a feller eats nuts twice a year, that's a big average. For my part it would oser break my heart if I would never eat another nut so long as I live. Now what you want to get is something cheap, ain't it?"