J. Kamin took a cigar out of his mouth and spat vigorously.
"You're dead right, Elkan," he said. "Go ahead and close the contract and I assure you you wouldn't regret it."
Elkan's eyes blazed and he turned on Kamin.
"You assure me!" he said. "Who in thunder are you? Do you think I'm looking for your business now, Kamin? Why, if you was worth your salt as a merchant, understand me, instead you would be fooling away your time trying to make a share of a commission, which the most you would get out of it is a hundred dollars, y'understand, you would be attending to your business buying your spring line. You are wasting two whole days on this deal, Kamin; and if two business days out of your spring buying is only worth a hundred dollars to you, Kamin, go ahead and get your goods somewheres else than in our store. I don't need to be Dun or Bradstreet to get a line on you, Kamin—and don't you forget it!"
At this juncture a faint cough localized Joel Ribnik, who had remained with Julius Tarnowitz in the obscurity cast by several bound volumes of digests and reports.
"Seemingly, Mr. Polatkin," he said, "you are a millionaire concern, the way your partner talks! Might you don't need our business, neither, maybe?"
Polatkin was busy checking the ravages made upon his linen by the perspiration that literally streamed down his face and neck; but Scheikowitz, who had listened open-mouthed to Elkan's pronunciamento, straightened up in his chair and his face grew set with determination.
"We ain't millionaires, Mr. Ribnik," he said—"far from it; and we ain't never going to be, understand me, if we got to buy eighteen-thousand dollar houses for every bill of goods we sell to Schnorrers and deadbeats!"
"Scheikowitz!" Polatkin pleaded.
"Never mind, Polatkin," Scheikowitz declared. "The boy is right, Polatkin; and if we are making our living in America we got to act like Americans—not peasants. So, go ahead, Stout. Telephone Flugel and tell him from me that if he wants to take it that way he should do so; and you, too, Stout—and that's all there is to it!"