"Ain't it terrible the way people is related nowadays?" he said to Scheikowitz, who had just read aloud the news of Max Lapin's hiring in the columns of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record.
"Honestly, Scheikowitz, if a feller ain't got a lot of retailers oder buyers for distance relations, understand me, he might just so well go out of business and be done with it!"
Scheikowitz threw down the paper impatiently.
"That's where you are making a big mistake, Polatkin," he said. "A feller which he expects to do business with relations is just so good as looking for trouble. You could never depend on relations that they are going to keep on buying goods from you, Polatkin. The least little thing happens between relations, understand me, and they are getting right away enemies for life; while, if it was just between friends, Polatkin, one friend makes for the other a blue eye, understand me, and in two weeks' time they are just so good friends as ever. So, even if Appenweier & Murray wouldn't fire him, y'understand, Klugfels would have dumped this young feller on us anyway."
As he spoke he looked through the office door toward the showroom, where Harry Flaxberg sat with his feet cocked up on a sample table midway in the perusal of the sporting page.
"Flaxberg," Scheikowitz cried, "what are we showing here anyway—garments oder shoes? You are ruining our sample tables the way you are acting!"
Flaxberg replaced his feet on the floor and put down his paper.
"It's time some one ruined them tables on you, Mr. Scheikowitz," he said. "With the junk fixtures you got it here I'm ashamed to bring a customer into the place at all."
"That's all right," Scheikowitz retorted; "for all the customers you are bringing in here, Flaxberg, we needn't got no fixtures at all. Come inside the office—my partner wants to speak to you a few words something."
Flaxberg rose leisurely to his feet and, carefully shaking each leg in turn to restore the unwrinkled perfection of his trousers, walked toward the office.