Elkan laughed aloud.
"Wasserbauer's!" he exclaimed. "Why, what do you think I am, Mr. Flaxberg? If I would be a salesman like you, Mr. Flaxberg, I would say, 'Yes; eat once in a while at Wasserbauer's'; aber for an assistant cutter, Mr. Flaxberg, Wasserbauer's is just so high like the Waldorfer."
"That's all right," Flaxberg retorted airily. "No one asks you you should pay for it. Come and have a decent meal with me."
For a brief interval Elkan hesitated, but at length he surrendered, and five minutes later he found himself seated opposite Harry Flaxberg in the rear of Wasserbauer's café.
"Yes, Mr. Flaxberg," he said as he commenced the fourth of a series of dill pickles, "compared with a salesman, a cutter is a dawg's life—ain't it?"
"Well," Flaxberg commented, "he is and he isn't. There's no reason why a cutter shouldn't enjoy life too, Lubliner. A cutter could make money on the side just so good as a salesman. I am acquainted already with a pants cutter by the name Schmul Kleidermann which, one afternoon last week, he pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars yet."
"Pulls down two hundred and fifty dollars!" Elkan exclaimed. "From where he pulls it down, Mr. Flaxberg?"
"Not from the pants business oser," Flaxberg replied. "The feller reads the papers, Lubliner, and that's how he makes his money."
"You mean he is speculating in these here stocks from stock exchanges?" Elkan asked.
"Not stocks," Flaxberg replied in shocked accents. "From spieling the stock markets a feller could lose his shirt yet. Never play the stock markets, Lubliner. That's something which you could really say a feller ruins himself for life with."