Abe carefully selected a fresh cigar and shook his head solemnly.
"Nix, Mawruss," he said. "Mendel Immerglick is nix for a nice girl like Miss Kreitmann."
He took paper out of his waistcoat pocket for the purpose of refreshing his memory.
"First, I seen Moe Klein, of Klinger & Klein," he went on. "Moe says he seen Mendel Immerglick, in the back of Wasserbauer's Café, playing auction pinochle with a couple of loafer salesmen at three o'clock in the afternoon, and while Moe was standing there already them two low-lives set Immerglick back three times on four hundred hands at a dollar a hundred, double double."
"And what was Moe doing there?" Morris asked.
"I wasn't making no investigation of Moe, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Believe me, I got enough to do to find out about Immerglick. Also, Moe tells me that Immerglick comes into their place and wants to buy off them three thousand dollars at ninety days."
"And did they sell him?" Morris asked.
"Did they sell him?" Abe cried. "If you was to meet a burglar coming into the store at midnight with a jimmy and a dark lantern, Mawruss, I suppose you'd volunteer to give him the combination of the safe. What? No, Mawruss, they didn't sell him. Such customers is for suckers like Sammet Brothers, Mawruss. Leon Sammet says they sold him three thousand at four months. Also, Elenbogen sold him a big bill, same terms, Mawruss. But big houses like Wechsel, Baum & Miller and Frederick Stettermann won't sell him at any terms, Mawruss."
"If everybody was so conservative like Wechsel, Baum & Miller," said Morris, "the retailers might as well go out of business."
"Wait a bit, Mawruss," Abe replied. "That ain't all. Louis Frank's wife is a sister to the Traders' and Merchants' Outlet, of Louisville—you know that thief, Marks Leshinsky; and Louis Frank's uncle, Mawruss, is Elkan Frank & Company, them big swindlers, them auctioneers, out in Chicago."