Abe sat back in his chair too stunned for words, while Morris pondered bitterly on the events of Saturday night. Then the prize was well within his grasp, for even at that late hour he could have persuaded
Mr. Burke to reconsider his decision and to bring Mr. Small over to see Potash & Perlmutter's line first. But now it was too late, Morris reflected, for Mr. Small had visited Klinger & Klein's establishment and had no doubt given the order.
"Say, my friends," Frank Walsh cried, poking his head in the door, "far from me to be buttin' in, but whenever you're ready for lunch just let me know."
Mr. Small jumped to his feet. "I'll let you know," he said—"I'll let you know right now. Half an hour since already I told Mr. Klinger I would make up my mind this afternoon about giving him the order for them goods what Mr. Burke picked out. Well, you go back and tell him I made up my mind already, sooner than I expected. I ain't going to give him the order at all."
Walsh's red face grew purple. At first he gurgled incoherently, but finally recovered sufficiently to enunciate; and for ten minutes he denounced Mr. Small and Mr. Burke, their conduct and antecedents. It was a splendid exhibition of profane invective, and when he concluded he was almost breathless.
"Yah!" he jeered, "five-dollar tickets for a prize-fight for the likes of youse!"
He fixed Morris and Mr. Burke with a final glare.
"Pearls before swine!" he bellowed, and banged the show-room door behind him.
Mr. Burke looked at Morris. "That's a lowlife for you," he said. "A respectable concern should have