"We should give that girl a vacation, Abe," he said. "She worked hard and we ought to show her a little consideration."
"I know, Mawruss," Abe replied; "but she ain't the only person what works hard around here, Mawruss. I work hard, too, Mawruss, but I ain't getting no vacation. That's a new idee what you got, Mawruss."
"Everybody gives it their bookkeeper a vacation, Abe," Morris protested.
"Do they?" Abe rejoined. "Well, if bookkeepers gets vacations, Mawruss, where are we going to stop? First thing you know, Mawruss, we'll be giving cutters vacations, and operators vacations, and before we get through we got our workroom half empty yet and paying for full time already. If she wants a vacation for two weeks I ain't got no objections, Mawruss, only we don't pay her no wages while she's gone."
"You can't do that, Abe," Morris said. "That would be laying her off, Abe; that wouldn't be no vacation."
"But we got to have somebody here to keep our books while she's away, Mawruss," Abe cried. "We got to make it a living, Mawruss. We can't shut down just because Miss Cohen gets a vacation. And so it stands, Mawruss, we got to pay Miss Cohen wages for doing nothing, Mawruss, and also we got
to pay it wages to somebody else for doing something what Miss Cohen should be doing when she ain't, ain't it?"
"Sure, we got to get a substitute for her while she's away," Morris agreed; "but I guess it won't break us."
"All right, Mawruss," Abe replied; "if I got to hear it all summer about this here vacation business I'm satisfied. I got enough to do in the store without worrying about that, Mawruss. Only one thing I got to say it, Mawruss: we got to have a bookkeeper to take her place while she's away, and you got to attend to that, Mawruss. That's all I got to say."
Morris nodded and hastened to break the good news to Miss Cohen, who for the remainder of the week divided her time between Potash & Perlmutter's accounts and a dozen multicolored railroad folders.