Morris puffed violently at his cigar.

"That's a fine piece of work," he said, "that Max Tuchman is."

Ralph nodded.

"Sure he is," he replied. "Uncle Max is an up-to-date feller."


CHAPTER XI

"The trouble is with us, Mawruss," Abe Potash declared one afternoon in September, "that we ain't in an up-to-date neighborhood. We should get it a loft in one of them buildings up in Seventeenth, Eighteenth or Nineteenth Street, Mawruss. All the trade is up in that neighborhood."

"I ain't got such a good head for figures like you got it, Abe," Morris Perlmutter replied, "and so I am content we should stay where we are. We done it always a fair business here, Abe. Ain't it?"

"Sure, I know," Abe went on, "but the way it is

with out-of-town buyers, Mawruss, they goes where the crowd is, and they ain't going to be bothered to come way downtown for us, Mawruss."