"And also, Abe," he concluded, "if I got it a partner what made it a slave of me, like Perlmutter does you, I'd go it alone, that's all I got to say."
After Henochstein left, Abe was a prey to bitter reflections, which were only interrupted by his partner's return to the show-room a quarter of an hour later.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "you got your turn at this here moving business; let me try a hand at it once."
"Go ahead, Mawruss," Abe said wearily. "You always get your own way, anyhow. You say I am the dawg, Mawruss, and you are the tail, but I guess you got it the wrong way round. I guess the tail is on the other foot."
Morris shrugged.
"That's something what is past already, Abe," he replied. "I was just talking to Wasserbauer, and he says he got it a friend what is a sort of a real-estater, a smart young feller by the name Sam Slotkin. He says if Slotkin couldn't find it us a couple of lofts, nobody couldn't."
"I'm satisfied, Mawruss," Abe said. "If Slotkin can get us lofts we move, otherwise we stay here. So far we made it always a living here, Mawruss, and I guess we ain't going to lose all our customers even if we don't move; and that's all there is to it."
Mr. Sam Slotkin was doubtless his own ideal of a well-dressed man. All the contestants in a chess tournament could have played on his clothes at one time, and the ox-blood stripes on his shirt exactly matched the color of his necktie and socks. He had concluded his interview with Morris on the morning following Henochstein's fiasco, before Abe's arrival at the office, and he was just leaving as Abe came in.
"Who's that, Mawruss?" Abe asked, staring after the departing figure.
"That's Sam Slotkin," Morris replied. "He looks like a bright young feller."