"But ain't you got no witnesses, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Witnesses I got it plenty, Abe," Morris answered. "And so has Feinholz got it witnesses. What's the use witnesses when all Feinholz has got to do is to get Henry D. Feldman to make theayter acting over that sample? For you know as well as I do, Abe, anyone would see that them garments is doch, anyway, a cheap imitation of that winder sample, Abe."
At this juncture Jake, the shipping clerk, entered.
"Mr. Potash," he said, "here comes Margulies' Harlem Express with them packages what we shipped it the Longchamps Store yesterday. Should I take 'em in?"
Abe jumped to his feet.
"Did Margulies bring 'em up?" he asked.
"He had 'em just now on the elevator," Jake replied.
"Wait, I go with you," Abe said. Together they walked rapidly toward the freight elevator, which opened into the cutting-room, but before they reached the door a shrill outcry rose from the floor below.
The East Side slogan of woe, "Oi gewalt," blended with women's shrieks, and at length came the cry: "Fie-urr! Fie-urr!"
Simultaneously Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, lifted up her voice in strident despair while a great cloud of black smoke puffed from the elevator shaft, and the next moment Abe, Morris, Jake and the half-dozen cutters were pushing their way downstairs, elbowed by a frenzied mob of operators, male and female. When they arrived at the ground floor the engines were clanging around the corner, and Abe and Morris ran across the street to the opposite sidewalk. Suddenly an inarticulate cry escaped Abe and he sank onto a convenient dry-goods box.