"That's a heart you got it, Mawruss," he declared bitterly, "like a stone. I drunk it nothing but lithia water and some dry toast, which them suckers got the nerve to charge me fifty cents for."
"Well, why don't you seen it a doctor, Abe?" Morris said. "You could monkey with yourself a whole lifetime, Abe, and it would never do you no good; whilst if you seen it a doctor, Abe, he gives you a little pinch of powder, y'understand, and in five minutes you are a well man."
Abe sighed heavily.
"It don't go so quick, Mawruss," he replied. "I seen a doctor this morning and he says I am full from rheumatism. I dassen't do nothing, Mawruss, I dassen't touch coffee or schnapps. I dassen't eat no meat but lamb chops and chicken."
"I tasted worser things already as lamb chops and chicken, Abe," Morris retorted.
"And the worstest thing of all, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "the doctor says he wouldn't be responsible for my life already if I go out on the road."
"What?" Morris exclaimed. In less than two weeks Abe was due to leave on his Western trip, and for the past few days Morris had been in the throes of preparing the sample line.
"This is a fine time for you to get sick, Abe," he cried.
"Could I help it, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "You talk like I got the rheumatism to spite you, Mawruss. Believe me, Mawruss, I ain't so stuck on staying in the store here with you, Mawruss. I could prefer it a million times to be out on the road."
He rose to his feet with another hollow groan.