"Now, Mr. Lowenstein," he said, "what can I do for you?"
And two hours later Mr. Lowenstein left the store with the duplicate of a twenty-four-hundred-dollar order in his pocket, deliveries to commence within five days; terms, ninety days net.
"Well, Abe," Morris said the next day as his partner, Abe Potash, entered the show-room, "how are you feeling to-day?"
"Mean, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I feel mean. The doctor says I need a rest. He says I got to go away to the country or I will maybe break down."
"Is that so?" said Morris, deeply concerned. "Well, then, you'd better go right away, before you get real serious sick. Why not fix it so you can go away to-morrow yet?"
"To-morrow!" Abe exclaimed. "It don't go so quick as all that, Mawruss. You can't believe everything the doctors tell you. I ain't exactly dead yet, Mawruss. I'm like the feller what everybody says is going to fail, Mawruss. They give him till after Christmas to bust up, and then he does a fine holiday trade, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, he's buying real estate. No, Mawruss, I feel pretty mean, I admit, but I think a good two-thousand-dollar order would put me all right again, and so long as we wouldn't have no more trouble with designers, Mawruss, I guess I would stay right too."
"Well, if that's the case," said Morris, beaming all over, "I guess I can fix you up. Siegmund Lowenstein, of Galveston, was in here yesterday, and I sold him a twenty-four-hundred-dollar order, including them forty-twenty-two's, and you know as well as I do, Abe, them forty-twenty-two's is stickers. We got 'em in stock now over two months, ever since Abe Magnus, of Nashville, turned 'em back on us."
Abe's reception of the news was somewhat disappointing to Morris. He showed no elation, but selected a slightly-damaged cigar from the K. to O. first and second credit customers' box, and lit it deliberately before replying.
"How much was that last order he give us, Mawruss?" he asked.
"Four hundred dollars," Morris replied.