"It ain't no use, Hymie," Abe said. "Mawruss wouldn't think of it. We're short ourselves. You've no idee what trouble we got it with some of our collections."
"But, Abe," Hymie protested, "I got to have the money. I promised Feder I would give it him this afternoon."
Abe remained silent.
"I tell you what I'll do, Abe," Hymie insisted; "I'll come around and see you."
"It won't be no use, Hymie," Abe said, but Central was his only auditor, for Hymie had hung up the receiver. Indeed, Abe had hardly returned to the show-room before Hymie entered the store door.
"Where's Mawruss?" he asked.
"Up in the cutting-room," Abe replied.
"Good!" Hymie cried. "Now look'y here, Abe, I got a proposition to make it to you."
He tugged at the diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand and laid it on a sample-table. Then from his shirt-bosom he unscrewed a miniature locomotive headlight, which he deposited beside the ring.
"See them stones, Abe?" he continued. "They costed it me one thousand three hundred dollars during the panic already, and to-day I wouldn't take two thousand for 'em. Now, Abe, you sit right down and write me out a check for a thousand dollars, and so help me I should never stir out of this here office, Abe, if I ain't on the spot with a thousand dollars in hand two weeks from to-day, Abe, you can keep them stones, settings and all."