"Ten-oh-four-oh, Harlem," she said.
"Hello," she continued, "is this you, Bertha? Well, this is Miriam. Will you send over to Reisbecker's and get a four-pound haddock? Never mind what I want it for. I'm going to have company to-night. Yes, that's right, and I want to make some gefüllte fische. You say you have plenty of onions? Well, then, I'll bring home ten cents' worth of Spanish saffron and half a dozen fresh eggs. I'll make some mohnkuchen after I get home. Did my white silk waist come back from the cleaners? I don't care. You can't jolly me. Good-bye."
It was almost one o'clock before she remembered to telephone over to Wasserbauer's, and when Sam and Max returned they dashed into the office and exclaimed: "Well?" with what the musical critics call splendid attack.
"He's coming over to call on me to-night," Miss Meyerson replied with a blush, "and I'll see what I can do then."
"You see, Sam," Max commented, "I told you you shouldn't reckon up how much chickens you will got till the hen lays 'em."
Max Fatkin visited a buyer at an uptown hotel on his way to the office the following morning, so that it was nearly nine before he entered his showroom. As he walked from the elevator he glanced toward Miss Meyerson's desk. It was vacant.
"Sam," he cried, "where's Miss Meyerson?"
Sam Zaretsky emerged from behind a rack of skirts and shrugged his shoulders.
"She's late the first time since she's been with us, Max," he replied.
"Might she is sick, maybe," Max suggested. "I'll ring up her cousin, the doctor, and find out."