The stranger looked at Zamp in a puzzled fashion.
"What are you talking about—Klinkowitz?" he said. "I don't know the feller at all."
Zamp gazed hard at his visitor, and then his face broke into a broad, welcoming smile.
"Excuse me," he said. "I am making a mistake. Do you want a French drape, oder an unfinished worsted?"
For the next thirty minutes a succession of customers filled the store, and when at intervals during that period Klinkowitz's supernumeraries arrived, Zamp turned them all away.
"What are you doing, Zamp?" Shimko exclaimed. "At two o'clock the store would be empty!"
"Would it?" Zamp retorted, as he eyed a well-dressed youth who paused in front of the show-window. "Well, maybe it would and maybe it wouldn't; and, anyhow, Mr. Shimko, if there wouldn't be no customers here, we would anyhow got plenty of cutting to do. Besides, Shimko, customers is like sheep. If you get a run of 'em, one follows the other."
For the remainder of the forenoon the two salesmen had all the customers they could manage; and as Shimko watched them work, his face grew increasingly gloomy.
"Say, lookyhere, Zamp," he said; "you are doing here such a big business, where do I come in?"
"What d'ye mean, where do you come in?" Zamp asked.