wruss, is pretty
_schlecht_. My Rosie couldn't get along with 'em at all."

"You don't tell me!" Morris replied. "Riesenberger's is got a big
reputation, Abe, and when me and Minnie stayed there two years ago there
was an elegant class of people stopping in the house. Would you believe
me, Abe, I tried to get up a game of auction pinocle there and I
couldn't do it! Nobody would play less than a dollar a hundred. I'm
surprised to hear the place is run down so."

"Oh, if the house's got a big reputation for auction pinocle, Mawruss,
then that's something else again! They play just as high as former
times. Sidney Koblin lost forty dollars last night. With my own eyes I
seen it, Mawruss; and his father looks on and don't say nothing."

"What does Max Koblin care for forty dollars, Abe?" Morris said. "The
feller's a millionaire. He's got ten pages of advertising in the _Cloak
and Suit Monthly Gazette_. I bet yer he spends more as forty dollars for
one page already. Wait; I'll show it to you."

Morris opened the green-covered periodical and displayed a full-page
"ad."

MAX KOBLIN
KING OF RAINCOATS

"KOBLINETTE," THE RAINSHED FABRIC

WEST 20TH STREET
NEW YORK

"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe commented. "He was always a big faker, that
feller. Twenty years since already I used to eat by Gifkin's on Canal
Street, and one day Max Koblin comes in and says to me, 'Abe,' he says,
'I want you should drink a bottle tchampanyer wine on me.' In them days
Max works for old man Zudosky selling boys' reefers. Raincoats was like
oitermobiles; no one had discovered 'em yet. 'What's the matter, Max?' I
says. 'Old man Zudosky given you a raise?' I says. 'Raise nothing,' Max
says. 'I got a boy up to my house.' 'So,' I says, 'just because you
got a boy, Max, I should got a headache and neglect my business?' I
says. 'An idee!' I says. 'Take the dollar and a quarter, Max,' I says,
'and put it in the savings bank, and every time you give the boy a penny
make him put it away with the other money,' I says; 'and the first thing
you know, Max,' I says, 'when the boy gets to be twenty years old he's
got anyhow a couple hundred dollars in the savings bank.'"

"And what did Max say?" Morris asked.

"He laughs at me, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He says to me, 'when that boy
gets to be twenty years old he wouldn't need to got to have a couple
hundred dollars in the savings bank. I could give him all the money he
wants it.'"