He hurried to the rear
platform and jumped to the street, where he collided violently with a
short, bearded person.

"Excuse me!" Morris cried; then he recognized his victim. "Harkavy!" he
exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I am coming to say good-by to a friend," Harkavy replied with some show
of confusion. "I got to go to Chicago to-morrow."

"Chicago!" Morris repeated. "Why, what are you doing in Chicago,
Harkavy?"

"I am--now--going to got a job out there," Harkavy replied--"a very good
job."

Morris drew his former assistant cutter to the sidewalk. He had
temporarily forgotten the object of his visit to the lower East Side in
the sudden conception of an idea, which was no less than the rehiring of
Harkavy.

"What for a good job?" Morris asked. "Twenty dollars a week?"

Harkavy nodded.

"A little more," he said--"twenty-five."

"_Schon gut_," Morris declared; "then you wouldn't got to go at all,
because we ourselves would give you thirty."

"I moost go," Harkavy said, shaking his head; "my fare is paid."

"Pay 'em back the fare," Morris insisted--"we would see you wouldn't
lose it."

Again Harkavy shook his head.

"I got a bonus too," he declared--"a thousand rubles."

"What are you talking about, rubles?" Morris said impatiently. "You
ain't a greenhorn no longer. Do you mean a thousand dollars?"

"Six hundred dollars--about," Harkavy replied.

Morris whistled.

"Well," he said after a pause of some seconds, "put off going until
to-morrow anyhow. Maybe we could fix up to give you the six hundred
dollars anyhow."

Harkavy remained silent and Morris clapped him on the shoulder.

"If people is so anxious to get you that they pay you a big lot of money
like that, Harkavy, you could keep 'em waiting anyhow one day. Come
round and see us to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, wouldn't you?"

Harkavy pondered the question for some minutes.

"If you wish it, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I would do so; but I must
got to go away by eleven o'clock sure."

"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "Then I'll see you to-morrow morning at nine
o'clock."

They shook hands on the appointment and Morris turned away and ascended
the high stoop of an old-fashioned tenement. In the vestibule he
encountered a boy whose right cheek was apparently distorted by a severe
toothache.

"Do a family by the name Levin live here?" Morris asked.

The boy nodded and disgorged a huge lump of toffee, whereat the
toothache disappeare