g how we should get
Eschenbach round here so he should look over our line--which I didn't
hardly eat nothing at all, understand me--and you go to work and knock
away the ground from under my toes already!"

"What d'ye mean, I am knocking away the ground from under your toes?"
Zapp cried indignantly. "What has Golnik's mutual aid society got to do
_mit_ your toes, Birsky--_oder_ Eschenbach, neither?"

"It's got a whole lot to do with it," Birsky declared. "It's got
everything to do with it; in fact, Barney, if it wouldn't be that I am
telling Eschenbach we got a mutual aid society here he wouldn't come
round here at all."

"That's all right," Zapp said. "He ain't in the mutual aid society
business--he's in the drygoods business, Louis; and so soon as we
showed him them changeable taffetas at eight dollars he would quick
forget all about mutual aid societies."

Birsky shook his head emphatically.

"That's where you make a big mistake, Barney," he replied; and
forthwith he unfolded to Zapp a circumstantial narrative of his
encounter with Eschenbach and Finkman at Hammersmith's cafe.

"So you see, Barney," he continued, "if we are ever going to do
business _mit_ Eschenbach, understand me, for a start the mutual aid
society is everything and the changeable taffetas don't figure at all."

"But I thought you are saying this morning you wouldn't want to do
business _mit_ Eschenbach," Zapp protested.

"This morning was something else again," Birsky said. "This morning I
was busy getting through _mit_ Feigenbaum, which if I got a bird in one
hand, Barney, I ain't trying to hold two in the other."

"That's all right, Louis," Zapp replied, "if you think when you booked
Feigenbaum's order that you got a bird in one hand, Louis, you better
wait till the goods is shipped and paid for. Otherwise, Louis, if
Feigenbaum hears you are monkeying round _mit_ mutual aid societies he
would go to work and cancel the order on us, and you could kiss
yourself good-bye with his business."

"_Schmooes_, Barney!" Birsky protested. "How is Feigenbaum, which he is
safe in Bridgetown, going to find out what is going on in our shop? We
could be running here a dozen mutual aid societies, understand me, for
all that one-eyed _Rosher_ hears of it."

Zapp shrugged his shoulders.

"All right, Louis," he said; "if you want to fix up mutual aid
societies round here go ahead and do so--only one thing I got to tell
you, Louis: you should fix it up