"Well, all I got to say is this," Meiselson replied. "I ain't no horse.
Some people which they got a couple thousand dollars to invest would
like it they should go into a business like this, and kill themselves
to death, Mr. Shimko, but _me_ not!"

He opened the store door and started for the street.

"But, lookyhere, Meiselson!" Shimko cried in anguished tones.

"_Koosh_, Mr. Shimko!" Meiselson said. "I am in the soap and perfumery
business, Mr. Shimko, and I would stay in it, too!"

* * * * *

Six months later Harry Zamp sat in Dachtel's Coffee House on Canal
Street, and smoked a post-prandial cigar. A diamond pin sparkled in his
neck-tie, and his well-cut clothing testified to his complete solvency.

Indeed, a replica of the coat and vest hung in the window of his
enlarged business premises on Canal Street, labelled "The Latest from
the London Pickadillies," and he had sold, strictly for cash, more than
a dozen of the same style during the last twenty-four hours. For the
rush of trade which began on the day when he hired the "property"
salesmen and cutters had not only continued but had actually increased;
and it was therefore with the most pleasurable sensations that he
recognized, at the next table, Isaac Meiselson, the unconscious cause
of all his prosperity.

"Excuse me," he began, "ain't your name Meiselson?"

"My name is Mr. Meiselson," Isaac admitted. "This is Mr. Zamp, ain't
it?"

Zamp nodded.

"You look pretty well, considering the way you are working in that
clothing business of yours," Meiselson remarked.

"Hard work never hurted me none," Zamp answered. "Are you still in the
soap and perfumery business, Mr. Meiselson?"

Meiselson shook his head.

"No," he said, "I went out of the soap business when I got married last
month."

"Is that so?" Zamp commented. "And did you go into another business?"

"Not yet," Meiselson replied, and then he smiled. "The fact is," he
added in a burst of confidence, "my wife is a dressmaker."

CHAPTER THREE

THE SORROWS OF SEIDEN

"Say, lookyhere!" said Isaac Seiden, proprietor of the Sanspareil Waist
Company, as he stood in the office of his factory on Greene Street;
"what is the use your telling me it is when it ain't? My wife's mother
never got a brother by the name Pesach."

He was addressing Mrs. Miriam Saphir, who sat on the edge of the chair
nursing her cheek with her left hand. Simultaneously sh