e told me all about
it," he commented. "He says Gubin eloped with her."

Abe shook his head.

"You got it wrong, Mawruss. You must be mistaken," he concluded. "_She_
eloped with Gubin."

CHAPTER VIII

"You carry a fine stock, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe Potash exclaimed as he
glanced around the well-filled shelves of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting
Company.

"That ain't all the stock I carry," Mr. Sheitlis, the proprietor,
exclaimed. "I got also another stock which I am anxious to dispose of
it, Mr. Potash, and you could help me out, maybe."

Abe smiled with such forced amiability that his mustache was completely
engulfed between his nose and his lower lip.

"I ain't buying no cloaks, Mr. Sheitlis," he said. "I'm selling 'em."

"Not a stock from cloaks, Mr. Potash," Mr. Sheitlis explained; "but a
stock from gold and silver."

"I ain't in the jewelry business, neither," Abe said.

"That ain't the stock what I mean," Mr. Sheitlis cried. "Wait a bit and
I'll show you."

He went to the safe in his private office and returned with a crisp
parchment-paper certificate bearing in gilt characters the legend,
Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation.

"This is what I mean it," he said; "stock from stock exchanges. I paid
one dollar a share for this hundred shares."

Abe took the certificate and gazed at it earnestly with unseeing eyes.
Mr. Sheitlis had just purchased a liberal order of cloaks and suits from
Potash & Perlmutter, and it was, therefore, a difficult matter for Abe
to turn down this stock proposition without offending a good customer.

"Well, Mr. Sheitlis," he commenced, "me and Mawruss Perlmutter we do
business under a copartnership agreement, and it says we ain't supposed
to buy no stocks from stock exchanges, and----"

"I ain't asking you to buy it," Mr. Sheitlis broke in. "I only want you
to do me something for a favor. You belong in New York where all them
stock brokers is, so I want you should be so kind and take this here
stock to one of them stock brokers and see what I can get for it. Maybe
I could get a profit for it, and then, of course, I should pay you
something for your trouble."

"Pay me something!" Abe exclaimed in accents of relief. "Why, Mr.
Sheitlis, what an idea! Me and Mawruss would be only too glad, Mr.
Sheitlis, to try and sell it for you, and the more we get it for the
stock the gladder we would be for your sake. I wouldn't take a penny for
selling it if you should make