a million out of it."

"A million I won't make it," Mr. Sheitlis replied, dismissing the
subject. "I'll be satisfied if I get ten dollars for it."

He walked toward the front door of his store with Abe.

"What is the indications for spring business in the wholesale trade, Mr.
Potash," he asked blandly.

Abe shook his head.

"It should be good, maybe," he replied; "only, you can't tell nothing
about it. Silks is the trouble."

"Silks?" Mr. Sheitlis rejoined. "Why, silks makes goods sell high, Mr.
Potash. Ain't it? Certainly, I admit it you got to pay more for silk
piece goods as for cotton piece goods, but you take the same per cent.
profit on the price of the silk as on the price of the cotton, and so
you make more in the end. Ain't it?"

"If silk piece goods is low or middling, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe replied
sadly, "there is a good deal in what you say. But silk is high this
year, Mr. Sheitlis, so high you wouldn't believe me if I tell you we got
to pay twicet as much this year as three years ago already."

Mr. Sheitlis clucked sympathetically.

"And if we charge the retailer twicet as much for a garment next year
what he pays three years ago already, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe went on, "we
won't do no business. Ain't it? So we got to cut our profits, and that's
the way it goes in the cloak and suit business. You don't know where you
are at no more than when you got stocks from stock exchanges."

"Well, Mr. Potash," Sheitlis replied encouragingly, "next season is next
season, but now is this season, and from the prices what you quoted it
me, Mr. Potash, you ain't going to the poorhouse just yet a while."

"I only hope it that you make more profit on the stock than we make it
on the order you just give us," Abe rejoined as he shook his customer's
hand in token of farewell. "Good-by, Mr. Sheitlis, and as soon as I get
back in New York I'll let you know all about it."

Two days after Abe's return to New York he sat in Potash & Perlmutter's
show-room, going over next year's models as published in the Daily Cloak
and Suit Record. His partner, Morris Perlmutter, puffed disconsolately
at a cigar which a competitor had given him in exchange for credit
information.

"Them cigars what Klinger & Klein hands out," he said to his partner,
"has asbestos wrappers and excelsior fillers, I bet yer. I'd as lief
smoke a kerosene lamp."

"You got your worries, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Just look at them next
year's models, Mawruss, an