concluded.

"Twenty dollars a month won't make us or break us, Abe," Morris said.

"It won't, hey?" Abe roared. "Well, that don't make no difference,
Mawruss. You said you wanted it two lofts, and we got to have it two
lofts. How do you think we're going to sell goods and keep our books,
Mawruss, if we have all them machines kicking up a racket on the
same floor?"

"Well, Abe, might we could send our work out by contractors, maybe,"
Morris answered with all the vivacity of a man suggesting a new and
brilliant idea.

Abe stared at his partner for a minute.

"What's the matter with you, Morris, anyway?" he asked at length. "First
you say it we must have two lofts and keep our work in our own shop, and
now you turn right around again."

"I got to talking it over with Minnie last night," Morris replied, "and
she thinks maybe if we give our work out by contractors we wouldn't need
it to stay down so late, and then I wouldn't keep the dinner waiting an
hour or so every other night. We lose it two good girls already by it in
six months."

"Who is running this business, Mawruss?" Abe roared. "Minnie or us?"

Sam Slotkin listened with a slightly bored air.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he said, "what's the use of it you make all this
disturbance? The loft is light on all four sides, with two elevators.
Also, it is already big enough for----"

"What are you butting in for?" Abe shouted. "What business is it of
yours, anyhow?"

"I am the broker," Sam Slotkin replied with simple dignity. "And also
you're going to take that loft. Otherwise I lose it three hundred
dollars' commission, and besides----"

"My partner is right," Morris interrupted. "You ain't got no business to
say what we will or will not do. If we want to take it we will take it,
otherwise not."

"Don't worry," Sam Slotkin cried, "you will take it all right and I'll
be back this afternoon for an answer."

He put on his hat and left without another word, while Abe and Morris
looked at each other in blank amazement.

"That's a real-estater for you," Abe said. "Henochstein's got it pretty
good nerve, Mawruss, but this feller acts so independent like a doctor
or a lawyer."

Morris nodded and started to hang up his hat and coat, but even as his
hand was poised half-way to the hook it became paralyzed. Simultaneously
Abe looked up from the column of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record and
Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, stopped writing; for the hum of sewing
machin