Abe started to draw himself up to his full five feet three, but lumbago
brooks no hauteur, and he subsided into the nearest chair with a low,
expressive "Oo-ee!"

"That's a heart you got it, Mawruss," he declared bitterly, "like a
stone. I drunk it nothing but lithia water and some dry toast, which
them suckers got the nerve to charge me fifty cents for."

"Well, why don't you seen it a doctor, Abe?" Morris said. "You could
monkey with yourself a whole lifetime, Abe, and it would never do you no
good; whilst if you seen it a doctor, Abe, he gives you a little pinch
of powder, y'understand, and in five minutes you are a well man."

Abe sighed heavily.

"It don't go so quick, Mawruss," he replied. "I seen a doctor this
morning and he says I am full from rheumatism. I dassen't do nothing,
Mawruss, I dassen't touch coffee or schnapps. I dassen't eat no meat but
lamb chops and chicken."

"I tasted worser things already as lamb chops and chicken, Abe," Morris
retorted.

"And the worstest thing of all, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "the doctor
says he wouldn't be responsible for my life already if I go out on
the road."

"What?" Morris exclaimed. In less than two weeks Abe was due to leave
on his Western trip, and for the past few days Morris had been in the
throes of preparing the sample line.

"This is a fine time for you to get sick, Abe," he cried.

"Could I help it, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "You talk like I got the
rheumatism to spite you, Mawruss. Believe me, Mawruss, I ain't so stuck
on staying in the store here with you, Mawruss. I could prefer it a
million times to be out on the road."

He rose to his feet with another hollow groan.

"But, anyway, Mawruss, it won't help matters none if we sit around here
all the morning. We got to get it somebody to sell our line, because
even if, to hear you talk, the goods do sell themselves when _I_ go out
with them, Mawruss, we couldn't take no chances on some kid salesman. We
got to get it a first-class A Number One feller what wouldn't fool away
his time."

"Well, why don't you put it an ad in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record,
Abe?" Morris asked.

"I put it in last night already," Abe replied, "and I bet yer we get it
a million answers by the first mail this afternoon."

For the remainder of the morning Morris busied himself with the sample
line, while Abe moved slowly about the show-room, well within the
hearing of his partner, and moaned piteously at frequent int