for his food. Accordingly he
sought an enameled-brick dairy restaurant, and he was midway in the
consumption of a bowl of milk toast when Leon Sammet, senior partner of
Sammet Brothers, entered.

"Well, Abe," he said, "do you got to diet, too?"

"_Gott sei dank_, it ain't so bad as all that, Leon," Abe replied. "No,
Leon, I ain't going to die just yet a while, although that's a terrible
sickness, the rheumatism. The doctor says I could only eat it certain
things like chicken and chops and milk toast."

"Well, you wouldn't starve, anyhow," Leon commented.

"No, I wouldn't starve," Abe admitted, "but I also couldn't go out on
the road, neither. The doctor wouldn't let me, so we got to hire a
feller to take care of our Western trade. I guess he's a pretty good
salesman, too. His name is Marks Pasinsky. Do you know him?"

"Sure I know him," Leon Sammet replied. "He used to work by B. Gans, and
he's a very close friend of a feller what used to work for us by the
name Mozart Rabiner."

"You mean that musical feller?" Abe said.

"That's the one," Leon answered. "I bet yer he was musical. That feller
got the artistic temperature all right, Abe. He didn't give a damn how
much of our money he spent it. Every town he makes he got to have a
pianner sent up to the hotel. Costs us every time three dollars for the
pianner and five dollars for trucking. We got it a decent salesman now,
Abe. We hired him a couple of weeks since."

"What's his name?" Abe asked.

"Arthur Katzen," Leon Sammet replied. "He had a big week last week in
Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland and Detroit. He's in Chicago this week."

"Is that so?" Abe commented.

"He turned us in a fine order to-day," Leon continued, "from Simon
Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers & Co."

"What?" Abe gasped.

"Sure," Sammet went on, "and the funny thing about it is that Kuhner
never bought our line before, and I guess he wouldn't of bought it now,
but this here Arthur Katzen, Abe, he is sure a wonder. That feller
actually booked a five-thousand-dollar order from sample garments which
didn't belong to our line at all. They're some samples which I
understand Kuhner had made up already."

"That's something what I never heard it before," Abe exclaimed.

"Me neither," Leon said; "but Kuhner gives him the privilege to send us
the garments here, and we are to make up sample garments of our own so
soon as we can copy the styles; and after we ship our samples and
Kuhner's samples back