es
with a feller like Mawruss Perlmutter, Rashkin."

B. Rashkin put on his hat and rose sadly.

"Well, Mr. Potash," he concluded, "all I can say is you lost a splendid
opportunity. Why, if I could only get it a feller to take over one of
them thirty-seven six parcels, I would buy the other one myself and put
up a fine building there?"

"I'm sure I ain't stopping you, Rashkin," Abe said. "Go ahead and build,
and I wish you all the luck you could want; and if you should get
somebody else to take the other one and a half lots, I wish him the same
and many of 'em. Also, Rashkin, if I was a real estater I would be glad
to fool away my time with you, Rashkin, but being as I am in the cloak
business I--you ain't going, Rashkin, are you?"

Rashkin answered by banging the door behind him and Abe repaired to the
cutting-room, where Morris Perlmutter was superintending the reception
and disposal of piece goods.

"Who was that salesman you was talking to a while ago, Abe?" he asked
innocently.

"That wasn't no salesman, Mawruss; that was a loafer," Abe replied.

"A loafer!" Morris said. "He didn't look like a loafer, Abe. He looked
like a real estater."

"Well, Mawruss," said Abe, "to me a real estater looks like a loafer,
especially, Mawruss, when he comes around with a bum proposition like he
got it."

"What for a proposition was it, Abe?" Morris asked.

"Ask me!" Abe exclaimed. "That real estater gives me a long story about
some vacant lots, and an estate, and the Independent Order Mattai Aaron,
and a lot more stuff what I don't believe the feller understands about
himself."

"But there you was talking to that real estater pretty near an hour,
Abe, and you couldn't even tell it me what he wants at all," Morris
protested.

"To tell you the truth, Mawruss," Abe replied, "I ain't interested in
what real estaters says. Real estaters, insurance canvassers and book
agents, Mawruss, is all the same to me. They go in by one ear and come
out by the other."

"Why, for all you know, Abe, the feller would have maybe some big
bargains."

"If you are looking for bargains like that feller got it, Mawruss," Abe
retorted, "you could find plenty of 'em by green-goods men. If you give
me my choice between gold bricks and vacant lots, Mawruss, I would say
gold bricks."

Morris turned away impatiently.

"What do you know about real estate, Abe?" he cried.

"Not much, Mawruss," Abe admitted, "but I know one thing about gold
b