he floor and dashed wildly to the
firm's office.

"Do you got to burn the place up yet?" Abe cried, and after he had
extinguished the match with his foot, he followed his partner to the
office in time to view Morris' coat tails disappearing into the
elevator. For two minutes he stood still and shook his head slowly.

"Miss Cohen," he said at length, "get out them statements which I told
it you yesterday, and so soon you got the drawing account finished, let
me have it. I don't think Mr. Perlmutter will be back to-day, so you
would have lots of time to do it in."

It was almost two o'clock before Miss Cohen handed Abe the statement of
the firm's drawing account, and Abe thrust it into his breast pocket.

"I'm going out for a bite, Miss Cohen," he said. "If anybody wants me, I
am over at Hammersmith's and you could send Jake across for me."

He sighed heavily as he raised his umbrella and plunged out into a heavy
March downpour. It had been raining steadily for about a week to the
complete discouragement of garment buyers, and Hammersmith's rear cafe
sheltered a proportionately gloomy assemblage of cloak and suit
manufacturers. Abe glanced around him when he entered and selected a
table at which sat Sol Klinger, who was scowling at a portion of
Salisbury steak.

"Hallo, Sol," Abe cried. "What's the trouble. Ain't the oitermobile
running again?"

"Do me the favor, Abe," Sol replied, "and cut out them so called alleged
jokes."

He turned toward a waiter who was dusting off the tablecloth in front of
Abe.

"Max," he said, stabbing at the steak with a fork held at arm's length
and leaning back in his chair as though to avoid contagion. "What d'ye
call this here mess anyway?"

The waiter examined the dish critically and nodded his head.

"Sally's-bury steak, Mr. Klinger," he murmured. "Very nice to-day."

"Is that so?" Sol Klinger rejoined. "Well, lookyhere Max, if I would got
it a dawg which I wanted to get rid of bad, y'understand, I would feed
him that mess. But me, I ain't ready to die just yet awhile,
y'understand, even though business _is_ rotten, so you could take that
thing back to the cook and bring me a slice of roast beef; and if you
think I got all day to sit here, Max, and fool away my time----"

"Right away, Mr. Klinger, right away," Max cried as he hurried off the
offending dish, and once more Sol subsided into a melancholy silence.

"Don't take it so hard, Sol," Abe said. "We got bad weather li