something else again," Kamin said, "because a feller
which tries to mix pinocle with business is apt to overplay his hand in
both games."

* * * * *

"No, Joe; you're wrong," Benno Ortelsburg said to his brother-in-law,
Joseph Kamin, as they sipped their after-dinner coffee in the Ortelsburg
library that day. "It wouldn't be taking advantage of the feller at all.
You say yourself he tries to sell goods to you on the car already. Why
shouldn't we try to sell Glaubmann's house to him while he's down here?
And we'll split the commission half and half."

Kamin hesitated before replying.

"In business, Joe--it's Esau's fable of the lion and the mouse every
time!" Ortelsburg continued. "The mouse scratches the lion's back and
the lion scratches the mouse's back! Ain't it?"

"But you know so well as I do, Benno, that Glaubmann's house on Linden
Boulevard ain't worth no eighteen thousand dollars," Kamin said.

"Why ain't it?" Benno retorted. "Glaubmann's Linden Boulevard house is
precisely the same house as this, built from the same plans and
everything--and this house costs me thirteen thousand five hundred
dollars. Suburban real estate is worth just so much as you can get some
sucker to pay for it, Joe. So I guess I better get the cards and chips
ready, because I see Glaubmann coming up the street now."

A moment later Glaubmann entered the library and greeted Kamin
uproariously.

"Hello, Joe!" he cried. "How's the drygoods business in Pittsburgh?"

"Not so good as the real-estate business in Burgess Park, Barney," Kamin
replied. "They tell me you are selling houses hand over fist."

"_Yow_--hand over fist!" Barnett cried. "If I carry a house six months
and sell it at a couple thousand dollars' profit, what is it?"

"I got to get rid of a whole lot of garments to make a couple thousand
dollars, Barney," Kamin said; "and, anyhow, if you sell a house for
eighteen thousand dollars which it cost you thirteen-five you would be
making a little more as four thousand dollars."

"Sure I would," Glaubmann replied; "_aber_ the people which buys
green-goods and gold bricks ain't investing in eighteen-thousand-dollar
propositions! Such yokels you could only interest in hundred-dollar lots
between high and low water on some of them Jersey sandbars."

"There is all kinds of come-ons, Barney," Joe said, "and the biggest
one, understand me, is the business man who is willing to be played for
a sucker, so