something lots of times already," Elkan said
significantly; and Mrs. Feinermann sat down in the nearest chair while
Elkan disappeared into the adjoining room and performed a hasty toilet.

"_Schon gut_," he said as he emerged from his room five minutes later;
"we would go right up to Appenweier & Murray's."

"But I ain't said I am going up to Appenweier & Murray's," Mrs.
Feinermann cried. "Such a high-price place I couldn't afford to deal
with at all."

"I didn't say you could," Elkan replied; "but it don't do no harm to get
yourself used to such places, on account might before long you could
afford to deal there maybe."

"What d'ye mean I could afford to deal there before long?" Mrs.
Feinermann inquired.

"I mean this," Elkan said, and they started down the stairs--"I mean, if
things turn out like the way I want 'em to, instead of five dollars a
week I would give you five dollars and fifty cents a week." Here he
paused on the stair-landing to let the news sink in.

"And furthermore, if you would act the way I tell you to when we get up
there I would also pay your carfare," he concluded--"one way."

* * * * *

When Mrs. Feinermann entered Appenweier & Murray's store that afternoon
she was immediately accosted by a floorwalker.

"What do you wish, madam?" he said.

"I want to buy something a dress for my wife," Elkan volunteered,
stepping from behind the shadow of Mrs. Feinermann, who for her
thirty-odd years was, to say the least, buxom.

"Your wife?" the floorwalker repeated.

"Sure; why not?" Elkan replied. "Maybe I am looking young, but in
reality I am old; so you should please show us the dress department,
from twenty-two-fifty to twenty-eight dollars the garment."

The floorwalker ushered them into the elevator and they alighted at the
second floor.

"Miss Holzmeyer!" the floorwalker cried; and in response there
approached a lady of uncertain age but of no uncertain methods of
salesmanship. She was garbed in a silk gown that might have graced the
person of an Austrian grand duchess, and she rustled and swished as she
walked toward them in what she had always found to be a most impressive
manner.

"The lady wants to see some dresses," the floorwalker said; and Miss
Holzmeyer smiled by a rather complicated process, in which her nose
wrinkled until it drew up the corners of her mouth and made her eyes
appear to rest like shoe-buttons on the tops of her powdered cheeks.

"Th