"And I had my chance to go in with him and I was a big fool I didn't took it."

Mr. Marks rose to his feet.

"Well, all I can say is," he rejoined, "if I got it a partner and we was to consider a proposition of building, Mr. Potash, we would go it together, not separate."

"Yes, Mr. Marks," Abe agreed, "if you had it a partner, Mr. Marks, that would be something else again, but the partner what _I_ got it, Mr.

Marks, you got no idee what an independent feller that is. I can a.s.sure you, Mr. Marks, that feller don't let me know nothing what he is doing outside of our business. For all I would know, he might of sold his house already."

"You don't mean to say that his house is on the market, do you?" Marks said sharply.

"I don't mean to say nothing," Abe replied, as he started to leave. "All I mean to say is that I am tired of waiting for that lowlife Rothschild, and I must get back to my store."

"Wait a bit; I'll go downstairs with you," Marks broke in.

As they walked down to the elevated road they exchanged further confidences, by which it appeared that Mr. Marks was in the furniture business on Third Avenue, and that he lived on Lenox Avenue near One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.

"Why, you are practically a neighbor of Mawruss Perlmutter," Abe cried.

"Is that so?" Mr. Marks said, as they reached the elevated railway.

"Yes," Abe went on, "he lives on a Hundred and Eighteenth Street and Lenox Avenue."

"You don't say so?" Mr. Marks replied. "Well, Mr. Potash, I guess I got to leave you here."

They shook hands, and after Abe had proceeded half-way up the steps to the station platform he paused to observe Mr. Marks penciling an address in his memorandum book.

When he again entered his show-room Morris had just hung up the telephone receiver.

"Yes, Abe," he said, "you've gone and stuck your feet in it all right."

"What d'ye mean?" Abe asked.

"Ferdy Rothschild just rung me up," Morris explained, "and he says you went down to his office while he was out, and you seen it there a feller what he was going to sell Rashkin's house to, and you went and broke up the deal, and that he will sue you yet in the courts."

"Let him sue us," Abe said. "All he knows about is what the office-boy tells him. I didn't break up no deal, because there wasn't no deal to bust up, Mawruss."

"Why not?" Morris asked.

"Because if the deal was to sell Rashkin's house," Abe explained, "Rothschild ain't in it at all, because I myself is the only person what could sell that house."

He drew the option from his breast pocket and handed it to Morris, who read it over carefully.

"Well, Abe," Morris commented, "that's only throwing away good money with bad, because you couldn't do nothing with that house in two weeks or in two years, neither."

"I know it," Abe said confidently, "but so long as I got an option on that house n.o.body else couldn't do nothing with it, neither. And so long as Rashkin ain't able to undersell you, Mawruss, you got a chance to get rid of your house and to come out even, Mawruss. My advice to you is, Mawruss, that you should get a hustle on you and sell that house for the best price you could. For so sure as I sit here, after this option expires, and Rashkin is again offering his house at forty-five thousand, you would be positively stuck."

"I bet yer I would be stuck, Abe," Morris agreed. "But I ain't going to let no gra.s.s grow on me, Abe. I will put in an ad. in every paper in New York this afternoon, and I'll keep it up till I sell the house."

"Maybe that wouldn't be necessary, Mawruss," Abe said, with a twinkle in his eye.

"What d'ye mean?" Morris asked.

Whereupon, Abe unfolded at great length his adventures of the day, beginning with his meeting B. Rashkin at the Real-Estate Exchange, and concluding with Mr. Marks' penciled memorandum of Morris' address.

"And now, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "you seen the position what I took it, and when that feller Marks calls at your house to-night you should be careful and not make no cracks. Remember, Mawruss, you got to tell him that as a partner I am a crank and a regular highbinder. Also, Mawruss, you got to tell him that if I wasn't held by a copartnership agreement I would do you for your shirt, y'understand?"

Morris nodded.

"I know you should, Abe," he said.

"What!" Abe roared.

"I mean I know I should," Morris explained; "I know I should tell this here Marks what you say."

Abe grew calm immediately, but he left further tactics to Morris'

discretion; and when Mr. Marks called at the latter's house that evening Morris showed that he possessed that discretion to a degree hardly equaled by his partner.

"Yes, Mr. Marks," he said, after he had seated his visitor in the easiest chair in the front parlor and had supplied him with a good cigar, "it is true that I got it a house and that the house is on the market for sale."

He paused and nodded sadly.

"But I also got it a partner, Mr. Marks, and no doubt you heard already what a cutthroat that feller is. I a.s.sure you, Mr. Marks, that feller goes to work and gets an option on the house next door which you know is identical the same like my house is. Yes, Mr. Marks, he gets an option on that house for forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars from the feller what owns it, when he knows I am already negotiating to sell my house for forty-seven seven-fifty."

This willful misstatement of the amount of the option produced the desired result.

"Did you seen it the option?" Marks asked cautiously.

"Well, no, I ain't seen it, but I heard it on good authority, Mr.

Marks," he said, and allowed himself two bars' rest, as the musicians say, for the phrase to sink in.

"Yes, Mr. Marks, on good authority I heard it that Potash pays five hundred dollars for a two-weeks' option at forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars."

"Forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars?" Marks said with a rising inflection.

"Forty-seven thousand five hundred," Morris replied blandly, "and I guess he got a pretty cheap house, too."

"Well, I ain't got the same opinion what you got," Marks retorted. "I got an opinion, Mr. Perlmutter, that your partner pays a thousand dollars too much for his house."

"Is that so?" Morris replied, and then and there began a three-hours'

session which terminated when they struck a bargain at forty-seven thousand dollars. Ten minutes later Marks left with a written memorandum of the terms of sale on his person while Morris pocketed a similar memorandum and fifty dollars earnest money.

The next morning an executory contract of sale was signed in Henry D.

Feldman's office, and precisely two weeks later Mr. Marks took t.i.tle to Morris' property which, after deducting all expenditures, netted its builder a profit of almost two thousand dollars. This sum Morris deposited to the credit of the firm account of Potash & Perlmutter, and hardly had the certified check been dispatched to the Koscius...o...b..nk when the door opened and Rashkin and Ferdy Rothschild burst into the show-room.

"Bloodsucker!" Rashkin cried, shaking his fist under Abe's nose. "What for you didn't take up your option?"

Abe stepped back hurriedly and put a sample table between himself and B.

Rashkin.