around there till next week." "All right," Meiselson said; "if you are so dead anxious I should do so, I would go around next week." "Say, lookyhere, Meiselson," Shimko burst out angrily, "don't do me no favours! Do you or do you not want to go into a good business? Because, if you don't, say so, and I wouldn't bother my head further." "Sure I do," Meiselson said. "Then I want to tell you something," Shimko continued. "We wouldn't wait till next week at all. With the business that feller does, delays is dangerous. If we would wait till next week, some one offers him a good price and buys him out, maybe. To-morrow afternoon, two o'clock, you and me goes over to his store, understand me, and we catches him unawares. Then you could see for yourself what a business that feller is doing." Meiselson shrugged. "I am agreeable," he said. "Because," Shimko went on, thoroughly aroused by Meiselson's apathy, "if you're such a fool that you don't know it, Meiselson, I must got to tell you. Wunst in a while, if a business man is going to get a feller for partner, when he knows the feller is coming around to look the business over, he plants phony customers round the store, and makes it show up like it was a fine business, when in reality he is going to bust up right away." "So?" Meiselson commented, and Shimko glared at him ferociously. "You don't appreciate what I am doing for you at all," Shimko cried. "I wouldn't telephone the feller or nothing that we are coming, understand me? We'll take him by surprise." Meiselson shrugged. "Go ahead and take him by surprise if you want to," he said wearily. "I am willing." In point of fact, Isaac Meiselson was quite content to remain in the soap and perfumery trade, and it was only by dint of much persuasion on Miss Babette Schick's part that he was prevailed upon to embark in a more lucrative business. It seemed a distinct step downward when he compared the well-nigh tender methods employed by him in disposing of soap and perfumery to the proprietresses of beauty parlours, with the more robust salesmanship in vogue in the retail clothing business; and he sighed heavily as he contemplated the immaculate ends of his finger-nails, so
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