SERPENTS' TEETH 

 "All right, Max," cried Samuel Gembitz, senior member of S. Gembitz & Sons; "if you think you know more about it as I do, Max, go ahead and make up that style in all them fancy shades. But listen to what I'm telling you, Max: black, navy blue, brown, and smoke is plenty enough; and all them copenhoogens, wisterias, and tchampanyers we would get stuck with, just as sure as little apples." 

ll 

 "That's what you think, pop," Max Gembitz replied. 

 "Well, I got a right to think, ain't I?" Samuel Gembitz retorted. 

 "Sure," Max said, "and so have I." 

 "After me," Samuel corrected. "I think first and then you think, Max; and I think we wouldn't plunge so heavy on them 1040's. Make up a few of 'em in blacks, navies, browns, and smokes, Max, and afterward we would see about making up the others." 

 He rose from his old-fashioned Windsor chair in the firm's private office and put on his hat—a silk hat of a style long obsolete. 

 "I am going to my lunch, Max," he said firmly, "and when I come back I will be here. Another thing, Max: you got an idee them 1040's is a brand-new style which is so original, understand me, we are bound to make a big hit with it at seven-fifty apiece—ain't it?" 

 Max nodded. 

 "Well, good styles travels fast, Max," the old man said; "and you could take it from me, Max, in two weeks' time Henry Schrimm and all them other fellers would be falling over themselves to sell the self-same garment at seven dollars." 

 He seized a gold-mounted, ebony cane, the gift of Harmony Lodge, 100, I.O.M.A., and started for the stairway, but as he reached the door he turned suddenly. 

 "Max," he shouted, "tell them boys to straighten up the sample racks. The place looks like a pigsty already." 

 As the door closed behind his father Max aimed a kick at the old-fashioned walnut desk and the old-fashioned Windsor chair; and then, lighting a cigarette, he walked hurriedly to the cutting room. 

 "Lester," he said to his younger brother, who was poring over a book of sample swatches, "what do you think now?" 

 "Huh?" Lester grunted. 

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