while if you want to sell him goods, Schrimm; and, anyhow, Schrimm, if it would be you would be trying to sell goods to this here Kelly, you wouldn't got sense enough to play pool with him. You would waste your time trying to learn him auction pinochle." 

 "But, Mr. Gembitz," Schrimm began, "when a feller plays Kelly pool——" 

 "And as for Max," Gembitz interrupted, "if you would be so good a boy as Max is, Schrimm, might your father would be alive to-day yet." 

 "What d'ye mean?" Schrimm cried. "My father died when I was two years old already." 

 "Sure, I know," Gembitz concluded; "and one thing I am only sorry, Schrimm: your father was a decent, respectable man, Schrimm, but he ought to got to die three years sooner. That's all." 

 No sooner had Mr. Gembitz left Hammersmith's restaurant than the gefüllte Rinderbrust commenced to assert itself; and by the time he arrived at his place of business he was experiencing all the preliminary symptoms of a severe bilious attack. Nevertheless, he pulled himself together and as he sat down at his desk he called loudly for Sidney. 

 "He ain't in," Max said. 

 "Oh, he ain't, ain't he?" Mr. Gembitz retorted. "Well, where is he?" 

 "He went out with a feller from the New Idea Store, Bridgetown," Max answered, drawing on his imagination in the defence of his brother. 

 "New Idea Store!" Gembitz repeated. "What's the feller's name?" 

 Max shrugged. 

 "I forgot his name," he answered. 

 "Well, I ain't forgot his name," Gembitz continued. "His name is Kelly; and every afternoon Schrimm tells me Sidney is playing this here Kelly pool." 

 For a brief interval Max stared at his father; then he broke into an unrestrained laugh. 

 "Nu!" Gembitz cried. "What's the joke?" 

 "Why," Max explained, "you're all twisted. Kelly ain't a feller at all. Kelly pool's a game, like you would say straight pinochle and auction pinochle—there's straight pool and Kelly pool." 

 Gembitz drummed on his desk 

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