ain't it, Mawruss?" he said. "But one thing's sure, Mawruss--you can't
run a cloak-and-suit business according to the Talmud." There was a
short silence. "Did you ask her why she comes back, Mawruss?" he said.

Morris took the end off a particularly black cigar with one vicious
bite.

"I didn't have to ask her. She told me," he said bitterly. "She says a
smart girl can get a husband any day, she says; but a good job is hard
to find, and when you got one, you should stick to it!"




CHAPTER TEN

AUX ITALIENS


"What are you talking nonsense, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared hotly,
one morning in December; "an elegant class of people lives in the
houses. On the same floor with me lives Harry Baskof, which he is just
married a daughter of Maisener & Finkman. You remember Max Finkman, for
years a salesman for B. Senft & Co. Downstairs is a lawyer, a young
feller by the name Sholy, and on the ground floor is Doctor
Eichendorfer."

"With lawyers, Mawruss," Abe said, "we got enough to do downtown, ain't
it? Doctors also, Mawruss. I am once living next door to a doctor, and
every time I meet that feller he says 'How do you do?' to me like he