"Without love, Mr. Perlmutter, marriage is nix," he said. "_Schmooes!_" Morris exclaimed. "Do you think when I got married I loved my wife, Gurin? _Oser_ a _stueck_. And to-day yet I am crazy about her. With a business man, Gurin, love comes after marriage." B. Gurin rose wearily to his feet and shot his cuffs by way of showing impatience. "What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he protested. "When I want to get married I would get married--otherwise not." He flecked away an imaginary grain of dust from the lapel of his coat and walked slowly toward the door. "Are you going home on the New Haven road _oder_ the Harlem road?" he asked. Morris scowled, and his indignation lent such force to the gesture with which he put on his hat that the impact sounded like a blow on a tambourine. "_Schon gut_, Gurin," he said. "I am through with you." He paused at the doorway and lit a cigar. "And one thing I could tell you, Gurin," he concluded. "Either you would send us a check the first thing to-morrow morning, _oder_ we would give your account to our lawyers, and that's all there is to it." He puffed away at his cigar as he trudged down the street, and he had nearly reached the corner when he heard a familiar voice shouting: "Mr. Perlmutter!" He turned to view B. Gurin hastening after him. "Well, Gurin," he grunted, "what you want now?" Gurin stopped and gasped for breath, and Morris's heart gave a triumphant leap as he noted the anxiety displayed on B. Gurin's clean-shaven features. "Speak up, Gurin," he said; "I got to get my train." Gurin smiled in surrender. "All right, Mr. Perlmutter," he murmured; "make for me a date and I will look the lady over." * * * * * When Morris entered his place of business the next morning he found his partner examining the advertising columns of a morning paper with an absorption hardly justified by the tabulated list of births, marriages and deaths at which he was gazing. "What's biting you now, Abe?" Morris demanded. "What d'ye mean, what's biting me?" Abe rejoined, and Morris blushed in the consciousness of his oversleeping that morning by more than half an hour. "Say, lookyhere, Abe," he cried. "I don't know what you are driving into, understand me, but if you think you could get _brogus_ at me just because I am ten minutes late once in a while, y'understand, let me tell you I am catching a twelve o'clock train from Mount Vernon last night, and not alone I am talking myself blue in the face to that feller Gurin, y'understand, but when I got home already I couldn't get to sleep till I told the whole thing to my Minnie yet." Abe nodded slowly. "Yes, Abe," Morris continued, "I got to go over the story twice over already, and even then, y'understand, my Minnie gets mad because I didn't contradict myself.