"Sure, I know," Abe interrupted. "Every young feller wants to go on the road. All they can see in it is riding in parlour cars and playing auction pinocle in four-dollar-a-day hotels. Believe me, Sidney, selling goods on the road, when you been at it so long as I am, is a dawg's life; and as for auction pinocle that's poison for a salesman." "Auction pinocle is nothing to me," Sidney declared. "I swore off." "Another thing is lunches, Sidney," Abe went on. "Ain't it a funny thing what a lot of satisfaction it is when you are eating zwieback and a cup of coffee for lunch? In the first place, all it is costing you is ten cents and you feel like a prince. Many a big bill of goods I sold on zwieback and coffee, Sidney--crackers and milk, too. And now, Sidney, the best thing you could do is to go back and tell the old man you are through with auction pinocle and high-price lunches, and you want him he should give you a show you should sell goods." Again Sidney shook his head. "It ain't no use, Mr. Potash," Sidney declared. "Pop ain't got no confidence in me. If I was a greenhorn fresh from the old country he might let me start in and do something, but----" At the word greenhorn Abe Potash leaned forward and struck the table with his open hand. "By jiminy, Sidney!" he cried, "I know the very job for you. Only one thing I must got to say to you, Sidney: you would got to commence small; so if what you are saying about auction pinocle and other monkey business goes, Sidney, all right. Otherwise the thing is off." "Sure, it goes, Mr. Potash," Sidney cried. Abe looked the Heir Apparent squarely in the eye for two minutes and then he struck the table again. "I believe you, Sidney," he said, "and we will right away take the car down to West Washington Place." Katzberg & Schapp occupied the top floor of an old private house; but what their place of business lacked in size it made up in activity. Pressing irons were sizzling and banging and sewing machines were burring loudly as Abe and Sidney climbed the stairs. When they entered, Shapolnik, the butterfly of fashion, had once more assumed the chrysalis of his working clothes. "How do you do, Mister Potash?" he cried, all in one breath. "Excuse me; I am looking like a slob. We are busy like dawgs here. Katzberg!" he yelled; "_Kimmen Sie hieran_." In response, a stout figure, clad only in an undershirt, trousers and a pair of carpet slippers, laid down a pressing iron and shuffled toward the visitors. "My partner, Mister Katzberg," Shapolnik announced. "He also looks a slob, Mr. Potash; but when we are getting partitions in, and our office fixed up, no one would see him at all. He is the inside man; and me, I am in the office and showroom. We're going to have a showroom so soon as we are settled--a safe too. A telephone we already got it. This is Mr. Potash, Katzberg, and the other gentleman I don't know at all." "Mr. Koblin," Abe explained; "he is coming to work by you as a salesman."