"Is it?" Harris cried. "Well, maybe you think so, but you ain't such a _gri_terion." Morris was visibly offended at so harsh a rejoinder. "I know I ain't, Harris," he said. "If I was I wouldn't be here, Harris. I come here like a friend, not like one of them--them--fellers what you talk about. If it wasn't that my Minnie is such a friend to your daughter Miriam I shouldn't bother myself; but, knowing Alec Goldwasser as I do, and being a friend of yours always up to now, Harris, I come to you and say I will give you forty-eight six hundred for the house, and that is my last word." Harris Rabin laughed aloud. "Jokes you are making it, Mawruss," he said. "A joke is a joke, but when a feller got all the trouble what I got it, as you know, Mawruss, he got a hard time seeing a joke, Mawruss." "That ain't no joke, Harris," Morris replied. "That's an offer, and I can sit right down now and make a memorandum if you want it, and pay you fifty dollars as a binder." "I'll tell you what I'll do, Mawruss," Harris said. "You raised Henochstein fifty dollars, so I'll come down fifty dollars, and that'll be forty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty." He grew suddenly excited and grabbed Morris by the arm. "Don't let's waste no time about it," he cried. "What's the use of memorandums? We go right away by Henry D. Feldman and fix up the contract." "Hold on." Morris said with a stare that blended frigidity and surprise in just the right proportions. "I ain't said nothing about forty-eight nine-fifty. What I said was forty-eight six." "You don't mean that, Mawruss," Harris replied. "You mean forty-eight _nine_." Morris saw that the psychological moment had arrived. "Look-y here, now, Harris," he said. "Forty-eight six from forty-eight nine is three hundred. Ain't it?" Harris nodded. "Then," Morris announced, "we'll split the difference and make it forty-eight seven-fifty." For one thoughtful moment Harris remained silent, and then he clapped his hand into that of Morris. "Done!" he cried. Twenty days elapsed, during which Potash & Perlmutter took title to Harris Rabin's house and paid the balance of the purchase price, moieties of which found their way into the pockets of Magnus, Michaelson and Henochstein. At length, the first of the month arrived and Abe and Morris left the store early so that they might collect the rents of their real property. "_I_ seen the house, Abe, and _you_ seen the house," Morris said as they turned the corner of the crowded East Side street on which their property fronted, "but you can't tell nothing from looking at a property, Abe. When you get the rents, Abe, _that's_ when you find it out that you got a fine property, Abe." He led the way up the front stoop of the tenement and knocked at the first door on the left-hand side. There was no response. "They must be out. Ain't it?" Abe suggested. Morris faced about and knocked on the opposite door, with a similar lack of response.