"Good!" Hymie cried. "Now look'y here, Abe, I got a proposition to make it to you." He tugged at the diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand and laid it on a sample-table. Then from his shirt-bosom he unscrewed a miniature locomotive headlight, which he deposited beside the ring. "See them stones, Abe?" he continued. "They costed it me one thousand three hundred dollars during the panic already, and to-day I wouldn't take two thousand for 'em. Now, Abe, you sit right down and write me out a check for a thousand dollars, and so help me I should never stir out of this here office, Abe, if I ain't on the spot with a thousand dollars in hand two weeks from to-day, Abe, you can keep them stones, settings and all." Abe's eyes fairly bulged out of his head as he looked at the blazing diamonds. "But, Hymie," he exclaimed, "I don't want your diamonds. If I had it the money myself, Hymie, believe me, you are welcome to it like you was my own brother." "I know all about that, Abe," Hymie replied, "but you ain't Mawruss, and if you got such a regard for me what you claim you have, Abe, go upstairs and ask Mawruss Perlmutter will he do it me the favor and let me have that thousand dollars with the stones as security." Without further parley Abe turned and left the show-room. "Mawruss," he called from the foot of the stairs, "come down here once. I want to show you something." In the meantime Hymie pulled down the shades and turned on the electric lights. Then he took a swatch of black velveteen from his pocket and arranged it over the sample-table with the two gems in its folds. "Hymie Kotzen is inside the show-room," Abe explained when Morris appeared in answer to his summons. "Well, what have I got to do with Hymie Kotzen?" Morris demanded. "Come inside and speak to him, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "He won't eat you." "Maybe you think I'm scared to turn him down, Abe?" Morris concluded as he led the way to the show-room. "Well, I'll show you different." "Hallo, Mawruss," Hymie cried. "What's the good word?" Morris grunted an inarticulate greeting. "What you got all the shades down for, Abe?" he asked. "Don't touch 'em," Hymie said. "Just you have a look at this sample-table first." Hymie seized Morris by the arm and turned him around until he faced the velveteen. "Ain't them peaches, Mawruss?" he asked. Morris stared at the diamonds, almost hypnotized by their brilliancy. "Them stones belong to you, Mawruss," Hymie went on, "if I don't pay you inside of two weeks the thousand dollars what you're going to lend me." "We ain't going to lend you no thousand dollars, Hymie," Morris said at last, "because we ain't got it to lend. We need it in our own business, Hymie, and, besides, you got the wrong idee. We ain't no pawnbrokers, Hymie; we are in the cloak and suit business."