"So, naturally, I asks her what it is the matter with her, and she says Potash & Perlmutter had an appointment to take her out in an oitermobile at two o'clock, and here it was three o'clock already and they ain't showed up yet. Potash & Perlmutter is friends of mine, Miss Atkinson, I says, and I'm sure something must have happened, or otherwise they would not of failed to be here. So I says for her to ring you up, Abe, and find out. But she says she would see you first in--she wouldn't ring you up for all the oitermobiles in New York. So I says, well, I says, if you don't want to ring 'em up _I'll_ ring 'em up; and she says I should mind my own business. So then I says, if _you_ wouldn't ring 'em up and _I_ wouldn't ring 'em up I'll do _this_ for you, Miss Atkinson: You and me will go for an oitermobile ride, I says, and we'll have just so good a time as if Potash & Perlmutter was paying for it. And so we did, Abe. I took Miss Atkinson up to the Heatherbloom Inn, and it costed me thirty dollars, Abe, including a cigar, which I wouldn't charge you nothing for." "Charge _me_ nothing!" Abe cried. "Of course you wouldn't charge me nothing. You wouldn't charge me nothing, Mr. Bramson, because I wouldn't _pay_ you nothing. I didn't ask you to take Miss Atkinson out in an oitermobile." "I know you didn't, Abe," Mr. Bramson replied firmly, "but either you will pay for it or I will go over to Lapidus & Elenbogen's and _they_ will pay for it. They'll be only too glad to pay for it, Abe, because I bet yer Miss Atkinson she give 'em a pretty big order already, Abe." Abe frowned and then shrugged. "All right," he said; "if I must I must. So come on now, Mr. Bramson, and look over the line." In the meantime Morris had repaired to the bookkeeper's desk and was looking over the daybook with an unseeing eye. His mind was occupied with bitter reflections when Ralph Tuchman interrupted him. "Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I'm going to leave." "Going to leave?" Morris cried. "What for?" "Well, in the first place, I don't like it to be called out of my name," he continued. "Mr. Potash calls me Ike, and my name is Ralph. If a man's name is Ralph, Mr. Perlmutter, he naturally don't like it to be called Ike." "I know it," Morris agreed, "but some people ain't got a good memory for names, Ralph. Even myself I forget it names, too, oncet in a while, occasionally." "But that ain't all, Mr. Perlmutter," Ralph went on. "Yesterday, while you was out, Mr. Potash accuses me something terrible." "Accuse you?" Morris said. "What does he accuse you for?" "He accuse me that I ring up my Uncle Max Tuchman and tell him about a Miss Atkinson at the Prince William Hotel," Ralph continued. "I didn't do it, Mr. Perlmutter; believe me. Uncle Max rung me up, and I was going to tell you and Mr. Potash what he rung me up for if you didn't looked at me like I was a pickpocket when I was coming away from the 'phone yesterday."