40
; "not at all."
Then a wave of recollection came over him, and he muttered a half-smothered exclamation.
"Abe, Miss Smith," he almost shouted, and then he sat down. "Say, lookyhere, Abe, what is all this, anyway? Miss Smith comes in here and----"
"Well, upon my word!" Miss Smith interrupted; "if it isn't the gentleman from the Café de la Paix--and, of all things, there is the very dress!"
Abe shrugged his shoulders.
"That's right, Miss Whatever-your-name is," Abe admitted; "that's the dress, and since I paid you sixty dollars for it I don't think you got any kick coming."
"Sixty dollars!" Morris cried. "Why, that dress as a sample garment only cost us twenty-two-fifty to make up."
"Cost us?" Abe repeated. "As a sample garment? What are you talking about?"
"I am talking about this, Abe," Morris replied: "that dress is the self-same garment which I designed it, and which you says was rotten and freaky, and which I give it to Miss Smith here for a present, and which you paid Miss Smith sixty dollars for."
"And here is the sixty dollars now," Miss Smith broke in. "I hurried here as fast as I could to give it to you, Mr. Perlmutter."
"One moment," Abe said. "I don't know who this young lady is or nothing; but do you mean to told me that this here dress which I bought it in Paris was made up right here in our place?"
"Here, Abe," Morris said, "I want to show you something. Here is from the same goods a garment, and them goods as you know we get it from the Hamsuckett Mills. So far what I hear it, the Hamsuckett Mills don't sell their output in Paris. Am I right or wrong?"
Abe nodded slowly.
"Well, Mr. Perlmutter," Miss Smith said, "here's your sixty dollars. I've got to get back to my patient. You know that I went to Paris with a rheumatic case, and I've left the old gentleman in charge of a friend. I came here to settle up."
"Excuse me," said Abe; "I ain't been introduced to this young lady yet."
"Why, I tho