everything--hiring the models and all?"

"Sure you're my boss, and it's pretty soft for me."

"And I was just thinking, Phonzie, that it's pretty soft for me to have
found a fellow like you to manage things for me."

"Shucks!"

"Without you, so used to the ways of the Avenue and all that kind of
thing, where would I be now, trying to run in the right kind of bluff
with the trade?"

"That's easy! After all, Fifth Avenue and Third Avenue is pretty much
alike in the end, madam. A spade may be a spade, but if you're a good
salesman, you can put it on black velvet and sell it for a dessert-spoon
any day in the week."

"That's just what I'm saying, Phonzie, about you're knowing how. I
needed just a fellow like you to show me how the swell trade has got
to be blindfolded, and that the difference between a dressmaker and a
modiste is about a hundred and fifty dollars a gown."

"You ought to see the way we handled them when I was on the floor for
Roth. Say, we wouldn't touch a peignoir in that establishment for under
two hundred and fifty, and--we had 'em coming in there like sheep. The
Riverside Drive trade is nothing, madam, compared to what we could do
down there with the Avenue business."

"You sure know how to handle the lorgnette bunch, Phonzie."