Mrs. Schenkmann is inclined to be extravagant. For that reason I let
him live in a house I own on Park Avenue, and I take out the rent each
week from his pay. It's really a charity to do so. The amount
is--er--sixteen dollars a month. I suppose you have no objection to
sending me four dollars a week out of his wages?"

"Well, I ain't exactly a collecting agency, y'understand," Abe said;
"but I'll see what my partner says, and if he's agreeable, I am. Only
one thing though, Mr. Linkheimer, my partner bothers the life out of me
I should get from you a recommendation."

"I'll give you one with pleasure, Abe," Linkheimer replied; "but it
isn't necessary."

He returned to the front of the office and went to the safe.

"Why just look here, Abe," he said. "I have here in the safe five
hundred dollars and some small bills which I put in there last night
after I come back from Newark. It was money I received the day before
yesterday as chairman of the entertainment committee of a lodge I belong
to. The safe was unlocked from five to seven last night and Schenkmann
was in and out here all that time."

He opened the middle compartment and pulled out a roll of bills.

"You see, Abe," he said, counting out the money, "here it is: one
hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred and----"

Here Mr. Linkheimer paused and examined the last bill carefully, for
instead of a hundred-dollar bill it was only a ten-dollar bill.