Abe covered his embarrassment with a mirthless laugh.

"Good shipping clerks you could get any day in the week, Mawruss," he
said. "We ain't going to go out of business exactly, y'understand, just
because Jake is leaving us. I bet yer if we would advertise in to-morrow
morning's paper we would get a dozen good shipping clerks."

"Go ahead, advertise," Morris grunted. "This is your idee Jake leaves
us, Abe, and now you should find somebody to take his place. I'm sick
and tired making changes in the store."

"Always kicking, Mawruss, always kicking!" Abe retorted. "By Saturday I
bet yer we would get a hundred good shipping clerks already."

But Saturday came and went, and although in the meantime old and young
shipping clerks of every degree of uncleanliness passed in review before
Abe and Morris, none of them proved acceptable.

"All right, Abe," Morris said on the Monday morning after Jake had gone,
"you done enough about this here shipping clerk business. Give me a
show. I ain't got such liberal idees about shipping clerks as you got,
Abe, but all the same, Abe, I think I could go at this business with a
little system, y'understand."

"You shouldn't trouble yourself, Mawruss," Abe replied, with an airy
wave of his hand. "I hired one already."

"You hired one already, Abe!" Morris repeated. "Well, ain't I got
something to say about it too?"