"I want forty-nine thousand for it."
It was now Mr. Marks' turn to laugh.
"You couldn't get forty-nine thousand for that house," he said, "if the
window-panes was diamonds already."
"No?" Abe retorted. "Well, then, I'll keep it, Mister----"
"Marks," suggested Mr. Marks.
"Marks," Abe went on. "I'll keep it, Mr. Marks, until I can get it, so
sure as my name is Abe Potash."
"Of Potash & Perlmutter?" Mr. Marks asked.
"That's my name," Abe said.
"Why, then, your partner owns yet the house next door!" Mr. Marks cried.
"That ain't no news to me, Mr. Marks," Abe said. "In fact, he built that
house, Mr. Marks, and I got so tired hearing about the way that house
rents and how much money he is going to get out of it that I bought the
place next door myself."
"But ain't that a funny thing that one partner should build a house and
the other partner shouldn't have nothing to do with it?" Mr. Marks
commented.
"We was partners in cloaks, Mr. Marks, not in houses," Abe explained.
"And I had my chance to go in with him and I was a big fool I didn't
took it."
Mr. Marks rose to his feet.
"Well, all I can say is," he rejoined, "if I got it a partner and we was
to consider a proposition of building, Mr. Potash, we would go it
together, not separate."
"Yes, Mr. Marks," Abe agreed, "if you had it a partner, Mr. Marks, that
would be something else again, but the partner what _I_ got it, Mr.
Marks, you got no idee what an independent feller that is.
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