“Don’t you worry about her, Abe,” Morris replied.  “She’s got her cashbook and daybook posted and she also got it a substitute.  He’s coming this afternoon.”

“He’s coming?” Abe said.  “So she got it a young feller, Mawruss?”

“Well, Abe,” Morris replied, “what harm is there in that?  He’s a decent, respectable young feller by the name Tuchman, what works as bookkeeper by the Kosciusko Bank.  They give him a two weeks’ vacation and he comes to work by us, Abe.”

“That’s a fine way to spend a vacation, Mawruss,” Abe commented.  “Why don’t he go up to Tannersville or so?”

“Because he’s got to help his father out nights in his cigar store what he keeps it on Avenue B,” Morris answered.  “His father is Max Tuchman’s brother.  You know Max Tuchman, drummer for Lapidus & Elenbogen?”

“Sure I know him—­a loud-mouth feller, Mawruss; got a whole lot to say for himself.  A sport and a gambler, too,” Abe said.  “He’d sooner play auction pinochle than eat, Mawruss.  I bet you he turns in an expense account like he was on a honeymoon every trip.  The last time I seen this here Max Tuchman was up in Duluth.  He was riding in a buggy with the lady buyer from Moe Gerschel’s cloak department.”

“Well, I suppose he sold her a big bill of goods, too, Abe, ain’t it?” Morris rejoined.  “He’s an up-to-date feller, Abe.  If anybody wants to sell goods to lady buyers they got to be up-to-date, ain’t it?  And so far what I hear it nobody told it me you made such a big success with lady buyers, neither, Abe.”

Abe shrugged his shoulders.

“That ain’t here nor there, Mawruss,” he grunted.  “The thing is this:  if this young feller by the name of Tuchman does Miss Cohen’s work as good as Miss Cohen does it I’m satisfied.”

There was no need for apprehension on that score, however, for when the substitute bookkeeper arrived he proved to be an accurate and industrious young fellow, and despite Miss Cohen’s absence the work of Potash & Perlmutter’s office proceeded with orderly dispatch.

“That’s a fine young feller, Mawruss,” Abe commented as he and his partner sat in the firm’s show-room on the second day of Miss Cohen’s vacation.

“Who’s this you’re talking about?” Morris asked.

“This here bookkeeper,” Abe replied.  “What’s his first name, now, Mawruss?”

“Ralph,” Morris said.

“Ralph!” Abe cried.  “That’s a name I couldn’t remember it in a million years, Mawruss.”

“Why not, Abe?” Morris replied.  “Ralph ain’t no harder than Moe or Jake, Abe.  For my part, I ain’t got no trouble in remembering that name; and anyhow, Abe, why should an up-to-date family like the Tuchmans give their boys such back-number names like Jake or Moe?”

“Jacob and Moses was decent, respectable people in the old country, Mawruss,” Abe corrected solemnly.

“I know it, Abe,” Morris rejoined; “but that was long since many years ago already. Now is another time entirely in New York City; and anyhow, with such names what we got it in our books, Abe, you shouldn’t have no trouble remembering Ralph.”