“All right; I try it,” he agreed.

“Three cheers!” said Johnny with a huge sigh of relief.  “I’ll be back after you in about an hour.”  And he reluctantly paused long enough to drink some of the wine which Carrie’s husband helped to make.  It was probably good wine.

Ersten was in the cutting room when Johnny again arrived at the store, and a clerk took his name up very dubiously.  The clerk returned, smiling with extreme graciousness, and informed the caller that he was to walk straight back.  Johnny found Ersten in spectacles and apron, with a tape-line round his neck and a piece of chalk in his hand, and wearing a very worried look, while all the workmen in the room appeared subdued but highly nervous.

“Did you see him?” Ersten asked immediately.

“He is anxious to come back,” Johnny was happy to state.

“When?” This very eagerly.

“To-day.”

Ersten took his apron and the tape and threw them on a table with a slam.

“I invite you to have a glass of Rheinthranen,” he offered.

“Thanks,” returned Johnny carelessly, not quite appreciating the priceless honor.  “I’ll have Mr. Schnitt here in an hour, but you must be careful what you say to him.  He is stubborn.”

“Sure, I know it,” impetuously agreed Ersten.  “He is an old assel.  What is to be said?” Johnny could feel the nervous tension of the room lighten as Ersten walked out with him.

“It will be like this,” Johnny explained:  “Schnitt will come in with me and say:  ‘I have come back to work.’”

“In this place?” demanded Ersten.

“Ask him that.  He will say:  ‘Yes.’”

“Will he?” cried Ersten, unable to believe his ears.

“That’s what he will say—­but he won’t do it.”

“What is it?” exploded the shocked Ersten.  “You say he says he will come back to work in this place, but he won’t do it!  That is foolishness!”

“No, it isn’t,” insisted Johnny.  “Now listen carefully.  Schnitt says:  ‘I have come back to work.’  You say:  ‘In this place?’ Schnitt says:  ‘Yes.’  Then you tell him that he must take a month to rest up his eyes.”

“But must I do his coat cutting for a month yet?” protested the abused Ersten.  “Nobody can do it in New York for my customers but Heinrich Schnitt and me.”

“It may not be a month.  Just now he might take some of your more important work home, where the light is better.  That would be working for you in this place.”

“Well, maybe,” admitted Ersten puffing out his cheeks in frowning consideration.

Johnny held his breath as he approached the crucial observation.

“By the time his eyes are rested you may have a better shop for the old man to work in.”

Ersten fixed him with a burning glare.

“I see it!” he ejaculated.  “You put this job up to make me sell my lease!”

Johnny looked him in the eye with a frank smile.