"She couldn't throw nothing away neither," Rufus added.

Grinning, the Jew took a notebook and stylo from his inside coat pocket and went to work. Rapidly and with scarcely a look, he itemized the furnishings, allowing $50 for the television set and $19 for everything else.

"I can't use the stove," he said. "Sixty-nine bucks for the lot. Okay."

"You mean that's all you want to pay for everything in this room?" Rufus asked incredulously.

"That's more than it's worth," the Jew said, adding with a grin. "I wouldn't pay it if it wasn't for your wife needing a decent funeral."

With an abrupt motion, Rufus opened his mouth and stuck it in front of the Jew's face. "Here, take my teeth too and have it done with," he blubbered.

The Jew looked into his mouth with interest. "Holy Mackerel, you got a red tongue, blue gums and white teeth," he observed. "If anybody calls you a Communist, you just open your mouth and show them the national colors."

Rufus closed his mouth and looked sheepish. "All right, sixty-nine bucks; if I got to, I got to."

The helpers started to move the furniture but the Jew stopped them. "Wait till I get it down legal," he cautioned.

In the bedroom the bureau drawers and the dressing table still contained Alberta's personal effects, lingerie and toilette articles as she had left them that morning, and the bed was made up and covered with a pink rayon spread.

"Get these drawers cleaned out," the Jew said.

Rufus began piling the contents helter-skelter in a corner of the room. The Jew went about his business of assessing the furniture without paying him the slightest attention.

When he had thrown off the bed linen to examine the mattress, the Jew said sharply, "This has been damaged."