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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18714-8.txt b/18714-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa8b831 --- /dev/null +++ b/18714-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11449 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Abe and Mawruss, by Montague Glass + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Abe and Mawruss + Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter + +Author: Montague Glass + +Release Date: June 29, 2006 [EBook #18714] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABE AND MAWRUSS *** + + + + +Produced by YaTHauSeR Taltari, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "If a feller wants to make a success in business he +should be a little up to date, ain't it?"] + + + + +ABE AND MAWRUSS + +BEING FURTHER ADVENTURES OF POTASH AND PERLMUTTER + +BY MONTAGUE GLASS + + +ILLUSTRATED BY J. J. GOULD AND MARTIN JUSTICE + + +GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1911 + + + + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION +INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + +COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY +COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY +COPYRIGHT, 1910, 1911, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + + + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. SYMPATHY 3 + II. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS 33 + III. DEAD MEN'S SHOES 66 + IV. THE RAINCOAT KING 116 + V. A RETURN TO ARCADY 149 + VI. A PRESENT FOR MR. GEIGERMANN 191 + VII. BROTHERS ALL 236 +VIII. R. S. V. P. 281 + IX. FIRING MISS COHEN 294 + X. AUX ITALIENS 310 + XI. MAN PROPOSES 342 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"If a feller wants to make a success in business he +should be a little up to date, ain't it?" Frontispiece + + FACING PAGE + +"If he would stole it he would of gave it to me, lady" 16 + +"Do you know anything about them old violins?" 204 + +"Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at times +confronted with a situation which demands a few appropriate +remarks" 254 + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +SYMPATHY + + +"I come down on the subway with Max Linkheimer this morning, Mawruss," +Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as they sat in the +showroom one hot July morning. "That feller is a regular philantropist." + +"I bet yer," Morris replied. "He would talk a tin ear on to you if you +only give him a chance. Leon Sammet too, Abe, I assure you. I seen Leon +in the Harlem Winter Garden last night, and the goods he sold while he +was talking to me and Barney Gans, Abe, in two seasons we don't do such +a business. Yes, Abe; Leon Sammet is just such another one of them +fellers like Max Linkheimer." + +"What d'ye mean--'such another one of them fellers like Max +Linkheimer'?" Abe repeated. "Between Leon Sammet and Max Linkheimer is +the difference like day from night. Max Linkheimer is one fine man, +Mawruss." + +Morris shrugged. "I didn't say he wasn't," he rejoined. "All I says +was that Leon Sammet is another one of them philantro fellers too, Abe. +Talks you deef, dumb and blind." + +Abe rose to his feet and stared indignantly at his partner. + +"I don't know what comes over you lately, Mawruss," he cried. "Seemingly +you don't understand the English language at all. A philantropist ain't +a _schmooser_, Mawruss." + +"I know he ain't, Abe; but just the same Max Linkheimer is a feller +which he got a whole lot too much to say for himself. Furthermore, Abe, +my Minnie says Mrs. Linkheimer tells her Max ain't home a single night +neither, and when a man neglects his family like that, Abe, I ain't got +no use for him at all." + +"That's because he belongs to eight lodges," Abe replied. "There ain't a +single Sunday neither which he ain't busy with funerals too, Mawruss." + +"Is that so?" Morris retorted. "Well, if I would be in the button +business, Abe, I would be a philantropist too. A feller's got to belong +to eight lodges if he's in the button business, Abe, because otherwise +he couldn't sell no goods at all." + +Abe continued: + +"Linkheimer ain't looking to sell goods to lodge brothers, Mawruss. +He's too old established a business for that. He's got a heart too, +Mawruss. Why the money that feller spends on charity, Mawruss, you +wouldn't believe at all. He told me so himself. Always he tries to do +good. Only this morning, Mawruss, he was telling me about a young feller +by the name Schenkmann which he is trying to find a position for as +stock clerk. Nobody would take the young feller on, Mawruss, because he +got into trouble with a house in Dallas, Texas, which they claim the +young feller stole from them a hundred dollars, Mawruss. But Linkheimer +says how if you would give a dawg a bad name, Mawruss, you might just as +well give him to the dawgcatcher. So Linkheimer is willing to take a +chance on this here feller Schenkmann, and he gives him a job in his own +place." + +"Dawgs I don't know nothing about at all, Abe," Morris commented. "But I +would be willing to give the young feller a show too, Abe, if I would +only got plain bone and metal buttons in stock. But when you carry a +couple hundred pieces silk goods, Abe, like we do, then that's something +else again." + +"Well, Mawruss, _Gott sei dank_ we don't got to get a new shipping +clerk. Jake has been with us five years now, Mawruss, and so far what I +could see he ain't got ambition enough to ask for a raise even, let +alone look for a better job." + +"You shouldn't congradulate yourself too quick, Abe," Morris replied. +"Ambition he's got it plenty, but he ain't got the nerve. We really +ought to give the feller a raise, Abe. I mean it. Every time I go near +him at all he gives me a look, and the first thing you know, Abe, he +would be leaving us." + +"Looks we could stand it, Mawruss; but if we would start in giving him a +raise there would be no end to it at all. _Lass's bleiben._ If the +feller wants a raise, Mawruss, he should ask for it." + +Barely two weeks after the conversation above set forth, however, Jake +entered the firm's private office and tendered his resignation. + +"Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I'm going to leave." + +"Going to leave?" Morris cried. "What d'ye mean--going to leave?" + +"Going to leave?" Abe repeated crescendo. "An idea! You should +positively do nothing of the kind." + +"It wouldn't be no more than you deserve, Jake, if we would fire you +right out of the store," Morris added. "You work for us here five years +and then you come to us and say you are going to leave. Did you ever +hear of such a thing? If you want it a couple dollars more a week, we +would give it to you and _fartig_. But if you get fresh and come to us +and tell us you are going to leave, y'understand, then that's something +else again." + +"Moost I work for you if I don't want to?" Jake asked. + +"'S enough, Jake," Abe said. "We heard enough from you already." + +"All right, Mr. Potash," he replied. "But just the same I am telling +you, Mr. Potash, you should look for a new shipping clerk, as I bought +it a candy, cigar and stationery store on Lenox Avenue, and I am going +to quit Saturday sure." + +"Well, Abe, what did I told you?" Morris said bitterly, after Jake had +left the office. "For the sake of a couple of dollars a week, Abe, we +are losing a good shipping clerk." + +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?" + +"Again kicking, Mawruss?" Abe exclaimed. "You yourself told me I should +find a shipping clerk, and so I done so." + +"Well," Morris cried, "ain't I even entitled to know the feller's name +at all?" + +"Sure you are entitled to know his name," Abe answered. "He's a young +feller by the name of Schenkmann." + +"Schenkmann," Morris said slowly. "Schenkmann? Where did I--you mean +that feller by the name Schenkmann which he works by Max Linkheimer?" + +Abe nodded. + +"What's the matter with you, Abe?" Morris cried. "Are you crazy or +what?" + +"What do you mean am I crazy?" Abe said. "We carry burglary insurance, +ain't it? And besides he ain't, Mawruss, Max Linkheimer says, missed so +much as a button since the feller worked for him." + +"A button," Morris shouted; "let me tell you something, Abe. Max +Linkheimer could miss a thousand buttons, and what is it? But with us, +Abe, one piece of silk goods is more as a hundred dollars." + +"'S all right, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "Max Linkheimer says we +shouldn't be afraid. He says he trusts the young feller in the office +with hundreds of dollars laying in the safe, and he ain't touched a cent +so far. Furthermore, the young feller's got a wife and baby, Mawruss." + +"Well I got a wife and baby too, Abe." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and so you ought to got a little sympathy for +the feller." + +Morris laughed raucously. + +"Sure, I know, Abe," he replied. "A good way to lose money in business, +Abe, is to got sympathy for somebody. You sell a feller goods, Abe, +because he's a new beginner and you got sympathy for him, Abe, and the +feller busts up on you. You accommodate a concern with five hundred +dollars--a check against their check dated two weeks ahead, Abe--because +their collections is slow and you got sympathy for them, and when the +two weeks goes by, Abe, the check is N. G. You give a feller out in +Kansas City two months an extension because he done a bad spring +business, and you got sympathy for him, and the first thing you know, +Abe, a jobber out in Omaha gets a judgment against him and closes him +up. And that's the way it goes. If we would hire this young feller +because we got sympathy for him, Abe, the least that happens us is that +he gets away with a couple hundred dollars' worth of piece goods." + +"Max Linkheimer says positively nothing of the kind," Abe insisted. "Max +says the feller has turned around a new leaf, and he would trust him +like a brother." + +"Like a brother-in-law, you mean, Abe," Morris jeered. "That feller +Linkheimer never trusted nobody for nothing, Abe. Always by the first of +the month comes a statement, and if he don't get a check by the fifth, +Abe, he sends another with 'past due' stamped on to it." + +"So much the better, Mawruss. If Max Linkheimer don't trust nobody, +Mawruss, and he lets this young feller work in his store, Mawruss, then +the feller must be O. K. Ain't it?" + +Morris rose wearily to his feet. + +"All right, Abe," he said. "If Linkheimer is so anxious to get rid of +this feller, let him give us a recommendation in writing, y'understand, +and I am satisfied we should give this here young Schenkmann a trial. He +could only get into us oncet, Abe, so go right over there and see +Linkheimer, and if in writing he would give us a guaranty the feller is +honest, go ahead and hire him." + +"Right away I couldn't do it, Mawruss," Abe said. "When I left +Linkheimer in the subway this morning he said he was going over to +Newark and he wouldn't be back till to-night. I'll stop in there the +first thing to-morrow morning." + +With this ultimatum, Abe proceeded to the back of the loft and +personally attended to the shipment of ten garments to a customer in +Cincinnati. Under his supervision a stock boy placed the garments in a +wooden packing box, and after the first top board was in position Abe +took a wire nail and held it 'twixt his thumb and finger point down on +the edge of the case. Then he poised the hammer in his right hand and +carefully closing one eye he gauged the distance between the upraised +hammer and the head of the nail. At length the blow descended, and +forthwith Abe commenced to dance around the floor in the newborn agony +of a smashed thumb. + +It was while he was putting the finishing touches on a bandage that made +up in bulk what it lacked in symmetry that Morris entered. + +"What's the matter, Abe?" he cried. "Did you hurted yourself?" + +Abe transfixed his partner with a malevolent glare. + +"No, Mawruss," he said, as he started for the front of the store, "I +ain't hurted myself at all. I'm just tying this here handkerchief on my +thumb to remind myself what a fool I got it for a partner." + +Morris waited till Abe had nearly reached the door. + +"I don't got to tie something on my thumb to remind myself of that, +Abe," he said. + + * * * * * + +Ever since the birth of his son it had seemed to Morris that the Lenox +Avenue express service had grown increasingly slow. Nor did the evening +papers contain half the interesting news of his early married life, and +he could barely wait until the train had stopped at One Hundred and +Sixteenth Street before he was elbowing his way to the platform. + +On the Monday night of his partner's mishap he made his accustomed dash +from the subway station to his home on One Hundred and Eighteenth +Street, confident that as soon as his latchkey rattled in the door Mrs. +Perlmutter and the baby would be in the hall to greet him; but on this +occasion he was disappointed. To be sure the appetizing odour of +_gedampftes kalbfleisch_ wafted itself down the elevator shaft as he +entered the gilt and plaster-porphyry entrance from the street, but when +he crossed the threshold of his own apartment the robust wail of his son +and heir mingled with the tones of Lina, the Slavic maid. Of Mrs. +Perlmutter, however, there was no sign. + +"Where's Minnie?" he demanded. + +"Mrs. Perlmutter, she go out," Lina announced, "and she ain't coming +home yet." + +Not since the return from their honeymoon had Minnie failed to be at +home to greet her husband on his arrival from business, and Morris was +about to telephone a general alarm to police headquarters when the +doorbell rang sharply and Mrs. Perlmutter entered. Her hat, whose size +and weight ought to have lent it stability, was tilted at a dangerous +angle, and beneath its broad brim her eyes glistened with unmistakable +tears. + +"Minnie _leben_," Morris cried, as he clasped her in his arms, "what is +it?" + +Sympathy only opened anew the floodgates of Mrs. Perlmutter's emotions, +and before she was sufficiently calm to disclose the cause of her +distress, the _gedampftes kalbfleisch_ gave evidence of its impending +destruction by a strong odour of scorching. Hastily Mrs. Perlmutter +dried her eyes and ran to the kitchen, so that it was not until the +rescued dinner smoked on the dining-room table that Morris learned the +reason for his wife's tears. + +"Such a room, Morris," Mrs. Perlmutter declared; "like a pigsty, and +not a crust of bread in the house. I met the poor woman in the meat +market and she tried to beg a piece of liver from that loafer +Hirschkein. Not another cent of my money will he ever get. I bought a +big piece of steak for her and then I went home with her. Her poor baby, +Morris, looked like a little skeleton." + +Morris shook his head from side to side and made inarticulate +expressions of commiseration through his nose, his mouth being +temporarily occupied by about half a pound of luscious veal. + +"Her husband has a job for eight dollars a week," she continued, "and +they have to live on that." + +Morris swallowed the veal with an effort. + +"In Russland," he began, "six people----" + +"I know," Mrs. Perlmutter interrupted, "but this is America, and you've +got to go around with me right after dinner and see the poor people." + +Morris shrugged his shoulders. + +"If I must, I must," he said, helping himself to more of the veal stew, +"but I could tell you right now, Minnie, I ain't got twenty-five cents +in my clothes, so you got to lend me a couple of dollars till Saturday." + +"I'll cash a check for you," Mrs. Perlmutter said firmly, and as soon as +dinner was concluded Morris drew a check for ten dollars and Mrs. +Perlmutter gave him that amount out of her housekeeping money. + +It was nearly nine o'clock when Morris and Minnie groped along the dark +hallway of a tenement house in Park Avenue. On the iron viaduct that +bestrides that deceptively named thoroughfare heavy trains thundered at +intervals, and it was only after Morris had knocked repeatedly at the +door of a top-floor apartment that its inmates heard the summons above +the roar of the traffic without. + +"Well, Mrs. Schenkmann," Minnie cried cheerfully, "how's the baby +to-night?" + +"Schenkmann?" Morris murmured; "Schenkmann? Is that the name of them +people?" + +"Why, yes," Minnie replied. "Didn't I tell you that? Mrs. Schenkmann, +this is my husband. And I suppose this is Mr. Schenkmann." + +A tall, gaunt person rose from the soap box that did duty as a chair and +ducked his head shyly. + +"Schenkmann?" Morris repeated. "You ain't the Schenkmann which he works +by Max Linkheimer?" + +Nathan Schenkmann nodded and Mrs. Schenkmann groaned aloud. + +"_Ai zuris!_" she cried, "for his sorrow he works by Max Linkheimer. +Eight dollars a week he is supposed to get there, and Linkheimer makes +us live here in his house. Twelve dollars a month we pay for the rooms, +lady, and Linkheimer takes three dollars each week from Nathan's money. +We couldn't even get dispossessed like some people does and save a +month's rent oncet in a while maybe. The rooms ain't worth it, lady, +believe me." + +"Does Max Linkheimer own this house?" Morris asked. + +"Sure, he's the landlord," Mrs. Schenkmann went on. "I am just telling +you. For eight dollars a week a man should work! Ain't it a disgrace?" + +"Well, why doesn't he get another job?" Morris inquired; and then, as +Mr. and Mrs. Schenkmann exchanged embarrassed looks and hung their +heads, Morris blushed. + +"What a fine baby!" he cried hurriedly. He chucked the infant under its +chin and made such noises with his tongue as are popularly supposed by +parents to be of a nature entertaining to very young children. In point +of fact the poor little Schenkmann child, with its blue-white +complexion, looked more like a cold-storage chicken than a human baby, +but to the maternal eye of Mrs. Schenkmann it represented the sum total +of infantile beauty. + +"God bless you, mister," she said. "I seen you got a good heart, and if +you know Max Linkheimer, he must told you why my husband couldn't get +another job. He tells everybody, lady, and makes 'em believe he gives my +husband a job out of charity. So sure as I got a baby which I hope he +would grow up to be a man, lady, my husband never took no money in +Dallas. Them people gives him a hundred dollars he should deposit it in +the bank, and he went and lost it. If he would stole it he would of gave +it to me, lady, because my Nathan is a good man. He ain't no loafer that +he should gamble it away." + +There was a ring of truth in Mrs. Schenkmann's tones, and as Morris +looked at the twenty-eight-years old Nathan, aged by ill nutrition and +abuse, his suspicions all dissolved and gave place only to a great +pity. + +[Illustration: "If he would stole it he would of gave it to me, +lady"] + +"Don't say no more, Mrs. Schenkmann," he cried; "I don't want to hear no +more about it. To-morrow morning your man leaves that loafer Max +Linkheimer and comes to work by us for eighteen dollars a week." + + * * * * * + +Easily the most salient feature of Mr. Max Linkheimer's attire was the +I. O. M. A. jewel that dangled from the tangent point of his generous waist +line. It had been presented to him by Harmony Lodge, 122, at the +conclusion of his term of office as National Grand Corresponding +Secretary, and it weighed about eight ounces avoirdupois. Not that the +rest of Mr. Linkheimer's wearing apparel was not in keeping, for he +affected to be somewhat old-fashioned in his attire, with just a dash of +_bonhomie_. This implies that he wore a wrinkled frock coat and low-cut +waistcoat. But he had discarded the black string tie that goes with it +for a white ready-made bow as being more suitable to the rôle of +philanthropist. The _bonhomie_ he supplied by not buttoning the two top +buttons of his waistcoat. + +"Why, hallo, Abe, my boy!" he cried all in one breath, as Abe Potash +entered his button warerooms on Tuesday morning; "what can I do for +you?" + +He seized Abe's right hand in a soft, warm grip, slightly moist, and +continued to hold it for the better part of five minutes. + +"I come to see you about Schenkmann," Abe replied. "We decide we would +have him come to work by us as a shipping clerk." + +"I'm glad to hear it," said Linkheimer, "As I told you the other day, +I've just been asked by a lodge I belong to if I could help out a young +feller just out of an orphan asylum. He's a big, strong, healthy boy, +and he's willing to come to work for half what I'm paying Schenkmann. So +naturally I've got to get rid of Schenkmann." + +"I wonder you got time to bother yourself breaking in a new beginner," +Abe commented. + +Linkheimer waggled his head solemnly. + +"I can't help it, Abe," he said. "I let my business suffer, but +nevertheless I'm constantly giving the helping hand to these poor +inexperienced fellows. I assure you it costs me thousands of dollars in +a year, but that's my nature, Abe. I'm all heart. When would you want +Schenkmann to come to work?" + +"Right away, Mr. Linkheimer." + +"Very good, I'll go and call him." + +He rose to his feet and started for the door. + +"Oh, by the way, Abe," he said, as he paused at the threshold, "you +know Schenkmann is a married man with a wife and child, and I understand +Mrs. Schenkmann is inclined to be extravagant. For that reason I let +him live in a house I own on Park Avenue, and I take out the rent each +week from his pay. It's really a charity to do so. The amount +is--er--sixteen dollars a month. I suppose you have no objection to +sending me four dollars a week out of his wages?" + +"Well, I ain't exactly a collecting agency, y'understand," Abe said; +"but I'll see what my partner says, and if he's agreeable, I am. Only +one thing though, Mr. Linkheimer, my partner bothers the life out of me +I should get from you a recommendation." + +"I'll give you one with pleasure, Abe," Linkheimer replied; "but it +isn't necessary." + +He returned to the front of the office and went to the safe. + +"Why just look here, Abe," he said. "I have here in the safe five +hundred dollars and some small bills which I put in there last night +after I come back from Newark. It was money I received the day before +yesterday as chairman of the entertainment committee of a lodge I belong +to. The safe was unlocked from five to seven last night and Schenkmann +was in and out here all that time." + +He opened the middle compartment and pulled out a roll of bills. + +"You see, Abe," he said, counting out the money, "here it is: one +hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred and----" + +Here Mr. Linkheimer paused and examined the last bill carefully, for +instead of a hundred-dollar bill it was only a ten-dollar bill. + +"Well, what d'ye think of that dirty thief?" he cried at last. "That +Schenkmann has taken a hundred-dollar bill out of there." + +"What?" Abe exclaimed. + +"Just as sure as you are sitting there," Linkheimer went on excitedly. +"That feller Schenkmann has pinched a hundred-dollar bill on me." + +Here his academic English completely forsook him and he continued in the +vernacular of the lower East Side. + +"Always up to now I have kept the safe locked on that feller, and the +very first time I get careless he goes to work and does me for a hundred +dollars yet." + +"But," Abe protested, "you might of made a mistake, ain't it? If the +feller took it a hundred dollars, why don't he turn around and _ganver_ +the other four hundred? Ain't it? The ten dollars also he might of took +it. What?" + +"A _ganef_ you couldn't tell what he would do at all," Linkheimer +rejoined, and Abe rose to his feet. + +"I'm sorry for you, Mr. Linkheimer," he said, seizing his hat, "but I +guess I must be getting back to the store. So you shouldn't trouble +yourself about this here feller Schenkmann. We decided we would get +along without him." + +But Abe's words fell on deaf ears, for as he turned to leave Mr. +Linkheimer threw up the window sash and thrust his head out. + +"Po-lee-eece, po-lee-eece!" he yelled. + + * * * * * + +When Abe arrived at his place of business after his visit to Max +Linkheimer he found Morris whistling cheerfully over the morning mail. + +"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "did you seen it Max Linkheimer?" + +Abe hurriedly took off his hat and coat, and catching the bandaged thumb +in the sleeve lining he swore long and loud. + +"Yes, I seen Max Linkheimer," he growled, "and I'm sick and tired of the +whole business. Go ahead and get a shipping clerk, Mawruss. I'm +through." + +"Why?" Morris asked. "Wouldn't Linkheimer give a recommendation, because +if he wouldn't, Abe, I am satisfied we should take the feller without +one. In fact I'm surprised you didn't bring him along." + +"You are, hey?" Abe broke in. "Well, you shouldn't be surprised at +nothing like that, Mawruss, because I didn't bring him along for the +simple reason, Mawruss, I don't want no _ganef_ working round my place. +That's all." + +"What do you mean--_ganef_?" Morris cried. "The feller ain't no more a +thief as you are, Abe." + +Abe's moustache bristled and his eyes bulged so indignantly that they +seemed to rest on his cheeks. + +"You should be careful what you say, Mawruss," he retorted. "Maybe he +ain't no more a _ganef_ as I am, Mawruss, but just the same, he is in +jail and I ain't." + +"In jail," Morris exclaimed. "What for in jail?" + +"Because he stole from Linkheimer a hundred dollars yesterday, Mawruss, +and while I was there yet, Linkheimer finds it out. So naturally he +makes this here feller arrested." + +"Yesterday, he stole a hundred dollars?" Morris interrupted. + +"Yesterday afternoon," Abe repeated. "With my own eyes I seen it the +other money which he didn't stole." + +"Then," Morris said, "if he stole it yesterday afternoon, Abe, he didn't +positively do nothing of the kind." + +Forthwith he related to Abe his visit to Schenkmann's rooms and the +condition of poverty that he found. + +"I give you my word, Abe," he said, "the feller didn't got even a chair +to sit on." + +"What do you know, Mawruss, what he got and what he didn't got?" Abe +rejoined impatiently. "The feller naturally ain't going to show you the +hundred dollars which he stole it--especially, Mawruss, if he thinks +he could work you for a couple dollars more." + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris broke in; "don't say again that feller +stole a hundred dollars, because I'm telling you once more, Abe, I know +he didn't take nothing, certain sure." + +"_Geh wek_, Mawruss," Abe cried disgustedly; "you talk like a fool!" + +"Do I?" Morris shouted. "All right, Abe. Maybe I do and maybe I don't, +but just the same so positive I am he didn't done it, I'm going right +down to Henry D. Feldman, and I will fix that feller Linkheimer he +should work a poor half-starved yokel for five dollars a week and a +couple of top-floor tenement rooms which it ain't worth six dollars a +month. Wait! I'll show that sucker." + +He seized his hat and made for the elevator door, which he had almost +reached when Abe grabbed him by the arm. + +"Mawruss," he cried, "are you crazy? What for you should put yourself +out about this here young feller? He ain't the last shipping clerk in +existence. You could get plenty good shipping clerks without bothering +yourself like this. Besides, Mawruss, if he did steal it or if he didn't +steal it, what difference does it make to us? With the silk piece goods +which we got it around our place, Mawruss, we couldn't afford to take no +chances." + +"I ain't taking no chances, Abe," Morris maintained stoutly. "I know +this feller ain't took the money." + +"Sure, that's all right," Abe agreed; "but you couldn't afford to be +away all morning right in the busy season. Besides, Mawruss, since when +did you become to be so charitable all of a suddent?" + +"Me charitable?" Morris cried indignantly. "I ain't charitable, Abe. +_Gott soll hüten!_ I leave that to suckers like Max Linkheimer. But when +I know a decent, respectable feller is being put into jail for something +which he didn't do at all, Abe, then that's something else again." + +At this juncture the elevator arrived, and as he plunged in he shouted +that he would be back before noon. Abe returned to the rear of the loft +where a number of rush orders had been arranged for shipment. Under his +instruction and supervision the stock boy nailed down the top boards of +the packing cases, but in nearly every instance, after the case was +strapped and stencilled, they discovered they had left one garment out, +and the whole process had to be repeated. Thus it was nearly one o'clock +before Abe's task was concluded, and although he had breakfasted late +that morning, when he looked at his watch he became suddenly famished. +"I could starve yet," he muttered, "for all that feller cares." + +He walked up and down the showroom floor in an ecstasy of imaginary +hunger, and as he was making the hundredth trip the elevator door +opened and Max Linkheimer stepped out. His low-cut waistcoat disclosed +that his shirtfront, ordinarily of a glossy white perfection, had fallen +victim to a profuse perspiration. Even his collar had not escaped the +flood, and as for his I. O. M. A. charm, it seemed positively tarnished. + +"Say, lookyhere, Potash," he began, "what d'ye mean by sending your +partner to bail out that _ganef_?" + +"Me send my partner to bail out a _ganef_?" Abe exclaimed. "What are you +talking, nonsense?" + +"I ain't talking nonsense," Linkheimer retorted. "Look at the kinds of +conditions I am in. That feller Feldman made a fine monkey out of me in +the police court." + +"Was Feldman there too?" Abe asked. + +"You don't know, I suppose, Feldman was there," Linkheimer continued; +"and your partner went on his bail for two thousand dollars." + +Abe shrugged his shoulders. + +"In the first place, Mr. Linkheimer," he said, "I didn't tell my partner +he should do nothing of the kind. He done it against my advice, Mr. +Linkheimer. But at the same time, Mr. Linkheimer, if he wants to go bail +for that feller, y'understand, what is it my business?" + +"What is it your business?" Linkheimer repeated. "Why, don't you know +if that feller runs away the sheriff could come in here and clean out +your place? That's all." + +"What?" Abe cried. He sat down in the nearest chair and gaped at +Linkheimer. + +"Yes, sir," Linkheimer repeated, "you could be ruined by a thing like +that." + +Abe's lower jaw fell still further. He was too dazed for comment. + +"W-what could I do about it?" he gasped at length. + +"Do about it!" Linkheimer cried. "Why, if I had a partner who played me +a dirty trick like that I'd kick him out of my place. There ain't a +copartnership agreement in existence that doesn't expressly say one +partner shouldn't give a bail bond without the other partner's consent." + +Abe rocked to and fro in his chair. + +"After all these years a feller should do a thing like that to me!" he +moaned. + +Linkheimer smiled with satisfaction, and he was about to instance a +striking and wholly imaginary case of one partner ruining another by +giving a bail bond when the door leading to the cutting room in the rear +opened and Morris Perlmutter appeared. As his eyes rested on Linkheimer +they blazed with anger, and for once Morris seemed to possess a certain +dignity. + +"Out," he commanded; "out from _mein_ store, you dawg, you!" + +As he rushed on the startled button dealer, Abe grabbed his coat-tails +and pulled him back. + +"Say, what are we here, Mawruss," he cried, "a theaytre?" + +"Let him alone, Abe," Linkheimer counselled in a rather shaky voice. +"I'm pretty nearly twenty years older than he is, but I guess I could +cope with him." + +"You wouldn't cope with nobody around here," Abe replied. "If youse two +want to cope you should go out on the sidewalk." + +"Never mind," Morris broke in, his valour now quite evaporated; "I'll +fix him yet." + +"Another thing, Mawruss," Abe interrupted; "why don't you come in the +front way like a man." + +"I come in which way I please, Abe," Morris rejoined. "And furthermore, +Abe, when I got with me a poor skeleton of a feller like Nathan +Schenkmann, Abe, I don't take him up the front elevator. I would be +ashamed for our competitors that they should think we let our +work-people starve. The feller actually fainted on me as we was coming +up the freight elevator." + +"As you was coming up the freight elevator?" Abe repeated. "Do you mean +to tell me you got the nerve to actually bring this feller into _mein_ +place yet?" + +"Do I got to get your permission, Abe, I should bring who I want to +into my own place?" Morris rejoined. + +"Then all I got to say is you should take him right out again," Abe +said. "I wouldn't have no _ganévim_ in my place. Once and for all, +Mawruss, I am telling you I wouldn't stand for your nonsense. You are +giving our stock as a bail for this feller, and if he runs away on us, +the sheriff comes in and----" + +"Who says I give our stock as a bail for this feller?" Morris demanded. +"I got a surety company bond, Abe, because Feldman says I shouldn't go +on no bail bonds, and I give the surety company my personal check for a +thousand dollars which they will return when the case is over. That's +what I done it to keep this here Schenkmann out of jail, Abe, and if it +would be necessary to get this here Linkheimer into jail, Abe, I would +have another check for a thousand dollars for keeps." + +Abe grew somewhat abashed at this disclosure. He looked at Linkheimer +and then at Morris, but before he could think of something to say the +elevator door opened and Jake stepped out. It was perhaps the first time +in all their acquaintance with Jake that Abe and Morris had seen him +with his face washed. Moreover, a clean collar served further to conceal +his identity, and at first Abe did not recognize his former shipping +clerk. + +"Hallo, Mr. Potash!" Jake said. + +"I'll be with you in one moment, Mister--er," Abe began. "Just take +a--why, that's Jake, ain't it?" + +Here he saw a chance for a conversational diversion and he jumped +excitedly to his feet. + +"What's the matter, Jake?" he asked. "You want your old job back?" + +"It don't go so quick as all that, Mr. Potash," Jake answered. "I got a +good business, Mr. Potash. I carry a fine line of cigars, candy, and +stationery, and already I got an offer of twenty-five dollars more as I +paid for the business. But I wouldn't take it. Why should I? I took in a +lot money yesterday, and only this morning, Mr. Potash, a feller comes +in my place and--why, there's the feller now!" + +"Feller! What d'ye mean--feller?" Abe cried indignantly. "That ain't no +feller. That's Mr. Max Linkheimer." + +"Sure, I know!" Jake explained. "He's the feller I mean. Half an hour +ago I was in his place, and they says there he comes up here. You was in +_mein_ store this morning, Mr. Linkheimer, ain't that right, and you +bought from me a package of all-tobacco cigarettes?" + +"_Nu, nu_, Jake," Morris broke in. "Make an end. You are interrupting us +here." + +Jake drew back his coat and clumsily unfastened a large safety pin which +sealed the opening of his upper right-hand waistcoat pocket. Then he +dug down with his thumb and finger and produced a small yellow wad +about the size of a postage stamp. This he proceeded to unfold until it +took on the appearance of a hundred-dollar bill. + +"He gives me this here," Jake announced, "and I give him the change for +a ten-dollar bill. So this here is a hundred-dollar bill, ain't it, and +it don't belong to me, which I come downtown I should give it him back +again. What isn't mine I don't want at all." + +This was perhaps the longest speech that Jake had ever made, and he +paused to lick his dry lips for the peroration. + +"And so," he concluded, handing the bill to Linkheimer, "here it is, +and--and nine dollars and ninety cents, please." + +Linkheimer grabbed the bill automatically and gazed at the figures on it +with bulging eyes. + +"Why," Abe gasped, "why, Linkheimer, you had four one-hundred-dollar +bills and a ten-dollar bill in the safe this morning. Ain't it?" + +Linkheimer nodded. Once more he broke into a copious perspiration, as he +handed a ten-dollar bill to Jake. + +"And so," Abe went on, "and so you must of took a hundred-dollar bill +out of the safe last night, instead of a ten-dollar bill. Ain't it?" + +Linkheimer nodded again. + +"And so you made a mistake, ain't it?" Abe cried. "And this here +feller Schenkmann didn't took no money out of the safe at all. Ain't +it?" + +For the third time Linkheimer nodded, and Abe turned to his partner. + +"What d'ye think of that feller?" he said, nodding his head in +Linkheimer's direction. + +Morris shrugged, and Abe plunged his hands into his trousers pockets and +glared at Linkheimer. + +"So, Linkheimer," he concluded, "you made a sucker out of yourself and +out of me too! Ain't it?" + +"I'm sorry, Abe," Linkheimer muttered, as he folded away the +hundred-dollar bill in his wallet. + +"I bet yer he's sorry," Morris interrupted. "I would be sorry too if I +would got a lawsuit on my hands like he's got it." + +"What d'ye mean?" Linkheimer cried. "I ain't got no lawsuit on my +hands." + +"Not yet," Morris said significantly, "but when Feldman hears of this, +you would quick get a summons for a couple of thousand dollars damages +which you done this young feller Schenkmann by making him false +arrested." + +"It ain't no more than you deserve, Linkheimer," Abe added. "You're +lucky I don't sue you for trying to make trouble between me and my +partner yet." + +For one brief moment Linkheimer regarded Abe sorrowfully. There were few +occasions to which Linkheimer could not do justice with a +cut-and-dried sentiment or a well-worn aphorism, and he was about to +expatiate on ingratitude in business when Abe forestalled him. + +"Another thing I wanted to say to you, Linkheimer," Abe said; "you +shouldn't wait until the first of the month to send us a statement. Mail +it to-night yet, because we give you notice we close your account right +here and now." + + * * * * * + +One week later Abe and Morris watched Nathan Schenkmann driving nails +into the top of a packing case with a force and precision of which Jake +had been wholly incapable; for seven days of better housing and better +feeding had done wonders for Nathan. + +"Yes, Abe," Morris said as they turned away; "I think we made a find in +that boy, and we also done a charity too. Some people's got an idee, +Abe, that business is always business; but with me I think differencely. +You could never make no big success in business unless you got a little +sympathy for a feller oncet in a while. Ain't it?" + +Abe nodded. + +"I give you right, Mawruss," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS + + +There was an intimate connection between Abe Potash's advent in the +lobby of the Prince Clarence Hotel one hot summer day in June and the +publication in that morning's Arrival of Buyers column of the following +statement and news item: + + Griesman, M., Dry Goods Company, Syracuse; M. Griesman, ladies' and + misses' cloaks, suits, waists, and furs; Prince Clarence Hotel. + +Nevertheless, when Abe caught sight of Mr. Griesman lolling in one of +the hotel's capacious _fauteuils_ he quickly looked the other way and +passed on to the clerk's desk. Then he asked in a loud tone for Mr. +Elkan Reinberg, of Boonton, New Jersey; and, almost before the clerk +told him that no such person was registered, he turned about and +recognized Mr. Griesman with an elaborate start. + +"Why, how do you do, Mr. Griesman?" he exclaimed. "Ain't it a pleasure +to see you! What are you doing here in New York?" + +Griesman looked hard at his interlocutor before replying. + +Some two years earlier there had been an acrimonious correspondence +between them with reference to a shipment of skirts lost in transit--a +correspondence ending in threatened litigation; and Mr. Griesman had +transferred his account with Potash & Perlmutter to Sammet Brothers. +Hence he regarded Abe's proffered hand coldly, and instead of rising to +his feet he continued to puff at his cigar for a few moments. + +"I know your face," he said at length, "but your name ain't familiar." + +"Think again, Mr. Griesman," Abe said, quite unmoved by the rebuff. +"Where did you seen me before?" + +"I think I seen you in a law office oncet," Griesman said. "To the best +of my recollection the occasion was one which you said you didn't give a +damn about my business at all, and if I wouldn't pay for the skirts you +would make it hot for me. But so far what I hear it, I ain't paid for +the skirts, and I didn't sweat none either." + +"Why not let bygones be bygones, Mr. Griesman?" Abe rejoined. + +"I ain't got no bygones, Abe," Griesman replied. "The bygones is all on +your side. I ain't got the skirts; so I didn't pay for 'em." + +"Well, what is a few skirts that fellers should be enemies about 'em, +Mr. Griesman? The skirts is _vorbei schon_ long since already. Why don't +you anyhow come down to our place oncet in a while and see us, Moe?" + +"What would I do in your place, Abe?" + +"You still use a couple garments, like we make it, in your business, +Moe," Abe continued. "You got to buy goods in New York oncet in a while. +Ain't it?" + +"Well, I do and I don't, Abe," Moe rejoined. "I ain't the back number +which I oncet used to was, Abe. I got fresh idees a little too, Abe. +Nowadays, Abe, a buyer couldn't rely on his own judgment at all. Before +he buys a new season's goods he's got to find out what they're wearing +on the other side first. So with me, Abe, I go first to Paris, Abe. Then +I see there what I want to buy here, Abe, and when I come back to New +York I buy only them goods which has got the idees I seen it in Paris." + +"But how do you know we ain't got the idees you would seen it in Paris, +Moe?" + +"I don't know, Abe," Moe replied, "because I ain't been to Paris yet so +far. I am now on my way over to Paris, Abe; and furthermore, Abe, if I +would been to Paris, y'understand, what does a feller like Mawruss know +about designing?" + +"What d'ye mean, what does a feller like Mawruss know about designing?" +Abe repeated. "Don't you fool yourself, Moe; Mawruss is a first-class, +A number one designer. He gets his idees straight from the best fashion +journals. Then too, Moe, when it comes to up-to-date styles, I ain't +such a big fool neither, y'understand. I know one or two things about +designing myself, Moe, and you could take it from me, Moe, there ain't +no house in the trade, Moe, which they got better facilities for giving +you the latest up-to-the-minute style like we got it." + +"Sure, I know," Moe continued; "but as I told it you before, Abe, I +ain't in the market for my fall goods now. I am now only on my way to +Paris, and when I would come back it would be time for you to waste your +breath." + +"I could waste my breath all I want to, Moe," Abe rejoined. "I ain't +like some people, Moe; my breath don't cost me nothing." + +"What d'ye mean?" Moe cried indignantly. He had allowed himself the +unusual indulgence of a cocktail that morning as a corollary to a rather +turbulent evening with Leon Sammet, and he had been absently chewing a +clove throughout the interview with Abe. + +"I mean Hymie Salzman, designer for Sammet Brothers," Abe replied. +"There's a feller which he got it such a breath, Moe, he ought to put a +revenue stamp on his chin." + +"That may be, Abe; but the feller delivers the goods. Sammet Brothers +are sending him to Paris this year too, Abe. He is sailing with Leon +Sammet on the same ship with me, Abe." + +"Well, then all I could say to you is, Moe, you should look out for +yourself and don't play no auction pinocle with that feller. Every +afternoon he is playing with such sharks like Moe Rabiner and Marks +Pasinsky, and if he ever got out of a job as designer he could go on the +stage at one of them continual performances as a card juggler yet. A +three-fifty hand is the least that feller deals himself." + +"One thing is sure, Abe, you couldn't never sell me no goods by knocking +Hymie Salzman." + +"I ain't trying to sell you no goods, Moe; I am only talking to you like +an old friend should talk to another. When are you coming back?" + +"About July 1st I should be here," Moe replied, "and if you want to come +and see me like an old friend, Abe, you are welcome. Only I got to say +this to you, Abe, I forgot them skirts long since ago already, and I +wish you the same." + + * * * * * + +When Abe entered his showroom that morning Morris Perlmutter had just +arranged a high-neck evening gown on a wire model. + +"Well, Abe, what d'ye think of it?" he exclaimed proudly, as he wiped +his glistening brow. Abe fingered the garment's silken folds and puffed +critically at a black cigar. + +"What could I think, Mawruss?" he replied. "The garment looks all right, +Mawruss, and I ain't kicking, y'understand; but I tell you the honest +truth, Mawruss, the way things is nowadays, Mawruss, a feller could be +Elijah the Prophet already, and he couldn't tell in June what is going +to please the garment buyers in September." + +Morris flushed angrily. + +"I don't know what comes over you lately, Abe; nothing suits you," he +cried. "I got here a garment which if we would be paying a designer ten +thousand dollars a year yet he couldn't turn us out nothing better, and +yet you are kicking." + +"What d'ye mean, kicking?" Abe rejoined. "I ain't kicking. I am only +passing a remark, Mawruss. I am saying I couldn't tell nothing about it, +Mawruss, because so far ahead of time like this, Mawruss, a garment +could look ever so rotten, Mawruss, and it could turn out to be a +record-seller anyhow." + +"So, Abe," Morris broke out furiously, "you think the garment looks +rotten! What? Well, all I got to say is this, Abe; if the garment looks +so rotten you should quick hire some one which could design a better +one, because I am sick and tired of your kicking." + +"What's the matter, you got pepper up your nose all of a sudden, +Mawruss?" Abe protested. "I ain't saying nothing about the garment is +rotten. I am only saying it gets so nowadays that in June a feller +turns out a style which if we was making masquerade costumes already it +would be freaky anyhow; and yet, Mawruss, it would go big in September. +You get the idee what I am talking about, Mawruss?" + +"I get the idee all right," Morris retorted with bitter emphasis. "You +got the nerve to stand there and tell me this here garment is freaky +like a masquerade costume. _Schon gut_, Abe. From now on I wash myself +of the whole thing. I am through, Abe. You should right away advertise +for a designer." + +Abe rose wearily to his feet. + +"With a touchy proposition like you, Mawruss," he said, "a feller +couldn't open his mouth at all. I ain't saying nothing about you as a +designer, Mawruss. All I am saying, Mawruss, is, a designer could be a +feller which he is so high-grade like Paquin or any of them Frenchers, +but if he gets his idees from fashion papers _oder_ the _Daily Cloak and +Suit Gazette_, Mawruss, then oncet in a while he turns out a sticker." + +Morris was stripping the garment from the display form, but he paused to +favour his partner with a glare. + +"What would you want me to do, then?" he asked. "Make up styles out from +my own head, Abe? If I wouldn't get my idees from the fashion papers, +Abe, where would I get 'em?" + +"Where would you get 'em?" Abe repeated. "Why, where does Hymie Salzman, +designer for Sammet Brothers, and Charles Eisenblum, designer for +Klinger & Klein, get their idees, Mawruss?" + +This was purely a rhetorical question, but as Abe paused to heighten the +effect of the peroration, Morris undertook to supply an answer. + +"Them suckers don't get their idees, Abe," he said; "they steal 'em. If +a concern gets a run on a certain garment, Abe, them two highway robbers +makes a duplicate of it before you could turn around your head. That's +the kind of cut-throats them fellers is, Abe." + +"Sure, I know," Abe continued; "but they got to turn out some garments +of their own, Mawruss, and they get their idees right from headquarters. +They get their idees from Paris, Mawruss. Only this morning I hear it +that Hymie Salzman sails for Paris on Saturday." + +"Well, I couldn't stop him, Abe," Morris commented. + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe went on; "but things is very quiet here in +the store, Mawruss, and for a month yet we wouldn't do hardly no +business. I could get along here all right until, say, July 15th +anyhow." + +For two minutes Morris looked hard at his partner. + +"What are you driving into, Abe?" he asked at length. + +"Why, I am driving into this, Mawruss," Abe continued. "Why don't you go +to Paris?" + +"Me go to Paris!" Morris exclaimed. + +"Why not?" Abe murmured. The suggestion did seem preposterous after all. + +"Why not!" Morris repeated. "There's a whole lot of reasons why not, +Abe, and the first and foremost is that the Atlantic Ocean would got to +run dry and they got to build a railroad there first, Abe. I crossed the +water just oncet, Abe, and I wouldn't cross it again if I never sold +another dollar's worth more goods so long as I live, Abe; and that's all +there is to it." + +"What are you talking nonsense, Mawruss? On them big boats like the +_Morrisania_ there ain't no more motion than if a feller would be going +to Coney Island, Mawruss." + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris replied firmly. "Me, if I would go to +Coney Island, I am taking always the trolley, Abe, from the New York +side of the bridge. Furthermore, Abe, if Sammet Brothers sends a drinker +like Hymie Salzman to Paris, Abe, they got a right to spend their money +the way they want to; but all I got to say is that we shouldn't be +afraid they would cop out any of our trade on that account, Abe. Hymie +would come home with new idees of tchampanyer wine and not garments, +Abe." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted; "but if you would go over to +Paris, Mawruss, you would come back with some new idees which you would +turn out some real snappy stuff, Mawruss. As it is, Mawruss, with a +sticker like you got it there, Mawruss, we would ruin our business." + +"All right, Abe; I heard enough. You got altogether too much to say for +a feller which comes downtown at ten o'clock with no excuse nor +nothing." + +At this point Abe interrupted his partner long enough to relate his +visit to Moe Griesman, but the information entirely failed to placate +Morris. + +"All right, Abe," he shouted; "why don't you go to Paris? That's all +you're fit for. I got a wife and baby, Abe; but with a feller which he +has got no more interest in his home, y'understand, than he wants to go +to Paris, Abe--all right! Go ahead, Abe; go to Paris. I am satisfied." + +Abe regarded his partner for one hesitating moment. + +"_Schon gut_, I will go to Paris," he said; and the next moment the +elevator door closed behind him. + +For five minutes after Abe's departure Morris gazed earnestly at his +newest creation. He had intended the model as a pleasant surprise to his +partner, since not only had he conceived the garment to be a triumph of +the dressmaker's art, but it had been finished far in advance of the +season for originating new styles. He had confidently expected an +enthusiastic reception of this _chef-d'oeuvre_; but in view of Abe's +scathing criticism, he commenced to doubt his own estimate of the beauty +of the dress. Indeed, the longer he looked at it the uglier it appeared, +until at length he grabbed it roughly and literally tore it from the +wire form. He had rolled it into a ball and was about to cast it into a +corner when the elevator door opened and a young lady stepped out. + +"Good morning, Mr. Perlmutter," she said. + +Morris turned his face in the direction of the speaker and at once his +mouth expanded into a broad grin. + +"Why, Miss Smith!" he exclaimed as he rushed forward to greet her. "How +do you do? Me and Mrs. Perlmutter was just talking about you to-day. How +much you think that boy weighs now?" + +"Sixteen pounds," Miss Smith replied. + +"Twenty-two," Morris cried--"net." + +"You don't say so!" said Miss Smith. + +"We got you to thank for that, Miss Smith," Morris continued. "The +doctor says without you anything could happen." + +Miss Smith deprecated this compliment to her professional skill with a +smiling shake of the head. + +"We wouldn't forget it in a hurry," Morris declared. "Everything what +that boy is to-day, Miss Smith, we owe it to you." + +"You're making it hard for me, Mr. Perlmutter," Miss Smith replied, +"because I've come to ask you a favour." + +"A favour?" Morris replied. "You couldn't ask me to do you a favour +because it wouldn't be no favour. It would be a pleasure. What could I +do for you?" + +"I have to leave town to-morrow on a case," Miss Smith explained, "and I +need a dress in a hurry, something light for evening wear." + +Morris frowned perplexedly. + +"That's too bad," he said, "because just at present we got nothing but +last year's goods in stock--all except--all except this." + +He unfolded the model and shook it out. + +"What a pretty dress!" Miss Smith cried, clasping her hands. + +"Pretty!" Morris exclaimed. "How could you say it was pretty?" + +"It's perfectly stunning," Miss Smith continued. "What size is it, Mr. +Perlmutter?" + +"The usual size," Morris replied; "thirty-six." + +"Why, that's just my size," Miss Smith declared. "Let me see it." Morris +handed her the dress and she examined it carefully. "What a pity," she +said, "it has a slight rip in front. Somebody's been handling it +carelessly." + +"Sure, I know," Morris said. "I tore it myself, Miss Smith; but if you +really and truly like it, Miss Smith, which I tell you the truth I +don't, and my partner neither, you are welcome to it, and I would give +you a little piece from the same goods which you could fix up the rip +with." + +"I couldn't think of it," Miss Smith replied. + +"Not at all, Miss Smith. You would do me a favour if you would take it +along with you right now." + +Miss Smith fairly beamed as she opened her handbag. + +"How much is it?" she asked. + +"How much is it?" Morris repeated. "Why, Miss Smith, you could take that +dress only on one condition. The condition is that you wouldn't pay me +nothing for it, and that next fall, when we really got something in +stock, you would come in and pick out as many of our highest-price +garments as you would want." + +Morris's hand shook so with this unusual access of generosity that he +could hardly wrap up the garment. + +"Also, Miss Smith, I expect you will come up and have dinner with us as +soon as you get back from wherever you are going. Already the baby +commences to recognize people which he meets, and we want him he should +never forget you, Miss Smith." + +The cordiality with which Morris ushered Miss Smith into the elevator +was in striking contrast to the brusk manner in which he greeted Abe +half an hour later. + +"_Nu!_" he growled. "Where was you now?" + +"By the steamship office," Abe replied. "I am going next Saturday." + +"Going next Saturday?" Morris repeated. "Where to?" + +"To Paris," Abe replied, "on the same ship with Moe Griesman, Leon +Sammet and Hymie Salzman." + +Morris nodded slowly as the news sank in. + +"Well, all I could say is, Abe," he commented at length, "that I don't +wish you and the other passengers no harm, y'understand; but, with them +three suckers on board the ship, I hope it sinks." + + * * * * * + +The five days preceding Abe's departure were made exceedingly busy for +him by Morris, who soon became reconciled to his partner's +fashion-hunting trip, particularly when he learned that Moe Griesman +formed part of the quarry. + +"You got to remember one thing, Abe," he declared. "Extremes is nix. Let +the other feller buy the freaks; what we are after is something in +moderation." + +"You shouldn't worry about that, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I wouldn't +bring you home no such model like you showed it me this week." + +"You would be lucky if you wouldn't bring home worser yet," Morris +retorted. "But anyhow that ain't the point. I got here the names of a +couple commission men which it is their business to look out for +greenhorns." + +"What d'ye mean, greenhorn?" Abe cried indignantly. "I ain't no +greenhorn." + +"That's all right," Morris went on; "in France only the Frenchers ain't +greenhorns. You ain't told me what kind of a stateroom you got it." + +"Well, the outside rooms was one hundred and twenty-five dollars and the +inside room, was eight-five dollars," Abe explained; "so I took an +inside room because the light wouldn't come in and wake me up so early +in the morning, Mawruss, and forty dollars is as good to me as it is to +them suckers what runs the steamboat company. Ain't it?" + +Nevertheless, when Abe found himself in his upper berth the morning +after he had parted with Minnie, Rosie, and Morris at the pier, he had +reason to regret his economy. He shared his stateroom with a singer of +minor operatic rôles, who, as a souvenir of a farewell luncheon ashore, +carried into that narrow precinct an odour of garlic that persisted for +the entire voyage. In addition, the returning artist smoked Egyptian +cigarettes and anointed his generous head of hair with violet +brilliantine. Hence it was not until the boat was passing Brow Head that +Abe staggered up the companionway to the promenade deck. + +"Why, hallo, Abe!" cried a bronzed and bulky figure. "I ain't seen you +for almost a week." + +"No?" Abe murmured. "Well, if you would wanted to seen me, Leon, you +knew where you could find me: just below the pantry my stateroom was, +inside. A dawg shouldn't got to live in such a place." + +At this juncture Salzman appeared to summon his employer to a game of +auction pinocle in the smoking room, and as Abe started to make a feeble +promenade around the deckhouse he encountered Moe Griesman. After Moe +had taken Abe's hand in a limp clasp he nodded in the direction of the +smoking room. + +"What d'ye think of them two suckers?" he croaked. "They ain't missed a +meal since they came aboard." + +"What could you expect from a couple of tough propositions like that?" +Abe replied. "Was you sick, Moe?" + +"Sick!" Griesman exclaimed. "I give you my word, Abe, last Thursday +night I was so sick that I commenced to figure out already how much I +would of saved in premiums if my insurings policies would be straight +life instead of endowment. No, Abe; this here business of going to Paris +for your styles ain't what it's cracked up to be. Always up to now I got +fine weather crossing, but the way the water has been the last six days, +Abe, I am beginning to think I could get just so good idees of the +season's models right in New York." + +"D'ye know, Moe," said Abe, "I'm starting to feel hungry? I wish that +feller with the _shofar_ would come." + +Hardly had he spoken when the ship's bugler announced luncheon, but it +was some minutes before Moe could summon up sufficient courage to go +below to the dining saloon, and when they entered they found Leon Sammet +and Hymie Salzman had nearly concluded their meal. + +"Steward," Leon shouted as Moe sat down next to him, "bring me a nice +piece of Camembert cheese." + +"One moment, Leon," Griesman interrupted; "if you bring that stuff under +my nose here I would never buy from you a dollar's worth more goods so +long as I live!" + +"The feller goes too far, Abe," he said, after Leon had cancelled the +order and departed to drink his coffee in the smoking room. "The feller +goes too far. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on deck, and the way I +felt, Abe, my worst enemy wouldn't got to feel it. Do you believe me, +Abe, that feller got the nerve to offer me a cigar yet! It pretty near +finished me up. He only done it out of spite, Abe, but I fooled him. I +took the cigar and I got it in my pocket right now." + +"Don't show me," Abe cried hurriedly. "I'll tell you the truth: there +ain't nothing in the smoking habit. I'm going to cut it out. Waiter, +bring me only a plate of clear soup and some dry toast. There ain't no +need for a feller to smoke, Moe; it's only an extra expense." + +"I think you're right, Abe," Moe said; "but I know that this here cigar +cost Leon a quarter on board ship here, and I thought I would show him +he shouldn't get so gay." + +Despite Abe's resolution, however, a large black cigar protruded from +his moustache when he stood on the wharf at Cherbourg, twenty-four hours +later, and a small, ill-shaven stevedore, clad in a dark blouse and +shabby corduroy trousers, pointed to the cloud of smoke that issued from +Abe's lips and chattered a voluble protest. + +"What does he say, Moe?" Abe asked. + +"I don't know," Moe replied. "He's talking French." + +"French!" Abe exclaimed. "What are you trying to do--kid me? A dirty +_schlemiel_ of a greenhorn like him should talk French! What an idee!" + +Nevertheless, Abe was made to throw away his cigar, and it was not until +the quartette were snugly enclosed in a first-class compartment en route +to Paris that Abe felt safe to indulge in another cigar. He explored his +pockets, but without result. + +"Moe," he said, "do you got maybe another cigar on you?" + +"I'm smoking the one which Leon give it me on the ship the other day," +Moe replied. "Leon, be a good feller; give him a cigar." + +"I give you my word, Moe, this is the last one," Leon replied as he bit +the end off a huge invincible. + +"You got something there bulging in your vest pocket, Abe. Why don't you +smoke it?" + +"That ain't a cigar," Abe answered; "that's a fountain pen." + +"Smoke it anyhow," Leon advised; "because the only cigars you could get +on this train is French Government cigars, and I'd sooner tackle a +fountain pen as one of them rolls of spinach." + +"That's a country!" Abe commented. "Couldn't even get a decent cigar +here!" + +"In Paris you could get plenty good cigars," Hymie Salzman said, and +Hymie was right for, at the Gare St. Lazare, M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi, +_commissionnaire_, awaited them, his pockets literally spilling +red-banded perfectos at every gesture of his lively fingers. M. +Kaufmann-Levi spoke English, French, and German with every muscle of his +body from the waist up. + +"Welcome to France, Mr. Potash," he said. "You had a good voyage, +doubtless; because you Americans are born sailors." + +"Maybe we are born sailors," Abe admitted, "but I must of grew out of +it. I tell you the honest truth, if I could go back by trolley, and it +took a year, I would do it." + +"The weather is always more settled in July than in August," said M. +Kaufmann-Levi, "and I wouldn't worry about the return trip just now. I +have rooms for you gentlemen all on one floor of a hotel near the +Opera, and taximeters are in waiting. After you have settled we will +take dinner together." + +Thus it happened that, at half past six that evening, M. Kaufmann-Levi +conducted his four guests from the Restaurant Marguery to a sidewalk +table of the Café de la Paix, and for almost an hour they watched the +crowd making its way to the Opera. + +"You see, Moe," Abe said, "everything is tunics this year; tunics _oder_ +chiffon overskirts, net collars and yokes." + +Moe nodded absently. His eyes were glued to a lady sitting at the next +table. + +"You got to come to Paris to see 'em, Abe," he murmured. "They don't +make 'em like that in America." + +"We make as good garments in America as anywhere," Abe protested. + +"Garments I ain't talking about at all," Moe whispered hoarsely; "I mean +peaches. Did y'ever see anything like that lady there sitting next to +you? Look at the get-up, Abe. Ain't it chic?" + +"It's a pretty good-looking model, Moe," Abe replied, "but a bit too +plain for us. See all the fancy-looking garments there are round here." + +"Plain nothing!" Moe muttered. "Look at the way it fits her. I tell you, +Abe, the French ladies know how to wear their clothes." + +A moment later the couple at the next table passed along toward the +Opera, and once more Abe and Moe turned their attention to the crowds on +the boulevard. + +For the remainder of their stay in Paris Abe and Leon spent their time +in a ceaseless hunt for new models and their nights in plying Moe +Griesman with entertainment. It cannot be said that Moe discouraged them +to any marked degree, for while he occasionally hinted to Abe that the +New York cloak and suit trade was an open market, and garment buyers had +a large field from which to choose, he also told Leon that he saw no +reason why he should not continue to buy goods from Sammet Brothers, +provided the prices were right. + +Nearly every evening found them sitting at the corner table of the Café +de la Paix, and upon many of these occasions the next table was occupied +by the same couple that sat there on the night of Abe's arrival in +Paris. + +"You know, Abe, that dress is the most uniquest thing in Paris," Moe +exclaimed on the evening of the last day in Paris. "I ain't seen nothing +like it anywhere." + +"Good reason, Moe," Leon Sammet cried; "it's rotten. That's one of last +year's models." + +"What are you talking nonsense? One of the last year's models!" Moe +Griesman cried indignantly. "Don't you think I know a new style when I +see it?" + +"Moe is right, Leon," Abe said. "You ain't got no business to talk +that way at all. The style is this year's model." + +"Of course, Abe," Leon said with ironic precision, "when a judge like +you says something, y'understand, then it's so. Take another of them +sixty-cent ice-creams, Moe." + +Ordinarily Abe would have turned Leon's sarcasm with a retort in kind, +but Leon's remark fell on deaf ears, for Abe was listening to a +conversation at the next table and the language was English. + +"It's time to start back to the hotel," said the young lady to her +escort, who was an elderly gentleman. + +Abe turned to Moe and Leon. + +"Excuse me for a few minutes," he said; "I got to go back to the hotel +for something." + +He handed Leon a twenty-franc piece. + +"If I shouldn't get back, pay the bill!" he cried, and jumping to his +feet he followed the couple from the next table. + +The old gentleman walked feebly with the aid of a cane, and the young +lady held him by the arm as they proceeded to the main entrance of the +Grand Hotel. Abe dogged their footsteps until the old gentleman +disappeared into the lift and the young lady retired to the winter +garden that forms the interior court of the hotel. As she seated herself +in a wicker chair Abe approached with his hat in his hand. + +"Lady, excuse me," he began; "I ain't no loafer. I'm in the cloak and +suit business, and I would like to speak to you a few words--something +very particular." + +The young lady turned in her chair. She was not alarmed, only surprised. + +"I hope you don't think I am asking you anything out of the way," Abe +said, without further prelude; "but you got a dress on, lady, which I +don't know how much you paid for it, but if three hundred of these +here--now--francs would be any inducement I'd like to buy it from you. +Of course I wouldn't ask you to take it off right now, but if you would +leave it at the clerk's desk here I could call for it in half an hour." + +The young lady made no reply, instead she threw back her head and +laughed heartily. + +"It ain't no joke, lady," Abe continued as he laid three flimsy notes of +the Bank of France in her lap. "That's as good as American greenbacks." + +The young lady ceased laughing, and for a minute, hesitated between +indignation and renewed mirth, but at last her sense of humour +conquered. + +"Very well," she said; "stay here for a few minutes." + +Half an hour later she returned with the dress wrapped up in a paper +parcel. + +"How did you know I wouldn't go off with the money, dress and all?" +she asked as Abe seized the package. + +"I took a chance, lady," he said; "like you are doing about the money +which I give you being good." + +"Have no scruples on that score," the young lady replied. "I had it +examined at the clerk's office just now." + + * * * * * + +When M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi bade farewell to Moe, Abe, Leon, and Hymie +Salzman, at the Gare St. Lazare, he uttered words of encouragement and +cheer which failed to justify themselves after the four travellers' +embarkment at Cherbourg. + +"You will have splendid weather," he had declared. "It will be fine all +the way over." + +When the steamer passed out of the breakwater into the English Channel +she breasted a northeaster that lasted all the way to the Banks. Even +Hymie Salzman went under, and Leon Sammet walked the swaying decks +alone. Twice a day he poked his head into the stateroom occupied by Moe +Griesman and Abe Potash, for Abe had thrown economy to the winds and had +gone halves with Moe in the largest outside room on board. + +"Boys," Leon would ask, "ain't you going to get up? The air is fine on +deck." + +Had he but known it, Moe Griesman developed day by day, with growing +intensity, that violent hatred for Leon that the hopelessly seasick +feel toward good sailors; while toward Abe, who groaned unceasingly in +the upper berth, Moe Griesman evinced the affectionate interest that the +poor sailor evinces in any one who suffers more keenly than himself. + +At length Nantucket lightship was passed, and as the sea grew calmer two +white-faced invalids, that on close scrutiny might have been recognized +by their oldest friends to be Moe and Abe, tottered up the companionway +and sank exhausted into the nearest deckchairs. + +"Well, Moe," Leon cried, as he bustled toward them smoking a large cigar +and clad in a suit of immaculate white flannels, "so you're up again?" + +The silence with which Moe received this remark ought to have warned +Leon, but he plunged headlong to his fate. + +"We are now only twenty hours from New York," he said, "and suppose I go +downstairs and bring you up some of them styles which I got in Paris." + +"You shouldn't trouble yourself," Moe said shortly. + +"Why not?" Leon inquired. + +"Because, for all I care," Moe replied viciously, "you could fire 'em +overboard. I would _oser_ buy from you a button." + +"What's the matter?" Leon cried. + +"You know what's the matter," Moe continued. + +"You come every day into my stateroom and mock me yet because I am +sick." + +"I mock you!" Leon exclaimed. + +"That's what I said," Moe continued; "and if you wouldn't take that +cigar away from here I'll break your neck when I get on shore again." + +Leon backed away hurriedly and Moe turned to Abe. + +"Am I right or wrong?" he said. + +Abe nodded. He was incapable of audible speech, but hour by hour he grew +stronger until at dinner-time he was able to partake of some soup and +roast beef, and even to listen with a wan smile to Moe's caustic +appraisement of Leon Sammet's character. Finally, after a good night's +rest, Moe and Abe awoke to find the engine stilled at Quarantine. They +were saved the necessity of packing their trunks for the cogent reason +that they had been physically unable to open them, let alone unpack +them. Hence they repaired at once to breakfast. + +Leon was already seated at table, and he hastily cancelled an order for +Yarmouth bloater and asked instead for a less fragrant dish. + +"Good morning, Moe," he said pleasantly. + +Moe turned to Abe. "To-morrow morning at nine o'clock, Abe," he said, "I +would be down in your store to look over your line." + +"Steward," Leon Sammet cried, "never mind that steak. I would take the +bloater anyhow." + +Abe and Moe breakfasted lightly on egg and toast, and returned to their +stateroom as they passed the Battery. + +"Say, lookyhere, Moe," Abe said; "I want to show you something which I +bought for you as a surprise the night before we left Paris. I got it +right in the top of my suitcase here, and it wouldn't take a minute to +show it to you." + +Abe was unstrapping his suitcase as he spoke, and the next minute he +shook out the gown he had purchased from the young lady of the Cafe de +la Paix, and exposed it to Moe's admiring gaze. + +"How did you get hold of that, Abe?" Moe asked. + +Abe narrated his adventure at the Grand Hotel, while Moe gaped his +astonishment. + +"I always thought you got a pretty good nerve, Abe," he declared, "but +this sure is the limit. How much did you pay for it?" + +"Three hundred of them--now--francs," Abe replied; "but I've been +figuring out the cost of manufacturing and material, and I could +duplicate it in New York for forty dollars a garment." + +"You mean thirty-five dollars a garment, don't you?" Moe said. + +"No, I don't," Abe replied. "I mean forty dollars a garment. Why do you +say thirty-five dollars?" + +"Because at forty dollars apiece, Abe, I could use for my Sarahcuse, +Rochester, and Buffalo stores about fifty of these garments, and you +ought to figure on at least five dollars' profit on a garment." + +"Well, maybe I am figuring it a little too generous, y'understand; so, +if that goes, Moe, I will quote the selling price at, say, forty dollars +a garment to you, Moe." + +"Sure, it goes," Moe said; "and I'll be at your store to-morrow morning +at nine o'clock to decide on sizes and shades." + +Abe's passage through the customs examination was accomplished with +ease, for nearly all his Paris purchases were packed in the hold to be +cleared by a custom-house broker. His stateroom baggage contained no +dutiable articles save the gown in question and a few trinkets for +Rosie, who was at the pier to greet him. Indeed, she bestowed on him a +series of kisses that reechoed down the long pier, and Abe's pallor gave +way to the sunburnt hue of his amused fellow-passengers. In one of them +Abe recognized with a start the tanned features of the young lady of the +Café de la Paix. + +"Moe," he said, nudging Griesman, "there's your friend." + +Moe turned in the direction indicated by Abe, and his interested manner +was not unnoticed by Mrs. Potash. + +"How is your dear wife and daughter, Mr. Griesman?" she asked +significantly. "I suppose you missed 'em a whole lot." + +When Moe assured her that he did she sniffed so violently that it might +have been taken for a snort. + +"Well, Abe," he said at length, "I'll be going on to the Prince +Clarence, and I'll see you in the store to-morrow morning. Good-by, Mrs. +Potash." + +"Good-by," Mrs. Potash replied, with an emphasis that implied "good +riddance," and then, as Moe disappeared toward the street, she sniffed +again. "It don't take long for some loafers to forget their wives!" she +said. + + * * * * * + +"Well, Abe," Morris said, after the first greetings had passed between +them that afternoon, "I'm glad to see you back in the store." + +"You ain't half so glad to see me back, Mawruss, as I am that I should +be back," Abe replied. "Not that the trip ain't paid us, Mawruss, +because I got a trunkful of samples on the way up here which I assure +you is a work of art." + +"Sure, I know!" Morris commented with just a tinge of bitterness in his +tones; "Paris is the place for styles. Us poor suckers over here don't +know a thing about designing." + +"Well, Mawruss, I'll tell you," Abe went on: "you are a first-class, A +number one designer, I got to admit, and there ain't nobody that I +consider is better as you in the whole garment trade; but"--here he +paused to unfasten his suitcase--"but, Mawruss," he continued, "I got +here just one sample style which I brought it with me, Mawruss, and I +think, Mawruss, you would got to agree with me, such models we don't +turn out on this side." + +Here he opened the suitcase, and carefully taking out the dress of the +Café de la Paix he spread it on a sample table. + +"What d'ye think of that, Mawruss?" he asked. + +Morris made no answer. He was gazing at the garment with bulging eyes, +and beads of perspiration ran down his forehead. + +"Abe!" he gasped at length, "where did you get that garment from?" + +Before Abe could answer, the elevator door opened and a young lady +stepped out. It was now Abe's turn to gasp, for the visitor was no other +than the tanned and ruddy young person from the Café de la Paix. + +"Good afternoon, Mr. Perlmutter," she said. "I've just got back." + +"Oh, good afternoon, Miss Smith!" Morris cried. + +"I hope I'm not interrupting you," she continued. + +"Not at all," Morris said; "not at all." + +Then a wave of recollection came over him, and he muttered a +half-smothered exclamation. + +"Abe, Miss Smith," he almost shouted, and then he sat down. "Say, +lookyhere, Abe, what is all this, anyway? Miss Smith comes in here +and----" + +"Well, upon my word!" Miss Smith interrupted; "if it isn't the gentleman +from the Café de la Paix--and, of all things, there is the very dress!" + +Abe shrugged his shoulders. + +"That's right, Miss Whatever-your-name is," Abe admitted; "that's the +dress, and since I paid you sixty dollars for it I don't think you got +any kick coming." + +"Sixty dollars!" Morris cried. "Why, that dress as a sample garment only +cost us twenty-two-fifty to make up." + +"Cost us?" Abe repeated. "As a sample garment? What are you talking +about?" + +"I am talking about this, Abe," Morris replied: "that dress is the +self-same garment which I designed it, and which you says was rotten and +freaky, and which I give it to Miss Smith here for a present, and which +you paid Miss Smith sixty dollars for." + +"And here is the sixty dollars now," Miss Smith broke in. "I hurried +here as fast as I could to give it to you, Mr. Perlmutter." + +"One moment," Abe said. "I don't know who this young lady is or nothing; +but do you mean to told me that this here dress which I bought it in +Paris was made up right here in our place?" + +"Here, Abe," Morris said, "I want to show you something. Here is from +the same goods a garment, and them goods as you know we get it from the +Hamsuckett Mills. So far what I hear it, the Hamsuckett Mills don't +sell their output in Paris. Am I right or wrong?" + +Abe nodded slowly. + +"Well, Mr. Perlmutter," Miss Smith said, "here's your sixty dollars. +I've got to get back to my patient. You know that I went to Paris with a +rheumatic case, and I've left the old gentleman in charge of a friend. I +came here to settle up." + +"Excuse me," said Abe; "I ain't been introduced to this young lady yet." + +"Why, I thought you knew her," Morris said. "This is Miss Smith, the +trained nurse which was so good to my Minnie when my Abie was born." + +"Is that so?" Abe cried. "Well, Miss Smith, you should take that sixty +dollars and keep it, because, Mawruss, on the way over I sold Moe +Griesman fifty garments of that there style of yours at forty dollars +apiece." + +"You don't say so!" Morris cried. "You don't say so! Well, all I got to +say is, Miss Smith, in the first place, if Abe wouldn't of told you to +keep that sixty dollars I sure would of done so, and in the second +place, I want you to come in here next week and pick out half a dozen +dresses. Ain't that right, Abe?" + +"I bet yer that's right, Mawruss; we wouldn't take no for an answer," +Abe replied. "And you should also leave us your name and address, Miss +Smith, because, _Gott soll hüten_, if I should be sick, y'understand, +I don't want nobody else to nurse me but you." + + * * * * * + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris said the following morning, "that trunkful +of Paris samples which the custom-house says we would get this morning +ain't come yet." + +Abe clapped his partner on the shoulder and grinned happily. + +"What do I care, Mawruss?" he said. "For my part they should never come. +I ain't got no use for Paris fashions at all. Styles which Mawruss +Perlmutter originates is good enough for me, because I always said it, +Mawruss, you are a cracker-jack, high-grade, A number one designer!" + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +DEAD MEN'S SHOES + + +"There goes that sucker, Aaron Kronberg, from Port Sullivan," Abe Potash +declared to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as they looked from the +windows of their showroom to the opposite sidewalk some four stories +below. "Ain't it funny that feller would never buy from us a dollar's +worth more goods?" + +"The reason ain't hard to find, Abe," Morris replied. "Oncet a garment +buyer gets into the hands of a competitor like Leon Sammet, it's all +off. I bet yer Leon tells him we are all kinds of crooks and swindlers." + +"What could you expect from a cut-throat like Leon Sammet? That feller +is no good and his father before him is also a thief. I know his people +from the old country yet. One was worser as the other." + +"Well, there's nothing the matter with Aaron's cousin, Alex Kronberg, +anyhow," Morris observed. "That feller does a fine business in +Bridgetown, and Sammet Brothers could no more take his trade away from +us than they could fly." + +"That ain't our fault, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "Sammet Brothers is fly +enough to do anything, Mawruss; but, the way Aaron Kronberg hates Alex +Kronberg, if they was to sell Alex a single garment, y'understand, Aaron +would never buy from them a dollar's worth more goods so long as he +lived." + +"Ain't it a disgrace them two fellers is such enemies, Abe?" + +"Alex ain't no enemy, Mawruss," Abe said. "It's Aaron what's the enemy. +Alex don't trouble himself at all. He told me so himself. But that's the +way it goes, Mawruss. Mosha Kronberg, Hillel Kronberg, and Elkan +Kronberg was three brothers which you don't see nowadays at all--more +like friends than brothers, Mawruss. Hillel died ten years ago and I +thought it would broke Mosha's heart. He looked after Hillel's widow and +Hillel's boy, Alex, because Mosha never married, Mawruss. He was a born +uncle. Then, when Elkan died a year later, I never seen a feller so +broke up like Mosha in all my life. He goes to work and sends Elkan's +boy, Aaron, to business college, and Elkan's widow he takes to live with +Hillel's widow, all together with himself and the two boys in that house +of his on Madison Street. For three years they lived that way, and in +the rest of the house Mosha couldn't keep any tenants at all. At last he +gives Aaron a couple thousand dollars and Alex the same, and Aaron +buys a store up in Port Sullivan, and Alex goes up to Bridgetown." + +"What become of the widows, Abe?" Morris asked. + +"I don't know is Elkan's widow living now _oder_ not," Abe said, "but +Mosha told me Hillel's widow wants to get married again, and Alex comes +to him and says he should give the old lady anyhow a thousand dollars. +Mosha wants to know what for, and Alex tells him he owes from Hillel's +estate yet a couple thousand dollars." + +"And did he?" Morris inquired. + +"Suppose he did?" Abe replied. "He is entitled to it after what he puts +up with during them three years they lived together. Well, Mosha and +Alex gets right away fighting about it, and I guess Alex would of sued +Mosha in the courts yet, only the old lady goes to work and dies on 'em +all of a sudden." + +"But why is Aaron and Alex such enemies, Abe?" Morris asked. + +"Well, it's like this, Mawruss: Aaron and Alex is good friends until +Uncle Mosha cut Alex out of his will. You see Aaron and Alex is the only +two relations which Mosha got at all. So naturally when Aaron thinks he +is coming in for the whole thing he begins to get sore at Alex, and the +more Aaron thinks that the old man really ought to leave half to Alex, +the more he gets sore at Alex." + +"The whole business is dead wrong, Abe," Morris commented. "In the +first place, the old man ain't got no right to leave his money only to +Aaron; and in the second place, Aaron ain't got no right to feel sore at +Alex. And furthermore Alex ought to go round and see his uncle oncet in +a while when he is in New York, in the third place." + +"Well, why don't you tell him so this afternoon, Mawruss?" Abe said. +"Alex is staying up at the Prince Clarence since last night already, and +he said he would be sure down here this afternoon." + +"I will do so," Morris replied firmly. + +"Go ahead," Abe added, "only one thing I got to tell you, Mawruss. There +is some customers which would stand anything, Mawruss. You could ship +'em two garments short in every order; you could send 'em goods which +ain't no more like the sample than bread is like _motsos_; you could +overcharge 'em in your statements; you could even draw on 'em one day +after their account is due, and still they would buy goods of you; but +so soon as you start to butt into their family affairs, Mawruss, that's +the finish, Mawruss. They would leave you like a shot." + +"Alex Kronberg wouldn't take it so particular," Morris retorted. "He +knows I am only doing it for his own good." + +"Oh, if you are only doing it for his own good, Mawruss, then that's +something again," Abe said; "because in that case we would not only lose +him for a customer, Mawruss, but we would also make an enemy of him +for life." + +"You shouldn't worry," Morris replied as he put on his hat preparatory +to going out to lunch. "I know how to take care of a customer all +right." + +Nevertheless Morris cogitated his partner's advice throughout the entire +lunch hour, and over his dessert he commenced to formulate a tentative +plan for restoring Alex Kronberg to his inheritance. + +Two cups of coffee and a second helping of _mohn_ cake aided the process +of celebrating this scheme, so that when Morris returned to his place of +business it was nearly two o'clock. + +"Abe," he said as he entered, "I've been thinking over this here matter +about Alex Kronberg, and I ain't going to talk to Alex about it at all. +Do you know what I'm going to do?" + +Abe grabbed his hat and turned to Morris with a savage glare. + +"Sure, I know what you are going to do, Mawruss," Potash bellowed +belligerently. "Henceforth, from to-morrow on, you are going to do this, +Mawruss: you are going to lunch after I am coming back. I could drop +dead from hunger already for all you care. I got a stomach too, Mawruss, +and don't you forget it." + + * * * * * + +Mosha Kronberg lived on the ground floor of his own tenement house on +Madison Street, and to say that Aaron Kronberg worshipped the ground +his uncle walked on would be to utter the literal truth. + +"Well, uncle, how do you feel to-day?" Aaron inquired the morning after +Abe and Morris had so thoroughly discussed the Kronberg family +relations. + +"I could feel a whole lot better, Aaron, and I could feel a whole lot +worse," Mosha Kronberg replied. "Them suckers has been after me again." + +"Which ones are they now?" Aaron asked, his curiosity aroused. + +"An orphan asylum," Mosha replied. "The gall which some people got it, +Aaron, honestly you wouldn't believe it at all. They want me I should +give 'em two hundred and fifty dollars. I told 'em time enough when I +would die, _Gott soll hüten_." + +"What are you talking nonsense, Uncle Mosha?" Aaron broke in. "You ain't +going to die for a long time yet; and anyhow, Uncle Mosha, if people +goes to work and has children which they couldn't support while they are +living even, why should they get any of your money to support 'em after +you are dead? No one asks them suckers they should have children. Ain't +I right?" + +"Sure you are right," Uncle Mosha agreed. "Hospitals also, Aaron. If I +got one hospital bothering me, I must got a dozen. Why should I bother +myself with hospitals, Aaron? A lowlife, a gambler, hangs around liquor +saloons all times of the night till he gets sick, y'understand, and +then he must go to a hospital and get well on my money yet. I see +myself!" + +"What hospital was it?" Aaron inquired. + +"The Mount Hebron Hospital," Uncle Mosha replied. "There is the +catalogue now. They are sending it me this morning only." + +Aaron seized the annual report and list of donating members of the +hospital and opened it at the letter K. + +"Do you know what I think, uncle?" Aaron cried. "I think that Alex +Kronberg puts 'em up to asking you for money." + +"Alex puts 'em up to it?" Mosha repeated. "What for should Alex do such +a thing?" + +"Here; let me show you," Aaron cried. "Alex himself gives them fakers +five dollars. Here it is in black on white: 'Alex Kronberg, Bridgetown, +Pennsylvania, five dollars.'" + +Uncle Mosha adjusted a pair of eyeglasses to his broad, flat nose and +perused the record of his nephew's extravagance with bulging eyes. + +"Well, what d'ye think for a sucker like that!" he exclaimed. + +"I tell you the honest truth, uncle," Aaron said, "I don't want to say +nothing about Alex at all, but the way that feller is acting, just +because he does a little good business in his store, honestly it's a +disgrace. He sends my mother for ten dollars a birthday present too. Do +I need that sucker he should give my mother birthday presents? He is +throwing away his money left and right, and the first thing you know he +is coming to you borrowing yet." + +"He should save himself the trouble," Uncle Mosha declared. "His tongue +should be hanging out of his mouth with hunger, Aaron, and I wouldn't +give him _oser_ one cent." + +Aaron's face broke into a thousand wrinkles as he beamed his +satisfaction. + +"Well, uncle," he said, "I must got to be going. I got a whole lot of +things to do to-day. Take care of yourself." + +"Don't worry about me," Aaron's Uncle Mosha replied. "I could take care +of myself all right. You wouldn't drink maybe a glass of _schnaps_ or +something before you go? No? All right." + +He always delayed his proffer of hospitality until Aaron was on the +front stoop. After the latter had turned the corner of Pike Street, +Uncle Mosha lingered to take the morning air. A fresh breeze from the +southwest brought with it a faint odour of salt herring and onions from +the grocery store next door, while from the bakery across the street +came the fragrant evidence of a large batch of _Kümmel brod_. He sighed +contentedly and turned to reënter the house, but even as he did so he +wheeled about in response to the greeting: "How do you do, Mr. +Kronberg?" + +The speaker was none other than Morris Perlmutter, who had tossed on his +pillow until past midnight devising a plan for approaching Uncle Mosha +in a plausible manner. Now that his quarry had fallen so opportunely +within his grasp, Morris's face wreathed itself in smiles of such +amiability that Uncle Mosha grew at once suspicious. + +"You got the advantage from me," he said. + +"Why, don't you know me?" Morris cooed. + +"I think," Uncle Mosha replied guardedly, "I seen you oncet before +somewheres. You are a collector for a hospital or a orphan asylum, or +some such sucker game. Ain't it?" + +Morris laughed mirthlessly. His discarded plan for renewing his +acquaintance with Uncle Mosha had involved the pretence that he was +seeking to interest the old gentleman in the Home for Chronic Invalids, +Independent Order Mattai Aaron, of which fraternity Morris was an active +member; and Uncle Mosha's apparent distaste for organized charity proved +rather disconcerting. + +"You're a poor guesser, Mr. Kronberg," he said. + +"Then you are connected with some charity. Ain't it?" Uncle Mosha +continued. + +Morris denied it indignantly. + +"_Gott soil hüten_," he said. "My name is Mr. Perlmutter and I am in the +cloak and suit business." + +"Oh, I remember now!" Uncle Mosha cried. The news that Morris was no +charity worker restored him to high good-humour. + +"I remember you perfect now," he said, shaking hands effusively with +Morris. "You got a partner by the name Potash, ain't it?" + +"That's right," Morris replied. + +"And what brings you over here in this _nachbarschaft_?" Uncle Mosha +inquired. + +Morris looked from Uncle Mosha to the tarnished brass plate on the side +of the tenement-house door. It read as follows: + + M. KRONBERG + REAL ESTATE + +"The fact is," Morris said, "I am coming to see you in a business way, +and if you got time I'd like to say a little something to you." + +"Come inside," Uncle Mosha grunted. He thought he discerned a furtive +timidity in his visitor's manner strongly indicative of an impending +touch. + +"In the first place," he began, after Morris was seated, "I ain't got so +much money which people think I got it." + +"I never thought you did," said Morris, and Uncle Mosha glared in +response. + +"But I ain't no beggar neither, y'understand," he retorted. "I got a +little something left, anyhow." + +"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but what you have got or what you ain't +got is neither here or there. I am coming over this morning to ask you +something, a question." + +Here he paused. He had not yet determined what the question would be, +and it occurred to him that, unless it were sufficiently momentous to +account for his presence on the lower East Side during the busiest hours +of a business day, Uncle Mosha would show him the door. + +"Go ahead and ask it, then," Uncle Mosha broke in impatiently. "I +couldn't sit here all day." + +"The fact is," Morris said slowly, and then his mind reverted to the +brass plate on the door and he at once proceeded with renewed +confidence--"the fact is I am coming over here to ask you something, a +question which a friend of mine would like to buy a property on the East +Side." + +"A property," Uncle Mosha repeated. "A property is something else again. +What for a property would your friend like to buy it?" + +"A fine property," Morris replied; "a property like you got it here." + +"But this here property ain't for sale," Uncle Mosha said. "I got the +house here now since 1890 already, and I guess I would keep it." + +"Sure, I know; that's all right," Morris went on; "but I thought, even +if you wouldn't want to sell the house, you know such a whole lot about +real estate, Mr. Kronberg, you could help us out a little." + +The hard lines about Uncle Mosha's mouth relaxed into a smile. + +"Well, when it comes to real estate," he said, "I ain't a fool exactly, +y'understand." + +"That's what I was told," Morris continued. "A friend of mine he says to +me: 'If any one could tell you about real estate, Mosha Kronberg could. +There's a man,' he says, 'which his opinion you could trust in it +anything what he says is so. If the Astors and the Goelets would know +about East Side real estate what that feller knows--understand +me--instead of their hundreds of millions they would have thousands of +millions already.'" + +Uncle Mosha fairly beamed. + +"Yes, Mr. Kronberg," Morris went on, without taking breath, "he says to +me: 'You should go and see Uncle Mosha; he's a gentleman and he would +treat you right.' 'But,' I says to him, 'I ain't got no right to butt in +on your Uncle Mosha. You see, Alex,' I says----" + +"Alex!" Uncle Mosha cried. "Did Alex Kronberg send you here?" + +"That's who it was," Morris replied. + +"Then all I could say is," Uncle Mosha thundered, "you should go right +back to Alex and tell him from me that I says any friend of his which +he comes to me looking for information about real estate, he's lucky I +don't kick him into the street yet." + +He jumped up from his chair and opened the door leading into the public +hall. + +"Go on," he roared, "out from my house." + +Morris rose leisurely to his feet and pulled a large cigar from his +pocket. + +"If that's the way you feel about it, Mr. Kronberg," he said gently, +"_schon gut_. I wouldn't bother you any more. At the same time, Mr. +Kronberg, if ever you should want to sell the house, y'understand, let +me know; that's all." As he passed out of the door he laid the cigar on +a side table and its bright red band immediately caught the eye of Uncle +Mosha. He pounced on it and was about to hurl it after his departing +visitor when something about the smoothness of the wrapper made him +pause. Five minutes later he lolled back in a horsehair-covered rocker +and puffed contentedly at Morris's cigar. "After all," he said, "I might +get a good price for the house anyway." + +From Mosha Kronberg's tenement house on Madison Street to the cloak and +suit district, at Nineteenth Street and Fifth Avenue, is less than two +miles as the crow flies, but Morris Perlmutter's journey uptown was +accomplished in less direct fashion. He spent over half an hour in an +antiquated horse car and by the time the Broadway car to which he +transferred had reached Madison Square it was nearly twelve o'clock. As +he walked down Nineteenth Street he almost collided with Abe, whose face +wore a frown. + +"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss!" he cried. "What kind of business is this? +Here you are just getting downtown and I am going out to lunch already." + +"Sure, I know," Morris retorted. "You think of nothing but your stomach. +Believe me, Abe, I worked hard enough this morning." + +"Worked nothing!" Abe rejoined. "You have been up to some monkey +business, Mawruss; otherwise why should Mosha Kronberg telephone us just +now he thought the matter over since you left there and he would be up +to see you this afternoon already." + +"What!" Morris cried. "Did Mosha Kronberg telephone that himself?" + +"All right, Mawruss; then I am a liar!" Abe exploded. "I am telling you +with my own ears I heard him." + +"I believe you, Abe," Morris said soothingly. "Don't hurry back from +your lunch. I got lots of time." + +"I would hurry back _oder_ not, as I please, Mawruss," Abe retorted as +he trudged off toward Hammersmith's restaurant. There he ministered to +his outraged feelings with a steaming dish of _gefüllte rinderbrust_, +and it was not till he had sopped up the last drop of gravy with a piece +of rye bread that he became conscious of a stranger sitting opposite to +him. + +"Excuse me," said the latter, "you got a little soup on the lapel of +your coat." + +"That ain't soup," Abe explained, as he dipped his napkin in his glass +of ice-water and started to remove the stain; "that's a little _gefüllte +rinderbrust_, which they fix it so thin and watery nowadays it might +just as well be soup the way it's always getting over your clothes." + +"Things ain't the same like they used to be," the stranger remarked. +"Twenty--twenty-five years ago a feller could get a meal down on Canal +Street for a quarter--understand me--which it was really something you +could say was remarkable. Take any of them places, Gifkin's _oder_ +Wasserbauer's. Ain't I right?" + +"Did you used to went to Gifkin's?" Abe asked. + +"I should say!" his vis-à-vis replied. "When I was a boy of fifteen I am +eating always regularly by Gifkin's." + +"Me too. I used to eat a whole lot by Gifkin's," Abe said; "in fact, I +think I must of seen you there." + +"I shouldn't wonder," the stranger continued. "At the time, I was +working by old man Baum right across from Gifkin's. He was my uncle +already." + +"You are old man Baum's nephew!" Abe exclaimed. "How could that be? Old +man Baum only got one brother, Nathan, which he got mixed up in a +railroad accident near Knoxville. He was always up to some monkey +business, that feller, _olav hasholom_." + +"Sure, I know," the stranger continued; "but old man Baum got also one +sister, my mother, Mrs. Gershon. You must remember my father, Sam +Gershon. Works for years by Richter as a cutter. My name is Mr. Max +Gershon." + +"Why, sure I do!" Abe said, shaking hands with his new-found +acquaintance. "So you are a son of old man Gershon? Do you live here in +New York, Mr. Gershon?" + +"No; I live in Johnsville, Texas," Mr. Gershon replied. "This is my +first visit North in twenty-five years. Yes, Mr.--er----" + +"Potash," Abe said. + +"Mr. Potash," Gershon continued, "I'm feeling pretty lonesome, I can +tell you. All my folks is dead: my father, my mother, my two uncles; and +there ain't a soul here in New York which remembers me at all." + +"Is that so?" Abe commented, with ready sympathy. + +"Yes, Mr. Potash," Gershon said, "when I was a boy I done a fool thing. +When I was sixteen years old already I run away from home because my +father licked me; and I never wrote to 'em or sent no word to 'em until +it was too late. You see, up to five years since, I didn't done so good. +Everything seemed to went against me, Mr. Potash; but lately I am doing +a fine business for a small place like Johnsville, and to-day I got the +best store down there." + +"You don't say so!" Abe cried. + +"So I thought last month, instead I would go to Dallas or Forth Worth +like I usually done, I would come straight on to New York and not only +buy my fall goods but also give the old folks a surprise. And what do I +find? Everybody is dead." + +Mr. Gershon pressed a handkerchief to his eyes. + +"You shouldn't take on so," Abe said, leaning across the table and +placing his hand on Gershon's arm. "It's the way of the world, Mr. +Gershon, and I could assure you we got the finest line of garments in +our store, which it is first-class stuff, up to the minute, and prices +and everything just right." + +Mr. Gershon wiped his eyes. + +"You must excuse me, Mr. Potash," he said. "My feelings is got the +better of me." + +"That's all right," Abe murmured. "Here is our card, and you should +positively come up to see us. Even if you wouldn't buy from us a button, +Mr. Gershon, it would be a pleasure for us to see you in our place." + +"I would sure be there," Mr. Gershon said as he pocketed the card. + +"Waiter," Abe called, "put this here gentleman's check on mine and bring +us two of them thirty-cent cigars." + + * * * * * + +So eagerly did Morris await the advent of Uncle Mosha Kronberg in Potash +& Perlmutter's store that he even omitted to notice his partner's +prolonged absence at lunch; and when Abe returned to unfold the +narrative of his meeting with a prospective customer Morris heard it +without interest. + +"The feller is A number one, Mawruss," Abe said. "I stopped off to see +Sam Feder at the Kosciusko Bank, and Sam sent me to the Associated +Information Bureau. He is rated twenty to thirty thousand; credit good." + +"Yes?" Morris replied. "Tell me, Abe, did Mosha Kronberg say just when +he would be here?" + +"What are you wasting your time about Mosha Kronberg for?" Abe retorted. +"We got enough to do we should pick out a few good styles to show +Gershon." + +Morris nodded absently. His thoughts were centred on a short old man +with close-cropped beard who at that very moment was turning the corner +of Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street. Simultaneously Aaron Kronberg ran +across the street from Sammet Brothers' doorway and clapped the old +gentleman on the shoulder. + +"Hello, Uncle Mosha!" he cried. "What are you doing around here?" + +"Couldn't I come uptown oncet in a while if I would want to?" Uncle +Mosha replied, somewhat testily. + +"Sure, sure," Aaron Kronberg hastened to say. "Did you eat yet?" + +"I never eat in the middle of the day," Uncle Mosha said. "I am up here +on business." + +"On business?" Aaron repeated. "What for business?" + +"I think I sold the house," Mosha replied. + +For one brief moment Aaron gazed at his uncle and then he linked his arm +in that of the old man. "Come over to Twenty-third Street and drink +anyhow a cup of coffee," he said, and ten minutes later they entered an +enamelled brick dairy restaurant. + +"You say you think you sold the house?" Aaron said, after a waitress had +served them. + +Uncle Mosha nodded. He was emptying a cup of coffee in long, noisy +inhalations and at the same time consuming cheese sandwiches with +uncommonly keen appetite--for a man who never ate in the middle of the +day. + +"Yes, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said, as he emerged all dripping from the cup, +"I think I sold the house, and I guess I would have another cup +coffee." + +"Go ahead," Aaron replied. "But what for you want to sell the house, +Uncle Mosha? It brings you in anyhow a good income." + +"A good income for some people, Aaron, but for me not. What is one +thousand a year, Aaron?" + +"One thousand a year, uncle, is a whole lot, especially to a man like +you, what lives simple." + +"My living expenses is very little, I admit, Aaron," Uncle Mosha +replied, after he had disposed of the second cup of coffee with noises +approximating a bathtubful of soapy water disappearing down the +wastepipe. "I don't make no fuss about my living, Aaron, but you got to +remember, Aaron, that a man couldn't live on living expenses alone. +Oncet in a while a feller likes to take a little flyer in the market and +try and make a few dollars. Ain't it?" + +"What!" Aaron exclaimed. This was a phase of his uncle's character that +had never been exposed before. + +"Yes, Aaron," Uncle Mosha continued; "living ain't only having a room to +sleep in and food to eat, Aaron. Other things is living, Aaron. Stocks +is living and auction pinocle is also living, and going oncet in a while +on theayter is living too, Aaron. I may be an old man, Aaron, but I +ain't dead yet." + +Aaron's pale face grew almost ghastly at these shocking disclosures, and +when Uncle Mosha concluded his audacious creed with a furtive wink his +nephew visibly started. + +"But you got plenty other money to invest in the stock market without +you would sell the house, Uncle Mosha," he said. + +"Have I?" Uncle Mosha rejoined. "That's news to me, Aaron. You see in +nineteen-seven was a big panic and some stocks is better as others. Them +which ain't, Aaron, they went and gone so low, Aaron, they ain't never +come back again and perhaps never will. Might you heard something about +it in Port Sullivan maybe? Ten thousand dollars I dropped on them +suckers down in Wall Street, Aaron." + +Uncle Mosha smiled blandly at his nephew, who grasped the edge of the +table to steady his whirling senses. + +"But what's the use talking," Uncle Mosha continued. "What is _vorbei_ +is _vorbei_; and I guess I would have another cup of coffee." + +"You had enough coffee," Aaron cried sternly. "So you gone and dropped +your money on stocks, hey?" + +Uncle Mosha shrugged and extended one palm in philosophic resignation. + +"It was my own money, Aaron," he said. "I didn't stole it." + +"This ain't no time for making jokes, Uncle Mosha," Aaron retorted. "Who +was it you was going to sell the house to?" + +"Maybe you know him," Uncle Mosha said. "It's a feller by the name +Mawruss Perlmutter." + +Aaron Kronberg's pallor gave way to a flood of crimson, and for a moment +he choked incoherently as he gazed at Uncle Mosha in amazement. + +"Why, that feller Perlmutter is a friend of Alex," he gasped at length. + +"Sure, I know," Uncle Mosha replied; "but even if he is a friend of Alex +his money ain't counterfeit." + +"But he'd rob you of your shirt, Uncle Mosha," Aaron exclaimed. "He's a +dangerous feller." + +"I'm used to dangerous fellers, Aaron," Uncle Mosha answered calmly. "I +told you before, I dropped ten thousand in Wall Street." + +"Yes; and if you would sold this here house, Uncle Mosha, you would drop +ten thousand more." + +"Not ten thousand, Aaron. I only got eight thousand equity in the +house." + +Again Aaron stared at his uncle. + +"Do you mean to told me you only got eight thousand dollars in the +world?" he groaned. + +"The world is a pretty big place, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said; "but I +wouldn't lie to you anyhow. Eight thousand is the figure." + +"Then all I could say is, Uncle Mosha, before you would got to go +begging on the streets yet, you would better sell that house and come to +live with me up in Port Sullivan." + +Uncle Mosha shrugged once more. + +"I'll tell you the truth, Aaron," he said; "I was going to suggest that +to you myself yet. So let's go right off and see this here Perlmutter +and we'll talk about Port Sullivan later." + +"Not by a damsite," Aaron declared, as he rose from his chair and +grasped his uncle firmly by the arm. "You come with me and we'll sell +this house to a feller I know." + + * * * * * + +When Max Gershon entered the salesroom of Potash & Perlmutter that +afternoon, Abe treated the incident as though it were the arrival of an +intimate friend after an absence of many years' duration. + +"How are you feeling now, Max?" he said, and then he introduced his +partner. "Mawruss," he called, "this is my friend, Mr. Max Gershon. Get +the cigars from the safe, Mawruss." + +After he had relieved his visitor of his hat and coat he drew forward a +comfortable chair and literally thrust Max into it. + +"Well, Max," Abe said, after the cigars had gone around, "I sure am glad +to see you. Mawruss, don't he look like his uncle, old man Baum?" + +Morris regarded Max critically for a moment. + +"Old man Baum was a pretty good-looking feller, Abe," he said, "but he +wasn't so tall as Mr. Gershon; otherwise they are the same identical +people." + +"Never mind his looks," Max said, beaming. "If I should have only his +business ability I would be satisfied." + +"He made plenty money in his time," Morris commented. + +"Yes, and lost it again too," Max added; "but what's the use talking? +Money I ain't in need of exactly, y'understand." + +"You need goods, Max," Abe said. "Is that it?" + +"Well, I do and I don't, Abe," Max replied. "The fact is, Abe, I got a +good business down in Johnsville, but I couldn't extend it none on +account the place ain't big enough. Former times that was all cattle +country around there, and now it's all truck farms and cotton, and what +sort of business could a drygoods merchant do with cotton hands? Ain't I +right?" + +Abe nodded. + +"I tell you the honest truth, Abe," Max continued. "I would like to sell +out and come North. I got an idee if I would find some hustling young +feller up here which he got a good department store--good but small, +y'understand--in a live town, Abe, I would go with him as partners +together, and we could extend the business and make a good thing of it." + +Abe looked at Morris and then he slapped his thigh with his open hand. + +"By jimminy," he cried, "I got the very thing for you, Max." + +Morris gazed at his partner with raised eyebrows and then he too slapped +his thigh. + +"Alex Kronberg!" he exclaimed. + +"That's the feller," Abe said. "There's a man, Max, which he is honest +like the day and smart as a cutting machine. I know him since he was a +baby, y'understand, and he's worked his way up till now he's got a fine +business in Bridgetown. Only yesterday he says to me if he could get a +live partner with a little capital, y'understand, he would soon got the +biggest store in Bridgetown." + +"What for a town is Bridgetown?" Max asked. + +"Bridgetown is all right, Max," Abe said. "I give you my word, Max, they +got so many factories there which they burn soft coal, on the brightest +days you couldn't see the sun at all. It is an elegant place, Max." + +"And what is more, Max," Morris added, "only last Saturday night, Alex +tells me, the store was so crowded two saleswomen fainted." + +"It sounds good," Max admitted. "Who did you say owns the store?" + +"Alex Kronberg," Morris replied. + +"Kronberg--Kronberg," Max repeated. "The name sounds familiar. When did +you say he would be here?" + +"He ought to be in here every minute," Abe said. Hardly had he spoken +when the elevator door clanged and Alex himself entered. + +He glistened with perspiration, and his round, good-humoured face bore a +broad grin. + +"Phoo-ee!" he cried. "I'm all heated up." + +"What's the trouble, Alex?" Morris asked. + +"I just run into Aaron and Uncle Mosha coming out of a coffee house, and +the way them two suckers cussed me out, Mawruss!--you wouldn't believe +it at all. I couldn't understand what they was talking about, Mawruss, +but they mentioned your name and something about Mosha's house on +Madison Street." + +Abe glared at Morris and then turned to Alex with a forced smile. + +"Don't you bother yourself about them fellers, Alex," he said. + +"What do I care for 'em, Abe?" Alex replied. "I got my own troubles." + +"Sure," Morris broke in; "but what did they say about the house, Alex?" + +"So far what I could hear, Mawruss, Aaron says you are trying to buy +from Mosha the house." + +"No such thing, Alex, believe me," Abe interrupted. + +"But Aaron says he's already got a customer for the house," Alex went +on; "and who d'ye think it is?" + +Abe wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and continued to glare at +Morris. + +"I don't know who it is," Abe said, "and, what's more, I don't care. I +want to introduce you to a friend of mine, Alex. This is Mr. Max +Gershon, from Johnsville, Texas." + +"I'm pleased to meetcher, Mr. Gershon," Alex replied. "Yes, Mawruss, +Aaron says he sold the house already, and who d'ye think he sold it to?" + +Morris made an inarticulate noise which he intended as an expression of +curiosity. + +"A friend of yours by the name Leon Sammet," Alex Kronberg said. + + * * * * * + +"You see how it is?" Aaron Kronberg said to his Uncle Mosha as they +passed down Fifth Avenue after their encounter with Alex. "You see how +it is? The feller is a desperate character, Uncle Mosha. You couldn't +make him mad even." + +"A lowlife!" Uncle Mosha cried, shaking his head from side to side. "His +mother before him was just such another like him. I could spit blood +hollering at that woman and she wouldn't answer me back at all." + +"Well, now you got it," Aaron retorted triumphantly; "and so, if you +would start to sell your house to his friend Perlmutter, the least that +happens to you is they would do you for the whole thing." + +"Maybe you're right," Uncle Mosha admitted. + +"And so I am going to take you over to see a friend of mine by the name +Leon Sammet," Aaron continued, "and if you want to leave the thing to +me, Uncle Mosha, I am certain sure I could get you a good price for the +house." + +"Certain sure nobody could be of getting a good price for a house in +these times, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said. "Real estate on the East Side is +'way down, Aaron. The subway ruins everything." + +"I don't care about subways nor nothing," Aaron cried. "I would get you +what you want for that house. What would you consider a good price for +the house, uncle?" + +"A very good price would be forty-two two-fifty," Uncle Mosha replied; +"but me I would be willing to accept forty thousand." + +"Well, lookyhere," Aaron commenced; "I'm going to do this for you, Uncle +Mosha. I'm going to get Leon Sammet to give you not forty thousand or +forty-two two-fifty neither. I'm going to get Leon Sammet to give you +forty-three thousand for the house, uncle, but I only do it on one +condition, uncle." + +"And what is that?" Uncle Mosha asked. + +"I would do it for you only on condition you come to live with me at +Port Sullivan," Aaron concluded; "and also you must give me, to take +care of it for you, all the cash money you get for the house." + +Uncle Mosha frowned as he drew from his pocket a small packet wrapped in +newspaper. This he proceeded to unwrap until there was exposed the +unburnt half of a large black cigar. It was all that remained of Morris +Perlmutter's gift and Uncle Mosha carefully knocked the ash off before +he put it in his mouth. + +"Why don't you answer me?" Aaron asked. + +"I got to think, ain't I?" Uncle Mosha mumbled as he paused to light up. +He puffed away in silence until they had nearly reached the entrance to +Sammet Brothers' place of business. + +"_Schon gut_, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said at length. "I will do it with +this here exception: I would sell the house for forty-three thousand +dollars, subject to a first mortgage of twenty-five thousand dollars, +and a second mortgage of ninety-two hundred and fifty dollars. That +leaves eighty-seven hundred and fifty dollars balance, ain't it?" + +Aaron nodded. + +"Then this here Sammet is to pay seven hundred and fifty dollars cash on +signing the contract and eight thousand dollars on closing the title," +Uncle Mosha declared; "and the exception is that you should take care of +the eight thousand dollars, but the seven hundred and fifty dollars +belongs to me and I could do what I like with it." + +For ten minutes Aaron argued with his uncle in front of Sammet Brothers' +building, but all to no purpose, for Uncle Mosha remained unmoved. +Either he was to receive the seven hundred and fifty dollars on the +signing of the contract or the entire deal was off; and at length he +prevailed. + +"All right," Aaron said, "you shall have the seven hundred and fifty, +but one thing you must got to do. When we go into Leon Sammet's loft I +want you to let me and Leon speak a few words, something alone together. +Are you agreeable?" + +"Sure, why not?" Uncle Mosha agreed. "You got to work the feller up to +buying the house, ain't yer?" + +Aaron nodded gloomily as they entered the elevator, and when it stopped +at Sammet Brothers' floor he strode out So rapidly that Uncle Mosha, who +had never before visited Sammet Brothers', hardly noticed his nephew's +exit. Before he could follow Aaron the elevator attendant slammed the +door, and it was not reopened until Uncle Mosha had expressed his +agitation in a burst of spirited profanity. + +"Did you see that, Aaron?" he exclaimed after he had caught up to his +nephew. "I come pretty close to getting killed just now in that there +elevator." + +"Why don't you keep your eyes open?" Aaron asked callously. "Now you sit +down here and wait until I am coming out." + +He entered Leon Sammet's private office, and as soon as Uncle Mosha +found himself alone in the showroom he clenched the butt of his cigar +between his yellow teeth and explored his pockets for pencil and +paper. Having found them, he was soon plunged in a maze of figures +representing the profit in going short of seven hundred shares on a +one-point margin, assuming that the market dropped eight points in ten +days. + +"Hallo, Aaron," Leon Sammet cried when he caught sight of the younger +Kronberg. + +Aaron nodded, with half-closed eyes. + +"Sit down, Aaron," Leon continued; "you look worried." + +"I bet yer," Aaron replied. "What d'ye think of that sucker?" + +"What's Alex been doing now?" Leon asked. + +"Alex! What d'ye mean, Alex?" Aaron said. "Alex I ain't worrying about +at all. I mean Uncle Mosha Kronberg." + +Forthwith he unfolded to Leon the sum of his uncle's iniquities, sparing +no detail of his own well-nigh ruined prospects and ending with an +account of Uncle Mosha's interrupted deal with Morris Perlmutter. + +Leon slammed the top of his desk with his open hand. + +"Before I would let that shark, Perlmutter, get the house I would buy it +myself." + +"Sure, I know!" Aaron replied. "I thought you would, Leon; but that +ain't necessary. All I want you to do is this, Leon. I told the old +man I could get you to buy the house for forty-three thousand +dollars." + +"Forty-three thousand?" Leon exclaimed. "Why that house ain't worth +forty-three thousand!" + +"What do I care what it's worth?" Aaron replied. "The game is this, +Leon. You will buy the house for me--Aaron--with my money. You got to +pay seven hundred and fifty cash on signing the contract, and the +balance of eight thousand dollars above the mortgages you got to pay +when the title is closed. I fixed it with the old man that he is to give +me the eight thousand dollars to take care of for him--see? So, when the +title is closed I will give you eight thousand dollars to give Mosha, +and Mosha will turn it back to me; and, Leon, if he ever sees that eight +thousand dollars again it won't be this side of the grave." + +Leon nodded. + +"Meantime you've got the house," he said. + +"Exactly," Aaron replied. "I get the house. All it cost me is seven +hundred and fifty dollars cash, and I also get unloaded on me for the +rest of his life the old man. And while I don't wish him any harm, +y'understand, _Gott soll hüten_ anything should happen to him Leon, it +couldn't come too soon for me." + +"I bet yer," Leon said fervently. "And now let's get him in here and +we'll all go down to Henry D. Feldman's office and fix the matter up." + +Two hours later Leon and Uncle Mosha had signed a contract for the sale +of the Madison Street house, title to be closed and deed to be delivered +within thirty days. The purchase price was stated to be forty-three +thousand dollars, payable as follows: thirty-four thousand two hundred +and fifty dollars by the vendee taking the house subject to mortgages +aggregating that amount, seven hundred and fifty dollars cash on signing +the contract, and the balance of eight thousand dollars in cash or +certified check at the closing of the title. + +Prior to leaving his office Leon had cashed Aaron Kronberg's check for +seven hundred and fifty dollars, and the money, in bills of large +denomination, was turned over to Mosha Kronberg, who tucked them +carefully away in his breast pocket. + +"Well, Aaron," he said after the operation was completed, "I guess I'll +be going back to Madison Street." + +"Wait; I'll go along with you," Aaron cried. + +"Don't you trouble yourself," Uncle Mosha declared with a confidential +wink at Leon Sammet and Henry D. Feldman; "I could take care of myself +all right." + +"What are you going to do with all that money, Mr. Kronberg?" Leon asked +as Uncle Mosha turned to leave. The old man paused with his hand on the +door, and once more he favoured his questioner with a significant wink. + +"Leave that to me," he said. + +The thirty days succeeding Morris Perlmutter's visit to Madison Street +were busy ones for all the Kronbergs. Alex had accompanied Max Gershon +to Bridgetown, where conditions more than fulfilled Abe's glowing +account, and the formation of the Kronberg-Gershon Drygoods Company +proceeded without delay. As for Aaron Kronberg, he found that the +borrowing of eight thousand dollars, even for so short a period as would +be necessary to consummate the Madison Street deal, was no easy task. At +length he raised the sum by paying a large bonus to his bankers in Port +Sullivan, and it was deposited to the credit of Sammet Brothers four +days before the closing of title. + +Meantime Uncle Mosha had not neglected the opportunity afforded him +during his last few days of liberty. With his seven hundred and fifty +dollars he had sought the brokerage offices of Klinkberg & Company the +morning after signing his contract with Leon Sammet. There he selected +American Chocolate and Cocoa as the medium of his speculation and +promptly went short of seven hundred on a one-point margin. The same +afternoon he was within a sixteenth of being wiped out when the market +turned, and nearly one month later he took his profit of twenty-one +hundred dollars, which with the original investment, minus the brokerage +amounted to twenty-eight hundred dollars. + +"Never no more," he said to the brokerage firm's cashier as he drew +his profit. "I am through oncet and for all. No one could get me to +touch another share of stock so long as I live." + +With this solemn declaration he passed out of Klinkberg & Company's +office just as a short stout man burst into the hall from a door marked +"Customers." + +"Wow!" the short stout man exclaimed. + +"_Warum_ wow?" Uncle Mosha asked. + +"Amalgamated Refineries goes up four points on six sales in half an +hour," the short stout man replied, "and I win two thousand." + +The short stout man started down the hall and executed a fantastic +dancing step in front of the elevators, while Uncle Mosha entered the +door marked "Customers." + +"Mr. Klinkberg," he said, handing Klinkberg & Company's two thousand +eight hundred dollar check to that firm's senior partner, "buy me one +thousand shares Amalgamated Refineries at the market." + +An hour later he walked leisurely along Madison Street, and as he +approached his own doorway Aaron Kronberg swooped down upon him. + +"Uncle Mosha," he almost screamed, "where was you?" + +"Where was I?" Uncle Mosha replied. "Why, I was where I was. That's +where I was. What difference does it make to you where I was?" + +"What difference does it make to me?" Aaron cried. "Ain't I putting up +the--er--don't you know you was due at Henry D. Feldman's office to +close your title at one o'clock?--and here it is half-past one already!" + +For a minute Uncle Mosha's face fell. In the excitement of following the +profitable course of his speculation he had completely forgotten his +real estate transaction, but he quickly recovered his composure. + +"Oh, well," he said, "let 'em wait! The house won't run away, Aaron. +Let's go and get a cup coffee somewheres." + +"Coffee, nothing!" Aaron growled; "you're coming right along with me. I +got a carriage waiting for you." + +He hustled the old man into a decrepit conveyance that was drawn up to +the curb and they started immediately for Henry D. Feldman's office. + +"Honest, Aaron," Uncle Mosha sighed, "I feel like I was riding to my own +funeral." + +"Don't worry, Uncle Mosha," Aaron said; "with the _tzuris_ which I got +it lately you would quicker ride to mine." + +"Well, Aaron," Uncle Mosha rejoined, "as old man Baum used to say, we +all got to die sooner or later, Aaron; and all we could take with us is +our good name." + +"You wouldn't got to pay no excess baggage rates on that," Aaron said +as the carriage came to a stop in front of Feldman's office building. + +Two minutes later they entered the offices of Henry D. Feldman and were +ushered immediately into the presence of that distinguished advocate +himself. As they passed through the doorway Feldman rose from his seat. +He was not alone, for at one side of a long library table sat Leon +Sammet, while opposite to him a tall, sandy-haired person methodically +arranged various bundles of papers which he drew out of capacious +pasteboard envelopes. + +"Ah, gentlemen, you're here at last," Feldman cried. "Mr. Jones, this is +Mr. Kronberg and his nephew, Mr. Aaron Kronberg. Mr. Jones is a +representative of the Land Insurance & Title Guarantee Company, who at +my request has examined the title to your house, Mr. Kronberg." + +"All right," Uncle Mosha said; "I ain't scared of 'em. I owned the house +since 1890 already--that's pretty near twenty years, and I ain't paid no +Confederate money for it neither." + +Mr. Jones cleared his throat noisily, and as he did so a round white +object leaped from beneath his collar and bumped against his chin. It +was his Adam's apple. + +"Did you say you owned the house twenty years?" he inquired in tones of +such profundity that Feldman was obliged to ask him to repeat his +question. At the second repetition Uncle Mosha said that it might be a +month less than twenty years. + +"The record shows that you bought the house a little more than nineteen +years ago," Mr. Jones continued--his manner suggested a hanging judge in +the act of assuming the black cap--"and therefore you could claim no +adverse possession, even assuming there were no disabilities." + +"What d'ye mean, claim?" Uncle Mosha asked with asperity. "I don't claim +nothing. I already got seven hundred and fifty dollars and there is +coming to me eight thousand dollars more." + +"I think, Mr. Jones," Feldman interrupted, "I ought to explain to Mr. +Kronberg the _locus in quo_." + +Aaron Kronberg turned pale and wiped a few drops of perspiration from +his forehead. + +"What is there to explain, Mr. Feldman?" he broke in. "Go ahead and +close the title to the property. I couldn't sit here all day." + +"There's a great deal to be explained," Feldman continued. "He is unable +to convey good title to the property _non constat_ he received a deed of +it in 1890." + +"I never heard tell of the feller at all," Uncle Mosha exclaimed. "I am +the only one which received a deed of the property." + +Feldman gazed at Uncle Mosha for one dazed moment and then proceeded. + +"The last owner in Mr. Kronberg's claim of title--I mean his immediate +vendor--was the only surviving collateral of an intestate," he said. + +"That's where you make a big mistake," Uncle Mosha interrupted. "The +feller which I bought the house from was a salesman for a shirt +concern." + +Feldman glared at Uncle Mosha and was about to crush him with a flood of +law Latin when the door opened. + +"You got to excuse me for butting in, Mr. Feldman," said a harsh voice +which presently was seen to issue from the person of Morris Perlmutter, +"but me and my partner is got to get back to the store and Max and his +partner is also busy to-day." + +"I'll be with you in just one moment, Mr. Perlmutter," Feldman replied. + +"You says that an hour ago," Morris grumbled as he closed the door +behind him. + +"Now, Mr. Kronberg," Feldman continued, "I'd like to elucidate this +situation for you as succinctly as possible." + +"Do that afterward, if you got to do it," Uncle Mosha broke in; "but +just now tell me what the trouble is." + +"What's the use talking to a mutt that don't understand the English +language at all?" Feldman cried. "Listen here to me. You bought your +house from a fellow called Nathan Baum." + +"Sure, I did," Uncle Mosha said. "You remember him, Sammet? He went to +work and got killed in a railroad accident ten years ago already." + +"Don't interrupt," Feldman cried. "Nathan Baum was the brother of Max +Baum, a former owner of the house. Max Baum died while he owned the +house and he left no will, and Nathan Baum claimed the house as the only +heir of Max Baum." + +"That's right," Mosha agreed. "Nathan Baum was the only relative in the +world which Max Baum got it. He had a sister, but she died before Max." + +"Was Max Baum's sister ever married?" Mr. Jones asked in funereal +accents. + +"Sure she was married," Mosha answered. "She was married to Sam Gershon. +He works for years by Richter as a cutter. Sam is dead too." + +"Did they ever have any children?" Mr. Jones inquired. + +"One boy they had," Uncle Mosha said. "Shall I ever forget it? What a +beautiful boy that was, Mr. Feldman--a regular picture! Mrs. Gershon +thinks a whole lot of that boy, too, I bet yer." + +"Never mind the trimmings, Kronberg," Feldman broke in. "Is the boy +alive?" + +"That's what we're anxious to know," Mr. Jones interrupted. "My company +had ascertained that there was one son, but we couldn't find out if he +were dead or alive." + +"If the boy was alive Mrs. Gershon would be alive too," Mosha said. +"Mrs. Gershon died on account of that boy. What a lovely boy that was! I +can see him now--the way he looked. He had eyes black like coal, and +a----" + +Here Uncle Mosha stopped short. His jaw dropped and his fishy gray eyes +seemed to start from his head as he gazed at the door. It stood ajar +some six inches and exposed the features of a person impatient to the +point of frenzy. + +"Ex-cuse me, Mr. Feldman!" said the intruder; "I may be a Rube from +Texas, y'understand, but I got my feelings too, and unless you come in +here right away and close the matter up me and my partner would go and +get our agreement fixed up somewhere else again." + +"I'll be with you in just one moment, Mr. Gershon," Feldman replied. + +"Gershon?" Uncle Mosha muttered. "Gershon!" + +He rose to his feet and tottered across the room toward the doorway, but +at the threshold his strength failed him and he fell headlong to the +floor. + +In the scene of confusion that followed only Henry D. Feldman remained +calm. He touched the electric button on his desk. + +"Go down to the Algonquin Building and fetch a doctor," he said to the +office-boy who responded, "and on your way out see if we have any +blank petitions for administration in the Surrogate's Court. If we +haven't, buy a couple on your way back. The old man may not pull +through." + +When Uncle Mosha's eyes opened in consciousness of his surroundings they +rested on Max Gershon, who bent over the old man as anxiously as did +either of his nephews. + +"Max Gershon, ain't it?" Uncle Mosha asked feebly. + +Gershon nodded. + +"You shouldn't try to talk," he said. + +"I'm all right," Uncle Mosha replied. "I need only a cup coffee. If +Aaron would let me got it before I come here this wouldn't never of +happened." + +Aaron recognized the justice of his uncle's criticism by personally +seeking a nearby restaurant, and after an interval of ten minutes, +during which Abe and Morris took turns with Max and Alex in fanning the +patient, he returned with a pot of steaming coffee. Uncle Mosha drank +three cups in rapid succession and heaved a great sigh. + +"You ain't got maybe a cigar about you, Max?" he said. + +"Smoke this, Uncle Mosha," Alex Kronberg cried, pulling a large satiny +invincible from his waistcoat pocket and thrusting it at his uncle. For +one hesitating minute the old man looked from Alex to the cigar, but at +last its glossy perfection overcame his scruples. + +"Much obliged, Alex," he said. + +"That's all right," Alex mumbled as he struck a match. "How do you feel +now, uncle?" + +"First rate," Uncle Mosha replied as he blew out great clouds of smoke; +"although I ought to feel a whole lot worse, Alex, when I see Maxie +Gershon here. Twenty-five years ago I seen him last and he looks the +same fat-faced feller with the black eyes. Only to think he now comes +back and takes away half my house from me." + +"I ain't come back to do no such thing!" Max cried. "I could assure you, +Mr. Kronberg, although me and Alex Kronberg is going as partners +together, I never knew until I seen you here that you was any relation +of his. As for your house, Mr. Kronberg, I don't know nothing about it +at all." + +"Don't you?" Uncle Mosha exclaimed. "Well, I'll tell you. It's like +this." + +"_Stigun!_" Aaron hissed. "Don't open your mouth, Uncle Mosha." + +"What d'ye mean, don't open my mouth?" Uncle Mosha retorted. "D'ye think +I'm a crook? If I got a house which it don't belong to me at all, then I +don't want it." + +He turned his back on Aaron and straightway he narrated the full +circumstances surrounding his purchase of the Madison Street house. + +"Certainly I ain't no lawyer nor nothing," he continued, "but when old +Max Baum died you was due to get just as much as your Uncle Nathan out +of his estate, and if Nathan Baum swindled me out of my money by +claiming he owns the whole thing that couldn't give me no right to your +share, ain't it?" + +Max nodded. + +"Then what ain't mine I don't want at all," Uncle Mosha continued; "and +so, Maxie, you and me gives Leon Sammet here a deed of the house and +Leon pays us the balance of eight thousand dollars. Out of that you get +four thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars, because me, I +already got seven hundred and fifty dollars. Are you agreeable to fix it +that way, Sammet?" + +Leon looked at Aaron Kronberg, who was gulping convulsively in an effort +to express adequately all he felt. At length he commenced to address his +uncle in husky tones. + +"You cut-throat!" he croaked. "You robber, you! You shed my blood! Give +me back my seven hundred and fifty dollars." + +"Your seven hundred and fifty!" Uncle Mosha exclaimed. + +"That's what I said," Aaron went on. His voice rose to a hoarse scream +as he proceeded. "Did you think any one else would give forty-three +thousand dollars for that dawg-house but me? Sammet ain't got nothing to +do with it; he's only a dummy." + +"So!" Leon Sammet said bitterly. "I am only a dummy, am I?" + +"Wait _one_ minute!" Uncle Mosha cried. "Do you mean to told me, Mr. +Sammet, that you was buying this here house for Aaron?" + +"Well, that's about the size of it," Leon admitted. + +"Then what are you kicking about?" Uncle Mosha said. "You are a dummy." + +Throughout the moving scenes of that entire afternoon Leon had acted the +part of disinterested onlooker to the point of lethargy, but now he +fairly glared at Uncle Mosha. + +"I don't got to stay here to be called names," he said. + +"My trouble's what you got to stay here for," Uncle Mosha retorted. +"Yes, boys; what d'ye think for a highwayman like that Aaron Kronberg?" + +Aaron blushed a fiery red. + +"Come on, Leon," he said. "Let's get out of this." + +"Hold on!" Max Gershon shouted. "Don't you do nothing of the kind, +Sammet. Me and Mr. Mosha Kronberg we own this here house together, and +he made a contract with you to sell you this here house which I stand +by. Do you want to take it _oder_ not? Because if not, we would keep +your seven hundred and fifty dollars." + +Leon Sammet emitted a huge guffaw. + +"That worries me a whole lot," he replied. "As Aaron just told you, the +seven hundred and fifty belongs to him." + +"Very true," Feldman interrupted, "but it was you who engaged me to +examine the title, Mr. Sammet, and my fees and disbursements in this +matter amount to five hundred dollars." + +Leon Sammet sat down again. + +"Come on, Leon," Aaron cried. "What are you waiting for?" + +"Do you mean to told me, Mr. Feldman, I owe you five hundred dollars?" +Leon asked. + +"Five hundred and eight dollars and forty-two cents to be exact," said +Feldman, crunching a slip of paper. + +"Then all I got to say is," Leon declared, "I got here a certified check +for eight thousand dollars which Aaron Kronberg gives me, and I would +sure hold it until he secures me against your bill." + +"Say, lookyhere, boys," Alex Kronberg said at length, "I've been +listening to all this here Megillah and I ain't said a word nor nothing. +But I'll tell you what I'll do. It's a cinch that Uncle Mosha won't go +to live with Aaron now, so I'll take him to live with me." + +"I am agreeable," said Uncle Mosha. + +"Furthermore," Alex continued, "Uncle Mosha and Max will keep the house. +I will also pay Mr. Feldman his five hundred dollars and take it out of +the seven hundred and fifty which Aaron paid Uncle Mosha. The balance of +two hundred and fifty Aaron shall have back again." + +"I am content," Uncle Mosha replied. "I don't want none of Aaron's +money; and you could take it from me, Alex, Aaron would never see none +of my money." + +"And now, gentlemen, let us fix up this copartnership agreement," Max +Gershon said as Aaron Kronberg slunk out of the office, followed by Leon +Sammet. "Mr. Potash and Mr. Perlmutter have wasted pretty near the whole +afternoon here." + +"That's all right," Abe said. "I don't consider we wasted any time. Many +a night I threw away four dollars taking a customer on the theayter yet, +when the show wasn't near so good as what we seen it this afternoon; and +the customer ain't bought no goods off me anyhow." + +"Don't you worry yourself about that, Abe!" Max cried. "You got a couple +of customers at this show which they would buy goods from you so long as +we are in business, and don't you forget it. Ain't I right, Alex?" + +Alex nodded. + +"Come on, Uncle Mosha," he said. "Come inside with us and see this +through." + +"I'll wait out here," Uncle Mosha replied. "I got enough excitement for +one afternoon." + +He waited until Mr. Jones, of the title company, had packed up his +papers, and then after Henry D. Feldman had followed the others into the +adjoining room and had closed the door behind him, Uncle Mosha touched +the button on Feldman's desk. + +"Go out and buy for me an evening paper," he said to the boy who +responded. + +"Say," the boy replied, "there was a doctor waiting to see you for more +than half an hour." + +"Tell him to wait a little longer yet," Mosha rejoined. "I may got to +have him after I am seeing the paper." + +"He ain't here now," the boy said. "He went away and says you should +send him a check for five dollars." + +"I hope he don't need the money for nothing particular," Uncle Mosha +commented; "on account he stands a good show to be disappointed. Hurry +up with the paper." + +Ten minutes afterward the boy returned. He handed an evening paper to +Uncle Mosha, who hastily planted a pair of pince-nez on his broad, flat +nose and folded back the financial page. + +"Now let's give a look," he murmured to himself as he glanced hastily at +the column marked "The Stock Market." + +At the head of the list appeared the following item: + + Sales Highest Lowest Closing Net Ch'g + 45100 Amal. Ref. 46-5/8 38-1/2 38-1/8 --4-1/8 + +"Wiped again!" he muttered as he dropped the paper to the floor. + +Half an hour later, when Alex and Max Gershon came out of the +adjoining room with the copartnership agreement duly executed, they +found Uncle Mosha calmly smoking the last of his cigar while he pondered +over the "News for Investors" column. The tabulated list of quotations +was not unnoticed by Max as he felt for another cigar to present to the +old man. + +"Do you ever speculate in Wall Street, Mr. Kronberg?" he asked. + +"Oncet upon a time I used to," Uncle Mosha replied, "but never no more, +Maxie. It's a game which you couldn't beat--take it from me, Maxie--not +if you was a hundred times so smart as Old Man Baum." + + * * * * * + +"Well, Abe," Morris Perlmutter remarked as they sat in their showroom +ten days after the events above noted, "I did mix up in Alex Kronberg's +family matters and, with all your croaking, what is the result? Alex has +got a good partner; Uncle Mosha has got a good home, and ourselves we +got a good order for three thousand dollars, which otherwise we wouldn't +got at all." + +"What are you talking nonsense, Mawruss?" Abe said. "Things wouldn't +turned out the way they did if it wouldn't be I met Max Gershon in +Hammersmith's. That's what started it, Mawruss." + +"Nothing of the kind, Abe," Morris retorted. "What started it, Abe, was +me when I went down to Madison Street and give Uncle Mosha that cigar, +Abe. I tell you, Abe, it's an old saying and a true one: Throw away a +loaf of bread in the water, y'understand, and sooner or later, Abe, it +would come home like chickens to roost." + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +THE RAINCOAT KING + + +"The table is all right, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked as he consulted +the timecard of the Long Island Railroad one hot July afternoon. "The +table is all right; I ain't kicking about the table, y'understand, but +the class of people which they stay in the house, Mawruss, is pretty +_schlecht_. My Rosie couldn't get along with 'em at all." + +"You don't tell me!" Morris replied. "Riesenberger's is got a big +reputation, Abe, and when me and Minnie stayed there two years ago there +was an elegant class of people stopping in the house. Would you believe +me, Abe, I tried to get up a game of auction pinocle there and I +couldn't do it! Nobody would play less than a dollar a hundred. I'm +surprised to hear the place is run down so." + +"Oh, if the house's got a big reputation for auction pinocle, Mawruss, +then that's something else again! They play just as high as former +times. Sidney Koblin lost forty dollars last night. With my own eyes I +seen it, Mawruss; and his father looks on and don't say nothing." + +"What does Max Koblin care for forty dollars, Abe?" Morris said. "The +feller's a millionaire. He's got ten pages of advertising in the _Cloak +and Suit Monthly Gazette_. I bet yer he spends more as forty dollars for +one page already. Wait; I'll show it to you." + +Morris opened the green-covered periodical and displayed a full-page +"ad." + + MAX KOBLIN + KING OF RAINCOATS + + "KOBLINETTE," THE RAINSHED FABRIC + + WEST 20TH STREET + NEW YORK + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe commented. "He was always a big faker, that +feller. Twenty years since already I used to eat by Gifkin's on Canal +Street, and one day Max Koblin comes in and says to me, 'Abe,' he says, +'I want you should drink a bottle tchampanyer wine on me.' In them days +Max works for old man Zudosky selling boys' reefers. Raincoats was like +oitermobiles; no one had discovered 'em yet. 'What's the matter, Max?' I +says. 'Old man Zudosky given you a raise?' I says. 'Raise nothing,' Max +says. 'I got a boy up to my house.' 'So,' I says, 'just because you +got a boy, Max, I should got a headache and neglect my business?' I +says. 'An idee!' I says. 'Take the dollar and a quarter, Max,' I says, +'and put it in the savings bank, and every time you give the boy a penny +make him put it away with the other money,' I says; 'and the first thing +you know, Max,' I says, 'when the boy gets to be twenty years old he's +got anyhow a couple hundred dollars in the savings bank.'" + +"And what did Max say?" Morris asked. + +"He laughs at me, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He says to me, 'when that boy +gets to be twenty years old he wouldn't need to got to have a couple +hundred dollars in the savings bank. I could give him all the money he +wants it.'" + +"Well, Max was right, ain't it?" Morris rejoined. "He could give the boy +all the money he wants." + +"Money ain't everything what that boy wants, Mawruss," Abe said. "A good +_potch_ on the side of the head oncet in a while is what that boy wants. +So fresh that young feller is, Mawruss, you wouldn't believe it at all. +Actually he runs an oitermobile what Max bought it for him for fifteen +hundred dollars, a birthday present, besides the other big car which +Koblin got it. Max _oser_ runs oitermobiles at Sidney's age. Piece goods +on a pooshcart from old man Zudosky's to the sponger's was all the +oitermobiling Max done it. To-day they are putting on style yet. +Suckers!" + +"Well, say, Abe," Morris protested, "what is it skin off your nose +supposing Max does buy oitermobiles for the boy? This is a free country, +Abe." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe declared, as he revealed the nub of the +whole matter; "and supposing my Rosie don't play poker, which, _Gott sei +dank_, she couldn't tell a king from an ace, what is that Mrs. Koblin's +business? She ain't supposed to know that, Mawruss, and yet she didn't +invite my Rosie to her poker party. Rosie wouldn't of gone anyhow, +Mawruss; but that ain't the point. Ain't my Rosie just as good as Mrs. +Klinger _oder_ Mrs. Elenbogen? Particularly Mrs. Elenbogen, which, three +years ago even, Kleiman & Elenbogen was still rated ten to fifteen +thousand, third credit. Only in the last two years they are coming up +so; and the way that Mrs. Elenbogen acts, you would think her husband +got a bank in Frankfort-am-Main when Rothschild was a new beginner yet. +Such fakers as them is too good for my Rosie, Mawruss. An idee!" + +"What do you worry yourself about women's fighting, Abe?" Morris asked. + +"Me worry myself, Mawruss!" Abe cried. "I much care for them people, +Mawruss. I am married to my Rosie now going on twenty-six years, will be +next May, and if I didn't know that she's got it on every one of them +cows in looks, in refinement and in every which way, Mawruss, then I +could worry, Mawruss. As it is, Mawruss, for my part they could play +poker till they are black in the face--what is it my business? I got +enough to attend to here in the store, Mawruss, without I should bother +myself." + +"I bet yer!" Morris agreed fervently. "That reminds me, Abe, Shapolnik +is leaving us on Saturday." + +"Well, Mawruss, I couldn't exactly break my heart about that, +y'understand?" Abe replied, "Skirt-cutters you could always get plenty +of 'em. What's the matter he ain't satisfied?" + +"Nothing's the matter," Morris said. "He is simply going into the pants +business. His brother-in-law is got a small place downtown and he is +going as partners together with him. They ought to make a success of it +too, Abe, if nerve would got anything to do with it. The feller actually +wants me I should give him an introduction to Feder of the Kosciusko +Bank." + +"Sure; why not?" Abe commented. + +"Why not?" Morris repeated. "What would Feder think of us if we are +bringing a yokel like Shapolnik into his office? The feller ain't been +two years in the country yet." + +"Don't knock a feller like Shapolnik just because he ain't putting on no +front nor throwing no bluffs, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "It's the faker +with the four-carat diamond pin which is doing his creditors, Mawruss, +but the yokel with the soup on his coat pays a hundred cents on the +dollar every time." + +Half an hour later Abe conducted his retiring skirt-cutter to the Fifth +Avenue branch of the Kosciusko Bank, and as they approached the corner +of Nineteenth Street on their return they encountered Max Koblin, the +Raincoat King. He was about to enter the tonneau of an automobile, while +Sidney Koblin, the Heir Apparent, sat at the tiller arrayed in a silk +duster and goggles. Max grinned maliciously as he noted Abe's shabby, +bearded companion. + +"Always entertaining the out-of-town trade, Abe?" he said. + +Abe relaxed his features in what he intended for a smile, but afterward +he turned to Shapolnik with a scowl. + +"Only one thing I got to tell you, Shapolnik," he declared. "Nowadays, +if a feller wants to make a success he must got to wear good clothes and +look like a _mensch_, y'understand? It never harms in business, +Shapolnik, that a feller should throw sometimes, oncet in a while, a +little bluff." + + * * * * * + +Between the ages of sixteen and twenty Sidney Koblin had so often tested +the maxim, "Boys will be boys," that Max Koblin's patience at length +became exhausted. "Do you mean to told me you ain't got one cent left +from that forty I gave you on Saturday?" Max asked on the Monday +morning following Shapolnik's resignation. + +"Aw, what's biting you?" Sidney cried. "You sat behind me last night and +if it wouldn't been for you I wouldn't of played that last four-hundred +hand at all. Cost forty-eight dollars, that advice of yours." + +This was a facer, to be sure, and Max paused before formulating a +rejoinder. + +"In the first place, Sidney," he began, "you didn't got no right to lead +no trump. I told you before lots of times, if you got the extra ten, get +rid of your meld first. And in the second place, Sidney, I wouldn't +stand for your extravagance no longer. It's time you turned around and +attended to business." + +"Aw, you never give me no show!" Sidney protested. "You keep me +monkeying around while other young fellers is out on the road. Look at +Mortie Savin and all them boys." + +"Sure, I know," Max rejoined. "They got heads on 'em. You couldn't add +up eight figures together, and at your age for a feller to write a hand +like that, Sidney----" + +"What are you kicking about?" Sidney exclaimed. "When you was my age you +couldn't sign your name even." + +"Well, that ain't here nor there, Sidney," Max replied as he pulled a +bill from the roll which he produced from his trousers pocket. "Here +is ten dollars and that's got to last you till Saturday night. D'ye +understand?" + +Sidney grunted as he tucked the bill into his waistcoat. He had heard +the same ultimatum once a week for the past two years, and he whistled +cheerfully as he despatched one of the stock boys for a package of +cigarettes. An hour later he lunched at Hammersmith's, while Abe Potash +sat at an adjacent table. As he consumed a modest portion of +_rostbraten_, Abe noted with a disapproving eye the cherry-stone clams, +green-turtle soup and _filet Chateaubriand_ which formed the menu of the +Heir Apparent; and when the latter topped off his meal with half a pint +of dry champagne and a _café parfait_ Abe seized his hat and fairly ran +from the restaurant. + +"If nobody would tell that feller Koblin what a lowlife bum he got it +for a son, Mawruss," he said as he entered the firm's private office ten +minutes later, "I will. Actually with my own eyes I seen it--the feller +eats for five dollars a lunch, and he ain't with a customer nor +nothing." + +"What is it your business what Sidney Koblin is eating, Abe?" Morris +rejoined. "If you wouldn't notice every mouthful the feller puts in his +face at all you would be back here a whole lot sooner. There's a feller +waiting for you in the showroom over half an hour since." + +"Who is he?" Abe asked. + +"I think it's that Mr.--Who's this, from Seattle, which he was in here +last fall and nearly bought from us them polo coats? I couldn't tell his +face exactly, but you remember what a swell dresser that feller was." + +Abe peered through the screen that divided the rooms. + +"I think you're right, Mawruss," he said. + +"I couldn't remember his name," Morris added, "and that's why I didn't +talk much to him. All I says was you would be in soon; and I give him a +cigar from the safe." + +Abe nodded and walked hurriedly out of the office. As he approached his +caller he extended his right hand. + +"How do you do?" he exclaimed, as he shook his visitor warmly by the hand. +"You're looking fine." + +The visitor smiled in return. + +"I thought you were going to tell me that," he replied. + +"Yes, indeed! You're looking a whole lot better than the last time I +seen you," Abe said. "When did you get in?" + +"I am here now going on half an hour already." + +"Well, why didn't you talk to my partner?" Abe asked. "He could fix you +up just as well as me." + +"I did talk to him," the newcomer replied, "but he is too stuck up to +talk to me at all." + +"Stuck up!" Abe exclaimed, with a note of real anguish in his tones. +"Stuck up! Why, you don't know my partner at all, Mister--er--excuse me, +do you got a card?" + +The stranger drew a card from his waistcoat pocket and with a proud +gesture handed it to Abe. It read as follows: + + Z. KATZBERG I. SCHAPP + KATZBERG & SCHAPP + FINE PANTS + 530 WEST WASHINGTON PLACE NEW YORK + +"I am taking your advice, Mr. Potash," he said. "I am taking your advice +all round. I cut 'em off." + +"You cut what off?" Abe asked. + +"The whiskers, Mr. Potash. Also I am making short the name. In Russland +Shapolnik is all right, Mr. Potash; but if a feller wants to make a +success in business he should be a little up to date, ain't it?" + +The cordial smile faded from Abe's face as he recognized his visitor. + +"There's such a thing as being too much up to date, Shapolnik," he said. +"You ain't got no right to fool my partner like that. Me, you couldn't +fool for a minute. Right away I says to myself, 'Here is a feller +which he wants to ask us something we should do him for a favour.' So, +spit it out, Shapolnik. What is it you want from us?" + +"Well, it's like this, Mr. Potash," Shapolnik began. "Me and my partner +we are wanting to take on somebody for a drummer, y'understand. We must +got it some one which he is already got a trade. _Aber_ he couldn't ask +for too much money at the start on account we are going slow. If you +know some young feller which he wants the job me and my partner would be +much obliged, Mr. Potash." + +"What d'ye think we are running here anyway, Shapolnik," Abe +retorted--"an employment agency?" + +"I am just taking chances might you would know somebody, maybe," +Shapolnik murmured as he rose to his feet. He seemed much relieved at +Abe's refusal. "And I hope you don't think I am doing something out of +the way. You know, Mr. Potash, me and my partner we think a whole lot of +your judgment, and if you would give us an advice we are willing we +should follow it." + +"Well, I ain't mad at you, Shapolnik," Abe said more mildly; "but all +the same, if you want to get a drummer you got a right to advertise for +one." + +"We would do so," Shapolnik replied, "and if you would be in our +_Nachbarschaft_ oncet in a while, Mr. Potash, me and my partner would +consider it an honour if you are dropping in to see us. We only got a +small place, Mr. Potash." He paused and fingered the texture of his +waistcoat. "But everything will be up to date, Mr. Potash," he +concluded, "just like you advised us to." + +Abe watched his late skirt-cutter disappear into the elevator, and then +he returned to the office where Morris impatiently awaited him. + +"_Nu_, Abe," Morris cried as he entered. + +"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said with cutting emphasis: "good cigars don't care +who smokes 'em. I suppose if Nathan, the shipping clerk, would come in +here with a collar and tie on and a clean shave, you would want to blow +him to a bottle of tchampanyer wine yet. Just because a feller shaves +off his beard and buys himself a new suit of clothes you couldn't +recognize him at all. That was Shapolnik which just went out of here." + +"Shapolnik!" Morris exclaimed. "That dude was Shapolnik? Well, what d'ye +think for a crook like that!" + +"Crooked Shapolnik ain't exactly," Abe interrupted; "but it should be a +lesson to you, Mawruss, that you wouldn't be so free with our cigars. +All the feller wants from us is we should recommend him a drummer." + +"The nerve the feller got it!" Morris cried. "He comes around here +throwing bluffs he needs a drummer yet. A new beginner like him ain't +going to hire no drummer, Abe. I bet yer he takes his pants under his +arms and sees them Fourteenth Street buyers on his way downtown in the +morning. He ain't got no more use for a drummer than I got it for an +airship." + +"My _tzuris_ if he has or he hasn't!" Abe exclaimed. "I anyhow told him +he should advertise for one, as we are not running an employment agency +here, Mawruss; and so, Mawruss, let's get busy on that order for +Griesman. I want to get away from here sure at five o'clock to-day. What +is the good I am staying down at Riesenberger's if I never get a show to +take oncet in a while a sea bath, maybe?" + +Nevertheless it was ten minutes past five before Abe boarded a crosstown +car; and, although he made a wild sprint from the ferry landing on the +Long Island side, he arrived at the trainshed just in time to see the +rear platform of the five-forty-five for Arverne disappearing in a cloud +of black smoke. + +He returned to the waiting room, and as he was sadly inspecting the +outer pages of the comic periodicals displayed in the news-stand a heavy +hand clapped him on the shoulder. + +"Hello, Abe!" cried a hearty voice, and Abe turned to view the +perspiring features of Max Koblin, the Raincoat King. Abe returned the +salutation without much enthusiasm. + +"Why ain't you going down in the oitermobile, Max?" he asked. +"Millionaires ain't got no excuse for missing trains like ordinary +people." + +Max laughed in an embarrassed fashion. + +"Millionaires is got their troubles too, Abe," he said. "Even when they +ain't millionaires." + +"I should have your trouble!" Abe commented. + +"I got enough, Abe, believe me," Max rejoined. "Everything I got to look +after myself. My credit man leaves me next week; and I got other worries +besides that one, too." + +"Sure, I know," Abe said as they started for the smoker of the six-ten; +"and the biggest one you got only yourself to blame for it." + +"What d'ye mean, Abe?" Max asked. + +"I mean this, Max," Abe declared. "I am knowing you now since twenty +years already, and if I am butting in you could know it ain't because I +am fresh, y'understand, but because I got your interests at heart. That +boy of yours goes too far, Max." + +Max drew a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and carefully bit off the +end. "How so?" he inquired. + +"Well, in a whole lot of ways, Max," Abe continued, after they were +seated; "and mind you, I know it ain't none of my business, Max, but +when I see that boy come into Hammersmith's to-day and eat for five +dollars a lunch, with a bottle of tchampanyer wine yet, Max, I couldn't +help myself. I got to say something." + +Max scowled and spat out the end of his cigar. + +"Of course, Max," Abe added, using his partner's metaphor, "it ain't +no skin off my nose, y'understand." + +"Ain't it?" Max growled as he turned on Abe with a menacing glare. +"Well, it's a wonder it ain't, the way you are sticking it into other +people's business. If you think I care what you think about what my boy +eats for his lunch you are making a big mistake. I could take care of my +own boy, Potash, and I am just as much obliged if you would do the +same." + +Abe flushed a fiery red and rose to his feet. + +"I guess I would go into the next car," he said. + +"You could go a whole lot farther for all I care!" Max retorted, and +immediately buried his head between the open pages of a conservative +evening paper. + +Abe had not offended in vain, however, for after dinner that night, when +Sidney sought his father in the Koblins' suite at Riesenberger's +cottage, the King was in an ugly mood. + +"Say, Pop," Sidney began, "how about you for twenty till Saturday +night?" + +"What d'ye mean?" Max bellowed. "Ain't I given you ten dollars only this +morning?" + +Sidney laughed uncomfortably. "Ain't you the old tightwad!" he said. + +Max's reply to this observation was quite unprecedented in all Sidney's +experience. It took the form of an open-handed blow on the cheek, the +first ever administered by his indulgent parent since Sidney's +infancy. Forthwith began a family row that brought the entire +household--guests, servants and proprietress--on the run to the Koblin +apartments. When Mrs. Koblin's frightened screams had ceased, and Max +Koblin had calmed down sufficiently to offer an evasive explanation, the +guests trooped back to the piazza, and three games of auction pinocle, +which had started in the dining-room after the tables had been cleared, +came to an abrupt close. Instead, the players foregathered with the +other guests in the porch rockers. + +There they discussed the incident until nearly midnight; and, as no one +had been an eyewitness of the affray, there were as many versions of it +as may be mathematically demonstrated where one blow is struck among +three persons. Some had it that Sidney had attacked his father and +others that Mrs. Koblin had assaulted Sidney, but a large feminine +majority favoured a construction of the matter as one of wife-beating. +Abe alone correctly surmised the turn that Sidney's affairs had taken +and he sat on the piazza in conscience-stricken solitude long after all +the other guests had retired. + +He blamed himself for the entire affair and he smoked cigar after cigar +before he sought his bed. As he walked up the broad staircase he met Max +Koblin at the first landing. + +"Max," he said, "where are you going this time of night?" + +Max stopped short. His eyes blazed in a face so careworn and haggard +that, to Abe, he seemed to have aged ten years since their meeting that +afternoon. + +"This is what comes of your butting in!" Max cried bitterly. "The boy +went out right after we had the fuss and he ain't come back." + +He paused to choke down a hysterical lump in his throat. + +"And God knows what's become of him!" he sobbed as he continued down the +stairs. + + * * * * * + +Abe tossed on his pillow all night; and when at breakfast he learned +that Sidney Koblin had not returned, he swallowed with difficulty a cup +of coffee and left a steak, two eggs and a plate of French-fried +potatoes entirely untasted. Thus he was enabled to catch the seven-five +instead of the seven-thirty train. When he found himself at the +Thirty-fourth Street Ferry with almost half an hour to spare he +determined to walk to the store. + +He trudged across Thirty-fourth Street with his hands in his pockets and +his head bent toward the pavement, a prey to the most bitter +reflections; and as he turned the corner of Fifth Avenue he failed to +notice, walking in the opposite direction, a tall youth, well dressed +save for soiled linen. The latter's eyes showed traces of unmistakable +tears; and as they, too, were bent upon the pavement there ensued a +violent collision, which almost threw Abe off his feet. + +"Why don't you look where you're going?" he began, and then he +recognized the object of his wrath. "Sidney!" he yelled, clutching young +Koblin's shoulder. "Where are you going?" + +"Let me alone," Sidney cried as he sought to free himself. + +"_Aber_, Sidney," Abe pleaded, "you mustn't act so strange with me. Did +you got any breakfast yet?" + +Sidney shook his head sullenly. + +"Me neither," Abe cried. "Come on over to the Waldorf." + +Five minutes later they sat at a table in the palm room, while Abe +ordered two whole portions of grapefruit, a double portion of tenderloin +steak, soufflé potatoes, coffee, waffles and honey. + +"Now, listen to me, Sidney," he began. "You shouldn't got mad at your +father just because he licks you oncet, y'understand. My poor father, +_selig_, he knocks the face off of me regular twicet a week, and I ain't +none the worser for it." + +Sidney hung his head and made no reply. + +"Furthermore, Sidney," Abe went on, "if you are broke why don't you say +so?" + +He pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket and handed Sidney twenty +dollars. + +"Just a loan for a few days, y'understand," he said as the waiter +brought in a loaded tray, "or a year--what's the difference--ain't it? +Now, let's get busy." + +Together they polished off the entire trayful of food, and when Abe +leaned back the waiter presented a check for ten dollars and eighty +cents. + +"Cheap at the price," Abe remarked as he added a generous tip to the +amount of the bill. "And now, Sidney, I suppose you're going back to the +store?" + +"No, I ain't," Sidney said. "I ain't doing no good down there; so what's +the use? The old man won't let me do nothing down there and they all +think I'm a joke." + +"Well, you see, Sidney," Abe commented, "that's the way it goes. It's an +old saying, but a true one: 'There's no profit for a feller in his own +country.'" + +"And what's more," Sidney continued, "they ain't given me a chance +neither. What I want to do is to sell goods on the road." + +"Sure, I know," Abe interrupted. "Every young feller wants to go on the +road. All they can see in it is riding in parlour cars and playing +auction pinocle in four-dollar-a-day hotels. Believe me, Sidney, selling +goods on the road, when you been at it so long as I am, is a dawg's +life; and as for auction pinocle that's poison for a salesman." + +"Auction pinocle is nothing to me," Sidney declared. "I swore off." + +"Another thing is lunches, Sidney," Abe went on. "Ain't it a funny thing +what a lot of satisfaction it is when you are eating zwieback and a +cup of coffee for lunch? In the first place, all it is costing you is +ten cents and you feel like a prince. Many a big bill of goods I sold on +zwieback and coffee, Sidney--crackers and milk, too. And now, Sidney, +the best thing you could do is to go back and tell the old man you are +through with auction pinocle and high-price lunches, and you want him he +should give you a show you should sell goods." + +Again Sidney shook his head. + +"It ain't no use, Mr. Potash," Sidney declared. "Pop ain't got no +confidence in me. If I was a greenhorn fresh from the old country he +might let me start in and do something, but----" + +At the word greenhorn Abe Potash leaned forward and struck the table +with his open hand. + +"By jiminy, Sidney!" he cried, "I know the very job for you. Only one +thing I must got to say to you, Sidney: you would got to commence small; +so if what you are saying about auction pinocle and other monkey +business goes, Sidney, all right. Otherwise the thing is off." + +"Sure, it goes, Mr. Potash," Sidney cried. + +Abe looked the Heir Apparent squarely in the eye for two minutes and +then he struck the table again. + +"I believe you, Sidney," he said, "and we will right away take the car +down to West Washington Place." + +Katzberg & Schapp occupied the top floor of an old private house; but +what their place of business lacked in size it made up in activity. +Pressing irons were sizzling and banging and sewing machines were +burring loudly as Abe and Sidney climbed the stairs. When they entered, +Shapolnik, the butterfly of fashion, had once more assumed the chrysalis +of his working clothes. + +"How do you do, Mister Potash?" he cried, all in one breath. "Excuse me; +I am looking like a slob. We are busy like dawgs here. Katzberg!" he +yelled; "_Kimmen Sie hieran_." + +In response, a stout figure, clad only in an undershirt, trousers and a +pair of carpet slippers, laid down a pressing iron and shuffled toward +the visitors. + +"My partner, Mister Katzberg," Shapolnik announced. "He also looks a +slob, Mr. Potash; but when we are getting partitions in, and our office +fixed up, no one would see him at all. He is the inside man; and me, I +am in the office and showroom. We're going to have a showroom so soon as +we are settled--a safe too. A telephone we already got it. This is Mr. +Potash, Katzberg, and the other gentleman I don't know at all." + +"Mr. Koblin," Abe explained; "he is coming to work by you as a +salesman." + +"A salesman!" Katzberg exclaimed. "Why, we don't want no----" + +Shapolnik turned on him with a glare. + +"Katzberg," he said, "them samples you are working on we got to show the +Magnet Store this afternoon yet." + +Katzberg shrugged his shoulders and returned to his pressing, while +Shapolnik drew forward two rickety chairs and a packing-box. + +"Have a seat, Mr. Potash; and Mr. Cohen, too," he said. + +"Koblin," Abe corrected. + +"Koblin," Shapolnik repeated. "Excuse me." + +He went to a closet in the corner, and unlocking it he exposed the +fashionable suit that he had worn at Potash & Perlmutter's the previous +afternoon. From the right-hand waistcoat pocket he took a red-banded +invincible and handed it to Abe. + +"Have a smoke, Mr. Potash?" he said. Abe examined the cigar closely and +tucked it carefully away. Then he produced three panatelas, handed one +each to Sidney and Shapolnik and lit the other himself. + +"About this here salesman, Mr. Potash," Shapolnik commented. "I think I +changed my mind." + +Abe blew a great cloud of smoke before replying and then he placed an +emphatic forefinger upon Shapolnik's knee. + +"A new beginner when he throws bluffs, Shapolnik," he said, "must got to +make good. You told me yesterday you wanted a salesman and I am bringing +him to you." + +Shapolnik blushed. + +"Sure, I know I told it you, Mr. Potash," he said, "but my partner +thinks otherwise." + +Abe nodded. + +"The only use some people got for a partner, Shapolnik," he commented, +"is they could always blame him for everything they do; but even if you +did come in my place just to show me what an elegant suit of clothes and +a fine clean shave you got it, Shapolnik, I am bringing you a salesman +anyhow." + +Katzberg at this juncture again laid down his pressing iron and came +forward. + +"Say, lookyhere, what is the use talking?" he cried. "We don't need a +salesman; and that's all there is to it." + +"'S enough, Katzberg," Abe shouted. "You got a whole lot too much to say +for yourself for a new beginner. I ain't saying you need a salesman, +Katzberg; I am only saying that you are going to hire one, Katzberg. And +after you hire one you will quick need him." + +Abe placed his hand on Sidney's shoulder. + +"Here is a young feller which he ain't going to gamble _oder_ fool away +his time. He is going to sell goods," he declared. "He works for years +by the biggest raincoat house in the country, and he's got an +acquaintance among the retail clothing trade which it is easy worth to +you twenty-five dollars a week and the regular commissions." + +"But we couldn't afford to pay no salesman twenty-five dollars a week," +Shapolnik exclaimed. + +"Try me just one week," Sidney said, "and I'll bring in enough cash to +pay my salary." + +"I forgot to say," Abe interrupted, "that he's also got a lot of +confidence in himself." + +"Maybe I have," Sidney retorted: "but I'm going to make good." + +"Certainly you are," Abe added, rising from his chair; "and now, +Katzberg, the whole thing is settled." + +Katzberg shrugged and extended one palm outward in a gesture of despair. + +"Seemingly we are not our own bosses here," he said. + +"Seemingly not," Abe rejoined; "but, just the same, if you will take on +this young feller for a salesman I would give you a guaran_tirt_ that I +will make good all you would lose on him for the first three months. Is +my word good enough?" + +"Sure, it is!" Shapolnik cried. "When would you come to work by us, Mr. +Koblin?" + +"This morning," Abe answered for Sidney--"right now; and one thing I +must got to say to you, Sidney, before I go: stand in your own shoes and +don't try to excuse yourself, on account you got a rich father. Also, if +the old man makes you an offer you should come back to him, turn it +down. Take it from me, Sidney, you got a big future here." + +With a parting handshake all around Abe started back to his place of +business. Five minutes later he boarded a Broadway car, and when he +alighted at Nineteenth Street he picked his way through a jam of +vehicles, which completely blocked that narrow thoroughfare. As he was +about to set foot on the sidewalk he caught sight of the gray, drawn +countenance of the Raincoat King, who sat beside his chauffeur on the +front seat of a touring car. + +"Say, Max," Abe cried, "I want to speak to you a few words something." + +Max Koblin turned his head and recognized Abe with a start. + +"What d'ye want from me?" he said huskily. + +"I want to tell you the boy is all right," Abe replied. + +The colour surged to Max's face and he leaped wildly from the +automobile. + +"What d'ye mean, all right?" he gasped. + +"I mean all right in every way, Max," Abe answered; "and if you would +step into Hammersmith's for a minute I'll tell you all about it." + +"Where is he?" Max cried. + +Abe led the way to a table. + +"He's where he should have been _schon_ long since already," he said as +they sat down. "He's got a job and he's going to make good on it." + +"What are you talking nonsense?" Max exploded. "Where is my Sidney? His +mother is pretty near crazy." + +"She shouldn't worry," Abe replied calmly. "The boy is coming home +to-night; and if I would be you, Max, I would see to it he pays anyhow +eight dollars a week board." + +Once more Max grew white--with anger this time. + +"Jokes you are making with me!" he bellowed. "Tell me where my boy is +quick or I'll----" + +"_Koosh_, Max!" Abe interrupted. "You are making a fool of yourself. I +ain't hiding your boy. Just listen a few minutes and I'll tell you all +about it." + +Forthwith he unfolded to Max a vivid narrative of that morning's +adventures; when he concluded Max had grown somewhat calmer. + +"But, Potash," he protested, "I don't want the boy he should work by +somebody else. Let him come and sell goods by me." + +"He couldn't do it and you couldn't neither, Max," Abe said. "If he goes +back to you, Max, you couldn't change over the way you've been treating +that boy ever since he was born, and he sure would go back to the way he +has been acting. Let the boy stay where he is, Max." + +"Say, lookyhere, Potash," Max burst out, "what are you butting into my +affairs for? Ain't I competent to manage my own son?" + +Abe deemed it the part of friendship to remain silent, but Max +misconstrued his reticence. + +"O-o-h!" he exclaimed. "I see the whole business now. You got an +interest in this here pants factory and so you practically kidnap my +son. Do you know what I think? I think you are trying to jolly me into +letting him stay there because you expect maybe I would invest some +money in the business." + +For two minutes Abe gulped convulsively and blinked at the Raincoat King +in stunned amazement. Then he rose slowly to his feet. + +"All right, Koblin," he said. "I heard enough from you. I wash myself of +the entire matter. For my part you and your son could go to the devil; +and take it from me, it won't be your fault if he don't." + +When Abe entered the firm's showroom that morning it was nearly +half-past eleven and Morris Perlmutter sat behind the pages of the +_Daily Cloak and Suit Record_ in a sulky perusal of the Arrival of +Buyers column. Before he looked up he permitted Abe to discard his coat +for an office jacket. + +"You was taking a sea bath, Abe?" he said at length. "Ain't it? I +suppose we would pretty soon got to close up the store so's you could +take all the sea baths you want. What?" + +Abe refrained from uttering a suitable rejoinder and made straight for +the office. + +"Mawruss!" he yelled; "ain't the safe open yet?" + +"Never mind is the safe open _oder_ not, Abe," Morris replied. "So long +as you are attending to business the way you are, Abe, it ain't +necessary the safe should be opened." + +Abe grunted and squatted down in front of the combination. At length the +big doors swung open and he drew the box of cigars out of the middle +compartment. + +Morris looked on with ill-concealed curiosity while Abe took a banded +Invincible from his waistcoat pocket and restored it to the box whence +it originally came. + +"What's all that for?" Morris asked. + +"That's a souvenir from a pleasant morning," Abe replied as he thrust +the box of cigars back into the safe and slammed the doors. He was about +to return to the showroom, when the telephone bell rang and Morris took +the receiver from the hook. + +"Hello!" he said. "Yes, this is Potash & Perlmutter. He's right here. +Abe, Max Koblin wants to talk to you." + +"He does, hey?" Abe replied. "Well, I don't want to talk to him." + +"You should tell him that yourself," Morris said as he walked away from +the telephone. "I ain't got nothing to do with your quarrels." + +Abe watched Morris disappear into the showroom and then he ran to the +telephone and slammed the receiver on to the hook with force +sufficient almost to wreck the instrument. At intervals of a few seconds +the telephone rang for more than half an hour. Fifteen minutes after it +had ceased the elevator door opened and Max Koblin entered. + +"Cut-throat!" Koblin exclaimed. "I rung up my son and he wouldn't come +back. You are turning him against me--you and them two other crooks. You +think you would get my money out of me. Very well. I'll show you. I +ain't through with you yet. I'll put you fellers where you belong." + +"Don't make me no threats, Koblin," Abe said calmly, "because, in the +first place, you couldn't scare me any, and, in the second place, if you +think I am trying to keep your boy away from you, you are +mistaken--that's all. I already wasted a whole morning on him and, just +to show you I ain't such a crook as you think I am, I would go right +down there now; and if I got to do it I would drag that young loafer out +of there by the hair of his head." + +Twenty minutes later Abe burst into Katzberg & Schapp's business +premises and asked in loud tones for Sidney Koblin. Before the +astonished Shapolnik could reply, Max Koblin, who had followed Abe on +the next car, arrived all breathless and panted a similar demand. + +"He ain't in now," Shapolnik replied; "he is just going to his lunch." + +"What d'ye mean by talking to me on the 'phone the way you did this +morning?" Max shouted. "You ain't got no business to keep my boy from +me." + +"I ain't keeping your boy from you," Shapolnik answered; "and I would +speak to you whichever what way I would want to. Who are you anyway?" + +"_Koosh!_ Shapolnik," Abe interrupted. "You are talking too fresh. Mr. +Koblin is right. You should fire that young feller right away, because I +am telling you right here and now I wouldn't guarantee nothing for him +after this." + +"What do I care what you would guarantee or what you wouldn't +guarantee?" Shapolnik replied. "The young feller already sold for us +this morning for five hundred dollars a bill of goods, and he could stay +with us _oder_ not, just as he wants. Furthermore, Mr. Potash, I don't +give a snap of my fingers for your _guarantirt_; this is my shop and if +you don't want to stay here you don't got to." + +He seized a pressing-iron in token that the interview was ended and Abe +and Max started for the stairs without another word. As they reached the +sidewalk Abe paused. Across the street a dairy lunchroom displayed its +white-enamel sign and through the plate-glass window he thought he +discerned a familiar figure. He ran to the opposite sidewalk and entered +the restaurant, closely followed by Max, just as Sidney Koblin was +eating the last crumbs of a portion of zwieback and coffee. + +"Hello, Sidney!" Abe said. "What's the matter with you? Why don't you go +back to your father?" + +Sidney rose to his feet and looked first at Abe and then at the Raincoat +King. + +"What for?" he asked nonchalantly. + +"Because he asks you to," Abe replied, "and because I didn't got no +right to butt in the way I did, Sidney. After all, your father is your +father." + +"What's biting you now?" Sidney exclaimed. "Ain't you told me this +morning I should do what I did?" + +Abe nodded sadly. + +"And didn't you say me and the old man couldn't give each other a square +deal even if we wanted to?" + +Abe nodded again. + +"Then I'm going to stick to my job," Sidney declared as he walked toward +the cashier's desk. + +Abe and Max trailed after him and when they reached the sidewalk Max +seized his son by the arm. + +"Sidney, _leben_," he said; "listen to me. Come and eat anyhow a decent +lunch and we'll talk this thing over." + +"What for?" Sidney said. "I've had as much as I want to eat, and besides +I've got to see a fellow up at the Prince Clarence Hotel. I'll be at +Riesenberger's to dinner to-night about the usual time." + +"Oh, you will, will you?" Max cried. "Well, all I got to say is you've +got to pay for it yourself." + +Sidney broke into a laugh. + +"That worries me a whole lot!" he said. "I've made enough out of my +commissions to-day already to pay a whole week's board down there." + +He turned and started across the street, but as he reached the curb he +paused. + +"Tell mommer she shouldn't worry herself," he said. "I'm all right." + +Max looked at Abe with a sickly grin. + +"I think he is too, Abe," he murmured. "Would you come over to Broadway +and take maybe a little lunch with me?" + +"Zwieback and coffee is good enough for me," Abe replied. + +Max linked his arm in Abe's. + +"You shouldn't be mad at me, Abe," he said sadly. "I am all turned +upside down about that boy; and if zwieback and coffee is good enough +for you and him, Abe, I guess it must be too good for me. But, just the +same, I am going to eat with you, Abe, and we'll let bygones be +bygones." + + * * * * * + +It was some weeks before Abe could bring himself to recount to Morris +the full details of Sidney Koblin's regeneration, but Morris had learned +the facts long before there appeared in the advertising section of the +_Clothing and Haberdashery Magazine_ the following full-page +advertisement: + + KATZBERG, SCHAPP & KOBLIN + Announce the + OPENING OF THEIR NEW OFFICE AND SHOWROOM + In the Chicksaw Building, + West 4th Street, New York + MAKERS OF TROUSERS FOR FINICKY FOLKS + + A HEADLINER + THE RAINSHED PANTS + Manufactured from the Famous Rainproof Fabric + "KOBLINETTE" + KEEPS THE LEGS WARM AND DRY + Spring Line Now Ready + +It caught Morris's eye one morning in January and he read it over--not +without envy. + +"Some people's got all the luck, Abe," he said bitterly. + +"I bet yer!" Abe replied, without looking up from his order book, which +was overflowing with requisitions for spring garments. "I bet yer, +Mawruss! You take my Rosie for instance: at her age you got no idee what +a sport she is. Yesterday afternoon she went to a bridge-whist party by +Mrs. Koblin's and she won a sterling solid-silver fern dish. And mind +you, Mawruss, she only just found out how to play the game." + +"Who learned her?" Morris asked. + +"Mrs. Klinger and Mrs. Elenbogen," Abe replied. "That's two fine women, +Mawruss--particularly Mrs. Elenbogen." + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +A RETURN TO ARCADY + + +"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said with bitter emphasis; "Max Kirschner +steals away trade from under our noses while you fool away your time +selling goods to a feller like Sam Green." + +"What d'ye mean, fool away my time?" Abe cried indignantly. "Sam Green +is an old customer from ours; and if Henry Feigenbaum gives for a couple +of hundred dollars an order to Max Kirschner he only does it because +he's got pity on the old man. And, anyhow, Mawruss, even if Sam Green is +a little slow, y'understand, sooner or later we get our money--ain't it? + +"Sure, I know, Abe; and if them sooner-or-later fellers would pay you +oncet in a while sooner, Abe, it would be all right, y'understand. But +they don't, Abe; they always pay you later." + +"Well, Sam has got some pretty stiff competition up there, Mawruss," Abe +said. "In the first place, Cyprus is too near Sarahcuse, y'understand; +and if one of them yokels wants to buy for thirty dollars a garment +for his wife, if he is up-to-date, he goes to Sarahcuse; and if he is a +back number he goes to Sam's competitors!--What's the name now?--Van +Buskirk & Patterson. Yes, Mawruss, back numbers always buys from back +numbers." + +"Why don't we sell that Van Buster concern our line, Abe?" + +"A fine chance I got it with them people, Mawruss!" Abe exclaimed. "They +buy their whole stock from a jobber in Buffalo and they got an idee that +Russian blouses is the latest up-to-the-minute effect in garments. And +you couldn't blame 'em, Mawruss; most of the women up in Cyprus thinks +that way too." + +"That ain't here nor there, Abe," Morris interrupted. "Sam Green is one +of them fellers which he is slow pay if he would be worth a million +even. He's got the habit Abe. Look what he writes us now." + +He handed Abe a letter which read as follows: + + SAMUEL GREEN + DRYGOODS AND NOTIONS + THE K. & M. SYLPHSHAPE CORSET + CYPRUS, NEW YORK, April 1, 1910 + + GENTS: Your favour of the thirtieth inst. rec'd and contents noted; + and in reply would say you should be so kind and wait a couple + days, and I will send you a check sure--on an account I got + sickness in the family and oblige + + Yours truly, S. GREEN. + +"Well, Mawruss," Abe commented, mindful of a recent obstinate lumbago, +"might the feller did got sickness in his family maybe." + +"_Schmooes_, Abe!" Morris cried impatiently. "Every season that feller's +got another excuse. Last fall his wife goes to work and has an +operation. A year ago he is got his uncle in the hospital. The winter +before that he is got funeral expenses on account his mother died on +him; and so it goes, Abe. That feller would a damsite sooner kill off +his whole family, y'understand, than pay a bill to the day it is due." + +"All right," Abe said; "then we wouldn't sell him no more--that's all." + +Morris shrugged. + +"That's all!" he repeated. "A concern don't pay strictly to the day; so +we couldn't sell 'em no more, and that's all, _sagt er_! For a feller +which he's losing customers right and left to a back number like Max +Kirschner, Abe, you are talking pretty independent." + +"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe exploded; "I just told it you Max +Kirschner only gets that order from Henry Feigenbaum because he takes +pity on him." + +"What d'ye mean, pity?" Morris retorted. "I seen Max Kirschner in the +subway this morning and he looks like he needs pity, Abe. He's got +diamonds stuck on him like a pawnbroker's window." + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe continued. "Some drummers is got +diamonds and some is got bank accounts, but there's mighty few got both, +Mawruss; and Max Kirschner ain't one of 'em. One thing you got to +remember, Mawruss--Max is an old man." + +"What are you talking nonsense! An old man!" Morris exclaimed. "Max is +just turned sixty." + +"Sure, I know," Abe commented, "and for a drummer, that's awful old, +Mawruss. A feller which he spends six months out of the year in trains +and hotels, Mawruss, is got to be mighty particular about what he eats. +I stopped in one hotel together with Max _schon_ many times already, and +at dinner I am always eating steaks and oncet in a while eggs maybe; but +Max goes for them French names every time. Many a night I watched Max in +a hotel lobby and you could see by his face that his stomach is +boiling." + +"Never mind, Abe; I could stand a little indigestion, too, Abe, if I +would be getting the orders Max is getting it." + +"That's a thing of the past, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Business falls off +something terrible with him, Mawruss; and the first thing you know, +Mawruss, Klinger & Klein gets rid of him and them diamonds would got to +come in handy before he finds another job." + +"_Yow!_ Klinger & Klein would get rid of him!" Morris cried +skeptically. "Max Kirschner ain't no ordinary drummer, Abe. There's a +feller which he was born and raised on this side. He's a gentleman, Abe, +and them boys respects him. Besides, Abe, he practically started them +two greenhorns in business. Twenty years ago, when them boys was new +beginners, Kirschner brings 'em a good trade, y'understand; and not only +that, Abe, if it wouldn't be for him them fellers wouldn't never lasted +six months. The first season they turned out a lot of stickers, and when +they got short Max goes himself to old man Baum and gets him to lend +them boys a thousand dollars. People don't forget such things in a +hurry, Abe." + +"Don't they, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Well, maybe they do and maybe they +don't, Mawruss; but twenty years is a long time to remember things, +Mawruss, and when a feller draws big wages like Max Kirschner he's got +to turn in the orders, Mawruss--otherwise past favours is nix." + +Morris nodded. + +"That's no lie neither, Abe," he said, rising to his feet; "and we +should right away send Sam Green a letter either he should mail us a +check or we would put his account into a collection agency. The feller +goes too far, Abe." + +It was precisely a week later that Max Kirschner's relations with the +firm of Klinger & Klein finally reached their climax. + +"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said as he entered the showroom after a brief visit +to the barber-shop that morning--"what did I told you?" + +"You didn't told me nothing, Abe," Morris retorted; "and, besides, it +was my idee that we wrote him a rotten letter, otherwise we would wait +for another week or ten days for our check. As it is, Abe, he deducts +four dollars on us for a damage on account of bum packing. He is not +only a crook, Abe, but a liar also." + +"Four dollars wouldn't break us, Mawruss," Abe rejoined, "and we could +easy make it up on the next bill he buys from us. But I wasn't talking +about Sam Green at all. I mean Max Kirschner." + +"I much bother my head about Kirschner!" Morris said. "Let Klinger & +Klein worry about him." + +Abe grunted as he removed his hat and coat. + +"You'd wait an awful long time for Klinger & Klein to worry about him, +Mawruss," he said. "Because them fellers got such hearts which _Gott +soll hüten_ their wives would die together with their children in one +day yet--I am only saying, y'understand--them two suckers wouldn't worry +neither. Saturday night they fired Max Kirschner like a dawg, Mawruss. +And why? Because a week ago Max eats some _stuss_ in Bridgetown, +y'understand, which he is sick in bed for three days. And while he is +laid up yet Sammet Brothers cops out a thousand-dollar order on him." + +"_Ai gewoldt!_" Morris cried, with ready sympathy. "You don't tell me?" + +"And now that poor feller walks the streets looking for a job; and a +fine show he's got it, an old man like him." + +"Don't say that again, Abe," Morris said. "You Jonah the feller that +way. Somebody hears you saying Max is an old man and the first thing you +know, Abe, they believe he is old. I told you before Max is only sixty; +and when my _grossvater selig_ was sixty he gets married for the third +time yet." + +"Sure I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Some fellers gets married for a +wife and some for a nurse, Mawruss. Any cripple could get married, +y'understand; but a feller must got to have his health to sell goods." + +He seized the current issue of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_, and as +he sat down to examine it he heaved a sigh which merged into an agonized +groan. + +"Oo-ee!" he exclaimed; "that lumbago still gets me in the back." + +"You see, Abe," Morris commented maliciously, "you ain't so young +yourself. From forty-eight to sixty ain't a thousand years neither, +Abe." + +Abe scowled and then his face lightened up in the conception of a happy +idea. + +"I give you right about that, Mawruss," he said: "but with me it's +different, Mawruss. If I get so I couldn't go out on the road, +y'understand, we could always hire some one to go for us." + +"Could we?" Morris grumbled. + +"Sure," Abe went on; "and even to-day yet, while I am making Denver and +the coast towns, it wouldn't harm us we should get a feller which is +acquainted with the trade up the state and in Pennsylvania and Ohio." + +"Wouldn't it?" Morris croaked. + +"We are losing every day business, Mawruss, because I got such a big +territory to cover," Abe said. "A feller in a small town wants his fall +goods early just so much as one of them big concerns in Denver _oder_ +Seattle; and if I don't show up in time they place their orders with +some one else. Whereas, Mawruss, if we would wait a couple of weeks, we +would say for instance, until he finds out that every one ain't paying +fancy salaries like Klinger & Klein, y'understand, for a couple thousand +dollars a year, Mawruss, we could get Max Kirschner and----" + +"Max Kirschner?" Morris yelled. "What d'ye mean, Max Kirschner?" + +"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, "we could get Max Kirschner; and, even if he +would be a little _kranklich_ oncet in a while, sometimes maybe he would +be worth to us two thousand a year anyhow." + +"Two thousand a year!" Morris bellowed. "What the devil you are talking +nonsense, Abe? We should give two thousand a year to a cripple like +Kirschner! What do you think you are running here anyhow--a +cloak-and-suit business or a home for the aged? If you want to give to +charity do it with your money, not mine." + +For the remainder of the forenoon Morris Perlmutter moved about the +showroom with his face distorted in so gloomy a scowl that to Abe it +seemed as though a fog enveloped his partner, through which there +darted, like flashes of heat lightning, exclamations of "_Schnorrer!_ +Cripple! With my money yet!" and "Crust that feller got it!" At length +he put on his hat and went out to lunch, while Abe gazed after him in +mute disgust. + +"When some people talks charity," he grumbled, "you got to reckon a +hundred per cent. discount for cash." + + * * * * * + +"You see, Abe," Morris cried as he came in from lunch, "how easy it is +to misjudge people. I just seen Sol Klinger over to Hammersmith's and he +tells me that in six weeks yet Max Kirschner falls down on three orders. +Four thousand dollars that sucker, Leon Sammet, cops out on 'em; and Sol +couldn't help himself, Abe. Either they got to fire Max _oder_ they got +to go out of business." + +Abe nodded slowly. His face possessed an unusual pallor and he clenched +an unlighted cigar between his teeth. + +"What is it?" Morris asked. "Don't you feel good?" + +"I am feeling fine, Mawruss," he replied huskily. "I could blow myself +to a bottle tchampanyer wine yet, I feel so good. I am enjoying myself, +Mawruss, on account Moe Griesman from Sarahcuse was just in here, which +he tells me his nephew, Mozart Rabiner, goes to work for Klinger & Klein +as a drummer and we should be so good and cancel the order which he +gives us yesterday, as blood is redder as water; and what the devil +could we do about it anyway?" + +Morris's jaw dropped and he sat down heavily in the nearest chair. + +"One thing I'm glad, Mawruss," Abe said as he put on his hat: "I'm glad, +if we got to lose Moe Griesman's trade, Mawruss, that he is going to +give it to a feller like Sol Klinger, which he is such a good friend to +you, Mawruss, and got such a big heart." + +He jammed his hat on his ears and started out. + +"Where are you going, Abe?" Morris asked. + +"I'm going over to Hammersmith's, Mawruss," he replied, "to get a bite +to eat; and I hope to see Sol Klinger there, Mawruss, as I would like to +congratulate him, Mawruss, with a pressing-iron." + +Morris's face settled once more into a deep frown as the elevator door +closed behind his partner. + +"Always with his mouth he is making somebody a blue eye," he muttered as +he turned to sorting over the sample line against Abe's impending trip +to the small towns up the state. He had picked out four cheap, showy +garments when the elevator door clanged again and a visitor entered, +bearing a brown-paper parcel. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said, "what's the good word?" + +The newcomer's cheery greeting was strangely at variance with his +manner, which was as diffident as that of a village dog on the Fourth of +July. As he advanced toward the showroom he exhaled the odour of +mothballs, characteristic of an old stock of cloaks and suits, so that +before he looked up Morris was able to identify his visitor. + +"Hello, Sam!" he said. "When did you get in?" + +"Twelve o'clock," Sam replied. "I would of got in sooner, but a crook of +a scalper in Sarahcuse sells me a ticket which it is punched out as far +as Canandaigua; and if it wouldn't be I paid four dollars extra I come +pretty near getting kicked off the train." + +"You ain't nothing out, Sam," Morris said, "because that's just the +amount you are doing me for on our last bill." + +"Doing you for!" Sam cried. "What d'ye mean, doing you for? One garment +was damaged in the packing which I deducted the four dollars; and if you +wouldn't believe me here it is now." + +He unwrapped the brown-paper parcel and disclosed a crumpled article of +women's apparel, which Morris shook out and examined critically. + +"In the first place, Sam," he commented, "the garment has been worn." + +"What are you talking nonsense--worn?" Sam protested. "Once only my Leah +puts it on to see the damage. There it is." + +Sam pointed with his forefinger and Morris looked at the spot indicated. + +"Well, how could that be damaged in packing, Sam?" Morris asked +indignantly. "That's a stain from _lockshen_ soup." + +"My wife must got to eat like any other woman!" Sam exclaimed +indignantly; "and besides, Mawruss, the stain ain't all soup, +y'understand--some of it gets wet in the packing-case." + +"Well, I wouldn't bother my head about it no more," Morris retorted. "I +deposited your check just now and we are lucky, if you would deduct four +dollars, that we got our money at all." + +"Maybe you are and maybe you ain't, Mawruss," Sam commented. "That's +what I come down to see you about." + +"What d'ye mean?" Morris cried. + +"I mean," Sam said in husky tones, "I don't know whether the check is +good at all. When I mailed it you I got a little balance at my bank, but +yesterday afternoon the president sends for me and shuts down on my +accommodation; and maybe--I don't know whether he did _oder_ not, +y'understand--he takes my balance on account." + +Morris laid down the garment and fixed his visitor with an angry glare. + +"So!" he exploded; "you are going to fail on us?" + +Sam disclaimed it indignantly. + +"What d'ye think I am?" he demanded--"a crook? And besides, I ain't got +nothing to fail with." + +Morris drew forward a chair. Sam sat down; and leaning back he nursed +his cheek with his hand in an attitude of utter dejection. + +"Well, what are you going to do?" Morris asked. + +"That's what I come down here to find out," Sam replied. + +Then ensued a silence of several minutes during which Morris gazed +attentively at his customer. + +"The fact is, Sam," he said at last, "you ain't got no head." + +Sam nodded sadly. + +"You're a fool, Sam," Morris went on in kindly accents; "and no matter +how hard a fool would work he is a poor man all his life." + +Sam deemed it hardly worth while to acquiesce in this statement, but he +indorsed it unconsciously with a large tear, which stole put of the +corner of his eye and worked a clean groove down one travel-stained +cheek. + +"Have a smoke, Sam," Morris added hastily as he thrust a cigar toward +his late customer. "Did you got your lunch yet? No? Come on out with me +now and we would have a little bite to eat." + +He jumped to his feet and seized his hat. + +"Nathan," he bawled to the shipping clerk, "tell Mr. Potash I am going +out with a customer and I'll be back when I am here." + + * * * * * + +Max Kirschner had reached the age of sixty without making a single enemy +save his stomach, which at length ungratefully rejected all the rich +favours that Max had bestowed on it so long and so generously. Indeed, +he was reduced to a diet of crackers and milk when Abe encountered him +in Hammersmith's restaurant that September morning. + +"Hello, Max!" Abe cried. "When did you get back? I thought you was in +one of them--now--sanatoriums." + +"A sanatorium is no place for a drummer to find a job, Abe," Max +replied. + +"A good salesman like you could find a job anywhere without much +trouble, Max," Abe said cheerfully. + +"That's what everybody says, Abe; meantime I'm loafing." + +"It wouldn't be for long, Max," Abe rejoined as he cast a hungry eye +over Hammersmith's bill of fare. "How's that fillet de who's this, with +asparagrass tips and mushrooms?" + +For a brief moment Max's eye gleamed and then grew dull again. + +"It's fine to put the stomach out of business, Abe," Max said. "Take the +tip from one who has lost sixty pounds, ten customers, and a good job +all in six weeks--and order poached eggs on toast." + +Abe compromised on boiled beef with horseradish sauce; and when he was +well into the noisy consumption of that simple dish he broached the +subject of Max's future plans. + +"When d'ye think you'll go to work again, Max?" he asked. + +Max shrugged expressively. + +"I'm not a prophet, Abe; I'm a salesman," he said. + +"Well, there ain't no particular hurry, Max. It ain't the same like you +would got a family to look out for." + +"I've been a drummer all my life, Abe," Max declared, "and a drummer has +no right to be married. When I was a kid I had a chance to go into the +store of a couple of yokels upstate in the town where I was born and +raised; and I guess if I'd done so I'd been married and had a whole +family of children by now." + +"Maybe you're just as well off, Max," Abe said consolingly. "Children is +a gamble anyhow, Max. The boys is assets and the girls is liabilities; +and if you got a large family of girls you're practically bankrupt, no +matter how good business would be." + +"Don't you believe it, Abe," Max said. "Those two yokels both had big +families and they didn't do such a big business either. But they managed +to make a good living, and last week I hear they sold out to some city +dry goods man for forty thousand dollars." + +Abe paused with a loaded knife in midair. + +"Forty thousand dollars between two ain't much, Max," he said. + +"It's more than I've got, anyhow," Max rejoined as he rose to his feet. + +"You got lots of time to make money, Max," Abe concluded. "Come round +and see us when you get time, won't you?" + +Max nodded; and as he walked down the street to make a further canvass +of the garment trade he passed the broad windows of the dairy lunchroom, +where Morris was regaling Sam Green with a popular-price meal. + +"Yes, Sam," Morris said as he caught sight of Max Kirschner's dejected +figure, "you're lucky when you consider some people. You are still a +young man and it ain't too late for you to start in as a new beginner +somewhere. A young man could always make a living anyhow." + +"Sure," Sam agreed, "but why should I start in as a new beginner, +Mawruss? I already got an established business, y'understand; and if I +could get a feller with a headpiece, Mawruss--never mind he ain't got +so much money--with a couple thousand dollars, we could run that feller +from Sarahcuse out of town." + +"What feller from Sarahcuse?" Morris asked. + +"Ain't I told you?" Sam continued. "I thought I says that the reason the +bank shuts down on me is a feller from Sarahcuse buys out them two +suckers, Van Buskirk and Patterson, and he's going to operate the store +as a branch house." + +Morris nodded his head slowly. + +"So, Sam," he said, "you are up against one of them sharks from +Sarahcuse? I'm afraid you got a dead proposition in that store of +yours." + +Two cups of coffee had revived Sam Green's ambition, however, and he +laughed aloud. + +"You don't understand them people up in Cyprus, Mawruss," he said. +"Strangers they don't like at all; and even me, though I lived in that +town ten years, most of 'em wouldn't buy goods off of me because Van +Buskirk and Patterson is born and raised in that town and they dealt +with 'em ever since they was boys together. So you see I got ten years' +start of that feller from Sarahcuse, Mawruss. If I could get some feller +which he knows the garment business to go as partners together with me, +and to put a little money into the store, we could yet do a good +business there." + +"How much money would you got to have?" Morris asked. + +"Two thousand dollars, anyhow," Sam replied. + +Morris tapped the table with his right index finger and frowned +reflectively. + +"The necktie pin alone must be worth a thousand dollars," he murmured +almost to himself, "and two rings he got it which I know about must +stand him in anyhow a thousand dollars more." + +He thrust back his chair and rose to his feet. + +"All right, Sam," he said aloud. "You got a little egg on your chin. +Wipe it off and we'll go back to the store. I got an idee." + + * * * * * + +"On second thought, Sam," Morris said as they approached Potash & +Perlmutter's place of business, "I wouldn't go up with me if I was you +on account I don't want to say nothing to my partner just yet a while. +Where are you staying, Sam?" + +"I got a room at a hotel over on Third Avenue," Sam replied. + +"Third Avenue!" Morris exclaimed. "That's a _Nachbarschaft_ for a +business man!" + +He handed Sam a five-dollar bill. + +"Go and get yourself a room over at the Prince Clarence," Morris said. +"I'll be over there presently." + +Nathan, the shipping clerk, was alone in the showroom when Morris +entered. + +"Ain't my partner come back yet, Nathan?" he demanded. + +Nathan shook his head. + +"Then tell him when he does come back that I've went up to the Prince +Clarence to see a customer," Morris continued; "and if he asks what name +tell him it's a new concern just starting." + +Five minutes later he visited the business premises of Kleiman & +Elenbogen, impelled thereto by a process of reasoning which involved the +following points: Klinger & Klein manufactured a medium-price line and +so did Kleiman & Elenbogen. Klinger & Klein's leader was The Girl in the +Airship Gown, a title suggested by the syndicate's popular musical +comedy of that name, while Kleiman & Elenbogen advertised their +"strongest" garment as The Girl in the Motor-boat, out of compliment, of +course, to the equally popular musical comedy recently produced by an +antisyndicate manager. Both concerns catered to the same class of trade, +and when either of the partners of Klinger & Klein referred in +conversation to a member of the firm of Kleiman & Elenbogen, or vice +versa, "sucker" was the mildest epithet employed. + +Hence Morris Perlmutter argued that Max Kirchner would resort to Kleiman +& Elenbogen's loft for comfort and advice; and as he stepped out of the +elevator his surmise was confirmed by a nimbus emanating from the +necktie of a person seated at the far end of the showroom. + +"Hello, Max!" Morris cried; "who'd thought of seeing you here!" + +Max rose to his feet and extended his right hand in greeting, whereat +Morris noted that the four-carat diamond still sparkled on Max's finger. + +"I just left your partner over at Hammersmith's, Morris," Max said. + +"Sure, I know," Morris rejoined; "that feller makes a god out of his +stomach, Max; but that ain't here nor there. Did you got something to do +yet, Max?" + +"I've got a whole lot to do trying to find a job, Morris, if that's what +you mean," Max replied. + +Morris glanced around the showroom, but both Kleiman and Elenbogen were +absent. + +"Where are they?" Morris asked. + +"Out to lunch, I guess," Max replied. + +"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "Them suckers would like to know everybody's +business. You got a few minutes' time, Max?" + +"Nothing but time," Max replied sadly. + +"Then come uptown a few blocks with me," Morris said. "I got a +proposition to make you." + +Max shrugged his shoulders and put on his hat. + +"Yes, Max," Morris continued as they walked toward the Prince Clarence +Hotel, "I got a proposition to make to you, but first I would like to +ask you something a question." + +"Fire away," Max said. + +"What did you done with that other diamond ring which you used to +wear--the big one?" + +"I have it home," Max replied. "What d'ye want to know for?" + +"I want to lend you some money on it," Morris went on calmly; "also that +pin which you got it and that there ring. I want to lend you three +thousand dollars on 'em." + +"Three thousand dollars!" Max exclaimed. "Why, the whole outfit isn't +worth two!" + +"What do I care?" Morris rejoined. "It's only a loan and I bet yer you +would quick pay me back." + +Max paused on the sidewalk and stared. "What's the matter, Morris?" he +cried. "Are you sick?" + +"Must a feller got to be sick to want to help you out, Max?" Morris +said. "And anyhow, Max, it's as much a favour to us as it is to you." + +By this time they had reached the Prince Clarence Hotel and Morris led +the way to the café. + +"Say, lookyhere, Max, the whole thing is this," he said after they were +seated: "I'm going to lend you three thousand dollars to go into a +business with a feller which he got a store in a small town upstate, and +you're going to do it." + +Max shook his head. + +"No; I ain't," he answered. "I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks." + +"If you sell goods wholesale you could sell 'em retail," Morris +declared. "So, if you would listen to me I'll tell you what the +proposition is." + +Forthwith Morris unfolded to Max the history of Sam Green's mercantile +establishment. + +"And now, after all them years, Max," he concluded, "that feller gets +practically run out of town because his bank shuts down on him." + +"What's the name of the place?" Max asked. + +"The name of the place?" Morris repeated. + +"Yes," Max said, "the name of the town where the fellow comes from." + +Morris scratched his head for a minute. + +"I should remember the name of every little one-horse town where we got +customers!" he said. "The name of the place don't matter, Max; it's got +two thousand people living in it and practically only one store, because +the way Sam Green is running his business now you couldn't call it a +store at all." + +Max rose from the table. + +"I'll tell you the truth, Morris," he said; "what's the use wasting our +time? The proposition ain't attractive. I was born and raised in a +one-horse town upstate; and, even though I ain't been back for twenty +years, I know what it's like. You'll have to excuse me." + +"But, Max----" Morris commenced. + +"I needn't tell you that I'm more than grateful to you, Morris," Max +concluded; "and if ever I want to dispose of my diamonds you shall have +first chance." + +He shook Morris's limp and unresisting hand and returned at once to the +showroom of Kleiman & Elenbogen. + +"Any one come for me, Miss Cashman?" he asked the bookkeeper, who was +busily engaged in the preparation of the firm's monthly statement. + +"Say, lookyhere, Kirschner," Louis Kleiman called from his office; +"leave the girl alone, can't you? She's got enough to do tending to our +business." + +"I'm only asking her if she has any word for me," Max replied. + +"I don't care what you are asking her," Kleiman said as he came out of +his office to confront Max. "You are acting altogether too fresh around +here, Kirschner. Do you pay rent here _oder_ what?" + +Max made no reply. + +"And furthermore," Kleiman continued, "we got business to attend to +here, Kirschner, and we couldn't afford to have no dead ones hanging +around." + +For a brief interval he scowled at Max, who turned on his heel and made +for the elevator without another word. His applications for employment +during the past few days had met with polite refusals coupled with +cheerful prophecies of his early employment. To be sure, Max had taken +little stock in this consoling optimism, but it had all helped to keep +alive his spirits, which had sunk again to their lowest ebb at +Kleiman's epithet, "dead one." + +After all, he was a dead one, he reflected as he stumbled along the +sidewalk toward his boarding house on Irving Place. A man of sixty +safely intrenched in his own business, with the confidence his wealth +inspires, is in the very prime of life. But Max, with his health +impaired and his employment taken away from him, felt and looked a +decrepit old man as he tottered upstairs to his third-floor room and +flung himself on the bed, where he lay for more than an hour staring at +the ceiling. + +During that interval he reviewed his career from the time he helped his +father, a Prussian refugee of 1848, in the little country store upstate. +Then came his father's death, followed by a clerkship in the large +dry-goods business of his father's competitors. After this he had moved +to New York; and from that time on he had followed the calling of a +travelling salesman with varying success, until at sixty he found +himself out of health and employment, with property of less than two +thousand dollars as a reserve fund. + +What a fool he had been not to accept Perlmutter's offer! Nevertheless +it seemed futile for a man of sixty to make a new start in a strange +town, especially since, in rural communities, business goes as much by +favour and friendship as by commercial enterprise. Now, had he been +offered a partnership in a store in his native town, where it would be +an easy matter to renew old acquaintance, he might have viewed the +proposition differently. + +He rose from the bed and sat down in an armchair, while his mind +reverted to more pleasant topics. He pictured to himself his father's +store underneath what the townspeople called the opera house. He saw +again that dingy little hall, with its small proscenium opening guarded +by a frayed old curtain, and he smiled as he remembered the landscape it +bore. With the sophistication of his race he had enjoyed many a good +laugh at the performance that had evoked the tears of his fellow +townsmen. What Rubes they were, to be sure! And yet, what good fellows +the boys had been! He recalled various ones by name and found himself +wondering how they looked and whether they were married or single. +Another half hour of like musing and suddenly he slapped his thigh. + +"By jinks!" he said, "I'll do it. I need a vacation and I'm going to +have it too." + +When Morris returned to his place of business that afternoon he had +packed Sam Green off to his store upstate with instructions to return in +a week, during which Morris hoped to take the matter up with Abe. As for +his hour-long absence from his place of business, Morris had provided +himself with a plausible explanation in rebuttal to the quiet, ironical +greeting that he knew would await him. His program was a little upset, +however, by Abe's inquiry, which was not in the least ironical. + +"Loafer, where have you been?" Abe demanded. + +"What d'ye mean, loafer?" Morris cried. + +"I mean, while you are fooling away your time, Moe Griesman comes in +here to see us and naturally he don't find none of us here; so he goes +away again. From us he goes straight over to Sammet Brothers--and that's +the way it goes." + +"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I thought you told me he cancels his +order this morning and buys only from Klinger & Klein." + +"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but I suppose he finds out he couldn't find +all the goods he wants with one concern and now he goes over to Sammet +Brothers." + +"How do you know he went over to Sammet Brothers?" Morris asked. + +"A question! How do I know it?" Abe exclaimed. "Ain't he left a +memorandum I should ring him up there?" + +"Well, why don't you ring him up and find out what he wants?" Morris +retorted. + +"What do I care what he wants, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Whatever he +wants he don't want it now, because them two cut-throats would suck him +dry of orders. Once a feller gets into the hands of Sammet Brothers they +wouldn't let him go till he bought himself blue in the face." + +"Ring him up, anyhow," Morris insisted; and the next moment Abe was +engaged in a heated altercation with "Central." Finally he heard Leon +Sammet at the other end of the wire. + +"Hello!" he yelled. "I want to speak with Mr. Griesman. Never mind what +I want to speak with him about. That's my business. I ain't the fresh +one--you are the fresh one. You are asking me something which you ain't +got no right to ask me at all. You know well enough who it is talking." + +After five minutes' further conversation, Leon relinquished his end of +the wire to Griesman and immediately thereafter Abe's voice diminished +in harshness till it became fairly flutelike with friendship and +amiability. + +"Oh, hello, Mr. Griesman!" he said. "Did you want to talk to me? Why, +no, Mr. Griesman, he don't owe us nothing. He paid us this morning. +Sure! What did you want to know for? Why should we sell his account, Mr. +Griesman? He's a little slow, y'understand, but he's quite good. That's +all right. Good-by." + +When he returned to the showroom his face wore a puzzled expression. + +"Well, Abe, what did he want?" Morris asked. + +Abe shrugged his shoulders. + +"I don't know what he is up to, Mawruss," Abe said; "but he tells me he +wants to buy from us Sam Green's account. So I told him Sam pays us this +morning, and he rings off." + +"Why should Moe Griesman want to buy from us Sam Green's account?" +Morris muttered to himself; and then a wave of recollection came over +him. Obviously it was Moe Griesman who had bought out Sam's competitors +and this caused Sam's bank to shut down on him. Now Moe Griesman was +attempting to buy up Sam's liabilities and close him up, so that there +might be no competitor to Moe's new business in Cyprus. At length the +humour of the situation appealed to Morris and he grinned vacuously at +his partner. + +"_Nu_," Abe growled; "what are you laughing at?" + +"Nothing much, Abe," Morris replied. "I was only thinking--that's all, +Abe. I was thinking to myself, Abe, what a joke it would be, supposing, +for instance, Sam's check should come back N. G." + + * * * * * + +When Sam Green entered the smoker of the seven-thirty train from +Syracuse to Cyprus, the following morning, a well-dressed man of sixty +followed him down the aisle and sat down in the same seat with him. + +"Have a cigar?" the stranger said. + +"Much obliged," Sam replied as he took it. "If it is just the same to +you I would smoke it after dinner." + +"Sure!" the stranger rejoined, handing him another; "smoke that one +after dinner and smoke this one now." + +Sam grinned and after they had lit up he ventured the observation that +it was fine weather. + +"_Aber_ it should be colder," he concluded, "for heavyweights." + +"Are you in the clothing business?" the stranger asked. + +"I got a sort of a store," Sam replied; "clothing and cloaks, and suits +also. A dry-goods store in Cyprus." + +"In Cyprus?" Sam's seatmate cried. "You don't tell me? I'm going down to +Cyprus too." + +"My fall buying is through," Sam said. + +"I'm not selling goods this trip," the stranger replied. "I'm on a +vacation." + +"A vacation!" Sam murmured. "In Cyprus! That's a _medeena_ for a +vacation." + +"There are worse places than Cyprus, my friend," said Sam's new-found +acquaintance; and thereat began a conversation that lasted until the +train finally drew into Cyprus. + +"Would you mind telling me what is your name, please?" Sam asked as they +prepared to leave the car. + +"Certainly," the stranger said, handing his card to Sam. + +"Kirschner!" Sam exclaimed, looking at the card. "Kirschner, _von unsere +Leute_?" + +"Sure!" Max Kirschner replied. + +"Did your father once run a store under the opera house here?" + +"That's right." + +"And after he died the widder sells out to a man by the name Marcus +Senft?" + +"The same one," Max replied. "Why do you ask?" + +"Because I bought out that feller, Marcus Senft," Sam replied, "and I +got on my books yet debts which your mother sold to Senft for +twenty-five cents on the dollar--and he sold to me for ten cents." + +"I'll bet I know who owes 'em, too," Max commented. + +"You could look 'em over if you want to," Sam said as they started to +walk down the hilly lane from the depot to the main street. + +"I will after I've washed up at the hotel," Max answered. + +"Hotel?" Sam exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, hotel? You ain't going to no +hotel. You're coming home with me. A feller _von unsere Leute_ should +come to Cyprus for a vacation and stay at a hotel! An idee!" + +He linked his arm in Max's and together they walked to Sam's store. + +"We'll take a look in here first before we go up to the house," Sam said +as he opened the door. The next moment Sam Green was clasped to the +ample bosom of Leah Green, who glanced inquiringly at Max Kirschner. + +"Mommer," Sam announced, "this is Mr. Max Kirschner, which he ought to +be like an old friend on account he was born and raised in this here +town and his father run this very store." + +Max looked around him at the shelves and showcases. + +"The same fixtures," he muttered absently. + +"He is only in town for a couple of days, mommer," Sam said +hesitatingly, "so I thought we could easy fix up the spare room--ain't +it?" + +"Why, sure!" Mrs. Green replied as she shook Max's hand warmly. "Is the +folks all well, Mr. Kirschner?" + +Max smiled sadly. + +"You can judge for yourself, Mrs. Green," he said, "because I'm all the +folks there are." + +"Oh, sure," Mrs. Green hastened to say. "I remember now; you never got +married." + +"Why, how do you know that?" Sam asked. + +Mrs. Green nodded her head sideways in Sam's direction. + +"He don't never hear nothing, Mr. Kirschner," she said. "With me the +women folks _schmooses_ all the time; and you could take it from me, Mr. +Kirschner, they talk a whole lot more about what happens forty years ago +as what happens last week already." + +Max nodded as the store door opened and a woman of uncertain age +entered. + +"Good morning, Mis' Green," the newcomer said, her eyes glued on Max +Kirschner. "I was just passin' by on my way to the depot and I +remembered that I needed a spool of thread." + +Mrs. Green passed behind the counter to reach the thread case. + +"Going to Sarahcuse to-day, Mis' Duree?" she asked casually. + +Mrs. Duryea blushed. + +"I'm on my way to see my sister's little granddaughter," she explained; +"she's just recovering from whooping cough." + +"Would that be your sister Libby?" Max inquired. + +Mrs. Duryea started visibly. + +"I don't know as I----" she began. + +"That's so," Max continued. "Libby moved to Elmira. It must be Carrie. +She married Lem Peters, didn't she?" + +"Well, of all things!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed. "Who in the world told you +all that?" + +"I just remembered it," Max said, holding out his hand. "How's Tom?" + +Mrs. Duryea took the proffered hand gingerly. + +"He's pretty spry," she said. + +"Tell him Max Kirschner was asking for him," Max replied. + +"You ain't Max Kirschner?" Mrs. Duryea cried. + +"Just as sure as you're Hattie Watson," Max said. "How're all the +children, Hattie?" + +"All growed up and flew away," Mrs. Duryea replied. "What are you doing +around here?" + +Max's eyes twinkled mischievously. + +"I'm selling goods for Mr. Green here," he declared. "Let's see, Hattie. +Forty-two bust, I should say." + +He snatched a garment from a rack near by. + +"Here's a coat, Hattie, that would stand you in forty dollars in +Syracuse," he said. "One of those big dry-goods stores there figures on +a coat like this: garment, wholesale, twenty dollars; running a big +store with elevators, electric lights and all modern improvements, ten +dollars; advertising, five dollars; profit, five dollars--total, forty +dollars. We figure here: cost of garment, twenty dollars; store +expenses, fifty cents; profit, four dollars and fifty cents; total, +twenty-five dollars. Put it on, Hattie, and let's see how you look in +the garment." + +"Well, I declare!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed as she allowed herself to be +assisted into the garment. "You take my breath away." + +Max stepped back to survey the effect; and if the admiration expressed +in his face was simulated, at least the friendliness of his smile was +not. + +"Now, Hattie, I want to tell you something," he declared: "If any one +would say to me that I went to school with you I'd think they had a bad +memory. I'd tell 'em it was your mother that sat next to me in Miss +Johnson's room and not you." + +Mrs. Duryea fairly beamed as she strutted up and down the store. + +"Well, Max," she said at last, "let me bring my friend Mis' Williams in +this afternoon and we'll decide on it then." + +"But I thought you were going to Syracuse," Max rejoined. + +"I was," Mrs. Duryea said as she started to leave; "but I ain't now." + + * * * * * + +The news of Max Kirschner's return spread through Cyprus like a brush +fire, and twenty minutes after Mrs. Duryea had left Sam Green's store +Max was holding a levee behind the old counter. By two o'clock he had +greeted over fifty old friends and at least twenty of them had made +purchases in amounts varying from five to thirty dollars. + +"As sure as you're standing there, Mr. Kirschner," Sam declared, "I sold +more goods this morning as in the last two months." + +Max grinned delightedly. His face was flushed and he looked at least ten +years younger as he patted Sam on the shoulder. + +"Look out for the rush this afternoon," he said. "If we only had a +better assortment, Green, I think we could keep this up for a week +longer and after that we could do a good, steady business." + +"We?" Sam exclaimed. + +Max coloured and smiled in an embarrassed fashion. + +"Of course I mean you," he said. + +"Why 'of course'?" Sam asked; and Mrs. Green nodded vigorously. "Why not +we, Mr. Kirschner?" + +"Well, you see, I haven't sold goods at retail for so long," Max +explained, "that I really don't know how." + +Sam turned to Mrs. Green with a quick shrug. + +"_Was hast du gehört?_" he cried. "He don't know how! If I wouldn't know +how to sell goods the way you don't know how, Mr. Kirschner, I would +quick build up a good business here. Tell me, Mr. Kirschner, how much +longer do you got a vacation, because I'd like to make you a +proposition. You could stay with me here for the rest of your vacation +and I would give you half of the profits over the cost price of every +garment you sell. How's that?" + +"Very generous," Max said; "but you don't know what you're offering me, +Green, because the vacation might last for several years." + +"Several years!" Sam repeated. "You mean you are retired from business, +Mr. Kirschner?" + +"Exactly," Max answered; "with a fortune of two diamond rings, a diamond +pin, and eight hundred and sixty-five dollars cash." + +Sam and Mrs. Green stared at him incredulously. + +"In other words, Green," Max concluded, "I have just been fired out of a +job as travelling salesman, which I held for twenty years, and I don't +see a chance of getting another one." + +For a moment Sam and his wife exchanged glances. + +"Mr. Kirschner," Sam said, "how much can you get for them diamonds?" + +"Fifteen hundred dollars, I guess," Max replied. + +"Then what is the use talking nonsense, Mr. Kirschner?" Sam cried +excitedly. "Come along with me over to the Farmers' National Bank and +we'll see Mr. Fuller; and if he would renew my accommodation for a +thousand dollars you and me would go as partners together and _fertig_." + +"Fuller!" Max cried. "That ain't Wilbur M. Fuller, is it?" + +"That's the one," Sam declared. + +"Then we'll not only get him to renew the accommodation, Sam, but we'll +sell him some shirts and neckties as well. He and I clerked together in +Van Buskirk & Patterson's." + +As a sequel to Max's visit to the Farmers' National Bank, Abe and Morris +waited in vain for the return of Sam's check. + +"How did you know the check wasn't good, Mawruss?" Abe asked his partner +a week later. + +"I ain't said it ain't good, Abe," Morris protested; "only I seen +Markson, which he works for Klinger & Klein as a bookkeeper, in +Hammersmith's to-day and he says that Moe Griesman goes round trying to +buy up all Sam Green's bills payable; and he's got about five hundred +dollars' worth now already." + +"Sure, I know he did," Abe replied. "He got from Kleiman & Elenbogen +Sam's three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar debt for two hundred and +seventy-five cash and Sam sends 'em the check for the full amount the +day before yesterday. I seen Louis Kleiman yesterday and he was feeling +pretty sore, I bet yer." + +Morris nodded. He had been completely mystified about Sam's affairs +since the arrival of a letter from Cyprus addressed to Morris +personally, wherein Sam repaid the money advanced for his hotel +accommodation and announced that he had abandoned for the present his +intention of returning to New York. Morris's mystification was hardly +abated by the following letter, which arrived on the heels of the +conversation above set forth: + + SAMUEL GREEN & CO. + DRY-GOODS AND NOTIONS + THE K. & M. SYLPHSHAPE CORSET + + CYPRUS, NEW YORK, MAY 1, 1910. + + GENTS: We inclose you herewith memorandum of order. Kindly ship same + within ten days by fast freight, and oblige + + Yours truly, SAMUEL GREEN & CO. + + P. S. You should telegraph Farmers' National Bank for references if + you ain't satisfied to ship without it. Business is good. S. GREEN. + +Morris Perlmutter's relations with Sol Klinger retained their +cordiality despite the rupture between Abe Potash and Klinger & Klein. +To be sure, Moe Griesman's defection had rankled, but Morris consoled +himself with the maxim, "Business is business"; and when he met Sol +Klinger in Hammersmith's restaurant during the first week of the spring +buying season he greeted Sol cordially. His friendly advance, however, +met with a decided rebuff. + +"What's the matter now, Sol?" Morris asked. + +Sol nodded his head slowly. + +"It's a great world, Mawruss," he said. + +Morris agreed with him. "There's business enough in it for everybody +anyhow, Sol, if that's what you mean," he replied. + +"In lots of places, yes, but in others, no," Sol said. "But with some +people, Mawruss, they're like a snake in the grass, which it bites the +hand that feeds it." + +"What's Moe Klein been doing now?" Morris asked. + +"Moe Klein?" Sol cried. "What d'ye mean, Moe Klein? I ain't talking +about Moe Klein at all. I am talking about Max Kirschner, Mawruss. +There's a feller which we give him for twenty years good wages, Mawruss, +and what do we get for it? After he leaves us, Mawruss--" + +"Left you?" Morris interrupted. "Why, I always thought you fired him." + +"Sure, we fired him," Sol continued. "A lowlife bum which he makes +always a hog of himself, why shouldn't we fire him? And then, Mawruss, +when we are taking on Moe Greisman's nephew, Rabiner, what does that +sucker Max Kirschner do? He turns around and fixes up with a feller by +the name Sam Green, in Cyprus, to go as partners together in Sam Green's +store up there. And mind you, Mawruss, Moe Griesman had just bought out +Sam Green's competitors, Van Buskirk & Patterson. And Max Kirschner +knows all the time that the only reason that we took on Mozart Rabiner +was on account of his uncle, Moe Griesman." + +Sol Klinger was so interested in his own narrative that he completely +failed to notice its effect on Morris Perlmutter, who sat with his jaw +dropping lower and lower, while great beads of perspiration stood on his +forehead. + +"Yes, Mawruss," Sol continued; "Moe Griesman even comes down himself +from Sarahcuse to Cyprus to superintend things. Five thousand dollars +fixtures he puts in and forty thousand dollars he pays them two yokels, +Van Buskirk & Patterson, for the good-will, stock, and store building; +and what happens? For a whole month Moe sits in that store and not a +hundred dollars' worth of goods goes out of the place, Mawruss; and why? +It seems that Sam Green and Max Kirschner does all the business because +Max Kirschner is born and raised in Cyprus and knows everybody in the +place." + +"Max was born and raised in Cyprus?" Morris gasped. + +"That's what I said," Sol replied. "That's a _Nachbarschaft_ for a +feller to be born in! What?" + +Morris nodded and rose wearily to his feet. + +"I never could remember the name of the place even, at all," he said. +"Well, I guess now I would be getting back to the store." + +"You got my permission," Sol said as Morris started from the restaurant. +These were destined to be the last words addressed to Morris by Sol +Klinger in many a long day, for the moving incidents which awaited +Morris's return to his showroom put an end to all friendship between him +and Sol. + +_Imprimis_, when Morris entered, Moe Griesman was seated in the firm's +private office, the centre of an animated group of four. "Hello, there, +Mawruss!" Moe shouted; "there's a couple of gentlemen here which would +like to talk to you." + +He indicated a ruddy, clean-shaven person of approximately fifty years, +who on closer inspection proved to be Max Kirschner shorn of his white +moustache and without the attendant nimbus of his diamond pin. The other +individual was even harder to identify by reason of a neat-fitting +business suit of brown and a general air of prosperity; but in him +Morris descried the person of what had once been Sam Green. + +"Morris, you old rascal," Max cried, "when you took me over to the +Prince Clarence Hotel that day why didn't you tell me that the man you +wanted me to go into business with ran a store in Cyprus?" + +"I couldn't remember the name of the place at all," Morris admitted. + +Abe gazed at him sorrowfully. + +"The fact is, gentlemen," he said, "my partner ain't got no head at +all." + +Sam Green's face flushed in recollection of the phrase. + +"Never mind," he said fervently; "he's got anyhow a heart." + +"And I've got a stomach," Max Kirschner added irrelevantly. "At least, +I've recovered one since I've been eating Leah Green's good cooking." + +Sam and Moe Griesman smiled sympathetically. + +"Well, what's the use wasting time here, boys?" Moe said at last. "Let's +explain to Mawruss about the new combination. Me and Max and Sam Green +here have agreed to go as partners together in Cyprus under the name +'The Cyprus Dry-goods Company.' In a small town like Cyprus competition +is nix." + +"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "I'm glad to hear it. Is the Sarahcuse store +included too?" + +"A ten per cent. interest they got, although I am going to run my +Sarahcuse business and these here boys is going to run the Cyprus end," +Moe continued. "And now, Abe, as Max has got to pick out a lot of goods +for the Cyprus store and I want to do the same for my Sarahcuse store, +let's get to work." + +For three hours without cessation they laboured over Potash & +Perlmutter's sample line until garments to an amount in excess of five +thousand dollars had been ordered. + +When Max Kirschner saw the total of Moe Griesman's selection for the +Syracuse store he emitted a low whistle. + +"Say, Moe," he said, "ain't you going to give your nephew, Rabiner, any +show at all this season?" + +"_Oser a Stück_," Griesman declared. "I done enough for that feller when +I got him a three years' contract with Klinger & Klein." + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +A PRESENT FOR MR. GEIGERMANN + + +"Well, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared, one morning in midwinter, "you +look like you had a pretty lively session last night." + +Abe nodded slowly. "I want to tell you something, Mawruss," he said +solemnly; "I would do anything at all to hold a customer's trade, +Mawruss. I would go on theayter with him. I would _schmier_ him tenspots +when he's got the bid already, and I would go _bate_ on hands which even +a rotten player like you couldn't lose, Mawruss. But before I would got +to sit through such another evening like last night, Mawruss, Felix +Geigermann should never buy from us again a dollar's worth more goods. +That's all I got to say." + +"Why, what was the matter?" Morris asked. + +"Well, in the first place, Mawruss, to show you what a liar that feller +Geigermann is, he brings out a fiddle which he tells us is three hundred +years old." + +"Yow! Three hundred years old!" Morris exclaimed skeptically. "A fiddle +three hundred years old would be worth, the very least, a hundred or a +hundred and fifty dollars." + +"That's what I told him, Mawruss," Abe said. "I says to him if I would +got a fiddle which it is worth that much money I would quick sell it and +buy something which it is anyhow useful, like a diamond ring _oder_ a +scarfpin. But Geigermann only laughs at me, Mawruss; he says he don't +own the fiddle, Mawruss, but that somebody loaned it him. Even if he +would own it, he wouldn't take two hundred dollars for it." + +"My worries, if he owns the fiddle _oder_ not, Abe!" Morris commented. + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss; but that ain't the point. Afterward Mozart +Rabiner comes in; and if I would be Felix Geigermann, Mawruss, and a +salesman comes into my house and gets fresh with a pianner which the +least it stands Geigermann in is a hundred dollars, Mawruss, I would +kick him into the street yet." + +"What is Mozart Rabiner doing there, Abe?" Morris inquired anxiously. + +Abe preserved a cheerful demeanour, although it was the circumstance of +Mozart Rabiner's prominence at Geigermann's musicale that had rendered +the evening so unbearable. + +"Well, Mawruss," he explained, "you don't suppose that Geigermann buys +all his goods from us?" + +Morris elevated his eyebrows gloomily. + +"I don't suppose nothing, Abe," he said; "but once you let a shark like +Rabiner get in with Geigermann, Klinger & Klein would give him the +privilege to cut our price till they run us right out of there." + +"It's an open market, Mawruss," Abe said, "and anyhow I am doing all I +can to keep that feller's business. You would think so if you would of +been there last night, Mawruss. First a lady in one of them two-piece +velvet suits--afterward I see the jacket; a ringer for our style +forty-two-twenty, Mawruss--she gets up on the floor, Mawruss, and she +hollers bloody murder, Mawruss. I never heard the like since that +Italiener girl which we got working for us on White Street catches her +finger in the buttonhole machine. Mozart Rabiner plays for her on the +pianner, Mawruss; and when she gets through, the way Rabiner jollies her +you would think she would be buying goods for Marshall Field yet. After +that, Geigermann takes the fiddle and him and Moe Rabiner gets together +by the pianner and for three quarters of an hour, Mawruss, they work +away like they was being paid for it." + +"Moe Rabiner gets paid for it, I bet yer," Morris agreed. + +"What a noise them fellers make it, Mawruss!" Abe continued. "Honestly, +I thought my head was busting; and when they get finished the lady which +done the hollering asks 'em who the piece is by, Mawruss--and who do you +think Rabiner says?" + +"How should I know who he says?" Morris retorted angrily. + +"Richard Strauss," Abe replied. + +"Richard Strauss?" Morris asked. "You mean that feller Strauss of +Klipmann, Strauss & Bleimer, I suppose?" + +"It must be the same feller," Abe said. "Seemingly everybody there knows +him; and besides, Mawruss, that feller Strauss is another one of them +musical fellers too. Only the other day Klipmann tells me that feller +spends a fortune going on the opera with customers." + +"But I thought Klipmann's partner was called Milton Strauss," Morris +said. + +"Maybe it was Milton Strauss," Abe continued. "Milton _oder_ Richard, I +couldn't remember. It was one of them up-to-date names anyhow; and, mind +you, Mawruss, that feller Rabiner has got the nerve to ask me if I +didn't like Strauss. What could I say? If that cut-throat Rabiner thinks +he is going to get me to knock a competitor in front of Geigermann he's +mistaken. 'Sure I like him,' I says; 'why not?' 'In that case,' Moe +says, 'we'll play some more of this.' 'Go as far as you like,' I says, +and they kept it up till the elevator boy rings the bell and says a lady +on the top floor is sick. I don't blame her, Mawruss; I was pretty sick +myself." + +Morris nodded sympathetically. + +"So, then, Mawruss," Abe continued, "Geigermann takes the fiddle again +and shows it to us, Mawruss; and he says on the back is a ruby varnish." + +"Rubies is pretty high now, Abe," Morris said; "carat for carat, rubies +is a whole lot more expensive as diamonds." + +"_Gewiss_, Mawruss," Abe cried; "but I seen the back of the fiddle, +Mawruss, and if the varnish on it was made from rubies, Mawruss, I would +eat it. The fiddle was an ordinary fiddle like any other fiddle; only +one thing I see, Mawruss--on the inside is a little piece from paper, +y'understand, and printed on it is the name from some Italiener or +another, with some figures on it. Geigermann says it was stuck in there +three hundred years ago, when the fiddle was made. And you ought to see +Moe Rabiner, Mawruss. He looks at that fiddle for pretty near half an +hour. He turns it upside down and he blows into it and he takes his +finger and wets it and rubs on it, and he smells it, and _Gott weiss_ +what he don't do with it." + +"He's a dangerous feller, Abe," Morris commented. "He don't never stop +at nothing to sell goods." + +"Well, I wasn't much behind him, Mawruss," Abe said. "When he smells it, +I smell it. He wets his finger, I wet my finger. Everything what that +sucker does to that fiddle, I did. He couldn't get nothing on me. +Mawruss. If he would offer to eat the fiddle, y'understand, I would got +just so good appetite as he got it, Mawruss, and don't you forget it. I +ain't going to let go so easy." + +"Might you couldn't help yourself maybe," Morris commented. + +"You shouldn't worry, Mawruss," Abe concluded. "I sold Felix Geigermann +since way before the Spanish War already, and I would sooner expect my +own brother--supposing I got one--to turn us down as him." + +Despite Abe's optimism, however, the order for spring goods that Felix +Geigermann bestowed on them a month later fell short of their +expectations by over five hundred dollars. + +"Business couldn't be so good with Felix this year, Mawruss," Abe +commented. + +"Don't you jolly yourself, Abe," Morris replied. "It ain't so much that +business is bad with Felix as it is better with Klinger & Klein. Them +two cut-throats ain't paying Rabiner good money for only playing the +pianner. He's got to sell goods too." + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said. "Let him go ahead and _spiel_ +pianner till he's blue in the face. Sooner or later Geigermann would +find out what stickers them Klinger & Klein garments is, and then Moe +Rabiner couldn't sell him no more of them goods, not if he would be a +whole orchestra already." + + * * * * * + +The personality of Aaron Shellak was simply thrown away on the garment +trade. His lean, scholarly face, surmounted by a shock of wavy brown +hair, would have assured his success as a virtuoso, and no one knew this +better than his brother, Professor Ladislaw Wcelak, under whose tuition +he had struggled through the intricacies of the first and second +positions. + +"If you would only forget you ain't got a pair of shears in your right +hand, Aaron," the professor said, "and listen to what I am telling you, +in two years' time you are making more money than all the garment +cutters together. All you got to do is to play just halfway good." + +"I suppose you're a millionaire, ain't it?" Aaron rejoined. "And you can +play fiddle like a streak." The professor heaved a great sigh as he +passed his hand over his bald head. + +"With your hair, Aaron," he said, "I could make fifty thousand a year on +concert towers alone, to say nothing of two recitals up on Fifty-seventh +Street. But if a feller only got one arm, Aaron, he would better got a +show to be a fiddle virtuoso as if he would be bald.". + +Thus encouraged Aaron persevered with his practice for some months; but, +despite the patient instruction of his brother Louis the garment +cutter's wrist still handicapped him. + +"That's a legato phrase," Louis Shellak cried impatiently, one night in +mid-February. "With one bow you got to play it." + +"Which phrase are you talking about," Aaron asked--"the one that goes +'Ta-ra-reera, ta-ra-reera'?" + +He sang the two measures in a clear tenor voice, whereat Louis snatched +the violin from his brother's grasp and, seating himself at the piano, +he struck the major triad of C natural with force sufficient to wreck +the instrument. + +"Sing 'Ah'!" he commanded. + +Aaron attacked the high C like a veteran and Professor Ladislaw Wcelak +leaped from the piano stool with an inarticulate cry. Immediately +thereafter he secured a strangle-hold on his brother and kissed him +Budapest fashion on both cheeks. + +"To-morrow night already you will commence lessons with the best teacher +money could buy," he declared. + +"Whose money?" Aaron Shellak inquired, as he wiped away the marks of his +brother's affection--"yours or mine?" + +"Me--I ain't got no money," Louis admitted. + +"Me neither," Aaron said. He was the sole support of his mother and +sisters, for Louis, as _chef d'orchestre_ in a Second Avenue restaurant, +constantly anticipated his salary over _stuss_ or _tarrok_ in the rear +of his employer's café. + +"How much would it take?" he asked Louis after a silence of several +minutes. + +Louis shrugged. + +"Who knows?" he replied. "Fifty dollars _oder_ a hundred, perhaps." + +Aaron nodded; and the next day, when he entered Potash & Perlmutter's +place of business, he carried with him his violin and bow in a black +leather case. Thus it happened that the strains of Godard's _Berceuse_ +saluted Abe as he stepped from the elevator that morning; and without +removing his coat he made straight for the cutting room. + +"_Koosh!_" he bellowed. "What are we running here, anyhow, Shellak--a +cloak-and-suit house _oder_ a theayter?" + +Aaron hastily replaced the instrument in its case. + +"I am only showing it to Nathan," he mumbled by way of explanation. +"Might he would like to buy it maybe." + +"If you want to sell fiddles, Shellak," Abe said, "do it outside +business hours. That's all I got to say." + +He proceeded at once to the showroom, where Morris was peeling off his +overcoat. The latter greeted Abe with a sour nod. "I am sick and tired +of it, Abe," he declared. "Everybody is stealing our business." + +"What d'ye mean, everybody's stealing our business?" Abe asked. + +"Last night I am sitting in the Harlem Winter Garden with Felix +Geigermann, and Leon Sammet butts in on us and tells Geigermann he's got +a cousin which he could play shello, and Geigermann says that he should +come around to the house next Tuesday and play it with him and Rabiner." + +Abe shrugged his shoulders. + +"My _tzuris_ if he does, Mawruss," he said; "because while I don't know +nothing about this here game, y'understand, a good way to lose a +customer is to play cards with him." + +"What are you talking nonsense, Abe?" Morris cried. "Shello ain't cards. +A shello is a fiddle which you play it with your knees." + +"For my part he could play it with his nose, Mawruss," Abe declared +hotly. "Do you mean to told me, Mawruss, that a business man like +Geigermann is going to buy a line of goods like Sammet Brothers got it +just because Leon Sammet's cousin plays a fiddle with his knees?" + +"Yow! His cousin?" Morris exclaimed. "He's as much got a cousin which he +plays the shello as I got one. He's going to give some greenhorn a +couple of dollars to go with him to Geigermann's house and play the +fiddle; and the first thing you know, Abe, Geigermann is buying from him +a big bill of goods and all the time our orders gets smaller and smaller +till we lose his trade altogether." + +Abe laughed mirthlessly and bit the end off his after-breakfast cigar. + +"If I would worry myself the way you do, Mawruss, every time a +competitor says 'Hello' to a customer of ours," he said as he turned +away, "I would gone crazy in the head _schon_ long since ago already." + +Nevertheless he pondered Leon Sammet's move all the morning, and after +Morris had gone to lunch he paced the showroom floor for more than a +quarter of an hour in an effort to formulate some plan for regaining +Geigermann's business. His reflections were at length interrupted by a +faint scraping from the rear of the store. Once more Aaron Shellak was +entertaining the cutting-room staff with a pianissimo rendition of +Godard's _Berceuse_; but even as Abe tiptoed across the showroom to +crush the performance with an explosive "_Koosh!_" the melody ceased. + +"That's a genu-ine Amati," Aaron said, "and you could see for +yourself--inside here is the label." + +Abe stopped short. The word "Amati" brought back to him the scene of +Felix Geigermann's musicale, and his heart thumped unpleasantly as he +listened to Aaron's exhibition of salesmanship. + +"Moreover," Aaron continued, "here is the scroll which it is ever so +much finer as them other fiddles you could buy for fifty _oder_ sixty +dollars. Look at the varnish on the back, Nathan--shines like rubies, +ain't it?" + +"What would I do with a fiddle, Aaron?" Nathan Schenkman, the shipping +clerk, asked. + +"You I ain't saying at all," Aaron said; "but you got a little boy +Nathan." + +"He ain't a year old yet," Nathan interrupted. + +"Sure, I know," Shellak went on; "but now is the time, Nathan. You +couldn't begin too early. Look at Kubelik and Kreisler and all them +fellers. When they was eating from a bottle already the old man give 'em +a fiddle to play with, and to-day where are they? In one concert tower +alone, Nathan, them fellers makes from fifty to a hundred thousand +dollars." + +He paused so that Nathan might better apprehend the alluring prospect. + +"And I'll let you have it for a hundred and fifty dollars, Nathan," he +concluded. "Ten dollars down and two dollars a week till paid. No +interest nor nothing." + +At this juncture Abe burst into the cutting room. + +"_Nu_, Shellak!" he roared. "What are you trying to do? Skin a poor +feller like Nathan, which he got a wife and a child to support?" + +"What d'ye mean, skin him?" Aaron retorted. "I ain't no crook, Mr. +Potash." + +"That's all right, Shellak," Abe went on. "I heard every word you are +saying. Come inside; I want to talk to you." + +Aaron's face blanched and he trembled visibly. + +"But, Mr. Potash----" he began. + +"Never mind!" Abe bellowed; "take that fiddle and all that _machshovos_ +you got there and come in here." + +Abe led the way to the front of the showroom, followed by the +crestfallen Shellak, who deposited fiddle, bow, and case on a sample +table. + +"Say, lookyhere, Shellak," Abe said in kindly tones, "what the devil are +you trying to sell a _Schnorrer_ like that a good fiddle? Why don't you +give me a show?" + +The blood surged suddenly to Aaron's face. + +"You!" he stammered. "Why, Mr. Potash, I never knew you was interested +in violins." + +"Sure; why not?" Abe replied. "Let me have a look at it." + +First he squinted into the right "eff" hole and he grunted in approval +as he spied the label, which read as follows: + + NICOLAUS AMATI CREMONENSIS + Faciebat Anno 1670 + +"Do you know anything about them old violins?" Aaron asked anxiously. + +Abe smiled in a superior way. + +"Not a whole lot, Aaron," he said, but by the time he had finished his +examination Aaron became convinced that his employer was indeed one of +the _cognoscenti_. First Abe turned the violin upside down and +scrutinized the scroll, neck, belly, and back. Then he blew into the +"eff" holes; and wetting his finger he rubbed the varnish. For five +minutes he pursued the tactics of Mozart Rabiner and even added one or +two fancy touches on his own account, until at length he laid down the +instrument with a profound sigh. + +"Always the same thing, Shellak," he said; "people says it is a genu-ine +and it ain't." + +Aaron took up his violin and looked at it through new eyes. + +"Why ain't it genu-ine?" he asked. + +"I should tell you why it ain't!" Abe exclaimed. "If you would know what +I know about them things, Shellak, you wouldn't ask me such a question +at all. Do you doubt my word?" + +"Why should I doubt your word, Mr. Potash?" Aaron said. "In the inside +is the paper and that's all I know about it. So, if you would give me a +hundred and fifty dollars, Mr. Potash, you could keep the fiddle, bow, +case _und fertig_." + +For some minutes they haggled over the bargain, and at length they +closed at a hundred and twenty-five dollars, for which Abe gave Shellak +his personal check. + +[Illustration: "Do you know anything about them old violins?"] + +"And you shouldn't say nothing to Mr. Perlmutter about it," Abe +concluded, "because I want to make a present of it as a surprise to my +partner." + + * * * * * + +When Abe came downtown the following morning he wore so marked an air of +pleased mystery that Morris became irritated. + +"Let me in on this too, Abe," he said. + +"Let you in on what, Mawruss?" Abe asked innocently. "I don't know what +you mean at all." + +"You know very well what I mean," Morris rejoined. "You ain't coming +around here grinning like a barn door for nothing." + +"I give you right about that, Mawruss," Abe said. "I got in a good +_Schlag_ at Leon Sammet and Moe Rabiner last night, Mawruss, I bet yer. +I got from Geigermann a repeat order on them two-piece velvet +suits--seven hundred and fifty dollars; and do you know how I done it?" + +"Chloroformed him," Morris suggested ironically. + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Go ahead and joke if you +want to. Maybe I couldn't play the fiddle with my knees and maybe I +don't know nothing about _spieling_ pianners neither, y'understand; but +I got a little gumption, too, Mawruss, and don't you forget it." + +He retired to the cutting room with a set expression on his face, as +though to imply that wild horses could not drag from him the secret of +Felix Geigermann's renewed patronage. + +For twenty minutes he remained firm in his resolve not to gratify his +partner's curiosity; and then as Morris continued to whistle cheerfully +over the sample-rack in the front of the loft, he returned to the +showroom. + +"Yes, Mawruss," he said; "some fellers if they would do what I done with +Felix Geigermann they wouldn't give their partner a minute's peace. For +months together, Mawruss, they would throw it up to him." + +"What is the difference, Abe, if a salesman gets orders, how he gets +'em," Morris rejoined, "so long as he ain't padding his expense +account?" + +"What d'ye mean, padding my expense account?" Abe cried. "A hundred and +twenty-five dollars the fiddle costed me and that's all I charge up." + +"The fiddle!" Morris exclaimed. "What fiddle?" + +"The fiddle which I give Geigermann last night," Abe continued; "and if +you don't believe me you could ask Shellak." + +"Shellak?" Morris repeated. "What the devil are you talking about, Abe?" + +"Yes, Shellak," Abe went on, "the cutter. He comes round here yesterday +with a fiddle, Mawruss, which he wants to sell it to Nathan Schenkman. +So I give him a hundred and twenty-five dollars for it _und fertig_." + +"You give Shellak a hundred and twenty-five dollars?" Morris exploded. +"Are you crazy, _oder_ what?" + +"It was a genu-ine Amati," Abe explained; "and so soon as I seen it, +Mawruss, I thought to myself if them cut-throats could sell Geigermann a +big bill of goods just by playing on fiddles, y'understand, what sort of +an order could I get out of him supposing I should give him a fiddle +yet? So that's what I done, Mawruss; and he did, Mawruss, and I was +right. Ain't it?" + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris began slowly; "let me get this thing +correct. You are paying Shellak a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a +fiddle which you are giving Geigermann." + +"You got it right, Mawruss," Abe said. "It was a genu-ine Amati." + +"For a hundred and twenty-five dollars expenses you are getting an order +for seven hundred and fifty dollars, Abe," Morris said relentlessly; +"and some fellers would throw it up to their partners for months +together yet." + +"It was a genu-ine Amati, Mawruss," Abe repeated for the third time, +"and for a genu-ine Amati, Mawruss, a hundred and twenty-five dollars is +no price at all." + +"Sure, I know, Abe," Morris said bitterly; "to you a hundred and +twenty-five dollars is nothing at all. We are made of money, Abe, ain't +it? What do you care you are spending a hundred and twenty-five dollars +for a fiddle when for seventy-five dollars on Lenox Avenue and a Hundred +and Sixteenth Street, with my own eyes I seen it, you could buy a square +pianner with a stool and scarf yet, as good as new. If you want to +_schenk_ the feller something, why didn't you told me? What for a +present is a fiddle, Abe, when for half the money we could give him a +pianner yet?" + +Abe hung his head in embarrassment. + +"But Mawruss," he said, "it was a genu-ine Amati." + +For one brief moment Morris choked with rage. + +"Genu-ine hell!" he roared, and plunged away to the office. + +For the remainder of the morning Abe went about his work in crestfallen +silence, although Morris, after subjecting Geigermann's order to a +little cost bookkeeping on the back of an envelope broke once more into +a cheerful whistle. + +"Well, Abe," he said at twelve o'clock, "what is _vorbei_ is _vorbei_. +It ain't no use crying over sour milk, so I am going out to lunch." + +"What d'ye mean, sour milk, Mawruss?" Abe retorted. "The sour milk is +all on your side, Mawruss, because I am telling you it was a genu-ine +Amati." + +"All right, Abe," Morris said, as he rang for the elevator; "you told me +that _schon_ twenty times already. I wouldn't give you two dollars for +all them genu-ine fellers' fiddles in creation; and that's all there is +to it." + +With this ultimatum he stepped into the elevator and five minutes +afterward he sat at a table in Hammersmith's restaurant and beguiled +with a dill pickle the interval between the giving and filling of his +order. At the table next to him sat an animated group, of which Louis +Kleiman was the centre. + +"Yes, sirree, sir!" Louis declared, in defiance of the law of scandal +and libel; "six months I would give the feller at the outside. A feller +couldn't attend to business if he would set up till all hours of the +night playing fiddle with that lowlife, Rabiner. That ain't all yet, +neither! Yesterday he pays for a fiddle three thousand dollars." + +"For a fiddle three thousand dollars!" cried one of the group, and the +good half of a dill pickle fell from Morris's limp grasp. + +"That's what I said," Louis continued; "for three thousand dollars yet +he is buying a fiddle. With my own eyes I seen it in the paper this +morning; and when a feller puts three thousand dollars into a fiddle, +y'understand, he could kiss himself good-by with his business." + +At this juncture Morris beckoned to the waiter. + +"Say," he said hoarsely, "never mind that roast spring lamb and stuffed +tomatoes. Bring me instead a rye-bread tongue sandwich and a cup +coffee." + +After the waiter had gone Morris settled back in his chair and listened +once more to the conversation at the next table. + +"All right; then I'm a liar," he heard Louis say. "I tell you I got the +paper in my overcoat pocket right now." + +Louis rose from his seat and securing the morning paper from his +overcoat he read aloud the following item: + + PAYS HEAVILY FOR AMATI VIOLIN + + Mrs. Helene Karanyi, widow of the celebrated violinist, Bela + Karanyi, has sold her husband's favourite Amati at a price said to + be over three thousand dollars. The purchaser is Felix Geigermann, + who said yesterday that the violin had been in his possession for + some time, and that there was no doubt of its authenticity. It was + presented to Karanyi by the late Prince Ludovic Esterhazy, whose + collection of Cremona violins, now preserved by his son, is said to + be the finest in the world. Mr. Geigermann is the well-known Harlem + dry-goods merchant. + +Louis Kleiman folded the paper and laid it on the table. + +"That's the way it goes, boys," he said in heightened tones, for by this +time he had caught sight of Morris. "A new beginner comes to you and you +give him a little line of credit, y'understand, and pretty soon he is +buying more and more goods till he gets to be a big _macher_ like Felix +Geigermann. Then either one of two things happens to you: Either he +begins to think you are too small for him and he turns around and buys +goods from some other sucker, y'understand, _oder_ he goes to work and +throws away his money left and right on oitermobiles _oder_ fiddles, and +sooner or later he busts up on you; and that's the way it goes." + +"You shouldn't worry yourself, Kleiman," Morris cried, turning around in +his chair. "Felix Geigermann ain't going to fail just yet a while." + +"Me worry?" Kleiman retorted. "For my part, Felix Geigermann could fail +to-morrow yet; he don't owe me one cent, nor never would. I ain't +looking to sell no goods to fiddlers, Perlmutter. I am dealing only with +merchants." + +"Furthermore," Morris went on, "if Felix Geigermann hears it you are +making a break like this--that he's going to fail yet, and all sorts of +crooks you are calling him, Kleiman--he would sue you in the courts for +a hundred thousand dollars yet. From a big mouth a feller could get +himself into a whole lot of trouble." + +Kleiman scrambled hastily to his feet and seized his hat. + +"What are you talking nonsense, Perlmutter?" he exclaimed. "I ain't said +nothing out of the way about Geigermann. You are the one what's putting +the words into my mouth already. Did you ever hear anything like it!--I +am saying Geigermann is going to fail? An idee! I never said nothing of +the kind. All I am saying is what is right here in the paper, black on +white; and if you don't believe me you could read it for yourself." + +He handed the paper to Morris; and, as the latter commenced to read over +the Geigermann paragraph, Kleiman and his friends slunk hurriedly out of +the restaurant. For nearly half an hour Morris pored over the newspaper; +then he choked down the sandwich and swallowed the coffee, which by this +time was cold. + + * * * * * + +"Admitting I am only your partner, Mawruss," Abe began as Morris entered +the showroom a few minutes later, "don't I got to eat too? And in the +second place, Mawruss, if you got to make a hog of yourself, do it at +dinner-time at home, because when a feller takes up a whole hour having +his lunch, Mawruss, he naturally stuffs himself so full that he ain't no +good for the rest of the day." + +A lump in Morris's throat, which may or may not have been the tongue +sandwich, prevented him from replying; but at last he swallowed it and, +after removing his hat and coat, he carefully unfolded the paper. + +"Don't hurry out to lunch, Abe," he said. "I could save you money. I got +something to tell you which it would take away your appetite so you +wouldn't want even a cup coffee." + +Abe paused with his hand on the hatrack. + +"What d'ye mean?" he demanded. + +"I mean I am eating only a tongue sandwich and a cup coffee in +Hammersmith's just now," Morris went on, "and who should I see at the +next table but Louis Kleiman of Kleiman & Elenbogen. That's a dirty +lowlife, that feller, Abe! A cut-throat like him should be making money +in business! Honestly, Abe, when I see decent, respectable fellers like +----" + +"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe said, "let me go to my lunch, will you? +I'm hungry." + +"Hungry, _sagt er_!" Morris retorted. "A feller makes a god of his +stomach, y'understand, and his business is nothing at all. For all you +care, Abe, our whole trade could fail on us, so long as you could eat. +Everybody says the same thing; the feller's ----" + +"Do me the favour, Mawruss," Abe begged; "tell me about it afterward. +All I am eating for my breakfast is one egg, so sure as you're standing +there." + +"All right, Abe; I wouldn't keep you no longer," Morris said. "If you +could got it in your heart to eat, when one of your best customers is +busting up on you, go ahead." + +"Our best customer?" Abe cried--"Mandelberger Brothers & Company?" + +"_Geh weg_, you fool!" Morris exclaimed angrily. "Why should a +millionaire concern like Mandelberger Brothers & Company got to fail? +You talk like a lunatic." + +Once more Abe seized his hat. + +"I got enough of your nonsense, Mawruss," he said, starting for the +elevator. + +"Wait!" Morris cried, grabbing him by the arm. "Did you ship any goods +to Felix Geigermann yet?" + +"Felix Geigermann?" Abe repeated. "Is that the feller?" + +Morris nodded, and this time Abe hung up his hat and sat down heavily in +the nearest chair. + +"Who says he's going to fail?" he asked. + +"Everybody says so," Morris replied; "even in the papers they got it." + +He handed Kleiman's paper to Abe and indicated the paragraph with a +shaking forefinger. + +"Where does it say he is going to fail?" Abe asked after he had read it +over hastily. + +"Where does it say it?" Morris cried. "Why, if a feller goes to work and +pays three thousand dollars for a fiddle, Abe, while he only got a +business rated twenty-five to thirty thousand, credit fair, ain't it as +plain as the nose on your face he must got to fail?" + +Once more Abe read over the paragraph and then the paper fell from his +hands to the floor. + +"Why, Mawruss," he gasped, "it says here he is paying three thousand +dollars for an Amati which he had in his possession for some time. That +must be the very fiddle which he is playing on with Moe Rabiner." + +"My _tzuris_ if it is _oder_ it ain't," Morris commented. "What +difference does that make to us, Abe?" + +Abe's face was white and large beads of perspiration stood out on his +forehead as he replied. + +"The difference ain't much, Mawruss," he said slowly. "Only if Felix +Geigermann pays three thousand for the fiddle which he already got it +and we are giving him for nothing another fiddle, which is the selfsame, +identical article, Mawruss, then we are out three thousand dollars--and +that's all the difference it makes to us!" + +For two minutes Morris regarded his partner with a glassy stare. + +"Do you mean to told me, Abe, that that there fiddle which you bought it +from Shellak is the same identical article like Geigermann pays three +thousand dollars for?" + +Abe nodded. + +"You couldn't tell the difference between 'em, Mawruss," he declared. +"Even inside the label is the same--the same name and everything." + +Morris took off his hat and coat methodically and hung them up on the +rack. + +"So, Abe," he commenced, "you are giving to a _Schnorrer_ like +Geigermann a genu-ine who's-this violin, which it is worth three +thousand dollars!" + +"How should I know it is worth three thousand?" Abe said. + +"Everybody knows that one of them genu-ine feller's violins is worth +three thousand dollars," Morris thundered. "I'm surprised to hear you, +you should talk that way." + +"Shellak didn't know it for one," Abe interrupted, "otherwise why should +he sell to us for a hundred and twenty-five dollars a fiddle worth three +thousand dollars?" + +"What should a greenhorn like Shellak know about such things?" Morris +said. + +"Don't you fool yourself, Mawruss. If Shellak finds out he is getting a +hundred and twenty-five for a fiddle worth three thousand, he's got +gumption enough to sue us in the courts yet, and don't you forget it." + +"Why should he sue us, Abe?" Morris asked. "A bargain is a bargain, +ain't it?" + +"Sure I know, Mawruss; but I told the feller the fiddle wasn't genu-ine, +y'understand, when all the time I knew it was genu-ine." + +"Might you are mistaken maybe, Abe," Morris broke in. "Might the fiddle +ain't genu-ine." + +"What d'ye mean, ain't genu-ine? I am telling you the label was inside +and even the lot number is the same." + +"The lot number?" + +"Sure, the lot number. Sixteen-seventy, I think it was; and the only +thing for us to do, Mawruss, is we should fix up some scheme to get that +fiddle back from Geigermann; and that's all there is to it." + +"Well, go ahead, Abe," Morris said. "Go ahead and see him this +afternoon." + +For the third time Abe put on his hat. + +"First and foremost I would go out and get a bite to eat, Mawruss," he +said. "What good would it do me to get the fiddle back if I would die +from starvation first?" + + * * * * * + +Although the manufacturers of mechanical piano-players had never +solicited Felix Geigermann's photograph for half-tone reproductions in +the advertising section of anybody's magazine, he dressed as though he +expected the immediate arrival of the man with the camera--that is to +say, he wore his hair after Mahler, while Hollman and Moritz Rosenthal +contributed to the pattern of his moustache. Moreover, he assumed a +Paderewski tuft, a rolling collar that exposed the points of his right +and left clavicles, a Windsor tie, and, to preserve the unity of his +characterization, a slight nondescript foreign accent, despite the +circumstance that he was born in Newark, N. J. All this, however, was +not an idle pose on Felix's part. He merely applied to a dry-goods store +the business principles of the successful virtuoso, and he had found +them so efficacious that personally he sold more garments than any six +of his clerks. He was no less astute in the buying end of the business; +for in pitting Sammet Brothers, Klinger & Klein, and Potash & Perlmutter +against one another he not only secured better terms of credit, but he +found that it materially added to the quality of their garments. + +Thus, had Abe but known it, his seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar order +proceeded not from the gift of the violin, but from the circumstance +that the velvet suits had sold like hot cakes; and when he entered the +Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street store that afternoon Felix greeted him +effusively. He wanted that second order badly, and if cordiality could +accelerate its shipment he was willing to try it with Abe. + +"Ah, _mon ami_," he cried. "Come inside my office. What good wind blows +you here?" + +Abe scowled. All this enthusiasm betokened but one thing--the violin was +a genuine Amati, after all. He sat down slowly and bit the end off a +large cigar. + +"The fact is, Felix," he began, "for myself I don't care, y'understand, +but you know Mawruss Perlmutter, what a crank that feller is, Felix; and +so I am coming up here to ask you something for a question." + +"Fire away, Abe; you couldn't feaze me none," Felix replied in the +accents of Newark, N. J. + +"Well, Felix, it's like this," Abe went on: "If we would be selling +goods to J. B. Morgan, y'understand, and Mawruss here he is buying for +eight dollars a fur overcoat--understand me--he right away would want +another statement." + +Felix nodded. "Nowadays you can't be too cautious," he agreed. + +"So, this morning, in the paper," Abe continued, "Mawruss reads you are +buying for three thousand dollars a fiddle and----" + +"But, Abe," Felix interrupted, "it was a genuine Amati." + +"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but yesterday I myself am bringing you a +genu-ine Amati and I didn't pay no such figure for it." + +Felix looked carefully at Abe's stolid face for some gleam of humour; +and then he broke into a fit of laughter so violent that Abe suspected +it to be a trifle forced. + +"All right, Felix," he grumbled; "maybe you think it is a joke, but just +the same I am telling you I paid for that fiddle only two hundred +dollars." + +Felix stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. + +"Well, I'm sorry, Abe," he said seriously. "A feller should never look a +gift horse in the teeth, Abe; but that fiddle ain't worth a cent more +than a hundred at the outside." + +"Do you mean to say it ain't a genu-ine Amati?" Abe asked angrily. + +"Why, I don't mean to say anything, Abe," Felix began; "but there are +Amatis and Amatis. Some of them are worth little fortunes and others are +very ordinary-like." + +"Say, lookyhere, Felix," Abe cried, "don't fool with me. Either that +fiddle is or it ain't a genu-ine Amati. Ain't it?" + +Felix paused. He wanted those velvet suits badly, and it began to look +as though there would be a delay in the shipment. + +"What is all this leading to, Abe?" he began pleasantly. "If there's +anything troubling you speak right up and I'll try to straighten it +out." + +Abe shifted his cigar in his mouth and made the plunge. + +"What is the use beating bushes around, Felix?" he said. "Yesterday I am +giving you a fiddle, ain't it? Inside it says the fiddle is a genu-ine +Amati. What? _Schon gut_ if that fiddle is a genu-ine Amati it is worth +three thousand dollars, ain't it? Because if it ain't, then you are +stuck with the other fiddle which you bought it. And if it is worth +three thousand, then we are stuck by giving you the fiddle, ain't it? So +that's the way it goes." + +Felix nodded. It was a delicate situation, in which his credit and the +shipment of the suits seemed to be imperilled. To declare flatly that +Abe's gift was a bogus Amati might offend him seriously, while to admit +that it was genuine, but only worth one hundred dollars, was to foster +Abe's notion that he, Felix, had wasted three thousand dollars on a +similar violin. + +"I want to tell you something, Abe," he began at last. "There's nothing +to this business of selling goods by making presents, and I for one +don't believe in it. So I'll tell you what I'll do. Come up here to the +store to-morrow morning, and I'll get the fiddle from my house and give +it back to you." + +Abe's scowl merged immediately into a wide grin. + +"I don't want the fiddle back, Felix," he said, "but my partner, +y'understand, he is the one which is always----" + +"Say no more, Abe," Felix cried. "All I want is you should ship that +order; and tell your partner, if he is scared I am spending my money +foolishly, he can have a new statement whenever he wants it; and I'll +swear to it on a truckload of Bibles." + +When Abe returned to his place of business that afternoon he expected to +find Morris pacing up and down the showroom floor, the picture of +distracted anxiety. Instead he was humming a cheerful melody as he piled +up two-piece velvet suits. + +"Well, Abe," he said, "you have went on a fool's errand, ain't it?" + +"What d'ye mean, fool's errand?" Abe demanded. + +"Why, I mean I knew all along that fiddle of yours was a fake; and +anyhow, Abe, I seen Milton Strauss, of Klipmann, Strauss & Bleimer, and +what d'ye suppose he told it me, Abe?" + +Abe shrugged angrily. + +"If you must got to get it off your chest before I tell you what +Geigermann told to me, Mawruss," he said, "go ahead." + +"Well, I seen Milton Strauss, Abe," Morris went on calmly, "and he says +to me that he knows for a positive fact that Felix Geigermann could have +sold that fiddle of his for three thousand five hundred dollars before +he even pays for it yet. Strauss says that Felix is all the time buying +up old fiddles for a side line, and if he makes a cent at it he makes a +couple thousand dollars a year. Furthermore, Abe, he says that if +anybody's got a genu-ine who's-this fiddle, he wouldn't let it go for no +hundred and twenty-five dollars, and the chances is you are paying a +fancy figure for a cheap popular-price line of fiddles." + +Abe hung up his hat so violently that he nearly knocked a hole in the +crown. + +"In the first place, Mawruss," he began, "it was your idee I should go +up there and get the fiddle back, and in the second place I am telling +you with my own eyes I seen that fiddle and it is the selfsame, +identical article--name, lot number and everything--which that feller +Geigermann refuses thirty-five hundred dollars for." + +He scowled at his partner in anticipation of a cutting rejoinder. + +"But anyhow, that ain't neither here nor there," he continued as Morris +remained silent. "We would quick find out for ourselves what the fiddle +really is, because to-morrow morning I am going around to the store and +Geigermann gives me the fiddle back." + +Morris paused in the folding of a velvet skirt. + +"I wouldn't do that, Abe, if I was you," he said. "What is the use +giving presents and taking 'em back again? You could make from a feller +an enemy for life that way." + +"Sure, I know Mawruss. An enemy for life is one thing, Mawruss, but +thirty-five hundred dollars ain't to be sniffed at neither, +y'understand." + +"_Schmooes_, Abe!" Morris cried. "The fiddle ain't worth even +thirty-five hundred pins." + +Following this observation there ensued a controversy of over an hour's +duration, at the end of which Morris compromised. + +"Say, listen here to me, Abe!" he declared. "You say the fiddle is worth +it and I say it ain't. Now if I am right and we take the fiddle back, +then we are acting like a couple of cheap yokels, ain't it? _Aber_ if +you are right, Abe, then we are out thirty-five hundred dollars. So +what's the use talking, Abe? Only one thing we got to do. We got to find +a feller which he could right away tell whether the fiddle is _oder_ not +is genu-ine--just by looking at it, y'understand. This feller we got to +send up to Geigermann's house to look at the fiddle to-night yet, and if +he says the fiddle is, Abe, then we would take it back. _Aber_ if he +says the fiddle ain't, Abe, then, Geigermann could keep the fiddle _und +fertig_." + +Abe nodded slowly. + +"The idee is all right, Mawruss," he said; "but in the first place, +Mawruss, where could we find such a feller, and in the second place, if +we did found him, Mawruss, what excuse would we give Geigermann for +sending him up there in the third place?" + +Morris scratched his head. + +"Well, for that matter, Abe, if we found such a feller, we could send +him up there to say that he hears from you that you are giving away such +a Who's-this fiddle to Geigermann, and that the feller would like to buy +it off of him." + +"And then, Mawruss?" Abe asked. + +"And then," Morris went on, "Geigermann shows the feller the fiddle, +y'understand, and if it is worth it _oder_ it isn't worth it the feller +says nothing to Geigermann, but he comes back and reports to us." + +Abe nodded again. + +"If I was to tell you all the weak points of that scheme, Mawruss," he +said, "I could stand here talking till my tongue dropped out yet. But +all I got to say is, Mawruss, the idee is yours, and you should go ahead +and carry it out. Me, I got nothing to say about it either one way or +the other." + + * * * * * + +At seven that evening, while Professor Ladislaw Wcelak was washing down +a late breakfast with a bottle of beer, there came a violent knocking at +the hall door. The professor answered it in person, for Aaron was busily +engaged over Concone's vocalizations in the front parlour and the other +members of the family were washing dishes in the rear. + +"_Nu, Landsmann!_" Ladislaw cried. "Ain't you working to-night?" + +The newcomer was none other than Emil Pilz, _Konzertmeister_ of the +Palace Theatre of Varieties, if that dignified term may be applied to +the first violin of an orchestra of twenty. + +"I am and I ain't," Emil replied. "I've got a job, Louis, which it would +take me till nine o'clock, so be a good feller and substitute for me at +the theayters till I am coming back." + +"And who would substitute for me, Emil?" the professor asked. + +"That's all right," Emil replied. "I stopped in on my way over and I +seen old man Hubai. He ain't _shikker_ yet, so I told him he should go +over and fiddle a couple _czardas_ till you come, and to tell the boss +you got a _Magenweh_ and would be a little late. Me, I am going uptown +to look at a fiddle. I got the job through an old pupil, Milton Strauss, +which he says a feller by the name Potash gives away a fiddle which he +bought, and now he thinks it's a genuine Amati. So I should please go up +and look at it; and if it is _oder_ it isn't, I get ten dollars." + +"Who's this feller Potash?" the professor asked, and Emil shrugged. + +"What difference does that make?" he said. "He gives a hundred and +twenty-five dollars for the fiddle only a couple days ago. What d'ye +want to know for?" + +"Oh, nothing," the professor replied; "only my brother Aaron sold to a +feller by the name Potash the other day a fiddle which I myself bought +from old Hubai a couple years ago for fifteen dollars yet; and if that's +the one you are talking about, Emil, you should quick go up to the +theayter and forget about it. Because, Emil, if that fiddle is an Amati, +you are a Kubelik and I am a Kreisler." + +"Sure, I know, Louis," Emil agreed; "but just the same I got to go up +there to make the ten, so if you would do me the favour and _spiel_ for +me till half-past nine you could get anyhow three dollars of it." + +"I am willing," the professor said; and ten minutes later he was on his +way up to the Palace Theatre of Varieties. + +It was precisely half-past nine, while a tabloid drama in progress on +the stage rendered the presence of the orchestra unnecessary, that Emil +Pilz returned. + +"_Nu_ Emil," Louis said as they stood in the corridor leading to the +stage entrance, "did you seen the Amati?" + +He grinned in humorous anticipation of Emil's answer. + +"Yes, I did seen it," Emil replied, "and it's a very elegant, grand +model." + +"Sure," the professor said; "made in Bavaria with an ax." + +"Don't you fool yourself, Louis," Emil retorted. "That's an elegant +instrument from Nicolo Amati's best period. If it's worth a cent it's +worth three thousand dollars." + +"_Schmooes_, Emil!" Louis cried. "What are you trying to do?--kid me?" + +"What d'ye mean, kid you?" Emil asked. "I should never stir from this +spot, Louis, if that ain't an Amati. It's got a tone like gold, Louis." + +For a brief interval Louis stared at his informant. + +"Do you mean to told me, Emil, that that fiddle is a real, genu-ine +Amati?" + +"Listen here to me, Louis," Emil declared; "if I wouldn't be sure that +it was genu-ine why should I got such a heart that I would act that way +to that feller Potash? When--so sure as you are standing there, +Louis--when I told him it was a genu-ine Amati he pretty near got a fit +already; and as for his partner by the name Perlmutter, he hollered so I +thought he was going to spit blood already." + +Louis licked his dry lips before making any reply. + +"So, then, I am paying fifteen dollars for a fiddle which it is a +genu-ine Amati," he said, "and that brother of mine which he ain't got +no more sense as a lunatic lets it go for a song already." + +"Well, I couldn't stop to talk to you now, Louis," Emil said. "I must +got to get on the job. I am going to be to-morrow morning, ten o'clock, +at this here Potash & Perlmutter's, and if you want to you could meet me +there with old man Hubai." + +"Old man Hubai!" Louis cried. "What's he got to do with it?" + +"He's got a whole lot to do with it, Louis," Emil said. "A feller like +him sells you a three-thousand-dollar violin for fifteen dollars which +he ain't got a penny in the world, y'understand, and I should stand by +and see him get done!" + +Professor Wcelak hung his head and blushed. + +"Also, Louis," Emil concluded, "I just rung him up at the café, and he +says whatever he gets out of it I get half." + + * * * * * + +When Morris Perlmutter arrived at Felix Geigermann's store the next +morning he showed the effects of a restless night and no breakfast; for +he had found it impossible either to eat or sleep until he had his hands +on the violin. + +"Mr. Geigermann went out for a minute, Mr. Potash," a floorwalker +explained; "but he said I should show you right into his office, Mr. +Potash." + +"My name ain't Potash," Morris replied, "that's my partner, which he +couldn't get up here on account he is sick." + +"That's all right," the floorwalker said reassuringly. "Just step this +way." + +He conducted Morris to Geigermann's office. + +"Have a seat, Mr. Perlmutter," he said; but the words fell on deaf ears, +for as soon as he entered the room Morris descried the violin, which +rested on top of Geigermann's desk. He pounced on it immediately, and +turning it over in his hand he examined it with the minutest care. At +length he discerned the label inside the "eff" hole. It was curling away +from the wood and appeared to be ready to drop off, so that it was an +easy matter for Morris to impale it on his scarfpin. By dint of a little +scraping he managed to draw one edge of it through the "eff" hole and +the next moment he was examining the faded printing. Then he turned the +label over and in one corner he discovered an oval mark. Simultaneously +the door opened and Geigermann entered. + +Morris thrust the label into his pocket and turned to Geigermann with an +amiable smile. Moreover, his pallor had given place to a pronounced +flush and he looked nearly five years younger than when he walked into +the store just ten minutes before. + +"Hello, Felix!" he cried, holding out his hand. "How's the boy?" + +"Fine," Felix said. "Where's Abe?" + +"He couldn't get here on account he is sitting up late again last night, +and, of course, Felix, he is sick. But anyhow, Felix, I am glad he ain't +coming." + +"Why so?" Felix asked. + +"Because you never seen such a feller in your life, Felix," Morris went +on. "Always worrying and always kicking. First he gives you a fiddle, +then he wants to take it back again. With me it is different. What do I +care if the fiddle is or it ain't one of them genu-ine Who's This's? +Once you give a thing you give a thing, ain't it? And I don't care what +experts says nor nothing." + +Felix Geigermann blushed. When Emil Pilz had called on him the night +before he had scented the object of the visit and had exhibited not +Abe's gift but the Karanyi Amati. He had no doubt that Pilz communicated +to Potash & Perlmutter the result of his call immediately after its +conclusion, and he felt touched and humbled by Morris's generous +behaviour. + +"Morris," he said, "I did you a big injury. I didn't think you felt that +way about it; so when that expert called on me last night I didn't show +him Abe's fiddle at all--I showed him the other one, the +three-thousand-dollar fiddle." + +Morris's grin became a trifle broader. + +"That don't worry me none, Felix," he declared. "I am glad you should +keep the fiddle if it should be worth ten thousand dollars even. A gift +is a gift, Felix." + +"That's very generous of you, Morris, I must say," Felix replied, "and I +would keep the violin. I would even do more, Morris. I was going to give +Klinger & Klein an order for some of their three-piece broadcloths, but +I changed my mind. I will give it to you instead; and if you would be in +this afternoon, Morris, I will go downtown and pick 'em out." + +Once more Morris wrung his customer's hand. Before proceeding downtown, +he sought the nearest dairy restaurant and made tremendous inroads upon +its stock of eggs and coffee. It was almost ten o'clock before he +reached his place of business, and as he stepped out of the elevator he +was greeted by a roar of voices approximating the effect of a +well-managed mob scene in a capital-and-labour drama. + +Old man Hubai stood in the middle of the showroom; and with clenched +fists waving in the air he appealed to heaven to witness that he was a +poor man and spoke nothing but the Hungarian tongue. Hence he was at the +mercy of such ruffians as Pilz and Wcelak, whose right name he averred +to be Kohn. Following this he swore by his mother that he had paid a +thousand kronen for the violin, and _da capo_ from the exposition of his +poverty. Simultaneously Professor Ladislaw Wcelak dwelt on the economic +aspect of the matter. In stentorian tones he declared Abe's purchase of +the violin to be another example of capital sitting upon the neck of +labour, and he prophesied the rapid approach of the Social Revolution, +with sundry references to bloodsuckers, cut-throats and Philistines. + +Emil Pilz, Aaron, and Abe Potash himself added to the general din in a +three-cornered discussion of the legal points involved. Emil contended +that Aaron could replevin the violin upon the ground of Abe's +misrepresentation at the time of the purchase, and Abe denied it in +Yiddish and English, with emphatic profanity in both languages. + +Into this mêlée Morris hurled himself with a resounding "_Koosh!_" + +"Are you all crazy, _oder_ what?" he demanded. + +"Well," Abe cried, "where is it?" + +Instantly there was a dead silence and all eyes rested on Morris. + +"Where's what?" Morris asked. + +"The Amati!" Emil Pilz cried; and Morris laughed aloud. + +"_Geh weg!_" he said. "You are an expert!" + +Pilz shook his head in a bullying fashion. + +"Never mind if I am an expert _oder_ not," he said. "Where is that Amati +which I seen it myself at Geigermann's house only last night?" + +"It is at Geigermann's house to-day," Morris replied. "Right now it is +there and it would stay there too, young feller, because that fiddle +which you seen it is the one Geigermann paid three thousand dollars for. +You seen the wrong fiddle, that's all." + +This statement seemed to rouse Aaron Shellak to hysterical frenzy. + +"Liar and thief!" he screamed. "Give me my fiddle." + +"One moment, Shellak," Morris said, "before you put on your hat and coat +and go home, which you shouldn't trouble yourself to come back at all. I +want to show you something." + +He explored his waistcoat pocket. + +"Ain't this the label which was in your fiddle?" he asked, handing Aaron +a slip of paper. + +Aaron examined it carefully and nodded. + +"That other crazy Indian over there," Morris continued, pointing to the +professor, "look at this label. Ain't it the same which was in the +fiddle?" + +Ladislaw Wcelak examined the printed slip and he, too, nodded. + +Next, Morris turned to old man Hubai, who stood apart muttering to +himself. + +"Some one ask that old greenhorn if it's the same label that was in the +fiddle. I don't know what he's got to do with this business but he may +know, anyhow." + +Wcelak interpreted Morris's words and showed the label to the old man, +who replied volubly in Hungarian. + +"He says he thinks it is," the professor said, "but he doesn't know for +sure." + +"Well, I know it is the same," Morris retorted, "because I took it out +there myself this morning." + +Here Morris cleared his throat and assumed an air of such dignity, not +to say majesty, that to Abe, it seemed as though he had never rightly +known his partner until that moment. + +"Now look on the other side of that label," Morris cried. + +Once more the label went the rounds and after Emil Pilz had examined it +he put on his hat and made for the elevator. Almost on tiptoe Professor +Ladislaw Wcelak followed him, while Aaron repaired to the cutting room +and packed up his belongings, preparatory to forsaking a career as +cutter for one of music. + +At length only old man Hubai remained. + +"What are you waiting for?" Morris demanded. + +"Me poor man," Hubai said. "Me no got carfare, me no got _Trinkgeld_, me +no got nothing." + +Morris handed him a quarter and he shuffled off toward the backstairs. +Meantime Abe staggered to his feet and passed his hand over his +forehead. + +"Tell me, Mawruss," he said, "what is all this about?" + +"It's just what I says just now, Abe," Morris exploded. "That expert +seen the wrong fiddle. The fiddle you gave Geigermann is no more three +hundred years old than I am." + +"Why ain't it?" Abe asked. + +For answer Morris handed him the label. On the obverse side Abe read the +inscription: + + Nicolaus Amati Cremonensis Faciebai Anno 1670. + +"Now turn it over," Morris said; and Abe described on the reverse side a +familiar oval mark bearing the following inscription: + + Allied Printers Trades Council, Union Label, New York City. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +BROTHERS ALL + + +"What is the use talking, Mawruss?" Abe Potash protested. "The feller +couldn't even talk ten words English at all." + +"Sure, I know," Morris Perlmutter admitted; "but he would quick learn." + +"Quick learn!" Abe exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, quick learn? Nowadays I +never seen the like! A greenhorn comes over here from Russland which he +is such an iggeramus he don't know his own name, understand me; and he +expects right away to get a job in a cloak-and-suit concern uptown, +where they would learn him how he should talk English and at the same +time pay him ten dollars a week. Actually, Mawruss, them fellers thinks +they are doing you a favour if they ruin ten garments a day on you in +exchange for learning 'em English. Me, when I come over from Russland, I +was _oser_ so _grossartig_. I was glad to got a job learning on shirts +in a subcellar and the boss boards me for wages. I got an elegant bill +of fare, too, I bet yer, Mawruss. Every day for dinner is salt herring +and potatoes, except Sundays is onions extra. And did that feller learn +me English, Mawruss? _Oser_ a _stück_. I must got to go to night school +to learn English, Mawruss, and I did, Mawruss--and they learned me good +there, Mawruss; and so this here feller you are talking about should do +the same." + +"We wouldn't got to learn him English, Abe," Morris declared. "The +feller is a bright, smart feller, and he could pick it up quick enough." + +"Sure, I know," Abe rejoined; "and pick up a whole lot of other things, +too, Mawruss. Silks and velvets and buttons them fellers picks up." + +"Not this feller, Abe," Morris said. "He is from decent, respectable +people in the old country. He is studying for a doctor already when he +comes over here, but he gets into trouble on account he belongs to a +politics society over there; so he must got to run away. The feller is a +bright feller, Abe." + +"I know them bright fellers, Mawruss--sit up till all hours of the night +in Canal Street coffee houses killing off grand dukes. Grand dukes is +got to make a living the same like anybody else, Mawruss; and anyhow, +Mawruss, when a feller comes over here from Russland, Mawruss, he ain't +got no business bothering his head about grand dukes. The way things is +nowadays in the cloak-and-suit trade, Mawruss, a feller's got all he +could attend to holding on to his job." + +Morris shrugged. + +"Let's give the feller a show anyhow, Abe," he rejoined; "and if he +don't soon make good we could quick fire him, y 'understand." + +"That's what you said about that feller Harkavy, which we give him a job +in our cutting room, Mawruss. All the time he works for us he acts so +_dumm_ like a ten-year-old child; and so soon as we fire him, Mawruss, +he goes to work by Kleiman & Elenbogen and turns out a couple of styles, +which the least them highwaymen makes out of 'em is five thousand +dollars." + +"How should I know what Harkavy could do with Kleiman & Elenbogen, Abe?" +Morris cried. "You are the prophet of this here concern, Abe. Always you +are predicting to me to-morrow what is going to happen yesterday." + +"Well, what's _vorbei_ is _vorbei_, Mawruss," Abe retorted; "and if I +would got to stand here all day and _schmooes_ with you, Mawruss, go +ahead and hire the feller. Only one thing I am saying to you, Mawruss: +Don't tell me afterward that I was in favour of the feller from the +start; because I ain't." + +With this ultimatum, Abe glanced toward the cutting room, where sat a +tall, stooping figure, holding in his two hands a peaked cap. + +"Only to look at the feller gives me a _krank_, Mawruss," Abe continued; +"so, if you are going to hire him, Mawruss, do me the favour and give +him a couple dollars out of the safe so he should get a shave and a +haircut and a new hat." + +Morris nodded and started for the cutting room, when Abe called him +back. + +"For my part, Mawruss, I don't care what people says, y'understand," he +declared; "but if we got a couple of them Thirty-fourth Street buyers +around here and they sees our workpeople is got such shoes which their +toes is sticking out already, Mawruss, what do they think of us? Am I +right or wrong?" + +"Sure, I know," Morris said; "but----" + +"But nothing, Mawruss," Abe concluded. "For three dollars we should make +suckers out of ourselves! Don't stand there like a fool, Mawruss. Give +the feller five dollars; he should buy himself a pair of shoes and +_fertig_." + +The transformation begun in Cesar Kovalenko by a haircut and a shave was +made complete when Morris, accompanied by Kovalenko's cousin, went with +him to a retail clothing establishment. There Cesar discarded forever +his cap, top boots and frogged overcoat and emerged--but for his +vocabulary--a naturalized citizen of the cloak-and-suit trade. + +"Now all he's got to do," Morris said, "is to work hard and he would +quick be making good wages." + +"Sure, sure!" the cousin replied. "At first, maybe he would be a little +_dumm_ on account he is got a whole lot of experiences lately." + +"Experiences?" Morris asked. "What for experiences?" + +"Well, in the first place," the cousin proceeded, "two years ago he is +studying for a doctor in the University of Harkav, and next door to him +one house by the other lives a feller which I ain't got nothing to say +against him, y'understand, only he goes to work and sends a package to +the chief of police, Mr. Perlmutter, which when they open the package, +y'understand, inside is something g'fixed. Mind you, Mr. Perlmutter, I +wouldn't say nothing if it would be really the chief of police which +would open the package, but always it is some poor _Schnorrer_ which the +chief of police calls in from the street. This time it was a feller by +the name Levin, a decent, respectable, young feller--his father was a +_Rav_. The old man is coming over here this week, I understand, Mr. +Perlmutter--but when the chief of police sends out Levin in the backyard +he should open the package, understand me, that's the last any one sees +either from the package or either from Levin." + +Morris clicked his tongue sympathetically. + +"And what did they done to the feller which sends the package?" he +asked. + +"Him, they didn't done nothing, Mr. Perlmutter," the cousin replied; +"but Cesar, here, they put it all on to him. First they are making him +arrested, and the police pretty near kill him and the Cossacks take him +from Harkav to Odessa he should get tried, and then they pretty near +kill him there; and if it wouldn't be that we are sending over to give +to a judge there a couple thousand rubles they would right away shoot +him. Anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, one year my cousin sits in prison there; +and then we are sending over a couple thousand rubles more which we give +the feller what runs the prison, and so my cousin sneaks out of there +and he comes over here to this country." + +Morris gazed at the neatly clad figure who walked quietly along beside +him. + +"You wouldn't think it to look at him," he said; "but, anyhow, I would +do my best to see he gets a good show; and he would quick learn, I bet +yer." + +By this time they had reached Potash & Perlmutter's premises and the +cousin shook hands warmly with Morris. + +"You got a good heart, Mr. Perlmutter," he declared fervently; "and you +wouldn't lose money supposing you did pay him eight dollars a week to +start." + +Morris paused before passing indoors. + +"Listen here to me," he said. "Maybe I got a good heart and maybe I +ain't, but your cousin starts on five dollars a week, understand me; and +if he gets six dollars inside of a month he would got to earn it." + +Despite this assertion, however, it was barely three weeks before Cesar +Kovalenko was earning and receiving eight dollars a week, for never in +their business experience had Abe and Morris employed a more intelligent +workman. Not only did he exhibit great promise as an assistant cutter +but he had acquired a knowledge of English sufficient for his needs. + +"If the feller keeps on, Abe," Morris said, "we would soon got to give +him another raise. He's a wonder!" + +Abe nodded gloomily. + +"You could get all the wonders you want, Mawruss, to learn cutting at +eight dollars a week," he said; "and supposing he does pick up English +quick, Mawruss--a feller could be a regular Henry Shakespeare, +y'understand, and he wouldn't be any better as a garment cutter on that +account. Am I right or wrong?" + +"Well, certainly it don't do no harm that Kovalenko understands a little +English," Morris commented. + +"Sure not," Abe agreed satirically, "because the quicker he learns +English, Mawruss, the quicker he would copy our styles and find a job +with a competitor. Take this here Harkavy, for instance. Only this +morning I seen Felix Geigermann in the subway and he says that Kleiman & +Elenbogen is showing, at a dollar less on the garment, a ringer for our +Style 4022 which we sold him, Mawruss. Now, who tells them suckers how +they could cut down on the buttons and the lining, Mawruss, and put one +pleat less in the skirt, Mawruss? I suppose you did or I did, +Mawruss--ain't it?" + +He paused for a reply, but none came. + +"And yet, Mawruss," he concluded, "that feller Harkavy was a wonder too; +and I suppose, Mawruss, the way he picked up English would be a big +consolation to us, Mawruss, if a good customer like Geigermann leaves us +and goes over to Kleiman & Elenbogen." + +Morris grunted scornfully. + +"You are all the time looking for trouble, Abe," he said. "If we would +lose as many customers as you are talking about, Abe, we wouldn't got a +decent concern left on our books at all. You got to give Geigermann +credit for knowing a good garment when he sees it." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Geigermann knows a good garment +when he sees it, but his customers don't; and if Geigermann could get, +for a dollar less than ours, garments which looks like ours and is like +ours, all but the buttons and the pleats in the skirt, we could kiss +ourselves good-by with the business, no matter how many bright +greenhorns we got it in our cutting room." + +"_Geh weg!_" Morris exclaimed. "You don't know what you are talking +about, Abe." + +Nevertheless, when Felix Geigermann, the well-known Harlem dry-goods +merchant and violin dilettante, entered Potash & Perlmutter's showroom +the next morning Morris greeted him with some misgiving. + +"Hello, Felix!" he said. "Are you giving us a repeat order so soon +already on them 4022's?" + +Felix shook his head. + +"I got a few words to say to Abe, Mawruss," he replied. "Is he in now?" + +Morris smiled amiably, although he was convinced that Felix's visit +boded a cancellation of the 4022's. + +"He ain't in now," he answered, "but if you wait a few minutes he'll be +right back." + +He returned hastily to the office, for he knew that if Abe found them in +conversation on his return he would impute the cancellation of the order +to something Morris had said. Thus Felix was left alone in the showroom, +save for Cesar Kovalenko, who plied a feather duster industriously among +the sample-racks. As he worked, Cesar whistled a Russian melody, half +sad, half cheerful, and Felix paused midway in the lighting of his +cigar. It was the opening theme in the second movement of Tschaikovsky's +Fourth Symphony; and Cesar's rendition of it was not only true to pitch +but he managed to introduce certain nuances that to Felix proclaimed the +born musician. + +"What's that you are whistling?" he inquired; and Cesar smiled. + +"Tschaikovsky's Fourt' Symphony," he replied, and then he reached around +to his hip-pocket. "See; I am got music." + +He handed a paper-covered miniature score to Geigermann, who opened it +at random. + +"Ha!" Felix exclaimed as his eye lit on a familiar phrase in the last +movement. He hummed it over and Cesar joined him in a clear, musical +barytone. They were thus engaged when a tall, broad-shouldered +individual entered the showroom. + +"Sorry to interrupt you, gentlemen," he said, "but is the boss in?" + +"In the office back there," Felix replied. + +"Will you tell him Mr. Gunther would like to see him?" the newcomer +continued. + +"I will if you want me to," Felix said; "but I am here only a customer." + +"Excuse me," Mr. Gunther apologized. "I was talking about the other +feller. However----" + +He proceeded to the office and engaged Morris in earnest conversation +for several minutes. They returned to the showroom just as Cesar was +replacing the score in his hip-pocket. The motion was too much for Mr. +Gunther, whose occupation made him nervous; and he plunged his hand into +his overcoat and brought out a shining metallic object. There was a +sharp struggle and Cesar Kovalenko leaned against the partition with his +wrists encircled by a pair of handcuffs. + +"Come along quiet," said Mr. Gunther calmly, "or I'll knock yer block +awff." + +At this juncture the elevator door banged open and Abe came into the +showroom. + +"What is the matter here?" he cried. + +Mr. Gunther smiled. + +"I'm a United States deputy marshal," he proclaimed, "and I'm arresting +this guy under a warrant duly issued in the Southern District of New +York. I've got a taxicab downstairs and if any of you gentlemen is a +friend of the prisoner youse can come along to the marshal's office." + +Morris darted into the office and reappeared with his hat and coat. + +"Abe," he said, "you stay here in the store. I would go down with him." + +Abe frowned. + +"One moment, Mawruss," he cried. "It don't go so quick as all that. +First, we would find out what he makes this young feller arrested for." + +The deputy marshal nodded. + +"That's all right," he said. "You're entitled to know it. He's arrested +on the complaint of the Russian Consulate for something he did in Russia +two years ago." + +"In Russia!" Abe exclaimed. "Two years ago! Mawruss, do me a favour. You +stay in the store and I would go with him." + +Felix Geigermann placed his hand on Abe's arm. + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he said. "I'll tell you the truth. I am pretty +busy to-day here to cancel them 4022's; but now I don't care at all. You +could ship them goods if you want to, Abe; but one thing I ask you as a +favour--let me go with him. I don't care what the other feller says. I +am just now talking to this here young feller and if he done anything in +Russia, understand me, I would eat it. So you stay here and tend to +business and I would go with him." + +Morris drew on his overcoat with force sufficient to rip the +sleeve-lining. "Nathan, the shipping clerk, could tend the store, Abe," +he declared, "and we'll all go with him." + + * * * * * + +"In the first place, Mawruss," Abe said, after they had returned from +the United States Commissioner's office, where Cesar Kovalenko had been +arraigned and committed without bail to the Tombs--"in the first place +what are we bothering our heads about this young feller? Of course, when +I was down there, Mawruss, and see that feller from the Russian +counsellor's office, which he is got a face, Mawruss, hard like iron, +y'understand, I didn't say nothing; but the way you are going to work +and telephoning to Henry D. Feldman and everything, Mawruss--before we +would get through with him it would cost us anyhow a couple hundred +dollars." + +"Geigermann says he would go half," Morris said. + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss; but just because Geigermann acts like a sucker, +Mawruss, why should we get ourselves into it too? Furthermore, Mawruss, +how do we know Geigermann would go half? He's that kind of feller, +Mawruss, that when he says something he don't take it so particular he +should stick to it, Mawruss. One day he gives us an order and the next +day cancels it, Mawruss--and that's the kind of a man he is." + +"He didn't cancel it, Abe," Morris cried. "He was going to cancel it, +but he changed his mind." + +"Sure, he changed his mind," Abe interrupted; "and what is going to +hinder him changing his mind on this other proposition, Mawruss? You +could take it from me, Mawruss, when the time comes he should pay up, +understand me, it'll be a case of _nix wissen_--and don't you forget +it." + +Morris shrugged impatiently. + +"_Nu_, Abe," he said; "what could we do? Once in a while we couldn't +help ourselves, y'understand. Should we let this poor greenhorn be sent +back to Russland, which he ain't got a relative in the world, understand +me, except his cousin, which he is just as poor as Kovalenko?" + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "I ain't kicking we shouldn't +help the feller. All I am saying is there's lots of our people which +they got more dollars as we got dimes. Take Moses M. Steuermann, for +instance; there's a feller which he is such a big charity feller, +understand me, why shouldn't he help Kovalenko?" + +"Well, in the first place, no one tells him about it, Abe," Morris said, +"and in the second place----" + +"But why don't we tell him about it, Mawruss?" Abe interrupted. "Why +don't you go down to see him, Mawruss, and tell him all about it?" + +"Me go down to see him, Abe!" Morris cried. "Why, the feller is a +multimillionaire. With such people like that I couldn't open my mouth at +all. Why don't you go down to see him?" + +"Why should I go down?" Abe asked. "You are the lodge brother here, +Mawruss--ain't it? You are the one which you are always sitting up till +all hours of the night making motions. I couldn't make a motion to save +my life, Mawruss, and you know it." + +"Sure, I know," Morris protested; "but lodge meetings is something else +again. A feller could talk at a lodge meeting--and what is it? A couple +young lawyers which they couldn't even pay their laundry bills, +y'understand, and a dozen other fellers, insurance brokers _oder_ cigar +dealers, and most of 'em old-timers at that--why should I be afraid to +say a little something to 'em? But with a feller like Moses M. +Steuermann, which his folks was bankers in Frankfort-on-the-Main when +Carnegie and Vanderbilt and all them other _goyim_ was new beginners +yet, Abe--that's a different proposition entirely." + +Abe nodded and remained silent for a few minutes. + +"Might Felix Geigermann would go down and see him, Mawruss," he +suggested finally. "It wouldn't do no harm we should ring him up +anyhow." + +"Go as far as you like, Abe," Morris said, and Abe started immediately +for the telephone. + +"I spoke to Felix, Mawruss," he announced a few minutes later, "and +Felix said he would go right down and see him. He ain't so stuck on +paying Feldman a couple hundred dollars neither." + +Morris snorted indignantly. + +"If you was going to be charitable, Abe," he said, "why don't you be a +sport? We could easy stand a couple hundred dollars." + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Business is business and +charity is charity, y'understand; but even in charity, Mawruss, it don't +do no harm to keep the expenses down." + +Two hours afterward Felix Geigermann entered the showroom, his face +glistening with perspiration. + +"Well, boys," he almost shouted, "I seen him, and he says he would call +in here on his way uptown." + +"Who would call in?" Morris asked. + +"Moses M. Steuermann," Felix replied. "It was the Tschaikovsky Fourth +that fixed him, Mawruss. I told him that young feller carries round with +him an orchestral score, and right away he says he would come up. For +years I seen Mr. Steuermann at the Philharmonics and the Boston +Symphonies, Mawruss, and I didn't know who he was at all. I always +thought he was something to do with a music-publishing concern." + +"Steuermann got something to do with a music-publishing concern!" Morris +exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you, you should talk that way, Felix." + +"Well, when you are seeing year in and year out a feller goes to every +concert what is, Abe," Felix explained, "naturally you get an idee he is +in the music business--ain't it?" + +"That's what you think, Felix," Abe said, taking up the cudgels in +defence of Steuermann; "but you could take it from me, Felix, if a +feller like Steuermann seemingly fools away his time at concerts, +understand me, he ain't doing it for nothing. He probably gets some +business out of it the same like a lot of fellers you would think is +making suckers of themselves going to lodge meetings, Felix. Most of 'em +sells many a big bill of goods that way." + +"That ain't here nor there, Abe," Felix rejoined. "The point is, +Steuermann would be up here at five o'clock; so, what are you going to +tell him when he calls?" + +"Me tell him!" Abe cried. "Why, I wouldn't be here at all. I got +to--now--see--a--now--customer at the Prince Clarence." + +"You ain't got to do nothing of the kind, Abe," Morris retorted angrily. +"You are going to stay right here and talk to that feller when he comes. +What do you think--I am going to be the goat every time?" + +"What's the matter, Abe?" Felix asked. "Are you afraid of the feller? He +couldn't eat you up, Abe." + +"What d'ye mean, afraid of him?" Abe exclaimed. "I am seeing big +merchants every day, Felix, and I could talk right up to them too. But +this here is my partner's affair. He hired Kovalenko in the first place; +and----" + +"What's the use talking, Abe?" Morris interrupted. "If you go home I go +home; so you got to stay and we would both see the feller. What is the +difference, supposing the feller does got a couple million dollars?" + +"A couple million dollars!" Felix said. "Why, I bet yer, if the feller's +got a cent he is worth twenty million dollars." + +Abe drew pale. + +"Say, lookyhere, why should I talk to Mr. Steuermann?" he besought. "You +could do this without me, Mawruss." + +"Don't be a baby, Abe," Morris retorted. "Felix would stay here with us +and----" + +"Not me, boys," Felix said. "I guess you got to excuse me. I done enough +already and if I don't get right home and change my underclothes, which +they are dripping wet with perspiration, I would sure catch a bad cold." + +He shook Abe and Morris warmly by the hand; and hardly had the elevator +door closed behind him when the showroom became a scene of nervous +activity. + +"Nathan," Abe yelled to the shipping clerk, "fetch the broom. The place +looks like a pigsty here!" + +He turned to Morris with excited gesture. + +"Do me the favour, Mawruss," he said; "tell a couple of them young +fellers from the cutting room to come in here. Them sample-racks ain't +been straightened up for a week. I am going round to the barber shop, +Mawruss, and I would be right back." + + * * * * * + +It lacked one minute of five and Abe and Morris sat at their respective +desks in the firm's office, when Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, knocked +timidly at the door. + +"A gentleman wants to see you, Mr. Potash," she said. "He wouldn't give +his name." + +Abe cleared his throat with an effort. + +"Tell him he should come right in," he croaked; and a moment later a +tall personage, clad in a fur overcoat and wearing a freshly ironed silk +hat, appeared in the doorway. + +"Is this Mr. Potash?" he asked in rounded, oratorical tones. + +Abe nodded. For a moment he was bereft of speech and he jerked his head +sideways in the direction of his partner. + +"This is Mr. Perlmutter," he said at length--"my partner." + +"How do you do, sir?" the visitor replied as he seized Morris's clammy +palm in a warm embrace. + +"Take a seat," Morris murmured, dragging forth a chair; and the stranger +sat down deliberately. + +"Well, sir," Abe asked, "what could we do for you?" + +"Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at tames confronted +with a situation which demands a few appropriate remarks." + +Abe nodded and mopped tentatively at his dewy forehead. + +"But how many are there," the visitor continued, "who can do justice to +the occasion? For instance, Mr. Perlmutter, you are asked at a +charitable meeting to discuss the question of restricting immigration. I +ask you candidly, Mr. Perlmutter, would you feel competent to stand upon +your feet and----" + +Suddenly Abe jumped to his feet. + +"Excuse me, my dear sir," he cried. "Wouldn't you smoke a cigar?" + +Morris was nearest the safe and he, too, leaped from his chair. + +"Never mind the safe, Mawruss," Abe said, flapping his right hand +excitedly. "I bought some while I was out just now." + +[Illustration: "Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at +times confronted with a situation which demands a few appropriate +remarks"] + +He handed a gold-banded, Bismarck-size cigar to the visitor, who nodded +a dignified acknowledgment and immediately struck a match. + +"Yes, Mr. Perlmutter," he went on, "as I was saying, such a topic as the +restriction of immigration would embarrass even an experienced speaker." +He paused and cleared his throat impressively. "Now, I have here," he +said, exploring the capacious pockets of his overcoat, "a work entitled +'A Quarter of a Century in Congress,' by the Honourable Lucius J. +Howell, which, gentlemen, is issued upon subscription only, in half +morocco or crushed levant at a hitherto unheard-of price." + +Abe ceased mopping his brow and turned a terrible glare upon the book +canvasser. + +"What!" he roared. "A book agent?" + +Once more he jumped to his feet. "Out!" he bellowed. "Out from my +office, you dirty loafer!" + +The book agent scowled and replaced the bound dummy in his pocket. + +"With a high-grade selling proposition like this, Mr. Potash," he said, +"you should be careful of your language." + +"Mawruss," Abe cried, "what the devil do you mean letting in a feller +like this?" + +"What d'ye mean, letting him in?" Morris retorted. "Did I tell Miss +Cohen she should show him in?" + +"Don't quarrel on my account, gentlemen," the canvasser said as he +puffed at his cigar. "I shall call again when you're not so busy." + +He passed out of the office with a graceful gesture of farewell, and +once more Abe and Morris sat down on the edge of their chairs. It was +not for long, however; and this time, without any announcement, a +thick-set gentleman with carefully trimmed beard and moustache stood in +the doorway. + +"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said--and Abe and Morris literally +sprang into the middle of the office floor. + +"Mr. Steuermann?" Abe gasped, extending his hand. + +"My name is Mr. Goldstein," the visitor replied, "and I represent the +Lilywhite Dress Shield Company." + +He proceeded no further, however, for Morris led him by the shoulder to +the elevator shaft and pointed to a notice reading: + + HOURS FOR SALESMEN + 8 to 9:30 + +Morris returned to the office and hardly was he seated in his chair +when, for the third time, the doorway framed a visitor. + +"Mr. Potash?" the newcomer asked timidly. He was a short, slender man, +past middle age, clad in a shabby overcoat, half threadbare, and a soft +felt hat of a dingy, weatherbeaten appearance. + +"_Nu!_" Abe growled. "What is it now?" + +"Mr. Potash," the stranger continued, "I called to see you at the +request of Mr. Geigermann. My name is Steuermann." Abe essayed to rise, +but his knees would not support him and he waved his hand feebly to a +chair that Morris dragged forward. + +"Mr. Steuermann," Morris said, "you are coming up here to see us when we +could much better afford it if we would go down and see you." + +"Why, gentlemen, it was no inconvenience for me," Steuermann replied. "I +am on my way home." + +"God would bless you for it, anyway!" Abe declared fervently; and +Steuermann blushed. + +"Now, Mr. Potash," he protested, "I am not here for compliments. I've +come to see what we can all do for this poor fellow. I'm a little late, +because I was waiting for a report from my lawyers." + +"Your lawyers!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, we already hired Henry D. Feldman." + +"So I believe," Steuermann replied; "and he has consented to act in +conjunction with my lawyers--Chitty, Schwarzstein & Munjoy. I shall +relieve you gentlemen of all responsibility in the matter." + +"Do you mean by responsibility, Mr. Steuermann, that you would pay +Feldman?" Abe asked. + +Mr. Steuermann smiled. + +"Well, we won't discuss that just now," he said. + +"Because," Abe continued, "we wouldn't consent to nothing of the kind, +Mr. Steuermann; the young feller works for us and we would got to do our +share." + +"That part will come later," Steuermann insisted; "and now let's see +what is to be done." + +For more than half an hour Steuermann disclosed to Abe and Morris the +result of his lawyers' investigation. + +"Mr. Munjoy has seen Kovalenko," Steuermann said, "and he asserts that, +so far as proof is concerned, no murder was ever committed." + +"But, Mr. Steuermann," Morris said, "the feller which he opened the +package, y'understand, was blown up so his own father couldn't recognize +him even." + +"That's just the point, Mr. Perlmutter," Steuermann declared; "and Mr. +Munjoy says that on this circumstance hinges the Russian Consulate's +whole case. They are obliged to prove that a definite person was killed; +and it seems that the consulate paid the passage of the victim's father +to this country, so that he might testify before the United States +Commissioner. I understand that the old man, who by the way is a Rabbi, +arrived last week. Mr. Munjoy says that, if the father is unable to +testify to the identity of the victim it may so complicate matters that +more evidence will be necessary and the consulate may drop the affair on +account of the expense involved." + +Morris nodded sadly. + +"Lawyers could always make expenses, Mr. Steuermann," he said, "for the +Russian counsellor and for us also." + +"Never mind about expense, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "What does it +matter a few hundred dollars, Mawruss, so long as we get this young +feller free? In fact, Mr. Steuermann, I am willing we should go half if +we could see this here Rabbi and _schmier_ him a thousand dollars he +should swear that no one was killed at all." + +Mr. Steuermann shook his head. "That would be in effect suborning +perjury, Mr. Potash," he said--and Morris glared at Abe. + +"I'm surprised at you, you should suggest such a thing, Abe!" he +exclaimed. "Seemingly you got no conscience at all. A thousand dollars +we should pay the feller! I bet yer he would lie himself black in the +face for a twenty-dollar bill." + +"It isn't a matter of money, Mr. Perlmutter," Steuermann said; "but why +not see the old man to-night? I have his address here, and if you +approached him in the right way perhaps he might testify that he did not +recognize the murdered man. That would only be the simple truth and it +would be just what we want. As it is, I'm afraid the Russian Consulate +will intimidate him into swearing that he knew the body to be that of +his son." + +He handed Morris a card bearing a Madison Street address. + +"Well, gentlemen," he concluded, "I've taken up your time long enough. I +hope to see you in my office to-morrow, Mr. Perlmutter." + +Morris nodded and was about to shake hands with his visitor when Abe +slapped his thigh in a sudden realization of his inhospitality. + +"Mr. Steuermann," he exclaimed, "wouldn't you smoke something?" + +He jumped to his feet and thrust a huge gold-banded cigar at Mr. +Steuermann, who shook his head. + +"Thank you very much," Mr. Steuermann said, "but I'm afraid it's rather +near dinner-time." + +"Put it in your pocket and smoke it after dinner," Abe insisted, and Mr. +Steuermann smilingly obliged. + +Together the two partners escorted him into the elevator; and when the +door closed behind him Morris turned to Abe with an ironical smile. + +"You got a whole lot of manners, Abe, I must say," he commented +bitterly. + +"Whatd'ye mean, manners?" Abe asked. "What did I done?" + +"Tell a millionaire like Mr. Steuermann he should smoke the cigar after +dinner!" Morris replied. + +"Don't you suppose he's got plenty cigars of his own?" + +"Maybe he did got 'em and maybe he didn't," Abe retorted; "but, in the +first place, Mawruss, I noticed he took the cigar, y'understand; and, in +the second place, Mawruss, them cigars cost thirty-five cents apiece, +Mawruss, and there's few millionaires, Mawruss, which is too proud to +smoke a thirty-five-cent cigar." + + * * * * * + +When Morris Perlmutter entered the subway that evening en route for the +lower East Side, he was in none too cheerful mood; for, in the +excitement attending Steuermann's visit, he had forgotten to telephone +Mrs. Perlmutter that he would be late for dinner. Consequently there had +been a painful scene upon his arrival home that evening, nor had Mrs. +Perlmutter's wrath been appeased when he informed her that he was +obliged to go right downtown again. + +Indeed, his sympathy for Cesar Kovalenko had well-nigh evaporated as he +entered the subway, and he reflected bitterly upon the circumstance that +first led him to hire that unfortunate young man. Thus there was +something doubly irritating in the coincidence which seated him next to +Louis Kleiman in the crowded express train he had boarded, and he had +made up his mind to ignore his competitor's presence when Louis caught +sight of him. + +"So, Perlmutter," Louis commented, without any introductory greeting, +"you are trying to do us again!" + +Morris turned and stared icily at Kleiman. + +"I don't want to talk to you at all, Kleiman," he replied; "and, anyhow, +Kleiman, I don't know what you mean--we are trying to do you! The shoe +pinches on the other foot, Kleiman, when you just stop to consider you +are stealing away from us that feller Harkavy, which all he knows we +taught him." + +Louis Kleiman emitted a short, raucous guffaw. + +"Well, what are you kicking about?" he said. "You stole him back +again--ain't it?" + +"Stole him back again!" Morris repeated. "What are you talking nonsense, +Kleiman? We wouldn't take that feller back in our store, not if we could +get him to come to work for two dollars a week." + +"Yow!" Kleiman exclaimed skeptically. "I don't suppose you know the +feller left us at all?" + +"I did not," Morris replied promptly; "and if he did, Kleiman, I +couldn't blame him. A feller doesn't want to work all his life for ten +dollars a week." + +"What d'ye mean, ten dollars a week? We paid Harkavy fifteen and we +offered him twenty-five; but the feller wouldn't stay with us at all. +For two weeks now he acts uneasy and yesterday he leaves us." + +"That's all right, Kleiman," Morris said as the train drew into +Ninety-sixth Street. "You could easy steal somebody else from another +concern." Kleiman glared at Morris and was about to utter a particularly +incisive retort when the train stopped. + +"I got to change here," he announced; "but when I see you again, +Perlmutter, I would tell you what you are." + +"I don't got to tell you what you are, Kleiman," Morris concluded as he +opened his evening paper. "You know only too well." + +"_Rosher!_" Kleiman hissed as he hurled himself into the mob of +passengers that blocked the exit. + +Morris nodded sardonically and commenced to read his paper. He desisted +immediately, however, when his eye fell upon a cut accompanying Felix +Geigermann's display advertisement. It was a beaded marquisette costume, +made in obvious imitation of one of Potash & Perlmutter's leaders; and +the retail price quoted by Geigermann was precisely one dollar less than +Potash & Perlmutter's lowest wholesale figure. + +"That's some of Harkavy's work," Morris muttered; and for the remainder +of the journey he was once more plunged in the gloomiest cogitation. +Almost automatically he alighted at the Brooklyn Bridge and boarded a +Madison Street Car; and it was not until the jolting, old-fashioned +vehicle had nearly reached its eastern terminus that he discerned the +house number furnished to him by Steuermann. He hurried to the rear +platform and jumped to the street, where he collided violently with a +short, bearded person. + +"Excuse me!" Morris cried; then he recognized his victim. "Harkavy!" he +exclaimed. "What are you doing here?" + +"I am coming to say good-by to a friend," Harkavy replied with some show +of confusion. "I got to go to Chicago to-morrow." + +"Chicago!" Morris repeated. "Why, what are you doing in Chicago, +Harkavy?" + +"I am--now--going to got a job out there," Harkavy replied--"a very good +job." + +Morris drew his former assistant cutter to the sidewalk. He had +temporarily forgotten the object of his visit to the lower East Side in +the sudden conception of an idea, which was no less than the rehiring of +Harkavy. + +"What for a good job?" Morris asked. "Twenty dollars a week?" + +Harkavy nodded. + +"A little more," he said--"twenty-five." + +"_Schon gut_," Morris declared; "then you wouldn't got to go at all, +because we ourselves would give you thirty." + +"I moost go," Harkavy said, shaking his head; "my fare is paid." + +"Pay 'em back the fare," Morris insisted--"we would see you wouldn't +lose it." + +Again Harkavy shook his head. + +"I got a bonus too," he declared--"a thousand rubles." + +"What are you talking about, rubles?" Morris said impatiently. "You +ain't a greenhorn no longer. Do you mean a thousand dollars?" + +"Six hundred dollars--about," Harkavy replied. + +Morris whistled. + +"Well," he said after a pause of some seconds, "put off going until +to-morrow anyhow. Maybe we could fix up to give you the six hundred +dollars anyhow." + +Harkavy remained silent and Morris clapped him on the shoulder. + +"If people is so anxious to get you that they pay you a big lot of money +like that, Harkavy, you could keep 'em waiting anyhow one day. Come +round and see us to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, wouldn't you?" + +Harkavy pondered the question for some minutes. + +"If you wish it, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I would do so; but I must +got to go away by eleven o'clock sure." + +"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "Then I'll see you to-morrow morning at nine +o'clock." + +They shook hands on the appointment and Morris turned away and ascended +the high stoop of an old-fashioned tenement. In the vestibule he +encountered a boy whose right cheek was apparently distorted by a severe +toothache. + +"Do a family by the name Levin live here?" Morris asked. + +The boy nodded and disgorged a huge lump of toffee, whereat the +toothache disappeared. + +"Dat's me fader," he said. "Fourt' floor front east. He ain't in, +dough." + +"Your father!" Morris cried. "Why, the people I am coming to see they +are greenhorns." + +"Oh, yeh," the youngster replied; "dat's me fader's uncle. He lives wid +us." + +"All right," Morris said. "Take me up there." + +The youngster resumed his swollen cheek and escorted Morris up three +flights of slippery brassbound stairs. Without the formality of +knocking, they entered an apartment on the fourth floor where a woman +stood washing dishes. + +"Mrs. Levin?" Morris said. + +The woman nodded. + +"I want to see your man's uncle," Morris continued. Without looking up +the woman cried in stentorian tones: "Mees-taire!" + +In response a bent figure, clad in an alpaca caftan, appeared from an +interior bedroom. He wore a velvet skullcap, and a thin gray beard +straggled from his chin; his nose was surmounted by a pair of steel +spectacles. + +"_Sholom alaicham!_" Morris cried, according the Rabbi that greeting, as +ancient as the Hebrew tongue itself--"Peace be with you." + +"_Alaicham sholom!_" the Rabbi answered, and then he resorted to the +Yiddish jargon: "Do you look for me?" + +"I look for the _Rav_ Elkan Levin," Morris said in a tongue to which he +had long been unaccustomed. "I am the servant of the philanthropist +Steuermann." + +"Steuermann?" the _Rav_ Levin repeated. "I do not know him." + +"In America," Morris said, "his name is honored over the governor's. He +sends me to you to speak for the unfortunate _Tzwee_ Kovalenko." + +"_Tzwee_ Kovalenko," the old man cried, and his beard stood out as his +invisible lips tightened, while his nose became sharp and hawk-like. "A +_mishna meshuna_ to him, the same as he sent to my son." + +"No," Morris declared; "he did not send it to your son. It was another +that did it." + +The old man sank trembling into a nearby chair and clutched the edge of +the table. + +"You tell this to me who saw with my own eyes his body!" he said in +shaking tones. "Yes, _Baron_; I saw my own child like a slaughtered +beast, all blood--not a face, but a piece of flesh. I saw him, and you +tell me this!" + +"None the less," Morris went on, "if your son did die it was a _kapora_ +not meant for him. It was intended for the chief of police." + +The _Rav_ shook his head. + +"It stands in the _Gemera_" he said, in the singsong tone of the +Talmudical reader: "If one flings a stone for pleasure and it strikes +another so that he dies, the one also shall die." + +He rose to his feet and waved one hand with a flapping motion. "An eye +for an eye!" he cried in shrill tones. "A tooth for a tooth!" + +Morris shrank back and turned to the woman, who had not raised her head +from the dishwashing. + +"You tell him," he said, "that the philanthropist Steuermann invites him +to come to the address I shall give you--to-morrow at ten o'clock. Tell +him you know that when Steuermann commands, governors obey." + +"What is it my business?" Mrs. Levin replied. "Tell him yourself." + +"Your man should go with him," Morris insisted. "He and you will not +lose by it." + +Morris wrote the address on the back of one of Potash & Perlmutter's +business cards and handed it to her. + +"Put on it the table," she said. + +"Tell your man," Morris continued, "if he does take this old man to +Steuermann I myself will pay him twenty-five dollars." + +Once more he faced the _Rav_, who had sunk again into the chair. + +"Will it bring back your son to you if _Tzwee_ Kovalenko dies?" he +asked. + +The old man plucked at his beard. + +"He was my son, my only son," he said; "my _Kaddish_. A good son he +was." + +Mrs. Levin, still at her dishwashing, raised her head and snorted +impatiently. + +"Yow--a good son!" she commented in English, "A dirty, lowlife bum he +was. If it wouldn't be that he _ganvered_ a couple bottles wine from a +store he wouldn't of been in the police office at all. He brought it on +himself, mister--believe me." + +Morris nodded. + +"What is _vorbei_ is _vorbei_," he said. "Tell your man he should bring +his uncle to Steuermann and I would pay him sure twenty-five dollars +cash." + +He bowed to the _Rav_ and with a final "_Sholom alaicham!_" passed +downstairs to the street. + +As he waited at the corner for a west-bound car he thought he discerned +a familiar figure in the shadow of the house he had just quitted. He +walked slowly up the block and Harkavy stole out of the basement area +and slunk hurriedly past him. + +"Harkavy!" Morris called, but the assistant cutter only hastened his +steps and it seemed to Morris that a sound like a sob was borne +backward. + +"What is the trouble, Harkavy?" Morris cried; but in response Harkavy +broke into a run, and with a mystified shake of his head Morris +commenced his tedious journey uptown. + + * * * * * + +When Morris, in company with his partner, entered the showroom at eight +o'clock the following morning he had already enumerated to Abe the +events of the preceding evening, not omitting his encounter with +Harkavy. + +"I bet yer he would be waiting for us, Mawruss," Abe said; "and if I +ain't mistaken here he is now." + +Their visitor, however, proved to be a stranger, who bore only a slight +resemblance to their former cutter. + +"Mr. Perlmutter," he said--"ain't it?" + +"My name is Mr. Perlmutter," Morris said. "What do you want from us?" + +For answer the visitor drew from his pocket a card and handed it to +Morris. + +"Me, I am Pincus Levin, and you are leaving this by my wife last night," +he said; "so I am coming to tell you I am agreeable to take Mr. Levin to +Steuermann's place." + +"All right," Morris replied. "You can go ahead." + +Pincus Levin shuffled his feet uneasily, but made no attempt to depart. + +"Well?" Morris cried. + +"Sure, I know," Pincus said; "but if I would take uncle, Mr. Levin, to +Steuermann, y' understand and then, maybe--I am only saying, Mr. +Perlmutter, you might forget the other part--ain't it?" + +"You mean you want your twenty-five dollars in advance?" Morris asked. + +"Why not?" Pincus replied. "If I wouldn't took Mr. Levin to-day yet to +this here Steuermann's office, Mr. Perlmutter, you could stop the +check----" + +Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively. + +"An idee!" he cried. "You ain't never seen this feller before, +Mawruss--ain't it?" + +Morris admitted it. + +"Well, then, what's the use talking?" Abe continued. "How do we know +he's this here Levin's nephew?" + +"Why, Mr. Potash," Levin cried, "I ain't no crook! I got the old man in +a coffee house round the corner right now." + +"Bring him up here then," Abe said, "and we'll give you your money." + +Pincus Levin nodded and shuffled off toward the back stairs, while Abe +turned and gazed after him. + +"I couldn't make it out at all, Mawruss," he said. "The more I look at +that feller, Mawruss, the more he makes me think of this here----" + +"Good morning, Mr. Potash!" a familiar voice interrupted. It was +Harkavy. + +"Hello there!" Morris cried cheerfully. "I thought you would be here." + +Hakavy smiled sadly. His face was white and drawn and his shoes and +trousers were covered with mud as though he had walked the streets all +night. + +"I am keeping my word anyhow," he said; "but I am only coming to tell +you I got to go to Chicago." + +"Why must you got to go?" Abe insisted. + +"Well, there's certain reasons, Mr. Potash," Harkavy replied. "There's +certain--rea----" + +He struggled to control his speech as his eyes rested on the rear +stairway, but his words became more and more inarticulate until, with a +shudder and a gasp, he fell heavily to the floor. + +"_Oi gewoldt!_" Abe exclaimed. He rushed to the office for a glass of +water, but even before he had reached the cooler he stopped suddenly. A +great wailing cry came from the showroom and when he ran back with the +water a bearded old man lay prostrate across Harkavy's body. + +Only Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, kept a clear head during the confusion +that followed. She despatched Nathan, the shipping clerk, for a doctor +and directed her frightened employers to loosen the shirt-bands of the +unconscious men. + +"Some whiskey!" Morris shouted--and one of the cutters produced it +bashfully from his hip-pocket. + +"Never try to force whiskey on a fainting person," Miss Cohen cried. "It +might get into their lungs and suffocate 'em." + +"I wasn't going to," Morris said hastily, as he took a yeoman's pull at +the bottle. "I am feeling faint myself." + +"_Mir auch_," Abe said, taking the bottle from his partner's grasp. +After a refreshing draught he passed it on to Pincus, who returned it +empty to the crestfallen cutter just as a physician dashed out of the +elevator. + +"What caused this trouble?" he asked Abe as he knelt down by the side of +Harkavy. + +Abe looked helplessly at Morris and turned to Pincus Levin, who +commenced to tremble violently. + +"Hold on there!" Morris shouted. "He's going to faint too." + +Abe seized the glass of ice-water and flung its contents into Pincus +Levin's face. He gasped and sat down suddenly. + +"The old man," he murmured, "he's Yosel's father." + +"Yosel who?" Morris shouted. "The old man's only got one son--and he's +dead." + +"Yes, I know," Pincus answered; "he is and he ain't. I always thought so +too, Mr. Perlmutter, but this feller here is Yosel Levin which he got +blew up in Harkav two years ago." + +"What d'ye mean got blew up?" Abe asked as the doctor worked steadily +over the two prostrate men. "How could he be blew up if he is here now?" + +Pincus shrugged his shoulders. + +"How should I know?" he said weakly. "I ain't lying to you. This feller +here is Yosel Levin and my uncle there is his father." + +"Do you mean to told me that the old man's son ain't dead at all?" +Morris demanded. + +"Seemingly," Pincus said; "_aber_ this is the first time I heard it and +I guess it's the first time the old man heard it too." + +Harkavy moaned and tried to sit up. + +"Easy there!" the doctor commanded. "Two of you take him inside and put +him on a lounge if you have one." + +Abe and Morris followed Pincus and the head cutter as they supported the +half-conscious Harkavy into the firm's office. Ten minutes later the old +man was restored to consciousness. + +"_Wo ist er?_" he murmured. "_Mein kind!_" + +"It's all right," the doctor replied, and then he turned to the office. +"Come out here, you, and talk to the old man." + +Pincus came running from the office and reassured his uncle, who, under +the ministrations of the doctor, grew rapidly stronger until he was +sufficiently recovered to be placed on a chair. + +"Keep him quiet while I attend to the other fellow," said the doctor; +"and don't let him talk." + +He went at once to the office, where Harkavy sat on the edge of the +lounge. + +"Here! What are you doing?" he cried. "You shouldn't let that fellow do +any talking." + +"That's all right, doctor," Abe said calmly. "He should go on talking +now if it would kill him even. Go ahead, Harkavy." + +"And so," Harkavy continued, "after I am stealing the wine they took me +to the police office. There was a place! But, anyhow, Mr. Potash, I +could tell you all about it afterward. Inside the backyard was a dead +moujik which he is got run over by a train. His face is all damaged so +you couldn't tell who he was at all." + +He faltered and waved his hand. + +"Give me, please, a glass water," he said, and the doctor seized his +hand. + +"Never mind!" Abe cried inexorably. "Leave him alone, doctor. He should +finish what he's got to say." + +Harkavy nodded and sipped some water. + +"Then comes the package for the chief of police," he went on; "and they +put it first in a pail of water. Then they open it, Mr. Potash, and it +don't harm nobody; but them _roshers_ want to put it on to somebody, so +they make me a proposition they would give me a couple hundred rubles +and a ticket to America--and I took 'em up. For stealing that wine I +could get five years yet; so what should I do? They give me the money +and I run away; and the dead moujik they are telling everybody is me, +which I am blew up to pieces by the package." + +"And you let the old man bury the moujik and think it was you?" Morris +asked. + +Harkavy nodded. + +"Over and over again he is telling me I am no good and he wishes I was +dead," he said. "I wish I was, Mr. Perlmutter--I wish I was!" + +He commenced to cry weakly and Morris handed him the water. + +"But when I hear last week the old man, my father, is here," he +continued, "I couldn't help myself--I am hanging around Madison Street +trying I should get one look at him only. I didn't see him till just +now." + +He struggled to raise himself from the lounge. + +"Let me go to him," he wailed; "let me go!" + +Abe looked inquiringly at the doctor, who nodded in reply. + +"Let him go," he said. "Happiness never harmed anybody yet." + + * * * * * + +"Gentlemen," said the United States Commissioner as he sat behind his +shabby desk in the Post-office Building, "the prisoner is in the +marshal's office. Shall he be brought in?" + +He addressed his question to Mr. Munjoy, who was seated between Henry D. +Feldman and Steuermann at one side of a huge table. Opposite them were +the clerk of the Russian Consulate and his counsel, who was obviously +nervous at the formidable appearance presented by the lawyer, Henry D. +Feldman. + +The latter was about to pull off--as in his colloquial moments he +himself would have expressed it--a rotten trick on his fellow counsel; +for Abe and Morris had not informed either Mr. Munjoy or Mr. Steuermann +of the stirring scene in their showroom that morning. Instead, they had +called on Feldman, who, with the dramatic intuition of the effective +jury lawyer, saw an opportunity for a coup that would at once gain the +admiration and respect, if not the legal business, of Moses M. +Steuermann and procure Feldman a column and a half of publicity in next +day's paper. Hence he had sworn Abe and Morris to secrecy in +consideration of making no charge for his services, since he deemed the +accruing benefit to be worth at least two hundred dollars. + +"Shall he be brought in, gentlemen?" the commissioner asked. + +Counsel for the Russian Consulate bowed, as did Mr. Munjoy; but Henry D. +Feldman cleared his throat with a great rasping noise that penetrated to +the corridor without. This was the signal, and Abe and Morris entered +the room supporting the old Rabbi, who was followed by Pincus Levin. + +"One moment, sir," Feldman said. "I have a preliminary objection to +make. Will you hear the offer, sir?" + +The commissioner nodded and Steuermann and his counsel Mr. Munjoy, +turned to Feldman in amazement. + +"What's all this, Feldman?" Munjoy cried. + +Feldman waved his hand impressively. + +"My objection is, sir, that a gross fraud has been practised on this +court. It has come to my attention that somebody connected with this +proceeding has furnished a material witness for the defense with a +ticket for Chicago and one thousand rubles as a bribe to stay away from +the hearing." + +Counsel for the complainant jumped to his feet. + +"This is preposterous!" he declared. + +"By no means," Feldman continued. "Will you direct counsel not to +interrupt me, sir, if you please?" + +"I so direct," the commissioner replied, whereat Feldman again cleared +his throat and coughed twice, and, in answer to this cue, Yosel Levin, +alias Joseph Harkavy, entered the room. + +"The person so bribed, Mr. Commissioner, is named in the petition as the +_corpus delicti_ of the crime alleged to have been committed," Feldman +said. + +"What!" Munjoy and opposing counsel cried in unison, and the clerk to +the consulate reached for his hat and started for the door. His counsel +leaped after him, however, and succeeded in catching his coat-tails just +as he was about to disappear into the hall. + +With one hand still grasping the consular clerk, counsel for the +complainant turned to the commissioner. + +"I think my client wants to consult me outside for one minute," he said. +"Have I your consent to withdraw?" + +The commissioner nodded and Munjoy turned to Feldman. + +"What the deuce are you trying to do, Feldman?" he asked as +complainant's counsel returned. + +"If the commissioner pleases," Feldman said, "we consent to a dismissal +of the extradition proceedings and to a discharge of the prisoner." + +The imperturbable commissioner bowed and rose to his feet. + +"Submit the necessary papers for the prisoner's discharge, gentlemen," +he said. "The hearing is closed." + + * * * * * + +"Five dollars for doing what that feller done is like picking it up in +the street, Mawruss!" Abe declared to Mawruss when they received the +doctor's bill a month later. + +"How could we be small about it, Abe?" Morris rejoined. "Look at what +Steuermann done! Not only he is paying his lawyers for getting this +Kovalenko out of prison but he is taking that young feller and paying +for him he should go on with his studying for a doctor." + +"Well, the way doctors soak you, Mawruss," Abe said, looking at the bill +which he held in his hand, "it wouldn't be long before Kovalenko pays +him back with interest, I bet yer." + +"But, anyhow, Abe," Morris continued, "now we got Yosel Levin working +for us as cutter, it would be a better feeling all around supposing we +pay the bill and say nothing about it." + +"I am agreeable we should say nothing more about it, Mawruss," Abe +retorted, "because we already wasted more time and trouble than the +whole thing is worth; but one thing I would like to know, Mawruss, +before I shut up my mouth: Why did this here feller, Yosel Levin, call +himself Harkavy?" + +"Say!" Morris said, using three inflections to the monosyllable: "he's +got just so much right to call himself Harkavy as all them other guys +has to call themselves Breslauer, Hamburger, Leipziger _oder_ Berliner. +He anyhow does come from Harkav, Abe--which you could take it from me, +Abe, there's many a feller calls himself Hamburger which he don't come +from no nearer Hamburg than Vilna _oder_ Kovno." + +Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively in reply. + +"My worries where them fellers comes from, Mawruss!" he commented. +"Because, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, if a feller attends +to his own business, Mawruss, and don't monkey with politics, +y'understand, where could he make a better living than right here in New +York, N. Y.?" + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +"R. S. V. P." + + +It was the tenth of the month, and Abe Potash, of Potash & Perlmutter, +was going through the firm mail with an exploratory thumb and finger, +looking for checks. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, "all them +hightone customers of yours they don't take it so particular that they +should pay on the day, Mawruss. If they was only so prompt with checks +as they was to claim deductions, Mawruss, you and me would have no +worries. I think some of 'em finds a shortage in the shipment before +they open the packing-case that the goods come in. Take your friend +Hyman Maimin, of Sarahcuse--nothing suits him. He always kicks that the +goods ain't made up right, or we ain't sent him enough fancies, or +something like that. Five or six letters he writes us, Mawruss, when he +gets the goods; but when he got to pay for 'em, Mawruss, that's +something else again. You might think postage stamps was solitaire +diamonds, and that he dassen't use 'em!" + +"Quit your kicking," Perlmutter broke in. "This is only the tenth of the +month." + +"I know it," said Abe. "We should have had a check by the tenth of last +month, but"--here Abe's eye lit upon an envelope directed in the +handwriting of Hyman Maimin--"I guess there was some good reason for the +delay," he went on evenly. "Anyhow, here's a letter from him now." + +He tore open the envelope and hurriedly removed the enclosed letter. +Then he took the envelope, blew it wide open, and shook it up and down, +but no check fell out. + +"Did y'ever see the like?" he exclaimed. "Sends us a letter and no +check!" + +"Why, it ain't a letter," Morris said. "It's an advertisement." + +Abe's face grew white. + +"A meeting of creditors!" he gasped. + +Morris grabbed the missive from his partner and spread it out on the +table. + +"Hello!" he exclaimed, a great smile of relief spreading itself about +his ears. "It's a wedding invitation!" He held it up to the light. "'Mr. +and Mrs. Marcus Bramson,'" he read, "'request the pleasure of Potash & +Perlmutter's company at the marriage of their daughter Tillie to Mr. +Hyman Maimin, Sunday, March 19, at seven o'clock, P.M., Wiedermayer's +Hall, 2099 South Oswego Street. R.S.V.P. to residence of bride, care of +Advance Credit Clothing Company, 2097 South Oswego Street.'" + +"What is that 'R.S.V.P. to residence of bride'?" Abe Potash asked. + +Morris reflected for a moment. + +"That means," he said at length, "that we should know where to send the +present to." + +"How do you make that out?" said Abe. + +"'R.S.V.P.'," Morris replied, emphasizing each letter with a motion of +his hand, "means 'Remember to send vedding present.'" + +"But," Abe rejoined, "when I went to night school, we spelt 'wedding' +with a W." + +"A greenhorn like Maimin," said Morris, "don't know no better." + +"He knows enough to ask for a wedding present, Mawruss," Abe commented, +"even if he don't know how to spell it. We'll send him a wedding +present, Mawruss! We'll send him a summons from the court, that's what +we'll send him!" + +Morris shook his head. + +"That ain't no way to talk, Abe," he said. "If a customer gets married, +we _got_ to send him a wedding present. It don't cost much, and if Hyman +Maimin gets a couple of thousand dollars with this Miss--Miss----" + +"Advance Credit Clothing Company," Abe helped out. + +Morris nodded. + +"Then he buys more goods, ain't it?" he concluded. + +"Let him pay for what he's got," Abe rejoined. + +"It just slipped his mind. He'll pay up fast enough, after he gets +married." + +"All right! Wait till he pays up, and then we'll give him a present." + +"Now lookyhere, Abe," Morris protested, "you can't be small in a matter +of this kind. I'll draw a check for twenty-five dollars, and----" + +"Twenty-five dollars!" Abe screamed. "You're crazy! When you was married +last year, I'd like to know who gives you a present for twenty-five +dollars?" + +"Why you did, Abe," Morris replied. + +"Me?" Abe cried. "Say, Mawruss, I want to tell you something. If you can +buy a fine sterling silver bumbum dish, like what I give you, for +twenty-five dollars, I'll take it off your hands for twenty-seven-fifty +any day!" + +"But, Abe----" + +"Another thing, Mawruss," Abe went on. "If you don't like that dish, +there ain't no law compelling you to keep it, you understand. Send it +back. My Rosie can use it. Maybe we ain't so stylish like your Minnie, +Mawruss; but if we don't have bumbums every day, we could put dill +pickles into it!" + +"One moment," Morris protested. "I ain't saying anything about that +bumbum dish, Abe. All I meant that if you give _me_ such a high-price +present when _I_ get married, that's all the more reason why we should +give a high-price present to a customer what we will make money on. I +ain't no customer, Abe." + +"I know you ain't," said Abe. "You're only a partner, and I don't make +no money on you, neither." + +Morris shrugged his shoulders. + +"What's the use of wasting more time about it, Abe?" he said. "Go ahead +and buy a present." + +"Me buy it?" Abe cried. "You know yourself, Mawruss, I ain't a success +with presents. You draw the check and get your Minnie to buy it. She's +an up-to-date woman, Mawruss, while my Rosie is a back number. She don't +know nothing but to keep a good house, Mawruss. Sterling silver bumbum +dishes she don't know, Mawruss. If I took her advice, you wouldn't got +no bumbum dish. Nut-picks, Mawruss, from the five-and-ten-cent store, +that's what you'd got. You might appreciate them, Mawruss; but a +sterling silver----" + +At this juncture Morris took refuge in the outer office, where Miss +Cohen, the bookkeeper, was taking off her wraps. + +"Miss Cohen," he said, "draw a check for twenty-five dollars to bearer, +and enter it up as a gratification to Hyman Maimin." + +At dinner that evening Morris handed the check over to his wife. + +"Here Minnie," he said, "Abe wants you should buy a wedding present for +a customer." + +"What kind of a wedding present?" Mrs. Perlmutter asked. + +"Something in solid sterling silver, like that bumbum dish what Abe gave +us." + +"But, Mawruss," she protested, "you know we got that bonbon dish locked +away in the sideboard, and we never take it out. Let's give 'em +something useful." + +"Suit yourself," Morris replied. "Only don't bother me about it." + +"All right," Mrs. Perlmutter said. "Leave me the name and address, and +I'll see that they send it direct from the store. I'll put one of your +cards inside." + +"And another thing," Morris concluded. "See that you don't hold nothing +out on us by way of commission." + +Mrs. Perlmutter smiled serenely. + +"I won't," she said, in dulcet tones. + + * * * * * + +It was the fourth day after Potash & Perlmutter's receipt of the wedding +invitation. When Morris Perlmutter entered the private office he found +Abe Potash in the absorbed perusal of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_. +Abe looked up and saluted his partner with a malignant grin. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said, "I suppose you sent that present to Hyman +Maimin?" + +"I sent it off long since already," Morris replied. + +"I hope it was a nice one, Mawruss," Abe went on "I hope it was a real +nice one. I'm sorry now, Mawruss, we didn't spend fifty dollars. That +would have made it an even seven hundred, instead of only six hundred +and seventy-five, that Hyman Maimin owed us." + +"What d'ye mean?" cried Morris. + +"I don't mean nothing, Mawruss--nothing at all," Abe said, with ironical +emphasis. He handed the paper to Morris. "Here, look for yourself!" + +He pointed with a trembling forefinger at the "business-troubles" +column, and Morris's eyes seemed to bulge out of his head as he scanned +the printed page: + + A petition in bankruptcy was filed late yesterday afternoon against + Hyman Maimin, 83 West Tonawanda Street, Syracuse. It is claimed + that he transferred assets to the amount of eight thousand dollars + last week. Mr. Maimin says that he has been doing business at a + heavy loss of late, but that he hopes to be able to resume. A + settlement of thirty cents is proposed. + +Morris sat down in a revolving-chair too crushed for comment, and +drummed with a lead pencil on the desk. + +"I wonder if he done up his intended father-in-law, too?" he said at +length. + +"No fear of that, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He ain't no sucker like us, +Mawruss. I bet you his father-in-law--what's his name----" + +"The Advance Credit Clothing Company," Morris suggested. + +"Sure," Abe went on. "I bet you this clothing concern says to him: 'If +you want to marry my daughter, you gotter go into bankruptcy first. +Then, when you're all cleaned up, I'll give you a couple of thousand +dollars to start as a new beginner in another line.' Ain't it?" + +Morris nodded gloomily. + +"No, Mawruss," Abe continued. "I bet you his father-in-law is a big +crook like himself." + +He rose to his feet and opened the large green-and-red covered book +furnished by the commercial agency to which they subscribed. + +"I'm going to do now, Mawruss, what you should have done before you sent +that present," he said. "I'm going to look up this here Advance Credit +Clothing Company. I bet you he ain't even in the book--what?" + +Before Morris could reply, the letter-carrier entered with the morning +mail. While Abe continued to run his thumb down the columns of the +commercial agency book, Morris began to open the envelopes. Both their +heads were bent over their tasks, when an exclamation arose +simultaneously from each. + +"Now, what d'ye think of that?" said Abe. + +"Did y' ever see anything like it?" Morris cried. + +"What is it?" Abe asked. + +For answer, Morris thrust a letter into his partner's hand. It was +headed, "The Advance Credit Clothing Company--Marcus Bramson, +Proprietor," and read as follows: + + MESSRS. POTASH & PERLMUTTER. + + GENTS: + + Your shipment of the 5th is to hand, and in reply would say + that we are returning it _via_ Blue Line on account Miss Tillie + Bramson's engagement is broken. We understand that lowlife + H. Maimin got into you for six hundred and fifty dollars. Believe + me, he done us for more than that. Our Mr. Bramson will be in + New York shortly, and will call to look at your line. Hoping we + will be able to do business with you, + + Yours truly, + THE ADVANCE CREDIT CLOTHING COMPANY, + Per T. B. + +Abe Potash laid down the letter with a sigh, while his thumb still +rested caressingly on the open page of the mercantile agency book. + +"So he's going to send back the present!" he said. "That man Marcus +Bramson, proprietor, has a big heart, Mawruss. He's a man with fine +feelings and a fine disposition, Mawruss. He's got a fine rating too, +Mawruss--seventy-five to a hundred thousand, first credit!" He closed +the book almost lovingly. "D'ye think they would give the money back for +that present, Mawruss?" + +"I don't know," said Morris. "Minnie bought it, and she told me it was a +big bargain. It was a sale, she said, but I guess they'll take it back." + +"What did it look like?" Abe said. + +"I didn't see it," Morris replied. "They sent it direct from the store, +but I took Minnie's word for it. She said it was fine value." + +"And Minnie," Abe concluded, "is a fine, up-to-date woman." + + * * * * * + +Two days later, Abe Potash spotted the name of Marcus Bramson in the +"Arrival of Buyers" column of a morning newspaper. + +"Mawruss," he cried, "he's come!" + +"Who's come?" Morris asked. + +"Marcus Bramson," Abe replied, reaching for his hat. "I'm going over to +the Bingler House now to meet him. You wait here till I come back. I bet +you we sell him a big bill of goods!" + +As Abe went out of the store by the front door, an expressman, bearing a +square wooden box, entered the rear alley. He brought the package +straight to Miss Cohen, who signed a receipt, and summoned Mr. +Perlmutter. Morris proceeded to pry off the cover. + +"This is something what Mrs. Perlmutter bought for Hyman Maimin's +wedding present," he explained. "I ain't never seen it yet." + +He pulled out a number of wads of tissue paper. When he finally reached +a piece of silverware, he turned the box upside down and shook out the +remainder of its contents upon a sample table. + +"Oh, Mr. Perlmutter," Mist Cohen exclaimed, clasping her hands, "what a +beautiful bonbon dish! What a lovely wedding present!" + +Morris looked at the bonbon dish, and beads of perspiration started on +his forehead. + +"Ain't Mrs. Perlmutter got good taste!" Miss Cohen went on +enthusiastically. + +Morris said nothing, but picked up the silver dish. Examining the +polished centre carefully, he discerned the indistinct initials "M. P." +almost but not quite effaced by buffing. Undoubtedly it was the same +bonbon dish. + +He gathered up the tissue paper and carefully arranged it in the box as +a bed for the silver dish. Then he put the cover on, and nailed it down. + +"Ain't you going to let Mr. Potash see it?" Miss Cohen asked. "He ain't +never seen it before, neither, has he?" + +Morris frowned. + +"I think he has," he replied. "Anyhow, I'm going to send it right uptown +by messenger boy." + +"Do you think they'll exchange it?" Miss Cohen inquired. + +"Oh, I guess it will be put back in stock all right," said Morris, +turning away. + + * * * * * + +The next morning, when Morris entered the store, Abe was busy figuring +on the back of a torn envelope. + +"Hello, Mawruss!" he cried, looking up. "Ain't it beautiful weather?" + +Morris agreed that it was. + +"That Mr. Bramson," Abe went on, "that's one fine gentleman, Mawruss. He +ain't what you'd call a close buyer, neither, Mawruss." + +"No?" Morris commented. + +"The way I figure it," Abe continued, "reckoning on what we lost by +Hyman Maimin, if he settles for thirty cents, and what we make out of +Mr. Bramson's first order, we come out even to the dollar!" + +"So?" Morris murmured. + +"All excepting that wedding present, Mawruss," Abe. "By the way, +Mawruss, ain't that wedding present come back yet?" + +"Why, sure," said Morris. "It come back yesterday, when you were out." + +"Why ain't you showed it to me? Ain't I got no right to see it, +Mawruss?" + +"Of course you got a right to see it," Morris assented, "but I thought +I'd get it right up town to Minnie and have it exchanged." + +"And did she exchange it?" Abe asked. + +"Well, it's like this," Morris explained. "Minnie liked it so well that +she decided on keeping it, so I'll give the firm my personal check for +twenty-five dollars." + +Abe puffed hard on his cigar. + +"You're a purty generous feller, Mawruss," he commented, "to give Minnie +a present like that--for nothing at all, ain't it?" + +"Oh, no, I ain't Abe," Morris replied. "I ain't giving it to her for +nothing at all. I'm taking it out of her housekeeping money, Abe--five +dollars a month!" + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +FIRING MISS COHEN + + +"There's no use talking, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared to his +partner, Abe Potash, as they sat in the sample-room of their spacious +cloak-and-suit establishment. "We got a system of bookkeeping that would +disgrace a peanut-stand. Here's a statement from the Hamsuckett Mills, +and it shows a debit balance of eleven hundred and fifty dollars what we +owe them. Miss Cohen's figures is eleven hundred and forty-two." + +"That's in our favour already," Abe replied. "The Hamsuckett people must +be wrong, Mawruss." + +"No, they ain't, Abe," Morris said. "It's Miss Cohen's mistake." + +"Mistake?" Abe exclaimed. "When it's in our favour, Mawruss, it ain't no +mistake!" + +"It's a mistake, anyhow, no matter in whose favour it is," said Morris. +"Miss Cohen's footing was wrong. She gets carelesser every day." + +"I'm surprised to hear you that you should talk that way, Mawruss," Abe +rejoined. "Miss Cohen's been with us for five years, and we ain't lost +nothing by her, neither. You know as well as I do, Mawruss, her uncle, +Max Cohen, is a good customer of ours. Only last week he bought of us a +big bill of goods, Mawruss." + +"Just the same, Abe," Morris went on, "if we get a bright young man in +there, instead of Miss Cohen, it would be a big improvement. We ought to +get some one in there what can manage a double entry, and can run a +card-index for our credits." + +Abe puffed vigorously at his cigar. + +"I suppose, Mawruss, if we got a card-index and we sell a crook a bill +of goods," he commented, "and the crook busts up on us, Mawruss, that +card-index is going to stop him from sticking us--what? Well, Mawruss, +if you want to put in a young feller and fire Miss Cohen, go ahead--I'm +satisfied." + +As if to clinch the matter before his partner could retract this +somewhat grudging consent, Morris Perlmutter stalked out of the +sample-room and made resolutely for the glass-enclosed office, where +Miss Cohen was busy writing in a ledger. She looked up as he entered, +and surveyed him calmly with her large black eyes. + +"Oh, Mr. Perlmutter!" she said when he came within ear-shot, "Uncle Max +was round to the house last night, and he wants you should duplicate +them forty-twenty-twos in his last order and ship at once." + +Morris stopped short. This was something he had not foreseen, and all +his well-formulated plans for the firing of Miss Cohen were shattered at +once. + +"Oh!" he said lamely. "Thank you, Miss Cohen; I'll make a memorandum of +it." He went over to the commercial agency book and scanned three or +four pages with an unseeing eye. Then he repaired to the sample room, +where Abe sat finishing his cigar. + +"Well, Mawruss," said Abe, his face wreathed in a malicious grin, "you +made a quick job of it." + +Morris scowled. + +"I ain't spoken to her yet," he grunted. "I got a little gumption, +Abe--a little consideration and common sense. I don't throw out my dirty +water until I get clean." + +Abe puffed slowly before replying. + +"I seen some people, Mawruss," he said, "what sometimes throws out +perfectly clean water, and gets some dirty water in exchange, Mawruss." +He threw away the stump of his cigar. + +"Sometimes, Mawruss," he concluded solemnly, "they gets a good, big +souse, Mawruss, where they least expect it." + + * * * * * + +Ike Feinsilver, city salesman for the Hamsuckett Mills--Goldner & +Plotkin, proprietors--was obviously his own ideal of a well-dressed man. +His shirts and waistcoats represented a taste as original as it was not +subdued; but it was in the selection of his neckties that he really +excelled. Abe and Morris fairly blinked as they surveyed his latest +acquisition in cravats when he entered the door of their store that +afternoon, smiling a pleasant greeting at his prospective customers. + +He presented so brilliant a picture that Miss Cohen was drawn from her +desk in the glass-enclosed office toward the trio in the sample room as +inevitably as the moth to the candle flame. She took up some cutting +slips from a table, by way of excuse for her intrusion, but the blush +and smile with which she acknowledged Ike's rather perfunctory nod +betrayed her. Abe was fingering the Hamsuckett swatches, but Miss +Cohen's embarrassment did not escape Morris Perlmutter. He marked it +with an inward start, and immediately conceived a brilliant idea. + +"Ike," he said, when Abe had completed the giving of a small order and +had left them alone together, "a young feller like you ought to get +married." + +Ike was non-committal. + +"Sure Mawruss," he replied. "Every young feller ought to get married." + +"I'm glad you look at it so sensible, Ike," Morris went on. "Getting +married right, Ike, has been the making of many a young feller. Where +d'ye suppose Goldner & Plotkin would be to-day if they hadn't got +married right? They'd be selling goods for somebody else, Ike. But +Goldner, he married Bella Frazinsky, with a couple of thousand dollars +maybe; and Plotkin, he goes to work and gets Garfunkel's sister--she was +pretty old, Ike; but if she ain't got a fine complexion, Ike, she got a +couple of thousand dollars, too, ain't it? Well, Plotkin with his two +thousand and Goldner with his two thousand, they start in together as +new beginners. They gets the selling agency for the Hamsuckett people, +and then they makes big money and buys them out. To-day Goldner & +Plotkin is rich men, and all because they got married _right_!" + +Feinsilver listened with parted lips. + +"And now, Ike," Morris continued, "the good seed sown, we talked enough, +ain't it? Come on to the office. I want to show you some little mistakes +in the Hamsuckett statement." + +He conducted Ike to the glass-enclosed office, where Miss Cohen bent low +over her ledger. The blush with which she had received Ike's greeting +had not entirely disappeared; and, as she glanced up, her large black +eyes looked like those of a frightened deer. Morris was forced to admit +to himself that if her bookkeeping was doubtful, at least there could be +no mistake about her charms. As for Ike, now that the business of +securing orders was done with, he surrendered himself to gallantry, for +which he had a natural aptitude. + +"Ah, Miss Cohen," he said, "ain't it a fine weather?" + +A pleased smile spread itself over Morris's face. + +"I think I hear the telephone in the sample room," he broke in +hurriedly. "Excuse me for a moment." + +When he returned, Ike and Miss Cohen were chatting gaily. + +"What do you think of _that_?" Morris cried. "My Minnie just rang me up +and says she got tickets for the theayter to-morrow night--two tickets. +We can't use 'em, because we're going to a--a wedding. Would you two +young folks like to go, maybe?" + +"Why, sure," Ike said. "Sure we would. Wouldn't we, Miss Cohen?" + +Miss Cohen assented bashfully. + +"Well, then," said Morris, "I'll get 'em for you--I mean I'll send 'em +you by mail to-night, Ike." + +Ike was profuse in his thanks; and then and there arranged to call for +Miss Cohen at half-past seven, sharp, the following evening. + +Morris beamed his approval and shook hands heartily with Ike as the +latter turned to leave. + +"How about that mistake in the statement?" Ike asked. + +"Some other time," said Morris, walking with Ike toward the store-door. +Then he sank his voice to a confidential whisper. "That's a fine girl, +Miss Cohen," he went on. "Comes of fine family, too. She's Max Cohen's +niece. You know Max Cohen. He's the Beacon Credit Outfitting Company. +He's a _millionaire_, Ike. If he's worth a cent, he's worth a hundred +thousand dollars!" + +Ike turned on him an awed yet searching look as they clasped hands again +in parting. + +"I give you my word, Ike, she's his favourite niece," Morris concluded, +"_and he ain't got no children of his own_." + + * * * * * + +The ensuing week was a busy one for all concerned. Abe was occupied in +the store with an unusual rush of spring trade, Morris had his hands +full in the office and cutting-room; but Miss Cohen and Ike Feinsilver +had been busiest of all, for in less than six days after their visit to +the theatre a solitaire diamond-ring sparkled on the third finger of the +lady's left hand. + +"Well, Mawruss," Abe said ten days later, "I suppose you fired Miss +Cohen?" + +"Me fire Miss Cohen?" Morris exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you that +you should talk that way, Abe. What for should I fire Miss Cohen?" + +"Why, last week you said you was going to fire her, ain't it?" + +"Last week," Morris replied, "was another day. If I ain't got no more +sense than that I should go to a fine young lady like Miss Cohen, and +say, 'Miss Cohen, you're fired,' after she worked for us five years, and +her uncle also a good customer, I should be sorry, Abe." + +"Then, we're going to keep her, after all--what?" Abe said. + +"No, we ain't going to keep her," said Morris. "We're going to lose +her." + +"_Lose_ her! What d'ye mean?" + +Morris smiled in a superior way. + +"Abe," he said, "you ain't got no eyes in your head. Ain't you noticed +that ring on Miss Cohen's left hand?" + +Abe stared in astonishment. + +"It's a beauty, Abe," Morris went on. "A bright young feller like Ike +Feinsilver don't get stuck, no matter what he buys. He got it through +Plotkin's cousin down on Maiden Lane." + +Abe sat down to ponder over the news. + +"You mean," he said at length, "that Ike Feinsilver, of the Hamsuckett +Mills, is going to marry Miss Cohen?" + +"You guessed it right, Abe," Morris replied. + +"And who fixed it up?" said Abe. + +Morris slapped his chest proudly. + +"I did," he replied. + +Abe smoked on in silence. + +"I suppose I must congratulate her, Mawruss?" he said at length, +starting to rise. + +"There's no hurry," said Morris. "I let her go uptown this morning. She +wanted to do some shopping." + +Abe sat down again. + +"You done a smart piece of work, Mawruss, I must say," he admitted. +"Ike's a good feller, and Miss Cohen'll make him a good wife, even if +she ain't a good bookkeeper. Also, we done a good turn to Max Cohen. I +bet he's pleased. I wonder he ain't been around yet." + +Hardly had the words issued from Mr. Potash's mouth, when the store-door +opened to admit a short, thick-set person, and then closed again with a +bang that threatened every pane of glass in the vicinity. There was no +hesitation about the newcomer's actions. He made straight for the sample +room, and had almost reached it before Abe could scramble to his feet. +The latter rushed forward and grabbed the visitor's hand. + +"Mr. Cohen," he cried, "what a pleasure this is! I congratulate you!" + +Mr. Cohen withdrew his hand from Abe's cordial grasp. + +"You congradulate _me_, hey?" he said, with slow and ironic emphasis. +"Mawruss Perlmutter _also_ congradulates me--what?" He fixed the unhappy +Morris with a terrible glare. "Don't congradulate _me_," he went on. +"Congradulate Ike Feinsilver and Beckie Cohen." He gathered force as he +proceeded. "Fools!" he continued in a rapid crescendo. "Meddlers! You +spill my blood! You ruin me! I'm a millionaire, you tell Feinsilver. +I've got nothing to do with my money but that I should throw it away in +the street!" + +"_Mister_ Cohen," Morris protested, "you'll make yourself sick." + +"I'll make _you_ sick!" Cohen rejoined. "I'll make for you a blue eye, +too. _Five thousand dollars_ I got to give her!" + +Abe whistled involuntarily. + +"I should think two thousand would be plenty," he suggested. + +Max Cohen turned on him with another glare. + +"What!" he shrieked. "Am I a beggar? Should I give my niece a miserable +two thousand dollars? Ain't I got no pride? I _got_ to make it five +thousand!" He paused while his imagination dwelt on the magnitude of +this colossal sum. "Five thousand dollars!" he shrieked again, "and +business the way it is!" + +Mr. Perlmutter laid a soothing palm on Cohen's shoulder. + +"But, Mr. Cohen," he said, "what can _we_ do? Why should you tell _us_ +all this?" + +Mr. Cohen shook off Morris's caress. + +"You're right," he said. "Why should I tell you all this? I didn't come +here to tell you this. I come here to tell you something else. I come +here to tell you to cancel all orders what I give you. Also, if you or +your salesman come by my place ever again, look out; that's all. The way +I feel it now, I'll murder you!" He turned to leave. "And another +thing," he concluded. "One thing, you can depend on it. So far what I +can help it, you don't sell one dollar's worth of goods to any of my +friends, never no more!" + +Again the door banged explosively, and Mr. Cohen was gone. + +For ten minutes there was an awed silence in the sample room. At length +Abe looked at his partner with a sickly smile. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said, "you made a nice mess of it, ain't you?" + +Morris was too stunned to reply. + +"That's what comes of not minding your own business," said Abe. "We lose +a good customer, and maybe several good customers. We lose a good +bookkeeper, too, Mawruss--one what has been with us for five years; and +also we are out a wedding present." + +"I meant it good," Morris protested. "I done it for the best. It says in +the Talmud, Abe, that we are commanded to promote marriages." + +Abe waggled his head solemnly. + +"This is the first time I hear it, that you are a Talmudist, Mawruss!" +he said. + +A month passed, and Miss Cohen continued to apply herself to her daily +task at Potash & Perlmutter's books. + +"I don't understand it, Mawruss," Abe said one morning. "Why don't that +girl quit her job? She must have all sorts of things to do--clothes to +buy and furniture to pick out, ain't it?" + +Perlmutter shrugged his shoulders. + +"I spoke to her about it," he replied, "and she says so long as we're so +busy here, she guesses she will stay on the job as long as she can. She +says her mommer and her sister can do all the shopping for her." + +"You see, Mawruss, what a mistake you make," Abe commented with a sigh. + +"That's a fine girl, that Miss Cohen!" + +Morris nodded gloomily. He began to realize that he had made a mistake, +after all. Only that morning Mrs. Perlmutter had demanded twenty dollars +with which to make over her best frock for Miss Cohen's wedding. + +"Sure, she's a fine girl," he agreed; "but you got to admit yourself, +Abe, that a growing business like ours needs a hustling young man for a +bookkeeper." + +"That's all right, too, Mawruss," said Abe; "but you also got to admit +that what a growing business like ours needs most of all, Mawruss, is +customers; and so far what I see, we don't gain any customers by this. +Also, my wife has got to make a new dress for the wedding. She told me +so this morning." + +Morris made no reply. He was growing heartily sick of this business of +firing Miss Cohen, and consoled himself with the thought that the +wedding was fast approaching, and that they would be rid of her for +good. + +At length the wedding-day arrived. Miss Cohen left Potash & Perlmutter's +at four o'clock, for the ceremony was set for half-past seven in the +evening. Her parting with her employers was an embarrassing one for all +three. Abe handed her a check for twenty-five dollars, with the firm's +blessing, and Morris shook her hand in comparative silence. He had done +and suffered much for that moment of leave-taking; and further than +wishing her a long and happy married life, he said nothing. As for Abe, +the squandering of twenty-five dollars, without hope of return, +temporarily exhausted his capacity for emotion. + +"Good luck to you, Miss Cohen," he said. "Hope we see you again soon." + +"Oh, sure!" Miss Cohen replied cheerfully. "You'll be at the wedding +to-night?" + +Abe nodded--they all nodded--and then, with a final handshake all +around, Miss Cohen departed. + +It must be confessed that the wedding reception that evening was a very +enjoyable occasion for all the guests, with the possible exception of +Max Cohen. The wine flowed like French champagne at four dollars a +quart, while, as Morris Perlmutter at once deduced from the careful way +in which the waiters disguised the label with a napkin, it was really +domestic champagne of an inferior quality. Nevertheless, Abe Potash +drank more than his share, in a rather futile attempt to get back, in +kind, part of the twelve and a half dollars he had contributed toward +Miss Cohen's wedding-present, to say nothing of the cost of his wife's +gown. + +Consequently, on the morning after the festivities he entered his place +of business in no very pleasant frame of mind. He found that Morris had +already arrived. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said in greeting, "everything went off splendid--for +Feinsilver. Max Cohen came down with a certified check for five thousand +dollars, you and me got rid of about over a hundred, counting the +wedding-present and our wives' dresses, and Miss Cohen got a husband and +a lot of cut glass, while _me_--I got a headache!" + +Morris grunted. + +"I guess you don't feel too good yourself, ain't it?" Abe went on. +"Anyhow, you got to get busy now, and find some smart young feller to +keep the books. You got rid of your dirty water, Mawruss; now you got to +get some clean. Did you put an 'ad' in the papers, Mawruss?" + +"No, I ain't," Morris snapped. + +"Ain't you going to?" + +"What for?" Morris growled. "We don't need no bookkeeper." + +"Why not?" Abe cried. + +Morris nodded in the direction of the office. + +"Because we _got_ one," he replied. + +Abe turned toward the little glass enclosure. He gasped in amazement, +and nearly swallowed the stump of his cigar, for at the old stand, +industriously applying herself to the books of Potash & Perlmutter, sat +Mrs. Isaac Feinsilver, _née_ Cohen. + +A moment later the door opened, and Isaac Feinsilver entered, +immaculately clothed in a suit of zebra-like design. He proceeded to the +bookkeeper's office and kissed the blushing bride; then he repaired to +the sample room. + +"Good morning, Mawruss! Good morning, Abe!" he said briskly. "Ain't it a +fine weather?" He threw a bundle of swatches upon the sample table. "My +partners, Goldner & Plotkin, and me"--here he paused to note the +effect--"is putting out a fine line of spring goods, and I want to show +you some." + +Abe and Morris looked over Ike's line in dazed astonishment; and before +they were really cognizant of what was going on, Ike had booked a +generous order. He gathered up the samples into a neat little heap and +put them under his arm. + +"That ain't so bad," he said, "for a honeymoon order." + +Then he turned and strode toward the bookkeeper's office. Once more he +saluted the lips of his assiduous spouse, and a moment later he was +walking rapidly down the street. Abe looked after him and expelled a +huge breath. + +"You find it in the Talmud that we are commanded to promote marriages, +ain't it, Mawruss?" he said. "But one thing's sure, Mawruss--you can't +run a cloak-and-suit business according to the Talmud." There was a +short silence. "Did you ask her why she comes back, Mawruss?" he said. + +Morris took the end off a particularly black cigar with one vicious +bite. + +"I didn't have to ask her. She told me," he said bitterly. "She says a +smart girl can get a husband any day, she says; but a good job is hard +to find, and when you got one, you should stick to it!" + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +AUX ITALIENS + + +"What are you talking nonsense, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared hotly, +one morning in December; "an elegant class of people lives in the +houses. On the same floor with me lives Harry Baskof, which he is just +married a daughter of Maisener & Finkman. You remember Max Finkman, for +years a salesman for B. Senft & Co. Downstairs is a lawyer, a young +feller by the name Sholy, and on the ground floor is Doctor +Eichendorfer." + +"With lawyers, Mawruss," Abe said, "we got enough to do downtown, ain't +it? Doctors also, Mawruss. I am once living next door to a doctor, and +every time I meet that feller he says 'How do you do?' to me like he +would mean, 'It's a fine day for an operation.' I get a pain in my right +side whenever I think of him even." + +"Never mind, Abe," Morris rejoined. "Oncet in a while a doctor in the +house comes in pretty handy--a lawyer too. A feller could get a whole +lot of pointers riding up and down in an elevator with a lawyer. Ain't +it? The only trouble about the house is the family above us, which the +lady is all the time hollering like somebody would be giving her a +licking already. Minnie says that she hears from our girl that her girl +says she was an opera singer in the old country." + +"Yow, an opera singer in the old country!" Abe exclaimed skeptically. +"In Russland they don't got so many opera singers as all that." + +"What d'ye mean, in Russland?" Morris demanded. "The woman ain't from +Russland at all. She's an Italiener. I am coming up in the elevator last +night with her husband and a friend, and the way they are talking to +each other it sounds like a couple of bushelers in a factory. I tell you +the honest truth, Abe, for me it don't make no difference if a feller +would be a Frencher _oder_ an Irishman, so long as he treats me white I +would be a good feller, Abe; but an Italiener, Abe, is something else +again. An Italiener would as lief stick a knife into you as look at you, +Abe, and they smell the whole house out with garlic yet." + +"There's lots of things smells worse as garlic, Mawruss," Abe retorted, +"and as for sticking a knife into you, that's all _schmooes_. There's +lots of people worser as Italieners, I bet yer, and when it comes right +down to it, Mawruss, I'd a whole lot sooner have a couple Italieners +working for me as some of them fellers which they are coming over from +Russland." + +"Since when did you got such friendly feelings for Italieners, Abe?" +Morris inquired satirically. + +"Never mind!" Abe exclaimed. "You could knock an Italiener all you want, +Mawruss, but you could take it from me, Mawruss, when an Italiener's got +work to do he don't stand around talking a lot of nonsense instead of +attending to business, like some people I know." + +With this scathing rejoinder Abe trudged off toward the cutting room and +Morris proceeded to the office. He had hardly seated himself comfortably +at his desk, however, when Abe burst into the room. + +"That's the way it goes, Mawruss," he cried. "Half the time we sit and +_schmooes_ in the showroom and we don't know what goes on in our cutting +room at all." + +"What's the matter now?" Morris asked. + +"Harkavy has quit us again," Abe replied. + +"Quit us!" Morris exclaimed. "What for?" + +"Nothing. All I says to the feller was why them piece goods is on the +floor, and he says he is sick and tired and I should get another +designer." + +Morris bit the end off a new cigar and glared ferociously at Abe. + +"So," he said bitterly, "we lose another designer through you, Abe. What +do you think, a designer would stand for abuse the same like a partner, +Abe?" + +"What d'ye mean--abuse, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "I ain't said no abuse +to the feller at all; and even if I would, Mawruss, I guess I could talk +like how I want to in my own cutting room, Mawruss." + +Morris rose to his feet. + +"_Schon gut_, Abe," he said. "Don't ask me I should step right into +Harkavy's shoes and work like a dawg till you are finding a new +designer, Abe. Them days is past, Abe." + +"You shouldn't worry yourself, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "The way business +is so rotten nowadays, y'understand, we would quick get another +designer." + +"Would you?" Morris cried. "Well, I guess I got something to say about +that, Abe. If you think we are going to work to hire a designer which he +is getting fired by every John, Dick and Harry, you got another think +coming. This time, Abe, I would hire the designer, and don't you forget +it." + +"Did I say I wanted to do it, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Go ahead and hire +him, Mawruss, only one thing I got to ask you as a favour: don't say the +feller was my choice, Mawruss; because I wipe my hands from the whole +matter." + +For the remainder of the day Morris and Abe maintained only such +speaking relations as were necessary to the conduct of their business, +and when Morris went home that evening he wore so gloomy an air that +Harry Baskof, who rode up on the elevator with him, was moved to +comment. + +"What's the matter, Mawruss?" he said. "You look like your best customer +would be asking an extension on you." + +"We don't sell such people at all, Harry," Morris said bitterly. +"Collections is all right, Harry, but when a feller's got a partner +which he is got such a quick temper, understand me, that he fires out +the help faster as I could hire 'em--I got a right to look worried. Our +designer leaves us to-day." + +"Ain't that terrible, Mawruss," Harry said in mock sympathy. "I suppose +you couldn't walk for miles on Fifth Avenue between Eighteenth and +Twenty-third Street and break your neck falling over a hundred designers +which they are hanging around there looking for jobs." + +They alighted at the third floor and Morris drew his latchkey from his +waistcoat pocket. + +"Sure, I know, Harry," he retorted. "Them people which they already got +designers could always find a better one, y'understand, but when you +ain't got a designer, Harry, that's something else again. You could +advertise until you are blue in the face, and all the answers you get is +from fellers which they couldn't design a sausage casing for a +frankfurter already." + +"_Schmooes_, Mawruss!" Harry cried. "I could get you thousands of +designers. In fact, Mawruss, only this afternoon my father-in-law, Mr. +Finkman, sends me over a man which he is working for years by Senft & +Co. as a designer, I should give him a job. I already got a good +designer, so what could I do?" + +"Why didn't you think to send him over to me, Harry?" Morris said. + +"How should I know you wanted a designer?" Harry rejoined. "But, anyhow, +maybe it ain't too late yet. After supper I would ring up Mr. Finkman +and I'll let you know." + +"Much obliged," Morris said, as he turned the key and entered his own +apartment. He was so far restored to good humour by his conversation +with Harry Baskof that when he bestowed his evening kiss on Minnie he +failed to notice that her eyes were somewhat swollen. + +"Yes, Minnie," he said, "that's the way it is when you got good +neighbours." + +"Good neighbours!" Minnie said bitterly, and then for the first time +Morris observed her swollen eyelids. + +"Why, Minnie _leben_," he exclaimed as he folded her in a second +embrace, "what's the trouble?" + +"Don't, Morris," Minnie said almost snappishly, as she wriggled away +from him; "my waist is mussed up enough from working in the kitchen, +without your crushing it." + +"Working in the kitchen!" Morris said. "What's the matter? Is Tillie +sick?" + +"No, she isn't," Minnie replied, as she rushed off toward the kitchen. +"She's gone." + +Morris hung up his coat and made his perfunctory toilet without another +word. Despite Minnie's pathetic appearance, there was a dangerous gleam +in her eyes that urged Morris to the exercise of the most delicate +marital diplomacy. + +"What a soup!" he exclaimed, as he subjected the first spoonful to a +long, gurgling inhalation. "If they got such soup as this at the +Waldorf, Minnie _leben_, I bet yer the least they would soak you for it +is a dollar." + +Following the soup came boiled brisket, a dish that Morris loathed. +Ordinarily Morris would have eaten it with sulky diffidence, but when +Minnie bore the steaming dish from the kitchen he not only jumped from +his seat to take it from her hands, but after he had deposited it on the +table he kissed her on the forehead with lover-like delicacy. + +"How did you know I am thinking all the way up on the subway if Minnie +would only got _Brustdeckel_ for supper for a change what a treat it +would be?" he said. + +Minnie's glum face broke into a smile and Morris fairly beamed. + +"What do you bother your head so about a girl leaves you, Minnie +_leben_," he cried. "You could get plenty of girls. On Lenox Avenue a +feller could break his neck already falling over girls which is hanging +around looking for jobs." + +"Oh, I know you can get lots of girls," Minnie agreed, "but you've got +to train them, Morris; but then, too, I wouldn't care so much, but those +awful Italians upstairs went and stole Tillie away from me." + +"What!" Morris shouted. "Them Italieners done it? Well, what do you +think of that for a dirty trick?" + +"And they only pay her three dollars a month more," Minnie continued. + +"Three dollars a month more, hey?" Morris replied. "Well, that's the way +it is, Minnie. Honestly, Minnie, anybody which they would steal away +from you somebody which is working for you, it ain't safe to live in the +same house with them at all. A feller which steals away feller's help +would pick a pocket. Such cut-throats you couldn't trust at all." He +helped himself to some more brisket. + +"Never mind, Minnie," he said, "if it would be necessary we will pay a +girl a couple dollars more a week so long as we get a good one." + +"Will we?" Minnie said. "Since when are you running this house, Morris?" + +"I was only talking in a manner of speaking," he hastened to say. "Where +do you buy such good _Brustdeckel_, Minnie? Honestly, it takes in a way +a genius to pick out such meat." + +"Does it?" Minnie rejoined. "I ordered it over the 'phone, and +furthermore, Morris, if you make so much noise eating it you will wake +the boy." + +"I'm all through, Minnie," Morris said. "Wait--I'll show you how I could +help you wash the dishes." + +As he started for the kitchen with one butterplate in his hand the +doorbell rang, whereupon he returned the butterplate to the dining-room +table and hastened down the hall. + +"Hallo, Mawruss," cried Harry Baskof as Morris opened the door. "I rung +up the old man and he says he got the feller a job with Sammet +Brothers." + +"Come inside," Morris answered, and led the way to the parlour. He +motioned his visitor to a seat and produced a box of cigars. + +"Do you mean to say the feller got a job as quick as all that?" he +continued. + +"He sure did, Mawruss," Harry replied. "He's an elegant designer, +Mawruss, and if B. Senft knew his business he never would got rid of him +at all." + +"Why, what did he done to B. Senft?" Morris asked. + +"Nothing at all, Mawruss. Senft is crazy. He gets a prejudice against +the feller all of a sudden on account he's an Italiener." + +"Italiener!" Morris cried. + +"Sure," Harry replied. "Did you ever hear the like, Mawruss, that a man +like Senft, which his folks _oser_ come over in the Mayflower neither, +y'understand, should kick on account a feller is an Italiener? And mind +you, Mawruss, the feller is otherwise perfectly decent, respectable +feller by the name Enrico Simonetti." + +Morris nodded. + +"With a name like that he must got to be a good designer," he commented, +"otherwise Sammet Brothers wouldn't hire him at all. It would take a +whole lot more gumption than Leon Sammet got it to call such a feller +from the cutting room even." + +"That's all right, Mawruss. You don't have to call such a feller from +the cutting room. He could run a cutting room as well as design +garments; and in fact, Mawruss, when Sammet Brothers pay that feller two +thousand a year, y'understand, they are practically getting him for +nothing." + +"Two thousand a year!" Morris exclaimed. "Why, we ourselves would pay +him twenty-five hundred." + +"The feller's worth four thousand if he's worth a cent, Mawruss, but the +way business is so rotten nowadays he was willing to take two thousand. +_Aber_ my father-in-law, Mr. Finkman, told me on the 'phone, the roar +this feller puts up when Leon Sammet offers him eighteen hundred, Leon +was pretty near afraid for his life already." + +"I don't blame him," Morris commented. "Such highwaymen like Sammet +Brothers they would beat a feller's price down to nothing. We ain't that +way with our help, Harry. If we would got a good man working by us +we----" + +"Morris!" cried a voice from the kitchen. + +"Yes," Morris replied, jumping to his feet. In less than two minutes he +reappeared and approached Harry with an apologetic smile. "Would you +excuse me a couple minutes, Harry?" he asked. "I got to run over to the +grocer for a box of soap powder. Our girl threw up her job on us." + +"I'll go with you," Harry replied. "I need to get a little air." + +A minute later they walked down the street to Lenox Avenue, and as they +approached the corner Harry nodded to a short, dark personage who was +proceeding slowly down the street. + +"Al-lo!" he cried, seizing Harry by the arm, "adjer do?" + +"Fine, thanks," Harry said. "Let me introduce you to a friend of mine by +the name Mr. Perlmutter. This is Mr. Simonetti, Mawruss, which I am +talking to you about." + +Morris shook hands limply. + +"You don't tell me," he said. "You know me, Mr. Simmons? My partner is +Mr. Potash. I guess you hear B. Senft speak about us." + +"Sure," Simonetti said. "Mister Senft ees always say: 'Mister Potash and +Perlmutter ees nice-a people.' Sure." + +"Better than Sammet Brothers?" Harry asked. + +Simonetti raised his eyebrows and made a flapping gesture with his right +hand. + +"A-oh!" he said. "Sammet Brothers, that's all right too. Not too much-a +all right, Mr. Baskof, but is preety good people. I am just-a now go to +see ees-a lawyer for sign-a da contract." + +"Ain't you signed the contract yet?" Morris cried. + +"Not-a yet," Simonetti answered. "Just-a now I am going." + +"Baskof," Morris urged, "supposing you and me goes together with Mr. +Simonetti to the Harlem Winter Garden and talks the thing over." + +Simonetti looked amazedly at Baskof. + +"Sure," Baskof said. "It ain't too late if he ain't signed the +contract." + +"What do you mean?" Simonetti asked. + +"Why, I mean this, Simonetti," Baskof replied. "Sammet Brothers will +give you a contract for two thousand dollars, and Perlmutter here is +willing to pay you twenty-five hundred. Ain't that right, Mawruss?" + +Morris nodded. + +"With privilege to renew it, Mawruss, ain't it?" + +Again Morris nodded. "One year renewal," he said. + +Simonetti looked earnestly at Morris, who fumbled in his waistcoat +pocket and produced a cigar. + +"Do you smoke, Mr. Simmons?" he began. + +"Simonetti," the designer interrupted, as he took the cigar and bit off +the end; "and eef ees too much-a you say Simonetti, call me 'Enery." + +When Morris entered his place of business the following morning he +appeared to be in no better humour than when he left for home the +previous evening. + +"Well, Abe," he announced, "I hired a soap powder." + +Abe stared at him for a moment. + +"What are you talking nonsense, you hired a soap powder?" he exclaimed. +"Are you _verrückt_?" + +Morris snapped his fingers. + +"A soap powder!" he cried. "Hear me talk! I mean a designer. I hired a +designer, Abe, a first-class feller." + +"What d'ye mean, a first-class feller?" Abe demanded. "You are leaving +here last night half-past six, and here it is only eight o'clock next +morning and already you hired a designer which he is a first-class +feller. How do you know he is a first-class feller, Mawruss? Did you +dream it?" + +"No, I didn't dream it, Abe," Morris said as he hung up his hat; "and +what is more I want to tell you something. Yesterday you are saying I +should go ahead and hire a designer and not bother you in your head, and +to-day you are kicking yet. Well, you could kick all you want to, Abe, +because if a feller's partner kicks _oder_ his wife kicks, Abe, he must +got to stand for it. But just the same, Abe, this here feller comes to +work for us Monday morning, and we got with him a contract, all signed +and g'fixed by a lawyer, which he gets from us twenty-five hundred a +year for one year, with privilege to renew for another year." + +"Twenty-five hundred dollars!" Abe exclaimed. "By a lawyer? What are you +talking about, Mawruss?" + +At this juncture Morris grew purple with rage. + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he yelled, "ask me no questions. I am sick and +tired of it. You would think if a feller forgets to buy a packet soap +powder, y'understand, his wife wouldn't go crazy and ring up the police +station yet, on account I am going with Baskof and this here cutter to +see a lawyer by the name Sholy, which he lives in my flathouse yet. +There we are sitting till twelve o'clock fixing up the contract, and if +you don't like it you could lump it. When I come home I got to get +Doctor Eichendorfer yet to tend to Minnie. Five dollars that robber +soaks me, and he lives in the same house with me. Also this lawyer Sholy +charges me also twenty-five dollars for drawing the contract, understand +me, which Feldman himself would only charge us fifty. Neighbours them +fellers is, Abe! Such neighbours I would expect to got it if I am living +next door to Sing Sing prison." + +For more than an hour Abe pressed the matter no further, but at length +curiosity impelled him to speak. "Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," he began, +"couldn't I look at that contract too?" + +"Sure you could," Morris replied. "I'm surprised you ain't got no more +interest in the matter you didn't ask me before." + +Abe grunted and took the contract that Morris handed to him. "This +agreement," it ran, "made and entered into between Abraham Potash and +Morris Perlmutter, composing the firm of Potash & Perlmutter, of the +Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, parties of the first part, and +Enrico Simonetti, of the same place, party of the second part, +witnesseth----" + +At this point Abe dropped the contract. + +"Mawruss," he said slowly, "do you mean to told me you are hiring for a +designer an Italiener?" + +"Sure," Morris replied; "why not?" + +"Why not!" Abe bellowed. "Why not! Ain't you and me married men? Ain't +we got wives? Ain't you got a child to support as well?" + +"What's that got to do with it?" Morris asked. + +"What's that got to do with it?" Abe repeated. "I'm surprised to hear you +you should talk that way, Mawruss. Supposing it is necessary we should +tell such a feller he is coming down late _oder_ he is doing something +which he shouldn't do, y'understand, then the very first thing you know +he sticks into us a knife _und fertig_. I suppose, Mawruss, you are +figuring that even if you don't carry such good insurance, Mawruss, your +wife is young and could easy get married again. But with me is +differencely. My wife ain't so young no longer and----" + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris interrupted, "don't talk no more such +nonsense to me, because I seen the feller and I am sitting with him last +night over three hours. That feller would no more stick into you a knife +as I would." + +"No?" Abe commented. + +"And furthermore, Abe, when you are saying that Italieners stick knives, +understand me, you are talking like a greenhorn. Italieners is decent, +respectable people like anybody else, Abe, and just because when you are +going on the opera a couple Italieners stabs themselves, like I am +seeing it last week a show by the name Paliatzki, y'understand, that +ain't no sign every Italiener is a stabber, understand me. For that +matter, Abe, after this here show Paliatzki comes a whole lot of fellers +from Russland on to the stage, which they are dancing so quick I never +seen the like, understand me, and you know as well as I do, Abe, we got +plenty fellers from Russland working by us here which they could no more +dance as they could fly." + +Abe shrugged again. + +"Never mind, supposing they wouldn't be stabbers even, Mawruss," he +continued, "if you got working for you an Italiener which you just broke +in good, y'understand, so soon as he saves a couple hundred dollars he +right away quits you and goes back to the old country. All them fellers +is eating is garlic and _Lockshen mit_ holes into it, and you know as +well as I do, Mawruss, for two hundred dollars a feller could buy enough +_Lockshen und Knoblauch_ to last him for the rest of his natural life. +Whereas Mawruss, you take a feller which he is coming over here from +Russland, y'understand, and he wouldn't go back to the old country not +if you was to make him a present of it free for nothing." + +"Is it anything against them Italieners if they save their money, Abe?" +Morris asked. + +"All right, Mawruss," Abe said, "supposing Italieners is such big +savers, understand me, one thing you must anyhow got to admit, Mawruss. +You get a couple Italieners working for you, understand me, and from +morning till night they never give you a minute's peace. Seemingly they +must got to sing. They couldn't help themselves, Mawruss." + +"What do we care if he hollers a little something oncet in a while, +Abe?" Morris protested. "We could stand it if he turns out some good +styles." + +"_If_ he turns out good styles is all right, Mawruss," Abe said as he +turned away. "Lots of accidents could happen to a feller in the garment +business, Mawruss. Burglars could bust into his loft and steal his silk +piece goods on him; he could have maybe a fire; he could fall down the +elevator shaft and break, _Gott soll hüten_, his neck. All these things +could come to a garment manufacturer, Mawruss; but that his designer +should turn out some good styles is an accident which don't happen to +one garment manufacturer out of a hundred, Mawruss." + +Nevertheless, long before Enrico Simonetti's term of employment had +expired Abe was obliged to acknowledge his mistake. + +Not only had Enrico proved his efficiency and originality as a designer +but he had exercised the utmost discretion in the management of the +cutting room. Moreover, he had little taste for music and never so much +as whistled a melody during working hours. + +"I couldn't make him out at all, Mawruss," Abe declared one morning. +"Actually the feller complains to me this morning he couldn't stand that +little greenhorn we hired last week on account he smells so from +garlic." + +"Sure, I know," Morris replied, "and he don't smoke and he don't +_shikker_, and he tells me yesterday he boards with a family on Second +Avenue which all it costs him is four dollars a week. And yet you, Abe, +you are kicking because the feller is an Italiener." + +"When was I kicking to you the feller is an Italiener?" Abe demanded. +"Why, you yourself, Mawruss, always says to me Italieners is no good. If +you are telling me oncet you are telling me a hundred times about an +Italiener family which they are living on top of you, Mawruss, and, to +hear you talk, such _Roshoyim_ you wouldn't believe existed at all." + +"Sure, I know," Morris admitted, "but there's Italieners and Italieners, +Abe; and only last night them people sits up till two o'clock this +morning _shikkering_ and hollering. Not alone the woman hollers, Abe, +but a feller sings that big song from Paliatzki till I thought my head +would bust. Some one should write to the Board of Health about it, Abe." + +"My _tzuris_!" Abe exclaimed. "If you got living in the same house with +you a lawyer and a doctor, Mawruss, you shouldn't got much trouble +getting the Board of Health after them Italieners. And anyhow, Mawruss, +if the worser comes to the worst, y'understand, there's one thing you +could always do. + +"What's that?" Morris asked. + +"Move out," Abe replied, as he started for the cutting room. + +"Yes, Mawruss," he commented, when he returned five minutes later, "you +could knock the Italieners all you want, but you got to admit they ain't +throwing their money into the street. Henry is showing me just now a +bankbook which in the last nine months he is putting away eighteen +hundred dollars." + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris said. "If he would be from _unsere +Leute_, y'understand, instead he is putting the money in savings bank +and getting 3 per cent. interest, he would invest it in something else +and make it pretty near double itself soon." + +"What d'ye mean, 3 per cent. interest?" Abe retorted. "Henry's got his +money in a bank which they are paying him 5 per cent. compounded every +three months. Henry ain't no fool, Mawruss." + +"Five per cent.!" Morris exclaimed. "What for a bank would pay 5 per +cent. interest, Abe?" + +"I don't know what for a bank pays 5 per cent., Mawruss," Abe replied, +"but you could take it from me, Mawruss, the way Sam Feder discounts +perfectly good A number one accounts for them depositors of his when +they are a little short, Mawruss, not only could the Kosciusko Bank +afford to pay five per cent., Mawruss, but they could also give 6 or 7, +and still Sam Feder's wife wouldn't got to pawn none of her diamonds." + +"Does he deposit his money with Feder?" Morris asked. + +"Yow, he deposit his money with Feder, Mawruss!" Abe replied. "He +deposits his money with a banker by the name Guy-seppy Scratch-oly." + +"Guy-seppy Scratch-oly," Morris repeated. "That's a fine name for a +banker, Abe." + +"Guy-seppy, that's Italian for Yosef, Mawruss," Abe explained. "And +Scratch-oly is an Italian name the same like a feller in Russland would +be called Lipschutzky. For that matter, Mawruss, Lipschutzky ain't much +of a name for a banker neither." + +"No," Morris admitted, "but I'd a whole lot sooner trust my money to a +feller by the name Lipschutzky _oder_ Feder, as to one of the Scratchy +names, Abe." + +"What is the difference what the banker's name is?" Abe rejoined. "Henry +says the money is all sent by his bank to a branch they got in the old +country. _Gott weiss_ what that bank couldn't get for its money in the +old country, because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, here in New York +City some business men is short oncet in a while, understand me, but +over in the old country everybody is short all the time. The way banks +does business over there, Mawruss, they make Feder's bank look like a +Free Loan Association." + +"Sure, I know, Abe," Morris said gloomily, "and you mark my words, Abe, +so soon as Henry's year is up he will follow his money to the old +country." + +"You shouldn't worry yourself about that, Mawruss," Abe said +confidently. "When a feller's got a contract with a privilege for +renewal at two hundred dollars raise, like Henry got it, understand me, +he ain't so stuck on going back to the old country. Two hundred dollars +is a whole lot of money over there, Mawruss. For two hundred dollars in +the old country a----" + +"Don't tell me again how much _Lockshen_ mit holes in it a feller could +buy in the old country, Abe," Morris interrupted. "There's elegant +weather over there and good wine to drink, and places to go and look at +which they got mountains twicet as high as the Catskills, with olives +and grapes growing on to 'em." + +"I was never crazy about olives, Mawruss." + +"Me neither," Morris agreed, "but Henry is something else again, and the +way that feller is talking to me in the cutting room yesterday, Abe, +either he wouldn't be working for us three months from to-day or the +steamers stops running to Italy." + + * * * * * + +"Mawruss," Abe shouted, at ten o'clock one morning in early March, +"where was you?" + +"Where was I?" Morris repeated. "I was to the court, that's where I +was." + +"To the court!" Abe exclaimed. + +"That's what I said," Morris continued. "We fixed that sucker, me and +Sholy and Doctor Eichendorfer and Baskof. We got him for a summons for +this afternoon two o'clock he should go to the Jefferson Market Police +Court. Till four o'clock this morning them people upstairs sits up +hollering and _skiddering_. Minnie and me we couldn't sleep a wink, and +Baskof neither. Steals our servant girl yet. I'll show that _Rosher_." + +Abe glared indignantly at his partner. + +"Do you mean to told me, Mawruss," he said, "that you are fooling away +your time going on the court because somebody upstairs sings a little +something last night?" + +"Sings a little something!" Morris cried. "Why, that Italiener hollers +Paliatzki till you would think he commits a murder up there." + +"Suppose he did, Mawruss, ain't we got no business to go down here? Here +we are rushed to death already, and you are fooling away your----" + +"Don't say that again, Abe," Morris broke in. "I guess I could take off +a couple hours if I want to." + +"Sure," Abe replied ironically, "and Henry takes off a couple of hours +this lunchtime. He just told me so, Mawruss. He takes off a couple hours +on account he is going downtown to draw some money out of the bank and +buy his ticket." + +"Buy his ticket!" Morris gasped. + +"That's right," Abe continued, with forced calmness, "because, Mawruss, +they wouldn't let no one travel on a steamer without buying a ticket. +People what runs steamers is very funny that way, Mawruss." + +Morris grew pale as he removed his coat and hat. + +"What's he buying a steamer ticket for?" he asked. + +"He didn't tell me exactly, Mawruss," Abe went on, "but I got a sort of +an idee he's going back to Italy, Mawruss, and next time, Mawruss, when +we hire a designer, understand me, I would do it myself. Also, Mawruss, +I would hire a designer which, if he goes back to the old country, +y'understand, they would right away take him for a soldier, and then, +Mawruss, we wouldn't got to be left without a designer just in the +middle of the busy season." + +"Did you talk to him, Abe?" Morris inquired timidly. "Maybe we could +jolly him into staying." + +Abe nodded again. + +"Maybe you could jolly a duck not to swim in the water, Mawruss," he +cried bitterly. + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris retorted. "A duck ain't got no use for a +couple of hundred dollars bonus." + +"A couple of hundred dollars bonus!" Abe yelled. "Do you mean to say you +would offer that Italiener a bonus?" + +"Sure; why not?" Morris asked. "Ain't he a good designer, Abe?" + +"I don't care if he was the best designer in the world, Mawruss," Abe +replied firmly. "Before I would give him a couple hundred dollars bonus, +understand me, he could go to Italy and a whole lot farther too." + +"Suit yourself," Morris said, as he commenced to examine the morning's +mail. He was midway in the assortment of the firm's sample line when Abe +approached him half an hour later. + +"Mawruss," he said, "do me the favour. You speak to the feller and see +what you can do. After all, a couple hundred dollars wouldn't break us." + +"I'm satisfied," Morris replied, and he walked immediately to the +cutting room. + +"What's the matter, Henry, I hear you are leaving us?" he began. + +Henry straightened up from the layer of cloth that was spread before him +on the cutting table and passed one hand through his bushy black hair. + +"I gotta no keek, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "Just for my contract is up, +so I go. That's all. I like-a da job first-class. Mr. Potash ees ver' +good man. Mr. Perlmutter ees too." + +"Then why don't you stay with us?" Morris asked, and Enrico Simonetti +heaved a great sigh. + +"I like-a da job first-class, Mr. Perlmutter, I gotta no keek," he +declared; "but I can no work. I am seek." + +"Sick!" Morris exclaimed; "well, why didn't you tell us then? We'd only +be too glad to let you go away for a couple of weeks, Henry." + +Enrico sighed even more deeply. + +"Ees not a seekness for two weeks, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "I am seek +just for see my mudder. Ees old woman--my mudder, Mr. Perlmutter." + +Enrico's large brown eyes grew moist as he proceeded. + +"Yes, I am a-seek," he went on. "I am a-seek just for see Ischia, +Posilipo, Capri, Mr. Perlmutter. You know I am a-seek for see +_aranci_--oranges grown on a tree. I am a-seek just for see my own +ceet-a, Napoli. Yes, Mr. Perlmutter, I am a-ver' seek." + +He sat down on a stool and bowed his face in his hands, while his +shoulders heaved up and down in the emotion of nostalgia. + +"Think it over, Henry," Morris said huskily, and departed on tiptoe. He +returned at once to the assorting of the sample line, nor did he look up +when Abe came toward him a few minutes afterward. + +"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, "what did he say?" + +"He didn't say nothing," Morris replied. + +"Why not?" Abe continued. "Didn't he think two hundred was enough?" + +"I didn't mention the two hundred to him at all," Morris answered, +"because it wouldn't be no use. You couldn't keep that feller from going +back to the old country, not if you would put him into jail even. He'd +break out, Abe, believe me." + +Abe nodded slowly. + +"Well, that's the way it goes, Mawruss," he said bitterly, as Enrico +walked toward them from the cutting room. + +"Mr. Potash," he said, "ascuse me, you geev-a me now leetla time for +going downtown just for same like I tell-a you dis morning?" + +"Go ahead, Henry," Morris replied. + +"You notta mad at me, Mr. Perlmutter?" Enrico asked anxiously. + +"Why should I got to be mad at you, Henry?" Morris rejoined. "If I would +feel the way you do, Henry, me, I wouldn't of waited for my contract to +be up even." + +"Ain't that a fine way for you to talk, Mawruss?" Abe said after Enrico +had gone. "You would think you would be glad to get rid of the feller +right in the middle of the busy season." + +Morris shrugged. + +"I don't care if I would got to jump right in and work till twelve +o'clock every night, Abe," he declared. "I would tell him to go home to +the old country if I would got to pay for the ticket myself." + +Abe thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and started to walk +gloomily away. + +"Furthermore, Abe, if you want to go out for your lunch, Abe," Morris +concluded, "now is the time, because as I told you before, Abe, I got to +go on the court at two o'clock." + +"Sure you told me that before, Mawruss," Abe growled, as he put on his +hat and coat; "and when a feller goes to work and deliberately fixes +things so he has got to go on a court, Mawruss, d'ye know the next place +he would go?" + +He paused for a retort; but, as Morris made no sign, Abe supplied his +own answer. + +"A lunatic asylum," he said, and a minute later the elevator door +clanged behind him. + +For almost an hour longer Morris busied himself with the assortment of +the sample line, and he had about concluded his task when a great +wailing noise came from the cutting room. He jumped to his feet and ran +hurriedly to the scene of the uproar. There he found Enrico Simonetti +seated on a stool, clutching his hair with both hands, while around him +stood a group of his assistants, voicing their anguish like a pack of +foxhounds. + +"_Koosh!_" Morris cried. "What is the trouble here?" + +The wailing ceased, but Enrico remained seated, his hands still +clutching his bushy hair, while his large brown eyes stared blankly from +a face as white as a pierrot. + +"What's the matter?" Morris repeated. + +"His bank busted on him," said Nathan Schenkman, the shipping clerk. + +"His bank!" Morris cried. "What bank?" + +"It ain't a regular bank," Nathan explained. "He is giving his money to +an Italiener which he calls himself a banker, Mr. Perlmutter; and to-day +when he is going there to get him money the feller's store is locked. +Nobody knows where he went to at all. The clerks also is gone." + +"Is that right, Henry?" Morris asked. + +Enrico nodded his head without removing his hands from his hair. + +"There is a big crowd of loafers around the store," Nathan continued, +"which they are saying they would kill the feller if they get him, so +Henry comes back here on account he ain't that kind, Mr. Perlmutter. +Henry is a decent feller, Mr. Perlmutter." + +Morris looked pityingly at his cutter, who continued to stare at the +floor in stony despair. + +"Might you could do something to get him his money back maybe, Mr. +Perlmutter?" Nathan said. + +"I would see when my partner comes in from lunch," Morris replied, and +as he turned to leave the cutting room Abe's bulky form blocked the +doorway. Morris waved him back, and Abe tiptoed to the front of the +showroom followed by Morris. + +"What's the trouble?" Abe asked immediately. + +"Trouble enough," Morris declared. "Henry's bank busted on him." + +"What!" Abe cried, and Morris repeated the information. + +"Then he wouldn't leave us at all," Abe said, and Morris nodded sadly. + +"Ain't it terrible?" he commented. + +"Terrible?" Abe asked. "What d'ye mean--terrible? Is it so terrible that +we wouldn't got to lose our designer right in the middle of the busy +season?" + +"I don't mean us, Abe," Morris said. "I mean for Henry." + +"Henry neither," Abe rejoined. "Henry would still got his job with two +hundred dollars a year raise." + +"And a bonus of two hundred dollars," Morris added. + +"A bonus of nothing!" Abe almost shouted. "Do you mean to told me you +would pay Henry a bonus of two hundred dollars now that he must got to +stay on with us?" + +"I sure do," Morris declared fiercely; "and furthermore, Abe, if you +don't want to pay it I would from my own pocket, and I'm going right in +to tell him about it now." + +He walked away to the cutting room, and in less than five minutes Abe +repented his parsimony. He went on tiptoe to the door of the cutting +room, where Morris leaned over Enrico, uttering words of consolation and +advice. + +"Mawruss," Abe hissed, "make it three hundred, the bonus." + +Morris nodded. + +"And, Mawruss," Abe went on, "it's pretty near quarter of two. Ain't you +going up there at all?" + + * * * * * + +"I should never walk another step if you didn't say two o'clock," Morris +Perlmutter protested to Philip Sholy as they hastened up the stairway in +Jefferson Market Police Court. + +"Never mind what I said," Sholy cried. "It's now anyhow quarter past +two, and that dago has got his wife and servant girl and two clerks +waiting in court since twelve o'clock. Eichendorfer and Baskof have been +here since one o'clock." + +"Say, listen here, Sholy," Morris said, as they panted up the last +flight, "I came just as soon as I could, and I couldn't come no sooner." + +"Hats off!" the policeman at the door shouted, as Morris walked up the +aisle with his attorney, and a moment later they passed into the +enclosure for counsel. + +"My client and his witnesses have been here since twelve o'clock," a +lawyer was explaining while Morris sat down, "and in the meantime his +place of business has been closed." + +At this juncture the client in question caught sight of Morris and +ripped out so strong an Italian expletive that the court interpreter +nearly swooned. + +"What business is he in?" the magistrate asked. + +"He's in the banking business on Mulberry Street," the lawyer continued, +"and it's impossible to say what harm all this may do him." + +"Call the case again," the magistrate said. + +"Witnesses in the case of Giuseppe Caraccioli please step forward," the +interpreter announced, and the policeman in the rear of the courtroom +repeated the injunction to the loungers in the stairway. + +"Guy-seppy Scratch-oly," he bellowed, and Morris heard him from his seat +in the enclosure for counsel. He jumped to his feet and made for the +gate. + +"Where are you going?" Sholy demanded, grabbing him by the coat. + +"Leggo my coat!" Morris cried, and the next moment he was taking the +stairs three at a jump. Nor had his excitement abated when he burst into +his cutting room half an hour later. + +"Henry," he gasped, "if I would get your money back for you would you +stick out the busy season for us?" + +Enrico was chalking designs on a piece of pattern paper when Morris +entered. Beyond a slight pallor he appeared to be quite resigned to his +loss, but at his employer's words he flushed vividly and clutched again +at his hair. + +"Leave your hair alone and listen to me," Morris commented. + +"Sure, sure," Enrico said tremulously, "I leesten, Mr. Perlmutt." + +"Did you hear what I said?" Morris went on. "If I can get your money +back for you will you stay on here till the busy season is over?" + +"Sure," Enrico cried; "sure. I notta geevadam how long I stay, you getta +my mon', Mr. Perlmutt. I stay here one, two, t'ree years." + +"All right," Morris said; "put on your coat and go back to Mulberry +Street. Your banker will of opened up again by the time you get there." + + * * * * * + +Ten days afterward Abe and Morris sat in the showroom. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +MAN PROPOSES + + +"Ain't it terrible a strong, healthy young feller should go off like +that?" Abe Potash remarked, as he and his partner sat in their showroom +one spring morning. "I give you my word I was sitting over in +Hammersmith's so close to him as I am to you, Mawruss, when it +happened." + +"Was there much excitement?" Morris asked. + +"I bet yer was there excitement!" Abe exclaimed. "Hammersmith sends +across the street for a doctor, and you ought to seen Leon Sammet the +way he acted. 'For Gawd's sake, doctor,' he says, 'couldn't you do +nothing for him?' he says. 'He's got a wife and family,' he says, 'and +we shipped him two thousand dollars goods only last Saturday.'" + +"Did they?" Morris asked. + +"How should I know?" Abe said. "Sammet is such a liar, Mawruss, he +couldn't tell the truth no matter how surprised he would be. But one +thing is sure, Mawruss--Gladstein did owe Sammet Brothers for a big bill +of goods and the widder paid them out of the insurance." + +"Could she do that when the feller leaves a family, Abe?" Morris +inquired. + +"The feller didn't leave no family, Mawruss," Abe answered. "Leon Sammet +just takes a chance when he said that to the doctor. As a matter of +fact, Mawruss, Gladstein was one of them fellers which he ain't got a +relation in the world. Mrs. Gladstein neither, except _im_ Russland. +That's the way it goes, Mawruss. A feller which he has got so many +cousins and uncles that he gets writer's cramp already indorsing +accommodation paper for 'em, understand me, lives to be an old man yet, +and all the time his relations and his wife's relations is piling up on +him; while a man like Gladstein which you could really say has a chance +to enjoy life, Mawruss, is got to die." + +Morris nodded. + +"Don't I know it?" he commented. "And I suppose the widder sells out the +store." + +"_Oser a stück_," Abe said. "She's still running the store, and making a +fair success of it too." + +"Is that so?" Morris replied. "Well, then, why couldn't we get some of +her trade, Abe? Bridgetown ain't so far away from here. Why don't you +take a run over there sometime and see what you could do with her? Might +you could sell her some goods maybe." + +"Yow!" Abe exclaimed derisively. "We couldn't sell that woman goods, not +if we was to let her have 'em for the price of the findings, Mawruss. +She's got an idee that she is getting stuck unless she would buy goods +from the same concerns that sold Gladstein." + +"Well, if that's the case, Abe," Morris said, "she could never make no +big success there. A feller like Leon Sammet would just as lief stick a +widder as not--liefer even." + +"Sure, I know," Abe replied. + +"Then why don't some one give her a couple pointers about that feller, +Abe?" Morris inquired. + +Abe nodded solemnly. + +"You know a whole lot about women, Mawruss, I must say," he commented. +"You could give a woman pointers by the dozen about a man, Mawruss, and +swear to 'em with six affidavits yet, and what good would it do? It's +like putting a 'Wet Paint' sign up. Everybody feels the paint to see if +it really would be wet." + +"What for a looking woman is she, Abe?" Morris asked, with an obvious +effort at nonchalance. + +"How should I know?" Abe said. "I only seen her a couple times; and +anyhow, Mawruss, I don't take it so particular to look at women like +Leon Sammet does, Mawruss. That feller's a regular Don Quicks-toe, +Mawruss. He is all the time running around with women." + +"A feller must got to entertain buyers once in a while, Abe," Morris +said. + +"Buyers is all right, Mawruss," Abe declared, "but I guess I been in +this here business long enough that I could tell a buyer from a model." + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris said. "Leon Sammet may run around the +streets with women, Abe, but that ain't saying he is got intentions to +marry Mrs. Gladstein. A feller like Leon Sammet which he is crowding +fifty pretty close, Abe, ain't looking to marry no widders. Young girls +is all them fellers is looking out for, Abe; and anyhow, Abe, what for a +match is Mrs. Gladstein to a manufacturer? If she expects that she +should get another husband, Abe, the only hope for her is some retailer +would marry her as a going concern. She couldn't liquidate her business +and come out even, let alone with money enough to get married, Abe." + +"She don't got to got money to get married on, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. +"Any one would be glad to marry such a woman supposing she didn't got a +cent to her name. She's an elegant-looking woman, Mawruss--not too thin +and not too fat, Mawruss, and what a face she got it, Mawruss! My Rosie +was a good-looking woman, Mawruss, and is to-day yet; but Mrs. +Gladstein, Mawruss, that's a woman which in a theayter already you don't +see such a looking woman. She could dress herself, too, I bet yer. The +last time I was by Bridgetown she is wearing one of our Style 4022 which +Sammet _ganvered_ from us and calls the Lily Langtry costume, Mawruss, +in a navy shade, understand me; and I don't know nothing about this here +Lily Langtry, Mawruss, but I could tell you right now, Mawruss, she +ain't got nothing on Mrs. Gladstein when it comes to looks." + +Morris nodded and turned to the contemplation of some cutting-slips, +while Abe made ready for lunch. + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris said, when Abe appeared with his hat on. +"I've been thinking about this here Mrs. Gladstein, understand me, and I +come to the conclusion: Why should we give up so easy? Gladstein always +done a good business in that store, y'understand, and if the widder is +such a good-looking woman like you say she is, Abe, there's an opening +for her to attract a big trade in gents' furnishings and hats up there, +and at the same time keep the cloak-and-suit end going." + +"What d'ye mean--attract a big trade in gents' furnishings and hats, +Mawruss?" Abe demanded indignantly. "If you think the woman is a flirt, +Mawruss, you are making a big mistake." + +"Must a woman got to be a flirt that she should sell gents' furnishings, +Abe?" Morris asked with some heat. + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said with a scowl. "A lady ain't +looking to sell the gents' furnishing trade, Mawruss." + +"I know she ain't," Morris replied, "but if a woman is good-looking, +Abe, naturally she attracts the clothing and furnishing customers, but +she don't got to sell those customers, Abe. Her husband could do that." + +"Her husband could do it?" Abe repeated. "What are you talking +about--her husband?" + +"Sure, her husband," Morris went on, "and especially if a good-looking +woman like Mrs. Gladstein would got for a husband a good-looking man +like B. Gurin, understand me, the idee works both ways. Mrs. Gladstein +attracts the clothing trade and B. Gurin sells 'em, y'understand, while +B. Gurin attracts the women's garment trade and Mrs. Gladstein sells +'em." + +Abe sat down suddenly and took off his hat. + +"What are you trying to drive into, Mawruss?" he asked. + +"I am trying to drive into this, Abe," Morris replied: "B. Gurin is a +good-looking, up-to-date feller, but he's in wrong with that store of +his in Mount Vernon. In the first place, the neighbourhood ain't right, +y'understand, and in the second place Gurin don't attend to business +like he should; because he ain't married and he ain't got no +responsibilities. To such a feller, Abe, when it comes to taking a young +lady on theayter Saturday night, business is nix, even when Saturday is +a big night in Mount Vernon." + +Abe nodded. + +"Furthermore, Abe," Morris continued, "if we go on selling B. Gurin, +Abe, sooner or later he would bust up on us, understand me, and we are +not only out a customer but the least he sticks us is a couple hundred +dollars. He owes us two hundred and fifty right now, Abe, since the +first of the month already. Ain't it?" + +Abe nodded again. + +"But you take a young feller like B. Gurin, Abe," Morris went on, "which +all he needs is a wife to steady him and an up-to-date _Medeena_ like +Bridgetown to run a store in, understand me, and if we could put this +thing through, Abe, not only we are doing a _Mitzvah_ for all concerned, +Abe, but we are making a customer for life." + +"You mean, Mawruss," Abe said slowly, "you would try to make up a match +between B. Gurin and Mrs. Gladstein?" + +"Sure, why not?" Morris said. "It stands in the _Gemara_, Abe, we are +commanded to promote marriages, visit the sick and bury the dead." + +Once more Abe nodded, and this time he managed to impart the quality of +irony to the gesture. + +"Burying the dead is all right, Mawruss," he said. "From a dead man you +don't get no comebacks, and his relations is anyhow grateful; _aber_ if +you would make up a match between a couple of people like Mrs. Gladstein +and B. Gurin, what is it? Even if the marriage would be a success, +Mawruss, then the couple claims they was just suited to each other, +Mawruss, and we don't get no credit for it anyway. On the other hand, +Mawruss, if they don't agree together, they wouldn't hate each other +near so much as they'd hate us." + +"Why should they hate us?" Morris asked. "Our intentions is anyhow +good." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "From having good intentions +already, many a decent, respectable feller goes broke." + +Morris flapped the air impatiently with his right hand. + +"Anybody could sit down and talk proverbs, Abe," he said. + +"I guess I could talk proverbs in my own store, Mawruss, if I want to," +Abe rejoined with dignity. + +"Sure you could," Morris replied, "but one thing you got to remember, +Abe. While the back-number is saying look out before you jump, the +up-to-date feller has jumped already, and lands on a +five-thousand-dollar order _mit_ both feet already." + + * * * * * + +"I'll tell you, Mr. Perlmutter, it's like this," B. Gurin explained, as +he sat in his Mount Vernon store that evening; "money don't figure at +all with me." + +"Where is the harm supposing she does got a little money, Gurin?" Morris +protested. "And, anyhow, never mind the money, Gurin. We will say for +the sake of example she ain't got no money. Does it do any harm to look +at the woman?" + +B. Gurin passed his hand through his wavy brown hair, cut semi-pompadour +in the latest fashion. There was no denying B. Gurin's claims to beauty. + +"What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he said, carefully examining +his finger-nails. "I am sick and tired of looking at 'em. Believe me I +ain't lying to you, if I looked at one I must of looked at hundreds. The +fathers was rated at the very least D to F first credit, and what is it? +The most of 'em I wouldn't marry, not if the rating was Aa 1 even, such +faces they got it, understand me; and the others which is got the looks, +y'understand, you could take it from me, Mr. Perlmutter, they couldn't +even cook a pertater even." + +"Girls which they got D to F fathers don't got to cook pertaters," +Morris commented shortly. + +B. Gurin shrugged. + +"For that matter, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I don't take it so +particular about my food neither." + +"Say, lookyhere, Gurin," Morris exclaimed. "What is the trouble with you +anyhow? First you are telling me you don't care about money, next you +are kicking that the good-looking ones couldn't cook, y'understand, and +then you say you ain't so particular about cooking anyway. What for a +kind of girl do you want, Gurin?" + +Gurin continued to examine his finger-nails and made no reply. + +"Because, Gurin," Morris concluded, "if you are looking for a homely +girl which she ain't got no money and couldn't cook, understand me, I +wouldn't fool away my time with you at all. Such girls you don't need me +to find for you." + +B. Gurin sighed profoundly. + +"You shouldn't get mad, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "if I tell you +something?" + +"Why should I get mad, Gurin?" Morris asked. "I am coming all the way up +here, which I am leaving wife and boy at home to do so--and maybe you +don't think she put up a holler, Gurin! So if you wouldn't even consent +to do me the favour and look at Mrs. Gladstein, Gurin, and I don't get +mad, understand me, why should I get mad if you would tell me +something?" + +"Well," Gurin commenced, "it ain't much to tell, Mr. Perlmutter. I guess +you hear already why I am coming to this country." + +Morris elevated his eyebrows. + +"I suppose you are coming here like anybody else comes here," he said. +"Sooner as stay in the old country and be a _Schnorrer_ all your life, +you come over here, ain't it?" + +"No, siree, sir," Gurin replied emphatically. + +"If I would stay in the old country, Perlmutter, I don't got to be a +_Schnorrer_. Do you know Louis Moses, the banker in Minsk?" + +Morris nodded. + +"That's from _mir_ an uncle, _verstehst du_?" Gurin said; "and Zachs, +the big corn merchant, that's also an uncle. My father ain't a +_Schnorrer_ neither, Mr. Perlmutter; in fact, instead I am sending home +money to Russland like most fellers which they come to this country, Mr. +Perlmutter, my people sends me money yet." + +He jumped from his chair and went to the safe, from which he extracted +two crisp Russian banknotes. + +"A hundred rubles apiece," he said, and his face beamed with pride. "So, +you see, I don't got to leave Russland because I would be a _Schnorrer_ +over there." + +"No?" Morris replied. "Then why did you leave, Gurin? So far what I +could see you ain't made it such a big success over here." + +"You couldn't make me mad by saying that, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin +commented. "A big success _oder_ a big failure, it makes no difference +to me." + +"It makes a whole lot of difference to me," Morris cried. + +"Yes, Mr. Perlmutter," B. Gurin went on, disregarding the interruption. +"I ain't coming over here to make a big success in business. I am coming +over here to forget." + +"To forget!" Morris exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, forget?" + +B. Gurin ran his hands once more through his pompadour and nodded +slowly. + +"That's what I said," he repeated--"to forget." + +"Well, I hope you ain't forgetting you owe us now two hundred and fifty +dollars since the first of the month yet," Morris commented in dry, +matter-of-fact tones. + +B. Gurin waved his hand airily. + +"I could forget that easy, Mr. Perlmutter," he said--and Morris +winced--"but the rest I couldn't forget at all. Day and night I see her +face, Mr. Perlmutter--and such a face!" + +Here he paused impressively. + +"N-nah!" he exclaimed, and kissed the tips of his fingers, while Morris +glanced uneasily toward the door. + +"Her name was Miss Polanya and her father keeps a big flour mill in +Koroleshtchevitzi, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin went on. "A fine family, +understand me; and I am going out there from Minsk twice a week, when a +young feller by the name Lutsky--a corn broker, y'understand--comes to +sell her father goods." + +Again B. Gurin paused, his left hand extended palm upward in a tremulous +gesture. Suddenly it dropped on his knee with a despondent smack. + +"In two weeks already they was married," he concluded, "and me, I am +coming to America." + +"You ain't coming to such a bad place neither," Morris rejoined; "even +supposing your uncles was such big _Machers_ in the old country." + +"Places is all the same to me now," Gurin said--"women, too, Mr. +Perlmutter. I assure you, Mr. Perlmutter, since the day I am leaving +Minsk one woman is the same as another to me. I ain't got no use for +none of 'em." + +"_Geh weg_, Gurin," Morris cried impatiently. "You talk like a fool. Just +because one lady goes back on you, understand me, is that a reason you +wouldn't got no use for no ladies at all? You might just as well say, +Gurin, because one customer busts up on you, y'understand, you would +never try to sell another customer so long as you live. Now this here +Mrs. Gladstein, Gurin, is a lady which while I never seen this here lady +_im_ Russland, y'understand, if you will just come out to Bridgetown +with me, Gurin, I give you a guaranty Russland wouldn't figure at all." + +Gurin shook his head sadly. + +"You don't know me, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "While I am going with +plenty _Schatchens_ to see young ladies already, Mr. Perlmutter, I +assure you my heart ain't in it. People gets the impression because I am +a swell dresser, Mr. Perlmutter, that I am looking to get married; but +believe me, Mr. Perlmutter, it ain't so." + +"Then what do you go for, Gurin?" Morris asked. "_Schatchens_ don't like +to fool away their time no more as I do, Gurin; and you could take it +from me, no girl is going to the trouble to fix herself up and make a +nice supper for you and the _Schatchen_ simply for the pleasure of +seeing a swell dresser, Gurin." + +"That's just the point, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin said. "A feller which +runs a store like this one and eats his meals in restaurants, understand +me, must got to get a little home cooking once in a while. Ain't it?" + +"Why not get married and be done with it?" Morris retorted; "and then +you could get home cooking all the time." + +Once more Gurin shook his head. + +"Without love, Mr. Perlmutter, marriage is nix," he said. + +"_Schmooes!_" Morris exclaimed. "Do you think when I got married I loved +my wife, Gurin? _Oser_ a _stück_. And to-day yet I am crazy about her. +With a business man, Gurin, love comes after marriage." + +B. Gurin rose wearily to his feet and shot his cuffs by way of showing +impatience. + +"What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he protested. "When I want to +get married I would get married--otherwise not." + +He flecked away an imaginary grain of dust from the lapel of his coat +and walked slowly toward the door. + +"Are you going home on the New Haven road _oder_ the Harlem road?" he +asked. + +Morris scowled, and his indignation lent such force to the gesture with +which he put on his hat that the impact sounded like a blow on a +tambourine. + +"_Schon gut_, Gurin," he said. "I am through with you." + +He paused at the doorway and lit a cigar. + +"And one thing I could tell you, Gurin," he concluded. "Either you would +send us a check the first thing to-morrow morning, _oder_ we would give +your account to our lawyers, and that's all there is to it." + +He puffed away at his cigar as he trudged down the street, and he had +nearly reached the corner when he heard a familiar voice shouting: "Mr. +Perlmutter!" He turned to view B. Gurin hastening after him. + +"Well, Gurin," he grunted, "what you want now?" + +Gurin stopped and gasped for breath, and Morris's heart gave a +triumphant leap as he noted the anxiety displayed on B. Gurin's +clean-shaven features. + +"Speak up, Gurin," he said; "I got to get my train." + +Gurin smiled in surrender. + +"All right, Mr. Perlmutter," he murmured; "make for me a date and I will +look the lady over." + + * * * * * + +When Morris entered his place of business the next morning he found his +partner examining the advertising columns of a morning paper with an +absorption hardly justified by the tabulated list of births, marriages +and deaths at which he was gazing. + +"What's biting you now, Abe?" Morris demanded. + +"What d'ye mean, what's biting me?" Abe rejoined, and Morris blushed in +the consciousness of his oversleeping that morning by more than half an +hour. + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he cried. "I don't know what you are driving +into, understand me, but if you think you could get _brogus_ at me just +because I am ten minutes late once in a while, y'understand, let me tell +you I am catching a twelve o'clock train from Mount Vernon last night, +and not alone I am talking myself blue in the face to that feller Gurin, +y'understand, but when I got home already I couldn't get to sleep till I +told the whole thing to my Minnie yet." + +Abe nodded slowly. + +"Yes, Abe," Morris continued, "I got to go over the story twice over +already, and even then, y'understand, my Minnie gets mad because I +didn't contradict myself. + +"Only one idee that woman got it in her head, Abe. If I am out of the +house _schon_ ten minutes already you couldn't tell her otherwise but I +am playing auction pinocle." + +"Well, you might just as well of been playing auction pinocle last night +for all the good it would do us." + +"What are you talking about--all the good it would do us?" Morris almost +whimpered. + +"I actually got the feller dead to rights, Abe, and all I must do now is +to work from the other end." + +Abe burst into a mirthless laugh and handed Morris the paper. + +"You should of worked the other end first, Mawruss," he declared, as he +indicated an advertising item with his thumb. "That's what Leon Sammet +did, Mawruss." + +Morris seized the paper and his face grew purple as he read the +following notice: + + ENGAGED: Asimof--Gladstein. Mrs. Sonia Gladstein, of Bridgetown, + Pa., to Jacob Asimof, of Dotyville, Pa. At home, Sunday next 3 to 7 + at the residence of Mrs. Leah Sammet, 86-3/4 West One Hundredth and + Eighteenth Street. No cards. + +"Leon's mother makes the engagement party for 'em, Mawruss," Abe said +dryly. "Costs a whole lot of money, too, and I bet yer Mrs. Gladstein +wouldn't notice it at all in the next six months' statements Leon sends +to her." + +Morris stifled a groan as he laid down the paper and forced himself to +smile confidently. + +"What difference does an engagement make, Abe?" he asked. "An engagement +ain't a wedding, Abe, and it ain't too late even now." + +Again Abe indulged in a bitter laugh. + +"You're a regular optician, Mawruss," he said. "You never give up hope." + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris retorted. "We could stand a couple +opticians in this concern. Always you are ready to lay down on a +proposition just as soon as things goes a little wrong, understand me, +but me I think differencely." + +Abe shrugged and rose to his feet. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said, "take off your hat and coat and stay a while. +Maybe we could do a little business here this morning for a change." + +"Maybe we could and maybe we couldn't, Abe," Morris rejoined, as he +buttoned up his coat; "but just the same I am going to do something +which you will really be surprised." + +"Not at all," Abe corrected; "we are partners together so long that I am +only surprised supposing you should act sensible." + +"Well, the way I look at it I am acting sensible, Abe," Morris +announced. "I am acting sensible, because I am going right down to see +Marcus Flachs and I would buy from him for ten dollars cut glass, and I +would show that sucker Sammet he couldn't faze me none." + +"What d'ye mean, couldn't faze you none?" Abe asked. + +"I mean if Sammet is such a faker he goes to work and makes engagement +parties for his customers and puts 'em on the paper yet, Abe," Morris +declared, as he jammed his hat down more firmly on his head, "he must +got to expect his competitors would take advantage of it, understand me. +And you could bet your sweet life, Abe, Sunday afternoon, comes three +o'clock, I am right there at his mother's house with the cut glass, and +don't you forget it." + +Abe nodded grimly. + +"It's a free country, Mawruss," he said, "and nobody could stop you +going to an engagement party which is in the paper, y'understand; but +you shouldn't forget one thing, Mawruss. You got on our ledger a drawing +account, _verstehst du_, and on your way out you should please tell Miss +Cohen to enter the ten dollars cut glass in the right place." + +"Don't worry, Abe," Morris cried, as he started for the elevator. "When +the time comes we should post it in the ledger, if we ain't opened a new +account in Bridgetown, Pa., I would pay for it myself." + +Ten minutes later he entered the Twenty-third Street subway station en +route to Canal Street, and no sooner had he bought his ticket than his +enthusiasm began to wane. After all, he reflected as he boarded the +train, ten dollars' worth of cut glass seemed rather extravagant when +one considered the size of an order that in the most favourable +circumstances might emanate from a store in Bridgetown. Indeed, as the +train pulled into the Eighteenth Street station he had come to believe +that seven dollars and fifty cents would be a generous price, and even +this figure commenced to look huge as Fourteenth Street drew near. At +Astor Place, Morris decided that five dollars' worth of cut glass would +be more appropriate for a widow. When the guard announced the next stop +as Bleecker Street, however, it occurred to Morris that the +manufacturers of quadruple plate were producing some very artistic +effects in knives, forks and spoons, which in appearance were +undistinguishable from sterling silver; and the train was leaving Spring +Street when Morris bethought himself of a certain _bonbonnière_ that had +cost Mrs. Perlmutter precisely four dollars at a dry-goods store. He +distinctly recalled examining the trade-mark, to which were affixed the +words "triple plate." + +During the short walk from the Canal Street station to Marcus Flachs's +place of business, he wondered vaguely if there were such a thing as +double plate, and when at last he opened the door of the pawnbroker's +sales store in question he approached the counter with his mind fully +made up. + +"Do you got maybe some sets from nutpicks?" he inquired of the +proprietor. + +Marcus Flachs took the question in ill part. + +"What the devil do you think I am running here," he demanded by way of +answer--"a five-and-ten-cent store?" + +"Since when do they sell it nutpicks in a five-and-ten-cent-store?" +Morris retorted. + +Flachs snorted angrily. + +"I don't think they sell 'em even in five-and-ten-cent stores," he said; +"and anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, what for a present is nutpicks? If a feller +eats nuts twice a year, that's a big average. For my part it would +_oser_ break my heart if I would never eat another nut so long as I +live. Now what you want to get is something cheap, ain't it?" + +Morris nodded. + +"Something about two dollars and fifty cents," he said. + +"That's what I thought," Flachs replied, "and for two dollars and fifty +cents there ain't much choice. Olive dishes is all I could show you." + +"Let me give a look at 'em," Morris said, and as Flachs led the way to +the well-stocked shelves in the rear of the store Morris discerned for +the first time the presence of another customer. + +"How much did you say that there coffee samovar was?" cried a familiar +voice. + +"I told you before, Mr. Klinger," Flachs said, "that ain't no samovar. +That's a perculater and it cost me, so sure as I am standing here, +fifteen dollars, so I would let you have it for twelve-fifty on account +its being shopworn." + +"Take ten dollars and make an end," rejoined Klinger, tendering a bill. + +"For ten dollars I could give you a fine piece cut glass, Mr. Klinger," +Flachs insisted. + +By way of answer Klinger tucked away the ten-dollar bill he had taken +from his waistcoat pocket, and Flachs seized the coffee percolator with +both hands. + +"I'll wrap it up for you right away," he said, and then it was that +Klinger recognized Morris, who had been standing unnoticed in the +background. + +"Hello, Perlmutter!" he said; "what are you doing here?" + +"I guess I am doing the same what you are doing, Klinger," Morris +replied stiffly. "I am buying for a customer a present. Ain't it?" + +Klinger nodded. + +"Honestly, Perlmutter," he said, "I never seen the like how things +happen. No sooner you start to sell goods to a feller than somebody is +engaged _oder_ married in his family." + +"He must be a pretty good customer the way you are blowing yourself," +Morris commented. + +"I bet yer!" Klinger said as he walked away; "and if you would be in our +place you would do the same." + +For five minutes Morris examined the cut glass, and when Flachs returned +he had decided upon an olive dish of most intricate design. "That's a +close buyer, that Mr. Klinger," Flachs observed. + +"Not near so close as I am," Morris declared. + +"Well, you wouldn't anyhow kick on paying twenty-five cents express, Mr. +Perlmutter," Flachs said, "but that feller actually wants me to deliver +the package for nothing." + +"Why not?" Morris asked. "Don't everybody deliver packages free?" + +"Not a pawnbroker's-sales store," Flachs replied; "and anyhow, Mr. +Perlmutter, Leon Sammet this morning buys from me for thirty dollars +silver to be sent to the same place on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street +as that there perculater, and he didn't kick only a little that I am +charging him fifty cents express." + +"What!" Morris exclaimed. "Is Klinger sending that perculater up to One +Hundred and Eighteenth Street too?" + +"That's what I said," Flachs answered, and Morris replaced the cut-glass +dish on the shelf. + +"Was the name Gladstein?" he inquired, and Flachs nodded. + +"Then in that case," Morris said savagely, "let me look at some sterling +silver for about twenty-five dollars. If them suckers could stand it, so +can I." + + * * * * * + +More than two days had elapsed before Abe had exhausted the topic of +Mrs. Gladstein's ten-dollar engagement present. He discussed it +satirically, profanely and earnestly, from the standpoint of business +ethics, in such maddening reiterations that Morris could not help +wondering how much longer Abe's criticism would have continued had he +known that the cold-meat tray really cost twenty-five dollars. + +"You are throwing away good money after bad, Mawruss," Abe said, +renewing the subject after an interval of comparative calm, "because, so +sure as you are standing there, we would never get our two hundred and +fifty out of that feller Gurin." + +"What has Mrs. Gladstein's present got to do with Gurin?" Morris asked. +"If I told you once, Abe, in the last two days, I am telling you a dozen +times, understand me, I am giving that there cold-meat tray to Mrs. +Gladstein as a speculation, Abe. What difference does it make who she +marries, Abe, Gurin _oder_ Asimof, so long as we could land from her an +order for five hundred dollars?" + +"Yow! You would land from her an order for five hundred dollars!" Abe +exclaimed. + +"Well, if Sol Klinger could do it, why couldn't we?" Morris asked. + +"What are you talking about Sol Klinger?" Abe demanded. + +Thereupon Morris related to Abe the circumstances surrounding Sol +Klinger's purchase of the coffee percolator, and when he concluded Abe +nodded slowly. + +"So that highwayman is butting in too," he commented. "How much did you +say he is paying for that samovar, Mawruss?" + +Morris closed his eyes as though he were making a conscientious effort +to remember the exact amount. + +"Thirty dollars," he announced at last. + +"What!" Abe cried. "You stood there and let Sol Klinger buy for thirty +dollars a present and we ourselves only spend ten? What for a piker are +you anyway, Mawruss?" + +"What do you mean, what for a piker am I?" Morris said indignantly. "You +are talking me black in the face on account I am spending ten dollars +and now you are kicking I didn't spend thirty." + +"Did you tell me before that Sol Klinger buys a present?" Abe asked. +"And furthermore, Mawruss, this wouldn't be the first time we are +spending money to get business. Couldn't we afford to lay out thirty +dollars if we want to?" + +"But, Abe----" Morris began. + +"But nothing!" Abe roared. "Why should you get all of a sudden so +_sparsam mit_ our money, Mawruss? You talk like we would be new +beginners on East Broadway already." + +"But, Abe----" Morris protested again. + +"'S enough, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "I heard enough from you already. +Only one thing I got to tell you: if we lose a chance of getting some +business from a lady which you could really say I know her well enough +that it's a shame we ain't sold her nothing already even, don't blame +me. That's all I got to say." + +He walked away to the cutting room, while Morris sat down in the nearest +chair, dazed to the point of temporary aphasia. For five minutes he sat +still, endeavouring to trace the intricacies of a discussion that had +put him so decisively in the wrong, and he was still pondering the +matter when the elevator door opened and B. Gurin alighted. + +"How do you do, Mr. Perlmutter?" Gurin cried. + +Morris grunted inarticulately and made no attempt to take his visitor's +proffered hand. + +"Did you got any news for me?" Gurin asked. + +Morris rose to his feet. + +"Yes, I got some news for you," he said. "I got news for you that Mrs. +Gladstein is engaged to be married to a feller by the name Asimof." + +He looked absently at a sample rack upon which reposed the very +newspaper that contained the advertisement. + +"Here it is," he continued, as he seized the paper. "You could see for +yourself." + +He handed the advertisement to Gurin, who read it over unmoved. + +"Well, I must tell you the honest truth, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "I +couldn't say I am sorry." And he smiled amiably. + +As Morris gazed at the fashion-plate features and the fashion-plate +apparel of his visitor, he entirely forgot his optimistic scheme of +supplanting Asimof with Gurin and he grew suddenly livid with a fierce +rage. + +"You ain't, ain't you?" he bellowed. "Well, you ought to be, because so +sure as you are standing there, comes Monday morning and we don't get a +check from you, we would close you up sure, y'understand." + +"Now, lookyhere, Mr. Perlmutter--" Gurin began, but the reaction set up +by Morris's encounter with his partner had begun to have its effect and +he seized Gurin by one padded shoulder. + +"Out!" he roared. "Out of my place, you rotten, cheap dude, you!" + +And two minutes later B. Gurin fled wildly down the stairs, the +newspaper still clutched in his hand. + + * * * * * + +Although Leon Sammet had at first been actuated by motives of a somewhat +sordid nature in his negotiation of Mrs. Gladstein's betrothal, his +subsequent behaviour was tempered by the traditional hospitality of his +race. As for his mother, Mrs. Leah Sammet, she entered upon the +preparations for the reception with an ardour that could not have been +exceeded had Mrs. Gladstein been her own daughter. Thus, when Sunday +afternoon arrived, Mrs. Sammet's house on One Hundred and Eighteenth +Street presented an appearance of unusual festivity. The long, narrow +parlor had been liberally draped with smilax and sparingly decorated +with ex-table-d'hôte roses, until it resembled the mortuary chapel of a +Mulberry Street undertaker; and this effect was, if anything, heightened +by four dozen camp-chairs that had been procured from the sexton of Mrs. +Sammet's place of worship. + +A fine odour of cooking ascended from the basement kitchen, and when +Jacob Asimof had entered the front door at the behest of a coloured man +with white gloves he sniffed the fragrant atmosphere of the lobby like a +coon dog at the base of a hollow tree. + +"Am I the first here?" he asked Barney Sammet, the junior partner of +Sammet Brothers, who had been detailed by his elder brother to receive +the arriving guests, with strict injunction to keep an eye on the +cigars. + +Barney nodded gloomily. + +"And ain't Mrs. Gladstein--I mean Sonia--come yet?" Jacob inquired. + +"We just now got a telephone from her, the train from Bridgetown is late +and she would be here in half an hour," Barney replied. + +"That's a fine lookout," Asimof commented. "I bet yer by that time we +would got a big crowd here." + +The words were prophetic, for the shuffling of many feet on the front +stoop preluded the arrival of Sol Klinger, Mrs. Klinger, Moe Klein and +Mrs. Klein, who were immediately succeeded by the firm of Kleiman & +Elenbogen, H. Rashkin, the coat-pad manufacturer, and Marks Pasinsky. + +It must be conceded that Leon Sammet comported himself in a highly +creditable manner, and he greeted his guests with a cordiality that +embraced competitor and customer in one impartial, comprehensive smile. + +"Why, how do you do, Mr. Klinger?" he exclaimed, and then he turned to +Mrs. Leah Sammet, who stood beside him. "Mommer," he said, "I want you +to know Mr. Klinger. Him and me has been competitors for twenty years +already." + +Mrs. Sammet nodded and smiled. + +"For my part twenty years longer," she murmured, as she grasped Sol's +hand. + +"At a time like this, Mrs. Sammet," Sol rejoined, "it don't make no +difference to me if a man is ever so much a competitor; what I claim is, +let a sleeping dawg alone." + +Mrs. Sammet indorsed the sentiment with another smile, and Sol with his +retinue passed on into the back parlour for the purpose of inspecting +the presents. In the meantime other guests had preceded them, and among +them was a man whose bearing and raiment proclaimed the creature of +fashion. Not only were his trousers of the latest narrow design, but +they were of sufficient modish brevity half to conceal and half to +reveal a pair of gossamer silk socks, which in their turn were incased +by patent-leather, low-cut shoes. The latter exhibited the square +knobbiness that only fashion artists can impart to the footgear of their +models, while the broad laces that held them by the insecure hold of two +eyelets were knotted in a bow that might have been appended to the +collar of Mr. Paderewski himself. + +"Ain't this Mr. Gurin?" Sol Klinger asked, and the creature of fashion +nodded. + +"You're a friend of the _Kahlo_, ain't it?" Klinger commented, employing +the vernacular equivalent for the English word "bride." + +"In a way," Gurin said evasively; "_aber_ the _Khosan_ I don't know at +all." + +Thus did Gurin imply that he was not acquainted with the future +bridegroom, and Klinger volunteered the information that Asimof ran a +dry-goods store in Dotyville, Pennsylvania. + +"I sold him goods for years," he added, "and I guess I would continue to +do so, even if that Ganef Sammet would make twenty engagement parties +for 'em. Did you see the samovar I gave 'em?" + +He pointed proudly to a silver-plated object, and Gurin glanced at it +scornfully. + +"Potash & Perlmutter gives 'em solid silver," he commented--"a wide +dish." + +"Sure I know," Klinger said, "thin like paper." + +"_Aber_ sterling," Gurin insisted, and Klinger made a telling diversion. + +"I suppose you sent 'em something sterling also," he said. + +"Me?" Gurin exclaimed. "Why should I buy presents? I am a retailer +myself, Mr. Klinger, so I sent 'em some flowers." + +"I don't see 'em nowhere," Sol retorted. + +"They're over there," B. Gurin said, making a sweeping gesture in the +general direction of the mantelpiece, and as he did so a bass voice +sounded at his elbow. + +"Put out my eye why don't you?" cried Abe Potash, and then he recognized +his assailant. + +"Say, what are you doing here?" he demanded. + +B. Gurin looked coldly at his creditor and shrugged his shoulders. + +"I got just so much right to be here as you," he said, "and that partner +of yours too." + +He hurled this defiance at Morris, who had entered the room on Abe's +heels; but the retort passed unnoticed so far as Morris was concerned, +since he was absorbed in the contemplation of the presents. + +"Well, Klinger," he said, "you are making Mrs. Gladstein a pretty fine +present, ain't it?" + +Klinger scowled. + +"Mrs. Gladstein I ain't bothering my head about at all," he replied. +"But when a cut-throat like Sammet makes out a scheme to steal away from +me an old customer like Asimof I got to protect myself." + +Morris whistled expressively. + +"So you are making the present to Asimof?" he commented. + +"Sure, I am," Sol answered. "As for Mrs. Gladstein, she got presents +enough from me. The first time she was married I am sending money to the +old country to my father he should make her a present on account Mrs. +Gladstein's father is my father's a third cousin, understand me. And +when she marries Gladstein, y'understand, I give her both an engagement +and a wedding present both. And do you think that sucker, _olav +hasholom_, ever buys from me a dollar's worth goods? _Oser_ a _Stück_." + +"And you say Mrs. Gladstein was twicet married?" Morris asked. + +"Ain't I just telling you so?" Sol replied. + +"What was her first husband's name?" Morris asked; but the question +remained unanswered, for at that very moment a confusion of noises in +the front parlour signalled the arrival of the bride. + +Morris and Sol followed the other guests from the rear parlour, and then +it was that Morris discerned his partner's appreciative description of +Mrs. Gladstein's claim to be in no way exaggerated. She was arrayed in a +black silk dress of a design well calculated to display her graceful +figure, while her oval face was shaded by a black picture hat, beneath +which her large dark eyes glowed and flashed by turns. Moreover, her +complexion was all cream and roses, and when she smiled two rows of even +white teeth were exposed between a pair of tantalizing red lips. + +Morris commenced to perspire with embarrassment as he remembered how he +had planned to negotiate a match for this glorious creature--a task that +only a very prince of marriage brokers might have essayed. He turned +away; but as his eye rested on B. Gurin, who still lingered over the +presents, he was obliged to admit that he had chosen a fitting +candidate, and he even felt mollified toward his delinquent customer as +he reflected on Gurin's lost opportunity. + +"Gurin," he said, "ain't you going to congradulate the _Kahlo_?" + +"I didn't know she was here at all," Gurin said sadly. The truth was +that Gurin's presence at the reception that afternoon was not inspired +by curiosity concerning either Mrs. Gladstein or Asimof. Business was +undeniably bad with him, and he was making an earnest effort to keep his +financial head above water. Thus he limited his personal expenses to the +preservation of his wardrobe, and he had cut down his cost of living to +a degree that permitted only a very low, lunch-wagon diet. He saw in +Mrs. Sammet's hospitality the prospect of a meal, and although he was by +no means courageous, his appetite spurred him on to brave his creditors' +wrath. + +"I'll take a look at her," he murmured apologetically, and he began to +elbow his way through the group that surrounded the engaged couple. +Morris patted him on the shoulder as he passed and was about to return +to the back parlour when a shriek came from the centre of the +congratulatory throng. + +"Boris!" cried a female voice with a note of hysteria in its shrill +tones. + +"Sonia!" B. Gurin exclaimed, and the next moment he clasped Mrs. +Gladstein in his arms. + + * * * * * + +"You was asking me the name of Mrs. Gladstein's first husband," said Sol +Klinger to Morris Perlmutter, as they descended the stoop together half +an hour later. "It was Aaron Lutsky. He died two years after they was +married. I knew his family well in the old country--her's too, +Perlmutter. Her father was a feller by the name Polanya, and to-day yet +he runs a big flour mill in Koroleshtchevitzi." + +"So I understand," Morris said; "but what's that you got there under +your coat?" + +He referred to a huge bulge on the right side of Sol Klinger's Prince +Albert coat, which Sol was supporting with both hands. + +"That's my present," Sol said, as if surprised at the question, "and if +Marcus Flachs wouldn't give me my money back, understand me, I could +anyhow exchange it for something useful." + +"It don't make no difference, Mawruss," Abe said, as they sat in their +showroom two months later. "The feller should got to pay us that two +hundred and fifty dollars." + +"But we would get lots of business out of them now that they are +married, Abe," Morris protested. + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and they got lots of presents out of us too, +Mawruss," Abe said. "Counting the engagement and the wedding present, +Mawruss, and my Rosie's new dress, and the pants which you bought it to +go with your tuxedo, understand me--first and last we must be out a +hundred and fifty dollars." + +Morris nodded. He recognized that an opportunity was here presented to +correct Abe's figures by the addition of fifteen dollars to the price of +the engagement present, but he deemed it more prudent to await the +arrival of Gurin's first order. In point of fact, Morris had begun to +examine the mails with some anxiety for a letter postmarked Bridgetown. +More than two weeks had elapsed since Gurin's wedding, and, making due +allowances for honeymooning, it seemed to Morris that from an inspection +of Mrs. Gladstein's stock, made by him on a congratulatory visit to +Bridgetown, there was immediate need for replenishment. + +"I don't understand why we don't hear from them people at all," he said. + +"Give 'em a show, Mawruss. Give 'em a show," Abe replied. "A man only +gets married, for the first time, once." + +Morris shrugged. + +"For my part, Abe, I ain't in no hurry," he said. "If you could see the +way Leon Sammet gives me a look this morning when I seen him on the +subway y'understand, it would be worth to you a hundred and fifty +dollars. Sol Klinger is feeling sore too, Abe. I seen him in +Hammersmith's yesterday, and he says to me Flachs wouldn't exchange that +samovar arrangement which he bought it, so he took it home with him, and +he ain't drunk nothing but coffee in two months." + +"I bet yer," Abe commented; "and he also ain't got an order from Asimof +in two months. The feller is heartbroken, Mawruss. He even had made +arrangements to sell his store in Dotyville and move over to Bridgetown, +y'understand, and when he called the deal off the purchaser sues him for +breach of contract yet." + +"But why should he get mad at Klinger?" Morris asked. "Klinger didn't do +him nothing." + +"Maybe you don't think so, Mawruss, but Asimof figures differencely; +because he told me this morning, that after the engagement is off, +understand me, Mrs. Gladstein and him makes a division of the presents. +Asimof takes what was sent by the concerns which is selling _him_ goods, +and Mrs. Gladstein takes the rest, all excepting a present they got from +Marks Pasinsky. + +"Pasinsky used to sell 'em both goods, y'understand; but fortunately, +Mawruss, he sends 'em a dozen coffee spoons, so Asimof takes six and +Mrs. Gladstein takes six." + +"It's a good thing Pasinsky didn't send 'em a single piece of cut +glass," Morris said thoughtfully. + +"It wouldn't make no difference to Asimof," Abe said. "He would of +allowed Mrs. Gladstein half cost price, give or take. He's a pretty +square feller, Asimof is, Mawruss, and he said he would give a look in +here this afternoon. We needn't be afraid from him, Mawruss. He's A +number one up to two hundred and fifty dollars, thirty days net." + +Morris nodded again and walked slowly toward the cutting room, while his +partner sat down to read the trade news in the _Daily Cloak and Suit +Record_. Morris had hardly reached the doorway, however, when a strident +shout caused him to retrace his steps in a hurry. + +"What's the matter now?" he exclaimed; but Abe was incapable of +articulate speech. Instead he held out the paper and made noises +appropriate to an apopletic seizure, which Morris construed as a request +to look at something of more than ordinary interest. + +"Where, where?" he demanded, and Abe stuck a trembling forefinger +through the printed page. As nearly as the torn edges of the paper would +permit, Morris read the following paragraph: + + BRIDGETOWN, PA.--D. GLADSTEIN'S STORE CLOSED. The stock and + fixtures of the general store conducted here by D. Gladstein, + deceased, were closed out last week, and his widow, who recently + married B. Gurin, sailed from New York with her husband yesterday + for Hamburg. It is understood that they intend to reside + permanently in Europe. + +While Morris perused the item Abe gradually recovered his composure, and +when his partner at last put down the paper Abe was able to smile the +slow, ghostly smile of a man who has called four deuces with an ace +full. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said resignedly, "a feller must expect the worst +when he's got an optician for a partner." + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: + +Punctuation has been regularized, except for inconsistent hyphenation, +which has been retained as in the original. + +The following typographic errors have been corrected: + +Page 109 "woud" changed to "would" +Page 223 "cired" changed to "cried" +Page 234 "it it" changed to "it is" +Page 352 "successs" changed to "success" + +The following were each used once and were not changed: + +jimminy/jiminy +defence/defense] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abe and Mawruss, by Montague Glass + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABE AND MAWRUSS *** + +***** This file should be named 18714-8.txt or 18714-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/1/18714/ + +Produced by YaTHauSeR Taltari, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Abe and Mawruss + Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter + +Author: Montague Glass + +Release Date: June 29, 2006 [EBook #18714] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABE AND MAWRUSS *** + + + + +Produced by YaTHauSeR Taltari, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div> +<img id="cover" src="images/cover01pp.jpg" width="258" height="405" +alt="Illustration: Cover" /></div> +<hr /> + +<div> +<img id="illust1" src="images/gs01pp.jpg" width="258" height="310" +alt="Illustration:" /> + +<h5>If a feller wants to make a success in business<br /> +he should be a little up to date, ain't it?"</h5> +</div> +<hr /> + +<h1 id="title">ABE <i>and</i><br /> +MAWRUSS</h1> + +<h2 id="subtitle">BEING FURTHER<br /> +ADVENTURES <i>of</i><br /> +POTASH AND PERLMUTTER</h2> + +<h3 id="author">by<br /> +MONTAGUE GLASS</h3> + +<h3 id="illustrator">Illustrated by<br /> +J. J. GOULD AND MARTIN JUSTICE</h3> +<hr /> + +<h4 id="publisher"><b>Garden City New York</b><br /> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> +1911</h4> +<hr /> + +<h4 id="copyright">ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION<br /> +INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN<br /> +<br /> +COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> +COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY<br /> +COPYRIGHT, 1910, 1911, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY</h4> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="toc">CONTENTS</h2> +<ol> + <li><a href="#chap01">Sympathy</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap02">The Judgement of Paris</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap03">Dead Men's Shoes</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap04">The Raincoat King</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap05">A Return to Arcady</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap06">A Present for Mr. Geigermann</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap07">Brothers All</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap08">R. S. V. P.</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap09">Firing Miss Cohen</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap10">Aux Italiens</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap11">Man Proposes</a></li> +</ol> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="illustrations">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<ul> + <li><a href="#illust1">"If a feller wants to make a success in business he + should be a little up to date, ain't it?"</a></li> + <li><a href="#illust2">"If he would stole it he would of gave it to me, + lady"</a></li> + <li><a href="#illust3">"Do you know anything about them old + violins?"</a></li> + <li><a href="#illust4">"Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is + at times confronted with a situation which demands a few appropriate + remarks"</a></li> +</ul> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap01">CHAPTER ONE</h2> + +<h3>SYMPATHY</h3> + +<p>"I come down on the subway with Max Linkheimer this morning, Mawruss," Abe +Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as they sat in the showroom +one hot July morning. "That feller is a regular philantropist."</p> + +<p>"I bet yer," Morris replied. "He would talk a tin ear on to you if you +only give him a chance. Leon Sammet too, Abe, I assure you. I seen Leon in +the Harlem Winter Garden last night, and the goods he sold while he was +talking to me and Barney Gans, Abe, in two seasons we don't do such a +business. Yes, Abe; Leon Sammet is just such another one of them fellers like +Max Linkheimer."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean—'such another one of them fellers like Max +Linkheimer'?" Abe repeated. "Between Leon Sammet and Max Linkheimer is the +difference like day from night. Max Linkheimer is one fine man, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged. "I didn't say he wasn't," he rejoined. "All I says was +that Leon Sammet is another one of them philantro fellers too, Abe. Talks you +deef, dumb and blind."</p> + +<p>Abe rose to his feet and stared indignantly at his partner.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what comes over you lately, Mawruss," he cried. "Seemingly +you don't understand the English language at all. A philantropist ain't a +<i>schmooser</i>, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"I know he ain't, Abe; but just the same Max Linkheimer is a feller which +he got a whole lot too much to say for himself. Furthermore, Abe, my Minnie +says Mrs. Linkheimer tells her Max ain't home a single night neither, and +when a man neglects his family like that, Abe, I ain't got no use for him at +all."</p> + +<p>"That's because he belongs to eight lodges," Abe replied. "There ain't a +single Sunday neither which he ain't busy with funerals too, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?" Morris retorted. "Well, if I would be in the button +business, Abe, I would be a philantropist too. A feller's got to belong to +eight lodges if he's in the button business, Abe, because otherwise he +couldn't sell no goods at all."</p> + +<p>Abe continued:</p> + +<p>"Linkheimer ain't looking to sell goods to lodge brothers, Mawruss. He's +too old established a business for that. He's got a heart too, Mawruss. Why +the money that feller spends on charity, Mawruss, you wouldn't believe at +all. He told me so himself. Always he tries to do good. Only this morning, +Mawruss, he was telling me about a young feller by the name Schenkmann which +he is trying to find a position for as stock clerk. Nobody would take the +young feller on, Mawruss, because he got into trouble with a house in Dallas, +Texas, which they claim the young feller stole from them a hundred dollars, +Mawruss. But Linkheimer says how if you would give a dawg a bad name, +Mawruss, you might just as well give him to the dawgcatcher. So Linkheimer is +willing to take a chance on this here feller Schenkmann, and he gives him a +job in his own place."</p> + +<p>"Dawgs I don't know nothing about at all, Abe," Morris commented. "But I +would be willing to give the young feller a show too, Abe, if I would only +got plain bone and metal buttons in stock. But when you carry a couple +hundred pieces silk goods, Abe, like we do, then that's something else +again."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss, <i>Gott sei dank</i> we don't got to get a new shipping +clerk. Jake has been with us five years now, Mawruss, and so far what I could +see he ain't got ambition enough to ask for a raise even, let alone look for +a better job."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't congradulate yourself too quick, Abe," Morris replied. +"Ambition he's got it plenty, but he ain't got the nerve. We really ought to +give the feller a raise, Abe. I mean it. Every time I go near him at all he +gives me a look, and the first thing you know, Abe, he would be leaving +us."</p> + +<p>"Looks we could stand it, Mawruss; but if we would start in giving him a +raise there would be no end to it at all. <i>Lass's bleiben.</i> If the +feller wants a raise, Mawruss, he should ask for it."</p> + +<p>Barely two weeks after the conversation above set forth, however, Jake +entered the firm's private office and tendered his resignation.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I'm going to leave."</p> + +<p>"Going to leave?" Morris cried. "What d'ye mean—going to leave?"</p> + +<p>"Going to leave?" Abe repeated crescendo. "An idea! You should positively +do nothing of the kind."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be no more than you deserve, Jake, if we would fire you right +out of the store," Morris added. "You work for us here five years and then +you come to us and say you are going to leave. Did you ever hear of such a +thing? If you want it a couple dollars more a week, we would give it to you +and <i>fartig</i>. But if you get fresh and come to us and tell us you are +going to leave, y'understand, then that's something else again."</p> + +<p>"Moost I work for you if I don't want to?" Jake asked.</p> + +<p>"'S enough, Jake," Abe said. "We heard enough from you already."</p> + +<p>"All right, Mr. Potash," he replied. "But just the same I am telling you, +Mr. Potash, you should look for a new shipping clerk, as I bought it a candy, +cigar and stationery store on Lenox Avenue, and I am going to quit Saturday +sure."</p> + +<p>"Well, Abe, what did I told you?" Morris said bitterly, after Jake had +left the office. "For the sake of a couple of dollars a week, Abe, we are +losing a good shipping clerk."</p> + +<p>Abe covered his embarrassment with a mirthless laugh.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Always kicking, Mawruss, always kicking!" Abe retorted. "By Saturday I +bet yer we would get a hundred good shipping clerks already."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't trouble yourself, Mawruss," Abe replied, with an airy wave +of his hand. "I hired one already."</p> + +<p>"You hired one already, Abe!" Morris repeated. "Well, ain't I got +something to say about it too?"</p> + +<p>"Again kicking, Mawruss?" Abe exclaimed. "You yourself told me I should +find a shipping clerk, and so I done so."</p> + +<p>"Well," Morris cried, "ain't I even entitled to know the feller's name at +all?"</p> + +<p>"Sure you are entitled to know his name," Abe answered. "He's a young +feller by the name of Schenkmann."</p> + +<p>"Schenkmann," Morris said slowly. "Schenkmann? Where did I—you mean +that feller by the name Schenkmann which he works by Max Linkheimer?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you, Abe?" Morris cried. "Are you crazy or +what?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean am I crazy?" Abe said. "We carry burglary insurance, +ain't it? And besides he ain't, Mawruss, Max Linkheimer says, missed so much +as a button since the feller worked for him."</p> + +<p>"A button," Morris shouted; "let me tell you something, Abe. Max +Linkheimer could miss a thousand buttons, and what is it? But with us, Abe, +one piece of silk goods is more as a hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>"'S all right, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "Max Linkheimer says we +shouldn't be afraid. He says he trusts the young feller in the office with +hundreds of dollars laying in the safe, and he ain't touched a cent so far. +Furthermore, the young feller's got a wife and baby, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"Well I got a wife and baby too, Abe."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and so you ought to got a little sympathy for the +feller."</p> + +<p>Morris laughed raucously.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Abe," he replied. "A good way to lose money in business, +Abe, is to got sympathy for somebody. You sell a feller goods, Abe, because +he's a new beginner and you got sympathy for him, Abe, and the feller busts +up on you. You accommodate a concern with five hundred dollars—a check +against their check dated two weeks ahead, Abe—because their +collections is slow and you got sympathy for them, and when the two weeks +goes by, Abe, the check is N. G. You give a feller out in Kansas City two +months an extension because he done a bad spring business, and you got +sympathy for him, and the first thing you know, Abe, a jobber out in Omaha +gets a judgment against him and closes him up. And that's the way it goes. If +we would hire this young feller because we got sympathy for him, Abe, the +least that happens us is that he gets away with a couple hundred dollars' +worth of piece goods."</p> + +<p>"Max Linkheimer says positively nothing of the kind," Abe insisted. "Max +says the feller has turned around a new leaf, and he would trust him like a +brother."</p> + +<p>"Like a brother-in-law, you mean, Abe," Morris jeered. "That feller +Linkheimer never trusted nobody for nothing, Abe. Always by the first of the +month comes a statement, and if he don't get a check by the fifth, Abe, he +sends another with 'past due' stamped on to it."</p> + +<p>"So much the better, Mawruss. If Max Linkheimer don't trust nobody, +Mawruss, and he lets this young feller work in his store, Mawruss, then the +feller must be O. K. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Morris rose wearily to his feet.</p> + +<p>"All right, Abe," he said. "If Linkheimer is so anxious to get rid of this +feller, let him give us a recommendation in writing, y'understand, and I am +satisfied we should give this here young Schenkmann a trial. He could only +get into us oncet, Abe, so go right over there and see Linkheimer, and if in +writing he would give us a guaranty the feller is honest, go ahead and hire +him."</p> + +<p>"Right away I couldn't do it, Mawruss," Abe said. "When I left Linkheimer +in the subway this morning he said he was going over to Newark and he +wouldn't be back till to-night. I'll stop in there the first thing to-morrow +morning."</p> + +<p>With this ultimatum, Abe proceeded to the back of the loft and personally +attended to the shipment of ten garments to a customer in Cincinnati. Under +his supervision a stock boy placed the garments in a wooden packing box, and +after the first top board was in position Abe took a wire nail and held it +'twixt his thumb and finger point down on the edge of the case. Then he +poised the hammer in his right hand and carefully closing one eye he gauged +the distance between the upraised hammer and the head of the nail. At length +the blow descended, and forthwith Abe commenced to dance around the floor in +the newborn agony of a smashed thumb.</p> + +<p>It was while he was putting the finishing touches on a bandage that made +up in bulk what it lacked in symmetry that Morris entered.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Abe?" he cried. "Did you hurted yourself?"</p> + +<p>Abe transfixed his partner with a malevolent glare.</p> + +<p>"No, Mawruss," he said, as he started for the front of the store, "I ain't +hurted myself at all. I'm just tying this here handkerchief on my thumb to +remind myself what a fool I got it for a partner."</p> + +<p>Morris waited till Abe had nearly reached the door.</p> + +<p>"I don't got to tie something on my thumb to remind myself of that, Abe," +he said.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Ever since the birth of his son it had seemed to Morris that the Lenox +Avenue express service had grown increasingly slow. Nor did the evening +papers contain half the interesting news of his early married life, and he +could barely wait until the train had stopped at One Hundred and Sixteenth +Street before he was elbowing his way to the platform.</p> + +<p>On the Monday night of his partner's mishap he made his accustomed dash +from the subway station to his home on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street, +confident that as soon as his latchkey rattled in the door Mrs. Perlmutter +and the baby would be in the hall to greet him; but on this occasion he was +disappointed. To be sure the appetizing odour of <i>gedampftes +kalbfleisch</i> wafted itself down the elevator shaft as he entered the gilt +and plaster-porphyry entrance from the street, but when he crossed the +threshold of his own apartment the robust wail of his son and heir mingled +with the tones of Lina, the Slavic maid. Of Mrs. Perlmutter, however, there +was no sign.</p> + +<p>"Where's Minnie?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Perlmutter, she go out," Lina announced, "and she ain't coming home +yet."</p> + +<p>Not since the return from their honeymoon had Minnie failed to be at home +to greet her husband on his arrival from business, and Morris was about to +telephone a general alarm to police headquarters when the doorbell rang +sharply and Mrs. Perlmutter entered. Her hat, whose size and weight ought to +have lent it stability, was tilted at a dangerous angle, and beneath its +broad brim her eyes glistened with unmistakable tears.</p> + +<p>"Minnie <i>leben</i>," Morris cried, as he clasped her in his arms, "what +is it?"</p> + +<p>Sympathy only opened anew the floodgates of Mrs. Perlmutter's emotions, +and before she was sufficiently calm to disclose the cause of her distress, +the <i>gedampftes kalbfleisch</i> gave evidence of its impending destruction +by a strong odour of scorching. Hastily Mrs. Perlmutter dried her eyes and +ran to the kitchen, so that it was not until the rescued dinner smoked on the +dining-room table that Morris learned the reason for his wife's tears.</p> + +<p>"Such a room, Morris," Mrs. Perlmutter declared; "like a pigsty, and not a +crust of bread in the house. I met the poor woman in the meat market and she +tried to beg a piece of liver from that loafer Hirschkein. Not another cent +of my money will he ever get. I bought a big piece of steak for her and then +I went home with her. Her poor baby, Morris, looked like a little +skeleton."</p> + +<p>Morris shook his head from side to side and made inarticulate expressions +of commiseration through his nose, his mouth being temporarily occupied by +about half a pound of luscious veal.</p> + +<p>"Her husband has a job for eight dollars a week," she continued, "and they +have to live on that."</p> + +<p>Morris swallowed the veal with an effort.</p> + +<p>"In Russland," he began, "six people—"</p> + +<p>"I know," Mrs. Perlmutter interrupted, "but this is America, and you've +got to go around with me right after dinner and see the poor people."</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"If I must, I must," he said, helping himself to more of the veal stew, +"but I could tell you right now, Minnie, I ain't got twenty-five cents in my +clothes, so you got to lend me a couple of dollars till Saturday."</p> + +<p>"I'll cash a check for you," Mrs. Perlmutter said firmly, and as soon as +dinner was concluded Morris drew a check for ten dollars and Mrs. Perlmutter +gave him that amount out of her housekeeping money.</p> + +<p>It was nearly nine o'clock when Morris and Minnie groped along the dark +hallway of a tenement house in Park Avenue. On the iron viaduct that +bestrides that deceptively named thoroughfare heavy trains thundered at +intervals, and it was only after Morris had knocked repeatedly at the door of +a top-floor apartment that its inmates heard the summons above the roar of +the traffic without.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mrs. Schenkmann," Minnie cried cheerfully, "how's the baby +to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Schenkmann?" Morris murmured; "Schenkmann? Is that the name of them +people?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes," Minnie replied. "Didn't I tell you that? Mrs. Schenkmann, this +is my husband. And I suppose this is Mr. Schenkmann."</p> + +<p>A tall, gaunt person rose from the soap box that did duty as a chair and +ducked his head shyly.</p> + +<p>"Schenkmann?" Morris repeated. "You ain't the Schenkmann which he works by +Max Linkheimer?"</p> + +<p>Nathan Schenkmann nodded and Mrs. Schenkmann groaned aloud.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ai zuris!</i>" she cried, "for his sorrow he works by Max Linkheimer. +Eight dollars a week he is supposed to get there, and Linkheimer makes us +live here in his house. Twelve dollars a month we pay for the rooms, lady, +and Linkheimer takes three dollars each week from Nathan's money. We couldn't +even get dispossessed like some people does and save a month's rent oncet in +a while maybe. The rooms ain't worth it, lady, believe me."</p> + +<p>"Does Max Linkheimer own this house?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Sure, he's the landlord," Mrs. Schenkmann went on. "I am just telling +you. For eight dollars a week a man should work! Ain't it a disgrace?"</p> + +<p>"Well, why doesn't he get another job?" Morris inquired; and then, as Mr. +and Mrs. Schenkmann exchanged embarrassed looks and hung their heads, Morris +blushed.</p> + +<p>"What a fine baby!" he cried hurriedly. He chucked the infant under its +chin and made such noises with his tongue as are popularly supposed by +parents to be of a nature entertaining to very young children. In point of +fact the poor little Schenkmann child, with its blue-white complexion, looked +more like a cold-storage chicken than a human baby, but to the maternal eye +of Mrs. Schenkmann it represented the sum total of infantile beauty.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, mister," she said. "I seen you got a good heart, and if +you know Max Linkheimer, he must told you why my husband couldn't get another +job. He tells everybody, lady, and makes 'em believe he gives my husband a +job out of charity. So sure as I got a baby which I hope he would grow up to +be a man, lady, my husband never took no money in Dallas. Them people gives +him a hundred dollars he should deposit it in the bank, and he went and lost +it. If he would stole it he would of gave it to me, lady, because my Nathan +is a good man. He ain't no loafer that he should gamble it away."</p> + +<p>There was a ring of truth in Mrs. Schenkmann's tones, and as Morris looked +at the twenty-eight-years old Nathan, aged by ill nutrition and abuse, his +suspicions all dissolved and gave place only to a great pity.</p> + +<div> +<img id="illust2" src="images/gs02pp.jpg" width="317" height="231" +alt="Illustration:" /> + +<h5>If he would stole it he would of gave it to me, lady</h5> +</div> + +<p>"Don't say no more, Mrs. Schenkmann," he cried; "I don't want to hear no +more about it. To-morrow morning your man leaves that loafer Max Linkheimer +and comes to work by us for eighteen dollars a week."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Easily the most salient feature of Mr. Max Linkheimer's attire was the +I. O. M. A. jewel that dangled from the tangent point of his generous waist +line. It had been presented to him by Harmony Lodge, 122, at the conclusion +of his term of office as National Grand Corresponding Secretary, and it +weighed about eight ounces avoirdupois. Not that the rest of Mr. Linkheimer's +wearing apparel was not in keeping, for he affected to be somewhat +old-fashioned in his attire, with just a dash of <i>bonhomie</i>. This +implies that he wore a wrinkled frock coat and low-cut waistcoat. But he had +discarded the black string tie that goes with it for a white ready-made bow +as being more suitable to the rôle of philanthropist. The <i>bonhomie</i> he +supplied by not buttoning the two top buttons of his waistcoat.</p> + +<p>"Why, hallo, Abe, my boy!" he cried all in one breath, as Abe Potash +entered his button warerooms on Tuesday morning; "what can I do for you?"</p> + +<p>He seized Abe's right hand in a soft, warm grip, slightly moist, and +continued to hold it for the better part of five minutes.</p> + +<p>"I come to see you about Schenkmann," Abe replied. "We decide we would +have him come to work by us as a shipping clerk."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to hear it," said Linkheimer, "As I told you the other day, I've +just been asked by a lodge I belong to if I could help out a young feller +just out of an orphan asylum. He's a big, strong, healthy boy, and he's +willing to come to work for half what I'm paying Schenkmann. So naturally +I've got to get rid of Schenkmann."</p> + +<p>"I wonder you got time to bother yourself breaking in a new beginner," Abe +commented.</p> + +<p>Linkheimer waggled his head solemnly.</p> + +<p>"I can't help it, Abe," he said. "I let my business suffer, but +nevertheless I'm constantly giving the helping hand to these poor +inexperienced fellows. I assure you it costs me thousands of dollars in a +year, but that's my nature, Abe. I'm all heart. When would you want +Schenkmann to come to work?"</p> + +<p>"Right away, Mr. Linkheimer."</p> + +<p>"Very good, I'll go and call him."</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet and started for the door.</p> + +<p>"Oh, by the way, Abe," he said, as he paused at the threshold, "you know +Schenkmann is a married man with a wife and child, and I understand Mrs. +Schenkmann is inclined to be extravagant. For that reason I let him live in a +house I own on Park Avenue, and I take out the rent each week from his pay. +It's really a charity to do so. The amount is—er—sixteen dollars +a month. I suppose you have no objection to sending me four dollars a week +out of his wages?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't exactly a collecting agency, y'understand," Abe said; "but +I'll see what my partner says, and if he's agreeable, I am. Only one thing +though, Mr. Linkheimer, my partner bothers the life out of me I should get +from you a recommendation."</p> + +<p>"I'll give you one with pleasure, Abe," Linkheimer replied; "but it isn't +necessary."</p> + +<p>He returned to the front of the office and went to the safe.</p> + +<p>"Why just look here, Abe," he said. "I have here in the safe five hundred +dollars and some small bills which I put in there last night after I come +back from Newark. It was money I received the day before yesterday as +chairman of the entertainment committee of a lodge I belong to. The safe was +unlocked from five to seven last night and Schenkmann was in and out here all +that time."</p> + +<p>He opened the middle compartment and pulled out a roll of bills.</p> + +<p>"You see, Abe," he said, counting out the money, "here it is: one hundred, +two hundred, three hundred, four hundred and—"</p> + +<p>Here Mr. Linkheimer paused and examined the last bill carefully, for +instead of a hundred-dollar bill it was only a ten-dollar bill.</p> + +<p>"Well, what d'ye think of that dirty thief?" he cried at last. "That +Schenkmann has taken a hundred-dollar bill out of there."</p> + +<p>"What?" Abe exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Just as sure as you are sitting there," Linkheimer went on excitedly. +"That feller Schenkmann has pinched a hundred-dollar bill on me."</p> + +<p>Here his academic English completely forsook him and he continued in the +vernacular of the lower East Side.</p> + +<p>"Always up to now I have kept the safe locked on that feller, and the very +first time I get careless he goes to work and does me for a hundred dollars +yet."</p> + +<p>"But," Abe protested, "you might of made a mistake, ain't it? If the +feller took it a hundred dollars, why don't he turn around and <i>ganver</i> +the other four hundred? Ain't it? The ten dollars also he might of took it. +What?"</p> + +<p>"A <i>ganef</i> you couldn't tell what he would do at all," Linkheimer +rejoined, and Abe rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry for you, Mr. Linkheimer," he said, seizing his hat, "but I +guess I must be getting back to the store. So you shouldn't trouble yourself +about this here feller Schenkmann. We decided we would get along without +him."</p> + +<p>But Abe's words fell on deaf ears, for as he turned to leave Mr. +Linkheimer threw up the window sash and thrust his head out.</p> + +<p>"Po-lee-eece, po-lee-eece!" he yelled.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Abe arrived at his place of business after his visit to Max +Linkheimer he found Morris whistling cheerfully over the morning mail.</p> + +<p>"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "did you seen it Max Linkheimer?"</p> + +<p>Abe hurriedly took off his hat and coat, and catching the bandaged thumb +in the sleeve lining he swore long and loud.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I seen Max Linkheimer," he growled, "and I'm sick and tired of the +whole business. Go ahead and get a shipping clerk, Mawruss. I'm through."</p> + +<p>"Why?" Morris asked. "Wouldn't Linkheimer give a recommendation, because +if he wouldn't, Abe, I am satisfied we should take the feller without one. In +fact I'm surprised you didn't bring him along."</p> + +<p>"You are, hey?" Abe broke in. "Well, you shouldn't be surprised at nothing +like that, Mawruss, because I didn't bring him along for the simple reason, +Mawruss, I don't want no <i>ganef</i> working round my place. That's all."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean—<i>ganef</i>?" Morris cried. "The feller ain't no +more a thief as you are, Abe."</p> + +<p>Abe's moustache bristled and his eyes bulged so indignantly that they +seemed to rest on his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"You should be careful what you say, Mawruss," he retorted. "Maybe he +ain't no more a <i>ganef</i> as I am, Mawruss, but just the same, he is in +jail and I ain't."</p> + +<p>"In jail," Morris exclaimed. "What for in jail?"</p> + +<p>"Because he stole from Linkheimer a hundred dollars yesterday, Mawruss, +and while I was there yet, Linkheimer finds it out. So naturally he makes +this here feller arrested."</p> + +<p>"Yesterday, he stole a hundred dollars?" Morris interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday afternoon," Abe repeated. "With my own eyes I seen it the other +money which he didn't stole."</p> + +<p>"Then," Morris said, "if he stole it yesterday afternoon, Abe, he didn't +positively do nothing of the kind."</p> + +<p>Forthwith he related to Abe his visit to Schenkmann's rooms and the +condition of poverty that he found.</p> + +<p>"I give you my word, Abe," he said, "the feller didn't got even a chair to +sit on."</p> + +<p>"What do you know, Mawruss, what he got and what he didn't got?" Abe +rejoined impatiently. "The feller naturally ain't going to show you the +hundred dollars which he stole it—especially, Mawruss, if he thinks he +could work you for a couple dollars more."</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris broke in; "don't say again that feller stole +a hundred dollars, because I'm telling you once more, Abe, I know he didn't +take nothing, certain sure."</p> + +<p>"<i>Geh wek</i>, Mawruss," Abe cried disgustedly; "you talk like a +fool!"</p> + +<p>"Do I?" Morris shouted. "All right, Abe. Maybe I do and maybe I don't, but +just the same so positive I am he didn't done it, I'm going right down to +Henry D. Feldman, and I will fix that feller Linkheimer he should work a poor +half-starved yokel for five dollars a week and a couple of top-floor tenement +rooms which it ain't worth six dollars a month. Wait! I'll show that +sucker."</p> + +<p>He seized his hat and made for the elevator door, which he had almost +reached when Abe grabbed him by the arm.</p> + +<p>"Mawruss," he cried, "are you crazy? What for you should put yourself out +about this here young feller? He ain't the last shipping clerk in existence. +You could get plenty good shipping clerks without bothering yourself like +this. Besides, Mawruss, if he did steal it or if he didn't steal it, what +difference does it make to us? With the silk piece goods which we got it +around our place, Mawruss, we couldn't afford to take no chances."</p> + +<p>"I ain't taking no chances, Abe," Morris maintained stoutly. "I know this +feller ain't took the money."</p> + +<p>"Sure, that's all right," Abe agreed; "but you couldn't afford to be away +all morning right in the busy season. Besides, Mawruss, since when did you +become to be so charitable all of a suddent?"</p> + +<p>"Me charitable?" Morris cried indignantly. "I ain't charitable, Abe. +<i>Gott soll hüten!</i> I leave that to suckers like Max Linkheimer. But when +I know a decent, respectable feller is being put into jail for something +which he didn't do at all, Abe, then that's something else again."</p> + +<p>At this juncture the elevator arrived, and as he plunged in he shouted +that he would be back before noon. Abe returned to the rear of the loft where +a number of rush orders had been arranged for shipment. Under his instruction +and supervision the stock boy nailed down the top boards of the packing +cases, but in nearly every instance, after the case was strapped and +stencilled, they discovered they had left one garment out, and the whole +process had to be repeated. Thus it was nearly one o'clock before Abe's task +was concluded, and although he had breakfasted late that morning, when he +looked at his watch he became suddenly famished. "I could starve yet," he +muttered, "for all that feller cares."</p> + +<p>He walked up and down the showroom floor in an ecstasy of imaginary +hunger, and as he was making the hundredth trip the elevator door opened and +Max Linkheimer stepped out. His low-cut waistcoat disclosed that his +shirtfront, ordinarily of a glossy white perfection, had fallen victim to a +profuse perspiration. Even his collar had not escaped the flood, and as for +his I. O. M. A. charm, it seemed positively tarnished.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Potash," he began, "what d'ye mean by sending your +partner to bail out that <i>ganef</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Me send my partner to bail out a <i>ganef</i>?" Abe exclaimed. "What are +you talking, nonsense?"</p> + +<p>"I ain't talking nonsense," Linkheimer retorted. "Look at the kinds of +conditions I am in. That feller Feldman made a fine monkey out of me in the +police court."</p> + +<p>"Was Feldman there too?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"You don't know, I suppose, Feldman was there," Linkheimer continued; "and +your partner went on his bail for two thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, Mr. Linkheimer," he said, "I didn't tell my partner +he should do nothing of the kind. He done it against my advice, Mr. +Linkheimer. But at the same time, Mr. Linkheimer, if he wants to go bail for +that feller, y'understand, what is it my business?"</p> + +<p>"What is it your business?" Linkheimer repeated. "Why, don't you know if +that feller runs away the sheriff could come in here and clean out your +place? That's all."</p> + +<p>"What?" Abe cried. He sat down in the nearest chair and gaped at +Linkheimer.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," Linkheimer repeated, "you could be ruined by a thing like +that."</p> + +<p>Abe's lower jaw fell still further. He was too dazed for comment.</p> + +<p>"W-what could I do about it?" he gasped at length.</p> + +<p>"Do about it!" Linkheimer cried. "Why, if I had a partner who played me a +dirty trick like that I'd kick him out of my place. There ain't a +copartnership agreement in existence that doesn't expressly say one partner +shouldn't give a bail bond without the other partner's consent."</p> + +<p>Abe rocked to and fro in his chair.</p> + +<p>"After all these years a feller should do a thing like that to me!" he +moaned.</p> + +<p>Linkheimer smiled with satisfaction, and he was about to instance a +striking and wholly imaginary case of one partner ruining another by giving a +bail bond when the door leading to the cutting room in the rear opened and +Morris Perlmutter appeared. As his eyes rested on Linkheimer they blazed with +anger, and for once Morris seemed to possess a certain dignity.</p> + +<p>"Out," he commanded; "out from <i>mein</i> store, you dawg, you!"</p> + +<p>As he rushed on the startled button dealer, Abe grabbed his coat-tails and +pulled him back.</p> + +<p>"Say, what are we here, Mawruss," he cried, "a theaytre?"</p> + +<p>"Let him alone, Abe," Linkheimer counselled in a rather shaky voice. "I'm +pretty nearly twenty years older than he is, but I guess I could cope with +him."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't cope with nobody around here," Abe replied. "If youse two +want to cope you should go out on the sidewalk."</p> + +<p>"Never mind," Morris broke in, his valour now quite evaporated; "I'll fix +him yet."</p> + +<p>"Another thing, Mawruss," Abe interrupted; "why don't you come in the +front way like a man."</p> + +<p>"I come in which way I please, Abe," Morris rejoined. "And furthermore, +Abe, when I got with me a poor skeleton of a feller like Nathan Schenkmann, +Abe, I don't take him up the front elevator. I would be ashamed for our +competitors that they should think we let our work-people starve. The feller +actually fainted on me as we was coming up the freight elevator."</p> + +<p>"As you was coming up the freight elevator?" Abe repeated. "Do you mean to +tell me you got the nerve to actually bring this feller into <i>mein</i> +place yet?"</p> + +<p>"Do I got to get your permission, Abe, I should bring who I want to into +my own place?" Morris rejoined.</p> + +<p>"Then all I got to say is you should take him right out again," Abe said. +"I wouldn't have no <i>ganévim</i> in my place. Once and for all, Mawruss, I +am telling you I wouldn't stand for your nonsense. You are giving our stock +as a bail for this feller, and if he runs away on us, the sheriff comes in +and—"</p> + +<p>"Who says I give our stock as a bail for this feller?" Morris demanded. "I +got a surety company bond, Abe, because Feldman says I shouldn't go on no +bail bonds, and I give the surety company my personal check for a thousand +dollars which they will return when the case is over. That's what I done it +to keep this here Schenkmann out of jail, Abe, and if it would be necessary +to get this here Linkheimer into jail, Abe, I would have another check for a +thousand dollars for keeps."</p> + +<p>Abe grew somewhat abashed at this disclosure. He looked at Linkheimer and +then at Morris, but before he could think of something to say the elevator +door opened and Jake stepped out. It was perhaps the first time in all their +acquaintance with Jake that Abe and Morris had seen him with his face washed. +Moreover, a clean collar served further to conceal his identity, and at first +Abe did not recognize his former shipping clerk.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Mr. Potash!" Jake said.</p> + +<p>"I'll be with you in one moment, Mister—er," Abe began. "Just take +a—why, that's Jake, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Here he saw a chance for a conversational diversion and he jumped +excitedly to his feet.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Jake?" he asked. "You want your old job back?"</p> + +<p>"It don't go so quick as all that, Mr. Potash," Jake answered. "I got a +good business, Mr. Potash. I carry a fine line of cigars, candy, and +stationery, and already I got an offer of twenty-five dollars more as I paid +for the business. But I wouldn't take it. Why should I? I took in a lot money +yesterday, and only this morning, Mr. Potash, a feller comes in my place +and—why, there's the feller now!"</p> + +<p>"Feller! What d'ye mean—feller?" Abe cried indignantly. "That ain't +no feller. That's Mr. Max Linkheimer."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know!" Jake explained. "He's the feller I mean. Half an hour ago +I was in his place, and they says there he comes up here. You was in +<i>mein</i> store this morning, Mr. Linkheimer, ain't that right, and you +bought from me a package of all-tobacco cigarettes?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu, nu</i>, Jake," Morris broke in. "Make an end. You are interrupting +us here."</p> + +<p>Jake drew back his coat and clumsily unfastened a large safety pin which +sealed the opening of his upper right-hand waistcoat pocket. Then he dug down +with his thumb and finger and produced a small yellow wad about the size of a +postage stamp. This he proceeded to unfold until it took on the appearance of +a hundred-dollar bill.</p> + +<p>"He gives me this here," Jake announced, "and I give him the change for a +ten-dollar bill. So this here is a hundred-dollar bill, ain't it, and it +don't belong to me, which I come downtown I should give it him back again. +What isn't mine I don't want at all."</p> + +<p>This was perhaps the longest speech that Jake had ever made, and he paused +to lick his dry lips for the peroration.</p> + +<p>"And so," he concluded, handing the bill to Linkheimer, "here it is, +and—and nine dollars and ninety cents, please."</p> + +<p>Linkheimer grabbed the bill automatically and gazed at the figures on it +with bulging eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why," Abe gasped, "why, Linkheimer, you had four one-hundred-dollar bills +and a ten-dollar bill in the safe this morning. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Linkheimer nodded. Once more he broke into a copious perspiration, as he +handed a ten-dollar bill to Jake.</p> + +<p>"And so," Abe went on, "and so you must of took a hundred-dollar bill out +of the safe last night, instead of a ten-dollar bill. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Linkheimer nodded again.</p> + +<p>"And so you made a mistake, ain't it?" Abe cried. "And this here feller +Schenkmann didn't took no money out of the safe at all. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>For the third time Linkheimer nodded, and Abe turned to his partner.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye think of that feller?" he said, nodding his head in +Linkheimer's direction.</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged, and Abe plunged his hands into his trousers pockets and +glared at Linkheimer.</p> + +<p>"So, Linkheimer," he concluded, "you made a sucker out of yourself and out +of me too! Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Abe," Linkheimer muttered, as he folded away the +hundred-dollar bill in his wallet.</p> + +<p>"I bet yer he's sorry," Morris interrupted. "I would be sorry too if I +would got a lawsuit on my hands like he's got it."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?" Linkheimer cried. "I ain't got no lawsuit on my +hands."</p> + +<p>"Not yet," Morris said significantly, "but when Feldman hears of this, you +would quick get a summons for a couple of thousand dollars damages which you +done this young feller Schenkmann by making him false arrested."</p> + +<p>"It ain't no more than you deserve, Linkheimer," Abe added. "You're lucky +I don't sue you for trying to make trouble between me and my partner yet."</p> + +<p>For one brief moment Linkheimer regarded Abe sorrowfully. There were few +occasions to which Linkheimer could not do justice with a cut-and-dried +sentiment or a well-worn aphorism, and he was about to expatiate on +ingratitude in business when Abe forestalled him.</p> + +<p>"Another thing I wanted to say to you, Linkheimer," Abe said; "you +shouldn't wait until the first of the month to send us a statement. Mail it +to-night yet, because we give you notice we close your account right here and +now."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>One week later Abe and Morris watched Nathan Schenkmann driving nails into +the top of a packing case with a force and precision of which Jake had been +wholly incapable; for seven days of better housing and better feeding had +done wonders for Nathan.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Abe," Morris said as they turned away; "I think we made a find in +that boy, and we also done a charity too. Some people's got an idee, Abe, +that business is always business; but with me I think differencely. You could +never make no big success in business unless you got a little sympathy for a +feller oncet in a while. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded.</p> + +<p>"I give you right, Mawruss," he said.</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap02">CHAPTER TWO</h2> + +<h3>THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS</h3> + +<p>There was an intimate connection between Abe Potash's advent in the lobby +of the Prince Clarence Hotel one hot summer day in June and the publication +in that morning's Arrival of Buyers column of the following statement and +news item:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="ad"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td><p style="margin-left: 6ex; text-indent: -3ex; ">Griesman, M., Dry + Goods Company, Syracuse; M. Griesman, ladies' and misses' cloaks, + suits, waists, and furs; Prince Clarence Hotel.</p> + </td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Nevertheless, when Abe caught sight of Mr. Griesman lolling in one of the +hotel's capacious <i>fauteuils</i> he quickly looked the other way and passed +on to the clerk's desk. Then he asked in a loud tone for Mr. Elkan Reinberg, +of Boonton, New Jersey; and, almost before the clerk told him that no such +person was registered, he turned about and recognized Mr. Griesman with an +elaborate start.</p> + +<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Griesman?" he exclaimed. "Ain't it a pleasure to +see you! What are you doing here in New York?"</p> + +<p>Griesman looked hard at his interlocutor before replying.</p> + +<p>Some two years earlier there had been an acrimonious correspondence +between them with reference to a shipment of skirts lost in transit—a +correspondence ending in threatened litigation; and Mr. Griesman had +transferred his account with Potash & Perlmutter to Sammet Brothers. +Hence he regarded Abe's proffered hand coldly, and instead of rising to his +feet he continued to puff at his cigar for a few moments.</p> + +<p>"I know your face," he said at length, "but your name ain't familiar."</p> + +<p>"Think again, Mr. Griesman," Abe said, quite unmoved by the rebuff. "Where +did you seen me before?"</p> + +<p>"I think I seen you in a law office oncet," Griesman said. "To the best of +my recollection the occasion was one which you said you didn't give a damn +about my business at all, and if I wouldn't pay for the skirts you would make +it hot for me. But so far what I hear it, I ain't paid for the skirts, and I +didn't sweat none either."</p> + +<p>"Why not let bygones be bygones, Mr. Griesman?" Abe rejoined.</p> + +<p>"I ain't got no bygones, Abe," Griesman replied. "The bygones is all on +your side. I ain't got the skirts; so I didn't pay for 'em."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is a few skirts that fellers should be enemies about 'em, Mr. +Griesman? The skirts is <i>vorbei schon</i> long since already. Why don't you +anyhow come down to our place oncet in a while and see us, Moe?"</p> + +<p>"What would I do in your place, Abe?"</p> + +<p>"You still use a couple garments, like we make it, in your business, Moe," +Abe continued. "You got to buy goods in New York oncet in a while. Ain't +it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I do and I don't, Abe," Moe rejoined. "I ain't the back number +which I oncet used to was, Abe. I got fresh idees a little too, Abe. +Nowadays, Abe, a buyer couldn't rely on his own judgment at all. Before he +buys a new season's goods he's got to find out what they're wearing on the +other side first. So with me, Abe, I go first to Paris, Abe. Then I see there +what I want to buy here, Abe, and when I come back to New York I buy only +them goods which has got the idees I seen it in Paris."</p> + +<p>"But how do you know we ain't got the idees you would seen it in Paris, +Moe?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Abe," Moe replied, "because I ain't been to Paris yet so +far. I am now on my way over to Paris, Abe; and furthermore, Abe, if I would +been to Paris, y'understand, what does a feller like Mawruss know about +designing?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, what does a feller like Mawruss know about designing?" +Abe repeated. "Don't you fool yourself, Moe; Mawruss is a first-class, A +number one designer. He gets his idees straight from the best fashion +journals. Then too, Moe, when it comes to up-to-date styles, I ain't such a +big fool neither, y'understand. I know one or two things about designing +myself, Moe, and you could take it from me, Moe, there ain't no house in the +trade, Moe, which they got better facilities for giving you the latest +up-to-the-minute style like we got it."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Moe continued; "but as I told it you before, Abe, I ain't +in the market for my fall goods now. I am now only on my way to Paris, and +when I would come back it would be time for you to waste your breath."</p> + +<p>"I could waste my breath all I want to, Moe," Abe rejoined. "I ain't like +some people, Moe; my breath don't cost me nothing."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?" Moe cried indignantly. He had allowed himself the +unusual indulgence of a cocktail that morning as a corollary to a rather +turbulent evening with Leon Sammet, and he had been absently chewing a clove +throughout the interview with Abe.</p> + +<p>"I mean Hymie Salzman, designer for Sammet Brothers," Abe replied. +"There's a feller which he got it such a breath, Moe, he ought to put a +revenue stamp on his chin."</p> + +<p>"That may be, Abe; but the feller delivers the goods. Sammet Brothers are +sending him to Paris this year too, Abe. He is sailing with Leon Sammet on +the same ship with me, Abe."</p> + +<p>"Well, then all I could say to you is, Moe, you should look out for +yourself and don't play no auction pinocle with that feller. Every afternoon +he is playing with such sharks like Moe Rabiner and Marks Pasinsky, and if he +ever got out of a job as designer he could go on the stage at one of them +continual performances as a card juggler yet. A three-fifty hand is the least +that feller deals himself."</p> + +<p>"One thing is sure, Abe, you couldn't never sell me no goods by knocking +Hymie Salzman."</p> + +<p>"I ain't trying to sell you no goods, Moe; I am only talking to you like +an old friend should talk to another. When are you coming back?"</p> + +<p>"About July 1st I should be here," Moe replied, "and if you want to come +and see me like an old friend, Abe, you are welcome. Only I got to say this +to you, Abe, I forgot them skirts long since ago already, and I wish you the +same."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Abe entered his showroom that morning Morris Perlmutter had just +arranged a high-neck evening gown on a wire model.</p> + +<p>"Well, Abe, what d'ye think of it?" he exclaimed proudly, as he wiped his +glistening brow. Abe fingered the garment's silken folds and puffed +critically at a black cigar.</p> + +<p>"What could I think, Mawruss?" he replied. "The garment looks all right, +Mawruss, and I ain't kicking, y'understand; but I tell you the honest truth, +Mawruss, the way things is nowadays, Mawruss, a feller could be Elijah the +Prophet already, and he couldn't tell in June what is going to please the +garment buyers in September."</p> + +<p>Morris flushed angrily.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what comes over you lately, Abe; nothing suits you," he +cried. "I got here a garment which if we would be paying a designer ten +thousand dollars a year yet he couldn't turn us out nothing better, and yet +you are kicking."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, kicking?" Abe rejoined. "I ain't kicking. I am only +passing a remark, Mawruss. I am saying I couldn't tell nothing about it, +Mawruss, because so far ahead of time like this, Mawruss, a garment could +look ever so rotten, Mawruss, and it could turn out to be a record-seller +anyhow."</p> + +<p>"So, Abe," Morris broke out furiously, "you think the garment looks +rotten! What? Well, all I got to say is this, Abe; if the garment looks so +rotten you should quick hire some one which could design a better one, +because I am sick and tired of your kicking."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, you got pepper up your nose all of a sudden, Mawruss?" +Abe protested. "I ain't saying nothing about the garment is rotten. I am only +saying it gets so nowadays that in June a feller turns out a style which if +we was making masquerade costumes already it would be freaky anyhow; and yet, +Mawruss, it would go big in September. You get the idee what I am talking +about, Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>"I get the idee all right," Morris retorted with bitter emphasis. "You got +the nerve to stand there and tell me this here garment is freaky like a +masquerade costume. <i>Schon gut</i>, Abe. From now on I wash myself of the +whole thing. I am through, Abe. You should right away advertise for a +designer."</p> + +<p>Abe rose wearily to his feet.</p> + +<p>"With a touchy proposition like you, Mawruss," he said, "a feller couldn't +open his mouth at all. I ain't saying nothing about you as a designer, +Mawruss. All I am saying, Mawruss, is, a designer could be a feller which he +is so high-grade like Paquin or any of them Frenchers, but if he gets his +idees from fashion papers <i>oder</i> the <i>Daily Cloak and Suit +Gazette</i>, Mawruss, then oncet in a while he turns out a sticker."</p> + +<p>Morris was stripping the garment from the display form, but he paused to +favour his partner with a glare.</p> + +<p>"What would you want me to do, then?" he asked. "Make up styles out from +my own head, Abe? If I wouldn't get my idees from the fashion papers, Abe, +where would I get 'em?"</p> + +<p>"Where would you get 'em?" Abe repeated. "Why, where does Hymie Salzman, +designer for Sammet Brothers, and Charles Eisenblum, designer for Klinger +& Klein, get their idees, Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>This was purely a rhetorical question, but as Abe paused to heighten the +effect of the peroration, Morris undertook to supply an answer.</p> + +<p>"Them suckers don't get their idees, Abe," he said; "they steal 'em. If a +concern gets a run on a certain garment, Abe, them two highway robbers makes +a duplicate of it before you could turn around your head. That's the kind of +cut-throats them fellers is, Abe."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Abe continued; "but they got to turn out some garments of +their own, Mawruss, and they get their idees right from headquarters. They +get their idees from Paris, Mawruss. Only this morning I hear it that Hymie +Salzman sails for Paris on Saturday."</p> + +<p>"Well, I couldn't stop him, Abe," Morris commented.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe went on; "but things is very quiet here in +the store, Mawruss, and for a month yet we wouldn't do hardly no business. I +could get along here all right until, say, July 15th anyhow."</p> + +<p>For two minutes Morris looked hard at his partner.</p> + +<p>"What are you driving into, Abe?" he asked at length.</p> + +<p>"Why, I am driving into this, Mawruss," Abe continued. "Why don't you go +to Paris?"</p> + +<p>"Me go to Paris!" Morris exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Abe murmured. The suggestion did seem preposterous after +all.</p> + +<p>"Why not!" Morris repeated. "There's a whole lot of reasons why not, Abe, +and the first and foremost is that the Atlantic Ocean would got to run dry +and they got to build a railroad there first, Abe. I crossed the water just +oncet, Abe, and I wouldn't cross it again if I never sold another dollar's +worth more goods so long as I live, Abe; and that's all there is to it."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense, Mawruss? On them big boats like the +<i>Morrisania</i> there ain't no more motion than if a feller would be going +to Coney Island, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Abe," Morris replied firmly. "Me, if I would go to +Coney Island, I am taking always the trolley, Abe, from the New York side of +the bridge. Furthermore, Abe, if Sammet Brothers sends a drinker like Hymie +Salzman to Paris, Abe, they got a right to spend their money the way they +want to; but all I got to say is that we shouldn't be afraid they would cop +out any of our trade on that account, Abe. Hymie would come home with new +idees of tchampanyer wine and not garments, Abe."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted; "but if you would go over to Paris, +Mawruss, you would come back with some new idees which you would turn out +some real snappy stuff, Mawruss. As it is, Mawruss, with a sticker like you +got it there, Mawruss, we would ruin our business."</p> + +<p>"All right, Abe; I heard enough. You got altogether too much to say for a +feller which comes downtown at ten o'clock with no excuse nor nothing."</p> + +<p>At this point Abe interrupted his partner long enough to relate his visit +to Moe Griesman, but the information entirely failed to placate Morris.</p> + +<p>"All right, Abe," he shouted; "why don't you go to Paris? That's all +you're fit for. I got a wife and baby, Abe; but with a feller which he has +got no more interest in his home, y'understand, than he wants to go to Paris, +Abe—all right! Go ahead, Abe; go to Paris. I am satisfied."</p> + +<p>Abe regarded his partner for one hesitating moment.</p> + +<p>"<i>Schon gut</i>, I will go to Paris," he said; and the next moment the +elevator door closed behind him.</p> + +<p>For five minutes after Abe's departure Morris gazed earnestly at his +newest creation. He had intended the model as a pleasant surprise to his +partner, since not only had he conceived the garment to be a triumph of the +dressmaker's art, but it had been finished far in advance of the season for +originating new styles. He had confidently expected an enthusiastic reception +of this <i>chef-d'oeuvre</i>; but in view of Abe's scathing criticism, he +commenced to doubt his own estimate of the beauty of the dress. Indeed, the +longer he looked at it the uglier it appeared, until at length he grabbed it +roughly and literally tore it from the wire form. He had rolled it into a +ball and was about to cast it into a corner when the elevator door opened and +a young lady stepped out.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mr. Perlmutter," she said.</p> + +<p>Morris turned his face in the direction of the speaker and at once his +mouth expanded into a broad grin.</p> + +<p>"Why, Miss Smith!" he exclaimed as he rushed forward to greet her. "How do +you do? Me and Mrs. Perlmutter was just talking about you to-day. How much +you think that boy weighs now?"</p> + +<p>"Sixteen pounds," Miss Smith replied.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two," Morris cried—"net."</p> + +<p>"You don't say so!" said Miss Smith.</p> + +<p>"We got you to thank for that, Miss Smith," Morris continued. "The doctor +says without you anything could happen."</p> + +<p>Miss Smith deprecated this compliment to her professional skill with a +smiling shake of the head.</p> + +<p>"We wouldn't forget it in a hurry," Morris declared. "Everything what that +boy is to-day, Miss Smith, we owe it to you."</p> + +<p>"You're making it hard for me, Mr. Perlmutter," Miss Smith replied, +"because I've come to ask you a favour."</p> + +<p>"A favour?" Morris replied. "You couldn't ask me to do you a favour +because it wouldn't be no favour. It would be a pleasure. What could I do for +you?"</p> + +<p>"I have to leave town to-morrow on a case," Miss Smith explained, "and I +need a dress in a hurry, something light for evening wear."</p> + +<p>Morris frowned perplexedly.</p> + +<p>"That's too bad," he said, "because just at present we got nothing but +last year's goods in stock—all except—all except this."</p> + +<p>He unfolded the model and shook it out.</p> + +<p>"What a pretty dress!" Miss Smith cried, clasping her hands.</p> + +<p>"Pretty!" Morris exclaimed. "How could you say it was pretty?"</p> + +<p>"It's perfectly stunning," Miss Smith continued. "What size is it, Mr. +Perlmutter?"</p> + +<p>"The usual size," Morris replied; "thirty-six."</p> + +<p>"Why, that's just my size," Miss Smith declared. "Let me see it." Morris +handed her the dress and she examined it carefully. "What a pity," she said, +"it has a slight rip in front. Somebody's been handling it carelessly."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris said. "I tore it myself, Miss Smith; but if you +really and truly like it, Miss Smith, which I tell you the truth I don't, and +my partner neither, you are welcome to it, and I would give you a little +piece from the same goods which you could fix up the rip with."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't think of it," Miss Smith replied.</p> + +<p>"Not at all, Miss Smith. You would do me a favour if you would take it +along with you right now."</p> + +<p>Miss Smith fairly beamed as she opened her handbag.</p> + +<p>"How much is it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"How much is it?" Morris repeated. "Why, Miss Smith, you could take that +dress only on one condition. The condition is that you wouldn't pay me +nothing for it, and that next fall, when we really got something in stock, +you would come in and pick out as many of our highest-price garments as you +would want."</p> + +<p>Morris's hand shook so with this unusual access of generosity that he +could hardly wrap up the garment.</p> + +<p>"Also, Miss Smith, I expect you will come up and have dinner with us as +soon as you get back from wherever you are going. Already the baby commences +to recognize people which he meets, and we want him he should never forget +you, Miss Smith."</p> + +<p>The cordiality with which Morris ushered Miss Smith into the elevator was +in striking contrast to the brusk manner in which he greeted Abe half an hour +later.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu!</i>" he growled. "Where was you now?"</p> + +<p>"By the steamship office," Abe replied. "I am going next Saturday."</p> + +<p>"Going next Saturday?" Morris repeated. "Where to?"</p> + +<p>"To Paris," Abe replied, "on the same ship with Moe Griesman, Leon Sammet +and Hymie Salzman."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded slowly as the news sank in.</p> + +<p>"Well, all I could say is, Abe," he commented at length, "that I don't +wish you and the other passengers no harm, y'understand; but, with them three +suckers on board the ship, I hope it sinks."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>The five days preceding Abe's departure were made exceedingly busy for him +by Morris, who soon became reconciled to his partner's fashion-hunting trip, +particularly when he learned that Moe Griesman formed part of the quarry.</p> + +<p>"You got to remember one thing, Abe," he declared. "Extremes is nix. Let +the other feller buy the freaks; what we are after is something in +moderation."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't worry about that, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I wouldn't bring +you home no such model like you showed it me this week."</p> + +<p>"You would be lucky if you wouldn't bring home worser yet," Morris +retorted. "But anyhow that ain't the point. I got here the names of a couple +commission men which it is their business to look out for greenhorns."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, greenhorn?" Abe cried indignantly. "I ain't no +greenhorn."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," Morris went on; "in France only the Frenchers ain't +greenhorns. You ain't told me what kind of a stateroom you got it."</p> + +<p>"Well, the outside rooms was one hundred and twenty-five dollars and the +inside room, was eight-five dollars," Abe explained; "so I took an inside +room because the light wouldn't come in and wake me up so early in the +morning, Mawruss, and forty dollars is as good to me as it is to them suckers +what runs the steamboat company. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when Abe found himself in his upper berth the morning after +he had parted with Minnie, Rosie, and Morris at the pier, he had reason to +regret his economy. He shared his stateroom with a singer of minor operatic +rôles, who, as a souvenir of a farewell luncheon ashore, carried into that +narrow precinct an odour of garlic that persisted for the entire voyage. In +addition, the returning artist smoked Egyptian cigarettes and anointed his +generous head of hair with violet brilliantine. Hence it was not until the +boat was passing Brow Head that Abe staggered up the companionway to the +promenade deck.</p> + +<p>"Why, hallo, Abe!" cried a bronzed and bulky figure. "I ain't seen you for +almost a week."</p> + +<p>"No?" Abe murmured. "Well, if you would wanted to seen me, Leon, you knew +where you could find me: just below the pantry my stateroom was, inside. A +dawg shouldn't got to live in such a place."</p> + +<p>At this juncture Salzman appeared to summon his employer to a game of +auction pinocle in the smoking room, and as Abe started to make a feeble +promenade around the deckhouse he encountered Moe Griesman. After Moe had +taken Abe's hand in a limp clasp he nodded in the direction of the smoking +room.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye think of them two suckers?" he croaked. "They ain't missed a +meal since they came aboard."</p> + +<p>"What could you expect from a couple of tough propositions like that?" Abe +replied. "Was you sick, Moe?"</p> + +<p>"Sick!" Griesman exclaimed. "I give you my word, Abe, last Thursday night +I was so sick that I commenced to figure out already how much I would of +saved in premiums if my insurings policies would be straight life instead of +endowment. No, Abe; this here business of going to Paris for your styles +ain't what it's cracked up to be. Always up to now I got fine weather +crossing, but the way the water has been the last six days, Abe, I am +beginning to think I could get just so good idees of the season's models +right in New York."</p> + +<p>"D'ye know, Moe," said Abe, "I'm starting to feel hungry? I wish that +feller with the <i>shofar</i> would come."</p> + +<p>Hardly had he spoken when the ship's bugler announced luncheon, but it was +some minutes before Moe could summon up sufficient courage to go below to the +dining saloon, and when they entered they found Leon Sammet and Hymie Salzman +had nearly concluded their meal.</p> + +<p>"Steward," Leon shouted as Moe sat down next to him, "bring me a nice +piece of Camembert cheese."</p> + +<p>"One moment, Leon," Griesman interrupted; "if you bring that stuff under +my nose here I would never buy from you a dollar's worth more goods so long +as I live!"</p> + +<p>"The feller goes too far, Abe," he said, after Leon had cancelled the +order and departed to drink his coffee in the smoking room. "The feller goes +too far. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on deck, and the way I felt, Abe, +my worst enemy wouldn't got to feel it. Do you believe me, Abe, that feller +got the nerve to offer me a cigar yet! It pretty near finished me up. He only +done it out of spite, Abe, but I fooled him. I took the cigar and I got it in +my pocket right now."</p> + +<p>"Don't show me," Abe cried hurriedly. "I'll tell you the truth: there +ain't nothing in the smoking habit. I'm going to cut it out. Waiter, bring me +only a plate of clear soup and some dry toast. There ain't no need for a +feller to smoke, Moe; it's only an extra expense."</p> + +<p>"I think you're right, Abe," Moe said; "but I know that this here cigar +cost Leon a quarter on board ship here, and I thought I would show him he +shouldn't get so gay."</p> + +<p>Despite Abe's resolution, however, a large black cigar protruded from his +moustache when he stood on the wharf at Cherbourg, twenty-four hours later, +and a small, ill-shaven stevedore, clad in a dark blouse and shabby corduroy +trousers, pointed to the cloud of smoke that issued from Abe's lips and +chattered a voluble protest.</p> + +<p>"What does he say, Moe?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Moe replied. "He's talking French."</p> + +<p>"French!" Abe exclaimed. "What are you trying to do—kid me? A dirty +<i>schlemiel</i> of a greenhorn like him should talk French! What an +idee!"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Abe was made to throw away his cigar, and it was not until +the quartette were snugly enclosed in a first-class compartment en route to +Paris that Abe felt safe to indulge in another cigar. He explored his +pockets, but without result.</p> + +<p>"Moe," he said, "do you got maybe another cigar on you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm smoking the one which Leon give it me on the ship the other day," Moe +replied. "Leon, be a good feller; give him a cigar."</p> + +<p>"I give you my word, Moe, this is the last one," Leon replied as he bit +the end off a huge invincible.</p> + +<p>"You got something there bulging in your vest pocket, Abe. Why don't you +smoke it?"</p> + +<p>"That ain't a cigar," Abe answered; "that's a fountain pen."</p> + +<p>"Smoke it anyhow," Leon advised; "because the only cigars you could get on +this train is French Government cigars, and I'd sooner tackle a fountain pen +as one of them rolls of spinach."</p> + +<p>"That's a country!" Abe commented. "Couldn't even get a decent cigar +here!"</p> + +<p>"In Paris you could get plenty good cigars," Hymie Salzman said, and Hymie +was right for, at the Gare St. Lazare, M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi, +<i>commissionnaire</i>, awaited them, his pockets literally spilling +red-banded perfectos at every gesture of his lively fingers. M. Kaufmann-Levi +spoke English, French, and German with every muscle of his body from the +waist up.</p> + +<p>"Welcome to France, Mr. Potash," he said. "You had a good voyage, +doubtless; because you Americans are born sailors."</p> + +<p>"Maybe we are born sailors," Abe admitted, "but I must of grew out of it. +I tell you the honest truth, if I could go back by trolley, and it took a +year, I would do it."</p> + +<p>"The weather is always more settled in July than in August," said M. +Kaufmann-Levi, "and I wouldn't worry about the return trip just now. I have +rooms for you gentlemen all on one floor of a hotel near the Opera, and +taximeters are in waiting. After you have settled we will take dinner +together."</p> + +<p>Thus it happened that, at half past six that evening, M. Kaufmann-Levi +conducted his four guests from the Restaurant Marguery to a sidewalk table of +the Café de la Paix, and for almost an hour they watched the crowd making its +way to the Opera.</p> + +<p>"You see, Moe," Abe said, "everything is tunics this year; tunics +<i>oder</i> chiffon overskirts, net collars and yokes."</p> + +<p>Moe nodded absently. His eyes were glued to a lady sitting at the next +table.</p> + +<p>"You got to come to Paris to see 'em, Abe," he murmured. "They don't make +'em like that in America."</p> + +<p>"We make as good garments in America as anywhere," Abe protested.</p> + +<p>"Garments I ain't talking about at all," Moe whispered hoarsely; "I mean +peaches. Did y'ever see anything like that lady there sitting next to you? +Look at the get-up, Abe. Ain't it chic?"</p> + +<p>"It's a pretty good-looking model, Moe," Abe replied, "but a bit too plain +for us. See all the fancy-looking garments there are round here."</p> + +<p>"Plain nothing!" Moe muttered. "Look at the way it fits her. I tell you, +Abe, the French ladies know how to wear their clothes."</p> + +<p>A moment later the couple at the next table passed along toward the Opera, +and once more Abe and Moe turned their attention to the crowds on the +boulevard.</p> + +<p>For the remainder of their stay in Paris Abe and Leon spent their time in +a ceaseless hunt for new models and their nights in plying Moe Griesman with +entertainment. It cannot be said that Moe discouraged them to any marked +degree, for while he occasionally hinted to Abe that the New York cloak and +suit trade was an open market, and garment buyers had a large field from +which to choose, he also told Leon that he saw no reason why he should not +continue to buy goods from Sammet Brothers, provided the prices were +right.</p> + +<p>Nearly every evening found them sitting at the corner table of the Café de +la Paix, and upon many of these occasions the next table was occupied by the +same couple that sat there on the night of Abe's arrival in Paris.</p> + +<p>"You know, Abe, that dress is the most uniquest thing in Paris," Moe +exclaimed on the evening of the last day in Paris. "I ain't seen nothing like +it anywhere."</p> + +<p>"Good reason, Moe," Leon Sammet cried; "it's rotten. That's one of last +year's models."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense? One of the last year's models!" Moe +Griesman cried indignantly. "Don't you think I know a new style when I see +it?"</p> + +<p>"Moe is right, Leon," Abe said. "You ain't got no business to talk that +way at all. The style is this year's model."</p> + +<p>"Of course, Abe," Leon said with ironic precision, "when a judge like you +says something, y'understand, then it's so. Take another of them sixty-cent +ice-creams, Moe."</p> + +<p>Ordinarily Abe would have turned Leon's sarcasm with a retort in kind, but +Leon's remark fell on deaf ears, for Abe was listening to a conversation at +the next table and the language was English.</p> + +<p>"It's time to start back to the hotel," said the young lady to her escort, +who was an elderly gentleman.</p> + +<p>Abe turned to Moe and Leon.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me for a few minutes," he said; "I got to go back to the hotel for +something."</p> + +<p>He handed Leon a twenty-franc piece.</p> + +<p>"If I shouldn't get back, pay the bill!" he cried, and jumping to his feet +he followed the couple from the next table.</p> + +<p>The old gentleman walked feebly with the aid of a cane, and the young lady +held him by the arm as they proceeded to the main entrance of the Grand +Hotel. Abe dogged their footsteps until the old gentleman disappeared into +the lift and the young lady retired to the winter garden that forms the +interior court of the hotel. As she seated herself in a wicker chair Abe +approached with his hat in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Lady, excuse me," he began; "I ain't no loafer. I'm in the cloak and suit +business, and I would like to speak to you a few words—something very +particular."</p> + +<p>The young lady turned in her chair. She was not alarmed, only +surprised.</p> + +<p>"I hope you don't think I am asking you anything out of the way," Abe +said, without further prelude; "but you got a dress on, lady, which I don't +know how much you paid for it, but if three hundred of these +here—now—francs would be any inducement I'd like to buy it from +you. Of course I wouldn't ask you to take it off right now, but if you would +leave it at the clerk's desk here I could call for it in half an hour."</p> + +<p>The young lady made no reply, instead she threw back her head and laughed +heartily.</p> + +<p>"It ain't no joke, lady," Abe continued as he laid three flimsy notes of +the Bank of France in her lap. "That's as good as American greenbacks."</p> + +<p>The young lady ceased laughing, and for a minute, hesitated between +indignation and renewed mirth, but at last her sense of humour conquered.</p> + +<p>"Very well," she said; "stay here for a few minutes."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later she returned with the dress wrapped up in a paper +parcel.</p> + +<p>"How did you know I wouldn't go off with the money, dress and all?" she +asked as Abe seized the package.</p> + +<p>"I took a chance, lady," he said; "like you are doing about the money +which I give you being good."</p> + +<p>"Have no scruples on that score," the young lady replied. "I had it +examined at the clerk's office just now."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi bade farewell to Moe, Abe, Leon, and Hymie +Salzman, at the Gare St. Lazare, he uttered words of encouragement and cheer +which failed to justify themselves after the four travellers' embarkment at +Cherbourg.</p> + +<p>"You will have splendid weather," he had declared. "It will be fine all +the way over."</p> + +<p>When the steamer passed out of the breakwater into the English Channel she +breasted a northeaster that lasted all the way to the Banks. Even Hymie +Salzman went under, and Leon Sammet walked the swaying decks alone. Twice a +day he poked his head into the stateroom occupied by Moe Griesman and Abe +Potash, for Abe had thrown economy to the winds and had gone halves with Moe +in the largest outside room on board.</p> + +<p>"Boys," Leon would ask, "ain't you going to get up? The air is fine on +deck."</p> + +<p>Had he but known it, Moe Griesman developed day by day, with growing +intensity, that violent hatred for Leon that the hopelessly seasick feel +toward good sailors; while toward Abe, who groaned unceasingly in the upper +berth, Moe Griesman evinced the affectionate interest that the poor sailor +evinces in any one who suffers more keenly than himself.</p> + +<p>At length Nantucket lightship was passed, and as the sea grew calmer two +white-faced invalids, that on close scrutiny might have been recognized by +their oldest friends to be Moe and Abe, tottered up the companionway and sank +exhausted into the nearest deckchairs.</p> + +<p>"Well, Moe," Leon cried, as he bustled toward them smoking a large cigar +and clad in a suit of immaculate white flannels, "so you're up again?"</p> + +<p>The silence with which Moe received this remark ought to have warned Leon, +but he plunged headlong to his fate.</p> + +<p>"We are now only twenty hours from New York," he said, "and suppose I go +downstairs and bring you up some of them styles which I got in Paris."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't trouble yourself," Moe said shortly.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Leon inquired.</p> + +<p>"Because, for all I care," Moe replied viciously, "you could fire 'em +overboard. I would <i>oser</i> buy from you a button."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" Leon cried.</p> + +<p>"You know what's the matter," Moe continued.</p> + +<p>"You come every day into my stateroom and mock me yet because I am +sick."</p> + +<p>"I mock you!" Leon exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"That's what I said," Moe continued; "and if you wouldn't take that cigar +away from here I'll break your neck when I get on shore again."</p> + +<p>Leon backed away hurriedly and Moe turned to Abe.</p> + +<p>"Am I right or wrong?" he said.</p> + +<p>Abe nodded. He was incapable of audible speech, but hour by hour he grew +stronger until at dinner-time he was able to partake of some soup and roast +beef, and even to listen with a wan smile to Moe's caustic appraisement of +Leon Sammet's character. Finally, after a good night's rest, Moe and Abe +awoke to find the engine stilled at Quarantine. They were saved the necessity +of packing their trunks for the cogent reason that they had been physically +unable to open them, let alone unpack them. Hence they repaired at once to +breakfast.</p> + +<p>Leon was already seated at table, and he hastily cancelled an order for +Yarmouth bloater and asked instead for a less fragrant dish.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Moe," he said pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Moe turned to Abe. "To-morrow morning at nine o'clock, Abe," he said, "I +would be down in your store to look over your line."</p> + +<p>"Steward," Leon Sammet cried, "never mind that steak. I would take the +bloater anyhow."</p> + +<p>Abe and Moe breakfasted lightly on egg and toast, and returned to their +stateroom as they passed the Battery.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Moe," Abe said; "I want to show you something which I +bought for you as a surprise the night before we left Paris. I got it right +in the top of my suitcase here, and it wouldn't take a minute to show it to +you."</p> + +<p>Abe was unstrapping his suitcase as he spoke, and the next minute he shook +out the gown he had purchased from the young lady of the Cafe de la Paix, and +exposed it to Moe's admiring gaze.</p> + +<p>"How did you get hold of that, Abe?" Moe asked.</p> + +<p>Abe narrated his adventure at the Grand Hotel, while Moe gaped his +astonishment.</p> + +<p>"I always thought you got a pretty good nerve, Abe," he declared, "but +this sure is the limit. How much did you pay for it?"</p> + +<p>"Three hundred of them—now—francs," Abe replied; "but I've +been figuring out the cost of manufacturing and material, and I could +duplicate it in New York for forty dollars a garment."</p> + +<p>"You mean thirty-five dollars a garment, don't you?" Moe said.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't," Abe replied. "I mean forty dollars a garment. Why do you +say thirty-five dollars?"</p> + +<p>"Because at forty dollars apiece, Abe, I could use for my Sarahcuse, +Rochester, and Buffalo stores about fifty of these garments, and you ought to +figure on at least five dollars' profit on a garment."</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe I am figuring it a little too generous, y'understand; so, if +that goes, Moe, I will quote the selling price at, say, forty dollars a +garment to you, Moe."</p> + +<p>"Sure, it goes," Moe said; "and I'll be at your store to-morrow morning at +nine o'clock to decide on sizes and shades."</p> + +<p>Abe's passage through the customs examination was accomplished with ease, +for nearly all his Paris purchases were packed in the hold to be cleared by a +custom-house broker. His stateroom baggage contained no dutiable articles +save the gown in question and a few trinkets for Rosie, who was at the pier +to greet him. Indeed, she bestowed on him a series of kisses that reechoed +down the long pier, and Abe's pallor gave way to the sunburnt hue of his +amused fellow-passengers. In one of them Abe recognized with a start the +tanned features of the young lady of the Café de la Paix.</p> + +<p>"Moe," he said, nudging Griesman, "there's your friend."</p> + +<p>Moe turned in the direction indicated by Abe, and his interested manner +was not unnoticed by Mrs. Potash.</p> + +<p>"How is your dear wife and daughter, Mr. Griesman?" she asked +significantly. "I suppose you missed 'em a whole lot."</p> + +<p>When Moe assured her that he did she sniffed so violently that it might +have been taken for a snort.</p> + +<p>"Well, Abe," he said at length, "I'll be going on to the Prince Clarence, +and I'll see you in the store to-morrow morning. Good-by, Mrs. Potash."</p> + +<p>"Good-by," Mrs. Potash replied, with an emphasis that implied "good +riddance," and then, as Moe disappeared toward the street, she sniffed again. +"It don't take long for some loafers to forget their wives!" she said.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"Well, Abe," Morris said, after the first greetings had passed between +them that afternoon, "I'm glad to see you back in the store."</p> + +<p>"You ain't half so glad to see me back, Mawruss, as I am that I should be +back," Abe replied. "Not that the trip ain't paid us, Mawruss, because I got +a trunkful of samples on the way up here which I assure you is a work of +art."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know!" Morris commented with just a tinge of bitterness in his +tones; "Paris is the place for styles. Us poor suckers over here don't know a +thing about designing."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss, I'll tell you," Abe went on: "you are a first-class, A +number one designer, I got to admit, and there ain't nobody that I consider +is better as you in the whole garment trade; but"—here he paused to +unfasten his suitcase—"but, Mawruss," he continued, "I got here just +one sample style which I brought it with me, Mawruss, and I think, Mawruss, +you would got to agree with me, such models we don't turn out on this +side."</p> + +<p>Here he opened the suitcase, and carefully taking out the dress of the +Café de la Paix he spread it on a sample table.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye think of that, Mawruss?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Morris made no answer. He was gazing at the garment with bulging eyes, and +beads of perspiration ran down his forehead.</p> + +<p>"Abe!" he gasped at length, "where did you get that garment from?"</p> + +<p>Before Abe could answer, the elevator door opened and a young lady stepped +out. It was now Abe's turn to gasp, for the visitor was no other than the +tanned and ruddy young person from the Café de la Paix.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon, Mr. Perlmutter," she said. "I've just got back."</p> + +<p>"Oh, good afternoon, Miss Smith!" Morris cried.</p> + +<p>"I hope I'm not interrupting you," she continued.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," Morris said; "not at all."</p> + +<p>Then a wave of recollection came over him, and he muttered a +half-smothered exclamation.</p> + +<p>"Abe, Miss Smith," he almost shouted, and then he sat down. "Say, +lookyhere, Abe, what is all this, anyway? Miss Smith comes in here +and—"</p> + +<p>"Well, upon my word!" Miss Smith interrupted; "if it isn't the gentleman +from the Café de la Paix—and, of all things, there is the very +dress!"</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"That's right, Miss Whatever-your-name is," Abe admitted; "that's the +dress, and since I paid you sixty dollars for it I don't think you got any +kick coming."</p> + +<p>"Sixty dollars!" Morris cried. "Why, that dress as a sample garment only +cost us twenty-two-fifty to make up."</p> + +<p>"Cost us?" Abe repeated. "As a sample garment? What are you talking +about?"</p> + +<p>"I am talking about this, Abe," Morris replied: "that dress is the +self-same garment which I designed it, and which you says was rotten and +freaky, and which I give it to Miss Smith here for a present, and which you +paid Miss Smith sixty dollars for."</p> + +<p>"And here is the sixty dollars now," Miss Smith broke in. "I hurried here +as fast as I could to give it to you, Mr. Perlmutter."</p> + +<p>"One moment," Abe said. "I don't know who this young lady is or nothing; +but do you mean to told me that this here dress which I bought it in Paris +was made up right here in our place?"</p> + +<p>"Here, Abe," Morris said, "I want to show you something. Here is from the +same goods a garment, and them goods as you know we get it from the +Hamsuckett Mills. So far what I hear it, the Hamsuckett Mills don't sell +their output in Paris. Am I right or wrong?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded slowly.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Perlmutter," Miss Smith said, "here's your sixty dollars. I've +got to get back to my patient. You know that I went to Paris with a rheumatic +case, and I've left the old gentleman in charge of a friend. I came here to +settle up."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," said Abe; "I ain't been introduced to this young lady +yet."</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought you knew her," Morris said. "This is Miss Smith, the +trained nurse which was so good to my Minnie when my Abie was born."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?" Abe cried. "Well, Miss Smith, you should take that sixty +dollars and keep it, because, Mawruss, on the way over I sold Moe Griesman +fifty garments of that there style of yours at forty dollars apiece."</p> + +<p>"You don't say so!" Morris cried. "You don't say so! Well, all I got to +say is, Miss Smith, in the first place, if Abe wouldn't of told you to keep +that sixty dollars I sure would of done so, and in the second place, I want +you to come in here next week and pick out half a dozen dresses. Ain't that +right, Abe?"</p> + +<p>"I bet yer that's right, Mawruss; we wouldn't take no for an answer," Abe +replied. "And you should also leave us your name and address, Miss Smith, +because, <i>Gott soll hüten</i>, if I should be sick, y'understand, I don't +want nobody else to nurse me but you."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris said the following morning, "that trunkful +of Paris samples which the custom-house says we would get this morning ain't +come yet."</p> + +<p>Abe clapped his partner on the shoulder and grinned happily.</p> + +<p>"What do I care, Mawruss?" he said. "For my part they should never come. I +ain't got no use for Paris fashions at all. Styles which Mawruss Perlmutter +originates is good enough for me, because I always said it, Mawruss, you are +a cracker-jack, high-grade, A number one designer!"</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap03">CHAPTER THREE</h2> + +<h3>DEAD MEN'S SHOES</h3> + +<p>"There goes that sucker, Aaron Kronberg, from Port Sullivan," Abe Potash +declared to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as they looked from the windows +of their showroom to the opposite sidewalk some four stories below. "Ain't it +funny that feller would never buy from us a dollar's worth more goods?"</p> + +<p>"The reason ain't hard to find, Abe," Morris replied. "Oncet a garment +buyer gets into the hands of a competitor like Leon Sammet, it's all off. I +bet yer Leon tells him we are all kinds of crooks and swindlers."</p> + +<p>"What could you expect from a cut-throat like Leon Sammet? That feller is +no good and his father before him is also a thief. I know his people from the +old country yet. One was worser as the other."</p> + +<p>"Well, there's nothing the matter with Aaron's cousin, Alex Kronberg, +anyhow," Morris observed. "That feller does a fine business in Bridgetown, +and Sammet Brothers could no more take his trade away from us than they could +fly."</p> + +<p>"That ain't our fault, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "Sammet Brothers is fly +enough to do anything, Mawruss; but, the way Aaron Kronberg hates Alex +Kronberg, if they was to sell Alex a single garment, y'understand, Aaron +would never buy from them a dollar's worth more goods so long as he +lived."</p> + +<p>"Ain't it a disgrace them two fellers is such enemies, Abe?"</p> + +<p>"Alex ain't no enemy, Mawruss," Abe said. "It's Aaron what's the enemy. +Alex don't trouble himself at all. He told me so himself. But that's the way +it goes, Mawruss. Mosha Kronberg, Hillel Kronberg, and Elkan Kronberg was +three brothers which you don't see nowadays at all—more like friends +than brothers, Mawruss. Hillel died ten years ago and I thought it would +broke Mosha's heart. He looked after Hillel's widow and Hillel's boy, Alex, +because Mosha never married, Mawruss. He was a born uncle. Then, when Elkan +died a year later, I never seen a feller so broke up like Mosha in all my +life. He goes to work and sends Elkan's boy, Aaron, to business college, and +Elkan's widow he takes to live with Hillel's widow, all together with himself +and the two boys in that house of his on Madison Street. For three years they +lived that way, and in the rest of the house Mosha couldn't keep any tenants +at all. At last he gives Aaron a couple thousand dollars and Alex the same, +and Aaron buys a store up in Port Sullivan, and Alex goes up to +Bridgetown."</p> + +<p>"What become of the widows, Abe?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know is Elkan's widow living now <i>oder</i> not," Abe said, "but +Mosha told me Hillel's widow wants to get married again, and Alex comes to +him and says he should give the old lady anyhow a thousand dollars. Mosha +wants to know what for, and Alex tells him he owes from Hillel's estate yet a +couple thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"And did he?" Morris inquired.</p> + +<p>"Suppose he did?" Abe replied. "He is entitled to it after what he puts up +with during them three years they lived together. Well, Mosha and Alex gets +right away fighting about it, and I guess Alex would of sued Mosha in the +courts yet, only the old lady goes to work and dies on 'em all of a +sudden."</p> + +<p>"But why is Aaron and Alex such enemies, Abe?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's like this, Mawruss: Aaron and Alex is good friends until Uncle +Mosha cut Alex out of his will. You see Aaron and Alex is the only two +relations which Mosha got at all. So naturally when Aaron thinks he is coming +in for the whole thing he begins to get sore at Alex, and the more Aaron +thinks that the old man really ought to leave half to Alex, the more he gets +sore at Alex."</p> + +<p>"The whole business is dead wrong, Abe," Morris commented. "In the first +place, the old man ain't got no right to leave his money only to Aaron; and +in the second place, Aaron ain't got no right to feel sore at Alex. And +furthermore Alex ought to go round and see his uncle oncet in a while when he +is in New York, in the third place."</p> + +<p>"Well, why don't you tell him so this afternoon, Mawruss?" Abe said. "Alex +is staying up at the Prince Clarence since last night already, and he said he +would be sure down here this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"I will do so," Morris replied firmly.</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," Abe added, "only one thing I got to tell you, Mawruss. There +is some customers which would stand anything, Mawruss. You could ship 'em two +garments short in every order; you could send 'em goods which ain't no more +like the sample than bread is like <i>motsos</i>; you could overcharge 'em in +your statements; you could even draw on 'em one day after their account is +due, and still they would buy goods of you; but so soon as you start to butt +into their family affairs, Mawruss, that's the finish, Mawruss. They would +leave you like a shot."</p> + +<p>"Alex Kronberg wouldn't take it so particular," Morris retorted. "He knows +I am only doing it for his own good."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you are only doing it for his own good, Mawruss, then that's +something again," Abe said; "because in that case we would not only lose him +for a customer, Mawruss, but we would also make an enemy of him for life."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't worry," Morris replied as he put on his hat preparatory to +going out to lunch. "I know how to take care of a customer all right."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless Morris cogitated his partner's advice throughout the entire +lunch hour, and over his dessert he commenced to formulate a tentative plan +for restoring Alex Kronberg to his inheritance.</p> + +<p>Two cups of coffee and a second helping of <i>mohn</i> cake aided the +process of celebrating this scheme, so that when Morris returned to his place +of business it was nearly two o'clock.</p> + +<p>"Abe," he said as he entered, "I've been thinking over this here matter +about Alex Kronberg, and I ain't going to talk to Alex about it at all. Do +you know what I'm going to do?"</p> + +<p>Abe grabbed his hat and turned to Morris with a savage glare.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know what you are going to do, Mawruss," Potash bellowed +belligerently. "Henceforth, from to-morrow on, you are going to do this, +Mawruss: you are going to lunch after I am coming back. I could drop dead +from hunger already for all you care. I got a stomach too, Mawruss, and don't +you forget it."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Mosha Kronberg lived on the ground floor of his own tenement house on +Madison Street, and to say that Aaron Kronberg worshipped the ground his +uncle walked on would be to utter the literal truth.</p> + +<p>"Well, uncle, how do you feel to-day?" Aaron inquired the morning after +Abe and Morris had so thoroughly discussed the Kronberg family relations.</p> + +<p>"I could feel a whole lot better, Aaron, and I could feel a whole lot +worse," Mosha Kronberg replied. "Them suckers has been after me again."</p> + +<p>"Which ones are they now?" Aaron asked, his curiosity aroused.</p> + +<p>"An orphan asylum," Mosha replied. "The gall which some people got it, +Aaron, honestly you wouldn't believe it at all. They want me I should give +'em two hundred and fifty dollars. I told 'em time enough when I would die, +<i>Gott soll hüten</i>."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense, Uncle Mosha?" Aaron broke in. "You ain't +going to die for a long time yet; and anyhow, Uncle Mosha, if people goes to +work and has children which they couldn't support while they are living even, +why should they get any of your money to support 'em after you are dead? No +one asks them suckers they should have children. Ain't I right?"</p> + +<p>"Sure you are right," Uncle Mosha agreed. "Hospitals also, Aaron. If I got +one hospital bothering me, I must got a dozen. Why should I bother myself +with hospitals, Aaron? A lowlife, a gambler, hangs around liquor saloons all +times of the night till he gets sick, y'understand, and then he must go to a +hospital and get well on my money yet. I see myself!"</p> + +<p>"What hospital was it?" Aaron inquired.</p> + +<p>"The Mount Hebron Hospital," Uncle Mosha replied. "There is the catalogue +now. They are sending it me this morning only."</p> + +<p>Aaron seized the annual report and list of donating members of the +hospital and opened it at the letter K.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what I think, uncle?" Aaron cried. "I think that Alex +Kronberg puts 'em up to asking you for money."</p> + +<p>"Alex puts 'em up to it?" Mosha repeated. "What for should Alex do such a +thing?"</p> + +<p>"Here; let me show you," Aaron cried. "Alex himself gives them fakers five +dollars. Here it is in black on white: 'Alex Kronberg, Bridgetown, +Pennsylvania, five dollars.'"</p> + +<p>Uncle Mosha adjusted a pair of eyeglasses to his broad, flat nose and +perused the record of his nephew's extravagance with bulging eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well, what d'ye think for a sucker like that!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"I tell you the honest truth, uncle," Aaron said, "I don't want to say +nothing about Alex at all, but the way that feller is acting, just because he +does a little good business in his store, honestly it's a disgrace. He sends +my mother for ten dollars a birthday present too. Do I need that sucker he +should give my mother birthday presents? He is throwing away his money left +and right, and the first thing you know he is coming to you borrowing +yet."</p> + +<p>"He should save himself the trouble," Uncle Mosha declared. "His tongue +should be hanging out of his mouth with hunger, Aaron, and I wouldn't give +him <i>oser</i> one cent."</p> + +<p>Aaron's face broke into a thousand wrinkles as he beamed his +satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Well, uncle," he said, "I must got to be going. I got a whole lot of +things to do to-day. Take care of yourself."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry about me," Aaron's Uncle Mosha replied. "I could take care of +myself all right. You wouldn't drink maybe a glass of <i>schnaps</i> or +something before you go? No? All right."</p> + +<p>He always delayed his proffer of hospitality until Aaron was on the front +stoop. After the latter had turned the corner of Pike Street, Uncle Mosha +lingered to take the morning air. A fresh breeze from the southwest brought +with it a faint odour of salt herring and onions from the grocery store next +door, while from the bakery across the street came the fragrant evidence of a +large batch of <i>Kümmel brod</i>. He sighed contentedly and turned to +reënter the house, but even as he did so he wheeled about in response to the +greeting: "How do you do, Mr. Kronberg?"</p> + +<p>The speaker was none other than Morris Perlmutter, who had tossed on his +pillow until past midnight devising a plan for approaching Uncle Mosha in a +plausible manner. Now that his quarry had fallen so opportunely within his +grasp, Morris's face wreathed itself in smiles of such amiability that Uncle +Mosha grew at once suspicious.</p> + +<p>"You got the advantage from me," he said.</p> + +<p>"Why, don't you know me?" Morris cooed.</p> + +<p>"I think," Uncle Mosha replied guardedly, "I seen you oncet before +somewheres. You are a collector for a hospital or a orphan asylum, or some +such sucker game. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Morris laughed mirthlessly. His discarded plan for renewing his +acquaintance with Uncle Mosha had involved the pretence that he was seeking +to interest the old gentleman in the Home for Chronic Invalids, Independent +Order Mattai Aaron, of which fraternity Morris was an active member; and +Uncle Mosha's apparent distaste for organized charity proved rather +disconcerting.</p> + +<p>"You're a poor guesser, Mr. Kronberg," he said.</p> + +<p>"Then you are connected with some charity. Ain't it?" Uncle Mosha +continued.</p> + +<p>Morris denied it indignantly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gott soil hüten</i>," he said. "My name is Mr. Perlmutter and I am in +the cloak and suit business."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I remember now!" Uncle Mosha cried. The news that Morris was no +charity worker restored him to high good-humour.</p> + +<p>"I remember you perfect now," he said, shaking hands effusively with +Morris. "You got a partner by the name Potash, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"That's right," Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"And what brings you over here in this <i>nachbarschaft</i>?" Uncle Mosha +inquired.</p> + +<p>Morris looked from Uncle Mosha to the tarnished brass plate on the side of +the tenement-house door. It read as follows:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="sign" style="text-align: center;"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td class="box">M. KRONBERG<br /> + REAL ESTATE</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"The fact is," Morris said, "I am coming to see you in a business way, and +if you got time I'd like to say a little something to you."</p> + +<p>"Come inside," Uncle Mosha grunted. He thought he discerned a furtive +timidity in his visitor's manner strongly indicative of an impending +touch.</p> + +<p>"In the first place," he began, after Morris was seated, "I ain't got so +much money which people think I got it."</p> + +<p>"I never thought you did," said Morris, and Uncle Mosha glared in +response.</p> + +<p>"But I ain't no beggar neither, y'understand," he retorted. "I got a +little something left, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but what you have got or what you ain't +got is neither here or there. I am coming over this morning to ask you +something, a question."</p> + +<p>Here he paused. He had not yet determined what the question would be, and +it occurred to him that, unless it were sufficiently momentous to account for +his presence on the lower East Side during the busiest hours of a business +day, Uncle Mosha would show him the door.</p> + +<p>"Go ahead and ask it, then," Uncle Mosha broke in impatiently. "I couldn't +sit here all day."</p> + +<p>"The fact is," Morris said slowly, and then his mind reverted to the brass +plate on the door and he at once proceeded with renewed confidence—"the +fact is I am coming over here to ask you something, a question which a friend +of mine would like to buy a property on the East Side."</p> + +<p>"A property," Uncle Mosha repeated. "A property is something else again. +What for a property would your friend like to buy it?"</p> + +<p>"A fine property," Morris replied; "a property like you got it here."</p> + +<p>"But this here property ain't for sale," Uncle Mosha said. "I got the +house here now since 1890 already, and I guess I would keep it."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know; that's all right," Morris went on; "but I thought, even if +you wouldn't want to sell the house, you know such a whole lot about real +estate, Mr. Kronberg, you could help us out a little."</p> + +<p>The hard lines about Uncle Mosha's mouth relaxed into a smile.</p> + +<p>"Well, when it comes to real estate," he said, "I ain't a fool exactly, +y'understand."</p> + +<p>"That's what I was told," Morris continued. "A friend of mine he says to +me: 'If any one could tell you about real estate, Mosha Kronberg could. +There's a man,' he says, 'which his opinion you could trust in it anything +what he says is so. If the Astors and the Goelets would know about East Side +real estate what that feller knows—understand me—instead of their +hundreds of millions they would have thousands of millions already.'"</p> + +<p>Uncle Mosha fairly beamed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Kronberg," Morris went on, without taking breath, "he says to +me: 'You should go and see Uncle Mosha; he's a gentleman and he would treat +you right.' 'But,' I says to him, 'I ain't got no right to butt in on your +Uncle Mosha. You see, Alex,' I says—"</p> + +<p>"Alex!" Uncle Mosha cried. "Did Alex Kronberg send you here?"</p> + +<p>"That's who it was," Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"Then all I could say is," Uncle Mosha thundered, "you should go right +back to Alex and tell him from me that I says any friend of his which he +comes to me looking for information about real estate, he's lucky I don't +kick him into the street yet."</p> + +<p>He jumped up from his chair and opened the door leading into the public +hall.</p> + +<p>"Go on," he roared, "out from my house."</p> + +<p>Morris rose leisurely to his feet and pulled a large cigar from his +pocket.</p> + +<p>"If that's the way you feel about it, Mr. Kronberg," he said gently, +"<i>schon gut</i>. I wouldn't bother you any more. At the same time, Mr. +Kronberg, if ever you should want to sell the house, y'understand, let me +know; that's all." As he passed out of the door he laid the cigar on a side +table and its bright red band immediately caught the eye of Uncle Mosha. He +pounced on it and was about to hurl it after his departing visitor when +something about the smoothness of the wrapper made him pause. Five minutes +later he lolled back in a horsehair-covered rocker and puffed contentedly at +Morris's cigar. "After all," he said, "I might get a good price for the house +anyway."</p> + +<p>From Mosha Kronberg's tenement house on Madison Street to the cloak and +suit district, at Nineteenth Street and Fifth Avenue, is less than two miles +as the crow flies, but Morris Perlmutter's journey uptown was accomplished in +less direct fashion. He spent over half an hour in an antiquated horse car +and by the time the Broadway car to which he transferred had reached Madison +Square it was nearly twelve o'clock. As he walked down Nineteenth Street he +almost collided with Abe, whose face wore a frown.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss!" he cried. "What kind of business is this? Here +you are just getting downtown and I am going out to lunch already."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris retorted. "You think of nothing but your stomach. +Believe me, Abe, I worked hard enough this morning."</p> + +<p>"Worked nothing!" Abe rejoined. "You have been up to some monkey business, +Mawruss; otherwise why should Mosha Kronberg telephone us just now he thought +the matter over since you left there and he would be up to see you this +afternoon already."</p> + +<p>"What!" Morris cried. "Did Mosha Kronberg telephone that himself?"</p> + +<p>"All right, Mawruss; then I am a liar!" Abe exploded. "I am telling you +with my own ears I heard him."</p> + +<p>"I believe you, Abe," Morris said soothingly. "Don't hurry back from your +lunch. I got lots of time."</p> + +<p>"I would hurry back <i>oder</i> not, as I please, Mawruss," Abe retorted +as he trudged off toward Hammersmith's restaurant. There he ministered to his +outraged feelings with a steaming dish of <i>gefüllte rinderbrust</i>, and it +was not till he had sopped up the last drop of gravy with a piece of rye +bread that he became conscious of a stranger sitting opposite to him.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," said the latter, "you got a little soup on the lapel of your +coat."</p> + +<p>"That ain't soup," Abe explained, as he dipped his napkin in his glass of +ice-water and started to remove the stain; "that's a little <i>gefüllte +rinderbrust</i>, which they fix it so thin and watery nowadays it might just +as well be soup the way it's always getting over your clothes."</p> + +<p>"Things ain't the same like they used to be," the stranger remarked. +"Twenty—twenty-five years ago a feller could get a meal down on Canal +Street for a quarter—understand me—which it was really something +you could say was remarkable. Take any of them places, Gifkin's <i>oder</i> +Wasserbauer's. Ain't I right?"</p> + +<p>"Did you used to went to Gifkin's?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"I should say!" his vis-à-vis replied. "When I was a boy of fifteen I am +eating always regularly by Gifkin's."</p> + +<p>"Me too. I used to eat a whole lot by Gifkin's," Abe said; "in fact, I +think I must of seen you there."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wonder," the stranger continued. "At the time, I was working +by old man Baum right across from Gifkin's. He was my uncle already."</p> + +<p>"You are old man Baum's nephew!" Abe exclaimed. "How could that be? Old +man Baum only got one brother, Nathan, which he got mixed up in a railroad +accident near Knoxville. He was always up to some monkey business, that +feller, <i>olav hasholom</i>."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," the stranger continued; "but old man Baum got also one +sister, my mother, Mrs. Gershon. You must remember my father, Sam Gershon. +Works for years by Richter as a cutter. My name is Mr. Max Gershon."</p> + +<p>"Why, sure I do!" Abe said, shaking hands with his new-found acquaintance. +"So you are a son of old man Gershon? Do you live here in New York, Mr. +Gershon?"</p> + +<p>"No; I live in Johnsville, Texas," Mr. Gershon replied. "This is my first +visit North in twenty-five years. Yes, Mr.—er—"</p> + +<p>"Potash," Abe said.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Potash," Gershon continued, "I'm feeling pretty lonesome, I can tell +you. All my folks is dead: my father, my mother, my two uncles; and there +ain't a soul here in New York which remembers me at all."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?" Abe commented, with ready sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Potash," Gershon said, "when I was a boy I done a fool thing. +When I was sixteen years old already I run away from home because my father +licked me; and I never wrote to 'em or sent no word to 'em until it was too +late. You see, up to five years since, I didn't done so good. Everything +seemed to went against me, Mr. Potash; but lately I am doing a fine business +for a small place like Johnsville, and to-day I got the best store down +there."</p> + +<p>"You don't say so!" Abe cried.</p> + +<p>"So I thought last month, instead I would go to Dallas or Forth Worth like +I usually done, I would come straight on to New York and not only buy my fall +goods but also give the old folks a surprise. And what do I find? Everybody +is dead."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gershon pressed a handkerchief to his eyes.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't take on so," Abe said, leaning across the table and placing +his hand on Gershon's arm. "It's the way of the world, Mr. Gershon, and I +could assure you we got the finest line of garments in our store, which it is +first-class stuff, up to the minute, and prices and everything just +right."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gershon wiped his eyes.</p> + +<p>"You must excuse me, Mr. Potash," he said. "My feelings is got the better +of me."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," Abe murmured. "Here is our card, and you should +positively come up to see us. Even if you wouldn't buy from us a button, Mr. +Gershon, it would be a pleasure for us to see you in our place."</p> + +<p>"I would sure be there," Mr. Gershon said as he pocketed the card.</p> + +<p>"Waiter," Abe called, "put this here gentleman's check on mine and bring +us two of them thirty-cent cigars."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>So eagerly did Morris await the advent of Uncle Mosha Kronberg in Potash +& Perlmutter's store that he even omitted to notice his partner's +prolonged absence at lunch; and when Abe returned to unfold the narrative of +his meeting with a prospective customer Morris heard it without interest.</p> + +<p>"The feller is A number one, Mawruss," Abe said. "I stopped off to see Sam +Feder at the Kosciusko Bank, and Sam sent me to the Associated Information +Bureau. He is rated twenty to thirty thousand; credit good."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" Morris replied. "Tell me, Abe, did Mosha Kronberg say just when he +would be here?"</p> + +<p>"What are you wasting your time about Mosha Kronberg for?" Abe retorted. +"We got enough to do we should pick out a few good styles to show +Gershon."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded absently. His thoughts were centred on a short old man with +close-cropped beard who at that very moment was turning the corner of Fifth +Avenue and Nineteenth Street. Simultaneously Aaron Kronberg ran across the +street from Sammet Brothers' doorway and clapped the old gentleman on the +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Uncle Mosha!" he cried. "What are you doing around here?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't I come uptown oncet in a while if I would want to?" Uncle Mosha +replied, somewhat testily.</p> + +<p>"Sure, sure," Aaron Kronberg hastened to say. "Did you eat yet?"</p> + +<p>"I never eat in the middle of the day," Uncle Mosha said. "I am up here on +business."</p> + +<p>"On business?" Aaron repeated. "What for business?"</p> + +<p>"I think I sold the house," Mosha replied.</p> + +<p>For one brief moment Aaron gazed at his uncle and then he linked his arm +in that of the old man. "Come over to Twenty-third Street and drink anyhow a +cup of coffee," he said, and ten minutes later they entered an enamelled +brick dairy restaurant.</p> + +<p>"You say you think you sold the house?" Aaron said, after a waitress had +served them.</p> + +<p>Uncle Mosha nodded. He was emptying a cup of coffee in long, noisy +inhalations and at the same time consuming cheese sandwiches with uncommonly +keen appetite—for a man who never ate in the middle of the day.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said, as he emerged all dripping from the cup, +"I think I sold the house, and I guess I would have another cup coffee."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," Aaron replied. "But what for you want to sell the house, Uncle +Mosha? It brings you in anyhow a good income."</p> + +<p>"A good income for some people, Aaron, but for me not. What is one +thousand a year, Aaron?"</p> + +<p>"One thousand a year, uncle, is a whole lot, especially to a man like you, +what lives simple."</p> + +<p>"My living expenses is very little, I admit, Aaron," Uncle Mosha replied, +after he had disposed of the second cup of coffee with noises approximating a +bathtubful of soapy water disappearing down the wastepipe. "I don't make no +fuss about my living, Aaron, but you got to remember, Aaron, that a man +couldn't live on living expenses alone. Oncet in a while a feller likes to +take a little flyer in the market and try and make a few dollars. Ain't +it?"</p> + +<p>"What!" Aaron exclaimed. This was a phase of his uncle's character that +had never been exposed before.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aaron," Uncle Mosha continued; "living ain't only having a room to +sleep in and food to eat, Aaron. Other things is living, Aaron. Stocks is +living and auction pinocle is also living, and going oncet in a while on +theayter is living too, Aaron. I may be an old man, Aaron, but I ain't dead +yet."</p> + +<p>Aaron's pale face grew almost ghastly at these shocking disclosures, and +when Uncle Mosha concluded his audacious creed with a furtive wink his nephew +visibly started.</p> + +<p>"But you got plenty other money to invest in the stock market without you +would sell the house, Uncle Mosha," he said.</p> + +<p>"Have I?" Uncle Mosha rejoined. "That's news to me, Aaron. You see in +nineteen-seven was a big panic and some stocks is better as others. Them +which ain't, Aaron, they went and gone so low, Aaron, they ain't never come +back again and perhaps never will. Might you heard something about it in Port +Sullivan maybe? Ten thousand dollars I dropped on them suckers down in Wall +Street, Aaron."</p> + +<p>Uncle Mosha smiled blandly at his nephew, who grasped the edge of the +table to steady his whirling senses.</p> + +<p>"But what's the use talking," Uncle Mosha continued. "What is +<i>vorbei</i> is <i>vorbei</i>; and I guess I would have another cup of +coffee."</p> + +<p>"You had enough coffee," Aaron cried sternly. "So you gone and dropped +your money on stocks, hey?"</p> + +<p>Uncle Mosha shrugged and extended one palm in philosophic resignation.</p> + +<p>"It was my own money, Aaron," he said. "I didn't stole it."</p> + +<p>"This ain't no time for making jokes, Uncle Mosha," Aaron retorted. "Who +was it you was going to sell the house to?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe you know him," Uncle Mosha said. "It's a feller by the name Mawruss +Perlmutter."</p> + +<p>Aaron Kronberg's pallor gave way to a flood of crimson, and for a moment +he choked incoherently as he gazed at Uncle Mosha in amazement.</p> + +<p>"Why, that feller Perlmutter is a friend of Alex," he gasped at length.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Uncle Mosha replied; "but even if he is a friend of Alex +his money ain't counterfeit."</p> + +<p>"But he'd rob you of your shirt, Uncle Mosha," Aaron exclaimed. "He's a +dangerous feller."</p> + +<p>"I'm used to dangerous fellers, Aaron," Uncle Mosha answered calmly. "I +told you before, I dropped ten thousand in Wall Street."</p> + +<p>"Yes; and if you would sold this here house, Uncle Mosha, you would drop +ten thousand more."</p> + +<p>"Not ten thousand, Aaron. I only got eight thousand equity in the +house."</p> + +<p>Again Aaron stared at his uncle.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to told me you only got eight thousand dollars in the world?" +he groaned.</p> + +<p>"The world is a pretty big place, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said; "but I +wouldn't lie to you anyhow. Eight thousand is the figure."</p> + +<p>"Then all I could say is, Uncle Mosha, before you would got to go begging +on the streets yet, you would better sell that house and come to live with me +up in Port Sullivan."</p> + +<p>Uncle Mosha shrugged once more.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you the truth, Aaron," he said; "I was going to suggest that to +you myself yet. So let's go right off and see this here Perlmutter and we'll +talk about Port Sullivan later."</p> + +<p>"Not by a damsite," Aaron declared, as he rose from his chair and grasped +his uncle firmly by the arm. "You come with me and we'll sell this house to a +feller I know."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Max Gershon entered the salesroom of Potash & Perlmutter that +afternoon, Abe treated the incident as though it were the arrival of an +intimate friend after an absence of many years' duration.</p> + +<p>"How are you feeling now, Max?" he said, and then he introduced his +partner. "Mawruss," he called, "this is my friend, Mr. Max Gershon. Get the +cigars from the safe, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>After he had relieved his visitor of his hat and coat he drew forward a +comfortable chair and literally thrust Max into it.</p> + +<p>"Well, Max," Abe said, after the cigars had gone around, "I sure am glad +to see you. Mawruss, don't he look like his uncle, old man Baum?"</p> + +<p>Morris regarded Max critically for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Old man Baum was a pretty good-looking feller, Abe," he said, "but he +wasn't so tall as Mr. Gershon; otherwise they are the same identical +people."</p> + +<p>"Never mind his looks," Max said, beaming. "If I should have only his +business ability I would be satisfied."</p> + +<p>"He made plenty money in his time," Morris commented.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and lost it again too," Max added; "but what's the use talking? +Money I ain't in need of exactly, y'understand."</p> + +<p>"You need goods, Max," Abe said. "Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I do and I don't, Abe," Max replied. "The fact is, Abe, I got a +good business down in Johnsville, but I couldn't extend it none on account +the place ain't big enough. Former times that was all cattle country around +there, and now it's all truck farms and cotton, and what sort of business +could a drygoods merchant do with cotton hands? Ain't I right?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded.</p> + +<p>"I tell you the honest truth, Abe," Max continued. "I would like to sell +out and come North. I got an idee if I would find some hustling young feller +up here which he got a good department store—good but small, +y'understand—in a live town, Abe, I would go with him as partners +together, and we could extend the business and make a good thing of it."</p> + +<p>Abe looked at Morris and then he slapped his thigh with his open hand.</p> + +<p>"By jiminy," he cried, "I got the very thing for you, Max."</p> + +<p>Morris gazed at his partner with raised eyebrows and then he too slapped +his thigh.</p> + +<p>"Alex Kronberg!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"That's the feller," Abe said. "There's a man, Max, which he is honest +like the day and smart as a cutting machine. I know him since he was a baby, +y'understand, and he's worked his way up till now he's got a fine business in +Bridgetown. Only yesterday he says to me if he could get a live partner with +a little capital, y'understand, he would soon got the biggest store in +Bridgetown."</p> + +<p>"What for a town is Bridgetown?" Max asked.</p> + +<p>"Bridgetown is all right, Max," Abe said. "I give you my word, Max, they +got so many factories there which they burn soft coal, on the brightest days +you couldn't see the sun at all. It is an elegant place, Max."</p> + +<p>"And what is more, Max," Morris added, "only last Saturday night, Alex +tells me, the store was so crowded two saleswomen fainted."</p> + +<p>"It sounds good," Max admitted. "Who did you say owns the store?"</p> + +<p>"Alex Kronberg," Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"Kronberg—Kronberg," Max repeated. "The name sounds familiar. When +did you say he would be here?"</p> + +<p>"He ought to be in here every minute," Abe said. Hardly had he spoken when +the elevator door clanged and Alex himself entered.</p> + +<p>He glistened with perspiration, and his round, good-humoured face bore a +broad grin.</p> + +<p>"Phoo-ee!" he cried. "I'm all heated up."</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble, Alex?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"I just run into Aaron and Uncle Mosha coming out of a coffee house, and +the way them two suckers cussed me out, Mawruss!—you wouldn't believe +it at all. I couldn't understand what they was talking about, Mawruss, but +they mentioned your name and something about Mosha's house on Madison +Street."</p> + +<p>Abe glared at Morris and then turned to Alex with a forced smile.</p> + +<p>"Don't you bother yourself about them fellers, Alex," he said.</p> + +<p>"What do I care for 'em, Abe?" Alex replied. "I got my own troubles."</p> + +<p>"Sure," Morris broke in; "but what did they say about the house, Alex?"</p> + +<p>"So far what I could hear, Mawruss, Aaron says you are trying to buy from +Mosha the house."</p> + +<p>"No such thing, Alex, believe me," Abe interrupted.</p> + +<p>"But Aaron says he's already got a customer for the house," Alex went on; +"and who d'ye think it is?"</p> + +<p>Abe wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and continued to glare at +Morris.</p> + +<p>"I don't know who it is," Abe said, "and, what's more, I don't care. I +want to introduce you to a friend of mine, Alex. This is Mr. Max Gershon, +from Johnsville, Texas."</p> + +<p>"I'm pleased to meetcher, Mr. Gershon," Alex replied. "Yes, Mawruss, Aaron +says he sold the house already, and who d'ye think he sold it to?"</p> + +<p>Morris made an inarticulate noise which he intended as an expression of +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"A friend of yours by the name Leon Sammet," Alex Kronberg said.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"You see how it is?" Aaron Kronberg said to his Uncle Mosha as they passed +down Fifth Avenue after their encounter with Alex. "You see how it is? The +feller is a desperate character, Uncle Mosha. You couldn't make him mad +even."</p> + +<p>"A lowlife!" Uncle Mosha cried, shaking his head from side to side. "His +mother before him was just such another like him. I could spit blood +hollering at that woman and she wouldn't answer me back at all."</p> + +<p>"Well, now you got it," Aaron retorted triumphantly; "and so, if you would +start to sell your house to his friend Perlmutter, the least that happens to +you is they would do you for the whole thing."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you're right," Uncle Mosha admitted.</p> + +<p>"And so I am going to take you over to see a friend of mine by the name +Leon Sammet," Aaron continued, "and if you want to leave the thing to me, +Uncle Mosha, I am certain sure I could get you a good price for the +house."</p> + +<p>"Certain sure nobody could be of getting a good price for a house in these +times, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said. "Real estate on the East Side is 'way down, +Aaron. The subway ruins everything."</p> + +<p>"I don't care about subways nor nothing," Aaron cried. "I would get you +what you want for that house. What would you consider a good price for the +house, uncle?"</p> + +<p>"A very good price would be forty-two two-fifty," Uncle Mosha replied; +"but me I would be willing to accept forty thousand."</p> + +<p>"Well, lookyhere," Aaron commenced; "I'm going to do this for you, Uncle +Mosha. I'm going to get Leon Sammet to give you not forty thousand or +forty-two two-fifty neither. I'm going to get Leon Sammet to give you +forty-three thousand for the house, uncle, but I only do it on one condition, +uncle."</p> + +<p>"And what is that?" Uncle Mosha asked.</p> + +<p>"I would do it for you only on condition you come to live with me at Port +Sullivan," Aaron concluded; "and also you must give me, to take care of it +for you, all the cash money you get for the house."</p> + +<p>Uncle Mosha frowned as he drew from his pocket a small packet wrapped in +newspaper. This he proceeded to unwrap until there was exposed the unburnt +half of a large black cigar. It was all that remained of Morris Perlmutter's +gift and Uncle Mosha carefully knocked the ash off before he put it in his +mouth.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you answer me?" Aaron asked.</p> + +<p>"I got to think, ain't I?" Uncle Mosha mumbled as he paused to light up. +He puffed away in silence until they had nearly reached the entrance to +Sammet Brothers' place of business.</p> + +<p>"<i>Schon gut</i>, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said at length. "I will do it with +this here exception: I would sell the house for forty-three thousand dollars, +subject to a first mortgage of twenty-five thousand dollars, and a second +mortgage of ninety-two hundred and fifty dollars. That leaves eighty-seven +hundred and fifty dollars balance, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Aaron nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then this here Sammet is to pay seven hundred and fifty dollars cash on +signing the contract and eight thousand dollars on closing the title," Uncle +Mosha declared; "and the exception is that you should take care of the eight +thousand dollars, but the seven hundred and fifty dollars belongs to me and I +could do what I like with it."</p> + +<p>For ten minutes Aaron argued with his uncle in front of Sammet Brothers' +building, but all to no purpose, for Uncle Mosha remained unmoved. Either he +was to receive the seven hundred and fifty dollars on the signing of the +contract or the entire deal was off; and at length he prevailed.</p> + +<p>"All right," Aaron said, "you shall have the seven hundred and fifty, but +one thing you must got to do. When we go into Leon Sammet's loft I want you +to let me and Leon speak a few words, something alone together. Are you +agreeable?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, why not?" Uncle Mosha agreed. "You got to work the feller up to +buying the house, ain't yer?"</p> + +<p>Aaron nodded gloomily as they entered the elevator, and when it stopped at +Sammet Brothers' floor he strode out So rapidly that Uncle Mosha, who had +never before visited Sammet Brothers', hardly noticed his nephew's exit. +Before he could follow Aaron the elevator attendant slammed the door, and it +was not reopened until Uncle Mosha had expressed his agitation in a burst of +spirited profanity.</p> + +<p>"Did you see that, Aaron?" he exclaimed after he had caught up to his +nephew. "I come pretty close to getting killed just now in that there +elevator."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you keep your eyes open?" Aaron asked callously. "Now you sit +down here and wait until I am coming out."</p> + +<p>He entered Leon Sammet's private office, and as soon as Uncle Mosha found +himself alone in the showroom he clenched the butt of his cigar between his +yellow teeth and explored his pockets for pencil and paper. Having found +them, he was soon plunged in a maze of figures representing the profit in +going short of seven hundred shares on a one-point margin, assuming that the +market dropped eight points in ten days.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Aaron," Leon Sammet cried when he caught sight of the younger +Kronberg.</p> + +<p>Aaron nodded, with half-closed eyes.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Aaron," Leon continued; "you look worried."</p> + +<p>"I bet yer," Aaron replied. "What d'ye think of that sucker?"</p> + +<p>"What's Alex been doing now?" Leon asked.</p> + +<p>"Alex! What d'ye mean, Alex?" Aaron said. "Alex I ain't worrying about at +all. I mean Uncle Mosha Kronberg."</p> + +<p>Forthwith he unfolded to Leon the sum of his uncle's iniquities, sparing +no detail of his own well-nigh ruined prospects and ending with an account of +Uncle Mosha's interrupted deal with Morris Perlmutter.</p> + +<p>Leon slammed the top of his desk with his open hand.</p> + +<p>"Before I would let that shark, Perlmutter, get the house I would buy it +myself."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know!" Aaron replied. "I thought you would, Leon; but that ain't +necessary. All I want you to do is this, Leon. I told the old man I could get +you to buy the house for forty-three thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Forty-three thousand?" Leon exclaimed. "Why that house ain't worth +forty-three thousand!"</p> + +<p>"What do I care what it's worth?" Aaron replied. "The game is this, Leon. +You will buy the house for me—Aaron—with my money. You got to pay +seven hundred and fifty cash on signing the contract, and the balance of +eight thousand dollars above the mortgages you got to pay when the title is +closed. I fixed it with the old man that he is to give me the eight thousand +dollars to take care of for him—see? So, when the title is closed I +will give you eight thousand dollars to give Mosha, and Mosha will turn it +back to me; and, Leon, if he ever sees that eight thousand dollars again it +won't be this side of the grave."</p> + +<p>Leon nodded.</p> + +<p>"Meantime you've got the house," he said.</p> + +<p>"Exactly," Aaron replied. "I get the house. All it cost me is seven +hundred and fifty dollars cash, and I also get unloaded on me for the rest of +his life the old man. And while I don't wish him any harm, y'understand, +<i>Gott soll hüten</i> anything should happen to him Leon, it couldn't come +too soon for me."</p> + +<p>"I bet yer," Leon said fervently. "And now let's get him in here and we'll +all go down to Henry D. Feldman's office and fix the matter up."</p> + +<p>Two hours later Leon and Uncle Mosha had signed a contract for the sale of +the Madison Street house, title to be closed and deed to be delivered within +thirty days. The purchase price was stated to be forty-three thousand +dollars, payable as follows: thirty-four thousand two hundred and fifty +dollars by the vendee taking the house subject to mortgages aggregating that +amount, seven hundred and fifty dollars cash on signing the contract, and the +balance of eight thousand dollars in cash or certified check at the closing +of the title.</p> + +<p>Prior to leaving his office Leon had cashed Aaron Kronberg's check for +seven hundred and fifty dollars, and the money, in bills of large +denomination, was turned over to Mosha Kronberg, who tucked them carefully +away in his breast pocket.</p> + +<p>"Well, Aaron," he said after the operation was completed, "I guess I'll be +going back to Madison Street."</p> + +<p>"Wait; I'll go along with you," Aaron cried.</p> + +<p>"Don't you trouble yourself," Uncle Mosha declared with a confidential +wink at Leon Sammet and Henry D. Feldman; "I could take care of myself all +right."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with all that money, Mr. Kronberg?" Leon asked +as Uncle Mosha turned to leave. The old man paused with his hand on the door, +and once more he favoured his questioner with a significant wink.</p> + +<p>"Leave that to me," he said.</p> + +<p>The thirty days succeeding Morris Perlmutter's visit to Madison Street +were busy ones for all the Kronbergs. Alex had accompanied Max Gershon to +Bridgetown, where conditions more than fulfilled Abe's glowing account, and +the formation of the Kronberg-Gershon Drygoods Company proceeded without +delay. As for Aaron Kronberg, he found that the borrowing of eight thousand +dollars, even for so short a period as would be necessary to consummate the +Madison Street deal, was no easy task. At length he raised the sum by paying +a large bonus to his bankers in Port Sullivan, and it was deposited to the +credit of Sammet Brothers four days before the closing of title.</p> + +<p>Meantime Uncle Mosha had not neglected the opportunity afforded him during +his last few days of liberty. With his seven hundred and fifty dollars he had +sought the brokerage offices of Klinkberg & Company the morning after +signing his contract with Leon Sammet. There he selected American Chocolate +and Cocoa as the medium of his speculation and promptly went short of seven +hundred on a one-point margin. The same afternoon he was within a sixteenth +of being wiped out when the market turned, and nearly one month later he took +his profit of twenty-one hundred dollars, which with the original investment, +minus the brokerage amounted to twenty-eight hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>"Never no more," he said to the brokerage firm's cashier as he drew his +profit. "I am through oncet and for all. No one could get me to touch another +share of stock so long as I live."</p> + +<p>With this solemn declaration he passed out of Klinkberg & Company's +office just as a short stout man burst into the hall from a door marked +"Customers."</p> + +<p>"Wow!" the short stout man exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"<i>Warum</i> wow?" Uncle Mosha asked.</p> + +<p>"Amalgamated Refineries goes up four points on six sales in half an hour," +the short stout man replied, "and I win two thousand."</p> + +<p>The short stout man started down the hall and executed a fantastic dancing +step in front of the elevators, while Uncle Mosha entered the door marked +"Customers."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Klinkberg," he said, handing Klinkberg & Company's two thousand +eight hundred dollar check to that firm's senior partner, "buy me one +thousand shares Amalgamated Refineries at the market."</p> + +<p>An hour later he walked leisurely along Madison Street, and as he +approached his own doorway Aaron Kronberg swooped down upon him.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Mosha," he almost screamed, "where was you?"</p> + +<p>"Where was I?" Uncle Mosha replied. "Why, I was where I was. That's where +I was. What difference does it make to you where I was?"</p> + +<p>"What difference does it make to me?" Aaron cried. "Ain't I putting up +the—er—don't you know you was due at Henry D. Feldman's office to +close your title at one o'clock?—and here it is half-past one +already!"</p> + +<p>For a minute Uncle Mosha's face fell. In the excitement of following the +profitable course of his speculation he had completely forgotten his real +estate transaction, but he quickly recovered his composure.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," he said, "let 'em wait! The house won't run away, Aaron. Let's +go and get a cup coffee somewheres."</p> + +<p>"Coffee, nothing!" Aaron growled; "you're coming right along with me. I +got a carriage waiting for you."</p> + +<p>He hustled the old man into a decrepit conveyance that was drawn up to the +curb and they started immediately for Henry D. Feldman's office.</p> + +<p>"Honest, Aaron," Uncle Mosha sighed, "I feel like I was riding to my own +funeral."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry, Uncle Mosha," Aaron said; "with the <i>tzuris</i> which I +got it lately you would quicker ride to mine."</p> + +<p>"Well, Aaron," Uncle Mosha rejoined, "as old man Baum used to say, we all +got to die sooner or later, Aaron; and all we could take with us is our good +name."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't got to pay no excess baggage rates on that," Aaron said as +the carriage came to a stop in front of Feldman's office building.</p> + +<p>Two minutes later they entered the offices of Henry D. Feldman and were +ushered immediately into the presence of that distinguished advocate himself. +As they passed through the doorway Feldman rose from his seat. He was not +alone, for at one side of a long library table sat Leon Sammet, while +opposite to him a tall, sandy-haired person methodically arranged various +bundles of papers which he drew out of capacious pasteboard envelopes.</p> + +<p>"Ah, gentlemen, you're here at last," Feldman cried. "Mr. Jones, this is +Mr. Kronberg and his nephew, Mr. Aaron Kronberg. Mr. Jones is a +representative of the Land Insurance & Title Guarantee Company, who at my +request has examined the title to your house, Mr. Kronberg."</p> + +<p>"All right," Uncle Mosha said; "I ain't scared of 'em. I owned the house +since 1890 already—that's pretty near twenty years, and I ain't paid no +Confederate money for it neither."</p> + +<p>Mr. Jones cleared his throat noisily, and as he did so a round white +object leaped from beneath his collar and bumped against his chin. It was his +Adam's apple.</p> + +<p>"Did you say you owned the house twenty years?" he inquired in tones of +such profundity that Feldman was obliged to ask him to repeat his question. +At the second repetition Uncle Mosha said that it might be a month less than +twenty years.</p> + +<p>"The record shows that you bought the house a little more than nineteen +years ago," Mr. Jones continued—his manner suggested a hanging judge in +the act of assuming the black cap—"and therefore you could claim no +adverse possession, even assuming there were no disabilities."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, claim?" Uncle Mosha asked with asperity. "I don't claim +nothing. I already got seven hundred and fifty dollars and there is coming to +me eight thousand dollars more."</p> + +<p>"I think, Mr. Jones," Feldman interrupted, "I ought to explain to Mr. +Kronberg the <i>locus in quo</i>."</p> + +<p>Aaron Kronberg turned pale and wiped a few drops of perspiration from his +forehead.</p> + +<p>"What is there to explain, Mr. Feldman?" he broke in. "Go ahead and close +the title to the property. I couldn't sit here all day."</p> + +<p>"There's a great deal to be explained," Feldman continued. "He is unable +to convey good title to the property <i>non constat</i> he received a deed of +it in 1890."</p> + +<p>"I never heard tell of the feller at all," Uncle Mosha exclaimed. "I am +the only one which received a deed of the property."</p> + +<p>Feldman gazed at Uncle Mosha for one dazed moment and then proceeded.</p> + +<p>"The last owner in Mr. Kronberg's claim of title—I mean his +immediate vendor—was the only surviving collateral of an intestate," he +said.</p> + +<p>"That's where you make a big mistake," Uncle Mosha interrupted. "The +feller which I bought the house from was a salesman for a shirt concern."</p> + +<p>Feldman glared at Uncle Mosha and was about to crush him with a flood of +law Latin when the door opened.</p> + +<p>"You got to excuse me for butting in, Mr. Feldman," said a harsh voice +which presently was seen to issue from the person of Morris Perlmutter, "but +me and my partner is got to get back to the store and Max and his partner is +also busy to-day."</p> + +<p>"I'll be with you in just one moment, Mr. Perlmutter," Feldman replied.</p> + +<p>"You says that an hour ago," Morris grumbled as he closed the door behind +him.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mr. Kronberg," Feldman continued, "I'd like to elucidate this +situation for you as succinctly as possible."</p> + +<p>"Do that afterward, if you got to do it," Uncle Mosha broke in; "but just +now tell me what the trouble is."</p> + +<p>"What's the use talking to a mutt that don't understand the English +language at all?" Feldman cried. "Listen here to me. You bought your house +from a fellow called Nathan Baum."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I did," Uncle Mosha said. "You remember him, Sammet? He went to +work and got killed in a railroad accident ten years ago already."</p> + +<p>"Don't interrupt," Feldman cried. "Nathan Baum was the brother of Max +Baum, a former owner of the house. Max Baum died while he owned the house and +he left no will, and Nathan Baum claimed the house as the only heir of Max +Baum."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Mosha agreed. "Nathan Baum was the only relative in the +world which Max Baum got it. He had a sister, but she died before Max."</p> + +<p>"Was Max Baum's sister ever married?" Mr. Jones asked in funereal +accents.</p> + +<p>"Sure she was married," Mosha answered. "She was married to Sam Gershon. +He works for years by Richter as a cutter. Sam is dead too."</p> + +<p>"Did they ever have any children?" Mr. Jones inquired.</p> + +<p>"One boy they had," Uncle Mosha said. "Shall I ever forget it? What a +beautiful boy that was, Mr. Feldman—a regular picture! Mrs. Gershon +thinks a whole lot of that boy, too, I bet yer."</p> + +<p>"Never mind the trimmings, Kronberg," Feldman broke in. "Is the boy +alive?"</p> + +<p>"That's what we're anxious to know," Mr. Jones interrupted. "My company +had ascertained that there was one son, but we couldn't find out if he were +dead or alive."</p> + +<p>"If the boy was alive Mrs. Gershon would be alive too," Mosha said. "Mrs. +Gershon died on account of that boy. What a lovely boy that was! I can see +him now—the way he looked. He had eyes black like coal, and +a—"</p> + +<p>Here Uncle Mosha stopped short. His jaw dropped and his fishy gray eyes +seemed to start from his head as he gazed at the door. It stood ajar some six +inches and exposed the features of a person impatient to the point of +frenzy.</p> + +<p>"Ex-cuse me, Mr. Feldman!" said the intruder; "I may be a Rube from Texas, +y'understand, but I got my feelings too, and unless you come in here right +away and close the matter up me and my partner would go and get our agreement +fixed up somewhere else again."</p> + +<p>"I'll be with you in just one moment, Mr. Gershon," Feldman replied.</p> + +<p>"Gershon?" Uncle Mosha muttered. "Gershon!"</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet and tottered across the room toward the doorway, but +at the threshold his strength failed him and he fell headlong to the +floor.</p> + +<p>In the scene of confusion that followed only Henry D. Feldman remained +calm. He touched the electric button on his desk.</p> + +<p>"Go down to the Algonquin Building and fetch a doctor," he said to the +office-boy who responded, "and on your way out see if we have any blank +petitions for administration in the Surrogate's Court. If we haven't, buy a +couple on your way back. The old man may not pull through."</p> + +<p>When Uncle Mosha's eyes opened in consciousness of his surroundings they +rested on Max Gershon, who bent over the old man as anxiously as did either +of his nephews.</p> + +<p>"Max Gershon, ain't it?" Uncle Mosha asked feebly.</p> + +<p>Gershon nodded.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't try to talk," he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm all right," Uncle Mosha replied. "I need only a cup coffee. If Aaron +would let me got it before I come here this wouldn't never of happened."</p> + +<p>Aaron recognized the justice of his uncle's criticism by personally +seeking a nearby restaurant, and after an interval of ten minutes, during +which Abe and Morris took turns with Max and Alex in fanning the patient, he +returned with a pot of steaming coffee. Uncle Mosha drank three cups in rapid +succession and heaved a great sigh.</p> + +<p>"You ain't got maybe a cigar about you, Max?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Smoke this, Uncle Mosha," Alex Kronberg cried, pulling a large satiny +invincible from his waistcoat pocket and thrusting it at his uncle. For one +hesitating minute the old man looked from Alex to the cigar, but at last its +glossy perfection overcame his scruples.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged, Alex," he said.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," Alex mumbled as he struck a match. "How do you feel +now, uncle?"</p> + +<p>"First rate," Uncle Mosha replied as he blew out great clouds of smoke; +"although I ought to feel a whole lot worse, Alex, when I see Maxie Gershon +here. Twenty-five years ago I seen him last and he looks the same fat-faced +feller with the black eyes. Only to think he now comes back and takes away +half my house from me."</p> + +<p>"I ain't come back to do no such thing!" Max cried. "I could assure you, +Mr. Kronberg, although me and Alex Kronberg is going as partners together, I +never knew until I seen you here that you was any relation of his. As for +your house, Mr. Kronberg, I don't know nothing about it at all."</p> + +<p>"Don't you?" Uncle Mosha exclaimed. "Well, I'll tell you. It's like +this."</p> + +<p>"<i>Stigun!</i>" Aaron hissed. "Don't open your mouth, Uncle Mosha."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, don't open my mouth?" Uncle Mosha retorted. "D'ye think +I'm a crook? If I got a house which it don't belong to me at all, then I +don't want it."</p> + +<p>He turned his back on Aaron and straightway he narrated the full +circumstances surrounding his purchase of the Madison Street house.</p> + +<p>"Certainly I ain't no lawyer nor nothing," he continued, "but when old Max +Baum died you was due to get just as much as your Uncle Nathan out of his +estate, and if Nathan Baum swindled me out of my money by claiming he owns +the whole thing that couldn't give me no right to your share, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Max nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then what ain't mine I don't want at all," Uncle Mosha continued; "and +so, Maxie, you and me gives Leon Sammet here a deed of the house and Leon +pays us the balance of eight thousand dollars. Out of that you get four +thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars, because me, I already got +seven hundred and fifty dollars. Are you agreeable to fix it that way, +Sammet?"</p> + +<p>Leon looked at Aaron Kronberg, who was gulping convulsively in an effort +to express adequately all he felt. At length he commenced to address his +uncle in husky tones.</p> + +<p>"You cut-throat!" he croaked. "You robber, you! You shed my blood! Give me +back my seven hundred and fifty dollars."</p> + +<p>"Your seven hundred and fifty!" Uncle Mosha exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"That's what I said," Aaron went on. His voice rose to a hoarse scream as +he proceeded. "Did you think any one else would give forty-three thousand +dollars for that dawg-house but me? Sammet ain't got nothing to do with it; +he's only a dummy."</p> + +<p>"So!" Leon Sammet said bitterly. "I am only a dummy, am I?"</p> + +<p>"Wait <em>one</em> minute!" Uncle Mosha cried. "Do you mean to told me, +Mr. Sammet, that you was buying this here house for Aaron?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that's about the size of it," Leon admitted.</p> + +<p>"Then what are you kicking about?" Uncle Mosha said. "You are a dummy."</p> + +<p>Throughout the moving scenes of that entire afternoon Leon had acted the +part of disinterested onlooker to the point of lethargy, but now he fairly +glared at Uncle Mosha.</p> + +<p>"I don't got to stay here to be called names," he said.</p> + +<p>"My trouble's what you got to stay here for," Uncle Mosha retorted. "Yes, +boys; what d'ye think for a highwayman like that Aaron Kronberg?"</p> + +<p>Aaron blushed a fiery red.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Leon," he said. "Let's get out of this."</p> + +<p>"Hold on!" Max Gershon shouted. "Don't you do nothing of the kind, Sammet. +Me and Mr. Mosha Kronberg we own this here house together, and he made a +contract with you to sell you this here house which I stand by. Do you want +to take it <i>oder</i> not? Because if not, we would keep your seven hundred +and fifty dollars."</p> + +<p>Leon Sammet emitted a huge guffaw.</p> + +<p>"That worries me a whole lot," he replied. "As Aaron just told you, the +seven hundred and fifty belongs to him."</p> + +<p>"Very true," Feldman interrupted, "but it was you who engaged me to +examine the title, Mr. Sammet, and my fees and disbursements in this matter +amount to five hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>Leon Sammet sat down again.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Leon," Aaron cried. "What are you waiting for?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to told me, Mr. Feldman, I owe you five hundred dollars?" +Leon asked.</p> + +<p>"Five hundred and eight dollars and forty-two cents to be exact," said +Feldman, crunching a slip of paper.</p> + +<p>"Then all I got to say is," Leon declared, "I got here a certified check +for eight thousand dollars which Aaron Kronberg gives me, and I would sure +hold it until he secures me against your bill."</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, boys," Alex Kronberg said at length, "I've been listening +to all this here Megillah and I ain't said a word nor nothing. But I'll tell +you what I'll do. It's a cinch that Uncle Mosha won't go to live with Aaron +now, so I'll take him to live with me."</p> + +<p>"I am agreeable," said Uncle Mosha.</p> + +<p>"Furthermore," Alex continued, "Uncle Mosha and Max will keep the house. I +will also pay Mr. Feldman his five hundred dollars and take it out of the +seven hundred and fifty which Aaron paid Uncle Mosha. The balance of two +hundred and fifty Aaron shall have back again."</p> + +<p>"I am content," Uncle Mosha replied. "I don't want none of Aaron's money; +and you could take it from me, Alex, Aaron would never see none of my +money."</p> + +<p>"And now, gentlemen, let us fix up this copartnership agreement," Max +Gershon said as Aaron Kronberg slunk out of the office, followed by Leon +Sammet. "Mr. Potash and Mr. Perlmutter have wasted pretty near the whole +afternoon here."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," Abe said. "I don't consider we wasted any time. Many a +night I threw away four dollars taking a customer on the theayter yet, when +the show wasn't near so good as what we seen it this afternoon; and the +customer ain't bought no goods off me anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Don't you worry yourself about that, Abe!" Max cried. "You got a couple +of customers at this show which they would buy goods from you so long as we +are in business, and don't you forget it. Ain't I right, Alex?"</p> + +<p>Alex nodded.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Uncle Mosha," he said. "Come inside with us and see this +through."</p> + +<p>"I'll wait out here," Uncle Mosha replied. "I got enough excitement for +one afternoon."</p> + +<p>He waited until Mr. Jones, of the title company, had packed up his papers, +and then after Henry D. Feldman had followed the others into the adjoining +room and had closed the door behind him, Uncle Mosha touched the button on +Feldman's desk.</p> + +<p>"Go out and buy for me an evening paper," he said to the boy who +responded.</p> + +<p>"Say," the boy replied, "there was a doctor waiting to see you for more +than half an hour."</p> + +<p>"Tell him to wait a little longer yet," Mosha rejoined. "I may got to have +him after I am seeing the paper."</p> + +<p>"He ain't here now," the boy said. "He went away and says you should send +him a check for five dollars."</p> + +<p>"I hope he don't need the money for nothing particular," Uncle Mosha +commented; "on account he stands a good show to be disappointed. Hurry up +with the paper."</p> + +<p>Ten minutes afterward the boy returned. He handed an evening paper to +Uncle Mosha, who hastily planted a pair of pince-nez on his broad, flat nose +and folded back the financial page.</p> + +<p>"Now let's give a look," he murmured to himself as he glanced hastily at +the column marked "The Stock Market."</p> + +<p>At the head of the list appeared the following item:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="newspaper article"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <th>Sales</th> + <th>Highest</th> + <th>Lowest</th> + <th>Closing</th> + <th>Net Ch'g</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>45100 Amal. Ref.</td> + <td>46-5/8</td> + <td>38-1/2</td> + <td>38-1/8</td> + <td>—4-1/8</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"Wiped again!" he muttered as he dropped the paper to the floor.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, when Alex and Max Gershon came out of the adjoining +room with the copartnership agreement duly executed, they found Uncle Mosha +calmly smoking the last of his cigar while he pondered over the "News for +Investors" column. The tabulated list of quotations was not unnoticed by Max +as he felt for another cigar to present to the old man.</p> + +<p>"Do you ever speculate in Wall Street, Mr. Kronberg?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oncet upon a time I used to," Uncle Mosha replied, "but never no more, +Maxie. It's a game which you couldn't beat—take it from me, +Maxie—not if you was a hundred times so smart as Old Man Baum."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"Well, Abe," Morris Perlmutter remarked as they sat in their showroom ten +days after the events above noted, "I did mix up in Alex Kronberg's family +matters and, with all your croaking, what is the result? Alex has got a good +partner; Uncle Mosha has got a good home, and ourselves we got a good order +for three thousand dollars, which otherwise we wouldn't got at all."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense, Mawruss?" Abe said. "Things wouldn't +turned out the way they did if it wouldn't be I met Max Gershon in +Hammersmith's. That's what started it, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"Nothing of the kind, Abe," Morris retorted. "What started it, Abe, was me +when I went down to Madison Street and give Uncle Mosha that cigar, Abe. I +tell you, Abe, it's an old saying and a true one: Throw away a loaf of bread +in the water, y'understand, and sooner or later, Abe, it would come home like +chickens to roost."</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap04">CHAPTER FOUR</h2> + +<h3>THE RAINCOAT KING</h3> + +<p>"The table is all right, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked as he consulted the +timecard of the Long Island Railroad one hot July afternoon. "The table is +all right; I ain't kicking about the table, y'understand, but the class of +people which they stay in the house, Mawruss, is pretty <i>schlecht</i>. My +Rosie couldn't get along with 'em at all."</p> + +<p>"You don't tell me!" Morris replied. "Riesenberger's is got a big +reputation, Abe, and when me and Minnie stayed there two years ago there was +an elegant class of people stopping in the house. Would you believe me, Abe, +I tried to get up a game of auction pinocle there and I couldn't do it! +Nobody would play less than a dollar a hundred. I'm surprised to hear the +place is run down so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if the house's got a big reputation for auction pinocle, Mawruss, +then that's something else again! They play just as high as former times. +Sidney Koblin lost forty dollars last night. With my own eyes I seen it, +Mawruss; and his father looks on and don't say nothing."</p> + +<p>"What does Max Koblin care for forty dollars, Abe?" Morris said. "The +feller's a millionaire. He's got ten pages of advertising in the <i>Cloak and +Suit Monthly Gazette</i>. I bet yer he spends more as forty dollars for one +page already. Wait; I'll show it to you."</p> + +<p>Morris opened the green-covered periodical and displayed a full-page +"ad."</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="ad" class="box"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <th>MAX KOBLIN<br /> + KING OF RAINCOATS</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>"KOBLINETTE," THE RAINSHED FABRIC</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>WEST 20TH STREET<br /> + NEW YORK</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe commented. "He was always a big faker, that +feller. Twenty years since already I used to eat by Gifkin's on Canal Street, +and one day Max Koblin comes in and says to me, 'Abe,' he says, 'I want you +should drink a bottle tchampanyer wine on me.' In them days Max works for old +man Zudosky selling boys' reefers. Raincoats was like oitermobiles; no one +had discovered 'em yet. 'What's the matter, Max?' I says. 'Old man Zudosky +given you a raise?' I says. 'Raise nothing,' Max says. 'I got a boy up to my +house.' 'So,' I says, 'just because you got a boy, Max, I should got a +headache and neglect my business?' I says. 'An idee!' I says. 'Take the +dollar and a quarter, Max,' I says, 'and put it in the savings bank, and +every time you give the boy a penny make him put it away with the other +money,' I says; 'and the first thing you know, Max,' I says, 'when the boy +gets to be twenty years old he's got anyhow a couple hundred dollars in the +savings bank.'"</p> + +<p>"And what did Max say?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"He laughs at me, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He says to me, 'when that boy +gets to be twenty years old he wouldn't need to got to have a couple hundred +dollars in the savings bank. I could give him all the money he wants it.'"</p> + +<p>"Well, Max was right, ain't it?" Morris rejoined. "He could give the boy +all the money he wants."</p> + +<p>"Money ain't everything what that boy wants, Mawruss," Abe said. "A good +<i>potch</i> on the side of the head oncet in a while is what that boy wants. +So fresh that young feller is, Mawruss, you wouldn't believe it at all. +Actually he runs an oitermobile what Max bought it for him for fifteen +hundred dollars, a birthday present, besides the other big car which Koblin +got it. Max <i>oser</i> runs oitermobiles at Sidney's age. Piece goods on a +pooshcart from old man Zudosky's to the sponger's was all the oitermobiling +Max done it. To-day they are putting on style yet. Suckers!"</p> + +<p>"Well, say, Abe," Morris protested, "what is it skin off your nose +supposing Max does buy oitermobiles for the boy? This is a free country, +Abe."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe declared, as he revealed the nub of the whole +matter; "and supposing my Rosie don't play poker, which, <i>Gott sei +dank</i>, she couldn't tell a king from an ace, what is that Mrs. Koblin's +business? She ain't supposed to know that, Mawruss, and yet she didn't invite +my Rosie to her poker party. Rosie wouldn't of gone anyhow, Mawruss; but that +ain't the point. Ain't my Rosie just as good as Mrs. Klinger <i>oder</i> Mrs. +Elenbogen? Particularly Mrs. Elenbogen, which, three years ago even, Kleiman +& Elenbogen was still rated ten to fifteen thousand, third credit. Only +in the last two years they are coming up so; and the way that Mrs. Elenbogen +acts, you would think her husband got a bank in Frankfort-am-Main when +Rothschild was a new beginner yet. Such fakers as them is too good for my +Rosie, Mawruss. An idee!"</p> + +<p>"What do you worry yourself about women's fighting, Abe?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Me worry myself, Mawruss!" Abe cried. "I much care for them people, +Mawruss. I am married to my Rosie now going on twenty-six years, will be next +May, and if I didn't know that she's got it on every one of them cows in +looks, in refinement and in every which way, Mawruss, then I could worry, +Mawruss. As it is, Mawruss, for my part they could play poker till they are +black in the face—what is it my business? I got enough to attend to +here in the store, Mawruss, without I should bother myself."</p> + +<p>"I bet yer!" Morris agreed fervently. "That reminds me, Abe, Shapolnik is +leaving us on Saturday."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss, I couldn't exactly break my heart about that, +y'understand?" Abe replied, "Skirt-cutters you could always get plenty of +'em. What's the matter he ain't satisfied?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing's the matter," Morris said. "He is simply going into the pants +business. His brother-in-law is got a small place downtown and he is going as +partners together with him. They ought to make a success of it too, Abe, if +nerve would got anything to do with it. The feller actually wants me I should +give him an introduction to Feder of the Kosciusko Bank."</p> + +<p>"Sure; why not?" Abe commented.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Morris repeated. "What would Feder think of us if we are +bringing a yokel like Shapolnik into his office? The feller ain't been two +years in the country yet."</p> + +<p>"Don't knock a feller like Shapolnik just because he ain't putting on no +front nor throwing no bluffs, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "It's the faker with +the four-carat diamond pin which is doing his creditors, Mawruss, but the +yokel with the soup on his coat pays a hundred cents on the dollar every +time."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later Abe conducted his retiring skirt-cutter to the Fifth +Avenue branch of the Kosciusko Bank, and as they approached the corner of +Nineteenth Street on their return they encountered Max Koblin, the Raincoat +King. He was about to enter the tonneau of an automobile, while Sidney +Koblin, the Heir Apparent, sat at the tiller arrayed in a silk duster and +goggles. Max grinned maliciously as he noted Abe's shabby, bearded +companion.</p> + +<p>"Always entertaining the out-of-town trade, Abe?" he said.</p> + +<p>Abe relaxed his features in what he intended for a smile, but afterward he +turned to Shapolnik with a scowl.</p> + +<p>"Only one thing I got to tell you, Shapolnik," he declared. "Nowadays, if +a feller wants to make a success he must got to wear good clothes and look +like a <i>mensch</i>, y'understand? It never harms in business, Shapolnik, +that a feller should throw sometimes, oncet in a while, a little bluff."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Between the ages of sixteen and twenty Sidney Koblin had so often tested +the maxim, "Boys will be boys," that Max Koblin's patience at length became +exhausted. "Do you mean to told me you ain't got one cent left from that +forty I gave you on Saturday?" Max asked on the Monday morning following +Shapolnik's resignation.</p> + +<p>"Aw, what's biting you?" Sidney cried. "You sat behind me last night and +if it wouldn't been for you I wouldn't of played that last four-hundred hand +at all. Cost forty-eight dollars, that advice of yours."</p> + +<p>This was a facer, to be sure, and Max paused before formulating a +rejoinder.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, Sidney," he began, "you didn't got no right to lead +no trump. I told you before lots of times, if you got the extra ten, get rid +of your meld first. And in the second place, Sidney, I wouldn't stand for +your extravagance no longer. It's time you turned around and attended to +business."</p> + +<p>"Aw, you never give me no show!" Sidney protested. "You keep me monkeying +around while other young fellers is out on the road. Look at Mortie Savin and +all them boys."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Max rejoined. "They got heads on 'em. You couldn't add up +eight figures together, and at your age for a feller to write a hand like +that, Sidney—"</p> + +<p>"What are you kicking about?" Sidney exclaimed. "When you was my age you +couldn't sign your name even."</p> + +<p>"Well, that ain't here nor there, Sidney," Max replied as he pulled a bill +from the roll which he produced from his trousers pocket. "Here is ten +dollars and that's got to last you till Saturday night. D'ye understand?"</p> + +<p>Sidney grunted as he tucked the bill into his waistcoat. He had heard the +same ultimatum once a week for the past two years, and he whistled cheerfully +as he despatched one of the stock boys for a package of cigarettes. An hour +later he lunched at Hammersmith's, while Abe Potash sat at an adjacent table. +As he consumed a modest portion of <i>rostbraten</i>, Abe noted with a +disapproving eye the cherry-stone clams, green-turtle soup and <i>filet +Chateaubriand</i> which formed the menu of the Heir Apparent; and when the +latter topped off his meal with half a pint of dry champagne and a <i>café +parfait</i> Abe seized his hat and fairly ran from the restaurant.</p> + +<p>"If nobody would tell that feller Koblin what a lowlife bum he got it for +a son, Mawruss," he said as he entered the firm's private office ten minutes +later, "I will. Actually with my own eyes I seen it—the feller eats for +five dollars a lunch, and he ain't with a customer nor nothing."</p> + +<p>"What is it your business what Sidney Koblin is eating, Abe?" Morris +rejoined. "If you wouldn't notice every mouthful the feller puts in his face +at all you would be back here a whole lot sooner. There's a feller waiting +for you in the showroom over half an hour since."</p> + +<p>"Who is he?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"I think it's that Mr.—Who's this, from Seattle, which he was in +here last fall and nearly bought from us them polo coats? I couldn't tell his +face exactly, but you remember what a swell dresser that feller was."</p> + +<p>Abe peered through the screen that divided the rooms.</p> + +<p>"I think you're right, Mawruss," he said.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't remember his name," Morris added, "and that's why I didn't +talk much to him. All I says was you would be in soon; and I give him a cigar +from the safe."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded and walked hurriedly out of the office. As he approached his +caller he extended his right hand.</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" he exclaimed, as he shook his visitor warmly by the hand. "You're looking fine."</p> + +<p>The visitor smiled in return.</p> + +<p>"I thought you were going to tell me that," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed! You're looking a whole lot better than the last time I seen +you," Abe said. "When did you get in?"</p> + +<p>"I am here now going on half an hour already."</p> + +<p>"Well, why didn't you talk to my partner?" Abe asked. "He could fix you up +just as well as me."</p> + +<p>"I did talk to him," the newcomer replied, "but he is too stuck up to talk +to me at all."</p> + +<p>"Stuck up!" Abe exclaimed, with a note of real anguish in his tones. +"Stuck up! Why, you don't know my partner at all, +Mister—er—excuse me, do you got a card?"</p> + +<p>The stranger drew a card from his waistcoat pocket and with a proud +gesture handed it to Abe. It read as follows:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="card" class="box"> + <thead style="font-size: 75%; "> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: left; ">Z. KATZBERG</td> + <td style="text-align: right; ">I. SCHAPP</td> + </tr> + </thead> + <tfoot style="font-size: 75%; "> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: left; ">530 WEST WASHINGTON PLACE</td> + <td style="text-align: right; ">NEW YORK</td> + </tr> + </tfoot> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td colspan="2">KATZBERG & SCHAPP<br /> + FINE PANTS</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"I am taking your advice, Mr. Potash," he said. "I am taking your advice +all round. I cut 'em off."</p> + +<p>"You cut what off?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"The whiskers, Mr. Potash. Also I am making short the name. In Russland +Shapolnik is all right, Mr. Potash; but if a feller wants to make a success +in business he should be a little up to date, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>The cordial smile faded from Abe's face as he recognized his visitor.</p> + +<p>"There's such a thing as being too much up to date, Shapolnik," he said. +"You ain't got no right to fool my partner like that. Me, you couldn't fool +for a minute. Right away I says to myself, 'Here is a feller which he wants +to ask us something we should do him for a favour.' So, spit it out, +Shapolnik. What is it you want from us?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's like this, Mr. Potash," Shapolnik began. "Me and my partner we +are wanting to take on somebody for a drummer, y'understand. We must got it +some one which he is already got a trade. <i>Aber</i> he couldn't ask for too +much money at the start on account we are going slow. If you know some young +feller which he wants the job me and my partner would be much obliged, Mr. +Potash."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye think we are running here anyway, Shapolnik," Abe +retorted—"an employment agency?"</p> + +<p>"I am just taking chances might you would know somebody, maybe," Shapolnik +murmured as he rose to his feet. He seemed much relieved at Abe's refusal. +"And I hope you don't think I am doing something out of the way. You know, +Mr. Potash, me and my partner we think a whole lot of your judgment, and if +you would give us an advice we are willing we should follow it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't mad at you, Shapolnik," Abe said more mildly; "but all the +same, if you want to get a drummer you got a right to advertise for one."</p> + +<p>"We would do so," Shapolnik replied, "and if you would be in our +<i>Nachbarschaft</i> oncet in a while, Mr. Potash, me and my partner would +consider it an honour if you are dropping in to see us. We only got a small +place, Mr. Potash." He paused and fingered the texture of his waistcoat. "But +everything will be up to date, Mr. Potash," he concluded, "just like you +advised us to."</p> + +<p>Abe watched his late skirt-cutter disappear into the elevator, and then he +returned to the office where Morris impatiently awaited him.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Abe," Morris cried as he entered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said with cutting emphasis: "good cigars don't care +who smokes 'em. I suppose if Nathan, the shipping clerk, would come in here +with a collar and tie on and a clean shave, you would want to blow him to a +bottle of tchampanyer wine yet. Just because a feller shaves off his beard +and buys himself a new suit of clothes you couldn't recognize him at all. +That was Shapolnik which just went out of here."</p> + +<p>"Shapolnik!" Morris exclaimed. "That dude was Shapolnik? Well, what d'ye +think for a crook like that!"</p> + +<p>"Crooked Shapolnik ain't exactly," Abe interrupted; "but it should be a +lesson to you, Mawruss, that you wouldn't be so free with our cigars. All the +feller wants from us is we should recommend him a drummer."</p> + +<p>"The nerve the feller got it!" Morris cried. "He comes around here +throwing bluffs he needs a drummer yet. A new beginner like him ain't going +to hire no drummer, Abe. I bet yer he takes his pants under his arms and sees +them Fourteenth Street buyers on his way downtown in the morning. He ain't +got no more use for a drummer than I got it for an airship."</p> + +<p>"My <i>tzuris</i> if he has or he hasn't!" Abe exclaimed. "I anyhow told +him he should advertise for one, as we are not running an employment agency +here, Mawruss; and so, Mawruss, let's get busy on that order for Griesman. I +want to get away from here sure at five o'clock to-day. What is the good I am +staying down at Riesenberger's if I never get a show to take oncet in a while +a sea bath, maybe?"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless it was ten minutes past five before Abe boarded a crosstown +car; and, although he made a wild sprint from the ferry landing on the Long +Island side, he arrived at the trainshed just in time to see the rear +platform of the five-forty-five for Arverne disappearing in a cloud of black +smoke.</p> + +<p>He returned to the waiting room, and as he was sadly inspecting the outer +pages of the comic periodicals displayed in the news-stand a heavy hand +clapped him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Abe!" cried a hearty voice, and Abe turned to view the perspiring +features of Max Koblin, the Raincoat King. Abe returned the salutation +without much enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Why ain't you going down in the oitermobile, Max?" he asked. +"Millionaires ain't got no excuse for missing trains like ordinary +people."</p> + +<p>Max laughed in an embarrassed fashion.</p> + +<p>"Millionaires is got their troubles too, Abe," he said. "Even when they +ain't millionaires."</p> + +<p>"I should have your trouble!" Abe commented.</p> + +<p>"I got enough, Abe, believe me," Max rejoined. "Everything I got to look +after myself. My credit man leaves me next week; and I got other worries +besides that one, too."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Abe said as they started for the smoker of the six-ten; +"and the biggest one you got only yourself to blame for it."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, Abe?" Max asked.</p> + +<p>"I mean this, Max," Abe declared. "I am knowing you now since twenty years +already, and if I am butting in you could know it ain't because I am fresh, +y'understand, but because I got your interests at heart. That boy of yours +goes too far, Max."</p> + +<p>Max drew a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and carefully bit off the end. +"How so?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Well, in a whole lot of ways, Max," Abe continued, after they were +seated; "and mind you, I know it ain't none of my business, Max, but when I +see that boy come into Hammersmith's to-day and eat for five dollars a lunch, +with a bottle of tchampanyer wine yet, Max, I couldn't help myself. I got to +say something."</p> + +<p>Max scowled and spat out the end of his cigar.</p> + +<p>"Of course, Max," Abe added, using his partner's metaphor, "it ain't no +skin off my nose, y'understand."</p> + +<p>"Ain't it?" Max growled as he turned on Abe with a menacing glare. "Well, +it's a wonder it ain't, the way you are sticking it into other people's +business. If you think I care what you think about what my boy eats for his +lunch you are making a big mistake. I could take care of my own boy, Potash, +and I am just as much obliged if you would do the same."</p> + +<p>Abe flushed a fiery red and rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"I guess I would go into the next car," he said.</p> + +<p>"You could go a whole lot farther for all I care!" Max retorted, and +immediately buried his head between the open pages of a conservative evening +paper.</p> + +<p>Abe had not offended in vain, however, for after dinner that night, when +Sidney sought his father in the Koblins' suite at Riesenberger's cottage, the +King was in an ugly mood.</p> + +<p>"Say, Pop," Sidney began, "how about you for twenty till Saturday +night?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?" Max bellowed. "Ain't I given you ten dollars only this +morning?"</p> + +<p>Sidney laughed uncomfortably. "Ain't you the old tightwad!" he said.</p> + +<p>Max's reply to this observation was quite unprecedented in all Sidney's +experience. It took the form of an open-handed blow on the cheek, the first +ever administered by his indulgent parent since Sidney's infancy. Forthwith +began a family row that brought the entire household—guests, servants +and proprietress—on the run to the Koblin apartments. When Mrs. +Koblin's frightened screams had ceased, and Max Koblin had calmed down +sufficiently to offer an evasive explanation, the guests trooped back to the +piazza, and three games of auction pinocle, which had started in the +dining-room after the tables had been cleared, came to an abrupt close. +Instead, the players foregathered with the other guests in the porch +rockers.</p> + +<p>There they discussed the incident until nearly midnight; and, as no one +had been an eyewitness of the affray, there were as many versions of it as +may be mathematically demonstrated where one blow is struck among three +persons. Some had it that Sidney had attacked his father and others that Mrs. +Koblin had assaulted Sidney, but a large feminine majority favoured a +construction of the matter as one of wife-beating. Abe alone correctly +surmised the turn that Sidney's affairs had taken and he sat on the piazza in +conscience-stricken solitude long after all the other guests had retired.</p> + +<p>He blamed himself for the entire affair and he smoked cigar after cigar +before he sought his bed. As he walked up the broad staircase he met Max +Koblin at the first landing.</p> + +<p>"Max," he said, "where are you going this time of night?"</p> + +<p>Max stopped short. His eyes blazed in a face so careworn and haggard that, +to Abe, he seemed to have aged ten years since their meeting that +afternoon.</p> + +<p>"This is what comes of your butting in!" Max cried bitterly. "The boy went +out right after we had the fuss and he ain't come back."</p> + +<p>He paused to choke down a hysterical lump in his throat.</p> + +<p>"And God knows what's become of him!" he sobbed as he continued down the +stairs.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Abe tossed on his pillow all night; and when at breakfast he learned that +Sidney Koblin had not returned, he swallowed with difficulty a cup of coffee +and left a steak, two eggs and a plate of French-fried potatoes entirely +untasted. Thus he was enabled to catch the seven-five instead of the +seven-thirty train. When he found himself at the Thirty-fourth Street Ferry +with almost half an hour to spare he determined to walk to the store.</p> + +<p>He trudged across Thirty-fourth Street with his hands in his pockets and +his head bent toward the pavement, a prey to the most bitter reflections; and +as he turned the corner of Fifth Avenue he failed to notice, walking in the +opposite direction, a tall youth, well dressed save for soiled linen. The +latter's eyes showed traces of unmistakable tears; and as they, too, were +bent upon the pavement there ensued a violent collision, which almost threw +Abe off his feet.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you look where you're going?" he began, and then he recognized +the object of his wrath. "Sidney!" he yelled, clutching young Koblin's +shoulder. "Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Let me alone," Sidney cried as he sought to free himself.</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber</i>, Sidney," Abe pleaded, "you mustn't act so strange with me. +Did you got any breakfast yet?"</p> + +<p>Sidney shook his head sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Me neither," Abe cried. "Come on over to the Waldorf."</p> + +<p>Five minutes later they sat at a table in the palm room, while Abe ordered +two whole portions of grapefruit, a double portion of tenderloin steak, +soufflé potatoes, coffee, waffles and honey.</p> + +<p>"Now, listen to me, Sidney," he began. "You shouldn't got mad at your +father just because he licks you oncet, y'understand. My poor father, +<i>selig</i>, he knocks the face off of me regular twicet a week, and I ain't +none the worser for it."</p> + +<p>Sidney hung his head and made no reply.</p> + +<p>"Furthermore, Sidney," Abe went on, "if you are broke why don't you say +so?"</p> + +<p>He pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket and handed Sidney twenty +dollars.</p> + +<p>"Just a loan for a few days, y'understand," he said as the waiter brought +in a loaded tray, "or a year—what's the difference—ain't it? Now, +let's get busy."</p> + +<p>Together they polished off the entire trayful of food, and when Abe leaned +back the waiter presented a check for ten dollars and eighty cents.</p> + +<p>"Cheap at the price," Abe remarked as he added a generous tip to the +amount of the bill. "And now, Sidney, I suppose you're going back to the +store?"</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't," Sidney said. "I ain't doing no good down there; so what's +the use? The old man won't let me do nothing down there and they all think +I'm a joke."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, Sidney," Abe commented, "that's the way it goes. It's an +old saying, but a true one: 'There's no profit for a feller in his own +country.'"</p> + +<p>"And what's more," Sidney continued, "they ain't given me a chance +neither. What I want to do is to sell goods on the road."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Abe interrupted. "Every young feller wants to go on the +road. All they can see in it is riding in parlour cars and playing auction +pinocle in four-dollar-a-day hotels. Believe me, Sidney, selling goods on the +road, when you been at it so long as I am, is a dawg's life; and as for +auction pinocle that's poison for a salesman."</p> + +<p>"Auction pinocle is nothing to me," Sidney declared. "I swore off."</p> + +<p>"Another thing is lunches, Sidney," Abe went on. "Ain't it a funny thing +what a lot of satisfaction it is when you are eating zwieback and a cup of +coffee for lunch? In the first place, all it is costing you is ten cents and +you feel like a prince. Many a big bill of goods I sold on zwieback and +coffee, Sidney—crackers and milk, too. And now, Sidney, the best thing +you could do is to go back and tell the old man you are through with auction +pinocle and high-price lunches, and you want him he should give you a show +you should sell goods."</p> + +<p>Again Sidney shook his head.</p> + +<p>"It ain't no use, Mr. Potash," Sidney declared. "Pop ain't got no +confidence in me. If I was a greenhorn fresh from the old country he might +let me start in and do something, but—"</p> + +<p>At the word greenhorn Abe Potash leaned forward and struck the table with +his open hand.</p> + +<p>"By jimminy, Sidney!" he cried, "I know the very job for you. Only one +thing I must got to say to you, Sidney: you would got to commence small; so +if what you are saying about auction pinocle and other monkey business goes, +Sidney, all right. Otherwise the thing is off."</p> + +<p>"Sure, it goes, Mr. Potash," Sidney cried.</p> + +<p>Abe looked the Heir Apparent squarely in the eye for two minutes and then +he struck the table again.</p> + +<p>"I believe you, Sidney," he said, "and we will right away take the car +down to West Washington Place."</p> + +<p>Katzberg & Schapp occupied the top floor of an old private house; but +what their place of business lacked in size it made up in activity. Pressing +irons were sizzling and banging and sewing machines were burring loudly as +Abe and Sidney climbed the stairs. When they entered, Shapolnik, the +butterfly of fashion, had once more assumed the chrysalis of his working +clothes.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mister Potash?" he cried, all in one breath. "Excuse me; I +am looking like a slob. We are busy like dawgs here. Katzberg!" he yelled; +"<i>Kimmen Sie hieran</i>."</p> + +<p>In response, a stout figure, clad only in an undershirt, trousers and a +pair of carpet slippers, laid down a pressing iron and shuffled toward the +visitors.</p> + +<p>"My partner, Mister Katzberg," Shapolnik announced. "He also looks a slob, +Mr. Potash; but when we are getting partitions in, and our office fixed up, +no one would see him at all. He is the inside man; and me, I am in the office +and showroom. We're going to have a showroom so soon as we are +settled—a safe too. A telephone we already got it. This is Mr. Potash, +Katzberg, and the other gentleman I don't know at all."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Koblin," Abe explained; "he is coming to work by you as a +salesman."</p> + +<p>"A salesman!" Katzberg exclaimed. "Why, we don't want no—"</p> + +<p>Shapolnik turned on him with a glare.</p> + +<p>"Katzberg," he said, "them samples you are working on we got to show the +Magnet Store this afternoon yet."</p> + +<p>Katzberg shrugged his shoulders and returned to his pressing, while +Shapolnik drew forward two rickety chairs and a packing-box.</p> + +<p>"Have a seat, Mr. Potash; and Mr. Cohen, too," he said.</p> + +<p>"Koblin," Abe corrected.</p> + +<p>"Koblin," Shapolnik repeated. "Excuse me."</p> + +<p>He went to a closet in the corner, and unlocking it he exposed the +fashionable suit that he had worn at Potash & Perlmutter's the previous +afternoon. From the right-hand waistcoat pocket he took a red-banded +invincible and handed it to Abe.</p> + +<p>"Have a smoke, Mr. Potash?" he said. Abe examined the cigar closely and +tucked it carefully away. Then he produced three panatelas, handed one each +to Sidney and Shapolnik and lit the other himself.</p> + +<p>"About this here salesman, Mr. Potash," Shapolnik commented. "I think I +changed my mind."</p> + +<p>Abe blew a great cloud of smoke before replying and then he placed an +emphatic forefinger upon Shapolnik's knee.</p> + +<p>"A new beginner when he throws bluffs, Shapolnik," he said, "must got to +make good. You told me yesterday you wanted a salesman and I am bringing him +to you."</p> + +<p>Shapolnik blushed.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know I told it you, Mr. Potash," he said, "but my partner thinks +otherwise."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded.</p> + +<p>"The only use some people got for a partner, Shapolnik," he commented, "is +they could always blame him for everything they do; but even if you did come +in my place just to show me what an elegant suit of clothes and a fine clean +shave you got it, Shapolnik, I am bringing you a salesman anyhow."</p> + +<p>Katzberg at this juncture again laid down his pressing iron and came +forward.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, what is the use talking?" he cried. "We don't need a +salesman; and that's all there is to it."</p> + +<p>"'S enough, Katzberg," Abe shouted. "You got a whole lot too much to say +for yourself for a new beginner. I ain't saying you need a salesman, +Katzberg; I am only saying that you are going to hire one, Katzberg. And +after you hire one you will quick need him."</p> + +<p>Abe placed his hand on Sidney's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Here is a young feller which he ain't going to gamble <i>oder</i> fool +away his time. He is going to sell goods," he declared. "He works for years +by the biggest raincoat house in the country, and he's got an acquaintance +among the retail clothing trade which it is easy worth to you twenty-five +dollars a week and the regular commissions."</p> + +<p>"But we couldn't afford to pay no salesman twenty-five dollars a week," +Shapolnik exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Try me just one week," Sidney said, "and I'll bring in enough cash to pay +my salary."</p> + +<p>"I forgot to say," Abe interrupted, "that he's also got a lot of +confidence in himself."</p> + +<p>"Maybe I have," Sidney retorted: "but I'm going to make good."</p> + +<p>"Certainly you are," Abe added, rising from his chair; "and now, Katzberg, +the whole thing is settled."</p> + +<p>Katzberg shrugged and extended one palm outward in a gesture of +despair.</p> + +<p>"Seemingly we are not our own bosses here," he said.</p> + +<p>"Seemingly not," Abe rejoined; "but, just the same, if you will take on +this young feller for a salesman I would give you a guaran<i>tirt</i> that I +will make good all you would lose on him for the first three months. Is my +word good enough?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, it is!" Shapolnik cried. "When would you come to work by us, Mr. +Koblin?"</p> + +<p>"This morning," Abe answered for Sidney—"right now; and one thing I +must got to say to you, Sidney, before I go: stand in your own shoes and +don't try to excuse yourself, on account you got a rich father. Also, if the +old man makes you an offer you should come back to him, turn it down. Take it +from me, Sidney, you got a big future here."</p> + +<p>With a parting handshake all around Abe started back to his place of +business. Five minutes later he boarded a Broadway car, and when he alighted +at Nineteenth Street he picked his way through a jam of vehicles, which +completely blocked that narrow thoroughfare. As he was about to set foot on +the sidewalk he caught sight of the gray, drawn countenance of the Raincoat +King, who sat beside his chauffeur on the front seat of a touring car.</p> + +<p>"Say, Max," Abe cried, "I want to speak to you a few words something."</p> + +<p>Max Koblin turned his head and recognized Abe with a start.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye want from me?" he said huskily.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you the boy is all right," Abe replied.</p> + +<p>The colour surged to Max's face and he leaped wildly from the +automobile.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, all right?" he gasped.</p> + +<p>"I mean all right in every way, Max," Abe answered; "and if you would step +into Hammersmith's for a minute I'll tell you all about it."</p> + +<p>"Where is he?" Max cried.</p> + +<p>Abe led the way to a table.</p> + +<p>"He's where he should have been <i>schon</i> long since already," he said +as they sat down. "He's got a job and he's going to make good on it."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense?" Max exploded. "Where is my Sidney? His +mother is pretty near crazy."</p> + +<p>"She shouldn't worry," Abe replied calmly. "The boy is coming home +to-night; and if I would be you, Max, I would see to it he pays anyhow eight +dollars a week board."</p> + +<p>Once more Max grew white—with anger this time.</p> + +<p>"Jokes you are making with me!" he bellowed. "Tell me where my boy is +quick or I'll—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Koosh</i>, Max!" Abe interrupted. "You are making a fool of yourself. +I ain't hiding your boy. Just listen a few minutes and I'll tell you all +about it."</p> + +<p>Forthwith he unfolded to Max a vivid narrative of that morning's +adventures; when he concluded Max had grown somewhat calmer.</p> + +<p>"But, Potash," he protested, "I don't want the boy he should work by +somebody else. Let him come and sell goods by me."</p> + +<p>"He couldn't do it and you couldn't neither, Max," Abe said. "If he goes +back to you, Max, you couldn't change over the way you've been treating that +boy ever since he was born, and he sure would go back to the way he has been +acting. Let the boy stay where he is, Max."</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Potash," Max burst out, "what are you butting into my +affairs for? Ain't I competent to manage my own son?"</p> + +<p>Abe deemed it the part of friendship to remain silent, but Max +misconstrued his reticence.</p> + +<p>"O-o-h!" he exclaimed. "I see the whole business now. You got an interest +in this here pants factory and so you practically kidnap my son. Do you know +what I think? I think you are trying to jolly me into letting him stay there +because you expect maybe I would invest some money in the business."</p> + +<p>For two minutes Abe gulped convulsively and blinked at the Raincoat King +in stunned amazement. Then he rose slowly to his feet.</p> + +<p>"All right, Koblin," he said. "I heard enough from you. I wash myself of +the entire matter. For my part you and your son could go to the devil; and +take it from me, it won't be your fault if he don't."</p> + +<p>When Abe entered the firm's showroom that morning it was nearly half-past +eleven and Morris Perlmutter sat behind the pages of the <i>Daily Cloak and +Suit Record</i> in a sulky perusal of the Arrival of Buyers column. Before he +looked up he permitted Abe to discard his coat for an office jacket.</p> + +<p>"You was taking a sea bath, Abe?" he said at length. "Ain't it? I suppose +we would pretty soon got to close up the store so's you could take all the +sea baths you want. What?"</p> + +<p>Abe refrained from uttering a suitable rejoinder and made straight for the +office.</p> + +<p>"Mawruss!" he yelled; "ain't the safe open yet?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind is the safe open <i>oder</i> not, Abe," Morris replied. "So +long as you are attending to business the way you are, Abe, it ain't +necessary the safe should be opened."</p> + +<p>Abe grunted and squatted down in front of the combination. At length the +big doors swung open and he drew the box of cigars out of the middle +compartment.</p> + +<p>Morris looked on with ill-concealed curiosity while Abe took a banded +Invincible from his waistcoat pocket and restored it to the box whence it +originally came.</p> + +<p>"What's all that for?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"That's a souvenir from a pleasant morning," Abe replied as he thrust the +box of cigars back into the safe and slammed the doors. He was about to +return to the showroom, when the telephone bell rang and Morris took the +receiver from the hook.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" he said. "Yes, this is Potash & Perlmutter. He's right here. +Abe, Max Koblin wants to talk to you."</p> + +<p>"He does, hey?" Abe replied. "Well, I don't want to talk to him."</p> + +<p>"You should tell him that yourself," Morris said as he walked away from +the telephone. "I ain't got nothing to do with your quarrels."</p> + +<p>Abe watched Morris disappear into the showroom and then he ran to the +telephone and slammed the receiver on to the hook with force sufficient +almost to wreck the instrument. At intervals of a few seconds the telephone +rang for more than half an hour. Fifteen minutes after it had ceased the +elevator door opened and Max Koblin entered.</p> + +<p>"Cut-throat!" Koblin exclaimed. "I rung up my son and he wouldn't come +back. You are turning him against me—you and them two other crooks. You +think you would get my money out of me. Very well. I'll show you. I ain't +through with you yet. I'll put you fellers where you belong."</p> + +<p>"Don't make me no threats, Koblin," Abe said calmly, "because, in the +first place, you couldn't scare me any, and, in the second place, if you +think I am trying to keep your boy away from you, you are +mistaken—that's all. I already wasted a whole morning on him and, just +to show you I ain't such a crook as you think I am, I would go right down +there now; and if I got to do it I would drag that young loafer out of there +by the hair of his head."</p> + +<p>Twenty minutes later Abe burst into Katzberg & Schapp's business +premises and asked in loud tones for Sidney Koblin. Before the astonished +Shapolnik could reply, Max Koblin, who had followed Abe on the next car, +arrived all breathless and panted a similar demand.</p> + +<p>"He ain't in now," Shapolnik replied; "he is just going to his lunch."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean by talking to me on the 'phone the way you did this +morning?" Max shouted. "You ain't got no business to keep my boy from me."</p> + +<p>"I ain't keeping your boy from you," Shapolnik answered; "and I would +speak to you whichever what way I would want to. Who are you anyway?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Koosh!</i> Shapolnik," Abe interrupted. "You are talking too fresh. +Mr. Koblin is right. You should fire that young feller right away, because I +am telling you right here and now I wouldn't guarantee nothing for him after +this."</p> + +<p>"What do I care what you would guarantee or what you wouldn't guarantee?" +Shapolnik replied. "The young feller already sold for us this morning for +five hundred dollars a bill of goods, and he could stay with us <i>oder</i> +not, just as he wants. Furthermore, Mr. Potash, I don't give a snap of my +fingers for your <i>guarantirt</i>; this is my shop and if you don't want to +stay here you don't got to."</p> + +<p>He seized a pressing-iron in token that the interview was ended and Abe +and Max started for the stairs without another word. As they reached the +sidewalk Abe paused. Across the street a dairy lunchroom displayed its +white-enamel sign and through the plate-glass window he thought he discerned +a familiar figure. He ran to the opposite sidewalk and entered the +restaurant, closely followed by Max, just as Sidney Koblin was eating the +last crumbs of a portion of zwieback and coffee.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Sidney!" Abe said. "What's the matter with you? Why don't you go +back to your father?"</p> + +<p>Sidney rose to his feet and looked first at Abe and then at the Raincoat +King.</p> + +<p>"What for?" he asked nonchalantly.</p> + +<p>"Because he asks you to," Abe replied, "and because I didn't got no right +to butt in the way I did, Sidney. After all, your father is your father."</p> + +<p>"What's biting you now?" Sidney exclaimed. "Ain't you told me this morning +I should do what I did?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded sadly.</p> + +<p>"And didn't you say me and the old man couldn't give each other a square +deal even if we wanted to?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded again.</p> + +<p>"Then I'm going to stick to my job," Sidney declared as he walked toward +the cashier's desk.</p> + +<p>Abe and Max trailed after him and when they reached the sidewalk Max +seized his son by the arm.</p> + +<p>"Sidney, <i>leben</i>," he said; "listen to me. Come and eat anyhow a +decent lunch and we'll talk this thing over."</p> + +<p>"What for?" Sidney said. "I've had as much as I want to eat, and besides +I've got to see a fellow up at the Prince Clarence Hotel. I'll be at +Riesenberger's to dinner to-night about the usual time."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you will, will you?" Max cried. "Well, all I got to say is you've got +to pay for it yourself."</p> + +<p>Sidney broke into a laugh.</p> + +<p>"That worries me a whole lot!" he said. "I've made enough out of my +commissions to-day already to pay a whole week's board down there."</p> + +<p>He turned and started across the street, but as he reached the curb he +paused.</p> + +<p>"Tell mommer she shouldn't worry herself," he said. "I'm all right."</p> + +<p>Max looked at Abe with a sickly grin.</p> + +<p>"I think he is too, Abe," he murmured. "Would you come over to Broadway +and take maybe a little lunch with me?"</p> + +<p>"Zwieback and coffee is good enough for me," Abe replied.</p> + +<p>Max linked his arm in Abe's.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't be mad at me, Abe," he said sadly. "I am all turned upside +down about that boy; and if zwieback and coffee is good enough for you and +him, Abe, I guess it must be too good for me. But, just the same, I am going +to eat with you, Abe, and we'll let bygones be bygones."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>It was some weeks before Abe could bring himself to recount to Morris the +full details of Sidney Koblin's regeneration, but Morris had learned the +facts long before there appeared in the advertising section of the +<i>Clothing and Haberdashery Magazine</i> the following full-page +advertisement:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="ad"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td>KATZBERG, SCHAPP & KOBLIN<br /> + Announce the<br /> + <b>Opening of Their New Office and Showroom</b><br /> + In the Chicksaw Building,<br /> + West 4th Street, New York<br /> + <b>Makers of Trousers for Finicky Folks</b><br /> + + <hr /> + A HEADLINER<br /> + <b>The Rainshed Pants</b><br /> + Manufactured from the Famous Rainproof Fabric<br /> + "KOBLINETTE"<br /> + <b>Keeps the Legs Warm and Dry</b><br /> + Spring Line Now Ready</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>It caught Morris's eye one morning in January and he read it +over—not without envy.</p> + +<p>"Some people's got all the luck, Abe," he said bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I bet yer!" Abe replied, without looking up from his order book, which +was overflowing with requisitions for spring garments. "I bet yer, Mawruss! +You take my Rosie for instance: at her age you got no idee what a sport she +is. Yesterday afternoon she went to a bridge-whist party by Mrs. Koblin's and +she won a sterling solid-silver fern dish. And mind you, Mawruss, she only +just found out how to play the game."</p> + +<p>"Who learned her?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Klinger and Mrs. Elenbogen," Abe replied. "That's two fine women, +Mawruss—particularly Mrs. Elenbogen."</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap05">CHAPTER FIVE</h2> + +<h3>A RETURN TO ARCADY</h3> + +<p>"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said with bitter emphasis; "Max Kirschner +steals away trade from under our noses while you fool away your time selling +goods to a feller like Sam Green."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, fool away my time?" Abe cried indignantly. "Sam Green is +an old customer from ours; and if Henry Feigenbaum gives for a couple of +hundred dollars an order to Max Kirschner he only does it because he's got +pity on the old man. And, anyhow, Mawruss, even if Sam Green is a little +slow, y'understand, sooner or later we get our money—ain't it?</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Abe; and if them sooner-or-later fellers would pay you +oncet in a while sooner, Abe, it would be all right, y'understand. But they +don't, Abe; they always pay you later."</p> + +<p>"Well, Sam has got some pretty stiff competition up there, Mawruss," Abe +said. "In the first place, Cyprus is too near Sarahcuse, y'understand; and if +one of them yokels wants to buy for thirty dollars a garment for his wife, if +he is up-to-date, he goes to Sarahcuse; and if he is a back number he goes to +Sam's competitors!—What's the name now?—Van Buskirk & +Patterson. Yes, Mawruss, back numbers always buys from back numbers."</p> + +<p>"Why don't we sell that Van Buster concern our line, Abe?"</p> + +<p>"A fine chance I got it with them people, Mawruss!" Abe exclaimed. "They +buy their whole stock from a jobber in Buffalo and they got an idee that +Russian blouses is the latest up-to-the-minute effect in garments. And you +couldn't blame 'em, Mawruss; most of the women up in Cyprus thinks that way +too."</p> + +<p>"That ain't here nor there, Abe," Morris interrupted. "Sam Green is one of +them fellers which he is slow pay if he would be worth a million even. He's +got the habit Abe. Look what he writes us now."</p> + +<p>He handed Abe a letter which read as follows:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="letter"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td><b>Samuel Green<br /> + drygoods and notions<br /> + the k. & m. sylphshape corset</b></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: right; "><b>Cyprus, New York</b>, April 1, + 1910</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: left; "><p><b>Gents</b>: Your favour of the + thirtieth inst. rec'd and contents noted; and in reply would say you + should be so kind and wait a couple days, and I will send you a check + sure—on an account I got sickness in the family and oblige</p> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: right; ">Yours truly, <b>S. Green</b>.</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," Abe commented, mindful of a recent obstinate lumbago, +"might the feller did got sickness in his family maybe."</p> + +<p>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Abe!" Morris cried impatiently. "Every season that +feller's got another excuse. Last fall his wife goes to work and has an +operation. A year ago he is got his uncle in the hospital. The winter before +that he is got funeral expenses on account his mother died on him; and so it +goes, Abe. That feller would a damsite sooner kill off his whole family, +y'understand, than pay a bill to the day it is due."</p> + +<p>"All right," Abe said; "then we wouldn't sell him no more—that's +all."</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged.</p> + +<p>"That's all!" he repeated. "A concern don't pay strictly to the day; so we +couldn't sell 'em no more, and that's all, <i>sagt er</i>! For a feller which +he's losing customers right and left to a back number like Max Kirschner, +Abe, you are talking pretty independent."</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe exploded; "I just told it you Max Kirschner +only gets that order from Henry Feigenbaum because he takes pity on him."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, pity?" Morris retorted. "I seen Max Kirschner in the +subway this morning and he looks like he needs pity, Abe. He's got diamonds +stuck on him like a pawnbroker's window."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe continued. "Some drummers is got diamonds +and some is got bank accounts, but there's mighty few got both, Mawruss; and +Max Kirschner ain't one of 'em. One thing you got to remember, +Mawruss—Max is an old man."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense! An old man!" Morris exclaimed. "Max is +just turned sixty."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Abe commented, "and for a drummer, that's awful old, +Mawruss. A feller which he spends six months out of the year in trains and +hotels, Mawruss, is got to be mighty particular about what he eats. I stopped +in one hotel together with Max <i>schon</i> many times already, and at dinner +I am always eating steaks and oncet in a while eggs maybe; but Max goes for +them French names every time. Many a night I watched Max in a hotel lobby and +you could see by his face that his stomach is boiling."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Abe; I could stand a little indigestion, too, Abe, if I would +be getting the orders Max is getting it."</p> + +<p>"That's a thing of the past, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Business falls off +something terrible with him, Mawruss; and the first thing you know, Mawruss, +Klinger & Klein gets rid of him and them diamonds would got to come in +handy before he finds another job."</p> + +<p>"<i>Yow!</i> Klinger & Klein would get rid of him!" Morris cried +skeptically. "Max Kirschner ain't no ordinary drummer, Abe. There's a feller +which he was born and raised on this side. He's a gentleman, Abe, and them +boys respects him. Besides, Abe, he practically started them two greenhorns +in business. Twenty years ago, when them boys was new beginners, Kirschner +brings 'em a good trade, y'understand; and not only that, Abe, if it wouldn't +be for him them fellers wouldn't never lasted six months. The first season +they turned out a lot of stickers, and when they got short Max goes himself +to old man Baum and gets him to lend them boys a thousand dollars. People +don't forget such things in a hurry, Abe."</p> + +<p>"Don't they, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Well, maybe they do and maybe they +don't, Mawruss; but twenty years is a long time to remember things, Mawruss, +and when a feller draws big wages like Max Kirschner he's got to turn in the +orders, Mawruss—otherwise past favours is nix."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"That's no lie neither, Abe," he said, rising to his feet; "and we should +right away send Sam Green a letter either he should mail us a check or we +would put his account into a collection agency. The feller goes too far, +Abe."</p> + +<p>It was precisely a week later that Max Kirschner's relations with the firm +of Klinger & Klein finally reached their climax.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said as he entered the showroom after a brief visit to +the barber-shop that morning—"what did I told you?"</p> + +<p>"You didn't told me nothing, Abe," Morris retorted; "and, besides, it was +my idee that we wrote him a rotten letter, otherwise we would wait for +another week or ten days for our check. As it is, Abe, he deducts four +dollars on us for a damage on account of bum packing. He is not only a crook, +Abe, but a liar also."</p> + +<p>"Four dollars wouldn't break us, Mawruss," Abe rejoined, "and we could +easy make it up on the next bill he buys from us. But I wasn't talking about +Sam Green at all. I mean Max Kirschner."</p> + +<p>"I much bother my head about Kirschner!" Morris said. "Let Klinger & +Klein worry about him."</p> + +<p>Abe grunted as he removed his hat and coat.</p> + +<p>"You'd wait an awful long time for Klinger & Klein to worry about him, +Mawruss," he said. "Because them fellers got such hearts which <i>Gott soll +hüten</i> their wives would die together with their children in one day +yet—I am only saying, y'understand—them two suckers wouldn't +worry neither. Saturday night they fired Max Kirschner like a dawg, Mawruss. +And why? Because a week ago Max eats some <i>stuss</i> in Bridgetown, +y'understand, which he is sick in bed for three days. And while he is laid up +yet Sammet Brothers cops out a thousand-dollar order on him."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ai gewoldt!</i>" Morris cried, with ready sympathy. "You don't tell +me?"</p> + +<p>"And now that poor feller walks the streets looking for a job; and a fine +show he's got it, an old man like him."</p> + +<p>"Don't say that again, Abe," Morris said. "You Jonah the feller that way. +Somebody hears you saying Max is an old man and the first thing you know, +Abe, they believe he is old. I told you before Max is only sixty; and when my +<i>grossvater selig</i> was sixty he gets married for the third time yet."</p> + +<p>"Sure I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Some fellers gets married for a +wife and some for a nurse, Mawruss. Any cripple could get married, +y'understand; but a feller must got to have his health to sell goods."</p> + +<p>He seized the current issue of the <i>Daily Cloak and Suit Record</i>, and +as he sat down to examine it he heaved a sigh which merged into an agonized +groan.</p> + +<p>"Oo-ee!" he exclaimed; "that lumbago still gets me in the back."</p> + +<p>"You see, Abe," Morris commented maliciously, "you ain't so young +yourself. From forty-eight to sixty ain't a thousand years neither, Abe."</p> + +<p>Abe scowled and then his face lightened up in the conception of a happy +idea.</p> + +<p>"I give you right about that, Mawruss," he said: "but with me it's +different, Mawruss. If I get so I couldn't go out on the road, y'understand, +we could always hire some one to go for us."</p> + +<p>"Could we?" Morris grumbled.</p> + +<p>"Sure," Abe went on; "and even to-day yet, while I am making Denver and +the coast towns, it wouldn't harm us we should get a feller which is +acquainted with the trade up the state and in Pennsylvania and Ohio."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it?" Morris croaked.</p> + +<p>"We are losing every day business, Mawruss, because I got such a big +territory to cover," Abe said. "A feller in a small town wants his fall goods +early just so much as one of them big concerns in Denver <i>oder</i> Seattle; +and if I don't show up in time they place their orders with some one else. +Whereas, Mawruss, if we would wait a couple of weeks, we would say for +instance, until he finds out that every one ain't paying fancy salaries like +Klinger & Klein, y'understand, for a couple thousand dollars a year, +Mawruss, we could get Max Kirschner and—"</p> + +<p>"Max Kirschner?" Morris yelled. "What d'ye mean, Max Kirschner?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, "we could get Max Kirschner; and, even if he +would be a little <i>kranklich</i> oncet in a while, sometimes maybe he would +be worth to us two thousand a year anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Two thousand a year!" Morris bellowed. "What the devil you are talking +nonsense, Abe? We should give two thousand a year to a cripple like +Kirschner! What do you think you are running here anyhow—a +cloak-and-suit business or a home for the aged? If you want to give to +charity do it with your money, not mine."</p> + +<p>For the remainder of the forenoon Morris Perlmutter moved about the +showroom with his face distorted in so gloomy a scowl that to Abe it seemed +as though a fog enveloped his partner, through which there darted, like +flashes of heat lightning, exclamations of "<i>Schnorrer!</i> Cripple! With +my money yet!" and "Crust that feller got it!" At length he put on his hat +and went out to lunch, while Abe gazed after him in mute disgust.</p> + +<p>"When some people talks charity," he grumbled, "you got to reckon a +hundred per cent. discount for cash."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"You see, Abe," Morris cried as he came in from lunch, "how easy it is to +misjudge people. I just seen Sol Klinger over to Hammersmith's and he tells +me that in six weeks yet Max Kirschner falls down on three orders. Four +thousand dollars that sucker, Leon Sammet, cops out on 'em; and Sol couldn't +help himself, Abe. Either they got to fire Max <i>oder</i> they got to go out +of business."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded slowly. His face possessed an unusual pallor and he clenched an +unlighted cigar between his teeth.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" Morris asked. "Don't you feel good?"</p> + +<p>"I am feeling fine, Mawruss," he replied huskily. "I could blow myself to +a bottle tchampanyer wine yet, I feel so good. I am enjoying myself, Mawruss, +on account Moe Griesman from Sarahcuse was just in here, which he tells me +his nephew, Mozart Rabiner, goes to work for Klinger & Klein as a drummer +and we should be so good and cancel the order which he gives us yesterday, as +blood is redder as water; and what the devil could we do about it anyway?"</p> + +<p>Morris's jaw dropped and he sat down heavily in the nearest chair.</p> + +<p>"One thing I'm glad, Mawruss," Abe said as he put on his hat: "I'm glad, +if we got to lose Moe Griesman's trade, Mawruss, that he is going to give it +to a feller like Sol Klinger, which he is such a good friend to you, Mawruss, +and got such a big heart."</p> + +<p>He jammed his hat on his ears and started out.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going, Abe?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm going over to Hammersmith's, Mawruss," he replied, "to get a bite to +eat; and I hope to see Sol Klinger there, Mawruss, as I would like to +congratulate him, Mawruss, with a pressing-iron."</p> + +<p>Morris's face settled once more into a deep frown as the elevator door +closed behind his partner.</p> + +<p>"Always with his mouth he is making somebody a blue eye," he muttered as +he turned to sorting over the sample line against Abe's impending trip to the +small towns up the state. He had picked out four cheap, showy garments when +the elevator door clanged again and a visitor entered, bearing a brown-paper +parcel.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," he said, "what's the good word?"</p> + +<p>The newcomer's cheery greeting was strangely at variance with his manner, +which was as diffident as that of a village dog on the Fourth of July. As he +advanced toward the showroom he exhaled the odour of mothballs, +characteristic of an old stock of cloaks and suits, so that before he looked +up Morris was able to identify his visitor.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Sam!" he said. "When did you get in?"</p> + +<p>"Twelve o'clock," Sam replied. "I would of got in sooner, but a crook of a +scalper in Sarahcuse sells me a ticket which it is punched out as far as +Canandaigua; and if it wouldn't be I paid four dollars extra I come pretty +near getting kicked off the train."</p> + +<p>"You ain't nothing out, Sam," Morris said, "because that's just the amount +you are doing me for on our last bill."</p> + +<p>"Doing you for!" Sam cried. "What d'ye mean, doing you for? One garment +was damaged in the packing which I deducted the four dollars; and if you +wouldn't believe me here it is now."</p> + +<p>He unwrapped the brown-paper parcel and disclosed a crumpled article of +women's apparel, which Morris shook out and examined critically.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, Sam," he commented, "the garment has been worn."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense—worn?" Sam protested. "Once only my +Leah puts it on to see the damage. There it is."</p> + +<p>Sam pointed with his forefinger and Morris looked at the spot +indicated.</p> + +<p>"Well, how could that be damaged in packing, Sam?" Morris asked +indignantly. "That's a stain from <i>lockshen</i> soup."</p> + +<p>"My wife must got to eat like any other woman!" Sam exclaimed indignantly; +"and besides, Mawruss, the stain ain't all soup, y'understand—some of +it gets wet in the packing-case."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wouldn't bother my head about it no more," Morris retorted. "I +deposited your check just now and we are lucky, if you would deduct four +dollars, that we got our money at all."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you are and maybe you ain't, Mawruss," Sam commented. "That's what +I come down to see you about."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?" Morris cried.</p> + +<p>"I mean," Sam said in husky tones, "I don't know whether the check is good +at all. When I mailed it you I got a little balance at my bank, but yesterday +afternoon the president sends for me and shuts down on my accommodation; and +maybe—I don't know whether he did <i>oder</i> not, +y'understand—he takes my balance on account."</p> + +<p>Morris laid down the garment and fixed his visitor with an angry glare.</p> + +<p>"So!" he exploded; "you are going to fail on us?"</p> + +<p>Sam disclaimed it indignantly.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye think I am?" he demanded—"a crook? And besides, I ain't +got nothing to fail with."</p> + +<p>Morris drew forward a chair. Sam sat down; and leaning back he nursed his +cheek with his hand in an attitude of utter dejection.</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you going to do?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"That's what I come down here to find out," Sam replied.</p> + +<p>Then ensued a silence of several minutes during which Morris gazed +attentively at his customer.</p> + +<p>"The fact is, Sam," he said at last, "you ain't got no head."</p> + +<p>Sam nodded sadly.</p> + +<p>"You're a fool, Sam," Morris went on in kindly accents; "and no matter how +hard a fool would work he is a poor man all his life."</p> + +<p>Sam deemed it hardly worth while to acquiesce in this statement, but he +indorsed it unconsciously with a large tear, which stole put of the corner of +his eye and worked a clean groove down one travel-stained cheek.</p> + +<p>"Have a smoke, Sam," Morris added hastily as he thrust a cigar toward his +late customer. "Did you got your lunch yet? No? Come on out with me now and +we would have a little bite to eat."</p> + +<p>He jumped to his feet and seized his hat.</p> + +<p>"Nathan," he bawled to the shipping clerk, "tell Mr. Potash I am going out +with a customer and I'll be back when I am here."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Max Kirschner had reached the age of sixty without making a single enemy +save his stomach, which at length ungratefully rejected all the rich favours +that Max had bestowed on it so long and so generously. Indeed, he was reduced +to a diet of crackers and milk when Abe encountered him in Hammersmith's +restaurant that September morning.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Max!" Abe cried. "When did you get back? I thought you was in one +of them—now—sanatoriums."</p> + +<p>"A sanatorium is no place for a drummer to find a job, Abe," Max +replied.</p> + +<p>"A good salesman like you could find a job anywhere without much trouble, +Max," Abe said cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"That's what everybody says, Abe; meantime I'm loafing."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be for long, Max," Abe rejoined as he cast a hungry eye over +Hammersmith's bill of fare. "How's that fillet de who's this, with +asparagrass tips and mushrooms?"</p> + +<p>For a brief moment Max's eye gleamed and then grew dull again.</p> + +<p>"It's fine to put the stomach out of business, Abe," Max said. "Take the +tip from one who has lost sixty pounds, ten customers, and a good job all in +six weeks—and order poached eggs on toast."</p> + +<p>Abe compromised on boiled beef with horseradish sauce; and when he was +well into the noisy consumption of that simple dish he broached the subject +of Max's future plans.</p> + +<p>"When d'ye think you'll go to work again, Max?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Max shrugged expressively.</p> + +<p>"I'm not a prophet, Abe; I'm a salesman," he said.</p> + +<p>"Well, there ain't no particular hurry, Max. It ain't the same like you +would got a family to look out for."</p> + +<p>"I've been a drummer all my life, Abe," Max declared, "and a drummer has +no right to be married. When I was a kid I had a chance to go into the store +of a couple of yokels upstate in the town where I was born and raised; and I +guess if I'd done so I'd been married and had a whole family of children by +now."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you're just as well off, Max," Abe said consolingly. "Children is a +gamble anyhow, Max. The boys is assets and the girls is liabilities; and if +you got a large family of girls you're practically bankrupt, no matter how +good business would be."</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe it, Abe," Max said. "Those two yokels both had big +families and they didn't do such a big business either. But they managed to +make a good living, and last week I hear they sold out to some city dry goods +man for forty thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>Abe paused with a loaded knife in midair.</p> + +<p>"Forty thousand dollars between two ain't much, Max," he said.</p> + +<p>"It's more than I've got, anyhow," Max rejoined as he rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"You got lots of time to make money, Max," Abe concluded. "Come round and +see us when you get time, won't you?"</p> + +<p>Max nodded; and as he walked down the street to make a further canvass of +the garment trade he passed the broad windows of the dairy lunchroom, where +Morris was regaling Sam Green with a popular-price meal.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sam," Morris said as he caught sight of Max Kirschner's dejected +figure, "you're lucky when you consider some people. You are still a young +man and it ain't too late for you to start in as a new beginner somewhere. A +young man could always make a living anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Sure," Sam agreed, "but why should I start in as a new beginner, Mawruss? +I already got an established business, y'understand; and if I could get a +feller with a headpiece, Mawruss—never mind he ain't got so much +money—with a couple thousand dollars, we could run that feller from +Sarahcuse out of town."</p> + +<p>"What feller from Sarahcuse?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Ain't I told you?" Sam continued. "I thought I says that the reason the +bank shuts down on me is a feller from Sarahcuse buys out them two suckers, +Van Buskirk and Patterson, and he's going to operate the store as a branch +house."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded his head slowly.</p> + +<p>"So, Sam," he said, "you are up against one of them sharks from Sarahcuse? +I'm afraid you got a dead proposition in that store of yours."</p> + +<p>Two cups of coffee had revived Sam Green's ambition, however, and he +laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>"You don't understand them people up in Cyprus, Mawruss," he said. +"Strangers they don't like at all; and even me, though I lived in that town +ten years, most of 'em wouldn't buy goods off of me because Van Buskirk and +Patterson is born and raised in that town and they dealt with 'em ever since +they was boys together. So you see I got ten years' start of that feller from +Sarahcuse, Mawruss. If I could get some feller which he knows the garment +business to go as partners together with me, and to put a little money into +the store, we could yet do a good business there."</p> + +<p>"How much money would you got to have?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Two thousand dollars, anyhow," Sam replied.</p> + +<p>Morris tapped the table with his right index finger and frowned +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"The necktie pin alone must be worth a thousand dollars," he murmured +almost to himself, "and two rings he got it which I know about must stand him +in anyhow a thousand dollars more."</p> + +<p>He thrust back his chair and rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"All right, Sam," he said aloud. "You got a little egg on your chin. Wipe +it off and we'll go back to the store. I got an idee."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"On second thought, Sam," Morris said as they approached Potash & +Perlmutter's place of business, "I wouldn't go up with me if I was you on +account I don't want to say nothing to my partner just yet a while. Where are +you staying, Sam?"</p> + +<p>"I got a room at a hotel over on Third Avenue," Sam replied.</p> + +<p>"Third Avenue!" Morris exclaimed. "That's a <i>Nachbarschaft</i> for a +business man!"</p> + +<p>He handed Sam a five-dollar bill.</p> + +<p>"Go and get yourself a room over at the Prince Clarence," Morris said. +"I'll be over there presently."</p> + +<p>Nathan, the shipping clerk, was alone in the showroom when Morris +entered.</p> + +<p>"Ain't my partner come back yet, Nathan?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>Nathan shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Then tell him when he does come back that I've went up to the Prince +Clarence to see a customer," Morris continued; "and if he asks what name tell +him it's a new concern just starting."</p> + +<p>Five minutes later he visited the business premises of Kleiman & +Elenbogen, impelled thereto by a process of reasoning which involved the +following points: Klinger & Klein manufactured a medium-price line and so +did Kleiman & Elenbogen. Klinger & Klein's leader was The Girl in the +Airship Gown, a title suggested by the syndicate's popular musical comedy of +that name, while Kleiman & Elenbogen advertised their "strongest" garment +as The Girl in the Motor-boat, out of compliment, of course, to the equally +popular musical comedy recently produced by an antisyndicate manager. Both +concerns catered to the same class of trade, and when either of the partners +of Klinger & Klein referred in conversation to a member of the firm of +Kleiman & Elenbogen, or vice versa, "sucker" was the mildest epithet +employed.</p> + +<p>Hence Morris Perlmutter argued that Max Kirchner would resort to Kleiman +& Elenbogen's loft for comfort and advice; and as he stepped out of the +elevator his surmise was confirmed by a nimbus emanating from the necktie of +a person seated at the far end of the showroom.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Max!" Morris cried; "who'd thought of seeing you here!"</p> + +<p>Max rose to his feet and extended his right hand in greeting, whereat +Morris noted that the four-carat diamond still sparkled on Max's finger.</p> + +<p>"I just left your partner over at Hammersmith's, Morris," Max said.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris rejoined; "that feller makes a god out of his +stomach, Max; but that ain't here nor there. Did you got something to do yet, +Max?"</p> + +<p>"I've got a whole lot to do trying to find a job, Morris, if that's what +you mean," Max replied.</p> + +<p>Morris glanced around the showroom, but both Kleiman and Elenbogen were +absent.</p> + +<p>"Where are they?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Out to lunch, I guess," Max replied.</p> + +<p>"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "Them suckers would like to know everybody's +business. You got a few minutes' time, Max?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing but time," Max replied sadly.</p> + +<p>"Then come uptown a few blocks with me," Morris said. "I got a proposition +to make you."</p> + +<p>Max shrugged his shoulders and put on his hat.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Max," Morris continued as they walked toward the Prince Clarence +Hotel, "I got a proposition to make to you, but first I would like to ask you +something a question."</p> + +<p>"Fire away," Max said.</p> + +<p>"What did you done with that other diamond ring which you used to +wear—the big one?"</p> + +<p>"I have it home," Max replied. "What d'ye want to know for?"</p> + +<p>"I want to lend you some money on it," Morris went on calmly; "also that +pin which you got it and that there ring. I want to lend you three thousand +dollars on 'em."</p> + +<p>"Three thousand dollars!" Max exclaimed. "Why, the whole outfit isn't +worth two!"</p> + +<p>"What do I care?" Morris rejoined. "It's only a loan and I bet yer you +would quick pay me back."</p> + +<p>Max paused on the sidewalk and stared. "What's the matter, Morris?" he +cried. "Are you sick?"</p> + +<p>"Must a feller got to be sick to want to help you out, Max?" Morris said. +"And anyhow, Max, it's as much a favour to us as it is to you."</p> + +<p>By this time they had reached the Prince Clarence Hotel and Morris led the +way to the café.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Max, the whole thing is this," he said after they were +seated: "I'm going to lend you three thousand dollars to go into a business +with a feller which he got a store in a small town upstate, and you're going +to do it."</p> + +<p>Max shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No; I ain't," he answered. "I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks."</p> + +<p>"If you sell goods wholesale you could sell 'em retail," Morris declared. +"So, if you would listen to me I'll tell you what the proposition is."</p> + +<p>Forthwith Morris unfolded to Max the history of Sam Green's mercantile +establishment.</p> + +<p>"And now, after all them years, Max," he concluded, "that feller gets +practically run out of town because his bank shuts down on him."</p> + +<p>"What's the name of the place?" Max asked.</p> + +<p>"The name of the place?" Morris repeated.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Max said, "the name of the town where the fellow comes from."</p> + +<p>Morris scratched his head for a minute.</p> + +<p>"I should remember the name of every little one-horse town where we got +customers!" he said. "The name of the place don't matter, Max; it's got two +thousand people living in it and practically only one store, because the way +Sam Green is running his business now you couldn't call it a store at +all."</p> + +<p>Max rose from the table.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you the truth, Morris," he said; "what's the use wasting our +time? The proposition ain't attractive. I was born and raised in a one-horse +town upstate; and, even though I ain't been back for twenty years, I know +what it's like. You'll have to excuse me."</p> + +<p>"But, Max—" Morris commenced.</p> + +<p>"I needn't tell you that I'm more than grateful to you, Morris," Max +concluded; "and if ever I want to dispose of my diamonds you shall have first +chance."</p> + +<p>He shook Morris's limp and unresisting hand and returned at once to the +showroom of Kleiman & Elenbogen.</p> + +<p>"Any one come for me, Miss Cashman?" he asked the bookkeeper, who was +busily engaged in the preparation of the firm's monthly statement.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Kirschner," Louis Kleiman called from his office; "leave +the girl alone, can't you? She's got enough to do tending to our +business."</p> + +<p>"I'm only asking her if she has any word for me," Max replied.</p> + +<p>"I don't care what you are asking her," Kleiman said as he came out of his +office to confront Max. "You are acting altogether too fresh around here, +Kirschner. Do you pay rent here <i>oder</i> what?"</p> + +<p>Max made no reply.</p> + +<p>"And furthermore," Kleiman continued, "we got business to attend to here, +Kirschner, and we couldn't afford to have no dead ones hanging around."</p> + +<p>For a brief interval he scowled at Max, who turned on his heel and made +for the elevator without another word. His applications for employment during +the past few days had met with polite refusals coupled with cheerful +prophecies of his early employment. To be sure, Max had taken little stock in +this consoling optimism, but it had all helped to keep alive his spirits, +which had sunk again to their lowest ebb at Kleiman's epithet, "dead one."</p> + +<p>After all, he was a dead one, he reflected as he stumbled along the +sidewalk toward his boarding house on Irving Place. A man of sixty safely +intrenched in his own business, with the confidence his wealth inspires, is +in the very prime of life. But Max, with his health impaired and his +employment taken away from him, felt and looked a decrepit old man as he +tottered upstairs to his third-floor room and flung himself on the bed, where +he lay for more than an hour staring at the ceiling.</p> + +<p>During that interval he reviewed his career from the time he helped his +father, a Prussian refugee of 1848, in the little country store upstate. Then +came his father's death, followed by a clerkship in the large dry-goods +business of his father's competitors. After this he had moved to New York; +and from that time on he had followed the calling of a travelling salesman +with varying success, until at sixty he found himself out of health and +employment, with property of less than two thousand dollars as a reserve +fund.</p> + +<p>What a fool he had been not to accept Perlmutter's offer! Nevertheless it +seemed futile for a man of sixty to make a new start in a strange town, +especially since, in rural communities, business goes as much by favour and +friendship as by commercial enterprise. Now, had he been offered a +partnership in a store in his native town, where it would be an easy matter +to renew old acquaintance, he might have viewed the proposition +differently.</p> + +<p>He rose from the bed and sat down in an armchair, while his mind reverted +to more pleasant topics. He pictured to himself his father's store underneath +what the townspeople called the opera house. He saw again that dingy little +hall, with its small proscenium opening guarded by a frayed old curtain, and +he smiled as he remembered the landscape it bore. With the sophistication of +his race he had enjoyed many a good laugh at the performance that had evoked +the tears of his fellow townsmen. What Rubes they were, to be sure! And yet, +what good fellows the boys had been! He recalled various ones by name and +found himself wondering how they looked and whether they were married or +single. Another half hour of like musing and suddenly he slapped his +thigh.</p> + +<p>"By jinks!" he said, "I'll do it. I need a vacation and I'm going to have +it too."</p> + +<p>When Morris returned to his place of business that afternoon he had packed +Sam Green off to his store upstate with instructions to return in a week, +during which Morris hoped to take the matter up with Abe. As for his +hour-long absence from his place of business, Morris had provided himself +with a plausible explanation in rebuttal to the quiet, ironical greeting that +he knew would await him. His program was a little upset, however, by Abe's +inquiry, which was not in the least ironical.</p> + +<p>"Loafer, where have you been?" Abe demanded.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, loafer?" Morris cried.</p> + +<p>"I mean, while you are fooling away your time, Moe Griesman comes in here +to see us and naturally he don't find none of us here; so he goes away again. +From us he goes straight over to Sammet Brothers—and that's the way it +goes."</p> + +<p>"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I thought you told me he cancels his order +this morning and buys only from Klinger & Klein."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but I suppose he finds out he couldn't find all +the goods he wants with one concern and now he goes over to Sammet +Brothers."</p> + +<p>"How do you know he went over to Sammet Brothers?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"A question! How do I know it?" Abe exclaimed. "Ain't he left a memorandum +I should ring him up there?"</p> + +<p>"Well, why don't you ring him up and find out what he wants?" Morris +retorted.</p> + +<p>"What do I care what he wants, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Whatever he wants +he don't want it now, because them two cut-throats would suck him dry of +orders. Once a feller gets into the hands of Sammet Brothers they wouldn't +let him go till he bought himself blue in the face."</p> + +<p>"Ring him up, anyhow," Morris insisted; and the next moment Abe was +engaged in a heated altercation with "Central." Finally he heard Leon Sammet +at the other end of the wire.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" he yelled. "I want to speak with Mr. Griesman. Never mind what I +want to speak with him about. That's my business. I ain't the fresh +one—you are the fresh one. You are asking me something which you ain't +got no right to ask me at all. You know well enough who it is talking."</p> + +<p>After five minutes' further conversation, Leon relinquished his end of the +wire to Griesman and immediately thereafter Abe's voice diminished in +harshness till it became fairly flutelike with friendship and amiability.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hello, Mr. Griesman!" he said. "Did you want to talk to me? Why, no, +Mr. Griesman, he don't owe us nothing. He paid us this morning. Sure! What +did you want to know for? Why should we sell his account, Mr. Griesman? He's +a little slow, y'understand, but he's quite good. That's all right. +Good-by."</p> + +<p>When he returned to the showroom his face wore a puzzled expression.</p> + +<p>"Well, Abe, what did he want?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what he is up to, Mawruss," Abe said; "but he tells me he +wants to buy from us Sam Green's account. So I told him Sam pays us this +morning, and he rings off."</p> + +<p>"Why should Moe Griesman want to buy from us Sam Green's account?" Morris +muttered to himself; and then a wave of recollection came over him. Obviously +it was Moe Griesman who had bought out Sam's competitors and this caused +Sam's bank to shut down on him. Now Moe Griesman was attempting to buy up +Sam's liabilities and close him up, so that there might be no competitor to +Moe's new business in Cyprus. At length the humour of the situation appealed +to Morris and he grinned vacuously at his partner.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu</i>," Abe growled; "what are you laughing at?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing much, Abe," Morris replied. "I was only thinking—that's +all, Abe. I was thinking to myself, Abe, what a joke it would be, supposing, +for instance, Sam's check should come back N. G."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Sam Green entered the smoker of the seven-thirty train from Syracuse +to Cyprus, the following morning, a well-dressed man of sixty followed him +down the aisle and sat down in the same seat with him.</p> + +<p>"Have a cigar?" the stranger said.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged," Sam replied as he took it. "If it is just the same to you +I would smoke it after dinner."</p> + +<p>"Sure!" the stranger rejoined, handing him another; "smoke that one after +dinner and smoke this one now."</p> + +<p>Sam grinned and after they had lit up he ventured the observation that it +was fine weather.</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber</i> it should be colder," he concluded, "for heavyweights."</p> + +<p>"Are you in the clothing business?" the stranger asked.</p> + +<p>"I got a sort of a store," Sam replied; "clothing and cloaks, and suits +also. A dry-goods store in Cyprus."</p> + +<p>"In Cyprus?" Sam's seatmate cried. "You don't tell me? I'm going down to +Cyprus too."</p> + +<p>"My fall buying is through," Sam said.</p> + +<p>"I'm not selling goods this trip," the stranger replied. "I'm on a +vacation."</p> + +<p>"A vacation!" Sam murmured. "In Cyprus! That's a <i>medeena</i> for a +vacation."</p> + +<p>"There are worse places than Cyprus, my friend," said Sam's new-found +acquaintance; and thereat began a conversation that lasted until the train +finally drew into Cyprus.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind telling me what is your name, please?" Sam asked as they +prepared to leave the car.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," the stranger said, handing his card to Sam.</p> + +<p>"Kirschner!" Sam exclaimed, looking at the card. "Kirschner, <i>von unsere +Leute</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Sure!" Max Kirschner replied.</p> + +<p>"Did your father once run a store under the opera house here?"</p> + +<p>"That's right."</p> + +<p>"And after he died the widder sells out to a man by the name Marcus +Senft?"</p> + +<p>"The same one," Max replied. "Why do you ask?"</p> + +<p>"Because I bought out that feller, Marcus Senft," Sam replied, "and I got +on my books yet debts which your mother sold to Senft for twenty-five cents +on the dollar—and he sold to me for ten cents."</p> + +<p>"I'll bet I know who owes 'em, too," Max commented.</p> + +<p>"You could look 'em over if you want to," Sam said as they started to walk +down the hilly lane from the depot to the main street.</p> + +<p>"I will after I've washed up at the hotel," Max answered.</p> + +<p>"Hotel?" Sam exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, hotel? You ain't going to no +hotel. You're coming home with me. A feller <i>von unsere Leute</i> should +come to Cyprus for a vacation and stay at a hotel! An idee!"</p> + +<p>He linked his arm in Max's and together they walked to Sam's store.</p> + +<p>"We'll take a look in here first before we go up to the house," Sam said +as he opened the door. The next moment Sam Green was clasped to the ample +bosom of Leah Green, who glanced inquiringly at Max Kirschner.</p> + +<p>"Mommer," Sam announced, "this is Mr. Max Kirschner, which he ought to be +like an old friend on account he was born and raised in this here town and +his father run this very store."</p> + +<p>Max looked around him at the shelves and showcases.</p> + +<p>"The same fixtures," he muttered absently.</p> + +<p>"He is only in town for a couple of days, mommer," Sam said hesitatingly, +"so I thought we could easy fix up the spare room—ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, sure!" Mrs. Green replied as she shook Max's hand warmly. "Is the +folks all well, Mr. Kirschner?"</p> + +<p>Max smiled sadly.</p> + +<p>"You can judge for yourself, Mrs. Green," he said, "because I'm all the +folks there are."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sure," Mrs. Green hastened to say. "I remember now; you never got +married."</p> + +<p>"Why, how do you know that?" Sam asked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Green nodded her head sideways in Sam's direction.</p> + +<p>"He don't never hear nothing, Mr. Kirschner," she said. "With me the women +folks <i>schmooses</i> all the time; and you could take it from me, Mr. +Kirschner, they talk a whole lot more about what happens forty years ago as +what happens last week already."</p> + +<p>Max nodded as the store door opened and a woman of uncertain age +entered.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mis' Green," the newcomer said, her eyes glued on Max +Kirschner. "I was just passin' by on my way to the depot and I remembered +that I needed a spool of thread."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Green passed behind the counter to reach the thread case.</p> + +<p>"Going to Sarahcuse to-day, Mis' Duree?" she asked casually.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Duryea blushed.</p> + +<p>"I'm on my way to see my sister's little granddaughter," she explained; +"she's just recovering from whooping cough."</p> + +<p>"Would that be your sister Libby?" Max inquired.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Duryea started visibly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I—" she began.</p> + +<p>"That's so," Max continued. "Libby moved to Elmira. It must be Carrie. She +married Lem Peters, didn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Well, of all things!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed. "Who in the world told you +all that?"</p> + +<p>"I just remembered it," Max said, holding out his hand. "How's Tom?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Duryea took the proffered hand gingerly.</p> + +<p>"He's pretty spry," she said.</p> + +<p>"Tell him Max Kirschner was asking for him," Max replied.</p> + +<p>"You ain't Max Kirschner?" Mrs. Duryea cried.</p> + +<p>"Just as sure as you're Hattie Watson," Max said. "How're all the +children, Hattie?"</p> + +<p>"All growed up and flew away," Mrs. Duryea replied. "What are you doing +around here?"</p> + +<p>Max's eyes twinkled mischievously.</p> + +<p>"I'm selling goods for Mr. Green here," he declared. "Let's see, Hattie. +Forty-two bust, I should say."</p> + +<p>He snatched a garment from a rack near by.</p> + +<p>"Here's a coat, Hattie, that would stand you in forty dollars in +Syracuse," he said. "One of those big dry-goods stores there figures on a +coat like this: garment, wholesale, twenty dollars; running a big store with +elevators, electric lights and all modern improvements, ten dollars; +advertising, five dollars; profit, five dollars—total, forty dollars. +We figure here: cost of garment, twenty dollars; store expenses, fifty cents; +profit, four dollars and fifty cents; total, twenty-five dollars. Put it on, +Hattie, and let's see how you look in the garment."</p> + +<p>"Well, I declare!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed as she allowed herself to be +assisted into the garment. "You take my breath away."</p> + +<p>Max stepped back to survey the effect; and if the admiration expressed in +his face was simulated, at least the friendliness of his smile was not.</p> + +<p>"Now, Hattie, I want to tell you something," he declared: "If any one +would say to me that I went to school with you I'd think they had a bad +memory. I'd tell 'em it was your mother that sat next to me in Miss Johnson's +room and not you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Duryea fairly beamed as she strutted up and down the store.</p> + +<p>"Well, Max," she said at last, "let me bring my friend Mis' Williams in +this afternoon and we'll decide on it then."</p> + +<p>"But I thought you were going to Syracuse," Max rejoined.</p> + +<p>"I was," Mrs. Duryea said as she started to leave; "but I ain't now."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>The news of Max Kirschner's return spread through Cyprus like a brush +fire, and twenty minutes after Mrs. Duryea had left Sam Green's store Max was +holding a levee behind the old counter. By two o'clock he had greeted over +fifty old friends and at least twenty of them had made purchases in amounts +varying from five to thirty dollars.</p> + +<p>"As sure as you're standing there, Mr. Kirschner," Sam declared, "I sold +more goods this morning as in the last two months."</p> + +<p>Max grinned delightedly. His face was flushed and he looked at least ten +years younger as he patted Sam on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Look out for the rush this afternoon," he said. "If we only had a better +assortment, Green, I think we could keep this up for a week longer and after +that we could do a good, steady business."</p> + +<p>"We?" Sam exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Max coloured and smiled in an embarrassed fashion.</p> + +<p>"Of course I mean you," he said.</p> + +<p>"Why 'of course'?" Sam asked; and Mrs. Green nodded vigorously. "Why not +we, Mr. Kirschner?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, I haven't sold goods at retail for so long," Max +explained, "that I really don't know how."</p> + +<p>Sam turned to Mrs. Green with a quick shrug.</p> + +<p>"<i>Was hast du gehört?</i>" he cried. "He don't know how! If I wouldn't +know how to sell goods the way you don't know how, Mr. Kirschner, I would +quick build up a good business here. Tell me, Mr. Kirschner, how much longer +do you got a vacation, because I'd like to make you a proposition. You could +stay with me here for the rest of your vacation and I would give you half of +the profits over the cost price of every garment you sell. How's that?"</p> + +<p>"Very generous," Max said; "but you don't know what you're offering me, +Green, because the vacation might last for several years."</p> + +<p>"Several years!" Sam repeated. "You mean you are retired from business, +Mr. Kirschner?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," Max answered; "with a fortune of two diamond rings, a diamond +pin, and eight hundred and sixty-five dollars cash."</p> + +<p>Sam and Mrs. Green stared at him incredulously.</p> + +<p>"In other words, Green," Max concluded, "I have just been fired out of a +job as travelling salesman, which I held for twenty years, and I don't see a +chance of getting another one."</p> + +<p>For a moment Sam and his wife exchanged glances.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Kirschner," Sam said, "how much can you get for them diamonds?"</p> + +<p>"Fifteen hundred dollars, I guess," Max replied.</p> + +<p>"Then what is the use talking nonsense, Mr. Kirschner?" Sam cried +excitedly. "Come along with me over to the Farmers' National Bank and we'll +see Mr. Fuller; and if he would renew my accommodation for a thousand dollars +you and me would go as partners together and <i>fertig</i>."</p> + +<p>"Fuller!" Max cried. "That ain't Wilbur M. Fuller, is it?"</p> + +<p>"That's the one," Sam declared.</p> + +<p>"Then we'll not only get him to renew the accommodation, Sam, but we'll +sell him some shirts and neckties as well. He and I clerked together in Van +Buskirk & Patterson's."</p> + +<p>As a sequel to Max's visit to the Farmers' National Bank, Abe and Morris +waited in vain for the return of Sam's check.</p> + +<p>"How did you know the check wasn't good, Mawruss?" Abe asked his partner a +week later.</p> + +<p>"I ain't said it ain't good, Abe," Morris protested; "only I seen Markson, +which he works for Klinger & Klein as a bookkeeper, in Hammersmith's +to-day and he says that Moe Griesman goes round trying to buy up all Sam +Green's bills payable; and he's got about five hundred dollars' worth now +already."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know he did," Abe replied. "He got from Kleiman & Elenbogen +Sam's three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar debt for two hundred and seventy-five +cash and Sam sends 'em the check for the full amount the day before +yesterday. I seen Louis Kleiman yesterday and he was feeling pretty sore, I +bet yer."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded. He had been completely mystified about Sam's affairs since +the arrival of a letter from Cyprus addressed to Morris personally, wherein +Sam repaid the money advanced for his hotel accommodation and announced that +he had abandoned for the present his intention of returning to New York. +Morris's mystification was hardly abated by the following letter, which +arrived on the heels of the conversation above set forth:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="letter"> + <thead> + <tr> + <td><b>Samuel Green & Co.<br /> + dry-goods and notions<br /> + the k. & m. sylphshape corset</b></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: right; "><b>Cyprus, New York</b>, May 1, + 1910.</td> + </tr> + </thead> + <tfoot> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: right; ">Yours truly, <b>Samuel Green & + Co.</b> + + <p style="text-align: left; ">P. S. You should telegraph Farmers' + National Bank for references if you ain't satisfied to ship without + it. Business is good. <b style="text-align: right; ">S. Green</b>.</p> + </td> + </tr> + </tfoot> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: left; "><p><b>Gents</b>: We inclose you herewith + memorandum of order. Kindly ship same within ten days by fast + freight, and oblige</p> + </td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Morris Perlmutter's relations with Sol Klinger retained their cordiality +despite the rupture between Abe Potash and Klinger & Klein. To be sure, +Moe Griesman's defection had rankled, but Morris consoled himself with the +maxim, "Business is business"; and when he met Sol Klinger in Hammersmith's +restaurant during the first week of the spring buying season he greeted Sol +cordially. His friendly advance, however, met with a decided rebuff.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter now, Sol?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>Sol nodded his head slowly.</p> + +<p>"It's a great world, Mawruss," he said.</p> + +<p>Morris agreed with him. "There's business enough in it for everybody +anyhow, Sol, if that's what you mean," he replied.</p> + +<p>"In lots of places, yes, but in others, no," Sol said. "But with some +people, Mawruss, they're like a snake in the grass, which it bites the hand +that feeds it."</p> + +<p>"What's Moe Klein been doing now?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Moe Klein?" Sol cried. "What d'ye mean, Moe Klein? I ain't talking about +Moe Klein at all. I am talking about Max Kirschner, Mawruss. There's a feller +which we give him for twenty years good wages, Mawruss, and what do we get +for it? After he leaves us, Mawruss—"</p> + +<p>"Left you?" Morris interrupted. "Why, I always thought you fired him."</p> + +<p>"Sure, we fired him," Sol continued. "A lowlife bum which he makes always +a hog of himself, why shouldn't we fire him? And then, Mawruss, when we are +taking on Moe Greisman's nephew, Rabiner, what does that sucker Max Kirschner +do? He turns around and fixes up with a feller by the name Sam Green, in +Cyprus, to go as partners together in Sam Green's store up there. And mind +you, Mawruss, Moe Griesman had just bought out Sam Green's competitors, Van +Buskirk & Patterson. And Max Kirschner knows all the time that the only +reason that we took on Mozart Rabiner was on account of his uncle, Moe +Griesman."</p> + +<p>Sol Klinger was so interested in his own narrative that he completely +failed to notice its effect on Morris Perlmutter, who sat with his jaw +dropping lower and lower, while great beads of perspiration stood on his +forehead.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mawruss," Sol continued; "Moe Griesman even comes down himself from +Sarahcuse to Cyprus to superintend things. Five thousand dollars fixtures he +puts in and forty thousand dollars he pays them two yokels, Van Buskirk & +Patterson, for the good-will, stock, and store building; and what happens? +For a whole month Moe sits in that store and not a hundred dollars' worth of +goods goes out of the place, Mawruss; and why? It seems that Sam Green and +Max Kirschner does all the business because Max Kirschner is born and raised +in Cyprus and knows everybody in the place."</p> + +<p>"Max was born and raised in Cyprus?" Morris gasped.</p> + +<p>"That's what I said," Sol replied. "That's a <i>Nachbarschaft</i> for a +feller to be born in! What?"</p> + +<p>Morris nodded and rose wearily to his feet.</p> + +<p>"I never could remember the name of the place even, at all," he said. +"Well, I guess now I would be getting back to the store."</p> + +<p>"You got my permission," Sol said as Morris started from the restaurant. +These were destined to be the last words addressed to Morris by Sol Klinger +in many a long day, for the moving incidents which awaited Morris's return to +his showroom put an end to all friendship between him and Sol.</p> + +<p><i>Imprimis</i>, when Morris entered, Moe Griesman was seated in the +firm's private office, the centre of an animated group of four. "Hello, +there, Mawruss!" Moe shouted; "there's a couple of gentlemen here which would +like to talk to you."</p> + +<p>He indicated a ruddy, clean-shaven person of approximately fifty years, +who on closer inspection proved to be Max Kirschner shorn of his white +moustache and without the attendant nimbus of his diamond pin. The other +individual was even harder to identify by reason of a neat-fitting business +suit of brown and a general air of prosperity; but in him Morris descried the +person of what had once been Sam Green.</p> + +<p>"Morris, you old rascal," Max cried, "when you took me over to the Prince +Clarence Hotel that day why didn't you tell me that the man you wanted me to +go into business with ran a store in Cyprus?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't remember the name of the place at all," Morris admitted.</p> + +<p>Abe gazed at him sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>"The fact is, gentlemen," he said, "my partner ain't got no head at +all."</p> + +<p>Sam Green's face flushed in recollection of the phrase.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," he said fervently; "he's got anyhow a heart."</p> + +<p>"And I've got a stomach," Max Kirschner added irrelevantly. "At least, +I've recovered one since I've been eating Leah Green's good cooking."</p> + +<p>Sam and Moe Griesman smiled sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"Well, what's the use wasting time here, boys?" Moe said at last. "Let's +explain to Mawruss about the new combination. Me and Max and Sam Green here +have agreed to go as partners together in Cyprus under the name 'The Cyprus +Dry-goods Company.' In a small town like Cyprus competition is nix."</p> + +<p>"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "I'm glad to hear it. Is the Sarahcuse store +included too?"</p> + +<p>"A ten per cent. interest they got, although I am going to run my +Sarahcuse business and these here boys is going to run the Cyprus end," Moe +continued. "And now, Abe, as Max has got to pick out a lot of goods for the +Cyprus store and I want to do the same for my Sarahcuse store, let's get to +work."</p> + +<p>For three hours without cessation they laboured over Potash & +Perlmutter's sample line until garments to an amount in excess of five +thousand dollars had been ordered.</p> + +<p>When Max Kirschner saw the total of Moe Griesman's selection for the +Syracuse store he emitted a low whistle.</p> + +<p>"Say, Moe," he said, "ain't you going to give your nephew, Rabiner, any +show at all this season?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oser a Stück</i>," Griesman declared. "I done enough for that feller +when I got him a three years' contract with Klinger & Klein."</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap06">CHAPTER SIX</h2> + +<h3>A PRESENT FOR MR. GEIGERMANN</h3> + +<p>"Well, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared, one morning in midwinter, "you +look like you had a pretty lively session last night."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded slowly. "I want to tell you something, Mawruss," he said +solemnly; "I would do anything at all to hold a customer's trade, Mawruss. I +would go on theayter with him. I would <i>schmier</i> him tenspots when he's +got the bid already, and I would go <i>bate</i> on hands which even a rotten +player like you couldn't lose, Mawruss. But before I would got to sit through +such another evening like last night, Mawruss, Felix Geigermann should never +buy from us again a dollar's worth more goods. That's all I got to say."</p> + +<p>"Why, what was the matter?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, in the first place, Mawruss, to show you what a liar that feller +Geigermann is, he brings out a fiddle which he tells us is three hundred +years old."</p> + +<p>"Yow! Three hundred years old!" Morris exclaimed skeptically. "A fiddle +three hundred years old would be worth, the very least, a hundred or a +hundred and fifty dollars."</p> + +<p>"That's what I told him, Mawruss," Abe said. "I says to him if I would got +a fiddle which it is worth that much money I would quick sell it and buy +something which it is anyhow useful, like a diamond ring <i>oder</i> a +scarfpin. But Geigermann only laughs at me, Mawruss; he says he don't own the +fiddle, Mawruss, but that somebody loaned it him. Even if he would own it, he +wouldn't take two hundred dollars for it."</p> + +<p>"My worries, if he owns the fiddle <i>oder</i> not, Abe!" Morris +commented.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss; but that ain't the point. Afterward Mozart Rabiner +comes in; and if I would be Felix Geigermann, Mawruss, and a salesman comes +into my house and gets fresh with a pianner which the least it stands +Geigermann in is a hundred dollars, Mawruss, I would kick him into the street +yet."</p> + +<p>"What is Mozart Rabiner doing there, Abe?" Morris inquired anxiously.</p> + +<p>Abe preserved a cheerful demeanour, although it was the circumstance of +Mozart Rabiner's prominence at Geigermann's musicale that had rendered the +evening so unbearable.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," he explained, "you don't suppose that Geigermann buys all +his goods from us?"</p> + +<p>Morris elevated his eyebrows gloomily.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose nothing, Abe," he said; "but once you let a shark like +Rabiner get in with Geigermann, Klinger & Klein would give him the +privilege to cut our price till they run us right out of there."</p> + +<p>"It's an open market, Mawruss," Abe said, "and anyhow I am doing all I can +to keep that feller's business. You would think so if you would of been there +last night, Mawruss. First a lady in one of them two-piece velvet +suits—afterward I see the jacket; a ringer for our style +forty-two-twenty, Mawruss—she gets up on the floor, Mawruss, and she +hollers bloody murder, Mawruss. I never heard the like since that Italiener +girl which we got working for us on White Street catches her finger in the +buttonhole machine. Mozart Rabiner plays for her on the pianner, Mawruss; and +when she gets through, the way Rabiner jollies her you would think she would +be buying goods for Marshall Field yet. After that, Geigermann takes the +fiddle and him and Moe Rabiner gets together by the pianner and for three +quarters of an hour, Mawruss, they work away like they was being paid for +it."</p> + +<p>"Moe Rabiner gets paid for it, I bet yer," Morris agreed.</p> + +<p>"What a noise them fellers make it, Mawruss!" Abe continued. "Honestly, I +thought my head was busting; and when they get finished the lady which done +the hollering asks 'em who the piece is by, Mawruss—and who do you +think Rabiner says?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know who he says?" Morris retorted angrily.</p> + +<p>"Richard Strauss," Abe replied.</p> + +<p>"Richard Strauss?" Morris asked. "You mean that feller Strauss of +Klipmann, Strauss & Bleimer, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"It must be the same feller," Abe said. "Seemingly everybody there knows +him; and besides, Mawruss, that feller Strauss is another one of them musical +fellers too. Only the other day Klipmann tells me that feller spends a +fortune going on the opera with customers."</p> + +<p>"But I thought Klipmann's partner was called Milton Strauss," Morris +said.</p> + +<p>"Maybe it was Milton Strauss," Abe continued. "Milton <i>oder</i> Richard, +I couldn't remember. It was one of them up-to-date names anyhow; and, mind +you, Mawruss, that feller Rabiner has got the nerve to ask me if I didn't +like Strauss. What could I say? If that cut-throat Rabiner thinks he is going +to get me to knock a competitor in front of Geigermann he's mistaken. 'Sure I +like him,' I says; 'why not?' 'In that case,' Moe says, 'we'll play some more +of this.' 'Go as far as you like,' I says, and they kept it up till the +elevator boy rings the bell and says a lady on the top floor is sick. I don't +blame her, Mawruss; I was pretty sick myself."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"So, then, Mawruss," Abe continued, "Geigermann takes the fiddle again and +shows it to us, Mawruss; and he says on the back is a ruby varnish."</p> + +<p>"Rubies is pretty high now, Abe," Morris said; "carat for carat, rubies is +a whole lot more expensive as diamonds."</p> + +<p>"<i>Gewiss</i>, Mawruss," Abe cried; "but I seen the back of the fiddle, +Mawruss, and if the varnish on it was made from rubies, Mawruss, I would eat +it. The fiddle was an ordinary fiddle like any other fiddle; only one thing I +see, Mawruss—on the inside is a little piece from paper, y'understand, +and printed on it is the name from some Italiener or another, with some +figures on it. Geigermann says it was stuck in there three hundred years ago, +when the fiddle was made. And you ought to see Moe Rabiner, Mawruss. He looks +at that fiddle for pretty near half an hour. He turns it upside down and he +blows into it and he takes his finger and wets it and rubs on it, and he +smells it, and <i>Gott weiss</i> what he don't do with it."</p> + +<p>"He's a dangerous feller, Abe," Morris commented. "He don't never stop at +nothing to sell goods."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wasn't much behind him, Mawruss," Abe said. "When he smells it, I +smell it. He wets his finger, I wet my finger. Everything what that sucker +does to that fiddle, I did. He couldn't get nothing on me. Mawruss. If he +would offer to eat the fiddle, y'understand, I would got just so good +appetite as he got it, Mawruss, and don't you forget it. I ain't going to let +go so easy."</p> + +<p>"Might you couldn't help yourself maybe," Morris commented.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't worry, Mawruss," Abe concluded. "I sold Felix Geigermann +since way before the Spanish War already, and I would sooner expect my own +brother—supposing I got one—to turn us down as him."</p> + +<p>Despite Abe's optimism, however, the order for spring goods that Felix +Geigermann bestowed on them a month later fell short of their expectations by +over five hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>"Business couldn't be so good with Felix this year, Mawruss," Abe +commented.</p> + +<p>"Don't you jolly yourself, Abe," Morris replied. "It ain't so much that +business is bad with Felix as it is better with Klinger & Klein. Them two +cut-throats ain't paying Rabiner good money for only playing the pianner. +He's got to sell goods too."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said. "Let him go ahead and <i>spiel</i> +pianner till he's blue in the face. Sooner or later Geigermann would find out +what stickers them Klinger & Klein garments is, and then Moe Rabiner +couldn't sell him no more of them goods, not if he would be a whole orchestra +already."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>The personality of Aaron Shellak was simply thrown away on the garment +trade. His lean, scholarly face, surmounted by a shock of wavy brown hair, +would have assured his success as a virtuoso, and no one knew this better +than his brother, Professor Ladislaw Wcelak, under whose tuition he had +struggled through the intricacies of the first and second positions.</p> + +<p>"If you would only forget you ain't got a pair of shears in your right +hand, Aaron," the professor said, "and listen to what I am telling you, in +two years' time you are making more money than all the garment cutters +together. All you got to do is to play just halfway good."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you're a millionaire, ain't it?" Aaron rejoined. "And you can +play fiddle like a streak." The professor heaved a great sigh as he passed +his hand over his bald head.</p> + +<p>"With your hair, Aaron," he said, "I could make fifty thousand a year on +concert towers alone, to say nothing of two recitals up on Fifty-seventh +Street. But if a feller only got one arm, Aaron, he would better got a show +to be a fiddle virtuoso as if he would be bald.".</p> + +<p>Thus encouraged Aaron persevered with his practice for some months; but, +despite the patient instruction of his brother Louis the garment cutter's +wrist still handicapped him.</p> + +<p>"That's a legato phrase," Louis Shellak cried impatiently, one night in +mid-February. "With one bow you got to play it."</p> + +<p>"Which phrase are you talking about," Aaron asked—"the one that goes +'Ta-ra-reera, ta-ra-reera'?"</p> + +<p>He sang the two measures in a clear tenor voice, whereat Louis snatched +the violin from his brother's grasp and, seating himself at the piano, he +struck the major triad of C natural with force sufficient to wreck the +instrument.</p> + +<p>"Sing 'Ah'!" he commanded.</p> + +<p>Aaron attacked the high C like a veteran and Professor Ladislaw Wcelak +leaped from the piano stool with an inarticulate cry. Immediately thereafter +he secured a strangle-hold on his brother and kissed him Budapest fashion on +both cheeks.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow night already you will commence lessons with the best teacher +money could buy," he declared.</p> + +<p>"Whose money?" Aaron Shellak inquired, as he wiped away the marks of his +brother's affection—"yours or mine?"</p> + +<p>"Me—I ain't got no money," Louis admitted.</p> + +<p>"Me neither," Aaron said. He was the sole support of his mother and +sisters, for Louis, as <i>chef d'orchestre</i> in a Second Avenue restaurant, +constantly anticipated his salary over <i>stuss</i> or <i>tarrok</i> in the +rear of his employer's café.</p> + +<p>"How much would it take?" he asked Louis after a silence of several +minutes.</p> + +<p>Louis shrugged.</p> + +<p>"Who knows?" he replied. "Fifty dollars <i>oder</i> a hundred, +perhaps."</p> + +<p>Aaron nodded; and the next day, when he entered Potash & Perlmutter's +place of business, he carried with him his violin and bow in a black leather +case. Thus it happened that the strains of Godard's <i>Berceuse</i> saluted +Abe as he stepped from the elevator that morning; and without removing his +coat he made straight for the cutting room.</p> + +<p>"<i>Koosh!</i>" he bellowed. "What are we running here, anyhow, +Shellak—a cloak-and-suit house <i>oder</i> a theayter?"</p> + +<p>Aaron hastily replaced the instrument in its case.</p> + +<p>"I am only showing it to Nathan," he mumbled by way of explanation. "Might +he would like to buy it maybe."</p> + +<p>"If you want to sell fiddles, Shellak," Abe said, "do it outside business +hours. That's all I got to say."</p> + +<p>He proceeded at once to the showroom, where Morris was peeling off his +overcoat. The latter greeted Abe with a sour nod. "I am sick and tired of it, +Abe," he declared. "Everybody is stealing our business."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, everybody's stealing our business?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"Last night I am sitting in the Harlem Winter Garden with Felix +Geigermann, and Leon Sammet butts in on us and tells Geigermann he's got a +cousin which he could play shello, and Geigermann says that he should come +around to the house next Tuesday and play it with him and Rabiner."</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"My <i>tzuris</i> if he does, Mawruss," he said; "because while I don't +know nothing about this here game, y'understand, a good way to lose a +customer is to play cards with him."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense, Abe?" Morris cried. "Shello ain't cards. A +shello is a fiddle which you play it with your knees."</p> + +<p>"For my part he could play it with his nose, Mawruss," Abe declared hotly. +"Do you mean to told me, Mawruss, that a business man like Geigermann is +going to buy a line of goods like Sammet Brothers got it just because Leon +Sammet's cousin plays a fiddle with his knees?"</p> + +<p>"Yow! His cousin?" Morris exclaimed. "He's as much got a cousin which he +plays the shello as I got one. He's going to give some greenhorn a couple of +dollars to go with him to Geigermann's house and play the fiddle; and the +first thing you know, Abe, Geigermann is buying from him a big bill of goods +and all the time our orders gets smaller and smaller till we lose his trade +altogether."</p> + +<p>Abe laughed mirthlessly and bit the end off his after-breakfast cigar.</p> + +<p>"If I would worry myself the way you do, Mawruss, every time a competitor +says 'Hello' to a customer of ours," he said as he turned away, "I would gone +crazy in the head <i>schon</i> long since ago already."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he pondered Leon Sammet's move all the morning, and after +Morris had gone to lunch he paced the showroom floor for more than a quarter +of an hour in an effort to formulate some plan for regaining Geigermann's +business. His reflections were at length interrupted by a faint scraping from +the rear of the store. Once more Aaron Shellak was entertaining the +cutting-room staff with a pianissimo rendition of Godard's <i>Berceuse</i>; +but even as Abe tiptoed across the showroom to crush the performance with an +explosive "<i>Koosh!</i>" the melody ceased.</p> + +<p>"That's a genu-ine Amati," Aaron said, "and you could see for +yourself—inside here is the label."</p> + +<p>Abe stopped short. The word "Amati" brought back to him the scene of Felix +Geigermann's musicale, and his heart thumped unpleasantly as he listened to +Aaron's exhibition of salesmanship.</p> + +<p>"Moreover," Aaron continued, "here is the scroll which it is ever so much +finer as them other fiddles you could buy for fifty <i>oder</i> sixty +dollars. Look at the varnish on the back, Nathan—shines like rubies, +ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"What would I do with a fiddle, Aaron?" Nathan Schenkman, the shipping +clerk, asked.</p> + +<p>"You I ain't saying at all," Aaron said; "but you got a little boy +Nathan."</p> + +<p>"He ain't a year old yet," Nathan interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Shellak went on; "but now is the time, Nathan. You +couldn't begin too early. Look at Kubelik and Kreisler and all them fellers. +When they was eating from a bottle already the old man give 'em a fiddle to +play with, and to-day where are they? In one concert tower alone, Nathan, +them fellers makes from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>He paused so that Nathan might better apprehend the alluring prospect.</p> + +<p>"And I'll let you have it for a hundred and fifty dollars, Nathan," he +concluded. "Ten dollars down and two dollars a week till paid. No interest +nor nothing."</p> + +<p>At this juncture Abe burst into the cutting room.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Shellak!" he roared. "What are you trying to do? Skin a poor +feller like Nathan, which he got a wife and a child to support?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, skin him?" Aaron retorted. "I ain't no crook, Mr. +Potash."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Shellak," Abe went on. "I heard every word you are +saying. Come inside; I want to talk to you."</p> + +<p>Aaron's face blanched and he trembled visibly.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Potash—" he began.</p> + +<p>"Never mind!" Abe bellowed; "take that fiddle and all that +<i>machshovos</i> you got there and come in here."</p> + +<p>Abe led the way to the front of the showroom, followed by the crestfallen +Shellak, who deposited fiddle, bow, and case on a sample table.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Shellak," Abe said in kindly tones, "what the devil are +you trying to sell a <i>Schnorrer</i> like that a good fiddle? Why don't you +give me a show?"</p> + +<p>The blood surged suddenly to Aaron's face.</p> + +<p>"You!" he stammered. "Why, Mr. Potash, I never knew you was interested in +violins."</p> + +<p>"Sure; why not?" Abe replied. "Let me have a look at it."</p> + +<p>First he squinted into the right "eff" hole and he grunted in approval as +he spied the label, which read as follows:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="label"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td>NICOLAUS AMATI CREMONENSIS<br /> + Faciebat Anno 1670</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"Do you know anything about them old violins?" Aaron asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>Abe smiled in a superior way.</p> + +<p>"Not a whole lot, Aaron," he said, but by the time he had finished his +examination Aaron became convinced that his employer was indeed one of the +<i>cognoscenti</i>. First Abe turned the violin upside down and scrutinized +the scroll, neck, belly, and back. Then he blew into the "eff" holes; and +wetting his finger he rubbed the varnish. For five minutes he pursued the +tactics of Mozart Rabiner and even added one or two fancy touches on his own +account, until at length he laid down the instrument with a profound sigh.</p> + +<p>"Always the same thing, Shellak," he said; "people says it is a genu-ine +and it ain't."</p> + +<p>Aaron took up his violin and looked at it through new eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why ain't it genu-ine?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I should tell you why it ain't!" Abe exclaimed. "If you would know what I +know about them things, Shellak, you wouldn't ask me such a question at all. +Do you doubt my word?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I doubt your word, Mr. Potash?" Aaron said. "In the inside is +the paper and that's all I know about it. So, if you would give me a hundred +and fifty dollars, Mr. Potash, you could keep the fiddle, bow, case <i>und +fertig</i>."</p> + +<p>For some minutes they haggled over the bargain, and at length they closed +at a hundred and twenty-five dollars, for which Abe gave Shellak his personal +check.</p> + +<div> +<img id="illust3" src="images/gs03pp.jpg" width="258" height="296" +alt="Illustration:" /> + +<h5>Do you know anything about them old violins?"</h5> +</div> + +<p>"And you shouldn't say nothing to Mr. Perlmutter about it," Abe concluded, +"because I want to make a present of it as a surprise to my partner."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Abe came downtown the following morning he wore so marked an air of +pleased mystery that Morris became irritated.</p> + +<p>"Let me in on this too, Abe," he said.</p> + +<p>"Let you in on what, Mawruss?" Abe asked innocently. "I don't know what +you mean at all."</p> + +<p>"You know very well what I mean," Morris rejoined. "You ain't coming +around here grinning like a barn door for nothing."</p> + +<p>"I give you right about that, Mawruss," Abe said. "I got in a good +<i>Schlag</i> at Leon Sammet and Moe Rabiner last night, Mawruss, I bet yer. +I got from Geigermann a repeat order on them two-piece velvet +suits—seven hundred and fifty dollars; and do you know how I done +it?"</p> + +<p>"Chloroformed him," Morris suggested ironically.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Go ahead and joke if you want +to. Maybe I couldn't play the fiddle with my knees and maybe I don't know +nothing about <i>spieling</i> pianners neither, y'understand; but I got a +little gumption, too, Mawruss, and don't you forget it."</p> + +<p>He retired to the cutting room with a set expression on his face, as +though to imply that wild horses could not drag from him the secret of Felix +Geigermann's renewed patronage.</p> + +<p>For twenty minutes he remained firm in his resolve not to gratify his +partner's curiosity; and then as Morris continued to whistle cheerfully over +the sample-rack in the front of the loft, he returned to the showroom.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mawruss," he said; "some fellers if they would do what I done with +Felix Geigermann they wouldn't give their partner a minute's peace. For +months together, Mawruss, they would throw it up to him."</p> + +<p>"What is the difference, Abe, if a salesman gets orders, how he gets 'em," +Morris rejoined, "so long as he ain't padding his expense account?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, padding my expense account?" Abe cried. "A hundred and +twenty-five dollars the fiddle costed me and that's all I charge up."</p> + +<p>"The fiddle!" Morris exclaimed. "What fiddle?"</p> + +<p>"The fiddle which I give Geigermann last night," Abe continued; "and if +you don't believe me you could ask Shellak."</p> + +<p>"Shellak?" Morris repeated. "What the devil are you talking about, +Abe?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Shellak," Abe went on, "the cutter. He comes round here yesterday +with a fiddle, Mawruss, which he wants to sell it to Nathan Schenkman. So I +give him a hundred and twenty-five dollars for it <i>und fertig</i>."</p> + +<p>"You give Shellak a hundred and twenty-five dollars?" Morris exploded. +"Are you crazy, <i>oder</i> what?"</p> + +<p>"It was a genu-ine Amati," Abe explained; "and so soon as I seen it, +Mawruss, I thought to myself if them cut-throats could sell Geigermann a big +bill of goods just by playing on fiddles, y'understand, what sort of an order +could I get out of him supposing I should give him a fiddle yet? So that's +what I done, Mawruss; and he did, Mawruss, and I was right. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris began slowly; "let me get this thing +correct. You are paying Shellak a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a +fiddle which you are giving Geigermann."</p> + +<p>"You got it right, Mawruss," Abe said. "It was a genu-ine Amati."</p> + +<p>"For a hundred and twenty-five dollars expenses you are getting an order +for seven hundred and fifty dollars, Abe," Morris said relentlessly; "and +some fellers would throw it up to their partners for months together yet."</p> + +<p>"It was a genu-ine Amati, Mawruss," Abe repeated for the third time, "and +for a genu-ine Amati, Mawruss, a hundred and twenty-five dollars is no price +at all."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Abe," Morris said bitterly; "to you a hundred and +twenty-five dollars is nothing at all. We are made of money, Abe, ain't it? +What do you care you are spending a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a +fiddle when for seventy-five dollars on Lenox Avenue and a Hundred and +Sixteenth Street, with my own eyes I seen it, you could buy a square pianner +with a stool and scarf yet, as good as new. If you want to <i>schenk</i> the +feller something, why didn't you told me? What for a present is a fiddle, +Abe, when for half the money we could give him a pianner yet?"</p> + +<p>Abe hung his head in embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"But Mawruss," he said, "it was a genu-ine Amati."</p> + +<p>For one brief moment Morris choked with rage.</p> + +<p>"Genu-ine hell!" he roared, and plunged away to the office.</p> + +<p>For the remainder of the morning Abe went about his work in crestfallen +silence, although Morris, after subjecting Geigermann's order to a little +cost bookkeeping on the back of an envelope broke once more into a cheerful +whistle.</p> + +<p>"Well, Abe," he said at twelve o'clock, "what is <i>vorbei</i> is +<i>vorbei</i>. It ain't no use crying over sour milk, so I am going out to +lunch."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, sour milk, Mawruss?" Abe retorted. "The sour milk is all +on your side, Mawruss, because I am telling you it was a genu-ine Amati."</p> + +<p>"All right, Abe," Morris said, as he rang for the elevator; "you told me +that <i>schon</i> twenty times already. I wouldn't give you two dollars for +all them genu-ine fellers' fiddles in creation; and that's all there is to +it."</p> + +<p>With this ultimatum he stepped into the elevator and five minutes +afterward he sat at a table in Hammersmith's restaurant and beguiled with a +dill pickle the interval between the giving and filling of his order. At the +table next to him sat an animated group, of which Louis Kleiman was the +centre.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sirree, sir!" Louis declared, in defiance of the law of scandal and +libel; "six months I would give the feller at the outside. A feller couldn't +attend to business if he would set up till all hours of the night playing +fiddle with that lowlife, Rabiner. That ain't all yet, neither! Yesterday he +pays for a fiddle three thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"For a fiddle three thousand dollars!" cried one of the group, and the +good half of a dill pickle fell from Morris's limp grasp.</p> + +<p>"That's what I said," Louis continued; "for three thousand dollars yet he +is buying a fiddle. With my own eyes I seen it in the paper this morning; and +when a feller puts three thousand dollars into a fiddle, y'understand, he +could kiss himself good-by with his business."</p> + +<p>At this juncture Morris beckoned to the waiter.</p> + +<p>"Say," he said hoarsely, "never mind that roast spring lamb and stuffed +tomatoes. Bring me instead a rye-bread tongue sandwich and a cup coffee."</p> + +<p>After the waiter had gone Morris settled back in his chair and listened +once more to the conversation at the next table.</p> + +<p>"All right; then I'm a liar," he heard Louis say. "I tell you I got the +paper in my overcoat pocket right now."</p> + +<p>Louis rose from his seat and securing the morning paper from his overcoat +he read aloud the following item:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="newspaper article"> + <thead> + <tr> + <th>PAYS HEAVILY FOR AMATI VIOLIN</th> + </tr> + </thead> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td><p>Mrs. Helene Karanyi, widow of the celebrated violinist, Bela + Karanyi, has sold her husband's favourite Amati at a price said to be + over three thousand dollars. The purchaser is Felix Geigermann, who + said yesterday that the violin had been in his possession for some + time, and that there was no doubt of its authenticity. It was + presented to Karanyi by the late Prince Ludovic Esterhazy, whose + collection of Cremona violins, now preserved by his son, is said to + be the finest in the world. Mr. Geigermann is the well-known Harlem + dry-goods merchant.</p> + </td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Louis Kleiman folded the paper and laid it on the table.</p> + +<p>"That's the way it goes, boys," he said in heightened tones, for by this +time he had caught sight of Morris. "A new beginner comes to you and you give +him a little line of credit, y'understand, and pretty soon he is buying more +and more goods till he gets to be a big <i>macher</i> like Felix Geigermann. +Then either one of two things happens to you: Either he begins to think you +are too small for him and he turns around and buys goods from some other +sucker, y'understand, <i>oder</i> he goes to work and throws away his money +left and right on oitermobiles <i>oder</i> fiddles, and sooner or later he +busts up on you; and that's the way it goes."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't worry yourself, Kleiman," Morris cried, turning around in +his chair. "Felix Geigermann ain't going to fail just yet a while."</p> + +<p>"Me worry?" Kleiman retorted. "For my part, Felix Geigermann could fail +to-morrow yet; he don't owe me one cent, nor never would. I ain't looking to +sell no goods to fiddlers, Perlmutter. I am dealing only with merchants."</p> + +<p>"Furthermore," Morris went on, "if Felix Geigermann hears it you are +making a break like this—that he's going to fail yet, and all sorts of +crooks you are calling him, Kleiman—he would sue you in the courts for +a hundred thousand dollars yet. From a big mouth a feller could get himself +into a whole lot of trouble."</p> + +<p>Kleiman scrambled hastily to his feet and seized his hat.</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense, Perlmutter?" he exclaimed. "I ain't said +nothing out of the way about Geigermann. You are the one what's putting the +words into my mouth already. Did you ever hear anything like it!—I am +saying Geigermann is going to fail? An idee! I never said nothing of the +kind. All I am saying is what is right here in the paper, black on white; and +if you don't believe me you could read it for yourself."</p> + +<p>He handed the paper to Morris; and, as the latter commenced to read over +the Geigermann paragraph, Kleiman and his friends slunk hurriedly out of the +restaurant. For nearly half an hour Morris pored over the newspaper; then he +choked down the sandwich and swallowed the coffee, which by this time was +cold.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"Admitting I am only your partner, Mawruss," Abe began as Morris entered +the showroom a few minutes later, "don't I got to eat too? And in the second +place, Mawruss, if you got to make a hog of yourself, do it at dinner-time at +home, because when a feller takes up a whole hour having his lunch, Mawruss, +he naturally stuffs himself so full that he ain't no good for the rest of the +day."</p> + +<p>A lump in Morris's throat, which may or may not have been the tongue +sandwich, prevented him from replying; but at last he swallowed it and, after +removing his hat and coat, he carefully unfolded the paper.</p> + +<p>"Don't hurry out to lunch, Abe," he said. "I could save you money. I got +something to tell you which it would take away your appetite so you wouldn't +want even a cup coffee."</p> + +<p>Abe paused with his hand on the hatrack.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I mean I am eating only a tongue sandwich and a cup coffee in +Hammersmith's just now," Morris went on, "and who should I see at the next +table but Louis Kleiman of Kleiman & Elenbogen. That's a dirty lowlife, +that feller, Abe! A cut-throat like him should be making money in business! +Honestly, Abe, when I see decent, respectable fellers like ----"</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe said, "let me go to my lunch, will you? I'm +hungry."</p> + +<p>"Hungry, <i>sagt er</i>!" Morris retorted. "A feller makes a god of his +stomach, y'understand, and his business is nothing at all. For all you care, +Abe, our whole trade could fail on us, so long as you could eat. Everybody +says the same thing; the feller's —"</p> + +<p>"Do me the favour, Mawruss," Abe begged; "tell me about it afterward. All +I am eating for my breakfast is one egg, so sure as you're standing +there."</p> + +<p>"All right, Abe; I wouldn't keep you no longer," Morris said. "If you +could got it in your heart to eat, when one of your best customers is busting +up on you, go ahead."</p> + +<p>"Our best customer?" Abe cried—"Mandelberger Brothers & +Company?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Geh weg</i>, you fool!" Morris exclaimed angrily. "Why should a +millionaire concern like Mandelberger Brothers & Company got to fail? You +talk like a lunatic."</p> + +<p>Once more Abe seized his hat.</p> + +<p>"I got enough of your nonsense, Mawruss," he said, starting for the +elevator.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" Morris cried, grabbing him by the arm. "Did you ship any goods to +Felix Geigermann yet?"</p> + +<p>"Felix Geigermann?" Abe repeated. "Is that the feller?"</p> + +<p>Morris nodded, and this time Abe hung up his hat and sat down heavily in +the nearest chair.</p> + +<p>"Who says he's going to fail?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Everybody says so," Morris replied; "even in the papers they got it."</p> + +<p>He handed Kleiman's paper to Abe and indicated the paragraph with a +shaking forefinger.</p> + +<p>"Where does it say he is going to fail?" Abe asked after he had read it +over hastily.</p> + +<p>"Where does it say it?" Morris cried. "Why, if a feller goes to work and +pays three thousand dollars for a fiddle, Abe, while he only got a business +rated twenty-five to thirty thousand, credit fair, ain't it as plain as the +nose on your face he must got to fail?"</p> + +<p>Once more Abe read over the paragraph and then the paper fell from his +hands to the floor.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mawruss," he gasped, "it says here he is paying three thousand +dollars for an Amati which he had in his possession for some time. That must +be the very fiddle which he is playing on with Moe Rabiner."</p> + +<p>"My <i>tzuris</i> if it is <i>oder</i> it ain't," Morris commented. "What +difference does that make to us, Abe?"</p> + +<p>Abe's face was white and large beads of perspiration stood out on his +forehead as he replied.</p> + +<p>"The difference ain't much, Mawruss," he said slowly. "Only if Felix +Geigermann pays three thousand for the fiddle which he already got it and we +are giving him for nothing another fiddle, which is the selfsame, identical +article, Mawruss, then we are out three thousand dollars—and that's all +the difference it makes to us!"</p> + +<p>For two minutes Morris regarded his partner with a glassy stare.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to told me, Abe, that that there fiddle which you bought it +from Shellak is the same identical article like Geigermann pays three +thousand dollars for?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded.</p> + +<p>"You couldn't tell the difference between 'em, Mawruss," he declared. +"Even inside the label is the same—the same name and everything."</p> + +<p>Morris took off his hat and coat methodically and hung them up on the +rack.</p> + +<p>"So, Abe," he commenced, "you are giving to a <i>Schnorrer</i> like +Geigermann a genu-ine who's-this violin, which it is worth three thousand +dollars!"</p> + +<p>"How should I know it is worth three thousand?" Abe said.</p> + +<p>"Everybody knows that one of them genu-ine feller's violins is worth three +thousand dollars," Morris thundered. "I'm surprised to hear you, you should +talk that way."</p> + +<p>"Shellak didn't know it for one," Abe interrupted, "otherwise why should +he sell to us for a hundred and twenty-five dollars a fiddle worth three +thousand dollars?"</p> + +<p>"What should a greenhorn like Shellak know about such things?" Morris +said.</p> + +<p>"Don't you fool yourself, Mawruss. If Shellak finds out he is getting a +hundred and twenty-five for a fiddle worth three thousand, he's got gumption +enough to sue us in the courts yet, and don't you forget it."</p> + +<p>"Why should he sue us, Abe?" Morris asked. "A bargain is a bargain, ain't +it?"</p> + +<p>"Sure I know, Mawruss; but I told the feller the fiddle wasn't genu-ine, +y'understand, when all the time I knew it was genu-ine."</p> + +<p>"Might you are mistaken maybe, Abe," Morris broke in. "Might the fiddle +ain't genu-ine."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, ain't genu-ine? I am telling you the label was inside and +even the lot number is the same."</p> + +<p>"The lot number?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, the lot number. Sixteen-seventy, I think it was; and the only thing +for us to do, Mawruss, is we should fix up some scheme to get that fiddle +back from Geigermann; and that's all there is to it."</p> + +<p>"Well, go ahead, Abe," Morris said. "Go ahead and see him this +afternoon."</p> + +<p>For the third time Abe put on his hat.</p> + +<p>"First and foremost I would go out and get a bite to eat, Mawruss," he +said. "What good would it do me to get the fiddle back if I would die from +starvation first?"</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Although the manufacturers of mechanical piano-players had never solicited +Felix Geigermann's photograph for half-tone reproductions in the advertising +section of anybody's magazine, he dressed as though he expected the immediate +arrival of the man with the camera—that is to say, he wore his hair +after Mahler, while Hollman and Moritz Rosenthal contributed to the pattern +of his moustache. Moreover, he assumed a Paderewski tuft, a rolling collar +that exposed the points of his right and left clavicles, a Windsor tie, and, +to preserve the unity of his characterization, a slight nondescript foreign +accent, despite the circumstance that he was born in Newark, N. J. All this, +however, was not an idle pose on Felix's part. He merely applied to a +dry-goods store the business principles of the successful virtuoso, and he +had found them so efficacious that personally he sold more garments than any +six of his clerks. He was no less astute in the buying end of the business; +for in pitting Sammet Brothers, Klinger & Klein, and Potash & +Perlmutter against one another he not only secured better terms of credit, +but he found that it materially added to the quality of their garments.</p> + +<p>Thus, had Abe but known it, his seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar order +proceeded not from the gift of the violin, but from the circumstance that the +velvet suits had sold like hot cakes; and when he entered the Hundred and +Twenty-fifth Street store that afternoon Felix greeted him effusively. He +wanted that second order badly, and if cordiality could accelerate its +shipment he was willing to try it with Abe.</p> + +<p>"Ah, <i>mon ami</i>," he cried. "Come inside my office. What good wind +blows you here?"</p> + +<p>Abe scowled. All this enthusiasm betokened but one thing—the violin +was a genuine Amati, after all. He sat down slowly and bit the end off a +large cigar.</p> + +<p>"The fact is, Felix," he began, "for myself I don't care, y'understand, +but you know Mawruss Perlmutter, what a crank that feller is, Felix; and so I +am coming up here to ask you something for a question."</p> + +<p>"Fire away, Abe; you couldn't feaze me none," Felix replied in the accents +of Newark, N. J.</p> + +<p>"Well, Felix, it's like this," Abe went on: "If we would be selling goods +to J. B. Morgan, y'understand, and Mawruss here he is buying for eight +dollars a fur overcoat—understand me—he right away would want +another statement."</p> + +<p>Felix nodded. "Nowadays you can't be too cautious," he agreed.</p> + +<p>"So, this morning, in the paper," Abe continued, "Mawruss reads you are +buying for three thousand dollars a fiddle and—"</p> + +<p>"But, Abe," Felix interrupted, "it was a genuine Amati."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but yesterday I myself am bringing you a +genu-ine Amati and I didn't pay no such figure for it."</p> + +<p>Felix looked carefully at Abe's stolid face for some gleam of humour; and +then he broke into a fit of laughter so violent that Abe suspected it to be a +trifle forced.</p> + +<p>"All right, Felix," he grumbled; "maybe you think it is a joke, but just +the same I am telling you I paid for that fiddle only two hundred +dollars."</p> + +<p>Felix stopped laughing and wiped his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sorry, Abe," he said seriously. "A feller should never look a +gift horse in the teeth, Abe; but that fiddle ain't worth a cent more than a +hundred at the outside."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say it ain't a genu-ine Amati?" Abe asked angrily.</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't mean to say anything, Abe," Felix began; "but there are +Amatis and Amatis. Some of them are worth little fortunes and others are very +ordinary-like."</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Felix," Abe cried, "don't fool with me. Either that +fiddle is or it ain't a genu-ine Amati. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Felix paused. He wanted those velvet suits badly, and it began to look as +though there would be a delay in the shipment.</p> + +<p>"What is all this leading to, Abe?" he began pleasantly. "If there's +anything troubling you speak right up and I'll try to straighten it out."</p> + +<p>Abe shifted his cigar in his mouth and made the plunge.</p> + +<p>"What is the use beating bushes around, Felix?" he said. "Yesterday I am +giving you a fiddle, ain't it? Inside it says the fiddle is a genu-ine Amati. +What? <i>Schon gut</i> if that fiddle is a genu-ine Amati it is worth three +thousand dollars, ain't it? Because if it ain't, then you are stuck with the +other fiddle which you bought it. And if it is worth three thousand, then we +are stuck by giving you the fiddle, ain't it? So that's the way it goes."</p> + +<p>Felix nodded. It was a delicate situation, in which his credit and the +shipment of the suits seemed to be imperilled. To declare flatly that Abe's +gift was a bogus Amati might offend him seriously, while to admit that it was +genuine, but only worth one hundred dollars, was to foster Abe's notion that +he, Felix, had wasted three thousand dollars on a similar violin.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you something, Abe," he began at last. "There's nothing to +this business of selling goods by making presents, and I for one don't +believe in it. So I'll tell you what I'll do. Come up here to the store +to-morrow morning, and I'll get the fiddle from my house and give it back to +you."</p> + +<p>Abe's scowl merged immediately into a wide grin.</p> + +<p>"I don't want the fiddle back, Felix," he said, "but my partner, +y'understand, he is the one which is always—"</p> + +<p>"Say no more, Abe," Felix cried. "All I want is you should ship that +order; and tell your partner, if he is scared I am spending my money +foolishly, he can have a new statement whenever he wants it; and I'll swear +to it on a truckload of Bibles."</p> + +<p>When Abe returned to his place of business that afternoon he expected to +find Morris pacing up and down the showroom floor, the picture of distracted +anxiety. Instead he was humming a cheerful melody as he piled up two-piece +velvet suits.</p> + +<p>"Well, Abe," he said, "you have went on a fool's errand, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, fool's errand?" Abe demanded.</p> + +<p>"Why, I mean I knew all along that fiddle of yours was a fake; and anyhow, +Abe, I seen Milton Strauss, of Klipmann, Strauss & Bleimer, and what d'ye +suppose he told it me, Abe?"</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged angrily.</p> + +<p>"If you must got to get it off your chest before I tell you what +Geigermann told to me, Mawruss," he said, "go ahead."</p> + +<p>"Well, I seen Milton Strauss, Abe," Morris went on calmly, "and he says to +me that he knows for a positive fact that Felix Geigermann could have sold +that fiddle of his for three thousand five hundred dollars before he even +pays for it yet. Strauss says that Felix is all the time buying up old +fiddles for a side line, and if he makes a cent at it he makes a couple +thousand dollars a year. Furthermore, Abe, he says that if anybody's got a +genu-ine who's-this fiddle, he wouldn't let it go for no hundred and +twenty-five dollars, and the chances is you are paying a fancy figure for a +cheap popular-price line of fiddles."</p> + +<p>Abe hung up his hat so violently that he nearly knocked a hole in the +crown.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, Mawruss," he began, "it was your idee I should go up +there and get the fiddle back, and in the second place I am telling you with +my own eyes I seen that fiddle and it is the selfsame, identical +article—name, lot number and everything—which that feller +Geigermann refuses thirty-five hundred dollars for."</p> + +<p>He scowled at his partner in anticipation of a cutting rejoinder.</p> + +<p>"But anyhow, that ain't neither here nor there," he continued as Morris +remained silent. "We would quick find out for ourselves what the fiddle +really is, because to-morrow morning I am going around to the store and +Geigermann gives me the fiddle back."</p> + +<p>Morris paused in the folding of a velvet skirt.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't do that, Abe, if I was you," he said. "What is the use giving +presents and taking 'em back again? You could make from a feller an enemy for +life that way."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know Mawruss. An enemy for life is one thing, Mawruss, but +thirty-five hundred dollars ain't to be sniffed at neither, y'understand."</p> + +<p>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Abe!" Morris cried. "The fiddle ain't worth even +thirty-five hundred pins."</p> + +<p>Following this observation there ensued a controversy of over an hour's +duration, at the end of which Morris compromised.</p> + +<p>"Say, listen here to me, Abe!" he declared. "You say the fiddle is worth +it and I say it ain't. Now if I am right and we take the fiddle back, then we +are acting like a couple of cheap yokels, ain't it? <i>Aber</i> if you are +right, Abe, then we are out thirty-five hundred dollars. So what's the use +talking, Abe? Only one thing we got to do. We got to find a feller which he +could right away tell whether the fiddle is <i>oder</i> not is +genu-ine—just by looking at it, y'understand. This feller we got to +send up to Geigermann's house to look at the fiddle to-night yet, and if he +says the fiddle is, Abe, then we would take it back. <i>Aber</i> if he says +the fiddle ain't, Abe, then, Geigermann could keep the fiddle <i>und +fertig</i>."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded slowly.</p> + +<p>"The idee is all right, Mawruss," he said; "but in the first place, +Mawruss, where could we find such a feller, and in the second place, if we +did found him, Mawruss, what excuse would we give Geigermann for sending him +up there in the third place?"</p> + +<p>Morris scratched his head.</p> + +<p>"Well, for that matter, Abe, if we found such a feller, we could send him +up there to say that he hears from you that you are giving away such a +Who's-this fiddle to Geigermann, and that the feller would like to buy it off +of him."</p> + +<p>"And then, Mawruss?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"And then," Morris went on, "Geigermann shows the feller the fiddle, +y'understand, and if it is worth it <i>oder</i> it isn't worth it the feller +says nothing to Geigermann, but he comes back and reports to us."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded again.</p> + +<p>"If I was to tell you all the weak points of that scheme, Mawruss," he +said, "I could stand here talking till my tongue dropped out yet. But all I +got to say is, Mawruss, the idee is yours, and you should go ahead and carry +it out. Me, I got nothing to say about it either one way or the other."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>At seven that evening, while Professor Ladislaw Wcelak was washing down a +late breakfast with a bottle of beer, there came a violent knocking at the +hall door. The professor answered it in person, for Aaron was busily engaged +over Concone's vocalizations in the front parlour and the other members of +the family were washing dishes in the rear.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu, Landsmann!</i>" Ladislaw cried. "Ain't you working to-night?"</p> + +<p>The newcomer was none other than Emil Pilz, <i>Konzertmeister</i> of the +Palace Theatre of Varieties, if that dignified term may be applied to the +first violin of an orchestra of twenty.</p> + +<p>"I am and I ain't," Emil replied. "I've got a job, Louis, which it would +take me till nine o'clock, so be a good feller and substitute for me at the +theayters till I am coming back."</p> + +<p>"And who would substitute for me, Emil?" the professor asked.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," Emil replied. "I stopped in on my way over and I seen +old man Hubai. He ain't <i>shikker</i> yet, so I told him he should go over +and fiddle a couple <i>czardas</i> till you come, and to tell the boss you +got a <i>Magenweh</i> and would be a little late. Me, I am going uptown to +look at a fiddle. I got the job through an old pupil, Milton Strauss, which +he says a feller by the name Potash gives away a fiddle which he bought, and +now he thinks it's a genuine Amati. So I should please go up and look at it; +and if it is <i>oder</i> it isn't, I get ten dollars."</p> + +<p>"Who's this feller Potash?" the professor asked, and Emil shrugged.</p> + +<p>"What difference does that make?" he said. "He gives a hundred and +twenty-five dollars for the fiddle only a couple days ago. What d'ye want to +know for?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing," the professor replied; "only my brother Aaron sold to a +feller by the name Potash the other day a fiddle which I myself bought from +old Hubai a couple years ago for fifteen dollars yet; and if that's the one +you are talking about, Emil, you should quick go up to the theayter and +forget about it. Because, Emil, if that fiddle is an Amati, you are a Kubelik +and I am a Kreisler."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Louis," Emil agreed; "but just the same I got to go up +there to make the ten, so if you would do me the favour and <i>spiel</i> for +me till half-past nine you could get anyhow three dollars of it."</p> + +<p>"I am willing," the professor said; and ten minutes later he was on his +way up to the Palace Theatre of Varieties.</p> + +<p>It was precisely half-past nine, while a tabloid drama in progress on the +stage rendered the presence of the orchestra unnecessary, that Emil Pilz +returned.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu</i> Emil," Louis said as they stood in the corridor leading to the +stage entrance, "did you seen the Amati?"</p> + +<p>He grinned in humorous anticipation of Emil's answer.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did seen it," Emil replied, "and it's a very elegant, grand +model."</p> + +<p>"Sure," the professor said; "made in Bavaria with an ax."</p> + +<p>"Don't you fool yourself, Louis," Emil retorted. "That's an elegant +instrument from Nicolo Amati's best period. If it's worth a cent it's worth +three thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Emil!" Louis cried. "What are you trying to +do?—kid me?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, kid you?" Emil asked. "I should never stir from this +spot, Louis, if that ain't an Amati. It's got a tone like gold, Louis."</p> + +<p>For a brief interval Louis stared at his informant.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to told me, Emil, that that fiddle is a real, genu-ine +Amati?"</p> + +<p>"Listen here to me, Louis," Emil declared; "if I wouldn't be sure that it +was genu-ine why should I got such a heart that I would act that way to that +feller Potash? When—so sure as you are standing there, Louis—when +I told him it was a genu-ine Amati he pretty near got a fit already; and as +for his partner by the name Perlmutter, he hollered so I thought he was going +to spit blood already."</p> + +<p>Louis licked his dry lips before making any reply.</p> + +<p>"So, then, I am paying fifteen dollars for a fiddle which it is a genu-ine +Amati," he said, "and that brother of mine which he ain't got no more sense +as a lunatic lets it go for a song already."</p> + +<p>"Well, I couldn't stop to talk to you now, Louis," Emil said. "I must got +to get on the job. I am going to be to-morrow morning, ten o'clock, at this +here Potash & Perlmutter's, and if you want to you could meet me there +with old man Hubai."</p> + +<p>"Old man Hubai!" Louis cried. "What's he got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"He's got a whole lot to do with it, Louis," Emil said. "A feller like him +sells you a three-thousand-dollar violin for fifteen dollars which he ain't +got a penny in the world, y'understand, and I should stand by and see him get +done!"</p> + +<p>Professor Wcelak hung his head and blushed.</p> + +<p>"Also, Louis," Emil concluded, "I just rung him up at the café, and he +says whatever he gets out of it I get half."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Morris Perlmutter arrived at Felix Geigermann's store the next +morning he showed the effects of a restless night and no breakfast; for he +had found it impossible either to eat or sleep until he had his hands on the +violin.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Geigermann went out for a minute, Mr. Potash," a floorwalker +explained; "but he said I should show you right into his office, Mr. +Potash."</p> + +<p>"My name ain't Potash," Morris replied, "that's my partner, which he +couldn't get up here on account he is sick."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," the floorwalker said reassuringly. "Just step this +way."</p> + +<p>He conducted Morris to Geigermann's office.</p> + +<p>"Have a seat, Mr. Perlmutter," he said; but the words fell on deaf ears, +for as soon as he entered the room Morris descried the violin, which rested +on top of Geigermann's desk. He pounced on it immediately, and turning it +over in his hand he examined it with the minutest care. At length he +discerned the label inside the "eff" hole. It was curling away from the wood +and appeared to be ready to drop off, so that it was an easy matter for +Morris to impale it on his scarfpin. By dint of a little scraping he managed +to draw one edge of it through the "eff" hole and the next moment he was +examining the faded printing. Then he turned the label over and in one corner +he discovered an oval mark. Simultaneously the door opened and Geigermann +entered.</p> + +<p>Morris thrust the label into his pocket and turned to Geigermann with an +amiable smile. Moreover, his pallor had given place to a pronounced flush and +he looked nearly five years younger than when he walked into the store just +ten minutes before.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Felix!" he cried, holding out his hand. "How's the boy?"</p> + +<p>"Fine," Felix said. "Where's Abe?"</p> + +<p>"He couldn't get here on account he is sitting up late again last night, +and, of course, Felix, he is sick. But anyhow, Felix, I am glad he ain't +coming."</p> + +<p>"Why so?" Felix asked.</p> + +<p>"Because you never seen such a feller in your life, Felix," Morris went +on. "Always worrying and always kicking. First he gives you a fiddle, then he +wants to take it back again. With me it is different. What do I care if the +fiddle is or it ain't one of them genu-ine Who's This's? Once you give a +thing you give a thing, ain't it? And I don't care what experts says nor +nothing."</p> + +<p>Felix Geigermann blushed. When Emil Pilz had called on him the night +before he had scented the object of the visit and had exhibited not Abe's +gift but the Karanyi Amati. He had no doubt that Pilz communicated to Potash +& Perlmutter the result of his call immediately after its conclusion, and +he felt touched and humbled by Morris's generous behaviour.</p> + +<p>"Morris," he said, "I did you a big injury. I didn't think you felt that +way about it; so when that expert called on me last night I didn't show him +Abe's fiddle at all—I showed him the other one, the +three-thousand-dollar fiddle."</p> + +<p>Morris's grin became a trifle broader.</p> + +<p>"That don't worry me none, Felix," he declared. "I am glad you should keep +the fiddle if it should be worth ten thousand dollars even. A gift is a gift, +Felix."</p> + +<p>"That's very generous of you, Morris, I must say," Felix replied, "and I +would keep the violin. I would even do more, Morris. I was going to give +Klinger & Klein an order for some of their three-piece broadcloths, but I +changed my mind. I will give it to you instead; and if you would be in this +afternoon, Morris, I will go downtown and pick 'em out."</p> + +<p>Once more Morris wrung his customer's hand. Before proceeding downtown, he +sought the nearest dairy restaurant and made tremendous inroads upon its +stock of eggs and coffee. It was almost ten o'clock before he reached his +place of business, and as he stepped out of the elevator he was greeted by a +roar of voices approximating the effect of a well-managed mob scene in a +capital-and-labour drama.</p> + +<p>Old man Hubai stood in the middle of the showroom; and with clenched fists +waving in the air he appealed to heaven to witness that he was a poor man and +spoke nothing but the Hungarian tongue. Hence he was at the mercy of such +ruffians as Pilz and Wcelak, whose right name he averred to be Kohn. +Following this he swore by his mother that he had paid a thousand kronen for +the violin, and <i>da capo</i> from the exposition of his poverty. +Simultaneously Professor Ladislaw Wcelak dwelt on the economic aspect of the +matter. In stentorian tones he declared Abe's purchase of the violin to be +another example of capital sitting upon the neck of labour, and he prophesied +the rapid approach of the Social Revolution, with sundry references to +bloodsuckers, cut-throats and Philistines.</p> + +<p>Emil Pilz, Aaron, and Abe Potash himself added to the general din in a +three-cornered discussion of the legal points involved. Emil contended that +Aaron could replevin the violin upon the ground of Abe's misrepresentation at +the time of the purchase, and Abe denied it in Yiddish and English, with +emphatic profanity in both languages.</p> + +<p>Into this mêlée Morris hurled himself with a resounding "<i>Koosh!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Are you all crazy, <i>oder</i> what?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Well," Abe cried, "where is it?"</p> + +<p>Instantly there was a dead silence and all eyes rested on Morris.</p> + +<p>"Where's what?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"The Amati!" Emil Pilz cried; and Morris laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>"<i>Geh weg!</i>" he said. "You are an expert!"</p> + +<p>Pilz shook his head in a bullying fashion.</p> + +<p>"Never mind if I am an expert <i>oder</i> not," he said. "Where is that +Amati which I seen it myself at Geigermann's house only last night?"</p> + +<p>"It is at Geigermann's house to-day," Morris replied. "Right now it is +there and it would stay there too, young feller, because that fiddle which +you seen it is the one Geigermann paid three thousand dollars for. You seen +the wrong fiddle, that's all."</p> + +<p>This statement seemed to rouse Aaron Shellak to hysterical frenzy.</p> + +<p>"Liar and thief!" he screamed. "Give me my fiddle."</p> + +<p>"One moment, Shellak," Morris said, "before you put on your hat and coat +and go home, which you shouldn't trouble yourself to come back at all. I want +to show you something."</p> + +<p>He explored his waistcoat pocket.</p> + +<p>"Ain't this the label which was in your fiddle?" he asked, handing Aaron a +slip of paper.</p> + +<p>Aaron examined it carefully and nodded.</p> + +<p>"That other crazy Indian over there," Morris continued, pointing to the +professor, "look at this label. Ain't it the same which was in the +fiddle?"</p> + +<p>Ladislaw Wcelak examined the printed slip and he, too, nodded.</p> + +<p>Next, Morris turned to old man Hubai, who stood apart muttering to +himself.</p> + +<p>"Some one ask that old greenhorn if it's the same label that was in the +fiddle. I don't know what he's got to do with this business but he may know, +anyhow."</p> + +<p>Wcelak interpreted Morris's words and showed the label to the old man, who +replied volubly in Hungarian.</p> + +<p>"He says he thinks it is," the professor said, "but he doesn't know for +sure."</p> + +<p>"Well, I know it is the same," Morris retorted, "because I took it out +there myself this morning."</p> + +<p>Here Morris cleared his throat and assumed an air of such dignity, not to +say majesty, that to Abe, it seemed as though he had never rightly known his +partner until that moment.</p> + +<p>"Now look on the other side of that label," Morris cried.</p> + +<p>Once more the label went the rounds and after Emil Pilz had examined it he +put on his hat and made for the elevator. Almost on tiptoe Professor Ladislaw +Wcelak followed him, while Aaron repaired to the cutting room and packed up +his belongings, preparatory to forsaking a career as cutter for one of +music.</p> + +<p>At length only old man Hubai remained.</p> + +<p>"What are you waiting for?" Morris demanded.</p> + +<p>"Me poor man," Hubai said. "Me no got carfare, me no got <i>Trinkgeld</i>, +me no got nothing."</p> + +<p>Morris handed him a quarter and he shuffled off toward the backstairs. +Meantime Abe staggered to his feet and passed his hand over his forehead.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Mawruss," he said, "what is all this about?"</p> + +<p>"It's just what I says just now, Abe," Morris exploded. "That expert seen +the wrong fiddle. The fiddle you gave Geigermann is no more three hundred +years old than I am."</p> + +<p>"Why ain't it?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>For answer Morris handed him the label. On the obverse side Abe read the +inscription:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="label"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td>Nicolaus Amati Cremonensis Faciebai Anno 1670.</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"Now turn it over," Morris said; and Abe described on the reverse side a +familiar oval mark bearing the following inscription:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="label"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td>Allied Printers Trades Council, Union Label, New York City.</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap07">CHAPTER SEVEN</h2> + +<h3>BROTHERS ALL</h3> + +<p>"What is the use talking, Mawruss?" Abe Potash protested. "The feller +couldn't even talk ten words English at all."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris Perlmutter admitted; "but he would quick learn."</p> + +<p>"Quick learn!" Abe exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, quick learn? Nowadays I +never seen the like! A greenhorn comes over here from Russland which he is +such an iggeramus he don't know his own name, understand me; and he expects +right away to get a job in a cloak-and-suit concern uptown, where they would +learn him how he should talk English and at the same time pay him ten dollars +a week. Actually, Mawruss, them fellers thinks they are doing you a favour if +they ruin ten garments a day on you in exchange for learning 'em English. Me, +when I come over from Russland, I was <i>oser</i> so <i>grossartig</i>. I was +glad to got a job learning on shirts in a subcellar and the boss boards me +for wages. I got an elegant bill of fare, too, I bet yer, Mawruss. Every day +for dinner is salt herring and potatoes, except Sundays is onions extra. And +did that feller learn me English, Mawruss? <i>Oser</i> a <i>stück</i>. I must +got to go to night school to learn English, Mawruss, and I did, +Mawruss—and they learned me good there, Mawruss; and so this here +feller you are talking about should do the same."</p> + +<p>"We wouldn't got to learn him English, Abe," Morris declared. "The feller +is a bright, smart feller, and he could pick it up quick enough."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Abe rejoined; "and pick up a whole lot of other things, +too, Mawruss. Silks and velvets and buttons them fellers picks up."</p> + +<p>"Not this feller, Abe," Morris said. "He is from decent, respectable +people in the old country. He is studying for a doctor already when he comes +over here, but he gets into trouble on account he belongs to a politics +society over there; so he must got to run away. The feller is a bright +feller, Abe."</p> + +<p>"I know them bright fellers, Mawruss—sit up till all hours of the +night in Canal Street coffee houses killing off grand dukes. Grand dukes is +got to make a living the same like anybody else, Mawruss; and anyhow, +Mawruss, when a feller comes over here from Russland, Mawruss, he ain't got +no business bothering his head about grand dukes. The way things is nowadays +in the cloak-and-suit trade, Mawruss, a feller's got all he could attend to +holding on to his job."</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged.</p> + +<p>"Let's give the feller a show anyhow, Abe," he rejoined; "and if he don't +soon make good we could quick fire him, y 'understand."</p> + +<p>"That's what you said about that feller Harkavy, which we give him a job +in our cutting room, Mawruss. All the time he works for us he acts so +<i>dumm</i> like a ten-year-old child; and so soon as we fire him, Mawruss, +he goes to work by Kleiman & Elenbogen and turns out a couple of styles, +which the least them highwaymen makes out of 'em is five thousand +dollars."</p> + +<p>"How should I know what Harkavy could do with Kleiman & Elenbogen, +Abe?" Morris cried. "You are the prophet of this here concern, Abe. Always +you are predicting to me to-morrow what is going to happen yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Well, what's <i>vorbei</i> is <i>vorbei</i>, Mawruss," Abe retorted; "and +if I would got to stand here all day and <i>schmooes</i> with you, Mawruss, +go ahead and hire the feller. Only one thing I am saying to you, Mawruss: +Don't tell me afterward that I was in favour of the feller from the start; +because I ain't."</p> + +<p>With this ultimatum, Abe glanced toward the cutting room, where sat a +tall, stooping figure, holding in his two hands a peaked cap.</p> + +<p>"Only to look at the feller gives me a <i>krank</i>, Mawruss," Abe +continued; "so, if you are going to hire him, Mawruss, do me the favour and +give him a couple dollars out of the safe so he should get a shave and a +haircut and a new hat."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded and started for the cutting room, when Abe called him +back.</p> + +<p>"For my part, Mawruss, I don't care what people says, y'understand," he +declared; "but if we got a couple of them Thirty-fourth Street buyers around +here and they sees our workpeople is got such shoes which their toes is +sticking out already, Mawruss, what do they think of us? Am I right or +wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris said; "but—"</p> + +<p>"But nothing, Mawruss," Abe concluded. "For three dollars we should make +suckers out of ourselves! Don't stand there like a fool, Mawruss. Give the +feller five dollars; he should buy himself a pair of shoes and +<i>fertig</i>."</p> + +<p>The transformation begun in Cesar Kovalenko by a haircut and a shave was +made complete when Morris, accompanied by Kovalenko's cousin, went with him +to a retail clothing establishment. There Cesar discarded forever his cap, +top boots and frogged overcoat and emerged—but for his +vocabulary—a naturalized citizen of the cloak-and-suit trade.</p> + +<p>"Now all he's got to do," Morris said, "is to work hard and he would quick +be making good wages."</p> + +<p>"Sure, sure!" the cousin replied. "At first, maybe he would be a little +<i>dumm</i> on account he is got a whole lot of experiences lately."</p> + +<p>"Experiences?" Morris asked. "What for experiences?"</p> + +<p>"Well, in the first place," the cousin proceeded, "two years ago he is +studying for a doctor in the University of Harkav, and next door to him one +house by the other lives a feller which I ain't got nothing to say against +him, y'understand, only he goes to work and sends a package to the chief of +police, Mr. Perlmutter, which when they open the package, y'understand, +inside is something g'fixed. Mind you, Mr. Perlmutter, I wouldn't say nothing +if it would be really the chief of police which would open the package, but +always it is some poor <i>Schnorrer</i> which the chief of police calls in +from the street. This time it was a feller by the name Levin, a decent, +respectable, young feller—his father was a <i>Rav</i>. The old man is +coming over here this week, I understand, Mr. Perlmutter—but when the +chief of police sends out Levin in the backyard he should open the package, +understand me, that's the last any one sees either from the package or either +from Levin."</p> + +<p>Morris clicked his tongue sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"And what did they done to the feller which sends the package?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"Him, they didn't done nothing, Mr. Perlmutter," the cousin replied; "but +Cesar, here, they put it all on to him. First they are making him arrested, +and the police pretty near kill him and the Cossacks take him from Harkav to +Odessa he should get tried, and then they pretty near kill him there; and if +it wouldn't be that we are sending over to give to a judge there a couple +thousand rubles they would right away shoot him. Anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, one +year my cousin sits in prison there; and then we are sending over a couple +thousand rubles more which we give the feller what runs the prison, and so my +cousin sneaks out of there and he comes over here to this country."</p> + +<p>Morris gazed at the neatly clad figure who walked quietly along beside +him.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't think it to look at him," he said; "but, anyhow, I would do +my best to see he gets a good show; and he would quick learn, I bet yer."</p> + +<p>By this time they had reached Potash & Perlmutter's premises and the +cousin shook hands warmly with Morris.</p> + +<p>"You got a good heart, Mr. Perlmutter," he declared fervently; "and you +wouldn't lose money supposing you did pay him eight dollars a week to +start."</p> + +<p>Morris paused before passing indoors.</p> + +<p>"Listen here to me," he said. "Maybe I got a good heart and maybe I ain't, +but your cousin starts on five dollars a week, understand me; and if he gets +six dollars inside of a month he would got to earn it."</p> + +<p>Despite this assertion, however, it was barely three weeks before Cesar +Kovalenko was earning and receiving eight dollars a week, for never in their +business experience had Abe and Morris employed a more intelligent workman. +Not only did he exhibit great promise as an assistant cutter but he had +acquired a knowledge of English sufficient for his needs.</p> + +<p>"If the feller keeps on, Abe," Morris said, "we would soon got to give him +another raise. He's a wonder!"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded gloomily.</p> + +<p>"You could get all the wonders you want, Mawruss, to learn cutting at +eight dollars a week," he said; "and supposing he does pick up English quick, +Mawruss—a feller could be a regular Henry Shakespeare, y'understand, +and he wouldn't be any better as a garment cutter on that account. Am I right +or wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Well, certainly it don't do no harm that Kovalenko understands a little +English," Morris commented.</p> + +<p>"Sure not," Abe agreed satirically, "because the quicker he learns +English, Mawruss, the quicker he would copy our styles and find a job with a +competitor. Take this here Harkavy, for instance. Only this morning I seen +Felix Geigermann in the subway and he says that Kleiman & Elenbogen is +showing, at a dollar less on the garment, a ringer for our Style 4022 which +we sold him, Mawruss. Now, who tells them suckers how they could cut down on +the buttons and the lining, Mawruss, and put one pleat less in the skirt, +Mawruss? I suppose you did or I did, Mawruss—ain't it?"</p> + +<p>He paused for a reply, but none came.</p> + +<p>"And yet, Mawruss," he concluded, "that feller Harkavy was a wonder too; +and I suppose, Mawruss, the way he picked up English would be a big +consolation to us, Mawruss, if a good customer like Geigermann leaves us and +goes over to Kleiman & Elenbogen."</p> + +<p>Morris grunted scornfully.</p> + +<p>"You are all the time looking for trouble, Abe," he said. "If we would +lose as many customers as you are talking about, Abe, we wouldn't got a +decent concern left on our books at all. You got to give Geigermann credit +for knowing a good garment when he sees it."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Geigermann knows a good garment +when he sees it, but his customers don't; and if Geigermann could get, for a +dollar less than ours, garments which looks like ours and is like ours, all +but the buttons and the pleats in the skirt, we could kiss ourselves good-by +with the business, no matter how many bright greenhorns we got it in our +cutting room."</p> + +<p>"<i>Geh weg!</i>" Morris exclaimed. "You don't know what you are talking +about, Abe."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when Felix Geigermann, the well-known Harlem dry-goods +merchant and violin dilettante, entered Potash & Perlmutter's showroom +the next morning Morris greeted him with some misgiving.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Felix!" he said. "Are you giving us a repeat order so soon already +on them 4022's?"</p> + +<p>Felix shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I got a few words to say to Abe, Mawruss," he replied. "Is he in now?"</p> + +<p>Morris smiled amiably, although he was convinced that Felix's visit boded +a cancellation of the 4022's.</p> + +<p>"He ain't in now," he answered, "but if you wait a few minutes he'll be +right back."</p> + +<p>He returned hastily to the office, for he knew that if Abe found them in +conversation on his return he would impute the cancellation of the order to +something Morris had said. Thus Felix was left alone in the showroom, save +for Cesar Kovalenko, who plied a feather duster industriously among the +sample-racks. As he worked, Cesar whistled a Russian melody, half sad, half +cheerful, and Felix paused midway in the lighting of his cigar. It was the +opening theme in the second movement of Tschaikovsky's Fourth Symphony; and +Cesar's rendition of it was not only true to pitch but he managed to +introduce certain nuances that to Felix proclaimed the born musician.</p> + +<p>"What's that you are whistling?" he inquired; and Cesar smiled.</p> + +<p>"Tschaikovsky's Fourt' Symphony," he replied, and then he reached around +to his hip-pocket. "See; I am got music."</p> + +<p>He handed a paper-covered miniature score to Geigermann, who opened it at +random.</p> + +<p>"Ha!" Felix exclaimed as his eye lit on a familiar phrase in the last +movement. He hummed it over and Cesar joined him in a clear, musical +barytone. They were thus engaged when a tall, broad-shouldered individual +entered the showroom.</p> + +<p>"Sorry to interrupt you, gentlemen," he said, "but is the boss in?"</p> + +<p>"In the office back there," Felix replied.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell him Mr. Gunther would like to see him?" the newcomer +continued.</p> + +<p>"I will if you want me to," Felix said; "but I am here only a +customer."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," Mr. Gunther apologized. "I was talking about the other +feller. However—"</p> + +<p>He proceeded to the office and engaged Morris in earnest conversation for +several minutes. They returned to the showroom just as Cesar was replacing +the score in his hip-pocket. The motion was too much for Mr. Gunther, whose +occupation made him nervous; and he plunged his hand into his overcoat and +brought out a shining metallic object. There was a sharp struggle and Cesar +Kovalenko leaned against the partition with his wrists encircled by a pair of +handcuffs.</p> + +<p>"Come along quiet," said Mr. Gunther calmly, "or I'll knock yer block +awff."</p> + +<p>At this juncture the elevator door banged open and Abe came into the +showroom.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter here?" he cried.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gunther smiled.</p> + +<p>"I'm a United States deputy marshal," he proclaimed, "and I'm arresting +this guy under a warrant duly issued in the Southern District of New York. +I've got a taxicab downstairs and if any of you gentlemen is a friend of the +prisoner youse can come along to the marshal's office."</p> + +<p>Morris darted into the office and reappeared with his hat and coat.</p> + +<p>"Abe," he said, "you stay here in the store. I would go down with him."</p> + +<p>Abe frowned.</p> + +<p>"One moment, Mawruss," he cried. "It don't go so quick as all that. First, +we would find out what he makes this young feller arrested for."</p> + +<p>The deputy marshal nodded.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," he said. "You're entitled to know it. He's arrested on +the complaint of the Russian Consulate for something he did in Russia two +years ago."</p> + +<p>"In Russia!" Abe exclaimed. "Two years ago! Mawruss, do me a favour. You +stay in the store and I would go with him."</p> + +<p>Felix Geigermann placed his hand on Abe's arm.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he said. "I'll tell you the truth. I am pretty busy +to-day here to cancel them 4022's; but now I don't care at all. You could +ship them goods if you want to, Abe; but one thing I ask you as a +favour—let me go with him. I don't care what the other feller says. I +am just now talking to this here young feller and if he done anything in +Russia, understand me, I would eat it. So you stay here and tend to business +and I would go with him."</p> + +<p>Morris drew on his overcoat with force sufficient to rip the +sleeve-lining. "Nathan, the shipping clerk, could tend the store, Abe," he +declared, "and we'll all go with him."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"In the first place, Mawruss," Abe said, after they had returned from the +United States Commissioner's office, where Cesar Kovalenko had been arraigned +and committed without bail to the Tombs—"in the first place what are we +bothering our heads about this young feller? Of course, when I was down +there, Mawruss, and see that feller from the Russian counsellor's office, +which he is got a face, Mawruss, hard like iron, y'understand, I didn't say +nothing; but the way you are going to work and telephoning to Henry D. +Feldman and everything, Mawruss—before we would get through with him it +would cost us anyhow a couple hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>"Geigermann says he would go half," Morris said.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss; but just because Geigermann acts like a sucker, +Mawruss, why should we get ourselves into it too? Furthermore, Mawruss, how +do we know Geigermann would go half? He's that kind of feller, Mawruss, that +when he says something he don't take it so particular he should stick to it, +Mawruss. One day he gives us an order and the next day cancels it, +Mawruss—and that's the kind of a man he is."</p> + +<p>"He didn't cancel it, Abe," Morris cried. "He was going to cancel it, but +he changed his mind."</p> + +<p>"Sure, he changed his mind," Abe interrupted; "and what is going to hinder +him changing his mind on this other proposition, Mawruss? You could take it +from me, Mawruss, when the time comes he should pay up, understand me, it'll +be a case of <i>nix wissen</i>—and don't you forget it."</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged impatiently.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu</i>, Abe," he said; "what could we do? Once in a while we couldn't +help ourselves, y'understand. Should we let this poor greenhorn be sent back +to Russland, which he ain't got a relative in the world, understand me, +except his cousin, which he is just as poor as Kovalenko?"</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "I ain't kicking we shouldn't +help the feller. All I am saying is there's lots of our people which they got +more dollars as we got dimes. Take Moses M. Steuermann, for instance; there's +a feller which he is such a big charity feller, understand me, why shouldn't +he help Kovalenko?"</p> + +<p>"Well, in the first place, no one tells him about it, Abe," Morris said, +"and in the second place—"</p> + +<p>"But why don't we tell him about it, Mawruss?" Abe interrupted. "Why don't +you go down to see him, Mawruss, and tell him all about it?"</p> + +<p>"Me go down to see him, Abe!" Morris cried. "Why, the feller is a +multimillionaire. With such people like that I couldn't open my mouth at all. +Why don't you go down to see him?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I go down?" Abe asked. "You are the lodge brother here, +Mawruss—ain't it? You are the one which you are always sitting up till +all hours of the night making motions. I couldn't make a motion to save my +life, Mawruss, and you know it."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris protested; "but lodge meetings is something else +again. A feller could talk at a lodge meeting—and what is it? A couple +young lawyers which they couldn't even pay their laundry bills, y'understand, +and a dozen other fellers, insurance brokers <i>oder</i> cigar dealers, and +most of 'em old-timers at that—why should I be afraid to say a little +something to 'em? But with a feller like Moses M. Steuermann, which his folks +was bankers in Frankfort-on-the-Main when Carnegie and Vanderbilt and all +them other <i>goyim</i> was new beginners yet, Abe—that's a different +proposition entirely."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded and remained silent for a few minutes.</p> + +<p>"Might Felix Geigermann would go down and see him, Mawruss," he suggested +finally. "It wouldn't do no harm we should ring him up anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Go as far as you like, Abe," Morris said, and Abe started immediately for +the telephone.</p> + +<p>"I spoke to Felix, Mawruss," he announced a few minutes later, "and Felix +said he would go right down and see him. He ain't so stuck on paying Feldman +a couple hundred dollars neither."</p> + +<p>Morris snorted indignantly.</p> + +<p>"If you was going to be charitable, Abe," he said, "why don't you be a +sport? We could easy stand a couple hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Business is business and +charity is charity, y'understand; but even in charity, Mawruss, it don't do +no harm to keep the expenses down."</p> + +<p>Two hours afterward Felix Geigermann entered the showroom, his face +glistening with perspiration.</p> + +<p>"Well, boys," he almost shouted, "I seen him, and he says he would call in +here on his way uptown."</p> + +<p>"Who would call in?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Moses M. Steuermann," Felix replied. "It was the Tschaikovsky Fourth that +fixed him, Mawruss. I told him that young feller carries round with him an +orchestral score, and right away he says he would come up. For years I seen +Mr. Steuermann at the Philharmonics and the Boston Symphonies, Mawruss, and I +didn't know who he was at all. I always thought he was something to do with a +music-publishing concern."</p> + +<p>"Steuermann got something to do with a music-publishing concern!" Morris +exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you, you should talk that way, Felix."</p> + +<p>"Well, when you are seeing year in and year out a feller goes to every +concert what is, Abe," Felix explained, "naturally you get an idee he is in +the music business—ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"That's what you think, Felix," Abe said, taking up the cudgels in defence +of Steuermann; "but you could take it from me, Felix, if a feller like +Steuermann seemingly fools away his time at concerts, understand me, he ain't +doing it for nothing. He probably gets some business out of it the same like +a lot of fellers you would think is making suckers of themselves going to +lodge meetings, Felix. Most of 'em sells many a big bill of goods that +way."</p> + +<p>"That ain't here nor there, Abe," Felix rejoined. "The point is, +Steuermann would be up here at five o'clock; so, what are you going to tell +him when he calls?"</p> + +<p>"Me tell him!" Abe cried. "Why, I wouldn't be here at all. I got +to—now—see—a—now—customer at the Prince +Clarence."</p> + +<p>"You ain't got to do nothing of the kind, Abe," Morris retorted angrily. +"You are going to stay right here and talk to that feller when he comes. What +do you think—I am going to be the goat every time?"</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Abe?" Felix asked. "Are you afraid of the feller? He +couldn't eat you up, Abe."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, afraid of him?" Abe exclaimed. "I am seeing big merchants +every day, Felix, and I could talk right up to them too. But this here is my +partner's affair. He hired Kovalenko in the first place; and—"</p> + +<p>"What's the use talking, Abe?" Morris interrupted. "If you go home I go +home; so you got to stay and we would both see the feller. What is the +difference, supposing the feller does got a couple million dollars?"</p> + +<p>"A couple million dollars!" Felix said. "Why, I bet yer, if the feller's +got a cent he is worth twenty million dollars."</p> + +<p>Abe drew pale.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, why should I talk to Mr. Steuermann?" he besought. "You +could do this without me, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a baby, Abe," Morris retorted. "Felix would stay here with us +and—"</p> + +<p>"Not me, boys," Felix said. "I guess you got to excuse me. I done enough +already and if I don't get right home and change my underclothes, which they +are dripping wet with perspiration, I would sure catch a bad cold."</p> + +<p>He shook Abe and Morris warmly by the hand; and hardly had the elevator +door closed behind him when the showroom became a scene of nervous +activity.</p> + +<p>"Nathan," Abe yelled to the shipping clerk, "fetch the broom. The place +looks like a pigsty here!"</p> + +<p>He turned to Morris with excited gesture.</p> + +<p>"Do me the favour, Mawruss," he said; "tell a couple of them young fellers +from the cutting room to come in here. Them sample-racks ain't been +straightened up for a week. I am going round to the barber shop, Mawruss, and +I would be right back."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>It lacked one minute of five and Abe and Morris sat at their respective +desks in the firm's office, when Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, knocked timidly +at the door.</p> + +<p>"A gentleman wants to see you, Mr. Potash," she said. "He wouldn't give +his name."</p> + +<p>Abe cleared his throat with an effort.</p> + +<p>"Tell him he should come right in," he croaked; and a moment later a tall +personage, clad in a fur overcoat and wearing a freshly ironed silk hat, +appeared in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Is this Mr. Potash?" he asked in rounded, oratorical tones.</p> + +<p>Abe nodded. For a moment he was bereft of speech and he jerked his head +sideways in the direction of his partner.</p> + +<p>"This is Mr. Perlmutter," he said at length—"my partner."</p> + +<p>"How do you do, sir?" the visitor replied as he seized Morris's clammy +palm in a warm embrace.</p> + +<p>"Take a seat," Morris murmured, dragging forth a chair; and the stranger +sat down deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," Abe asked, "what could we do for you?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at tames confronted +with a situation which demands a few appropriate remarks."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded and mopped tentatively at his dewy forehead.</p> + +<p>"But how many are there," the visitor continued, "who can do justice to +the occasion? For instance, Mr. Perlmutter, you are asked at a charitable +meeting to discuss the question of restricting immigration. I ask you +candidly, Mr. Perlmutter, would you feel competent to stand upon your feet +and—"</p> + +<p>Suddenly Abe jumped to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, my dear sir," he cried. "Wouldn't you smoke a cigar?"</p> + +<p>Morris was nearest the safe and he, too, leaped from his chair.</p> + +<p>"Never mind the safe, Mawruss," Abe said, flapping his right hand +excitedly. "I bought some while I was out just now."</p> + +<div> +<img id="illust4" src="images/gs04pp.jpg" width="329" height="228" +alt="Illustration:" /> + +<h5>"Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at times +confronted<br /> +with a situation which demands a few appropriate remarks"</h5> +</div> + +<p>He handed a gold-banded, Bismarck-size cigar to the visitor, who nodded a +dignified acknowledgment and immediately struck a match.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Perlmutter," he went on, "as I was saying, such a topic as the +restriction of immigration would embarrass even an experienced speaker." He +paused and cleared his throat impressively. "Now, I have here," he said, +exploring the capacious pockets of his overcoat, "a work entitled 'A Quarter +of a Century in Congress,' by the Honourable Lucius J. Howell, which, +gentlemen, is issued upon subscription only, in half morocco or crushed +levant at a hitherto unheard-of price."</p> + +<p>Abe ceased mopping his brow and turned a terrible glare upon the book +canvasser.</p> + +<p>"What!" he roared. "A book agent?"</p> + +<p>Once more he jumped to his feet. "Out!" he bellowed. "Out from my office, +you dirty loafer!"</p> + +<p>The book agent scowled and replaced the bound dummy in his pocket.</p> + +<p>"With a high-grade selling proposition like this, Mr. Potash," he said, +"you should be careful of your language."</p> + +<p>"Mawruss," Abe cried, "what the devil do you mean letting in a feller like +this?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, letting him in?" Morris retorted. "Did I tell Miss Cohen +she should show him in?"</p> + +<p>"Don't quarrel on my account, gentlemen," the canvasser said as he puffed +at his cigar. "I shall call again when you're not so busy."</p> + +<p>He passed out of the office with a graceful gesture of farewell, and once +more Abe and Morris sat down on the edge of their chairs. It was not for +long, however; and this time, without any announcement, a thick-set gentleman +with carefully trimmed beard and moustache stood in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said—and Abe and Morris literally +sprang into the middle of the office floor.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Steuermann?" Abe gasped, extending his hand.</p> + +<p>"My name is Mr. Goldstein," the visitor replied, "and I represent the +Lilywhite Dress Shield Company."</p> + +<p>He proceeded no further, however, for Morris led him by the shoulder to +the elevator shaft and pointed to a notice reading:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="sign"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td>HOURS FOR SALESMEN<br /> + 8 to 9:30</td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Morris returned to the office and hardly was he seated in his chair when, +for the third time, the doorway framed a visitor.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Potash?" the newcomer asked timidly. He was a short, slender man, +past middle age, clad in a shabby overcoat, half threadbare, and a soft felt +hat of a dingy, weatherbeaten appearance.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nu!</i>" Abe growled. "What is it now?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Potash," the stranger continued, "I called to see you at the request +of Mr. Geigermann. My name is Steuermann." Abe essayed to rise, but his knees +would not support him and he waved his hand feebly to a chair that Morris +dragged forward.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Steuermann," Morris said, "you are coming up here to see us when we +could much better afford it if we would go down and see you."</p> + +<p>"Why, gentlemen, it was no inconvenience for me," Steuermann replied. "I +am on my way home."</p> + +<p>"God would bless you for it, anyway!" Abe declared fervently; and +Steuermann blushed.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mr. Potash," he protested, "I am not here for compliments. I've come +to see what we can all do for this poor fellow. I'm a little late, because I +was waiting for a report from my lawyers."</p> + +<p>"Your lawyers!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, we already hired Henry D. +Feldman."</p> + +<p>"So I believe," Steuermann replied; "and he has consented to act in +conjunction with my lawyers—Chitty, Schwarzstein & Munjoy. I shall +relieve you gentlemen of all responsibility in the matter."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean by responsibility, Mr. Steuermann, that you would pay +Feldman?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>Mr. Steuermann smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well, we won't discuss that just now," he said.</p> + +<p>"Because," Abe continued, "we wouldn't consent to nothing of the kind, Mr. +Steuermann; the young feller works for us and we would got to do our +share."</p> + +<p>"That part will come later," Steuermann insisted; "and now let's see what +is to be done."</p> + +<p>For more than half an hour Steuermann disclosed to Abe and Morris the +result of his lawyers' investigation.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Munjoy has seen Kovalenko," Steuermann said, "and he asserts that, so +far as proof is concerned, no murder was ever committed."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Steuermann," Morris said, "the feller which he opened the +package, y'understand, was blown up so his own father couldn't recognize him +even."</p> + +<p>"That's just the point, Mr. Perlmutter," Steuermann declared; "and Mr. +Munjoy says that on this circumstance hinges the Russian Consulate's whole +case. They are obliged to prove that a definite person was killed; and it +seems that the consulate paid the passage of the victim's father to this +country, so that he might testify before the United States Commissioner. I +understand that the old man, who by the way is a Rabbi, arrived last week. +Mr. Munjoy says that, if the father is unable to testify to the identity of +the victim it may so complicate matters that more evidence will be necessary +and the consulate may drop the affair on account of the expense involved."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded sadly.</p> + +<p>"Lawyers could always make expenses, Mr. Steuermann," he said, "for the +Russian counsellor and for us also."</p> + +<p>"Never mind about expense, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "What does it matter +a few hundred dollars, Mawruss, so long as we get this young feller free? In +fact, Mr. Steuermann, I am willing we should go half if we could see this +here Rabbi and <i>schmier</i> him a thousand dollars he should swear that no +one was killed at all."</p> + +<p>Mr. Steuermann shook his head. "That would be in effect suborning perjury, +Mr. Potash," he said—and Morris glared at Abe.</p> + +<p>"I'm surprised at you, you should suggest such a thing, Abe!" he +exclaimed. "Seemingly you got no conscience at all. A thousand dollars we +should pay the feller! I bet yer he would lie himself black in the face for a +twenty-dollar bill."</p> + +<p>"It isn't a matter of money, Mr. Perlmutter," Steuermann said; "but why +not see the old man to-night? I have his address here, and if you approached +him in the right way perhaps he might testify that he did not recognize the +murdered man. That would only be the simple truth and it would be just what +we want. As it is, I'm afraid the Russian Consulate will intimidate him into +swearing that he knew the body to be that of his son."</p> + +<p>He handed Morris a card bearing a Madison Street address.</p> + +<p>"Well, gentlemen," he concluded, "I've taken up your time long enough. I +hope to see you in my office to-morrow, Mr. Perlmutter."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded and was about to shake hands with his visitor when Abe +slapped his thigh in a sudden realization of his inhospitality.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Steuermann," he exclaimed, "wouldn't you smoke something?"</p> + +<p>He jumped to his feet and thrust a huge gold-banded cigar at Mr. +Steuermann, who shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much," Mr. Steuermann said, "but I'm afraid it's rather +near dinner-time."</p> + +<p>"Put it in your pocket and smoke it after dinner," Abe insisted, and Mr. +Steuermann smilingly obliged.</p> + +<p>Together the two partners escorted him into the elevator; and when the +door closed behind him Morris turned to Abe with an ironical smile.</p> + +<p>"You got a whole lot of manners, Abe, I must say," he commented +bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Whatd'ye mean, manners?" Abe asked. "What did I done?"</p> + +<p>"Tell a millionaire like Mr. Steuermann he should smoke the cigar after +dinner!" Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"Don't you suppose he's got plenty cigars of his own?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe he did got 'em and maybe he didn't," Abe retorted; "but, in the +first place, Mawruss, I noticed he took the cigar, y'understand; and, in the +second place, Mawruss, them cigars cost thirty-five cents apiece, Mawruss, +and there's few millionaires, Mawruss, which is too proud to smoke a +thirty-five-cent cigar."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Morris Perlmutter entered the subway that evening en route for the +lower East Side, he was in none too cheerful mood; for, in the excitement +attending Steuermann's visit, he had forgotten to telephone Mrs. Perlmutter +that he would be late for dinner. Consequently there had been a painful scene +upon his arrival home that evening, nor had Mrs. Perlmutter's wrath been +appeased when he informed her that he was obliged to go right downtown +again.</p> + +<p>Indeed, his sympathy for Cesar Kovalenko had well-nigh evaporated as he +entered the subway, and he reflected bitterly upon the circumstance that +first led him to hire that unfortunate young man. Thus there was something +doubly irritating in the coincidence which seated him next to Louis Kleiman +in the crowded express train he had boarded, and he had made up his mind to +ignore his competitor's presence when Louis caught sight of him.</p> + +<p>"So, Perlmutter," Louis commented, without any introductory greeting, "you +are trying to do us again!"</p> + +<p>Morris turned and stared icily at Kleiman.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to talk to you at all, Kleiman," he replied; "and, anyhow, +Kleiman, I don't know what you mean—we are trying to do you! The shoe +pinches on the other foot, Kleiman, when you just stop to consider you are +stealing away from us that feller Harkavy, which all he knows we taught +him."</p> + +<p>Louis Kleiman emitted a short, raucous guffaw.</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you kicking about?" he said. "You stole him back +again—ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Stole him back again!" Morris repeated. "What are you talking nonsense, +Kleiman? We wouldn't take that feller back in our store, not if we could get +him to come to work for two dollars a week."</p> + +<p>"Yow!" Kleiman exclaimed skeptically. "I don't suppose you know the feller +left us at all?"</p> + +<p>"I did not," Morris replied promptly; "and if he did, Kleiman, I couldn't +blame him. A feller doesn't want to work all his life for ten dollars a +week."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, ten dollars a week? We paid Harkavy fifteen and we +offered him twenty-five; but the feller wouldn't stay with us at all. For two +weeks now he acts uneasy and yesterday he leaves us."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Kleiman," Morris said as the train drew into +Ninety-sixth Street. "You could easy steal somebody else from another +concern." Kleiman glared at Morris and was about to utter a particularly +incisive retort when the train stopped.</p> + +<p>"I got to change here," he announced; "but when I see you again, +Perlmutter, I would tell you what you are."</p> + +<p>"I don't got to tell you what you are, Kleiman," Morris concluded as he +opened his evening paper. "You know only too well."</p> + +<p>"<i>Rosher!</i>" Kleiman hissed as he hurled himself into the mob of +passengers that blocked the exit.</p> + +<p>Morris nodded sardonically and commenced to read his paper. He desisted +immediately, however, when his eye fell upon a cut accompanying Felix +Geigermann's display advertisement. It was a beaded marquisette costume, made +in obvious imitation of one of Potash & Perlmutter's leaders; and the +retail price quoted by Geigermann was precisely one dollar less than Potash +& Perlmutter's lowest wholesale figure.</p> + +<p>"That's some of Harkavy's work," Morris muttered; and for the remainder of +the journey he was once more plunged in the gloomiest cogitation. Almost +automatically he alighted at the Brooklyn Bridge and boarded a Madison Street +Car; and it was not until the jolting, old-fashioned vehicle had nearly +reached its eastern terminus that he discerned the house number furnished to +him by Steuermann. He hurried to the rear platform and jumped to the street, +where he collided violently with a short, bearded person.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me!" Morris cried; then he recognized his victim. "Harkavy!" he +exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"I am coming to say good-by to a friend," Harkavy replied with some show +of confusion. "I got to go to Chicago to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Chicago!" Morris repeated. "Why, what are you doing in Chicago, +Harkavy?"</p> + +<p>"I am—now—going to got a job out there," Harkavy +replied—"a very good job."</p> + +<p>Morris drew his former assistant cutter to the sidewalk. He had +temporarily forgotten the object of his visit to the lower East Side in the +sudden conception of an idea, which was no less than the rehiring of +Harkavy.</p> + +<p>"What for a good job?" Morris asked. "Twenty dollars a week?"</p> + +<p>Harkavy nodded.</p> + +<p>"A little more," he said—"twenty-five."</p> + +<p>"<i>Schon gut</i>," Morris declared; "then you wouldn't got to go at all, +because we ourselves would give you thirty."</p> + +<p>"I moost go," Harkavy said, shaking his head; "my fare is paid."</p> + +<p>"Pay 'em back the fare," Morris insisted—"we would see you wouldn't +lose it."</p> + +<p>Again Harkavy shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I got a bonus too," he declared—"a thousand rubles."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about, rubles?" Morris said impatiently. "You ain't +a greenhorn no longer. Do you mean a thousand dollars?"</p> + +<p>"Six hundred dollars—about," Harkavy replied.</p> + +<p>Morris whistled.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said after a pause of some seconds, "put off going until +to-morrow anyhow. Maybe we could fix up to give you the six hundred dollars +anyhow."</p> + +<p>Harkavy remained silent and Morris clapped him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"If people is so anxious to get you that they pay you a big lot of money +like that, Harkavy, you could keep 'em waiting anyhow one day. Come round and +see us to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>Harkavy pondered the question for some minutes.</p> + +<p>"If you wish it, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I would do so; but I must got +to go away by eleven o'clock sure."</p> + +<p>"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "Then I'll see you to-morrow morning at nine +o'clock."</p> + +<p>They shook hands on the appointment and Morris turned away and ascended +the high stoop of an old-fashioned tenement. In the vestibule he encountered +a boy whose right cheek was apparently distorted by a severe toothache.</p> + +<p>"Do a family by the name Levin live here?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>The boy nodded and disgorged a huge lump of toffee, whereat the toothache +disappeared.</p> + +<p>"Dat's me fader," he said. "Fourt' floor front east. He ain't in, +dough."</p> + +<p>"Your father!" Morris cried. "Why, the people I am coming to see they are +greenhorns."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yeh," the youngster replied; "dat's me fader's uncle. He lives wid +us."</p> + +<p>"All right," Morris said. "Take me up there."</p> + +<p>The youngster resumed his swollen cheek and escorted Morris up three +flights of slippery brassbound stairs. Without the formality of knocking, +they entered an apartment on the fourth floor where a woman stood washing +dishes.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Levin?" Morris said.</p> + +<p>The woman nodded.</p> + +<p>"I want to see your man's uncle," Morris continued. Without looking up the +woman cried in stentorian tones: "Mees-taire!"</p> + +<p>In response a bent figure, clad in an alpaca caftan, appeared from an +interior bedroom. He wore a velvet skullcap, and a thin gray beard straggled +from his chin; his nose was surmounted by a pair of steel spectacles.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sholom alaicham!</i>" Morris cried, according the Rabbi that greeting, +as ancient as the Hebrew tongue itself—"Peace be with you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Alaicham sholom!</i>" the Rabbi answered, and then he resorted to the +Yiddish jargon: "Do you look for me?"</p> + +<p>"I look for the <i>Rav</i> Elkan Levin," Morris said in a tongue to which +he had long been unaccustomed. "I am the servant of the philanthropist +Steuermann."</p> + +<p>"Steuermann?" the <i>Rav</i> Levin repeated. "I do not know him."</p> + +<p>"In America," Morris said, "his name is honored over the governor's. He +sends me to you to speak for the unfortunate <i>Tzwee</i> Kovalenko."</p> + +<p>"<i>Tzwee</i> Kovalenko," the old man cried, and his beard stood out as +his invisible lips tightened, while his nose became sharp and hawk-like. "A +<i>mishna meshuna</i> to him, the same as he sent to my son."</p> + +<p>"No," Morris declared; "he did not send it to your son. It was another +that did it."</p> + +<p>The old man sank trembling into a nearby chair and clutched the edge of +the table.</p> + +<p>"You tell this to me who saw with my own eyes his body!" he said in +shaking tones. "Yes, <i>Baron</i>; I saw my own child like a slaughtered +beast, all blood—not a face, but a piece of flesh. I saw him, and you +tell me this!"</p> + +<p>"None the less," Morris went on, "if your son did die it was a +<i>kapora</i> not meant for him. It was intended for the chief of police."</p> + +<p>The <i>Rav</i> shook his head.</p> + +<p>"It stands in the <i>Gemera</i>" he said, in the singsong tone of the +Talmudical reader: "If one flings a stone for pleasure and it strikes another +so that he dies, the one also shall die."</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet and waved one hand with a flapping motion. "An eye for +an eye!" he cried in shrill tones. "A tooth for a tooth!"</p> + +<p>Morris shrank back and turned to the woman, who had not raised her head +from the dishwashing.</p> + +<p>"You tell him," he said, "that the philanthropist Steuermann invites him +to come to the address I shall give you—to-morrow at ten o'clock. Tell +him you know that when Steuermann commands, governors obey."</p> + +<p>"What is it my business?" Mrs. Levin replied. "Tell him yourself."</p> + +<p>"Your man should go with him," Morris insisted. "He and you will not lose +by it."</p> + +<p>Morris wrote the address on the back of one of Potash & Perlmutter's +business cards and handed it to her.</p> + +<p>"Put on it the table," she said.</p> + +<p>"Tell your man," Morris continued, "if he does take this old man to +Steuermann I myself will pay him twenty-five dollars."</p> + +<p>Once more he faced the <i>Rav</i>, who had sunk again into the chair.</p> + +<p>"Will it bring back your son to you if <i>Tzwee</i> Kovalenko dies?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>The old man plucked at his beard.</p> + +<p>"He was my son, my only son," he said; "my <i>Kaddish</i>. A good son he +was."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Levin, still at her dishwashing, raised her head and snorted +impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Yow—a good son!" she commented in English, "A dirty, lowlife bum he +was. If it wouldn't be that he <i>ganvered</i> a couple bottles wine from a +store he wouldn't of been in the police office at all. He brought it on +himself, mister—believe me."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"What is <i>vorbei</i> is <i>vorbei</i>," he said. "Tell your man he +should bring his uncle to Steuermann and I would pay him sure twenty-five +dollars cash."</p> + +<p>He bowed to the <i>Rav</i> and with a final "<i>Sholom alaicham!</i>" +passed downstairs to the street.</p> + +<p>As he waited at the corner for a west-bound car he thought he discerned a +familiar figure in the shadow of the house he had just quitted. He walked +slowly up the block and Harkavy stole out of the basement area and slunk +hurriedly past him.</p> + +<p>"Harkavy!" Morris called, but the assistant cutter only hastened his steps +and it seemed to Morris that a sound like a sob was borne backward.</p> + +<p>"What is the trouble, Harkavy?" Morris cried; but in response Harkavy +broke into a run, and with a mystified shake of his head Morris commenced his +tedious journey uptown.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Morris, in company with his partner, entered the showroom at eight +o'clock the following morning he had already enumerated to Abe the events of +the preceding evening, not omitting his encounter with Harkavy.</p> + +<p>"I bet yer he would be waiting for us, Mawruss," Abe said; "and if I ain't +mistaken here he is now."</p> + +<p>Their visitor, however, proved to be a stranger, who bore only a slight +resemblance to their former cutter.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Perlmutter," he said—"ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"My name is Mr. Perlmutter," Morris said. "What do you want from us?"</p> + +<p>For answer the visitor drew from his pocket a card and handed it to +Morris.</p> + +<p>"Me, I am Pincus Levin, and you are leaving this by my wife last night," +he said; "so I am coming to tell you I am agreeable to take Mr. Levin to +Steuermann's place."</p> + +<p>"All right," Morris replied. "You can go ahead."</p> + +<p>Pincus Levin shuffled his feet uneasily, but made no attempt to depart.</p> + +<p>"Well?" Morris cried.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Pincus said; "but if I would take uncle, Mr. Levin, to +Steuermann, y' understand and then, maybe—I am only saying, Mr. +Perlmutter, you might forget the other part—ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"You mean you want your twenty-five dollars in advance?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Pincus replied. "If I wouldn't took Mr. Levin to-day yet to +this here Steuermann's office, Mr. Perlmutter, you could stop the +check—"</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively.</p> + +<p>"An idee!" he cried. "You ain't never seen this feller before, +Mawruss—ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Morris admitted it.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, what's the use talking?" Abe continued. "How do we know he's +this here Levin's nephew?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Potash," Levin cried, "I ain't no crook! I got the old man in a +coffee house round the corner right now."</p> + +<p>"Bring him up here then," Abe said, "and we'll give you your money."</p> + +<p>Pincus Levin nodded and shuffled off toward the back stairs, while Abe +turned and gazed after him.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't make it out at all, Mawruss," he said. "The more I look at +that feller, Mawruss, the more he makes me think of this here—"</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mr. Potash!" a familiar voice interrupted. It was +Harkavy.</p> + +<p>"Hello there!" Morris cried cheerfully. "I thought you would be here."</p> + +<p>Hakavy smiled sadly. His face was white and drawn and his shoes and +trousers were covered with mud as though he had walked the streets all +night.</p> + +<p>"I am keeping my word anyhow," he said; "but I am only coming to tell you +I got to go to Chicago."</p> + +<p>"Why must you got to go?" Abe insisted.</p> + +<p>"Well, there's certain reasons, Mr. Potash," Harkavy replied. "There's +certain—rea—"</p> + +<p>He struggled to control his speech as his eyes rested on the rear +stairway, but his words became more and more inarticulate until, with a +shudder and a gasp, he fell heavily to the floor.</p> + +<p>"<i>Oi gewoldt!</i>" Abe exclaimed. He rushed to the office for a glass of +water, but even before he had reached the cooler he stopped suddenly. A great +wailing cry came from the showroom and when he ran back with the water a +bearded old man lay prostrate across Harkavy's body.</p> + +<p>Only Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, kept a clear head during the confusion +that followed. She despatched Nathan, the shipping clerk, for a doctor and +directed her frightened employers to loosen the shirt-bands of the +unconscious men.</p> + +<p>"Some whiskey!" Morris shouted—and one of the cutters produced it +bashfully from his hip-pocket.</p> + +<p>"Never try to force whiskey on a fainting person," Miss Cohen cried. "It +might get into their lungs and suffocate 'em."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't going to," Morris said hastily, as he took a yeoman's pull at +the bottle. "I am feeling faint myself."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mir auch</i>," Abe said, taking the bottle from his partner's grasp. +After a refreshing draught he passed it on to Pincus, who returned it empty +to the crestfallen cutter just as a physician dashed out of the elevator.</p> + +<p>"What caused this trouble?" he asked Abe as he knelt down by the side of +Harkavy.</p> + +<p>Abe looked helplessly at Morris and turned to Pincus Levin, who commenced +to tremble violently.</p> + +<p>"Hold on there!" Morris shouted. "He's going to faint too."</p> + +<p>Abe seized the glass of ice-water and flung its contents into Pincus +Levin's face. He gasped and sat down suddenly.</p> + +<p>"The old man," he murmured, "he's Yosel's father."</p> + +<p>"Yosel who?" Morris shouted. "The old man's only got one son—and +he's dead."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," Pincus answered; "he is and he ain't. I always thought so +too, Mr. Perlmutter, but this feller here is Yosel Levin which he got blew up +in Harkav two years ago."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean got blew up?" Abe asked as the doctor worked steadily over +the two prostrate men. "How could he be blew up if he is here now?"</p> + +<p>Pincus shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"How should I know?" he said weakly. "I ain't lying to you. This feller +here is Yosel Levin and my uncle there is his father."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to told me that the old man's son ain't dead at all?" Morris +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Seemingly," Pincus said; "<i>aber</i> this is the first time I heard it +and I guess it's the first time the old man heard it too."</p> + +<p>Harkavy moaned and tried to sit up.</p> + +<p>"Easy there!" the doctor commanded. "Two of you take him inside and put +him on a lounge if you have one."</p> + +<p>Abe and Morris followed Pincus and the head cutter as they supported the +half-conscious Harkavy into the firm's office. Ten minutes later the old man +was restored to consciousness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wo ist er?</i>" he murmured. "<i>Mein kind!</i>"</p> + +<p>"It's all right," the doctor replied, and then he turned to the office. +"Come out here, you, and talk to the old man."</p> + +<p>Pincus came running from the office and reassured his uncle, who, under +the ministrations of the doctor, grew rapidly stronger until he was +sufficiently recovered to be placed on a chair.</p> + +<p>"Keep him quiet while I attend to the other fellow," said the doctor; "and +don't let him talk."</p> + +<p>He went at once to the office, where Harkavy sat on the edge of the +lounge.</p> + +<p>"Here! What are you doing?" he cried. "You shouldn't let that fellow do +any talking."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, doctor," Abe said calmly. "He should go on talking now +if it would kill him even. Go ahead, Harkavy."</p> + +<p>"And so," Harkavy continued, "after I am stealing the wine they took me to +the police office. There was a place! But, anyhow, Mr. Potash, I could tell +you all about it afterward. Inside the backyard was a dead moujik which he is +got run over by a train. His face is all damaged so you couldn't tell who he +was at all."</p> + +<p>He faltered and waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"Give me, please, a glass water," he said, and the doctor seized his +hand.</p> + +<p>"Never mind!" Abe cried inexorably. "Leave him alone, doctor. He should +finish what he's got to say."</p> + +<p>Harkavy nodded and sipped some water.</p> + +<p>"Then comes the package for the chief of police," he went on; "and they +put it first in a pail of water. Then they open it, Mr. Potash, and it don't +harm nobody; but them <i>roshers</i> want to put it on to somebody, so they +make me a proposition they would give me a couple hundred rubles and a ticket +to America—and I took 'em up. For stealing that wine I could get five +years yet; so what should I do? They give me the money and I run away; and +the dead moujik they are telling everybody is me, which I am blew up to +pieces by the package."</p> + +<p>"And you let the old man bury the moujik and think it was you?" Morris +asked.</p> + +<p>Harkavy nodded.</p> + +<p>"Over and over again he is telling me I am no good and he wishes I was +dead," he said. "I wish I was, Mr. Perlmutter—I wish I was!"</p> + +<p>He commenced to cry weakly and Morris handed him the water.</p> + +<p>"But when I hear last week the old man, my father, is here," he continued, +"I couldn't help myself—I am hanging around Madison Street trying I +should get one look at him only. I didn't see him till just now."</p> + +<p>He struggled to raise himself from the lounge.</p> + +<p>"Let me go to him," he wailed; "let me go!"</p> + +<p>Abe looked inquiringly at the doctor, who nodded in reply.</p> + +<p>"Let him go," he said. "Happiness never harmed anybody yet."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said the United States Commissioner as he sat behind his +shabby desk in the Post-office Building, "the prisoner is in the marshal's +office. Shall he be brought in?"</p> + +<p>He addressed his question to Mr. Munjoy, who was seated between Henry D. +Feldman and Steuermann at one side of a huge table. Opposite them were the +clerk of the Russian Consulate and his counsel, who was obviously nervous at +the formidable appearance presented by the lawyer, Henry D. Feldman.</p> + +<p>The latter was about to pull off—as in his colloquial moments he +himself would have expressed it—a rotten trick on his fellow counsel; +for Abe and Morris had not informed either Mr. Munjoy or Mr. Steuermann of +the stirring scene in their showroom that morning. Instead, they had called +on Feldman, who, with the dramatic intuition of the effective jury lawyer, +saw an opportunity for a coup that would at once gain the admiration and +respect, if not the legal business, of Moses M. Steuermann and procure +Feldman a column and a half of publicity in next day's paper. Hence he had +sworn Abe and Morris to secrecy in consideration of making no charge for his +services, since he deemed the accruing benefit to be worth at least two +hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>"Shall he be brought in, gentlemen?" the commissioner asked.</p> + +<p>Counsel for the Russian Consulate bowed, as did Mr. Munjoy; but Henry D. +Feldman cleared his throat with a great rasping noise that penetrated to the +corridor without. This was the signal, and Abe and Morris entered the room +supporting the old Rabbi, who was followed by Pincus Levin.</p> + +<p>"One moment, sir," Feldman said. "I have a preliminary objection to make. +Will you hear the offer, sir?"</p> + +<p>The commissioner nodded and Steuermann and his counsel Mr. Munjoy, turned +to Feldman in amazement.</p> + +<p>"What's all this, Feldman?" Munjoy cried.</p> + +<p>Feldman waved his hand impressively.</p> + +<p>"My objection is, sir, that a gross fraud has been practised on this +court. It has come to my attention that somebody connected with this +proceeding has furnished a material witness for the defense with a ticket for +Chicago and one thousand rubles as a bribe to stay away from the hearing."</p> + +<p>Counsel for the complainant jumped to his feet.</p> + +<p>"This is preposterous!" he declared.</p> + +<p>"By no means," Feldman continued. "Will you direct counsel not to +interrupt me, sir, if you please?"</p> + +<p>"I so direct," the commissioner replied, whereat Feldman again cleared his +throat and coughed twice, and, in answer to this cue, Yosel Levin, alias +Joseph Harkavy, entered the room.</p> + +<p>"The person so bribed, Mr. Commissioner, is named in the petition as the +<i>corpus delicti</i> of the crime alleged to have been committed," Feldman +said.</p> + +<p>"What!" Munjoy and opposing counsel cried in unison, and the clerk to the +consulate reached for his hat and started for the door. His counsel leaped +after him, however, and succeeded in catching his coat-tails just as he was +about to disappear into the hall.</p> + +<p>With one hand still grasping the consular clerk, counsel for the +complainant turned to the commissioner.</p> + +<p>"I think my client wants to consult me outside for one minute," he said. +"Have I your consent to withdraw?"</p> + +<p>The commissioner nodded and Munjoy turned to Feldman.</p> + +<p>"What the deuce are you trying to do, Feldman?" he asked as complainant's +counsel returned.</p> + +<p>"If the commissioner pleases," Feldman said, "we consent to a dismissal of +the extradition proceedings and to a discharge of the prisoner."</p> + +<p>The imperturbable commissioner bowed and rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Submit the necessary papers for the prisoner's discharge, gentlemen," he +said. "The hearing is closed."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"Five dollars for doing what that feller done is like picking it up in the +street, Mawruss!" Abe declared to Mawruss when they received the doctor's +bill a month later.</p> + +<p>"How could we be small about it, Abe?" Morris rejoined. "Look at what +Steuermann done! Not only he is paying his lawyers for getting this Kovalenko +out of prison but he is taking that young feller and paying for him he should +go on with his studying for a doctor."</p> + +<p>"Well, the way doctors soak you, Mawruss," Abe said, looking at the bill +which he held in his hand, "it wouldn't be long before Kovalenko pays him +back with interest, I bet yer."</p> + +<p>"But, anyhow, Abe," Morris continued, "now we got Yosel Levin working for +us as cutter, it would be a better feeling all around supposing we pay the +bill and say nothing about it."</p> + +<p>"I am agreeable we should say nothing more about it, Mawruss," Abe +retorted, "because we already wasted more time and trouble than the whole +thing is worth; but one thing I would like to know, Mawruss, before I shut up +my mouth: Why did this here feller, Yosel Levin, call himself Harkavy?"</p> + +<p>"Say!" Morris said, using three inflections to the monosyllable: "he's got +just so much right to call himself Harkavy as all them other guys has to call +themselves Breslauer, Hamburger, Leipziger <i>oder</i> Berliner. He anyhow +does come from Harkav, Abe—which you could take it from me, Abe, +there's many a feller calls himself Hamburger which he don't come from no +nearer Hamburg than Vilna <i>oder</i> Kovno."</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively in reply.</p> + +<p>"My worries where them fellers comes from, Mawruss!" he commented. +"Because, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, if a feller attends to his +own business, Mawruss, and don't monkey with politics, y'understand, where +could he make a better living than right here in New York, N. Y.?"</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap08">CHAPTER EIGHT</h2> + +<h3>"R. S. V. P."</h3> + +<p>It was the tenth of the month, and Abe Potash, of Potash & Perlmutter, +was going through the firm mail with an exploratory thumb and finger, looking +for checks.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," he said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, "all them +hightone customers of yours they don't take it so particular that they should +pay on the day, Mawruss. If they was only so prompt with checks as they was +to claim deductions, Mawruss, you and me would have no worries. I think some +of 'em finds a shortage in the shipment before they open the packing-case +that the goods come in. Take your friend Hyman Maimin, of +Sarahcuse—nothing suits him. He always kicks that the goods ain't made +up right, or we ain't sent him enough fancies, or something like that. Five +or six letters he writes us, Mawruss, when he gets the goods; but when he got +to pay for 'em, Mawruss, that's something else again. You might think postage +stamps was solitaire diamonds, and that he dassen't use 'em!"</p> + +<p>"Quit your kicking," Perlmutter broke in. "This is only the tenth of the +month."</p> + +<p>"I know it," said Abe. "We should have had a check by the tenth of last +month, but"—here Abe's eye lit upon an envelope directed in the +handwriting of Hyman Maimin—"I guess there was some good reason for the +delay," he went on evenly. "Anyhow, here's a letter from him now."</p> + +<p>He tore open the envelope and hurriedly removed the enclosed letter. Then +he took the envelope, blew it wide open, and shook it up and down, but no +check fell out.</p> + +<p>"Did y'ever see the like?" he exclaimed. "Sends us a letter and no +check!"</p> + +<p>"Why, it ain't a letter," Morris said. "It's an advertisement."</p> + +<p>Abe's face grew white.</p> + +<p>"A meeting of creditors!" he gasped.</p> + +<p>Morris grabbed the missive from his partner and spread it out on the +table.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" he exclaimed, a great smile of relief spreading itself about his +ears. "It's a wedding invitation!" He held it up to the light. "'Mr. and Mrs. +Marcus Bramson,'" he read, "'request the pleasure of Potash & +Perlmutter's company at the marriage of their daughter Tillie to Mr. Hyman +Maimin, Sunday, March 19, at seven o'clock, <b>p.m.</b>, Wiedermayer's Hall, +2099 South Oswego Street. R.S.V.P. to residence of bride, care of Advance +Credit Clothing Company, 2097 South Oswego Street.'"</p> + +<p>"What is that 'R.S.V.P. to residence of bride'?" Abe Potash asked.</p> + +<p>Morris reflected for a moment.</p> + +<p>"That means," he said at length, "that we should know where to send the +present to."</p> + +<p>"How do you make that out?" said Abe.</p> + +<p>"'R.S.V.P.'," Morris replied, emphasizing each letter with a motion of his +hand, "means 'Remember to send vedding present.'"</p> + +<p>"But," Abe rejoined, "when I went to night school, we spelt 'wedding' with +a W."</p> + +<p>"A greenhorn like Maimin," said Morris, "don't know no better."</p> + +<p>"He knows enough to ask for a wedding present, Mawruss," Abe commented, +"even if he don't know how to spell it. We'll send him a wedding present, +Mawruss! We'll send him a summons from the court, that's what we'll send +him!"</p> + +<p>Morris shook his head.</p> + +<p>"That ain't no way to talk, Abe," he said. "If a customer gets married, we +<em>got</em> to send him a wedding present. It don't cost much, and if Hyman +Maimin gets a couple of thousand dollars with this Miss—Miss—"</p> + +<p>"Advance Credit Clothing Company," Abe helped out.</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then he buys more goods, ain't it?" he concluded.</p> + +<p>"Let him pay for what he's got," Abe rejoined.</p> + +<p>"It just slipped his mind. He'll pay up fast enough, after he gets +married."</p> + +<p>"All right! Wait till he pays up, and then we'll give him a present."</p> + +<p>"Now lookyhere, Abe," Morris protested, "you can't be small in a matter of +this kind. I'll draw a check for twenty-five dollars, and—"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-five dollars!" Abe screamed. "You're crazy! When you was married +last year, I'd like to know who gives you a present for twenty-five +dollars?"</p> + +<p>"Why you did, Abe," Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"Me?" Abe cried. "Say, Mawruss, I want to tell you something. If you can +buy a fine sterling silver bumbum dish, like what I give you, for twenty-five +dollars, I'll take it off your hands for twenty-seven-fifty any day!"</p> + +<p>"But, Abe—"</p> + +<p>"Another thing, Mawruss," Abe went on. "If you don't like that dish, there +ain't no law compelling you to keep it, you understand. Send it back. My +Rosie can use it. Maybe we ain't so stylish like your Minnie, Mawruss; but if +we don't have bumbums every day, we could put dill pickles into it!"</p> + +<p>"One moment," Morris protested. "I ain't saying anything about that bumbum +dish, Abe. All I meant that if you give <i>me</i> such a high-price present +when <i>I</i> get married, that's all the more reason why we should give a +high-price present to a customer what we will make money on. I ain't no +customer, Abe."</p> + +<p>"I know you ain't," said Abe. "You're only a partner, and I don't make no +money on you, neither."</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"What's the use of wasting more time about it, Abe?" he said. "Go ahead +and buy a present."</p> + +<p>"Me buy it?" Abe cried. "You know yourself, Mawruss, I ain't a success +with presents. You draw the check and get your Minnie to buy it. She's an +up-to-date woman, Mawruss, while my Rosie is a back number. She don't know +nothing but to keep a good house, Mawruss. Sterling silver bumbum dishes she +don't know, Mawruss. If I took her advice, you wouldn't got no bumbum dish. +Nut-picks, Mawruss, from the five-and-ten-cent store, that's what you'd got. +You might appreciate them, Mawruss; but a sterling silver—"</p> + +<p>At this juncture Morris took refuge in the outer office, where Miss Cohen, +the bookkeeper, was taking off her wraps.</p> + +<p>"Miss Cohen," he said, "draw a check for twenty-five dollars to bearer, +and enter it up as a gratification to Hyman Maimin."</p> + +<p>At dinner that evening Morris handed the check over to his wife.</p> + +<p>"Here Minnie," he said, "Abe wants you should buy a wedding present for a +customer."</p> + +<p>"What kind of a wedding present?" Mrs. Perlmutter asked.</p> + +<p>"Something in solid sterling silver, like that bumbum dish what Abe gave +us."</p> + +<p>"But, Mawruss," she protested, "you know we got that bonbon dish locked +away in the sideboard, and we never take it out. Let's give 'em something +useful."</p> + +<p>"Suit yourself," Morris replied. "Only don't bother me about it."</p> + +<p>"All right," Mrs. Perlmutter said. "Leave me the name and address, and +I'll see that they send it direct from the store. I'll put one of your cards +inside."</p> + +<p>"And another thing," Morris concluded. "See that you don't hold nothing +out on us by way of commission."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Perlmutter smiled serenely.</p> + +<p>"I won't," she said, in dulcet tones.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>It was the fourth day after Potash & Perlmutter's receipt of the +wedding invitation. When Morris Perlmutter entered the private office he +found Abe Potash in the absorbed perusal of the <i>Daily Cloak and Suit +Record</i>. Abe looked up and saluted his partner with a malignant grin.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," he said, "I suppose you sent that present to Hyman +Maimin?"</p> + +<p>"I sent it off long since already," Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"I hope it was a nice one, Mawruss," Abe went on "I hope it was a real +nice one. I'm sorry now, Mawruss, we didn't spend fifty dollars. That would +have made it an even seven hundred, instead of only six hundred and +seventy-five, that Hyman Maimin owed us."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?" cried Morris.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean nothing, Mawruss—nothing at all," Abe said, with +ironical emphasis. He handed the paper to Morris. "Here, look for +yourself!"</p> + +<p>He pointed with a trembling forefinger at the "business-troubles" column, +and Morris's eyes seemed to bulge out of his head as he scanned the printed +page:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="newspaper article"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td><p>A petition in bankruptcy was filed late yesterday afternoon + against Hyman Maimin, 83 West Tonawanda Street, Syracuse. It is + claimed that he transferred assets to the amount of eight thousand + dollars last week. Mr. Maimin says that he has been doing business at + a heavy loss of late, but that he hopes to be able to resume. A + settlement of thirty cents is proposed.</p> + </td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Morris sat down in a revolving-chair too crushed for comment, and drummed +with a lead pencil on the desk.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if he done up his intended father-in-law, too?" he said at +length.</p> + +<p>"No fear of that, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He ain't no sucker like us, +Mawruss. I bet you his father-in-law—what's his name—"</p> + +<p>"The Advance Credit Clothing Company," Morris suggested.</p> + +<p>"Sure," Abe went on. "I bet you this clothing concern says to him: 'If you +want to marry my daughter, you gotter go into bankruptcy first. Then, when +you're all cleaned up, I'll give you a couple of thousand dollars to start as +a new beginner in another line.' Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Morris nodded gloomily.</p> + +<p>"No, Mawruss," Abe continued. "I bet you his father-in-law is a big crook +like himself."</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet and opened the large green-and-red covered book +furnished by the commercial agency to which they subscribed.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to do now, Mawruss, what you should have done before you sent +that present," he said. "I'm going to look up this here Advance Credit +Clothing Company. I bet you he ain't even in the book—what?"</p> + +<p>Before Morris could reply, the letter-carrier entered with the morning +mail. While Abe continued to run his thumb down the columns of the commercial +agency book, Morris began to open the envelopes. Both their heads were bent +over their tasks, when an exclamation arose simultaneously from each.</p> + +<p>"Now, what d'ye think of that?" said Abe.</p> + +<p>"Did y' ever see anything like it?" Morris cried.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>For answer, Morris thrust a letter into his partner's hand. It was headed, +"The Advance Credit Clothing Company—Marcus Bramson, Proprietor," and +read as follows:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="letter"> + <thead> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: left; "><b>Messrs. Potash & + Perlmutter.</b></td> + </tr> + </thead> + <tfoot> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: right; "><b>The Advance Credit Clothing + Company</b>,<br /> + Per T. B.</td> + </tr> + </tfoot> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td style="text-align: left; "><b>Gents</b>: + + <p>Your shipment of the 5th is to hand, and in reply would say that + we are returning it <i>via</i> Blue Line on account Miss Tillie + Bramson's engagement is broken. We understand that lowlife H. Maimin + got into you for six hundred and fifty dollars. Believe me, he done + us for more than that. Our Mr. Bramson will be in New York shortly, + and will call to look at your line. Hoping we will be able to do + business with you,</p> + + <p style="text-align: center; ">Yours truly,</p> + </td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Abe Potash laid down the letter with a sigh, while his thumb still rested +caressingly on the open page of the mercantile agency book.</p> + +<p>"So he's going to send back the present!" he said. "That man Marcus +Bramson, proprietor, has a big heart, Mawruss. He's a man with fine feelings +and a fine disposition, Mawruss. He's got a fine rating too, +Mawruss—seventy-five to a hundred thousand, first credit!" He closed +the book almost lovingly. "D'ye think they would give the money back for that +present, Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Morris. "Minnie bought it, and she told me it was a +big bargain. It was a sale, she said, but I guess they'll take it back."</p> + +<p>"What did it look like?" Abe said.</p> + +<p>"I didn't see it," Morris replied. "They sent it direct from the store, +but I took Minnie's word for it. She said it was fine value."</p> + +<p>"And Minnie," Abe concluded, "is a fine, up-to-date woman."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Two days later, Abe Potash spotted the name of Marcus Bramson in the +"Arrival of Buyers" column of a morning newspaper.</p> + +<p>"Mawruss," he cried, "he's come!"</p> + +<p>"Who's come?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Marcus Bramson," Abe replied, reaching for his hat. "I'm going over to +the Bingler House now to meet him. You wait here till I come back. I bet you +we sell him a big bill of goods!"</p> + +<p>As Abe went out of the store by the front door, an expressman, bearing a +square wooden box, entered the rear alley. He brought the package straight to +Miss Cohen, who signed a receipt, and summoned Mr. Perlmutter. Morris +proceeded to pry off the cover.</p> + +<p>"This is something what Mrs. Perlmutter bought for Hyman Maimin's wedding +present," he explained. "I ain't never seen it yet."</p> + +<p>He pulled out a number of wads of tissue paper. When he finally reached a +piece of silverware, he turned the box upside down and shook out the +remainder of its contents upon a sample table.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Perlmutter," Mist Cohen exclaimed, clasping her hands, "what a +beautiful bonbon dish! What a lovely wedding present!"</p> + +<p>Morris looked at the bonbon dish, and beads of perspiration started on his +forehead.</p> + +<p>"Ain't Mrs. Perlmutter got good taste!" Miss Cohen went on +enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>Morris said nothing, but picked up the silver dish. Examining the polished +centre carefully, he discerned the indistinct initials "M. P." almost but not +quite effaced by buffing. Undoubtedly it was the same bonbon dish.</p> + +<p>He gathered up the tissue paper and carefully arranged it in the box as a +bed for the silver dish. Then he put the cover on, and nailed it down.</p> + +<p>"Ain't you going to let Mr. Potash see it?" Miss Cohen asked. "He ain't +never seen it before, neither, has he?"</p> + +<p>Morris frowned.</p> + +<p>"I think he has," he replied. "Anyhow, I'm going to send it right uptown +by messenger boy."</p> + +<p>"Do you think they'll exchange it?" Miss Cohen inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I guess it will be put back in stock all right," said Morris, turning +away.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>The next morning, when Morris entered the store, Abe was busy figuring on +the back of a torn envelope.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Mawruss!" he cried, looking up. "Ain't it beautiful weather?"</p> + +<p>Morris agreed that it was.</p> + +<p>"That Mr. Bramson," Abe went on, "that's one fine gentleman, Mawruss. He +ain't what you'd call a close buyer, neither, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"No?" Morris commented.</p> + +<p>"The way I figure it," Abe continued, "reckoning on what we lost by Hyman +Maimin, if he settles for thirty cents, and what we make out of Mr. Bramson's +first order, we come out even to the dollar!"</p> + +<p>"So?" Morris murmured.</p> + +<p>"All excepting that wedding present, Mawruss," Abe. "By the way, Mawruss, +ain't that wedding present come back yet?"</p> + +<p>"Why, sure," said Morris. "It come back yesterday, when you were out."</p> + +<p>"Why ain't you showed it to me? Ain't I got no right to see it, +Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you got a right to see it," Morris assented, "but I thought I'd +get it right up town to Minnie and have it exchanged."</p> + +<p>"And did she exchange it?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's like this," Morris explained. "Minnie liked it so well that +she decided on keeping it, so I'll give the firm my personal check for +twenty-five dollars."</p> + +<p>Abe puffed hard on his cigar.</p> + +<p>"You're a purty generous feller, Mawruss," he commented, "to give Minnie a +present like that—for nothing at all, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I ain't Abe," Morris replied. "I ain't giving it to her for +nothing at all. I'm taking it out of her housekeeping money, Abe—five +dollars a month!"</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap09">CHAPTER NINE</h2> + +<h3>FIRING MISS COHEN</h3> + +<p>"There's no use talking, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared to his partner, +Abe Potash, as they sat in the sample-room of their spacious cloak-and-suit +establishment. "We got a system of bookkeeping that would disgrace a +peanut-stand. Here's a statement from the Hamsuckett Mills, and it shows a +debit balance of eleven hundred and fifty dollars what we owe them. Miss +Cohen's figures is eleven hundred and forty-two."</p> + +<p>"That's in our favour already," Abe replied. "The Hamsuckett people must +be wrong, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"No, they ain't, Abe," Morris said. "It's Miss Cohen's mistake."</p> + +<p>"Mistake?" Abe exclaimed. "When it's in our favour, Mawruss, it ain't no +mistake!"</p> + +<p>"It's a mistake, anyhow, no matter in whose favour it is," said Morris. +"Miss Cohen's footing was wrong. She gets carelesser every day."</p> + +<p>"I'm surprised to hear you that you should talk that way, Mawruss," Abe +rejoined. "Miss Cohen's been with us for five years, and we ain't lost +nothing by her, neither. You know as well as I do, Mawruss, her uncle, Max +Cohen, is a good customer of ours. Only last week he bought of us a big bill +of goods, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"Just the same, Abe," Morris went on, "if we get a bright young man in +there, instead of Miss Cohen, it would be a big improvement. We ought to get +some one in there what can manage a double entry, and can run a card-index +for our credits."</p> + +<p>Abe puffed vigorously at his cigar.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, Mawruss, if we got a card-index and we sell a crook a bill of +goods," he commented, "and the crook busts up on us, Mawruss, that card-index +is going to stop him from sticking us—what? Well, Mawruss, if you want +to put in a young feller and fire Miss Cohen, go ahead—I'm +satisfied."</p> + +<p>As if to clinch the matter before his partner could retract this somewhat +grudging consent, Morris Perlmutter stalked out of the sample-room and made +resolutely for the glass-enclosed office, where Miss Cohen was busy writing +in a ledger. She looked up as he entered, and surveyed him calmly with her +large black eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Perlmutter!" she said when he came within ear-shot, "Uncle Max +was round to the house last night, and he wants you should duplicate them +forty-twenty-twos in his last order and ship at once."</p> + +<p>Morris stopped short. This was something he had not foreseen, and all his +well-formulated plans for the firing of Miss Cohen were shattered at once.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he said lamely. "Thank you, Miss Cohen; I'll make a memorandum of +it." He went over to the commercial agency book and scanned three or four +pages with an unseeing eye. Then he repaired to the sample room, where Abe +sat finishing his cigar.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," said Abe, his face wreathed in a malicious grin, "you +made a quick job of it."</p> + +<p>Morris scowled.</p> + +<p>"I ain't spoken to her yet," he grunted. "I got a little gumption, +Abe—a little consideration and common sense. I don't throw out my dirty +water until I get clean."</p> + +<p>Abe puffed slowly before replying.</p> + +<p>"I seen some people, Mawruss," he said, "what sometimes throws out +perfectly clean water, and gets some dirty water in exchange, Mawruss." He +threw away the stump of his cigar.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes, Mawruss," he concluded solemnly, "they gets a good, big souse, +Mawruss, where they least expect it."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Ike Feinsilver, city salesman for the Hamsuckett Mills—Goldner & +Plotkin, proprietors—was obviously his own ideal of a well-dressed man. +His shirts and waistcoats represented a taste as original as it was not +subdued; but it was in the selection of his neckties that he really excelled. +Abe and Morris fairly blinked as they surveyed his latest acquisition in +cravats when he entered the door of their store that afternoon, smiling a +pleasant greeting at his prospective customers.</p> + +<p>He presented so brilliant a picture that Miss Cohen was drawn from her +desk in the glass-enclosed office toward the trio in the sample room as +inevitably as the moth to the candle flame. She took up some cutting slips +from a table, by way of excuse for her intrusion, but the blush and smile +with which she acknowledged Ike's rather perfunctory nod betrayed her. Abe +was fingering the Hamsuckett swatches, but Miss Cohen's embarrassment did not +escape Morris Perlmutter. He marked it with an inward start, and immediately +conceived a brilliant idea.</p> + +<p>"Ike," he said, when Abe had completed the giving of a small order and had +left them alone together, "a young feller like you ought to get married."</p> + +<p>Ike was non-committal.</p> + +<p>"Sure Mawruss," he replied. "Every young feller ought to get married."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you look at it so sensible, Ike," Morris went on. "Getting +married right, Ike, has been the making of many a young feller. Where d'ye +suppose Goldner & Plotkin would be to-day if they hadn't got married +right? They'd be selling goods for somebody else, Ike. But Goldner, he +married Bella Frazinsky, with a couple of thousand dollars maybe; and +Plotkin, he goes to work and gets Garfunkel's sister—she was pretty +old, Ike; but if she ain't got a fine complexion, Ike, she got a couple of +thousand dollars, too, ain't it? Well, Plotkin with his two thousand and +Goldner with his two thousand, they start in together as new beginners. They +gets the selling agency for the Hamsuckett people, and then they makes big +money and buys them out. To-day Goldner & Plotkin is rich men, and all +because they got married <i>right</i>!"</p> + +<p>Feinsilver listened with parted lips.</p> + +<p>"And now, Ike," Morris continued, "the good seed sown, we talked enough, +ain't it? Come on to the office. I want to show you some little mistakes in +the Hamsuckett statement."</p> + +<p>He conducted Ike to the glass-enclosed office, where Miss Cohen bent low +over her ledger. The blush with which she had received Ike's greeting had not +entirely disappeared; and, as she glanced up, her large black eyes looked +like those of a frightened deer. Morris was forced to admit to himself that +if her bookkeeping was doubtful, at least there could be no mistake about her +charms. As for Ike, now that the business of securing orders was done with, +he surrendered himself to gallantry, for which he had a natural aptitude.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Miss Cohen," he said, "ain't it a fine weather?"</p> + +<p>A pleased smile spread itself over Morris's face.</p> + +<p>"I think I hear the telephone in the sample room," he broke in hurriedly. +"Excuse me for a moment."</p> + +<p>When he returned, Ike and Miss Cohen were chatting gaily.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of <i>that</i>?" Morris cried. "My Minnie just rang me +up and says she got tickets for the theayter to-morrow night—two +tickets. We can't use 'em, because we're going to a—a wedding. Would +you two young folks like to go, maybe?"</p> + +<p>"Why, sure," Ike said. "Sure we would. Wouldn't we, Miss Cohen?"</p> + +<p>Miss Cohen assented bashfully.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Morris, "I'll get 'em for you—I mean I'll send +'em you by mail to-night, Ike."</p> + +<p>Ike was profuse in his thanks; and then and there arranged to call for +Miss Cohen at half-past seven, sharp, the following evening.</p> + +<p>Morris beamed his approval and shook hands heartily with Ike as the latter +turned to leave.</p> + +<p>"How about that mistake in the statement?" Ike asked.</p> + +<p>"Some other time," said Morris, walking with Ike toward the store-door. +Then he sank his voice to a confidential whisper. "That's a fine girl, Miss +Cohen," he went on. "Comes of fine family, too. She's Max Cohen's niece. You +know Max Cohen. He's the Beacon Credit Outfitting Company. He's a +<em>millionaire</em>, Ike. If he's worth a cent, he's worth a hundred +thousand dollars!"</p> + +<p>Ike turned on him an awed yet searching look as they clasped hands again +in parting.</p> + +<p>"I give you my word, Ike, she's his favourite niece," Morris concluded, +"<i>and he ain't got no children of his own</i>."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>The ensuing week was a busy one for all concerned. Abe was occupied in the +store with an unusual rush of spring trade, Morris had his hands full in the +office and cutting-room; but Miss Cohen and Ike Feinsilver had been busiest +of all, for in less than six days after their visit to the theatre a +solitaire diamond-ring sparkled on the third finger of the lady's left +hand.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," Abe said ten days later, "I suppose you fired Miss +Cohen?"</p> + +<p>"Me fire Miss Cohen?" Morris exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you that +you should talk that way, Abe. What for should I fire Miss Cohen?"</p> + +<p>"Why, last week you said you was going to fire her, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Last week," Morris replied, "was another day. If I ain't got no more +sense than that I should go to a fine young lady like Miss Cohen, and say, +'Miss Cohen, you're fired,' after she worked for us five years, and her uncle +also a good customer, I should be sorry, Abe."</p> + +<p>"Then, we're going to keep her, after all—what?" Abe said.</p> + +<p>"No, we ain't going to keep her," said Morris. "We're going to lose +her."</p> + +<p>"<em>Lose</em>her! What d'ye mean?"</p> + +<p>Morris smiled in a superior way.</p> + +<p>"Abe," he said, "you ain't got no eyes in your head. Ain't you noticed +that ring on Miss Cohen's left hand?"</p> + +<p>Abe stared in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"It's a beauty, Abe," Morris went on. "A bright young feller like Ike +Feinsilver don't get stuck, no matter what he buys. He got it through +Plotkin's cousin down on Maiden Lane."</p> + +<p>Abe sat down to ponder over the news.</p> + +<p>"You mean," he said at length, "that Ike Feinsilver, of the Hamsuckett +Mills, is going to marry Miss Cohen?"</p> + +<p>"You guessed it right, Abe," Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"And who fixed it up?" said Abe.</p> + +<p>Morris slapped his chest proudly.</p> + +<p>"I did," he replied.</p> + +<p>Abe smoked on in silence.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I must congratulate her, Mawruss?" he said at length, starting +to rise.</p> + +<p>"There's no hurry," said Morris. "I let her go uptown this morning. She +wanted to do some shopping."</p> + +<p>Abe sat down again.</p> + +<p>"You done a smart piece of work, Mawruss, I must say," he admitted. "Ike's +a good feller, and Miss Cohen'll make him a good wife, even if she ain't a +good bookkeeper. Also, we done a good turn to Max Cohen. I bet he's pleased. +I wonder he ain't been around yet."</p> + +<p>Hardly had the words issued from Mr. Potash's mouth, when the store-door +opened to admit a short, thick-set person, and then closed again with a bang +that threatened every pane of glass in the vicinity. There was no hesitation +about the newcomer's actions. He made straight for the sample room, and had +almost reached it before Abe could scramble to his feet. The latter rushed +forward and grabbed the visitor's hand.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Cohen," he cried, "what a pleasure this is! I congratulate you!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Cohen withdrew his hand from Abe's cordial grasp.</p> + +<p>"You congradulate <em>me</em>, hey?" he said, with slow and ironic +emphasis. "Mawruss Perlmutter <em>also</em> congradulates me—what?" He +fixed the unhappy Morris with a terrible glare. "Don't congradulate +<em>me</em>," he went on. "Congradulate Ike Feinsilver and Beckie Cohen." He +gathered force as he proceeded. "Fools!" he continued in a rapid crescendo. +"Meddlers! You spill my blood! You ruin me! I'm a millionaire, you tell +Feinsilver. I've got nothing to do with my money but that I should throw it +away in the street!"</p> + +<p>"<em>Mister</em> Cohen," Morris protested, "you'll make yourself sick."</p> + +<p>"I'll make <em>you</em> sick!" Cohen rejoined. "I'll make for you a blue +eye, too. <em>Five thousand dollars</em> I got to give her!"</p> + +<p>Abe whistled involuntarily.</p> + +<p>"I should think two thousand would be plenty," he suggested.</p> + +<p>Max Cohen turned on him with another glare.</p> + +<p>"What!" he shrieked. "Am I a beggar? Should I give my niece a miserable +two thousand dollars? Ain't I got no pride? I <em>got</em> to make it five +thousand!" He paused while his imagination dwelt on the magnitude of this +colossal sum. "Five thousand dollars!" he shrieked again, "and business the +way it is!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Perlmutter laid a soothing palm on Cohen's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Cohen," he said, "what can <em>we</em> do? Why should you tell +<em>us</em> all this?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Cohen shook off Morris's caress.</p> + +<p>"You're right," he said. "Why should I tell you all this? I didn't come +here to tell you this. I come here to tell you something else. I come here to +tell you to cancel all orders what I give you. Also, if you or your salesman +come by my place ever again, look out; that's all. The way I feel it now, +I'll murder you!" He turned to leave. "And another thing," he concluded. "One +thing, you can depend on it. So far what I can help it, you don't sell one +dollar's worth of goods to any of my friends, never no more!"</p> + +<p>Again the door banged explosively, and Mr. Cohen was gone.</p> + +<p>For ten minutes there was an awed silence in the sample room. At length +Abe looked at his partner with a sickly smile.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," he said, "you made a nice mess of it, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>Morris was too stunned to reply.</p> + +<p>"That's what comes of not minding your own business," said Abe. "We lose a +good customer, and maybe several good customers. We lose a good bookkeeper, +too, Mawruss—one what has been with us for five years; and also we are +out a wedding present."</p> + +<p>"I meant it good," Morris protested. "I done it for the best. It says in +the Talmud, Abe, that we are commanded to promote marriages."</p> + +<p>Abe waggled his head solemnly.</p> + +<p>"This is the first time I hear it, that you are a Talmudist, Mawruss!" he +said.</p> + +<p>A month passed, and Miss Cohen continued to apply herself to her daily +task at Potash & Perlmutter's books.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand it, Mawruss," Abe said one morning. "Why don't that +girl quit her job? She must have all sorts of things to do—clothes to +buy and furniture to pick out, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Perlmutter shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"I spoke to her about it," he replied, "and she says so long as we're so +busy here, she guesses she will stay on the job as long as she can. She says +her mommer and her sister can do all the shopping for her."</p> + +<p>"You see, Mawruss, what a mistake you make," Abe commented with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"That's a fine girl, that Miss Cohen!"</p> + +<p>Morris nodded gloomily. He began to realize that he had made a mistake, +after all. Only that morning Mrs. Perlmutter had demanded twenty dollars with +which to make over her best frock for Miss Cohen's wedding.</p> + +<p>"Sure, she's a fine girl," he agreed; "but you got to admit yourself, Abe, +that a growing business like ours needs a hustling young man for a +bookkeeper."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, too, Mawruss," said Abe; "but you also got to admit +that what a growing business like ours needs most of all, Mawruss, is +customers; and so far what I see, we don't gain any customers by this. Also, +my wife has got to make a new dress for the wedding. She told me so this +morning."</p> + +<p>Morris made no reply. He was growing heartily sick of this business of +firing Miss Cohen, and consoled himself with the thought that the wedding was +fast approaching, and that they would be rid of her for good.</p> + +<p>At length the wedding-day arrived. Miss Cohen left Potash & +Perlmutter's at four o'clock, for the ceremony was set for half-past seven in +the evening. Her parting with her employers was an embarrassing one for all +three. Abe handed her a check for twenty-five dollars, with the firm's +blessing, and Morris shook her hand in comparative silence. He had done and +suffered much for that moment of leave-taking; and further than wishing her a +long and happy married life, he said nothing. As for Abe, the squandering of +twenty-five dollars, without hope of return, temporarily exhausted his +capacity for emotion.</p> + +<p>"Good luck to you, Miss Cohen," he said. "Hope we see you again soon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sure!" Miss Cohen replied cheerfully. "You'll be at the wedding +to-night?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded—they all nodded—and then, with a final handshake +all around, Miss Cohen departed.</p> + +<p>It must be confessed that the wedding reception that evening was a very +enjoyable occasion for all the guests, with the possible exception of Max +Cohen. The wine flowed like French champagne at four dollars a quart, while, +as Morris Perlmutter at once deduced from the careful way in which the +waiters disguised the label with a napkin, it was really domestic champagne +of an inferior quality. Nevertheless, Abe Potash drank more than his share, +in a rather futile attempt to get back, in kind, part of the twelve and a +half dollars he had contributed toward Miss Cohen's wedding-present, to say +nothing of the cost of his wife's gown.</p> + +<p>Consequently, on the morning after the festivities he entered his place of +business in no very pleasant frame of mind. He found that Morris had already +arrived.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," he said in greeting, "everything went off +splendid—for Feinsilver. Max Cohen came down with a certified check for +five thousand dollars, you and me got rid of about over a hundred, counting +the wedding-present and our wives' dresses, and Miss Cohen got a husband and +a lot of cut glass, while <em>me</em>—I got a headache!"</p> + +<p>Morris grunted.</p> + +<p>"I guess you don't feel too good yourself, ain't it?" Abe went on. +"Anyhow, you got to get busy now, and find some smart young feller to keep +the books. You got rid of your dirty water, Mawruss; now you got to get some +clean. Did you put an 'ad' in the papers, Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't," Morris snapped.</p> + +<p>"Ain't you going to?"</p> + +<p>"What for?" Morris growled. "We don't need no bookkeeper."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Abe cried.</p> + +<p>Morris nodded in the direction of the office.</p> + +<p>"Because we <em>got</em> one," he replied.</p> + +<p>Abe turned toward the little glass enclosure. He gasped in amazement, and +nearly swallowed the stump of his cigar, for at the old stand, industriously +applying herself to the books of Potash & Perlmutter, sat Mrs. Isaac +Feinsilver, <i>née</i> Cohen.</p> + +<p>A moment later the door opened, and Isaac Feinsilver entered, immaculately +clothed in a suit of zebra-like design. He proceeded to the bookkeeper's +office and kissed the blushing bride; then he repaired to the sample room.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mawruss! Good morning, Abe!" he said briskly. "Ain't it a +fine weather?" He threw a bundle of swatches upon the sample table. "My +partners, Goldner & Plotkin, and me"—here he paused to note the +effect—"is putting out a fine line of spring goods, and I want to show +you some."</p> + +<p>Abe and Morris looked over Ike's line in dazed astonishment; and before +they were really cognizant of what was going on, Ike had booked a generous +order. He gathered up the samples into a neat little heap and put them under +his arm.</p> + +<p>"That ain't so bad," he said, "for a honeymoon order."</p> + +<p>Then he turned and strode toward the bookkeeper's office. Once more he +saluted the lips of his assiduous spouse, and a moment later he was walking +rapidly down the street. Abe looked after him and expelled a huge breath.</p> + +<p>"You find it in the Talmud that we are commanded to promote marriages, +ain't it, Mawruss?" he said. "But one thing's sure, Mawruss—you can't +run a cloak-and-suit business according to the Talmud." There was a short +silence. "Did you ask her why she comes back, Mawruss?" he said.</p> + +<p>Morris took the end off a particularly black cigar with one vicious +bite.</p> + +<p>"I didn't have to ask her. She told me," he said bitterly. "She says a +smart girl can get a husband any day, she says; but a good job is hard to +find, and when you got one, you should stick to it!"</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap10">CHAPTER TEN</h2> + +<h3>AUX ITALIENS</h3> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared hotly, +one morning in December; "an elegant class of people lives in the houses. On +the same floor with me lives Harry Baskof, which he is just married a +daughter of Maisener & Finkman. You remember Max Finkman, for years a +salesman for B. Senft & Co. Downstairs is a lawyer, a young feller by the +name Sholy, and on the ground floor is Doctor Eichendorfer."</p> + +<p>"With lawyers, Mawruss," Abe said, "we got enough to do downtown, ain't +it? Doctors also, Mawruss. I am once living next door to a doctor, and every +time I meet that feller he says 'How do you do?' to me like he would mean, +'It's a fine day for an operation.' I get a pain in my right side whenever I +think of him even."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Abe," Morris rejoined. "Oncet in a while a doctor in the +house comes in pretty handy—a lawyer too. A feller could get a whole +lot of pointers riding up and down in an elevator with a lawyer. Ain't it? +The only trouble about the house is the family above us, which the lady is +all the time hollering like somebody would be giving her a licking already. +Minnie says that she hears from our girl that her girl says she was an opera +singer in the old country."</p> + +<p>"Yow, an opera singer in the old country!" Abe exclaimed skeptically. "In +Russland they don't got so many opera singers as all that."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, in Russland?" Morris demanded. "The woman ain't from +Russland at all. She's an Italiener. I am coming up in the elevator last +night with her husband and a friend, and the way they are talking to each +other it sounds like a couple of bushelers in a factory. I tell you the +honest truth, Abe, for me it don't make no difference if a feller would be a +Frencher <i>oder</i> an Irishman, so long as he treats me white I would be a +good feller, Abe; but an Italiener, Abe, is something else again. An +Italiener would as lief stick a knife into you as look at you, Abe, and they +smell the whole house out with garlic yet."</p> + +<p>"There's lots of things smells worse as garlic, Mawruss," Abe retorted, +"and as for sticking a knife into you, that's all <i>schmooes</i>. There's +lots of people worser as Italieners, I bet yer, and when it comes right down +to it, Mawruss, I'd a whole lot sooner have a couple Italieners working for +me as some of them fellers which they are coming over from Russland."</p> + +<p>"Since when did you got such friendly feelings for Italieners, Abe?" +Morris inquired satirically.</p> + +<p>"Never mind!" Abe exclaimed. "You could knock an Italiener all you want, +Mawruss, but you could take it from me, Mawruss, when an Italiener's got work +to do he don't stand around talking a lot of nonsense instead of attending to +business, like some people I know."</p> + +<p>With this scathing rejoinder Abe trudged off toward the cutting room and +Morris proceeded to the office. He had hardly seated himself comfortably at +his desk, however, when Abe burst into the room.</p> + +<p>"That's the way it goes, Mawruss," he cried. "Half the time we sit and +<i>schmooes</i> in the showroom and we don't know what goes on in our cutting +room at all."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter now?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Harkavy has quit us again," Abe replied.</p> + +<p>"Quit us!" Morris exclaimed. "What for?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. All I says to the feller was why them piece goods is on the +floor, and he says he is sick and tired and I should get another +designer."</p> + +<p>Morris bit the end off a new cigar and glared ferociously at Abe.</p> + +<p>"So," he said bitterly, "we lose another designer through you, Abe. What +do you think, a designer would stand for abuse the same like a partner, +Abe?"</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean—abuse, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "I ain't said no +abuse to the feller at all; and even if I would, Mawruss, I guess I could +talk like how I want to in my own cutting room, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>Morris rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"<i>Schon gut</i>, Abe," he said. "Don't ask me I should step right into +Harkavy's shoes and work like a dawg till you are finding a new designer, +Abe. Them days is past, Abe."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't worry yourself, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "The way business +is so rotten nowadays, y'understand, we would quick get another designer."</p> + +<p>"Would you?" Morris cried. "Well, I guess I got something to say about +that, Abe. If you think we are going to work to hire a designer which he is +getting fired by every John, Dick and Harry, you got another think coming. +This time, Abe, I would hire the designer, and don't you forget it."</p> + +<p>"Did I say I wanted to do it, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Go ahead and hire him, +Mawruss, only one thing I got to ask you as a favour: don't say the feller +was my choice, Mawruss; because I wipe my hands from the whole matter."</p> + +<p>For the remainder of the day Morris and Abe maintained only such speaking +relations as were necessary to the conduct of their business, and when Morris +went home that evening he wore so gloomy an air that Harry Baskof, who rode +up on the elevator with him, was moved to comment.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Mawruss?" he said. "You look like your best customer +would be asking an extension on you."</p> + +<p>"We don't sell such people at all, Harry," Morris said bitterly. +"Collections is all right, Harry, but when a feller's got a partner which he +is got such a quick temper, understand me, that he fires out the help faster +as I could hire 'em—I got a right to look worried. Our designer leaves +us to-day."</p> + +<p>"Ain't that terrible, Mawruss," Harry said in mock sympathy. "I suppose +you couldn't walk for miles on Fifth Avenue between Eighteenth and +Twenty-third Street and break your neck falling over a hundred designers +which they are hanging around there looking for jobs."</p> + +<p>They alighted at the third floor and Morris drew his latchkey from his +waistcoat pocket.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Harry," he retorted. "Them people which they already got +designers could always find a better one, y'understand, but when you ain't +got a designer, Harry, that's something else again. You could advertise until +you are blue in the face, and all the answers you get is from fellers which +they couldn't design a sausage casing for a frankfurter already."</p> + +<p>"<i>Schmooes</i>, Mawruss!" Harry cried. "I could get you thousands of +designers. In fact, Mawruss, only this afternoon my father-in-law, Mr. +Finkman, sends me over a man which he is working for years by Senft & Co. +as a designer, I should give him a job. I already got a good designer, so +what could I do?"</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you think to send him over to me, Harry?" Morris said.</p> + +<p>"How should I know you wanted a designer?" Harry rejoined. "But, anyhow, +maybe it ain't too late yet. After supper I would ring up Mr. Finkman and +I'll let you know."</p> + +<p>"Much obliged," Morris said, as he turned the key and entered his own +apartment. He was so far restored to good humour by his conversation with +Harry Baskof that when he bestowed his evening kiss on Minnie he failed to +notice that her eyes were somewhat swollen.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Minnie," he said, "that's the way it is when you got good +neighbours."</p> + +<p>"Good neighbours!" Minnie said bitterly, and then for the first time +Morris observed her swollen eyelids.</p> + +<p>"Why, Minnie <i>leben</i>," he exclaimed as he folded her in a second +embrace, "what's the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Don't, Morris," Minnie said almost snappishly, as she wriggled away from +him; "my waist is mussed up enough from working in the kitchen, without your +crushing it."</p> + +<p>"Working in the kitchen!" Morris said. "What's the matter? Is Tillie +sick?"</p> + +<p>"No, she isn't," Minnie replied, as she rushed off toward the kitchen. +"She's gone."</p> + +<p>Morris hung up his coat and made his perfunctory toilet without another +word. Despite Minnie's pathetic appearance, there was a dangerous gleam in +her eyes that urged Morris to the exercise of the most delicate marital +diplomacy.</p> + +<p>"What a soup!" he exclaimed, as he subjected the first spoonful to a long, +gurgling inhalation. "If they got such soup as this at the Waldorf, Minnie +<i>leben</i>, I bet yer the least they would soak you for it is a dollar."</p> + +<p>Following the soup came boiled brisket, a dish that Morris loathed. +Ordinarily Morris would have eaten it with sulky diffidence, but when Minnie +bore the steaming dish from the kitchen he not only jumped from his seat to +take it from her hands, but after he had deposited it on the table he kissed +her on the forehead with lover-like delicacy.</p> + +<p>"How did you know I am thinking all the way up on the subway if Minnie +would only got <i>Brustdeckel</i> for supper for a change what a treat it +would be?" he said.</p> + +<p>Minnie's glum face broke into a smile and Morris fairly beamed.</p> + +<p>"What do you bother your head so about a girl leaves you, Minnie +<i>leben</i>," he cried. "You could get plenty of girls. On Lenox Avenue a +feller could break his neck already falling over girls which is hanging +around looking for jobs."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know you can get lots of girls," Minnie agreed, "but you've got to +train them, Morris; but then, too, I wouldn't care so much, but those awful +Italians upstairs went and stole Tillie away from me."</p> + +<p>"What!" Morris shouted. "Them Italieners done it? Well, what do you think +of that for a dirty trick?"</p> + +<p>"And they only pay her three dollars a month more," Minnie continued.</p> + +<p>"Three dollars a month more, hey?" Morris replied. "Well, that's the way +it is, Minnie. Honestly, Minnie, anybody which they would steal away from you +somebody which is working for you, it ain't safe to live in the same house +with them at all. A feller which steals away feller's help would pick a +pocket. Such cut-throats you couldn't trust at all." He helped himself to +some more brisket.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Minnie," he said, "if it would be necessary we will pay a +girl a couple dollars more a week so long as we get a good one."</p> + +<p>"Will we?" Minnie said. "Since when are you running this house, +Morris?"</p> + +<p>"I was only talking in a manner of speaking," he hastened to say. "Where +do you buy such good <i>Brustdeckel</i>, Minnie? Honestly, it takes in a way +a genius to pick out such meat."</p> + +<p>"Does it?" Minnie rejoined. "I ordered it over the 'phone, and +furthermore, Morris, if you make so much noise eating it you will wake the +boy."</p> + +<p>"I'm all through, Minnie," Morris said. "Wait—I'll show you how I +could help you wash the dishes."</p> + +<p>As he started for the kitchen with one butterplate in his hand the +doorbell rang, whereupon he returned the butterplate to the dining-room table +and hastened down the hall.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Mawruss," cried Harry Baskof as Morris opened the door. "I rung up +the old man and he says he got the feller a job with Sammet Brothers."</p> + +<p>"Come inside," Morris answered, and led the way to the parlour. He +motioned his visitor to a seat and produced a box of cigars.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say the feller got a job as quick as all that?" he +continued.</p> + +<p>"He sure did, Mawruss," Harry replied. "He's an elegant designer, Mawruss, +and if B. Senft knew his business he never would got rid of him at all."</p> + +<p>"Why, what did he done to B. Senft?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all, Mawruss. Senft is crazy. He gets a prejudice against the +feller all of a sudden on account he's an Italiener."</p> + +<p>"Italiener!" Morris cried.</p> + +<p>"Sure," Harry replied. "Did you ever hear the like, Mawruss, that a man +like Senft, which his folks <i>oser</i> come over in the Mayflower neither, +y'understand, should kick on account a feller is an Italiener? And mind you, +Mawruss, the feller is otherwise perfectly decent, respectable feller by the +name Enrico Simonetti."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"With a name like that he must got to be a good designer," he commented, +"otherwise Sammet Brothers wouldn't hire him at all. It would take a whole +lot more gumption than Leon Sammet got it to call such a feller from the +cutting room even."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Mawruss. You don't have to call such a feller from the +cutting room. He could run a cutting room as well as design garments; and in +fact, Mawruss, when Sammet Brothers pay that feller two thousand a year, +y'understand, they are practically getting him for nothing."</p> + +<p>"Two thousand a year!" Morris exclaimed. "Why, we ourselves would pay him +twenty-five hundred."</p> + +<p>"The feller's worth four thousand if he's worth a cent, Mawruss, but the +way business is so rotten nowadays he was willing to take two thousand. +<i>Aber</i> my father-in-law, Mr. Finkman, told me on the 'phone, the roar +this feller puts up when Leon Sammet offers him eighteen hundred, Leon was +pretty near afraid for his life already."</p> + +<p>"I don't blame him," Morris commented. "Such highwaymen like Sammet +Brothers they would beat a feller's price down to nothing. We ain't that way +with our help, Harry. If we would got a good man working by us we—"</p> + +<p>"Morris!" cried a voice from the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Morris replied, jumping to his feet. In less than two minutes he +reappeared and approached Harry with an apologetic smile. "Would you excuse +me a couple minutes, Harry?" he asked. "I got to run over to the grocer for a +box of soap powder. Our girl threw up her job on us."</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you," Harry replied. "I need to get a little air."</p> + +<p>A minute later they walked down the street to Lenox Avenue, and as they +approached the corner Harry nodded to a short, dark personage who was +proceeding slowly down the street.</p> + +<p>"Al-lo!" he cried, seizing Harry by the arm, "adjer do?"</p> + +<p>"Fine, thanks," Harry said. "Let me introduce you to a friend of mine by +the name Mr. Perlmutter. This is Mr. Simonetti, Mawruss, which I am talking +to you about."</p> + +<p>Morris shook hands limply.</p> + +<p>"You don't tell me," he said. "You know me, Mr. Simmons? My partner is Mr. +Potash. I guess you hear B. Senft speak about us."</p> + +<p>"Sure," Simonetti said. "Mister Senft ees always say: 'Mister Potash and +Perlmutter ees nice-a people.' Sure."</p> + +<p>"Better than Sammet Brothers?" Harry asked.</p> + +<p>Simonetti raised his eyebrows and made a flapping gesture with his right +hand.</p> + +<p>"A-oh!" he said. "Sammet Brothers, that's all right too. Not too much-a +all right, Mr. Baskof, but is preety good people. I am just-a now go to see +ees-a lawyer for sign-a da contract."</p> + +<p>"Ain't you signed the contract yet?" Morris cried.</p> + +<p>"Not-a yet," Simonetti answered. "Just-a now I am going."</p> + +<p>"Baskof," Morris urged, "supposing you and me goes together with Mr. +Simonetti to the Harlem Winter Garden and talks the thing over."</p> + +<p>Simonetti looked amazedly at Baskof.</p> + +<p>"Sure," Baskof said. "It ain't too late if he ain't signed the +contract."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Simonetti asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, I mean this, Simonetti," Baskof replied. "Sammet Brothers will give +you a contract for two thousand dollars, and Perlmutter here is willing to +pay you twenty-five hundred. Ain't that right, Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"With privilege to renew it, Mawruss, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Again Morris nodded. "One year renewal," he said.</p> + +<p>Simonetti looked earnestly at Morris, who fumbled in his waistcoat pocket +and produced a cigar.</p> + +<p>"Do you smoke, Mr. Simmons?" he began.</p> + +<p>"Simonetti," the designer interrupted, as he took the cigar and bit off +the end; "and eef ees too much-a you say Simonetti, call me 'Enery."</p> + +<p>When Morris entered his place of business the following morning he +appeared to be in no better humour than when he left for home the previous +evening.</p> + +<p>"Well, Abe," he announced, "I hired a soap powder."</p> + +<p>Abe stared at him for a moment.</p> + +<p>"What are you talking nonsense, you hired a soap powder?" he exclaimed. +"Are you <i>verrückt</i>?"</p> + +<p>Morris snapped his fingers.</p> + +<p>"A soap powder!" he cried. "Hear me talk! I mean a designer. I hired a +designer, Abe, a first-class feller."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, a first-class feller?" Abe demanded. "You are leaving +here last night half-past six, and here it is only eight o'clock next morning +and already you hired a designer which he is a first-class feller. How do you +know he is a first-class feller, Mawruss? Did you dream it?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't dream it, Abe," Morris said as he hung up his hat; "and what +is more I want to tell you something. Yesterday you are saying I should go +ahead and hire a designer and not bother you in your head, and to-day you are +kicking yet. Well, you could kick all you want to, Abe, because if a feller's +partner kicks <i>oder</i> his wife kicks, Abe, he must got to stand for it. +But just the same, Abe, this here feller comes to work for us Monday morning, +and we got with him a contract, all signed and g'fixed by a lawyer, which he +gets from us twenty-five hundred a year for one year, with privilege to renew +for another year."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-five hundred dollars!" Abe exclaimed. "By a lawyer? What are you +talking about, Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>At this juncture Morris grew purple with rage.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he yelled, "ask me no questions. I am sick and +tired of it. You would think if a feller forgets to buy a packet soap powder, +y'understand, his wife wouldn't go crazy and ring up the police station yet, +on account I am going with Baskof and this here cutter to see a lawyer by the +name Sholy, which he lives in my flathouse yet. There we are sitting till +twelve o'clock fixing up the contract, and if you don't like it you could +lump it. When I come home I got to get Doctor Eichendorfer yet to tend to +Minnie. Five dollars that robber soaks me, and he lives in the same house +with me. Also this lawyer Sholy charges me also twenty-five dollars for +drawing the contract, understand me, which Feldman himself would only charge +us fifty. Neighbours them fellers is, Abe! Such neighbours I would expect to +got it if I am living next door to Sing Sing prison."</p> + +<p>For more than an hour Abe pressed the matter no further, but at length +curiosity impelled him to speak. "Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," he began, +"couldn't I look at that contract too?"</p> + +<p>"Sure you could," Morris replied. "I'm surprised you ain't got no more +interest in the matter you didn't ask me before."</p> + +<p>Abe grunted and took the contract that Morris handed to him. "This +agreement," it ran, "made and entered into between Abraham Potash and Morris +Perlmutter, composing the firm of Potash & Perlmutter, of the Borough of +Manhattan, City of New York, parties of the first part, and Enrico Simonetti, +of the same place, party of the second part, witnesseth—"</p> + +<p>At this point Abe dropped the contract.</p> + +<p>"Mawruss," he said slowly, "do you mean to told me you are hiring for a +designer an Italiener?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," Morris replied; "why not?"</p> + +<p>"Why not!" Abe bellowed. "Why not! Ain't you and me married men? Ain't we +got wives? Ain't you got a child to support as well?"</p> + +<p>"What's that got to do with it?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"What's that got to do with it?" Abe repeated. "I'm surprised to hear you +you should talk that way, Mawruss. Supposing it is necessary we should tell such +a feller he is coming down late <i>oder</i>he is doing something which he +shouldn't do, y'understand, then the very first thing you know he sticks into +us a knife <i>und fertig</i>. I suppose, Mawruss, you are figuring that even +if you don't carry such good insurance, Mawruss, your wife is young and could +easy get married again. But with me is differencely. My wife ain't so young +no longer and—"</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris interrupted, "don't talk no more such +nonsense to me, because I seen the feller and I am sitting with him last +night over three hours. That feller would no more stick into you a knife as I +would."</p> + +<p>"No?" Abe commented.</p> + +<p>"And furthermore, Abe, when you are saying that Italieners stick knives, +understand me, you are talking like a greenhorn. Italieners is decent, +respectable people like anybody else, Abe, and just because when you are +going on the opera a couple Italieners stabs themselves, like I am seeing it +last week a show by the name Paliatzki, y'understand, that ain't no sign +every Italiener is a stabber, understand me. For that matter, Abe, after this +here show Paliatzki comes a whole lot of fellers from Russland on to the +stage, which they are dancing so quick I never seen the like, understand me, +and you know as well as I do, Abe, we got plenty fellers from Russland +working by us here which they could no more dance as they could fly."</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged again.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, supposing they wouldn't be stabbers even, Mawruss," he +continued, "if you got working for you an Italiener which you just broke in +good, y'understand, so soon as he saves a couple hundred dollars he right +away quits you and goes back to the old country. All them fellers is eating +is garlic and <i>Lockshen mit</i>holes into it, and you know as well as I do, +Mawruss, for two hundred dollars a feller could buy enough <i>Lockshen und +Knoblauch</i>to last him for the rest of his natural life. Whereas Mawruss, +you take a feller which he is coming over here from Russland, y'understand, +and he wouldn't go back to the old country not if you was to make him a +present of it free for nothing."</p> + +<p>"Is it anything against them Italieners if they save their money, Abe?" +Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"All right, Mawruss," Abe said, "supposing Italieners is such big savers, +understand me, one thing you must anyhow got to admit, Mawruss. You get a +couple Italieners working for you, understand me, and from morning till night +they never give you a minute's peace. Seemingly they must got to sing. They +couldn't help themselves, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"What do we care if he hollers a little something oncet in a while, Abe?" +Morris protested. "We could stand it if he turns out some good styles."</p> + +<p>"<em>If</em> he turns out good styles is all right, Mawruss," Abe said as +he turned away. "Lots of accidents could happen to a feller in the garment +business, Mawruss. Burglars could bust into his loft and steal his silk piece +goods on him; he could have maybe a fire; he could fall down the elevator +shaft and break, <i>Gott soll hüten</i>, his neck. All these things could +come to a garment manufacturer, Mawruss; but that his designer should turn +out some good styles is an accident which don't happen to one garment +manufacturer out of a hundred, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, long before Enrico Simonetti's term of employment had +expired Abe was obliged to acknowledge his mistake.</p> + +<p>Not only had Enrico proved his efficiency and originality as a designer +but he had exercised the utmost discretion in the management of the cutting +room. Moreover, he had little taste for music and never so much as whistled a +melody during working hours.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't make him out at all, Mawruss," Abe declared one morning. +"Actually the feller complains to me this morning he couldn't stand that +little greenhorn we hired last week on account he smells so from garlic."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris replied, "and he don't smoke and he don't +<i>shikker</i>, and he tells me yesterday he boards with a family on Second +Avenue which all it costs him is four dollars a week. And yet you, Abe, you +are kicking because the feller is an Italiener."</p> + +<p>"When was I kicking to you the feller is an Italiener?" Abe demanded. +"Why, you yourself, Mawruss, always says to me Italieners is no good. If you +are telling me oncet you are telling me a hundred times about an Italiener +family which they are living on top of you, Mawruss, and, to hear you talk, +such <i>Roshoyim</i> you wouldn't believe existed at all."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Morris admitted, "but there's Italieners and Italieners, +Abe; and only last night them people sits up till two o'clock this morning +<i>shikkering</i> and hollering. Not alone the woman hollers, Abe, but a +feller sings that big song from Paliatzki till I thought my head would bust. +Some one should write to the Board of Health about it, Abe."</p> + +<p>"My <i>tzuris</i>!" Abe exclaimed. "If you got living in the same house +with you a lawyer and a doctor, Mawruss, you shouldn't got much trouble +getting the Board of Health after them Italieners. And anyhow, Mawruss, if +the worser comes to the worst, y'understand, there's one thing you could +always do.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Move out," Abe replied, as he started for the cutting room.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mawruss," he commented, when he returned five minutes later, "you +could knock the Italieners all you want, but you got to admit they ain't +throwing their money into the street. Henry is showing me just now a bankbook +which in the last nine months he is putting away eighteen hundred +dollars."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Abe," Morris said. "If he would be from <i>unsere +Leute</i>, y'understand, instead he is putting the money in savings bank and +getting 3 per cent. interest, he would invest it in something else and make +it pretty near double itself soon."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, 3 per cent. interest?" Abe retorted. "Henry's got his +money in a bank which they are paying him 5 per cent. compounded every three +months. Henry ain't no fool, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"Five per cent.!" Morris exclaimed. "What for a bank would pay 5 per cent. +interest, Abe?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what for a bank pays 5 per cent., Mawruss," Abe replied, +"but you could take it from me, Mawruss, the way Sam Feder discounts +perfectly good A number one accounts for them depositors of his when they are +a little short, Mawruss, not only could the Kosciusko Bank afford to pay five +per cent., Mawruss, but they could also give 6 or 7, and still Sam Feder's +wife wouldn't got to pawn none of her diamonds."</p> + +<p>"Does he deposit his money with Feder?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Yow, he deposit his money with Feder, Mawruss!" Abe replied. "He deposits +his money with a banker by the name Guy-seppy Scratch-oly."</p> + +<p>"Guy-seppy Scratch-oly," Morris repeated. "That's a fine name for a +banker, Abe."</p> + +<p>"Guy-seppy, that's Italian for Yosef, Mawruss," Abe explained. "And +Scratch-oly is an Italian name the same like a feller in Russland would be +called Lipschutzky. For that matter, Mawruss, Lipschutzky ain't much of a +name for a banker neither."</p> + +<p>"No," Morris admitted, "but I'd a whole lot sooner trust my money to a +feller by the name Lipschutzky <i>oder</i> Feder, as to one of the Scratchy +names, Abe."</p> + +<p>"What is the difference what the banker's name is?" Abe rejoined. "Henry +says the money is all sent by his bank to a branch they got in the old +country. <i>Gott weiss</i> what that bank couldn't get for its money in the +old country, because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, here in New York City +some business men is short oncet in a while, understand me, but over in the +old country everybody is short all the time. The way banks does business over +there, Mawruss, they make Feder's bank look like a Free Loan Association."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Abe," Morris said gloomily, "and you mark my words, Abe, so +soon as Henry's year is up he will follow his money to the old country."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't worry yourself about that, Mawruss," Abe said confidently. +"When a feller's got a contract with a privilege for renewal at two hundred +dollars raise, like Henry got it, understand me, he ain't so stuck on going +back to the old country. Two hundred dollars is a whole lot of money over +there, Mawruss. For two hundred dollars in the old country a—"</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me again how much <i>Lockshen</i> mit holes in it a feller +could buy in the old country, Abe," Morris interrupted. "There's elegant +weather over there and good wine to drink, and places to go and look at which +they got mountains twicet as high as the Catskills, with olives and grapes +growing on to 'em."</p> + +<p>"I was never crazy about olives, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"Me neither," Morris agreed, "but Henry is something else again, and the +way that feller is talking to me in the cutting room yesterday, Abe, either +he wouldn't be working for us three months from to-day or the steamers stops +running to Italy."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"Mawruss," Abe shouted, at ten o'clock one morning in early March, "where +was you?"</p> + +<p>"Where was I?" Morris repeated. "I was to the court, that's where I +was."</p> + +<p>"To the court!" Abe exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"That's what I said," Morris continued. "We fixed that sucker, me and +Sholy and Doctor Eichendorfer and Baskof. We got him for a summons for this +afternoon two o'clock he should go to the Jefferson Market Police Court. Till +four o'clock this morning them people upstairs sits up hollering and +<i>skiddering</i>. Minnie and me we couldn't sleep a wink, and Baskof +neither. Steals our servant girl yet. I'll show that <i>Rosher</i>."</p> + +<p>Abe glared indignantly at his partner.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to told me, Mawruss," he said, "that you are fooling away +your time going on the court because somebody upstairs sings a little +something last night?"</p> + +<p>"Sings a little something!" Morris cried. "Why, that Italiener hollers +Paliatzki till you would think he commits a murder up there."</p> + +<p>"Suppose he did, Mawruss, ain't we got no business to go down here? Here +we are rushed to death already, and you are fooling away your—"</p> + +<p>"Don't say that again, Abe," Morris broke in. "I guess I could take off a +couple hours if I want to."</p> + +<p>"Sure," Abe replied ironically, "and Henry takes off a couple of hours +this lunchtime. He just told me so, Mawruss. He takes off a couple hours on +account he is going downtown to draw some money out of the bank and buy his +ticket."</p> + +<p>"Buy his ticket!" Morris gasped.</p> + +<p>"That's right," Abe continued, with forced calmness, "because, Mawruss, +they wouldn't let no one travel on a steamer without buying a ticket. People +what runs steamers is very funny that way, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>Morris grew pale as he removed his coat and hat.</p> + +<p>"What's he buying a steamer ticket for?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He didn't tell me exactly, Mawruss," Abe went on, "but I got a sort of an +idee he's going back to Italy, Mawruss, and next time, Mawruss, when we hire +a designer, understand me, I would do it myself. Also, Mawruss, I would hire +a designer which, if he goes back to the old country, y'understand, they +would right away take him for a soldier, and then, Mawruss, we wouldn't got +to be left without a designer just in the middle of the busy season."</p> + +<p>"Did you talk to him, Abe?" Morris inquired timidly. "Maybe we could jolly +him into staying."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded again.</p> + +<p>"Maybe you could jolly a duck not to swim in the water, Mawruss," he cried +bitterly.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Abe," Morris retorted. "A duck ain't got no use for a +couple of hundred dollars bonus."</p> + +<p>"A couple of hundred dollars bonus!" Abe yelled. "Do you mean to say you +would offer that Italiener a bonus?"</p> + +<p>"Sure; why not?" Morris asked. "Ain't he a good designer, Abe?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care if he was the best designer in the world, Mawruss," Abe +replied firmly. "Before I would give him a couple hundred dollars bonus, +understand me, he could go to Italy and a whole lot farther too."</p> + +<p>"Suit yourself," Morris said, as he commenced to examine the morning's +mail. He was midway in the assortment of the firm's sample line when Abe +approached him half an hour later.</p> + +<p>"Mawruss," he said, "do me the favour. You speak to the feller and see +what you can do. After all, a couple hundred dollars wouldn't break us."</p> + +<p>"I'm satisfied," Morris replied, and he walked immediately to the cutting +room.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Henry, I hear you are leaving us?" he began.</p> + +<p>Henry straightened up from the layer of cloth that was spread before him +on the cutting table and passed one hand through his bushy black hair.</p> + +<p>"I gotta no keek, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "Just for my contract is up, +so I go. That's all. I like-a da job first-class. Mr. Potash ees ver' good +man. Mr. Perlmutter ees too."</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you stay with us?" Morris asked, and Enrico Simonetti +heaved a great sigh.</p> + +<p>"I like-a da job first-class, Mr. Perlmutter, I gotta no keek," he +declared; "but I can no work. I am seek."</p> + +<p>"Sick!" Morris exclaimed; "well, why didn't you tell us then? We'd only be +too glad to let you go away for a couple of weeks, Henry."</p> + +<p>Enrico sighed even more deeply.</p> + +<p>"Ees not a seekness for two weeks, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "I am seek +just for see my mudder. Ees old woman—my mudder, Mr. Perlmutter."</p> + +<p>Enrico's large brown eyes grew moist as he proceeded.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am a-seek," he went on. "I am a-seek just for see Ischia, +Posilipo, Capri, Mr. Perlmutter. You know I am a-seek for see +<i>aranci</i>—oranges grown on a tree. I am a-seek just for see my own +ceet-a, Napoli. Yes, Mr. Perlmutter, I am a-ver' seek."</p> + +<p>He sat down on a stool and bowed his face in his hands, while his +shoulders heaved up and down in the emotion of nostalgia.</p> + +<p>"Think it over, Henry," Morris said huskily, and departed on tiptoe. He +returned at once to the assorting of the sample line, nor did he look up when +Abe came toward him a few minutes afterward.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, "what did he say?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't say nothing," Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Abe continued. "Didn't he think two hundred was enough?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't mention the two hundred to him at all," Morris answered, +"because it wouldn't be no use. You couldn't keep that feller from going back +to the old country, not if you would put him into jail even. He'd break out, +Abe, believe me."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded slowly.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's the way it goes, Mawruss," he said bitterly, as Enrico +walked toward them from the cutting room.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Potash," he said, "ascuse me, you geev-a me now leetla time for going +downtown just for same like I tell-a you dis morning?"</p> + +<p>"Go ahead, Henry," Morris replied.</p> + +<p>"You notta mad at me, Mr. Perlmutter?" Enrico asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Why should I got to be mad at you, Henry?" Morris rejoined. "If I would +feel the way you do, Henry, me, I wouldn't of waited for my contract to be up +even."</p> + +<p>"Ain't that a fine way for you to talk, Mawruss?" Abe said after Enrico +had gone. "You would think you would be glad to get rid of the feller right +in the middle of the busy season."</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged.</p> + +<p>"I don't care if I would got to jump right in and work till twelve o'clock +every night, Abe," he declared. "I would tell him to go home to the old +country if I would got to pay for the ticket myself."</p> + +<p>Abe thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and started to walk +gloomily away.</p> + +<p>"Furthermore, Abe, if you want to go out for your lunch, Abe," Morris +concluded, "now is the time, because as I told you before, Abe, I got to go +on the court at two o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Sure you told me that before, Mawruss," Abe growled, as he put on his hat +and coat; "and when a feller goes to work and deliberately fixes things so he +has got to go on a court, Mawruss, d'ye know the next place he would go?"</p> + +<p>He paused for a retort; but, as Morris made no sign, Abe supplied his own +answer.</p> + +<p>"A lunatic asylum," he said, and a minute later the elevator door clanged +behind him.</p> + +<p>For almost an hour longer Morris busied himself with the assortment of the +sample line, and he had about concluded his task when a great wailing noise +came from the cutting room. He jumped to his feet and ran hurriedly to the +scene of the uproar. There he found Enrico Simonetti seated on a stool, +clutching his hair with both hands, while around him stood a group of his +assistants, voicing their anguish like a pack of foxhounds.</p> + +<p>"<i>Koosh!</i>" Morris cried. "What is the trouble here?"</p> + +<p>The wailing ceased, but Enrico remained seated, his hands still clutching +his bushy hair, while his large brown eyes stared blankly from a face as +white as a pierrot.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" Morris repeated.</p> + +<p>"His bank busted on him," said Nathan Schenkman, the shipping clerk.</p> + +<p>"His bank!" Morris cried. "What bank?"</p> + +<p>"It ain't a regular bank," Nathan explained. "He is giving his money to an +Italiener which he calls himself a banker, Mr. Perlmutter; and to-day when he +is going there to get him money the feller's store is locked. Nobody knows +where he went to at all. The clerks also is gone."</p> + +<p>"Is that right, Henry?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>Enrico nodded his head without removing his hands from his hair.</p> + +<p>"There is a big crowd of loafers around the store," Nathan continued, +"which they are saying they would kill the feller if they get him, so Henry +comes back here on account he ain't that kind, Mr. Perlmutter. Henry is a +decent feller, Mr. Perlmutter."</p> + +<p>Morris looked pityingly at his cutter, who continued to stare at the floor +in stony despair.</p> + +<p>"Might you could do something to get him his money back maybe, Mr. +Perlmutter?" Nathan said.</p> + +<p>"I would see when my partner comes in from lunch," Morris replied, and as +he turned to leave the cutting room Abe's bulky form blocked the doorway. +Morris waved him back, and Abe tiptoed to the front of the showroom followed +by Morris.</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble?" Abe asked immediately.</p> + +<p>"Trouble enough," Morris declared. "Henry's bank busted on him."</p> + +<p>"What!" Abe cried, and Morris repeated the information.</p> + +<p>"Then he wouldn't leave us at all," Abe said, and Morris nodded sadly.</p> + +<p>"Ain't it terrible?" he commented.</p> + +<p>"Terrible?" Abe asked. "What d'ye mean—terrible? Is it so terrible +that we wouldn't got to lose our designer right in the middle of the busy +season?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean us, Abe," Morris said. "I mean for Henry."</p> + +<p>"Henry neither," Abe rejoined. "Henry would still got his job with two +hundred dollars a year raise."</p> + +<p>"And a bonus of two hundred dollars," Morris added.</p> + +<p>"A bonus of nothing!" Abe almost shouted. "Do you mean to told me you +would pay Henry a bonus of two hundred dollars now that he must got to stay +on with us?"</p> + +<p>"I sure do," Morris declared fiercely; "and furthermore, Abe, if you don't +want to pay it I would from my own pocket, and I'm going right in to tell him +about it now."</p> + +<p>He walked away to the cutting room, and in less than five minutes Abe +repented his parsimony. He went on tiptoe to the door of the cutting room, +where Morris leaned over Enrico, uttering words of consolation and advice.</p> + +<p>"Mawruss," Abe hissed, "make it three hundred, the bonus."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"And, Mawruss," Abe went on, "it's pretty near quarter of two. Ain't you +going up there at all?"</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"I should never walk another step if you didn't say two o'clock," Morris +Perlmutter protested to Philip Sholy as they hastened up the stairway in +Jefferson Market Police Court.</p> + +<p>"Never mind what I said," Sholy cried. "It's now anyhow quarter past two, +and that dago has got his wife and servant girl and two clerks waiting in +court since twelve o'clock. Eichendorfer and Baskof have been here since one +o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Say, listen here, Sholy," Morris said, as they panted up the last flight, +"I came just as soon as I could, and I couldn't come no sooner."</p> + +<p>"Hats off!" the policeman at the door shouted, as Morris walked up the +aisle with his attorney, and a moment later they passed into the enclosure +for counsel.</p> + +<p>"My client and his witnesses have been here since twelve o'clock," a +lawyer was explaining while Morris sat down, "and in the meantime his place +of business has been closed."</p> + +<p>At this juncture the client in question caught sight of Morris and ripped +out so strong an Italian expletive that the court interpreter nearly +swooned.</p> + +<p>"What business is he in?" the magistrate asked.</p> + +<p>"He's in the banking business on Mulberry Street," the lawyer continued, +"and it's impossible to say what harm all this may do him."</p> + +<p>"Call the case again," the magistrate said.</p> + +<p>"Witnesses in the case of Giuseppe Caraccioli please step forward," the +interpreter announced, and the policeman in the rear of the courtroom +repeated the injunction to the loungers in the stairway.</p> + +<p>"Guy-seppy Scratch-oly," he bellowed, and Morris heard him from his seat +in the enclosure for counsel. He jumped to his feet and made for the gate.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?" Sholy demanded, grabbing him by the coat.</p> + +<p>"Leggo my coat!" Morris cried, and the next moment he was taking the +stairs three at a jump. Nor had his excitement abated when he burst into his +cutting room half an hour later.</p> + +<p>"Henry," he gasped, "if I would get your money back for you would you +stick out the busy season for us?"</p> + +<p>Enrico was chalking designs on a piece of pattern paper when Morris +entered. Beyond a slight pallor he appeared to be quite resigned to his loss, +but at his employer's words he flushed vividly and clutched again at his +hair.</p> + +<p>"Leave your hair alone and listen to me," Morris commented.</p> + +<p>"Sure, sure," Enrico said tremulously, "I leesten, Mr. Perlmutt."</p> + +<p>"Did you hear what I said?" Morris went on. "If I can get your money back +for you will you stay on here till the busy season is over?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," Enrico cried; "sure. I notta geevadam how long I stay, you getta +my mon', Mr. Perlmutt. I stay here one, two, t'ree years."</p> + +<p>"All right," Morris said; "put on your coat and go back to Mulberry +Street. Your banker will of opened up again by the time you get there."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Ten days afterward Abe and Morris sat in the showroom.</p> +<hr /> + +<h2 id="chap11">CHAPTER ELEVEN</h2> + +<h3>MAN PROPOSES</h3> + +<p>"Ain't it terrible a strong, healthy young feller should go off like +that?" Abe Potash remarked, as he and his partner sat in their showroom one +spring morning. "I give you my word I was sitting over in Hammersmith's so +close to him as I am to you, Mawruss, when it happened."</p> + +<p>"Was there much excitement?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"I bet yer was there excitement!" Abe exclaimed. "Hammersmith sends across +the street for a doctor, and you ought to seen Leon Sammet the way he acted. +'For Gawd's sake, doctor,' he says, 'couldn't you do nothing for him?' he +says. 'He's got a wife and family,' he says, 'and we shipped him two thousand +dollars goods only last Saturday.'"</p> + +<p>"Did they?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"How should I know?" Abe said. "Sammet is such a liar, Mawruss, he +couldn't tell the truth no matter how surprised he would be. But one thing is +sure, Mawruss—Gladstein did owe Sammet Brothers for a big bill of goods +and the widder paid them out of the insurance."</p> + +<p>"Could she do that when the feller leaves a family, Abe?" Morris +inquired.</p> + +<p>"The feller didn't leave no family, Mawruss," Abe answered. "Leon Sammet +just takes a chance when he said that to the doctor. As a matter of fact, +Mawruss, Gladstein was one of them fellers which he ain't got a relation in +the world. Mrs. Gladstein neither, except <i>im</i> Russland. That's the way +it goes, Mawruss. A feller which he has got so many cousins and uncles that +he gets writer's cramp already indorsing accommodation paper for 'em, +understand me, lives to be an old man yet, and all the time his relations and +his wife's relations is piling up on him; while a man like Gladstein which +you could really say has a chance to enjoy life, Mawruss, is got to die."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"Don't I know it?" he commented. "And I suppose the widder sells out the +store."</p> + +<p>"<i>Oser a stück</i>," Abe said. "She's still running the store, and +making a fair success of it too."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?" Morris replied. "Well, then, why couldn't we get some of her +trade, Abe? Bridgetown ain't so far away from here. Why don't you take a run +over there sometime and see what you could do with her? Might you could sell +her some goods maybe."</p> + +<p>"Yow!" Abe exclaimed derisively. "We couldn't sell that woman goods, not +if we was to let her have 'em for the price of the findings, Mawruss. She's +got an idee that she is getting stuck unless she would buy goods from the +same concerns that sold Gladstein."</p> + +<p>"Well, if that's the case, Abe," Morris said, "she could never make no big +success there. A feller like Leon Sammet would just as lief stick a widder as +not—liefer even."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know," Abe replied.</p> + +<p>"Then why don't some one give her a couple pointers about that feller, +Abe?" Morris inquired.</p> + +<p>Abe nodded solemnly.</p> + +<p>"You know a whole lot about women, Mawruss, I must say," he commented. +"You could give a woman pointers by the dozen about a man, Mawruss, and swear +to 'em with six affidavits yet, and what good would it do? It's like putting +a 'Wet Paint' sign up. Everybody feels the paint to see if it really would be +wet."</p> + +<p>"What for a looking woman is she, Abe?" Morris asked, with an obvious +effort at nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"How should I know?" Abe said. "I only seen her a couple times; and +anyhow, Mawruss, I don't take it so particular to look at women like Leon +Sammet does, Mawruss. That feller's a regular Don Quicks-toe, Mawruss. He is +all the time running around with women."</p> + +<p>"A feller must got to entertain buyers once in a while, Abe," Morris +said.</p> + +<p>"Buyers is all right, Mawruss," Abe declared, "but I guess I been in this +here business long enough that I could tell a buyer from a model."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Abe," Morris said. "Leon Sammet may run around the +streets with women, Abe, but that ain't saying he is got intentions to marry +Mrs. Gladstein. A feller like Leon Sammet which he is crowding fifty pretty +close, Abe, ain't looking to marry no widders. Young girls is all them +fellers is looking out for, Abe; and anyhow, Abe, what for a match is Mrs. +Gladstein to a manufacturer? If she expects that she should get another +husband, Abe, the only hope for her is some retailer would marry her as a +going concern. She couldn't liquidate her business and come out even, let +alone with money enough to get married, Abe."</p> + +<p>"She don't got to got money to get married on, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. +"Any one would be glad to marry such a woman supposing she didn't got a cent +to her name. She's an elegant-looking woman, Mawruss—not too thin and +not too fat, Mawruss, and what a face she got it, Mawruss! My Rosie was a +good-looking woman, Mawruss, and is to-day yet; but Mrs. Gladstein, Mawruss, +that's a woman which in a theayter already you don't see such a looking +woman. She could dress herself, too, I bet yer. The last time I was by +Bridgetown she is wearing one of our Style 4022 which Sammet +<i>ganvered</i>from us and calls the Lily Langtry costume, Mawruss, in a navy +shade, understand me; and I don't know nothing about this here Lily Langtry, +Mawruss, but I could tell you right now, Mawruss, she ain't got nothing on +Mrs. Gladstein when it comes to looks."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded and turned to the contemplation of some cutting-slips, while +Abe made ready for lunch.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris said, when Abe appeared with his hat on. +"I've been thinking about this here Mrs. Gladstein, understand me, and I come +to the conclusion: Why should we give up so easy? Gladstein always done a +good business in that store, y'understand, and if the widder is such a +good-looking woman like you say she is, Abe, there's an opening for her to +attract a big trade in gents' furnishings and hats up there, and at the same +time keep the cloak-and-suit end going."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean—attract a big trade in gents' furnishings and hats, +Mawruss?" Abe demanded indignantly. "If you think the woman is a flirt, +Mawruss, you are making a big mistake."</p> + +<p>"Must a woman got to be a flirt that she should sell gents' furnishings, +Abe?" Morris asked with some heat.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said with a scowl. "A lady ain't looking +to sell the gents' furnishing trade, Mawruss."</p> + +<p>"I know she ain't," Morris replied, "but if a woman is good-looking, Abe, +naturally she attracts the clothing and furnishing customers, but she don't +got to sell those customers, Abe. Her husband could do that."</p> + +<p>"Her husband could do it?" Abe repeated. "What are you talking +about—her husband?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, her husband," Morris went on, "and especially if a good-looking +woman like Mrs. Gladstein would got for a husband a good-looking man like B. +Gurin, understand me, the idee works both ways. Mrs. Gladstein attracts the +clothing trade and B. Gurin sells 'em, y'understand, while B. Gurin attracts +the women's garment trade and Mrs. Gladstein sells 'em."</p> + +<p>Abe sat down suddenly and took off his hat.</p> + +<p>"What are you trying to drive into, Mawruss?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I am trying to drive into this, Abe," Morris replied: "B. Gurin is a +good-looking, up-to-date feller, but he's in wrong with that store of his in +Mount Vernon. In the first place, the neighbourhood ain't right, +y'understand, and in the second place Gurin don't attend to business like he +should; because he ain't married and he ain't got no responsibilities. To +such a feller, Abe, when it comes to taking a young lady on theayter Saturday +night, business is nix, even when Saturday is a big night in Mount +Vernon."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded.</p> + +<p>"Furthermore, Abe," Morris continued, "if we go on selling B. Gurin, Abe, +sooner or later he would bust up on us, understand me, and we are not only +out a customer but the least he sticks us is a couple hundred dollars. He +owes us two hundred and fifty right now, Abe, since the first of the month +already. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Abe nodded again.</p> + +<p>"But you take a young feller like B. Gurin, Abe," Morris went on, "which +all he needs is a wife to steady him and an up-to-date <i>Medeena</i> like +Bridgetown to run a store in, understand me, and if we could put this thing +through, Abe, not only we are doing a <i>Mitzvah</i> for all concerned, Abe, +but we are making a customer for life."</p> + +<p>"You mean, Mawruss," Abe said slowly, "you would try to make up a match +between B. Gurin and Mrs. Gladstein?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, why not?" Morris said. "It stands in the <i>Gemara</i>, Abe, we are +commanded to promote marriages, visit the sick and bury the dead."</p> + +<p>Once more Abe nodded, and this time he managed to impart the quality of +irony to the gesture.</p> + +<p>"Burying the dead is all right, Mawruss," he said. "From a dead man you +don't get no comebacks, and his relations is anyhow grateful; <i>aber</i> if +you would make up a match between a couple of people like Mrs. Gladstein and +B. Gurin, what is it? Even if the marriage would be a success, Mawruss, then +the couple claims they was just suited to each other, Mawruss, and we don't +get no credit for it anyway. On the other hand, Mawruss, if they don't agree +together, they wouldn't hate each other near so much as they'd hate us."</p> + +<p>"Why should they hate us?" Morris asked. "Our intentions is anyhow +good."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "From having good intentions +already, many a decent, respectable feller goes broke."</p> + +<p>Morris flapped the air impatiently with his right hand.</p> + +<p>"Anybody could sit down and talk proverbs, Abe," he said.</p> + +<p>"I guess I could talk proverbs in my own store, Mawruss, if I want to," +Abe rejoined with dignity.</p> + +<p>"Sure you could," Morris replied, "but one thing you got to remember, Abe. +While the back-number is saying look out before you jump, the up-to-date +feller has jumped already, and lands on a five-thousand-dollar order +<i>mit</i> both feet already."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"I'll tell you, Mr. Perlmutter, it's like this," B. Gurin explained, as he +sat in his Mount Vernon store that evening; "money don't figure at all with +me."</p> + +<p>"Where is the harm supposing she does got a little money, Gurin?" Morris +protested. "And, anyhow, never mind the money, Gurin. We will say for the +sake of example she ain't got no money. Does it do any harm to look at the +woman?"</p> + +<p>B. Gurin passed his hand through his wavy brown hair, cut semi-pompadour +in the latest fashion. There was no denying B. Gurin's claims to beauty.</p> + +<p>"What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he said, carefully examining +his finger-nails. "I am sick and tired of looking at 'em. Believe me I ain't +lying to you, if I looked at one I must of looked at hundreds. The fathers +was rated at the very least D to F first credit, and what is it? The most of +'em I wouldn't marry, not if the rating was Aa 1 even, such faces they got +it, understand me; and the others which is got the looks, y'understand, you +could take it from me, Mr. Perlmutter, they couldn't even cook a pertater +even."</p> + +<p>"Girls which they got D to F fathers don't got to cook pertaters," Morris +commented shortly.</p> + +<p>B. Gurin shrugged.</p> + +<p>"For that matter, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I don't take it so particular +about my food neither."</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Gurin," Morris exclaimed. "What is the trouble with you +anyhow? First you are telling me you don't care about money, next you are +kicking that the good-looking ones couldn't cook, y'understand, and then you +say you ain't so particular about cooking anyway. What for a kind of girl do +you want, Gurin?"</p> + +<p>Gurin continued to examine his finger-nails and made no reply.</p> + +<p>"Because, Gurin," Morris concluded, "if you are looking for a homely girl +which she ain't got no money and couldn't cook, understand me, I wouldn't +fool away my time with you at all. Such girls you don't need me to find for +you."</p> + +<p>B. Gurin sighed profoundly.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't get mad, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "if I tell you +something?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I get mad, Gurin?" Morris asked. "I am coming all the way up +here, which I am leaving wife and boy at home to do so—and maybe you +don't think she put up a holler, Gurin! So if you wouldn't even consent to do +me the favour and look at Mrs. Gladstein, Gurin, and I don't get mad, +understand me, why should I get mad if you would tell me something?"</p> + +<p>"Well," Gurin commenced, "it ain't much to tell, Mr. Perlmutter. I guess +you hear already why I am coming to this country."</p> + +<p>Morris elevated his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you are coming here like anybody else comes here," he said. +"Sooner as stay in the old country and be a <i>Schnorrer</i> all your life, +you come over here, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"No, siree, sir," Gurin replied emphatically.</p> + +<p>"If I would stay in the old country, Perlmutter, I don't got to be a +<i>Schnorrer</i>. Do you know Louis Moses, the banker in Minsk?"</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"That's from <i>mir</i> an uncle, <i>verstehst du</i>?" Gurin said; "and +Zachs, the big corn merchant, that's also an uncle. My father ain't a +<i>Schnorrer</i> neither, Mr. Perlmutter; in fact, instead I am sending home +money to Russland like most fellers which they come to this country, Mr. +Perlmutter, my people sends me money yet."</p> + +<p>He jumped from his chair and went to the safe, from which he extracted two +crisp Russian banknotes.</p> + +<p>"A hundred rubles apiece," he said, and his face beamed with pride. "So, +you see, I don't got to leave Russland because I would be a <i>Schnorrer</i> +over there."</p> + +<p>"No?" Morris replied. "Then why did you leave, Gurin? So far what I could +see you ain't made it such a big success over here."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't make me mad by saying that, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin +commented. "A big success <i>oder</i> a big failure, it makes no difference +to me."</p> + +<p>"It makes a whole lot of difference to me," Morris cried.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Perlmutter," B. Gurin went on, disregarding the interruption. "I +ain't coming over here to make a big success in business. I am coming over +here to forget."</p> + +<p>"To forget!" Morris exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, forget?"</p> + +<p>B. Gurin ran his hands once more through his pompadour and nodded +slowly.</p> + +<p>"That's what I said," he repeated—"to forget."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope you ain't forgetting you owe us now two hundred and fifty +dollars since the first of the month yet," Morris commented in dry, +matter-of-fact tones.</p> + +<p>B. Gurin waved his hand airily.</p> + +<p>"I could forget that easy, Mr. Perlmutter," he said—and Morris +winced—"but the rest I couldn't forget at all. Day and night I see her +face, Mr. Perlmutter—and such a face!"</p> + +<p>Here he paused impressively.</p> + +<p>"N-nah!" he exclaimed, and kissed the tips of his fingers, while Morris +glanced uneasily toward the door.</p> + +<p>"Her name was Miss Polanya and her father keeps a big flour mill in +Koroleshtchevitzi, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin went on. "A fine family, understand +me; and I am going out there from Minsk twice a week, when a young feller by +the name Lutsky—a corn broker, y'understand—comes to sell her +father goods."</p> + +<p>Again B. Gurin paused, his left hand extended palm upward in a tremulous +gesture. Suddenly it dropped on his knee with a despondent smack.</p> + +<p>"In two weeks already they was married," he concluded, "and me, I am +coming to America."</p> + +<p>"You ain't coming to such a bad place neither," Morris rejoined; "even +supposing your uncles was such big <i>Machers</i>in the old country."</p> + +<p>"Places is all the same to me now," Gurin said—"women, too, Mr. +Perlmutter. I assure you, Mr. Perlmutter, since the day I am leaving Minsk +one woman is the same as another to me. I ain't got no use for none of +'em."</p> + +<p>"<i>Geh weg</i>, Gurin," Morris cried impatiently. "You talk like a fool. +Just because one lady goes back on you, understand me, is that a reason you +wouldn't got no use for no ladies at all? You might just as well say, Gurin, +because one customer busts up on you, y'understand, you would never try to +sell another customer so long as you live. Now this here Mrs. Gladstein, +Gurin, is a lady which while I never seen this here lady <i>im</i> Russland, +y'understand, if you will just come out to Bridgetown with me, Gurin, I give +you a guaranty Russland wouldn't figure at all."</p> + +<p>Gurin shook his head sadly.</p> + +<p>"You don't know me, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "While I am going with +plenty <i>Schatchens</i> to see young ladies already, Mr. Perlmutter, I +assure you my heart ain't in it. People gets the impression because I am a +swell dresser, Mr. Perlmutter, that I am looking to get married; but believe +me, Mr. Perlmutter, it ain't so."</p> + +<p>"Then what do you go for, Gurin?" Morris asked. "<i>Schatchens</i> don't +like to fool away their time no more as I do, Gurin; and you could take it +from me, no girl is going to the trouble to fix herself up and make a nice +supper for you and the <i>Schatchen</i> simply for the pleasure of seeing a +swell dresser, Gurin."</p> + +<p>"That's just the point, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin said. "A feller which runs +a store like this one and eats his meals in restaurants, understand me, must +got to get a little home cooking once in a while. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Why not get married and be done with it?" Morris retorted; "and then you +could get home cooking all the time."</p> + +<p>Once more Gurin shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Without love, Mr. Perlmutter, marriage is nix," he said.</p> + +<p>"<i>Schmooes!</i>" Morris exclaimed. "Do you think when I got married I +loved my wife, Gurin? <i>Oser</i> a <i>stück</i>. And to-day yet I am crazy +about her. With a business man, Gurin, love comes after marriage."</p> + +<p>B. Gurin rose wearily to his feet and shot his cuffs by way of showing +impatience.</p> + +<p>"What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he protested. "When I want to +get married I would get married—otherwise not."</p> + +<p>He flecked away an imaginary grain of dust from the lapel of his coat and +walked slowly toward the door.</p> + +<p>"Are you going home on the New Haven road <i>oder</i> the Harlem road?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>Morris scowled, and his indignation lent such force to the gesture with +which he put on his hat that the impact sounded like a blow on a +tambourine.</p> + +<p>"<i>Schon gut</i>, Gurin," he said. "I am through with you."</p> + +<p>He paused at the doorway and lit a cigar.</p> + +<p>"And one thing I could tell you, Gurin," he concluded. "Either you would +send us a check the first thing to-morrow morning, <i>oder</i> we would give +your account to our lawyers, and that's all there is to it."</p> + +<p>He puffed away at his cigar as he trudged down the street, and he had +nearly reached the corner when he heard a familiar voice shouting: "Mr. +Perlmutter!" He turned to view B. Gurin hastening after him.</p> + +<p>"Well, Gurin," he grunted, "what you want now?"</p> + +<p>Gurin stopped and gasped for breath, and Morris's heart gave a triumphant +leap as he noted the anxiety displayed on B. Gurin's clean-shaven +features.</p> + +<p>"Speak up, Gurin," he said; "I got to get my train."</p> + +<p>Gurin smiled in surrender.</p> + +<p>"All right, Mr. Perlmutter," he murmured; "make for me a date and I will +look the lady over."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>When Morris entered his place of business the next morning he found his +partner examining the advertising columns of a morning paper with an +absorption hardly justified by the tabulated list of births, marriages and +deaths at which he was gazing.</p> + +<p>"What's biting you now, Abe?" Morris demanded.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, what's biting me?" Abe rejoined, and Morris blushed in +the consciousness of his oversleeping that morning by more than half an +hour.</p> + +<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he cried. "I don't know what you are driving into, +understand me, but if you think you could get <i>brogus</i> at me just +because I am ten minutes late once in a while, y'understand, let me tell you +I am catching a twelve o'clock train from Mount Vernon last night, and not +alone I am talking myself blue in the face to that feller Gurin, +y'understand, but when I got home already I couldn't get to sleep till I told +the whole thing to my Minnie yet."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded slowly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Abe," Morris continued, "I got to go over the story twice over +already, and even then, y'understand, my Minnie gets mad because I didn't +contradict myself.</p> + +<p>"Only one idee that woman got it in her head, Abe. If I am out of the +house <i>schon</i> ten minutes already you couldn't tell her otherwise but I +am playing auction pinocle."</p> + +<p>"Well, you might just as well of been playing auction pinocle last night +for all the good it would do us."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about—all the good it would do us?" Morris +almost whimpered.</p> + +<p>"I actually got the feller dead to rights, Abe, and all I must do now is +to work from the other end."</p> + +<p>Abe burst into a mirthless laugh and handed Morris the paper.</p> + +<p>"You should of worked the other end first, Mawruss," he declared, as he +indicated an advertising item with his thumb. "That's what Leon Sammet did, +Mawruss."</p> + +<p>Morris seized the paper and his face grew purple as he read the following +notice:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="newspaper article"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td><p>ENGAGED: Asimof—Gladstein. Mrs. Sonia Gladstein, of + Bridgetown, Pa., to Jacob Asimof, of Dotyville, Pa. At home, Sunday + next 3 to 7 at the residence of Mrs. Leah Sammet, 86-3/4 West One + Hundredth and Eighteenth Street. No cards.</p> + </td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"Leon's mother makes the engagement party for 'em, Mawruss," Abe said +dryly. "Costs a whole lot of money, too, and I bet yer Mrs. Gladstein +wouldn't notice it at all in the next six months' statements Leon sends to +her."</p> + +<p>Morris stifled a groan as he laid down the paper and forced himself to +smile confidently.</p> + +<p>"What difference does an engagement make, Abe?" he asked. "An engagement +ain't a wedding, Abe, and it ain't too late even now."</p> + +<p>Again Abe indulged in a bitter laugh.</p> + +<p>"You're a regular optician, Mawruss," he said. "You never give up +hope."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Abe," Morris retorted. "We could stand a couple +opticians in this concern. Always you are ready to lay down on a proposition +just as soon as things goes a little wrong, understand me, but me I think +differencely."</p> + +<p>Abe shrugged and rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," he said, "take off your hat and coat and stay a while. +Maybe we could do a little business here this morning for a change."</p> + +<p>"Maybe we could and maybe we couldn't, Abe," Morris rejoined, as he +buttoned up his coat; "but just the same I am going to do something which you +will really be surprised."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," Abe corrected; "we are partners together so long that I am +only surprised supposing you should act sensible."</p> + +<p>"Well, the way I look at it I am acting sensible, Abe," Morris announced. +"I am acting sensible, because I am going right down to see Marcus Flachs and +I would buy from him for ten dollars cut glass, and I would show that sucker +Sammet he couldn't faze me none."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean, couldn't faze you none?" Abe asked.</p> + +<p>"I mean if Sammet is such a faker he goes to work and makes engagement +parties for his customers and puts 'em on the paper yet, Abe," Morris +declared, as he jammed his hat down more firmly on his head, "he must got to +expect his competitors would take advantage of it, understand me. And you +could bet your sweet life, Abe, Sunday afternoon, comes three o'clock, I am +right there at his mother's house with the cut glass, and don't you forget +it."</p> + +<p>Abe nodded grimly.</p> + +<p>"It's a free country, Mawruss," he said, "and nobody could stop you going +to an engagement party which is in the paper, y'understand; but you shouldn't +forget one thing, Mawruss. You got on our ledger a drawing account, +<i>verstehst du</i>, and on your way out you should please tell Miss Cohen to +enter the ten dollars cut glass in the right place."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry, Abe," Morris cried, as he started for the elevator. "When +the time comes we should post it in the ledger, if we ain't opened a new +account in Bridgetown, Pa., I would pay for it myself."</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later he entered the Twenty-third Street subway station en +route to Canal Street, and no sooner had he bought his ticket than his +enthusiasm began to wane. After all, he reflected as he boarded the train, +ten dollars' worth of cut glass seemed rather extravagant when one considered +the size of an order that in the most favourable circumstances might emanate +from a store in Bridgetown. Indeed, as the train pulled into the Eighteenth +Street station he had come to believe that seven dollars and fifty cents +would be a generous price, and even this figure commenced to look huge as +Fourteenth Street drew near. At Astor Place, Morris decided that five +dollars' worth of cut glass would be more appropriate for a widow. When the +guard announced the next stop as Bleecker Street, however, it occurred to +Morris that the manufacturers of quadruple plate were producing some very +artistic effects in knives, forks and spoons, which in appearance were +undistinguishable from sterling silver; and the train was leaving Spring +Street when Morris bethought himself of a certain <i>bonbonnière</i> that had +cost Mrs. Perlmutter precisely four dollars at a dry-goods store. He +distinctly recalled examining the trade-mark, to which were affixed the words +"triple plate."</p> + +<p>During the short walk from the Canal Street station to Marcus Flachs's +place of business, he wondered vaguely if there were such a thing as double +plate, and when at last he opened the door of the pawnbroker's sales store in +question he approached the counter with his mind fully made up.</p> + +<p>"Do you got maybe some sets from nutpicks?" he inquired of the +proprietor.</p> + +<p>Marcus Flachs took the question in ill part.</p> + +<p>"What the devil do you think I am running here," he demanded by way of +answer—"a five-and-ten-cent store?"</p> + +<p>"Since when do they sell it nutpicks in a five-and-ten-cent-store?" Morris +retorted.</p> + +<p>Flachs snorted angrily.</p> + +<p>"I don't think they sell 'em even in five-and-ten-cent stores," he said; +"and anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, what for a present is nutpicks? If a feller eats +nuts twice a year, that's a big average. For my part it would <i>oser</i> +break my heart if I would never eat another nut so long as I live. Now what +you want to get is something cheap, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Morris nodded.</p> + +<p>"Something about two dollars and fifty cents," he said.</p> + +<p>"That's what I thought," Flachs replied, "and for two dollars and fifty +cents there ain't much choice. Olive dishes is all I could show you."</p> + +<p>"Let me give a look at 'em," Morris said, and as Flachs led the way to the +well-stocked shelves in the rear of the store Morris discerned for the first +time the presence of another customer.</p> + +<p>"How much did you say that there coffee samovar was?" cried a familiar +voice.</p> + +<p>"I told you before, Mr. Klinger," Flachs said, "that ain't no samovar. +That's a perculater and it cost me, so sure as I am standing here, fifteen +dollars, so I would let you have it for twelve-fifty on account its being +shopworn."</p> + +<p>"Take ten dollars and make an end," rejoined Klinger, tendering a bill.</p> + +<p>"For ten dollars I could give you a fine piece cut glass, Mr. Klinger," +Flachs insisted.</p> + +<p>By way of answer Klinger tucked away the ten-dollar bill he had taken from +his waistcoat pocket, and Flachs seized the coffee percolator with both +hands.</p> + +<p>"I'll wrap it up for you right away," he said, and then it was that +Klinger recognized Morris, who had been standing unnoticed in the +background.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Perlmutter!" he said; "what are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"I guess I am doing the same what you are doing, Klinger," Morris replied +stiffly. "I am buying for a customer a present. Ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Klinger nodded.</p> + +<p>"Honestly, Perlmutter," he said, "I never seen the like how things happen. +No sooner you start to sell goods to a feller than somebody is engaged +<i>oder</i> married in his family."</p> + +<p>"He must be a pretty good customer the way you are blowing yourself," +Morris commented.</p> + +<p>"I bet yer!" Klinger said as he walked away; "and if you would be in our +place you would do the same."</p> + +<p>For five minutes Morris examined the cut glass, and when Flachs returned +he had decided upon an olive dish of most intricate design. "That's a close +buyer, that Mr. Klinger," Flachs observed.</p> + +<p>"Not near so close as I am," Morris declared.</p> + +<p>"Well, you wouldn't anyhow kick on paying twenty-five cents express, Mr. +Perlmutter," Flachs said, "but that feller actually wants me to deliver the +package for nothing."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Morris asked. "Don't everybody deliver packages free?"</p> + +<p>"Not a pawnbroker's-sales store," Flachs replied; "and anyhow, Mr. +Perlmutter, Leon Sammet this morning buys from me for thirty dollars silver +to be sent to the same place on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street as that +there perculater, and he didn't kick only a little that I am charging him +fifty cents express."</p> + +<p>"What!" Morris exclaimed. "Is Klinger sending that perculater up to One +Hundred and Eighteenth Street too?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I said," Flachs answered, and Morris replaced the cut-glass +dish on the shelf.</p> + +<p>"Was the name Gladstein?" he inquired, and Flachs nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then in that case," Morris said savagely, "let me look at some sterling +silver for about twenty-five dollars. If them suckers could stand it, so can +I."</p> +<hr /> + +<p>More than two days had elapsed before Abe had exhausted the topic of Mrs. +Gladstein's ten-dollar engagement present. He discussed it satirically, +profanely and earnestly, from the standpoint of business ethics, in such +maddening reiterations that Morris could not help wondering how much longer +Abe's criticism would have continued had he known that the cold-meat tray +really cost twenty-five dollars.</p> + +<p>"You are throwing away good money after bad, Mawruss," Abe said, renewing +the subject after an interval of comparative calm, "because, so sure as you +are standing there, we would never get our two hundred and fifty out of that +feller Gurin."</p> + +<p>"What has Mrs. Gladstein's present got to do with Gurin?" Morris asked. +"If I told you once, Abe, in the last two days, I am telling you a dozen +times, understand me, I am giving that there cold-meat tray to Mrs. Gladstein +as a speculation, Abe. What difference does it make who she marries, Abe, +Gurin <i>oder</i> Asimof, so long as we could land from her an order for five +hundred dollars?"</p> + +<p>"Yow! You would land from her an order for five hundred dollars!" Abe +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Well, if Sol Klinger could do it, why couldn't we?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about Sol Klinger?" Abe demanded.</p> + +<p>Thereupon Morris related to Abe the circumstances surrounding Sol +Klinger's purchase of the coffee percolator, and when he concluded Abe nodded +slowly.</p> + +<p>"So that highwayman is butting in too," he commented. "How much did you +say he is paying for that samovar, Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>Morris closed his eyes as though he were making a conscientious effort to +remember the exact amount.</p> + +<p>"Thirty dollars," he announced at last.</p> + +<p>"What!" Abe cried. "You stood there and let Sol Klinger buy for thirty +dollars a present and we ourselves only spend ten? What for a piker are you +anyway, Mawruss?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, what for a piker am I?" Morris said indignantly. "You +are talking me black in the face on account I am spending ten dollars and now +you are kicking I didn't spend thirty."</p> + +<p>"Did you tell me before that Sol Klinger buys a present?" Abe asked. "And +furthermore, Mawruss, this wouldn't be the first time we are spending money +to get business. Couldn't we afford to lay out thirty dollars if we want +to?"</p> + +<p>"But, Abe—" Morris began.</p> + +<p>"But nothing!" Abe roared. "Why should you get all of a sudden so +<i>sparsam mit</i> our money, Mawruss? You talk like we would be new +beginners on East Broadway already."</p> + +<p>"But, Abe—" Morris protested again.</p> + +<p>"'S enough, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "I heard enough from you already. +Only one thing I got to tell you: if we lose a chance of getting some +business from a lady which you could really say I know her well enough that +it's a shame we ain't sold her nothing already even, don't blame me. That's +all I got to say."</p> + +<p>He walked away to the cutting room, while Morris sat down in the nearest +chair, dazed to the point of temporary aphasia. For five minutes he sat +still, endeavouring to trace the intricacies of a discussion that had put him +so decisively in the wrong, and he was still pondering the matter when the +elevator door opened and B. Gurin alighted.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mr. Perlmutter?" Gurin cried.</p> + +<p>Morris grunted inarticulately and made no attempt to take his visitor's +proffered hand.</p> + +<p>"Did you got any news for me?" Gurin asked.</p> + +<p>Morris rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I got some news for you," he said. "I got news for you that Mrs. +Gladstein is engaged to be married to a feller by the name Asimof."</p> + +<p>He looked absently at a sample rack upon which reposed the very newspaper +that contained the advertisement.</p> + +<p>"Here it is," he continued, as he seized the paper. "You could see for +yourself."</p> + +<p>He handed the advertisement to Gurin, who read it over unmoved.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must tell you the honest truth, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "I +couldn't say I am sorry." And he smiled amiably.</p> + +<p>As Morris gazed at the fashion-plate features and the fashion-plate +apparel of his visitor, he entirely forgot his optimistic scheme of +supplanting Asimof with Gurin and he grew suddenly livid with a fierce +rage.</p> + +<p>"You ain't, ain't you?" he bellowed. "Well, you ought to be, because so +sure as you are standing there, comes Monday morning and we don't get a check +from you, we would close you up sure, y'understand."</p> + +<p>"Now, lookyhere, Mr. Perlmutter—" Gurin began, but the reaction set +up by Morris's encounter with his partner had begun to have its effect and he +seized Gurin by one padded shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Out!" he roared. "Out of my place, you rotten, cheap dude, you!"</p> + +<p>And two minutes later B. Gurin fled wildly down the stairs, the newspaper +still clutched in his hand.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>Although Leon Sammet had at first been actuated by motives of a somewhat +sordid nature in his negotiation of Mrs. Gladstein's betrothal, his +subsequent behaviour was tempered by the traditional hospitality of his race. +As for his mother, Mrs. Leah Sammet, she entered upon the preparations for +the reception with an ardour that could not have been exceeded had Mrs. +Gladstein been her own daughter. Thus, when Sunday afternoon arrived, Mrs. +Sammet's house on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street presented an appearance +of unusual festivity. The long, narrow parlor had been liberally draped with +smilax and sparingly decorated with ex-table-d'hôte roses, until it resembled +the mortuary chapel of a Mulberry Street undertaker; and this effect was, if +anything, heightened by four dozen camp-chairs that had been procured from +the sexton of Mrs. Sammet's place of worship.</p> + +<p>A fine odour of cooking ascended from the basement kitchen, and when Jacob +Asimof had entered the front door at the behest of a coloured man with white +gloves he sniffed the fragrant atmosphere of the lobby like a coon dog at the +base of a hollow tree.</p> + +<p>"Am I the first here?" he asked Barney Sammet, the junior partner of +Sammet Brothers, who had been detailed by his elder brother to receive the +arriving guests, with strict injunction to keep an eye on the cigars.</p> + +<p>Barney nodded gloomily.</p> + +<p>"And ain't Mrs. Gladstein—I mean Sonia—come yet?" Jacob +inquired.</p> + +<p>"We just now got a telephone from her, the train from Bridgetown is late +and she would be here in half an hour," Barney replied.</p> + +<p>"That's a fine lookout," Asimof commented. "I bet yer by that time we +would got a big crowd here."</p> + +<p>The words were prophetic, for the shuffling of many feet on the front +stoop preluded the arrival of Sol Klinger, Mrs. Klinger, Moe Klein and Mrs. +Klein, who were immediately succeeded by the firm of Kleiman & Elenbogen, +H. Rashkin, the coat-pad manufacturer, and Marks Pasinsky.</p> + +<p>It must be conceded that Leon Sammet comported himself in a highly +creditable manner, and he greeted his guests with a cordiality that embraced +competitor and customer in one impartial, comprehensive smile.</p> + +<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Klinger?" he exclaimed, and then he turned to +Mrs. Leah Sammet, who stood beside him. "Mommer," he said, "I want you to +know Mr. Klinger. Him and me has been competitors for twenty years +already."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sammet nodded and smiled.</p> + +<p>"For my part twenty years longer," she murmured, as she grasped Sol's +hand.</p> + +<p>"At a time like this, Mrs. Sammet," Sol rejoined, "it don't make no +difference to me if a man is ever so much a competitor; what I claim is, let +a sleeping dawg alone."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sammet indorsed the sentiment with another smile, and Sol with his +retinue passed on into the back parlour for the purpose of inspecting the +presents. In the meantime other guests had preceded them, and among them was +a man whose bearing and raiment proclaimed the creature of fashion. Not only +were his trousers of the latest narrow design, but they were of sufficient +modish brevity half to conceal and half to reveal a pair of gossamer silk +socks, which in their turn were incased by patent-leather, low-cut shoes. The +latter exhibited the square knobbiness that only fashion artists can impart +to the footgear of their models, while the broad laces that held them by the +insecure hold of two eyelets were knotted in a bow that might have been +appended to the collar of Mr. Paderewski himself.</p> + +<p>"Ain't this Mr. Gurin?" Sol Klinger asked, and the creature of fashion +nodded.</p> + +<p>"You're a friend of the <i>Kahlo</i>, ain't it?" Klinger commented, +employing the vernacular equivalent for the English word "bride."</p> + +<p>"In a way," Gurin said evasively; "<i>aber</i> the <i>Khosan</i> I don't +know at all."</p> + +<p>Thus did Gurin imply that he was not acquainted with the future +bridegroom, and Klinger volunteered the information that Asimof ran a +dry-goods store in Dotyville, Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p>"I sold him goods for years," he added, "and I guess I would continue to +do so, even if that Ganef Sammet would make twenty engagement parties for +'em. Did you see the samovar I gave 'em?"</p> + +<p>He pointed proudly to a silver-plated object, and Gurin glanced at it +scornfully.</p> + +<p>"Potash & Perlmutter gives 'em solid silver," he commented—"a +wide dish."</p> + +<p>"Sure I know," Klinger said, "thin like paper."</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber</i> sterling," Gurin insisted, and Klinger made a telling +diversion.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you sent 'em something sterling also," he said.</p> + +<p>"Me?" Gurin exclaimed. "Why should I buy presents? I am a retailer myself, +Mr. Klinger, so I sent 'em some flowers."</p> + +<p>"I don't see 'em nowhere," Sol retorted.</p> + +<p>"They're over there," B. Gurin said, making a sweeping gesture in the +general direction of the mantelpiece, and as he did so a bass voice sounded +at his elbow.</p> + +<p>"Put out my eye why don't you?" cried Abe Potash, and then he recognized +his assailant.</p> + +<p>"Say, what are you doing here?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>B. Gurin looked coldly at his creditor and shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"I got just so much right to be here as you," he said, "and that partner +of yours too."</p> + +<p>He hurled this defiance at Morris, who had entered the room on Abe's +heels; but the retort passed unnoticed so far as Morris was concerned, since +he was absorbed in the contemplation of the presents.</p> + +<p>"Well, Klinger," he said, "you are making Mrs. Gladstein a pretty fine +present, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Klinger scowled.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Gladstein I ain't bothering my head about at all," he replied. "But +when a cut-throat like Sammet makes out a scheme to steal away from me an old +customer like Asimof I got to protect myself."</p> + +<p>Morris whistled expressively.</p> + +<p>"So you are making the present to Asimof?" he commented.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I am," Sol answered. "As for Mrs. Gladstein, she got presents +enough from me. The first time she was married I am sending money to the old +country to my father he should make her a present on account Mrs. Gladstein's +father is my father's a third cousin, understand me. And when she marries +Gladstein, y'understand, I give her both an engagement and a wedding present +both. And do you think that sucker, <i>olav hasholom</i>, ever buys from me a +dollar's worth goods? <i>Oser</i> a <i>Stück</i>."</p> + +<p>"And you say Mrs. Gladstein was twicet married?" Morris asked.</p> + +<p>"Ain't I just telling you so?" Sol replied.</p> + +<p>"What was her first husband's name?" Morris asked; but the question +remained unanswered, for at that very moment a confusion of noises in the +front parlour signalled the arrival of the bride.</p> + +<p>Morris and Sol followed the other guests from the rear parlour, and then +it was that Morris discerned his partner's appreciative description of Mrs. +Gladstein's claim to be in no way exaggerated. She was arrayed in a black +silk dress of a design well calculated to display her graceful figure, while +her oval face was shaded by a black picture hat, beneath which her large dark +eyes glowed and flashed by turns. Moreover, her complexion was all cream and +roses, and when she smiled two rows of even white teeth were exposed between +a pair of tantalizing red lips.</p> + +<p>Morris commenced to perspire with embarrassment as he remembered how he +had planned to negotiate a match for this glorious creature—a task that +only a very prince of marriage brokers might have essayed. He turned away; +but as his eye rested on B. Gurin, who still lingered over the presents, he +was obliged to admit that he had chosen a fitting candidate, and he even felt +mollified toward his delinquent customer as he reflected on Gurin's lost +opportunity.</p> + +<p>"Gurin," he said, "ain't you going to congradulate the <i>Kahlo</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know she was here at all," Gurin said sadly. The truth was that +Gurin's presence at the reception that afternoon was not inspired by +curiosity concerning either Mrs. Gladstein or Asimof. Business was undeniably +bad with him, and he was making an earnest effort to keep his financial head +above water. Thus he limited his personal expenses to the preservation of his +wardrobe, and he had cut down his cost of living to a degree that permitted +only a very low, lunch-wagon diet. He saw in Mrs. Sammet's hospitality the +prospect of a meal, and although he was by no means courageous, his appetite +spurred him on to brave his creditors' wrath.</p> + +<p>"I'll take a look at her," he murmured apologetically, and he began to +elbow his way through the group that surrounded the engaged couple. Morris +patted him on the shoulder as he passed and was about to return to the back +parlour when a shriek came from the centre of the congratulatory throng.</p> + +<p>"Boris!" cried a female voice with a note of hysteria in its shrill +tones.</p> + +<p>"Sonia!" B. Gurin exclaimed, and the next moment he clasped Mrs. Gladstein +in his arms.</p> +<hr /> + +<p>"You was asking me the name of Mrs. Gladstein's first husband," said Sol +Klinger to Morris Perlmutter, as they descended the stoop together half an +hour later. "It was Aaron Lutsky. He died two years after they was married. I +knew his family well in the old country—her's too, Perlmutter. Her +father was a feller by the name Polanya, and to-day yet he runs a big flour +mill in Koroleshtchevitzi."</p> + +<p>"So I understand," Morris said; "but what's that you got there under your +coat?"</p> + +<p>He referred to a huge bulge on the right side of Sol Klinger's Prince +Albert coat, which Sol was supporting with both hands.</p> + +<p>"That's my present," Sol said, as if surprised at the question, "and if +Marcus Flachs wouldn't give me my money back, understand me, I could anyhow +exchange it for something useful."</p> + +<p>"It don't make no difference, Mawruss," Abe said, as they sat in their +showroom two months later. "The feller should got to pay us that two hundred +and fifty dollars."</p> + +<p>"But we would get lots of business out of them now that they are married, +Abe," Morris protested.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and they got lots of presents out of us too, +Mawruss," Abe said. "Counting the engagement and the wedding present, +Mawruss, and my Rosie's new dress, and the pants which you bought it to go +with your tuxedo, understand me—first and last we must be out a hundred +and fifty dollars."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded. He recognized that an opportunity was here presented to +correct Abe's figures by the addition of fifteen dollars to the price of the +engagement present, but he deemed it more prudent to await the arrival of +Gurin's first order. In point of fact, Morris had begun to examine the mails +with some anxiety for a letter postmarked Bridgetown. More than two weeks had +elapsed since Gurin's wedding, and, making due allowances for honeymooning, +it seemed to Morris that from an inspection of Mrs. Gladstein's stock, made +by him on a congratulatory visit to Bridgetown, there was immediate need for +replenishment.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand why we don't hear from them people at all," he +said.</p> + +<p>"Give 'em a show, Mawruss. Give 'em a show," Abe replied. "A man only gets +married, for the first time, once."</p> + +<p>Morris shrugged.</p> + +<p>"For my part, Abe, I ain't in no hurry," he said. "If you could see the +way Leon Sammet gives me a look this morning when I seen him on the subway +y'understand, it would be worth to you a hundred and fifty dollars. Sol +Klinger is feeling sore too, Abe. I seen him in Hammersmith's yesterday, and +he says to me Flachs wouldn't exchange that samovar arrangement which he +bought it, so he took it home with him, and he ain't drunk nothing but coffee +in two months."</p> + +<p>"I bet yer," Abe commented; "and he also ain't got an order from Asimof in +two months. The feller is heartbroken, Mawruss. He even had made arrangements +to sell his store in Dotyville and move over to Bridgetown, y'understand, and +when he called the deal off the purchaser sues him for breach of contract +yet."</p> + +<p>"But why should he get mad at Klinger?" Morris asked. "Klinger didn't do +him nothing."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you don't think so, Mawruss, but Asimof figures differencely; +because he told me this morning, that after the engagement is off, understand +me, Mrs. Gladstein and him makes a division of the presents. Asimof takes +what was sent by the concerns which is selling <i>him</i> goods, and Mrs. +Gladstein takes the rest, all excepting a present they got from Marks +Pasinsky.</p> + +<p>"Pasinsky used to sell 'em both goods, y'understand; but fortunately, +Mawruss, he sends 'em a dozen coffee spoons, so Asimof takes six and Mrs. +Gladstein takes six."</p> + +<p>"It's a good thing Pasinsky didn't send 'em a single piece of cut glass," +Morris said thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't make no difference to Asimof," Abe said. "He would of allowed +Mrs. Gladstein half cost price, give or take. He's a pretty square feller, +Asimof is, Mawruss, and he said he would give a look in here this afternoon. +We needn't be afraid from him, Mawruss. He's A number one up to two hundred +and fifty dollars, thirty days net."</p> + +<p>Morris nodded again and walked slowly toward the cutting room, while his +partner sat down to read the trade news in the <i>Daily Cloak and Suit +Record</i>. Morris had hardly reached the doorway, however, when a strident +shout caused him to retrace his steps in a hurry.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter now?" he exclaimed; but Abe was incapable of articulate +speech. Instead he held out the paper and made noises appropriate to an +apopletic seizure, which Morris construed as a request to look at something +of more than ordinary interest.</p> + +<p>"Where, where?" he demanded, and Abe stuck a trembling forefinger through +the printed page. As nearly as the torn edges of the paper would permit, +Morris read the following paragraph:</p> + +<div> + +<table summary="newspaper article"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td><p><b>Bridgetown, Pa.—D. Gladstein's Store Closed</b>. The + stock and fixtures of the general store conducted here by D. + Gladstein, deceased, were closed out last week, and his widow, who + recently married B. Gurin, sailed from New York with her husband + yesterday for Hamburg. It is understood that they intend to reside + permanently in Europe.</p> + </td> + </tr> + </tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<p>While Morris perused the item Abe gradually recovered his composure, and +when his partner at last put down the paper Abe was able to smile the slow, +ghostly smile of a man who has called four deuces with an ace full.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mawruss," he said resignedly, "a feller must expect the worst when +he's got an optician for a partner."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Transcriber's Note: +</p> + +<p> +Punctuation has been regularized, except for inconsistent hyphenation, +which has been retained as in the original. +</p> + +<p> +The following typographic errors have been corrected: +</p> + +<ul> +<li>Page 109 "woud" changed to "would"</li> +<li>Page 223 "cired" changed to "cried"</li> +<li>Page 234 "it it" changed to "it is"</li> +<li>Page 352 "successs" changed to "success"</li> +</ul> + +<p> +The following were each used once and were not changed: +</p> + +<ul> +<li>jimminy/jiminy</li> +<li>defence/defense</li> +</ul> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abe and Mawruss, by Montague Glass + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABE AND MAWRUSS *** + +***** This file should be named 18714-h.htm or 18714-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/1/18714/ + +Produced by YaTHauSeR Taltari, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Abe and Mawruss + Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter + +Author: Montague Glass + +Release Date: June 29, 2006 [EBook #18714] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABE AND MAWRUSS *** + + + + +Produced by YaTHauSeR Taltari, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "If a feller wants to make a success in business he +should be a little up to date, ain't it?"] + + + + +ABE AND MAWRUSS + +BEING FURTHER ADVENTURES OF POTASH AND PERLMUTTER + +BY MONTAGUE GLASS + + +ILLUSTRATED BY J. J. GOULD AND MARTIN JUSTICE + + +GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1911 + + + + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION +INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + +COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY +COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY +COPYRIGHT, 1910, 1911, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + + + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. SYMPATHY 3 + II. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS 33 + III. DEAD MEN'S SHOES 66 + IV. THE RAINCOAT KING 116 + V. A RETURN TO ARCADY 149 + VI. A PRESENT FOR MR. GEIGERMANN 191 + VII. BROTHERS ALL 236 +VIII. R. S. V. P. 281 + IX. FIRING MISS COHEN 294 + X. AUX ITALIENS 310 + XI. MAN PROPOSES 342 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"If a feller wants to make a success in business he +should be a little up to date, ain't it?" Frontispiece + + FACING PAGE + +"If he would stole it he would of gave it to me, lady" 16 + +"Do you know anything about them old violins?" 204 + +"Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at times +confronted with a situation which demands a few appropriate +remarks" 254 + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +SYMPATHY + + +"I come down on the subway with Max Linkheimer this morning, Mawruss," +Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as they sat in the +showroom one hot July morning. "That feller is a regular philantropist." + +"I bet yer," Morris replied. "He would talk a tin ear on to you if you +only give him a chance. Leon Sammet too, Abe, I assure you. I seen Leon +in the Harlem Winter Garden last night, and the goods he sold while he +was talking to me and Barney Gans, Abe, in two seasons we don't do such +a business. Yes, Abe; Leon Sammet is just such another one of them +fellers like Max Linkheimer." + +"What d'ye mean--'such another one of them fellers like Max +Linkheimer'?" Abe repeated. "Between Leon Sammet and Max Linkheimer is +the difference like day from night. Max Linkheimer is one fine man, +Mawruss." + +Morris shrugged. "I didn't say he wasn't," he rejoined. "All I says +was that Leon Sammet is another one of them philantro fellers too, Abe. +Talks you deef, dumb and blind." + +Abe rose to his feet and stared indignantly at his partner. + +"I don't know what comes over you lately, Mawruss," he cried. "Seemingly +you don't understand the English language at all. A philantropist ain't +a _schmooser_, Mawruss." + +"I know he ain't, Abe; but just the same Max Linkheimer is a feller +which he got a whole lot too much to say for himself. Furthermore, Abe, +my Minnie says Mrs. Linkheimer tells her Max ain't home a single night +neither, and when a man neglects his family like that, Abe, I ain't got +no use for him at all." + +"That's because he belongs to eight lodges," Abe replied. "There ain't a +single Sunday neither which he ain't busy with funerals too, Mawruss." + +"Is that so?" Morris retorted. "Well, if I would be in the button +business, Abe, I would be a philantropist too. A feller's got to belong +to eight lodges if he's in the button business, Abe, because otherwise +he couldn't sell no goods at all." + +Abe continued: + +"Linkheimer ain't looking to sell goods to lodge brothers, Mawruss. +He's too old established a business for that. He's got a heart too, +Mawruss. Why the money that feller spends on charity, Mawruss, you +wouldn't believe at all. He told me so himself. Always he tries to do +good. Only this morning, Mawruss, he was telling me about a young feller +by the name Schenkmann which he is trying to find a position for as +stock clerk. Nobody would take the young feller on, Mawruss, because he +got into trouble with a house in Dallas, Texas, which they claim the +young feller stole from them a hundred dollars, Mawruss. But Linkheimer +says how if you would give a dawg a bad name, Mawruss, you might just as +well give him to the dawgcatcher. So Linkheimer is willing to take a +chance on this here feller Schenkmann, and he gives him a job in his own +place." + +"Dawgs I don't know nothing about at all, Abe," Morris commented. "But I +would be willing to give the young feller a show too, Abe, if I would +only got plain bone and metal buttons in stock. But when you carry a +couple hundred pieces silk goods, Abe, like we do, then that's something +else again." + +"Well, Mawruss, _Gott sei dank_ we don't got to get a new shipping +clerk. Jake has been with us five years now, Mawruss, and so far what I +could see he ain't got ambition enough to ask for a raise even, let +alone look for a better job." + +"You shouldn't congradulate yourself too quick, Abe," Morris replied. +"Ambition he's got it plenty, but he ain't got the nerve. We really +ought to give the feller a raise, Abe. I mean it. Every time I go near +him at all he gives me a look, and the first thing you know, Abe, he +would be leaving us." + +"Looks we could stand it, Mawruss; but if we would start in giving him a +raise there would be no end to it at all. _Lass's bleiben._ If the +feller wants a raise, Mawruss, he should ask for it." + +Barely two weeks after the conversation above set forth, however, Jake +entered the firm's private office and tendered his resignation. + +"Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I'm going to leave." + +"Going to leave?" Morris cried. "What d'ye mean--going to leave?" + +"Going to leave?" Abe repeated crescendo. "An idea! You should +positively do nothing of the kind." + +"It wouldn't be no more than you deserve, Jake, if we would fire you +right out of the store," Morris added. "You work for us here five years +and then you come to us and say you are going to leave. Did you ever +hear of such a thing? If you want it a couple dollars more a week, we +would give it to you and _fartig_. But if you get fresh and come to us +and tell us you are going to leave, y'understand, then that's something +else again." + +"Moost I work for you if I don't want to?" Jake asked. + +"'S enough, Jake," Abe said. "We heard enough from you already." + +"All right, Mr. Potash," he replied. "But just the same I am telling +you, Mr. Potash, you should look for a new shipping clerk, as I bought +it a candy, cigar and stationery store on Lenox Avenue, and I am going +to quit Saturday sure." + +"Well, Abe, what did I told you?" Morris said bitterly, after Jake had +left the office. "For the sake of a couple of dollars a week, Abe, we +are losing a good shipping clerk." + +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?" + +"Again kicking, Mawruss?" Abe exclaimed. "You yourself told me I should +find a shipping clerk, and so I done so." + +"Well," Morris cried, "ain't I even entitled to know the feller's name +at all?" + +"Sure you are entitled to know his name," Abe answered. "He's a young +feller by the name of Schenkmann." + +"Schenkmann," Morris said slowly. "Schenkmann? Where did I--you mean +that feller by the name Schenkmann which he works by Max Linkheimer?" + +Abe nodded. + +"What's the matter with you, Abe?" Morris cried. "Are you crazy or +what?" + +"What do you mean am I crazy?" Abe said. "We carry burglary insurance, +ain't it? And besides he ain't, Mawruss, Max Linkheimer says, missed so +much as a button since the feller worked for him." + +"A button," Morris shouted; "let me tell you something, Abe. Max +Linkheimer could miss a thousand buttons, and what is it? But with us, +Abe, one piece of silk goods is more as a hundred dollars." + +"'S all right, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "Max Linkheimer says we +shouldn't be afraid. He says he trusts the young feller in the office +with hundreds of dollars laying in the safe, and he ain't touched a cent +so far. Furthermore, the young feller's got a wife and baby, Mawruss." + +"Well I got a wife and baby too, Abe." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and so you ought to got a little sympathy for +the feller." + +Morris laughed raucously. + +"Sure, I know, Abe," he replied. "A good way to lose money in business, +Abe, is to got sympathy for somebody. You sell a feller goods, Abe, +because he's a new beginner and you got sympathy for him, Abe, and the +feller busts up on you. You accommodate a concern with five hundred +dollars--a check against their check dated two weeks ahead, Abe--because +their collections is slow and you got sympathy for them, and when the +two weeks goes by, Abe, the check is N. G. You give a feller out in +Kansas City two months an extension because he done a bad spring +business, and you got sympathy for him, and the first thing you know, +Abe, a jobber out in Omaha gets a judgment against him and closes him +up. And that's the way it goes. If we would hire this young feller +because we got sympathy for him, Abe, the least that happens us is that +he gets away with a couple hundred dollars' worth of piece goods." + +"Max Linkheimer says positively nothing of the kind," Abe insisted. "Max +says the feller has turned around a new leaf, and he would trust him +like a brother." + +"Like a brother-in-law, you mean, Abe," Morris jeered. "That feller +Linkheimer never trusted nobody for nothing, Abe. Always by the first of +the month comes a statement, and if he don't get a check by the fifth, +Abe, he sends another with 'past due' stamped on to it." + +"So much the better, Mawruss. If Max Linkheimer don't trust nobody, +Mawruss, and he lets this young feller work in his store, Mawruss, then +the feller must be O. K. Ain't it?" + +Morris rose wearily to his feet. + +"All right, Abe," he said. "If Linkheimer is so anxious to get rid of +this feller, let him give us a recommendation in writing, y'understand, +and I am satisfied we should give this here young Schenkmann a trial. He +could only get into us oncet, Abe, so go right over there and see +Linkheimer, and if in writing he would give us a guaranty the feller is +honest, go ahead and hire him." + +"Right away I couldn't do it, Mawruss," Abe said. "When I left +Linkheimer in the subway this morning he said he was going over to +Newark and he wouldn't be back till to-night. I'll stop in there the +first thing to-morrow morning." + +With this ultimatum, Abe proceeded to the back of the loft and +personally attended to the shipment of ten garments to a customer in +Cincinnati. Under his supervision a stock boy placed the garments in a +wooden packing box, and after the first top board was in position Abe +took a wire nail and held it 'twixt his thumb and finger point down on +the edge of the case. Then he poised the hammer in his right hand and +carefully closing one eye he gauged the distance between the upraised +hammer and the head of the nail. At length the blow descended, and +forthwith Abe commenced to dance around the floor in the newborn agony +of a smashed thumb. + +It was while he was putting the finishing touches on a bandage that made +up in bulk what it lacked in symmetry that Morris entered. + +"What's the matter, Abe?" he cried. "Did you hurted yourself?" + +Abe transfixed his partner with a malevolent glare. + +"No, Mawruss," he said, as he started for the front of the store, "I +ain't hurted myself at all. I'm just tying this here handkerchief on my +thumb to remind myself what a fool I got it for a partner." + +Morris waited till Abe had nearly reached the door. + +"I don't got to tie something on my thumb to remind myself of that, +Abe," he said. + + * * * * * + +Ever since the birth of his son it had seemed to Morris that the Lenox +Avenue express service had grown increasingly slow. Nor did the evening +papers contain half the interesting news of his early married life, and +he could barely wait until the train had stopped at One Hundred and +Sixteenth Street before he was elbowing his way to the platform. + +On the Monday night of his partner's mishap he made his accustomed dash +from the subway station to his home on One Hundred and Eighteenth +Street, confident that as soon as his latchkey rattled in the door Mrs. +Perlmutter and the baby would be in the hall to greet him; but on this +occasion he was disappointed. To be sure the appetizing odour of +_gedampftes kalbfleisch_ wafted itself down the elevator shaft as he +entered the gilt and plaster-porphyry entrance from the street, but when +he crossed the threshold of his own apartment the robust wail of his son +and heir mingled with the tones of Lina, the Slavic maid. Of Mrs. +Perlmutter, however, there was no sign. + +"Where's Minnie?" he demanded. + +"Mrs. Perlmutter, she go out," Lina announced, "and she ain't coming +home yet." + +Not since the return from their honeymoon had Minnie failed to be at +home to greet her husband on his arrival from business, and Morris was +about to telephone a general alarm to police headquarters when the +doorbell rang sharply and Mrs. Perlmutter entered. Her hat, whose size +and weight ought to have lent it stability, was tilted at a dangerous +angle, and beneath its broad brim her eyes glistened with unmistakable +tears. + +"Minnie _leben_," Morris cried, as he clasped her in his arms, "what is +it?" + +Sympathy only opened anew the floodgates of Mrs. Perlmutter's emotions, +and before she was sufficiently calm to disclose the cause of her +distress, the _gedampftes kalbfleisch_ gave evidence of its impending +destruction by a strong odour of scorching. Hastily Mrs. Perlmutter +dried her eyes and ran to the kitchen, so that it was not until the +rescued dinner smoked on the dining-room table that Morris learned the +reason for his wife's tears. + +"Such a room, Morris," Mrs. Perlmutter declared; "like a pigsty, and +not a crust of bread in the house. I met the poor woman in the meat +market and she tried to beg a piece of liver from that loafer +Hirschkein. Not another cent of my money will he ever get. I bought a +big piece of steak for her and then I went home with her. Her poor baby, +Morris, looked like a little skeleton." + +Morris shook his head from side to side and made inarticulate +expressions of commiseration through his nose, his mouth being +temporarily occupied by about half a pound of luscious veal. + +"Her husband has a job for eight dollars a week," she continued, "and +they have to live on that." + +Morris swallowed the veal with an effort. + +"In Russland," he began, "six people----" + +"I know," Mrs. Perlmutter interrupted, "but this is America, and you've +got to go around with me right after dinner and see the poor people." + +Morris shrugged his shoulders. + +"If I must, I must," he said, helping himself to more of the veal stew, +"but I could tell you right now, Minnie, I ain't got twenty-five cents +in my clothes, so you got to lend me a couple of dollars till Saturday." + +"I'll cash a check for you," Mrs. Perlmutter said firmly, and as soon as +dinner was concluded Morris drew a check for ten dollars and Mrs. +Perlmutter gave him that amount out of her housekeeping money. + +It was nearly nine o'clock when Morris and Minnie groped along the dark +hallway of a tenement house in Park Avenue. On the iron viaduct that +bestrides that deceptively named thoroughfare heavy trains thundered at +intervals, and it was only after Morris had knocked repeatedly at the +door of a top-floor apartment that its inmates heard the summons above +the roar of the traffic without. + +"Well, Mrs. Schenkmann," Minnie cried cheerfully, "how's the baby +to-night?" + +"Schenkmann?" Morris murmured; "Schenkmann? Is that the name of them +people?" + +"Why, yes," Minnie replied. "Didn't I tell you that? Mrs. Schenkmann, +this is my husband. And I suppose this is Mr. Schenkmann." + +A tall, gaunt person rose from the soap box that did duty as a chair and +ducked his head shyly. + +"Schenkmann?" Morris repeated. "You ain't the Schenkmann which he works +by Max Linkheimer?" + +Nathan Schenkmann nodded and Mrs. Schenkmann groaned aloud. + +"_Ai zuris!_" she cried, "for his sorrow he works by Max Linkheimer. +Eight dollars a week he is supposed to get there, and Linkheimer makes +us live here in his house. Twelve dollars a month we pay for the rooms, +lady, and Linkheimer takes three dollars each week from Nathan's money. +We couldn't even get dispossessed like some people does and save a +month's rent oncet in a while maybe. The rooms ain't worth it, lady, +believe me." + +"Does Max Linkheimer own this house?" Morris asked. + +"Sure, he's the landlord," Mrs. Schenkmann went on. "I am just telling +you. For eight dollars a week a man should work! Ain't it a disgrace?" + +"Well, why doesn't he get another job?" Morris inquired; and then, as +Mr. and Mrs. Schenkmann exchanged embarrassed looks and hung their +heads, Morris blushed. + +"What a fine baby!" he cried hurriedly. He chucked the infant under its +chin and made such noises with his tongue as are popularly supposed by +parents to be of a nature entertaining to very young children. In point +of fact the poor little Schenkmann child, with its blue-white +complexion, looked more like a cold-storage chicken than a human baby, +but to the maternal eye of Mrs. Schenkmann it represented the sum total +of infantile beauty. + +"God bless you, mister," she said. "I seen you got a good heart, and if +you know Max Linkheimer, he must told you why my husband couldn't get +another job. He tells everybody, lady, and makes 'em believe he gives my +husband a job out of charity. So sure as I got a baby which I hope he +would grow up to be a man, lady, my husband never took no money in +Dallas. Them people gives him a hundred dollars he should deposit it in +the bank, and he went and lost it. If he would stole it he would of gave +it to me, lady, because my Nathan is a good man. He ain't no loafer that +he should gamble it away." + +There was a ring of truth in Mrs. Schenkmann's tones, and as Morris +looked at the twenty-eight-years old Nathan, aged by ill nutrition and +abuse, his suspicions all dissolved and gave place only to a great +pity. + +[Illustration: "If he would stole it he would of gave it to me, +lady"] + +"Don't say no more, Mrs. Schenkmann," he cried; "I don't want to hear no +more about it. To-morrow morning your man leaves that loafer Max +Linkheimer and comes to work by us for eighteen dollars a week." + + * * * * * + +Easily the most salient feature of Mr. Max Linkheimer's attire was the +I. O. M. A. jewel that dangled from the tangent point of his generous waist +line. It had been presented to him by Harmony Lodge, 122, at the +conclusion of his term of office as National Grand Corresponding +Secretary, and it weighed about eight ounces avoirdupois. Not that the +rest of Mr. Linkheimer's wearing apparel was not in keeping, for he +affected to be somewhat old-fashioned in his attire, with just a dash of +_bonhomie_. This implies that he wore a wrinkled frock coat and low-cut +waistcoat. But he had discarded the black string tie that goes with it +for a white ready-made bow as being more suitable to the role of +philanthropist. The _bonhomie_ he supplied by not buttoning the two top +buttons of his waistcoat. + +"Why, hallo, Abe, my boy!" he cried all in one breath, as Abe Potash +entered his button warerooms on Tuesday morning; "what can I do for +you?" + +He seized Abe's right hand in a soft, warm grip, slightly moist, and +continued to hold it for the better part of five minutes. + +"I come to see you about Schenkmann," Abe replied. "We decide we would +have him come to work by us as a shipping clerk." + +"I'm glad to hear it," said Linkheimer, "As I told you the other day, +I've just been asked by a lodge I belong to if I could help out a young +feller just out of an orphan asylum. He's a big, strong, healthy boy, +and he's willing to come to work for half what I'm paying Schenkmann. So +naturally I've got to get rid of Schenkmann." + +"I wonder you got time to bother yourself breaking in a new beginner," +Abe commented. + +Linkheimer waggled his head solemnly. + +"I can't help it, Abe," he said. "I let my business suffer, but +nevertheless I'm constantly giving the helping hand to these poor +inexperienced fellows. I assure you it costs me thousands of dollars in +a year, but that's my nature, Abe. I'm all heart. When would you want +Schenkmann to come to work?" + +"Right away, Mr. Linkheimer." + +"Very good, I'll go and call him." + +He rose to his feet and started for the door. + +"Oh, by the way, Abe," he said, as he paused at the threshold, "you +know Schenkmann is a married man with a wife and child, and I understand +Mrs. Schenkmann is inclined to be extravagant. For that reason I let +him live in a house I own on Park Avenue, and I take out the rent each +week from his pay. It's really a charity to do so. The amount +is--er--sixteen dollars a month. I suppose you have no objection to +sending me four dollars a week out of his wages?" + +"Well, I ain't exactly a collecting agency, y'understand," Abe said; +"but I'll see what my partner says, and if he's agreeable, I am. Only +one thing though, Mr. Linkheimer, my partner bothers the life out of me +I should get from you a recommendation." + +"I'll give you one with pleasure, Abe," Linkheimer replied; "but it +isn't necessary." + +He returned to the front of the office and went to the safe. + +"Why just look here, Abe," he said. "I have here in the safe five +hundred dollars and some small bills which I put in there last night +after I come back from Newark. It was money I received the day before +yesterday as chairman of the entertainment committee of a lodge I belong +to. The safe was unlocked from five to seven last night and Schenkmann +was in and out here all that time." + +He opened the middle compartment and pulled out a roll of bills. + +"You see, Abe," he said, counting out the money, "here it is: one +hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred and----" + +Here Mr. Linkheimer paused and examined the last bill carefully, for +instead of a hundred-dollar bill it was only a ten-dollar bill. + +"Well, what d'ye think of that dirty thief?" he cried at last. "That +Schenkmann has taken a hundred-dollar bill out of there." + +"What?" Abe exclaimed. + +"Just as sure as you are sitting there," Linkheimer went on excitedly. +"That feller Schenkmann has pinched a hundred-dollar bill on me." + +Here his academic English completely forsook him and he continued in the +vernacular of the lower East Side. + +"Always up to now I have kept the safe locked on that feller, and the +very first time I get careless he goes to work and does me for a hundred +dollars yet." + +"But," Abe protested, "you might of made a mistake, ain't it? If the +feller took it a hundred dollars, why don't he turn around and _ganver_ +the other four hundred? Ain't it? The ten dollars also he might of took +it. What?" + +"A _ganef_ you couldn't tell what he would do at all," Linkheimer +rejoined, and Abe rose to his feet. + +"I'm sorry for you, Mr. Linkheimer," he said, seizing his hat, "but I +guess I must be getting back to the store. So you shouldn't trouble +yourself about this here feller Schenkmann. We decided we would get +along without him." + +But Abe's words fell on deaf ears, for as he turned to leave Mr. +Linkheimer threw up the window sash and thrust his head out. + +"Po-lee-eece, po-lee-eece!" he yelled. + + * * * * * + +When Abe arrived at his place of business after his visit to Max +Linkheimer he found Morris whistling cheerfully over the morning mail. + +"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "did you seen it Max Linkheimer?" + +Abe hurriedly took off his hat and coat, and catching the bandaged thumb +in the sleeve lining he swore long and loud. + +"Yes, I seen Max Linkheimer," he growled, "and I'm sick and tired of the +whole business. Go ahead and get a shipping clerk, Mawruss. I'm +through." + +"Why?" Morris asked. "Wouldn't Linkheimer give a recommendation, because +if he wouldn't, Abe, I am satisfied we should take the feller without +one. In fact I'm surprised you didn't bring him along." + +"You are, hey?" Abe broke in. "Well, you shouldn't be surprised at +nothing like that, Mawruss, because I didn't bring him along for the +simple reason, Mawruss, I don't want no _ganef_ working round my place. +That's all." + +"What do you mean--_ganef_?" Morris cried. "The feller ain't no more a +thief as you are, Abe." + +Abe's moustache bristled and his eyes bulged so indignantly that they +seemed to rest on his cheeks. + +"You should be careful what you say, Mawruss," he retorted. "Maybe he +ain't no more a _ganef_ as I am, Mawruss, but just the same, he is in +jail and I ain't." + +"In jail," Morris exclaimed. "What for in jail?" + +"Because he stole from Linkheimer a hundred dollars yesterday, Mawruss, +and while I was there yet, Linkheimer finds it out. So naturally he +makes this here feller arrested." + +"Yesterday, he stole a hundred dollars?" Morris interrupted. + +"Yesterday afternoon," Abe repeated. "With my own eyes I seen it the +other money which he didn't stole." + +"Then," Morris said, "if he stole it yesterday afternoon, Abe, he didn't +positively do nothing of the kind." + +Forthwith he related to Abe his visit to Schenkmann's rooms and the +condition of poverty that he found. + +"I give you my word, Abe," he said, "the feller didn't got even a chair +to sit on." + +"What do you know, Mawruss, what he got and what he didn't got?" Abe +rejoined impatiently. "The feller naturally ain't going to show you the +hundred dollars which he stole it--especially, Mawruss, if he thinks +he could work you for a couple dollars more." + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris broke in; "don't say again that feller +stole a hundred dollars, because I'm telling you once more, Abe, I know +he didn't take nothing, certain sure." + +"_Geh wek_, Mawruss," Abe cried disgustedly; "you talk like a fool!" + +"Do I?" Morris shouted. "All right, Abe. Maybe I do and maybe I don't, +but just the same so positive I am he didn't done it, I'm going right +down to Henry D. Feldman, and I will fix that feller Linkheimer he +should work a poor half-starved yokel for five dollars a week and a +couple of top-floor tenement rooms which it ain't worth six dollars a +month. Wait! I'll show that sucker." + +He seized his hat and made for the elevator door, which he had almost +reached when Abe grabbed him by the arm. + +"Mawruss," he cried, "are you crazy? What for you should put yourself +out about this here young feller? He ain't the last shipping clerk in +existence. You could get plenty good shipping clerks without bothering +yourself like this. Besides, Mawruss, if he did steal it or if he didn't +steal it, what difference does it make to us? With the silk piece goods +which we got it around our place, Mawruss, we couldn't afford to take no +chances." + +"I ain't taking no chances, Abe," Morris maintained stoutly. "I know +this feller ain't took the money." + +"Sure, that's all right," Abe agreed; "but you couldn't afford to be +away all morning right in the busy season. Besides, Mawruss, since when +did you become to be so charitable all of a suddent?" + +"Me charitable?" Morris cried indignantly. "I ain't charitable, Abe. +_Gott soll hueten!_ I leave that to suckers like Max Linkheimer. But when +I know a decent, respectable feller is being put into jail for something +which he didn't do at all, Abe, then that's something else again." + +At this juncture the elevator arrived, and as he plunged in he shouted +that he would be back before noon. Abe returned to the rear of the loft +where a number of rush orders had been arranged for shipment. Under his +instruction and supervision the stock boy nailed down the top boards of +the packing cases, but in nearly every instance, after the case was +strapped and stencilled, they discovered they had left one garment out, +and the whole process had to be repeated. Thus it was nearly one o'clock +before Abe's task was concluded, and although he had breakfasted late +that morning, when he looked at his watch he became suddenly famished. +"I could starve yet," he muttered, "for all that feller cares." + +He walked up and down the showroom floor in an ecstasy of imaginary +hunger, and as he was making the hundredth trip the elevator door +opened and Max Linkheimer stepped out. His low-cut waistcoat disclosed +that his shirtfront, ordinarily of a glossy white perfection, had fallen +victim to a profuse perspiration. Even his collar had not escaped the +flood, and as for his I. O. M. A. charm, it seemed positively tarnished. + +"Say, lookyhere, Potash," he began, "what d'ye mean by sending your +partner to bail out that _ganef_?" + +"Me send my partner to bail out a _ganef_?" Abe exclaimed. "What are you +talking, nonsense?" + +"I ain't talking nonsense," Linkheimer retorted. "Look at the kinds of +conditions I am in. That feller Feldman made a fine monkey out of me in +the police court." + +"Was Feldman there too?" Abe asked. + +"You don't know, I suppose, Feldman was there," Linkheimer continued; +"and your partner went on his bail for two thousand dollars." + +Abe shrugged his shoulders. + +"In the first place, Mr. Linkheimer," he said, "I didn't tell my partner +he should do nothing of the kind. He done it against my advice, Mr. +Linkheimer. But at the same time, Mr. Linkheimer, if he wants to go bail +for that feller, y'understand, what is it my business?" + +"What is it your business?" Linkheimer repeated. "Why, don't you know +if that feller runs away the sheriff could come in here and clean out +your place? That's all." + +"What?" Abe cried. He sat down in the nearest chair and gaped at +Linkheimer. + +"Yes, sir," Linkheimer repeated, "you could be ruined by a thing like +that." + +Abe's lower jaw fell still further. He was too dazed for comment. + +"W-what could I do about it?" he gasped at length. + +"Do about it!" Linkheimer cried. "Why, if I had a partner who played me +a dirty trick like that I'd kick him out of my place. There ain't a +copartnership agreement in existence that doesn't expressly say one +partner shouldn't give a bail bond without the other partner's consent." + +Abe rocked to and fro in his chair. + +"After all these years a feller should do a thing like that to me!" he +moaned. + +Linkheimer smiled with satisfaction, and he was about to instance a +striking and wholly imaginary case of one partner ruining another by +giving a bail bond when the door leading to the cutting room in the rear +opened and Morris Perlmutter appeared. As his eyes rested on Linkheimer +they blazed with anger, and for once Morris seemed to possess a certain +dignity. + +"Out," he commanded; "out from _mein_ store, you dawg, you!" + +As he rushed on the startled button dealer, Abe grabbed his coat-tails +and pulled him back. + +"Say, what are we here, Mawruss," he cried, "a theaytre?" + +"Let him alone, Abe," Linkheimer counselled in a rather shaky voice. +"I'm pretty nearly twenty years older than he is, but I guess I could +cope with him." + +"You wouldn't cope with nobody around here," Abe replied. "If youse two +want to cope you should go out on the sidewalk." + +"Never mind," Morris broke in, his valour now quite evaporated; "I'll +fix him yet." + +"Another thing, Mawruss," Abe interrupted; "why don't you come in the +front way like a man." + +"I come in which way I please, Abe," Morris rejoined. "And furthermore, +Abe, when I got with me a poor skeleton of a feller like Nathan +Schenkmann, Abe, I don't take him up the front elevator. I would be +ashamed for our competitors that they should think we let our +work-people starve. The feller actually fainted on me as we was coming +up the freight elevator." + +"As you was coming up the freight elevator?" Abe repeated. "Do you mean +to tell me you got the nerve to actually bring this feller into _mein_ +place yet?" + +"Do I got to get your permission, Abe, I should bring who I want to +into my own place?" Morris rejoined. + +"Then all I got to say is you should take him right out again," Abe +said. "I wouldn't have no _ganevim_ in my place. Once and for all, +Mawruss, I am telling you I wouldn't stand for your nonsense. You are +giving our stock as a bail for this feller, and if he runs away on us, +the sheriff comes in and----" + +"Who says I give our stock as a bail for this feller?" Morris demanded. +"I got a surety company bond, Abe, because Feldman says I shouldn't go +on no bail bonds, and I give the surety company my personal check for a +thousand dollars which they will return when the case is over. That's +what I done it to keep this here Schenkmann out of jail, Abe, and if it +would be necessary to get this here Linkheimer into jail, Abe, I would +have another check for a thousand dollars for keeps." + +Abe grew somewhat abashed at this disclosure. He looked at Linkheimer +and then at Morris, but before he could think of something to say the +elevator door opened and Jake stepped out. It was perhaps the first time +in all their acquaintance with Jake that Abe and Morris had seen him +with his face washed. Moreover, a clean collar served further to conceal +his identity, and at first Abe did not recognize his former shipping +clerk. + +"Hallo, Mr. Potash!" Jake said. + +"I'll be with you in one moment, Mister--er," Abe began. "Just take +a--why, that's Jake, ain't it?" + +Here he saw a chance for a conversational diversion and he jumped +excitedly to his feet. + +"What's the matter, Jake?" he asked. "You want your old job back?" + +"It don't go so quick as all that, Mr. Potash," Jake answered. "I got a +good business, Mr. Potash. I carry a fine line of cigars, candy, and +stationery, and already I got an offer of twenty-five dollars more as I +paid for the business. But I wouldn't take it. Why should I? I took in a +lot money yesterday, and only this morning, Mr. Potash, a feller comes +in my place and--why, there's the feller now!" + +"Feller! What d'ye mean--feller?" Abe cried indignantly. "That ain't no +feller. That's Mr. Max Linkheimer." + +"Sure, I know!" Jake explained. "He's the feller I mean. Half an hour +ago I was in his place, and they says there he comes up here. You was in +_mein_ store this morning, Mr. Linkheimer, ain't that right, and you +bought from me a package of all-tobacco cigarettes?" + +"_Nu, nu_, Jake," Morris broke in. "Make an end. You are interrupting us +here." + +Jake drew back his coat and clumsily unfastened a large safety pin which +sealed the opening of his upper right-hand waistcoat pocket. Then he +dug down with his thumb and finger and produced a small yellow wad +about the size of a postage stamp. This he proceeded to unfold until it +took on the appearance of a hundred-dollar bill. + +"He gives me this here," Jake announced, "and I give him the change for +a ten-dollar bill. So this here is a hundred-dollar bill, ain't it, and +it don't belong to me, which I come downtown I should give it him back +again. What isn't mine I don't want at all." + +This was perhaps the longest speech that Jake had ever made, and he +paused to lick his dry lips for the peroration. + +"And so," he concluded, handing the bill to Linkheimer, "here it is, +and--and nine dollars and ninety cents, please." + +Linkheimer grabbed the bill automatically and gazed at the figures on it +with bulging eyes. + +"Why," Abe gasped, "why, Linkheimer, you had four one-hundred-dollar +bills and a ten-dollar bill in the safe this morning. Ain't it?" + +Linkheimer nodded. Once more he broke into a copious perspiration, as he +handed a ten-dollar bill to Jake. + +"And so," Abe went on, "and so you must of took a hundred-dollar bill +out of the safe last night, instead of a ten-dollar bill. Ain't it?" + +Linkheimer nodded again. + +"And so you made a mistake, ain't it?" Abe cried. "And this here +feller Schenkmann didn't took no money out of the safe at all. Ain't +it?" + +For the third time Linkheimer nodded, and Abe turned to his partner. + +"What d'ye think of that feller?" he said, nodding his head in +Linkheimer's direction. + +Morris shrugged, and Abe plunged his hands into his trousers pockets and +glared at Linkheimer. + +"So, Linkheimer," he concluded, "you made a sucker out of yourself and +out of me too! Ain't it?" + +"I'm sorry, Abe," Linkheimer muttered, as he folded away the +hundred-dollar bill in his wallet. + +"I bet yer he's sorry," Morris interrupted. "I would be sorry too if I +would got a lawsuit on my hands like he's got it." + +"What d'ye mean?" Linkheimer cried. "I ain't got no lawsuit on my +hands." + +"Not yet," Morris said significantly, "but when Feldman hears of this, +you would quick get a summons for a couple of thousand dollars damages +which you done this young feller Schenkmann by making him false +arrested." + +"It ain't no more than you deserve, Linkheimer," Abe added. "You're +lucky I don't sue you for trying to make trouble between me and my +partner yet." + +For one brief moment Linkheimer regarded Abe sorrowfully. There were few +occasions to which Linkheimer could not do justice with a +cut-and-dried sentiment or a well-worn aphorism, and he was about to +expatiate on ingratitude in business when Abe forestalled him. + +"Another thing I wanted to say to you, Linkheimer," Abe said; "you +shouldn't wait until the first of the month to send us a statement. Mail +it to-night yet, because we give you notice we close your account right +here and now." + + * * * * * + +One week later Abe and Morris watched Nathan Schenkmann driving nails +into the top of a packing case with a force and precision of which Jake +had been wholly incapable; for seven days of better housing and better +feeding had done wonders for Nathan. + +"Yes, Abe," Morris said as they turned away; "I think we made a find in +that boy, and we also done a charity too. Some people's got an idee, +Abe, that business is always business; but with me I think differencely. +You could never make no big success in business unless you got a little +sympathy for a feller oncet in a while. Ain't it?" + +Abe nodded. + +"I give you right, Mawruss," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS + + +There was an intimate connection between Abe Potash's advent in the +lobby of the Prince Clarence Hotel one hot summer day in June and the +publication in that morning's Arrival of Buyers column of the following +statement and news item: + + Griesman, M., Dry Goods Company, Syracuse; M. Griesman, ladies' and + misses' cloaks, suits, waists, and furs; Prince Clarence Hotel. + +Nevertheless, when Abe caught sight of Mr. Griesman lolling in one of +the hotel's capacious _fauteuils_ he quickly looked the other way and +passed on to the clerk's desk. Then he asked in a loud tone for Mr. +Elkan Reinberg, of Boonton, New Jersey; and, almost before the clerk +told him that no such person was registered, he turned about and +recognized Mr. Griesman with an elaborate start. + +"Why, how do you do, Mr. Griesman?" he exclaimed. "Ain't it a pleasure +to see you! What are you doing here in New York?" + +Griesman looked hard at his interlocutor before replying. + +Some two years earlier there had been an acrimonious correspondence +between them with reference to a shipment of skirts lost in transit--a +correspondence ending in threatened litigation; and Mr. Griesman had +transferred his account with Potash & Perlmutter to Sammet Brothers. +Hence he regarded Abe's proffered hand coldly, and instead of rising to +his feet he continued to puff at his cigar for a few moments. + +"I know your face," he said at length, "but your name ain't familiar." + +"Think again, Mr. Griesman," Abe said, quite unmoved by the rebuff. +"Where did you seen me before?" + +"I think I seen you in a law office oncet," Griesman said. "To the best +of my recollection the occasion was one which you said you didn't give a +damn about my business at all, and if I wouldn't pay for the skirts you +would make it hot for me. But so far what I hear it, I ain't paid for +the skirts, and I didn't sweat none either." + +"Why not let bygones be bygones, Mr. Griesman?" Abe rejoined. + +"I ain't got no bygones, Abe," Griesman replied. "The bygones is all on +your side. I ain't got the skirts; so I didn't pay for 'em." + +"Well, what is a few skirts that fellers should be enemies about 'em, +Mr. Griesman? The skirts is _vorbei schon_ long since already. Why don't +you anyhow come down to our place oncet in a while and see us, Moe?" + +"What would I do in your place, Abe?" + +"You still use a couple garments, like we make it, in your business, +Moe," Abe continued. "You got to buy goods in New York oncet in a while. +Ain't it?" + +"Well, I do and I don't, Abe," Moe rejoined. "I ain't the back number +which I oncet used to was, Abe. I got fresh idees a little too, Abe. +Nowadays, Abe, a buyer couldn't rely on his own judgment at all. Before +he buys a new season's goods he's got to find out what they're wearing +on the other side first. So with me, Abe, I go first to Paris, Abe. Then +I see there what I want to buy here, Abe, and when I come back to New +York I buy only them goods which has got the idees I seen it in Paris." + +"But how do you know we ain't got the idees you would seen it in Paris, +Moe?" + +"I don't know, Abe," Moe replied, "because I ain't been to Paris yet so +far. I am now on my way over to Paris, Abe; and furthermore, Abe, if I +would been to Paris, y'understand, what does a feller like Mawruss know +about designing?" + +"What d'ye mean, what does a feller like Mawruss know about designing?" +Abe repeated. "Don't you fool yourself, Moe; Mawruss is a first-class, +A number one designer. He gets his idees straight from the best fashion +journals. Then too, Moe, when it comes to up-to-date styles, I ain't +such a big fool neither, y'understand. I know one or two things about +designing myself, Moe, and you could take it from me, Moe, there ain't +no house in the trade, Moe, which they got better facilities for giving +you the latest up-to-the-minute style like we got it." + +"Sure, I know," Moe continued; "but as I told it you before, Abe, I +ain't in the market for my fall goods now. I am now only on my way to +Paris, and when I would come back it would be time for you to waste your +breath." + +"I could waste my breath all I want to, Moe," Abe rejoined. "I ain't +like some people, Moe; my breath don't cost me nothing." + +"What d'ye mean?" Moe cried indignantly. He had allowed himself the +unusual indulgence of a cocktail that morning as a corollary to a rather +turbulent evening with Leon Sammet, and he had been absently chewing a +clove throughout the interview with Abe. + +"I mean Hymie Salzman, designer for Sammet Brothers," Abe replied. +"There's a feller which he got it such a breath, Moe, he ought to put a +revenue stamp on his chin." + +"That may be, Abe; but the feller delivers the goods. Sammet Brothers +are sending him to Paris this year too, Abe. He is sailing with Leon +Sammet on the same ship with me, Abe." + +"Well, then all I could say to you is, Moe, you should look out for +yourself and don't play no auction pinocle with that feller. Every +afternoon he is playing with such sharks like Moe Rabiner and Marks +Pasinsky, and if he ever got out of a job as designer he could go on the +stage at one of them continual performances as a card juggler yet. A +three-fifty hand is the least that feller deals himself." + +"One thing is sure, Abe, you couldn't never sell me no goods by knocking +Hymie Salzman." + +"I ain't trying to sell you no goods, Moe; I am only talking to you like +an old friend should talk to another. When are you coming back?" + +"About July 1st I should be here," Moe replied, "and if you want to come +and see me like an old friend, Abe, you are welcome. Only I got to say +this to you, Abe, I forgot them skirts long since ago already, and I +wish you the same." + + * * * * * + +When Abe entered his showroom that morning Morris Perlmutter had just +arranged a high-neck evening gown on a wire model. + +"Well, Abe, what d'ye think of it?" he exclaimed proudly, as he wiped +his glistening brow. Abe fingered the garment's silken folds and puffed +critically at a black cigar. + +"What could I think, Mawruss?" he replied. "The garment looks all right, +Mawruss, and I ain't kicking, y'understand; but I tell you the honest +truth, Mawruss, the way things is nowadays, Mawruss, a feller could be +Elijah the Prophet already, and he couldn't tell in June what is going +to please the garment buyers in September." + +Morris flushed angrily. + +"I don't know what comes over you lately, Abe; nothing suits you," he +cried. "I got here a garment which if we would be paying a designer ten +thousand dollars a year yet he couldn't turn us out nothing better, and +yet you are kicking." + +"What d'ye mean, kicking?" Abe rejoined. "I ain't kicking. I am only +passing a remark, Mawruss. I am saying I couldn't tell nothing about it, +Mawruss, because so far ahead of time like this, Mawruss, a garment +could look ever so rotten, Mawruss, and it could turn out to be a +record-seller anyhow." + +"So, Abe," Morris broke out furiously, "you think the garment looks +rotten! What? Well, all I got to say is this, Abe; if the garment looks +so rotten you should quick hire some one which could design a better +one, because I am sick and tired of your kicking." + +"What's the matter, you got pepper up your nose all of a sudden, +Mawruss?" Abe protested. "I ain't saying nothing about the garment is +rotten. I am only saying it gets so nowadays that in June a feller +turns out a style which if we was making masquerade costumes already it +would be freaky anyhow; and yet, Mawruss, it would go big in September. +You get the idee what I am talking about, Mawruss?" + +"I get the idee all right," Morris retorted with bitter emphasis. "You +got the nerve to stand there and tell me this here garment is freaky +like a masquerade costume. _Schon gut_, Abe. From now on I wash myself +of the whole thing. I am through, Abe. You should right away advertise +for a designer." + +Abe rose wearily to his feet. + +"With a touchy proposition like you, Mawruss," he said, "a feller +couldn't open his mouth at all. I ain't saying nothing about you as a +designer, Mawruss. All I am saying, Mawruss, is, a designer could be a +feller which he is so high-grade like Paquin or any of them Frenchers, +but if he gets his idees from fashion papers _oder_ the _Daily Cloak and +Suit Gazette_, Mawruss, then oncet in a while he turns out a sticker." + +Morris was stripping the garment from the display form, but he paused to +favour his partner with a glare. + +"What would you want me to do, then?" he asked. "Make up styles out from +my own head, Abe? If I wouldn't get my idees from the fashion papers, +Abe, where would I get 'em?" + +"Where would you get 'em?" Abe repeated. "Why, where does Hymie Salzman, +designer for Sammet Brothers, and Charles Eisenblum, designer for +Klinger & Klein, get their idees, Mawruss?" + +This was purely a rhetorical question, but as Abe paused to heighten the +effect of the peroration, Morris undertook to supply an answer. + +"Them suckers don't get their idees, Abe," he said; "they steal 'em. If +a concern gets a run on a certain garment, Abe, them two highway robbers +makes a duplicate of it before you could turn around your head. That's +the kind of cut-throats them fellers is, Abe." + +"Sure, I know," Abe continued; "but they got to turn out some garments +of their own, Mawruss, and they get their idees right from headquarters. +They get their idees from Paris, Mawruss. Only this morning I hear it +that Hymie Salzman sails for Paris on Saturday." + +"Well, I couldn't stop him, Abe," Morris commented. + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe went on; "but things is very quiet here in +the store, Mawruss, and for a month yet we wouldn't do hardly no +business. I could get along here all right until, say, July 15th +anyhow." + +For two minutes Morris looked hard at his partner. + +"What are you driving into, Abe?" he asked at length. + +"Why, I am driving into this, Mawruss," Abe continued. "Why don't you go +to Paris?" + +"Me go to Paris!" Morris exclaimed. + +"Why not?" Abe murmured. The suggestion did seem preposterous after all. + +"Why not!" Morris repeated. "There's a whole lot of reasons why not, +Abe, and the first and foremost is that the Atlantic Ocean would got to +run dry and they got to build a railroad there first, Abe. I crossed the +water just oncet, Abe, and I wouldn't cross it again if I never sold +another dollar's worth more goods so long as I live, Abe; and that's all +there is to it." + +"What are you talking nonsense, Mawruss? On them big boats like the +_Morrisania_ there ain't no more motion than if a feller would be going +to Coney Island, Mawruss." + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris replied firmly. "Me, if I would go to +Coney Island, I am taking always the trolley, Abe, from the New York +side of the bridge. Furthermore, Abe, if Sammet Brothers sends a drinker +like Hymie Salzman to Paris, Abe, they got a right to spend their money +the way they want to; but all I got to say is that we shouldn't be +afraid they would cop out any of our trade on that account, Abe. Hymie +would come home with new idees of tchampanyer wine and not garments, +Abe." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted; "but if you would go over to +Paris, Mawruss, you would come back with some new idees which you would +turn out some real snappy stuff, Mawruss. As it is, Mawruss, with a +sticker like you got it there, Mawruss, we would ruin our business." + +"All right, Abe; I heard enough. You got altogether too much to say for +a feller which comes downtown at ten o'clock with no excuse nor +nothing." + +At this point Abe interrupted his partner long enough to relate his +visit to Moe Griesman, but the information entirely failed to placate +Morris. + +"All right, Abe," he shouted; "why don't you go to Paris? That's all +you're fit for. I got a wife and baby, Abe; but with a feller which he +has got no more interest in his home, y'understand, than he wants to go +to Paris, Abe--all right! Go ahead, Abe; go to Paris. I am satisfied." + +Abe regarded his partner for one hesitating moment. + +"_Schon gut_, I will go to Paris," he said; and the next moment the +elevator door closed behind him. + +For five minutes after Abe's departure Morris gazed earnestly at his +newest creation. He had intended the model as a pleasant surprise to his +partner, since not only had he conceived the garment to be a triumph of +the dressmaker's art, but it had been finished far in advance of the +season for originating new styles. He had confidently expected an +enthusiastic reception of this _chef-d'oeuvre_; but in view of Abe's +scathing criticism, he commenced to doubt his own estimate of the beauty +of the dress. Indeed, the longer he looked at it the uglier it appeared, +until at length he grabbed it roughly and literally tore it from the +wire form. He had rolled it into a ball and was about to cast it into a +corner when the elevator door opened and a young lady stepped out. + +"Good morning, Mr. Perlmutter," she said. + +Morris turned his face in the direction of the speaker and at once his +mouth expanded into a broad grin. + +"Why, Miss Smith!" he exclaimed as he rushed forward to greet her. "How +do you do? Me and Mrs. Perlmutter was just talking about you to-day. How +much you think that boy weighs now?" + +"Sixteen pounds," Miss Smith replied. + +"Twenty-two," Morris cried--"net." + +"You don't say so!" said Miss Smith. + +"We got you to thank for that, Miss Smith," Morris continued. "The +doctor says without you anything could happen." + +Miss Smith deprecated this compliment to her professional skill with a +smiling shake of the head. + +"We wouldn't forget it in a hurry," Morris declared. "Everything what +that boy is to-day, Miss Smith, we owe it to you." + +"You're making it hard for me, Mr. Perlmutter," Miss Smith replied, +"because I've come to ask you a favour." + +"A favour?" Morris replied. "You couldn't ask me to do you a favour +because it wouldn't be no favour. It would be a pleasure. What could I +do for you?" + +"I have to leave town to-morrow on a case," Miss Smith explained, "and I +need a dress in a hurry, something light for evening wear." + +Morris frowned perplexedly. + +"That's too bad," he said, "because just at present we got nothing but +last year's goods in stock--all except--all except this." + +He unfolded the model and shook it out. + +"What a pretty dress!" Miss Smith cried, clasping her hands. + +"Pretty!" Morris exclaimed. "How could you say it was pretty?" + +"It's perfectly stunning," Miss Smith continued. "What size is it, Mr. +Perlmutter?" + +"The usual size," Morris replied; "thirty-six." + +"Why, that's just my size," Miss Smith declared. "Let me see it." Morris +handed her the dress and she examined it carefully. "What a pity," she +said, "it has a slight rip in front. Somebody's been handling it +carelessly." + +"Sure, I know," Morris said. "I tore it myself, Miss Smith; but if you +really and truly like it, Miss Smith, which I tell you the truth I +don't, and my partner neither, you are welcome to it, and I would give +you a little piece from the same goods which you could fix up the rip +with." + +"I couldn't think of it," Miss Smith replied. + +"Not at all, Miss Smith. You would do me a favour if you would take it +along with you right now." + +Miss Smith fairly beamed as she opened her handbag. + +"How much is it?" she asked. + +"How much is it?" Morris repeated. "Why, Miss Smith, you could take that +dress only on one condition. The condition is that you wouldn't pay me +nothing for it, and that next fall, when we really got something in +stock, you would come in and pick out as many of our highest-price +garments as you would want." + +Morris's hand shook so with this unusual access of generosity that he +could hardly wrap up the garment. + +"Also, Miss Smith, I expect you will come up and have dinner with us as +soon as you get back from wherever you are going. Already the baby +commences to recognize people which he meets, and we want him he should +never forget you, Miss Smith." + +The cordiality with which Morris ushered Miss Smith into the elevator +was in striking contrast to the brusk manner in which he greeted Abe +half an hour later. + +"_Nu!_" he growled. "Where was you now?" + +"By the steamship office," Abe replied. "I am going next Saturday." + +"Going next Saturday?" Morris repeated. "Where to?" + +"To Paris," Abe replied, "on the same ship with Moe Griesman, Leon +Sammet and Hymie Salzman." + +Morris nodded slowly as the news sank in. + +"Well, all I could say is, Abe," he commented at length, "that I don't +wish you and the other passengers no harm, y'understand; but, with them +three suckers on board the ship, I hope it sinks." + + * * * * * + +The five days preceding Abe's departure were made exceedingly busy for +him by Morris, who soon became reconciled to his partner's +fashion-hunting trip, particularly when he learned that Moe Griesman +formed part of the quarry. + +"You got to remember one thing, Abe," he declared. "Extremes is nix. Let +the other feller buy the freaks; what we are after is something in +moderation." + +"You shouldn't worry about that, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I wouldn't +bring you home no such model like you showed it me this week." + +"You would be lucky if you wouldn't bring home worser yet," Morris +retorted. "But anyhow that ain't the point. I got here the names of a +couple commission men which it is their business to look out for +greenhorns." + +"What d'ye mean, greenhorn?" Abe cried indignantly. "I ain't no +greenhorn." + +"That's all right," Morris went on; "in France only the Frenchers ain't +greenhorns. You ain't told me what kind of a stateroom you got it." + +"Well, the outside rooms was one hundred and twenty-five dollars and the +inside room, was eight-five dollars," Abe explained; "so I took an +inside room because the light wouldn't come in and wake me up so early +in the morning, Mawruss, and forty dollars is as good to me as it is to +them suckers what runs the steamboat company. Ain't it?" + +Nevertheless, when Abe found himself in his upper berth the morning +after he had parted with Minnie, Rosie, and Morris at the pier, he had +reason to regret his economy. He shared his stateroom with a singer of +minor operatic roles, who, as a souvenir of a farewell luncheon ashore, +carried into that narrow precinct an odour of garlic that persisted for +the entire voyage. In addition, the returning artist smoked Egyptian +cigarettes and anointed his generous head of hair with violet +brilliantine. Hence it was not until the boat was passing Brow Head that +Abe staggered up the companionway to the promenade deck. + +"Why, hallo, Abe!" cried a bronzed and bulky figure. "I ain't seen you +for almost a week." + +"No?" Abe murmured. "Well, if you would wanted to seen me, Leon, you +knew where you could find me: just below the pantry my stateroom was, +inside. A dawg shouldn't got to live in such a place." + +At this juncture Salzman appeared to summon his employer to a game of +auction pinocle in the smoking room, and as Abe started to make a feeble +promenade around the deckhouse he encountered Moe Griesman. After Moe +had taken Abe's hand in a limp clasp he nodded in the direction of the +smoking room. + +"What d'ye think of them two suckers?" he croaked. "They ain't missed a +meal since they came aboard." + +"What could you expect from a couple of tough propositions like that?" +Abe replied. "Was you sick, Moe?" + +"Sick!" Griesman exclaimed. "I give you my word, Abe, last Thursday +night I was so sick that I commenced to figure out already how much I +would of saved in premiums if my insurings policies would be straight +life instead of endowment. No, Abe; this here business of going to Paris +for your styles ain't what it's cracked up to be. Always up to now I got +fine weather crossing, but the way the water has been the last six days, +Abe, I am beginning to think I could get just so good idees of the +season's models right in New York." + +"D'ye know, Moe," said Abe, "I'm starting to feel hungry? I wish that +feller with the _shofar_ would come." + +Hardly had he spoken when the ship's bugler announced luncheon, but it +was some minutes before Moe could summon up sufficient courage to go +below to the dining saloon, and when they entered they found Leon Sammet +and Hymie Salzman had nearly concluded their meal. + +"Steward," Leon shouted as Moe sat down next to him, "bring me a nice +piece of Camembert cheese." + +"One moment, Leon," Griesman interrupted; "if you bring that stuff under +my nose here I would never buy from you a dollar's worth more goods so +long as I live!" + +"The feller goes too far, Abe," he said, after Leon had cancelled the +order and departed to drink his coffee in the smoking room. "The feller +goes too far. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on deck, and the way I +felt, Abe, my worst enemy wouldn't got to feel it. Do you believe me, +Abe, that feller got the nerve to offer me a cigar yet! It pretty near +finished me up. He only done it out of spite, Abe, but I fooled him. I +took the cigar and I got it in my pocket right now." + +"Don't show me," Abe cried hurriedly. "I'll tell you the truth: there +ain't nothing in the smoking habit. I'm going to cut it out. Waiter, +bring me only a plate of clear soup and some dry toast. There ain't no +need for a feller to smoke, Moe; it's only an extra expense." + +"I think you're right, Abe," Moe said; "but I know that this here cigar +cost Leon a quarter on board ship here, and I thought I would show him +he shouldn't get so gay." + +Despite Abe's resolution, however, a large black cigar protruded from +his moustache when he stood on the wharf at Cherbourg, twenty-four hours +later, and a small, ill-shaven stevedore, clad in a dark blouse and +shabby corduroy trousers, pointed to the cloud of smoke that issued from +Abe's lips and chattered a voluble protest. + +"What does he say, Moe?" Abe asked. + +"I don't know," Moe replied. "He's talking French." + +"French!" Abe exclaimed. "What are you trying to do--kid me? A dirty +_schlemiel_ of a greenhorn like him should talk French! What an idee!" + +Nevertheless, Abe was made to throw away his cigar, and it was not until +the quartette were snugly enclosed in a first-class compartment en route +to Paris that Abe felt safe to indulge in another cigar. He explored his +pockets, but without result. + +"Moe," he said, "do you got maybe another cigar on you?" + +"I'm smoking the one which Leon give it me on the ship the other day," +Moe replied. "Leon, be a good feller; give him a cigar." + +"I give you my word, Moe, this is the last one," Leon replied as he bit +the end off a huge invincible. + +"You got something there bulging in your vest pocket, Abe. Why don't you +smoke it?" + +"That ain't a cigar," Abe answered; "that's a fountain pen." + +"Smoke it anyhow," Leon advised; "because the only cigars you could get +on this train is French Government cigars, and I'd sooner tackle a +fountain pen as one of them rolls of spinach." + +"That's a country!" Abe commented. "Couldn't even get a decent cigar +here!" + +"In Paris you could get plenty good cigars," Hymie Salzman said, and +Hymie was right for, at the Gare St. Lazare, M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi, +_commissionnaire_, awaited them, his pockets literally spilling +red-banded perfectos at every gesture of his lively fingers. M. +Kaufmann-Levi spoke English, French, and German with every muscle of his +body from the waist up. + +"Welcome to France, Mr. Potash," he said. "You had a good voyage, +doubtless; because you Americans are born sailors." + +"Maybe we are born sailors," Abe admitted, "but I must of grew out of +it. I tell you the honest truth, if I could go back by trolley, and it +took a year, I would do it." + +"The weather is always more settled in July than in August," said M. +Kaufmann-Levi, "and I wouldn't worry about the return trip just now. I +have rooms for you gentlemen all on one floor of a hotel near the +Opera, and taximeters are in waiting. After you have settled we will +take dinner together." + +Thus it happened that, at half past six that evening, M. Kaufmann-Levi +conducted his four guests from the Restaurant Marguery to a sidewalk +table of the Cafe de la Paix, and for almost an hour they watched the +crowd making its way to the Opera. + +"You see, Moe," Abe said, "everything is tunics this year; tunics _oder_ +chiffon overskirts, net collars and yokes." + +Moe nodded absently. His eyes were glued to a lady sitting at the next +table. + +"You got to come to Paris to see 'em, Abe," he murmured. "They don't +make 'em like that in America." + +"We make as good garments in America as anywhere," Abe protested. + +"Garments I ain't talking about at all," Moe whispered hoarsely; "I mean +peaches. Did y'ever see anything like that lady there sitting next to +you? Look at the get-up, Abe. Ain't it chic?" + +"It's a pretty good-looking model, Moe," Abe replied, "but a bit too +plain for us. See all the fancy-looking garments there are round here." + +"Plain nothing!" Moe muttered. "Look at the way it fits her. I tell you, +Abe, the French ladies know how to wear their clothes." + +A moment later the couple at the next table passed along toward the +Opera, and once more Abe and Moe turned their attention to the crowds on +the boulevard. + +For the remainder of their stay in Paris Abe and Leon spent their time +in a ceaseless hunt for new models and their nights in plying Moe +Griesman with entertainment. It cannot be said that Moe discouraged them +to any marked degree, for while he occasionally hinted to Abe that the +New York cloak and suit trade was an open market, and garment buyers had +a large field from which to choose, he also told Leon that he saw no +reason why he should not continue to buy goods from Sammet Brothers, +provided the prices were right. + +Nearly every evening found them sitting at the corner table of the Cafe +de la Paix, and upon many of these occasions the next table was occupied +by the same couple that sat there on the night of Abe's arrival in +Paris. + +"You know, Abe, that dress is the most uniquest thing in Paris," Moe +exclaimed on the evening of the last day in Paris. "I ain't seen nothing +like it anywhere." + +"Good reason, Moe," Leon Sammet cried; "it's rotten. That's one of last +year's models." + +"What are you talking nonsense? One of the last year's models!" Moe +Griesman cried indignantly. "Don't you think I know a new style when I +see it?" + +"Moe is right, Leon," Abe said. "You ain't got no business to talk +that way at all. The style is this year's model." + +"Of course, Abe," Leon said with ironic precision, "when a judge like +you says something, y'understand, then it's so. Take another of them +sixty-cent ice-creams, Moe." + +Ordinarily Abe would have turned Leon's sarcasm with a retort in kind, +but Leon's remark fell on deaf ears, for Abe was listening to a +conversation at the next table and the language was English. + +"It's time to start back to the hotel," said the young lady to her +escort, who was an elderly gentleman. + +Abe turned to Moe and Leon. + +"Excuse me for a few minutes," he said; "I got to go back to the hotel +for something." + +He handed Leon a twenty-franc piece. + +"If I shouldn't get back, pay the bill!" he cried, and jumping to his +feet he followed the couple from the next table. + +The old gentleman walked feebly with the aid of a cane, and the young +lady held him by the arm as they proceeded to the main entrance of the +Grand Hotel. Abe dogged their footsteps until the old gentleman +disappeared into the lift and the young lady retired to the winter +garden that forms the interior court of the hotel. As she seated herself +in a wicker chair Abe approached with his hat in his hand. + +"Lady, excuse me," he began; "I ain't no loafer. I'm in the cloak and +suit business, and I would like to speak to you a few words--something +very particular." + +The young lady turned in her chair. She was not alarmed, only surprised. + +"I hope you don't think I am asking you anything out of the way," Abe +said, without further prelude; "but you got a dress on, lady, which I +don't know how much you paid for it, but if three hundred of these +here--now--francs would be any inducement I'd like to buy it from you. +Of course I wouldn't ask you to take it off right now, but if you would +leave it at the clerk's desk here I could call for it in half an hour." + +The young lady made no reply, instead she threw back her head and +laughed heartily. + +"It ain't no joke, lady," Abe continued as he laid three flimsy notes of +the Bank of France in her lap. "That's as good as American greenbacks." + +The young lady ceased laughing, and for a minute, hesitated between +indignation and renewed mirth, but at last her sense of humour +conquered. + +"Very well," she said; "stay here for a few minutes." + +Half an hour later she returned with the dress wrapped up in a paper +parcel. + +"How did you know I wouldn't go off with the money, dress and all?" +she asked as Abe seized the package. + +"I took a chance, lady," he said; "like you are doing about the money +which I give you being good." + +"Have no scruples on that score," the young lady replied. "I had it +examined at the clerk's office just now." + + * * * * * + +When M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi bade farewell to Moe, Abe, Leon, and Hymie +Salzman, at the Gare St. Lazare, he uttered words of encouragement and +cheer which failed to justify themselves after the four travellers' +embarkment at Cherbourg. + +"You will have splendid weather," he had declared. "It will be fine all +the way over." + +When the steamer passed out of the breakwater into the English Channel +she breasted a northeaster that lasted all the way to the Banks. Even +Hymie Salzman went under, and Leon Sammet walked the swaying decks +alone. Twice a day he poked his head into the stateroom occupied by Moe +Griesman and Abe Potash, for Abe had thrown economy to the winds and had +gone halves with Moe in the largest outside room on board. + +"Boys," Leon would ask, "ain't you going to get up? The air is fine on +deck." + +Had he but known it, Moe Griesman developed day by day, with growing +intensity, that violent hatred for Leon that the hopelessly seasick +feel toward good sailors; while toward Abe, who groaned unceasingly in +the upper berth, Moe Griesman evinced the affectionate interest that the +poor sailor evinces in any one who suffers more keenly than himself. + +At length Nantucket lightship was passed, and as the sea grew calmer two +white-faced invalids, that on close scrutiny might have been recognized +by their oldest friends to be Moe and Abe, tottered up the companionway +and sank exhausted into the nearest deckchairs. + +"Well, Moe," Leon cried, as he bustled toward them smoking a large cigar +and clad in a suit of immaculate white flannels, "so you're up again?" + +The silence with which Moe received this remark ought to have warned +Leon, but he plunged headlong to his fate. + +"We are now only twenty hours from New York," he said, "and suppose I go +downstairs and bring you up some of them styles which I got in Paris." + +"You shouldn't trouble yourself," Moe said shortly. + +"Why not?" Leon inquired. + +"Because, for all I care," Moe replied viciously, "you could fire 'em +overboard. I would _oser_ buy from you a button." + +"What's the matter?" Leon cried. + +"You know what's the matter," Moe continued. + +"You come every day into my stateroom and mock me yet because I am +sick." + +"I mock you!" Leon exclaimed. + +"That's what I said," Moe continued; "and if you wouldn't take that +cigar away from here I'll break your neck when I get on shore again." + +Leon backed away hurriedly and Moe turned to Abe. + +"Am I right or wrong?" he said. + +Abe nodded. He was incapable of audible speech, but hour by hour he grew +stronger until at dinner-time he was able to partake of some soup and +roast beef, and even to listen with a wan smile to Moe's caustic +appraisement of Leon Sammet's character. Finally, after a good night's +rest, Moe and Abe awoke to find the engine stilled at Quarantine. They +were saved the necessity of packing their trunks for the cogent reason +that they had been physically unable to open them, let alone unpack +them. Hence they repaired at once to breakfast. + +Leon was already seated at table, and he hastily cancelled an order for +Yarmouth bloater and asked instead for a less fragrant dish. + +"Good morning, Moe," he said pleasantly. + +Moe turned to Abe. "To-morrow morning at nine o'clock, Abe," he said, "I +would be down in your store to look over your line." + +"Steward," Leon Sammet cried, "never mind that steak. I would take the +bloater anyhow." + +Abe and Moe breakfasted lightly on egg and toast, and returned to their +stateroom as they passed the Battery. + +"Say, lookyhere, Moe," Abe said; "I want to show you something which I +bought for you as a surprise the night before we left Paris. I got it +right in the top of my suitcase here, and it wouldn't take a minute to +show it to you." + +Abe was unstrapping his suitcase as he spoke, and the next minute he +shook out the gown he had purchased from the young lady of the Cafe de +la Paix, and exposed it to Moe's admiring gaze. + +"How did you get hold of that, Abe?" Moe asked. + +Abe narrated his adventure at the Grand Hotel, while Moe gaped his +astonishment. + +"I always thought you got a pretty good nerve, Abe," he declared, "but +this sure is the limit. How much did you pay for it?" + +"Three hundred of them--now--francs," Abe replied; "but I've been +figuring out the cost of manufacturing and material, and I could +duplicate it in New York for forty dollars a garment." + +"You mean thirty-five dollars a garment, don't you?" Moe said. + +"No, I don't," Abe replied. "I mean forty dollars a garment. Why do you +say thirty-five dollars?" + +"Because at forty dollars apiece, Abe, I could use for my Sarahcuse, +Rochester, and Buffalo stores about fifty of these garments, and you +ought to figure on at least five dollars' profit on a garment." + +"Well, maybe I am figuring it a little too generous, y'understand; so, +if that goes, Moe, I will quote the selling price at, say, forty dollars +a garment to you, Moe." + +"Sure, it goes," Moe said; "and I'll be at your store to-morrow morning +at nine o'clock to decide on sizes and shades." + +Abe's passage through the customs examination was accomplished with +ease, for nearly all his Paris purchases were packed in the hold to be +cleared by a custom-house broker. His stateroom baggage contained no +dutiable articles save the gown in question and a few trinkets for +Rosie, who was at the pier to greet him. Indeed, she bestowed on him a +series of kisses that reechoed down the long pier, and Abe's pallor gave +way to the sunburnt hue of his amused fellow-passengers. In one of them +Abe recognized with a start the tanned features of the young lady of the +Cafe de la Paix. + +"Moe," he said, nudging Griesman, "there's your friend." + +Moe turned in the direction indicated by Abe, and his interested manner +was not unnoticed by Mrs. Potash. + +"How is your dear wife and daughter, Mr. Griesman?" she asked +significantly. "I suppose you missed 'em a whole lot." + +When Moe assured her that he did she sniffed so violently that it might +have been taken for a snort. + +"Well, Abe," he said at length, "I'll be going on to the Prince +Clarence, and I'll see you in the store to-morrow morning. Good-by, Mrs. +Potash." + +"Good-by," Mrs. Potash replied, with an emphasis that implied "good +riddance," and then, as Moe disappeared toward the street, she sniffed +again. "It don't take long for some loafers to forget their wives!" she +said. + + * * * * * + +"Well, Abe," Morris said, after the first greetings had passed between +them that afternoon, "I'm glad to see you back in the store." + +"You ain't half so glad to see me back, Mawruss, as I am that I should +be back," Abe replied. "Not that the trip ain't paid us, Mawruss, +because I got a trunkful of samples on the way up here which I assure +you is a work of art." + +"Sure, I know!" Morris commented with just a tinge of bitterness in his +tones; "Paris is the place for styles. Us poor suckers over here don't +know a thing about designing." + +"Well, Mawruss, I'll tell you," Abe went on: "you are a first-class, A +number one designer, I got to admit, and there ain't nobody that I +consider is better as you in the whole garment trade; but"--here he +paused to unfasten his suitcase--"but, Mawruss," he continued, "I got +here just one sample style which I brought it with me, Mawruss, and I +think, Mawruss, you would got to agree with me, such models we don't +turn out on this side." + +Here he opened the suitcase, and carefully taking out the dress of the +Cafe de la Paix he spread it on a sample table. + +"What d'ye think of that, Mawruss?" he asked. + +Morris made no answer. He was gazing at the garment with bulging eyes, +and beads of perspiration ran down his forehead. + +"Abe!" he gasped at length, "where did you get that garment from?" + +Before Abe could answer, the elevator door opened and a young lady +stepped out. It was now Abe's turn to gasp, for the visitor was no other +than the tanned and ruddy young person from the Cafe de la Paix. + +"Good afternoon, Mr. Perlmutter," she said. "I've just got back." + +"Oh, good afternoon, Miss Smith!" Morris cried. + +"I hope I'm not interrupting you," she continued. + +"Not at all," Morris said; "not at all." + +Then a wave of recollection came over him, and he muttered a +half-smothered exclamation. + +"Abe, Miss Smith," he almost shouted, and then he sat down. "Say, +lookyhere, Abe, what is all this, anyway? Miss Smith comes in here +and----" + +"Well, upon my word!" Miss Smith interrupted; "if it isn't the gentleman +from the Cafe de la Paix--and, of all things, there is the very dress!" + +Abe shrugged his shoulders. + +"That's right, Miss Whatever-your-name is," Abe admitted; "that's the +dress, and since I paid you sixty dollars for it I don't think you got +any kick coming." + +"Sixty dollars!" Morris cried. "Why, that dress as a sample garment only +cost us twenty-two-fifty to make up." + +"Cost us?" Abe repeated. "As a sample garment? What are you talking +about?" + +"I am talking about this, Abe," Morris replied: "that dress is the +self-same garment which I designed it, and which you says was rotten and +freaky, and which I give it to Miss Smith here for a present, and which +you paid Miss Smith sixty dollars for." + +"And here is the sixty dollars now," Miss Smith broke in. "I hurried +here as fast as I could to give it to you, Mr. Perlmutter." + +"One moment," Abe said. "I don't know who this young lady is or nothing; +but do you mean to told me that this here dress which I bought it in +Paris was made up right here in our place?" + +"Here, Abe," Morris said, "I want to show you something. Here is from +the same goods a garment, and them goods as you know we get it from the +Hamsuckett Mills. So far what I hear it, the Hamsuckett Mills don't +sell their output in Paris. Am I right or wrong?" + +Abe nodded slowly. + +"Well, Mr. Perlmutter," Miss Smith said, "here's your sixty dollars. +I've got to get back to my patient. You know that I went to Paris with a +rheumatic case, and I've left the old gentleman in charge of a friend. I +came here to settle up." + +"Excuse me," said Abe; "I ain't been introduced to this young lady yet." + +"Why, I thought you knew her," Morris said. "This is Miss Smith, the +trained nurse which was so good to my Minnie when my Abie was born." + +"Is that so?" Abe cried. "Well, Miss Smith, you should take that sixty +dollars and keep it, because, Mawruss, on the way over I sold Moe +Griesman fifty garments of that there style of yours at forty dollars +apiece." + +"You don't say so!" Morris cried. "You don't say so! Well, all I got to +say is, Miss Smith, in the first place, if Abe wouldn't of told you to +keep that sixty dollars I sure would of done so, and in the second +place, I want you to come in here next week and pick out half a dozen +dresses. Ain't that right, Abe?" + +"I bet yer that's right, Mawruss; we wouldn't take no for an answer," +Abe replied. "And you should also leave us your name and address, Miss +Smith, because, _Gott soll hueten_, if I should be sick, y'understand, +I don't want nobody else to nurse me but you." + + * * * * * + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris said the following morning, "that trunkful +of Paris samples which the custom-house says we would get this morning +ain't come yet." + +Abe clapped his partner on the shoulder and grinned happily. + +"What do I care, Mawruss?" he said. "For my part they should never come. +I ain't got no use for Paris fashions at all. Styles which Mawruss +Perlmutter originates is good enough for me, because I always said it, +Mawruss, you are a cracker-jack, high-grade, A number one designer!" + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +DEAD MEN'S SHOES + + +"There goes that sucker, Aaron Kronberg, from Port Sullivan," Abe Potash +declared to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as they looked from the +windows of their showroom to the opposite sidewalk some four stories +below. "Ain't it funny that feller would never buy from us a dollar's +worth more goods?" + +"The reason ain't hard to find, Abe," Morris replied. "Oncet a garment +buyer gets into the hands of a competitor like Leon Sammet, it's all +off. I bet yer Leon tells him we are all kinds of crooks and swindlers." + +"What could you expect from a cut-throat like Leon Sammet? That feller +is no good and his father before him is also a thief. I know his people +from the old country yet. One was worser as the other." + +"Well, there's nothing the matter with Aaron's cousin, Alex Kronberg, +anyhow," Morris observed. "That feller does a fine business in +Bridgetown, and Sammet Brothers could no more take his trade away from +us than they could fly." + +"That ain't our fault, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "Sammet Brothers is fly +enough to do anything, Mawruss; but, the way Aaron Kronberg hates Alex +Kronberg, if they was to sell Alex a single garment, y'understand, Aaron +would never buy from them a dollar's worth more goods so long as he +lived." + +"Ain't it a disgrace them two fellers is such enemies, Abe?" + +"Alex ain't no enemy, Mawruss," Abe said. "It's Aaron what's the enemy. +Alex don't trouble himself at all. He told me so himself. But that's the +way it goes, Mawruss. Mosha Kronberg, Hillel Kronberg, and Elkan +Kronberg was three brothers which you don't see nowadays at all--more +like friends than brothers, Mawruss. Hillel died ten years ago and I +thought it would broke Mosha's heart. He looked after Hillel's widow and +Hillel's boy, Alex, because Mosha never married, Mawruss. He was a born +uncle. Then, when Elkan died a year later, I never seen a feller so +broke up like Mosha in all my life. He goes to work and sends Elkan's +boy, Aaron, to business college, and Elkan's widow he takes to live with +Hillel's widow, all together with himself and the two boys in that house +of his on Madison Street. For three years they lived that way, and in +the rest of the house Mosha couldn't keep any tenants at all. At last he +gives Aaron a couple thousand dollars and Alex the same, and Aaron +buys a store up in Port Sullivan, and Alex goes up to Bridgetown." + +"What become of the widows, Abe?" Morris asked. + +"I don't know is Elkan's widow living now _oder_ not," Abe said, "but +Mosha told me Hillel's widow wants to get married again, and Alex comes +to him and says he should give the old lady anyhow a thousand dollars. +Mosha wants to know what for, and Alex tells him he owes from Hillel's +estate yet a couple thousand dollars." + +"And did he?" Morris inquired. + +"Suppose he did?" Abe replied. "He is entitled to it after what he puts +up with during them three years they lived together. Well, Mosha and +Alex gets right away fighting about it, and I guess Alex would of sued +Mosha in the courts yet, only the old lady goes to work and dies on 'em +all of a sudden." + +"But why is Aaron and Alex such enemies, Abe?" Morris asked. + +"Well, it's like this, Mawruss: Aaron and Alex is good friends until +Uncle Mosha cut Alex out of his will. You see Aaron and Alex is the only +two relations which Mosha got at all. So naturally when Aaron thinks he +is coming in for the whole thing he begins to get sore at Alex, and the +more Aaron thinks that the old man really ought to leave half to Alex, +the more he gets sore at Alex." + +"The whole business is dead wrong, Abe," Morris commented. "In the +first place, the old man ain't got no right to leave his money only to +Aaron; and in the second place, Aaron ain't got no right to feel sore at +Alex. And furthermore Alex ought to go round and see his uncle oncet in +a while when he is in New York, in the third place." + +"Well, why don't you tell him so this afternoon, Mawruss?" Abe said. +"Alex is staying up at the Prince Clarence since last night already, and +he said he would be sure down here this afternoon." + +"I will do so," Morris replied firmly. + +"Go ahead," Abe added, "only one thing I got to tell you, Mawruss. There +is some customers which would stand anything, Mawruss. You could ship +'em two garments short in every order; you could send 'em goods which +ain't no more like the sample than bread is like _motsos_; you could +overcharge 'em in your statements; you could even draw on 'em one day +after their account is due, and still they would buy goods of you; but +so soon as you start to butt into their family affairs, Mawruss, that's +the finish, Mawruss. They would leave you like a shot." + +"Alex Kronberg wouldn't take it so particular," Morris retorted. "He +knows I am only doing it for his own good." + +"Oh, if you are only doing it for his own good, Mawruss, then that's +something again," Abe said; "because in that case we would not only lose +him for a customer, Mawruss, but we would also make an enemy of him +for life." + +"You shouldn't worry," Morris replied as he put on his hat preparatory +to going out to lunch. "I know how to take care of a customer all +right." + +Nevertheless Morris cogitated his partner's advice throughout the entire +lunch hour, and over his dessert he commenced to formulate a tentative +plan for restoring Alex Kronberg to his inheritance. + +Two cups of coffee and a second helping of _mohn_ cake aided the process +of celebrating this scheme, so that when Morris returned to his place of +business it was nearly two o'clock. + +"Abe," he said as he entered, "I've been thinking over this here matter +about Alex Kronberg, and I ain't going to talk to Alex about it at all. +Do you know what I'm going to do?" + +Abe grabbed his hat and turned to Morris with a savage glare. + +"Sure, I know what you are going to do, Mawruss," Potash bellowed +belligerently. "Henceforth, from to-morrow on, you are going to do this, +Mawruss: you are going to lunch after I am coming back. I could drop +dead from hunger already for all you care. I got a stomach too, Mawruss, +and don't you forget it." + + * * * * * + +Mosha Kronberg lived on the ground floor of his own tenement house on +Madison Street, and to say that Aaron Kronberg worshipped the ground +his uncle walked on would be to utter the literal truth. + +"Well, uncle, how do you feel to-day?" Aaron inquired the morning after +Abe and Morris had so thoroughly discussed the Kronberg family +relations. + +"I could feel a whole lot better, Aaron, and I could feel a whole lot +worse," Mosha Kronberg replied. "Them suckers has been after me again." + +"Which ones are they now?" Aaron asked, his curiosity aroused. + +"An orphan asylum," Mosha replied. "The gall which some people got it, +Aaron, honestly you wouldn't believe it at all. They want me I should +give 'em two hundred and fifty dollars. I told 'em time enough when I +would die, _Gott soll hueten_." + +"What are you talking nonsense, Uncle Mosha?" Aaron broke in. "You ain't +going to die for a long time yet; and anyhow, Uncle Mosha, if people +goes to work and has children which they couldn't support while they are +living even, why should they get any of your money to support 'em after +you are dead? No one asks them suckers they should have children. Ain't +I right?" + +"Sure you are right," Uncle Mosha agreed. "Hospitals also, Aaron. If I +got one hospital bothering me, I must got a dozen. Why should I bother +myself with hospitals, Aaron? A lowlife, a gambler, hangs around liquor +saloons all times of the night till he gets sick, y'understand, and +then he must go to a hospital and get well on my money yet. I see +myself!" + +"What hospital was it?" Aaron inquired. + +"The Mount Hebron Hospital," Uncle Mosha replied. "There is the +catalogue now. They are sending it me this morning only." + +Aaron seized the annual report and list of donating members of the +hospital and opened it at the letter K. + +"Do you know what I think, uncle?" Aaron cried. "I think that Alex +Kronberg puts 'em up to asking you for money." + +"Alex puts 'em up to it?" Mosha repeated. "What for should Alex do such +a thing?" + +"Here; let me show you," Aaron cried. "Alex himself gives them fakers +five dollars. Here it is in black on white: 'Alex Kronberg, Bridgetown, +Pennsylvania, five dollars.'" + +Uncle Mosha adjusted a pair of eyeglasses to his broad, flat nose and +perused the record of his nephew's extravagance with bulging eyes. + +"Well, what d'ye think for a sucker like that!" he exclaimed. + +"I tell you the honest truth, uncle," Aaron said, "I don't want to say +nothing about Alex at all, but the way that feller is acting, just +because he does a little good business in his store, honestly it's a +disgrace. He sends my mother for ten dollars a birthday present too. Do +I need that sucker he should give my mother birthday presents? He is +throwing away his money left and right, and the first thing you know he +is coming to you borrowing yet." + +"He should save himself the trouble," Uncle Mosha declared. "His tongue +should be hanging out of his mouth with hunger, Aaron, and I wouldn't +give him _oser_ one cent." + +Aaron's face broke into a thousand wrinkles as he beamed his +satisfaction. + +"Well, uncle," he said, "I must got to be going. I got a whole lot of +things to do to-day. Take care of yourself." + +"Don't worry about me," Aaron's Uncle Mosha replied. "I could take care +of myself all right. You wouldn't drink maybe a glass of _schnaps_ or +something before you go? No? All right." + +He always delayed his proffer of hospitality until Aaron was on the +front stoop. After the latter had turned the corner of Pike Street, +Uncle Mosha lingered to take the morning air. A fresh breeze from the +southwest brought with it a faint odour of salt herring and onions from +the grocery store next door, while from the bakery across the street +came the fragrant evidence of a large batch of _Kuemmel brod_. He sighed +contentedly and turned to reenter the house, but even as he did so he +wheeled about in response to the greeting: "How do you do, Mr. +Kronberg?" + +The speaker was none other than Morris Perlmutter, who had tossed on his +pillow until past midnight devising a plan for approaching Uncle Mosha +in a plausible manner. Now that his quarry had fallen so opportunely +within his grasp, Morris's face wreathed itself in smiles of such +amiability that Uncle Mosha grew at once suspicious. + +"You got the advantage from me," he said. + +"Why, don't you know me?" Morris cooed. + +"I think," Uncle Mosha replied guardedly, "I seen you oncet before +somewheres. You are a collector for a hospital or a orphan asylum, or +some such sucker game. Ain't it?" + +Morris laughed mirthlessly. His discarded plan for renewing his +acquaintance with Uncle Mosha had involved the pretence that he was +seeking to interest the old gentleman in the Home for Chronic Invalids, +Independent Order Mattai Aaron, of which fraternity Morris was an active +member; and Uncle Mosha's apparent distaste for organized charity proved +rather disconcerting. + +"You're a poor guesser, Mr. Kronberg," he said. + +"Then you are connected with some charity. Ain't it?" Uncle Mosha +continued. + +Morris denied it indignantly. + +"_Gott soil hueten_," he said. "My name is Mr. Perlmutter and I am in the +cloak and suit business." + +"Oh, I remember now!" Uncle Mosha cried. The news that Morris was no +charity worker restored him to high good-humour. + +"I remember you perfect now," he said, shaking hands effusively with +Morris. "You got a partner by the name Potash, ain't it?" + +"That's right," Morris replied. + +"And what brings you over here in this _nachbarschaft_?" Uncle Mosha +inquired. + +Morris looked from Uncle Mosha to the tarnished brass plate on the side +of the tenement-house door. It read as follows: + + M. KRONBERG + REAL ESTATE + +"The fact is," Morris said, "I am coming to see you in a business way, +and if you got time I'd like to say a little something to you." + +"Come inside," Uncle Mosha grunted. He thought he discerned a furtive +timidity in his visitor's manner strongly indicative of an impending +touch. + +"In the first place," he began, after Morris was seated, "I ain't got so +much money which people think I got it." + +"I never thought you did," said Morris, and Uncle Mosha glared in +response. + +"But I ain't no beggar neither, y'understand," he retorted. "I got a +little something left, anyhow." + +"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but what you have got or what you ain't +got is neither here or there. I am coming over this morning to ask you +something, a question." + +Here he paused. He had not yet determined what the question would be, +and it occurred to him that, unless it were sufficiently momentous to +account for his presence on the lower East Side during the busiest hours +of a business day, Uncle Mosha would show him the door. + +"Go ahead and ask it, then," Uncle Mosha broke in impatiently. "I +couldn't sit here all day." + +"The fact is," Morris said slowly, and then his mind reverted to the +brass plate on the door and he at once proceeded with renewed +confidence--"the fact is I am coming over here to ask you something, a +question which a friend of mine would like to buy a property on the East +Side." + +"A property," Uncle Mosha repeated. "A property is something else again. +What for a property would your friend like to buy it?" + +"A fine property," Morris replied; "a property like you got it here." + +"But this here property ain't for sale," Uncle Mosha said. "I got the +house here now since 1890 already, and I guess I would keep it." + +"Sure, I know; that's all right," Morris went on; "but I thought, even +if you wouldn't want to sell the house, you know such a whole lot about +real estate, Mr. Kronberg, you could help us out a little." + +The hard lines about Uncle Mosha's mouth relaxed into a smile. + +"Well, when it comes to real estate," he said, "I ain't a fool exactly, +y'understand." + +"That's what I was told," Morris continued. "A friend of mine he says to +me: 'If any one could tell you about real estate, Mosha Kronberg could. +There's a man,' he says, 'which his opinion you could trust in it +anything what he says is so. If the Astors and the Goelets would know +about East Side real estate what that feller knows--understand +me--instead of their hundreds of millions they would have thousands of +millions already.'" + +Uncle Mosha fairly beamed. + +"Yes, Mr. Kronberg," Morris went on, without taking breath, "he says to +me: 'You should go and see Uncle Mosha; he's a gentleman and he would +treat you right.' 'But,' I says to him, 'I ain't got no right to butt in +on your Uncle Mosha. You see, Alex,' I says----" + +"Alex!" Uncle Mosha cried. "Did Alex Kronberg send you here?" + +"That's who it was," Morris replied. + +"Then all I could say is," Uncle Mosha thundered, "you should go right +back to Alex and tell him from me that I says any friend of his which +he comes to me looking for information about real estate, he's lucky I +don't kick him into the street yet." + +He jumped up from his chair and opened the door leading into the public +hall. + +"Go on," he roared, "out from my house." + +Morris rose leisurely to his feet and pulled a large cigar from his +pocket. + +"If that's the way you feel about it, Mr. Kronberg," he said gently, +"_schon gut_. I wouldn't bother you any more. At the same time, Mr. +Kronberg, if ever you should want to sell the house, y'understand, let +me know; that's all." As he passed out of the door he laid the cigar on +a side table and its bright red band immediately caught the eye of Uncle +Mosha. He pounced on it and was about to hurl it after his departing +visitor when something about the smoothness of the wrapper made him +pause. Five minutes later he lolled back in a horsehair-covered rocker +and puffed contentedly at Morris's cigar. "After all," he said, "I might +get a good price for the house anyway." + +From Mosha Kronberg's tenement house on Madison Street to the cloak and +suit district, at Nineteenth Street and Fifth Avenue, is less than two +miles as the crow flies, but Morris Perlmutter's journey uptown was +accomplished in less direct fashion. He spent over half an hour in an +antiquated horse car and by the time the Broadway car to which he +transferred had reached Madison Square it was nearly twelve o'clock. As +he walked down Nineteenth Street he almost collided with Abe, whose face +wore a frown. + +"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss!" he cried. "What kind of business is this? +Here you are just getting downtown and I am going out to lunch already." + +"Sure, I know," Morris retorted. "You think of nothing but your stomach. +Believe me, Abe, I worked hard enough this morning." + +"Worked nothing!" Abe rejoined. "You have been up to some monkey +business, Mawruss; otherwise why should Mosha Kronberg telephone us just +now he thought the matter over since you left there and he would be up +to see you this afternoon already." + +"What!" Morris cried. "Did Mosha Kronberg telephone that himself?" + +"All right, Mawruss; then I am a liar!" Abe exploded. "I am telling you +with my own ears I heard him." + +"I believe you, Abe," Morris said soothingly. "Don't hurry back from +your lunch. I got lots of time." + +"I would hurry back _oder_ not, as I please, Mawruss," Abe retorted as +he trudged off toward Hammersmith's restaurant. There he ministered to +his outraged feelings with a steaming dish of _gefuellte rinderbrust_, +and it was not till he had sopped up the last drop of gravy with a piece +of rye bread that he became conscious of a stranger sitting opposite to +him. + +"Excuse me," said the latter, "you got a little soup on the lapel of +your coat." + +"That ain't soup," Abe explained, as he dipped his napkin in his glass +of ice-water and started to remove the stain; "that's a little _gefuellte +rinderbrust_, which they fix it so thin and watery nowadays it might +just as well be soup the way it's always getting over your clothes." + +"Things ain't the same like they used to be," the stranger remarked. +"Twenty--twenty-five years ago a feller could get a meal down on Canal +Street for a quarter--understand me--which it was really something you +could say was remarkable. Take any of them places, Gifkin's _oder_ +Wasserbauer's. Ain't I right?" + +"Did you used to went to Gifkin's?" Abe asked. + +"I should say!" his vis-a-vis replied. "When I was a boy of fifteen I am +eating always regularly by Gifkin's." + +"Me too. I used to eat a whole lot by Gifkin's," Abe said; "in fact, I +think I must of seen you there." + +"I shouldn't wonder," the stranger continued. "At the time, I was +working by old man Baum right across from Gifkin's. He was my uncle +already." + +"You are old man Baum's nephew!" Abe exclaimed. "How could that be? Old +man Baum only got one brother, Nathan, which he got mixed up in a +railroad accident near Knoxville. He was always up to some monkey +business, that feller, _olav hasholom_." + +"Sure, I know," the stranger continued; "but old man Baum got also one +sister, my mother, Mrs. Gershon. You must remember my father, Sam +Gershon. Works for years by Richter as a cutter. My name is Mr. Max +Gershon." + +"Why, sure I do!" Abe said, shaking hands with his new-found +acquaintance. "So you are a son of old man Gershon? Do you live here in +New York, Mr. Gershon?" + +"No; I live in Johnsville, Texas," Mr. Gershon replied. "This is my +first visit North in twenty-five years. Yes, Mr.--er----" + +"Potash," Abe said. + +"Mr. Potash," Gershon continued, "I'm feeling pretty lonesome, I can +tell you. All my folks is dead: my father, my mother, my two uncles; and +there ain't a soul here in New York which remembers me at all." + +"Is that so?" Abe commented, with ready sympathy. + +"Yes, Mr. Potash," Gershon said, "when I was a boy I done a fool thing. +When I was sixteen years old already I run away from home because my +father licked me; and I never wrote to 'em or sent no word to 'em until +it was too late. You see, up to five years since, I didn't done so good. +Everything seemed to went against me, Mr. Potash; but lately I am doing +a fine business for a small place like Johnsville, and to-day I got the +best store down there." + +"You don't say so!" Abe cried. + +"So I thought last month, instead I would go to Dallas or Forth Worth +like I usually done, I would come straight on to New York and not only +buy my fall goods but also give the old folks a surprise. And what do I +find? Everybody is dead." + +Mr. Gershon pressed a handkerchief to his eyes. + +"You shouldn't take on so," Abe said, leaning across the table and +placing his hand on Gershon's arm. "It's the way of the world, Mr. +Gershon, and I could assure you we got the finest line of garments in +our store, which it is first-class stuff, up to the minute, and prices +and everything just right." + +Mr. Gershon wiped his eyes. + +"You must excuse me, Mr. Potash," he said. "My feelings is got the +better of me." + +"That's all right," Abe murmured. "Here is our card, and you should +positively come up to see us. Even if you wouldn't buy from us a button, +Mr. Gershon, it would be a pleasure for us to see you in our place." + +"I would sure be there," Mr. Gershon said as he pocketed the card. + +"Waiter," Abe called, "put this here gentleman's check on mine and bring +us two of them thirty-cent cigars." + + * * * * * + +So eagerly did Morris await the advent of Uncle Mosha Kronberg in Potash +& Perlmutter's store that he even omitted to notice his partner's +prolonged absence at lunch; and when Abe returned to unfold the +narrative of his meeting with a prospective customer Morris heard it +without interest. + +"The feller is A number one, Mawruss," Abe said. "I stopped off to see +Sam Feder at the Kosciusko Bank, and Sam sent me to the Associated +Information Bureau. He is rated twenty to thirty thousand; credit good." + +"Yes?" Morris replied. "Tell me, Abe, did Mosha Kronberg say just when +he would be here?" + +"What are you wasting your time about Mosha Kronberg for?" Abe retorted. +"We got enough to do we should pick out a few good styles to show +Gershon." + +Morris nodded absently. His thoughts were centred on a short old man +with close-cropped beard who at that very moment was turning the corner +of Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street. Simultaneously Aaron Kronberg ran +across the street from Sammet Brothers' doorway and clapped the old +gentleman on the shoulder. + +"Hello, Uncle Mosha!" he cried. "What are you doing around here?" + +"Couldn't I come uptown oncet in a while if I would want to?" Uncle +Mosha replied, somewhat testily. + +"Sure, sure," Aaron Kronberg hastened to say. "Did you eat yet?" + +"I never eat in the middle of the day," Uncle Mosha said. "I am up here +on business." + +"On business?" Aaron repeated. "What for business?" + +"I think I sold the house," Mosha replied. + +For one brief moment Aaron gazed at his uncle and then he linked his arm +in that of the old man. "Come over to Twenty-third Street and drink +anyhow a cup of coffee," he said, and ten minutes later they entered an +enamelled brick dairy restaurant. + +"You say you think you sold the house?" Aaron said, after a waitress had +served them. + +Uncle Mosha nodded. He was emptying a cup of coffee in long, noisy +inhalations and at the same time consuming cheese sandwiches with +uncommonly keen appetite--for a man who never ate in the middle of the +day. + +"Yes, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said, as he emerged all dripping from the cup, +"I think I sold the house, and I guess I would have another cup +coffee." + +"Go ahead," Aaron replied. "But what for you want to sell the house, +Uncle Mosha? It brings you in anyhow a good income." + +"A good income for some people, Aaron, but for me not. What is one +thousand a year, Aaron?" + +"One thousand a year, uncle, is a whole lot, especially to a man like +you, what lives simple." + +"My living expenses is very little, I admit, Aaron," Uncle Mosha +replied, after he had disposed of the second cup of coffee with noises +approximating a bathtubful of soapy water disappearing down the +wastepipe. "I don't make no fuss about my living, Aaron, but you got to +remember, Aaron, that a man couldn't live on living expenses alone. +Oncet in a while a feller likes to take a little flyer in the market and +try and make a few dollars. Ain't it?" + +"What!" Aaron exclaimed. This was a phase of his uncle's character that +had never been exposed before. + +"Yes, Aaron," Uncle Mosha continued; "living ain't only having a room to +sleep in and food to eat, Aaron. Other things is living, Aaron. Stocks +is living and auction pinocle is also living, and going oncet in a while +on theayter is living too, Aaron. I may be an old man, Aaron, but I +ain't dead yet." + +Aaron's pale face grew almost ghastly at these shocking disclosures, and +when Uncle Mosha concluded his audacious creed with a furtive wink his +nephew visibly started. + +"But you got plenty other money to invest in the stock market without +you would sell the house, Uncle Mosha," he said. + +"Have I?" Uncle Mosha rejoined. "That's news to me, Aaron. You see in +nineteen-seven was a big panic and some stocks is better as others. Them +which ain't, Aaron, they went and gone so low, Aaron, they ain't never +come back again and perhaps never will. Might you heard something about +it in Port Sullivan maybe? Ten thousand dollars I dropped on them +suckers down in Wall Street, Aaron." + +Uncle Mosha smiled blandly at his nephew, who grasped the edge of the +table to steady his whirling senses. + +"But what's the use talking," Uncle Mosha continued. "What is _vorbei_ +is _vorbei_; and I guess I would have another cup of coffee." + +"You had enough coffee," Aaron cried sternly. "So you gone and dropped +your money on stocks, hey?" + +Uncle Mosha shrugged and extended one palm in philosophic resignation. + +"It was my own money, Aaron," he said. "I didn't stole it." + +"This ain't no time for making jokes, Uncle Mosha," Aaron retorted. "Who +was it you was going to sell the house to?" + +"Maybe you know him," Uncle Mosha said. "It's a feller by the name +Mawruss Perlmutter." + +Aaron Kronberg's pallor gave way to a flood of crimson, and for a moment +he choked incoherently as he gazed at Uncle Mosha in amazement. + +"Why, that feller Perlmutter is a friend of Alex," he gasped at length. + +"Sure, I know," Uncle Mosha replied; "but even if he is a friend of Alex +his money ain't counterfeit." + +"But he'd rob you of your shirt, Uncle Mosha," Aaron exclaimed. "He's a +dangerous feller." + +"I'm used to dangerous fellers, Aaron," Uncle Mosha answered calmly. "I +told you before, I dropped ten thousand in Wall Street." + +"Yes; and if you would sold this here house, Uncle Mosha, you would drop +ten thousand more." + +"Not ten thousand, Aaron. I only got eight thousand equity in the +house." + +Again Aaron stared at his uncle. + +"Do you mean to told me you only got eight thousand dollars in the +world?" he groaned. + +"The world is a pretty big place, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said; "but I +wouldn't lie to you anyhow. Eight thousand is the figure." + +"Then all I could say is, Uncle Mosha, before you would got to go +begging on the streets yet, you would better sell that house and come to +live with me up in Port Sullivan." + +Uncle Mosha shrugged once more. + +"I'll tell you the truth, Aaron," he said; "I was going to suggest that +to you myself yet. So let's go right off and see this here Perlmutter +and we'll talk about Port Sullivan later." + +"Not by a damsite," Aaron declared, as he rose from his chair and +grasped his uncle firmly by the arm. "You come with me and we'll sell +this house to a feller I know." + + * * * * * + +When Max Gershon entered the salesroom of Potash & Perlmutter that +afternoon, Abe treated the incident as though it were the arrival of an +intimate friend after an absence of many years' duration. + +"How are you feeling now, Max?" he said, and then he introduced his +partner. "Mawruss," he called, "this is my friend, Mr. Max Gershon. Get +the cigars from the safe, Mawruss." + +After he had relieved his visitor of his hat and coat he drew forward a +comfortable chair and literally thrust Max into it. + +"Well, Max," Abe said, after the cigars had gone around, "I sure am glad +to see you. Mawruss, don't he look like his uncle, old man Baum?" + +Morris regarded Max critically for a moment. + +"Old man Baum was a pretty good-looking feller, Abe," he said, "but he +wasn't so tall as Mr. Gershon; otherwise they are the same identical +people." + +"Never mind his looks," Max said, beaming. "If I should have only his +business ability I would be satisfied." + +"He made plenty money in his time," Morris commented. + +"Yes, and lost it again too," Max added; "but what's the use talking? +Money I ain't in need of exactly, y'understand." + +"You need goods, Max," Abe said. "Is that it?" + +"Well, I do and I don't, Abe," Max replied. "The fact is, Abe, I got a +good business down in Johnsville, but I couldn't extend it none on +account the place ain't big enough. Former times that was all cattle +country around there, and now it's all truck farms and cotton, and what +sort of business could a drygoods merchant do with cotton hands? Ain't I +right?" + +Abe nodded. + +"I tell you the honest truth, Abe," Max continued. "I would like to sell +out and come North. I got an idee if I would find some hustling young +feller up here which he got a good department store--good but small, +y'understand--in a live town, Abe, I would go with him as partners +together, and we could extend the business and make a good thing of it." + +Abe looked at Morris and then he slapped his thigh with his open hand. + +"By jimminy," he cried, "I got the very thing for you, Max." + +Morris gazed at his partner with raised eyebrows and then he too slapped +his thigh. + +"Alex Kronberg!" he exclaimed. + +"That's the feller," Abe said. "There's a man, Max, which he is honest +like the day and smart as a cutting machine. I know him since he was a +baby, y'understand, and he's worked his way up till now he's got a fine +business in Bridgetown. Only yesterday he says to me if he could get a +live partner with a little capital, y'understand, he would soon got the +biggest store in Bridgetown." + +"What for a town is Bridgetown?" Max asked. + +"Bridgetown is all right, Max," Abe said. "I give you my word, Max, they +got so many factories there which they burn soft coal, on the brightest +days you couldn't see the sun at all. It is an elegant place, Max." + +"And what is more, Max," Morris added, "only last Saturday night, Alex +tells me, the store was so crowded two saleswomen fainted." + +"It sounds good," Max admitted. "Who did you say owns the store?" + +"Alex Kronberg," Morris replied. + +"Kronberg--Kronberg," Max repeated. "The name sounds familiar. When did +you say he would be here?" + +"He ought to be in here every minute," Abe said. Hardly had he spoken +when the elevator door clanged and Alex himself entered. + +He glistened with perspiration, and his round, good-humoured face bore a +broad grin. + +"Phoo-ee!" he cried. "I'm all heated up." + +"What's the trouble, Alex?" Morris asked. + +"I just run into Aaron and Uncle Mosha coming out of a coffee house, and +the way them two suckers cussed me out, Mawruss!--you wouldn't believe +it at all. I couldn't understand what they was talking about, Mawruss, +but they mentioned your name and something about Mosha's house on +Madison Street." + +Abe glared at Morris and then turned to Alex with a forced smile. + +"Don't you bother yourself about them fellers, Alex," he said. + +"What do I care for 'em, Abe?" Alex replied. "I got my own troubles." + +"Sure," Morris broke in; "but what did they say about the house, Alex?" + +"So far what I could hear, Mawruss, Aaron says you are trying to buy +from Mosha the house." + +"No such thing, Alex, believe me," Abe interrupted. + +"But Aaron says he's already got a customer for the house," Alex went +on; "and who d'ye think it is?" + +Abe wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and continued to glare at +Morris. + +"I don't know who it is," Abe said, "and, what's more, I don't care. I +want to introduce you to a friend of mine, Alex. This is Mr. Max +Gershon, from Johnsville, Texas." + +"I'm pleased to meetcher, Mr. Gershon," Alex replied. "Yes, Mawruss, +Aaron says he sold the house already, and who d'ye think he sold it to?" + +Morris made an inarticulate noise which he intended as an expression of +curiosity. + +"A friend of yours by the name Leon Sammet," Alex Kronberg said. + + * * * * * + +"You see how it is?" Aaron Kronberg said to his Uncle Mosha as they +passed down Fifth Avenue after their encounter with Alex. "You see how +it is? The feller is a desperate character, Uncle Mosha. You couldn't +make him mad even." + +"A lowlife!" Uncle Mosha cried, shaking his head from side to side. "His +mother before him was just such another like him. I could spit blood +hollering at that woman and she wouldn't answer me back at all." + +"Well, now you got it," Aaron retorted triumphantly; "and so, if you +would start to sell your house to his friend Perlmutter, the least that +happens to you is they would do you for the whole thing." + +"Maybe you're right," Uncle Mosha admitted. + +"And so I am going to take you over to see a friend of mine by the name +Leon Sammet," Aaron continued, "and if you want to leave the thing to +me, Uncle Mosha, I am certain sure I could get you a good price for the +house." + +"Certain sure nobody could be of getting a good price for a house in +these times, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said. "Real estate on the East Side is +'way down, Aaron. The subway ruins everything." + +"I don't care about subways nor nothing," Aaron cried. "I would get you +what you want for that house. What would you consider a good price for +the house, uncle?" + +"A very good price would be forty-two two-fifty," Uncle Mosha replied; +"but me I would be willing to accept forty thousand." + +"Well, lookyhere," Aaron commenced; "I'm going to do this for you, Uncle +Mosha. I'm going to get Leon Sammet to give you not forty thousand or +forty-two two-fifty neither. I'm going to get Leon Sammet to give you +forty-three thousand for the house, uncle, but I only do it on one +condition, uncle." + +"And what is that?" Uncle Mosha asked. + +"I would do it for you only on condition you come to live with me at +Port Sullivan," Aaron concluded; "and also you must give me, to take +care of it for you, all the cash money you get for the house." + +Uncle Mosha frowned as he drew from his pocket a small packet wrapped in +newspaper. This he proceeded to unwrap until there was exposed the +unburnt half of a large black cigar. It was all that remained of Morris +Perlmutter's gift and Uncle Mosha carefully knocked the ash off before +he put it in his mouth. + +"Why don't you answer me?" Aaron asked. + +"I got to think, ain't I?" Uncle Mosha mumbled as he paused to light up. +He puffed away in silence until they had nearly reached the entrance to +Sammet Brothers' place of business. + +"_Schon gut_, Aaron," Uncle Mosha said at length. "I will do it with +this here exception: I would sell the house for forty-three thousand +dollars, subject to a first mortgage of twenty-five thousand dollars, +and a second mortgage of ninety-two hundred and fifty dollars. That +leaves eighty-seven hundred and fifty dollars balance, ain't it?" + +Aaron nodded. + +"Then this here Sammet is to pay seven hundred and fifty dollars cash on +signing the contract and eight thousand dollars on closing the title," +Uncle Mosha declared; "and the exception is that you should take care of +the eight thousand dollars, but the seven hundred and fifty dollars +belongs to me and I could do what I like with it." + +For ten minutes Aaron argued with his uncle in front of Sammet Brothers' +building, but all to no purpose, for Uncle Mosha remained unmoved. +Either he was to receive the seven hundred and fifty dollars on the +signing of the contract or the entire deal was off; and at length he +prevailed. + +"All right," Aaron said, "you shall have the seven hundred and fifty, +but one thing you must got to do. When we go into Leon Sammet's loft I +want you to let me and Leon speak a few words, something alone together. +Are you agreeable?" + +"Sure, why not?" Uncle Mosha agreed. "You got to work the feller up to +buying the house, ain't yer?" + +Aaron nodded gloomily as they entered the elevator, and when it stopped +at Sammet Brothers' floor he strode out So rapidly that Uncle Mosha, who +had never before visited Sammet Brothers', hardly noticed his nephew's +exit. Before he could follow Aaron the elevator attendant slammed the +door, and it was not reopened until Uncle Mosha had expressed his +agitation in a burst of spirited profanity. + +"Did you see that, Aaron?" he exclaimed after he had caught up to his +nephew. "I come pretty close to getting killed just now in that there +elevator." + +"Why don't you keep your eyes open?" Aaron asked callously. "Now you sit +down here and wait until I am coming out." + +He entered Leon Sammet's private office, and as soon as Uncle Mosha +found himself alone in the showroom he clenched the butt of his cigar +between his yellow teeth and explored his pockets for pencil and +paper. Having found them, he was soon plunged in a maze of figures +representing the profit in going short of seven hundred shares on a +one-point margin, assuming that the market dropped eight points in ten +days. + +"Hallo, Aaron," Leon Sammet cried when he caught sight of the younger +Kronberg. + +Aaron nodded, with half-closed eyes. + +"Sit down, Aaron," Leon continued; "you look worried." + +"I bet yer," Aaron replied. "What d'ye think of that sucker?" + +"What's Alex been doing now?" Leon asked. + +"Alex! What d'ye mean, Alex?" Aaron said. "Alex I ain't worrying about +at all. I mean Uncle Mosha Kronberg." + +Forthwith he unfolded to Leon the sum of his uncle's iniquities, sparing +no detail of his own well-nigh ruined prospects and ending with an +account of Uncle Mosha's interrupted deal with Morris Perlmutter. + +Leon slammed the top of his desk with his open hand. + +"Before I would let that shark, Perlmutter, get the house I would buy it +myself." + +"Sure, I know!" Aaron replied. "I thought you would, Leon; but that +ain't necessary. All I want you to do is this, Leon. I told the old +man I could get you to buy the house for forty-three thousand +dollars." + +"Forty-three thousand?" Leon exclaimed. "Why that house ain't worth +forty-three thousand!" + +"What do I care what it's worth?" Aaron replied. "The game is this, +Leon. You will buy the house for me--Aaron--with my money. You got to +pay seven hundred and fifty cash on signing the contract, and the +balance of eight thousand dollars above the mortgages you got to pay +when the title is closed. I fixed it with the old man that he is to give +me the eight thousand dollars to take care of for him--see? So, when the +title is closed I will give you eight thousand dollars to give Mosha, +and Mosha will turn it back to me; and, Leon, if he ever sees that eight +thousand dollars again it won't be this side of the grave." + +Leon nodded. + +"Meantime you've got the house," he said. + +"Exactly," Aaron replied. "I get the house. All it cost me is seven +hundred and fifty dollars cash, and I also get unloaded on me for the +rest of his life the old man. And while I don't wish him any harm, +y'understand, _Gott soll hueten_ anything should happen to him Leon, it +couldn't come too soon for me." + +"I bet yer," Leon said fervently. "And now let's get him in here and +we'll all go down to Henry D. Feldman's office and fix the matter up." + +Two hours later Leon and Uncle Mosha had signed a contract for the sale +of the Madison Street house, title to be closed and deed to be delivered +within thirty days. The purchase price was stated to be forty-three +thousand dollars, payable as follows: thirty-four thousand two hundred +and fifty dollars by the vendee taking the house subject to mortgages +aggregating that amount, seven hundred and fifty dollars cash on signing +the contract, and the balance of eight thousand dollars in cash or +certified check at the closing of the title. + +Prior to leaving his office Leon had cashed Aaron Kronberg's check for +seven hundred and fifty dollars, and the money, in bills of large +denomination, was turned over to Mosha Kronberg, who tucked them +carefully away in his breast pocket. + +"Well, Aaron," he said after the operation was completed, "I guess I'll +be going back to Madison Street." + +"Wait; I'll go along with you," Aaron cried. + +"Don't you trouble yourself," Uncle Mosha declared with a confidential +wink at Leon Sammet and Henry D. Feldman; "I could take care of myself +all right." + +"What are you going to do with all that money, Mr. Kronberg?" Leon asked +as Uncle Mosha turned to leave. The old man paused with his hand on the +door, and once more he favoured his questioner with a significant wink. + +"Leave that to me," he said. + +The thirty days succeeding Morris Perlmutter's visit to Madison Street +were busy ones for all the Kronbergs. Alex had accompanied Max Gershon +to Bridgetown, where conditions more than fulfilled Abe's glowing +account, and the formation of the Kronberg-Gershon Drygoods Company +proceeded without delay. As for Aaron Kronberg, he found that the +borrowing of eight thousand dollars, even for so short a period as would +be necessary to consummate the Madison Street deal, was no easy task. At +length he raised the sum by paying a large bonus to his bankers in Port +Sullivan, and it was deposited to the credit of Sammet Brothers four +days before the closing of title. + +Meantime Uncle Mosha had not neglected the opportunity afforded him +during his last few days of liberty. With his seven hundred and fifty +dollars he had sought the brokerage offices of Klinkberg & Company the +morning after signing his contract with Leon Sammet. There he selected +American Chocolate and Cocoa as the medium of his speculation and +promptly went short of seven hundred on a one-point margin. The same +afternoon he was within a sixteenth of being wiped out when the market +turned, and nearly one month later he took his profit of twenty-one +hundred dollars, which with the original investment, minus the brokerage +amounted to twenty-eight hundred dollars. + +"Never no more," he said to the brokerage firm's cashier as he drew +his profit. "I am through oncet and for all. No one could get me to +touch another share of stock so long as I live." + +With this solemn declaration he passed out of Klinkberg & Company's +office just as a short stout man burst into the hall from a door marked +"Customers." + +"Wow!" the short stout man exclaimed. + +"_Warum_ wow?" Uncle Mosha asked. + +"Amalgamated Refineries goes up four points on six sales in half an +hour," the short stout man replied, "and I win two thousand." + +The short stout man started down the hall and executed a fantastic +dancing step in front of the elevators, while Uncle Mosha entered the +door marked "Customers." + +"Mr. Klinkberg," he said, handing Klinkberg & Company's two thousand +eight hundred dollar check to that firm's senior partner, "buy me one +thousand shares Amalgamated Refineries at the market." + +An hour later he walked leisurely along Madison Street, and as he +approached his own doorway Aaron Kronberg swooped down upon him. + +"Uncle Mosha," he almost screamed, "where was you?" + +"Where was I?" Uncle Mosha replied. "Why, I was where I was. That's +where I was. What difference does it make to you where I was?" + +"What difference does it make to me?" Aaron cried. "Ain't I putting up +the--er--don't you know you was due at Henry D. Feldman's office to +close your title at one o'clock?--and here it is half-past one already!" + +For a minute Uncle Mosha's face fell. In the excitement of following the +profitable course of his speculation he had completely forgotten his +real estate transaction, but he quickly recovered his composure. + +"Oh, well," he said, "let 'em wait! The house won't run away, Aaron. +Let's go and get a cup coffee somewheres." + +"Coffee, nothing!" Aaron growled; "you're coming right along with me. I +got a carriage waiting for you." + +He hustled the old man into a decrepit conveyance that was drawn up to +the curb and they started immediately for Henry D. Feldman's office. + +"Honest, Aaron," Uncle Mosha sighed, "I feel like I was riding to my own +funeral." + +"Don't worry, Uncle Mosha," Aaron said; "with the _tzuris_ which I got +it lately you would quicker ride to mine." + +"Well, Aaron," Uncle Mosha rejoined, "as old man Baum used to say, we +all got to die sooner or later, Aaron; and all we could take with us is +our good name." + +"You wouldn't got to pay no excess baggage rates on that," Aaron said +as the carriage came to a stop in front of Feldman's office building. + +Two minutes later they entered the offices of Henry D. Feldman and were +ushered immediately into the presence of that distinguished advocate +himself. As they passed through the doorway Feldman rose from his seat. +He was not alone, for at one side of a long library table sat Leon +Sammet, while opposite to him a tall, sandy-haired person methodically +arranged various bundles of papers which he drew out of capacious +pasteboard envelopes. + +"Ah, gentlemen, you're here at last," Feldman cried. "Mr. Jones, this is +Mr. Kronberg and his nephew, Mr. Aaron Kronberg. Mr. Jones is a +representative of the Land Insurance & Title Guarantee Company, who at +my request has examined the title to your house, Mr. Kronberg." + +"All right," Uncle Mosha said; "I ain't scared of 'em. I owned the house +since 1890 already--that's pretty near twenty years, and I ain't paid no +Confederate money for it neither." + +Mr. Jones cleared his throat noisily, and as he did so a round white +object leaped from beneath his collar and bumped against his chin. It +was his Adam's apple. + +"Did you say you owned the house twenty years?" he inquired in tones of +such profundity that Feldman was obliged to ask him to repeat his +question. At the second repetition Uncle Mosha said that it might be a +month less than twenty years. + +"The record shows that you bought the house a little more than nineteen +years ago," Mr. Jones continued--his manner suggested a hanging judge in +the act of assuming the black cap--"and therefore you could claim no +adverse possession, even assuming there were no disabilities." + +"What d'ye mean, claim?" Uncle Mosha asked with asperity. "I don't claim +nothing. I already got seven hundred and fifty dollars and there is +coming to me eight thousand dollars more." + +"I think, Mr. Jones," Feldman interrupted, "I ought to explain to Mr. +Kronberg the _locus in quo_." + +Aaron Kronberg turned pale and wiped a few drops of perspiration from +his forehead. + +"What is there to explain, Mr. Feldman?" he broke in. "Go ahead and +close the title to the property. I couldn't sit here all day." + +"There's a great deal to be explained," Feldman continued. "He is unable +to convey good title to the property _non constat_ he received a deed of +it in 1890." + +"I never heard tell of the feller at all," Uncle Mosha exclaimed. "I am +the only one which received a deed of the property." + +Feldman gazed at Uncle Mosha for one dazed moment and then proceeded. + +"The last owner in Mr. Kronberg's claim of title--I mean his immediate +vendor--was the only surviving collateral of an intestate," he said. + +"That's where you make a big mistake," Uncle Mosha interrupted. "The +feller which I bought the house from was a salesman for a shirt +concern." + +Feldman glared at Uncle Mosha and was about to crush him with a flood of +law Latin when the door opened. + +"You got to excuse me for butting in, Mr. Feldman," said a harsh voice +which presently was seen to issue from the person of Morris Perlmutter, +"but me and my partner is got to get back to the store and Max and his +partner is also busy to-day." + +"I'll be with you in just one moment, Mr. Perlmutter," Feldman replied. + +"You says that an hour ago," Morris grumbled as he closed the door +behind him. + +"Now, Mr. Kronberg," Feldman continued, "I'd like to elucidate this +situation for you as succinctly as possible." + +"Do that afterward, if you got to do it," Uncle Mosha broke in; "but +just now tell me what the trouble is." + +"What's the use talking to a mutt that don't understand the English +language at all?" Feldman cried. "Listen here to me. You bought your +house from a fellow called Nathan Baum." + +"Sure, I did," Uncle Mosha said. "You remember him, Sammet? He went to +work and got killed in a railroad accident ten years ago already." + +"Don't interrupt," Feldman cried. "Nathan Baum was the brother of Max +Baum, a former owner of the house. Max Baum died while he owned the +house and he left no will, and Nathan Baum claimed the house as the only +heir of Max Baum." + +"That's right," Mosha agreed. "Nathan Baum was the only relative in the +world which Max Baum got it. He had a sister, but she died before Max." + +"Was Max Baum's sister ever married?" Mr. Jones asked in funereal +accents. + +"Sure she was married," Mosha answered. "She was married to Sam Gershon. +He works for years by Richter as a cutter. Sam is dead too." + +"Did they ever have any children?" Mr. Jones inquired. + +"One boy they had," Uncle Mosha said. "Shall I ever forget it? What a +beautiful boy that was, Mr. Feldman--a regular picture! Mrs. Gershon +thinks a whole lot of that boy, too, I bet yer." + +"Never mind the trimmings, Kronberg," Feldman broke in. "Is the boy +alive?" + +"That's what we're anxious to know," Mr. Jones interrupted. "My company +had ascertained that there was one son, but we couldn't find out if he +were dead or alive." + +"If the boy was alive Mrs. Gershon would be alive too," Mosha said. +"Mrs. Gershon died on account of that boy. What a lovely boy that was! I +can see him now--the way he looked. He had eyes black like coal, and +a----" + +Here Uncle Mosha stopped short. His jaw dropped and his fishy gray eyes +seemed to start from his head as he gazed at the door. It stood ajar +some six inches and exposed the features of a person impatient to the +point of frenzy. + +"Ex-cuse me, Mr. Feldman!" said the intruder; "I may be a Rube from +Texas, y'understand, but I got my feelings too, and unless you come in +here right away and close the matter up me and my partner would go and +get our agreement fixed up somewhere else again." + +"I'll be with you in just one moment, Mr. Gershon," Feldman replied. + +"Gershon?" Uncle Mosha muttered. "Gershon!" + +He rose to his feet and tottered across the room toward the doorway, but +at the threshold his strength failed him and he fell headlong to the +floor. + +In the scene of confusion that followed only Henry D. Feldman remained +calm. He touched the electric button on his desk. + +"Go down to the Algonquin Building and fetch a doctor," he said to the +office-boy who responded, "and on your way out see if we have any +blank petitions for administration in the Surrogate's Court. If we +haven't, buy a couple on your way back. The old man may not pull +through." + +When Uncle Mosha's eyes opened in consciousness of his surroundings they +rested on Max Gershon, who bent over the old man as anxiously as did +either of his nephews. + +"Max Gershon, ain't it?" Uncle Mosha asked feebly. + +Gershon nodded. + +"You shouldn't try to talk," he said. + +"I'm all right," Uncle Mosha replied. "I need only a cup coffee. If +Aaron would let me got it before I come here this wouldn't never of +happened." + +Aaron recognized the justice of his uncle's criticism by personally +seeking a nearby restaurant, and after an interval of ten minutes, +during which Abe and Morris took turns with Max and Alex in fanning the +patient, he returned with a pot of steaming coffee. Uncle Mosha drank +three cups in rapid succession and heaved a great sigh. + +"You ain't got maybe a cigar about you, Max?" he said. + +"Smoke this, Uncle Mosha," Alex Kronberg cried, pulling a large satiny +invincible from his waistcoat pocket and thrusting it at his uncle. For +one hesitating minute the old man looked from Alex to the cigar, but at +last its glossy perfection overcame his scruples. + +"Much obliged, Alex," he said. + +"That's all right," Alex mumbled as he struck a match. "How do you feel +now, uncle?" + +"First rate," Uncle Mosha replied as he blew out great clouds of smoke; +"although I ought to feel a whole lot worse, Alex, when I see Maxie +Gershon here. Twenty-five years ago I seen him last and he looks the +same fat-faced feller with the black eyes. Only to think he now comes +back and takes away half my house from me." + +"I ain't come back to do no such thing!" Max cried. "I could assure you, +Mr. Kronberg, although me and Alex Kronberg is going as partners +together, I never knew until I seen you here that you was any relation +of his. As for your house, Mr. Kronberg, I don't know nothing about it +at all." + +"Don't you?" Uncle Mosha exclaimed. "Well, I'll tell you. It's like +this." + +"_Stigun!_" Aaron hissed. "Don't open your mouth, Uncle Mosha." + +"What d'ye mean, don't open my mouth?" Uncle Mosha retorted. "D'ye think +I'm a crook? If I got a house which it don't belong to me at all, then I +don't want it." + +He turned his back on Aaron and straightway he narrated the full +circumstances surrounding his purchase of the Madison Street house. + +"Certainly I ain't no lawyer nor nothing," he continued, "but when old +Max Baum died you was due to get just as much as your Uncle Nathan out +of his estate, and if Nathan Baum swindled me out of my money by +claiming he owns the whole thing that couldn't give me no right to your +share, ain't it?" + +Max nodded. + +"Then what ain't mine I don't want at all," Uncle Mosha continued; "and +so, Maxie, you and me gives Leon Sammet here a deed of the house and +Leon pays us the balance of eight thousand dollars. Out of that you get +four thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars, because me, I +already got seven hundred and fifty dollars. Are you agreeable to fix it +that way, Sammet?" + +Leon looked at Aaron Kronberg, who was gulping convulsively in an effort +to express adequately all he felt. At length he commenced to address his +uncle in husky tones. + +"You cut-throat!" he croaked. "You robber, you! You shed my blood! Give +me back my seven hundred and fifty dollars." + +"Your seven hundred and fifty!" Uncle Mosha exclaimed. + +"That's what I said," Aaron went on. His voice rose to a hoarse scream +as he proceeded. "Did you think any one else would give forty-three +thousand dollars for that dawg-house but me? Sammet ain't got nothing to +do with it; he's only a dummy." + +"So!" Leon Sammet said bitterly. "I am only a dummy, am I?" + +"Wait _one_ minute!" Uncle Mosha cried. "Do you mean to told me, Mr. +Sammet, that you was buying this here house for Aaron?" + +"Well, that's about the size of it," Leon admitted. + +"Then what are you kicking about?" Uncle Mosha said. "You are a dummy." + +Throughout the moving scenes of that entire afternoon Leon had acted the +part of disinterested onlooker to the point of lethargy, but now he +fairly glared at Uncle Mosha. + +"I don't got to stay here to be called names," he said. + +"My trouble's what you got to stay here for," Uncle Mosha retorted. +"Yes, boys; what d'ye think for a highwayman like that Aaron Kronberg?" + +Aaron blushed a fiery red. + +"Come on, Leon," he said. "Let's get out of this." + +"Hold on!" Max Gershon shouted. "Don't you do nothing of the kind, +Sammet. Me and Mr. Mosha Kronberg we own this here house together, and +he made a contract with you to sell you this here house which I stand +by. Do you want to take it _oder_ not? Because if not, we would keep +your seven hundred and fifty dollars." + +Leon Sammet emitted a huge guffaw. + +"That worries me a whole lot," he replied. "As Aaron just told you, the +seven hundred and fifty belongs to him." + +"Very true," Feldman interrupted, "but it was you who engaged me to +examine the title, Mr. Sammet, and my fees and disbursements in this +matter amount to five hundred dollars." + +Leon Sammet sat down again. + +"Come on, Leon," Aaron cried. "What are you waiting for?" + +"Do you mean to told me, Mr. Feldman, I owe you five hundred dollars?" +Leon asked. + +"Five hundred and eight dollars and forty-two cents to be exact," said +Feldman, crunching a slip of paper. + +"Then all I got to say is," Leon declared, "I got here a certified check +for eight thousand dollars which Aaron Kronberg gives me, and I would +sure hold it until he secures me against your bill." + +"Say, lookyhere, boys," Alex Kronberg said at length, "I've been +listening to all this here Megillah and I ain't said a word nor nothing. +But I'll tell you what I'll do. It's a cinch that Uncle Mosha won't go +to live with Aaron now, so I'll take him to live with me." + +"I am agreeable," said Uncle Mosha. + +"Furthermore," Alex continued, "Uncle Mosha and Max will keep the house. +I will also pay Mr. Feldman his five hundred dollars and take it out of +the seven hundred and fifty which Aaron paid Uncle Mosha. The balance of +two hundred and fifty Aaron shall have back again." + +"I am content," Uncle Mosha replied. "I don't want none of Aaron's +money; and you could take it from me, Alex, Aaron would never see none +of my money." + +"And now, gentlemen, let us fix up this copartnership agreement," Max +Gershon said as Aaron Kronberg slunk out of the office, followed by Leon +Sammet. "Mr. Potash and Mr. Perlmutter have wasted pretty near the whole +afternoon here." + +"That's all right," Abe said. "I don't consider we wasted any time. Many +a night I threw away four dollars taking a customer on the theayter yet, +when the show wasn't near so good as what we seen it this afternoon; and +the customer ain't bought no goods off me anyhow." + +"Don't you worry yourself about that, Abe!" Max cried. "You got a couple +of customers at this show which they would buy goods from you so long as +we are in business, and don't you forget it. Ain't I right, Alex?" + +Alex nodded. + +"Come on, Uncle Mosha," he said. "Come inside with us and see this +through." + +"I'll wait out here," Uncle Mosha replied. "I got enough excitement for +one afternoon." + +He waited until Mr. Jones, of the title company, had packed up his +papers, and then after Henry D. Feldman had followed the others into the +adjoining room and had closed the door behind him, Uncle Mosha touched +the button on Feldman's desk. + +"Go out and buy for me an evening paper," he said to the boy who +responded. + +"Say," the boy replied, "there was a doctor waiting to see you for more +than half an hour." + +"Tell him to wait a little longer yet," Mosha rejoined. "I may got to +have him after I am seeing the paper." + +"He ain't here now," the boy said. "He went away and says you should +send him a check for five dollars." + +"I hope he don't need the money for nothing particular," Uncle Mosha +commented; "on account he stands a good show to be disappointed. Hurry +up with the paper." + +Ten minutes afterward the boy returned. He handed an evening paper to +Uncle Mosha, who hastily planted a pair of pince-nez on his broad, flat +nose and folded back the financial page. + +"Now let's give a look," he murmured to himself as he glanced hastily at +the column marked "The Stock Market." + +At the head of the list appeared the following item: + + Sales Highest Lowest Closing Net Ch'g + 45100 Amal. Ref. 46-5/8 38-1/2 38-1/8 --4-1/8 + +"Wiped again!" he muttered as he dropped the paper to the floor. + +Half an hour later, when Alex and Max Gershon came out of the +adjoining room with the copartnership agreement duly executed, they +found Uncle Mosha calmly smoking the last of his cigar while he pondered +over the "News for Investors" column. The tabulated list of quotations +was not unnoticed by Max as he felt for another cigar to present to the +old man. + +"Do you ever speculate in Wall Street, Mr. Kronberg?" he asked. + +"Oncet upon a time I used to," Uncle Mosha replied, "but never no more, +Maxie. It's a game which you couldn't beat--take it from me, Maxie--not +if you was a hundred times so smart as Old Man Baum." + + * * * * * + +"Well, Abe," Morris Perlmutter remarked as they sat in their showroom +ten days after the events above noted, "I did mix up in Alex Kronberg's +family matters and, with all your croaking, what is the result? Alex has +got a good partner; Uncle Mosha has got a good home, and ourselves we +got a good order for three thousand dollars, which otherwise we wouldn't +got at all." + +"What are you talking nonsense, Mawruss?" Abe said. "Things wouldn't +turned out the way they did if it wouldn't be I met Max Gershon in +Hammersmith's. That's what started it, Mawruss." + +"Nothing of the kind, Abe," Morris retorted. "What started it, Abe, was +me when I went down to Madison Street and give Uncle Mosha that cigar, +Abe. I tell you, Abe, it's an old saying and a true one: Throw away a +loaf of bread in the water, y'understand, and sooner or later, Abe, it +would come home like chickens to roost." + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +THE RAINCOAT KING + + +"The table is all right, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked as he consulted +the timecard of the Long Island Railroad one hot July afternoon. "The +table is all right; I ain't kicking about the table, y'understand, but +the class of people which they stay in the house, Mawruss, is pretty +_schlecht_. My Rosie couldn't get along with 'em at all." + +"You don't tell me!" Morris replied. "Riesenberger's is got a big +reputation, Abe, and when me and Minnie stayed there two years ago there +was an elegant class of people stopping in the house. Would you believe +me, Abe, I tried to get up a game of auction pinocle there and I +couldn't do it! Nobody would play less than a dollar a hundred. I'm +surprised to hear the place is run down so." + +"Oh, if the house's got a big reputation for auction pinocle, Mawruss, +then that's something else again! They play just as high as former +times. Sidney Koblin lost forty dollars last night. With my own eyes I +seen it, Mawruss; and his father looks on and don't say nothing." + +"What does Max Koblin care for forty dollars, Abe?" Morris said. "The +feller's a millionaire. He's got ten pages of advertising in the _Cloak +and Suit Monthly Gazette_. I bet yer he spends more as forty dollars for +one page already. Wait; I'll show it to you." + +Morris opened the green-covered periodical and displayed a full-page +"ad." + + MAX KOBLIN + KING OF RAINCOATS + + "KOBLINETTE," THE RAINSHED FABRIC + + WEST 20TH STREET + NEW YORK + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe commented. "He was always a big faker, that +feller. Twenty years since already I used to eat by Gifkin's on Canal +Street, and one day Max Koblin comes in and says to me, 'Abe,' he says, +'I want you should drink a bottle tchampanyer wine on me.' In them days +Max works for old man Zudosky selling boys' reefers. Raincoats was like +oitermobiles; no one had discovered 'em yet. 'What's the matter, Max?' I +says. 'Old man Zudosky given you a raise?' I says. 'Raise nothing,' Max +says. 'I got a boy up to my house.' 'So,' I says, 'just because you +got a boy, Max, I should got a headache and neglect my business?' I +says. 'An idee!' I says. 'Take the dollar and a quarter, Max,' I says, +'and put it in the savings bank, and every time you give the boy a penny +make him put it away with the other money,' I says; 'and the first thing +you know, Max,' I says, 'when the boy gets to be twenty years old he's +got anyhow a couple hundred dollars in the savings bank.'" + +"And what did Max say?" Morris asked. + +"He laughs at me, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He says to me, 'when that boy +gets to be twenty years old he wouldn't need to got to have a couple +hundred dollars in the savings bank. I could give him all the money he +wants it.'" + +"Well, Max was right, ain't it?" Morris rejoined. "He could give the boy +all the money he wants." + +"Money ain't everything what that boy wants, Mawruss," Abe said. "A good +_potch_ on the side of the head oncet in a while is what that boy wants. +So fresh that young feller is, Mawruss, you wouldn't believe it at all. +Actually he runs an oitermobile what Max bought it for him for fifteen +hundred dollars, a birthday present, besides the other big car which +Koblin got it. Max _oser_ runs oitermobiles at Sidney's age. Piece goods +on a pooshcart from old man Zudosky's to the sponger's was all the +oitermobiling Max done it. To-day they are putting on style yet. +Suckers!" + +"Well, say, Abe," Morris protested, "what is it skin off your nose +supposing Max does buy oitermobiles for the boy? This is a free country, +Abe." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe declared, as he revealed the nub of the +whole matter; "and supposing my Rosie don't play poker, which, _Gott sei +dank_, she couldn't tell a king from an ace, what is that Mrs. Koblin's +business? She ain't supposed to know that, Mawruss, and yet she didn't +invite my Rosie to her poker party. Rosie wouldn't of gone anyhow, +Mawruss; but that ain't the point. Ain't my Rosie just as good as Mrs. +Klinger _oder_ Mrs. Elenbogen? Particularly Mrs. Elenbogen, which, three +years ago even, Kleiman & Elenbogen was still rated ten to fifteen +thousand, third credit. Only in the last two years they are coming up +so; and the way that Mrs. Elenbogen acts, you would think her husband +got a bank in Frankfort-am-Main when Rothschild was a new beginner yet. +Such fakers as them is too good for my Rosie, Mawruss. An idee!" + +"What do you worry yourself about women's fighting, Abe?" Morris asked. + +"Me worry myself, Mawruss!" Abe cried. "I much care for them people, +Mawruss. I am married to my Rosie now going on twenty-six years, will be +next May, and if I didn't know that she's got it on every one of them +cows in looks, in refinement and in every which way, Mawruss, then I +could worry, Mawruss. As it is, Mawruss, for my part they could play +poker till they are black in the face--what is it my business? I got +enough to attend to here in the store, Mawruss, without I should bother +myself." + +"I bet yer!" Morris agreed fervently. "That reminds me, Abe, Shapolnik +is leaving us on Saturday." + +"Well, Mawruss, I couldn't exactly break my heart about that, +y'understand?" Abe replied, "Skirt-cutters you could always get plenty +of 'em. What's the matter he ain't satisfied?" + +"Nothing's the matter," Morris said. "He is simply going into the pants +business. His brother-in-law is got a small place downtown and he is +going as partners together with him. They ought to make a success of it +too, Abe, if nerve would got anything to do with it. The feller actually +wants me I should give him an introduction to Feder of the Kosciusko +Bank." + +"Sure; why not?" Abe commented. + +"Why not?" Morris repeated. "What would Feder think of us if we are +bringing a yokel like Shapolnik into his office? The feller ain't been +two years in the country yet." + +"Don't knock a feller like Shapolnik just because he ain't putting on no +front nor throwing no bluffs, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "It's the faker +with the four-carat diamond pin which is doing his creditors, Mawruss, +but the yokel with the soup on his coat pays a hundred cents on the +dollar every time." + +Half an hour later Abe conducted his retiring skirt-cutter to the Fifth +Avenue branch of the Kosciusko Bank, and as they approached the corner +of Nineteenth Street on their return they encountered Max Koblin, the +Raincoat King. He was about to enter the tonneau of an automobile, while +Sidney Koblin, the Heir Apparent, sat at the tiller arrayed in a silk +duster and goggles. Max grinned maliciously as he noted Abe's shabby, +bearded companion. + +"Always entertaining the out-of-town trade, Abe?" he said. + +Abe relaxed his features in what he intended for a smile, but afterward +he turned to Shapolnik with a scowl. + +"Only one thing I got to tell you, Shapolnik," he declared. "Nowadays, +if a feller wants to make a success he must got to wear good clothes and +look like a _mensch_, y'understand? It never harms in business, +Shapolnik, that a feller should throw sometimes, oncet in a while, a +little bluff." + + * * * * * + +Between the ages of sixteen and twenty Sidney Koblin had so often tested +the maxim, "Boys will be boys," that Max Koblin's patience at length +became exhausted. "Do you mean to told me you ain't got one cent left +from that forty I gave you on Saturday?" Max asked on the Monday +morning following Shapolnik's resignation. + +"Aw, what's biting you?" Sidney cried. "You sat behind me last night and +if it wouldn't been for you I wouldn't of played that last four-hundred +hand at all. Cost forty-eight dollars, that advice of yours." + +This was a facer, to be sure, and Max paused before formulating a +rejoinder. + +"In the first place, Sidney," he began, "you didn't got no right to lead +no trump. I told you before lots of times, if you got the extra ten, get +rid of your meld first. And in the second place, Sidney, I wouldn't +stand for your extravagance no longer. It's time you turned around and +attended to business." + +"Aw, you never give me no show!" Sidney protested. "You keep me +monkeying around while other young fellers is out on the road. Look at +Mortie Savin and all them boys." + +"Sure, I know," Max rejoined. "They got heads on 'em. You couldn't add +up eight figures together, and at your age for a feller to write a hand +like that, Sidney----" + +"What are you kicking about?" Sidney exclaimed. "When you was my age you +couldn't sign your name even." + +"Well, that ain't here nor there, Sidney," Max replied as he pulled a +bill from the roll which he produced from his trousers pocket. "Here +is ten dollars and that's got to last you till Saturday night. D'ye +understand?" + +Sidney grunted as he tucked the bill into his waistcoat. He had heard +the same ultimatum once a week for the past two years, and he whistled +cheerfully as he despatched one of the stock boys for a package of +cigarettes. An hour later he lunched at Hammersmith's, while Abe Potash +sat at an adjacent table. As he consumed a modest portion of +_rostbraten_, Abe noted with a disapproving eye the cherry-stone clams, +green-turtle soup and _filet Chateaubriand_ which formed the menu of the +Heir Apparent; and when the latter topped off his meal with half a pint +of dry champagne and a _cafe parfait_ Abe seized his hat and fairly ran +from the restaurant. + +"If nobody would tell that feller Koblin what a lowlife bum he got it +for a son, Mawruss," he said as he entered the firm's private office ten +minutes later, "I will. Actually with my own eyes I seen it--the feller +eats for five dollars a lunch, and he ain't with a customer nor +nothing." + +"What is it your business what Sidney Koblin is eating, Abe?" Morris +rejoined. "If you wouldn't notice every mouthful the feller puts in his +face at all you would be back here a whole lot sooner. There's a feller +waiting for you in the showroom over half an hour since." + +"Who is he?" Abe asked. + +"I think it's that Mr.--Who's this, from Seattle, which he was in here +last fall and nearly bought from us them polo coats? I couldn't tell his +face exactly, but you remember what a swell dresser that feller was." + +Abe peered through the screen that divided the rooms. + +"I think you're right, Mawruss," he said. + +"I couldn't remember his name," Morris added, "and that's why I didn't +talk much to him. All I says was you would be in soon; and I give him a +cigar from the safe." + +Abe nodded and walked hurriedly out of the office. As he approached his +caller he extended his right hand. + +"How do you do?" he exclaimed, as he shook his visitor warmly by the hand. +"You're looking fine." + +The visitor smiled in return. + +"I thought you were going to tell me that," he replied. + +"Yes, indeed! You're looking a whole lot better than the last time I +seen you," Abe said. "When did you get in?" + +"I am here now going on half an hour already." + +"Well, why didn't you talk to my partner?" Abe asked. "He could fix you +up just as well as me." + +"I did talk to him," the newcomer replied, "but he is too stuck up to +talk to me at all." + +"Stuck up!" Abe exclaimed, with a note of real anguish in his tones. +"Stuck up! Why, you don't know my partner at all, Mister--er--excuse me, +do you got a card?" + +The stranger drew a card from his waistcoat pocket and with a proud +gesture handed it to Abe. It read as follows: + + Z. KATZBERG I. SCHAPP + KATZBERG & SCHAPP + FINE PANTS + 530 WEST WASHINGTON PLACE NEW YORK + +"I am taking your advice, Mr. Potash," he said. "I am taking your advice +all round. I cut 'em off." + +"You cut what off?" Abe asked. + +"The whiskers, Mr. Potash. Also I am making short the name. In Russland +Shapolnik is all right, Mr. Potash; but if a feller wants to make a +success in business he should be a little up to date, ain't it?" + +The cordial smile faded from Abe's face as he recognized his visitor. + +"There's such a thing as being too much up to date, Shapolnik," he said. +"You ain't got no right to fool my partner like that. Me, you couldn't +fool for a minute. Right away I says to myself, 'Here is a feller +which he wants to ask us something we should do him for a favour.' So, +spit it out, Shapolnik. What is it you want from us?" + +"Well, it's like this, Mr. Potash," Shapolnik began. "Me and my partner +we are wanting to take on somebody for a drummer, y'understand. We must +got it some one which he is already got a trade. _Aber_ he couldn't ask +for too much money at the start on account we are going slow. If you +know some young feller which he wants the job me and my partner would be +much obliged, Mr. Potash." + +"What d'ye think we are running here anyway, Shapolnik," Abe +retorted--"an employment agency?" + +"I am just taking chances might you would know somebody, maybe," +Shapolnik murmured as he rose to his feet. He seemed much relieved at +Abe's refusal. "And I hope you don't think I am doing something out of +the way. You know, Mr. Potash, me and my partner we think a whole lot of +your judgment, and if you would give us an advice we are willing we +should follow it." + +"Well, I ain't mad at you, Shapolnik," Abe said more mildly; "but all +the same, if you want to get a drummer you got a right to advertise for +one." + +"We would do so," Shapolnik replied, "and if you would be in our +_Nachbarschaft_ oncet in a while, Mr. Potash, me and my partner would +consider it an honour if you are dropping in to see us. We only got a +small place, Mr. Potash." He paused and fingered the texture of his +waistcoat. "But everything will be up to date, Mr. Potash," he +concluded, "just like you advised us to." + +Abe watched his late skirt-cutter disappear into the elevator, and then +he returned to the office where Morris impatiently awaited him. + +"_Nu_, Abe," Morris cried as he entered. + +"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said with cutting emphasis: "good cigars don't care +who smokes 'em. I suppose if Nathan, the shipping clerk, would come in +here with a collar and tie on and a clean shave, you would want to blow +him to a bottle of tchampanyer wine yet. Just because a feller shaves +off his beard and buys himself a new suit of clothes you couldn't +recognize him at all. That was Shapolnik which just went out of here." + +"Shapolnik!" Morris exclaimed. "That dude was Shapolnik? Well, what d'ye +think for a crook like that!" + +"Crooked Shapolnik ain't exactly," Abe interrupted; "but it should be a +lesson to you, Mawruss, that you wouldn't be so free with our cigars. +All the feller wants from us is we should recommend him a drummer." + +"The nerve the feller got it!" Morris cried. "He comes around here +throwing bluffs he needs a drummer yet. A new beginner like him ain't +going to hire no drummer, Abe. I bet yer he takes his pants under his +arms and sees them Fourteenth Street buyers on his way downtown in the +morning. He ain't got no more use for a drummer than I got it for an +airship." + +"My _tzuris_ if he has or he hasn't!" Abe exclaimed. "I anyhow told him +he should advertise for one, as we are not running an employment agency +here, Mawruss; and so, Mawruss, let's get busy on that order for +Griesman. I want to get away from here sure at five o'clock to-day. What +is the good I am staying down at Riesenberger's if I never get a show to +take oncet in a while a sea bath, maybe?" + +Nevertheless it was ten minutes past five before Abe boarded a crosstown +car; and, although he made a wild sprint from the ferry landing on the +Long Island side, he arrived at the trainshed just in time to see the +rear platform of the five-forty-five for Arverne disappearing in a cloud +of black smoke. + +He returned to the waiting room, and as he was sadly inspecting the +outer pages of the comic periodicals displayed in the news-stand a heavy +hand clapped him on the shoulder. + +"Hello, Abe!" cried a hearty voice, and Abe turned to view the +perspiring features of Max Koblin, the Raincoat King. Abe returned the +salutation without much enthusiasm. + +"Why ain't you going down in the oitermobile, Max?" he asked. +"Millionaires ain't got no excuse for missing trains like ordinary +people." + +Max laughed in an embarrassed fashion. + +"Millionaires is got their troubles too, Abe," he said. "Even when they +ain't millionaires." + +"I should have your trouble!" Abe commented. + +"I got enough, Abe, believe me," Max rejoined. "Everything I got to look +after myself. My credit man leaves me next week; and I got other worries +besides that one, too." + +"Sure, I know," Abe said as they started for the smoker of the six-ten; +"and the biggest one you got only yourself to blame for it." + +"What d'ye mean, Abe?" Max asked. + +"I mean this, Max," Abe declared. "I am knowing you now since twenty +years already, and if I am butting in you could know it ain't because I +am fresh, y'understand, but because I got your interests at heart. That +boy of yours goes too far, Max." + +Max drew a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and carefully bit off the +end. "How so?" he inquired. + +"Well, in a whole lot of ways, Max," Abe continued, after they were +seated; "and mind you, I know it ain't none of my business, Max, but +when I see that boy come into Hammersmith's to-day and eat for five +dollars a lunch, with a bottle of tchampanyer wine yet, Max, I couldn't +help myself. I got to say something." + +Max scowled and spat out the end of his cigar. + +"Of course, Max," Abe added, using his partner's metaphor, "it ain't +no skin off my nose, y'understand." + +"Ain't it?" Max growled as he turned on Abe with a menacing glare. +"Well, it's a wonder it ain't, the way you are sticking it into other +people's business. If you think I care what you think about what my boy +eats for his lunch you are making a big mistake. I could take care of my +own boy, Potash, and I am just as much obliged if you would do the +same." + +Abe flushed a fiery red and rose to his feet. + +"I guess I would go into the next car," he said. + +"You could go a whole lot farther for all I care!" Max retorted, and +immediately buried his head between the open pages of a conservative +evening paper. + +Abe had not offended in vain, however, for after dinner that night, when +Sidney sought his father in the Koblins' suite at Riesenberger's +cottage, the King was in an ugly mood. + +"Say, Pop," Sidney began, "how about you for twenty till Saturday +night?" + +"What d'ye mean?" Max bellowed. "Ain't I given you ten dollars only this +morning?" + +Sidney laughed uncomfortably. "Ain't you the old tightwad!" he said. + +Max's reply to this observation was quite unprecedented in all Sidney's +experience. It took the form of an open-handed blow on the cheek, the +first ever administered by his indulgent parent since Sidney's +infancy. Forthwith began a family row that brought the entire +household--guests, servants and proprietress--on the run to the Koblin +apartments. When Mrs. Koblin's frightened screams had ceased, and Max +Koblin had calmed down sufficiently to offer an evasive explanation, the +guests trooped back to the piazza, and three games of auction pinocle, +which had started in the dining-room after the tables had been cleared, +came to an abrupt close. Instead, the players foregathered with the +other guests in the porch rockers. + +There they discussed the incident until nearly midnight; and, as no one +had been an eyewitness of the affray, there were as many versions of it +as may be mathematically demonstrated where one blow is struck among +three persons. Some had it that Sidney had attacked his father and +others that Mrs. Koblin had assaulted Sidney, but a large feminine +majority favoured a construction of the matter as one of wife-beating. +Abe alone correctly surmised the turn that Sidney's affairs had taken +and he sat on the piazza in conscience-stricken solitude long after all +the other guests had retired. + +He blamed himself for the entire affair and he smoked cigar after cigar +before he sought his bed. As he walked up the broad staircase he met Max +Koblin at the first landing. + +"Max," he said, "where are you going this time of night?" + +Max stopped short. His eyes blazed in a face so careworn and haggard +that, to Abe, he seemed to have aged ten years since their meeting that +afternoon. + +"This is what comes of your butting in!" Max cried bitterly. "The boy +went out right after we had the fuss and he ain't come back." + +He paused to choke down a hysterical lump in his throat. + +"And God knows what's become of him!" he sobbed as he continued down the +stairs. + + * * * * * + +Abe tossed on his pillow all night; and when at breakfast he learned +that Sidney Koblin had not returned, he swallowed with difficulty a cup +of coffee and left a steak, two eggs and a plate of French-fried +potatoes entirely untasted. Thus he was enabled to catch the seven-five +instead of the seven-thirty train. When he found himself at the +Thirty-fourth Street Ferry with almost half an hour to spare he +determined to walk to the store. + +He trudged across Thirty-fourth Street with his hands in his pockets and +his head bent toward the pavement, a prey to the most bitter +reflections; and as he turned the corner of Fifth Avenue he failed to +notice, walking in the opposite direction, a tall youth, well dressed +save for soiled linen. The latter's eyes showed traces of unmistakable +tears; and as they, too, were bent upon the pavement there ensued a +violent collision, which almost threw Abe off his feet. + +"Why don't you look where you're going?" he began, and then he +recognized the object of his wrath. "Sidney!" he yelled, clutching young +Koblin's shoulder. "Where are you going?" + +"Let me alone," Sidney cried as he sought to free himself. + +"_Aber_, Sidney," Abe pleaded, "you mustn't act so strange with me. Did +you got any breakfast yet?" + +Sidney shook his head sullenly. + +"Me neither," Abe cried. "Come on over to the Waldorf." + +Five minutes later they sat at a table in the palm room, while Abe +ordered two whole portions of grapefruit, a double portion of tenderloin +steak, souffle potatoes, coffee, waffles and honey. + +"Now, listen to me, Sidney," he began. "You shouldn't got mad at your +father just because he licks you oncet, y'understand. My poor father, +_selig_, he knocks the face off of me regular twicet a week, and I ain't +none the worser for it." + +Sidney hung his head and made no reply. + +"Furthermore, Sidney," Abe went on, "if you are broke why don't you say +so?" + +He pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket and handed Sidney twenty +dollars. + +"Just a loan for a few days, y'understand," he said as the waiter +brought in a loaded tray, "or a year--what's the difference--ain't it? +Now, let's get busy." + +Together they polished off the entire trayful of food, and when Abe +leaned back the waiter presented a check for ten dollars and eighty +cents. + +"Cheap at the price," Abe remarked as he added a generous tip to the +amount of the bill. "And now, Sidney, I suppose you're going back to the +store?" + +"No, I ain't," Sidney said. "I ain't doing no good down there; so what's +the use? The old man won't let me do nothing down there and they all +think I'm a joke." + +"Well, you see, Sidney," Abe commented, "that's the way it goes. It's an +old saying, but a true one: 'There's no profit for a feller in his own +country.'" + +"And what's more," Sidney continued, "they ain't given me a chance +neither. What I want to do is to sell goods on the road." + +"Sure, I know," Abe interrupted. "Every young feller wants to go on the +road. All they can see in it is riding in parlour cars and playing +auction pinocle in four-dollar-a-day hotels. Believe me, Sidney, selling +goods on the road, when you been at it so long as I am, is a dawg's +life; and as for auction pinocle that's poison for a salesman." + +"Auction pinocle is nothing to me," Sidney declared. "I swore off." + +"Another thing is lunches, Sidney," Abe went on. "Ain't it a funny thing +what a lot of satisfaction it is when you are eating zwieback and a +cup of coffee for lunch? In the first place, all it is costing you is +ten cents and you feel like a prince. Many a big bill of goods I sold on +zwieback and coffee, Sidney--crackers and milk, too. And now, Sidney, +the best thing you could do is to go back and tell the old man you are +through with auction pinocle and high-price lunches, and you want him he +should give you a show you should sell goods." + +Again Sidney shook his head. + +"It ain't no use, Mr. Potash," Sidney declared. "Pop ain't got no +confidence in me. If I was a greenhorn fresh from the old country he +might let me start in and do something, but----" + +At the word greenhorn Abe Potash leaned forward and struck the table +with his open hand. + +"By jiminy, Sidney!" he cried, "I know the very job for you. Only one +thing I must got to say to you, Sidney: you would got to commence small; +so if what you are saying about auction pinocle and other monkey +business goes, Sidney, all right. Otherwise the thing is off." + +"Sure, it goes, Mr. Potash," Sidney cried. + +Abe looked the Heir Apparent squarely in the eye for two minutes and +then he struck the table again. + +"I believe you, Sidney," he said, "and we will right away take the car +down to West Washington Place." + +Katzberg & Schapp occupied the top floor of an old private house; but +what their place of business lacked in size it made up in activity. +Pressing irons were sizzling and banging and sewing machines were +burring loudly as Abe and Sidney climbed the stairs. When they entered, +Shapolnik, the butterfly of fashion, had once more assumed the chrysalis +of his working clothes. + +"How do you do, Mister Potash?" he cried, all in one breath. "Excuse me; +I am looking like a slob. We are busy like dawgs here. Katzberg!" he +yelled; "_Kimmen Sie hieran_." + +In response, a stout figure, clad only in an undershirt, trousers and a +pair of carpet slippers, laid down a pressing iron and shuffled toward +the visitors. + +"My partner, Mister Katzberg," Shapolnik announced. "He also looks a +slob, Mr. Potash; but when we are getting partitions in, and our office +fixed up, no one would see him at all. He is the inside man; and me, I +am in the office and showroom. We're going to have a showroom so soon as +we are settled--a safe too. A telephone we already got it. This is Mr. +Potash, Katzberg, and the other gentleman I don't know at all." + +"Mr. Koblin," Abe explained; "he is coming to work by you as a +salesman." + +"A salesman!" Katzberg exclaimed. "Why, we don't want no----" + +Shapolnik turned on him with a glare. + +"Katzberg," he said, "them samples you are working on we got to show the +Magnet Store this afternoon yet." + +Katzberg shrugged his shoulders and returned to his pressing, while +Shapolnik drew forward two rickety chairs and a packing-box. + +"Have a seat, Mr. Potash; and Mr. Cohen, too," he said. + +"Koblin," Abe corrected. + +"Koblin," Shapolnik repeated. "Excuse me." + +He went to a closet in the corner, and unlocking it he exposed the +fashionable suit that he had worn at Potash & Perlmutter's the previous +afternoon. From the right-hand waistcoat pocket he took a red-banded +invincible and handed it to Abe. + +"Have a smoke, Mr. Potash?" he said. Abe examined the cigar closely and +tucked it carefully away. Then he produced three panatelas, handed one +each to Sidney and Shapolnik and lit the other himself. + +"About this here salesman, Mr. Potash," Shapolnik commented. "I think I +changed my mind." + +Abe blew a great cloud of smoke before replying and then he placed an +emphatic forefinger upon Shapolnik's knee. + +"A new beginner when he throws bluffs, Shapolnik," he said, "must got to +make good. You told me yesterday you wanted a salesman and I am bringing +him to you." + +Shapolnik blushed. + +"Sure, I know I told it you, Mr. Potash," he said, "but my partner +thinks otherwise." + +Abe nodded. + +"The only use some people got for a partner, Shapolnik," he commented, +"is they could always blame him for everything they do; but even if you +did come in my place just to show me what an elegant suit of clothes and +a fine clean shave you got it, Shapolnik, I am bringing you a salesman +anyhow." + +Katzberg at this juncture again laid down his pressing iron and came +forward. + +"Say, lookyhere, what is the use talking?" he cried. "We don't need a +salesman; and that's all there is to it." + +"'S enough, Katzberg," Abe shouted. "You got a whole lot too much to say +for yourself for a new beginner. I ain't saying you need a salesman, +Katzberg; I am only saying that you are going to hire one, Katzberg. And +after you hire one you will quick need him." + +Abe placed his hand on Sidney's shoulder. + +"Here is a young feller which he ain't going to gamble _oder_ fool away +his time. He is going to sell goods," he declared. "He works for years +by the biggest raincoat house in the country, and he's got an +acquaintance among the retail clothing trade which it is easy worth to +you twenty-five dollars a week and the regular commissions." + +"But we couldn't afford to pay no salesman twenty-five dollars a week," +Shapolnik exclaimed. + +"Try me just one week," Sidney said, "and I'll bring in enough cash to +pay my salary." + +"I forgot to say," Abe interrupted, "that he's also got a lot of +confidence in himself." + +"Maybe I have," Sidney retorted: "but I'm going to make good." + +"Certainly you are," Abe added, rising from his chair; "and now, +Katzberg, the whole thing is settled." + +Katzberg shrugged and extended one palm outward in a gesture of despair. + +"Seemingly we are not our own bosses here," he said. + +"Seemingly not," Abe rejoined; "but, just the same, if you will take on +this young feller for a salesman I would give you a guaran_tirt_ that I +will make good all you would lose on him for the first three months. Is +my word good enough?" + +"Sure, it is!" Shapolnik cried. "When would you come to work by us, Mr. +Koblin?" + +"This morning," Abe answered for Sidney--"right now; and one thing I +must got to say to you, Sidney, before I go: stand in your own shoes and +don't try to excuse yourself, on account you got a rich father. Also, if +the old man makes you an offer you should come back to him, turn it +down. Take it from me, Sidney, you got a big future here." + +With a parting handshake all around Abe started back to his place of +business. Five minutes later he boarded a Broadway car, and when he +alighted at Nineteenth Street he picked his way through a jam of +vehicles, which completely blocked that narrow thoroughfare. As he was +about to set foot on the sidewalk he caught sight of the gray, drawn +countenance of the Raincoat King, who sat beside his chauffeur on the +front seat of a touring car. + +"Say, Max," Abe cried, "I want to speak to you a few words something." + +Max Koblin turned his head and recognized Abe with a start. + +"What d'ye want from me?" he said huskily. + +"I want to tell you the boy is all right," Abe replied. + +The colour surged to Max's face and he leaped wildly from the +automobile. + +"What d'ye mean, all right?" he gasped. + +"I mean all right in every way, Max," Abe answered; "and if you would +step into Hammersmith's for a minute I'll tell you all about it." + +"Where is he?" Max cried. + +Abe led the way to a table. + +"He's where he should have been _schon_ long since already," he said as +they sat down. "He's got a job and he's going to make good on it." + +"What are you talking nonsense?" Max exploded. "Where is my Sidney? His +mother is pretty near crazy." + +"She shouldn't worry," Abe replied calmly. "The boy is coming home +to-night; and if I would be you, Max, I would see to it he pays anyhow +eight dollars a week board." + +Once more Max grew white--with anger this time. + +"Jokes you are making with me!" he bellowed. "Tell me where my boy is +quick or I'll----" + +"_Koosh_, Max!" Abe interrupted. "You are making a fool of yourself. I +ain't hiding your boy. Just listen a few minutes and I'll tell you all +about it." + +Forthwith he unfolded to Max a vivid narrative of that morning's +adventures; when he concluded Max had grown somewhat calmer. + +"But, Potash," he protested, "I don't want the boy he should work by +somebody else. Let him come and sell goods by me." + +"He couldn't do it and you couldn't neither, Max," Abe said. "If he goes +back to you, Max, you couldn't change over the way you've been treating +that boy ever since he was born, and he sure would go back to the way he +has been acting. Let the boy stay where he is, Max." + +"Say, lookyhere, Potash," Max burst out, "what are you butting into my +affairs for? Ain't I competent to manage my own son?" + +Abe deemed it the part of friendship to remain silent, but Max +misconstrued his reticence. + +"O-o-h!" he exclaimed. "I see the whole business now. You got an +interest in this here pants factory and so you practically kidnap my +son. Do you know what I think? I think you are trying to jolly me into +letting him stay there because you expect maybe I would invest some +money in the business." + +For two minutes Abe gulped convulsively and blinked at the Raincoat King +in stunned amazement. Then he rose slowly to his feet. + +"All right, Koblin," he said. "I heard enough from you. I wash myself of +the entire matter. For my part you and your son could go to the devil; +and take it from me, it won't be your fault if he don't." + +When Abe entered the firm's showroom that morning it was nearly +half-past eleven and Morris Perlmutter sat behind the pages of the +_Daily Cloak and Suit Record_ in a sulky perusal of the Arrival of +Buyers column. Before he looked up he permitted Abe to discard his coat +for an office jacket. + +"You was taking a sea bath, Abe?" he said at length. "Ain't it? I +suppose we would pretty soon got to close up the store so's you could +take all the sea baths you want. What?" + +Abe refrained from uttering a suitable rejoinder and made straight for +the office. + +"Mawruss!" he yelled; "ain't the safe open yet?" + +"Never mind is the safe open _oder_ not, Abe," Morris replied. "So long +as you are attending to business the way you are, Abe, it ain't +necessary the safe should be opened." + +Abe grunted and squatted down in front of the combination. At length the +big doors swung open and he drew the box of cigars out of the middle +compartment. + +Morris looked on with ill-concealed curiosity while Abe took a banded +Invincible from his waistcoat pocket and restored it to the box whence +it originally came. + +"What's all that for?" Morris asked. + +"That's a souvenir from a pleasant morning," Abe replied as he thrust +the box of cigars back into the safe and slammed the doors. He was about +to return to the showroom, when the telephone bell rang and Morris took +the receiver from the hook. + +"Hello!" he said. "Yes, this is Potash & Perlmutter. He's right here. +Abe, Max Koblin wants to talk to you." + +"He does, hey?" Abe replied. "Well, I don't want to talk to him." + +"You should tell him that yourself," Morris said as he walked away from +the telephone. "I ain't got nothing to do with your quarrels." + +Abe watched Morris disappear into the showroom and then he ran to the +telephone and slammed the receiver on to the hook with force +sufficient almost to wreck the instrument. At intervals of a few seconds +the telephone rang for more than half an hour. Fifteen minutes after it +had ceased the elevator door opened and Max Koblin entered. + +"Cut-throat!" Koblin exclaimed. "I rung up my son and he wouldn't come +back. You are turning him against me--you and them two other crooks. You +think you would get my money out of me. Very well. I'll show you. I +ain't through with you yet. I'll put you fellers where you belong." + +"Don't make me no threats, Koblin," Abe said calmly, "because, in the +first place, you couldn't scare me any, and, in the second place, if you +think I am trying to keep your boy away from you, you are +mistaken--that's all. I already wasted a whole morning on him and, just +to show you I ain't such a crook as you think I am, I would go right +down there now; and if I got to do it I would drag that young loafer out +of there by the hair of his head." + +Twenty minutes later Abe burst into Katzberg & Schapp's business +premises and asked in loud tones for Sidney Koblin. Before the +astonished Shapolnik could reply, Max Koblin, who had followed Abe on +the next car, arrived all breathless and panted a similar demand. + +"He ain't in now," Shapolnik replied; "he is just going to his lunch." + +"What d'ye mean by talking to me on the 'phone the way you did this +morning?" Max shouted. "You ain't got no business to keep my boy from +me." + +"I ain't keeping your boy from you," Shapolnik answered; "and I would +speak to you whichever what way I would want to. Who are you anyway?" + +"_Koosh!_ Shapolnik," Abe interrupted. "You are talking too fresh. Mr. +Koblin is right. You should fire that young feller right away, because I +am telling you right here and now I wouldn't guarantee nothing for him +after this." + +"What do I care what you would guarantee or what you wouldn't +guarantee?" Shapolnik replied. "The young feller already sold for us +this morning for five hundred dollars a bill of goods, and he could stay +with us _oder_ not, just as he wants. Furthermore, Mr. Potash, I don't +give a snap of my fingers for your _guarantirt_; this is my shop and if +you don't want to stay here you don't got to." + +He seized a pressing-iron in token that the interview was ended and Abe +and Max started for the stairs without another word. As they reached the +sidewalk Abe paused. Across the street a dairy lunchroom displayed its +white-enamel sign and through the plate-glass window he thought he +discerned a familiar figure. He ran to the opposite sidewalk and entered +the restaurant, closely followed by Max, just as Sidney Koblin was +eating the last crumbs of a portion of zwieback and coffee. + +"Hello, Sidney!" Abe said. "What's the matter with you? Why don't you go +back to your father?" + +Sidney rose to his feet and looked first at Abe and then at the Raincoat +King. + +"What for?" he asked nonchalantly. + +"Because he asks you to," Abe replied, "and because I didn't got no +right to butt in the way I did, Sidney. After all, your father is your +father." + +"What's biting you now?" Sidney exclaimed. "Ain't you told me this +morning I should do what I did?" + +Abe nodded sadly. + +"And didn't you say me and the old man couldn't give each other a square +deal even if we wanted to?" + +Abe nodded again. + +"Then I'm going to stick to my job," Sidney declared as he walked toward +the cashier's desk. + +Abe and Max trailed after him and when they reached the sidewalk Max +seized his son by the arm. + +"Sidney, _leben_," he said; "listen to me. Come and eat anyhow a decent +lunch and we'll talk this thing over." + +"What for?" Sidney said. "I've had as much as I want to eat, and besides +I've got to see a fellow up at the Prince Clarence Hotel. I'll be at +Riesenberger's to dinner to-night about the usual time." + +"Oh, you will, will you?" Max cried. "Well, all I got to say is you've +got to pay for it yourself." + +Sidney broke into a laugh. + +"That worries me a whole lot!" he said. "I've made enough out of my +commissions to-day already to pay a whole week's board down there." + +He turned and started across the street, but as he reached the curb he +paused. + +"Tell mommer she shouldn't worry herself," he said. "I'm all right." + +Max looked at Abe with a sickly grin. + +"I think he is too, Abe," he murmured. "Would you come over to Broadway +and take maybe a little lunch with me?" + +"Zwieback and coffee is good enough for me," Abe replied. + +Max linked his arm in Abe's. + +"You shouldn't be mad at me, Abe," he said sadly. "I am all turned +upside down about that boy; and if zwieback and coffee is good enough +for you and him, Abe, I guess it must be too good for me. But, just the +same, I am going to eat with you, Abe, and we'll let bygones be +bygones." + + * * * * * + +It was some weeks before Abe could bring himself to recount to Morris +the full details of Sidney Koblin's regeneration, but Morris had learned +the facts long before there appeared in the advertising section of the +_Clothing and Haberdashery Magazine_ the following full-page +advertisement: + + KATZBERG, SCHAPP & KOBLIN + Announce the + OPENING OF THEIR NEW OFFICE AND SHOWROOM + In the Chicksaw Building, + West 4th Street, New York + MAKERS OF TROUSERS FOR FINICKY FOLKS + + A HEADLINER + THE RAINSHED PANTS + Manufactured from the Famous Rainproof Fabric + "KOBLINETTE" + KEEPS THE LEGS WARM AND DRY + Spring Line Now Ready + +It caught Morris's eye one morning in January and he read it over--not +without envy. + +"Some people's got all the luck, Abe," he said bitterly. + +"I bet yer!" Abe replied, without looking up from his order book, which +was overflowing with requisitions for spring garments. "I bet yer, +Mawruss! You take my Rosie for instance: at her age you got no idee what +a sport she is. Yesterday afternoon she went to a bridge-whist party by +Mrs. Koblin's and she won a sterling solid-silver fern dish. And mind +you, Mawruss, she only just found out how to play the game." + +"Who learned her?" Morris asked. + +"Mrs. Klinger and Mrs. Elenbogen," Abe replied. "That's two fine women, +Mawruss--particularly Mrs. Elenbogen." + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +A RETURN TO ARCADY + + +"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said with bitter emphasis; "Max Kirschner +steals away trade from under our noses while you fool away your time +selling goods to a feller like Sam Green." + +"What d'ye mean, fool away my time?" Abe cried indignantly. "Sam Green +is an old customer from ours; and if Henry Feigenbaum gives for a couple +of hundred dollars an order to Max Kirschner he only does it because +he's got pity on the old man. And, anyhow, Mawruss, even if Sam Green is +a little slow, y'understand, sooner or later we get our money--ain't it? + +"Sure, I know, Abe; and if them sooner-or-later fellers would pay you +oncet in a while sooner, Abe, it would be all right, y'understand. But +they don't, Abe; they always pay you later." + +"Well, Sam has got some pretty stiff competition up there, Mawruss," Abe +said. "In the first place, Cyprus is too near Sarahcuse, y'understand; +and if one of them yokels wants to buy for thirty dollars a garment +for his wife, if he is up-to-date, he goes to Sarahcuse; and if he is a +back number he goes to Sam's competitors!--What's the name now?--Van +Buskirk & Patterson. Yes, Mawruss, back numbers always buys from back +numbers." + +"Why don't we sell that Van Buster concern our line, Abe?" + +"A fine chance I got it with them people, Mawruss!" Abe exclaimed. "They +buy their whole stock from a jobber in Buffalo and they got an idee that +Russian blouses is the latest up-to-the-minute effect in garments. And +you couldn't blame 'em, Mawruss; most of the women up in Cyprus thinks +that way too." + +"That ain't here nor there, Abe," Morris interrupted. "Sam Green is one +of them fellers which he is slow pay if he would be worth a million +even. He's got the habit Abe. Look what he writes us now." + +He handed Abe a letter which read as follows: + + SAMUEL GREEN + DRYGOODS AND NOTIONS + THE K. & M. SYLPHSHAPE CORSET + CYPRUS, NEW YORK, April 1, 1910 + + GENTS: Your favour of the thirtieth inst. rec'd and contents noted; + and in reply would say you should be so kind and wait a couple + days, and I will send you a check sure--on an account I got + sickness in the family and oblige + + Yours truly, S. GREEN. + +"Well, Mawruss," Abe commented, mindful of a recent obstinate lumbago, +"might the feller did got sickness in his family maybe." + +"_Schmooes_, Abe!" Morris cried impatiently. "Every season that feller's +got another excuse. Last fall his wife goes to work and has an +operation. A year ago he is got his uncle in the hospital. The winter +before that he is got funeral expenses on account his mother died on +him; and so it goes, Abe. That feller would a damsite sooner kill off +his whole family, y'understand, than pay a bill to the day it is due." + +"All right," Abe said; "then we wouldn't sell him no more--that's all." + +Morris shrugged. + +"That's all!" he repeated. "A concern don't pay strictly to the day; so +we couldn't sell 'em no more, and that's all, _sagt er_! For a feller +which he's losing customers right and left to a back number like Max +Kirschner, Abe, you are talking pretty independent." + +"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe exploded; "I just told it you Max +Kirschner only gets that order from Henry Feigenbaum because he takes +pity on him." + +"What d'ye mean, pity?" Morris retorted. "I seen Max Kirschner in the +subway this morning and he looks like he needs pity, Abe. He's got +diamonds stuck on him like a pawnbroker's window." + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe continued. "Some drummers is got +diamonds and some is got bank accounts, but there's mighty few got both, +Mawruss; and Max Kirschner ain't one of 'em. One thing you got to +remember, Mawruss--Max is an old man." + +"What are you talking nonsense! An old man!" Morris exclaimed. "Max is +just turned sixty." + +"Sure, I know," Abe commented, "and for a drummer, that's awful old, +Mawruss. A feller which he spends six months out of the year in trains +and hotels, Mawruss, is got to be mighty particular about what he eats. +I stopped in one hotel together with Max _schon_ many times already, and +at dinner I am always eating steaks and oncet in a while eggs maybe; but +Max goes for them French names every time. Many a night I watched Max in +a hotel lobby and you could see by his face that his stomach is +boiling." + +"Never mind, Abe; I could stand a little indigestion, too, Abe, if I +would be getting the orders Max is getting it." + +"That's a thing of the past, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Business falls off +something terrible with him, Mawruss; and the first thing you know, +Mawruss, Klinger & Klein gets rid of him and them diamonds would got to +come in handy before he finds another job." + +"_Yow!_ Klinger & Klein would get rid of him!" Morris cried +skeptically. "Max Kirschner ain't no ordinary drummer, Abe. There's a +feller which he was born and raised on this side. He's a gentleman, Abe, +and them boys respects him. Besides, Abe, he practically started them +two greenhorns in business. Twenty years ago, when them boys was new +beginners, Kirschner brings 'em a good trade, y'understand; and not only +that, Abe, if it wouldn't be for him them fellers wouldn't never lasted +six months. The first season they turned out a lot of stickers, and when +they got short Max goes himself to old man Baum and gets him to lend +them boys a thousand dollars. People don't forget such things in a +hurry, Abe." + +"Don't they, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Well, maybe they do and maybe they +don't, Mawruss; but twenty years is a long time to remember things, +Mawruss, and when a feller draws big wages like Max Kirschner he's got +to turn in the orders, Mawruss--otherwise past favours is nix." + +Morris nodded. + +"That's no lie neither, Abe," he said, rising to his feet; "and we +should right away send Sam Green a letter either he should mail us a +check or we would put his account into a collection agency. The feller +goes too far, Abe." + +It was precisely a week later that Max Kirschner's relations with the +firm of Klinger & Klein finally reached their climax. + +"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said as he entered the showroom after a brief visit +to the barber-shop that morning--"what did I told you?" + +"You didn't told me nothing, Abe," Morris retorted; "and, besides, it +was my idee that we wrote him a rotten letter, otherwise we would wait +for another week or ten days for our check. As it is, Abe, he deducts +four dollars on us for a damage on account of bum packing. He is not +only a crook, Abe, but a liar also." + +"Four dollars wouldn't break us, Mawruss," Abe rejoined, "and we could +easy make it up on the next bill he buys from us. But I wasn't talking +about Sam Green at all. I mean Max Kirschner." + +"I much bother my head about Kirschner!" Morris said. "Let Klinger & +Klein worry about him." + +Abe grunted as he removed his hat and coat. + +"You'd wait an awful long time for Klinger & Klein to worry about him, +Mawruss," he said. "Because them fellers got such hearts which _Gott +soll hueten_ their wives would die together with their children in one +day yet--I am only saying, y'understand--them two suckers wouldn't worry +neither. Saturday night they fired Max Kirschner like a dawg, Mawruss. +And why? Because a week ago Max eats some _stuss_ in Bridgetown, +y'understand, which he is sick in bed for three days. And while he is +laid up yet Sammet Brothers cops out a thousand-dollar order on him." + +"_Ai gewoldt!_" Morris cried, with ready sympathy. "You don't tell me?" + +"And now that poor feller walks the streets looking for a job; and a +fine show he's got it, an old man like him." + +"Don't say that again, Abe," Morris said. "You Jonah the feller that +way. Somebody hears you saying Max is an old man and the first thing you +know, Abe, they believe he is old. I told you before Max is only sixty; +and when my _grossvater selig_ was sixty he gets married for the third +time yet." + +"Sure I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Some fellers gets married for a +wife and some for a nurse, Mawruss. Any cripple could get married, +y'understand; but a feller must got to have his health to sell goods." + +He seized the current issue of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_, and as +he sat down to examine it he heaved a sigh which merged into an agonized +groan. + +"Oo-ee!" he exclaimed; "that lumbago still gets me in the back." + +"You see, Abe," Morris commented maliciously, "you ain't so young +yourself. From forty-eight to sixty ain't a thousand years neither, +Abe." + +Abe scowled and then his face lightened up in the conception of a happy +idea. + +"I give you right about that, Mawruss," he said: "but with me it's +different, Mawruss. If I get so I couldn't go out on the road, +y'understand, we could always hire some one to go for us." + +"Could we?" Morris grumbled. + +"Sure," Abe went on; "and even to-day yet, while I am making Denver and +the coast towns, it wouldn't harm us we should get a feller which is +acquainted with the trade up the state and in Pennsylvania and Ohio." + +"Wouldn't it?" Morris croaked. + +"We are losing every day business, Mawruss, because I got such a big +territory to cover," Abe said. "A feller in a small town wants his fall +goods early just so much as one of them big concerns in Denver _oder_ +Seattle; and if I don't show up in time they place their orders with +some one else. Whereas, Mawruss, if we would wait a couple of weeks, we +would say for instance, until he finds out that every one ain't paying +fancy salaries like Klinger & Klein, y'understand, for a couple thousand +dollars a year, Mawruss, we could get Max Kirschner and----" + +"Max Kirschner?" Morris yelled. "What d'ye mean, Max Kirschner?" + +"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, "we could get Max Kirschner; and, even if he +would be a little _kranklich_ oncet in a while, sometimes maybe he would +be worth to us two thousand a year anyhow." + +"Two thousand a year!" Morris bellowed. "What the devil you are talking +nonsense, Abe? We should give two thousand a year to a cripple like +Kirschner! What do you think you are running here anyhow--a +cloak-and-suit business or a home for the aged? If you want to give to +charity do it with your money, not mine." + +For the remainder of the forenoon Morris Perlmutter moved about the +showroom with his face distorted in so gloomy a scowl that to Abe it +seemed as though a fog enveloped his partner, through which there +darted, like flashes of heat lightning, exclamations of "_Schnorrer!_ +Cripple! With my money yet!" and "Crust that feller got it!" At length +he put on his hat and went out to lunch, while Abe gazed after him in +mute disgust. + +"When some people talks charity," he grumbled, "you got to reckon a +hundred per cent. discount for cash." + + * * * * * + +"You see, Abe," Morris cried as he came in from lunch, "how easy it is +to misjudge people. I just seen Sol Klinger over to Hammersmith's and he +tells me that in six weeks yet Max Kirschner falls down on three orders. +Four thousand dollars that sucker, Leon Sammet, cops out on 'em; and Sol +couldn't help himself, Abe. Either they got to fire Max _oder_ they got +to go out of business." + +Abe nodded slowly. His face possessed an unusual pallor and he clenched +an unlighted cigar between his teeth. + +"What is it?" Morris asked. "Don't you feel good?" + +"I am feeling fine, Mawruss," he replied huskily. "I could blow myself +to a bottle tchampanyer wine yet, I feel so good. I am enjoying myself, +Mawruss, on account Moe Griesman from Sarahcuse was just in here, which +he tells me his nephew, Mozart Rabiner, goes to work for Klinger & Klein +as a drummer and we should be so good and cancel the order which he +gives us yesterday, as blood is redder as water; and what the devil +could we do about it anyway?" + +Morris's jaw dropped and he sat down heavily in the nearest chair. + +"One thing I'm glad, Mawruss," Abe said as he put on his hat: "I'm glad, +if we got to lose Moe Griesman's trade, Mawruss, that he is going to +give it to a feller like Sol Klinger, which he is such a good friend to +you, Mawruss, and got such a big heart." + +He jammed his hat on his ears and started out. + +"Where are you going, Abe?" Morris asked. + +"I'm going over to Hammersmith's, Mawruss," he replied, "to get a bite +to eat; and I hope to see Sol Klinger there, Mawruss, as I would like to +congratulate him, Mawruss, with a pressing-iron." + +Morris's face settled once more into a deep frown as the elevator door +closed behind his partner. + +"Always with his mouth he is making somebody a blue eye," he muttered as +he turned to sorting over the sample line against Abe's impending trip +to the small towns up the state. He had picked out four cheap, showy +garments when the elevator door clanged again and a visitor entered, +bearing a brown-paper parcel. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said, "what's the good word?" + +The newcomer's cheery greeting was strangely at variance with his +manner, which was as diffident as that of a village dog on the Fourth of +July. As he advanced toward the showroom he exhaled the odour of +mothballs, characteristic of an old stock of cloaks and suits, so that +before he looked up Morris was able to identify his visitor. + +"Hello, Sam!" he said. "When did you get in?" + +"Twelve o'clock," Sam replied. "I would of got in sooner, but a crook of +a scalper in Sarahcuse sells me a ticket which it is punched out as far +as Canandaigua; and if it wouldn't be I paid four dollars extra I come +pretty near getting kicked off the train." + +"You ain't nothing out, Sam," Morris said, "because that's just the +amount you are doing me for on our last bill." + +"Doing you for!" Sam cried. "What d'ye mean, doing you for? One garment +was damaged in the packing which I deducted the four dollars; and if you +wouldn't believe me here it is now." + +He unwrapped the brown-paper parcel and disclosed a crumpled article of +women's apparel, which Morris shook out and examined critically. + +"In the first place, Sam," he commented, "the garment has been worn." + +"What are you talking nonsense--worn?" Sam protested. "Once only my Leah +puts it on to see the damage. There it is." + +Sam pointed with his forefinger and Morris looked at the spot indicated. + +"Well, how could that be damaged in packing, Sam?" Morris asked +indignantly. "That's a stain from _lockshen_ soup." + +"My wife must got to eat like any other woman!" Sam exclaimed +indignantly; "and besides, Mawruss, the stain ain't all soup, +y'understand--some of it gets wet in the packing-case." + +"Well, I wouldn't bother my head about it no more," Morris retorted. "I +deposited your check just now and we are lucky, if you would deduct four +dollars, that we got our money at all." + +"Maybe you are and maybe you ain't, Mawruss," Sam commented. "That's +what I come down to see you about." + +"What d'ye mean?" Morris cried. + +"I mean," Sam said in husky tones, "I don't know whether the check is +good at all. When I mailed it you I got a little balance at my bank, but +yesterday afternoon the president sends for me and shuts down on my +accommodation; and maybe--I don't know whether he did _oder_ not, +y'understand--he takes my balance on account." + +Morris laid down the garment and fixed his visitor with an angry glare. + +"So!" he exploded; "you are going to fail on us?" + +Sam disclaimed it indignantly. + +"What d'ye think I am?" he demanded--"a crook? And besides, I ain't got +nothing to fail with." + +Morris drew forward a chair. Sam sat down; and leaning back he nursed +his cheek with his hand in an attitude of utter dejection. + +"Well, what are you going to do?" Morris asked. + +"That's what I come down here to find out," Sam replied. + +Then ensued a silence of several minutes during which Morris gazed +attentively at his customer. + +"The fact is, Sam," he said at last, "you ain't got no head." + +Sam nodded sadly. + +"You're a fool, Sam," Morris went on in kindly accents; "and no matter +how hard a fool would work he is a poor man all his life." + +Sam deemed it hardly worth while to acquiesce in this statement, but he +indorsed it unconsciously with a large tear, which stole put of the +corner of his eye and worked a clean groove down one travel-stained +cheek. + +"Have a smoke, Sam," Morris added hastily as he thrust a cigar toward +his late customer. "Did you got your lunch yet? No? Come on out with me +now and we would have a little bite to eat." + +He jumped to his feet and seized his hat. + +"Nathan," he bawled to the shipping clerk, "tell Mr. Potash I am going +out with a customer and I'll be back when I am here." + + * * * * * + +Max Kirschner had reached the age of sixty without making a single enemy +save his stomach, which at length ungratefully rejected all the rich +favours that Max had bestowed on it so long and so generously. Indeed, +he was reduced to a diet of crackers and milk when Abe encountered him +in Hammersmith's restaurant that September morning. + +"Hello, Max!" Abe cried. "When did you get back? I thought you was in +one of them--now--sanatoriums." + +"A sanatorium is no place for a drummer to find a job, Abe," Max +replied. + +"A good salesman like you could find a job anywhere without much +trouble, Max," Abe said cheerfully. + +"That's what everybody says, Abe; meantime I'm loafing." + +"It wouldn't be for long, Max," Abe rejoined as he cast a hungry eye +over Hammersmith's bill of fare. "How's that fillet de who's this, with +asparagrass tips and mushrooms?" + +For a brief moment Max's eye gleamed and then grew dull again. + +"It's fine to put the stomach out of business, Abe," Max said. "Take the +tip from one who has lost sixty pounds, ten customers, and a good job +all in six weeks--and order poached eggs on toast." + +Abe compromised on boiled beef with horseradish sauce; and when he was +well into the noisy consumption of that simple dish he broached the +subject of Max's future plans. + +"When d'ye think you'll go to work again, Max?" he asked. + +Max shrugged expressively. + +"I'm not a prophet, Abe; I'm a salesman," he said. + +"Well, there ain't no particular hurry, Max. It ain't the same like you +would got a family to look out for." + +"I've been a drummer all my life, Abe," Max declared, "and a drummer has +no right to be married. When I was a kid I had a chance to go into the +store of a couple of yokels upstate in the town where I was born and +raised; and I guess if I'd done so I'd been married and had a whole +family of children by now." + +"Maybe you're just as well off, Max," Abe said consolingly. "Children is +a gamble anyhow, Max. The boys is assets and the girls is liabilities; +and if you got a large family of girls you're practically bankrupt, no +matter how good business would be." + +"Don't you believe it, Abe," Max said. "Those two yokels both had big +families and they didn't do such a big business either. But they managed +to make a good living, and last week I hear they sold out to some city +dry goods man for forty thousand dollars." + +Abe paused with a loaded knife in midair. + +"Forty thousand dollars between two ain't much, Max," he said. + +"It's more than I've got, anyhow," Max rejoined as he rose to his feet. + +"You got lots of time to make money, Max," Abe concluded. "Come round +and see us when you get time, won't you?" + +Max nodded; and as he walked down the street to make a further canvass +of the garment trade he passed the broad windows of the dairy lunchroom, +where Morris was regaling Sam Green with a popular-price meal. + +"Yes, Sam," Morris said as he caught sight of Max Kirschner's dejected +figure, "you're lucky when you consider some people. You are still a +young man and it ain't too late for you to start in as a new beginner +somewhere. A young man could always make a living anyhow." + +"Sure," Sam agreed, "but why should I start in as a new beginner, +Mawruss? I already got an established business, y'understand; and if I +could get a feller with a headpiece, Mawruss--never mind he ain't got +so much money--with a couple thousand dollars, we could run that feller +from Sarahcuse out of town." + +"What feller from Sarahcuse?" Morris asked. + +"Ain't I told you?" Sam continued. "I thought I says that the reason the +bank shuts down on me is a feller from Sarahcuse buys out them two +suckers, Van Buskirk and Patterson, and he's going to operate the store +as a branch house." + +Morris nodded his head slowly. + +"So, Sam," he said, "you are up against one of them sharks from +Sarahcuse? I'm afraid you got a dead proposition in that store of +yours." + +Two cups of coffee had revived Sam Green's ambition, however, and he +laughed aloud. + +"You don't understand them people up in Cyprus, Mawruss," he said. +"Strangers they don't like at all; and even me, though I lived in that +town ten years, most of 'em wouldn't buy goods off of me because Van +Buskirk and Patterson is born and raised in that town and they dealt +with 'em ever since they was boys together. So you see I got ten years' +start of that feller from Sarahcuse, Mawruss. If I could get some feller +which he knows the garment business to go as partners together with me, +and to put a little money into the store, we could yet do a good +business there." + +"How much money would you got to have?" Morris asked. + +"Two thousand dollars, anyhow," Sam replied. + +Morris tapped the table with his right index finger and frowned +reflectively. + +"The necktie pin alone must be worth a thousand dollars," he murmured +almost to himself, "and two rings he got it which I know about must +stand him in anyhow a thousand dollars more." + +He thrust back his chair and rose to his feet. + +"All right, Sam," he said aloud. "You got a little egg on your chin. +Wipe it off and we'll go back to the store. I got an idee." + + * * * * * + +"On second thought, Sam," Morris said as they approached Potash & +Perlmutter's place of business, "I wouldn't go up with me if I was you +on account I don't want to say nothing to my partner just yet a while. +Where are you staying, Sam?" + +"I got a room at a hotel over on Third Avenue," Sam replied. + +"Third Avenue!" Morris exclaimed. "That's a _Nachbarschaft_ for a +business man!" + +He handed Sam a five-dollar bill. + +"Go and get yourself a room over at the Prince Clarence," Morris said. +"I'll be over there presently." + +Nathan, the shipping clerk, was alone in the showroom when Morris +entered. + +"Ain't my partner come back yet, Nathan?" he demanded. + +Nathan shook his head. + +"Then tell him when he does come back that I've went up to the Prince +Clarence to see a customer," Morris continued; "and if he asks what name +tell him it's a new concern just starting." + +Five minutes later he visited the business premises of Kleiman & +Elenbogen, impelled thereto by a process of reasoning which involved the +following points: Klinger & Klein manufactured a medium-price line and +so did Kleiman & Elenbogen. Klinger & Klein's leader was The Girl in the +Airship Gown, a title suggested by the syndicate's popular musical +comedy of that name, while Kleiman & Elenbogen advertised their +"strongest" garment as The Girl in the Motor-boat, out of compliment, of +course, to the equally popular musical comedy recently produced by an +antisyndicate manager. Both concerns catered to the same class of trade, +and when either of the partners of Klinger & Klein referred in +conversation to a member of the firm of Kleiman & Elenbogen, or vice +versa, "sucker" was the mildest epithet employed. + +Hence Morris Perlmutter argued that Max Kirchner would resort to Kleiman +& Elenbogen's loft for comfort and advice; and as he stepped out of the +elevator his surmise was confirmed by a nimbus emanating from the +necktie of a person seated at the far end of the showroom. + +"Hello, Max!" Morris cried; "who'd thought of seeing you here!" + +Max rose to his feet and extended his right hand in greeting, whereat +Morris noted that the four-carat diamond still sparkled on Max's finger. + +"I just left your partner over at Hammersmith's, Morris," Max said. + +"Sure, I know," Morris rejoined; "that feller makes a god out of his +stomach, Max; but that ain't here nor there. Did you got something to do +yet, Max?" + +"I've got a whole lot to do trying to find a job, Morris, if that's what +you mean," Max replied. + +Morris glanced around the showroom, but both Kleiman and Elenbogen were +absent. + +"Where are they?" Morris asked. + +"Out to lunch, I guess," Max replied. + +"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "Them suckers would like to know everybody's +business. You got a few minutes' time, Max?" + +"Nothing but time," Max replied sadly. + +"Then come uptown a few blocks with me," Morris said. "I got a +proposition to make you." + +Max shrugged his shoulders and put on his hat. + +"Yes, Max," Morris continued as they walked toward the Prince Clarence +Hotel, "I got a proposition to make to you, but first I would like to +ask you something a question." + +"Fire away," Max said. + +"What did you done with that other diamond ring which you used to +wear--the big one?" + +"I have it home," Max replied. "What d'ye want to know for?" + +"I want to lend you some money on it," Morris went on calmly; "also that +pin which you got it and that there ring. I want to lend you three +thousand dollars on 'em." + +"Three thousand dollars!" Max exclaimed. "Why, the whole outfit isn't +worth two!" + +"What do I care?" Morris rejoined. "It's only a loan and I bet yer you +would quick pay me back." + +Max paused on the sidewalk and stared. "What's the matter, Morris?" he +cried. "Are you sick?" + +"Must a feller got to be sick to want to help you out, Max?" Morris +said. "And anyhow, Max, it's as much a favour to us as it is to you." + +By this time they had reached the Prince Clarence Hotel and Morris led +the way to the cafe. + +"Say, lookyhere, Max, the whole thing is this," he said after they were +seated: "I'm going to lend you three thousand dollars to go into a +business with a feller which he got a store in a small town upstate, and +you're going to do it." + +Max shook his head. + +"No; I ain't," he answered. "I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks." + +"If you sell goods wholesale you could sell 'em retail," Morris +declared. "So, if you would listen to me I'll tell you what the +proposition is." + +Forthwith Morris unfolded to Max the history of Sam Green's mercantile +establishment. + +"And now, after all them years, Max," he concluded, "that feller gets +practically run out of town because his bank shuts down on him." + +"What's the name of the place?" Max asked. + +"The name of the place?" Morris repeated. + +"Yes," Max said, "the name of the town where the fellow comes from." + +Morris scratched his head for a minute. + +"I should remember the name of every little one-horse town where we got +customers!" he said. "The name of the place don't matter, Max; it's got +two thousand people living in it and practically only one store, because +the way Sam Green is running his business now you couldn't call it a +store at all." + +Max rose from the table. + +"I'll tell you the truth, Morris," he said; "what's the use wasting our +time? The proposition ain't attractive. I was born and raised in a +one-horse town upstate; and, even though I ain't been back for twenty +years, I know what it's like. You'll have to excuse me." + +"But, Max----" Morris commenced. + +"I needn't tell you that I'm more than grateful to you, Morris," Max +concluded; "and if ever I want to dispose of my diamonds you shall have +first chance." + +He shook Morris's limp and unresisting hand and returned at once to the +showroom of Kleiman & Elenbogen. + +"Any one come for me, Miss Cashman?" he asked the bookkeeper, who was +busily engaged in the preparation of the firm's monthly statement. + +"Say, lookyhere, Kirschner," Louis Kleiman called from his office; +"leave the girl alone, can't you? She's got enough to do tending to our +business." + +"I'm only asking her if she has any word for me," Max replied. + +"I don't care what you are asking her," Kleiman said as he came out of +his office to confront Max. "You are acting altogether too fresh around +here, Kirschner. Do you pay rent here _oder_ what?" + +Max made no reply. + +"And furthermore," Kleiman continued, "we got business to attend to +here, Kirschner, and we couldn't afford to have no dead ones hanging +around." + +For a brief interval he scowled at Max, who turned on his heel and made +for the elevator without another word. His applications for employment +during the past few days had met with polite refusals coupled with +cheerful prophecies of his early employment. To be sure, Max had taken +little stock in this consoling optimism, but it had all helped to keep +alive his spirits, which had sunk again to their lowest ebb at +Kleiman's epithet, "dead one." + +After all, he was a dead one, he reflected as he stumbled along the +sidewalk toward his boarding house on Irving Place. A man of sixty +safely intrenched in his own business, with the confidence his wealth +inspires, is in the very prime of life. But Max, with his health +impaired and his employment taken away from him, felt and looked a +decrepit old man as he tottered upstairs to his third-floor room and +flung himself on the bed, where he lay for more than an hour staring at +the ceiling. + +During that interval he reviewed his career from the time he helped his +father, a Prussian refugee of 1848, in the little country store upstate. +Then came his father's death, followed by a clerkship in the large +dry-goods business of his father's competitors. After this he had moved +to New York; and from that time on he had followed the calling of a +travelling salesman with varying success, until at sixty he found +himself out of health and employment, with property of less than two +thousand dollars as a reserve fund. + +What a fool he had been not to accept Perlmutter's offer! Nevertheless +it seemed futile for a man of sixty to make a new start in a strange +town, especially since, in rural communities, business goes as much by +favour and friendship as by commercial enterprise. Now, had he been +offered a partnership in a store in his native town, where it would be +an easy matter to renew old acquaintance, he might have viewed the +proposition differently. + +He rose from the bed and sat down in an armchair, while his mind +reverted to more pleasant topics. He pictured to himself his father's +store underneath what the townspeople called the opera house. He saw +again that dingy little hall, with its small proscenium opening guarded +by a frayed old curtain, and he smiled as he remembered the landscape it +bore. With the sophistication of his race he had enjoyed many a good +laugh at the performance that had evoked the tears of his fellow +townsmen. What Rubes they were, to be sure! And yet, what good fellows +the boys had been! He recalled various ones by name and found himself +wondering how they looked and whether they were married or single. +Another half hour of like musing and suddenly he slapped his thigh. + +"By jinks!" he said, "I'll do it. I need a vacation and I'm going to +have it too." + +When Morris returned to his place of business that afternoon he had +packed Sam Green off to his store upstate with instructions to return in +a week, during which Morris hoped to take the matter up with Abe. As for +his hour-long absence from his place of business, Morris had provided +himself with a plausible explanation in rebuttal to the quiet, ironical +greeting that he knew would await him. His program was a little upset, +however, by Abe's inquiry, which was not in the least ironical. + +"Loafer, where have you been?" Abe demanded. + +"What d'ye mean, loafer?" Morris cried. + +"I mean, while you are fooling away your time, Moe Griesman comes in +here to see us and naturally he don't find none of us here; so he goes +away again. From us he goes straight over to Sammet Brothers--and that's +the way it goes." + +"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I thought you told me he cancels his +order this morning and buys only from Klinger & Klein." + +"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but I suppose he finds out he couldn't find +all the goods he wants with one concern and now he goes over to Sammet +Brothers." + +"How do you know he went over to Sammet Brothers?" Morris asked. + +"A question! How do I know it?" Abe exclaimed. "Ain't he left a +memorandum I should ring him up there?" + +"Well, why don't you ring him up and find out what he wants?" Morris +retorted. + +"What do I care what he wants, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Whatever he +wants he don't want it now, because them two cut-throats would suck him +dry of orders. Once a feller gets into the hands of Sammet Brothers they +wouldn't let him go till he bought himself blue in the face." + +"Ring him up, anyhow," Morris insisted; and the next moment Abe was +engaged in a heated altercation with "Central." Finally he heard Leon +Sammet at the other end of the wire. + +"Hello!" he yelled. "I want to speak with Mr. Griesman. Never mind what +I want to speak with him about. That's my business. I ain't the fresh +one--you are the fresh one. You are asking me something which you ain't +got no right to ask me at all. You know well enough who it is talking." + +After five minutes' further conversation, Leon relinquished his end of +the wire to Griesman and immediately thereafter Abe's voice diminished +in harshness till it became fairly flutelike with friendship and +amiability. + +"Oh, hello, Mr. Griesman!" he said. "Did you want to talk to me? Why, +no, Mr. Griesman, he don't owe us nothing. He paid us this morning. +Sure! What did you want to know for? Why should we sell his account, Mr. +Griesman? He's a little slow, y'understand, but he's quite good. That's +all right. Good-by." + +When he returned to the showroom his face wore a puzzled expression. + +"Well, Abe, what did he want?" Morris asked. + +Abe shrugged his shoulders. + +"I don't know what he is up to, Mawruss," Abe said; "but he tells me he +wants to buy from us Sam Green's account. So I told him Sam pays us this +morning, and he rings off." + +"Why should Moe Griesman want to buy from us Sam Green's account?" +Morris muttered to himself; and then a wave of recollection came over +him. Obviously it was Moe Griesman who had bought out Sam's competitors +and this caused Sam's bank to shut down on him. Now Moe Griesman was +attempting to buy up Sam's liabilities and close him up, so that there +might be no competitor to Moe's new business in Cyprus. At length the +humour of the situation appealed to Morris and he grinned vacuously at +his partner. + +"_Nu_," Abe growled; "what are you laughing at?" + +"Nothing much, Abe," Morris replied. "I was only thinking--that's all, +Abe. I was thinking to myself, Abe, what a joke it would be, supposing, +for instance, Sam's check should come back N. G." + + * * * * * + +When Sam Green entered the smoker of the seven-thirty train from +Syracuse to Cyprus, the following morning, a well-dressed man of sixty +followed him down the aisle and sat down in the same seat with him. + +"Have a cigar?" the stranger said. + +"Much obliged," Sam replied as he took it. "If it is just the same to +you I would smoke it after dinner." + +"Sure!" the stranger rejoined, handing him another; "smoke that one +after dinner and smoke this one now." + +Sam grinned and after they had lit up he ventured the observation that +it was fine weather. + +"_Aber_ it should be colder," he concluded, "for heavyweights." + +"Are you in the clothing business?" the stranger asked. + +"I got a sort of a store," Sam replied; "clothing and cloaks, and suits +also. A dry-goods store in Cyprus." + +"In Cyprus?" Sam's seatmate cried. "You don't tell me? I'm going down to +Cyprus too." + +"My fall buying is through," Sam said. + +"I'm not selling goods this trip," the stranger replied. "I'm on a +vacation." + +"A vacation!" Sam murmured. "In Cyprus! That's a _medeena_ for a +vacation." + +"There are worse places than Cyprus, my friend," said Sam's new-found +acquaintance; and thereat began a conversation that lasted until the +train finally drew into Cyprus. + +"Would you mind telling me what is your name, please?" Sam asked as they +prepared to leave the car. + +"Certainly," the stranger said, handing his card to Sam. + +"Kirschner!" Sam exclaimed, looking at the card. "Kirschner, _von unsere +Leute_?" + +"Sure!" Max Kirschner replied. + +"Did your father once run a store under the opera house here?" + +"That's right." + +"And after he died the widder sells out to a man by the name Marcus +Senft?" + +"The same one," Max replied. "Why do you ask?" + +"Because I bought out that feller, Marcus Senft," Sam replied, "and I +got on my books yet debts which your mother sold to Senft for +twenty-five cents on the dollar--and he sold to me for ten cents." + +"I'll bet I know who owes 'em, too," Max commented. + +"You could look 'em over if you want to," Sam said as they started to +walk down the hilly lane from the depot to the main street. + +"I will after I've washed up at the hotel," Max answered. + +"Hotel?" Sam exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, hotel? You ain't going to no +hotel. You're coming home with me. A feller _von unsere Leute_ should +come to Cyprus for a vacation and stay at a hotel! An idee!" + +He linked his arm in Max's and together they walked to Sam's store. + +"We'll take a look in here first before we go up to the house," Sam said +as he opened the door. The next moment Sam Green was clasped to the +ample bosom of Leah Green, who glanced inquiringly at Max Kirschner. + +"Mommer," Sam announced, "this is Mr. Max Kirschner, which he ought to +be like an old friend on account he was born and raised in this here +town and his father run this very store." + +Max looked around him at the shelves and showcases. + +"The same fixtures," he muttered absently. + +"He is only in town for a couple of days, mommer," Sam said +hesitatingly, "so I thought we could easy fix up the spare room--ain't +it?" + +"Why, sure!" Mrs. Green replied as she shook Max's hand warmly. "Is the +folks all well, Mr. Kirschner?" + +Max smiled sadly. + +"You can judge for yourself, Mrs. Green," he said, "because I'm all the +folks there are." + +"Oh, sure," Mrs. Green hastened to say. "I remember now; you never got +married." + +"Why, how do you know that?" Sam asked. + +Mrs. Green nodded her head sideways in Sam's direction. + +"He don't never hear nothing, Mr. Kirschner," she said. "With me the +women folks _schmooses_ all the time; and you could take it from me, Mr. +Kirschner, they talk a whole lot more about what happens forty years ago +as what happens last week already." + +Max nodded as the store door opened and a woman of uncertain age +entered. + +"Good morning, Mis' Green," the newcomer said, her eyes glued on Max +Kirschner. "I was just passin' by on my way to the depot and I +remembered that I needed a spool of thread." + +Mrs. Green passed behind the counter to reach the thread case. + +"Going to Sarahcuse to-day, Mis' Duree?" she asked casually. + +Mrs. Duryea blushed. + +"I'm on my way to see my sister's little granddaughter," she explained; +"she's just recovering from whooping cough." + +"Would that be your sister Libby?" Max inquired. + +Mrs. Duryea started visibly. + +"I don't know as I----" she began. + +"That's so," Max continued. "Libby moved to Elmira. It must be Carrie. +She married Lem Peters, didn't she?" + +"Well, of all things!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed. "Who in the world told you +all that?" + +"I just remembered it," Max said, holding out his hand. "How's Tom?" + +Mrs. Duryea took the proffered hand gingerly. + +"He's pretty spry," she said. + +"Tell him Max Kirschner was asking for him," Max replied. + +"You ain't Max Kirschner?" Mrs. Duryea cried. + +"Just as sure as you're Hattie Watson," Max said. "How're all the +children, Hattie?" + +"All growed up and flew away," Mrs. Duryea replied. "What are you doing +around here?" + +Max's eyes twinkled mischievously. + +"I'm selling goods for Mr. Green here," he declared. "Let's see, Hattie. +Forty-two bust, I should say." + +He snatched a garment from a rack near by. + +"Here's a coat, Hattie, that would stand you in forty dollars in +Syracuse," he said. "One of those big dry-goods stores there figures on +a coat like this: garment, wholesale, twenty dollars; running a big +store with elevators, electric lights and all modern improvements, ten +dollars; advertising, five dollars; profit, five dollars--total, forty +dollars. We figure here: cost of garment, twenty dollars; store +expenses, fifty cents; profit, four dollars and fifty cents; total, +twenty-five dollars. Put it on, Hattie, and let's see how you look in +the garment." + +"Well, I declare!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed as she allowed herself to be +assisted into the garment. "You take my breath away." + +Max stepped back to survey the effect; and if the admiration expressed +in his face was simulated, at least the friendliness of his smile was +not. + +"Now, Hattie, I want to tell you something," he declared: "If any one +would say to me that I went to school with you I'd think they had a bad +memory. I'd tell 'em it was your mother that sat next to me in Miss +Johnson's room and not you." + +Mrs. Duryea fairly beamed as she strutted up and down the store. + +"Well, Max," she said at last, "let me bring my friend Mis' Williams in +this afternoon and we'll decide on it then." + +"But I thought you were going to Syracuse," Max rejoined. + +"I was," Mrs. Duryea said as she started to leave; "but I ain't now." + + * * * * * + +The news of Max Kirschner's return spread through Cyprus like a brush +fire, and twenty minutes after Mrs. Duryea had left Sam Green's store +Max was holding a levee behind the old counter. By two o'clock he had +greeted over fifty old friends and at least twenty of them had made +purchases in amounts varying from five to thirty dollars. + +"As sure as you're standing there, Mr. Kirschner," Sam declared, "I sold +more goods this morning as in the last two months." + +Max grinned delightedly. His face was flushed and he looked at least ten +years younger as he patted Sam on the shoulder. + +"Look out for the rush this afternoon," he said. "If we only had a +better assortment, Green, I think we could keep this up for a week +longer and after that we could do a good, steady business." + +"We?" Sam exclaimed. + +Max coloured and smiled in an embarrassed fashion. + +"Of course I mean you," he said. + +"Why 'of course'?" Sam asked; and Mrs. Green nodded vigorously. "Why not +we, Mr. Kirschner?" + +"Well, you see, I haven't sold goods at retail for so long," Max +explained, "that I really don't know how." + +Sam turned to Mrs. Green with a quick shrug. + +"_Was hast du gehoert?_" he cried. "He don't know how! If I wouldn't know +how to sell goods the way you don't know how, Mr. Kirschner, I would +quick build up a good business here. Tell me, Mr. Kirschner, how much +longer do you got a vacation, because I'd like to make you a +proposition. You could stay with me here for the rest of your vacation +and I would give you half of the profits over the cost price of every +garment you sell. How's that?" + +"Very generous," Max said; "but you don't know what you're offering me, +Green, because the vacation might last for several years." + +"Several years!" Sam repeated. "You mean you are retired from business, +Mr. Kirschner?" + +"Exactly," Max answered; "with a fortune of two diamond rings, a diamond +pin, and eight hundred and sixty-five dollars cash." + +Sam and Mrs. Green stared at him incredulously. + +"In other words, Green," Max concluded, "I have just been fired out of a +job as travelling salesman, which I held for twenty years, and I don't +see a chance of getting another one." + +For a moment Sam and his wife exchanged glances. + +"Mr. Kirschner," Sam said, "how much can you get for them diamonds?" + +"Fifteen hundred dollars, I guess," Max replied. + +"Then what is the use talking nonsense, Mr. Kirschner?" Sam cried +excitedly. "Come along with me over to the Farmers' National Bank and +we'll see Mr. Fuller; and if he would renew my accommodation for a +thousand dollars you and me would go as partners together and _fertig_." + +"Fuller!" Max cried. "That ain't Wilbur M. Fuller, is it?" + +"That's the one," Sam declared. + +"Then we'll not only get him to renew the accommodation, Sam, but we'll +sell him some shirts and neckties as well. He and I clerked together in +Van Buskirk & Patterson's." + +As a sequel to Max's visit to the Farmers' National Bank, Abe and Morris +waited in vain for the return of Sam's check. + +"How did you know the check wasn't good, Mawruss?" Abe asked his partner +a week later. + +"I ain't said it ain't good, Abe," Morris protested; "only I seen +Markson, which he works for Klinger & Klein as a bookkeeper, in +Hammersmith's to-day and he says that Moe Griesman goes round trying to +buy up all Sam Green's bills payable; and he's got about five hundred +dollars' worth now already." + +"Sure, I know he did," Abe replied. "He got from Kleiman & Elenbogen +Sam's three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar debt for two hundred and +seventy-five cash and Sam sends 'em the check for the full amount the +day before yesterday. I seen Louis Kleiman yesterday and he was feeling +pretty sore, I bet yer." + +Morris nodded. He had been completely mystified about Sam's affairs +since the arrival of a letter from Cyprus addressed to Morris +personally, wherein Sam repaid the money advanced for his hotel +accommodation and announced that he had abandoned for the present his +intention of returning to New York. Morris's mystification was hardly +abated by the following letter, which arrived on the heels of the +conversation above set forth: + + SAMUEL GREEN & CO. + DRY-GOODS AND NOTIONS + THE K. & M. SYLPHSHAPE CORSET + + CYPRUS, NEW YORK, MAY 1, 1910. + + GENTS: We inclose you herewith memorandum of order. Kindly ship same + within ten days by fast freight, and oblige + + Yours truly, SAMUEL GREEN & CO. + + P. S. You should telegraph Farmers' National Bank for references if + you ain't satisfied to ship without it. Business is good. S. GREEN. + +Morris Perlmutter's relations with Sol Klinger retained their +cordiality despite the rupture between Abe Potash and Klinger & Klein. +To be sure, Moe Griesman's defection had rankled, but Morris consoled +himself with the maxim, "Business is business"; and when he met Sol +Klinger in Hammersmith's restaurant during the first week of the spring +buying season he greeted Sol cordially. His friendly advance, however, +met with a decided rebuff. + +"What's the matter now, Sol?" Morris asked. + +Sol nodded his head slowly. + +"It's a great world, Mawruss," he said. + +Morris agreed with him. "There's business enough in it for everybody +anyhow, Sol, if that's what you mean," he replied. + +"In lots of places, yes, but in others, no," Sol said. "But with some +people, Mawruss, they're like a snake in the grass, which it bites the +hand that feeds it." + +"What's Moe Klein been doing now?" Morris asked. + +"Moe Klein?" Sol cried. "What d'ye mean, Moe Klein? I ain't talking +about Moe Klein at all. I am talking about Max Kirschner, Mawruss. +There's a feller which we give him for twenty years good wages, Mawruss, +and what do we get for it? After he leaves us, Mawruss--" + +"Left you?" Morris interrupted. "Why, I always thought you fired him." + +"Sure, we fired him," Sol continued. "A lowlife bum which he makes +always a hog of himself, why shouldn't we fire him? And then, Mawruss, +when we are taking on Moe Greisman's nephew, Rabiner, what does that +sucker Max Kirschner do? He turns around and fixes up with a feller by +the name Sam Green, in Cyprus, to go as partners together in Sam Green's +store up there. And mind you, Mawruss, Moe Griesman had just bought out +Sam Green's competitors, Van Buskirk & Patterson. And Max Kirschner +knows all the time that the only reason that we took on Mozart Rabiner +was on account of his uncle, Moe Griesman." + +Sol Klinger was so interested in his own narrative that he completely +failed to notice its effect on Morris Perlmutter, who sat with his jaw +dropping lower and lower, while great beads of perspiration stood on his +forehead. + +"Yes, Mawruss," Sol continued; "Moe Griesman even comes down himself +from Sarahcuse to Cyprus to superintend things. Five thousand dollars +fixtures he puts in and forty thousand dollars he pays them two yokels, +Van Buskirk & Patterson, for the good-will, stock, and store building; +and what happens? For a whole month Moe sits in that store and not a +hundred dollars' worth of goods goes out of the place, Mawruss; and why? +It seems that Sam Green and Max Kirschner does all the business because +Max Kirschner is born and raised in Cyprus and knows everybody in the +place." + +"Max was born and raised in Cyprus?" Morris gasped. + +"That's what I said," Sol replied. "That's a _Nachbarschaft_ for a +feller to be born in! What?" + +Morris nodded and rose wearily to his feet. + +"I never could remember the name of the place even, at all," he said. +"Well, I guess now I would be getting back to the store." + +"You got my permission," Sol said as Morris started from the restaurant. +These were destined to be the last words addressed to Morris by Sol +Klinger in many a long day, for the moving incidents which awaited +Morris's return to his showroom put an end to all friendship between him +and Sol. + +_Imprimis_, when Morris entered, Moe Griesman was seated in the firm's +private office, the centre of an animated group of four. "Hello, there, +Mawruss!" Moe shouted; "there's a couple of gentlemen here which would +like to talk to you." + +He indicated a ruddy, clean-shaven person of approximately fifty years, +who on closer inspection proved to be Max Kirschner shorn of his white +moustache and without the attendant nimbus of his diamond pin. The other +individual was even harder to identify by reason of a neat-fitting +business suit of brown and a general air of prosperity; but in him +Morris descried the person of what had once been Sam Green. + +"Morris, you old rascal," Max cried, "when you took me over to the +Prince Clarence Hotel that day why didn't you tell me that the man you +wanted me to go into business with ran a store in Cyprus?" + +"I couldn't remember the name of the place at all," Morris admitted. + +Abe gazed at him sorrowfully. + +"The fact is, gentlemen," he said, "my partner ain't got no head at +all." + +Sam Green's face flushed in recollection of the phrase. + +"Never mind," he said fervently; "he's got anyhow a heart." + +"And I've got a stomach," Max Kirschner added irrelevantly. "At least, +I've recovered one since I've been eating Leah Green's good cooking." + +Sam and Moe Griesman smiled sympathetically. + +"Well, what's the use wasting time here, boys?" Moe said at last. "Let's +explain to Mawruss about the new combination. Me and Max and Sam Green +here have agreed to go as partners together in Cyprus under the name +'The Cyprus Dry-goods Company.' In a small town like Cyprus competition +is nix." + +"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "I'm glad to hear it. Is the Sarahcuse store +included too?" + +"A ten per cent. interest they got, although I am going to run my +Sarahcuse business and these here boys is going to run the Cyprus end," +Moe continued. "And now, Abe, as Max has got to pick out a lot of goods +for the Cyprus store and I want to do the same for my Sarahcuse store, +let's get to work." + +For three hours without cessation they laboured over Potash & +Perlmutter's sample line until garments to an amount in excess of five +thousand dollars had been ordered. + +When Max Kirschner saw the total of Moe Griesman's selection for the +Syracuse store he emitted a low whistle. + +"Say, Moe," he said, "ain't you going to give your nephew, Rabiner, any +show at all this season?" + +"_Oser a Stueck_," Griesman declared. "I done enough for that feller when +I got him a three years' contract with Klinger & Klein." + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +A PRESENT FOR MR. GEIGERMANN + + +"Well, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared, one morning in midwinter, "you +look like you had a pretty lively session last night." + +Abe nodded slowly. "I want to tell you something, Mawruss," he said +solemnly; "I would do anything at all to hold a customer's trade, +Mawruss. I would go on theayter with him. I would _schmier_ him tenspots +when he's got the bid already, and I would go _bate_ on hands which even +a rotten player like you couldn't lose, Mawruss. But before I would got +to sit through such another evening like last night, Mawruss, Felix +Geigermann should never buy from us again a dollar's worth more goods. +That's all I got to say." + +"Why, what was the matter?" Morris asked. + +"Well, in the first place, Mawruss, to show you what a liar that feller +Geigermann is, he brings out a fiddle which he tells us is three hundred +years old." + +"Yow! Three hundred years old!" Morris exclaimed skeptically. "A fiddle +three hundred years old would be worth, the very least, a hundred or a +hundred and fifty dollars." + +"That's what I told him, Mawruss," Abe said. "I says to him if I would +got a fiddle which it is worth that much money I would quick sell it and +buy something which it is anyhow useful, like a diamond ring _oder_ a +scarfpin. But Geigermann only laughs at me, Mawruss; he says he don't +own the fiddle, Mawruss, but that somebody loaned it him. Even if he +would own it, he wouldn't take two hundred dollars for it." + +"My worries, if he owns the fiddle _oder_ not, Abe!" Morris commented. + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss; but that ain't the point. Afterward Mozart +Rabiner comes in; and if I would be Felix Geigermann, Mawruss, and a +salesman comes into my house and gets fresh with a pianner which the +least it stands Geigermann in is a hundred dollars, Mawruss, I would +kick him into the street yet." + +"What is Mozart Rabiner doing there, Abe?" Morris inquired anxiously. + +Abe preserved a cheerful demeanour, although it was the circumstance of +Mozart Rabiner's prominence at Geigermann's musicale that had rendered +the evening so unbearable. + +"Well, Mawruss," he explained, "you don't suppose that Geigermann buys +all his goods from us?" + +Morris elevated his eyebrows gloomily. + +"I don't suppose nothing, Abe," he said; "but once you let a shark like +Rabiner get in with Geigermann, Klinger & Klein would give him the +privilege to cut our price till they run us right out of there." + +"It's an open market, Mawruss," Abe said, "and anyhow I am doing all I +can to keep that feller's business. You would think so if you would of +been there last night, Mawruss. First a lady in one of them two-piece +velvet suits--afterward I see the jacket; a ringer for our style +forty-two-twenty, Mawruss--she gets up on the floor, Mawruss, and she +hollers bloody murder, Mawruss. I never heard the like since that +Italiener girl which we got working for us on White Street catches her +finger in the buttonhole machine. Mozart Rabiner plays for her on the +pianner, Mawruss; and when she gets through, the way Rabiner jollies her +you would think she would be buying goods for Marshall Field yet. After +that, Geigermann takes the fiddle and him and Moe Rabiner gets together +by the pianner and for three quarters of an hour, Mawruss, they work +away like they was being paid for it." + +"Moe Rabiner gets paid for it, I bet yer," Morris agreed. + +"What a noise them fellers make it, Mawruss!" Abe continued. "Honestly, +I thought my head was busting; and when they get finished the lady which +done the hollering asks 'em who the piece is by, Mawruss--and who do you +think Rabiner says?" + +"How should I know who he says?" Morris retorted angrily. + +"Richard Strauss," Abe replied. + +"Richard Strauss?" Morris asked. "You mean that feller Strauss of +Klipmann, Strauss & Bleimer, I suppose?" + +"It must be the same feller," Abe said. "Seemingly everybody there knows +him; and besides, Mawruss, that feller Strauss is another one of them +musical fellers too. Only the other day Klipmann tells me that feller +spends a fortune going on the opera with customers." + +"But I thought Klipmann's partner was called Milton Strauss," Morris +said. + +"Maybe it was Milton Strauss," Abe continued. "Milton _oder_ Richard, I +couldn't remember. It was one of them up-to-date names anyhow; and, mind +you, Mawruss, that feller Rabiner has got the nerve to ask me if I +didn't like Strauss. What could I say? If that cut-throat Rabiner thinks +he is going to get me to knock a competitor in front of Geigermann he's +mistaken. 'Sure I like him,' I says; 'why not?' 'In that case,' Moe +says, 'we'll play some more of this.' 'Go as far as you like,' I says, +and they kept it up till the elevator boy rings the bell and says a lady +on the top floor is sick. I don't blame her, Mawruss; I was pretty sick +myself." + +Morris nodded sympathetically. + +"So, then, Mawruss," Abe continued, "Geigermann takes the fiddle again +and shows it to us, Mawruss; and he says on the back is a ruby varnish." + +"Rubies is pretty high now, Abe," Morris said; "carat for carat, rubies +is a whole lot more expensive as diamonds." + +"_Gewiss_, Mawruss," Abe cried; "but I seen the back of the fiddle, +Mawruss, and if the varnish on it was made from rubies, Mawruss, I would +eat it. The fiddle was an ordinary fiddle like any other fiddle; only +one thing I see, Mawruss--on the inside is a little piece from paper, +y'understand, and printed on it is the name from some Italiener or +another, with some figures on it. Geigermann says it was stuck in there +three hundred years ago, when the fiddle was made. And you ought to see +Moe Rabiner, Mawruss. He looks at that fiddle for pretty near half an +hour. He turns it upside down and he blows into it and he takes his +finger and wets it and rubs on it, and he smells it, and _Gott weiss_ +what he don't do with it." + +"He's a dangerous feller, Abe," Morris commented. "He don't never stop +at nothing to sell goods." + +"Well, I wasn't much behind him, Mawruss," Abe said. "When he smells it, +I smell it. He wets his finger, I wet my finger. Everything what that +sucker does to that fiddle, I did. He couldn't get nothing on me. +Mawruss. If he would offer to eat the fiddle, y'understand, I would got +just so good appetite as he got it, Mawruss, and don't you forget it. I +ain't going to let go so easy." + +"Might you couldn't help yourself maybe," Morris commented. + +"You shouldn't worry, Mawruss," Abe concluded. "I sold Felix Geigermann +since way before the Spanish War already, and I would sooner expect my +own brother--supposing I got one--to turn us down as him." + +Despite Abe's optimism, however, the order for spring goods that Felix +Geigermann bestowed on them a month later fell short of their +expectations by over five hundred dollars. + +"Business couldn't be so good with Felix this year, Mawruss," Abe +commented. + +"Don't you jolly yourself, Abe," Morris replied. "It ain't so much that +business is bad with Felix as it is better with Klinger & Klein. Them +two cut-throats ain't paying Rabiner good money for only playing the +pianner. He's got to sell goods too." + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said. "Let him go ahead and _spiel_ +pianner till he's blue in the face. Sooner or later Geigermann would +find out what stickers them Klinger & Klein garments is, and then Moe +Rabiner couldn't sell him no more of them goods, not if he would be a +whole orchestra already." + + * * * * * + +The personality of Aaron Shellak was simply thrown away on the garment +trade. His lean, scholarly face, surmounted by a shock of wavy brown +hair, would have assured his success as a virtuoso, and no one knew this +better than his brother, Professor Ladislaw Wcelak, under whose tuition +he had struggled through the intricacies of the first and second +positions. + +"If you would only forget you ain't got a pair of shears in your right +hand, Aaron," the professor said, "and listen to what I am telling you, +in two years' time you are making more money than all the garment +cutters together. All you got to do is to play just halfway good." + +"I suppose you're a millionaire, ain't it?" Aaron rejoined. "And you can +play fiddle like a streak." The professor heaved a great sigh as he +passed his hand over his bald head. + +"With your hair, Aaron," he said, "I could make fifty thousand a year on +concert towers alone, to say nothing of two recitals up on Fifty-seventh +Street. But if a feller only got one arm, Aaron, he would better got a +show to be a fiddle virtuoso as if he would be bald.". + +Thus encouraged Aaron persevered with his practice for some months; but, +despite the patient instruction of his brother Louis the garment +cutter's wrist still handicapped him. + +"That's a legato phrase," Louis Shellak cried impatiently, one night in +mid-February. "With one bow you got to play it." + +"Which phrase are you talking about," Aaron asked--"the one that goes +'Ta-ra-reera, ta-ra-reera'?" + +He sang the two measures in a clear tenor voice, whereat Louis snatched +the violin from his brother's grasp and, seating himself at the piano, +he struck the major triad of C natural with force sufficient to wreck +the instrument. + +"Sing 'Ah'!" he commanded. + +Aaron attacked the high C like a veteran and Professor Ladislaw Wcelak +leaped from the piano stool with an inarticulate cry. Immediately +thereafter he secured a strangle-hold on his brother and kissed him +Budapest fashion on both cheeks. + +"To-morrow night already you will commence lessons with the best teacher +money could buy," he declared. + +"Whose money?" Aaron Shellak inquired, as he wiped away the marks of his +brother's affection--"yours or mine?" + +"Me--I ain't got no money," Louis admitted. + +"Me neither," Aaron said. He was the sole support of his mother and +sisters, for Louis, as _chef d'orchestre_ in a Second Avenue restaurant, +constantly anticipated his salary over _stuss_ or _tarrok_ in the rear +of his employer's cafe. + +"How much would it take?" he asked Louis after a silence of several +minutes. + +Louis shrugged. + +"Who knows?" he replied. "Fifty dollars _oder_ a hundred, perhaps." + +Aaron nodded; and the next day, when he entered Potash & Perlmutter's +place of business, he carried with him his violin and bow in a black +leather case. Thus it happened that the strains of Godard's _Berceuse_ +saluted Abe as he stepped from the elevator that morning; and without +removing his coat he made straight for the cutting room. + +"_Koosh!_" he bellowed. "What are we running here, anyhow, Shellak--a +cloak-and-suit house _oder_ a theayter?" + +Aaron hastily replaced the instrument in its case. + +"I am only showing it to Nathan," he mumbled by way of explanation. +"Might he would like to buy it maybe." + +"If you want to sell fiddles, Shellak," Abe said, "do it outside +business hours. That's all I got to say." + +He proceeded at once to the showroom, where Morris was peeling off his +overcoat. The latter greeted Abe with a sour nod. "I am sick and tired +of it, Abe," he declared. "Everybody is stealing our business." + +"What d'ye mean, everybody's stealing our business?" Abe asked. + +"Last night I am sitting in the Harlem Winter Garden with Felix +Geigermann, and Leon Sammet butts in on us and tells Geigermann he's got +a cousin which he could play shello, and Geigermann says that he should +come around to the house next Tuesday and play it with him and Rabiner." + +Abe shrugged his shoulders. + +"My _tzuris_ if he does, Mawruss," he said; "because while I don't know +nothing about this here game, y'understand, a good way to lose a +customer is to play cards with him." + +"What are you talking nonsense, Abe?" Morris cried. "Shello ain't cards. +A shello is a fiddle which you play it with your knees." + +"For my part he could play it with his nose, Mawruss," Abe declared +hotly. "Do you mean to told me, Mawruss, that a business man like +Geigermann is going to buy a line of goods like Sammet Brothers got it +just because Leon Sammet's cousin plays a fiddle with his knees?" + +"Yow! His cousin?" Morris exclaimed. "He's as much got a cousin which he +plays the shello as I got one. He's going to give some greenhorn a +couple of dollars to go with him to Geigermann's house and play the +fiddle; and the first thing you know, Abe, Geigermann is buying from him +a big bill of goods and all the time our orders gets smaller and smaller +till we lose his trade altogether." + +Abe laughed mirthlessly and bit the end off his after-breakfast cigar. + +"If I would worry myself the way you do, Mawruss, every time a +competitor says 'Hello' to a customer of ours," he said as he turned +away, "I would gone crazy in the head _schon_ long since ago already." + +Nevertheless he pondered Leon Sammet's move all the morning, and after +Morris had gone to lunch he paced the showroom floor for more than a +quarter of an hour in an effort to formulate some plan for regaining +Geigermann's business. His reflections were at length interrupted by a +faint scraping from the rear of the store. Once more Aaron Shellak was +entertaining the cutting-room staff with a pianissimo rendition of +Godard's _Berceuse_; but even as Abe tiptoed across the showroom to +crush the performance with an explosive "_Koosh!_" the melody ceased. + +"That's a genu-ine Amati," Aaron said, "and you could see for +yourself--inside here is the label." + +Abe stopped short. The word "Amati" brought back to him the scene of +Felix Geigermann's musicale, and his heart thumped unpleasantly as he +listened to Aaron's exhibition of salesmanship. + +"Moreover," Aaron continued, "here is the scroll which it is ever so +much finer as them other fiddles you could buy for fifty _oder_ sixty +dollars. Look at the varnish on the back, Nathan--shines like rubies, +ain't it?" + +"What would I do with a fiddle, Aaron?" Nathan Schenkman, the shipping +clerk, asked. + +"You I ain't saying at all," Aaron said; "but you got a little boy +Nathan." + +"He ain't a year old yet," Nathan interrupted. + +"Sure, I know," Shellak went on; "but now is the time, Nathan. You +couldn't begin too early. Look at Kubelik and Kreisler and all them +fellers. When they was eating from a bottle already the old man give 'em +a fiddle to play with, and to-day where are they? In one concert tower +alone, Nathan, them fellers makes from fifty to a hundred thousand +dollars." + +He paused so that Nathan might better apprehend the alluring prospect. + +"And I'll let you have it for a hundred and fifty dollars, Nathan," he +concluded. "Ten dollars down and two dollars a week till paid. No +interest nor nothing." + +At this juncture Abe burst into the cutting room. + +"_Nu_, Shellak!" he roared. "What are you trying to do? Skin a poor +feller like Nathan, which he got a wife and a child to support?" + +"What d'ye mean, skin him?" Aaron retorted. "I ain't no crook, Mr. +Potash." + +"That's all right, Shellak," Abe went on. "I heard every word you are +saying. Come inside; I want to talk to you." + +Aaron's face blanched and he trembled visibly. + +"But, Mr. Potash----" he began. + +"Never mind!" Abe bellowed; "take that fiddle and all that _machshovos_ +you got there and come in here." + +Abe led the way to the front of the showroom, followed by the +crestfallen Shellak, who deposited fiddle, bow, and case on a sample +table. + +"Say, lookyhere, Shellak," Abe said in kindly tones, "what the devil are +you trying to sell a _Schnorrer_ like that a good fiddle? Why don't you +give me a show?" + +The blood surged suddenly to Aaron's face. + +"You!" he stammered. "Why, Mr. Potash, I never knew you was interested +in violins." + +"Sure; why not?" Abe replied. "Let me have a look at it." + +First he squinted into the right "eff" hole and he grunted in approval +as he spied the label, which read as follows: + + NICOLAUS AMATI CREMONENSIS + Faciebat Anno 1670 + +"Do you know anything about them old violins?" Aaron asked anxiously. + +Abe smiled in a superior way. + +"Not a whole lot, Aaron," he said, but by the time he had finished his +examination Aaron became convinced that his employer was indeed one of +the _cognoscenti_. First Abe turned the violin upside down and +scrutinized the scroll, neck, belly, and back. Then he blew into the +"eff" holes; and wetting his finger he rubbed the varnish. For five +minutes he pursued the tactics of Mozart Rabiner and even added one or +two fancy touches on his own account, until at length he laid down the +instrument with a profound sigh. + +"Always the same thing, Shellak," he said; "people says it is a genu-ine +and it ain't." + +Aaron took up his violin and looked at it through new eyes. + +"Why ain't it genu-ine?" he asked. + +"I should tell you why it ain't!" Abe exclaimed. "If you would know what +I know about them things, Shellak, you wouldn't ask me such a question +at all. Do you doubt my word?" + +"Why should I doubt your word, Mr. Potash?" Aaron said. "In the inside +is the paper and that's all I know about it. So, if you would give me a +hundred and fifty dollars, Mr. Potash, you could keep the fiddle, bow, +case _und fertig_." + +For some minutes they haggled over the bargain, and at length they +closed at a hundred and twenty-five dollars, for which Abe gave Shellak +his personal check. + +[Illustration: "Do you know anything about them old violins?"] + +"And you shouldn't say nothing to Mr. Perlmutter about it," Abe +concluded, "because I want to make a present of it as a surprise to my +partner." + + * * * * * + +When Abe came downtown the following morning he wore so marked an air of +pleased mystery that Morris became irritated. + +"Let me in on this too, Abe," he said. + +"Let you in on what, Mawruss?" Abe asked innocently. "I don't know what +you mean at all." + +"You know very well what I mean," Morris rejoined. "You ain't coming +around here grinning like a barn door for nothing." + +"I give you right about that, Mawruss," Abe said. "I got in a good +_Schlag_ at Leon Sammet and Moe Rabiner last night, Mawruss, I bet yer. +I got from Geigermann a repeat order on them two-piece velvet +suits--seven hundred and fifty dollars; and do you know how I done it?" + +"Chloroformed him," Morris suggested ironically. + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Go ahead and joke if you +want to. Maybe I couldn't play the fiddle with my knees and maybe I +don't know nothing about _spieling_ pianners neither, y'understand; but +I got a little gumption, too, Mawruss, and don't you forget it." + +He retired to the cutting room with a set expression on his face, as +though to imply that wild horses could not drag from him the secret of +Felix Geigermann's renewed patronage. + +For twenty minutes he remained firm in his resolve not to gratify his +partner's curiosity; and then as Morris continued to whistle cheerfully +over the sample-rack in the front of the loft, he returned to the +showroom. + +"Yes, Mawruss," he said; "some fellers if they would do what I done with +Felix Geigermann they wouldn't give their partner a minute's peace. For +months together, Mawruss, they would throw it up to him." + +"What is the difference, Abe, if a salesman gets orders, how he gets +'em," Morris rejoined, "so long as he ain't padding his expense +account?" + +"What d'ye mean, padding my expense account?" Abe cried. "A hundred and +twenty-five dollars the fiddle costed me and that's all I charge up." + +"The fiddle!" Morris exclaimed. "What fiddle?" + +"The fiddle which I give Geigermann last night," Abe continued; "and if +you don't believe me you could ask Shellak." + +"Shellak?" Morris repeated. "What the devil are you talking about, Abe?" + +"Yes, Shellak," Abe went on, "the cutter. He comes round here yesterday +with a fiddle, Mawruss, which he wants to sell it to Nathan Schenkman. +So I give him a hundred and twenty-five dollars for it _und fertig_." + +"You give Shellak a hundred and twenty-five dollars?" Morris exploded. +"Are you crazy, _oder_ what?" + +"It was a genu-ine Amati," Abe explained; "and so soon as I seen it, +Mawruss, I thought to myself if them cut-throats could sell Geigermann a +big bill of goods just by playing on fiddles, y'understand, what sort of +an order could I get out of him supposing I should give him a fiddle +yet? So that's what I done, Mawruss; and he did, Mawruss, and I was +right. Ain't it?" + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris began slowly; "let me get this thing +correct. You are paying Shellak a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a +fiddle which you are giving Geigermann." + +"You got it right, Mawruss," Abe said. "It was a genu-ine Amati." + +"For a hundred and twenty-five dollars expenses you are getting an order +for seven hundred and fifty dollars, Abe," Morris said relentlessly; +"and some fellers would throw it up to their partners for months +together yet." + +"It was a genu-ine Amati, Mawruss," Abe repeated for the third time, +"and for a genu-ine Amati, Mawruss, a hundred and twenty-five dollars is +no price at all." + +"Sure, I know, Abe," Morris said bitterly; "to you a hundred and +twenty-five dollars is nothing at all. We are made of money, Abe, ain't +it? What do you care you are spending a hundred and twenty-five dollars +for a fiddle when for seventy-five dollars on Lenox Avenue and a Hundred +and Sixteenth Street, with my own eyes I seen it, you could buy a square +pianner with a stool and scarf yet, as good as new. If you want to +_schenk_ the feller something, why didn't you told me? What for a +present is a fiddle, Abe, when for half the money we could give him a +pianner yet?" + +Abe hung his head in embarrassment. + +"But Mawruss," he said, "it was a genu-ine Amati." + +For one brief moment Morris choked with rage. + +"Genu-ine hell!" he roared, and plunged away to the office. + +For the remainder of the morning Abe went about his work in crestfallen +silence, although Morris, after subjecting Geigermann's order to a +little cost bookkeeping on the back of an envelope broke once more into +a cheerful whistle. + +"Well, Abe," he said at twelve o'clock, "what is _vorbei_ is _vorbei_. +It ain't no use crying over sour milk, so I am going out to lunch." + +"What d'ye mean, sour milk, Mawruss?" Abe retorted. "The sour milk is +all on your side, Mawruss, because I am telling you it was a genu-ine +Amati." + +"All right, Abe," Morris said, as he rang for the elevator; "you told me +that _schon_ twenty times already. I wouldn't give you two dollars for +all them genu-ine fellers' fiddles in creation; and that's all there is +to it." + +With this ultimatum he stepped into the elevator and five minutes +afterward he sat at a table in Hammersmith's restaurant and beguiled +with a dill pickle the interval between the giving and filling of his +order. At the table next to him sat an animated group, of which Louis +Kleiman was the centre. + +"Yes, sirree, sir!" Louis declared, in defiance of the law of scandal +and libel; "six months I would give the feller at the outside. A feller +couldn't attend to business if he would set up till all hours of the +night playing fiddle with that lowlife, Rabiner. That ain't all yet, +neither! Yesterday he pays for a fiddle three thousand dollars." + +"For a fiddle three thousand dollars!" cried one of the group, and the +good half of a dill pickle fell from Morris's limp grasp. + +"That's what I said," Louis continued; "for three thousand dollars yet +he is buying a fiddle. With my own eyes I seen it in the paper this +morning; and when a feller puts three thousand dollars into a fiddle, +y'understand, he could kiss himself good-by with his business." + +At this juncture Morris beckoned to the waiter. + +"Say," he said hoarsely, "never mind that roast spring lamb and stuffed +tomatoes. Bring me instead a rye-bread tongue sandwich and a cup +coffee." + +After the waiter had gone Morris settled back in his chair and listened +once more to the conversation at the next table. + +"All right; then I'm a liar," he heard Louis say. "I tell you I got the +paper in my overcoat pocket right now." + +Louis rose from his seat and securing the morning paper from his +overcoat he read aloud the following item: + + PAYS HEAVILY FOR AMATI VIOLIN + + Mrs. Helene Karanyi, widow of the celebrated violinist, Bela + Karanyi, has sold her husband's favourite Amati at a price said to + be over three thousand dollars. The purchaser is Felix Geigermann, + who said yesterday that the violin had been in his possession for + some time, and that there was no doubt of its authenticity. It was + presented to Karanyi by the late Prince Ludovic Esterhazy, whose + collection of Cremona violins, now preserved by his son, is said to + be the finest in the world. Mr. Geigermann is the well-known Harlem + dry-goods merchant. + +Louis Kleiman folded the paper and laid it on the table. + +"That's the way it goes, boys," he said in heightened tones, for by this +time he had caught sight of Morris. "A new beginner comes to you and you +give him a little line of credit, y'understand, and pretty soon he is +buying more and more goods till he gets to be a big _macher_ like Felix +Geigermann. Then either one of two things happens to you: Either he +begins to think you are too small for him and he turns around and buys +goods from some other sucker, y'understand, _oder_ he goes to work and +throws away his money left and right on oitermobiles _oder_ fiddles, and +sooner or later he busts up on you; and that's the way it goes." + +"You shouldn't worry yourself, Kleiman," Morris cried, turning around in +his chair. "Felix Geigermann ain't going to fail just yet a while." + +"Me worry?" Kleiman retorted. "For my part, Felix Geigermann could fail +to-morrow yet; he don't owe me one cent, nor never would. I ain't +looking to sell no goods to fiddlers, Perlmutter. I am dealing only with +merchants." + +"Furthermore," Morris went on, "if Felix Geigermann hears it you are +making a break like this--that he's going to fail yet, and all sorts of +crooks you are calling him, Kleiman--he would sue you in the courts for +a hundred thousand dollars yet. From a big mouth a feller could get +himself into a whole lot of trouble." + +Kleiman scrambled hastily to his feet and seized his hat. + +"What are you talking nonsense, Perlmutter?" he exclaimed. "I ain't said +nothing out of the way about Geigermann. You are the one what's putting +the words into my mouth already. Did you ever hear anything like it!--I +am saying Geigermann is going to fail? An idee! I never said nothing of +the kind. All I am saying is what is right here in the paper, black on +white; and if you don't believe me you could read it for yourself." + +He handed the paper to Morris; and, as the latter commenced to read over +the Geigermann paragraph, Kleiman and his friends slunk hurriedly out of +the restaurant. For nearly half an hour Morris pored over the newspaper; +then he choked down the sandwich and swallowed the coffee, which by this +time was cold. + + * * * * * + +"Admitting I am only your partner, Mawruss," Abe began as Morris entered +the showroom a few minutes later, "don't I got to eat too? And in the +second place, Mawruss, if you got to make a hog of yourself, do it at +dinner-time at home, because when a feller takes up a whole hour having +his lunch, Mawruss, he naturally stuffs himself so full that he ain't no +good for the rest of the day." + +A lump in Morris's throat, which may or may not have been the tongue +sandwich, prevented him from replying; but at last he swallowed it and, +after removing his hat and coat, he carefully unfolded the paper. + +"Don't hurry out to lunch, Abe," he said. "I could save you money. I got +something to tell you which it would take away your appetite so you +wouldn't want even a cup coffee." + +Abe paused with his hand on the hatrack. + +"What d'ye mean?" he demanded. + +"I mean I am eating only a tongue sandwich and a cup coffee in +Hammersmith's just now," Morris went on, "and who should I see at the +next table but Louis Kleiman of Kleiman & Elenbogen. That's a dirty +lowlife, that feller, Abe! A cut-throat like him should be making money +in business! Honestly, Abe, when I see decent, respectable fellers like +----" + +"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe said, "let me go to my lunch, will you? +I'm hungry." + +"Hungry, _sagt er_!" Morris retorted. "A feller makes a god of his +stomach, y'understand, and his business is nothing at all. For all you +care, Abe, our whole trade could fail on us, so long as you could eat. +Everybody says the same thing; the feller's ----" + +"Do me the favour, Mawruss," Abe begged; "tell me about it afterward. +All I am eating for my breakfast is one egg, so sure as you're standing +there." + +"All right, Abe; I wouldn't keep you no longer," Morris said. "If you +could got it in your heart to eat, when one of your best customers is +busting up on you, go ahead." + +"Our best customer?" Abe cried--"Mandelberger Brothers & Company?" + +"_Geh weg_, you fool!" Morris exclaimed angrily. "Why should a +millionaire concern like Mandelberger Brothers & Company got to fail? +You talk like a lunatic." + +Once more Abe seized his hat. + +"I got enough of your nonsense, Mawruss," he said, starting for the +elevator. + +"Wait!" Morris cried, grabbing him by the arm. "Did you ship any goods +to Felix Geigermann yet?" + +"Felix Geigermann?" Abe repeated. "Is that the feller?" + +Morris nodded, and this time Abe hung up his hat and sat down heavily in +the nearest chair. + +"Who says he's going to fail?" he asked. + +"Everybody says so," Morris replied; "even in the papers they got it." + +He handed Kleiman's paper to Abe and indicated the paragraph with a +shaking forefinger. + +"Where does it say he is going to fail?" Abe asked after he had read it +over hastily. + +"Where does it say it?" Morris cried. "Why, if a feller goes to work and +pays three thousand dollars for a fiddle, Abe, while he only got a +business rated twenty-five to thirty thousand, credit fair, ain't it as +plain as the nose on your face he must got to fail?" + +Once more Abe read over the paragraph and then the paper fell from his +hands to the floor. + +"Why, Mawruss," he gasped, "it says here he is paying three thousand +dollars for an Amati which he had in his possession for some time. That +must be the very fiddle which he is playing on with Moe Rabiner." + +"My _tzuris_ if it is _oder_ it ain't," Morris commented. "What +difference does that make to us, Abe?" + +Abe's face was white and large beads of perspiration stood out on his +forehead as he replied. + +"The difference ain't much, Mawruss," he said slowly. "Only if Felix +Geigermann pays three thousand for the fiddle which he already got it +and we are giving him for nothing another fiddle, which is the selfsame, +identical article, Mawruss, then we are out three thousand dollars--and +that's all the difference it makes to us!" + +For two minutes Morris regarded his partner with a glassy stare. + +"Do you mean to told me, Abe, that that there fiddle which you bought it +from Shellak is the same identical article like Geigermann pays three +thousand dollars for?" + +Abe nodded. + +"You couldn't tell the difference between 'em, Mawruss," he declared. +"Even inside the label is the same--the same name and everything." + +Morris took off his hat and coat methodically and hung them up on the +rack. + +"So, Abe," he commenced, "you are giving to a _Schnorrer_ like +Geigermann a genu-ine who's-this violin, which it is worth three +thousand dollars!" + +"How should I know it is worth three thousand?" Abe said. + +"Everybody knows that one of them genu-ine feller's violins is worth +three thousand dollars," Morris thundered. "I'm surprised to hear you, +you should talk that way." + +"Shellak didn't know it for one," Abe interrupted, "otherwise why should +he sell to us for a hundred and twenty-five dollars a fiddle worth three +thousand dollars?" + +"What should a greenhorn like Shellak know about such things?" Morris +said. + +"Don't you fool yourself, Mawruss. If Shellak finds out he is getting a +hundred and twenty-five for a fiddle worth three thousand, he's got +gumption enough to sue us in the courts yet, and don't you forget it." + +"Why should he sue us, Abe?" Morris asked. "A bargain is a bargain, +ain't it?" + +"Sure I know, Mawruss; but I told the feller the fiddle wasn't genu-ine, +y'understand, when all the time I knew it was genu-ine." + +"Might you are mistaken maybe, Abe," Morris broke in. "Might the fiddle +ain't genu-ine." + +"What d'ye mean, ain't genu-ine? I am telling you the label was inside +and even the lot number is the same." + +"The lot number?" + +"Sure, the lot number. Sixteen-seventy, I think it was; and the only +thing for us to do, Mawruss, is we should fix up some scheme to get that +fiddle back from Geigermann; and that's all there is to it." + +"Well, go ahead, Abe," Morris said. "Go ahead and see him this +afternoon." + +For the third time Abe put on his hat. + +"First and foremost I would go out and get a bite to eat, Mawruss," he +said. "What good would it do me to get the fiddle back if I would die +from starvation first?" + + * * * * * + +Although the manufacturers of mechanical piano-players had never +solicited Felix Geigermann's photograph for half-tone reproductions in +the advertising section of anybody's magazine, he dressed as though he +expected the immediate arrival of the man with the camera--that is to +say, he wore his hair after Mahler, while Hollman and Moritz Rosenthal +contributed to the pattern of his moustache. Moreover, he assumed a +Paderewski tuft, a rolling collar that exposed the points of his right +and left clavicles, a Windsor tie, and, to preserve the unity of his +characterization, a slight nondescript foreign accent, despite the +circumstance that he was born in Newark, N. J. All this, however, was +not an idle pose on Felix's part. He merely applied to a dry-goods store +the business principles of the successful virtuoso, and he had found +them so efficacious that personally he sold more garments than any six +of his clerks. He was no less astute in the buying end of the business; +for in pitting Sammet Brothers, Klinger & Klein, and Potash & Perlmutter +against one another he not only secured better terms of credit, but he +found that it materially added to the quality of their garments. + +Thus, had Abe but known it, his seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar order +proceeded not from the gift of the violin, but from the circumstance +that the velvet suits had sold like hot cakes; and when he entered the +Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street store that afternoon Felix greeted him +effusively. He wanted that second order badly, and if cordiality could +accelerate its shipment he was willing to try it with Abe. + +"Ah, _mon ami_," he cried. "Come inside my office. What good wind blows +you here?" + +Abe scowled. All this enthusiasm betokened but one thing--the violin was +a genuine Amati, after all. He sat down slowly and bit the end off a +large cigar. + +"The fact is, Felix," he began, "for myself I don't care, y'understand, +but you know Mawruss Perlmutter, what a crank that feller is, Felix; and +so I am coming up here to ask you something for a question." + +"Fire away, Abe; you couldn't feaze me none," Felix replied in the +accents of Newark, N. J. + +"Well, Felix, it's like this," Abe went on: "If we would be selling +goods to J. B. Morgan, y'understand, and Mawruss here he is buying for +eight dollars a fur overcoat--understand me--he right away would want +another statement." + +Felix nodded. "Nowadays you can't be too cautious," he agreed. + +"So, this morning, in the paper," Abe continued, "Mawruss reads you are +buying for three thousand dollars a fiddle and----" + +"But, Abe," Felix interrupted, "it was a genuine Amati." + +"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but yesterday I myself am bringing you a +genu-ine Amati and I didn't pay no such figure for it." + +Felix looked carefully at Abe's stolid face for some gleam of humour; +and then he broke into a fit of laughter so violent that Abe suspected +it to be a trifle forced. + +"All right, Felix," he grumbled; "maybe you think it is a joke, but just +the same I am telling you I paid for that fiddle only two hundred +dollars." + +Felix stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. + +"Well, I'm sorry, Abe," he said seriously. "A feller should never look a +gift horse in the teeth, Abe; but that fiddle ain't worth a cent more +than a hundred at the outside." + +"Do you mean to say it ain't a genu-ine Amati?" Abe asked angrily. + +"Why, I don't mean to say anything, Abe," Felix began; "but there are +Amatis and Amatis. Some of them are worth little fortunes and others are +very ordinary-like." + +"Say, lookyhere, Felix," Abe cried, "don't fool with me. Either that +fiddle is or it ain't a genu-ine Amati. Ain't it?" + +Felix paused. He wanted those velvet suits badly, and it began to look +as though there would be a delay in the shipment. + +"What is all this leading to, Abe?" he began pleasantly. "If there's +anything troubling you speak right up and I'll try to straighten it +out." + +Abe shifted his cigar in his mouth and made the plunge. + +"What is the use beating bushes around, Felix?" he said. "Yesterday I am +giving you a fiddle, ain't it? Inside it says the fiddle is a genu-ine +Amati. What? _Schon gut_ if that fiddle is a genu-ine Amati it is worth +three thousand dollars, ain't it? Because if it ain't, then you are +stuck with the other fiddle which you bought it. And if it is worth +three thousand, then we are stuck by giving you the fiddle, ain't it? So +that's the way it goes." + +Felix nodded. It was a delicate situation, in which his credit and the +shipment of the suits seemed to be imperilled. To declare flatly that +Abe's gift was a bogus Amati might offend him seriously, while to admit +that it was genuine, but only worth one hundred dollars, was to foster +Abe's notion that he, Felix, had wasted three thousand dollars on a +similar violin. + +"I want to tell you something, Abe," he began at last. "There's nothing +to this business of selling goods by making presents, and I for one +don't believe in it. So I'll tell you what I'll do. Come up here to the +store to-morrow morning, and I'll get the fiddle from my house and give +it back to you." + +Abe's scowl merged immediately into a wide grin. + +"I don't want the fiddle back, Felix," he said, "but my partner, +y'understand, he is the one which is always----" + +"Say no more, Abe," Felix cried. "All I want is you should ship that +order; and tell your partner, if he is scared I am spending my money +foolishly, he can have a new statement whenever he wants it; and I'll +swear to it on a truckload of Bibles." + +When Abe returned to his place of business that afternoon he expected to +find Morris pacing up and down the showroom floor, the picture of +distracted anxiety. Instead he was humming a cheerful melody as he piled +up two-piece velvet suits. + +"Well, Abe," he said, "you have went on a fool's errand, ain't it?" + +"What d'ye mean, fool's errand?" Abe demanded. + +"Why, I mean I knew all along that fiddle of yours was a fake; and +anyhow, Abe, I seen Milton Strauss, of Klipmann, Strauss & Bleimer, and +what d'ye suppose he told it me, Abe?" + +Abe shrugged angrily. + +"If you must got to get it off your chest before I tell you what +Geigermann told to me, Mawruss," he said, "go ahead." + +"Well, I seen Milton Strauss, Abe," Morris went on calmly, "and he says +to me that he knows for a positive fact that Felix Geigermann could have +sold that fiddle of his for three thousand five hundred dollars before +he even pays for it yet. Strauss says that Felix is all the time buying +up old fiddles for a side line, and if he makes a cent at it he makes a +couple thousand dollars a year. Furthermore, Abe, he says that if +anybody's got a genu-ine who's-this fiddle, he wouldn't let it go for no +hundred and twenty-five dollars, and the chances is you are paying a +fancy figure for a cheap popular-price line of fiddles." + +Abe hung up his hat so violently that he nearly knocked a hole in the +crown. + +"In the first place, Mawruss," he began, "it was your idee I should go +up there and get the fiddle back, and in the second place I am telling +you with my own eyes I seen that fiddle and it is the selfsame, +identical article--name, lot number and everything--which that feller +Geigermann refuses thirty-five hundred dollars for." + +He scowled at his partner in anticipation of a cutting rejoinder. + +"But anyhow, that ain't neither here nor there," he continued as Morris +remained silent. "We would quick find out for ourselves what the fiddle +really is, because to-morrow morning I am going around to the store and +Geigermann gives me the fiddle back." + +Morris paused in the folding of a velvet skirt. + +"I wouldn't do that, Abe, if I was you," he said. "What is the use +giving presents and taking 'em back again? You could make from a feller +an enemy for life that way." + +"Sure, I know Mawruss. An enemy for life is one thing, Mawruss, but +thirty-five hundred dollars ain't to be sniffed at neither, +y'understand." + +"_Schmooes_, Abe!" Morris cried. "The fiddle ain't worth even +thirty-five hundred pins." + +Following this observation there ensued a controversy of over an hour's +duration, at the end of which Morris compromised. + +"Say, listen here to me, Abe!" he declared. "You say the fiddle is worth +it and I say it ain't. Now if I am right and we take the fiddle back, +then we are acting like a couple of cheap yokels, ain't it? _Aber_ if +you are right, Abe, then we are out thirty-five hundred dollars. So +what's the use talking, Abe? Only one thing we got to do. We got to find +a feller which he could right away tell whether the fiddle is _oder_ not +is genu-ine--just by looking at it, y'understand. This feller we got to +send up to Geigermann's house to look at the fiddle to-night yet, and if +he says the fiddle is, Abe, then we would take it back. _Aber_ if he +says the fiddle ain't, Abe, then, Geigermann could keep the fiddle _und +fertig_." + +Abe nodded slowly. + +"The idee is all right, Mawruss," he said; "but in the first place, +Mawruss, where could we find such a feller, and in the second place, if +we did found him, Mawruss, what excuse would we give Geigermann for +sending him up there in the third place?" + +Morris scratched his head. + +"Well, for that matter, Abe, if we found such a feller, we could send +him up there to say that he hears from you that you are giving away such +a Who's-this fiddle to Geigermann, and that the feller would like to buy +it off of him." + +"And then, Mawruss?" Abe asked. + +"And then," Morris went on, "Geigermann shows the feller the fiddle, +y'understand, and if it is worth it _oder_ it isn't worth it the feller +says nothing to Geigermann, but he comes back and reports to us." + +Abe nodded again. + +"If I was to tell you all the weak points of that scheme, Mawruss," he +said, "I could stand here talking till my tongue dropped out yet. But +all I got to say is, Mawruss, the idee is yours, and you should go ahead +and carry it out. Me, I got nothing to say about it either one way or +the other." + + * * * * * + +At seven that evening, while Professor Ladislaw Wcelak was washing down +a late breakfast with a bottle of beer, there came a violent knocking at +the hall door. The professor answered it in person, for Aaron was busily +engaged over Concone's vocalizations in the front parlour and the other +members of the family were washing dishes in the rear. + +"_Nu, Landsmann!_" Ladislaw cried. "Ain't you working to-night?" + +The newcomer was none other than Emil Pilz, _Konzertmeister_ of the +Palace Theatre of Varieties, if that dignified term may be applied to +the first violin of an orchestra of twenty. + +"I am and I ain't," Emil replied. "I've got a job, Louis, which it would +take me till nine o'clock, so be a good feller and substitute for me at +the theayters till I am coming back." + +"And who would substitute for me, Emil?" the professor asked. + +"That's all right," Emil replied. "I stopped in on my way over and I +seen old man Hubai. He ain't _shikker_ yet, so I told him he should go +over and fiddle a couple _czardas_ till you come, and to tell the boss +you got a _Magenweh_ and would be a little late. Me, I am going uptown +to look at a fiddle. I got the job through an old pupil, Milton Strauss, +which he says a feller by the name Potash gives away a fiddle which he +bought, and now he thinks it's a genuine Amati. So I should please go up +and look at it; and if it is _oder_ it isn't, I get ten dollars." + +"Who's this feller Potash?" the professor asked, and Emil shrugged. + +"What difference does that make?" he said. "He gives a hundred and +twenty-five dollars for the fiddle only a couple days ago. What d'ye +want to know for?" + +"Oh, nothing," the professor replied; "only my brother Aaron sold to a +feller by the name Potash the other day a fiddle which I myself bought +from old Hubai a couple years ago for fifteen dollars yet; and if that's +the one you are talking about, Emil, you should quick go up to the +theayter and forget about it. Because, Emil, if that fiddle is an Amati, +you are a Kubelik and I am a Kreisler." + +"Sure, I know, Louis," Emil agreed; "but just the same I got to go up +there to make the ten, so if you would do me the favour and _spiel_ for +me till half-past nine you could get anyhow three dollars of it." + +"I am willing," the professor said; and ten minutes later he was on his +way up to the Palace Theatre of Varieties. + +It was precisely half-past nine, while a tabloid drama in progress on +the stage rendered the presence of the orchestra unnecessary, that Emil +Pilz returned. + +"_Nu_ Emil," Louis said as they stood in the corridor leading to the +stage entrance, "did you seen the Amati?" + +He grinned in humorous anticipation of Emil's answer. + +"Yes, I did seen it," Emil replied, "and it's a very elegant, grand +model." + +"Sure," the professor said; "made in Bavaria with an ax." + +"Don't you fool yourself, Louis," Emil retorted. "That's an elegant +instrument from Nicolo Amati's best period. If it's worth a cent it's +worth three thousand dollars." + +"_Schmooes_, Emil!" Louis cried. "What are you trying to do?--kid me?" + +"What d'ye mean, kid you?" Emil asked. "I should never stir from this +spot, Louis, if that ain't an Amati. It's got a tone like gold, Louis." + +For a brief interval Louis stared at his informant. + +"Do you mean to told me, Emil, that that fiddle is a real, genu-ine +Amati?" + +"Listen here to me, Louis," Emil declared; "if I wouldn't be sure that +it was genu-ine why should I got such a heart that I would act that way +to that feller Potash? When--so sure as you are standing there, +Louis--when I told him it was a genu-ine Amati he pretty near got a fit +already; and as for his partner by the name Perlmutter, he hollered so I +thought he was going to spit blood already." + +Louis licked his dry lips before making any reply. + +"So, then, I am paying fifteen dollars for a fiddle which it is a +genu-ine Amati," he said, "and that brother of mine which he ain't got +no more sense as a lunatic lets it go for a song already." + +"Well, I couldn't stop to talk to you now, Louis," Emil said. "I must +got to get on the job. I am going to be to-morrow morning, ten o'clock, +at this here Potash & Perlmutter's, and if you want to you could meet me +there with old man Hubai." + +"Old man Hubai!" Louis cried. "What's he got to do with it?" + +"He's got a whole lot to do with it, Louis," Emil said. "A feller like +him sells you a three-thousand-dollar violin for fifteen dollars which +he ain't got a penny in the world, y'understand, and I should stand by +and see him get done!" + +Professor Wcelak hung his head and blushed. + +"Also, Louis," Emil concluded, "I just rung him up at the cafe, and he +says whatever he gets out of it I get half." + + * * * * * + +When Morris Perlmutter arrived at Felix Geigermann's store the next +morning he showed the effects of a restless night and no breakfast; for +he had found it impossible either to eat or sleep until he had his hands +on the violin. + +"Mr. Geigermann went out for a minute, Mr. Potash," a floorwalker +explained; "but he said I should show you right into his office, Mr. +Potash." + +"My name ain't Potash," Morris replied, "that's my partner, which he +couldn't get up here on account he is sick." + +"That's all right," the floorwalker said reassuringly. "Just step this +way." + +He conducted Morris to Geigermann's office. + +"Have a seat, Mr. Perlmutter," he said; but the words fell on deaf ears, +for as soon as he entered the room Morris descried the violin, which +rested on top of Geigermann's desk. He pounced on it immediately, and +turning it over in his hand he examined it with the minutest care. At +length he discerned the label inside the "eff" hole. It was curling away +from the wood and appeared to be ready to drop off, so that it was an +easy matter for Morris to impale it on his scarfpin. By dint of a little +scraping he managed to draw one edge of it through the "eff" hole and +the next moment he was examining the faded printing. Then he turned the +label over and in one corner he discovered an oval mark. Simultaneously +the door opened and Geigermann entered. + +Morris thrust the label into his pocket and turned to Geigermann with an +amiable smile. Moreover, his pallor had given place to a pronounced +flush and he looked nearly five years younger than when he walked into +the store just ten minutes before. + +"Hello, Felix!" he cried, holding out his hand. "How's the boy?" + +"Fine," Felix said. "Where's Abe?" + +"He couldn't get here on account he is sitting up late again last night, +and, of course, Felix, he is sick. But anyhow, Felix, I am glad he ain't +coming." + +"Why so?" Felix asked. + +"Because you never seen such a feller in your life, Felix," Morris went +on. "Always worrying and always kicking. First he gives you a fiddle, +then he wants to take it back again. With me it is different. What do I +care if the fiddle is or it ain't one of them genu-ine Who's This's? +Once you give a thing you give a thing, ain't it? And I don't care what +experts says nor nothing." + +Felix Geigermann blushed. When Emil Pilz had called on him the night +before he had scented the object of the visit and had exhibited not +Abe's gift but the Karanyi Amati. He had no doubt that Pilz communicated +to Potash & Perlmutter the result of his call immediately after its +conclusion, and he felt touched and humbled by Morris's generous +behaviour. + +"Morris," he said, "I did you a big injury. I didn't think you felt that +way about it; so when that expert called on me last night I didn't show +him Abe's fiddle at all--I showed him the other one, the +three-thousand-dollar fiddle." + +Morris's grin became a trifle broader. + +"That don't worry me none, Felix," he declared. "I am glad you should +keep the fiddle if it should be worth ten thousand dollars even. A gift +is a gift, Felix." + +"That's very generous of you, Morris, I must say," Felix replied, "and I +would keep the violin. I would even do more, Morris. I was going to give +Klinger & Klein an order for some of their three-piece broadcloths, but +I changed my mind. I will give it to you instead; and if you would be in +this afternoon, Morris, I will go downtown and pick 'em out." + +Once more Morris wrung his customer's hand. Before proceeding downtown, +he sought the nearest dairy restaurant and made tremendous inroads upon +its stock of eggs and coffee. It was almost ten o'clock before he +reached his place of business, and as he stepped out of the elevator he +was greeted by a roar of voices approximating the effect of a +well-managed mob scene in a capital-and-labour drama. + +Old man Hubai stood in the middle of the showroom; and with clenched +fists waving in the air he appealed to heaven to witness that he was a +poor man and spoke nothing but the Hungarian tongue. Hence he was at the +mercy of such ruffians as Pilz and Wcelak, whose right name he averred +to be Kohn. Following this he swore by his mother that he had paid a +thousand kronen for the violin, and _da capo_ from the exposition of his +poverty. Simultaneously Professor Ladislaw Wcelak dwelt on the economic +aspect of the matter. In stentorian tones he declared Abe's purchase of +the violin to be another example of capital sitting upon the neck of +labour, and he prophesied the rapid approach of the Social Revolution, +with sundry references to bloodsuckers, cut-throats and Philistines. + +Emil Pilz, Aaron, and Abe Potash himself added to the general din in a +three-cornered discussion of the legal points involved. Emil contended +that Aaron could replevin the violin upon the ground of Abe's +misrepresentation at the time of the purchase, and Abe denied it in +Yiddish and English, with emphatic profanity in both languages. + +Into this melee Morris hurled himself with a resounding "_Koosh!_" + +"Are you all crazy, _oder_ what?" he demanded. + +"Well," Abe cried, "where is it?" + +Instantly there was a dead silence and all eyes rested on Morris. + +"Where's what?" Morris asked. + +"The Amati!" Emil Pilz cried; and Morris laughed aloud. + +"_Geh weg!_" he said. "You are an expert!" + +Pilz shook his head in a bullying fashion. + +"Never mind if I am an expert _oder_ not," he said. "Where is that Amati +which I seen it myself at Geigermann's house only last night?" + +"It is at Geigermann's house to-day," Morris replied. "Right now it is +there and it would stay there too, young feller, because that fiddle +which you seen it is the one Geigermann paid three thousand dollars for. +You seen the wrong fiddle, that's all." + +This statement seemed to rouse Aaron Shellak to hysterical frenzy. + +"Liar and thief!" he screamed. "Give me my fiddle." + +"One moment, Shellak," Morris said, "before you put on your hat and coat +and go home, which you shouldn't trouble yourself to come back at all. I +want to show you something." + +He explored his waistcoat pocket. + +"Ain't this the label which was in your fiddle?" he asked, handing Aaron +a slip of paper. + +Aaron examined it carefully and nodded. + +"That other crazy Indian over there," Morris continued, pointing to the +professor, "look at this label. Ain't it the same which was in the +fiddle?" + +Ladislaw Wcelak examined the printed slip and he, too, nodded. + +Next, Morris turned to old man Hubai, who stood apart muttering to +himself. + +"Some one ask that old greenhorn if it's the same label that was in the +fiddle. I don't know what he's got to do with this business but he may +know, anyhow." + +Wcelak interpreted Morris's words and showed the label to the old man, +who replied volubly in Hungarian. + +"He says he thinks it is," the professor said, "but he doesn't know for +sure." + +"Well, I know it is the same," Morris retorted, "because I took it out +there myself this morning." + +Here Morris cleared his throat and assumed an air of such dignity, not +to say majesty, that to Abe, it seemed as though he had never rightly +known his partner until that moment. + +"Now look on the other side of that label," Morris cried. + +Once more the label went the rounds and after Emil Pilz had examined it +he put on his hat and made for the elevator. Almost on tiptoe Professor +Ladislaw Wcelak followed him, while Aaron repaired to the cutting room +and packed up his belongings, preparatory to forsaking a career as +cutter for one of music. + +At length only old man Hubai remained. + +"What are you waiting for?" Morris demanded. + +"Me poor man," Hubai said. "Me no got carfare, me no got _Trinkgeld_, me +no got nothing." + +Morris handed him a quarter and he shuffled off toward the backstairs. +Meantime Abe staggered to his feet and passed his hand over his +forehead. + +"Tell me, Mawruss," he said, "what is all this about?" + +"It's just what I says just now, Abe," Morris exploded. "That expert +seen the wrong fiddle. The fiddle you gave Geigermann is no more three +hundred years old than I am." + +"Why ain't it?" Abe asked. + +For answer Morris handed him the label. On the obverse side Abe read the +inscription: + + Nicolaus Amati Cremonensis Faciebai Anno 1670. + +"Now turn it over," Morris said; and Abe described on the reverse side a +familiar oval mark bearing the following inscription: + + Allied Printers Trades Council, Union Label, New York City. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +BROTHERS ALL + + +"What is the use talking, Mawruss?" Abe Potash protested. "The feller +couldn't even talk ten words English at all." + +"Sure, I know," Morris Perlmutter admitted; "but he would quick learn." + +"Quick learn!" Abe exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, quick learn? Nowadays I +never seen the like! A greenhorn comes over here from Russland which he +is such an iggeramus he don't know his own name, understand me; and he +expects right away to get a job in a cloak-and-suit concern uptown, +where they would learn him how he should talk English and at the same +time pay him ten dollars a week. Actually, Mawruss, them fellers thinks +they are doing you a favour if they ruin ten garments a day on you in +exchange for learning 'em English. Me, when I come over from Russland, I +was _oser_ so _grossartig_. I was glad to got a job learning on shirts +in a subcellar and the boss boards me for wages. I got an elegant bill +of fare, too, I bet yer, Mawruss. Every day for dinner is salt herring +and potatoes, except Sundays is onions extra. And did that feller learn +me English, Mawruss? _Oser_ a _stueck_. I must got to go to night school +to learn English, Mawruss, and I did, Mawruss--and they learned me good +there, Mawruss; and so this here feller you are talking about should do +the same." + +"We wouldn't got to learn him English, Abe," Morris declared. "The +feller is a bright, smart feller, and he could pick it up quick enough." + +"Sure, I know," Abe rejoined; "and pick up a whole lot of other things, +too, Mawruss. Silks and velvets and buttons them fellers picks up." + +"Not this feller, Abe," Morris said. "He is from decent, respectable +people in the old country. He is studying for a doctor already when he +comes over here, but he gets into trouble on account he belongs to a +politics society over there; so he must got to run away. The feller is a +bright feller, Abe." + +"I know them bright fellers, Mawruss--sit up till all hours of the night +in Canal Street coffee houses killing off grand dukes. Grand dukes is +got to make a living the same like anybody else, Mawruss; and anyhow, +Mawruss, when a feller comes over here from Russland, Mawruss, he ain't +got no business bothering his head about grand dukes. The way things is +nowadays in the cloak-and-suit trade, Mawruss, a feller's got all he +could attend to holding on to his job." + +Morris shrugged. + +"Let's give the feller a show anyhow, Abe," he rejoined; "and if he +don't soon make good we could quick fire him, y 'understand." + +"That's what you said about that feller Harkavy, which we give him a job +in our cutting room, Mawruss. All the time he works for us he acts so +_dumm_ like a ten-year-old child; and so soon as we fire him, Mawruss, +he goes to work by Kleiman & Elenbogen and turns out a couple of styles, +which the least them highwaymen makes out of 'em is five thousand +dollars." + +"How should I know what Harkavy could do with Kleiman & Elenbogen, Abe?" +Morris cried. "You are the prophet of this here concern, Abe. Always you +are predicting to me to-morrow what is going to happen yesterday." + +"Well, what's _vorbei_ is _vorbei_, Mawruss," Abe retorted; "and if I +would got to stand here all day and _schmooes_ with you, Mawruss, go +ahead and hire the feller. Only one thing I am saying to you, Mawruss: +Don't tell me afterward that I was in favour of the feller from the +start; because I ain't." + +With this ultimatum, Abe glanced toward the cutting room, where sat a +tall, stooping figure, holding in his two hands a peaked cap. + +"Only to look at the feller gives me a _krank_, Mawruss," Abe continued; +"so, if you are going to hire him, Mawruss, do me the favour and give +him a couple dollars out of the safe so he should get a shave and a +haircut and a new hat." + +Morris nodded and started for the cutting room, when Abe called him +back. + +"For my part, Mawruss, I don't care what people says, y'understand," he +declared; "but if we got a couple of them Thirty-fourth Street buyers +around here and they sees our workpeople is got such shoes which their +toes is sticking out already, Mawruss, what do they think of us? Am I +right or wrong?" + +"Sure, I know," Morris said; "but----" + +"But nothing, Mawruss," Abe concluded. "For three dollars we should make +suckers out of ourselves! Don't stand there like a fool, Mawruss. Give +the feller five dollars; he should buy himself a pair of shoes and +_fertig_." + +The transformation begun in Cesar Kovalenko by a haircut and a shave was +made complete when Morris, accompanied by Kovalenko's cousin, went with +him to a retail clothing establishment. There Cesar discarded forever +his cap, top boots and frogged overcoat and emerged--but for his +vocabulary--a naturalized citizen of the cloak-and-suit trade. + +"Now all he's got to do," Morris said, "is to work hard and he would +quick be making good wages." + +"Sure, sure!" the cousin replied. "At first, maybe he would be a little +_dumm_ on account he is got a whole lot of experiences lately." + +"Experiences?" Morris asked. "What for experiences?" + +"Well, in the first place," the cousin proceeded, "two years ago he is +studying for a doctor in the University of Harkav, and next door to him +one house by the other lives a feller which I ain't got nothing to say +against him, y'understand, only he goes to work and sends a package to +the chief of police, Mr. Perlmutter, which when they open the package, +y'understand, inside is something g'fixed. Mind you, Mr. Perlmutter, I +wouldn't say nothing if it would be really the chief of police which +would open the package, but always it is some poor _Schnorrer_ which the +chief of police calls in from the street. This time it was a feller by +the name Levin, a decent, respectable, young feller--his father was a +_Rav_. The old man is coming over here this week, I understand, Mr. +Perlmutter--but when the chief of police sends out Levin in the backyard +he should open the package, understand me, that's the last any one sees +either from the package or either from Levin." + +Morris clicked his tongue sympathetically. + +"And what did they done to the feller which sends the package?" he +asked. + +"Him, they didn't done nothing, Mr. Perlmutter," the cousin replied; +"but Cesar, here, they put it all on to him. First they are making him +arrested, and the police pretty near kill him and the Cossacks take him +from Harkav to Odessa he should get tried, and then they pretty near +kill him there; and if it wouldn't be that we are sending over to give +to a judge there a couple thousand rubles they would right away shoot +him. Anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, one year my cousin sits in prison there; +and then we are sending over a couple thousand rubles more which we give +the feller what runs the prison, and so my cousin sneaks out of there +and he comes over here to this country." + +Morris gazed at the neatly clad figure who walked quietly along beside +him. + +"You wouldn't think it to look at him," he said; "but, anyhow, I would +do my best to see he gets a good show; and he would quick learn, I bet +yer." + +By this time they had reached Potash & Perlmutter's premises and the +cousin shook hands warmly with Morris. + +"You got a good heart, Mr. Perlmutter," he declared fervently; "and you +wouldn't lose money supposing you did pay him eight dollars a week to +start." + +Morris paused before passing indoors. + +"Listen here to me," he said. "Maybe I got a good heart and maybe I +ain't, but your cousin starts on five dollars a week, understand me; and +if he gets six dollars inside of a month he would got to earn it." + +Despite this assertion, however, it was barely three weeks before Cesar +Kovalenko was earning and receiving eight dollars a week, for never in +their business experience had Abe and Morris employed a more intelligent +workman. Not only did he exhibit great promise as an assistant cutter +but he had acquired a knowledge of English sufficient for his needs. + +"If the feller keeps on, Abe," Morris said, "we would soon got to give +him another raise. He's a wonder!" + +Abe nodded gloomily. + +"You could get all the wonders you want, Mawruss, to learn cutting at +eight dollars a week," he said; "and supposing he does pick up English +quick, Mawruss--a feller could be a regular Henry Shakespeare, +y'understand, and he wouldn't be any better as a garment cutter on that +account. Am I right or wrong?" + +"Well, certainly it don't do no harm that Kovalenko understands a little +English," Morris commented. + +"Sure not," Abe agreed satirically, "because the quicker he learns +English, Mawruss, the quicker he would copy our styles and find a job +with a competitor. Take this here Harkavy, for instance. Only this +morning I seen Felix Geigermann in the subway and he says that Kleiman & +Elenbogen is showing, at a dollar less on the garment, a ringer for our +Style 4022 which we sold him, Mawruss. Now, who tells them suckers how +they could cut down on the buttons and the lining, Mawruss, and put one +pleat less in the skirt, Mawruss? I suppose you did or I did, +Mawruss--ain't it?" + +He paused for a reply, but none came. + +"And yet, Mawruss," he concluded, "that feller Harkavy was a wonder too; +and I suppose, Mawruss, the way he picked up English would be a big +consolation to us, Mawruss, if a good customer like Geigermann leaves us +and goes over to Kleiman & Elenbogen." + +Morris grunted scornfully. + +"You are all the time looking for trouble, Abe," he said. "If we would +lose as many customers as you are talking about, Abe, we wouldn't got a +decent concern left on our books at all. You got to give Geigermann +credit for knowing a good garment when he sees it." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Geigermann knows a good garment +when he sees it, but his customers don't; and if Geigermann could get, +for a dollar less than ours, garments which looks like ours and is like +ours, all but the buttons and the pleats in the skirt, we could kiss +ourselves good-by with the business, no matter how many bright +greenhorns we got it in our cutting room." + +"_Geh weg!_" Morris exclaimed. "You don't know what you are talking +about, Abe." + +Nevertheless, when Felix Geigermann, the well-known Harlem dry-goods +merchant and violin dilettante, entered Potash & Perlmutter's showroom +the next morning Morris greeted him with some misgiving. + +"Hello, Felix!" he said. "Are you giving us a repeat order so soon +already on them 4022's?" + +Felix shook his head. + +"I got a few words to say to Abe, Mawruss," he replied. "Is he in now?" + +Morris smiled amiably, although he was convinced that Felix's visit +boded a cancellation of the 4022's. + +"He ain't in now," he answered, "but if you wait a few minutes he'll be +right back." + +He returned hastily to the office, for he knew that if Abe found them in +conversation on his return he would impute the cancellation of the order +to something Morris had said. Thus Felix was left alone in the showroom, +save for Cesar Kovalenko, who plied a feather duster industriously among +the sample-racks. As he worked, Cesar whistled a Russian melody, half +sad, half cheerful, and Felix paused midway in the lighting of his +cigar. It was the opening theme in the second movement of Tschaikovsky's +Fourth Symphony; and Cesar's rendition of it was not only true to pitch +but he managed to introduce certain nuances that to Felix proclaimed the +born musician. + +"What's that you are whistling?" he inquired; and Cesar smiled. + +"Tschaikovsky's Fourt' Symphony," he replied, and then he reached around +to his hip-pocket. "See; I am got music." + +He handed a paper-covered miniature score to Geigermann, who opened it +at random. + +"Ha!" Felix exclaimed as his eye lit on a familiar phrase in the last +movement. He hummed it over and Cesar joined him in a clear, musical +barytone. They were thus engaged when a tall, broad-shouldered +individual entered the showroom. + +"Sorry to interrupt you, gentlemen," he said, "but is the boss in?" + +"In the office back there," Felix replied. + +"Will you tell him Mr. Gunther would like to see him?" the newcomer +continued. + +"I will if you want me to," Felix said; "but I am here only a customer." + +"Excuse me," Mr. Gunther apologized. "I was talking about the other +feller. However----" + +He proceeded to the office and engaged Morris in earnest conversation +for several minutes. They returned to the showroom just as Cesar was +replacing the score in his hip-pocket. The motion was too much for Mr. +Gunther, whose occupation made him nervous; and he plunged his hand into +his overcoat and brought out a shining metallic object. There was a +sharp struggle and Cesar Kovalenko leaned against the partition with his +wrists encircled by a pair of handcuffs. + +"Come along quiet," said Mr. Gunther calmly, "or I'll knock yer block +awff." + +At this juncture the elevator door banged open and Abe came into the +showroom. + +"What is the matter here?" he cried. + +Mr. Gunther smiled. + +"I'm a United States deputy marshal," he proclaimed, "and I'm arresting +this guy under a warrant duly issued in the Southern District of New +York. I've got a taxicab downstairs and if any of you gentlemen is a +friend of the prisoner youse can come along to the marshal's office." + +Morris darted into the office and reappeared with his hat and coat. + +"Abe," he said, "you stay here in the store. I would go down with him." + +Abe frowned. + +"One moment, Mawruss," he cried. "It don't go so quick as all that. +First, we would find out what he makes this young feller arrested for." + +The deputy marshal nodded. + +"That's all right," he said. "You're entitled to know it. He's arrested +on the complaint of the Russian Consulate for something he did in Russia +two years ago." + +"In Russia!" Abe exclaimed. "Two years ago! Mawruss, do me a favour. You +stay in the store and I would go with him." + +Felix Geigermann placed his hand on Abe's arm. + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he said. "I'll tell you the truth. I am pretty +busy to-day here to cancel them 4022's; but now I don't care at all. You +could ship them goods if you want to, Abe; but one thing I ask you as a +favour--let me go with him. I don't care what the other feller says. I +am just now talking to this here young feller and if he done anything in +Russia, understand me, I would eat it. So you stay here and tend to +business and I would go with him." + +Morris drew on his overcoat with force sufficient to rip the +sleeve-lining. "Nathan, the shipping clerk, could tend the store, Abe," +he declared, "and we'll all go with him." + + * * * * * + +"In the first place, Mawruss," Abe said, after they had returned from +the United States Commissioner's office, where Cesar Kovalenko had been +arraigned and committed without bail to the Tombs--"in the first place +what are we bothering our heads about this young feller? Of course, when +I was down there, Mawruss, and see that feller from the Russian +counsellor's office, which he is got a face, Mawruss, hard like iron, +y'understand, I didn't say nothing; but the way you are going to work +and telephoning to Henry D. Feldman and everything, Mawruss--before we +would get through with him it would cost us anyhow a couple hundred +dollars." + +"Geigermann says he would go half," Morris said. + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss; but just because Geigermann acts like a sucker, +Mawruss, why should we get ourselves into it too? Furthermore, Mawruss, +how do we know Geigermann would go half? He's that kind of feller, +Mawruss, that when he says something he don't take it so particular he +should stick to it, Mawruss. One day he gives us an order and the next +day cancels it, Mawruss--and that's the kind of a man he is." + +"He didn't cancel it, Abe," Morris cried. "He was going to cancel it, +but he changed his mind." + +"Sure, he changed his mind," Abe interrupted; "and what is going to +hinder him changing his mind on this other proposition, Mawruss? You +could take it from me, Mawruss, when the time comes he should pay up, +understand me, it'll be a case of _nix wissen_--and don't you forget +it." + +Morris shrugged impatiently. + +"_Nu_, Abe," he said; "what could we do? Once in a while we couldn't +help ourselves, y'understand. Should we let this poor greenhorn be sent +back to Russland, which he ain't got a relative in the world, understand +me, except his cousin, which he is just as poor as Kovalenko?" + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "I ain't kicking we shouldn't +help the feller. All I am saying is there's lots of our people which +they got more dollars as we got dimes. Take Moses M. Steuermann, for +instance; there's a feller which he is such a big charity feller, +understand me, why shouldn't he help Kovalenko?" + +"Well, in the first place, no one tells him about it, Abe," Morris said, +"and in the second place----" + +"But why don't we tell him about it, Mawruss?" Abe interrupted. "Why +don't you go down to see him, Mawruss, and tell him all about it?" + +"Me go down to see him, Abe!" Morris cried. "Why, the feller is a +multimillionaire. With such people like that I couldn't open my mouth at +all. Why don't you go down to see him?" + +"Why should I go down?" Abe asked. "You are the lodge brother here, +Mawruss--ain't it? You are the one which you are always sitting up till +all hours of the night making motions. I couldn't make a motion to save +my life, Mawruss, and you know it." + +"Sure, I know," Morris protested; "but lodge meetings is something else +again. A feller could talk at a lodge meeting--and what is it? A couple +young lawyers which they couldn't even pay their laundry bills, +y'understand, and a dozen other fellers, insurance brokers _oder_ cigar +dealers, and most of 'em old-timers at that--why should I be afraid to +say a little something to 'em? But with a feller like Moses M. +Steuermann, which his folks was bankers in Frankfort-on-the-Main when +Carnegie and Vanderbilt and all them other _goyim_ was new beginners +yet, Abe--that's a different proposition entirely." + +Abe nodded and remained silent for a few minutes. + +"Might Felix Geigermann would go down and see him, Mawruss," he +suggested finally. "It wouldn't do no harm we should ring him up +anyhow." + +"Go as far as you like, Abe," Morris said, and Abe started immediately +for the telephone. + +"I spoke to Felix, Mawruss," he announced a few minutes later, "and +Felix said he would go right down and see him. He ain't so stuck on +paying Feldman a couple hundred dollars neither." + +Morris snorted indignantly. + +"If you was going to be charitable, Abe," he said, "why don't you be a +sport? We could easy stand a couple hundred dollars." + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Business is business and +charity is charity, y'understand; but even in charity, Mawruss, it don't +do no harm to keep the expenses down." + +Two hours afterward Felix Geigermann entered the showroom, his face +glistening with perspiration. + +"Well, boys," he almost shouted, "I seen him, and he says he would call +in here on his way uptown." + +"Who would call in?" Morris asked. + +"Moses M. Steuermann," Felix replied. "It was the Tschaikovsky Fourth +that fixed him, Mawruss. I told him that young feller carries round with +him an orchestral score, and right away he says he would come up. For +years I seen Mr. Steuermann at the Philharmonics and the Boston +Symphonies, Mawruss, and I didn't know who he was at all. I always +thought he was something to do with a music-publishing concern." + +"Steuermann got something to do with a music-publishing concern!" Morris +exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you, you should talk that way, Felix." + +"Well, when you are seeing year in and year out a feller goes to every +concert what is, Abe," Felix explained, "naturally you get an idee he is +in the music business--ain't it?" + +"That's what you think, Felix," Abe said, taking up the cudgels in +defence of Steuermann; "but you could take it from me, Felix, if a +feller like Steuermann seemingly fools away his time at concerts, +understand me, he ain't doing it for nothing. He probably gets some +business out of it the same like a lot of fellers you would think is +making suckers of themselves going to lodge meetings, Felix. Most of 'em +sells many a big bill of goods that way." + +"That ain't here nor there, Abe," Felix rejoined. "The point is, +Steuermann would be up here at five o'clock; so, what are you going to +tell him when he calls?" + +"Me tell him!" Abe cried. "Why, I wouldn't be here at all. I got +to--now--see--a--now--customer at the Prince Clarence." + +"You ain't got to do nothing of the kind, Abe," Morris retorted angrily. +"You are going to stay right here and talk to that feller when he comes. +What do you think--I am going to be the goat every time?" + +"What's the matter, Abe?" Felix asked. "Are you afraid of the feller? He +couldn't eat you up, Abe." + +"What d'ye mean, afraid of him?" Abe exclaimed. "I am seeing big +merchants every day, Felix, and I could talk right up to them too. But +this here is my partner's affair. He hired Kovalenko in the first place; +and----" + +"What's the use talking, Abe?" Morris interrupted. "If you go home I go +home; so you got to stay and we would both see the feller. What is the +difference, supposing the feller does got a couple million dollars?" + +"A couple million dollars!" Felix said. "Why, I bet yer, if the feller's +got a cent he is worth twenty million dollars." + +Abe drew pale. + +"Say, lookyhere, why should I talk to Mr. Steuermann?" he besought. "You +could do this without me, Mawruss." + +"Don't be a baby, Abe," Morris retorted. "Felix would stay here with us +and----" + +"Not me, boys," Felix said. "I guess you got to excuse me. I done enough +already and if I don't get right home and change my underclothes, which +they are dripping wet with perspiration, I would sure catch a bad cold." + +He shook Abe and Morris warmly by the hand; and hardly had the elevator +door closed behind him when the showroom became a scene of nervous +activity. + +"Nathan," Abe yelled to the shipping clerk, "fetch the broom. The place +looks like a pigsty here!" + +He turned to Morris with excited gesture. + +"Do me the favour, Mawruss," he said; "tell a couple of them young +fellers from the cutting room to come in here. Them sample-racks ain't +been straightened up for a week. I am going round to the barber shop, +Mawruss, and I would be right back." + + * * * * * + +It lacked one minute of five and Abe and Morris sat at their respective +desks in the firm's office, when Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, knocked +timidly at the door. + +"A gentleman wants to see you, Mr. Potash," she said. "He wouldn't give +his name." + +Abe cleared his throat with an effort. + +"Tell him he should come right in," he croaked; and a moment later a +tall personage, clad in a fur overcoat and wearing a freshly ironed silk +hat, appeared in the doorway. + +"Is this Mr. Potash?" he asked in rounded, oratorical tones. + +Abe nodded. For a moment he was bereft of speech and he jerked his head +sideways in the direction of his partner. + +"This is Mr. Perlmutter," he said at length--"my partner." + +"How do you do, sir?" the visitor replied as he seized Morris's clammy +palm in a warm embrace. + +"Take a seat," Morris murmured, dragging forth a chair; and the stranger +sat down deliberately. + +"Well, sir," Abe asked, "what could we do for you?" + +"Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at tames confronted +with a situation which demands a few appropriate remarks." + +Abe nodded and mopped tentatively at his dewy forehead. + +"But how many are there," the visitor continued, "who can do justice to +the occasion? For instance, Mr. Perlmutter, you are asked at a +charitable meeting to discuss the question of restricting immigration. I +ask you candidly, Mr. Perlmutter, would you feel competent to stand upon +your feet and----" + +Suddenly Abe jumped to his feet. + +"Excuse me, my dear sir," he cried. "Wouldn't you smoke a cigar?" + +Morris was nearest the safe and he, too, leaped from his chair. + +"Never mind the safe, Mawruss," Abe said, flapping his right hand +excitedly. "I bought some while I was out just now." + +[Illustration: "Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at +times confronted with a situation which demands a few appropriate +remarks"] + +He handed a gold-banded, Bismarck-size cigar to the visitor, who nodded +a dignified acknowledgment and immediately struck a match. + +"Yes, Mr. Perlmutter," he went on, "as I was saying, such a topic as the +restriction of immigration would embarrass even an experienced speaker." +He paused and cleared his throat impressively. "Now, I have here," he +said, exploring the capacious pockets of his overcoat, "a work entitled +'A Quarter of a Century in Congress,' by the Honourable Lucius J. +Howell, which, gentlemen, is issued upon subscription only, in half +morocco or crushed levant at a hitherto unheard-of price." + +Abe ceased mopping his brow and turned a terrible glare upon the book +canvasser. + +"What!" he roared. "A book agent?" + +Once more he jumped to his feet. "Out!" he bellowed. "Out from my +office, you dirty loafer!" + +The book agent scowled and replaced the bound dummy in his pocket. + +"With a high-grade selling proposition like this, Mr. Potash," he said, +"you should be careful of your language." + +"Mawruss," Abe cried, "what the devil do you mean letting in a feller +like this?" + +"What d'ye mean, letting him in?" Morris retorted. "Did I tell Miss +Cohen she should show him in?" + +"Don't quarrel on my account, gentlemen," the canvasser said as he +puffed at his cigar. "I shall call again when you're not so busy." + +He passed out of the office with a graceful gesture of farewell, and +once more Abe and Morris sat down on the edge of their chairs. It was +not for long, however; and this time, without any announcement, a +thick-set gentleman with carefully trimmed beard and moustache stood in +the doorway. + +"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said--and Abe and Morris literally +sprang into the middle of the office floor. + +"Mr. Steuermann?" Abe gasped, extending his hand. + +"My name is Mr. Goldstein," the visitor replied, "and I represent the +Lilywhite Dress Shield Company." + +He proceeded no further, however, for Morris led him by the shoulder to +the elevator shaft and pointed to a notice reading: + + HOURS FOR SALESMEN + 8 to 9:30 + +Morris returned to the office and hardly was he seated in his chair +when, for the third time, the doorway framed a visitor. + +"Mr. Potash?" the newcomer asked timidly. He was a short, slender man, +past middle age, clad in a shabby overcoat, half threadbare, and a soft +felt hat of a dingy, weatherbeaten appearance. + +"_Nu!_" Abe growled. "What is it now?" + +"Mr. Potash," the stranger continued, "I called to see you at the +request of Mr. Geigermann. My name is Steuermann." Abe essayed to rise, +but his knees would not support him and he waved his hand feebly to a +chair that Morris dragged forward. + +"Mr. Steuermann," Morris said, "you are coming up here to see us when we +could much better afford it if we would go down and see you." + +"Why, gentlemen, it was no inconvenience for me," Steuermann replied. "I +am on my way home." + +"God would bless you for it, anyway!" Abe declared fervently; and +Steuermann blushed. + +"Now, Mr. Potash," he protested, "I am not here for compliments. I've +come to see what we can all do for this poor fellow. I'm a little late, +because I was waiting for a report from my lawyers." + +"Your lawyers!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, we already hired Henry D. Feldman." + +"So I believe," Steuermann replied; "and he has consented to act in +conjunction with my lawyers--Chitty, Schwarzstein & Munjoy. I shall +relieve you gentlemen of all responsibility in the matter." + +"Do you mean by responsibility, Mr. Steuermann, that you would pay +Feldman?" Abe asked. + +Mr. Steuermann smiled. + +"Well, we won't discuss that just now," he said. + +"Because," Abe continued, "we wouldn't consent to nothing of the kind, +Mr. Steuermann; the young feller works for us and we would got to do our +share." + +"That part will come later," Steuermann insisted; "and now let's see +what is to be done." + +For more than half an hour Steuermann disclosed to Abe and Morris the +result of his lawyers' investigation. + +"Mr. Munjoy has seen Kovalenko," Steuermann said, "and he asserts that, +so far as proof is concerned, no murder was ever committed." + +"But, Mr. Steuermann," Morris said, "the feller which he opened the +package, y'understand, was blown up so his own father couldn't recognize +him even." + +"That's just the point, Mr. Perlmutter," Steuermann declared; "and Mr. +Munjoy says that on this circumstance hinges the Russian Consulate's +whole case. They are obliged to prove that a definite person was killed; +and it seems that the consulate paid the passage of the victim's father +to this country, so that he might testify before the United States +Commissioner. I understand that the old man, who by the way is a Rabbi, +arrived last week. Mr. Munjoy says that, if the father is unable to +testify to the identity of the victim it may so complicate matters that +more evidence will be necessary and the consulate may drop the affair on +account of the expense involved." + +Morris nodded sadly. + +"Lawyers could always make expenses, Mr. Steuermann," he said, "for the +Russian counsellor and for us also." + +"Never mind about expense, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "What does it +matter a few hundred dollars, Mawruss, so long as we get this young +feller free? In fact, Mr. Steuermann, I am willing we should go half if +we could see this here Rabbi and _schmier_ him a thousand dollars he +should swear that no one was killed at all." + +Mr. Steuermann shook his head. "That would be in effect suborning +perjury, Mr. Potash," he said--and Morris glared at Abe. + +"I'm surprised at you, you should suggest such a thing, Abe!" he +exclaimed. "Seemingly you got no conscience at all. A thousand dollars +we should pay the feller! I bet yer he would lie himself black in the +face for a twenty-dollar bill." + +"It isn't a matter of money, Mr. Perlmutter," Steuermann said; "but why +not see the old man to-night? I have his address here, and if you +approached him in the right way perhaps he might testify that he did not +recognize the murdered man. That would only be the simple truth and it +would be just what we want. As it is, I'm afraid the Russian Consulate +will intimidate him into swearing that he knew the body to be that of +his son." + +He handed Morris a card bearing a Madison Street address. + +"Well, gentlemen," he concluded, "I've taken up your time long enough. I +hope to see you in my office to-morrow, Mr. Perlmutter." + +Morris nodded and was about to shake hands with his visitor when Abe +slapped his thigh in a sudden realization of his inhospitality. + +"Mr. Steuermann," he exclaimed, "wouldn't you smoke something?" + +He jumped to his feet and thrust a huge gold-banded cigar at Mr. +Steuermann, who shook his head. + +"Thank you very much," Mr. Steuermann said, "but I'm afraid it's rather +near dinner-time." + +"Put it in your pocket and smoke it after dinner," Abe insisted, and Mr. +Steuermann smilingly obliged. + +Together the two partners escorted him into the elevator; and when the +door closed behind him Morris turned to Abe with an ironical smile. + +"You got a whole lot of manners, Abe, I must say," he commented +bitterly. + +"Whatd'ye mean, manners?" Abe asked. "What did I done?" + +"Tell a millionaire like Mr. Steuermann he should smoke the cigar after +dinner!" Morris replied. + +"Don't you suppose he's got plenty cigars of his own?" + +"Maybe he did got 'em and maybe he didn't," Abe retorted; "but, in the +first place, Mawruss, I noticed he took the cigar, y'understand; and, in +the second place, Mawruss, them cigars cost thirty-five cents apiece, +Mawruss, and there's few millionaires, Mawruss, which is too proud to +smoke a thirty-five-cent cigar." + + * * * * * + +When Morris Perlmutter entered the subway that evening en route for the +lower East Side, he was in none too cheerful mood; for, in the +excitement attending Steuermann's visit, he had forgotten to telephone +Mrs. Perlmutter that he would be late for dinner. Consequently there had +been a painful scene upon his arrival home that evening, nor had Mrs. +Perlmutter's wrath been appeased when he informed her that he was +obliged to go right downtown again. + +Indeed, his sympathy for Cesar Kovalenko had well-nigh evaporated as he +entered the subway, and he reflected bitterly upon the circumstance that +first led him to hire that unfortunate young man. Thus there was +something doubly irritating in the coincidence which seated him next to +Louis Kleiman in the crowded express train he had boarded, and he had +made up his mind to ignore his competitor's presence when Louis caught +sight of him. + +"So, Perlmutter," Louis commented, without any introductory greeting, +"you are trying to do us again!" + +Morris turned and stared icily at Kleiman. + +"I don't want to talk to you at all, Kleiman," he replied; "and, anyhow, +Kleiman, I don't know what you mean--we are trying to do you! The shoe +pinches on the other foot, Kleiman, when you just stop to consider you +are stealing away from us that feller Harkavy, which all he knows we +taught him." + +Louis Kleiman emitted a short, raucous guffaw. + +"Well, what are you kicking about?" he said. "You stole him back +again--ain't it?" + +"Stole him back again!" Morris repeated. "What are you talking nonsense, +Kleiman? We wouldn't take that feller back in our store, not if we could +get him to come to work for two dollars a week." + +"Yow!" Kleiman exclaimed skeptically. "I don't suppose you know the +feller left us at all?" + +"I did not," Morris replied promptly; "and if he did, Kleiman, I +couldn't blame him. A feller doesn't want to work all his life for ten +dollars a week." + +"What d'ye mean, ten dollars a week? We paid Harkavy fifteen and we +offered him twenty-five; but the feller wouldn't stay with us at all. +For two weeks now he acts uneasy and yesterday he leaves us." + +"That's all right, Kleiman," Morris said as the train drew into +Ninety-sixth Street. "You could easy steal somebody else from another +concern." Kleiman glared at Morris and was about to utter a particularly +incisive retort when the train stopped. + +"I got to change here," he announced; "but when I see you again, +Perlmutter, I would tell you what you are." + +"I don't got to tell you what you are, Kleiman," Morris concluded as he +opened his evening paper. "You know only too well." + +"_Rosher!_" Kleiman hissed as he hurled himself into the mob of +passengers that blocked the exit. + +Morris nodded sardonically and commenced to read his paper. He desisted +immediately, however, when his eye fell upon a cut accompanying Felix +Geigermann's display advertisement. It was a beaded marquisette costume, +made in obvious imitation of one of Potash & Perlmutter's leaders; and +the retail price quoted by Geigermann was precisely one dollar less than +Potash & Perlmutter's lowest wholesale figure. + +"That's some of Harkavy's work," Morris muttered; and for the remainder +of the journey he was once more plunged in the gloomiest cogitation. +Almost automatically he alighted at the Brooklyn Bridge and boarded a +Madison Street Car; and it was not until the jolting, old-fashioned +vehicle had nearly reached its eastern terminus that he discerned the +house number furnished to him by Steuermann. He hurried to the rear +platform and jumped to the street, where he collided violently with a +short, bearded person. + +"Excuse me!" Morris cried; then he recognized his victim. "Harkavy!" he +exclaimed. "What are you doing here?" + +"I am coming to say good-by to a friend," Harkavy replied with some show +of confusion. "I got to go to Chicago to-morrow." + +"Chicago!" Morris repeated. "Why, what are you doing in Chicago, +Harkavy?" + +"I am--now--going to got a job out there," Harkavy replied--"a very good +job." + +Morris drew his former assistant cutter to the sidewalk. He had +temporarily forgotten the object of his visit to the lower East Side in +the sudden conception of an idea, which was no less than the rehiring of +Harkavy. + +"What for a good job?" Morris asked. "Twenty dollars a week?" + +Harkavy nodded. + +"A little more," he said--"twenty-five." + +"_Schon gut_," Morris declared; "then you wouldn't got to go at all, +because we ourselves would give you thirty." + +"I moost go," Harkavy said, shaking his head; "my fare is paid." + +"Pay 'em back the fare," Morris insisted--"we would see you wouldn't +lose it." + +Again Harkavy shook his head. + +"I got a bonus too," he declared--"a thousand rubles." + +"What are you talking about, rubles?" Morris said impatiently. "You +ain't a greenhorn no longer. Do you mean a thousand dollars?" + +"Six hundred dollars--about," Harkavy replied. + +Morris whistled. + +"Well," he said after a pause of some seconds, "put off going until +to-morrow anyhow. Maybe we could fix up to give you the six hundred +dollars anyhow." + +Harkavy remained silent and Morris clapped him on the shoulder. + +"If people is so anxious to get you that they pay you a big lot of money +like that, Harkavy, you could keep 'em waiting anyhow one day. Come +round and see us to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, wouldn't you?" + +Harkavy pondered the question for some minutes. + +"If you wish it, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I would do so; but I must +got to go away by eleven o'clock sure." + +"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "Then I'll see you to-morrow morning at nine +o'clock." + +They shook hands on the appointment and Morris turned away and ascended +the high stoop of an old-fashioned tenement. In the vestibule he +encountered a boy whose right cheek was apparently distorted by a severe +toothache. + +"Do a family by the name Levin live here?" Morris asked. + +The boy nodded and disgorged a huge lump of toffee, whereat the +toothache disappeared. + +"Dat's me fader," he said. "Fourt' floor front east. He ain't in, +dough." + +"Your father!" Morris cried. "Why, the people I am coming to see they +are greenhorns." + +"Oh, yeh," the youngster replied; "dat's me fader's uncle. He lives wid +us." + +"All right," Morris said. "Take me up there." + +The youngster resumed his swollen cheek and escorted Morris up three +flights of slippery brassbound stairs. Without the formality of +knocking, they entered an apartment on the fourth floor where a woman +stood washing dishes. + +"Mrs. Levin?" Morris said. + +The woman nodded. + +"I want to see your man's uncle," Morris continued. Without looking up +the woman cried in stentorian tones: "Mees-taire!" + +In response a bent figure, clad in an alpaca caftan, appeared from an +interior bedroom. He wore a velvet skullcap, and a thin gray beard +straggled from his chin; his nose was surmounted by a pair of steel +spectacles. + +"_Sholom alaicham!_" Morris cried, according the Rabbi that greeting, as +ancient as the Hebrew tongue itself--"Peace be with you." + +"_Alaicham sholom!_" the Rabbi answered, and then he resorted to the +Yiddish jargon: "Do you look for me?" + +"I look for the _Rav_ Elkan Levin," Morris said in a tongue to which he +had long been unaccustomed. "I am the servant of the philanthropist +Steuermann." + +"Steuermann?" the _Rav_ Levin repeated. "I do not know him." + +"In America," Morris said, "his name is honored over the governor's. He +sends me to you to speak for the unfortunate _Tzwee_ Kovalenko." + +"_Tzwee_ Kovalenko," the old man cried, and his beard stood out as his +invisible lips tightened, while his nose became sharp and hawk-like. "A +_mishna meshuna_ to him, the same as he sent to my son." + +"No," Morris declared; "he did not send it to your son. It was another +that did it." + +The old man sank trembling into a nearby chair and clutched the edge of +the table. + +"You tell this to me who saw with my own eyes his body!" he said in +shaking tones. "Yes, _Baron_; I saw my own child like a slaughtered +beast, all blood--not a face, but a piece of flesh. I saw him, and you +tell me this!" + +"None the less," Morris went on, "if your son did die it was a _kapora_ +not meant for him. It was intended for the chief of police." + +The _Rav_ shook his head. + +"It stands in the _Gemera_" he said, in the singsong tone of the +Talmudical reader: "If one flings a stone for pleasure and it strikes +another so that he dies, the one also shall die." + +He rose to his feet and waved one hand with a flapping motion. "An eye +for an eye!" he cried in shrill tones. "A tooth for a tooth!" + +Morris shrank back and turned to the woman, who had not raised her head +from the dishwashing. + +"You tell him," he said, "that the philanthropist Steuermann invites him +to come to the address I shall give you--to-morrow at ten o'clock. Tell +him you know that when Steuermann commands, governors obey." + +"What is it my business?" Mrs. Levin replied. "Tell him yourself." + +"Your man should go with him," Morris insisted. "He and you will not +lose by it." + +Morris wrote the address on the back of one of Potash & Perlmutter's +business cards and handed it to her. + +"Put on it the table," she said. + +"Tell your man," Morris continued, "if he does take this old man to +Steuermann I myself will pay him twenty-five dollars." + +Once more he faced the _Rav_, who had sunk again into the chair. + +"Will it bring back your son to you if _Tzwee_ Kovalenko dies?" he +asked. + +The old man plucked at his beard. + +"He was my son, my only son," he said; "my _Kaddish_. A good son he +was." + +Mrs. Levin, still at her dishwashing, raised her head and snorted +impatiently. + +"Yow--a good son!" she commented in English, "A dirty, lowlife bum he +was. If it wouldn't be that he _ganvered_ a couple bottles wine from a +store he wouldn't of been in the police office at all. He brought it on +himself, mister--believe me." + +Morris nodded. + +"What is _vorbei_ is _vorbei_," he said. "Tell your man he should bring +his uncle to Steuermann and I would pay him sure twenty-five dollars +cash." + +He bowed to the _Rav_ and with a final "_Sholom alaicham!_" passed +downstairs to the street. + +As he waited at the corner for a west-bound car he thought he discerned +a familiar figure in the shadow of the house he had just quitted. He +walked slowly up the block and Harkavy stole out of the basement area +and slunk hurriedly past him. + +"Harkavy!" Morris called, but the assistant cutter only hastened his +steps and it seemed to Morris that a sound like a sob was borne +backward. + +"What is the trouble, Harkavy?" Morris cried; but in response Harkavy +broke into a run, and with a mystified shake of his head Morris +commenced his tedious journey uptown. + + * * * * * + +When Morris, in company with his partner, entered the showroom at eight +o'clock the following morning he had already enumerated to Abe the +events of the preceding evening, not omitting his encounter with +Harkavy. + +"I bet yer he would be waiting for us, Mawruss," Abe said; "and if I +ain't mistaken here he is now." + +Their visitor, however, proved to be a stranger, who bore only a slight +resemblance to their former cutter. + +"Mr. Perlmutter," he said--"ain't it?" + +"My name is Mr. Perlmutter," Morris said. "What do you want from us?" + +For answer the visitor drew from his pocket a card and handed it to +Morris. + +"Me, I am Pincus Levin, and you are leaving this by my wife last night," +he said; "so I am coming to tell you I am agreeable to take Mr. Levin to +Steuermann's place." + +"All right," Morris replied. "You can go ahead." + +Pincus Levin shuffled his feet uneasily, but made no attempt to depart. + +"Well?" Morris cried. + +"Sure, I know," Pincus said; "but if I would take uncle, Mr. Levin, to +Steuermann, y' understand and then, maybe--I am only saying, Mr. +Perlmutter, you might forget the other part--ain't it?" + +"You mean you want your twenty-five dollars in advance?" Morris asked. + +"Why not?" Pincus replied. "If I wouldn't took Mr. Levin to-day yet to +this here Steuermann's office, Mr. Perlmutter, you could stop the +check----" + +Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively. + +"An idee!" he cried. "You ain't never seen this feller before, +Mawruss--ain't it?" + +Morris admitted it. + +"Well, then, what's the use talking?" Abe continued. "How do we know +he's this here Levin's nephew?" + +"Why, Mr. Potash," Levin cried, "I ain't no crook! I got the old man in +a coffee house round the corner right now." + +"Bring him up here then," Abe said, "and we'll give you your money." + +Pincus Levin nodded and shuffled off toward the back stairs, while Abe +turned and gazed after him. + +"I couldn't make it out at all, Mawruss," he said. "The more I look at +that feller, Mawruss, the more he makes me think of this here----" + +"Good morning, Mr. Potash!" a familiar voice interrupted. It was +Harkavy. + +"Hello there!" Morris cried cheerfully. "I thought you would be here." + +Hakavy smiled sadly. His face was white and drawn and his shoes and +trousers were covered with mud as though he had walked the streets all +night. + +"I am keeping my word anyhow," he said; "but I am only coming to tell +you I got to go to Chicago." + +"Why must you got to go?" Abe insisted. + +"Well, there's certain reasons, Mr. Potash," Harkavy replied. "There's +certain--rea----" + +He struggled to control his speech as his eyes rested on the rear +stairway, but his words became more and more inarticulate until, with a +shudder and a gasp, he fell heavily to the floor. + +"_Oi gewoldt!_" Abe exclaimed. He rushed to the office for a glass of +water, but even before he had reached the cooler he stopped suddenly. A +great wailing cry came from the showroom and when he ran back with the +water a bearded old man lay prostrate across Harkavy's body. + +Only Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, kept a clear head during the confusion +that followed. She despatched Nathan, the shipping clerk, for a doctor +and directed her frightened employers to loosen the shirt-bands of the +unconscious men. + +"Some whiskey!" Morris shouted--and one of the cutters produced it +bashfully from his hip-pocket. + +"Never try to force whiskey on a fainting person," Miss Cohen cried. "It +might get into their lungs and suffocate 'em." + +"I wasn't going to," Morris said hastily, as he took a yeoman's pull at +the bottle. "I am feeling faint myself." + +"_Mir auch_," Abe said, taking the bottle from his partner's grasp. +After a refreshing draught he passed it on to Pincus, who returned it +empty to the crestfallen cutter just as a physician dashed out of the +elevator. + +"What caused this trouble?" he asked Abe as he knelt down by the side of +Harkavy. + +Abe looked helplessly at Morris and turned to Pincus Levin, who +commenced to tremble violently. + +"Hold on there!" Morris shouted. "He's going to faint too." + +Abe seized the glass of ice-water and flung its contents into Pincus +Levin's face. He gasped and sat down suddenly. + +"The old man," he murmured, "he's Yosel's father." + +"Yosel who?" Morris shouted. "The old man's only got one son--and he's +dead." + +"Yes, I know," Pincus answered; "he is and he ain't. I always thought so +too, Mr. Perlmutter, but this feller here is Yosel Levin which he got +blew up in Harkav two years ago." + +"What d'ye mean got blew up?" Abe asked as the doctor worked steadily +over the two prostrate men. "How could he be blew up if he is here now?" + +Pincus shrugged his shoulders. + +"How should I know?" he said weakly. "I ain't lying to you. This feller +here is Yosel Levin and my uncle there is his father." + +"Do you mean to told me that the old man's son ain't dead at all?" +Morris demanded. + +"Seemingly," Pincus said; "_aber_ this is the first time I heard it and +I guess it's the first time the old man heard it too." + +Harkavy moaned and tried to sit up. + +"Easy there!" the doctor commanded. "Two of you take him inside and put +him on a lounge if you have one." + +Abe and Morris followed Pincus and the head cutter as they supported the +half-conscious Harkavy into the firm's office. Ten minutes later the old +man was restored to consciousness. + +"_Wo ist er?_" he murmured. "_Mein kind!_" + +"It's all right," the doctor replied, and then he turned to the office. +"Come out here, you, and talk to the old man." + +Pincus came running from the office and reassured his uncle, who, under +the ministrations of the doctor, grew rapidly stronger until he was +sufficiently recovered to be placed on a chair. + +"Keep him quiet while I attend to the other fellow," said the doctor; +"and don't let him talk." + +He went at once to the office, where Harkavy sat on the edge of the +lounge. + +"Here! What are you doing?" he cried. "You shouldn't let that fellow do +any talking." + +"That's all right, doctor," Abe said calmly. "He should go on talking +now if it would kill him even. Go ahead, Harkavy." + +"And so," Harkavy continued, "after I am stealing the wine they took me +to the police office. There was a place! But, anyhow, Mr. Potash, I +could tell you all about it afterward. Inside the backyard was a dead +moujik which he is got run over by a train. His face is all damaged so +you couldn't tell who he was at all." + +He faltered and waved his hand. + +"Give me, please, a glass water," he said, and the doctor seized his +hand. + +"Never mind!" Abe cried inexorably. "Leave him alone, doctor. He should +finish what he's got to say." + +Harkavy nodded and sipped some water. + +"Then comes the package for the chief of police," he went on; "and they +put it first in a pail of water. Then they open it, Mr. Potash, and it +don't harm nobody; but them _roshers_ want to put it on to somebody, so +they make me a proposition they would give me a couple hundred rubles +and a ticket to America--and I took 'em up. For stealing that wine I +could get five years yet; so what should I do? They give me the money +and I run away; and the dead moujik they are telling everybody is me, +which I am blew up to pieces by the package." + +"And you let the old man bury the moujik and think it was you?" Morris +asked. + +Harkavy nodded. + +"Over and over again he is telling me I am no good and he wishes I was +dead," he said. "I wish I was, Mr. Perlmutter--I wish I was!" + +He commenced to cry weakly and Morris handed him the water. + +"But when I hear last week the old man, my father, is here," he +continued, "I couldn't help myself--I am hanging around Madison Street +trying I should get one look at him only. I didn't see him till just +now." + +He struggled to raise himself from the lounge. + +"Let me go to him," he wailed; "let me go!" + +Abe looked inquiringly at the doctor, who nodded in reply. + +"Let him go," he said. "Happiness never harmed anybody yet." + + * * * * * + +"Gentlemen," said the United States Commissioner as he sat behind his +shabby desk in the Post-office Building, "the prisoner is in the +marshal's office. Shall he be brought in?" + +He addressed his question to Mr. Munjoy, who was seated between Henry D. +Feldman and Steuermann at one side of a huge table. Opposite them were +the clerk of the Russian Consulate and his counsel, who was obviously +nervous at the formidable appearance presented by the lawyer, Henry D. +Feldman. + +The latter was about to pull off--as in his colloquial moments he +himself would have expressed it--a rotten trick on his fellow counsel; +for Abe and Morris had not informed either Mr. Munjoy or Mr. Steuermann +of the stirring scene in their showroom that morning. Instead, they had +called on Feldman, who, with the dramatic intuition of the effective +jury lawyer, saw an opportunity for a coup that would at once gain the +admiration and respect, if not the legal business, of Moses M. +Steuermann and procure Feldman a column and a half of publicity in next +day's paper. Hence he had sworn Abe and Morris to secrecy in +consideration of making no charge for his services, since he deemed the +accruing benefit to be worth at least two hundred dollars. + +"Shall he be brought in, gentlemen?" the commissioner asked. + +Counsel for the Russian Consulate bowed, as did Mr. Munjoy; but Henry D. +Feldman cleared his throat with a great rasping noise that penetrated to +the corridor without. This was the signal, and Abe and Morris entered +the room supporting the old Rabbi, who was followed by Pincus Levin. + +"One moment, sir," Feldman said. "I have a preliminary objection to +make. Will you hear the offer, sir?" + +The commissioner nodded and Steuermann and his counsel Mr. Munjoy, +turned to Feldman in amazement. + +"What's all this, Feldman?" Munjoy cried. + +Feldman waved his hand impressively. + +"My objection is, sir, that a gross fraud has been practised on this +court. It has come to my attention that somebody connected with this +proceeding has furnished a material witness for the defense with a +ticket for Chicago and one thousand rubles as a bribe to stay away from +the hearing." + +Counsel for the complainant jumped to his feet. + +"This is preposterous!" he declared. + +"By no means," Feldman continued. "Will you direct counsel not to +interrupt me, sir, if you please?" + +"I so direct," the commissioner replied, whereat Feldman again cleared +his throat and coughed twice, and, in answer to this cue, Yosel Levin, +alias Joseph Harkavy, entered the room. + +"The person so bribed, Mr. Commissioner, is named in the petition as the +_corpus delicti_ of the crime alleged to have been committed," Feldman +said. + +"What!" Munjoy and opposing counsel cried in unison, and the clerk to +the consulate reached for his hat and started for the door. His counsel +leaped after him, however, and succeeded in catching his coat-tails just +as he was about to disappear into the hall. + +With one hand still grasping the consular clerk, counsel for the +complainant turned to the commissioner. + +"I think my client wants to consult me outside for one minute," he said. +"Have I your consent to withdraw?" + +The commissioner nodded and Munjoy turned to Feldman. + +"What the deuce are you trying to do, Feldman?" he asked as +complainant's counsel returned. + +"If the commissioner pleases," Feldman said, "we consent to a dismissal +of the extradition proceedings and to a discharge of the prisoner." + +The imperturbable commissioner bowed and rose to his feet. + +"Submit the necessary papers for the prisoner's discharge, gentlemen," +he said. "The hearing is closed." + + * * * * * + +"Five dollars for doing what that feller done is like picking it up in +the street, Mawruss!" Abe declared to Mawruss when they received the +doctor's bill a month later. + +"How could we be small about it, Abe?" Morris rejoined. "Look at what +Steuermann done! Not only he is paying his lawyers for getting this +Kovalenko out of prison but he is taking that young feller and paying +for him he should go on with his studying for a doctor." + +"Well, the way doctors soak you, Mawruss," Abe said, looking at the bill +which he held in his hand, "it wouldn't be long before Kovalenko pays +him back with interest, I bet yer." + +"But, anyhow, Abe," Morris continued, "now we got Yosel Levin working +for us as cutter, it would be a better feeling all around supposing we +pay the bill and say nothing about it." + +"I am agreeable we should say nothing more about it, Mawruss," Abe +retorted, "because we already wasted more time and trouble than the +whole thing is worth; but one thing I would like to know, Mawruss, +before I shut up my mouth: Why did this here feller, Yosel Levin, call +himself Harkavy?" + +"Say!" Morris said, using three inflections to the monosyllable: "he's +got just so much right to call himself Harkavy as all them other guys +has to call themselves Breslauer, Hamburger, Leipziger _oder_ Berliner. +He anyhow does come from Harkav, Abe--which you could take it from me, +Abe, there's many a feller calls himself Hamburger which he don't come +from no nearer Hamburg than Vilna _oder_ Kovno." + +Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively in reply. + +"My worries where them fellers comes from, Mawruss!" he commented. +"Because, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, if a feller attends +to his own business, Mawruss, and don't monkey with politics, +y'understand, where could he make a better living than right here in New +York, N. Y.?" + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +"R. S. V. P." + + +It was the tenth of the month, and Abe Potash, of Potash & Perlmutter, +was going through the firm mail with an exploratory thumb and finger, +looking for checks. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, "all them +hightone customers of yours they don't take it so particular that they +should pay on the day, Mawruss. If they was only so prompt with checks +as they was to claim deductions, Mawruss, you and me would have no +worries. I think some of 'em finds a shortage in the shipment before +they open the packing-case that the goods come in. Take your friend +Hyman Maimin, of Sarahcuse--nothing suits him. He always kicks that the +goods ain't made up right, or we ain't sent him enough fancies, or +something like that. Five or six letters he writes us, Mawruss, when he +gets the goods; but when he got to pay for 'em, Mawruss, that's +something else again. You might think postage stamps was solitaire +diamonds, and that he dassen't use 'em!" + +"Quit your kicking," Perlmutter broke in. "This is only the tenth of the +month." + +"I know it," said Abe. "We should have had a check by the tenth of last +month, but"--here Abe's eye lit upon an envelope directed in the +handwriting of Hyman Maimin--"I guess there was some good reason for the +delay," he went on evenly. "Anyhow, here's a letter from him now." + +He tore open the envelope and hurriedly removed the enclosed letter. +Then he took the envelope, blew it wide open, and shook it up and down, +but no check fell out. + +"Did y'ever see the like?" he exclaimed. "Sends us a letter and no +check!" + +"Why, it ain't a letter," Morris said. "It's an advertisement." + +Abe's face grew white. + +"A meeting of creditors!" he gasped. + +Morris grabbed the missive from his partner and spread it out on the +table. + +"Hello!" he exclaimed, a great smile of relief spreading itself about +his ears. "It's a wedding invitation!" He held it up to the light. "'Mr. +and Mrs. Marcus Bramson,'" he read, "'request the pleasure of Potash & +Perlmutter's company at the marriage of their daughter Tillie to Mr. +Hyman Maimin, Sunday, March 19, at seven o'clock, P.M., Wiedermayer's +Hall, 2099 South Oswego Street. R.S.V.P. to residence of bride, care of +Advance Credit Clothing Company, 2097 South Oswego Street.'" + +"What is that 'R.S.V.P. to residence of bride'?" Abe Potash asked. + +Morris reflected for a moment. + +"That means," he said at length, "that we should know where to send the +present to." + +"How do you make that out?" said Abe. + +"'R.S.V.P.'," Morris replied, emphasizing each letter with a motion of +his hand, "means 'Remember to send vedding present.'" + +"But," Abe rejoined, "when I went to night school, we spelt 'wedding' +with a W." + +"A greenhorn like Maimin," said Morris, "don't know no better." + +"He knows enough to ask for a wedding present, Mawruss," Abe commented, +"even if he don't know how to spell it. We'll send him a wedding +present, Mawruss! We'll send him a summons from the court, that's what +we'll send him!" + +Morris shook his head. + +"That ain't no way to talk, Abe," he said. "If a customer gets married, +we _got_ to send him a wedding present. It don't cost much, and if Hyman +Maimin gets a couple of thousand dollars with this Miss--Miss----" + +"Advance Credit Clothing Company," Abe helped out. + +Morris nodded. + +"Then he buys more goods, ain't it?" he concluded. + +"Let him pay for what he's got," Abe rejoined. + +"It just slipped his mind. He'll pay up fast enough, after he gets +married." + +"All right! Wait till he pays up, and then we'll give him a present." + +"Now lookyhere, Abe," Morris protested, "you can't be small in a matter +of this kind. I'll draw a check for twenty-five dollars, and----" + +"Twenty-five dollars!" Abe screamed. "You're crazy! When you was married +last year, I'd like to know who gives you a present for twenty-five +dollars?" + +"Why you did, Abe," Morris replied. + +"Me?" Abe cried. "Say, Mawruss, I want to tell you something. If you can +buy a fine sterling silver bumbum dish, like what I give you, for +twenty-five dollars, I'll take it off your hands for twenty-seven-fifty +any day!" + +"But, Abe----" + +"Another thing, Mawruss," Abe went on. "If you don't like that dish, +there ain't no law compelling you to keep it, you understand. Send it +back. My Rosie can use it. Maybe we ain't so stylish like your Minnie, +Mawruss; but if we don't have bumbums every day, we could put dill +pickles into it!" + +"One moment," Morris protested. "I ain't saying anything about that +bumbum dish, Abe. All I meant that if you give _me_ such a high-price +present when _I_ get married, that's all the more reason why we should +give a high-price present to a customer what we will make money on. I +ain't no customer, Abe." + +"I know you ain't," said Abe. "You're only a partner, and I don't make +no money on you, neither." + +Morris shrugged his shoulders. + +"What's the use of wasting more time about it, Abe?" he said. "Go ahead +and buy a present." + +"Me buy it?" Abe cried. "You know yourself, Mawruss, I ain't a success +with presents. You draw the check and get your Minnie to buy it. She's +an up-to-date woman, Mawruss, while my Rosie is a back number. She don't +know nothing but to keep a good house, Mawruss. Sterling silver bumbum +dishes she don't know, Mawruss. If I took her advice, you wouldn't got +no bumbum dish. Nut-picks, Mawruss, from the five-and-ten-cent store, +that's what you'd got. You might appreciate them, Mawruss; but a +sterling silver----" + +At this juncture Morris took refuge in the outer office, where Miss +Cohen, the bookkeeper, was taking off her wraps. + +"Miss Cohen," he said, "draw a check for twenty-five dollars to bearer, +and enter it up as a gratification to Hyman Maimin." + +At dinner that evening Morris handed the check over to his wife. + +"Here Minnie," he said, "Abe wants you should buy a wedding present for +a customer." + +"What kind of a wedding present?" Mrs. Perlmutter asked. + +"Something in solid sterling silver, like that bumbum dish what Abe gave +us." + +"But, Mawruss," she protested, "you know we got that bonbon dish locked +away in the sideboard, and we never take it out. Let's give 'em +something useful." + +"Suit yourself," Morris replied. "Only don't bother me about it." + +"All right," Mrs. Perlmutter said. "Leave me the name and address, and +I'll see that they send it direct from the store. I'll put one of your +cards inside." + +"And another thing," Morris concluded. "See that you don't hold nothing +out on us by way of commission." + +Mrs. Perlmutter smiled serenely. + +"I won't," she said, in dulcet tones. + + * * * * * + +It was the fourth day after Potash & Perlmutter's receipt of the wedding +invitation. When Morris Perlmutter entered the private office he found +Abe Potash in the absorbed perusal of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_. +Abe looked up and saluted his partner with a malignant grin. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said, "I suppose you sent that present to Hyman +Maimin?" + +"I sent it off long since already," Morris replied. + +"I hope it was a nice one, Mawruss," Abe went on "I hope it was a real +nice one. I'm sorry now, Mawruss, we didn't spend fifty dollars. That +would have made it an even seven hundred, instead of only six hundred +and seventy-five, that Hyman Maimin owed us." + +"What d'ye mean?" cried Morris. + +"I don't mean nothing, Mawruss--nothing at all," Abe said, with ironical +emphasis. He handed the paper to Morris. "Here, look for yourself!" + +He pointed with a trembling forefinger at the "business-troubles" +column, and Morris's eyes seemed to bulge out of his head as he scanned +the printed page: + + A petition in bankruptcy was filed late yesterday afternoon against + Hyman Maimin, 83 West Tonawanda Street, Syracuse. It is claimed + that he transferred assets to the amount of eight thousand dollars + last week. Mr. Maimin says that he has been doing business at a + heavy loss of late, but that he hopes to be able to resume. A + settlement of thirty cents is proposed. + +Morris sat down in a revolving-chair too crushed for comment, and +drummed with a lead pencil on the desk. + +"I wonder if he done up his intended father-in-law, too?" he said at +length. + +"No fear of that, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He ain't no sucker like us, +Mawruss. I bet you his father-in-law--what's his name----" + +"The Advance Credit Clothing Company," Morris suggested. + +"Sure," Abe went on. "I bet you this clothing concern says to him: 'If +you want to marry my daughter, you gotter go into bankruptcy first. +Then, when you're all cleaned up, I'll give you a couple of thousand +dollars to start as a new beginner in another line.' Ain't it?" + +Morris nodded gloomily. + +"No, Mawruss," Abe continued. "I bet you his father-in-law is a big +crook like himself." + +He rose to his feet and opened the large green-and-red covered book +furnished by the commercial agency to which they subscribed. + +"I'm going to do now, Mawruss, what you should have done before you sent +that present," he said. "I'm going to look up this here Advance Credit +Clothing Company. I bet you he ain't even in the book--what?" + +Before Morris could reply, the letter-carrier entered with the morning +mail. While Abe continued to run his thumb down the columns of the +commercial agency book, Morris began to open the envelopes. Both their +heads were bent over their tasks, when an exclamation arose +simultaneously from each. + +"Now, what d'ye think of that?" said Abe. + +"Did y' ever see anything like it?" Morris cried. + +"What is it?" Abe asked. + +For answer, Morris thrust a letter into his partner's hand. It was +headed, "The Advance Credit Clothing Company--Marcus Bramson, +Proprietor," and read as follows: + + MESSRS. POTASH & PERLMUTTER. + + GENTS: + + Your shipment of the 5th is to hand, and in reply would say + that we are returning it _via_ Blue Line on account Miss Tillie + Bramson's engagement is broken. We understand that lowlife + H. Maimin got into you for six hundred and fifty dollars. Believe + me, he done us for more than that. Our Mr. Bramson will be in + New York shortly, and will call to look at your line. Hoping we + will be able to do business with you, + + Yours truly, + THE ADVANCE CREDIT CLOTHING COMPANY, + Per T. B. + +Abe Potash laid down the letter with a sigh, while his thumb still +rested caressingly on the open page of the mercantile agency book. + +"So he's going to send back the present!" he said. "That man Marcus +Bramson, proprietor, has a big heart, Mawruss. He's a man with fine +feelings and a fine disposition, Mawruss. He's got a fine rating too, +Mawruss--seventy-five to a hundred thousand, first credit!" He closed +the book almost lovingly. "D'ye think they would give the money back for +that present, Mawruss?" + +"I don't know," said Morris. "Minnie bought it, and she told me it was a +big bargain. It was a sale, she said, but I guess they'll take it back." + +"What did it look like?" Abe said. + +"I didn't see it," Morris replied. "They sent it direct from the store, +but I took Minnie's word for it. She said it was fine value." + +"And Minnie," Abe concluded, "is a fine, up-to-date woman." + + * * * * * + +Two days later, Abe Potash spotted the name of Marcus Bramson in the +"Arrival of Buyers" column of a morning newspaper. + +"Mawruss," he cried, "he's come!" + +"Who's come?" Morris asked. + +"Marcus Bramson," Abe replied, reaching for his hat. "I'm going over to +the Bingler House now to meet him. You wait here till I come back. I bet +you we sell him a big bill of goods!" + +As Abe went out of the store by the front door, an expressman, bearing a +square wooden box, entered the rear alley. He brought the package +straight to Miss Cohen, who signed a receipt, and summoned Mr. +Perlmutter. Morris proceeded to pry off the cover. + +"This is something what Mrs. Perlmutter bought for Hyman Maimin's +wedding present," he explained. "I ain't never seen it yet." + +He pulled out a number of wads of tissue paper. When he finally reached +a piece of silverware, he turned the box upside down and shook out the +remainder of its contents upon a sample table. + +"Oh, Mr. Perlmutter," Mist Cohen exclaimed, clasping her hands, "what a +beautiful bonbon dish! What a lovely wedding present!" + +Morris looked at the bonbon dish, and beads of perspiration started on +his forehead. + +"Ain't Mrs. Perlmutter got good taste!" Miss Cohen went on +enthusiastically. + +Morris said nothing, but picked up the silver dish. Examining the +polished centre carefully, he discerned the indistinct initials "M. P." +almost but not quite effaced by buffing. Undoubtedly it was the same +bonbon dish. + +He gathered up the tissue paper and carefully arranged it in the box as +a bed for the silver dish. Then he put the cover on, and nailed it down. + +"Ain't you going to let Mr. Potash see it?" Miss Cohen asked. "He ain't +never seen it before, neither, has he?" + +Morris frowned. + +"I think he has," he replied. "Anyhow, I'm going to send it right uptown +by messenger boy." + +"Do you think they'll exchange it?" Miss Cohen inquired. + +"Oh, I guess it will be put back in stock all right," said Morris, +turning away. + + * * * * * + +The next morning, when Morris entered the store, Abe was busy figuring +on the back of a torn envelope. + +"Hello, Mawruss!" he cried, looking up. "Ain't it beautiful weather?" + +Morris agreed that it was. + +"That Mr. Bramson," Abe went on, "that's one fine gentleman, Mawruss. He +ain't what you'd call a close buyer, neither, Mawruss." + +"No?" Morris commented. + +"The way I figure it," Abe continued, "reckoning on what we lost by +Hyman Maimin, if he settles for thirty cents, and what we make out of +Mr. Bramson's first order, we come out even to the dollar!" + +"So?" Morris murmured. + +"All excepting that wedding present, Mawruss," Abe. "By the way, +Mawruss, ain't that wedding present come back yet?" + +"Why, sure," said Morris. "It come back yesterday, when you were out." + +"Why ain't you showed it to me? Ain't I got no right to see it, +Mawruss?" + +"Of course you got a right to see it," Morris assented, "but I thought +I'd get it right up town to Minnie and have it exchanged." + +"And did she exchange it?" Abe asked. + +"Well, it's like this," Morris explained. "Minnie liked it so well that +she decided on keeping it, so I'll give the firm my personal check for +twenty-five dollars." + +Abe puffed hard on his cigar. + +"You're a purty generous feller, Mawruss," he commented, "to give Minnie +a present like that--for nothing at all, ain't it?" + +"Oh, no, I ain't Abe," Morris replied. "I ain't giving it to her for +nothing at all. I'm taking it out of her housekeeping money, Abe--five +dollars a month!" + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +FIRING MISS COHEN + + +"There's no use talking, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared to his +partner, Abe Potash, as they sat in the sample-room of their spacious +cloak-and-suit establishment. "We got a system of bookkeeping that would +disgrace a peanut-stand. Here's a statement from the Hamsuckett Mills, +and it shows a debit balance of eleven hundred and fifty dollars what we +owe them. Miss Cohen's figures is eleven hundred and forty-two." + +"That's in our favour already," Abe replied. "The Hamsuckett people must +be wrong, Mawruss." + +"No, they ain't, Abe," Morris said. "It's Miss Cohen's mistake." + +"Mistake?" Abe exclaimed. "When it's in our favour, Mawruss, it ain't no +mistake!" + +"It's a mistake, anyhow, no matter in whose favour it is," said Morris. +"Miss Cohen's footing was wrong. She gets carelesser every day." + +"I'm surprised to hear you that you should talk that way, Mawruss," Abe +rejoined. "Miss Cohen's been with us for five years, and we ain't lost +nothing by her, neither. You know as well as I do, Mawruss, her uncle, +Max Cohen, is a good customer of ours. Only last week he bought of us a +big bill of goods, Mawruss." + +"Just the same, Abe," Morris went on, "if we get a bright young man in +there, instead of Miss Cohen, it would be a big improvement. We ought to +get some one in there what can manage a double entry, and can run a +card-index for our credits." + +Abe puffed vigorously at his cigar. + +"I suppose, Mawruss, if we got a card-index and we sell a crook a bill +of goods," he commented, "and the crook busts up on us, Mawruss, that +card-index is going to stop him from sticking us--what? Well, Mawruss, +if you want to put in a young feller and fire Miss Cohen, go ahead--I'm +satisfied." + +As if to clinch the matter before his partner could retract this +somewhat grudging consent, Morris Perlmutter stalked out of the +sample-room and made resolutely for the glass-enclosed office, where +Miss Cohen was busy writing in a ledger. She looked up as he entered, +and surveyed him calmly with her large black eyes. + +"Oh, Mr. Perlmutter!" she said when he came within ear-shot, "Uncle Max +was round to the house last night, and he wants you should duplicate +them forty-twenty-twos in his last order and ship at once." + +Morris stopped short. This was something he had not foreseen, and all +his well-formulated plans for the firing of Miss Cohen were shattered at +once. + +"Oh!" he said lamely. "Thank you, Miss Cohen; I'll make a memorandum of +it." He went over to the commercial agency book and scanned three or +four pages with an unseeing eye. Then he repaired to the sample room, +where Abe sat finishing his cigar. + +"Well, Mawruss," said Abe, his face wreathed in a malicious grin, "you +made a quick job of it." + +Morris scowled. + +"I ain't spoken to her yet," he grunted. "I got a little gumption, +Abe--a little consideration and common sense. I don't throw out my dirty +water until I get clean." + +Abe puffed slowly before replying. + +"I seen some people, Mawruss," he said, "what sometimes throws out +perfectly clean water, and gets some dirty water in exchange, Mawruss." +He threw away the stump of his cigar. + +"Sometimes, Mawruss," he concluded solemnly, "they gets a good, big +souse, Mawruss, where they least expect it." + + * * * * * + +Ike Feinsilver, city salesman for the Hamsuckett Mills--Goldner & +Plotkin, proprietors--was obviously his own ideal of a well-dressed man. +His shirts and waistcoats represented a taste as original as it was not +subdued; but it was in the selection of his neckties that he really +excelled. Abe and Morris fairly blinked as they surveyed his latest +acquisition in cravats when he entered the door of their store that +afternoon, smiling a pleasant greeting at his prospective customers. + +He presented so brilliant a picture that Miss Cohen was drawn from her +desk in the glass-enclosed office toward the trio in the sample room as +inevitably as the moth to the candle flame. She took up some cutting +slips from a table, by way of excuse for her intrusion, but the blush +and smile with which she acknowledged Ike's rather perfunctory nod +betrayed her. Abe was fingering the Hamsuckett swatches, but Miss +Cohen's embarrassment did not escape Morris Perlmutter. He marked it +with an inward start, and immediately conceived a brilliant idea. + +"Ike," he said, when Abe had completed the giving of a small order and +had left them alone together, "a young feller like you ought to get +married." + +Ike was non-committal. + +"Sure Mawruss," he replied. "Every young feller ought to get married." + +"I'm glad you look at it so sensible, Ike," Morris went on. "Getting +married right, Ike, has been the making of many a young feller. Where +d'ye suppose Goldner & Plotkin would be to-day if they hadn't got +married right? They'd be selling goods for somebody else, Ike. But +Goldner, he married Bella Frazinsky, with a couple of thousand dollars +maybe; and Plotkin, he goes to work and gets Garfunkel's sister--she was +pretty old, Ike; but if she ain't got a fine complexion, Ike, she got a +couple of thousand dollars, too, ain't it? Well, Plotkin with his two +thousand and Goldner with his two thousand, they start in together as +new beginners. They gets the selling agency for the Hamsuckett people, +and then they makes big money and buys them out. To-day Goldner & +Plotkin is rich men, and all because they got married _right_!" + +Feinsilver listened with parted lips. + +"And now, Ike," Morris continued, "the good seed sown, we talked enough, +ain't it? Come on to the office. I want to show you some little mistakes +in the Hamsuckett statement." + +He conducted Ike to the glass-enclosed office, where Miss Cohen bent low +over her ledger. The blush with which she had received Ike's greeting +had not entirely disappeared; and, as she glanced up, her large black +eyes looked like those of a frightened deer. Morris was forced to admit +to himself that if her bookkeeping was doubtful, at least there could be +no mistake about her charms. As for Ike, now that the business of +securing orders was done with, he surrendered himself to gallantry, for +which he had a natural aptitude. + +"Ah, Miss Cohen," he said, "ain't it a fine weather?" + +A pleased smile spread itself over Morris's face. + +"I think I hear the telephone in the sample room," he broke in +hurriedly. "Excuse me for a moment." + +When he returned, Ike and Miss Cohen were chatting gaily. + +"What do you think of _that_?" Morris cried. "My Minnie just rang me up +and says she got tickets for the theayter to-morrow night--two tickets. +We can't use 'em, because we're going to a--a wedding. Would you two +young folks like to go, maybe?" + +"Why, sure," Ike said. "Sure we would. Wouldn't we, Miss Cohen?" + +Miss Cohen assented bashfully. + +"Well, then," said Morris, "I'll get 'em for you--I mean I'll send 'em +you by mail to-night, Ike." + +Ike was profuse in his thanks; and then and there arranged to call for +Miss Cohen at half-past seven, sharp, the following evening. + +Morris beamed his approval and shook hands heartily with Ike as the +latter turned to leave. + +"How about that mistake in the statement?" Ike asked. + +"Some other time," said Morris, walking with Ike toward the store-door. +Then he sank his voice to a confidential whisper. "That's a fine girl, +Miss Cohen," he went on. "Comes of fine family, too. She's Max Cohen's +niece. You know Max Cohen. He's the Beacon Credit Outfitting Company. +He's a _millionaire_, Ike. If he's worth a cent, he's worth a hundred +thousand dollars!" + +Ike turned on him an awed yet searching look as they clasped hands again +in parting. + +"I give you my word, Ike, she's his favourite niece," Morris concluded, +"_and he ain't got no children of his own_." + + * * * * * + +The ensuing week was a busy one for all concerned. Abe was occupied in +the store with an unusual rush of spring trade, Morris had his hands +full in the office and cutting-room; but Miss Cohen and Ike Feinsilver +had been busiest of all, for in less than six days after their visit to +the theatre a solitaire diamond-ring sparkled on the third finger of the +lady's left hand. + +"Well, Mawruss," Abe said ten days later, "I suppose you fired Miss +Cohen?" + +"Me fire Miss Cohen?" Morris exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you that +you should talk that way, Abe. What for should I fire Miss Cohen?" + +"Why, last week you said you was going to fire her, ain't it?" + +"Last week," Morris replied, "was another day. If I ain't got no more +sense than that I should go to a fine young lady like Miss Cohen, and +say, 'Miss Cohen, you're fired,' after she worked for us five years, and +her uncle also a good customer, I should be sorry, Abe." + +"Then, we're going to keep her, after all--what?" Abe said. + +"No, we ain't going to keep her," said Morris. "We're going to lose +her." + +"_Lose_ her! What d'ye mean?" + +Morris smiled in a superior way. + +"Abe," he said, "you ain't got no eyes in your head. Ain't you noticed +that ring on Miss Cohen's left hand?" + +Abe stared in astonishment. + +"It's a beauty, Abe," Morris went on. "A bright young feller like Ike +Feinsilver don't get stuck, no matter what he buys. He got it through +Plotkin's cousin down on Maiden Lane." + +Abe sat down to ponder over the news. + +"You mean," he said at length, "that Ike Feinsilver, of the Hamsuckett +Mills, is going to marry Miss Cohen?" + +"You guessed it right, Abe," Morris replied. + +"And who fixed it up?" said Abe. + +Morris slapped his chest proudly. + +"I did," he replied. + +Abe smoked on in silence. + +"I suppose I must congratulate her, Mawruss?" he said at length, +starting to rise. + +"There's no hurry," said Morris. "I let her go uptown this morning. She +wanted to do some shopping." + +Abe sat down again. + +"You done a smart piece of work, Mawruss, I must say," he admitted. +"Ike's a good feller, and Miss Cohen'll make him a good wife, even if +she ain't a good bookkeeper. Also, we done a good turn to Max Cohen. I +bet he's pleased. I wonder he ain't been around yet." + +Hardly had the words issued from Mr. Potash's mouth, when the store-door +opened to admit a short, thick-set person, and then closed again with a +bang that threatened every pane of glass in the vicinity. There was no +hesitation about the newcomer's actions. He made straight for the sample +room, and had almost reached it before Abe could scramble to his feet. +The latter rushed forward and grabbed the visitor's hand. + +"Mr. Cohen," he cried, "what a pleasure this is! I congratulate you!" + +Mr. Cohen withdrew his hand from Abe's cordial grasp. + +"You congradulate _me_, hey?" he said, with slow and ironic emphasis. +"Mawruss Perlmutter _also_ congradulates me--what?" He fixed the unhappy +Morris with a terrible glare. "Don't congradulate _me_," he went on. +"Congradulate Ike Feinsilver and Beckie Cohen." He gathered force as he +proceeded. "Fools!" he continued in a rapid crescendo. "Meddlers! You +spill my blood! You ruin me! I'm a millionaire, you tell Feinsilver. +I've got nothing to do with my money but that I should throw it away in +the street!" + +"_Mister_ Cohen," Morris protested, "you'll make yourself sick." + +"I'll make _you_ sick!" Cohen rejoined. "I'll make for you a blue eye, +too. _Five thousand dollars_ I got to give her!" + +Abe whistled involuntarily. + +"I should think two thousand would be plenty," he suggested. + +Max Cohen turned on him with another glare. + +"What!" he shrieked. "Am I a beggar? Should I give my niece a miserable +two thousand dollars? Ain't I got no pride? I _got_ to make it five +thousand!" He paused while his imagination dwelt on the magnitude of +this colossal sum. "Five thousand dollars!" he shrieked again, "and +business the way it is!" + +Mr. Perlmutter laid a soothing palm on Cohen's shoulder. + +"But, Mr. Cohen," he said, "what can _we_ do? Why should you tell _us_ +all this?" + +Mr. Cohen shook off Morris's caress. + +"You're right," he said. "Why should I tell you all this? I didn't come +here to tell you this. I come here to tell you something else. I come +here to tell you to cancel all orders what I give you. Also, if you or +your salesman come by my place ever again, look out; that's all. The way +I feel it now, I'll murder you!" He turned to leave. "And another +thing," he concluded. "One thing, you can depend on it. So far what I +can help it, you don't sell one dollar's worth of goods to any of my +friends, never no more!" + +Again the door banged explosively, and Mr. Cohen was gone. + +For ten minutes there was an awed silence in the sample room. At length +Abe looked at his partner with a sickly smile. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said, "you made a nice mess of it, ain't you?" + +Morris was too stunned to reply. + +"That's what comes of not minding your own business," said Abe. "We lose +a good customer, and maybe several good customers. We lose a good +bookkeeper, too, Mawruss--one what has been with us for five years; and +also we are out a wedding present." + +"I meant it good," Morris protested. "I done it for the best. It says in +the Talmud, Abe, that we are commanded to promote marriages." + +Abe waggled his head solemnly. + +"This is the first time I hear it, that you are a Talmudist, Mawruss!" +he said. + +A month passed, and Miss Cohen continued to apply herself to her daily +task at Potash & Perlmutter's books. + +"I don't understand it, Mawruss," Abe said one morning. "Why don't that +girl quit her job? She must have all sorts of things to do--clothes to +buy and furniture to pick out, ain't it?" + +Perlmutter shrugged his shoulders. + +"I spoke to her about it," he replied, "and she says so long as we're so +busy here, she guesses she will stay on the job as long as she can. She +says her mommer and her sister can do all the shopping for her." + +"You see, Mawruss, what a mistake you make," Abe commented with a sigh. + +"That's a fine girl, that Miss Cohen!" + +Morris nodded gloomily. He began to realize that he had made a mistake, +after all. Only that morning Mrs. Perlmutter had demanded twenty dollars +with which to make over her best frock for Miss Cohen's wedding. + +"Sure, she's a fine girl," he agreed; "but you got to admit yourself, +Abe, that a growing business like ours needs a hustling young man for a +bookkeeper." + +"That's all right, too, Mawruss," said Abe; "but you also got to admit +that what a growing business like ours needs most of all, Mawruss, is +customers; and so far what I see, we don't gain any customers by this. +Also, my wife has got to make a new dress for the wedding. She told me +so this morning." + +Morris made no reply. He was growing heartily sick of this business of +firing Miss Cohen, and consoled himself with the thought that the +wedding was fast approaching, and that they would be rid of her for +good. + +At length the wedding-day arrived. Miss Cohen left Potash & Perlmutter's +at four o'clock, for the ceremony was set for half-past seven in the +evening. Her parting with her employers was an embarrassing one for all +three. Abe handed her a check for twenty-five dollars, with the firm's +blessing, and Morris shook her hand in comparative silence. He had done +and suffered much for that moment of leave-taking; and further than +wishing her a long and happy married life, he said nothing. As for Abe, +the squandering of twenty-five dollars, without hope of return, +temporarily exhausted his capacity for emotion. + +"Good luck to you, Miss Cohen," he said. "Hope we see you again soon." + +"Oh, sure!" Miss Cohen replied cheerfully. "You'll be at the wedding +to-night?" + +Abe nodded--they all nodded--and then, with a final handshake all +around, Miss Cohen departed. + +It must be confessed that the wedding reception that evening was a very +enjoyable occasion for all the guests, with the possible exception of +Max Cohen. The wine flowed like French champagne at four dollars a +quart, while, as Morris Perlmutter at once deduced from the careful way +in which the waiters disguised the label with a napkin, it was really +domestic champagne of an inferior quality. Nevertheless, Abe Potash +drank more than his share, in a rather futile attempt to get back, in +kind, part of the twelve and a half dollars he had contributed toward +Miss Cohen's wedding-present, to say nothing of the cost of his wife's +gown. + +Consequently, on the morning after the festivities he entered his place +of business in no very pleasant frame of mind. He found that Morris had +already arrived. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said in greeting, "everything went off splendid--for +Feinsilver. Max Cohen came down with a certified check for five thousand +dollars, you and me got rid of about over a hundred, counting the +wedding-present and our wives' dresses, and Miss Cohen got a husband and +a lot of cut glass, while _me_--I got a headache!" + +Morris grunted. + +"I guess you don't feel too good yourself, ain't it?" Abe went on. +"Anyhow, you got to get busy now, and find some smart young feller to +keep the books. You got rid of your dirty water, Mawruss; now you got to +get some clean. Did you put an 'ad' in the papers, Mawruss?" + +"No, I ain't," Morris snapped. + +"Ain't you going to?" + +"What for?" Morris growled. "We don't need no bookkeeper." + +"Why not?" Abe cried. + +Morris nodded in the direction of the office. + +"Because we _got_ one," he replied. + +Abe turned toward the little glass enclosure. He gasped in amazement, +and nearly swallowed the stump of his cigar, for at the old stand, +industriously applying herself to the books of Potash & Perlmutter, sat +Mrs. Isaac Feinsilver, _nee_ Cohen. + +A moment later the door opened, and Isaac Feinsilver entered, +immaculately clothed in a suit of zebra-like design. He proceeded to the +bookkeeper's office and kissed the blushing bride; then he repaired to +the sample room. + +"Good morning, Mawruss! Good morning, Abe!" he said briskly. "Ain't it a +fine weather?" He threw a bundle of swatches upon the sample table. "My +partners, Goldner & Plotkin, and me"--here he paused to note the +effect--"is putting out a fine line of spring goods, and I want to show +you some." + +Abe and Morris looked over Ike's line in dazed astonishment; and before +they were really cognizant of what was going on, Ike had booked a +generous order. He gathered up the samples into a neat little heap and +put them under his arm. + +"That ain't so bad," he said, "for a honeymoon order." + +Then he turned and strode toward the bookkeeper's office. Once more he +saluted the lips of his assiduous spouse, and a moment later he was +walking rapidly down the street. Abe looked after him and expelled a +huge breath. + +"You find it in the Talmud that we are commanded to promote marriages, +ain't it, Mawruss?" he said. "But one thing's sure, Mawruss--you can't +run a cloak-and-suit business according to the Talmud." There was a +short silence. "Did you ask her why she comes back, Mawruss?" he said. + +Morris took the end off a particularly black cigar with one vicious +bite. + +"I didn't have to ask her. She told me," he said bitterly. "She says a +smart girl can get a husband any day, she says; but a good job is hard +to find, and when you got one, you should stick to it!" + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +AUX ITALIENS + + +"What are you talking nonsense, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared hotly, +one morning in December; "an elegant class of people lives in the +houses. On the same floor with me lives Harry Baskof, which he is just +married a daughter of Maisener & Finkman. You remember Max Finkman, for +years a salesman for B. Senft & Co. Downstairs is a lawyer, a young +feller by the name Sholy, and on the ground floor is Doctor +Eichendorfer." + +"With lawyers, Mawruss," Abe said, "we got enough to do downtown, ain't +it? Doctors also, Mawruss. I am once living next door to a doctor, and +every time I meet that feller he says 'How do you do?' to me like he +would mean, 'It's a fine day for an operation.' I get a pain in my right +side whenever I think of him even." + +"Never mind, Abe," Morris rejoined. "Oncet in a while a doctor in the +house comes in pretty handy--a lawyer too. A feller could get a whole +lot of pointers riding up and down in an elevator with a lawyer. Ain't +it? The only trouble about the house is the family above us, which the +lady is all the time hollering like somebody would be giving her a +licking already. Minnie says that she hears from our girl that her girl +says she was an opera singer in the old country." + +"Yow, an opera singer in the old country!" Abe exclaimed skeptically. +"In Russland they don't got so many opera singers as all that." + +"What d'ye mean, in Russland?" Morris demanded. "The woman ain't from +Russland at all. She's an Italiener. I am coming up in the elevator last +night with her husband and a friend, and the way they are talking to +each other it sounds like a couple of bushelers in a factory. I tell you +the honest truth, Abe, for me it don't make no difference if a feller +would be a Frencher _oder_ an Irishman, so long as he treats me white I +would be a good feller, Abe; but an Italiener, Abe, is something else +again. An Italiener would as lief stick a knife into you as look at you, +Abe, and they smell the whole house out with garlic yet." + +"There's lots of things smells worse as garlic, Mawruss," Abe retorted, +"and as for sticking a knife into you, that's all _schmooes_. There's +lots of people worser as Italieners, I bet yer, and when it comes right +down to it, Mawruss, I'd a whole lot sooner have a couple Italieners +working for me as some of them fellers which they are coming over from +Russland." + +"Since when did you got such friendly feelings for Italieners, Abe?" +Morris inquired satirically. + +"Never mind!" Abe exclaimed. "You could knock an Italiener all you want, +Mawruss, but you could take it from me, Mawruss, when an Italiener's got +work to do he don't stand around talking a lot of nonsense instead of +attending to business, like some people I know." + +With this scathing rejoinder Abe trudged off toward the cutting room and +Morris proceeded to the office. He had hardly seated himself comfortably +at his desk, however, when Abe burst into the room. + +"That's the way it goes, Mawruss," he cried. "Half the time we sit and +_schmooes_ in the showroom and we don't know what goes on in our cutting +room at all." + +"What's the matter now?" Morris asked. + +"Harkavy has quit us again," Abe replied. + +"Quit us!" Morris exclaimed. "What for?" + +"Nothing. All I says to the feller was why them piece goods is on the +floor, and he says he is sick and tired and I should get another +designer." + +Morris bit the end off a new cigar and glared ferociously at Abe. + +"So," he said bitterly, "we lose another designer through you, Abe. What +do you think, a designer would stand for abuse the same like a partner, +Abe?" + +"What d'ye mean--abuse, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "I ain't said no abuse +to the feller at all; and even if I would, Mawruss, I guess I could talk +like how I want to in my own cutting room, Mawruss." + +Morris rose to his feet. + +"_Schon gut_, Abe," he said. "Don't ask me I should step right into +Harkavy's shoes and work like a dawg till you are finding a new +designer, Abe. Them days is past, Abe." + +"You shouldn't worry yourself, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "The way business +is so rotten nowadays, y'understand, we would quick get another +designer." + +"Would you?" Morris cried. "Well, I guess I got something to say about +that, Abe. If you think we are going to work to hire a designer which he +is getting fired by every John, Dick and Harry, you got another think +coming. This time, Abe, I would hire the designer, and don't you forget +it." + +"Did I say I wanted to do it, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Go ahead and hire +him, Mawruss, only one thing I got to ask you as a favour: don't say the +feller was my choice, Mawruss; because I wipe my hands from the whole +matter." + +For the remainder of the day Morris and Abe maintained only such +speaking relations as were necessary to the conduct of their business, +and when Morris went home that evening he wore so gloomy an air that +Harry Baskof, who rode up on the elevator with him, was moved to +comment. + +"What's the matter, Mawruss?" he said. "You look like your best customer +would be asking an extension on you." + +"We don't sell such people at all, Harry," Morris said bitterly. +"Collections is all right, Harry, but when a feller's got a partner +which he is got such a quick temper, understand me, that he fires out +the help faster as I could hire 'em--I got a right to look worried. Our +designer leaves us to-day." + +"Ain't that terrible, Mawruss," Harry said in mock sympathy. "I suppose +you couldn't walk for miles on Fifth Avenue between Eighteenth and +Twenty-third Street and break your neck falling over a hundred designers +which they are hanging around there looking for jobs." + +They alighted at the third floor and Morris drew his latchkey from his +waistcoat pocket. + +"Sure, I know, Harry," he retorted. "Them people which they already got +designers could always find a better one, y'understand, but when you +ain't got a designer, Harry, that's something else again. You could +advertise until you are blue in the face, and all the answers you get is +from fellers which they couldn't design a sausage casing for a +frankfurter already." + +"_Schmooes_, Mawruss!" Harry cried. "I could get you thousands of +designers. In fact, Mawruss, only this afternoon my father-in-law, Mr. +Finkman, sends me over a man which he is working for years by Senft & +Co. as a designer, I should give him a job. I already got a good +designer, so what could I do?" + +"Why didn't you think to send him over to me, Harry?" Morris said. + +"How should I know you wanted a designer?" Harry rejoined. "But, anyhow, +maybe it ain't too late yet. After supper I would ring up Mr. Finkman +and I'll let you know." + +"Much obliged," Morris said, as he turned the key and entered his own +apartment. He was so far restored to good humour by his conversation +with Harry Baskof that when he bestowed his evening kiss on Minnie he +failed to notice that her eyes were somewhat swollen. + +"Yes, Minnie," he said, "that's the way it is when you got good +neighbours." + +"Good neighbours!" Minnie said bitterly, and then for the first time +Morris observed her swollen eyelids. + +"Why, Minnie _leben_," he exclaimed as he folded her in a second +embrace, "what's the trouble?" + +"Don't, Morris," Minnie said almost snappishly, as she wriggled away +from him; "my waist is mussed up enough from working in the kitchen, +without your crushing it." + +"Working in the kitchen!" Morris said. "What's the matter? Is Tillie +sick?" + +"No, she isn't," Minnie replied, as she rushed off toward the kitchen. +"She's gone." + +Morris hung up his coat and made his perfunctory toilet without another +word. Despite Minnie's pathetic appearance, there was a dangerous gleam +in her eyes that urged Morris to the exercise of the most delicate +marital diplomacy. + +"What a soup!" he exclaimed, as he subjected the first spoonful to a +long, gurgling inhalation. "If they got such soup as this at the +Waldorf, Minnie _leben_, I bet yer the least they would soak you for it +is a dollar." + +Following the soup came boiled brisket, a dish that Morris loathed. +Ordinarily Morris would have eaten it with sulky diffidence, but when +Minnie bore the steaming dish from the kitchen he not only jumped from +his seat to take it from her hands, but after he had deposited it on the +table he kissed her on the forehead with lover-like delicacy. + +"How did you know I am thinking all the way up on the subway if Minnie +would only got _Brustdeckel_ for supper for a change what a treat it +would be?" he said. + +Minnie's glum face broke into a smile and Morris fairly beamed. + +"What do you bother your head so about a girl leaves you, Minnie +_leben_," he cried. "You could get plenty of girls. On Lenox Avenue a +feller could break his neck already falling over girls which is hanging +around looking for jobs." + +"Oh, I know you can get lots of girls," Minnie agreed, "but you've got +to train them, Morris; but then, too, I wouldn't care so much, but those +awful Italians upstairs went and stole Tillie away from me." + +"What!" Morris shouted. "Them Italieners done it? Well, what do you +think of that for a dirty trick?" + +"And they only pay her three dollars a month more," Minnie continued. + +"Three dollars a month more, hey?" Morris replied. "Well, that's the way +it is, Minnie. Honestly, Minnie, anybody which they would steal away +from you somebody which is working for you, it ain't safe to live in the +same house with them at all. A feller which steals away feller's help +would pick a pocket. Such cut-throats you couldn't trust at all." He +helped himself to some more brisket. + +"Never mind, Minnie," he said, "if it would be necessary we will pay a +girl a couple dollars more a week so long as we get a good one." + +"Will we?" Minnie said. "Since when are you running this house, Morris?" + +"I was only talking in a manner of speaking," he hastened to say. "Where +do you buy such good _Brustdeckel_, Minnie? Honestly, it takes in a way +a genius to pick out such meat." + +"Does it?" Minnie rejoined. "I ordered it over the 'phone, and +furthermore, Morris, if you make so much noise eating it you will wake +the boy." + +"I'm all through, Minnie," Morris said. "Wait--I'll show you how I could +help you wash the dishes." + +As he started for the kitchen with one butterplate in his hand the +doorbell rang, whereupon he returned the butterplate to the dining-room +table and hastened down the hall. + +"Hallo, Mawruss," cried Harry Baskof as Morris opened the door. "I rung +up the old man and he says he got the feller a job with Sammet +Brothers." + +"Come inside," Morris answered, and led the way to the parlour. He +motioned his visitor to a seat and produced a box of cigars. + +"Do you mean to say the feller got a job as quick as all that?" he +continued. + +"He sure did, Mawruss," Harry replied. "He's an elegant designer, +Mawruss, and if B. Senft knew his business he never would got rid of him +at all." + +"Why, what did he done to B. Senft?" Morris asked. + +"Nothing at all, Mawruss. Senft is crazy. He gets a prejudice against +the feller all of a sudden on account he's an Italiener." + +"Italiener!" Morris cried. + +"Sure," Harry replied. "Did you ever hear the like, Mawruss, that a man +like Senft, which his folks _oser_ come over in the Mayflower neither, +y'understand, should kick on account a feller is an Italiener? And mind +you, Mawruss, the feller is otherwise perfectly decent, respectable +feller by the name Enrico Simonetti." + +Morris nodded. + +"With a name like that he must got to be a good designer," he commented, +"otherwise Sammet Brothers wouldn't hire him at all. It would take a +whole lot more gumption than Leon Sammet got it to call such a feller +from the cutting room even." + +"That's all right, Mawruss. You don't have to call such a feller from +the cutting room. He could run a cutting room as well as design +garments; and in fact, Mawruss, when Sammet Brothers pay that feller two +thousand a year, y'understand, they are practically getting him for +nothing." + +"Two thousand a year!" Morris exclaimed. "Why, we ourselves would pay +him twenty-five hundred." + +"The feller's worth four thousand if he's worth a cent, Mawruss, but the +way business is so rotten nowadays he was willing to take two thousand. +_Aber_ my father-in-law, Mr. Finkman, told me on the 'phone, the roar +this feller puts up when Leon Sammet offers him eighteen hundred, Leon +was pretty near afraid for his life already." + +"I don't blame him," Morris commented. "Such highwaymen like Sammet +Brothers they would beat a feller's price down to nothing. We ain't that +way with our help, Harry. If we would got a good man working by us +we----" + +"Morris!" cried a voice from the kitchen. + +"Yes," Morris replied, jumping to his feet. In less than two minutes he +reappeared and approached Harry with an apologetic smile. "Would you +excuse me a couple minutes, Harry?" he asked. "I got to run over to the +grocer for a box of soap powder. Our girl threw up her job on us." + +"I'll go with you," Harry replied. "I need to get a little air." + +A minute later they walked down the street to Lenox Avenue, and as they +approached the corner Harry nodded to a short, dark personage who was +proceeding slowly down the street. + +"Al-lo!" he cried, seizing Harry by the arm, "adjer do?" + +"Fine, thanks," Harry said. "Let me introduce you to a friend of mine by +the name Mr. Perlmutter. This is Mr. Simonetti, Mawruss, which I am +talking to you about." + +Morris shook hands limply. + +"You don't tell me," he said. "You know me, Mr. Simmons? My partner is +Mr. Potash. I guess you hear B. Senft speak about us." + +"Sure," Simonetti said. "Mister Senft ees always say: 'Mister Potash and +Perlmutter ees nice-a people.' Sure." + +"Better than Sammet Brothers?" Harry asked. + +Simonetti raised his eyebrows and made a flapping gesture with his right +hand. + +"A-oh!" he said. "Sammet Brothers, that's all right too. Not too much-a +all right, Mr. Baskof, but is preety good people. I am just-a now go to +see ees-a lawyer for sign-a da contract." + +"Ain't you signed the contract yet?" Morris cried. + +"Not-a yet," Simonetti answered. "Just-a now I am going." + +"Baskof," Morris urged, "supposing you and me goes together with Mr. +Simonetti to the Harlem Winter Garden and talks the thing over." + +Simonetti looked amazedly at Baskof. + +"Sure," Baskof said. "It ain't too late if he ain't signed the +contract." + +"What do you mean?" Simonetti asked. + +"Why, I mean this, Simonetti," Baskof replied. "Sammet Brothers will +give you a contract for two thousand dollars, and Perlmutter here is +willing to pay you twenty-five hundred. Ain't that right, Mawruss?" + +Morris nodded. + +"With privilege to renew it, Mawruss, ain't it?" + +Again Morris nodded. "One year renewal," he said. + +Simonetti looked earnestly at Morris, who fumbled in his waistcoat +pocket and produced a cigar. + +"Do you smoke, Mr. Simmons?" he began. + +"Simonetti," the designer interrupted, as he took the cigar and bit off +the end; "and eef ees too much-a you say Simonetti, call me 'Enery." + +When Morris entered his place of business the following morning he +appeared to be in no better humour than when he left for home the +previous evening. + +"Well, Abe," he announced, "I hired a soap powder." + +Abe stared at him for a moment. + +"What are you talking nonsense, you hired a soap powder?" he exclaimed. +"Are you _verrueckt_?" + +Morris snapped his fingers. + +"A soap powder!" he cried. "Hear me talk! I mean a designer. I hired a +designer, Abe, a first-class feller." + +"What d'ye mean, a first-class feller?" Abe demanded. "You are leaving +here last night half-past six, and here it is only eight o'clock next +morning and already you hired a designer which he is a first-class +feller. How do you know he is a first-class feller, Mawruss? Did you +dream it?" + +"No, I didn't dream it, Abe," Morris said as he hung up his hat; "and +what is more I want to tell you something. Yesterday you are saying I +should go ahead and hire a designer and not bother you in your head, and +to-day you are kicking yet. Well, you could kick all you want to, Abe, +because if a feller's partner kicks _oder_ his wife kicks, Abe, he must +got to stand for it. But just the same, Abe, this here feller comes to +work for us Monday morning, and we got with him a contract, all signed +and g'fixed by a lawyer, which he gets from us twenty-five hundred a +year for one year, with privilege to renew for another year." + +"Twenty-five hundred dollars!" Abe exclaimed. "By a lawyer? What are you +talking about, Mawruss?" + +At this juncture Morris grew purple with rage. + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he yelled, "ask me no questions. I am sick and +tired of it. You would think if a feller forgets to buy a packet soap +powder, y'understand, his wife wouldn't go crazy and ring up the police +station yet, on account I am going with Baskof and this here cutter to +see a lawyer by the name Sholy, which he lives in my flathouse yet. +There we are sitting till twelve o'clock fixing up the contract, and if +you don't like it you could lump it. When I come home I got to get +Doctor Eichendorfer yet to tend to Minnie. Five dollars that robber +soaks me, and he lives in the same house with me. Also this lawyer Sholy +charges me also twenty-five dollars for drawing the contract, understand +me, which Feldman himself would only charge us fifty. Neighbours them +fellers is, Abe! Such neighbours I would expect to got it if I am living +next door to Sing Sing prison." + +For more than an hour Abe pressed the matter no further, but at length +curiosity impelled him to speak. "Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," he began, +"couldn't I look at that contract too?" + +"Sure you could," Morris replied. "I'm surprised you ain't got no more +interest in the matter you didn't ask me before." + +Abe grunted and took the contract that Morris handed to him. "This +agreement," it ran, "made and entered into between Abraham Potash and +Morris Perlmutter, composing the firm of Potash & Perlmutter, of the +Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, parties of the first part, and +Enrico Simonetti, of the same place, party of the second part, +witnesseth----" + +At this point Abe dropped the contract. + +"Mawruss," he said slowly, "do you mean to told me you are hiring for a +designer an Italiener?" + +"Sure," Morris replied; "why not?" + +"Why not!" Abe bellowed. "Why not! Ain't you and me married men? Ain't +we got wives? Ain't you got a child to support as well?" + +"What's that got to do with it?" Morris asked. + +"What's that got to do with it?" Abe repeated. "I'm surprised to hear you +you should talk that way, Mawruss. Supposing it is necessary we should +tell such a feller he is coming down late _oder_ he is doing something +which he shouldn't do, y'understand, then the very first thing you know +he sticks into us a knife _und fertig_. I suppose, Mawruss, you are +figuring that even if you don't carry such good insurance, Mawruss, your +wife is young and could easy get married again. But with me is +differencely. My wife ain't so young no longer and----" + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris interrupted, "don't talk no more such +nonsense to me, because I seen the feller and I am sitting with him last +night over three hours. That feller would no more stick into you a knife +as I would." + +"No?" Abe commented. + +"And furthermore, Abe, when you are saying that Italieners stick knives, +understand me, you are talking like a greenhorn. Italieners is decent, +respectable people like anybody else, Abe, and just because when you are +going on the opera a couple Italieners stabs themselves, like I am +seeing it last week a show by the name Paliatzki, y'understand, that +ain't no sign every Italiener is a stabber, understand me. For that +matter, Abe, after this here show Paliatzki comes a whole lot of fellers +from Russland on to the stage, which they are dancing so quick I never +seen the like, understand me, and you know as well as I do, Abe, we got +plenty fellers from Russland working by us here which they could no more +dance as they could fly." + +Abe shrugged again. + +"Never mind, supposing they wouldn't be stabbers even, Mawruss," he +continued, "if you got working for you an Italiener which you just broke +in good, y'understand, so soon as he saves a couple hundred dollars he +right away quits you and goes back to the old country. All them fellers +is eating is garlic and _Lockshen mit_ holes into it, and you know as +well as I do, Mawruss, for two hundred dollars a feller could buy enough +_Lockshen und Knoblauch_ to last him for the rest of his natural life. +Whereas Mawruss, you take a feller which he is coming over here from +Russland, y'understand, and he wouldn't go back to the old country not +if you was to make him a present of it free for nothing." + +"Is it anything against them Italieners if they save their money, Abe?" +Morris asked. + +"All right, Mawruss," Abe said, "supposing Italieners is such big +savers, understand me, one thing you must anyhow got to admit, Mawruss. +You get a couple Italieners working for you, understand me, and from +morning till night they never give you a minute's peace. Seemingly they +must got to sing. They couldn't help themselves, Mawruss." + +"What do we care if he hollers a little something oncet in a while, +Abe?" Morris protested. "We could stand it if he turns out some good +styles." + +"_If_ he turns out good styles is all right, Mawruss," Abe said as he +turned away. "Lots of accidents could happen to a feller in the garment +business, Mawruss. Burglars could bust into his loft and steal his silk +piece goods on him; he could have maybe a fire; he could fall down the +elevator shaft and break, _Gott soll hueten_, his neck. All these things +could come to a garment manufacturer, Mawruss; but that his designer +should turn out some good styles is an accident which don't happen to +one garment manufacturer out of a hundred, Mawruss." + +Nevertheless, long before Enrico Simonetti's term of employment had +expired Abe was obliged to acknowledge his mistake. + +Not only had Enrico proved his efficiency and originality as a designer +but he had exercised the utmost discretion in the management of the +cutting room. Moreover, he had little taste for music and never so much +as whistled a melody during working hours. + +"I couldn't make him out at all, Mawruss," Abe declared one morning. +"Actually the feller complains to me this morning he couldn't stand that +little greenhorn we hired last week on account he smells so from +garlic." + +"Sure, I know," Morris replied, "and he don't smoke and he don't +_shikker_, and he tells me yesterday he boards with a family on Second +Avenue which all it costs him is four dollars a week. And yet you, Abe, +you are kicking because the feller is an Italiener." + +"When was I kicking to you the feller is an Italiener?" Abe demanded. +"Why, you yourself, Mawruss, always says to me Italieners is no good. If +you are telling me oncet you are telling me a hundred times about an +Italiener family which they are living on top of you, Mawruss, and, to +hear you talk, such _Roshoyim_ you wouldn't believe existed at all." + +"Sure, I know," Morris admitted, "but there's Italieners and Italieners, +Abe; and only last night them people sits up till two o'clock this +morning _shikkering_ and hollering. Not alone the woman hollers, Abe, +but a feller sings that big song from Paliatzki till I thought my head +would bust. Some one should write to the Board of Health about it, Abe." + +"My _tzuris_!" Abe exclaimed. "If you got living in the same house with +you a lawyer and a doctor, Mawruss, you shouldn't got much trouble +getting the Board of Health after them Italieners. And anyhow, Mawruss, +if the worser comes to the worst, y'understand, there's one thing you +could always do. + +"What's that?" Morris asked. + +"Move out," Abe replied, as he started for the cutting room. + +"Yes, Mawruss," he commented, when he returned five minutes later, "you +could knock the Italieners all you want, but you got to admit they ain't +throwing their money into the street. Henry is showing me just now a +bankbook which in the last nine months he is putting away eighteen +hundred dollars." + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris said. "If he would be from _unsere +Leute_, y'understand, instead he is putting the money in savings bank +and getting 3 per cent. interest, he would invest it in something else +and make it pretty near double itself soon." + +"What d'ye mean, 3 per cent. interest?" Abe retorted. "Henry's got his +money in a bank which they are paying him 5 per cent. compounded every +three months. Henry ain't no fool, Mawruss." + +"Five per cent.!" Morris exclaimed. "What for a bank would pay 5 per +cent. interest, Abe?" + +"I don't know what for a bank pays 5 per cent., Mawruss," Abe replied, +"but you could take it from me, Mawruss, the way Sam Feder discounts +perfectly good A number one accounts for them depositors of his when +they are a little short, Mawruss, not only could the Kosciusko Bank +afford to pay five per cent., Mawruss, but they could also give 6 or 7, +and still Sam Feder's wife wouldn't got to pawn none of her diamonds." + +"Does he deposit his money with Feder?" Morris asked. + +"Yow, he deposit his money with Feder, Mawruss!" Abe replied. "He +deposits his money with a banker by the name Guy-seppy Scratch-oly." + +"Guy-seppy Scratch-oly," Morris repeated. "That's a fine name for a +banker, Abe." + +"Guy-seppy, that's Italian for Yosef, Mawruss," Abe explained. "And +Scratch-oly is an Italian name the same like a feller in Russland would +be called Lipschutzky. For that matter, Mawruss, Lipschutzky ain't much +of a name for a banker neither." + +"No," Morris admitted, "but I'd a whole lot sooner trust my money to a +feller by the name Lipschutzky _oder_ Feder, as to one of the Scratchy +names, Abe." + +"What is the difference what the banker's name is?" Abe rejoined. "Henry +says the money is all sent by his bank to a branch they got in the old +country. _Gott weiss_ what that bank couldn't get for its money in the +old country, because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, here in New York +City some business men is short oncet in a while, understand me, but +over in the old country everybody is short all the time. The way banks +does business over there, Mawruss, they make Feder's bank look like a +Free Loan Association." + +"Sure, I know, Abe," Morris said gloomily, "and you mark my words, Abe, +so soon as Henry's year is up he will follow his money to the old +country." + +"You shouldn't worry yourself about that, Mawruss," Abe said +confidently. "When a feller's got a contract with a privilege for +renewal at two hundred dollars raise, like Henry got it, understand me, +he ain't so stuck on going back to the old country. Two hundred dollars +is a whole lot of money over there, Mawruss. For two hundred dollars in +the old country a----" + +"Don't tell me again how much _Lockshen_ mit holes in it a feller could +buy in the old country, Abe," Morris interrupted. "There's elegant +weather over there and good wine to drink, and places to go and look at +which they got mountains twicet as high as the Catskills, with olives +and grapes growing on to 'em." + +"I was never crazy about olives, Mawruss." + +"Me neither," Morris agreed, "but Henry is something else again, and the +way that feller is talking to me in the cutting room yesterday, Abe, +either he wouldn't be working for us three months from to-day or the +steamers stops running to Italy." + + * * * * * + +"Mawruss," Abe shouted, at ten o'clock one morning in early March, +"where was you?" + +"Where was I?" Morris repeated. "I was to the court, that's where I +was." + +"To the court!" Abe exclaimed. + +"That's what I said," Morris continued. "We fixed that sucker, me and +Sholy and Doctor Eichendorfer and Baskof. We got him for a summons for +this afternoon two o'clock he should go to the Jefferson Market Police +Court. Till four o'clock this morning them people upstairs sits up +hollering and _skiddering_. Minnie and me we couldn't sleep a wink, and +Baskof neither. Steals our servant girl yet. I'll show that _Rosher_." + +Abe glared indignantly at his partner. + +"Do you mean to told me, Mawruss," he said, "that you are fooling away +your time going on the court because somebody upstairs sings a little +something last night?" + +"Sings a little something!" Morris cried. "Why, that Italiener hollers +Paliatzki till you would think he commits a murder up there." + +"Suppose he did, Mawruss, ain't we got no business to go down here? Here +we are rushed to death already, and you are fooling away your----" + +"Don't say that again, Abe," Morris broke in. "I guess I could take off +a couple hours if I want to." + +"Sure," Abe replied ironically, "and Henry takes off a couple of hours +this lunchtime. He just told me so, Mawruss. He takes off a couple hours +on account he is going downtown to draw some money out of the bank and +buy his ticket." + +"Buy his ticket!" Morris gasped. + +"That's right," Abe continued, with forced calmness, "because, Mawruss, +they wouldn't let no one travel on a steamer without buying a ticket. +People what runs steamers is very funny that way, Mawruss." + +Morris grew pale as he removed his coat and hat. + +"What's he buying a steamer ticket for?" he asked. + +"He didn't tell me exactly, Mawruss," Abe went on, "but I got a sort of +an idee he's going back to Italy, Mawruss, and next time, Mawruss, when +we hire a designer, understand me, I would do it myself. Also, Mawruss, +I would hire a designer which, if he goes back to the old country, +y'understand, they would right away take him for a soldier, and then, +Mawruss, we wouldn't got to be left without a designer just in the +middle of the busy season." + +"Did you talk to him, Abe?" Morris inquired timidly. "Maybe we could +jolly him into staying." + +Abe nodded again. + +"Maybe you could jolly a duck not to swim in the water, Mawruss," he +cried bitterly. + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris retorted. "A duck ain't got no use for a +couple of hundred dollars bonus." + +"A couple of hundred dollars bonus!" Abe yelled. "Do you mean to say you +would offer that Italiener a bonus?" + +"Sure; why not?" Morris asked. "Ain't he a good designer, Abe?" + +"I don't care if he was the best designer in the world, Mawruss," Abe +replied firmly. "Before I would give him a couple hundred dollars bonus, +understand me, he could go to Italy and a whole lot farther too." + +"Suit yourself," Morris said, as he commenced to examine the morning's +mail. He was midway in the assortment of the firm's sample line when Abe +approached him half an hour later. + +"Mawruss," he said, "do me the favour. You speak to the feller and see +what you can do. After all, a couple hundred dollars wouldn't break us." + +"I'm satisfied," Morris replied, and he walked immediately to the +cutting room. + +"What's the matter, Henry, I hear you are leaving us?" he began. + +Henry straightened up from the layer of cloth that was spread before him +on the cutting table and passed one hand through his bushy black hair. + +"I gotta no keek, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "Just for my contract is up, +so I go. That's all. I like-a da job first-class. Mr. Potash ees ver' +good man. Mr. Perlmutter ees too." + +"Then why don't you stay with us?" Morris asked, and Enrico Simonetti +heaved a great sigh. + +"I like-a da job first-class, Mr. Perlmutter, I gotta no keek," he +declared; "but I can no work. I am seek." + +"Sick!" Morris exclaimed; "well, why didn't you tell us then? We'd only +be too glad to let you go away for a couple of weeks, Henry." + +Enrico sighed even more deeply. + +"Ees not a seekness for two weeks, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "I am seek +just for see my mudder. Ees old woman--my mudder, Mr. Perlmutter." + +Enrico's large brown eyes grew moist as he proceeded. + +"Yes, I am a-seek," he went on. "I am a-seek just for see Ischia, +Posilipo, Capri, Mr. Perlmutter. You know I am a-seek for see +_aranci_--oranges grown on a tree. I am a-seek just for see my own +ceet-a, Napoli. Yes, Mr. Perlmutter, I am a-ver' seek." + +He sat down on a stool and bowed his face in his hands, while his +shoulders heaved up and down in the emotion of nostalgia. + +"Think it over, Henry," Morris said huskily, and departed on tiptoe. He +returned at once to the assorting of the sample line, nor did he look up +when Abe came toward him a few minutes afterward. + +"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, "what did he say?" + +"He didn't say nothing," Morris replied. + +"Why not?" Abe continued. "Didn't he think two hundred was enough?" + +"I didn't mention the two hundred to him at all," Morris answered, +"because it wouldn't be no use. You couldn't keep that feller from going +back to the old country, not if you would put him into jail even. He'd +break out, Abe, believe me." + +Abe nodded slowly. + +"Well, that's the way it goes, Mawruss," he said bitterly, as Enrico +walked toward them from the cutting room. + +"Mr. Potash," he said, "ascuse me, you geev-a me now leetla time for +going downtown just for same like I tell-a you dis morning?" + +"Go ahead, Henry," Morris replied. + +"You notta mad at me, Mr. Perlmutter?" Enrico asked anxiously. + +"Why should I got to be mad at you, Henry?" Morris rejoined. "If I would +feel the way you do, Henry, me, I wouldn't of waited for my contract to +be up even." + +"Ain't that a fine way for you to talk, Mawruss?" Abe said after Enrico +had gone. "You would think you would be glad to get rid of the feller +right in the middle of the busy season." + +Morris shrugged. + +"I don't care if I would got to jump right in and work till twelve +o'clock every night, Abe," he declared. "I would tell him to go home to +the old country if I would got to pay for the ticket myself." + +Abe thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and started to walk +gloomily away. + +"Furthermore, Abe, if you want to go out for your lunch, Abe," Morris +concluded, "now is the time, because as I told you before, Abe, I got to +go on the court at two o'clock." + +"Sure you told me that before, Mawruss," Abe growled, as he put on his +hat and coat; "and when a feller goes to work and deliberately fixes +things so he has got to go on a court, Mawruss, d'ye know the next place +he would go?" + +He paused for a retort; but, as Morris made no sign, Abe supplied his +own answer. + +"A lunatic asylum," he said, and a minute later the elevator door +clanged behind him. + +For almost an hour longer Morris busied himself with the assortment of +the sample line, and he had about concluded his task when a great +wailing noise came from the cutting room. He jumped to his feet and ran +hurriedly to the scene of the uproar. There he found Enrico Simonetti +seated on a stool, clutching his hair with both hands, while around him +stood a group of his assistants, voicing their anguish like a pack of +foxhounds. + +"_Koosh!_" Morris cried. "What is the trouble here?" + +The wailing ceased, but Enrico remained seated, his hands still +clutching his bushy hair, while his large brown eyes stared blankly from +a face as white as a pierrot. + +"What's the matter?" Morris repeated. + +"His bank busted on him," said Nathan Schenkman, the shipping clerk. + +"His bank!" Morris cried. "What bank?" + +"It ain't a regular bank," Nathan explained. "He is giving his money to +an Italiener which he calls himself a banker, Mr. Perlmutter; and to-day +when he is going there to get him money the feller's store is locked. +Nobody knows where he went to at all. The clerks also is gone." + +"Is that right, Henry?" Morris asked. + +Enrico nodded his head without removing his hands from his hair. + +"There is a big crowd of loafers around the store," Nathan continued, +"which they are saying they would kill the feller if they get him, so +Henry comes back here on account he ain't that kind, Mr. Perlmutter. +Henry is a decent feller, Mr. Perlmutter." + +Morris looked pityingly at his cutter, who continued to stare at the +floor in stony despair. + +"Might you could do something to get him his money back maybe, Mr. +Perlmutter?" Nathan said. + +"I would see when my partner comes in from lunch," Morris replied, and +as he turned to leave the cutting room Abe's bulky form blocked the +doorway. Morris waved him back, and Abe tiptoed to the front of the +showroom followed by Morris. + +"What's the trouble?" Abe asked immediately. + +"Trouble enough," Morris declared. "Henry's bank busted on him." + +"What!" Abe cried, and Morris repeated the information. + +"Then he wouldn't leave us at all," Abe said, and Morris nodded sadly. + +"Ain't it terrible?" he commented. + +"Terrible?" Abe asked. "What d'ye mean--terrible? Is it so terrible that +we wouldn't got to lose our designer right in the middle of the busy +season?" + +"I don't mean us, Abe," Morris said. "I mean for Henry." + +"Henry neither," Abe rejoined. "Henry would still got his job with two +hundred dollars a year raise." + +"And a bonus of two hundred dollars," Morris added. + +"A bonus of nothing!" Abe almost shouted. "Do you mean to told me you +would pay Henry a bonus of two hundred dollars now that he must got to +stay on with us?" + +"I sure do," Morris declared fiercely; "and furthermore, Abe, if you +don't want to pay it I would from my own pocket, and I'm going right in +to tell him about it now." + +He walked away to the cutting room, and in less than five minutes Abe +repented his parsimony. He went on tiptoe to the door of the cutting +room, where Morris leaned over Enrico, uttering words of consolation and +advice. + +"Mawruss," Abe hissed, "make it three hundred, the bonus." + +Morris nodded. + +"And, Mawruss," Abe went on, "it's pretty near quarter of two. Ain't you +going up there at all?" + + * * * * * + +"I should never walk another step if you didn't say two o'clock," Morris +Perlmutter protested to Philip Sholy as they hastened up the stairway in +Jefferson Market Police Court. + +"Never mind what I said," Sholy cried. "It's now anyhow quarter past +two, and that dago has got his wife and servant girl and two clerks +waiting in court since twelve o'clock. Eichendorfer and Baskof have been +here since one o'clock." + +"Say, listen here, Sholy," Morris said, as they panted up the last +flight, "I came just as soon as I could, and I couldn't come no sooner." + +"Hats off!" the policeman at the door shouted, as Morris walked up the +aisle with his attorney, and a moment later they passed into the +enclosure for counsel. + +"My client and his witnesses have been here since twelve o'clock," a +lawyer was explaining while Morris sat down, "and in the meantime his +place of business has been closed." + +At this juncture the client in question caught sight of Morris and +ripped out so strong an Italian expletive that the court interpreter +nearly swooned. + +"What business is he in?" the magistrate asked. + +"He's in the banking business on Mulberry Street," the lawyer continued, +"and it's impossible to say what harm all this may do him." + +"Call the case again," the magistrate said. + +"Witnesses in the case of Giuseppe Caraccioli please step forward," the +interpreter announced, and the policeman in the rear of the courtroom +repeated the injunction to the loungers in the stairway. + +"Guy-seppy Scratch-oly," he bellowed, and Morris heard him from his seat +in the enclosure for counsel. He jumped to his feet and made for the +gate. + +"Where are you going?" Sholy demanded, grabbing him by the coat. + +"Leggo my coat!" Morris cried, and the next moment he was taking the +stairs three at a jump. Nor had his excitement abated when he burst into +his cutting room half an hour later. + +"Henry," he gasped, "if I would get your money back for you would you +stick out the busy season for us?" + +Enrico was chalking designs on a piece of pattern paper when Morris +entered. Beyond a slight pallor he appeared to be quite resigned to his +loss, but at his employer's words he flushed vividly and clutched again +at his hair. + +"Leave your hair alone and listen to me," Morris commented. + +"Sure, sure," Enrico said tremulously, "I leesten, Mr. Perlmutt." + +"Did you hear what I said?" Morris went on. "If I can get your money +back for you will you stay on here till the busy season is over?" + +"Sure," Enrico cried; "sure. I notta geevadam how long I stay, you getta +my mon', Mr. Perlmutt. I stay here one, two, t'ree years." + +"All right," Morris said; "put on your coat and go back to Mulberry +Street. Your banker will of opened up again by the time you get there." + + * * * * * + +Ten days afterward Abe and Morris sat in the showroom. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +MAN PROPOSES + + +"Ain't it terrible a strong, healthy young feller should go off like +that?" Abe Potash remarked, as he and his partner sat in their showroom +one spring morning. "I give you my word I was sitting over in +Hammersmith's so close to him as I am to you, Mawruss, when it +happened." + +"Was there much excitement?" Morris asked. + +"I bet yer was there excitement!" Abe exclaimed. "Hammersmith sends +across the street for a doctor, and you ought to seen Leon Sammet the +way he acted. 'For Gawd's sake, doctor,' he says, 'couldn't you do +nothing for him?' he says. 'He's got a wife and family,' he says, 'and +we shipped him two thousand dollars goods only last Saturday.'" + +"Did they?" Morris asked. + +"How should I know?" Abe said. "Sammet is such a liar, Mawruss, he +couldn't tell the truth no matter how surprised he would be. But one +thing is sure, Mawruss--Gladstein did owe Sammet Brothers for a big bill +of goods and the widder paid them out of the insurance." + +"Could she do that when the feller leaves a family, Abe?" Morris +inquired. + +"The feller didn't leave no family, Mawruss," Abe answered. "Leon Sammet +just takes a chance when he said that to the doctor. As a matter of +fact, Mawruss, Gladstein was one of them fellers which he ain't got a +relation in the world. Mrs. Gladstein neither, except _im_ Russland. +That's the way it goes, Mawruss. A feller which he has got so many +cousins and uncles that he gets writer's cramp already indorsing +accommodation paper for 'em, understand me, lives to be an old man yet, +and all the time his relations and his wife's relations is piling up on +him; while a man like Gladstein which you could really say has a chance +to enjoy life, Mawruss, is got to die." + +Morris nodded. + +"Don't I know it?" he commented. "And I suppose the widder sells out the +store." + +"_Oser a stueck_," Abe said. "She's still running the store, and making a +fair success of it too." + +"Is that so?" Morris replied. "Well, then, why couldn't we get some of +her trade, Abe? Bridgetown ain't so far away from here. Why don't you +take a run over there sometime and see what you could do with her? Might +you could sell her some goods maybe." + +"Yow!" Abe exclaimed derisively. "We couldn't sell that woman goods, not +if we was to let her have 'em for the price of the findings, Mawruss. +She's got an idee that she is getting stuck unless she would buy goods +from the same concerns that sold Gladstein." + +"Well, if that's the case, Abe," Morris said, "she could never make no +big success there. A feller like Leon Sammet would just as lief stick a +widder as not--liefer even." + +"Sure, I know," Abe replied. + +"Then why don't some one give her a couple pointers about that feller, +Abe?" Morris inquired. + +Abe nodded solemnly. + +"You know a whole lot about women, Mawruss, I must say," he commented. +"You could give a woman pointers by the dozen about a man, Mawruss, and +swear to 'em with six affidavits yet, and what good would it do? It's +like putting a 'Wet Paint' sign up. Everybody feels the paint to see if +it really would be wet." + +"What for a looking woman is she, Abe?" Morris asked, with an obvious +effort at nonchalance. + +"How should I know?" Abe said. "I only seen her a couple times; and +anyhow, Mawruss, I don't take it so particular to look at women like +Leon Sammet does, Mawruss. That feller's a regular Don Quicks-toe, +Mawruss. He is all the time running around with women." + +"A feller must got to entertain buyers once in a while, Abe," Morris +said. + +"Buyers is all right, Mawruss," Abe declared, "but I guess I been in +this here business long enough that I could tell a buyer from a model." + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris said. "Leon Sammet may run around the +streets with women, Abe, but that ain't saying he is got intentions to +marry Mrs. Gladstein. A feller like Leon Sammet which he is crowding +fifty pretty close, Abe, ain't looking to marry no widders. Young girls +is all them fellers is looking out for, Abe; and anyhow, Abe, what for a +match is Mrs. Gladstein to a manufacturer? If she expects that she +should get another husband, Abe, the only hope for her is some retailer +would marry her as a going concern. She couldn't liquidate her business +and come out even, let alone with money enough to get married, Abe." + +"She don't got to got money to get married on, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. +"Any one would be glad to marry such a woman supposing she didn't got a +cent to her name. She's an elegant-looking woman, Mawruss--not too thin +and not too fat, Mawruss, and what a face she got it, Mawruss! My Rosie +was a good-looking woman, Mawruss, and is to-day yet; but Mrs. +Gladstein, Mawruss, that's a woman which in a theayter already you don't +see such a looking woman. She could dress herself, too, I bet yer. The +last time I was by Bridgetown she is wearing one of our Style 4022 which +Sammet _ganvered_ from us and calls the Lily Langtry costume, Mawruss, +in a navy shade, understand me; and I don't know nothing about this here +Lily Langtry, Mawruss, but I could tell you right now, Mawruss, she +ain't got nothing on Mrs. Gladstein when it comes to looks." + +Morris nodded and turned to the contemplation of some cutting-slips, +while Abe made ready for lunch. + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris said, when Abe appeared with his hat on. +"I've been thinking about this here Mrs. Gladstein, understand me, and I +come to the conclusion: Why should we give up so easy? Gladstein always +done a good business in that store, y'understand, and if the widder is +such a good-looking woman like you say she is, Abe, there's an opening +for her to attract a big trade in gents' furnishings and hats up there, +and at the same time keep the cloak-and-suit end going." + +"What d'ye mean--attract a big trade in gents' furnishings and hats, +Mawruss?" Abe demanded indignantly. "If you think the woman is a flirt, +Mawruss, you are making a big mistake." + +"Must a woman got to be a flirt that she should sell gents' furnishings, +Abe?" Morris asked with some heat. + +"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said with a scowl. "A lady ain't +looking to sell the gents' furnishing trade, Mawruss." + +"I know she ain't," Morris replied, "but if a woman is good-looking, +Abe, naturally she attracts the clothing and furnishing customers, but +she don't got to sell those customers, Abe. Her husband could do that." + +"Her husband could do it?" Abe repeated. "What are you talking +about--her husband?" + +"Sure, her husband," Morris went on, "and especially if a good-looking +woman like Mrs. Gladstein would got for a husband a good-looking man +like B. Gurin, understand me, the idee works both ways. Mrs. Gladstein +attracts the clothing trade and B. Gurin sells 'em, y'understand, while +B. Gurin attracts the women's garment trade and Mrs. Gladstein sells +'em." + +Abe sat down suddenly and took off his hat. + +"What are you trying to drive into, Mawruss?" he asked. + +"I am trying to drive into this, Abe," Morris replied: "B. Gurin is a +good-looking, up-to-date feller, but he's in wrong with that store of +his in Mount Vernon. In the first place, the neighbourhood ain't right, +y'understand, and in the second place Gurin don't attend to business +like he should; because he ain't married and he ain't got no +responsibilities. To such a feller, Abe, when it comes to taking a young +lady on theayter Saturday night, business is nix, even when Saturday is +a big night in Mount Vernon." + +Abe nodded. + +"Furthermore, Abe," Morris continued, "if we go on selling B. Gurin, +Abe, sooner or later he would bust up on us, understand me, and we are +not only out a customer but the least he sticks us is a couple hundred +dollars. He owes us two hundred and fifty right now, Abe, since the +first of the month already. Ain't it?" + +Abe nodded again. + +"But you take a young feller like B. Gurin, Abe," Morris went on, "which +all he needs is a wife to steady him and an up-to-date _Medeena_ like +Bridgetown to run a store in, understand me, and if we could put this +thing through, Abe, not only we are doing a _Mitzvah_ for all concerned, +Abe, but we are making a customer for life." + +"You mean, Mawruss," Abe said slowly, "you would try to make up a match +between B. Gurin and Mrs. Gladstein?" + +"Sure, why not?" Morris said. "It stands in the _Gemara_, Abe, we are +commanded to promote marriages, visit the sick and bury the dead." + +Once more Abe nodded, and this time he managed to impart the quality of +irony to the gesture. + +"Burying the dead is all right, Mawruss," he said. "From a dead man you +don't get no comebacks, and his relations is anyhow grateful; _aber_ if +you would make up a match between a couple of people like Mrs. Gladstein +and B. Gurin, what is it? Even if the marriage would be a success, +Mawruss, then the couple claims they was just suited to each other, +Mawruss, and we don't get no credit for it anyway. On the other hand, +Mawruss, if they don't agree together, they wouldn't hate each other +near so much as they'd hate us." + +"Why should they hate us?" Morris asked. "Our intentions is anyhow +good." + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "From having good intentions +already, many a decent, respectable feller goes broke." + +Morris flapped the air impatiently with his right hand. + +"Anybody could sit down and talk proverbs, Abe," he said. + +"I guess I could talk proverbs in my own store, Mawruss, if I want to," +Abe rejoined with dignity. + +"Sure you could," Morris replied, "but one thing you got to remember, +Abe. While the back-number is saying look out before you jump, the +up-to-date feller has jumped already, and lands on a +five-thousand-dollar order _mit_ both feet already." + + * * * * * + +"I'll tell you, Mr. Perlmutter, it's like this," B. Gurin explained, as +he sat in his Mount Vernon store that evening; "money don't figure at +all with me." + +"Where is the harm supposing she does got a little money, Gurin?" Morris +protested. "And, anyhow, never mind the money, Gurin. We will say for +the sake of example she ain't got no money. Does it do any harm to look +at the woman?" + +B. Gurin passed his hand through his wavy brown hair, cut semi-pompadour +in the latest fashion. There was no denying B. Gurin's claims to beauty. + +"What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he said, carefully examining +his finger-nails. "I am sick and tired of looking at 'em. Believe me I +ain't lying to you, if I looked at one I must of looked at hundreds. The +fathers was rated at the very least D to F first credit, and what is it? +The most of 'em I wouldn't marry, not if the rating was Aa 1 even, such +faces they got it, understand me; and the others which is got the looks, +y'understand, you could take it from me, Mr. Perlmutter, they couldn't +even cook a pertater even." + +"Girls which they got D to F fathers don't got to cook pertaters," +Morris commented shortly. + +B. Gurin shrugged. + +"For that matter, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I don't take it so +particular about my food neither." + +"Say, lookyhere, Gurin," Morris exclaimed. "What is the trouble with you +anyhow? First you are telling me you don't care about money, next you +are kicking that the good-looking ones couldn't cook, y'understand, and +then you say you ain't so particular about cooking anyway. What for a +kind of girl do you want, Gurin?" + +Gurin continued to examine his finger-nails and made no reply. + +"Because, Gurin," Morris concluded, "if you are looking for a homely +girl which she ain't got no money and couldn't cook, understand me, I +wouldn't fool away my time with you at all. Such girls you don't need me +to find for you." + +B. Gurin sighed profoundly. + +"You shouldn't get mad, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "if I tell you +something?" + +"Why should I get mad, Gurin?" Morris asked. "I am coming all the way up +here, which I am leaving wife and boy at home to do so--and maybe you +don't think she put up a holler, Gurin! So if you wouldn't even consent +to do me the favour and look at Mrs. Gladstein, Gurin, and I don't get +mad, understand me, why should I get mad if you would tell me +something?" + +"Well," Gurin commenced, "it ain't much to tell, Mr. Perlmutter. I guess +you hear already why I am coming to this country." + +Morris elevated his eyebrows. + +"I suppose you are coming here like anybody else comes here," he said. +"Sooner as stay in the old country and be a _Schnorrer_ all your life, +you come over here, ain't it?" + +"No, siree, sir," Gurin replied emphatically. + +"If I would stay in the old country, Perlmutter, I don't got to be a +_Schnorrer_. Do you know Louis Moses, the banker in Minsk?" + +Morris nodded. + +"That's from _mir_ an uncle, _verstehst du_?" Gurin said; "and Zachs, +the big corn merchant, that's also an uncle. My father ain't a +_Schnorrer_ neither, Mr. Perlmutter; in fact, instead I am sending home +money to Russland like most fellers which they come to this country, Mr. +Perlmutter, my people sends me money yet." + +He jumped from his chair and went to the safe, from which he extracted +two crisp Russian banknotes. + +"A hundred rubles apiece," he said, and his face beamed with pride. "So, +you see, I don't got to leave Russland because I would be a _Schnorrer_ +over there." + +"No?" Morris replied. "Then why did you leave, Gurin? So far what I +could see you ain't made it such a big success over here." + +"You couldn't make me mad by saying that, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin +commented. "A big success _oder_ a big failure, it makes no difference +to me." + +"It makes a whole lot of difference to me," Morris cried. + +"Yes, Mr. Perlmutter," B. Gurin went on, disregarding the interruption. +"I ain't coming over here to make a big success in business. I am coming +over here to forget." + +"To forget!" Morris exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, forget?" + +B. Gurin ran his hands once more through his pompadour and nodded +slowly. + +"That's what I said," he repeated--"to forget." + +"Well, I hope you ain't forgetting you owe us now two hundred and fifty +dollars since the first of the month yet," Morris commented in dry, +matter-of-fact tones. + +B. Gurin waved his hand airily. + +"I could forget that easy, Mr. Perlmutter," he said--and Morris +winced--"but the rest I couldn't forget at all. Day and night I see her +face, Mr. Perlmutter--and such a face!" + +Here he paused impressively. + +"N-nah!" he exclaimed, and kissed the tips of his fingers, while Morris +glanced uneasily toward the door. + +"Her name was Miss Polanya and her father keeps a big flour mill in +Koroleshtchevitzi, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin went on. "A fine family, +understand me; and I am going out there from Minsk twice a week, when a +young feller by the name Lutsky--a corn broker, y'understand--comes to +sell her father goods." + +Again B. Gurin paused, his left hand extended palm upward in a tremulous +gesture. Suddenly it dropped on his knee with a despondent smack. + +"In two weeks already they was married," he concluded, "and me, I am +coming to America." + +"You ain't coming to such a bad place neither," Morris rejoined; "even +supposing your uncles was such big _Machers_ in the old country." + +"Places is all the same to me now," Gurin said--"women, too, Mr. +Perlmutter. I assure you, Mr. Perlmutter, since the day I am leaving +Minsk one woman is the same as another to me. I ain't got no use for +none of 'em." + +"_Geh weg_, Gurin," Morris cried impatiently. "You talk like a fool. Just +because one lady goes back on you, understand me, is that a reason you +wouldn't got no use for no ladies at all? You might just as well say, +Gurin, because one customer busts up on you, y'understand, you would +never try to sell another customer so long as you live. Now this here +Mrs. Gladstein, Gurin, is a lady which while I never seen this here lady +_im_ Russland, y'understand, if you will just come out to Bridgetown +with me, Gurin, I give you a guaranty Russland wouldn't figure at all." + +Gurin shook his head sadly. + +"You don't know me, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "While I am going with +plenty _Schatchens_ to see young ladies already, Mr. Perlmutter, I +assure you my heart ain't in it. People gets the impression because I am +a swell dresser, Mr. Perlmutter, that I am looking to get married; but +believe me, Mr. Perlmutter, it ain't so." + +"Then what do you go for, Gurin?" Morris asked. "_Schatchens_ don't like +to fool away their time no more as I do, Gurin; and you could take it +from me, no girl is going to the trouble to fix herself up and make a +nice supper for you and the _Schatchen_ simply for the pleasure of +seeing a swell dresser, Gurin." + +"That's just the point, Mr. Perlmutter," Gurin said. "A feller which +runs a store like this one and eats his meals in restaurants, understand +me, must got to get a little home cooking once in a while. Ain't it?" + +"Why not get married and be done with it?" Morris retorted; "and then +you could get home cooking all the time." + +Once more Gurin shook his head. + +"Without love, Mr. Perlmutter, marriage is nix," he said. + +"_Schmooes!_" Morris exclaimed. "Do you think when I got married I loved +my wife, Gurin? _Oser_ a _stueck_. And to-day yet I am crazy about her. +With a business man, Gurin, love comes after marriage." + +B. Gurin rose wearily to his feet and shot his cuffs by way of showing +impatience. + +"What is the use talking, Mr. Perlmutter?" he protested. "When I want to +get married I would get married--otherwise not." + +He flecked away an imaginary grain of dust from the lapel of his coat +and walked slowly toward the door. + +"Are you going home on the New Haven road _oder_ the Harlem road?" he +asked. + +Morris scowled, and his indignation lent such force to the gesture with +which he put on his hat that the impact sounded like a blow on a +tambourine. + +"_Schon gut_, Gurin," he said. "I am through with you." + +He paused at the doorway and lit a cigar. + +"And one thing I could tell you, Gurin," he concluded. "Either you would +send us a check the first thing to-morrow morning, _oder_ we would give +your account to our lawyers, and that's all there is to it." + +He puffed away at his cigar as he trudged down the street, and he had +nearly reached the corner when he heard a familiar voice shouting: "Mr. +Perlmutter!" He turned to view B. Gurin hastening after him. + +"Well, Gurin," he grunted, "what you want now?" + +Gurin stopped and gasped for breath, and Morris's heart gave a +triumphant leap as he noted the anxiety displayed on B. Gurin's +clean-shaven features. + +"Speak up, Gurin," he said; "I got to get my train." + +Gurin smiled in surrender. + +"All right, Mr. Perlmutter," he murmured; "make for me a date and I will +look the lady over." + + * * * * * + +When Morris entered his place of business the next morning he found his +partner examining the advertising columns of a morning paper with an +absorption hardly justified by the tabulated list of births, marriages +and deaths at which he was gazing. + +"What's biting you now, Abe?" Morris demanded. + +"What d'ye mean, what's biting me?" Abe rejoined, and Morris blushed in +the consciousness of his oversleeping that morning by more than half an +hour. + +"Say, lookyhere, Abe," he cried. "I don't know what you are driving +into, understand me, but if you think you could get _brogus_ at me just +because I am ten minutes late once in a while, y'understand, let me tell +you I am catching a twelve o'clock train from Mount Vernon last night, +and not alone I am talking myself blue in the face to that feller Gurin, +y'understand, but when I got home already I couldn't get to sleep till I +told the whole thing to my Minnie yet." + +Abe nodded slowly. + +"Yes, Abe," Morris continued, "I got to go over the story twice over +already, and even then, y'understand, my Minnie gets mad because I +didn't contradict myself. + +"Only one idee that woman got it in her head, Abe. If I am out of the +house _schon_ ten minutes already you couldn't tell her otherwise but I +am playing auction pinocle." + +"Well, you might just as well of been playing auction pinocle last night +for all the good it would do us." + +"What are you talking about--all the good it would do us?" Morris almost +whimpered. + +"I actually got the feller dead to rights, Abe, and all I must do now is +to work from the other end." + +Abe burst into a mirthless laugh and handed Morris the paper. + +"You should of worked the other end first, Mawruss," he declared, as he +indicated an advertising item with his thumb. "That's what Leon Sammet +did, Mawruss." + +Morris seized the paper and his face grew purple as he read the +following notice: + + ENGAGED: Asimof--Gladstein. Mrs. Sonia Gladstein, of Bridgetown, + Pa., to Jacob Asimof, of Dotyville, Pa. At home, Sunday next 3 to 7 + at the residence of Mrs. Leah Sammet, 86-3/4 West One Hundredth and + Eighteenth Street. No cards. + +"Leon's mother makes the engagement party for 'em, Mawruss," Abe said +dryly. "Costs a whole lot of money, too, and I bet yer Mrs. Gladstein +wouldn't notice it at all in the next six months' statements Leon sends +to her." + +Morris stifled a groan as he laid down the paper and forced himself to +smile confidently. + +"What difference does an engagement make, Abe?" he asked. "An engagement +ain't a wedding, Abe, and it ain't too late even now." + +Again Abe indulged in a bitter laugh. + +"You're a regular optician, Mawruss," he said. "You never give up hope." + +"That's all right, Abe," Morris retorted. "We could stand a couple +opticians in this concern. Always you are ready to lay down on a +proposition just as soon as things goes a little wrong, understand me, +but me I think differencely." + +Abe shrugged and rose to his feet. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said, "take off your hat and coat and stay a while. +Maybe we could do a little business here this morning for a change." + +"Maybe we could and maybe we couldn't, Abe," Morris rejoined, as he +buttoned up his coat; "but just the same I am going to do something +which you will really be surprised." + +"Not at all," Abe corrected; "we are partners together so long that I am +only surprised supposing you should act sensible." + +"Well, the way I look at it I am acting sensible, Abe," Morris +announced. "I am acting sensible, because I am going right down to see +Marcus Flachs and I would buy from him for ten dollars cut glass, and I +would show that sucker Sammet he couldn't faze me none." + +"What d'ye mean, couldn't faze you none?" Abe asked. + +"I mean if Sammet is such a faker he goes to work and makes engagement +parties for his customers and puts 'em on the paper yet, Abe," Morris +declared, as he jammed his hat down more firmly on his head, "he must +got to expect his competitors would take advantage of it, understand me. +And you could bet your sweet life, Abe, Sunday afternoon, comes three +o'clock, I am right there at his mother's house with the cut glass, and +don't you forget it." + +Abe nodded grimly. + +"It's a free country, Mawruss," he said, "and nobody could stop you +going to an engagement party which is in the paper, y'understand; but +you shouldn't forget one thing, Mawruss. You got on our ledger a drawing +account, _verstehst du_, and on your way out you should please tell Miss +Cohen to enter the ten dollars cut glass in the right place." + +"Don't worry, Abe," Morris cried, as he started for the elevator. "When +the time comes we should post it in the ledger, if we ain't opened a new +account in Bridgetown, Pa., I would pay for it myself." + +Ten minutes later he entered the Twenty-third Street subway station en +route to Canal Street, and no sooner had he bought his ticket than his +enthusiasm began to wane. After all, he reflected as he boarded the +train, ten dollars' worth of cut glass seemed rather extravagant when +one considered the size of an order that in the most favourable +circumstances might emanate from a store in Bridgetown. Indeed, as the +train pulled into the Eighteenth Street station he had come to believe +that seven dollars and fifty cents would be a generous price, and even +this figure commenced to look huge as Fourteenth Street drew near. At +Astor Place, Morris decided that five dollars' worth of cut glass would +be more appropriate for a widow. When the guard announced the next stop +as Bleecker Street, however, it occurred to Morris that the +manufacturers of quadruple plate were producing some very artistic +effects in knives, forks and spoons, which in appearance were +undistinguishable from sterling silver; and the train was leaving Spring +Street when Morris bethought himself of a certain _bonbonniere_ that had +cost Mrs. Perlmutter precisely four dollars at a dry-goods store. He +distinctly recalled examining the trade-mark, to which were affixed the +words "triple plate." + +During the short walk from the Canal Street station to Marcus Flachs's +place of business, he wondered vaguely if there were such a thing as +double plate, and when at last he opened the door of the pawnbroker's +sales store in question he approached the counter with his mind fully +made up. + +"Do you got maybe some sets from nutpicks?" he inquired of the +proprietor. + +Marcus Flachs took the question in ill part. + +"What the devil do you think I am running here," he demanded by way of +answer--"a five-and-ten-cent store?" + +"Since when do they sell it nutpicks in a five-and-ten-cent-store?" +Morris retorted. + +Flachs snorted angrily. + +"I don't think they sell 'em even in five-and-ten-cent stores," he said; +"and anyhow, Mr. Perlmutter, what for a present is nutpicks? If a feller +eats nuts twice a year, that's a big average. For my part it would +_oser_ break my heart if I would never eat another nut so long as I +live. Now what you want to get is something cheap, ain't it?" + +Morris nodded. + +"Something about two dollars and fifty cents," he said. + +"That's what I thought," Flachs replied, "and for two dollars and fifty +cents there ain't much choice. Olive dishes is all I could show you." + +"Let me give a look at 'em," Morris said, and as Flachs led the way to +the well-stocked shelves in the rear of the store Morris discerned for +the first time the presence of another customer. + +"How much did you say that there coffee samovar was?" cried a familiar +voice. + +"I told you before, Mr. Klinger," Flachs said, "that ain't no samovar. +That's a perculater and it cost me, so sure as I am standing here, +fifteen dollars, so I would let you have it for twelve-fifty on account +its being shopworn." + +"Take ten dollars and make an end," rejoined Klinger, tendering a bill. + +"For ten dollars I could give you a fine piece cut glass, Mr. Klinger," +Flachs insisted. + +By way of answer Klinger tucked away the ten-dollar bill he had taken +from his waistcoat pocket, and Flachs seized the coffee percolator with +both hands. + +"I'll wrap it up for you right away," he said, and then it was that +Klinger recognized Morris, who had been standing unnoticed in the +background. + +"Hello, Perlmutter!" he said; "what are you doing here?" + +"I guess I am doing the same what you are doing, Klinger," Morris +replied stiffly. "I am buying for a customer a present. Ain't it?" + +Klinger nodded. + +"Honestly, Perlmutter," he said, "I never seen the like how things +happen. No sooner you start to sell goods to a feller than somebody is +engaged _oder_ married in his family." + +"He must be a pretty good customer the way you are blowing yourself," +Morris commented. + +"I bet yer!" Klinger said as he walked away; "and if you would be in our +place you would do the same." + +For five minutes Morris examined the cut glass, and when Flachs returned +he had decided upon an olive dish of most intricate design. "That's a +close buyer, that Mr. Klinger," Flachs observed. + +"Not near so close as I am," Morris declared. + +"Well, you wouldn't anyhow kick on paying twenty-five cents express, Mr. +Perlmutter," Flachs said, "but that feller actually wants me to deliver +the package for nothing." + +"Why not?" Morris asked. "Don't everybody deliver packages free?" + +"Not a pawnbroker's-sales store," Flachs replied; "and anyhow, Mr. +Perlmutter, Leon Sammet this morning buys from me for thirty dollars +silver to be sent to the same place on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street +as that there perculater, and he didn't kick only a little that I am +charging him fifty cents express." + +"What!" Morris exclaimed. "Is Klinger sending that perculater up to One +Hundred and Eighteenth Street too?" + +"That's what I said," Flachs answered, and Morris replaced the cut-glass +dish on the shelf. + +"Was the name Gladstein?" he inquired, and Flachs nodded. + +"Then in that case," Morris said savagely, "let me look at some sterling +silver for about twenty-five dollars. If them suckers could stand it, so +can I." + + * * * * * + +More than two days had elapsed before Abe had exhausted the topic of +Mrs. Gladstein's ten-dollar engagement present. He discussed it +satirically, profanely and earnestly, from the standpoint of business +ethics, in such maddening reiterations that Morris could not help +wondering how much longer Abe's criticism would have continued had he +known that the cold-meat tray really cost twenty-five dollars. + +"You are throwing away good money after bad, Mawruss," Abe said, +renewing the subject after an interval of comparative calm, "because, so +sure as you are standing there, we would never get our two hundred and +fifty out of that feller Gurin." + +"What has Mrs. Gladstein's present got to do with Gurin?" Morris asked. +"If I told you once, Abe, in the last two days, I am telling you a dozen +times, understand me, I am giving that there cold-meat tray to Mrs. +Gladstein as a speculation, Abe. What difference does it make who she +marries, Abe, Gurin _oder_ Asimof, so long as we could land from her an +order for five hundred dollars?" + +"Yow! You would land from her an order for five hundred dollars!" Abe +exclaimed. + +"Well, if Sol Klinger could do it, why couldn't we?" Morris asked. + +"What are you talking about Sol Klinger?" Abe demanded. + +Thereupon Morris related to Abe the circumstances surrounding Sol +Klinger's purchase of the coffee percolator, and when he concluded Abe +nodded slowly. + +"So that highwayman is butting in too," he commented. "How much did you +say he is paying for that samovar, Mawruss?" + +Morris closed his eyes as though he were making a conscientious effort +to remember the exact amount. + +"Thirty dollars," he announced at last. + +"What!" Abe cried. "You stood there and let Sol Klinger buy for thirty +dollars a present and we ourselves only spend ten? What for a piker are +you anyway, Mawruss?" + +"What do you mean, what for a piker am I?" Morris said indignantly. "You +are talking me black in the face on account I am spending ten dollars +and now you are kicking I didn't spend thirty." + +"Did you tell me before that Sol Klinger buys a present?" Abe asked. +"And furthermore, Mawruss, this wouldn't be the first time we are +spending money to get business. Couldn't we afford to lay out thirty +dollars if we want to?" + +"But, Abe----" Morris began. + +"But nothing!" Abe roared. "Why should you get all of a sudden so +_sparsam mit_ our money, Mawruss? You talk like we would be new +beginners on East Broadway already." + +"But, Abe----" Morris protested again. + +"'S enough, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "I heard enough from you already. +Only one thing I got to tell you: if we lose a chance of getting some +business from a lady which you could really say I know her well enough +that it's a shame we ain't sold her nothing already even, don't blame +me. That's all I got to say." + +He walked away to the cutting room, while Morris sat down in the nearest +chair, dazed to the point of temporary aphasia. For five minutes he sat +still, endeavouring to trace the intricacies of a discussion that had +put him so decisively in the wrong, and he was still pondering the +matter when the elevator door opened and B. Gurin alighted. + +"How do you do, Mr. Perlmutter?" Gurin cried. + +Morris grunted inarticulately and made no attempt to take his visitor's +proffered hand. + +"Did you got any news for me?" Gurin asked. + +Morris rose to his feet. + +"Yes, I got some news for you," he said. "I got news for you that Mrs. +Gladstein is engaged to be married to a feller by the name Asimof." + +He looked absently at a sample rack upon which reposed the very +newspaper that contained the advertisement. + +"Here it is," he continued, as he seized the paper. "You could see for +yourself." + +He handed the advertisement to Gurin, who read it over unmoved. + +"Well, I must tell you the honest truth, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "I +couldn't say I am sorry." And he smiled amiably. + +As Morris gazed at the fashion-plate features and the fashion-plate +apparel of his visitor, he entirely forgot his optimistic scheme of +supplanting Asimof with Gurin and he grew suddenly livid with a fierce +rage. + +"You ain't, ain't you?" he bellowed. "Well, you ought to be, because so +sure as you are standing there, comes Monday morning and we don't get a +check from you, we would close you up sure, y'understand." + +"Now, lookyhere, Mr. Perlmutter--" Gurin began, but the reaction set up +by Morris's encounter with his partner had begun to have its effect and +he seized Gurin by one padded shoulder. + +"Out!" he roared. "Out of my place, you rotten, cheap dude, you!" + +And two minutes later B. Gurin fled wildly down the stairs, the +newspaper still clutched in his hand. + + * * * * * + +Although Leon Sammet had at first been actuated by motives of a somewhat +sordid nature in his negotiation of Mrs. Gladstein's betrothal, his +subsequent behaviour was tempered by the traditional hospitality of his +race. As for his mother, Mrs. Leah Sammet, she entered upon the +preparations for the reception with an ardour that could not have been +exceeded had Mrs. Gladstein been her own daughter. Thus, when Sunday +afternoon arrived, Mrs. Sammet's house on One Hundred and Eighteenth +Street presented an appearance of unusual festivity. The long, narrow +parlor had been liberally draped with smilax and sparingly decorated +with ex-table-d'hote roses, until it resembled the mortuary chapel of a +Mulberry Street undertaker; and this effect was, if anything, heightened +by four dozen camp-chairs that had been procured from the sexton of Mrs. +Sammet's place of worship. + +A fine odour of cooking ascended from the basement kitchen, and when +Jacob Asimof had entered the front door at the behest of a coloured man +with white gloves he sniffed the fragrant atmosphere of the lobby like a +coon dog at the base of a hollow tree. + +"Am I the first here?" he asked Barney Sammet, the junior partner of +Sammet Brothers, who had been detailed by his elder brother to receive +the arriving guests, with strict injunction to keep an eye on the +cigars. + +Barney nodded gloomily. + +"And ain't Mrs. Gladstein--I mean Sonia--come yet?" Jacob inquired. + +"We just now got a telephone from her, the train from Bridgetown is late +and she would be here in half an hour," Barney replied. + +"That's a fine lookout," Asimof commented. "I bet yer by that time we +would got a big crowd here." + +The words were prophetic, for the shuffling of many feet on the front +stoop preluded the arrival of Sol Klinger, Mrs. Klinger, Moe Klein and +Mrs. Klein, who were immediately succeeded by the firm of Kleiman & +Elenbogen, H. Rashkin, the coat-pad manufacturer, and Marks Pasinsky. + +It must be conceded that Leon Sammet comported himself in a highly +creditable manner, and he greeted his guests with a cordiality that +embraced competitor and customer in one impartial, comprehensive smile. + +"Why, how do you do, Mr. Klinger?" he exclaimed, and then he turned to +Mrs. Leah Sammet, who stood beside him. "Mommer," he said, "I want you +to know Mr. Klinger. Him and me has been competitors for twenty years +already." + +Mrs. Sammet nodded and smiled. + +"For my part twenty years longer," she murmured, as she grasped Sol's +hand. + +"At a time like this, Mrs. Sammet," Sol rejoined, "it don't make no +difference to me if a man is ever so much a competitor; what I claim is, +let a sleeping dawg alone." + +Mrs. Sammet indorsed the sentiment with another smile, and Sol with his +retinue passed on into the back parlour for the purpose of inspecting +the presents. In the meantime other guests had preceded them, and among +them was a man whose bearing and raiment proclaimed the creature of +fashion. Not only were his trousers of the latest narrow design, but +they were of sufficient modish brevity half to conceal and half to +reveal a pair of gossamer silk socks, which in their turn were incased +by patent-leather, low-cut shoes. The latter exhibited the square +knobbiness that only fashion artists can impart to the footgear of their +models, while the broad laces that held them by the insecure hold of two +eyelets were knotted in a bow that might have been appended to the +collar of Mr. Paderewski himself. + +"Ain't this Mr. Gurin?" Sol Klinger asked, and the creature of fashion +nodded. + +"You're a friend of the _Kahlo_, ain't it?" Klinger commented, employing +the vernacular equivalent for the English word "bride." + +"In a way," Gurin said evasively; "_aber_ the _Khosan_ I don't know at +all." + +Thus did Gurin imply that he was not acquainted with the future +bridegroom, and Klinger volunteered the information that Asimof ran a +dry-goods store in Dotyville, Pennsylvania. + +"I sold him goods for years," he added, "and I guess I would continue to +do so, even if that Ganef Sammet would make twenty engagement parties +for 'em. Did you see the samovar I gave 'em?" + +He pointed proudly to a silver-plated object, and Gurin glanced at it +scornfully. + +"Potash & Perlmutter gives 'em solid silver," he commented--"a wide +dish." + +"Sure I know," Klinger said, "thin like paper." + +"_Aber_ sterling," Gurin insisted, and Klinger made a telling diversion. + +"I suppose you sent 'em something sterling also," he said. + +"Me?" Gurin exclaimed. "Why should I buy presents? I am a retailer +myself, Mr. Klinger, so I sent 'em some flowers." + +"I don't see 'em nowhere," Sol retorted. + +"They're over there," B. Gurin said, making a sweeping gesture in the +general direction of the mantelpiece, and as he did so a bass voice +sounded at his elbow. + +"Put out my eye why don't you?" cried Abe Potash, and then he recognized +his assailant. + +"Say, what are you doing here?" he demanded. + +B. Gurin looked coldly at his creditor and shrugged his shoulders. + +"I got just so much right to be here as you," he said, "and that partner +of yours too." + +He hurled this defiance at Morris, who had entered the room on Abe's +heels; but the retort passed unnoticed so far as Morris was concerned, +since he was absorbed in the contemplation of the presents. + +"Well, Klinger," he said, "you are making Mrs. Gladstein a pretty fine +present, ain't it?" + +Klinger scowled. + +"Mrs. Gladstein I ain't bothering my head about at all," he replied. +"But when a cut-throat like Sammet makes out a scheme to steal away from +me an old customer like Asimof I got to protect myself." + +Morris whistled expressively. + +"So you are making the present to Asimof?" he commented. + +"Sure, I am," Sol answered. "As for Mrs. Gladstein, she got presents +enough from me. The first time she was married I am sending money to the +old country to my father he should make her a present on account Mrs. +Gladstein's father is my father's a third cousin, understand me. And +when she marries Gladstein, y'understand, I give her both an engagement +and a wedding present both. And do you think that sucker, _olav +hasholom_, ever buys from me a dollar's worth goods? _Oser_ a _Stueck_." + +"And you say Mrs. Gladstein was twicet married?" Morris asked. + +"Ain't I just telling you so?" Sol replied. + +"What was her first husband's name?" Morris asked; but the question +remained unanswered, for at that very moment a confusion of noises in +the front parlour signalled the arrival of the bride. + +Morris and Sol followed the other guests from the rear parlour, and then +it was that Morris discerned his partner's appreciative description of +Mrs. Gladstein's claim to be in no way exaggerated. She was arrayed in a +black silk dress of a design well calculated to display her graceful +figure, while her oval face was shaded by a black picture hat, beneath +which her large dark eyes glowed and flashed by turns. Moreover, her +complexion was all cream and roses, and when she smiled two rows of even +white teeth were exposed between a pair of tantalizing red lips. + +Morris commenced to perspire with embarrassment as he remembered how he +had planned to negotiate a match for this glorious creature--a task that +only a very prince of marriage brokers might have essayed. He turned +away; but as his eye rested on B. Gurin, who still lingered over the +presents, he was obliged to admit that he had chosen a fitting +candidate, and he even felt mollified toward his delinquent customer as +he reflected on Gurin's lost opportunity. + +"Gurin," he said, "ain't you going to congradulate the _Kahlo_?" + +"I didn't know she was here at all," Gurin said sadly. The truth was +that Gurin's presence at the reception that afternoon was not inspired +by curiosity concerning either Mrs. Gladstein or Asimof. Business was +undeniably bad with him, and he was making an earnest effort to keep his +financial head above water. Thus he limited his personal expenses to the +preservation of his wardrobe, and he had cut down his cost of living to +a degree that permitted only a very low, lunch-wagon diet. He saw in +Mrs. Sammet's hospitality the prospect of a meal, and although he was by +no means courageous, his appetite spurred him on to brave his creditors' +wrath. + +"I'll take a look at her," he murmured apologetically, and he began to +elbow his way through the group that surrounded the engaged couple. +Morris patted him on the shoulder as he passed and was about to return +to the back parlour when a shriek came from the centre of the +congratulatory throng. + +"Boris!" cried a female voice with a note of hysteria in its shrill +tones. + +"Sonia!" B. Gurin exclaimed, and the next moment he clasped Mrs. +Gladstein in his arms. + + * * * * * + +"You was asking me the name of Mrs. Gladstein's first husband," said Sol +Klinger to Morris Perlmutter, as they descended the stoop together half +an hour later. "It was Aaron Lutsky. He died two years after they was +married. I knew his family well in the old country--her's too, +Perlmutter. Her father was a feller by the name Polanya, and to-day yet +he runs a big flour mill in Koroleshtchevitzi." + +"So I understand," Morris said; "but what's that you got there under +your coat?" + +He referred to a huge bulge on the right side of Sol Klinger's Prince +Albert coat, which Sol was supporting with both hands. + +"That's my present," Sol said, as if surprised at the question, "and if +Marcus Flachs wouldn't give me my money back, understand me, I could +anyhow exchange it for something useful." + +"It don't make no difference, Mawruss," Abe said, as they sat in their +showroom two months later. "The feller should got to pay us that two +hundred and fifty dollars." + +"But we would get lots of business out of them now that they are +married, Abe," Morris protested. + +"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and they got lots of presents out of us too, +Mawruss," Abe said. "Counting the engagement and the wedding present, +Mawruss, and my Rosie's new dress, and the pants which you bought it to +go with your tuxedo, understand me--first and last we must be out a +hundred and fifty dollars." + +Morris nodded. He recognized that an opportunity was here presented to +correct Abe's figures by the addition of fifteen dollars to the price of +the engagement present, but he deemed it more prudent to await the +arrival of Gurin's first order. In point of fact, Morris had begun to +examine the mails with some anxiety for a letter postmarked Bridgetown. +More than two weeks had elapsed since Gurin's wedding, and, making due +allowances for honeymooning, it seemed to Morris that from an inspection +of Mrs. Gladstein's stock, made by him on a congratulatory visit to +Bridgetown, there was immediate need for replenishment. + +"I don't understand why we don't hear from them people at all," he said. + +"Give 'em a show, Mawruss. Give 'em a show," Abe replied. "A man only +gets married, for the first time, once." + +Morris shrugged. + +"For my part, Abe, I ain't in no hurry," he said. "If you could see the +way Leon Sammet gives me a look this morning when I seen him on the +subway y'understand, it would be worth to you a hundred and fifty +dollars. Sol Klinger is feeling sore too, Abe. I seen him in +Hammersmith's yesterday, and he says to me Flachs wouldn't exchange that +samovar arrangement which he bought it, so he took it home with him, and +he ain't drunk nothing but coffee in two months." + +"I bet yer," Abe commented; "and he also ain't got an order from Asimof +in two months. The feller is heartbroken, Mawruss. He even had made +arrangements to sell his store in Dotyville and move over to Bridgetown, +y'understand, and when he called the deal off the purchaser sues him for +breach of contract yet." + +"But why should he get mad at Klinger?" Morris asked. "Klinger didn't do +him nothing." + +"Maybe you don't think so, Mawruss, but Asimof figures differencely; +because he told me this morning, that after the engagement is off, +understand me, Mrs. Gladstein and him makes a division of the presents. +Asimof takes what was sent by the concerns which is selling _him_ goods, +and Mrs. Gladstein takes the rest, all excepting a present they got from +Marks Pasinsky. + +"Pasinsky used to sell 'em both goods, y'understand; but fortunately, +Mawruss, he sends 'em a dozen coffee spoons, so Asimof takes six and +Mrs. Gladstein takes six." + +"It's a good thing Pasinsky didn't send 'em a single piece of cut +glass," Morris said thoughtfully. + +"It wouldn't make no difference to Asimof," Abe said. "He would of +allowed Mrs. Gladstein half cost price, give or take. He's a pretty +square feller, Asimof is, Mawruss, and he said he would give a look in +here this afternoon. We needn't be afraid from him, Mawruss. He's A +number one up to two hundred and fifty dollars, thirty days net." + +Morris nodded again and walked slowly toward the cutting room, while his +partner sat down to read the trade news in the _Daily Cloak and Suit +Record_. Morris had hardly reached the doorway, however, when a strident +shout caused him to retrace his steps in a hurry. + +"What's the matter now?" he exclaimed; but Abe was incapable of +articulate speech. Instead he held out the paper and made noises +appropriate to an apopletic seizure, which Morris construed as a request +to look at something of more than ordinary interest. + +"Where, where?" he demanded, and Abe stuck a trembling forefinger +through the printed page. As nearly as the torn edges of the paper would +permit, Morris read the following paragraph: + + BRIDGETOWN, PA.--D. GLADSTEIN'S STORE CLOSED. The stock and + fixtures of the general store conducted here by D. Gladstein, + deceased, were closed out last week, and his widow, who recently + married B. Gurin, sailed from New York with her husband yesterday + for Hamburg. It is understood that they intend to reside + permanently in Europe. + +While Morris perused the item Abe gradually recovered his composure, and +when his partner at last put down the paper Abe was able to smile the +slow, ghostly smile of a man who has called four deuces with an ace +full. + +"Well, Mawruss," he said resignedly, "a feller must expect the worst +when he's got an optician for a partner." + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: + +Punctuation has been regularized, except for inconsistent hyphenation, +which has been retained as in the original. + +The following typographic errors have been corrected: + +Page 109 "woud" changed to "would" +Page 223 "cired" changed to "cried" +Page 234 "it it" changed to "it is" +Page 352 "successs" changed to "success" + +The following were each used once and were not changed: + +jimminy/jiminy +defence/defense] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abe and Mawruss, by Montague Glass + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABE AND MAWRUSS *** + +***** This file should be named 18714.txt or 18714.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/1/18714/ + +Produced by YaTHauSeR Taltari, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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