"The trouble is with us, Mawruss," Abe Potash declared one afternoon in
September, "that we ain't in an up-to-date neighborhood. We should get
it a loft in one of them buildings up in Seventeenth, Eighteenth or
Nineteenth Street, Mawruss. All the trade is up in that neighborhood."
"I ain't got such a good head for figures like you got it, Abe," Morris
Perlmutter replied, "and so I am content we should stay where we are. We
done it always a fair business here, Abe. Ain't it?"
"Sure, I know," Abe went on, "but the way it is with out-of-town
buyers, Mawruss, they goes where the crowd is, and they ain't going to
be bothered to come way downtown for us, Mawruss."
"Well, how about Klinger & Klein, Lapidus & Elenbogen, and all them
people, Abe?" Morris asked. "Ain't them out-of-town buyers going to buy
goods off of them neither?"
"Klinger & Klein already hire it a fine loft on Nineteenth Street," Abe
interposed.
"Well, Abe," Morris rejoined, "Klinger & Klein, like a whole lot of
people what I know, acts like monkeys, Abe. They see somebody doing
something and they got to do it too."
"If we could do the business what Klinger & Klein done it, Mawruss, I am
willing I should act like a monkey."
"Another thing, Abe," Morris went on, "Klinger & Klein sends their work
out by contractors. We got it operators and machines, Abe, and you can't
have a show-room, cutting-room and machines all in one loft. Ain't it?"
"Well, then we get it two lofts, Mawruss, and then we could put our
workrooms upstairs and our show-room and offices downstairs."
"And double our expenses, too, Abe," Morris added. "No, Abe, I don't
want to work for no landlord all my life."
"But I seen Marks Henochstein yesterday, Mawruss, and he told it me
Klinger & Klein ain't paying half the rent what they pay down here. So,
if we could get it two floors we wouldn't increase our expenses,
Mawruss, and could do it maybe twicet the business."
"Marks Henochstein is a real-estater, Abe," Morris replied, "and when a
real-estater tells you something, you got to make allowances fifty per
cent. for facts."
"I know," Abe cried; "but we don't have to hire no loft what we don't
want to, Mawruss. Henochstein can't compel you to pay twicet as much
what we're paying now. Ain't it? So what is the harm if we should maybe
ask him to find a couple of lofts for us? Ain't it?"
"All right, Abe," Morris concluded, "if I must go crazy listening to you
talking about it I sooner move first. So go ahead and do what you like."
"Well, the fact is," said Abe, "I told Marks Henochstein he should find
it a couple lofts for us this morning, Mawruss, agreeing strictly that
we should not pay him nothing, as he gets a commission from the landlord
already."
Morris received this admission with a scowl.
"For a feller what's got such a nerve like you got it, Abe," he
declared, "I am surprised you should make it such a poor salesman."
"When a man's got it a back-number partner, Mawruss, his hands is full
inside and outside the store, and so naturally he loses it a few
customers oncet in a while," Abe replied. "But, somebody's got to have
nerve in a business, Mawruss, and if I waited for you to make
suggestions we would never get nowhere."
Morris searched his mind for an appropriate rejoinder, and had just
formulated a particularly bitter jibe when the store door opened to
admit two shabbily-dressed females.
"Here, you," Abe called, "operators goes around the alley."
The elder of the two females drew herself up haughtily.
"Operators!" she said with a scornful rising inflection.
"Finishers, also," Abe continued. "This here door is for customers."
"You don't know me, Potash," she retorted. "Might you don't know this
lady neither, maybe?"
She indicated her companion, who turned a mournful gaze upon the
astonished Abe.
"But we know you, Potash," she went on. "We know you already when you
didn't have it so much money what you got now."
Her companion nodded sadly.
"So, Potash," she concluded, "your own wife's people is operators and
finishers; what?"
Abe looked at Morris, who stood grinning broadly in the show-room
doorway.
"Give me an introduction once, Abe," Morris said.
"He don't have to give us no introduction," the elder female exclaimed.
"Me, I am Mrs. Sarah Mashkowitz, and this here lady is my sister, Mrs.
Blooma Sheikman, _geborn_ Smolinski."
"That ain't my fault that you got them names," Abe said. "I see it now
that you're my wife's father's brother's daughter, ain't it? So if
you're going to make a touch, make it. I got business to attend to."
"We ain't going to make no touch, Potash," Mrs. Mashkowitz declared. "We
would rather die first."
"All right," Abe replied heartlessly. "Die if you got to. You can't make
me mad."
Mrs. Mashkowitz ignored Abe's repartee.
"We don't ask nothing for ourselves, Potash," she said, "but we got it a
sister, your wife's own cousin, Miriam Smolinski. She wants to get
married."
"I'm agreeable," Abe murmured, "and I'm sure my Rosie ain't got no
objections neither."
Mrs. Sheikman favored him with a look of contempt.
"What chance has a poor girl got it to get married?" she asked.
"When she ain't got a dollar in the world," Mrs. Mashkowitz added. "And
her own relatives from her own blood is millionaires already."
"If you mean me," Abe replied, "I ain't no millionaire, I can assure
you. Far from it."
"Plenty of money you got it, Potash," Mrs. Mashkowitz said. "Five
hundred dollars to you is to me like ten cents."
"He don't think no more of five hundred dollars than you do of your
life, lady," Morris broke in with a raucous laugh.
"Do me the favor, Mawruss," Abe cried, "and tend to your own business."
"Sure," Morris replied, as he turned to go. "I thought I was helping you
out, Abe, that's all."
He repaired to the rear of the store, while Abe piloted his two visitors
into the show-room.
"Now what is it you want from me?" he asked.
"Not a penny she got it," Mrs. Mashkowitz declared, breaking into tears.
"And she got a fine young feller what is willing to marry her and wants
it only five hundred dollars."
"Only five hundred dollars," Mrs. Sheikman moaned. "Only five hundred
dollars. _Ai vai!_"
"Five hundred dollars!" Abe exclaimed. "If you think you should cry till
you get five hundred dollars out of me, you got a long wet spell ahead
of you. That's all I got to say."
"Might he would take two hundred and fifty dollars, maybe," Mrs.
Sheikman suggested hopefully through her tears.
"Don't let him do no favors on my account," Abe said; "because, if it
was two hundred and fifty buttons it wouldn't make no difference to me."
"A fine young feller," Mrs. Mashkowitz sobbed. "He got six machines and
two hundred dollars saved up and wants to go into the cloak and suit
contracting business."
"Only a hundred dollars if the poor girl had it," Mrs. Sheikman burst
forth again; "maybe he would be satisfied."
"S'enough!" Abe roared. "I heard enough already."
He banged a sample table with his fist and Mrs. Sheikman jumped in
her seat.
"That's a heart what you got it," she said bitterly, "like Haman."
"Haman was a pretty good feller already compared to me," Abe declared;
"and also I got business to attend to."
"Come, Sarah," Mrs. Sheikman cried. "What's the use talking to a
bloodsucker like him!"
"Wait!" Mrs. Mashkowitz pleaded; "I want to ask him one thing more. If
Miriam got it this young feller for a husband, might you would give him
some of your work, maybe?"
"Bloodsuckers don't give no work to nobody," Abe replied firmly. "And
also will you get out of my store, or will you be put out?"
He turned on his heel without waiting for an answer and joined Morris in
the rear of the store.
Ten minutes later he was approached by Jake, the shipping-clerk.
"Mr. Potash," Jake said, "them two ladies in the show-room wants to know
if you would maybe give that party they was talking about a
recommendation to the President of the Kosciusko Bank?"
"Tell 'em," Abe said, "I'll give 'em a recommendation to a policeman
if they don't get right out of here. The only way what a feller
should deal with a nervy proposition like that, Mawruss, is to
squash it in the bud."
In matters pertaining to real estate Marks Henochstein held himself
to be a virtuoso.
"If anyone can put it through, I can," was his motto, and he tackled
the job of procuring an uptown loft for Potash & Perlmutter with the
utmost confidence.
"In the first place," he said when he called the next day, "you boys has
got too much room."
"Boys!" Morris exclaimed. "Since when did we go to school together,
Henochstein?"
"Anyhow, you got too much room, ain't yer?" Henochstein continued, his
confidence somewhat diminished by the rebuff. "You could get your
workrooms and show-rooms all on one floor, and besides----"
Morris raised his hand like a traffic policeman halting an obstreperous
truckman.
"S'enough, Henochstein," he said. "S'enough about that. We ain't giving
you no pointers in the real-estate business, and we don't want no
suggestions about the cloak and suit business neither. We asked it you
to get us two lofts on Seventeenth, Eighteenth or Nineteenth Street, the
same size as here and for the same what we pay it here rent. If you
can't do it let us know, that's all, and we get somebody else to do it.
Y'understand?"
"Oh, I can do it all right."
"Sure he can do it," Abe said encouragingly.
"And I'll bring you a list as big as the telephone directory to-morrow,"
Henochstein added as he went out. "But all the same, boys--I mean Mr.
Perlmutter--I don't think you need it all that space."
"That's a fresh real-estater for you, Abe," Morris said after
Henochstein left. "Wants to tell it us our business and calls us boys
yet, like we was friends from the old country already."
"Oh, I don't know, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He means it good, I guess;
and anyway, Mawruss, we give so much of our work out by contractors, we
might as well give the whole thing out and be done with it. We might as
well have one loft with the cutting-room in the back and a rack for
piece goods. Then the whole front we could fit it up as an office and
show-room yet, and we would have no noise of the machines and no more
trouble with garment-makers' unions nor nothing. I think it's a good
idee sending out all the work."
"Them contractors makes enough already on what we give them, Abe,"
Morris replied. "I bet yer Satinstein buys real estate on what he makes
from us, Abe, and Ginsburg & Kaplan also."
"Well, the fact is, Mawruss," Abe went on, "I ain't at all satisfied
with the way what Satinstein treats us, Mawruss, nor Ginsburg & Kaplan
neither. I got an idee, Mawruss: we should give all our work to a
decent, respectable young feller what is going to marry a cousin of my
wife, by the name Miriam Smolinski."
Morris looked long and hard at Abe before replying.
"So, Abe," he said, "you squashed it in the bud!"
"Well, them two women goes right up and sees my Rosie yesterday,
Mawruss," Abe admitted; "and so my Rosie thinks it wouldn't do us no
harm that we should maybe give the young feller a show."
"Is your wife Rosie running this business, Abe, or are we?" Morris
asked.
"It ain't a question what Rosie thinks, Mawruss," Abe explained; "it's
what I think, too. I think we should give the young feller a show. He's
a decent, respectable young feller, Mawruss."
"How do I know that, Abe?" Morris replied. "I ain't never seen him, Abe;
I don't even know his name."
"What difference does that make it, Mawruss?" said Abe. "I ain't never
seen him neither, Mawruss, and I don't know his name, too; but he could
make up our line just as good, whether his name was Thomassheffsky or
Murphy. Also, what good would it do us if we did see him first? I'm
sure, Mawruss, we ain't giving out our work to Satinstein because he's a
good-looking feller, and Ginsburg & Kaplan ain't no John Drews neither,
so far what I hear it, Mawruss."
"That ain't the idee, Abe," Morris broke in; "the idee is that we got
to give up doing our work in our own shop and send it out by a
contractor just starting in as a new beginner already--a young feller
what you don't know and I don't know, Abe--and all this we got to do
just because you want it, Abe. Me, I am nothing here, Abe, and you are
everything. You are the dawg and I am the tail. You are the oitermobile
and I am the smell, and that's the way it goes."
"Who says that, Mawruss?" Abe interposed. "I didn't say it."
"You didn't say it, Abe," Morris went on, "but you think it just the
same, and I'm going to show you differencely. I am content that we move,
Abe, only we ain't going to move unless we can find it two lofts for the
same rent what we pay it here. And we ain't going to have less room than
we got it here neither, Abe, because if we move we're going to do our
own business just the same like we do it here, and that's flat."
For the remainder of the day Abe avoided any reference to their
impending removal, and it was not until Henochstein entered the
show-room the following morning that the discussion was renewed.
"Well, boys," he said in greeting, "I got it a fine loft for you on
Nineteenth Street with twicet as much floor space what you got here."
"A loft!" Morris cried.
"A loft," Henochstein repeated.
"One loft?" Morris asked.
"That's what I said," Henochstein replied, "one loft with twicet as
much floor space, and it's got light on all----"
Morris waved his hand for silence.
"Abe," he said, "this here Henochstein is a friend of yours; ain't it?"
Abe nodded sulkily.
"Well, take him out of here," Morris advised, "before I kick him out."
He banged the show-room door behind him and repaired to Wasserbauer's
Cafe and Restaurant across the street to await Henochstein's departure.
"Mawruss is right," Abe declared. "You was told distinctively we
wanted it two lofts, not one, and here you come back with a one-loft
proposition."
Henochstein rose to leave.
"If you think it you could get two up-to-date lofts on Seventeenth,
Eighteenth or Nineteenth Street, Abe, for what you pay it here in this
dinky place," he said, "you got another think coming."
He opened the show-room door.
"And also, Abe," he concluded, "if I got it a partner what made it a
slave of me, like Perlmutter does you, I'd go it alone, that's all I
got to say."
After Henochstein left, Abe was a prey to bitter reflections, which were
only interrupted by his partner's return to the show-room a quarter of
an hour later.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "you got your turn at this here moving
business; let me try a hand at it once."
"Go ahead, Mawruss," Abe said wearily. "You always get your own way,
anyhow. You say I am the dawg, Mawruss, and you are the tail, but
I guess you got it the wrong way round. I guess the tail is on the
other foot."
Morris shrugged.
"That's something what is past already, Abe," he replied. "I was just
talking to Wasserbauer, and he says he got it a friend what is a sort of
a real-estater, a smart young feller by the name Sam Slotkin. He says if
Slotkin couldn't find it us a couple of lofts, nobody couldn't."
"I'm satisfied, Mawruss," Abe said. "If Slotkin can get us lofts we
move, otherwise we stay here. So far we made it always a living here,
Mawruss, and I guess we ain't going to lose all our customers even if we
don't move; and that's all there is to it."
Mr. Sam Slotkin was doubtless his own ideal of a well-dressed man. All
the contestants in a chess tournament could have played on his clothes
at one time, and the ox-blood stripes on his shirt exactly matched the
color of his necktie and socks. He had concluded his interview with
Morris on the morning following Henochstein's fiasco, before Abe's
arrival at the office, and he was just leaving as Abe came in.
"Who's that, Mawruss?" Abe asked, staring after the departing figure.
"That's Sam Slotkin," Morris replied. "He looks like a bright young
feller."
"I bet yer he looks bright," Abe commented. "He looks so bright in them
vaudeville clothes that it almost gives me eye-strain. I suppose he says
he can get us the lofts."
"Sure," Morris answered; "he says he can fix us up all right."
"I hope so," Abe said skeptically, and at once repaired to the office.
It was the tail-end of a busy season and Abe and Morris found no time to
renew the topic of their forthcoming removal until two days later when
Sam Slotkin again interviewed Morris. The result was communicated to Abe
by Morris after Slotkin's departure.
"He says, Abe, that he thinks he's got the very place for us," Morris
said.
"He thinks he got it, Mawruss," Abe exclaimed. "Well, we can't rip out
our store here on the strength of a think, Mawruss. When will he know if
he's got it?"
"To-morrow morning," Morris replied, and went upstairs to the workroom,
where the humming of many machines testified to the last rush of the
season's work. Abe joined him there a few minutes later.
"Believe me, Mawruss," he said, "I'll be glad when this here order for
the Fashion Store is out."
"It takes a week yet, Goldman tells me," Morris replied, "and I guess we
might have to work nights if they don't make it a hurry-up."
"Well, we're pretty late with that Fashion Store delivery as it is,
Mawruss," Abe replied. "It wouldn't hurt none if we did work nights,
Mawruss. We ought to get that order out by the day after to-morrow yet."
"You speak to 'em, Abe," Morris retorted, indicating the working force
by a wave of his hand.
"What have I got to do with it?" Abe asked. "You're the inside man,
Mawruss."
"To my sorrow, Abe," said Morris, "and if you was the inside man you
would know it that if I told 'em they was working on a rush order they'd
strike for more money already."
"And yet, Mawruss, you ain't in favor of giving out our work by
contractors," Abe cried as he walked away.
The next morning Sam Slotkin was waiting in the show-room before Abe or
Morris arrived. When they entered he advanced to meet them with a
confident smile.
"I got it the very thing what you want, Mr. Perlmutter," he said. "A
fine loft on Nineteenth Street."
"A loft!" Abe exclaimed.
"A fine loft," Slotkin corrected.
"How big a loft?" Morris asked.
"Well, it is maybe twicet as big as this here," Slotkin replied. "You
could get into it all your machines and have a cutting-room and
show-room and office besides."
"That sounds pretty good, Abe," Morris commented. "Don't you think
so, Abe?"
Abe pulled off his coat with such force that he ripped the
sleeve-lining.
"What are you doing," he demanded, "making jokes with me?"
"And it's only twenty dollars more a month as you're paying here,"
Slotkin concluded.
"Twenty dollars a month won't make us or break us, Abe," Morris said.
"It won't, hey?" Abe roared. "Well, that don't make no difference,
Mawruss. You said you wanted it two lofts, and we got to have it two
lofts. How do you think we're going to sell goods and keep our books,
Mawruss, if we have all them machines kicking up a racket on the
same floor?"
"Well, Abe, might we could send our work out by contractors, maybe,"
Morris answered with all the vivacity of a man suggesting a new and
brilliant idea.
Abe stared at his partner for a minute.
"What's the matter with you, Morris, anyway?" he asked at length. "First
you say it we must have two lofts and keep our work in our own shop, and
now you turn right around again."
"I got to talking it over with Minnie last night," Morris replied, "and
she thinks maybe if we give our work out by contractors we wouldn't need
it to stay down so late, and then I wouldn't keep the dinner waiting an
hour or so every other night. We lose it two good girls already by it in
six months."
"Who is running this business, Mawruss?" Abe roared. "Minnie or us?"
Sam Slotkin listened with a slightly bored air.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he said, "what's the use of it you make all this
disturbance? The loft is light on all four sides, with two elevators.
Also, it is already big enough for----"
"What are you butting in for?" Abe shouted. "What business is it of
yours, anyhow?"
"I am the broker," Sam Slotkin replied with simple dignity. "And also
you're going to take that loft. Otherwise I lose it three hundred
dollars' commission, and besides----"
"My partner is right," Morris interrupted. "You ain't got no business to
say what we will or will not do. If we want to take it we will take it,
otherwise not."
"Don't worry," Sam Slotkin cried, "you will take it all right and I'll
be back this afternoon for an answer."
He put on his hat and left without another word, while Abe and Morris
looked at each other in blank amazement.
"That's a real-estater for you," Abe said. "Henochstein's got it pretty
good nerve, Mawruss, but this feller acts so independent like a doctor
or a lawyer."
Morris nodded and started to hang up his hat and coat, but even as his
hand was poised half-way to the hook it became paralyzed. Simultaneously
Abe looked up from the column of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record and
Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, stopped writing; for the hum of sewing
machines, which was as much a part of their weekday lives as the beating
of their own hearts, had suddenly ceased.
Abe and Morris took the stairs leading to the upper floor three at a
jump, and arrived breathlessly in the workroom just as fifty-odd
employees were putting on their coats preparatory to leaving.
"What's the matter?" Abe gasped.
"Strike," Goldman, the foreman, replied.
"A strike!" Morris cried. "What for a strike?"
Goldman shrugged his shoulders.
"Comes a walking delegate by the opposite side of the street and makes
with his hands motions," he explained. "So they goes out on strike."
Few of the striking operators could speak English, but those that did
nodded their corroboration.
"For what you strike?" Morris asked them.
"Moost strike," one of them replied. "Ven varking delegate say moost
strike, ve moost strike."
Sadly Abe and Morris watched their employees leave the building, and
then they repaired to the show-room.
"There goes two thousand dollars, Mawruss," Abe said. "For so sure as
you live, Mawruss, if we don't make that delivery to the Fashion Store
inside of a week we get a cancelation by the next day's mail; ain't it?"
Morris nodded gloomily, and they both remained silent for a few
minutes.
"Mawruss," Abe said at last, "where is that loft what Slotkin gives us?"
"What do you want to know for?"
"I'm going right up to have a look at it," Abe replied. "I'm sick and
tired of this here strike business."
Morris heaved a great sigh.
"I believe you, Abe," he said. "The way I feel it now we will sell for
junk every machine what we got."
Forthwith Abe boarded a car for uptown, and when he returned two hours
later he found Goldman discussing ways and means with Morris in the
show-room.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "what for a loft you seen it?"
Abe hung up his hat deliberately.
"I tell you the truth, Mawruss," he said, turning around, "the loft
ain't bad. It's a good-looking loft, Mawruss, only it's certain sure we
couldn't have no machines in that loft."
"_Ai vai!_" Goldman exclaimed, rocking to and fro in his chair and
striking his head with his clenched fist.
"_Nu_ Goldman?" Morris asked. "What's the trouble with you?"
"Troubles enough he got it, Mawruss," Abe said, as he watched Goldman's
evolutions of woe. "If we do away with our machines he loses his job;
ain't it?"
Sympathy seemed only to intensify Goldman's distress.
"Better than that he should make me dizzy at my stomach to watch him,
Abe," Morris said. "I got a suggestion."
Goldman ceased rocking and looked up.
"I got a suggestion, Abe," Morris went on, "that we sell it our machines
on long terms of credit to Goldman, and he should go into the
contracting business; ain't it?"
"_Ai vai!_" Goldman cried again, and commenced to rock anew.
"Stop it, Goldman," Abe yelled. "What's the trouble now?"
"What show does a feller got it what starts as a new beginner in cloak
contracting already?" Goldman wailed.
"Well," Abe replied, "you could get our work."
Morris seized on this as a happy compromise between his own advocacy of
Ginsburg & Kaplan and the rival claims of Abe's wife's relations.
"Sure," he agreed. "We will give him the work what we give now to
Satinstein and Ginsburg & Kaplan."
Goldman's face spread into a thousand wrinkles of joy.
"You save my life!" he exclaimed.
"Only he got to agree by a lawyer he should make it up our work a whole
lot cheaper as they did," Morris concluded.
Goldman nodded vigorously.
"Sure, sure," he said.
"And also he got to help us call off this here strike," Abe added.
"I do my bestest," Goldman replied. "Only we got to see it the varking
delegate first and fix it up with him."
"Who is this walking delegate, anyhow?" Morris asked.
Goldman scratched his head to aid his memory.
"I remember it now," he said at last. "It's a feller by the name
Sam Slotkin."
When Abe and Morris recovered from the shock of Goldman's disclosure
they vied with each other in the strength of their resolutions not to
move into Sam Slotkin's loft. "I wouldn't pay it not one cent blackmail
neither," Abe declared, "not if they kept it up the strike for a year."
"Better as we should let that sucker do us, Abe," Morris declared, "I
would go out of the business first; ain't it?"
Abe nodded and, after a few more defiant sentiments, they went upstairs
with Goldman to estimate the amount of work undone on the Fashion Store
order.
"Them Fashion people was always good customers of ours, too, Mawruss,"
Abe commented, "and we couldn't send the work out by contractors in this
shape. It would ruin the whole job."
Morris nodded sadly.
"If we could only get them devils of operators to finish up," he said,
"they could strike till they was blue in the face yet."
"But I wouldn't pay one cent to that sucker, Slotkin, Mawruss," Abe
added.
"Sure not," Morris agreed.
"Might you wouldn't have to pay him nothing, maybe," Goldman suggested.
"What d'ye mean?" Abe cried.
"Might if you would take it the loft he would call off the strike," said
Goldman.
"That's so, Mawruss," Abe murmured, as though this phase of the matter
had just occurred to him for the first time.
"Maybe Goldman is right, Abe," Morris replied. "Maybe if we took it the
loft Slotkin would call off the strike."
"After all, Mawruss," Abe said, "the loft ain't a bad loft, Mawruss. If
it wasn't such a good loft, Mawruss, I would say it no, Mawruss, we
shouldn't take the loft; but the loft is a first-class A Number One
loft."
"S'enough, Abe," Morris replied. "You don't have to tell it me a hundred
times already. I ain't disputing it's a good loft; and so if Slotkin
calls off the strike we take the loft."
At this juncture the store door opened and Slotkin himself entered.
"Good afternoon, gents," he said.
Morris and Abe greeted him with a scowl.
"I suppose you come for an answer about that loft, huh?" Morris snorted.
Slotkin stared at Abe indignantly.
"Excuse me, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I ain't here as broker. I'll see
you later about that already. I come here now as varking delegate."
"Sure, I know," Abe replied. "When you call it a strike on us this
morning, that ain't got nothing to do with our taking the loft. We
believe that, Slotkin; so go ahead and tell us something else."
"It makes me no difference whether you believe it or you don't believe
it, Mr. Potash," Slotkin went on. "All I got to say is that you signed
it an agreement with the union; ain't it?"
"Sure, we signed it," said Abe, "and we kept it, too. We pay 'em always
union prices and we keep it union hours."
"Prices and hours is all right," Slotkin said, "but in the agreement
stands it you should give 'em a proper place to work in it."
"Well," Morris cried, "ain't it a proper place here to work in it?"
Slotkin shook his head.
"As varking delegate I seen it already. I seen it your shop where your
operators work," he commenced, "and----"
"Why, you ain't never been inside our shop," Goldman cried.
"I seen it from the outside--from the street already--and as varking
delegate it is my duty to call on you a strike," Slotkin concluded.
"What's the matter with the workroom?" Abe asked.
"Well, the neighborhood ain't right," Slotkin explained. "It's a narrow
street already. It should be on a wider street like Nineteenth Street."
He paused to note the effect and Morris grunted involuntarily.
"Also," Slotkin continued, "it needs it light on four sides, and two
elevators."
"And I suppose if we hire it such a loft, Slotkin," Abe broke in, "you
will call off the strike."
"Sure I will call it off the strike," he declared. "It would be my duty
as varking delegate. I moost call it off the strike."
"All right, then," Abe said; "call off the strike. We made up our mind
we will take the loft."
"You mean you will take such a loft what the union agreement calls for
and which I just described it to you," Slotkin corrected in his quality
of walking delegate.
"That's what we mean," Abe replied.
"Why, then, that loft what I called to your attention, as broker, this
morning would be exactly what you would need it!" Slotkin exclaimed, in
the hearty tones of a conscientious man, glad that for once the
performance of his official duty redounded to clean-handed personal
profit.
"Sure," Abe grunted.
"Then, as broker, I tell it you that the leases is ready down at Henry
D. Feldman's office," Slotkin replied, "and as soon as they are signed
the strike is off."
A week later the Fashion Store's order was finished, packed and shipped;
and on the same day that Goldman, the foreman, dismissed the hands
he went down to Henry D. Feldman's office. There he signed an
agreement with Potash & Perlmutter to make up all their garments
in the contracting shop which he proposed to open the first of the
following month.
"Where are you going to have it your shop, Goldman?" Morris asked, after
they had returned from Feldman's.
"That I couldn't tell it you just yet," Goldman replied. "We ain't quite
decided yet."
"We!" Abe cried excitedly. "Who's we?"
"Well, I expect to get it a partner with a couple of hundred dollars,"
Goldman said; "but, anyhow, Mr. Potash, I get some cards printed next
week and I send you one."
"All right," Abe replied. "Only let me give it you a piece of advice,
Goldman: If you get it a partner, don't make no mistake and have
some feller what wants to run you and the business and everybody
else, Goldman."
The thrust went home and Morris stared fiercely at his partner.
"And you should see it also that his wife ain't got no relations,
Goldman," he added, "otherwise he'll want you to share the profits of
the business with them."
Goldman nodded.
"Oh, I got a good, smart feller picked out, and his wife's relations
will be all right, too," he said, as he started to leave. "But, anyhow,
Mr. Perlmutter, I let you know next week."
About ten days afterward, while Morris and Abe were in the throes of
packing, prior to the removal of their business, the letter-carrier
entered with a batch of mail, and Morris immediately took it into the
show-room.
"Here, Abe," he said, as he glanced at the first envelope, "this is
for you."
Then he proceeded to go through the remainder of the pile.
"Holy smokes!" he cried, as he opened the next envelope.
"What's the matter?" Abe asked. "Is it a failure?" He had read his own
letter and held it between trembling fingers as he inquired.
"Look at this," Morris said, handing him a card.
It was a fragment of cheap pasteboard and bore the following legend:
PHILIP GOLDMAN SAM SLOTKIN
GOLDMAN & SLOTKIN
CLOAK AND SUIT CONTRACTORS
SPONGING AND EXAMINING
PIKE STREET NEW YORK
Abe read the card and handed it back in silence.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "that's a fine piece of business. We not only
got to take it the loft what Slotkin picks out for us, but we also got
to give Slotkin our work also."
Abe shrugged his shoulders in an indifferent manner.
"You always got to run things your way, Mawruss," he said. "If you let
me do it my way, Mawruss, we wouldn't of had no strike nor trouble nor
nothing, and it would of been the same in the end."
"What d'ye mean?" Morris exclaimed.
"Look at this here," Abe replied, handing him the letter. It was printed
in script on heavily-coated paper and read as follows:
MRS. SARAH MASHKOWITZ & MRS. BLOOMA
SHEIKMAN
SISTERS OF THE BRIDE
REQUEST THE HONOR OF YOUR CO.
AT THE MARRIAGE OF THEIR SISTER
MISS MIRIAM SMOLINSKI
TO
SAM SLOTKIN
ON SUNDAY OCT 3 1907 at 7 P M SHARP
NEW RIGA HALL ALLEN STREET
BRIDE'S RESIDENCE
CARE OF ROTHMAN'S CORSET STORE
4025 MADISON AVE
N Y CITY
LADIES AND GENTS WARDROBE CHECK 50C