Abe Potash entered the firm's private office one morning in
mid-September and deliberately removed his hat and coat. As he did so he
emitted groans calculated to melt the heart of the most hardened medical
practitioner, but Morris Perlmutter remained entirely unmoved.
"Well, Abe," he said, "you've been making a hog of yourself again. Ain't
it? Sol Klinger says he seen you over to the Harlem Winter Garden, and I
suppose you bought it such a fine supper you couldn't sleep a wink all
night. What?"
Abe started to draw himself up to his full five feet three, but lumbago
brooks no hauteur, and he subsided into the nearest chair with a low,
expressive "Oo-ee!"
"That's a heart you got it, Mawruss," he declared bitterly, "like a
stone. I drunk it nothing but lithia water and some dry toast, which
them suckers got the nerve to charge me fifty cents for."
"Well, why don't you seen it a doctor, Abe?" Morris said. "You could
monkey with yourself a whole lifetime, Abe, and it would never do you no
good; whilst if you seen it a doctor, Abe, he gives you a little pinch
of powder, y'understand, and in five minutes you are a well man."
Abe sighed heavily.
"It don't go so quick, Mawruss," he replied. "I seen a doctor this
morning and he says I am full from rheumatism. I dassen't do nothing,
Mawruss, I dassen't touch coffee or schnapps. I dassen't eat no meat but
lamb chops and chicken."
"I tasted worser things already as lamb chops and chicken, Abe," Morris
retorted.
"And the worstest thing of all, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "the doctor
says he wouldn't be responsible for my life already if I go out on
the road."
"What?" Morris exclaimed. In less than two weeks Abe was due to leave
on his Western trip, and for the past few days Morris had been in the
throes of preparing the sample line.
"This is a fine time for you to get sick, Abe," he cried.
"Could I help it, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "You talk like I got the
rheumatism to spite you, Mawruss. Believe me, Mawruss, I ain't so stuck
on staying in the store here with you, Mawruss. I could prefer it a
million times to be out on the road."
He rose to his feet with another hollow groan.
"But, anyway, Mawruss, it won't help matters none if we sit around here
all the morning. We got to get it somebody to sell our line, because
even if, to hear you talk, the goods do sell themselves when _I_ go out
with them, Mawruss, we couldn't take no chances on some kid salesman. We
got to get it a first-class A Number One feller what wouldn't fool away
his time."
"Well, why don't you put it an ad in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record,
Abe?" Morris asked.
"I put it in last night already," Abe replied, "and I bet yer we get it
a million answers by the first mail this afternoon."
For the remainder of the morning Morris busied himself with the sample
line, while Abe moved slowly about the show-room, well within the
hearing of his partner, and moaned piteously at frequent intervals.
Every half-hour he cleared his throat with a rasping noise and, when he
had secured Morris' attention, ostentatiously swallowed a large gelatine
capsule and rolled his eyes upward in what he conceived to be an
expression of acute agony. At length Morris could stand it no longer.
"What are we running here, anyway, Abe?" he asked. "A cloak and suit
business or a hospital? If you are such a sick man, Abe, why don't you
go home?"
"Must I got to get your permission to be sick, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Couldn't I take it maybe a bit of medicine oncet in a while if I want
to, Mawruss?"
He snorted indignantly, but further discussion was prevented by the
entrance of the letter-carrier, and immediately Abe and Morris forgot
their differences in an examination of the numerous letters that were
the fruit of the advertisement.
"Don't let's waste no time over fellers we don't know nothing about,
Abe," Morris suggested as he tossed one envelope into the waste-paper
basket. "Here's a feller called Rutherford B. H. Horowitz, what says he
used to be a suit-buyer in Indianapolis. Ever hear of him, Abe?"
"We don't want no fellers what used to be buyers, Mawruss," Abe
retorted. "What we want is fellers what is cloak and suit salesmen.
Ain't it?"
"Well, here's a feller by the name Arthur Katzen, Abe," Morris went on.
"Did y'ever hear of him, Abe?"
"Sure I know him, Mawruss," Abe replied. "You know him, too, Mawruss.
That's a feller by the name Osher Katzenelenbogen, what used to work for
us as buttonhole-maker when we was new beginners already. Two years ago,
I met that feller in the Yates House and I says to him: 'Hallo,' I says,
'ain't you Osher Katzenelenbogen?' And he says: 'Excuse me,' he says,
'you got the advantage from me,' he says. 'My name is Arthur Katzen,' he
says; and I assure you, Mawruss, the business that feller was doing,
Mawruss, was the sole topic what everybody was talking about."
Morris waved his hand deprecatingly.
"I seen lots of them topics in my time already, Abe," he commented.
"Topics what went up with red fire already and come down like sticks.
That's the way it goes in this business, Abe. A feller gets a little
streak of luck, and everybody goes to work and pats him on the back and
tells him he's a great salesman."
"But mind you, Mawruss, Arthur Katzen was a good salesman then and is a
good salesman to-day yet. The only trouble with him is that he's a
gambler, Mawruss. That feller would sooner play auction pinochle than
eat, and that's the reason why he could never hold it a job."
"Why shouldn't he hold a job, Abe?" Morris asked. "If I would have a
crackerjack drummer, for my part he could play the whole book of Hoyle,
from _klabbias_ to _stuss_, and it wouldn't affect me none so long as he
sold the goods."
"Maybe you're right, Mawruss," Abe admitted. "But when a feller fools
away his time at auction pinochle his business is bound to suffer."
"Well, then, here's a feller answers by the name Mozart Rabiner," Morris
continued. "Did y'ever hear of him, Abe?"
"If you mean Moe Rabiner, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I never knew his name
was Mozart before, Mawruss, but there was a feller by the name Moe
Rabiner what used to work for Sammet Brothers, Mawruss, and that feller
could make the pianner fairly talk, Mawruss. If he could only get a lady
buyer up against a pianner, Mawruss, he could sell her every time."
Morris tore up Mozart's application.
"So long as a feller fools away his time, Abe," he said, "it don't make
no difference either he plays auction pinochle or either he plays the
pianner. Ain't it?"
He opened another envelope and scanned the enclosed missive.
"This sounds good to me, Abe," he said, and handed the letter to his
partner. It read as follows:
4042 PROSPECT AVE., September 18/08.
MESSRS POTASH & PERLMUTTER,
_Gents_:--Seeing your ad in to days Record and in reply would beg
to state am a first class, womans outer garment salesman selling
only to the high class trade. Was for three years with one of the
largest concerns in the trade traveling to the coast and making
Tooson, Denver, Shyenne and Butte, selling the best houses in
Frisco, Portland, Seattle, Los Angles, Fresno &c &c &c. _Am all
for business and can give A 1 references._ At present am
unnattached but expect quick action as am neggotiating with one
of the largest speciality houses in the trade. _Ask no favors of
nobody but results will show._
Yours truly
MARKS PASINSKY.
"By jimminy!" Abe cried after he had finished reading the letter.
"That's the feller we want to hire it, Mawruss. Let's write him
to call."
It would hardly be violating Marks Pasinsky's confidence to disclose
that he held himself to be a forceful man. He never spoke save in
italics, and when he shook hands with anyone the recipient of the honor
felt it for the rest of the day. Abe watched Morris undergo the ordeal
and plunged his hands in his trousers' pockets.
"And this is Mr. Potash," Pasinsky cried, releasing his grip on Morris
and extending his hand toward Abe.
"How d'ye do?" Abe said without removing his hands. "I think I seen you
oncet before already in Mandleberger Brothers & Co., in Chicago."
"I presume you did," Marks Pasinsky replied. "Ed Mandleberger and me
married cousins. That is to say, my wife's mother's sister is a
sister-in-law to a brother of Ed Mandleberger's wife's mother."
"Huh, huh," Abe murmured. "Do you know Simon Kuhner, buyer for their
cloak department?"
Marks Pasinsky sat down and fixed Abe with an incredulous smile.
"A question!" he exclaimed. "Do I know him? Every afternoon, when I am
in Chicago, Simon and me drinks coffee together."
Abe and Morris looked at each other with glances of mixed wonder
and delight.
"I'll tell you another feller I'm intimate with, too," he said. "Do
you know Charles I. Fichter, cloak buyer for Gardner, Baum & Miller,
in Seattle?"
Abe nodded. He had been vainly trying to sell Fichter a bill of goods
since 1898.
"Well, Charlie and me was delegates to the National Grand Lodge of the
Independent Order Mattai Aaron, and I nominated Charlie for Grand
Scribe. The way it come about was this, if you'd care to hear about it."
"That's all right," Morris interrupted. "We take your word for it. The
point is, could you sell it him a big bill of goods, maybe?"
Marks Pasinsky leaned back in his chair and laughed uproariously.
"Why, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, all out of breath from his mirth, "that
feller is actually putting his job in danger because he's holding off in
his fall buying until I get to Seattle. Fichter wouldn't buy not a
dollar's worth of goods from nobody else but me, not if you was to make
him a present of them for nothing."
He gave many more instances of his friendship with cloak and suit
buyers. For example, it appeared that he knew Rudolph Rosenwater, buyer
for Feigenson & Schiffer, of San Francisco, to the extent of an anecdote
containing a long, intimate dialogue wherein Rosenwater commenced all
his speeches with: "Well, Markie."
"And so I says to him," Pasinsky concluded, "'Rudie, you are all right,'
I says, 'but you can't con me.'"
He looked from Abe to Morris and beamed with satisfaction. They were in
a condition of partial hypnotism, which became complete after Pasinsky
had concluded a ten-minutes' discourse on cloak and suit affairs. He
spoke with a fluency and emphasis that left Abe and Morris literally
gasping like landed fish, although, to be sure, the manner of his
discourse far outshone the matter.
But his auditors were much too dazed to be critical. They were cognizant
of only one circumstance: If this huge personage with his wonderful
magnetism and address couldn't sell goods, nobody could.
Pasinsky rose to his feet. He was six feet in height, and weighed over
two hundred pounds.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, towering over his proposed employers, "think
it over and see if you want me. I'll be back at noon."
"Hold on a minute," Abe cried. "You ain't told us nothing about who
you worked for last. What were all them references you was telling
us about?"
Pasinsky regarded Abe with a smile of amusement.
"I'll tell you, Mr. Potash, it's like this," he explained. "Of course
you want to know who I worked for and all about it."
Abe nodded.
"But the way I feel about it," Marks Pasinsky went on, "is that if you
advance my expenses for two weeks, understand me, and I go out with your
sample line, understand me, if you don't owe me a thousand dollars
commissions at the end of that time, then I don't want to work for you
at all."
Morris' jaw dropped and he wiped beads of perspiration from his
forehead.
"But who did you sell goods for?" Abe insisted.
Marks Pasinsky bent down and placed his hand on Abe's shoulder.
"B. Gans," he whispered.
"Let me in on this, too, Abe," Morris exclaimed.
"He says he worked for B. Gans," Abe replied.
"That's an A Number One concern, Abe," Morris said.
"A _A_ Number One," Pasinsky corrected. "B. Gans ain't got a garment in
his entire line that retails for less than a hundred dollars."
"Well, we ain't so tony as all that," Morris commented. "We got it one
or two garments, Mr. Pasinsky--just one or two, y'understand--which
retails for ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents, y'understand.
So, naturally, you couldn't expect to sell the same class of trade for
us as you sold it for B. Gans."
"Naturally," Pasinsky agreed loftily, "but when a salesman is a
salesman, Mr. Perlmutter, he ain't content to sell a line of goods which
sells themselves, so to speak, like B. Gans' line. He wants to handle
such a line like you got it, Mr. Perlmutter, which is got to be pushed
and pushed good and plenty. If I wouldn't handle an inferior line oncet
in a while, Mr. Perlmutter, I would quick get out of practice."
Morris snorted.
"If our line don't suit you, Mr. Pasinsky," he began, when Abe
interrupted with a wave of his hand.
"Pasinsky is right, Mawruss," he said. "You always got it an idee you
made up a line of goods what pratically sold themselves, and I always
told you differencely. You wouldn't mind it if I went around to see B.
Gans, Mr. Pasinsky."
Pasinsky stared superciliously at Abe.
"Go as far as you like," he said. "Gans wouldn't tell you nothing but
good of me. But if I would work for you one week, Mr. Potash, you would
know that with me recommendations is nix and results everything."
He blew his nose like a challenge and clapped his silk hat on his
flowing black curls. Then he bowed to Morris, and the next moment the
elevator door clanged behind him.
B. Gans guided himself by the maxim: "In business you couldn't trust
nobody to do nothing," and albeit he employed over a hundred workmen he
gave practical demonstrations of their duties to all of them. Thus, on
the last of the month he made out statements in the office, and when the
shipping department was busy he helped tie up packages. Occasionally he
would be found wielding a pressing iron, and when Abe Potash entered to
inquire about Pasinsky's qualifications B. Gans had just smashed his
thumb in the process of showing a shipping clerk precisely how a
packing-case ought to be nailed.
"What's the matter, Gans?" Abe asked.
"Couldn't you afford it to hire shipping clerks no more?"
"I want to tell you something, Potash," Gans replied. "Jay Vanderbilt
ain't got money enough to hire it a good shipping clerk, because for the
simple reason there ain't no good shipping clerks. A shipping clerk
ain't no good, otherwise he wouldn't be a shipping clerk."
"How about drummers?" Abe asked. "I ain't come to ask you about
shipping clerks, Gans; I come to ask you about a drummer."
"What should you ask me about drummers for, Potash?" Gans replied. "You
know as well as I do what drummers is, Potash. Drummers is bluffs. I
wouldn't give a pinch of snuff for the best drummers living. The way
drummers figure it out nowadays, Potash, there ain't no more money in
commissions. All the money is in the expense account."
Abe laughed.
"I guess you got a tale of woe to tell about designers and models, too,
Gans," he said; "but with me, Gans, so long as a salesman could sell
goods I don't take it so particular when it comes right down to the
expense account."
"Oh, if they sell goods, Potash," Gans agreed, "then that's something
else again. But the way business is to-day, Potash, salesmen don't sell
goods no more. Former times a salesman wasn't considered a salesman
unless he could sell a customer goods what the customer didn't want; but
nowadays it don't make no difference what kind of salesman you hire it,
Potash, the goods is got to sell themselves, otherwise the salesman
can't do no business. Ain't it?"
"But take a salesman like Marks Pasinsky, for instance," Abe said.
"There's a feller what can sell goods. Ain't it?"
B. Gans looked up sharply.
"Did Marks Pasinsky send you here?" he asked.
"Well, he give you as a reference," Abe replied.
"All right," B. Gans continued. "You tell Marks Pasinsky from me
that I says he's a good salesman and that why he left me was by
mutual consent."
"Sure," Abe said, "but I wanted to ask you more about Pasinsky. You see,
Pasinsky wants to come to work by us as salesman, and I want to find out
a few things about him first."
"Well, I'm just telling you, ain't I?" Gans replied. "I said Marks
Pasinsky was a good salesman and the reason why he left me was by mutual
consent; and you tell Pasinsky that that's what I said it, and if you'll
excuse me I got business to attend to."
He turned away and fairly ran toward the rear of the loft, while Abe,
now thoroughly mystified, returned to his place of business.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried as his partner entered. "What for a reference
did you get it from B. Gans?"
"The reference is all right, Mawruss," Abe replied. "B. Gans says that
Pasinsky is a good salesman and that the reason he left was by mutual
consent."
"Mutual consent?" Morris exclaimed. "What kind of reasons is that for
firing a feller?"
"Gans didn't fire him, Mawruss," Abe said. "He left by mutual consent."
"I know, Abe," Morris rejoined, "but when a feller quits by mutual
consent you know as well as I do, Abe, what that means. It means that
if I should say to Jake, the shipping clerk, 'Jake, you are a rotten
shipping clerk and I don't want you no more, and if you don't get right
out of here I will kick you out,' and then Jake says to me, 'In that
case you could take your dirty job and give it to some poor sucker what
wants it more as I do,' then Jake quits by mutual consent. Ain't it?"
Abe stared indignantly at his partner.
"I'm surprised to hear you you should talk that way, Mawruss, about a
decent, respectable young feller what works so hard like Jake does," he
said. "That only goes to show what a judge you are. If you couldn't tell
it a good shipping clerk when you see one, how should you know anything
about salesmen? B. Gans says that Pasinsky is a good salesman, Mawruss,
and you can do what you like about it; I'm going to hire him, Mawruss,
when he comes back here."
"Go ahead, Abe," Morris retorted. "Only, if things shouldn't turn out O.
K. you shouldn't blame me. That's all."
"I wouldn't blame you, Mawruss," Abe said. "All I would blame you is if
you wouldn't have our sample line in good shape by next week, because I
want Pasinsky to leave here by Monday sure."
"Don't you worry about them samples, Abe," Morris cried.
"Them samples is good enough to sell themselves; and the way I figure it
out, they got to sell themselves, Abe, because I don't believe Pasinsky
could sell nothing to nobody."
"You don't believe nothing, Mawruss," Abe concluded as he made for the
cutting-room; "you're a regular amethyst."
"With a feller like Kuhner," Marks Pasinsky declared on the following
Monday, "you couldn't be a cheap skate, Mr. Potash."
"I always sold it Kuhner, too," Abe replied; "but I never spent it so
much as three hundred dollars in one week in Chicago."
"Sure, I know," Pasinsky agreed, "but how much did you sell Kuhner? A
thousand or two thousand at the outside. With me, Mr. Potash, I wouldn't
bother myself to stop off in Chicago at all if I couldn't land at least
a five-thousand-dollar order from Simon Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers
& Co., and we will say four thousand with Chester Prosnauer, of the
Arcade Mercantile Company."
It lacked half an hour of Marks Pasinsky's train-time, and, in addition,
Abe had grown a little weary of his parting instructions to his
newly-hired salesman. Indeed, the interview had lasted all the forenoon,
and it would have been difficult to decide who was doing the
instructing.
"S'enough," Abe cried. "Let's make an end. I'll speak to my partner
about it, and if he says it's all right I'm agreeable."
He repaired to the cutting-room, where Morris chafed at the delay in
Pasinsky's departure.
"Ain't that feller gone yet, Abe?" he asked.
"I'm just giving him a few last advices," Abe replied.
"Well, I hope you're more successful as I was, Abe," Morris rejoined.
"That feller's got so much to say for himself I couldn't get a word in
sideways."
Abe nodded.
"He's a good talker," he said, "only he's too ambitious, Mawruss."
"He shouldn't get ambitious around me, Abe," Morris retorted, "because I
wouldn't stand for it. What's he getting ambitious with you about?"
"Well, he wants it three hundred dollars for expenses one week in
Chicago already," Abe answered.
"What!" Morris cried.
"He says he got to do some tall entertaining, Mawruss," Abe went on,
"because he expects to sell Simon Kuhner a five-thousand-dollars bill of
goods, and the Arcade Mercantile Company also five thousand."
"Say, looky here, Abe: I want to tell you something," Morris broke in.
"Of course, this ain't my affair nor nothing, because you got the
rheumatism and it's your funeral. Also, I am only a partner here,
y'understand, and what I says goes for nix. But the way it looks to me
now, Abe, if this here Pasinsky sells all the goods he talks about, Abe,
we will got to have four times more capital as we are working with now.
And if he spends it three hundred dollars in every town he makes we
wouldn't have no capital left at all. And that's the way it goes."
He turned and strode angrily away, while Abe went back to the show-room.
"Well, Pasinsky," he said, "I decided I would take a chance and advance
you the three hundred; but you got to do the business, Pasinsky,
otherwise it is all off."
Pasinsky nodded and tucked away the yellowbacks which Abe gave him.
"All you've got to do, Mr. Potash, is to fill the orders," he said,
extending his hand to Abe, "and I will do the rest. And now good-by and
good luck to you."
He squeezed Abe's hand until it was completely numb, and with a
parting nod to Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, he started on his journey
for the West.
"You would thought, Mawruss," Abe said afterward, "that he was staying
home and that it was me what goes away on the trip."
"I wish you was, Abe," Morris replied fervently. "I ain't got no
confidence in that feller at all."
"I wouldn't knock the feller until I seen what he could do, Mawruss,"
Abe said. "He promised me we should hear from him so soon as he gets
there."
Four days later the expected mail arrived. Abe received the letter from
the carrier and burst it open with his thumb. Then he drew forth the
contents of the envelope and shook the folded sheet, but no order slip
fell out. He sighed heavily and perused the letter, which read as
follows:
CHICAGO, ILL., SEP. '08.
MESS POTASH & PERLMUTTER
_Gents_:--Arrived here this A M and things look very
promising. Am informed by everybody that business is good on the
coast and prospects of big orders also very promising. Sales have
been slow here on a/c weather is very hot. Miss Schimpfer asst
buyer millinary dept Mandleberger Bros & Co says things look very
promising and expects to do a big fall business. Was two hours
late getting in to Chicago on a/c freight wreck and missed seeing
Kuhner his sister's daughter gets married and Kuhner goes to the
wedding. Will see Kuhner to morrow A M and let you know
results. Have appointment with Chester Prosnauer to morrow A
M and things look very promising there. Will write you to
morrow. Regards to Mr. Perlmutter. Hoping things is all right in
the store, I am,
MARKS PASINSKY.
Abe finished reading the letter and handed it in silence to Morris, who
examined it closely.
"That's a very promising letter, Abe," he said. "I'd like to know what
that feller done all day in Chicago. I bet yer that assistant millinery
buyer eats a good lunch on us, Abe, if she didn't also see it a theayter
on us, too. What does he think he's selling, anyway, Abe, millinery or
cloaks?"
"Give the feller a show, Mawruss," Abe replied. "He ain't been in
Chicago forty-eight hours yet. We'll wait till we get it another letter
from him, Mawruss, before we start to kick."
Another day elapsed, but no further epistle came from Marks Pasinsky,
and when the last mail arrived without any word from Chicago Morris grew
worried.
"Not even a weather report, Abe," he said. "If he couldn't sell no
goods, Abe, at least he could write us a letter."
"Maybe he's too busy, Mawruss," Abe suggested.
"Busy taking assistant millinery buyers to lunch, Abe," Morris replied.
"The way that feller acts, Abe, he ain't no stranger to auction
pinochle, neither, I bet yer."
Abe put on his hat and coat preparatory to going home.
"What's the use knocking him yet a while, Mawruss?" he said. "A
different tune you will sing it when we get a couple of orders from him
to-morrow morning."
But the next forenoon's mail was barren of result, and when Abe went out
to lunch that day he had little appetite for his food. Accordingly he
sought an enameled-brick dairy restaurant, and he was midway in the
consumption of a bowl of milk toast when Leon Sammet, senior partner of
Sammet Brothers, entered.
"Well, Abe," he said, "do you got to diet, too?"
"_Gott sei dank_, it ain't so bad as all that, Leon," Abe replied. "No,
Leon, I ain't going to die just yet a while, although that's a terrible
sickness, the rheumatism. The doctor says I could only eat it certain
things like chicken and chops and milk toast."
"Well, you wouldn't starve, anyhow," Leon commented.
"No, I wouldn't starve," Abe admitted, "but I also couldn't go out on
the road, neither. The doctor wouldn't let me, so we got to hire a
feller to take care of our Western trade. I guess he's a pretty good
salesman, too. His name is Marks Pasinsky. Do you know him?"
"Sure I know him," Leon Sammet replied. "He used to work by B. Gans, and
he's a very close friend of a feller what used to work for us by the
name Mozart Rabiner."
"You mean that musical feller?" Abe said.
"That's the one," Leon answered. "I bet yer he was musical. That feller
got the artistic temperature all right, Abe. He didn't give a damn how
much of our money he spent it. Every town he makes he got to have a
pianner sent up to the hotel. Costs us every time three dollars for the
pianner and five dollars for trucking. We got it a decent salesman now,
Abe. We hired him a couple of weeks since."
"What's his name?" Abe asked.
"Arthur Katzen," Leon Sammet replied. "He had a big week last week in
Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland and Detroit. He's in Chicago this week."
"Is that so?" Abe commented.
"He turned us in a fine order to-day," Leon continued, "from Simon
Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers & Co."
"What?" Abe gasped.
"Sure," Sammet went on, "and the funny thing about it is that Kuhner
never bought our line before, and I guess he wouldn't of bought it now,
but this here Arthur Katzen, Abe, he is sure a wonder. That feller
actually booked a five-thousand-dollar order from sample garments which
didn't belong to our line at all. They're some samples which I
understand Kuhner had made up already."
"That's something what I never heard it before," Abe exclaimed.
"Me neither," Leon said; "but Kuhner gives him the privilege to send us
the garments here, and we are to make up sample garments of our own so
soon as we can copy the styles; and after we ship our samples and
Kuhner's samples back to Kuhner, Kuhner sends us a confirmation. We
expect Kuhner will ship us his samples to-morrow."
Abe rose wearily from his seat.
"Well, Leon," he concluded, "you certainly got it more luck with your
salesman as we got it with ours. So far he ain't sent us a single,
solitary order."
He passed down the aisle to the cashier's desk and had almost reached
the door when a restraining hand plucked at his coat tails.
"Hallo, Abe!" a voice cried. It was Sol Klinger, whose manner of eating
crullers and coffee received and merited the unfavorable attention of
everybody seated at his table. "Sit down and have a cup of coffee."
"I had it my lunch already," Abe replied.
"Sit down and have a cup of coffee, anyhow," Sol Klinger coaxed.
"I wouldn't have no coffee," Abe said as he took the vacant chair next
to Sol. "I'll have a cup of chocolate. To a man in my conditions, Sol,
coffee is poison already."
"Why, what's the matter, Abe?" Sol asked.
"I'm a sick feller, Sol," Abe went on. "The rheumatism I got it all over
my body. I assure you I couldn't go out on the road this fall. I had to
hire it a salesman."
"Is that so?" Sol Klinger replied. "Well, we had to hire it a new
salesman, too--a young feller by the name Moe Rabiner. Do you know him?"
"I heard about him already," Abe said. "How is he doing?"
"Well, in Buffalo, last week, he ain't done hardly nothing," said Sol;
"but he's in Chicago this week and he done a little better. He sent us a
nice order this morning, I bet yer. Four thousand dollars from the
Arcade Mercantile Company."
Abe was swallowing a huge mouthful of cocoa, and when Sol vouchsafed
this last piece of information the cocoa found its way to Abe's pharynx,
whence it was violently ejected into the face of a mild-mannered
errand-boy sitting opposite. The errand-boy wiped his face while Sol
slapped Abe on the back.
"What's the matter, Abe?" Sol asked solicitously. "Do you got
bronchitis, too, as well as rheumatism?"
"Go ahead, Sol," Abe gasped. "Tell me about this here order."
"There ain't much to tell, Abe," Sol went on, "except that this here
Rabiner does something I never heard about before in all my experience
in the cloak and suit business."
"No?" Abe croaked. "What was that?"
"Why, this here Rabiner gets an order from Prosnauer, of the Arcade
Mercantile Company, for garments what we ain't got in our line at all,"
Sol Klinger explained; "and Prosnauer furnishes us the sample garments,
which we are to return to him just so soon as we can copy them, and
then----"
"S'enough," Abe cried. "I heard enough, Sol. Don't rub it in."
"Why, what do you mean, Abe?" Sol asked.
"I mean I got it a salesman in Chicago, Sol," Abe went on, "what ain't
sent us so much as a smell of an order. I guess there's only one thing
for me to do, Sol, and that's to go myself to Chicago and see what he's
up to."
Sol looked shocked.
"Don't you do it, Abe," he said. "Klein got a brother-in-law what got
the rheumatism like you got it, Abe, and the feller insisted on going to
Boston. The railroad trip finished him, I bet yer."
"Did he die?" Abe asked.
"Well, no, he didn't die exactly," Klinger replied; "but on the train
the rheumatism went to his head, and that poor, sick young feller took a
whole theayter troupe into the cafe car and blows 'em to tchampanyer
wine yet. Two hundred dollars it costed him."
"That's all right, Sol," Abe replied. "I could stand it if it stood me
in three hundred dollars, so long as I could stop Marks Pasinsky making
another town."
He rose to his feet with surprising alacrity for a rheumatic patient,
and returned to his office, where no communication had been received
from Marks Pasinsky.
"That settles it, Mawruss," Abe said as he jammed his hat farther down
on his head.
"Where are you going now?" Morris asked.
"I'm going home to pack my grip," Abe announced, "and I'll get that six
o'clock train to Chicago, sure."
"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I thought the doctor says if you went out
on the road he wouldn't be responsible for you."
"I know he did," Abe concluded as he passed out, "but who will be
responsible for Marks Pasinsky, Mawruss?"
When Abe reached Chicago the following afternoon he repaired at once to
the hotel at which Marks Pasinsky was staying.
"Mr. Pasinsky ain't in his room. What?" he said to the clerk.
"Mr. Pasinsky went out about one o'clock and hasn't been back since,"
the clerk replied as he handed Abe over to a bell-boy. Fifteen minutes
later Abe descended from his room with the marks of travel almost
effaced, and again inquired for Marks Pasinsky.
"He ain't been back since, Mr. Potash," said the clerk.
"He didn't go out with nobody. No?" Abe asked.
"I think he went out with a short, dark gentleman," the clerk answered.
Abe pondered for a moment. Simon Kuhner stood full six feet tall and was
a decided blond, while Chester Prosnauer, whom he knew by sight only,
was as large as Marks Pasinsky himself.
"Who could that be, I wonder?" Abe murmured.
"It was a gentleman staying over at the Altringham," the clerk said.
"Then it couldn't be them," Abe concluded. "If Pasinsky comes back you
should please tell him to wait. I will be back here at six, sure."
He made immediately for the business premises of Mandleberger Brothers &
Co., where he found Simon Kuhner hard at work in his office.
"Hallo, Abe!" Kuhner cried as Abe entered. "They told me you was a fit
subject for crutches when I asked for you the other day."
"Who told you?" Abe said without further preface. "Marks Pasinsky?"
"Marks Pasinsky?" Kuhner repeated. "Why, no. He didn't mention your
name, Abe. Do you know Marks Pasinsky, too?"
"Do I know him, too?" Abe almost shrieked. "A question! Ain't he selling
goods for me?"
"Is he?" Kuhner said.
"Is he!" Abe cried. "Why, you don't mean to tell me that feller ain't
been in here yet?"
"Sure he was in here," Kuhner replied, "but he didn't say nothing about
selling goods for you. In fact, he got a fine order from me, Abe, for a
concern which I never done business with before. People by the name
Sammet Brothers. What's the matter, Abe? Are you sick?"
Abe gurgled once or twice and clutched at his collar.
"Did you got the samples here what he shows you?" he managed to gasp.
"Why, Abe, what's troubling you?" Kuhner said. "A sick man like you
shouldn't be attending to business at all."
"Never mind me," Abe cried. "What about them samples, Kuhner?"
"He left some samples with me, and I was to ship 'em to Sammet
Brothers."
"Did you ship 'em yet?" Abe exclaimed.
"Why, what's the matter, Abe?" Kuhner commenced soothingly.
"The matter is," Abe shouted, "them samples is my samples, and there's
some monkey business here."
"Monkey business!" Kuhner said. "What sort of monkey business?"
"I don't know," Abe replied, "but I'm going to find out right away.
Promise me you wouldn't ship them samples till I come back."
"Sure I will promise you, Abe," Kuhner declared. "When will you
be back?"
"To-morrow morning some time," Abe concluded as he rose to leave. "I got
to see a lawyer and make this here feller Pasinsky arrested."
"Don't do nothing rash, Abe," Kuhner advised.
"I won't do nothing rash," Abe promised. "I'll kill him, that's what
I'll do."
He took the stairs three at a jump and fairly ran to the dry-goods store
of the Arcade Mercantile Company.
"Mr. Prosnauer," he cried as he burst into Prosnauer's office in the
cloak department, "my name is Mr. Potash, of Potash & Perlmutter, from
New York. Did you seen it my salesman, Marks Pasinsky?"
"Sit down, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer said, "and don't excite yourself."
"I ain't exciting myself," Abe exclaimed. "I don't got to excite myself,
Mr. Prosnauer. I am excited enough already when I think to myself that
that lowlife Pasinsky takes my samples out of my store and comes here
with my money and gets an order from you for four thousand dollars for
Klinger & Klein."
"Not so fast, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer began. "I've known Marks Pasinsky
for a number of years. He and I play auction pinochle together every
Saturday night when he is in Chicago, and----"
"Auction pinochle!" Abe interrupted, throwing up his hands. "_Das fehlt
nur noch_!"
"As I was saying, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer went on with a withering glance
at Abe, "those samples are outside, and Pasinsky has asked me to ship
them to Klinger & Klein, and----"
"Ship 'em!" Abe cried. "You shouldn't ship nothing. Them samples belongs
to me."
"How do I know that?" Prosnauer asked. "Is your name engraved on 'em?"
"All right," Abe cried, jumping to his feet. "All right, Mr. Prosnauer.
If you are going to make jokes with me I got nothing to say, but I give
you warning that you should do absolutely nothing with them samples till
I send a sheriff round for them."
"Now you're making threats," said Prosnauer.
"With people like Marks Pasinsky," Abe retorted as he paused at the
door, "I don't got to make no threats. I know who I am dealing with, Mr.
Prosnauer, and so, instead I should make threats I go right away and see
a lawyer, and he will deliver the goods. That's all I got to say."
"Hold on there, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer cried. "It ain't necessary for
you to see a lawyer. Prove to me that you own the samples and you can
have 'em."
Abe hesitated.
"Well," he said, "if you would hold it them samples till to-morrow
noon, Mr. Prosnauer, I'll give you all the proofs you want."
"Very well," Prosnauer said, "I'll hold them. When will you be back?"
"Before twelve to-morrow," Abe replied. "Believe me, Mr. Prosnauer, I
ain't so stuck on paying lawyers. If I can settle this thing up nice and
friendly I would do so."
They shook hands, and Abe retraced his steps to the hotel, where he
again inquired for Marks Pasinsky.
"He hasn't come back yet, Mr. Potash," the clerk said, and Abe retired
to the writing-room and smoked a cigar by way of a sedative.
From six o'clock that evening until midnight he smoked so many sedative
cigars and made so many fruitless inquiries at the desk for Marks
Pasinsky, that his own nerves as well as the night clerk's were
completely shattered. Before Abe retired he paid a farewell visit to the
desk, and both he and the clerk gave vent to their emotions in a great
deal of spirited profanity.
There was no rest for Abe that night, and when at length he fell asleep
it was almost daylight. He awoke at nine and, dressing himself fireman
fashion, he hurried to the desk.
"What time did Marks Pasinsky come in?" he asked the clerk.
"Why, Mr. Pasinsky didn't come in at all," the clerk replied.
Abe pushed his hat back from his forehead.
"Say, young feller," he said, "do you got the gall to tell me that Marks
Pasinsky ain't come back since he went over to the Altringham with that
short, dark feller yesterday afternoon?"
"Call me a liar, why don't you?" the clerk retorted.
"You're a fresh young feller!" Abe exclaimed. "Couldn't you answer a
civil question?"
"Ah, don't be worrying me with your troubles!" the clerk snarled. "Go
over to the Altringham yourself, if you think I'm stringing you."
Abe turned without another word and hustled over to the Altringham.
"Do you know a feller by the name Marks Pasinsky?" he asked the clerk.
"Is he a guest of the house?" the clerk said.
"He's a big feller with a stovepipe hat and curly hair," Abe replied,
"and he came in here yesterday afternoon with a short, dark feller what
is stopping here. This here Pasinsky is stopping where I am, but he
ain't showed up all night, and I guess he's stayed here with that short,
dark feller."
The clerk touched a bell.
"Front," he said, "show this gentleman up to eighty-nine."
"Eighty-nine?" Abe cried. "Who's up in eighty-nine?"
[Illustration: YOU'RE A FRESH YOUNG FELLER!]
"Tall, curly-haired gentleman came in here yesterday afternoon with a
short, dark gentleman name of Katzen and----"
Abe clapped his hand to his forehead.
"Arthur Katzen!" he cried.
The clerk nodded.
"Short, dark feller," Abe murmured as he followed the bell-boy. "Why
didn't I think of Arthur Katzen before?"
He entered the elevator, feeling as though he were walking in his sleep;
nor did the jolt with which he was shot up to the eighth floor awaken
him. His conductor led him down the corridor and was about to knock at
room eighty-nine when Abe seized him by the arm.
"Hold on," Abe whispered. "The door is open."
They tiptoed up to the half-open door and, holding himself well within
the shadow of the corridor, Abe peeped in. It was ten o'clock of a sunny
fall day, but the dark shades of room eighty-nine were drawn and the
electric lights were blazing away as though it were still midnight.
Beneath the lights was a small, oblong table at which sat three men,
and in front of each of them stood a small pile of chips. Marks Pasinsky
was dealing.
"A-ah, Katzen, you ruined that hand," Marks Pasinsky said as he
flipped out the cards three at a time. "Why didn't you lead it out
the ace of _Schueppe_ right at the start? What did you expect to do
with it? Eat it?"
Katzen nodded sleepily.
"The way I feel now, Pasinsky, I could eat most anything," he retorted.
"I could eat a round trip, if I had a cup of coffee with it, so hungry I
am. Let's have some supper."
"Supper!" Pasinsky cried. "What do you want supper for? The game is
young yet."
"Shall I tell you something?" the third hand--a stranger to Abe--said.
"You both played that hand like _Strohschneiders_. Pasinsky sits there
with two nines of trump in his hand and don't lead 'em through me. You
could have beat me by a million very easy."
He waved his hand with the palm outward and flapped his four fingers
derisively.
"You call yourself a pinochle player!" he jeered, and fell to twisting
his huge red mustache with his fingers.
Abe nodded an involuntary approval, and then as silently as they had
arrived he and the bell-boy retreated toward the elevator shaft.
"Dem guys is card fiends all right," the bell-boy commented. "Dey
started in at five o'clock last night."
As they waited for the elevator the strains of a piano came from the
floor below.
"What's that?" Abe exclaimed.
"Dat's anudder member of de gang," the bell-boy replied. "Dat's Mr.
Rabiner. He quit a big loser about one o'clock dis mornin'."
Abe handed his informant a dime.
"Take me to his room," he said.
The bell-boy led the way to the seventh floor and conducted Abe to the
door of Rabiner's room.
"Dat's a pretty said spiel dat guy is tearin' off," he commented. "It
makes me tink of a dago funeral."
Abe nodded. He knocked at the door, and Liszt's transcription of the
_Liebestod_ ceased immediately.
"Well?" Mozart Rabiner cried and, for answer, Abe opened the door.
"Hallo, Moe!" he said. "You don't know me. What? I'm Abe Potash."
"Oh, hello, Potash!" Rabiner said, rising from the piano stool.
"That's some pretty mournful music you was giving us, Moe," Abe went on.
"Sounds like business was poor already. Ain't you working no more?"
"I am and I ain't," Mozart replied. "I'm supposed to be selling goods
for Klinger & Klein, but since I only sold it one bill in two weeks I
ain't got much hopes that I'll get enough more money out of 'em to move
me out of town."
"What do you make next, Moe?" Abe asked.
"St. Paul and Minneapolis," Mozart replied.
Abe handed him a large cigar and, lighting the mate to it, puffed away
complacently.
"That was a pretty good order you got it from Prosnauer which Sol
Klinger tells me about," he said.
Mozart nodded sadly.
"Looky here, Moe," Abe went on, "how much money do you need to
move you?"
Mozart lifted his eyebrows and shrugged hopelessly.
"More as you would lend me, Potash," he said. "So what's the use talking
about it?"
"Well, I was going to say," Abe continued, "if it was something what you
might call within reason, Moe, I might advance it if----"
"If what?" Moe inquired.
"If you would tell me the insides of just how you got it that order from
Prosnauer."
Mozart gave a deprecatory wave of his right hand.
"You don't got to bribe me to tell you that, Potash," he said, "because
I ain't got no concern in that order no longer. I give up my commission
there to a feller by the name Ignatz Kresnick."
"A white-faced feller with a big red mustache?" Abe asked.
"That's him," Mozart replied. "The luck that feller Kresnick got it is
something you wouldn't believe at all. He could fall down a sewer
manhole and come up in a dress suit and a clean shave already. He cleans
me out last night two hundred dollars and the commission on that
Prosnauer order."
"But you didn't get that order in the first place, Moe," Abe said.
"Marks Pasinsky got the order."
"Sure, I know," Mozart replied, "but he got set back a couple of four
hundred hands last Tuesday night with Katzen and me in the game, and
the way he settles up his losing is that Katzen and me should take his
commissions on a couple of orders which he says he is going to get from
Simon Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers & Co., and Chester Prosnauer, of
the Arcade Mercantile Company. Sure enough, he gets the orders from both
of 'em the very next morning. That's the kind of salesman he is."
"But why didn't Pasinsky send us along the orders, Moe," Abe protested,
"and we could fix up about the commissions later? Why should he sent it
the orders to Klinger & Klein and Sammet Brothers?"
"Well, you see, business was poor with me and I wanted to make good,
being as this was my first trip with the concern; so, as a favor to
me Pasinsky turns over the whole order to me," Mozart explained;
"and then, when Katzen sees that, he wants the other order sent to
his concern, too."
"But this was Pasinsky's first trip by us, also," Abe cried.
"I know it," Mozart said, "but Pasinsky says that he didn't care,
because a good salesman like him could always find it an opening
somewhere, and anyway he wasn't stuck on working for a piker concern
like yours."
Abe rose with his eyes ablaze.
"That settles it," he said, jamming his hat on his head. "I'm going for
a policeman. I'll teach that sucker to steal my orders!"
He bounced out of the room and, as he rang for the elevator, Isolde's
lament once more issued from beneath. Mozart Rabiner's fingers:
_Mild und leise wie er laechelt
Wie das Auge hold er oeffnet_
While from the floor above came the full, round tones of the salesman,
Marks Pasinsky.
"Sixty queens," he said.
Abe ran out of the hotel lobby straight into the arms of a short, stout
person.
"Excuse me," Abe exclaimed.
"I'll excuse you, Potash," said the short, stout person, "but I wouldn't
run like that if I got it the rheumatism so bad."
Abe looked at the speaker and gasped. It was B. Gans.
"What are you doing in Chicago, Potash?" Gans asked.
"You should ask me that," Abe snorted indignantly. "If it wouldn't be
for you I wouldn't never got to leave New York."
"What do you mean?" Gans asked.
"I mean you gives me a good reference for this feller Marks Pasinsky,"
Abe shouted. "And even now I am on my way out for a policeman to make
this here Pasinsky arrested."
B. Gans whistled. He surrendered to a bell-boy the small valise he
carried and clutched Abe's arm.
"I wouldn't do that," he said. "Come inside the cafe and tell me all
about it."
Abe shook himself free.
"Why shouldn't I make him arrested?" he insisted. "He's a thief. He
stole my samples."
"Well, he stole my samples, too, oncet," B. Gans replied. "Come inside
the cafe and I'll give you a little sad story what I got, too."
A moment later they were seated at a marble-top table.
"Yes, Abe," B. Gans went on after they had given the order, "Marks
Pasinsky stole my samples, too. Let's hear your story first."
Straightway Abe unfolded to B. Gans the tale of Marks Pasinsky's
adventure with Mozart Rabiner and Arthur Katzen, and also told him
how the orders based on Potash & Perlmutter's sample line had found
their way into the respective establishments of Sammet Brothers and
Klinger & Klein.
"Well, by jimminy!" B. Gans commented, "that's just the story I got to
tell it you. This feller does the selfsame funny business with my
samples. He gets orders from a couple of big concerns in St. Louis and
then he gambles them away to a feller called Levy. So what do I do,
Potash? He goes to work and has 'em both arrested, and then them two
fellers turns around and fixes up a story and the first thing you know
the police judge lets 'em go. Well, Potash, them two fellers goes down
to New York and hires a lawyer, by the name Henry D. Feldman, and sue
me in the courts yet that I made them false arrested. Cost me a thousand
dollars to settle it, and I also got to agree that if anybody inquires
about Pasinsky I should say only that he is a good salesman--which is
the truth, Potash, because he is a good salesman--and that the reason he
left me is by mutual consent, y'understand?"
Abe nodded.
"That's a fine piece of work, that Marks Pasinsky," he commented. "I
wish I had never seen him already. What shall I do, Gans? I am in a
fine mess."
"No, you ain't yet," B. Gans replied. "Prosnauer and Kuhner knows me,
Potash, and I am willing, as long as I got you into this, I will get you
out of it. I will go with you myself, Potash, and I think I got
influence enough in the trade that I could easy get them to give you
back them samples."
"I know you can," Abe said enthusiastically, "and if you would put it to
'em strong enough I think we could swing back to us them orders from
Sammet Brothers and Klinger & Klein."
"That I will do for you, also," B. Gans agreed. "But now, Potash, I got
troubles ahead of me, too."
"How's that?" Abe inquired, much interested.
"I got it a lowlife what I hired for a salesman, also," he replied, "and
three weeks ago that feller left my place with my samples and I ain't
heard a word from him since. If I got to search every gamblinghouse in
Chicago I will find that loafer; and when I do find him, Potash, I will
crack his neck for him."
"I wouldn't do nothing rash, Gans," Abe advised. "What for a looking
feller is this salesman of yours?"
"He's a tall, white-faced loafer with a big red mustache," Gans replied,
"and his name is Ignatz Kresnick."
Abe jumped to his feet.
"Come with me," he cried. Together they took the elevator to the eighth
floor and, as Ignatz Kresnick dealt the cards for the five-hundredth
time in that game, all unconscious of his fast-approaching Nemesis,
Mozart Rabiner played the concluding measures of the _Liebestod_ softly,
slowly, like a benediction:
_Ertrinken--
Versinken--
Unbewusst--
Hoechste Lust._