you are doing me in appointing me your chairman. For sixteen years now
my labours in the Independent Order Mattai Aaron ain't unknown to most
of you here. Ten years ago, at the national convention held in
Sarahcuse, gentlemen, I was unanimously elected by the delegates from
sixty lodges to be your National Grand Master; and----"
At this juncture Leon Sammet rose ponderously to his feet.
"Say, Finkman!" retorted Sammet. "What has all this _Stuss_ about the I.
O. M. A. got to do _mit_ Dishkes here?"
Again Finkman cleared his throat, and this time he produced a note of
challenge that caused the members of the I. O. M. A. there present to
lean forward in their seats. They expected a crushing rejoinder and they
were not disappointed.
"What is the motto of the I. O. M. A., Sammet?" Finkman thundered.
"'Justice, Fraternity and Charity!' And I say to you now that, as
chairman of this meeting, as well as Past National Grand Master of that
noble order to which you and I both belong, _verstehst du_, I will see
that justice be done, fraternity be encouraged and charity dispensed on
each and every occasion.
"Now, my brothers, here is a fellow member of our organization in
distress, y'understand; and I ask you one and all this question"--he
raised his voice to a pitch that made the filaments tremble in the
electric-light bulbs--"Who," he roared, "who will come to his
assistance?"
He paused dramatically just as Sam, the office boy, stuck his head in
the showroom doorway and rent the silence with his high, piping voice.
"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the man is here about Jacobowitz."
Elkan flapped his hand wildly, but it was too late to prevent the
entrance of no less a person than Jacob Paul--the connoisseur of
antiques and fine arts.
"Hello, Finkman!" he said; "what's the trouble here?"
Elkan started from his seat to interrupt his visitor, but there was
something in Finkman's manner that made him sit down again.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Paul?" Finkman exclaimed; and the clarion note
had deserted his voice, leaving only a slight hoarseness to mark its
passing. "What brings you here?"
"I might ask the same of you, Finkman," Jacob Paul replied; and as his
keen eyes scanned the assembled company they rested for a minute on Leon
Sammet, who forthwith began to perspire.
"The fact is," Finkman began, "this here is a meeting of creditors of
Louis Dishkes, of the Villy dee Paris Store on Amsterdam Avenue."
Paul turned to Louis Dishkes, proprietor of the Ville de Paris Store,
who sat at the side of the room behind Scheikowitz's desk in an
improvised prisoner's dock.
"What's the matter, Dishkes?" Paul asked. "Couldn't you make it go up
there?"
Dishkes shrugged hopelessly.
"Next month, when them houses round the corner is rented," he said, "I
could do a good business there."
"You ought to," Paul agreed. "You ain't got no competitors, so far as I
could see."
"That's what we all think!" Elkan broke in--"that is to say, all of us
except Mr. Sammet; and he ain't willing to wait for his money."
Leon Sammet moved uneasily in his chair as Jacob Paul faced about in his
direction.
"Why ain't you willing to wait, Sammet?" he asked; and Leon mopped his
face with his handkerchief.
"Well, it's like this, Mr. Paul----" he began, but the connoisseur of
antiques raised his hand.
"One moment, Sammet," he said. "You know as well as anybody else, and
better even, that a millionaire concern like the Hamsuckett Mills must
got to wait once in a while." He paused significantly. "If we didn't,"
he continued, "there's plenty of solvent concerns would be forced to the
wall--ain't it? Furthermore, if the Hamsuckett Mills did business the
way you want to, Sammet, I wouldn't keep my job as credit man and
treasurer very long."
Sammet nodded weakly and plied his handkerchief with more vigour, while
Elkan sat and stared at his acquaintance of Sunday night in unfeigned
astonishment.
"Then what is the use of talking, Sammet?" Paul said. "So long as you
are the only one standing out, why don't you make an end of it? How long
an extension does Dishkes want?"
"Two months," Finkman answered.
"And where is the agreement you fellows all signed?" Paul continued.
Elkan took a paper from the desk in front of Dishkes and passed it to
Paul, who drew from his waistcoat pocket an opulent gold-mounted
fountain pen. Then he walked over to Leon Sammet and handed him the pen
and the agreement.
"_Schreib_, Sammet," he said, "and don't make no more fuss about it."
A moment later Sammet appended a shaky signature to the agreement and
returned it, with the pen, to Paul.
A quarter of an hour later Jacob Paul sat in Elkan's office and smoked
one of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's best cigars.
"Now I put it up to you, Lubliner," he said: "them Jacobean chairs are
pretty high at fifty dollars, but I want 'em, and I'm willing to give
you sixty for 'em."
Elkan smiled and made a wide gesture with both hands.
"My dear Mr. Paul," he said, "after what you done to-day for Dishkes
I'll make you a present of 'em--free for nothing."
"No, you won't do no such thing," Paul declared; "because I'm going to
sell 'em again and at a profit, as I may as well tell you."
"My worries what you are going to do with 'em!" Elkan declared. "But one
thing I ain't going to do, Mr. Paul--I ain't going to make no profit on
you; so go ahead and take the chairs at what I paid for 'em--and that's
the best I could do for you."
It required no further persuasion for Jacob Paul to draw a fifty-dollar
check to Elkan's order; and as he rose to leave Elkan pressed his hand
warmly.
"Come up and see me, Mr. Paul, when we get through refurnishing," he
said. "I promise you you would see a flat furnished to your taste--no
crayon portraits nor nothing."
* * * * *
It was late in the afternoon when Elkan's office door opened to admit
Sam, the office boy.
"Mr. Lubliner," he said, "another feller is here about this
here--now--Jacobowitz."
Elkan glanced through the half-open door and recognized the figure of
Ringentaub, the antiquarian.
"Tell him to come in," he said; and a moment later Ringentaub was
wringing Elkan's hand and babbling his gratitude for his
brother-in-law's deliverance from bankruptcy.
"God will bless you for it, Mr. Lubliner," he said; "and I am ashamed of
myself when I think of it. I am a dawg, Mr. Lubliner--and that's all
there is to it."
Here he drew a greasy wallet from his breast-pocket and extracted three
ten-dollar bills.
"Take 'em, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "and forgive me."
He pressed the bills into Elkan's hand.
"What's this?" Elkan demanded.
"That's the change from your fifty dollars," Ringentaub replied;
"because, so help me, Mr. Lubliner, there is first-class material in
them chairs and the feller that makes 'em for me is a highgrade
cabinetmaker. Then you got to reckon it stands me in a couple of dollars
also to get 'em fixed up antique, y'understand; so, if you get them
chairs for twenty dollars you are buying a bargain, Mr. Lubliner."
"Why, what d'ye mean?" Elkan cried. "Ain't them chairs gen-wine Jacobean
chairs?"
"Not by a whole lot they ain't," Ringentaub declared fervently.
"But Mr. Paul thinks they are!" Elkan exclaimed.
"Sure, I know," Ringentaub answered; "and that shows what a lot a
collector knows about such things. Paul is a credit man for the
Hamsuckett Mills, Mr. Lubliner; but he collects old furniture on the
side."
For a moment Elkan gazed open-mouthed at the antiquarian and a great
light began to break in on him.
"So-o-o!" he cried. "That's what you mean by a collector!"
Ringentaub nodded.
"And furthermore, Mr. Lubliner, when collectors knows more about
antiques as dealers does, Mr. Lubliner," he said with his hand on the
doorknob, "I'll go into the woollen piece-goods business too--which you
could take it from me, Mr. Lubliner, it wouldn't be soon, by a hundred
years even."
* * * * *
When Elkan emerged from the One-Hundred-and-Sixteenth Street station of
the subway that evening a familiar voice hailed him from the rear.
"_Nu_, Elkan!" cried B. Gans, for it was none other than he. "You made
out fine at the meeting this morning--ain't it?"
"Who told you?" Elkan asked as he linked arms with the highgrade
manufacturer.
"Never mind who told me," B. Gans said jokingly; "but all I could say is
you made a tremendous hit with Jacob Paul, Elkan--and if that ain't no
compliment, understand me, I don't know what is. Why, there ain't a
better judge of men _oder_ antique furniture in this here city than
Paul, Elkan. He's an A-Number-One credit man, too, and I bet yer he gets
a big salary from them Hamsuckett Mills people, which the least his
income could be--considering what he picks up selling antiques--is
fifteen thousand a year."
"Does Paul sell all the antiques he collects?" Elkan asked.
"Does he?" B. Gans rejoined. "Well, I should say he does! Myself I
bought from him in the past two weeks half a dozen chairs, understand
me--four last week and two to-day--which I am paying him five hundred
dollars for the lot. They're worth it, too, Elkan. I never seen finer
examples of the period."
"But are you sure they're gen-wine?" Elkan asked as they reached the
entrance to his apartment house.
"Paul says they are," B. Gans answered, slapping Elkan's shoulder in
farewell; "and if he's mistaken, Elkan, then I'm content that I should
be."
Two hours later, however, after Elkan had recounted to Yetta all the
incidents of Dishkes' meeting and the resulting sale of the chairs, his
conscience smote him.
"What d'ye think, Yetta?" he asked. "Should I tell Paul and Gans the
chairs ain't gen-wine, _oder_ not?"
For more than ten minutes Yetta wrinkled her forehead over this knotty
ethical point; then she delivered her opinion.
"Mr. Gans tells you he is just as happy if they ain't gen-wine--ain't
it?" she said.
Elkan nodded.
"And Mr. Paul acted honest, because he didn't know they wasn't gen-wine
neither, ain't it?" she continued.
Again Elkan nodded.
"Then," Yetta declared, "if you are taking it so particular as all that,
Elkan, there's only one thing for you to do--give me the thirty
dollars!"
"Is that so!" Elkan exclaimed ironically. "And what will you do with the
money?"
"The only thing I can do with it, _Schlemiel_," she said. "Ten dollars I
will give Louis Dishkes he should take a trip up to the country over
Sunday and visit his wife."
"And what will we do with the other twenty?" Elkan asked.
"We'll send a present with him to Mrs. Dishkes," Yetta concluded with a
smile, "and it wouldn't be no antics neither!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
SWEET AND SOUR
ARE THE USES OF COMPETITIVE SALESMANSHIP
"_Aber_ me and Yetta is got it all fixed up we would go to Mrs. Kotlin's
already," Elkan Lubliner protested as he mopped his forehead one hot
Tuesday morning in July. "The board there is something elegant, Mr.
Scheikowitz. Everybody says so."
"_Yow!_ everybody!" Philip Scheikowitz retorted. "Who is everybody,
Elkan? A couple drummers like Marks Pasinsky, one or two real estaters,
understand me, and the rest of 'em is wives from J to L retailers, third
credit, which every time their husbands comes down to spend Sunday with
'em, y'understand, he must pretty near got to pawn the shirt from his
back for car fare already."
"Scheikowitz is right, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin joined in. "A feller
shouldn't make a god from his stomach, Elkan, especially when money
don't figure at all, so if you would be going down to Egremont Beach,
understand me, there's only one place you should stay, y'understand, and
that's the New Salisbury."
"Which if you wouldn't take our word for it, Elkan," Scheikowitz added,
"just give a look here."
He drew from his coat pocket the summer resort section of the previous
day's paper and thrust it toward his junior partner, indicating as he
did so a half column headed:
MIDSEASON GAIETY AT
EGREMONT BEACH
which reads as follows:
The season is in full swing here.
On Saturday night Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Gans gave a Chinese
Lantern Dinner in the Hanging Gardens at which were present
Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and Mrs.
Henry D. Feldman, Mr. Jacob Scharley and Miss Hortense
Feldman.
Among those who registered Friday at the New Salisbury were
Mr. Jacob Scharley of San Francisco, Mr. and Mrs. Sol Klinger,
Mr. Leon Sammet and his mother, Mrs. Leah Sammet.
"I thought that Leon's brother Barney was staying down at Egremont,"
Polatkin said after he and Elkan had read the item.
"Barney is at Mrs. Kotlin's," Scheikowitz explained, "because _mit_ Leon
Sammet, Polatkin, nothing is too rotten for Barney to stay at, and
besides he thinks Barney would get a little _small_ business there,
which the way Sammet Brothers figures, understand me, if they could
stick a feller with three bills of goods for a couple hundred dollars
apiece, y'understand, so long as he pays up on the first two, he
couldn't eat up their profits if he would bust up on 'em _mit_ the
third."
"Sure I know," Elkan said, "_aber_ I ain't going down to Egremont for
business, Mr. Scheikowitz, I'm going because it ain't so warm down
there."
"_Schmooes_, Elkan!" Scheikowitz retorted. "It wouldn't make it not one
degrees warmer in Egremont supposing you could get a couple new accounts
down there."
"B. Gans don't take it so particular about the weather," Polatkin
commented. "I bet yer he would a whole lot sooner take off his coat and
shirt and _spiel_ a little auction pinocle _mit_ Sol Klinger and Leon
Sammet and all them fellers as be giving dinners already in a tuxedo
suit to Sam Feder. I bet yer he gets a fine accommodation from the
Kosciusko Bank out of that dinner yet."
"The other people also he ain't _schencking_ no dinners to 'em for
nothing neither," Scheikowitz declared. "Every one of 'em means
something to B. Gans, I bet yer."
Elkan nodded.
"Particularly Scharley," he said.
"What d'ye mean, particularly Scharley?" Polatkin and Scheikowitz
inquired with one voice.
"Why, ain't you heard about Scharley?" Elkan asked. "It's right there in
the _Daily Cloak and Suit Journal_."
He indicated the front sheet of that newsy trade paper, where under the
heading of "Incorporations" appeared the following item:
The Scharley, Oderburg Drygoods Company, San Francisco, Cal.,
has filed articles of incorporation, giving its capital stock
as $500,000, and expects to open its new store in September
next.
"And you are talking about staying by Mrs. Kotlin's!" Scheikowitz
exclaimed in injured tones. "You should ought to be ashamed of yourself,
Elkan."
Elkan received his senior partner's upbraiding with a patient smile.
"What show do we stand against a concern like B. Gans?" he asked.
"B. Gans sells him only highgrade goods, Elkan," Scheikowitz declared.
"I bet yer the least the feller buys is for twenty thousand dollars
garments here, and a good half would be popular price lines, which if we
would get busy, we stand an elegant show there, Elkan."
"You should ought to go down there to-morrow yet," Polatkin cried,
"because the first thing you know Leon Sammet would entertain him _mit_
oitermobiles yet, and Sol Klinger gets also busy, understand me, and the
consequences is we wouldn't be in it at all."
"Next Saturday is the earliest Yetta could get ready," Elkan replied
positively, and Polatkin strode up and down the floor in an access of
despair.
"All right, Elkan," he said, "if you want to let such an opportunity
slip down your fingers, y'understand, all right. _Aber_ if I would be
you, Elkan, I would go down there to-night yet."
Elkan shrugged his shoulders.
"I couldn't get Yetta she should close up the flat under the very least
_two_ days, Mr. Polatkin," he said. "She must got to fix everything just
right, _mit_ moth-camphor and _Gott weisst was nach_, otherwise she
wouldn't go at all. The rugs alone takes a whole day to fix."
"Do as you like, Elkan," Polatkin declared, "_aber_ you mark my words,
if Leon Sammet ain't shoving heaven and earth right now, y'understand, I
don't know nothing about the garment business at all."
In fulfilment of this prophecy, when Elkan entered his office the
following morning Polatkin waved in his face a copy of the morning
paper.
"Well," he said, "what did I told you, Elkan?"
Scheikowitz nodded slowly.
"My partner is right, Elkan," he added, "so stubborn you are."
"What's the matter now?" Elkan asked, and for answer Polatkin handed him
the paper with his thumb pressed against a paragraph as follows:
Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and Mrs.
Henry D. Feldman, Miss Hortense Feldman, and Mr. Jacob
Scharley were guests of Mr. Leon Sammet at a Chinese Lantern
Dinner this evening given in the Hanging Gardens of the New
Salisbury.
"I thought it would be at the least an oitermobile ride," Polatkin said
in melancholy tones, "but with that sucker all he could do is stealing a
competitor's idees. B. Gans gives Scharley a dinner and Leon Sammet is
got to do it, too, _mit_ the same guests and everything."
"Even to Feldman's sister already," Scheikowitz added, "which it must be
that Feldman is trying to marry her off to Scharley even if he would be
a widower _mit_ two sons in college. She's a highly educated young lady,
too."
"Young she ain't no longer," Polatkin interrupted, "and if a girl
couldn't cook even a pertater, understand me, it don't make no
difference if she couldn't cook it in six languages, y'understand,
Feldman would got a hard job marrying her off _anyhow_."
Scheikowitz made an impatient gesture with both hands, suggestive of a
dog swimming.
"That's neither here or there, Polatkin," he said. "The point is Elkan
should go right uptown and _geschwind_ pack his grip and be down at the
Salisbury this afternoon yet, if Yetta would be ready _oder_ not. We
couldn't afford to let the ground grow under our feet and that's all
there is _to_ it."
Thus, shortly after six o'clock that evening, Elkan and Yetta alighted
from the 5:10 special from Flatbush Avenue and picked their way through
a marital throng that kissed and embraced with as much ardour as though
the reunion had concluded a parting of ten years instead of ten hours.
At length the happy couples dragged themselves apart and crowded into
the automobile 'bus of the New Salisbury, sweeping Elkan and Yetta
before them, so that when the 'bus arrived at the hotel Elkan and Yetta
were the last to descend.
A burly yellow-faced porter seized the baggage with the contemptuous
manner that Ham nowadays evinces toward Shem, and Elkan and Yetta
followed him through the luxurious social hall to the desk. There the
room clerk immediately shot out a three-carat diamond ring, and when
Elkan's eyes became accustomed to the glare he saw that beneath it was a
fat white hand extended in cordial greeting.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Williams," Elkan cried, as he shook hands
fervently. "Ain't you in the Pitt House, Sarahcuse, no more?"
"I'm taking a short vacation in a sensible manner, Mr. Lubliner," Mr.
Williams replied in the rounded tones that only truly great actors,
clergymen, and room clerks possess. "Which means that I am interested in
a real-estate development near here, and I'm combining business with
pleasure for a couple of months."
Elkan nodded admiringly.
"You got the right idee, Mr. Williams," he said. "This is my wife, Mr.
Williams."
The room clerk acknowledged the introduction with a bow that combined
the grace of Paderewski and the dignity of Prince Florizel in just the
right proportions.
"Delighted to know you, Madame," he declared. "Have you made
reservations, Mr. Lubliner?"
Elkan shook his head and after an exchange of confidential murmurs Mr.
Williams assigned them a room with an ocean view, from which they
emerged less than half an hour later to await on the veranda the welcome
sound of the dinner gong. A buzz of animated conversation filled the
air, above which rose a little shriek of welcome as Mrs. Gans rushed
toward Yetta with outstretched hands.
"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried. "I didn't know you was coming down
here."
They exchanged the kiss of utter peace that persists between the kin of
highgrade and popular-priced manufacturers.
"I read about you in the newspapers," Yetta said, as they seated
themselves in adjoining rockers, and Mrs. Gans flashed all the gems of
her right hand in a gesture of deprecation.
"I tell you," she said, "it makes me sick here the way people carries
on. Honestly, Yetta, I don't see Barney only at meals and when he's
getting dressed. Everything is Mister _Scharley_, Mister _Scharley_. You
would think he was H. P. Morgan _oder_ the Czar of _Russland_ from the
fuss everybody makes over him."
Yetta nodded in sympathy and suddenly Mrs. Gans clutched the arm of her
chair.
"There he is now," she hissed.
"Where?" Yetta asked, and Mrs. Gans nodded toward a doorway at the end
of the veranda, on which in electric bulbs was outlined the legend,
"Hanging Gardens." Yetta descried a short, stout personage between fifty
and sixty years of age, arrayed in a white flannel suit of which the
coat and waistcoat were cut in imitation of an informal evening costume.
On his arm there drooped a lady no longer in her twenties, and from the
V-shaped opening in the rear of her dinner gown a medical student could
have distinguished with more or less certainty the bones of the cervical
vertebrae, the right and left scapula and the articulation of each with
the humerus and clavicle.
"That's Miss Feldman," Mrs. Gans whispered. "She's refined like
anything, Yetta, and she talks French better as a waiter already."
At this juncture the dinner gong sounded and Yetta rejoined Elkan in the
social hall.
"What is the trouble you are looking so _rachmonos_, Elkan?" she asked
as she pressed his arm consolingly.
"To-night it's Sol Klinger," Elkan replied. "He's got a dinner on in the
Hanging Gardens for Scharley, Yetta, and I guess I wouldn't get a
look-in even."
"You've got six weeks before you," Yetta assured him, "and you
shouldn't worry. Something is bound to turn up, ain't it?"
She gave his arm another little caress and they proceeded immediately to
the dining room, where the string orchestra and the small talk of two
hundred and fifty guests strove vainly for the ascendency in one
maddening cacophony. It was nearly eight o'clock before Elkan and Yetta
arose from the table and repaired to the veranda whose rockers were
filled with a chattering throng.
"Let's get out of this," Elkan said, and they descended the veranda
steps to the sidewalk. Five minutes later they were seated on a remote
bench of the boardwalk, and until nine o'clock they watched the beauty
of the moon and sea, which is constant even at Egremont Beach. When they
rose to go Yetta noticed for the first time a shawl-clad figure on the
adjacent bench, and immediately a pair of keen eyes flashed from a face
whose plump contentment was framed in a jet black wig of an early
Victorian design.
* * * * *
"Why, if it ain't Mrs. Lesengeld," Yetta exclaimed and the next moment
she enfolded the little woman in a cordial embrace.
"You grown a _bisschen_ fat, Yetta," Mrs. Lesengeld said. "I wouldn't
knew you at all, if you ain't speaking to me first."
"This is my husband, Mrs. Lesengeld--Mr. Lubliner," Yetta went on. "He
heard me talk often from you, Mrs. Lesengeld, and what a time you got it
learning me I should speak English yet."
Elkan beamed at Mrs. Lesengeld.
"And not only _that_," he said, "but also how good to her you was when
she was sick already. There ain't many boarding-house ladies like you,
Mrs. Lesengeld."
"And there ain't so many boarders like Yetta, neither," Mrs. Lesengeld
retorted.
"And do you got a boarding-house down here, Mrs. Lesengeld?" Yetta
asked.
"I've gone out of the boarding-house business," Mrs. Lesengeld replied,
"which you know what a trouble I got it _mit_ that lowlife Lesengeld,
_olav hasholom_, after he failed in the pants business, how I am working
my fingers to the bones already keeping up his insurings in the I. O. M.
A. and a couple thousand dollars in a company already."
Yetta nodded.
"Which I got my reward at last," Mrs. Lesengeld concluded. "Quick
diabetes, Yetta, and so I bought for ten thousand dollars a mortgage,
understand me, and my son-in-law allows me also four dollars a week
which I got it a whole lot easier nowadays."
"And are you staying down here?" Elkan asked.