was set at naught, and once more Babette and Doctor Eichendorfer
assisted him to his bed. That night he had neither the strength nor the
inclination to make his accustomed raid on the ice-box, nor could he
resist the administration of Doctor Eichendorfer's tablets; so that the
following day found him weaker than ever. It was not until another week
had elapsed that his appetite began to assert itself; but when it did
he convalesced rapidly. Indeed, at the end of the month, Doctor
Eichendorfer permitted him to take short walks with Babette. Gradually
the length of these promenades increased until Babette found her entire
forenoons monopolized by her father.
"Ain't it awful!" she said to Sam one Sunday morning as they paced
slowly along Lenox Avenue. "I am so tied down."
"You ain't tied down," Sam replied ungraciously. "For my part, I would
as lief hang around this here place by myself."
"It's all very well for you to talk," Babette rejoined; "but you know
very well that in your condition you could drop in the street at any
time yet."
"_Schmooes!_" Sam cried. "I am walking by myself for sixty-five years
yet and I guess I could continue to do it."
"But Doctor Eichendorfer says----" Babette began.
"What do I care what Doctor Eichendorfer says!" Sam interrupted. "And,
furthermore, supposing I would drop in the street--which anybody could
slip oncet in a while on a banana peel, understand me--ain't I got
cards in my pocket?"
Babette remained silent for a moment, whereat Sam plucked up new
courage.
"Why should you bother yourself to _schlepp_ me along like this?" he
said. "There's lots of people I could go out with. Ain't it? Take old
man Herz _oder_ Mrs. Krakauer--they would be glad to go out walking
with me; and oncet in a while I could go and call on Mrs. Schrimm
maybe."
"Mrs. Schrimm!" Babette exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you talk that
way. Mrs. Schrimm for years goes around telling everybody that mommer
_selig_ leads you a dawg's life."
"Everybody's got a right to their opinion, Babette," Sam said; "but,
anyhow, that ain't here nor there. If you wouldn't want me to go around
and see Mrs. Schrimm I wouldn't."
Babette snorted.
"In the first place," she said, "you couldn't go unless I go with you;
and, in the second place, you couldn't get me to go there for a hundred
dollars."
Beyond suggesting that a hundred dollars was a lot of money, Sam made
no further attempt to secure his liberty that morning; but on the
following day he discreetly called his daughter's attention to a
full-page advertisement in the morning paper.
"Ain't you was telling me the other evening you need to got some table
napkins, Babette?" he asked.
Babette nodded.
"Well, here it is in the paper that new concern, Weldon, Jones &
Company, is selling to-day napkins at three dollars a dozen--the best
damask napkins," he concluded.
Babette seized the paper and five minutes later she was poking hatpins
into her scalp with an energy that made Sam's eyes water.
"Where are you going, Babette?" he said.
"I'm going downtown to that sale of linens," she said, "and I'll be
back to take you out at one o'clock."
"Don't hurry on my account," Sam said. "I've got enough here in the
paper to keep me busy until to-night yet."
Five minutes later the basement door banged and Sam jumped to his feet.
With the agility of a man half his age he ran upstairs to the parlour
floor and put on his hat and coat; and by the time Babette had turned
the corner of Lenox Avenue Sam walked out of the areaway of his
old-fashioned, three-story-and-basement, high-stoop residence on One
Hundred and Eighteenth Street en route for Mrs. Schrimm's equally
old-fashioned residence on One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street. There
he descended the area steps; and finding the door ajar he walked into
the basement dining-room.
"_Wie gehts_, Mrs. Schrimm!" he cried cheerfully.
"Oo-ee! What a _Schreck_ you are giving me!" Mrs. Schrimm exclaimed.
"This is Sam Gembitz, ain't it?"
"Sure it is," Sam replied. "Ain't you afraid somebody is going to come
in and steal something on you?"
"That's that girl again!" Mrs. Schrimm said as she bustled out to the
areaway and slammed the door. "That's one of them _Ungarischer_ girls,
Mr. Gembitz, which all they could do is to eat up your whole ice-box
empty and go out dancing on _Bauern_ balls till all hours of the
morning. Housework is something they don't know nothing about at all.
Well, Mr. Gembitz, I am hearing such tales about you--you are dying,
and so on."
"_Warum_ Mister Gembitz?" Sam said. "Ain't you always called me Sam,
Henrietta?"
Mrs. Schrimm blushed. In the lifetime of the late Mrs. Gembitz she had
been a constant visitor at the Gembitz house, but under Babette's
chilling influence the friendship had withered until it was only a
memory.
"Why not?" she said. "I certainly know you long enough, Sam."
"Going on thirty-five years, Henrietta," Sam said, "when you and me and
Regina come over here together. Things is very different nowadays,
Henrietta. Me, I am an old man already."
"What do you mean old?" Mrs. Schrimm cried. "When my _Grossvater selig_
was sixty-eight he gets married for the third time yet."
"Them old-timers was a different proposition entirely, Henrietta," Sam
said. "If I would be talking about getting married, Henrietta, the
least that happens to me is my children would put me in a lunatic
asylum yet."
"Yow!" Mrs. Schrimm murmured skeptically.
"Wouldn't they?" Sam continued. "Well, you could just bet your life
they would. Why, I am sick only a couple weeks or so, Henrietta, and
what do them boys do? They practically throw me out of my business yet
and tell me I am retired."
"And you let 'em?" Mrs. Schrimm asked.
"What could I do?" Sam said. "I'm a sick man, Henrietta. Doctor
Eichendorfer says I wouldn't live a year yet."
"Doctor Eichendorfer says that!" Mrs. Schrimm rejoined. "And do you
told me that you are taking Doctor Eichendorfer's word for it?"
"Doctor Eichendorfer is a _Rosher_, I admit," Sam answered; "but he's a
pretty good doctor, Henrietta."
"For the _gesund_, yes," Mrs. Schrimm admitted. "But if my cat would be
sick, Sam, and Doctor Eichendorfer charges two cents a call yet, I
wouldn't have him in my house at all. I got too much respect for my
cat, Sam. With that feller, as soon as he comes into the bedroom he
says the patient is dying; because if the poor feller does die,
understand me, then Eichendorfer is a good prophet, and if he gets
better then Eichendorfer is a good doctor. He always fixes it so he
gets the credit both ways. But you got to acknowledge one thing about
that feller, Sam--he knows how to charge, Sam; and he's a good
collector. Everybody says so."
Sam nodded sadly.
"I give you right about that," he said.
"And, furthermore," Mrs. Schrimm began, "he----"
Mrs. Schrimm proceeded no further, however, for the sound of a saucepan
boiling over brought her suddenly to her feet and she dashed into the
kitchen.
Two minutes later a delicate, familiar odour assailed Sam's nostrils,
and when Mrs. Schrimm returned she found him unconsciously licking his
lips.
"Yes, Sam," she declared, "them _Ungarischer_ girls is worser as nobody
in the kitchen. Pretty near ruins my whole lunch, and I got Mrs.
Krakauer coming, too. You know what a talker that woman is; and if I
would give her something which it is a little burned, y'understand, the
whole of New York hears about it."
"Well, Henrietta," Sam said as he rose and seized his hat, "I must be
going."
"Going!" Mrs. Schrimm cried. "Why, you're only just coming. And
besides, Sam, you are going to stop to lunch, too."
"Lunch!" Sam exclaimed. "Why, I don't eat lunch no more, Henrietta. All
the doctor allows me is crackers and milk."
"Do you mean Doctor Eichendorfer allows you that?" Mrs. Schrimm asked,
and Sam nodded.
"Then all I could say is," she continued, "that you are going to stay
to lunch, because if Doctor Eichendorfer allows a man only crackers and
milk, Sam, that's a sign he could eat _Wienerwurst_, dill pickles, and
_Handkaese_. _Aber_ if Doctor Eichendorfer says you could eat steaks and
chops, stick to boiled eggs and milk--because steaks would kill you
sure."
"But Babette would be back at one o'clock and if I didn't get home
before then she would take my head off for me."
Mrs. Schrimm nodded sympathetically.
"So you wouldn't stay for lunch?" she said.
"I couldn't," Sam protested.
"Very well, then," Mrs. Schrimm cried as she hurried to the kitchen.
"Sit right down again, Sam; I would be right back."
When Mrs. Schrimm appeared a few minutes later she bore a cloth-covered
tray which she placed on the table in front of Sam.
"You got until half-past twelve--ain't it?" she said; "so take your
time, Sam. You should chew your food good, especially something which
it is already half chopped, like _gefuellte Rinderbrust_."
"_Gefuellte Rinderbrust!_" Sam cried. "Why"--he poked at it with his
knife--"Why, this always makes me sick." He balanced a good mouthful on
his fork. "But, anyhow----" he concluded, and the rest of the sentence
was an incoherent mumbling as he fell to ravenously. Moreover, he
finished the succulent dish, gravy and all, and washed down the whole
with a cup of coffee--not Hammersmith's coffee or the dark brown fluid,
with a flavour of stale tobacco pipe, that Miss Babette Gembitz had
come to persuade herself was coffee, but a fragrant decoction, softened
by rich, sweet cream and containing all the delicious fragrance of the
best thirty-five-cent coffee, fresh-ground from the grocer's.
"_Ja_, Henrietta," Sam cried as he rose to leave; "I am going to
weddings and fashionable hotels, and I am eating with high-grade
customers in restaurants which you would naturally take a high-grade
customer to, understand me; but--would you believe me, Henrietta!--I am
yet got to taste such coffee _oder_ such _gefuellte Rinderbrust_ as you
are giving me now."
Mrs. Schrimm beamed her acknowledgment of the compliment.
"To-morrow you would get some chicken fricassee, Sam," she said, "if
you would get here at half-past eleven sharp."
Sam shook her hand fervently.
"Believe me, I would try my best," he said; and fifteen minutes later,
when Babette entered the Gembitz residence on One Hundred and
Eighteenth Street, she found Sam as she had left him--fairly buried in
the financial page of the morning paper.
"Well, Babette," Sam cried, "so you see I went out and I took my walk
and I come back and nothing happened to me. Ain't it?"
Babette nodded.
"I'll get you your lunch right away," she said; and without removing
her hat and jacket, she brought him a glass of buttermilk and six plain
crackers. Sam watched her until she had ascended the stairs to the
first floor; then he stole on tiptoe to the sink in the butler's pantry
and emptied the buttermilk down the wastepipe. A moment later he opened
the door of a bookcase that stood near the mantelpiece and deposited
five of the crackers behind six full-morocco volumes entitled "Prayers
for Festivals and Holy Days." He was busily engaged in eating the
remaining cracker when Babette returned; and all that afternoon he
seemed so contented and even jovial that Babette determined to permit
him his solitary walk on the following day.
Thus Sam not only ate the chicken fricassee but three days afterward,
when he visited Mrs. Schrimm upon the representation to Babette that he
would sit all the morning in Mt. Morris Park, he suggested to Henrietta
that he show some return for her hospitality by taking her to luncheon
at a fashionable hotel downtown.
"My restaurant days is over," Mrs. Schrimm declared.
"To oblige me," Sam pleaded. "I ain't been downtown in--excuse me--such
a helluva long time I don't know what it's like at all."
"If you are so anxious to get downtown, Sam," Mrs. Schrimm rejoined,
"why don't you go down and get lunch with Henry? He'd be glad to have
you."
"What, alone?" Sam cried. "Why, if Babette would hear of it----"
"Who's going to tell her?" Mrs. Schrimm asked, and Sam seized his hat
with trembling fingers.
"By jimminy, I would do it!" he said, and then he paused irresolutely.
"But how could I get home in time if I did?"
A moment later he snapped his fingers.
"I got an idee!" he exclaimed. "You are such good friends with Mrs.
Krakauer--ain't it?"
Mrs. Schrimm nodded.
"Then you should do me the favour, Henrietta, and go over to Mrs.
Krakauer and tell her she should ring up Babette and tell her I am over
at her house and I wouldn't be back till three o'clock."
"Couldn't you go downtown if you want to?" Mrs. Schrimm replied. "Must
you got to ask Babette's permission first?"
Sam nodded slowly.
"You don't know that girl, Henrietta," he said bitterly. "She is Regina
_selig_ over again--only worser, Henrietta."
"All right. I would do as you want," Mrs. Schrimm declared.
"Only one thing I must got to tell you," Sam said as he made for the
door: "don't let Mrs. Krakauer talk too much, Henrietta, because that
girl is suspicious like a credit man. She don't believe nothing nobody
tells her."
* * * * *
When Sam entered the showroom of Henry Schrimm's place of business,
half an hour later, Henry hastened to greet him. "_Wie gehts_, Mr.
Gembitz?" he cried.
He drew forward a chair and Sam sank into it as feebly as he considered
appropriate to the role of a convalescent.
"I'm a pretty sick man, Henry," he said, "and I feel I ain't long for
this world."
He allowed his head to loll over his left shoulder in an attitude of
extreme fatigue; in doing so, however, his eye rested for a moment upon
a shipping clerk who was arranging Henry's sample garments on some
old-fashioned racks.
"Say, lookyhere, Henry," Sam exclaimed, raising his head suddenly, "how
the devil could you let a feller like that ruin your whole sample
line?"
He jumped from his chair and strode across the showroom.
"_Schlemiel!_" he cried. "What for you are wrinkling them garments like
that?"
He seized a costume from the astonished shipping clerk and for half an
hour he arranged and rearranged Henry's samples until the job was
finished to his satisfaction.
"Mr. Gembitz," Henry protested, "sit down for a minute. You would make
yourself worse."
"What d'ye mean, make myself worse?" Sam demanded. "I am just as much
able to do this as you are, Henry. Where do you keep your piece goods,
Henry?"
Henry led the way to the cutting room and Sam Gembitz inspected a dozen
bolts of cloth that were piled in a heap against the wall.
"That's just what I thought, Henry," Sam cried. "You let them fellers
keep the place here like a pig-sty."
"Them's only a lot of stickers, Mr. Gembitz," Henry explained.
"Stickers!" Sam repeated. "What d'ye mean stickers? That's the same
mistake a whole lot of people makes. There ain't no such thing as
stickers, Henry. Sometimes you get ahold of some piece goods which is
out of demand for the time being, Henry; but sooner or later the
fashions would change, Henry, and then the stickers ain't stickers no
more. They're live propositions again."
Henry made no reply and Sam continued:
"Yes, Henry," he went on, "some people is always willing they should
throw out back numbers which really ain't back numbers at all. Take
them boys of mine, for instance, Henry, and see how glad they was to
get rid of me on account they think I am a back number; but I ain't,
Henry. And just to show you I ain't, Henry, do you happen to have on
hand some made-up garments which you think is stickers?"
Henry nodded.
"Well, if I don't come downtown to-morrow morning and with all them
there stickers sold for you," Sam cried, "my name ain't Sam Gembitz at
all."
"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Gembitz," Henry protested, "you would make
yourself sick again. Come out and have a bite of lunch with me."
"That's all right, Henry," Sam replied. "I ain't hungry for lunch--I am
hungry for work; and if you would be so good and show me them stickers
which you got made up, Henry, I could assort 'em in lots, and to-morrow
morning I would take a look-in on some of them upper Third Avenue
stores, Henry. And if I don't get rid of 'em for you, understand me,
you could got right uptown and tell Babette. Otherwise you should keep
your mouth shut and you and me does a whole lot of business together."
Half an hour later Sam carefully effaced the evidences of his toil with
soap and water and a whisk-broom, and began his journey uptown. Under
one arm he carried a bundle of sample garments that might have taxed
the strength of a much younger man.
This bundle he deposited for safekeeping with the proprietor of a cigar
store on Lenox Avenue; and, after a final brush-down by the bootblack
on the corner, he made straight for his residence on One Hundred and
Eighteenth Street. When he entered he found Babette impatiently
awaiting him.
"Why didn't you stay all night, popper?" she demanded indignantly.
"Here I am all dressed and waiting to go downtown--and you keep me
standing around like this."
"Another time you shouldn't wait at all," Sam retorted. "If you want to
go downtown, go ahead. I could always ask the girl for something if I
should happen to need it."
He watched Babette leave the house with a sigh of relief, and for the
remainder of the afternoon he made intricate calculations with the stub
of a lead pencil on the backs of old envelopes. Ten minutes before
Babette returned he thrust the envelopes into his pocket and smiled
with satisfaction, for he had computed to a nicety just how low a price
he could quote on Henry Schrimm's stickers, so as to leave a margin of
profit for Henry after his own commissions were paid.
The following morning Sam arrayed himself with more than ordinary care,
and promptly at ten o'clock he seized his cane and started for the
door.
"Where are you going?" Babette demanded.
"I guess I would take a little walk in the park," he said to his
daughter in tremulous tones, and Babette eyed him somewhat
suspiciously.
"Furthermore," he said boldly, "if you want to come with me you could
do so. The way you are looking so yellow lately, Babette, a little walk
in the park wouldn't do you no harm."
Sam well knew that his daughter was addicted to the practice of facial
massage, and he felt sure that any reference to yellowness would drive
Babette to her dressing-table and keep her safely engaged with mirror
and cold cream until past noon.
"Don't stay out long," she said, and Sam nodded.
"I would be back when I am hungry," he replied; "and maybe I would take
a look in at Mrs. Krakauer. If you get anxious about me telephone her."
Ten minutes later he called at the cigar store on Lenox Avenue and
secured his samples, after which he rang up Mrs. Schrimm.
"Hello, Henrietta!" he shouted, "This is Sam--yes, Sam Gembitz. What is
the matter? Nothing is the matter. Huh? Sure, I feel all right. I give
you a scare? Why should I give you a scare, Henrietta? Sure, we are old
friends; but that ain't the point, Henrietta. I want to ask you you
should do me something as a favour. You should please be so good and
ring up Mrs. Krakauer, which you should tell her, if Babette rings her
up and asks for me any time between now and six o'clock to-night, she
should say I was there, but I just left. Did you get that straight? All
right. Good-bye."
He heaved a sigh of relief as he paid for the telephone call and
pocketed a handful of cheap cigars.
"Don't you want a boy to help you carry them samples, Mr. Gembitz?" the
proprietor asked.
"Do I look like I wanted a boy to help me carry samples?" Sam retorted
indignantly, and a moment later he swung aboard an eastbound crosstown
car.
It was past noon when Sam entered Henry Schrimm's showroom and his face
bore a broad, triumphant grin.
"Well, Henry," he shouted, "what did I told you? To a feller which he
is knowing how to sell goods there ain't no such things as stickers."
"Did you get rid of 'em?" Henry asked.
Sam shook his head.
"No, Henry," he said, "I didn't get rid of 'em--I sold 'em; and,
furthermore, Henry, I sold four hundred dollars' worth more just like
'em to Mr. Rosett, of the Rochelle Department Store, which you should
send him right away a couple sample garments of them 1040's."
"What d'ye mean, 1040's?" Henry asked. "I ain't got no such lot number
in my place."
"No, I know you ain't; but I mean our style 1040--that is to say,
Gembitz Brothers' style 1040."
Henry blushed.
"I don't know what you are talking about at all," he said.
"No?" Sam retorted slyly. "Well, I'll describe it to you, Henry. It's
what you would call a princess dress in tailor-made effects. The
waist's got lapels of the same goods, with a little braid on to it, two
plaits in the middle and one on each shoulder; yoke and collar of silk
net; and----"
"You mean my style number 2018?" Henry asked.
"I don't mean nothing, Henry," Sam declared, "because you shouldn't
throw me no bluffs, Henry. I seen one of them garments in your cutting
room only yesterday, Henry, which, if it wasn't made up in my old
factory, I would eat it, Henry--and Doctor Eichendorfer says I got to
be careful with my diet at that."
Henry shrugged.
"Well," he began, "there ain't no harm if----"
"Sure, there ain't no harm, Henry," Sam said, "because them garments is
going like hot cakes. A big concern like Falkstatter, Fein & Company
takes over three thousand dollars' worth from the boys for their stores
in Sarahcuse, Rochester, and Buffalo."
"Falkstatter, Fein & Company!" Henry cried. "Does them boys of yours
sell Falkstatter, Fein & Company?"
"Sure," Sam answered. "Why not?"
"Why not?" Henry repeated. "Ain't you heard?"
"I ain't heard nothing," Sam replied; "but I know that concern for
twenty years since already, Henry, and they always pay prompt to the
day."
"Sure, I know," Henry said; "but only this morning I seen Sol Klinger
in the subway and Sol tells me Simon Falkstatter committed suicide last
night."
"Committed suicide!" Sam gasped. "What for?"
"I don't know what for," Henry replied; "but nobody commits suicide for
pleasure, Mr. Gembitz, and if a man is in business, like Falkstatter,
when Marshall Field's was new beginners already, Mr. Gembitz, and he
sees he is got to bust up, Mr. Gembitz, what should he do?"
Sam rose to his feet and seized his hat and cane.
"Going home so soon, Mr. Gembitz?" Henry asked.
"No, I ain't going home, Henry," Sam replied. "I'm going over to see my
boys. I guess they need me."
He started for the door, but as he reached it he paused.
"By the way, Henry," he said, "on my way down I stopped in to see that
new concern there on Fifth Avenue--Weldon, Jones & Company--and you
should send 'em up also a couple of them princess dresses in brown and
smoke. I'll see you to-morrow."
"Do you think you could get down again to-morrow?" Henry asked.
"I don't know, Henry; but if lies could get me here I guess I could,"
Sam replied. "Because, the way my children fixes me lately, I am
beginning to be such a liar that you could really say I am an expert."
* * * * *
Ten minutes later Sam Gembitz walked into the elevator of his late
place of business and smiled affably at the elevator boy, who returned
his greeting with a perfunctory nod.
"Well, what's new around here, Louis?" Sam asked.
"I dunno, Mr. Gembitz," the elevator boy said. "I am only just coming
back from my lunch."
"I mean what happens since I am going away, Louis?" Sam continued.
"I didn't know you went away at all, Mr. Gembitz," the elevator boy
replied.
"_Dummer Esel!_" Sam exclaimed. "Don't you know I was sick and I am
going away from here _schon_ three months ago pretty near?"
The elevator boy stopped the car at Gembitz Brothers' floor and spat
deliberately.
"In the building is twenty tenants, Mr. Gembitz," he said, "and the way
them fellers is sitting up all hours of the night, shikkering and
gambling, if I would keep track which of 'em is sick and which ain't
sick, Mr. Gembitz, I wouldn't got no time to run the elevator at all."
If the elevator boy's indifference made Sam waver in the belief that he
was sorely missed downtown the appearance of his late showroom
convinced him of his mistake. The yellow-pine fixtures had disappeared,
and in place of his old walnut table there had been installed three
rolltop desks of the latest Wall Street design.
At the largest of these sat Max, who wheeled about suddenly as his
father entered.
"What are you doing down here?" he demanded savagely.
"Ain't I got no right in my own business at all?" Sam asked mildly.
"Sidney!" Max cried, and in response his youngest brother appeared.
"Put on your hat and take the old man home," he said.
"One minute, Sidney," Sam said. "In the first place, Max, before we
talk about going home, I want to ask you a question: How much does
Falkstatter, Fein & Company owe us?"
"Us?" Max repeated.
"Well--you?" Sam replied.
"What's that your business?" Max retorted.