especially devised for grand marches to supper. In rhythm and melody it
was exceedingly conventional, not to say reminiscent, and when Milton
seized his bow with the energy of despair and drew it sharply across
the strings of the _contra basso_ there was introduced a melodic and
harmonic element so totally at variance with the character of the
composition as to outrage the ears of even Ferdy Rothman. For one fatal
moment he turned his head, as did his six aids, and at once the grand
march to supper became a hopeless tangle. Simultaneously Milton saw
that in five minutes he would be propelled violently to the street at
the head of a flying wedge, and he sawed away with a grim smile on his
face. Groans like the ultimate sighs of a dying elephant came from
underneath his bow, while occasionally he surprised himself with a
weird harmonic. At length Professor Lusthaus could stand it no longer.
He threw his baton at Milton and followed it up with his violin case,
at which Milton deemed it time to retreat. He grabbed his hat and
overcoat and dashed wildly through the ranks of the thirty-nine
performers toward the front of the platform. Thence he leaped to the
ballroom floor, and two minutes later he was safely on the sidewalk
with nothing to hinder his exit save a glancing kick from Ferdy
Rothman.
It was precisely eleven o'clock, the very shank of the evening, and
Milton fairly shuddered at the idea of going home, but what was he to
do? His credit at all of the pool parlours had been strained to the
utmost and he was absolutely penniless. For two minutes he surveyed the
empty street and, with a stretch and a yawn, he started off home.
Ten minutes later Mrs. Zwiebel recognized with a leaping heart his
footsteps on the areaway. She ran to the door and opened it.
"Loafer!" she cried. "Where was you?"
"Aw, what's the matter now?" Milton asked as he kissed her
perfunctorily. "It's only just eleven o'clock."
"Sure, I know," Mrs. Zwiebel said. "What you come home so early for?"
Again Milton yawned and stretched.
"I was to a racket what the I.O.M.A.'s run off," he said.
He rubbed the dust from his trouser leg where Ferdy Rothman's kick had
soiled it.
"Things was getting pretty slow," he concluded, "so I put on my hat and
come home."
* * * * *
Breakfast at the Zwiebels' was a solemn feast. Mr. Zwiebel usually
drank his coffee in silence, or in as much silence as was compatible
with an operation which, with Mr. Zwiebel, involved screening the
coffee through his moustache. It emerged all dripping from the coffee,
and Mr. Zwiebel was accustomed to cleansing it with his lower lip and
polishing it off with his table napkin. Eggs and toast followed, and,
unless Mrs. Zwiebel was especially vigilant, her husband went downtown
with fragments of the yolks clinging to his eyebrows, for Mr. Zwiebel
was a hearty eater and no great stickler for table manners.
To Milton, whose table manners were both easy and correct, the
primitive methods of his father were irritating.
"Get a sponge!" he exclaimed on the morning after his orchestral
experience, as Mr. Zwiebel absorbed his coffee in long, gurgling
inhalations.
"Yes, Milton," Mr. Zwiebel commented, replacing his cup in the saucer,
"maybe I ain't such a fine gentleman what you are, but I ain't no
loafer, neither, y'understand. When I was your age I didn't sit down
and eat my breakfast at nine o'clock. I didn't have it so easy."
"Aw, what yer kicking about?" Milton replied. "You don't let me do
nothing down at the store, anyway. All I got to do is sit around. Why
don't you send me out on the road and give me a show?"
"A show I would give you," Zwiebel cried. "You mean a picnic, not a
show. No, Milton, I got some pretty good customers already, but I
wouldn't take no such liberties with 'em as sending out a lowlife like
you to sell 'em goods."
"All right," Milton said, and relapsed into a sulky silence.
"Lookyhere, Milton," Zwiebel commenced. "If I thought you was really
willing to work, y'understand, I would get you a good job. But with a
feller what's all the time fooling away his time, what's the use?"
"Maybe the boy would behave himself this time, popper," Mrs. Zwiebel
interceded. "Maybe he would attend to business this time, popper. Ain't
it?"
"Business!" Mr. Zwiebel exclaimed. "Business is something what the boy
ain't got in him at all. Honest, mommer, I got to sit down sometimes
and ask myself what did I done that I should have such a boy. He
wouldn't work; he wouldn't do nothing. Just a common, low-life bum,
what you see hanging around street corners. If I was a young feller
like that, Milton, I would be ashamed to show myself."
"Aw, cut it out!" Milton replied.
"Yes, mommer, if I would get that boy a good job, y'understand," Mr.
Zwiebel went on, "he would turn right around and do something,
y'understand, what would make me like I could never show myself again
in the place where he worked."
"Aw, what are you beefing about now?" Milton broke in. "You never got
me a decent job yet. All the places where I worked was piker concerns.
Why don't you get me a real job where I could sell some goods?"
"Talk is cheap, Milton," said Mr. Zwiebel. "But if I thought you meant
it what you said I would take up an offer what I got it yesterday from
Levy Rothman, of Levy Rothman & Co. He wants a young feller what he
could bring up in the business, mommer, and make it a salesman out of
him. But what's the use?"
"Maybe if you would take Milton down there and let Mr. Rothman see
him," Mrs. Zwiebel suggested, "maybe the boy would like the place."
"No, sir," Mr. Zwiebel declared, "I wouldn't do it. I positively
wouldn't do nothing of the kind."
He glanced anxiously at his son out of the corner of his eye, but
Milton gave no sign.
"Why should I do it?" he went on. "Levy Rothman is a good customer of
mine and he wants to pay a young feller fifteen dollars a week to
start. Naturally, he expects he should get a hard-working feller for
the money."
He felt sure that the fifteen dollars a week would provoke some show of
interest, and he was not mistaken.
"Well, I can work as hard as the next one," Milton cried. "Why don't
you take me down there and give me a show to get the job?"
Mr. Zwiebel looked at his wife with an elaborate assumption of
doubtfulness.
"What could I say to a young feller like that, mommer?" he said. "Mind
you, I want to help him out. I want to make a man of him, mommer, but
all the time I know how it would turn out."
"How could you talk that way, popper?" Mrs. Zwiebel pleaded. "The boy
says he would do his best. Let him have a chance, popper."
"All right," he said heartily; "for your sake, mommer, I will do it.
Milton, _lieben_, put on your coat and hat and we will go right down to
Rothman's place."
When Mr. Zwiebel and Milton entered the sample-room of Levy Rothman &
Co., three quarters of an hour later, Mr. Rothman was scanning the
Arrival of Buyers column in the morning paper.
"Ah, Mr. Rothman," Zwiebel cried, "ain't it a fine weather?"
"I bet yer it's a fine weather," Rothman agreed, "for cancellations. We
ain't never had such a warm November in years ago already."
"This is my boy Milton, Mr. Rothman, what I was talking to you about,"
Zwiebel continued.
"Yes?" Mr. Rothman said. "All right. Let him take down his coat and
he'll find a feather duster in the corner by them misses' reefers. I
never see nothing like the way the dust gets in here."
Mr. Zwiebel fairly beamed. This was a splendid beginning.
"Go ahead, Milton," he said; "take down your coat and get to work."
But Milton showed no undue haste.
"Lookyhere, pop," he said. "I thought I was coming down here to sell
goods."
"Sell goods!" Rothman exclaimed. "Why, you was never in the cloak and
suit business before. Ain't it?"
"Sure, I know," Milton replied, "but I can sell goods all right."
"Not here, you couldn't," Rothman said. "Here, before a feller sells
goods, he's got to learn the line, y'understand, and there ain't no
better way to learn the line, y'understand, than by dusting it off."
Milton put his hat on and jammed it down with both hands.
"Then that settles it," he declared.
"What settles it?" Rothman and Zwiebel asked with one voice; but before
Milton could answer the sample-room door opened and a young woman
entered. From out the coils of her blue-black hair an indelible lead
pencil projected at a jaunty angle.
"Mr. Rothman," she said, "Oppenheimer ain't credited us with that piece
of red velour we returned him on the twentieth, and he's charged us up
twice with the same item."
"That's a fine crook for you," Rothman cried. "Write him he should
positively rectify all mistakes before we would send him a check. That
feller's got a nerve like a horse, Mr. Zwiebel. He wants me I should
pay him net thirty days, and he never sends us a single statement
correct. Anything else, Miss Levy?"
"That's all, Mr. Rothman," she replied as she turned away.
Milton watched her as she closed the door behind her, and then he threw
down his hat and peeled off his coat.
"Gimme the feather duster," he said.
* * * * *
For two hours Milton wielded the feather broom, then Mr. Rothman went
out to lunch, and as a reflex Milton sank down in the nearest chair. He
opened the morning paper and buried himself in the past performances.
"Milton," a voice cried sharply, "ain't you got something to do?"
He looked up and descried Miss Levy herself standing over him.
"Naw," he said, "I finished the dusting."
Miss Levy took the paper gently but firmly from his hands.
"You come with me," she said.
He followed her to the office, where the monthly statements were ready
for mailing.
"Put the statements in those envelopes," she said, "and seal them up."
Milton sat down meekly on a high stool and piled up the envelopes in
front of him.
"Ain't you got any sponge for to wet these envelopes on?" he asked.
Miss Levy favoured him with a cutting glance.
"Ain't you delicate!" she said. "Use your tongue."
For five minutes Milton folded and licked and then he hazarded a
conversational remark:
"You like to dance pretty well, don't you?" he said.
"When I've got business to attend to," Miss Levy replied frigidly, "I
don't like anything."
"But I mean I seen you at the I.O.M.A.'s racket last night," Milton
continued, "and you seemed to be having a pretty good time."
Miss Levy suppressed a yawn.
"Don't mention it," she said; "I feel like a rag to-day. I didn't get
home till four o'clock."
This was something like friendly discourse, and Milton slackened up on
his work.
"Who was that feller with the curly hair you was dancing with?" he
began, when Miss Levy looked up and noted the cessation of his labour.
"Never you mind who he was, Milton," she answered. "You finish licking
those envelopes."
At this juncture they heard the sample-room door open and a heavy
footstep sound on its carpeted floor.
"Wait here," she hissed. "It's a customer, and everybody's out to
lunch. What's your other name, Milton?"
"Milton Zwiebel," he replied.
Hastily she adjusted her pompadour and tripped off to the sample-room.
"Ain't none of them actors around here to-day, Miss Levy?" a bass voice
asked.
"They're all out to lunch," Miss Levy explained.
"Where's Pasinsky?" the visitor asked.
"Mr. Pasinsky's in Boston this week, Mr. Feigenbaum," she replied.
Pasinsky was Rothman's senior drummer and was generally acknowledged a
crackerjack.
"That's too bad," Feigenbaum replied. "Ain't Rothman coming back soon?"
"Not for half an hour," Miss Levy answered.
"Well, I ain't got so long to wait," Feigenbaum commented.
Suddenly Miss Levy brightened up.
"Mr. Zwiebel is in," she announced. "Maybe he would do."
"Mr. Zwiebel?" Feigenbaum repeated. "All right, _Zwiebel oder
Knoblauch_, it don't make no difference to me. I want to look at
some of them misses' reefers."
"Mis-ter Zwiebel," Miss Levy called, and in response Milton entered.
"This is one of our customers, Mr. Zwiebel," she said, "by the name Mr.
Henry Feigenbaum."
"How are you, Mr. Feigenbaum?" Milton said with perfect
self-possession. "What can I do for you to-day?"
He dug out one of Charles Zwiebel's Havana seconds from his
waistcoat-pocket and handed it to Feigenbaum.
"It looks pretty rough," he said, "but you'll find it all O.K., clear
Havana, wrapper, binder, and filler."
"Much obliged," Feigenbaum said. "I want to look at some of them
misses' reefers."
Miss Levy winked one eye with electrical rapidity and gracefully placed
her hand on the proper rack, whereat Milton strode over and seized the
garment.
"Try it on me," Miss Levy said, extending her arm. "It's just my size."
"You couldn't wear no misses' reefer," Feigenbaum said ungallantly.
"You ain't so young no longer."
Milton scowled, but Miss Levy passed it off pleasantly.
"You wouldn't want to pay for all the garments in misses' sizes that
fit me, Mr. Feigenbaum," she retorted as she struggled into the coat.
"My sister bought one just like this up on Thirty-fourth Street, and
maybe they didn't charge her anything, neither. Why, Mr. Feigenbaum,
she had to pay twenty-two fifty for the precisely same garment, and I
could have got her the same thing here for ten dollars, only Mr.
Rothman wouldn't positively sell any goods at retail even to his
work-people."
Mr. Feigenbaum examined the garment closely while Miss Levy postured in
front of him.
"And maybe you think the design and workmanship was better?" she went
on. "Why, Mr. Feigenbaum, my sister had to sew on every one of the
buttons, and the side seams came unripped the first week she wore it.
You could take this garment and stretch it as hard as you could with
both hands, and nothing would tear."
Milton nodded approvingly, and then Miss Levy peeled off the coat and
handed it to Feigenbaum.
"Look at it yourself," she said; "it's a first-class garment."
She nudged Milton.
"Dummy!" she hissed, "say something."
"Sammet Brothers sell the same garment for twelve-fifty," Milton
hazarded. Sammet Brothers were customers of the elder Zwiebel, and
Milton happened to remember the name.
Feigenbaum looked up and frowned.
"With me I ain't stuck on a feller what knocks a competitor's line," he
said. "Sell your goods on their merits, young feller, and your
customers would never kick. This garment looks pretty good to me
already, Mr. Zwiebel, so if you got an order blank I'll give it you the
particulars."
Miss Levy hastened to the office and returned with some order blanks
which she handed to Milton. Then she retreated behind a cloak-rack
while Milton wielded a lead pencil in a businesslike fashion. There she
listened to Feigenbaum's dictation and unseen by him, she carefully
wrote down his order.
At length Feigenbaum concluded and Miss Levy hastened from behind the
rack.
"Oh, Mr. Feigenbaum," she said in order to create a diversion, "wasn't
it you that wrote us about a tourist coat getting into your last
shipment by mistake?"
"Me?" Feigenbaum cried. "Why, I ain't said no such thing."
"I thought you were the one," she replied as she slipped her
transcription of Mr. Feigenbaum's order into Milton's hand. "It must
have been somebody else."
"I guess it must," Feigenbaum commented. "Let me see what you got
there, young feller."
Milton handed him Miss Levy's copy of the order and Feigenbaum read it
with knit brows.
"Everything's all right," he said as he returned the order to Milton.
He put on his hat preparatory to leaving.
"All I got to say is," he went on, "that if you was as good a salesman
like you was a writer, young feller, you'd be making more money for
yourself and for Mr. Rothman."
He closed the door behind him and Miss Levy turned to Milton.
"Well, if you ain't the limit!" she said, and walked slowly into her
office.
For a quarter of an hour Milton moped about with the feather duster in
his hand until Rothman came back.
"What's the matter, Milton?" he said, "Couldn't you find nothing better
to do as dust them garments all day? Why, if them garments would of
been standing on the sidewalk already, they would be clean by now.
Couldn't you help Miss Levy a little?"
"He did help me," Miss Levy cried from the doorway. "And, oh, Mr.
Rothman, what do you think? Milton sold a big bill of goods to Henry
Feigenbaum."
* * * * *
Ferdinand Rothman divided his time between a downtown law school and
the office of Henry D. Feldman, in which he was serving his clerkship
preparatory to his admission to the bar. He was a close student not
only of the law but of the manner and methods of his employer, and he
reflected so successfully Mr. Feldman's pompous address that casual
acquaintances repressed with difficulty an impulse to kick him on the
spot. His hair was curly and brushed back in the prevailing mode, and
he wore eyeglasses mounted in tortoise-shell with a pendent black
ribbon, albeit his eyesight was excellent.
"Good evening, Miss Levy," he said patronizingly, when he entered her
office late in the afternoon of Milton's hiring. "How d'ye feel after
the dance last night?"
"Pretty good," Miss Levy replied through a pen which she held between
her teeth. "Milton, tell Mr. Rothman not to go home till he talks to me
about Mr. Pasinsky's mail."
Milton hurried out of the office, while Ferdy Rothman stared after him.
"Who's he?" Ferdy asked.
"He come to work to-day," Miss Levy replied, "and he's going to be all
right, too."
Ferdy smiled contemptuously. He was accustomed, on his way uptown, to
stopping in at his father's place of business, ostensibly for the
purpose of accompanying his father home. Other and more cogent reasons
were the eyes, the blue-black hair, and the trim little figure of Miss
Clara Levy.
"And what's he supposed to be doing around here?" Ferdy continued.
"He's supposed to be learning the business," Miss Levy answered, "and
he ain't lost much time, either. He sold Henry Feigenbaum a bill of
goods. You know Henry Feigenbaum. He's only got one eye, and he thinks
everybody is trying to do him."
Here Milton Zwiebel returned.
"It's all right," he said; "Mr. Rothman will see you before he goes."
Ferdy Rothman lolled back in a chair, with one arm thrown over the top
rail after the fashion of Henry D. Feldman's imitation of Judge
Blatchford's portrait in the United States District Courtroom.
"Well, young man," he said in pompous accents, "how go the busy marts
of trade these days?"
Milton surveyed him in scornful amazement.
"Hire a hall!" he said, and returned to the sample-room. It lacked half
an hour of closing time, and during that period Milton avoided Miss
Levy's office.
At length Ferdinand Rothman and his father went home, and Milton once
more approached Miss Levy.
"Say, Miss Levy," he said, "who's that curly-haired young feller? Ain't
he the one I seen you dancing with last night?"
"Sure he is," Miss Levy replied.
"I thought he was," Milton commented. "And wasn't he one of
them--now--floor managers?"
"Ain't you nosy?" Miss Levy answered as she swept all the torn paper on
her desk into her apron.
"Well, wasn't he?" Milton insisted.
"Suppose he was?" she retorted. "All _you've_ got to do is to mail these
letters and be sure to get down at half-past seven sharp to-morrow
morning."
"Do you get here at half-past seven?" he asked.
"I certainly do," Miss Levy replied.
"All right," he said, as he gathered up the mail, "I'll be here."
Thus began the regeneration of Milton Zwiebel, for he soon perceived
that to Miss Clara Levy a box of candy was not nearly so acceptable a
token of his esteem as was a cheerful dusting of the sample stock.
Moreover, he discovered that it pleased Miss Levy to hear him talk
intelligently of the style-numbers and their prices, and it was not
long before he became as familiar with his employer's line as was Miss
Levy herself. As for his punctuality, it soon became a habit, and every
morning at half-past six he ate a hurried breakfast and left the house
long before the elder Zwiebel had concluded his toilet.
"I couldn't understand it, mommer," said Mr. Zwiebel, after Milton had
completed the sixth month of his employment with Levy Rothman. "That
boy goes downtown every morning, mommer, before daylight practically,
y'understand. He don't get home till half-past seven, and he stays home
pretty near every night, mommer, and that feller Rothman kicks yet.
Always he tells me the boy ain't worth a pinch of snuff and he wants I
shouldn't charge him no interest on that five thousand."
"That's something I couldn't understand, neither," Mrs. Zwiebel replied.
"I ask Milton always how he gets along, and he tells me he is doing
fine."
"The boy tells me the same thing," Zwiebel continued, "and yet that
young feller, Ferdy Rothman, comes up to see me about getting a check
for Milton's wages, and he says to me the boy acts like a regular
lowlife."
"Why don't you speak to Milton?" Mrs. Zwiebel broke in.
"I did speak to him, mommer," Zwiebel declared, "and the boy looks at
me so surprised that I couldn't say nothing. Also, I speaks to this
here Ferdy Rothman, mommer, and he says that the boy acts something
terrible. He says that Rothman's got a bookkeeper, y'understand, a
decent, respectable young woman, and that Milton makes that girl's life
miserable the way he's all the time talking to her and making jokes.
Such a loafer what that boy is I couldn't understand at all."
He sighed heavily and went downtown to his place of business. On the
subway he opened wide the _Tobacco Trade Journal_, thrust his legs
forward into the aisle, and grew oblivious to his surroundings in
perusing the latest quotations of leaf tobacco.
"Why don't you hire it a special car?" a bass voice cried as its owner
stumbled over Zwiebel's feet.
"Excuse me," Zwiebel exclaimed, looking up. "Excuse me, Mr. Feigenbaum.
I didn't see you coming."
"Oh, hello there, Zwiebel!" Feigenbaum cried, extending two fingers and
sinking into the adjacent seat. "How's the rope business?"
"I ain't in the rope business, Mr. Feigenbaum," Zwiebel said coldly.
"Ain't you?" Feigenbaum replied. "I thought you was. I see your boy
every oncet in a while down at Rothman's, and he hands me out a piece
of rope which he gets from your place, Zwiebel. I take it from him to
please him."
"You shouldn't do him no favours, Feigenbaum," Zwiebel cried. "That
rope, as you call it, stands me in seventy dollars a thousand, and the
way that boy helps himself, y'understand, you might think it was waste
paper."
"Sure, I know," Feigenbaum answered. "I thought so, too, when I smoked
it. But, anyhow, Zwiebel, I must say that boy of yours is all right."
"What!" Zwiebel cried.
"Yes, sir," Feigenbaum went on, "that boy has improved something
wonderful. And certainly they think a great deal of him down there.
Rothman himself told me that boy will make his mark some day, and you
know what I think, Zwiebel? I think the whole thing is due to that
young lady they got down there, that Miss Levy. That girl has got a
headpiece, y'understand, and certainly she took an interest in your
boy. She taught him all he knows, Zwiebel, and while I don't want to
say nothing about it, y'understand, I must got to say that that young
feller thinks a whole lot of Miss Levy, and certainly I think that Miss
Levy somewhat reciprocates him."
"Reciprocates him?" Zwiebel said. "That's where you make a big mistake,
Mr. Feigenbaum. They don't reciprocate him; they reciprocate me,
y'understand. Fifteen dollars every week they reciprocate me for that
boy's wages, and also a whole lot more, too."
"You don't understand me," Feigenbaum declared. "I mean that Miss Levy
seems to think a good deal of Milton, and maybe you don't think Ferdy
Rothman is jealous from them, too? That feller could kill your boy,
Zwiebel, and he done his best to get Rothman to fire him. I know it for
a fact, because I was in there as late as yesterday afternoon and I
heard that young feller tell Rothman that Milton is too fresh and he
should fire him."
"And what did Rothman say?" Zwiebel asked.
"Rothman says that Ferdy should shut up his mouth, that Milton was a
good boy and that Rothman knew what was the matter with Ferdy, and I
knew it, too, Zwiebel. That boy is jealous. Also, Rothman says
something else, what I couldn't understand exactly."
"What was it?"
"He asks Ferdy if he could pick up in the street five thousand dollars
at savings-bank interest."
"'S'enough!" Zwiebel cried. "I heard enough, Feigenbaum. Just wait till
I see that feller Rothman, that's all."
* * * * *
When the train drew up at the Fourteenth Street station Zwiebel plunged
through the crowd without waiting for Feigenbaum and stalked
indignantly to his place of business. When he entered his private
office he found a visitor waiting for him. It was Ferdy Rothman.
"Ah, good-morning, Mr. Zwiebel," Ferdy cried, extending his hand in a
patronizing imitation of Henry D. Feldman. "Glad to see you."
Zwiebel evaded Ferdy's proffered hand and sat down at his desk without
removing his hat.
"Well," he growled, "what d'ye want?"
"I wanted to see you about something personal," Ferdy went on.
"Go ahead," Zwiebel cried; "you tell me something personal first and
I'll tell you something personal afterward what you and your old man
wouldn't like at all."
"Well," Ferdy continued, "I came to see you about Milton. There's a
young man, Mr. Zwiebel, that is a credit to you in every way, and I
can't help thinking that he's wasting his time and his talents in my
father's place of business."
"He is, hey?" said Zwiebel. "Well, he ain't wasting none of your old
man's time, Rothman, and he ain't wasting none of his money, neither."