in stunned amazement. Then he rose slowly to his feet.
"All right, Koblin," he said. "I heard enough from you. I wash myself of
the entire matter. For my part you and your son could go to the devil;
and take it from me, it won't be your fault if he don't."
When Abe entered the firm's showroom that morning it was nearly
half-past eleven and Morris Perlmutter sat behind the pages of the
_Daily Cloak and Suit Record_ in a sulky perusal of the Arrival of
Buyers column. Before he looked up he permitted Abe to discard his coat
for an office jacket.
"You was taking a sea bath, Abe?" he said at length. "Ain't it? I
suppose we would pretty soon got to close up the store so's you could
take all the sea baths you want. What?"
Abe refrained from uttering a suitable rejoinder and made straight for
the office.
"Mawruss!" he yelled; "ain't the safe open yet?"
"Never mind is the safe open _oder_ not, Abe," Morris replied. "So long
as you are attending to business the way you are, Abe, it ain't
necessary the safe should be opened."
Abe grunted and squatted down in front of the combination. At length the
big doors swung open and he drew the box of cigars out of the middle
compartment.
Morris looked on with ill-concealed curiosity while Abe took a banded
Invincible from his waistcoat pocket and restored it to the box whence
it originally came.
"What's all that for?" Morris asked.
"That's a souvenir from a pleasant morning," Abe replied as he thrust
the box of cigars back into the safe and slammed the doors. He was about
to return to the showroom, when the telephone bell rang and Morris took
the receiver from the hook.
"Hello!" he said. "Yes, this is Potash & Perlmutter. He's right here.
Abe, Max Koblin wants to talk to you."
"He does, hey?" Abe replied. "Well, I don't want to talk to him."
"You should tell him that yourself," Morris said as he walked away from
the telephone. "I ain't got nothing to do with your quarrels."
Abe watched Morris disappear into the showroom and then he ran to the
telephone and slammed the receiver on to the hook with force
sufficient almost to wreck the instrument. At intervals of a few seconds
the telephone rang for more than half an hour. Fifteen minutes after it
had ceased the elevator door opened and Max Koblin entered.
"Cut-throat!" Koblin exclaimed. "I rung up my son and he wouldn't come
back. You are turning him against me--you and them two other crooks. You
think you would get my money out of me. Very well. I'll show you. I
ain't through with you yet. I'll put you fellers where you belong."
"Don't make me no threats, Koblin," Abe said calmly, "because, in the
first place, you couldn't scare me any, and, in the second place, if you
think I am trying to keep your boy away from you, you are
mistaken--that's all. I already wasted a whole morning on him and, just
to show you I ain't such a crook as you think I am, I would go right
down there now; and if I got to do it I would drag that young loafer out
of there by the hair of his head."
Twenty minutes later Abe burst into Katzberg & Schapp's business
premises and asked in loud tones for Sidney Koblin. Before the
astonished Shapolnik could reply, Max Koblin, who had followed Abe on
the next car, arrived all breathless and panted a similar demand.
"He ain't in now," Shapolnik replied; "he is just going to his lunch."
"What d'ye mean by talking to me on the 'phone the way you did this
morning?" Max shouted. "You ain't got no business to keep my boy from
me."
"I ain't keeping your boy from you," Shapolnik answered; "and I would
speak to you whichever what way I would want to. Who are you anyway?"
"_Koosh!_ Shapolnik," Abe interrupted. "You are talking too fresh. Mr.
Koblin is right. You should fire that young feller right away, because I
am telling you right here and now I wouldn't guarantee nothing for him
after this."
"What do I care what you would guarantee or what you wouldn't
guarantee?" Shapolnik replied. "The young feller already sold for us
this morning for five hundred dollars a bill of goods, and he could stay
with us _oder_ not, just as he wants. Furthermore, Mr. Potash, I don't
give a snap of my fingers for your _guarantirt_; this is my shop and if
you don't want to stay here you don't got to."
He seized a pressing-iron in token that the interview was ended and Abe
and Max started for the stairs without another word. As they reached the
sidewalk Abe paused. Across the street a dairy lunchroom displayed its
white-enamel sign and through the plate-glass window he thought he
discerned a familiar figure. He ran to the opposite sidewalk and entered
the restaurant, closely followed by Max, just as Sidney Koblin was
eating the last crumbs of a portion of zwieback and coffee.
"Hello, Sidney!" Abe said. "What's the matter with you? Why don't you go
back to your father?"
Sidney rose to his feet and looked first at Abe and then at the Raincoat
King.
"What for?" he asked nonchalantly.
"Because he asks you to," Abe replied, "and because I didn't got no
right to butt in the way I did, Sidney. After all, your father is your
father."
"What's biting you now?" Sidney exclaimed. "Ain't you told me this
morning I should do what I did?"
Abe nodded sadly.
"And didn't you say me and the old man couldn't give each other a square
deal even if we wanted to?"
Abe nodded again.
"Then I'm going to stick to my job," Sidney declared as he walked toward
the cashier's desk.
Abe and Max trailed after him and when they reached the sidewalk Max
seized his son by the arm.
"Sidney, _leben_," he said; "listen to me. Come and eat anyhow a decent
lunch and we'll talk this thing over."
"What for?" Sidney said. "I've had as much as I want to eat, and besides
I've got to see a fellow up at the Prince Clarence Hotel. I'll be at
Riesenberger's to dinner to-night about the usual time."
"Oh, you will, will you?" Max cried. "Well, all I got to say is you've
got to pay for it yourself."
Sidney broke into a laugh.
"That worries me a whole lot!" he said. "I've made enough out of my
commissions to-day already to pay a whole week's board down there."
He turned and started across the street, but as he reached the curb he
paused.
"Tell mommer she shouldn't worry herself," he said. "I'm all right."
Max looked at Abe with a sickly grin.
"I think he is too, Abe," he murmured. "Would you come over to Broadway
and take maybe a little lunch with me?"
"Zwieback and coffee is good enough for me," Abe replied.
Max linked his arm in Abe's.
"You shouldn't be mad at me, Abe," he said sadly. "I am all turned
upside down about that boy; and if zwieback and coffee is good enough
for you and him, Abe, I guess it must be too good for me. But, just the
same, I am going to eat with you, Abe, and we'll let bygones be
bygones."
* * * * *
It was some weeks before Abe could bring himself to recount to Morris
the full details of Sidney Koblin's regeneration, but Morris had learned
the facts long before there appeared in the advertising section of the
_Clothing and Haberdashery Magazine_ the following full-page
advertisement:
KATZBERG, SCHAPP & KOBLIN
Announce the
OPENING OF THEIR NEW OFFICE AND SHOWROOM
In the Chicksaw Building,
West 4th Street, New York
MAKERS OF TROUSERS FOR FINICKY FOLKS
A HEADLINER
THE RAINSHED PANTS
Manufactured from the Famous Rainproof Fabric
"KOBLINETTE"
KEEPS THE LEGS WARM AND DRY
Spring Line Now Ready
It caught Morris's eye one morning in January and he read it over--not
without envy.
"Some people's got all the luck, Abe," he said bitterly.
"I bet yer!" Abe replied, without looking up from his order book, which
was overflowing with requisitions for spring garments. "I bet yer,
Mawruss! You take my Rosie for instance: at her age you got no idee what
a sport she is. Yesterday afternoon she went to a bridge-whist party by
Mrs. Koblin's and she won a sterling solid-silver fern dish. And mind
you, Mawruss, she only just found out how to play the game."
"Who learned her?" Morris asked.
"Mrs. Klinger and Mrs. Elenbogen," Abe replied. "That's two fine women,
Mawruss--particularly Mrs. Elenbogen."
CHAPTER FIVE
A RETURN TO ARCADY
"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said with bitter emphasis; "Max Kirschner
steals away trade from under our noses while you fool away your time
selling goods to a feller like Sam Green."
"What d'ye mean, fool away my time?" Abe cried indignantly. "Sam Green
is an old customer from ours; and if Henry Feigenbaum gives for a couple
of hundred dollars an order to Max Kirschner he only does it because
he's got pity on the old man. And, anyhow, Mawruss, even if Sam Green is
a little slow, y'understand, sooner or later we get our money--ain't it?
"Sure, I know, Abe; and if them sooner-or-later fellers would pay you
oncet in a while sooner, Abe, it would be all right, y'understand. But
they don't, Abe; they always pay you later."
"Well, Sam has got some pretty stiff competition up there, Mawruss," Abe
said. "In the first place, Cyprus is too near Sarahcuse, y'understand;
and if one of them yokels wants to buy for thirty dollars a garment
for his wife, if he is up-to-date, he goes to Sarahcuse; and if he is a
back number he goes to Sam's competitors!--What's the name now?--Van
Buskirk & Patterson. Yes, Mawruss, back numbers always buys from back
numbers."
"Why don't we sell that Van Buster concern our line, Abe?"
"A fine chance I got it with them people, Mawruss!" Abe exclaimed. "They
buy their whole stock from a jobber in Buffalo and they got an idee that
Russian blouses is the latest up-to-the-minute effect in garments. And
you couldn't blame 'em, Mawruss; most of the women up in Cyprus thinks
that way too."
"That ain't here nor there, Abe," Morris interrupted. "Sam Green is one
of them fellers which he is slow pay if he would be worth a million
even. He's got the habit Abe. Look what he writes us now."
He handed Abe a letter which read as follows:
SAMUEL GREEN
DRYGOODS AND NOTIONS
THE K. & M. SYLPHSHAPE CORSET
CYPRUS, NEW YORK, April 1, 1910
GENTS: Your favour of the thirtieth inst. rec'd and contents noted;
and in reply would say you should be so kind and wait a couple
days, and I will send you a check sure--on an account I got
sickness in the family and oblige
Yours truly, S. GREEN.
"Well, Mawruss," Abe commented, mindful of a recent obstinate lumbago,
"might the feller did got sickness in his family maybe."
"_Schmooes_, Abe!" Morris cried impatiently. "Every season that feller's
got another excuse. Last fall his wife goes to work and has an
operation. A year ago he is got his uncle in the hospital. The winter
before that he is got funeral expenses on account his mother died on
him; and so it goes, Abe. That feller would a damsite sooner kill off
his whole family, y'understand, than pay a bill to the day it is due."
"All right," Abe said; "then we wouldn't sell him no more--that's all."
Morris shrugged.
"That's all!" he repeated. "A concern don't pay strictly to the day; so
we couldn't sell 'em no more, and that's all, _sagt er_! For a feller
which he's losing customers right and left to a back number like Max
Kirschner, Abe, you are talking pretty independent."
"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe exploded; "I just told it you Max
Kirschner only gets that order from Henry Feigenbaum because he takes
pity on him."
"What d'ye mean, pity?" Morris retorted. "I seen Max Kirschner in the
subway this morning and he looks like he needs pity, Abe. He's got
diamonds stuck on him like a pawnbroker's window."
"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe continued. "Some drummers is got
diamonds and some is got bank accounts, but there's mighty few got both,
Mawruss; and Max Kirschner ain't one of 'em. One thing you got to
remember, Mawruss--Max is an old man."
"What are you talking nonsense! An old man!" Morris exclaimed. "Max is
just turned sixty."
"Sure, I know," Abe commented, "and for a drummer, that's awful old,
Mawruss. A feller which he spends six months out of the year in trains
and hotels, Mawruss, is got to be mighty particular about what he eats.
I stopped in one hotel together with Max _schon_ many times already, and
at dinner I am always eating steaks and oncet in a while eggs maybe; but
Max goes for them French names every time. Many a night I watched Max in
a hotel lobby and you could see by his face that his stomach is
boiling."
"Never mind, Abe; I could stand a little indigestion, too, Abe, if I
would be getting the orders Max is getting it."
"That's a thing of the past, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Business falls off
something terrible with him, Mawruss; and the first thing you know,
Mawruss, Klinger & Klein gets rid of him and them diamonds would got to
come in handy before he finds another job."
"_Yow!_ Klinger & Klein would get rid of him!" Morris cried
skeptically. "Max Kirschner ain't no ordinary drummer, Abe. There's a
feller which he was born and raised on this side. He's a gentleman, Abe,
and them boys respects him. Besides, Abe, he practically started them
two greenhorns in business. Twenty years ago, when them boys was new
beginners, Kirschner brings 'em a good trade, y'understand; and not only
that, Abe, if it wouldn't be for him them fellers wouldn't never lasted
six months. The first season they turned out a lot of stickers, and when
they got short Max goes himself to old man Baum and gets him to lend
them boys a thousand dollars. People don't forget such things in a
hurry, Abe."
"Don't they, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Well, maybe they do and maybe they
don't, Mawruss; but twenty years is a long time to remember things,
Mawruss, and when a feller draws big wages like Max Kirschner he's got
to turn in the orders, Mawruss--otherwise past favours is nix."
Morris nodded.
"That's no lie neither, Abe," he said, rising to his feet; "and we
should right away send Sam Green a letter either he should mail us a
check or we would put his account into a collection agency. The feller
goes too far, Abe."
It was precisely a week later that Max Kirschner's relations with the
firm of Klinger & Klein finally reached their climax.
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said as he entered the showroom after a brief visit
to the barber-shop that morning--"what did I told you?"
"You didn't told me nothing, Abe," Morris retorted; "and, besides, it
was my idee that we wrote him a rotten letter, otherwise we would wait
for another week or ten days for our check. As it is, Abe, he deducts
four dollars on us for a damage on account of bum packing. He is not
only a crook, Abe, but a liar also."
"Four dollars wouldn't break us, Mawruss," Abe rejoined, "and we could
easy make it up on the next bill he buys from us. But I wasn't talking
about Sam Green at all. I mean Max Kirschner."
"I much bother my head about Kirschner!" Morris said. "Let Klinger &
Klein worry about him."
Abe grunted as he removed his hat and coat.
"You'd wait an awful long time for Klinger & Klein to worry about him,
Mawruss," he said. "Because them fellers got such hearts which _Gott
soll hüten_ their wives would die together with their children in one
day yet--I am only saying, y'understand--them two suckers wouldn't worry
neither. Saturday night they fired Max Kirschner like a dawg, Mawruss.
And why? Because a week ago Max eats some _stuss_ in Bridgetown,
y'understand, which he is sick in bed for three days. And while he is
laid up yet Sammet Brothers cops out a thousand-dollar order on him."
"_Ai gewoldt!_" Morris cried, with ready sympathy. "You don't tell me?"
"And now that poor feller walks the streets looking for a job; and a
fine show he's got it, an old man like him."
"Don't say that again, Abe," Morris said. "You Jonah the feller that
way. Somebody hears you saying Max is an old man and the first thing you
know, Abe, they believe he is old. I told you before Max is only sixty;
and when my _grossvater selig_ was sixty he gets married for the third
time yet."
"Sure I know, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Some fellers gets married for a
wife and some for a nurse, Mawruss. Any cripple could get married,
y'understand; but a feller must got to have his health to sell goods."
He seized the current issue of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_, and as
he sat down to examine it he heaved a sigh which merged into an agonized
groan.
"Oo-ee!" he exclaimed; "that lumbago still gets me in the back."
"You see, Abe," Morris commented maliciously, "you ain't so young
yourself. From forty-eight to sixty ain't a thousand years neither,
Abe."
Abe scowled and then his face lightened up in the conception of a happy
idea.
"I give you right about that, Mawruss," he said: "but with me it's
different, Mawruss. If I get so I couldn't go out on the road,
y'understand, we could always hire some one to go for us."
"Could we?" Morris grumbled.
"Sure," Abe went on; "and even to-day yet, while I am making Denver and
the coast towns, it wouldn't harm us we should get a feller which is
acquainted with the trade up the state and in Pennsylvania and Ohio."
"Wouldn't it?" Morris croaked.
"We are losing every day business, Mawruss, because I got such a big
territory to cover," Abe said. "A feller in a small town wants his fall
goods early just so much as one of them big concerns in Denver _oder_
Seattle; and if I don't show up in time they place their orders with
some one else. Whereas, Mawruss, if we would wait a couple of weeks, we
would say for instance, until he finds out that every one ain't paying
fancy salaries like Klinger & Klein, y'understand, for a couple thousand
dollars a year, Mawruss, we could get Max Kirschner and----"
"Max Kirschner?" Morris yelled. "What d'ye mean, Max Kirschner?"
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, "we could get Max Kirschner; and, even if he
would be a little _kranklich_ oncet in a while, sometimes maybe he would
be worth to us two thousand a year anyhow."
"Two thousand a year!" Morris bellowed. "What the devil you are talking
nonsense, Abe? We should give two thousand a year to a cripple like
Kirschner! What do you think you are running here anyhow--a
cloak-and-suit business or a home for the aged? If you want to give to
charity do it with your money, not mine."
For the remainder of the forenoon Morris Perlmutter moved about the
showroom with his face distorted in so gloomy a scowl that to Abe it
seemed as though a fog enveloped his partner, through which there
darted, like flashes of heat lightning, exclamations of "_Schnorrer!_
Cripple! With my money yet!" and "Crust that feller got it!" At length
he put on his hat and went out to lunch, while Abe gazed after him in
mute disgust.
"When some people talks charity," he grumbled, "you got to reckon a
hundred per cent. discount for cash."
* * * * *
"You see, Abe," Morris cried as he came in from lunch, "how easy it is
to misjudge people. I just seen Sol Klinger over to Hammersmith's and he
tells me that in six weeks yet Max Kirschner falls down on three orders.
Four thousand dollars that sucker, Leon Sammet, cops out on 'em; and Sol
couldn't help himself, Abe. Either they got to fire Max _oder_ they got
to go out of business."
Abe nodded slowly. His face possessed an unusual pallor and he clenched
an unlighted cigar between his teeth.
"What is it?" Morris asked. "Don't you feel good?"
"I am feeling fine, Mawruss," he replied huskily. "I could blow myself
to a bottle tchampanyer wine yet, I feel so good. I am enjoying myself,
Mawruss, on account Moe Griesman from Sarahcuse was just in here, which
he tells me his nephew, Mozart Rabiner, goes to work for Klinger & Klein
as a drummer and we should be so good and cancel the order which he
gives us yesterday, as blood is redder as water; and what the devil
could we do about it anyway?"
Morris's jaw dropped and he sat down heavily in the nearest chair.
"One thing I'm glad, Mawruss," Abe said as he put on his hat: "I'm glad,
if we got to lose Moe Griesman's trade, Mawruss, that he is going to
give it to a feller like Sol Klinger, which he is such a good friend to
you, Mawruss, and got such a big heart."
He jammed his hat on his ears and started out.
"Where are you going, Abe?" Morris asked.
"I'm going over to Hammersmith's, Mawruss," he replied, "to get a bite
to eat; and I hope to see Sol Klinger there, Mawruss, as I would like to
congratulate him, Mawruss, with a pressing-iron."
Morris's face settled once more into a deep frown as the elevator door
closed behind his partner.
"Always with his mouth he is making somebody a blue eye," he muttered as
he turned to sorting over the sample line against Abe's impending trip
to the small towns up the state. He had picked out four cheap, showy
garments when the elevator door clanged again and a visitor entered,
bearing a brown-paper parcel.
"Well, Mawruss," he said, "what's the good word?"
The newcomer's cheery greeting was strangely at variance with his
manner, which was as diffident as that of a village dog on the Fourth of
July. As he advanced toward the showroom he exhaled the odour of
mothballs, characteristic of an old stock of cloaks and suits, so that
before he looked up Morris was able to identify his visitor.
"Hello, Sam!" he said. "When did you get in?"
"Twelve o'clock," Sam replied. "I would of got in sooner, but a crook of
a scalper in Sarahcuse sells me a ticket which it is punched out as far
as Canandaigua; and if it wouldn't be I paid four dollars extra I come
pretty near getting kicked off the train."
"You ain't nothing out, Sam," Morris said, "because that's just the
amount you are doing me for on our last bill."
"Doing you for!" Sam cried. "What d'ye mean, doing you for? One garment
was damaged in the packing which I deducted the four dollars; and if you
wouldn't believe me here it is now."
He unwrapped the brown-paper parcel and disclosed a crumpled article of
women's apparel, which Morris shook out and examined critically.
"In the first place, Sam," he commented, "the garment has been worn."
"What are you talking nonsense--worn?" Sam protested. "Once only my Leah
puts it on to see the damage. There it is."
Sam pointed with his forefinger and Morris looked at the spot indicated.
"Well, how could that be damaged in packing, Sam?" Morris asked
indignantly. "That's a stain from _lockshen_ soup."
"My wife must got to eat like any other woman!" Sam exclaimed
indignantly; "and besides, Mawruss, the stain ain't all soup,
y'understand--some of it gets wet in the packing-case."
"Well, I wouldn't bother my head about it no more," Morris retorted. "I
deposited your check just now and we are lucky, if you would deduct four
dollars, that we got our money at all."
"Maybe you are and maybe you ain't, Mawruss," Sam commented. "That's
what I come down to see you about."
"What d'ye mean?" Morris cried.
"I mean," Sam said in husky tones, "I don't know whether the check is
good at all. When I mailed it you I got a little balance at my bank, but
yesterday afternoon the president sends for me and shuts down on my
accommodation; and maybe--I don't know whether he did _oder_ not,
y'understand--he takes my balance on account."
Morris laid down the garment and fixed his visitor with an angry glare.
"So!" he exploded; "you are going to fail on us?"
Sam disclaimed it indignantly.
"What d'ye think I am?" he demanded--"a crook? And besides, I ain't got
nothing to fail with."
Morris drew forward a chair. Sam sat down; and leaning back he nursed
his cheek with his hand in an attitude of utter dejection.
"Well, what are you going to do?" Morris asked.
"That's what I come down here to find out," Sam replied.
Then ensued a silence of several minutes during which Morris gazed
attentively at his customer.
"The fact is, Sam," he said at last, "you ain't got no head."
Sam nodded sadly.
"You're a fool, Sam," Morris went on in kindly accents; "and no matter
how hard a fool would work he is a poor man all his life."
Sam deemed it hardly worth while to acquiesce in this statement, but he
indorsed it unconsciously with a large tear, which stole put of the
corner of his eye and worked a clean groove down one travel-stained
cheek.
"Have a smoke, Sam," Morris added hastily as he thrust a cigar toward
his late customer. "Did you got your lunch yet? No? Come on out with me
now and we would have a little bite to eat."
He jumped to his feet and seized his hat.
"Nathan," he bawled to the shipping clerk, "tell Mr. Potash I am going
out with a customer and I'll be back when I am here."
* * * * *