save his stomach, which at length ungratefully rejected all the rich
favours that Max had bestowed on it so long and so generously. Indeed,
he was reduced to a diet of crackers and milk when Abe encountered him
in Hammersmith's restaurant that September morning.
"Hello, Max!" Abe cried. "When did you get back? I thought you was in
one of them--now--sanatoriums."
"A sanatorium is no place for a drummer to find a job, Abe," Max
replied.
"A good salesman like you could find a job anywhere without much
trouble, Max," Abe said cheerfully.
"That's what everybody says, Abe; meantime I'm loafing."
"It wouldn't be for long, Max," Abe rejoined as he cast a hungry eye
over Hammersmith's bill of fare. "How's that fillet de who's this, with
asparagrass tips and mushrooms?"
For a brief moment Max's eye gleamed and then grew dull again.
"It's fine to put the stomach out of business, Abe," Max said. "Take the
tip from one who has lost sixty pounds, ten customers, and a good job
all in six weeks--and order poached eggs on toast."
Abe compromised on boiled beef with horseradish sauce; and when he was
well into the noisy consumption of that simple dish he broached the
subject of Max's future plans.
"When d'ye think you'll go to work again, Max?" he asked.
Max shrugged expressively.
"I'm not a prophet, Abe; I'm a salesman," he said.
"Well, there ain't no particular hurry, Max. It ain't the same like you
would got a family to look out for."
"I've been a drummer all my life, Abe," Max declared, "and a drummer has
no right to be married. When I was a kid I had a chance to go into the
store of a couple of yokels upstate in the town where I was born and
raised; and I guess if I'd done so I'd been married and had a whole
family of children by now."
"Maybe you're just as well off, Max," Abe said consolingly. "Children is
a gamble anyhow, Max. The boys is assets and the girls is liabilities;
and if you got a large family of girls you're practically bankrupt, no
matter how good business would be."
"Don't you believe it, Abe," Max said. "Those two yokels both had big
families and they didn't do such a big business either. But they managed
to make a good living, and last week I hear they sold out to some city
dry goods man for forty thousand dollars."
Abe paused with a loaded knife in midair.
"Forty thousand dollars between two ain't much, Max," he said.
"It's more than I've got, anyhow," Max rejoined as he rose to his feet.
"You got lots of time to make money, Max," Abe concluded. "Come round
and see us when you get time, won't you?"
Max nodded; and as he walked down the street to make a further canvass
of the garment trade he passed the broad windows of the dairy lunchroom,
where Morris was regaling Sam Green with a popular-price meal.
"Yes, Sam," Morris said as he caught sight of Max Kirschner's dejected
figure, "you're lucky when you consider some people. You are still a
young man and it ain't too late for you to start in as a new beginner
somewhere. A young man could always make a living anyhow."
"Sure," Sam agreed, "but why should I start in as a new beginner,
Mawruss? I already got an established business, y'understand; and if I
could get a feller with a headpiece, Mawruss--never mind he ain't got
so much money--with a couple thousand dollars, we could run that feller
from Sarahcuse out of town."
"What feller from Sarahcuse?" Morris asked.
"Ain't I told you?" Sam continued. "I thought I says that the reason the
bank shuts down on me is a feller from Sarahcuse buys out them two
suckers, Van Buskirk and Patterson, and he's going to operate the store
as a branch house."
Morris nodded his head slowly.
"So, Sam," he said, "you are up against one of them sharks from
Sarahcuse? I'm afraid you got a dead proposition in that store of
yours."
Two cups of coffee had revived Sam Green's ambition, however, and he
laughed aloud.
"You don't understand them people up in Cyprus, Mawruss," he said.
"Strangers they don't like at all; and even me, though I lived in that
town ten years, most of 'em wouldn't buy goods off of me because Van
Buskirk and Patterson is born and raised in that town and they dealt
with 'em ever since they was boys together. So you see I got ten years'
start of that feller from Sarahcuse, Mawruss. If I could get some feller
which he knows the garment business to go as partners together with me,
and to put a little money into the store, we could yet do a good
business there."
"How much money would you got to have?" Morris asked.
"Two thousand dollars, anyhow," Sam replied.
Morris tapped the table with his right index finger and frowned
reflectively.
"The necktie pin alone must be worth a thousand dollars," he murmured
almost to himself, "and two rings he got it which I know about must
stand him in anyhow a thousand dollars more."
He thrust back his chair and rose to his feet.
"All right, Sam," he said aloud. "You got a little egg on your chin.
Wipe it off and we'll go back to the store. I got an idee."
* * * * *
"On second thought, Sam," Morris said as they approached Potash &
Perlmutter's place of business, "I wouldn't go up with me if I was you
on account I don't want to say nothing to my partner just yet a while.
Where are you staying, Sam?"
"I got a room at a hotel over on Third Avenue," Sam replied.
"Third Avenue!" Morris exclaimed. "That's a _Nachbarschaft_ for a
business man!"
He handed Sam a five-dollar bill.
"Go and get yourself a room over at the Prince Clarence," Morris said.
"I'll be over there presently."
Nathan, the shipping clerk, was alone in the showroom when Morris
entered.
"Ain't my partner come back yet, Nathan?" he demanded.
Nathan shook his head.
"Then tell him when he does come back that I've went up to the Prince
Clarence to see a customer," Morris continued; "and if he asks what name
tell him it's a new concern just starting."
Five minutes later he visited the business premises of Kleiman &
Elenbogen, impelled thereto by a process of reasoning which involved the
following points: Klinger & Klein manufactured a medium-price line and
so did Kleiman & Elenbogen. Klinger & Klein's leader was The Girl in the
Airship Gown, a title suggested by the syndicate's popular musical
comedy of that name, while Kleiman & Elenbogen advertised their
"strongest" garment as The Girl in the Motor-boat, out of compliment, of
course, to the equally popular musical comedy recently produced by an
antisyndicate manager. Both concerns catered to the same class of trade,
and when either of the partners of Klinger & Klein referred in
conversation to a member of the firm of Kleiman & Elenbogen, or vice
versa, "sucker" was the mildest epithet employed.
Hence Morris Perlmutter argued that Max Kirchner would resort to Kleiman
& Elenbogen's loft for comfort and advice; and as he stepped out of the
elevator his surmise was confirmed by a nimbus emanating from the
necktie of a person seated at the far end of the showroom.
"Hello, Max!" Morris cried; "who'd thought of seeing you here!"
Max rose to his feet and extended his right hand in greeting, whereat
Morris noted that the four-carat diamond still sparkled on Max's finger.
"I just left your partner over at Hammersmith's, Morris," Max said.
"Sure, I know," Morris rejoined; "that feller makes a god out of his
stomach, Max; but that ain't here nor there. Did you got something to do
yet, Max?"
"I've got a whole lot to do trying to find a job, Morris, if that's what
you mean," Max replied.
Morris glanced around the showroom, but both Kleiman and Elenbogen were
absent.
"Where are they?" Morris asked.
"Out to lunch, I guess," Max replied.
"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "Them suckers would like to know everybody's
business. You got a few minutes' time, Max?"
"Nothing but time," Max replied sadly.
"Then come uptown a few blocks with me," Morris said. "I got a
proposition to make you."
Max shrugged his shoulders and put on his hat.
"Yes, Max," Morris continued as they walked toward the Prince Clarence
Hotel, "I got a proposition to make to you, but first I would like to
ask you something a question."
"Fire away," Max said.
"What did you done with that other diamond ring which you used to
wear--the big one?"
"I have it home," Max replied. "What d'ye want to know for?"
"I want to lend you some money on it," Morris went on calmly; "also that
pin which you got it and that there ring. I want to lend you three
thousand dollars on 'em."
"Three thousand dollars!" Max exclaimed. "Why, the whole outfit isn't
worth two!"
"What do I care?" Morris rejoined. "It's only a loan and I bet yer you
would quick pay me back."
Max paused on the sidewalk and stared. "What's the matter, Morris?" he
cried. "Are you sick?"
"Must a feller got to be sick to want to help you out, Max?" Morris
said. "And anyhow, Max, it's as much a favour to us as it is to you."
By this time they had reached the Prince Clarence Hotel and Morris led
the way to the café.
"Say, lookyhere, Max, the whole thing is this," he said after they were
seated: "I'm going to lend you three thousand dollars to go into a
business with a feller which he got a store in a small town upstate, and
you're going to do it."
Max shook his head.
"No; I ain't," he answered. "I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks."
"If you sell goods wholesale you could sell 'em retail," Morris
declared. "So, if you would listen to me I'll tell you what the
proposition is."
Forthwith Morris unfolded to Max the history of Sam Green's mercantile
establishment.
"And now, after all them years, Max," he concluded, "that feller gets
practically run out of town because his bank shuts down on him."
"What's the name of the place?" Max asked.
"The name of the place?" Morris repeated.
"Yes," Max said, "the name of the town where the fellow comes from."
Morris scratched his head for a minute.
"I should remember the name of every little one-horse town where we got
customers!" he said. "The name of the place don't matter, Max; it's got
two thousand people living in it and practically only one store, because
the way Sam Green is running his business now you couldn't call it a
store at all."
Max rose from the table.
"I'll tell you the truth, Morris," he said; "what's the use wasting our
time? The proposition ain't attractive. I was born and raised in a
one-horse town upstate; and, even though I ain't been back for twenty
years, I know what it's like. You'll have to excuse me."
"But, Max----" Morris commenced.
"I needn't tell you that I'm more than grateful to you, Morris," Max
concluded; "and if ever I want to dispose of my diamonds you shall have
first chance."
He shook Morris's limp and unresisting hand and returned at once to the
showroom of Kleiman & Elenbogen.
"Any one come for me, Miss Cashman?" he asked the bookkeeper, who was
busily engaged in the preparation of the firm's monthly statement.
"Say, lookyhere, Kirschner," Louis Kleiman called from his office;
"leave the girl alone, can't you? She's got enough to do tending to our
business."
"I'm only asking her if she has any word for me," Max replied.
"I don't care what you are asking her," Kleiman said as he came out of
his office to confront Max. "You are acting altogether too fresh around
here, Kirschner. Do you pay rent here _oder_ what?"
Max made no reply.
"And furthermore," Kleiman continued, "we got business to attend to
here, Kirschner, and we couldn't afford to have no dead ones hanging
around."
For a brief interval he scowled at Max, who turned on his heel and made
for the elevator without another word. His applications for employment
during the past few days had met with polite refusals coupled with
cheerful prophecies of his early employment. To be sure, Max had taken
little stock in this consoling optimism, but it had all helped to keep
alive his spirits, which had sunk again to their lowest ebb at
Kleiman's epithet, "dead one."
After all, he was a dead one, he reflected as he stumbled along the
sidewalk toward his boarding house on Irving Place. A man of sixty
safely intrenched in his own business, with the confidence his wealth
inspires, is in the very prime of life. But Max, with his health
impaired and his employment taken away from him, felt and looked a
decrepit old man as he tottered upstairs to his third-floor room and
flung himself on the bed, where he lay for more than an hour staring at
the ceiling.
During that interval he reviewed his career from the time he helped his
father, a Prussian refugee of 1848, in the little country store upstate.
Then came his father's death, followed by a clerkship in the large
dry-goods business of his father's competitors. After this he had moved
to New York; and from that time on he had followed the calling of a
travelling salesman with varying success, until at sixty he found
himself out of health and employment, with property of less than two
thousand dollars as a reserve fund.
What a fool he had been not to accept Perlmutter's offer! Nevertheless
it seemed futile for a man of sixty to make a new start in a strange
town, especially since, in rural communities, business goes as much by
favour and friendship as by commercial enterprise. Now, had he been
offered a partnership in a store in his native town, where it would be
an easy matter to renew old acquaintance, he might have viewed the
proposition differently.
He rose from the bed and sat down in an armchair, while his mind
reverted to more pleasant topics. He pictured to himself his father's
store underneath what the townspeople called the opera house. He saw
again that dingy little hall, with its small proscenium opening guarded
by a frayed old curtain, and he smiled as he remembered the landscape it
bore. With the sophistication of his race he had enjoyed many a good
laugh at the performance that had evoked the tears of his fellow
townsmen. What Rubes they were, to be sure! And yet, what good fellows
the boys had been! He recalled various ones by name and found himself
wondering how they looked and whether they were married or single.
Another half hour of like musing and suddenly he slapped his thigh.
"By jinks!" he said, "I'll do it. I need a vacation and I'm going to
have it too."
When Morris returned to his place of business that afternoon he had
packed Sam Green off to his store upstate with instructions to return in
a week, during which Morris hoped to take the matter up with Abe. As for
his hour-long absence from his place of business, Morris had provided
himself with a plausible explanation in rebuttal to the quiet, ironical
greeting that he knew would await him. His program was a little upset,
however, by Abe's inquiry, which was not in the least ironical.
"Loafer, where have you been?" Abe demanded.
"What d'ye mean, loafer?" Morris cried.
"I mean, while you are fooling away your time, Moe Griesman comes in
here to see us and naturally he don't find none of us here; so he goes
away again. From us he goes straight over to Sammet Brothers--and that's
the way it goes."
"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I thought you told me he cancels his
order this morning and buys only from Klinger & Klein."
"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but I suppose he finds out he couldn't find
all the goods he wants with one concern and now he goes over to Sammet
Brothers."
"How do you know he went over to Sammet Brothers?" Morris asked.
"A question! How do I know it?" Abe exclaimed. "Ain't he left a
memorandum I should ring him up there?"
"Well, why don't you ring him up and find out what he wants?" Morris
retorted.
"What do I care what he wants, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Whatever he
wants he don't want it now, because them two cut-throats would suck him
dry of orders. Once a feller gets into the hands of Sammet Brothers they
wouldn't let him go till he bought himself blue in the face."
"Ring him up, anyhow," Morris insisted; and the next moment Abe was
engaged in a heated altercation with "Central." Finally he heard Leon
Sammet at the other end of the wire.
"Hello!" he yelled. "I want to speak with Mr. Griesman. Never mind what
I want to speak with him about. That's my business. I ain't the fresh
one--you are the fresh one. You are asking me something which you ain't
got no right to ask me at all. You know well enough who it is talking."
After five minutes' further conversation, Leon relinquished his end of
the wire to Griesman and immediately thereafter Abe's voice diminished
in harshness till it became fairly flutelike with friendship and
amiability.
"Oh, hello, Mr. Griesman!" he said. "Did you want to talk to me? Why,
no, Mr. Griesman, he don't owe us nothing. He paid us this morning.
Sure! What did you want to know for? Why should we sell his account, Mr.
Griesman? He's a little slow, y'understand, but he's quite good. That's
all right. Good-by."
When he returned to the showroom his face wore a puzzled expression.
"Well, Abe, what did he want?" Morris asked.
Abe shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know what he is up to, Mawruss," Abe said; "but he tells me he
wants to buy from us Sam Green's account. So I told him Sam pays us this
morning, and he rings off."
"Why should Moe Griesman want to buy from us Sam Green's account?"
Morris muttered to himself; and then a wave of recollection came over
him. Obviously it was Moe Griesman who had bought out Sam's competitors
and this caused Sam's bank to shut down on him. Now Moe Griesman was
attempting to buy up Sam's liabilities and close him up, so that there
might be no competitor to Moe's new business in Cyprus. At length the
humour of the situation appealed to Morris and he grinned vacuously at
his partner.
"_Nu_," Abe growled; "what are you laughing at?"
"Nothing much, Abe," Morris replied. "I was only thinking--that's all,
Abe. I was thinking to myself, Abe, what a joke it would be, supposing,
for instance, Sam's check should come back N. G."
* * * * *
When Sam Green entered the smoker of the seven-thirty train from
Syracuse to Cyprus, the following morning, a well-dressed man of sixty
followed him down the aisle and sat down in the same seat with him.
"Have a cigar?" the stranger said.
"Much obliged," Sam replied as he took it. "If it is just the same to
you I would smoke it after dinner."
"Sure!" the stranger rejoined, handing him another; "smoke that one
after dinner and smoke this one now."
Sam grinned and after they had lit up he ventured the observation that
it was fine weather.
"_Aber_ it should be colder," he concluded, "for heavyweights."
"Are you in the clothing business?" the stranger asked.
"I got a sort of a store," Sam replied; "clothing and cloaks, and suits
also. A dry-goods store in Cyprus."
"In Cyprus?" Sam's seatmate cried. "You don't tell me? I'm going down to
Cyprus too."
"My fall buying is through," Sam said.
"I'm not selling goods this trip," the stranger replied. "I'm on a
vacation."
"A vacation!" Sam murmured. "In Cyprus! That's a _medeena_ for a
vacation."
"There are worse places than Cyprus, my friend," said Sam's new-found
acquaintance; and thereat began a conversation that lasted until the
train finally drew into Cyprus.
"Would you mind telling me what is your name, please?" Sam asked as they
prepared to leave the car.
"Certainly," the stranger said, handing his card to Sam.
"Kirschner!" Sam exclaimed, looking at the card. "Kirschner, _von unsere
Leute_?"
"Sure!" Max Kirschner replied.
"Did your father once run a store under the opera house here?"
"That's right."
"And after he died the widder sells out to a man by the name Marcus
Senft?"
"The same one," Max replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I bought out that feller, Marcus Senft," Sam replied, "and I
got on my books yet debts which your mother sold to Senft for
twenty-five cents on the dollar--and he sold to me for ten cents."
"I'll bet I know who owes 'em, too," Max commented.
"You could look 'em over if you want to," Sam said as they started to
walk down the hilly lane from the depot to the main street.
"I will after I've washed up at the hotel," Max answered.
"Hotel?" Sam exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, hotel? You ain't going to no
hotel. You're coming home with me. A feller _von unsere Leute_ should
come to Cyprus for a vacation and stay at a hotel! An idee!"
He linked his arm in Max's and together they walked to Sam's store.
"We'll take a look in here first before we go up to the house," Sam said
as he opened the door. The next moment Sam Green was clasped to the
ample bosom of Leah Green, who glanced inquiringly at Max Kirschner.
"Mommer," Sam announced, "this is Mr. Max Kirschner, which he ought to
be like an old friend on account he was born and raised in this here
town and his father run this very store."
Max looked around him at the shelves and showcases.
"The same fixtures," he muttered absently.
"He is only in town for a couple of days, mommer," Sam said
hesitatingly, "so I thought we could easy fix up the spare room--ain't
it?"
"Why, sure!" Mrs. Green replied as she shook Max's hand warmly. "Is the
folks all well, Mr. Kirschner?"
Max smiled sadly.
"You can judge for yourself, Mrs. Green," he said, "because I'm all the
folks there are."
"Oh, sure," Mrs. Green hastened to say. "I remember now; you never got
married."
"Why, how do you know that?" Sam asked.
Mrs. Green nodded her head sideways in Sam's direction.
"He don't never hear nothing, Mr. Kirschner," she said. "With me the
women folks _schmooses_ all the time; and you could take it from me, Mr.
Kirschner, they talk a whole lot more about what happens forty years ago
as what happens last week already."
Max nodded as the store door opened and a woman of uncertain age
entered.
"Good morning, Mis' Green," the newcomer said, her eyes glued on Max
Kirschner. "I was just passin' by on my way to the depot and I
remembered that I needed a spool of thread."
Mrs. Green passed behind the counter to reach the thread case.
"Going to Sarahcuse to-day, Mis' Duree?" she asked casually.
Mrs. Duryea blushed.
"I'm on my way to see my sister's little granddaughter," she explained;
"she's just recovering from whooping cough."
"Would that be your sister Libby?" Max inquired.
Mrs. Duryea started visibly.
"I don't know as I----" she began.
"That's so," Max continued. "Libby moved to Elmira. It must be Carrie.
She married Lem Peters, didn't she?"
"Well, of all things!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed. "Who in the world told you
all that?"
"I just remembered it," Max said, holding out his hand. "How's Tom?"
Mrs. Duryea took the proffered hand gingerly.
"He's pretty spry," she said.
"Tell him Max Kirschner was asking for him," Max replied.
"You ain't Max Kirschner?" Mrs. Duryea cried.
"Just as sure as you're Hattie Watson," Max said. "How're all the
children, Hattie?"
"All growed up and flew away," Mrs. Duryea replied. "What are you doing
around here?"
Max's eyes twinkled mischievously.
"I'm selling goods for Mr. Green here," he declared. "Let's see, Hattie.
Forty-two bust, I should say."
He snatched a garment from a rack near by.
"Here's a coat, Hattie, that would stand you in forty dollars in
Syracuse," he said. "One of those big dry-goods stores there figures on
a coat like this: garment, wholesale, twenty dollars; running a big
store with elevators, electric lights and all modern improvements, ten
dollars; advertising, five dollars; profit, five dollars--total, forty
dollars. We figure here: cost of garment, twenty dollars; store
expenses, fifty cents; profit, four dollars and fifty cents; total,
twenty-five dollars. Put it on, Hattie, and let's see how you look in
the garment."
"Well, I declare!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed as she allowed herself to be
assisted into the garment. "You take my breath away."
Max stepped back to survey the effect; and if the admiration expressed
in his face was simulated, at least the friendliness of his smile was
not.
"Now, Hattie, I want to tell you something," he declared: "If any one
would say to me that I went to school with you I'd think they had a bad
memory. I'd tell 'em it was your mother that sat next to me in Miss
Johnson's room and not you."
Mrs. Duryea fairly beamed as she strutted up and down the store.
"Well, Max," she said at last, "let me bring my friend Mis' Williams in
this afternoon and we'll decide on it then."
"But I thought you were going to Syracuse," Max rejoined.
"I was," Mrs. Duryea said as she started to leave; "but I ain't now."
* * * * *