"What!" he shrieked. "Am I a beggar? Should I give my niece a miserable
two thousand dollars? Ain't I got no pride? I _got_ to make it five
thousand!" He paused while his imagination dwelt on the magnitude of
this colossal sum. "Five thousand dollars!" he shrieked again, "and
business the way it is!"
Mr. Perlmutter laid a soothing palm on Cohen's shoulder.
"But, Mr. Cohen," he said, "what can _we_ do? Why should you tell _us_
all this?"
Mr. Cohen shook off Morris's caress.
"You're right," he said. "Why should I tell you all this? I didn't come
here to tell you this. I come here to tell you something else. I come
here to tell you to cancel all orders what I give you. Also, if you or
your salesman come by my place ever again, look out; that's all. The way
I feel it now, I'll murder you!" He turned to leave. "And another
thing," he concluded. "One thing, you can depend on it. So far what I
can help it, you don't sell one dollar's worth of goods to any of my
friends, never no more!"
Again the door banged explosively, and Mr. Cohen was gone.
For ten minutes there was an awed silence in the sample room. At length
Abe looked at his partner with a sickly smile.
"Well, Mawruss," he said, "you made a nice mess of it, ain't you?"
Morris was too stunned to reply.
"That's what comes of not minding your own business," said Abe. "We lose
a good customer, and maybe several good customers. We lose a good
bookkeeper, too, Mawruss--one what has been with us for five years; and
also we are out a wedding present."
"I meant it good," Morris protested. "I done it for the best. It says in
the Talmud, Abe, that we are commanded to promote marriages."
Abe waggled his head solemnly.
"This is the first time I hear it, that you are a Talmudist, Mawruss!"
he said.
A month passed, and Miss Cohen continued to apply herself to her daily
task at Potash & Perlmutter's books.
"I don't understand it, Mawruss," Abe said one morning. "Why don't that
girl quit her job? She must have all sorts of things to do--clothes to
buy and furniture to pick out, ain't it?"
Perlmutter shrugged his shoulders.
"I spoke to her about it," he replied, "and she says so long as we're so
busy here, she guesses she will stay on the job as long as she can. She
says her mommer and her sister can do all the shopping for her."
"You see, Mawruss, what a mistake you make," Abe commented with a sigh.
"That's a fine girl, that Miss Cohen!"
Morris nodded gloomily. He began to realize that he had made a mistake,
after all. Only that morning Mrs. Perlmutter had demanded twenty dollars
with which to make over her best frock for Miss Cohen's wedding.
"Sure, she's a fine girl," he agreed; "but you got to admit yourself,
Abe, that a growing business like ours needs a hustling young man for a
bookkeeper."
"That's all right, too, Mawruss," said Abe; "but you also got to admit
that what a growing business like ours needs most of all, Mawruss, is
customers; and so far what I see, we don't gain any customers by this.
Also, my wife has got to make a new dress for the wedding. She told me
so this morning."
Morris made no reply. He was growing heartily sick of this business of
firing Miss Cohen, and consoled himself with the thought that the
wedding was fast approaching, and that they would be rid of her for
good.
At length the wedding-day arrived. Miss Cohen left Potash & Perlmutter's
at four o'clock, for the ceremony was set for half-past seven in the
evening. Her parting with her employers was an embarrassing one for all
three. Abe handed her a check for twenty-five dollars, with the firm's
blessing, and Morris shook her hand in comparative silence. He had done
and suffered much for that moment of leave-taking; and further than
wishing her a long and happy married life, he said nothing. As for Abe,
the squandering of twenty-five dollars, without hope of return,
temporarily exhausted his capacity for emotion.
"Good luck to you, Miss Cohen," he said. "Hope we see you again soon."
"Oh, sure!" Miss Cohen replied cheerfully. "You'll be at the wedding
to-night?"
Abe nodded--they all nodded--and then, with a final handshake all
around, Miss Cohen departed.
It must be confessed that the wedding reception that evening was a very
enjoyable occasion for all the guests, with the possible exception of
Max Cohen. The wine flowed like French champagne at four dollars a
quart, while, as Morris Perlmutter at once deduced from the careful way
in which the waiters disguised the label with a napkin, it was really
domestic champagne of an inferior quality. Nevertheless, Abe Potash
drank more than his share, in a rather futile attempt to get back, in
kind, part of the twelve and a half dollars he had contributed toward
Miss Cohen's wedding-present, to say nothing of the cost of his wife's
gown.
Consequently, on the morning after the festivities he entered his place
of business in no very pleasant frame of mind. He found that Morris had
already arrived.
"Well, Mawruss," he said in greeting, "everything went off splendid--for
Feinsilver. Max Cohen came down with a certified check for five thousand
dollars, you and me got rid of about over a hundred, counting the
wedding-present and our wives' dresses, and Miss Cohen got a husband and
a lot of cut glass, while _me_--I got a headache!"
Morris grunted.
"I guess you don't feel too good yourself, ain't it?" Abe went on.
"Anyhow, you got to get busy now, and find some smart young feller to
keep the books. You got rid of your dirty water, Mawruss; now you got to
get some clean. Did you put an 'ad' in the papers, Mawruss?"
"No, I ain't," Morris snapped.
"Ain't you going to?"
"What for?" Morris growled. "We don't need no bookkeeper."
"Why not?" Abe cried.
Morris nodded in the direction of the office.
"Because we _got_ one," he replied.
Abe turned toward the little glass enclosure. He gasped in amazement,
and nearly swallowed the stump of his cigar, for at the old stand,
industriously applying herself to the books of Potash & Perlmutter, sat
Mrs. Isaac Feinsilver, _née_ Cohen.
A moment later the door opened, and Isaac Feinsilver entered,
immaculately clothed in a suit of zebra-like design. He proceeded to the
bookkeeper's office and kissed the blushing bride; then he repaired to
the sample room.
"Good morning, Mawruss! Good morning, Abe!" he said briskly. "Ain't it a
fine weather?" He threw a bundle of swatches upon the sample table. "My
partners, Goldner & Plotkin, and me"--here he paused to note the
effect--"is putting out a fine line of spring goods, and I want to show
you some."
Abe and Morris looked over Ike's line in dazed astonishment; and before
they were really cognizant of what was going on, Ike had booked a
generous order. He gathered up the samples into a neat little heap and
put them under his arm.
"That ain't so bad," he said, "for a honeymoon order."
Then he turned and strode toward the bookkeeper's office. Once more he
saluted the lips of his assiduous spouse, and a moment later he was
walking rapidly down the street. Abe looked after him and expelled a
huge breath.
"You find it in the Talmud that we are commanded to promote marriages,
ain't it, Mawruss?" he said. "But one thing's sure, Mawruss--you can't
run a cloak-and-suit business according to the Talmud." There was a
short silence. "Did you ask her why she comes back, Mawruss?" he said.
Morris took the end off a particularly black cigar with one vicious
bite.
"I didn't have to ask her. She told me," he said bitterly. "She says a
smart girl can get a husband any day, she says; but a good job is hard
to find, and when you got one, you should stick to it!"
CHAPTER TEN
AUX ITALIENS
"What are you talking nonsense, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared hotly,
one morning in December; "an elegant class of people lives in the
houses. On the same floor with me lives Harry Baskof, which he is just
married a daughter of Maisener & Finkman. You remember Max Finkman, for
years a salesman for B. Senft & Co. Downstairs is a lawyer, a young
feller by the name Sholy, and on the ground floor is Doctor
Eichendorfer."
"With lawyers, Mawruss," Abe said, "we got enough to do downtown, ain't
it? Doctors also, Mawruss. I am once living next door to a doctor, and
every time I meet that feller he says 'How do you do?' to me like he
would mean, 'It's a fine day for an operation.' I get a pain in my right
side whenever I think of him even."
"Never mind, Abe," Morris rejoined. "Oncet in a while a doctor in the
house comes in pretty handy--a lawyer too. A feller could get a whole
lot of pointers riding up and down in an elevator with a lawyer. Ain't
it? The only trouble about the house is the family above us, which the
lady is all the time hollering like somebody would be giving her a
licking already. Minnie says that she hears from our girl that her girl
says she was an opera singer in the old country."
"Yow, an opera singer in the old country!" Abe exclaimed skeptically.
"In Russland they don't got so many opera singers as all that."
"What d'ye mean, in Russland?" Morris demanded. "The woman ain't from
Russland at all. She's an Italiener. I am coming up in the elevator last
night with her husband and a friend, and the way they are talking to
each other it sounds like a couple of bushelers in a factory. I tell you
the honest truth, Abe, for me it don't make no difference if a feller
would be a Frencher _oder_ an Irishman, so long as he treats me white I
would be a good feller, Abe; but an Italiener, Abe, is something else
again. An Italiener would as lief stick a knife into you as look at you,
Abe, and they smell the whole house out with garlic yet."
"There's lots of things smells worse as garlic, Mawruss," Abe retorted,
"and as for sticking a knife into you, that's all _schmooes_. There's
lots of people worser as Italieners, I bet yer, and when it comes right
down to it, Mawruss, I'd a whole lot sooner have a couple Italieners
working for me as some of them fellers which they are coming over from
Russland."
"Since when did you got such friendly feelings for Italieners, Abe?"
Morris inquired satirically.
"Never mind!" Abe exclaimed. "You could knock an Italiener all you want,
Mawruss, but you could take it from me, Mawruss, when an Italiener's got
work to do he don't stand around talking a lot of nonsense instead of
attending to business, like some people I know."
With this scathing rejoinder Abe trudged off toward the cutting room and
Morris proceeded to the office. He had hardly seated himself comfortably
at his desk, however, when Abe burst into the room.
"That's the way it goes, Mawruss," he cried. "Half the time we sit and
_schmooes_ in the showroom and we don't know what goes on in our cutting
room at all."
"What's the matter now?" Morris asked.
"Harkavy has quit us again," Abe replied.
"Quit us!" Morris exclaimed. "What for?"
"Nothing. All I says to the feller was why them piece goods is on the
floor, and he says he is sick and tired and I should get another
designer."
Morris bit the end off a new cigar and glared ferociously at Abe.
"So," he said bitterly, "we lose another designer through you, Abe. What
do you think, a designer would stand for abuse the same like a partner,
Abe?"
"What d'ye mean--abuse, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "I ain't said no abuse
to the feller at all; and even if I would, Mawruss, I guess I could talk
like how I want to in my own cutting room, Mawruss."
Morris rose to his feet.
"_Schon gut_, Abe," he said. "Don't ask me I should step right into
Harkavy's shoes and work like a dawg till you are finding a new
designer, Abe. Them days is past, Abe."
"You shouldn't worry yourself, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "The way business
is so rotten nowadays, y'understand, we would quick get another
designer."
"Would you?" Morris cried. "Well, I guess I got something to say about
that, Abe. If you think we are going to work to hire a designer which he
is getting fired by every John, Dick and Harry, you got another think
coming. This time, Abe, I would hire the designer, and don't you forget
it."
"Did I say I wanted to do it, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Go ahead and hire
him, Mawruss, only one thing I got to ask you as a favour: don't say the
feller was my choice, Mawruss; because I wipe my hands from the whole
matter."
For the remainder of the day Morris and Abe maintained only such
speaking relations as were necessary to the conduct of their business,
and when Morris went home that evening he wore so gloomy an air that
Harry Baskof, who rode up on the elevator with him, was moved to
comment.
"What's the matter, Mawruss?" he said. "You look like your best customer
would be asking an extension on you."
"We don't sell such people at all, Harry," Morris said bitterly.
"Collections is all right, Harry, but when a feller's got a partner
which he is got such a quick temper, understand me, that he fires out
the help faster as I could hire 'em--I got a right to look worried. Our
designer leaves us to-day."
"Ain't that terrible, Mawruss," Harry said in mock sympathy. "I suppose
you couldn't walk for miles on Fifth Avenue between Eighteenth and
Twenty-third Street and break your neck falling over a hundred designers
which they are hanging around there looking for jobs."
They alighted at the third floor and Morris drew his latchkey from his
waistcoat pocket.
"Sure, I know, Harry," he retorted. "Them people which they already got
designers could always find a better one, y'understand, but when you
ain't got a designer, Harry, that's something else again. You could
advertise until you are blue in the face, and all the answers you get is
from fellers which they couldn't design a sausage casing for a
frankfurter already."
"_Schmooes_, Mawruss!" Harry cried. "I could get you thousands of
designers. In fact, Mawruss, only this afternoon my father-in-law, Mr.
Finkman, sends me over a man which he is working for years by Senft &
Co. as a designer, I should give him a job. I already got a good
designer, so what could I do?"
"Why didn't you think to send him over to me, Harry?" Morris said.
"How should I know you wanted a designer?" Harry rejoined. "But, anyhow,
maybe it ain't too late yet. After supper I would ring up Mr. Finkman
and I'll let you know."
"Much obliged," Morris said, as he turned the key and entered his own
apartment. He was so far restored to good humour by his conversation
with Harry Baskof that when he bestowed his evening kiss on Minnie he
failed to notice that her eyes were somewhat swollen.
"Yes, Minnie," he said, "that's the way it is when you got good
neighbours."
"Good neighbours!" Minnie said bitterly, and then for the first time
Morris observed her swollen eyelids.
"Why, Minnie _leben_," he exclaimed as he folded her in a second
embrace, "what's the trouble?"
"Don't, Morris," Minnie said almost snappishly, as she wriggled away
from him; "my waist is mussed up enough from working in the kitchen,
without your crushing it."
"Working in the kitchen!" Morris said. "What's the matter? Is Tillie
sick?"
"No, she isn't," Minnie replied, as she rushed off toward the kitchen.
"She's gone."
Morris hung up his coat and made his perfunctory toilet without another
word. Despite Minnie's pathetic appearance, there was a dangerous gleam
in her eyes that urged Morris to the exercise of the most delicate
marital diplomacy.
"What a soup!" he exclaimed, as he subjected the first spoonful to a
long, gurgling inhalation. "If they got such soup as this at the
Waldorf, Minnie _leben_, I bet yer the least they would soak you for it
is a dollar."
Following the soup came boiled brisket, a dish that Morris loathed.
Ordinarily Morris would have eaten it with sulky diffidence, but when
Minnie bore the steaming dish from the kitchen he not only jumped from
his seat to take it from her hands, but after he had deposited it on the
table he kissed her on the forehead with lover-like delicacy.
"How did you know I am thinking all the way up on the subway if Minnie
would only got _Brustdeckel_ for supper for a change what a treat it
would be?" he said.
Minnie's glum face broke into a smile and Morris fairly beamed.
"What do you bother your head so about a girl leaves you, Minnie
_leben_," he cried. "You could get plenty of girls. On Lenox Avenue a
feller could break his neck already falling over girls which is hanging
around looking for jobs."
"Oh, I know you can get lots of girls," Minnie agreed, "but you've got
to train them, Morris; but then, too, I wouldn't care so much, but those
awful Italians upstairs went and stole Tillie away from me."
"What!" Morris shouted. "Them Italieners done it? Well, what do you
think of that for a dirty trick?"
"And they only pay her three dollars a month more," Minnie continued.
"Three dollars a month more, hey?" Morris replied. "Well, that's the way
it is, Minnie. Honestly, Minnie, anybody which they would steal away
from you somebody which is working for you, it ain't safe to live in the
same house with them at all. A feller which steals away feller's help
would pick a pocket. Such cut-throats you couldn't trust at all." He
helped himself to some more brisket.
"Never mind, Minnie," he said, "if it would be necessary we will pay a
girl a couple dollars more a week so long as we get a good one."
"Will we?" Minnie said. "Since when are you running this house, Morris?"
"I was only talking in a manner of speaking," he hastened to say. "Where
do you buy such good _Brustdeckel_, Minnie? Honestly, it takes in a way
a genius to pick out such meat."
"Does it?" Minnie rejoined. "I ordered it over the 'phone, and
furthermore, Morris, if you make so much noise eating it you will wake
the boy."
"I'm all through, Minnie," Morris said. "Wait--I'll show you how I could
help you wash the dishes."
As he started for the kitchen with one butterplate in his hand the
doorbell rang, whereupon he returned the butterplate to the dining-room
table and hastened down the hall.
"Hallo, Mawruss," cried Harry Baskof as Morris opened the door. "I rung
up the old man and he says he got the feller a job with Sammet
Brothers."
"Come inside," Morris answered, and led the way to the parlour. He
motioned his visitor to a seat and produced a box of cigars.
"Do you mean to say the feller got a job as quick as all that?" he
continued.
"He sure did, Mawruss," Harry replied. "He's an elegant designer,
Mawruss, and if B. Senft knew his business he never would got rid of him
at all."
"Why, what did he done to B. Senft?" Morris asked.
"Nothing at all, Mawruss. Senft is crazy. He gets a prejudice against
the feller all of a sudden on account he's an Italiener."
"Italiener!" Morris cried.
"Sure," Harry replied. "Did you ever hear the like, Mawruss, that a man
like Senft, which his folks _oser_ come over in the Mayflower neither,
y'understand, should kick on account a feller is an Italiener? And mind
you, Mawruss, the feller is otherwise perfectly decent, respectable
feller by the name Enrico Simonetti."
Morris nodded.
"With a name like that he must got to be a good designer," he commented,
"otherwise Sammet Brothers wouldn't hire him at all. It would take a
whole lot more gumption than Leon Sammet got it to call such a feller
from the cutting room even."
"That's all right, Mawruss. You don't have to call such a feller from
the cutting room. He could run a cutting room as well as design
garments; and in fact, Mawruss, when Sammet Brothers pay that feller two
thousand a year, y'understand, they are practically getting him for
nothing."
"Two thousand a year!" Morris exclaimed. "Why, we ourselves would pay
him twenty-five hundred."
"The feller's worth four thousand if he's worth a cent, Mawruss, but the
way business is so rotten nowadays he was willing to take two thousand.
_Aber_ my father-in-law, Mr. Finkman, told me on the 'phone, the roar
this feller puts up when Leon Sammet offers him eighteen hundred, Leon
was pretty near afraid for his life already."
"I don't blame him," Morris commented. "Such highwaymen like Sammet
Brothers they would beat a feller's price down to nothing. We ain't that
way with our help, Harry. If we would got a good man working by us
we----"
"Morris!" cried a voice from the kitchen.
"Yes," Morris replied, jumping to his feet. In less than two minutes he
reappeared and approached Harry with an apologetic smile. "Would you
excuse me a couple minutes, Harry?" he asked. "I got to run over to the
grocer for a box of soap powder. Our girl threw up her job on us."
"I'll go with you," Harry replied. "I need to get a little air."
A minute later they walked down the street to Lenox Avenue, and as they
approached the corner Harry nodded to a short, dark personage who was
proceeding slowly down the street.
"Al-lo!" he cried, seizing Harry by the arm, "adjer do?"
"Fine, thanks," Harry said. "Let me introduce you to a friend of mine by
the name Mr. Perlmutter. This is Mr. Simonetti, Mawruss, which I am
talking to you about."
Morris shook hands limply.
"You don't tell me," he said. "You know me, Mr. Simmons? My partner is
Mr. Potash. I guess you hear B. Senft speak about us."
"Sure," Simonetti said. "Mister Senft ees always say: 'Mister Potash and
Perlmutter ees nice-a people.' Sure."
"Better than Sammet Brothers?" Harry asked.
Simonetti raised his eyebrows and made a flapping gesture with his right
hand.
"A-oh!" he said. "Sammet Brothers, that's all right too. Not too much-a
all right, Mr. Baskof, but is preety good people. I am just-a now go to
see ees-a lawyer for sign-a da contract."
"Ain't you signed the contract yet?" Morris cried.
"Not-a yet," Simonetti answered. "Just-a now I am going."
"Baskof," Morris urged, "supposing you and me goes together with Mr.
Simonetti to the Harlem Winter Garden and talks the thing over."
Simonetti looked amazedly at Baskof.
"Sure," Baskof said. "It ain't too late if he ain't signed the
contract."
"What do you mean?" Simonetti asked.
"Why, I mean this, Simonetti," Baskof replied. "Sammet Brothers will
give you a contract for two thousand dollars, and Perlmutter here is
willing to pay you twenty-five hundred. Ain't that right, Mawruss?"
Morris nodded.
"With privilege to renew it, Mawruss, ain't it?"
Again Morris nodded. "One year renewal," he said.
Simonetti looked earnestly at Morris, who fumbled in his waistcoat
pocket and produced a cigar.
"Do you smoke, Mr. Simmons?" he began.
"Simonetti," the designer interrupted, as he took the cigar and bit off
the end; "and eef ees too much-a you say Simonetti, call me 'Enery."
When Morris entered his place of business the following morning he
appeared to be in no better humour than when he left for home the
previous evening.
"Well, Abe," he announced, "I hired a soap powder."
Abe stared at him for a moment.
"What are you talking nonsense, you hired a soap powder?" he exclaimed.
"Are you _verrückt_?"
Morris snapped his fingers.
"A soap powder!" he cried. "Hear me talk! I mean a designer. I hired a
designer, Abe, a first-class feller."
"What d'ye mean, a first-class feller?" Abe demanded. "You are leaving
here last night half-past six, and here it is only eight o'clock next
morning and already you hired a designer which he is a first-class
feller. How do you know he is a first-class feller, Mawruss? Did you
dream it?"
"No, I didn't dream it, Abe," Morris said as he hung up his hat; "and
what is more I want to tell you something. Yesterday you are saying I
should go ahead and hire a designer and not bother you in your head, and
to-day you are kicking yet. Well, you could kick all you want to, Abe,
because if a feller's partner kicks _oder_ his wife kicks, Abe, he must
got to stand for it. But just the same, Abe, this here feller comes to
work for us Monday morning, and we got with him a contract, all signed
and g'fixed by a lawyer, which he gets from us twenty-five hundred a
year for one year, with privilege to renew for another year."
"Twenty-five hundred dollars!" Abe exclaimed. "By a lawyer? What are you
talking about, Mawruss?"
At this juncture Morris grew purple with rage.