KATZBERG, SCHAPP & KOBLINAnnounce theOpening of Their New Office and ShowroomIn the Chicksaw Building,West 4th Street, New YorkMakers of Trousers for Finicky FolksA HEADLINERThe Rainshed PantsManufactured from the Famous Rainproof Fabric"KOBLINETTE"Keeps the Legs Warm and DrySpring 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."
"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 Greendrygoods and notionsthe k. & m. sylphshape corsetCyprus, New York, April 1, 1910Gents: 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 obligeYours truly,S. Green.
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
"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 Maxschonmany 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 whichGott soll hütentheir 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 somestussin 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 mygrossvater seligwas 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 theDaily 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 DenveroderSeattle; 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 littlekranklichoncet 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 Maxoderthey 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 fromlockshensoup."
"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 didodernot, 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."
Max Kirschner had reached the age of sixty without making a single enemy 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 aNachbarschaftfor 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 hereoderwhat?"
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.
"Aberit 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 amedeenafor 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 fellervon unsere Leuteshould 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 folksschmoosesall 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."
The news of Max Kirschner's return spread through Cyprus like a brush fire, and twenty minutes after Mrs. Duryea had left Sam Green's store Max was holding a levee behind the old counter. By two o'clock he had greeted over fifty old friends and at least twenty of them had made purchases in amounts varying from five to thirty dollars.
"As sure as you're standing there, Mr. Kirschner," Sam declared, "I sold more goods this morning as in the last two months."
Max grinned delightedly. His face was flushed and he looked at least ten years younger as he patted Sam on the shoulder.
"Look out for the rush this afternoon," he said. "If we only had a better assortment, Green, I think we could keep this up for a week longer and after that we could do a good, steady business."
"We?" Sam exclaimed.
Max coloured and smiled in an embarrassed fashion.
"Of course I mean you," he said.
"Why 'of course'?" Sam asked; and Mrs. Green nodded vigorously. "Why not we, Mr. Kirschner?"
"Well, you see, I haven't sold goods at retail for so long," Max explained, "that I really don't know how."
Sam turned to Mrs. Green with a quick shrug.
"Was hast du gehört?" he cried. "He don't know how! If I wouldn't know how to sell goods the way you don't know how, Mr. Kirschner, I would quick build up a good business here. Tell me, Mr. Kirschner, how much longer do you got a vacation, because I'd like to make you a proposition. You could stay with me here for the rest of your vacation and I would give you half of the profits over the cost price of every garment you sell. How's that?"
"Very generous," Max said; "but you don't know what you're offering me, Green, because the vacation might last for several years."
"Several years!" Sam repeated. "You mean you are retired from business, Mr. Kirschner?"
"Exactly," Max answered; "with a fortune of two diamond rings, a diamond pin, and eight hundred and sixty-five dollars cash."
Sam and Mrs. Green stared at him incredulously.
"In other words, Green," Max concluded, "I have just been fired out of a job as travelling salesman, which I held for twenty years, and I don't see a chance of getting another one."
For a moment Sam and his wife exchanged glances.
"Mr. Kirschner," Sam said, "how much can you get for them diamonds?"
"Fifteen hundred dollars, I guess," Max replied.
"Then what is the use talking nonsense, Mr. Kirschner?" Sam cried excitedly. "Come along with me over to the Farmers' National Bank and we'll see Mr. Fuller; and if he would renew my accommodation for a thousand dollars you and me would go as partners together andfertig."
"Fuller!" Max cried. "That ain't Wilbur M. Fuller, is it?"
"That's the one," Sam declared.
"Then we'll not only get him to renew the accommodation, Sam, but we'll sell him some shirts and neckties as well. He and I clerked together in Van Buskirk & Patterson's."
As a sequel to Max's visit to the Farmers' National Bank, Abe and Morris waited in vain for the return of Sam's check.
"How did you know the check wasn't good, Mawruss?" Abe asked his partner a week later.
"I ain't said it ain't good, Abe," Morris protested; "only I seen Markson, which he works for Klinger & Klein as a bookkeeper, in Hammersmith's to-day and he says that Moe Griesman goes round trying to buy up all Sam Green's bills payable; and he's got about five hundred dollars' worth now already."
"Sure, I know he did," Abe replied. "He got from Kleiman & Elenbogen Sam's three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar debt for two hundred and seventy-five cash and Sam sends 'em the check for the full amount the day before yesterday. I seen Louis Kleiman yesterday and he was feeling pretty sore, I bet yer."
Morris nodded. He had been completely mystified about Sam's affairs since the arrival of a letter from Cyprus addressed to Morris personally, wherein Sam repaid the money advanced for his hotel accommodation and announced that he had abandoned for the present his intention of returning to New York. Morris's mystification was hardly abated by the following letter, which arrived on the heels of the conversation above set forth: