Samuel Green & Co.dry-goods and notionsthe k. & m. sylphshape corsetCyprus, New York, May 1, 1910.Yours truly,Samuel Green & Co.P. S. You should telegraph Farmers' National Bank for references if you ain't satisfied to ship without it. Business is good.S. Green.Gents: We inclose you herewith memorandum of order. Kindly ship same within ten days by fast freight, and oblige
P. S. You should telegraph Farmers' National Bank for references if you ain't satisfied to ship without it. Business is good.S. Green.
Gents: We inclose you herewith memorandum of order. Kindly ship same within ten days by fast freight, and oblige
Morris Perlmutter's relations with Sol Klinger retained their cordiality despite the rupture between Abe Potash and Klinger & Klein. To be sure, Moe Griesman's defection had rankled, but Morris consoled himself with the maxim, "Business is business"; and when he met Sol Klinger in Hammersmith's restaurant during the first week of the spring buying season he greeted Sol cordially. His friendly advance, however, met with a decided rebuff.
"What's the matter now, Sol?" Morris asked.
Sol nodded his head slowly.
"It's a great world, Mawruss," he said.
Morris agreed with him. "There's business enough in it for everybody anyhow, Sol, if that's what you mean," he replied.
"In lots of places, yes, but in others, no," Sol said. "But with some people, Mawruss, they're like a snake in the grass, which it bites the hand that feeds it."
"What's Moe Klein been doing now?" Morris asked.
"Moe Klein?" Sol cried. "What d'ye mean, Moe Klein? I ain't talking about Moe Klein at all. I am talking about Max Kirschner, Mawruss. There's a feller which we give him for twenty years good wages, Mawruss, and what do we get for it? After he leaves us, Mawruss—"
"Left you?" Morris interrupted. "Why, I always thought you fired him."
"Sure, we fired him," Sol continued. "A lowlife bum which he makes always a hog of himself, why shouldn't we fire him? And then, Mawruss, when we are taking on Moe Greisman's nephew, Rabiner, what does that sucker Max Kirschner do? He turns around and fixes up with a feller by the name Sam Green, in Cyprus, to go as partners together in Sam Green's store up there. And mind you, Mawruss, Moe Griesman had just bought out Sam Green's competitors, Van Buskirk & Patterson. And Max Kirschner knows all the time that the only reason that we took on Mozart Rabiner was on account of his uncle, Moe Griesman."
Sol Klinger was so interested in his own narrative that he completely failed to notice its effect on Morris Perlmutter, who sat with his jaw dropping lower and lower, while great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.
"Yes, Mawruss," Sol continued; "Moe Griesman even comes down himself from Sarahcuse to Cyprus to superintend things. Five thousand dollars fixtures he puts in and forty thousand dollars he pays them two yokels, Van Buskirk & Patterson, for the good-will, stock, and store building; and what happens? For a whole month Moe sits in that store and not a hundred dollars' worth of goods goes out of the place, Mawruss; and why? It seems that Sam Green and Max Kirschner does all the business because Max Kirschner is born and raised in Cyprus and knows everybody in the place."
"Max was born and raised in Cyprus?" Morris gasped.
"That's what I said," Sol replied. "That's aNachbarschaftfor a feller to be born in! What?"
Morris nodded and rose wearily to his feet.
"I never could remember the name of the place even, at all," he said. "Well, I guess now I would be getting back to the store."
"You got my permission," Sol said as Morris started from the restaurant. These were destined to be the last words addressed to Morris by Sol Klinger in many a long day, for the moving incidents which awaited Morris's return to his showroom put an end to all friendship between him and Sol.
Imprimis, when Morris entered, Moe Griesman was seated in the firm's private office, the centre of an animated group of four. "Hello, there, Mawruss!" Moe shouted; "there's a couple of gentlemen here which would like to talk to you."
He indicated a ruddy, clean-shaven person of approximately fifty years, who on closer inspection proved to be Max Kirschner shorn of his white moustache and without the attendant nimbus of his diamond pin. The other individual was even harder to identify by reason of a neat-fitting business suit of brown and a general air of prosperity; but in him Morris descried the person of what had once been Sam Green.
"Morris, you old rascal," Max cried, "when you took me over to the Prince Clarence Hotel that day why didn't you tell me that the man you wanted me to go into business with ran a store in Cyprus?"
"I couldn't remember the name of the place at all," Morris admitted.
Abe gazed at him sorrowfully.
"The fact is, gentlemen," he said, "my partner ain't got no head at all."
Sam Green's face flushed in recollection of the phrase.
"Never mind," he said fervently; "he's got anyhow a heart."
"And I've got a stomach," Max Kirschner added irrelevantly. "At least, I've recovered one since I've been eating Leah Green's good cooking."
Sam and Moe Griesman smiled sympathetically.
"Well, what's the use wasting time here, boys?" Moe said at last. "Let's explain to Mawruss about the new combination. Me and Max and Sam Green here have agreed to go as partners together in Cyprus under the name 'The Cyprus Dry-goods Company.' In a small town like Cyprus competition is nix."
"Good!" Morris exclaimed. "I'm glad to hear it. Is the Sarahcuse store included too?"
"A ten per cent. interest they got, although I am going to run my Sarahcuse business and these here boys is going to run the Cyprus end," Moe continued. "And now, Abe, as Max has got to pick out a lot of goods for the Cyprus store and I want to do the same for my Sarahcuse store, let's get to work."
For three hours without cessation they laboured over Potash & Perlmutter's sample line until garments to an amount in excess of five thousand dollars had been ordered.
When Max Kirschner saw the total of Moe Griesman's selection for the Syracuse store he emitted a low whistle.
"Say, Moe," he said, "ain't you going to give your nephew, Rabiner, any show at all this season?"
"Oser a Stück," Griesman declared. "I done enough for that feller when I got him a three years' contract with Klinger & Klein."
"Well, Abe," Morris Perlmutter declared, one morning in midwinter, "you look like you had a pretty lively session last night."
Abe nodded slowly. "I want to tell you something, Mawruss," he said solemnly; "I would do anything at all to hold a customer's trade, Mawruss. I would go on theayter with him. I wouldschmierhim tenspots when he's got the bid already, and I would gobateon hands which even a rotten player like you couldn't lose, Mawruss. But before I would got to sit through such another evening like last night, Mawruss, Felix Geigermann should never buy from us again a dollar's worth more goods. That's all I got to say."
"Why, what was the matter?" Morris asked.
"Well, in the first place, Mawruss, to show you what a liar that feller Geigermann is, he brings out a fiddle which he tells us is three hundred years old."
"Yow! Three hundred years old!" Morris exclaimed skeptically. "A fiddle three hundred years old would be worth, the very least, a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars."
"That's what I told him, Mawruss," Abe said. "I says to him if I would got a fiddle which it is worth that much money I would quick sell it and buy something which it is anyhow useful, like a diamond ringodera scarfpin. But Geigermann only laughs at me, Mawruss; he says he don't own the fiddle, Mawruss, but that somebody loaned it him. Even if he would own it, he wouldn't take two hundred dollars for it."
"My worries, if he owns the fiddleodernot, Abe!" Morris commented.
"Sure, I know, Mawruss; but that ain't the point. Afterward Mozart Rabiner comes in; and if I would be Felix Geigermann, Mawruss, and a salesman comes into my house and gets fresh with a pianner which the least it stands Geigermann in is a hundred dollars, Mawruss, I would kick him into the street yet."
"What is Mozart Rabiner doing there, Abe?" Morris inquired anxiously.
Abe preserved a cheerful demeanour, although it was the circumstance of Mozart Rabiner's prominence at Geigermann's musicale that had rendered the evening so unbearable.
"Well, Mawruss," he explained, "you don't suppose that Geigermann buys all his goods from us?"
Morris elevated his eyebrows gloomily.
"I don't suppose nothing, Abe," he said; "but once you let a shark like Rabiner get in with Geigermann, Klinger & Klein would give him the privilege to cut our price till they run us right out of there."
"It's an open market, Mawruss," Abe said, "and anyhow I am doing all I can to keep that feller's business. You would think so if you would of been there last night, Mawruss. First a lady in one of them two-piece velvet suits—afterward I see the jacket; a ringer for our style forty-two-twenty, Mawruss—she gets up on the floor, Mawruss, and she hollers bloody murder, Mawruss. I never heard the like since that Italiener girl which we got working for us on White Street catches her finger in the buttonhole machine. Mozart Rabiner plays for her on the pianner, Mawruss; and when she gets through, the way Rabiner jollies her you would think she would be buying goods for Marshall Field yet. After that, Geigermann takes the fiddle and him and Moe Rabiner gets together by the pianner and for three quarters of an hour, Mawruss, they work away like they was being paid for it."
"Moe Rabiner gets paid for it, I bet yer," Morris agreed.
"What a noise them fellers make it, Mawruss!" Abe continued. "Honestly, I thought my head was busting; and when they get finished the lady which done the hollering asks 'em who the piece is by, Mawruss—and who do you think Rabiner says?"
"How should I know who he says?" Morris retorted angrily.
"Richard Strauss," Abe replied.
"Richard Strauss?" Morris asked. "You mean that feller Strauss of Klipmann, Strauss & Bleimer, I suppose?"
"It must be the same feller," Abe said. "Seemingly everybody there knows him; and besides, Mawruss, that feller Strauss is another one of them musical fellers too. Only the other day Klipmann tells me that feller spends a fortune going on the opera with customers."
"But I thought Klipmann's partner was called Milton Strauss," Morris said.
"Maybe it was Milton Strauss," Abe continued. "MiltonoderRichard, I couldn't remember. It was one of them up-to-date names anyhow; and, mind you, Mawruss, that feller Rabiner has got the nerve to ask me if I didn't like Strauss. What could I say? If that cut-throat Rabiner thinks he is going to get me to knock a competitor in front of Geigermann he's mistaken. 'Sure I like him,' I says; 'why not?' 'In that case,' Moe says, 'we'll play some more of this.' 'Go as far as you like,' I says, and they kept it up till the elevator boy rings the bell and says a lady on the top floor is sick. I don't blame her, Mawruss; I was pretty sick myself."
Morris nodded sympathetically.
"So, then, Mawruss," Abe continued, "Geigermann takes the fiddle again and shows it to us, Mawruss; and he says on the back is a ruby varnish."
"Rubies is pretty high now, Abe," Morris said; "carat for carat, rubies is a whole lot more expensive as diamonds."
"Gewiss, Mawruss," Abe cried; "but I seen the back of the fiddle, Mawruss, and if the varnish on it was made from rubies, Mawruss, I would eat it. The fiddle was an ordinary fiddle like any other fiddle; only one thing I see, Mawruss—on the inside is a little piece from paper, y'understand, and printed on it is the name from some Italiener or another, with some figures on it. Geigermann says it was stuck in there three hundred years ago, when the fiddle was made. And you ought to see Moe Rabiner, Mawruss. He looks at that fiddle for pretty near half an hour. He turns it upside down and he blows into it and he takes his finger and wets it and rubs on it, and he smells it, andGott weisswhat he don't do with it."
"He's a dangerous feller, Abe," Morris commented. "He don't never stop at nothing to sell goods."
"Well, I wasn't much behind him, Mawruss," Abe said. "When he smells it, I smell it. He wets his finger, I wet my finger. Everything what that sucker does to that fiddle, I did. He couldn't get nothing on me. Mawruss. If he would offer to eat the fiddle, y'understand, I would got just so good appetite as he got it, Mawruss, and don't you forget it. I ain't going to let go so easy."
"Might you couldn't help yourself maybe," Morris commented.
"You shouldn't worry, Mawruss," Abe concluded. "I sold Felix Geigermann since way before the Spanish War already, and I would sooner expect my own brother—supposing I got one—to turn us down as him."
Despite Abe's optimism, however, the order for spring goods that Felix Geigermann bestowed on them a month later fell short of their expectations by over five hundred dollars.
"Business couldn't be so good with Felix this year, Mawruss," Abe commented.
"Don't you jolly yourself, Abe," Morris replied. "It ain't so much that business is bad with Felix as it is better with Klinger & Klein. Them two cut-throats ain't paying Rabiner good money for only playing the pianner. He's got to sell goods too."
"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said. "Let him go ahead andspielpianner till he's blue in the face. Sooner or later Geigermann would find out what stickers them Klinger & Klein garments is, and then Moe Rabiner couldn't sell him no more of them goods, not if he would be a whole orchestra already."
The personality of Aaron Shellak was simply thrown away on the garment trade. His lean, scholarly face, surmounted by a shock of wavy brown hair, would have assured his success as a virtuoso, and no one knew this better than his brother, Professor Ladislaw Wcelak, under whose tuition he had struggled through the intricacies of the first and second positions.
"If you would only forget you ain't got a pair of shears in your right hand, Aaron," the professor said, "and listen to what I am telling you, in two years' time you are making more money than all the garment cutters together. All you got to do is to play just halfway good."
"I suppose you're a millionaire, ain't it?" Aaron rejoined. "And you can play fiddle like a streak." The professor heaved a great sigh as he passed his hand over his bald head.
"With your hair, Aaron," he said, "I could make fifty thousand a year on concert towers alone, to say nothing of two recitals up on Fifty-seventh Street. But if a feller only got one arm, Aaron, he would better got a show to be a fiddle virtuoso as if he would be bald.".
Thus encouraged Aaron persevered with his practice for some months; but, despite the patient instruction of his brother Louis the garment cutter's wrist still handicapped him.
"That's a legato phrase," Louis Shellak cried impatiently, one night in mid-February. "With one bow you got to play it."
"Which phrase are you talking about," Aaron asked—"the one that goes 'Ta-ra-reera, ta-ra-reera'?"
He sang the two measures in a clear tenor voice, whereat Louis snatched the violin from his brother's grasp and, seating himself at the piano, he struck the major triad of C natural with force sufficient to wreck the instrument.
"Sing 'Ah'!" he commanded.
Aaron attacked the high C like a veteran and Professor Ladislaw Wcelak leaped from the piano stool with an inarticulate cry. Immediately thereafter he secured a strangle-hold on his brother and kissed him Budapest fashion on both cheeks.
"To-morrow night already you will commence lessons with the best teacher money could buy," he declared.
"Whose money?" Aaron Shellak inquired, as he wiped away the marks of his brother's affection—"yours or mine?"
"Me—I ain't got no money," Louis admitted.
"Me neither," Aaron said. He was the sole support of his mother and sisters, for Louis, aschef d'orchestrein a Second Avenue restaurant, constantly anticipated his salary overstussortarrokin the rear of his employer's café.
"How much would it take?" he asked Louis after a silence of several minutes.
Louis shrugged.
"Who knows?" he replied. "Fifty dollarsodera hundred, perhaps."
Aaron nodded; and the next day, when he entered Potash & Perlmutter's place of business, he carried with him his violin and bow in a black leather case. Thus it happened that the strains of Godard'sBerceusesaluted Abe as he stepped from the elevator that morning; and without removing his coat he made straight for the cutting room.
"Koosh!" he bellowed. "What are we running here, anyhow, Shellak—a cloak-and-suit houseodera theayter?"
Aaron hastily replaced the instrument in its case.
"I am only showing it to Nathan," he mumbled by way of explanation. "Might he would like to buy it maybe."
"If you want to sell fiddles, Shellak," Abe said, "do it outside business hours. That's all I got to say."
He proceeded at once to the showroom, where Morris was peeling off his overcoat. The latter greeted Abe with a sour nod. "I am sick and tired of it, Abe," he declared. "Everybody is stealing our business."
"What d'ye mean, everybody's stealing our business?" Abe asked.
"Last night I am sitting in the Harlem Winter Garden with Felix Geigermann, and Leon Sammet butts in on us and tells Geigermann he's got a cousin which he could play shello, and Geigermann says that he should come around to the house next Tuesday and play it with him and Rabiner."
Abe shrugged his shoulders.
"Mytzurisif he does, Mawruss," he said; "because while I don't know nothing about this here game, y'understand, a good way to lose a customer is to play cards with him."
"What are you talking nonsense, Abe?" Morris cried. "Shello ain't cards. A shello is a fiddle which you play it with your knees."
"For my part he could play it with his nose, Mawruss," Abe declared hotly. "Do you mean to told me, Mawruss, that a business man like Geigermann is going to buy a line of goods like Sammet Brothers got it just because Leon Sammet's cousin plays a fiddle with his knees?"
"Yow! His cousin?" Morris exclaimed. "He's as much got a cousin which he plays the shello as I got one. He's going to give some greenhorn a couple of dollars to go with him to Geigermann's house and play the fiddle; and the first thing you know, Abe, Geigermann is buying from him a big bill of goods and all the time our orders gets smaller and smaller till we lose his trade altogether."
Abe laughed mirthlessly and bit the end off his after-breakfast cigar.
"If I would worry myself the way you do, Mawruss, every time a competitor says 'Hello' to a customer of ours," he said as he turned away, "I would gone crazy in the headschonlong since ago already."
Nevertheless he pondered Leon Sammet's move all the morning, and after Morris had gone to lunch he paced the showroom floor for more than a quarter of an hour in an effort to formulate some plan for regaining Geigermann's business. His reflections were at length interrupted by a faint scraping from the rear of the store. Once more Aaron Shellak was entertaining the cutting-room staff with a pianissimo rendition of Godard'sBerceuse; but even as Abe tiptoed across the showroom to crush the performance with an explosive "Koosh!" the melody ceased.
"That's a genu-ine Amati," Aaron said, "and you could see for yourself—inside here is the label."
Abe stopped short. The word "Amati" brought back to him the scene of Felix Geigermann's musicale, and his heart thumped unpleasantly as he listened to Aaron's exhibition of salesmanship.
"Moreover," Aaron continued, "here is the scroll which it is ever so much finer as them other fiddles you could buy for fiftyodersixty dollars. Look at the varnish on the back, Nathan—shines like rubies, ain't it?"
"What would I do with a fiddle, Aaron?" Nathan Schenkman, the shipping clerk, asked.
"You I ain't saying at all," Aaron said; "but you got a little boy Nathan."
"He ain't a year old yet," Nathan interrupted.
"Sure, I know," Shellak went on; "but now is the time, Nathan. You couldn't begin too early. Look at Kubelik and Kreisler and all them fellers. When they was eating from a bottle already the old man give 'em a fiddle to play with, and to-day where are they? In one concert tower alone, Nathan, them fellers makes from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars."
He paused so that Nathan might better apprehend the alluring prospect.
"And I'll let you have it for a hundred and fifty dollars, Nathan," he concluded. "Ten dollars down and two dollars a week till paid. No interest nor nothing."
At this juncture Abe burst into the cutting room.
"Nu, Shellak!" he roared. "What are you trying to do? Skin a poor feller like Nathan, which he got a wife and a child to support?"
"What d'ye mean, skin him?" Aaron retorted. "I ain't no crook, Mr. Potash."
"That's all right, Shellak," Abe went on. "I heard every word you are saying. Come inside; I want to talk to you."
Aaron's face blanched and he trembled visibly.
"But, Mr. Potash—" he began.
"Never mind!" Abe bellowed; "take that fiddle and all thatmachshovosyou got there and come in here."
Abe led the way to the front of the showroom, followed by the crestfallen Shellak, who deposited fiddle, bow, and case on a sample table.
"Say, lookyhere, Shellak," Abe said in kindly tones, "what the devil are you trying to sell aSchnorrerlike that a good fiddle? Why don't you give me a show?"
The blood surged suddenly to Aaron's face.
"You!" he stammered. "Why, Mr. Potash, I never knew you was interested in violins."
"Sure; why not?" Abe replied. "Let me have a look at it."
First he squinted into the right "eff" hole and he grunted in approval as he spied the label, which read as follows:
NICOLAUS AMATI CREMONENSISFaciebat Anno 1670
"Do you know anything about them old violins?" Aaron asked anxiously.
Abe smiled in a superior way.
"Not a whole lot, Aaron," he said, but by the time he had finished his examination Aaron became convinced that his employer was indeed one of thecognoscenti. First Abe turned the violin upside down and scrutinized the scroll, neck, belly, and back. Then he blew into the "eff" holes; and wetting his finger he rubbed the varnish. For five minutes he pursued the tactics of Mozart Rabiner and even added one or two fancy touches on his own account, until at length he laid down the instrument with a profound sigh.
"Always the same thing, Shellak," he said; "people says it is a genu-ine and it ain't."
Aaron took up his violin and looked at it through new eyes.
"Why ain't it genu-ine?" he asked.
"I should tell you why it ain't!" Abe exclaimed. "If you would know what I know about them things, Shellak, you wouldn't ask me such a question at all. Do you doubt my word?"
"Why should I doubt your word, Mr. Potash?" Aaron said. "In the inside is the paper and that's all I know about it. So, if you would give me a hundred and fifty dollars, Mr. Potash, you could keep the fiddle, bow, caseund fertig."
For some minutes they haggled over the bargain, and at length they closed at a hundred and twenty-five dollars, for which Abe gave Shellak his personal check.
Illustration:Do you know anything about them old violins?"
"And you shouldn't say nothing to Mr. Perlmutter about it," Abe concluded, "because I want to make a present of it as a surprise to my partner."
When Abe came downtown the following morning he wore so marked an air of pleased mystery that Morris became irritated.
"Let me in on this too, Abe," he said.
"Let you in on what, Mawruss?" Abe asked innocently. "I don't know what you mean at all."
"You know very well what I mean," Morris rejoined. "You ain't coming around here grinning like a barn door for nothing."
"I give you right about that, Mawruss," Abe said. "I got in a goodSchlagat Leon Sammet and Moe Rabiner last night, Mawruss, I bet yer. I got from Geigermann a repeat order on them two-piece velvet suits—seven hundred and fifty dollars; and do you know how I done it?"
"Chloroformed him," Morris suggested ironically.
"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Go ahead and joke if you want to. Maybe I couldn't play the fiddle with my knees and maybe I don't know nothing aboutspielingpianners neither, y'understand; but I got a little gumption, too, Mawruss, and don't you forget it."
He retired to the cutting room with a set expression on his face, as though to imply that wild horses could not drag from him the secret of Felix Geigermann's renewed patronage.
For twenty minutes he remained firm in his resolve not to gratify his partner's curiosity; and then as Morris continued to whistle cheerfully over the sample-rack in the front of the loft, he returned to the showroom.
"Yes, Mawruss," he said; "some fellers if they would do what I done with Felix Geigermann they wouldn't give their partner a minute's peace. For months together, Mawruss, they would throw it up to him."
"What is the difference, Abe, if a salesman gets orders, how he gets 'em," Morris rejoined, "so long as he ain't padding his expense account?"
"What d'ye mean, padding my expense account?" Abe cried. "A hundred and twenty-five dollars the fiddle costed me and that's all I charge up."
"The fiddle!" Morris exclaimed. "What fiddle?"
"The fiddle which I give Geigermann last night," Abe continued; "and if you don't believe me you could ask Shellak."
"Shellak?" Morris repeated. "What the devil are you talking about, Abe?"
"Yes, Shellak," Abe went on, "the cutter. He comes round here yesterday with a fiddle, Mawruss, which he wants to sell it to Nathan Schenkman. So I give him a hundred and twenty-five dollars for itund fertig."
"You give Shellak a hundred and twenty-five dollars?" Morris exploded. "Are you crazy,oderwhat?"
"It was a genu-ine Amati," Abe explained; "and so soon as I seen it, Mawruss, I thought to myself if them cut-throats could sell Geigermann a big bill of goods just by playing on fiddles, y'understand, what sort of an order could I get out of him supposing I should give him a fiddle yet? So that's what I done, Mawruss; and he did, Mawruss, and I was right. Ain't it?"
"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris began slowly; "let me get this thing correct. You are paying Shellak a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a fiddle which you are giving Geigermann."
"You got it right, Mawruss," Abe said. "It was a genu-ine Amati."
"For a hundred and twenty-five dollars expenses you are getting an order for seven hundred and fifty dollars, Abe," Morris said relentlessly; "and some fellers would throw it up to their partners for months together yet."
"It was a genu-ine Amati, Mawruss," Abe repeated for the third time, "and for a genu-ine Amati, Mawruss, a hundred and twenty-five dollars is no price at all."
"Sure, I know, Abe," Morris said bitterly; "to you a hundred and twenty-five dollars is nothing at all. We are made of money, Abe, ain't it? What do you care you are spending a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a fiddle when for seventy-five dollars on Lenox Avenue and a Hundred and Sixteenth Street, with my own eyes I seen it, you could buy a square pianner with a stool and scarf yet, as good as new. If you want toschenkthe feller something, why didn't you told me? What for a present is a fiddle, Abe, when for half the money we could give him a pianner yet?"
Abe hung his head in embarrassment.
"But Mawruss," he said, "it was a genu-ine Amati."
For one brief moment Morris choked with rage.
"Genu-ine hell!" he roared, and plunged away to the office.
For the remainder of the morning Abe went about his work in crestfallen silence, although Morris, after subjecting Geigermann's order to a little cost bookkeeping on the back of an envelope broke once more into a cheerful whistle.
"Well, Abe," he said at twelve o'clock, "what isvorbeiisvorbei. It ain't no use crying over sour milk, so I am going out to lunch."
"What d'ye mean, sour milk, Mawruss?" Abe retorted. "The sour milk is all on your side, Mawruss, because I am telling you it was a genu-ine Amati."
"All right, Abe," Morris said, as he rang for the elevator; "you told me thatschontwenty times already. I wouldn't give you two dollars for all them genu-ine fellers' fiddles in creation; and that's all there is to it."
With this ultimatum he stepped into the elevator and five minutes afterward he sat at a table in Hammersmith's restaurant and beguiled with a dill pickle the interval between the giving and filling of his order. At the table next to him sat an animated group, of which Louis Kleiman was the centre.
"Yes, sirree, sir!" Louis declared, in defiance of the law of scandal and libel; "six months I would give the feller at the outside. A feller couldn't attend to business if he would set up till all hours of the night playing fiddle with that lowlife, Rabiner. That ain't all yet, neither! Yesterday he pays for a fiddle three thousand dollars."
"For a fiddle three thousand dollars!" cried one of the group, and the good half of a dill pickle fell from Morris's limp grasp.
"That's what I said," Louis continued; "for three thousand dollars yet he is buying a fiddle. With my own eyes I seen it in the paper this morning; and when a feller puts three thousand dollars into a fiddle, y'understand, he could kiss himself good-by with his business."
At this juncture Morris beckoned to the waiter.
"Say," he said hoarsely, "never mind that roast spring lamb and stuffed tomatoes. Bring me instead a rye-bread tongue sandwich and a cup coffee."
After the waiter had gone Morris settled back in his chair and listened once more to the conversation at the next table.
"All right; then I'm a liar," he heard Louis say. "I tell you I got the paper in my overcoat pocket right now."
Louis rose from his seat and securing the morning paper from his overcoat he read aloud the following item:
PAYS HEAVILY FOR AMATI VIOLINMrs. Helene Karanyi, widow of the celebrated violinist, Bela Karanyi, has sold her husband's favourite Amati at a price said to be over three thousand dollars. The purchaser is Felix Geigermann, who said yesterday that the violin had been in his possession for some time, and that there was no doubt of its authenticity. It was presented to Karanyi by the late Prince Ludovic Esterhazy, whose collection of Cremona violins, now preserved by his son, is said to be the finest in the world. Mr. Geigermann is the well-known Harlem dry-goods merchant.
Mrs. Helene Karanyi, widow of the celebrated violinist, Bela Karanyi, has sold her husband's favourite Amati at a price said to be over three thousand dollars. The purchaser is Felix Geigermann, who said yesterday that the violin had been in his possession for some time, and that there was no doubt of its authenticity. It was presented to Karanyi by the late Prince Ludovic Esterhazy, whose collection of Cremona violins, now preserved by his son, is said to be the finest in the world. Mr. Geigermann is the well-known Harlem dry-goods merchant.
Louis Kleiman folded the paper and laid it on the table.
"That's the way it goes, boys," he said in heightened tones, for by this time he had caught sight of Morris. "A new beginner comes to you and you give him a little line of credit, y'understand, and pretty soon he is buying more and more goods till he gets to be a bigmacherlike Felix Geigermann. Then either one of two things happens to you: Either he begins to think you are too small for him and he turns around and buys goods from some other sucker, y'understand,oderhe goes to work and throws away his money left and right on oitermobilesoderfiddles, and sooner or later he busts up on you; and that's the way it goes."
"You shouldn't worry yourself, Kleiman," Morris cried, turning around in his chair. "Felix Geigermann ain't going to fail just yet a while."
"Me worry?" Kleiman retorted. "For my part, Felix Geigermann could fail to-morrow yet; he don't owe me one cent, nor never would. I ain't looking to sell no goods to fiddlers, Perlmutter. I am dealing only with merchants."
"Furthermore," Morris went on, "if Felix Geigermann hears it you are making a break like this—that he's going to fail yet, and all sorts of crooks you are calling him, Kleiman—he would sue you in the courts for a hundred thousand dollars yet. From a big mouth a feller could get himself into a whole lot of trouble."
Kleiman scrambled hastily to his feet and seized his hat.
"What are you talking nonsense, Perlmutter?" he exclaimed. "I ain't said nothing out of the way about Geigermann. You are the one what's putting the words into my mouth already. Did you ever hear anything like it!—I am saying Geigermann is going to fail? An idee! I never said nothing of the kind. All I am saying is what is right here in the paper, black on white; and if you don't believe me you could read it for yourself."
He handed the paper to Morris; and, as the latter commenced to read over the Geigermann paragraph, Kleiman and his friends slunk hurriedly out of the restaurant. For nearly half an hour Morris pored over the newspaper; then he choked down the sandwich and swallowed the coffee, which by this time was cold.
"Admitting I am only your partner, Mawruss," Abe began as Morris entered the showroom a few minutes later, "don't I got to eat too? And in the second place, Mawruss, if you got to make a hog of yourself, do it at dinner-time at home, because when a feller takes up a whole hour having his lunch, Mawruss, he naturally stuffs himself so full that he ain't no good for the rest of the day."
A lump in Morris's throat, which may or may not have been the tongue sandwich, prevented him from replying; but at last he swallowed it and, after removing his hat and coat, he carefully unfolded the paper.
"Don't hurry out to lunch, Abe," he said. "I could save you money. I got something to tell you which it would take away your appetite so you wouldn't want even a cup coffee."
Abe paused with his hand on the hatrack.
"What d'ye mean?" he demanded.
"I mean I am eating only a tongue sandwich and a cup coffee in Hammersmith's just now," Morris went on, "and who should I see at the next table but Louis Kleiman of Kleiman & Elenbogen. That's a dirty lowlife, that feller, Abe! A cut-throat like him should be making money in business! Honestly, Abe, when I see decent, respectable fellers like ----"
"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe said, "let me go to my lunch, will you? I'm hungry."
"Hungry,sagt er!" Morris retorted. "A feller makes a god of his stomach, y'understand, and his business is nothing at all. For all you care, Abe, our whole trade could fail on us, so long as you could eat. Everybody says the same thing; the feller's —"
"Do me the favour, Mawruss," Abe begged; "tell me about it afterward. All I am eating for my breakfast is one egg, so sure as you're standing there."
"All right, Abe; I wouldn't keep you no longer," Morris said. "If you could got it in your heart to eat, when one of your best customers is busting up on you, go ahead."
"Our best customer?" Abe cried—"Mandelberger Brothers & Company?"
"Geh weg, you fool!" Morris exclaimed angrily. "Why should a millionaire concern like Mandelberger Brothers & Company got to fail? You talk like a lunatic."
Once more Abe seized his hat.
"I got enough of your nonsense, Mawruss," he said, starting for the elevator.
"Wait!" Morris cried, grabbing him by the arm. "Did you ship any goods to Felix Geigermann yet?"
"Felix Geigermann?" Abe repeated. "Is that the feller?"
Morris nodded, and this time Abe hung up his hat and sat down heavily in the nearest chair.
"Who says he's going to fail?" he asked.
"Everybody says so," Morris replied; "even in the papers they got it."
He handed Kleiman's paper to Abe and indicated the paragraph with a shaking forefinger.
"Where does it say he is going to fail?" Abe asked after he had read it over hastily.
"Where does it say it?" Morris cried. "Why, if a feller goes to work and pays three thousand dollars for a fiddle, Abe, while he only got a business rated twenty-five to thirty thousand, credit fair, ain't it as plain as the nose on your face he must got to fail?"
Once more Abe read over the paragraph and then the paper fell from his hands to the floor.
"Why, Mawruss," he gasped, "it says here he is paying three thousand dollars for an Amati which he had in his possession for some time. That must be the very fiddle which he is playing on with Moe Rabiner."
"Mytzurisif it isoderit ain't," Morris commented. "What difference does that make to us, Abe?"
Abe's face was white and large beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead as he replied.
"The difference ain't much, Mawruss," he said slowly. "Only if Felix Geigermann pays three thousand for the fiddle which he already got it and we are giving him for nothing another fiddle, which is the selfsame, identical article, Mawruss, then we are out three thousand dollars—and that's all the difference it makes to us!"
For two minutes Morris regarded his partner with a glassy stare.
"Do you mean to told me, Abe, that that there fiddle which you bought it from Shellak is the same identical article like Geigermann pays three thousand dollars for?"
Abe nodded.
"You couldn't tell the difference between 'em, Mawruss," he declared. "Even inside the label is the same—the same name and everything."
Morris took off his hat and coat methodically and hung them up on the rack.
"So, Abe," he commenced, "you are giving to aSchnorrerlike Geigermann a genu-ine who's-this violin, which it is worth three thousand dollars!"
"How should I know it is worth three thousand?" Abe said.
"Everybody knows that one of them genu-ine feller's violins is worth three thousand dollars," Morris thundered. "I'm surprised to hear you, you should talk that way."
"Shellak didn't know it for one," Abe interrupted, "otherwise why should he sell to us for a hundred and twenty-five dollars a fiddle worth three thousand dollars?"
"What should a greenhorn like Shellak know about such things?" Morris said.
"Don't you fool yourself, Mawruss. If Shellak finds out he is getting a hundred and twenty-five for a fiddle worth three thousand, he's got gumption enough to sue us in the courts yet, and don't you forget it."
"Why should he sue us, Abe?" Morris asked. "A bargain is a bargain, ain't it?"
"Sure I know, Mawruss; but I told the feller the fiddle wasn't genu-ine, y'understand, when all the time I knew it was genu-ine."
"Might you are mistaken maybe, Abe," Morris broke in. "Might the fiddle ain't genu-ine."
"What d'ye mean, ain't genu-ine? I am telling you the label was inside and even the lot number is the same."
"The lot number?"
"Sure, the lot number. Sixteen-seventy, I think it was; and the only thing for us to do, Mawruss, is we should fix up some scheme to get that fiddle back from Geigermann; and that's all there is to it."
"Well, go ahead, Abe," Morris said. "Go ahead and see him this afternoon."
For the third time Abe put on his hat.
"First and foremost I would go out and get a bite to eat, Mawruss," he said. "What good would it do me to get the fiddle back if I would die from starvation first?"
Although the manufacturers of mechanical piano-players had never solicited Felix Geigermann's photograph for half-tone reproductions in the advertising section of anybody's magazine, he dressed as though he expected the immediate arrival of the man with the camera—that is to say, he wore his hair after Mahler, while Hollman and Moritz Rosenthal contributed to the pattern of his moustache. Moreover, he assumed a Paderewski tuft, a rolling collar that exposed the points of his right and left clavicles, a Windsor tie, and, to preserve the unity of his characterization, a slight nondescript foreign accent, despite the circumstance that he was born in Newark, N. J. All this, however, was not an idle pose on Felix's part. He merely applied to a dry-goods store the business principles of the successful virtuoso, and he had found them so efficacious that personally he sold more garments than any six of his clerks. He was no less astute in the buying end of the business; for in pitting Sammet Brothers, Klinger & Klein, and Potash & Perlmutter against one another he not only secured better terms of credit, but he found that it materially added to the quality of their garments.
Thus, had Abe but known it, his seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar order proceeded not from the gift of the violin, but from the circumstance that the velvet suits had sold like hot cakes; and when he entered the Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street store that afternoon Felix greeted him effusively. He wanted that second order badly, and if cordiality could accelerate its shipment he was willing to try it with Abe.
"Ah,mon ami," he cried. "Come inside my office. What good wind blows you here?"
Abe scowled. All this enthusiasm betokened but one thing—the violin was a genuine Amati, after all. He sat down slowly and bit the end off a large cigar.
"The fact is, Felix," he began, "for myself I don't care, y'understand, but you know Mawruss Perlmutter, what a crank that feller is, Felix; and so I am coming up here to ask you something for a question."
"Fire away, Abe; you couldn't feaze me none," Felix replied in the accents of Newark, N. J.
"Well, Felix, it's like this," Abe went on: "If we would be selling goods to J. B. Morgan, y'understand, and Mawruss here he is buying for eight dollars a fur overcoat—understand me—he right away would want another statement."
Felix nodded. "Nowadays you can't be too cautious," he agreed.
"So, this morning, in the paper," Abe continued, "Mawruss reads you are buying for three thousand dollars a fiddle and—"
"But, Abe," Felix interrupted, "it was a genuine Amati."
"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but yesterday I myself am bringing you a genu-ine Amati and I didn't pay no such figure for it."
Felix looked carefully at Abe's stolid face for some gleam of humour; and then he broke into a fit of laughter so violent that Abe suspected it to be a trifle forced.
"All right, Felix," he grumbled; "maybe you think it is a joke, but just the same I am telling you I paid for that fiddle only two hundred dollars."
Felix stopped laughing and wiped his eyes.
"Well, I'm sorry, Abe," he said seriously. "A feller should never look a gift horse in the teeth, Abe; but that fiddle ain't worth a cent more than a hundred at the outside."
"Do you mean to say it ain't a genu-ine Amati?" Abe asked angrily.
"Why, I don't mean to say anything, Abe," Felix began; "but there are Amatis and Amatis. Some of them are worth little fortunes and others are very ordinary-like."
"Say, lookyhere, Felix," Abe cried, "don't fool with me. Either that fiddle is or it ain't a genu-ine Amati. Ain't it?"
Felix paused. He wanted those velvet suits badly, and it began to look as though there would be a delay in the shipment.
"What is all this leading to, Abe?" he began pleasantly. "If there's anything troubling you speak right up and I'll try to straighten it out."
Abe shifted his cigar in his mouth and made the plunge.
"What is the use beating bushes around, Felix?" he said. "Yesterday I am giving you a fiddle, ain't it? Inside it says the fiddle is a genu-ine Amati. What?Schon gutif that fiddle is a genu-ine Amati it is worth three thousand dollars, ain't it? Because if it ain't, then you are stuck with the other fiddle which you bought it. And if it is worth three thousand, then we are stuck by giving you the fiddle, ain't it? So that's the way it goes."
Felix nodded. It was a delicate situation, in which his credit and the shipment of the suits seemed to be imperilled. To declare flatly that Abe's gift was a bogus Amati might offend him seriously, while to admit that it was genuine, but only worth one hundred dollars, was to foster Abe's notion that he, Felix, had wasted three thousand dollars on a similar violin.
"I want to tell you something, Abe," he began at last. "There's nothing to this business of selling goods by making presents, and I for one don't believe in it. So I'll tell you what I'll do. Come up here to the store to-morrow morning, and I'll get the fiddle from my house and give it back to you."
Abe's scowl merged immediately into a wide grin.
"I don't want the fiddle back, Felix," he said, "but my partner, y'understand, he is the one which is always—"
"Say no more, Abe," Felix cried. "All I want is you should ship that order; and tell your partner, if he is scared I am spending my money foolishly, he can have a new statement whenever he wants it; and I'll swear to it on a truckload of Bibles."
When Abe returned to his place of business that afternoon he expected to find Morris pacing up and down the showroom floor, the picture of distracted anxiety. Instead he was humming a cheerful melody as he piled up two-piece velvet suits.
"Well, Abe," he said, "you have went on a fool's errand, ain't it?"
"What d'ye mean, fool's errand?" Abe demanded.
"Why, I mean I knew all along that fiddle of yours was a fake; and anyhow, Abe, I seen Milton Strauss, of Klipmann, Strauss & Bleimer, and what d'ye suppose he told it me, Abe?"
Abe shrugged angrily.
"If you must got to get it off your chest before I tell you what Geigermann told to me, Mawruss," he said, "go ahead."
"Well, I seen Milton Strauss, Abe," Morris went on calmly, "and he says to me that he knows for a positive fact that Felix Geigermann could have sold that fiddle of his for three thousand five hundred dollars before he even pays for it yet. Strauss says that Felix is all the time buying up old fiddles for a side line, and if he makes a cent at it he makes a couple thousand dollars a year. Furthermore, Abe, he says that if anybody's got a genu-ine who's-this fiddle, he wouldn't let it go for no hundred and twenty-five dollars, and the chances is you are paying a fancy figure for a cheap popular-price line of fiddles."
Abe hung up his hat so violently that he nearly knocked a hole in the crown.
"In the first place, Mawruss," he began, "it was your idee I should go up there and get the fiddle back, and in the second place I am telling you with my own eyes I seen that fiddle and it is the selfsame, identical article—name, lot number and everything—which that feller Geigermann refuses thirty-five hundred dollars for."
He scowled at his partner in anticipation of a cutting rejoinder.
"But anyhow, that ain't neither here nor there," he continued as Morris remained silent. "We would quick find out for ourselves what the fiddle really is, because to-morrow morning I am going around to the store and Geigermann gives me the fiddle back."
Morris paused in the folding of a velvet skirt.
"I wouldn't do that, Abe, if I was you," he said. "What is the use giving presents and taking 'em back again? You could make from a feller an enemy for life that way."
"Sure, I know Mawruss. An enemy for life is one thing, Mawruss, but thirty-five hundred dollars ain't to be sniffed at neither, y'understand."
"Schmooes, Abe!" Morris cried. "The fiddle ain't worth even thirty-five hundred pins."
Following this observation there ensued a controversy of over an hour's duration, at the end of which Morris compromised.
"Say, listen here to me, Abe!" he declared. "You say the fiddle is worth it and I say it ain't. Now if I am right and we take the fiddle back, then we are acting like a couple of cheap yokels, ain't it?Aberif you are right, Abe, then we are out thirty-five hundred dollars. So what's the use talking, Abe? Only one thing we got to do. We got to find a feller which he could right away tell whether the fiddle isodernot is genu-ine—just by looking at it, y'understand. This feller we got to send up to Geigermann's house to look at the fiddle to-night yet, and if he says the fiddle is, Abe, then we would take it back.Aberif he says the fiddle ain't, Abe, then, Geigermann could keep the fiddleund fertig."
Abe nodded slowly.
"The idee is all right, Mawruss," he said; "but in the first place, Mawruss, where could we find such a feller, and in the second place, if we did found him, Mawruss, what excuse would we give Geigermann for sending him up there in the third place?"
Morris scratched his head.
"Well, for that matter, Abe, if we found such a feller, we could send him up there to say that he hears from you that you are giving away such a Who's-this fiddle to Geigermann, and that the feller would like to buy it off of him."
"And then, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"And then," Morris went on, "Geigermann shows the feller the fiddle, y'understand, and if it is worth itoderit isn't worth it the feller says nothing to Geigermann, but he comes back and reports to us."
Abe nodded again.
"If I was to tell you all the weak points of that scheme, Mawruss," he said, "I could stand here talking till my tongue dropped out yet. But all I got to say is, Mawruss, the idee is yours, and you should go ahead and carry it out. Me, I got nothing to say about it either one way or the other."
At seven that evening, while Professor Ladislaw Wcelak was washing down a late breakfast with a bottle of beer, there came a violent knocking at the hall door. The professor answered it in person, for Aaron was busily engaged over Concone's vocalizations in the front parlour and the other members of the family were washing dishes in the rear.
"Nu, Landsmann!" Ladislaw cried. "Ain't you working to-night?"
The newcomer was none other than Emil Pilz,Konzertmeisterof the Palace Theatre of Varieties, if that dignified term may be applied to the first violin of an orchestra of twenty.
"I am and I ain't," Emil replied. "I've got a job, Louis, which it would take me till nine o'clock, so be a good feller and substitute for me at the theayters till I am coming back."
"And who would substitute for me, Emil?" the professor asked.
"That's all right," Emil replied. "I stopped in on my way over and I seen old man Hubai. He ain'tshikkeryet, so I told him he should go over and fiddle a coupleczardastill you come, and to tell the boss you got aMagenwehand would be a little late. Me, I am going uptown to look at a fiddle. I got the job through an old pupil, Milton Strauss, which he says a feller by the name Potash gives away a fiddle which he bought, and now he thinks it's a genuine Amati. So I should please go up and look at it; and if it isoderit isn't, I get ten dollars."
"Who's this feller Potash?" the professor asked, and Emil shrugged.
"What difference does that make?" he said. "He gives a hundred and twenty-five dollars for the fiddle only a couple days ago. What d'ye want to know for?"
"Oh, nothing," the professor replied; "only my brother Aaron sold to a feller by the name Potash the other day a fiddle which I myself bought from old Hubai a couple years ago for fifteen dollars yet; and if that's the one you are talking about, Emil, you should quick go up to the theayter and forget about it. Because, Emil, if that fiddle is an Amati, you are a Kubelik and I am a Kreisler."
"Sure, I know, Louis," Emil agreed; "but just the same I got to go up there to make the ten, so if you would do me the favour andspielfor me till half-past nine you could get anyhow three dollars of it."
"I am willing," the professor said; and ten minutes later he was on his way up to the Palace Theatre of Varieties.
It was precisely half-past nine, while a tabloid drama in progress on the stage rendered the presence of the orchestra unnecessary, that Emil Pilz returned.
"NuEmil," Louis said as they stood in the corridor leading to the stage entrance, "did you seen the Amati?"
He grinned in humorous anticipation of Emil's answer.
"Yes, I did seen it," Emil replied, "and it's a very elegant, grand model."
"Sure," the professor said; "made in Bavaria with an ax."
"Don't you fool yourself, Louis," Emil retorted. "That's an elegant instrument from Nicolo Amati's best period. If it's worth a cent it's worth three thousand dollars."
"Schmooes, Emil!" Louis cried. "What are you trying to do?—kid me?"
"What d'ye mean, kid you?" Emil asked. "I should never stir from this spot, Louis, if that ain't an Amati. It's got a tone like gold, Louis."
For a brief interval Louis stared at his informant.
"Do you mean to told me, Emil, that that fiddle is a real, genu-ine Amati?"
"Listen here to me, Louis," Emil declared; "if I wouldn't be sure that it was genu-ine why should I got such a heart that I would act that way to that feller Potash? When—so sure as you are standing there, Louis—when I told him it was a genu-ine Amati he pretty near got a fit already; and as for his partner by the name Perlmutter, he hollered so I thought he was going to spit blood already."
Louis licked his dry lips before making any reply.
"So, then, I am paying fifteen dollars for a fiddle which it is a genu-ine Amati," he said, "and that brother of mine which he ain't got no more sense as a lunatic lets it go for a song already."
"Well, I couldn't stop to talk to you now, Louis," Emil said. "I must got to get on the job. I am going to be to-morrow morning, ten o'clock, at this here Potash & Perlmutter's, and if you want to you could meet me there with old man Hubai."
"Old man Hubai!" Louis cried. "What's he got to do with it?"
"He's got a whole lot to do with it, Louis," Emil said. "A feller like him sells you a three-thousand-dollar violin for fifteen dollars which he ain't got a penny in the world, y'understand, and I should stand by and see him get done!"
Professor Wcelak hung his head and blushed.
"Also, Louis," Emil concluded, "I just rung him up at the café, and he says whatever he gets out of it I get half."
When Morris Perlmutter arrived at Felix Geigermann's store the next morning he showed the effects of a restless night and no breakfast; for he had found it impossible either to eat or sleep until he had his hands on the violin.
"Mr. Geigermann went out for a minute, Mr. Potash," a floorwalker explained; "but he said I should show you right into his office, Mr. Potash."
"My name ain't Potash," Morris replied, "that's my partner, which he couldn't get up here on account he is sick."
"That's all right," the floorwalker said reassuringly. "Just step this way."
He conducted Morris to Geigermann's office.
"Have a seat, Mr. Perlmutter," he said; but the words fell on deaf ears, for as soon as he entered the room Morris descried the violin, which rested on top of Geigermann's desk. He pounced on it immediately, and turning it over in his hand he examined it with the minutest care. At length he discerned the label inside the "eff" hole. It was curling away from the wood and appeared to be ready to drop off, so that it was an easy matter for Morris to impale it on his scarfpin. By dint of a little scraping he managed to draw one edge of it through the "eff" hole and the next moment he was examining the faded printing. Then he turned the label over and in one corner he discovered an oval mark. Simultaneously the door opened and Geigermann entered.
Morris thrust the label into his pocket and turned to Geigermann with an amiable smile. Moreover, his pallor had given place to a pronounced flush and he looked nearly five years younger than when he walked into the store just ten minutes before.
"Hello, Felix!" he cried, holding out his hand. "How's the boy?"
"Fine," Felix said. "Where's Abe?"
"He couldn't get here on account he is sitting up late again last night, and, of course, Felix, he is sick. But anyhow, Felix, I am glad he ain't coming."
"Why so?" Felix asked.
"Because you never seen such a feller in your life, Felix," Morris went on. "Always worrying and always kicking. First he gives you a fiddle, then he wants to take it back again. With me it is different. What do I care if the fiddle is or it ain't one of them genu-ine Who's This's? Once you give a thing you give a thing, ain't it? And I don't care what experts says nor nothing."
Felix Geigermann blushed. When Emil Pilz had called on him the night before he had scented the object of the visit and had exhibited not Abe's gift but the Karanyi Amati. He had no doubt that Pilz communicated to Potash & Perlmutter the result of his call immediately after its conclusion, and he felt touched and humbled by Morris's generous behaviour.
"Morris," he said, "I did you a big injury. I didn't think you felt that way about it; so when that expert called on me last night I didn't show him Abe's fiddle at all—I showed him the other one, the three-thousand-dollar fiddle."
Morris's grin became a trifle broader.
"That don't worry me none, Felix," he declared. "I am glad you should keep the fiddle if it should be worth ten thousand dollars even. A gift is a gift, Felix."
"That's very generous of you, Morris, I must say," Felix replied, "and I would keep the violin. I would even do more, Morris. I was going to give Klinger & Klein an order for some of their three-piece broadcloths, but I changed my mind. I will give it to you instead; and if you would be in this afternoon, Morris, I will go downtown and pick 'em out."
Once more Morris wrung his customer's hand. Before proceeding downtown, he sought the nearest dairy restaurant and made tremendous inroads upon its stock of eggs and coffee. It was almost ten o'clock before he reached his place of business, and as he stepped out of the elevator he was greeted by a roar of voices approximating the effect of a well-managed mob scene in a capital-and-labour drama.
Old man Hubai stood in the middle of the showroom; and with clenched fists waving in the air he appealed to heaven to witness that he was a poor man and spoke nothing but the Hungarian tongue. Hence he was at the mercy of such ruffians as Pilz and Wcelak, whose right name he averred to be Kohn. Following this he swore by his mother that he had paid a thousand kronen for the violin, andda capofrom the exposition of his poverty. Simultaneously Professor Ladislaw Wcelak dwelt on the economic aspect of the matter. In stentorian tones he declared Abe's purchase of the violin to be another example of capital sitting upon the neck of labour, and he prophesied the rapid approach of the Social Revolution, with sundry references to bloodsuckers, cut-throats and Philistines.
Emil Pilz, Aaron, and Abe Potash himself added to the general din in a three-cornered discussion of the legal points involved. Emil contended that Aaron could replevin the violin upon the ground of Abe's misrepresentation at the time of the purchase, and Abe denied it in Yiddish and English, with emphatic profanity in both languages.
Into this mêlée Morris hurled himself with a resounding "Koosh!"
"Are you all crazy,oderwhat?" he demanded.
"Well," Abe cried, "where is it?"
Instantly there was a dead silence and all eyes rested on Morris.
"Where's what?" Morris asked.
"The Amati!" Emil Pilz cried; and Morris laughed aloud.
"Geh weg!" he said. "You are an expert!"
Pilz shook his head in a bullying fashion.
"Never mind if I am an expertodernot," he said. "Where is that Amati which I seen it myself at Geigermann's house only last night?"
"It is at Geigermann's house to-day," Morris replied. "Right now it is there and it would stay there too, young feller, because that fiddle which you seen it is the one Geigermann paid three thousand dollars for. You seen the wrong fiddle, that's all."
This statement seemed to rouse Aaron Shellak to hysterical frenzy.
"Liar and thief!" he screamed. "Give me my fiddle."
"One moment, Shellak," Morris said, "before you put on your hat and coat and go home, which you shouldn't trouble yourself to come back at all. I want to show you something."
He explored his waistcoat pocket.
"Ain't this the label which was in your fiddle?" he asked, handing Aaron a slip of paper.
Aaron examined it carefully and nodded.
"That other crazy Indian over there," Morris continued, pointing to the professor, "look at this label. Ain't it the same which was in the fiddle?"
Ladislaw Wcelak examined the printed slip and he, too, nodded.
Next, Morris turned to old man Hubai, who stood apart muttering to himself.
"Some one ask that old greenhorn if it's the same label that was in the fiddle. I don't know what he's got to do with this business but he may know, anyhow."
Wcelak interpreted Morris's words and showed the label to the old man, who replied volubly in Hungarian.
"He says he thinks it is," the professor said, "but he doesn't know for sure."
"Well, I know it is the same," Morris retorted, "because I took it out there myself this morning."
Here Morris cleared his throat and assumed an air of such dignity, not to say majesty, that to Abe, it seemed as though he had never rightly known his partner until that moment.
"Now look on the other side of that label," Morris cried.
Once more the label went the rounds and after Emil Pilz had examined it he put on his hat and made for the elevator. Almost on tiptoe Professor Ladislaw Wcelak followed him, while Aaron repaired to the cutting room and packed up his belongings, preparatory to forsaking a career as cutter for one of music.
At length only old man Hubai remained.
"What are you waiting for?" Morris demanded.
"Me poor man," Hubai said. "Me no got carfare, me no gotTrinkgeld, me no got nothing."
Morris handed him a quarter and he shuffled off toward the backstairs. Meantime Abe staggered to his feet and passed his hand over his forehead.
"Tell me, Mawruss," he said, "what is all this about?"
"It's just what I says just now, Abe," Morris exploded. "That expert seen the wrong fiddle. The fiddle you gave Geigermann is no more three hundred years old than I am."
"Why ain't it?" Abe asked.
For answer Morris handed him the label. On the obverse side Abe read the inscription: