"Why!" Morris gasped. "That's my vest."
"Sure it is," Mr. Feder replied, "and it just fits me, Mawruss. In fact, it fits me so good that when I went to the barber-shop in a two-piece suit this morning, Mawruss, I come away with a three-piece suit and a souvenir besides."
"A souvenir!" Abe cried. "What for a souvenir?"
Mr. Feder put his hand in his trousers pocket and tumbled the missing ring and pin on to a baize-covered sample table.
"That was the souvenir, Abe," he said. "In fact, two souvenirs."
Morris and Abe stared at the diamonds, too stunned for utterance.
"You're a fine feller, Mawruss," Mr. Feder continued, "to be carrying around valuable stones like them in your vest pocket. Why, I showed them stones to a feller what was in my office an hour ago and he says they must be worth pretty near five hundred dollars."
He paused and looked at Morris.
"And he was a pretty good judge of diamonds, too," he continued.
"Who was the feller, Mr. Feder?" Abe asked.
"I guess you know, Abe," Mr. Feder replied. "His name is Hymie Kotzen."
"Max Fried, of the A La Mode Store, was in here a few minutes since, Mawruss," said Abe Potash, to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, after the latter had returned from lunch one busy August day, "and bought a couple of hundred of them long Trouvilles. He also wanted something to ask it of us as a favor, Mawruss."
"Sixty days is long enough, Abe," said Morris, on the principle of "once bitten, twice shy." "For a man what runs a little store like the A La Mode on Main Street, Buffalo, Abe, Max don't buy too few goods, neither. Ain't it?"
"Don't jump always for conclusions, Mawruss," Abe broke in. "This ain't no credit matter what he asks it of us. His wife got a sister what they wanted to make from her a teacher, Mawruss, but she ain't got the head. So, Max thinks we could maybe use her for a model. Her name is Miss Kreitmann and she's a perfect thirty-six, Max says, only a little fat."
"And then, when she tries on a garment for a customer," Morris rejoined, "the customer goes around telling everybody that we cut our stuff too skimpy. Ain't it? No, Abe, we got along so far good with the models what we got, and I guess we can keep it up. Besides, if Max is so anxious toget her a job, why don't he take her on himself, Abe?"
"Because she lives here in New York with her mother," Abe explained; "and what chance has a girl got in Buffalo, anyway? That's what Max says, and he also told it me that she got a very fine personality, and if we think it over maybe he gives us an introduction to Philip Hahn, of the Flower City Credit Outfitting Company. That's a million-dollar concern, Mawruss. I bet yer they're rated J to K, first credit, and Philip Hahn's wife is Miss Kreitmann's mother's sister. Leon Sammet will go crazy if he hears that we sell them people."
"That's all right, Abe," said Morris. "We ain't doing business to spite our competitors; we're doing it to please our customers so that they'll buy goods from us and maybe they'll go crazy, too, when they see her face, Abe."
"Max Fried says she is a good-looker. Nothing extraordinary, y'understand, but good, snappy stuff and up to date."
"You talk like she was a garment, Abe," said Morris.
"Well, you wouldn't buy no garment, Mawruss, just because some one told you it was good. Would you? So, Max says he would bring her around this afternoon, and if we liked her Hahn would stop in and see us later in the day. He says Hahn picks out never less than a couple of hundred ofone style, and also Hahn is a liberal buyer, Mawruss."
"Of course, Abe," Morris commenced, "if we're doing this to oblige Philip Hahn——"
"We're doing it to oblige Philip Hahn and Max Fried both, Mawruss," Abe broke in. "Max says he ain't got a minute's peace since Miss Kreitmann is old enough to get married."
"So!" Morris cried. "A matrimonial agency we're running, Abe. Is that the idea?"
"The idea is that she should have the opportunity of meeting by us a business man, Mawruss, what can give her a good home and a good living, too. Max says he is pretty near broke, buying transportation from Buffalo to New York, Mawruss, so as he can bust up love matches between Miss Kreitmann and some good-looking retail salesman, Mawruss, what can dance the waltz A Number One and couldn't pay rent for light housekeeping on Chrystie Street."
"Well, Abe," Morris agreed, with a sigh of resignation, "if we got to hire her as a condition that Philip Hahn gives us a couple of good orders a season, Abe, I'm agreeable."
"Naturally," Abe replied, and carefully selecting a slightly-damaged cigar from the M to P first and second credit customers' box, he fell to assorting the sample line against Philip Hahn's coming that afternoon.
His task was hardly begun, however, when thestore door opened to admit Max Fried and his sister-in-law. Abe immediately ceased his sample-assorting and walked forward to greet them.
"Hello, Max," he said.
Max stopped short, and by the simple process of thrusting out his waist-line assumed a dignity befitting the ceremony of introduction.
"Mr. Potash," he said severely, "this is Miss Gussie Kreitmann, my wife's sister, what I talked to you about."
Abe grinned shyly.
"All right," he said, and shook hands with Miss Kreitmann, who returned his grin with a dazzling smile.
"Mr. Fried tells me you like to come to work by us as a model. Ain't it?" Abe continued in the accents of the sucking dove. "So, I guess you'd better go over to Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, and she'll show you where to put your hat and coat."
"Oh, I ain't in no hurry," Miss Kreitmann replied. "To-morrow morning will do."
"Sure, sure," Abe murmured. He was somewhat shocked by Miss Kreitmann's appearance, for while Max Fried's reservation, "only a little fat," had given him some warning, he was hardly prepared to employ so pronounced an Amazon as Miss Kreitmann. True, her features, though large, were quite regular, and she had fine black eyes and the luxurious hair that goes with them; but as Abe gazed at the convex lines of her generous figure he could nothelp wondering what his partner would say when he saw her.
As a matter of fact, at that precise moment Morris was taking in the entire situation from behind a convenient rack of raincoats, and was mentally designing a new line of samples to be called The P & P System. He figured that he would launch it with a good, live ad in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record, to be headed: Let 'EmAllCome. We Can FitEverybody.LargeSizes a Specialty.
"Do you think you will like it here?" Abe hazarded.
"Oh, sure," Max replied for his sister-in-law. "This ain't the first time she works in a cloak and suit house. She helps me out in the store whenever she comes to Buffalo. In fact, she knows part of your line already, Abe, and the rest she learns pretty quick."
"You won't find me slow, Mr. Potash," Miss Kreitmann broke in. "Maybe I ain't such a good model except for large sizes, but I learned to sell cloaks by my brother-in-law and by my uncle, Philip Hahn, before I could talk already. What I want to do now is to meet the trade that comes into the store."
"That's what you're going to do," Abe said. "I will introduce you to everybody."
The thought that this would be, perhaps, the only way to get rid of her lent fervor to his words, and Max shook him warmly by the hand.
"I'm much obliged," he said. "Me and Philip Hahn will be in sure in a couple of hours, and Gussie comes to work to-morrow morning."
Once more Abe proffered his hand to his new model, and a moment later the door slammed behind them.
"So, that's the party, is it?" said Morris, emerging from his hiding-place. "What's she looking for a job by us for, Abe? She could make it twice as much by a circus sideshow or a dime museum."
"Philip Hahn will be here in a couple of hours, Mawruss," Abe replied, avoiding the thrust. "I guess he's going to buy a big bill of goods, Mawruss."
"I hope so, Abe, because it needs quite a few big bills to offset the damage a model like this here Miss Kreitmann can do. In fact, Abe," he concluded, "I'd be just as well satisfied if Miss Kreitmann could give us the orders, and we could get Philip Hahn to come to work by us as a model. I ain't never seen him, Abe, but I think he's got a better shape for the line."
A singular devotion to duty marked every action of Emanuel Gubin, shipping clerk in the wholesale cloak and suit establishment of Potash & Perlmutter. That is to say, it had marked every action until the commencement of Miss Kreitmann's incumbency. In the very hour that Emanuel first observed the luster of her fine black eyes his heartgave one bound and never more regained its normal gait.
As for Miss Kreitmann, she saw only a shipping clerk, collarless, coatless and with all the grime of his calling upon him. Two weeks elapsed, however, and one evening, on Lenox Avenue, she encountered Emanuel, freed from the chrysalis of his employment, a natty, lavender-trousered butterfly of fashion. Thereafter she called him Mannie, and during business hours she flashed upon him those same black eyes with results disastrous to the shipping end of Potash & Perlmutter's business.
Packages intended for the afternoon delivery of a local express company arrived in Florida two weeks later, while the irate buyer of a Jersey City store, who impatiently awaited an emergency shipment of ten heavy winter garments, received instead half a hundred gossamer wraps designed for the sub-tropical weather of Palm Beach.
"I don't know what's come over that fellow, Mawruss," Abe said at last. "Formerly he was a crackerjack—never made no mistakes nor nothing; and now I dassen't trust him at all, Mawruss. Everything we ship I got to look after it myself, Mawruss. We might as well have no shipping clerk at all."
"You're right, Abe," Morris replied. "He gets carelesser every day. And why, Abe? Because of that Miss Kreitmann. She breaks us all up, Abe. I bet yer if that feller Gubin has took her to thetheayter once, Abe, he took her fifty times already. He spends every cent he makes on her, and the first thing you know, Abe, we'll be missing a couple of pieces of silk from the cutting-room. Ain't it?"
"He ain't no thief, Mawruss," said Abe, "and, besides, you can't blame a young feller if he gets stuck on a nice girl like Miss Kreitmann, Mawruss. She's a smart girl, Mawruss. Mendel Immerglick, of Immerglick & Frank, was in here yesterday, Mawruss, and she showed him the line, Mawruss, and believe me, Mawruss, Immerglick says to me I couldn't have done it better myself."
"Huh!" Morris snorted. "A young feller like Immerglick, what buys it of us a couple of hundred dollars at a time, she falls all over herself to please him, Abe. And why? Because Immerglick's got a finemustache and is a swell dresser and he ain't married. But you take it a good customer like Adolph Rothstein, Abe, and what does she do? At first she was all smiles to him, because Adolph is a good-looking feller. But then she hears him telling me a hard-luck story about his wife's operation and how his eldest boy Sammie is now seven already and ain't never been sick in his life, and last month he gets the whooping cough and all six of Adolph's boys gets it one after the other. Then, Abe, she treats Adolph like a dawg, Abe, and the first thing you know he looks at his watch and says he got an appointment and he'll be back. But he don't come back at all, Abe, and this noontime I seen Leon Sammetand Adolph in Wasserbauer's Restaurant. They was eating the regular dinnerwith chicken, Abe, and I seen Leon pay for it."
Abe received his partner's harangue in silence. His eyes gazed vacantly at the store door, which had just opened to admit the letter-carrier.
"Suppose we do lose a couple of hundred dollars trade," he said at length; "one customer like Philip Hahn will make it up ten times, Mawruss."
"Well, you'll lose him, too, Abe, if you don't look out," said Morris, who had concluded the reading of a typewritten letter with a scrawled postscript. "Just see what he writes us."
He handed over the missive, which read as follows:
Abe folded up the letter, and his mouth became a straight line of determination under his stubby mustache.
"I guess I fix that young feller," he cried, seizing a pen. He wrote:
On Saturday afternoon Morris Perlmutter was putting on his hat and coat preparatory to going home. He had just fired Mannie Gubin with a relish and satisfaction second only to what would have been his sensations if the operation had been directed toward Miss Kreitmann. As he was about to leave the show-room Abe entered.
"Oh, Mawruss," Abe cried, "you ought to see Miss Kreitmann. She's all broke up about Mannie Gubin, and she's crying something terrible."
"Is she?" Morris said, peering over his partner's shoulder at the grief-stricken model, who was giving vent to her emotions in the far corner of the salesroom. "Well, Abe, you tell her to come away from them light goods and cry over the blue satinets. They don't spot so bad."
Miss Gussie Kreitmann evidently knew how to conceal a secret sorrow, for outwardly she remained unchanged. She continued to scowl at those of her employers' customers who were men of family, andbeamed upon the unmarried trade with all the partiality she had displayed during Mannie Gubin's tenure of employment. Indeed, her amiability toward the bachelors was if anything intensified, especially in the case of Mendel Immerglick.
Many times he had settled lunch checks in two figures, for Miss Kreitmann's appetite was in proportion to her size. Moreover, a prominent Broadway florist was threatening Mendel with suit for flowers supplied Miss Kreitmann at his request. Nor were there lacking other signs, such as the brilliancy of Mendel's cravats and the careful manicuring of his nails, to indicate that he was paying court to Miss Kreitmann.
"I think, Abe," Morris said finally, "we're due for an inquiry from the Flower City Company about Immerglick & Frank."
"I hope not, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I never liked them people, Mawruss. In fact, last week Mendel Immerglick struck me for new terms—ninety instead of sixty days—and he wanted to give me a couple of thousand dollar order. I turned him down cold, Mawruss. People what throw such a bluff like Mendel Immerglick don't give me no confidence, Mawruss. I'm willing to sell him up to five hundred at sixty days, but that's all." "Oh, I don't know, Abe," Morris protested. "A couple of bright boys like Mendel Immerglick andLouis Frank can work up a nice business after a while."
"Can they?" Abe rejoined. "Well, more likely they work up a nice line of credit, Mawruss, and then, little by little, they make it a big failure, Mawruss. A feller what curls his mustache like Mendel Immerglick ain't no stranger to auction houses, Mawruss. I bet yer he's got it all figured out right now where he can get advance checks on consignments."
"I think you do the feller an injury, Abe," said Morris. "I think he means well, and besides, Abe, business people is getting so conservative that there ain't no more money in failures."
"I guess there's enough for Mendel Immerglick," Abe said, and dismissed the subject.
Two weeks later the anticipated letter arrived in the following form:
"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, as he finished reading the letter, "I'm sorry to get this letter. I don't know what I could tell it him about this fellow Immerglick. Now, if it was a responsible concern like Henry Feigenbaum, of the H. F. Cloak Company, it would be different."
"Henry Feigenbaum!" Morris exclaimed. "Why, he's only got one eye."
"I know it, Mawruss," Abe replied, "but he's got six stores, and they're all making out good. But, anyhow, Mawruss, I ain't going to do nothing in a hurry. I'll make good inquiries before I answer him."
"What's the use of making inquiries?" Morris protested. "Tell him it's all right. I got enough of this Miss Kreitmann already, Abe. She's killed enough trade for us."
"What!" Abe cried. "Tell him it's all right, when for all I know Mendel Immerglick is headed straight for the bankruptcy courts, Mawruss. You must be crazy, Mawruss. Ain't Hahn said he's coming down next month to buy his spring goods? What you want to do, Mawruss? Throw three to five thousand dollars in the street, Mawruss?"
"You talk foolishness, Abe," Morris rejoined. "Once a man gets married, his wife's family has got to stand for him. Suppose he does bust up; would that be our fault, Abe? Then Philip Hahn sets him up in business again, and the first thing you know, Abe, we got two customers instead ofone. And I bet yer we could get Philip Hahn to guarantee the account yet."
"Them theories what you got, Mawruss, sounds good, but maybe he busts upbeforethey get married, and then, Mawruss, we lose Philip Hahn's business and Max Fried's business, and we are also out a sterling silver engagement present for Miss Kreitmann. Ain't it?" He put on his hat and coat and lit a cigar.
"I guess, Mawruss, I'll go right now," he concluded, "and see what I can find out about him."
In three hours he returned and entered the show-room.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "what did you find out? Is it all right?"
Abe carefully selected a fresh cigar and shook his head solemnly.
"Nix, Mawruss," he said. "Mendel Immerglick is nix for a nice girl like Miss Kreitmann."
He took paper out of his waistcoat pocket for the purpose of refreshing his memory.
"First, I seen Moe Klein, of Klinger & Klein," he went on. "Moe says he seen Mendel Immerglick, in the back of Wasserbauer's Café, playing auction pinochle with a couple of loafer salesmen at three o'clock in the afternoon, and while Moe was standing there already them two low-lives set Immerglick back three times on four hundred hands at a dollar a hundred,double double."
"And what was Moe doing there?" Morris asked.
"I wasn't making no investigation of Moe, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Believe me, I got enough to do to find out about Immerglick. Also, Moe tells me that Immerglick comes into their place and wants to buy off them three thousand dollars at ninety days."
"And did they sell him?" Morris asked.
"Did theysellhim?" Abe cried. "If you was to meet a burglar coming into the store at midnight with a jimmy and a dark lantern, Mawruss, I suppose you'd volunteer to give him the combination of the safe. What? No, Mawruss, they didn't sell him. Such customers is for suckers like Sammet Brothers, Mawruss. Leon Sammet says they sold him three thousand at four months. Also, Elenbogen sold him a big bill, same terms, Mawruss. But big houses like Wechsel, Baum & Miller and Frederick Stettermann won't sell him at any terms, Mawruss."
"If everybody was so conservative like Wechsel, Baum & Miller," said Morris, "the retailers might as well go out of business."
"Wait a bit, Mawruss," Abe replied. "That ain't all. Louis Frank's wife is a sister to the Traders' and Merchants' Outlet, of Louisville—you know that thief, Marks Leshinsky; and Louis Frank's uncle, Mawruss, is Elkan Frank & Company, them big swindlers, them auctioneers, out in Chicago."
Abe sat down and dipped his pen in the inkwellwith such force that the spotless surface of Morris' shirt, which he had donned that morning, assumed a polkadot pattern. It was, therefore, some minutes before Abe could devote himself to his task in silence. Finally, he evolved the following:
"It ain't no more than he deserves, Mawruss," Abe commented after Morris had read the letter.
"No," Morris admitted, "but after the way Miss Kreitmann got that feller Gubin in the hole and the way she treated Adolph Rothstein, Abe, it ain't no more than she deserves, neither."
For several days afterward Miss Kreitmann went about her work with nothing but scowls for Potash & Perlmutter's customers, married and unmarried alike.
"The thing goes too far, Abe," Morris protested. "She kills our entire trade. Hahn or no Hahn, Abe, I say we should fire her."
Abe shook his head. "It ain't necessary, Mawruss," he replied.
"What d'ye mean?"
"The girl gets desperate, Mawruss. She fires herself. She told me this morning she don't see no future here, so she's going to leave at the end of the week. She says she will maybe take up trained nursing. She hears it that there are lots of openings for a young woman that way."
Morris sat down and fairly beamed with satisfaction.
"That's the best piece of news I hear it in a long time, Abe," he said. "Now we can do maybe some business."
"Maybe we can," Abe admitted. "But not with Philip Hahn."
"Why not?" Morris cried. "We done our best by him. Ain't we? Through him we lost it a good customer, and we got to let go a good shipping clerk."
"Not agoodshipping clerk, Mawruss," Abe corrected.
"Well, he was a good one till Miss Kreitmann comes."
Abe made no reply. He took refuge in the columns of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record and perused the business troubles items.
"Was it our fault that Immerglick is N. G., Abe?" Morris went on. "Is it——"
"Ho-ly smokes!" Abe broke in. "What d'ye think of that?"
"What do I think of what?" Morris asked.
"Immerglick & Frank," Abe read aloud. "A petition in bankruptcy was this day filed against Immerglick & Frank, doing business as the 'Vienna Store.' This firm has been a heavy purchaser throughout the trade during the past two months, but when the receiver took possession there remained only a small stock of goods. The receiver has retained counsel and will examine Louis Frank under Section 21 A of the Bankruptcy Act. It is understood that Mendel Immerglick, the senior partner, sailed for Hamburg last week on the Kaiserin Luisa Victoria and intends to remain in Germany for an indefinite time."
Abe laid down the paper with a sigh of relief.
"If that don't make us solid with Philip Hahn, Mawruss," he said, "nothing will."
Miss Kreitmann left at the end of the week, and Abe and Morris wasted no time in vain regrets over her departure, but proceeded at once to assort and make up a new line of samples for Philip Hahn's inspection. For three days they jumped every time a customer entered the store, and Abe wore a genial smile of such fixity that his face fairly ached.
At length, on the Thursday following Miss Kreitmann's resignation, while Abe was flicking an imaginary grain of dust from the spotless array of samples, the store door burst open and a short, stout person entered. Abe looked up and, emitting an exclamation, rushed forward with both arms extended in hearty greeting.
"Mister Hahn," he cried, "howdoyou do?"
The newcomer drew himself up haughtily, and his small mustache seemed to shed sparks of indignation.
Abe stopped short in hurt astonishment.
"Is th-there a-anything the matter?" he faltered.
"Is there anything the matter!" Mr. Hahn roared. "Is there anything the matter! That's a fine question foryouto ask."
"W-w-why?" Abe stuttered. "Ain't everything all right?"
Mr. Hahn, with an effort that bulged every vein in his bald forehead, subsided into comparative calm.
"Mr. Potash," he said, "I bought from you six bills of goods in the last few months. Ain't it?"
Abe nodded.
"And I never claimed no shortages and never made no kicks nor nothing, but always paid up prompt on the day like a gentleman. Ain't it?"
Abe nodded again.
"And this is what I get for it," Mr. Hahn went on bitterly. "My own niece on my wife's side, I put her in your care. I ask you to take it an interest in her. You promise me you will do your best. You tell me and Max Fried you will look after her"—he hesitated, almost overcome by emotion—"like a father. You said that when I bought the second bill. And what happens? The only chance she gets to make a decent match, you write me the feller ain't no good.Naturally, I think you got some sense, and so I busts the affair up."
"Well," Abe said, "I did write you he wasn't no good, and he wasn't no good, neither. Ain't he just made it a failure?"
Mr. Hahn grew once more infuriated.
"A failure!" he yelled. "I should say he did make a failure.Whata failure he made! Fool! Donkey! The man got away with a hundred thousand dollars and is living like a prince in the old country. And poor Gussie, she loved him, too! She cries night and day."
He stopped to wipe a sympathetic tear.
"She cries pretty easy," Abe said. "She cried when we fired Mannie Gubin, too."
Hahn bristled again.
"You insult me. What?" he cried. "You try to get funny with me. Hey? All right. I fix you. So far what I can help it, never no more do you sell me or Max or anybody what is friends of ours a button. Not a button! Y'understand?"
He wheeled about and the next moment the store door banged with cannon-like percussion. Morris came from behind a rack of raincoats and tiptoed toward Abe.
"Well, Abe," he said, "you put your foot in it that time."
Abe mopped the perspiration from his brow and bit the end off a cigar.
"We done business before we had Philip Hahn fora customer, Mawruss," he said, "and I guess we'll do it again. Ain't it?"
* * * * *
Six months later Abe was scanning the columns of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record while Morris examined the morning mail.
"Yes, Mawruss," he said at length. "Some people get only what they deserve. I always said it, some day Philip Hahn will be sorry he treated us the way he did. I bet yer he's sorry now."
"So far what I hear, Abe," Morris replied, "he ain't told us nor nobody else that he's sorry. In fact, I seen him coming out of Sammet Brothers' yesterday, and he looked at me like he would treat us worser already, if he could. What makes you think he's sorry, Abe?"
"Well," Abe went on, "if heain'tsorry heoughtto be."
He handed the Daily Cloak and Suit Record to Morris and indicated the New Business column with his thumb.
"Rochester, N. Y.," it read. "Philip Hahn, doing business here as the Flower City Credit Outfitting Company, announces that he has taken into partnership Emanuel Gubin, who recently married Mr. Hahn's niece. The business will be conducted under the old firm style."
Morris handed back the paper with a smile.
"I seen Leon Sammet on the subway this morningand he told me all about it," he commented. "He says Gubin eloped with her."
Abe shook his head. "You got it wrong, Mawruss. You must be mistaken," he concluded. "Sheeloped with Gubin."
"You carry a fine stock, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe Potash exclaimed as he glanced around the well-filled shelves of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting Company.
"That ain't all the stock I carry," Mr. Sheitlis, the proprietor, exclaimed. "I got also another stock which I am anxious to dispose of it, Mr. Potash, and you could help me out, maybe."
Abe smiled with such forced amiability that his mustache was completely engulfed between his nose and his lower lip.
"I ain't buying no cloaks, Mr. Sheitlis," he said. "I'm selling 'em."
"Not a stock from cloaks, Mr. Potash," Mr. Sheitlis explained; "but a stock from gold and silver."
"I ain't in the jewelry business, neither," Abe said.
"That ain't the stock what I mean," Mr. Sheitlis cried. "Wait a bit and I'll show you."
He went to the safe in his private office and returned with a crisp parchment-paper certificate bearingin gilt characters the legend, Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation.
"This is what I mean it," he said; "stock from stock exchanges. I paid one dollar a share for this hundred shares."
Abe took the certificate and gazed at it earnestly with unseeing eyes. Mr. Sheitlis had just purchased a liberal order of cloaks and suits from Potash & Perlmutter, and it was, therefore, a difficult matter for Abe to turn down this stock proposition without offending a good customer.
"Well, Mr. Sheitlis," he commenced, "me and Mawruss Perlmutter we do business under a copartnership agreement, and it says we ain't supposed to buy no stocks from stock exchanges, and——"
"I ain't asking you to buy it," Mr. Sheitlis broke in. "I only want you to do me something for a favor. You belong in New York where all them stock brokers is, so I want you should be so kind and take this here stock to one of them stock brokers and see what I can get for it. Maybe I could get a profit for it, and then, of course, I should pay you something for your trouble."
"Pay me something!" Abe exclaimed in accents of relief. "Why, Mr. Sheitlis, what an idea! Me and Mawruss would be only too glad, Mr. Sheitlis, to try and sell it for you, and the more we get it for the stock the gladder we would be for your sake. I wouldn't take a penny for selling it if you should make a million out of it."
"A million I won't make it," Mr. Sheitlis replied, dismissing the subject. "I'll be satisfied if I get ten dollars for it." He walked toward the front door of his store with Abe.
"What is the indications for spring business in the wholesale trade, Mr. Potash," he asked blandly.
Abe shook his head.
"It should be good, maybe," he replied; "only, you can't tell nothing about it. Silks is the trouble."
"Silks?" Mr. Sheitlis rejoined. "Why, silks makes goods sell high, Mr. Potash. Ain't it? Certainly, I admit it you got to pay more for silk piece goods as for cotton piece goods, but you take the same per cent. profit on the price of the silk as on the price of the cotton, and so you make more in the end. Ain't it?"
"If silk piece goods is low or middling, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe replied sadly, "there is a good deal in what you say. But silk is high this year, Mr. Sheitlis, so high you wouldn't believe me if I tell you we got to pay twicet as much this year as three years ago already."
Mr. Sheitlis clucked sympathetically.
"And if we charge the retailer twicet as much for a garment next year what he pays three years ago already, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe went on, "we won't do no business. Ain't it? So we got to cut our profits, and that's the way it goes in the cloak and suit business. You don't know where you are atno more than when you got stocks from stock exchanges."
"Well, Mr. Potash," Sheitlis replied encouragingly, "next season is next season, but now is this season, and from the prices what you quoted it me, Mr. Potash, you ain't going to the poorhouse just yet a while."
"I only hope it that you make more profit on the stock than we make it on the order you just give us," Abe rejoined as he shook his customer's hand in token of farewell. "Good-by, Mr. Sheitlis, and as soon as I get back in New York I'll let you know all about it."
Two days after Abe's return to New York he sat in Potash & Perlmutter's show-room, going over next year's models as published in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record. His partner, Morris Perlmutter, puffed disconsolately at a cigar which a competitor had given him in exchange for credit information.
"Them cigars what Klinger & Klein hands out," he said to his partner, "has asbestos wrappers and excelsior fillers, I bet yer. I'd as lief smoke a kerosene lamp."
"You got your worries, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Just look at them next year's models, Mawruss, and a little thing like cigars wouldn't trouble you at all. Silk, soutache and buttons they got it, Mawruss. I guess pretty soon them Paris people will be getting out garments trimmed with solitaire diamonds."
Morris seized the paper and examined the half-tone cuts with a critical eye.
"You're right, Abe," he said. "We'll have our troubles next season, but we take our profit on silk goods, Abe, the same as we do on cotton goods."
Abe was about to retort when a wave of recollection came over him, and he clutched wildly at his breast pocket.
"Ho-ly smokes!" he cried. "I forgot all about it."
"Forgot all about what?" Morris asked.
"B. Sheitlis, of the Suffolk Credit Outfitting Company," Abe replied. "He give me a stock in Pittsburg last week, and I forgot all about it."
"A stock!" Morris exclaimed. "What for a stock?"
"A stock from the stock exchange," Abe replied; "a stock from gold and silver mines. He wanted me I should do it a favor for him and see a stock broker here and sell it for him."
"Well, that's pretty easy," Morris rejoined. "There's lots of stock brokers in New York, Abe. There's pretty near as many stock brokers as there is suckers, Abe."
"Maybe there is, Mawruss," Abe replied, "but I don't know any of them."
"No?" Morris said. "Well, Sol Klinger, of Klinger & Klein, could tell you, I guess. I seen him in the subway this morning, and he was pretty near having a fit over the financial page of the Sun. Iasked him if he seen a failure there, and he says no, but Steel has went up to seventy, maybe it was eighty. So I says to him he should let Andrew Carnegie worry about that, and he says if he would of bought it at forty he would have been in thirty thousand dollars already."
"Who?" Abe asked. "Andrew Carnegie?"
"No," Morris said; "Sol Klinger. So I says to him I could get all the excitement I wanted out of auction pinochle and he says——"
"S'enough, Mawruss," Abe broke in. "I heard enough already. I'll ring him up and ask him the name of the broker what does his business."
He went to the telephone in the back of the store and returned a moment later and put on his hat and coat.
"I rung up Sol, Mawruss," he said, "and Sol tells me that a good broker is Gunst & Baumer. They got a branch office over Hill, Arkwright & Thompson, the auctioneers, Mawruss. He says a young feller by the name Milton Fiedler is manager, and if he can't sell that stock, Mawruss, Sol says nobody can. So I guess I'll go right over and see him while I got it in my mind."
Milton Fiedler had served an arduous apprenticeship before he attained the position of branch manager for Gunst & Baumer in the dry-goods district. During the thirty odd years of his life he had been in turn stockboy, clothing salesman, bookmaker's clerk, faro dealer, poolroom cashier and, finally,bucketshop proprietor. When the police closed him up he sought employment with Gunst & Baumer, whose exchange affiliations precluded any suspicion of bucketing, but who, nevertheless, did a thriving business in curb securities of the cat-and-dog variety, and it was in this particular branch of the science of investment and speculation that Milton excelled. Despite his expert knowledge, however, he was slightly stumped, as the vernacular has it, when Abe Potash produced B. Sheitlis' stock, for in all his bucketshop and curb experience he had never even heard of the Texas-Nevada Gold and Silver Mining Corporation.
"This is one of those smaller mines, Mr. Potash," he explained, "which sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. Of course, I can't tell you offhand what the value of the stock is, but I'll make inquiries at once. The inside market at present is very strong, as you know."
Abe nodded, as he thought was expected of him, although "inside" and "outside" markets were all one to him.
"And curb securities naturally feel the influence of the bullish sentiment," Fiedler continued. "It isn't the business of a broker to try to influence a customer's choice, but I'd like you to step outside"—they were in the manager's private office—"and look at the quotation board for a moment. Interstate Copper is remarkably active this morning."
He led Abe into an adjoining room where a tallyouth was taking green cardboard numbers from a girdle which he wore, and sticking them on the quotation board.
"Hello!" Fiedler exclaimed as the youth affixed a new number. "Interstate Copper has advanced a whole point since two days ago. It's now two and an eighth."
Simultaneously, a young man in the back of the room exclaimed aloud in woeful profanity.
"What's the matter with him?" Abe asked.
"They play 'em both ways—a-hem!" Fiedler corrected himself in time. "Occasionally we have a customer who sells short of the market, and then, of course, if the market goes up he gets stung—er—he sustains a loss."
Here the door opened and Sol Klinger entered. His bulging eyes fell on the quotation board, and at once his face spread into a broad smile.
"Hello, Sol!" Abe cried. "You look like you sold a big bill of goods."
"I hope I look better than that, Abe," Sol replied. "I make it more on that Interstate Copper in two days what I could make it on ten big bills of goods. That's a great property, Abe."
"I think Mr. Klinger will have reason to congratulate himself still more by to-morrow, Mr. Potash," Fiedler broke in. "Interstate Copper is a stock with an immediate future."
"You bet," Sol agreed. "I'm going to hold on to mine. It'll go up to five inside of a week."
The young man from the rear of the room took the two rows of chairs at a jump.
"Fiedler," he said, "I'm going to cover right away. Buy me a thousand Interstate at the market."
Sol nudged Abe, and after the young man and Fiedler had disappeared into the latter's private office Sol imparted in hoarse whispers to Abe that the young man was reported to have information from the ground-floor crowd about Interstate Copper.
"Well, if that's so," Abe replied, "why does he lose money on it?"
"Because," Sol explained, "he's got an idee that if you act just contrariwise to the inside information what you get it, why then you come out right."
Abe shook his head hopelessly.
"Pinochle, I understand it," he said, "and skat a little also. But this here stocks from stock exchanges is worser than chest what they play it in coffee-houses."
"You don't need to understand it, Abe," Sol replied. "All you do is to buy a thousand Interstate Copper to-day or to-morrow at any price up to two and a half, Abe, and I give you a guarantee that you make twenty-five hundred dollars by next week."
When Abe returned to his place of business that day he had developed a typical case of stock-gambling fever, with which he proceeded to inoculate Morris as soon as the latter came back from lunch. Abe at once recounted all his experiences ofthe morning and dwelt particularly on the phenomenal rise of Interstate Copper.
"Sol says he guarantees that we double our money in a week," he concluded.
"Did he say he would put it in writing?" Morris asked.
Abe glared at Morris for an instant.
"Do you think I am making jokes?" he rejoined. "He don't got to put it in writing, Mawruss. It's as plain as the nose on your face. We pay twenty-five hundred dollars for a thousand shares at two and a half to-day, and next week it goes up to five and we sell it and make it twenty-five hundred dollars. Ain't it?"
"Who do we sell it to?" Morris asked.
Abe pondered for a moment, then his face brightened up.
"Why, to the stock exchange, certainly," he replied.
"Mustthey buy it from us, Abe?" Morris inquired.
"Sure they must, Mawruss," Abe said. "Ain't Sol Klinger always selling his stocks to them people?"
"Well, Sol Klinger got his customers, Abe, and we got ours," Morris replied doubtfully. "Maybe them people would buy it from Sol and wouldn't buy it from us."
For the rest of the afternoon Morris plied Abe with questions about the technicalities of the stockmarket until Abe took refuge in flight and went home at half-past five. The next morning Morris resumed his quiz until Abe's replies grew personal in character.
"What's the use of trying to explain something to nobody what don't understand nothing?" he exclaimed.
"Maybe I don't understand it," Morris admitted, "but also you don't understand it, too, maybe. Ain't it?"
"I understand this much, Mawruss," Abe cried—"I understand, Mawruss, that if Sol Klinger tells me he guarantees it I make twenty-five hundred dollars, and this here Milton Fiedler, too, he also says it, and a young feller actually with my own eyes I see it buys this stock because he's got information from inside people, why shouldn'twebuy it and make money on it? Ain't it?"
Morris was about to reply when the letter carrier entered with the morning mail. Abe took the bundle of envelopes, and on the top of the pile was a missive from Gunst & Baumer. Abe tore open the envelope and looked at the letter hurriedly. "You see, Mawruss," he cried, "already it goes up a sixteenth." He handed the letter to Morris. It read as follows: