"What does that sucker mean, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "We ain't sent him no sample of them capes, Mawruss. We made 'em up according to his instructions, Mawruss. Ain't it?"
Morris nodded solemnly and again Abe read the letter.
This time he dashed the note to the floor and grew purple with rage.
"Why," he choked, "that sucker must mean it the winder sample."
Again Morris nodded solemnly.
"But a ten-year-old child could tell that them garments ain't like that winder sample, Mawruss," Abe went on.
"Sure I know," Morris replied sadly, "and a district court judge could tell it, too. Also, a jury bythe city court could tell it, Abe; and also, I rung up Henry D. Feldman and asked him if he could take a case for us against Louis Feinholz, and Feldman says that Feinholz is such an old client that he couldn't do it. And that's the way it goes."
"But them capes was never intended to be the same like that sample, Mawruss," Abe cried.
"That's what I told Louis Feinholz when I rung him up after I spoke to Feldman, and Feinholz says he got the goods and he got the sample, and that's all he knows about it. Then I asked him if he didn't say it distinctly we should make up a first-class, expensive winder sample and ship it along with the order, and he says he don't remember it and that I should show him a writing."
"Ain't you got it a writing?" Abe asked.
"I ain't got no writing about the winder sample, Abe," Morris replied. "I only got it a writing about the order."
"But ain't you got no witnesses, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Witnesses I got it plenty, Abe," Morris answered. "And so has Feinholz got it witnesses. What's the use witnesses when all Feinholz has got to do is to get Henry D. Feldman to make theayter acting over that sample? For you know as well as I do, Abe, anyone would see that them garments isdoch, anyway, a cheap imitation of that winder sample, Abe."
At this juncture Jake, the shipping clerk, entered.
"Mr. Potash," he said, "here comes Margulies' Harlem Express with them packages what we shipped it the Longchamps Store yesterday. Should I take 'em in?"
Abe jumped to his feet.
"Did Margulies bring 'em up?" he asked.
"He had 'em just now on the elevator," Jake replied.
"Wait, I go with you," Abe said. Together they walked rapidly toward the freight elevator, which opened into the cutting-room, but before they reached the door a shrill outcry rose from the floor below.
The East Side slogan of woe, "Oi gewalt," blended with women's shrieks, and at length came the cry: "Fie-urr! Fie-urr!"
Simultaneously Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, lifted up her voice in strident despair while a great cloud of black smoke puffed from the elevator shaft, and the next moment Abe, Morris, Jake and the half-dozen cutters were pushing their way downstairs, elbowed by a frenzied mob of operators, male and female. When they arrived at the ground floor the engines were clanging around the corner, and Abe and Morris ran across the street to the opposite sidewalk. Suddenly an inarticulate cry escaped Abe and he sank onto a convenient dry-goods box.
"What's the trouble, Abe?" Morris asked. "Are you sick?"
"The policies!" Abe croaked, and closed his eyes.When he opened them a minute later his partner grinned at him reassuringly.
"I got 'em in my breast pocket, Abe," Morris said. "As soon as I seen the smoke I grabbed 'em, and I locked up the safe with the books inside."
Abe revived immediately.
"That reminds me, Mawruss," he said as he took a cigar from his waistcoat pocket: "What become of Miss Cohen?"
Twenty minutes later the fire was extinguished, and Abe and Morris returned to their loft. The first person to greet them was Miss Cohen, and, aside from a slight careening of her pompadour, she seemed none the worse for her dangerous experience.
"Mr. Potash," she said in businesslike tones, "the Longchamps Store just rung up and says about them garments what they returned that it was all a mistake, and that they was all right and you should reship 'em right away."
The show-room was flooded with sunlight and a mild spring breeze had almost dissipated the acrid smell of smoke.
"What did I tell you, Mawruss?" Abe said. "Feinholz is like them suckers in Kansas City. He was scared he couldn't sell them capes in wet weather, and now it's cleared up fine he wants 'em bad, Mawruss. I'll go and see what happened to 'em."
He hustled off toward the rear of the loft while Morris turned to Miss Cohen.
"Well, Miss Cohen," he said, "how did you make out by the fire just now?"
Miss Cohen blushed and patted her pompadour.
"Oh, Mr. Perlmutter," she said, "I was scared stiff, and Mr. Margulies, the expressman, pretty near carried me up to the roof and we stays there till the fireman says we should come down."
"And where's Margulies?" Morris asked.
"He's gone back to the cutting-room," Miss Cohen replied. "When he seen the smoke coming up he shuts quick the iron door on the freight elevator and everything's all right in the cutting-room, only a little water by the elevator shaft."
"And how about the packages from Feinholz?" Morris continued. But before Miss Cohen could reply Abe burst into the show-room with a broad grin on his face.
"That's a good joke on Feinholz, Mawruss," he said. "All the fire was in the elevator shaft and them garments what he returned it us is nothing but ashes."
"But, Abe," Morris began, when the telephone bell trilled impatiently. Abe took up the receiver.
"Hallo!" he said. "Yes, this is Potash. Oh, hallo, Feinholz!"
"Say, Potash," Feinholz said at the other end of the wire, "we got the store full of people here. Couldn't you send up them capes right away?"
Abe put his hand over the mouthpiece of the 'phone.
"It's Feinholz," he said to Morris. "He wants them capes right away. What shall I tell him?"
"Tell him nothing," Morris cried. "The first thing you know you will say something to that feller, and he sues us yet for damages because we didn't deliver the goods."
Abe hesitated for a minute.
"You talk to him," he said at length.
Morris seized the receiver from his partner.
"Hallo, Feinholz," he yelled. "We don't want nothing to say to you at all. We are through with you. That's all. Good-by."
He hung up the receiver and turned to Abe.
"When I deal with a crook like Feinholz," he said, "I'm afraid for my life."
Ten minutes later he went out to lunch and when he returned he brandished the early edition of an evening paper.
"What you think it says here, Abe?" he cried. "It says the fire downstairs was caused by an operator throwing a cigarettel in the clipping bin. Ain't that a quincidence, Abe?"
"I bet yer that's a quincidence," Abe replied. "A couple more of them quincidences, Mawruss, and we got to pay double for our insurance. I only wish we would be finished collecting on our policies for this here quincidence, Mawruss."
Morris shrugged his shoulders and was about to make a reassuring answer when the door opened and two men entered.
One of them was Samuel Feder, vice-president of the Kosciusko Bank, and the other was Louis Feinholz, proprietor of the Longchamps Store.
"Well, Abe," Feder cried, "what's this I hear about the fire?"
"Come into the office, Mr. Feder," Abe cried, while Morris greeted Feinholz. "Morris will be through soon."
"Say, Mawruss," Feinholz said. "What's the matter with you boys? Here I got to come downtown about them capes, and my whole store's full of people. Why didn't you ship them capes back to me like I told you?"
"Look a-here, Feinholz," Morris exclaimed in tones sufficiently loud for Feder to overhear, "what d'ye take us for, anyhow? Greenhorns? Do you think you can write us a dirty letter like that and then come down and get them capes just for the asking?"
"Ain't you getting touchy all of a sudden, Mawruss?" Feinholz cried excitedly. "You had no business to deliver them goods in such rotten weather. You know as well as I do that I couldn't use them goods till fine weather sets in, and now I want 'em, and I want 'em bad."
"Is that so?" Morris replied. "Why, I thought them garments was no good, Feinholz. I thought them capes wasn't up to sample."
"What are you talking about?" Feinholz shouted. "Them goods was all right and the sample's allright, too. All I want now is you should ship 'em right away. I can sell the lot this afternoon if you only get 'em up to my store in time."
Morris waved his hand deprecatingly. "S'enough, Feinholz," he said; "you got as much show of getting them goods as though you never ordered 'em."
"Why not?" Feinholz cried.
"Because them goods got burned up on our freight elevator this morning," Morris replied.
"What!" Feinholz gasped.
"That's what I said," Morris concluded; "and if you excuse me I got some business to attend to."
Feinholz turned and almost staggered from the store, while Morris joined his partner and Sam Feder in the firm's office. Feder had overheard the entire conversation and greeted Morris with a smile.
"Well, Mawruss," he said, "it serves that sucker right. A feller what confesses right up and down that the goods was all right and then he fires them back at you just because the weather was rotten ought to be sued yet."
"What do we care?" Abe replied. "We got 'em insured, and so long as we get our money out of 'em we would rather not be bothered with him."
"Did you have any other damages, boys?" Feder asked, with a solicitude engendered of a ten-thousand-dollar accommodation to Potash & Perlmutter's debit on the books of the Kosciusko Bank.
"Otherwise, everything is O. K.," Morris replied cheerfully. Together they conducted Feder on a tour of their premises and, after he was quite reassured, they presented him with a good cigar and ushered him into the elevator.
"I guess you put your foot in it with Feinholz, Mawruss," Abe said after Feder had departed. "How can we go to that kid nephew of his now and ask him to adjust the loss, Mawruss?"
Morris arched his eyebrows and stared at his partner.
"What's the matter with you, anyway, Abe?" he asked. "Ain't J. Blaustein good enough for you? Ain't J. Blaustein always done it our insurance business up to now all O. K., Abe? And now that we got it our very first fire, why should you want to throw Blaustein down?"
Abe put on his hat thoroughly abashed.
"I thought we got to get Rudy Feinholz to adjust it the loss," he said. "Otherwise, I wouldn't of suggested it. But, anyway, I will go right down to Blaustein and see what he says."
Morris jumped to his feet.
"Wait," he said; "I'll go with you."
Half an hour afterward Abe and Morris were seated in J. Blaustein's office on Pine Street, recounting the details of the fire.
"How many garments was there?" Blaustein asked.
"Forty-eight, and we figured it up the loss attwelve-fifty apiece," Morris explained. "That's what we billed 'em to Feinholz for."
Blaustein frowned.
"But look a-here, Perlmutter," he said: "them insurance companies won't pay you what you were going to sell them garments for. They'll only pay you what they cost to make up. They'll figure it: so much cloth—say, fifty dollars; so much trimmings—say, forty dollars; so much labor—say, thirty dollars; and that's the way it goes."
"But how could we prove that to the company, Mr. Blaustein?" Abe protested. "There ain't enough left of them garments to show even what color they was."
Blaustein rose to his feet.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, "we'll discuss that later. The first thing we must do is to go up and see young Feinholz. That Farmers and Ranchers' Insurance Company is a pretty close corporation. Louis Feinholz's brother out in Arizona is the president, and they got such a board of directors that if they printed the names on the back of the policy it would look like the roster of an East Side free-burial society. Also, this here Rudy Feinholz what acted as your broker is also general agent, adjuster and office manager for the Metropolitan District; and, taking it by and large, youse gentlemen is lucky you come to me instead of him to adjust this loss."
Rudy Feinholz's insurance business occupied what had once been the front parlor of a high-stoop brown-stoneresidence. Similarly the basement dining-room had been converted into a delicatessen store, and the smoked meats, pickles, cheese and spices with which it was stocked provided rather a strange atmosphere for the Metropolitan Agency of the Farmers and Ranchers' Insurance Company. Moreover, the Italian barber who rented the quondam back parlor was given to practicing on the mandolin; and when Abe, Morris and J. Blaustein entered the Metropolitan Agency a very imperfect rendition of Santa Lucia came through the partition and made conversation difficult for the Metropolitan agent.
"What d'ye say if we all go round to the Longchamps," he said, "and talk things over."
"I'm agreeable," Morris said, looking at his partner.
"Sure thing," Blaustein replied. "That delicatessen store smell is so thick around here that I'm getting ptomaine poisoning."
"But," Abe protested, "maybe Louis Feinholz don't want us round there. We ain't on the best of terms with Louis."
"That's all right," Rudy Feinholz said. "I arranged with him to bring you round there. Uncle Louis is a heavy stockholder in the Farmers and Ranchers', and——"
"S'enough!" Morris cried. "I hear enough about the family history of this here Farmers and Ranchers. It wouldn't make no difference to me if your mother was the vice-president and your sister the secretary.All I want is we should settle this thing up."
"Well, come along, then," Rudy cried, and the two brokers and their clients repaired to Feinholz's store. Abe and Morris entered not without trepidation, but Louis received them with unaffected amiability.
"Well, Mawruss," he said, "that's too bad you got a fire in your place."
"We can stand it," Morris replied. "We was insured."
Feinholz rejoined: "Yes, you was insured by your loft, but you wasn't insured by your freight elevator."
"But by the rules of the Fire Insurance Exchange," Blaustein interrupted, "when a policy reads——"
"What do we care about the Fire Insurance Exchange?" Feinholz broke in. "The Farmers and Ranchers' ain't members of the Fire Insurance Exchange. We got a license to do business from the Superintendent of Insurance, and we don't give a cent for the Fire Insurance Exchange. We insured it the loft, and the goods was burnt in the freight elevator."
Abe jumped to his feet.
"Do you mean," he cried, "that you ain't going to pay us nothing for our fire?"
"That's what I mean," Feinholz declared.
Morris turned to Abe.
"Come, Abe," he said, "we'll take Feder's advice."
"Feder's advice?" Feinholz repeated. "You mean that feller what I seen it in your store this morning?"
"That's what I mean," Morris replied. "Feder says to us we should take it his lawyers, McMaster, Peddle & Crane, and he would see to it that they wouldn't charge us much."
Feinholz smiled.
"But the Farmers and Ranchers' Insurance Company got also a good lawyer," he said triumphantly.
"Maybe they have," Morris admitted, "but we ain't got nothing to do with the Farmers and Ranchers' Insurance Company now. We take it Feder's lawyers and sue you, Feinholz. Feder hears it all what you got to say, and he is willing to go on the stand and swear that you says that the goods was all right and the sample was all right. I guess when a banker and a gentleman like Feder swears something you could get all the Henry D. Feldmans in the world and it wouldn't make no difference."
Feinholz passed his hand over his forehead and breathed hard.
"Maybe we could settle the matter, Rudy," he said to his nephew, "if the other companies what they are insured by would contribute their share."
"The other companies," Morris announced, "is got nothing to do with it. You fired them goods back at us, and that's the reason why they got damaged. So, we wouldn't ask for a cent from the other companies."
"Then it is positively all off," cried Feinholz as one of his saleswomen entered. She held a familiar garment in her hand, and in the dim light of Feinholz's private office the buttons and soutache with which the cape was adorned sparkled like burnished gold.
"Mr. Feinholz," she said, "a lady saw this on one of the racks and she wants to know how much it costs."
Morris eyed the cape for one hesitating moment, and then he sprang to his feet and snatched it from the astonished saleswoman.
"You tell the customer," he said, "that this here cape ain't for sale."
He rolled it into a tight bundle and thrust it under his coat.
"Now, Feinholz," he declared calmly, "I got you just where I want you. Feder is willing to go on the stand and swear that you said them goods was up to sample, and this here is the sample. Any feller what knows anything about the cloak and suit trade could tell in a minute that these here samples costed twenty-five dollars to make up. Forty-eight times twenty-five is twelve hundred dollars, and so sure as you are sitting there, Feinholz, Abe and me will commence suit against you for twelve hundred dollars the first thing to-morrow morning, unless we get it a certified check from the Farmers and Ranchers' Insurance Company for six hundred dollars, which is the price what you agreed to pay us for the garments."
A moment later Blaustein and Abe followed him to the sidewalk.
"Well, Blaustein," Morris asked as they walked to the elevated railroad, on their way home, "what do you think of it all? Huh?"
"I think it's a good bluff you are making," Blaustein replied, "but it may work. So, if you come right down to my office I'll fix up your proof of loss and send it up to him this afternoon."
The next morning Abe and Morris reached their loft a good hour ahead of the letter-carrier, and when he entered they both made a grab for the mail which he handed them. Morris won out, and as he shuffled the letters with the deftness of long pinochle experience he emitted a cry.
"What is it?" Abe asked.
For answer Morris tore open a long yellow envelope and flicked it up and down between his thumb and finger until a small piece of paper fluttered to the carpet. Abe swooped down on it immediately and ran to the office, hugging it to his breast. It was a certified check for six hundred dollars.
"Well, Abe," Morris said as he filled out a deposit slip of the Kosciusko Bank, "there's one feller comes out of this deal pretty lucky, all considering."
"Who's that, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"The rutt honn Earl of Warrington," Morris replied.
Abe Potash entered the firm's private office one morning in mid-September and deliberately removed his hat and coat. As he did so he emitted groans calculated to melt the heart of the most hardened medical practitioner, but Morris Perlmutter remained entirely unmoved.
"Well, Abe," he said, "you've been making a hog of yourself again. Ain't it? Sol Klinger says he seen you over to the Harlem Winter Garden, and I suppose you bought it such a fine supper you couldn't sleep a wink all night. What?"
Abe started to draw himself up to his full five feet three, but lumbago brooks no hauteur, and he subsided into the nearest chair with a low, expressive "Oo-ee!"
"That's a heart you got it, Mawruss," he declared bitterly, "like a stone. I drunk it nothing but lithia water and some dry toast, which them suckers got the nerve to charge me fifty cents for."
"Well, why don't you seen it a doctor, Abe?" Morris said. "You could monkey with yourself a whole lifetime, Abe, and it would never do you no good; whilst if you seen it a doctor, Abe, he gives you a little pinch of powder, y'understand, and in five minutes you are a well man."
Abe sighed heavily.
"It don't go so quick, Mawruss," he replied. "I seen a doctor this morning and he says I am full from rheumatism. I dassen't do nothing, Mawruss, I dassen't touch coffee or schnapps. I dassen't eat no meat but lamb chops and chicken."
"I tasted worser things already as lamb chops and chicken, Abe," Morris retorted.
"And the worstest thing of all, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "the doctor says he wouldn't be responsible for my life already if I go out on the road."
"What?" Morris exclaimed. In less than two weeks Abe was due to leave on his Western trip, and for the past few days Morris had been in the throes of preparing the sample line.
"This is a fine time for you to get sick, Abe," he cried.
"Could I help it, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "You talk like I got the rheumatism to spite you, Mawruss. Believe me, Mawruss, I ain't so stuck on staying in the store here with you, Mawruss. I could prefer it a million times to be out on the road."
He rose to his feet with another hollow groan.
"But, anyway, Mawruss, it won't help matters none if we sit around here all the morning. We got to get it somebody to sell our line, because even if, to hear you talk, the goods do sell themselves whenIgo out with them, Mawruss, we couldn't take no chances on some kid salesman. We got to get it a first-class A Number One feller what wouldn't fool away his time."
"Well, why don't you put it an ad in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record, Abe?" Morris asked.
"I put it in last night already," Abe replied, "and I bet yer we get it a million answers by the first mail this afternoon."
For the remainder of the morning Morris busied himself with the sample line, while Abe moved slowly about the show-room, well within the hearing of his partner, and moaned piteously at frequent intervals. Every half-hour he cleared his throat with a rasping noise and, when he had secured Morris' attention, ostentatiously swallowed a large gelatine capsule and rolled his eyes upward in what he conceived to be an expression of acute agony. At length Morris could stand it no longer.
"What are we running here, anyway, Abe?" he asked. "A cloak and suit business or a hospital? If you are such a sick man, Abe, why don't you go home?"
"Must I got to get your permission to be sick, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Couldn't I take it maybe a bit of medicine oncet in a while if I want to, Mawruss?"
He snorted indignantly, but further discussion was prevented by the entrance of the letter-carrier, and immediately Abe and Morris forgot their differences in an examination of the numerous letters that were the fruit of the advertisement.
"Don't let's waste no time over fellers we don't know nothing about, Abe," Morris suggested as hetossed one envelope into the waste-paper basket. "Here's a feller called Rutherford B. H. Horowitz, what says he used to be a suit-buyer in Indianapolis. Ever hear of him, Abe?"
"We don't want no fellers what used to be buyers, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "What we want is fellers what is cloak and suit salesmen. Ain't it?"
"Well, here's a feller by the name Arthur Katzen, Abe," Morris went on. "Did y'ever hear of him, Abe?"
"Sure I know him, Mawruss," Abe replied. "You know him, too, Mawruss. That's a feller by the name Osher Katzenelenbogen, what used to work for us as buttonhole-maker when we was new beginners already. Two years ago, I met that feller in the Yates House and I says to him: 'Hallo,' I says, 'ain't you Osher Katzenelenbogen?' And he says: 'Excuse me,' he says, 'you got the advantage from me,' he says. 'My name is Arthur Katzen,' he says; and I assure you, Mawruss, the business that feller was doing, Mawruss, was the sole topic what everybody was talking about."
Morris waved his hand deprecatingly.
"I seen lots of them topics in my time already, Abe," he commented. "Topics what went up with red fire already and come down like sticks. That's the way it goes in this business, Abe. A feller gets a little streak of luck, and everybody goes to work and pats him on the back and tells him he's a great salesman."
"But mind you, Mawruss, Arthur Katzen was a good salesman then and is a good salesman to-day yet. The only trouble with him is that he's a gambler, Mawruss. That feller would sooner play auction pinochle than eat, and that's the reason why he could never hold it a job."
"Why shouldn't he hold a job, Abe?" Morris asked. "If I would have a crackerjack drummer, for my part he could play the whole book of Hoyle, fromklabbiastostuss, and it wouldn't affect me none so long as he sold the goods."
"Maybe you're right, Mawruss," Abe admitted. "But when a feller fools away his time at auction pinochle his business is bound to suffer." "Well, then, here's a feller answers by the name Mozart Rabiner," Morris continued. "Did y'ever hear of him, Abe?"
"If you mean Moe Rabiner, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I never knew his name was Mozart before, Mawruss, but there was a feller by the name Moe Rabiner what used to work for Sammet Brothers, Mawruss, and that feller could make the pianner fairly talk, Mawruss. If he could only get a lady buyer up against a pianner, Mawruss, he could sell her every time."
Morris tore up Mozart's application.
"So long as a feller fools away his time, Abe," he said, "it don't make no difference either he plays auction pinochle or either he plays the pianner. Ain't it?"
He opened another envelope and scanned the enclosed missive.
"This sounds good to me, Abe," he said, and handed the letter to his partner. It read as follows:
"By jimminy!" Abe cried after he had finished reading the letter. "That's the feller we want to hire it, Mawruss. Let's write him to call."
It would hardly be violating Marks Pasinsky's confidence to disclose that he held himself to be a forceful man. He never spoke save in italics, and when he shook hands with anyone the recipient of the honor felt it for the rest of the day. Abe watched Morris undergo the ordeal and plunged his hands in his trousers' pockets.
"And this is Mr. Potash," Pasinsky cried, releasing his grip on Morris and extending his hand toward Abe.
"How d'ye do?" Abe said without removing his hands. "I think I seen you oncet before already in Mandleberger Brothers & Co., in Chicago."
"I presume you did," Marks Pasinsky replied. "Ed Mandleberger and me married cousins. That is to say, my wife's mother's sister is a sister-in-law to a brother of Ed Mandleberger's wife's mother."
"Huh, huh," Abe murmured. "Do you know Simon Kuhner, buyer for their cloak department?"
Marks Pasinsky sat down and fixed Abe with an incredulous smile.
"A question!" he exclaimed. "Do I know him? Every afternoon, when I am in Chicago, Simon and me drinks coffee together."
Abe and Morris looked at each other with glances of mixed wonder and delight.
"I'll tell you another feller I'm intimate with, too," he said. "Do you know Charles I Fichter, cloak buyer for Gardner, Baum & Miller, in Seattle?"
Abe nodded. He had been vainly trying to sell Fichter a bill of goods since 1898.
"Well, Charlie and me was delegates to the National Grand Lodge of the Independent Order Mattai Aaron, and I nominated Charlie for Grand Scribe. The way it come about was this, if you'd care to hear about it."
"That's all right," Morris interrupted. "We take your word for it. The point is, could you sell it him a big bill of goods, maybe?"
Marks Pasinsky leaned back in his chair and laughed uproariously.
"Why, Mr. Perlmutter," he said, all out of breath from his mirth, "that feller is actually putting his job in danger because he's holding off in his fall buying until I get to Seattle. Fichter wouldn't buy not a dollar's worth of goods from nobody else but me, not if you was to make him a present of them for nothing."
He gave many more instances of his friendship with cloak and suit buyers. For example, it appeared that he knew Rudolph Rosenwater, buyer for Feigenson & Schiffer, of San Francisco, to the extent of an anecdote containing a long, intimate dialogue wherein Rosenwater commenced all his speeches with: "Well, Markie."
"And so I says to him," Pasinsky concluded, "'Rudie, you are all right,' I says, 'but you can't con me.'"
He looked from Abe to Morris and beamed with satisfaction. They were in a condition of partial hypnotism, which became complete after Pasinsky had concluded a ten-minutes' discourse on cloak and suit affairs. He spoke with a fluency and emphasis that left Abe and Morris literally gasping like landed fish, although, to be sure, the manner of his discourse far outshone the matter.
But his auditors were much too dazed to be critical. They were cognizant of only one circumstance: If this huge personage with his wonderful magnetismand address couldn't sell goods, nobody could.
Pasinsky rose to his feet. He was six feet in height, and weighed over two hundred pounds.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, towering over his proposed employers, "think it over and see if you want me. I'll be back at noon."
"Hold on a minute," Abe cried. "You ain't told us nothing about who you worked for last. What were all them references you was telling us about?"
Pasinsky regarded Abe with a smile of amusement.
"I'll tell you, Mr. Potash, it's like this," he explained. "Of course you want to know who I worked for and all about it."
Abe nodded.
"But the way I feel about it," Marks Pasinsky went on, "is that if you advance my expenses for two weeks, understand me, and I go out with your sample line, understand me, if you don't owe me a thousand dollars commissions at the end of that time, then I don't want to work for you at all."
Morris' jaw dropped and he wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead.
"But who did you sell goods for?" Abe insisted.
Marks Pasinsky bent down and placed his hand on Abe's shoulder.
"B. Gans," he whispered.
"Let me in on this, too, Abe," Morris exclaimed.
"He says he worked for B. Gans," Abe replied.
"That's an A Number One concern, Abe," Morris said.
"AANumber One," Pasinsky corrected. "B. Gans ain't got a garment in his entire line that retails for less than a hundred dollars."
"Well, we ain't so tony as all that," Morris commented. "We got it one or two garments, Mr. Pasinsky—just one or two, y'understand—which retails for ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents, y'understand. So, naturally, you couldn't expect to sell the same class of trade for us as you sold it for B. Gans."
"Naturally," Pasinsky agreed loftily, "but when a salesman is a salesman, Mr. Perlmutter, he ain't content to sell a line of goods which sells themselves, so to speak, like B. Gans' line. He wants to handle such a line like you got it, Mr. Perlmutter, which is got to be pushed and pushed good and plenty. If I wouldn't handle an inferior line oncet in a while, Mr. Perlmutter, I would quick get out of practice."
Morris snorted.
"If our line don't suit you, Mr. Pasinsky," he began, when Abe interrupted with a wave of his hand.
"Pasinsky is right, Mawruss," he said. "You always got it an idee you made up a line of goods what pratically sold themselves, and I always told you differencely. You wouldn't mind it if I went around to see B. Gans, Mr. Pasinsky."
Pasinsky stared superciliously at Abe.
"Go as far as you like," he said. "Gans wouldn'ttell you nothing but good of me. But if I would work for you one week, Mr. Potash, you would know that with me recommendations is nix and results everything."
He blew his nose like a challenge and clapped his silk hat on his flowing black curls. Then he bowed to Morris, and the next moment the elevator door clanged behind him.
B. Gans guided himself by the maxim: "In business you couldn't trust nobody to do nothing," and albeit he employed over a hundred workmen he gave practical demonstrations of their duties to all of them. Thus, on the last of the month he made out statements in the office, and when the shipping department was busy he helped tie up packages. Occasionally he would be found wielding a pressing iron, and when Abe Potash entered to inquire about Pasinsky's qualifications B. Gans had just smashed his thumb in the process of showing a shipping clerk precisely how a packing-case ought to be nailed.
"What's the matter, Gans?" Abe asked.
"Couldn't you afford it to hire shipping clerks no more?"
"I want to tell you something, Potash," Gans replied. "Jay Vanderbilt ain't got money enough to hire it a good shipping clerk, because for the simple reason there ain't no good shipping clerks. A shipping clerk ain't no good, otherwise he wouldn't be a shipping clerk."
"How about drummers?" Abe asked. "I ain'tcome to ask you about shipping clerks, Gans; I come to ask you about a drummer."
"What should you ask me about drummers for, Potash?" Gans replied. "You know as well as I do what drummers is, Potash. Drummers is bluffs. I wouldn't give a pinch of snuff for the best drummers living. The way drummers figure it out nowadays, Potash, there ain't no more money in commissions. All the money is in the expense account."
Abe laughed.
"I guess you got a tale of woe to tell about designers and models, too, Gans," he said; "but with me, Gans, so long as a salesman could sell goods I don't take it so particular when it comes right down to the expense account."
"Oh, if they sell goods, Potash," Gans agreed, "then that's something else again. But the way business is to-day, Potash, salesmen don't sell goods no more. Former times a salesman wasn't considered a salesman unless he could sell a customer goods what the customer didn't want; but nowadays it don't make no difference what kind of salesman you hire it, Potash, the goods is got to sell themselves, otherwise the salesman can't do no business. Ain't it?"
"But take a salesman like Marks Pasinsky, for instance," Abe said. "There's a feller what can sell goods. Ain't it?"
B. Gans looked up sharply.
"Did Marks Pasinsky send you here?" he asked.
"Well, he give you as a reference," Abe replied.
"All right," B. Gans continued. "You tell Marks Pasinsky from me that I says he's a good salesman and that why he left me was by mutual consent."
"Sure," Abe said, "but I wanted to ask you more about Pasinsky. You see, Pasinsky wants to come to work by us as salesman, and I want to find out a few things about him first."
"Well, I'm just telling you, ain't I?" Gans replied. "I said Marks Pasinsky was a good salesman and the reason why he left me was by mutual consent; and you tell Pasinsky that that's what I said it, and if you'll excuse me I got business to attend to."
He turned away and fairly ran toward the rear of the loft, while Abe, now thoroughly mystified, returned to his place of business.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried as his partner entered. "What for a reference did you get it from B. Gans?"
"The reference is all right, Mawruss," Abe replied. "B. Gans says that Pasinsky is a good salesman and that the reason he left was by mutual consent."
"Mutual consent?" Morris exclaimed. "What kind of reasons is that for firing a feller?"
"Gans didn't fire him, Mawruss," Abe said. "He left by mutual consent."
"I know, Abe," Morris rejoined, "but when a feller quits by mutual consent you know as well as Ido, Abe, what that means. It means that if I should say to Jake, the shipping clerk, 'Jake, you are a rotten shipping clerk and I don't want you no more, and if you don't get right out of here I will kick you out,' and then Jake says to me, 'In that case you could take your dirty job and give it to some poor sucker what wants it more as I do,' then Jake quits by mutual consent. Ain't it?"
Abe stared indignantly at his partner.
"I'm surprised to hear you you should talk that way, Mawruss, about a decent, respectable young feller what works so hard like Jake does," he said. "That only goes to show what a judge you are. If you couldn't tell it a good shipping clerk when you see one, how should you know anything about salesmen? B. Gans says that Pasinsky is a good salesman, Mawruss, and you can do what you like about it; I'm going to hire him, Mawruss, when he comes back here."
"Go ahead, Abe," Morris retorted. "Only, if things shouldn't turn out O. K. you shouldn't blame me. That's all."
"I wouldn't blame you, Mawruss," Abe said. "All I would blame you is if you wouldn't have our sample line in good shape by next week, because I want Pasinsky to leave here by Monday sure."
"Don't you worry about them samples, Abe," Morris cried.
"Them samples is good enough to sell themselves; and the way I figure it out, they got to sell themselves,Abe, because I don't believe Pasinsky could sell nothing to nobody."
"You don't believe nothing, Mawruss," Abe concluded as he made for the cutting-room; "you're a regular amethyst."
"With a feller like Kuhner," Marks Pasinsky declared on the following Monday, "you couldn't be a cheap skate, Mr. Potash."
"I always sold it Kuhner, too," Abe replied; "but I never spent it so much as three hundred dollars in one week in Chicago."
"Sure, I know," Pasinsky agreed, "but how much did you sell Kuhner? A thousand or two thousand at the outside. With me, Mr. Potash, I wouldn't bother myself to stop off in Chicago at all if I couldn't land at least a five-thousand-dollar order from Simon Kuhner, of Mandleberger Brothers & Co., and we will say four thousand with Chester Prosnauer, of the Arcade Mercantile Company."
It lacked half an hour of Marks Pasinsky's train-time, and, in addition, Abe had grown a little weary of his parting instructions to his newly-hired salesman. Indeed, the interview had lasted all the forenoon, and it would have been difficult to decide who was doing the instructing.
"S'enough," Abe cried. "Let's make an end. I'll speak to my partner about it, and if he says it's all right I'm agreeable."
He repaired to the cutting-room, where Morris chafed at the delay in Pasinsky's departure.
"Ain't that feller gone yet, Abe?" he asked.
"I'm just giving him a few last advices," Abe replied.
"Well, I hope you're more successful as I was, Abe," Morris rejoined. "That feller's got so much to say for himself I couldn't get a word in sideways."
Abe nodded.
"He's a good talker," he said, "only he's too ambitious, Mawruss."
"He shouldn't get ambitious around me, Abe," Morris retorted, "because I wouldn't stand for it. What's he getting ambitious with you about?"
"Well, he wants it three hundred dollars for expenses one week in Chicago already," Abe answered.
"What!" Morris cried.
"He says he got to do some tall entertaining, Mawruss," Abe went on, "because he expects to sell Simon Kuhner a five-thousand-dollars bill of goods, and the Arcade Mercantile Company also five thousand."
"Say, looky here, Abe: I want to tell you something," Morris broke in. "Of course, this ain't my affair nor nothing, because you got the rheumatism and it's your funeral. Also, I am only a partner here, y'understand, and what I says goes for nix. But the way it looks to me now, Abe, if this here Pasinsky sells all the goods he talks about, Abe, we will got to have four times more capital as we are working with now. And if he spends it three hundred dollars in every town he makes we wouldn'thave no capital left at all. And that's the way it goes."
He turned and strode angrily away, while Abe went back to the show-room.
"Well, Pasinsky," he said, "I decided I would take a chance and advance you the three hundred; but you got to do the business, Pasinsky, otherwise it is all off."
Pasinsky nodded and tucked away the yellowbacks which Abe gave him.
"All you've got to do, Mr. Potash, is to fill the orders," he said, extending his hand to Abe, "and I will do the rest. And now good-by and good luck to you."
He squeezed Abe's hand until it was completely numb, and with a parting nod to Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, he started on his journey for the West.
"You would thought, Mawruss," Abe said afterward, "that he was staying home and that it was me what goes away on the trip."
"I wish you was, Abe," Morris replied fervently. "I ain't got no confidence in that feller at all."
"I wouldn't knock the feller until I seen what he could do, Mawruss," Abe said. "He promised me we should hear from him so soon as he gets there."
Four days later the expected mail arrived. Abe received the letter from the carrier and burst it open with his thumb. Then he drew forth the contents of the envelope and shook the folded sheet, but no orderslip fell out. He sighed heavily and perused the letter, which read as follows: