MR. AND MRS. I. SEIDEN AND MRS. MIRIAM SAPHIRREQUEST THE HONOUR OFTHE INTERCOLONIAL TEXTILE COMPANY'SPRESENCE AT THE MARRIAGE OF HER DAUGHTERBESSIETOMr.PHILIP STERNSILVERON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1909, AT SIX O'CLOCKNEW RIGA HALL, 522 ALLEN STREET, NEW YORKBride's Address:c/o SANSPAREIL WAIST COMPANYIsaac Seiden,ProprietorWaists in Marquisette, Voile, Lingerie,Crepe and Novelty Silksalso a Full Line ofLace and Hand-embroidered Waists800GREENE STREET, NEW YORK CITY
MR. AND MRS. I. SEIDEN AND MRS. MIRIAM SAPHIR
REQUEST THE HONOUR OF
THE INTERCOLONIAL TEXTILE COMPANY'S
PRESENCE AT THE MARRIAGE OF HER DAUGHTER
BESSIE
TO
Mr.PHILIP STERNSILVER
ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1909, AT SIX O'CLOCK
NEW RIGA HALL, 522 ALLEN STREET, NEW YORK
"What's the use you are inviting a corporation to a wedding, Mr. Seiden?" Philip said as he returned the invitation with a heavy sigh. "A corporation couldn't eat nothing, Mr. Seiden."
"Sure, I know," Seiden replied. "I ain't asking 'em they should eat anything, Sternsilver. All I am wanting of 'em is this: Here it is in black and white. Me and Beckie and that oldSchnorrer, Mrs. Saphir, requests the honour of the Intercolonial Company's presents at the marriage of their daughter. You should know a corporation's presents is just as good as anybody else's presents, Sternsilver. Ain't it?"
Sternsilver nodded gloomily.
"Also I am sending invitations to a dozen of my best customers and to a couple of high-price sales-men. Them fellers should loosen up also oncet in a while. Ain't I right?"
Again Sternsilver nodded and returned to the factory where, at hourly intervals during the following week, Seiden accosted him and issued bulletins of the arrival of wedding presents and the acceptance of invitations to the ceremony.
"What do you think for a couple of small potatoes like Kugel & Mishkin?" he said. "If I bought a cent from them people during the last five years I must of bought three hundred dollars' worth of buttons; and they got the nerve to send a half a dozen coffee spoons, which they are so light, y'understand, you could pretty near see through 'em."
Sternsilver received this news with a manner suggesting a cramped swimmer coming up for the second time.
"Never mind, Sternsilver," Seiden continued reassuringly, "we got a whole lot of people to hear from yet. I bet yer the Binder & Baum Manufacturing Company, the least you get from 'em is a piece of cut glass which it costs, at wholesale yet, ten dollars."
Sternsilver's distress proceeded from another cause, however; for that very morning he had made a desperate resolve, which was no less than to leave the Borough of Manhattan and to begin life anew in Philadelphia. From the immediate execution of the plan he was deterred only by one circumstance—lack of funds; and this he proposed to overcome by borrowing from Fatkin. Indeed, when he pondered the situation, he became convinced that Fatkin, as the cause of his dilemma, ought to be the means of his extrication. He therefore broached the matter of a loan more in the manner of a lender than a borrower.
"Say, lookyhere, Fatkin," he said on the day before the wedding, "I got to have some money right away."
Fatkin shrugged philosophically.
"A whole lot of fellers feels the same way," he said.
"Only till Saturday week," Sternsilver continued, "and I want you should give me twenty-five dollars."
"Me?" Fatkin exclaimed.
"Sure, you," Sternsilver said; "and I want it now."
"Don't make me no jokes, Sternsilver," Fatkin replied.
"I ain't joking, Fatkin; far from it," Sternsilver declared. "To-morrow it is all fixed for the wedding and I got to have twenty-five dollars."
"What d'ye mean, to-morrow is fixed for the wedding?" Fatkin retorted indignantly. "Do you want to get married on my money yet?"
"I don't want the money to get married on," Sternsilver protested. "I want it for something else again."
"My worries! What you want it for?" Fatkin concluded, with a note of finality in his tone. "I wouldosergive you twenty-five cents."
"'S enough, Fatkin!" Sternsilver declared. "I heard enough from you already. You was the one which got me into thisSchlemazeland now you should get me out again."
"What do you mean, getting you into aSchlemazel?"
"You know very well what I mean," Philip replied; "and, furthermore, Fatkin, you are trying to make too free with me. Who are you, anyhow, you should turn me down when I ask you for a few days twenty-five dollars? You act so independent, like you would be the foreman."
Hillel nodded slowly, not without dignity.
"Never mind, Sternsilver," he said; "if my family would got a relation, y'understand, which he is working in Poliakoff's Bank and he is got to run away on account he is missing in five thousand rubles, which it is the same name Sternsilver, and everybody in Kovno—the children even—knows about it, understand me, I wouldn't got to be so stuck up at all."
Sternsilver flushed indignantly.
"Do you mean to told me," he demanded, "that I got in my family such a man which he is stealing five thousand rubles, Fatkin?"
"That's what I said," Hillel retorted.
"Well, it only goes to show what a liar you are," Sternsilver rejoined. "Not only was it he stole ten thousand rubles, y'understand, but the bank was run by a feller by the name Louis Moser."
"All right," Fatkin said as he started up his sewing-machine by way of signifying that the interview was at an end. "All right, Sternsilver; if you got such a relation which heganveredten thousand rubles, y'understand, borrow from him the twenty-five dollars."
Thus Sternsilver was obliged to amend his resolution by substituting Jersey City for Philadelphia as the seat of his new start in life; and at half-past eleven that evening, when the good ferryboatCincinnatidrew out of her slip at the foot of Desbrosses Street, a short, thick-set figure leaned over her bow and gazed sadly, perhaps for the last time, at the irregular sky-line of Manhattan. It was Sternsilver.
When Mr. Seiden arrived at his factory the following morning he found his entire force of operators gathered on the stairway and overflowing on to the sidewalk.
"What is the matter you are striking on me?" he cried.
"Striking!" Hillel Fatkin said. "What do you mean, striking on you, Mr. Seiden? We ain't striking. Sternsilver ain't come down this morning and nobody was here he should open up the shop."
"Do you mean to told me Sternsilver ain't here?" Seiden exclaimed.
"All right; then I'm a liar, Mr. Seiden," Hillel replied. "You asked me a simple question, Mr. Seiden, and I give you a plain, straightforward answer. MyGrossvater,olav hasholam, which he was a very learned man—for years a rabbi in Telshi—used to say: 'If some one tells you you are lying, understand me, and——"
At this juncture Seiden opened the factory door and the entire mob of workmen plunged forward, sweeping Hillel along, with his quotation from the ethical maxims of his grandfather only half finished. For the next quarter of an hour Seiden busied himself in starting up his factory and then he repaired to the office to open the mail.
In addition to three or four acceptances of invitations there was a dirty envelope bearing on its upper left-hand corner the mark of a third-rate Jersey City hotel. Seiden ripped it open and unfolded a sheet of letter paper badly scrawled in Roman capitals as follows:
"December 12."I. Seiden:"We are come to tell you which Mr. Philip Sternsilver is gone out West to Kenses Citter. So don't fool yourself he would not be at the wedding. What do you think a fine man like him would marry such a cow like Miss Bessie Saphir?"And oblige yours truly,"A. Wellwisher."
"December 12.
"I. Seiden:
"We are come to tell you which Mr. Philip Sternsilver is gone out West to Kenses Citter. So don't fool yourself he would not be at the wedding. What do you think a fine man like him would marry such a cow like Miss Bessie Saphir?
"And oblige yours truly,
"A. Wellwisher."
For at least a quarter of an hour after reading the letter Mr. Seiden sat in his office doing sums in mental arithmetic. He added postage on invitations to cost of printing same and carried the result in his mind; next he visualized in one column the sum paid for furnishing Bessie's flat, the price of Mrs. Seiden's new dress—estimated; caterers' fees for serving dinner and hire of New Riga Hall. The total fairly stunned him, and for another quarter of an hour he remained seated in his chair. Then came the realization that twenty-five commission houses, two high-grade drummers, and at least five customers, rating L to J credit good, were even then preparing to attend a groomless wedding; and he spurred himself to action.
He ran to the telephone, but as he grabbed the receiver from the hook he became suddenly motionless.
"Nu," he murmured after a few seconds. "Why should I make a damn fool of myself and disappoint all them people for a greenhorn like Sternsilver?"
Once more he sought his chair, and incoherent plans for retrieving the situation chased one another through his brain until he felt that his intellect was giving way. It was while he was determining to call the whole thing off that Hillel Fatkin entered.
"Mr. Seiden," he said, "could I speak to you a few words something?"
He wore an air of calm dignity that only a long rabbinical ancestry can give, and his errand in his employer's office was to announce his impending resignation, as a consequence of Seiden's offensive indifference to the memory of Hillel's grandfather. When Seiden looked up, however, his mind reverted not to Hillel's quotation of his grandfather's maxims, but to Sternsilver's conversation on the day of the betrothal; and Hillel's dignity suggested to him, instead of distinguished ancestry, a savings-bank account of two hundred dollars. He jumped immediately to his feet.
"Sit down, Fatkin," he cried.
Hillel seated himself much as his grandfather might have done in the house of an humble disciple, blending dignity and condescension in just the right proportions.
"So," he said, referring to Mr. Seiden's supposed contrition for the affront to the late rabbi, "when it is too late, Mr. Seiden, you are sorry."
"What do you mean, sorry?" Mr. Seiden replied. "Believe me, Fatkin, I am glad to be rid of the feller. I could get just as good foremen as him without going outside this factory even—for instance, you."
"Me!" Fatkin cried.
"Sure; why not?" Seiden continued. "A foreman must got to be fresh to the operators, anyhow; and if you ain't fresh, Fatkin, I don't know who is."
"Me fresh!" Fatkin exclaimed.
"I ain't kicking you are too fresh, y'understand," Seiden said. "I am only saying you are fresh enough to be a foreman."
Fatkin shrugged. "Very well, Mr. Seiden," he said in a manner calculated to impress Seiden with the magnitude of the favour. "Very well; if you want me to I would go to work as foreman for you."
Seiden with difficulty suppressed a desire to kick Hillel and smiled blandly.
"Schon gut," he said. "You will go to work Monday morning."
"Why not to-day, Mr. Seiden?" Hillel asked.
Seiden smiled again and this time it was not so bland as it was mechanical, suggesting the pulling of an invisible string.
"Because, Fatkin, you are going to be too busy to-day," Seiden replied. "A feller couldn't start in to work as a foreman and also get married all in one day."
Hillel stared at his employer.
"Me get married, Mr. Seiden! What are you talking nonsense, Mr. Seiden? I ain't going to get married at all."
"Oh, yes, you are, Fatkin," Seiden replied. "You are going to get married to Miss Bessie Saphir at New Riga Hall, on Allen Street, to-night, six o'clock sharp; otherwise you wouldn't go to work as foreman at all."
Hillel rose from his chair and then sat down again.
"Do you mean to told me I must got to marry Miss Bessie Saphir before I can go to work as foreman?" he demanded.
"You got it right, Fatkin," Seiden said.
"Then I wouldn't do no such thing," Fatkin retorted and made for the door.
"Hold on!" Seiden shouted, seizing Fatkin by the arm. "Don't be a fool, Fatkin. What are you throwing away a hundred dollars cash for?"
"Me throw away a hundred dollars cash?" Fatkin blurted out.
"Sure," Seiden answered. "If you would marry Miss Bessie Saphir you would not only get by me a job as foreman, but also I am willing to give you a hundred dollars cash."
Fatkin returned to the office and again sat down opposite his employer.
"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Seiden," he said, "I want to tell you something. You are springing on me suddenly a proposition which it is something you could really say is remarkable. Ain't it?"
Seiden nodded.
"Miss Bessie Saphir, which she is anyhow—her own best friend would got to admit it—homely like anything, Mr. Seiden," Fatkin continued, "is going to marry Sternsilver; and just because Sternsilver runs away, I should jump in and marry her like I would be nobody!"
Seiden nodded again.
"Another thing, Mr. Seiden," Hillel went on. "What is a hundred dollars? MyGrossvater,olav hasholam—which he was a very learned man, for years a rabbi in Telshi——"
"Sure, I know, Fatkin," Seiden interrupted. "You told me that before."
"—for years a rabbi in Telshi," Hillel repeated, not deigning to notice the interruption save by a malevolent glare, "used to say: 'Soon married, quick divorced.' Why should I bringtzurison myself by doing this thing, Mr. Seiden?"
Seiden treated the question as rhetorical and made no reply.
"Also I got in bank nearly three hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden," he concluded; "and even if I was a feller which wouldn't be from such fine family in the old country, understand me, three hundred dollars is three hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden, and that's all there is to it."
Seiden pondered deeply for a minute.
"All right, Fatkin," he said; "make it a hundred and fifty dollarsund fertig."
"Three hundred dollarsodernothing!" Fatkin replied firmly; and after half an hour of more or less acrid discussion Fatkin agreed to accept Miss Bessie Saphir plus three hundred dollars and a job as foreman.
An inexplicable phase of the criminal's character is the instinct which impels him to revisit the scene of his crime; and, whether he was led thither by a desire to gloat or by mere vulgar curiosity, Philip Sternsilver slunk within the shadow of an L-road pillar on Allen Street opposite New Riga Hall promptly at half-past five that evening.
First to arrive was Isaac Seiden himself. He bore a heavily laden suitcase, and his face was distorted in an expression of such intense gloom that Sternsilver almost found it in his heart to be sorry for his late employer.
Mrs. Seiden, Miss Bessie Saphir, and Mrs. Miriam Saphir next appeared. They were chattering in an animated fashion and passed into the hall in a gale of laughter.
"Must be he didn't told 'em yet," Sternsilver muttered to himself.
Then came representatives of commission houses and several L to J customers attired in appropriate wedding finery; and as they entered the hall Sternsilver deemed that the pertinent moment for disappearing had arrived. He left hurriedly before the advent of two high-grade salesmen, or he might have noticed in their wake the dignified figure of Hillel Fatkin, arrayed in a fur overcoat, which covered a suit of evening clothes and was surmounted by a high silk hat. Hillel walked slowly, as much in the realization that haste was unbecoming to a bridegroom as on account of his patent-leather shoes, which were half a size too small for him; for the silk hat, fur overcoat, patent-leather shoes, and dress suit were all hired, and formed Combination Wedding Outfit No. 6 in the catalogue of the Imperial Dress-suit Parlour on Rivington Street. It was listed at five dollars a wedding, but the proprietress, to whom Hillel had boasted of his rabbinical ancestry, concluded to allow him a clerical discount of 20 per cent. when he hesitated between his ultimate selection and the three dollar Combination No. 4, which did not include the fur overcoat.
The extra dollar was well invested, for the effect of Combination No. 6 upon Miss Bessie Saphir proved to be electrical. At first sight of it, she dismissed forever the memory of the fickle Sternsilver, who, at the very moment when Bessie and Hillel were plighting their troth, regaled himself withmohnkuchenand coffee at a neighbouring café.
He sat in an obscure corner behind the lady cashier's desk; and as he consumed his supper with hearty appetite he could not help overhearing the conversation she was carrying on with a rotund personage who was none other than Sam Kupferberg, the well-known Madison Street advocate.
"For a greenhorn like him," said Sam, "he certainly done well. He ain't been in the place a year, y'understand, and to-night he marries a relation of his boss and he gets a job as foreman and three hundred dollars in the bargain."
The cashier clucked with her tongue. "S'imagine!" she commented.
"Mind you," Sam continued, "only this afternoon yet, Seiden tells him he should marry the girl, as this other feller backed out; and he stands out for three hundred dollars, y'understand, and a job as foreman. What could Seiden do? He had to give in, and they're being married right now in New Riga Hall."
"S'imagine!" the cashier said again, adjusting her pompadour.
"And, furthermore," Sam continued, "the girl is a relation of Seiden's wife, y'understand."
"My Gawd, ketch him!" the cashier exclaimed; and Sam Kupferberg grabbed Philip Sternsilver just as he was disappearing into the street. It was some minutes before Philip could be brought to realize that he owed ten cents for his supper, but when he was at length released he made up for lost time. His progress down Allen Street was marked by two overturned pushcarts and a trail of tumbled children; and, despite this havoc, when he arrived at New Riga Hall the ceremony was finished by half an hour or more.
Indeed, the guests were gathered about the supper table and soup had just been served, when the proprietor of the hall tiptoed to the bridal table and whispered in Isaac Seiden's ear:
"A feller by the name of Sternsilver wants to speak a few words something to you," he said.
Seiden turned pale, and leaving half a plateful of soup uninhaled he rose from the table and followed the proprietor to the latter's private office. There sat Philip Sternsilver gasping for breath.
"Murderer!" he shouted as Seiden entered. "You are shedding my blood."
"Koosh, Sternsilver!" Seiden hissed. "Ain't you got no shame for the people at all?"
"Where is my Bessie—my life?" Sternsilver wailed. "Without you are making any inquiries at all you are marrying her to a loafer. Me, I am nothing! What is it to you I am pretty near killed in the street last night and must got to go to a hospital! For years I am working for you already, day in, day out, without I am missing a single forenoon even—and you are treating me like this!"
It was now Seiden's turn to gasp.
"What d'ye mean?" he cried, searching in his coat pocket. "Ain't you wrote me this here letter?"
He produced the missive received by him that morning and handed it to Sternsilver, who, unnoticed by the excited Seiden, returned it without even glancing at its contents.
"I never seen it before," he declared. "Why should I write printing? Don't you suppose I can write writing, Mr. Seiden?"
"Who did send it, then?" Seiden asked.
"It looks to me"—said Sternsilver, who grew calmer as Seiden became more agitated—"it looks to me like that sucker Fatkin writes it."
"What!" Seiden yelled. "And me I am paying him cash three hundred dollars he should marry that girl! Even a certified check he wouldn't accept."
Although this information was not new to Sternsilver, to hear it thus at first hand seemed to infuriate him.
"What!" he howled. "You are giving that greenhorn three hundred dollars yet to marry such a beautiful girl like my Bessie!"
He buried his face in his hands and rocked to and fro in his chair.
"Never mind, Sternsilver," Seiden said comfortingly; "you shouldn't take on so—she ain't so beautiful; and, as for that feller Fatkin——"
"You are talking about me, Mr. Seiden?" said a voice in the doorway.
Sternsilver looked up and once again Wedding Outfit Combination No. 6 conquered; for assuredly, had Fatkin been arrayed in his working clothes, he would have suffered a personal assault at the hands of his late foreman.
"Mr. Seiden," Fatkin continued, "never mind; I could stand it somebody calls me names, but Mr. Latz wants to know what is become of you for the last quarter of an hour. Mr. Latz tells me during November alone he buys from us eight hundred dollars goods."
"Us!" Seiden cried, employing three inflections to the monosyllable.
Before Seiden could protest further, however, Sternsilver had recovered from the partial hypnosis of Combination No. 6, and he gave tongue like a foxhound:
"Oe-ee tzuris!" he wailed.
"Koosh!" Fatkin cried, closing the door. "What do you want here?"
"You know what I want," Sternsilver sobbed. "You are stealing from me three hundred dollars."
Fatkin turned to Seiden and gazed at him reproachfully.
"Mr. Seiden," he said, "what for you are telling me that Sternsilver wouldn't get a cent with Bessie? And you are trying to get me I should be satisfied with a hundred dollars yet. Honestly, Mr. Seiden, I am surprised at you."
"Schmooes, Fatkin!" Seiden protested. "I never promised to give him nothing. Dreams he got it."
Sternsilver rose from his seat.
"Do you mean to told me that a greenhorn like him you would give three hundred dollars," he asked, "and me you wouldn't give nothing?"
"You!" Fatkin bellowed. "What are you? You are coming to me throwing a bluff that you got a relation by the name of Sternsilver, which heganversten thousand rubles from Moser's Bank, in Kovno; and this afternoon yet, I find out the feller's name was Steinsilver—not Sternsilver; which he ain't got a relation in the world, y'understand. Faker!"
Sternsilver nodded his head slowly.
"Faker, am I?" he said. "All right, Mr. Fatkin; if I am a faker I will show you what I would do. You and this here Seiden fix it up between you, because I am all of a sudden sick in the hospital, that you steal away my Bessie and the three hundred dollars also.Schon gut!I would sue you both in the courtsund fertig!"
"Sternsilver is right, in a way," Seiden said, "even though he is a bum. What for did you write me this letter, Fatkin?"
"Me write you that letter, Mr. Seiden!" Fatkin protested as he looked at the document in question. "Why, Mr. Seiden, I can't write printing. It is all I can do to write writing. And, besides, Mr. Seiden, until you are telling me about getting married, the idee never enters my head at all."
There could be no mistaking Fatkin's sincerity, and Seiden turned to Sternsilver with a threatening gesture.
"Out!" he cried. "Out of here before I am sending for a policeman to give you arrested."
"Don't make me no bluffs, Seiden!" Sternsilver answered calmly. "Either you would got to settle with me nowoderI would go right upstairs and tell them commission houses and customers which you got there all about it. What do you take me for, Seiden—a greenhorn?"
"Fatkin," Seiden commanded, "do you hear what I am telling you? Take this loafer and throw him into the street."
"Me?" Fatkin said. "What are you talking nonsense, Mr. Seiden? I should throw him into the street when I am standing to lose on the coat alone ten dollars!"
Seiden looked at Fatkin and the validity of his objection was at once apparent.
"Nu, Sternsilver," he said. "Be a good feller. Here is five dollars. Go away and leave us alone."
Sternsilver laughed aloud.
"You are talking like I would be a child, Seiden!" he said. "Either you would give me cash a hundred dollarsoderI would go right away upstairs to the customers."
Seiden turned to Fatkin.
"Fatkin," he said, "I am giving you this evening three hundred dollars. Give him a hundred dollars and be done with it."
"What d'ye mean, me give him a hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden?" Fatkin demanded. "They ain't my customers."
At this juncture the proprietor of the hall opened the door.
"Mr. Seiden," he said, "everybody is through eating; so, if you would give me the key to the suitcase which you got the cigars andSchnappsin, Mr. Seiden, I would hand 'em around."
"I'll be there in a minute," Seiden replied. He turned to Sternsilver and made one last appeal. "Nu, Sternsilver," he said, "would you take a check?"
"OseraStück," Sternsilver declared; but, although for five minutes he maintained his refusal, he finally relented.
"Well, Mr. Seiden," he said, offering his hand, "I congradulate you."
Seiden refused the proffered palm and started for the door. Before he reached it, however, Fatkin grabbed him by the arm.
"At such a time like this, Mr. Seiden," he said, "you couldn't afford to be small."
Once more Sternsilver held out his hand and this time Seiden shook it limply.
"No bad feelings, Mr. Seiden," Sternsilver said, and Seiden shrugged impatiently.
"You, I don't blame at all, Sternsilver," he said. "I am making from my own self a sucker yet. A feller shouldn't never even begin with his wife's relations."
At the end of a year Hillel Fatkin left the employ of the Sanspareil Waist Company to embark in the garment business on his own account. Many reasons contributed to this move, chief of which was the arrival of a son in Fatkin's household.
"And we would call him Pesach," Hillel said to his mother-in-law shortly after the birth of his heir, "after your Uncle Pesach Gubin."
"My Uncle Pesach Gubin!" Mrs. Miriam Saphir protested. "What are you talking nonsense, Hillel? That lowlife is Mrs. Seiden's uncle, not my uncle."
"Your cousin, then," Hillel continued. "What's the difference if he's your cousinoderyour uncle—we would call the boy after him, anyhow."
"Call the boy after that drinker—that bum! What for? The feller ain't no relation to me at all. Why should we call the precious lamb after Beckie Seiden's relations?"
"Do you mean to told me," he said, "that Pesach Gubin ain't no relation to Bessie at all?"
Mrs. Saphir nodded and blushed.
"The way families is mixed up nowadays, Hillel," she said, "it don't do no harm to claim relation with some people."
Her face commenced to resume its normal colour.
"Especially," she added, "if they got money."
CHAPTER FOUR
SERPENTS' TEETH
"Allright, Max," cried Samuel Gembitz, senior member of S. Gembitz & Sons; "if you think you know more about it as I do, Max, go ahead and make up that style in all them fancy shades. But listen to what I'm telling you, Max: black, navy blue, brown, and smoke is plenty enough; and all them copenhoogens, wisterias, and tchampanyers we would get stuck with, just as sure as little apples."
"That's what you think, pop," Max Gembitz replied.
"Well, I got a right to think, ain't I?" Samuel Gembitz retorted.
"Sure," Max said, "and so have I."
"After me," Samuel corrected. "I think first and then you think, Max; and I think we wouldn't plunge so heavy on them 1040's. Make up a few of 'em in blacks, navies, browns, and smokes, Max, and afterward we would see about making up the others."
He rose from his old-fashioned Windsor chair in the firm's private office and put on his hat—a silk hat of a style long obsolete.
"I am going to my lunch, Max," he said firmly, "and when I come back I will be here. Another thing, Max: you got an idee them 1040's is a brand-new style which is so original, understand me, we are bound to make a big hit with it at seven-fifty apiece—ain't it?"
Max nodded.
"Well, good styles travels fast, Max," the old man said; "and you could take it from me, Max, in two weeks' time Henry Schrimm and all them other fellers would be falling over themselves to sell the self-same garment at seven dollars."
He seized a gold-mounted, ebony cane, the gift of Harmony Lodge, 100, I.O.M.A., and started for the stairway, but as he reached the door he turned suddenly.
"Max," he shouted, "tell them boys to straighten up the sample racks. The place looks like a pigsty already."
As the door closed behind his father Max aimed a kick at the old-fashioned walnut desk and the old-fashioned Windsor chair; and then, lighting a cigarette, he walked hurriedly to the cutting room.
"Lester," he said to his younger brother, who was poring over a book of sample swatches, "what do you think now?"
"Huh?" Lester grunted.
"The old man says we shouldn't make up them 1040's in nothing but black, navy, brown, and smoke!"
Lester closed the book of sample swatches and sat down suddenly.
"Wouldn't that make you sick?" he said in tones of profound disgust. "I tell you what it is, Max, if it wouldn't be that the old man can't run the business forever, I'd quit right now. We've got a killing in sight and he Jonahs the whole thing."
"I told you what it would be," Max said. "I seen Falkstatter in Sarahcuse last week; and so sure as I'm standing here, Lester, I could sold that feller a two-thousand dollar order if it wouldn't be for the old man's back-number ideas. Didn't have a single pastel shade in my trunks!"
"Where is he now?" Lester asked.
"Gone to lunch," Max replied.
Lester took up the sample swatches again and his eyes rested lovingly on a delicate shade of pink.
"I hope he chokes," he said; but even though at that very moment Samuel Gembitz sat in Hammersmith's restaurant, his cheeks distended to the bursting point withgefüllte Rinderbrust, Lester's prayer went unanswered. Indeed, Samuel Gembitz had the bolting capacity of a boa-constrictor, and, with the aid of a gulp of coffee, he could have swallowed a grapefruit whole.
"Ain't you scared that you would sometimes hurt your di-gestion, Mr. Gembitz?" asked Henry Schrimm, who sat at the next table.
Now this was a sore point with Sam Gembitz, for during the past year he had succumbed to more than a dozen bilious attacks as a result of his voracious appetite; and three of them were directly traceable togefüllte Rinderbrust.
"I ain't so delicate like some people, Henry," he said rather sharply. "I don't got to consider every bit of meat which I am putting in my mouth. And even if I would, Henry, what is doctors for? If a feller would got to deny himself plain food, Henry, he might as well jump off a dock andfertig."
Henry Schrimm was an active member of as many fraternal orders as there are evenings in the week, and he possessed a ready sympathy that made him invaluable as a chairman of a sick-visiting or funeral committee; for at seven P.M. Henry could bring himself to the verge of tears over the bedside of a lodge brother, without unduly affecting his ability to relish a game of auction pinochle at half-past eight, sharp.
"Jumping off a dock is all right, too, Mr. Gembitz," he commented, "but you got your family to consider."
"You shouldn't worry about my family, Henry," Gembitz retorted. "I am carrying good insurance; and, furthermore, I got my business in such shape that it would go on just the same supposing I should die to-morrow."
"Gott soll hüten, Mr. Gembitz," Henry added piously as the old man disposed of a dishful of gravy through the capillary attraction of a hunk of spongy rye bread.
"Yes, Henry," Gembitz continued, after he had licked his fingers and submitted his bicuspids to a process of vacuum cleaning, "I got my business down to such a fine point which you could really say was systematic."
"That's a good thing, Mr. Gembitz," Henry said, "because, presuming for the sake of argument, I am only saying you would be called away, Mr. Gembitz, them boys of yours would run it into the ground in no time."
"What d'ye mean, run it into the ground?" Gembitz demanded indignantly. "If you would got the gumption which my boys got it, Schrimm, you wouldn't be doing a business which the most you are making is a couple thousand a year."
"Sure, I know," Henry replied. "If I would got Lester's gumption I would be sitting around the Harlem Winter Garden till all hours of the morning; and if I would got Sidney's gumption I would be playing Kelly pool from two to four every afternoon. And as for Max, Mr. Gembitz, if I would got his gumption I would make a present of it to my worst enemy. A boy which he is going on forty and couldn't do nothing without asking his popper's permission first, Mr. Gembitz, he could better do general house-work for a living as sell goods."
Gembitz rose from his table and struggled into his overcoat speechless with indignation. It was not until he had buttoned the very last button that he was able to enunciate.
"Listen here to me, Schrimm!" he said. "If Lester goes once in a while on a restaurant in the evening, that's his business; and, anyhow, so far what I could see, Schrimm, it don't interfere none with his designing garments which you are stealing on us just as soon as we get 'em on the market. Furthermore, Schrimm, if Sidney plays Kelly pool every afternoon, you could bet your life he also sells him a big bill of goods, also. You got to entertain a customer oncet in a while if you want to sell him goods, Schrimm; and, anyhow, Schrimm, if it would be you would be trying to sell goods to this here Kelly, you wouldn't got sense enough to play pool with him. You would waste your time trying to learn him auction pinochle."
"But, Mr. Gembitz," Schrimm began, "when a feller plays Kelly pool——"
"And as for Max," Gembitz interrupted, "if you would be so good a boy as Max is, Schrimm, might your father would be alive to-day yet."
"What d'ye mean?" Schrimm cried. "My father died when I was two years old already."
"Sure, I know," Gembitz concluded; "and one thing I am only sorry, Schrimm: your father was a decent, respectable man, Schrimm, but he ought to got to die three years sooner. That's all."
No sooner had Mr. Gembitz left Hammersmith's restaurant than thegefüllte Rinderbrustcommenced to assert itself; and by the time he arrived at his place of business he was experiencing all the preliminary symptoms of a severe bilious attack. Nevertheless, he pulled himself together and as he sat down at his desk he called loudly for Sidney.
"He ain't in," Max said.
"Oh, he ain't, ain't he?" Mr. Gembitz retorted. "Well, where is he?"
"He went out with a feller from the New Idea Store, Bridgetown," Max answered, drawing on his imagination in the defence of his brother.
"New Idea Store!" Gembitz repeated. "What's the feller's name?"
Max shrugged.
"I forgot his name," he answered.
"Well, I ain't forgot his name," Gembitz continued. "His name is Kelly; and every afternoon Schrimm tells me Sidney is playing this here Kelly pool."
For a brief interval Max stared at his father; then he broke into an unrestrained laugh.
"Nu!" Gembitz cried. "What's the joke?"
"Why," Max explained, "you're all twisted. Kelly ain't a feller at all. Kelly pool's a game, like you would say straight pinochle and auction pinochle—there's straight pool and Kelly pool."
Gembitz drummed on his desk with his fingers.
"Do you mean to told me there ain't no such person, which he is buying goods for a concern, called Kelly?" he demanded.
Max nodded.
"Then that loafer just fools away his time every afternoon," Gembitz said in choking tones; "and, after all I done for him, he——"
"What's the matter, popper?" Max cried, for Gembitz's lips had suddenly grown purple, and, even as Max reached forward to aid him, he lurched from his chair on to the floor.
Half an hour later Samuel Gembitz was undergoing the entirely novel experience of riding uptown in a taxicab, accompanied by a young physician who had been procured from the medical department of an insurance company across the street.
"Say, lookyhere," Sam protested as they assisted him into the cab, "this ain't necessary at all!"
"No, I know it isn't," the doctor agreed, in his best imitation of an old practitioner's jocular manner. He was, in fact, a very young practitioner and was genuinely alarmed at Samuel's condition, which he attributed to arteriosclerosis and not togefüllte Rinderbrust. "But, just the same," he concluded, "it is just as well to keep as quiet as possible for the present."
Sam nodded and lay back wearily in the leather seat of the taxicab while it threaded its way through the traffic of lower Fifth Avenue. Only once did he appear to take an interest in his surroundings, and that was when the taxicab halted at the end of a long line of traffic opposite the débris of a new building.
"What's going on here?" he asked faintly.
"It's pretty nearly finished," the doctor replied. "Weldon, Jones & Company, of Minneapolis, are going to open a New York store."
Sam nodded again and once more closed his eyes. He grew more uncomfortable as the end of the journey approached, for he dreaded the reception that awaited him. Max had telephoned the news of his father's illness to his sister, Miss Babette Gembitz, Sam's only daughter, who upon her mother's death had assumed not only the duties but the manner and bearing of that tyrannical person; and Sam knew she would make a searching investigation of the cause of his ailment.
"Doctor, what do you think is the matter with me?" he asked, by way of a feeler.
"At your age, it's impossible to say," the doctor replied; "but nothing very serious."
"No?" Sam said. "Well, you don't think it's indigestion, do you?"
"Decidedly not," the doctor said.
"Well, then, you shouldn't forget and tell my daughter that," Sam declared as the cab stopped opposite his house, "otherwise she will swear I am eating something which disagrees with me."
He clambered feebly to the sidewalk, where stood Miss Babette Gembitz with Dr. Sigmund Eichendorfer.
"Wie gehts, Mr. Gembitz?" Doctor Eichendorfer cried cheerfully as he took Sam's arm.
"Unpässlich, Doctor," Sam replied. "I guess I'm a pretty sick man."
He glanced at his daughter for some trace of tears, but she met his gaze unmoved.
"You've been making a hog of yourself again, popper!" she said severely.
"Oser!" Sam protested. "Crackers and milk I am eating for my lunch. The doctor could tell you the same."
Ten minutes afterward Sam was tucked up in his bed, while in an adjoining room the young physician communicated his diagnosis to Doctor Eichendorfer.
"Arteriosclerosis, I should say," he murmured, and Doctor Eichendorfer sniffed audibly.
"You mean Bright's Disease—ain't it?" he said. "That feller's arteries is as sound as plumbing."
Doctor Eichendorfer had received his medical training in Vienna and he considered it to be a solemn duty never to agree with the diagnosis of a native M.D.
"I thought of Bright's Disease," the young physician replied, speaking a little less than the naked truth; for in diagnosing Sam's ailment he had thought of nearly every disease he could remember.
"Well, you could take it from me, Doctor," Eichendorfer concluded, "when one of these old-timers goes under there's a history of a rich, unbalanced diet behind it; and Bright's Disease it is. Also, you shouldn't forget to send in your bill—not a cent less than ten dollars."
He shook his confrère warmly by the hand; and three hours later the melancholy circumstance of Sam's Bright's Disease was known to every member of the cloak and suit trade, with one exception—to wit, as the lawyers say, Sam himself. He knew that he had hadgefüllte Rinderbrust, but by seven o'clock this knowledge became only a torment as the savoury odour of the family dinner ascended to his bedroom.
"Babette," he called faintly, as becomes a convalescent, "ain't I going to have no dinner at all to-night?"
For answer Babette brought in a covered tray, on which were arranged two pieces of dry toast and a glass of buttermilk.
"What's this?" Sam cried.
"That's your dinner," Babette replied, "and you should thank Gawd you are able to eat it."
"You don't got to told me who I should thank for such slops which you are bringing me," he said, with every trace of convalescence gone from his tones. "Take that damn thing away and give me something to eat. Ain't thatgedämpftes KalbfleischI smell?"
Babette made no reply, but gazed sadly at her father as she placed the tray on a chair beside his bed.
"You don't know yourself how sick you are," she said. "Doctor Eichendorfer says you should be very quiet."
This admonition produced no effect on Sam, who immediately started on an abusive criticism of physicians in general and Dr. Sigmund Eichendorfer in particular.
"What does thatdummer Eselknow?" he demanded. "I bet yer that the least he tells you is I got Bright's Disease!"
Babette shook her head slowly.
"So you know it yourself all the time," she commented bitterly; "and yet you want to eatgedämpftes Kalbfleisch, when you know as well as I do it would pretty near kill you."
"Kill me!" Sam shouted. "What d'ye mean, kill me? I eat someRinderbrustfor my lunch yet; and that's all what ails me. I ain't got no more Bright's Disease as you got it."
"If you think that lying is going to help you, you're mistaken," Babette replied calmly. "To a man in your conditiongedämpftes Kalbfleischis poison."
"I ain't lying to you," Sam insisted. "I am eating too much lunch, I am telling you."
"And you're not going to eat too much dinner!" Babette said as she tiptoed from the room.
Thus Sam drank a glass of buttermilk and ate some dry toast for his supper; and, in consequence, he slept so soundly that he did not waken until Dr. Sigmund Eichendorfer entered his room at eight o'clock the following morning. Under the bullying frown of his daughter Sam submitted to a physical examination that lasted for more than an hour; and when Doctor Eichendorfer departed he left behind him four varieties of tablets and a general interdiction against eating solid food, getting up, going downtown, or any of the other dozen things that Sam insisted upon doing.
It was only under the combined persuasion of Max, Babette, and Lester that he consented to stay in bed that forenoon; and when lunchtime arrived he was so weakened by a twenty-four-hour fast and Doctor Eichendorfer's tablets, that he was glad to remain undisturbed for the remainder of the day.
At length, after one bedridden week, accompanied by a liquid diet and more tablets, Sam was allowed to sit up in a chair and to partake of a slice of chicken.
"Well, popper, how do you feel to-day?" asked Max, who had just arrived from the office.
"I feel pretty sick, Max," Sam replied; "but I guess I could get downtown to-morrow, all right."
Babette sat nearby and nodded her head slowly.
"Guess some more, popper," she said. "Before you would go downtown yet, you are going to Lakewood."
"Lakewood!" Sam exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, Lakewood? If you want to go to Lakewood, go ahead. I am going downtown to-morrow. What, d'ye think a business could run itself?"
"So far as business is concerned," Max said, "you shouldn't trouble yourself at all. We are hustling like crazy downtown and we already sold over three thousand dollars' worth of them 1040's."
Sam sat up suddenly.
"I see my finish," he said, "with you boys selling goods left and right to a lot of fakers like the New Idea Store."
"New Idea Store nothing!" Max retorted. "We are selling over two thousand dollars to Falkstatter, Fein & Company—and I guess they're fakers—what!"
Sam leaned back in his chair.
"Falkstatter, Fein & Company is all right," he admitted.
"And, furthermore," Max continued, "we sold 'em fancy colours like wistaria, copenhagen, and champagne; and them navy blues and browns they wouldn't touch."
"No?" Sam said weakly.
"So you see, popper, if you would been downtown we wouldn't got that order at all," Max continued. "So what's the use worrying yourself?"
"He's right, popper," Babette added. "You're getting too old to be going downtown every day. The boys could look after the business. It's time you took a rest."
At this juncture Doctor Eichendorfer entered.
"Hello!" he said. "What are you doing sitting up here? You must get right back to bed."
"What are you talking nonsense?" Sam cried. "I am feeling pretty good already."
"You look it," Eichendorfer said. "If you could see the way you are run down this last week yet you wouldn't talk so fresh."
He seized Sam by the arm as he spoke and lifted him out of the chair.
"You ain't so heavy like you used to be, Mr. Gembitz," he went on as he helped Sam to his bed. "Another week and you could sit up, but not before."
Sam groaned as they tucked the covers around him.
"Now you see how weak you are," Eichendorfer cried triumphantly. "Don't get up again unless I would tell you first."
After leaving some more tablets, Doctor Eichendorfer took his leave; and half an hour later Sam knew by the tantalizing odours that pervaded his bedroom that the family dined on stewed chicken withKartoffel Klösse. For the remainder of the evening Sam lay with his eyes closed; and whenever Babette approached his bedside with a tumbler of water and the box of tablets he snored ostentatiously. Thus he managed to evade the appetite-dispelling medicine until nearly midnight, when Babette coughed loudly.
"Popper," she said, "I'm going to bed and I want you to take your tablets."
"Leave 'em on the chair here," he replied, "and I'll take 'em in a few minutes."
He watched her place the tablets on the chair; and as soon as her back was turned he seized them eagerly and thrust them into the pocket of his night-shirt.
"Where's the water?" he mumbled; and when Babette handed him the tumbler he gulped down the water with noise sufficient to account for a boxful of tablets.
"Now, leave me alone," he said; and Babette kissed him coldly on the left ear.
"I hope you'll feel better in the morning," she said dutifully.
"Don't worry," Sam said. "I'm going to."
He listened carefully until he heard the door close and then he threw back the coverlet. Very gingerly he slid to the carpet and planted himself squarely on his feet. A sharp attack of "pins and needles" prevented any further movement for some minutes; but at length it subsided and he began to search for his slippers. His bathrobe hung on the back of the door, and, after he had struggled into it, he opened the door stealthily and, clinging to the balustrade, crept downstairs to the basement.
He negotiated the opening of the ice-box door with the skill of an experienced burglar; and immediately thereafter he sat down at the kitchen table in front of a dishful of stewed chicken, four cold boiled potatoes, the heel of a rye loaf, and a bottle of beer. Twenty minutes later he laid away the empty dish on top of the kitchen sink, with the empty beer bottle beneath it; then, after supplying himself with a box of matches, he crept upstairs to his room.
When Babette opened the door the following morning she raised her chin and sniffed suspiciously.
"Ain't it funny?" she murmured, "I could almost swear I smell stale cigar smoke here."
Sam turned his face to the wall.
"You're crazy!" he said.
During the ensuing week Sam Gembitz became an adept in the art of legerdemain; and the skill with which he palmed tablets under the very nose of his daughter was only equalled by the ingenuity he displayed in finally disposing of them. At least three dozen disappeared through a crack in the wainscoting behind Sam's bed, while as many more were poked through a hole in the mattress; and thus Sam became gradually stronger, until Doctor Eichendorfer himself could not ignore the improvement in his patient's condition.
"All right; you can sit up," he said to Sam; "but, remember, the least indiscretion and back to bed you go."
Sam nodded, for Babette was in the room at the time; and, albeit Sam had gained new courage through his nightly raids on the ice-box, he lacked the boldness that three square meals a day engender.
"I would take good care of myself, Doctor," he said, "and the day after to-morrow might I could go downtown, maybe?"
"The day after to-morrow!" Doctor Eichendorfer exclaimed. "Why, you wouldn't be downtown for a month yet."
"The idea!" Babette cried indignantly. "As if the boys couldn't look after the place without you! What d'ye want to go downtown for at all?"
"What d'ye mean, what do I want to go downtown for at all?" Sam demanded sharply, and Miss Babette Gembitz blushed; whereupon Sam rose from his chair and stood unsteadily on his feet.
"You are up to some monkey business here—all of you!" he declared. "What is it about?"
Babette exchanged glances with Doctor Eichendorfer, who shrugged his shoulders in reply.
"Well, if you want to know what it is, popper," she said, "I'll tell you. You're a very sick man and the chances are you'll never go downtown again." Doctor Eichendorfer nodded his approval and Sam sat down again.
"So we may as well tell you right out plain," Babette continued; "the boys have given out to the trade that you've retired on account of sickness—and here it is in the paper and all."
She handed Sam a copy of theDaily Cloak and Suit Recordand indicated with her finger an item headed "Personals." It read as follows: