Читать книгу: «The Competitive Nephew», страница 2

"I never said nothing at all about Greenberg & Sen," Aaron blurted out.

"No one else would make such a proposition, Aaron," Sam said, "because no one else wants business so bad as that. Ourselves we could offer the boy ten dollars, too, and although we couldn't raise prices on you, Aaron, we could make it up by skimping on the garments; but we ain't that kind, Aaron. A business man is got to be on the level with his customers, Aaron, otherwise he wouldn't be in business long; and you take it from me, Aaron, these here two young fellers, Greenberg & Sen, would got to do business differencely or it would be quick good-bye with 'em, and don't you forget it."

Aaron Pinsky rose to his feet and gazed hard at Sam Zaretsky.

"Shall I tell you something, Sam?" he said. "You are sore at them two boys because they quit you and goes into business by themselves. Ain't it?"

"I ain't sore they goes into business, Aaron," Sam replied. "Everybody must got to make a start, Aaron, and certainly it ain't easy for a new beginner to get established, y'understand. Also competition is competition, Aaron, and we ourselves cop out a competitor's trade oncet in a while, too, Aaron, but Greenberg & Sen takes advantage, Aaron. They see that you are fond of that boy Fillup, and certainly it does you credit, because you ain't married and you ain't got no children of your own, Aaron. But it don't do them credit that they work you for business by pretending that they want the boy because he is a smart boy and that they are going to pay him ten dollars a week because he's worth it. No, Aaron; they don't want the boy in the first place, and in the second place he ain't worth ten dollars a week, and in the third place they ain't going to pay him ten dollars a week, because they will add it to the cost of their garments; and, Aaron, if you want any fourth, fifth, or sixth places I could stand here talking for an hour. But you got business to attend to, Aaron, and so you must excuse me."

He thrust his hands into his trousers-pockets and walked stolidly toward the cutting room, while Aaron blinked in default of a suitable rejoinder.

"My partner is right, Aaron," Max said. "He is right, Aaron, even if he is the kind of feller that would throw me out of the window, supposing I says half the things to you as he did. But, anyhow, Aaron, that ain't neither here nor there. You heard what Sam says, Aaron, and me, I stick to it also."

Aaron blinked once or twice more and then he put on his hat.

"All right," he said. "All right."

He turned toward the front of the showroom where his nephew was sorting over a pile of garments.

"Fillup!" he bellowed. "You should put on your hat and coat and come with me."

It was during the third month of Philip Pinsky's employment with Greenberg & Sen that Blaukopf, the druggist, insisted on a new coat of white paint for the interior of his up-to-date store at the northwest corner of Madison Avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-second Street. His landlord demurred at first, but finally, in the middle of June, a painter's wagon stopped in front of the store and Harris Shein, painter and decorator, alighted with two assistants. They conveyed into the store pots of white lead and cans of turpentine, gasoline, and other inflammable liquids used in the removal and mixing of paints. Harris Shein was smoking a paper cigarette, and one of the assistants, profiting by his employer's example, pulled a corncob pipe from his pocket. Then, after he had packed the tobacco down firmly with his finger, he drew a match across the seat of his trousers and forthwith he began a three months' period of enforced abstinence from house-painting and decorating. Simultaneously Blaukopf's plate-glass show-window fell into the street, the horse ran away with the painter's wagon, a policeman turned in a fire alarm, three thousand children came on the run from a radius of ten blocks, and Mr. Blaukopf's stock in trade punctuated the cremation of his fixtures with loud explosions at uncertain intervals. In less than half an hour the entire building was gutted, and when the firemen withdrew their apparatus Mr. Blaukopf searched in vain for his prescription books. They had resolved themselves into their original elements, and the number on the label of the bottle which Aaron carried around in his breast-pocket provided no clew to the ingredients of the medicine thus contained.

"That's a fine note," Aaron declared to Philip, as they surveyed the black ruins the next morning. "Now what would I do? Without that medicine I will cough my face off already."

He examined the label of the bottle and sighed.

"I suppose I could go and see that Doctor Goldenreich," he said, "and right away I am out ten dollars."

"Why don't you ring up Miss Meyerson over at Zaretsky & Fatkin's?" Philip suggested.

Aaron sighed heavily. His business relations with Greenberg & Sen had proved far from satisfactory, and it was only Philip's job and his own sense of shame that prevented him from resuming his dealings with Zaretsky & Fatkin.

As for Sam and Max, they missed their old customer both financially and socially.

"Yes, Sam," Max said the day after Blaukopf's fire, "things ain't the same around here like in former times already."

"If you mean in the office, Max," Sam said, "I'm glad they ain't. That's a fine bookkeeper we got it, Max, and a fine woman, too. Ain't it a shame and a disgrace for young fellers nowadays, Max, that a fine woman like Miss Meyerson is already thirty-five and should be single? My Sarah is crazy about her. Her and Sarah goes to a matinee last Saturday afternoon together and Sarah asks her to dinner to-morrow."

Max nodded.

"With some bookkeepers, Sam," he said, "you couldn't do such things. Right away they would take advantage. Miss Meyerson, that's something else again. She takes an interest in our business, Sam. Even a grouch like Aaron Pinsky she treated good."

"I bet yer," Sam replied. "I seen Elenbogen in the subway this morning and he tells me Aaron goes around blowing about paying a thousand dollars to a professor uptown and he gives him a medicine which cures his cough completely. I bet yer that's the same medicine which he got it originally from Miss Meyerson."

"I bet yer," Max agreed as the telephone bell rang. Sam hastened to answer it.

"Hallo!" he said. "Yes, this is Zaretsky & Fatkin. You want to speak to Miss Meyerson? All right. Miss Meyerson! Telephone!"

Miss Meyerson came from her office and took the receiver from Sam.

"Hello," she said. "Who is this, please?"

The answer made her clap her hand over the transmitter.

"It's Aaron Pinsky," she said to Max, and both partners sprang to their feet.

"What does he want?" Sam hissed.

Miss Meyerson waved them to silence and resumed her conversation over the 'phone.

"Hello, Mr. Pinsky," she said. "What can I do for you?"

She listened patiently to Aaron's narrative of the fire in Blaukopf's drug store, and when he had concluded she winked furtively at her employers.

"Mr. Pinsky," she said, "won't you repeat that over again? I didn't understand it."

Once more Aaron explained the details of the prescription book's incineration, and again Miss Meyerson winked.

"Mr. Pinsky," she said, "I can't make out what you say. Why don't you stop in here at twelve o'clock? Mr. Zaretsky is going to Newark and Mr. Fatkin will be out to lunch."

She listened carefully for a few minutes and then her face broke into a broad grin.

"All right, Mr. Pinsky," she concluded. "Good-bye."

She turned to her employers.

"He's coming here at twelve o'clock," she said. "He told me that the drug store burnt down where he gets his cough medicine, and he wants another prescription. And I said I didn't understand him so as to get him over here."

"Well, what good would that do?" Max asked.

"I don't know exactly," Miss Meyerson answered, "but I saw Mr. Pinsky coming out of Greenberg & Sen's last week and he looked positively miserable. I guess he's just as anxious to get back here as you are to have him."

"Sure, I know," Max commented, "but we wouldn't pay that young feller, Fillup, ten dollars a week, and that's all there is to it."

"Perhaps you won't have to," said Miss Meyerson. "Perhaps if you leave this thing to me I can get Pinsky to come back here and have Philip stay over to Greenberg & Sen's."

"Huh!" Max snorted. "A fine chance that boy got it to keep his job if Aaron Pinsky quits buying goods! They'll fire him on the spot."

"Then we'll take him in here again," Sam declared. "He'll be glad to come back at the old figure, I bet yer."

"That's all right," Max grunted. "Never meld your cards till you see what's in the widder. First, Miss Meyerson will talk to him, and then we will consider taking back Fillup."

"Sure," Sam rejoined, "and you and me will go over to Wasserbauer's and wait there till Miss Meyerson telephones us."

It was precisely twelve when the elevator stopped at Zaretsky & Fatkin's floor. Aaron Pinsky alighted and walked on tiptoe to the office.

"Hallo, Miss Meyerson!" he said, extending his hand, "is any of the boys around?"

"They're both out," Miss Meyerson replied, shaking Aaron's proffered hand. "It looks like old times to see you back here."

"Don't it?" Pinsky said. "It feels like old times to me. Is the boys busy?"

"Very," said Miss Meyerson. "We're doing twice the business that the books show we did a year ago."

Aaron beamed.

"That's good," he said. "Them boys deserves it, Miss Meyerson. When you come to consider it, Miss Meyerson, I got pretty good treatment here. The goods was always made up right and the prices also. I never had no complaint to make. But certainly a feller has got to look out for his family, and so long as my nephew gets along good I couldn't kick if oncet in a while Greenberg & Sen sticks me with a couple of garments. Last week they done me up good with eight skirts."

"And how is Philip?" Miss Meyerson asked.

"Miss Meyerson," Aaron began, "that boy is a good boy, y'understand, but somehow or another Greenberg & Sen don't take no interest in him at all. I don't think he learns much there, even though they did raise him two dollars last week."

"And how is your cough getting on, Mr. Pinsky?" Miss Meyerson continued.

"Since I ain't been taking the medicine it ain't been so good," Aaron announced, and, as if in corroboration of his statement, he immediately entered upon a fit of coughing that well-nigh strangled him. After Miss Meyerson had brought him a glass of water he repeated the narrative of the burned-out drug store and produced the bottle from his breast-pocket.

"That's too bad that the prescription was burned," Miss Meyerson said. "I'll get another one from my cousin's husband to-night and bring it down here to-morrow."

"Hold on there, Miss Meyerson," Aaron said. "To-morrow them boys might be in here, and I don't want to risk it."

"Why, they wouldn't bite you, Mr. Pinsky," she declared.

"Sure, I know. But the fact is I feel kind of funny about meeting 'em again – just yet a while, anyhow."

"But, Mr. Pinsky," Miss Meyerson went on persuasively, "it's foolish of you to feel that way about it."

"Maybe it is," Aaron admitted, "but, just the same, Miss Meyerson, if you wouldn't think it fresh or anything, I'd like to come up and call on you to-night, if you don't mind, Miss Meyerson, and you could give me the prescription then."

"Why, certainly," Miss Meyerson cried heartily. She turned to her desk and opened her handbag.

"Here's my card," she said. "I live with my cousin, Mrs. Goldenreich."

"Thanks; much obliged," Aaron murmured, pocketing the card. "I'll be there at eight o'clock."

Once more he glanced furtively around him and then, with a final handshake, he started off on tiptoe for the stairs. As soon as he disappeared Miss Meyerson took up the receiver.

"Ten-oh-four-oh, Harlem," she said.

"Hello," she continued, "is this you, Bertha? Well, this is Miriam. Will you send over to Reisbecker's and get a four-pound haddock? Never mind what I want it for. I'm going to have company to-night. Yes, that's right, and I want to make some gefüllte fische. You say you have plenty of onions? Well, then, I'll bring home ten cents' worth of Spanish saffron and half a dozen fresh eggs. I'll make some mohnkuchen after I get home. Did my white silk waist come back from the cleaners? I don't care. You can't jolly me. Good-bye."

It was almost one o'clock before she remembered to telephone over to Wasserbauer's, and when Sam and Max returned they dashed into the office and exclaimed: "Well?" with what the musical critics call splendid attack.

"He's coming over to call on me to-night," Miss Meyerson replied with a blush, "and I'll see what I can do then."

"You see, Sam," Max commented, "I told you you shouldn't reckon up how much chickens you will got till the hen lays 'em."

Max Fatkin visited a buyer at an uptown hotel on his way to the office the following morning, so that it was nearly nine before he entered his showroom. As he walked from the elevator he glanced toward Miss Meyerson's desk. It was vacant.

"Sam," he cried, "where's Miss Meyerson?"

Sam Zaretsky emerged from behind a rack of skirts and shrugged his shoulders.

"She's late the first time since she's been with us, Max," he replied.

"Might she is sick, maybe," Max suggested. "I'll ring up her cousin, the doctor, and find out."

"That's a good idee," Sam replied. Max was passing the elevator door when it opened with a scrape and a clang.

"Hallo, Max!" a familiar voice cried.

Max turned toward the elevator and gasped, for it was Pinsky who stepped out. His wonder grew to astonishment, however, when he beheld Aaron tenderly assisting Miss Meyerson to alight from the elevator.

"Good morning," she said. "I'm late."

"That's all right," Max cried. "Any one which is always so prompt like you has a right to be late oncet in a while."

He looked at Aaron shyly and wet his lips with his tongue.

"Well," he began, "how's the boy?"

"Fillup is feeling fine, Gott sei dank," Aaron replied. "But never mind Fillup now. I come here because I got to tell you something, Max. Where's Sam?"

"Here I am, Aaron," Sam said, as he came fairly running from the showroom. "And you don't got to tell us nothing, Aaron, because a feller could buy goods where he wants to. Always up to three months ago you was a good friend to us, Aaron, and even if you wouldn't buy nothing from us at all we are glad to see you around here oncet in a while, anyhow."

"But, Sam," Aaron replied, "give me a chance to say something. Goods I ain't buying it to-day. I got other things to buy."

He turned to Miss Meyerson with a wide, affectionate grin on his kindly face.

"Yes, Sam," he continued, "I got a two-and-a-half carat blue-white solitaire diamond ring to buy."

"What!" Sam cried, while Max gazed at Miss Meyerson with his eyes bulging.

"That's right," Aaron went on; "a feller ain't never too old to make a home, and even if there would be ten years difference in our ages, ten years ain't so much."

"Especially when it's nearer twenty," Sam added gallantly.

"Well, we won't quarrel about it," Aaron said. "The thing is, Max, that a woman ain't got no business in business unless she's got to, and Miriam ain't got to so long as I could help it. Yes, Sam, three months from to-day you and Max and Mrs. Fatkin and Mrs. Zaretsky would all come to dinner at our house and Miriam would make the finest gefüllte fische which it would fairly melt in your mouth."

"I congradulate you, Miss Meyerson," Sam said. "We are losing the best bookkeeper which we ever got."

"Well, that's all right, Sam," Aaron cried. "You know where you could always get another. Fillup ain't going to hold that job with them suckers any longer."

"And since we aren't going to be married for two months yet," Miss Meyerson added, "I'll keep my position here and break Philip into his new job."

"That suits us fine," Sam declared. "And to show you we ain't small we will start him at the same money what we pay Miss Meyerson – fifteen dollars a week."

Aaron turned toward the two partners and extended both his hands.

"Boys," he said, "I don't know what I could say to you."

"Don't say nothing," Max interrupted. "The boy is worth it, otherwise we wouldn't pay it. Business is business."

"I know it, boys," he said; "but a business man could have also a heart, ain't it?"

Max nodded.

"And you boys," Aaron concluded, "you got a heart, too, believe me. What a heart you got it! Like a watermelon!"

He looked at Miss Meyerson for an approving smile and, having received it, he gave final expression to his emotions of friendship and gratitude in the worst coughing-spell of his asthmatic career.

CHAPTER TWO
OPPORTUNITY

"What is brokers?" Mr. Marcus Shimko asked. "A broker is no good, otherwise he wouldn't be a broker. Brokers is fellers which they couldn't make a success of their own affairs, Mr. Zamp, so they butt into everybody else's. Particularly business brokers, Mr. Zamp. Real-estate brokers is bad enough, and insurings brokers is a lot of sharks also; but for a cutthroat, a low-life bum, understand me, the worst is a business broker!"

"That's all right, too, Mr. Shimko," Harry Zamp said timidly; "but if I would get a partner with say, for example, five hundred dollars, I could make a go of this here business."

Mr. Shimko nodded skeptically.

"I ain't saying you couldn't," he agreed, "but where would you find such a partner? Nowadays a feller with five hundred dollars don't think of going into retail business no more. The least he expects is he should go right away into manufacturing. Jobbing and retailing is nix for such a feller, understand me – especially clothing, Mr. Zamp, which nowadays even drug stores carries retail clothing as a side line, so cut up the business is."

Harry Zamp nodded gloomily.

"And, furthermore," Shimko added, "business brokers could no more get you a partner with money as they could do miracles, Mr. Zamp. Them days is past, Mr. Zamp, and all a business broker could do nowadays is to bring you a feller with experience, and you don't need a business broker for that, Mr. Zamp. Experience in the retail clothing business is like the measles. Everybody has had it."

"Then what should I do, Mr. Shimko?" Zamp asked helplessly. "I must got to get a partner with money somewhere, ain't it? And if I wouldn't go to a business broker, who then would I go to? A bartender?"

"Never mind!" Mr. Shimko exclaimed. "Some people got an idee all bartenders is bums, but wunst in a while a feller could get from a bartender an advice also. I got working for me wunst in my place down on Park Row a feller by the name Klinkowitz, which he is now manager of the Olympic Gardens on Rivington Street; and if I would have took that feller's advice, Mr. Zamp, instead I am worth now my tens of thousands I would got hundreds of thousands already. 'When you see a feller is going down and out, Mr. Shimko,' he always says to me, 'don't show him no mercy at all. If you set 'em up for a live one, Mr. Shimko,' he says, 'he would anyhow buy a couple of rounds; but a dead one, Mr. Shimko,' he says, 'if you show him the least little encouragement, understand me, the least that happens you is he gets away with the whole lunch-counter.' Am I right or wrong?"

Mr. Zamp nodded. He resented the imputation that he was a dead one, but he felt bound to agree with Mr. Shimko, in view of the circumstance that on the following day he would owe a month's rent with small prospect of being able to pay it. Indeed, he wondered at Mr. Shimko's amiability, for as owner of the Canal Street premises Shimko had the reputation of being a harsh landlord. Had Zamp but known it, however, store property on Canal Street was not in active demand of late, by reason of the new bridge improvements, and Shimko's amiability proceeded from a desire to retain Zamp as a tenant if the latter's solvency could be preserved.

"But I couldn't help myself, Mr. Zamp," Shimko went on. "I got no business keeping a restaurant at all."

As a matter of fact, Mr. Shimko's late restaurant was of the variety popularly designated as a "barrel-house," and he had only retired from the business after his license had been revoked.

"Yes, Mr. Zamp," Shimko continued; "in a business like that a feller shouldn't got a heart at all. But I am very funny that way. I couldn't bear to see nobody suffer, understand me, and everybody takes advantage of me on account of it. So I tell you what I would do. My wife got a sort of a relation by the name Miss Babette Schick, which she works for years by a big cloak and suit concern as a designer. She ain't so young no longer, but she got put away in savings bank a couple of thousand dollars, and she is engaged to be married to a young feller by the name Isaac Meiselson, which nobody could tell what he does for a living at all. One thing is certain – with the money this Meiselson gets with Miss Schick he could go as partners together with you, and pull you out of the hole, ain't it?"

Mr. Zamp nodded again, without enthusiasm.

"Sure, I know, Mr. Shimko," he said; "but if a young feller would got two thousand dollars to invest in a business, y'understand, why should he come to me? If he would only got five hundred dollars, Mr. Shimko, that would be something else again. But with so much as two thousand dollars a feller could get lots of clothing businesses which they run a big store with a couple of cutters, a half a dozen salesmen, and a bookkeeper. What have I got to offer him for two thousand dollars? Me, I am salesman, cutter, bookkeeper, and everything; and if this feller comes in here and sees me alone in the place, with no customers nor nothing, he gets an idee it's a dead proposition. Ain't it?"

Shimko pulled out a full cigar-case, whereat Zamp's eye kindled, and he licked his lips in anticipation; but after Shimko had selected a dark perfecto, he closed the case deliberately and replaced it in his breast-pocket.

"A business man must got to got gumption," he said to the disappointed Zamp; "and if you think you could got a partner just by bringing him into the store here, and showing him the stock and fixtures which you got it, you are making a big mistake."

"Well, of course I am expecting I should blow him to dinner maybe," Zamp protested, "with a theayter also."

Shimko evidenced his disgust by puffing vigorously at his cigar.

"You are just like a whole lot of other people, Zamp," he said. "You are always willing to spend money before you make it. Meiselson comes in here and sees you only got a small stock of piece goods, understand me, and you couldn't afford to keep no help, and then, on the top of that yet, you would take him out and blow him. Naturally he right away gets the idee you are spending your money foolishly, instead of putting it into your business, and the whole thing is off."

Zamp shrugged impotently.

"What could I do, Mr. Shimko?" he asked. "I got here a small stock of goods, I know, but that's just the reason why I want a partner."

"And that's just the reason why you wouldn't get one," Shimko declared. "A small stock of piece goods you couldn't help, Zamp; but if you let that feller come into your store and find you ain't got no cutters or customers, that's your own fault."

"What d'ye mean, Mr. Shimko?" Zamp demanded.

"I mean this," Shimko explained. "If I would got a store like you got it here, Zamp, and a friend offers to bring me a feller with a couple thousand dollars for a partner, understand me, I would go to work, y'understand, and get a couple cutters and engage 'em for the afternoon. Then I would turn around, y'understand, and go up and see such a feller like Klinkowitz, which he is manager of that theayter on Rivington Street, and I would get him to fix up for me a half a dozen young fellers from his theayter, which they would come down to my store for the day, and some of 'em acts like customers, and others acts like clerks. Then, when my friend brings in the feller with two thousand dollars, understand me, what do they see? The place is full of customers and salesmen, and in the rear is a couple of cutters chalking lines on pattern papers and cutting it up with shears. You yourself are so busy, understand me, you could hardly talk a word to us. You don't want to know anything about getting a partner at all. What is a partner with two thousand dollars in a rushing business like you are doing it? I beg of you you should take the matter under consideration, but you pretty near throw me out of the store, on account you got so much to do. At last you say you would take a cup coffee with me at six o'clock, and I go away with the two-thousand dollar feller, and when we meet again at six o'clock, he's pretty near crazy to invest his money with you. Do you get the idee?"

"Might you could even get the feller to pay for the coffee, maybe," Zamp suggested, completely carried away by Shimko's enthusiasm.

"If the deal goes through," Shimko declared, in a burst of generosity, "I would even pay for the coffee myself!"

"And when would you bring the feller here?" Zamp asked.

"I would see him this afternoon yet," Shimko replied, as he opened the store door, "and I would telephone you sure, by Dachtel's place, at four o'clock."

Zamp, full of gratitude, shook hands with his landlord.

"If I would got such a head like you got it to think out schemes, Mr. Shimko," he said fervently, "I would be a millionaire, I bet yer!"

"The thinking out part is nothing," Shimko said, as he turned to leave. "Any blame fool could think out a scheme, y'understand, but it takes a pretty bright feller to make it work!"

"If a feller wouldn't be in business for himself," Shimko said to Isaac Meiselson, as they sat in Wasserbauer's Café that afternoon, "he might just as well never come over from Russland at all."

"I told you before, Mr. Shimko," Meiselson retorted, "I am from Lemberg geborn."

"Oestreich oder Russland, what is the difference?" Shimko asked. "If a feller is working for somebody else, nobody cares who he is or what he is; while if he's got a business of his own, understand me, everybody would respect him, even if he would be born in, we would say for example, China."

"Sure, I know, Mr. Shimko," Meiselson rejoined; "but there is businesses and businesses, and what for a business is a small retail clothing store on Canal Street?"

"Small the store may be, I ain't denying it," Shimko said; "but ain't it better a feller does a big business in a small store as a small business in a big store?"

"If he does a big business, yes," Meiselson admitted; "but if a feller does a big business, why should he want to got a partner?"

"Ain't I just telling you he don't want no partner?" Shimko interrupted. "And as for doing a big business, I bet yer we could drop in on the feller any time, and we would find the store full of people."

"Gewiss," Meiselson commented, "three people playing auction pinochle in a small store is a big crowd!"

"No auction pinochle gets played in that store, Meiselson. The feller has working by him two cutters and three salesmen, and he makes 'em earn their money. Only yesterday I am in the store, and if you would believe me, Meiselson, his own landlord he wouldn't talk to at all, so busy he is."

"In that case, what for should he need me for a partner I couldn't understand at all," Meiselson declared.

"Neither could I," Shimko replied, "but a feller like you, which he would soon got two thousand dollars to invest, needs him for a partner. A feller like Zamp would keep you straight, Meiselson. What you want is somebody which he is going to make you work."

"What d'ye mean, going to make me work?" Meiselson asked indignantly. "I am working just as hard as you are, Mr. Shimko. When a feller is selling toilet soaps and perfumeries, Mr. Shimko, he couldn't see his trade only at certain hours of the day."

"I ain't kicking you are not working, Meiselson," Shimko said hastily. "All I am telling you is, what for a job is selling toilet soaps and perfumery? You got a limited trade there, Meiselson; because when it comes to toilet soaps, understand me, how many people takes it so particular? I bet yer with a hundred people, Meiselson, eighty uses laundry soap, fifteen ganvers soap from hotels and saloons, and the rest buys wunst in six months a five-cent cake of soap. As for perfumery, Meiselson, for a dollar bill you could get enough perfumery to make a thousand people smell like an Italiener barber-shop; whereas clothing, Meiselson, everybody must got to wear it. If you are coming to compare clothing with toilet soap for a business, Meiselson, there ain't no more comparison as gold and putty."

Meiselson remained silent.

"Furthermore," Shimko continued, "if Zamp sees a young feller like you, which even your worst enemy must got to admit it, Meiselson, you are a swell dresser, and make a fine, up-to-date appearance, understand me, he would maybe reconsider his decision not to take a partner."

"Did he say he wouldn't take a partner?" Meiselson asked hopefully.

"He says to me so sure as you are sitting there: 'Mr. Shimko, my dear friend, if it would be for your sake, I would willingly go as partners together with some young feller,' he says; 'but when a business man is making money,' he says, 'why should he got to got a partner?' he says. So I says to him: 'Zamp,' I says, 'here is a young feller which he is going to get married to a young lady by the name Miss Babette Schick.'"

"She ain't so young no longer," Meiselson broke in ungallantly.

"'By the name Miss Babette Schick,'" Shimko continued, recognizing the interruption with a malevolent glare, "'which she got, anyhow, a couple thousand dollars,' I says; 'and for her sake and for my sake,' I says, 'if I would bring the young feller around here, would you consent to look him over?' And he says for my sake he would consent to do it, but we shouldn't go around there till next week."

"All right," Meiselson said; "if you are so dead anxious I should do so, I would go around next week."

"Say, lookyhere, Meiselson," Shimko burst out angrily, "don't do me no favours! Do you or do you not want to go into a good business? Because, if you don't, say so, and I wouldn't bother my head further."