Abe and Mawruss Part 10

"Alex ain't no enemy, Mawruss," Abe said. "It's Aaron what's the enemy.

Alex don't trouble himself at all. He told me so himself. But that's the way it goes, Mawruss. Mosha Kronberg, Hillel Kronberg, and Elkan Kronberg was three brothers which you don't see nowadays at all--more like friends than brothers, Mawruss. Hillel died ten years ago and I thought it would broke Mosha's heart. He looked after Hillel's widow and Hillel's boy, Alex, because Mosha never married, Mawruss. He was a born uncle. Then, when Elkan died a year later, I never seen a feller so broke up like Mosha in all my life. He goes to work and sends Elkan's boy, Aaron, to business college, and Elkan's widow he takes to live with Hillel's widow, all together with himself and the two boys in that house of his on Madison Street. For three years they lived that way, and in the rest of the house Mosha couldn't keep any tenants at all. At last he gives Aaron a couple thousand dollars and Alex the same, and Aaron buys a store up in Port Sullivan, and Alex goes up to Bridgetown."

"What become of the widows, Abe?" Morris asked.

"I don't know is Elkan's widow living now _oder_ not," Abe said, "but Mosha told me Hillel's widow wants to get married again, and Alex comes to him and says he should give the old lady anyhow a thousand dollars.

Mosha wants to know what for, and Alex tells him he owes from Hillel's estate yet a couple thousand dollars."

"And did he?" Morris inquired.

"Suppose he did?" Abe replied. "He is ent.i.tled to it after what he puts up with during them three years they lived together. Well, Mosha and Alex gets right away fighting about it, and I guess Alex would of sued Mosha in the courts yet, only the old lady goes to work and dies on 'em all of a sudden."

"But why is Aaron and Alex such enemies, Abe?" Morris asked.

"Well, it's like this, Mawruss: Aaron and Alex is good friends until Uncle Mosha cut Alex out of his will. You see Aaron and Alex is the only two relations which Mosha got at all. So naturally when Aaron thinks he is coming in for the whole thing he begins to get sore at Alex, and the more Aaron thinks that the old man really ought to leave half to Alex, the more he gets sore at Alex."

"The whole business is dead wrong, Abe," Morris commented. "In the first place, the old man ain't got no right to leave his money only to Aaron; and in the second place, Aaron ain't got no right to feel sore at Alex. And furthermore Alex ought to go round and see his uncle oncet in a while when he is in New York, in the third place."

"Well, why don't you tell him so this afternoon, Mawruss?" Abe said.

"Alex is staying up at the Prince Clarence since last night already, and he said he would be sure down here this afternoon."

"I will do so," Morris replied firmly.

"Go ahead," Abe added, "only one thing I got to tell you, Mawruss. There is some customers which would stand anything, Mawruss. You could s.h.i.+p 'em two garments short in every order; you could send 'em goods which ain't no more like the sample than bread is like _motsos_; you could overcharge 'em in your statements; you could even draw on 'em one day after their account is due, and still they would buy goods of you; but so soon as you start to b.u.t.t into their family affairs, Mawruss, that's the finish, Mawruss. They would leave you like a shot."

"Alex Kronberg wouldn't take it so particular," Morris retorted. "He knows I am only doing it for his own good."

"Oh, if you are only doing it for his own good, Mawruss, then that's something again," Abe said; "because in that case we would not only lose him for a customer, Mawruss, but we would also make an enemy of him for life."

"You shouldn't worry," Morris replied as he put on his hat preparatory to going out to lunch. "I know how to take care of a customer all right."

Nevertheless Morris cogitated his partner's advice throughout the entire lunch hour, and over his dessert he commenced to formulate a tentative plan for restoring Alex Kronberg to his inheritance.

Two cups of coffee and a second helping of _mohn_ cake aided the process of celebrating this scheme, so that when Morris returned to his place of business it was nearly two o'clock.

"Abe," he said as he entered, "I've been thinking over this here matter about Alex Kronberg, and I ain't going to talk to Alex about it at all.

Do you know what I'm going to do?"

Abe grabbed his hat and turned to Morris with a savage glare.

"Sure, I know what you are going to do, Mawruss," Potash bellowed belligerently. "Henceforth, from to-morrow on, you are going to do this, Mawruss: you are going to lunch after I am coming back. I could drop dead from hunger already for all you care. I got a stomach too, Mawruss, and don't you forget it."

Mosha Kronberg lived on the ground floor of his own tenement house on Madison Street, and to say that Aaron Kronberg wors.h.i.+pped the ground his uncle walked on would be to utter the literal truth.

"Well, uncle, how do you feel to-day?" Aaron inquired the morning after Abe and Morris had so thoroughly discussed the Kronberg family relations.

"I could feel a whole lot better, Aaron, and I could feel a whole lot worse," Mosha Kronberg replied. "Them suckers has been after me again."

"Which ones are they now?" Aaron asked, his curiosity aroused.

"An orphan asylum," Mosha replied. "The gall which some people got it, Aaron, honestly you wouldn't believe it at all. They want me I should give 'em two hundred and fifty dollars. I told 'em time enough when I would die, _Gott soll huten_."

"What are you talking nonsense, Uncle Mosha?" Aaron broke in. "You ain't going to die for a long time yet; and anyhow, Uncle Mosha, if people goes to work and has children which they couldn't support while they are living even, why should they get any of your money to support 'em after you are dead? No one asks them suckers they should have children. Ain't I right?"

"Sure you are right," Uncle Mosha agreed. "Hospitals also, Aaron. If I got one hospital bothering me, I must got a dozen. Why should I bother myself with hospitals, Aaron? A lowlife, a gambler, hangs around liquor saloons all times of the night till he gets sick, y'understand, and then he must go to a hospital and get well on my money yet. I see myself!"

"What hospital was it?" Aaron inquired.

"The Mount Hebron Hospital," Uncle Mosha replied. "There is the catalogue now. They are sending it me this morning only."

Aaron seized the annual report and list of donating members of the hospital and opened it at the letter K.

"Do you know what I think, uncle?" Aaron cried. "I think that Alex Kronberg puts 'em up to asking you for money."

"Alex puts 'em up to it?" Mosha repeated. "What for should Alex do such a thing?"

"Here; let me show you," Aaron cried. "Alex himself gives them fakers five dollars. Here it is in black on white: 'Alex Kronberg, Bridgetown, Pennsylvania, five dollars.'"

Uncle Mosha adjusted a pair of eyegla.s.ses to his broad, flat nose and perused the record of his nephew's extravagance with bulging eyes.

"Well, what d'ye think for a sucker like that!" he exclaimed.

"I tell you the honest truth, uncle," Aaron said, "I don't want to say nothing about Alex at all, but the way that feller is acting, just because he does a little good business in his store, honestly it's a disgrace. He sends my mother for ten dollars a birthday present too. Do I need that sucker he should give my mother birthday presents? He is throwing away his money left and right, and the first thing you know he is coming to you borrowing yet."

"He should save himself the trouble," Uncle Mosha declared. "His tongue should be hanging out of his mouth with hunger, Aaron, and I wouldn't give him _oser_ one cent."

Aaron's face broke into a thousand wrinkles as he beamed his satisfaction.

"Well, uncle," he said, "I must got to be going. I got a whole lot of things to do to-day. Take care of yourself."

"Don't worry about me," Aaron's Uncle Mosha replied. "I could take care of myself all right. You wouldn't drink maybe a gla.s.s of _schnaps_ or something before you go? No? All right."

He always delayed his proffer of hospitality until Aaron was on the front stoop. After the latter had turned the corner of Pike Street, Uncle Mosha lingered to take the morning air. A fresh breeze from the southwest brought with it a faint odour of salt herring and onions from the grocery store next door, while from the bakery across the street came the fragrant evidence of a large batch of _k.u.mmel brod_. He sighed contentedly and turned to reenter the house, but even as he did so he wheeled about in response to the greeting: "How do you do, Mr.

Kronberg?"

The speaker was none other than Morris Perlmutter, who had tossed on his pillow until past midnight devising a plan for approaching Uncle Mosha in a plausible manner. Now that his quarry had fallen so opportunely within his grasp, Morris's face wreathed itself in smiles of such amiability that Uncle Mosha grew at once suspicious.

"You got the advantage from me," he said.

"Why, don't you know me?" Morris cooed.

"I think," Uncle Mosha replied guardedly, "I seen you oncet before somewheres. You are a collector for a hospital or a orphan asylum, or some such sucker game. Ain't it?"

Morris laughed mirthlessly. His discarded plan for renewing his acquaintance with Uncle Mosha had involved the pretence that he was seeking to interest the old gentleman in the Home for Chronic Invalids, Independent Order Mattai Aaron, of which fraternity Morris was an active member; and Uncle Mosha's apparent distaste for organized charity proved rather disconcerting.

"You're a poor guesser, Mr. Kronberg," he said.

"Then you are connected with some charity. Ain't it?" Uncle Mosha continued.