Abe and Mawruss Part 27

During that interval he reviewed his career from the time he helped his father, a Prussian refugee of 1848, in the little country store upstate.

Then came his father's death, followed by a clerks.h.i.+p in the large dry-goods business of his father's compet.i.tors. After this he had moved to New York; and from that time on he had followed the calling of a travelling salesman with varying success, until at sixty he found himself out of health and employment, with property of less than two thousand dollars as a reserve fund.

What a fool he had been not to accept Perlmutter's offer! Nevertheless it seemed futile for a man of sixty to make a new start in a strange town, especially since, in rural communities, business goes as much by favour and friends.h.i.+p as by commercial enterprise. Now, had he been offered a partners.h.i.+p in a store in his native town, where it would be an easy matter to renew old acquaintance, he might have viewed the proposition differently.

He rose from the bed and sat down in an armchair, while his mind reverted to more pleasant topics. He pictured to himself his father's store underneath what the townspeople called the opera house. He saw again that dingy little hall, with its small proscenium opening guarded by a frayed old curtain, and he smiled as he remembered the landscape it bore. With the sophistication of his race he had enjoyed many a good laugh at the performance that had evoked the tears of his fellow townsmen. What Rubes they were, to be sure! And yet, what good fellows the boys had been! He recalled various ones by name and found himself wondering how they looked and whether they were married or single.

Another half hour of like musing and suddenly he slapped his thigh.

"By jinks!" he said, "I'll do it. I need a vacation and I'm going to have it too."

When Morris returned to his place of business that afternoon he had packed Sam Green off to his store upstate with instructions to return in a week, during which Morris hoped to take the matter up with Abe. As for his hour-long absence from his place of business, Morris had provided himself with a plausible explanation in reb.u.t.tal to the quiet, ironical greeting that he knew would await him. His program was a little upset, however, by Abe's inquiry, which was not in the least ironical.

"Loafer, where have you been?" Abe demanded.

"What d'ye mean, loafer?" Morris cried.

"I mean, while you are fooling away your time, Moe Griesman comes in here to see us and naturally he don't find none of us here; so he goes away again. From us he goes straight over to Sammet Brothers--and that's the way it goes."

"But, Abe," Morris protested, "I thought you told me he cancels his order this morning and buys only from Klinger & Klein."

"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but I suppose he finds out he couldn't find all the goods he wants with one concern and now he goes over to Sammet Brothers."

"How do you know he went over to Sammet Brothers?" Morris asked.

"A question! How do I know it?" Abe exclaimed. "Ain't he left a memorandum I should ring him up there?"

"Well, why don't you ring him up and find out what he wants?" Morris retorted.

"What do I care what he wants, Mawruss?" Abe rejoined. "Whatever he wants he don't want it now, because them two cut-throats would suck him dry of orders. Once a feller gets into the hands of Sammet Brothers they wouldn't let him go till he bought himself blue in the face."

"Ring him up, anyhow," Morris insisted; and the next moment Abe was engaged in a heated altercation with "Central." Finally he heard Leon Sammet at the other end of the wire.

"h.e.l.lo!" he yelled. "I want to speak with Mr. Griesman. Never mind what I want to speak with him about. That's my business. I ain't the fresh one--you are the fresh one. You are asking me something which you ain't got no right to ask me at all. You know well enough who it is talking."

After five minutes' further conversation, Leon relinquished his end of the wire to Griesman and immediately thereafter Abe's voice diminished in harshness till it became fairly flutelike with friends.h.i.+p and amiability.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Mr. Griesman!" he said. "Did you want to talk to me? Why, no, Mr. Griesman, he don't owe us nothing. He paid us this morning.

Sure! What did you want to know for? Why should we sell his account, Mr.

Griesman? He's a little slow, y'understand, but he's quite good. That's all right. Good-by."

When he returned to the showroom his face wore a puzzled expression.

"Well, Abe, what did he want?" Morris asked.

Abe shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know what he is up to, Mawruss," Abe said; "but he tells me he wants to buy from us Sam Green's account. So I told him Sam pays us this morning, and he rings off."

"Why should Moe Griesman want to buy from us Sam Green's account?"

Morris muttered to himself; and then a wave of recollection came over him. Obviously it was Moe Griesman who had bought out Sam's compet.i.tors and this caused Sam's bank to shut down on him. Now Moe Griesman was attempting to buy up Sam's liabilities and close him up, so that there might be no compet.i.tor to Moe's new business in Cyprus. At length the humour of the situation appealed to Morris and he grinned vacuously at his partner.

"_Nu_," Abe growled; "what are you laughing at?"

"Nothing much, Abe," Morris replied. "I was only thinking--that's all, Abe. I was thinking to myself, Abe, what a joke it would be, supposing, for instance, Sam's check should come back N. G."

When Sam Green entered the smoker of the seven-thirty train from Syracuse to Cyprus, the following morning, a well-dressed man of sixty followed him down the aisle and sat down in the same seat with him.

"Have a cigar?" the stranger said.

"Much obliged," Sam replied as he took it. "If it is just the same to you I would smoke it after dinner."

"Sure!" the stranger rejoined, handing him another; "smoke that one after dinner and smoke this one now."

Sam grinned and after they had lit up he ventured the observation that it was fine weather.

"_Aber_ it should be colder," he concluded, "for heavyweights."

"Are you in the clothing business?" the stranger asked.

"I got a sort of a store," Sam replied; "clothing and cloaks, and suits also. A dry-goods store in Cyprus."

"In Cyprus?" Sam's seatmate cried. "You don't tell me? I'm going down to Cyprus too."

"My fall buying is through," Sam said.

"I'm not selling goods this trip," the stranger replied. "I'm on a vacation."

"A vacation!" Sam murmured. "In Cyprus! That's a _medeena_ for a vacation."

"There are worse places than Cyprus, my friend," said Sam's new-found acquaintance; and thereat began a conversation that lasted until the train finally drew into Cyprus.

"Would you mind telling me what is your name, please?" Sam asked as they prepared to leave the car.

"Certainly," the stranger said, handing his card to Sam.

"Kirschner!" Sam exclaimed, looking at the card. "Kirschner, _von unsere Leute_?"

"Sure!" Max Kirschner replied.

"Did your father once run a store under the opera house here?"

"That's right."

"And after he died the widder sells out to a man by the name Marcus Senft?"

"The same one," Max replied. "Why do you ask?"