Abe and Mawruss Part 29

"As sure as you're standing there, Mr. Kirschner," Sam declared, "I sold more goods this morning as in the last two months."

Max grinned delightedly. His face was flushed and he looked at least ten years younger as he patted Sam on the shoulder.

"Look out for the rush this afternoon," he said. "If we only had a better a.s.sortment, Green, I think we could keep this up for a week longer and after that we could do a good, steady business."

"We?" Sam exclaimed.

Max coloured and smiled in an embarra.s.sed fas.h.i.+on.

"Of course I mean you," he said.

"Why 'of course'?" Sam asked; and Mrs. Green nodded vigorously. "Why not we, Mr. Kirschner?"

"Well, you see, I haven't sold goods at retail for so long," Max explained, "that I really don't know how."

Sam turned to Mrs. Green with a quick shrug.

"_Was hast du gehort?_" he cried. "He don't know how! If I wouldn't know how to sell goods the way you don't know how, Mr. Kirschner, I would quick build up a good business here. Tell me, Mr. Kirschner, how much longer do you got a vacation, because I'd like to make you a proposition. You could stay with me here for the rest of your vacation and I would give you half of the profits over the cost price of every garment you sell. How's that?"

"Very generous," Max said; "but you don't know what you're offering me, Green, because the vacation might last for several years."

"Several years!" Sam repeated. "You mean you are retired from business, Mr. Kirschner?"

"Exactly," Max answered; "with a fortune of two diamond rings, a diamond pin, and eight hundred and sixty-five dollars cash."

Sam and Mrs. Green stared at him incredulously.

"In other words, Green," Max concluded, "I have just been fired out of a job as travelling salesman, which I held for twenty years, and I don't see a chance of getting another one."

For a moment Sam and his wife exchanged glances.

"Mr. Kirschner," Sam said, "how much can you get for them diamonds?"

"Fifteen hundred dollars, I guess," Max replied.

"Then what is the use talking nonsense, Mr. Kirschner?" Sam cried excitedly. "Come along with me over to the Farmers' National Bank and we'll see Mr. Fuller; and if he would renew my accommodation for a thousand dollars you and me would go as partners together and _fertig_."

"Fuller!" Max cried. "That ain't Wilbur M. Fuller, is it?"

"That's the one," Sam declared.

"Then we'll not only get him to renew the accommodation, Sam, but we'll sell him some s.h.i.+rts and neckties as well. He and I clerked together in Van Buskirk & Patterson's."

As a sequel to Max's visit to the Farmers' National Bank, Abe and Morris waited in vain for the return of Sam's check.

"How did you know the check wasn't good, Mawruss?" Abe asked his partner a week later.

"I ain't said it ain't good, Abe," Morris protested; "only I seen Markson, which he works for Klinger & Klein as a bookkeeper, in Hammersmith's to-day and he says that Moe Griesman goes round trying to buy up all Sam Green's bills payable; and he's got about five hundred dollars' worth now already."

"Sure, I know he did," Abe replied. "He got from Kleiman & Elenbogen Sam's three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar debt for two hundred and seventy-five cash and Sam sends 'em the check for the full amount the day before yesterday. I seen Louis Kleiman yesterday and he was feeling pretty sore, I bet yer."

Morris nodded. He had been completely mystified about Sam's affairs since the arrival of a letter from Cyprus addressed to Morris personally, wherein Sam repaid the money advanced for his hotel accommodation and announced that he had abandoned for the present his intention of returning to New York. Morris's mystification was hardly abated by the following letter, which arrived on the heels of the conversation above set forth:

SAMUEL GREEN & CO.

DRY-GOODS AND NOTIONS THE K. & M. SYLPHSHAPE CORSET

CYPRUS, NEW YORK, MAY 1, 1910.

GENTS: We inclose you herewith memorandum of order. Kindly s.h.i.+p same within ten days by fast freight, and oblige

Yours truly, SAMUEL GREEN & CO.

P. S. You should telegraph Farmers' National Bank for references if you ain't satisfied to s.h.i.+p without it. Business is good. S. GREEN.

Morris Perlmutter's relations with Sol Klinger retained their cordiality despite the rupture between Abe Potash and Klinger & Klein.

To be sure, Moe Griesman's defection had rankled, but Morris consoled himself with the maxim, "Business is business"; and when he met Sol Klinger in Hammersmith's restaurant during the first week of the spring buying season he greeted Sol cordially. His friendly advance, however, met with a decided rebuff.

"What's the matter now, Sol?" Morris asked.

Sol nodded his head slowly.

"It's a great world, Mawruss," he said.

Morris agreed with him. "There's business enough in it for everybody anyhow, Sol, if that's what you mean," he replied.

"In lots of places, yes, but in others, no," Sol said. "But with some people, Mawruss, they're like a snake in the gra.s.s, which it bites the hand that feeds it."

"What's Moe Klein been doing now?" Morris asked.

"Moe Klein?" Sol cried. "What d'ye mean, Moe Klein? I ain't talking about Moe Klein at all. I am talking about Max Kirschner, Mawruss.

There's a feller which we give him for twenty years good wages, Mawruss, and what do we get for it? After he leaves us, Mawruss--"

"Left you?" Morris interrupted. "Why, I always thought you fired him."

"Sure, we fired him," Sol continued. "A lowlife b.u.m which he makes always a hog of himself, why shouldn't we fire him? And then, Mawruss, when we are taking on Moe Greisman's nephew, Rabiner, what does that sucker Max Kirschner do? He turns around and fixes up with a feller by the name Sam Green, in Cyprus, to go as partners together in Sam Green's store up there. And mind you, Mawruss, Moe Griesman had just bought out Sam Green's compet.i.tors, Van Buskirk & Patterson. And Max Kirschner knows all the time that the only reason that we took on Mozart Rabiner was on account of his uncle, Moe Griesman."

Sol Klinger was so interested in his own narrative that he completely failed to notice its effect on Morris Perlmutter, who sat with his jaw dropping lower and lower, while great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.

"Yes, Mawruss," Sol continued; "Moe Griesman even comes down himself from Sarahcuse to Cyprus to superintend things. Five thousand dollars fixtures he puts in and forty thousand dollars he pays them two yokels, Van Buskirk & Patterson, for the good-will, stock, and store building; and what happens? For a whole month Moe sits in that store and not a hundred dollars' worth of goods goes out of the place, Mawruss; and why?

It seems that Sam Green and Max Kirschner does all the business because Max Kirschner is born and raised in Cyprus and knows everybody in the place."

"Max was born and raised in Cyprus?" Morris gasped.

"That's what I said," Sol replied. "That's a _Nachbarschaft_ for a feller to be born in! What?"

Morris nodded and rose wearily to his feet.

"I never could remember the name of the place even, at all," he said.