Abe and Mawruss Part 34

Morris nodded, and this time Abe hung up his hat and sat down heavily in the nearest chair.

"Who says he's going to fail?" he asked.

"Everybody says so," Morris replied; "even in the papers they got it."

He handed Kleiman's paper to Abe and indicated the paragraph with a shaking forefinger.

"Where does it say he is going to fail?" Abe asked after he had read it over hastily.

"Where does it say it?" Morris cried. "Why, if a feller goes to work and pays three thousand dollars for a fiddle, Abe, while he only got a business rated twenty-five to thirty thousand, credit fair, ain't it as plain as the nose on your face he must got to fail?"

Once more Abe read over the paragraph and then the paper fell from his hands to the floor.

"Why, Mawruss," he gasped, "it says here he is paying three thousand dollars for an Amati which he had in his possession for some time. That must be the very fiddle which he is playing on with Moe Rabiner."

"My _tzuris_ if it is _oder_ it ain't," Morris commented. "What difference does that make to us, Abe?"

Abe's face was white and large beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead as he replied.

"The difference ain't much, Mawruss," he said slowly. "Only if Felix Geigermann pays three thousand for the fiddle which he already got it and we are giving him for nothing another fiddle, which is the selfsame, identical article, Mawruss, then we are out three thousand dollars--and that's all the difference it makes to us!"

For two minutes Morris regarded his partner with a gla.s.sy stare.

"Do you mean to told me, Abe, that that there fiddle which you bought it from Sh.e.l.lak is the same identical article like Geigermann pays three thousand dollars for?"

Abe nodded.

"You couldn't tell the difference between 'em, Mawruss," he declared.

"Even inside the label is the same--the same name and everything."

Morris took off his hat and coat methodically and hung them up on the rack.

"So, Abe," he commenced, "you are giving to a _Schnorrer_ like Geigermann a genu-ine who's-this violin, which it is worth three thousand dollars!"

"How should I know it is worth three thousand?" Abe said.

"Everybody knows that one of them genu-ine feller's violins is worth three thousand dollars," Morris thundered. "I'm surprised to hear you, you should talk that way."

"Sh.e.l.lak didn't know it for one," Abe interrupted, "otherwise why should he sell to us for a hundred and twenty-five dollars a fiddle worth three thousand dollars?"

"What should a greenhorn like Sh.e.l.lak know about such things?" Morris said.

"Don't you fool yourself, Mawruss. If Sh.e.l.lak finds out he is getting a hundred and twenty-five for a fiddle worth three thousand, he's got gumption enough to sue us in the courts yet, and don't you forget it."

"Why should he sue us, Abe?" Morris asked. "A bargain is a bargain, ain't it?"

"Sure I know, Mawruss; but I told the feller the fiddle wasn't genu-ine, y'understand, when all the time I knew it was genu-ine."

"Might you are mistaken maybe, Abe," Morris broke in. "Might the fiddle ain't genu-ine."

"What d'ye mean, ain't genu-ine? I am telling you the label was inside and even the lot number is the same."

"The lot number?"

"Sure, the lot number. Sixteen-seventy, I think it was; and the only thing for us to do, Mawruss, is we should fix up some scheme to get that fiddle back from Geigermann; and that's all there is to it."

"Well, go ahead, Abe," Morris said. "Go ahead and see him this afternoon."

For the third time Abe put on his hat.

"First and foremost I would go out and get a bite to eat, Mawruss," he said. "What good would it do me to get the fiddle back if I would die from starvation first?"

Although the manufacturers of mechanical piano-players had never solicited Felix Geigermann's photograph for half-tone reproductions in the advertising section of anybody's magazine, he dressed as though he expected the immediate arrival of the man with the camera--that is to say, he wore his hair after Mahler, while Hollman and Moritz Rosenthal contributed to the pattern of his moustache. Moreover, he a.s.sumed a Paderewski tuft, a rolling collar that exposed the points of his right and left clavicles, a Windsor tie, and, to preserve the unity of his characterization, a slight nondescript foreign accent, despite the circ.u.mstance that he was born in Newark, N. J. All this, however, was not an idle pose on Felix's part. He merely applied to a dry-goods store the business principles of the successful virtuoso, and he had found them so efficacious that personally he sold more garments than any six of his clerks. He was no less astute in the buying end of the business; for in pitting Sammet Brothers, Klinger & Klein, and Potash & Perlmutter against one another he not only secured better terms of credit, but he found that it materially added to the quality of their garments.

Thus, had Abe but known it, his seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar order proceeded not from the gift of the violin, but from the circ.u.mstance that the velvet suits had sold like hot cakes; and when he entered the Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street store that afternoon Felix greeted him effusively. He wanted that second order badly, and if cordiality could accelerate its s.h.i.+pment he was willing to try it with Abe.

"Ah, _mon ami_," he cried. "Come inside my office. What good wind blows you here?"

Abe scowled. All this enthusiasm betokened but one thing--the violin was a genuine Amati, after all. He sat down slowly and bit the end off a large cigar.

"The fact is, Felix," he began, "for myself I don't care, y'understand, but you know Mawruss Perlmutter, what a crank that feller is, Felix; and so I am coming up here to ask you something for a question."

"Fire away, Abe; you couldn't feaze me none," Felix replied in the accents of Newark, N. J.

"Well, Felix, it's like this," Abe went on: "If we would be selling goods to J. B. Morgan, y'understand, and Mawruss here he is buying for eight dollars a fur overcoat--understand me--he right away would want another statement."

Felix nodded. "Nowadays you can't be too cautious," he agreed.

"So, this morning, in the paper," Abe continued, "Mawruss reads you are buying for three thousand dollars a fiddle and----"

"But, Abe," Felix interrupted, "it was a genuine Amati."

"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but yesterday I myself am bringing you a genu-ine Amati and I didn't pay no such figure for it."

Felix looked carefully at Abe's stolid face for some gleam of humour; and then he broke into a fit of laughter so violent that Abe suspected it to be a trifle forced.

"All right, Felix," he grumbled; "maybe you think it is a joke, but just the same I am telling you I paid for that fiddle only two hundred dollars."

Felix stopped laughing and wiped his eyes.

"Well, I'm sorry, Abe," he said seriously. "A feller should never look a gift horse in the teeth, Abe; but that fiddle ain't worth a cent more than a hundred at the outside."

"Do you mean to say it ain't a genu-ine Amati?" Abe asked angrily.

"Why, I don't mean to say anything, Abe," Felix began; "but there are Amatis and Amatis. Some of them are worth little fortunes and others are very ordinary-like."