Elkan Lubliner, American. Glass Montague

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СКАЧАТЬ I think I told you his grandfather on his father's side was a big rabbi, the Lubliner Rav."

      Philip nodded.

      "And even if I didn't told you," Marcus went on, "you could tell it from his face."

      Again Philip nodded.

      "And another thing I want to talk to you about," Marcus said, hastening after him: "the hundred dollars the boy gives you you should keep, Philip. And if you are spending more than that on the boy I would make it good."

      Philip dug down absently into his trousers pocket and brought forth the roll of dirty bills.

      "Take it," he said, throwing it toward his partner. "I don't want it."

      "What d'ye mean you don't want it?" Marcus cried.

      "I mean I ain't got no hard feelings against the boy," Philip replied. "I am thinking it over all night, and I come to the conclusion so long as I started in being the boy's uncle I would continue that way. So you should put the money in the savings bank like I says yesterday."

      "But – " Marcus protested.

      "But nothing," Philip interrupted. "Do what I am telling you."

      Marcus blinked hard and cleared his throat with a great, rasping noise.

      "After all," he said huskily, "it don't make no difference how many crooks oder Ganevim is in a feller's family, Philip, so long as he's got a good, straight business man for a partner."

      CHAPTER TWO

      APPENWEIER'S ACCOUNT

HOW ELKAN LUBLINER GRADUATED INTO SALESMANSHIP

      "WHEN I hire a salesman, Mr. Klugfels," said Marcus Polatkin, senior partner of Polatkin & Scheikowitz, "I hire him because he's a salesman, not because he's a nephew."

      "But it don't do any harm for a salesman to have an uncle whose concern would buy in one season from you already ten thousand dollars goods, Mr. Polatkin," Klugfels insisted. "Furthermore, Harry is a bright, smart boy; and you can take it from me, Mr. Polatkin, not alone he would get my trade, but us buyers is got a whole lot of influence one with the other, understand me; so, if there's any other concern you haven't on your books at present, you could rely on me I should do my best for Harry and you."

      Thus spoke Mr. Felix Klugfels, buyer for Appenweier & Murray's Thirty-second Street store, on the first Monday of January; and in consequence on the second Monday of January Harry Flaxberg came to work as city salesman for Polatkin & Scheikowitz. He also maintained the rôle of party of the second part in a contract drawn by Henry D. Feldman, whose skill in such matters is too well known for comment here. Sufficient to say it fixed Harry Flaxberg's compensation at thirty dollars a week and moderate commissions. At Polatkin's request, however, the document was so worded that it excluded Flaxberg from selling any of the concerns already on Polatkin & Scheikowitz's books; for not only did he doubt Flaxberg's ability as a salesman, but he was quite conscious of the circumstance that, save for the acquisition of Appenweier & Murray's account, there was no need of their hiring a city salesman at all, since the scope of their business operations required only one salesman – to wit, as the lawyers say, Marcus Polatkin himself. On the other hand, Klugfels had insisted upon the safeguarding of his nephew's interests, so that the latter was reasonably certain of a year's steady employment. Hence, when, on the first Monday of February, Appenweier & Murray dispensed with the services of Mr. Klugfels before he had had the opportunity of bestowing even one order on his nephew as a mark of his favour, the business premises of Polatkin & Scheikowitz became forthwith a house of mourning. From the stricken principals down to and including the shipping clerk nothing else was spoken of or thought about for a period of more than two weeks. Neither was it a source of much consolation to Marcus Polatkin when he heard that Klugfels had been supplanted by Max Lapin, a third cousin of Leon Sammet of the firm of Sammet Brothers.

      "Ain't it terrible the way people is related nowadays?" he said to Scheikowitz, who had just read aloud the news of Max Lapin's hiring in the columns of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record.

      "Honestly, Scheikowitz, if a feller ain't got a lot of retailers oder buyers for distance relations, understand me, he might just so well go out of business and be done with it!"

      Scheikowitz threw down the paper impatiently.

      "That's where you are making a big mistake, Polatkin," he said. "A feller which he expects to do business with relations is just so good as looking for trouble. You could never depend on relations that they are going to keep on buying goods from you, Polatkin. The least little thing happens between relations, understand me, and they are getting right away enemies for life; while, if it was just between friends, Polatkin, one friend makes for the other a blue eye, understand me, and in two weeks' time they are just so good friends as ever. So, even if Appenweier & Murray wouldn't fire him, y'understand, Klugfels would have dumped this young feller on us anyway."

      As he spoke he looked through the office door toward the showroom, where Harry Flaxberg sat with his feet cocked up on a sample table midway in the perusal of the sporting page.

      "Flaxberg," Scheikowitz cried, "what are we showing here anyway – garments oder shoes? You are ruining our sample tables the way you are acting!"

      Flaxberg replaced his feet on the floor and put down his paper.

      "It's time some one ruined them tables on you, Mr. Scheikowitz," he said. "With the junk fixtures you got it here I'm ashamed to bring a customer into the place at all."

      "That's all right," Scheikowitz retorted; "for all the customers you are bringing in here, Flaxberg, we needn't got no fixtures at all. Come inside the office – my partner wants to speak to you a few words something."

      Flaxberg rose leisurely to his feet and, carefully shaking each leg in turn to restore the unwrinkled perfection of his trousers, walked toward the office.

      "Tell me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried as he entered, "what are you going to do about this here account of Appenweier & Murray's?"

      "What am I going to do about it?" Flaxberg repeated. "Why, what could I do about it? Every salesman is liable to lose one account, Mr. Polatkin."

      "Sure, I know," Polatkin answered; "but most every other salesman is got some other accounts to fall back on. Whereas if a salesman is just got one account, Flaxberg, and he loses it, understand me, then he ain't a salesman no longer, Flaxberg. Right away he becomes only a loafer, Flaxberg, and the best thing he could do, understand me, is to go and find a job somewheres else."

      "Not when he's got a contract, Mr. Polatkin," Flaxberg retorted promptly. "And specially a contract which the boss fixes up himself – ain't it?"

      Scheikowitz nodded and scowled savagely at his partner.

      "Listen here to me, Flaxberg," Polatkin cried. "Do you mean to told me that, even if a salesman would got ever so much a crazy contract, understand me, it allows the salesman he should sit all the time doing nothing in the showroom without we got a right to fire him?"

      "Well," Flaxberg replied calmly, "it gives him the privilege to go out to lunch once in a while."

      He pulled down his waistcoat with exaggerated care and turned on his heel.

      "So I would be back in an hour," he concluded; "and if any customers come in and ask for me tell 'em to take a seat till I am coming back."

      The two partners watched him until he put on his hat and coat in СКАЧАТЬ