Abe and Mawruss: Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter. Glass Montague

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СКАЧАТЬ mind," Morris broke in, his valour now quite evaporated; "I'll fix him yet."

      "Another thing, Mawruss," Abe interrupted; "why don't you come in the front way like a man."

      "I come in which way I please, Abe," Morris rejoined. "And furthermore, Abe, when I got with me a poor skeleton of a feller like Nathan Schenkmann, Abe, I don't take him up the front elevator. I would be ashamed for our competitors that they should think we let our work-people starve. The feller actually fainted on me as we was coming up the freight elevator."

      "As you was coming up the freight elevator?" Abe repeated. "Do you mean to tell me you got the nerve to actually bring this feller into mein place yet?"

      "Do I got to get your permission, Abe, I should bring who I want to into my own place?" Morris rejoined.

      "Then all I got to say is you should take him right out again," Abe said. "I wouldn't have no ganévim in my place. Once and for all, Mawruss, I am telling you I wouldn't stand for your nonsense. You are giving our stock as a bail for this feller, and if he runs away on us, the sheriff comes in and—"

      "Who says I give our stock as a bail for this feller?" Morris demanded. "I got a surety company bond, Abe, because Feldman says I shouldn't go on no bail bonds, and I give the surety company my personal check for a thousand dollars which they will return when the case is over. That's what I done it to keep this here Schenkmann out of jail, Abe, and if it would be necessary to get this here Linkheimer into jail, Abe, I would have another check for a thousand dollars for keeps."

      Abe grew somewhat abashed at this disclosure. He looked at Linkheimer and then at Morris, but before he could think of something to say the elevator door opened and Jake stepped out. It was perhaps the first time in all their acquaintance with Jake that Abe and Morris had seen him with his face washed. Moreover, a clean collar served further to conceal his identity, and at first Abe did not recognize his former shipping clerk.

      "Hallo, Mr. Potash!" Jake said.

      "I'll be with you in one moment, Mister—er," Abe began. "Just take a—why, that's Jake, ain't it?"

      Here he saw a chance for a conversational diversion and he jumped excitedly to his feet.

      "What's the matter, Jake?" he asked. "You want your old job back?"

      "It don't go so quick as all that, Mr. Potash," Jake answered. "I got a good business, Mr. Potash. I carry a fine line of cigars, candy, and stationery, and already I got an offer of twenty-five dollars more as I paid for the business. But I wouldn't take it. Why should I? I took in a lot money yesterday, and only this morning, Mr. Potash, a feller comes in my place and—why, there's the feller now!"

      "Feller! What d'ye mean—feller?" Abe cried indignantly. "That ain't no feller. That's Mr. Max Linkheimer."

      "Sure, I know!" Jake explained. "He's the feller I mean. Half an hour ago I was in his place, and they says there he comes up here. You was in mein store this morning, Mr. Linkheimer, ain't that right, and you bought from me a package of all-tobacco cigarettes?"

      "Nu, nu, Jake," Morris broke in. "Make an end. You are interrupting us here."

      Jake drew back his coat and clumsily unfastened a large safety pin which sealed the opening of his upper right-hand waistcoat pocket. Then he dug down with his thumb and finger and produced a small yellow wad about the size of a postage stamp. This he proceeded to unfold until it took on the appearance of a hundred-dollar bill.

      "He gives me this here," Jake announced, "and I give him the change for a ten-dollar bill. So this here is a hundred-dollar bill, ain't it, and it don't belong to me, which I come downtown I should give it him back again. What isn't mine I don't want at all."

      This was perhaps the longest speech that Jake had ever made, and he paused to lick his dry lips for the peroration.

      "And so," he concluded, handing the bill to Linkheimer, "here it is, and—and nine dollars and ninety cents, please."

      Linkheimer grabbed the bill automatically and gazed at the figures on it with bulging eyes.

      "Why," Abe gasped, "why, Linkheimer, you had four one-hundred-dollar bills and a ten-dollar bill in the safe this morning. Ain't it?"

      Linkheimer nodded. Once more he broke into a copious perspiration, as he handed a ten-dollar bill to Jake.

      "And so," Abe went on, "and so you must of took a hundred-dollar bill out of the safe last night, instead of a ten-dollar bill. Ain't it?"

      Linkheimer nodded again.

      "And so you made a mistake, ain't it?" Abe cried. "And this here feller Schenkmann didn't took no money out of the safe at all. Ain't it?"

      For the third time Linkheimer nodded, and Abe turned to his partner.

      "What d'ye think of that feller?" he said, nodding his head in Linkheimer's direction.

      Morris shrugged, and Abe plunged his hands into his trousers pockets and glared at Linkheimer.

      "So, Linkheimer," he concluded, "you made a sucker out of yourself and out of me too! Ain't it?"

      "I'm sorry, Abe," Linkheimer muttered, as he folded away the hundred-dollar bill in his wallet.

      "I bet yer he's sorry," Morris interrupted. "I would be sorry too if I would got a lawsuit on my hands like he's got it."

      "What d'ye mean?" Linkheimer cried. "I ain't got no lawsuit on my hands."

      "Not yet," Morris said significantly, "but when Feldman hears of this, you would quick get a summons for a couple of thousand dollars damages which you done this young feller Schenkmann by making him false arrested."

      "It ain't no more than you deserve, Linkheimer," Abe added. "You're lucky I don't sue you for trying to make trouble between me and my partner yet."

      For one brief moment Linkheimer regarded Abe sorrowfully. There were few occasions to which Linkheimer could not do justice with a cut-and-dried sentiment or a well-worn aphorism, and he was about to expatiate on ingratitude in business when Abe forestalled him.

      "Another thing I wanted to say to you, Linkheimer," Abe said; "you shouldn't wait until the first of the month to send us a statement. Mail it to-night yet, because we give you notice we close your account right here and now."

      One week later Abe and Morris watched Nathan Schenkmann driving nails into the top of a packing case with a force and precision of which Jake had been wholly incapable; for seven days of better housing and better feeding had done wonders for Nathan.

      "Yes, Abe," Morris said as they turned away; "I think we made a find in that boy, and we also done a charity too. Some people's got an idee, Abe, that business is always business; but with me I think differencely. You could never make no big success in business unless you got a little sympathy for a feller oncet in a while. Ain't it?"

      Abe nodded.

      "I give you right, Mawruss," he said.

CHAPTER TWO

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