Potash & Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures. Glass Montague

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СКАЧАТЬ you know, with Potash & Perlmutter, and that if we can get him out of it he's only too glad to come back to us. But Henry D. Feldman drew up that contract, Barney, and you know as well as I do, Barney, that what Henry D. Feldman draws up is drawn up for keeps, ain't it?"

      "There's loopholes in every contract, Leon," said Barney, "and a smart lawyer like Henry D. Feldman can find 'em out quick enough. Why don't you go right round and see Henry D. Feldman? Maybe he can fix it so as to get Louis back here."

      Leon shut down his roll-top desk and seized his hat.

      "That's a good idea, Barney," he said. "I guess I'll take your advice."

      It is not so much to know the law, ran Henry D. Feldman's motto, paraphrasing a famous dictum of Judge Sharswood, as to look, act and talk as though you knew it. To this end Mr. Feldman seldom employed a word of one syllable, if it had a synonym of three or four syllables, and such phrases as res gestæ, scienter, and lex fori delicti were the very life of his conversation with clients.

      "The information which you now disclose, Mr. Sammet," he said, after Leon had made known his predicament, "is all obiter dicta."

      Leon blushed. He imagined this to be somewhat harsh criticism of the innocent statement that he thought Potash & Perlmutter could be bluffed into releasing Louis Grossman.

      "Imprimis," Mr. Feldman went on, "I have not been consulted by Mr. Grossman about what he desires done in the matter, but, speaking ex cathedra, I am of the opinion that some method might be devised for rescinding the contract."

      "You mean we can get Potash & Perlmutter to release him?"

      "Precisely," said Mr. Feldman, "and in a very elementary and efficacious fashion."

      "Well, I ain't prepared to pay so much money at once," said Leon.

      Now, when it came to money matters, Henry D. Feldman's language could be colloquial to the point of slang.

      "What's biting you now?" he said. "I ain't going to charge you too much. Leave it to me, and if I deliver the goods it will cost you two hundred and fifty dollars."

      Leon sighed heavily, but he intended getting Louis back at all costs, not, however, to exceed ten thirty-three, thirty-three.

      "Well, I ain't kicking none if you can manage it," he replied. "Tell us how to go about it."

      Straightway Mr. Feldman unfolded a scheme which, stripped of its technical phraseology, was simplicity itself. He rightly conjectured that the most burdensome feature of the contract, so far as Potash & Perlmutter were concerned, was the five per cent. share of the profits that fell to Louis Grossman each week. He therefore suggested that Louis approach Abe Potash and request that, instead of five per cent. of the profits, he be paid a definite sum each week, for the cloak and suit business has its dull spells between seasons, when profits occasionally turn to losses. Thus Louis could advance as a reason that he would feel safer if he be paid, say, twenty dollars a week the year round in lieu of his uncertain share of the profits.

      "Abe Potash will jump at that," Leon commented.

      "I anticipate that he will," Mr. Feldman went on, "and then, after he has paid Mr. Grossman the first week's installment it will constitute a rescission of the old contract and a substitution of a new one, which will be a contract of hiring from week to week. At the conclusion of the first week their contractual relations can be severed at the option of either party."

      "But I don't want them to do nothing like that," Leon said. "I just want Louis to quit his job with Potash & Perlmutter and come and work by us."

      "Look a-here, Sammet," Feldman broke in impatiently. "I can't waste a whole morning talking to a boob that don't understand the English language. You're wise to the part about Louis Grossman asking for twenty dollars a week steady, instead of his share of the proceeds, ain't you?"

      Leon nodded.

      "Then if Potash falls for it," Feldman concluded, "as soon as Grossman gets the first twenty out of him he can throw up his job on the spot. See?"

      Leon nodded again.

      "Then clear out of this," said Feldman and pushed a button on his desk to inform the office-boy that he was ready for the next client.

      As Leon passed through the outer office he encountered Ike Herzog of the Bon Ton Credit Outfitting Company, who was solacing himself with the Daily Cloak and Suit Record in the interval of his waiting.

      "Good morning, Mr. Herzog," Leon exclaimed. "So you got your troubles, too."

      "I ain't got no troubles, Leon," Ike Herzog said, "but I got to use a lawyer in my business once in awhile. Just now I'm enlarging my place, and I got contracts to make and new people to hire. I hope you ain't got no law suits nor nothing."

      "Law suits ain't in my line, Mr. Herzog," Leon said. "Once in awhile I change my working people, too. That's why I come here."

      "Sometimes you change 'em for the worse, Leon," Herzog commented, indicating Abe Potash's effective ad with a stubby forefinger. "You certainly made a mistake when you got rid of Louis Grossman. He's turning out some elegant stuff for Potash & Perlmutter."

      Leon nodded gloomily.

      "Well, we all make mistakes, Mr. Herzog," he said, "and that's why we got to come here."

      "That's so," Herzog agreed, as Leon opened the door. "I hope I ain't making no mistake in what I'm going to do."

      "I hope not," Leon said as he passed out. "Good morning."

      Ike Herzog's interview with Henry D. Feldman was short and very much to his satisfaction, for when he emerged from Feldman's sanctum, to find Abe Potash waiting without, he could not forbear a broad smile. Abe nodded perfunctorily and a moment later was closeted with the oracle.

      "Mr. Feldman," he said, "I come to ask you an advice, and as I'm pretty busy this morning, do me the favor and leave out all them caveat emptors."

      "Sure thing," Feldman replied. "Tell me all about it."

      "Well, then, Mr. Feldman," said Abe, "I want to get rid of Louis Grossman."

      Mr. Feldman almost jumped out of his chair.

      "I want to fire Louis Grossman," Abe repeated. "You remember that you drew me up a burglar-proof contract between him and us a few weeks ago, and now I want you to be the burglar and bust it up for me."

      Feldman touched the button on his desk.

      "Bring me the draft of the contract between Potash & Perlmutter and Louis Grossman that I dictated last month," he said to the boy who answered.

      In a few minutes the boy returned with a large envelope. He was instructed never to come back empty-handed when asked to bring anything, and, in this instance the envelope held six sheets of folded legal cap, some of which contained the score of a pinochle game, played after office hours on Saturday afternoon between the managing clerk and the process-server.

      Feldman put the envelope in his pocket and retired to a remote corner of the room. There he examined the contents of the envelope and, knitting his СКАЧАТЬ