Part 1 (1/2)
Abe and Mawruss.
by Montague Gla.s.s.
CHAPTER ONE
SYMPATHY
”I come down on the subway with Max Linkheimer this morning, Mawruss,”
Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as they sat in the showroom one hot July morning. ”That feller is a regular philantropist.”
”I bet yer,” Morris replied. ”He would talk a tin ear on to you if you only give him a chance. Leon Sammet too, Abe, I a.s.sure you. I seen Leon in the Harlem Winter Garden last night, and the goods he sold while he was talking to me and Barney Gans, Abe, in two seasons we don't do such a business. Yes, Abe; Leon Sammet is just such another one of them fellers like Max Linkheimer.”
”What d'ye mean--'such another one of them fellers like Max Linkheimer'?” Abe repeated. ”Between Leon Sammet and Max Linkheimer is the difference like day from night. Max Linkheimer is one fine man, Mawruss.”
Morris shrugged. ”I didn't say he wasn't,” he rejoined. ”All I says was that Leon Sammet is another one of them philantro fellers too, Abe.
Talks you deef, dumb and blind.”
Abe rose to his feet and stared indignantly at his partner.
”I don't know what comes over you lately, Mawruss,” he cried. ”Seemingly you don't understand the English language at all. A philantropist ain't a _schmooser_, Mawruss.”
”I know he ain't, Abe; but just the same Max Linkheimer is a feller which he got a whole lot too much to say for himself. Furthermore, Abe, my Minnie says Mrs. Linkheimer tells her Max ain't home a single night neither, and when a man neglects his family like that, Abe, I ain't got no use for him at all.”
”That's because he belongs to eight lodges,” Abe replied. ”There ain't a single Sunday neither which he ain't busy with funerals too, Mawruss.”
”Is that so?” Morris retorted. ”Well, if I would be in the b.u.t.ton business, Abe, I would be a philantropist too. A feller's got to belong to eight lodges if he's in the b.u.t.ton business, Abe, because otherwise he couldn't sell no goods at all.”
Abe continued:
”Linkheimer ain't looking to sell goods to lodge brothers, Mawruss.
He's too old established a business for that. He's got a heart too, Mawruss. Why the money that feller spends on charity, Mawruss, you wouldn't believe at all. He told me so himself. Always he tries to do good. Only this morning, Mawruss, he was telling me about a young feller by the name Schenkmann which he is trying to find a position for as stock clerk. n.o.body would take the young feller on, Mawruss, because he got into trouble with a house in Dallas, Texas, which they claim the young feller stole from them a hundred dollars, Mawruss. But Linkheimer says how if you would give a dawg a bad name, Mawruss, you might just as well give him to the dawgcatcher. So Linkheimer is willing to take a chance on this here feller Schenkmann, and he gives him a job in his own place.”
”Dawgs I don't know nothing about at all, Abe,” Morris commented. ”But I would be willing to give the young feller a show too, Abe, if I would only got plain bone and metal b.u.t.tons in stock. But when you carry a couple hundred pieces silk goods, Abe, like we do, then that's something else again.”
”Well, Mawruss, _Gott sei dank_ we don't got to get a new s.h.i.+pping clerk. Jake has been with us five years now, Mawruss, and so far what I could see he ain't got ambition enough to ask for a raise even, let alone look for a better job.”
”You shouldn't congradulate yourself too quick, Abe,” Morris replied.
”Ambition he's got it plenty, but he ain't got the nerve. We really ought to give the feller a raise, Abe. I mean it. Every time I go near him at all he gives me a look, and the first thing you know, Abe, he would be leaving us.”
”Looks we could stand it, Mawruss; but if we would start in giving him a raise there would be no end to it at all. _La.s.s's bleiben._ If the feller wants a raise, Mawruss, he should ask for it.”
Barely two weeks after the conversation above set forth, however, Jake entered the firm's private office and tendered his resignation.
”Mr. Perlmutter,” he said, ”I'm going to leave.”
”Going to leave?” Morris cried. ”What d'ye mean--going to leave?”