Part 4 (1/2)
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 ingrat.i.tude 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.