Part 22 (1/2)
”You was taking a sea bath, Abe?” he said at length. ”Ain't it? I suppose we would pretty soon got to close up the store so's you could take all the sea baths you want. What?”
Abe refrained from uttering a suitable rejoinder and made straight for the office.
”Mawruss!” he yelled; ”ain't the safe open yet?”
”Never mind is the safe open _oder_ not, Abe,” Morris replied. ”So long as you are attending to business the way you are, Abe, it ain't necessary the safe should be opened.”
Abe grunted and squatted down in front of the combination. At length the big doors swung open and he drew the box of cigars out of the middle compartment.
Morris looked on with ill-concealed curiosity while Abe took a banded Invincible from his waistcoat pocket and restored it to the box whence it originally came.
”What's all that for?” Morris asked.
”That's a souvenir from a pleasant morning,” Abe replied as he thrust the box of cigars back into the safe and slammed the doors. He was about to return to the showroom, when the telephone bell rang and Morris took the receiver from the hook.
”h.e.l.lo!” he said. ”Yes, this is Potash & Perlmutter. He's right here.
Abe, Max Koblin wants to talk to you.”
”He does, hey?” Abe replied. ”Well, I don't want to talk to him.”
”You should tell him that yourself,” Morris said as he walked away from the telephone. ”I ain't got nothing to do with your quarrels.”
Abe watched Morris disappear into the showroom and then he ran to the telephone and slammed the receiver on to the hook with force sufficient almost to wreck the instrument. At intervals of a few seconds the telephone rang for more than half an hour. Fifteen minutes after it had ceased the elevator door opened and Max Koblin entered.
”Cut-throat!” Koblin exclaimed. ”I rung up my son and he wouldn't come back. You are turning him against me--you and them two other crooks. You think you would get my money out of me. Very well. I'll show you. I ain't through with you yet. I'll put you fellers where you belong.”
”Don't make me no threats, Koblin,” Abe said calmly, ”because, in the first place, you couldn't scare me any, and, in the second place, if you think I am trying to keep your boy away from you, you are mistaken--that's all. I already wasted a whole morning on him and, just to show you I ain't such a crook as you think I am, I would go right down there now; and if I got to do it I would drag that young loafer out of there by the hair of his head.”
Twenty minutes later Abe burst into Katzberg & Schapp's business premises and asked in loud tones for Sidney Koblin. Before the astonished Shapolnik could reply, Max Koblin, who had followed Abe on the next car, arrived all breathless and panted a similar demand.
”He ain't in now,” Shapolnik replied; ”he is just going to his lunch.”
”What d'ye mean by talking to me on the 'phone the way you did this morning?” Max shouted. ”You ain't got no business to keep my boy from me.”
”I ain't keeping your boy from you,” Shapolnik answered; ”and I would speak to you whichever what way I would want to. Who are you anyway?”
”_Koos.h.!.+_ Shapolnik,” Abe interrupted. ”You are talking too fresh. Mr.
Koblin is right. You should fire that young feller right away, because I am telling you right here and now I wouldn't guarantee nothing for him after this.”
”What do I care what you would guarantee or what you wouldn't guarantee?” Shapolnik replied. ”The young feller already sold for us this morning for five hundred dollars a bill of goods, and he could stay with us _oder_ not, just as he wants. Furthermore, Mr. Potash, I don't give a snap of my fingers for your _guarantirt_; this is my shop and if you don't want to stay here you don't got to.”
He seized a pressing-iron in token that the interview was ended and Abe and Max started for the stairs without another word. As they reached the sidewalk Abe paused. Across the street a dairy lunchroom displayed its white-enamel sign and through the plate-gla.s.s window he thought he discerned a familiar figure. He ran to the opposite sidewalk and entered the restaurant, closely followed by Max, just as Sidney Koblin was eating the last crumbs of a portion of zwieback and coffee.
”h.e.l.lo, Sidney!” Abe said. ”What's the matter with you? Why don't you go back to your father?”
Sidney rose to his feet and looked first at Abe and then at the Raincoat King.
”What for?” he asked nonchalantly.