Part 31 (1/2)

”He's a dangerous feller, Abe,” Morris commented. ”He don't never stop at nothing to sell goods.”

”Well, I wasn't much behind him, Mawruss,” Abe said. ”When he smells it, I smell it. He wets his finger, I wet my finger. Everything what that sucker does to that fiddle, I did. He couldn't get nothing on me.

Mawruss. If he would offer to eat the fiddle, y'understand, I would got just so good appet.i.te as he got it, Mawruss, and don't you forget it. I ain't going to let go so easy.”

”Might you couldn't help yourself maybe,” Morris commented.

”You shouldn't worry, Mawruss,” Abe concluded. ”I sold Felix Geigermann since way before the Spanish War already, and I would sooner expect my own brother--supposing I got one--to turn us down as him.”

Despite Abe's optimism, however, the order for spring goods that Felix Geigermann bestowed on them a month later fell short of their expectations by over five hundred dollars.

”Business couldn't be so good with Felix this year, Mawruss,” Abe commented.

”Don't you jolly yourself, Abe,” Morris replied. ”It ain't so much that business is bad with Felix as it is better with Klinger & Klein. Them two cut-throats ain't paying Rabiner good money for only playing the pianner. He's got to sell goods too.”

”That's all right, Mawruss,” Abe said. ”Let him go ahead and _spiel_ pianner till he's blue in the face. Sooner or later Geigermann would find out what stickers them Klinger & Klein garments is, and then Moe Rabiner couldn't sell him no more of them goods, not if he would be a whole orchestra already.”

The personality of Aaron Sh.e.l.lak was simply thrown away on the garment trade. His lean, scholarly face, surmounted by a shock of wavy brown hair, would have a.s.sured his success as a virtuoso, and no one knew this better than his brother, Professor Ladislaw Wcelak, under whose tuition he had struggled through the intricacies of the first and second positions.

”If you would only forget you ain't got a pair of shears in your right hand, Aaron,” the professor said, ”and listen to what I am telling you, in two years' time you are making more money than all the garment cutters together. All you got to do is to play just halfway good.”

”I suppose you're a millionaire, ain't it?” Aaron rejoined. ”And you can play fiddle like a streak.” The professor heaved a great sigh as he pa.s.sed his hand over his bald head.

”With your hair, Aaron,” he said, ”I could make fifty thousand a year on concert towers alone, to say nothing of two recitals up on Fifty-seventh Street. But if a feller only got one arm, Aaron, he would better got a show to be a fiddle virtuoso as if he would be bald.”.

Thus encouraged Aaron persevered with his practice for some months; but, despite the patient instruction of his brother Louis the garment cutter's wrist still handicapped him.

”That's a legato phrase,” Louis Sh.e.l.lak cried impatiently, one night in mid-February. ”With one bow you got to play it.”

”Which phrase are you talking about,” Aaron asked--”the one that goes 'Ta-ra-reera, ta-ra-reera'?”

He sang the two measures in a clear tenor voice, whereat Louis s.n.a.t.c.hed the violin from his brother's grasp and, seating himself at the piano, he struck the major triad of C natural with force sufficient to wreck the instrument.

”Sing 'Ah'!” he commanded.

Aaron attacked the high C like a veteran and Professor Ladislaw Wcelak leaped from the piano stool with an inarticulate cry. Immediately thereafter he secured a strangle-hold on his brother and kissed him Budapest fas.h.i.+on on both cheeks.

”To-morrow night already you will commence lessons with the best teacher money could buy,” he declared.

”Whose money?” Aaron Sh.e.l.lak inquired, as he wiped away the marks of his brother's affection--”yours or mine?”

”Me--I ain't got no money,” Louis admitted.

”Me neither,” Aaron said. He was the sole support of his mother and sisters, for Louis, as _chef d'orchestre_ in a Second Avenue restaurant, constantly antic.i.p.ated his salary over _stuss_ or _tarrok_ in the rear of his employer's cafe.

”How much would it take?” he asked Louis after a silence of several minutes.

Louis shrugged.

”Who knows?” he replied. ”Fifty dollars _oder_ a hundred, perhaps.”