Potash & Perlmutter.

by Montague Gla.s.s.

CHAPTER I

"No, siree, sir," Abe Potash exclaimed as he drew a check to the order of his attorney for a hundred and fifty dollars, "I would positively go it alone from now on till I die, n.o.blestone. I got my stomach full with Pincus Vesell already, and if Andrew Carnegie would come to me and tell me he wants to go with me as partners together in the cloak and suit business, I would say 'No,' so sick and tired of partners I am."

For the twentieth time he examined the dissolution agreement which had ended the firm of Vesell & Potash, and then he sighed heavily and placed the doc.u.ment in his breast pocket.

"Cost me enough, n.o.blestone, I could a.s.sure you," he said.

"A hundred and fifty ain't much, Potash, for a big lawyer like Feldman,"

n.o.blestone commented.

Abe flipped his fingers in a gesture of deprecation.

"That is the least, n.o.blestone," he rejoined. "First and last I bet you I am out five thousand dollars on Vesell. That feller got an idee that there ain't nothing to the cloak and suit business but auction pinochle and taking out-of-town customers to the theayter. Hard work is something which he don't know nothing about at all. He should of been in the brokering business."

"The brokering business ain't such a cinch neither," n.o.blestone retorted with some show of indignation. "A feller what's in the brokering business has got his troubles, too, Potash. Here I've been trying to find an opening for a bright young feller with five thousand dollars cash, y'understand, and also there ain't a better designer in the business, y'understand, and I couldn't do a thing with the proposition.

Always everybody turns me down. Either they got a partner already or they're like yourself, Potash, they just got through with a partner which done 'em up good."

"If you think Pincus Vesell done me up good, n.o.blestone," Potash said, "you are mistaken. I got better judgment as to let a lowlife like him get into me, n.o.blestone. I lost money by him, y'understand, but at the same time he didn't make nothing neither. Vesell is one of them fellers what you hear about which is n.o.body's enemy but his own."

"The way he talks to me, Potash," n.o.blestone replied, "he ain't such friends to you neither."

"He hates me worser as poison," Abe declared fervently, "but that ain't neither here nor there, n.o.blestone. I'm content he should be my enemy.

He's the kind of feller what if we would part friends, he would come back every week and touch me for five dollars yet. The feller ain't got no money and he ain't got no judgment neither."

"But here is a young feller which he got lots of common sense and five thousand dollars cash," n.o.blestone went on. "Only one thing which he ain't got."

Abe nodded.

"I seen lots of them fellers in my time, n.o.blestone," he said.

"Everything about 'em is all right excepting one thing and that's always a killer."

"Well, this one thing ain't a killer at all," n.o.blestone rejoined, "he knows the cloak and suit business from A to Z, and he's a first-cla.s.s A number one feller for the inside, Potash, but he ain't no salesman."

"So long as he's good on the inside, n.o.blestone," Abe said, "it don't do no harm if he ain't a salesman, because there's lots of fellers in the cloak and suit business which calls themselves drummers, y'understand Every week regular they turn in an expense account as big as a doctor's bill already, and not only they ain't salesmen, n.o.blestone, but they don't know enough about the inside work to get a job as a.s.sistant shipping clerk."

"Well, Harry Federmann ain't that kind, Potash," n.o.blestone went on.

"He's been a cutter and a designer and everything you could think of in the cloak and suit business. Also the feller's got good backing. He's married to old man Zudrowsky's daughter and certainly them people would give him a whole lot of help."

"What people do you mean?" Abe asked.

"Zudrowsky & Cohen," n.o.blestone answered. "Do you know 'em, Potash?"

Abe laughed raucously.

"Do I know 'em?" he said. "A question! Them people got a reputation among the trade which you wouldn't believe at all. Yes, n.o.blestone, if I would take it another partner, y'understand, I would as lief get a feller what's got the backing of a couple of them cut-throats up in Sing Sing, so much do I think of Zudrowsky & Cohen."

"All I got to say to that, Potash, is that you don't know them people, otherwise you wouldn't talk that way."

"Maybe I don't know 'em as good as some concerns know 'em, n.o.blestone, but that's because I was pretty lucky. Leon Sammet tells me he wouldn't trust 'em with the wrapping paper on a C. O. D. shipment of two dollars."

n.o.blestone rose to his feet and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of what he believed to be injured dignity.

"I hear enough from you, Potash," he said, "and some day you will be sorry you talk that way about a concern like Zudrowsky & Cohen. If you couldn't say nothing good about 'em, you should shut up your mouth."

"I could say one thing good about 'em, n.o.blestone," Abe retorted, as the business broker opened the store door. "They ain't ashamed of a couple of good old-time names like Zudrowsky & Cohen."

This was an allusion to the circ.u.mstance that Philip n.o.blestone had once been Pesach Edelstein, and the resounding bang with which the broker closed the door behind him, was gratifying evidence to Abe that his parting shot had found its target.

"Well, n.o.blestone," Zudrowsky cried, as the broker entered the show-room of Zudrowsky & Cohen, "what did he say?"

"He says he wouldn't consider it at all," n.o.blestone answered. "He ain't in no condition to talk about it anyway, because he feels too sore about his old partner, Pincus Vesell. That feller done him up to the tune of ten thousand dollars."

In n.o.blestone's scheme of ethics, to multiply a fact by two was to speak the truth unadorned.

"S'enough, n.o.blestone," Zudrowsky cried. "If Potash lost so much money as all that, I wouldn't consider him at all. One thing you got to remember, n.o.blestone. Me, I am putting up five thousand dollars for Harry Federmann, and what that feller don't know about business, n.o.blestone, you could take it from me, would make even _you_ a millionaire, if you would only got it in your head."

n.o.blestone felt keenly the doubtfulness of Zudrowsky's compliment, but for a lack of a suitable rejoinder he contented himself by nodding gravely.

"So I wouldn't want him to tie up with a feller like Potash, what gets done up so easy for ten thousand dollars," Zudrowsky went on. "What I would like, n.o.blestone, is that Harry should go as partners together with some decent, respectable feller which got it good experience in the cloak business and wouldn't be careless with my five thousand dollars. I needn't to tell you, n.o.blestone, if I would let Harry get his hands on it, I might as well kiss myself good-by with that five thousand dollars."

n.o.blestone waggled his head from side to side and made inarticulate expressions of sympathy through his nose.

"How could you marry off your daughter to a _schafskopf_ like Federmann?" he asked.

"It was a love match, n.o.blestone," Zudrowsky explained. "She falls in love with him, and he falls in love with her. So naturally he ain't no business man, y'understand, because you know as well as I do, n.o.blestone, a business man ain't got no time to fool away on such nonsense."

"Sure, I know," n.o.blestone agreed. "But what makes Federmann so dumb?

He's been in the cloak and suit business all his life, ain't he?"

"What's that got to do with it?" Zudrowsky exclaimed. "Cohen and me got these here fixtures for fifteen years already, and you could more expect them tables and racks they should know the cloak and suit business as Harry Federmann. They ain't neither of 'em got no brains, n.o.blestone, and that's what I want you to get for Harry,--some young feller with brains, even though he ain't worth much money."

"Believe me, Mr. Zudrowsky," n.o.blestone replied. "It ain't such an easy matter these times to find a young feller with brains what ain't got no money, Mr. Zudrowsky, and such young fellers don't need no partners neither. And, anyhow, Mr. Zudrowsky, what is five thousand dollars for an inducement to a business man? When I would go around and tell my clients I got a young feller with five thousand dollars what wants to go in the cloak and suit business, they laugh at me. In the cloak and suit business five thousand dollars goes no ways."

"Five thousand ain't much if you are going to open up as a new beginner, n.o.blestone," Zudrowsky replied, "but if you got a going concern, y'understand, five thousand dollars is always five thousand dollars.

There's lots of business men what is short of money all the time, n.o.blestone. Couldn't you find it maybe a young feller which is already established in business, y'understand, and what needs _doch_ a little money?"

n.o.blestone slapped his thigh.

"I got it!" he said. "I'll go around and see Sam Feder of the Koscius...o...b..nk."

Half an hour later n.o.blestone sat in the first vice-president's office at the Koscius...o...b..nk, and requested that executive officer to favor him with the names of a few good business men, who would appreciate a partner with five thousand dollars.

"I'll tell you the truth, n.o.blestone," Mr. Feder said, "we turn down so many people here every day, that it's a pretty hard thing for me to remember any particular name. Most of 'em is good for nothing, either for your purpose or for ours, n.o.blestone. The idee they got about business is that they should sell goods at any price. In figuring the cost of the output, they reckon labor, so much; material, so much; and they don't take no account of rent, light, power, insurance and so forth. The consequence is, they lose money all the time; and they put their compet.i.tors in bad too, because they make 'em meet their fool prices. The whole trade is cut up by them fellers and sooner as recommend one for a partner for your client, I'd advise him to take his money and play the ponies with it."