Abe and Mawruss Part 19

"I am here now going on half an hour already."

"Well, why didn't you talk to my partner?" Abe asked. "He could fix you up just as well as me."

"I did talk to him," the newcomer replied, "but he is too stuck up to talk to me at all."

"Stuck up!" Abe exclaimed, with a note of real anguish in his tones.

"Stuck up! Why, you don't know my partner at all, Mister--er--excuse me, do you got a card?"

The stranger drew a card from his waistcoat pocket and with a proud gesture handed it to Abe. It read as follows:

Z. KATZBERG I. SCHAPP KATZBERG & SCHAPP FINE PANTS 530 WEST WAs.h.i.+NGTON PLACE NEW YORK

"I am taking your advice, Mr. Potash," he said. "I am taking your advice all round. I cut 'em off."

"You cut what off?" Abe asked.

"The whiskers, Mr. Potash. Also I am making short the name. In Russland Shapolnik is all right, Mr. Potash; but if a feller wants to make a success in business he should be a little up to date, ain't it?"

The cordial smile faded from Abe's face as he recognized his visitor.

"There's such a thing as being too much up to date, Shapolnik," he said.

"You ain't got no right to fool my partner like that. Me, you couldn't fool for a minute. Right away I says to myself, 'Here is a feller which he wants to ask us something we should do him for a favour.' So, spit it out, Shapolnik. What is it you want from us?"

"Well, it's like this, Mr. Potash," Shapolnik began. "Me and my partner we are wanting to take on somebody for a drummer, y'understand. We must got it some one which he is already got a trade. _Aber_ he couldn't ask for too much money at the start on account we are going slow. If you know some young feller which he wants the job me and my partner would be much obliged, Mr. Potash."

"What d'ye think we are running here anyway, Shapolnik," Abe retorted--"an employment agency?"

"I am just taking chances might you would know somebody, maybe,"

Shapolnik murmured as he rose to his feet. He seemed much relieved at Abe's refusal. "And I hope you don't think I am doing something out of the way. You know, Mr. Potash, me and my partner we think a whole lot of your judgment, and if you would give us an advice we are willing we should follow it."

"Well, I ain't mad at you, Shapolnik," Abe said more mildly; "but all the same, if you want to get a drummer you got a right to advertise for one."

"We would do so," Shapolnik replied, "and if you would be in our _Nachbarschaft_ oncet in a while, Mr. Potash, me and my partner would consider it an honour if you are dropping in to see us. We only got a small place, Mr. Potash." He paused and fingered the texture of his waistcoat. "But everything will be up to date, Mr. Potash," he concluded, "just like you advised us to."

Abe watched his late skirt-cutter disappear into the elevator, and then he returned to the office where Morris impatiently awaited him.

"_Nu_, Abe," Morris cried as he entered.

"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said with cutting emphasis: "good cigars don't care who smokes 'em. I suppose if Nathan, the s.h.i.+pping clerk, would come in here with a collar and tie on and a clean shave, you would want to blow him to a bottle of tchampanyer wine yet. Just because a feller shaves off his beard and buys himself a new suit of clothes you couldn't recognize him at all. That was Shapolnik which just went out of here."

"Shapolnik!" Morris exclaimed. "That dude was Shapolnik? Well, what d'ye think for a crook like that!"

"Crooked Shapolnik ain't exactly," Abe interrupted; "but it should be a lesson to you, Mawruss, that you wouldn't be so free with our cigars.

All the feller wants from us is we should recommend him a drummer."

"The nerve the feller got it!" Morris cried. "He comes around here throwing bluffs he needs a drummer yet. A new beginner like him ain't going to hire no drummer, Abe. I bet yer he takes his pants under his arms and sees them Fourteenth Street buyers on his way downtown in the morning. He ain't got no more use for a drummer than I got it for an airs.h.i.+p."

"My _tzuris_ if he has or he hasn't!" Abe exclaimed. "I anyhow told him he should advertise for one, as we are not running an employment agency here, Mawruss; and so, Mawruss, let's get busy on that order for Griesman. I want to get away from here sure at five o'clock to-day. What is the good I am staying down at Riesenberger's if I never get a show to take oncet in a while a sea bath, maybe?"

Nevertheless it was ten minutes past five before Abe boarded a crosstown car; and, although he made a wild sprint from the ferry landing on the Long Island side, he arrived at the trainshed just in time to see the rear platform of the five-forty-five for Arverne disappearing in a cloud of black smoke.

He returned to the waiting room, and as he was sadly inspecting the outer pages of the comic periodicals displayed in the news-stand a heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder.

"h.e.l.lo, Abe!" cried a hearty voice, and Abe turned to view the perspiring features of Max Koblin, the Raincoat King. Abe returned the salutation without much enthusiasm.

"Why ain't you going down in the oitermobile, Max?" he asked.

"Millionaires ain't got no excuse for missing trains like ordinary people."

Max laughed in an embarra.s.sed fas.h.i.+on.

"Millionaires is got their troubles too, Abe," he said. "Even when they ain't millionaires."

"I should have your trouble!" Abe commented.

"I got enough, Abe, believe me," Max rejoined. "Everything I got to look after myself. My credit man leaves me next week; and I got other worries besides that one, too."

"Sure, I know," Abe said as they started for the smoker of the six-ten; "and the biggest one you got only yourself to blame for it."

"What d'ye mean, Abe?" Max asked.

"I mean this, Max," Abe declared. "I am knowing you now since twenty years already, and if I am b.u.t.ting in you could know it ain't because I am fresh, y'understand, but because I got your interests at heart. That boy of yours goes too far, Max."

Max drew a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and carefully bit off the end. "How so?" he inquired.

"Well, in a whole lot of ways, Max," Abe continued, after they were seated; "and mind you, I know it ain't none of my business, Max, but when I see that boy come into Hammersmith's to-day and eat for five dollars a lunch, with a bottle of tchampanyer wine yet, Max, I couldn't help myself. I got to say something."

Max scowled and spat out the end of his cigar.

"Of course, Max," Abe added, using his partner's metaphor, "it ain't no skin off my nose, y'understand."

"Ain't it?" Max growled as he turned on Abe with a menacing glare.

"Well, it's a wonder it ain't, the way you are sticking it into other people's business. If you think I care what you think about what my boy eats for his lunch you are making a big mistake. I could take care of my own boy, Potash, and I am just as much obliged if you would do the same."

Abe flushed a fiery red and rose to his feet.

"I guess I would go into the next car," he said.

"You could go a whole lot farther for all I care!" Max retorted, and immediately buried his head between the open pages of a conservative evening paper.

Abe had not offended in vain, however, for after dinner that night, when Sidney sought his father in the Koblins' suite at Riesenberger's cottage, the King was in an ugly mood.

"Say, Pop," Sidney began, "how about you for twenty till Sat.u.r.day night?"

"What d'ye mean?" Max bellowed. "Ain't I given you ten dollars only this morning?"

Sidney laughed uncomfortably. "Ain't you the old tightwad!" he said.

Max's reply to this observation was quite unprecedented in all Sidney's experience. It took the form of an open-handed blow on the cheek, the first ever administered by his indulgent parent since Sidney's infancy. Forthwith began a family row that brought the entire household--guests, servants and proprietress--on the run to the Koblin apartments. When Mrs. Koblin's frightened screams had ceased, and Max Koblin had calmed down sufficiently to offer an evasive explanation, the guests trooped back to the piazza, and three games of auction pinocle, which had started in the dining-room after the tables had been cleared, came to an abrupt close. Instead, the players foregathered with the other guests in the porch rockers.