Abe and Mawruss Part 44

Abe looked helplessly at Morris and turned to Pincus Levin, who commenced to tremble violently.

"Hold on there!" Morris shouted. "He's going to faint too."

Abe seized the gla.s.s of ice-water and flung its contents into Pincus Levin's face. He gasped and sat down suddenly.

"The old man," he murmured, "he's Yosel's father."

"Yosel who?" Morris shouted. "The old man's only got one son--and he's dead."

"Yes, I know," Pincus answered; "he is and he ain't. I always thought so too, Mr. Perlmutter, but this feller here is Yosel Levin which he got blew up in Harkav two years ago."

"What d'ye mean got blew up?" Abe asked as the doctor worked steadily over the two prostrate men. "How could he be blew up if he is here now?"

Pincus shrugged his shoulders.

"How should I know?" he said weakly. "I ain't lying to you. This feller here is Yosel Levin and my uncle there is his father."

"Do you mean to told me that the old man's son ain't dead at all?"

Morris demanded.

"Seemingly," Pincus said; "_aber_ this is the first time I heard it and I guess it's the first time the old man heard it too."

Harkavy moaned and tried to sit up.

"Easy there!" the doctor commanded. "Two of you take him inside and put him on a lounge if you have one."

Abe and Morris followed Pincus and the head cutter as they supported the half-conscious Harkavy into the firm's office. Ten minutes later the old man was restored to consciousness.

"_Wo ist er?_" he murmured. "_Mein kind!_"

"It's all right," the doctor replied, and then he turned to the office.

"Come out here, you, and talk to the old man."

Pincus came running from the office and rea.s.sured his uncle, who, under the ministrations of the doctor, grew rapidly stronger until he was sufficiently recovered to be placed on a chair.

"Keep him quiet while I attend to the other fellow," said the doctor; "and don't let him talk."

He went at once to the office, where Harkavy sat on the edge of the lounge.

"Here! What are you doing?" he cried. "You shouldn't let that fellow do any talking."

"That's all right, doctor," Abe said calmly. "He should go on talking now if it would kill him even. Go ahead, Harkavy."

"And so," Harkavy continued, "after I am stealing the wine they took me to the police office. There was a place! But, anyhow, Mr. Potash, I could tell you all about it afterward. Inside the backyard was a dead moujik which he is got run over by a train. His face is all damaged so you couldn't tell who he was at all."

He faltered and waved his hand.

"Give me, please, a gla.s.s water," he said, and the doctor seized his hand.

"Never mind!" Abe cried inexorably. "Leave him alone, doctor. He should finish what he's got to say."

Harkavy nodded and sipped some water.

"Then comes the package for the chief of police," he went on; "and they put it first in a pail of water. Then they open it, Mr. Potash, and it don't harm n.o.body; but them _roshers_ want to put it on to somebody, so they make me a proposition they would give me a couple hundred rubles and a ticket to America--and I took 'em up. For stealing that wine I could get five years yet; so what should I do? They give me the money and I run away; and the dead moujik they are telling everybody is me, which I am blew up to pieces by the package."

"And you let the old man bury the moujik and think it was you?" Morris asked.

Harkavy nodded.

"Over and over again he is telling me I am no good and he wishes I was dead," he said. "I wish I was, Mr. Perlmutter--I wish I was!"

He commenced to cry weakly and Morris handed him the water.

"But when I hear last week the old man, my father, is here," he continued, "I couldn't help myself--I am hanging around Madison Street trying I should get one look at him only. I didn't see him till just now."

He struggled to raise himself from the lounge.

"Let me go to him," he wailed; "let me go!"

Abe looked inquiringly at the doctor, who nodded in reply.

"Let him go," he said. "Happiness never harmed anybody yet."

"Gentlemen," said the United States Commissioner as he sat behind his shabby desk in the Post-office Building, "the prisoner is in the marshal's office. Shall he be brought in?"

He addressed his question to Mr. Munjoy, who was seated between Henry D.

Feldman and Steuermann at one side of a huge table. Opposite them were the clerk of the Russian Consulate and his counsel, who was obviously nervous at the formidable appearance presented by the lawyer, Henry D.

Feldman.

The latter was about to pull off--as in his colloquial moments he himself would have expressed it--a rotten trick on his fellow counsel; for Abe and Morris had not informed either Mr. Munjoy or Mr. Steuermann of the stirring scene in their showroom that morning. Instead, they had called on Feldman, who, with the dramatic intuition of the effective jury lawyer, saw an opportunity for a coup that would at once gain the admiration and respect, if not the legal business, of Moses M.

Steuermann and procure Feldman a column and a half of publicity in next day's paper. Hence he had sworn Abe and Morris to secrecy in consideration of making no charge for his services, since he deemed the accruing benefit to be worth at least two hundred dollars.

"Shall he be brought in, gentlemen?" the commissioner asked.

Counsel for the Russian Consulate bowed, as did Mr. Munjoy; but Henry D.

Feldman cleared his throat with a great rasping noise that penetrated to the corridor without. This was the signal, and Abe and Morris entered the room supporting the old Rabbi, who was followed by Pincus Levin.

"One moment, sir," Feldman said. "I have a preliminary objection to make. Will you hear the offer, sir?"

The commissioner nodded and Steuermann and his counsel Mr. Munjoy, turned to Feldman in amazement.

"What's all this, Feldman?" Munjoy cried.

Feldman waved his hand impressively.

"My objection is, sir, that a gross fraud has been practised on this court. It has come to my attention that somebody connected with this proceeding has furnished a material witness for the defense with a ticket for Chicago and one thousand rubles as a bribe to stay away from the hearing."