Abe and Mawruss Part 7

"Steward," Leon shouted as Moe sat down next to him, "bring me a nice piece of Camembert cheese."

"One moment, Leon," Griesman interrupted; "if you bring that stuff under my nose here I would never buy from you a dollar's worth more goods so long as I live!"

"The feller goes too far, Abe," he said, after Leon had cancelled the order and departed to drink his coffee in the smoking room. "The feller goes too far. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on deck, and the way I felt, Abe, my worst enemy wouldn't got to feel it. Do you believe me, Abe, that feller got the nerve to offer me a cigar yet! It pretty near finished me up. He only done it out of spite, Abe, but I fooled him. I took the cigar and I got it in my pocket right now."

"Don't show me," Abe cried hurriedly. "I'll tell you the truth: there ain't nothing in the smoking habit. I'm going to cut it out. Waiter, bring me only a plate of clear soup and some dry toast. There ain't no need for a feller to smoke, Moe; it's only an extra expense."

"I think you're right, Abe," Moe said; "but I know that this here cigar cost Leon a quarter on board s.h.i.+p here, and I thought I would show him he shouldn't get so gay."

Despite Abe's resolution, however, a large black cigar protruded from his moustache when he stood on the wharf at Cherbourg, twenty-four hours later, and a small, ill-shaven stevedore, clad in a dark blouse and shabby corduroy trousers, pointed to the cloud of smoke that issued from Abe's lips and chattered a voluble protest.

"What does he say, Moe?" Abe asked.

"I don't know," Moe replied. "He's talking French."

"French!" Abe exclaimed. "What are you trying to do--kid me? A dirty _schlemiel_ of a greenhorn like him should talk French! What an idee!"

Nevertheless, Abe was made to throw away his cigar, and it was not until the quartette were snugly enclosed in a first-cla.s.s compartment en route to Paris that Abe felt safe to indulge in another cigar. He explored his pockets, but without result.

"Moe," he said, "do you got maybe another cigar on you?"

"I'm smoking the one which Leon give it me on the s.h.i.+p the other day,"

Moe replied. "Leon, be a good feller; give him a cigar."

"I give you my word, Moe, this is the last one," Leon replied as he bit the end off a huge invincible.

"You got something there bulging in your vest pocket, Abe. Why don't you smoke it?"

"That ain't a cigar," Abe answered; "that's a fountain pen."

"Smoke it anyhow," Leon advised; "because the only cigars you could get on this train is French Government cigars, and I'd sooner tackle a fountain pen as one of them rolls of spinach."

"That's a country!" Abe commented. "Couldn't even get a decent cigar here!"

"In Paris you could get plenty good cigars," Hymie Salzman said, and Hymie was right for, at the Gare St. Lazare, M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi, _commissionnaire_, awaited them, his pockets literally spilling red-banded perfectos at every gesture of his lively fingers. M.

Kaufmann-Levi spoke English, French, and German with every muscle of his body from the waist up.

"Welcome to France, Mr. Potash," he said. "You had a good voyage, doubtless; because you Americans are born sailors."

"Maybe we are born sailors," Abe admitted, "but I must of grew out of it. I tell you the honest truth, if I could go back by trolley, and it took a year, I would do it."

"The weather is always more settled in July than in August," said M.

Kaufmann-Levi, "and I wouldn't worry about the return trip just now. I have rooms for you gentlemen all on one floor of a hotel near the Opera, and taximeters are in waiting. After you have settled we will take dinner together."

Thus it happened that, at half past six that evening, M. Kaufmann-Levi conducted his four guests from the Restaurant Marguery to a sidewalk table of the Cafe de la Paix, and for almost an hour they watched the crowd making its way to the Opera.

"You see, Moe," Abe said, "everything is tunics this year; tunics _oder_ chiffon overskirts, net collars and yokes."

Moe nodded absently. His eyes were glued to a lady sitting at the next table.

"You got to come to Paris to see 'em, Abe," he murmured. "They don't make 'em like that in America."

"We make as good garments in America as anywhere," Abe protested.

"Garments I ain't talking about at all," Moe whispered hoa.r.s.ely; "I mean peaches. Did y'ever see anything like that lady there sitting next to you? Look at the get-up, Abe. Ain't it chic?"

"It's a pretty good-looking model, Moe," Abe replied, "but a bit too plain for us. See all the fancy-looking garments there are round here."

"Plain nothing!" Moe muttered. "Look at the way it fits her. I tell you, Abe, the French ladies know how to wear their clothes."

A moment later the couple at the next table pa.s.sed along toward the Opera, and once more Abe and Moe turned their attention to the crowds on the boulevard.

For the remainder of their stay in Paris Abe and Leon spent their time in a ceaseless hunt for new models and their nights in plying Moe Griesman with entertainment. It cannot be said that Moe discouraged them to any marked degree, for while he occasionally hinted to Abe that the New York cloak and suit trade was an open market, and garment buyers had a large field from which to choose, he also told Leon that he saw no reason why he should not continue to buy goods from Sammet Brothers, provided the prices were right.

Nearly every evening found them sitting at the corner table of the Cafe de la Paix, and upon many of these occasions the next table was occupied by the same couple that sat there on the night of Abe's arrival in Paris.

"You know, Abe, that dress is the most uniquest thing in Paris," Moe exclaimed on the evening of the last day in Paris. "I ain't seen nothing like it anywhere."

"Good reason, Moe," Leon Sammet cried; "it's rotten. That's one of last year's models."

"What are you talking nonsense? One of the last year's models!" Moe Griesman cried indignantly. "Don't you think I know a new style when I see it?"

"Moe is right, Leon," Abe said. "You ain't got no business to talk that way at all. The style is this year's model."

"Of course, Abe," Leon said with ironic precision, "when a judge like you says something, y'understand, then it's so. Take another of them sixty-cent ice-creams, Moe."

Ordinarily Abe would have turned Leon's sarcasm with a retort in kind, but Leon's remark fell on deaf ears, for Abe was listening to a conversation at the next table and the language was English.

"It's time to start back to the hotel," said the young lady to her escort, who was an elderly gentleman.

Abe turned to Moe and Leon.

"Excuse me for a few minutes," he said; "I got to go back to the hotel for something."

He handed Leon a twenty-franc piece.

"If I shouldn't get back, pay the bill!" he cried, and jumping to his feet he followed the couple from the next table.

The old gentleman walked feebly with the aid of a cane, and the young lady held him by the arm as they proceeded to the main entrance of the Grand Hotel. Abe dogged their footsteps until the old gentleman disappeared into the lift and the young lady retired to the winter garden that forms the interior court of the hotel. As she seated herself in a wicker chair Abe approached with his hat in his hand.

"Lady, excuse me," he began; "I ain't no loafer. I'm in the cloak and suit business, and I would like to speak to you a few words--something very particular."

The young lady turned in her chair. She was not alarmed, only surprised.

"I hope you don't think I am asking you anything out of the way," Abe said, without further prelude; "but you got a dress on, lady, which I don't know how much you paid for it, but if three hundred of these here--now--francs would be any inducement I'd like to buy it from you.

Of course I wouldn't ask you to take it off right now, but if you would leave it at the clerk's desk here I could call for it in half an hour."

The young lady made no reply, instead she threw back her head and laughed heartily.