Potash & Perlmutter Part 19

"Don't touch 'em," Hymie said. "Just you have a look at this sample-table first."

Hymie seized Morris by the arm and turned him around until he faced the velveteen.

"Ain't them peaches, Mawruss?" he asked.

Morris stared at the diamonds, almost hypnotized by their brilliancy.

"Them stones belong to you, Mawruss," Hymie went on, "if I don't pay you inside of two weeks the thousand dollars what you're going to lend me."

"We ain't going to lend you no thousand dollars, Hymie," Morris said at last, "because we ain't got it to lend. We need it in our own business, Hymie, and, besides, you got the wrong idee. We ain't no p.a.w.nbrokers, Hymie; we are in the cloak and suit business."

"Hymie knows it all about that, Mawruss," Abe broke in, "and he shows he ain't no crook, neither. If he's willing to trust you with them diamonds, Mawruss, we should be willing to trust him with a thousand dollars. Ain't it?"

"He could trust me with the diamonds, Abe, because I ain't got no use for diamonds," Morris replied. "If anyone gives me diamonds that I should take care of it into the safe they go. I ain't a person what sticks diamonds all over myself, Abe, and I don't buy no tchampanyer wine one day and come around trying to lend it from people a thousand dollars the next day, Abe."

"It was my wife's birthday," Hymie explained; "and if I got to spend it my last cent, Mawruss, I always buy tchampanyer on my wife's birthday."

"All right, Hymie," Morris retorted; "if you think it so much of your wife, lend it from her a thousand dollars."

"Make an end, make an end," Abe cried; "I hear it enough already. Put them diamonds in the safe and we give Hymie a check for a thousand dollars."

Morris shrugged his shoulders.

"All right, Abe," he said. "Do what you please, but remember what I tell it you now. I don't know nothing about diamonds and I don't care nothing about diamonds, and if it should be that we got to keep it the diamonds I don't want nothing to do with them. All I want it is my share of the thousand dollars."

He turned on his heel and banged the show-room door behind him, while Abe pulled up the shades and Hymie turned off the lights.

"That's a fine crank for you, Abe," Hymie exclaimed.

Abe said nothing, but sat down and wrote out a check for a thousand dollars.

"I hope them diamonds is worth it," he murmured, handing the check to Hymie.

"If they ain't," Hymie replied as he made for the door, "I'll eat 'em, Abe, and I ain't got too good a di-gestion, neither."

At intervals of fifteen minutes during the remainder of the afternoon Morris visited the safe and inspected the diamonds until Abe was moved to criticise his partner's behavior.

"Them diamonds ain't going to run away, Mawruss."

"Maybe they will, Abe," Morris replied, "if we leave the safe open and people comes in and out all the time."

"So far, n.o.body ain't took nothing out of that safe, Mawruss," Abe retorted; "but if you want to lock the safe I'm agreeable."

"What for should we lock the safe?" Morris asked. "We are all the time getting things out of it what we need. Ain't it? A better idee I got it, Abe, is that you should put on the ring and I will wear the pin, or you wear the pin and I will put on the ring."

"No, siree, Mawruss," Abe replied. "If I put it on a big pin like that and I got to take it off again in a week's time might I would catch a cold on my chest, maybe. Besides, I ain't built for diamonds, Mawruss.

So, you wear 'em both, Mawruss."

Morris forced a hollow laugh.

"Me wear 'em, Abe!" he exclaimed. "No, siree, Abe, I'm not the kind what wears diamonds. I leave that to sports like Hymie Kotzen."

Nevertheless, he placed the ring on the third finger of his left hand, with the stone turned in, and carefully wrapping up the pin in tissue-paper he placed it in his waistcoat pocket. The next day was Wednesday, and he screwed the pin into his s.h.i.+rt-front underneath a four-in-hand scarf. On Thursday he wore the ring with the stone exposed, and on Friday he discarded the four-in-hand scarf for a bow tie and shamelessly flaunted both ring and pin.

"Mawruss," Abe commented on Sat.u.r.day, "must you stick out your little finger when you smoke it a cigar?"

"Habits what I was born with, Abe," Morris replied. "I can't help it none."

"Maybe you was born with a diamond ring on your little finger. What?"

Abe jeered.

Morris glared at his partner.

"If you think that I enjoy it wearing that ring, Abe," he declared, "you are much mistaken. You got us to take these here diamonds, Abe, and if they got stole on us, Abe, we are not only out the thousand dollars, but we would also got to pay it so much more as Hymie Kotzen would sue us for in the courts. I got to wear this here ring, Abe, and that's all there is to it."

He walked away to the rear of the store with the air of a martyr, while Abe gazed after him in silent admiration.

Two weeks sped quickly by, during which Morris safeguarded the diamonds with the utmost zest and enjoyment, and at length the settling day arrived. Morris was superintending the unpacking of piece goods in the cutting-room when Abe darted upstairs.

"Mawruss," he hissed, "Hymie Kotzen is downstairs."

By a feat of legerdemain that a conjurer might have envied, Morris transferred the pin and ring to his waistcoat pocket and followed Abe to the show-room.

"Well, Hymie," Morris cried, "we thought you would be prompt on the day.

Ain't it?"

Hymie smiled a sickly smirk in which there was as little mirth as there was friendliness.

"You got another think coming," Hymie replied.

"What d'ye mean?" Morris exclaimed.

"I'm up against it, boys," Hymie explained. "I expected to get it a check for two thousand from h.e.l.ler, Blumenkrohn this morning."

"And didn't it come?" Abe asked.

"Sure it come," Hymie replied, "but it was only sixteen hundred and twenty dollars. They claim it three hundred and eighty dollars for shortage in delivery, so I returned 'em the check."

"You returned 'em the check, Hymie?" Morris cried. "And we got to wait for our thousand dollars because you made it a shortage in delivery."

"I didn't make no shortage in delivery," Hymie declared.

"Well, Hymie," Abe broke in, "you say it yourself h.e.l.ler, Blumenkrohn is gilt-edge, A Number One people. They ain't going to claim no shortage if there wasn't none, Hymie."

"I guess you don't know Louis Blumenkrohn, Abe," Hymie retorted. "He claims it shortage before he unpacks the goods already."

"Well, what has that got to do with us, Hymie?" Morris burst out.

"You see how it is, boys," Hymie explained; "so I got to ask it you a couple of weeks' extension."