Potash & Perlmutter Part 28

Abe nodded again. If the guilt he felt inwardly had expressed itself in his face there would have been no need of confession. At length he braced himself to tell it all; but just as he cleared his throat by way of prelude Morris was summoned to the cutting-room and remained there until closing-time. Thus, when Abe went home his secret remained locked up within his breast, nor did he find it a comfortable burden, for when he looked at the quotations of curb securities in the evening paper he found that Interstate Copper had closed at four and a half, after a total day's business of sixty thousand shares.

The next morning Abe reached his store more than two hours after his usual hour. He had rolled on his pillow all night, and it was almost day before he could sleep.

"Why, Abe," Morris cried when he saw him, "you look sick. What's the matter?"

"I feel mean, Mawruss," Abe replied. "I guess I eat something what disagrees with me."

Ordinarily, Morris would have made rejoinder to the effect that when a man reached Abe's age he ought to know enough to take care of his stomach; but Morris had devoted himself to the financial column of a morning newspaper on his way downtown, and his feelings toward his partner were mollified in proportion.

"That's too bad, Abe," he said. "Why don't you see a doctor?"

Abe shook his head and was about to reply when the telephone bell rang.

"That's Sol Klinger," Morris exclaimed. "He said he would let me know at ten o'clock what this Interstate Copper opened at."

He darted for the telephone in the rear of the store, and when he returned his face was wreathed in smiles.

"It has come up to five already," he cried. "We make it twenty-five hundred dollars."

While Morris was talking over the 'phone Abe had been trying to bring his courage to the sticking point, and the confession was on the very tip of his tongue when the news which Morris brought forced it back again. He rose wearily to his feet.

"I guess you think we're getting rich quick, Mawruss," he said, and repaired to the bookkeeper's desk in the firm's private office. For the next two hours and a half he dodged about, with one eye on Morris and the other on the rear entrance to the store. He expected the silk to arrive at any moment, and he knew that when it did the jig would be up.

It was with a sigh of relief that he saw Morris go out to lunch at half-past twelve, and almost immediately afterward Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's truckman arrived with the goods. Abe superintended the disposal of the packing cases in the cutting-room, and he was engaged in opening them when Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, entered.

"Mr. Potash," she said, "Mr. Perlmutter wants to see you in the show-room."

"Did he come back from lunch so soon?" Abe asked.

"He came in right after he went out," she replied. "I guess he must be sick. He looks sick."

Abe turned pale.

"I guess he found it out," he said to himself as he descended the stairs and made for the show-room. When he entered he found Morris seated in a chair with the first edition of an evening paper clutched in his hand.

"What's the matter, Mawruss?" Abe said.

Morris gulped once or twice and made a feeble attempt to brandish the paper.

"Matter?" he croaked. "Nothing's the matter. Only, we are out twenty-five hundred dollars. That's all."

"No, we ain't, Mawruss," Abe protested. "What we are out in one way we make in another."

Morris sought to control himself, but his pent-up emotions gave themselves vent.

"We do, hey?" he roared. "Well, maybe you think because I took your fool advice this oncet that I'll do it again?"

He grew red in the face.

"Gambler!" he yelled. "Fool! You shed my blood! What? You want to ruin me! Hey?"

Abe had expected a tirade, but nothing half as violent as this.

"Mawruss," he said soothingly, "don't take it so particular."

He might as well have tried to stem Niagara with a shovel.

"Ain't the cloak and suit business good enough for you?" Morris went on.

"Must you go throwing away money on stocks from stock exchanges?"

Abe scratched his head. These rhetorical questions hardly fitted the situation, especially the one about throwing away money.

"Look-y here, Mawruss," he said, "if you think you scare me by this theayter acting you're mistaken. Just calm yourself, Mawruss, and tell me what you heard it. I ain't heard nothing."

For answer Morris handed him the evening paper.

"Sensational Failure in Wall Street," was the red-letter legend on the front page. With bulging eyes Abe took in the import of the leaded type which disclosed the news that Gunst & Baumer, promoters of Interstate Copper, having boosted its price to five, were overwhelmed by a flood of profit-taking. To support their stock Gunst & Baumer were obliged to buy in all the Interstate offered at five, and when at length their resources gave out they announced their suspension. Interstate immediately collapsed and sold down in less than a quarter of an hour from five bid, five and a thirty-second asked, to a quarter bid, three-eighths asked.

Abe handed back the paper to Morris and lit a cigar.

"For a man what has just played his partner for a sucker, Abe," Morris said, "you take it nice and quiet."

Abe puffed slowly before replying.

"After all, Mawruss," he said, "I was right."

"You was right?" Morris exclaimed. "What d'ye mean?"

"I mean, Mawruss," Abe went on, "I figured it out right. I says to myself when I got that check for twenty-five hundred dollars: If I buy this here stock from stock exchanges and we make money Mawruss will go pretty near crazy. He'll want to buy it the whole stock exchange full from stocks, and in the end it will bust us. On the other hand, Mawruss, I figured it out that if we bought this here stock and lose money on it, then Mawruss'll go crazy also, and want to murder me or something."

He paused and puffed again at his cigar.

"So, Mawruss," he concluded, "I went down to Gunst & Baumer's building, Mawruss; but instead of going to Gunst & Baumer, Mawruss, I went one flight lower down to Hill, Arkwright & Thompson's, Mawruss, and I didn't buy it Interstate Copper, Mawruss, but I bought it instead silk foulards, Mawruss--seventy-five hundred dollars' worth for twenty-five hundred dollars, and it's laying right now up in the cutting-room."

He leaned back in his chair and triumphantly surveyed his partner, who had collapsed into a crushed and perspiring heap.

"So, Mawruss," he said, "I am a gambler. Hey? I shed your blood? What? I ruin you with my fool advice? Ain't it?"

Morris raised a protesting hand.

"Abe," he murmured huskily, "I done you an injury. It's me what's the fool. I was carried away by B. Sheitlis' making his money so easy."

Abe jumped to his feet.

"Ho-ly smokes!" he cried and dashed out of the show-room to the telephone in the rear of the store. He returned a moment later with his cigar at a rakish angle to his jutting lower lip.

"It's all right, Mawruss," he said. "I rung up the Koscius...o...b..nk and the two-hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar check went through all right."

"Sure it did," Morris replied, his drooping spirits once more revived.

"I deposited it at eleven o'clock yesterday morning. I don't take no chances on getting stuck, Abe, and I only hope you didn't get stuck on them foulards, neither."