Potash & Perlmutter Part 36

"Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I'm going to leave."

"Going to leave?" Morris cried. "What for?"

"Well, in the first place, I don't like it to be called out of my name," he continued. "Mr. Potash calls me Ike, and my name is Ralph.

If a man's name is Ralph, Mr. Perlmutter, he naturally don't like it to be called Ike."

"I know it," Morris agreed, "but some people ain't got a good memory for names, Ralph. Even myself I forget it names, too, oncet in a while, occasionally."

"But that ain't all, Mr. Perlmutter," Ralph went on. "Yesterday, while you was out, Mr. Potash accuses me something terrible."

"Accuse you?" Morris said. "What does he accuse you for?"

"He accuse me that I ring up my Uncle Max Tuchman and tell him about a Miss Atkinson at the Prince William Hotel," Ralph continued. "I didn't do it, Mr. Perlmutter; believe me. Uncle Max rung me up, and I was going to tell you and Mr. Potash what he rung me up for if you didn't looked at me like I was a pickpocket when I was coming away from the 'phone yesterday."

"I didn't look at you like a pickpocket, Ralph," Morris said. "What did your Uncle Max ring you up for?"

"Why, he wanted me to tell you that so long as you was so kind and gives me this here vacation job I should do you a good turn, too. He says that Miss Atkinson tells him yesterday she was going out oitermobile riding with you, and so he says I should tell you not to go to any expense by Miss Atkinson, on account that she already bought her fall line from Uncle Max when he was in Duluth three weeks ago already; and that she is now in New York strictly on her vacation only, and _not_ to buy goods."

Morris nodded slowly.

"Well, Ralph," he said, "you're a good, smart boy, and I want you to stay until Miss Cohen comes back and maybe we'll raise you a couple of dollars a week till then."

He bit the end off a Heatherbloom Inn cigar. "When a man gets played it good for a sucker like we was," he mused, "a couple of dollars more or less won't harm him none."

"That's what my Uncle Max says when he seen you up at the Heatherbloom Inn yesterday," Ralph commented.

"_He_ seen me up at the Heatherbloom Inn!" Morris cried. "How should he seen me up at the Heatherbloom Inn? I thought he was made it arrested."

"Sure he was made it arrested," Ralph said. "But he fixed it up all right at the station-house, and the sergeant lets him out. So he goes up to the Heatherbloom Inn because when he went right back to the hotel to see after that Miss Taylor the carriage agent tells him a feller chases him up in an oitermobile to the Heatherbloom Inn. But when Uncle Max gets up there you look like you was having such a good time already he hates to interrupt you, so he goes back to the store again."

Morris puffed violently at his cigar.

"That's a fine piece of work," he said, "that Max Tuchman is."

Ralph nodded.

"Sure he is," he replied. "Uncle Max is an up-to-date feller."

CHAPTER XI

"The trouble is with us, Mawruss," Abe Potash declared one afternoon in September, "that we ain't in an up-to-date neighborhood. We should get it a loft in one of them buildings up in Seventeenth, Eighteenth or Nineteenth Street, Mawruss. All the trade is up in that neighborhood."

"I ain't got such a good head for figures like you got it, Abe," Morris Perlmutter replied, "and so I am content we should stay where we are. We done it always a fair business here, Abe. Ain't it?"

"Sure, I know," Abe went on, "but the way it is with out-of-town buyers, Mawruss, they goes where the crowd is, and they ain't going to be bothered to come way downtown for us, Mawruss."

"Well, how about Klinger & Klein, Lapidus & Elenbogen, and all them people, Abe?" Morris asked. "Ain't them out-of-town buyers going to buy goods off of them neither?"

"Klinger & Klein already hire it a fine loft on Nineteenth Street," Abe interposed.

"Well, Abe," Morris rejoined, "Klinger & Klein, like a whole lot of people what I know, acts like monkeys, Abe. They see somebody doing something and they got to do it too."

"If we could do the business what Klinger & Klein done it, Mawruss, I am willing I should act like a monkey."

"Another thing, Abe," Morris went on, "Klinger & Klein sends their work out by contractors. We got it operators and machines, Abe, and you can't have a show-room, cutting-room and machines all in one loft. Ain't it?"

"Well, then we get it two lofts, Mawruss, and then we could put our workrooms upstairs and our show-room and offices downstairs."

"And double our expenses, too, Abe," Morris added. "No, Abe, I don't want to work for no landlord all my life."

"But I seen Marks Henochstein yesterday, Mawruss, and he told it me Klinger & Klein ain't paying half the rent what they pay down here. So, if we could get it two floors we wouldn't increase our expenses, Mawruss, and could do it maybe twicet the business."

"Marks Henochstein is a real-estater, Abe," Morris replied, "and when a real-estater tells you something, you got to make allowances fifty per cent. for facts."

"I know," Abe cried; "but we don't have to hire no loft what we don't want to, Mawruss. Henochstein can't compel you to pay twicet as much what we're paying now. Ain't it? So what is the harm if we should maybe ask him to find a couple of lofts for us? Ain't it?"

"All right, Abe," Morris concluded, "if I must go crazy listening to you talking about it I sooner move first. So go ahead and do what you like."

"Well, the fact is," said Abe, "I told Marks Henochstein he should find it a couple lofts for us this morning, Mawruss, agreeing strictly that we should not pay him nothing, as he gets a commission from the landlord already."

Morris received this admission with a scowl.

"For a feller what's got such a nerve like you got it, Abe," he declared, "I am surprised you should make it such a poor salesman."

"When a man's got it a back-number partner, Mawruss, his hands is full inside and outside the store, and so naturally he loses it a few customers oncet in a while," Abe replied. "But, somebody's got to have nerve in a business, Mawruss, and if I waited for you to make suggestions we would never get nowhere."

Morris searched his mind for an appropriate rejoinder, and had just formulated a particularly bitter jibe when the store door opened to admit two shabbily-dressed females.

"Here, you," Abe called, "operators goes around the alley."

The elder of the two females drew herself up haughtily.

"Operators!" she said with a scornful rising inflection.

"Finishers, also," Abe continued. "This here door is for customers."

"You don't know me, Potash," she retorted. "Might you don't know this lady neither, maybe?"

She indicated her companion, who turned a mournful gaze upon the astonished Abe.

"But we know you, Potash," she went on. "We know you already when you didn't have it so much money what you got now."

Her companion nodded sadly.

"So, Potash," she concluded, "your own wife's people is operators and finishers; what?"