The Competitive Nephew Part 11

Philip nodded vigorously and Mrs. Saphir sat up in her chair.

"Him?" she asked.

"Sure; why not?" Seiden answered.

"But, Mr. Seiden----" Sternsilver cried.

"_Koosh_, Sternsilver," Seiden said. "Don't you mind that woman at all.

If Bessie was my own daughter even, I would give my consent."

"_Aber_, Mr. Seiden----" Sternsilver cried again in anguished tones, but further protest was choked off by Mrs. Saphir, who rose from her seat with surprising alacrity and seized Philip around the neck. For several minutes she kissed him with loud smacking noises, and by the time he had disengaged himself Seiden had brought in Miss Bessie Saphir. As she blus.h.i.+ngly laid her hand in Sternsilver's unresisting clasp Seiden patted them both on the shoulder.

"For a business man, Sternsilver," he said, "long engagements is nix; and to show you that I got a heart, Sternsilver, I myself would pay for the wedding, which would be in two weeks at the latest."

He turned to Mrs. Miriam Saphir.

"I congradulate you," he said. "And now get out of here!"

For the next ten days Mr. and Mrs. Seiden and Miss Saphir were so busy with preparations for the wedding that they had no leisure to observe Sternsilver's behaviour. He proved to be no ardent swain; and, although Bessie was withdrawn from the factory on the day following her betrothal, Sternsilver called at her residence only twice during the first week of their engagement.

"I didn't think the feller got so much sense," Seiden commented when Bessie Saphir complained of Philip's coldness.

"He sees you got your hands full getting ready, so he don't bother you at all."

As for Seiden, he determined to spare no expense, up to two hundred and fifty dollars, in making the wedding festivites greatly redound to his credit both socially and in a business way.

To that end he had dispatched over a hundred invitations to the wholesale houses from which he purchased goods.

"You see what I am doing for you," he said to Sternsilver one morning, a week before the wedding day. "Not only in postage stamps I am spending my money but the printing also costs me a whole lot, too, I bet yer."

"What is the use spending money for printing when you got a typewriter which she is setting half the time doing nothing, Mr. Seiden?" Philip protested.

"That's what I told Mrs. Seiden," his employer replied, "and she goes pretty near crazy. She even wanted me I should got 'em engraved, so _grossartig_ she becomes all of a sudden. Printing is good enough, Sternsilver. Just lookyhere at this now, how elegant it is."

He handed Philip an invitation which read as follows:

MR. AND MRS. I. SEIDEN AND MRS. MIRIAM SAPHIR

REQUEST THE HONOUR OF

THE INTERCOLONIAL TEXTILE COMPANY'S

PRESENCE AT THE MARRIAGE OF HER DAUGHTER

BESSIE

TO

MR. PHILIP STERNSILVER

ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1909, AT SIX O'CLOCK

NEW RIGA HALL, 522 ALLEN STREET, NEW YORK

_Bride's Address:_ c/o SANSPAREIL WAIST COMPANY

ISAAC SEIDEN, _Proprietor_ Waists in Marquisette, Voile, Lingerie, Crepe and Novelty Silks also a Full Line of Lace and Hand-embroidered Waists

800 GREENE STREET, NEW YORK CITY

"What's the use you are inviting a corporation to a wedding, Mr.

Seiden?" Philip said as he returned the invitation with a heavy sigh.

"A corporation couldn't eat nothing, Mr. Seiden."

"Sure, I know," Seiden replied. "I ain't asking 'em they should eat anything, Sternsilver. All I am wanting of 'em is this: Here it is in black and white. Me and Beckie and that old _Schnorrer_, Mrs. Saphir, requests the honour of the Intercolonial Company's presents at the marriage of their daughter. You should know a corporation's presents is just as good as anybody else's presents, Sternsilver. Ain't it?"

Sternsilver nodded gloomily.

"Also I am sending invitations to a dozen of my best customers and to a couple of high-price sales-men. Them fellers should loosen up also oncet in a while. Ain't I right?"

Again Sternsilver nodded and returned to the factory where, at hourly intervals during the following week, Seiden accosted him and issued bulletins of the arrival of wedding presents and the acceptance of invitations to the ceremony.

"What do you think for a couple of small potatoes like Kugel & Mishkin?" he said. "If I bought a cent from them people during the last five years I must of bought three hundred dollars' worth of b.u.t.tons; and they got the nerve to send a half a dozen coffee spoons, which they are so light, y'understand, you could pretty near see through 'em."

Sternsilver received this news with a manner suggesting a cramped swimmer coming up for the second time.

"Never mind, Sternsilver," Seiden continued rea.s.suringly, "we got a whole lot of people to hear from yet. I bet yer the Binder & Baum Manufacturing Company, the least you get from 'em is a piece of cut gla.s.s which it costs, at wholesale yet, ten dollars."

Sternsilver's distress proceeded from another cause, however; for that very morning he had made a desperate resolve, which was no less than to leave the Borough of Manhattan and to begin life anew in Philadelphia.

From the immediate execution of the plan he was deterred only by one circ.u.mstance--lack of funds; and this he proposed to overcome by borrowing from Fatkin. Indeed, when he pondered the situation, he became convinced that Fatkin, as the cause of his dilemma, ought to be the means of his extrication. He therefore broached the matter of a loan more in the manner of a lender than a borrower.

"Say, lookyhere, Fatkin," he said on the day before the wedding, "I got to have some money right away."

Fatkin shrugged philosophically.

"A whole lot of fellers feels the same way," he said.

"Only till Sat.u.r.day week," Sternsilver continued, "and I want you should give me twenty-five dollars."

"Me?" Fatkin exclaimed.

"Sure, you," Sternsilver said; "and I want it now."

"Don't make me no jokes, Sternsilver," Fatkin replied.

"I ain't joking, Fatkin; far from it," Sternsilver declared. "To-morrow it is all fixed for the wedding and I got to have twenty-five dollars."