The Competitive Nephew Part 12

"What d'ye mean, to-morrow is fixed for the wedding?" Fatkin retorted indignantly. "Do you want to get married on my money yet?"

"I don't want the money to get married on," Sternsilver protested. "I want it for something else again."

"My worries! What you want it for?" Fatkin concluded, with a note of finality in his tone. "I would _oser_ give you twenty-five cents."

"'S enough, Fatkin!" Sternsilver declared. "I heard enough from you already. You was the one which got me into this _Schlemazel_ and now you should get me out again."

"What do you mean, getting you into a _Schlemazel_?"

"You know very well what I mean," Philip replied; "and, furthermore, Fatkin, you are trying to make too free with me. Who are you, anyhow, you should turn me down when I ask you for a few days twenty-five dollars? You act so independent, like you would be the foreman."

Hillel nodded slowly, not without dignity.

"Never mind, Sternsilver," he said; "if my family would got a relation, y'understand, which he is working in Poliakoff's Bank and he is got to run away on account he is missing in five thousand rubles, which it is the same name Sternsilver, and everybody in Kovno--the children even--knows about it, understand me, I wouldn't got to be so stuck up at all."

Sternsilver flushed indignantly.

"Do you mean to told me," he demanded, "that I got in my family such a man which he is stealing five thousand rubles, Fatkin?"

"That's what I said," Hillel retorted.

"Well, it only goes to show what a liar you are," Sternsilver rejoined.

"Not only was it he stole ten thousand rubles, y'understand, but the bank was run by a feller by the name Louis Moser."

"All right," Fatkin said as he started up his sewing-machine by way of signifying that the interview was at an end. "All right, Sternsilver; if you got such a relation which he _ganvered_ ten thousand rubles, y'understand, borrow from him the twenty-five dollars."

Thus Sternsilver was obliged to amend his resolution by subst.i.tuting Jersey City for Philadelphia as the seat of his new start in life; and at half-past eleven that evening, when the good ferryboat _Cincinnati_ drew out of her slip at the foot of Desbrosses Street, a short, thick-set figure leaned over her bow and gazed sadly, perhaps for the last time, at the irregular sky-line of Manhattan. It was Sternsilver.

When Mr. Seiden arrived at his factory the following morning he found his entire force of operators gathered on the stairway and overflowing on to the sidewalk.

"What is the matter you are striking on me?" he cried.

"Striking!" Hillel Fatkin said. "What do you mean, striking on you, Mr.

Seiden? We ain't striking. Sternsilver ain't come down this morning and n.o.body was here he should open up the shop."

"Do you mean to told me Sternsilver ain't here?" Seiden exclaimed.

"All right; then I'm a liar, Mr. Seiden," Hillel replied. "You asked me a simple question, Mr. Seiden, and I give you a plain, straightforward answer. My _Grossvater_, _olav hasholam_, which he was a very learned man--for years a rabbi in Tels.h.i.+--used to say: 'If some one tells you you are lying, understand me, and----"

At this juncture Seiden opened the factory door and the entire mob of workmen plunged forward, sweeping Hillel along, with his quotation from the ethical maxims of his grandfather only half finished. For the next quarter of an hour Seiden busied himself in starting up his factory and then he repaired to the office to open the mail.

In addition to three or four acceptances of invitations there was a dirty envelope bearing on its upper left-hand corner the mark of a third-rate Jersey City hotel. Seiden ripped it open and unfolded a sheet of letter paper badly scrawled in Roman capitals as follows:

"December 12.

"I. SEIDEN:

"We are come to tell you which Mr. Philip Sternsilver is gone out West to Kenses Citter. So don't fool yourself he would not be at the wedding. What do you think a fine man like him would marry such a cow like Miss Bessie Saphir?

"And oblige yours truly,

"A. WELLWISHER."

For at least a quarter of an hour after reading the letter Mr. Seiden sat in his office doing sums in mental arithmetic. He added postage on invitations to cost of printing same and carried the result in his mind; next he visualized in one column the sum paid for furnis.h.i.+ng Bessie's flat, the price of Mrs. Seiden's new dress--estimated; caterers' fees for serving dinner and hire of New Riga Hall. The total fairly stunned him, and for another quarter of an hour he remained seated in his chair. Then came the realization that twenty-five commission houses, two high-grade drummers, and at least five customers, rating L to J credit good, were even then preparing to attend a groomless wedding; and he spurred himself to action.

He ran to the telephone, but as he grabbed the receiver from the hook he became suddenly motionless.

"_Nu_," he murmured after a few seconds. "Why should I make a d.a.m.n fool of myself and disappoint all them people for a greenhorn like Sternsilver?"

Once more he sought his chair, and incoherent plans for retrieving the situation chased one another through his brain until he felt that his intellect was giving way. It was while he was determining to call the whole thing off that Hillel Fatkin entered.

"Mr. Seiden," he said, "could I speak to you a few words something?"

He wore an air of calm dignity that only a long rabbinical ancestry can give, and his errand in his employer's office was to announce his impending resignation, as a consequence of Seiden's offensive indifference to the memory of Hillel's grandfather. When Seiden looked up, however, his mind reverted not to Hillel's quotation of his grandfather's maxims, but to Sternsilver's conversation on the day of the betrothal; and Hillel's dignity suggested to him, instead of distinguished ancestry, a savings-bank account of two hundred dollars.

He jumped immediately to his feet.

"Sit down, Fatkin," he cried.

Hillel seated himself much as his grandfather might have done in the house of an humble disciple, blending dignity and condescension in just the right proportions.

"So," he said, referring to Mr. Seiden's supposed contrition for the affront to the late rabbi, "when it is too late, Mr. Seiden, you are sorry."

"What do you mean, sorry?" Mr. Seiden replied. "Believe me, Fatkin, I am glad to be rid of the feller. I could get just as good foremen as him without going outside this factory even--for instance, you."

"Me!" Fatkin cried.

"Sure; why not?" Seiden continued. "A foreman must got to be fresh to the operators, anyhow; and if you ain't fresh, Fatkin, I don't know who is."

"Me fres.h.!.+" Fatkin exclaimed.

"I ain't kicking you are too fresh, y'understand," Seiden said. "I am only saying you are fresh enough to be a foreman."

Fatkin shrugged. "Very well, Mr. Seiden," he said in a manner calculated to impress Seiden with the magnitude of the favour. "Very well; if you want me to I would go to work as foreman for you."

Seiden with difficulty suppressed a desire to kick Hillel and smiled blandly.

"_Schon gut_," he said. "You will go to work Monday morning."

"Why not to-day, Mr. Seiden?" Hillel asked.

Seiden smiled again and this time it was not so bland as it was mechanical, suggesting the pulling of an invisible string.

"Because, Fatkin, you are going to be too busy to-day," Seiden replied.

"A feller couldn't start in to work as a foreman and also get married all in one day."

Hillel stared at his employer.