The Competitive Nephew Part 14

"What!" Seiden yelled. "And me I am paying him cash three hundred dollars he should marry that girl! Even a certified check he wouldn't accept."

Although this information was not new to Sternsilver, to hear it thus at first hand seemed to infuriate him.

"What!" he howled. "You are giving that greenhorn three hundred dollars yet to marry such a beautiful girl like my Bessie!"

He buried his face in his hands and rocked to and fro in his chair.

"Never mind, Sternsilver," Seiden said comfortingly; "you shouldn't take on so--she ain't so beautiful; and, as for that feller Fatkin----"

"You are talking about me, Mr. Seiden?" said a voice in the doorway.

Sternsilver looked up and once again Wedding Outfit Combination No. 6 conquered; for a.s.suredly, had Fatkin been arrayed in his working clothes, he would have suffered a personal a.s.sault at the hands of his late foreman.

"Mr. Seiden," Fatkin continued, "never mind; I could stand it somebody calls me names, but Mr. Latz wants to know what is become of you for the last quarter of an hour. Mr. Latz tells me during November alone he buys from us eight hundred dollars goods."

"Us!" Seiden cried, employing three inflections to the monosyllable.

Before Seiden could protest further, however, Sternsilver had recovered from the partial hypnosis of Combination No. 6, and he gave tongue like a foxhound:

"_Oe-ee tzuris!_" he wailed.

"_Koos.h.!.+_" Fatkin cried, closing the door. "What do you want here?"

"You know what I want," Sternsilver sobbed. "You are stealing from me three hundred dollars."

Fatkin turned to Seiden and gazed at him reproachfully.

"Mr. Seiden," he said, "what for you are telling me that Sternsilver wouldn't get a cent with Bessie? And you are trying to get me I should be satisfied with a hundred dollars yet. Honestly, Mr. Seiden, I am surprised at you."

"_Schmooes_, Fatkin!" Seiden protested. "I never promised to give him nothing. Dreams he got it."

Sternsilver rose from his seat.

"Do you mean to told me that a greenhorn like him you would give three hundred dollars," he asked, "and me you wouldn't give nothing?"

"You!" Fatkin bellowed. "What are you? You are coming to me throwing a bluff that you got a relation by the name of Sternsilver, which he _ganvers_ ten thousand rubles from Moser's Bank, in Kovno; and this afternoon yet, I find out the feller's name was Steinsilver--not Sternsilver; which he ain't got a relation in the world, y'understand.

Faker!"

Sternsilver nodded his head slowly.

"Faker, am I?" he said. "All right, Mr. Fatkin; if I am a faker I will show you what I would do. You and this here Seiden fix it up between you, because I am all of a sudden sick in the hospital, that you steal away my Bessie and the three hundred dollars also. _Schon gut!_ I would sue you both in the courts _und fertig_!"

"Sternsilver is right, in a way," Seiden said, "even though he is a b.u.m. What for did you write me this letter, Fatkin?"

"Me write you that letter, Mr. Seiden!" Fatkin protested as he looked at the doc.u.ment in question. "Why, Mr. Seiden, I can't write printing.

It is all I can do to write writing. And, besides, Mr. Seiden, until you are telling me about getting married, the idee never enters my head at all."

There could be no mistaking Fatkin's sincerity, and Seiden turned to Sternsilver with a threatening gesture.

"Out!" he cried. "Out of here before I am sending for a policeman to give you arrested."

"Don't make me no bluffs, Seiden!" Sternsilver answered calmly. "Either you would got to settle with me now _oder_ I would go right upstairs and tell them commission houses and customers which you got there all about it. What do you take me for, Seiden--a greenhorn?"

"Fatkin," Seiden commanded, "do you hear what I am telling you? Take this loafer and throw him into the street."

"Me?" Fatkin said. "What are you talking nonsense, Mr. Seiden? I should throw him into the street when I am standing to lose on the coat alone ten dollars!"

Seiden looked at Fatkin and the validity of his objection was at once apparent.

"_Nu_, Sternsilver," he said. "Be a good feller. Here is five dollars.

Go away and leave us alone."

Sternsilver laughed aloud.

"You are talking like I would be a child, Seiden!" he said. "Either you would give me cash a hundred dollars _oder_ I would go right away upstairs to the customers."

Seiden turned to Fatkin.

"Fatkin," he said, "I am giving you this evening three hundred dollars.

Give him a hundred dollars and be done with it."

"What d'ye mean, me give him a hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden?" Fatkin demanded. "They ain't my customers."

At this juncture the proprietor of the hall opened the door.

"Mr. Seiden," he said, "everybody is through eating; so, if you would give me the key to the suitcase which you got the cigars and _Schnapps_ in, Mr. Seiden, I would hand 'em around."

"I'll be there in a minute," Seiden replied. He turned to Sternsilver and made one last appeal. "_Nu_, Sternsilver," he said, "would you take a check?"

"_Oser_ a _Stuck_," Sternsilver declared; but, although for five minutes he maintained his refusal, he finally relented.

"Well, Mr. Seiden," he said, offering his hand, "I congradulate you."

Seiden refused the proffered palm and started for the door. Before he reached it, however, Fatkin grabbed him by the arm.

"At such a time like this, Mr. Seiden," he said, "you couldn't afford to be small."

Once more Sternsilver held out his hand and this time Seiden shook it limply.

"No bad feelings, Mr. Seiden," Sternsilver said, and Seiden shrugged impatiently.

"You, I don't blame at all, Sternsilver," he said. "I am making from my own self a sucker yet. A feller shouldn't never even begin with his wife's relations."

At the end of a year Hillel Fatkin left the employ of the Sanspareil Waist Company to embark in the garment business on his own account.

Many reasons contributed to this move, chief of which was the arrival of a son in Fatkin's household.