The Competitive Nephew Part 31

"What do you think we are, Golnik," he demanded, "millionaires _oder_ crazy in the head? We got enough to do with our money without we should make a present to a lot of low-life b.u.ms five hundred dollars."

"Well, then, for a start," Golnik said, "make it three hundred and fifty dollars."

"We wouldn't give three hundred and fifty b.u.t.tons, Golnik!" Birsky declared savagely. "If you want to be a mutual aid society, Golnik, n.o.body stops you, _aber_ we wouldn't deduct nothing and we wouldn't donate nothing; so if it's all the same to you, Golnik, you should go ahead on them 1855's and make an end here."

Having thus closed the interview, Louis Birsky turned his back on the disgruntled Golnik, who stood hesitatingly for a brief interval.

"You don't want a little time to think it over maybe?" he suggested.

"Think it over!" Louis bellowed. "What d'ye mean, think it over? If you stop some one which he is trying to pick your pocket, Golnik, would you think it over and let him pick it, Golnik? What for an idee!"

He snorted so indignantly that he brought on a fit of coughing, in the midst of which Golnik escaped, while the bulky figure of One-eye Feigenbaum approached from the elevator.

"What's the matter, boys?" he said as with his remaining eye he surveyed the retreating figure of Jacob Golnik. "Do you got trouble with your designer again?"

Birsky shrugged his shoulders.

"Who ain't got trouble _mit_ a designer, Mr. Feigenbaum?" he asked.

"And the better the designer, y'understand, the more you got trouble _mit_ him. Actually, Mr. Feigenbaum, you wouldn't believe the nerve that feller Golnik is got it. If we wouldn't sit on him all the time, understand me, he tries to run our business for us. Nothing is too much that he asks us we should do for him."

Feigenbaum pawed the air with his right hand and sat down ponderously.

"You ain't got nothing on me, Birsky," he said. "Honestly, if you would be running a drygoods store--and especially a chain of drygoods stores like I got it, understand me--every saleswoman acts like a designer, only worser yet. Do you know what is the latest craze with them girls?"

He emitted a tremulous sigh before answering his own rhetorical question.

"Welfare work!" he continued. "Restrooms and lunchrooms, _mit_ a trained nurse and _Gott weiss was noch_! Did you ever hear the like, Birsky?--I should go to work and give them girls a restroom! I says to Miss McGivney, my store superintendent in Cordova, I says: 'If the girls wants to rest,' I says, 'they should go home,' I says. 'Here we pay 'em to work, not to rest,' I says."

He paused for breath and wiped away an indignant moisture from his forehead.

"In my Bridgetown store they ain't kicking at all," he went on; "_aber_ in my Cordova store--that's different again. There I got that _meshugganeh_ Eschenbach to deal with; which, considering the monkey business which goes on in that feller's place, y'understand, it's a wonder to me that they got any time to attend to business at all. Two people he's got working for him there--a man and a woman--which does nothing but look after this here welfare _Narrischkeit_."

"Go away!" Birsky exclaimed. "You don't say so!"

"The man used to was a _Spieler_ from baseball," Feigenbaum continued; "and him and Eschenbach fixes up a ball team from the clerks and delivery-wagon drivers, which they could lick even a lot of loafers which makes a business of baseball already."

Birsky waggled his head from side to side and made incoherent sounds through his nose by way of expressing his sympathy.

"And yet," Feigenbaum continued, "with all Eschenbach's craziness about baseball and charities, Birsky, he does a big business there in Cordova, which I wish I could say the same. Honestly, Birsky, such a mean lot of salespeople which I got it in Cordova, y'understand, you wouldn't believe at all. They are all the time at doggerheads with me."

"It's the same thing with us here, Mr. Feigenbaum," Birsky said. "Why, would you believe it, Mr. Feigenbaum, just before you come in, understand me, Golnik is trying to hold us up we should donate five hundred dollars for an employees' mutual benefit society!"

Henry Feigenbaum pursed his lips as he listened to Birsky.

"I hope," he said in harsh tones, "you turned 'em down, Birsky."

Birsky nodded.

"I bet yer I did," he replied fervently, "like a shot already."

"Because," Feigenbaum continued, "if any concern which I am dealing with starts any such foolishness as that, Birsky, I wouldn't buy from them a dollar's worth more goods so long as I live--and that's all there is to it."

"We ain't got no such idee in our head at all," Zapp a.s.sured him almost tearfully. "Why, if you would hear the way we jumped on Golnik for suggesting it even, you wouldn't think the feller would work for us any more."

"I'm glad to know it," Feigenbaum said. "Us business men has got to stick together, Zapp, and keep charity where it belongs, understand me; otherwise we wouldn't know whether we are running businesses _oder_ hospitals _mit_ lodgeroom annexes, the way them employees' aid societies is springing up."

He rose to his feet and took off his hat and coat, preparatory to going over Birsky & Zapp's sample line.

"What we want in towns like Bridgetown and Cordova is less charities and more asphalt pavements," he declared. "Every time a feller comes in the store, Birsky, I couldn't tell whether he is a collector for a hospital _oder_ a wagon shop. My delivery system costs me a fortune for repairs already, the pavements is so rotten."

Zapp clucked his tongue sympathetically.

"If it ain't one thing it's another," he said; "so, if you're ready to look over the rest of our line, Mr. Feigenbaum, I could a.s.sure you the first operator which he is going into a mutual aid society here gets fired on the spot, Mr. Feigenbaum. We would start showing you these here washable poplins, which is genuine bargains at one seventy-five apiece."

When Louis Birsky seated himself in Hammersmith's restaurant at one o'clock that afternoon his appet.i.te had been sharpened by a two-thousand dollar order from Henry Feigenbaum, who that noon had departed for his home in western Pennsylvania. Hence Louis attacked a dish of _gefullte Rinderbrust_ with so much ardour that he failed to notice the presence at an adjoining table of Jonas Eschenbach, the philanthropic drygoods merchant; and it was not until Louis had sopped up the last drop of gravy and leaned back in voluptuous contemplation of ordering his dessert that the strident tones of Charles Finkman, senior member of Finkman & Maisener, attracted his attention.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Eschenbach?" Finkman cried. "What brings you to New York?"

"I got to do some additional spring buying the same like every other drygoods merchant," Eschenbach replied. "You've no idee what elegant weather we got it out on the Lakes this spring. Spring styles was selling like hot cakes in March already; and our store employees'

a.s.sociation held a picnic the first Sunday in April which we beat the tar out of a nine from a furniture factory--five to four in a ten-inning game."

"Is that a fact?" Finkman said. "_Aber_ how does it come that you are lunching alone, Mr. Eschenbach?"

"Adelstern was coming with me," Eschenbach replied, "but at the last minute he had to attend the weekly luncheon of his cutting staff. It's wonderful the way that feller has got his workpeople organized, Mr.

Finkman! He's a very enlightened merchant, with a lot of very fine idees for the welfare of his employees. And you can well believe it, Mr. Finkman, goods made under such ideel conditions are very attractive to me. I've been a customer of Adelstern's for many years now; and sometimes, if he ain't got exactly what I am looking for, I take the next best thing from him. I believe in encouraging idees like Adelstern's--especially when he is got a very nifty little ball team in his society, too."

If there was one quality above all others upon which Charles Finkman prided himself it was his philanthropy; and as a philanthropist he yielded precedence to n.o.body. Indeed, his name graced the t.i.tle pages of as many inst.i.tutional reports as there were orphan asylums, hospitals, and homes appurtenant to his religious community within the boundaries of Greater New York; for both he and his partner had long since discovered that as an advertising medium the annual report of a hospital is superior to an entire year's issue of a trade journal, and the cost is distinctly lower. The idea that philanthropy among one's own employees could promote sales had never occurred to him, however, and it came as a distinct shock that he had so long neglected this phase of salesmans.h.i.+p.

"Why, I never thought that any concern in the cloak and suit business was doing such things." Finkman continued; and his tones voiced his chagrin at the discovery of Adelstern's philanthropic innovation. "I knew that drygoods stores like yours, Mr. Eschenbach, they got a lot of enlightened idees, but I never knew n.o.body which is doing such things in the cloak and suit trade."

At this juncture Louis Birsky abandoned his plans for a Saint Honore tart, with Vienna coffee and cream. Instead he conceived a bold stroke of salesmans.h.i.+p, and he turned immediately to Finkman.

"What are you talking nonsense, Mr. Finkman?" he said. "We ourselves got in our place already an employees' mutual aid society, which our designer, Jacob Golnik, is president of it--and all the operators belong yet."

It cannot truthfully be said that Finkman received this information with any degree of enthusiasm; and perhaps, to a person of less rugged sensibilities than Louis Birsky, Finkman's manner might have seemed a trifle chilly as he searched his mind for a sufficiently discouraging rejoinder.

"Of course, Birsky," he growled at last, "when I says I didn't know any concerns in the cloak and suit business which is got a mutual aid society, understand me, I ain't counting small concerns."

"Sure, I know," Birsky replied cheerfully; "but I am telling you, Finkman, that we got such a mutual aid society, which, if you are calling a hundred operators a small concern, Finkman, you got awful big idees, Finkman, and that's all I got to say."

Eschenbach smiled amiably by way of smoothing things over.

"Have your hundred operators formed a mutual aid society, Mr. ----"

"My name is Mr. Birsky," Louis said, rising from his chair; and, without further encouragement, he seated himself at Eschenbach's table, "of Birsky & Zapp; and we not only got a hundred operators, Mr.

Eschenbach, but our cutting-room staff and our office staff also joins the society."