The Competitive Nephew Part 32

"You don't tell me," Eschenbach commented. "And how do you find it works?"

"W-e-e-ll, I tell yer," Birsky commenced, "of course we ourselves got to donate already five hundred dollars to start the thing, Mr.

Eschenbach."

While he made this startling declaration he gazed steadily at Finkman, who was moving his head in a slow and skeptic nodding, as one who says: "_Yow! Ich glaub's._"

"Five hundred dollars it costs us only to-day yet, Mr. Eschenbach,"

Birsky went on, clearing his throat pompously; "but certainly, Mr.

Eschenbach, in the end it pays us."

"How do you make that out?" Finkman demanded gruffly.

"Why, the money remains on deposit with a bank," Birsky explained, "and every week for five weeks we deduct from the operators' wages also one dollar a week, which we put with the five hundred we are giving."

Finkman continued to nod more briskly in a manner that proclaimed: "I see the whole thing now."

"So that at the end of five weeks," Birsky went on, "every operator is got coming to him ten dollars."

Finkman snorted cynically.

"Coming to him!" he said with satirical emphasis.

"Coming to him," Birsky retorted, "that's what I said, Finkman; and the whole idee is very fine for us as well as for them."

"I should say so," Finkman commented; "because at the end of five weeks you got in bank a thousand dollars which you ain't paying no interest on to n.o.body."

"With us, a thousand dollars don't figure so much as like with some people, Finkman," Birsky retorted; "and our idee is that if we should keep the money on deposit it's like a security that our operators wouldn't strike on us so easy. Furthermore, Finkman, if you are doubting our good faith, understand me, let me say that Mr. Eschenbach is welcome he should come round to my place to-morrow morning yet and I would show him everything is open and aboveboard, like a lodge already."

"Why, I should be delighted to see how this thing works with you, Mr.

Birsky," Eschenbach said. "I suppose you know what an interest I am taking in welfare work of this description."

"I think he had a sort of an idee of it," Finkman interrupted, "when he b.u.t.ts in here."

Again Eschenbach smiled beneficently on the rival manufacturers in an effort to preserve the peace.

"I should like to have some other details from your plan, Mr. Birsky,"

he said. "How do you propose to spend this money?"

Birsky drew back his chair from the table.

"It's a long story, Mr. Eschenbach," he replied; "and if it's all the same to you I would tell you the whole thing round at my place to-morrow morning."

He rose to his feet and, searching in his waistcoat pocket, produced a card that he laid on the table in front of Eschenbach.

"Here is our card, Mr. Eschenbach," he said, "and I hope we could look for you at eleven o'clock, say."

"Make it half-past ten, Mr. Birsky," Eschenbach replied as he extended his hand in farewell. "Will you join me there, Mr. Finkman?"

Finkman nodded sulkily.

"I will if I got the time, Mr. Eschenbach," he said; "_aber_ don't rely on me too much."

A malicious smile spread itself over Birsky's face as he started to leave.

"Me and my partner is going to feel terrible disappointed if you don't show up, Finkman," he declared; and with this parting shot he hurried back to his place of business.

"Say, Barney," he said after he had removed his hat, "ain't it surprising what a back number a feller like Charles Finkman is?"

"We should be such back numbers as Finkman & Maisener, Louis," Barney commented dryly, "with a rating two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand, first credit."

"Even so," Louis commented, "the feller surprises me--he is such an iggeramus. Actually, Barney, he says he never knew that a single garment manufacturer in the city of New York is got in his shop one of them there mutual aid affairs. 'Why, Mr. Finkman,' I says, 'we ourselves got such a mutual aid society,' I says; and right away Eschenbach says he would come round here to-morrow morning and see how the thing works. So you should tell Kanef he should fix over them racks to show up well them changeable taffetas. Also, Barney, you should tell Kanef to put them serges and the other stickers back of the piece goods; and----"

At this point Barney raised a protesting hand.

"One moment, Louis," he cried. "What d'ye mean Eschenbach comes to-morrow?"

"Why, Eschenbach is interested in our mutual aid society; and----"

"Our mutual aid society!" Barney cried. "What are you talking about, our mutual aid society?"

"Well, then, Golnik's mutual aid society," Louis continued.

"Golnik's mutual aid society!" exclaimed Zapp. "Golnik ain't got no mutual aid society no more, Birsky. I told him after you are gone to lunch, Birsky, that if him _oder_ anybody else round here even so much as mentions such a thing to us again we would fire 'em right out of here, contracts _oder_ no contracts."

Birsky sat down in a chair and gazed mournfully at his partner.

"You told him that, Zapp?" he said.

"I certainly did," Zapp replied. "What do you think I would tell him after the way Feigenbaum takes on so?"

Birsky nodded his head slowly.

"That's the way it goes, Zapp," he said. "I am sitting there in Hammersmith's half an hour already, scheming how we should get Eschenbach round here so he should look over our line--which I didn't hardly eat nothing at all, understand me--and you go to work and knock away the ground from under my toes already!"

"What d'ye mean, I am knocking away the ground from under your toes?"

Zapp cried indignantly. "What has Golnik's mutual aid society got to do _mit_ your toes, Birsky--_oder_ Eschenbach, neither?"

"It's got a whole lot to do with it," Birsky declared. "It's got everything to do with it; in fact, Barney, if it wouldn't be that I am telling Eschenbach we got a mutual aid society here he wouldn't come round here at all."

"That's all right," Zapp said. "He ain't in the mutual aid society business--he's in the drygoods business, Louis; and so soon as we showed him them changeable taffetas at eight dollars he would quick forget all about mutual aid societies."

Birsky shook his head emphatically.

"That's where you make a big mistake, Barney," he replied; and forthwith he unfolded to Zapp a circ.u.mstantial narrative of his encounter with Eschenbach and Finkman at Hammersmith's cafe.

"So you see, Barney," he continued, "if we are ever going to do business _mit_ Eschenbach, understand me, for a start the mutual aid society is everything and the changeable taffetas don't figure at all."

"But I thought you are saying this morning you wouldn't want to do business _mit_ Eschenbach," Zapp protested.