The Competitive Nephew Part 52

The conversation took place in the business premises of Mr. Borrochson, a small, poorly-stocked store on Third Avenue, one Sunday morning in January, which is always a precarious month in the jewellery trade.

"If it should be the last word what I ever told it you, Mr. Wolfson,"

Borrochson declared, "I ain't got even a piece of wrapping-paper on memorandum. Everything in my stock is a straight purchase at sixty and ninety days. You can take my word for it."

Mr. Wolfson nodded.

"When I close the deal to buy the place, Borrochson," he said, "I'll take more as your word for it. You got a writing from me just now, and I'll get a writing from you. I'll take your affidavit, the same what Henry D. Feldman draws it in every case when I buy stores. There ain't never no mistakes in them affidavits, neither, Borrochson, otherwise the party what makes it is got ten years to wait before he makes another one."

"Sure, I know it, you can make me arrested if I faked you, Mr.

Wolfson," Borrochson replied, "but this is straight goods."

"And how about them showcases?" Wolfson asked.

"Only notes I give it for 'em," Borrochson answered him. "I ain't give a chattel mortgage or one of them conditional bill-off-sales on so much as a tin tack."

"Well, Feldman will look out for that, Borrochson," Wolfson replied, "and the safe, too."

Borrochson started.

"I thought I told it you about the safe," he exclaimed.

"You ain't told me nothing about the safe," Wolfson answered. "The writing what I give you says the stock and fixtures."

Borrochson took out the paper which Wolfson had just signed, and examined it carefully.

"You're wrong," Borrochson said. "I stuck it in the words 'without the safe' before you signed it."

Wolfson rose heavily to his feet.

"Let see it the writing," he said, making a grab for it.

"It's all right," Borrochson replied. "Here it is, black on white, 'without the safe.'"

"Then you done me out of it," Wolfson cried.

"I didn't done you out of nothing," Borrochson retorted. "You should of read it over before you signed it, and, anyhow, what difference does the safe make? It ain't worth fifty dollars if it was brand-new."

"Without a safe a jewellery stock is nothing," Wolfson said. "So if you told it me you wouldn't sell the safe I wouldn't of signed the paper.

You cheated me."

He walked toward the door of the store and had about reached it when it burst open to admit a tall, slight man with haggard face and blazing eyes. He rushed past Wolfson, who turned and stared after him.

"Mr. Borrochson," the newcomer cried, "what's the use your fooling me any longer? Five hundred dollars I will give for the safe, and that's my last word."

"Sss.h.!.+" Borrochson hissed, and drew his visitor toward the end of the store. There a whispered conversation took place with frequent outbursts of sacred and profane exclamations from the tall, slender person, who finally smacked Borrochson's face with a resounding slap and ran out of the store.

"Bloodsucker!" he yelled as he slammed the door behind him. "You want my life."

Wolfson stared first at the departing stranger and then at Borrochson, who was thoughtfully rubbing his red and smarting cheek.

"It goes too far!" Borrochson cried. "Twicet already he does that to me and makes also my nose bleed. The next time I make him arrested."

"What's the matter with him?" Wolfson asked. "Is he crazy?"

"He makes me crazy," Borrochson replied. "I wish I never seen the safe."

"The safe!" Wolfson exclaimed. "What's he got to do with the safe?"

"Oh, nothing," Borrochson answered guardedly; "just a little business between him and me about it."

"But, Mr. Borrochson," Wolfson coaxed, "there can't be no harm in telling me about it."

He handed a cigar to Borrochson, who examined it suspiciously and put it in his pocket.

"Seed tobacco always makes me a stomachache," he said, "unless I smoke it after a meal."

"That ain't no seed tobacco," Wolfson protested; "that's a clear Havana cigar. But anyhow, what's the matter with this here Who's-this and the safe?"

"Well," Borrochson commenced, "the feller's name is Rubin, and he makes it a failure in the jewellery business on Rivington Street last June already. I went and bought the safe at the receiver's sale, and ever since I got it yet he bothered the life out of me I should sell him back the safe."

"Well, why don't you do it?"

"Because we can't come to terms," Borrochson replied. "He wants to give me five hundred for the safe, and I couldn't take it a cent less than seven-fifty."

"But what did you give for the safe when you bought it originally already?" Wolfson asked.

"Forty-five dollars."

Wolfson whistled.

"What's the matter with it?" he said finally.

"To tell you the candid and honest truth," Borrochson replied, "I don't see nothing the matter with the safe. Fifty dollars I paid it to experts who looked at that safe with telescopes already, like they was doctors, and they couldn't find nothing the matter with it, neither.

The safe is a safe, they say, and that's all there is to it."

Wolfson nodded gravely.

"But there must be something the matter with the safe. Ain't it?"

"Sure, there must be," Borrochson agreed, "and if Rubin don't want to buy it back, either I will blow it up the safe or melt it down."

"That would be a foolish thing to do," Wolfson said.

"Well, if the safe is worth five hundred to Rubin," Borrochson declared, "it's worth seven hundred and fifty to me. That's the way I figure it."

Wolfson blew great clouds from one of his seed tobacco cigars and pondered for a minute.

"I tell you what I'll do, Borrochson," he said at last. "Give me a day to examine the safe and I'll make you an offer right now of five hundred and fifty for it."