The Competitive Nephew. Glass Montague
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it a bookkeeper."
"What?" Aaron cried. "Do you mean to say you got the nerve to sit there and tell me you ain't asked me I should bring you a bookkeeper?"
"Why, Aaron," Sam interrupted with a withering glance at his partner. "I ain't saying nothing one way or the other, y'understand, but I don't think Max could of asked you because, only this morning, Aaron, Max and me was talking about this here, now – what's-his-name – and we was saying that nowadays what future was there for a young feller as a bookkeeper? Ain't it? I says to Max distinctively: 'If Aaron would bring us his nephew we would give him a job on stock. Then the first thing you know the boy gets to be a salesman and could make his five thousand dollars a year.' But what could a bookkeeper expect to be? Ain't it? At the most he makes thirty dollars a week, and there he sticks."
"Is that so?" Aaron retorted ironically. "Well, look at Louis Sen. I suppose Louis sticks at thirty a week, hey?"
"Louis Sen is something else again," Sam replied. "Louis Sen is a crook, Aaron, not a bookkeeper. That feller comes into our place two years ago, and he ain't got five cents in his clothes, and we thought we was doing him a charity when we hired him. It reminds you of the feller which picks up a frozen snake and puts it in his pants-pocket to get warm, and the first thing you know, Aaron, the snake wakes up, and bites the feller in the leg. Well, that's the way it was with Louis Sen. Gratitude is something which the feller don't understand at all. But you take this here nephew of yours, and he comes from decent, respectable people, y'understand. There's a young feller, Aaron, what we could trust, Aaron, and so when he comes to work by us on stock, Aaron, we give him a show he should learn all about the business, and you take it from me, Aaron, if the boy ain't going out on the road to sell goods for us in less than two years he ain't as smart as his uncle is, and that's all I can say."
Aaron smiled, and Sam looked triumphantly at his partner.
"All right, Sam," Aaron commented, "I see you got the boy's interest at heart. So I would bring the boy down here on Monday morning. And now, Max, let's get to work on them misses' Norfolk suits. I want eight of them blue serges."
There was something about Miss Miriam Meyerson that suggested many things besides ledgers and trial balances, and she would have been more "in the picture" had she been standing in front of a kitchen table with her sleeves tucked up and a rolling-pin grasped firmly in her large, plump hands.
"I don't know, Sam," Max Fatkin remarked on Monday. "That girl don't look to me an awful lot like business. Mind you, I ain't kicking that she looks too fresh, y'understand, because she reminds me a good deal of my poor mother, selig."
"Ain't that the funniest thing?" Sam Zaretsky broke in. "I was just thinking to myself she is a dead ringer for my sister Fannie. You know my sister, Mrs. Brody?"
"I bet yer," Max Fatkin said fervently. "That's one fine lady, Mrs. Brody. Me and my Esther had dinner there last Sunday. And, while I got to admit my Esther is a good cook, y'understand, Mrs. Brody – that's a good cook, Sam. We had some fleisch kugel there, Sam, I could assure you, better as Delmonico's – the Waldorf, too."
Sam nodded.
"If she is as good a bookkeeper as Fannie is a cook, Max," he replied, "I am satisfied. Sol Klinger says that she is A Number One. Always prompt to the minute and a hard worker."
"Well, why did he fire her, Sam?" Max asked.
"He didn't fire her. She got a sister living in Bridgetown married to Harris Schevrien, and Miss Meyerson goes up there last spring right in the busy time. Of course Klinger & Klein has got to let her go because under the circumstances, Max, she is the only sister Mrs. Schevrien got, y'understand. Then when the baby is two weeks old it gets sick, y'understand, and Miss Meyerson writes 'em not to expect her back before August. Naturally they got to fill her place, but Sol Klinger tells me she is a dandy, Max, and we should be lucky we got her."
"Well, certainly she don't seem to be loafing none," Max commented, with a glance toward the office where Miss Meyerson was making out the monthly statements. "So far what I could see she is working twicet as fast as Louis Sen, and we ain't paying her only fifteen dollars."
"Sure, I know," Sam said, "but you got to consider it we would also got to pay Fillup Pinsky five dollars a week, so we ain't in much on that."
"Why ain't we, Sam? I bet yer we would get our money's worth out of Fillup. That boy ain't going to fool away his time here, Sam, and don't you forget it."
The corners of his mouth tightened in a manner that boded ill for Philip, and his face had not resumed its normal amiability when Aaron Pinsky entered, with his nephew Philip in tow.
"Hallo, boys," he said. "This is the young man I was talking to you about. Fillup, shake hands with Mr. Zaretsky and Mr. Fatkin."
After this operation was concluded, Mr. Pinsky indulged in a fit of coughing that almost broke the carbon filaments in the electric-light bulbs.
"Fillup," he gasped, as he wiped his crimson face, "make for them a couple birds with a pen."
"That's all right," Max interrupted, "we take your word for it. Birds is nix here, Aaron. We ain't in the millinery business, we are in the cloak and suit business, and instead Fillup should be making birds yet, he shouldn't lose no time, but Sam will show him our stock. Right away we will learn him the line."
"Business ahead of pleasure, Aaron," Sam broke in hurriedly, with a significant frown at his partner. "The boy will got lots of time to make birds in the dull season. Just now we are rushed to death, Aaron. Come, Fillup, I'll show you where you should put your hat and coat."
Max forced an amiable smile as he handed Aaron Pinsky a cigar.
"I congradulate you, Aaron," he said. "You got a smart boy for a nephew, and I bet yer he would learn quick the business. For a start we will pay him three dollars a week."
Aaron stared indignantly and almost snatched the proffered cigar from Max's hand.
"Three dollars a week!" he exclaimed. "What do you take the boy for – a greenhorn? Positively you should pay the boy five dollars, otherwise he would put on his clothes and go right straight home."
"But, Aaron," Max protested, "I oser got three dollars a week when I started in as a new beginner. I was glad they should pay me two dollars a week so long as I learned it the business."
"I suppose you went to business college, too, Max. What? I bet yer when you first went to work you got to think hard before you could sign your name even."
Max shrugged his shoulders.
"Birds, I couldn't make it, Aaron," he admitted; "but the second week I was out of Castle Garden my mother, selig, sends me to night school, and they don't learn you birds in night school, Aaron. But, anyhow, Aaron, what's the use we should quarrel about it? If you want we should pay the boy five dollars a week – all right. I'm sure if he's worth three he's worth five. Ain't it? And what's more, Aaron, if the boy shows he takes an interest we would give him soon a raise of a couple of dollars. We ain't small."
"I know you ain't, Max," said Aaron, "otherwise I wouldn't bring the boy here at all."
He looked proudly toward the rear of the showroom where Philip was examining the ticketed garments under the supervision of Sam Zaretsky.
"The boy already takes an interest, Max," he said; "I bet yer he would know your style-numbers by to-night already."
For half an hour longer Sam Zaretsky explained the sample line to Philip, and at length he handed the boy a feather duster, and returned to the front of the showroom.
"The boy is all right, Aaron," he said. "A good, smart boy, Max, and he ain't afraid to open his mouth, neither."
"I bet yer he ain't," Aaron replied, as Philip approached with a sample garment in one hand and the feather duster in the other.
"Look, Mr. Zaretsky," he said, "here's one of your style twenty-twenty-two with a thirty-twenty-two ticket on to it."
Sam examined the garment and stared at his partner.
"The boy is right, Max," he said. "We got the wrong ticket on that garment."
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