The Competitive Nephew. Glass Montague
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one brief moment Aaron glanced affectionately at his nephew, and then he voiced his pride and admiration in a paroxysm of coughing that made Miss Meyerson come running from the office.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Couldn't I do something?"
For almost five minutes Aaron rocked and wheezed in his chair. At length, when he seemed to be at the point of suffocation, Miss Meyerson slapped him on the back, and with a final gasp he recovered his breath.
"Thanks, much obliged," he said, as he wiped his streaming eyes.
"You're sure you don't want a doctor?" Miss Meyerson said.
"Me? A doctor?" he replied. "What for?"
He picked up his cigar from the floor and struck a match. "This is all the doctor I need," he said.
Miss Meyerson returned to the office.
"Who's that?" Aaron inquired, nodding his head in the direction of Miss Meyerson.
"That's our new bookkeeper which we got it," Max replied.
"So you hired it a lady bookkeeper," Aaron commented. "What did you done that for, Max?"
"Well, why not?" Max retorted. "We got with her first class, A Number One references, Aaron, and although she only come this morning, she is working so smooth like she was with us six months already. For my part it is all the same to me if we would have a lady bookkeeper, or a bookkeeper."
"I know," Aaron continued, "but ladies in business is like salt in the cawfee. Salt is all right and cawfee also, but you don't got to hate salt exactly, y'understand, to kick when it gets in the cawfee. That's the way with me, Max; I ain't no lady-hater, y'understand, but I don't like 'em in business, except for saleswomen, models, and buyers, y'understand."
"But that Miss Meyerson," Sam broke in, "she attends strictly to business, Aaron."
"Sure, I know, Sam," Aaron replied. "Slaps me on the back yet when I am coughing."
"Well, she meant it good, Aaron," Sam said.
"Sure, that's all right," Aaron agreed. "Sure, she meant it good. But it's the idee of the thing, y'understand. Women in business always means good, Max, but they butt in too much."
"Other people butts in, too," Max added.
"I don't say they don't, Max. But you take it me, for instance. When something happens which it makes me feel bad, Max, I got to swear, y'understand. I couldn't help it. And, certainly, while I don't say that swearing is something which a gentleman should do, especially when there's a lady, y'understand, still, swearing a little sometimes is good for the gesund. Instead a feller should make another feller a couple blue eyes, Max, let him swear. It don't harm nobody, and certainly nobody could sue you in the courts because you swear at him like he could if you make for him a couple blue eyes. But you take it when there is ladies, Max, and then you couldn't swear."
"Sure, I know," Max rejoined; "and you couldn't make it a couple blue eyes on a feller when ladies would be present neither, Aaron. It wouldn't be etty-kit."
"Me, I ain't so strong on the etty-kit," Sam broke in at this juncture; "but I do know, Max, that we are fooling away our whole morning here."
Aaron Pinsky rose.
"Well, boys," he said, "I got to be going. So I wish you luck with your new boy."
Once more he looked affectionately toward the rear of the room where Philip industriously wielded the feather duster, and then made his way toward the elevator. As he passed Miss Meyerson's desk she looked up and beamed a farewell at him. He caught it out of the corner of his eye and frowned absently.
"I wish you better," Miss Meyerson called.
"Thanks very much," Aaron replied, as the floor of the descending elevator made a dark line across the ground-glass door of the shaft. He half paused for a moment, but his shyness overcame him.
"Going down!" he yelled, and thrusting his hat more firmly on his head he disappeared into the elevator.
Three days afterward Aaron Pinsky again visited Zaretsky & Fatkin, and as he alighted from the elevator Miss Meyerson came out of her office with a small package in her hand.
"Oh, Mr. Pinsky," she said, "I've got something for you."
"Me?" Aaron cried, stopping short in his progress toward the showroom. "All right."
"You know I couldn't get to sleep the other night thinking of the way you were coughing," she continued. "Every time I closed my eyes I could hear it."
Evidently this remark called for comment of some kind, and Aaron searched his brain for a suitable rejoinder.
"That's nice," he murmured at last.
"So I spoke to my cousin, Mrs. Doctor Goldenreich, about it," she went on, "and the doctor gave me this medicine for you. You should take a tablespoonful every four hours, and when it's all gone I'll get you some more."
She handed the bottle to Aaron, who thrust it into his overcoat-pocket.
"Thanks; much obliged," he said hoarsely.
"Don't mention it," she commented as she returned to the office.
Aaron looked after her in blank surprise. "Sure not," he muttered, starting off for the showroom in long, frightened strides.
"Say, Max," he said, "what's the matter with that girl? Is she verrückt?"
"Verrückt!" Max exclaimed. "What d'ye mean —verrückt? Say, lookyhere, Aaron, you should be careful what you are saying about a lady like Miss Meyerson. She already found where Louis Sen makes mistakes, which Gott weiss wie vile it costed us yet. You shouldn't say nothing about that girl, Aaron, because she is a cracker-jack, A Number One bookkeeper."
"Did I say she wasn't?" Aaron replied. "I am only saying she acts to me very funny, Max. She gives me this here bottle of medicine just now."
He poked the package at Max, who handled it gingerly, as though it might explode at any minute.
"What d'ye give it to me for?" he cried. "I don't want it."
"Well, I don't want it, neither," Aaron replied. "She ain't got no right to act fresh like that and give me medicine which I ain't asked for at all."
He looked exceedingly hurt and voiced his indignation with a tremendous whoop, the forerunner of a dozen minor whoops which shaded off into a succession of wheezes. It seemed to Max and Sam that Aaron would never succeed in catching his breath, and just when he appeared to be at his ultimate gasp Miss Meyerson ran up with a tablespoon. She snatched the bottle from Max's grasp and, tearing off the wrapping paper, she drew the cork and poured a generous dose.
"Take this right now," she commanded, pressing the spoon to Aaron's lips. With a despairing glance at Max he swallowed the medicine, and immediately afterward made a horrible grimace.
"T'phooee!" he cried. "What the – what are you trying to do – poison me?"
"That won't poison you," Miss Meyerson declared. "It'll do you good. All he needs is about six more doses, Mr. Fatkin, and he'd be rid of that cough in no time."
Max nodded.
"Miss Meyerson is right, Aaron," he said. "You ought to take care of yourself."
Aaron wiped his eyes and his moustache with his handkerchief.
"You ain't got maybe a little schnapps in your desk, Max?" he said.
"Schnapps is the worst thing you could take, Mr. Pinsky," Miss Meyerson cried. "Don't give him any, Mr. Fatkin; it'll only make him worse."
She shook her head warningly at Aaron as she and Sam walked back to the office.
"What d'ye think for a fresh woman like that?" he said to Max as Miss Meyerson's head once more bent over her books.
"She ain't fresh, Aaron," Max replied. "She's just got a heart, y'understand."
"But – " Aaron began.
"But nothing, Aaron," Max broke in. "I will wrap up the medicine and you will take it home with you. The girl