The Competitive Nephew. Glass Montague
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had no complaint to make. But certainly a feller has got to look out for his family, and so long as my nephew gets along good I couldn't kick if oncet in a while Greenberg & Sen sticks me with a couple of garments. Last week they done me up good with eight skirts."
"And how is Philip?" Miss Meyerson asked.
"Miss Meyerson," Aaron began, "that boy is a good boy, y'understand, but somehow or another Greenberg & Sen don't take no interest in him at all. I don't think he learns much there, even though they did raise him two dollars last week."
"And how is your cough getting on, Mr. Pinsky?" Miss Meyerson continued.
"Since I ain't been taking the medicine it ain't been so good," Aaron announced, and, as if in corroboration of his statement, he immediately entered upon a fit of coughing that well-nigh strangled him. After Miss Meyerson had brought him a glass of water he repeated the narrative of the burned-out drug store and produced the bottle from his breast-pocket.
"That's too bad that the prescription was burned," Miss Meyerson said. "I'll get another one from my cousin's husband to-night and bring it down here to-morrow."
"Hold on there, Miss Meyerson," Aaron said. "To-morrow them boys might be in here, and I don't want to risk it."
"Why, they wouldn't bite you, Mr. Pinsky," she declared.
"Sure, I know. But the fact is I feel kind of funny about meeting 'em again – just yet a while, anyhow."
"But, Mr. Pinsky," Miss Meyerson went on persuasively, "it's foolish of you to feel that way about it."
"Maybe it is," Aaron admitted, "but, just the same, Miss Meyerson, if you wouldn't think it fresh or anything, I'd like to come up and call on you to-night, if you don't mind, Miss Meyerson, and you could give me the prescription then."
"Why, certainly," Miss Meyerson cried heartily. She turned to her desk and opened her handbag.
"Here's my card," she said. "I live with my cousin, Mrs. Goldenreich."
"Thanks; much obliged," Aaron murmured, pocketing the card. "I'll be there at eight o'clock."
Once more he glanced furtively around him and then, with a final handshake, he started off on tiptoe for the stairs. As soon as he disappeared Miss Meyerson took up the receiver.
"Ten-oh-four-oh, Harlem," she said.
"Hello," she continued, "is this you, Bertha? Well, this is Miriam. Will you send over to Reisbecker's and get a four-pound haddock? Never mind what I want it for. I'm going to have company to-night. Yes, that's right, and I want to make some gefüllte fische. You say you have plenty of onions? Well, then, I'll bring home ten cents' worth of Spanish saffron and half a dozen fresh eggs. I'll make some mohnkuchen after I get home. Did my white silk waist come back from the cleaners? I don't care. You can't jolly me. Good-bye."
It was almost one o'clock before she remembered to telephone over to Wasserbauer's, and when Sam and Max returned they dashed into the office and exclaimed: "Well?" with what the musical critics call splendid attack.
"He's coming over to call on me to-night," Miss Meyerson replied with a blush, "and I'll see what I can do then."
"You see, Sam," Max commented, "I told you you shouldn't reckon up how much chickens you will got till the hen lays 'em."
Max Fatkin visited a buyer at an uptown hotel on his way to the office the following morning, so that it was nearly nine before he entered his showroom. As he walked from the elevator he glanced toward Miss Meyerson's desk. It was vacant.
"Sam," he cried, "where's Miss Meyerson?"
Sam Zaretsky emerged from behind a rack of skirts and shrugged his shoulders.
"She's late the first time since she's been with us, Max," he replied.
"Might she is sick, maybe," Max suggested. "I'll ring up her cousin, the doctor, and find out."
"That's a good idee," Sam replied. Max was passing the elevator door when it opened with a scrape and a clang.
"Hallo, Max!" a familiar voice cried.
Max turned toward the elevator and gasped, for it was Pinsky who stepped out. His wonder grew to astonishment, however, when he beheld Aaron tenderly assisting Miss Meyerson to alight from the elevator.
"Good morning," she said. "I'm late."
"That's all right," Max cried. "Any one which is always so prompt like you has a right to be late oncet in a while."
He looked at Aaron shyly and wet his lips with his tongue.
"Well," he began, "how's the boy?"
"Fillup is feeling fine, Gott sei dank," Aaron replied. "But never mind Fillup now. I come here because I got to tell you something, Max. Where's Sam?"
"Here I am, Aaron," Sam said, as he came fairly running from the showroom. "And you don't got to tell us nothing, Aaron, because a feller could buy goods where he wants to. Always up to three months ago you was a good friend to us, Aaron, and even if you wouldn't buy nothing from us at all we are glad to see you around here oncet in a while, anyhow."
"But, Sam," Aaron replied, "give me a chance to say something. Goods I ain't buying it to-day. I got other things to buy."
He turned to Miss Meyerson with a wide, affectionate grin on his kindly face.
"Yes, Sam," he continued, "I got a two-and-a-half carat blue-white solitaire diamond ring to buy."
"What!" Sam cried, while Max gazed at Miss Meyerson with his eyes bulging.
"That's right," Aaron went on; "a feller ain't never too old to make a home, and even if there would be ten years difference in our ages, ten years ain't so much."
"Especially when it's nearer twenty," Sam added gallantly.
"Well, we won't quarrel about it," Aaron said. "The thing is, Max, that a woman ain't got no business in business unless she's got to, and Miriam ain't got to so long as I could help it. Yes, Sam, three months from to-day you and Max and Mrs. Fatkin and Mrs. Zaretsky would all come to dinner at our house and Miriam would make the finest gefüllte fische which it would fairly melt in your mouth."
"I congradulate you, Miss Meyerson," Sam said. "We are losing the best bookkeeper which we ever got."
"Well, that's all right, Sam," Aaron cried. "You know where you could always get another. Fillup ain't going to hold that job with them suckers any longer."
"And since we aren't going to be married for two months yet," Miss Meyerson added, "I'll keep my position here and break Philip into his new job."
"That suits us fine," Sam declared. "And to show you we ain't small we will start him at the same money what we pay Miss Meyerson – fifteen dollars a week."
Aaron turned toward the two partners and extended both his hands.
"Boys," he said, "I don't know what I could say to you."
"Don't say nothing," Max interrupted. "The boy is worth it, otherwise we wouldn't pay it. Business is business."
"I know it, boys," he said; "but a business man could have also a heart, ain't it?"
Max nodded.
"And you boys," Aaron concluded, "you got a heart, too, believe me. What a heart you got it! Like a watermelon!"
He looked at Miss Meyerson for an approving smile and, having received it, he gave final expression to his emotions of friendship and gratitude in the worst coughing-spell of his asthmatic career.
CHAPTER TWO
OPPORTUNITY
"What is brokers?" Mr. Marcus Shimko asked. "A broker is no good, otherwise he wouldn't be a broker. Brokers is fellers which they couldn't make a success of their own affairs, Mr. Zamp, so they butt into everybody else's. Particularly business brokers, Mr. Zamp. Real-estate brokers is bad enough, and insurings brokers is a lot of sharks also; but for a cutthroat, a low-life bum, understand me, the worst is a business broker!"
"That's all right, too, Mr. Shimko," Harry Zamp said timidly;