The Competitive Nephew. Glass Montague
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they ain't. That's a fine bookkeeper we got it, Max, and a fine woman, too. Ain't it a shame and a disgrace for young fellers nowadays, Max, that a fine woman like Miss Meyerson is already thirty-five and should be single? My Sarah is crazy about her. Her and Sarah goes to a matinee last Saturday afternoon together and Sarah asks her to dinner to-morrow."
Max nodded.
"With some bookkeepers, Sam," he said, "you couldn't do such things. Right away they would take advantage. Miss Meyerson, that's something else again. She takes an interest in our business, Sam. Even a grouch like Aaron Pinsky she treated good."
"I bet yer," Sam replied. "I seen Elenbogen in the subway this morning and he tells me Aaron goes around blowing about paying a thousand dollars to a professor uptown and he gives him a medicine which cures his cough completely. I bet yer that's the same medicine which he got it originally from Miss Meyerson."
"I bet yer," Max agreed as the telephone bell rang. Sam hastened to answer it.
"Hallo!" he said. "Yes, this is Zaretsky & Fatkin. You want to speak to Miss Meyerson? All right. Miss Meyerson! Telephone!"
Miss Meyerson came from her office and took the receiver from Sam.
"Hello," she said. "Who is this, please?"
The answer made her clap her hand over the transmitter.
"It's Aaron Pinsky," she said to Max, and both partners sprang to their feet.
"What does he want?" Sam hissed.
Miss Meyerson waved them to silence and resumed her conversation over the 'phone.
"Hello, Mr. Pinsky," she said. "What can I do for you?"
She listened patiently to Aaron's narrative of the fire in Blaukopf's drug store, and when he had concluded she winked furtively at her employers.
"Mr. Pinsky," she said, "won't you repeat that over again? I didn't understand it."
Once more Aaron explained the details of the prescription book's incineration, and again Miss Meyerson winked.
"Mr. Pinsky," she said, "I can't make out what you say. Why don't you stop in here at twelve o'clock? Mr. Zaretsky is going to Newark and Mr. Fatkin will be out to lunch."
She listened carefully for a few minutes and then her face broke into a broad grin.
"All right, Mr. Pinsky," she concluded. "Good-bye."
She turned to her employers.
"He's coming here at twelve o'clock," she said. "He told me that the drug store burnt down where he gets his cough medicine, and he wants another prescription. And I said I didn't understand him so as to get him over here."
"Well, what good would that do?" Max asked.
"I don't know exactly," Miss Meyerson answered, "but I saw Mr. Pinsky coming out of Greenberg & Sen's last week and he looked positively miserable. I guess he's just as anxious to get back here as you are to have him."
"Sure, I know," Max commented, "but we wouldn't pay that young feller, Fillup, ten dollars a week, and that's all there is to it."
"Perhaps you won't have to," said Miss Meyerson. "Perhaps if you leave this thing to me I can get Pinsky to come back here and have Philip stay over to Greenberg & Sen's."
"Huh!" Max snorted. "A fine chance that boy got it to keep his job if Aaron Pinsky quits buying goods! They'll fire him on the spot."
"Then we'll take him in here again," Sam declared. "He'll be glad to come back at the old figure, I bet yer."
"That's all right," Max grunted. "Never meld your cards till you see what's in the widder. First, Miss Meyerson will talk to him, and then we will consider taking back Fillup."
"Sure," Sam rejoined, "and you and me will go over to Wasserbauer's and wait there till Miss Meyerson telephones us."
It was precisely twelve when the elevator stopped at Zaretsky & Fatkin's floor. Aaron Pinsky alighted and walked on tiptoe to the office.
"Hallo, Miss Meyerson!" he said, extending his hand, "is any of the boys around?"
"They're both out," Miss Meyerson replied, shaking Aaron's proffered hand. "It looks like old times to see you back here."
"Don't it?" Pinsky said. "It feels like old times to me. Is the boys busy?"
"Very," said Miss Meyerson. "We're doing twice the business that the books show we did a year ago."
Aaron beamed.
"That's good," he said. "Them boys deserves it, Miss Meyerson. When you come to consider it, Miss Meyerson, I got pretty good treatment here. The goods was always made up right and the prices also. I never 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