Abe and Mawruss: Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter

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Contents

I. Sympathy 3

II. The Judgment of Paris • . . • 33

III. Dead Men's Shoes . . . • • 66

Chapter One Sympathy

I COME down on the subway with Max Linkheimer this morning, Mawruss/* Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as they sat in the showroom one hot July morning. "That feller is a regular philantropist/*

"I bet yer,** Morris replied. "He would talk a tin ear on to you if you only give him a chance. Leon Sammet too, Abe, I assure you. I seen Leon in the Harlem Winter Garden last night, and the goods he sold while he was talking to me and Barney Gans, Abe, in two seasons we don*t do such a business. Yes, Abe; Leon Sammet is just such another one of them fellers like Max LInkheimer."

"What d^e mean — *such another one of them fellers like Max Linkheimer * ? " Abe repeated. " Between Leon Sammet and Max Linkheimer is the difference like day from night. Max Linkheimer is one fine man, Mawruss/*

Morris shrugged. "I didn't say he wasn't,"

he rejoiri«H; : "AMIrsay* was that Leoa Sammet is anothef one of * thehi philantro fellers too, Abe. Talks yoir-ifesf / iiimb. kM bKnd."

Abe rose to his feet and stared indignantly at his partner.

"I don't know what comes over you lately, Mawruss," he cried. "Seemingly you don't understand the English language at all. A philantropist ain't a schmooser, Mawruss."

"I know he ain't, Abe; but just the same Max Linkheimer is a feller which he got a whole lot too much to say for himself. Furthermore, Abe, my Minnie says Mrs. Linkheimer tells her Max ain't home a single night neither, and when a man neglects his family like that, Abe, I ain't got no use for him at all."

"That's because he belongs to eight lodges," Abe replied. "There ain't a single Sunday neither which he ain't busy with funerals too, Mawruss."

"Is that so?" Morris retorted. "Well, if I would be in the button business, Abe, I would be a philantropist too. A feller's got to belong to eight lodges if he's in the button business, Abe, because otherwise he couldn't sell no goods at all."

Abe continued:

"Linkheimer ain't looking to sell goods to lodge brothers, Mawruss. He's too old established a business for that. He's got a heart too, Mawruss- Why the money that feller spends on charity, Mawruss, you wouldn't believe at all. He told me so himself. Always he tries to do good. Only this morning, Mawruss, he was telling me about a young feller by the name Schenkmann which he is trying to find a position for as stock clerk. Nobody would take the young feller on, Mawruss, because he got into trouble with a house in Dallas, Texas, which they claim the young feller stole from them a hundred dollars, Mawruss. But Linkheimer says how if you would give a dawg a bad name, Mawruss, you might just as well give him to the dawgcatcher. So Linkheimer is willing to take a chance on this here feller Schenkmann, and he gives him a job in his own place."

"Dawgs I don't know nothing about at all, Abe," Morris commented. "But I would be willing to give the young feller a show too, Abe, if I would only got plain bone and metal buttons in stock. But when you carry a couple hundred pieces silk goods, Abe, like we do, then that's something else again."

"Well, Mawruss, Gott set dank we don't got to get a new shipping clerk. Jake has been with us five years now, Mawruss, and so far what I could see he ain't got ambition enough to ask for a raise even, let alone look for a better job."

^*You shouldn't congradulate yourself too quick, Abe," Morris replied. "Ambition he 's got it plenty, but he ain't got the nerve. We really ought to give the feller a raise, Abe. I mean it. Every time I go near him at all he gives me a look, and the first thing you know, Abe, he would be leaving us."

"Looks we could stand it, Mawruss; but if we would start in giving him a raise there would be no end to it at all. Lasses bleiben. If the feller wants a raise, Mawruss, he should ask for it."

Barely two weeks after the conversation above set forth, however, Jake entered the firm's private office and tendered his resignation.

"Mr. Perlmutter," he said, "I'm going to leave."

"Going to leave?" Morris cried. "What d'ye mean — going to leave?"

"Going to leave?" Abe repeated crescendo. "An idea! You should positively do nothing of the kind."

"It wouldn't be no more than you deserve, Jake, if we would fire you right out of the store," Morris added. "You work for us here five years and then ^you come to us and say you are going to leave. Did you ever hear of such a thing? If you want it a couple dollars more a week, we would give it to you and fartig. But if you get fresh and come to us and tell us you are going to leave, y 'understand, then that's something else again."

"Moost I work for you if I don't want to?" Jake asked.

"'S enough, Jake," Abe said. "We heard enough from you already."

'^All right, Mr. Potash," he replied. "But just the same I am telling you, Mr, Potash, you should look for a new shipping clerk, as I bought it a candy, cigar and stationery store on Lenox Avenue, and I am going to quit Saturday sure,"

"Well, Abe, what did I told you?" Moriis said bitterly, after Jake had left the office. "For the sake of a couple of dollars a week, Abe, we are losing a good shipping clerk,"

Abe covered his embarrassment with a mirthless laugh.

"Good shipping clerks you could get any day in the week, Mawruss," he said. "We ain't going to go out of business exactly, y 'understand, just because Jake is leaving us. I bet yer if we would advertise in to-morrow morning's paper we would get a dozen good shipping clerks."

"Go ahead, advertise," Morris grunted. "This is your idee Jake leaves us, Abe, and now you should find somebody to take his place. I'm sick and tired making changes in the store."

"Always kicking, Mawruss, always kicking!" Abe retorted. "By Saturday I bet yer we would get a hundred good shipping clerks already."

But Saturday came and went, and although in the meantime old and young shipping clerks of every degree of uncleanliness passed in review before Abe and Morris, none of them proved acceptable.

"All right, Abe/' Morris said on the Monday morning after Jake had gone, "you done enough about this here shipping clerk business. Give me a show. I ain't got such liberal idees about shipping clerks as you got, Abe, but all the same, Abe, I think I could go at this business with a little system, y 'understand."

"You shouldn't trouble yourself, Mawruss," Abe replied, with an airy wave of his hand. "I hired one already."

"You hired one already, Abe!" Morris repeated. "Well, ain't I got something to say about it too?"

"Again kicking, Mawruss?" Abe exclaimed. **You yourself told me I should find a shipping clerk, and so I done so."

"Well," Morris cried, "ain't I even entitled to know the feller's name at all?"

"Sure you are entitled to know his name," Abe answered. "He's a young feller by the name of Schenkniann."

" Schenkmann," Morris said slowly. "Schenkmann? Where did I — you mean that feller by the name Schenkmann which he works by Max Linkheimer?"

Abe nodded.

"What's the matter with you, Abe?" Morris cried. "Are you crazy or what?"

"What do you mean am I crazy?" Abe said. "We carry burglary insurance, ain't it?_And besides he ainH, Mawruss, Max Linkheimer says, missed so much as a button since the feller worked for him/'

"A button/' Morris shouted; "let me tell you something, Abe. Max Linkheimer could miss a thousand buttons, and what is it? But with us, Abe, one piece of silk goods is more as a hundred dollars/'

" 'S all right, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "Max Linkheimer says we shouldn't be afraid. He says he trusts the young feller in the office with hundreds of dollars laying in the safe, and he ain't touched a cent so far. Furthermore, the young feller's got a wife and baby, Mawruss."

"Well I got a wife and baby too, Abe."

"Sure, I know, Mawruss, and so you ought to got a little sympathy for the feller."

Morris laughed raucously.

"Sure, I know, Abe," he replied. "A good way to lose money in business, Abe, is to got sympathy for somebody. You sell a feller goods, Abe, because he's a new beginner and you got sympathy for him, Abe, and the feller busts up on you. You accommodate a concern with five hundred dollars — a check against their check dated two weeks ahead, Abe — because their collections is slow and you got sympathy for them, and when the two weeks goes by, Abe, the check is N. G. You give a feller out i4 Kansas City two months an extension because lo ABE AND MAWRUSS

he done ^ bad spring business^ and you got sympathy for him, and the first thing you know, Abe, a jobber out in Omaha gets a judgment against him and closes him up. And that's the way it goes. If we would hire this young feller because we got sympathy for him, Abe, the least that happens us is th^t he gets away with a couple hundred dollars ' worth of piece goods."

"Max Linkheimer says positively nothing of the kind," Abe insisted. "Max says the feller has turned around a new leaf, and he would trust him like a brother."

"Like a brother-in-law, you mean, Abe," Morris jeered. "That feller Linkheimer never trusted nobody for nothing, Abe. Always by the first of the month comes a statement, and if he don't get a check by the fifth, Abe, he sends another with *past due' stamped on to it."

"So much the better, Mawruss. If Max Linkheimer don't trust nobody, Mawruss, and he lets this young feller work in his store, Mawruss, then the feller must be O. K. Ain't it?"

Morris rose wearily to his feet.

"All right, Abe," he said. "If Linkheimer is so anxious to get rid of this feller, let him give us a recommendation in writing, y 'understand, and I am satisfied we should give this here young Schenkmann a trial. He could only get into us oncet, Abe, so go right over there and see Linkheimer, and if in

SYMPATHY II

writing he would give us a guaranty the feller is honest, go ahead and hire him/*

"Right away I couldn't do it, Mawruss," Abe said. "When I left Linkheimer in the subway this morning he said he was going over to Newark and he wouldn't be back till to-night. I'll stop in there the first thing to-morrow morning."

With this ultimatum, Abe proceeded to the back of the loft and personally attended to the shipment of ten garments to a customer in Cincinnati. Under his supervision a stock boy placed the garments in a wooden packing box, and after the first top board was in position Abe took a wire nail and held it 'twixt his thumb and finger point down on the edge of the case. Then he poised the hammer in his right hand and carefully closing one eye he gauged the distance between the upraised hammer and the head of the nail. At length the blow descended, and forthwith Abe commenced to dance around the floor in the newborn agony of a smashed thutnb.

It was while he was putting the finishing touches on a bandage that made up in bulk what it lacked in symmetry that Morris entered.

"What's the matter, Abe?" he cried. "Did you hurted yourself?"

Abe transfixed his partner with a malevolent glare.

"No, Mawruss," he said, as he started for the front of the store, "I ain't hurted myself at all.

Pm just tying this here handkerchief on my thumb to remind myself what a fool I got it for a partner."

Morris waited till Abe had nearly reached the door.

*^I don't got to tie something on my thumb to remind myself of that, Abe," he said.

Ever since the birth of his son it had seemed to Morris that the Lenox Avenue express service had grown increasingly slow. Nor did the evening papers contain half the interesting news of his early married life, and he could barely wait until the train had stopped at One Hundred and Sixteenth Street before he was elbowing his way to the platform.

On the Monday night of his partner's mishap he made his accustomed dash from the subway station to his home on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street, confident that as soon as his latchkey rattled in the door Mrs. Perlmutter and the baby would be in the hall to greet him; but on this occasion he was disappointed. To be sure the appetizing odour of gedampftes kalbfleisch wafted itself down the elevator shaft as he entered the gilt and plaster-porphyry entrance from the street, but when he crossed the threshold of his own apartment the robust wail of his son and heir mingled with the tones of Lina, the Slavic maid. Of Mrs. Perlmutter, however, there was no sign.

"Where's Minnie?" he demanded.

"Mrs. Perlmutter, she go out," Lina announced, "and she ain't coming home yet."

Not since the return from their honeymoon had Minnie failed to be at home to greet her husband on his arrival from business, and Morris was about to telephone a general alarm to police headquarters when the doorbell rang sharply and Mrs. Perlmutter entered. Her hat, whose size and weight ought to have lent it stability, was tilted at a dangerous angle, and beneath its broad brim her eyes glistened with unmistakable tears.

"Minnie lebeUj^ Morris cried, as he clasped her in his arms, "what is it?"

Sympathy only opened anew the floodgates of Mrs. Perlmutter's emotions, and before she was sufficiently calm to disclose the cause of her distress, the gedampftes kalbfieisch gave evidence of its impending destruction by a strong odour of scorching. Hastily Mrs. Perlmutter dried her eyes and ran to the kitchen, so that it was not until the rescued dinner smoked on the dining-room table that Morris learned the reason for his wife's tears.

"Such a room, Morris,'* Mrs. Perlmutter declared; "like a pigsty, and not a crust of bread in the house. I met the poor woman in the meat market and she tried to beg a piece of liver from that loafer Hirschkein. Not another cent of my money will he ever get. I bought a big piece of steak for her and then I went home with her. Her poor baby, Morris, looked like a little skeleton."

Morris shook his head from side to side and made inarticulate expressions of commiseration through his nose, his mouth being temporarily occupied by about half a pound of luscious veal.

"Her husband has a job for eight dollars a week/* she continued, "and they have to live on that/'

Morris swallowed the veal with an effort.

"In Russland," he began, "six people "

"I know,*' Mrs. Perlmutter interrupted, "but this is America, and youVe got to go around with me right after dinner and see the poor people."

Morris shrugged his shoulders.

"If I must, I must," he said, helping himself to more of the veal stew, "but I could tell you right now, Minnie, I ain't got twenty-five cents in my clothes, so you got to lend me a couple of dollars till Saturday."

"I'll cash a check for you," Mrs. Perlmutter said firmly, and as soon as dinner was concluded Morris drew a check for ten dollars and Mrs. Perlmutter gave him that amount out of her housekeeping money.

It was nearly nine o'clock when Morris and Minnie groped along the dark hallway of a tene^ ment house in Park Avenue. On the iron viaduct that bestrides that deceptively named thoroughfare heavy trains thundered at intervals, and it was only after Morris had knocked repeatedly at the door of a top-floor apartment that its inmates heard the summons above the roar of the trafiic without.

**Well, Mrs, Schenkmann," Minnie cried cheerfully, "how's the baby to-night?"

"Schenkmann?" Morris murmured; "Schenkmann? Is that the name of them people?"

"Why, yes," Minnie replied, "Didn't I tell you that? Mrs. Schenkmann, this is my husband. And I suppose this is Mr. Schenkmann."

A tall, gaunt person rose from the soap box that did duty as a chair and ducked his head shyly.

"Schenkmann?" Morris repeated. "You ain't the Schenkmann which he works by Max Linkheimer?"

Nathan Schenkmann nodded and Mrs. Schenkmann groaned aloud.

"-^i zttm/" she cried, "for his sorrow he works by Max Linkheimer. Eight dollars a week he is supposed to get there, and Linkheimer makes us live here in his house. Twelve dollars a month wc pay for the rooms, lady, and Linkheimer takes three dollars each week from Nathan's money. We couldn't even get dispossessed like some people does and save a month 's rent oncet in a while maybe. The rooms ain't worth it, lady, believe me."

"Does Max Linkheimer own this house?" Morris asked.

"Sure, he's the landlord," Mrs. Schenkmann went on. " I am just telling you. For eight dollars a week a man should work! Ain't it a disgrace?"

"Well, why doesn't he get another job?" Morris inquired; and then, as Mr. and Mrs. Schenkmann exchanged embarrassed looks and hung their heads, Morris blushed.

"What a fine baby!" he cried hurriedly. He chucked the infant under its chin and made such noises with his tongue as are popularly supposed by parents to be of a nature entertaining to very young children. In point of fact the poor little Schenkmann child, with its blue-white complexion, looked more like a cold-storage chicken than a human baby, but to the maternal eye of Mrs. Schenkmann it represented the sum total of infantile beauty.

"God bless you, mister," she said. "I seen you got a good heart, and if you know Max Linkheimer, he must told you why my husband couldn't get another job. He tells everybody, lady, and makes 'em believe he gives my husband a job out of charity. So sure as I got a baby which I hope he would grow up to be a man, lady, my husband never took no money in Dallas. Them people gives him a hundred dollars he should deposit it in the bank, and he went and lost it. If he would stole it he would of gave it to me, lady, because my Nathan is a good man. He ain't no loafer that he should gamble it away."

There was a ring of truth in Mrs. Schenkmann 's tones, and as Morris looked at the twenty-eightyears old Nathan, aged by ill nutrition and abuse.

his suspicions all dissolved and gave place only to a great pity.

"Don't say no more, Mrs. Schenkmann/' he cried; "I don't want to hear no more about it. To-morrow morning your man leaves that loafer Max Linkheimer and comes to work by us for *' eighteen dollars a week.'*

Easily the most salient feature of Mr. Max Linkheimer 's attire was the I. O. M. A. jewel that dangled from the tangent point of his generous waist line. It had been presented to him by Harmony Lodge, 122, at the conclusion of his term of office as National Grand Corresponding Secretary, and it weighed about eight ounces avoirdupois. Not that the rest of Mr. Linkheimer 's wearing apparel] was not in keeping, for he aflFected to be somewhat old-fashioned in his attire, with just a dash of bonhomie. This implies that he wore a wrinkled frock coat and low-cut waistcoat. But he had discarded the black string tie that goes with it for a white ready-made bow as being more suitable to the r6le of philanthropist. The bonhomie he supplied by not buttoning the two top buttons of his waistcoat.

"Why, hallo, Abe, my boy!" he cried all in one breath, as Abe Potash entered his button warerooms on Tuesday morning; "what can I do for you?''

He seized Abe's right hand in a soft, warm grip.

slightly moist, and continued to hold it for the better part of five minutes.

"I come to see you about Schenkmann," Abe replied. "We decide we would have him come to work by us as a shipping clerk."

"Pm glad to hear it," said Linkheimer, "As I told you the other day, IVe just been asked by a lodge I belong to if I could help out a young feller just out of an orphan asylum. He's a big, strong, healthy boy, and he's willing to come to work for half what Pm paying Schenkmann. So naturally Pve got to get rid of Schenkmann."

"I wonder you got time to bother yourself breaking in a new beginner," Abe commented.

Linkheimer waggled his head solemnly.

"I can't help it, Abe," he said. "I let my business suffer, but nevertheless Pm constantly giving the helping hand to these poor inexperienced fellows. I assure you it costs me thousands of dollars in a year, but that's my nature, Abe. Pm all heart. When would you want Schenkmann to come to work?"

"Right away, Mr. Linkheimer."

"Very good, PU go and call him."

He rose to his feet and started for the door.

"Oh, by the way, Abe," he said, as he paused a1 the threshold, "you know Schenkmann is a married man with a wife and child, and I understand Mrs. Schenkmann is inclined to be extravagant. Fot that reason I let him live in a house I own on Park Avenue, and I take out the rent each week from his pay. It's really a charity to do so. The amount is — er — sixteen dollars a month. I suppose you have no objection to sending me four dollars a week ' out of his wages?"

"Well, I ain't exactly a collecting agency, y 'understand," Abe said; "but I'll see what my partner says, and if he's agreeable, I am. Only one thing though, Mr. Linkheimer, my partner bothers the life out of me I should get from you a recommendation."

"I'll give you one with pleasure, Abe," Linkheimer replied; "but it isn't necessary."

He returned to the front of the office and went to the safe.

"Why just look here, Abe," he said. "I have here in the safe five hundred dollars and some small bills which I put in there last night after I come back from Newark. It was money I received the day before yesterday as chairman of the entertainment committee of a lodge I belong to. The safe was unlocked from five to seven last night and Schenkmann was in and out here all that time."

He opened the middle compartment and pulled out a roll of bills.

"You see, Abe," he said, counting out the money, "here it is: one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred and "

Here Mr. Linkheimer paused and examined the last bill carefully, for instead of a hundred-dollar bill it was only a ten-dollar bill.

"Well, what d'ye think of that dirty thief.?" he cried at last. "That Schenkmann has taken a hundred-dollar bill out of there."

"What?" Abe exclaimed.

"Just as sure as you are sitting there," Linkheimer went on excitedly. "That feller Schenkmann has pinched a hundred-dollar bill on me."

Here his academic English completely forsook him and he continued in the vernacular of the lower East Side.

"Always up to now I have kept the safe locked on that feller, and the very first time I get careless he goes to work and does me for a hundred dollars yet."

"But," Abe protested, "you might of made a mistake, ain't it? If the feller took it a hundred dollars, why don't he turn around and ganver the other four hundred? Ain't it? The ten dollars also he might of took it. What?"

"A ganef you couldn't tell what he would do at all," Linkheimer rejoined, and Abe rose to his feet.

"I'm sorry for you, Mr. Linkheimer," he said, seizing his hat, "but I guess I must be getting back to the store. So you shouldn't trouble yourself about this here feller Schenkmann. We decided we would get along without him."

But Abe's words fell on deaf ears, for as he turned to leave Mr. Linkheimer threw up the window sash and thrust his head out.

When Abe arrived at his place of business after his visit to Max Linkheimer he found Morris whistling cheerfully over the morning mail.

"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "did you seen it Max Linkheimer?"

Abe hurriedly took off his hat and coat, and catching the bandaged thumb in the sleeve lining he swore long and loud.

"Yes, I seen Max Linkheimer," he growled, "and Pm sick and tired of the whole business. Go ahead and get a shipping clerk, Mawruss. I'm through."

"Why?" Morris asked. "Wouldn't Linkheimer give a recommendation, because if he wouldn't, Abe, I am satisfied we should take the feller without one. In fact I'm surprised you didn't bring him along."

"You are, hey?" Abe broke in. "Well, you shouldn't be surprised at nothing like that, Mawruss, because I didn't bring him along for the simple reason, Mawruss, I don't want no ganef working round my place. That's all."

"What do you mean — ganef V^ Morris cried. "The feller ain't no more a thief as you are, Abe."

Abe's moustache bristled and his eyes bulged so indignantly that they seemed to rest on his cheeks.

"You should be careful what you say, Mawruss/* he retorted. •" Maybe he ain't no more a ganef as I am, Mawruss, but just the same, he is in jail and I ain't."

"In jail," Morris exclaimed. "What for in jail?"

"Because he stole from Linkheimer a hundred dollars yesterday, Mawruss, and while I was there yet, Linkheimer finds it out. So naturally he makes this here feller arrested."

"Yesterday, he stole a hundred dollars?" Mor^ ris interrupted.

"Yesterday afternoon," Abe repeated. "With my own eyes I seen it the other money which he didn't stole."

"Then," Morris said, "if he stole it yesterday afternoon, Abe, he didn't positively do nothing of the kind."

Forthwith he related to Abe his visit to Schenkmann's rooms and the condition of poverty that he found.

"I give you my word, Abe," he said, "the feller didn't got even a chair to sit on."

"What do you know, Mawruss, what he got and what he didn't got?" Abe rejoined impatiently. "The feller naturally ain't going to show you the hundred dollars which he stole it — especially.

Mawruss, if he thinks he could work you for a couple dollars more."

"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris broke in; "don't say again that feller stole a hundred dollars, because I'm telling you once more, Abe, I know he didn't take nothing, certain sure.'*

"G^A zvek^ Mawruss," Abe cried disgustedly; "you talk like a fool!"

"Do I?" Morris shouted. "All right, Abe. Maybe I do and maybe I don't, but just the same so positive I am he didn't done it, I'm going right down to Henry D. Feldman, and I will fix that feller Linkheimer he should work a poor half-starved yokel for five dollars a week and a couple of top-floor tenement rooms which it ain't worth six dollars a month. Wait! I'll show that sucker."

He seized his hat and made for the elevator door, which he had almost reached when Abe grabbed him by the arm.

"Mawruss," he cried, "are you crazy? What for you should put yourself out about this here young feller.^ He ain't the last shipping clerk in existence. You could get plenty good shipping clerks without bothering yourself like this. Besides, Mawruss, if he did steal it or if he didn't steal it, what difference does it make to us? With the silk piece goods which we got it around our place, Mawruss, we couldn't afford to take no chances."

"I ain't taking no chances, Abe," Morris main* tained stoutly. "I know this feller ain't took the money."

"Sure, that's all right," Abe agreed; "but you couldn't afford to be away all morning right in the busy season. Besides, Mawruss, since when did you become to be so charitable all of a suddent?"

"Me charitable?" Morris cried indignantly. "I ain't charitable, Abe. Gott soil huten! I leave that to suckers like Max Linkheimer. But when I know a decent, respectable feller is being put into jail for something which he didn't do at all, Abe, then that's something else again."