Montague Glass

“ Abe stared indignantly at his partner.
"I'm surprised to hear you you should talk that way, Mawruss, about a decent, respectable young feller what works so hard like Jake does," he said. "That only goes to show what a judge you are. If you couldn't tell it a good shipping clerk when you see one, how should you know anything about salesmen? B. Gans says that Pasinsky is a good salesman, Mawruss, and you can do what you like about it; I'm going to hire him, Mawruss, when he comes back here." ”

“ I got over them old fashioned idees that a feller shouldn't spend the money he makes in the way what he wants to. If Kleebaum wants to buy oitermobiles, that's his business, not mine, Mawruss, and for my part, Mawruss, if that feller was to come in here and buy from us a thousand dollars goods, Mawruss, I am in favor we should sell him. ”

“ CHAPTER IV
"Never no more, Mawruss," said Abe Potash to his partner as they sat in the show-room of their spacious cloak and suit establishment one week after Abe's return from Pittsburgh. "Never no more, Mawruss, because it ain't good policy. This is strictly a wholesale business, and if once we sell a friend one garment that friend brings a friend, and that friend brings also a friend, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, we are doing a big retail business at a net loss of fifty cents a garment." ”

“ As he was about to leave the show-room Abe entered.
"Oh, Mawruss," Abe cried, "you ought to see Miss Kreitmann. She's all broke up about Mannie Gubin, and she's crying something terrible."
"Is she?" Morris said, peering over his partner's shoulder at the grief-stricken model, who was giving vent to her emotions in the far corner of the salesroom. "Well, Abe, you tell her to come away from them light goods and cry over the blue satinets. They don't spot so bad." ”

“ There ain't no seasons in real estate nor in suckers neither, Mawruss. You can catch 'em every day in the year, Mawruss. I'm going home, but if you need an express wagon to carry away them rents, Mawruss, there's a livery stable around the corner."
It was at least a week before Abe could bring himself to address his partner, save in the gruffest monosyllables; but an unusual rush of spring customers brought about a reconciliation, and Abe and Morris forgot their real-estate venture in the reception of out-of-town trade. ”

“ Zudrowsky, what is five thousand dollars for an inducement to a business man? When I would go around and tell my clients I got a young feller with five thousand dollars what wants to go in the cloak and suit business, they laugh at me. In the cloak and suit business five thousand dollars goes no ways."
"Five thousand ain't much if you are going to open up as a new beginner, Noblestone," Zudrowsky replied, "but if you got a going concern, y'understand, five thousand dollars is always five thousand dollars. There's lots of business men what is short of money all the time, Noblestone. ”

“ Prosnauer," he cried as he burst into Prosnauer's office in the cloak department, "my name is Mr. Potash, of Potash & Perlmutter, from New York. Did you seen it my salesman, Marks Pasinsky?"
"Sit down, Mr. Potash," Prosnauer said, "and don't excite yourself."
"I ain't exciting myself," Abe exclaimed. "I don't got to excite myself, Mr. Prosnauer. I am excited enough already when I think to myself that that lowlife Pasinsky takes my samples out of my store and comes here with my money and gets an order from you for four thousand dollars for Klinger & Klein." ”

“ Gans agreed, "then that's something else again. But the way business is to-day, Potash, salesmen don't sell goods no more. Former times a salesman wasn't considered a salesman unless he could sell a customer goods what the customer didn't want; but nowadays it don't make no difference what kind of salesman you hire it, Potash, the goods is got to sell themselves, otherwise the salesman can't do no business. Ain't it?"
"But take a salesman like Marks Pasinsky, for instance," Abe said. "There's a feller what can sell goods. ”

“ Kleebaum said.
"Me, I don't get mad so easy," Abe declared. "Wouldn't you come downstairs to Hammersmith's and take a cup coffee or something?"
Together they descended to the sidewalk where they were saluted by a tremendous chugging from the Pfingst roadster.
"Say, my friend," the demonstrating chauffeur cried as he caught sight of Kleebaum, "what d'ye think I'm running anyway? A taxicab?"
"You shouldn't get fresh, young feller," Kleebaum retorted, "unless you would want to lose your job."
"Aw, quit your stalling," the chauffeur protested. "Is this the guy you was telling me about?" ”

“ If he got a little money then he treats you like a dawg, Mawruss, and if he's broke, y'understand, then your wife gives him all your cigars and ties, and if you should happen to have the same size neck, Mawruss, then all your life you are buying collars and shirts for two. No, Mawruss, I ain't got no confidence in anybody's wife's brother, especially, Mawruss, if a feller should make it a dirty failure like Ferdy Rothschild did and then takes all the money and blows it in on the horse-races. ”

“ It was precisely noon when Morris delivered the check to Louis Grossman, and it was one o'clock when Louis went out to lunch.
Three o'clock struck before Abe first noted his absence.
"Ain't that feller come back from his dinner yet, Mawruss?" he asked.
"No," Morris replied. "I wonder what can be keeping him. He generally takes half an hour for his dinner."
At this juncture the telephone bell rang in the rear of the store and Abe answered it.
"Hello," he said; "yes, this is Potash & Perlmutter. Oh, hello, Leon, what can we do for you?" ”

“ B. Rashkin concluded, after half an hour's conversation, "I seen it bargains in my time, but these here lots is the biggest bargains yet."
"Vacant lots ain't never bargains, Rashkin," Abe commented. "What's the use from vacant lots, anyway? A feller what's got vacant lots is like I would say I am in the cloak business if I only get it an empty store with nothing in it." ”

“ Mozart explained; "and then, when Katzen sees that, he wants the other order sent to his concern, too." "But this was Pasinsky's first trip by us, also," Abe cried.
"I know it," Mozart said, "but Pasinsky says that he didn't care, because a good salesman like him could always find it an opening somewhere, and anyway he wasn't stuck on working for a piker concern like yours."
Abe rose with his eyes ablaze.
"That settles it," he said, jamming his hat on his head. "I'm going for a policeman. I'll teach that sucker to steal my orders!" ”

“ Abe said; "but all the same I seen it many a decent, respectable feller with a good business, Abe, what wants a little accommodation at his bank. But he gets turned down just because he goes around looking like a slob; while a feller what can't pay his own laundry bill, Mawruss, has no trouble getting a thousand dollars because the second vice-president is buffaloed already by a stovepipe hat, a Prince Albert coat and a four-carat stone with a flaw in it." ”

“ We ought to do what other houses does, Mawruss. We ought to get a good salesman. We got three thousand dollars to throw away on real estate, Mawruss; why don't we make an investment like Sammet Brothers made it? Why don't we invest in a crackerjack, A-number-one salesman?"
"I ain't stopping you, Abe," Morris replied. "Why don't we? Klinger & Klein has a good boy, Alec Goldwasser. He done a big trade for 'em, Abe, and they don't pay him much, neither." ”

“ Kleebaum replied, as he lit one of Abe's "gilt-edged" cigars, "he's got a right to holler. Now you take this here Pfingst car. It is made by the Pfingst Manufacturing Company, a millionaire concern, and them people advertise it to beat the band. And why shouldn't they advertise it? Them people got a car there which it is a wonder, Potash. How they could sell a car like that for twenty-five hundred dollars I don't know. The body alone must cost them people a couple of thousand dollars." ”

“ Abe cried. "Why, you don't mean to tell me that feller ain't been in here yet?"
"Sure he was in here," Kuhner replied, "but he didn't say nothing about selling goods for you. In fact, he got a fine order from me, Abe, for a concern which I never done business with before. People by the name Sammet Brothers. What's the matter, Abe? Are you sick?"
Abe gurgled once or twice and clutched at his collar.
"Did you got the samples here what he shows you?" he managed to gasp.
"Why, Abe, what's troubling you?" Kuhner said. "A sick man like you shouldn't be attending to business at all." ”

“ Morris cried one rainy March morning, "we got to get some more insurance."
"What do you mean, insurance?" Abe asked. "We got enough insurance, Mawruss. Them Rifkin fixtures ain't so valuable as all that, Mawruss, and even if we wouldn't already got it for twenty thousand dollars insurance, Mawruss, the building is anyhow fireproof. In a fireproof building you don't got to have so much insurance." ”

“ Morris asked.
"Nothing," Mr. Lowenstein replied. "Only a merchant like me, what wants to enlarge his business, needs a little better terms than thirty days. Ain't it? I'm improving my departments all the time, and I got to buy more fixtures, lay in a better stock and even build a new wing to my store building. All this costs money, Mr. Perlmutter, as you know, and contractors must be paid strictly for cash. Under the circumstances, I need ready money, and, naturally, the house what gives me the most generous credit gets my biggest order." ”

“ Sol nudged Abe, and after the young man and Fiedler had disappeared into the latter's private office Sol imparted in hoarse whispers to Abe that the young man was reported to have information from the ground-floor crowd about Interstate Copper.
"Well, if that's so," Abe replied, "why does he lose money on it?"
"Because," Sol explained, "he's got an idee that if you act just contrariwise to the inside information what you get it, why then you come out right." ”

“ He selected the smallest gown in stock and handed it to her.
"If you can get into that by your own self you can have it for two dollars," he said, pocketing the crumpled bill. "I don't button up nothing for nobody."
He gathered up the mail from the letter-box and carried it to the show-room. There was a generous pile of correspondence, and the very first letter that came to his hand bore the legend, "The Paris. Cloaks, Suits and Millinery. M. Garfunkel, Prop." Abe mumbled to himself as he tore it open. ”

“ Feigenbaum," Abe said. He followed his late customer up the passageway between the mahogany partitions, into the show-room.
"Take a chair, Mr. Feigenbaum," Abe cried, dragging forward a comfortable, padded seat, into which Feigenbaum sank with a sigh.
"I wish we could get it furniture like this up in Bridgetown," Feigenbaum said. "A one-horse place like Bridgetown you can't get nothing there. Everything you got to come to New York for. We are dead ones in Bridgetown. We don't know nothing and we don't learn nothing." ”

“ The opening bout more than realized Morris' conception of the sport's brutality, for Pig Flanagan was what the cognoscenti call a good bleeder, and during the first second of the fight he fulfilled his reputation at the instance of a light tap from his opponent's left. There are some people who cannot stand the sight of blood; Morris was one of them, and the drummer on Frank Walsh's right was another. Both he and Morris turned pale, but the big man on Walsh's left roared his approbation. ”

“ On the other hand, Mawruss, if we get a good designer, Mawruss, all we pay him is two thousand a year and we're through."
"I know, Abe," Morris replied, "but designers can turn out stickers, too."
"Sure, they can, Mawruss," Abe went on, "but they got a job to look out for, Mawruss, while you are one of the bosses here, whether you turn out stickers or not. No, Mawruss, I got enough of stickers [Pg 24] already. I'm going to look out for a good, live designer, a smart young feller like Louis Grossman, what works for Sammet Brothers. I bet you they done an increased business of twenty per cent. ”

“ You got a partner, y'understand, which he is a decent respectable feller. I bet yer Mawruss would no more dream of overdrawing you, than he would fly in the air."
"Wait till they gets to be popular, Sol," Abe replied. "You could take it from me, Sol, Mawruss would be the first one to buy one of them airyplanes, just the same like he bought that oitermobile yet."
"That's all right," Sol said. "Mawruss is a good live partner. He sees people round him—good, decent, respectable people, mind you—is buying oitermobiles, Abe, and so he thinks he could buy one, too. ”

“ Crooks?" Abe cried. "The way Kleebaum talks he would give us an order for a thousand dollars goods, maybe, Mawruss. He ain't no crook."
"Ain't he?" Morris replied. "What's the reason he ain't, Abe? The way I look at it, Abe, when a feller makes it a dirty failure like that feller made it in Milwaukee, Abe, and then goes to Cleveland, Abe, and opens up as the bon march, Abe, and does another bust up, Abe, and then he goes to——"
"S'enough, Mawruss," Abe interrupted. "Them things is from old times already. To-day is something else again. ”

“ Leon cried. "Why, Abe, I'm surprised at you. If I go to a man to sell something what I like to get rid of it, and he don't want, then I name the price. But if a man comes to me to buy something what I want to keep, and what he's got to have, Abe, then he names the price. Ain't it?"
Abe looked critically at the end of his smoldering cigar.
"Well, Leon," he said at length, "if I must name [Pg 31] a price, I suppose I must. Now I know you will think me crazy, Leon, but I want to get a good designer bad, Leon, and so I say"—here he paused to note the effect—"five hundred dollars." ”

“ A sport and a gambler, too," Abe said. "He'd sooner play auction pinochle than eat, Mawruss. I bet you he turns in an expense account like he was on a honeymoon every trip. The last time I seen this here Max Tuchman was up in Duluth. He was riding in a buggy with the lady buyer from Moe Gerschel's cloak department."
"Well, I suppose he sold her a big bill of goods, too, Abe, ain't it?" Morris rejoined. "He's an up-to-date feller, Abe. If anybody wants to sell goods to lady buyers they got to be up-to-date, ain't it? ”