Potash

“ 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." ”

“ Among potash fertilizers the sulphate of potash has been found to afford a better quality of potato than kainit and muriate of potash. Ashes, are extensively and effectively used to supply potash to potatoes. ”

“ Potash. Then followed a tiresome journey to Pittsburgh with two changes of cars, and finally, on the morning of the fourth day, at seven-thirty sharp, he accompanied Hyman Margolius to the latter's place of business.
There he took off his coat and helped Hyman and his staff of assistants to pile up and mark for auction a large consignment of clothing. ”

“ They quarrel alike over details of business policy; but they always stand together where profit is obviously to be made by a common attitude, or where they find themselves in a tight corner. Yet the author has preserved a nice distinction between them. It is Potash, the elder of the two, and encumbered by fetters of domestic affection, who is the weaker vessel, and commits the indiscretions with whose issue he is impotent to cope; it is Perlmutter, with the quicker brains, contemptuous but devoted, who throws all the blame where it is due, yet stands by to share the punishment. ”

“ Abe replied. "Tell 'em to come into the show-room."
A moment later Lina and her cousin Anna entered the show-room. Both were arrayed in Potash & Perlmutter's style forty-twenty-two, but while Lina wore a green hat approximating the hue of early [Pg 80] spring foliage, Anna's head-covering was yellow with just a few crimson-lake roses—about eight large ones—on the side.
"Close the window, Mawruss," said Abe. "There's so much noise coming from outside I can't hear myself think."
"The window is closed, Abe," Morris replied. "It's your imagination." ”

“ Abe Potash remarked a week after the slump in Interstate Copper. "He got to hire a drummer by the name Walsh yet. That feller's idee of entertaining a customer is to go into Wasserbauer's and to drink all the schnapps in stock. I bet yer when Walsh gets through, he don't know which is the customer and which is the bartender already."
"You got to treat a customer right, Abe," Morris commented, "because nowadays we are up against some stiff competition. You take this here new concern, Abe, the Small Drygoods Company of Walla Walla, Washington, Abe, and Klinger & Klein ain't lost no time. ”

“ Abe Potash said to his partner as they stood together and surveyed the wild disorder of their business premises, "one removal is worser as a fire."
"Sure it is," Morris Perlmutter agreed. "A fire you can insure it, Abe, but a removal is a risk what you got to take yourself; and you're bound to make it a loss."
"Not if you got a little system, Mawruss," Abe went on. "The trouble with us is, Mawruss, we ain't got no system. In less than three weeks already we got to move into the loft on Nineteenth Street, Mawruss, and we ain't even made up our minds about the fixtures yet." "The fixtures!" ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Morris cried.
"Them samples is good enough to sell themselves; and the way I figure it out, they got to sell themselves, [Pg 311] Abe, because I don't believe Pasinsky could sell nothing to nobody."
"You don't believe nothing, Mawruss," Abe concluded as he made for the cutting-room; "you're a regular amethyst."
"With a feller like Kuhner," Marks Pasinsky declared on the following Monday, "you couldn't be a cheap skate, Mr. Potash." ”

“ CHAPTER V
"Things goes pretty smooth for us lately, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked, shortly after M. Garfunkel's failure. "I guess we are due for a schlag somewheres, ain't it?"
"Always you got to kick," Morris cried. "If you would only listen to what I got to say oncet in a while, Abe, things would always go smooth."
Abe emitted a raucous laugh.
"Sure, I know," he said, "like this here tenement house proposition you was talking to me about, Mawruss. You ain't content we should have our troubles in the cloak and suit business, Mawruss, you got to go outside yet and find 'em. ”

“ Morris was nearest the safe and he, too, leaped from his chair.
"Never mind the safe, Mawruss," Abe said, flapping his right hand excitedly. "I bought some while I was out just now."
"Mr. Potash," the visitor began, "every merchant is at times confronted
with a situation which demands a few appropriate remarks"
He handed a gold-banded, Bismarck-size cigar to the visitor, who nodded a dignified acknowledgment and immediately struck a match.
"Yes, Mr. Perlmutter," he went on, "as I was saying, such a topic as the restriction of immigration would embarrass even an experienced speaker." ”

“ Together they left Hammersmith's and repaired at once to Potash & Perlmutter's place of business. As they entered the show-room Miss Cohen emerged from her office with a sheet of paper in her hand.
"Mr. Potash," she said, "when you were in Chicago last fall you drew on the firm for a hundred dollars, and by mistake I credited it to you on your expense account. It ought to have been charged on your drawing account. So that makes [Pg 416] your total drawing account sixty-three hundred dollars."
Abe stopped short and looked at Sol. ”

“ Abe inquired, much interested.
"I got it a lowlife what I hired for a salesman, also," he replied, "and three weeks ago that feller left my place with my samples and I ain't heard a word from him since. If I got to search every gamblinghouse in Chicago I will find that loafer; [Pg 335] and when I do find him, Potash, I will crack his neck for him."
"I wouldn't do nothing rash, Gans," Abe advised. "What for a looking feller is this salesman of yours?"
"He's a tall, white-faced loafer with a big red mustache," Gans replied, "and his name is Ignatz Kresnick." ”

“ If Miriam got it this young feller for a husband, might you would give him some of your work, maybe?"
"Bloodsuckers don't give no work to nobody," Abe replied firmly. "And also will you get out of my store, or will you be put out?"
He turned on his heel without waiting for an answer and joined Morris in the rear of the store.
Ten minutes later he was approached by Jake, the shipping-clerk.
"Mr. Potash," Jake said, "them two ladies in the show-room wants to know if you would maybe give that party they was talking about a recommendation to the President of the Kosciusko Bank?" ”

“ So I says, well, I says, if you don't want to ring 'em up I'll ring 'em up; and she says I should mind my own business. So then I says, if you wouldn't ring 'em up and I wouldn't ring 'em up I'll do this for you, Miss Atkinson: You and me will go for an oitermobile ride, I says, and we'll have just so good a time as if Potash & Perlmutter was paying for it. And so we did, Abe. I took Miss Atkinson up to the Heatherbloom Inn, and it costed me thirty dollars, Abe, including a cigar, which I wouldn't charge you nothing for. ”

“ Potiphar’s is, in some ways, better than going shopping. You see more new and costly things in a shorter time. People say, “What a love of a chair!” “What a darling table!” “What a heavenly sofa!” and they all go and tease their husbands to get things precisely like them. When Kurz Pacha the Sennaar Minister, came to a dinner at my house, he said:
“Bless my soul! Mr. Potiphar, your house is just like your neighbor’s.”
I know it. I am perfectly aware that there is no more difference between my house and Croesus’s, than there is in two ten dollar bills of the same bank. ”

“ The fete holds Potiphar, whose duties press And keep him captive till the set of sun; Whilst I, a-faint, the privilege of my sex, Await thee here, knowing thy daily round Had naught to stay it in the priestly show. For what, to thee, the mummified Gods of On? Art thou not servant to a mightier lord? Nor thyself art seen, nor offerings from thee grace The inner shrines. ”

“ The perfection of civilization has not yet mounted the stairs. It is confined to the dining-room. How beautiful is that strain from the Favorita, Miss Minerva, tum, tum, ti ti, tum tum, tee tee,” and the delightful Sennaar ambassador, seeing Mrs. Potiphar in the parlor, danced humming away.
There are few pleasanter men in society. I should think with his experience he would be hard upon us, but he is not. The air of courts does not seem to have spoiled him.
“My dear madam,” he said one evening to Mrs. Potiphar, “if you laugh at anything, your laughing is laughed at next day. Life is short. ”

“ My people have fought with the people of Potanou more than a hundred battles. Our triumphs have been witnessed by every bird that flies, every beast that runs, every fish that swims, between the villages of Potanou and the strong house of the Frenchman where he starves below. ”

“ Ye faithful, loved and looser deities, Be with me and avenge me for this wrong, Dark desecration of the hearth and home The sanctuary of Lord Potiphar! Shall I the wife bear insult from a slave, That dareth, as vermin, when the sun is gone, To scurry forth and lift a loathsome head, To equal those the gods have set on high, To bandy words and seek with coarse! (Sardis suddenly enters and the wife of Potiphar, terrified, hides the scarf and cries out:) Ah, gods! ”

“ People are much better than you think, but they are also much worse. I might have been king of Sennaar, but I am only his ambassador. You might have been only a chambermaid, but you are the brilliant and accomplished Miss Tattle. Tum, tum, tum, ti, ti, ti,—what a pretty waltz! Here come Daisy and Timon Croesus, and now Mrs. Potiphar and Gauche Boosey, and now again Caroline Pettitoes and De Famille. She is smiling again, you see. She darts through the dance like a sunbeam as she is. Caroline is a philosopher. ”

“ Potiphar grew purple, and Mr. Cheese looked at Boosey in the most serious manner over the top of his champagne-glass. I am glad to say that Polly has properly rebuked Gauche Boosey for his irreligion, by not asking him to her Saturday evening matinees dansantes.
There was no escape from the house, however. It must be built. It was not only Mrs. Potiphar that persisted, but the spirit of the age and of the country. One can’t live among shops. When Pearl street comes to Park Place, Park Place must run for its life up to Thirtieth street. ”

“ Too much light, and eating, and drinking, and dancing, and flirting, and dressing, and feigning, and smirking, and much too many people. Good taste insists first upon fitness. But why had Mrs. Potiphar given this ball? We inquired industriously, and learned it was because she did not give one last year. Is it then essential to do this thing biennially? inquired we with some trepidation. “Certainly,” was the bland reply, “or society will forget you.” Everybody was unhappy at Mrs. Potiphar’s, save a few girls and boys, who danced violently all the evening. ”

“ It came to pass that on a day a man from the hills came into the village leading his little son. And when it was night, he went into the potuma, where the men slept, to pass the night, and he took with him the child. Now in the potuma was a man of the village who was fierce and violent in all his ways. When, therefore, he saw the hill man about to sleep in the potuma, he arose and beat the little child, saying, "What doest thou here, O child? Knowest thou not that this is a house for men? ”

“ Potts had gracefully described as "the golden age of Pericles."
To the end of his days he should be blithely, naïvely Greek; a dog of wretched field manners, pointing cattle and quail impartially, shamefully gun-shy, inconsequent, volatile, ignorant, forever paganly joyous without due cause. For him I should do what no one had been able to do for me—detain him in that "world of fine fabling" where everything is true that ought to be; where the earth is a running course, fascinating in its surprises of open road and tangled hedgerow; where mere indiscriminate smelling is keenest ecstasy ”

“ Potiah dedicated this laborious work to the God Iswar, after this, the poet established a school, where the Sanscrit and vernacular dialects were taught to numerous students. His leisure hours this poet devoted to reading and the composition of didactic pieces, which being circulated among the literati of the Telugu country, were very highly extolled for their harmony and moral tendency. Potiah derived but little increase of fortune from his works, although they were much esteemed at the Courts of different Kings and Princes. ”

“ At night, the cold returns, and it seems almost as chill as during our New England March. Potosi is situated at an elevation of 13,265 feet above the level of the sea, and is the highest inhabited place on the face of the globe. ”