Elkan Lubliner, American Part 4

As he spoke he indicated Meyer Gifkin with a jerk of the chin.

"He ain't b.u.t.ting in here," Philip declared; "he comes in here because I told him to. I want you should make an end of this nonsense, Polatkin, and hire a decent a.s.sistant cutter. Gifkin is willing to come back for twenty dollars a week."

"He is, is he?" Marcus cried. "Well, if he was willing to come back for twenty dollars a week why didn't he come back before? Now it's too late; I got other plans. Besides, twenty dollars is too much."

"You know very well why I ain't come back before, Mr. Polatkin," Gifkin protested. "I was afraid for my life from that murderer Borrochson."

Philip scowled suddenly.

"My partner is right, Gifkin," he said. "Twenty dollars is too much."

"No, it ain't," Gifkin declared. "If I would be still working for you, Mr. Scheikowitz, I would be getting more as twenty dollars by now. And was it my fault you are firing me? By rights I should have sued you in the courts yet."

"What d'ye mean sue us in the courts?" Philip exclaimed. He was growing increasingly angry, but Gifkin heeded no warning.

"Because you are firing me just for saying a crook is a crook," Gifkin replied, "and here lately you found out for yourself this here Borrochson is nothing but a _Schwindler_--a _Ganef_."

"What are you talking about--a _Schwindler_?" Philip cried, now thoroughly aroused. "Ain't you heard the boy says Borrochson is marrying the landlord's widow? Could a man get married on wind, Gifkin?"

"Yow! he married the landlord's widow!" Gifkin said. "I bet yer that crook gambles away the money; and, anyhow, could you believe anything this here boy tells you, Mr. Scheikowitz?"

The question fell on deaf ears, however, for at the repet.i.tion of the word crook Philip flung open the office door.

"Out of here," he roared, "before I kick you out."

Simultaneously Marcus grabbed the luckless Gifkin by the collar, and just what occurred between the office and the stairs could be deduced from the manner in which Marcus limped back to the office.

"_Gott sei Dank_ we are rid of the fellow," he said as he came in.

Although Philip Scheikowitz arrived at his place of business at half-past seven the following morning he found that Marcus and Elkan Lubliner had preceded him, for when he entered the showroom Marcus approached with a broad grin on his face and pointed to the cutting room, where stood Elkan Lubliner. In the boy's right hand was clutched a pair of cutter's shears, and guided by chalked lines he was laboriously slicing up a roll of sample paper.

"Ain't he a picture?" Marcus exclaimed.

"A picture!" Philip repeated. "What d'ye mean a picture?"

"Why, the way he stands there with them shears, Philip," Marcus replied.

"He's really what you could call a born cutter if ever there was one."

"A cutter!" Philip cried.

"Sure," Marcus went on. "It's never too soon for a young feller to learn all sides of his trade, Philip. He's been long enough on the stock. Now he should learn to be a cutter, and I bet yer in six months'

time yet he would be just so good a cutter as anybody."

Philip was too dazed to make any comment before Marcus obtained a fresh start.

"A smart boy like him, Philip, learns awful quick," he said. "Ain't it funny how blood shows up? Now you take a boy like him which he comes from decent, respectable family, Philip, and he's got real gumption. I think I told you his grandfather on his father's side was a big rabbi, the _Lubliner Rav_."

Philip nodded.

"And even if I didn't told you," Marcus went on, "you could tell it from his face."

Again Philip nodded.

"And another thing I want to talk to you about," Marcus said, hastening after him: "the hundred dollars the boy gives you you should keep, Philip. And if you are spending more than that on the boy I would make it good."

Philip dug down absently into his trousers pocket and brought forth the roll of dirty bills.

"Take it," he said, throwing it toward his partner. "I don't want it."

"What d'ye mean you don't want it?" Marcus cried.

"I mean I ain't got no hard feelings against the boy," Philip replied.

"I am thinking it over all night, and I come to the conclusion so long as I started in being the boy's uncle I would continue that way. So you should put the money in the savings bank like I says yesterday."

"But----" Marcus protested.

"But nothing," Philip interrupted. "Do what I am telling you."

Marcus blinked hard and cleared his throat with a great, rasping noise.

"After all," he said huskily, "it don't make no difference how many crooks _oder Ganevim_ is in a feller's family, Philip, so long as he's got a good, straight business man for a partner."

CHAPTER TWO

APPENWEIER'S ACCOUNT

HOW ELKAN LUBLINER GRADUATED INTO SALESMANSHIP

"When I hire a salesman, Mr. Klugfels," said Marcus Polatkin, senior partner of Polatkin & Scheikowitz, "I hire him because he's a salesman, not because he's a nephew."

"But it don't do any harm for a salesman to have an uncle whose concern would buy in one season from you already ten thousand dollars goods, Mr.

Polatkin," Klugfels insisted. "Furthermore, Harry is a bright, smart boy; and you can take it from me, Mr. Polatkin, not alone he would get my trade, but us buyers is got a whole lot of influence one with the other, understand me; so, if there's any other concern you haven't on your books at present, you could rely on me I should do my best for Harry and you."

Thus spoke Mr. Felix Klugfels, buyer for Appenweier & Murray's Thirty-second Street store, on the first Monday of January; and in consequence on the second Monday of January Harry Flaxberg came to work as city salesman for Polatkin & Scheikowitz. He also maintained the role of party of the second part in a contract drawn by Henry D. Feldman, whose skill in such matters is too well known for comment here.

Sufficient to say it fixed Harry Flaxberg's compensation at thirty dollars a week and moderate commissions. At Polatkin's request, however, the doc.u.ment was so worded that it excluded Flaxberg from selling any of the concerns already on Polatkin & Scheikowitz's books; for not only did he doubt Flaxberg's ability as a salesman, but he was quite conscious of the circ.u.mstance that, save for the acquisition of Appenweier & Murray's account, there was no need of their hiring a city salesman at all, since the scope of their business operations required only one salesman--to wit, as the lawyers say, Marcus Polatkin himself. On the other hand, Klugfels had insisted upon the safeguarding of his nephew's interests, so that the latter was reasonably certain of a year's steady employment.

Hence, when, on the first Monday of February, Appenweier & Murray dispensed with the services of Mr. Klugfels before he had had the opportunity of bestowing even one order on his nephew as a mark of his favour, the business premises of Polatkin & Scheikowitz became forthwith a house of mourning. From the stricken princ.i.p.als down to and including the shipping clerk nothing else was spoken of or thought about for a period of more than two weeks. Neither was it a source of much consolation to Marcus Polatkin when he heard that Klugfels had been supplanted by Max Lapin, a third cousin of Leon Sammet of the firm of Sammet Brothers.

"Ain't it terrible the way people is related nowadays?" he said to Scheikowitz, who had just read aloud the news of Max Lapin's hiring in the columns of the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_.

"Honestly, Scheikowitz, if a feller ain't got a lot of retailers _oder_ buyers for distance relations, understand me, he might just so well go out of business and be done with it!"

Scheikowitz threw down the paper impatiently.