Potash & Perlmutter Part 10

"Me no want job," she said. "Me _coosin_."

"Cousin!" Abe cried. "Whose cousin?"

"Lina's coosin," said the girl. She held out her hand and, opening it, disclosed a two-dollar bill all damp and wrinkled. "Me want dress like Lina."

"What!" Abe cried. "So soon already!"

"Lina got nice red dress. She show it me last night," the girl said. "Me got one, too."

She smiled affably, and for the first time Abe noticed the smooth, fair hair, the oval face and the slender, girlish figure that seemed made for an Empire gown. Then, of course, there was the two-dollar bill and its promise of a cash sale, which always makes a strong appeal to a credit-harried mind like Abe's. "Oh, well," he said with a sigh, leading the way to the rack of Empire gowns in the rear of the store, "if I must I suppose I must."

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 b.u.t.ton up nothing for n.o.body."

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.

"I bet yer he claims a shortage in delivery, when we ain't even shipped him the goods yet," he said, and commenced to read the letter; "I bet yer he----"

He froze into horrified silence as his protruding eyes took in the import of M. Garfunkel's note. Then he jumped from his chair and ran into the store, where the new retail customer was primping in front of the mirror.

"Out," he yelled, "out of my store."

She turned from the fascinating picture in the looking-gla.s.s to behold the enraged Abe brandishing the letter like a missile, and with one terrified shriek she made for the door and dashed wildly toward the corner.

Morris was smoking an after-breakfast cigar as he strolled leisurely from the subway, and when he turned into White Street Abe was still standing on the doorstep.

"What's the matter?" Morris asked.

"Matter!" Abe cried. "Matter! _Nothing's_ the matter. Everything's fine and dandy. Just look at that letter, Mawruss. That's all."

Morris took the proffered note and opened it at once.

"Gents," it read. "Your Mr. Perlmutter sold us them plum-color Empires this morning, and he said they was all the thing on Fifth Avenue. Now, gents, we sell to the First Avenue trade, like what was in your store this afternoon when our Mr. Garfunkel called, and our Mr. Garfunkel seen enough already. Please cancel the order. Your Mr. Perlmutter will understand. Truly yours, The Paris. M. Garfunkel, Prop."

M. Garfunkel lived in a stylish apartment on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street. His family consisted of himself, Mrs. Garfunkel, three children and a Lithuanian maid named Anna, and it was a source of wonder to the neighbors that a girl so slight in frame could perform the menial duties of so large a household. She cooked, washed and sewed for the entire family with such cheerfulness and application that Mrs.

Garfunkel deemed her a treasure and left to her discretion almost every domestic detail. Thus Anna always rose at six and immediately awakened Mr. Garfunkel, for M. Garfunkel's breakfast was an immovable feast, scheduled for half-past six.

But on the morning after he had purchased the plum-color gowns from Potash & Perlmutter it was nearly eight before he awoke, and when he entered the dining-room, instead of the two fried eggs, the sausage and the coffee which usually greeted him, there were spread on the table only the evening papers, a br.i.m.m.i.n.g ash-tray and a torn envelope bearing the score of last night's pinochle game.

He was about to return to the bedroom and report Anna's disappearance when a key rattled in the hall door and Anna herself entered. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was blown about her face in unbecoming disorder. Nevertheless, she smiled the triumphant smile of the well-dressed.

"Me late," she said, but Garfunkel forgot all about his lost breakfast hour when he beheld the plum-color Empire.

"Why," he gasped, "that's one of them forty-twenty-two's I ordered yesterday."

Anna lifted both her arms the better to display the gown's perfection, and Garfunkel examined it with the eye of an expert.

"Let's see the back," he said. "That looks great on you, Anna."

He spun her round and round in his anxiety to view the gown from all angles.

"I must have been crazy to cancel that order," he went on. "Where did you get it, Anna?"

"Me buy from Potash & Perlmutter," she said. "My coosin Lina works by Mr. Perlmutter. She gets one yesterday for two dollar. Me see it last night and like it. So me get up five o'clock this morning and go downtown and buy one for two dollar, too."

M. Garfunkel made a rapid mental calculation, while Anna left to prepare the belated breakfast.

He estimated that Anna had paid a little less for her retail purchase than the price Potash & Perlmutter had quoted to him for hundred lots.

"They're worth it, too," he said to himself. "Potash & Perlmutter is a couple of pretty soft suckers, to be selling goods below cost to servant-girls. I always thought Abe Potash was a pretty hard nut, but I guess I'll be able to do business with 'em, after all."

At half-past ten M. Garfunkel entered the store of Potash & Perlmutter and greeted Abe with a smile that blended apology, friendliness and ingratiation in what M. Garfunkel deemed to be just the right proportions. Abe glared in response.

"Well, Abe," M. Garfunkel cried, "ain't it a fine weather?"

"Is it?" Abe replied. "I don't worry about the kind of weather it is when I gets cancelations, Mr. Garfunkel. What for you cancel that order, Mr. Garfunkel?"

M. Garfunkel raised a protesting palm.

"Now, Abe," he said, "if you was to go into a house what you bought goods off of and seen a garment you just hear is all the rage on Fifth Avenue being tried on by a cow----"

"A cow!" Abe said. "I want to tell you something, Mr. Garfunkel. That lady what you see trying on them Empires was Mawruss' girl what works by his wife, and while she ain't no Lillian Russell nor nothing like that, y'understand, if you think you should get out of taking them goods by calling her a cow you are mistaken."

The qualities of ingratiation and friendliness departed from M.

Garfunkel's smile, leaving it wholly apologetic.

"Well, Abe, as a matter of fact," he said, "I ain't canceled that order altogether _absolutely_, y'understand. Maybe if you make inducements I might reconsider it."

"Inducements!" Abe cried. "Inducements is nix. Them gowns costs us three dollars apiece, and we give 'em to you for three-ten. If we make any inducements we land in the poorhouse. Ain't it?"

"Oh, the price is all right," M. Garfunkel protested, "but the terms is too strict. I can't buy _all_ my goods at ten days. Sammet Brothers gives me a line at sixty and ninety days, and so I do most of my business with them. Now if I could get the same terms by _you_, Abe, I should consider your line ahead of Sammet Brothers'."

"Excuse _me_," Abe interrupted. "I think I hear the telephone ringing."

He walked to the rear of the store, where the telephone bell was jingling.

"Miss Cohen," he said to the bookkeeper as he pa.s.sed the office, "answer the 'phone. I'm going upstairs to speak to Mr. Perlmutter."

He proceeded to the cutting-room, where Morris was superintending the unpacking of piece-goods.

"Mawruss," he said, "M. Garfunkel is downstairs, and he says he will reconsider the cancelation and give it us a big order if we let him have better terms. What d'ye say, Mawruss?"

Morris remained silent for a minute.

"Take a chance, Abe," he said at length. "He can't bust up on us by the first bill. Can he?"

"No," Abe agreed hesitatingly, "but he _might_, Mawruss?"