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Potash and Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures

<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> "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." "But this ain't a friend, Abe," Morris protested. "It's my wife's servant-girl. She seen one of them samples, style forty-twenty-two, them plum-color Empires what I took it home to show M. Garfunkel on my way down yesterday, and now she's crazy to have one. If she don't get one my Minnie is afraid she'll leave." "All right," Abe said, "let her leave. If my Rosie can cook herself and wash herself, Mawruss, I guess it won't hurt your Minnie. Let her try doing her own work for a while, Mawruss. I guess it'll do her good." "But, anyhow, Abe, I told the girl to come down this morning and I'd give her one for two dollars, and I guess she'll be here most any time now." "Well, Mawruss," said Abe, "this once is all right,[Pg 64] but never no more. We ain't doing a cloak and suit business for the servant-girl trade." Further discussion was prevented by the entrance of the retail customer herself. Morris jumped quickly to his feet and conducted her to the rear of the store, while Abe silently sought refuge in the cutting-room upstairs. "What size do you think you wear, Lina?" Morris asked. "Big," Lina replied. "Fat." "Yes, I know," Morris said, "but what size?" "Very fat," Lina replied. She was a Lithuanian and her generous figure had never known the refining influence of a corset until she had landed at Ellis Island two years before. "That's the biggest I got, Lina," Morris said, producing the largest-size garment in stock. "Maybe if you try it on over your dress you'll get some idea of whether it's big enough." Lina struggled feet first into the gown, which buttoned down the back, and for five minutes Morris labored with clenched teeth to fasten it for her. "That's a fine fit," he said, as he concluded his task. He led her toward the mirror in the front of the show-room just as M. Garfunkel entered the store door. "Hallo, Mawruss," he cried. "What's this? A new cloak model you got?" <hr style="width: 85%;" /> <ANTIMG title="What's This? A New Cloak Model You Got?" width-obs="400" height="264" alt="What's This? A New Cloak Model You Got?" src="images/002.jpg"> <h5>What's This? A New Cloak Model You Got?</h5> <hr style="width: 85%;" /> Morris blushed, while Lina and M. Garfunkel both[Pg 65] made a critical examination of the garment's eccentric fit. "Why, that's one of them forty-twenty-two's what I ordered a lot of this morning, Mawruss. Ain't it?" Morris gazed ruefully at the plum-color gown and nodded. "Then don't ship that order till you hear from me," M. Garfunkel said. "I guess I got to hustle right along." "Don't be in a hurry, Mr. Garfunkel," Morris cried. "You ain't come in the store just to tell me that, have you?" "Yes, I have," said Garfunkel, his eye still glued to Lina's bulging figure. "That's all what I come for. I'll write you this afternoon." He slammed the door behind him and Morris turned to the unbuttoning of the half-smothered Lina. "That'll be two dollars for you, Lina," he said, "and I guess it'll be about four hundred for us." At seven the next morning, when Abe came down the street from the subway, a bareheaded girl sat on the short flight of steps leading to Potash & Perlmutter's store door. As Abe approached, the girl rose and nodded, whereat Abe scowled. "If a job you want it," he said, "you should go round to the back door and wait till the foreman comes." "Me no want job," she said. "Me coosin." "Cousin!" Abe cried. "Whose cousin?" "Lina's coosin," said the girl. She held out her[Pg 66] 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 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. "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[Pg 67] 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-glass 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[Pg 68] 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 brimming 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. [Pg 69]"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[Pg 70] 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[Pg 71] 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 passed 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?" "Sure he might," said Morris, "but if we don't take no chances, Abe, we might as well go out of the cloak and suit business. Sell him all he wants, Abe." [Pg 72]"I'll sell him all he can pay for, Mawruss," said Abe, "and I guess that ain't over a thousand dollars." He returned to the first floor, where M. Garfunkel eagerly awaited him, and produced a box of the firm's K. to M. first and second credit customers' cigars. "Have a smoke, Mr. Garfunkel," he said. M. Garfunkel selected a cigar with care and sat down. "Well, Abe," he said, "that was a long talk you had over the telephone." "Sure it was," Abe replied. "The cashier of the Kosciusko Bank on Grand Street rang me up. He discounts some of our accounts what we sell responsible people, and he asks me that in future I get regular statements from all my customers—those that I want to discount their accounts in particular." M. Garfunkel nodded slowly. "Statements—you shall have it, Abe," he said, "but I may as well tell you that it's foolish to discount bills what you sell me. I sometimes discount them myself. I'll send you a statement, anyhow. Now let's look at your line, Abe. I wasted enough time already." For the next hour M. Garfunkel pawed over Potash & Perlmutter's stock, and when he finally took leave of Abe he had negotiated an order of a thousand dollars; terms, sixty days net. The statement of M. Garfunkel's financial condition,[Pg 73] which arrived the following day, more than satisfied Morris Perlmutter and, had it not been quite so glowing in character, it might even have satisfied Abe Potash. "I don't know, Mawruss," he said; "some things looks too good to be true, Mawruss, and I guess this is one of them." "Always you must worry, Abe," Morris rejoined. "If Vanderbilt and Astor was partners together in the cloak and suit business, and you sold 'em a couple of hundred dollars' goods, Abe, you'd worry yourself sick till you got a check. I bet yer Garfunkel discounts his bill already." Morris' prophecy proved to be true, for at the end of four weeks M. Garfunkel called at Potash & Perlmutter's store and paid his sixty-day account with the usual discount of ten per cent. Moreover, he gave them another order for two thousand dollars' worth of goods at the same terms. In this instance, however, full fifty-nine days elapsed without word from M. Garfunkel, and on the morning of the sixtieth day Abe entered the store bearing every appearance of anxiety. "Well, Abe," Morris cried, "what's the matter now? You look like you was worried." "I bet yer I'm worried, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Well, what's the use of worrying?" he rejoined. "M. Garfunkel's account ain't due till to-day." "Always M. Garfunkel!" Abe cried. "M. Garfunkel don't worry me much, Mawruss.[Pg 74] I'd like to see a check from him, too, Mawruss, but I ain't wasting no time on him. My Rosie is sick." "Sick!" Morris exclaimed. "That's too bad, Abe. What seems to be the trouble?" "She got the rheumatism in her shoulder," Abe replied, "and she tries to get a girl by intelligent offices to help her out, but it ain't no use. It breaks her all up to get a girl, Mawruss. Fifteen years already she cooks herself and washes herself, and now she's got to get a girl, Mawruss, but she can't get one." Morris clucked sympathetically. "Maybe that girl of yours, Mawruss," Abe went on as though making an innocent suggestion, "what we sell the forty-twenty-two to, maybe she got a sister or a cousin maybe, what wants a job, Mawruss." "I'll telephone my Minnie right away," Morris said, and as he turned to do so M. Garfunkel entered. Abe and Morris rushed forward to greet him. Each seized a hand and, patting him on the back, escorted him to the show-room. "First thing," M. Garfunkel said, "here is a check for the current bill." "No hurry," Abe and Morris exclaimed, with what the musical critics call splendid attack. "Now that that's out of the way," M. Garfunkel went on, "I want to give you another order. Only thing is, Mawruss, you know as well as I do that in the installment cloak and suit business a feller needs a lot of capital. Ain't it?" Morris nodded. [Pg 75]"And if he buys goods only for cash or thirty or sixty days, Abe," M. Garfunkel continued, "he sometimes gets pretty cramped for money, because his own customers takes a long time to pay up. Ain't it?" Abe nodded, too. "Well, then," M. Garfunkel concluded, "I'll give you boys a fine order, but this time it's got to be ninety days." Abe puffed hard on his cigar, and Morris loosened his collar, which had become suddenly tight. "I always paid prompt my bills. Ain't it?" M. Garfunkel asked. "Sure, Mr. Garfunkel," Abe replied. "That you did do it. But ninety days is three months, and ourselves we got to pay our bills in thirty days." "However," Morris broke in, "that is neither there nor here. A good customer is a good customer, Abe, and so I'm agreeable." This put the proposition squarely up to Abe, and he found it a difficult matter to refuse credit to a customer whose check for two thousand dollars was even then reposing in Abe's waistcoat pocket. "All right," Abe said. "Go ahead and pick out your goods." For two solid hours M. Garfunkel went over Potash & Perlmutter's line and, selecting hundred lots of their choicest styles, bought a three-thousand-dollar order. "We ain't got but half of them styles in stock,"[Pg 76] said Morris, "but we can make 'em up right away." "Then, them goods what you got in stock, Mawruss," said Garfunkel, "I must have prompt by to-morrow, and the others in ten days." "That's all right," Morris replied, and when M. Garfunkel left the store Abe and Morris immediately set about the assorting of the ordered stock. "Look a-here, Mawruss," Abe said, "I thought you was going to see about that girl for my Rosie." "Why, so I was, Abe," Morris replied; "I'll attend to it right away." He went to the telephone and rang up his wife, and five minutes later returned to the front of the store. "Ain't that the funniest thing, Abe," he said. "My Minnie speaks to the girl, and the girl says she got a cousin what's just going to quit her job, Abe. She'll be the very girl for your Rosie." "I don't know, Mawruss," Abe replied. "My Rosie is a particular woman. She don't want no girl what's got fired for being dirty or something like that, Mawruss. We first want to get a report on her and find out what she gets fired for." "You're right, Abe," Morris said. "I'll find out from Lina to-night." Once more they fell to their task of assorting and packing the major part of Garfunkel's order, and by six o'clock over fifteen hundred dollars' worth of goods was ready for delivery. "We'll ship them to-morrow," Abe said, as they[Pg 77] commenced to lock up for the night, "and don't forget about that girl, Mawruss." On his way downtown the next morning Abe met Leon Sammet, senior member of the firm of Sammet Brothers. Between Abe and Leon existed the nominal truce of competition, which in the cloak and suit trade implies that while they cheerfully exchanged credit information from their office files they maintained a constant guerilla warfare for the capture of each other's customers. Now, M. Garfunkel had been a particularly strong customer of Sammet Brothers, and since Abe assumed that M. Garfunkel had dropped Sammet Brothers in favor of Potash & Perlmutter his manner toward Leon was bland and apologetic. "Well, Leon," he said, "how's business?" Leon's face wrinkled into a smile. "It could be better, of course, Abe," he said, "but we done a tremendous spring trade, anyhow, even though we ain't got no more that sucker Louis Grossman working for us. We shipped a couple of three-thousand-dollar orders last week. One of 'em to Strauss, Kahn & Baum, of Fresno." These were old customers of Potash & Perlmutter, and Abe winced. "They was old customers of ours, Leon," he said, "but they done such a cheap class of trade we couldn't cut our line enough to please 'em." "Is that so?" Leon rejoined. "Maybe M. Garfunkel was an old customer of yours, too, Abe." [Pg 78]"M. Garfunkel?" Abe cried. "Was M. Garfunkel the other?" "He certainly was," Leon boasted. "We shipped him three thousand dollars. One of our best customers, Abe. Always pays to the day." For the remainder of the subway journey Abe was quite unresponsive to Leon's jibes, a condition which Leon attributed to chagrin, and as they parted at Canal Street Leon could not forbear a final gloat. "I suppose, Abe, M. Garfunkel does too cheap a class of trade to suit you, also. Ain't it?" he said. Abe made no reply, and as he walked south toward White Street Max Lapidus, of Lapidus & Elenbogen, another and a smaller competitor, bumped into him. "Hallo, Abe," Max said. "What's that Leon Sammet was saying just now about M. Garfunkel?" "Oh, M. Garfunkel is a good customer of his," Abe replied cautiously; "so he claims." "Don't you believe it," said Max. "M. Garfunkel told me himself he used to do some business with Sammet Brothers, but he don't do it no more. We done a big business with M. Garfunkel ourselves." "So?" Abe commented. "We sold him a couple of thousand dollars at ninety days last week," Lapidus went on. "He's elegant pay, Abe. We sold him a good-size order every couple of months this season, and he pays prompt to the day. Once he discounted his bill." "Is that so?" Abe said, as they reached the front[Pg 79] of Potash & Perlmutter's store. "Glad to hear M. Garfunkel is so busy. Good-morning, Max." Morris Perlmutter met him at the door. "Hallo, Abe," he cried. "What's the matter? You look pale. Is Rosie worse?" Abe shook his head. "Mawruss," he said, "did you ship them goods to M. Garfunkel yet?" "They'll be out in ten minutes," Morris replied. "Hold 'em for a while till I telephone over to Klinger & Klein," Abe said. "What you looking for, Abe?" Morris asked. "More information? You know as well as I do, Abe, that Klinger & Klein is so conservative they wouldn't sell Andrew Carnegie unless they got a certified check in advance." "That's all right, Mawruss," Abe rejoined. "Maybe they wouldn't sell Andrew Carnegie, but if I ain't mistaken they did sell M. Garfunkel. Everybody sold him, even Lapidus & Elenbogen. So I guess I'll telephone 'em." "Well, wait a bit, Abe," Morris cried. "My Minnie's girl Lina is here with her cousin. I brought 'em down this morning so you could talk to her yourself." "All right," 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." "Well, then, which one is which, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "The roses is Anna," Morris said. "Anna, you want to work by Mr. Potash's lady?" "Sure she does," Abe broke in. "Only I want to ask you a few questions before I hire you. Who did you work by before, Anna?" Anna hung her head and simpered. "Mister M. Garfunkel," she murmured. "Is that so?" Morris exclaimed. "Why, he's a good customer of ours." "Don't butt in, Mawruss," Abe said. "And what did you leave him for, Anna?" "Me don't leave them," Anna replied. "Mrs. Garfunkel is fine lady. Mister Garfunkel, too. They leave me. They goin' away next month, out to the country." "Moving out to the country, hey?" said Abe. He was outwardly calm, but his eyes glittered. "What country?" Anna turned to her cousin Lina and spoke a few words of Lithuanian. [Pg 81]"She say she don't remember," Lina explained, "but she say is something sounds like 'canned goods'." "Canned goods?" Morris murmured. Abe bit the ends of his mustache for a moment, and then he leaped to his feet. "Canada!" he yelled, and Lina nodded vigorously. He darted out of the show-room and ran to the telephone. In ten minutes he returned, his face bathed in perspiration. "Anna," he croaked, "you come to work by me. Yes? How much you get by that—that M. Garfunkel?" "Twenty dollars a month," Anna replied. "All right, we'll pay you twenty-two," he said. "You're cheap at the price. So I expect you this evening." He turned to his partner after the girls had gone. "Mawruss," he said, "put them goods for M. Garfunkel back in stock. I rung up Klinger & Klein and they sold him four thousand. I also rung up the Perfection Cloak and Suit Company—also four thousand; Margolius & Fried—two thousand; Levy, Martin & Co.—three thousand, and so on. The way I figure it, he must of bought a hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods, all in the last few days, and all at ninety days net. He couldn't get a quarter of the goods in that First Avenue building of his, Mawruss, so where is the rest? Auction houses, Mawruss, north, south, east and west, and I bet yer he got the advance[Pg 82] checks for each consignment deposited in Montreal right now. I bet yer he didn't even unpack the cases before he reshipped. Tell Miss Cohen to come in and bring her book." When Miss Cohen took her seat Abe rose and cleared his throat for an epistle worthy of the occasion. "The Paris. M. Garfunkel, Proprietor," he said. "Gents: Owing to circumstances which has arose——No. Wait a bit." He cleared his throat more vigorously. "The Paris. M. Garfunkel, Proprietor," he said. "Gents: Owing to the fact that the U-nited States bankruptcy laws don't go nowheres except in the U-nited States, we are obliged to cancel the order what you give us. Thanking you for past favors and hoping to do a strictly-cash business with you in the future, we are truly yours, Potash & Perlmutter." Miss Cohen shut her book and arose. "Wait a bit, Miss Cohen. I ain't through yet," Abe said. He tilted backward and forward on his toes for a moment. "P. S.," he concluded. "We hope you'll like it in Canada." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 83] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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