Abe and Mawruss: Being Further Adventures of Potash and PerlmutterGlass, Montague
General
Abe and Mawruss: Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter
Glass, Montague
Clothing trade -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction; Jews -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction
"My name is Mr. Perlmutter," Morris said. "What do you want from us?"
For answer the visitor drew from his pocket a card and handed it to
Morris.
"Me, I am Pincus Levin, and you are leaving this by my wife last night,"
he said; "so I am coming to tell you I am agreeable to take Mr. Levin to
Steuermann's place."
"All right," Morris replied. "You can go ahead."
Pincus Levin shuffled his feet uneasily, but made no attempt to depart.
"Well?" Morris cried.
"Sure, I know," Pincus said; "but if I would take uncle, Mr. Levin, to
Steuermann, y' understand and then, maybe--I am only saying, Mr.
Perlmutter, you might forget the other part--ain't it?"
"You mean you want your twenty-five dollars in advance?" Morris asked.
"Why not?" Pincus replied. "If I wouldn't took Mr. Levin to-day yet to
this here Steuermann's office, Mr. Perlmutter, you could stop the
check----"
Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively.
"An idee!" he cried. "You ain't never seen this feller before,
Mawruss--ain't it?"
Morris admitted it.
"Well, then, what's the use talking?" Abe continued. "How do we know
he's this here Levin's nephew?"
"Why, Mr. Potash," Levin cried, "I ain't no crook! I got the old man in
a coffee house round the corner right now."
"Bring him up here then," Abe said, "and we'll give you your money."
Pincus Levin nodded and shuffled off toward the back stairs, while Abe
turned and gazed after him.
"I couldn't make it out at all, Mawruss," he said. "The more I look at
that feller, Mawruss, the more he makes me think of this here----"
"Good morning, Mr. Potash!" a familiar voice interrupted. It was
Harkavy.
"Hello there!" Morris cried cheerfully. "I thought you would be here."
Hakavy smiled sadly. His face was white and drawn and his shoes and
trousers were covered with mud as though he had walked the streets all
night.
"I am keeping my word anyhow," he said; "but I am only coming to tell
you I got to go to Chicago."
"Why must you got to go?" Abe insisted.
"Well, there's certain reasons, Mr. Potash," Harkavy replied. "There's
certain--rea----"
He struggled to control his speech as his eyes rested on the rear
stairway, but his words became more and more inarticulate until, with a
shudder and a gasp, he fell heavily to the floor.
"_Oi gewoldt!_" Abe exclaimed. He rushed to the office for a glass of
water, but even before he had reached the cooler he stopped suddenly. A
great wailing cry came from the showroom and when he ran back with the
water a bearded old man lay prostrate across Harkavy's body.
Only Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, kept a clear head during the confusion
that followed. She despatched Nathan, the shipping clerk, for a doctor
and directed her frightened employers to loosen the shirt-bands of the
unconscious men.
"Some whiskey!" Morris shouted--and one of the cutters produced it
bashfully from his hip-pocket.
"Never try to force whiskey on a fainting person," Miss Cohen cried. "It
might get into their lungs and suffocate 'em."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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