Potash & Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and AdventuresGlass, Montague
General
Potash & Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures
Glass, Montague
Clothing trade -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction; Jewish fiction; Jews -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction
"You didn't say it, Abe," Morris went on, "but you think it just the
same, and I'm going to show you differencely. I am content that we move,
Abe, only we ain't going to move unless we can find it two lofts for the
same rent what we pay it here. And we ain't going to have less room than
we got it here neither, Abe, because if we move we're going to do our
own business just the same like we do it here, and that's flat."
For the remainder of the day Abe avoided any reference to their
impending removal, and it was not until Henochstein entered the
show-room the following morning that the discussion was renewed.
"Well, boys," he said in greeting, "I got it a fine loft for you on
Nineteenth Street with twicet as much floor space what you got here."
"A loft!" Morris cried.
"A loft," Henochstein repeated.
"One loft?" Morris asked.
"That's what I said," Henochstein replied, "one loft with twicet as
much floor space, and it's got light on all----"
Morris waved his hand for silence.
"Abe," he said, "this here Henochstein is a friend of yours; ain't it?"
Abe nodded sulkily.
"Well, take him out of here," Morris advised, "before I kick him out."
He banged the show-room door behind him and repaired to Wasserbauer's
Cafe and Restaurant across the street to await Henochstein's departure.
"Mawruss is right," Abe declared. "You was told distinctively we
wanted it two lofts, not one, and here you come back with a one-loft
proposition."
Henochstein rose to leave.
"If you think it you could get two up-to-date lofts on Seventeenth,
Eighteenth or Nineteenth Street, Abe, for what you pay it here in this
dinky place," he said, "you got another think coming."
He opened the show-room door.
"And also, Abe," he concluded, "if I got it a partner what made it a
slave of me, like Perlmutter does you, I'd go it alone, that's all I
got to say."
After Henochstein left, Abe was a prey to bitter reflections, which were
only interrupted by his partner's return to the show-room a quarter of
an hour later.
"Well, Abe," Morris cried, "you got your turn at this here moving
business; let me try a hand at it once."
"Go ahead, Mawruss," Abe said wearily. "You always get your own way,
anyhow. You say I am the dawg, Mawruss, and you are the tail, but
I guess you got it the wrong way round. I guess the tail is on the
other foot."
Morris shrugged.
"That's something what is past already, Abe," he replied. "I was just
talking to Wasserbauer, and he says he got it a friend what is a sort of
a real-estater, a smart young feller by the name Sam Slotkin. He says if
Slotkin couldn't find it us a couple of lofts, nobody couldn't."
"I'm satisfied, Mawruss," Abe said. "If Slotkin can get us lofts we
move, otherwise we stay here. So far we made it always a living here,
Mawruss, and I guess we ain't going to lose all our customers even if we
don't move; and that's all there is to it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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