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
"I don't know who was to blame, Mawruss," Abe said, "but I do know that
he buys it always a big bill of goods from H. Rifkin, what's got that
loft on the next floor above where we took it on Nineteenth Street, and
Rifkin does a big business by him. I bet yer Feigenbaum's account is
easy worth two thousand a year net to Rifkin, Mawruss."
"Maybe it is and maybe it ain't, Abe," Morris rejoined, "but that ain't
here nor there. Instead you should be estimating Rifkin's profits, Abe,
you should better be going up to Nineteenth Street and see if them
people gets through painting and cleaning up. I got it my hands full
down here."
Abe reached for his hat.
"I bet yer you got your hands full, Mawruss," he grumbled. "The way it
looks, now, Mawruss, you got our sample lines so mixed up it'll be out
of date before you get it sorted out again."
"All right," Morris retorted, "we'll get out a new one. We don't care
nothing about the expenses, Abe. If the old fixtures ain't good enough
our sample line ain't good enough, neither. Ain't it? What do we care
about money, Abe?"
He paused to emphasize the irony.
"No, Abe," he concluded, "don't you worry about them samples, nor them
fixtures, neither. You got worry enough if you tend to your own
business, Abe. I'll see that them samples gets up to Nineteenth Street
in good shape."
Abe shrugged his shoulders and made for the door.
"And them fixtures also, Abe," Morris shouted after him.
The loft building on Nineteenth Street into which Potash & Perlmutter
proposed to move was an imposing fifteen-story structure. Burnished
metal signs of its occupants flanked its wide doorway, and the entrance
hall gleamed with gold leaf and plaster porphyry, while the uniform of
each elevator attendant would have graced the high admiral of a South
American Navy.
So impressed was Abe with the magnificence of his surroundings that he
forgot to call his floor when he entered one of the elevators, and
instead of alighting at the fifth story he was carried up to the sixth
floor before the car stopped.
Seven or eight men stepped out with him and passed through the door of
H. Rifkin's loft, while Abe sought the stairs leading to the floor
below. He walked to the westerly end of the hall, only to find that the
staircase was at the extreme easterly end, and as he retraced his
footsteps a young man whom he recognized as a clerk in the office of
Henry D. Feldman, the prominent cloak and suit attorney, was pasting a
large sheet of paper on H. Rifkin's door.
It bore the following legend:
CLOSED
BY ORDER OF THE FEDERAL RECEIVER
HENRY D. FELDMAN
Attorney for Petitioning Creditors
Abe stopped short and shook the sticky hand of the bill-poster.
"How d'ye do, Mr. Feinstein?" he said.
"Ah, good morning, Mr. Potash," Feinstein cried in his employer's best
tone and manner.
"What's the matter? Is Rifkin in trouble?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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