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
"That's what I told Louis Feinholz when I rung him up after I spoke to
Feldman, and Feinholz says he got the goods and he got the sample, and
that's all he knows about it. Then I asked him if he didn't say it
distinctly we should make up a first-class, expensive winder sample and
ship it along with the order, and he says he don't remember it and that
I should show him a writing."
"Ain't you got it a writing?" Abe asked.
"I ain't got no writing about the winder sample, Abe," Morris replied.
"I only got it a writing about the order."
"But ain't you got no witnesses, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Witnesses I got it plenty, Abe," Morris answered. "And so has Feinholz
got it witnesses. What's the use witnesses when all Feinholz has got to
do is to get Henry D. Feldman to make theayter acting over that sample?
For you know as well as I do, Abe, anyone would see that them garments
is _doch_, anyway, a cheap imitation of that winder sample, Abe."
At this juncture Jake, the shipping clerk, entered.
"Mr. Potash," he said, "here comes Margulies' Harlem Express with them
packages what we shipped it the Longchamps Store yesterday. Should I
take 'em in?"
Abe jumped to his feet.
"Did Margulies bring 'em up?" he asked.
"He had 'em just now on the elevator," Jake replied.
"Wait, I go with you," Abe said. Together they walked rapidly toward the
freight elevator, which opened into the cutting-room, but before they
reached the door a shrill outcry rose from the floor below.
The East Side slogan of woe, "Oi gewalt," blended with women's shrieks,
and at length came the cry: "Fie-urr! Fie-urr!"
Simultaneously Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, lifted up her voice in
strident despair while a great cloud of black smoke puffed from the
elevator shaft, and the next moment Abe, Morris, Jake and the half-dozen
cutters were pushing their way downstairs, elbowed by a frenzied mob of
operators, male and female. When they arrived at the ground floor the
engines were clanging around the corner, and Abe and Morris ran across
the street to the opposite sidewalk. Suddenly an inarticulate cry
escaped Abe and he sank onto a convenient dry-goods box.
"What's the trouble, Abe?" Morris asked. "Are you sick?"
"The policies!" Abe croaked, and closed his eyes. When he opened them a
minute later his partner grinned at him reassuringly.
"I got 'em in my breast pocket, Abe," Morris said. "As soon as I seen
the smoke I grabbed 'em, and I locked up the safe with the books
inside."
Abe revived immediately.
"That reminds me, Mawruss," he said as he took a cigar from his
waistcoat pocket: "What become of Miss Cohen?"
Twenty minutes later the fire was extinguished, and Abe and Morris
returned to their loft. The first person to greet them was Miss Cohen,
and, aside from a slight careening of her pompadour, she seemed none
the worse for her dangerous experience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account