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
He rose to his feet with another hollow groan.
"But, anyway, Mawruss, it won't help matters none if we sit around here
all the morning. We got to get it somebody to sell our line, because
even if, to hear you talk, the goods do sell themselves when _I_ go out
with them, Mawruss, we couldn't take no chances on some kid salesman. We
got to get it a first-class A Number One feller what wouldn't fool away
his time."
"Well, why don't you put it an ad in the Daily Cloak and Suit Record,
Abe?" Morris asked.
"I put it in last night already," Abe replied, "and I bet yer we get it
a million answers by the first mail this afternoon."
For the remainder of the morning Morris busied himself with the sample
line, while Abe moved slowly about the show-room, well within the
hearing of his partner, and moaned piteously at frequent intervals.
Every half-hour he cleared his throat with a rasping noise and, when he
had secured Morris' attention, ostentatiously swallowed a large gelatine
capsule and rolled his eyes upward in what he conceived to be an
expression of acute agony. At length Morris could stand it no longer.
"What are we running here, anyway, Abe?" he asked. "A cloak and suit
business or a hospital? If you are such a sick man, Abe, why don't you
go home?"
"Must I got to get your permission to be sick, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Couldn't I take it maybe a bit of medicine oncet in a while if I want
to, Mawruss?"
He snorted indignantly, but further discussion was prevented by the
entrance of the letter-carrier, and immediately Abe and Morris forgot
their differences in an examination of the numerous letters that were
the fruit of the advertisement.
"Don't let's waste no time over fellers we don't know nothing about,
Abe," Morris suggested as he tossed one envelope into the waste-paper
basket. "Here's a feller called Rutherford B. H. Horowitz, what says he
used to be a suit-buyer in Indianapolis. Ever hear of him, Abe?"
"We don't want no fellers what used to be buyers, Mawruss," Abe
retorted. "What we want is fellers what is cloak and suit salesmen.
Ain't it?"
"Well, here's a feller by the name Arthur Katzen, Abe," Morris went on.
"Did y'ever hear of him, Abe?"
"Sure I know him, Mawruss," Abe replied. "You know him, too, Mawruss.
That's a feller by the name Osher Katzenelenbogen, what used to work for
us as buttonhole-maker when we was new beginners already. Two years ago,
I met that feller in the Yates House and I says to him: 'Hallo,' I says,
'ain't you Osher Katzenelenbogen?' And he says: 'Excuse me,' he says,
'you got the advantage from me,' he says. 'My name is Arthur Katzen,' he
says; and I assure you, Mawruss, the business that feller was doing,
Mawruss, was the sole topic what everybody was talking about."
Morris waved his hand deprecatingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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