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
"Eat him up!" he bellowed, and at every fresh hemorrhage from Mr.
Flanagan he rocked and swayed in an ecstasy of enjoyment. For three
crimson rounds Pig Flanagan and Tom Evans continued their contest, but
even a good bleeder must run dry eventually, and in the first half of
the fourth round Pig took the count.
By this time the arena was swimming in Morris' nauseated vision, while,
as for the drummer on Frank's right, he closed his eyes and wiped a
clammy perspiration from his forehead. The club meeting proceeded,
however, despite the stomachs of its weaker members, and the next bout
commenced with a rush. It was advertised in advance by Morris'
neighboring seatholders as a scientific contest, but in pugilism, as in
surgery, science is often gory. In this instance a scientific white man
hit a colored savant squarely on the nose, with the inevitable
sanguinary result, and as though by a prearranged signal Morris and the
drummer on Walsh's right started for the door. In vain did Walsh seize
his neighbor by the coat-tail. The latter shook himself loose, and he
and Morris reached the sidewalk together.
"T'phooie!" said the drummer. "That's an amusement for five dollars."
Morris wiped his face and gasped like a landed fish. At length he
recovered his composure. "I seen you sitting next to Walsh," he said.
The drummer nodded. "He didn't want me to go," he replied. "He said we
come together and we should go together, but I told him I would wait for
him till it was over. Him and that other fellow seem to enjoy it."
"Some people has got funny idees of a good time," Morris commented.
"_That's_ an idee for a loafer," said the drummer. "For my part I like
it more refined."
"I believe you," Morris replied. "Might you would come and take a cup of
coffee with me, maybe?"
He indicated a bathbrick dairy restaurant on the opposite side of the
street.
"Much obliged," the drummer replied, "but I got to go out of town
to-morrow, and coffee keeps me awake. I think I'll wait here for about
half an hour, and if Walsh and his friends don't come out by then I
guess I'll go home."
Morris hesitated. A sense of duty demanded that he stay and see the
matter through, since his newly-made acquaintance with the _tertium
quid_ of Walsh's little party might lead to an introduction to the big
man, and for the rest Morris trusted to his own salesmanship. But the
drummer settled the matter for him.
"On second thought," he said, "I guess I won't wait. Why should I bother
with a couple like them? If you're going downtown on the L I'll go with
you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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