Part 11 (1/2)
Morris denied it indignantly.
”_Gott soil huten_,” he said. ”My name is Mr. Perlmutter and I am in the cloak and suit business.”
”Oh, I remember now!” Uncle Mosha cried. The news that Morris was no charity worker restored him to high good-humour.
”I remember you perfect now,” he said, shaking hands effusively with Morris. ”You got a partner by the name Potash, ain't it?”
”That's right,” Morris replied.
”And what brings you over here in this _nachbarschaft_?” Uncle Mosha inquired.
Morris looked from Uncle Mosha to the tarnished bra.s.s plate on the side of the tenement-house door. It read as follows:
M. KRONBERG REAL ESTATE
”The fact is,” Morris said, ”I am coming to see you in a business way, and if you got time I'd like to say a little something to you.”
”Come inside,” Uncle Mosha grunted. He thought he discerned a furtive timidity in his visitor's manner strongly indicative of an impending touch.
”In the first place,” he began, after Morris was seated, ”I ain't got so much money which people think I got it.”
”I never thought you did,” said Morris, and Uncle Mosha glared in response.
”But I ain't no beggar neither, y'understand,” he retorted. ”I got a little something left, anyhow.”
”Sure, I know,” Morris agreed; ”but what you have got or what you ain't got is neither here or there. I am coming over this morning to ask you something, a question.”
Here he paused. He had not yet determined what the question would be, and it occurred to him that, unless it were sufficiently momentous to account for his presence on the lower East Side during the busiest hours of a business day, Uncle Mosha would show him the door.
”Go ahead and ask it, then,” Uncle Mosha broke in impatiently. ”I couldn't sit here all day.”
”The fact is,” Morris said slowly, and then his mind reverted to the bra.s.s plate on the door and he at once proceeded with renewed confidence--”the fact is I am coming over here to ask you something, a question which a friend of mine would like to buy a property on the East Side.”
”A property,” Uncle Mosha repeated. ”A property is something else again.
What for a property would your friend like to buy it?”
”A fine property,” Morris replied; ”a property like you got it here.”
”But this here property ain't for sale,” Uncle Mosha said. ”I got the house here now since 1890 already, and I guess I would keep it.”
”Sure, I know; that's all right,” Morris went on; ”but I thought, even if you wouldn't want to sell the house, you know such a whole lot about real estate, Mr. Kronberg, you could help us out a little.”
The hard lines about Uncle Mosha's mouth relaxed into a smile.
”Well, when it comes to real estate,” he said, ”I ain't a fool exactly, y'understand.”
”That's what I was told,” Morris continued. ”A friend of mine he says to me: 'If any one could tell you about real estate, Mosha Kronberg could.
There's a man,' he says, 'which his opinion you could trust in it anything what he says is so. If the Astors and the Goelets would know about East Side real estate what that feller knows--understand me--instead of their hundreds of millions they would have thousands of millions already.'”
Uncle Mosha fairly beamed.