Part 48 (1/2)

”Oh, no, I ain't Abe,” Morris replied. ”I ain't giving it to her for nothing at all. I'm taking it out of her housekeeping money, Abe--five dollars a month!”

CHAPTER NINE

FIRING MISS COHEN

”There's no use talking, Abe,” Morris Perlmutter declared to his partner, Abe Potash, as they sat in the sample-room of their s.p.a.cious cloak-and-suit establishment. ”We got a system of bookkeeping that would disgrace a peanut-stand. Here's a statement from the Hamsuckett Mills, and it shows a debit balance of eleven hundred and fifty dollars what we owe them. Miss Cohen's figures is eleven hundred and forty-two.”

”That's in our favour already,” Abe replied. ”The Hamsuckett people must be wrong, Mawruss.”

”No, they ain't, Abe,” Morris said. ”It's Miss Cohen's mistake.”

”Mistake?” Abe exclaimed. ”When it's in our favour, Mawruss, it ain't no mistake!”

”It's a mistake, anyhow, no matter in whose favour it is,” said Morris.

”Miss Cohen's footing was wrong. She gets carelesser every day.”

”I'm surprised to hear you that you should talk that way, Mawruss,” Abe rejoined. ”Miss Cohen's been with us for five years, and we ain't lost nothing by her, neither. You know as well as I do, Mawruss, her uncle, Max Cohen, is a good customer of ours. Only last week he bought of us a big bill of goods, Mawruss.”

”Just the same, Abe,” Morris went on, ”if we get a bright young man in there, instead of Miss Cohen, it would be a big improvement. We ought to get some one in there what can manage a double entry, and can run a card-index for our credits.”

Abe puffed vigorously at his cigar.

”I suppose, Mawruss, if we got a card-index and we sell a crook a bill of goods,” he commented, ”and the crook busts up on us, Mawruss, that card-index is going to stop him from sticking us--what? Well, Mawruss, if you want to put in a young feller and fire Miss Cohen, go ahead--I'm satisfied.”

As if to clinch the matter before his partner could retract this somewhat grudging consent, Morris Perlmutter stalked out of the sample-room and made resolutely for the gla.s.s-enclosed office, where Miss Cohen was busy writing in a ledger. She looked up as he entered, and surveyed him calmly with her large black eyes.

”Oh, Mr. Perlmutter!” she said when he came within ear-shot, ”Uncle Max was round to the house last night, and he wants you should duplicate them forty-twenty-twos in his last order and s.h.i.+p at once.”

Morris stopped short. This was something he had not foreseen, and all his well-formulated plans for the firing of Miss Cohen were shattered at once.

”Oh!” he said lamely. ”Thank you, Miss Cohen; I'll make a memorandum of it.” He went over to the commercial agency book and scanned three or four pages with an unseeing eye. Then he repaired to the sample room, where Abe sat finis.h.i.+ng his cigar.

”Well, Mawruss,” said Abe, his face wreathed in a malicious grin, ”you made a quick job of it.”

Morris scowled.

”I ain't spoken to her yet,” he grunted. ”I got a little gumption, Abe--a little consideration and common sense. I don't throw out my dirty water until I get clean.”

Abe puffed slowly before replying.

”I seen some people, Mawruss,” he said, ”what sometimes throws out perfectly clean water, and gets some dirty water in exchange, Mawruss.”

He threw away the stump of his cigar.

”Sometimes, Mawruss,” he concluded solemnly, ”they gets a good, big souse, Mawruss, where they least expect it.”

Ike Feinsilver, city salesman for the Hamsuckett Mills--Goldner & Plotkin, proprietors--was obviously his own ideal of a well-dressed man.

His s.h.i.+rts and waistcoats represented a taste as original as it was not subdued; but it was in the selection of his neckties that he really excelled. Abe and Morris fairly blinked as they surveyed his latest acquisition in cravats when he entered the door of their store that afternoon, smiling a pleasant greeting at his prospective customers.