Part 53 (2/2)
”My _tzuris_!” Abe exclaimed. ”If you got living in the same house with you a lawyer and a doctor, Mawruss, you shouldn't got much trouble getting the Board of Health after them Italieners. And anyhow, Mawruss, if the worser comes to the worst, y'understand, there's one thing you could always do.
”What's that?” Morris asked.
”Move out,” Abe replied, as he started for the cutting room.
”Yes, Mawruss,” he commented, when he returned five minutes later, ”you could knock the Italieners all you want, but you got to admit they ain't throwing their money into the street. Henry is showing me just now a bankbook which in the last nine months he is putting away eighteen hundred dollars.”
”That's all right, Abe,” Morris said. ”If he would be from _unsere Leute_, y'understand, instead he is putting the money in savings bank and getting 3 per cent. interest, he would invest it in something else and make it pretty near double itself soon.”
”What d'ye mean, 3 per cent. interest?” Abe retorted. ”Henry's got his money in a bank which they are paying him 5 per cent. compounded every three months. Henry ain't no fool, Mawruss.”
”Five per cent.!” Morris exclaimed. ”What for a bank would pay 5 per cent. interest, Abe?”
”I don't know what for a bank pays 5 per cent., Mawruss,” Abe replied, ”but you could take it from me, Mawruss, the way Sam Feder discounts perfectly good A number one accounts for them depositors of his when they are a little short, Mawruss, not only could the Koscius...o...b..nk afford to pay five per cent., Mawruss, but they could also give 6 or 7, and still Sam Feder's wife wouldn't got to p.a.w.n none of her diamonds.”
”Does he deposit his money with Feder?” Morris asked.
”Yow, he deposit his money with Feder, Mawruss!” Abe replied. ”He deposits his money with a banker by the name Guy-seppy Scratch-oly.”
”Guy-seppy Scratch-oly,” Morris repeated. ”That's a fine name for a banker, Abe.”
”Guy-seppy, that's Italian for Yosef, Mawruss,” Abe explained. ”And Scratch-oly is an Italian name the same like a feller in Russland would be called Lipschutzky. For that matter, Mawruss, Lipschutzky ain't much of a name for a banker neither.”
”No,” Morris admitted, ”but I'd a whole lot sooner trust my money to a feller by the name Lipschutzky _oder_ Feder, as to one of the Scratchy names, Abe.”
”What is the difference what the banker's name is?” Abe rejoined. ”Henry says the money is all sent by his bank to a branch they got in the old country. _Gott weiss_ what that bank couldn't get for its money in the old country, because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, here in New York City some business men is short oncet in a while, understand me, but over in the old country everybody is short all the time. The way banks does business over there, Mawruss, they make Feder's bank look like a Free Loan a.s.sociation.”
”Sure, I know, Abe,” Morris said gloomily, ”and you mark my words, Abe, so soon as Henry's year is up he will follow his money to the old country.”
”You shouldn't worry yourself about that, Mawruss,” Abe said confidently. ”When a feller's got a contract with a privilege for renewal at two hundred dollars raise, like Henry got it, understand me, he ain't so stuck on going back to the old country. Two hundred dollars is a whole lot of money over there, Mawruss. For two hundred dollars in the old country a----”
”Don't tell me again how much _Lockshen_ mit holes in it a feller could buy in the old country, Abe,” Morris interrupted. ”There's elegant weather over there and good wine to drink, and places to go and look at which they got mountains twicet as high as the Catskills, with olives and grapes growing on to 'em.”
”I was never crazy about olives, Mawruss.”
”Me neither,” Morris agreed, ”but Henry is something else again, and the way that feller is talking to me in the cutting room yesterday, Abe, either he wouldn't be working for us three months from to-day or the steamers stops running to Italy.”
”Mawruss,” Abe shouted, at ten o'clock one morning in early March, ”where was you?”
”Where was I?” Morris repeated. ”I was to the court, that's where I was.”
”To the court!” Abe exclaimed.
”That's what I said,” Morris continued. ”We fixed that sucker, me and Sholy and Doctor Eichendorfer and Baskof. We got him for a summons for this afternoon two o'clock he should go to the Jefferson Market Police Court. Till four o'clock this morning them people upstairs sits up hollering and _skiddering_. Minnie and me we couldn't sleep a wink, and Baskof neither. Steals our servant girl yet. I'll show that _Rosher_.”
Abe glared indignantly at his partner.
”Do you mean to told me, Mawruss,” he said, ”that you are fooling away your time going on the court because somebody upstairs sings a little something last night?”
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