Part 56 (1/2)
”All right,” Morris said; ”put on your coat and go back to Mulberry Street. Your banker will of opened up again by the time you get there.”
Ten days afterward Abe and Morris sat in the showroom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MAN PROPOSES
”Ain't it terrible a strong, healthy young feller should go off like that?” Abe Potash remarked, as he and his partner sat in their showroom one spring morning. ”I give you my word I was sitting over in Hammersmith's so close to him as I am to you, Mawruss, when it happened.”
”Was there much excitement?” Morris asked.
”I bet yer was there excitement!” Abe exclaimed. ”Hammersmith sends across the street for a doctor, and you ought to seen Leon Sammet the way he acted. 'For Gawd's sake, doctor,' he says, 'couldn't you do nothing for him?' he says. 'He's got a wife and family,' he says, 'and we s.h.i.+pped him two thousand dollars goods only last Sat.u.r.day.'”
”Did they?” Morris asked.
”How should I know?” Abe said. ”Sammet is such a liar, Mawruss, he couldn't tell the truth no matter how surprised he would be. But one thing is sure, Mawruss--Gladstein did owe Sammet Brothers for a big bill of goods and the widder paid them out of the insurance.”
”Could she do that when the feller leaves a family, Abe?” Morris inquired.
”The feller didn't leave no family, Mawruss,” Abe answered. ”Leon Sammet just takes a chance when he said that to the doctor. As a matter of fact, Mawruss, Gladstein was one of them fellers which he ain't got a relation in the world. Mrs. Gladstein neither, except _im_ Russland.
That's the way it goes, Mawruss. A feller which he has got so many cousins and uncles that he gets writer's cramp already indorsing accommodation paper for 'em, understand me, lives to be an old man yet, and all the time his relations and his wife's relations is piling up on him; while a man like Gladstein which you could really say has a chance to enjoy life, Mawruss, is got to die.”
Morris nodded.
”Don't I know it?” he commented. ”And I suppose the widder sells out the store.”
”_Oser a stuck_,” Abe said. ”She's still running the store, and making a fair success of it too.”
”Is that so?” Morris replied. ”Well, then, why couldn't we get some of her trade, Abe? Bridgetown ain't so far away from here. Why don't you take a run over there sometime and see what you could do with her? Might you could sell her some goods maybe.”
”Yow!” Abe exclaimed derisively. ”We couldn't sell that woman goods, not if we was to let her have 'em for the price of the findings, Mawruss.
She's got an idee that she is getting stuck unless she would buy goods from the same concerns that sold Gladstein.”
”Well, if that's the case, Abe,” Morris said, ”she could never make no big success there. A feller like Leon Sammet would just as lief stick a widder as not--liefer even.”
”Sure, I know,” Abe replied.
”Then why don't some one give her a couple pointers about that feller, Abe?” Morris inquired.
Abe nodded solemnly.
”You know a whole lot about women, Mawruss, I must say,” he commented.
”You could give a woman pointers by the dozen about a man, Mawruss, and swear to 'em with six affidavits yet, and what good would it do? It's like putting a 'Wet Paint' sign up. Everybody feels the paint to see if it really would be wet.”
”What for a looking woman is she, Abe?” Morris asked, with an obvious effort at nonchalance.
”How should I know?” Abe said. ”I only seen her a couple times; and anyhow, Mawruss, I don't take it so particular to look at women like Leon Sammet does, Mawruss. That feller's a regular Don Quicks-toe, Mawruss. He is all the time running around with women.”