Part 59 (2/2)
”I'll wrap it up for you right away,” he said, and then it was that Klinger recognized Morris, who had been standing unnoticed in the background.
”h.e.l.lo, Perlmutter!” he said; ”what are you doing here?”
”I guess I am doing the same what you are doing, Klinger,” Morris replied stiffly. ”I am buying for a customer a present. Ain't it?”
Klinger nodded.
”Honestly, Perlmutter,” he said, ”I never seen the like how things happen. No sooner you start to sell goods to a feller than somebody is engaged _oder_ married in his family.”
”He must be a pretty good customer the way you are blowing yourself,”
Morris commented.
”I bet yer!” Klinger said as he walked away; ”and if you would be in our place you would do the same.”
For five minutes Morris examined the cut gla.s.s, and when Flachs returned he had decided upon an olive dish of most intricate design. ”That's a close buyer, that Mr. Klinger,” Flachs observed.
”Not near so close as I am,” Morris declared.
”Well, you wouldn't anyhow kick on paying twenty-five cents express, Mr.
Perlmutter,” Flachs said, ”but that feller actually wants me to deliver the package for nothing.”
”Why not?” Morris asked. ”Don't everybody deliver packages free?”
”Not a p.a.w.nbroker's-sales store,” Flachs replied; ”and anyhow, Mr.
Perlmutter, Leon Sammet this morning buys from me for thirty dollars silver to be sent to the same place on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street as that there perculater, and he didn't kick only a little that I am charging him fifty cents express.”
”What!” Morris exclaimed. ”Is Klinger sending that perculater up to One Hundred and Eighteenth Street too?”
”That's what I said,” Flachs answered, and Morris replaced the cut-gla.s.s dish on the shelf.
”Was the name Gladstein?” he inquired, and Flachs nodded.
”Then in that case,” Morris said savagely, ”let me look at some sterling silver for about twenty-five dollars. If them suckers could stand it, so can I.”
More than two days had elapsed before Abe had exhausted the topic of Mrs. Gladstein's ten-dollar engagement present. He discussed it satirically, profanely and earnestly, from the standpoint of business ethics, in such maddening reiterations that Morris could not help wondering how much longer Abe's criticism would have continued had he known that the cold-meat tray really cost twenty-five dollars.
”You are throwing away good money after bad, Mawruss,” Abe said, renewing the subject after an interval of comparative calm, ”because, so sure as you are standing there, we would never get our two hundred and fifty out of that feller Gurin.”
”What has Mrs. Gladstein's present got to do with Gurin?” Morris asked.
”If I told you once, Abe, in the last two days, I am telling you a dozen times, understand me, I am giving that there cold-meat tray to Mrs.
Gladstein as a speculation, Abe. What difference does it make who she marries, Abe, Gurin _oder_ Asimof, so long as we could land from her an order for five hundred dollars?”
”Yow! You would land from her an order for five hundred dollars!” Abe exclaimed.
”Well, if Sol Klinger could do it, why couldn't we?” Morris asked.
<script>