Part 1 (2/2)

”You shouldn't ought to go out in weather like this,” Max said. ”To a feller which got it a cough like you, Aaron, it is positively dangerous, such a damp mees-erable weather which we are having it.”

Aaron nodded and smiled at this subtle form of flattery. He possessed the worst asthmatic cough in the cloak and suit trade, and while he suffered acutely at times, he could not conceal a sense of pride in its owners.h.i.+p. It sounded like a combination of a patent automobile alarm and the shaking of dried peas in an inflated bladder, and when it seized Aaron in public conveyances, old ladies nearly fainted, and doctors, clergymen, and undertakers evinced a professional interest, for it seemed impossible that any human being could survive some of Aaron's paroxysms. Not only did he withstand them, however, but he appeared positively to thrive upon them, and albeit he was close on to fifty, he might well have pa.s.sed for thirty-five.

”I stood a whole lot of Decembers already,” he said, ”and I guess I wouldn't die just yet a while.”

As if to demonstrate his endurance, he emitted a loud whoop, and started off on a fit of wheezing that bulged every vein in his forehead and left him shaken and exhausted in the chair that Max had vacated.

”Yes, boys,” he gasped, ”the only thing which seems to ease it is smoking. Now, you wouldn't believe that, would you?”

Max evidenced his faith by producing a large black cigar and handing it to Pinsky.

”Why don't you try another doctor, Aaron?” Sam Zaretsky asked. Pinsky raised his right hand with the palm outward and flipped his fingers.

”I've went to every professor in this country and the old country,” he declared, ”and they couldn't do a thing for me, y'understand. They say as I grow older, so I would get better, and certainly they are right.

This is nothing what I got it now. You ought to of heard me when I was a young feller. Positively, Max, I got kicked out of four boarding-houses on account the people complained so. One feller wanted to make me arrested already, such hearts people got it.”

Max Fatkin nodded sympathetically, and thus encouraged Aaron continued his reminiscences.

”Yes, boys,” he said, ”in them days I worked by old man Baum on Catherine Street. Six dollars a week and P.M.'s I made it, but even back in 1880 P.M.'s was nix. The one-price system was coming in along about that time, and if oncet in a while you could soak an Italiener six twenty-five for a five dollar overcoat, you was lucky if you could get fifty cents out of old man Baum. Nowadays is different already.

Instead of young fellers learning business by business men like old man Baum, they go to business colleges yet, and certainly I don't say it ain't just as good.”

Sam Zaretsky exchanged significant glances with his partner, Max Fatkin, and they both puffed hard on their cigars.

”You take my nephew, Fillup, for instance,” Aaron went on. ”There's a boy of sixteen which just graduated from business college, and the boy writes such a hand which you wouldn't believe at all. He gets a silver medal from the college for making a bird with a pen--something remarkable. The eyes is all little dollar marks. I took it down to Shenkman's picture store, and seventy-five cents that sucker charges me for framing it.”

”That's nothing, Aaron,” Sam Zaretsky broke in, with a diplomatic attempt at a conversational diversion. ”That's nothing at all. I could tell you myself an experience which I got with Shenkman. My wife's mother sends her a picture from the old country yet----”

”Not that I am kicking at all,” Aaron interrupted, ”because it was worth it. I a.s.sure you, Sam, I don't begrudge seventy-five cents for that boy, because the boy is a good boy, y'understand. The boy is a natural-born bookkeeper. Single entry and double entry, he could do it like nothing, and neat--that boy is neat like a pin.”

”Huh, huh!” Max grunted.

”Yes,” Aaron added, ”you didn't make no mistake when you got me to bring you Fillup for a bookkeeper.”

It was at this point that Max threw diplomacy to the winds.

”Got you to bring us a bookkeeper!” he exclaimed. ”Why, Aaron, I ain't said a word about getting us this here--now--Fillup for a bookkeeper.

We already hired it a bookkeeper.”

”What?” Aaron cried. ”Do you mean to say you got the nerve to sit there and tell me you ain't asked me I should bring you a bookkeeper?”

”Why, Aaron,” Sam interrupted with a withering glance at his partner.

”I ain't saying nothing one way or the other, y'understand, but I don't think Max could of asked you because, only this morning, Aaron, Max and me was talking about this here, now--what's-his-name--and we was saying that nowadays what future was there for a young feller as a bookkeeper?

Ain't it? I says to Max distinctively: 'If Aaron would bring us his nephew we would give him a job on stock. Then the first thing you know the boy gets to be a salesman and could make his five thousand dollars a year.' But what could a bookkeeper expect to be? Ain't it? At the most he makes thirty dollars a week, and there he sticks.”

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