Part 8 (2/2)
”Say, lookyhere, Zamp,” s.h.i.+mko exploded angrily, ”what is the matter with you? I am bringing you here a feller which he wants to go as partners together with you, and----”
At this juncture Meiselson raised his right hand like a traffic policeman at a busy crossing.
”One moment, Mr. s.h.i.+mko,” he interrupted. ”You are saying that I am the feller which wants to go as partners together with Mr. Zamp?”
”Sure!” s.h.i.+mko said.
”Well, all I got to say is this,” Meiselson replied. ”I ain't no horse.
Some people which they got a couple thousand dollars to invest would like it they should go into a business like this, and kill themselves to death, Mr. s.h.i.+mko, but _me_ not!”
He opened the store door and started for the street.
”But, lookyhere, Meiselson!” s.h.i.+mko cried in anguished tones.
”_Koosh_, Mr. s.h.i.+mko!” Meiselson said. ”I am in the soap and perfumery business, Mr. s.h.i.+mko, and I would stay in it, too!”
Six months later Harry Zamp sat in Dachtel's Coffee House on Ca.n.a.l Street, and smoked a post-prandial cigar. A diamond pin sparkled in his neck-tie, and his well-cut clothing testified to his complete solvency.
Indeed, a replica of the coat and vest hung in the window of his enlarged business premises on Ca.n.a.l Street, labelled ”The Latest from the London Pickadillies,” and he had sold, strictly for cash, more than a dozen of the same style during the last twenty-four hours. For the rush of trade which began on the day when he hired the ”property”
salesmen and cutters had not only continued but had actually increased; and it was therefore with the most pleasurable sensations that he recognized, at the next table, Isaac Meiselson, the unconscious cause of all his prosperity.
”Excuse me,” he began, ”ain't your name Meiselson?”
”My name is Mr. Meiselson,” Isaac admitted. ”This is Mr. Zamp, ain't it?”
Zamp nodded.
”You look pretty well, considering the way you are working in that clothing business of yours,” Meiselson remarked.
”Hard work never hurted me none,” Zamp answered. ”Are you still in the soap and perfumery business, Mr. Meiselson?”
Meiselson shook his head.
”No,” he said, ”I went out of the soap business when I got married last month.”
”Is that so?” Zamp commented. ”And did you go into another business?”
”Not yet,” Meiselson replied, and then he smiled. ”The fact is,” he added in a burst of confidence, ”my wife is a dressmaker.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE SORROWS OF SEIDEN
”Say, lookyhere!” said Isaac Seiden, proprietor of the Sanspareil Waist Company, as he stood in the office of his factory on Greene Street; ”what is the use your telling me it is when it ain't? My wife's mother never got a brother by the name Pesach.”
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