Part 32 (1/2)

”You don't tell me,” Eschenbach commented. ”And how do you find it works?”

”W-e-e-ll, I tell yer,” Birsky commenced, ”of course we ourselves got to donate already five hundred dollars to start the thing, Mr.

Eschenbach.”

While he made this startling declaration he gazed steadily at Finkman, who was moving his head in a slow and skeptic nodding, as one who says: ”_Yow! Ich glaub's._”

”Five hundred dollars it costs us only to-day yet, Mr. Eschenbach,”

Birsky went on, clearing his throat pompously; ”but certainly, Mr.

Eschenbach, in the end it pays us.”

”How do you make that out?” Finkman demanded gruffly.

”Why, the money remains on deposit with a bank,” Birsky explained, ”and every week for five weeks we deduct from the operators' wages also one dollar a week, which we put with the five hundred we are giving.”

Finkman continued to nod more briskly in a manner that proclaimed: ”I see the whole thing now.”

”So that at the end of five weeks,” Birsky went on, ”every operator is got coming to him ten dollars.”

Finkman snorted cynically.

”Coming to him!” he said with satirical emphasis.

”Coming to him,” Birsky retorted, ”that's what I said, Finkman; and the whole idee is very fine for us as well as for them.”

”I should say so,” Finkman commented; ”because at the end of five weeks you got in bank a thousand dollars which you ain't paying no interest on to n.o.body.”

”With us, a thousand dollars don't figure so much as like with some people, Finkman,” Birsky retorted; ”and our idee is that if we should keep the money on deposit it's like a security that our operators wouldn't strike on us so easy. Furthermore, Finkman, if you are doubting our good faith, understand me, let me say that Mr. Eschenbach is welcome he should come round to my place to-morrow morning yet and I would show him everything is open and aboveboard, like a lodge already.”

”Why, I should be delighted to see how this thing works with you, Mr.

Birsky,” Eschenbach said. ”I suppose you know what an interest I am taking in welfare work of this description.”

”I think he had a sort of an idee of it,” Finkman interrupted, ”when he b.u.t.ts in here.”

Again Eschenbach smiled beneficently on the rival manufacturers in an effort to preserve the peace.

”I should like to have some other details from your plan, Mr. Birsky,”

he said. ”How do you propose to spend this money?”

Birsky drew back his chair from the table.

”It's a long story, Mr. Eschenbach,” he replied; ”and if it's all the same to you I would tell you the whole thing round at my place to-morrow morning.”

He rose to his feet and, searching in his waistcoat pocket, produced a card that he laid on the table in front of Eschenbach.

”Here is our card, Mr. Eschenbach,” he said, ”and I hope we could look for you at eleven o'clock, say.”

”Make it half-past ten, Mr. Birsky,” Eschenbach replied as he extended his hand in farewell. ”Will you join me there, Mr. Finkman?”