Potash & Perlmutter Part 30

There are some people who cannot stand the sight of blood; Morris was one of them, and the drummer on Frank Walsh's right was another. Both he and Morris turned pale, but the big man on Walsh's left roared his approbation.

"Eat him up!" he bellowed, and at every fresh hemorrhage from Mr.

Flanagan he rocked and swayed in an ecstasy of enjoyment. For three crimson rounds Pig Flanagan and Tom Evans continued their contest, but even a good bleeder must run dry eventually, and in the first half of the fourth round Pig took the count.

By this time the arena was swimming in Morris' nauseated vision, while, as for the drummer on Frank's right, he closed his eyes and wiped a clammy perspiration from his forehead. The club meeting proceeded, however, despite the stomachs of its weaker members, and the next bout commenced with a rush. It was advertised in advance by Morris'

neighboring seatholders as a scientific contest, but in pugilism, as in surgery, science is often gory. In this instance a scientific white man hit a colored savant squarely on the nose, with the inevitable sanguinary result, and as though by a prearranged signal Morris and the drummer on Walsh's right started for the door. In vain did Walsh seize his neighbor by the coat-tail. The latter shook himself loose, and he and Morris reached the sidewalk together.

"T'phooie!" said the drummer. "That's an amus.e.m.e.nt for five dollars."

Morris wiped his face and gasped like a landed fish. At length he recovered his composure. "I seen you sitting next to Walsh," he said.

The drummer nodded. "He didn't want me to go," he replied. "He said we come together and we should go together, but I told him I would wait for him till it was over. Him and that other fellow seem to enjoy it."

"Some people has got funny idees of a good time," Morris commented.

"_That's_ an idee for a loafer," said the drummer. "For my part I like it more refined."

"I believe you," Morris replied. "Might you would come and take a cup of coffee with me, maybe?"

He indicated a bathbrick dairy restaurant on the opposite side of the street.

"Much obliged," the drummer replied, "but I got to go out of town to-morrow, and coffee keeps me awake. I think I'll wait here for about half an hour, and if Walsh and his friends don't come out by then I guess I'll go home."

Morris hesitated. A sense of duty demanded that he stay and see the matter through, since his newly-made acquaintance with the _tertium quid_ of Walsh's little party might lead to an introduction to the big man, and for the rest Morris trusted to his own salesmans.h.i.+p. But the drummer settled the matter for him.

"On second thought," he said, "I guess I won't wait. Why should I bother with a couple like them? If you're going downtown on the L I'll go with you."

Together they walked to the Manhattan terminal of the Third Avenue road and discussed the features of the disgusting spectacle they had just witnessed. In going over its details they found sufficient conversation to cover the journey to One Hundred and Sixteenth Street, where Morris alighted. When he descended to the street it occurred to him for the first time that he had omitted to learn both the name and line of business of his new-found friend.

In the meantime Frank Walsh and his companion watched the white scientist and the colored savant conclude their exhibition and cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e over the _piece de resistance_ which followed immediately. At length Slogger Atkins disposed of Young Kilrain with a well-directed punch in the solar plexus, and Walsh and his companion rose to go.

"What become of yer friend?" the big man asked.

"He had to go out, Jim," Frank replied. "He couldn't stand the sight of the blood."

"Is that so?" the big man commented. "It beats all, the queer ideas some people has."

"Well, Mawruss," Abe cried as he greeted his partner on Monday morning, "how did it went?"

"How did what went?" Morris asked.

"The prize-fighting."

Morris shook his head. "Not for all the cloak and suit trade on the Pacific slope," he said finally, "would I go to one of them things again. First, a fat Eyetalian by the name Flanagan fights with a young feller, Tom Evans, the Welsh coal-miner, and you never seen nothing like it, Abe, outside a slaughter-house."

"Flanagan don't seem much like an Eyetalian, Mawruss," Abe commented.

"I know it," Morris replied; "but that wouldn't surprise you much if you could seen the one what they call Tom Evans, the Welsh coal-miner."

"Why not?" Abe asked.

"Well, you remember Hyman Feinsilver, what worked by us as a s.h.i.+pping clerk while Jake was sick?"

"Sure I do," Abe replied. "Comes from very decent, respectable people in the old country. His father was a rabbi."

"Don't make no difference about his father, Abe," Morris went on. "That Tom Evans, the Welsh coal-miner, is Hyman Feinsilver what worked by us, and the way he treated that poor Eyetalian young feller was a shame for the people. It makes me sick to think of it."

"Don't think of it, then," Abe replied, "because it won't do you no good, Mawruss. I seen Sol Klinger in the subway this morning, and he says that last Sat.u.r.day morning already James Burke was in their place and picked out enough goods to stock the biggest suit department in the country. Sol says Burke went to Philadelphia yesterday to meet Sidney Small, the president of the concern, and they're coming over to Klinger & Klein's this morning and close the deal."

Morris sat down and lit a cigar. "Yes, Abe, that's the way it goes," he said bitterly. "You sit here and tell me a long story about your wife's relations, and the first thing you know, Abe, I miss the train and Frank Walsh takes away my trade. What do I care about your wife's relations, Abe?"

"That's what I told you, Mawruss. Wife's relations don't do n.o.body no good," Abe replied.

"Jokes!" Morris exclaimed as he moved off to the rear of the store.

"Jokes he is making it, and two thousand dollars thrown into the street."

For the rest of the morning Morris sulked in the cutting-room upstairs, while Abe busied himself in a.s.sorting his samples for a forthcoming New England trip. At twelve o'clock a customer came in, and when he left at half-past twelve Abe escorted him to the store door and lingered there a few minutes to get a breath of fresh air. As he was about to reenter the store he discerned the corpulent figure of Frank Walsh making his way down the opposite sidewalk toward Wa.s.serbauer's Cafe. With him were two other men, one of them about as big as Frank himself, the other a slight, dark person.

Abe darted to the rear of the store. "Mawruss," he called, "come quick!

Here is this Walsh feller with Small and Burke."

Morris took the first few stairs at a leap, and had his partner not caught him he would have landed in a heap at the bottom of the flight.

They covered the distance from the stairway to the store door so rapidly that when they reached the sidewalk Frank and his customers had not yet arrived in front of Wa.s.serbauer's.

"The little feller," Morris hissed, "is the same one what was up to the fighting. I guess he's a drummer."

"Him?" Abe replied. "He ain't no drummer, Mawruss. He's Jacob Berkowitz, what used to run the Up-to-Date Store in Seattle. I sold him goods when me and Pincus Vesell was partners together, way before the Spanish War already. Who's the other feller?"

At that moment the subject of Abe's inquiry looked across the street and for the first time noticed Abe and Morris standing on the sidewalk.

He stopped short and stared at Abe until his bulging eyes caught the sign above the store. For one brief moment he hesitated and then he leaped from the curb to the gutter and plunged across the roadway, with Jacob Berkowitz and Frank Walsh in close pursuit. He seized Abe by both hands and shook them up and down.

"Abe Potas.h.!.+" he cried. "So sure as you live."

"That's right," Abe admitted; "that's my name."

"You don't remember me, Abe?" he went on.

"I remember Mr. Berkowitz here," Abe said, smiling at the smaller man.

"I used to sell him goods oncet when he ran the Up-to-Date Store in Seattle. Ain't that so, Mr. Berkowitz?"

The smaller man nodded in an embarra.s.sed fas.h.i.+on, while Frank Walsh grew red and white by turns and looked first at Abe and then at the others in blank amazement.

"But," Abe went on, "you got to excuse me, Mister--Mister----"

"Small," said the larger man, whereat Morris fairly staggered.

"Mister Small," Abe continued. "You got to excuse me. I don't remember your name. Won't you come inside?"

"Hold on!" Frank Walsh cried. "These gentlemen are going to lunch with _me_."