Potash & Perlmutter Part 60

"Is that so?" Abe said. "I thought Klinger was such a good friend to us, Mawruss. Also, Mawruss, you say yourself on Sat.u.r.day that a feller what's got an oitermobile is a crook yet."

"Me!" Morris cried indignantly. "I never said no such thing, Abe. Always you got to twist around what I say, Abe. What I told you was----"

"S'all right, Mawruss," Abe said. "I'll take your word for it. What I want to talk to you about now is this here J. Edward Kleebaum. He gives us an order for twenty-one hundred dollars, Mawruss."

"Good!" Morris exclaimed.

"Good?" Abe repeated with a rising inflection. "Say, Mawruss, what's the matter with you to-day, anyway?"

"Nothing's the matter with _me_, Abe. What d'ye mean?"

"I mean that on Sat.u.r.day you wouldn't sell Kleebaum not a dollar's worth of goods, Mawruss, and even myself I was only willing we should go a thousand dollars on the feller, and now to-day when I tell it you he gives us an order for twenty-one hundred dollars, Mawruss, you say, 'good'."

"Sure, I say, 'good'," Morris replied. "Why not? Just because a sucker like Sol Klinger knocks a feller, Abe, that ain't saying the feller's N.

G. Furthermore, Abe, suppose a feller does run a couple of oitermobiles, y'understand, Abe, does that say he's going to bust up right away?

That's an idee what a back number like Klinger got it, Abe, but with me I think differently. There's worser things as oitermobiles to ride in, Abe, believe me. Fixman takes out his wife and Minnie and me on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and we had a fine time. We went pretty near to Boston, I bet yer."

"To Boston!" Abe exclaimed.

"Well, we seen the Boston boats going out, and a fine view of the City College also, and a gas factory and North Beach, too. Everything went off beautiful, Abe, and I a.s.sure you Minnie and me we come home feeling fine. I tell you, Abe, a feller has got to ride in one of them things to appreciate 'em."

"S'all right, Mawruss," Abe cried. "I take your word for it. What I am worrying about now, Mawruss, is this here Kleebaum."

"Kleebaum is A Number One, Abe," Morris said. "I was talking to Fixman about him and Fixman says that there ain't a better judge of an oitermobile between Chicago and the Pacific Coast."

"Say, lookyhere, Mawruss," Abe asked, "are we in the cloak and suit business or are we in the oitermobile business? Kleebaum buys from us cloaks, not oitermobiles. And while I ain't got such good judgment when it comes to oitermobiles, I think I know something about the cloak and suit business, and I got an idea that feller is out to do us."

"Why, Abe, you don't know the feller at all," Morris protested. "Why don't you make some investigations about the feller, Abe?"

"Investigations is nix, Mawruss," Abe replied impatiently. "When a feller is a crook, Mawruss, he could fool everybody, Mawruss. He could fix things so the merchantile agencies would only find out good things about him, and he buffaloes credit men so that to hear 'em talk you would think he was a millionaire already. No, Mawruss, when you are dealing with a crook, investigations is nix. You got to depend on your own judgment."

"But, Abe," Morris cried, "you got a wrong idee about that feller.

Fixman tells me Kleebaum does a fine business in Minneapolis. He has an elegant trade there and he's got a system of oitermobile delivery which Fixman says is great. He's got three light runabouts fixed up with removable tonneaus, thirty horse-power, two cylinder engines and----"

At this juncture Abe rose to his feet and hurried indignantly toward the cutting-room, where Morris joined him five minutes later.

"Say, Abe," he said, "while me and Minnie was out with Fixman on Sat.u.r.day I got a fine idee for an oitermobile wrap."

Abe turned and fixed his partner with a terrible glare.

"Tell it to Kleebaum," he roared.

"I did," Morris said genially, "and he thought it would make a big hit in the trade."

"Why, when did you seen it, Kleebaum?" Abe asked.

"This morning on my way over to Lenox Avenue. I met Sol Klinger and as him and me was buying papers near the subway station, comes a big oitermobile by the curb and Kleebaum is sitting with another feller in the front seat, what they call a chauffeur, and Kleebaum says, 'Get in and I'll take you down town,' so we get in and I bet yer we come downtown in fifteen minutes."

"Ain't Klinger scared to ride in one of them things, Mawruss?" Abe asked.

"Scared, Abe? Why should the feller be scared? Not only he wasn't scared yet, Abe, but he took up Kleebaum's offer for a ride down to Coney Island yet. Kleebaum said they'd be back by ten o'clock and so Klinger asks me to telephone over to Klein that he would be a little late this morning."

"That's a fine way for a feller to neglect his business, Mawruss," Abe commented.

Morris nodded without enthusiasm.

"By the way, Abe," he said, "me and Minnie about decided we would rent the house next door to Fixman's down in Johnsonhurst, so I guess we will go down there again this afternoon at three o'clock."

"At three o'clock!" Abe cried. "Say, lookyhere, Mawruss, what do you think this here is anyway? A bank?"

"Must I ask _you_, Abe, if I want to leave early oncet in awhile?"

"Oncet in awhile is all right, Mawruss, but when a feller does it every day that's something else again."

"When did I done it every day, Abe?" Morris demanded. "Sat.u.r.day is the first time I leave here early in a year already, while pretty near every afternoon, Abe, you got an excuse you should see a customer up in Broadway and Twenty-ninth Street."

"Shall I tell you something, Mawruss," Abe cried suddenly. "You are going for an oitermobile ride with J. Edward Kleebaum."

Morris flushed vividly.

"Supposing I am, Abe," he replied. "Ain't Kleebaum a customer from ours?

And how could I turn down a customer, Abe?"

"_Maybe_ he's a customer, Mawruss, but I wouldn't be certain of it because you could go oitermobile riding with him if you want to, Mawruss, but me, I am going to do something different. I am going to look that feller up, Mawruss, and I bet yer when I get through, Mawruss, we would sooner be selling goods to some of them cut-throats up in Sing Sing already."

At three o'clock Minnie entered swathed in veils and a huge fur coat.

"Well, Abe," she said, "did you hear the latest? We are going to move to Johnsonhurst."

"I wish you joy," Abe grunted.

"We got a swell place down there," she went on. "Five bedrooms, a parlor and a library with a great big kitchen and a garage."

"A what?" Abe cried.

"A place what you put oitermobiles into it," Morris explained.

"Is that so?" Abe said as he jammed his hat on with both hands. "Well, that don't do no harm, Mawruss, because you could also use it for a dawg house."

He slammed the door behind him and five minutes later he entered the business premises of Klinger & Klein. There he found the senior member of the firm busy over the sample line.

"Hallo, Sol!" he cried. "I just seen it Mr. Brady, credit man for the Manhattan Mills, and he says he come across you riding in an oitermobile near Coney Island at nine o'clock this morning already. He says he always thought you and Klein was pretty steady people, but I says nowadays you couldn't never tell nothing about n.o.body. 'Because a feller is a talmudist already, Mr. Brady,' I says, 'that don't say he ain't blowing in his money on the horse races yet.'"

Klinger turned pale.

"Ain't that a fine thing," he exclaimed, "that a feller with a responsible position like Brady should be fooling away his time at Coney Island in business hours."

Abe laughed and clapped Sol Klinger on the back.