The Competitive Nephew

If there was one quality above all others upon which Charles Finkman prided himself it was his philanthropy; and as a philanthropist he yielded precedence to nobody. Indeed, his name graced the title pages of as many institutional reports as there were orphan asylums, hospitals, and homes appurtenant to his religious community within the boundaries of Greater New York; for both he and his partner had long since discovered that as an advertising medium the annual report of a hospital is superior to an entire year's issue of a trade journal, and the cost is distinctly lower. The idea that philanthropy among one's own employees could promote sales had never occurred to him, however, and it came as a distinct shock that he had so long neglected this phase of salesmanship.

"Why, I never thought that any concern in the cloak and suit business was doing such things." Finkman continued; and his tones voiced his chagrin at the discovery of Adelstern's philanthropic innovation. "I knew that drygoods stores like yours, Mr. Eschenbach, they got a lot of enlightened idees, but I never knew nobody which is doing such things in the cloak and suit trade."

At this juncture Louis Birsky abandoned his plans for a Saint Honoré tart, with Vienna coffee and cream. Instead he conceived a bold stroke of salesmanship, and he turned immediately to Finkman.

"What are you talking nonsense, Mr. Finkman?" he said. "We ourselves got in our place already an employees' mutual aid society, which our designer, Jacob Golnik, is president of it – and all the operators belong yet."

It cannot truthfully be said that Finkman received this information with any degree of enthusiasm; and perhaps, to a person of less rugged sensibilities than Louis Birsky, Finkman's manner might have seemed a trifle chilly as he searched his mind for a sufficiently discouraging rejoinder.

"Of course, Birsky," he growled at last, "when I says I didn't know any concerns in the cloak and suit business which is got a mutual aid society, understand me, I ain't counting small concerns."

"Sure, I know," Birsky replied cheerfully; "but I am telling you, Finkman, that we got such a mutual aid society, which, if you are calling a hundred operators a small concern, Finkman, you got awful big idees, Finkman, and that's all I got to say."

Eschenbach smiled amiably by way of smoothing things over.

"Have your hundred operators formed a mutual aid society, Mr. – "

"My name is Mr. Birsky," Louis said, rising from his chair; and, without further encouragement, he seated himself at Eschenbach's table, "of Birsky & Zapp; and we not only got a hundred operators, Mr. Eschenbach, but our cutting-room staff and our office staff also joins the society."

"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 nobody."

"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 butts 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?"

Finkman nodded sulkily.

"I will if I got the time, Mr. Eschenbach," he said; "aber don't rely on me too much."

A malicious smile spread itself over Birsky's face as he started to leave.

"Me and my partner is going to feel terrible disappointed if you don't show up, Finkman," he declared; and with this parting shot he hurried back to his place of business.

"Say, Barney," he said after he had removed his hat, "ain't it surprising what a back number a feller like Charles Finkman is?"

"We should be such back numbers as Finkman & Maisener, Louis," Barney commented dryly, "with a rating two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand, first credit."

"Even so," Louis commented, "the feller surprises me – he is such an iggeramus. Actually, Barney, he says he never knew that a single garment manufacturer in the city of New York is got in his shop one of them there mutual aid affairs. 'Why, Mr. Finkman,' I says, 'we ourselves got such a mutual aid society,' I says; and right away Eschenbach says he would come round here to-morrow morning and see how the thing works. So you should tell Kanef he should fix over them racks to show up well them changeable taffetas. Also, Barney, you should tell Kanef to put them serges and the other stickers back of the piece goods; and – "

At this point Barney raised a protesting hand.

"One moment, Louis," he cried. "What d'ye mean Eschenbach comes to-morrow?"

"Why, Eschenbach is interested in our mutual aid society; and – "

"Our mutual aid society!" Barney cried. "What are you talking about, our mutual aid society?"

"Well, then, Golnik's mutual aid society," Louis continued.

"Golnik's mutual aid society!" exclaimed Zapp. "Golnik ain't got no mutual aid society no more, Birsky. I told him after you are gone to lunch, Birsky, that if him oder anybody else round here even so much as mentions such a thing to us again we would fire 'em right out of here, contracts oder no contracts."

Birsky sat down in a chair and gazed mournfully at his partner.

"You told him that, Zapp?" he said.

"I certainly did," Zapp replied. "What do you think I would tell him after the way Feigenbaum takes on so?"

Birsky nodded his head slowly.

"That's the way it goes, Zapp," he said. "I am sitting there in Hammersmith's half an hour already, scheming how we should get Eschenbach round here so he should look over our line – which I didn't hardly eat nothing at all, understand me – and you go to work and knock away the ground from under my toes already!"

"What d'ye mean, I am knocking away the ground from under your toes?" Zapp cried indignantly. "What has Golnik's mutual aid society got to do mit your toes, Birsky —oder Eschenbach, neither?"

"It's got a whole lot to do with it," Birsky declared. "It's got everything to do with it; in fact, Barney, if it wouldn't be that I am telling Eschenbach we got a mutual aid society here he wouldn't come round here at all."

"That's all right," Zapp said. "He ain't in the mutual aid society business – he's in the drygoods business, Louis; and so soon as we showed him them changeable taffetas at eight dollars he would quick forget all about mutual aid societies."

Birsky shook his head emphatically.

"That's where you make a big mistake, Barney," he replied; and forthwith he unfolded to Zapp a circumstantial narrative of his encounter with Eschenbach and Finkman at Hammersmith's café.

"So you see, Barney," he continued, "if we are ever going to do business mit Eschenbach, understand me, for a start the mutual aid society is everything and the changeable taffetas don't figure at all."

"But I thought you are saying this morning you wouldn't want to do business mit Eschenbach," Zapp protested.

"This morning was something else again," Birsky said. "This morning I was busy getting through mit Feigenbaum, which if I got a bird in one hand, Barney, I ain't trying to hold two in the other."

"That's all right, Louis," Zapp replied, "if you think when you booked Feigenbaum's order that you got a bird in one hand, Louis, you better wait till the goods is shipped and paid for. Otherwise, Louis, if Feigenbaum hears you are monkeying round mit mutual aid societies he would go to work and cancel the order on us, and you could kiss yourself good-bye with his business."

"Schmooes, Barney!" Birsky protested. "How is Feigenbaum, which he is safe in Bridgetown, going to find out what is going on in our shop? We could be running here a dozen mutual aid societies, understand me, for all that one-eyed Rosher hears of it."

Zapp shrugged his shoulders.

"All right, Louis," he said; "if you want to fix up mutual aid societies round here go ahead and do so – only one thing I got to tell you, Louis: you should fix it up that some one else as Golnik should be president, understand me, because a designer like Golnik is enough stuck on himself without he should be president of a mutual aid society. Treasurer is good enough for him."

Birsky received the suggestion with a satirical smile.

"You got a real head for business, Zapp, I must say," he said, "when you are going to make a feller like Golnik treasurer."

"Well, then, we could make Golnik secretary, and Kanef, the shipping clerk, treasurer," Zapp suggested. "The feller's got rich relations in the herring business."

"I don't care a snap if the feller's relations own all the herring business in the world, Zapp," Birsky continued. "This afternoon yet we would go to work and get up this here mutual aid society, mit Jacob Golnik president and I. Kanef vice-president."

"And who would be treasurer then?" Zapp asked meekly; whereat Louis Birsky slapped his chest.

"I would be treasurer," he announced; "and for a twenty dollar bill we would get Henry D. Feldman he should fix up the by-laws, which you could take it from me, Zapp, if there's any honour coming to Golnik after me and Feldman gets through, understand me, the feller is easy flattered, Zapp – and that's all I got to say."

It was not until after five o'clock that Birsky returned from Feldman's office with the typewritten constitution and by-laws of a voluntary association entitled the Mutual Aid Society Employees of Birsky & Zapp. Moreover, under the advice of counsel, he had transferred from the firm's balance in the Kosciusko Bank the sum of five hundred dollars to a new account denominated L. Birsky, Treasurer; and the omission of the conjunction "as" before the word "Treasurer" was all that prevented the funds so deposited from becoming the property of the mutual aid society. In short, everything was in readiness for the reception of Jonas Eschenbach the following morning except the trifling detail of notifying Jacob Golnik and the hundred operators that their mutual aid society had come into being; and as soon as Birsky had removed his hat and coat he hastened into the cutting room and beckoned to Golnik.

"Golnik," he said, "kommen Sie mal h'rein for a minute." Golnik looked up from a pile of cloth and waved his hand reassuringly.

"It's all right, Mr. Birsky," he said. "I thought the matter over already; and you and your partner is right, Mr. Birsky. This here mutual aid society is nix, Mr. Birsky. Why should I take from my salary a dollar a week for five weeks, understand me, while a lot of old Schnorrers like them pressers in there is liable to die on us any minute, y'understand, and right away we got to pay out a death benefit for forty or fifty dollars?"

"What are you talking about a death benefit?" Birsky exclaimed. "Why should you got death benefits in a mutual aid society? A mutual aid society, which if you got any idee about the English language at all, Golnik, means a society which the members helps each other, Golnik; and if a member goes to work and dies, Golnik, he couldn't help nobody no more. In a mutual aid society, Golnik, if a member dies he is dead, understand me, and all he gets out is what he puts in less his share of what it costs to run the society."

Golnik laid down his shears and gazed earnestly at his employer.

"I never thought that way about it before," he said; "but, anyhow, Mr. Birsky, Gott soll hüten such a feller shouldn't die sudden, understand me, then we got to pay him a sick benefit yet five dollars a week; and the least such a Schlemiel lingers on us is ten weeks, which you could see for yourself, Mr. Birsky, where do I get off?"

"Well, you would be anyhow president, Golnik – ain't it?" Birsky said.

"Sure, I know, Mr. Birsky," Golnik continued; "but what is the Kunst a feller should be president, understand me, if I got to pay every week my good money for a lot of operators which they fress from pickles and fish, understand me, till they are black in the face mit the indigestion, y'understand, while me I never got so much as a headache even? So I guess you are right, after all, Mr. Birsky. A feller which he is such a big fool that he joins one of them there mutual aid societies deserves he should get fired right out of here."

"Aber, Golnik," Birsky protested, "me and Zapp has changed our minds already and we are agreeable we should have such a society, which you would be president and Kanef vice-president."

There was a note of anxiety in Birsky's voice that caused Golnik to hesitate before replying, and he immediately conjectured that Birsky's reconsideration of the mutual aid society plan had been made on grounds not entirely altruistic.

"Well," he said at length, "of course if you and Mr. Zapp is changed your minds, Mr. Birsky, I couldn't kick; aber, if it's all the same to you, you should please leave me out of it."

"What d'ye mean, leave you out of it?" Birsky cried. "When we would got here an employees' mutual aid society, Golnik, who would be president from it if the designer wouldn't, Golnik?"

Golnik gave an excellent imitation of a disinterested onlooker as he shrugged his shoulders in reply.

"What's the matter with Kanef, Mr. Birsky?" he asked.

"Kanef is a shipping clerk only, Golnik," Birsky replied; "and you know as well as I do, Golnik, a shipping clerk is got so much influence with the operators like nothing at all. Besides, Golnik, we already got your name in as president, which, if we would change it now, right away we are out twenty dollars we paid Henry D. Feldman this afternoon he should draw up the papers for us."

"So!" Golnik exclaimed. "Feldman draws up the papers!"

"Sure he did," Birsky said; "which, if we started this thing, Golnik, we want to do it right."

Golnik nodded.

"And he would do it right, too, Mr. Birsky," he commented; "which, judging from the contract he is drawing up between you and me last December, an elegant chance them operators is got in such a society."

Birsky patted his designer confidentially on the shoulder.

"What do you care, Golnik?" he said. "You ain't an operator – and besides, Golnik, I couldn't stand here and argue with you all night; so I tell you what I would do, Golnik: come in this here society as president and we wouldn't deduct nothing from your wages at all, and you would be a member in good standing, anyhow."

Golnik shook his head slowly, whereat Birsky continued his confidential patting.

"And so long as the society lasts, Golnik," he said, "we ourselves would pay you two dollars a week to boot."

"And I am also to get sick benefits?" Golnik asked.

"You would get just so much sick benefits as anybody else in the society," Birsky replied, "because you could leave that point to me, Golnik, which I forgot to told you, Golnik, that I am the treasurer; so you should please be so good and break it to Bogin and Kanef and the operators. We want to get through with this thing."

For the remainder of the afternoon, therefore, the business premises of Birsky & Zapp were given over to speechmaking on the part of Birsky and Golnik; and when at the conclusion of his fervid oration Golnik exhibited to the hundred operators the passbook of L. Birsky, Treasurer, the enthusiasm it evoked lost nothing by the omission of the conjunctive adverb "as." Indeed, resolutions were passed and spread upon the minutes of such a laudatory character that, until the arrival of Jonas Eschenbach the following morning, there persisted in both Birsky and Zapp a genuine glow of virtue.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Eschenbach?" Louis cried, as Eschenbach cuddled his hand in a warm, fat grasp. "This is my partner, Mr. Zapp."

"Ain't it a fine weather?" Barney remarked after he had undergone the handclasp of philanthropy.

"I bet yer it's a fine weather," Eschenbach said. "Such a fine weather is important for people which is running sick-benefit societies."

"Warum sick-benefit societies, Mr. Eschenbach?"

"Well," Eschenbach replied, "I take it that in a sick-benefit society the health of the members is paramount."

"Sure, it is," Barney agreed. "You couldn't expect otherwise, Mr. Eschenbach, from the Machshovos them fellers eats for their lunch – herring and pickles mit beer."

"I am not speaking from the food they eat," Eschenbach continued; "aber, in bad weather, Mr. Zapp, you must got to expect that a certain proportion of your members would be laid up with colds already."

Zapp waved his hand carelessly.

"For that matter," he said, "we told them fellers the sick-benefit society wouldn't fall for no colds oder indigestion, which both of 'em comes from the stummick."

"May be that's a wise plan, Mr. Zapp," Eschenbach continued; "but the best way a feller should keep himself he shouldn't take no colds oder indigestion is from athaletics."

"That's where you make a big mistake, Mr. Eschenbach," said Zapp, who had served an apprenticeship in the underwear business. "Even in the hottest weather I am wearing a long-sleeve undershirt and regular length pants, and I never got at all so much as a little Magensäure."

"I don't doubt your word for a minute, Mr. Zapp," Eschenbach went on; "but it ain't what you wear which is counting so much, y'understand – it's what you do. Now you take them operators of yours, Mr. Zapp, and if they would play once in a while a game of baseball, verstehst du mich– especially this time of the year, Mr. Zapp – their health improves something wonderful."

"Baseball!" Birsky exclaimed. "And when do you suppose our operators gets time to spiel baseball, Mr. Eschenbach?"

"They got plenty time, Mr. Birsky," Eschenbach replied. "For instance, in Adelstern's shop, Mr. Birsky, every lunch-hour they got the operators practising on the roof; while on Sundays yet they play in some vacant lots which Adelstern gets left on his hands from boom times already, up in the Bronix somewheres."

"Aber we got stuck mit only improved property," Birsky protested, "on Ammerman Avenue, a five-story, twelve-room house mit stores, which we bought from Finkman at the end of the boom times already, and which we couldn't give it away free for nothing even; and what for a baseball game could you play it on the roof of a new-law house on a lot thirty-three by ninety-nine?"

"Such objection is nothing, Mr. Birsky," Eschenbach rejoined, "because for five dollars a month the landlord here lets you use the roof lunch-hours; and for a start I would get Adelstern he should lend you his lots. Later you could get others, Mr. Birsky, because Mr. Adelstern ain't the only one which gets stuck from boom times mit Bronix lots already. I bet yer there is hundreds of real-estate speculators which stands willing to hire vacant lots for baseball Sundays, and they wouldn't charge you more as a couple dollars, neither."

"Well," Birsky said, handing his visitor a cigar, "maybe you are right, Mr. Eschenbach; but, anyhow, Mr. Eschenbach, we got here an elegant line of popular-price goods which I should like for you to give a look at."

"I got plenty time to look at your line, Mr. Birsky," Eschenbach assured him. "I would be in town several days yet already; and before I go, Mr. Birsky, I would like to see it if Adelstern's idees would work out here."

"Aber we are running our society on our own idees, Mr. Eschenbach," Zapp said.

"Quite right, too," Eschenbach agreed; "but I don't mind telling you, Mr. Birsky, that Adelstern's baseball team is originally my idee, Mr. Birsky – and if you don't mind, Mr. Birsky, I would like to look over your employees and see if I couldn't pick out nine good men."

"For my part," Birsky said, rising to his feet, "you could pick out twenty, Mr. Eschenbach."

Forthwith they proceeded to the rear of the loft, where the hundred odd members of the mutual aid society were engaged in the manifold employments of a cloak and suit factory, and the smiles and nods with which they greeted their treasurer rekindled in Birsky and Zapp the glow of virtue that to some degree had abated at Eschenbach's refusal to examine their sample line.

"You see, Mr. Eschenbach," Birsky said proudly, "what a good feeling the operators has for us. And you wouldn't believe how it shows in the work, too, Mr. Eschenbach. Our goods is elegant made up."

"I don't doubt it," Eschenbach said. "Which of your operators do you consider is the strongest, Mr. Zapp?"

"Well," Zapp replied, pointing to a broad-shouldered giant whose long black beard swept his torso to the waist, "that feller over there, by the name Tzvee Margoninsky, is strong like a bull, Mr. Eschenbach. Last week he moves for us the safe from the show-room to the office like it would be an empty packing-case already."

Eschenbach shook his head and smiled.

"Mit one arm already," he declared, "a feller could better play baseball as mit such a beard. What we must got to do is to pick out only fellers which looks more up to date."

"Go ahead and use your own judgment, Mr. Eschenbach," said Birsky; and thereat Jonas Eschenbach immediately selected three long-armed operators for outfielders. In less than half an hour he had secured the remainder of the team, including as pitcher I. Kanef, the shipping clerk.

"I seen worser material, Mr. Birsky," Eschenbach said after he had returned to the showroom; "so, if you would get these fellers up at Adelstern's lots on Northeastern Boulevard and Pelham Parkway on Sunday morning at ten o'clock, Mr. Birsky, I'll show 'em a little something about the game, understand me. Then on Monday morning I should be very glad to look over your sample line."

"Aber, Mr. Eschenbach," Birsky cried, "why not look at it now?"

Eschenbach smiled enigmatically as he clasped Birsky's hand in farewell.