The Competitive Nephew

"I don't know who your wife is," Schindelberger rejoined angrily, "but she talks like a big fool."

"No, she don't," Rudnik retorted; "she talks like a sensible woman, because, in the first place, she wouldn't got to starve. I got enough strength left that I could always make for her and me anyhow a living, and, in the second place, the Home really ain't a home. It's a business."

"A business!" Schindelberger cried. "What d'ye mean, a business?"

"I mean a business," Rudnik replied, "an underwear business. Them poor women up there makes underwear from morning till night already, and Schindelberger here got a brother-in-law which he buys it from the Home for pretty near half as much as it would cost him to make it."

"Rosher!" Max Schindelberger shrieked. "Who tells you such stories?"

"My wife tells me," Rudnik replied.

"And how does your wife know it?" Belz demanded.

"Because," Rudnik answered, "she once used to live in the Home."

"Then that only goes to show what a liar you are," Schindelberger said. "Your wife couldn't of been in the Home on account it only gets started last year, and everybody which went in there ain't never come out yet."

"Everybody but one," Rudnik said as he seized his cane, and raising himself from the chair he hobbled to the door.

"Blooma leben," he cried, throwing the door wide open; and in response Mrs. Rudnik, née Blooma Duckman, entered.

"Nu, Belz," she said, "ain't you going to congradulate me?"

Belz sat back in his chair and stared at his wife's cousin in unaffected astonishment, while Schindelberger noiselessly opened the door and slid out of the room unnoticed.

"And so you run away from the Home and married this Schnorrer?" Belz said at length.

"Schnorrer he ain't," she retorted, "unless you would go to work and foreclose the house."

"It would serve you right if I did," Belz rejoined.

"Then you ain't going to?" Mrs. Rudnik asked.

"What d'ye mean, he ain't going to?" Lesengeld interrupted. "Ain't I got nothing to say here? Must I got to sacrifice myself for Belz's wife's relations?"

"Koosh, Lesengeld!" Belz exploded. "You take too much on yourself. Do you think for one moment I am going to foreclose that mortgage and have them two old people schnorring their living expenses out of me for the rest of my days, just to oblige you? The mortgage runs at 6 per cent., and it's going to continue to do so. Six per cent. ain't to be sneezed at, neither."

"And ain't he going to pay us no bonus nor nothing?" Lesengeld asked in anguished tones.

"Bonus!" Belz cried; "what are you talking about, bonus? Do you mean to told me you would ask an old man which he nearly gets killed by a train already a bonus yet? Honestly, Lesengeld, I'm surprised at you. The way you talk sometimes it ain't no wonder people calls us second-mortgage sharks."

"But, lookyhere, Belz – " Lesengeld began.

"'S enough, Lesengeld," Belz interrupted. "You're lucky I don't ask you you should make 'em a wedding present yet."

"I suppose, Belz, you're going to make 'em a wedding present, too, ain't it?" Lesengeld jeered.

"That's just what I'm going to do," Belz said as he turned to the safe. He fumbled round the middle compartment and finally produced two yellow slips of paper. "I'm going to give 'em these here composition notes of Schindelberger's, and with what Blooma knows about the way that Rosher is running the Bella Hirshkind Home she shouldn't got no difficulty making him pay up."

He handed the notes to Rudnik.

"And now," he said, "sit right down and tell us how it comes that you and Blooma gets married."

For more than a quarter of an hour Rudnik described the details of his meeting with Miss Blooma Duckman, together with his hopes and aspirations for the future, and when he concluded Belz turned to his partner.

"Ain't it funny how things happens?" he said. "Honestly, Lesengeld, ain't that more interesting than most things you could see it on a moving pictures?"

Lesengeld nodded sulkily.

"It sure ought to be," he said, "because to go on a moving pictures you pay only ten cents, aber this here story costs me my half of a three-hundred-and-fifty dollar bonus. However, I suppose I shouldn't begrudge it 'em. I seen the other evening a fillum by the name The Return of Enoch Aarons, where an old feller stands outside on the street and looks through a winder, and he sees a happy married couple mit children sitting in front of a fire. So I says to my wife: 'Mommer,' I says, 'if that old snoozer would only get married,' I says, 'he wouldn't got to stand outside winders looking at other people having a good time,' I says. 'He would be enjoying with his own wife and children,' I says, and I thinks right away of Rudnik here." He placed his hand on Rudnik's shoulder as he spoke. "But now Rudnik is married," he concluded, "and even if he wouldn't got children he's got a good wife anyhow, which it stands in the Siddur already – a good wife is more valuable as rubies."

Rudnik seized the hand of his blushing bride. "And," he added, "rubies is pretty high nowadays."

CHAPTER EIGHT

COERCING MR. TRINKMANN

"I don't know, Mr. Trinkmann, what comes over you, you are always picking on me," Louis Berkfield said. "Me, I am doing my best here."

"You are doing your best here, Louis!" Harris Trinkmann exclaimed. "Do you call them ashtrays doing your best? They got on them Schmutz from the time I bought 'em off of Dreiner which he busted up way before the Spanish War already. The knives and forks, too, Louis. Do you think it's a pleasure to a customer when he is eating Kalbfleisch that he finds on his fork a piece of Bismarck herring from last night already? You are ruining my trade, Louis."

"What do you mean, ruining your trade, Mr. Trinkmann?" Louis rejoined. "I ain't no pantryman. If the customers complains that the fork got on it a piece Bismarck herring, that is from the pantryman a Schuld. What have I got to do with herring on the forks?"

"You got everything to do with it," Trinkmann declared. "A pantryman is a feller which no one could depend upon, otherwise he wouldn't be a pantryman, Louis; but a waiter, that's something else again. If a waiter wouldn't see that the forks ain't schmutzig, who would see it? The trouble is here nobody takes any interest at all. Me, I got to do everything myself."

Mr. Trinkmann returned to the cashier's desk over which Mrs. Trinkmann habitually presided, and taking a cigarette pen-fashion twixt thumb and forefinger, he lit it slowly and threw away the match with a gesture that implied more strongly than words, "I am sick and tired of the whole business."

The fact was that Mr. Trinkmann had undergone that morning as much as one man could endure without the relief that profanity affords. To be precise, only three hours before, Mrs. Trinkmann had presented him with twins, both girls.

"The thing has got to stop sometime, Louis," he said, as he came from behind the desk. He referred, however, to the ashtrays and the forks. "Either you would got to turn around a new leaf, or you could act like a slob somewheres else, understand me, because I wouldn't stand for it here."

"What are you talking nonsense – act like a slob, Mr. Trinkmann?" Louis cried. "I am working here for you now six years next Tishabav, and everybody which comes here in the place I always give 'em good satisfaction."

"You got too swell a head, Louis," Mr. Trinkmann continued, gaining heat. "You would think you was a partner here the way you act. You talk to me like I would be the waiter and you would be the boss. What do you think I am, anyway?"

"But, Mr. Trinkmann – " Louis began.

"Things goes from bad to worst," Trinkmann went on, his voice rising to a bellow. "You treat me like I would be a dawg."

"Aber, Mr. Trinkmann," Louis whimpered, "I – "

"Koosh!" Trinkmann shouted. "I got enough of your Chutzpah. I am through with you. Comes three o'clock this afternoon, you would quit. D'ye hear me?"

Louis nodded. He would have made some articulate protest, but his Adam's apple had suddenly grown to the dimensions of a dirigible balloon; and though there surged through his brain every manner of retort, ironical and defiant, he could think of nothing better to do than to polish the ashtrays. Polishing powder and rags alone could not have produced the dazzling brilliancy that ensued. It was a sense of injustice that lent force to every rub, and when he began to clean the forks Louis imparted to his labour all the energy of a discharged waiter wringing his employer's neck.

Before he had half concluded his task the other waiters arrived, for Louis was but one of a staff of three, with the distinction that though his two associates were only dinner waiters, Louis served breakfast, dinner, and supper. Marcus, the elder of the two, bore a brown-paper package with an air of great solemnity, while Albert, his companion, perspired freely in spite of a chill March air blowing outside.

"Mr. Trinkmann," Marcus began, "Louis telephones me this morning which you got a couple new arrivals in your family and – "

"Louis!" Trinkmann roared, and Louis in response approached the desk with the polishing cloth in his hand. "Do you mean to told me you are using the telephone without asking me?"

"I thought, Mr. Trinkmann," Louis hastened to explain, "that so long you got in your family – "

"What is it your business what I got in my family?" Trinkmann asked.

Louis' eyes kindled and he gave free play to his indignation.

"For you I don't care at all, Mr. Trinkmann," he said, "but for Mrs. Trinkmann which she is always acted to us like a lady, understand me, I am telephoning Marcus he should bring with him a few flowers, Mr. Trinkmann, which if you wouldn't take 'em to her, we could easy send 'em up by a messenger boy, and here is a nickel for using the telephone."

He plunged his hand into his trousers-pocket and dashed a coin on to the desk. Then, reaching behind him with both hands, he untied his apron. "Furthermore," he said, "I wouldn't wait till three o'clock, Mr. Trinkmann. Give me my money and I would go now."

"Pick up that apron, Louis," Trinkmann commanded, "because, so sure as I am standing here, if you wouldn't wait on the customers till three o'clock I wouldn't pay you not one cent."

"So far as that goes, Mr. Trinkmann," Louis commenced, "I ain't – "

"And if you get fresh to me oder to the customers, Louis," Trinkmann concluded, "you wouldn't get your money, neither."

"Did the customers ever done me anything, Mr. Trinkmann?" Louis retorted. "Why should I get fresh to the customers which every one of them is my friends, Mr. Trinkmann? And as for getting fresh to you, Mr. Trinkmann, if I would want to I would. Otherwise not."

With this defiance Louis picked up his polishing cloth and his apron and proceeded to the kitchen, to which Marcus and Albert had already retreated. His courage remained with him until he had refastened his apron, and then he discerned Marcus and Albert to be regarding him with so mournful a gaze that the balloon again expanded in his throat, and forthwith – to pursue the simile further – it burst. He opened the door leading from the kitchen to the paved space littered with packing boxes, which had once been the backyard, and despite the cold March weather he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

Ten minutes later the first luncheon customer arrived and Louis hastened to wait upon him. It was Max Maikafer, salesman for Freesam, Mayer & Co., and he greeted Louis with the familiarity of six years' daily acquaintance.

"Nu, Louis," he said, "what's the matter you are catching such a cold in your head?"

Louis only sniffled faintly in reply.

"A feller bums round till all hours of the night, understand me," Max continued, "and sooner or later, Louis, a lowlife – a Shikkerer– gives him a Schlag on the top from the head, verstehest du, and he would got worser as a cold, Louis."

Louis received this admonition with a nod, since he was incapable of coherent speech.

"So, therefore, Louis," Max concluded, as he looked in a puzzled fashion at Louis' puffed eyelids, "you should bring me some Kreploch soup and a little gefüllte Rinderbrust, not too much gravy."

He watched Louis retire to the kitchen and then he motioned to Albert, who was industriously polishing the glasses at a nearby table.

"What's the matter with Louis, Albert?" he asked.

"Fired," Albert said out of the corner of his mouth, with one eye on the cashier's desk, where Mr. Trinkmann was fast approaching the borderline of insanity over a maze of figures representing the previous day's receipts.

"What for?" Max asked.

"I should know what for!" Albert exclaimed. "The boss is mad on account he got twins, so he picks on Louis that the ashtrays ain't clean and the forks, neither. So Louis he don't say nothing, and Trinkmann gets mad and fires him."

He glanced furtively at the cashier's desk just as Trinkmann suddenly tore up his paperful of figures, and in one frightened bound Albert was once more at his glass polishing.

"Well, Trinkmann," Max cried, as he made ready to absorb the soup by tucking one corner of his napkin into the top of his collar, "I must got to congradulate you."

Trinkmann was on his way to the kitchen for the purpose of abusing the pantryman as a measure of relief to his figure-harried brain. He paused at Max's table and distorted his face in what he conceived to be an amiable grin.

"No one compels you to congradulate me, Mr. Maikafer," he said, "and, anyhow, Mr. Maikafer, with business the way it is, understand me, twins ain't such Simcha, neither."

"Sure, I know," Max rejoined; "but so far as I could see, Trinkmann, you ain't got no kick coming. You do a good business here. You got three good waiters and the customers don't complain none."

"Don't they?" Trinkmann grunted.

"Not at the waiters, Trinkmann," Max said significantly. "And the food is all right, too, Trinkmann. The only thing is, Trinkmann, when a feller got a nice gemütlicher place like you got it here, y'understand, he should do his bestest that he keeps it that way."

Trinkmann's smile became a trifle less forced at Max's use of the adjective gemütlicher, for which the English language has no just equivalent, since it at once combines the meanings of cozy, comfortable, good-natured, and homelike.

"Certainly, I am always trying to keep my place gemütlich, Mr. Maikafer," Trinkmann declared, "but when you got waiters, Mr. Maikafer, which they – "

"Waiters ain't got nothing to do with it, Trinkmann," Max interrupted. "On Sutter Avenue, Brownsville, in boom times already was a feller – still a good friend of mine – by the name Ringentaub, which runs a restaurant, Trinkmann, and everybody goes there on account he keeps a place which you could really say was gemütlich. The chairs was old-fashioned, mit cane seats into 'em, which they sagged in the right place, so that if you was sitting down, y'understand, you knew you was sitting down, not like some chairs which I seen it in restaurants, Trinkmann, which if you was sitting down, you might just as well be standing up for all the comfort you get out of it."

"The chairs here is comfortable," Trinkmann remarked.

"Sure, I know," Max continued. "Then in this here restaurant was tables which they only got 'em in the old country – big, heavy tables, understand me, which you pretty near kill yourself trying to move 'em at all. A feller sits at such a table, Trinkmann, and right away he thinks he must drink a cup coffee; and not alone that, Trinkmann, but he must got to order coffee for the crowd. He couldn't even help himself, Trinkmann, because such a table makes you feel good to look at it. That's what it is to keep a gemütlicher place, Trinkmann."

Trinkmann nodded and sat down at Max's table.

"Furthermore, Trinkmann," Max continued, "everything in the place was the same. The ashtrays was from brass like them there ashtrays you used to got here, Trinkmann."

Max looked meaningly at the burnished brass utensil that stood in the middle of the table.

"That's the same ashtrays which we always got here," Trinkmann retorted.

"Are they?" Max said. "Well, somebody must of done something to 'em on account they don't look so gemütlich no longer. That's the same mistake Ringentaub made it, Trinkmann. He ain't satisfied he is got such a big trade there, Trinkmann, but he must go to work and get a partner, a feller by the name Salonkin, which he pays Ringentaub two thousand dollars for a half interest in the business. Salonkin is one of them fellers, understand me, which is all for improvements, Trinkmann. Gemütlichkeit is something which he don't know nothing about at all, y'understand, and the first thing you know, Trinkmann, Salonkin says the chairs is back numbers. He fires 'em right out of there, understand me, and buys some new chairs, which actually for a thin man to sit on 'em for five minutes even would be something which you could really call dangerous. Also the tables Salonkin says is junk, so he sells 'em for fifty cents apiece and puts in them marble-top tables like a lot of tombstones in a cemetery."

"Marble-top tables is anyhow clean," Trinkmann declared.

"Clean they may be," Max admitted, "but gemütlich they ain't. And, anyhow, Trinkmann, do you know what started the whole trouble there?"

Trinkmann shook his head.

"Well, it was the forks," Max said solemnly. "The forks which Ringentaub got it before he goes as partners together with Salonkin always looks like they would be a little dirty, understand me. So what does the customer do, Trinkmann? They take first thing after they sit down the fork in hand, understand me, and dip it in the glass of water which the waiter brings 'em. Then when the time comes which they want to drink the water, Trinkmann, they remember they cleaned the fork in it and they order instead a glass of beer. Afterward when Salonkin takes ahold there, y'understand, he raises hell with the waiters they should keep clean the forks, which they done it, Trinkmann, because the feller Salonkin was a regular Rosher, understand me, and the waiters is scared to death of him. What is the result, Trinkmann? The sales of beer right away drops to nothing, understand me, and everybody drinks the glass water instead."

At this juncture Trinkmann looked up and observed Albert at work on the tumblers.

"Albert!" he cried. "Leave the glasses alone, d'ye hear me?"

Albert put down the glass he was wiping and commenced to rub the knives and forks, whereat Trinkmann jumped to his feet.

"The forks, neither," he yelled. "Instead you should be standing there wasting your time, fill up with water the glasses and tell Louis never mind, he shouldn't polish any more them ashtrays."

When Max Maikafer concluded his lunch he proceeded at once to the cashier's desk, over which Trinkmann himself presided.

"Cheer up, Trinkmann," he said, as he paid his check. "You got a face so solemn like a rich uncle just died and left you to remember him by a crayon portrait."

"Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Maikafer," Trinkmann said, "I got all I could stand to-day. Not alone my wife goes to work and has twins on me, Mr. Maikafer, but I also got to fire a feller which is working for me here six years."

"What d'ye mean?" Max cried in well-feigned astonishment. "You are going to fire Albert?"

"Not Albert," Trinkmann said; "Louis."

"Why, what did Louis done?" Max asked.

"He done enough, Mr. Maikafer," Trinkmann replied. "Here lately he gets to acting so fresh you would think he owns the place."

"Well, why not?" Max commented. "After all, Trinkmann, you got to give Louis credit; he works hard here and he keeps for you many a customer. Because I want to tell you something, Trinkmann, which I am only saying it for your own good, understand me – there's lots of times you are acting so grouchy to the customers that if it wouldn't be Louis smoothes 'em down they wouldn't come near your place at all."

"What the devil are you talking about?" Trinkmann shouted. "If you wasn't such a big fool you would know I am always polite to my customers. Furthermore, I never lost a customer since I am in business, and if you don't like the way I run my restaurant you don't got to come here. That's all."

Maikafer nodded as he pocketed his change.

"All right, Trinkmann," he said. "But you know what happens when a concern lets a salesman go. He easy finds a partner and starts to do business with his old firm's customers on his own account."

Trinkmann laughed aloud.

"That Schnorrer ain't got money enough to stock a pushcart, let alone a restaurant," he jeered.

"That's all right," Maikafer retorted. "I know a feller which runs for years a place in East New York – Brownsville – Trinkmann, and when he hears Louis ain't working, not only he would be glad to give him a job as waiter, but he would stake him to an interest in the restaurant yet."

Trinkmann flapped his right hand at Maikafer in a gesture of derision.

"Schmooes!" he cried.

"No Schmooes at all," Max said, as he passed out of the door. "He's the feller I am talking to you about by the name Ringentaub, and across the street is plenty vacant stores."

Ten minutes after Max had departed Simon Feinsilver entered.

"Say, Trinkmann," he asked, as he paused at the cashier's desk on his way to one of Louis' tables, "did you seen it Max Maikafer this morning?"

Had Trinkmann scrutinized Simon's face with any degree of care he might have observed a mischievous gleam in Simon's eyes; but at the mere mention of Maikafer's name Trinkmann exploded.

"What d'ye mean, did I seen it Maikafer?" he demanded.

"Why I just asked you," Simon said calmly, "on account he was to meet me at my office and he ain't showed up at all."

"Well, I ain't surprised to hear that, Mr. Feinsilver," Trinkmann rejoined less viciously. "Because even if Maikafer is such a good friend of yours, the feller is so busy with other people's business, what he ain't got no business to butt in at all, that his own business he lets go to the devil. Am I right or wrong?"

Simon nodded and sat down at one of Louis' tables.

"Albert," Trinkmann cried, "wait on Mr. Feinsilver."

"That's all right," Feinsilver declared; "I got plenty time."

"Albert," Trinkmann repeated, "take Mr. Feinsilver's order."

Albert left his station on the opposite side of the room and approached Feinsilver with a conciliatory smile.

"What would you like to-day, Mr. Feinsilver?" he said.

"I would like Louis," Feinsilver replied; "so go ahead, Albert, and tell Louis when he gets through serving those two fellers over there to wait on me."

"What's the matter you ain't giving your order to Albert, Mr. Feinsilver?" Trinkmann asked.

"Albert is all right," Feinsilver replied, "but Louis knows just how I want things, Trinkmann. You ain't got no objections to me waiting for Louis?"

"Why should I got objections, Mr. Feinsilver?" Trinkmann protested.

"I don't know why you should got objections, Trinkmann," Feinsilver said, "and if you did got 'em I would wait for Louis anyway."

He closed the discussion by spearing half a dill pickle with a fork and inserting it endwise in his mouth. Hardly had the metal tines touched his lips, however, than he hastily disgorged the pickle and uttered a resounding "T'phoo-ee!"

"What are you trying to do here to me, Trinkmann?" he demanded. "Poison me?"

He dipped his napkin into the glass of water that stood on the table and performed an elaborate prophylaxis about his mouth and teeth.

"What d'ye mean, poison you?" Trinkmann cried.

"Why, there is something here on the fork," Simon declared.

"Let me see," Trinkmann said, advancing to the table; "might it be some Bismarck herring, maybe."

"Bismarck herring ain't poison," Feinsilver said, examining the fork closely. "Bismarck herring never harmed nobody, Trinkmann; but this here fork has got poison onto it."

He turned it over in his hand and sniffed at it suspiciously.