The Competitive Nephew

"Everybody's got a right to their opinion, Babette," Sam said; "but, anyhow, that ain't here nor there. If you wouldn't want me to go around and see Mrs. Schrimm I wouldn't."

Babette snorted.

"In the first place," she said, "you couldn't go unless I go with you; and, in the second place, you couldn't get me to go there for a hundred dollars."

Beyond suggesting that a hundred dollars was a lot of money, Sam made no further attempt to secure his liberty that morning; but on the following day he discreetly called his daughter's attention to a full-page advertisement in the morning paper.

"Ain't you was telling me the other evening you need to got some table napkins, Babette?" he asked.

Babette nodded.

"Well, here it is in the paper that new concern, Weldon, Jones & Company, is selling to-day napkins at three dollars a dozen – the best damask napkins," he concluded.

Babette seized the paper and five minutes later she was poking hatpins into her scalp with an energy that made Sam's eyes water.

"Where are you going, Babette?" he said.

"I'm going downtown to that sale of linens," she said, "and I'll be back to take you out at one o'clock."

"Don't hurry on my account," Sam said. "I've got enough here in the paper to keep me busy until to-night yet."

Five minutes later the basement door banged and Sam jumped to his feet. With the agility of a man half his age he ran upstairs to the parlour floor and put on his hat and coat; and by the time Babette had turned the corner of Lenox Avenue Sam walked out of the areaway of his old-fashioned, three-story-and-basement, high-stoop residence on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street en route for Mrs. Schrimm's equally old-fashioned residence on One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street. There he descended the area steps; and finding the door ajar he walked into the basement dining-room.

"Wie gehts, Mrs. Schrimm!" he cried cheerfully.

"Oo-ee! What a Schreck you are giving me!" Mrs. Schrimm exclaimed. "This is Sam Gembitz, ain't it?"

"Sure it is," Sam replied. "Ain't you afraid somebody is going to come in and steal something on you?"

"That's that girl again!" Mrs. Schrimm said as she bustled out to the areaway and slammed the door. "That's one of them Ungarischer girls, Mr. Gembitz, which all they could do is to eat up your whole ice-box empty and go out dancing on Bauern balls till all hours of the morning. Housework is something they don't know nothing about at all. Well, Mr. Gembitz, I am hearing such tales about you – you are dying, and so on."

"Warum Mister Gembitz?" Sam said. "Ain't you always called me Sam, Henrietta?"

Mrs. Schrimm blushed. In the lifetime of the late Mrs. Gembitz she had been a constant visitor at the Gembitz house, but under Babette's chilling influence the friendship had withered until it was only a memory.

"Why not?" she said. "I certainly know you long enough, Sam."

"Going on thirty-five years, Henrietta," Sam said, "when you and me and Regina come over here together. Things is very different nowadays, Henrietta. Me, I am an old man already."

"What do you mean old?" Mrs. Schrimm cried. "When my Grossvater selig was sixty-eight he gets married for the third time yet."

"Them old-timers was a different proposition entirely, Henrietta," Sam said. "If I would be talking about getting married, Henrietta, the least that happens to me is my children would put me in a lunatic asylum yet."

"Yow!" Mrs. Schrimm murmured skeptically.

"Wouldn't they?" Sam continued. "Well, you could just bet your life they would. Why, I am sick only a couple weeks or so, Henrietta, and what do them boys do? They practically throw me out of my business yet and tell me I am retired."

"And you let 'em?" Mrs. Schrimm asked.

"What could I do?" Sam said. "I'm a sick man, Henrietta. Doctor Eichendorfer says I wouldn't live a year yet."

"Doctor Eichendorfer says that!" Mrs. Schrimm rejoined. "And do you told me that you are taking Doctor Eichendorfer's word for it?"

"Doctor Eichendorfer is a Rosher, I admit," Sam answered; "but he's a pretty good doctor, Henrietta."

"For the gesund, yes," Mrs. Schrimm admitted. "But if my cat would be sick, Sam, and Doctor Eichendorfer charges two cents a call yet, I wouldn't have him in my house at all. I got too much respect for my cat, Sam. With that feller, as soon as he comes into the bedroom he says the patient is dying; because if the poor feller does die, understand me, then Eichendorfer is a good prophet, and if he gets better then Eichendorfer is a good doctor. He always fixes it so he gets the credit both ways. But you got to acknowledge one thing about that feller, Sam – he knows how to charge, Sam; and he's a good collector. Everybody says so."

Sam nodded sadly.

"I give you right about that," he said.

"And, furthermore," Mrs. Schrimm began, "he – "

Mrs. Schrimm proceeded no further, however, for the sound of a saucepan boiling over brought her suddenly to her feet and she dashed into the kitchen.

Two minutes later a delicate, familiar odour assailed Sam's nostrils, and when Mrs. Schrimm returned she found him unconsciously licking his lips.

"Yes, Sam," she declared, "them Ungarischer girls is worser as nobody in the kitchen. Pretty near ruins my whole lunch, and I got Mrs. Krakauer coming, too. You know what a talker that woman is; and if I would give her something which it is a little burned, y'understand, the whole of New York hears about it."

"Well, Henrietta," Sam said as he rose and seized his hat, "I must be going."

"Going!" Mrs. Schrimm cried. "Why, you're only just coming. And besides, Sam, you are going to stop to lunch, too."

"Lunch!" Sam exclaimed. "Why, I don't eat lunch no more, Henrietta. All the doctor allows me is crackers and milk."

"Do you mean Doctor Eichendorfer allows you that?" Mrs. Schrimm asked, and Sam nodded.

"Then all I could say is," she continued, "that you are going to stay to lunch, because if Doctor Eichendorfer allows a man only crackers and milk, Sam, that's a sign he could eat Wienerwurst, dill pickles, and Handkäse. Aber if Doctor Eichendorfer says you could eat steaks and chops, stick to boiled eggs and milk – because steaks would kill you sure."

"But Babette would be back at one o'clock and if I didn't get home before then she would take my head off for me."

Mrs. Schrimm nodded sympathetically.

"So you wouldn't stay for lunch?" she said.

"I couldn't," Sam protested.

"Very well, then," Mrs. Schrimm cried as she hurried to the kitchen. "Sit right down again, Sam; I would be right back."

When Mrs. Schrimm appeared a few minutes later she bore a cloth-covered tray which she placed on the table in front of Sam.

"You got until half-past twelve – ain't it?" she said; "so take your time, Sam. You should chew your food good, especially something which it is already half chopped, like gefüllte Rinderbrust."

"Gefüllte Rinderbrust!" Sam cried. "Why" – he poked at it with his knife – "Why, this always makes me sick." He balanced a good mouthful on his fork. "But, anyhow – " he concluded, and the rest of the sentence was an incoherent mumbling as he fell to ravenously. Moreover, he finished the succulent dish, gravy and all, and washed down the whole with a cup of coffee – not Hammersmith's coffee or the dark brown fluid, with a flavour of stale tobacco pipe, that Miss Babette Gembitz had come to persuade herself was coffee, but a fragrant decoction, softened by rich, sweet cream and containing all the delicious fragrance of the best thirty-five-cent coffee, fresh-ground from the grocer's.

"Ja, Henrietta," Sam cried as he rose to leave; "I am going to weddings and fashionable hotels, and I am eating with high-grade customers in restaurants which you would naturally take a high-grade customer to, understand me; but – would you believe me, Henrietta! – I am yet got to taste such coffee oder such gefüllte Rinderbrust as you are giving me now."

Mrs. Schrimm beamed her acknowledgment of the compliment.

"To-morrow you would get some chicken fricassee, Sam," she said, "if you would get here at half-past eleven sharp."

Sam shook her hand fervently.

"Believe me, I would try my best," he said; and fifteen minutes later, when Babette entered the Gembitz residence on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street, she found Sam as she had left him – fairly buried in the financial page of the morning paper.

"Well, Babette," Sam cried, "so you see I went out and I took my walk and I come back and nothing happened to me. Ain't it?"

Babette nodded.

"I'll get you your lunch right away," she said; and without removing her hat and jacket, she brought him a glass of buttermilk and six plain crackers. Sam watched her until she had ascended the stairs to the first floor; then he stole on tiptoe to the sink in the butler's pantry and emptied the buttermilk down the wastepipe. A moment later he opened the door of a bookcase that stood near the mantelpiece and deposited five of the crackers behind six full-morocco volumes entitled "Prayers for Festivals and Holy Days." He was busily engaged in eating the remaining cracker when Babette returned; and all that afternoon he seemed so contented and even jovial that Babette determined to permit him his solitary walk on the following day.

Thus Sam not only ate the chicken fricassee but three days afterward, when he visited Mrs. Schrimm upon the representation to Babette that he would sit all the morning in Mt. Morris Park, he suggested to Henrietta that he show some return for her hospitality by taking her to luncheon at a fashionable hotel downtown.

"My restaurant days is over," Mrs. Schrimm declared.

"To oblige me," Sam pleaded. "I ain't been downtown in – excuse me – such a helluva long time I don't know what it's like at all."

"If you are so anxious to get downtown, Sam," Mrs. Schrimm rejoined, "why don't you go down and get lunch with Henry? He'd be glad to have you."

"What, alone?" Sam cried. "Why, if Babette would hear of it – "

"Who's going to tell her?" Mrs. Schrimm asked, and Sam seized his hat with trembling fingers.

"By jimminy, I would do it!" he said, and then he paused irresolutely. "But how could I get home in time if I did?"

A moment later he snapped his fingers.

"I got an idee!" he exclaimed. "You are such good friends with Mrs. Krakauer – ain't it?"

Mrs. Schrimm nodded.

"Then you should do me the favour, Henrietta, and go over to Mrs. Krakauer and tell her she should ring up Babette and tell her I am over at her house and I wouldn't be back till three o'clock."

"Couldn't you go downtown if you want to?" Mrs. Schrimm replied. "Must you got to ask Babette's permission first?"

Sam nodded slowly.

"You don't know that girl, Henrietta," he said bitterly. "She is Regina selig over again – only worser, Henrietta."

"All right. I would do as you want," Mrs. Schrimm declared.

"Only one thing I must got to tell you," Sam said as he made for the door: "don't let Mrs. Krakauer talk too much, Henrietta, because that girl is suspicious like a credit man. She don't believe nothing nobody tells her."

When Sam entered the showroom of Henry Schrimm's place of business, half an hour later, Henry hastened to greet him. "Wie gehts, Mr. Gembitz?" he cried.

He drew forward a chair and Sam sank into it as feebly as he considered appropriate to the rôle of a convalescent.

"I'm a pretty sick man, Henry," he said, "and I feel I ain't long for this world."

He allowed his head to loll over his left shoulder in an attitude of extreme fatigue; in doing so, however, his eye rested for a moment upon a shipping clerk who was arranging Henry's sample garments on some old-fashioned racks.

"Say, lookyhere, Henry," Sam exclaimed, raising his head suddenly, "how the devil could you let a feller like that ruin your whole sample line?"

He jumped from his chair and strode across the showroom.

"Schlemiel!" he cried. "What for you are wrinkling them garments like that?"

He seized a costume from the astonished shipping clerk and for half an hour he arranged and rearranged Henry's samples until the job was finished to his satisfaction.

"Mr. Gembitz," Henry protested, "sit down for a minute. You would make yourself worse."

"What d'ye mean, make myself worse?" Sam demanded. "I am just as much able to do this as you are, Henry. Where do you keep your piece goods, Henry?"

Henry led the way to the cutting room and Sam Gembitz inspected a dozen bolts of cloth that were piled in a heap against the wall.

"That's just what I thought, Henry," Sam cried. "You let them fellers keep the place here like a pig-sty."

"Them's only a lot of stickers, Mr. Gembitz," Henry explained.

"Stickers!" Sam repeated. "What d'ye mean stickers? That's the same mistake a whole lot of people makes. There ain't no such thing as stickers, Henry. Sometimes you get ahold of some piece goods which is out of demand for the time being, Henry; but sooner or later the fashions would change, Henry, and then the stickers ain't stickers no more. They're live propositions again."

Henry made no reply and Sam continued:

"Yes, Henry," he went on, "some people is always willing they should throw out back numbers which really ain't back numbers at all. Take them boys of mine, for instance, Henry, and see how glad they was to get rid of me on account they think I am a back number; but I ain't, Henry. And just to show you I ain't, Henry, do you happen to have on hand some made-up garments which you think is stickers?"

Henry nodded.

"Well, if I don't come downtown to-morrow morning and with all them there stickers sold for you," Sam cried, "my name ain't Sam Gembitz at all."

"Say, lookyhere, Mr. Gembitz," Henry protested, "you would make yourself sick again. Come out and have a bite of lunch with me."

"That's all right, Henry," Sam replied. "I ain't hungry for lunch – I am hungry for work; and if you would be so good and show me them stickers which you got made up, Henry, I could assort 'em in lots, and to-morrow morning I would take a look-in on some of them upper Third Avenue stores, Henry. And if I don't get rid of 'em for you, understand me, you could got right uptown and tell Babette. Otherwise you should keep your mouth shut and you and me does a whole lot of business together."

Half an hour later Sam carefully effaced the evidences of his toil with soap and water and a whisk-broom, and began his journey uptown. Under one arm he carried a bundle of sample garments that might have taxed the strength of a much younger man.

This bundle he deposited for safekeeping with the proprietor of a cigar store on Lenox Avenue; and, after a final brush-down by the bootblack on the corner, he made straight for his residence on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street. When he entered he found Babette impatiently awaiting him.

"Why didn't you stay all night, popper?" she demanded indignantly. "Here I am all dressed and waiting to go downtown – and you keep me standing around like this."

"Another time you shouldn't wait at all," Sam retorted. "If you want to go downtown, go ahead. I could always ask the girl for something if I should happen to need it."

He watched Babette leave the house with a sigh of relief, and for the remainder of the afternoon he made intricate calculations with the stub of a lead pencil on the backs of old envelopes. Ten minutes before Babette returned he thrust the envelopes into his pocket and smiled with satisfaction, for he had computed to a nicety just how low a price he could quote on Henry Schrimm's stickers, so as to leave a margin of profit for Henry after his own commissions were paid.

The following morning Sam arrayed himself with more than ordinary care, and promptly at ten o'clock he seized his cane and started for the door.

"Where are you going?" Babette demanded.

"I guess I would take a little walk in the park," he said to his daughter in tremulous tones, and Babette eyed him somewhat suspiciously.

"Furthermore," he said boldly, "if you want to come with me you could do so. The way you are looking so yellow lately, Babette, a little walk in the park wouldn't do you no harm."

Sam well knew that his daughter was addicted to the practice of facial massage, and he felt sure that any reference to yellowness would drive Babette to her dressing-table and keep her safely engaged with mirror and cold cream until past noon.

"Don't stay out long," she said, and Sam nodded.

"I would be back when I am hungry," he replied; "and maybe I would take a look in at Mrs. Krakauer. If you get anxious about me telephone her."

Ten minutes later he called at the cigar store on Lenox Avenue and secured his samples, after which he rang up Mrs. Schrimm.

"Hello, Henrietta!" he shouted, "This is Sam – yes, Sam Gembitz. What is the matter? Nothing is the matter. Huh? Sure, I feel all right. I give you a scare? Why should I give you a scare, Henrietta? Sure, we are old friends; but that ain't the point, Henrietta. I want to ask you you should do me something as a favour. You should please be so good and ring up Mrs. Krakauer, which you should tell her, if Babette rings her up and asks for me any time between now and six o'clock to-night, she should say I was there, but I just left. Did you get that straight? All right. Good-bye."

He heaved a sigh of relief as he paid for the telephone call and pocketed a handful of cheap cigars.

"Don't you want a boy to help you carry them samples, Mr. Gembitz?" the proprietor asked.

"Do I look like I wanted a boy to help me carry samples?" Sam retorted indignantly, and a moment later he swung aboard an eastbound crosstown car.

It was past noon when Sam entered Henry Schrimm's showroom and his face bore a broad, triumphant grin.

"Well, Henry," he shouted, "what did I told you? To a feller which he is knowing how to sell goods there ain't no such things as stickers."

"Did you get rid of 'em?" Henry asked.

Sam shook his head.

"No, Henry," he said, "I didn't get rid of 'em – I sold 'em; and, furthermore, Henry, I sold four hundred dollars' worth more just like 'em to Mr. Rosett, of the Rochelle Department Store, which you should send him right away a couple sample garments of them 1040's."

"What d'ye mean, 1040's?" Henry asked. "I ain't got no such lot number in my place."

"No, I know you ain't; but I mean our style 1040 – that is to say, Gembitz Brothers' style 1040."

Henry blushed.

"I don't know what you are talking about at all," he said.

"No?" Sam retorted slyly. "Well, I'll describe it to you, Henry. It's what you would call a princess dress in tailor-made effects. The waist's got lapels of the same goods, with a little braid on to it, two plaits in the middle and one on each shoulder; yoke and collar of silk net; and – "

"You mean my style number 2018?" Henry asked.

"I don't mean nothing, Henry," Sam declared, "because you shouldn't throw me no bluffs, Henry. I seen one of them garments in your cutting room only yesterday, Henry, which, if it wasn't made up in my old factory, I would eat it, Henry – and Doctor Eichendorfer says I got to be careful with my diet at that."

Henry shrugged.

"Well," he began, "there ain't no harm if – "

"Sure, there ain't no harm, Henry," Sam said, "because them garments is going like hot cakes. A big concern like Falkstatter, Fein & Company takes over three thousand dollars' worth from the boys for their stores in Sarahcuse, Rochester, and Buffalo."

"Falkstatter, Fein & Company!" Henry cried. "Does them boys of yours sell Falkstatter, Fein & Company?"

"Sure," Sam answered. "Why not?"

"Why not?" Henry repeated. "Ain't you heard?"

"I ain't heard nothing," Sam replied; "but I know that concern for twenty years since already, Henry, and they always pay prompt to the day."

"Sure, I know," Henry said; "but only this morning I seen Sol Klinger in the subway and Sol tells me Simon Falkstatter committed suicide last night."

"Committed suicide!" Sam gasped. "What for?"

"I don't know what for," Henry replied; "but nobody commits suicide for pleasure, Mr. Gembitz, and if a man is in business, like Falkstatter, when Marshall Field's was new beginners already, Mr. Gembitz, and he sees he is got to bust up, Mr. Gembitz, what should he do?"

Sam rose to his feet and seized his hat and cane.

"Going home so soon, Mr. Gembitz?" Henry asked.

"No, I ain't going home, Henry," Sam replied. "I'm going over to see my boys. I guess they need me."

He started for the door, but as he reached it he paused.

"By the way, Henry," he said, "on my way down I stopped in to see that new concern there on Fifth Avenue – Weldon, Jones & Company – and you should send 'em up also a couple of them princess dresses in brown and smoke. I'll see you to-morrow."

"Do you think you could get down again to-morrow?" Henry asked.

"I don't know, Henry; but if lies could get me here I guess I could," Sam replied. "Because, the way my children fixes me lately, I am beginning to be such a liar that you could really say I am an expert."

Ten minutes later Sam Gembitz walked into the elevator of his late place of business and smiled affably at the elevator boy, who returned his greeting with a perfunctory nod.

"Well, what's new around here, Louis?" Sam asked.

"I dunno, Mr. Gembitz," the elevator boy said. "I am only just coming back from my lunch."

"I mean what happens since I am going away, Louis?" Sam continued.

"I didn't know you went away at all, Mr. Gembitz," the elevator boy replied.

"Dummer Esel!" Sam exclaimed. "Don't you know I was sick and I am going away from here schon three months ago pretty near?"

The elevator boy stopped the car at Gembitz Brothers' floor and spat deliberately.

"In the building is twenty tenants, Mr. Gembitz," he said, "and the way them fellers is sitting up all hours of the night, shikkering and gambling, if I would keep track which of 'em is sick and which ain't sick, Mr. Gembitz, I wouldn't got no time to run the elevator at all."

If the elevator boy's indifference made Sam waver in the belief that he was sorely missed downtown the appearance of his late showroom convinced him of his mistake. The yellow-pine fixtures had disappeared, and in place of his old walnut table there had been installed three rolltop desks of the latest Wall Street design.

At the largest of these sat Max, who wheeled about suddenly as his father entered.

"What are you doing down here?" he demanded savagely.

"Ain't I got no right in my own business at all?" Sam asked mildly.

"Sidney!" Max cried, and in response his youngest brother appeared.

"Put on your hat and take the old man home," he said.

"One minute, Sidney," Sam said. "In the first place, Max, before we talk about going home, I want to ask you a question: How much does Falkstatter, Fein & Company owe us?"

"Us?" Max repeated.

"Well – you?" Sam replied.

"What's that your business?" Max retorted.

"What is that my business?" Sam gasped. "A question! Did you ever hear the like, Sidney? He asks me what it is my business supposing Falkstatter, Fein & Company owes us a whole lot of money! Ain't that a fine way to talk, Sidney?"

Sidney's pasty face coloured and he bit his lips nervously.

"Max is right, popper," he said. "You ain't got no call to come down here and interfere in our affairs. I'll put on my hat and go right home with you."

It was now Sam's turn to blush, and he did so to the point of growing purple with rage.

"Don't trouble yourself," he cried; "because I ain't going home!"

"What d'ye mean, y'ain't going home?" Max said threateningly.

"I mean what I say!" Sam declared. "I mean I ain't going home never again. You are throwing me out of my business, Max, and you would soon try to throw me out of my home, too, if I couldn't protect myself. But I ain't so old and I ain't so sick but what I could take care of myself, Max."

"Why, Doctor Eichendorfer says – " Sidney began.

"Doctor Eichendorfer!" Sam roared. "Who is Doctor Eichendorfer? He is a doctor, not a lawyer, Max, and maybe he knows about kidneys, Max; but he don't know nothing about business, Max! And, so help me, Max, I would give you till Wednesday afternoon three o'clock; if you don't send me a certified check for five thousand dollars over to Henry Schrimm's place, I would go right down and see Henry D. Feldman, and I would bust your business – my business! – open from front to rear, so that there wouldn't be a penny left for nobody – except Henry D. Feldman."