The Competitive Nephew

Here he drew a deep breath.

"And, furthermore, Max," he concluded, as he made for the door, "don't try any monkey business with spreading reports I am gone crazy or anything, because I know that's just what you would do, Max! And if you would, Max, instead of five thousand dollars I would want ten thousand dollars. And if I wouldn't get it, Max, Henry D. Feldman would – so what is the difference?"

He paused with his hand on the elevator bell and faced his sons again.

"Solomon was right, Max," he concluded. "He was an old-timer, Max; but, just the same, he knew what he was talking about when he said that you bring up a child in the way he should go and when he gets old he bites you like a serpent's tooth yet!"

At this juncture the elevator door opened and Sam delivered his ultimatum.

"But you got a different proposition here, boys," he said; "and before you get through with me I would show you that oncet in a while a father could got a serpent's tooth, too – and don't you forget it!"

"Mr. Gembitz," the elevator boy interrupted, "there is here in the building already twenty tenants; and other people as yourself wants to ride in the elevator, too, Mr. Gembitz."

Thus admonished, Sam entered the car and a moment later he found himself on the sidewalk. Instinctively he walked toward the subway station, although he had intended to return to Henry Schrimm's office; but, before he again became conscious of his surroundings, he was seated in a Lenox Avenue express with an early edition of the evening paper held upside down before him.

"Nah, well," he said to himself, "what is the difference? I wouldn't try to do no more business to-day."

He straightened up the paper and at once commenced to study the financial page. Unknown to his children, he had long rented a safe-deposit box, in which reposed ten first-mortgage bonds of a trunkline railroad, together with a few shares of stock purchased by him during the Northern Pacific panic. He noted, with a satisfied grin, that the stock showed a profit of fifty points, while the bonds had advanced three eighths of a point.

"Three eighths ain't much," he muttered as he sat still while the train left One Hundred and Sixteenth Street station, "but there is a whole lot of rabonim which would marry you for less than thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents."

He threw the paper to the floor as the train stopped at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and, without a moment's hesitation, ascended to the street level and walked two blocks north to One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street. There he rang the basement bell of an old-fashioned brown-stone residence and Mrs. Schrimm in person opened the door. When she observed her visitor she shook her head slowly from side to side and emitted inarticulate sounds through her nose, indicative of extreme commiseration.

"Ain't you going to get the devil when Babette sees you!" she said at last. "Mrs. Krakauer tells her six times over the 'phone already you just went home."

"Could I help it what that woman tells Babette?" Sam asked. "And, anyhow, Henrietta, what do I care what Mrs. Krakauer tells Babette or what Babette tells Mrs. Krakauer? And, furthermore, Henrietta, Babette could never give me the devil no more!"

"No?" Mrs. Schrimm said as she led the way to the dining-room. "You're talking awful big, Sam, for a feller which he never calls his soul his own in his own home yet."

"Them times is past, Henrietta," Sam answered as he sat down and removed his hat. "To-day things begin differently for me, Henrietta; because, Henrietta, you and me is old enough to know our own business, understand me – and if I would say 'black' you wouldn't say 'white.' And if you would say 'black' I would say 'black'."

Mrs. Schrimm looked hard at Sam and then she sat down on the sofa.

"What d'ye mean, black?" she gasped.

"I'm only talking in a manner of speaking, Henrietta," Sam explained. "What I mean is this."

He pulled an old envelope out of his pocket and explored his waistcoat for a stump of lead pencil.

"What I mean is," he continued, wetting the blunt point with his tongue, "ten bonds from Canadian Western, first mortgage from gold, mit a garantirt from the Michigan Midland Railroad, ten thousand dollars, interest at 6 per cent. – is six hundred dollars a year, ain't it?"

"Ye-ee-s," Mrs. Schrimm said hesitatingly. "Und?"

"Und," Sam said triumphantly, "fifty shares from Central Pacific at 154 apiece is seventy-seven hundred dollars, with dividends since thirty years they are paying it at 4 per cent. is two hundred dollars a year more, ain't it?"

Mrs. Schrimm nodded.

"What has all this got to do with me, Sam?" she asked.

Sam cleared his throat.

"A wife should know how her husband stands," he said huskily. "Ain't it so, Henrietta, leben?"

Mrs. Schrimm nodded again.

"Did you speak to Henry anything, Sam?" she asked.

"I didn't say nothing to Henry yet," Sam replied; "but if he's satisfied with the business I done for him this morning I would make him a partnership proposition."

"But, listen here to me, Sam," Mrs. Schrimm protested. "Me I am already fifty-five years old; and a man like you which you got money, understand me, if you want to get married you could find plenty girls forty years old which would only be glad they should marry you – good-looking girls, too, Sam."

"Koosh!" Sam cried, for he had noted a tear steal from the corner of Mrs. Schrimm's eye. He rose from his chair and seated himself on the sofa beside her. "You don't know what you are talking about," he said as he clasped her hand. "Good looks to some people is red cheeks and black hair, Henrietta; but with me it is different. The best-looking woman in the whole world to me, Henrietta, is got gray hair, with good brains underneath – and she is also a little fat, too, understand me; but the heart is big underneath and the hands is red, but they got red doing mitzvahs for other people, Henrietta."

He paused and cleared his throat again.

"And so, Henrietta," he concluded, "if you want me to marry a good-looking girl – this afternoon yet we could go downtown and get the license."

Mrs. Schrimm sat still for two minutes and then she disengaged her hand from Sam's eager clasp.

"All I got to do is to put on a clean waist," she said, "and I would get my hat on in ten minutes."

"The fact of the matter is," Max Gembitz said, two days later, "we ain't got the ready money."

Sam Gembitz nodded. He sat at a desk in Henry Schrimm's office – a new desk of the latest Wall Street design; and on the third finger of his left hand a plain gold band was surmounted by a three-carat diamond ring, the gift of the bride.

"No?" he said, with a rising inflection.

"And you know as well as I do, popper, we was always a little short this time of the year in our business!" Max continued.

"Our business?" Sam repeated. "You mean your business, Max."

"What difference does it make?" Max asked.

"It makes a whole lot of difference, Max," Sam declared; "because, if I would be a partner in your business, Max, I would practically got to be one of my own competitors."

"One of your own competitors!" Max cried. "What d'ye mean?"

For answer Sam handed his son the following card:

SAMUEL GEMBITZ HENRY SCHRIMMGEMBITZ & SCHRIMMCLOAKS & SUITS– West Nineteenth Street New York

Max gazed at the card for five minutes and then he placed it in his waistcoat-pocket.

"So you are out to do us – what?" Max said bitterly.

"What are you talking about – out to do you?" Sam replied. "How could an old-timer like me do three up-to-date fellers like you and Sidney and Lester? I'm a back number, Max. I ain't got gumption enough to make up a whole lot of garments, all in one style, pastel shades, and sell 'em all to a concern which is on its last legs, Max. I couldn't play this here Baytzimmer feller's pool, Max, and I couldn't sit up all hours of the night eating lobsters and oysters and ham and bacon in the Harlem Winter Garden, Max."

He paused to indulge in a malicious grin.

"Furthermore, Max," he continued, "how could a poor, sick old man compete with a lot of healthy young fellers like you boys? I've got Bright's Disease, Max, and I could drop down in the street any minute. And if you don't believe me, Max, you should ask Doctor Eichendorfer. He will tell you the same."

Max made no reply, but took up his hat from the top of Sam's desk.

"Wait a minute, Max," Sam said. "Don't be in such a hurry, Max, because, after all, you boys is my sons, anyhow; and so I got a proposition to make to you."

He pointed to a chair and Max sat down.

"First, Max," he went on, "I wouldn't ask you for cash. What I want is you should give me a note at one year for five thousand dollars, without interest."

"So far as I could see," Max interrupted, "we wouldn't be in no better condition to pay you five thousand dollars in one year as we are to-day."

"I didn't think you would be," Sam said, "but I figured that all out; and if, before the end of one year, you three boys would turn around and go to work and get a decent, respectable feller which he would marry Babette and make a home for her, understand me, I would give you back your note."

"But how could we do that?" Max exclaimed.

"I leave that to you," Sam replied; "because, anyhow, Max, there's plenty fellers which is designers oder bookkeepers which would marry Babette in a minute if they could get a partnership in an old, established concern like yours."

"But Babette don't want to get married," Max declared.

"Don't she?" Sam retorted. "Well, if a woman stands hours and hours in front of the glass and rubs her face mit cold cream and Gott weiss what else, Max, if she don't want to get married I'd like to know what she does want."

Again Max rose to his feet.

"I'll tell the boys what you say," he murmured.

"Sure," Sam said heartily, "and tell 'em also they should drop in oncet in a while and see mommer and me up in One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street."

Max nodded.

"And tell Babette to come, also," Sam added; but Max shook his head.

"I'm afraid she wouldn't do it," he declared. "She says yesterday she wouldn't speak to you again so long as you live."

Sam emitted a sigh that was a trifle too emphatic in its tremulousness.

"I'm sorry she feels that way, Max," he said; "but it's an old saying and a true one, Max: you couldn't make no omelets without beating eggs."

CHAPTER FIVE

MAKING OVER MILTON

"Take it from me, Mr. Zwiebel, that boy would never amount to nothing," said Levy Rothman, as they sat in the rear room of Wasserbauer's Café and restaurant.

"You are mistaken, Mr. Rothman," Charles Zwiebel replied; "the boy is only a little wild, y'understand, and if I could get him to settle down and learn a business, Mr. Rothman, he would settle down. After all, Mr. Rothman, he is only a boy, y'understand."

"At twenty-one," Rothman replied, "a boy ain't a boy no longer, Mr. Zwiebel. Either he is a man or he is a loafer, y'understand."

"The boy ain't no loafer, Mr. Rothman. He's got a good heart, Mr. Rothman, and he is honest like the day. That boy wouldn't dream of taking no money from the cash drawer, Mr. Rothman, without he would tell me all about it afterward. That's the kind of boy he is, Mr. Rothman; and certainly Mrs. Zwiebel she thinks a whole lot of him, too. Not that he doesn't think a whole lot of her, Mr. Rothman. Yes, Mr. Rothman, that boy thinks a whole lot of his mother. If he would stay out all night he always says to her the next morning, 'Mommer, you shouldn't worry about me, because I could always take care of myself,' and I bet yer that boy could take care of himself, too, Mr. Rothman. I seen that boy sit in a game with such sharks like Moe Rabiner and Marks Pasinsky, and them fellers couldn't do nothing with him. Yes, Mr. Rothman, that boy is a natural-born pinochle player."

"Might you think that a recommendation, maybe?" Rothman exclaimed.

"Well, Mr. Rothman, my brother Sol, selig, used to say, 'Show me a good pinochle player and I will show you a natural-born salesman.'"

"Yes, Mr. Zwiebel," Rothman retorted, "and show me a salesman what is a good pinochle player, Mr. Zwiebel, and I will also show you a feller what fools away his time and sells the firm's samples. No, Mr. Zwiebel, if I would take your boy in my place I certainly wouldn't take him because he is a good pinochle player. Ain't he got no other recommendation, Mr. Zwiebel?"

"Well, certainly, everybody what that boy worked for, Mr. Rothman, couldn't say enough about him," Mr. Zwiebel said enigmatically; "but, anyhow, what's the use talking, Mr. Rothman? I got this proposition to make you: Take the boy into your place and learn him the business, and all you would got to pay him is five dollars a week. Myself I will put ten to it, and you could pay him fifteen, and the boy wouldn't got to know nothing about it."

"I wouldn't give him five dollars a week or five cents, neither," Mr. Rothman answered in tones of finality. "Because I don't need nobody in my place at present, and if I would need somebody I would hire it a feller what knows the business. I got lots of experience with new beginners already, Mr. Zwiebel, and I always lost money by 'em."

Mr. Zwiebel received this ultimatum in so crest-fallen a manner that Rothman's flinty heart was touched.

"Lookyhere, Mr. Zwiebel," he said, "I got a boy, too, only, Gott sei dank, the young feller ain't a loafer, y'understand. He's now in his third year in law school, and I never had a bit of trouble with that boy. Because I don't want you to feel bad, Mr. Zwiebel, but if I do say it myself, that boy is a good boy, y'understand; none better, Mr. Zwiebel, I don't care where you would go. That boy comes home, y'understand, every night, y'understand, except the night when he goes to lodge meeting, and he takes down his books and learns it till his mommer's got to say to him: 'Ferdy, lieben, you would ruin your eyes.' That boy is only twenty-three, Mr. Zwiebel, and already he is way up in the I.O.M.A. They give that young feller full charge for their annual ball two years already, and – "

"Excuse me, Mr. Rothman," Zwiebel broke in. "I got to get back to my business, and so, therefore, I want to make you a final proposition. Take the boy into your place and I would give you each week fifteen dollars you should pay him for his wages."

"I wouldn't positively do nothing of the kind," Rothman cried.

"And" – Mr. Zwiebel said as though he were merely extending his remark instead of voicing an idea that had just occurred to him – "and I will invest in your business two thousand dollars which you would only pay me savings-bank interest."

Rothman's eyes glittered, but he only laughed by way of reply.

"Ain't that a fair proposition?"

"You must think I need money bad in my business," Rothman commented.

"Every man in the cloak and suit business needs money this year, Rothman," said Zwiebel, who was in the cigar business. His specialty was the manufacture of cigars for the entertainment of cloak and suit customers, and his own financial affairs accurately reflected conditions in the woman's outer garment trade. For instance, when cloak buyers are anxious to buy goods the frugal manufacturer withholds his hospitality; but if the demand for cloaks is slack, then M to Z customers are occasionally regaled with cigars from the "gilt-edged" box. This season Zwiebel was selling more and better cigars than for many years past, and he made his deductions accordingly.

"Yes, Mr. Rothman," Zwiebel concluded, "there's plenty cloak and suit men would be glad to get a young feller like my Milton on such terms what I offer it."

"Well, why don't you talk to 'em about it?" Rothman replied. "I am satisfied."

But there was something about Rothman's face that to Zwiebel augured well for his son's regeneration. Like the advertised loft buildings in the cloak and suit district, Mr. Rothman's face was of steel construction throughout, and Zwiebel felt so sure of Rothman's ability to cope with Milton's shortcomings that he raised the bid to three thousand dollars. Firmness, however, is a quality that makes for success in every phase of business, particularly in bargaining; and when the deal was closed Rothman had hired Milton Zwiebel for nothing a week. Mr. Zwiebel, on his part, had agreed to invest five thousand dollars in Rothman's business, the same to bear interest at 3 per cent. per annum. He had also bound himself to repay Rothman the weekly salary of fifteen dollars which Milton was to receive, and when they parted they shook hands warmly on the transaction.

"Well, Mr. Rothman," Zwiebel concluded, "I hope you will see to it the boy behaves himself."

Rothman's mouth described a downward arc.

"Don't worry, Mr. Zwiebel," he said; "leave it to me."

Milton Zwiebel had not found his métier. He had tried almost everything in the Business Directory from Architectural Iron Work to Yarns, Domestic and Imported, and had ascertained all of them to be lacking in the one quality he craved – excitement.

"That boy is looking for trouble all the time, mommer," Charles Zwiebel said to his wife on the night after his conversation with Rothman, "and I guess he will get so much as he wants by Rothman. Such a face I never seen it before, like Haman. If Milton should get fresh with him, mommer, he would get it a Schlag, I bet yer."

"Ain't you ashamed to talk that way?" Mrs. Zwiebel protested.

"It'll do the boy good, mommer," Mr. Zwiebel replied. "That boy is a regular loafer. It's eleven o'clock already and he ain't home yet. What that lowlife does when he stays out till all hours of the night I don't know. One thing is sure, he ain't doing no good. I hate to think where that boy will end up, mommer."

He shook his head and heavily ascended the stairs to bed, while Mrs. Zwiebel settled herself down with the evening paper to await Milton's return.

She had a weary vigil ahead of her, for Milton had at last found serious employment. Only that evening he had been engaged by Professor Felix Lusthaus as a double-bass player in Lusthaus's grand orchestra of forty pieces. This organization had been hired to render the dance music for the fifteenth annual ball of Harmony Lodge, 142, I.O.M.A., and the chairman of the entertainment committee had been influenced in his selection by the preponderating number of the orchestra's members over other competing bands.

Now, to the inexperienced ear twenty-five players will emit nearly as much noise as forty, and in view of this circumstance Professor Lusthaus was accustomed to hire twenty-five bona-fide members of the musical union, while the remaining fifteen pieces were what are technically known as sleepers. That is to say, Professor Lusthaus provided them with instruments and they were directed to go through the motions without making any sound.

Milton, for instance, was instructed how to manipulate the fingerboard of his ponderous instrument, but he was enjoined to draw his bow across the metal base of the music-stand and to avoid the strings upon peril of his job. During the opening two-step Milton's behaviour was exemplary. He watched the antics of the other contra basso and duplicated them so faithfully as to call for a commendatory nod from the Professor at the conclusion of the number.

His undoing began with the second dance, which was a waltz. As contra basso performer he stood with his fellow-artist at the rear of the platform facing the dancing floor, and no sooner had Professor Lusthaus's baton directed the first few measures than Milton's imitation grew spiritless. He had espied a little girl in white with eyes that flashed her enjoyment of the dreamy rhythm. Her cheeks glowed and her lips were parted, while her tiny gloved hand rested like a flower on the shoulder of her partner. They waltzed half-time, as the vernacular has it, and to Milton it seemed like the apotheosis of the dance. He gazed wide-eyed at the fascinating scene and was only brought to himself when the drummer poked him in the ribs with the butt end of the drumstick. For the remainder of the waltz he performed discreetly on the music-stand and his fingers chased themselves up and down the strings with lifelike rapidity.

"Hey, youse," Professor Lusthaus hissed after he had laid down his baton, "what yer trying to do? Queer the whole thing? Hey?"

"I thought I – now – seen a friend of mine," Milton said lamely.

"Oh, yer did, did yer?" Professor Lusthaus retorted. "Well, when you play with this here orchestra you want to remember you ain't got a friend in the world, see?"

Milton nodded.

"And, furthermore," the Professor concluded, "make some more breaks like that and see what'll happen you."

Waltzes and two-steps succeeded each other with monotonous regularity until the grand march for supper was announced. For three years Ferdy Rothman had been chairman of the entertainment and floor committee of Harmony Lodge I.O.M.A.'s annual ball, and he was a virtuoso in the intricate art of arranging a grand march to supper. His aids were six in number, and as Ferdy marched up the ballroom floor they were standing with their backs to the music platform ten paces apart. When Ferdy arrived at the foot of the platform he faced about and split the line of marching couples. The ladies wheeled sharply to the right and the gentlemen to the left, and thereafter began a series of evolutions which, in the mere witnessing, would have given a blacksnake lumbago.

Again Milton became entranced and his fingers remained motionless on the strings, while, instead of sawing away on the music-stand, his right arm hung by his side. Once more the drummer missed a beat and struck him in the ribs, and Milton, looking up, caught sight of the glaring, demoniacal Lusthaus.

The composition was one of Professor Lusthaus's own and had been especially devised for grand marches to supper. In rhythm and melody it was exceedingly conventional, not to say reminiscent, and when Milton seized his bow with the energy of despair and drew it sharply across the strings of the contra basso there was introduced a melodic and harmonic element so totally at variance with the character of the composition as to outrage the ears of even Ferdy Rothman. For one fatal moment he turned his head, as did his six aids, and at once the grand march to supper became a hopeless tangle. Simultaneously Milton saw that in five minutes he would be propelled violently to the street at the head of a flying wedge, and he sawed away with a grim smile on his face. Groans like the ultimate sighs of a dying elephant came from underneath his bow, while occasionally he surprised himself with a weird harmonic. At length Professor Lusthaus could stand it no longer. He threw his baton at Milton and followed it up with his violin case, at which Milton deemed it time to retreat. He grabbed his hat and overcoat and dashed wildly through the ranks of the thirty-nine performers toward the front of the platform. Thence he leaped to the ballroom floor, and two minutes later he was safely on the sidewalk with nothing to hinder his exit save a glancing kick from Ferdy Rothman.

It was precisely eleven o'clock, the very shank of the evening, and Milton fairly shuddered at the idea of going home, but what was he to do? His credit at all of the pool parlours had been strained to the utmost and he was absolutely penniless. For two minutes he surveyed the empty street and, with a stretch and a yawn, he started off home.

Ten minutes later Mrs. Zwiebel recognized with a leaping heart his footsteps on the areaway. She ran to the door and opened it.

"Loafer!" she cried. "Where was you?"

"Aw, what's the matter now?" Milton asked as he kissed her perfunctorily. "It's only just eleven o'clock."

"Sure, I know," Mrs. Zwiebel said. "What you come home so early for?"

Again Milton yawned and stretched.

"I was to a racket what the I.O.M.A.'s run off," he said.

He rubbed the dust from his trouser leg where Ferdy Rothman's kick had soiled it.

"Things was getting pretty slow," he concluded, "so I put on my hat and come home."

Breakfast at the Zwiebels' was a solemn feast. Mr. Zwiebel usually drank his coffee in silence, or in as much silence as was compatible with an operation which, with Mr. Zwiebel, involved screening the coffee through his moustache. It emerged all dripping from the coffee, and Mr. Zwiebel was accustomed to cleansing it with his lower lip and polishing it off with his table napkin. Eggs and toast followed, and, unless Mrs. Zwiebel was especially vigilant, her husband went downtown with fragments of the yolks clinging to his eyebrows, for Mr. Zwiebel was a hearty eater and no great stickler for table manners.