Potash Perlmutter | Page 2

certainly them people would give him a whole lot of help."
"What people do you mean?" Abe asked.
"Zudrowsky & Cohen," Noblestone answered. "Do you know 'em, Potash?"
Abe laughed raucously.
"Do I know 'em?" he said. "A question! Them people got a reputation among the trade which you wouldn't believe at all. Yes, Noblestone, if I would take it another partner, y'understand, I would as lief get a feller what's got the backing of a couple of them cut-throats up in Sing Sing, so much do I think of Zudrowsky & Cohen."
"All I got to say to that, Potash, is that you don't know them people, otherwise you wouldn't talk that way."
"Maybe I don't know 'em as good as some concerns know 'em, Noblestone, but that's because I was pretty lucky. Leon Sammet tells me he wouldn't trust 'em with the wrapping paper on a C. O. D. shipment of two dollars."
Noblestone rose to his feet and assumed an attitude of what he believed to be injured dignity.
"I hear enough from you, Potash," he said, "and some day you will be sorry you talk that way about a concern like Zudrowsky & Cohen. If you couldn't say nothing good about 'em, you should shut up your mouth."
"I could say one thing good about 'em, Noblestone," Abe retorted, as the business broker opened the store door. "They ain't ashamed of a couple of good old-time names like Zudrowsky & Cohen."
This was an allusion to the circumstance that Philip Noblestone had once been Pesach Edelstein, and the resounding bang with which the broker closed the door behind him, was gratifying evidence to Abe that his parting shot had found its target.
"Well, Noblestone," Zudrowsky cried, as the broker entered the show-room of Zudrowsky & Cohen, "what did he say?"
"He says he wouldn't consider it at all," Noblestone answered. "He ain't in no condition to talk about it anyway, because he feels too sore about his old partner, Pincus Vesell. That feller done him up to the tune of ten thousand dollars."
In Noblestone's scheme of ethics, to multiply a fact by two was to speak the truth unadorned.
"S'enough, Noblestone," Zudrowsky cried. "If Potash lost so much money as all that, I wouldn't consider him at all. One thing you got to remember, Noblestone. Me, I am putting up five thousand dollars for Harry Federmann, and what that feller don't know about business, Noblestone, you could take it from me, would make even you a millionaire, if you would only got it in your head."
Noblestone felt keenly the doubtfulness of Zudrowsky's compliment, but for a lack of a suitable rejoinder he contented himself by nodding gravely.
"So I wouldn't want him to tie up with a feller like Potash, what gets done up so easy for ten thousand dollars," Zudrowsky went on. "What I would like, Noblestone, is that Harry should go as partners together with some decent, respectable feller which got it good experience in the cloak business and wouldn't be careless with my five thousand dollars. I needn't to tell you, Noblestone, if I would let Harry get his hands on it, I might as well kiss myself good-by with that five thousand dollars."
Noblestone waggled his head from side to side and made inarticulate expressions of sympathy through his nose.
"How could you marry off your daughter to a schafskopf like Federmann?" he asked.
"It was a love match, Noblestone," Zudrowsky explained. "She falls in love with him, and he falls in love with her. So naturally he ain't no business man, y'understand, because you know as well as I do, Noblestone, a business man ain't got no time to fool away on such nonsense."
"Sure, I know," Noblestone agreed. "But what makes Federmann so dumb? He's been in the cloak and suit business all his life, ain't he?"
"What's that got to do with it?" Zudrowsky exclaimed. "Cohen and me got these here fixtures for fifteen years already, and you could more expect them tables and racks they should know the cloak and suit business as Harry Federmann. They ain't neither of 'em got no brains, Noblestone, and that's what I want you to get for Harry,--some young feller with brains, even though he ain't worth much money."
"Believe me, Mr. Zudrowsky," Noblestone replied. "It ain't such an easy matter these times to find a young feller with brains what ain't got no money, Mr. Zudrowsky, and such young fellers don't need no partners neither. And, anyhow, Mr. Zudrowsky, what is five thousand dollars for an inducement to a business man? When I would go around and tell my clients I got a young feller with five thousand dollars what wants to go in the cloak and suit business, they laugh at me. In the cloak and suit business five thousand dollars goes no ways."
"Five thousand ain't much if you are