Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things | Page 3

should he leave the set of Washington Irving in one
hundred and fifty-six volumes or the piano with stool and scarf
complete, as the case may be. So I am going to see Feldman, and if it
costs me fifteen or twenty dollars, it's anyhow a satisfaction to know
that when you do things with the advice of a smart crooked lawyer,
nobody could put nothing over on you outside of your lawyer."
When Morris returned an hour later, however, instead of an appearance
of satisfaction, his face bore so melancholy an expression that for a few
minutes Abe was afraid to question him.
"Nu!" he said at last. "I suppose you got turned down for being
overweight or something?"
"What do you mean--overweight?" Morris demanded. "What do you
suppose I am applying for--a twenty-year endowment passport or one
of them tontine passports with cash surrender value after three years?"
"Then what is the matter you look so rachmonos?" Abe said.
"How should I look with the kind of partner which I've got it?" Morris

asked. "Paris models he must got to got. Domestic designs ain't good
enough for him. Such high-grade idees he's got, and I've got to suffer
for it yet."
"Well, don't go to Europe. What do I care?" Abe said.
"We must go," Morris replied.
"What do you mean--we?" Abe demanded.
"I mean you and me," Morris said. "Feldman says that just so long as it
is one operation he would charge the same for getting one passport as
for getting two, excepting the government fee of two dollars. So what
do you think--I am going to pay Henry D. Feldman two hundred dollars
for getting me a passport when for two dollars extra I can get one for
you also?"
"But who is going to look after the store?" Abe exclaimed.
"Say!" Morris retorted, "you've got relations enough working around
here, which every time you've hired a fresh one, you've given me this
blood-is-redder-than-water stuff, and now is your chance to prove it.
We wouldn't be away longer as six weeks at the outside, so go ahead,
Abe. Here is the application for the passport. Sign your name on the
dotted line and don't say no more about it."
* * * * *
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, three weeks later, as they sat in the
restaurant of their Paris hotel, "in a country where the coffee pretty near
strangles you, even when it's got cream and sugar in it, y'understand,
the cooking has got to be good, because in a two-dollar-a-day
American plan hotel the management figures that no matter how rotten
the food is, the guests will say, 'Well, anyhow, the coffee was good,'
and get by with it that way."
"On the other hand, Abe," Morris suggested, "maybe the French hotel
people figure that if they only make the coffee bad enough, the guests

would say, 'Well, one good thing, while the food is terrible, it ain't a
marker on the coffee.'"
"But the food tastes pretty good to me, Mawruss," Abe said.
"Wait till you've been here a week, Abe," Morris advised him.
"Anything would taste good to you after what you went through on that
boat."
"What do you mean--after what I went through?" Abe demanded.
"What I went through don't begin to compare with what you went
through, which honestly, Mawruss, there was times there on that
second day out where you acted so terrible, understand me, that rather
as witness such human suffering again, if any one would of really and
truly had your interests at heart, they would of give a couple of dollars
to a steward that he should throw you overboard and make an end of
your misery."
"Is that so!" Morris retorted. "Well, let me tell you something, Abe. If
you think I was in a bad way, don't kid yourself, when you lay there in
your berth for three days without strength enough to take off even your
collar and necktie, y'understand, that the captain said to the first officer
ain't it wonderful what an elegant sailor that Mr. Potash is or anything
like it, understand me, which on more than one occasion when I seen
the way you looked, Abe, I couldn't help thinking of what chances
concerns like the Equittable takes when they pass a feller as A number
one on his heart and kidneys, and ain't tried him out on so much as a
Staten Island ferry-boat to see what kind of a traveler he is."
"Listen, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "did we come over here paying
first-class fares for practically steerage accommodations to discuss life
insurance, or did we come over here to buy model garments and get
through with it, because believe me, it is no pleasure for me to stick