Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things | Page 4

around a country where you couldn't get no sugar or butter in a hotel,
not if you was to show the head waiter a doctor's certificate with a
hundred-dollar bill pinned on it. So let us go round to a few of these
high-grade dressmakers and see how much we are going to get stuck
for, and have it over with."

Accordingly, they paid for the coffee and milk without sugar and the
dark sour rolls without butter which nowadays form the usual hotel
breakfast in France, and set out for the office of the commission agent
whose place of business is the rendezvous for American
garment-manufacturers in search of Parisian model gowns. The broad
avenues in the vicinity of the hotel seemed unusually crowded even to
people as accustomed to the congested traffic of lower Fifth Avenue as
Abe and Morris were, but as they proceeded toward the wholesale
district of Paris the streets became less and less traveled, until at length
they walked along practically deserted thoroughfares.
"And we thought business was rotten in America," Morris said. "Why,
there ain't hardly one store open, hardly."
Abe nodded gloomily.
"It looks to me, Mawruss, that if there is any new garments being
designed over here," he said, "they would be quiet morning gowns
appropriate for attending something informal like a sale by a receiver in
supplementary proceedings, or a more or less elaborate afternoon
costume, not too showy, y'understand, but the kind of model that a
fashionable Paris dressmaker could wear to a referee in bankruptcy's
office so as not to make the attending creditors say she was her own
best customer, understand me."
"Well, what could you expect?" Morris said, as they toiled up the stairs
to the commission agent's office. "The chances is that up to a couple of
months ago, in a Paris dressmaker's shop, a customer arrived only
every other week, whereas a nine-inch bomb arrived every twenty
minutes, and furthermore, Abe, it was you that suggested this trip, not
me, so now that we are over here, we should ought to make the best of
it, and if this here commission agent can't show us no new designs, he
could, anyhow, show us the sights."
But even this consolation was denied them, for when they reached the
commission agent's door it was locked and barred, as were all the other
offices on that floor, and bore a placard reading:

FERME
À CAUSE DU JOUR DE FÊTE
"Nu!" Morris said, after he had read and re-read the notice a number of
times, "what are we going to do now?"
"This is the last hair," Abe said, "because you know how it is with these
Frenchers, if they close for a death in the family, it is liable to be a
matter of weeks already."
"Maybe it says gone to lunch, will be back in half an hour," Morris
suggested, hopefully.
"Not a chance," Abe declared. "More likely it means this elegant office
with every modern improvement except an elevator, steam heat, and
electric light, to be sublet, because it would be just our luck that the
commission agent is back in New York right now with a line of
brand-new model gowns, asking our bookkeeper will either of the
bosses be back soon."
"We wouldn't get back in ten years, I'll tell you that, unless we hustle,"
Morris declared. He led the way down-stairs to the ground floor, where,
after a few minutes, they managed to attract the attention of the
concierge, who emerged from her shelter at the foot of the stairs and in
rapid French explained to Abe and Morris that all Paris was celebrating
with a public holiday the arrival of President Wilson.
"It's a funny thing about the French language," Morris said, as she
concluded. "Even if you don't understand what the people mean, you
could 'most always tell what they've been eating, which if the French
people was limited by law to a ton of garlic a month per person, Abe,
this lady would go to jail for the rest of her life."
"Attendez!" said the concierge. "Au dessus il yà un monsieur qui parle
anglais."
She motioned for them to wait and ascended the stairs to the floor

above, where they heard her knock on an office door. Evidently the
person who opened it was annoyed by the interruption, for his
voice--and to Abe and Morris it was a strangely familiar voice--was
raised in angry protest.
"Now listen," said the tenant, "I told you before that I've only got this
place temporarily, and as long as I am in here I don't want you to do no
cleaning nor nothing, because the air is none too good here as it is, and
furthermore--"
He proceeded no farther, however, for Abe and Morris