CHAPTER FOUR
HIGHGRADE LINES
"SURE, I know, Mr. Scheikowitz," cried Elkan Lubliner, junior partner of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company, as he sat in the firm's office late one February afternoon; "but if you want to sell a highgrade concern like Joseph Kammerman you must got to got a highgrade line of goods."
"Ain't I am telling you that all the time?" Scheikowitz replied. "
Aber
we sell here a popular-price line, Elkan. So what is the use talking we ain't ekvipt for a highgrade line."
"What d'ye mean we ain't equipped, Mr. Scheikowitz?" Elkan protested. "We got here machines and we got here fixtures, and all we need it now is a highgrade designer and a couple really good cutters like that new feller which is working for us."
"That's all right, too, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin interrupted; "but it ain't the ekvipment which it is so important. The reputation which we got for selling a popular-price line we couldn't get rid of so easy, understand me, and that
Bétzimmer
buyer of Kammerman's wouldn't got no confidence in us at all. The way he figures it we could just so much turn out a highgrade line of goods here as you could expect a feller which is acting in a moving pictures to all of a sudden sing like Charuso."
"Besides," Scheikowitz added, "highgrade designers and really good cutters means more capital, Elkan."
"The capital you shouldn't worry about at all," Elkan retorted. "Next week my Yetta gets falling due a second mortgage from old man Flixman for five thousand dollars, and – "
Polatkin made a flapping gesture with his right hand.
"Keep your money, Elkan," he said. "You could got lots of better ways to invest it for Yetta as fixing ourselves up to sell big
Machers
like Joseph Kammerman."
"But it don't do no harm I should drop in and see them people. Ain't it?"
"Sure not," Scheikowitz continued as he swung round in his revolving chair and seized a pile of cutting clips. "They got an elegant store there on Fifth Avenue which it is a pleasure to go into even; and the worst that happens you, Elkan, is you are out a good cigar for that Mr. Dalzell up there."
Elkan nodded gloomily, and as he left the office Polatkin's face relaxed in an indulgent smile.
"The boy is getting awful ambitious lately, Scheikowitz," he said.
"What d'ye mean, ambitious?" Philip Scheikowitz cried angrily. "If you would be only twenty-three years of age, Polatkin, and married to a rich girl, understand me – and also partner in a good concern, which the whole thing he done it himself, Polatkin – you would act a whole lot more ambitious as he does. Instead of knocking the boy, Polatkin, you should ought to give him credit for what he done."
"Who is knocking the boy?" Polatkin demanded. "All I says is the boy is ambitious, Scheikowitz – which, if you don't think it's ambitious a feller tries to sell goods to Joseph Kammerman, Scheikowitz, what is it then?"
"There's worser people to sell goods to as Joseph Kammerman, Polatkin, which he is a millionaire concern, understand me," Scheikowitz declared; "and you could take it from me, Polatkin, even if you would accuse him he is ambitious
oder
not, that boy always got idees to do big things – and he works hard till he lands 'em. So if you want to call that ambitious, Polatkin, go ahead and do so. When a loafer knocks it's a boost every time."
With this ultimatum Scheikowitz followed his junior partner to the rear of the loft, where Elkan regarded with a critical eye the labors of his cutting-room staff.
"
Nu
, Elkan," Scheikowitz asked, "what's biting you now?"
Elkan winked significantly – and a moment later he tapped an assistant cutter on the shoulder.
"Max," he said, "do you got maybe a grudge against that piece of goods, the way you are slamming it round?"
The assistant cutter smiled in an embarrassed fashion.
"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I wasn't thinking about them goods at all. When you are laying out goods for cutting, Mr. Lubliner, you don't got to think much – especially pastel shades."
"Pastel shades?" Elkan repeated.
"That's what I said," the cutter replied. "
Mit
colors like reds and greens, which they are hitting you right in the face, so to speak, you couldn't get your mind off of 'em at all; but pastel shades, that's something else again. They quiet you like smoking a cigarette."
Elkan turned to his partner with a shrug.
"When I was working by B. Gans," the cutter went on, "I am laying out a piece of old gold crêpe
mit
a silver-thread border, and I assure you, Mr. Lubliner, it has an effect on me like some one would give me a glass of schnapps already."
"
Stiegen
, Max," said Elkan, moving away, "you got too much to say for yourself."
Max nodded resignedly and continued the spreading of the goods on the cutting table, while Elkan and Scheikowitz walked out of the room.
"That's the new feller I was telling you about," Elkan said. "
Meshugganeh
Max Merech they call him."
"
Meshugga
he may be," Scheikowitz replied, "but just the same he's got a couple of good idees also, Elkan. Only this morning he makes Redman the designer pretty near crazy when he says that the blue soutache on that new style 2060 kills the blue in the yoke, y'understand; and he was right too, Elkan. Polatkin and me made Redman change it over."
Elkan shrugged again as he put on his hat and coat preparatory to going home.
"A lot our class of trade worries about such things!" he exclaimed. "So far as they are concerned the soutache could be crimson and the yoke green, and if the price was right they'd buy it anyhow."
"Don't you fool yourself, Elkan," Scheikowitz said while Elkan rang for the elevator. "The price is never right if the workmanship ain't good."
That Elkan Lubliner's progress in business had not kept pace with his social achievements was a source of much disappointment to both Mrs. Lubliner and himself; for though the firm of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company was still rated seventy-five thousand dollars to one hundred thousand dollars – credit good – Elkan and Mrs. Lubliner moved in the social orbit of no less a personage than of Max Koblin, the Raincoat King, whose credit soared triumphantly among the A's and B's of old-established commission houses.
Indeed it was a party at Max Koblin's house that evening which caused Elkan to leave his place of business at half-past five; and when Mrs. Lubliner and he sallied forth from the gilt and porphyry hallway of their apartment dwelling they were fittingly arrayed to meet Max's guests, none of whom catered to the popular-price trade of Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company.
"Why didn't you told him we are getting next week paid off for five thousand dollars a second mortgage?" Yetta said, continuing a conversation begun at dinner that evening.
"I did told him," Elkan insisted; "but what is the use talking to a couple of old-timers like them?"
Yetta sniffed contemptuously with the impatience of youth at the foibles of senility, as exemplified by the doddering Philip Scheikowitz, aged forty-five, and the valetudinarian Marcus Polatkin, whose hair, albeit unfrosted, had been blighted and in part swept away by the vicissitudes of forty-two winters.
"You can't learn an old dawg young tricks," Elkan declared, "and we might just as well make up our minds to it, Yetta, we would never compete with such highgrade concerns like B. Gans
oder
Schwefel & Zucker."
They walked over two blocks in silence and then Elkan broke out anew.
"I tell you," he said, "I am sick and tired of it. B. Gans talks all the time about selling this big
Macher
and that big
Macher
, and him and Mr. Schwefel gets telling about what a millionaire like Kammerman says to him the other day, or what he says to Mandelberger, of Chicago, y'understand – and I couldn't say nothing! If I would commence to tell 'em what I says to such customers of ours like One-Eye Feigenbaum
oder
H. Margonin, of Bridgetown, understand me, they would laugh me in my face yet."
Yetta pressed his arm consolingly as they ascended the stoop of Max Koblin's house on Mount Morris Park West, and two minutes later they entered the front parlour of that luxurious residence.
"And do you know what he says to me?" a penetrating barytone voice announced as they came in. "He says to me, 'Benson,' he says, 'I've been putting on musical shows now for fifteen years, and an idee like that comes from a genius already. There's a fortune in it!'"
At this juncture Mrs. Koblin noted the arrival of the last of her guests.
"Why, hello, Yetta!" she cried, rising to her feet. "Ain't you fashionable getting here so late?"
She kissed Yetta and held out a hand to Elkan as she spoke.
"Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Elkan, keeping Yetta's dinner waiting because you claim you're so busy downtown?" she went on. "I guess you know everybody here except Mr. Benson."
She nodded toward the promulgator of Heaven-born ideas, who bowed solemnly.
"Pleased to meet you, Mister – "
"Lubliner," Elkan said.
"Mister Lubliner," Benson repeated, passing his begemmed fingers through a shock of black, curly hair. "And the long and short of it is," he continued, addressing the company, "to-morrow I'm getting a scenario along them lines I just indicated to you from one of the highest-grade fellers that's writing."
Here ensued a pause, during which B. Gans searched his mind for an anecdote concerning some retailer of sufficiently good financial standing, while Joseph Schwefel, of Schwefel & Zucker, cleared his throat preparatory to launching a verbatim report of a conversation between himself and a buyer for one of the most exclusive costume houses on Fifth Avenue; but even as Schwefel rounded his lips to enunciate an introductory "Er," Benson obtained a fresh start.
"Now you remember 'The Diners Out,' Ryan & Bernbaum's production last season?" he said, addressing Elkan. "In that show they had an idee like this: Eight ponies is let down from the flies – see? – and George DeFrees makes his entrance in a practical airyoplane – I think it was George DeFrees was working for Ryan & Bernbaum last year, or was it Sammy Potter?"
At this point he screwed up his face and leaning his elbow on the arm of his chair he placed four fingers on his forehead in the attitude known theatrically as Business of Deep Consideration.
"No," he said at last – "it was George DeFrees. George jumps out of the airyoplane and says: 'They followed me to earth, I see.'"
Benson raised his eyebrows at the assembled guests.
"Angels!" he announced. "Get the idee? 'They followed me to earth, I see.' Cue. And then he sings the song hit of the show: 'Come Take a Ride in My Airyoplane.'"
B. Gans shuffled his feet uneasily and Joseph Schwefel pulled down his waistcoat. As manufacturers of highgrade garments they had accompanied more than one customer to the entertainment described by Benson; but to Elkan the term "ponies" admitted of only one meaning, and this conversational arabesque of flies, little horses, aeroplanes and George DeFrees made him fairly dizzy.
"And," M. Sidney Benson said before B. Gans could head him off, "just that there entrance boomed the show. Ryan & Bernbaum up to date clears a hundred and twenty thousand dollars over and above all expenses."
"Better as the garment business!" Max Koblin commented – and B. Gans nodded and yawned.
"Ain't we going to have no pinocle?" he asked. Max rose and threw open the sliding doors leading to the dining room, where cards and chips were in readiness.
"Will you join us, Mr. Benson?" he asked.
"That'll make five with Mr. Lubliner," Benson replied; "so supposing you, Gans and Schwefel go ahead, and Mr. Lubliner and me will join you later. Otherwise you would got to deal two of us out – which it makes a pretty slow game that way."
"Just as you like," Max said; and after Mrs. Koblin and Yetta had retired abovestairs to view the most recent accession to Mrs. Koblin's wardrobe, Benson pulled up the points of his high collar and adjusted his black stock necktie. Then he lit a fresh cigar and prepared to lay bare to Elkan the arcana of the theatrical business.
"Yes, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "the show business is a business like any other business. It ain't like you got an idee it is – opening wine for a bunch of chickens, understand me, and running round the streets till all hours of the morning."
"I never got no such idee," Elkan protested.
"You ain't, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued, "because it's very evidence to me that you don't know nothing about it; but there's a whole lot of people got that idee anyhow, y'understand; and what I am always trying to tell everybody is that the show business is like the garment business
oder
the drygoods business – a business for a business man, not a loafer!"
Elkan made an inarticulate noise which Benson took to be an expression of interest and encouragement.
"At the same time art has got a whole lot to do with it," he went on – "art and idees; and when you take a feller like Ryan, which he could write a show, write the music, put it on and play the leading part all by himself, y'understand, and a feller like Bernbaum, which used to was Miller, Bernbaum & Company in the pants business – you got there an ideel combination!"
Elkan nodded and looked helplessly round him at the Circassian walnut, of which half a forestful had gone to make up the furnishings of Koblin's front parlor.
"But," Benson said emphatically, "you take me, for instance – and what was I?"
He told off his former occupations with the index finger of his right hand on each digit of his left.
"First I was a salesman; second I was for myself in the infants' wear business; third I was
noch einmal
a salesman. Then I become an actor, because everybody knows my act, which I called it 'Your Old Friend Maslowsky.' For four years I played all the first-class vaudeville circuits here and on the other side in England. But though I made good money, Mr. Lubliner, the real big money is in the producing end."
"Huh-huh!" Elkan ejaculated.
"So that's the way it is with me, Mr. Lubliner," Benson continued. "I am just like Ryan & Bernbaum, only instead of two partners there is only just one; which I got the art, the idees and the business ability all in myself!"
"That must make it very handy for you," Elkan commented.
"Handy ain't no name for it," Benson replied. "It's something you don't see nowheres else in the show business; but I'll tell you the truth, Mr. Lubliner – the work is too much for me!"
"Why don't you get a partner?" Elkan asked.
Benson made a circular gesture with his right hand.
"I could get lots of partners with big money, Mr. Lubliner," he said, "but why should I divide my profits? Am I right or wrong?"
"Well, that depends how you are looking at it," Elkan said.
"I am looking at it from the view of a business man, Mr. Lubliner," Benson rejoined. "Here I got a proposition which I am going to put on – a show of idees – a big production, understand me; which if Ryan & Bernbaum makes from their 'Diners Out' a hundred thousand dollars,
verstehst du
, I could easily make a hundred and fifty thousand! And yet, Mr. Lubliner, all I invest is five thousand dollars and five thousand more which I am making a loan at a bank."
"Which bank?" Elkan asked – so quickly that Benson almost jumped in his seat.
"I – I didn't decide which bank yet," he replied. "You see, Mr. Lubliner, I got accounts in three banks. First I belonged to the Fifteenth National Bank. Then they begged me I should go in the Minuit National Bank. All right. I went in the Minuit National Bank. H'afterward Sam Feder comes to me and says: 'Benson,' he says, 'you are an old friend from mine,' he says. 'Why do you bother yourself you should go into this bank and that bank?' he says. 'Why don't you come to my bank?' he says, 'and I would give you all the money you want.' So you see, Mr. Lubliner, it is immaterial to me which bank I get my money from."
Again he passed his jewelled fingers through his hair.
"No, Mr. Lubliner," he announced after a pause, "my own brother even I wouldn't give a look-in."
Elkan made no reply. As a result of Benson's gesture he was busy estimating the value of eight and a quarter carats at eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents a carat.
"Because," Benson continued, "the profits is something you could really call enormous! If you got the time I would like to show you a few figures."
"I got all evening," Elkan answered, whereat Benson pulled from his waistcoat pocket a fountain pen ornamented with gold filigree.
"First," he said, "is the costumes."
And therewith he plunged into a maze of calculation that lasted for nearly an hour. Moreover, at the end of that period he entered into a new series of figures, tending to show that by the investment of an additional five thousand dollars the profits could be increased seventy-five per cent.
"But I'm satisfied to invest my ten thousand," he said, "because five thousand is my own and the other five thousand I could get easy from the Kosciuscko Bank, whereas the additional five thousand I must try to interest somebody he should invest it with me. And so far as that goes I wouldn't bother myself at all."
"You're dead right," Elkan said by way of making himself agreeable, whereat Benson grew crimson with chagrin.
"Sure I'm dead right," he said; "and if you and Mrs. Lubliner would come down to my office in the Siddons Theatre Building to-morrow night, eight o'clock, I would send one of my associates round with you and he will get you tickets for the 'Diners Out,' understand me; and then you would see for yourself what a big house they got there. Even on Monday night they turn 'em away!"
"I'm much obliged to you," Elkan replied. "I'm sure Mrs. Lubliner and me would enjoy it very much."
"I'm sorry for you if you wouldn't," Benson retorted; "and that there 'Diners Out' ain't a marker to the show I'm putting on, Mr. Lubliner – which you can see for yourself, a business proposition, which pans out pretty near two hundred thousand dollars on a fifteen-thousand-dollar investment, is got to be right up to the mark. Ain't it?"
"I thought you said ten thousand dollars was the investment," Elkan remarked.
"I did," Benson replied with some heat; "but if some one comes along and wants to invest the additional five thousand dollars I wouldn't turn him down, Mr. Lubliner."
He rose to his feet to join the pinocle players in the dining room.
"So I hope you enjoy the show to-morrow night," he added as he strolled away.
From six to eight every evening Max Merech underwent a gradual transformation, for six o'clock was the closing hour at Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's establishment, while eight marked the advent of the Sarasate Trio at the Café Román, on Delancey Street. Thus, at six, Max Merech was an assistant cutter; and, indeed, until after he ate his supper he still bore the outward appearance of an assistant cutter, though inwardly he felt a premonitory glow. After half-past seven, however, he buttoned on a low, turned-down collar with its concomitant broad Windsor tie, and therewith he assumed his real character – that of a dilettante.
At the Café Román each evening he specialized on music; but with the spirit of the true dilettante he neglected no one of the rest of the arts, and was ever to be found at the table next to the piano, a warm advocate of the latest movement in painting and literature, as well as an appreciative listener to the ultramodern music discoursed by the Sarasate Trio.
"If that ain't a winner I ain't no judge!" he said to Boris Volkovisk, the pianist, on the evening of the conversation with Elkan set forth above. He referred to a violin sonata of Boris' own composition which the latter and Jacob Rekower, the violinist, had just concluded.
Boris smiled and wiped away the perspiration from his bulging forehead, for the third movement of the sonata, marked in the score
Allegro con fuoco
, had taxed even the technic of its composer.
"A winner of what?" Boris asked – "money? Because supposing a miracle happens that somebody would publish it nobody buys it."
Max nodded his head slowly in sympathetic acquiescence.
"But anyhow you ain't so bad off like some composers," he said. "You've anyhow got a good musician to play your stuff for you."
He smiled at Jacob Rekower, who plunged his hands into his trousers pockets and shrugged deprecatingly.
"Sure, I know," Rekower said; "and if we play too much good stuff Marculescu raises the devil with us we should play more popular music."
He spat out the words "popular music" with an emphasis that made a
Tarrok
player at the next table jump in his seat.
"
Nu
," said the latter as the deal passed, "what is the matter with popular music? If it wouldn't be for writing popular music, understand me, many a decent, respectable composer would got to starve!"
He turned his chair round and abandoned the card game the better to air his views on popular music.
"Furthermore," he said, "I know a young feller by the name Milton Jassy which last year he makes two thousand dollars already from syncopating
Had gadyo
and calling it the "Wildcat Rag," and this year he is writing the music for a new show and I bet yer the least he makes out of it is five thousand dollars."
"Yow! Five thousand dollars!" Merech exclaimed. "Such people you hear about, but you
oser
see 'em."
"Don't you?" said the
Tarrok
player, drawing a cardcase from his breast pocket. "Well, you see one now."
He laid face upward on the table a card which read:
For a brief interval Volkovisk, Rekower, and Merech regarded Jassy's card in silence.
"Well," Merech said at last, "what of it?"
Jassy shrugged and waved his hand significantly.
"Nothing of it," he said, "only your friend there is knocking popular music; and though I admit that I didn't got to go to the
Wiener
conservatory so as I could write popular music exactly, y'understand, still I could write sonatas and trios and quartets and even concerti and symphonies till I am black in the face already and I couldn't pay my laundry bill even."
For answer Volkovisk turned to the piano and seized from the pile of music a blue-covered volume. It was the violin sonata of Richard Strauss, and handing the violin part to Rekower he seated himself on the stool. Then with a premonitory nod to Rekower he struck the opening chords, and for more than ten minutes Jassy and Merech sat motionless until the first movement was finished.
"When Strauss wrote that he could
oser
pay his laundry bill either," Volkovisk said, rising from the stool. He sat down wearily at the table and lit a cigarette.
"So you see," he began, "Richard Strauss – "
"Richard Strauss nothing!" cried an angry voice at his elbow. "If you want to practise, practise at home. I pay you here to play for my customers, not for yourselves, Volkovisk; and once and for all I am telling you you should cut out this nonsense and
spiel
a little music once in a while."
It was the proprietor, Marculescu, who spoke, and Volkovisk immediately seated himself at the piano. This time he took from the pile of music three small sheets, one of which he placed on the reading desk and the other on Rekower's violin stand. After handing the other sheet to the 'cellist he plunged into a furious rendition of "Wildcat Rag."
In the front part of the café a group of men and women, whose clothes and manners proclaimed them to be slummers from the upper West Side, broke into noisy applause as the vulgar composition came to an end, and in the midst of their shouting and stamping Jassy rose trembling from his seat. He slunk between tables to the door, while Volkovisk began a repetition of the number, and it was not until he had turned the corner of the street and the melody had ceased to sound in his ears that he slackened his pace. When he did so, however, a friendly hand fell on his shoulder and he turned to find Max Merech close behind him.
"
Nu
, Mr. Jassy," Max said, "you shouldn't be so broke up because you couldn't write so good as Richard Strauss."
Jassy stood still and looked Max squarely in the eye.
"That's just the point," he said in hollow tones. "Might I could if I tried; but I am such an
Epikouros
that I don't want to try. I would sooner make money out of rubbish than be an artist like Volkovisk."
Max shrugged and elevated his eyebrows.
"A man must got to live," he said as he seized Jassy's arm and began gently to propel him back to the Café Román.
"Sure, I know," Jassy said; "but living ain't all having good clothes to wear and good food to eat. Living for an artist like Volkovisk is composing music worthy of an artist.
Aber
what do I do, Mister – "
"Merech," Max said.
"What do I do, Mr. Merech?" Jassy continued. "I am all the time throwing away my art in the streets with this rotten stuff I am composing."
"Well, I tell you," Max said after they had reëntered the café and had seated themselves at a table remote from the piano, "composing music is like manufacturing garments, Mr. Jassy. Some one must got to cater to the popular-price trade and only a few manufacturers gets to the point where they make up a highgrade line for the exclusive retailers. Ain't it?"
Jassy nodded as the waiter brought the cups of coffee.
"Now you take me, for instance," Max continued. "Once I worked by B. Gans, which I assure you, Mr. Jassy, it was a pleasure to handle the goods in that place. What an elegant line of silks and embroidery they got it there! Believe me, Mr. Jassy, every day I went to work there like I would be going to a wedding already, such a beautiful goods they made it!
Aber
now I am working by a popular-price concern, Mr. Jassy, which, you could take it from me, the colors them people puts together in one garment gives me the indigestion already!"
Again Jassy nodded sympathetically.
"And why did I make a change?" Max went on. "Because them people pays me seven dollars a week more as B. Gans, Mr. Jassy; and though art is art, understand me, seven dollars a week ain't to be coughed at neither."
For a few minutes Jassy sipped his coffee in silence.
"That's all right, too," he said; "but with garments you could make just so much money manufacturing a highgrade line as you could if you are making a popular-price line."
Max nodded sapiently.
"I give you right there," he agreed, "and that's because the manufacturer of the highgrade line does business in the same way as the popular-price concern.
Aber
you take the composer of highgrade music and all he does is compose. He's too proud to poosh it, Mr. Jassy; whereas the feller what composes popular music he's just the same like the feller what manufacturers a popular-price line of garments – he not only manufacturers his line but he pooshes it till he gets a market for it."
"There ain't no market for a highclass line of music," Jassy said hopelessly.
"Why ain't there?" M