Elkan Lubliner, American

Chapter One

NOBLESSE OBLIGE

POLATKIN & SCHEIKOWITZ CONSERVE THE HONOUR OF THEIR FAMILIES

"Nu, Philip," cried Marcus Polatkin to his partner, Philip Scheikowitz, as they sat in the showroom of their place of business one June morning, "even if the letter does got bad news in it you shouldn't take on so hard. When a feller is making good over here and the Leute im Russland hears about it, understand me, they are all the time sending him bad news. I got in Minsk a cousin by the name Pincus Lubliner, understand me, which every time he writes me, y'understand, a relation dies on him and he wants me I should help pay funeral expenses. You might think I was a Free Burial Society, the way that feller acts."

"Sure, I know," Philip replied as he folded the letter away; "but this here is something else again. Mind you, with his own landlord he is sitting playing cards, Marcus, and comes a pistol through the window and the landlord drops dead."

"What have you got to do with the landlord?" Polatkin retorted. "If it was your brother-in-law was killed that's a difference matter entirely; but when a feller is a landlord im Russland, understand me, the least he could expect is that he gets killed once in a while."

"I ain't saying nothing about the landlord," Philip protested, "but my brother-in-law writes they are afraid for their lives there and I should send 'em quick the passage money for him and his boy Yosel to come to America."

Polatkin rose to his feet and glared angrily at his partner.

"Do you mean to told me you are going to send that loafer money he should come over here and bum round our shop yet?"

"What do you mean bum round our shop?" Philip demanded. "In the first place, Polatkin, I ain't said I am going to send him money, y'understand; and, in the second place, if I want to send the feller money to come over here, understand me, that's my business. Furthermore, when you are coming to call my brother-in-law a loafer and a bum, Polatkin, you don't know what you are talking about. His Grossvater, olav hasholem, was the great Harkavy Rav, Jochannon Borrochson."

"I heard that same tale before," Polatkin interrupted. "A feller is a Schlemiel and a lowlife which he couldn't support his wife and children, understand me, and it always turns out his grandfather was a big rabbi in the old country. The way it is with me, Scheikowitz, just so soon as I am hearing a feller's grandfather was a big rabbi in the old country, Scheikowitz, I wouldn't got nothing more to do with him. If he works for you in your place, understand me, then he fools away your time telling the operators what a big rabbi his grandfather was; and if he's a customer, Scheikowitz, and you write him ten days after the account is overdue he should pay you what he owes you, instead he sends you a check, understand me, he comes down to the store and tells you what a big rabbi he's got it for a grandfather. Gott sei Dank I ain't got no Rabonim in my family."

"Sure, I know," Philip cried, "your father would be glad supposing he could sign his name even."

Polatkin shrugged his shoulders.

"It would oser worry me if my whole family couldn't read or write. So long as I can sign my name and the money is in the bank to make the check good from five to ten thousand dollars, y'understand, what do I care if my grandfather would be deef, dumb and blind, Scheikowitz? Furthermore, Scheikowitz, believe me I would sooner got one good live business man for a partner, Scheikowitz, than a million dead rabbis for a grandfather, and don't you forget it. So if you are going to spend the whole morning making a Geschreierei over that letter, Scheikowitz, we may as well close up the store und fertig."

With this ultimatum Marcus Polatkin walked rapidly away toward the cutting room, while Philip Scheikowitz sought the foreman of their manufacturing department and borrowed a copy of a morning paper. It was printed in the vernacular of the lower East Side, and Philip bore it to his desk, where for more than half an hour he alternately consulted the column of steamboat advertising and made figures on the back of an envelope. These represented the cost of a journey for two persons from Minsk to New York, based on Philip's hazy recollection of his own emigration, fifteen years before, combined with his experience as travelling salesman in the Southern States for a popular-price line of pants.

At length he concluded his calculations and with a heavy sigh he put on his hat just as his partner returned from the cutting room.

"Nu!" Polatkin cried. "Where are you going now?"

"I am going for a half an hour somewheres," Philip replied.

"What for?" Polatkin demanded.

"What for is my business," Philip answered.

"Your business?" Polatkin exclaimed. "At nine o'clock in the morning one partner puts on his hat and starts to go out, verstehst du, and when the other partner asks him where he is going it's his business, sagt er! What do you come down here at all for, Scheikowitz?"

"I am coming down here because I got such a partner, Polatkin, which if I was to miss one day even I wouldn't know where I stand at all," Scheikowitz retorted. "Furthermore, you shouldn't worry yourself, Polatkin; for my own sake I would come back just so soon as I could."

Despite the offensive repartee that accompanied Philip's departure, however, he returned to find Polatkin entirely restored to good humour by a thousand-dollar order that had arrived in the ten-o'clock mail; and as Philip himself felt the glow of conscious virtue attendant upon a good deed economically performed, he immediately fell into friendly conversation with his partner.

"Well, Marcus," he said, "I sent 'em the passage tickets, and if you ain't agreeable that Borrochson comes to work here I could easy find him a job somewheres else."

"If we got an opening here, Philip, what is it skin off my face if the feller comes to work here," Polatkin answered, "so long as he gets the same pay like somebody else?"

"What could I do, Marcus?" Philip rejoined, as he took off his hat and coat preparatory to plunging into the assortment of a pile of samples. "My own flesh and blood I must got to look out for, ain't it? And if my sister Leah, olav hasholem, would be alive to-day I would of got 'em all over here long since ago already. Ain't I am right?"

Polatkin shrugged. "In family matters one partner couldn't advise the other at all," he said.

"Sure, I know," Philip concluded, "but when a feller has got such a partner which he is a smart, up-to-date feller and means good by his partner, understand me, then I got a right to take an advice from him about family matters, ain't it?"

And with these honeyed words the subject of the Borrochson family's assisted emigration was dismissed until the arrival of another letter from Minsk some four weeks later.

"Well, Marcus," Philip cried after he had read it, "he'll be here Saturday."

"Who'll be here Saturday?" Polatkin asked.

"Borrochson," Philip replied; "and the boy comes with him."

Polatkin raised his eyebrows.

"I'll tell you the honest truth, Philip," he said--"I'm surprised to hear it."

"What d'ye mean you're surprised to hear it?" Philip asked. "Ain't I am sending him the passage tickets?"

"Sure, I know you are sending him the tickets," Polatkin continued, "but everybody says the same, Philip, and that's why I am telling you, Philip, I'm surprised to hear he is coming; because from what everybody is telling me it's a miracle the feller ain't sold the tickets and gambled away the money."

"What are you talking nonsense, selling the tickets!" Philip cried indignantly. "The feller is a decent, respectable feller even if he would be a poor man."

"He ain't so poor," Polatkin retorted. "A thief need never got to be poor, Scheikowitz."

"A thief!" Philip exclaimed.

"That's what I said," Polatkin went on, "and a smart thief too, Scheikowitz. Gifkin says he could steal the buttons from a policeman's pants and pass 'em off for real money, understand me, and they couldn't catch him anyhow."

"Gifkin?" Philip replied.

"Meyer Gifkin which he is working for us now two years, Scheikowitz, and a decent, respectable feller," Polatkin said relentlessly. "If Gifkin tells you something you could rely on it, Scheikowitz, and he is telling me he lives in Minsk one house by the other with this feller Borrochson, and such a lowlife gambler bum as this here feller Borrochson is you wouldn't believe at all."

"Meyer Gifkin says that?" Philip gasped.

"So sure as he is working here as assistant cutter," Polatkin continued. "And if you think that this here feller Borrochson comes to work in our place, Scheikowitz, you've got another think coming, and that's all I got to say."

Continue reading Elkan Lubliner, American free in the Wunder reader →