Mr. Louis Mintz What Comes to Work by Us
P O T A S H &
P E R L M U T T E R
THEIRCOPARTNERSHIP VENTURES
AND ADVENTURES
by
Montague Glass
ILLUSTRATED
G R O S S E T & D U N L A P
PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
Copyright, 1909, by The Curtis Publishing Company
Copyright, 1910, byHoward E. Altemus
Copyrighted 1911, by Doubleday, Page &Company.
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
Potash & Perlmutter
CHAPTER I
"No, siree, sir," Abe Potashexclaimed as he drew a check to the order of his attorney for a hundredand fifty dollars, "I would positively go it alone from now on till Idie, Noblestone. I got my stomach full with Pincus Vesell already, andif Andrew Carnegie would come to me and tell me he wants to go with meas partners together in the cloak and suit business, I would say 'No,'so sick and tired of partners I am."
For the twentieth time he examined the dissolution agreement which hadended the firm of Vesell & Potash, and then he sighed heavily andplaced the document in his breast pocket.
"Cost me enough, Noblestone, I could assure you," he said.
"A hundred and fifty ain't much, Potash, for a big lawyer like Feldman,"Noblestone commented.
Abe flipped his fingers in a gesture of deprecation.
"That is the least, Noblestone," he rejoined. "First and last I bet youI am out five thousand dollars on Vesell. That feller got an idee thatthere [Pg 8]ain't nothing to the cloak and suit business but auctionpinochle and taking out-of-town customers to the theayter. Hard work issomething which he don't know nothing about at all. He should of been inthe brokering business."
"The brokering business ain't such a cinch neither," Noblestone retortedwith some show of indignation. "A feller what's in the brokeringbusiness has got his troubles, too, Potash. Here I've been trying tofind an opening for a bright young feller with five thousand dollarscash, y'understand, and also there ain't a better designer in thebusiness, y'understand, and I couldn't do a thing with the proposition.Always everybody turns me down. Either they got a partner already orthey're like yourself, Potash, they just got through with a partnerwhich done 'em up good."
"If you think Pincus Vesell done me up good, Noblestone," Potash said,"you are mistaken. I got better judgment as to let a lowlife like himget into me, Noblestone. I lost money by him, y'understand, but at thesame time he didn't make nothing neither. Vesell is one of them fellerswhat you hear about which is nobody's enemy but his own."
"The way he talks to me, Potash," Noblestone replied, "he ain't suchfriends to you neither."
"He hates me worser as poison," Abe declared fervently, "but that ain'tneither here nor there, Noblestone. I'm content he should be my enemy.He's the k