Author: George Randolph Chester
Category: Humorous
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"Excuse me," refused Collaton. "If I ran across Johnny Gamble's pocket-book in a dark alley I'd walk square around it without stopping to look for the string to it."
Gresham rose.
"Then you won't take any part in the enterprise?"
"Not any," Collaton assured him with a wave of negation. "If Johnny will let me alone I'll let him alone, and be glad of the chance."
Later, Gresham saw Johnny come back and speak to Heinrich Schnitt; but he had no curiosity about it. Whatever affairs Johnny had in hand just now he might carry through unmolested, for Gresham was busy with larger plans for his future undoing.
CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH JOHNNY PLANS A REHEARSAL BETWEEN OLD FRIENDS
Johnny Gamble was waiting at the store when Louis Ersten came down the next morning. Mr. Ersten walked in with a portentous frown on his brow and began to take off his coat as he strode back toward the cutting room. He frowned still more deeply as Johnny confronted him.
"Again!" he exclaimed, looking about him in angry despair as if he had some wild idea of calling a porter. "First it's Lofty; then it's some slick real estate schemer; then it's you! I will not sell the lease!"
"I won't say lease this time," Johnny hastily assured him.
"Then that is good," gruffly assented Ersten with a trace of a sarcastic snarl.
"Heinrich Schnitt," remarked Johnny.
That name was an open sesame. Louis Ersten stopped immediately with his coat half-off.
"So-o-o!" he ejaculated, surprised into a German exclamation that he had long since deliberately laid aside. "What is it about Heinrich?"
"I saw him at Coney Island last night. He doesn't look well."
"He don't work. It makes him sick!" Ersten's voice was as gruff as ever; but Johnny, watching narrowly, saw that he was concerned, nevertheless.
"His eyes are bad," went on Johnny, "but I think he would like to come back to work."
"Did he say it?" asked Ersten with a haste which betrayed the eagerness he did not want to show.
"Not exactly," admitted Johnny, "but if he knew that he could have a workroom where there is a better light I know he would like to come. His eyes are bad, you know."
"I said it makes him sick not to work," insisted Ersten. "If he wants to come he knows the way."
"His job's waiting for him, isn't it?"
"In this place, yes. In no other place. I don't move my shop to please my coat cutter—even if he is the best in New York and a boy that come over from the old country with me in the same ship, and his word as good as gold money. It's like I told Heinrich when he left: If he comes back to me he comes back here—in this place. Are his eyes very bad?"
"Not very," judged Johnny. "He must take care of them though."
"Sure he must," agreed Ersten. "We're getting old. Thirty-seven years we worked together. I stood up for Heinrich at his wedding and he stood up for me at mine. He's a stubborn assel!"
"That's the trouble," mused Johnny, "He said he wouldn't work in this shop any more."
"Here must he come—in this place!" reiterated Ersten, instantly stern; and he walked sturdily away, removing his coat.
Johnny found Heinrich Schnitt weeding onions, picking out each weed with minute care and petting the tender young bulbs through their covering of soft earth as he went along. Mama Schnitt, divided into two bulges by an apron-string and wearing a man's broad-brimmed straw hat, stood placidly at the end of the row for company.
"Good morning, Mr. Schnitt," said Johnny cheerfully. "I have just come from Ersten's. He wants you to come back."
"Did he say it?" asked Heinrich with no disguise of his eagerness.
"Not exactly," admitted Johnny, "but he said that you are the best coat cutter in New York and that your job's waiting for you."
"I know it," asserted Heinrich. "Is he going to move?"
"Not just yet," was the diplomatic return. "He will after you go back to work, I think."
"I never work in that place again," announced the old man with a sigh. "I said it."
"That shop isn't light enough, is it?" suggested the messenger.
"There is no light and no room," agreed Heinrich.
"Your eyes began to give out on you, didn't they?"
Heinrich straightened himself and his waxen-white face turned a delicate pink with indignation.
"My eyes are like a young man's yet!" he stoutly maintained.
"You don't read much any more," charged Mama Schnitt.
"My glasses don't fit," he retorted to that.
"You changed them last winter," she insisted. "Now, papa, don't be foolish! You know your eyes got bad in Louis Ersten's dark workroom. You never tell lies. Say it!"
Heinrich struggled for a moment between his pride and his honesty.
"Well, maybe they ain't just so good as they was," he admitted.
"That's what I told Ersten," stated Johnny. "He's worried stiff about it! I think he'll move so you have a lighter workroom if you go back."
"When he moves I come."
"He won't move till you do."
"Then there is nothing," concluded Schnitt resignedly, and stooped over to pull another weed. "Mama, maybe Mr. Gamble likes some of that wine Carrie's husband made the year he died."
"Ja voll," assented Mamma Schnitt heartily, and toddled away to get it.
"I'll fix it for you," offered Johnny. "You go to Ersten and say you will come back; then Ersten will get a new place before you start to work."
Heinrich straightened up with alacrity this time, his face fairly shining with pleasure.
"I do that much," he agreed.
"Good!" approved Johnny. "You want to be careful what you say, though, for Ersten is stubborn."
"He is stubborn like a mule," Schnitt pointed out with sober gravity.
"You must say you have come back to work in that place."
"I'll never do it!" indignantly declared Heinrich, his face lengthening.
"Certainly not," agreed Johnny hurriedly. "You tell him you want a month to rest up your eyes."
"I don't need it!" protested Heinrich.
"You only say that so you won't have to work in that shop, but, never mind, I'll fix it so he offers it," patiently explained Johnny, and proceeded to make it perfectly plain. "You say that you have come back to work. Don't say another word."
"I have come back to work," repeated Schnitt.
"Then Ersten will ask you: 'In this place?' You say: 'Yes.'"
Heinrich began to shake his head vigorously, but Johnny gave him no chance to refuse.
"You say: 'Yes'!" he emphatically insisted. "Ersten will tell you to take a month off to rest your eyes."
Again Heinrich started to shake his head, and again Johnny hurried on.
"You say: 'Thank you'," he directed; "then you go away. Before your month is up, Ersten will send for you in a new shop!"
"Will he promise it?"
"No," confessed Johnny. "I promised it but Ersten will do it."
Heinrich pondered the matter long and soberly.
"All right; I try it," he agreed.
"Three cheers!" said Johnny with a huge sigh of relief. "I'll be back after you in about an hour." And he reluctantly paused long enough to drink some of the wine which Carrie's husband helped to make. It was probably good wine.
Ersten was in the cutting room when Johnny again arrived at the store, and a clerk took his name up very dubiously. The clerk returned, smiling with extreme graciousness, and informed the caller that he was to walk straight back. Johnny found Ersten in spectacles and apron, with a tape-line round his neck and a piece of chalk in his hand, and wearing a very worried look, while all the workmen in the room appeared subdued but highly nervous.
"Did you see him?" Ersten asked immediately.
"He is anxious to come back," Johnny was happy to state.
"When?" This very eagerly.
"To-day."
Ersten took his apron and the tape and threw them on a table with a slam.
"I invite you to have a glass of Rheinthranen," he offered.
"Thanks," returned Johnny carelessly, not quite appreciating the priceless honor. "I'll have Mr. Schnitt here in an hour, but you must be careful what you say to him. He is stubborn."
"Sure, I know it," impetuously agreed Ersten. "He is an old assel. What is to be said?" Johnny could feel the nervous tension of the room lighten as Ersten walked out with him.
"It will be like this," Johnny explained: "Schnitt will come in with me and say: 'I have come back to work.'"
"In this place?" demanded Ersten.
"Ask him that. He will say: 'Yes.'"
"Will he?" cried Ersten, unable to believe his ears.
"That's what he will say—but he won't do it."
"What is it?" exploded the shocked Ersten. "You say he says he will come back to work in this place, but he won't do it! That is foolishness!"
"No, it isn't," insisted Johnny. "Now listen carefully. Schnitt says: 'I have come back to work.' You say: 'In this place?' Schnitt says: 'Yes.' Then you tell him that he must take a month to rest up his eyes."
"But must I do his coat cutting for a month yet?" protested the abused Ersten. "Nobody can do it in New York for my customers but Heinrich Schnitt and me."
"It may not be a month. Just now he might take some of your more important work home, where the light is better. That would be working for you in this place."
"Well, maybe," admitted Ersten puffing out his cheeks in frowning consideration.
Johnny held his breath as he approached the crucial observation.
"By the time his eyes are rested you may have a better shop for the old man to work in."
Ersten fixed him with a burning glare.
"I see it!" he ejaculated. "You put this job up to make me sell my lease!"
Johnny looked him in the eye with a frank smile.
"Of course I did," he confessed. "I didn't know either you or Schnitt until yesterday."
Ersten knit his bristling brows, but presently grinned.
"You're a smart young man," he complimented. "But I don't promise Schnitt I move."
"Certainly not," agreed the smart young man, and mopped his brow. The fight was won! "Here is exactly what you must say"—and he went patiently over the entire dialogue again, word by word.
Ersten listened carefully with frowns at some parts.
"Well, I try it," he dubiously promised.
They were in front of Schoppenvoll's now; and Johnny, noting Ersten's fretfulness, proved himself a keen student of psychology by suggesting: "I'm thirsty for that special drink of yours, Ersten; but suppose we put it off till after I've brought Schnitt."
"Oh, well, if you say so," returned Ersten with poorly assumed indifference.
"It's as fine as a frog's feather!" Johnny assured Heinrich Schnitt half an hour later.
"Will he move?" asked Heinrich.
"Yes, but you mustn't say anything about it"
"Well, I like to know it," returned Heinrich with proper caution.
"I have his promise," asserted Johnny.
"Then he moves," declared Heinrich, fully satisfied.
The mediator conveyed Heinrich to Ersten's with much the same feeling that he would have endured in carrying a full plate of soup- -and he had that feeling all through the conference.
"Hello, Heinrich!" greeted Ersten with indifference.
"Hello, Louis!" returned Schnitt with equal nonchalance; then he assumed a rigid pose and recited: "I have come back to work."
"In this place?" asked Ersten, with parrotlike perfection.
A lump came into Heinrich Schnitt's throat. He struggled with that lump, but the simple word "Yes" would not come.
"I say yes; but I don't—"
Johnny jerked him violently by the sleeve.
"He said 'Yes'," he informed Ersten.
"Well, maybe," Ersten was decent enough to admit.
There was an uncomfortable pause in which the two men evinced a slight disposition to glare at each other.
"Mr. Schnitt's eyes are bad," suggested Johnny hopefully.
"My eyes are like a young man's!" asserted Schnitt, his pride coming uppermost.
"He needs a month to rest them," insisted the buffer, becoming a trifle panic-stricken; and he tapped the sole of Ersten's shoe with his foot.
"Must it take a month, Heinrich?" implored Ersten, taking the cue.
"Well, how soon you move?" inquired Schnitt.
"I don't promise I move!" flared Ersten.
"I never come back—"
"Till his eyes are better," hastily interrupted Johnny. "Look here, you fellows! You're balling up this rehearsal! Now let's get together. Schnitt, you'll come back to work in this place, won't you?"
"Well, I say it anyhow," admitted Schnitt reluctantly.
"Ersten, you offer him a month to rest his eyes, don't you?"
"I don't promise him I move!" bristled Ersten.
"We understand that," soothed Johnny, "all of us. Schnitt, you'll take some of Mr. Ersten's work home with you from this place, won't you?"
"Sure, I do that," consented Schnitt eagerly. "Louis, what is in the shop?"
Ersten had a struggle of his own.
"All what was in when you left," he bravely confessed. "That coat for Mrs. Follison gives me trouble for a week!"
"She's got funny shoulders," commented Schnitt with professional impersonality. "It's the left one. You cut it—Let me see it."
There was a sibilant sound as of many suppressed sighs of relief when Heinrich walked into the cutting room, but no man grinned or gave more than a curt nod of greeting—for the forbidding eye of Louis Ersten glared fiercely upon them. He strode across to the table held sacred to himself and spread down a piece of cloth, bounded by many curves. Heinrich Schnitt gave it but one comprehensive glance.
"Na, na, na!" he shrilly commented. "Here it is wrong!" And, grabbing up a slice of chalk, he made a deft swoop toward the material. Suddenly his arm stayed in mid air and he laid down the chalk with a muscular effort. "I think I take this home," he firmly announced.
"Heinrich, you come back after the work. Just now we go with Mr. Gamble to Schoppenvoll's and have a glass of Rheinthranen!" Ersten said.
"The Rheinthranen!" repeated Heinrich in awe; and for the first time his eyes moistened. "Louis, we was always friends!" And they shook hands.
Johnny Gamble, keen as he was, did not quite understand it; but, nevertheless, he had penetration enough to stroll nonchalantly out into the show-room, where Louis and Heinrich presently joined him, chattering like a Kaffe-klatsch; and they all walked round to Schoppenvoll's.
While Schnitt thanked Johnny for his interference until that modest young man blushed, Ersten argued seriously in whispers with Shoppenvoll to secure a bottle of the precious wine that only he and Schoppenvoll and Kurzerhosen had a right to purchase. Johnny drank his with dull wonder. It tasted just like Rhine wine!
While Heinrich Schnitt was back in the cutting room, carefully selecting every coat in the shop to take home with him, Ersten drew Johnny near the door.
"I fool him!" he announced with grinning cuteness. "I move right away. You get my lease for the best price what that smart-Aleck Lofty offered me. And another word: Whenever you want a favor you come to me!"
Johnny walked into the Lofty establishment with the feeling of a Napoleon. "How much will you give me for the Ersten lease?" he suggested out of a clear sky.
Young Willis Lofty sighed in sympathy with his bank-account.
"Have you really secured it?" he asked.
"I'm the winner," Johnny cheerfully assured him.
"If it's too much I'll build that tunnel," warned Lofty.
"Make me an offer."
"A hundred and twenty-five thousand."
"Nothing doing," stated Johnny with a smile. "There's no use fussing up our time though. I can tell you, to the cent, how much I must have. At four o'clock to-day I shall be nineteen hours behind my schedule, and I want a day for
a fresh start, which makes it twenty- six. At five thousand an hour, that makes a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. I paid Ersten a hundred thousand. Grand total: two hundred and thirty thousand."
"I don't understand your figures," protested Lofty.
"It's a private code," laughed the leaseholder, "but that's the price."
"I won't pay it," threatened the young merchant.
"Build your tunnel then," returned Johnny—but pleasantly, nevertheless. "Don't let's be nervous, Lofty. I might ask you a lot more, but that's the exact amount the system I'm playing calls for. I don't want any more and I won't take any less!"
Lofty studied his face contemplatively for a moment and rang for his treasurer.
"How did you get Ersten?" he was curious to know; and Johnny told him, to their mutual enjoyment.
At the nearest drug store Johnny called up Constance.
"Heinrich Schnitt is fixing your coat!" he announced.
"Danke!" she cried. "Did you get the lease?"
"Yes, and sold it to Lofty," he enthusiastically informed her. "The schedule is paid up until four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."
"Oh!" she gasped. "Wait a minute." He held the telephone while she consulted the score board and did some figuring. "That makes five hundred thousand of your million! Just half!"
"I'm coming around to see that diagram," he hastily stated.
CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH THE STRAW SAILOR HAT OF JOHNNY PLAYS AN EMBARRASSING ROLE
"My dear," observed Mr. Courtney as he and his wife approached the jessamine summer-house," do you pick your week-end guests from a city directory or do you draw the names from a hat?" Constance Joy, sitting in the summer-house with Johnny Gamble, rose and laughed lightly as a warning.
"My dear," retorted Mrs. Courtney very sweetly indeed and all unheeding of the laugh, "I pick them by a better system than you employ when you invite stag parties. You usually need to be introduced to your guests. Just whom would you like to have me send home?"
"Paul Gresham for one," replied Courtney bluntly, "and the entire Wobbles tribe, with their friend Birchard, for some more."
"I could be perfectly happy without them myself, Ben," sighed his wife, "but the Wobbles bachelors invite themselves whenever they please, and Paul Gresham was asked on account of Constance."