Zapp clucked his tongue sympathetically.
"If it ain't one thing it's another," he said; "so, if you're ready to look over the rest of our line, Mr. Feigenbaum, I could assure you the first operator which he is going into a mutual aid society here gets fired on the spot, Mr. Feigenbaum. We would start showing you these here washable poplins, which is genuine bargains at one seventy-five apiece."
When Louis Birsky seated himself in Hammersmith's restaurant at one o'clock that afternoon his appetite had been sharpened by a two-thousand dollar order from Henry Feigenbaum, who that noon had departed for his home in western Pennsylvania. Hence Louis attacked a dish of gefüllte Rinderbrust with so much ardour that he failed to notice the presence at an adjoining table of Jonas Eschenbach, the philanthropic drygoods merchant; and it was not until Louis had sopped up the last drop of gravy and leaned back in voluptuous contemplation of ordering his dessert that the strident tones of Charles Finkman, senior member of Finkman & Maisener, attracted his attention.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Eschenbach?" Finkman cried. "What brings you to New York?"
"I got to do some additional spring buying the same like every other drygoods merchant," Eschenbach replied. "You've no idee what elegant weather we got it out on the Lakes this spring. Spring styles was selling like hot cakes in March already; and our store employees' association held a picnic the first Sunday in April which we beat the tar out of a nine from a furniture factory—five to four in a ten-inning game."
"Is that a fact?" Finkman said. "Aber how does it come that you are lunching alone, Mr. Eschenbach?"
"Adelstern was coming with me," Eschenbach replied, "but at the last minute he had to attend the weekly luncheon of his cutting staff. It's wonderful the way that feller has got his workpeople organized, Mr. Finkman! He's a very enlightened merchant, with a lot of very fine idees for the welfare of his employees. And you can well believe it, Mr. Finkman, goods made under such ideel conditions are very attractive to me. I've been a customer of Adelstern's for many years now; and sometimes, if he ain't got exactly what I am looking for, I take the next best thing from him. I believe in encouraging idees like Adelstern's—especially when he is got a very nifty little ball team in his society, too."
If there was one quality above all others upon which Charles Finkman prided himself it was his philanthropy; and as a philanthropist he yielded precedence to nobody. Indeed, his name graced the title pages of as many institutional reports as there were orphan asylums, hospitals, and homes appurtenant to his religious community within the boundaries of Greater New York; for both he and his partner had long since discovered that as an advertising medium the annual report of a hospital is superior to an entire year's issue of a trade journal, and the cost is distinctly lower. The idea that philanthropy among one's own employees could promote sales had never occurred to him, however, and it came as a distinct shock that he had so long neglected this phase of salesmanship.
"Why, I never thought that any concern in the cloak and suit business was doing such things." Finkman continued; and his tones voiced his chagrin at the discovery of Adelstern's philanthropic innovation. "I knew that drygoods stores like yours, Mr. Eschenbach, they got a lot of enlightened idees, but I never knew nobody which is doing such things in the cloak and suit trade."