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Morris asked. "Well, in the first place, Mawruss, to show you what a liar that feller Geigermann is, he brings out a fiddle which he tells us is three hundred years old." "Yow! Three hundred years old!" Morris exclaimed skeptically. "A fiddle three hundred years old would be worth, the very least, a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars." "That's what I told him, Mawruss," Abe said.
But with a feller like Moses M. Steuermann, which his folks was bankers in Frankfort-on-the-Main when Carnegie and Vanderbilt and all them other goyim was new beginners yet, Abe that's a different proposition entirely." Abe nodded and remained silent for a few minutes. "Might Felix Geigermann would go down and see him, Mawruss," he suggested finally.
Morris handed him a quarter and he shuffled off toward the backstairs. Meantime Abe staggered to his feet and passed his hand over his forehead. "Tell me, Mawruss," he said, "what is all this about?" "It's just what I says just now, Abe," Morris exploded. "That expert seen the wrong fiddle. The fiddle you gave Geigermann is no more three hundred years old than I am." "Why ain't it?" Abe asked.
"Do you mean to told me, Abe, that that there fiddle which you bought it from Shellak is the same identical article like Geigermann pays three thousand dollars for?" Abe nodded. "You couldn't tell the difference between 'em, Mawruss," he declared. "Even inside the label is the same the same name and everything." Morris took off his hat and coat methodically and hung them up on the rack.
"I don't suppose nothing, Abe," he said; "but once you let a shark like Rabiner get in with Geigermann, Klinger & Klein would give him the privilege to cut our price till they run us right out of there." "It's an open market, Mawruss," Abe said, "and anyhow I am doing all I can to keep that feller's business. You would think so if you would of been there last night, Mawruss.
I would go on theayter with him. I would schmier him tenspots when he's got the bid already, and I would go bate on hands which even a rotten player like you couldn't lose, Mawruss. But before I would got to sit through such another evening like last night, Mawruss, Felix Geigermann should never buy from us again a dollar's worth more goods. That's all I got to say." "Why, what was the matter?"
"The difference ain't much, Mawruss," he said slowly. "Only if Felix Geigermann pays three thousand for the fiddle which he already got it and we are giving him for nothing another fiddle, which is the selfsame, identical article, Mawruss, then we are out three thousand dollars and that's all the difference it makes to us!" For two minutes Morris regarded his partner with a glassy stare.
He paused for a reply, but none came. "And yet, Mawruss," he concluded, "that feller Harkavy was a wonder too; and I suppose, Mawruss, the way he picked up English would be a big consolation to us, Mawruss, if a good customer like Geigermann leaves us and goes over to Kleiman & Elenbogen." Morris grunted scornfully. "You are all the time looking for trouble, Abe," he said.
It was presented to Karanyi by the late Prince Ludovic Esterhazy, whose collection of Cremona violins, now preserved by his son, is said to be the finest in the world. Mr. Geigermann is the well-known Harlem dry-goods merchant. Louis Kleiman folded the paper and laid it on the table. "That's the way it goes, boys," he said in heightened tones, for by this time he had caught sight of Morris.
"The fiddle which I give Geigermann last night," Abe continued; "and if you don't believe me you could ask Shellak." "Shellak?" Morris repeated. "What the devil are you talking about, Abe?" "Yes, Shellak," Abe went on, "the cutter. He comes round here yesterday with a fiddle, Mawruss, which he wants to sell it to Nathan Schenkman. So I give him a hundred and twenty-five dollars for it und fertig."
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