Toward noon one day, after he had had his usual portion, after he had stood treat to all the woolen salesmen and the trimmings salesmen who were gathered at the bar, he quietly picked up the bar stubs and taking a little silver pencil which was attached to his watch chain he signed his name to the checks-and sliding them across to Patsy O’Dowd he said: “Tell Moffatt to charge them up to my account.” Then he quietly moved off and, inviting a few of his select cronies, he took a table in the dining room and commanded a spread. And when Adrian the frog presented the bill he calmly said: “Give me a pencil. There … them’s my demi-quivers. Charge it up to my account.” Since it was more pleasant to eat in the company of others he would always invite his cronies to lunch with him, saying to all and sundry-“if that bastard Moffatt won’t pay for his clothes then we’ll eat them.” And so saying he would commandeer a juicy squab, or a lobster a la Newburg, and wash it down with a fine Moselle or any other vintage that Adrian the frog might happen to recommend.
To all this Moffatt, surprisingly enough, pretended to pay no heed. He continued to order his usual allotment of clothes for winter, spring, fall and summer, and he also continued to squabble about the bill which had become easier to do now since it was complicated with bar checks, telephone calls, squabs, lobsters, champagne, fresh strawberries, Benedictines, etc., etc. In fact, the old man was eating into that bill so fast that spindleshanks Moffatt couldn’t wear his clothes out quickly enough. If he came in to order a pair of flannel trousers the old man had already eaten it the next day.
Finally Moffatt evinced an earnest desire to have the account straightened out. The correspondence ceased. Patting me on the back one day as I happened to be standing in the lobby he put on his most cordial manner and invited me upstairs to his private office. He said he had always regarded me as a very sensible young man and that we could probably straighten the matter out between ourselves, without bothering the old man. I looked over the accounts and I saw that the old man had eaten way into the minus side. I had probably eaten up a few raglans and shooting jackets myself. There was only one thing to do if we were to keep Tom Moffatt’s despised patronage and that was to find an error in the account. I took a bundle of bills under my arm and promised the old geezer that I would look into the matter thoroughly.
The old man was delighted when he saw how things stood. We kept looking into the matter for years. Whenever Tom Moffatt came round to order a suit the old man would greet him cheerily and say: “Have you straightened out that little error yet? Now here’s a fine Barathea weave that I laid aside for you… .” And Moffatt would frown and grimace and strut back and forth like a turkey cock, his comb bristling, his thin little legs blue with malice. A half hour later the old man would be standing at the bar swilling it down. “Just sold Moffatt another dinner jacket,” he would say. “By the way, Julian, what would you like to order for lunch today?”
It was toward noon, as I say, that the old man usually went down for an appetizer; lunch lasted anywhere from noon till f our or five in the afternoon. It was marvelous the companionship the old man enjoyed in those days. After lunch the troupe would stagger out of the elevator, spitting and guffawing, their cheeks aflame, and lodge themselves in the big leather chairs beside the cuspidors. There was Ferd Pattee who sold silk linings and trimmings such as skeins of thread, buttons, chest padding, canvas, etc. A great hulk of a man, like a liner that’s been battered by a typhoon, and always walking about in a somnambulistic state; so tired he was that he could scarcely move his lips, yet that slight movement of the lips kept everybody about him in stitches. Always muttering to himself-about cheeses particularly. He was passionate about cheese, about schmierkase and limburger especially-the moldier the better. In between the cheeses he told stories about Heine and Schubert, or he would ask for a match just as he was about to break wind and hold it under his seat so that we could tell him the color of the flame.
He never said good-by or see you tomorrow; he commenced talking where he had left off the day before, as though there had been no interruption of time. No matter whether it was nine in the morning or six in the evening he walked with the same exasperating slow shambling gait, muttering in his vici-kids, his head down, his linings and trimmings under his arm, his breath foul, his nose purple and translucent. Into the thickest traffic he would walk with head down, schmierkase in one pocket and limburger in the other. Stepping out of the elevator he would say in that weary monotonous voice of his that he had some new linings and the cheese was fine last night were you thinking of returning the book he had loaned you and better pay up soon if you want more goods like to see some dirty pictures please scratch my back there a little higher that’s it excuse me I’m going to fart now have you the time I can’t waste all day here better tell the old man to put on his hat it’s time to go for a drink. Still mumbling and grumbling he turns on his big scows and presses the elevator button while the old man with a straw hat on the back of his head is making a slide for the home plate from the back of the store, his face lit up with love and gratitude and saying: “Well, Ferd, how are you this morning? It’s good to see you.” And Ferd’s big heavy mask of a face relaxes for a moment into a broad amiable grin. Just a second he holds it and then, lifting his voice he bellows at the top of his lungs-so that even Tom Moffatt across the way can hear it-“BETTER PAY UP SOON WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK I’M SELLING THESE THINGS FOR?”
And as soon as the elevator has started down out comes little Rubin from the busheling room and with a wild look in his eye he says to me: “Would you like me to sing for you?” He knows damned well that I would. So, going back to the bench, he picks up the coat that he’s stitching and with a wild Cossack shout he lets loose.
If you were to pass him in the street, little Rubin, you would say “dirty little kike,” and perhaps he was a dirty little kike but he knew how to sing and when you were broke he knew how to put his hand in his pocket and when you were sad he was sadder still and if you tried to step on him he spat on your shoe and if you were repentant he wiped it off and he brushed you down and put a crease in. your trousers like Jesus H. Christ himself couldn’t do.
They were all midgets in the busheling roomRubin, Rapp, and Chaimowitz. At noon they brought out big round loaves of Jewish bread which they smeared with sweet butter and slivers of lox. While the old man was ordering squabs and Rhine wine Bunchek the cutter and the three little bushelmen sat on the big bench among the goose irons and the legs and sleeves and talked earnestly and solemnly about things like the rent or the ulcers that Mrs. Chaimowitz had in her womb. Bunchck was an ardent member of the Zionist party. He believed that the Jews had a happy future ahead of them. But despite it all he could never properly pronounce a word like “screw.” He always said: “He scrided her.” Besides his passion for Zionism Bunchek had another obsession and that was to make a coat one day that would hug the neck. Nearly all the customers were round-shouldered and potbellied, especially the old bastards who had nothing to do all day but run from the shirtmaker to the tailor and from the tailor to the jeweler’s and from
