"If I would got such a head like you got it to think out schemes, Mr. Shimko," he said fervently, "I would be a millionaire, I bet yer!" 

 "The thinking out part is nothing," Shimko said, as he turned to leave. "Any blame fool could think out a scheme, y'understand, but it takes a pretty bright feller to make it work!" 

 "If a feller wouldn't be in business for himself," Shimko said to Isaac Meiselson, as they sat in Wasserbauer's Café that afternoon, "he might just as well never come over from Russland at all." 

 "I told you before, Mr. Shimko," Meiselson retorted, "I am from Lemberg geborn." 

 "Oestreich oder Russland, what is the difference?" Shimko asked. "If a feller is working for somebody else, nobody cares who he is or what he is; while if he's got a business of his own, understand me, everybody would respect him, even if he would be born in, we would say for example, China." 

 "Sure, I know, Mr. Shimko," Meiselson rejoined; "but there is businesses and businesses, and what for a business is a small retail clothing store on Canal Street?" 

 "Small the store may be, I ain't denying it," Shimko said; "but ain't it better a feller does a big business in a small store as a small business in a big store?" 

 "If he does a big business, yes," Meiselson admitted; "but if a feller does a big business, why should he want to got a partner?" 

 "Ain't I just telling you he don't want no partner?" Shimko interrupted. "And as for doing a big business, I bet yer we could drop in on the feller any time, and we would find the store full of people." 

 "Gewiss," Meiselson commented, "three people playing auction pinochle in a small store is a big crowd!" 

 "No auction pinochle gets played in that store, Meiselson. The feller has working by him two cutters and three salesmen, and he makes 'em earn their money. Only yesterday I am in the store, and if you would believe me, Meiselson, his own landlord he wouldn't talk to at all, so busy he is." 

 "In that case, what for should he need me for a partner I couldn't understand at all," Meiselson declared. 

 "Neither could I," Shimko replied, "but a feller like you, which he would soon got two thousand dollars to invest, needs him for a partner. 

 Prev. P 29/208 next