William Morris - "Poems by the Way"

Ambrose Bierce - "The Parenticide Club"

Ivan Turgenev - "On the Eve"

Samuel Johnson - "Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Rise of David Levinsky

A >> Abraham Cahan >> The Rise of David Levinsky




It was clear that Huntington had visited it or was going to, while I
could not even get him to hear my prices. Was that fair? I saw the
law of free competition, the great law of struggle and the survival
of the fittest, defied, violated, desecrated

I discovered the residence of Huntington's assistant, and called on
her. I had offered presents to other assistant buyers and some of
them had been accepted, so I tried the same method in this
case--with an unfortunate result. Huntington's assistant not only
rejected my bribe, but flew into a passion to boot, and it was all
my powers of pleading could do to have her promise me not to
report the matter to her principal

I learned that Huntington was a member of the Elks and a
frequenter of their local club-house, but, unfortunately, I was not a
member of that order

I went to the Yiddish-speaking quarter of St. Louis, made the
acquaintance of a man who was ready to sell me, on the
instalment plan, everything under the sun, from a house lot and a
lottery ticket to a divorce, and who undertook to find me (for ten
dollars) somebody who would give me a "first-class introduction"
to Huntington; but his eager eloquence failed to convince me. I
had my coat pressed by a Jewish tailor whose place was around
the corner from Huntington's residence and who pressed his suits
for him. I had a shave in the barber shop at which Huntington kept
his shaving-cup. I learned something of the great man's family
life, of his character, ways, habits. It proved that he lived quite
modestly, and that his income was somewhere between sixty and
seventy dollars a week. Mine was three times as large. That I
should have to rack my brains, do detective work, and be
subjected to all sorts of humiliation in an effort to obtain an
audience with him seemed to be a most absurd injustice

I was losing precious time, but I could not bring myself to get
away from St. Louis without having had the desired interview.
Huntington's name was buzzing in my mind like an insect. It was a
veritable obsession

My talk with his barber led me to a bowling-alley. Being a
passionate bowler, the cloak-buyer visited the place for an hour or
so three or four times a week. As a consequence of this discovery
I spent two afternoons and an evening there, practising a game
which I had never even heard of before

My labors were not thrown away. The next evening I saw
Huntington and a son of his in the place and we bowled some
games together. Seen at close range, the cloak-buyer was a
commonplace-looking fellow. I thought that he did not look much
older than his son, and that both of them might have just stepped
out from behind a necktie counter. I searched the older man's
countenance for marks of astuteness, initiative, or energy, without
being able to find any. But he certainly was a forcible bowler

When he made a sensational hit and there broke out a roar of
admiration I surpassed all the other bystanders in exuberance. "I
must not overdo it, though," I cautioned myself. "He cannot be a
fool. He'll see through me." His son was apparently very proud of
him, so I said to the young man: "Anybody can see your father is
an energetic man."

"You bet he is," the young man returned, appreciatively. I led him
on and he told me about his father's baseball record. I dropped a
remark about his being "successful in business as well as in
athletics" and wound up by introducing myself and asking to be
introduced to his father. It was a rather dangerous venture, for the
older Huntington was apt to remember my name, in which case
my efforts might bring me nothing but a rebuff. Anyhow, I took
the plunge and, to my great delight, he did not seem ever to have
heard of me

Ten minutes later the three of us were seated over glasses of lager
in the beer-garden with which the bowling-alley was connected. I
told them that I was from New York and that I had come to St.
Louis partly on business and partly to visit a sister who lived in
their neighborhood. The elder Huntington said something of the
rapid growth of New York, of its new high buildings. His English
was curiously interspersed with a bookish phraseology that
seemed to be traceable to the high-flown advertisements of his
department in the newspapers. I veered the conversation from the
architectural changes that had come over New York to changes of
an ethnographic character.

"Our people, immigrants from Russia, I mean, are beginning to
play a part in the business life of the city," I said

"Are you a Russian?" he asked

"I used to be," I answered, with a smile. "I am an American now."

"That's right."

"You see, we are only new-comers. The German Jews began
coming a great many years ahead of us, but we can't kick, either."

"I suppose not," he said, genially.

"For one thing, we are the early bird that gets, or is bound to get,
the worm. I mean it in a literal sense. Our people go to business at
a much earlier hour and go home much later. There is quite a
number of them in your line of business, too."

"I know," he said. "Of course, the 'hands' are mostly Russian
Hebrews, but some of them have gone into manufacturing, and I
don't doubt but they'll make a success of it."

"Why, they are making a success of it, Mr. Huntington."

I felt that I was treading on risky gound, that he might smell a rat
at any moment; but I felt, also, that when he heard why
manufacturers of my type were able to undersell the big old firms
he would find my talk too tempting to cut it short. And so I rushed
on. I explained that the Russian cloak-manufacturer operated on a
basis of much lower profits and figured down expenses to a point
never dreamed of before; that the German-American
cloak-manufacturer was primarily a merchant, not a tailor; that he
was compelled to leave things to his designer and a foreman,
whereas his Russian competitor was a tailor or cloak-operator
himself, and was, therefore, able to economize in ways that never
occurred to the heads of the old houses.

"I see," Huntington said, with a queer stare at me

"Besides, our people content themselves with small profits," I
pursued. "We are modest."

Here I plagiarized an epigram I had heard from Meyer Nodelman:
"Our German co-religionists will spend their money before they
have made it, while we try to make it first."

I expected Huntington to smile, but he did not. He was listening
with sphinx-like gravity. When I paused, my face and my ears
burning, he said, with some embarrassment: "What is your
business, may I ask?" "I am in the same line. Cloaks." "Are you?"
With another stare

Tense with excitement, I said, with daredevil recklessness: "The
trouble is that successful men like yourself are so hard to get at,
Mr.

Huntington."

"What do you mean?" he said, with a cryptic laugh

I made a clean breast of it

Perhaps he was flattered by my picture of him as an inaccessible
magnate; perhaps he simply appreciated the joke of the thing and
the energy and tenacity I had brought to it, but he let me narrate
the adventure in detail.

I told him the bare truth, and I did so with conscious
simple-heartedness, straining every nerve to make a favorable
impression

As he listened he repeatedly broke into laughter, and when I had
finished he said to his son: "Sounds like a detective story, doesn't
it?"

But his demeanor was still enigmatic, and I anxiously wondered
whether I impressed him as an energetic business man or merely
as an adventurer, a crank, or even a crook

"All I ask for is an opportunity to show you my samples, Mr.
Huntington," I said.

"Well," he answered, deliberately, "there can be no harm in that."
And after a pause, "You've bagged your game so far as that's
concerned."

And he merrily made me an appointment for the next morning

About a month later I came across Loeb on Broadway, New York

"By the way," he said, in the course of our brief talk, with a
twinkle in his eve, "did you sell anything to Huntington?"
"Huntington? St. Louis? Why, he really is a hard man to reach," I
answered, glumly.

At that very moment my cutters were at work on a big order from
Huntington, largely for copies from Loch's styles. I had filled a
test order of his so promptly and so completely to his satisfaction,
and my prices were so overwhelmingly below those in Loch's bill,
that the St. Louis buyer had wired me a "duplicate" for eight
hundred suits

There was a buyer in Cleveland, a bright, forceful little man who
would not let a salesman quote his price until he had made a guess
at it. His name was Lemmelmann. He was an excellent business
man and a charming fellow, but he had a weakness for parading
his ability to estimate the price of a garment "down to a cent." The
salesmen naturally humored this ambition of his and every time
he made a correct guess they would applaud him without stint, and
I would follow their example. On one occasion I came to
Cleveland with two especially prepared compliments in my mind

"Every human being has five senses," I said to the little buyer.
"You have six, Mr. Lemmelmann. You were born with a price
sense besides the ordinary five."

"My, but it's a good one," he returned, jovially

"Yes, you have more senses than anybody else, Mr.
Lemmelmann," I added.

"You're the most sensible man in the world."

"Why--why, you can send stuff like that to Puck or Judge and get a
five-dollar bill for it. How much will you charge me? Will that
do?" he asked, handing me a cigar

The two compliments cemented our friendship. At least, I thought
they did

Another buyer, in Atlanta, Georgia, had a truly wonderful memory.
He seemed to remember every sample he had ever seen--goods,
lines, trimmings, price, and all. He was an eccentric man.
Sometimes he would receive a crowd of salesmen in rapid
succession, inspect their merchandise and hear their prices
without making any purchase. Later, sometimes on the same day,
he would send out orders for the "numbers" that had taken his
fancy

While showing him my samples one morning I essayed to express
amazement at his unusual memory. But in this case I mistook my
man

"If everybody had your marvelous memory there would be little
work for bookkeepers," I jested

Whereupon he darted an impatient glance at me and growled:
"Never mind my memory. You sell cloaks and suits, don't you? If
you deal in taffy, you'll have to see the buyer of the candy
department."

CHAPTER VI HUNTINGTON was a rising man and the other
cloak-buyers were watchng him.

When it became known that there was a young manufacturer
named Levinsky with whom he was placing heavy orders I began
to attract general attention. My reputation for selling "first-rate
stuff" for the lowest prices quoted spread. Buyers would call at my
rookery of a shop before I had time to seek an interview with
them. The appearance of my place and the crudity of my office
facilities, so far from militating against my progress, helped to
accelerate it. Skeptical buyers who had doubted my ability to
undersell the old-established houses became convinced of it when
they inspected my primitive-looking establishment.

The place became far too small for me. I moved to much larger
quarters, consisting of the two uppermost floors and garret of a
double tenement-house of the old type. A hall bedroom was
converted into an office, the first separate room I ever had for the
purpose, and I enjoyed the possession of it as much as I had done
my first check-book. I had a lounge put in it, and often, at the
height of the manufacturing season, when I worked from daybreak
far into the night and lived on sandwiches, I would, instead of
going home for the night, snatch three or four hours' sleep on it.
The only thing that annoyed me was a faint odor of mold which
filled my bedroom-office and which kept me in mind of the
Margolises' old apartment.

There was the pain of my second love-affair in that odor, for,
although I had not seen Dora nor heard of her for more than two
years, I still thought of her often, and when I did her image still
gave me pangs of yearning.

There was an air of prosperity and growth about my new place, but
this did not interfere with the old air of skimpiness and cheapness
as to running expenses and other elements that go to make up the
cost of production

Bender's salary had been raised substantially, so much so that he
had resigned his place as evening-school teacher, devoting
himself exclusively to my shop and office. He was provokingly
childish as ever, but he had learned a vast deal about the cloak
business, its mechanical branch as well as the commercial end of
it, and his usefulness had grown enormously

One morning I was hustling about my garret floor, vibrating with
energy and self-importance, when he came up the stairs, saying:
"There is a woman on the main floor who wants to see you. She
says you know her." Was it Dora? I descended the stairs in a
flutter

I was mistaken. It was Mrs. Chaikin. She looked haggard and more
than usually frowsy. The cause of her pitiable appearance was no
riddle to me. I knew that her husband's partner had made a mess
of their business and that Chaikin had lost all his savings. "Does
she want a loan?" I speculated

My first impulse was to take her to my little office, but I instantly
realized that it would not be wise to flaunt such a mark of my
advancement before her. I offered her a chair in a corner of the
room in which I found her

"How is Chaikin? How is Maxie?"

"Thank God, Maxie is quite a boy," she answered, coyly. "Why
don't you come to see him? Have you forgotten him? He has not
forgotten you. Always asking about 'Uncle Levinsky.' Some little
children have a better memory than some grown people."

Having delivered this thrust, she swept my shop with a sepulchral
glance, followed by a succession of nods. Then she said, with a
grin at once wheedling and malicious: "There are two more floors,
aren't there? And I see you're very busy, thank God. Plenty of
orders, hey? Thank God. Well, when Chaikin gets something
started and there is nobody to spoil it, it's sure to go well. Isn't it?"

"Chaikin is certainly a fine designer," I replied, noncommittally,
wondering what she was driving at

"A fine designer! Is that all?" she protested, with exquisite
sarcasm. "And who fixed up this whole business? styles got the
business started and gave it the name it has? Only 'a fine designer,'
indeed! It's a good thing you admit that much at least. Well, but
what's the use quarreling? I am here as a friend, not to make
threats. That's not in my nature."

She gave me a propitiating look, and paused for my reply. "What
do you mean, Mrs. Chaikin?" I asked, with an air of complaisant
perplexity

"'What do you mean?'" she mocked me, suavely. "Poor fellow, he
doesn't understand what a person means. He has no head on his
shoulders, the poor thing. But what's the good beating about the
bush, Levinsky? I am here to tell you that we have decided to
come back and be partners again."

I did not burst into laughter. I just looked her over, and said, in the
calmest and most business-like manner: "That's impossible, Mrs.
Chaikin. The business doesn't need any partner."

"Doesn't need any partner! But it's ours, this business, as much as
yours; even more. It is our sweat and our blood. Why, you hadn't a
cent to your name when we started it, and you know it. And what
did you have, pray? Did you know anything about cloaks? Could
you do anything without Chaikin?"

"We won't argue about it, Mrs. Chaikin."

"Not argue about it?"

She was working herself into a rage, but she nipped it in the bud.
"Now, look here, Levinsky," she said, with fresh suavity. "I have
told you I haven't come here to pick a quarrel. Maxie misses you
very much. He's always speaking about you." She tried a tone of
persuasion. "When Chaikin and you are together again the
business will go like grease. You know it will. He'll be the inside
man and you'll attend to the outside business. You won't have to
worry about anything around the shop, and, well, I needn't tell you
what his designs will do for the business. Why, the Manheimers
are just begging him to become their partner" (this was a lie, of
course), "but I say: 'No, Chaikin! Better let us stick to our own
business, even if it is much smaller, and let's be satisfied with
whatever God is pleased to give us.'" Her protestations and
pleadings proving ineffectual, she burst into another fury and
made an ugly scene, threatening to retain "the biggest lawyer in
the 'Nited States" and to commence action against me

I smiled

"Look at him! He's smiling!" she said, addressing herself to some
of my men.

"He thinks he can swindle people and be left alone."

"Better go home, Mrs. Chaikin," I said, impatiently. "I have no
time." "All right. We shall see!" she snapped, flouncing out.
Before she closed the door on herself she returned and, stalking up
to the chair which she had occupied a minute before, she seated
herself again, defiantly. "Chase me out, if you dare," she said,
with a sneer, her chin in the air. "I should just like to see you do it.
Should like to see you chase me out of my own shop. It's all mine!
all mine!" she shouted, her voice mounting hysterically. "All
mine! Chaikin's sweat and blood. You're a swindler, a thief! I'll
put you in Sing Sing."

She went off into a swoon, more or less affected, and when I had
brought her to herself she shed a flood of quiet tears

"Take pity, oh, do take pity!" she besought, patting my hand. "You
have a Jewish heart; you'll take pity."

There was nothing for it but to edge out of the room and to hide
myself

A week later she came again, this time with Maxie, whom I had
not seen for nearly three years and who seemed to have grown to
double his former size.

On this occasion she threatened to denounce me to the
Cloak-makers' Union for employing scab labor. Finally she made
a scene that caused me to whisper to Bender to telephone for a
policeman. Before complying, however, he tried persuasion.

"You had better go, madam," he said to her, meekly. "You are
excited."

Partly because he was a stranger to her, but mainly, I think,
because of his American appearance and English, she obeyed him
at once.

The next day her husband came. He looked so worn and wretched
and he was so ill at ease as he attempted to explain his errand that
I could scarcely make out his words, but I received him well and
my manner was encouraging, so he soon found his tongue

"Don't you care to have it in the old way again?" he said, piteously

"Why, I wish I could, Mr. Chaikin. I should be very glad to have
you here. I mean what I say. But it's really impossible."

"I should try my best, you know." "I know you would."

After a pause he said: "She'll drive me into the grave. She makes
my life so miserable."

"But it was she who made you get out of our partnership," I
remarked, sympathetically

"Yes, and now she blames it all on me. When she heard you had
moved to a larger place she fainted. Couldn't you take me back?"

He finally went to work as a designer for one of the old firms, at a
smaller salary than his former employers had paid him

For the present I continued to worry along with my free-lance
designer, but as a matter of fact Chaikin's wonderful feeling for
line and color was, unbeknown to himself, in my service. The
practice of pirating designs was rapidly becoming an open secret,
in fact. Styles put out by the big houses were copied by some of
their tailors, who would sell the drawing for a few dollars to some
of the smaller houses in plenty of time before the new cloak or
suit had been placed on the market. In this manner it was that I
obtained, almost regularly, copies of Chaikin's latest designs

The period of dire distress that smote the country about this
time--the memorable crisis of 1893--dealt me a staggering blow,
but I soon recovered from it. The crisis had been preceded by a
series of bitter conflicts between the old manufacturers and the
Cloak-makers' Union, in the form of lockouts, strikes, and
criminal proceedings against the leaders of the union, which had
proved fatal to both. The union was still in existence, but it was a
mere shadow of the formidable body that it had been three years
before. And, as work was scarce, labor could be had for a song, as
the phrase goes. This enabled me to make a number of
comparatively large sales.

To tell the truth, the decay of the union was a source of regret to
me, as the special talents I had developed for dodging it while it
was powerful had formerly given me an advantage over a majority
of my competitors which I now did not enjoy. Everybody was now
practically free from its control.

Everybody could have all the cheap labor he wanted

Still, I was one of a minority of cloak-manufacturers who
contrived to bring down the cost of production to an
extraordinarily low level, and so I gradually obtained considerable
business, rallying from the shock of the panic before it was well
over

CHAPTER VII THE panic was followed by a carnival of
prosperity of which I received a generous share. My business was
progressing with leaps and bounds

The factory and office were moved to Broadway. This time it was
a real office, with several bookkeepers, stenographers, model
girls, and golden legends on the doors. These legends were always
glittering in my mind

People were loading me with flattery. Everybody was telling me
that I had "got there," and some were hinting, or saying in so many
words, that I was a man of rare gifts, of exceptional character. I
accepted it all as my due.

Nay, I regarded myself as rather underestimated. "They don't really
understand me," I would think to myself. "They know that I
possess brains and grit and all that sort of thing, but they are too
commonplace to appreciate the subtlety of my thoughts and
feelings."

Every successful man is a Napoleon in one thing at least--in
believing himself the ward of a lucky star. I was no exception to
this rule. I came to think myself infallible

In short, prosperity had turned my head

I looked upon poor people with more contempt than ever. I still
called them "misfits," in a Darwinian sense. The removal of my
business to Broadway was an official confirmation of my being
one of the fittest, and those golden inscriptions on my two office
doors seemed to proclaim it solemnly

At the same time I did not seem to be successful enough. I felt as
though my rewards were inadequate. I was now worth more than
one hundred thousand dollars, and the sum did not seem to be
anything to rejoice over. My fortune was not climbing rapidly
enough. I was almost tempted to stamp my foot and snarlingly
urge it on. Only one hundred thousand! Why, there were so many
illiterate dunces who had not even heard of Darwin and Spencer
and who were worth more

There were moments, however, when my success would seem
something incredible. That was usually when I chanced to think of
some scene of my past life with special vividness. Could it be
possible that I was worth a hundred thousand dollars, that I wore
six-dollar shoes, ate dollar lunches, and had an army of employees
at my beck and call? I never recalled my unrealized dreams of a
college education without experiencing a qualm of regret

One day--it was a drizzly afternoon in April--as I walked along
Broadway under my umbrella I came across Jake Mindels, the
handsome young man who had been my companion during the
period when I was preparing for City College. I had not seen him
for over two years, but I had kept track of his career and I knew
that he had recently graduated from the University Medical
College and had opened a doctor's office on Rivington Street. His
studiously dignified carriage, his Prince Albert coat, the way he
wore his soft hat, the way he held his open umbrella, and, above
all, the beard he was growing, betrayed a desire to look his new
part. And he did look it, too. The nascent beard, the frock-coat,
and the soft hat became him. He was handsomer than ever, and
there was a new air of quiet, though conscious, intellectual
importance about him.

The sight of him as I beheld him coming toward me gave me a
pang of envy

"Levinsky! How are you? How are you?" he shouted, flinging
himself at me effusively

"I hear you're practising medicine," I returned. And, looking him
over gaily, I added, "A doctor every inch of you."

He blushed

"And you're a rich man, I hear."

"Vanderbilt is richer, I can assure you. I should change places with
you any time." In my heart I remarked, "Yes, I am worth a
hundred thousand dollars, while he is probably struggling to make
a living, but I can beat him at his own intellectual game, too, even
if he has studied anatomy and physiology."

"Well, you will be a Vanderbilt some day. You're only beginning
to make money. People say you are a great success. I was so glad
to hear of it."