We'll send a present with him to Mrs. Dishkes," Yetta concluded with a
smile, "and it wouldn't be no antics neither!"

CHAPTER SEVEN

SWEET AND SOUR

ARE THE USES OF COMPETITIVE SALESMANSHIP

"_Aber_ me and Yetta is got it all fixed up we would go to Mrs. Kotlin's
already," Elkan Lubliner protested as he mopped his forehead one hot
Tuesday morning in July. "The board there is something elegant, Mr.
Scheikowitz. Everybody says so."

"_Yow!_ everybody!" Philip Scheikowitz retorted. "Who is everybody,
Elkan? A couple drummers like Marks Pasinsky, one or two real estaters,
understand me, and the rest of 'em is wives from J to L retailers, third
credit, which every time their husbands comes down to spend Sunday with
'em, y'understand, he must pretty near got to pawn the shirt from his
back for car fare already."

"Scheikowitz is right, Elkan," Marcus Polatkin joined in. "A feller
shouldn't make a god from his stomach, Elkan, especially when money
don't figure at all, so if you would be going down to Egremont Beach,
understand me, there's only one place you should stay, y'understand, and
that's the New Salisbury."

"Which if you wouldn't take our word for it, Elkan," Scheikowitz added,
"just give a look here."

He drew from his coat pocket the summer resort section of the previous
day's paper and thrust it toward his junior partner, indicating as he
did so a half column headed:

MIDSEASON GAIETY AT
EGREMONT BEACH

which reads as follows:

The season is in full swing here.

On Saturday night Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Gans gave a Chinese
Lantern Dinner in the Hanging Gardens at which were present
Mr. and Mrs. Sam Feder, Mr. and Mrs. Max Koblin, Mr. and Mrs.
Henry D. Feldman, Mr. Jacob Scharley and Miss Hortense
Feldman.

Among those who registered Friday at the New Salisbury were
Mr. Jacob Scharley of San Francisco, Mr. and Mrs. Sol Klinger,
Mr. Leon Sammet and his mother, Mrs. Leah Sammet.

"I thought that Leon's brother Barney was staying down at Egremont,"
Polatkin said after he and Elkan had read the item.

"Barney is at Mrs. Kotlin's," Scheikowitz explained, "because _mit_ Leon
Sammet, Polatkin, nothing is too rotten for Barney to stay at, and
besides he thinks Barney would get a little _small_ business there,
which the way Sammet Brothers figures, understand me, if they could
stick a feller with three bills of goods for a couple hundred dollars
ap