The other cloak salesmen I met on the road in those days were mostly representatives of much bigger houses than mine. They treated me with ill-concealed contempt, and I would retaliate by overstating my sales. One of the drummers who were fond of taunting me was an American by birth, a fellow named Loeb
"Well, Levinsky," he would begin. "Had a big day, didn"t you?"
"I certainly did," I would retort.
"How much? Twenty-five thousand?" "Well, it"s no use trying to be funny, but I"ve pulled in five thousand dollars to-day." "Is that all?"
"Well, if you don"t believe me, what"s the use asking? What good would it do me to brag? If I say five thousand. it is five thousand.
As a matter of fact, it "ll amount to more." Whereupon he would slap his knee and roar
He was a good-looking, florid-faced man with sparkling black eyes--a gay, boisterous fellow, one of those who are the first to laugh at their own jests. He was connected with the largest house in the cloak trade. Our relations were of a singular character. He was incessantly poking fun at me; nothing seemed to afford him more pleasure than to set a smokerful of pa.s.sengers laughing at my expense. At the same time he seemed to like me.
But then he hated me, too. As for me, I reciprocated both feelings
One day, on the road, he made me the victim of a practical joke that proved an expensive lesson to me. The incident took place in a hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio. He "confidentially" let me see one of his samples, hinting that it was his "leader," or best seller. He then went to do some telephoning, leaving the garment with me the while. Whereupon I lost no time in making a pencil-sketch of it, with a few notes as to materials, tints, and other details. I subsequently had the garment copied and spent time and money offering it to merchants in New York and on the road. It proved an unmitigated failure.
"You are a nice one, you are," he said to me, with mock gravity, on a subsequent trip. "You copied that garment I showed you in Cincinnati, didn"t you?"
"What garment? What on earth are you talking about?" I lied, my face on fire.
"Come, come, Levinsky. You know very well what garment I mean. While I was away telephoning you went to work and made a sketch of it. It was downright robbery. That"s what I call it. Well, have you sold a lot of them?" And he gave me a merry wink that cut me as with a knife
One of the things about which he often made fun of me was my Talmud gesticulations, a habit that worried me like a physical defect. It was so distressingly un-American. I struggled hard against it. I had made efforts to speak with my hands in my pockets; I had devised other means for keeping them from partic.i.p.ating in my speech. All of no avail. I still gesticulate a great deal, though much less than I used to
One afternoon, on a west-bound train, Loeb entertained a group of pa.s.sengers of which I was one with worn-out stories of gesticulating Russian Jews. He told of a man who never opened his mouth when he was out of doors and it was too cold for him to expose his hands; of another man who never spoke when it was so dark that his hands could not be seen. I laughed with the others, but I felt like a cripple who is forced to make fun of his own deformity. It seemed to me as though Loeb, who was a Jew, was holding up our whole race to the ridicule of Gentiles. I could have executed him as a traitor to his people. Presently he turned on me
"By the way, Levinsky, you never use a telephone, do you?"
"Why? Who says I don"t?" I protested, timidly
"Because it"s of no use to you," he replied. "The fellow at the other end of the wire couldn"t see your hands, could he?" And he broke into a peal of self-satisfied mirth in which some of his listeners involuntarily joined.
"You think you"re awfully smart," I retorted, in abject misery
"And you think you"re awfully grammatical." And once more he roared
"You are making fun of the Jewish people," I said, in a rage.
"Aren"t you a Jew yourself?"
"Of course I am," he answered, wiping the tears from his laughing black eyes. "And a good one, too. I am a member of a synagogue.
But what has that got to do with it? I can speak on the telephone, all right." And again the car rang with his laughter
I was aching to hurl back some fitting repartee, but could think of none, and to my horror the moments were slipping by, and presently the conversation was changed
At the request of a gay little Chicagoan who wore a skull-cap a very fat Chicagoan told a story that was rather risque. Loeb went him one better. The man in the skull-cap declared that while he could not bring himself to tell a s.m.u.tty story himself, he was "as good as any man in appreciating one." He then offered a box of cigars for the most daring anecdote, and there ensued an orgy of obscenity that kept us shouting (I could not help thinking of similar talks at the cloak-shops). Loeb suggested that the smoking-room be dubbed "s.m.u.tty room" and was applauded by the little Chicagoan. The prize was awarded, by a vote, to a man who had told his story in the gravest tone of voice and without a hint of a smile
Frivolity gave way to a discussion of general business conditions.
A lanky man with a gray beard, neatly trimmed, and with the most refined manners in our group, said something about compet.i.tion in the abstract. I made a remark which seemed to attract attention and then I hastened to refer to the struggle for life and the survival of the fittest. Loeb dared not burlesque me. I was in high feather
Dinner was announced. To keep my traveling expenses down I was usually very frugal on the road. I had not yet seen the inside of a dining-car (while stopping at a hotel I would not indulge in a dining-room meal unless I deemed it advisable to do so for business considerations). On this occasion, however, when most of our group went to the dining-car I could not help joining them.
The lanky man, the little Chicagoan, and the fleshy Chicagoan--the three "stars" of the smoker--went to the same table, and I hastened, with their ready permission, to occupy the remaining seat at that table. I ordered an expensive dinner. At my instance the chat turned on national politics, a subject in which I felt at home, owing to my pa.s.sion for newspaper editorials. I said something which met with an encouraging reception, and then I entered upon a somewhat elaborate discourse. My listeners seemed to be interested. I was so absorbed in the topic and in the success I was apparently scoring that I was utterly oblivious to the taste of the food in my mouth. But I was aware that it was "aristocratic American" food, that I was in the company of well-dressed American Gentiles, eating and conversing with them, a n.o.bleman among n.o.blemen. I throbbed with love for America
"Don"t be excited," I was saying to myself. "Speak in a calm, low voice, as these Americans do. And for goodness" sake don"t gesticulate!"
I went on to speak with exaggerated apathy, my hands so strenuously still that they fairly tingled with the effort, and, of course, I was so conscious of the whole performance that I did not know what I was talking about. This state of my mind soon wore off, however
Neither the meal nor the appointments of the car contained anything that I had not enjoyed scores of times before--in the hotels at which I stopped or at the restaurants at which I would dine and wine some of my customers; but to eat such a meal amid such surroundings while on the move was a novel experience. The electric lights, the soft red glint of the mahogany walls, the whiteness of the table linen, the silent efficiency of the colored waiters, coupled with the fact that all this was speeding onward through the night, made me feel as though I were partaking of a repast in an enchanted palace. The easy urbanity of the three well-dressed Americans gave me a sense of uncanny gentility and bliss
"Can it be that I am I?" I seemed to be wondering
The gaunt, elderly man, who was a member of a wholesale butcher concern, was seated diagonally across the table from me, but my eye was for the most part fixed on him rather than on the fat man who occupied the seat directly opposite mine. He was the most refined-looking man of the three and his vocabulary matched his appearance and manner. He fascinated me. His cultured English and ways conflicted in my mind with the character of his business.
I could not help thinking of raw beef, bones, and congealed blood.
I said to myself, "It takes a country like America to produce butchers who look and speak like n.o.blemen." The United States was still full of surprises for me.
I was still discovering America
After dinner, when we were in the smoking-room again, it seemed to me that the three Gentiles were tired of me. Had I talked too much? Had I made a nuisance of myself? I was wretched
CHAPTER V
I LOST track of Loeb before the train reached Chicago, but about a fortnight later, when I was in St. Louis, I encountered him again. It was on a Monday morning. With sample-case in hand, I was crossing one of the busiest spots in the shopping district with preoccupied mien, when he hailed me: "h.e.l.lo, Levinsky! How long have you been here?"
"Just arrived," I answered
"Where are you stopping?"
I named my hotel. I could see that he was taking note of the fact that I was crossing the street to the Great Bazar, one of the largest department stores in St. Louis
"I am going to tackle Huntington this morning," I said, with mild defiance
"Are you? Wish you luck," he remarked, quite gravely. "You"ll find him a pretty tough customer, though." He was apparently too busy to indulge in raillery. "Wish you luck," he repeated, and was off
Huntington was the new head of the cloak-and-suit department in the Great Bazar, and in this capacity he was said to be doing wonders. It was not true that I had just arrived. I had been in the city nearly three days, and the day before I had mailed a letter to Huntington upon which I was building great hopes. I knew but too well that he was a "tough customer," my previous efforts to obtain an interview with him--in New York as well as here, in St.
Louis--having proven futile. I was too small a fish for him. Nor, indeed, was the Great Bazar the only large department store in the country whose door was closed to me. Barring six or seven such stores, in as many cities, with which I was in touch largely through the good offices of Eaton, my business was almost confined to small concerns. Eaton had given me letters to many other large firms, but these had brought no result. For one thing, my Russian name was against me. As I have said before, the American business world had not yet learned to take our people seriously
And so I had written Huntington, making a special plea for a few minutes of his "most valuable time." All I asked for was an opportunity "to point out some specific conditions that enable our house to reduce the cost of production to an unheard-of level." If he had only read that letter! I had bestowed so much effort on it, and I gave myself credit for having made a fine job of it
Arriving at the big store, I made my way to the sample-rooms. I did so by a freight-elevator, the pa.s.senger-cars being denied to men carrying sample-cases. In the waiting-room of the buyers"
offices I found four or five men, all of them accompanied by colored porters who carried their sample-cases for them. A neat-looking office-boy, behind a small desk, was rocking on the hind legs of his chair with an air of supreme indifference.
"Will you take it in?" I said to him, handing him my card. "I want to see Mr. Huntington."
"Mr. Huntington is busy," he answered, mechanically, without ceasing to rock.
"Take it in, please," I whispered, imploringly. But he took no heed of me.