I Can Get It for You Wholesale Read Online Free
Author: Jerome Weidman
had, you’d realize that your chances of winning beauty contests were pretty slim.”
“So what? I still don’t get it.”
“Then listen for a change, and you will,” I said. “If you could only see what you look like, you’d realize that I didn’t need you for a front. Unless I was going into the circus business and was trying to get a menagerie together,” I added. If anybody would’ve talked to me like that, I’d’ve rapped him in the puss. But he just sat and listened. “But I’m not getting together a menagerie. I’m trying to make some dough, and if I come to you, you can be pretty sure I need you for a special reason. Understand?”
He shook his head.
“I still don’t get it,” he said.
Can you imagine anybody as dumb as all that?
I hitched my chair a little closer to the table and leaned forward on it with my elbows, putting my face as close to him as I could get it.
“Listen, dope,” I said.
2
T HE THING WAS SET for eight-thirty. Which meant that it probably wouldn’t start before nine. But I was there at eight. I wanted to give everything a last once-over. Not that I was worried about there being a hitch or anything like that. It was just that I had nothing else to do. For the time being my end was clear. And anyway, I got a kick out of it. My brains had thought the thing out. My dough was paying for it. It gave me a feeling of power to stand there and watch and see the whole thing take shape under my nose.
Across the front of the building, right over the doorway and under the sign that spelled out Pythian Temple in electric lights, was the big sheet of oilcloth lettered in red and black:
8:30! MASS MEETING TO-NIGHT! 8:30!
SHIPPING CLERKS
OF THE GARMENT DISTRICT
MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE TO YOU
WILL BE DISCUSSED
ADMISSION FREE
8:30 TO-NIGHT
That sign had set me back five bucks. At first I couldn’t make up my mind whether it was necessary. The circulars that Tootsie had been distributing for over a week had been clear enough. They had Pythian Temple spread all over them. It would take an awfully dumb guy not to be able to find it if he wanted to get there. But you don’t know how dumb shipping clerks can be. With those rummies you couldn’t be too careful. So it would cost me an extra five bucks, so what? After all the dough I’d spent already, it would be stupid to take a chance on spoiling the whole thing because of a little thing like that. So I ordered the sign. It looked good, anyway. It gave the thing a final, business-like touch. Let those mockies see that this thing was being run by people who meant business.
I looked at my watch. A quarter after eight. And nobody in sight. I was beginning to feel nervous. Suppose nobody showed up? Or suppose only a few of them came? Which would be just as bad. What then? I shook off the feeling of worry and lit a cigarette. What was I getting excited about? It was still early. And anyway, only small-time heels worried before anything happened.
I crossed the gutter and leaned against the doorway of a building that faced the entrance of the Temple. It certainly was a swell sight. It ought to be. It had cost me plenty. How much? Well, let’s see. First there was the rent for the hall. Fifty bucks. Then five for the sign made it fifty-five. And ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-three for mimeographing circulars made it—fifty-five plus twenty-three—made it seventy-eight. Then add all the extras, feeding Tootsie and a couple of other things, and it came pretty close to a hundred. Whew!
That was a lot of money in any man’s country, especially when you’re drawing on your capital. At that rate I wouldn’t be able to hold out for very long.
All right, then, I’d just have to make it short and sweet. The faster you work, the better chance you have of succeeding. It doesn’t give those that might have a brain or two a chance to start figuring things out.
Two or three fellows turned the corner and began to drift up the block. I noticed
“So what? I still don’t get it.”
“Then listen for a change, and you will,” I said. “If you could only see what you look like, you’d realize that I didn’t need you for a front. Unless I was going into the circus business and was trying to get a menagerie together,” I added. If anybody would’ve talked to me like that, I’d’ve rapped him in the puss. But he just sat and listened. “But I’m not getting together a menagerie. I’m trying to make some dough, and if I come to you, you can be pretty sure I need you for a special reason. Understand?”
He shook his head.
“I still don’t get it,” he said.
Can you imagine anybody as dumb as all that?
I hitched my chair a little closer to the table and leaned forward on it with my elbows, putting my face as close to him as I could get it.
“Listen, dope,” I said.
2
T HE THING WAS SET for eight-thirty. Which meant that it probably wouldn’t start before nine. But I was there at eight. I wanted to give everything a last once-over. Not that I was worried about there being a hitch or anything like that. It was just that I had nothing else to do. For the time being my end was clear. And anyway, I got a kick out of it. My brains had thought the thing out. My dough was paying for it. It gave me a feeling of power to stand there and watch and see the whole thing take shape under my nose.
Across the front of the building, right over the doorway and under the sign that spelled out Pythian Temple in electric lights, was the big sheet of oilcloth lettered in red and black:
8:30! MASS MEETING TO-NIGHT! 8:30!
SHIPPING CLERKS
OF THE GARMENT DISTRICT
MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE TO YOU
WILL BE DISCUSSED
ADMISSION FREE
8:30 TO-NIGHT
That sign had set me back five bucks. At first I couldn’t make up my mind whether it was necessary. The circulars that Tootsie had been distributing for over a week had been clear enough. They had Pythian Temple spread all over them. It would take an awfully dumb guy not to be able to find it if he wanted to get there. But you don’t know how dumb shipping clerks can be. With those rummies you couldn’t be too careful. So it would cost me an extra five bucks, so what? After all the dough I’d spent already, it would be stupid to take a chance on spoiling the whole thing because of a little thing like that. So I ordered the sign. It looked good, anyway. It gave the thing a final, business-like touch. Let those mockies see that this thing was being run by people who meant business.
I looked at my watch. A quarter after eight. And nobody in sight. I was beginning to feel nervous. Suppose nobody showed up? Or suppose only a few of them came? Which would be just as bad. What then? I shook off the feeling of worry and lit a cigarette. What was I getting excited about? It was still early. And anyway, only small-time heels worried before anything happened.
I crossed the gutter and leaned against the doorway of a building that faced the entrance of the Temple. It certainly was a swell sight. It ought to be. It had cost me plenty. How much? Well, let’s see. First there was the rent for the hall. Fifty bucks. Then five for the sign made it fifty-five. And ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-three for mimeographing circulars made it—fifty-five plus twenty-three—made it seventy-eight. Then add all the extras, feeding Tootsie and a couple of other things, and it came pretty close to a hundred. Whew!
That was a lot of money in any man’s country, especially when you’re drawing on your capital. At that rate I wouldn’t be able to hold out for very long.
All right, then, I’d just have to make it short and sweet. The faster you work, the better chance you have of succeeding. It doesn’t give those that might have a brain or two a chance to start figuring things out.
Two or three fellows turned the corner and began to drift up the block. I noticed
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