The Rise of David Levinsky (29 page)

He bragged and blustered, but oftentimes he would be carried away by the sentimental side of his past struggles. Then he would unburden himself of a great deal of unvarnished history. On such occasions I would obtain from him a veritable treasure of information and suggestions.

Some of the generalizations of this homespun and quaint thinker, too, were interesting. Talking of credit, for example, he once said:

“When a fellow is a beginner it’s a good thing if he has a credit face.”

I thought it was some sort of commercial term he was using, and when I asked him what it meant he said:

“Why, some people are just born with the kind of face that makes the woolen merchant or the bank president trust them. They are not more honest than some other fellows. Indeed, some of them are plain pickpockets, but they have a credit face, so you have got to trust them. You just can’t help it.”

“And if they don’t pay?”

“But they do. They get credit from somebody else and pay the jobber or the banker. Then they get more credit from these people and pay the other fellows. People of this kind can do a big business without a cent of capital. In Russia a fellow who pays his bills is called an honest man, but America is miles ahead of Russia. Here you can be the best pay in the world and yet be a crook. You wouldn’t say that every man who breathes God’s air is honest, would you? Well, paying your bills in America is like breathing. If you don’t, you are dead.”

Chaikin, too, often let fall, in his hesitating, monosyllabic way, some observation which I considered of value. Of the purely commercial side of the industry he knew next to nothing, but then he could tell me a thing or two concerning the psychology of popular taste, the forces operating behind the scenes of fashion, the methods employed by small firms in stealing styles from larger ones, and other tricks of the trade.

At last I resolved to act. It was the height of the season for winter orders, and I decided to take time by the forelock.

One day when I called at the designer’s, and Mrs. Chaikin asked me for news (alluding to the thousands I was supposed to be expecting), I said:

“Well, I have rented a shop.”

“Rented a shop?”

“That’s what I did. It’s no use missing the season. If a fellow wants to do something, there is nothing for it but to go to work and do it, else he is doomed to be a slave all his life.”

When I added that the shop was on Division Street her face fell.

“But what difference does it make where it is?” I argued, with studied vehemence. “It’s only a place to make samples in—for a start.”

“Mr. Chaikin is not going into a wee bit of a business like that. No, sir.”

In the course of our many discussions it had often happened that after overruling me with great finality she would end by yielding to my point of view. I hoped this would be the case in the present instance.

“Don’t be so hasty, Mrs. Chaikin,” I said, with a smile. “Wait till you know a little more about the arrangement.”

And dropping into the Talmudic singsong, which usually comes back to me when my words assume an argumentative character, I proceeded.

“In the first place, I don’t want Mr. Chaikin to leave the Manheimers—not yet. All I want him to do is to attend to our shop evenings. Don’t be uneasy: the Manheimers won’t get wind of it. Leave that to me. Well, all I want is some samples to go around the stores with. The rest will come easy. We’ll make things hum. See if we don’t. When we have orders and get really started we’ll move out of Division Street. Of course we will. But would it not be foolish to open up on a large scale and have Mr. Chaikin give up his job before we have accomplished anything? I think it would. Indeed, it’s
my
money that’s going to be invested. Do you blame me for being careful, at the beginning at least? I neither want Mr. Chaikin to risk his job nor myself to risk big money.”

“But you haven’t even told me how much you can put in,” she blurted out, excitedly.

“As much as will be necessary. But what’s the use dumping a big lot at once? Many a big business has failed, while firms who start in a modest way have worked themselves up. Why should Mr. Chaikin begin by risking his position? Why? Why?”

The long and short of it was that Mrs. Chaikin became enthusiastic for my Division Street shop, and the next day her husband took two hours off to accompany me to a nondescript woolen-store on Hester Street, where we bought fifty dollars’ worth of material.

The rent for the shop was thirty dollars a month. One month’s rent for two sewing-machines was two dollars. A large second-hand table for designing and cutting and some old chairs cost me twelve dollars more, leaving me a balance of over two hundred dollars.

Before I went to rent the premises for our prospective shop I had withdrawn my money from the savings-bank and deposited it in a small bank where I opened a check account.

“Once I am to play the part of a manufacturer it would not do to pay bills in cash,” I reflected. “ I must pay in checks, and do so like one to the manner born.”

At this the magic word “credit” loomed in letters of gold before me. I was aware of the fascination of check-books, so, being armed with one, I expected to be able to buy things, in some cases, at least, without having to pay for them at once. Besides, my bank might be induced to grant me a loan. Then, too, one might issue a check before one had the amount and thereby gain a day’s time. There seemed to be a world of possibilities in the long, narrow book in my breast pocket. I was ever conscious of its presence. I have a vivid recollection of the elation with which I drew and issued my first check (in payment of thirty dollars, the first month’s rent for our prospective cloak-factory). Humanity seemed to have become divided into two distinct classes—those who paid their obligations in cash and those who paid them in checks. I still have that first check-book of mine.

C
HAIKIN made up half a dozen sample garments. I took them to the department store to which the Manheimer Brothers catered, but the buyer of the cloak department would not so much as let me untie my bundle. He was a middle-aged man (women buyers were rare in those days), an Irish-American of commanding figure. After sweeping me with a glance of cold curiosity, he waved me aside. My Russian name and my appearance were evidently against me. I tried the other department stores —with the same result. The larger business world of the city had not yet learned to take the Russian Jew seriously as a factor in advanced commerce. The buyer of the cloak department in the last store I visited was an American Jew, a fair-complexioned little fellow, all aglitter with neatness. At first he took an amused interest in me. When I had unpacked my goods and was about to show him one of Chaikin’s jackets he checked me.

“Suppose we gave you an order for five hundred,” he said, with a smile; “five hundred jackets to be delivered at a certain date.”

“I would deliver it,” I answered, boldly. “Why not?”

“I don’t know why. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. How can we be sure you would?”

Before I had time to answer he asked me how long I had been in the country. When I told him, he complimented me on my English. I was sure it meant business. I was thrilled.

“Have you got a shop?” he further questioned. “How many hands do you employ?”

“Seventy-five.”

He sized me up. “Where is your place?”

“On Division Street.”

“Well, well! What is your rating?”

I did not know what he meant. So, for an answer, I made a new attempt to submit the contents of my bundle for his inspection. At this he made a gesture of disgust and withdrew. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead.

I had heard of the existence of small department stores in various sections of the city, so I went in search of them.

I found myself in the vicinity of the City College. As I passed that comer I studiously looked away. I felt like a convert Jew passing a synagogue.

It was a warm day. My pack seemed to grow heavier with every block I walked, and so did my heart. I was perspiring freely; my collar wilted. All of which did anything but make me look as “a man who paid his bills in checks.” At last, walking up Third Avenue I came across a place where there was quite a large display of jackets in the windows. Upon my opening the door and announcing my mission, two jaunty young fellows invited me in with elaborate courtesy, almost with anxiety. My heart leaped for joy. I fell to opening my bundle. The two young men inspected every jacket, went into ecstasies over each of them, and then asked me all sorts of irrelevant questions until it dawned upon me that I was being made game of. It appeared that the father of the two young men, the proprietor of the store, manufactured his own goods, for wholesale as well as for retail trade.

I received much better treatment in a store on Avenue B, but my goods proved too high for that neighborhood. As if to atone for this, the proprietor of this store, a kindly Galician Jew, gave me a list of the minor department stores I was looking for, and some valuable suggestions in addition.

My dinner that day consisted of two ring-shaped rolls which I bought in a Jewish grocery-store and which I ate on a bench in Tompkins Square.

The day passed most discouragingly. It was about 7 o’clock when, disheartened to the point of despair, I dragged my wearied limbs in the direction of my “factory.” When I got there I found my partner waiting for me—not alone, but in the company of his wife.

“Well?” she shrieked, jumping to meet me.

“Splendid!” I replied, with enthusiasm. “It looks even better than I expected. I could have got good orders at once, but a fellow must not be too hasty. You have got to look around first—find out who is who, you know.”

Mrs. Chaikin looked crestfallen. “So you did not get any orders at all?”

“What’s your hurry?” her husband said, pleadingly. “Levinsky is right. You can’t sell goods unless you know who you deal with.”

The following two days were as barren of results as the first. Mrs. Chaikin had lost all confidence in the venture. She was becoming rather hard to handle.

“I don’t want Ansel to bother any more,” she said, peevishly. “You know what the Americans say, ‘Time is money.’ Pay Ansel for his work and let us be ‘friends at a distance.” ’

“Very well,” I said, and, producing my check-book, I asked, “How much is it?”

The sight of my check-book acted like a charm. The situation suddenly assumed brighter colors in Mrs. Chaikin’s eyes.

“Look at him! He thought I really meant it,” she grinned, sheepishly.

Every night I would go to bed sick at heart and with my mind half made up to drop it all, only to wake in the morning more resolute and hopeful than ever. Hopeful and defiant. It was as though somebody—the whole world—were jeering at my brazen-faced, piteous efforts, and I was bound to make good, “just for spite.”

I learned of the existence of “purchasing offices” where the buyers of several department stores, from so many cities, made their headquarters in New York. Also, I discovered that in order to keep track of the arrivals of these buyers I must follow a daily paper called
Hotel Reporter
(the ordinary newspapers did not furnish information of this character in those days). A man who manufactured neckties in the same ramshackle building in which I hoped to manufacture cloaks volunteered to let me look at his
Reporter
every day. This man was naturally inclined to be neighborly, but I had found that an occasional quotation or two from the Talmud was particularly helpful in obtaining a small favor from him.

I knocked about among the purchasing offices with bulldog tenacity, but during the first few days my efforts in this direction were as futile as in the case of the New York stores. Meanwhile, time was pressing. So far as out-of-town buyers were concerned, the “winter season ”was drawing to a close. All I could see were some belated stragglers. One of these was a man from the Middle West, a stout, fleshy American with quick, nervous movements which contradicted his well-fed, languid-looking face.

He shot a few glances at my samples, just to get rid of me, but he liked the designs, and I could see that he found my prices tempting.

“How soon will you be able to deliver five hundred?” he snarled.

“In three weeks.”

“Very well—go ahead!” And speaking in his jerky, impatient way, he went on to specify how many cloaks he wanted of each kind.

I left him with my heart divided between unutterable triumph and black despair. Five hundred cloaks! How would I raise the money for so much raw material? It almost looked like another practical joke.

By this time I was more than sure that the Chaikins had a considerable little pile, but to turn to them for funds was impossible. It would have let my cat out of the bag. I sought credit at Claflin’s and at half a dozen smaller places, but all in vain. I could not help thinking of Nodelman’s “credit face.” Ah, if that kind of a face had fallen to my lot! But it had not, it seemed. It looked as if there were no hope for me.

Finally I took the necktie man into my confidence, the result being that he unburdened himself of his own financial straits to me.

One afternoon I was moping around some of the side-streets off lower Broadway in quest of some new place where I might try to beg for credit, when I noticed the small sign-board of a commission merchant. Upon entering the place I found a fine-looking elderly American dictating something to a stenographer. When the man had heard my plea he looked me over from head to foot.

I felt like a prisoner facing the jury which is about to announce its verdict.

At last he said: “Well, you look pretty reliable. I guess I’ll trust you the goods for thirty days.”

It was all I could do to restrain myself from invoking benedictions on his head and kissing his hands as my mother would have done under similar circumstances.