New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-07-02
A NEW ARTIST
MIR. Montague Glass and the
Cloak and Suit People.

Cloak and Suit People.
| POTASH & PERLMUTTER. Their Co
partnership Ventures and Adventures
Ry Montague Glass. illustrated. limo,
PIP 419. Philadelphia: The henry Ate
mus Company.
THE WAY UP. BY N. P. Willcocks- 12mo,
PIP 405. The John Lane Company.
OUT OF THE NIGHT. By Mrs. Baltic
Reynolds. 12mo. PIP. 800. The George h
Doran Company.
Whoever discovered Mr.. Montague
Glass should go out and buy large red
| feather and stick 1t in his hat. Perhaps
| il is, as we would like to believe, Mr..
Glass himself who should faunt this
! badge. Whatever he may have owed to
editorial discernment and ouragement,
we cannot conceive of him in the minds
eve as the teller of stories who fills an
order" supplying just the type Of popu-
lar fiction most in vogue. Potash &
Perllnutter'' is a book all his own, one
of those pieces of work fresh, original
and sound as a new apple, which turn
UP only about once in SO often and give
4 to the faded reviewer a really welcome
sensation. How has Mr.. Glass managed
it? We have called him a new artist.
Besides that, he is a writer of feeling,
With a kind Of sympathy that takes him
swiftly and naturally to the root Of the
matter.
Potash & Perlmutter' is interesting,
I to begin with. for its omissions. It Is
all about the cloak and suit trade
! among people IN New York whose race
! and religion may be inferred from the
title of the book. but 1t is not another
/ collection Of ghetto" stories. it is not
all splashed over with local color" the
author is not forever pulling out the pa
thetic stop, and, best Of all, he does not
for a moment strike either that mote OF
/ half-dehant self-assertion which might
/ be expected Of the Jew or the one of
patronizing superiority which sometimes
marks the Gentle. Mr.. Glass is, we re-
peat, artist and one. proof Of 1t lies
/ in the success with which he has kept
himself out Of his stories. There is
plenty OF satire here, but it crops out, SO
to say, in action Abe Potash and Nor
] ris Perlmutter give themselves away off
their own bats, and TO smile at their
foibles, trickeries and mishaps is to smile
AT life itself. There is Mr.. GLASS; great
! achievement. His people are genuine to
! the core, and have a vitality which wins
the reader and holds him, though in an
environment and amid transactions
which ordinarily you would regard as too
( sordidly commonplace TO make the ma
teriaI for good fiction. There IS q lesson
: here for the novelist who thinks that
the strength of his realism is to be
measured by the ugly truthfulness Of
his theme. II ali depends, of course,
upon the way in which the thing is done
Take, for example, the manner in
which Potash, having dissolved the part
: nership between himself and Pincus
| Vessel, is led to~form new firm with
+! Perlmutter. He is waiting in Wasser
! bauer's Cafe and Restaurant for piece
| of roast beef and a baked potato, and.
to beguile the time, picks up dill pickle
/ He grasped it firmly between his thumb
and finger and neatly bisected it with
i. his teeth. simultaneously the pickle
squirted and about quarter Of pint
of the acid juice struck Morris Perlmut-
/ ter in the right eye" Of course this is
hopelessly vulgar, and SO is the remark
made by Morris on Abe's excuse: sail
right. 1 seen what you was doing and
! | should have ordered an umbrella in
stead of a glass Of water already"
Could anything be further removed from
! the decorum and generally fastidious
tone of our modern, super-refined fic-
ton? We grant the reader the most
portentous shake of the head in which
he cares to indulge, and merely recon-
mend him to trace the influence of that
unmannerly dill pickle for himself, to
/ listen TO the negotiations which end in
q partnership and to follow Abe and
''Mawruss'' through the business expert
.ences described in this book. If he does
not chortle and if he does not develop
positive liking for Potash & Perlmut-
ter shall be very sorry for him.
! Never were there two more engaging
types Mr. Glass makes free play with
their tendency TO sharp practice, their
readiness TO stick a competitor. their
fairly nysterical pursuit of the dollar.
But with a,-perfect sense of proportion
he brings out the credulity which goes
with their shrewdness, the childiike man
ner in which they overreach them
/ selves, the good natured resignation
with which they face the fact that they
themselves have been stuck" and the
homely kindliness which somehow runs
through most. if not all, of their pro-
ceedings. In other words, Abe and Nor
I ris are entirely human creatures. no bet
ter and no worse than thousands of their
fellows, and If at one moment they be-
/ have like sharks at another they behave
/ like men of heart. Above all, they are
OF an amazing simplicity, and their
conversat ton gains thereby an inefTable
cornicality. The hunor is not very deep,
which causes Morris, with bitter sar-
casm, 10 say to Abe, You are the daWg
and 1 am the TAIL" and to provoke this
weary retort: You say I am the dawg.
! Mawruss. and you are the tail but /
guess you got il the wrong way round
] / guess the tail is on the other foot"
/ But IL is in the picture that the partners
make together. in the general drift of
their talk, in the whole wonderful
bounce" of the farce that they are al
ways carrying on, that the reader finds
his account, getting out Of such repartee