Middletown transcript., 1916-12-16

would want you to wait till his Christ
mas rush was over. Also people didn't
| give no orders because it was around
Christmas, Birsky, and just because it
was near Christmas and they claimed
they could use all the money they
could get, your creditors wanted you TO
pay bills which you hardly knew you
owed on account of not receiving the
second monthly statement yet. Fur
thermOre if you owned tenement
house, you'd got difficulty collecting
the November rent because the ten
ants said it was so near Christmas, #Iiti
that's the way it went, Birsky. Peopl"
treated Christmas not as a holiday, but
as an excuse. The wonder is it amt
died out altogether"
"The wholesaler wouldn't miss 1t if
it did," Birsky commented. Believe
me, Zapp, for every child that lays
awake the night before Christmas
thinking what his parents are going
to hand him the next morning, there is
fifty manufacturers counting sheep
jumping over fences, trying not to
think what some of their customers in
the retail drygOOds trade is going to
hand them after the second of Janu-
ary. 1t don't require much water to
drown a Shaky drygOOds retailer. He
can sink like stone in two days rain
during the week before Christmas"
Don't l know it?" Zapp said. 'If
the Christmas presents that the whole
salers give by mistake to shaky retail
drygoOds men was put on trees the
way other Christmas presents are, they
would cover all the redwood groves i'll
California. But it amt the retailers
fault, Birsky. Sometimes the feller is
playing in hard luck like merchant
like l used to sell goods to by the name
Felix Immerglick out in Cincinnati,
which a couple of years ago last
Christmas he specialized on sleighs,
skates and cheap furS, and from De-
cember 10 on they got such warm
spell in Cincinnati that the hotel keep
not open the roof gardens again. So
the following year Immerglick cut out
| the sleighS and skates and laid in
| bicycles, childrens books and q very
attractive line of umbrellas, and I'm
merglick says that it's wonder with
his luck he didn't also buy stock in
4 chain of artificial ice factories, be-
cause on the day he received the goods
| in November the thermometer goes
down to zero on him and stays that
way till a week after his next spring
millinery opening. Can you blame such
a feller that he settles with his cred
itOrs 80 cents on the dollar?"
Listen, Zapp," Birsky said, "a 30
cent-on-the-dollar feller could always
pin his bust-up on either a warm
Christmas, a cold Easter or an invalid
wife, whereas the figures show that
the average Of real cold Christmases
amt no more than the average of real
sick wives"
'Sure l know, Birsky, but figuring
out the average is what has done the
most harm to poker, pinOchle, the
Fourth of July, Christmas and all them
things that former time people enjoyed
running chances on. Take, for in
stance, the Fourth Of July, and lot
of people which considers even safety
matches gefahrlich goes to work and
figures that out of every million people
that shoots off firecrackers, one and
seven hundred and fifty-two one thou
sandths people gets burned, so they
put the fireworks manufacturers out
of business, and now instead of setting
off fireworks people goes to the shore
or trolley parks on the Fourth; and as
soon as it gets figured out that of ev-
cry million people that goes to trolley
parks and COney Island, six and nine
ty-seven three-thOusandthS gets Ma
gensaure from eating frankfurters and
run over by trolley cars on the Fourth
of July, all the frankfurter factories
and trolley companies go quick me-
chullah."
"Aber, what's that got TO do with
Christmas?" Btrsky asked.
I'm coming to that" Zapp said.
people are commencing to figure aver
ages on Christmas also. Take Miss ].
p. Morgan, and she figures that out Of
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