He would show visitors over the four floors with a charming
pride, like that of a mother. Among the things he exhibited was
the stub-book of my first check account, a photograph of the
rickety house where I had had my first shop, and letters of
congratulation from some well-known financiers. Bender, with a
big, shining bald disk on his head, slender and spruce as ever, was
fussing around with the gruff air of an unappreciated genius, while
Loeb, also bald-headed, but fat and beaming, was telling
everybody about the scraps he and I used to have on the road
when he was a star drummer and I a struggling beginner
One of the men who came to congratulate me at my magnificent
new place on Fifth Avenue was the kindly American commission
merchant who had been the first to grant me credit when I was
badly in need of it. As I took him over my immense factory,
splendid showrooms, and offices, we recalled the days when it
took a man of special generosity to treat a beginning manufacturer
of my type as he had treated me. That was the time when
woolen-mills would even refuse to bother with a check of a
Russian Jew; he had to bring cash.
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