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+Project Gutenberg's Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things, by Montague Glass
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things
+
+Author: Montague Glass
+
+Release Date: November 28, 2006 [EBook #19948]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+
+
+BOOKS BY
+MONTAGUE GLASS
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+WORRYING WON'T WIN
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK
+[ESTABLISHED 1817]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "he gives himself dead away by getting sore."]
+
+
+
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+
+_by_
+
+MONTAGUE GLASS
+
+_Author of "Worrying Won't Win"_
+
+Harper & Brothers Publishers
+New York and London
+
+
+
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+
+Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers
+Printed in the United States of America
+Published September, 1919
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAP.                                                             PAGE
+
+I.     THEY ARRIVE, AND SO DOES THE PRESIDENT                        1
+
+II.    SETTLING THE PRELIMINARIES                                   15
+
+III.   THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO ENGLAND                             24
+
+IV.    EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING SATISFACTORILY--MAYBE               33
+
+V.     THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE--IT NEEDS PUBLICITY               42
+
+VI.    JOINING THE LEGION OF HONOR                                  52
+
+VII.   SOME CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS FOR THE KAISER            62
+
+VIII.  IT ENTERS ON ITS NO-GOLD-CASKET PHASE                        72
+
+IX.    WORRYING SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME, AIN'T IT?                     82
+
+X.     THE NEW HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY                                   92
+
+XI.    IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME
+       FOR TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGES                                   102
+
+XII.   THIS HERE VICTORY LIBERTY LOAN                              112
+
+XIII.  WHEN IS A SECRET TREATY SECRET?                             122
+
+XIV.   THE FIRST DAY OF MAY                                        132
+
+XV.    THE PEACE TREATY AS GOOD READING                            142
+
+XVI.   THE GERMAN ROMAN HOLIDAY AND THE AMERICANIZATION OF
+       AMERICANS                                                   152
+
+XVII.  MR. WILSON'S FAVOR OF THE 20TH ULTO. AND CONTENTS NOTED     162
+
+XVIII. BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC
+       FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS, AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES       172
+
+XIX.   THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES                                182
+
+XX.    JULY THE FIRST AND AFTER                                    192
+
+XXI.   WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS, ECONOMICALLY AND THEATRICALLY        202
+
+XXII.  THEY DISCUSS THE SIGNING OF IT                              212
+
+XXIII. THE RECENT UNPLEASANTNESS IN TOLEDO, OHIO                   222
+
+XXIV.  FEEDING THE PEACE CONFERENCERS AND THE HOUSEHOLD            232
+
+XXV.   WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS INCLUDES
+       LIBELED MILLIONAIRES, ENFORCED PROHIBITION, AND             241
+       SHANTUNG
+
+XXVI.  THE APPROACHING ROYAL VISIT                                 251
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"HE GIVES HIMSELF DEAD AWAY BY GETTING SORE"            _Frontispiece_
+
+"I WOULDN'T BLAME CHAIRMAN CLEMENCEAU NEITHER,
+ BECAUSE IF THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE IS GOING
+ TO END THIS SIDE OF NINETEEN-FIFTY, IT'S GOT
+ TO BE SPEEDED UP SOME"                            _Facing p._      44
+
+"A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE IS SO BADLY PREDICTED
+ TO THE LAPEL-BUTTON HABIT THEY WOULD JOIN
+ ANYTHING"                                             "            52
+
+"... WHICH WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT MR. WILSON
+ STARTED IN--IN A SMALL WAY"                           "           144
+
+
+
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THEY ARRIVE, AND SO DOES THE PRESIDENT
+
+
+"_Nu_, what's the matter _now_?" Morris Perlmutter asked, as he entered
+the office one morning after the cessation of hostilities on the western
+front.
+
+"_Ai, tzuris!_" Abe moaned in reply, and for at least a minute he
+continued to rock to and fro in his chair and to make incoherent noises
+through his nostrils in the manner of a person suffering either from
+toothache or the recent cancelation of a large order.
+
+"It serves you right," Morris said. "I told you you shouldn't eat that
+liberty roast at Wasserbauer's yesterday. It used to give you the
+indigestion when it was known as _Koenigsburger Klops_, which it is like
+the German Empire now calling itself the German Republic; changing its
+name ain't going to alter its poisonous disposition none."
+
+"That's right!" Abe said. "Make jokes, why don't you? You are worser as
+this here feller Zero."
+
+"What feller Zero?" Morris demanded.
+
+"Zero the emperor what fiddled when Rome was burning," Abe replied.
+"He's got nothing on you. _You_ would fiddle if Rome, Watertown, and
+Ogdensburg was burning."
+
+"I don't know what you are talking about at all," Morris said. "And,
+besides, the feller's name was Nero, not Zero."
+
+"That's what you say," Abe commented, "which you also said that the
+operators was only bluffing and that they wouldn't strike on us in a
+thousand years, and considering that you said this only yesterday,
+Mawruss, it's already wonderful how time flies."
+
+"Well," Morris said, "how could I figure that them lunatics is going to
+pick out the time when we've got practically no work for them and was
+going to fire them, anyway, to call a strike on us?"
+
+"You should _ought_ to have figured that way," Abe declared. "Didn't the
+Kaiser abdicate just before them Germans got ready to kick him out?"
+
+"The king business ain't the garment business," Morris observed.
+
+"I know it ain't," Abe agreed. "Kings has got their worries, too, but
+when it comes to laying awake nights trying to figure out whether them
+designers somewheres in France is going to turn out long, full skirts or
+short, narrow skirts for the fall and winter of nineteen-nineteen and
+nineteen-twenty, Mawruss, I bet yer the entire collection of kings,
+active or retired, doesn't got to take two grains of trional between
+them."
+
+"If everybody worried like _you_ do, Abe," Morris said, "the government
+would got to issue sleeping-powder cards like sugar cards and limit the
+consumption of sleeping-powders to not more than two pounds of
+sleeping-powders per person per month in each household."
+
+"Well, some one has got to do the worrying around here, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "which if it rested with you, y'understand, we could make up a
+line of samples for next season that wouldn't be no more like Paris
+designs than General Pershing looks like his pictures in the magazines."
+
+"Say, for that matter," Morris said, "we are just as good guessers as
+our competitors; on account the way things is going nowadays, nobody is
+going to try to make a trip to Paris to get fashion designs, because if
+he figured on crossing the ocean to buy model gowns for the fall and
+winter of nineteen-nineteen and nineteen-twenty, y'understand, between
+the time that he applied for his passport and the time the government
+issued it to him, y'understand, it would already be the spring and
+summer season of nineteen-twenty-four and nineteen-twenty-five. So the
+best thing we could do is to snoop round among the trade, and whatever
+we find the majority is making up for next year, we would make up the
+same styles also, and that's all there would be _to_ it."
+
+"We wouldn't do nothing of the kind," Abe declared. "I've been thinking
+this thing over, and I come to the conclusion that it's up to you to go
+over to Paris and see what is going on over there."
+
+"I don't got to go to Paris for that, Abe," Morris said. "I can read the
+papers the same like anybody else, and just so long as there is a chance
+that the war would start up again and them hundred-mile guns is going to
+resume operations, I am content to get my ideas of Paris styles at a
+distance of three thousand miles if I never sold another garment as long
+as I live."
+
+"But when it _was_ working yet, it only went off every twenty minutes,"
+Abe said.
+
+"I don't care if it went off every Fourth of July," Morris said,
+"because if I went over there it would be just my luck that the peace
+nogotiations falls through and the Germans invent a gun leaving
+Frankfort ever hour on the hour and arriving in Paris daily, including
+Sundays, without leaving enough trace of me to file a proof of death
+with. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"All right," Abe said. "If _that's_ the way you feel about it, _I_ will
+go to Paris."
+
+"_You_ will go to Paris?" Morris exclaimed.
+
+"Sure!" Abe declared. "The operators is on strike, business is rotten,
+and I'm sick and tired of paying life-insurance premiums, _anyway_.
+Besides, if Leon Sammet could get a passport, why couldn't I?"
+
+"You mean to say that faker is going to Paris to buy model gowns?"
+Morris demanded.
+
+"I seen him on the Subway this morning, and the way he talked about how
+easy he got his passport, you would think that every time he was in
+Washington with a line of them masquerade costumes which Sammet Brothers
+makes up, if he didn't stop in and take anyhow a bit of lunch with the
+Wilsons, y'understand, the President raises the devil with Tumulty why
+didn't he let him _know_ Leon Sammet was in town."
+
+"Then that settles it," Morris declared, reaching for his hat.
+
+"Where are you going?" Abe asked.
+
+"I am going straight down to see Henry D. Feldman and tell that crook he
+should get for me a passport," Morris said.
+
+"You wouldn't positively do nothing of the kind," Abe said. "Did you
+ever hear the like? Wants to go to a lawyer to get a passport! An idea!"
+
+"Well, who would I go to, then--an osteaopath?" Morris asked.
+
+"Leon Sammet told me all about it," Abe said. "You go down to a place on
+Rector Street where you sign an application, and--"
+
+"That's just what I thought," Morris interrupted, "and the least what
+happens to fellers which signs applications without a lawyer,
+y'understand, is that six months later a truck-driver arrives one
+morning and says where should he leave the set of Washington Irving in
+one hundred and fifty-six volumes or the piano with stool and scarf
+complete, as the case may be. So I am going to see Feldman, and if it
+costs me fifteen or twenty dollars, it's anyhow a satisfaction to know
+that when you do things with the advice of a smart crooked lawyer,
+nobody could put nothing over on you outside of your lawyer."
+
+When Morris returned an hour later, however, instead of an appearance of
+satisfaction, his face bore so melancholy an expression that for a few
+minutes Abe was afraid to question him.
+
+"_Nu!_" he said at last. "I suppose you got turned down for being
+overweight or something?"
+
+"What do you mean--overweight?" Morris demanded. "What do you suppose I
+am applying for--a twenty-year endowment passport or one of them tontine
+passports with cash surrender value after three years?"
+
+"Then what is the matter you look so _rachmonos_?" Abe said.
+
+"How _should_ I look with the kind of partner which I've got it?" Morris
+asked. "Paris models he must got to got. Domestic designs ain't good
+enough for him. Such high-grade idees he's got, and I've got to suffer
+for it yet."
+
+"Well, _don't_ go to Europe. What do _I_ care?" Abe said.
+
+"_We_ must go," Morris replied.
+
+"What do you mean--we?" Abe demanded.
+
+"I mean you and me," Morris said. "Feldman says that just so long as it
+is one operation he would charge the same for getting one passport as
+for getting two, excepting the government fee of two dollars. So what do
+you think--I am going to pay Henry D. Feldman two hundred dollars for
+getting me a passport when for two dollars extra I can get one for you
+also?"
+
+"But who is going to look after the store?" Abe exclaimed.
+
+"Say!" Morris retorted, "you've got relations _enough_ working around
+here, which every time you've hired a fresh one, you've given me this
+blood-is-redder-than-water stuff, and now is your chance to prove it. We
+wouldn't be away longer as six weeks at the outside, so go ahead, Abe.
+Here is the application for the passport. Sign your name on the dotted
+line and don't say no more about it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, three weeks later, as they sat in the
+restaurant of their Paris hotel, "in a country where the coffee pretty
+near strangles you, even when it's got cream and sugar in it,
+y'understand, the cooking has _got_ to be good, because in a
+two-dollar-a-day American plan hotel the management figures that no
+matter how rotten the food is, the guests will say, 'Well, anyhow, the
+coffee was good,' and get by with it _that_ way."
+
+"On the other hand, Abe," Morris suggested, "maybe the French hotel
+people figure that if they only make the coffee bad enough, the guests
+would say, 'Well, one good thing, while the food is terrible, it ain't a
+marker on the coffee.'"
+
+"But the food tastes pretty good to me, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"Wait till you've been here a week, Abe," Morris advised him. "Anything
+would taste good to you after what you went through on that boat."
+
+"What do you mean--after what _I_ went through?" Abe demanded. "What I
+went through don't begin to compare with what you went through, which
+honestly, Mawruss, there was times there on that second day out where
+you acted so terrible, understand me, that rather as witness such human
+suffering again, if any one would of really and truly had your interests
+at heart, they would of give a couple of dollars to a steward that he
+should throw you overboard and make an end of your misery."
+
+"Is _that_ so!" Morris retorted. "Well, let me tell you something, Abe.
+If you think _I_ was in a bad way, don't kid yourself, when you lay
+there in your berth for three days without strength enough to take off
+even your collar and necktie, y'understand, that the captain said to the
+first officer ain't it wonderful what an elegant sailor that Mr. Potash
+is or anything _like_ it, understand me, which on more than one occasion
+when I seen the way you looked, Abe, I couldn't help thinking of what
+chances concerns like the Equ_itta_ble takes when they pass a feller as
+A number one on his heart and kidneys, and ain't tried him out on so
+much as a Staten Island ferry-boat to see what kind of a traveler he
+is."
+
+"Listen, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "did we come over here paying
+first-class fares for practically steerage accommodations to discuss
+life insurance, or did we come over here to buy model garments and get
+through with it, because believe me, it is no pleasure for me to stick
+around a country where you couldn't get no sugar or butter in a hotel,
+not if you was to show the head waiter a doctor's certificate with a
+hundred-dollar bill pinned on it. So let us go round to a few of these
+high-grade dressmakers and see how much we are going to get stuck for,
+and have it over with."
+
+Accordingly, they paid for the coffee and milk without sugar and the
+dark sour rolls without butter which nowadays form the usual hotel
+breakfast in France, and set out for the office of the commission
+agent whose place of business is the rendezvous for American
+garment-manufacturers in search of Parisian model gowns. The broad
+avenues in the vicinity of the hotel seemed unusually crowded even to
+people as accustomed to the congested traffic of lower Fifth Avenue as
+Abe and Morris were, but as they proceeded toward the wholesale district
+of Paris the streets became less and less traveled, until at length they
+walked along practically deserted thoroughfares.
+
+"And we thought business was rotten in America," Morris said. "Why,
+there ain't hardly one store open, hardly."
+
+Abe nodded gloomily.
+
+"It looks to me, Mawruss, that if there is any new garments being
+designed over here," he said, "they would be quiet morning gowns
+appropriate for attending something informal like a sale by a receiver
+in supplementary proceedings, or a more or less elaborate afternoon
+costume, not too showy, y'understand, but the kind of model that a
+fashionable Paris dressmaker could wear to a referee in bankruptcy's
+office so as not to make the attending creditors say she was her own
+best customer, understand me."
+
+"Well, what could you expect?" Morris said, as they toiled up the stairs
+to the commission agent's office. "The chances is that up to a couple of
+months ago, in a Paris dressmaker's shop, a customer arrived only every
+other week, whereas a nine-inch bomb arrived every twenty minutes, and
+furthermore, Abe, it was _you_ that suggested this trip, not _me_, so
+now that we are over here, we should ought to make the best of it, and
+if this here commission agent can't show us no new designs, he could,
+anyhow, show us the sights."
+
+But even this consolation was denied them, for when they reached the
+commission agent's door it was locked and barred, as were all the other
+offices on that floor, and bore a placard reading:
+
+
+        FERME
+
+À CAUSE DU JOUR DE FÊTE
+
+
+"_Nu!_" Morris said, after he had read and re-read the notice a number
+of times, "what are we going to do _now_?"
+
+"This is the last hair," Abe said, "because you know how it is with
+these Frenchers, if they close for a death in the family, it is liable
+to be a matter of weeks already."
+
+"Maybe it says gone to lunch, will be back in half an hour," Morris
+suggested, hopefully.
+
+"Not a chance," Abe declared. "More likely it means this elegant office
+with every modern improvement except an elevator, steam heat, and
+electric light, to be sublet, because it would be just our luck that the
+commission agent is back in New York right now with a line of brand-new
+model gowns, asking our bookkeeper will either of the bosses be back
+soon."
+
+"We wouldn't get back in ten years, I'll tell you that, unless we
+hustle," Morris declared. He led the way down-stairs to the ground
+floor, where, after a few minutes, they managed to attract the attention
+of the _concierge_, who emerged from her shelter at the foot of the
+stairs and in rapid French explained to Abe and Morris that all Paris
+was celebrating with a public holiday the arrival of President Wilson.
+
+"It's a funny thing about the French language," Morris said, as she
+concluded. "Even if you don't understand what the people mean, you could
+'most always tell what they've been eating, which if the French people
+was limited by law to a ton of garlic a month per person, Abe, this lady
+would go to jail for the rest of her life."
+
+"_Attendez!_" said the _concierge_. "_Au dessus il yà un monsieur qui
+parle anglais._"
+
+She motioned for them to wait and ascended the stairs to the floor
+above, where they heard her knock on an office door. Evidently the
+person who opened it was annoyed by the interruption, for his voice--and
+to Abe and Morris it was a strangely familiar voice--was raised in angry
+protest.
+
+"Now listen," said the tenant, "I told you before that I've only got
+this place temporarily, and as long as I am in here I don't want you to
+do no cleaning nor nothing, because the air is none too good here as it
+is, and furthermore--"
+
+He proceeded no farther, however, for Abe and Morris had taken the
+stairs three at a jump and began to wring his hands effusively upon the
+principle of any port in a storm.
+
+"Well, well, well, if it ain't Leon Sammet!" Abe cried, and his manner
+was as cordial as though, instead of their nearest competitor, Leon were
+Potash & Perlmutter's best customer.
+
+"The English language bounces off of that woman like water from a duck's
+neck," Leon said, "which every five minutes she comes up here and talks
+to me in French high speed with the throttle wide open like a racing-car
+already."
+
+"And the exhaust must be something terrible," Abe said.
+
+"I am nearly frozen from opening the windows to let out her
+conversation," Leon said, "and especially this morning, when I thought I
+could get a lot of letter-writing done without being interrupted, on
+account of the holiday."
+
+"So that's the reason why everything is closed up!" Morris exclaimed.
+
+"But Christmas ain't for pretty near two weeks yet," Abe said.
+
+"What has Christmas got to do with it?" Leon retorted. "To-day is a
+holiday because President Wilson arrives in Paris."
+
+"And you are working here?" Abe cried.
+
+"Why not?" Leon asked.
+
+"You mean to say that President Wilson is arriving in Paris to-day and
+you ain't going to see him come in?" Morris exclaimed. "What for an
+American are you, anyway?"
+
+"Say, for that matter, President Wilson has been arriving in New York
+hundreds of times in the past four years," Leon said, "and I 'ain't
+heard that you boys was on the reception committee exactly."
+
+"That's something else again," Abe said. "In New York we've got business
+_enough_ to do without fooling away our time rubbering at parades, but
+President Wilson only comes to Paris once in a lifetime."
+
+"And some of the people back home is kicking because he comes to Paris
+even _that_ often," Leon commented.
+
+"_Let_ 'em kick," Morris declared, "which the way some Americans runs
+down President Wilson only goes to show that it's an old saying and a
+true one that there is no profit for a man in his own country, so go
+ahead and write your letters if you want to, Leon, but Abe and me is
+going down-town to the Champs Elizas and give the President a couple of
+cheers like patriotic American sitsons should ought to do."
+
+"In especially," Abe added, "as it is a legal holiday and we wouldn't
+look at no model garments to-day."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+SETTLING THE PRELIMINARIES
+
+
+"After all, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, as he sat with his partner,
+Morris Perlmutter, in their hotel room on the night after the
+President's arrival in Paris, "a President is only human, and it seems
+to me that if they would of given him a chance to go quietly to a hotel
+and wash up after the trip, y'understand, it would be a whole lot better
+as meeting him at the railroad depot and starting right in with the
+speeches."
+
+"What do you mean--give him a chance to wash up?" Morris asked. "Don't
+you suppose he had a chance to wash up on the train, or do you think him
+and Mrs. Wilson sat up all night in a day-coach?"
+
+"I don't care if they had a whole section," Abe retorted; "it ain't the
+easiest thing in the world to step off a train in a stovepipe hat, with
+a clean shave, after a twenty-hour trip, even if it would of been one of
+them eighteen-hour limiteds even, and begin right away to get off a lot
+of _schmooes_ about he don't know how to express the surprise and
+gratification he feels at such an enthusiastic reception, in especially
+as he probably lay awake half the night trying to memorize the bigger
+part of the speech following the words, 'and now, gentlemen, I wouldn't
+delay you no longer.' So that's why I say if they would have let him go
+to his hotel first, y'understand, why, then he--"
+
+"But Mr. and Mrs. Wilson ain't putting up at no hotel. They are staying
+with a family by the name of Murat," Morris explained.
+
+"Relations to the Wilsons maybe?" Abe inquired.
+
+"Not that I heard tell of," Morris replied.
+
+"Well, whoever they are they've got my sympathy," Abe said; "because
+once, when the Independent Order Mattai Aaron held its annual Grand
+Lodge meeting in New York, me and Rosie put up the Grand Master, by the
+name Louis M. Koppelman, used to was Koppelman & Fine, the Fashion
+Store, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and the way that feller turned the house
+upside down, if he would have stayed another week with us, understand
+me, I would have hired a first-class A number one criminal lawyer to
+defend me and wired the relations for instructions as to how to ship the
+body home."
+
+"I bet yer the Murats feel honored to got Mr. and Mrs. Wilson staying
+with them," Morris said.
+
+"For the first few days maybe," Abe admitted, "but wait till a couple
+weeks go by! I give them until January 1, 1919, and after that Mr. and
+Mrs. Murat would be signaling each other to come up-stairs into the
+maid's room and be holding a few ain't-them-people-got-no-home
+conversations. Also, Mawruss, for the rest of their married life,
+Mawruss, every time the tropic of who invited them in the FIRST place
+comes up at meal-times, y'understand, either Mr. or Mrs. Murat is going
+to get up from the table and lock themselves up in the bedroom for the
+remainder of the evening. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"I wouldn't argue with you," Morris said, "because if I would give you
+the slightest encouragement you are liable to go to work and figure
+where Mrs. Murat is kicking to Mr. Murat that she couldn't make out with
+the housekeeping money while the Wilsons is in Paris, on account of
+having to buy an extra bottle of Grade B milk every day, or something
+like that, which you talk like Mr. and Mrs. Wilson was in Paris on a
+couple of weeks' vacation, whereas the President has come here to settle
+the peace of the world."
+
+"Did I say he didn't?" Abe protested.
+
+"And while you are sitting here talking a lot of nonsense," Morris went
+on, "big things is happening, which with all the questions he has got to
+think about, I bet yer the President _oser_ worries his head about a
+little affair like board and lodging. Also I read in one of them Paris
+editions of an American paper that there come over to France on the same
+steamer with him over three hundred experts--college professors and the
+like--and them fellers is now staying in Paris at various hotels, which,
+if that don't justify Mr. Wilson in putting up with a private family,
+y'understand, I don't know what does!"
+
+"I thought at the time I read about them experts coming over to help
+the President in the Peace Conference that he was letting himself in for
+something," Abe observed.
+
+"I bet yer!" Morris said. "And that's where Colonel House was wise when
+he comes over on a steamer ahead of them, because it is bad enough when
+you are crossing the ocean in winter-time to be President of the United
+States and to have to try not to act otherwise, without having three
+hundred experts dogging your footsteps and thinking up ways to start a
+conversation and swing it towards the subject they are experts in. Which
+I bet yer every time the President tried to get a little exercise by
+walking around the promenade deck after lunch there was an expert on
+Jugo-Slobs laying for him who was all worked up to tell everything he
+knew about Jugo-Slobs in a couple of laps, provided the President lasted
+that long."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "a man which employs experts to ask
+advice from deserves all he gets, Mawruss, because you know how it is
+when you ask an advice from somebody which don't know a thing in the
+world about what he is advising you. He'll talk you deaf, dumb, and
+blind, anyhow. So you can imagine what it must be like when you are
+getting advice from an expert!"
+
+"It seems to me that before the President gets through he will be
+looking around for an expert which is expert in choking off advice from
+experts, otherwise the first time the President consults one of them
+experts, if he's going to wait for the expert to get through, he will
+have to be elected to a third term and then maybe hold over, at that,"
+Morris commented.
+
+"I should think the President would be glad when this Peace Conference
+is over," Abe said.
+
+"Say! For that matter he'll be glad when it's started," Morris said.
+"Which the way it looks now, Abe, the preliminaries of a peace
+conference is harder on a President in the way of speeches and parades
+than two Liberty Loan campaigns and an inauguration. Take, for instance,
+the matter of dinners, and I bet yer before he even goes to London next
+week he would have six meals with the President of France alone--I can't
+remember his name."
+
+"Call him Lefkowitz," Abe said, "I'll know who you mean."
+
+"Well, whatever it is, he looks like a hearty eater, Abe," Morris
+remarked.
+
+"In fact, Mawruss, from what I seen of them French politicians in the
+parade this morning," Abe observed, "none of them looked like they went
+slow on starchy foods and red meats, whereas take the American Peace
+Commissioners, from the President down, and while they don't all of them
+give you the impression that they eat breakfast food for dinner exactly,
+still at the same time if these here peace preliminaries is going to
+include more dinners than parades, the French Commissioners has got them
+under a big handicap."
+
+"Maybe you're right," Morris agreed. "But my idee is that with these
+here preliminary peace dinners it ain't such a bad thing for us if our
+Peace Commissioners wouldn't be such hearty eaters, y'understand,
+because you know how it is when we've got a hard-boiled egg come into
+the place to look over our line, it's a whole lot better to get an idee
+of about how much he expects to buy after lunch than before, in
+especially if we pay for the lunch. So if this here President Lefkowitz,
+or whatever the feller's name is, expects to fill up the President with
+a big meal of them French _à la_ dishes until Mr. Wilson gets so
+good-natured that he is willing to tell not only his life history, but
+also just exactly what he means by a League of Nations, y'understand,
+the dinner might just as well start and end with two poached eggs on
+toast, for all the good it will do."
+
+"Still, it ain't a bad idee to have all these dinners over and done with
+before the business of the Peace Conference begins, Mawruss," Abe
+remarked, "because hafterwards, when Mr. Wilson's attitude on some of
+them fourteen propositions for peace becomes known, y'understand, it
+ain't going to be too pleasant for Mrs. Wilson to be sitting by the side
+of her husband and watch the looks of some of the guests sitting
+opposite during the fish course, for instance, not wishing him no harm,
+but waiting for a good-sized bone to lodge sideways in his throat, or
+something."
+
+"She is used to that from home already, whenever she has a few
+Republican Senators to dinner at the White House," Morris said. "But
+that ain't here nor there, anyhow, because after the Peace Conference
+begins the President will be so busy, y'understand, that sending out one
+of the Assistant Secretaries of State to a Busy Bee lunch-room to bring
+him a couple of sandwiches and some coffee will be the nearest to a
+formal dinner that the President will come to for many a day. Take, for
+instance, the proposition of the Freedom of the Seas, and there's a
+whole lot to be said on both sides by people like yourself which don't
+know one side from the other."
+
+"And I don't want to know, neither," Abe said, "because it wouldn't make
+no difference to me how free the seas was made, once I get back on terra
+cotta, Mawruss; they could not only make the seas free, y'understand,
+but they could also offer big bonuses in addition, and I wouldn't leave
+America again not if they was to give me a life pass good on the
+_Olympic_ or _Aquitania_ with meals included."
+
+"So your idea is that the freedom of the seas means traveling for
+nothing on ocean steamers?" Morris commented.
+
+"Say!" Abe retorted, "why should I bother my head what such things mean
+when I got for a partner a feller which really by rights belongs down at
+the Peace headquarters, along with them other big experts?"
+
+"I never claimed to be an expert, but at the same time, I ain't an
+ignerammus, neither, which even before I left New York, I knew all
+about this here Freedom of the Seas," Morris said, "which the day
+before we sailed I was talking to Henry Binder, of Binder & Baum, and he
+says to me--"
+
+"Excuse me, but what does Binder & Baum know about the Freedom of the
+Seas?" Abe demanded. "They are in the wholesale pants business, ain't
+it?"
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris continued, "and Paderewski is a piano-player, and
+at the same time he went over to Poland to organize the new Polish
+Republic."
+
+"And the result will be that when the new Polish Republic gets started
+under the direction of this here piano-player," Abe said, "and they get
+a new Polish National Anthem, it will be an expert piano-player's idea
+of something which is easy to play, and the consequence is that until
+the next Polish revolution, every time a band plays the Polish National
+Anthem, them poor Polacks would got to stand up for from forty-five
+minutes to an hour while the band struggles to get through with what it
+would have taken Paderewski three minutes at the outside."
+
+"Henry Binder is a college graduate even if he would be in the pants
+business," Morris said, "and he said to me: 'Perlmutter,' he said, 'the
+Freedom of the Seas is like this,' he says. 'You take a country like
+Norway and it stands in the same relation to the big naval powers like
+we would to the other big manufacturers. Now, for instance,' he says,
+'last year we did a business of over two million dollars, and--'"
+
+Abe raised his right hand like a traffic policeman.
+
+"Stop right there, Mawruss," he said, "because if the Freedom of the
+Seas is anything like Binder & Baum doing a business of two million
+dollars last year, I don't believe a word of it, which it wouldn't make
+no difference if Henry Binder was talking about the Freedom of the Seas
+or astronomy, sooner or later he is bound to ring in the large amount of
+goods he is selling, and, anyway, no matter what Henry Binder tells you,
+you must got to reckon ninety-eight per cent. discount before you could
+believe a word he says."
+
+"And do you suppose for one moment that the members of the Peace
+Conference is going to act any different from Henry Binder in that
+respect?" Morris asked. "Every one of the representatives of the
+countries engaged in this here Peace Conference is coming to France with
+a statement of the very least they would accept, and it is pretty
+generally understood that all such statements are subject to a very
+stiff discount, which that is what these here preliminaries is for,
+Abe--to get a line on the discounts before the Peace Conference
+discusses the claims themselves."
+
+"Well, when it comes to the Allies scrapping between themselves about
+League of Nations and Freedoms of Seas, I am content that they should be
+allowed a liberal discount on what they say for what they mean, Mawruss,
+but when it comes to Germany," he concluded, "she's got to pay, and pay
+in full, net cash, and then some."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO ENGLAND
+
+
+"The alphabet ain't what it used to be before the war, Mawruss," Abe
+said, as he read the paper at breakfast in his Paris hotel shortly after
+President Wilson's visit to England. "Former times if a feller
+understood C. O. D. and N. G., y'understand, he could read the papers
+and get sense out of it the same like he would be a college gradgwate,
+already; but nowadays when you pick up a morning paper and read that
+Colonel Harris Lefkowitz, we would say, for example, A. D. C. to the C.
+O. at G. H. Q. of the A. E. F., has been decorated with the D. S. O.,
+you feel that the only way to get a line on what is going on in the
+world is to get posted on this--now--algebry which ambitious young
+shipping-clerks gets fired for studying during office hours."
+
+"Well, if you get mixed up by these here letters, think what it must be
+like for President Wilson to suddenly get one of them English statesmen
+sprung on him by--we would say--the King--where the King says: 'Mr.
+President, shake hands with the Rutt Hon. Duke of Cholomondley,
+K.C.M.G., R.V.O., K.C.B., F.P.A., G.S.I., and sometimes W. and Y.'"
+Morris said, "in especially as I understand Cholomondley is pronounced
+as if written Rabinowitz."
+
+"It would anyhow give the President a tropic for conversation such as
+ain't it the limit what you got to pay to get visiting-cards engraved
+nowadays, which it really and truly must cost the English aristocracy a
+fortune for such things," Abe said, "in particularly if the daughter of
+such a feller gets married with engraved invitations, Mawruss, after he
+had paid the stationery bill, y'understand, he wouldn't got nothing left
+for her dowry."
+
+"Well, I guess the President wasn't in no danger of running out of
+tropics of conversation while he was in England, Abe," Morris said,
+"which during all the spare time Mr. Wilson had on his trip he did
+nothing but hold conversations with Mr. Balfour, and this here Lord
+George, and you could take it from me, Abe, there wasn't many pauses to
+be filled up by Mr. Wilson saying ain't it a funny weather we are having
+nowadays, or something like that."
+
+"How do you know?" Abe asked. "Was you there?"
+
+"I wasn't there," Morris said, "but last night I was speaking in the
+lobby of the hotel to one of them newspaper reporters which made the
+trip with the President, and after I had given the young feller one of
+the cigars we brought with us from New York he got quite friendly and
+told me all about it. It seems, Abe, that the visit was a wonderful
+success, in particular the first day Mr. Wilson was in England. The
+weather was one of the finest days they had in winter over in England
+for years already. Only six inches of rain, and the passage across the
+English Channel was so smooth for this time of the year that less than
+eighty per cent. of the passengers was ill as against the normal
+percentage of 99.31416. As Mr. Wilson had requested that no fuss should
+be made over his visit, things was kept down as much as possible, so
+that, on leaving Calais, the President's boat was escorted by only ten
+torpedo-boat destroyers, a couple battle-ships, three cruisers, and
+eight-twelfths of a dozen assorted submarines. There was also a simple
+and informal escort of about fifty airy-oplanes, the six dirigible
+balloons having been cut out of the program in accordance from the
+President's wishes. However, Abe, all this simplicity was nothing
+compared to the way they acted when the President arrived at Dover.
+There the arrangements was what you might expect when the President of a
+plain, democratic people visits the country of another plain, democratic
+people, Abe. The only people there to meet them was about twenty or
+thirty dukes, a few field-marshals, three regiments of soldiers,
+including the bands, and somebody which the newspaper reporter says he
+at first took for Caruso in the second act of 'Aïda' and afterwards
+proved to be the mayor of Dover in his official costume.
+
+"The ceremony of welcoming Mr. and Mrs. Wilson to the shores of England
+was very short, the whole thing being practically over in two hours and
+thirty minutes," Morris continued. "It consisted of either the firing of
+a Presidential salute of twenty-one guns or the playing of the American
+National Anthem by the massed bands of three regiments, the reporter
+says he couldn't tell which, on account he stood behind one of the
+drums. Later the President made a short speech, in which he said: 'May I
+not say how glad I am to land in Dover,' or something to that effect."
+
+"And after that boat-ride from France he would have said so if it had
+been Barren Island, or any other place-just so long as it was free from
+earthquakes and didn't roll none," Abe agreed. "Also, Mawruss," he
+continued, "some day the President is going to begin a speech with, 'May
+I not,' and the chairman of the meeting will take him at his word and
+put it to a standing vote, and it is going to surprise the President how
+few people is going to remain seated on the proposition of whether or
+not he shall continue to begin letters and speeches with, 'May I not.'"
+
+"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "When we get by mail a cancelation and answer
+it, 'Dear Gents, Your favor received,' does that mean we think the
+customer is doing us a favor by canceling an order on us? _Oser a
+Stuck._ And in the same way, when Mr. Wilson says, 'May I not?' nobody
+fools themselves for a minute that the President is asking permission.
+That's just a habit us and him got into, Abe, and in fact, Abe, Mr.
+Wilson's 'May-I-nots' have always meant that not only was he going to
+say what he intended to say, but that he was also going to do it, too.
+So, therefore, you take the speech he made at the Gelthall in London,
+and--"
+
+"But as I understand your story, Mawruss, he only just arrived in
+Dover," Abe said, "so go ahead with your lies, and tell me what happened
+next."
+
+"Well," Morris went on to say, "after the mayor of Dover had presented
+Mr. Wilson with the Freedom of the City in a gold casket--"
+
+"Excuse me, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "but what is this here Freedom of
+the City that mayors is all the time presenting to Mr. Wilson?"
+
+"I don't know," Morris replied, "except that seemingly a Freedom of the
+City always comes in a gold casket."
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe said, "but what does Mr. Wilson gain by all these
+here Freedoms of Cities?"
+
+"Gold caskets," Morris replied, "although I think myself that some of
+these mayors ain't above getting by with a gold-plated silver casket, or
+even a rolled-gold casket, relying on the fact that Mr. Wilson is too
+much of a gentleman to get an appraisal, anyhow till he returns to
+America."
+
+"Well, if I would be Mr. Wilson, I wouldn't take it so particular to act
+too gentlemanly to them mayors," Abe commented, "because I see in the
+papers that when the mayor of London presented him with the Freedom of
+the City, Mr. Wilson got the Freedom part, but he was told that the
+gold casket was in preparation, which I admit that I don't know nothing
+about this here mayor of London, but you know how it is when a customer
+gets married, Mawruss, and we put off sending him a wedding present till
+we could get round to it, y'understand, which we are all human, Mawruss,
+and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if six months from now the
+mayor of London would be going round saying, 'Why should we give that
+feller a gold casket--am I right or wrong?'--and let the whole
+gold-casket thing die a natural death."
+
+"They'll probably come across with it after a few how-about-casket
+cables, and, anyhow, if they didn't, Abe, the English people certainly
+done enough for Mr. Wilson," Morris continued, "because that newspaper
+reporter told me that the reception which Mr. Wilson got in London was
+something enormous, y'understand. The King and Queen was waiting to meet
+him and the station platform was covered with a red-velvet pile carpet
+which was so thick, understand me, that they 'ain't been able as yet to
+locate a couple of suit-cases which was carelessly put down by the Rutt
+Hon. the Duke of Warrington, K.G.Y., Y.M.H.A., First Lord Red Cap in
+Waiting, and sunk completely out of sight while he helped a couple of
+Assistant Red Caps in Waiting, also dukes, load the Presidential
+wardrobe trunks on the Royal Baggage Transfer truck."
+
+"What do you mean--also dukes?" Abe demanded. "Do you mean to say that
+the Red Caps which hustles the King's baggage is dukes?"
+
+"At the very least," Morris declared, "because the Master of the Royal
+Fox-hounds is an earl, Abe, and I leave it to you, Abe, if handling
+baggage ain't a better job than feeding dogs. Also, Abe, there is Lords
+in Waiting and Ladies in Waiting, and it wouldn't surprise me in the
+slightest if during their stay in Buckingham Palace some of the members
+of Mr. Wilson's party which ain't been tipped off have telephoned down
+to the office for towels and kept the Marquis of Hendersonville, Lanes
+County, England, Knight Commander of the Bath, waiting at the bedroom
+door ten minutes, while they went through all their clothes trying to
+find something smaller than a quarter to slip him."
+
+"And do you believe for one moment, Mawruss--if there was a Marquis of
+Hendersonville, which I never heard of such a person, Mawruss--and he
+did happen to be Knight Commander of the Bath, y'understand, that he is
+actually handing out soap and towels in the King of England's palace?"
+Abe inquired.
+
+"Certainly I don't believe it," Morris replied, "and I also don't
+believe that calling anybody Right Honorable is going to make him any
+more right than he is honorable, unless, of course, he is honorable to
+start with and really and truly wants to be right, y'understand. And
+that is what Mr. Wilson went to England to find out, Abe, because it
+ain't going to affect the Peace Conference one way or the other if the
+Master of the Royal Fox-hounds don't know a dawg-biscuit from a
+gingersnap, y'understand, whereas if this here war is going to be
+settled once and for all, Abe, it's quite important that the Right
+Honorable English statesmen should have right and honorable intentions."
+
+"And did Mr. Wilson find out?" Abe asked.
+
+"Sure he did," Morris said, "although from what this here newspaper
+reporter tells me, Abe, there was a whole lot of lost motion about the
+investigation. Take, for instance, the attitude of Mr. Lord George on
+the Freedom of the Seas, for instance, and you would think that in the
+case of a busy man like Mr. Wilson, y'understand, he would of rung him
+up on the telephone, made an appointment for luncheon the next morning,
+and by half past one at the outside they would have got the matter in
+such shape that the only point not settled between 'em would be a
+friendly quarrel as to see who should pay for the eats, y'understand.
+Actually, however, the arrangements for having Mr. Wilson get into touch
+with Lord George was conducted by the Comptroller of the Royal
+Household, and the line of march was down Piccadilly as far as
+Forty-second Street, over to Hyde Park, and by way of Hyde Park west to
+Eighth Avenue to Mr. Lord George's office in the London & Liverpool
+Title Guarantee and Trust Company Building. The order of procession was
+as follows:
+
+"Twelve mounted policemen.
+
+"The band of the King's Own Sixty-ninth Regiment.
+
+"Typographical Union No. 6, Allied Printing Trades Council of Great
+Britain and Ireland.
+
+"William J. Mustard Association, Drum and Fife Corps.
+
+"Household Guards.
+
+"First carriage--Mr. Wilson and the King.
+
+"Second carriage--Mrs. Wilson and the Queen.
+
+"Third carriage--Mr. George Creel.
+
+"Fourth carriage--Master of the Royal Fox-hounds, Master of the Royal
+Buck-hounds, Master of the Royal Stag-hounds, two Masters of Assorted
+hounds.
+
+"Six Motor-cycle Policemen.
+
+"The Stock Exchange closed, and promissory notes falling due on that
+date became automatically payable on the following day. Admission to the
+reviewing-stand was by card, some of which found their way into the
+hands of the speculators, and will shortly be the subject of a John Doe
+investigation by the district attorney of Middlesex County, so the
+newspaper feller told me."
+
+"But what is this here Lord George's attitude towards the Freedom of the
+Seas, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"That the newspaper feller didn't know," Morris said.
+
+"Well, who does know?" Abe insisted.
+
+"Lord George," Morris replied.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING SATISFACTORILY--MAYBE
+
+
+"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said to his partner, Abe Potash, a few
+days after Mr. Wilson's return from his visit to Italy, "up to a short
+time ago hardly anybody in America had ever even heard about Italy's
+claims to the Dalmatian territory."
+
+"Naturally!" Abe replied; "because if there is six people in the whole
+United States which is engaged in the business of selling spotted dogs
+to fire-engine houses, Mawruss, that would be big already."
+
+Morris threw up both hands in a gesture of despair. "What is the use
+talking foreign politics to a feller which thinks that Italy's claims to
+the Dalmatian territory means she wants the exclusive right to make New
+York, Cleveland, Chicago, and St. Louis with a line of spotted dogs for
+fire-engine companies!" he exclaimed.
+
+"And I wouldn't even have known that it meant that much," Abe retorted,
+entirely unabashed, "excepting that six months ago my wife's sister's
+cousin wanted me I should advance her a hundred dollars to pay a lawyer
+he should bring suit against the city for her on account she got bitten
+by one of them fire-house Dalmatians, Mawruss, which up to that time I
+always had an idea they was splashed-up white dogs. So go ahead,
+Mawruss, I'll be the goat. What is Italy's claims to the Dalmatian
+territory?"
+
+"Well, in the first place, Italy thinks she should be awarded all them
+towns where a majority of the people which lives in them speaks
+Italian," Morris said; "like Fiume, Spalato, Ragusa--"
+
+"Also New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, and The Bronx," Abe added; "and if she
+wants to get nasty, Mawruss, she could claim all the territory east of
+Third Avenue, from Ninetieth Street up to the Harlem River, too.
+Furthermore, Mawruss, there is neighborhoods south of Washington Square
+where not only the majority of the people speaks Italian, but the
+minority speaks it also. So you see how complicated things becomes when
+a new beginner like me starts in to talk foreign politics."
+
+"For that matter, all us Americans is new beginners on foreign politics,
+from Mr. Wilson down, Abe," Morris said. "And that is why Mr. Wilson
+done a wise thing when he visited Italy the other day, and took a lot of
+American newspaper fellers with him, because, between you and me, Abe,
+it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some of them reporters went down
+there under the impression that the only thing which distinguished
+Ragusa from Ravioli or Spalato from Spaghetti was the difference in the
+shape of the noodles, but that otherwise they was cooked the same, with
+chicken livers and tomato sauce, which you know how it is in America:
+ninety per cent. of the people gets their education from reading in
+newspapers, and the consequence is that if the American newspaper
+reporters has a sort of hazy idea that Sonnino is either an item on the
+bill of fare, to be passed up on account of having garlic in it, or else
+a tenor which the Metropolitan Opera House ain't given a contract to as
+yet, y'understand, then the American public has got the same sort of
+hazy idea. So Mr. Wilson done the right thing traveling to Italy, even
+if he did have an uncomfortable journey."
+
+"What do you mean--an uncomfortable journey?" Abe demanded. "Why, I
+understand he traveled on the King of Italy's royal train!"
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but when a king is sleeping on a royal
+train in Europe, Abe, he can be pretty near as comfortable as a
+traveling-salesman sitting up all night on a day-coach in America, and
+if he spends two nights on such a royal train, the way President Wilson
+did in going from Paris to Rome, which is about as far as from New York
+to Chicago, y'understand, it wouldn't make no difference how many people
+is waiting at the station to holler 'Long live the King!' understand me,
+he is going to feel half dead, anyway."
+
+"And yet there is people which claims that Mr. Wilson don't give a whoop
+whether he makes himself popular or not," Abe commented, "which before
+I could lay awake two nights on a train, I wouldn't care if every
+newspaper reporter in the United States never got no nearer to Italy
+than a fifty-cent _table d'hôte_, including wine."
+
+"Maybe you would care if you was going to Italy to make speeches the way
+Mr. Wilson did," Morris said. "Which if the King of Italy was to go to
+America and make speeches in Italian at the Capitol in Washington, it
+would be just as well if he would bring along an audience of a few dozen
+Italians with him, and not depend on enough barbers, shoe-blacks, and
+vegetable-stand keepers horning in on the proceedings to give the
+Congressmen and Senators a hint as to where the applause should come in.
+In fact, I was speaking to one of them newspaper fellers which went to
+Italy, Abe, and he says that he listened carefully to all the speeches
+which was made in Italian, Mawruss, and that once he thought he heard
+the word Chianti mentioned, but he couldn't say for certain. He told me,
+however, that the correspondent of _The New York Evening Post_ also
+claims that he heard Orlando, the Prime Minister, in a speech delivered
+in Rome, use the words Il Trovatore, but that otherwise the whole thing
+was like having the misfortune to see somebody give an imitation of
+Eddie Foy when you've escaped seeing Eddie Foy in the first place, so
+you can imagine what chance Mr. Wilson would have stood with them
+Italians if the American correspondents hadn't been along to start the
+cries of 'Bravo!' in the right spot.
+
+"So you see, Abe, it's a good thing for them newspaper men to see what
+kind of people the Italians is in their own country," Morris continued,
+"because if this here League of Nations idea is going to be put over by
+Mr. Wilson, Americans should ought to know from the start that Italy is
+a Big League nation and its batting average in this war is just as good
+as the other Big League nations."
+
+"Did any one say it wasn't?" Abe demanded.
+
+"I know they didn't," Morris said. "But just the same, Abe, there's a
+whole lot of people in America which judges the Italians by the way they
+behave in the ice business and 'Cavalleria Rusticana,' and also a feller
+can get a very unfavorable opinion of Italians by being shaved in one of
+them ten-cent palace barber shops, understand me, so even if them
+newspaper men couldn't appreciate the performance without a libretto,
+y'understand, they could anyhow see for themselves that the Italians in
+Italy is doctors and lawyers, clothing-dealers and bankers, just the
+same like the Americans are in America, and if they can pass the word
+back home, with a few details of how it feels to be a foreigner in a
+foreign country, that wouldn't do no harm, neither."
+
+"That is something which an American newspaper correspondent wouldn't
+touch on at all," Abe said, "because I bet that every last one of them
+has already sent back to America an article about this trip to Italy,
+which, when the readers of his newspaper looks at it, Mawruss, not only
+would they think that he understood Sonnino's speech from start to
+finish, y'understand, but also that every time the newspaper feller is
+in Rome, which the article would lead one to believe has been on an
+average of once a week for the past ten years, Mawruss, him and Sonnino
+drink coffee together."
+
+"Ain't he taking a big chance when he writes a thing like that?" Morris
+commented.
+
+"Yow! A chance!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, to read the things that a few of
+these here Washington correspondents used to write when they was in
+America yet, you would think every one of them was pestered to death
+with telephone messages from the White House where Mr. Tumulty says if
+the newspaper feller has got a little spare time that evening the
+President would consider it a big favor if he would step around to the
+White House, as Mr. Wilson would like to ask him an advice about a
+diplomatic note which has just been received from Lord George in regards
+to the Freedom of the Seas or something."
+
+"But don't you suppose the newspaper which a nervy individual like that
+is working for would fire him on the spot?" Morris observed.
+
+"Not at all," Abe said, "because the newspaper-owner likes people to get
+the idea that the newspaper has got such an important feller for a
+Washington correspondent, just as much as the correspondent does
+himself, Mawruss, so you can imagine the bluff some of them fellers is
+going to throw now that they really got something interesting to write
+about like this here Peace Conference. If Mr. Wilson gains all his
+fourteen points, y'understand, the special Paris correspondent of the
+Bridgetown, Pa., _Daily Register_ is going to write home, 'And he could
+have gained fifteen if he would only have listened to me.' Also,
+Mawruss, during the next three months, if the Peace Conference lasts
+that long, the readers of the Cyprus, N. J., _Evening Chronicle_ is
+going to get the idea that President Wilson, Clemenceau, Lord George,
+and a feller by the name of Delos M. Jones, who is writing Peace
+Conference articles for the Cyprus, N. J., _Evening Chronicle_, are in
+secret conference together every day, including Sundays, from 10 A.M. to
+midnight, fixing up the boundaries between Rumania and Servia."
+
+"Well, them boys has got to produce something to make their bosses back
+in America continue paying salary and traveling expenses," Morris said,
+"because from what this here newspaper correspondent tells me, if he
+didn't get his imagination working, all he could write for his paper
+would be descriptions of Paris scenery, including the outside of the
+buildings where on the insides, with the doors locked and the curtains
+pulled, Mr. Wilson and the American Peace Commissioners is openly and
+notoriously carrying on open and notorious peace conversations with the
+other allied Peace Commissioners, and for all the newspaper
+correspondents know to the contrary, Abe, the only point on which them
+Peace Commission fellers ain't breaking up the furniture over is that
+when they come out, y'understand, it is agreed that the newspaper
+correspondents will be told that everything is proceeding
+satisfactorily."
+
+"But I thought Mr. Wilson promised before he left America that the old
+secret diplomacy would be a thing of the past," Abe said.
+
+"So he did," Morris agreed, "and by what I gather from this here
+newspaper man he kept his promise, too, and we now have got a new
+diplomacy, compared to which the fellers who were working under the
+rules of the old secret diplomacy bladded everything they knew."
+
+"But I distinctly read it in the papers the other day that every morning
+at half past ten, Mawruss, Mr. Lansing meets the newspaper
+correspondents and lets them know what's been going on," Abe said.
+
+"He meets them," Morris replied, "but so far as letting them know what
+has been going on is concerned, all he says that everything is
+proceeding satisfactorily and is there any gentleman there which would
+like to ask him any questions, which naturally any newspaper
+correspondent who could ask Mr. Lansing such questions as would make Mr.
+Lansing give out any information he didn't want to give out, wouldn't be
+wasting his time working as a newspaper correspondent, Abe, but would be
+considering offers from the law firm of Hughes, Brandeis, Stanchfield,
+Hughes & Stanchfield to come in as a full partner and take exclusive
+charge of the cross-examination of busted railroad presidents."
+
+"Maybe the reason why Mr. Lansing don't tell them newspaper
+correspondents nothing is that he ain't got nothing to tell them," Abe
+suggested.
+
+"Well, then, if I would be him, Abe, I would make up something," Morris
+said, "because if he don't they will, or anyhow some of them will, and
+there is going to be a lot of stuff printed in American papers where the
+correspondent says he learns from high authority that things ain't going
+so good in the Peace Conference as Mr. Wilson would like, because Mr.
+Wilson is the doctor in the case, and you know how it is when somebody
+is too sick to be seen and the doctor is worried, Abe, he sends down
+word by the nurse that everything is proceeding satisfactorily, and the
+visitor goes away trying to remember did he or did he not throw away
+that fifty-cent black four-in-hand tie he wore to the last funeral he
+went to."
+
+"I got a whole lot of confidence in Mr. Wilson as the doctor for this
+here war-sickness which Europe is suffering from, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"So have I," Morris said: "but you've got to remember that there's a
+whole lot of those doctors on the case, Abe--some of them quack doctors,
+too, and, when the doctors disagree, who is to decide?"
+
+"I don't know," Abe said; "but I think I know who would like to."
+
+"Who?" Morris asked.
+
+"Some of these here Washington newspaper correspondents you was talking
+about," Abe concluded.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE--IT NEEDS PUBLICITY
+
+
+"Well, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, as he and his partner, Morris
+Perlmutter, sat at breakfast in their Paris hotel one Sunday morning, "I
+see that the Peace Conference had a meeting the other day where it was
+regularly moved and seconded that there should be a League of Nations,
+and, in spite of what them Republican Senators back home predicted,
+Mawruss, when Chairman Clemenceau said, 'Contrary minded,' you could of
+heard a pin drop."
+
+"Sure you could," Morris Perlmutter agreed, "because the way this here
+Peace Conference is being run, Abe, when Mr. Clemenceau says: 'All those
+in favor would please say _Aye_,' he ain't _asking_ them, he's TELLING
+them, which I was speaking to the newspaper feller last night, Abe, and
+he says that, compared to the delegates at this here Peace Convention,
+y'understand, the delegates of a New York County Democratic Convention
+are free to act as they please. In fact, Abe, as I understand it, at the
+sewed-up political conventions which they hold it in America, the bosses
+do occasionally let a delegate get up and say a few words which ain't
+on the program exactly, but at this here Peace Convention a delegate who
+tries to get off a speech which 'ain't first been submitted in writing
+ten days in advance should ought to go into training for it by picking
+quarrels with waiters in all-night restaurants.
+
+"Take this here meeting which they held it on Saturday, Abe," Morris
+continued, "and it was terrible the way Chairman Clemenceau jumps, for
+instance, on a feller from Belgium by the name M. Hyman."
+
+"That ain't the same M. Hyman which used to was M. Hyman & Co. in the
+coat-pad business?" Abe inquired.
+
+"This here M. Hyman used to was a Belgium minister in London," Morris
+went on, "which he got up and objected to the way the five big
+nations--America, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan--was, so to
+speak, hogging the convention."
+
+"Well, I think the Reverend Hyman was right, at that," Abe said, "which
+I just finished reading Mr. Wilson's speech at that meeting, Mawruss, in
+which he said that no longer should the select classes govern the rest
+of mankind, y'understand, and after the American, French, British,
+Italian, and Japanese delegates gets through applauding what Mr. Wilson
+says, they select themselves to run the rest of the nations in the
+League of Nations. Naturally an ex-minister like the Reverend Hyman is
+going to say, 'Why don't you practise what you preach?'"
+
+"And if he wouldn't of been an ex-minister, Abe," Morris said, "the
+chances is that Chairman Clemenceau would of whispered a few words into
+the cauliflower ear of one of the sergeants-at-arms, and when the
+session closed, y'understand, the hat-check boy would have had one hat
+left over with the initials M. H. in it which Mr. Hyman didn't have time
+to claim before he hit the car tracks, y'understand, and I wouldn't
+blame Chairman Clemenceau, neither, because, if this here Peace
+Conference is going to end this side of nineteen-fifty, it's got to be
+speeded up some."
+
+[Illustration: "I wouldn't blame Chairman Clemenceau neither, because if
+this here Peace Conference is going to end this side of nineteen fifty,
+it's got to be speeded up some."]
+
+"Nobody says it 'ain't," Abe agreed, "but this here M. Hyman is a
+Belgium and he's got a right to be heard."
+
+"He _would_ have if everybody didn't admit that Belgium shall be
+protected in every which way, Abe," Morris agreed, "but there is also a
+lot of small nations which has got delegates at the Peace Convention,
+like Cuba, y'understand, and some of them South American republics, and,
+once you begin with them fellers, where are you going to leave off?
+Take, for instance, the Committee on Reparation, which has got charge of
+deciding how much money Germany ought to pay for losses suffered by the
+countries which made war on her, y'understand, and there wasn't one of
+them Spanish-American republics which didn't want to get appointed on
+that committee, because, when the Reparation Committee gets to work,
+practically all of them republics is going to come along with claims
+for smoke damages, bills for labor in connection with ripping out the
+fixtures of confiscated German steamers, loss of services of the
+Presidents of such republics by reason of tonsillitis from talking about
+how bravely they would have fought if they had raised an army and navy
+which they didn't, y'understand, and any other claims against Germany
+which they think they might have had a chance to get by with."
+
+"Well, of course there is bound to be a lot of them small republics
+which is going to make a play for a little easy money, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "but the indications is that when the proofs of claims is filed by
+the alleged creditors, y'understand, there would be a couple of them
+comma hounds on the Reparation Committee which would reject such claims
+on the grounds of misplaced semicolons alone. Then six months
+hafterwards, when the representative of one of them republics goes over
+to what used to was the office of the Peace Conference with a revised
+proof of claim, which he has just received by return mail, understand
+me, he would find the premises temporarily occupied by one of them
+crooked special-sale trunk concerns, and that's all there would _be_ to
+it."
+
+"Then you think that this here Peace Conference would only last six
+months, Abe?" Morris asked.
+
+"Sure I do," Abe replied, "and less, even, because right now already the
+interest is beginning to die out, which it wouldn't surprise me in the
+slightest, Mawruss, if in three weeks or so, when Mr. Wilson is
+temporarily out of the cast on account of going home to America to sign
+the new tax bill, y'understand, the attendance of the delegates would
+begin to fall off so bad, understand me, that the Peace Conference
+managers would got to spend a lot of money for putting in advertisements
+that George Clemenceau presents:
+
+
+    "'THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE
+
+The Unparalleled Success of Two Hemispheres
+
+  'Enthralling'                   _Tribune_
+  'Punch with a Kick in It'           _Sun_
+  'Vigor and Suspense'              _World_
+  'Wins Audience'                   _Globe_
+  'Gripping'                         _Mail_
+  'Ausgezeichnet'               _Tageblatt_
+
+              QUAI D'ORSAY
+
+                                    Now.
+
+  Matinees, Saturday, 2:30.'"
+
+
+"And even then they wouldn't get an audience, Abe," Morris said,
+"because those kind of advertisements don't fool nobody but the suckers
+which pays for them, Abe."
+
+"Maybe not," Abe agreed, "but if the delegates stays away, Mawruss, the
+Peace Conference could always get an audience by letting in the
+newspaper correspondents, which I don't care if in addition to Mr. Lord
+George and Colonel House they would got performing at this here Peace
+Conference Douglas Fairbanks and Caruso, it wouldn't be a success as a
+show, _anyhow_, because no theayter could get any audiences if they
+would make it a policy to bar out the newspaper crickets."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris began. "Nobody likes to read in newspapers
+more than I do, Abe. They help to pass away many unpleasant minutes in
+the Subway when a feller would otherwise be figuring on if God forbid
+the brakes shouldn't hold what is going to become of his wife and
+children, y'understand; but, at the same time, from the way this here
+newspaper feller which hogs our cigars is talking, Abe, I gather that
+the big majority of newspaper reporters now in Paris has got the idea
+that this here Peace Conference is being held mainly to give newspaper
+reporters a chance to write home a lot of snappy articles about peace
+conferences, past and present. Although, of course, there is certain
+more or less liberal-minded newspaper men which think that if,
+incidentally, Mr. Wilson puts over the League of Nations and the Freedom
+of the Seas, why, they 'ain't got no serious objections, just so long as
+it don't involve talking the matter over privately without a couple of
+hundred newspaper reporters present."
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but if them newspaper fellers has got such an
+idee, Mawruss, it is Mr. Wilson's own fault, because ever since we got
+into the war, y'understand, Mr. Wilson has been talking about open
+covenants of peace openly arrived at, and even before we went into the
+war he got off the words 'pitiful publicity,' and also it was him and
+not the newspaper men which first give the readers of newspapers to
+understand that the old secret diplomacy was a thing of the past,
+Mawruss, so the consequences was that, when Mr. Wilson come over here,
+the owners of newspapers sent to Paris everybody that was working for
+them--from dramatic crickets to baseball experts--just so long as they
+could write the English language, y'understand, because them
+newspaper-owners figured that, according to Mr. Wilson's own
+suggestions, this here Peace Conference was not only going to be a
+wide-open affair, openly arrived at, y'understand, but also pitifully
+public, whereas not only it ain't wide open, Mawruss, but it is about as
+pitifully public as a conference between the members of the financial
+committee of Tammany Hall on the day before Election. Also, Mawruss, a
+newspaper reporter could arrive at that Peace Conference openly or he
+could arrive at it disguised with false whiskers till his own wife
+wouldn't know him from a Jugo-Slob delegate, y'understand, and he
+couldn't get past the elevator-starter even."
+
+"That was when the conference opened," Morris said; "but I understand
+they are now letting them into the next room and giving them once in a
+while a look through the door during the supper turns when the Polack
+and Servian delegates is performing."
+
+"And that ain't going to do them a whole lot of good, neither," Abe
+declared, "because this here newspaper feller told me last night, when
+he was smoking my last cigar, that he has been mailing back an article a
+day to America ever since the President arrived here and there ain't not
+one of them which has got there yet."
+
+"And I was reading in the America edition of the Paris edition of the
+London edition of the Manchester, England, _Daily News_ that the
+newspaper correspondents couldn't only send back a couple of hundred
+words or so by telegraph, Abe," Morris said, "which the way it looks to
+me, Abe, if some news don't find its way back to America pretty quick
+about this here Peace Conference and Mr. Wilson, y'understand, people
+back home in Washington is going to say to each other, 'I wonder
+whatever become of this here--now--Wilson?' and the friend is going to
+say, '_What_ Wilson?' And the other feller would then say, 'Why, this
+here Woodruff Wilson.' And then the friend would say, 'Oh, HIM! Didn't
+he move away to Paris or something?' And the other feller would then
+say, 'I see where Benny Leonard put up a wonderful fight in Madison
+Square Garden yesterday,' and that's all there would be to THAT
+conversation."
+
+"Maybe it is because of this, and not because of signing the new tax
+bill, that the President is going home in a few days for a short stay
+in America," Abe suggested.
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but what good is them short visits going
+to do him, because I ain't such an optician like you are, Abe. I believe
+that this here Peace Conference is going to last a whole lot longer than
+six months, Abe, and, if Mr. Wilson keeps on going home and coming back,
+maybe the first time he goes back he would get some little newspaper
+publicity out of it, and the second time also, perhaps, but on the third
+when he returns from France only the Democratic newspapers would give
+him more as half a column about it, and later on, when he lands from his
+third to tenth trips, inclusive, all the notice the papers would take
+from it would be that in the ship's news on the ninth page there would
+be a few lines saying that among those returning on the S.S. _George
+Washington_ was J. L. Abrahams, and so on through the B's, C's, and D's
+right straight down to the W's, which you would got to read over several
+times before you would discover the President tucked away as W. Wilson
+between two fellers named Max Wangenheim and Abraham Welinsky."
+
+"There is something in what you say, Mawruss," Abe admitted; "but, at
+the same time, a big man like Mr. Wilson ain't looking to get no
+newspaper notoriety. He is working to become famous."
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris said; "but the only difference between notoriety
+and fame is that with notoriety you get the publicity now, whereas with
+fame you get the publicity fifty years from now, and the publicity which
+Mr. Wilson is going to get fifty years from now ain't going to help him
+a whole lot in the next presidential campaign."
+
+"Mr. Wilson ain't worrying about the next presidential campaign,
+Mawruss," Abe declared. "What he is trying to do is to make a success of
+this here Peace Conference."
+
+"Then he would better get a press agent for it," Morris observed,
+"because, if they don't get some more publicity, it will die on its
+feet."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+JOINING THE LEGION OF HONOR
+
+
+"I see where several Americans took advantage to join the Legion of
+Honor while they was over here," Morris Perlmutter remarked, as he sat
+at luncheon with his partner, Abe Potash, in the restaurant of their
+Paris hotel.
+
+"Some people is crazy for life insurance," Abe Potash commented, "in
+especially if they could combine it with the privilege to make speeches
+at lodge-meetings. Also, Mawruss, a whole lot of people is so badly
+predicted to the lapel-button habit that they would join anything just
+so long as they get a lapel-button to show for it."
+
+[Illustration: "a whole lot of people is so badly predicted to the lapel
+button habit they join anything"]
+
+"But this here Legion of Honor must be a pretty good fraternal-insurance
+proposition at that," Morris observed, "because it says here in the
+paper where several New York bankers has gone into it, which it's a
+mighty hard thing to separate them fellers from their money even with
+first-class, A-number-one, gilt-edged, two-name commercial paper, and if
+this here Legion of Honor was just a lapel-button affair which assessed
+its members every time they had a death claim to pay, you could take it
+from me, Abe, not one of them bankers would of went near it, so maybe
+it would be a good thing if we looked into it, Abe."
+
+"If you want to join this here Legion of Honor, that's _your_ business,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "but I already belong to the Independent Order
+Mattai Aaron, which I've been paying them crooks for three years now
+that I should get a sick benefit fifteen dollars a week without being
+laid up with so much as tonsillitis even."
+
+"About the sick benefit I wasn't thinking about at all," Morris
+declared; "but you take a feller like Sam Feder, president of the
+Kosciusko Bank, for instance, and if we should be maybe next year a
+little short and wanted an accommodation from two to three thousand
+dollars, y'understand, it wouldn't do us no harm if we could give him
+the L. of H. grip for a starter. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "The chances is that when them New York bankers
+gets back to New York they will want to forget all about joining this
+here L. of H."
+
+"Why, what is there so disgraceful about joining the L. of H.?" Morris
+asked.
+
+"Nobody said nothing about its being disgraceful, because lots of
+decent, respectable fellers is liable to make a mistake of that kind,
+understand me," Abe said; "but _you_ take one of these here members of
+the firm of--we would say, for example, J. G. Morgan, y'understand,
+which comes back from Paris after joining this here L. of H., and what
+happens him? The first morning he comes down to the office wearing an
+L. of H. button, Mawruss, everybody from the paying-teller up is going
+to ask him what is the idea of the button, and he is going to spend the
+rest of the day listening to stories about people joining insurance
+fraternities which busted up and left the members with undetermined
+sentences of from three to five years, y'understand. The consequence
+would be that if any of his depositors expect to get an accommodation by
+giving him the L. of H. grip or wearing an L. of H. button,
+y'understand, they might just so well send him an invitation to a
+banquet where, in order to gain his confidence and respect, they are
+going to drink champagne out of an actress's slipper, and be done with
+it. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Well, you couldn't exactly blame them fellers which joined the L. of
+H.," Morris observed, "because Paris has a very funny effect on some of
+the most level-headed Americans which goes there without their families
+and business associates, which if this here League of Nations had been
+fixed up at a Peace Conference held somewheres down on Lower Broadway
+instead of the Quai d'Orsay, Abe, the chances is that the United States
+Senate would of had a whole lot more confidence in it than they have at
+present."
+
+"Say!" Abe explained. "This here League of Nations could of been pulled
+off in Paris or it could of been pulled off in a respectable
+neighborhood like Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, Mawruss, for all the
+spare time it gave the fellers which framed it to indulge in any wild
+night life. Take, for instance, the proposed constitution and by-laws,
+which was printed on three pages of the newspaper the other day,
+Mawruss, and anybody which dictated that _megillah_ to a stenographer
+would be too hoarse for weeks afterwards to order so much as a plain
+Benedictine. Also, Mawruss, nobody which didn't lead a blameless life
+could have a brain clear enough to _understand_ the thing, let alone
+composing it, which last night I sat up till two o'clock this morning
+reading them twenty-six articles, Mawruss, and ten grains of asperin
+hardly touched the headache which I got from it."
+
+"Naturally," Morris said, "because when Mr. Wilson wrote that
+constitution, Abe, he figured that people which is going to read it has
+got a better education as one year in night school."
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, satirically, "but at the same time everybody
+ain't such a natural-born Harvard gradgawate like you are, Mawruss, and
+furthermore, Mawruss, it's a big mistake for Mr. Wilson to go ahead on
+the idea that we _are_, y'understand, because, so far as I remember it,
+the Constitution of the United States didn't say that this was a
+government of the college gradgawates by the college gradgawates for the
+college gradgawates, y'understand; neither did the Declaration of
+Independence start in by saying, 'We, the college gradgawates of the
+United States,' Mawruss. The consequences is that most of us
+ingeramusses which has got one vote apiece, even around last November
+already, begun to feel neglected, and you could take it from me,
+Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson tries to win the confidence of the American
+people with a few more of them documents with the twin-six words in
+them, y'understand, by the time he gets ready to run for President
+again, Mawruss, the only people which is going to vote for him would be
+the Ph.D. and A.M. fellers."
+
+"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, a few days after the conversation above set
+forth, "I see that President Wilson got back to America after a rough
+passage."
+
+"Was he seasick?" Morris asked.
+
+"Not a day," Abe replied.
+
+"Then that accounts for it," Morris commented.
+
+"Accounts for what?" Abe asked.
+
+"Doctor Grayson being an admiral," Morris replied, "which a couple of
+years ago, when Mr. Wilson appointed Doctor Grayson to be an admiral
+over the heads of a couple of hundred fellers which had been captains of
+ships for years already, a lot of people got awful sore about it, and
+now it appears that he got the appointment because he can cure
+seasickness."
+
+"I suppose if Doctor Grayson could cure locomotive ataxia the President
+would of appointed him Director-General of Railroads," Abe remarked.
+
+"For my part, Abe," Morris said, "if I had a good doctor like Doctor
+Grayson attending me, and it was necessary to appoint him to something
+in order to keep him, Abe, I would appoint him a field-marshal, just so
+long as he could make me comfortable on an Atlantic trip in
+winter-time."
+
+"But there isn't no office in the army or navy that President Wilson
+could appoint Doctor Grayson to which would have been a big enough
+reward if Doctor Grayson could have made the President feel comfortable
+in Washington when he got there, Mawruss," Abe said, "which I see by the
+paper this morning that thirty-seven United States Senators, coming from
+every state in the Union except Missouri, suddenly discovered they was
+from Missouri, in particular the Senator from Massachusetts, and not
+only does them Senators want to know what the meaning of that
+constitution of the League of Nations means, but they also give notice
+that, _whatever_ it means, they are going to knife it, _anyway_."
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris said; "they're like a lot of business men you and
+me has had experience with, Abe. They claim a shortage and kick about
+the quality of the shipment before they even start to unpack the goods.
+Why don't they wait till Mr. Wilson goes back and finishes up his job?"
+
+"They haven't got the time," Abe replied, "because the session ends on
+March 4th at noon, just about twenty-four hours before Admiral Grayson
+is paying his first professional call on President Wilson aboard the
+_George Washington_, and by the time Congress gets together again
+President Wilson expects to have the League of Nations proposition sewed
+up so tight that there will be nothing left for them Senators to do but
+to indorse it."
+
+"But, as I understand it, them Senators just loafed away their time
+during the end of the session and didn't pass a whole lot of laws which
+they should ought to have passed, Abe, so that it will be necessary for
+President Wilson to call an extra session in a few days," Morris said.
+
+"That's what them Senators figured," Abe agreed, "but they was mistaken,
+Mawruss, because the President ain't going to run any chances of being
+interrupted while he is working on this here Peace Conference by S O S
+messages from Washington to please come home if he wants to save
+_anything_ out of the wreck Congress is making of the inside of the
+Capitol."
+
+"But I thought that before he went to Europe in the first place, Abe,
+President Wilson said to Congress that it wouldn't make any difference
+to them about his being in Europe, because he was in close touch with
+them, and that the cables and the wireless would make him available just
+as though he was still living in the White House," Morris said.
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe agreed; "but the trouble with that situation was
+that it 'ain't been discovered by the inventors yet how a President can
+shake hands with a Senator by wireless or how he can sit down to dinner
+by wireless with a few Congressmen and make them feel that he is their
+one best friend. Also, Mawruss, it comes high even for a President to
+send cable messages to a Senator which he thinks is getting sore about
+something, such cable messages being in the nature of: 'Hello, Henry,
+what's the good word? Why is it I 'ain't seen you up to the White House
+lately, Henry?' or, 'Where have you been keeping yourself lately,
+Henry?' or, 'Mrs. Lodge and the children all right, Henry?' or something
+like that."
+
+"Say, for that matter, Abe," Morris observed, "President Wilson never
+did a whole lot of jollying when he could have done it over the
+telephone at unlimited local-service rates. In fact, from what I have
+seen of Mr. Wilson, he looks to me like a man who would find it a whole
+lot easier to be easy in his manner toward Congressmen by wireless or by
+cable than face to face."
+
+"Well, you couldn't blame Mr. Wilson exactly, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"because, up to the time he became Governor of New Jersey, his idea of
+being a good mixer was to get together with a couple of LL.D.'s and sit
+up till pretty near nine o'clock knocking the trustees, y'understand. In
+fact, up to the time he resigned from being president of Princeton
+College, life to Mr. Wilson was just correcting one examination paper
+after another, all of which 'ain't got nothing to do with this here
+League of Nations being a good thing, Mawruss," Abe declared.
+
+"And it don't affect the fact that Mr. Wilson is a high-grade,
+A-number-one gentleman, which is doing the best he knows how to make
+good to his country, Abe," Morris declared.
+
+"Did I say he wasn't?" Abe asked.
+
+"Then what are you dragging up his past life for?" Morris demanded.
+
+"What do you mean--dragging up his past life?" Abe rejoined. "The way
+you talk, Mawruss, you would think that being president of a college
+come in two degrees, like grand larceny, and had to be lived down
+through the guilty party getting the respect of the community by years
+of honest work."
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris protested, "don't try to twist things
+around till it looks like I was knocking Mr. Wilson, and not you."
+
+"I am knocking President Wilson!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, I've got the
+greatest respect for Mr. Wilson, and always did, Mawruss, but it would
+be foolish not to admit that the practice which a President of the
+United States gets in being a college professor is more useful to him in
+framing up a first-class, A-number-one League of Nations than it is in
+getting his political enemies to accept it. Am I wright or wrong?"
+
+"Maybe he would have got them to accept it if he had stayed in touch
+with them personally and managed the Peace Conference by wireless and
+cable," Morris suggested.
+
+"He probably figured that if he wanted to put over this here League of
+Nations it was more necessary for him to be on the job in France than on
+the job in America," Abe said.
+
+"Well," Morris commented, "the next time the United States of America
+has a Peace Conference on its hands, Abe, the President will have to be
+a copartnership instead of an individual, with one member of the firm in
+Washington and the other in Paris."
+
+"But what would Admiral Grayson do?" Abe asked. "He couldn't be in two
+places at the same time."
+
+"Probably the Washington President could find a bright young physician
+in the Treasury Department," Morris concluded, "and promote him to the
+honorary title and salary of Comptroller of the Currency."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+SOME CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS FOR THE KAISER
+
+
+"I see where an American army officer reports that he has investigated
+into the food situation in Germany and that the German people looks
+thin," Abe Potash observed to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.
+
+"That's already German propoganda, Abe," Morris said. "Word come down
+from headquarters that the German people should look thin in order to
+get the sympathy of the American officer, so they looked thin,
+y'understand."
+
+Abe shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe you're right, Mawruss," he said, "but
+all I could say is that them German propoganders which has charge of
+making the German people look thin is wasting their time in Germany,
+because there is plenty people in America which would make them
+propoganders rich for life if they would only come over to New York and
+open an office for giving reduction propoganda at a thousand dollars a
+treatment."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said; "ordinarily, if the German people
+looked thin you would believe them. Also, before the war, if somebody
+went to Germany and people asked him when he come back how was the
+weather there, he didn't say, 'Unless they was putting one over on me,
+it was snowing,' y'understand, but to-day it's different. Nobody has got
+no confidence in the Germans nowadays. In fact, even the Germans
+themselves is losing confidence in them. Take Berlin, for instance, and
+every week the Spartacist, or Red, government has got the support of the
+people from 9:30 A.M. Tuesday until 6 P.M. Thursday, when the German
+people begins to lose confidence in them, so that by 8:30 A.M. Friday
+the Coalition, or Yellow, government comes into power. The Coalition, or
+Yellow, government then keeps the confidence of the people until Sunday
+midnight, when, under the influence of the Sunday night _Ersat
+Delicatessen_ supper, the Germans starts in to suspect that everything
+ain't right with the Yellow government, neither, so back they go to the
+Red government, and they seize Police Headquarters, the Bureau of
+Assessments and Arrears, and desk room in the office of the Deputy
+Commissioner of Water-supply, Gas, and Electricity, and that's the way
+it goes."
+
+"It's a funny thing to me why them colored German governments always
+starts a revolution by seizing Police Headquarters, Mawruss," Abe
+commented.
+
+"That's the way they finance the revolution," Morris replied; "because I
+understand that the night life in Berlin has been going on the same as
+usual, revolution or no revolution, Abe, which I bet yer that as soon
+as the new chief of police is appointed by the Red or Yellow government,
+as the case may be, he don't waste no time, but he right away sends out
+plain-clothes men to the proprietors of them Berlin all-night
+restaurants with positive instructions to close all restaurants at
+eleven sharp and not to accept nothing but gold coin of the present
+standard of weight and fineness."
+
+"And yet it used to be thought that when it comes to graft, Mawruss,
+German officials was like Cæsar's ghost," Abe observed--"above
+suspicion."
+
+"That's only another way of them impressions about Germany which us
+Americans has had reversed on us, Abe," Morris said, "which the way our
+idees about what kind of a people the Germans used to was has changed,
+Mawruss, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the old habit the
+Germans had for drinking beer was just a bluff, y'understand, and that
+at heart they was prohibitionists to a man. In fact, Abe, if I would be
+a German Bolshevik with instructions to shoot the Kaiser on sight, I
+should go gunning for a short, stout man with a tooth-brush mustache and
+a holy horror of wearing uniforms, because it's my opinion that all them
+so-called portraits of the Kaiser was issued for the purpose of
+misleading anarchists to shoot at a thin man in a heavily embroidered
+uniform with spike-end mustaches."
+
+"Well, whatever he looks like, Mawruss," Abe said, "if I was him,
+rather than have such a terrible fate hanging over me, y'understand, I
+would telegraph to Berlin for them to send along a good shot while they
+was about it, and have the thing over with quick, Mawruss."
+
+"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "You and me should have hanging over us the
+life which the Kaiser is going to lead from now on! For two hundred and
+fifty dollars a week at a Pallum Beach hotel you could only get a very
+small idea of the hardships the Kaiser will got to undergo in the
+future, Abe."
+
+"But do you mean to told me that after what happened to that English
+lady in Brussels and the captain of the English mail-boat, Mawruss, the
+English ain't going to persecute the Kaiser?" Abe demanded.
+
+"_You_--the English would persecute the Kaiser!" Morris exclaimed.
+"Don't you know that the Kaiser's mother was the King of England's
+father's sister? Do you suppose for a moment that the King of England
+wants a convict in the family?"
+
+"Well, has he got any _mishbocha_ in France, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+"Because if not, Mawruss, it seems to me that now, while all the
+witnesses is in Paris, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the March term
+of the Paris County grand jury to hand down an indictment for murder
+with intent to kill or something."
+
+"That sounds reasonable to anybody not connected with this here Peace
+Conference, Abe," Morris admitted, "but it seems that the Committee for
+Fixing Responsibility says that if they was to hang or shoot the Kaiser
+it would give him an awful drag with the German people, and they don't
+want the Kaiser to get popular again, dead or alive. Their idea is to
+punish him by letting him live on to be an outcast among all the people
+of the earth, except the proprietors of first-class European hotels,
+dealers in high-grade automobiles, expensive jewelry storekeepers,
+fashionable tailors, and a couple of million other people who don't
+attach an awful lot of importance to the moral character of anybody
+which wants to enjoy life and has got the money to do it with. In other
+words, Abe, they claim that, in leaving the Kaiser to his conscience and
+his bank-account they are punishing him a whole lot worse as hanging him
+or shooting him."
+
+"And I suppose that same committee is going to sentence von Tirpitz to
+six months at Monte Carlo, while Ludendorff will probably be confined to
+a Ritz hotel eight hours a day for the rest of his natural life," Abe
+suggested.
+
+"The committee claims not," Morris replied. "It seems that the Kaiser's
+ministers--like von Tirpitz and Ludendorff--is going to get what is
+coming to them, on the grounds that they are guilty of violations of
+international law and 'ain't got no relations among the royal families
+of England or Italy."
+
+"But why not bring the whole fleet over to America, and let the
+authorities dispose of them there?" Abe inquired.
+
+"The Kaiser would be just as much a martyr if he was sentenced in
+America as in Europe," Morris replied.
+
+"Who says anything about sentencing him?" Abe demanded. "All it would be
+necessary to do would be to swear out a warrant against him and leave
+the rest to a couple of headquarters detectives, which, naturally, when
+them fellers would tell him to come along with them, the Kaiser would
+technically resist the arrest by asking what for. This would mean at the
+very least ten stitches in his scalp, Mawruss, not reckoning a couple of
+broken ribs or so when the fingerprints was taken, and, while it
+wouldn't be only a starter in the way of punishment, he would anyhow
+find out that it is one thing to be actually engaged in a modern battle,
+and that looking at it through a high-power telescope while sitting in a
+bomb-proof limousine six miles away is absolutely something else again.
+Later on, Mawruss, when a New York police-court lawyer visited him in
+his cell after the Kaiser had lunched on bread and water and the
+police-court lawyer on what used to be called _Koenigsburger Klops_ and
+is now known as Liberty Roast, understand me, the Kaiser would get just
+an inkling of what it means to be caught in a gas attack without a
+gas-mask."
+
+"You talk like you would got a little experience in the way of sitting
+in prison yourself, Abe," Morris commented.
+
+"I am giving you what practically happened to a feller by the name
+Immerglick which was arrested by mistake on account the police thought
+he looked like an Italian who was wanted for barrel murder, Mawruss,"
+Abe exclaimed, "and if the police behaves this way to a perfect stranger
+which is innocent at that, Mawruss, you could imagine what them fellers
+would do to a well-known guilty party like the Kaiser. But that's
+neither here nor there, Mawruss. What I am trying to do is to work out a
+punishment proposition for the Kaiser which would get by with such a
+sensitive bunch as this here committee to place responsibility seems to
+be."
+
+"Go ahead and have a good time with your pipe-dream, Abe," Morris said.
+"You couldn't make me feel bad, no matter what happens to the Kaiser in
+your imagination."
+
+"Well," Abe continued, "after he is through with trying to get rid of
+the police-court lawyer, Mawruss, he should ought to be arranged before
+the magistrate in a traffic court, y'understand, and should be accused
+of driving at the rate of twenty-two miles an hour, which is two miles
+past the legal speed limit, and then he would find out that all them
+commandants of Ruhleben and the other German prison camps wasn't even
+new beginners in the art of making prisoners feel cheap, because you
+take one of these here traffic-court magistrates which has had years of
+experience bawling out respectable sitsons who has got the misfortune to
+own automobiles, Mawruss, and what such a feller wouldn't do to
+humilitate the Kaiser, y'understand, ain't even dreamt of in German
+prison camps yet."
+
+"I see you still feel sore about getting fined twenty-five dollars for
+driving like a maniac down at Far Rockaway last summer Abe," Morris
+commented.
+
+"How I feel or how I don't feel hain't got nothing to do with it,
+Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle
+policeman which has got the nerve to swear that he could tell inside of
+two miles an hour how fast somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty
+of perjury on the face of it, which I told the judge. 'Judge, your
+Honor,' I says, 'I admit I was going fast,' I says, 'but--'"
+
+"Excuse me," Morris interrupted, "but I thought you was talking about
+how to punish the Kaiser, ain't it, which, while I admit you got some
+pretty good ideas on the subject, Abe, still at the same time there is
+plenty of ways that the Kaiser could get punished in America without
+going to the trouble and expense of arresting him first, Abe. There is a
+whole lot of experiences which the American people pays to go through
+just once, y'understand, which if the Kaiser could be persuaded to take
+them all on, one after the other, Abe, his worst enemies would got to
+pity him. Supposing, for instance, he would start off with one of them
+electric vibrating face massages, Abe, and if he comes through it alive,
+y'understand, he would then be hustled off to one of these here
+strong-arm bunkopathic physicians, which charges five dollars for the
+first visit and never has to quote rates for the second or third visits,
+because once is plenty, y'understand."
+
+"But I thought the idea was not to let anybody have any sympathy for the
+Kaiser, Mawruss," Abe broke in.
+
+"Plenty of fellers I know goes to these here near-doctors," Morris
+declared, "and nobody has got any sympathy for them, neither. Also, Abe,
+I 'ain't got no sympathy for anybody who goes to these here restaurants
+where they run off a cabarattel review, Abe, and yet it's a terrible
+punishment at that, so there's another tip for you if you want any more
+ideas for making the Kaiser suffer."
+
+"Say, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, and if you don't want to
+show the feller no mercy at all, y'understand," Abe said, "what's the
+matter with making him see some of them war plays they was putting on in
+New York last winter?"
+
+"Why only _war_ plays?" Morris asked. "I sat through a couple musical
+shows last winter without the option of a fine, y'understand, and it
+would be a good thing if the Kaiser could see performances like
+that--just to make him realize that in losing his throne, y'understand,
+he has no longer got the power to order the actors shot, together with
+the composer and the man that wrote the jokes."
+
+"But the biggest punishment of all you 'ain't even hinted at yet," Abe
+said, "and it's a punishment which thousands of Americans is getting
+right now without no sympathy from nobody, which its name is:
+
+
+"'Form 1040. United States Internal Revenue
+                 Service
+
+        INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX RETURN
+
+    For Net Incomes of More than $5,000
+
+         FOR CALENDAR YEAR, 1918.'
+
+
+Also, Mawruss, when you consider what the Kaiser done, Mawruss, I ask
+you is it too much that the Committee on Fixing Responsibility should
+order him starved to death or talked to death or any other slow and
+painful death, because such a fate is going to be a happy one compared
+with the thousands of decent, respectable American business men which is
+headed straight for an insane-asylum, trying to fill out
+
+
+"'(a) Totals taxable at 1918 rates (see instructions page 2 under C).
+
+  (b) Totals taxable at 1917 rates (see instructions, included in K (a)
+      page 2).
+
+  (c) Amount of stock dividends (column 4) taxable at 1916 rates
+      (enter as 20).'"
+
+
+"Well, after all, Abe," Morris said, "there's one worser punishment you
+could hand out the Kaiser than filling out this here income tax."
+
+"What's that?" Abe inquired.
+
+"Paying it," Morris said.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+IT ENTERS ON ITS NO-GOLD-CASKET PHASE
+
+
+"When a feller gets his name in the papers as often as Mr. Wilson,
+Mawruss, it don't take long for them highwaymen to get on to him," Abe
+Potash remarked, shortly after Mr. Wilson's return to Paris.
+
+"What highwaymen?" Morris inquired.
+
+"Them presidents of orphan-asylums and homes," Abe said, "and in a way
+it serves Mr. Wilson right, Mawruss, because, instead of keeping it to
+himself that he got stuck over four thousand dollars for tips alone
+while he was in France, y'understand, as soon as he arrived in Boston he
+goes to work and blabs the whole thing to newspaper reporters, and you
+could take it from me, Mawruss, that for the next six months Mr. Wilson
+would be flooded with letters from Associations for the Relief of
+Indignant Armenians, Homes for Chronic Freemasons, and who knows what
+else. So therefore you take this here Carter H. Glass, Mawruss, and he
+naturally comes to the conclusion that Mr. Wilson is an easy mark,
+because--"
+
+"Excuse me, Abe," Morris interrupted, coldly, "but who do you think
+this here Carter H. Glass is, anyway?"
+
+"I don't know," Abe went on, "but whoever he is he probably figured that
+if he was going to get turned down he would anyhow get turned down big,
+because it says here in the paper that he cables Mr. Wilson he should
+please let him have three million dollars for this here Bureau for
+Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers and--"
+
+"Listen, Abe," Morris said, "if you wouldn't know who Carter H. Glass is
+after paying twelve per cent. on all you made over four thousand dollars
+last year, y'understand, nothing that I could say would ever learn you,
+so therefore I 'ain't got no expectations that you are going to remember
+it when I tell you that this here Carter H. Glass is Secretary of the
+Treasurer, and when he cabled Mr. Wilson for three million dollars, it
+ain't so hopeless like it sounds. Also, Abe, while Mr. Wilson gives it
+out to the papers that he got stung four thousand dollars for tips, it
+also appears in the papers that he came home with a few gold caskets and
+things, not to mention one piece of tapestry which the French government
+presented him with, valued at two hundred thousand dollars alone,
+y'understand, and if that kind of publicity is going to give Mr. Wilson
+a reputation as an easy giver-up, Abe, all I can say is that the
+collectors for orphan-asylums and homes don't read the papers no more
+carefully than you do, Abe."
+
+"But why should the Secretary of the United States Treasury got to
+touch Mr. Wilson for?" Abe demanded. "Every day the people of the United
+States is paying into the United States Treasury millions and millions
+dollars income-tax money and all the President owns is a few gold
+caskets which he got presented with, and maybe a little tapestry,
+y'understand. What's the matter with that feller Carter H. Glass? Is he
+afraid he is going to run short if he spends a couple million dollars or
+so? Has he lost his nerve or something?"
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "The Secretary of the Treasury
+'ain't got such a cinch like some people think, y'understand. If the
+Bureau for Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers send over and
+asks the Secretary of the Treasury to be so good and let 'em have for a
+few days three million dollars, understand me, you would naturally think
+that it is one of them dead open-and-shut, why-certainly propositions.
+The impression you have is that the Secretary grabs ahold of the 'phone
+and says to the head of stock to look on the third shelf from the
+elevator shaft is there any more of them million-dollar bills with the
+picture of Rutherford B. Hayes on 'em left, and if not, to send Jake up
+with three hundred of them three-by-seven-inch ten-thousand-dollar
+bills, and that's all there is to it. But as a matter of fact he doesn't
+do nothing of the kind, because nobody could get any money out of the
+Secretary of the Treasury except by an act of Congress."
+
+"Well, it's nothing against Mr. Glass that he is such a tight-wad,
+Mawruss, because that's the kind of man to have as Secretary of the
+Treasurer, Mawruss, which supposing they had one of them easy-come,
+easy-go fellers for Secretary of the Treasurer, Mawruss--somebody who
+would fall for every hard-luck story he hears, y'understand, and how
+long is it going to be before the police is asking him what did he done
+with it all?" Abe said. "So, for my part, Mawruss, they could abuse Mr.
+Glass all they want to, y'understand, but I would be just as well
+satisfied, so far as my income taxes is concerned, if the only way you
+could get money out of him was by a miracle instead of an act of
+Congress. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Do me the favor, Abe," Morris said, "and don't talk a lot of nonsense
+about a subject about which you don't know nothing about, because when I
+say that nobody could get money out of Carter H. Glass except by an act
+of Congress, y'understand, I ain't talking poetical in a manner of
+speaking. They must actually got to got and act of Congress before
+anybody could get any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury, no
+matter if Mr. Glass would be the most generous feller in existence,
+which, for all I know, he _might_ be. So, therefore, Abe, when Congress
+adjourned without passing the acts which was necessary in order that the
+Secretary of the Treasury should pay the railroads seven hundred and
+fifty million dollars to keep 'em going, y'understand, not to mention
+such chicken-feed like three million dollars for this here Soldiers'
+Relations Bureau and the like, it leaves the country practically broke
+with seven or eight billion dollars in the bank. _Now_ do you understand
+what I am driving into?"
+
+"I think I do," Abe said, "but explain it to me just as if I didn't,
+because what is a mystery to me is, why did Congress adjourn without
+passing them acts, Mawruss?"
+
+"They did it to put Mr. Wilson in bad on account he went to Europe
+without calling an extra session," Morris said.
+
+"I thought Congress got paid by the year and not by the session," Abe
+remarked.
+
+"So they do," Morris continued, "but they said they wanted to stay in
+session while Mr. Wilson was in Europe to _help_ him, and Mr. Wilson
+thought they wanted to stay in session while he was in Europe to knock
+him, and he said: 'Watch! I'll fix them fellers,' and _they_ said:
+'Watch! _We'll_ fix that feller.' And between the two of them, the
+railroads is left dry and high, the War Risks Bureau claims that they
+could only keep going for a week or so, the Soldiers' Relations people
+is sending out J O S signals, and that's the way it goes."
+
+"And who do you think is right, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Mr. Wilson or
+Congress?"
+
+"Well, I ain't exactly prepared to say, y'understand," Morris replied,
+"but it's a question in my mind whether or not there ain't just so much
+need for a Peace Conference in Washington as there is in Paris, and if
+so, Abe, whether Mr. Wilson ain't at the wrong Peace Conference."
+
+"So far as that goes, Mawruss," Abe said, "he might just so well be in
+Washington as in Paris, because the tapestry and gold-casket period of
+this here Conference is already a thing of the past, which I see that
+Mr. Wilson ain't even staying with the Murats no longer."
+
+"Naturally," Morris said, "after the way this here Murat went around
+talking about the League of Nations."
+
+"Why, I thought he was in favor of it!" Abe said.
+
+"He was in favor of it," Morris said, "up to the time Mr. Wilson and
+Lord George had the conference with the Jugo-Slobs where they laid out
+the frontiers by making the ink-bottle represent Bessarabia and the
+mucilage-bottle Macedonia. When Murat saw the library carpet the next
+morning, he began to say that, after all, why shouldn't France control
+her own foreign policy."
+
+"I don't blame him," Abe commented.
+
+"Later on the Polish National Committee called on Mr. Wilson and was
+shown into the parlor before the butler had a chance to put the slip
+covers on the furniture," Morris continued, "and that very evening Murat
+went around saying that if France was going to have to police the
+corridor through West Prussia to Dantzig, he was against articles
+fourteen to twenty, both inclusive, of the League constitution, and
+where could he find a good dry-cleaner."
+
+"That don't surprise me, neither," Abe remarked.
+
+"But it wasn't till the President's body-guard of secret-service men had
+an all-night stud-poker session in the yellow guest-room that he
+actually made speeches against the League of Nations," Morris went on,
+"and at that, the room will never look the same again."
+
+"I wonder if there ain't some kind of property-damage insurance that he
+could have took out against a thing happening like that?" Abe
+speculated.
+
+"I don't know," Morris said, "but if there is, you can bet your life
+that this here Mrs. Bischoffsheim, where the President is staying now,
+has got it."
+
+"And she is going to need it, Mawruss," Abe said, "because what the best
+home-trained men do with cigarettes and fountain-pens, when their minds
+are occupied with business matters, ain't calculated to improve the
+appearance of a bar-room, neither."
+
+"Say!" Morris commented. "The President _oser_ cares what his address is
+in Paris, but I'll bet you he is doing a lot of thinking as to what it
+is going to be in Washington after March 4, 1921."
+
+"It ain't a question of who is going to move _out_ of the White House,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "What people in America is wondering is, Who is
+going to move _in_, which right now there is a couple of generals, five
+or six Senators, and a banker or so which is figuring on not renewing
+the leases of their apartments beyond March 3, 1921, in case they should
+be obliged to go to Washington for four years, or maybe eight."
+
+"Lots of things can happen before the next presidential election,"
+Morris said.
+
+"That's what these Senators and generals thinks," Abe agreed, "and in
+the mean time, Mawruss, nobody has got to press them a whole lot to
+speak at dinners and conventions, which I see that a general made a
+speech at a meeting in memory of Grover Cleveland the other day where he
+didn't refer once to Mr. Wilson, but said that Mr. Cleveland wasn't an
+expert at verbal messages and believed in the Monroe Doctrine."
+
+"Well, suppose the general did say that," Morris said. "What of it?"
+
+"Nothing of it," Abe replied; "but on the other hand, if this here
+general had gone a bit farther, understand me, and said that Grover
+Cleveland never refused to meet Judge Cohalan at the Metropolitan Opera
+House and as a general rule didn't act cold toward a Sinn Fein
+committee, Mawruss, you would got to admit that such remarks is anyhow
+suspicious, ain't it?"
+
+"All it is suspicious of to me, Abe," Morris said, "is that if such a
+general has got ambitions to be President, y'understand, he ain't going
+the right way about it, because fashions in opinions changes like
+fashions in garments, Abe. At this day and date nobody could tell no
+more about what the people of the United States is going to think in
+the fall of 1920 as what they are going to wear in the fall of 1920,
+which it would of been a whole lot better for the general's prospects if
+he would of said that Grover Cleveland was just as expert at verbal
+messages as another great American and believed just as strongly in a
+League of Nations. In fact, Abe, if there was, Heaven forbid, a chance
+of me being nominated for President in 1920, I would lay pipes for
+claiming that it was me that suggested the whole idea of the League of
+Nations to President Wilson in the first place. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"You're right about the Heaven forbid part, anyway," Abe commented.
+
+"Because," Morris continued, as though he had not heard the
+interruption, "what between the people who are willing to take President
+Wilson's word for it and the people who ain't willing to take a United
+States Senator's word for anything, y'understand, this here League of
+Nations looks like a pretty safe proposition for any politician to tie
+up to, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if even some of them
+Senators which signed the round robin would be claiming just before the
+1920 National Conventions that they was never what you might call
+actually against a League of Nations except, as one might say, in a
+manner of speaking, if you know what I mean. Also, Abe, these here
+Senators which is now acting like they would have sworn a solemn oath,
+in addition to the usual amount of swearing about such things, that
+they would never ratify this here League of Nations, y'understand, are
+already beginning to say that they wouldn't ratify it anyhow in its
+present form, understand me, and before they got through, Abe, you could
+take it from me, that when it finally comes up for ratification them
+same Senators is going to go over it again carefully and find that it
+has been amended by inserting two commas in Article two and a semicolon
+in Article twenty-five, and a glad shout of 'Oh, well, this is something
+else again!' will go up, understand me, and after they vote to
+unanimously ratify it they will be telling each other that all you have
+to do is to make a firm stand against Mr. Wilson and he will back right
+down."
+
+"The way it looks to me, Mawruss," Abe commented, "the back-down is on
+the other foot."
+
+"It's fifty-fifty, Abe, because, when the President gets his back up,
+the Senate starts to back down," Morris concluded, "and _vice versa_."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+WORRYING SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME, AIN'T IT?
+
+
+"I see where the Italian delegates to the Peace Conference says that if
+Italy don't get Fiume, Mawruss, there would be a revolution in Italy,"
+Abe Potash remarked to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.
+
+"Any excuse is better than none," Morris Perlmutter commented, "which it
+is very clear to me, Abe, that with the example of Poland in front of
+them, the Italians being also a musical people and seeing that Poland
+has got it a first-class A-number-one pianist like Paderewski for a
+President, y'understand, they are taking the opportunity of Fiume to put
+in Caruso or Scotti or one of them fellers as President."
+
+"They would got to offer their Presidents an awful big salary if they
+expect to compete with the Metropolitan Opera House, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"If Poland could do it, Abe, why couldn't Italy?" Morris said. "Which
+Paderewski didn't have to tune pianos on the side to make a living over
+here, neither, Abe, and, besides, Abe, if they would let Caruso have a
+free hand in the formation of his Cabinet, he would probably get a good
+barytone for Secretary of State, a basso for Secretary of Commerce and
+Labor, De Luca for Secretary of the Treasury, Martinelli for Secretary
+of War, and draw on the Chicago Opera Company for Secretaries of the
+Navy, the Interior, and Agriculture. After that, Abe, all the Italian
+government would got to do would be to move the capital to Milan and
+hold open sessions of the Cabinet at the Scala with a full orchestra,
+and they could take in from ten to twenty thousand dollars at the door,
+daily, in particular if they was to advertise that Caruso would
+positively appear at every session of the Cabinet, y'understand."
+
+"But, joking to one side, Mawruss," Abe declared, "while personally I
+got to admit that up to a short time ago, for all I knew about Fiume,
+y'understand, if somebody would of said to me suddenly, 'Fiume,' I would
+have said, 'Fiume yourself, you dirty loafer!' and the chances is there
+would have been a fight then and there, understand me. Still, I couldn't
+help thinking that as between old friends like the Italians and perfect
+strangers like the Jugo-Slobs, y'understand, Italy should ought to have
+Fiume and anything else she wants within reason and even a couple of
+places not within reason, if she wants them that bad."
+
+"In deciding these things, Abe," Morris said, "Mr. Wilson couldn't
+consider prejudice."
+
+"No?" Abe retorted. "Well, could he consider who discovered America? A
+Jugo-Slob, I suppose, what? But never mind going so far back as
+Christopher Columbus, Mawruss. Take our best workmen right in our own
+shop, Mawruss--them Tonies and them Roccos with all the time a pleasant
+smile no matter how hard we work them, and what are they? Jugo-Slobs or
+Italians? Take it in the city of New York alone, and do we get there
+half a million Jugo-Slobs or half a million Italians? I am asking you?
+Also, Mawruss, I suppose the American people is crazy to see Jugo-Slob
+opera, with wonderful Jugo-Slob singers and composed by Jugo-Slob
+composers, ain't it? Furthermore, Mawruss, when you want to give your
+wife a treat, you take her out and blow her to a good Jugo-Slob _table
+d'hôte_, one dollar and a half including wine--what?"
+
+"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "I didn't say a word that Italy
+shouldn't have Fiume."
+
+"I know you didn't," Abe said, "but there's a whole lot of people which
+does, Mawruss, and how they expect to use it for an argument to get the
+millions of Italians in America to subscribe to the next Victory Loan,
+Mawruss, may be perfectly clear to them, Mawruss, but _I_ couldn't see
+it and I doubt if them millions of Italians will be able to see it,
+neither."
+
+"Probably you ain't wrong exactly," Morris said, "but whichever way Mr.
+Wilson thinks is the best for the good of Europe, Abe, that's the way he
+would decide it about Fiume."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe observed, "while I consider that
+Europe, excepting the coffee they give you for breakfast, is a
+high-grade continent, taking it by and large, still at the same time I
+ain't so fanatical about it that if I would be President Wilson, I
+wouldn't once in a while give America a look-in also. Furthermore,
+Mawruss, admitting that Mr. Wilson is acting wonderful in the way he is
+unselfish about America, y'understand, and that he would probably go
+down in history as a great and good man, y'understand, he should ought
+to watch out that he don't act _too_ unselfish about America, Mawruss,
+otherwise he would be going down as a great and good man in French and
+English history and not in American history."
+
+"There is even some people which figures that he would be a great man in
+the history of the world even," Morris interrupted.
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe said, "and that's the trouble with a whole lot of
+people these days, Mawruss. They are figuring on world propositions, and
+what goes on in the next block don't interest them at all. Worrying
+should begin at home, Mawruss, whereas with them world thinkers they
+couldn't get really and truly anxious about the way things is going
+anywheres nearer to the Woolworth Building than the Nevski Prospekt.
+'Ain't you ashamed of yourselves to be kicking about not having a job,'
+they says to the returning American soldiers, 'when thousands of muzhiks
+in Ukrania is idle.' And they go to work and collect dollar after dollar
+for milk to feed Czecho-Slovak babies, with sixty cents after sixty
+cents overhead on the collection, y'understand, while right here in New
+York City families with an income of eighteen dollars a week has got to
+pay twenty cents a quart for grade B milk when the milk-wagon drivers
+ain't on strike."
+
+"People has become European-Americans from reading too much newspapers
+nowadays, Abe," Morris said, "which in these times of one newspaper
+trying to show the others how much more money it is spending for foreign
+cables, y'understand, if you want to see who is murdered in your own
+town, understand me, you are liable to find a couple of lines about it
+'most any part of the paper except in the first four pages, and the
+consequences is that people gets the impression from reading the papers
+that a strike in Berlin is ever so much more important than a strike in
+Hoboken for the simple reason that as the Berlin strike cost the
+newspaper proprietor several hundred dollars for cables, he put it on
+the front page, whereas the strike in Hoboken only cost him seven cents
+car fare for the reporter each way, and therefore it gets slipped in on
+the eleventh page with over it the head-line: 'PLAN AMERICAN ORCHESTRA.
+Chicago's New Philharmonic Is Headed by Mrs. J. Ogden Armour,' the
+orchestra story with the strike head-line having failed to get into the
+paper at all."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "people which reads the newspapers
+don't take the same amount of interests in strikes like they once used
+to did before the United States government organized them Conciliation
+and Arbitration Boards, which nowadays strikes is long, dull affairs
+consisting of the first strike, the arbitration, the decision, the
+second strike, the arbitration, the decision, the third strike, and so
+on for several months, because that's the trouble with arbitration,
+Mawruss: everybody is willing to arbitrate and nobody is willing to be
+decided against."
+
+"Also strikes is becoming too common, Abe," Morris said. "Everybody is
+going on strike nowadays, from milk-wagon drivers to the United States
+Senate, and although the last strike only _begun_ as a strike and ended
+up as a lock-out, y'understand, still the example wasn't good to the
+country, which if the strike fever is going to spread as high up as the
+United States Senate, Abe, where is it going to stop? The first thing
+you know, the members of the Metropolitan Club will be going on strike
+for a minimum of six hundred sturgeon eggs in a ten-dollar portion of
+fresh Astrakhan caviar, and the Amalgamated Bank Presidents of America,
+New York Local No. 1, will be walking out in a body for a minimum wage
+of fifty thousand dollars a year, with a maximum working year of four
+months."
+
+"But even when strikes had no foreign competition in the newspapers,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "the interest in them soon died out, which very few
+people outside the parties concerned ever finds out when a strike ends
+or who wins, and you might even say gives a nickel one way or the other,
+Mawruss."
+
+"It ain't only strikes which affects people like that, Abe," Morris
+commented. "Long-drawn-out murder trials and graft investigations also
+suffers that way, which I bet yer the American newspaper-reading people
+will soon get on to the fact that the newspapers is playing up to their
+cable tolls, y'understand, and everybody will be starting in to read the
+paper at the fourth or fifth page."
+
+"Still, I think that considerable interest was revived in the League of
+Nations and the Peace Conference by the argument that Senator Lodge put
+up last week in Lowell, Massachusetts," Abe said.
+
+"It wasn't _in_ Lowell, but _with_ Lowell," Morris corrected.
+
+"In or with," Abe said, "it caused a whole lot of comment in the
+newspapers, and the people which bought the next morning them papers
+that printed the whole affair in full, Mawruss, skipped as much as two
+or three pages about it."
+
+"Well, they didn't miss much, Abe," Morris said, "because it didn't come
+up to the advertisement."
+
+"What do you mean--the advertisement?" Abe inquired.
+
+"Why, for days already, the newspapers come out with a notice that
+Senator Lodge would argue with this here Lowell, which he is a college
+president and not a town, Abe, the argument to take place in a big hall
+in Boston, and the application for tickets was something tremendous,
+Abe, because you know how arguments about the League of Nations is,
+Abe. Sometimes the parties only use language and sometimes the smaller
+one of the two goes to a hospital, understand me. But, however, in this
+case it must be that the friends of Senator Lodge must have went to him
+and said: 'What do you want to get into an argument with Lowell for?
+Treat him with contempt. What do you care _what_ he says about you? You
+are _doch_ a United States Senator, ain't it?' And the friends of this
+here Lowell also must have went to him and said: 'Listen, Lowell, don't
+make a show of yourself. If Lodge wants to behave himself that way, all
+right; he's only a United States Senator, but you are anyhow president
+of Harvard College, and you can't afford to _act_ that way.' 'Act _what_
+way?' Lowell probably said. 'Do you think I am going to sit down and let
+him walk all over Wilson, which Wilson and me was presidents of colleges
+together for years already?'"
+
+"And besides a college president don't make such big money that he could
+afford to sneeze at his share of the gate receipts, neither," Abe
+commented.
+
+"Be that as it may," Morris said, "they probably figured that it was too
+late to call the thing off, but their friends must have got them
+together and talked Lodge over into behaving like a gentleman, because
+he practically agreed to everything that Lowell said and, so to speak,
+'threw' the whole debate right at the outset, which, reading the reports
+in the newspapers next morning, Abe, it is a wonder to me that the
+referee or the umpire didn't stop it before it had gone the first five
+minutes, even."
+
+"Well, if people is foolish enough to bet on such things, Mawruss," Abe
+commented, "they deserve to lose, ain't it?"
+
+"So the consequences is that some people is now saying that Senator
+Lodge backed down because he didn't have a leg to stand on," Morris
+continued, "while them people which probably made a little easy money on
+Lowell is saying, '_Yow!_ backed down!' and that Lowell is a
+crackerjack, A-number-one arguer, and won the argument on his merits,
+y'understand."
+
+"The whole thing should ought to be investigated by the Massachusetts
+Boxing Commission in order to see that them kind of disgraceful
+exhibitions shouldn't occur again," Abe said, "otherwise this here James
+Butler which is president of Columbia College will fix up an argument
+with another United States Senator, and whoever is now president of
+Princeton College will arrange a frame-up with a Governor of a state or
+somebody, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, college presidents will
+be getting such a reputation as public speakers that the next Republican
+National Convention will be again unloading a college president on us as
+President of the United States."
+
+"Say," Morris protested, "if all college presidents would make as good a
+President as Mr. Wilson done, Abe, I am content that we should have such
+a president for President."
+
+"President Wilson done all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "He done a
+whole lot to add a touch of refinement to what otherwise would of been a
+very rough war, understand me. He's got the respect and admiration of
+the whole world, Mawruss, and I ain't going to say _but_ neither, but
+would say _however_. Mawruss, for the next ten years or so the United
+States of America ain't going to be as quiet as a college exactly. Maybe
+the presidents of colleges will continue to deal with college professors
+and college students which couldn't talk back, Mawruss, but the next
+President of the United States will have to stand an awful lot of
+back-talk from a whole lot of people about taxes, business conditions,
+railroads, and so forth, and instead of coming right back with a snappy
+remark originally made by some big Roman philosopher and letting it go
+at that, Mawruss, he would got to come right back with a plan devised by
+some big Pittsburgh business man and act on it, too."
+
+"There's something in what you say, Abe," Morris admitted.
+
+"So, therefore, if we've got to drag a college president for President,
+Mawruss," Abe concluded, "let's hope he would be anyhow president of a
+business college."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE NEW HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY
+
+
+"I see where a feller by the name Rubin or Robin or something like that,
+which was working as a traveling-salesman for the Red Cross in Russia,
+got examined by Congress the other day," Abe Potash said one morning in
+March, "and in the course of explaining how he come to spend all that
+money for traveling expenses or something, he says that the Bolsheviki
+in Russia is a very much misunderstood people."
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris said; "it is always the case, Abe, that when
+somebody does something which could only be explained on the grounds
+that he would sooner be in jail than _out_, he goes to work and claims
+that nobody understands him."
+
+"But Rubin claims that the reason Bolshevism sprung in the first place
+was that the Bolsheviki was tired of the war," Abe continued, "whereas
+the Allies thought they were quitters."
+
+"What do you mean--whereas?" Morris asked.
+
+"Wait, that ain't the only 'whereas,'" Abe said. "Rubin also said that
+the Allies thinks the Bolsheviki is a bunch of organized murderers,
+_whereas_ the Allies don't understand that the only people murdered by
+them Bolsheviki was the property-owners which objects to their property
+being taken, and that as a matter of fact them poor Bolsheviki are
+simply _obliged_ to take the property, there being no other alternative
+except working for a living."
+
+"_Nebich!_" Morris exclaimed, "and did he say anything else about them
+Bolsheviki that we should ought to break our hearts over, Abe?"
+
+"Rubin didn't, but there is some of these here liberal-minded papers
+which seems to think that what this here Rubin says is not only a big
+boost for the Bolsheviki, but that it should ought to be a lesson to us
+not to pass laws in this country to prevent the Bolsheviki from
+operating over here."
+
+"But we already got laws over here to take care of people which would
+sooner commit murder than work, Abe," Morris said, "and as for being
+liberal-minded about the Bolsheviki, Abe, I am content that after they
+are sentenced they should have all the privilege that the other convicts
+have, and that's as far as I would go."
+
+"Well, you couldn't claim credit for being very funny that way, Mawruss.
+You've got practically all the unliberal-minded people in the United
+States siding with you," Abe declared, "because, being liberal-minded is
+a matter of being able to see only the unpopular side of every question.
+It is the liberal-minded people which thinks there is something to be
+said in favor of the Germans and says it, y'understand. It is the
+liberal-minded people which is always willing to try anything that
+don't seem reasonable to practically everybody."
+
+"And I suppose them liberal-minded people would even approve of Germany
+trying to get out of paying an indemnity by pulling off one of them
+street affairs with shooting which passes for Bolshevik revolution,"
+Morris said, "but the backing of such liberal-minded Americans wouldn't
+help the Germans none, because there would be a whole lot of husky
+parties in khaki going into Germany and acting in such an
+unliberal-minded way that the Germans would wish they would have paid
+the indemnity voluntarily on the instalment plan rather as have it
+collected all in one sum by levy and sale under an execution."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "it is always the case that when the
+creditors begin to scrap among themselves, y'understand, the fraudulent
+bankrupt stands a good chance to get away with the concealed assets,
+ain't it, and in particular in this case where there is so many
+liberal-minded people around which don't want to be too hard on Germany,
+_anyway_."
+
+"I bet yer," Morris said, fervently; "and while this here Peace
+Conference is killing a whole lot of time deliberating how to make this
+the last war, y'understand, they will wake up some fine morning to find
+out that they have really made it the last war but one. Furthermore,
+Abe, this next-to-the-last war wouldn't be a marker to the war we are
+going to have in collecting indemnities from Bolsheviki, because when it
+comes to atrocities, Abe, a Bolshevik government could make the old
+German government look like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
+Children, y'understand."
+
+"Might the Peace Conference would hurry up, maybe," Abe suggested.
+
+"They've got to hurry up if they don't want to be shifted from a Peace
+Conference to a Council of War," Morris said. "Look what has already
+happened in Hungary."
+
+"And yet, Mawruss, you would think that with a nation like the
+Hungarians, which is used to eating in Hungarian restaurants,
+y'understand, a little thing like starvation wouldn't worry them at
+all," Abe said, "so therefore I couldn't understand why the Hungarians
+should have gone Bolshevik from want of food, as the papers says they
+did."
+
+"_My_ paper didn't say it," Morris commented, "and if it did, I wouldn't
+believe it, anyway, because the most you could claim for Bolshevism as a
+cure for starvation is that it keeps the patient so busy worrying about
+his other troubles that he forgets how hungry he is. Furthermore, Abe,
+the way it looks to me, this here Bolshevik revolution in Hungary ain't
+even what the Poor Food Law would call a Bolshevik Type revolution,
+because it is my idea that Lenine and Trotzky could read the papers the
+same like anybody else. So, therefore, when they seen it that all the
+American newspaper correspondents was sending out word that the Peace
+Conference should ought to hurry up its work because of the spread of
+Bolshevism, y'understand, and that the delegates should ought to go easy
+on Germany because, if they didn't, Germany would probably go Bolshevik,
+y'understand, this here Trotzky, which once used to work on a New York
+newspaper but lived it down by changing his name from Bronstein to
+Trotzky, understand me, at once gets up a line of snappy advertisements
+headed:
+
+
+"'WHY BOLSHEVISM?'
+
+
+to the effect that a Revolution a Day Drives Indemnities Away and for
+particulars to write to Trotzky & Lenine, Department M, Petrograd Land
+Title and Trust Building, Petrograd. And, of course, Hungary fell for
+it."
+
+"So you think that this here Hungarian revolution is a fake?" Abe asked.
+
+"It ain't a fake, it's a business," Morris replied, "which I bet yer
+that right now Messrs. Ebert, Scheidemann & Co. is writing Trotzky &
+Lenine they should please quote prices on Bolshevist uprisings as per
+Hungarian sample, F.O.B. Berlin, and also that it wouldn't be only a
+matter of a few days when knocking Germany would be a capital offense in
+Petrograd, upon the grounds that the customer is always right."
+
+"But I understand that in Budapest the working-men is seizing the
+factories and running them themselves," Abe said.
+
+"There's always bound to be a certain number of people which couldn't
+take a job," Morris commented.
+
+"There's no joke about it," Abe declared, "which I see in the paper this
+morning that the new Hungarian Soviet government has directed the
+presidents of banks to put their business in the hands of the clerks and
+that the landlords has got to let the janitors manage the
+apartment-houses."
+
+"The landlords has got to do that in America, whether the government
+tells 'em to or not, Abe," Morris said, "and as for the bank presidents,
+Abe, they might just as well go out and look for another job to-day as
+to wait till next week when them committees of factory-workers will
+start in to make overdrafts at the point of a revolver."
+
+"Things must be terribly mixed up in Hungary, according to the papers,"
+Abe observed.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "in some countries a Bolshevik
+government could be quite disturbing, but take Hungarian cooking, for
+instance, and it wouldn't really make a whole lot of difference if
+_gulyas_ or paprika chicken was cooked by one chef or a committee of
+scullions, Abe, it would be just so miscellaneous and nobody could tell
+from eating it what had been put into it, y'understand. Also, Abe, take
+these here gipsy Hungarian bands, and while there would probably be a
+terrible conglomeration of noises if a committee of players was to start
+in to conduct the Boston Symphonies or the New York Philharmonics,
+y'understand, a committee of gipsy musicians couldn't make a _czardas_
+sound worser than it does, no matter how they disagree as to the way it
+should ought to be played."
+
+"For that matter, there's a lot of things produced in Germany which a
+Soviet government couldn't spoil, neither, Mawruss," Abe said, "like
+music by this here Nathan Strauss, the composer, or _Koenigsburger
+Klops_, now called Liberty Roast, which I see by last Sunday's paper
+that the Kaiser has been talking again."
+
+"And what's that got to do with Germany going Bolshevik?" Morris asked.
+
+"Nothing, except that it partially accounts for it," Abe replied, "which
+a newspaper feller by the name of Begbie called on the Kaiser in
+Holland, and he says the Kaiser couldn't see it at all."
+
+"See what?" Morris asked.
+
+"Why, he couldn't see what people is making such a fuss about," Abe
+said. "He says that, so far as starting this here war is concerned, he
+didn't _say_ nothing, he didn't _do_ nothing, and all he knows about it
+is that he lays the whole thing to the Freemasons."
+
+"You mean the F. A. M.?" Morris asked.
+
+"What other Freemasons is there?" Abe said.
+
+"You're sure he didn't say the Knights of Pythias or the I. O. O. F.,
+because, while I don't belong to the Masons myself, Abe, Rosie's
+sister's husband's brother by the name Harris November has been a
+thirty-sixth degree Mason for years already," Morris declared, "and I'll
+swear that if a gabby feller like him would have known that the Masons
+had anything to do with bringing on the war, Abe, he would of spilled it
+already long since ago."
+
+"Well, of course, I don't know nothing about what Harris November said
+or what he didn't say, Mawruss, but that's what the Kaiser said," Abe
+continued, "and he also had a good deal to say about Queen Victorine of
+England what a wonderful woman she was, _olav hasholom_, and how she
+told him many times he should look out for that low-life of a son of
+hers by the name Edwin."
+
+"But I always thought this here Edwin was such a decent, respectable
+feller," Morris interrupted.
+
+"That's what everybody else thought," Abe went on, "but the Kaiser says
+that many times the old lady says to him he shouldn't have nothing to do
+with Edwin. 'Believe me,' she said, according to the Kaiser, 'he
+wouldn't do you no good intellectually, morally, or socially,' and so
+for that reason the Kaiser wouldn't join the Entente with England,
+France, and Russia."
+
+"Because this here Edwin was at the bottom of it?" Morris inquired.
+
+"That's what the Kaiser _said_," Abe replied.
+
+"Maybe he also caught the poor Czar _selig_ eating with his knife or
+something," Morris suggested.
+
+"That he didn't say, neither," Abe answered, "but he might just so well
+have said it, for all it would go down with me, Mawruss, because we all
+know how kings sow their rolled oats, Mawruss, and any king which
+wouldn't associate with any other king on the grounds of running around
+the streets till all hours of the night or gambling, y'understand, if
+that ain't a case of a pot calling a kettle, I don't know what is."
+
+"And I suppose he topped off them lies by getting religious, ain't it?"
+Morris remarked.
+
+"Naturally," Abe said. "And in particular he got very sore at the
+Freemasons on account of them being atheists."
+
+"That's the first time I hear that about the Freemasons," Morris
+observed. "I think, myself, that he was getting them mixed up with the
+Elks."
+
+"The Elks ain't atheists," Abe said.
+
+"I know they ain't, but at the same time they ain't religious fanatics
+exactly," Morris said, "which to a particular feller like the Kaiser
+would be quite enough, Abe."
+
+"Also, Mawruss," Abe went on, "he claims that the Freemasons is all
+Bolshevists, and in fact, from the way he carried on about the
+Freemasons, you would think he was crazy on the subject."
+
+"Maybe they once turned him down or something," Morris commented, "which
+when I was treasurer of Friendship Lodge, 129, I. O. M. A., before we
+quit giving sick benefits, Abe, we turned down a feller by the name
+Turkeltaub on account of varicose veins, and the way he went around
+calling us all kinds of highwaymen you wouldn't believe at all."
+
+"But the newspaper feller that interviewed him says that the Kaiser
+seems to be in pretty good health, Mawruss," Abe declared.
+
+"That don't make him a good risk, neither," Morris retorted. "I suppose
+the interviewer didn't say how his appetite was."
+
+"What's his appetite got to do with it?" Abe asked.
+
+"Because, in speaking of murderers just before they go to the chair,
+Abe," Morris concluded, "the newspaper always say, 'The condemned man
+ate hearty.'"
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME FOR TRANSATLANTIC
+VOYAGES
+
+
+"I am surprised to see that an old-established and well-settled
+government like Mexico should got a revolution on his hands, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash declared as he skimmed the head-lines in the morning papers.
+
+"What makes you think that Mexico is an old-established and well-settled
+government, Abe?" Morris Perlmutter asked.
+
+"Germany and Hungary do," Abe replied, "which up to the time this here
+General Blanquet lands the other day in Mexico, people was beginning to
+say that why couldn't Germany have one last revolution and stick to it
+and look at Mexico the way she settled down, not having had a single
+revolution to speak of since January fifteenth, nineteen-nineteen."
+
+"Well, I think the reason why the Mexicans 'ain't had a revolution in so
+long isn't because they didn't want to, Abe," Morris said, "but because
+it has taken them all that time to learn the technical terms. You see, a
+really and truly up-to-date revolution couldn't be run off nowadays,
+Abe, unless it is one of them Bolshevik Type revolutions, and in order
+to get the right kind of newspaper publicity for it the management has
+got to know enough Russian not to say _soviet_ when they mean _mir_.
+Also I bet yer when it comes to a zemstvo, the Mexicans don't know even
+now whether you dance it to a guitar and cascanet accompaniment or eat
+it with garlic and chili sauce."
+
+"A feller could make quite some money nowadays from teaching Russian by
+mail to revolutionary socialists," Abe commented.
+
+"That ain't necessary in this country, Abe," Morris said, "because the
+Bolshevik government in Russia has sent over here a feller by the name
+of Martens to give a course in Bolshevism to American working-men."
+
+"And did our government let him land?" Abe asked.
+
+"Seemingly they did," Morris replied, "which is pretty liberal of our
+government when you consider that right now we got American soldiers in
+Russia which is fighting Bolshevism."
+
+"It's even more than liberal, it's crazy," Abe said, "because while I
+believe in free speech, y'understand, Bolshevik speeches ain't free by a
+whole lot. Over in Hungary they became payable in thirty, sixty, and
+ninety days and the only people which ain't ruined by them is the makers
+and indorsers."
+
+"You are right about the makers, Abe," Morris commented. "For the most
+part they are a bunch of no-account foreigners which all they risk by
+making such speeches is hoarseness, y'understand, but some of the
+indorsers of such speeches comes from the best American families, and if
+the time ever comes when there _should_ be a little temporary Bolshevik
+trouble by foreigners in this country who have been encouraged by the
+liberal attitude of the government to think that the worst which could
+happen to them would be ten dollars or ten days, y'understand, them
+indorsers would got to pay the same like any other decent, respectable
+people which ain't Bolsheviks. Take, for example, in Hungary and the
+protelariats is making the middle class give up their bath-rooms to the
+working-people every Saturday night."
+
+"But the protelariats in New York has all got bath-rooms in their
+tenement-houses, Mawruss," Abe protested.
+
+"I know they have, but they'll probably figure that why should they
+trouble themselves to empty the coal out of their bath-tubs, which is
+what them protelariats now use bath-tubs for, Abe, just to save the
+middle class the inconvenience of changing their bath night from
+Saturday to Friday," Morris said, "but at the same time, Abe, it don't
+look to me that a country which has got the modern convenience of
+America is going to go Bolshevik for the next few hundred years, anyway,
+because it is my idee that what makes a people become Bolsheviks is the
+lack of good plumbing and savings-bank accounts, and rather as have the
+privacy of their bath-rooms and their savings-bank accounts invaded,
+the big majority of the American people would declare the United States
+of America an obsolete monarchy with Ivan D. Ivanovitch, alias John D.
+Rockafeller, Jr., as the first Czar, understand me."
+
+"Well, if I would be the United States government I wouldn't let a
+Bolshevik land exactly," Abe declared.
+
+"What do you mean--you wouldn't let him land _exactly_?" Morris asked.
+
+"I mean what I say," Abe said. "I would let him pretty nearly land and
+then tip up the gang-plank. Also, Mawruss, if I would be the United
+States government, I would allow free speech, but not free speakers,
+y'understand, which I would make public speaking a profession the same
+like lawyers, dentists, or doctors, because if nobody could be a public
+speaker without taking a four-year course in public speaking and then
+getting licensed to practise as a public speaker after passing an
+examination, y'understand, he would think anyhow twice before he says
+something in public which would bring him up on charges to show cause
+why he shouldn't have his license to practise as a public speaker taken
+away from him. In other words, Mawruss, the way I would prevent
+Bolshevism is that I would make the sheepskin take the place of the
+soapbox as a necessary article for public speaking, and incidentally in
+the foreign neighborhoods of our big cities, y'understand, not only
+would soap-boxes be used for soap, but it would also go a long way
+towards making bath-tubs used for bathing."
+
+"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "I couldn't help thinking that if
+the feller who talks in public was given less to talk about,
+y'understand, it would help a whole lot, too, which there wouldn't be
+nearly so many loafers go into the Bolshevik line if there wasn't so
+many respectable people engaged in what might be called manufacturing
+Bolshevik supplies, such as army officers which claims that nobody has a
+right to kick if a soldier gets ten years' hard labor for using bad
+grammar in speaking to an officer, y'understand. Also there is a lot of
+state Legislatures in this country which has seemingly formed themselves
+into Societies for the Encouragement of Bolshevism by earning, anyhow,
+the gratitude of canners and cotton manufacturers who have got women and
+children working for them till all hours of the night, y'understand.
+Then again there is the perfectly respectable people which would like to
+make by law a Sunday out of every week-day and a living tomb out of
+Sunday, understand me, and which would have nobody but themselves to
+blame if some day they would got to furnish soap and towels for the
+protelariats in their bath-rooms."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "Bolshevism as a form of government is
+pretty nearly exploded, Mawruss. It is now used principally as a threat
+such as when Germany says if the Polaks get Danzig and West Prussia,
+y'understand, Germany would take up Bolshevism, and Paderewski says if
+the Polaks don't get Danzig, Poland would take up Bolshevism, understand
+me."
+
+"And Paderewski would take up giving piano lessons to raise enough money
+to get out of Poland, Abe," Morris commented, "and he would probably
+have to do so, too, as there ain't much chance of his getting away with
+that Danzig stuff. Also, Abe, we Americans should ought to be the last
+to encourage him to think that he will, Abe, because while I don't know
+how long it is since Danzig, Germany, was Danzig, Poland, I do know that
+it ain't nearly so long ago as Galveston, Texas, was Galveston, Mexico,
+y'understand. So, therefore, if Mr. Wilson lets Poland get back Danzig,
+it wouldn't be long before Mexico would elect Teresa Carreño or Fannie
+Bloomfield Zeisler as President and claim Galveston with a corridor
+taking in San Antonio and Houston, understand me."
+
+"Just the same, I am in favor that Germany should have to give up Danzig
+even if Danzig 'ain't belonged to Poland since 1492 and the only Danzig
+people now speaking Polish as a regular language is the interpreter of
+the First District Magistrate's Court for the City and County of Danzig,
+y'understand," Abe declared. "Furthermore, I think this here Peace
+Conference is taking it too particular about what Germany should or
+shouldn't give up, Mawruss, which if the shoe pinched on the other foot,
+Mawruss, and this here Peace Conference was being held in Berlin or
+Vienna, y'understand, with Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria as the
+Big Four, understand me, there wouldn't be any question as to what
+Allied territory would or wouldn't be given up by the Allies, Mawruss.
+If Germany would have won the war, Mawruss, she would have taken Calais
+and Boulogne with as much argument over it as a golluf-player taking a
+Scotch highball, y'understand, and if France would have threatened to go
+Bolshevik on account of it, Germany would of said, 'Don't do us no
+favors,' understand me, and let it go at that. So, therefore, if the
+people of Danzig couldn't speak Polish, Mawruss, let 'em learn to do so,
+even if it would be necessary for them to go to a nose and throat
+specialist till they got used to the pronunciation."
+
+"Say, for my part I am willing that this here Peace Conference should do
+anything and everything, Abe, just so long as they would get through
+with their work and I wouldn't have to listen no longer to your
+nonsense," Morris declared.
+
+"No nonsense at all," Abe protested. "The thing this here Peace
+Conference should ought to have done from the start was to consider what
+Germany would have done under the circumstances, put the reverse English
+on it, and then let her whoop, which I see by the paper that they are
+now getting ready to make airyoplane journeys across the Atlantic Ocean,
+Mawruss."
+
+"And what's that got to do with this here Peace Conference?" Morris
+asked.
+
+"Nothing," Abe said, "except that I see Mr. Wilson is writing home that
+they should please send over the _George Washington_ in case it should
+be necessary for him to make good any bluff he might throw to the Peace
+Conference that if they don't do as he says, he would leave them flat
+and go back to America. So, therefore, if he has to make good sooner
+than he thinks, he could go home by airyoplane and not wait for the
+_George Washington_."
+
+"I don't think that this here transatlantic airyoplane flying is exactly
+in the President-carrying class just yet, Abe," Morris suggested.
+
+"Neither do I, Mawruss," Abe said, "but the manufacturers of airyoplanes
+seems pretty confident, Mawruss. In fact, I see in the papers that it
+won't be but a matter of a few years when the New York business man
+which has business to do in London, instead of getting on the
+_Mauretania_ in New York and landing six days later in Liverpool,
+y'understand, would be able to take the railroad to Halifax, Nova
+Scotia, spend the night there or anyhow only as many nights there as it
+would be necessary before the steamer sails for Saint John's,
+Newfoundland, and then take the steamer to Saint John's, Newfoundland,
+where there would be a passenger airyoplane in waiting and no
+first-class hotels, y'understand. At Saint John's, such is the strides
+airyoplane-manufacturing has made, Mawruss, he would probably only have
+to stick around for five or six days till the airyoplane was in shape to
+leave, understand me, and in twenty-four hours he would land at the
+Azores, where there ain't no hotels at all, understand me. In less than
+four days more, provided the repairs didn't take longer, he would be on
+his way to Lisbon, Portugal, which he would reach on the following day
+or days. There the same airyoplane or another airyoplane, in case the
+same airyoplane got smashed in landing, would be ready or approximately
+ready to start for Paris, and might even start, you couldn't tell. On
+arriving in Paris, he would be only a few hours by railroad and steamer
+from London, provided he was in shape to travel, which, when you
+consider that only a few years ago flying was in its infancy, Mawruss,
+you've got to admit that nobody could ever have dreamed that it was
+possible to make such a journey."
+
+"Not unless you ate something which disagreed with you before you went
+to sleep," Morris commented, "and even then, Abe, where is the
+advantage?"
+
+"It ain't the advantage, it's the novelty of the thing," Abe said, "and
+I'll bet yer, Mawruss, that if an Airyoplane Company was to open a
+ticket-office in New York to-morrow, Mawruss, men would be standing in
+line to buy accommodations on the first available airyoplane--men with
+wives and families and no life insurance at that."
+
+"They would be the very first ones," Morris agreed, "but the way it
+looks to me, Abe, New York business men which has not business to do
+in London would continue to take twin-screw steamers with bilge
+keels, no matter how unimportant the business they was going to
+transact over there might be, because even the stockholders in
+airyoplane-manufacturing corporations would got to admit that while
+airyoplane-flying ain't in its infancy, exactly, it ain't in the prime
+of life, neither. Also, Abe, as long as gas only costs a dollar
+twenty-five a thousand cubic feet, why should any one want to pull off
+such a high-priced suicide as these here transatlantic airyoplane
+voyages is going to be?"
+
+"Anyhow, the first one has still got to be made yet, Mawruss," Abe
+remarked.
+
+"And even if the tenth one was successful, Abe," Morris concluded, "you
+could take it from me, this here transatlantic airyoplane navigation
+ain't going to put much of a crimp into the business of manufacturing
+seasick remedies. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THIS HERE VICTORY LIBERTY LOAN
+
+
+"The way some people is acting about this here Victory Loan, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash remarked one morning in April, "you would think that they was
+all presidents of a first national bank and that this here Carter J.
+Glass has already made a big overdraft and if he don't like the line of
+credit they are giving him, he should be so good as to take his account
+somewheres else, y'understand."
+
+"Them same people probably think that investing their money in any
+securities bearing interest at less than fifteen per cent. per annum is,
+so to speak, the equivalence from giving money to orphan-asylums and
+hospitals, understand me," Morris Perlmutter said. "'We already give
+them Liberty Loan _schnorrers_ two hundred dollars toward the expenses
+of their rotten war,' they probably say, 'and _still_ they ain't
+satisfied.'"
+
+"And at that they don't mean nothing by it," Abe said, "because there is
+a whole lot of business men in the United States which couldn't even
+give up the family housekeeping money every week without anyhow saying
+to their wives: 'Here, take my blood; take my life. What do you want
+from me, _anyway_?'"
+
+"Maybe they do and maybe they don't mean nothing by it, Abe," Morris
+said, "but it would be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass
+if everybody would act as his own Victory Bond salesman and try to sell
+himself just one more bond than he has really got any business buying,
+y'understand."
+
+"It would be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass, Mawruss,
+but it would be practically impossible for pretty nearly everybody
+else," Abe remarked, "which human nature is so constituted, Mawruss,
+that the only time a man really and truly uses some high-class,
+silver-tongued salesmanship on himself is when he is trying to persuade
+himself that it is all right for him to do something which he knows in
+his heart it is dead wrong for him to do."
+
+"Well, at least, Abe, in this here Victory Loan Campaign, every man
+should ought to try to put himself in the place of the salesman which is
+trying to sell him some of these Victory Bonds," Morris continued, "so
+we would say, for example, that you would be a Victory Bond salesman,
+Abe, and you are calling on a feller which he is a pretty tough
+proposition in such matters by the name of, we would say, for instance,
+Abe Potash."
+
+"Why don't you make the feller which the salesman is supposed to call on
+a really and truly hard-boiled egg, by the name, we would say, for
+instance, Mawruss Perlmutter?" Abe asked. "Which when you put up to me
+a hypocritical case, Mawruss, why is it you must always start in by
+getting insulted already?"
+
+"What do you mean getting insulted?" Morris asked. "I am only putting
+something up to you for the sake of argument not arguments."
+
+"Well, then, why not be perfectly neuter and call the tough proposition
+which the Victory Bond salesman is visiting, somebody by the name of a
+competitor like Leon Sammet, for instance?" Abe suggested.
+
+"Because I am trying to make you put yourself in the place of the
+Victory Bond salesman who is trying to sell you bonds," Morris declared.
+
+"Put your _own_ self in the place of the Victory Bond salesman," Abe
+exclaimed, "which if you want to give me any hypocritical cases for the
+sake of argument, Mawruss, I have seen the way you practically snap the
+head off a collector for a charitable fund enough times to appreciate
+how you would behave towards a Victory Bond salesman, so go ahead on the
+basis that you are the tough proposition and not me."
+
+"A charitable fund is one thing and this here Victory Loan another,"
+Morris said.
+
+"I know it is," Abe agreed, "but at the same time, Mawruss, a whole lot
+of people feels that if ever they give a couple dollars to an
+orphan-asylum, they practically got vaccinated against future attacks of
+the same complaint, and if three years later the collector for the
+orphan-asylum calls on them again they say: 'Why, I already gave you
+two dollars for that orphan-asylum! What did you done with it all?' And
+I bet yer that just as many people considered that the fifty-dollar bond
+which they bought during the First Liberty Loan Campaign should ought to
+have set up such a strong antiseptic in their system that they would be
+immune to all other Liberty Bond Campaigns, no matter if such campaigns
+would continue until there was, God forbid! a Fiftieth Liberty Loan
+already."
+
+"Some people never even got, so to speak, jabbed the first time," Morris
+observed, "and the way they avoid Liberty Bond salesmen, Abe, you would
+think that such a salesman was a sort of Liberty Bond Typhoid Mary and
+would infect them tightwads with a disease where they were liable to
+break out all over with coupons or something."
+
+"As a matter of fact, Mawruss, that's just the effect which a Liberty
+Bond salesman should ought to have on the right kind of sitson," Abe
+said, "which while I don't mean to say that making a good investment
+like buying of a Liberty Bond should ought to be considered as a
+disease, Mawruss, it should anyhow be infectious and should ought to
+spread so rapidly that everybody in the United States could say they had
+it to the extent of at least one fifty-dollar bond of the Victory Loan."
+
+"But there is over a hundred million people in the United States, Abe,"
+Morris said, "and if they all bought one fifty-dollar bond,
+y'understand, it would make the Victory Loan five billion dollars,
+whereas this here Carter J. Glass is only asking for four billion five
+hundred million."
+
+"Well, to my mind, he's acting too modest, Mawruss," Abe went on,
+"because if we expect Germany to raise the first five billion dollars of
+her indemnity with nothing to show for it but the promise that she would
+have to raise five billion more every two years till the whole indemnity
+was paid, understand me, how much more should we raise over here with
+the promise that it is going to be paid back to us in a few years, with
+interest at the rate of four and three-quarters per cent. per annum?
+Why, under them conditions, Mawruss, any American which would refuse to
+buy a Victory Loan Bond should ought to be considered as applying for
+German sitsonship papers and should ought to be exported to Hamburg,
+where his adopted fellow-sitsons is getting frisked by the German
+government for every cent they possess and ain't getting so much as a
+receipt to show for it."
+
+"For that matter, an American which refuses to buy Victory Liberty Bonds
+should ought to completely lost his memory, Abe," Morris declared.
+"Evidently a feller, if some one starts a conversation about the war, is
+going to say, '_What_ war?' and when it is reminded to his memory that
+as recently ago as last November the papers was printing every day
+columns and columns about the war which was going on in Europe, he would
+probably say: 'Oh, _that_ war! I thought that war was already a thing
+of the past.' And also probably he might even ask, 'Tell me, was there
+many people hurt?'"
+
+"Well, if some folks has got such short memories like all that, and is
+only affected by what they have read in the papers at the latest the day
+before yesterday, Mawruss," Abe said, "why not have the Victory Liberty
+Loan salesmen approach them on the basis of what is going on _now_ in
+Europe? 'You are asked,' such a salesman would say, 'to invest your
+money in a first-class A-number-one security, backed by the United
+States government and bearing interest at the rate of four and
+three-quarters per cent. per annum, and that is the very least you could
+do for your country when you consider that right now,' the salesman
+would say, and he should practise in advance to make his voice sound
+tragical, 'right now _your_ uncles and _my_ uncles is making peace in
+Paris with all the strength of language which they've got in their
+system.
+
+"'Yes, Mr. Sitson,' the salesman should go on to say, 'the government is
+only asking _you_ to invest in interest-bearing cash money, so to speak,
+and what for a sacrifice is _that_ compared to the suffering of _your_
+father-in-laws and _my_ father-in-laws which is bravely standing larynx
+to larynx in the battle area of the Peace Conference while the air is
+filled with the French, Italian, Greek, Jugo-Slob, and Polish remarks?
+_You_ sit here in your comfortable home while the flower of our experts
+and college professors is exposed to all kinds of coffee and cigars.
+Ain't you ashamed to be doing nothing but buy bonds when old and feeble
+men like most of the American Peace delegates is battling with French
+waiters, French taxicab-drivers, French hotel service, and French
+laundry-lists, giving and receiving no mercy, y'understand, and you
+should thank Heaven that your own country has been spared the horrors of
+having on our own soil this here Peace Conference which is now raging in
+Paris, understand me.'"
+
+"That would be anyhow an argument," Morris admitted, "but with these
+here Victory Liberty Bonds it shouldn't ought to be a case of first come
+first serve. With only four and a half billion dollars' worth of Victory
+Liberty Bonds for sale, Abe, seventy-five per cent. of the people of the
+United States should ought to be going around looking as sore as fellers
+that sell tickets in theater box-offices, and when any one asks 'em why,
+they should say: 'Ain't it just my luck! I put off buying my Victory
+Liberty Bonds till April 23d, and when I got round to the bank there
+wasn't one left.' Yes, Abe, instead of Victory Liberty Bond salesmen
+having to go about visiting customers, y'understand, they should ought
+to have luxurious fitted-up offices, and it should ought to be a case of
+when the customer arrives the Victory Liberty Bond salesman should ought
+to be playing auction pinochle or rummy with two other Victory Liberty
+Bond salesmen. Then when the customer says is this the place where they
+sell Victory Liberty Bonds, the salesman says, 'I'll be with you in a
+minute,' and makes the customer stand around without even offering him a
+seat until the salesmen gets through playing two more hands. The
+customer should then make out his own application, y'understand, have
+the exact change ready, and close the door quietly when leaving, and
+that's the way I would sell Victory Liberty Bonds if I was the
+government."
+
+"That's the way you even try to sell garments," Abe commented.
+
+"Because," Morris continued, evading the challenge, "it is my idee that
+it is a privilege to be allowed to buy these here Victory Liberty Bonds,
+and before any one gets that privilege, Abe, he should be made to prove
+that he has done something to deserve it. Yes, Abe, instead of a man
+wearing a button to show that he has bought Liberty Bonds, he should
+ought to go before a notary public and make an oath that he has given up
+his quota to all Red Cross and United War Relief drives and otherwise
+done everything he could do to help win the war if he couldn't fight in
+it, y'understand, and then, and only then, Abe, he should be given a
+button entitling him to buy Victory Liberty Bonds under the conditions I
+have stated."
+
+"But, joking apart, Mawruss, and talking business, not poetry,
+understand me," Abe asked, "do you actually think that this here Victory
+Liberty Loan would be all taken up by them methods? To my mind,
+Mawruss, it would be a whole lot better to look the horse straight in
+the teeth, y'understand, and take it as settled that a lot of people
+which has got the money to buy bonds would go round saying that they
+would be very glad to buy bonds if they only had the money,
+y'understand. To such people, Mawruss, I would remind them again that a
+war, even when you win it, ain't a cash-in-advance proposition. In fact,
+a war ain't even a C. O. D. proposition. Wars is paid for on the
+instalment plan, Mawruss, and while this particular war is over,
+understand me, the bill has still got to be paid, and if such people
+won't lend the government the money to pay for the war, the government
+would have to do what the German government is going to do to the German
+people--instead of touching them for it and paying it back, they would
+frisk them for it and not even say much obliged, y'understand."
+
+"At that, Abe, I ain't worried a whole lot about the result of this
+Victory Liberty Loan," Morris said. "When all is said and done, Abe, the
+American people love their country."
+
+"I know they do," Abe agreed, "but also, Mawruss, there is a whole lot
+of fellers which loves their families and at the same time don't lose no
+sleep nights because they ain't providing for them as they should ought
+to do. So to them people I would say: 'Which would you rather have it as
+a souvenir of the war: Victory Liberty Bonds or tax bills?' Also, 'Would
+you sooner be paid interest or would you sooner pay interest?'"
+
+"In other words, Abe, you would threaten 'em into buying bonds," Morris
+observed.
+
+"Only when it's necessary, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "and that wouldn't
+be in the case of one thousandth of one per cent. of the entire
+population, because the great majority of the people thinks the way I do
+about their money: the government let me make it, and the government
+lets me keep it, and if the government would sooner borrow part of it
+instead of taking it all, Mawruss, that's only the government's good
+nature, which nobody should presume too much on good nature, Mawruss. Am
+I right or wrong?"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+WHEN IS A SECRET TREATY SECRET?
+
+
+"I see where President Wilson sent a letter to the German government
+that they might just so well save the car fare and not send any
+delegates to this here Peace Conference which wouldn't be prepared for
+the worst, Mawruss," Abe Potash said one morning in April.
+
+"You would think, considering how excited the German people gets
+nowadays, that they would have a hard time finding any one to take the
+job of delegate, Abe," Morris Perlmutter suggested, "which the least
+that happens to one of them German delegates after the German people
+finds out what was in the paper he signed is that his executioners would
+claim that the daylight-saving law made it unnecessary for them to wait
+till sunrise, y'understand."
+
+"Well, he would always have the excuse that the only thing he seen of
+the Peace Treaty before he signed it was a dotted line, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "and also, Mawruss, it is just possible that the return half of
+them German peace delegates will read _via_ Amsterdam, and that before
+taking a three years' lease of an Amsterdam apartment some of them
+peace delegates would first visit a ticket-scalper and get that much off
+their minds, anyway."
+
+"And even in Paris them German peace delegates wouldn't be, neither,"
+Morris declared, "which I see that the French government is too safe
+arranging for the accommodation of them German delegates at a hotel next
+to the place where the Peace Treaty is going to be signed, Abe, and the
+lot on which the hotel stands is going to be protected with an egg-proof
+fence eight feet high so that the German delegates can escape any stray
+rotten eggs."
+
+"The fence could be twelve feet high, Mawruss," Abe remarked, "and it
+wouldn't do any good, because nobody could escape rotten eggs in a
+French hotel, Mawruss, rotten coffee, neither. Also, Mawruss, eggs
+'ain't got nothing to do with that fence, because if that fence wouldn't
+be there, Mawruss, when it comes time for them German delegates to sign
+the treaty, Mawruss, the Peace Conference would got to appoint a
+Committee of Resident Buyers to round up them German delegates, on
+account that nobody else but Resident Buyers who is accustomed to
+entertaining their American clients would know where them German
+delegates had disappeared to."
+
+"Well, in a way it is the Peace Conference's own fault because they sent
+word to the German government that they didn't want to deal with no
+messengers, but that the German delegates should all be high-up
+officials, Abe," Morris said, "which seemingly as a general thing the
+higher up a German happens to be, y'understand, the lower down he can
+act. Take, for example, the Crown Prince, Abe, and I always thought that
+no matter how much people abused him, Abe, he could anyhow go home and
+say to his wife whatever I done, I done it all for you, instead of going
+somewhere else and saying it to ballet-dancers, as his wife's mother
+claims."
+
+"I understand he was leading a double life, Mawruss," Abe observed.
+
+"He was leading a double life in spades, Abe," Morris declared, alluding
+to the game of auction pinochle. "Day after day his wife's mother says
+he would leave the house to go down-town to the palace, and instead he
+would go down-town not to the palace and never show up till all hours of
+the morning. Then when his wife asked him where he was putting in his
+time, y'understand, instead of acting reasonable and telling her a phony
+story about being sick and tired of getting stuck at the Reichskanzlei
+night after night, and that he wished the old man would get through
+springing a new chancellor on him every week, understand me, he gives
+himself dead away by getting sore. In fact, Abe, his mother-in-law says
+that the Hohenzollern royal colors is black and blue, anyhow so far as
+the Crown Princess is concerned, and that she made up her mind that she
+wouldn't let her daughter live with him no longer, so the chances is
+that if the German people goes back to the monarchy, they would not
+only got to pay indemnities for what the Crown Prince done, but alimony
+besides."
+
+"Well, even if the mother-in-law couldn't prove what she says about her
+daughter's husband, which very few mother-in-laws can, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "the Crown Princess would be able to get her devorce upon the
+grounds that her husband was convicted of a felony, y'understand, which
+he will be, Mawruss, just so soon as the Peace Conference has finished
+drawing up the indictment."
+
+"Then them German people will be paying her temporary alimony
+permanently for the rest of her life, Abe," Morris said, "because them
+fellers which is drawing the indictments against the Kaiser and the
+Crown Prince seems to be taking their own time about it."
+
+"It's a big job, Mawruss, because you take the indictment against the
+Crown Prince, Mawruss, and the chances is that the first two hundred
+counts alone is for French château furniture, and when some one steals
+anything from a French château, Mawruss, it's a hundred to one that he
+is guilty not only of larceny, y'understand, but of concealing mortgaged
+property besides, understand me," Abe said, "which it has always been a
+wonder to me, Mawruss, that some of these ladies of the four hundred who
+open tea-rooms for European war relief has never considered doing
+nothing for them Ruined Mortgagees of France, or the Suffering Judgment
+Creditors of Allied Noblemen. Most of our best families has had
+experience some time or another with railroad reorganizations, and you
+would think they would have enough sympathy for them Starving Lienors of
+France, Mawruss, to get up, anyhow, a bazaar. It could be advertised
+with a picture by some big artist like C. G. Gibson, where an old man in
+what used to was a fur overcoat before the moths got into it is bending
+over Liber 2244 of Mortgages, page 391, which is all the old feller has
+got to show for what was once a first lien on some gilt-edged château
+property, Mawruss."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "there's a certain number of people
+which nobody has got any sympathy with, like mortgagers, coal dealers,
+head waiters, garage proprietors, and fellers which works in theayter
+ticket-offices, to which, of course, must also be added
+Postmaster-General Burleson."
+
+"And why that feller is so unpopular is a mystery to me, Mawruss," Abe
+said. "You would think, to hear the way the newspapers talk about him,
+that the very least he had done was to mix arsenic with the gum which
+they put on the backs of stamps, whereas, so far as I could see, the
+poor feller is only trying to do his duty and keep down the wages of
+telephone operators, which I don't know how strong telephone operators
+is with the rest of the country, but compared with the hit that they
+make with me, Mawruss, Mr. Burleson would be a general favorite,
+y'understand."
+
+"He was already in bad before them telephone girls struck on him, Abe,"
+Morris said, "and for the very reason, as you say, that he has always
+done his duty as he seen it, which the trouble with them fellers that do
+their duty as they see it is that nobody else could see it, Abe. It is
+also the case that them people which do their duty as they see it
+usually has rotten eyesight, Abe, and when it comes right down to it,
+Abe, there is even some people which claims that Mr. Wilson should also
+consult an oculist to find out if he don't need to have his glasses
+changed. In fact, there's a couple of fellers by the name Orlando and
+Sonnino which seems to think that Mr. Wilson is practically blind so far
+as Fiume is concerned."
+
+"You mean to say they 'ain't settled that Fiume thing yet, Mawruss?" Abe
+asked.
+
+"They did and they didn't," Morris said. "Mr. Wilson give out a long
+statement about it in which he thought he settled it, Abe, and the
+Italian peace delegates said they would go home and leave the Peace
+Conference flat, y'understand, and thought they settled it, but the way
+it looks now, Abe, if the Peace Conference stays in session till they do
+settle it, when Mr. Wilson comes back and explains the Peace Treaty to
+Congress, he will speak with such a strong French accent that only the
+members from Louisiana will be able to understand a word he says."
+
+"But why does Mr. Wilson say that Italy shouldn't have Fiume?" Abe
+inquired.
+
+"Because it doesn't square up with his fourteen points," Morris replied,
+"and seemingly he don't want to stretch a point."
+
+"Well, if he did, Mawruss, it wouldn't be the first time," Abe declared,
+"because if you recollect them fourteen points, which is more than most
+people could, Mawruss, point number one said that there should be open
+covenants of peace openly arrived at, Mawruss, and also something about
+such terms being discussed openly, frankly, and in the public view,
+Mawruss, and the way Mr. Wilson has stretched that point, Mawruss, it'll
+never look like the same point again."
+
+"Say!" Morris interrupted. "As a keep-it-dark proposition, Abe, Mr.
+Wilson 'ain't got nothing on this here Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and the
+firm of Orlando & Sonnino, to say nothing of the Japanese delegates,
+which I suppose you heard about them secret treaties, Abe."
+
+"I never heard tell of them," Abe replied.
+
+"Neither did Mr. Wilson until the other day, which the way it happened
+was this," Morris continued: "Orlando & Sonnino was talking the whole
+thing over in a friendly way with Lloyd George and Mr. Wilson, and Mr.
+Wilson says that when it come right down to it Italy's claims to Trieste
+wasn't what would be called in the language of diplomacy exactly kosher,
+neither, and Sonnino says: 'Is that so? Well, how about our treaty?' And
+although Orlando kicked his partner under the table and Lloyd George
+give him one of them what-are-you-trying-to-do-spoil-everything looks,
+Mr. Wilson caught on right away. 'What treaty?' he asked, and Lloyd
+George says: 'Why, you know what treaty. I was sitting right here when
+Clemenceau told you all about it,' and it appears that all the time Mr.
+Wilson was kidding himself along that if he compromised by letting Italy
+have Trieste, she would pass up Fiume, Abe, it seems she had a secret
+agreement with France and England that she was to have Trieste, anyway."
+
+"No wonder Mr. Wilson feels sore," Abe remarked.
+
+"Wait, that ain't all," Morris said. "Now it appears that Japan has also
+a secret treaty with France and England to get a slice of China which
+formerly belonged to Germany, y'understand, and Mr. Wilson is beginning
+to experience what it is like when you sit in a poker game all evening
+and don't find out till the last round is on that everybody else around
+the table is playing for the house."
+
+"They could all be playing honest at that, Mawruss," Abe suggested.
+
+"Sure they could, with the exception of having a couple of secret
+treaties or so," Morris agreed, "but at the same time, Abe, I wouldn't
+be a bit surprised if since the discovery of these here secret treaties,
+Mr. Wilson has waked up more than once somewheres around three A.M. and
+asked himself did he or did he not need a mandatory, y'understand, and
+also wondered what the folks back home is thinking--particularly a few
+Senators like Lodge and Johnson."
+
+"I don't agree with you, Mawruss," Abe declared. "I think that Mr.
+Wilson will get the better end of the deal, because from what has
+happened in this war, Mawruss, diplomacy is one of them games where the
+feller which don't know how to play it has got a big advantage over the
+feller that does. So, therefore, while the old-time experienced
+diplomatist is saying it never has been done that way and therefore
+couldn't be done, Mawruss, a new beginner like Mr. Wilson has already
+gone to work and done it, which I bet yer right now, Mawruss, that if
+Mr. Wilson don't want Italy to have Fiume she won't get it, and the same
+thing goes for Japan also, Mawruss--secret treaty or no secret treaty."
+
+"Still, there's a whole lot of people in America which would like to see
+Italy get Fiume, Abe," Morris said.
+
+"There was a whole lot of people, Mawruss," Abe said, "but this
+secret-treaty business has killed it, which if Italy wanted to be fair
+about it, why didn't she come right out before the armistice even and
+say, 'Look-a-here, we got a secret treaty and we may as well tell you so
+right from the start'?"
+
+"Then the secret treaty wouldn't been no more secret, Abe," Morris said.
+
+"She would have been doing the manly thing, anyway," Abe said.
+
+"I know she would," Morris admitted, "but that's the difference between
+the old-fashioned Italian diplomacy and the new-fashioned American
+diplomacy. The Italians believe that there should be secret covenants of
+peace secretly arrived at, and we believe that there should be open
+covenants of peace openly arrived at."
+
+"There is also the difference, Mawruss, that the Italians stick to their
+beliefs," Abe concluded, "and we don't."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE FIRST DAY OF MAY
+
+
+"I see where in Genoa they already changed the name of a street which
+only last week they called Wilson Avenue, Mawruss," Abe Potash said one
+morning after the rupture with Orlando.
+
+"Well, that's the trouble with calling articles after the latest popular
+success, Abe," Morris said. "It don't make no difference if it's streets
+or cigars, the first thing you know the people gets a grouch on the
+original of the brand and the manufacturer has got to tear up a few
+thousand Flor de President Wilson labels and go back to calling it the
+Regalia de Ginsburg Brothers, or whatever the name was."
+
+"But in Genoa they didn't go back to the name of the old street,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "They renamed it Fiume Street."
+
+"And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a few Burleson streets was
+changed to Second Class Avenue, Abe," Morris declared, "on account this
+is a time of great ups and downs in the reputations of politicians, not
+to say statesmen, Abe, which six months from now nobody would be able to
+say offhand whether the name was Bela Hanson or Old Kun except the
+immediate family in Budapest or Seattle, as the case may be."
+
+"In a way, Mawruss, the reputations of politicians, not to say
+statesmen, can get to be, so to speak, a nuisance to their
+fellow-countrymen," Abe observed, "which it happens once in a while that
+some politicians and statesmen gets to having such a high regard for
+their reputations, Mawruss, they would sooner injure their country than
+their reputation. Italian statesmen, French statesmen, English
+statesmen, and even, you might say, American statesmen goes about their
+work with one eye on the job in hand and the other eye on a possible
+statue or so at the junction of Main Street and Railroad Avenue in their
+native town, y'understand, with a subscription on the pedestal:
+
+
+                  "'HARRIS J. SONNINO
+
+Erected by His Fellow-Townsmen of East Rome, August 1, 1919.'"
+
+
+"Such an ambition, anyhow, makes the statesmen try to do the right
+thing," Morris observed.
+
+"And it also occasionally makes him do the obstinate thing, Mawruss,"
+Abe continued. "In fact, Mawruss, sometimes I couldn't help wishing that
+it was the custom to have corporations and not men as ambassadors and
+presidents, because it would be such a simple matter when the
+Republicans nominated the Chicago Title Guarantee, Security and Mortgage
+Company for President and the Democrats nominated the Algonquin Trust
+Company, of Pottstown, for the voters of the country to compare the
+statement of assets of each company and judge which was the most
+reliable, y'understand. Also, Mawruss, if the Algonquin Trust Company
+was now President of the United States, understand me, and somebody was
+to say they didn't like the way the President was running things at the
+Peace Conference, y'understand, nobody would have the nerve to arrest
+him for criticizing a great and good corporation like the Algonquin
+Trust Company. Furthermore, Mawruss, if Italy had been represented at
+this here Peace Conference not by Sonnino, but by the Milan Trust
+Company, which no doubt acts as executor, guardian or trustee like any
+other trust company, and therefore why not as ambassador, understand me,
+there never would have been no scrap about Fiume arising from the fact
+that the Milan Trust Company could never go home and face the people of
+Italy without Fiume, and also nobody would have considered that Mr.
+Wilson's statement was a direct slap in the face of the Milan Trust
+Company, Mawruss."
+
+"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "if you are trying to invent this
+_schmooes_ about corporations just so you could knock Mr. Wilson,
+y'understand, such a scheme wouldn't deceive a child even."
+
+"I wouldn't knock President Wilson for anything, Mawruss," Abe retorted.
+"I _couldn't_ knock him, because when I think of Mr. Wilson I see
+before my eyes a good-looking gentleman with a pleasant smile on his
+face, y'understand, and not very far away stands Mrs. Wilson, which, if
+Mr. Wilson didn't put over even one fourteenth of his fourteen points,
+Mawruss, his visit to Europe with Mrs. Wilson wouldn't be wasted,
+Mawruss, because it would have given them people over in the old country
+a chance to see what an American lady is and should ought to be,
+y'understand. But on the other hand, Mawruss, if the Democrats _had_
+elected the Algonquin Trust Company as President of the United States at
+the last election, y'understand, whenever I would think of the President
+of the United States I would see before my eyes a twenty-five-story
+fire-proof building with all the rents raised one hundred and fifty per
+cent. since last January, understand me, and I could go to work and
+knock with a clear conscience."
+
+"But why should you want to knock the President of the United States?"
+Morris demanded.
+
+"Ain't I telling you that I don't want to knock him?" Abe declared. "All
+I am saying is that, if such a thing was possible, it would be a whole
+lot better to have a corporation as President of the United States
+instead of an individual, Mawruss, because corporations don't get sick,
+corporations don't get insulted, a corporation _oser_ cares whether it
+gets cheered or hooted, and finally, Mawruss, a corporation couldn't
+ride around Italy in an open carriage with the King of Italy and give
+the Italian people the impression that all they had to do was to ask
+for Fiume and it was theirs."
+
+"And another thing about a corporation, Abe, is that it ain't a
+copartnership where one partner could get every day a headache from
+listening to the other partner talking a lot of nonsense, Abe," Morris
+declared, "which you must got to remember that, beginning the first of
+May, if you would go to a soda-fountain and say, 'Give me something for
+a headache,' they would give you a United States Internal Revenue stamp
+for which you would got to pay two cents before they would even take the
+cork out of the bromo-asperin bottle."
+
+"What's the difference whether they tax a headache coming or going,
+Mawruss?" Abe commented.
+
+"A whole lot of difference," Morris said. "In the first place, the taxes
+which the country used to collect in one week from people when they were
+catching headaches would be more than equivalence to the taxes which the
+country is going to the taxes which the country is going to collect from
+people curing headaches during the next ten years. Also, Abe, nobody
+thought it was a hardship to pay taxes on a coming headache, whereas
+there will be a terrible howl go up over the tax on the same article in
+the opposite direction."
+
+"At that, I think these here May 1st taxes is going to have a good
+effect on the American people, Mawruss," Abe said, "because there's
+nothing like taxes to make a man wake up and take an interest in the
+way the government is being run."
+
+"A man would got to be an awful sound sleeper in that respect if he
+wasn't roused up a little by the income tax which he has been paying for
+the past four or five years, Abe," Morris said.
+
+"That's only once a year, Mawruss," Abe said, "but these here May 1st
+taxes is going to keep him awake three hundred and sixty-five days out
+of the year. People which thought you was a tightwad if you happened to
+mention that six hundred million dollars of the country's money was used
+up in experimenting with aeroplanes, is now going to shriek in agony
+every time they buy a three-dollar-and-a-quarter shirt that it's a shame
+and a disgrace the way every little secretary in the President's Cabinet
+is gallivanting half over Europe on the people's money, and they'd
+probably be just as hard if the shirt only cost two dollars and a
+quarter, excepting that the luxury tax of ten per cent. is only
+collected from the purchasers of men's shirts of the value of three
+dollars and upwards on amounts in excess of three dollars each. Also,
+Mawruss, people which has just paid eight dollars for a bathrobe on
+which the tax would be ten per cent. of fifty cents, or five cents cash,
+y'understand, is going to say: 'Couldn't that feller travel to and from
+Europe in one state-room the same like anybody else? Must he got to have
+a whole steamboat?' and they will start right in to estimate that the
+cost of keeping a steamboat the size of the _George Washington_ in
+commission is forty-five thousand six hundred and twenty-two dollars and
+thirty-eight cents per diem, and is it any wonder you've got to pay a
+one-cent tax on every orange phosphate, understand me."
+
+"Some people is willing to get in a knock at Mr. Wilson without even so
+much as an orange-phosphate tax for an excuse, Abe," Morris said,
+significantly.
+
+"I know they are," Abe replied, innocently, "and as for
+Postmaster-General Burleson, seemingly he couldn't suit nobody no matter
+what he does. Take, for instance, them fourteen bombs which was mailed
+in New York the other day, Mawruss, and if it wouldn't be that
+Postmaster-General Burleson has probably given strict orders that no
+mail should be forwarded which was short even a half-a-cent
+postage-stamp even, the chances is that every one of them fourteen bombs
+would have been delivered and exploded by now. But suppose that, instead
+of Postmaster-General Burleson, we would have had as Postmaster-General
+some good-natured feller which when his New York representatives called
+him up and told him they were holding fourteen packages there for
+additional postage, would have said: 'Oh, let 'em go. We couldn't afford
+to be small about a little thing like additional postage.' And what
+would have happened? Why, the fourteen judges, mayors, and assorted
+Senators and district attorneys to which them packages was addressed
+would have been lucky if they escaped with nothing worse than singed
+eyebrows, Mawruss. And to-day yet, Mawruss, them fellers which has got
+only Postmaster-General Burleson to thank that they can still riffle a
+deck of cards, understand me, is probably going around beefing about the
+terrible delay in the delivery of mail under the administration of
+Postmaster-General Burleson."
+
+"And do you think that the police will ever find out who sent them
+bombs, Abe?" Morris asked.
+
+"Probably not," Abe replied, "but they will probably find some man or
+men who would have _liked_ to have sent them and would have been _glad_
+to have sent them, and as nobody is going to miss such fellers, Mawruss,
+it probably won't make much difference in the long run if any such case
+of mistaken identity ain't discovered until the sentence is carried out,
+y'understand."
+
+"I see that it says in the paper where the anarchists which sent them
+bombs was celebrating the first day of May, which is the anarchists'
+Fourth of July, Abe," Morris observed, "which, considering all the
+trouble that takes place in Europe with general strikes and riots on the
+first of May, Abe, it's a wonder to me that the constitution of the
+League of Nations didn't contain an article providing that in the
+interests of international peace, y'understand, the month of May should
+hereafter contain thirty days instead of thirty-one, commencing with the
+second day of May, and leave them anarchists up against it for a day to
+celebrate."
+
+"The first of May is the socialists' Fourth of July, not the
+anarchists'," Abe said, "which, while it is possible that these here
+anarchists sent them bombs around the first of May out of compliment to
+their friends the socialists, Mawruss, an anarchist don't attach no
+particular sentiment to the day when a bomb explodes, just so long as it
+does enough damage, Mawruss."
+
+"Just the same, I am in favor of doing away with the first of May,"
+Morris insisted, "and if it ain't practical to abolish the date, Abe,
+let 'em anyhow cut out the celebration. Them general strikes causes a
+whole lot of trouble."
+
+"They do if you take them seriously," Abe agreed, "because in this
+country, at least, Mawruss, only a few people takes part in the May
+first general strike. This year we only had two of our work-people away
+on account of the general strike, and one of them now claims he stayed
+home on account of injuring his hand in one of our buttonhole-machines,
+which I have got proof to show, Mawruss, that when the police threw him
+out of the hall where the meeting was taking place he landed on his
+wrist."
+
+"He should have landed on his neck," Morris observed, "because if them
+socialists get hurt by their nonsense it's their own fault, Abe. They go
+to work and announce a general strike, and naturally the authorities
+takes them seriously and gets ready for trouble with a lot of policemen,
+which you know as well as I do, Abe, when the police gets ready for
+trouble they usually find it, even if they have to make it themselves.
+The consequence is, Abe, that a fractured skull has become practically
+the occupational disease of being a socialist, just the same as
+phosphorus-poisoning attacked people which worked in match-factories in
+the old days before the Swedish manufacturers invented matches which
+strike only on the box one time out of fifty if the weather conditions
+is just right."
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe observed, "but people worked in match-factories
+because they couldn't make a living in any other way, Mawruss, whereas
+nobody compels any one to be a socialist if he don't want to, Mawruss,
+and what enjoyment them socialists get out of it I don't know."
+
+"It gives them, for one thing, the privilege of wearing a red necktie,"
+Morris suggested.
+
+"And that don't make them a first-class risk for accident insurance,"
+Abe concluded, "around the first of May, anyhow."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE PEACE TREATY AS GOOD READING
+
+
+"At last the wind-up of this here Peace Conference seems to be in sight,
+Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, the day
+after the Treaty of Peace was handed to the German plenipotentiaries.
+"As short a time ago since as last week it begun to look like our
+American delegates was going to stay in Paris for the rest of their
+lives, which, according to the tables of mortality prepared by some of
+our leading life-insurance companies, based on the average ages of all
+five of them delegates, would be anyhow until August 1, 1919."
+
+"Well, they seem to have done a pretty good job, Abe," Morris observed.
+"I read over the accounts of the Treaty of Peace, Abe, and what them
+Germans has got to do outside of restoring the skull of the Sultan
+Okwawa under Section Eight of the treaty would keep her busy for fifty
+years yet."
+
+"And who is this here Sultan Okwawa?" Abe inquired.
+
+"I don't know," Morris replied, "but, considering the number of skulls
+which needs restoring on account of what the Germans done during the
+past five years, Abe, and also considering the fact that this is the
+only skull mentioned by name in the Peace Treaty, he must of had some
+pretty influential friends at the Peace Conference. Also, I see that the
+Germans is also to give back the papers belonging to M. Reuher which
+they took in 1871, and, although Section Eight don't say nothing about
+it, I presume that if the papers are returned the finder can keep the
+money which was in the wallet at the time it was lost."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that this here Peace Treaty has got such small
+particulars like that in it?" Abe demanded.
+
+"It don't seem to have overlooked anything, Abe," Morris went on,
+"which, when you consider that Mr. Wilson started in--in a small
+way--with only fourteen points, it's already wonderful how that man
+worked his way up. There must be several hundred thousand points in that
+Peace Treaty, including such points like the Sultan's skull and this
+here Reuher's papers, which Mr. Wilson never even dreamed of when he sat
+down that day in January, 1918, and thought out the original fourteen."
+
+[Illustration: "which when you consider that Mr. Wilson started in--in a
+small way"]
+
+"He probably considered that if we ever licked Germany sufficient to
+make her accept as much as thirty-three and a third per cent. of them
+fourteen points that we would be doing well already," Abe remarked.
+
+"And so did everybody else," Morris agreed. "And now they would got to
+accept a Treaty of Peace which loads up Germany with practically every
+punishment that this here Peace Conference could think of except
+Prohibition."
+
+"I must read that treaty sometime," Abe said. "It sounds like it would
+be quite amusing already."
+
+"Amusing ain't no name for it," Morris said. "The way the American
+people is going to enjoy reading that Treaty of Peace, Abe, would put
+Mr. Wilson not only in the class of favorite American Presidents along
+with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but also would give him an
+insured position as one of America's favorite authors along with Harry
+Bell Wright and Bradstreet. A good American could pass a very profitable
+month or so skimming it over, Abe, which it consists of fifteen
+sections, of which only the head-lines fills three full pages of the
+morning papers."
+
+"Well, how long do you think it would take them German delegates to read
+it, Mawruss?" Abe inquired.
+
+"They ain't going to read it," Morris said. "They're only going to sign
+it, and it ain't a bad idea, neither, because if they did read it, Abe,
+some of them Germans would drop dead along about the second section,
+which describes how much of Germany is left after France, Poland,
+Denmark, and Belgium gets through helping themselves."
+
+"Might they would expire while they was reading the first section,
+maybe," Abe suggested.
+
+"The first section 'ain't got nothing to do with Germany," Morris
+explained. "The first section consists of the constitution of the League
+of Nations."
+
+"Is that the same constitution of the League of Nations which them
+United States Senators raised such a round robin about?" Abe asked.
+
+"It has been changed since then," Morris said. "The amendments consist
+of two commas contributed by ex-President Taft and a semicolon from
+Charles Evans Hughes. Elihu Root also suggested they insert the words
+_as aforesaid_ in the first paragraph and also the words _anything
+hereinbefore contained to the contrary notwithstanding_ in the last
+paragraph, but couldn't get by with it. However, Abe, the League of
+Nations is already such old stuff that people reading it in Section One
+of the Peace Treaty will in all probability skip it the way they did the
+first time it come out, and, anyhow, the real Treaty of Peace, so far as
+the plot and action is concerned, don't start till the second section."
+
+"Could you remember any of the second section?" Abe asked.
+
+"That's the section which tells about how much territory Germany gives
+up to Poland, France, Belgium, and Denmark, and after it goes into
+effect, Abe, it is going to considerably alter the words, if not the
+music, of '_Deutschland, Deutschland, ueber Alles_,'" Morris declared.
+"It also means, Abe, that the school-boys who used to was geography
+sharks and could bound Germany right off the reel, Abe, would now got to
+learn them boundaries all over again and then take half an hour or so
+to tell what they've learned. You see, Abe, the Danzig area, for
+instance, consists of a V made a W by the addition of a similar V on the
+west, including the city of Danzig and--"
+
+"Excuse me," Abe interrupted, "but this here sounds like a clothing
+alteration to me, which, if Germany's boundary was made smaller, why did
+they got to put a couple of V's into it?"
+
+"The V's was put into Poland's boundary, not Germany's," Morris said.
+
+"And I bet that Poland breathes a whole lot easier now that her boundary
+has got a couple of V's in it," Abe commented.
+
+"Them two V's ain't all Poland gets," Morris continued. "She also gets
+the southeastern tip of Silesia beyond and including Oppeln, most of
+Posen and West Prussia, and a line is drawn from--"
+
+"That's all right," Abe said. "I'll take your word for it, Mawruss,
+because, while that might be music to some people's ears, when it comes
+to geography I couldn't tell one note from another. So go ahead and tell
+me what is in the next section."
+
+"The next section is also got in it a little complicated geography,
+Abe," Morris said. "It practically repeats what was said in the last
+section about how much territory Germany gives up, and then proceeds to
+rub it in. You know, of course, about the Sarre Basin."
+
+"I _say_ I do, but don't let that stop you," Abe replied. "Go ahead and
+describe it to me just like as if I didn't."
+
+"Well, to make a long story short before I tell it, Abe," Morris said,
+"the Sarre Valley, which in Germany is like the Scranton and
+Wilkes-Barre section in Pennsylvania, is to be practically owned by
+France for fifteen years. At the end of that time, an election is going
+to be held and the people will vote as to whether they want to stay
+French or go back to Germany."
+
+"And I suppose France will count the votes," Abe commented, "in which
+case she will probably appoint a board of elections consisting of
+whoever happens to be the Philadelphia director of public safety at that
+time, the leader of the Eighth Assembly District of New York City, and a
+couple of Chicago aldermen, Mawruss."
+
+"The Treaty of Peace don't provide for it," Morris said, "but if any
+odds are quoted on the Curb, Abe, it wouldn't be on the result, but the
+size of the majority. There is also the same kind of an election to be
+held in Schleswig-Holstein, without much chance of a recount taking
+place, either, but so far as the rest of Sections Three, Four, and Five
+is concerned, Abe, Germany gives up all her interests in every part of
+the world without the privilege of even having all those in favor please
+saying Aye, y'understand."
+
+"It would have made a big noise, anyhow," Abe declared. "Because the
+only people who ain't in favor of Germany giving up her colonies is
+Germans, and not _all_ Germans at that."
+
+"However, what happens to Germany in the first five sections of this
+here Peace Treaty, Abe, is only, so to speak, the soup and entrée of the
+meal which the Allies makes of her," Morris said. "Section Six is where
+the real knife-and-fork work begins, Abe, which it starts right in with
+the German army and reduces it to the size of the Salvation Army,
+exclusive of the doughnut-cooking department."
+
+"I'm surprised that you should compare the Salvation Army to a low-life
+army like the German army," Abe protested.
+
+"I am only talking for the sake of argument, Abe," Morris assured him,
+"which if this here Section Six is carried out, Abe, the new German army
+wouldn't be armed with anything near as dangerous as doughnuts. In fact,
+Abe, the way this here Peace Treaty specifies what arms and ammunition
+the German army should be supplied with, the only thing that it would
+got to remind it that it is an army and not a _Sängerbund_ would be the
+uniforms."
+
+"And I am surprised that the Peace Treaty didn't forbid uniforms also,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "because if it wouldn't of been for his uniforms,
+Mawruss, the chances is that the German people would of caught on to
+that miserable four-flusher of a Kaiser already long since ago, Mawruss.
+Take these here spiked helmets, in particular the ones which is made of
+nickel plate, Mawruss, and only to wear such a thing is liable to bring
+out all the meanness in them naturally mean German soldiers, Mawruss, so
+therefore I am in favor that the Peace Treaty be amended by providing
+that the uniform of the German army should be a three-button, black,
+single-breasted sack suit with no padding in the shoulders, Mawruss, and
+the helmet should be a brown derby hat of the pattern of 1898, and that
+the soldiers agree to wear this derby hat, of the same block and width
+of brim, for at least twenty years, Mawruss, because nothing takes the
+conceit out of a man so much as wearing a funny-looking hat,
+y'understand."
+
+"This here Peace Treaty don't need no outside assistance when it comes
+to taking the conceit out of the German army, and the navy, neither,
+Abe," Morris continued. "In fact, Section Six does the same to the
+German navy as you would like to do to the German army, excepting that,
+instead of derby hats, it refers to battle-ships. In other words, Abe,
+it says that the German navy should have only six small battle-ships and
+that none of them could be replaced inside of twenty years. Just
+consider for a moment how it feels for a speed-bug which once used to
+consider that if he didn't buy himself every three months a new
+special-body twin six, y'understand, that he was living pretty close to
+the cushion, and condemn such a feller to go round for the next twenty
+years in a four-cylinder 1910-model Punkocar, Abe, and you will get some
+small idea of what Admiral von Tirpitz and all them other bloodthirsty
+German admirals feels when they read that part of Section Six which
+refers to the new German navy."
+
+"That wasn't the way they used to feel," Abe declared. "Up to a few days
+ago, Mawruss, von Tirpitz and Hindenburg and all them other German army
+and navy experts was treating this war like it would of been a pinochle
+game, and each of them was busy explaining by post-mortems how if his
+partner hadn't played the hand rotten they would have won by three
+points, not counting the last trick, but what are you going to do with a
+_Strohschneider_ like that, and so forth."
+
+"Did they mention anything about playing with marked cards?" Morris
+asked.
+
+"They did not," Abe said, "nor did they say anything about having
+stacked the cards or dealing off of the bottom of the deck, Mawruss, but
+you would think from the way them fellers acted at Versailles, Mawruss,
+that this here Peace Conference is the breakup of a nice little friendly
+game, y'understand, and that _not_ only should the winners take I. O.
+U's. from the losers, but that it is also up to the winners to serve a
+good delicatessen supper and pay for the lights and attendance."
+
+"That must have been before they heard about the _capora_ which is in
+store for them under Section Seven of this here Peace Treaty, Abe,"
+Morris said, "which in order that there shouldn't be any softening of
+the sound to them German cauliflower ears, Abe, the words _one billion_
+ain't used at all, but instead it speaks about a thousand million
+pounds, Abe, and, while it ain't any harder to raise than one billion
+pounds, it certainly gives you the impression that it is."
+
+"And how many of these thousands of millions of pounds must the German
+people got to pay before they get through?" Abe asked.
+
+"That the Peace Treaty don't say, Abe," Morris replied. "It leaves the
+fixing of the total amount for a commission to be appointed later, Abe,
+and the German people will be notified of their liabilities not later
+than May 1, 1921; but in the mean time, Abe, just to keep up their
+spirits they would got to pay a few instalments of one thousand million
+pounds each."
+
+"But if the instalments is one thousand million pounds each, Mawruss,
+what do you think will be the grand total which Germany would have to
+pay?" Abe asked.
+
+"About the same grand total as the Allies would have been obliged to pay
+if Germany had won," Morris replied.
+
+"And how much would that have been?" Abe inquired.
+
+"All they could raise, Abe," Morris concluded, "plus ten per cent."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE GERMAN ROMAN HOLIDAY AND THE AMERICANIZATION OF AMERICANS
+
+
+"I was speaking to my wife's sister's boy which he is just getting ready
+to gradgawate from High School, Mawruss, and I wish you could hear the
+way that feller talks, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris
+Perlmutter.
+
+"I shall probably got to have that pleasure, Abe," Morris Perlmutter
+replied, "because the first thing your wife's relations does when they
+gradgawate from school or go broke, as the case may be, is to get a job
+in this place and the second thing they do is to get fired."
+
+"Listen, Mawruss," Abe said, "if I would of given jobs in this place to
+the number of relations by marriage which you already stuck me with,
+y'understand, I might just so well run a free business college and be
+done with it, which what I was going to say was that this here young
+feller was telling me that in the old days when the Romans won a war the
+way the Allies did, they used to make the losers walk in a parade so
+that the Roman people could see how them losers suffered."
+
+"And what's that got to do with my giving jobs to my wife's relations?"
+Morris inquired.
+
+"It 'ain't got nothing to do with it, but if you would let me open my
+mouth once in a while and not try to gag me every time I want to tell
+you something, Mawruss," Abe continued, "maybe I could learn you
+something."
+
+"Maybe," Morris admitted, "but when you start in to tell about how smart
+one of your nephews by marriage is, Abe, it generally ends up by our
+paying a few weeks' salary to a young feller which all he learned about
+double entry is making birds with a pen, so I just want to warn you
+before you go any further, Abe, that in the future with me, Abe, if any
+of your nephews is an expert bird-maker with a pen, y'understand, you
+should please find him a job in a millinery concern and let me out."
+
+"I wasn't going to say nothing about giving a job to nobody," Abe
+protested. "All I am trying to tell you is that if the Treaty of Peace,
+which you talked my head off about the other day, contained a section
+that the Germans should walk in a parade and show to the Allies how that
+Peace Treaty made them suffer, Mawruss, Lenine and Trotsky and all the
+other crickets who abuse Mr. Wilson like the New York Republican
+newspapers and the American ladies who are attending that Zurich
+Permanent Peace Convention, would of called the Allies all sorts of
+barbarians, y'understand. However, Mawruss, it only goes to show how
+unnecessary such a section in the Peace Treaty would be, Mawruss,
+because the Germans is now obliging with a wonderful Roman exhibition
+of themselves. In fact, Mawruss, from the lowest to the highest, them
+German people seems to be saying to each other, 'Let's act like real
+Germans and make the worst of it!'"
+
+"Did any one expect anything else from them Germans?" Morris asked.
+
+"Well, from the way this here four-flusher von Brockdorff-Rantzau
+behaved the day they handed him the Peace Treaty, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"it looked like the Germans had made up their minds to be just so
+stiff-necked as they always was, Mawruss, and I begun to think that they
+were going to treat it as a case of _so mechullah, so mechullah_,
+y'understand, but the way them Germans is now crying like children,
+Mawruss, there ain't going to be enough sackcloth and ashes in Germany
+to go around, and them German professors will have to get busy and
+invent some _ersatz_ sackcloth and ashes to supply the demand."
+
+"Crooks are always poor sports, Abe," Morris declared, "in particular
+when they throw themselves on the mercy of the people that they didn't
+intend to show no mercy to themselves. Take this here Ebert, for
+instance, and he don't make no bones about saying that the German people
+relied on President Wilson and the United States of America being easy
+marks, but _ai Tzuris_, what a mistake that was! In effect he says that
+President Wilson on January 22, 1917, made the statement that the victor
+must not force his conditions on the vanquished, and relying on that
+statement, Germany went to work and got into a war with the United
+States because if Germany got licked, y'understand, the worst that can
+happen her is that she makes peace again on her own terms, and then when
+Germany did get licked, see what happens to her. President Wilson
+behaves like a frozen snake in the grass which somebody tries to warm by
+putting the snake into his pants pocket, y'understand, and when the
+snake gets thawed out, understand me, it bites the hand that feeds it,
+and what are you going to do in a case like this?"
+
+"At that, Mawruss, Ebert ain't making near so bad an exhibition of
+himself as this here Prince von Hohenlohe. There was a feller which was
+used to was the German Chancellor, Mawruss," Abe said, "and the dirty
+deals which he helped to put over on the Rumanians and the Russians, by
+way of Treaties of Peace, y'understand, was such that if we would of
+attempted it with the Germans, Mawruss, and the United States Congress
+would of confirmed it, Mawruss, Victor Berger would be fighting to be
+let out of the House of Representatives and to be admitted to
+Leavenworth, instead of _vice versa_, on the grounds that he didn't want
+to associate with no crooks, y'understand, but seemingly this here
+Hohenlohe is suffering from loss of memory as well as loss of
+self-respect, Mawruss, because he is now making speeches in which he is
+weeping all over his already tear-stained copy of the Peace Treaty and
+calling it the Tragedy of Versailles, whereas compared to the Treaty of
+Peace which you might call the Tragedy of Brest-Litovsk, Mawruss, this
+here Versailles Treaty of Peace is a Follies of 1919 with just one laugh
+after another, y'understand."
+
+"And I see also where this here Scheidemann is also figuring very
+largely in this here Roman exhibition the Germans is making of
+themselves, Abe," Morris observed. "He said the other day that the
+Germans would never, never, never--or anyhow not until next Thursday a
+week--sign the Peace Treaty. He put his hand on where a German's heart
+would be if he had one, Abe, and said that no Germans would positively
+and absolutely not submit to any such Treaty of Peace as the one offered
+to them, or that is to say they would not submit to it except on and
+after May 22, 1919, and anyhow, nobody would ever trust President Wilson
+again."
+
+"And yet, Mawruss, when them Germans gets over the first shock of this
+here Peace Treaty and wipe away their tears sufficient to see things a
+little more clearly, y'understand," Abe commented, "it is just barely
+possible that they are going to do some rapid figuring on what they gain
+by not supporting a few thousand princes, not to mention the money which
+that bloodthirsty Kaiser and his family used to draw in salaries and
+commissions, Mawruss, and when these amounts are offset against
+indemnities which the Germans are required to pay under the Peace
+Treaty, Mawruss, it will in all probability be found that the German
+nation is beggared, as this here Scheidemann would say, to the extent of
+$0.831416 per capita per annum by such indemnities. The result is going
+to be that some of them Germans will then begin to figure how maybe it
+was worth that much money per capita per annum to get rid of that
+_rosher_ and they will also begin to realize that it has been worth even
+more than that much per capita per annum to the Allied people to see a
+performance such as the German people continuing to weep in sympathy
+with Ebert and Scheidemann, y'understand, they will be advising them two
+boys to go and take for ten cents apiece some mathematic spirits of
+ammonia and quit their sobbing."
+
+"However, Abe," Morris remarked, "there was a few Americans which
+instead of being in the audience enjoying the performance was back on
+the stage with the Germans and weeping just so hard as any of them. Take
+these here American lady delegates to the small-time Peace Conference
+which is running at Zurich, Switzerland, in opposition to the old
+original Peace Conference in Paris, Abe, and them ladies with their
+voices choked by tears, Abe, passed a resolution that be it resolved
+that the Peace Treaty is already secret diplomacy, that it is the old
+case of the side winning the war getting the spoils, and a lot of other
+resolutions to which the only resolution anybody could pass in answer to
+such resolutions would be, 'Well, what of it?'"
+
+"That only proves to me, Mawruss, how necessary it is, this here
+Americanization work which you read so much about in the papers," Abe
+declared. "Here is four American ladies which is lived in the country
+for some years--in fact, ever since they was born, and that ain't such a
+short time neither, when you see their pictures, Mawruss, and yet them
+ladies talks like they never heard tell of the Star-spangled Banner.
+Seemingly the fact that we licked Germany don't appeal to them at all,
+and so far as these resolutions which they passed between sobs, Mawruss,
+gives any indications, Mawruss, they would like to have seen this here
+European War end in a draw, with perhaps Germany getting just a shade
+the better of it."
+
+"And what has all this got to do with Americanization work, Abe?" Morris
+inquired. "I always thought that Americanization was taking the
+greenhorns which comes to this country from Europe, and teaching them
+how to think and act like Americans."
+
+"That comes afterward, Mawruss," Abe said, "because it seems that ever
+since this here European War, Mawruss, Americanization needs to begin at
+home, Mawruss, and that the first ones to be Americanized should ought
+to be Americans. There is, for instance, Mr. O. G. Villard, who was born
+and raised in this country, Mawruss, which he comes out with a statement
+the other day that them loafers of the Munich soviet who killed all them
+professors and ladies a couple of weeks ago, compared very favorably
+with the legislatures of the states of New York and Pennsylvania,
+Mawruss. Now when you consider that them two legislatures is part of our
+government, Mawruss, the way it looks to me is that if a foreigner had
+said such a thing he would have been Americanized without the option of
+a fine by the nearest city magistrate."
+
+"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "when you read in the papers about
+the New York State Senator Thompson and the goings-on up in Albany, Abe,
+it looks like Americanization should ought to be done at the source,
+y'understand, and then it wouldn't be necessary to Americanize Mr.
+Villard at all."
+
+"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe agreed, "but what I am driving into is that
+Americanization for Americans must appeal very strongly to colored
+Americans, especially the Americanization of those Americans who believe
+that the colored man should ought to be put in his place and don't
+hesitate about designating the place as the end of a rope without the
+trouble and expense of a jury trial, y'understand."
+
+"I would even get a little more personal as that, Abe," Morris declared.
+"I would even say that there should ought to be classes in
+Americanization for those Americans who believe that the religion and
+race origin of certain other Americans makes them eligible to give their
+children's lives to the country and their money to Red Cross and other
+War Drives--but that it don't make them eligible to stay at first-class
+summer hotels or play golluf by first-class country clubs."
+
+"Say," Abe broke in, "there is need of more important Americanization
+among Americans than that, Mawruss. There should ought to be
+Americanization of Americans who think it is American for landlords to
+ask for raises of their rent and un-American for workmen to ask for
+raises of their wages. In fact, this whole Americanization movement
+should ought to be centered on Americanizing out of Americans any
+habits, customs, or schemes they try to put across which is apt to make
+Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans or Assorted
+Foreign-Americans say to one another, 'Well, if that's the way Americans
+behave, give me back my hyphen and let me go home.'"
+
+"Well, after all, Abe, it's a mighty small bunch of Americans which
+ain't Americanized yet," Morris observed.
+
+"I know it," Abe said, "and it's their smallness which makes me sore,
+Mawruss, because no matter how small they are by number, or nature,
+Mawruss, they are the ones that the Turks pulled on us when we protested
+about them poor Armenians _nebich_. Also, Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson should
+protest that the new Polish Republic ain't treating our people as
+equals, y'understand, the new Polish Republic could come right back
+with: 'Neither is any number of summer hotels we could name in the
+Adirondacks Mountains of your own United States.' Also, if the Peace
+Delegates from this country gives a hint to the Greeks that there is
+colonies of Bulgarians living in Greece for years already which wants to
+be Greeks and should ought to have the same voting rights as Greeks,
+y'understand, all Venezuela or whatever the Greek secretary of state has
+got to say is, 'Well, we hold that these people 'ain't got a right to
+vote under a law called the Grandfather Law, which we copied from
+similar laws passed in the states of Georgia, Alabama, and
+Mississippi--in your own United States,' and them poor old Peace
+Delegates of ours wouldn't have a word to say."
+
+"At that, Abe, I think all them disagreeable things in this country is
+going to be changed by the war," Morris suggested.
+
+"Perhaps, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "but considering what changes have
+taken place because of this war, it's wonderful how little changed
+things really are."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+MR. WILSON'S FAVOR OF THE 20TH ULTO. AND CONTENTS NOTED
+
+
+"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, one
+morning recently, "a feller which has got to write to the newspaper to
+say that he didn't say what the newspaper said he said when it reported
+his speech, y'understand, has usually made a pretty rotten speech in the
+first place, and in the second place when he tries to explain what it
+really was that he did say, Mawruss, it practically always sounds worse
+than what the newspaper said he said."
+
+"But what did he say and who said it, Abe?" Morris inquired.
+
+"Ambassador Morgenstimmung or Morgenstern, I couldn't remember which,
+Mawruss," Abe replied, "and although he 'ain't wrote to the newspapers
+yet to deny that he said it, Mawruss, it is only a question of time when
+he would do so, because he either said one thing or the other, but he
+couldn't say both."
+
+"Listen, Abe, if you think that unless you break it to me gradually what
+this here Morgenstern said, it would be too much of a shock to me,"
+Morris announced, "let me tell you that it is a matter of indifference
+to me _what_ he said."
+
+"So it is to 'most everybody else except the immediate family, Mawruss,"
+Abe continued, "but not to keep you in suspense, Mawruss, what this
+Ambassador Morgenstern said was in a speech to the American soldiers in
+Coblenz where he told them that there was going to be another big war in
+which America would got to fight during the next fifteen or twenty
+years, and also that he had every confidence in the League of Nations."
+
+"Well, there's a whole lot of United States Senators which has got the
+same kind of confidence in the League of Nations, Abe," Morris declared.
+"In fact, some of them is confident that the League of Nations will
+bring about a war for us in even less than fifteen years."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "the word _confidence_ has got a whole
+lot of different meanings, Mawruss, and it's quite possible that this
+here Ambassador Morgenstern used the word with reference to the League
+of Nations in its Chatham Square or green-goods meaning, because
+otherwise how could the League of Nations cause another war in less than
+fifteen years, unless, of course, the feller which prophesied it was a
+Republican Senator, which Mr. Morgenstern is not."
+
+"To tell you the truth, Abe," Morris said, "I have heard and read so
+many different things about this here League of Nations that it wouldn't
+surprise me in the least if the final edition of it provided that any
+nation which didn't go to war at least once every three years with some
+other nation or nations, y'understand, should be expelled from the
+League of Nations with costs, y'understand, and in fact, Abe, it is my
+opinion that when some one makes a speech about this here League of
+Nations nowadays, he might just so well write a letter to himself
+denying that he said what the newspaper said he said, and let it go at
+that, because it's a hundred to one that he was the only person who
+didn't skip it when it was printed in its original garbled condition."
+
+"At that, Mawruss, you are going to be really and truly surprised to
+find out what that League of Nations covenant means when it comes up to
+be argued about by the United States Senate," Abe observed, "because a
+great many of them Senators is high-grade, crackerjack, A-number-one
+lawyers on the side, Mawruss, and formerly used to make their livings by
+showing that the contract which the plaintiff made with the defendant
+meant just the opposite to what the plaintiff or defendant meant it to
+mean--or _vice versa_, according to which end of the lawsuit such a
+Senator was arguing on, Mawruss, so you can imagine what is going to
+happen to that League of Nations covenant. Take a level-headed lawyer
+like Senator Hiram S. Johnson of California, Mawruss, which he 'ain't
+got the least disposition to believe that the League of Nations covenant
+means what President Wilson says it means, understand me, and when he
+gets through showing what he thinks it means, and Senator Borah gets
+through showing what _he_ thinks it means, and Senator Reed gets through
+thinking what HE thinks it means, understand me, that League of Nations
+covenant will have as many different meanings as the contested last will
+and testament of a childless millionaire who has married a telephone
+operator on his death-bed to spite his grandnieces and nephews,
+Mawruss."
+
+"Congress will have a lot of other matters to settle before that League
+of Nations comes up, Abe," Morris said, "which I was reading the other
+day the message which President Wilson wrote from Paris, and he
+certainly laid out a lot of work for them to do till he gets back."
+
+"You mean that letter of May 20th where he says: 'Dear Gents: Sorry not
+to be with you and I have been out of touch with things over in America
+so long that you will know a whole lot better than I do what is needed
+in the way of laws,' Mawruss, and then goes to work and tells them what
+is needed to the extent of half a newspaperful?" Abe asked.
+
+"I couldn't remember the exact words," Morris replied.
+
+"Well, I've been expecting every day to see in the newspapers that he
+got an answer from the round robins reading: 'Dear Sir: Yours of the
+20th inst. to hand and contents noted and in reply would say we wouldn't
+positively do nothing of the kind, and in case you are not back with
+samples on or before ten days from date, we will take such steps as we
+may think proper to protect our interests in the matter and oblige,'"
+Abe said, "because if you will remember, Mawruss, them round robins
+wanted Mr. Wilson to let the Senate go on making laws while he was away,
+and the President says, 'You couldn't make no laws till I get back,' and
+then when them round robins asked him when he would be back, he said,
+'I'll be back when I am back,' and now he ain't back, and he has got to
+ask them round robins to go to work with the other Senators and
+Congressmen and make the laws which they wanted to make in the first
+place, Mawruss."
+
+"Then it is going to be some time before he gets back if any such a
+deadlock like that happened, Abe," Morris said, "because I see where it
+says in the papers that Mr. Wilson won't come back until he has signed
+the treaties of peace with Germany and Austria, and France and England
+won't agree to finish up the treaties for Mr. Wilson's signature until
+they know that the United States Senate will ratify them and the United
+States Senate won't ratify them until they are finished up and submitted
+to them signed by Mr. Wilson, and then I didn't read no more about it,
+Abe, because I begun to get dizzy."
+
+"I very often get that way myself nowadays when I am reading in the
+newspapers, Mawruss," Abe said, "in particular when they print them full
+texts, like the full text of the League of Nations Covenant or the full
+text of the President's message. Former times when the papers had in
+'em straight murders and bank robberies from the inside or out, Mawruss,
+and you sat opposite somebody in the Subway who had to move his lips
+while he was reading, you took it for granted that he was an ignoramus
+which had to hear them simple words pronounced, even if it was by his
+own lips, before he could understand them, Mawruss, but you take this
+here letter of the 20th inst., Mawruss, and when you read where
+President Wilson says with reference to telephone and telegraph rates,
+Mawruss, 'there are many confusions and inconsistencies of rates. The
+scientific means by which communication by such instrumentalities could
+missing be rendered more thorough and satisfactory has not been made
+full use of,' understand me, you could move your lips, your scalp,
+Heaven and Earth, Mawruss, and still you couldn't tell what Mr. Wilson
+was driving into."
+
+"Well, I glanced over that Message myself, Abe," Morris said, "and the
+capital I's was sticking up all through it like toothpicks on the
+cashier's desk of an armchair lunch-room, Abe. In just a few lines, Abe,
+Mr. Wilson says, 'I hesitate, I feel, I am conscious, I trust, I may, I
+shall, I dare say, I hope and I shall,' and when he started to say
+something about Woman Suffrage, he undoubtedly begun with 'May I not,'
+but evidently when he showed the first draft to Colonel House or
+somebody, they said, 'Why do you always say, _May I not_'? and after
+discussing such substitutes as '_Doch allow me_,' 'If you 'ain't got no
+objections,' and 'You would excuse me if I would take the liberty,' Abe,
+they decided to use, 'Will you not permit me,' so, therefore, that part
+of the President's message which talks about Woman Suffrage says, 'Will
+you not permit me to speak once more and very earnestly of the proposed
+amendment to the Constitution and so forth,' and that, to my mind, is
+what give President Wilson the idea that it might be a good thing to let
+the manufacture and sale of wine and beer continue after June 30th,
+which he probably argued, 'If I have such a tough time shaking off the
+_May-I-not_ habit, how about them poor fellers which has got the liquor
+habit?'"
+
+"Maybe he figured that way and maybe he didn't, Mawruss," Abe said, "but
+if any one feels that he ought to stock up with a few bottles of wine
+for _kiddush_ or _habdolah_ purposes on or after June 30, 1919, Mawruss,
+he oughtn't to be misled by anything President Wilson said in his letter
+of the 20th ulto., Mawruss, because when it comes to extending the life
+of the beer and wine industry after June 30th, Mawruss, them Senators
+and Representatives is more likely to take suggestions from the
+President of the Anti-Saloon League than from the President of the
+United States."
+
+"And I don't know but what they are right at that, Abe," Morris said,
+"because this here Prohibition is strictly a matter of what the majority
+thinks, Abe."
+
+"But from the howl that has been going up, Mawruss," Abe protested, "it
+looks to me like the majority of people wants the sale of schnapps to
+continue."
+
+"I didn't say it was a question of what they want, Abe," Morris
+declared, "I said it was a question of what the majority thinks, and the
+majority of people thinks that while they can drink schnapps and they
+can let it alone, Abe, the majority of people also think that the
+majority of the people who drink schnapps would be a whole lot better
+off without it. So that's the way it stands, Abe. Nobody wants to leave
+off buying liquor, but nobody wants to take the responsibility of
+letting the sale of liquor continue."
+
+"Also, Mawruss, I've been reading a good many articles in the magazines
+about this here Prohibition lately," Abe declared, "and in every case
+the writer shows how disinterested he is, y'understand, by stating right
+at the start that so far as he is concerned, they could leave off
+selling liquor to-morrow and he would be perfectly satisfied."
+
+"And he is going to have to be, Abe," Morris said, "because that way of
+looking at the liquor question is what has brought about Prohibition.
+Practically everybody who drinks schnapps and enjoys it, Abe, is afraid
+that everybody else who drinks schnapps and _enjoys_ it is going to
+think that he drinks schnapps and enjoys it, so he goes to work and
+pulls this phony unselfish stuff about, 'So-far-as-I-am-concerned, it
+don't make no difference how soon the country goes Prohibition,' and the
+result is that the country is going Prohibition, and nobody even now has
+got nerve enough to admit that it's going to cut him out of a great
+many good times in the future."
+
+"Well, there's one thing about it, Mawruss," Abe declared, "it's going
+to make near-by foreign countries, no matter what the climate may be,
+great summer and winter resorts for these fellers who don't care how
+soon Prohibition goes into effect and who will continue not to care
+until 1 A.M. on July 1, 1919. Yes, Mawruss, this here Prohibition is
+going to give a wonderful boost to the business of building bridges
+across the Rio Grande River and to running lines of steamers between the
+United States and them foreign countries near by where the inhabitants
+have got it figured out that if you drink and enjoy it, you might just
+as well admit it before it's too late to keep the government from not
+taking a joke, if you know what I mean."
+
+"Sure I know what you mean," Morris said, "and it has always seemed to
+me, Abe, that even the Scotch whisky business ain't going to be affected
+so adversely by this here Prohibition, neither, except that the
+merchandise is going to reach its ultimate hobnail liver _via_ Mexico
+and Cuba instead of New York and Chicago, and furthermore, Abe, there
+will be a great demand for sleepers on them northbound trains from
+Mexico, and the berths will only have to be made up once on leaving the
+Mexican frontier. However, the diners won't do much of a business on
+them trains, but they will certainly have to carry extra-large ice-water
+tanks."
+
+"And while I don't wish them drink-and-leave-it-alone fellers no
+particular harm, Mawruss," Abe declared, vehemently, "some time when
+they are traveling on one of them oasis-bound limiteds, Mawruss, it
+would serve them right if it run off the rails or something and shook
+'em up just enough to make them realize the inconvenience their own
+foolishness has brought on them."
+
+"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "I didn't know you was taking this Prohibition
+affair so much to heart, Abe."
+
+"What do you mean--take it so much to heart?" Abe protested. "I take a
+glass of schnapps once in a while, Mawruss, but so far as I am concerned
+this here Prohibition can come into effect this afternoon yet, and it
+wouldn't affect me none."
+
+"I am the same way, Abe. I can drink and I can leave it alone," Morris
+said. "Or, anyhow, I _think_ I can."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS,
+AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES
+
+
+"The way I feel about it is this, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his
+partner, Morris Perlmutter: "It don't make no difference if them two
+boys failed in their intentions, y'understand, they succeeded in making
+millions and millions of people in Paris, Winnipeg, New York, and who
+knows where not, stop hating each other for anyhow a few hours, and
+instead they smiled and shook hands and allowed themselves a recess in
+their regular work of winning strikes, losing strikes, shooting,
+starving, and cheating each other and their countries, while they all
+joined in being glad that Mrs. Hawker and the baby had got the popper
+back home with them and that Grieve was safe with his family or anyhow
+as safe as a young feller can be who is liable to quit his home at any
+moment and do the same wonderful, foolish thing all over again."
+
+"It's too bad that all them strikers and Bolsheviks which is acting as
+senselessly as children, couldn't also act as sensibly as children,
+Abe," Morris Perlmutter observed, "and stop crying long enough to
+forget what they were crying about, y'understand, but they won't. They
+are bound and determined to eat the goose which lays the golden eggs,
+Abe, and the end is going to be that they will find out it ain't a goose
+at all, but that instead of killing a goose that's fit for food they
+have only smashed an incubator that's fit for nothing but laying more
+eggs, and that's the way it goes."
+
+"Well, it's certainly wonderful how popular them two young fellers
+become in the course of a few days, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Which makes
+you think, Mawruss, if such a thing happens to two unknown young men
+like Hawker and Grieve, there is big possibilities in this
+cross-the-ocean flight for fellers which was once highly thought of and
+which nowadays nobody gives a nickel about. Take, for instance, them two
+William J. fellers, Bryan and McAdoo, which only a short time since
+people was reading about it in the papers, Mawruss, and what them
+fellers should ought to do is to hire a good, undependable airyoplane,
+y'understand, and take the first boat for Trespassing, or whatever the
+place is. Then all they have to do is to make a good start, and get
+afterwards rescued by a tramp steamer, and right away they become
+general favorites again. Or the kaiser and the crown prince might try
+it, Mawruss. There must be plenty of airyoplanes laying around Germany
+nowadays which could be picked up for a song, and when word come that it
+had fallen into the Atlantic Ocean with them two birds aboard somewhere
+around one thousand five hundred miles from sixty degrees forty-three
+minutes, y'understand, it might make the Hohenzollerns so popular that
+there would be a counter-revolution or something."
+
+"But suppose they would overdo the thing and not get rescued," Morris
+suggested.
+
+"Well, that would make them popular with _me_, anyhow," Abe said, "and
+there is probably millions of people like me in that respects, Mawruss.
+Still, joking to one side, Mawruss, there is some things which you
+couldn't joke about like what this young feller Read did, which is
+working for the United States navy, Mawruss. There was a young feller
+what took his life in his hands, Mawruss, and yet from the maps which
+the newspapers printed, you would think it was already a dead
+open-and-shut proposition that if the airyoplane was to break down
+anywheres between Trespassing and Europe, Mawruss, there would be
+waiting United States navy ships like taxi-cabs around the Hotel
+Knickerbocker, waiting to pick up this here Read before he even so much
+as got his feet wet, understand me. Yes, Mawruss, right across the whole
+page of the newspaper was strung the _Winthrop_, the _Farragut_, the
+_Cushing_, and other fellers' names up to the number of fourteen
+destroyers, and the way it looked on that map, there was a solid line of
+boats waiting to receive any falling airyoplane all the way from one
+side of the ocean to the other, whereas you know as well as I do,
+Mawruss, you can as much make both ends meet on the Atlantic Ocean with
+fourteen ships as a shipping-clerk with ten children can in New York
+City on a salary of eighteen dollars a week."
+
+"I understand them ships was only fifty miles apart," Morris observed.
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, "but if that airyoplane was to drop
+anywheres between the second and the forty-ninth mile, Mawruss, them
+ships might just as well have been stationed on the North River between
+Seventy-second and One Hundred and Thirtieth streets, Mawruss, for all
+the good it would have done this young feller Read. Also, Mawruss, if
+they would have had so many destroyers on the Atlantic Ocean that they
+would have run out of regular navy names for them and had to resort to
+the business directory so as to include the Acker, the Merrall, the
+Condit, the Rogers, the Peet, the Browning, the King, the Marshall, and
+the Field, in that collection of ships, Mawruss, that wouldn't of made
+this here Read's life a first-class insurable risk, neither."
+
+"And being picked up by a destroyer ain't such a wonderful _Capora_,
+neither, y'understand," Morris said, "which they tell me that on one of
+them destroyers an admiral even couldn't last out as far as the Battery
+even without anyhow getting pale. Also, Abe, I couldn't see that it
+proved anything when this here Read had the good luck to arrive at
+Lisbon, except that he was a brave young feller and seemingly didn't
+care how much his family worried about him."
+
+"That's what people have always said when anything new in the way of
+transportation was tried, Mawruss, but them people was never the ones
+that deposited the checks when the scheme begun to pay dividends some
+two or three years later," Abe retorted. "The world never made no
+advances with the assistance of the even-so and what-of-it fellers,
+which, when the king and queen of Spain raised a little money on the
+crown jewels, Mawruss, so that Christopher Columbus _olav hasholom_
+could make the first trip across the Atlantic Ocean by water, Mawruss,
+the people which saw in it the first steps towards the _Aquitania_ and
+_Levinathan_ wasn't so plentiful, neither."
+
+"Probably the feller which lent the money on the jewels wasn't so
+enthusiastic about it, at any rate," Morris declared, "because as
+first-class, A-number-one security for a loan, Abe, crown jewels 'ain't
+got very much of an edge on them sympathetic pearls which carries such a
+tremendous overhead for electric light in the store windows where they
+are displayed. Take, for instance, the Austrian crown jewels, Abe, and I
+see in the paper where for years and years everybody took the Austrian
+emperor's word for it that they contained more first-water diamonds than
+could be found in stocks of all the Fifth Avenue jewelers and Follies of
+from 1910 to 1919 chorus ladies combined, and the other day when the
+provisional government tried to sell them Austrian crown jewels to buy
+food for the starving Austrians, y'understand, for what was thought to
+be rubies, diamonds, and pearls weighing from twenty to a hundred
+carats apiece, Abe, they couldn't get an offer of as much as a bowl of
+crackers and milk."
+
+"What do you suppose happened to the originals, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"What _should_ of happened to them?" Morris asked, rhetorically. "I bet
+yer that not once, but hundreds of times, an Austrian emperor has taken
+one of the ladies of the Vienna Opera House ballet to the vaults of the
+Vienna Deposit and Storage Company and just to show her how much he
+thought of her, when she said, '_My, ain't that a gorgeous stone!_' he
+has said, '_Do you really like it?_' and pried it right out of its
+setting right then and there."
+
+"And I also bet yer that when the ballet lady got a valuation on it the
+next day," Abe said, "the pawnbroker said to her, '_Ain't this a diamond
+which the Emperor pried out of his crown for you?_' and when she said,
+'_Yes_,' he says that the fixed loaning value of an imperial pried-out
+diamond was one dollar and eighty-five cents, and from that time on the
+ballet lady would be very much off all emperors."
+
+"It seems to me that in all the other countries of the world where kings
+and emperors still hold on to their jobs, Abe, it wouldn't be a bad
+thing for the government to check up the crown jewels on them, in case
+of emergencies like revolutions or having to pay war indemnities,"
+Morris remarked, "which I wouldn't be surprised if right now the German
+people is figuring on raising several million marks on the German crown
+jewels towards paying the first billion-dollar instalment of the war
+indemnity, and when the government appraiser gets ahold of them, he will
+turn in a report that they are not even using that kind of stuff in
+decorating soda-fountains even."
+
+"In that case the German government will probably try to arrange a
+swop," Abe said, "trusting to luck that the Allied governments having
+agreed to take them crown jewels at the value placed on them by the
+kaiser, will not discover their real value until they've changed hands,
+Mawruss, in which event the German government will claim that the
+substitution took place after the Allies received them and did the
+Allies think they could get away with anything as raw as that."
+
+"Even the Germans 'ain't got such a nerve," Morris commented.
+
+"'Ain't they?" Abe retorted. "Well, how about the counter-claim they are
+now making for an indemnity of $3,048,300,000, _aus gerechnent_? Them
+Germans has got the nerve to claim anything that they think they've got
+the slightest chance of getting away with, Mawruss, so they stick in
+this indemnity which they say they ought to receive from the Allies
+because the blockade which the Allies kept up against Germany during the
+war caused such a shortage in food that one million less German children
+was born during that time."
+
+"Three thousand and forty-eight dollars and thirty cents is a pretty
+high valuation to put on a German, and a new-born German at that,"
+Morris commented. "You're sure that the three thousand and forty-eight
+dollars ain't a mistake? Because thirty cents sounds like the correct
+figures to me, Abe."
+
+"The birth reduction ain't the only item in their bill, Mawruss," Abe
+continued. "They also claim that the blockade prevented the importing of
+rubber, camphor, and quinine."
+
+"And I suppose they claim that tire trouble, moths, and malaria
+increased something terrible," Morris said. "Well, they're going to have
+just as hard a time proving that claim as Senator Reed would that Brazil
+is a nation of colored people, Abe."
+
+"When did Senator Reed say that, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"When he was arguing against the League of Nations, in the Senate the
+other day," Morris replied. "He said that there were fifteen white
+nations in the League and seventeen colored nations, and he reckoned
+Brazil in as one of the colored nations, probably because he confused
+the Brazil population with the Brazil nuts which are sometimes called
+nigger-toes, Abe. However, Abe, he also included Cuba as a colored
+nation, because he claimed that fifty per cent. of the population is
+colored."
+
+"But the President of Cuba and the gentlemen which is running the Cuban
+government ain't colored people, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"That don't make no difference to Senator Reed, Abe," Morris declared.
+"To Senator Reed, anything that's found alive in a stable is a horse,
+Abe; in fact, coming from Missouri, as Senator Reed does, considering
+the size of the colored population of that state, Senator Reed probably
+considers himself a colored man, because Senator Reed is perfectly
+honest in his opinions, Abe. When he argues that Cuba is a colored
+nation, he believes it, so, therefore, when he argues himself into being
+a colored man, he probably believes that he ain't quite so dark a
+colored man as Senator Vardaman, who comes from Mississippi, Abe, but
+only a light colored man, which is of course all nonsense, like Senator
+Reed's arguments. Senator Vardaman is a white man and Senator Reed is a
+white man and they are both of them as white as, but no whiter than, the
+President of Cuba and several million Brazilian gentlemen. But with
+Senator Reed it's a case of any argument is a good argument, so long as
+it is an argument against the League of Nations."
+
+"But as I understand it Senator Vardaman ain't in the Senate no more,"
+Abe said. "He got defeated last election."
+
+"And the way he is heading, Abe," Morris said, "Senator Reed will join
+him next election, because, while nine times out of ten, when it comes
+to re-election, a United States Senator has got things pretty well
+sewed-up, _so_ sewed-up he couldn't have them, that he could make such
+foolish speeches on such an important matter. Furthermore, it don't
+make no difference how wise or how foolish the speeches which Senators
+makes against the League of Nations might be, Abe, it is going to go
+through, _anyhow_."
+
+"What makes you think that?" Abe asked.
+
+"Because I see where the National Democratic Committee met in Chicago
+the other day, and the chairman by the name Cummings threatened that if
+the Senate don't approve the League of Nations Covenant, Mr. Wilson
+would run for President again," Morris said.
+
+"What do you mean--threatened?" Abe demanded. "You talk like Mr. Wilson
+running for President again was something to be scared about."
+
+"I don't talk that way, but Mr. Cummings does," Morris said. "In fact,
+the Democratic National Committee, on the head of what Mr. Cummings
+said, passed a resolution that they were in favor of the prompt
+ratification by the Senate of the Treaty of Peace, including the League
+of Nations, so it would appear that the Democratic National Committee
+ain't so tickled about Mr. Wilson running again, neither."
+
+"Well, if Mr. Wilson don't run again for President on the Democratic
+ticket, Mawruss, who will?" Abe inquired.
+
+"I don't know, and, furthermore, I think that the Democratic National
+Committee is temporarily in the same condition about that proposition as
+Hawker and Grieve was about that cross-Atlantic proposition--also
+temporarily," Morris concluded, "I mean, up in the air."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES
+
+
+"Outside of one poor night watchman _nebich_," Abe Potash said to his
+partner, Morris Perlmutter, "the only people which has really and truly
+suffered from the goings-on of them anarchists is the insurance
+companies, Mawruss."
+
+"In a case like that, Abe, the insurance companies ain't liable under
+their policies," Morris said, "and they wouldn't got to pay no losses
+for the damage when them bombs done it to them buildings."
+
+"Who said anything about the insurance companies paying losses?" Abe
+asked. "I am talking about the insurance companies paying lawyer bills,
+Mawruss, which I never read any of that part of my insurance policies
+that is printed in only such letters as could have been designed in the
+first place by them fellers you read about who go blind from engraving
+the whole of the Constitution of the United States on a ten-cent piece,
+y'understand, but I have no doubt, Mawruss, that it wouldn't make no
+difference if the loss was caused by anything so legitimate as throwing
+a lighted cigarette in a waste-paper basket, understand me, the only
+reason why an insurance company pays any losses at all is that they
+figure it's cheaper to let the policyholder have the money than the
+bunch of murderers they got representing them as their general counsel."
+
+"No doubt you're right," Morris agreed, "but in these here bomb outrages
+Abe, the way the police 'ain't been able to get a clue to so much as a
+suspicious red necktie, y'understand, it looks as though this
+bomb-exploding was going to be such a regular amusement with anarchists
+as pinochle-playing is with clothing salesmen, understand me, so the
+insurance companies would got to make a stand, otherwise they would be
+paying for new stoops for the houses of anybody and everybody who ever
+said an unkind word in public about Lenine and Trotzky."
+
+"It seems to me that the police ain't so smart like they once used to
+be, Mawruss," Abe remarked.
+
+"No, nor never was," Morris said. "In fact, Abe, from the number of
+crimes which has got into the let-bygones-be-bygones stage with the
+police lately, clues ain't of no more use to them fellers at all. What
+them detectives need is that the criminal should leave behind him at the
+scene of the crime a line of snappy, up-to-date advertising containing
+his name, address, and telephone number, otherwise they seem to think
+they have the excuse that they couldn't be expected to perform miracles,
+and let it go at that."
+
+"I see where right here in New York, Mayor Hylan puts the whole thing up
+to the newspapers," Abe observed. "He wrote to a friend the other day
+one of them strictly confidential letters with an agreement on the side
+to ring up the reporters as soon as it was delivered, y'understand, in
+which he said the reason why so many crimes was going undiscovered by
+the police was that the newspapers was unprincipled enough to print that
+a lot of crimes was going undetected by the police, understand me, and
+the consequence was that criminals read it and, relying on the fact that
+the police wouldn't catch them if they committed crimes, they went to
+work and committed crimes."
+
+"And I suppose them criminals' confidence in the police wasn't
+misplaced, neither," Morris suggested.
+
+"Not so far as I've heard," Abe said, "but even if the newspapers
+wouldn't of printed the information, Mawruss, why should Mayor Hylan
+assume that burglars don't write each other letters occasionally, or,
+anyhow, once in a while meet at lunch and talk over business matters?"
+
+"Well, I've noticed that Mayor Hylan, Mayor Thompson, and a lot of other
+Mayors, Senators, and people which is all the time getting into the
+public eye in the same sense as cinders and small insects, Abe, always
+blames the newspapers for everything that goes wrong," Morris remarked,
+"because such people is always doing and saying things that when it gets
+into the newspaper sounds pretty rotten even to themselves, understand
+me, so therefore they begin to think that the newspaper is doing it
+deliberately, and consequently they get a grouch on against all
+newspapers."
+
+"Sure, I know, Mawruss, but that don't excuse the police for not finding
+out who sent them bombs through the mails in the first place," Abe said.
+"It is now beginning to look, Mawruss, that the American police has
+begun to act philosophically about crooks, the way the American public
+has always done, and they shrug their shoulders and say, 'What are you
+going to do with a bunch of crooks like that?'"
+
+"Well, in a way you can't blame the police for not catching them
+bomb-throwers, Abe," Morris said. "They've been so busy arresting people
+for violations of the automobile and traffic laws that they 'ain't
+hardly got time for nothing else, so you see what a pipe it is for
+criminals, Abe. All they have got to do is to keep out of automobiles
+and stick to street cars, and they can rob, murder, and explode bombs,
+and the police would never trouble them at all."
+
+"But considering the number of people which gets arrested every day for
+things like having in their possession a bottle of schnapps, Mawruss, or
+smoking paper cigarettes in the second degree, or against the peace and
+dignity of the people of the State of Kansas or Virginia, and the
+statue in such case made and provided leaving a bottle of near-beer
+uncorked on the window-sill until it worked itself into a condition of
+being fermented or intoxicating liquor under section six sub-section (b)
+of the said act, y'understand, it is surprising to me that the police
+didn't by accident gather in anyhow _one_ of them anarchists, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "because, after all, Mawruss, it can't be that only
+respectable people violate all them prohibition, anti-cigarette, and
+anti-speeding laws, and that, outside of dropping bombs, anarchists is
+otherwise law-abiding."
+
+"At the same time, Abe, I couldn't help feeling sorry for a policeman
+who would arrest an anarchist by accident, especially if he didn't carry
+any accident insurance, because the only way to avoid accidents in
+arresting anarchists is to take a good aim at a safe distance, and let
+somebody else search the body for packages," Morris declared.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I think the reason why them anarchists
+which explode bombs is never discovered, y'understand, ain't up to the
+police at all, but to the contractor which cleans up the scene of the
+explosion," Abe said. "If he would only instruct his workmen to sift the
+rubbish before they cart it away, they might anyhow find a collar-button
+or something, because next to windows, Mawruss, the most breakage caused
+by anarchistic bomb explosions is to anarchists."
+
+"Still, there must be a lot of comparatively uninjured anarchists
+hanging around--anarchists with only a thumb or so missing which the
+police would be able to find if they really and truly used a little
+gumption, Abe," Morris said. "Also if they would keep their ears open,
+there must be lots of noises which now passes for gas-range trouble and
+which if investigated while the experimenter was still in the dancing
+and hand-flipping stage of agony, Abe, might bring to light some of the
+leading spirits in the chemical branch of the American anarchists. Then
+of course there is the other noises which sounds like gas-range
+troubles, and which on investigation proves to be speeches, Abe, and
+while it is probably true that you can't kill ideas by putting the
+people which owns up to them in jail, Abe, I for one am willing to take
+a chance and see how it comes out, because, after all, it ain't ideas
+which makes and explodes bombs, but the people which holds such ideas."
+
+"Also, Mawruss," Abe said, "it is the people which holds such ideas that
+says you can't kill ideas by putting the people what holds them into
+jail, but just so soon as them people gets arrested, not only do they
+claim that they never held such ideas, but they deny that there even
+existed such ideas, and then the noise of the denials they are making is
+drowned out by the noise of the bombs which is being exploded according
+to the ideas they claim they don't hold, and that's the way it goes,
+Mawruss. The chances is that the mystery of who exploded them bombs will
+remain a mystery along with the mystery of how the Peace Treaty come
+into the possession of them New York interests in the form of a volume
+of three hundred and twenty pages, as Senator Lodge says it did."
+
+"To me that ain't no mystery at all, Abe," Morris said. "The chances is
+that them New York interests, whatever they may be, Abe--and I got my
+suspicions, Abe--simply seen it in the Saturday edition of one of them
+New York papers which makes a specialty of book-advertising, an
+advertisement reading:
+
+
+                          "THE PEACE TERMS"
+
+                           READ ABOUT THEM
+
+in this stirring, heart-touching romance. Get it, begin it; you'll read
+every word and wish there was more.
+
+Would it be worth while to risk the happiness of all future time for the
+sake of four years of forbidden pleasure? With the frankness
+characteristic of him, William W. Wilson in his latest work tells what
+happens--economically and spiritually--to the nation who tried it.
+
+
+                          "THE PEACE TERMS"
+
+                                 BY
+
+                          WILLIAM W. WILSON
+
+        Author of _A Thousand Snappy Substitutes for May I Not_, etc.
+
+         30 Illustrations, 320 pages.                     $1.50 net.
+
+                          AT ALL BOOK-STORES
+
+
+so the New York interests give the office-boy three dollars and says to
+him he should go 'round to the news-stands in the nearest subway station
+and buy a couple of them books, y'understand, and for the remainder of
+the afternoon, y'understand, the members of the New York interests which
+'ain't got their feet up on the desk reading them books, is asking the
+members which has if they 'ain't got nothing better to do with their
+time than to put it in reading a lot of nonsense like that, understand
+me."
+
+"But who do you think published it, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "It is already over a month since the first
+edition of that Peace Treaty was handed to the German delegates, and
+what is a little thing like a copyright to them crooks when it comes to
+making a profit of ten cents a volume? I bet yer that Europe is already
+flooded with pirated editions of that Peace Treaty retailing at
+anywheres from twenty-five cents up, and yet them highwaymen claims that
+it is unacceptable to them. As a matter of fact, the German business man
+'ain't found anything nearly so acceptable in a merchandising way since
+the time they began to imitate Gillette safety razors and Kodak cameras.
+They'll probably make enough of the Park Row and Ann Street peddling
+rights alone to pay the first instalment of the reparation indemnity,
+Abe."
+
+"I see where Austria also finds the terms of the Peace Treaty which was
+handed to her unacceptable, Mawruss," Abe remarked.
+
+"Well, for that matter, Abe, there probably ain't a petitentiary in this
+or any other country which ain't filled with crooks who finds the terms
+of their punishment unacceptable," Morris said, "but I never heard it
+advanced as an argument why the sentence should ought to be upset on
+appeal, Abe. Also, Abe, Germany and Austria is in just so good a
+position to accept or not accept their punishment as any other
+defendant would be after he has had his pedigree taken and is handcuffed
+to the deputy-sheriff with the Black Maria backed up against the curb,
+y'understand."
+
+"Well, I suppose I must of lost thousands of dollars serving on juries
+in my time, Mawruss," Abe said, "and I would of lost thousands more if
+every prisoner would of behaved the way Germany and Austria has since
+the judge asked them if they had anything to say why sentence should
+ought to be passed on them. Evidently they must of thought it was up to
+them to make regular after-dinner speeches, leaving out only the
+once-there-was-an-Irishman story."
+
+"And even that 'ain't been left out," Morris said, "which I see that the
+United States Senate has passed a resolution that they are in favor the
+Peace Conference should hear what the delegates from the new Irish
+Republic has got to say."
+
+"Is Ireland a republic now?" Abe asked.
+
+"It's anyhow as much of a republic as the Rhenish Republic is a republic
+or the Kingdom of the Hadjes is a kingdom," Morris continued, "which the
+American delegates let them Hadjes have their say, Abe, and if the
+Hadj-American vote figured very strong in the last presidential election
+or the Hadj-American subscribers to the Victory Loan represented as much
+as .000000001 per cent. of the total amount raised, the newspapers kept
+it pretty quiet, Abe. So, therefore, Abe, leaving out of the question
+altogether that a very big percentage of the highest grade citizens
+which we've got in this country is Irish by ancestry and brains, Abe,
+why shouldn't the Irish have their say before the Peace Conference?"
+
+"For one thing," Abe said, "the delegates to the Peace Conference is
+already pretty well acquainted with what them Irishmen would tell them,
+unless them delegates is deaf, dumb, and blind."
+
+"That's all right, Abe, but a good argument was never the worse for
+being repeated," Morris concluded, "in especially when it comes from
+people which has given us not only good arguments during the past four
+years, but service, blood, and money. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+JULY THE FIRST AND AFTER
+
+
+"It's already surprising what people will eat if they couldn't get
+anything else," Abe Potash commented one morning in June.
+
+"Not nearly so surprising as what they would drink in the same
+circumstances," Morris Perlmutter remarked.
+
+"Well, I don't know," Abe continued. "Here it stands in the newspapers
+where a professor says that for the information of them men which would
+sooner eat grasshoppers as starve, Mawruss, they taste very much like
+shrimps if you know how shrimps taste, which I am thankful to say that I
+don't, Mawruss, because I never yet had the nerve to eat shrimps on
+account of them looking too much like grasshoppers."
+
+"That's nothing," Morris declared. "In Porto Rico, where they have had
+prohibition now for some time already, the authorities has just found
+out that the people has been drinking so much hair tonic as
+ersat-schnapps, Abe, that the insides of the stomach of a Porto-Rican
+looks like the outside of the President of the new Polish Republic, if
+you know what I mean."
+
+"Well, if the prohibition law is going to be enforced so as to
+confiscate the schnapps which is now being stored away by the people who
+have had an insurance actuary figure out their expectancy of life at ten
+drinks a day for 13.31416 years, Mawruss, or all the cellar will hold,
+y'understand," Abe said, "it won't be much later than July 2d before
+somebody discovers that there's quite a kick to furniture polish or
+6-in-1, Mawruss, and in fact I expect to see after July 1st, 1919, that
+there would be what looks like stove polish, shoe polish,
+automobile-body polish, and silver polish retailing at from one dollar
+to a dollar and a half per hip-pocket-size bottle, which after being
+strained through blotting-paper, y'understand, would net the purchaser
+three drinks of the worst whisky that ever got sold on Chatham Square
+for five cents a glass."
+
+"And I suppose that pretty soon they will be passing a law forbidding
+the manufacture of stove polish and directing that the labels on the
+bottles shall contain the statement:
+
+"Stove Polish by Volume 2, Seventy-five per cent. And in a thimbleful of
+what ain't stove polish in that stove polish, Abe, there wouldn't be no
+more harm than two or three quarts of so much nitroglycerin,
+y'understand," Morris said. "Also on Saturday nights you will see the
+poor women _nebich_ hanging around the swinging doors of paint and color
+stores right up to closing-time to see is their husbands inside, while
+the single men will stagger from house-furnishing store to
+house-furnishing store--or the Poor Men's Clubs, as they call them
+places where stove and silver polish is sold."
+
+"But joking to one side, Mawruss, you don't suppose that the Polaks and
+the Huns and all them foreigners is going to leave off drinking schnapps
+just because of a little thing like a prohibition amendment to the
+Constitution of the United States, do you?" Abe said.
+
+"Why do you limit yourself to Polaks and Huns, Abe?" Morris asked.
+"Believe me, there is fellers whose forefathers was old established
+American citizens before Henry Clay started his cigar business,
+y'understand, and when them boys gets a craving for schnapps after July
+1st, they would _oser_ go to the nearest Carnegie Library and read over
+the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution till that gnawing feeling
+at the pit of the stomach had passed away, understand me. At least, Abe,
+that is what I think is going to happen, and from the number of people
+which is giving out prophecies to the newspapers about what is going to
+happen, and from the way they differ from each other as to what is going
+to happen--not only about prohibition, but about conditions in Europe,
+the Next War, the Kaiser's future, and the next presidential campaign,
+y'understand, it seems to me that anybody could prophesy anything about
+_everything_ and get away with it."
+
+"They could anyhow get away with it till it does happen," Abe commented.
+
+"Sure I know, but generally it don't happen," Morris said. "Take for
+instance where Mr. Vanderlip is going round telling about the terrible
+things which is going to happen in Europe unless something which Mr.
+Vanderlip suggests is done, and take also for instance where Mr. Davison
+is going round telling about the terrible things which is going to
+happen in Europe unless something which Mr. _Davison_ suggests is done,
+y'understand, and while I don't know nothing about Europe, understand
+me, I know something about Mr. Vanderlip, which is that he just lost his
+jobs as director of the War Savings Stamp Campaign and president of the
+National City Bank, and you know as well as I do, Abe, when a man has
+just lost his job things are apt to look pretty black to him, not only
+in Europe, understand me, but in Asia, Africa, and America, and
+sometimes Australia and New Zealand, also."
+
+"Well, how about Mr. Davison?" Abe asked.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "Mr. Davison is a banker and I am a
+garment manufacturer, y'understand, and with me it's like this:
+Conditions in the garment trade is never altogether satisfactory to me,
+Abe. As a garment manufacturer, I can always see where things is going
+to the devil in this country or any other country where I would be doing
+business unless something is done, y'understand, and if anybody would
+ask me what _ought_ to be done, the chances is that I would suggest
+something to be done which wouldn't make it exactly rotten for the
+garment trade, if you know what I mean."
+
+"Mr. Vanderlip and Mr. Davison did good work during the war for a
+dollar a year, Mawruss," Abe said, "and no one should speak nothing but
+good of them."
+
+"Did I say they shouldn't?" Morris retorted. "All I am driving into is
+this, Abe; we've got a lot of big business men which during the war for
+a dollar a year give up their time to advising the United States what it
+should do, y'understand, who are now starting in to advise the world
+what it should do and waiving the dollar, Abe, and if there is anything
+which is calculated to make a man unpopular, Abe, it is giving free
+advice, so therefore I would advise all them dollar-a-year men to--"
+
+"And is any one paying you to give such advice?" Abe asked.
+"Furthermore, Mawruss, nobody asks you for your advice, whereas with
+people like Mr. Vanderlip, Mr. Davison, the Crown Prince, Samuel
+Gompers, and Mary Pickford, y'understand, they couldn't stick their head
+outside the door without a newspaper reporter is standing there and
+starts right in to ask them their opinion about the things which they
+are supposed to know."
+
+"And what is the Crown Prince supposed to know?" Morris asked.
+
+"Not much that Mary Pickford don't about things in general," Abe said,
+"and a good deal less than she does about moving pictures, but otherwise
+I should put them about on a par, except that Mary Pickford has got a
+brighter future, Mawruss, which I see that one of these here newspaper
+fellers got an interview with the Crown Prince which 'ain't been denied
+as yet. It took place in an island in Holland where the Crown Prince is
+living in retirement with a private chef, a private secretary, a couple
+of private valets, his personal physician, and the nine or ten other
+personal attendants that a Hohenzollern cuts himself down to while he is
+roughing it in Holland, Mawruss. When the newspaper feller spoke to him
+he was wearing the uniform of a colonel in the Eighth Pomeranian Crown
+Prince's Own Regiment, which is now known as the William J. Noske
+Association, of black tulle over a midnight-blue satin underdress--the
+whole thing embroidered in gray silk braid and blue beads. A very
+delicate piece of rose point-lace was arranged as a fichu, Mawruss, and
+over it he wore a Lavin cape of black silk jersey with a monkey-fur
+collar and slashed pockets. It would appear from the article which the
+newspaper feller wrote that the Crown Prince didn't seem to be
+especially talkative."
+
+"In these here interviews which newspaper fellers gets in Europe, Abe,"
+Morris commented, "the party interviewed never does seem to be
+talkative. In fact, he hardly figures at all, because such articles
+usually consist of fifty per cent. what a lot of difficulties the
+correspondent was smart enough to overcome in getting the interview,
+twenty-five per cent. description, twenty-two and a quarter what the
+correspondent said to the party interviewed, and not more than two and
+three-quarters per cent. interview."
+
+"Whatever way it was, Mawruss, the Crown Prince didn't exactly unbosom
+himself to this here reporter, but he said enough to show that he wasn't
+far behind Mr. Vanderlip when it comes to taking a dark view of things
+as a result of losing his job, Mawruss," Abe continued.
+
+"Probably he took even a darker view of it than Mr. Vanderlip," Morris
+suggested, "because there are lots of openings for bank president, but
+if you are out of a job as a crown prince, what is it, in particular if
+your reference ain't good?"
+
+"He didn't seem to be worrying about his own future," Abe continued,
+"but he seemed to think that if the old man got tried by the Allies,
+Mawruss, the shock would kill him."
+
+"Many a murderer got tried by the Court of General Sessions, even, and
+subsequently the shock killed them, Abe," Morris said. "What is electric
+chairs for, _anyway_?"
+
+"But he told the reporter that you wouldn't have any idea how old the
+old man is looking," Abe went on.
+
+"He shouldn't take so much wood-cutting exercise," Morris said. "The
+first thing you know, he would injure himself for life, even if he ain't
+going to live long."
+
+"Don't fool yourself, Mawruss," Abe said, "the Kaiser ain't going to die
+from nothing more violent than a rich, unbalanced diet, y'understand,
+and as for the Crown Prince, he's got it all figured out that he will
+return to Germany and go into the farming business, and there ain't no
+provided-I-beat-the-indictment about it, neither, because he knows as
+well as you do that the Allies would never have the nerve to try either
+one of them crooks."
+
+"Nobody seems to have the nerve to do anything nowadays, except the
+Bolshevists, Abe," Morris said, with a sigh. "Here up to a few days ago
+the Bolshevist government of Russia had been running a New York office
+on West Forty-second Street, with gold lettering on the door, a staff of
+stenographers, and a private branch exchange, and the New York police
+didn't pay no more attention to them than if they would of been running
+a poolroom with a roulette-wheel in the rear office. The consequence was
+that when them Bolshevists finally got pulled, Abe, they beefed so
+terrible about how they were being prosecuted in violation of the
+Constitution and the Code of Civil Procedure, y'understand, that you
+would think the bombs which Mr. Palmer and them judges nearly got killed
+with was being exploded pursuant to Section 4244 of the United States
+Revised Statutes and the acts amendatory thereof, Abe."
+
+"And we let them cutthroats do business yet!" Abe exclaimed.
+
+"Well, in a way, I don't blame the Bolshevists for not knowing how to
+take the behavior of the American government towards them, Abe," Morris
+declared. "If we only had one way of treating them and stick _to_ it,
+Abe, it would help people like this here ex-custom-house feller Dudley
+Field Malone and this ex-Red Cross feller Robins to know where they
+stood in the matter of Bolshevism. But when even the United States army
+itself don't know whether it is for the Bolshevists or against them,
+Abe, how could you expect this here Robins to know, either, let alone
+the Bolshevists?"
+
+"But I thought this country was against Bolshevism," Abe said.
+
+"As far as I can gather, Abe, the United States is against Bolshevism
+officially on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and on Saturday from nine
+to twelve, and it is for Admiral Kolchak on Tuesday and Thursday,"
+Morris said. "At any rate, that's what one would think from reading the
+newspapers. Fiume is the same way, Abe. The United States is in favor of
+ceding Fiume to the Italians during three days in the week of eight
+working-hours each, except in the sporting five-star edition, when Fiume
+is going to be internationalized. However, Abe, the United States wants
+to be quite fair about preserving the rights of small nationalities, so
+we concede Fiume to the Jugo-Slobs in at least two editions of the pink
+evening papers and in the special magazine section of the Sunday
+papers."
+
+"Well, the way I feel about Bolshevism, I am against it every day in the
+week, including Sundays, Mawruss," Abe said, "and if I would be running
+a newspaper, I would show them up in every edition from the night
+edition that comes out at half past eight in the morning, down to the
+special ten-o'clock-p.m. extra, which sometimes is delayed till as late
+as five forty-five. Furthermore, while variety makes a spicy life,
+Mawruss, newspapers are supposed to tell you the news, and while it may
+be agreeably exciting to some people when they read on Monday,
+Wednesday, and Friday that the Germans would positively sign the amended
+Treaty of Peace, and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday that they
+positively wouldn't do nothing of the kind, y'understand, I am getting
+so used to it that it don't even make me mad no longer."
+
+"The newspapers has got to suit all tastes, Abe," Morris observed.
+
+"But the taste for Bolshevism ain't a taste, Mawruss, it's a smell," Abe
+concluded, "and whoever has got it shouldn't ought to be encouraged. He
+should ought to be disinfected, and that's all there is to it."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS, ECONOMICALLY AND THEATRICALLY
+
+
+"I see where a minister said the other day he couldn't understand why it
+was that fellers in the theayter business goes to work and puts on the
+kind of shows which they do put on, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, a few
+days after the ministerial controversy over a certain phase of the
+Broadway drama.
+
+"Maybe they got hopes that quite a number of people would pay money to
+see such shows, Abe," Morris suggested, "because so far as I could tell
+from the few fellers in the theayter business whose acquaintance I
+couldn't avoid making, Abe, they are business men the same like other
+business men, y'understand, and what they are trying to do is to suit
+the tastes of their customers."
+
+"But what them ministers claims is that them customers shouldn't ought
+to have such tastes," Abe said.
+
+"That is up to the ministers and not the fellers in the theayter
+business," Morris said. "Theayter managers ain't equipped in the head to
+give people lectures on how terrible it is that people should like to
+see the plays they like to see, because as a general thing a feller in
+the theayter business is the same as a feller in the garment business or
+grocery business--he didn't have to pass no examination to go into such
+a business, and what a theayter feller don't know about delivering
+sermons, Abe, if a minister would know it about the show business,
+y'understand, instead of drawing down three thousand a year telling
+people to do what they don't want to do, understand me, he would be
+looking round for a nice, fully rented, sixteen-story apartment-house in
+which to invest the profits from a show by the name, we would say, for
+example, 'Early to Bed.'"
+
+"But the trouble with the theayter fellers is that they think any show
+which a lot of people would pay money to see, Mawruss, is a good show,"
+Abe declared.
+
+"Why shouldn't the managers think that?" Morris asked. "If the ministers
+had the people trained right, any show which a lot of people would pay
+money to see should _ought_ to be a good show."
+
+"You think the ministers could train people to like a good show!" Abe
+exclaimed. "It's human nature for people to like the kind of show they
+do like, Mawruss, and how could ministers, even if they would be the
+biggest _tzadeekim_ in the world, change human nature?"
+
+"That's what I am trying to tell you, Abe," Morris said. "The theayter
+managers simply supply a demand which already exists, Abe, and they are
+as much to blame for the conditions which creates that demand as you
+could blame a manufacturer of heavy-weight underwear for cold winter
+weather."
+
+"But why should the theayter manager try to supply an unhealthy demand,
+Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"The demand for heavy winter underwear is also unhealthy, Abe," Morris
+said. "In America, where the houses is heated, heavy underwear would
+give you a cold, whereas in Norway and Sweden the demand for heavy
+underwear is healthy because Norway and Sweden houses is like Norway and
+Sweden plays, Abe, they are constructed differently from the American
+fashion. They are built solid, but there ain't no light and heat in
+them, and yet, Abe, the highbrows which is kicking about the American
+style of plays is crazy about these here Norway and Sweden plays and
+want American theayter managers to put on plays like them. In other
+words, Abe, they are arguing in favor of the manufacture and sale of
+heavy winter underwear for an exclusively B. V. D. trade, and so,
+therefore, such high-brows could be ministers or they could be dramatic
+crickets, Abe, but they might just so well save their breath with such
+arguments, because the customer buys what he _wants_ to buy, and what
+the customer _wants_ to buy the manufacturer manufactures, and that's
+all there is _to_ it."
+
+"And now that you have settled this here question of them 'Early to Bed'
+plays, Mawruss," Abe said, "would you kindly tell me what the idea of
+them Germans was in sinking all them white-elephant war-ships which
+everybody with any sense wished was at the bottom of the ocean,
+_anyway_, y'understand?"
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "Them Germans being German,
+y'understand, and having signed an armistice where they agreed to take
+them war-ships to an Allied port and _keep_ them there, y'understand,
+just couldn't resist breaking their word and sinking them war-ships."
+
+"But don't you think, Mawruss, that when the Allies allowed the Germans
+to sign such an armistice they was awful careless," Abe said, "because
+if they wanted them war-ships to stay afloat, Mawruss, all they had to
+do was to make the Germans sign an agreement not to take them war-ships
+to Allied ports and sink them there, and the thing was done."
+
+"How do you know that the Allies didn't get them Germans to agree the
+way they did, so as to get rid of all them war-ships without the trouble
+and expense of blowing them up?" Morris asked.
+
+"I don't know it," Abe admitted, "but even to-day yet, Mawruss, them
+Allied diplomatists is acting like they thought deep down in their
+hearts that there was a little honor--a little truth--left in them
+Germans somewhere, Mawruss, so the chance is that when that armistice
+was signed, the Allies thought that at last the Germans was going to
+stand by a signed agreement. However, it seems to me, Mawruss, that
+there should ought to be an end to this here better-luck-next-time
+attitude towards the Germans' idea of honor on the part of the Allies."
+
+"Well, what are you going to do with such people, Abe?" Morris asked.
+
+"To me it's a business proposition, Mawruss," Abe said, "and the way I
+feel about this here Peace Treaty is that it is nothing but composition
+notes, signed by the Germans without indorsement by anybody. Now you
+know as well as I do, Mawruss, if a bankrupt owes you money and he has
+got _some_ assets, you ain't going to take composition notes for the
+entire amount of debts and let the bankrupt keep the remains of his
+assets, because composition notes without indorsements don't deceive
+nobody, Mawruss. If I get from a bankrupt unindorsed composition notes,
+I simply put them away in my safe and forget about them, which if a
+bankrupt ever paid his unindorsed composition notes he would be adding
+murder to his other crimes on account the holders of such composition
+notes would drop dead from astonishment."
+
+"The death-rate from such a cause among business men ain't high, Abe,"
+Morris commented.
+
+"If I was an accident-insurance company's actuary, I would take a chance
+and leave such a cause of death out of my calculations," Abe agreed. "It
+never happens, and so, therefore, Mawruss, if Germany lives up to the
+terms of the Peace Treaty it would only be because the German signature
+is guaranteed by the indorsement of a large Allied Army of Occupation,
+and, therefore, if we've got to do it first as last, why monkey around
+with a new German Cabinet? Why not close up the Peace Conference _sine
+die_, tell Germany her composition notes ain't acceptable, y'understand,
+and proceed to make a levy and sale with the combined armies of the
+Allies as deputy-sheriffs, Mawruss, because not only are the Germans
+bankrupts, but they are fraudulent bankrupts, and on fraudulent
+bankrupts nobody should have no mercy at all?"
+
+"But don't you think it might be just as well to give the Germans a few
+days' grace and see how this here new Cabinet goes to work?" Morris
+suggested.
+
+"You don't have to know how it works, Mawruss," Abe replied. "All you
+have to do is to know how it was formed and you can guess how it would
+work, which I bet yer that Erzberger got together with von
+Brockdorff-Rantzau and they combed over the list of candidates to get
+just the right kind of people for a German Cabinet, because the ordinary
+tests which they use in England, France, or America, Mawruss, don't
+apply to Germany. You've got to be awful careful in forming a German
+Cabinet, Mawruss, otherwise you are liable to have slipped in on you
+just one decent, respectable man with an idea of keeping his word and
+doing the right thing, Mawruss, and by a little carelessness like that,
+understand me, the whole Cabinet is ruined. However, Mawruss, you could
+take it from me that a couple of experienced Cabinet-formers like this
+here Erzberger and von Brockdorff-Rantzau didn't fall down on their
+job, and I bet yer that every member of the new Cabinet is keeping up
+the best traditions of the good old German spirit, which is to be able
+to look the whole world straight in the eye and lie like the devil,
+y'understand."
+
+"Then you think this Cabinet wouldn't act no different to the other
+Cabinets?" Morris said.
+
+"Not if the Allies don't act different," Abe said, "and where the Allies
+made their first big mistake was the opening session at Versailles, when
+the usher or the janitor or whoever had charge of such things didn't
+take von Brockdorff-Rantzau by the back of his neck and yank him to his
+feet after he started to talk without rising from his chair, because the
+Germans is very quick to take a tip that way, Mawruss. Whatever they put
+over once, they think they could put over again, and since that time all
+arguments the Germans has made about the Peace Treaty have been, so to
+speak, delivered by the German people and the German Cabinet, not only
+seated, y'understand, but also with the feet cocked up on the desk, the
+hat on, and in the corner of the mouth a typical German cigar which is
+made up of equal parts hay and scrap rubber blended with the _Vossicher
+Zeitung_ and beet-tops and smells accordingly."
+
+"Well, it is one of the good qualities of the American people that
+before they get good and sore, as they have a right to do, Abe, they
+will put up with a whole lot of bad manners from people that they deal
+with," Morris said. "Take, for instance, these here foreign-born Reds
+which they held a meeting in Madison Square Garden the other evening,
+and if they said in any other country about the government what they
+said in Madison Square Garden, y'understand, the owner of Madison Square
+Garden would of pocketed thousands of dollars for the moving-picture
+rights of the bayoneting alone. But we don't do business that way. There
+ain't no satisfaction in bayoneting a lot of people for being fresh and
+not knowing how to behave. Fining them and putting them in prison is
+also no relief to our feeling, neither. What we really itch to do, Abe,
+is to act the way a man would act if he gives somebody food and shelter
+in his home, and, as soon as such a _schnorrer_ feels refreshed by what
+he has eaten and the good bed he has slept in, he turns on his host and,
+after insulting the members of the household, tries to wreck the
+furniture and set the house on fire. Such a feller you would first kick
+as many times as you had the strength; you would then duck him in the
+nearest body of water, provided it was muddy enough, and after he had
+come up for the third time you would fish him out and ride him on a rail
+to the town limits and there you would advise him never to show his face
+around them parts again."
+
+"But as I understand this here Red meeting, Mawruss," Abe said, "it was
+something more as not knowing how to behave. Practically every speaker
+told the audience that they should rise up against the government."
+
+"Sure I know, Abe," Morris agreed, "but the audience was composed of
+people who had already made up their minds that they should rise up
+against the government, and there is only one thing which prevents them
+from rising up--they 'ain't got the nerve. Furthermore, them speakers
+could go on advising till they got clergyman's sore throat from the
+violent language they was using, and that audience could sit there being
+advised till the management of Madison Square Garden dispossessed the
+meeting for non-payment of rent, y'understand, and still that audience
+wouldn't have the nerve. Them Reds are a lot of rabbits, Abe. They could
+rise up in Russia and Hungary against a lot of rabbits, y'understand,
+but over here the most them rabbits has got the courage to do is to
+plant a few bombs, of which one or two has been ungrateful enough to
+bite the hand that threw them, understand me, but as soon as them Red
+rabbits discovers that the percentage of mortality among bomb-throwers
+is equal to the death-rate from some such rare disease as
+sleeping-sickness or beriberi, Abe, they wouldn't even have the nerve to
+throw bombs."
+
+"Still, I think the District Attorney should ought to do something about
+that Madison Square meeting, Mawruss," Abe said, "because even if
+Madison Square Garden would have been only one-tenth filled, considering
+the high price of rails in the present steel-market and the distance of
+Madison Square from muddy water, Mawruss, it would be anyhow unpractical
+to duck or ride on rails the number of Reds which attended that
+meeting, even supposing enough respectable people could be found who
+would take the trouble."
+
+"As a matter of fact, Abe," Morris said, "it don't even pay to encourage
+them speech-making Reds by thinking they are important enough to be
+ducked in muddy water. After all, most of them are still young and
+sooner or later they would got to go to work, and once a man goes to
+work in this country it is only a matter of time when he gets up into
+the capitalistic class."
+
+"There is also another thing to be considered about these here Reds,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "As Reds, they couldn't be taken altogether
+seriously, because Reds would be Reds only up to a certain point. After
+that they're Yellow."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THEY DISCUSS THE SIGNING OF IT
+
+
+"Yes, Mawruss, when the history of this here Peace Conference is
+written, y'understand, a whole lot of things which up to now has been
+mysteries will be made very plain to the people which has got
+twenty-five dollars to invest in such a history and the spare time in
+which to read it," Abe Potash said to his partner Morris Perlmutter a
+few days after the treaty was signed.
+
+"There will be a great many people who will try to find the time at
+that," Morris commented, "because I see by the morning paper that one of
+Mr. Wilson's relatives has bought for him in Southern California a piece
+of property especially for Mr. Wilson to write the history of the Peace
+Conference in, and why should he go to all that expense if there wasn't
+a big market for such a history?"
+
+"I wonder did Mr. Wilson have to pay much money for the history rights
+to the Peace Conference?" Abe asked.
+
+"What do you mean--did he pay much money?" Morris exclaimed. "Anybody
+can write a history of the Peace Conference without paying a cent for
+the privilege, and even if they couldn't, y'understand, who is going to
+bid against Mr. Wilson, because when it comes to what actually happened
+at them confidential meetings between Mr. Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lord
+George, Abe, Mr. Wilson had a monopoly of the raw material in the
+history line. He didn't even let Colonel House in on it, so you can bet
+your life if there was any competitors of Mr. Wilson trying to get a few
+ideas for a competing line of popular-price Peace Conference histories,
+Abe, Mr. Wilson didn't exactly unbosom himself to them historians,
+neither, because a diplomatic secret is a diplomatic secret, Abe, but
+when in addition, the diplomat is counting on writing a history of them
+diplomatic doings, Abe, diplomatic secrets become trade secrets."
+
+"It seems to me, Mawruss, that while you couldn't blame Mr. Wilson for
+writing a history of the Peace Conference for a living after he loses
+his job in March, 1921," Abe continued, "still at the same time,
+considering that Mr. Wilson has taken such a prominent part in this here
+Peace Conference, and considering also that Mr. Wilson is only human, no
+matter what Senator Reed might say otherwise, don't you think he is
+going to have a difficult time in deciding for himself just where
+history leaves off and advertising begins?"
+
+"The probabilities is that he wouldn't give himself a shade the worst of
+it, if that's what you mean," Morris observed, "but as to whether or not
+such a history would be the equivalent of an actor writing a criticism
+of his own performance, Abe, that I couldn't say, because the chances is
+that when Lord George gets through with the job of chief Cabinet
+Minister or whatever his job is called, he would also try his hand at
+writing a history, and if that is the case, you could make up your mind
+to it that Clemenceau ain't going to sit down at his time of life and
+let them two historians put it all over him. So, therefore, if Mr.
+Wilson should feel like writing in his history: 'At this point, things
+was at a standstill and nobody seemed to know what to do next, when
+suddenly some one made a suggestion which cleared up the whole
+situation. It was Woodrow Wilson who spoke'--y'understand, he will
+figure that Lord George is probably going to say in his history: 'At
+this point the Peace Conference was up against it and it looked like the
+bottom had fallen out of everything, when like a voice from heaven,
+somebody made a remark which smoothed away all difficulties. It was Lord
+George who came to the rescue.' The consequence will be that both of
+them historians will beat Clemenceau to it, by giving credit for the
+suggestion to the feller who made it, even if it would have been Orlando
+himself."
+
+"But suppose Mr. Wilson actually did make the suggestion, Mawruss, and
+in the interests of telling the strict truth about the matter, he feels
+that he is obliged to mention it in his history," Abe said, "he's bound
+to run up against a big chorus of _Yows!_"
+
+"Well, so far as I could see, nobody compels Mr. Wilson to write a
+history of that Peace Conference if he don't want to," Morris replied,
+"and if he should decide not to do so, he could always rent that
+Southern California property furnished for the season, or if he feels
+that he must occupy it himself for history business purposes, he could
+anyhow write a domestic History of the United States from December 5,
+1918, to July 6, 1919, both inclusive, in which his name need hardly
+occur at all. But joking to one side, Abe, when the history of this here
+Peace Conference gets written, it don't make no difference who writes
+it, he ain't going to be able to ignore Mr. Wilson exactly. In fact,
+Abe, the history of this here Peace Conference is going to be more or
+less principally about Mr. Wilson, and if the feller who writes it
+wouldn't be exactly Senator Lodge, y'understand, the truth is bound to
+leak out that Mr. Wilson did a wonderful job over in Paris. Of course he
+made a whole lot of enemies over here, but then he also made a whole lot
+of peace over there, Abe, and, after all, that is what he went there
+for."
+
+"Still I couldn't help thinking that from a business point of view,
+Mawruss, the Peace Conference suffered a good deal from poor
+management," Abe said. "Take for instance the signing of the Peace
+Treaty in Mirror Hall, Versailles, and properly worked up, the Allies
+could of made enough out of that one show alone to pay for all the ships
+that Germany sank a few days ago, which holding a thing like that in a
+hall, Mawruss, is a sample of what kind of management there was."
+
+"They had the Germans sign that Peace Treaty in that hall because it was
+the same hall where them Germans made the French sign the Peace Treaty
+in 1870," Morris explained.
+
+"Sure I know," Abe said, "but what did they know about such things in
+1870? Even grand opera they gave in halls in them days, which,
+considering the amount of interest there was in the signing of the Peace
+Treaty, Mawruss, I bet yer enough people was turned away from Mirror
+Hall, Versailles, to more than fill five halls of the same size. As it
+was, Mawruss, so many people crowded into that Mirror Hall that nobody
+could see anything, and the consequence was that when Clemenceau begun
+his speech the disorder was something terrible."
+
+"I suppose his opening remark was: 'Koosh! What is this? A
+_Kaffeeklatsch_ or something?'" Morris remarked, satirically.
+
+"It might just so well have been, for all anybody heard of it," Abe went
+on. "In fact, the papers say that all through it there was loud cries
+of, 'Down in front!' from people which had probably bought their tickets
+at the last moment off of a speculator who showed them a diagram of
+Mirror Hall, Batesville, and not Versailles, on which it looked like
+they was getting four good ones in the fifth row, center aisle,
+Mawruss."
+
+"Probably also while Clemenceau was speaking, there was difficulty in
+calling off the score-card and ice-cream-cone venders," Morris said.
+
+"I am telling you just exactly what I read it in the newspapers," Abe
+said, "which there ain't no call to get sarcastic, Mawruss. The signing
+of that treaty was arranged just the same like any other show is
+arranged, except that the arrangements wasn't quite so good. The idea
+was to make it impressive by keeping it very plain, and that is where
+the Allies, to my mind, made a big mistake, because the people to be
+impressed was the Germans, and what sort of an impression would that
+signing of the Peace Treaty by delegates in citizen clothes make on a
+country where a station agent looks like a colonel and a colonel looks
+like the combined annual conventions of the Knights of Pythias and the
+I. O. M. A."
+
+"The chances is that the Allies did the best they could with the short
+time they had for preparation, because you must got to remember that the
+Germans didn't make up their minds to sign till two days before the
+signing, and considering that the President of the United States wears
+only the uniform prescribed by the double-page advertisements of
+Rochester, Chicago, and Baltimore clothing manufacturers for people who
+ride in closed cars, two days is an awful short time to hire a really
+impressive uniform, let alone to have one made to order, Abe," Morris
+said. "Furthermore, Abe, the signing of that Peace Treaty could have
+been put on by the feller that runs off these here Follies with the
+assistance of George M. Cohan and the management of the Metropolitan
+Opera House, y'understand, and the costumes could have been designed by
+Ringling Brothers, with a few hints from Rogers, Peet, understand me,
+and I don't believe them Germans would stick to the terms of the treaty
+anyway."
+
+"Europe should worry about that, Mawruss," Abe said. "The main thing is
+that the peace is signed and the last of our boys would soon be home
+again from Europe, and once we get them back again in this country,
+Mawruss, it _oser_ would make any difference to us whether Germany keeps
+the treaty or she don't keep it, Mawruss, the chances of us sending our
+boys back again is pretty slim."
+
+"But under section ten of the League Covenant, Abe," Morris began, "the
+time might come when we would got to send them."
+
+"Maybe," Abe admitted, "but if any of them European nations has got the
+idea that because Germany is going to be slow pay we would oblige with a
+few million troops, Mawruss, they've got another idea coming. We are a
+nation, not a collection agency, and no amount of section tens is going
+to make us one, either."
+
+"Well, that is the danger of this here League of Nations, Abe," Morris
+said, "and if the Senate ratifies it, we are not only a collection
+agency, but a burglar insurance company as well, and in fact some of the
+Senators goes so far as to say that we ain't so much insuring people
+against the operations of burglars as insuring burglars against the
+loss of their _ganevas_."
+
+"I know the Senators is saying that, and I also know that Mr. Wilson
+says it ain't so," Abe agreed, "but this here fuss about international
+affairs has got what the lawyers calls a statue of limitations running
+against it right now, and I give both Mr. Wilson and the Senate six
+months, and they will be going round saying: 'Do you remember when six
+months ago we got so terrible worked up over that--now--National
+League,' and somebody who is sitting near them will ask, for the sake of
+having things just right, 'You mean that League of Nations, ain't it?'
+and Mr. Wilson will say: 'League of Nations! National League! What's the
+difference? Let's have another round of Old Dr. Turner's Favorite
+Asparagus Tonic and forget about it.'"
+
+"So you think that all this international politics will be forgotten as
+quickly as that?" Morris commented.
+
+"Say!" Abe said, "it won't take long for Mr. Wilson to settle down into
+American ways again. Of course it will be pretty hard for him during the
+first few weeks, whenever he gets a sick headache, to send out for a
+doctor instead of an admiral, and he may miss his evening _schmooes_
+with Clemenceau, Lord George, and Orlando, but any one that will have
+such a lot of _clav hasholom_ times to talk over as Mr. Wilson will for
+the rest of his life, even if he does have to hold out some of the stuff
+for his History of the Peace Conference in three volumes, price
+twenty-five dollars, Mawruss, would never need to play double solitaire
+in order to fill in the time between supper and seeing is the pantry
+window locked in case Mrs. Wilson is nervous that way. Then again there
+is things happening in this country which looked very picayune to Mr.
+Wilson over in France, and which will seem so big when he arrives here
+that almost as soon as he sets his foot on the dock in Hoboken, the
+League of Nations will get marked off in his mind for depreciation as
+much as a new automobile does by merely having the owner's number plates
+attached to it, even if it ain't been run two miles from the agency
+yet."
+
+"I never thought of it that way," Morris admitted, "but it is a fact
+just the same that this here League of Nations is only being operated at
+the present time under a demonstrator's license, so to speak, and as
+soon as it gets its regular number, the manufacturers and the agents
+won't be so sensitive about the knocks that the prospective customers is
+handing it."
+
+"And just so soon as the demonstrations have gone far enough, Mawruss,
+just you watch all the nations of the earth that ain't made up their
+minds whether they want to ride or not, jump aboard," Abe said. "Also,
+Mawruss, this League of Nations is to the United States Senate what a
+new-car proposition is to the head of any respectable family. If the
+wife wants it and the children wants it, it may be that the old man will
+think it over for a couple of weeks, and he may begin by saying that
+the family would get a new car over his dead body, and what do they
+think he is made of, money? y'understand, but sooner or later he is
+going to sign up for that new car, and don't you forget it. And after
+all, Mawruss, if the other big nations is in on this League of Nations,
+we could certainly afford to pay our share of what it costs to run it."
+
+"Maybe we could," Morris concluded, "but if a new League of Nations is
+like a new automobile, we are probably in for an expensive time, because
+with a new car, Abe, it ain't what you run that costs so much money.
+It's what you back into."
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE RECENT UNPLEASANTNESS IN TOLEDO, OHIO
+
+
+"If we would only had our wits about us the day we sent for the
+policeman to put out that feller we had running the elevator, Mawruss,
+we could of made quite a lot of money maybe," Abe Potash remarked to
+Morris Perlmutter a few days after the heavy-weight title changed hands.
+
+"If we would only had our wits about us and you had taken my advice to
+let the feller sleep off his jag instead of hauling in a policeman to
+wake him up and throw him out, Abe," Morris said, "they wouldn't of
+broken, between them, fifty dollars' worth of fixtures and ruined a lot
+of garments on us."
+
+"Well, that's what I mean, Mawruss, which is forty-five thousand people
+could be persuaded into paying anywheres from ten to a hundred dollars
+apiece to see that nine-minute affair in Toledo where the two loafers
+didn't have nothing against one another personally and couldn't of kept
+their minds on the fight anyhow for trying to figure their share of the
+profits, y'understand, what would them forty-five thousand _meshugoyim_
+paid to see for twenty minutes a couple of fellers which they really
+and truly wanted to kill each other without any intermissions of so much
+as two seconds, Mawruss?" Abe said.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris said, "these here fight fans are the
+same like moving-picture fans; they would a whole lot sooner pay out
+money to see the imitation article than the real thing. Tell one of
+these here fight fans that for ten cents you would let him know where at
+half past nine o'clock on Monday morning an iron-molder has got an
+appointment to meet a stevedore who used to be engaged to the
+iron-molder's sister and now refuses to return the twenty-five dollars
+he borrowed from her to get the wedding-ring and the marriage license,
+and the fight fan would ask you what is that _his_ business. Tell a
+moving-picture fan that there is a family over on Tenth Avenue where the
+father is a ringer for William S. Hart and is _also_ in jail,
+y'understand, and that such a family is about to be dispossessed for
+non-payment of rent, understand me, and if you made an offer to such a
+moving-picture fan, that for a contribution of fifteen cents toward
+finding the family a new home, you would show him a close-up of the
+landlord, of the notice to quit and of the court-room of the Municipal
+Court of the City of New York for the Eleventh Judicial District where
+such proceedings are returnable, understand me, the moving-picture fan
+wouldn't come across with a nickel, not even if you undertook to engage
+the entire combined orchestras of the Strand, the Rivoli, and the Rialto
+moving-picture theaters to play 'Hearts and Flowers' while the
+furniture was being piled on the moving-van."
+
+"I wouldn't blame the moving-picture fan at that, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"because if such a moving-picture fan would see one of these here
+harrowing William S. Hart and Mary Pickford incidents in real life,
+Mawruss, when it reached the point where the moving-picture fan's heart
+is going to break unless there would be a quick happy ending,
+y'understand, not only would there _not_ be a happy ending, but also,
+Mawruss, instead of the next incident being a Mack Sennett comedy in
+real life, Mawruss, it might be something so sad, y'understand, that if
+a moving-picture corporation would try to reproduce it on the screen, it
+would cost them a fortune for glycerin alone."
+
+"A moving-picture fan's heart don't break so easy as all that, Abe,"
+Morris said. "Moving-picture fans is like doctors and undertakers, Abe.
+They've got so used to other people's misfortunes that it practically
+don't affect them at all. Moving-picture fans can see William S. Hart
+come out of jail to find his wife married to the detective who not only
+arrested him in the first reel, but is also giving terrible _makkas_ to
+Mr. Hart's youngest child in the second reel, y'understand, and wrings
+that moving-picture fan's heart to the same extent like it would be
+something in a tropical review entitled: 'Eighth Annual Convention of
+the United Ice-men of America, Akron, Ohio. Arrival of the Delegates at
+the Akron, Union, Depot,' y'understand. Yes, Abe, the effect of
+five-reel films on a moving-picture fan's heart is like the effect of
+five-star Scotch whisky on a typical club-man's life. It hardens it to
+such an extent that it practically ceases to do the work for which it
+was originally put into a human body, Abe."
+
+"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I 'ain't got no use for any kind of a
+fan, and that goes for moving-picture fans, fight fans, baseball fans,
+and pinochle fans, not to mention grand-opera fans, first-night theayter
+fans, and every other fan from golluf downwards. Take these here fight
+fans which chartered special trains for Toledo, Ohio, and paid a hundred
+dollars for a ringside seat, Mawruss, and to my mind it would take one
+of these here insanity experts to figure out just what made them do it
+at a time when on account of the raise in rent and living expenses, so
+many heads of families is staying home with their families these hot
+Sundays and reading the papers about the fight fans chartering special
+trains and paying a hundred dollars for ringside seats, and not feeling
+the heat any the less because of reading such things. Also, Mawruss, as
+one business man to another who has had the experience of riding on a
+sleeper and making Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, and Chicago even under
+normal travel conditions, Mawruss, I ask you, where is the pleasure in
+such a trip?"
+
+"Them fight fans don't do it for pleasure, Abe," Morris said. "They do
+it for a reputation."
+
+"A reputation for what?" Morris asked.
+
+"A reputation for having paid the United States Railroad Administration
+twice the regular fare to Toledo for a railroad journey, and also the
+reputation for having paid the manager of this here prize-fight fifty
+times the regular price of a ticket for a legitimate entertainment,"
+Morris replied.
+
+"But what for a reputation is that for a sane man to get?" Abe asked.
+
+"Well," Morris commented, "for that matter, what kind of a reputation
+does the same man get when he pays fifty dollars to reserve a table at a
+Broadway restaurant on New-Year's Eve? That's where your friend the
+insanity expert comes in, Abe. It's the kind of a reputation which the
+people among which such a feller has got it--when they talk about it
+says: 'And suppose he did. What _of_ it?'"
+
+"It seems to me, Mawruss, that when a feller gets the reputation for
+having such a reputation, his friends should ought to tip him off that
+if he don't be mighty careful, the first thing you know he would be
+getting that kind of a reputation," Abe said, "because there is also a
+whole lot of other people among which he got that reputation, who
+wouldn't stop at saying: 'Suppose he did. What _of_ it?' They would try
+to figure out the answer upon the basis that a feller who pays a hundred
+dollars for a ringside seat to see a fight which lasted nine minutes,
+y'understand, and his money, understand me, are soon parted, and the
+first thing you know, Mawruss, that poor nebich of a prize-fight fan
+would be unable to attend the next annual heavy-weight championship of
+the world to be held in Yuma, Arizona, or some such summer resort, in
+August, 1921, simply because the United States Railroad Administration
+refused to accept for his transportation in lieu of cash two thousand
+shares of the Shapiro Texas Oil and Refining Corporation of the par
+value of one hundred dollars apiece, notwithstanding that he also offers
+to throw in a couple of hundred shares of a farm-tractor manufacturing
+corporation and lots 120 to 135, both inclusive, in Block 654 on a map
+filed in the office of the clerk of Atlantic County, New Jersey,
+entitled Map of Property of the East by Southeast, Atlantic City Land
+and Development Company."
+
+"Well, it would serve such a feller right if such a thing did happen to
+him," Morris commented, "because any one who takes an interest in such a
+disgusting affair as this here fight should not only lose his money, but
+he should ought to go to jail."
+
+"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe replied. "And why the newspapers print
+the reports of such a thing is a mystery to me. Here there are
+happenings, happenings over in Europe which is changing the history of
+the world every twenty-four hours, Mawruss, and to this one prize-fight
+which a man has got to be a loafer not to get sick at his stomach over
+it, Mawruss, they are devoting practically the entire newspaper. I give
+you my word, Mawruss, it took me pretty near three hours to read it
+last night."
+
+"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "you would think that a man of
+this here Jeff Willard's fighting record wouldn't of give up so easy."
+
+"Look what he was up against," Abe reminded him. "There 'ain't been a
+fighter in years with this feller Dempsey's speed and science, Mawruss."
+
+"But I don't think that Willard was trained right, Abe," Morris said.
+
+"What do you mean--not trained right?" Abe retorted. "From what the
+newspapers has been saying during the past few weeks, Mawruss, he was in
+wonderful condition, and his sparring partners seemingly could hit him
+on any part of his face and body, and it never seemed to affect him
+any."
+
+"Sure I know," Morris agreed, "but what for a training was that for a
+rough affair like this here prize-fight turned out to be, which if I
+would of been this here Jeff Willard's manager, Abe, I wouldn't of put
+no faith in sparring partners. A sparring partner is only human--that is
+to say, if any prize-fighter could be human--and naturally such a
+sparring partner ain't going to do himself out of a good job by going
+too far and seriously injuring a heavyweight champion. The consequences
+was, Abe, that this here Jeff Willard went into the ring, confident that
+he couldn't be knocked down by a blow from a fighter like Dempsey,
+simply because he had no experience in being knocked down by a blow."
+
+"Maybe he couldn't of been knocked down by a blow from his sparring
+partners," Abe suggested. "Maybe they weren't strong enough."
+
+"That's just what I'm driving into, Abe," Morris said, "which if instead
+of Willard's manager wasting time by trying to have sparring partners
+knock him down, he would have gone to work and had Willard knocked down
+by something which could really and truly knock him down, like a Fifth
+Avenue stage or a heavy automobile delivery truck, y'understand, the
+result might have been very different."
+
+"Sure I know," Abe said, "but you could easy overdo such a training
+method, Mawruss, and end up with an autopsy instead of a prize-fight.
+Also, Mawruss, the way it looked to experts after this here fight had
+been pulled off, where Willard made his mistake was in training to
+receive punishment instead of training to give it."
+
+"Willard didn't believe in training to give punishment," Morris said.
+"If he had believed in it, he could have gone over to Europe and
+received pretty nearly a year and a half of the very best training a
+prize-fighter could get in giving punishment, Abe, and also, Abe, he
+would have avoided getting called a slacker by some of them prize-fight
+fans, who seemed to be sore that Willard should have quit after losing
+only half his teeth and having still another eye to see with, the right
+one being blinded in the first round, Abe."
+
+"Well, the chances is that when Willard goes to consult a doctor, which
+he would probably have to do after the licking he got, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "before he would get the opportunity to tell the doctor that he
+had been in a prize-fight, the doctor will give one look at him and lay
+the whole trouble to abscesses at the roots of the teeth, and he will
+order Willard to go and have the rest of them drawn right away, so he
+might just as well have stayed one more round and let Dempsey finish the
+job. Also, Mawruss, them fight fans _oser_ cared whether Willard had
+served in the army or not. Willard was the loser, and naturally them
+Broadway fight fans didn't have no sympathy with a loser, so even if
+there hadn't been no European war for Willard not to serve in, Mawruss,
+they would of tried to think of some other name to shout at him as he
+staggered out of the ring, like Prohibitionist or League-of-Nationer."
+
+"Of course them fight fans had in a way a right to get sore, Abe,"
+Mawruss remarked, "because a whole lot of them had bet money on Willard
+to win."
+
+"Sure they did," Abe agreed, "but gambling on the personal injuries of
+two human beings, even if they do agree of their own will to see how
+long they can stand such injuries without growing unconscious, Mawruss,
+is my idea of nothing to gamble about. But I suppose the typical fight
+fan don't feel that way about it. Probably when some member of his
+family has got to go through an operation, he wipes away his tears with
+one hand and makes a book on the result with the other. He probably
+offers his friends even money that the party won't come out of the
+ether, one to two that the party wouldn't rally from the shock, and one
+to three against complete recovery inside of a month, or he will make a
+combination offer whereby his friends can play the operation across the
+board as a two or three proposition, Mawruss."
+
+"And his friends, being also prize-fight fans, will probably take him
+up," Morris suggested.
+
+"Certainly they will," Abe concluded, "because to a prize-fight fan
+suffering is not a sight which is to be avoided. It is something which a
+typical prize-fight fan would take a special train and pay a hundred
+dollars any time to see."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+FEEDING THE PEACE CONFERENCERS AND THE HOUSEHOLD
+
+
+"Anybody which don't arrange beforehand what the price is going to be,
+Mawruss, is never overcharged, no matter how much he gets soaked in the
+bill," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, a few days
+after the Hotel Crillon filed its claim against the American peace
+mission for two million francs, "which, if the way the United States
+government arranged with the management of the Hotel Crillon for the
+board and lodging of them Peace Conferencers is any criterium, Mawruss,
+we would got to start a recruiting drive for fifty thousand certified
+public accountants for service abroad, with a chance to see the
+wonderful scenery and bookkeeping of France."
+
+"I thought the United States government didn't make any arrangement with
+the Hotel Crillon before them Peace Conferencers went over, Abe," Morris
+said.
+
+"That's what I mean, Mawruss," Abe said, "which, when President Wilson
+made up his mind to send all them experts over to France he sent for
+Ambassador Sharp and asked him where's a good place for them Indians to
+stay, and Sharp told him the Hotel Crillon, and when Mr. Wilson asked
+him is it a good medium-price place, Mr. Sharp says he shouldn't worry,
+that Jake Crillon is a good feller and wouldn't overcharge nobody,
+y'understand, and for to leave it to Jake, and so Mr. Wilson done so,
+Mawruss, and naturally this is the result."
+
+"Why, what for a bill did the management of the Hotel Crillon put in
+against the United States government, Abe?" Morris asked.
+
+"They 'ain't put in any bill as yet, Mawruss," Abe said. "This here is
+only a preliminary claim of two million francs, on account of the loss
+of regular customers because the hotel has been occupied for such a long
+time by them American Peace Conferencers."
+
+"Well, wouldn't most of the regular customers come back if the
+management promised that after them Peace Conferencers went home they
+would disinfect the hotel and give it a thorough overhauling or
+something?" Morris asked.
+
+"The question 'ain't been argued as yet, Mawruss," Abe said, "but you'll
+have to admit that if two years from now a guest of the Hotel Crillon
+complains to the management of something about his room smelling awful
+peculiar, y'understand, and if the management should go to work and tear
+up the floor and overhaul the plumbing, only to find that it's a case of
+the room not having recovered from an American Jugo-Slob expert holding
+conferences with the Jugo-Slob delegates to the Peace Conference in it,
+understand me, two million francs ain't going to go such a long ways, in
+especially at the present rate of exchange, Mawruss."
+
+"Perhaps you're right, Abe," Morris said. "Perhaps it is better that a
+lump sum like two million francs would be charged rather as go into the
+items themselves, because, for instance, if that American mission to
+negotiate peace had been staying at the hotel which we stayed at, Abe, a
+bill would have been submitted like this, Abe:
+
+
+            "MM. American Mission to Negotiate Peace
+             TO HOTEL SE'ESCROQUERIE ET LONDRES, DR.
+
+            Terms, net cash        800 rooms; 8 baths
+                                       Tel.: 6060 Rivoli
+
+March, 1919:   To entertaining MM. Orlando and Sonnino, as follows:
+  Table overturned and following articles broken:
+    1 inkstand and mucilage-bottle.                         Fr.  24.50
+    1 table-cover damaged by mucilage.                           45.00
+  Chairs injured as follows:
+    1 light chair thrown through window.                         58.00
+    1 heavy chair thrown through window.                         85.00
+  Labor as follows:
+    Sweeping up broken eye-glasses.                               2.00
+    Sweeping up hair.                                             3.00
+    Removing blood-stains from carpet.                            4.50
+Credit:
+  By one unclaimed hat, labeled 'Mike, the Popular Rome Hatter'.   .20
+                                                                 _____
+          Total                                             Fr. 382.40
+
+
+and not only would it have given away a whole lot of diplomatic secrets,
+but the American mission would also have got to pay a luxury tax of ten
+per cent. on the hotel's telephone number and a little mistake of a
+hundred francs in the addition."
+
+"But this here Hotel Crillon was a strictly first-class hotel, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "and with strictly first-class hotels it's the same in Europe
+as it is in this country, Mawruss; the rates are so fixed that it ain't
+necessary for the management to make mistakes in the bill, while the
+accounting department always figures the overhead so as to include the
+hotel's telephone number, the number of the guest's room, and, in the
+case of mountain-resort hotels, the altitude of the hotel above
+sea-level."
+
+"Well, that's just what I am driving into, Abe," Morris said. "Even when
+hotel bills are submitted weekly and the management has got his signed
+checks to show for it, Abe, nobody never realizes that he owes all that
+money to a hotel, y'understand, and when at the end of the peace
+commission's tenancy the hotel management sends in its final bill, Abe,
+there's going to be considerable argument between Mr. Joseph Grew, the
+secretary of the commission, and all them Peace Conferencers, expert and
+otherwise, as to who ordered what and when, y'understand, which I see by
+the newspapers, Abe, that Mr. Grew has already begun an investigation
+about who authorized the serving of one hundred bottles tchampanyer wine
+on June 14th, and if Mr. Grew couldn't trace the party which signed for
+one hundred bottles tchampanyer wine on June 14th, y'understand, what
+chance does he have of finding out who is responsible for each and
+every one of the hundreds of checks with illegible signatures which is
+bound to show up in the final accounting for such articles as scrambled
+eggs, bacon, and coffee, which any Peace Conferencers might have signed
+for, whether his home town was in a dry state or not, Abe."
+
+"And Mr. Grew wouldn't get no sympathy from the President, neither,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "which, when the morning mail arrives at the White
+House nowadays just as Mr. Wilson is saying to Mrs. Wilson, '_Some_
+coffee, mommer!'--because the average American has got to be home from
+Europe at least a month before a good cup of coffee ceases to become a
+miracle, Mawruss--it won't take more than two letters from Mr. Grew
+asking Mr. Wilson does he remember whether at the conference between
+him, Clemenceau, Lord George, Venezuelas, and Baron Ishii, held in
+Parlor A on March 22d, did or did not somebody order a rye-bread tongue
+sandwich and a split of Evian water, and if so to please sign inclosed
+check for same, _non pro tunc_ as of March 22d, 1919, understand me,
+before the only effect an envelope addressed in the handwriting of Mr.
+Grew will have on Mr. Wilson is that he is going to throw it unopened
+into the waste-paper basket without so much as saying, 'I wonder what
+that _schlemiel_ wants from me _now_.'"
+
+"As a matter of fact, Abe, the price of food 'ain't interested Mr.
+Wilson since a few days ago when he asked Mrs. Wilson, 'How much are we
+paying now for coffee, mommer?' and Mrs. Wilson says fifty-eight cents
+a pound, and Mr. Wilson says for the love of Mike, and then asks what
+she is paying for eggs, and Mrs. Wilson says at Ginsburg's Economy
+Market eighty-five cents a dozen, and Mr. Wilson says he would just as
+lieve have some hash from last night's rib roast, and Mrs. Wilson says
+she doesn't blame him and so would she, but that they are going to have
+that rib roast cold for lunch on account Ginsburg is practically
+_schenking_ his customers rib roast for fifty-five cents a pound,"
+Morris said.
+
+"And how did you come to hear about this conversation, Mawruss?" Abe
+asked.
+
+"I didn't hear about it," Morris replied, "but I presume it took place
+the morning after the newspapers printed the report of the Federal Trade
+Commission about the packing-houses, Abe, because a similar conversation
+happened at my breakfast-table that morning, and I presume it also
+happened at yours."
+
+"Well, it's time that business men begun to take a little interest in
+the cost of what they are eating, Mawruss," Abe said. "On account of the
+increase in the price of food, Mawruss, the business man is now paying
+more money to all the people which is working for him, except his wife."
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris said, "but the business man which is mean enough
+to hold down his wife to twenty dollars a week housekeeping money simply
+because the principle of the closed shop and collective bargaining can't
+be applied to an American household the way it could to a Turkish
+harem, Abe, don't live so well as he used to. Former times when such a
+man complained to his wife that the chicken was a little tough,
+y'understand, she used to say, 'What do you want for twenty dollars a
+week housekeeping money--mocking-birds?' Nowadays, however, the best
+that such a man has got to complain about being tough is round steak,
+and his wife now says, 'What do you want for twenty dollars a week
+housekeeping money--chicken?'"
+
+"And the standard of living for even business men is going down so fast,
+Mawruss, that next year when such a man complains that the tripe is
+tough, she is going to say, 'What do you expect for twenty dollars a
+week housekeeping money--round steak?'" Abe said, "and if them packers
+goes on trying to control the entire bill of fare from soup to cereals,
+Mawruss, it would only be a matter of a few years when such a husband is
+going to complain that the puffed jute is tough, and his wife is going
+to ask him, 'What do you expect for twenty dollars a week housekeeping
+money--ensilage?' which, if something ain't done pretty soon to stop
+dealers boosting the price of food, Mawruss, twenty dollars a week
+housekeeping money ain't going to feed a family of hearty-eating
+canary-birds."
+
+"I suppose that in the end, Abe, the business man would be obliged to
+admit that the high cost of living is just as expensive for his wife as
+it is for his other employees," Morris concluded, "and, without the
+formality of a strike, the wives of business men will be conceded a new
+wage-scale of from thirty to forty dollars, in place of the old scale of
+twenty dollars, for a working-week of one hundred and sixty-eight hours,
+because it don't make no difference if the Senate confirms the League of
+Nations or not, Abe, married business men will never live up to the
+clause which provides for an international working-day of eight
+hours--anyhow, so far as their wives is concerned."
+
+"That ain't the only clause of the Peace Treaty which wouldn't be lived
+up to, Mawruss," Abe said, "because I see that already the Germans is
+having their troubles restoring to the British government this here
+skull of the Sultan Mkwiwa, Mawruss, which, according to Section Eight,
+I think it is, of the Treaty of Peace, was removed from German East
+Africa and taken to Germany."
+
+"But the Germans claim that it was never taken from German East Africa,
+but was buried there, and they misremember the name of the cemetery,"
+Morris declared.
+
+"I know they do, and I couldn't understand their attitude in the matter,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "Why don't they go to work and send England any old
+skull, which a skull is a skull, ain't it?--and one skull is just as
+much like another skull as two pinochle decks with the same backs, and
+who is going to check them up on it no matter what kind of a skull they
+send? Besides, Mawruss, the people who had pull enough to get that skull
+section inserted in the Treaty of Peace is going to be divided into two
+classes when that skull arrives in East Africa, _anyway_--namely, those
+who will throw a bluff that they recognized the skull as the sultan's
+skull as soon as they laid eyes on it, y'understand, and those who will
+refuse to concede that any skull is the sultan's skull. There will also,
+of course, be a large class of East Africans who won't give a nickel one
+way or the other; so if Germany couldn't find the sultan's skull, let
+them send England an _ersatz_ sultan's skull with a genwine sultan's
+label on it. They've been doing that sort of thing for years with
+American safety-razors, American folding-cameras, and American
+typewriters; why should they now take it so particular with a German
+East African sultan?"
+
+"Then you think there is something suspicious about the way Germany is
+acting over this here skull?" Morris suggested.
+
+"I wouldn't call it exactly suspicious, Mawruss," Abe said, "but at the
+same time I wouldn't put it beyond the Germans that, after the Allies
+gets through discussing together whether or not the sultan's skull is
+genwine, they would suddenly awake to the fact that at least two of the
+million-mark bills which Germany paid over in the indemnity,
+y'understand, are _not_. So, therefore, my advice to England is, examine
+the German indemnity carefully, and don't let no returned sultan's skull
+distract your attention, even if it would be made of plaster of Paris
+with a round hold on top for keeping matches in it, and on the bottom a
+sign, reading:
+
+"_Grüss Aus Schveningen_."
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS INCLUDES LIBELED MILLIONAIRES,
+ENFORCED PROHIBITION, AND SHANTUNG
+
+
+"Well I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, recently, "I doubt very
+much if I would be able to say offhand who Arnold Benedict was if I
+would be asked such a question by a smart lawyer in a court-room full of
+reporters, which, if they hadn't happened to be there at that particular
+moment, would of probably gone to their graves without even the faintest
+suspicion that you didn't spell _ignorant idealist_ with two l's,
+y'understand."
+
+"Still, Abe, you've got to admit that plaintiff in a libel suit don't
+deserve much sympathy if he don't post himself before going on the stand
+as to the meaning of the libel, so as to anyhow be able to say that it
+_was_ a libel and not a compliment, understand me," Morris said.
+
+"He took his lawyers' word for it that it was a libel, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "and, anyhow, Mawruss, nobody has got a right to call anybody an
+ignorant philantropist even, no matter how ignorant such a philantropist
+might be about what the word philantropist would mean."
+
+"And do you _know_ what it means?" Morris asked.
+
+"A philantropist is a feller who gives big sums of moneys to
+orphan-asylums, hospitals, and colleges, and if he could afford it he's
+a philantropist, Mawruss, and if he couldn't, then he's a sucker, and
+that is what is called a philantropist," Abe said, "which, if I didn't
+know what it meant, Mawruss, I ain't such an ignorant idealist that I
+would use such a word in front of you and expect you not to try to trip
+me up on it."
+
+"I see you've also been looking up what ignorant idealist means," Morris
+observed.
+
+"And I ain't very peculiar that way, neither, Mawruss," Abe admitted,
+"because I bet yer that in the last two days at least five million
+people has been looking up in the dictionary what that word idealist
+means and not knowing even _then_ what it means, y'understand, and still
+that 'ain't prevented them from knocking Mr. Ford, Mawruss."
+
+"But the fact remains, Abe, that them five million people ain't suing
+nobody for calling them ignorant idealists," Morris interrupted.
+
+"Also, Mawruss, they ain't running one of the largest industrial plants
+in the country on a profit-sharing basis with several thousand
+employees," Abe declared, "which there is a whole lot of big
+manufacturers in this country who could go on the stand at a moment's
+notice and pass a cross-examination with a hundred-per-cent. mark on all
+them words which you read in them medical journals you pick up from the
+doctor's desk in his private office when he excuses himself for a minute
+to answer the 'phone and which you put down so quick and pretend you
+'ain't been reading when he comes back again, if you know what I mean.
+And furthermore, if these same big manufacturers was elected to the
+United States Senate to-morrow they could make a speech against doing
+away with child labor in words of six syllables, y'understand, and would
+probably make such a speech, because the trouble with most big
+manufacturers is not that they are ignorant, understand me, but that
+they ain't idealists, Mawruss."
+
+"Just the same, Abe, a man should ought to know what he don't know and
+side-step it," Morris said.
+
+"But the way it is in this country, Mawruss, a multimillionaire can't
+side-step it. The newspapers won't let him, because if he gets a
+reputation for having made fifty million dollars in the safety-pin
+business, we would say, for example, and news gets so scarce in the
+newspapers that somebody starts a discussion about which is the biggest
+musician, Kreisler _oder_ Zimbalist, y'understand, right away the editor
+sends out reporters to interview the most prominent men in the country
+as to what their opinion is in the matter, and naturally one of the
+first men such a reporter would call on is Harris J. Rosenbaum, the
+Safety-pin King. Now, what is Rosenbaum going to do under the
+circumstances? Is he going to admit to the reporter that up to date he
+has been so busy in his safety-pin plant that he 'ain't had time to
+post himself as to whether Kreisler and Zimbalist is performers on the
+trombone _oder_ the mouth-organ? _Oser!_ He finds out from the reporter
+that these two fellers has got a piece-work wage-scale for playing on
+the fiddle of five dollars a note, net cash, and he says that both of
+them is wonderful fiddlers, y'understand, but that to his mind Kreisler
+plays with more of the artistic temperature than Zimbalist, or if he
+doesn't actually say so, y'understand, the reporter goes back to his
+newspaper and _says_ he said so, and the consequence is that when in
+next Sunday's paper Rosenbaum reads,
+
+
+KREISLER GREATER ARTIST
+SAYS SAFETY-PIN KING,
+
+
+he not only begins to believe that he did say it, but also that it's
+funny how a man can go on for years being an expert on fiddle-playing
+and only find it out by accident, as it were."
+
+"And I suppose that a few months later, on the strength of what he
+_don't_ know about fiddle-playing, Abe," Morris remarked, "Harris J.
+Rosenbaum, the Safety-pin King, is running for United States Senator and
+comes pretty near getting elected, too."
+
+"There don't seem to be no reason why he wouldn't be," Abe declared,
+"because just so long as United States Senators is selected by election
+and not by a competitive examination, Mawruss, there will always be a
+certain percentage of Harris J. Rosenbaums in the United States Senate,
+which you can't keep millionaires out of public office, if they want to
+fool away their time in such things, and after all, Mawruss, it ain't
+having brains which makes a man a millionaire, it's having a million
+dollars."
+
+"Then you don't blame Mr. Ford for the way he has behaved himself, Abe?"
+Morris asked.
+
+"Not in the least," Abe said. "Millionaires behave the way their
+fellow-countrymen encourages them to behave, Mawruss, which to my mind,
+Mawruss, the only way to learn a millionaire like Mr. Ford his place is
+not to notice him and, in particular, not to pay no attention to
+anything he says, and such a millionaire would quick subside and devote
+himself to the manufacture of safety-pins or the best four-cylinder car
+for the money in the world, as the case may be, which I see in the paper
+that the refusal of the United States Senate to confirm the Treaty of
+Peace looks quite certain to them people to whom the winning of the
+Willard-Dempsey fight by Jeff Willard looked quite certain, Mawruss."
+
+"Well, to my mind, Abe, them round-robins is right to look into the
+Treaty and the League of Nations covenant before they confirm them,"
+Morris said. "Also, Abe, you couldn't blame them Senators for getting
+indignant about the Shantung settlement."
+
+"Personally I couldn't blame them and I couldn't praise them, Mawruss,
+because, like a hundred million other people in this country, not being
+in the silk business, Mawruss, I never had the opportunity to find out
+nothing about even where Shantung was on the map till they printed such
+a map in the papers last week, and if you've got to go and look it up on
+a map first to find out whether you should ought to be indignant or not,
+Mawruss, you couldn't get exactly red in the face over Japan taking
+Shantung, unless you are a Senator from the Pacific coast, where people
+have got such a wonderful color in their cheeks that Easterners think
+it's the climate, when, as a matter of fact, it is thinking about
+Japanese unrestricted immigration that does it."
+
+"But the Senators represents the people which elects them, Abe," Morris
+said, "and if it don't take much to make a Californian indignant about
+any little thing he suspects Japan is doing, y'understand, then Senator
+Hiram Johnson has got a right to go 'round looking permanently purple
+over this here Shantung affair. As for the other Senators, Abe, the
+theory on which they talk each other deaf, dumb, and blind is that they
+are doing a job which it is impossible for the hundred million people of
+this country to do for themselves. They are saving their constituents
+the trouble of leaving their homes and spending a lot of time on
+government-controlled railroads, going to and from Washington to make
+their own laws, y'understand. That is what representative government is,
+Abe, and if the people of this country couldn't get indignant over what
+ain't right in this here Treaty of Peace and League of Nations without
+working up such indignation by several days' careful investigation of
+the reasons for getting indignant, then it is up to the United States
+Senate to get indignant for them, even if the individual Senators has
+got to sit up with wet towels 'round their heads and strong black coffee
+stewing on the gas-stove, so as not to fall asleep over the job of
+letting their feelings get the better of their judgment in working up a
+six-hour speech which will give the country the impression that it just
+came pouring out on the spur of the moment as a consequence of the
+Senators' red-hot indignation about this here Shantung."
+
+"It's too bad that the House of Representatives couldn't be mind-readers
+like the Senate, Mawruss, and get off indignant speeches about what is
+making certain sections of the country so indignant, Mawruss, that if
+their Congressmen is going to really and truly represent them, there
+would be a regular epidemic of apoplexy in Washington," Abe said, "which
+I am talking about the enforcement of prohibition, Mawruss."
+
+"For myself, Abe, I couldn't understand why it should be necessary to
+pass a law to enforce a law," Morris remarked, "because, if that is the
+case, what is going to be the end? After they pass this here law to
+enforce the prohibition law, are they going to pass another law to
+enforce the law to enforce prohibition, or do they expect that this here
+enforcement law will enforce itself, and if so, then why couldn't the
+prohibition law be enforced without a law to enforce it?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, a dyed-in-wool Dry could be as hopeful
+as a man could possibly be on soft drinks, and in his heart of hearts he
+must got to know that if Congress would sit from now till the arrival of
+_Elia Hanov'e_ and did nothing all that time but pass an endless chain
+of enforcement laws, prohibition will never be enforced except in the
+proportion of 2.75 enforcement to 97.25 violation, anyhow in those parts
+of the country where the hyphen Americans live and like their beverages
+with a hyphen in it, because, Mawruss, where a hundred per cent. of the
+population of a certain district has been drinking beer and light wines
+since 12 A.M. on Rosh Hashonah in the year one up to and including
+twelve midnight on June 30, 1919, y'understand, and seeing no harm in
+it, understand me, not only would an act of Congress fail to change the
+hearts and conscience of such people, but there could be an earthquake,
+a cyclone, and anything else which a confirmed Dry would call a judgment
+on them people, and still they wouldn't see no harm in it."
+
+"Then what is the country going to do to enforce the prohibition law?"
+Morris asked.
+
+"I don't know," Abe said; "but one thing is certain, you can't change
+people's habits on and after a certain hour on a certain date by putting
+a law into effect on such date. You might just so well expect that, if
+the Senate should confirm the provision handing over Shantung to the
+Japanese, all the Chinamen in Shantung is immediately going to open
+stores for the sale of imitation expensive vases and fake silk
+embroidery, start factories for the manufacture of phony Swedish
+safety-matches, and do all the other things which Japanese do so
+successfully that any reputable business man is willing to take a chance
+on getting indignant about Shantung without even asking his stenographer
+to look it up for him."
+
+"But I thought you thought that prohibition would be a good thing, Abe?"
+Morris said.
+
+"I do," Abe said. "I think brown stewed fish, sweet and sour, the way my
+Rosie cooks it, is a good thing, but at the same time, Mawruss, I
+realize that my taste in this respect is supported only by what you
+might call a very limited public sentiment, consisting of Rosie and me,
+y'understand, and the rest of the household couldn't stand to eat it at
+all. So, therefore, when we have sweet and sour fish we cook for the
+rest of the family eggs or meat, and in that way we have happiness in
+the home. Now a country is a home for the people in it, ain't it, and
+the main thing is that they should stick together and be happy, and how
+could they be happy if even the great majority of the people tells the
+rest what they should and shouldn't eat or drink?"
+
+"But you admit that _schnapps_ is harmful, don't you?" Morris insisted.
+
+"And I also admit that sweet and sour fish ain't exactly a health food,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "In fact, you wouldn't believe what a lot of
+bicarbonate of soda Rosie and me uses up between us after we eat that
+fish; but even so, Mawruss, after you have said all you could say
+against that fish, the fact remains that Rosie and me, we like it."
+
+"Well, even if the people do like booze, and it does them harm, I say
+they shouldn't have it," Morris said.
+
+"I agree with you down to the ground, Mawruss," Abe said. "And I don't
+care if it is booze or sweet and sour, you are still right; but if sweet
+and sour fish was prohibited, although the fish and the onions and the
+sugar and the vinegar which you make it out of _wasn't_, y'understand,
+and in spite of the law, Rosie and me liked it and wanted to continue to
+eat it, the question then is and the question is going to continue to
+be:
+
+"HOW ARE YOU GOING TO STOP IT?"
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE APPROACHING ROYAL VISIT
+
+
+"I see where the King of England, to show his appreciation of what we
+done it during the war, Mawruss, is going to send his eldest son, the
+King of England, junior, or whatever his name is, to visit us," Abe
+Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.
+
+"Yes?" Morris replied. "Well, why don't the King, senior, come himself?"
+
+"You must think that kings has got nothing better to do with their time
+than fool it away on ocean steamers, Mawruss," Abe said. "A king of
+England is a very busy man, Mawruss, which I bet yer right now he is
+dated up as far ahead as Purim, 1921, laying corner-stones, opening
+exhibitions, making the speech of the afternoon or the evening, as the
+case may be, at assorted luncheons, teas, and dinners; trying on
+uniforms; signing warrants at a fee of two guineas and sixpence--not
+including three cents war tax--for the appointment of tea, coffee, or
+cocoa manufacturers as purveyors of tea, coffee, or cocoa to the royal
+household, y'understand, and doing all the other things which a king
+does in England and a prominent Elk does in America."
+
+"Well, anyhow, I suppose the King of England, junior, must of done a lot
+of hard work during the war which makes the King, senior, think that it
+is time the boy had a vacation."
+
+"_Oser!_" Abe said. "So far as I can make out, the young feller made a
+couple of tourist's tours of the battle-fields, Mawruss, and maybe
+helped out once or twice with the corner-stone laying; but otherwise,
+for all the actual fighting he did, instead of being the King of
+England's son during the war, he might just so well have been Mr. Ford's
+son."
+
+"Well, kings, junior or senior, ain't supposed to fight, Abe," Morris
+said. "The most their countries expects of them is that they should
+share the privations of their subjects by reducing the cost of running
+their homes till they are living as economically during war-times as a
+Texas oil millionaire does during peace-times. There was days together
+there, in the terrible winter of 1916-1917, when the only dishes which
+appeared on the tables of European kings, outside of green-turtle soup
+and roast pheasant, was hothouse asparagus and fresh strawberry
+ice-cream, Abe. The sufferings of kings, junior and senior, during the
+war 'ain't half been told in the newspapers, Abe."
+
+"The Kings of England, junior and senior, is very popular in England at
+that, Mawruss," Abe said, "which every week the illustrated papers
+prints picture after picture of both of them Kings looking every inch
+kings, or anyhow openers or better, y'understand; and in fact, Mawruss,
+the English-reading public never seems to get tired of seeing pictures
+of building operations, just so long as there is one of them Kings in it
+laying the corner-stone or turning the first sod of the excavation."
+
+"For that matter, Abe, them brown illustrated supplements to American
+Sunday newspapers which rubs off so on Palm Beach suits and ladies'
+white gloves, 'ain't absolutely declared a boycott on kings' pictures,
+neither," Morris declared. "I suppose that pictures of them Kings with
+or without Marshal Haig reviewing soldiers and handing out medals is
+easy worth several hundred dollars a week to the dry cleaners of New
+York City alone."
+
+"Did I say they didn't?" Abe asked. "Which, considering the trouble and
+expense this country was put to over the Declaration of Independence,
+Mawruss, you would be surprised how much interest a whole lot of ladies
+takes in the English royal family. Here a short time ago the King,
+senior's, father a brother's daughter got married beneath her to one of
+the chief stockholders of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, Mawruss, and
+you would think from the way my Rosie carried on about it that the
+girl's mother was going round saying what did she ever do that her
+daughter should go to work and marry a feller that made his living that
+way, and what a mercy it was the grandmother didn't live to see it; the
+theory being, Mawruss, that when a king's relation marries a healthy
+young chief stockholder with nothing flowing in his veins but the blood
+of a couple of generations of managing directors, y'understand, it is
+the equivalence of a bank president's daughter eloping with a
+professional dancer in a cabaret."
+
+"And when the King, junior, arrives in this country there is going to be
+a lot of disappointment among them ladies which also gets their pictures
+printed by the Sunday supplement sitting around cross-legged in
+ankle-length, awning-striped skirts at dawg-shows, in such a way that
+even the dawgs must feel embarrassed if they've got the ordinary dawg's
+sense of decency, Abe," Morris said, "because I see by the paper that
+the King, senior, has instructed his son that while in New York he
+should live on board the English battle-ship which is bringing him here
+so as not to have no truck with any millionaires."
+
+"I suppose the old man thinks that one managing director's child in the
+royal family is enough," Abe suggested.
+
+"Well," Morris said, "looking at him from the King's standpoint, it will
+save the young feller's mother a lot of anxiety to know that he is safe
+on board an English battle-ship every night instead of running around
+the streets of a country where everybody, up to and including the
+President himself, is the young feller's social inferior."
+
+"And also, you can't blame the old man if he ain't taking no risks when
+the young feller gets home and his mother asks him did he have a good
+time, that two Right Honorable General Practitioners in Waiting would
+got to work over her for an hour or so bringing her out of one swoon
+after another as the result of her son saying, 'I'll _say_ I did,'" Abe
+observed.
+
+"Still, at the same time, Abe," Morris said, "it is going to be a
+wonderful opportunity for the young feller, even if he gets home again,
+he would occasionally use the words, '_You've said it_,' instead of
+'_Quite so_.'"
+
+"But that ain't the idea in the King's sending him over here, Mawruss,"
+Abe said. "The intention is that it is a wonderful opportunity for the
+American people to see how a king looks and at the same time not have it
+come off on your gloves. In other words, Mawruss, it's as a favor to us
+that the young feller is coming over here, and the chances is that his
+personal feelings in the matter is very much the same as yours or mine
+would be if we was about to make Sarahcuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit,
+and Chicago with a line of popular-price garments. We would do it in the
+course of making a living and not for the education of the thing."
+
+"Then my advice to the young feller and his father is that he should
+stay home in these times when the building trade is looking up so, Abe,
+and help out with the corner-stone laying," Morris said, "and give the
+people of this country a real treat by sending over Lord George or
+Marshall Field Haig, which while this here King, junior, is a decent,
+respectable young feller and his father is also a gentleman that nobody
+could say a word against no matter if it does cost the English people
+sixpence in the pound of the ten shillings in the pound which they've
+got to pay income tax in order that the English royal family should
+continue to live in the style to which it has become accustomed during
+the past five hundred years, Abe, still, at the same time, if I could be
+standing on the curb watching Lord George or this here Haig driving by,
+it would give me a real thrill to think that I am at last looking at the
+face of a man who for over four years has been working night and day to
+put over the biggest thing that has ever been put over in the history of
+the world, y'understand; whereas, what for a thrill would I get from
+looking at the face of a man who, putting it big, has been laying as
+many corner-stones as all the bricklayers' unions in the American
+Federation of Labor and has been presiding at as many banquets as this
+here Irving J. Cobb and Gustave Thomas combined?"
+
+"At that, there will be a whole lot of ambulance calls for people who
+has fainted away in the crowds that will collect to see the King,
+junior, drive up Fifth Avenue, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"I know there will," Morris said; "and if it rested with me, Abe, I
+wouldn't spend so much as two cents for mathematic spirits of ammonia to
+bring them to, neither, because them crowds in America is helping along
+a European idea which we sent across several million American soldiers
+to wipe out. Them American crowds will be encouraging European kings to
+believe that even in America we still think it is all right for the
+ordinary people of Europe to sacrifice their lives and their property,
+in order that them corner-stone layers shall cop out the credit."
+
+"As a matter of fact, Mawruss," Abe said, "Mr. Wilson invited the young
+feller to visit America."
+
+"_Yow_, President Wilson invited him!" Morris exclaimed. "After the
+experience President Wilson had in Paris staying with the Murats he must
+have a pretty good idea what it means to be eaten out of house and home
+by the people that tags along with a king or a president, which I bet
+yer the most that Mr. Wilson said when he was visiting England last
+Christmas was that he told the King, senior, if he was ever in
+Washington to be sure and look him up, or to not to fail to let him know
+if he was ever in Washington, or that the latch-string was always out at
+the White House, or any one of the hundreds of things that ordinarily
+the most inhospitable person in the world is perfectly safe in saying
+without any one taking him up on it."
+
+"Well, that's where Mr. Wilson made a big mistake, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"because evidently this here King, junior, couldn't take a joke,
+y'understand; which, the way it looks now, Mawruss, even if Mr. Wilson
+had said, 'I hope to see you again sometime,' he would of immediately
+taken out of his vest pocket such a little book which you put
+memorandums in it and said how about August 30, 1919, or would
+September 10th suit Mr. Wilson better, and that's the way it would of
+went."
+
+"Anyhow, that's neither here nor there, Abe," Morris said, "because, no
+matter how many times nowadays Mrs. Wilson is going to ask Mr. Wilson
+why he couldn't of said good-by, King, and let it go at that, because
+such people, if you give them the least little encouragement, they would
+use you like you was running a boarding-house already, understand me, it
+ain't going to improve matters for Mr. Wilson when the young feller does
+arrive."
+
+"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "It wouldn't do that King, junior, no harm to
+rough it a little there at the White House, Mawruss."
+
+"What do you mean--rough it?" Morris demanded. "Don't you suppose the
+President of the United States eats just so good in his own home as the
+King of England does in his, Abe? It would be the least of Mr. Wilson's
+worries if the young feller would expect chicken _à la_ king and fillet
+of kingfish for breakfast, dinner, and supper already, but when it comes
+to making up a list of the guests which would be invited to meet this
+here King of England, junior, that is where Mr. Wilson is wise he would
+get himself run over by a trolley-car or something, and sustain enough
+injuries to keep him confined to his bed from a few days before the
+young feller arrives until the morning after the British ambassador
+successfully slips it to the young feller that the people in Washington
+is beginning to wonder if a king of England 'ain't got no home,
+y'understand."
+
+"But why couldn't Mr. Wilson give one big dinner for the King, junior,
+to which he would invite the Senate and House of Representatives in a
+body, and have the whole thing over at one _schlag_, y'understand?"
+
+"Say," Morris said, "the dining-room at the White House is a big place,
+but it ain't exactly Madison Square Garden, and it ain't even Childs's
+Boardwalk restaurant, neither."
+
+"Then let him invite them to a series of meals in rotation
+alphabetically, and let it go at that," Abe suggested.
+
+"Before that would get him out of his troubles and not hold up the
+confirmation of the Peace Treaty and League of Nations, Abe, Mr. Wilson
+would first got to get an act of Congress passed amending the order of
+the alphabet and making L for Lodge, J for Johnson, and R for Reed come
+ahead of H for Hitchcock, who, of course, wouldn't mind helping out Mr.
+Wilson by allowing himself to be shifted to the third or fourth
+sitting," Morris said.
+
+"Maybe it would be a good thing to let the alphabet stand and square
+things with Borah and Brandegee," Abe retorted.
+
+"It might even be still better if Mr. Wilson would write the King,
+junior, to be so good and postpone his visit until after Inauguration
+Day, 1921, and put the entire problem up to the next President, whoever
+he might be," Morris said.
+
+"He might even be Mr. Wilson," Abe concluded; "because, when it comes to
+a job like entertaining this here King, junior, what American is anxious
+to tackle it, even if by doing so he could become President even? Am I
+right or wrong?"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS OF
+
+THOMAS HARDY
+
+    The New Thin-Paper Edition of the greatest living English novelist
+    is issued in two bindings: Red Limp-Leather and Red Flexible Cloth,
+    12mo. Frontispiece in each volume.
+
+
+_DESPERATE REMEDIES_
+_FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD_
+_A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES_
+_THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA_
+_JUDE THE OBSCURE_
+_A LAODICEAN_
+_LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES_
+_THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE_
+_A PAIR OF BLUE EYES_
+_THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE_
+_TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES_
+_THE TRUMPET MAJOR_
+_TWO ON A TOWER_
+_UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE_
+_THE WELL-BELOVED_
+_WESSEX TALES_
+_THE WOODLANDERS_
+
+
+          HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+NEW YORK    ESTABLISHED 1817    LONDON
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS OF
+
+WILL N. HARBEN
+
+
+     "His people talk as if they had not been in books before, and they
+     talk all the more interestingly because they have for the most part
+     not been in society, or ever will be. They express themselves in
+     the neighborly parlance with a fury of fun, of pathos, and
+     profanity which is native to their region. Of all our localists, as
+     I may call the type of American writers whom I think the most
+     national, no one has done things more expressive of the life he was
+     born to than Mr. Harben."
+
+WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.
+
+
+_THE HILLS OF REFUGE_
+_THE INNER LAW_
+_ABNER DANIEL_
+_ANN BOYD. Illustrated_
+_DIXIE HART. Frontispiece_
+_GILBERT NEAL. Frontispiece_
+_MAM' LINDA_
+_JANE DAWSON. Frontispiece_
+_PAUL RUNDEL. Frontispiece_
+_POLE BAKER._
+_SECOND CHOICE. Frontispiece_
+_THE DESIRED WOMAN. Frontispiece_
+_THE GEORGIANS._
+_THE NEW CLARION. Frontispiece_
+_THE REDEMPTION OF KENNETH GALT. Frontispiece_
+_THE SUBSTITUTE._
+_WESTERFELT._
+
+
+_Post 8vo, Cloth_
+
+          HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+NEW YORK    ESTABLISHED 1817    LONDON
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY
+
+MARGARET DELAND
+
+
+_THE RISING TIDE. Illustrated_
+_AROUND OLD CHESTER. Illustrated_
+_THE COMMON WAY. 16mo_
+_DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE. Illustrated_
+_AN ENCORE. Illustrated_
+_GOOD FOR THE SOUL. Illustrated_
+_THE HANDS OF ESAU. Illustrated_
+_THE AWAKENING OF HELENA RICHIE. Illustrated_
+_THE IRON WOMAN. Illustrated_
+_OLD CHESTER TALES. Illustrated_
+_PARTNERS. Illustrated_
+_R. J.'S MOTHER. Illustrated_
+_THE VOICE. Illustrated_
+_THE WAY TO PEACE. Illustrated_
+_WHERE THE LABORERS ARE FEW. Illustrated_
+
+
+          HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+NEW YORK    ESTABLISHED 1817    LONDON
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY
+
+SIR GILBERT PARKER
+
+
+_THE WORLD FOR SALE_
+_THE MONEY MASTER_
+_THE JUDGMENT HOUSE_
+_THE RIGHT OF WAY_
+_THE LADDER OF SWORDS_
+_THE WEAVERS_
+_THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG_
+_WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC_
+_THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING_
+_NORTHERN LIGHTS_
+_PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE_
+_AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH_
+_A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS_
+_CUMNER'S SON, AND OTHER SOUTH SEA FOLK_
+
+
+          HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+NEW YORK    ESTABLISHED 1817    LONDON
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+
+The following typographic errors were corrected:
+p. 55: changed Decclaration to Declaration
+p. 64: changed Kasier to Kaiser
+p. 65: changed single quote to double quote
+p. 69: changed Kasier to Kaiser
+p. 71: added closing parenthesis to end of (b)
+p. 167: added missing word "be" to "by such instrumentalities could
+          rendered"
+p. 204: added missing period
+]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things, by 
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Potash And Perlmutter Settle Things, by Montague Glass.
+    </title>
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+Project Gutenberg's Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things, by Montague Glass
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
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+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things
+
+Author: Montague Glass
+
+Release Date: November 28, 2006 [EBook #19948]
+
+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE ***
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+</pre>
+
+<h1>POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS</h1>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">Books by</span><br />
+<span style="font-size: larger">MONTAGUE GLASS</span><br />
+<br />
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS<br />
+WORRYING WON'T WIN
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p class="center">
+HARPER &amp; BROTHERS NEW YORK<br />
+[<span class="smcap">Established</span> 1817]</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><a name="image01" href="images/hires01.png"><img src="images/thumb01.png" alt="Illustration:" /></a><br />"he gives
+himself dead
+away by
+getting sore."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS</h2>
+<p class="center">
+<i>by</i><br />
+<br />
+MONTAGUE GLASS<br />
+<br />
+<i>Author of "Worrying Won't Win"</i><br />
+<br />
+Harper &amp; Brothers Publishers<br />
+New York and London<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1919, by Harper &amp; Brothers<br />
+Printed in the United States of America<br />
+Published September, 1919</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table class="contents" summary="contents">
+<thead>
+<tr><th>CHAP.</th><th></th><th>PAGE</th></tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody>
+<tr><td>I.     </td><td><a href="#I">They Arrive, and So Does the President</a></td><td class="rightcell">1</td></tr>
+<tr><td>II.    </td><td><a href="#II">Settling the Preliminaries</a></td><td class="rightcell">15</td></tr>
+<tr><td>III.   </td><td><a href="#III">The President's Visit to England</a></td><td class="rightcell">24</td></tr>
+<tr><td>IV.    </td><td><a href="#IV">Everything Is Proceeding Satisfactorily&mdash;Maybe</a></td><td class="rightcell">33</td></tr>
+<tr><td>V.     </td><td><a href="#V">This Here Peace Conference&mdash;It Needs Publicity</a></td><td class="rightcell">42</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VI.    </td><td><a href="#VI">Joining the Legion of Honor</a></td><td class="rightcell">52</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VII.   </td><td><a href="#VII">Some Cruel and Unusual Punishments for the Kaiser</a></td><td class="rightcell">62</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VIII.  </td><td><a href="#VIII">It Enters on Its No-gold-casket Phase</a></td><td class="rightcell">72</td></tr>
+<tr><td>IX.    </td><td><a href="#IX">Worrying Should Begin at Home, Ain't It?</a></td><td class="rightcell">82</td></tr>
+<tr><td>X.     </td><td><a href="#X">The New Hungarian Rhapsody</a></td><td class="rightcell">92</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XI.    </td><td><a href="#XI">It Is Still Up in the Air, but You Can't Say the Same for Transatlantic Voyages</a></td><td class="rightcell">102</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XII.   </td><td><a href="#XII">This Here Victory Liberty Loan</a></td><td class="rightcell">112</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIII.  </td><td><a href="#XIII">When Is a Secret Treaty Secret?</a></td><td class="rightcell">122</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIV.   </td><td><a href="#XIV">The First Day of May</a></td><td class="rightcell">132</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XV.    </td><td><a href="#XV">The Peace Treaty as Good Reading</a></td><td class="rightcell">142</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVI.   </td><td><a href="#XVI">The German Roman Holiday and the Americanization of Americans</a></td><td class="rightcell">152</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVII.  </td><td><a href="#XVII">Mr. Wilson's Favor of the 20th Ulto. and Contents Noted</a></td><td class="rightcell">162</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVIII. </td><td><a href="#XVIII">Being Up in the Air, as Applied to Transatlantic Flights, Crown Jewels, and League of Nations Speeches</a></td><td class="rightcell">172</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIX.   </td><td><a href="#XIX">The Leak and Other Mysteries</a></td><td class="rightcell">182</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XX.    </td><td><a href="#XX">July the First and After</a></td><td class="rightcell">192</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXI.   </td><td><a href="#XXI">What the Public Wants, Economically and Theatrically</a></td><td class="rightcell">202</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXII.  </td><td><a href="#XXII">They Discuss the Signing of It</a></td><td class="rightcell">212</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXIII. </td><td><a href="#XXIII">The Recent Unpleasantness in Toledo, Ohio</a></td><td class="rightcell">222</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXIV.  </td><td><a href="#XXIV">Feeding the Peace Conferencers and the Household</a></td><td class="rightcell">232</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXV.   </td><td><a href="#XXV">What Are You Going to Do About It?  This Includes Libeled Millionaires, Enforced Prohibition, and Shantung</a></td><td class="rightcell">241</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXVI.  </td><td><a href="#XXVI">The Approaching Royal Visit</a></td><td class="rightcell">251</td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="List of Illustrations">
+<tr><td class="illusname"><a href="#image01">"He Gives Himself Dead Away by Getting Sore"</a></td>
+<td colspan="2" class="rightcell"><i>Frontispiece</i><br /></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="illusname"><a href="#image02">"I Wouldn't Blame Chairman Clemenceau
+Neither, Because if This Here Peace
+Conference Is Going to End This Side
+of Nineteen-fifty, It's Got to Be
+Speeded Up Some"</a></td>
+<td class="illuswhere"><i>Facing&nbsp;p.</i></td><td class="rightcell">44</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="illusname"><a href="#image03">"A Whole Lot of People Is So Badly Predicted
+to the Lapel-button Habit They
+Would Join Anything"</a></td>
+<td class="illuswhere">"</td><td class="rightcell">52</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="illusname"><a href="#image04">"... Which when You Consider that Mr.
+Wilson Started In&mdash;in a Small Way"</a></td>
+<td class="illuswhere">"</td><td class="rightcell">144</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h1>
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>THEY ARRIVE, AND SO DOES THE PRESIDENT</h3>
+
+
+<p>"<i>Nu</i>, what's the matter <i>now</i>?" Morris Perlmutter
+asked, as he entered the office one
+morning after the cessation of hostilities on the
+western front.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ai, tzuris!</i>" Abe moaned in reply, and for at
+least a minute he continued to rock to and fro
+in his chair and to make incoherent noises through
+his nostrils in the manner of a person suffering
+either from toothache or the recent cancelation
+of a large order.</p>
+
+<p>"It serves you right," Morris said. "I told
+you you shouldn't eat that liberty roast at Wasserbauer's
+yesterday. It used to give you the indigestion
+when it was known as <i>Koenigsburger
+Klops</i>, which it is like the German Empire now
+calling itself the German Republic; changing its
+name ain't going to alter its poisonous disposition
+none."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's right!" Abe said. "Make jokes, why
+don't you? You are worser as this here feller
+Zero."</p>
+
+<p>"What feller Zero?" Morris demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Zero the emperor what fiddled when Rome
+was burning," Abe replied. "He's got nothing
+on you. <i>You</i> would fiddle if Rome, Watertown,
+and Ogdensburg was burning."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you are talking about at
+all," Morris said. "And, besides, the feller's
+name was Nero, not Zero."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what you say," Abe commented,
+"which you also said that the operators was only
+bluffing and that they wouldn't strike on us in a
+thousand years, and considering that you said
+this only yesterday, Mawruss, it's already wonderful
+how time flies."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Morris said, "how could I figure that
+them lunatics is going to pick out the time when
+we've got practically no work for them and was
+going to fire them, anyway, to call a strike on
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>"You should <i>ought</i> to have figured that way,"
+Abe declared. "Didn't the Kaiser abdicate just
+before them Germans got ready to kick him out?"</p>
+
+<p>"The king business ain't the garment business,"
+Morris observed.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it ain't," Abe agreed. "Kings has got
+their worries, too, but when it comes to laying
+awake nights trying to figure out whether them
+designers somewheres in France is going to turn
+out long, full skirts or short, narrow skirts for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+fall and winter of nineteen-nineteen and nineteen-twenty,
+Mawruss, I bet yer the entire collection
+of kings, active or retired, doesn't got to take two
+grains of trional between them."</p>
+
+<p>"If everybody worried like <i>you</i> do, Abe,"
+Morris said, "the government would got to issue
+sleeping-powder cards like sugar cards and limit
+the consumption of sleeping-powders to not more
+than two pounds of sleeping-powders per person
+per month in each household."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, some one has got to do the worrying
+around here, Mawruss," Abe said, "which if it
+rested with you, y'understand, we could make
+up a line of samples for next season that wouldn't
+be no more like Paris designs than General Pershing
+looks like his pictures in the magazines."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, for that matter," Morris said, "we are
+just as good guessers as our competitors; on account
+the way things is going nowadays, nobody
+is going to try to make a trip to Paris to get
+fashion designs, because if he figured on crossing
+the ocean to buy model gowns for the fall and
+winter of nineteen-nineteen and nineteen-twenty,
+y'understand, between the time that he applied
+for his passport and the time the government
+issued it to him, y'understand, it would already
+be the spring and summer season of nineteen-twenty-four
+and nineteen-twenty-five. So the best
+thing we could do is to snoop round among the
+trade, and whatever we find the majority is making
+up for next year, we would make up the same
+styles also, and that's all there would be <i>to</i> it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We wouldn't do nothing of the kind," Abe
+declared. "I've been thinking this thing over, and
+I come to the conclusion that it's up to you to go
+over to Paris and see what is going on over there."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't got to go to Paris for that, Abe,"
+Morris said. "I can read the papers the same
+like anybody else, and just so long as there is a
+chance that the war would start up again and them
+hundred-mile guns is going to resume operations,
+I am content to get my ideas of Paris styles at a
+distance of three thousand miles if I never sold
+another garment as long as I live."</p>
+
+<p>"But when it <i>was</i> working yet, it only went off
+every twenty minutes," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care if it went off every Fourth of
+July," Morris said, "because if I went over there
+it would be just my luck that the peace nogotiations
+falls through and the Germans invent a
+gun leaving Frankfort ever hour on the hour and
+arriving in Paris daily, including Sundays, without
+leaving enough trace of me to file a proof of
+death with. Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," Abe said. "If <i>that's</i> the way you
+feel about it, <i>I</i> will go to Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> will go to Paris?" Morris exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" Abe declared. "The operators is on
+strike, business is rotten, and I'm sick and tired of
+paying life-insurance premiums, <i>anyway</i>. Besides,
+if Leon Sammet could get a passport, why
+couldn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say that faker is going to Paris
+to buy model gowns?" Morris demanded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I seen him on the Subway this morning, and
+the way he talked about how easy he got his
+passport, you would think that every time he was
+in Washington with a line of them masquerade
+costumes which Sammet Brothers makes up, if
+he didn't stop in and take anyhow a bit of lunch
+with the Wilsons, y'understand, the President
+raises the devil with Tumulty why didn't he let
+him <i>know</i> Leon Sammet was in town."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that settles it," Morris declared, reaching
+for his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going straight down to see Henry D.
+Feldman and tell that crook he should get for
+me a passport," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't positively do nothing of the
+kind," Abe said. "Did you ever hear the like?
+Wants to go to a lawyer to get a passport! An
+idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who would I go to, then&mdash;an osteaopath?"
+Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Leon Sammet told me all about it," Abe said.
+"You go down to a place on Rector Street where
+you sign an application, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I thought," Morris interrupted,
+"and the least what happens to fellers
+which signs applications without a lawyer, y'understand,
+is that six months later a truck-driver
+arrives one morning and says where should he
+leave the set of Washington Irving in one hundred
+and fifty-six volumes or the piano with stool and
+scarf complete, as the case may be. So I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+going to see Feldman, and if it costs me fifteen or
+twenty dollars, it's anyhow a satisfaction to know
+that when you do things with the advice of a smart
+crooked lawyer, nobody could put nothing over on
+you outside of your lawyer."</p>
+
+<p>When Morris returned an hour later, however,
+instead of an appearance of satisfaction, his face
+bore so melancholy an expression that for a few
+minutes Abe was afraid to question him.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu!</i>" he said at last. "I suppose you got
+turned down for being overweight or something?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;overweight?" Morris
+demanded. "What do you suppose I am applying
+for&mdash;a twenty-year endowment passport or
+one of them tontine passports with cash surrender
+value after three years?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is the matter you look so <i>rachmonos</i>?"
+Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"How <i>should</i> I look with the kind of partner
+which I've got it?" Morris asked. "Paris models
+he must got to got. Domestic designs ain't good
+enough for him. Such high-grade idees he's got,
+and I've got to suffer for it yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>don't</i> go to Europe. What do <i>I</i> care?"
+Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>We</i> must go," Morris replied.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;we?" Abe demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean you and me," Morris said. "Feldman
+says that just so long as it is one operation he
+would charge the same for getting one passport
+as for getting two, excepting the government fee
+of two dollars. So what do you think&mdash;I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+going to pay Henry D. Feldman two hundred
+dollars for getting me a passport when for two
+dollars extra I can get one for you also?"</p>
+
+<p>"But who is going to look after the store?"
+Abe exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Morris retorted, "you've got relations
+<i>enough</i> working around here, which every time
+you've hired a fresh one, you've given me this
+blood-is-redder-than-water stuff, and now is your
+chance to prove it. We wouldn't be away longer
+as six weeks at the outside, so go ahead, Abe.
+Here is the application for the passport. Sign
+your name on the dotted line and don't say no
+more about it."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, three weeks later,
+as they sat in the restaurant of their Paris hotel,
+"in a country where the coffee pretty near strangles
+you, even when it's got cream and sugar in it,
+y'understand, the cooking has <i>got</i> to be good,
+because in a two-dollar-a-day American plan hotel
+the management figures that no matter how
+rotten the food is, the guests will say, 'Well, anyhow,
+the coffee was good,' and get by with it <i>that</i>
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"On the other hand, Abe," Morris suggested,
+"maybe the French hotel people figure that if
+they only make the coffee bad enough, the guests
+would say, 'Well, one good thing, while the food
+is terrible, it ain't a marker on the coffee.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But the food tastes pretty good to me,
+Mawruss," Abe said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wait till you've been here a week, Abe,"
+Morris advised him. "Anything would taste
+good to you after what you went through on
+that boat."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;after what <i>I</i> went
+through?" Abe demanded. "What I went through
+don't begin to compare with what you went
+through, which honestly, Mawruss, there was
+times there on that second day out where you
+acted so terrible, understand me, that rather as
+witness such human suffering again, if any one
+would of really and truly had your interests at
+heart, they would of give a couple of dollars to a
+steward that he should throw you overboard and
+make an end of your misery."</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>that</i> so!" Morris retorted. "Well, let me
+tell you something, Abe. If you think <i>I</i> was in a
+bad way, don't kid yourself, when you lay there
+in your berth for three days without strength
+enough to take off even your collar and necktie,
+y'understand, that the captain said to the first officer
+ain't it wonderful what an elegant sailor that
+Mr. Potash is or anything <i>like</i> it, understand me,
+which on more than one occasion when I seen
+the way you looked, Abe, I couldn't help thinking
+of what chances concerns like the Equ<i>itta</i>ble
+takes when they pass a feller as A number one
+on his heart and kidneys, and ain't tried him out
+on so much as a Staten Island ferry-boat to see
+what kind of a traveler he is."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "did we
+come over here paying first-class fares for practically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+steerage accommodations to discuss life
+insurance, or did we come over here to buy model
+garments and get through with it, because believe
+me, it is no pleasure for me to stick around a
+country where you couldn't get no sugar or butter
+in a hotel, not if you was to show the head
+waiter a doctor's certificate with a hundred-dollar
+bill pinned on it. So let us go round to a
+few of these high-grade dressmakers and see how
+much we are going to get stuck for, and have it
+over with."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, they paid for the coffee and milk
+without sugar and the dark sour rolls without
+butter which nowadays form the usual hotel
+breakfast in France, and set out for the office of
+the commission agent whose place of business is
+the rendezvous for American garment-manufacturers
+in search of Parisian model gowns. The
+broad avenues in the vicinity of the hotel seemed
+unusually crowded even to people as accustomed
+to the congested traffic of lower Fifth Avenue
+as Abe and Morris were, but as they proceeded
+toward the wholesale district of Paris the streets
+became less and less traveled, until at length they
+walked along practically deserted thoroughfares.</p>
+
+<p>"And we thought business was rotten in
+America," Morris said. "Why, there ain't hardly
+one store open, hardly."</p>
+
+<p>Abe nodded gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks to me, Mawruss, that if there is any
+new garments being designed over here," he said,
+"they would be quiet morning gowns appropriate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+for attending something informal like a sale by a
+receiver in supplementary proceedings, or a more or
+less elaborate afternoon costume, not too showy,
+y'understand, but the kind of model that a fashionable
+Paris dressmaker could wear to a referee in
+bankruptcy's office so as not to make the attending
+creditors say she was her own best customer,
+understand me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what could you expect?" Morris said,
+as they toiled up the stairs to the commission
+agent's office. "The chances is that up to a
+couple of months ago, in a Paris dressmaker's
+shop, a customer arrived only every other week,
+whereas a nine-inch bomb arrived every twenty
+minutes, and furthermore, Abe, it was <i>you</i> that
+suggested this trip, not <i>me</i>, so now that we are
+over here, we should ought to make the best of it,
+and if this here commission agent can't show us
+no new designs, he could, anyhow, show us the
+sights."</p>
+
+<p>But even this consolation was denied them,
+for when they reached the commission agent's
+door it was locked and barred, as were all the
+other offices on that floor, and bore a placard
+reading:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+FERME<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">&Agrave; Cause Du Jour de F&ecirc;te</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nu!</i>" Morris said, after he had read and re-read
+the notice a number of times, "what are we
+going to do <i>now</i>?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This is the last hair," Abe said, "because you
+know how it is with these Frenchers, if they close
+for a death in the family, it is liable to be a matter
+of weeks already."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe it says gone to lunch, will be back in
+half an hour," Morris suggested, hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a chance," Abe declared. "More likely
+it means this elegant office with every modern
+improvement except an elevator, steam heat,
+and electric light, to be sublet, because it would
+be just our luck that the commission agent is
+back in New York right now with a line of brand-new
+model gowns, asking our bookkeeper will
+either of the bosses be back soon."</p>
+
+<p>"We wouldn't get back in ten years, I'll tell
+you that, unless we hustle," Morris declared.
+He led the way down-stairs to the ground floor,
+where, after a few minutes, they managed to
+attract the attention of the <i>concierge</i>, who emerged
+from her shelter at the foot of the stairs and in
+rapid French explained to Abe and Morris that
+all Paris was celebrating with a public holiday the
+arrival of President Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a funny thing about the French language,"
+Morris said, as she concluded. "Even if you don't
+understand what the people mean, you could
+'most always tell what they've been eating, which
+if the French people was limited by law to a ton
+of garlic a month per person, Abe, this lady would
+go to jail for the rest of her life."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Attendez!</i>" said the <i>concierge</i>. "<i>Au dessus il
+y&agrave; un monsieur qui parle anglais.</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She motioned for them to wait and ascended
+the stairs to the floor above, where they heard
+her knock on an office door. Evidently the person
+who opened it was annoyed by the interruption,
+for his voice&mdash;and to Abe and Morris it was
+a strangely familiar voice&mdash;was raised in angry
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Now listen," said the tenant, "I told you
+before that I've only got this place temporarily,
+and as long as I am in here I don't want you to
+do no cleaning nor nothing, because the air is
+none too good here as it is, and furthermore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He proceeded no farther, however, for Abe and
+Morris had taken the stairs three at a jump and
+began to wring his hands effusively upon the
+principle of any port in a storm.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, well, if it ain't Leon Sammet!"
+Abe cried, and his manner was as cordial as
+though, instead of their nearest competitor,
+Leon were Potash &amp; Perlmutter's best customer.</p>
+
+<p>"The English language bounces off of that
+woman like water from a duck's neck," Leon
+said, "which every five minutes she comes up here
+and talks to me in French high speed with the
+throttle wide open like a racing-car already."</p>
+
+<p>"And the exhaust must be something terrible,"
+Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am nearly frozen from opening the windows
+to let out her conversation," Leon said, "and
+especially this morning, when I thought I could
+get a lot of letter-writing done without being interrupted,
+on account of the holiday."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So that's the reason why everything is closed
+up!" Morris exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"But Christmas ain't for pretty near two
+weeks yet," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"What has Christmas got to do with it?" Leon
+retorted. "To-day is a holiday because President
+Wilson arrives in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are working here?" Abe cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" Leon asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say that President Wilson is
+arriving in Paris to-day and you ain't going to
+see him come in?" Morris exclaimed. "What
+for an American are you, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say, for that matter, President Wilson has
+been arriving in New York hundreds of times
+in the past four years," Leon said, "and I 'ain't
+heard that you boys was on the reception committee
+exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"That's something else again," Abe said. "In
+New York we've got business <i>enough</i> to do without
+fooling away our time rubbering at parades,
+but President Wilson only comes to Paris once in
+a lifetime."</p>
+
+<p>"And some of the people back home is kicking
+because he comes to Paris even <i>that</i> often," Leon
+commented.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Let</i> 'em kick," Morris declared, "which the
+way some Americans runs down President Wilson
+only goes to show that it's an old saying and a
+true one that there is no profit for a man in his
+own country, so go ahead and write your letters
+if you want to, Leon, but Abe and me is going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+down-town to the Champs Elizas and give the
+President a couple of cheers like patriotic American
+sitsons should ought to do."</p>
+
+<p>"In especially," Abe added, "as it is a legal
+holiday and we wouldn't look at no model garments
+to-day."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>SETTLING THE PRELIMINARIES</h3>
+
+
+<p>"After all, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, as
+he sat with his partner, Morris Perlmutter,
+in their hotel room on the night after the President's
+arrival in Paris, "a President is only human,
+and it seems to me that if they would of given him
+a chance to go quietly to a hotel and wash up
+after the trip, y'understand, it would be a whole
+lot better as meeting him at the railroad depot
+and starting right in with the speeches."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;give him a chance to
+wash up?" Morris asked. "Don't you suppose
+he had a chance to wash up on the train, or do
+you think him and Mrs. Wilson sat up all night
+in a day-coach?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care if they had a whole section," Abe
+retorted; "it ain't the easiest thing in the world
+to step off a train in a stovepipe hat, with a clean
+shave, after a twenty-hour trip, even if it would
+of been one of them eighteen-hour limiteds even,
+and begin right away to get off a lot of <i>schmooes</i>
+about he don't know how to express the surprise
+and gratification he feels at such an enthusiastic
+reception, in especially as he probably lay awake
+half the night trying to memorize the bigger part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+of the speech following the words, 'and now,
+gentlemen, I wouldn't delay you no longer.'
+So that's why I say if they would have let him go
+to his hotel first, y'understand, why, then he&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But Mr. and Mrs. Wilson ain't putting up
+at no hotel. They are staying with a family
+by the name of Murat," Morris explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Relations to the Wilsons maybe?" Abe
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I heard tell of," Morris replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, whoever they are they've got my
+sympathy," Abe said; "because once, when the
+Independent Order Mattai Aaron held its annual
+Grand Lodge meeting in New York, me and Rosie
+put up the Grand Master, by the name Louis M.
+Koppelman, used to was Koppelman &amp; Fine, the
+Fashion Store, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and the
+way that feller turned the house upside down,
+if he would have stayed another week with us,
+understand me, I would have hired a first-class A
+number one criminal lawyer to defend me and
+wired the relations for instructions as to how to
+ship the body home."</p>
+
+<p>"I bet yer the Murats feel honored to got Mr.
+and Mrs. Wilson staying with them," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"For the first few days maybe," Abe admitted,
+"but wait till a couple weeks go by! I give them
+until January 1, 1919, and after that Mr. and Mrs.
+Murat would be signaling each other to come
+up-stairs into the maid's room and be holding a
+few ain't-them-people-got-no-home conversations.
+Also, Mawruss, for the rest of their married life,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+Mawruss, every time the tropic of who invited
+them in the <span class="smcap">first</span> place comes up at meal-times,
+y'understand, either Mr. or Mrs. Murat is going
+to get up from the table and lock themselves up
+in the bedroom for the remainder of the evening.
+Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't argue with you," Morris said,
+"because if I would give you the slightest encouragement
+you are liable to go to work and figure
+where Mrs. Murat is kicking to Mr. Murat that
+she couldn't make out with the housekeeping
+money while the Wilsons is in Paris, on account
+of having to buy an extra bottle of Grade B milk
+every day, or something like that, which you
+talk like Mr. and Mrs. Wilson was in Paris on a
+couple of weeks' vacation, whereas the President
+has come here to settle the peace of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say he didn't?" Abe protested.</p>
+
+<p>"And while you are sitting here talking a lot
+of nonsense," Morris went on, "big things is
+happening, which with all the questions he has
+got to think about, I bet yer the President <i>oser</i>
+worries his head about a little affair like board
+and lodging. Also I read in one of them Paris
+editions of an American paper that there come
+over to France on the same steamer with him
+over three hundred experts&mdash;college professors
+and the like&mdash;and them fellers is now staying in
+Paris at various hotels, which, if that don't justify
+Mr. Wilson in putting up with a private family,
+y'understand, I don't know what does!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought at the time I read about them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+experts coming over to help the President in the
+Peace Conference that he was letting himself
+in for something," Abe observed.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet yer!" Morris said. "And that's where
+Colonel House was wise when he comes over on a
+steamer ahead of them, because it is bad enough
+when you are crossing the ocean in winter-time
+to be President of the United States and to have
+to try not to act otherwise, without having three
+hundred experts dogging your footsteps and
+thinking up ways to start a conversation and
+swing it towards the subject they are experts in.
+Which I bet yer every time the President tried
+to get a little exercise by walking around the
+promenade deck after lunch there was an expert
+on Jugo-Slobs laying for him who was all worked
+up to tell everything he knew about Jugo-Slobs
+in a couple of laps, provided the President lasted
+that long."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "a man which
+employs experts to ask advice from deserves
+all he gets, Mawruss, because you know how it is
+when you ask an advice from somebody which
+don't know a thing in the world about what he
+is advising you. He'll talk you deaf, dumb, and
+blind, anyhow. So you can imagine what it must
+be like when you are getting advice from an
+expert!"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me that before the President gets
+through he will be looking around for an expert
+which is expert in choking off advice from experts,
+otherwise the first time the President consults<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+one of them experts, if he's going to wait for the
+expert to get through, he will have to be elected
+to a third term and then maybe hold over, at
+that," Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think the President would be glad
+when this Peace Conference is over," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"Say! For that matter he'll be glad when it's
+started," Morris said. "Which the way it looks
+now, Abe, the preliminaries of a peace conference
+is harder on a President in the way of speeches
+and parades than two Liberty Loan campaigns
+and an inauguration. Take, for instance, the
+matter of dinners, and I bet yer before he even
+goes to London next week he would have six
+meals with the President of France alone&mdash;I
+can't remember his name."</p>
+
+<p>"Call him Lefkowitz," Abe said, "I'll know
+who you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, whatever it is, he looks like a hearty
+eater, Abe," Morris remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, Mawruss, from what I seen of them
+French politicians in the parade this morning,"
+Abe observed, "none of them looked like they
+went slow on starchy foods and red meats, whereas
+take the American Peace Commissioners, from the
+President down, and while they don't all of them
+give you the impression that they eat breakfast
+food for dinner exactly, still at the same time if
+these here peace preliminaries is going to include
+more dinners than parades, the French Commissioners
+has got them under a big handicap."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you're right," Morris agreed. "But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+my idee is that with these here preliminary peace
+dinners it ain't such a bad thing for us if our
+Peace Commissioners wouldn't be such hearty
+eaters, y'understand, because you know how it
+is when we've got a hard-boiled egg come into the
+place to look over our line, it's a whole lot better
+to get an idee of about how much he expects to
+buy after lunch than before, in especially if we
+pay for the lunch. So if this here President
+Lefkowitz, or whatever the feller's name is, expects
+to fill up the President with a big meal
+of them French <i>&agrave; la</i> dishes until Mr. Wilson
+gets so good-natured that he is willing to tell
+not only his life history, but also just exactly
+what he means by a League of Nations, y'understand,
+the dinner might just as well start and
+end with two poached eggs on toast, for all the
+good it will do."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, it ain't a bad idee to have all these dinners
+over and done with before the business of
+the Peace Conference begins, Mawruss," Abe remarked,
+"because hafterwards, when Mr. Wilson's
+attitude on some of them fourteen propositions
+for peace becomes known, y'understand, it ain't
+going to be too pleasant for Mrs. Wilson to be
+sitting by the side of her husband and watch
+the looks of some of the guests sitting opposite
+during the fish course, for instance, not wishing
+him no harm, but waiting for a good-sized bone
+to lodge sideways in his throat, or something."</p>
+
+<p>"She is used to that from home already, whenever
+she has a few Republican Senators to dinner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+at the White House," Morris said. "But that
+ain't here nor there, anyhow, because after the
+Peace Conference begins the President will be so
+busy, y'understand, that sending out one of the
+Assistant Secretaries of State to a Busy Bee lunch-room
+to bring him a couple of sandwiches and
+some coffee will be the nearest to a formal dinner
+that the President will come to for many a day.
+Take, for instance, the proposition of the Freedom
+of the Seas, and there's a whole lot to be said
+on both sides by people like yourself which don't
+know one side from the other."</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't want to know, neither," Abe said,
+"because it wouldn't make no difference to me
+how free the seas was made, once I get back on
+terra cotta, Mawruss; they could not only make
+the seas free, y'understand, but they could also
+offer big bonuses in addition, and I wouldn't leave
+America again not if they was to give me a life
+pass good on the <i>Olympic</i> or <i>Aquitania</i> with meals
+included."</p>
+
+<p>"So your idea is that the freedom of the seas
+means traveling for nothing on ocean steamers?"
+Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Abe retorted, "why should I bother
+my head what such things mean when I got for a
+partner a feller which really by rights belongs
+down at the Peace headquarters, along with them
+other big experts?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never claimed to be an expert, but at the
+same time, I ain't an ignerammus, neither, which
+even before I left New York, I knew all about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+this here Freedom of the Seas," Morris said, "which
+the day before we sailed I was talking to Henry
+Binder, of Binder &amp; Baum, and he says to me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, but what does Binder &amp; Baum
+know about the Freedom of the Seas?" Abe demanded.
+"They are in the wholesale pants business,
+ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Morris continued, "and
+Paderewski is a piano-player, and at the same
+time he went over to Poland to organize the new
+Polish Republic."</p>
+
+<p>"And the result will be that when the new
+Polish Republic gets started under the direction
+of this here piano-player," Abe said, "and they
+get a new Polish National Anthem, it will be an
+expert piano-player's idea of something which is
+easy to play, and the consequence is that until
+the next Polish revolution, every time a band
+plays the Polish National Anthem, them poor
+Polacks would got to stand up for from forty-five
+minutes to an hour while the band struggles to
+get through with what it would have taken
+Paderewski three minutes at the outside."</p>
+
+<p>"Henry Binder is a college graduate even if he
+would be in the pants business," Morris said,
+"and he said to me: 'Perlmutter,' he said, 'the
+Freedom of the Seas is like this,' he says. 'You
+take a country like Norway and it stands in the
+same relation to the big naval powers like we
+would to the other big manufacturers. Now, for
+instance,' he says, 'last year we did a business of
+over two million dollars, and&mdash;'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Abe raised his right hand like a traffic policeman.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop right there, Mawruss," he said, "because
+if the Freedom of the Seas is anything like Binder
+&amp; Baum doing a business of two million dollars
+last year, I don't believe a word of it, which it
+wouldn't make no difference if Henry Binder
+was talking about the Freedom of the Seas or
+astronomy, sooner or later he is bound to ring in
+the large amount of goods he is selling, and, anyway,
+no matter what Henry Binder tells you,
+you must got to reckon ninety-eight per cent.
+discount before you could believe a word he says."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you suppose for one moment that the
+members of the Peace Conference is going to act
+any different from Henry Binder in that respect?"
+Morris asked. "Every one of the representatives
+of the countries engaged in this here Peace Conference
+is coming to France with a statement
+of the very least they would accept, and it is
+pretty generally understood that all such statements
+are subject to a very stiff discount, which
+that is what these here preliminaries is for, Abe&mdash;to
+get a line on the discounts before the Peace
+Conference discusses the claims themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when it comes to the Allies scrapping
+between themselves about League of Nations and
+Freedoms of Seas, I am content that they should
+be allowed a liberal discount on what they say
+for what they mean, Mawruss, but when it comes
+to Germany," he concluded, "she's got to pay,
+and pay in full, net cash, and then some."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO ENGLAND</h3>
+
+
+<p>"The alphabet ain't what it used to be before
+the war, Mawruss," Abe said, as he read
+the paper at breakfast in his Paris hotel shortly
+after President Wilson's visit to England. "Former
+times if a feller understood C. O. D. and N.
+G., y'understand, he could read the papers and
+get sense out of it the same like he would be a
+college gradgwate, already; but nowadays when
+you pick up a morning paper and read that
+Colonel Harris Lefkowitz, we would say, for
+example, A. D. C. to the C. O. at G. H. Q. of the
+A. E. F., has been decorated with the D. S. O., you
+feel that the only way to get a line on what is
+going on in the world is to get posted on this&mdash;now&mdash;algebry
+which ambitious young shipping-clerks
+gets fired for studying during office hours."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you get mixed up by these here letters,
+think what it must be like for President Wilson
+to suddenly get one of them English statesmen
+sprung on him by&mdash;we would say&mdash;the King&mdash;where
+the King says: 'Mr. President, shake
+hands with the Rutt Hon. Duke of Cholomondley,
+K.C.M.G., R.V.O., K.C.B., F.P.A., G.S.I., and
+sometimes W. and Y.'" Morris said, "in especially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+as I understand Cholomondley is pronounced as if
+written Rabinowitz."</p>
+
+<p>"It would anyhow give the President a tropic
+for conversation such as ain't it the limit what
+you got to pay to get visiting-cards engraved
+nowadays, which it really and truly must cost the
+English aristocracy a fortune for such things,"
+Abe said, "in particularly if the daughter of such
+a feller gets married with engraved invitations,
+Mawruss, after he had paid the stationery bill,
+y'understand, he wouldn't got nothing left for her
+dowry."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess the President wasn't in no
+danger of running out of tropics of conversation
+while he was in England, Abe," Morris said,
+"which during all the spare time Mr. Wilson had
+on his trip he did nothing but hold conversations
+with Mr. Balfour, and this here Lord George, and
+you could take it from me, Abe, there wasn't
+many pauses to be filled up by Mr. Wilson saying
+ain't it a funny weather we are having nowadays,
+or something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" Abe asked. "Was you
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't there," Morris said, "but last night
+I was speaking in the lobby of the hotel to one of
+them newspaper reporters which made the trip
+with the President, and after I had given the
+young feller one of the cigars we brought with us
+from New York he got quite friendly and told
+me all about it. It seems, Abe, that the visit
+was a wonderful success, in particular the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+day Mr. Wilson was in England. The weather
+was one of the finest days they had in winter over
+in England for years already. Only six inches
+of rain, and the passage across the English Channel
+was so smooth for this time of the year that less
+than eighty per cent. of the passengers was ill as
+against the normal percentage of 99.31416. As
+Mr. Wilson had requested that no fuss should
+be made over his visit, things was kept down as
+much as possible, so that, on leaving Calais, the
+President's boat was escorted by only ten torpedo-boat
+destroyers, a couple battle-ships, three
+cruisers, and eight-twelfths of a dozen assorted
+submarines. There was also a simple and informal
+escort of about fifty airy-oplanes, the six dirigible
+balloons having been cut out of the program in
+accordance from the President's wishes. However,
+Abe, all this simplicity was nothing compared
+to the way they acted when the President
+arrived at Dover. There the arrangements was
+what you might expect when the President of a
+plain, democratic people visits the country of
+another plain, democratic people, Abe. The
+only people there to meet them was about twenty
+or thirty dukes, a few field-marshals, three regiments
+of soldiers, including the bands, and somebody
+which the newspaper reporter says he at
+first took for Caruso in the second act of 'A&iuml;da'
+and afterwards proved to be the mayor of Dover
+in his official costume.</p>
+
+<p>"The ceremony of welcoming Mr. and Mrs.
+Wilson to the shores of England was very short,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+the whole thing being practically over in two
+hours and thirty minutes," Morris continued.
+"It consisted of either the firing of a Presidential
+salute of twenty-one guns or the playing
+of the American National Anthem by
+the massed bands of three regiments, the reporter
+says he couldn't tell which, on account he stood
+behind one of the drums. Later the President
+made a short speech, in which he said: 'May I
+not say how glad I am to land in Dover,' or
+something to that effect."</p>
+
+<p>"And after that boat-ride from France he
+would have said so if it had been Barren Island,
+or any other place-just so long as it was free
+from earthquakes and didn't roll none," Abe
+agreed. "Also, Mawruss," he continued, "some
+day the President is going to begin a speech with,
+'May I not,' and the chairman of the meeting will
+take him at his word and put it to a standing vote,
+and it is going to surprise the President how few
+people is going to remain seated on the proposition
+of whether or not he shall continue to begin letters
+and speeches with, 'May I not.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "When we get by
+mail a cancelation and answer it, 'Dear Gents,
+Your favor received,' does that mean we think
+the customer is doing us a favor by canceling an
+order on us? <i>Oser a Stuck.</i> And in the same
+way, when Mr. Wilson says, 'May I not?' nobody
+fools themselves for a minute that the President
+is asking permission. That's just a habit us and
+him got into, Abe, and in fact, Abe, Mr. Wilson's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+'May-I-nots' have always meant that not only
+was he going to say what he intended to say,
+but that he was also going to do it, too. So,
+therefore, you take the speech he made at the
+Gelthall in London, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But as I understand your story, Mawruss,
+he only just arrived in Dover," Abe said, "so go
+ahead with your lies, and tell me what happened
+next."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Morris went on to say, "after the
+mayor of Dover had presented Mr. Wilson with
+the Freedom of the City in a gold casket&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "but
+what is this here Freedom of the City that mayors
+is all the time presenting to Mr. Wilson?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," Morris replied, "except that
+seemingly a Freedom of the City always comes
+in a gold casket."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Abe said, "but what does Mr.
+Wilson gain by all these here Freedoms of Cities?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gold caskets," Morris replied, "although I
+think myself that some of these mayors ain't
+above getting by with a gold-plated silver casket,
+or even a rolled-gold casket, relying on the fact
+that Mr. Wilson is too much of a gentleman to
+get an appraisal, anyhow till he returns to
+America."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I would be Mr. Wilson, I wouldn't
+take it so particular to act too gentlemanly to
+them mayors," Abe commented, "because I see
+in the papers that when the mayor of London
+presented him with the Freedom of the City,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+Mr. Wilson got the Freedom part, but he was
+told that the gold casket was in preparation,
+which I admit that I don't know nothing about
+this here mayor of London, but you know how
+it is when a customer gets married, Mawruss, and
+we put off sending him a wedding present till we
+could get round to it, y'understand, which we are
+all human, Mawruss, and it wouldn't surprise me
+in the least if six months from now the mayor of
+London would be going round saying, 'Why
+should we give that feller a gold casket&mdash;am I
+right or wrong?'&mdash;and let the whole gold-casket
+thing die a natural death."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll probably come across with it after a
+few how-about-casket cables, and, anyhow, if
+they didn't, Abe, the English people certainly
+done enough for Mr. Wilson," Morris continued,
+"because that newspaper reporter told me that
+the reception which Mr. Wilson got in London
+was something enormous, y'understand. The
+King and Queen was waiting to meet him and
+the station platform was covered with a red-velvet
+pile carpet which was so thick, understand
+me, that they 'ain't been able as yet to locate a
+couple of suit-cases which was carelessly put
+down by the Rutt Hon. the Duke of Warrington,
+K.G.Y., Y.M.H.A., First Lord Red Cap in Waiting,
+and sunk completely out of sight while he helped
+a couple of Assistant Red Caps in Waiting, also
+dukes, load the Presidential wardrobe trunks
+on the Royal Baggage Transfer truck."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;also dukes?" Abe demanded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+"Do you mean to say that the Red
+Caps which hustles the King's baggage is dukes?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the very least," Morris declared, "because
+the Master of the Royal Fox-hounds is an earl,
+Abe, and I leave it to you, Abe, if handling baggage
+ain't a better job than feeding dogs. Also,
+Abe, there is Lords in Waiting and Ladies in
+Waiting, and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest
+if during their stay in Buckingham Palace
+some of the members of Mr. Wilson's party which
+ain't been tipped off have telephoned down to
+the office for towels and kept the Marquis of
+Hendersonville, Lanes County, England, Knight
+Commander of the Bath, waiting at the bedroom
+door ten minutes, while they went through all
+their clothes trying to find something smaller
+than a quarter to slip him."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you believe for one moment, Mawruss&mdash;if
+there was a Marquis of Hendersonville, which
+I never heard of such a person, Mawruss&mdash;and
+he did happen to be Knight Commander of the
+Bath, y'understand, that he is actually handing
+out soap and towels in the King of England's
+palace?" Abe inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I don't believe it," Morris replied,
+"and I also don't believe that calling anybody
+Right Honorable is going to make him any more
+right than he is honorable, unless, of course, he
+is honorable to start with and really and truly
+wants to be right, y'understand. And that is
+what Mr. Wilson went to England to find out,
+Abe, because it ain't going to affect the Peace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+Conference one way or the other if the Master
+of the Royal Fox-hounds don't know a dawg-biscuit
+from a gingersnap, y'understand, whereas
+if this here war is going to be settled once and
+for all, Abe, it's quite important that the Right
+Honorable English statesmen should have right
+and honorable intentions."</p>
+
+<p>"And did Mr. Wilson find out?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure he did," Morris said, "although from
+what this here newspaper reporter tells me, Abe,
+there was a whole lot of lost motion about the
+investigation. Take, for instance, the attitude
+of Mr. Lord George on the Freedom of the Seas,
+for instance, and you would think that in the case
+of a busy man like Mr. Wilson, y'understand, he
+would of rung him up on the telephone, made
+an appointment for luncheon the next morning,
+and by half past one at the outside they would
+have got the matter in such shape that the only
+point not settled between 'em would be a friendly
+quarrel as to see who should pay for the eats,
+y'understand. Actually, however, the arrangements
+for having Mr. Wilson get into touch with
+Lord George was conducted by the Comptroller
+of the Royal Household, and the line of march
+was down Piccadilly as far as Forty-second Street,
+over to Hyde Park, and by way of Hyde Park
+west to Eighth Avenue to Mr. Lord George's
+office in the London &amp; Liverpool Title Guarantee
+and Trust Company Building. The order of
+procession was as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve mounted policemen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The band of the King's Own Sixty-ninth
+Regiment.</p>
+
+<p>"Typographical Union No. 6, Allied Printing
+Trades Council of Great Britain and Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>"William J. Mustard Association, Drum and
+Fife Corps.</p>
+
+<p>"Household Guards.</p>
+
+<p>"First carriage&mdash;Mr. Wilson and the King.</p>
+
+<p>"Second carriage&mdash;Mrs. Wilson and the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>"Third carriage&mdash;Mr. George Creel.</p>
+
+<p>"Fourth carriage&mdash;Master of the Royal Fox-hounds,
+Master of the Royal Buck-hounds, Master
+of the Royal Stag-hounds, two Masters of
+Assorted hounds.</p>
+
+<p>"Six Motor-cycle Policemen.</p>
+
+<p>"The Stock Exchange closed, and promissory
+notes falling due on that date became automatically
+payable on the following day. Admission
+to the reviewing-stand was by card, some of which
+found their way into the hands of the speculators,
+and will shortly be the subject of a John Doe
+investigation by the district attorney of Middlesex
+County, so the newspaper feller told me."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is this here Lord George's attitude
+towards the Freedom of the Seas, Mawruss?"
+Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That the newspaper feller didn't know," Morris
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who does know?" Abe insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord George," Morris replied.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING SATISFACTORILY&mdash;MAYBE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said to his
+partner, Abe Potash, a few days after Mr.
+Wilson's return from his visit to Italy, "up to
+a short time ago hardly anybody in America had
+ever even heard about Italy's claims to the Dalmatian
+territory."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally!" Abe replied; "because if there is
+six people in the whole United States which is
+engaged in the business of selling spotted dogs to
+fire-engine houses, Mawruss, that would be big
+already."</p>
+
+<p>Morris threw up both hands in a gesture of
+despair. "What is the use talking foreign politics
+to a feller which thinks that Italy's claims to the
+Dalmatian territory means she wants the exclusive
+right to make New York, Cleveland, Chicago,
+and St. Louis with a line of spotted dogs for fire-engine
+companies!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"And I wouldn't even have known that it
+meant that much," Abe retorted, entirely unabashed,
+"excepting that six months ago my wife's
+sister's cousin wanted me I should advance her
+a hundred dollars to pay a lawyer he should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+bring suit against the city for her on account she
+got bitten by one of them fire-house Dalmatians,
+Mawruss, which up to that time I always had an
+idea they was splashed-up white dogs. So go
+ahead, Mawruss, I'll be the goat. What is
+Italy's claims to the Dalmatian territory?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in the first place, Italy thinks she
+should be awarded all them towns where a majority
+of the people which lives in them speaks
+Italian," Morris said; "like Fiume, Spalato,
+Ragusa&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Also New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, and The
+Bronx," Abe added; "and if she wants to get
+nasty, Mawruss, she could claim all the territory
+east of Third Avenue, from Ninetieth Street up
+to the Harlem River, too. Furthermore, Mawruss,
+there is neighborhoods south of Washington
+Square where not only the majority of the people
+speaks Italian, but the minority speaks it also.
+So you see how complicated things becomes
+when a new beginner like me starts in to talk
+foreign politics."</p>
+
+<p>"For that matter, all us Americans is new
+beginners on foreign politics, from Mr. Wilson
+down, Abe," Morris said. "And that is why Mr.
+Wilson done a wise thing when he visited Italy
+the other day, and took a lot of American newspaper
+fellers with him, because, between you and
+me, Abe, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if
+some of them reporters went down there under
+the impression that the only thing which distinguished
+Ragusa from Ravioli or Spalato from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+Spaghetti was the difference in the shape of the
+noodles, but that otherwise they was cooked the
+same, with chicken livers and tomato sauce,
+which you know how it is in America: ninety
+per cent. of the people gets their education from
+reading in newspapers, and the consequence is
+that if the American newspaper reporters has a
+sort of hazy idea that Sonnino is either an item
+on the bill of fare, to be passed up on account
+of having garlic in it, or else a tenor which the
+Metropolitan Opera House ain't given a contract
+to as yet, y'understand, then the American public
+has got the same sort of hazy idea. So Mr.
+Wilson done the right thing traveling to Italy,
+even if he did have an uncomfortable journey."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;an uncomfortable journey?"
+Abe demanded. "Why, I understand he
+traveled on the King of Italy's royal train!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but when a
+king is sleeping on a royal train in Europe, Abe,
+he can be pretty near as comfortable as a traveling-salesman
+sitting up all night on a day-coach in
+America, and if he spends two nights on such a
+royal train, the way President Wilson did in going
+from Paris to Rome, which is about as far as from
+New York to Chicago, y'understand, it wouldn't
+make no difference how many people is waiting at
+the station to holler 'Long live the King!' understand
+me, he is going to feel half dead, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet there is people which claims that Mr.
+Wilson don't give a whoop whether he makes
+himself popular or not," Abe commented, "which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+before I could lay awake two nights on a train, I
+wouldn't care if every newspaper reporter in the
+United States never got no nearer to Italy than a
+fifty-cent <i>table d'h&ocirc;te</i>, including wine."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you would care if you was going to
+Italy to make speeches the way Mr. Wilson did,"
+Morris said. "Which if the King of Italy was to
+go to America and make speeches in Italian at the
+Capitol in Washington, it would be just as well
+if he would bring along an audience of a few
+dozen Italians with him, and not depend on
+enough barbers, shoe-blacks, and vegetable-stand
+keepers horning in on the proceedings to give the
+Congressmen and Senators a hint as to where the
+applause should come in. In fact, I was speaking
+to one of them newspaper fellers which went to
+Italy, Abe, and he says that he listened carefully
+to all the speeches which was made in Italian,
+Mawruss, and that once he thought he heard the
+word Chianti mentioned, but he couldn't say for
+certain. He told me, however, that the correspondent
+of <i>The New York Evening Post</i> also claims
+that he heard Orlando, the Prime Minister, in a
+speech delivered in Rome, use the words Il
+Trovatore, but that otherwise the whole thing was
+like having the misfortune to see somebody give
+an imitation of Eddie Foy when you've escaped
+seeing Eddie Foy in the first place, so you can
+imagine what chance Mr. Wilson would have
+stood with them Italians if the American correspondents
+hadn't been along to start the cries of
+'Bravo!' in the right spot.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So you see, Abe, it's a good thing for them
+newspaper men to see what kind of people the
+Italians is in their own country," Morris continued,
+"because if this here League of Nations
+idea is going to be put over by Mr. Wilson,
+Americans should ought to know from the start
+that Italy is a Big League nation and its batting
+average in this war is just as good as the other
+Big League nations."</p>
+
+<p>"Did any one say it wasn't?" Abe demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I know they didn't," Morris said. "But just
+the same, Abe, there's a whole lot of people in
+America which judges the Italians by the way
+they behave in the ice business and 'Cavalleria
+Rusticana,' and also a feller can get a very unfavorable
+opinion of Italians by being shaved
+in one of them ten-cent palace barber shops, understand
+me, so even if them newspaper men couldn't
+appreciate the performance without a libretto,
+y'understand, they could anyhow see for themselves
+that the Italians in Italy is doctors and
+lawyers, clothing-dealers and bankers, just the
+same like the Americans are in America, and if
+they can pass the word back home, with a few
+details of how it feels to be a foreigner in a foreign
+country, that wouldn't do no harm, neither."</p>
+
+<p>"That is something which an American newspaper
+correspondent wouldn't touch on at all,"
+Abe said, "because I bet that every last one of
+them has already sent back to America an article
+about this trip to Italy, which, when the readers
+of his newspaper looks at it, Mawruss, not only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+would they think that he understood Sonnino's
+speech from start to finish, y'understand, but
+also that every time the newspaper feller is in
+Rome, which the article would lead one to believe
+has been on an average of once a week for the
+past ten years, Mawruss, him and Sonnino drink
+coffee together."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't he taking a big chance when he writes
+a thing like that?" Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Yow! A chance!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, to
+read the things that a few of these here Washington
+correspondents used to write when they
+was in America yet, you would think every one
+of them was pestered to death with telephone
+messages from the White House where Mr.
+Tumulty says if the newspaper feller has got a
+little spare time that evening the President would
+consider it a big favor if he would step around to
+the White House, as Mr. Wilson would like to
+ask him an advice about a diplomatic note which
+has just been received from Lord George in
+regards to the Freedom of the Seas or something."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you suppose the newspaper which a
+nervy individual like that is working for would
+fire him on the spot?" Morris observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," Abe said, "because the newspaper-owner
+likes people to get the idea that the newspaper
+has got such an important feller for a
+Washington correspondent, just as much as the
+correspondent does himself, Mawruss, so you can
+imagine the bluff some of them fellers is going to
+throw now that they really got something interesting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+to write about like this here Peace Conference.
+If Mr. Wilson gains all his fourteen
+points, y'understand, the special Paris correspondent
+of the Bridgetown, Pa., <i>Daily Register</i>
+is going to write home, 'And he could have
+gained fifteen if he would only have listened to
+me.' Also, Mawruss, during the next three
+months, if the Peace Conference lasts that long,
+the readers of the Cyprus, N. J., <i>Evening Chronicle</i>
+is going to get the idea that President
+Wilson, Clemenceau, Lord George, and a feller
+by the name of Delos M. Jones, who is writing
+Peace Conference articles for the Cyprus, N.
+J., <i>Evening Chronicle</i>, are in secret conference
+together every day, including Sundays, from 10
+<span class="smcap">a.m.</span> to midnight, fixing up the boundaries between
+Rumania and Servia."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, them boys has got to produce something
+to make their bosses back in America continue
+paying salary and traveling expenses," Morris
+said, "because from what this here newspaper
+correspondent tells me, if he didn't get his imagination
+working, all he could write for his paper
+would be descriptions of Paris scenery, including
+the outside of the buildings where on the insides,
+with the doors locked and the curtains pulled, Mr.
+Wilson and the American Peace Commissioners is
+openly and notoriously carrying on open and
+notorious peace conversations with the other
+allied Peace Commissioners, and for all the newspaper
+correspondents know to the contrary, Abe,
+the only point on which them Peace Commission<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+fellers ain't breaking up the furniture over is that
+when they come out, y'understand, it is agreed
+that the newspaper correspondents will be told
+that everything is proceeding satisfactorily."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought Mr. Wilson promised before
+he left America that the old secret diplomacy
+would be a thing of the past," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"So he did," Morris agreed, "and by what I
+gather from this here newspaper man he kept
+his promise, too, and we now have got a new
+diplomacy, compared to which the fellers who
+were working under the rules of the old secret
+diplomacy bladded everything they knew."</p>
+
+<p>"But I distinctly read it in the papers the other
+day that every morning at half past ten, Mawruss,
+Mr. Lansing meets the newspaper correspondents
+and lets them know what's been going on," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"He meets them," Morris replied, "but so far
+as letting them know what has been going on is
+concerned, all he says that everything is proceeding
+satisfactorily and is there any gentleman
+there which would like to ask him any questions,
+which naturally any newspaper correspondent
+who could ask Mr. Lansing such questions as
+would make Mr. Lansing give out any information
+he didn't want to give out, wouldn't be wasting
+his time working as a newspaper correspondent,
+Abe, but would be considering offers from the
+law firm of Hughes, Brandeis, Stanchfield, Hughes
+&amp; Stanchfield to come in as a full partner and
+take exclusive charge of the cross-examination
+of busted railroad presidents."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Maybe the reason why Mr. Lansing don't tell
+them newspaper correspondents nothing is that he
+ain't got nothing to tell them," Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, if I would be him, Abe, I would
+make up something," Morris said, "because if
+he don't they will, or anyhow some of them will,
+and there is going to be a lot of stuff printed in
+American papers where the correspondent says
+he learns from high authority that things ain't
+going so good in the Peace Conference as Mr.
+Wilson would like, because Mr. Wilson is the
+doctor in the case, and you know how it is when
+somebody is too sick to be seen and the doctor is
+worried, Abe, he sends down word by the nurse
+that everything is proceeding satisfactorily, and
+the visitor goes away trying to remember did he
+or did he not throw away that fifty-cent black
+four-in-hand tie he wore to the last funeral he
+went to."</p>
+
+<p>"I got a whole lot of confidence in Mr. Wilson
+as the doctor for this here war-sickness which
+Europe is suffering from, Mawruss," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"So have I," Morris said: "but you've got to
+remember that there's a whole lot of those doctors
+on the case, Abe&mdash;some of them quack doctors, too,
+and, when the doctors disagree, who is to decide?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," Abe said; "but I think I know
+who would like to."</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Some of these here Washington newspaper
+correspondents you was talking about," Abe
+concluded.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE&mdash;IT NEEDS
+PUBLICITY</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Well, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, as
+he and his partner, Morris Perlmutter,
+sat at breakfast in their Paris hotel one Sunday
+morning, "I see that the Peace Conference had
+a meeting the other day where it was regularly
+moved and seconded that there should be a
+League of Nations, and, in spite of what them
+Republican Senators back home predicted, Mawruss,
+when Chairman Clemenceau said, 'Contrary
+minded,' you could of heard a pin drop."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure you could," Morris Perlmutter agreed,
+"because the way this here Peace Conference
+is being run, Abe, when Mr. Clemenceau says:
+'All those in favor would please say <i>Aye</i>,' he ain't
+<i>asking</i> them, he's <span class="smcap">telling</span> them, which I was
+speaking to the newspaper feller last night, Abe,
+and he says that, compared to the delegates
+at this here Peace Convention, y'understand, the
+delegates of a New York County Democratic
+Convention are free to act as they please. In
+fact, Abe, as I understand it, at the sewed-up
+political conventions which they hold it in America,
+the bosses do occasionally let a delegate get up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+and say a few words which ain't on the program
+exactly, but at this here Peace Convention a delegate
+who tries to get off a speech which 'ain't first
+been submitted in writing ten days in advance
+should ought to go into training for it by picking
+quarrels with waiters in all-night restaurants.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this here meeting which they held it on
+Saturday, Abe," Morris continued, "and it was
+terrible the way Chairman Clemenceau jumps,
+for instance, on a feller from Belgium by the
+name M. Hyman."</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't the same M. Hyman which used
+to was M. Hyman &amp; Co. in the coat-pad business?"
+Abe inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"This here M. Hyman used to was a Belgium
+minister in London," Morris went on, "which
+he got up and objected to the way the five big
+nations&mdash;America, Great Britain, France, Italy,
+and Japan&mdash;was, so to speak, hogging the convention."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think the Reverend Hyman was right,
+at that," Abe said, "which I just finished reading
+Mr. Wilson's speech at that meeting, Mawruss,
+in which he said that no longer should the select
+classes govern the rest of mankind, y'understand,
+and after the American, French, British, Italian,
+and Japanese delegates gets through applauding
+what Mr. Wilson says, they select themselves to
+run the rest of the nations in the League of
+Nations. Naturally an ex-minister like the Reverend
+Hyman is going to say, 'Why don't you
+practise what you preach?'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And if he wouldn't of been an ex-minister,
+Abe," Morris said, "the chances is that Chairman
+Clemenceau would of whispered a few words
+into the cauliflower ear of one of the sergeants-at-arms,
+and when the session closed, y'understand,
+the hat-check boy would have had one hat left
+over with the initials M. H. in it which Mr.
+Hyman didn't have time to claim before he hit
+the car tracks, y'understand, and I wouldn't
+blame Chairman Clemenceau, neither, because, if
+this here Peace Conference is going to end this
+side of nineteen-fifty, it's got to be speeded up
+some."</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="image02" href="images/hires02.png"><img src="images/thumb02.png" alt="Illustration:" /></a><br />
+"I wouldn't blame Chairman
+Clemenceau neither, because
+if this here Peace Conference
+is going to end this side of nineteen
+fifty, it's got to be speeded up some."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody says it 'ain't," Abe agreed, "but this
+here M. Hyman is a Belgium and he's got a right
+to be heard."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>would</i> have if everybody didn't admit that
+Belgium shall be protected in every which way,
+Abe," Morris agreed, "but there is also a lot of
+small nations which has got delegates at the
+Peace Convention, like Cuba, y'understand, and
+some of them South American republics, and,
+once you begin with them fellers, where are you
+going to leave off? Take, for instance, the Committee
+on Reparation, which has got charge of
+deciding how much money Germany ought to
+pay for losses suffered by the countries which
+made war on her, y'understand, and there wasn't
+one of them Spanish-American republics which
+didn't want to get appointed on that committee,
+because, when the Reparation Committee gets
+to work, practically all of them republics is going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+to come along with claims for smoke damages,
+bills for labor in connection with ripping out the
+fixtures of confiscated German steamers, loss of
+services of the Presidents of such republics by
+reason of tonsillitis from talking about how
+bravely they would have fought if they had
+raised an army and navy which they didn't,
+y'understand, and any other claims against
+Germany which they think they might have had
+a chance to get by with."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course there is bound to be a lot of
+them small republics which is going to make a
+play for a little easy money, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "but the indications is that when the proofs
+of claims is filed by the alleged creditors, y'understand,
+there would be a couple of them comma
+hounds on the Reparation Committee which
+would reject such claims on the grounds of misplaced
+semicolons alone. Then six months hafterwards,
+when the representative of one of them
+republics goes over to what used to was the
+office of the Peace Conference with a revised
+proof of claim, which he has just received by
+return mail, understand me, he would find the
+premises temporarily occupied by one of them
+crooked special-sale trunk concerns, and that's
+all there would <i>be</i> to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you think that this here Peace Conference
+would only last six months, Abe?" Morris
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I do," Abe replied, "and less, even,
+because right now already the interest is beginning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+to die out, which it wouldn't surprise me in
+the slightest, Mawruss, if in three weeks or so,
+when Mr. Wilson is temporarily out of the cast
+on account of going home to America to sign
+the new tax bill, y'understand, the attendance of
+the delegates would begin to fall off so bad, understand
+me, that the Peace Conference managers
+would got to spend a lot of money for putting in
+advertisements that George Clemenceau presents:</p>
+
+<table summary="advert"><tr><td>
+<p class="center">
+"'<span class="smcap">The International Peace Conference</span><br />
+<br />
+The Unparalleled Success of Two Hemispheres<br />
+</p>
+<table summary="sub-advert" style="width: 100%">
+<tr><td>'Enthralling'</td><td class="rightcell"><i>Tribune</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>'Punch with a Kick in It'</td><td class="rightcell"><i>Sun</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>'Vigor and Suspense'</td><td class="rightcell"><i>World</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>'Wins Audience'</td><td class="rightcell"><i>Globe</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>'Gripping'</td><td class="rightcell"><i>Mail</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>'Ausgezeichnet'</td><td class="rightcell"><i>Tageblatt</i></td></tr>
+</table>
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">Quai d'Orsay</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11.5em;">Now.</span><br />
+</p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em">Matinees, Saturday, 2:30.'"</span><br />
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"And even then they wouldn't get an audience,
+Abe," Morris said, "because those kind of advertisements
+don't fool nobody but the suckers
+which pays for them, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe not," Abe agreed, "but if the delegates
+stays away, Mawruss, the Peace Conference
+could always get an audience by letting in the
+newspaper correspondents, which I don't care if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+in addition to Mr. Lord George and Colonel
+House they would got performing at this here
+Peace Conference Douglas Fairbanks and Caruso,
+it wouldn't be a success as a show, <i>anyhow</i>, because
+no theayter could get any audiences if they
+would make it a policy to bar out the newspaper
+crickets."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Morris began. "Nobody
+likes to read in newspapers more than I do, Abe.
+They help to pass away many unpleasant minutes
+in the Subway when a feller would otherwise be
+figuring on if God forbid the brakes shouldn't
+hold what is going to become of his wife and
+children, y'understand; but, at the same time,
+from the way this here newspaper feller which
+hogs our cigars is talking, Abe, I gather that the
+big majority of newspaper reporters now in Paris
+has got the idea that this here Peace Conference
+is being held mainly to give newspaper reporters a
+chance to write home a lot of snappy articles
+about peace conferences, past and present. Although,
+of course, there is certain more or less
+liberal-minded newspaper men which think that
+if, incidentally, Mr. Wilson puts over the League
+of Nations and the Freedom of the Seas, why,
+they 'ain't got no serious objections, just so long
+as it don't involve talking the matter over privately
+without a couple of hundred newspaper
+reporters present."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but if them newspaper
+fellers has got such an idee, Mawruss, it is
+Mr. Wilson's own fault, because ever since we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+got into the war, y'understand, Mr. Wilson has
+been talking about open covenants of peace
+openly arrived at, and even before we went into
+the war he got off the words 'pitiful publicity,'
+and also it was him and not the newspaper men
+which first give the readers of newspapers to
+understand that the old secret diplomacy was a
+thing of the past, Mawruss, so the consequences
+was that, when Mr. Wilson come over here, the
+owners of newspapers sent to Paris everybody
+that was working for them&mdash;from dramatic
+crickets to baseball experts&mdash;just so long as they
+could write the English language, y'understand,
+because them newspaper-owners figured that,
+according to Mr. Wilson's own suggestions, this
+here Peace Conference was not only going to be a
+wide-open affair, openly arrived at, y'understand,
+but also pitifully public, whereas not only it ain't
+wide open, Mawruss, but it is about as pitifully
+public as a conference between the members
+of the financial committee of Tammany Hall
+on the day before Election. Also, Mawruss, a
+newspaper reporter could arrive at that Peace
+Conference openly or he could arrive at it disguised
+with false whiskers till his own wife wouldn't
+know him from a Jugo-Slob delegate, y'understand,
+and he couldn't get past the elevator-starter
+even."</p>
+
+<p>"That was when the conference opened," Morris
+said; "but I understand they are now letting them
+into the next room and giving them once in a
+while a look through the door during the supper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+turns when the Polack and Servian delegates is
+performing."</p>
+
+<p>"And that ain't going to do them a whole lot
+of good, neither," Abe declared, "because this
+here newspaper feller told me last night, when
+he was smoking my last cigar, that he has
+been mailing back an article a day to America
+ever since the President arrived here and
+there ain't not one of them which has got there
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"And I was reading in the America edition
+of the Paris edition of the London edition of the
+Manchester, England, <i>Daily News</i> that the newspaper
+correspondents couldn't only send back a
+couple of hundred words or so by telegraph, Abe,"
+Morris said, "which the way it looks to me, Abe,
+if some news don't find its way back to America
+pretty quick about this here Peace Conference
+and Mr. Wilson, y'understand, people back home
+in Washington is going to say to each other,
+'I wonder whatever become of this here&mdash;now&mdash;Wilson?'
+and the friend is going to say, '<i>What</i>
+Wilson?' And the other feller would then say,
+'Why, this here Woodruff Wilson.' And then
+the friend would say, 'Oh, <span class="smcap">him</span>! Didn't he move
+away to Paris or something?' And the other
+feller would then say, 'I see where Benny Leonard
+put up a wonderful fight in Madison Square
+Garden yesterday,' and that's all there would be
+to <span class="smcap">that</span> conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe it is because of this, and not because
+of signing the new tax bill, that the President is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+going home in a few days for a short stay in
+America," Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but what good
+is them short visits going to do him, because I
+ain't such an optician like you are, Abe. I
+believe that this here Peace Conference is going
+to last a whole lot longer than six months, Abe,
+and, if Mr. Wilson keeps on going home and
+coming back, maybe the first time he goes back
+he would get some little newspaper publicity
+out of it, and the second time also, perhaps, but
+on the third when he returns from France only the
+Democratic newspapers would give him more as
+half a column about it, and later on, when he
+lands from his third to tenth trips, inclusive, all
+the notice the papers would take from it would
+be that in the ship's news on the ninth page there
+would be a few lines saying that among those
+returning on the S.S. <i>George Washington</i> was J.
+L. Abrahams, and so on through the B's, C's,
+and D's right straight down to the W's, which
+you would got to read over several times before
+you would discover the President tucked away
+as W. Wilson between two fellers named Max
+Wangenheim and Abraham Welinsky."</p>
+
+<p>"There is something in what you say, Mawruss,"
+Abe admitted; "but, at the same time, a
+big man like Mr. Wilson ain't looking to get no
+newspaper notoriety. He is working to become
+famous."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Morris said; "but the only
+difference between notoriety and fame is that with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+notoriety you get the publicity now, whereas
+with fame you get the publicity fifty years from
+now, and the publicity which Mr. Wilson is going
+to get fifty years from now ain't going to help
+him a whole lot in the next presidential campaign."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Wilson ain't worrying about the next
+presidential campaign, Mawruss," Abe declared.
+"What he is trying to do is to make a success
+of this here Peace Conference."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he would better get a press agent for it,"
+Morris observed, "because, if they don't get
+some more publicity, it will die on its feet."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>JOINING THE LEGION OF HONOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I see where several Americans took advantage
+to join the Legion of Honor while they was
+over here," Morris Perlmutter remarked, as he
+sat at luncheon with his partner, Abe Potash,
+in the restaurant of their Paris hotel.</p>
+
+<p>"Some people is crazy for life insurance," Abe
+Potash commented, "in especially if they could
+combine it with the privilege to make speeches
+at lodge-meetings. Also, Mawruss, a whole lot of
+people is so badly predicted to the lapel-button
+habit that they would join anything just so long
+as they get a lapel-button to show for it."</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="image03" href="images/hires03.png"><img src="images/thumb03.png" alt="Illustration:" /></a><br />
+"a whole lot of people is so badly predicted
+to the lapel button habit they join anything"</p>
+
+<p>"But this here Legion of Honor must be a pretty
+good fraternal-insurance proposition at that,"
+Morris observed, "because it says here in the paper
+where several New York bankers has gone into
+it, which it's a mighty hard thing to separate
+them fellers from their money even with first-class,
+A-number-one, gilt-edged, two-name commercial
+paper, and if this here Legion of Honor
+was just a lapel-button affair which assessed its
+members every time they had a death claim to
+pay, you could take it from me, Abe, not one of
+them bankers would of went near it, so maybe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+it would be a good thing if we looked into it,
+Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to join this here Legion of Honor,
+that's <i>your</i> business, Mawruss," Abe said, "but
+I already belong to the Independent Order Mattai
+Aaron, which I've been paying them crooks for
+three years now that I should get a sick benefit
+fifteen dollars a week without being laid up with
+so much as tonsillitis even."</p>
+
+<p>"About the sick benefit I wasn't thinking about
+at all," Morris declared; "but you take a feller
+like Sam Feder, president of the Kosciusko Bank,
+for instance, and if we should be maybe next year
+a little short and wanted an accommodation from
+two to three thousand dollars, y'understand, it
+wouldn't do us no harm if we could give him the
+L. of H. grip for a starter. Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "The chances is that
+when them New York bankers gets back to New
+York they will want to forget all about joining
+this here L. of H."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what is there so disgraceful about joining
+the L. of H.?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody said nothing about its being disgraceful,
+because lots of decent, respectable fellers
+is liable to make a mistake of that kind, understand
+me," Abe said; "but <i>you</i> take one of these
+here members of the firm of&mdash;we would say, for
+example, J. G. Morgan, y'understand, which
+comes back from Paris after joining this here
+L. of H., and what happens him? The first
+morning he comes down to the office wearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+an L. of H. button, Mawruss, everybody from
+the paying-teller up is going to ask him what
+is the idea of the button, and he is going to spend
+the rest of the day listening to stories about people
+joining insurance fraternities which busted up
+and left the members with undetermined sentences
+of from three to five years, y'understand. The
+consequence would be that if any of his depositors
+expect to get an accommodation by giving him
+the L. of H. grip or wearing an L. of H. button,
+y'understand, they might just so well send him an
+invitation to a banquet where, in order to gain
+his confidence and respect, they are going to
+drink champagne out of an actress's slipper, and
+be done with it. Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you couldn't exactly blame them fellers
+which joined the L. of H.," Morris observed,
+"because Paris has a very funny effect on some
+of the most level-headed Americans which goes
+there without their families and business associates,
+which if this here League of Nations had
+been fixed up at a Peace Conference held somewheres
+down on Lower Broadway instead of the
+Quai d'Orsay, Abe, the chances is that the United
+States Senate would of had a whole lot more
+confidence in it than they have at present."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Abe explained. "This here League of
+Nations could of been pulled off in Paris or it
+could of been pulled off in a respectable neighborhood
+like Prospect Park West, Brooklyn,
+Mawruss, for all the spare time it gave the fellers
+which framed it to indulge in any wild night life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+Take, for instance, the proposed constitution and
+by-laws, which was printed on three pages of the
+newspaper the other day, Mawruss, and anybody
+which dictated that <i>megillah</i> to a stenographer
+would be too hoarse for weeks afterwards to order
+so much as a plain Benedictine. Also, Mawruss,
+nobody which didn't lead a blameless life could
+have a brain clear enough to <i>understand</i> the
+thing, let alone composing it, which last night I
+sat up till two o'clock this morning reading them
+twenty-six articles, Mawruss, and ten grains of
+asperin hardly touched the headache which I got
+from it."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," Morris said, "because when Mr.
+Wilson wrote that constitution, Abe, he figured
+that people which is going to read it has got a
+better education as one year in night school."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, satirically, "but
+at the same time everybody ain't such a natural-born
+Harvard gradgawate like you are, Mawruss,
+and furthermore, Mawruss, it's a big mistake for
+Mr. Wilson to go ahead on the idea that we <i>are</i>,
+y'understand, because, so far as I remember it,
+the Constitution of the United States didn't say
+that this was a government of the college gradgawates
+by the college gradgawates for the college
+gradgawates, y'understand; neither did the Declaration
+of Independence start in by saying,
+'We, the college gradgawates of the United
+States,' Mawruss. The consequences is that most
+of us ingeramusses which has got one vote apiece,
+even around last November already, begun to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+feel neglected, and you could take it from me,
+Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson tries to win the confidence
+of the American people with a few more
+of them documents with the twin-six words in
+them, y'understand, by the time he gets ready
+to run for President again, Mawruss, the only
+people which is going to vote for him would be
+the Ph.D. and A.M. fellers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, a few days after
+the conversation above set forth, "I see that
+President Wilson got back to America after a
+rough passage."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he seasick?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a day," Abe replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then that accounts for it," Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Accounts for what?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor Grayson being an admiral," Morris
+replied, "which a couple of years ago, when Mr.
+Wilson appointed Doctor Grayson to be an admiral
+over the heads of a couple of hundred fellers
+which had been captains of ships for years already,
+a lot of people got awful sore about it, and now
+it appears that he got the appointment because
+he can cure seasickness."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose if Doctor Grayson could cure locomotive
+ataxia the President would of appointed
+him Director-General of Railroads," Abe remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"For my part, Abe," Morris said, "if I had a
+good doctor like Doctor Grayson attending me,
+and it was necessary to appoint him to something
+in order to keep him, Abe, I would appoint
+him a field-marshal, just so long as he could make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+me comfortable on an Atlantic trip in winter-time."</p>
+
+<p>"But there isn't no office in the army or navy
+that President Wilson could appoint Doctor
+Grayson to which would have been a big enough
+reward if Doctor Grayson could have made the
+President feel comfortable in Washington when
+he got there, Mawruss," Abe said, "which I see
+by the paper this morning that thirty-seven
+United States Senators, coming from every state
+in the Union except Missouri, suddenly discovered
+they was from Missouri, in particular the Senator
+from Massachusetts, and not only does them
+Senators want to know what the meaning of that
+constitution of the League of Nations means,
+but they also give notice that, <i>whatever</i> it means,
+they are going to knife it, <i>anyway</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Morris said; "they're like a
+lot of business men you and me has had experience
+with, Abe. They claim a shortage and kick
+about the quality of the shipment before they
+even start to unpack the goods. Why don't they
+wait till Mr. Wilson goes back and finishes up his
+job?"</p>
+
+<p>"They haven't got the time," Abe replied,
+"because the session ends on March 4th at noon,
+just about twenty-four hours before Admiral
+Grayson is paying his first professional call on
+President Wilson aboard the <i>George Washington</i>,
+and by the time Congress gets together again
+President Wilson expects to have the League of
+Nations proposition sewed up so tight that there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+will be nothing left for them Senators to do but to
+indorse it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, as I understand it, them Senators just
+loafed away their time during the end of the session
+and didn't pass a whole lot of laws which
+they should ought to have passed, Abe, so that it
+will be necessary for President Wilson to call an
+extra session in a few days," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what them Senators figured," Abe
+agreed, "but they was mistaken, Mawruss, because
+the President ain't going to run any chances
+of being interrupted while he is working on this
+here Peace Conference by S O S messages from
+Washington to please come home if he wants to
+save <i>anything</i> out of the wreck Congress is making
+of the inside of the Capitol."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought that before he went to Europe
+in the first place, Abe, President Wilson said to
+Congress that it wouldn't make any difference
+to them about his being in Europe, because he
+was in close touch with them, and that the cables
+and the wireless would make him available just
+as though he was still living in the White House,"
+Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Abe agreed; "but the trouble
+with that situation was that it 'ain't been discovered
+by the inventors yet how a President
+can shake hands with a Senator by wireless or
+how he can sit down to dinner by wireless with a
+few Congressmen and make them feel that he is
+their one best friend. Also, Mawruss, it comes
+high even for a President to send cable messages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+to a Senator which he thinks is getting sore about
+something, such cable messages being in the
+nature of: 'Hello, Henry, what's the good word?
+Why is it I 'ain't seen you up to the White House
+lately, Henry?' or, 'Where have you been keeping
+yourself lately, Henry?' or, 'Mrs. Lodge and
+the children all right, Henry?' or something like
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, for that matter, Abe," Morris observed,
+"President Wilson never did a whole lot of jollying
+when he could have done it over the telephone
+at unlimited local-service rates. In fact, from
+what I have seen of Mr. Wilson, he looks to me
+like a man who would find it a whole lot easier
+to be easy in his manner toward Congressmen
+by wireless or by cable than face to face."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you couldn't blame Mr. Wilson exactly,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "because, up to the time
+he became Governor of New Jersey, his idea of
+being a good mixer was to get together with a
+couple of LL.D.'s and sit up till pretty near nine
+o'clock knocking the trustees, y'understand. In
+fact, up to the time he resigned from being president
+of Princeton College, life to Mr. Wilson was
+just correcting one examination paper after another,
+all of which 'ain't got nothing to do with
+this here League of Nations being a good thing,
+Mawruss," Abe declared.</p>
+
+<p>"And it don't affect the fact that Mr. Wilson
+is a high-grade, A-number-one gentleman, which
+is doing the best he knows how to make good to
+his country, Abe," Morris declared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Did I say he wasn't?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what are you dragging up his past life
+for?" Morris demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;dragging up his past life?"
+Abe rejoined. "The way you talk, Mawruss, you
+would think that being president of a college
+come in two degrees, like grand larceny, and had to
+be lived down through the guilty party getting
+the respect of the community by years of honest
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris protested, "don't
+try to twist things around till it looks like I was
+knocking Mr. Wilson, and not you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am knocking President Wilson!" Abe exclaimed.
+"Why, I've got the greatest respect
+for Mr. Wilson, and always did, Mawruss, but
+it would be foolish not to admit that the practice
+which a President of the United States gets in
+being a college professor is more useful to him in
+framing up a first-class, A-number-one League of
+Nations than it is in getting his political enemies
+to accept it. Am I wright or wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he would have got them to accept it
+if he had stayed in touch with them personally
+and managed the Peace Conference by wireless
+and cable," Morris suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"He probably figured that if he wanted to put
+over this here League of Nations it was more
+necessary for him to be on the job in France
+than on the job in America," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Morris commented, "the next time
+the United States of America has a Peace Conference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+on its hands, Abe, the President will have
+to be a copartnership instead of an individual,
+with one member of the firm in Washington and
+the other in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"But what would Admiral Grayson do?" Abe
+asked. "He couldn't be in two places at the
+same time."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably the Washington President could
+find a bright young physician in the Treasury
+Department," Morris concluded, "and promote
+him to the honorary title and salary of Comptroller
+of the Currency."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>SOME CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS FOR
+THE KAISER</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I see where an American army officer reports
+that he has investigated into the food situation
+in Germany and that the German people
+looks thin," Abe Potash observed to his partner,
+Morris Perlmutter.</p>
+
+<p>"That's already German propoganda, Abe,"
+Morris said. "Word come down from headquarters
+that the German people should look
+thin in order to get the sympathy of the American
+officer, so they looked thin, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>Abe shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe you're
+right, Mawruss," he said, "but all I could say is
+that them German propoganders which has
+charge of making the German people look thin
+is wasting their time in Germany, because there
+is plenty people in America which would make
+them propoganders rich for life if they would
+only come over to New York and open an office
+for giving reduction propoganda at a thousand
+dollars a treatment."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said; "ordinarily,
+if the German people looked thin you would believe
+them. Also, before the war, if somebody went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+to Germany and people asked him when he come
+back how was the weather there, he didn't say,
+'Unless they was putting one over on me, it was
+snowing,' y'understand, but to-day it's different.
+Nobody has got no confidence in the Germans
+nowadays. In fact, even the Germans themselves
+is losing confidence in them. Take Berlin, for
+instance, and every week the Spartacist, or Red,
+government has got the support of the people
+from 9:30 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> Tuesday until 6 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> Thursday,
+when the German people begins to lose confidence
+in them, so that by 8:30 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> Friday the Coalition,
+or Yellow, government comes into power. The
+Coalition, or Yellow, government then keeps the
+confidence of the people until Sunday midnight,
+when, under the influence of the Sunday night
+<i>Ersat Delicatessen</i> supper, the Germans starts in
+to suspect that everything ain't right with the
+Yellow government, neither, so back they go to
+the Red government, and they seize Police Headquarters,
+the Bureau of Assessments and Arrears,
+and desk room in the office of the Deputy Commissioner
+of Water-supply, Gas, and Electricity,
+and that's the way it goes."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a funny thing to me why them colored
+German governments always starts a revolution
+by seizing Police Headquarters, Mawruss," Abe
+commented.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way they finance the revolution,"
+Morris replied; "because I understand that the
+night life in Berlin has been going on the same as
+usual, revolution or no revolution, Abe, which I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+bet yer that as soon as the new chief of police
+is appointed by the Red or Yellow government,
+as the case may be, he don't waste no time, but
+he right away sends out plain-clothes men to the
+proprietors of them Berlin all-night restaurants
+with positive instructions to close all restaurants
+at eleven sharp and not to accept nothing but
+gold coin of the present standard of weight and
+fineness."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet it used to be thought that when it
+comes to graft, Mawruss, German officials was
+like C&aelig;sar's ghost," Abe observed&mdash;"above suspicion."</p>
+
+<p>"That's only another way of them impressions
+about Germany which us Americans has had
+reversed on us, Abe," Morris said, "which the
+way our idees about what kind of a people the
+Germans used to was has changed, Mawruss, it
+wouldn't surprise me in the least if the old habit
+the Germans had for drinking beer was just a
+bluff, y'understand, and that at heart they was
+prohibitionists to a man. In fact, Abe, if I
+would be a German Bolshevik with instructions
+to shoot the Kaiser on sight, I should go gunning
+for a short, stout man with a tooth-brush mustache
+and a holy horror of wearing uniforms, because
+it's my opinion that all them so-called portraits
+of the Kaiser was issued for the purpose of misleading
+anarchists to shoot at a thin man in a
+heavily embroidered uniform with spike-end
+mustaches."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, whatever he looks like, Mawruss," Abe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+said, "if I was him, rather than have such a terrible
+fate hanging over me, y'understand, I would
+telegraph to Berlin for them to send along a good
+shot while they was about it, and have the thing
+over with quick, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "You and me should
+have hanging over us the life which the Kaiser
+is going to lead from now on! For two hundred
+and fifty dollars a week at a Pallum Beach hotel
+you could only get a very small idea of the hardships
+the Kaiser will got to undergo in the future,
+Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you mean to told me that after what
+happened to that English lady in Brussels and
+the captain of the English mail-boat, Mawruss,
+the English ain't going to persecute the Kaiser?"
+Abe demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i>&mdash;the English would persecute the Kaiser!"
+Morris exclaimed. "Don't you know that the
+Kaiser's mother was the King of England's father's
+sister? Do you suppose for a moment that the
+King of England wants a convict in the family?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, has he got any <i>mishbocha</i> in France,
+Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Because if not, Mawruss,
+it seems to me that now, while all the witnesses
+is in Paris, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the
+March term of the Paris County grand jury to
+hand down an indictment for murder with intent
+to kill or something."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds reasonable to anybody not connected
+with this here Peace Conference, Abe,"
+Morris admitted, "but it seems that the Committee<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+for Fixing Responsibility says that if they
+was to hang or shoot the Kaiser it would give
+him an awful drag with the German people, and
+they don't want the Kaiser to get popular again,
+dead or alive. Their idea is to punish him by
+letting him live on to be an outcast among all
+the people of the earth, except the proprietors
+of first-class European hotels, dealers in high-grade
+automobiles, expensive jewelry storekeepers,
+fashionable tailors, and a couple of million other
+people who don't attach an awful lot of importance
+to the moral character of anybody which wants
+to enjoy life and has got the money to do it with.
+In other words, Abe, they claim that, in leaving
+the Kaiser to his conscience and his bank-account
+they are punishing him a whole lot worse as
+hanging him or shooting him."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose that same committee is going
+to sentence von Tirpitz to six months at Monte
+Carlo, while Ludendorff will probably be confined
+to a Ritz hotel eight hours a day for the
+rest of his natural life," Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"The committee claims not," Morris replied.
+"It seems that the Kaiser's ministers&mdash;like von
+Tirpitz and Ludendorff&mdash;is going to get what
+is coming to them, on the grounds that they are
+guilty of violations of international law and 'ain't
+got no relations among the royal families of England
+or Italy."</p>
+
+<p>"But why not bring the whole fleet over to
+America, and let the authorities dispose of them
+there?" Abe inquired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Kaiser would be just as much a martyr
+if he was sentenced in America as in Europe,"
+Morris replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Who says anything about sentencing him?"
+Abe demanded. "All it would be necessary to
+do would be to swear out a warrant against him
+and leave the rest to a couple of headquarters
+detectives, which, naturally, when them fellers
+would tell him to come along with them, the
+Kaiser would technically resist the arrest by
+asking what for. This would mean at the very
+least ten stitches in his scalp, Mawruss, not
+reckoning a couple of broken ribs or so when the
+fingerprints was taken, and, while it wouldn't
+be only a starter in the way of punishment, he
+would anyhow find out that it is one thing to be
+actually engaged in a modern battle, and that
+looking at it through a high-power telescope while
+sitting in a bomb-proof limousine six miles away
+is absolutely something else again. Later on,
+Mawruss, when a New York police-court lawyer
+visited him in his cell after the Kaiser had lunched
+on bread and water and the police-court lawyer
+on what used to be called <i>Koenigsburger Klops</i>
+and is now known as Liberty Roast, understand
+me, the Kaiser would get just an inkling of what
+it means to be caught in a gas attack without a
+gas-mask."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk like you would got a little experience
+in the way of sitting in prison yourself, Abe,"
+Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"I am giving you what practically happened to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+a feller by the name Immerglick which was arrested
+by mistake on account the police thought he looked
+like an Italian who was wanted for barrel murder,
+Mawruss," Abe exclaimed, "and if the police behaves
+this way to a perfect stranger which is innocent
+at that, Mawruss, you could imagine what
+them fellers would do to a well-known guilty party
+like the Kaiser. But that's neither here nor
+there, Mawruss. What I am trying to do is to
+work out a punishment proposition for the Kaiser
+which would get by with such a sensitive bunch
+as this here committee to place responsibility
+seems to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead and have a good time with your
+pipe-dream, Abe," Morris said. "You couldn't
+make me feel bad, no matter what happens to the
+Kaiser in your imagination."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Abe continued, "after he is through
+with trying to get rid of the police-court lawyer,
+Mawruss, he should ought to be arranged before
+the magistrate in a traffic court, y'understand,
+and should be accused of driving at the rate of
+twenty-two miles an hour, which is two miles
+past the legal speed limit, and then he would
+find out that all them commandants of Ruhleben
+and the other German prison camps wasn't even
+new beginners in the art of making prisoners
+feel cheap, because you take one of these here
+traffic-court magistrates which has had years of
+experience bawling out respectable sitsons who
+has got the misfortune to own automobiles,
+Mawruss, and what such a feller wouldn't do to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+humilitate the Kaiser, y'understand, ain't even
+dreamt of in German prison camps yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I see you still feel sore about getting fined
+twenty-five dollars for driving like a maniac
+down at Far Rockaway last summer Abe,"
+Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"How I feel or how I don't feel hain't got nothing
+to do with it, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And
+furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle policeman
+which has got the nerve to swear that he
+could tell inside of two miles an hour how fast
+somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty
+of perjury on the face of it, which I told the
+judge. 'Judge, your Honor,' I says, 'I admit I
+was going fast,' I says, 'but&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," Morris interrupted, "but I
+thought you was talking about how to punish
+the Kaiser, ain't it, which, while I admit you got
+some pretty good ideas on the subject, Abe, still at
+the same time there is plenty of ways that the Kaiser
+could get punished in America without going
+to the trouble and expense of arresting him first,
+Abe. There is a whole lot of experiences which
+the American people pays to go through just
+once, y'understand, which if the Kaiser could
+be persuaded to take them all on, one after the
+other, Abe, his worst enemies would got to pity
+him. Supposing, for instance, he would start off
+with one of them electric vibrating face massages,
+Abe, and if he comes through it alive, y'understand,
+he would then be hustled off to one of
+these here strong-arm bunkopathic physicians,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+which charges five dollars for the first visit and
+never has to quote rates for the second or third
+visits, because once is plenty, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought the idea was not to let anybody
+have any sympathy for the Kaiser, Mawruss,"
+Abe broke in.</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty of fellers I know goes to these here
+near-doctors," Morris declared, "and nobody
+has got any sympathy for them, neither. Also,
+Abe, I 'ain't got no sympathy for anybody who
+goes to these here restaurants where they run off a
+cabarattel review, Abe, and yet it's a terrible
+punishment at that, so there's another tip for
+you if you want any more ideas for making the
+Kaiser suffer."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss,
+and if you don't want to show the feller no mercy
+at all, y'understand," Abe said, "what's the matter
+with making him see some of them war plays
+they was putting on in New York last winter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why only <i>war</i> plays?" Morris asked. "I sat
+through a couple musical shows last winter without
+the option of a fine, y'understand, and it
+would be a good thing if the Kaiser could see
+performances like that&mdash;just to make him realize
+that in losing his throne, y'understand, he has
+no longer got the power to order the actors shot,
+together with the composer and the man that
+wrote the jokes."</p>
+
+<p>"But the biggest punishment of all you 'ain't
+even hinted at yet," Abe said, "and it's a punishment
+which thousands of Americans is getting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+right now without no sympathy from nobody,
+which its name is:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"'Form 1040. &nbsp; United States Internal Revenue
+Service<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Individual Income Tax Return</span><br />
+<br />
+For Net Incomes of More than $5,000<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">For Calendar Year, 1918.</span>'<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Also, Mawruss, when you consider what the
+Kaiser done, Mawruss, I ask you is it too much
+that the Committee on Fixing Responsibility
+should order him starved to death or talked to
+death or any other slow and painful death,
+because such a fate is going to be a happy one
+compared with the thousands of decent, respectable
+American business men which is headed
+straight for an insane-asylum, trying to fill out</p>
+
+<table summary="Form" style="margin-left: 0">
+<tr><td class="rightcell">"'(a)</td><td>Totals taxable at 1918 rates (see instructions page 2 under C).</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightcell">(b)</td><td>Totals taxable at 1917 rates (see instructions, included in K (a) page 2).</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightcell">(c)</td><td>Amount of stock dividends (column 4) taxable at 1916 rates (enter as 20).'"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Well, after all, Abe," Morris said, "there's
+one worser punishment you could hand out the
+Kaiser than filling out this here income tax."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" Abe inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Paying it," Morris said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>IT ENTERS ON ITS NO-GOLD-CASKET PHASE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"When a feller gets his name in the papers
+as often as Mr. Wilson, Mawruss, it don't
+take long for them highwaymen to get on to him,"
+Abe Potash remarked, shortly after Mr. Wilson's
+return to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"What highwaymen?" Morris inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Them presidents of orphan-asylums and
+homes," Abe said, "and in a way it serves Mr.
+Wilson right, Mawruss, because, instead of keeping
+it to himself that he got stuck over four thousand
+dollars for tips alone while he was in France,
+y'understand, as soon as he arrived in Boston
+he goes to work and blabs the whole thing to
+newspaper reporters, and you could take it from
+me, Mawruss, that for the next six months Mr.
+Wilson would be flooded with letters from Associations
+for the Relief of Indignant Armenians,
+Homes for Chronic Freemasons, and who knows
+what else. So therefore you take this here
+Carter H. Glass, Mawruss, and he naturally comes
+to the conclusion that Mr. Wilson is an easy
+mark, because&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Abe," Morris interrupted, coldly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+"but who do you think this here Carter H. Glass
+is, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," Abe went on, "but whoever
+he is he probably figured that if he was going
+to get turned down he would anyhow get turned
+down big, because it says here in the paper that he
+cables Mr. Wilson he should please let him have
+three million dollars for this here Bureau for Paying
+Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Abe," Morris said, "if you wouldn't
+know who Carter H. Glass is after paying twelve
+per cent. on all you made over four thousand
+dollars last year, y'understand, nothing that I
+could say would ever learn you, so therefore I
+'ain't got no expectations that you are going to
+remember it when I tell you that this here Carter
+H. Glass is Secretary of the Treasurer, and when
+he cabled Mr. Wilson for three million dollars,
+it ain't so hopeless like it sounds. Also, Abe,
+while Mr. Wilson gives it out to the papers that
+he got stung four thousand dollars for tips, it also
+appears in the papers that he came home with a
+few gold caskets and things, not to mention one
+piece of tapestry which the French government
+presented him with, valued at two hundred thousand
+dollars alone, y'understand, and if that kind
+of publicity is going to give Mr. Wilson a reputation
+as an easy giver-up, Abe, all I can say is
+that the collectors for orphan-asylums and homes
+don't read the papers no more carefully than you
+do, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should the Secretary of the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+States Treasury got to touch Mr. Wilson for?"
+Abe demanded. "Every day the people of the
+United States is paying into the United States
+Treasury millions and millions dollars income-tax
+money and all the President owns is a few gold
+caskets which he got presented with, and maybe
+a little tapestry, y'understand. What's the matter
+with that feller Carter H. Glass? Is he afraid
+he is going to run short if he spends a couple
+million dollars or so? Has he lost his nerve or
+something?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "The
+Secretary of the Treasury 'ain't got such a cinch
+like some people think, y'understand. If the
+Bureau for Paying Allowances to the Relations
+of Soldiers send over and asks the Secretary of
+the Treasury to be so good and let 'em have for a
+few days three million dollars, understand me,
+you would naturally think that it is one of them
+dead open-and-shut, why-certainly propositions.
+The impression you have is that the Secretary
+grabs ahold of the 'phone and says to the head of
+stock to look on the third shelf from the elevator
+shaft is there any more of them million-dollar
+bills with the picture of Rutherford B. Hayes on
+'em left, and if not, to send Jake up with three
+hundred of them three-by-seven-inch ten-thousand-dollar
+bills, and that's all there is to it.
+But as a matter of fact he doesn't do nothing of
+the kind, because nobody could get any money
+out of the Secretary of the Treasury except by
+an act of Congress."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's nothing against Mr. Glass that he is
+such a tight-wad, Mawruss, because that's the
+kind of man to have as Secretary of the Treasurer,
+Mawruss, which supposing they had one of them
+easy-come, easy-go fellers for Secretary of the
+Treasurer, Mawruss&mdash;somebody who would fall
+for every hard-luck story he hears, y'understand,
+and how long is it going to be before the police
+is asking him what did he done with it all?" Abe
+said. "So, for my part, Mawruss, they could
+abuse Mr. Glass all they want to, y'understand,
+but I would be just as well satisfied, so far as my
+income taxes is concerned, if the only way you
+could get money out of him was by a miracle
+instead of an act of Congress. Am I right or
+wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do me the favor, Abe," Morris said, "and
+don't talk a lot of nonsense about a subject about
+which you don't know nothing about, because
+when I say that nobody could get money out of
+Carter H. Glass except by an act of Congress,
+y'understand, I ain't talking poetical in a manner
+of speaking. They must actually got to got
+and act of Congress before anybody could get
+any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury,
+no matter if Mr. Glass would be the most generous
+feller in existence, which, for all I know, he <i>might</i>
+be. So, therefore, Abe, when Congress adjourned
+without passing the acts which was necessary in
+order that the Secretary of the Treasury should
+pay the railroads seven hundred and fifty million
+dollars to keep 'em going, y'understand, not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+mention such chicken-feed like three million dollars
+for this here Soldiers' Relations Bureau and
+the like, it leaves the country practically broke
+with seven or eight billion dollars in the bank.
+<i>Now</i> do you understand what I am driving into?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I do," Abe said, "but explain it to me
+just as if I didn't, because what is a mystery to
+me is, why did Congress adjourn without passing
+them acts, Mawruss?"</p>
+
+<p>"They did it to put Mr. Wilson in bad on
+account he went to Europe without calling an
+extra session," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Congress got paid by the year
+and not by the session," Abe remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"So they do," Morris continued, "but they
+said they wanted to stay in session while Mr.
+Wilson was in Europe to <i>help</i> him, and Mr. Wilson
+thought they wanted to stay in session while he
+was in Europe to knock him, and he said: 'Watch!
+I'll fix them fellers,' and <i>they</i> said: 'Watch! <i>We'll</i>
+fix that feller.' And between the two of them,
+the railroads is left dry and high, the War Risks
+Bureau claims that they could only keep going
+for a week or so, the Soldiers' Relations people
+is sending out J O S signals, and that's the way
+it goes."</p>
+
+<p>"And who do you think is right, Mawruss?"
+Abe asked. "Mr. Wilson or Congress?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I ain't exactly prepared to say, y'understand,"
+Morris replied, "but it's a question in my
+mind whether or not there ain't just so much need
+for a Peace Conference in Washington as there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+is in Paris, and if so, Abe, whether Mr. Wilson
+ain't at the wrong Peace Conference."</p>
+
+<p>"So far as that goes, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"he might just so well be in Washington as in
+Paris, because the tapestry and gold-casket period
+of this here Conference is already a thing of the
+past, which I see that Mr. Wilson ain't even
+staying with the Murats no longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," Morris said, "after the way this
+here Murat went around talking about the League
+of Nations."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I thought he was in favor of it!" Abe
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"He was in favor of it," Morris said, "up to
+the time Mr. Wilson and Lord George had the
+conference with the Jugo-Slobs where they laid
+out the frontiers by making the ink-bottle represent
+Bessarabia and the mucilage-bottle Macedonia.
+When Murat saw the library carpet the next
+morning, he began to say that, after all, why
+shouldn't France control her own foreign policy."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't blame him," Abe commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Later on the Polish National Committee
+called on Mr. Wilson and was shown into the
+parlor before the butler had a chance to put
+the slip covers on the furniture," Morris continued,
+"and that very evening Murat went
+around saying that if France was going to have
+to police the corridor through West Prussia to
+Dantzig, he was against articles fourteen to
+twenty, both inclusive, of the League constitution,
+and where could he find a good dry-cleaner."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That don't surprise me, neither," Abe remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"But it wasn't till the President's body-guard
+of secret-service men had an all-night stud-poker
+session in the yellow guest-room that he actually
+made speeches against the League of Nations,"
+Morris went on, "and at that, the room will never
+look the same again."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if there ain't some kind of property-damage
+insurance that he could have took out
+against a thing happening like that?" Abe speculated.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," Morris said, "but if there is,
+you can bet your life that this here Mrs. Bischoffsheim,
+where the President is staying now,
+has got it."</p>
+
+<p>"And she is going to need it, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "because what the best home-trained men
+do with cigarettes and fountain-pens, when their
+minds are occupied with business matters, ain't
+calculated to improve the appearance of a bar-room,
+neither."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Morris commented. "The President
+<i>oser</i> cares what his address is in Paris, but I'll
+bet you he is doing a lot of thinking as to what
+it is going to be in Washington after March 4,
+1921."</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't a question of who is going to move <i>out</i>
+of the White House, Mawruss," Abe said. "What
+people in America is wondering is, Who is going
+to move <i>in</i>, which right now there is a couple of
+generals, five or six Senators, and a banker or so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+which is figuring on not renewing the leases of
+their apartments beyond March 3, 1921, in case
+they should be obliged to go to Washington for
+four years, or maybe eight."</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of things can happen before the next
+presidential election," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what these Senators and generals
+thinks," Abe agreed, "and in the mean time,
+Mawruss, nobody has got to press them a whole
+lot to speak at dinners and conventions, which
+I see that a general made a speech at a meeting
+in memory of Grover Cleveland the other day
+where he didn't refer once to Mr. Wilson, but
+said that Mr. Cleveland wasn't an expert at
+verbal messages and believed in the Monroe
+Doctrine."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, suppose the general did say that,"
+Morris said. "What of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing of it," Abe replied; "but on the
+other hand, if this here general had gone a bit
+farther, understand me, and said that Grover
+Cleveland never refused to meet Judge Cohalan
+at the Metropolitan Opera House and as a general
+rule didn't act cold toward a Sinn Fein committee,
+Mawruss, you would got to admit that such
+remarks is anyhow suspicious, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"All it is suspicious of to me, Abe," Morris
+said, "is that if such a general has got ambitions
+to be President, y'understand, he ain't going the
+right way about it, because fashions in opinions
+changes like fashions in garments, Abe. At this
+day and date nobody could tell no more about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+what the people of the United States is going
+to think in the fall of 1920 as what they are going
+to wear in the fall of 1920, which it would of
+been a whole lot better for the general's prospects
+if he would of said that Grover Cleveland was
+just as expert at verbal messages as another great
+American and believed just as strongly in a
+League of Nations. In fact, Abe, if there was,
+Heaven forbid, a chance of me being nominated
+for President in 1920, I would lay pipes for claiming
+that it was me that suggested the whole idea
+of the League of Nations to President Wilson
+in the first place. Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're right about the Heaven forbid part,
+anyway," Abe commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," Morris continued, as though he had
+not heard the interruption, "what between the
+people who are willing to take President Wilson's
+word for it and the people who ain't willing to
+take a United States Senator's word for anything,
+y'understand, this here League of Nations looks
+like a pretty safe proposition for any politician
+to tie up to, and it wouldn't surprise me in the
+least if even some of them Senators which signed
+the round robin would be claiming just before the
+1920 National Conventions that they was never
+what you might call actually against a League
+of Nations except, as one might say, in a manner
+of speaking, if you know what I mean. Also,
+Abe, these here Senators which is now acting
+like they would have sworn a solemn oath, in
+addition to the usual amount of swearing about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+such things, that they would never ratify this here
+League of Nations, y'understand, are already
+beginning to say that they wouldn't ratify it
+anyhow in its present form, understand me, and
+before they got through, Abe, you could take it
+from me, that when it finally comes up for ratification
+them same Senators is going to go over
+it again carefully and find that it has been amended
+by inserting two commas in Article two and a
+semicolon in Article twenty-five, and a glad shout
+of 'Oh, well, this is something else again!' will go
+up, understand me, and after they vote to unanimously
+ratify it they will be telling each other
+that all you have to do is to make a firm stand
+against Mr. Wilson and he will back right down."</p>
+
+<p>"The way it looks to me, Mawruss," Abe
+commented, "the back-down is on the other foot."</p>
+
+<p>"It's fifty-fifty, Abe, because, when the President
+gets his back up, the Senate starts to back
+down," Morris concluded, "and <i>vice versa</i>."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>WORRYING SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME, AIN'T IT?</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I see where the Italian delegates to the Peace
+Conference says that if Italy don't get
+Fiume, Mawruss, there would be a revolution
+in Italy," Abe Potash remarked to his partner,
+Morris Perlmutter.</p>
+
+<p>"Any excuse is better than none," Morris Perlmutter
+commented, "which it is very clear to me,
+Abe, that with the example of Poland in front
+of them, the Italians being also a musical people
+and seeing that Poland has got it a first-class
+A-number-one pianist like Paderewski for a President,
+y'understand, they are taking the opportunity
+of Fiume to put in Caruso or Scotti or one
+of them fellers as President."</p>
+
+<p>"They would got to offer their Presidents an
+awful big salary if they expect to compete with
+the Metropolitan Opera House, Mawruss," Abe
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"If Poland could do it, Abe, why couldn't
+Italy?" Morris said. "Which Paderewski didn't
+have to tune pianos on the side to make a living
+over here, neither, Abe, and, besides, Abe, if they
+would let Caruso have a free hand in the formation
+of his Cabinet, he would probably get a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+barytone for Secretary of State, a basso for
+Secretary of Commerce and Labor, De Luca for
+Secretary of the Treasury, Martinelli for Secretary
+of War, and draw on the Chicago Opera Company
+for Secretaries of the Navy, the Interior, and
+Agriculture. After that, Abe, all the Italian
+government would got to do would be to move
+the capital to Milan and hold open sessions of the
+Cabinet at the Scala with a full orchestra, and
+they could take in from ten to twenty thousand
+dollars at the door, daily, in particular if they was
+to advertise that Caruso would positively appear
+at every session of the Cabinet, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"But, joking to one side, Mawruss," Abe declared,
+"while personally I got to admit that up
+to a short time ago, for all I knew about Fiume,
+y'understand, if somebody would of said to me
+suddenly, 'Fiume,' I would have said, 'Fiume
+yourself, you dirty loafer!' and the chances is there
+would have been a fight then and there, understand
+me. Still, I couldn't help thinking that as
+between old friends like the Italians and perfect
+strangers like the Jugo-Slobs, y'understand, Italy
+should ought to have Fiume and anything else
+she wants within reason and even a couple of
+places not within reason, if she wants them that
+bad."</p>
+
+<p>"In deciding these things, Abe," Morris said,
+"Mr. Wilson couldn't consider prejudice."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" Abe retorted. "Well, could he consider
+who discovered America? A Jugo-Slob, I suppose,
+what? But never mind going so far back as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+Christopher Columbus, Mawruss. Take our best
+workmen right in our own shop, Mawruss&mdash;them
+Tonies and them Roccos with all the time a
+pleasant smile no matter how hard we work them,
+and what are they? Jugo-Slobs or Italians? Take it
+in the city of New York alone, and do we get there
+half a million Jugo-Slobs or half a million Italians?
+I am asking you? Also, Mawruss, I suppose the
+American people is crazy to see Jugo-Slob opera,
+with wonderful Jugo-Slob singers and composed
+by Jugo-Slob composers, ain't it? Furthermore,
+Mawruss, when you want to give your wife a
+treat, you take her out and blow her to a good
+Jugo-Slob <i>table d'h&ocirc;te</i>, one dollar and a half
+including wine&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "I didn't say
+a word that Italy shouldn't have Fiume."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you didn't," Abe said, "but there's a
+whole lot of people which does, Mawruss, and
+how they expect to use it for an argument to
+get the millions of Italians in America to subscribe
+to the next Victory Loan, Mawruss, may
+be perfectly clear to them, Mawruss, but <i>I</i> couldn't
+see it and I doubt if them millions of Italians
+will be able to see it, neither."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably you ain't wrong exactly," Morris
+said, "but whichever way Mr. Wilson thinks
+is the best for the good of Europe, Abe, that's
+the way he would decide it about Fiume."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe observed,
+"while I consider that Europe, excepting the
+coffee they give you for breakfast, is a high-grade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+continent, taking it by and large, still at the same
+time I ain't so fanatical about it that if I would
+be President Wilson, I wouldn't once in a while
+give America a look-in also. Furthermore, Mawruss,
+admitting that Mr. Wilson is acting wonderful
+in the way he is unselfish about America,
+y'understand, and that he would probably go
+down in history as a great and good man, y'understand,
+he should ought to watch out that he don't
+act <i>too</i> unselfish about America, Mawruss, otherwise
+he would be going down as a great and good
+man in French and English history and not in
+American history."</p>
+
+<p>"There is even some people which figures that
+he would be a great man in the history of the
+world even," Morris interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Abe said, "and that's the
+trouble with a whole lot of people these days,
+Mawruss. They are figuring on world propositions,
+and what goes on in the next block don't
+interest them at all. Worrying should begin at
+home, Mawruss, whereas with them world thinkers
+they couldn't get really and truly anxious about
+the way things is going anywheres nearer to the
+Woolworth Building than the Nevski Prospekt.
+'Ain't you ashamed of yourselves to be kicking
+about not having a job,' they says to the returning
+American soldiers, 'when thousands of muzhiks
+in Ukrania is idle.' And they go to work and
+collect dollar after dollar for milk to feed Czecho-Slovak
+babies, with sixty cents after sixty cents
+overhead on the collection, y'understand, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+right here in New York City families with an
+income of eighteen dollars a week has got to pay
+twenty cents a quart for grade B milk when the
+milk-wagon drivers ain't on strike."</p>
+
+<p>"People has become European-Americans from
+reading too much newspapers nowadays, Abe,"
+Morris said, "which in these times of one newspaper
+trying to show the others how much more
+money it is spending for foreign cables, y'understand,
+if you want to see who is murdered in
+your own town, understand me, you are liable to
+find a couple of lines about it 'most any part of
+the paper except in the first four pages, and the
+consequences is that people gets the impression
+from reading the papers that a strike in Berlin
+is ever so much more important than a strike in
+Hoboken for the simple reason that as the Berlin
+strike cost the newspaper proprietor several hundred
+dollars for cables, he put it on the front
+page, whereas the strike in Hoboken only cost
+him seven cents car fare for the reporter each
+way, and therefore it gets slipped in on the eleventh
+page with over it the head-line: '<span class="smcap">Plan American
+Orchestra</span>. Chicago's New Philharmonic
+Is Headed by Mrs. J. Ogden Armour,' the orchestra
+story with the strike head-line having failed
+to get into the paper at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "people which
+reads the newspapers don't take the same amount
+of interests in strikes like they once used to did
+before the United States government organized
+them Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+nowadays strikes is long, dull affairs consisting
+of the first strike, the arbitration, the decision,
+the second strike, the arbitration, the decision,
+the third strike, and so on for several months,
+because that's the trouble with arbitration,
+Mawruss: everybody is willing to arbitrate and
+nobody is willing to be decided against."</p>
+
+<p>"Also strikes is becoming too common, Abe,"
+Morris said. "Everybody is going on strike
+nowadays, from milk-wagon drivers to the United
+States Senate, and although the last strike only
+<i>begun</i> as a strike and ended up as a lock-out,
+y'understand, still the example wasn't good to
+the country, which if the strike fever is going
+to spread as high up as the United States Senate,
+Abe, where is it going to stop? The first thing
+you know, the members of the Metropolitan Club
+will be going on strike for a minimum of six
+hundred sturgeon eggs in a ten-dollar portion of
+fresh Astrakhan caviar, and the Amalgamated
+Bank Presidents of America, New York Local
+No. 1, will be walking out in a body for a minimum
+wage of fifty thousand dollars a year, with
+a maximum working year of four months."</p>
+
+<p>"But even when strikes had no foreign competition
+in the newspapers, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"the interest in them soon died out, which very
+few people outside the parties concerned ever
+finds out when a strike ends or who wins, and you
+might even say gives a nickel one way or the other,
+Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't only strikes which affects people like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+that, Abe," Morris commented. "Long-drawn-out
+murder trials and graft investigations also suffers
+that way, which I bet yer the American newspaper-reading
+people will soon get on to the fact
+that the newspapers is playing up to their cable
+tolls, y'understand, and everybody will be starting
+in to read the paper at the fourth or fifth
+page."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, I think that considerable interest was
+revived in the League of Nations and the Peace
+Conference by the argument that Senator Lodge
+put up last week in Lowell, Massachusetts," Abe
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't <i>in</i> Lowell, but <i>with</i> Lowell," Morris
+corrected.</p>
+
+<p>"In or with," Abe said, "it caused a whole lot
+of comment in the newspapers, and the people
+which bought the next morning them papers
+that printed the whole affair in full, Mawruss,
+skipped as much as two or three pages about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they didn't miss much, Abe," Morris
+said, "because it didn't come up to the advertisement."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;the advertisement?" Abe
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, for days already, the newspapers come
+out with a notice that Senator Lodge would argue
+with this here Lowell, which he is a college president
+and not a town, Abe, the argument to take place
+in a big hall in Boston, and the application for
+tickets was something tremendous, Abe, because
+you know how arguments about the League of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+Nations is, Abe. Sometimes the parties only use
+language and sometimes the smaller one of the
+two goes to a hospital, understand me. But,
+however, in this case it must be that the friends
+of Senator Lodge must have went to him and
+said: 'What do you want to get into an argument
+with Lowell for? Treat him with contempt.
+What do you care <i>what</i> he says about you?
+You are <i>doch</i> a United States Senator, ain't it?'
+And the friends of this here Lowell also must
+have went to him and said: 'Listen, Lowell,
+don't make a show of yourself. If Lodge wants
+to behave himself that way, all right; he's only
+a United States Senator, but you are anyhow
+president of Harvard College, and you can't
+afford to <i>act</i> that way.' 'Act <i>what</i> way?' Lowell
+probably said. 'Do you think I am going to
+sit down and let him walk all over Wilson, which
+Wilson and me was presidents of colleges together
+for years already?'"</p>
+
+<p>"And besides a college president don't make
+such big money that he could afford to sneeze
+at his share of the gate receipts, neither," Abe
+commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Be that as it may," Morris said, "they probably
+figured that it was too late to call the thing
+off, but their friends must have got them together
+and talked Lodge over into behaving like a gentleman,
+because he practically agreed to everything
+that Lowell said and, so to speak, 'threw' the
+whole debate right at the outset, which, reading
+the reports in the newspapers next morning, Abe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+it is a wonder to me that the referee or the umpire
+didn't stop it before it had gone the first five
+minutes, even."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if people is foolish enough to bet on
+such things, Mawruss," Abe commented, "they
+deserve to lose, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"So the consequences is that some people is
+now saying that Senator Lodge backed down because
+he didn't have a leg to stand on," Morris
+continued, "while them people which probably
+made a little easy money on Lowell is saying,
+'<i>Yow!</i> backed down!' and that Lowell is a
+crackerjack, A-number-one arguer, and won the
+argument on his merits, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"The whole thing should ought to be investigated
+by the Massachusetts Boxing Commission
+in order to see that them kind of disgraceful
+exhibitions shouldn't occur again," Abe said,
+"otherwise this here James Butler which is president
+of Columbia College will fix up an argument
+with another United States Senator, and whoever
+is now president of Princeton College will
+arrange a frame-up with a Governor of a state or
+somebody, and the first thing you know, Mawruss,
+college presidents will be getting such a reputation
+as public speakers that the next Republican National
+Convention will be again unloading a college
+president on us as President of the United States."</p>
+
+<p>"Say," Morris protested, "if all college presidents
+would make as good a President as Mr.
+Wilson done, Abe, I am content that we should
+have such a president for President."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"President Wilson done all right, Mawruss,"
+Abe declared. "He done a whole lot to add a
+touch of refinement to what otherwise would
+of been a very rough war, understand me. He's
+got the respect and admiration of the whole world,
+Mawruss, and I ain't going to say <i>but</i> neither,
+but would say <i>however</i>. Mawruss, for the next
+ten years or so the United States of America ain't
+going to be as quiet as a college exactly. Maybe
+the presidents of colleges will continue to deal
+with college professors and college students which
+couldn't talk back, Mawruss, but the next President
+of the United States will have to stand an
+awful lot of back-talk from a whole lot of people
+about taxes, business conditions, railroads, and
+so forth, and instead of coming right back with a
+snappy remark originally made by some big
+Roman philosopher and letting it go at that,
+Mawruss, he would got to come right back with
+a plan devised by some big Pittsburgh business
+man and act on it, too."</p>
+
+<p>"There's something in what you say, Abe,"
+Morris admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"So, therefore, if we've got to drag a college
+president for President, Mawruss," Abe concluded,
+"let's hope he would be anyhow president
+of a business college."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NEW HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I see where a feller by the name Rubin or
+Robin or something like that, which was
+working as a traveling-salesman for the Red
+Cross in Russia, got examined by Congress the
+other day," Abe Potash said one morning in March,
+"and in the course of explaining how he come to
+spend all that money for traveling expenses or
+something, he says that the Bolsheviki in Russia
+is a very much misunderstood people."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Morris said; "it is always the
+case, Abe, that when somebody does something
+which could only be explained on the grounds
+that he would sooner be in jail than <i>out</i>, he goes
+to work and claims that nobody understands
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"But Rubin claims that the reason Bolshevism
+sprung in the first place was that the Bolsheviki
+was tired of the war," Abe continued, "whereas
+the Allies thought they were quitters."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;whereas?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, that ain't the only 'whereas,'" Abe
+said. "Rubin also said that the Allies thinks
+the Bolsheviki is a bunch of organized murderers,
+<i>whereas</i> the Allies don't understand that the only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+people murdered by them Bolsheviki was the
+property-owners which objects to their property
+being taken, and that as a matter of fact them
+poor Bolsheviki are simply <i>obliged</i> to take the
+property, there being no other alternative except
+working for a living."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nebich!</i>" Morris exclaimed, "and did he say
+anything else about them Bolsheviki that we
+should ought to break our hearts over, Abe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rubin didn't, but there is some of these here
+liberal-minded papers which seems to think that
+what this here Rubin says is not only a big boost
+for the Bolsheviki, but that it should ought to be
+a lesson to us not to pass laws in this country to
+prevent the Bolsheviki from operating over here."</p>
+
+<p>"But we already got laws over here to take
+care of people which would sooner commit murder
+than work, Abe," Morris said, "and as for
+being liberal-minded about the Bolsheviki, Abe,
+I am content that after they are sentenced they
+should have all the privilege that the other convicts
+have, and that's as far as I would go."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you couldn't claim credit for being very
+funny that way, Mawruss. You've got practically
+all the unliberal-minded people in the United
+States siding with you," Abe declared, "because,
+being liberal-minded is a matter of being able
+to see only the unpopular side of every question.
+It is the liberal-minded people which thinks
+there is something to be said in favor of the
+Germans and says it, y'understand. It is the
+liberal-minded people which is always willing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+try anything that don't seem reasonable to
+practically everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose them liberal-minded people
+would even approve of Germany trying to get out
+of paying an indemnity by pulling off one of them
+street affairs with shooting which passes for Bolshevik
+revolution," Morris said, "but the backing
+of such liberal-minded Americans wouldn't help
+the Germans none, because there would be a whole
+lot of husky parties in khaki going into Germany
+and acting in such an unliberal-minded way that
+the Germans would wish they would have paid
+the indemnity voluntarily on the instalment plan
+rather as have it collected all in one sum by levy
+and sale under an execution."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "it is always the
+case that when the creditors begin to scrap among
+themselves, y'understand, the fraudulent bankrupt
+stands a good chance to get away with the concealed
+assets, ain't it, and in particular in this
+case where there is so many liberal-minded people
+around which don't want to be too hard on Germany,
+<i>anyway</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I bet yer," Morris said, fervently; "and while
+this here Peace Conference is killing a whole lot
+of time deliberating how to make this the last
+war, y'understand, they will wake up some fine
+morning to find out that they have really made
+it the last war but one. Furthermore, Abe, this
+next-to-the-last war wouldn't be a marker to the
+war we are going to have in collecting indemnities
+from Bolsheviki, because when it comes to atrocities,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+Abe, a Bolshevik government could make
+the old German government look like the Society
+for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Might the Peace Conference would hurry up,
+maybe," Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"They've got to hurry up if they don't want
+to be shifted from a Peace Conference to a Council
+of War," Morris said. "Look what has already
+happened in Hungary."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet, Mawruss, you would think that with
+a nation like the Hungarians, which is used to
+eating in Hungarian restaurants, y'understand,
+a little thing like starvation wouldn't worry them
+at all," Abe said, "so therefore I couldn't understand
+why the Hungarians should have gone
+Bolshevik from want of food, as the papers says
+they did."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>My</i> paper didn't say it," Morris commented,
+"and if it did, I wouldn't believe it, anyway,
+because the most you could claim for Bolshevism
+as a cure for starvation is that it keeps the patient
+so busy worrying about his other troubles that he
+forgets how hungry he is. Furthermore, Abe,
+the way it looks to me, this here Bolshevik revolution
+in Hungary ain't even what the Poor Food
+Law would call a Bolshevik Type revolution,
+because it is my idea that Lenine and Trotzky
+could read the papers the same like anybody else.
+So, therefore, when they seen it that all the American
+newspaper correspondents was sending out
+word that the Peace Conference should ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+to hurry up its work because of the spread of
+Bolshevism, y'understand, and that the delegates
+should ought to go easy on Germany because, if
+they didn't, Germany would probably go Bolshevik,
+y'understand, this here Trotzky, which once
+used to work on a New York newspaper but lived
+it down by changing his name from Bronstein to
+Trotzky, understand me, at once gets up a line
+of snappy advertisements headed:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"'<span class="smcap">Why Bolshevism</span>?'
+</p>
+
+<p>to the effect that a Revolution a Day Drives
+Indemnities Away and for particulars to write
+to Trotzky &amp; Lenine, Department M, Petrograd
+Land Title and Trust Building, Petrograd. And,
+of course, Hungary fell for it."</p>
+
+<p>"So you think that this here Hungarian revolution
+is a fake?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't a fake, it's a business," Morris replied,
+"which I bet yer that right now Messrs. Ebert,
+Scheidemann &amp; Co. is writing Trotzky &amp; Lenine
+they should please quote prices on Bolshevist uprisings
+as per Hungarian sample, F.O.B. Berlin,
+and also that it wouldn't be only a matter of a
+few days when knocking Germany would be a
+capital offense in Petrograd, upon the grounds
+that the customer is always right."</p>
+
+<p>"But I understand that in Budapest the working-men
+is seizing the factories and running them
+themselves," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"There's always bound to be a certain number<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+of people which couldn't take a job," Morris
+commented.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no joke about it," Abe declared,
+"which I see in the paper this morning that the
+new Hungarian Soviet government has directed
+the presidents of banks to put their business
+in the hands of the clerks and that the landlords
+has got to let the janitors manage the apartment-houses."</p>
+
+<p>"The landlords has got to do that in America,
+whether the government tells 'em to or not, Abe,"
+Morris said, "and as for the bank presidents, Abe,
+they might just as well go out and look for another
+job to-day as to wait till next week when them
+committees of factory-workers will start in to
+make overdrafts at the point of a revolver."</p>
+
+<p>"Things must be terribly mixed up in Hungary,
+according to the papers," Abe observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "in some
+countries a Bolshevik government could be quite
+disturbing, but take Hungarian cooking, for instance,
+and it wouldn't really make a whole lot of
+difference if <i>gulyas</i> or paprika chicken was cooked
+by one chef or a committee of scullions, Abe, it
+would be just so miscellaneous and nobody could
+tell from eating it what had been put into it,
+y'understand. Also, Abe, take these here gipsy
+Hungarian bands, and while there would probably
+be a terrible conglomeration of noises if a committee
+of players was to start in to conduct the
+Boston Symphonies or the New York Philharmonics,
+y'understand, a committee of gipsy musicians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+couldn't make a <i>czardas</i> sound worser
+than it does, no matter how they disagree as to the
+way it should ought to be played."</p>
+
+<p>"For that matter, there's a lot of things produced
+in Germany which a Soviet government
+couldn't spoil, neither, Mawruss," Abe said, "like
+music by this here Nathan Strauss, the composer,
+or <i>Koenigsburger Klops</i>, now called Liberty Roast,
+which I see by last Sunday's paper that the Kaiser
+has been talking again."</p>
+
+<p>"And what's that got to do with Germany
+going Bolshevik?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, except that it partially accounts
+for it," Abe replied, "which a newspaper feller
+by the name of Begbie called on the Kaiser in
+Holland, and he says the Kaiser couldn't see it
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>"See what?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he couldn't see what people is making
+such a fuss about," Abe said. "He says that,
+so far as starting this here war is concerned, he
+didn't <i>say</i> nothing, he didn't <i>do</i> nothing, and all he
+knows about it is that he lays the whole thing
+to the Freemasons."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the F. A. M.?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What other Freemasons is there?" Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure he didn't say the Knights of Pythias
+or the I. O. O. F., because, while I don't belong to
+the Masons myself, Abe, Rosie's sister's husband's
+brother by the name Harris November has been
+a thirty-sixth degree Mason for years already,"
+Morris declared, "and I'll swear that if a gabby<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+feller like him would have known that the Masons
+had anything to do with bringing on the war,
+Abe, he would of spilled it already long since
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, I don't know nothing about
+what Harris November said or what he didn't
+say, Mawruss, but that's what the Kaiser said,"
+Abe continued, "and he also had a good deal to
+say about Queen Victorine of England what a
+wonderful woman she was, <i>olav hasholom</i>, and
+how she told him many times he should look out
+for that low-life of a son of hers by the name
+Edwin."</p>
+
+<p>"But I always thought this here Edwin was
+such a decent, respectable feller," Morris interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what everybody else thought," Abe
+went on, "but the Kaiser says that many times
+the old lady says to him he shouldn't have nothing
+to do with Edwin. 'Believe me,' she said, according
+to the Kaiser, 'he wouldn't do you no good
+intellectually, morally, or socially,' and so for
+that reason the Kaiser wouldn't join the Entente
+with England, France, and Russia."</p>
+
+<p>"Because this here Edwin was at the bottom
+of it?" Morris inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what the Kaiser <i>said</i>," Abe replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he also caught the poor Czar <i>selig</i>
+eating with his knife or something," Morris
+suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"That he didn't say, neither," Abe answered,
+"but he might just so well have said it, for all it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+would go down with me, Mawruss, because we
+all know how kings sow their rolled oats, Mawruss,
+and any king which wouldn't associate with any
+other king on the grounds of running around the
+streets till all hours of the night or gambling,
+y'understand, if that ain't a case of a pot calling
+a kettle, I don't know what is."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose he topped off them lies by
+getting religious, ain't it?" Morris remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," Abe said. "And in particular he
+got very sore at the Freemasons on account of
+them being atheists."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the first time I hear that about the
+Freemasons," Morris observed. "I think, myself,
+that he was getting them mixed up with
+the Elks."</p>
+
+<p>"The Elks ain't atheists," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"I know they ain't, but at the same time they
+ain't religious fanatics exactly," Morris said,
+"which to a particular feller like the Kaiser would
+be quite enough, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"Also, Mawruss," Abe went on, "he claims
+that the Freemasons is all Bolshevists, and in
+fact, from the way he carried on about the Freemasons,
+you would think he was crazy on the subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe they once turned him down or something,"
+Morris commented, "which when I was
+treasurer of Friendship Lodge, 129, I. O. M. A.,
+before we quit giving sick benefits, Abe, we turned
+down a feller by the name Turkeltaub on account
+of varicose veins, and the way he went around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+calling us all kinds of highwaymen you wouldn't
+believe at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But the newspaper feller that interviewed
+him says that the Kaiser seems to be in pretty
+good health, Mawruss," Abe declared.</p>
+
+<p>"That don't make him a good risk, neither,"
+Morris retorted. "I suppose the interviewer
+didn't say how his appetite was."</p>
+
+<p>"What's his appetite got to do with it?" Abe
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because, in speaking of murderers just before
+they go to the chair, Abe," Morris concluded,
+"the newspaper always say, 'The condemned
+man ate hearty.'"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE
+SAME FOR TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGES</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I am surprised to see that an old-established
+and well-settled government like Mexico
+should got a revolution on his hands, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash declared as he skimmed the head-lines
+in the morning papers.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you think that Mexico is an old-established
+and well-settled government, Abe?"
+Morris Perlmutter asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Germany and Hungary do," Abe replied,
+"which up to the time this here General Blanquet
+lands the other day in Mexico, people was beginning
+to say that why couldn't Germany have
+one last revolution and stick to it and look at
+Mexico the way she settled down, not having had
+a single revolution to speak of since January
+fifteenth, nineteen-nineteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think the reason why the Mexicans
+'ain't had a revolution in so long isn't because
+they didn't want to, Abe," Morris said, "but
+because it has taken them all that time to learn
+the technical terms. You see, a really and truly
+up-to-date revolution couldn't be run off nowadays,
+Abe, unless it is one of them Bolshevik<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+Type revolutions, and in order to get the right
+kind of newspaper publicity for it the management
+has got to know enough Russian not to say <i>soviet</i>
+when they mean <i>mir</i>. Also I bet yer when it
+comes to a zemstvo, the Mexicans don't know
+even now whether you dance it to a guitar and
+cascanet accompaniment or eat it with garlic
+and chili sauce."</p>
+
+<p>"A feller could make quite some money nowadays
+from teaching Russian by mail to revolutionary
+socialists," Abe commented.</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't necessary in this country, Abe,"
+Morris said, "because the Bolshevik government
+in Russia has sent over here a feller by the name
+of Martens to give a course in Bolshevism to
+American working-men."</p>
+
+<p>"And did our government let him land?" Abe
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Seemingly they did," Morris replied, "which
+is pretty liberal of our government when you
+consider that right now we got American soldiers
+in Russia which is fighting Bolshevism."</p>
+
+<p>"It's even more than liberal, it's crazy," Abe
+said, "because while I believe in free speech,
+y'understand, Bolshevik speeches ain't free by
+a whole lot. Over in Hungary they became
+payable in thirty, sixty, and ninety days and the
+only people which ain't ruined by them is the
+makers and indorsers."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right about the makers, Abe," Morris
+commented. "For the most part they are a
+bunch of no-account foreigners which all they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+risk by making such speeches is hoarseness, y'understand,
+but some of the indorsers of such
+speeches comes from the best American families,
+and if the time ever comes when there <i>should</i>
+be a little temporary Bolshevik trouble by foreigners
+in this country who have been encouraged
+by the liberal attitude of the government to
+think that the worst which could happen to them
+would be ten dollars or ten days, y'understand,
+them indorsers would got to pay the same like
+any other decent, respectable people which ain't
+Bolsheviks. Take, for example, in Hungary
+and the protelariats is making the middle class
+give up their bath-rooms to the working-people
+every Saturday night."</p>
+
+<p>"But the protelariats in New York has all got
+bath-rooms in their tenement-houses, Mawruss,"
+Abe protested.</p>
+
+<p>"I know they have, but they'll probably figure
+that why should they trouble themselves to
+empty the coal out of their bath-tubs, which is
+what them protelariats now use bath-tubs for,
+Abe, just to save the middle class the inconvenience
+of changing their bath night from Saturday to
+Friday," Morris said, "but at the same time,
+Abe, it don't look to me that a country which
+has got the modern convenience of America is
+going to go Bolshevik for the next few hundred
+years, anyway, because it is my idee that what
+makes a people become Bolsheviks is the lack of
+good plumbing and savings-bank accounts, and
+rather as have the privacy of their bath-rooms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+and their savings-bank accounts invaded, the big
+majority of the American people would declare
+the United States of America an obsolete monarchy
+with Ivan D. Ivanovitch, alias John D. Rockafeller,
+Jr., as the first Czar, understand me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I would be the United States government
+I wouldn't let a Bolshevik land exactly,"
+Abe declared.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;you wouldn't let him
+land <i>exactly</i>?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I say," Abe said. "I would
+let him pretty nearly land and then tip up the
+gang-plank. Also, Mawruss, if I would be the
+United States government, I would allow free
+speech, but not free speakers, y'understand, which
+I would make public speaking a profession the
+same like lawyers, dentists, or doctors, because
+if nobody could be a public speaker without taking
+a four-year course in public speaking and then
+getting licensed to practise as a public speaker
+after passing an examination, y'understand, he
+would think anyhow twice before he says something
+in public which would bring him up on
+charges to show cause why he shouldn't have
+his license to practise as a public speaker taken
+away from him. In other words, Mawruss, the
+way I would prevent Bolshevism is that I would
+make the sheepskin take the place of the soapbox
+as a necessary article for public speaking,
+and incidentally in the foreign neighborhoods
+of our big cities, y'understand, not only would
+soap-boxes be used for soap, but it would also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+go a long way towards making bath-tubs used for
+bathing."</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "I
+couldn't help thinking that if the feller who talks
+in public was given less to talk about, y'understand,
+it would help a whole lot, too, which there
+wouldn't be nearly so many loafers go into the
+Bolshevik line if there wasn't so many respectable
+people engaged in what might be called manufacturing
+Bolshevik supplies, such as army officers
+which claims that nobody has a right to kick if a
+soldier gets ten years' hard labor for using bad
+grammar in speaking to an officer, y'understand.
+Also there is a lot of state Legislatures in this
+country which has seemingly formed themselves
+into Societies for the Encouragement of Bolshevism
+by earning, anyhow, the gratitude of canners
+and cotton manufacturers who have got women
+and children working for them till all hours of the
+night, y'understand. Then again there is the
+perfectly respectable people which would like to
+make by law a Sunday out of every week-day
+and a living tomb out of Sunday, understand me,
+and which would have nobody but themselves
+to blame if some day they would got to furnish
+soap and towels for the protelariats in their
+bath-rooms."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "Bolshevism
+as a form of government is pretty nearly exploded,
+Mawruss. It is now used principally as a threat
+such as when Germany says if the Polaks get
+Danzig and West Prussia, y'understand, Germany<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+would take up Bolshevism, and Paderewski says
+if the Polaks don't get Danzig, Poland would
+take up Bolshevism, understand me."</p>
+
+<p>"And Paderewski would take up giving piano
+lessons to raise enough money to get out of Poland,
+Abe," Morris commented, "and he would probably
+have to do so, too, as there ain't much
+chance of his getting away with that Danzig
+stuff. Also, Abe, we Americans should ought
+to be the last to encourage him to think that he
+will, Abe, because while I don't know how long
+it is since Danzig, Germany, was Danzig, Poland,
+I do know that it ain't nearly so long ago as
+Galveston, Texas, was Galveston, Mexico, y'understand.
+So, therefore, if Mr. Wilson lets Poland
+get back Danzig, it wouldn't be long before Mexico
+would elect Teresa Carre&ntilde;o or Fannie Bloomfield
+Zeisler as President and claim Galveston with a
+corridor taking in San Antonio and Houston,
+understand me."</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same, I am in favor that Germany
+should have to give up Danzig even if Danzig
+'ain't belonged to Poland since 1492 and the only
+Danzig people now speaking Polish as a regular
+language is the interpreter of the First District
+Magistrate's Court for the City and County of
+Danzig, y'understand," Abe declared. "Furthermore,
+I think this here Peace Conference is taking
+it too particular about what Germany should or
+shouldn't give up, Mawruss, which if the shoe
+pinched on the other foot, Mawruss, and this here
+Peace Conference was being held in Berlin or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+Vienna, y'understand, with Germany, Austria,
+Turkey, and Bulgaria as the Big Four, understand
+me, there wouldn't be any question as to
+what Allied territory would or wouldn't be given
+up by the Allies, Mawruss. If Germany would
+have won the war, Mawruss, she would have
+taken Calais and Boulogne with as much argument
+over it as a golluf-player taking a Scotch
+highball, y'understand, and if France would have
+threatened to go Bolshevik on account of it,
+Germany would of said, 'Don't do us no favors,'
+understand me, and let it go at that. So, therefore,
+if the people of Danzig couldn't speak Polish,
+Mawruss, let 'em learn to do so, even if it would
+be necessary for them to go to a nose and throat
+specialist till they got used to the pronunciation."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, for my part I am willing that this here
+Peace Conference should do anything and everything,
+Abe, just so long as they would get through
+with their work and I wouldn't have to listen no
+longer to your nonsense," Morris declared.</p>
+
+<p>"No nonsense at all," Abe protested. "The
+thing this here Peace Conference should ought to
+have done from the start was to consider what
+Germany would have done under the circumstances,
+put the reverse English on it, and then
+let her whoop, which I see by the paper that they
+are now getting ready to make airyoplane journeys
+across the Atlantic Ocean, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"And what's that got to do with this here
+Peace Conference?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," Abe said, "except that I see Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+Wilson is writing home that they should please
+send over the <i>George Washington</i> in case it should
+be necessary for him to make good any bluff he
+might throw to the Peace Conference that if they
+don't do as he says, he would leave them flat
+and go back to America. So, therefore, if he
+has to make good sooner than he thinks, he could
+go home by airyoplane and not wait for the <i>George
+Washington</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that this here transatlantic
+airyoplane flying is exactly in the President-carrying
+class just yet, Abe," Morris suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither do I, Mawruss," Abe said, "but the
+manufacturers of airyoplanes seems pretty confident,
+Mawruss. In fact, I see in the papers
+that it won't be but a matter of a few years when
+the New York business man which has business
+to do in London, instead of getting on the <i>Mauretania</i>
+in New York and landing six days later
+in Liverpool, y'understand, would be able to
+take the railroad to Halifax, Nova Scotia, spend
+the night there or anyhow only as many nights
+there as it would be necessary before the steamer
+sails for Saint John's, Newfoundland, and then
+take the steamer to Saint John's, Newfoundland,
+where there would be a passenger airyoplane in
+waiting and no first-class hotels, y'understand.
+At Saint John's, such is the strides airyoplane-manufacturing
+has made, Mawruss, he would
+probably only have to stick around for five or
+six days till the airyoplane was in shape to leave,
+understand me, and in twenty-four hours he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+would land at the Azores, where there ain't no
+hotels at all, understand me. In less than four
+days more, provided the repairs didn't take longer,
+he would be on his way to Lisbon, Portugal,
+which he would reach on the following day or
+days. There the same airyoplane or another
+airyoplane, in case the same airyoplane got
+smashed in landing, would be ready or approximately
+ready to start for Paris, and might even
+start, you couldn't tell. On arriving in Paris,
+he would be only a few hours by railroad and
+steamer from London, provided he was in shape
+to travel, which, when you consider that only a
+few years ago flying was in its infancy, Mawruss,
+you've got to admit that nobody could ever
+have dreamed that it was possible to make such
+a journey."</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless you ate something which disagreed
+with you before you went to sleep," Morris
+commented, "and even then, Abe, where is the
+advantage?"</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't the advantage, it's the novelty of
+the thing," Abe said, "and I'll bet yer, Mawruss,
+that if an Airyoplane Company was to open a
+ticket-office in New York to-morrow, Mawruss,
+men would be standing in line to buy accommodations
+on the first available airyoplane&mdash;men
+with wives and families and no life insurance at
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"They would be the very first ones," Morris
+agreed, "but the way it looks to me, Abe, New
+York business men which has not business to do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+in London would continue to take twin-screw
+steamers with bilge keels, no matter how unimportant
+the business they was going to transact
+over there might be, because even the stockholders
+in airyoplane-manufacturing corporations
+would got to admit that while airyoplane-flying
+ain't in its infancy, exactly, it ain't in the prime
+of life, neither. Also, Abe, as long as gas only
+costs a dollar twenty-five a thousand cubic feet,
+why should any one want to pull off such a high-priced
+suicide as these here transatlantic airyoplane
+voyages is going to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, the first one has still got to be made
+yet, Mawruss," Abe remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"And even if the tenth one was successful,
+Abe," Morris concluded, "you could take it from
+me, this here transatlantic airyoplane navigation
+ain't going to put much of a crimp into the business
+of manufacturing seasick remedies. Am I right
+or wrong?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THIS HERE VICTORY LIBERTY LOAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>"The way some people is acting about this
+here Victory Loan, Mawruss," Abe Potash
+remarked one morning in April, "you would think
+that they was all presidents of a first national
+bank and that this here Carter J. Glass has already
+made a big overdraft and if he don't like the line
+of credit they are giving him, he should be so
+good as to take his account somewheres else,
+y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Them same people probably think that investing
+their money in any securities bearing
+interest at less than fifteen per cent. per annum
+is, so to speak, the equivalence from giving money
+to orphan-asylums and hospitals, understand me,"
+Morris Perlmutter said. "'We already give them
+Liberty Loan <i>schnorrers</i> two hundred dollars
+toward the expenses of their rotten war,' they
+probably say, 'and <i>still</i> they ain't satisfied.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And at that they don't mean nothing by it,"
+Abe said, "because there is a whole lot of business
+men in the United States which couldn't even
+give up the family housekeeping money every
+week without anyhow saying to their wives:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+'Here, take my blood; take my life. What do
+you want from me, <i>anyway</i>?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe they do and maybe they don't mean
+nothing by it, Abe," Morris said, "but it would
+be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass
+if everybody would act as his own Victory Bond
+salesman and try to sell himself just one more
+bond than he has really got any business buying,
+y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a whole lot easier for this here
+Carter J. Glass, Mawruss, but it would be practically
+impossible for pretty nearly everybody
+else," Abe remarked, "which human nature is so
+constituted, Mawruss, that the only time a man
+really and truly uses some high-class, silver-tongued
+salesmanship on himself is when he is
+trying to persuade himself that it is all right
+for him to do something which he knows in his
+heart it is dead wrong for him to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at least, Abe, in this here Victory Loan
+Campaign, every man should ought to try to
+put himself in the place of the salesman which
+is trying to sell him some of these Victory Bonds,"
+Morris continued, "so we would say, for example,
+that you would be a Victory Bond salesman, Abe,
+and you are calling on a feller which he is a pretty
+tough proposition in such matters by the name
+of, we would say, for instance, Abe Potash."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you make the feller which the
+salesman is supposed to call on a really and
+truly hard-boiled egg, by the name, we would
+say, for instance, Mawruss Perlmutter?" Abe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+asked. "Which when you put up to me a hypocritical
+case, Mawruss, why is it you must always
+start in by getting insulted already?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean getting insulted?" Morris
+asked. "I am only putting something up to you
+for the sake of argument not arguments."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, why not be perfectly neuter and
+call the tough proposition which the Victory
+Bond salesman is visiting, somebody by the name
+of a competitor like Leon Sammet, for instance?"
+Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I am trying to make you put yourself
+in the place of the Victory Bond salesman
+who is trying to sell you bonds," Morris declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Put your <i>own</i> self in the place of the Victory
+Bond salesman," Abe exclaimed, "which if you
+want to give me any hypocritical cases for the
+sake of argument, Mawruss, I have seen the way
+you practically snap the head off a collector for
+a charitable fund enough times to appreciate
+how you would behave towards a Victory Bond
+salesman, so go ahead on the basis that you are
+the tough proposition and not me."</p>
+
+<p>"A charitable fund is one thing and this here
+Victory Loan another," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is," Abe agreed, "but at the same
+time, Mawruss, a whole lot of people feels that if
+ever they give a couple dollars to an orphan-asylum,
+they practically got vaccinated against
+future attacks of the same complaint, and if three
+years later the collector for the orphan-asylum
+calls on them again they say: 'Why, I already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+gave you two dollars for that orphan-asylum!
+What did you done with it all?' And I bet yer
+that just as many people considered that the
+fifty-dollar bond which they bought during the
+First Liberty Loan Campaign should ought to
+have set up such a strong antiseptic in their
+system that they would be immune to all other
+Liberty Bond Campaigns, no matter if such
+campaigns would continue until there was, God
+forbid! a Fiftieth Liberty Loan already."</p>
+
+<p>"Some people never even got, so to speak,
+jabbed the first time," Morris observed, "and
+the way they avoid Liberty Bond salesmen, Abe,
+you would think that such a salesman was a sort
+of Liberty Bond Typhoid Mary and would infect
+them tightwads with a disease where they were
+liable to break out all over with coupons or
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"As a matter of fact, Mawruss, that's just the
+effect which a Liberty Bond salesman should
+ought to have on the right kind of sitson," Abe
+said, "which while I don't mean to say that making
+a good investment like buying of a Liberty Bond
+should ought to be considered as a disease, Mawruss,
+it should anyhow be infectious and should
+ought to spread so rapidly that everybody in
+the United States could say they had it to the
+extent of at least one fifty-dollar bond of the
+Victory Loan."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is over a hundred million people
+in the United States, Abe," Morris said, "and if
+they all bought one fifty-dollar bond, y'understand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+it would make the Victory Loan five billion
+dollars, whereas this here Carter J. Glass is only
+asking for four billion five hundred million."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to my mind, he's acting too modest,
+Mawruss," Abe went on, "because if we expect
+Germany to raise the first five billion dollars of
+her indemnity with nothing to show for it but
+the promise that she would have to raise five
+billion more every two years till the whole indemnity
+was paid, understand me, how much more
+should we raise over here with the promise that
+it is going to be paid back to us in a few years,
+with interest at the rate of four and three-quarters
+per cent. per annum? Why, under them
+conditions, Mawruss, any American which would
+refuse to buy a Victory Loan Bond should ought
+to be considered as applying for German sitsonship
+papers and should ought to be exported to
+Hamburg, where his adopted fellow-sitsons is
+getting frisked by the German government for
+every cent they possess and ain't getting so much
+as a receipt to show for it."</p>
+
+<p>"For that matter, an American which refuses
+to buy Victory Liberty Bonds should ought to
+completely lost his memory, Abe," Morris declared.
+"Evidently a feller, if some one starts a
+conversation about the war, is going to say,
+'<i>What</i> war?' and when it is reminded to his
+memory that as recently ago as last November
+the papers was printing every day columns and
+columns about the war which was going on in
+Europe, he would probably say: 'Oh, <i>that</i> war!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+I thought that war was already a thing of the
+past.' And also probably he might even ask,
+'Tell me, was there many people hurt?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if some folks has got such short memories
+like all that, and is only affected by what they
+have read in the papers at the latest the day
+before yesterday, Mawruss," Abe said, "why
+not have the Victory Liberty Loan salesmen
+approach them on the basis of what is going on
+<i>now</i> in Europe? 'You are asked,' such a salesman
+would say, 'to invest your money in a first-class
+A-number-one security, backed by the
+United States government and bearing interest
+at the rate of four and three-quarters per cent.
+per annum, and that is the very least you could
+do for your country when you consider that right
+now,' the salesman would say, and he should
+practise in advance to make his voice sound
+tragical, 'right now <i>your</i> uncles and <i>my</i> uncles is
+making peace in Paris with all the strength of
+language which they've got in their system.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, Mr. Sitson,' the salesman should go on
+to say, 'the government is only asking <i>you</i> to
+invest in interest-bearing cash money, so to speak,
+and what for a sacrifice is <i>that</i> compared to the
+suffering of <i>your</i> father-in-laws and <i>my</i> father-in-laws
+which is bravely standing larynx to larynx
+in the battle area of the Peace Conference while
+the air is filled with the French, Italian, Greek,
+Jugo-Slob, and Polish remarks? <i>You</i> sit here in
+your comfortable home while the flower of our
+experts and college professors is exposed to all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+kinds of coffee and cigars. Ain't you ashamed
+to be doing nothing but buy bonds when old and
+feeble men like most of the American Peace
+delegates is battling with French waiters, French
+taxicab-drivers, French hotel service, and French
+laundry-lists, giving and receiving no mercy,
+y'understand, and you should thank Heaven that
+your own country has been spared the horrors
+of having on our own soil this here Peace Conference
+which is now raging in Paris, understand
+me.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That would be anyhow an argument," Morris
+admitted, "but with these here Victory Liberty
+Bonds it shouldn't ought to be a case of first come
+first serve. With only four and a half billion
+dollars' worth of Victory Liberty Bonds for sale,
+Abe, seventy-five per cent. of the people of the
+United States should ought to be going around
+looking as sore as fellers that sell tickets in theater
+box-offices, and when any one asks 'em why,
+they should say: 'Ain't it just my luck! I put
+off buying my Victory Liberty Bonds till April
+23d, and when I got round to the bank there
+wasn't one left.' Yes, Abe, instead of Victory
+Liberty Bond salesmen having to go about visiting
+customers, y'understand, they should ought
+to have luxurious fitted-up offices, and it should
+ought to be a case of when the customer arrives
+the Victory Liberty Bond salesman should ought
+to be playing auction pinochle or rummy with
+two other Victory Liberty Bond salesmen. Then
+when the customer says is this the place where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+they sell Victory Liberty Bonds, the salesman
+says, 'I'll be with you in a minute,' and makes the
+customer stand around without even offering
+him a seat until the salesmen gets through playing
+two more hands. The customer should then
+make out his own application, y'understand,
+have the exact change ready, and close the
+door quietly when leaving, and that's the way
+I would sell Victory Liberty Bonds if I was the
+government."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way you even try to sell garments,"
+Abe commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," Morris continued, evading the
+challenge, "it is my idee that it is a privilege to
+be allowed to buy these here Victory Liberty
+Bonds, and before any one gets that privilege,
+Abe, he should be made to prove that he has done
+something to deserve it. Yes, Abe, instead of a
+man wearing a button to show that he has bought
+Liberty Bonds, he should ought to go before a
+notary public and make an oath that he has
+given up his quota to all Red Cross and United
+War Relief drives and otherwise done everything
+he could do to help win the war if he couldn't
+fight in it, y'understand, and then, and only
+then, Abe, he should be given a button entitling
+him to buy Victory Liberty Bonds under the
+conditions I have stated."</p>
+
+<p>"But, joking apart, Mawruss, and talking business,
+not poetry, understand me," Abe asked,
+"do you actually think that this here Victory
+Liberty Loan would be all taken up by them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+methods? To my mind, Mawruss, it would be
+a whole lot better to look the horse straight in
+the teeth, y'understand, and take it as settled
+that a lot of people which has got the money to
+buy bonds would go round saying that they
+would be very glad to buy bonds if they only had
+the money, y'understand. To such people, Mawruss,
+I would remind them again that a war, even
+when you win it, ain't a cash-in-advance proposition.
+In fact, a war ain't even a C. O. D. proposition.
+Wars is paid for on the instalment
+plan, Mawruss, and while this particular war is
+over, understand me, the bill has still got to be
+paid, and if such people won't lend the government
+the money to pay for the war, the government
+would have to do what the German government
+is going to do to the German people&mdash;instead
+of touching them for it and paying it
+back, they would frisk them for it and not even
+say much obliged, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"At that, Abe, I ain't worried a whole lot about
+the result of this Victory Liberty Loan," Morris
+said. "When all is said and done, Abe, the
+American people love their country."</p>
+
+<p>"I know they do," Abe agreed, "but also,
+Mawruss, there is a whole lot of fellers which
+loves their families and at the same time don't
+lose no sleep nights because they ain't providing
+for them as they should ought to do. So to
+them people I would say: 'Which would you
+rather have it as a souvenir of the war: Victory
+Liberty Bonds or tax bills?' Also, 'Would you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+sooner be paid interest or would you sooner pay
+interest?'"</p>
+
+<p>"In other words, Abe, you would threaten 'em
+into buying bonds," Morris observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Only when it's necessary, Mawruss," Abe
+concluded, "and that wouldn't be in the case of
+one thousandth of one per cent. of the entire
+population, because the great majority of the
+people thinks the way I do about their money:
+the government let me make it, and the government
+lets me keep it, and if the government would
+sooner borrow part of it instead of taking it all,
+Mawruss, that's only the government's good
+nature, which nobody should presume too much
+on good nature, Mawruss. Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEN IS A SECRET TREATY SECRET?</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I see where President Wilson sent a letter
+to the German government that they might
+just so well save the car fare and not send any
+delegates to this here Peace Conference which
+wouldn't be prepared for the worst, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash said one morning in April.</p>
+
+<p>"You would think, considering how excited
+the German people gets nowadays, that they
+would have a hard time finding any one to take
+the job of delegate, Abe," Morris Perlmutter
+suggested, "which the least that happens to
+one of them German delegates after the German
+people finds out what was in the paper he signed
+is that his executioners would claim that the daylight-saving
+law made it unnecessary for them
+to wait till sunrise, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he would always have the excuse that
+the only thing he seen of the Peace Treaty before
+he signed it was a dotted line, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "and also, Mawruss, it is just possible that
+the return half of them German peace delegates
+will read <i>via</i> Amsterdam, and that before taking
+a three years' lease of an Amsterdam apartment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+some of them peace delegates would first visit
+a ticket-scalper and get that much off their
+minds, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"And even in Paris them German peace delegates
+wouldn't be, neither," Morris declared,
+"which I see that the French government is too
+safe arranging for the accommodation of them
+German delegates at a hotel next to the place
+where the Peace Treaty is going to be signed,
+Abe, and the lot on which the hotel stands is
+going to be protected with an egg-proof fence
+eight feet high so that the German delegates can
+escape any stray rotten eggs."</p>
+
+<p>"The fence could be twelve feet high, Mawruss,"
+Abe remarked, "and it wouldn't do any good,
+because nobody could escape rotten eggs in a
+French hotel, Mawruss, rotten coffee, neither.
+Also, Mawruss, eggs 'ain't got nothing to do
+with that fence, because if that fence wouldn't
+be there, Mawruss, when it comes time for them
+German delegates to sign the treaty, Mawruss,
+the Peace Conference would got to appoint a
+Committee of Resident Buyers to round up
+them German delegates, on account that nobody
+else but Resident Buyers who is accustomed to
+entertaining their American clients would know
+where them German delegates had disappeared
+to."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in a way it is the Peace Conference's
+own fault because they sent word to the German
+government that they didn't want to deal with no
+messengers, but that the German delegates should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+all be high-up officials, Abe," Morris said, "which
+seemingly as a general thing the higher up a
+German happens to be, y'understand, the lower
+down he can act. Take, for example, the Crown
+Prince, Abe, and I always thought that no matter
+how much people abused him, Abe, he could anyhow
+go home and say to his wife whatever I done,
+I done it all for you, instead of going somewhere
+else and saying it to ballet-dancers, as his wife's
+mother claims."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand he was leading a double life,
+Mawruss," Abe observed.</p>
+
+<p>"He was leading a double life in spades, Abe,"
+Morris declared, alluding to the game of auction
+pinochle. "Day after day his wife's mother says
+he would leave the house to go down-town to
+the palace, and instead he would go down-town
+not to the palace and never show up till all hours
+of the morning. Then when his wife asked him
+where he was putting in his time, y'understand,
+instead of acting reasonable and telling her a
+phony story about being sick and tired of getting
+stuck at the Reichskanzlei night after night, and
+that he wished the old man would get through
+springing a new chancellor on him every week,
+understand me, he gives himself dead away by
+getting sore. In fact, Abe, his mother-in-law
+says that the Hohenzollern royal colors is black
+and blue, anyhow so far as the Crown Princess
+is concerned, and that she made up her mind
+that she wouldn't let her daughter live with him
+no longer, so the chances is that if the German<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+people goes back to the monarchy, they would not
+only got to pay indemnities for what the Crown
+Prince done, but alimony besides."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, even if the mother-in-law couldn't
+prove what she says about her daughter's husband,
+which very few mother-in-laws can, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "the Crown Princess would be able to
+get her devorce upon the grounds that her husband
+was convicted of a felony, y'understand, which
+he will be, Mawruss, just so soon as the Peace
+Conference has finished drawing up the indictment."</p>
+
+<p>"Then them German people will be paying
+her temporary alimony permanently for the rest
+of her life, Abe," Morris said, "because them fellers
+which is drawing the indictments against the
+Kaiser and the Crown Prince seems to be taking
+their own time about it."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a big job, Mawruss, because you take
+the indictment against the Crown Prince, Mawruss,
+and the chances is that the first two hundred
+counts alone is for French ch&acirc;teau furniture, and
+when some one steals anything from a French
+ch&acirc;teau, Mawruss, it's a hundred to one that he
+is guilty not only of larceny, y'understand, but
+of concealing mortgaged property besides, understand
+me," Abe said, "which it has always been
+a wonder to me, Mawruss, that some of these
+ladies of the four hundred who open tea-rooms
+for European war relief has never considered
+doing nothing for them Ruined Mortgagees of
+France, or the Suffering Judgment Creditors of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+Allied Noblemen. Most of our best families
+has had experience some time or another with
+railroad reorganizations, and you would think
+they would have enough sympathy for them
+Starving Lienors of France, Mawruss, to get up,
+anyhow, a bazaar. It could be advertised with a
+picture by some big artist like C. G. Gibson, where
+an old man in what used to was a fur overcoat
+before the moths got into it is bending over Liber
+2244 of Mortgages, page 391, which is all the old
+feller has got to show for what was once a first
+lien on some gilt-edged ch&acirc;teau property, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "there's a
+certain number of people which nobody has got
+any sympathy with, like mortgagers, coal dealers,
+head waiters, garage proprietors, and fellers which
+works in theayter ticket-offices, to which, of
+course, must also be added Postmaster-General
+Burleson."</p>
+
+<p>"And why that feller is so unpopular is a mystery
+to me, Mawruss," Abe said. "You would
+think, to hear the way the newspapers talk about
+him, that the very least he had done was to mix
+arsenic with the gum which they put on the backs
+of stamps, whereas, so far as I could see, the poor
+feller is only trying to do his duty and keep down
+the wages of telephone operators, which I don't
+know how strong telephone operators is with
+the rest of the country, but compared with the
+hit that they make with me, Mawruss, Mr. Burleson
+would be a general favorite, y'understand."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He was already in bad before them telephone
+girls struck on him, Abe," Morris said, "and
+for the very reason, as you say, that he has always
+done his duty as he seen it, which the trouble
+with them fellers that do their duty as they see it
+is that nobody else could see it, Abe. It is also
+the case that them people which do their duty
+as they see it usually has rotten eyesight, Abe,
+and when it comes right down to it, Abe, there is
+even some people which claims that Mr. Wilson
+should also consult an oculist to find out if he
+don't need to have his glasses changed. In fact,
+there's a couple of fellers by the name Orlando
+and Sonnino which seems to think that Mr.
+Wilson is practically blind so far as Fiume is
+concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say they 'ain't settled that Fiume
+thing yet, Mawruss?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They did and they didn't," Morris said. "Mr.
+Wilson give out a long statement about it in
+which he thought he settled it, Abe, and the
+Italian peace delegates said they would go home
+and leave the Peace Conference flat, y'understand,
+and thought they settled it, but the way it looks
+now, Abe, if the Peace Conference stays in session
+till they do settle it, when Mr. Wilson comes back
+and explains the Peace Treaty to Congress, he
+will speak with such a strong French accent that
+only the members from Louisiana will be able to
+understand a word he says."</p>
+
+<p>"But why does Mr. Wilson say that Italy
+shouldn't have Fiume?" Abe inquired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Because it doesn't square up with his fourteen
+points," Morris replied, "and seemingly he don't
+want to stretch a point."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if he did, Mawruss, it wouldn't be the
+first time," Abe declared, "because if you
+recollect them fourteen points, which is more
+than most people could, Mawruss, point number
+one said that there should be open covenants of
+peace openly arrived at, Mawruss, and also something
+about such terms being discussed openly,
+frankly, and in the public view, Mawruss, and
+the way Mr. Wilson has stretched that point,
+Mawruss, it'll never look like the same point
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Morris interrupted. "As a keep-it-dark
+proposition, Abe, Mr. Wilson 'ain't got
+nothing on this here Lloyd George, Clemenceau,
+and the firm of Orlando &amp; Sonnino, to say nothing
+of the Japanese delegates, which I suppose you
+heard about them secret treaties, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard tell of them," Abe replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither did Mr. Wilson until the other day,
+which the way it happened was this," Morris continued:
+"Orlando &amp; Sonnino was talking the
+whole thing over in a friendly way with Lloyd
+George and Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Wilson says
+that when it come right down to it Italy's claims
+to Trieste wasn't what would be called in the
+language of diplomacy exactly kosher, neither, and
+Sonnino says: 'Is that so? Well, how about our
+treaty?' And although Orlando kicked his partner
+under the table and Lloyd George give him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+one of them what-are-you-trying-to-do-spoil-everything
+looks, Mr. Wilson caught on right away.
+'What treaty?' he asked, and Lloyd George says:
+'Why, you know what treaty. I was sitting
+right here when Clemenceau told you all about it,'
+and it appears that all the time Mr. Wilson was
+kidding himself along that if he compromised by
+letting Italy have Trieste, she would pass up
+Fiume, Abe, it seems she had a secret agreement
+with France and England that she was to have
+Trieste, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder Mr. Wilson feels sore," Abe
+remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, that ain't all," Morris said. "Now it
+appears that Japan has also a secret treaty with
+France and England to get a slice of China which
+formerly belonged to Germany, y'understand,
+and Mr. Wilson is beginning to experience what
+it is like when you sit in a poker game all evening
+and don't find out till the last round is on that
+everybody else around the table is playing for
+the house."</p>
+
+<p>"They could all be playing honest at that,
+Mawruss," Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure they could, with the exception of having
+a couple of secret treaties or so," Morris agreed,
+"but at the same time, Abe, I wouldn't be a bit
+surprised if since the discovery of these here
+secret treaties, Mr. Wilson has waked up more
+than once somewheres around three <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> and asked
+himself did he or did he not need a mandatory,
+y'understand, and also wondered what the folks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+back home is thinking&mdash;particularly a few Senators
+like Lodge and Johnson."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't agree with you, Mawruss," Abe declared.
+"I think that Mr. Wilson will get the
+better end of the deal, because from what has
+happened in this war, Mawruss, diplomacy is
+one of them games where the feller which don't
+know how to play it has got a big advantage over
+the feller that does. So, therefore, while the
+old-time experienced diplomatist is saying it
+never has been done that way and therefore
+couldn't be done, Mawruss, a new beginner like
+Mr. Wilson has already gone to work and done it,
+which I bet yer right now, Mawruss, that if Mr.
+Wilson don't want Italy to have Fiume she won't
+get it, and the same thing goes for Japan also,
+Mawruss&mdash;secret treaty or no secret treaty."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, there's a whole lot of people in America
+which would like to see Italy get Fiume, Abe,"
+Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a whole lot of people, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "but this secret-treaty business has
+killed it, which if Italy wanted to be fair about it,
+why didn't she come right out before the armistice
+even and say, 'Look-a-here, we got a secret treaty
+and we may as well tell you so right from the
+start'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then the secret treaty wouldn't been no more
+secret, Abe," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"She would have been doing the manly thing,
+anyway," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"I know she would," Morris admitted, "but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+that's the difference between the old-fashioned
+Italian diplomacy and the new-fashioned American
+diplomacy. The Italians believe that there
+should be secret covenants of peace secretly
+arrived at, and we believe that there should be
+open covenants of peace openly arrived at."</p>
+
+<p>"There is also the difference, Mawruss, that the
+Italians stick to their beliefs," Abe concluded,
+"and we don't."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST DAY OF MAY</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I see where in Genoa they already changed
+the name of a street which only last week
+they called Wilson Avenue, Mawruss," Abe
+Potash said one morning after the rupture with
+Orlando.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's the trouble with calling articles
+after the latest popular success, Abe," Morris
+said. "It don't make no difference if it's streets
+or cigars, the first thing you know the people gets
+a grouch on the original of the brand and the
+manufacturer has got to tear up a few thousand
+Flor de President Wilson labels and go back to
+calling it the Regalia de Ginsburg Brothers, or
+whatever the name was."</p>
+
+<p>"But in Genoa they didn't go back to the name
+of the old street, Mawruss," Abe said. "They
+renamed it Fiume Street."</p>
+
+<p>"And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a
+few Burleson streets was changed to Second Class
+Avenue, Abe," Morris declared, "on account this
+is a time of great ups and downs in the reputations
+of politicians, not to say statesmen, Abe,
+which six months from now nobody would be
+able to say offhand whether the name was Bela<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+Hanson or Old Kun except the immediate family
+in Budapest or Seattle, as the case may be."</p>
+
+<p>"In a way, Mawruss, the reputations of politicians,
+not to say statesmen, can get to be, so to
+speak, a nuisance to their fellow-countrymen,"
+Abe observed, "which it happens once in a
+while that some politicians and statesmen gets
+to having such a high regard for their reputations,
+Mawruss, they would sooner injure their country
+than their reputation. Italian statesmen, French
+statesmen, English statesmen, and even, you
+might say, American statesmen goes about their
+work with one eye on the job in hand and the
+other eye on a possible statue or so at the junction
+of Main Street and Railroad Avenue in their native
+town, y'understand, with a subscription on the
+pedestal:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"'<span class="smcap">Harris J. Sonnino</span><br />
+Erected by His Fellow-Townsmen of East Rome,<br />
+August 1, 1919.'"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Such an ambition, anyhow, makes the statesmen
+try to do the right thing," Morris observed.</p>
+
+<p>"And it also occasionally makes him do the
+obstinate thing, Mawruss," Abe continued. "In
+fact, Mawruss, sometimes I couldn't help wishing
+that it was the custom to have corporations and
+not men as ambassadors and presidents, because
+it would be such a simple matter when the Republicans
+nominated the Chicago Title Guarantee,
+Security and Mortgage Company for President<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+and the Democrats nominated the Algonquin
+Trust Company, of Pottstown, for the voters of
+the country to compare the statement of assets
+of each company and judge which was the most
+reliable, y'understand. Also, Mawruss, if the
+Algonquin Trust Company was now President
+of the United States, understand me, and somebody
+was to say they didn't like the way the
+President was running things at the Peace Conference,
+y'understand, nobody would have the
+nerve to arrest him for criticizing a great and good
+corporation like the Algonquin Trust Company.
+Furthermore, Mawruss, if Italy had been represented
+at this here Peace Conference not by
+Sonnino, but by the Milan Trust Company,
+which no doubt acts as executor, guardian or
+trustee like any other trust company, and therefore
+why not as ambassador, understand me, there
+never would have been no scrap about Fiume
+arising from the fact that the Milan Trust Company
+could never go home and face the people
+of Italy without Fiume, and also nobody would
+have considered that Mr. Wilson's statement was
+a direct slap in the face of the Milan Trust Company,
+Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "if you are
+trying to invent this <i>schmooes</i> about corporations
+just so you could knock Mr. Wilson, y'understand,
+such a scheme wouldn't deceive a child even."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't knock President Wilson for anything,
+Mawruss," Abe retorted. "I <i>couldn't</i> knock
+him, because when I think of Mr. Wilson I see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+before my eyes a good-looking gentleman with a
+pleasant smile on his face, y'understand, and not
+very far away stands Mrs. Wilson, which, if Mr.
+Wilson didn't put over even one fourteenth of his
+fourteen points, Mawruss, his visit to Europe
+with Mrs. Wilson wouldn't be wasted, Mawruss,
+because it would have given them people over
+in the old country a chance to see what an American
+lady is and should ought to be, y'understand.
+But on the other hand, Mawruss, if the Democrats
+<i>had</i> elected the Algonquin Trust Company as
+President of the United States at the last election,
+y'understand, whenever I would think of the
+President of the United States I would see before
+my eyes a twenty-five-story fire-proof building
+with all the rents raised one hundred and fifty
+per cent. since last January, understand me,
+and I could go to work and knock with a clear
+conscience."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should you want to knock the President
+of the United States?" Morris demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't I telling you that I don't want to knock
+him?" Abe declared. "All I am saying is that,
+if such a thing was possible, it would be a whole
+lot better to have a corporation as President of
+the United States instead of an individual, Mawruss,
+because corporations don't get sick, corporations
+don't get insulted, a corporation <i>oser</i> cares
+whether it gets cheered or hooted, and finally,
+Mawruss, a corporation couldn't ride around
+Italy in an open carriage with the King of Italy
+and give the Italian people the impression that all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+they had to do was to ask for Fiume and it was
+theirs."</p>
+
+<p>"And another thing about a corporation, Abe,
+is that it ain't a copartnership where one partner
+could get every day a headache from listening
+to the other partner talking a lot of nonsense,
+Abe," Morris declared, "which you must got to
+remember that, beginning the first of May, if
+you would go to a soda-fountain and say, 'Give
+me something for a headache,' they would give
+you a United States Internal Revenue stamp for
+which you would got to pay two cents before
+they would even take the cork out of the bromo-asperin
+bottle."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the difference whether they tax a
+headache coming or going, Mawruss?" Abe
+commented.</p>
+
+<p>"A whole lot of difference," Morris said. "In
+the first place, the taxes which the country used to
+collect in one week from people when they were
+catching headaches would be more than equivalence
+to the taxes which the country is going to
+the taxes which the country is going to
+collect from people curing headaches during the
+next ten years. Also, Abe, nobody thought it
+was a hardship to pay taxes on a coming headache,
+whereas there will be a terrible howl go up
+over the tax on the same article in the opposite
+direction."</p>
+
+<p>"At that, I think these here May 1st taxes
+is going to have a good effect on the American
+people, Mawruss," Abe said, "because there's
+nothing like taxes to make a man wake up and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+take an interest in the way the government is
+being run."</p>
+
+<p>"A man would got to be an awful sound sleeper
+in that respect if he wasn't roused up a little by
+the income tax which he has been paying for the
+past four or five years, Abe," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"That's only once a year, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"but these here May 1st taxes is going to keep
+him awake three hundred and sixty-five days
+out of the year. People which thought you was
+a tightwad if you happened to mention that six
+hundred million dollars of the country's money
+was used up in experimenting with aeroplanes, is
+now going to shriek in agony every time they buy
+a three-dollar-and-a-quarter shirt that it's a
+shame and a disgrace the way every little secretary
+in the President's Cabinet is gallivanting half
+over Europe on the people's money, and they'd
+probably be just as hard if the shirt only cost
+two dollars and a quarter, excepting that the
+luxury tax of ten per cent. is only collected from
+the purchasers of men's shirts of the value of three
+dollars and upwards on amounts in excess of three
+dollars each. Also, Mawruss, people which has
+just paid eight dollars for a bathrobe on which the
+tax would be ten per cent. of fifty cents, or five
+cents cash, y'understand, is going to say: 'Couldn't
+that feller travel to and from Europe in one
+state-room the same like anybody else? Must he
+got to have a whole steamboat?' and they will
+start right in to estimate that the cost of keeping
+a steamboat the size of the <i>George Washington</i> in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+commission is forty-five thousand six hundred
+and twenty-two dollars and thirty-eight cents
+per diem, and is it any wonder you've got to pay
+a one-cent tax on every orange phosphate, understand
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Some people is willing to get in a knock at
+Mr. Wilson without even so much as an orange-phosphate
+tax for an excuse, Abe," Morris said,
+significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I know they are," Abe replied, innocently,
+"and as for Postmaster-General Burleson, seemingly
+he couldn't suit nobody no matter what he
+does. Take, for instance, them fourteen bombs
+which was mailed in New York the other day,
+Mawruss, and if it wouldn't be that Postmaster-General
+Burleson has probably given strict orders
+that no mail should be forwarded which was
+short even a half-a-cent postage-stamp even,
+the chances is that every one of them fourteen
+bombs would have been delivered and exploded
+by now. But suppose that, instead of Postmaster-General
+Burleson, we would have had as Postmaster-General
+some good-natured feller which
+when his New York representatives called him
+up and told him they were holding fourteen packages
+there for additional postage, would have
+said: 'Oh, let 'em go. We couldn't afford to be
+small about a little thing like additional postage.'
+And what would have happened? Why, the
+fourteen judges, mayors, and assorted Senators
+and district attorneys to which them packages
+was addressed would have been lucky if they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+escaped with nothing worse than singed eyebrows,
+Mawruss. And to-day yet, Mawruss, them fellers
+which has got only Postmaster-General Burleson
+to thank that they can still riffle a deck of cards,
+understand me, is probably going around beefing
+about the terrible delay in the delivery of mail
+under the administration of Postmaster-General
+Burleson."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you think that the police will ever find
+out who sent them bombs, Abe?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably not," Abe replied, "but they will
+probably find some man or men who would have
+<i>liked</i> to have sent them and would have been
+<i>glad</i> to have sent them, and as nobody is going to
+miss such fellers, Mawruss, it probably won't
+make much difference in the long run if any such
+case of mistaken identity ain't discovered until
+the sentence is carried out, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I see that it says in the paper where the
+anarchists which sent them bombs was celebrating
+the first day of May, which is the anarchists'
+Fourth of July, Abe," Morris observed, "which,
+considering all the trouble that takes place in
+Europe with general strikes and riots on the first
+of May, Abe, it's a wonder to me that the constitution
+of the League of Nations didn't contain
+an article providing that in the interests of international
+peace, y'understand, the month of May
+should hereafter contain thirty days instead of
+thirty-one, commencing with the second day of
+May, and leave them anarchists up against it
+for a day to celebrate."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The first of May is the socialists' Fourth of
+July, not the anarchists'," Abe said, "which, while
+it is possible that these here anarchists sent them
+bombs around the first of May out of compliment
+to their friends the socialists, Mawruss, an anarchist
+don't attach no particular sentiment to the
+day when a bomb explodes, just so long as it does
+enough damage, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same, I am in favor of doing away
+with the first of May," Morris insisted, "and if it
+ain't practical to abolish the date, Abe, let 'em
+anyhow cut out the celebration. Them general
+strikes causes a whole lot of trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"They do if you take them seriously," Abe
+agreed, "because in this country, at least, Mawruss,
+only a few people takes part in the May first
+general strike. This year we only had two of
+our work-people away on account of the general
+strike, and one of them now claims he stayed home
+on account of injuring his hand in one of our
+buttonhole-machines, which I have got proof to
+show, Mawruss, that when the police threw him
+out of the hall where the meeting was taking
+place he landed on his wrist."</p>
+
+<p>"He should have landed on his neck," Morris
+observed, "because if them socialists get hurt by
+their nonsense it's their own fault, Abe. They
+go to work and announce a general strike, and
+naturally the authorities takes them seriously
+and gets ready for trouble with a lot of policemen,
+which you know as well as I do, Abe, when the
+police gets ready for trouble they usually find it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+even if they have to make it themselves. The
+consequence is, Abe, that a fractured skull has
+become practically the occupational disease of
+being a socialist, just the same as phosphorus-poisoning
+attacked people which worked in match-factories
+in the old days before the Swedish manufacturers
+invented matches which strike only on
+the box one time out of fifty if the weather conditions
+is just right."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Abe observed, "but people
+worked in match-factories because they couldn't
+make a living in any other way, Mawruss, whereas
+nobody compels any one to be a socialist if he
+don't want to, Mawruss, and what enjoyment
+them socialists get out of it I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"It gives them, for one thing, the privilege of
+wearing a red necktie," Morris suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"And that don't make them a first-class risk
+for accident insurance," Abe concluded, "around
+the first of May, anyhow."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PEACE TREATY AS GOOD READING</h3>
+
+
+<p>"At last the wind-up of this here Peace Conference
+seems to be in sight, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter,
+the day after the Treaty of Peace was
+handed to the German plenipotentiaries. "As
+short a time ago since as last week it begun to look
+like our American delegates was going to stay in
+Paris for the rest of their lives, which, according
+to the tables of mortality prepared by some of
+our leading life-insurance companies, based on
+the average ages of all five of them delegates,
+would be anyhow until August 1, 1919."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they seem to have done a pretty good
+job, Abe," Morris observed. "I read over the
+accounts of the Treaty of Peace, Abe, and what
+them Germans has got to do outside of restoring
+the skull of the Sultan Okwawa under Section
+Eight of the treaty would keep her busy for
+fifty years yet."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is this here Sultan Okwawa?" Abe
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," Morris replied, "but, considering
+the number of skulls which needs restoring
+on account of what the Germans done during the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+past five years, Abe, and also considering the fact
+that this is the only skull mentioned by name in
+the Peace Treaty, he must of had some pretty influential
+friends at the Peace Conference. Also, I
+see that the Germans is also to give back the
+papers belonging to M. Reuher which they took in
+1871, and, although Section Eight don't say nothing
+about it, I presume that if the papers are returned
+the finder can keep the money which was
+in the wallet at the time it was lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to tell me that this here Peace
+Treaty has got such small particulars like that
+in it?" Abe demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"It don't seem to have overlooked anything,
+Abe," Morris went on, "which, when you consider
+that Mr. Wilson started in&mdash;in a small way&mdash;with
+only fourteen points, it's already wonderful
+how that man worked his way up. There must
+be several hundred thousand points in that Peace
+Treaty, including such points like the Sultan's
+skull and this here Reuher's papers, which Mr.
+Wilson never even dreamed of when he sat down
+that day in January, 1918, and thought out the
+original fourteen."</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="image04" href="images/hires04.png"><img src="images/thumb04.png" alt="Illustration:" /></a><br />
+"which when
+you consider
+that Mr.
+Wilson started
+in&mdash;in a
+small way"</p>
+
+<p>"He probably considered that if we ever licked
+Germany sufficient to make her accept as much
+as thirty-three and a third per cent. of them
+fourteen points that we would be doing well
+already," Abe remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"And so did everybody else," Morris agreed.
+"And now they would got to accept a Treaty of
+Peace which loads up Germany with practically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+every punishment that this here Peace Conference
+could think of except Prohibition."</p>
+
+<p>"I must read that treaty sometime," Abe
+said. "It sounds like it would be quite amusing
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"Amusing ain't no name for it," Morris said.
+"The way the American people is going to enjoy
+reading that Treaty of Peace, Abe, would put
+Mr. Wilson not only in the class of favorite American
+Presidents along with George Washington
+and Abraham Lincoln, but also would give him
+an insured position as one of America's favorite
+authors along with Harry Bell Wright and Bradstreet.
+A good American could pass a very
+profitable month or so skimming it over, Abe,
+which it consists of fifteen sections, of which only
+the head-lines fills three full pages of the morning
+papers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how long do you think it would take them
+German delegates to read it, Mawruss?" Abe
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"They ain't going to read it," Morris said.
+"They're only going to sign it, and it ain't a bad
+idea, neither, because if they did read it, Abe,
+some of them Germans would drop dead along
+about the second section, which describes how
+much of Germany is left after France, Poland,
+Denmark, and Belgium gets through helping
+themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Might they would expire while they was reading
+the first section, maybe," Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"The first section 'ain't got nothing to do with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+Germany," Morris explained. "The first section
+consists of the constitution of the League of
+Nations."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the same constitution of the League
+of Nations which them United States Senators
+raised such a round robin about?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It has been changed since then," Morris said.
+"The amendments consist of two commas contributed
+by ex-President Taft and a semicolon
+from Charles Evans Hughes. Elihu Root also
+suggested they insert the words <i>as aforesaid</i> in
+the first paragraph and also the words <i>anything
+hereinbefore contained to the contrary notwithstanding</i>
+in the last paragraph, but couldn't get by
+with it. However, Abe, the League of Nations
+is already such old stuff that people reading it in
+Section One of the Peace Treaty will in all probability
+skip it the way they did the first time it
+come out, and, anyhow, the real Treaty of Peace,
+so far as the plot and action is concerned, don't
+start till the second section."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you remember any of the second
+section?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the section which tells about how much
+territory Germany gives up to Poland, France,
+Belgium, and Denmark, and after it goes into
+effect, Abe, it is going to considerably alter the
+words, if not the music, of '<i>Deutschland, Deutschland,
+ueber Alles</i>,'" Morris declared. "It also
+means, Abe, that the school-boys who used to
+was geography sharks and could bound Germany
+right off the reel, Abe, would now got to learn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+them boundaries all over again and then take
+half an hour or so to tell what they've learned.
+You see, Abe, the Danzig area, for instance,
+consists of a V made a W by the addition of a
+similar V on the west, including the city of Danzig
+and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," Abe interrupted, "but this here
+sounds like a clothing alteration to me, which, if
+Germany's boundary was made smaller, why did
+they got to put a couple of V's into it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The V's was put into Poland's boundary, not
+Germany's," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"And I bet that Poland breathes a whole
+lot easier now that her boundary has got a couple
+of V's in it," Abe commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Them two V's ain't all Poland gets," Morris
+continued. "She also gets the southeastern tip
+of Silesia beyond and including Oppeln, most of
+Posen and West Prussia, and a line is drawn
+from&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Abe said. "I'll take your
+word for it, Mawruss, because, while that might
+be music to some people's ears, when it comes to
+geography I couldn't tell one note from another.
+So go ahead and tell me what is in the next
+section."</p>
+
+<p>"The next section is also got in it a little complicated
+geography, Abe," Morris said. "It
+practically repeats what was said in the last
+section about how much territory Germany gives
+up, and then proceeds to rub it in. You know,
+of course, about the Sarre Basin."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I <i>say</i> I do, but don't let that stop you," Abe
+replied. "Go ahead and describe it to me just
+like as if I didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to make a long story short before I tell
+it, Abe," Morris said, "the Sarre Valley, which
+in Germany is like the Scranton and Wilkes-Barre
+section in Pennsylvania, is to be practically
+owned by France for fifteen years. At the end
+of that time, an election is going to be held and
+the people will vote as to whether they want to
+stay French or go back to Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose France will count the votes,"
+Abe commented, "in which case she will probably
+appoint a board of elections consisting of whoever
+happens to be the Philadelphia director of public
+safety at that time, the leader of the Eighth
+Assembly District of New York City, and a
+couple of Chicago aldermen, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"The Treaty of Peace don't provide for it,"
+Morris said, "but if any odds are quoted on the
+Curb, Abe, it wouldn't be on the result, but
+the size of the majority. There is also the same
+kind of an election to be held in Schleswig-Holstein,
+without much chance of a recount taking
+place, either, but so far as the rest of Sections
+Three, Four, and Five is concerned, Abe, Germany
+gives up all her interests in every part of
+the world without the privilege of even having
+all those in favor please saying Aye, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have made a big noise, anyhow,"
+Abe declared. "Because the only people who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+ain't in favor of Germany giving up her colonies
+is Germans, and not <i>all</i> Germans at that."</p>
+
+<p>"However, what happens to Germany in the
+first five sections of this here Peace Treaty, Abe,
+is only, so to speak, the soup and entr&eacute;e of the meal
+which the Allies makes of her," Morris said.
+"Section Six is where the real knife-and-fork work
+begins, Abe, which it starts right in with the
+German army and reduces it to the size of the
+Salvation Army, exclusive of the doughnut-cooking
+department."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm surprised that you should compare the
+Salvation Army to a low-life army like the German
+army," Abe protested.</p>
+
+<p>"I am only talking for the sake of argument,
+Abe," Morris assured him, "which if this here
+Section Six is carried out, Abe, the new German
+army wouldn't be armed with anything near as
+dangerous as doughnuts. In fact, Abe, the way
+this here Peace Treaty specifies what arms and
+ammunition the German army should be supplied
+with, the only thing that it would got to remind it
+that it is an army and not a <i>S&auml;ngerbund</i> would be
+the uniforms."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am surprised that the Peace Treaty
+didn't forbid uniforms also, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"because if it wouldn't of been for his uniforms,
+Mawruss, the chances is that the German people
+would of caught on to that miserable four-flusher
+of a Kaiser already long since ago, Mawruss.
+Take these here spiked helmets, in particular the
+ones which is made of nickel plate, Mawruss, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+only to wear such a thing is liable to bring out all
+the meanness in them naturally mean German
+soldiers, Mawruss, so therefore I am in favor
+that the Peace Treaty be amended by providing
+that the uniform of the German army should be a
+three-button, black, single-breasted sack suit with
+no padding in the shoulders, Mawruss, and the helmet
+should be a brown derby hat of the pattern
+of 1898, and that the soldiers agree to wear this
+derby hat, of the same block and width of brim,
+for at least twenty years, Mawruss, because
+nothing takes the conceit out of a man so much as
+wearing a funny-looking hat, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"This here Peace Treaty don't need no outside
+assistance when it comes to taking the conceit
+out of the German army, and the navy, neither,
+Abe," Morris continued. "In fact, Section Six
+does the same to the German navy as you would
+like to do to the German army, excepting that,
+instead of derby hats, it refers to battle-ships.
+In other words, Abe, it says that the German
+navy should have only six small battle-ships and
+that none of them could be replaced inside of
+twenty years. Just consider for a moment how
+it feels for a speed-bug which once used to consider
+that if he didn't buy himself every three
+months a new special-body twin six, y'understand,
+that he was living pretty close to the
+cushion, and condemn such a feller to go round
+for the next twenty years in a four-cylinder 1910-model
+Punkocar, Abe, and you will get some small
+idea of what Admiral von Tirpitz and all them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+other bloodthirsty German admirals feels when
+they read that part of Section Six which refers to
+the new German navy."</p>
+
+<p>"That wasn't the way they used to feel," Abe
+declared. "Up to a few days ago, Mawruss,
+von Tirpitz and Hindenburg and all them other
+German army and navy experts was treating
+this war like it would of been a pinochle game,
+and each of them was busy explaining by post-mortems
+how if his partner hadn't played the
+hand rotten they would have won by three points,
+not counting the last trick, but what are you going
+to do with a <i>Strohschneider</i> like that, and so forth."</p>
+
+<p>"Did they mention anything about playing
+with marked cards?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They did not," Abe said, "nor did they say
+anything about having stacked the cards or dealing
+off of the bottom of the deck, Mawruss, but
+you would think from the way them fellers acted
+at Versailles, Mawruss, that this here Peace
+Conference is the breakup of a nice little friendly
+game, y'understand, and that <i>not</i> only should the
+winners take I. O. U's. from the losers, but that
+it is also up to the winners to serve a good delicatessen
+supper and pay for the lights and attendance."</p>
+
+<p>"That must have been before they heard about
+the <i>capora</i> which is in store for them under Section
+Seven of this here Peace Treaty, Abe," Morris
+said, "which in order that there shouldn't be any
+softening of the sound to them German cauliflower
+ears, Abe, the words <i>one billion</i> ain't used<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+at all, but instead it speaks about a thousand
+million pounds, Abe, and, while it ain't any harder
+to raise than one billion pounds, it certainly gives
+you the impression that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"And how many of these thousands of millions
+of pounds must the German people got to pay
+before they get through?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That the Peace Treaty don't say, Abe," Morris
+replied. "It leaves the fixing of the total amount
+for a commission to be appointed later, Abe, and
+the German people will be notified of their liabilities
+not later than May 1, 1921; but in the
+mean time, Abe, just to keep up their spirits they
+would got to pay a few instalments of one thousand
+million pounds each."</p>
+
+<p>"But if the instalments is one thousand million
+pounds each, Mawruss, what do you think will
+be the grand total which Germany would have
+to pay?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"About the same grand total as the Allies
+would have been obliged to pay if Germany had
+won," Morris replied.</p>
+
+<p>"And how much would that have been?" Abe
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"All they could raise, Abe," Morris concluded,
+"plus ten per cent."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GERMAN ROMAN HOLIDAY AND THE AMERICANIZATION
+OF AMERICANS</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was speaking to my wife's sister's boy which
+he is just getting ready to gradgawate from
+High School, Mawruss, and I wish you could hear
+the way that feller talks, Mawruss," Abe Potash
+said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall probably got to have that pleasure,
+Abe," Morris Perlmutter replied, "because the
+first thing your wife's relations does when they
+gradgawate from school or go broke, as the case
+may be, is to get a job in this place and the second
+thing they do is to get fired."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Mawruss," Abe said, "if I would of
+given jobs in this place to the number of relations
+by marriage which you already stuck me with,
+y'understand, I might just so well run a free business
+college and be done with it, which what I was
+going to say was that this here young feller was
+telling me that in the old days when the Romans
+won a war the way the Allies did, they used to
+make the losers walk in a parade so that the Roman
+people could see how them losers suffered."</p>
+
+<p>"And what's that got to do with my giving
+jobs to my wife's relations?" Morris inquired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It 'ain't got nothing to do with it, but if you
+would let me open my mouth once in a while
+and not try to gag me every time I want to tell
+you something, Mawruss," Abe continued, "maybe
+I could learn you something."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," Morris admitted, "but when you
+start in to tell about how smart one of your
+nephews by marriage is, Abe, it generally ends up
+by our paying a few weeks' salary to a young feller
+which all he learned about double entry is making
+birds with a pen, so I just want to warn you
+before you go any further, Abe, that in the future
+with me, Abe, if any of your nephews is an expert
+bird-maker with a pen, y'understand, you should
+please find him a job in a millinery concern and
+let me out."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't going to say nothing about giving a
+job to nobody," Abe protested. "All I am trying
+to tell you is that if the Treaty of Peace, which
+you talked my head off about the other day,
+contained a section that the Germans should
+walk in a parade and show to the Allies how that
+Peace Treaty made them suffer, Mawruss, Lenine
+and Trotsky and all the other crickets who abuse
+Mr. Wilson like the New York Republican newspapers
+and the American ladies who are attending
+that Zurich Permanent Peace Convention, would
+of called the Allies all sorts of barbarians, y'understand.
+However, Mawruss, it only goes to show
+how unnecessary such a section in the Peace Treaty
+would be, Mawruss, because the Germans is now
+obliging with a wonderful Roman exhibition of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+themselves. In fact, Mawruss, from the lowest
+to the highest, them German people seems to be
+saying to each other, 'Let's act like real Germans
+and make the worst of it!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Did any one expect anything else from them
+Germans?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, from the way this here four-flusher von
+Brockdorff-Rantzau behaved the day they handed
+him the Peace Treaty, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"it looked like the Germans had made up their
+minds to be just so stiff-necked as they always
+was, Mawruss, and I begun to think that they
+were going to treat it as a case of <i>so mechullah,
+so mechullah</i>, y'understand, but the way them
+Germans is now crying like children, Mawruss,
+there ain't going to be enough sackcloth and
+ashes in Germany to go around, and them German
+professors will have to get busy and invent
+some <i>ersatz</i> sackcloth and ashes to supply the
+demand."</p>
+
+<p>"Crooks are always poor sports, Abe," Morris
+declared, "in particular when they throw themselves
+on the mercy of the people that they didn't
+intend to show no mercy to themselves. Take
+this here Ebert, for instance, and he don't make
+no bones about saying that the German people
+relied on President Wilson and the United States
+of America being easy marks, but <i>ai Tzuris</i>,
+what a mistake that was! In effect he says that
+President Wilson on January 22, 1917, made the
+statement that the victor must not force his
+conditions on the vanquished, and relying on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+that statement, Germany went to work and got
+into a war with the United States because if
+Germany got licked, y'understand, the worst
+that can happen her is that she makes peace again
+on her own terms, and then when Germany did
+get licked, see what happens to her. President
+Wilson behaves like a frozen snake in the grass
+which somebody tries to warm by putting the
+snake into his pants pocket, y'understand, and
+when the snake gets thawed out, understand me,
+it bites the hand that feeds it, and what are you
+going to do in a case like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"At that, Mawruss, Ebert ain't making near so
+bad an exhibition of himself as this here Prince
+von Hohenlohe. There was a feller which was
+used to was the German Chancellor, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "and the dirty deals which he helped
+to put over on the Rumanians and the Russians,
+by way of Treaties of Peace, y'understand, was
+such that if we would of attempted it with the
+Germans, Mawruss, and the United States Congress
+would of confirmed it, Mawruss, Victor
+Berger would be fighting to be let out of the
+House of Representatives and to be admitted
+to Leavenworth, instead of <i>vice versa</i>, on the
+grounds that he didn't want to associate with no
+crooks, y'understand, but seemingly this here
+Hohenlohe is suffering from loss of memory as
+well as loss of self-respect, Mawruss, because he
+is now making speeches in which he is weeping
+all over his already tear-stained copy of the Peace
+Treaty and calling it the Tragedy of Versailles,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+whereas compared to the Treaty of Peace which
+you might call the Tragedy of Brest-Litovsk,
+Mawruss, this here Versailles Treaty of Peace is
+a Follies of 1919 with just one laugh after another,
+y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"And I see also where this here Scheidemann is
+also figuring very largely in this here Roman
+exhibition the Germans is making of themselves,
+Abe," Morris observed. "He said the other day
+that the Germans would never, never, never&mdash;or
+anyhow not until next Thursday a week&mdash;sign
+the Peace Treaty. He put his hand on
+where a German's heart would be if he had one,
+Abe, and said that no Germans would positively
+and absolutely not submit to any such Treaty
+of Peace as the one offered to them, or that is to
+say they would not submit to it except on and
+after May 22, 1919, and anyhow, nobody would
+ever trust President Wilson again."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet, Mawruss, when them Germans gets
+over the first shock of this here Peace Treaty
+and wipe away their tears sufficient to see things
+a little more clearly, y'understand," Abe commented,
+"it is just barely possible that they are
+going to do some rapid figuring on what they gain
+by not supporting a few thousand princes, not
+to mention the money which that bloodthirsty
+Kaiser and his family used to draw in salaries and
+commissions, Mawruss, and when these amounts
+are offset against indemnities which the Germans
+are required to pay under the Peace Treaty,
+Mawruss, it will in all probability be found that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+the German nation is beggared, as this here
+Scheidemann would say, to the extent of $0.831416
+per capita per annum by such indemnities. The
+result is going to be that some of them Germans
+will then begin to figure how maybe it was worth
+that much money per capita per annum to get rid
+of that <i>rosher</i> and they will also begin to realize
+that it has been worth even more than that
+much per capita per annum to the Allied people
+to see a performance such as the German people
+continuing to weep in sympathy with Ebert and
+Scheidemann, y'understand, they will be advising
+them two boys to go and take for ten cents apiece
+some mathematic spirits of ammonia and quit
+their sobbing."</p>
+
+<p>"However, Abe," Morris remarked, "there was
+a few Americans which instead of being in the
+audience enjoying the performance was back
+on the stage with the Germans and weeping
+just so hard as any of them. Take these here
+American lady delegates to the small-time Peace
+Conference which is running at Zurich, Switzerland,
+in opposition to the old original Peace Conference
+in Paris, Abe, and them ladies with their
+voices choked by tears, Abe, passed a resolution
+that be it resolved that the Peace Treaty is already
+secret diplomacy, that it is the old case of the side
+winning the war getting the spoils, and a lot of
+other resolutions to which the only resolution
+anybody could pass in answer to such resolutions
+would be, 'Well, what of it?'"</p>
+
+<p>"That only proves to me, Mawruss, how necessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+it is, this here Americanization work which
+you read so much about in the papers," Abe
+declared. "Here is four American ladies which
+is lived in the country for some years&mdash;in fact,
+ever since they was born, and that ain't such a
+short time neither, when you see their pictures,
+Mawruss, and yet them ladies talks like they
+never heard tell of the Star-spangled Banner.
+Seemingly the fact that we licked Germany don't
+appeal to them at all, and so far as these resolutions
+which they passed between sobs, Mawruss, gives
+any indications, Mawruss, they would like to
+have seen this here European War end in a draw,
+with perhaps Germany getting just a shade the
+better of it."</p>
+
+<p>"And what has all this got to do with Americanization
+work, Abe?" Morris inquired. "I
+always thought that Americanization was taking
+the greenhorns which comes to this country from
+Europe, and teaching them how to think and
+act like Americans."</p>
+
+<p>"That comes afterward, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"because it seems that ever since this here European
+War, Mawruss, Americanization needs to
+begin at home, Mawruss, and that the first ones
+to be Americanized should ought to be Americans.
+There is, for instance, Mr. O. G. Villard, who was
+born and raised in this country, Mawruss, which
+he comes out with a statement the other
+day that them loafers of the Munich soviet who
+killed all them professors and ladies a couple
+of weeks ago, compared very favorably with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+legislatures of the states of New York and Pennsylvania,
+Mawruss. Now when you consider
+that them two legislatures is part of our government,
+Mawruss, the way it looks to me is that
+if a foreigner had said such a thing he would have
+been Americanized without the option of a fine
+by the nearest city magistrate."</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "when
+you read in the papers about the New York
+State Senator Thompson and the goings-on up
+in Albany, Abe, it looks like Americanization
+should ought to be done at the source, y'understand,
+and then it wouldn't be necessary to
+Americanize Mr. Villard at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe agreed, "but
+what I am driving into is that Americanization
+for Americans must appeal very strongly to
+colored Americans, especially the Americanization
+of those Americans who believe that the
+colored man should ought to be put in his place
+and don't hesitate about designating the place
+as the end of a rope without the trouble and
+expense of a jury trial, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I would even get a little more personal as
+that, Abe," Morris declared. "I would even say
+that there should ought to be classes in Americanization
+for those Americans who believe that the
+religion and race origin of certain other Americans
+makes them eligible to give their children's
+lives to the country and their money to Red
+Cross and other War Drives&mdash;but that it don't
+make them eligible to stay at first-class summer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+hotels or play golluf by first-class country
+clubs."</p>
+
+<p>"Say," Abe broke in, "there is need of more
+important Americanization among Americans than
+that, Mawruss. There should ought to be Americanization
+of Americans who think it is American
+for landlords to ask for raises of their rent and
+un-American for workmen to ask for raises of their
+wages. In fact, this whole Americanization movement
+should ought to be centered on Americanizing
+out of Americans any habits, customs, or
+schemes they try to put across which is apt to
+make Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans
+or Assorted Foreign-Americans say
+to one another, 'Well, if that's the way Americans
+behave, give me back my hyphen and let
+me go home.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, after all, Abe, it's a mighty small bunch
+of Americans which ain't Americanized yet,"
+Morris observed.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," Abe said, "and it's their smallness
+which makes me sore, Mawruss, because no matter
+how small they are by number, or nature, Mawruss,
+they are the ones that the Turks pulled on us
+when we protested about them poor Armenians
+<i>nebich</i>. Also, Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson should
+protest that the new Polish Republic ain't treating
+our people as equals, y'understand, the new
+Polish Republic could come right back with:
+'Neither is any number of summer hotels we
+could name in the Adirondacks Mountains of
+your own United States.' Also, if the Peace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+Delegates from this country gives a hint to the
+Greeks that there is colonies of Bulgarians living
+in Greece for years already which wants to be
+Greeks and should ought to have the same voting
+rights as Greeks, y'understand, all Venezuela or
+whatever the Greek secretary of state has got to
+say is, 'Well, we hold that these people 'ain't
+got a right to vote under a law called the Grandfather
+Law, which we copied from similar laws
+passed in the states of Georgia, Alabama, and
+Mississippi&mdash;in your own United States,' and
+them poor old Peace Delegates of ours wouldn't
+have a word to say."</p>
+
+<p>"At that, Abe, I think all them disagreeable
+things in this country is going to be changed by
+the war," Morris suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "but
+considering what changes have taken place because
+of this war, it's wonderful how little changed
+things really are."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. WILSON'S FAVOR OF THE 20TH ULTO. AND
+CONTENTS NOTED</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner,
+Morris Perlmutter, one morning recently,
+"a feller which has got to write to the
+newspaper to say that he didn't say what the
+newspaper said he said when it reported his
+speech, y'understand, has usually made a pretty
+rotten speech in the first place, and in the second
+place when he tries to explain what it really was
+that he did say, Mawruss, it practically always
+sounds worse than what the newspaper said he
+said."</p>
+
+<p>"But what did he say and who said it, Abe?"
+Morris inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Ambassador Morgenstimmung or Morgenstern,
+I couldn't remember which, Mawruss,"
+Abe replied, "and although he 'ain't wrote to the
+newspapers yet to deny that he said it, Mawruss,
+it is only a question of time when he would do so,
+because he either said one thing or the other,
+but he couldn't say both."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Abe, if you think that unless you break
+it to me gradually what this here Morgenstern
+said, it would be too much of a shock to me,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+Morris announced, "let me tell you that it is a
+matter of indifference to me <i>what</i> he said."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is to 'most everybody else except the
+immediate family, Mawruss," Abe continued, "but
+not to keep you in suspense, Mawruss, what this
+Ambassador Morgenstern said was in a speech
+to the American soldiers in Coblenz where he
+told them that there was going to be another
+big war in which America would got to fight
+during the next fifteen or twenty years, and also
+that he had every confidence in the League of
+Nations."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's a whole lot of United States
+Senators which has got the same kind of confidence
+in the League of Nations, Abe," Morris
+declared. "In fact, some of them is confident
+that the League of Nations will bring about a
+war for us in even less than fifteen years."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "the word <i>confidence</i>
+has got a whole lot of different meanings,
+Mawruss, and it's quite possible that this here
+Ambassador Morgenstern used the word with
+reference to the League of Nations in its Chatham
+Square or green-goods meaning, because otherwise
+how could the League of Nations cause another
+war in less than fifteen years, unless, of course,
+the feller which prophesied it was a Republican
+Senator, which Mr. Morgenstern is not."</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, Abe," Morris said, "I
+have heard and read so many different things
+about this here League of Nations that it wouldn't
+surprise me in the least if the final edition of it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+provided that any nation which didn't go to war
+at least once every three years with some other
+nation or nations, y'understand, should be expelled
+from the League of Nations with costs, y'understand,
+and in fact, Abe, it is my opinion that when
+some one makes a speech about this here League
+of Nations nowadays, he might just so well write
+a letter to himself denying that he said what the
+newspaper said he said, and let it go at that,
+because it's a hundred to one that he was the only
+person who didn't skip it when it was printed
+in its original garbled condition."</p>
+
+<p>"At that, Mawruss, you are going to be really
+and truly surprised to find out what that League
+of Nations covenant means when it comes up to be
+argued about by the United States Senate," Abe
+observed, "because a great many of them Senators
+is high-grade, crackerjack, A-number-one lawyers
+on the side, Mawruss, and formerly used to make
+their livings by showing that the contract which
+the plaintiff made with the defendant meant just
+the opposite to what the plaintiff or defendant
+meant it to mean&mdash;or <i>vice versa</i>, according to
+which end of the lawsuit such a Senator was
+arguing on, Mawruss, so you can imagine what
+is going to happen to that League of Nations
+covenant. Take a level-headed lawyer like Senator
+Hiram S. Johnson of California, Mawruss,
+which he 'ain't got the least disposition to believe
+that the League of Nations covenant means what
+President Wilson says it means, understand me,
+and when he gets through showing what he thinks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+it means, and Senator Borah gets through showing
+what <i>he</i> thinks it means, and Senator Reed gets
+through thinking what <span class="smcap">he</span> thinks it means, understand
+me, that League of Nations covenant will
+have as many different meanings as the contested
+last will and testament of a childless millionaire
+who has married a telephone operator on his
+death-bed to spite his grandnieces and nephews,
+Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Congress will have a lot of other matters to
+settle before that League of Nations comes up,
+Abe," Morris said, "which I was reading the other
+day the message which President Wilson wrote
+from Paris, and he certainly laid out a lot of work
+for them to do till he gets back."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that letter of May 20th where he
+says: 'Dear Gents: Sorry not to be with you
+and I have been out of touch with things over in
+America so long that you will know a whole lot
+better than I do what is needed in the way of
+laws,' Mawruss, and then goes to work and tells
+them what is needed to the extent of half a newspaperful?"
+Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't remember the exact words," Morris
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've been expecting every day to see in
+the newspapers that he got an answer from the
+round robins reading: 'Dear Sir: Yours of the 20th
+inst. to hand and contents noted and in reply
+would say we wouldn't positively do nothing of
+the kind, and in case you are not back with
+samples on or before ten days from date, we will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+take such steps as we may think proper to protect
+our interests in the matter and oblige,'" Abe
+said, "because if you will remember, Mawruss,
+them round robins wanted Mr. Wilson to let the
+Senate go on making laws while he was away,
+and the President says, 'You couldn't make
+no laws till I get back,' and then when them round
+robins asked him when he would be back, he
+said, 'I'll be back when I am back,' and now he
+ain't back, and he has got to ask them round
+robins to go to work with the other Senators and
+Congressmen and make the laws which they
+wanted to make in the first place, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is going to be some time before he
+gets back if any such a deadlock like that happened,
+Abe," Morris said, "because I see where it
+says in the papers that Mr. Wilson won't come
+back until he has signed the treaties of peace with
+Germany and Austria, and France and England
+won't agree to finish up the treaties for Mr. Wilson's
+signature until they know that the United
+States Senate will ratify them and the United
+States Senate won't ratify them until they are
+finished up and submitted to them signed by Mr.
+Wilson, and then I didn't read no more about it,
+Abe, because I begun to get dizzy."</p>
+
+<p>"I very often get that way myself nowadays
+when I am reading in the newspapers, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "in particular when they print them
+full texts, like the full text of the League of Nations
+Covenant or the full text of the President's
+message. Former times when the papers had in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+'em straight murders and bank robberies from
+the inside or out, Mawruss, and you sat opposite
+somebody in the Subway who had to move his
+lips while he was reading, you took it for granted
+that he was an ignoramus which had to hear
+them simple words pronounced, even if it was by
+his own lips, before he could understand them,
+Mawruss, but you take this here letter of the 20th
+inst., Mawruss, and when you read where President
+Wilson says with reference to telephone and
+telegraph rates, Mawruss, 'there are many confusions
+and inconsistencies of rates. The scientific
+means by which communication by such
+instrumentalities could be rendered more thorough
+and satisfactory has not been made full use of,'
+understand me, you could move your lips, your
+scalp, Heaven and Earth, Mawruss, and still
+you couldn't tell what Mr. Wilson was driving
+into."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I glanced over that Message myself,
+Abe," Morris said, "and the capital I's was
+sticking up all through it like toothpicks on the
+cashier's desk of an armchair lunch-room, Abe.
+In just a few lines, Abe, Mr. Wilson says, 'I
+hesitate, I feel, I am conscious, I trust, I may, I
+shall, I dare say, I hope and I shall,' and when he
+started to say something about Woman Suffrage,
+he undoubtedly begun with 'May I not,' but
+evidently when he showed the first draft to
+Colonel House or somebody, they said, 'Why
+do you always say, <i>May I not</i>'? and after discussing
+such substitutes as '<i>Doch allow me</i>,' 'If you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+'ain't got no objections,' and 'You would excuse
+me if I would take the liberty,' Abe, they decided
+to use, 'Will you not permit me,' so, therefore,
+that part of the President's message which talks
+about Woman Suffrage says, 'Will you not
+permit me to speak once more and very earnestly
+of the proposed amendment to the Constitution
+and so forth,' and that, to my mind, is what give
+President Wilson the idea that it might be a good
+thing to let the manufacture and sale of wine and
+beer continue after June 30th, which he probably
+argued, 'If I have such a tough time shaking
+off the <i>May-I-not</i> habit, how about them poor
+fellers which has got the liquor habit?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he figured that way and maybe he
+didn't, Mawruss," Abe said, "but if any one feels
+that he ought to stock up with a few bottles of
+wine for <i>kiddush</i> or <i>habdolah</i> purposes on or after
+June 30, 1919, Mawruss, he oughtn't to be misled
+by anything President Wilson said in his letter
+of the 20th ulto., Mawruss, because when it comes
+to extending the life of the beer and wine industry
+after June 30th, Mawruss, them Senators and
+Representatives is more likely to take suggestions
+from the President of the Anti-Saloon League
+than from the President of the United States."</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't know but what they are right at
+that, Abe," Morris said, "because this here Prohibition
+is strictly a matter of what the majority
+thinks, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"But from the howl that has been going up,
+Mawruss," Abe protested, "it looks to me like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+the majority of people wants the sale of schnapps
+to continue."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say it was a question of what they
+want, Abe," Morris declared, "I said it was a
+question of what the majority thinks, and the
+majority of people thinks that while they can
+drink schnapps and they can let it alone, Abe,
+the majority of people also think that the majority
+of the people who drink schnapps would be a
+whole lot better off without it. So that's the way
+it stands, Abe. Nobody wants to leave off buying
+liquor, but nobody wants to take the responsibility
+of letting the sale of liquor continue."</p>
+
+<p>"Also, Mawruss, I've been reading a good many
+articles in the magazines about this here Prohibition
+lately," Abe declared, "and in every case
+the writer shows how disinterested he is, y'understand,
+by stating right at the start that so far as
+he is concerned, they could leave off selling liquor
+to-morrow and he would be perfectly satisfied."</p>
+
+<p>"And he is going to have to be, Abe," Morris
+said, "because that way of looking at the liquor
+question is what has brought about Prohibition.
+Practically everybody who drinks schnapps and
+enjoys it, Abe, is afraid that everybody else who
+drinks schnapps and <i>enjoys</i> it is going to think
+that he drinks schnapps and enjoys it, so he goes
+to work and pulls this phony unselfish stuff about,
+'So-far-as-I-am-concerned, it don't make no difference
+how soon the country goes Prohibition,'
+and the result is that the country is going Prohibition,
+and nobody even now has got nerve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+enough to admit that it's going to cut him out of
+a great many good times in the future."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's one thing about it, Mawruss,"
+Abe declared, "it's going to make near-by foreign
+countries, no matter what the climate may be,
+great summer and winter resorts for these fellers
+who don't care how soon Prohibition goes into
+effect and who will continue not to care until
+1 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> on July 1, 1919. Yes, Mawruss, this here
+Prohibition is going to give a wonderful boost
+to the business of building bridges across the Rio
+Grande River and to running lines of steamers
+between the United States and them foreign
+countries near by where the inhabitants have got
+it figured out that if you drink and enjoy it, you
+might just as well admit it before it's too late
+to keep the government from not taking a joke,
+if you know what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know what you mean," Morris said,
+"and it has always seemed to me, Abe, that even
+the Scotch whisky business ain't going to be
+affected so adversely by this here Prohibition,
+neither, except that the merchandise is going to
+reach its ultimate hobnail liver <i>via</i> Mexico and
+Cuba instead of New York and Chicago, and
+furthermore, Abe, there will be a great demand
+for sleepers on them northbound trains from
+Mexico, and the berths will only have to be made
+up once on leaving the Mexican frontier. However,
+the diners won't do much of a business on
+them trains, but they will certainly have to
+carry extra-large ice-water tanks."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And while I don't wish them drink-and-leave-it-alone
+fellers no particular harm, Mawruss,"
+Abe declared, vehemently, "some time when they
+are traveling on one of them oasis-bound limiteds,
+Mawruss, it would serve them right if it run off
+the rails or something and shook 'em up just
+enough to make them realize the inconvenience
+their own foolishness has brought on them."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "I didn't know you
+was taking this Prohibition affair so much to heart,
+Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;take it so much to heart?"
+Abe protested. "I take a glass of schnapps once
+in a while, Mawruss, but so far as I am concerned
+this here Prohibition can come into effect this
+afternoon yet, and it wouldn't affect me none."</p>
+
+<p>"I am the same way, Abe. I can drink and I
+can leave it alone," Morris said. "Or, anyhow,
+I <i>think</i> I can."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC
+FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS, AND
+LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES</h3>
+
+
+<p>"The way I feel about it is this, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris
+Perlmutter: "It don't make no difference if
+them two boys failed in their intentions, y'understand,
+they succeeded in making millions and
+millions of people in Paris, Winnipeg, New York,
+and who knows where not, stop hating each other
+for anyhow a few hours, and instead they smiled
+and shook hands and allowed themselves a recess
+in their regular work of winning strikes, losing
+strikes, shooting, starving, and cheating each
+other and their countries, while they all joined
+in being glad that Mrs. Hawker and the baby
+had got the popper back home with them and that
+Grieve was safe with his family or anyhow as
+safe as a young feller can be who is liable to quit
+his home at any moment and do the same wonderful,
+foolish thing all over again."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too bad that all them strikers and Bolsheviks
+which is acting as senselessly as children,
+couldn't also act as sensibly as children, Abe,"
+Morris Perlmutter observed, "and stop crying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+long enough to forget what they were crying
+about, y'understand, but they won't. They are
+bound and determined to eat the goose which
+lays the golden eggs, Abe, and the end is going to
+be that they will find out it ain't a goose at all,
+but that instead of killing a goose that's fit for
+food they have only smashed an incubator that's
+fit for nothing but laying more eggs, and that's
+the way it goes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's certainly wonderful how popular
+them two young fellers become in the course of a
+few days, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Which
+makes you think, Mawruss, if such a thing happens
+to two unknown young men like Hawker
+and Grieve, there is big possibilities in this cross-the-ocean
+flight for fellers which was once highly
+thought of and which nowadays nobody gives a
+nickel about. Take, for instance, them two William
+J. fellers, Bryan and McAdoo, which only
+a short time since people was reading about it in
+the papers, Mawruss, and what them fellers
+should ought to do is to hire a good, undependable
+airyoplane, y'understand, and take the first boat
+for Trespassing, or whatever the place is. Then
+all they have to do is to make a good start, and
+get afterwards rescued by a tramp steamer, and
+right away they become general favorites again.
+Or the kaiser and the crown prince might try it,
+Mawruss. There must be plenty of airyoplanes
+laying around Germany nowadays which could be
+picked up for a song, and when word come that
+it had fallen into the Atlantic Ocean with them two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+birds aboard somewhere around one thousand
+five hundred miles from sixty degrees forty-three
+minutes, y'understand, it might make the Hohenzollerns
+so popular that there would be a counter-revolution
+or something."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose they would overdo the thing
+and not get rescued," Morris suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that would make them popular with <i>me</i>,
+anyhow," Abe said, "and there is probably millions
+of people like me in that respects, Mawruss.
+Still, joking to one side, Mawruss, there is some
+things which you couldn't joke about like what
+this young feller Read did, which is working for
+the United States navy, Mawruss. There was
+a young feller what took his life in his hands,
+Mawruss, and yet from the maps which the newspapers
+printed, you would think it was already a
+dead open-and-shut proposition that if the airyoplane
+was to break down anywheres between
+Trespassing and Europe, Mawruss, there would
+be waiting United States navy ships like taxi-cabs
+around the Hotel Knickerbocker, waiting
+to pick up this here Read before he even so much
+as got his feet wet, understand me. Yes, Mawruss,
+right across the whole page of the newspaper
+was strung the <i>Winthrop</i>, the <i>Farragut</i>, the <i>Cushing</i>,
+and other fellers' names up to the number of
+fourteen destroyers, and the way it looked on that
+map, there was a solid line of boats waiting to
+receive any falling airyoplane all the way from
+one side of the ocean to the other, whereas you
+know as well as I do, Mawruss, you can as much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+make both ends meet on the Atlantic Ocean with
+fourteen ships as a shipping-clerk with ten children
+can in New York City on a salary of eighteen
+dollars a week."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand them ships was only fifty miles
+apart," Morris observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, "but if that airyoplane
+was to drop anywheres between the second
+and the forty-ninth mile, Mawruss, them ships
+might just as well have been stationed on the
+North River between Seventy-second and One
+Hundred and Thirtieth streets, Mawruss, for all the
+good it would have done this young feller Read.
+Also, Mawruss, if they would have had so many
+destroyers on the Atlantic Ocean that they would
+have run out of regular navy names for them and
+had to resort to the business directory so as to
+include the Acker, the Merrall, the Condit, the
+Rogers, the Peet, the Browning, the King, the
+Marshall, and the Field, in that collection of ships,
+Mawruss, that wouldn't of made this here Read's
+life a first-class insurable risk, neither."</p>
+
+<p>"And being picked up by a destroyer ain't such
+a wonderful <i>Capora</i>, neither, y'understand," Morris
+said, "which they tell me that on one of them
+destroyers an admiral even couldn't last out
+as far as the Battery even without anyhow getting
+pale. Also, Abe, I couldn't see that it proved
+anything when this here Read had the good luck
+to arrive at Lisbon, except that he was a brave
+young feller and seemingly didn't care how much
+his family worried about him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's what people have always said when
+anything new in the way of transportation was
+tried, Mawruss, but them people was never the
+ones that deposited the checks when the scheme
+begun to pay dividends some two or three years
+later," Abe retorted. "The world never made
+no advances with the assistance of the even-so
+and what-of-it fellers, which, when the king and
+queen of Spain raised a little money on the crown
+jewels, Mawruss, so that Christopher Columbus
+<i>olav hasholom</i> could make the first trip across the
+Atlantic Ocean by water, Mawruss, the people
+which saw in it the first steps towards the <i>Aquitania</i>
+and <i>Levinathan</i> wasn't so plentiful, neither."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably the feller which lent the money on
+the jewels wasn't so enthusiastic about it, at any
+rate," Morris declared, "because as first-class, A-number-one
+security for a loan, Abe, crown jewels
+'ain't got very much of an edge on them sympathetic
+pearls which carries such a tremendous
+overhead for electric light in the store windows
+where they are displayed. Take, for instance, the
+Austrian crown jewels, Abe, and I see in the paper
+where for years and years everybody took the
+Austrian emperor's word for it that they contained
+more first-water diamonds than could be
+found in stocks of all the Fifth Avenue jewelers
+and Follies of from 1910 to 1919 chorus ladies
+combined, and the other day when the provisional
+government tried to sell them Austrian crown
+jewels to buy food for the starving Austrians,
+y'understand, for what was thought to be rubies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+diamonds, and pearls weighing from twenty to a
+hundred carats apiece, Abe, they couldn't get an
+offer of as much as a bowl of crackers and milk."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suppose happened to the originals,
+Mawruss?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>should</i> of happened to them?" Morris
+asked, rhetorically. "I bet yer that not once, but
+hundreds of times, an Austrian emperor has taken
+one of the ladies of the Vienna Opera House ballet
+to the vaults of the Vienna Deposit and Storage
+Company and just to show her how much he
+thought of her, when she said, '<i>My, ain't that a
+gorgeous stone!</i>' he has said, '<i>Do you really like it?</i>'
+and pried it right out of its setting right then and
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"And I also bet yer that when the ballet lady
+got a valuation on it the next day," Abe said,
+"the pawnbroker said to her, '<i>Ain't this a diamond
+which the Emperor pried out of his crown for
+you?</i>' and when she said, '<i>Yes</i>,' he says that the
+fixed loaning value of an imperial pried-out diamond
+was one dollar and eighty-five cents, and
+from that time on the ballet lady would be very
+much off all emperors."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me that in all the other countries
+of the world where kings and emperors still hold
+on to their jobs, Abe, it wouldn't be a bad thing
+for the government to check up the crown jewels
+on them, in case of emergencies like revolutions
+or having to pay war indemnities," Morris remarked,
+"which I wouldn't be surprised if right
+now the German people is figuring on raising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+several million marks on the German crown jewels
+towards paying the first billion-dollar instalment
+of the war indemnity, and when the government
+appraiser gets ahold of them, he will turn in a
+report that they are not even using that kind of
+stuff in decorating soda-fountains even."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case the German government will
+probably try to arrange a swop," Abe said,
+"trusting to luck that the Allied governments
+having agreed to take them crown jewels at the
+value placed on them by the kaiser, will not discover
+their real value until they've changed
+hands, Mawruss, in which event the German
+government will claim that the substitution took
+place after the Allies received them and did the
+Allies think they could get away with anything
+as raw as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Even the Germans 'ain't got such a nerve,"
+Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ain't they?" Abe retorted. "Well, how about
+the counter-claim they are now making for
+an indemnity of $3,048,300,000, <i>aus gerechnent</i>?
+Them Germans has got the nerve to claim anything
+that they think they've got the slightest
+chance of getting away with, Mawruss, so they
+stick in this indemnity which they say they ought
+to receive from the Allies because the blockade
+which the Allies kept up against Germany during
+the war caused such a shortage in food that one
+million less German children was born during
+that time."</p>
+
+<p>"Three thousand and forty-eight dollars and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+thirty cents is a pretty high valuation to put on
+a German, and a new-born German at that,"
+Morris commented. "You're sure that the three
+thousand and forty-eight dollars ain't a mistake?
+Because thirty cents sounds like the correct
+figures to me, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"The birth reduction ain't the only item in
+their bill, Mawruss," Abe continued. "They also
+claim that the blockade prevented the importing
+of rubber, camphor, and quinine."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose they claim that tire trouble,
+moths, and malaria increased something terrible,"
+Morris said. "Well, they're going to have just
+as hard a time proving that claim as Senator
+Reed would that Brazil is a nation of colored
+people, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"When did Senator Reed say that, Mawruss?"
+Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"When he was arguing against the League of
+Nations, in the Senate the other day," Morris
+replied. "He said that there were fifteen white
+nations in the League and seventeen colored
+nations, and he reckoned Brazil in as one of the
+colored nations, probably because he confused
+the Brazil population with the Brazil nuts which
+are sometimes called nigger-toes, Abe. However,
+Abe, he also included Cuba as a colored nation,
+because he claimed that fifty per cent. of the
+population is colored."</p>
+
+<p>"But the President of Cuba and the gentlemen
+which is running the Cuban government ain't
+colored people, Mawruss," Abe said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That don't make no difference to Senator
+Reed, Abe," Morris declared. "To Senator Reed,
+anything that's found alive in a stable is a horse,
+Abe; in fact, coming from Missouri, as Senator
+Reed does, considering the size of the colored
+population of that state, Senator Reed probably
+considers himself a colored man, because Senator
+Reed is perfectly honest in his opinions, Abe.
+When he argues that Cuba is a colored nation,
+he believes it, so, therefore, when he argues himself
+into being a colored man, he probably believes
+that he ain't quite so dark a colored man as
+Senator Vardaman, who comes from Mississippi,
+Abe, but only a light colored man, which is of
+course all nonsense, like Senator Reed's arguments.
+Senator Vardaman is a white man and Senator
+Reed is a white man and they are both of them as
+white as, but no whiter than, the President of Cuba
+and several million Brazilian gentlemen. But
+with Senator Reed it's a case of any argument
+is a good argument, so long as it is an argument
+against the League of Nations."</p>
+
+<p>"But as I understand it Senator Vardaman
+ain't in the Senate no more," Abe said. "He got
+defeated last election."</p>
+
+<p>"And the way he is heading, Abe," Morris said,
+"Senator Reed will join him next election, because,
+while nine times out of ten, when it comes to
+re-election, a United States Senator has got things
+pretty well sewed-up, <i>so</i> sewed-up he couldn't
+have them, that he could make such foolish speeches
+on such an important matter. Furthermore, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+don't make no difference how wise or how foolish
+the speeches which Senators makes against the
+League of Nations might be, Abe, it is going to go
+through, <i>anyhow</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you think that?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I see where the National Democratic
+Committee met in Chicago the other day, and the
+chairman by the name Cummings threatened
+that if the Senate don't approve the League of
+Nations Covenant, Mr. Wilson would run for
+President again," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;threatened?" Abe demanded.
+"You talk like Mr. Wilson running for
+President again was something to be scared about."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't talk that way, but Mr. Cummings
+does," Morris said. "In fact, the Democratic
+National Committee, on the head of what Mr.
+Cummings said, passed a resolution that they
+were in favor of the prompt ratification by the
+Senate of the Treaty of Peace, including the
+League of Nations, so it would appear that the
+Democratic National Committee ain't so tickled
+about Mr. Wilson running again, neither."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if Mr. Wilson don't run again for President
+on the Democratic ticket, Mawruss, who
+will?" Abe inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, and, furthermore, I think that
+the Democratic National Committee is temporarily
+in the same condition about that proposition as
+Hawker and Grieve was about that cross-Atlantic
+proposition&mdash;also temporarily," Morris concluded,
+"I mean, up in the air."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Outside of one poor night watchman
+<i>nebich</i>," Abe Potash said to his partner,
+Morris Perlmutter, "the only people which has
+really and truly suffered from the goings-on of them
+anarchists is the insurance companies, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"In a case like that, Abe, the insurance companies
+ain't liable under their policies," Morris
+said, "and they wouldn't got to pay no losses
+for the damage when them bombs done it to them
+buildings."</p>
+
+<p>"Who said anything about the insurance companies
+paying losses?" Abe asked. "I am talking
+about the insurance companies paying lawyer
+bills, Mawruss, which I never read any of that
+part of my insurance policies that is printed in
+only such letters as could have been designed
+in the first place by them fellers you read about
+who go blind from engraving the whole of the
+Constitution of the United States on a ten-cent
+piece, y'understand, but I have no doubt, Mawruss,
+that it wouldn't make no difference if the
+loss was caused by anything so legitimate as
+throwing a lighted cigarette in a waste-paper basket,
+understand me, the only reason why an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+insurance company pays any losses at all is that
+they figure it's cheaper to let the policyholder
+have the money than the bunch of murderers
+they got representing them as their general
+counsel."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt you're right," Morris agreed, "but
+in these here bomb outrages Abe, the way the
+police 'ain't been able to get a clue to so much as a
+suspicious red necktie, y'understand, it looks as
+though this bomb-exploding was going to be such
+a regular amusement with anarchists as pinochle-playing
+is with clothing salesmen, understand me,
+so the insurance companies would got to make a
+stand, otherwise they would be paying for new
+stoops for the houses of anybody and everybody
+who ever said an unkind word in public about
+Lenine and Trotzky."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me that the police ain't so smart
+like they once used to be, Mawruss," Abe remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, nor never was," Morris said. "In fact,
+Abe, from the number of crimes which has got
+into the let-bygones-be-bygones stage with the
+police lately, clues ain't of no more use to them
+fellers at all. What them detectives need is that
+the criminal should leave behind him at the scene
+of the crime a line of snappy, up-to-date advertising
+containing his name, address, and telephone
+number, otherwise they seem to think they have
+the excuse that they couldn't be expected to perform
+miracles, and let it go at that."</p>
+
+<p>"I see where right here in New York, Mayor
+Hylan puts the whole thing up to the newspapers,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+Abe observed. "He wrote to a friend the other
+day one of them strictly confidential letters with
+an agreement on the side to ring up the reporters
+as soon as it was delivered, y'understand, in which
+he said the reason why so many crimes was going
+undiscovered by the police was that the newspapers
+was unprincipled enough to print that a
+lot of crimes was going undetected by the police,
+understand me, and the consequence was that
+criminals read it and, relying on the fact that
+the police wouldn't catch them if they committed
+crimes, they went to work and committed crimes."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose them criminals' confidence in
+the police wasn't misplaced, neither," Morris
+suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so far as I've heard," Abe said, "but even
+if the newspapers wouldn't of printed the information,
+Mawruss, why should Mayor Hylan
+assume that burglars don't write each other letters
+occasionally, or, anyhow, once in a while meet at
+lunch and talk over business matters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've noticed that Mayor Hylan, Mayor
+Thompson, and a lot of other Mayors, Senators,
+and people which is all the time getting into the
+public eye in the same sense as cinders and small
+insects, Abe, always blames the newspapers for
+everything that goes wrong," Morris remarked,
+"because such people is always doing and saying
+things that when it gets into the newspaper sounds
+pretty rotten even to themselves, understand me,
+so therefore they begin to think that the newspaper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+is doing it deliberately, and consequently they
+get a grouch on against all newspapers."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know, Mawruss, but that don't excuse
+the police for not finding out who sent them
+bombs through the mails in the first place," Abe
+said. "It is now beginning to look, Mawruss,
+that the American police has begun to act philosophically
+about crooks, the way the American
+public has always done, and they shrug their
+shoulders and say, 'What are you going to do
+with a bunch of crooks like that?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in a way you can't blame the police for
+not catching them bomb-throwers, Abe," Morris
+said. "They've been so busy arresting people
+for violations of the automobile and traffic laws
+that they 'ain't hardly got time for nothing else,
+so you see what a pipe it is for criminals, Abe.
+All they have got to do is to keep out of automobiles
+and stick to street cars, and they can rob,
+murder, and explode bombs, and the police would
+never trouble them at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But considering the number of people which
+gets arrested every day for things like having
+in their possession a bottle of schnapps, Mawruss,
+or smoking paper cigarettes in the second degree,
+or against the peace and dignity of the people
+of the State of Kansas or Virginia, and the statue
+in such case made and provided leaving a bottle
+of near-beer uncorked on the window-sill until
+it worked itself into a condition of being fermented
+or intoxicating liquor under section six sub-section
+(b) of the said act, y'understand, it is surprising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+to me that the police didn't by accident gather
+in anyhow <i>one</i> of them anarchists, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "because, after all, Mawruss, it can't
+be that only respectable people violate all them
+prohibition, anti-cigarette, and anti-speeding laws,
+and that, outside of dropping bombs, anarchists
+is otherwise law-abiding."</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time, Abe, I couldn't help feeling
+sorry for a policeman who would arrest an anarchist
+by accident, especially if he didn't carry any
+accident insurance, because the only way to avoid
+accidents in arresting anarchists is to take a good
+aim at a safe distance, and let somebody else
+search the body for packages," Morris declared.</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I think the
+reason why them anarchists which explode bombs
+is never discovered, y'understand, ain't up to the
+police at all, but to the contractor which cleans up
+the scene of the explosion," Abe said. "If he
+would only instruct his workmen to sift the
+rubbish before they cart it away, they might anyhow
+find a collar-button or something, because
+next to windows, Mawruss, the most breakage
+caused by anarchistic bomb explosions is to
+anarchists."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, there must be a lot of comparatively
+uninjured anarchists hanging around&mdash;anarchists
+with only a thumb or so missing which the police
+would be able to find if they really and truly used
+a little gumption, Abe," Morris said. "Also if
+they would keep their ears open, there must be
+lots of noises which now passes for gas-range trouble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+and which if investigated while the experimenter
+was still in the dancing and hand-flipping
+stage of agony, Abe, might bring to light some
+of the leading spirits in the chemical branch of the
+American anarchists. Then of course there is the
+other noises which sounds like gas-range troubles,
+and which on investigation proves to be speeches,
+Abe, and while it is probably true that you can't
+kill ideas by putting the people which owns up
+to them in jail, Abe, I for one am willing to take
+a chance and see how it comes out, because, after
+all, it ain't ideas which makes and explodes bombs,
+but the people which holds such ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"Also, Mawruss," Abe said, "it is the people
+which holds such ideas that says you can't kill
+ideas by putting the people what holds them
+into jail, but just so soon as them people gets
+arrested, not only do they claim that they never
+held such ideas, but they deny that there even
+existed such ideas, and then the noise of the
+denials they are making is drowned out by the
+noise of the bombs which is being exploded according
+to the ideas they claim they don't hold, and
+that's the way it goes, Mawruss. The chances
+is that the mystery of who exploded them bombs
+will remain a mystery along with the mystery of
+how the Peace Treaty come into the possession
+of them New York interests in the form of a
+volume of three hundred and twenty pages, as
+Senator Lodge says it did."</p>
+
+<p>"To me that ain't no mystery at all, Abe,"
+Morris said. "The chances is that them New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+York interests, whatever they may be, Abe&mdash;and
+I got my suspicions, Abe&mdash;simply seen it in the
+Saturday edition of one of them New York papers
+which makes a specialty of book-advertising, an
+advertisement reading:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"THE PEACE TERMS"<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Read About Them</span><br />
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: smaller">
+in this stirring, heart-touching romance. Get it, begin it;
+you'll read every word and wish there was more.
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: smaller">
+Would it be worth while to risk the happiness of all future
+time for the sake of four years of forbidden pleasure? With
+the frankness characteristic of him, William W. Wilson in
+his latest work tells what happens&mdash;economically and spiritually&mdash;to
+the nation who tried it.
+</p>
+<p class="center" style="line-height: 1.5">
+"THE PEACE TERMS"<br />
+By<br />
+<span class="smcap">William W. Wilson</span><br />
+Author of <i>A Thousand Snappy Substitutes for May I Not</i>, etc.<br />
+30 Illustrations, 320 pages.<span style="margin-left: 6em">$1.50 net.</span><br />
+AT ALL BOOK-STORES<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>so the New York interests give the office-boy
+three dollars and says to him he should go 'round
+to the news-stands in the nearest subway station
+and buy a couple of them books, y'understand,
+and for the remainder of the afternoon, y'understand,
+the members of the New York interests
+which 'ain't got their feet up on the desk reading
+them books, is asking the members which has if
+they 'ain't got nothing better to do with their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+time than to put it in reading a lot of nonsense
+like that, understand me."</p>
+
+<p>"But who do you think published it, Mawruss?"
+Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "It is already over
+a month since the first edition of that Peace Treaty
+was handed to the German delegates, and what
+is a little thing like a copyright to them crooks
+when it comes to making a profit of ten cents a
+volume? I bet yer that Europe is already flooded
+with pirated editions of that Peace Treaty retailing
+at anywheres from twenty-five cents up, and
+yet them highwaymen claims that it is unacceptable
+to them. As a matter of fact, the German
+business man 'ain't found anything nearly
+so acceptable in a merchandising way since the
+time they began to imitate Gillette safety razors
+and Kodak cameras. They'll probably make
+enough of the Park Row and Ann Street peddling
+rights alone to pay the first instalment of the
+reparation indemnity, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"I see where Austria also finds the terms of the
+Peace Treaty which was handed to her unacceptable,
+Mawruss," Abe remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for that matter, Abe, there probably
+ain't a petitentiary in this or any other country
+which ain't filled with crooks who finds the terms
+of their punishment unacceptable," Morris said,
+"but I never heard it advanced as an argument
+why the sentence should ought to be upset on
+appeal, Abe. Also, Abe, Germany and Austria
+is in just so good a position to accept or not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+accept their punishment as any other defendant
+would be after he has had his pedigree taken and
+is handcuffed to the deputy-sheriff with the Black
+Maria backed up against the curb, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose I must of lost thousands of
+dollars serving on juries in my time, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "and I would of lost thousands more if
+every prisoner would of behaved the way Germany
+and Austria has since the judge asked them
+if they had anything to say why sentence should
+ought to be passed on them. Evidently they
+must of thought it was up to them to make
+regular after-dinner speeches, leaving out only
+the once-there-was-an-Irishman story."</p>
+
+<p>"And even that 'ain't been left out," Morris
+said, "which I see that the United States Senate
+has passed a resolution that they are in favor
+the Peace Conference should hear what the
+delegates from the new Irish Republic has got to
+say."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Ireland a republic now?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It's anyhow as much of a republic as the
+Rhenish Republic is a republic or the Kingdom
+of the Hadjes is a kingdom," Morris continued,
+"which the American delegates let them Hadjes
+have their say, Abe, and if the Hadj-American
+vote figured very strong in the last presidential
+election or the Hadj-American subscribers to
+the Victory Loan represented as much as
+.000000001 per cent. of the total amount raised,
+the newspapers kept it pretty quiet, Abe. So,
+therefore, Abe, leaving out of the question altogether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+that a very big percentage of the highest
+grade citizens which we've got in this country is
+Irish by ancestry and brains, Abe, why shouldn't
+the Irish have their say before the Peace Conference?"</p>
+
+<p>"For one thing," Abe said, "the delegates to
+the Peace Conference is already pretty well
+acquainted with what them Irishmen would tell
+them, unless them delegates is deaf, dumb, and
+blind."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, Abe, but a good argument
+was never the worse for being repeated," Morris
+concluded, "in especially when it comes from
+people which has given us not only good arguments
+during the past four years, but service,
+blood, and money. Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2>
+
+<h3>JULY THE FIRST AND AFTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>"It's already surprising what people will eat if
+they couldn't get anything else," Abe Potash
+commented one morning in June.</p>
+
+<p>"Not nearly so surprising as what they would
+drink in the same circumstances," Morris Perlmutter
+remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know," Abe continued. "Here
+it stands in the newspapers where a professor says
+that for the information of them men which would
+sooner eat grasshoppers as starve, Mawruss, they
+taste very much like shrimps if you know how
+shrimps taste, which I am thankful to say that I
+don't, Mawruss, because I never yet had the nerve
+to eat shrimps on account of them looking too
+much like grasshoppers."</p>
+
+<p>"That's nothing," Morris declared. "In Porto
+Rico, where they have had prohibition now for
+some time already, the authorities has just found
+out that the people has been drinking so much
+hair tonic as ersat-schnapps, Abe, that the insides
+of the stomach of a Porto-Rican looks like the
+outside of the President of the new Polish Republic,
+if you know what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if the prohibition law is going to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+enforced so as to confiscate the schnapps which is
+now being stored away by the people who have
+had an insurance actuary figure out their expectancy
+of life at ten drinks a day for 13.31416 years,
+Mawruss, or all the cellar will hold, y'understand,"
+Abe said, "it won't be much later than
+July 2d before somebody discovers that there's
+quite a kick to furniture polish or 6-in-1, Mawruss,
+and in fact I expect to see after July 1st, 1919,
+that there would be what looks like stove polish,
+shoe polish, automobile-body polish, and silver
+polish retailing at from one dollar to a dollar and
+a half per hip-pocket-size bottle, which after being
+strained through blotting-paper, y'understand,
+would net the purchaser three drinks of the worst
+whisky that ever got sold on Chatham Square
+for five cents a glass."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose that pretty soon they will be
+passing a law forbidding the manufacture of stove
+polish and directing that the labels on the bottles
+shall contain the statement:</p>
+
+<p>"Stove Polish by Volume 2, Seventy-five per
+cent. And in a thimbleful of what ain't stove
+polish in that stove polish, Abe, there wouldn't
+be no more harm than two or three quarts of so
+much nitroglycerin, y'understand," Morris said.
+"Also on Saturday nights you will see the poor
+women <i>nebich</i> hanging around the swinging doors
+of paint and color stores right up to closing-time
+to see is their husbands inside, while the single
+men will stagger from house-furnishing store to
+house-furnishing store&mdash;or the Poor Men's Clubs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+as they call them places where stove and silver
+polish is sold."</p>
+
+<p>"But joking to one side, Mawruss, you don't
+suppose that the Polaks and the Huns and all
+them foreigners is going to leave off drinking
+schnapps just because of a little thing like a prohibition
+amendment to the Constitution of the
+United States, do you?" Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you limit yourself to Polaks and
+Huns, Abe?" Morris asked. "Believe me, there
+is fellers whose forefathers was old established
+American citizens before Henry Clay started his
+cigar business, y'understand, and when them boys
+gets a craving for schnapps after July 1st, they
+would <i>oser</i> go to the nearest Carnegie Library
+and read over the Prohibition Amendment to the
+Constitution till that gnawing feeling at the pit of
+the stomach had passed away, understand me.
+At least, Abe, that is what I think is going to happen,
+and from the number of people which is giving
+out prophecies to the newspapers about what is
+going to happen, and from the way they differ
+from each other as to what is going to happen&mdash;not
+only about prohibition, but about conditions
+in Europe, the Next War, the Kaiser's future,
+and the next presidential campaign, y'understand,
+it seems to me that anybody could prophesy
+anything about <i>everything</i> and get away with it."</p>
+
+<p>"They could anyhow get away with it till it does
+happen," Abe commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know, but generally it don't happen,"
+Morris said. "Take for instance where Mr. Vanderlip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+is going round telling about the terrible
+things which is going to happen in Europe unless
+something which Mr. Vanderlip suggests is done,
+and take also for instance where Mr. Davison is
+going round telling about the terrible things which
+is going to happen in Europe unless something
+which Mr. <i>Davison</i> suggests is done, y'understand,
+and while I don't know nothing about
+Europe, understand me, I know something about
+Mr. Vanderlip, which is that he just lost his jobs
+as director of the War Savings Stamp Campaign
+and president of the National City Bank, and you
+know as well as I do, Abe, when a man has just
+lost his job things are apt to look pretty black to
+him, not only in Europe, understand me, but in
+Asia, Africa, and America, and sometimes Australia
+and New Zealand, also."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how about Mr. Davison?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "Mr. Davison
+is a banker and I am a garment manufacturer,
+y'understand, and with me it's like this: Conditions
+in the garment trade is never altogether
+satisfactory to me, Abe. As a garment manufacturer,
+I can always see where things is going to the
+devil in this country or any other country where I
+would be doing business unless something is done,
+y'understand, and if anybody would ask me what
+<i>ought</i> to be done, the chances is that I would suggest
+something to be done which wouldn't make it
+exactly rotten for the garment trade, if you know
+what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Vanderlip and Mr. Davison did good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+work during the war for a dollar a year, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "and no one should speak nothing but
+good of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say they shouldn't?" Morris retorted.
+"All I am driving into is this, Abe; we've got a lot
+of big business men which during the war for a
+dollar a year give up their time to advising the
+United States what it should do, y'understand, who
+are now starting in to advise the world what it
+should do and waiving the dollar, Abe, and if
+there is anything which is calculated to make a
+man unpopular, Abe, it is giving free advice, so
+therefore I would advise all them dollar-a-year
+men to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And is any one paying you to give such advice?"
+Abe asked. "Furthermore, Mawruss, nobody
+asks you for your advice, whereas with
+people like Mr. Vanderlip, Mr. Davison, the
+Crown Prince, Samuel Gompers, and Mary Pickford,
+y'understand, they couldn't stick their head
+outside the door without a newspaper reporter is
+standing there and starts right in to ask them
+their opinion about the things which they are
+supposed to know."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is the Crown Prince supposed to
+know?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much that Mary Pickford don't about
+things in general," Abe said, "and a good deal
+less than she does about moving pictures, but
+otherwise I should put them about on a par, except
+that Mary Pickford has got a brighter future,
+Mawruss, which I see that one of these here newspaper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+fellers got an interview with the Crown
+Prince which 'ain't been denied as yet. It took
+place in an island in Holland where the Crown
+Prince is living in retirement with a private chef,
+a private secretary, a couple of private valets, his
+personal physician, and the nine or ten other personal
+attendants that a Hohenzollern cuts himself
+down to while he is roughing it in Holland, Mawruss.
+When the newspaper feller spoke to him he
+was wearing the uniform of a colonel in the Eighth
+Pomeranian Crown Prince's Own Regiment, which
+is now known as the William J. Noske Association,
+of black tulle over a midnight-blue satin
+underdress&mdash;the whole thing embroidered in gray
+silk braid and blue beads. A very delicate piece
+of rose point-lace was arranged as a fichu, Mawruss,
+and over it he wore a Lavin cape of black
+silk jersey with a monkey-fur collar and slashed
+pockets. It would appear from the article which
+the newspaper feller wrote that the Crown Prince
+didn't seem to be especially talkative."</p>
+
+<p>"In these here interviews which newspaper fellers
+gets in Europe, Abe," Morris commented, "the
+party interviewed never does seem to be talkative.
+In fact, he hardly figures at all, because such
+articles usually consist of fifty per cent. what a
+lot of difficulties the correspondent was smart
+enough to overcome in getting the interview,
+twenty-five per cent. description, twenty-two and
+a quarter what the correspondent said to the
+party interviewed, and not more than two and
+three-quarters per cent. interview."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Whatever way it was, Mawruss, the Crown
+Prince didn't exactly unbosom himself to this here
+reporter, but he said enough to show that he
+wasn't far behind Mr. Vanderlip when it comes to
+taking a dark view of things as a result of losing
+his job, Mawruss," Abe continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably he took even a darker view of it
+than Mr. Vanderlip," Morris suggested, "because
+there are lots of openings for bank president, but
+if you are out of a job as a crown prince, what is
+it, in particular if your reference ain't good?"</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't seem to be worrying about his own
+future," Abe continued, "but he seemed to think
+that if the old man got tried by the Allies, Mawruss,
+the shock would kill him."</p>
+
+<p>"Many a murderer got tried by the Court of
+General Sessions, even, and subsequently the shock
+killed them, Abe," Morris said. "What is electric
+chairs for, <i>anyway</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"But he told the reporter that you wouldn't
+have any idea how old the old man is looking,"
+Abe went on.</p>
+
+<p>"He shouldn't take so much wood-cutting exercise,"
+Morris said. "The first thing you know,
+he would injure himself for life, even if he ain't
+going to live long."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fool yourself, Mawruss," Abe said, "the
+Kaiser ain't going to die from nothing more violent
+than a rich, unbalanced diet, y'understand, and
+as for the Crown Prince, he's got it all figured out
+that he will return to Germany and go into the
+farming business, and there ain't no provided-I-beat-the-indictment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+about it, neither, because he
+knows as well as you do that the Allies would
+never have the nerve to try either one of them
+crooks."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody seems to have the nerve to do anything
+nowadays, except the Bolshevists, Abe,"
+Morris said, with a sigh. "Here up to a few days
+ago the Bolshevist government of Russia had been
+running a New York office on West Forty-second
+Street, with gold lettering on the door, a staff of
+stenographers, and a private branch exchange, and
+the New York police didn't pay no more attention
+to them than if they would of been running a poolroom
+with a roulette-wheel in the rear office.
+The consequence was that when them Bolshevists
+finally got pulled, Abe, they beefed so terrible
+about how they were being prosecuted in violation
+of the Constitution and the Code of Civil
+Procedure, y'understand, that you would think
+the bombs which Mr. Palmer and them judges
+nearly got killed with was being exploded pursuant
+to Section 4244 of the United States Revised
+Statutes and the acts amendatory thereof, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"And we let them cutthroats do business yet!"
+Abe exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in a way, I don't blame the Bolshevists
+for not knowing how to take the behavior of the
+American government towards them, Abe," Morris
+declared. "If we only had one way of treating
+them and stick <i>to</i> it, Abe, it would help people
+like this here ex-custom-house feller Dudley Field
+Malone and this ex-Red Cross feller Robins to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+know where they stood in the matter of Bolshevism.
+But when even the United States army
+itself don't know whether it is for the Bolshevists
+or against them, Abe, how could you expect this
+here Robins to know, either, let alone the
+Bolshevists?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought this country was against Bolshevism,"
+Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"As far as I can gather, Abe, the United States
+is against Bolshevism officially on Monday,
+Wednesday, and Friday, and on Saturday from
+nine to twelve, and it is for Admiral Kolchak on
+Tuesday and Thursday," Morris said. "At any
+rate, that's what one would think from reading the
+newspapers. Fiume is the same way, Abe. The
+United States is in favor of ceding Fiume to the
+Italians during three days in the week of eight
+working-hours each, except in the sporting five-star
+edition, when Fiume is going to be internationalized.
+However, Abe, the United States
+wants to be quite fair about preserving the rights
+of small nationalities, so we concede Fiume to the
+Jugo-Slobs in at least two editions of the pink
+evening papers and in the special magazine section
+of the Sunday papers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the way I feel about Bolshevism, I am
+against it every day in the week, including Sundays,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "and if I would be
+running a newspaper, I would show them up in
+every edition from the night edition that comes
+out at half past eight in the morning, down to the
+special ten-o'clock-p.m. extra, which sometimes is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+delayed till as late as five forty-five. Furthermore,
+while variety makes a spicy life, Mawruss,
+newspapers are supposed to tell you the news,
+and while it may be agreeably exciting to some
+people when they read on Monday, Wednesday,
+and Friday that the Germans would positively
+sign the amended Treaty of Peace, and on Tuesday,
+Thursday, and Saturday that they positively
+wouldn't do nothing of the kind, y'understand,
+I am getting so used to it that it don't even make
+me mad no longer."</p>
+
+<p>"The newspapers has got to suit all tastes, Abe,"
+Morris observed.</p>
+
+<p>"But the taste for Bolshevism ain't a taste,
+Mawruss, it's a smell," Abe concluded, "and whoever
+has got it shouldn't ought to be encouraged.
+He should ought to be disinfected, and that's all
+there is to it."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2>
+
+
+<h3>WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS, ECONOMICALLY AND
+THEATRICALLY</h3>
+
+<p>"I see where a minister said the other day he
+couldn't understand why it was that fellers in
+the theayter business goes to work and puts on
+the kind of shows which they do put on, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash said, a few days after the ministerial
+controversy over a certain phase of the Broadway
+drama.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe they got hopes that quite a number of
+people would pay money to see such shows, Abe,"
+Morris suggested, "because so far as I could tell
+from the few fellers in the theayter business whose
+acquaintance I couldn't avoid making, Abe, they
+are business men the same like other business men,
+y'understand, and what they are trying to do is to
+suit the tastes of their customers."</p>
+
+<p>"But what them ministers claims is that them
+customers shouldn't ought to have such tastes,"
+Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"That is up to the ministers and not the fellers
+in the theayter business," Morris said. "Theayter
+managers ain't equipped in the head to give
+people lectures on how terrible it is that people
+should like to see the plays they like to see, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+as a general thing a feller in the theayter
+business is the same as a feller in the garment
+business or grocery business&mdash;he didn't have to
+pass no examination to go into such a business,
+and what a theayter feller don't know about delivering
+sermons, Abe, if a minister would know
+it about the show business, y'understand, instead
+of drawing down three thousand a year telling
+people to do what they don't want to do, understand
+me, he would be looking round for a nice,
+fully rented, sixteen-story apartment-house in
+which to invest the profits from a show by the
+name, we would say, for example, 'Early to Bed.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But the trouble with the theayter fellers is
+that they think any show which a lot of people
+would pay money to see, Mawruss, is a good
+show," Abe declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't the managers think that?"
+Morris asked. "If the ministers had the people
+trained right, any show which a lot of people
+would pay money to see should <i>ought</i> to be a good
+show."</p>
+
+<p>"You think the ministers could train people to
+like a good show!" Abe exclaimed. "It's human
+nature for people to like the kind of show they do
+like, Mawruss, and how could ministers, even if
+they would be the biggest <i>tzadeekim</i> in the world,
+change human nature?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I am trying to tell you, Abe,"
+Morris said. "The theayter managers simply
+supply a demand which already exists, Abe, and
+they are as much to blame for the conditions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+which creates that demand as you could blame a
+manufacturer of heavy-weight underwear for cold
+winter weather."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should the theayter manager try to
+supply an unhealthy demand, Mawruss?" Abe
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The demand for heavy winter underwear is
+also unhealthy, Abe," Morris said. "In America,
+where the houses is heated, heavy underwear
+would give you a cold, whereas in Norway and
+Sweden the demand for heavy underwear is
+healthy because Norway and Sweden houses is
+like Norway and Sweden plays, Abe, they are
+constructed differently from the American fashion.
+They are built solid, but there ain't no light
+and heat in them, and yet, Abe, the highbrows
+which is kicking about the American style of
+plays is crazy about these here Norway and
+Sweden plays and want American theayter managers
+to put on plays like them. In other words,
+Abe, they are arguing in favor of the manufacture
+and sale of heavy winter underwear for an exclusively
+B. V. D. trade, and so, therefore, such high-brows
+could be ministers or they could be dramatic
+crickets, Abe, but they might just so well save
+their breath with such arguments, because the
+customer buys what he <i>wants</i> to buy, and what
+the customer <i>wants</i> to buy the manufacturer manufactures,
+and that's all there is <i>to</i> it."</p>
+
+<p>"And now that you have settled this here question
+of them 'Early to Bed' plays, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "would you kindly tell me what the idea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+of them Germans was in sinking all them white-elephant
+war-ships which everybody with any
+sense wished was at the bottom of the ocean,
+<i>anyway</i>, y'understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "Them
+Germans being German, y'understand, and having
+signed an armistice where they agreed to take
+them war-ships to an Allied port and <i>keep</i> them
+there, y'understand, just couldn't resist breaking
+their word and sinking them war-ships."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you think, Mawruss, that when
+the Allies allowed the Germans to sign such an
+armistice they was awful careless," Abe said,
+"because if they wanted them war-ships to stay
+afloat, Mawruss, all they had to do was to make
+the Germans sign an agreement not to take them
+war-ships to Allied ports and sink them there, and
+the thing was done."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know that the Allies didn't get
+them Germans to agree the way they did, so as
+to get rid of all them war-ships without the
+trouble and expense of blowing them up?" Morris
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know it," Abe admitted, "but even
+to-day yet, Mawruss, them Allied diplomatists is
+acting like they thought deep down in their hearts
+that there was a little honor&mdash;a little truth&mdash;left
+in them Germans somewhere, Mawruss, so the
+chance is that when that armistice was signed,
+the Allies thought that at last the Germans was
+going to stand by a signed agreement. However,
+it seems to me, Mawruss, that there should ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+to be an end to this here better-luck-next-time
+attitude towards the Germans' idea of honor on
+the part of the Allies."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what are you going to do with such people,
+Abe?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"To me it's a business proposition, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "and the way I feel about this here
+Peace Treaty is that it is nothing but composition
+notes, signed by the Germans without indorsement
+by anybody. Now you know as well
+as I do, Mawruss, if a bankrupt owes you money
+and he has got <i>some</i> assets, you ain't going to
+take composition notes for the entire amount of
+debts and let the bankrupt keep the remains of
+his assets, because composition notes without
+indorsements don't deceive nobody, Mawruss. If
+I get from a bankrupt unindorsed composition
+notes, I simply put them away in my safe and
+forget about them, which if a bankrupt ever paid
+his unindorsed composition notes he would be
+adding murder to his other crimes on account the
+holders of such composition notes would drop
+dead from astonishment."</p>
+
+<p>"The death-rate from such a cause among business
+men ain't high, Abe," Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"If I was an accident-insurance company's
+actuary, I would take a chance and leave such a
+cause of death out of my calculations," Abe agreed.
+"It never happens, and so, therefore, Mawruss, if
+Germany lives up to the terms of the Peace Treaty
+it would only be because the German signature is
+guaranteed by the indorsement of a large Allied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+Army of Occupation, and, therefore, if we've got
+to do it first as last, why monkey around with a
+new German Cabinet? Why not close up the
+Peace Conference <i>sine die</i>, tell Germany her composition
+notes ain't acceptable, y'understand, and
+proceed to make a levy and sale with the combined
+armies of the Allies as deputy-sheriffs, Mawruss,
+because not only are the Germans bankrupts,
+but they are fraudulent bankrupts, and on
+fraudulent bankrupts nobody should have no
+mercy at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you think it might be just as well to
+give the Germans a few days' grace and see how this
+here new Cabinet goes to work?" Morris suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't have to know how it works, Mawruss,"
+Abe replied. "All you have to do is to
+know how it was formed and you can guess how it
+would work, which I bet yer that Erzberger got
+together with von Brockdorff-Rantzau and they
+combed over the list of candidates to get just the
+right kind of people for a German Cabinet, because
+the ordinary tests which they use in England,
+France, or America, Mawruss, don't apply to
+Germany. You've got to be awful careful in
+forming a German Cabinet, Mawruss, otherwise
+you are liable to have slipped in on you just one
+decent, respectable man with an idea of keeping
+his word and doing the right thing, Mawruss, and
+by a little carelessness like that, understand me,
+the whole Cabinet is ruined. However, Mawruss,
+you could take it from me that a couple of experienced
+Cabinet-formers like this here Erzberger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+and von Brockdorff-Rantzau didn't fall down on
+their job, and I bet yer that every member of the
+new Cabinet is keeping up the best traditions of
+the good old German spirit, which is to be able to
+look the whole world straight in the eye and lie
+like the devil, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you think this Cabinet wouldn't act no
+different to the other Cabinets?" Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not if the Allies don't act different," Abe said,
+"and where the Allies made their first big mistake
+was the opening session at Versailles, when the
+usher or the janitor or whoever had charge of
+such things didn't take von Brockdorff-Rantzau
+by the back of his neck and yank him to his feet
+after he started to talk without rising from his
+chair, because the Germans is very quick to take
+a tip that way, Mawruss. Whatever they put over
+once, they think they could put over again, and
+since that time all arguments the Germans has
+made about the Peace Treaty have been, so to
+speak, delivered by the German people and the
+German Cabinet, not only seated, y'understand,
+but also with the feet cocked up on the desk, the
+hat on, and in the corner of the mouth a typical
+German cigar which is made up of equal parts
+hay and scrap rubber blended with the <i>Vossicher
+Zeitung</i> and beet-tops and smells accordingly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is one of the good qualities of the
+American people that before they get good and
+sore, as they have a right to do, Abe, they will put
+up with a whole lot of bad manners from people
+that they deal with," Morris said. "Take, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+instance, these here foreign-born Reds which they
+held a meeting in Madison Square Garden the
+other evening, and if they said in any other country
+about the government what they said in Madison
+Square Garden, y'understand, the owner of Madison
+Square Garden would of pocketed thousands
+of dollars for the moving-picture rights of the
+bayoneting alone. But we don't do business that
+way. There ain't no satisfaction in bayoneting a
+lot of people for being fresh and not knowing how
+to behave. Fining them and putting them in
+prison is also no relief to our feeling, neither.
+What we really itch to do, Abe, is to act the way
+a man would act if he gives somebody food and
+shelter in his home, and, as soon as such a <i>schnorrer</i>
+feels refreshed by what he has eaten and the
+good bed he has slept in, he turns on his host and,
+after insulting the members of the household,
+tries to wreck the furniture and set the house on
+fire. Such a feller you would first kick as many
+times as you had the strength; you would then
+duck him in the nearest body of water, provided
+it was muddy enough, and after he had come up
+for the third time you would fish him out and ride
+him on a rail to the town limits and there you
+would advise him never to show his face around
+them parts again."</p>
+
+<p>"But as I understand this here Red meeting,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "it was something more as
+not knowing how to behave. Practically every
+speaker told the audience that they should rise
+up against the government."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know, Abe," Morris agreed, "but the
+audience was composed of people who had already
+made up their minds that they should rise
+up against the government, and there is only one
+thing which prevents them from rising up&mdash;they
+'ain't got the nerve. Furthermore, them speakers
+could go on advising till they got clergyman's
+sore throat from the violent language they was
+using, and that audience could sit there being
+advised till the management of Madison Square
+Garden dispossessed the meeting for non-payment
+of rent, y'understand, and still that audience
+wouldn't have the nerve. Them Reds are a lot
+of rabbits, Abe. They could rise up in Russia
+and Hungary against a lot of rabbits, y'understand,
+but over here the most them rabbits has
+got the courage to do is to plant a few bombs, of
+which one or two has been ungrateful enough to
+bite the hand that threw them, understand me,
+but as soon as them Red rabbits discovers that the
+percentage of mortality among bomb-throwers is
+equal to the death-rate from some such rare disease
+as sleeping-sickness or beriberi, Abe, they
+wouldn't even have the nerve to throw bombs."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, I think the District Attorney should
+ought to do something about that Madison Square
+meeting, Mawruss," Abe said, "because even if
+Madison Square Garden would have been only
+one-tenth filled, considering the high price of rails
+in the present steel-market and the distance of
+Madison Square from muddy water, Mawruss, it
+would be anyhow unpractical to duck or ride on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+rails the number of Reds which attended that
+meeting, even supposing enough respectable people
+could be found who would take the trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"As a matter of fact, Abe," Morris said, "it
+don't even pay to encourage them speech-making
+Reds by thinking they are important enough to
+be ducked in muddy water. After all, most of
+them are still young and sooner or later they
+would got to go to work, and once a man goes to
+work in this country it is only a matter of time
+when he gets up into the capitalistic class."</p>
+
+<p>"There is also another thing to be considered
+about these here Reds, Mawruss," Abe said. "As
+Reds, they couldn't be taken altogether seriously,
+because Reds would be Reds only up to a certain
+point. After that they're Yellow."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THEY DISCUSS THE SIGNING OF IT</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes, Mawruss, when the history of this here
+Peace Conference is written, y'understand,
+a whole lot of things which up to now has been
+mysteries will be made very plain to the people
+which has got twenty-five dollars to invest in
+such a history and the spare time in which to
+read it," Abe Potash said to his partner Morris
+Perlmutter a few days after the treaty was signed.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be a great many people who will
+try to find the time at that," Morris commented,
+"because I see by the morning paper that one
+of Mr. Wilson's relatives has bought for him in
+Southern California a piece of property especially
+for Mr. Wilson to write the history of the Peace
+Conference in, and why should he go to all that
+expense if there wasn't a big market for such a
+history?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder did Mr. Wilson have to pay much
+money for the history rights to the Peace Conference?"
+Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;did he pay much money?"
+Morris exclaimed. "Anybody can write a history
+of the Peace Conference without paying a
+cent for the privilege, and even if they couldn't,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+y'understand, who is going to bid against Mr.
+Wilson, because when it comes to what actually
+happened at them confidential meetings between
+Mr. Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lord George, Abe,
+Mr. Wilson had a monopoly of the raw material
+in the history line. He didn't even let Colonel
+House in on it, so you can bet your life if there
+was any competitors of Mr. Wilson trying to get
+a few ideas for a competing line of popular-price
+Peace Conference histories, Abe, Mr. Wilson
+didn't exactly unbosom himself to them historians,
+neither, because a diplomatic secret is a diplomatic
+secret, Abe, but when in addition, the diplomat
+is counting on writing a history of them diplomatic
+doings, Abe, diplomatic secrets become
+trade secrets."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me, Mawruss, that while you
+couldn't blame Mr. Wilson for writing a history
+of the Peace Conference for a living after he loses
+his job in March, 1921," Abe continued, "still at
+the same time, considering that Mr. Wilson has
+taken such a prominent part in this here Peace
+Conference, and considering also that Mr. Wilson
+is only human, no matter what Senator Reed
+might say otherwise, don't you think he is going
+to have a difficult time in deciding for himself
+just where history leaves off and advertising
+begins?"</p>
+
+<p>"The probabilities is that he wouldn't give
+himself a shade the worst of it, if that's what you
+mean," Morris observed, "but as to whether or
+not such a history would be the equivalent of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+actor writing a criticism of his own performance,
+Abe, that I couldn't say, because the chances is
+that when Lord George gets through with the
+job of chief Cabinet Minister or whatever his job
+is called, he would also try his hand at writing a
+history, and if that is the case, you could make up
+your mind to it that Clemenceau ain't going to
+sit down at his time of life and let them two historians
+put it all over him. So, therefore, if Mr.
+Wilson should feel like writing in his history:
+'At this point, things was at a standstill and
+nobody seemed to know what to do next, when
+suddenly some one made a suggestion which
+cleared up the whole situation. It was Woodrow
+Wilson who spoke'&mdash;y'understand, he will figure
+that Lord George is probably going to say in his
+history: 'At this point the Peace Conference was
+up against it and it looked like the bottom had
+fallen out of everything, when like a voice from
+heaven, somebody made a remark which smoothed
+away all difficulties. It was Lord George who
+came to the rescue.' The consequence will be
+that both of them historians will beat Clemenceau
+to it, by giving credit for the suggestion to the
+feller who made it, even if it would have been
+Orlando himself."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose Mr. Wilson actually did make
+the suggestion, Mawruss, and in the interests of
+telling the strict truth about the matter, he feels
+that he is obliged to mention it in his history,"
+Abe said, "he's bound to run up against a big
+chorus of <i>Yows!</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, so far as I could see, nobody compels
+Mr. Wilson to write a history of that Peace Conference
+if he don't want to," Morris replied, "and
+if he should decide not to do so, he could always
+rent that Southern California property furnished
+for the season, or if he feels that he must occupy
+it himself for history business purposes, he could
+anyhow write a domestic History of the United
+States from December 5, 1918, to July 6, 1919,
+both inclusive, in which his name need hardly
+occur at all. But joking to one side, Abe, when
+the history of this here Peace Conference gets
+written, it don't make no difference who writes
+it, he ain't going to be able to ignore Mr. Wilson
+exactly. In fact, Abe, the history of this here
+Peace Conference is going to be more or less
+principally about Mr. Wilson, and if the feller
+who writes it wouldn't be exactly Senator Lodge,
+y'understand, the truth is bound to leak out that
+Mr. Wilson did a wonderful job over in Paris.
+Of course he made a whole lot of enemies over here,
+but then he also made a whole lot of peace over
+there, Abe, and, after all, that is what he went
+there for."</p>
+
+<p>"Still I couldn't help thinking that from a
+business point of view, Mawruss, the Peace Conference
+suffered a good deal from poor management,"
+Abe said. "Take for instance the signing
+of the Peace Treaty in Mirror Hall, Versailles, and
+properly worked up, the Allies could of made
+enough out of that one show alone to pay for all
+the ships that Germany sank a few days ago,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+which holding a thing like that in a hall, Mawruss,
+is a sample of what kind of management there
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"They had the Germans sign that Peace Treaty
+in that hall because it was the same hall where
+them Germans made the French sign the Peace
+Treaty in 1870," Morris explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know," Abe said, "but what did they
+know about such things in 1870? Even grand
+opera they gave in halls in them days, which, considering
+the amount of interest there was in the
+signing of the Peace Treaty, Mawruss, I bet yer
+enough people was turned away from Mirror Hall,
+Versailles, to more than fill five halls of the same
+size. As it was, Mawruss, so many people crowded
+into that Mirror Hall that nobody could see anything,
+and the consequence was that when Clemenceau
+begun his speech the disorder was something
+terrible."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose his opening remark was: 'Koosh!
+What is this? A <i>Kaffeeklatsch</i> or something?'"
+Morris remarked, satirically.</p>
+
+<p>"It might just so well have been, for all anybody
+heard of it," Abe went on. "In fact, the
+papers say that all through it there was loud
+cries of, 'Down in front!' from people which had
+probably bought their tickets at the last moment
+off of a speculator who showed them a diagram
+of Mirror Hall, Batesville, and not Versailles, on
+which it looked like they was getting four good
+ones in the fifth row, center aisle, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably also while Clemenceau was speaking,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+there was difficulty in calling off the score-card
+and ice-cream-cone venders," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am telling you just exactly what I read it
+in the newspapers," Abe said, "which there ain't
+no call to get sarcastic, Mawruss. The signing
+of that treaty was arranged just the same like
+any other show is arranged, except that the
+arrangements wasn't quite so good. The idea was
+to make it impressive by keeping it very plain,
+and that is where the Allies, to my mind, made
+a big mistake, because the people to be impressed
+was the Germans, and what sort of an impression
+would that signing of the Peace Treaty by delegates
+in citizen clothes make on a country where
+a station agent looks like a colonel and a colonel
+looks like the combined annual conventions of
+the Knights of Pythias and the I. O. M. A."</p>
+
+<p>"The chances is that the Allies did the best they
+could with the short time they had for preparation,
+because you must got to remember that the
+Germans didn't make up their minds to sign till
+two days before the signing, and considering that
+the President of the United States wears only the
+uniform prescribed by the double-page advertisements
+of Rochester, Chicago, and Baltimore
+clothing manufacturers for people who ride in
+closed cars, two days is an awful short time to
+hire a really impressive uniform, let alone to
+have one made to order, Abe," Morris said.
+"Furthermore, Abe, the signing of that Peace
+Treaty could have been put on by the feller that
+runs off these here Follies with the assistance of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+George M. Cohan and the management of the
+Metropolitan Opera House, y'understand, and
+the costumes could have been designed by Ringling
+Brothers, with a few hints from Rogers, Peet,
+understand me, and I don't believe them Germans
+would stick to the terms of the treaty
+anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Europe should worry about that, Mawruss,"
+Abe said. "The main thing is that the peace
+is signed and the last of our boys would soon be
+home again from Europe, and once we get them
+back again in this country, Mawruss, it <i>oser</i>
+would make any difference to us whether Germany
+keeps the treaty or she don't keep it, Mawruss,
+the chances of us sending our boys back again
+is pretty slim."</p>
+
+<p>"But under section ten of the League Covenant,
+Abe," Morris began, "the time might come when
+we would got to send them."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," Abe admitted, "but if any of them
+European nations has got the idea that because
+Germany is going to be slow pay we would
+oblige with a few million troops, Mawruss, they've
+got another idea coming. We are a nation, not a
+collection agency, and no amount of section tens
+is going to make us one, either."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is the danger of this here League
+of Nations, Abe," Morris said, "and if the Senate
+ratifies it, we are not only a collection agency,
+but a burglar insurance company as well, and in
+fact some of the Senators goes so far as to say
+that we ain't so much insuring people against the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+operations of burglars as insuring burglars against
+the loss of their <i>ganevas</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I know the Senators is saying that, and I also
+know that Mr. Wilson says it ain't so," Abe agreed,
+"but this here fuss about international affairs
+has got what the lawyers calls a statue of limitations
+running against it right now, and I give both
+Mr. Wilson and the Senate six months, and they
+will be going round saying: 'Do you remember
+when six months ago we got so terrible worked up
+over that&mdash;now&mdash;National League,' and somebody
+who is sitting near them will ask, for the
+sake of having things just right, 'You mean that
+League of Nations, ain't it?' and Mr. Wilson will
+say: 'League of Nations! National League!
+What's the difference? Let's have another round
+of Old Dr. Turner's Favorite Asparagus Tonic and
+forget about it.'"</p>
+
+<p>"So you think that all this international
+politics will be forgotten as quickly as that?"
+Morris commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Abe said, "it won't take long for Mr.
+Wilson to settle down into American ways again.
+Of course it will be pretty hard for him during
+the first few weeks, whenever he gets a sick headache,
+to send out for a doctor instead of an admiral,
+and he may miss his evening <i>schmooes</i>
+with Clemenceau, Lord George, and Orlando, but
+any one that will have such a lot of <i>clav hasholom</i>
+times to talk over as Mr. Wilson will for the rest
+of his life, even if he does have to hold out some
+of the stuff for his History of the Peace Conference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+in three volumes, price twenty-five dollars,
+Mawruss, would never need to play double solitaire
+in order to fill in the time between supper
+and seeing is the pantry window locked in case
+Mrs. Wilson is nervous that way. Then again
+there is things happening in this country which
+looked very picayune to Mr. Wilson over in
+France, and which will seem so big when he arrives
+here that almost as soon as he sets his foot on the
+dock in Hoboken, the League of Nations will
+get marked off in his mind for depreciation as
+much as a new automobile does by merely having
+the owner's number plates attached to it, even
+if it ain't been run two miles from the agency yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of it that way," Morris
+admitted, "but it is a fact just the same that this
+here League of Nations is only being operated
+at the present time under a demonstrator's license,
+so to speak, and as soon as it gets its regular
+number, the manufacturers and the agents won't
+be so sensitive about the knocks that the prospective
+customers is handing it."</p>
+
+<p>"And just so soon as the demonstrations have
+gone far enough, Mawruss, just you watch all the
+nations of the earth that ain't made up their
+minds whether they want to ride or not, jump
+aboard," Abe said. "Also, Mawruss, this League
+of Nations is to the United States Senate what a
+new-car proposition is to the head of any respectable
+family. If the wife wants it and the children
+wants it, it may be that the old man will think it
+over for a couple of weeks, and he may begin by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+saying that the family would get a new car over
+his dead body, and what do they think he is made
+of, money? y'understand, but sooner or later he is
+going to sign up for that new car, and don't you
+forget it. And after all, Mawruss, if the other
+big nations is in on this League of Nations, we
+could certainly afford to pay our share of what
+it costs to run it."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe we could," Morris concluded, "but if a
+new League of Nations is like a new automobile,
+we are probably in for an expensive time, because
+with a new car, Abe, it ain't what you run that
+costs so much money. It's what you back into."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RECENT UNPLEASANTNESS IN TOLEDO, OHIO</h3>
+
+
+<p>"If we would only had our wits about us the
+day we sent for the policeman to put out that
+feller we had running the elevator, Mawruss,
+we could of made quite a lot of money maybe,"
+Abe Potash remarked to Morris Perlmutter a
+few days after the heavy-weight title changed
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"If we would only had our wits about us and
+you had taken my advice to let the feller sleep
+off his jag instead of hauling in a policeman to
+wake him up and throw him out, Abe," Morris
+said, "they wouldn't of broken, between them,
+fifty dollars' worth of fixtures and ruined a lot of
+garments on us."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's what I mean, Mawruss, which is
+forty-five thousand people could be persuaded
+into paying anywheres from ten to a hundred
+dollars apiece to see that nine-minute affair in
+Toledo where the two loafers didn't have nothing
+against one another personally and couldn't of
+kept their minds on the fight anyhow for trying
+to figure their share of the profits, y'understand,
+what would them forty-five thousand <i>meshugoyim</i>
+paid to see for twenty minutes a couple of fellers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+which they really and truly wanted to kill each
+other without any intermissions of so much as
+two seconds, Mawruss?" Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris said, "these
+here fight fans are the same like moving-picture
+fans; they would a whole lot sooner pay out
+money to see the imitation article than the real
+thing. Tell one of these here fight fans that for
+ten cents you would let him know where at half
+past nine o'clock on Monday morning an iron-molder
+has got an appointment to meet a stevedore
+who used to be engaged to the iron-molder's
+sister and now refuses to return the twenty-five
+dollars he borrowed from her to get the wedding-ring
+and the marriage license, and the fight fan
+would ask you what is that <i>his</i> business. Tell
+a moving-picture fan that there is a family over on
+Tenth Avenue where the father is a ringer for
+William S. Hart and is <i>also</i> in jail, y'understand,
+and that such a family is about to be dispossessed
+for non-payment of rent, understand me, and if
+you made an offer to such a moving-picture fan,
+that for a contribution of fifteen cents toward
+finding the family a new home, you would show
+him a close-up of the landlord, of the notice to
+quit and of the court-room of the Municipal Court
+of the City of New York for the Eleventh Judicial
+District where such proceedings are returnable,
+understand me, the moving-picture fan wouldn't
+come across with a nickel, not even if you undertook
+to engage the entire combined orchestras
+of the Strand, the Rivoli, and the Rialto moving-picture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+theaters to play 'Hearts and Flowers'
+while the furniture was being piled on the moving-van."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't blame the moving-picture fan at
+that, Mawruss," Abe said, "because if such a
+moving-picture fan would see one of these here
+harrowing William S. Hart and Mary Pickford
+incidents in real life, Mawruss, when it reached
+the point where the moving-picture fan's heart is
+going to break unless there would be a quick happy
+ending, y'understand, not only would there <i>not</i>
+be a happy ending, but also, Mawruss, instead
+of the next incident being a Mack Sennett comedy
+in real life, Mawruss, it might be something so
+sad, y'understand, that if a moving-picture corporation
+would try to reproduce it on the screen,
+it would cost them a fortune for glycerin alone."</p>
+
+<p>"A moving-picture fan's heart don't break so
+easy as all that, Abe," Morris said. "Moving-picture
+fans is like doctors and undertakers, Abe.
+They've got so used to other people's misfortunes
+that it practically don't affect them at all. Moving-picture
+fans can see William S. Hart come out of jail
+to find his wife married to the detective who not
+only arrested him in the first reel, but is also giving
+terrible <i>makkas</i> to Mr. Hart's youngest child in
+the second reel, y'understand, and wrings that
+moving-picture fan's heart to the same extent like
+it would be something in a tropical review entitled:
+'Eighth Annual Convention of the United Ice-men
+of America, Akron, Ohio. Arrival of the
+Delegates at the Akron, Union, Depot,' y'understand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+Yes, Abe, the effect of five-reel films on
+a moving-picture fan's heart is like the effect
+of five-star Scotch whisky on a typical club-man's
+life. It hardens it to such an extent
+that it practically ceases to do the work for
+which it was originally put into a human body,
+Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I 'ain't got
+no use for any kind of a fan, and that goes for
+moving-picture fans, fight fans, baseball fans, and
+pinochle fans, not to mention grand-opera fans,
+first-night theayter fans, and every other fan from
+golluf downwards. Take these here fight fans
+which chartered special trains for Toledo, Ohio,
+and paid a hundred dollars for a ringside seat,
+Mawruss, and to my mind it would take one of
+these here insanity experts to figure out just
+what made them do it at a time when on account
+of the raise in rent and living expenses, so many
+heads of families is staying home with their
+families these hot Sundays and reading the papers
+about the fight fans chartering special trains and
+paying a hundred dollars for ringside seats,
+and not feeling the heat any the less because of
+reading such things. Also, Mawruss, as one
+business man to another who has had the experience
+of riding on a sleeper and making Cleveland,
+Toledo, Detroit, and Chicago even under normal
+travel conditions, Mawruss, I ask you, where is
+the pleasure in such a trip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Them fight fans don't do it for pleasure, Abe,"
+Morris said. "They do it for a reputation."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A reputation for what?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"A reputation for having paid the United States
+Railroad Administration twice the regular fare
+to Toledo for a railroad journey, and also the
+reputation for having paid the manager of this
+here prize-fight fifty times the regular price of
+a ticket for a legitimate entertainment," Morris
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"But what for a reputation is that for a sane
+man to get?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Morris commented, "for that matter,
+what kind of a reputation does the same man get
+when he pays fifty dollars to reserve a table at a
+Broadway restaurant on New-Year's Eve? That's
+where your friend the insanity expert comes in,
+Abe. It's the kind of a reputation which the
+people among which such a feller has got it&mdash;when
+they talk about it says: 'And suppose he
+did. What <i>of</i> it?'"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me, Mawruss, that when a feller
+gets the reputation for having such a reputation,
+his friends should ought to tip him off that if he
+don't be mighty careful, the first thing you know
+he would be getting that kind of a reputation,"
+Abe said, "because there is also a whole lot of
+other people among which he got that reputation,
+who wouldn't stop at saying: 'Suppose he did.
+What <i>of</i> it?' They would try to figure out the
+answer upon the basis that a feller who pays a
+hundred dollars for a ringside seat to see a fight
+which lasted nine minutes, y'understand, and his
+money, understand me, are soon parted, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+the first thing you know, Mawruss, that poor
+nebich of a prize-fight fan would be unable to
+attend the next annual heavy-weight championship
+of the world to be held in Yuma, Arizona,
+or some such summer resort, in August, 1921,
+simply because the United States Railroad Administration
+refused to accept for his transportation
+in lieu of cash two thousand shares of the Shapiro
+Texas Oil and Refining Corporation of the par
+value of one hundred dollars apiece, notwithstanding
+that he also offers to throw in a couple
+of hundred shares of a farm-tractor manufacturing
+corporation and lots 120 to 135, both inclusive,
+in Block 654 on a map filed in the office of the
+clerk of Atlantic County, New Jersey, entitled
+Map of Property of the East by Southeast,
+Atlantic City Land and Development Company."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it would serve such a feller right if
+such a thing did happen to him," Morris commented,
+"because any one who takes an interest
+in such a disgusting affair as this here fight should
+not only lose his money, but he should ought to
+go to jail."</p>
+
+<p>"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe replied.
+"And why the newspapers print the reports of
+such a thing is a mystery to me. Here there are
+happenings, happenings over in Europe which is
+changing the history of the world every twenty-four
+hours, Mawruss, and to this one prize-fight
+which a man has got to be a loafer not to get sick
+at his stomach over it, Mawruss, they are devoting
+practically the entire newspaper. I give you my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+word, Mawruss, it took me pretty near three
+hours to read it last night."</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "you
+would think that a man of this here Jeff Willard's
+fighting record wouldn't of give up so easy."</p>
+
+<p>"Look what he was up against," Abe reminded
+him. "There 'ain't been a fighter in years with
+this feller Dempsey's speed and science, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't think that Willard was trained
+right, Abe," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;not trained right?" Abe
+retorted. "From what the newspapers has been
+saying during the past few weeks, Mawruss, he
+was in wonderful condition, and his sparring
+partners seemingly could hit him on any part
+of his face and body, and it never seemed to
+affect him any."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know," Morris agreed, "but what for a
+training was that for a rough affair like this here
+prize-fight turned out to be, which if I would of
+been this here Jeff Willard's manager, Abe, I
+wouldn't of put no faith in sparring partners. A
+sparring partner is only human&mdash;that is to say,
+if any prize-fighter could be human&mdash;and naturally
+such a sparring partner ain't going to do himself
+out of a good job by going too far and seriously
+injuring a heavyweight champion. The consequences
+was, Abe, that this here Jeff Willard
+went into the ring, confident that he couldn't be
+knocked down by a blow from a fighter like
+Dempsey, simply because he had no experience
+in being knocked down by a blow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he couldn't of been knocked down by
+a blow from his sparring partners," Abe suggested.
+"Maybe they weren't strong enough."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I'm driving into, Abe,"
+Morris said, "which if instead of Willard's manager
+wasting time by trying to have sparring
+partners knock him down, he would have gone
+to work and had Willard knocked down by something
+which could really and truly knock him
+down, like a Fifth Avenue stage or a heavy automobile
+delivery truck, y'understand, the result
+might have been very different."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I know," Abe said, "but you could easy
+overdo such a training method, Mawruss, and
+end up with an autopsy instead of a prize-fight.
+Also, Mawruss, the way it looked to experts after
+this here fight had been pulled off, where Willard
+made his mistake was in training to receive
+punishment instead of training to give it."</p>
+
+<p>"Willard didn't believe in training to give
+punishment," Morris said. "If he had believed
+in it, he could have gone over to Europe and
+received pretty nearly a year and a half of the
+very best training a prize-fighter could get in
+giving punishment, Abe, and also, Abe, he would
+have avoided getting called a slacker by some
+of them prize-fight fans, who seemed to be sore
+that Willard should have quit after losing only
+half his teeth and having still another eye to see
+with, the right one being blinded in the first
+round, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the chances is that when Willard goes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+to consult a doctor, which he would probably
+have to do after the licking he got, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "before he would get the opportunity
+to tell the doctor that he had been in a prize-fight,
+the doctor will give one look at him and lay the
+whole trouble to abscesses at the roots of the teeth,
+and he will order Willard to go and have the rest
+of them drawn right away, so he might just as
+well have stayed one more round and let Dempsey
+finish the job. Also, Mawruss, them fight fans
+<i>oser</i> cared whether Willard had served in the
+army or not. Willard was the loser, and naturally
+them Broadway fight fans didn't have no sympathy
+with a loser, so even if there hadn't been no
+European war for Willard not to serve in, Mawruss,
+they would of tried to think of some other name
+to shout at him as he staggered out of the ring, like
+Prohibitionist or League-of-Nationer."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course them fight fans had in a way a right
+to get sore, Abe," Mawruss remarked, "because
+a whole lot of them had bet money on Willard
+to win."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure they did," Abe agreed, "but gambling
+on the personal injuries of two human beings,
+even if they do agree of their own will to see how
+long they can stand such injuries without growing
+unconscious, Mawruss, is my idea of nothing to
+gamble about. But I suppose the typical fight
+fan don't feel that way about it. Probably
+when some member of his family has got to go
+through an operation, he wipes away his tears
+with one hand and makes a book on the result<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+with the other. He probably offers his friends
+even money that the party won't come out of the
+ether, one to two that the party wouldn't rally
+from the shock, and one to three against complete
+recovery inside of a month, or he will make a
+combination offer whereby his friends can play
+the operation across the board as a two or three
+proposition, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"And his friends, being also prize-fight fans,
+will probably take him up," Morris suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly they will," Abe concluded, "because
+to a prize-fight fan suffering is not a sight
+which is to be avoided. It is something which a
+typical prize-fight fan would take a special train
+and pay a hundred dollars any time to see."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>FEEDING THE PEACE CONFERENCERS AND THE
+HOUSEHOLD</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Anybody which don't arrange beforehand
+what the price is going to be, Mawruss,
+is never overcharged, no matter how much he
+gets soaked in the bill," Abe Potash said to his
+partner, Morris Perlmutter, a few days after the
+Hotel Crillon filed its claim against the American
+peace mission for two million francs, "which, if
+the way the United States government arranged
+with the management of the Hotel Crillon for the
+board and lodging of them Peace Conferencers
+is any criterium, Mawruss, we would got to start
+a recruiting drive for fifty thousand certified public
+accountants for service abroad, with a chance
+to see the wonderful scenery and bookkeeping of
+France."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought the United States government
+didn't make any arrangement with the Hotel
+Crillon before them Peace Conferencers went over,
+Abe," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I mean, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"which, when President Wilson made up his mind
+to send all them experts over to France he sent
+for Ambassador Sharp and asked him where's a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+good place for them Indians to stay, and Sharp
+told him the Hotel Crillon, and when Mr. Wilson
+asked him is it a good medium-price place, Mr.
+Sharp says he shouldn't worry, that Jake Crillon
+is a good feller and wouldn't overcharge nobody,
+y'understand, and for to leave it to Jake, and so
+Mr. Wilson done so, Mawruss, and naturally this
+is the result."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what for a bill did the management of
+the Hotel Crillon put in against the United States
+government, Abe?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They 'ain't put in any bill as yet, Mawruss,"
+Abe said. "This here is only a preliminary claim
+of two million francs, on account of the loss of
+regular customers because the hotel has been occupied
+for such a long time by them American
+Peace Conferencers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, wouldn't most of the regular customers
+come back if the management promised that after
+them Peace Conferencers went home they would
+disinfect the hotel and give it a thorough overhauling
+or something?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The question 'ain't been argued as yet, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "but you'll have to admit that
+if two years from now a guest of the Hotel Crillon
+complains to the management of something about
+his room smelling awful peculiar, y'understand,
+and if the management should go to work and
+tear up the floor and overhaul the plumbing, only
+to find that it's a case of the room not having
+recovered from an American Jugo-Slob expert
+holding conferences with the Jugo-Slob delegates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+to the Peace Conference in it, understand me, two
+million francs ain't going to go such a long ways,
+in especially at the present rate of exchange,
+Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you're right, Abe," Morris said.
+"Perhaps it is better that a lump sum like two
+million francs would be charged rather as go into
+the items themselves, because, for instance, if
+that American mission to negotiate peace had been
+staying at the hotel which we stayed at, Abe, a
+bill would have been submitted like this, Abe:</p>
+
+<p class='center'>
+"MM. American Mission to Negotiate Peace<br />
+<span class="smcap">To Hotel se'Escroquerie et Londres, Dr.</span><br />
+<br />
+Terms, net cash <span style="margin-left: 6em;">800 rooms; 8 baths</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Tel.: 6060 Rivoli</span><br />
+<br />
+</p>
+<table summary="bill">
+<col style="width: 1em" />
+<col style="width: 1em" />
+<col style="width: 3em" />
+<col />
+<col style="width: 2em" />
+
+<tr><td colspan="6">March, 1919:   To entertaining MM. Orlando and Sonnino, as follows:</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td colspan="3">Table overturned and following articles broken:</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td colspan="2">1 inkstand and mucilage-bottle.</td><td>Fr.</td><td class="rightcell">24.50</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td colspan="2">1 table-cover damaged by mucilage.</td><td></td><td class="rightcell">45.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td colspan="3">Chairs injured as follows:</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td colspan="2">1 light chair thrown through window.</td><td></td><td class="rightcell">58.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td colspan="2">1 heavy chair thrown through window.</td><td></td><td class="rightcell">85.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td colspan="3">Labor as follows:</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td colspan="2">Sweeping up broken eye-glasses.</td><td></td><td class="rightcell">2.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td colspan="2">Sweeping up hair.</td><td></td><td class="rightcell">3.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td colspan="2">Removing blood-stains from carpet.</td><td></td><td class="rightcell">4.50</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="4">Credit:</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td colspan="3">By one unclaimed hat, labeled 'Mike, the Popular Rome Hatter'.</td><td></td><td class="rightcell">.20</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="5"></td><td style="border-top: solid"></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="3"></td><td>Total</td><td>Fr.</td><td>382.40</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>and not only would it have given away a whole
+lot of diplomatic secrets, but the American mission<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+would also have got to pay a luxury tax of ten
+per cent. on the hotel's telephone number and a
+little mistake of a hundred francs in the addition."</p>
+
+<p>"But this here Hotel Crillon was a strictly first-class
+hotel, Mawruss," Abe said, "and with strictly
+first-class hotels it's the same in Europe as it is
+in this country, Mawruss; the rates are so fixed
+that it ain't necessary for the management to
+make mistakes in the bill, while the accounting
+department always figures the overhead so as to
+include the hotel's telephone number, the number of
+the guest's room, and, in the case of mountain-resort
+hotels, the altitude of the hotel above sea-level."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's just what I am driving into, Abe,"
+Morris said. "Even when hotel bills are submitted
+weekly and the management has got his
+signed checks to show for it, Abe, nobody never
+realizes that he owes all that money to a hotel,
+y'understand, and when at the end of the peace
+commission's tenancy the hotel management sends
+in its final bill, Abe, there's going to be considerable
+argument between Mr. Joseph Grew, the secretary
+of the commission, and all them Peace Conferencers,
+expert and otherwise, as to who ordered
+what and when, y'understand, which I see by the
+newspapers, Abe, that Mr. Grew has already
+begun an investigation about who authorized the
+serving of one hundred bottles tchampanyer wine
+on June 14th, and if Mr. Grew couldn't trace the
+party which signed for one hundred bottles
+tchampanyer wine on June 14th, y'understand,
+what chance does he have of finding out who is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+responsible for each and every one of the hundreds
+of checks with illegible signatures which is bound
+to show up in the final accounting for such articles
+as scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee, which any
+Peace Conferencers might have signed for, whether
+his home town was in a dry state or not, Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Grew wouldn't get no sympathy from
+the President, neither, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"which, when the morning mail arrives at the
+White House nowadays just as Mr. Wilson is
+saying to Mrs. Wilson, '<i>Some</i> coffee, mommer!'&mdash;because
+the average American has got to be
+home from Europe at least a month before a
+good cup of coffee ceases to become a miracle,
+Mawruss&mdash;it won't take more than two letters
+from Mr. Grew asking Mr. Wilson does he remember
+whether at the conference between him,
+Clemenceau, Lord George, Venezuelas, and Baron
+Ishii, held in Parlor A on March 22d, did or did
+not somebody order a rye-bread tongue sandwich
+and a split of Evian water, and if so to please sign
+inclosed check for same, <i>non pro tunc</i> as of March
+22d, 1919, understand me, before the only effect
+an envelope addressed in the handwriting of Mr.
+Grew will have on Mr. Wilson is that he is going
+to throw it unopened into the waste-paper basket
+without so much as saying, 'I wonder what that
+<i>schlemiel</i> wants from me <i>now</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"As a matter of fact, Abe, the price of food 'ain't
+interested Mr. Wilson since a few days ago when
+he asked Mrs. Wilson, 'How much are we paying
+now for coffee, mommer?' and Mrs. Wilson says<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+fifty-eight cents a pound, and Mr. Wilson says
+for the love of Mike, and then asks what she is
+paying for eggs, and Mrs. Wilson says at Ginsburg's
+Economy Market eighty-five cents a dozen,
+and Mr. Wilson says he would just as lieve have
+some hash from last night's rib roast, and Mrs.
+Wilson says she doesn't blame him and so would
+she, but that they are going to have that rib
+roast cold for lunch on account Ginsburg is practically
+<i>schenking</i> his customers rib roast for fifty-five
+cents a pound," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"And how did you come to hear about this
+conversation, Mawruss?" Abe asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't hear about it," Morris replied, "but
+I presume it took place the morning after the
+newspapers printed the report of the Federal
+Trade Commission about the packing-houses, Abe,
+because a similar conversation happened at my
+breakfast-table that morning, and I presume it
+also happened at yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's time that business men begun to take
+a little interest in the cost of what they are eating,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "On account of the increase
+in the price of food, Mawruss, the business man is
+now paying more money to all the people which
+is working for him, except his wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I know," Morris said, "but the business
+man which is mean enough to hold down his wife
+to twenty dollars a week housekeeping money
+simply because the principle of the closed shop
+and collective bargaining can't be applied to an
+American household the way it could to a Turkish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+harem, Abe, don't live so well as he used to.
+Former times when such a man complained to his
+wife that the chicken was a little tough, y'understand,
+she used to say, 'What do you want for
+twenty dollars a week housekeeping money&mdash;mocking-birds?'
+Nowadays, however, the best
+that such a man has got to complain about being
+tough is round steak, and his wife now says,
+'What do you want for twenty dollars a week
+housekeeping money&mdash;chicken?'"</p>
+
+<p>"And the standard of living for even business
+men is going down so fast, Mawruss, that next
+year when such a man complains that the tripe
+is tough, she is going to say, 'What do you expect
+for twenty dollars a week housekeeping money&mdash;round
+steak?'" Abe said, "and if them packers
+goes on trying to control the entire bill of fare
+from soup to cereals, Mawruss, it would only be
+a matter of a few years when such a husband is
+going to complain that the puffed jute is tough,
+and his wife is going to ask him, 'What do you
+expect for twenty dollars a week housekeeping
+money&mdash;ensilage?' which, if something ain't done
+pretty soon to stop dealers boosting the price of
+food, Mawruss, twenty dollars a week housekeeping
+money ain't going to feed a family of hearty-eating
+canary-birds."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that in the end, Abe, the business
+man would be obliged to admit that the high cost
+of living is just as expensive for his wife as it is
+for his other employees," Morris concluded, "and,
+without the formality of a strike, the wives of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+business men will be conceded a new wage-scale
+of from thirty to forty dollars, in place of the old
+scale of twenty dollars, for a working-week of one
+hundred and sixty-eight hours, because it don't
+make no difference if the Senate confirms the
+League of Nations or not, Abe, married business
+men will never live up to the clause which provides
+for an international working-day of eight
+hours&mdash;anyhow, so far as their wives is concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't the only clause of the Peace Treaty
+which wouldn't be lived up to, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "because I see that already the Germans is
+having their troubles restoring to the British
+government this here skull of the Sultan Mkwiwa,
+Mawruss, which, according to Section Eight, I
+think it is, of the Treaty of Peace, was removed
+from German East Africa and taken to Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"But the Germans claim that it was never taken
+from German East Africa, but was buried there,
+and they misremember the name of the cemetery,"
+Morris declared.</p>
+
+<p>"I know they do, and I couldn't understand
+their attitude in the matter, Mawruss," Abe said.
+"Why don't they go to work and send England
+any old skull, which a skull is a skull, ain't it?&mdash;and
+one skull is just as much like another skull
+as two pinochle decks with the same backs, and
+who is going to check them up on it no matter
+what kind of a skull they send? Besides, Mawruss,
+the people who had pull enough to get that
+skull section inserted in the Treaty of Peace is
+going to be divided into two classes when that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+skull arrives in East Africa, <i>anyway</i>&mdash;namely,
+those who will throw a bluff that they recognized
+the skull as the sultan's skull as soon as they
+laid eyes on it, y'understand, and those who will
+refuse to concede that any skull is the sultan's
+skull. There will also, of course, be a large class
+of East Africans who won't give a nickel one way
+or the other; so if Germany couldn't find the
+sultan's skull, let them send England an <i>ersatz</i>
+sultan's skull with a genwine sultan's label on it.
+They've been doing that sort of thing for years
+with American safety-razors, American folding-cameras,
+and American typewriters; why should
+they now take it so particular with a German
+East African sultan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you think there is something suspicious
+about the way Germany is acting over this here
+skull?" Morris suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't call it exactly suspicious, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "but at the same time I wouldn't put
+it beyond the Germans that, after the Allies gets
+through discussing together whether or not the
+sultan's skull is genwine, they would suddenly
+awake to the fact that at least two of the million-mark
+bills which Germany paid over in the indemnity,
+y'understand, are <i>not</i>. So, therefore, my advice
+to England is, examine the German indemnity
+carefully, and don't let no returned sultan's skull
+distract your attention, even if it would be made of
+plaster of Paris with a round hold on top for keeping
+matches in it, and on the bottom a sign, reading:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Gr&uuml;ss Aus Schveningen</i>."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS
+INCLUDES LIBELED MILLIONAIRES, ENFORCED
+PROHIBITION, AND SHANTUNG</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Well I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe Potash
+said, recently, "I doubt very much if I
+would be able to say offhand who Arnold Benedict
+was if I would be asked such a question by a smart
+lawyer in a court-room full of reporters, which,
+if they hadn't happened to be there at that particular
+moment, would of probably gone to their
+graves without even the faintest suspicion that
+you didn't spell <i>ignorant idealist</i> with two l's,
+y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, Abe, you've got to admit that plaintiff
+in a libel suit don't deserve much sympathy if
+he don't post himself before going on the stand
+as to the meaning of the libel, so as to anyhow be
+able to say that it <i>was</i> a libel and not a compliment,
+understand me," Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"He took his lawyers' word for it that it was a
+libel, Mawruss," Abe said, "and, anyhow, Mawruss,
+nobody has got a right to call anybody an
+ignorant philantropist even, no matter how
+ignorant such a philantropist might be about
+what the word philantropist would mean."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And do you <i>know</i> what it means?" Morris
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"A philantropist is a feller who gives big sums
+of moneys to orphan-asylums, hospitals, and colleges,
+and if he could afford it he's a philantropist,
+Mawruss, and if he couldn't, then he's a
+sucker, and that is what is called a philantropist,"
+Abe said, "which, if I didn't know what it meant,
+Mawruss, I ain't such an ignorant idealist that I
+would use such a word in front of you and expect
+you not to try to trip me up on it."</p>
+
+<p>"I see you've also been looking up what
+ignorant idealist means," Morris observed.</p>
+
+<p>"And I ain't very peculiar that way, neither,
+Mawruss," Abe admitted, "because I bet yer
+that in the last two days at least five million
+people has been looking up in the dictionary what
+that word idealist means and not knowing even
+<i>then</i> what it means, y'understand, and still that
+'ain't prevented them from knocking Mr. Ford,
+Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"But the fact remains, Abe, that them five
+million people ain't suing nobody for calling them
+ignorant idealists," Morris interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Also, Mawruss, they ain't running one of the
+largest industrial plants in the country on a profit-sharing
+basis with several thousand employees,"
+Abe declared, "which there is a whole lot of big
+manufacturers in this country who could go on
+the stand at a moment's notice and pass a cross-examination
+with a hundred-per-cent. mark on
+all them words which you read in them medical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+journals you pick up from the doctor's desk in his
+private office when he excuses himself for a
+minute to answer the 'phone and which you put
+down so quick and pretend you 'ain't been reading
+when he comes back again, if you know what I
+mean. And furthermore, if these same big manufacturers
+was elected to the United States Senate
+to-morrow they could make a speech against doing
+away with child labor in words of six syllables,
+y'understand, and would probably make such a
+speech, because the trouble with most big manufacturers
+is not that they are ignorant, understand
+me, but that they ain't idealists, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same, Abe, a man should ought to
+know what he don't know and side-step it,"
+Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"But the way it is in this country, Mawruss,
+a multimillionaire can't side-step it. The newspapers
+won't let him, because if he gets a reputation
+for having made fifty million dollars in the
+safety-pin business, we would say, for example,
+and news gets so scarce in the newspapers that
+somebody starts a discussion about which is the
+biggest musician, Kreisler <i>oder</i> Zimbalist, y'understand,
+right away the editor sends out reporters
+to interview the most prominent men in the
+country as to what their opinion is in the matter,
+and naturally one of the first men such a reporter
+would call on is Harris J. Rosenbaum, the Safety-pin
+King. Now, what is Rosenbaum going to
+do under the circumstances? Is he going to admit
+to the reporter that up to date he has been so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+busy in his safety-pin plant that he 'ain't had
+time to post himself as to whether Kreisler and
+Zimbalist is performers on the trombone <i>oder</i>
+the mouth-organ? <i>Oser!</i> He finds out from the
+reporter that these two fellers has got a piece-work
+wage-scale for playing on the fiddle of five dollars
+a note, net cash, and he says that both of them
+is wonderful fiddlers, y'understand, but that to
+his mind Kreisler plays with more of the artistic
+temperature than Zimbalist, or if he doesn't
+actually say so, y'understand, the reporter goes
+back to his newspaper and <i>says</i> he said so, and
+the consequence is that when in next Sunday's
+paper Rosenbaum reads,</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: larger">
+KREISLER GREATER ARTIST<br />
+SAYS SAFETY-PIN KING,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>he not only begins to believe that he did say it,
+but also that it's funny how a man can go on for
+years being an expert on fiddle-playing and only
+find it out by accident, as it were."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose that a few months later, on the
+strength of what he <i>don't</i> know about fiddle-playing,
+Abe," Morris remarked, "Harris J.
+Rosenbaum, the Safety-pin King, is running for
+United States Senator and comes pretty near
+getting elected, too."</p>
+
+<p>"There don't seem to be no reason why he
+wouldn't be," Abe declared, "because just so long
+as United States Senators is selected by election
+and not by a competitive examination, Mawruss,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+there will always be a certain percentage of Harris
+J. Rosenbaums in the United States Senate, which
+you can't keep millionaires out of public office,
+if they want to fool away their time in such
+things, and after all, Mawruss, it ain't having
+brains which makes a man a millionaire, it's
+having a million dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you don't blame Mr. Ford for the way
+he has behaved himself, Abe?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least," Abe said. "Millionaires
+behave the way their fellow-countrymen encourages
+them to behave, Mawruss, which to my mind,
+Mawruss, the only way to learn a millionaire like
+Mr. Ford his place is not to notice him and, in
+particular, not to pay no attention to anything
+he says, and such a millionaire would quick subside
+and devote himself to the manufacture of
+safety-pins or the best four-cylinder car for the
+money in the world, as the case may be, which I
+see in the paper that the refusal of the United
+States Senate to confirm the Treaty of Peace
+looks quite certain to them people to whom the
+winning of the Willard-Dempsey fight by Jeff
+Willard looked quite certain, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to my mind, Abe, them round-robins is
+right to look into the Treaty and the League of
+Nations covenant before they confirm them,"
+Morris said. "Also, Abe, you couldn't blame
+them Senators for getting indignant about the
+Shantung settlement."</p>
+
+<p>"Personally I couldn't blame them and I
+couldn't praise them, Mawruss, because, like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+hundred million other people in this country,
+not being in the silk business, Mawruss, I never
+had the opportunity to find out nothing about
+even where Shantung was on the map till they
+printed such a map in the papers last week, and
+if you've got to go and look it up on a map first
+to find out whether you should ought to be indignant
+or not, Mawruss, you couldn't get exactly
+red in the face over Japan taking Shantung, unless
+you are a Senator from the Pacific coast,
+where people have got such a wonderful color in
+their cheeks that Easterners think it's the climate,
+when, as a matter of fact, it is thinking about
+Japanese unrestricted immigration that does it."</p>
+
+<p>"But the Senators represents the people which
+elects them, Abe," Morris said, "and if it don't
+take much to make a Californian indignant about
+any little thing he suspects Japan is doing,
+y'understand, then Senator Hiram Johnson has
+got a right to go 'round looking permanently
+purple over this here Shantung affair. As for the
+other Senators, Abe, the theory on which they
+talk each other deaf, dumb, and blind is that
+they are doing a job which it is impossible for the
+hundred million people of this country to do for
+themselves. They are saving their constituents
+the trouble of leaving their homes and spending
+a lot of time on government-controlled railroads,
+going to and from Washington to make their own
+laws, y'understand. That is what representative
+government is, Abe, and if the people of this
+country couldn't get indignant over what ain't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+right in this here Treaty of Peace and League
+of Nations without working up such indignation
+by several days' careful investigation of the
+reasons for getting indignant, then it is up to the
+United States Senate to get indignant for them,
+even if the individual Senators has got to sit up
+with wet towels 'round their heads and strong
+black coffee stewing on the gas-stove, so as not
+to fall asleep over the job of letting their feelings
+get the better of their judgment in working up a
+six-hour speech which will give the country the
+impression that it just came pouring out on the
+spur of the moment as a consequence of the
+Senators' red-hot indignation about this here
+Shantung."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too bad that the House of Representatives
+couldn't be mind-readers like the Senate, Mawruss,
+and get off indignant speeches about what is making
+certain sections of the country so indignant,
+Mawruss, that if their Congressmen is going to
+really and truly represent them, there would be a
+regular epidemic of apoplexy in Washington,"
+Abe said, "which I am talking about the enforcement
+of prohibition, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"For myself, Abe, I couldn't understand why
+it should be necessary to pass a law to enforce a
+law," Morris remarked, "because, if that is the
+case, what is going to be the end? After they
+pass this here law to enforce the prohibition law,
+are they going to pass another law to enforce the
+law to enforce prohibition, or do they expect that
+this here enforcement law will enforce itself, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+if so, then why couldn't the prohibition law be
+enforced without a law to enforce it?"</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, a dyed-in-wool
+Dry could be as hopeful as a man could
+possibly be on soft drinks, and in his heart of
+hearts he must got to know that if Congress
+would sit from now till the arrival of <i>Elia Hanov'e</i>
+and did nothing all that time but pass an endless
+chain of enforcement laws, prohibition will never
+be enforced except in the proportion of 2.75 enforcement
+to 97.25 violation, anyhow in those
+parts of the country where the hyphen Americans
+live and like their beverages with a hyphen in it,
+because, Mawruss, where a hundred per cent. of
+the population of a certain district has been
+drinking beer and light wines since 12 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> on
+Rosh Hashonah in the year one up to and including
+twelve midnight on June 30, 1919, y'understand,
+and seeing no harm in it, understand me,
+not only would an act of Congress fail to change
+the hearts and conscience of such people, but there
+could be an earthquake, a cyclone, and anything
+else which a confirmed Dry would call a judgment
+on them people, and still they wouldn't see no
+harm in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is the country going to do to enforce
+the prohibition law?" Morris asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," Abe said; "but one thing is
+certain, you can't change people's habits on and
+after a certain hour on a certain date by putting
+a law into effect on such date. You might just
+so well expect that, if the Senate should confirm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+the provision handing over Shantung to the Japanese,
+all the Chinamen in Shantung is immediately
+going to open stores for the sale of imitation
+expensive vases and fake silk embroidery, start
+factories for the manufacture of phony Swedish
+safety-matches, and do all the other things which
+Japanese do so successfully that any reputable
+business man is willing to take a chance on
+getting indignant about Shantung without even
+asking his stenographer to look it up for him."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought you thought that prohibition
+would be a good thing, Abe?" Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"I do," Abe said. "I think brown stewed fish,
+sweet and sour, the way my Rosie cooks it, is a
+good thing, but at the same time, Mawruss, I
+realize that my taste in this respect is supported
+only by what you might call a very limited public
+sentiment, consisting of Rosie and me, y'understand,
+and the rest of the household couldn't stand
+to eat it at all. So, therefore, when we have
+sweet and sour fish we cook for the rest of the
+family eggs or meat, and in that way we have
+happiness in the home. Now a country is a home
+for the people in it, ain't it, and the main thing
+is that they should stick together and be happy,
+and how could they be happy if even the great
+majority of the people tells the rest what they
+should and shouldn't eat or drink?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you admit that <i>schnapps</i> is harmful, don't
+you?" Morris insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"And I also admit that sweet and sour fish
+ain't exactly a health food, Mawruss," Abe said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+"In fact, you wouldn't believe what a lot of
+bicarbonate of soda Rosie and me uses up between
+us after we eat that fish; but even so,
+Mawruss, after you have said all you could say
+against that fish, the fact remains that Rosie
+and me, we like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, even if the people do like booze, and it
+does them harm, I say they shouldn't have it,"
+Morris said.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you down to the ground, Mawruss,"
+Abe said. "And I don't care if it is booze
+or sweet and sour, you are still right; but if
+sweet and sour fish was prohibited, although the
+fish and the onions and the sugar and the vinegar
+which you make it out of <i>wasn't</i>, y'understand,
+and in spite of the law, Rosie and me liked it and
+wanted to continue to eat it, the question then
+is and the question is going to continue to be:</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">How Are You Going to Stop It</span>?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE APPROACHING ROYAL VISIT</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I see where the King of England, to show his
+appreciation of what we done it during the
+war, Mawruss, is going to send his eldest son,
+the King of England, junior, or whatever his
+name is, to visit us," Abe Potash said to his
+partner, Morris Perlmutter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" Morris replied. "Well, why don't
+the King, senior, come himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"You must think that kings has got nothing
+better to do with their time than fool it away
+on ocean steamers, Mawruss," Abe said. "A
+king of England is a very busy man, Mawruss,
+which I bet yer right now he is dated up as far
+ahead as Purim, 1921, laying corner-stones,
+opening exhibitions, making the speech of the
+afternoon or the evening, as the case may be, at
+assorted luncheons, teas, and dinners; trying on
+uniforms; signing warrants at a fee of two guineas
+and sixpence&mdash;not including three cents war tax&mdash;for
+the appointment of tea, coffee, or cocoa manufacturers
+as purveyors of tea, coffee, or cocoa
+to the royal household, y'understand, and doing
+all the other things which a king does in England
+and a prominent Elk does in America."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, I suppose the King of England,
+junior, must of done a lot of hard work during
+the war which makes the King, senior, think that
+it is time the boy had a vacation."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oser!</i>" Abe said. "So far as I can make out,
+the young feller made a couple of tourist's tours
+of the battle-fields, Mawruss, and maybe helped
+out once or twice with the corner-stone laying;
+but otherwise, for all the actual fighting he did,
+instead of being the King of England's son during
+the war, he might just so well have been Mr.
+Ford's son."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, kings, junior or senior, ain't supposed to
+fight, Abe," Morris said. "The most their countries
+expects of them is that they should share the
+privations of their subjects by reducing the cost
+of running their homes till they are living as
+economically during war-times as a Texas oil
+millionaire does during peace-times. There was
+days together there, in the terrible winter of
+1916-1917, when the only dishes which appeared
+on the tables of European kings, outside of green-turtle
+soup and roast pheasant, was hothouse
+asparagus and fresh strawberry ice-cream, Abe.
+The sufferings of kings, junior and senior, during
+the war 'ain't half been told in the newspapers,
+Abe."</p>
+
+<p>"The Kings of England, junior and senior, is
+very popular in England at that, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "which every week the illustrated papers
+prints picture after picture of both of them Kings
+looking every inch kings, or anyhow openers or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+better, y'understand; and in fact, Mawruss, the
+English-reading public never seems to get tired
+of seeing pictures of building operations, just so
+long as there is one of them Kings in it laying
+the corner-stone or turning the first sod of the
+excavation."</p>
+
+<p>"For that matter, Abe, them brown illustrated
+supplements to American Sunday newspapers
+which rubs off so on Palm Beach suits and ladies'
+white gloves, 'ain't absolutely declared a boycott
+on kings' pictures, neither," Morris declared.
+"I suppose that pictures of them Kings with or
+without Marshal Haig reviewing soldiers and
+handing out medals is easy worth several hundred
+dollars a week to the dry cleaners of New York
+City alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say they didn't?" Abe asked. "Which,
+considering the trouble and expense this country
+was put to over the Declaration of Independence,
+Mawruss, you would be surprised how much
+interest a whole lot of ladies takes in the English
+royal family. Here a short time ago the King,
+senior's, father a brother's daughter got married
+beneath her to one of the chief stockholders of the
+Canadian Pacific Railroad, Mawruss, and you
+would think from the way my Rosie carried on
+about it that the girl's mother was going round
+saying what did she ever do that her daughter
+should go to work and marry a feller that made his
+living that way, and what a mercy it was the
+grandmother didn't live to see it; the theory
+being, Mawruss, that when a king's relation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+marries a healthy young chief stockholder with
+nothing flowing in his veins but the blood of a
+couple of generations of managing directors,
+y'understand, it is the equivalence of a bank
+president's daughter eloping with a professional
+dancer in a cabaret."</p>
+
+<p>"And when the King, junior, arrives in this
+country there is going to be a lot of disappointment
+among them ladies which also gets their pictures
+printed by the Sunday supplement sitting around
+cross-legged in ankle-length, awning-striped skirts
+at dawg-shows, in such a way that even the dawgs
+must feel embarrassed if they've got the ordinary
+dawg's sense of decency, Abe," Morris said,
+"because I see by the paper that the King, senior,
+has instructed his son that while in New York
+he should live on board the English battle-ship
+which is bringing him here so as not to have no
+truck with any millionaires."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose the old man thinks that one managing
+director's child in the royal family is enough,"
+Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Morris said, "looking at him from the
+King's standpoint, it will save the young feller's
+mother a lot of anxiety to know that he is safe on
+board an English battle-ship every night instead
+of running around the streets of a country where
+everybody, up to and including the President
+himself, is the young feller's social inferior."</p>
+
+<p>"And also, you can't blame the old man if he
+ain't taking no risks when the young feller gets
+home and his mother asks him did he have a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+good time, that two Right Honorable General
+Practitioners in Waiting would got to work over
+her for an hour or so bringing her out of one swoon
+after another as the result of her son saying,
+'I'll <i>say</i> I did,'" Abe observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, at the same time, Abe," Morris said,
+"it is going to be a wonderful opportunity for
+the young feller, even if he gets home again, he
+would occasionally use the words, '<i>You've said it</i>,'
+instead of '<i>Quite so</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But that ain't the idea in the King's sending
+him over here, Mawruss," Abe said. "The intention
+is that it is a wonderful opportunity for
+the American people to see how a king looks and
+at the same time not have it come off on your
+gloves. In other words, Mawruss, it's as a favor
+to us that the young feller is coming over here,
+and the chances is that his personal feelings in
+the matter is very much the same as yours or
+mine would be if we was about to make Sarahcuse,
+Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago with a
+line of popular-price garments. We would do it
+in the course of making a living and not for the
+education of the thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Then my advice to the young feller and his
+father is that he should stay home in these times
+when the building trade is looking up so, Abe,
+and help out with the corner-stone laying,"
+Morris said, "and give the people of this country
+a real treat by sending over Lord George or
+Marshall Field Haig, which while this here King,
+junior, is a decent, respectable young feller and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+his father is also a gentleman that nobody could
+say a word against no matter if it does cost the
+English people sixpence in the pound of the ten
+shillings in the pound which they've got to pay
+income tax in order that the English royal family
+should continue to live in the style to which it
+has become accustomed during the past five
+hundred years, Abe, still, at the same time, if I
+could be standing on the curb watching Lord
+George or this here Haig driving by, it would give
+me a real thrill to think that I am at last looking
+at the face of a man who for over four years has
+been working night and day to put over the
+biggest thing that has ever been put over in the
+history of the world, y'understand; whereas, what
+for a thrill would I get from looking at the face
+of a man who, putting it big, has been laying as
+many corner-stones as all the bricklayers' unions
+in the American Federation of Labor and has been
+presiding at as many banquets as this here Irving
+J. Cobb and Gustave Thomas combined?"</p>
+
+<p>"At that, there will be a whole lot of ambulance
+calls for people who has fainted away in the
+crowds that will collect to see the King, junior,
+drive up Fifth Avenue, Mawruss," Abe said.</p>
+
+<p>"I know there will," Morris said; "and if it
+rested with me, Abe, I wouldn't spend so much
+as two cents for mathematic spirits of ammonia
+to bring them to, neither, because them crowds
+in America is helping along a European idea
+which we sent across several million American
+soldiers to wipe out. Them American crowds will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+be encouraging European kings to believe that
+even in America we still think it is all right for
+the ordinary people of Europe to sacrifice their
+lives and their property, in order that them
+corner-stone layers shall cop out the credit."</p>
+
+<p>"As a matter of fact, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"Mr. Wilson invited the young feller to visit
+America."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yow</i>, President Wilson invited him!" Morris
+exclaimed. "After the experience President Wilson
+had in Paris staying with the Murats he must
+have a pretty good idea what it means to be eaten
+out of house and home by the people that tags
+along with a king or a president, which I bet yer
+the most that Mr. Wilson said when he was visiting
+England last Christmas was that he told the
+King, senior, if he was ever in Washington to be
+sure and look him up, or to not to fail to let him
+know if he was ever in Washington, or that the
+latch-string was always out at the White House,
+or any one of the hundreds of things that ordinarily
+the most inhospitable person in the world is perfectly
+safe in saying without any one taking him
+up on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's where Mr. Wilson made a big
+mistake, Mawruss," Abe said, "because evidently
+this here King, junior, couldn't take a joke,
+y'understand; which, the way it looks now,
+Mawruss, even if Mr. Wilson had said, 'I hope
+to see you again sometime,' he would of immediately
+taken out of his vest pocket such a little
+book which you put memorandums in it and said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+how about August 30, 1919, or would September
+10th suit Mr. Wilson better, and that's the way
+it would of went."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, that's neither here nor there, Abe,"
+Morris said, "because, no matter how many
+times nowadays Mrs. Wilson is going to ask Mr.
+Wilson why he couldn't of said good-by, King,
+and let it go at that, because such people, if you
+give them the least little encouragement, they
+would use you like you was running a boarding-house
+already, understand me, it ain't going to
+improve matters for Mr. Wilson when the young
+feller does arrive."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "It wouldn't do that
+King, junior, no harm to rough it a little there at
+the White House, Mawruss."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;rough it?" Morris demanded.
+"Don't you suppose the President of
+the United States eats just so good in his own
+home as the King of England does in his, Abe?
+It would be the least of Mr. Wilson's worries if
+the young feller would expect chicken <i>&agrave; la</i> king
+and fillet of kingfish for breakfast, dinner, and
+supper already, but when it comes to making up
+a list of the guests which would be invited to meet
+this here King of England, junior, that is where
+Mr. Wilson is wise he would get himself run over
+by a trolley-car or something, and sustain enough
+injuries to keep him confined to his bed from a
+few days before the young feller arrives until the
+morning after the British ambassador successfully
+slips it to the young feller that the people in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+Washington is beginning to wonder if a king
+of England 'ain't got no home, y'understand."</p>
+
+<p>"But why couldn't Mr. Wilson give one big
+dinner for the King, junior, to which he would
+invite the Senate and House of Representatives in
+a body, and have the whole thing over at one
+<i>schlag</i>, y'understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say," Morris said, "the dining-room at the
+White House is a big place, but it ain't exactly
+Madison Square Garden, and it ain't even Childs's
+Boardwalk restaurant, neither."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let him invite them to a series of meals
+in rotation alphabetically, and let it go at that,"
+Abe suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Before that would get him out of his troubles
+and not hold up the confirmation of the Peace
+Treaty and League of Nations, Abe, Mr. Wilson
+would first got to get an act of Congress passed
+amending the order of the alphabet and making
+L for Lodge, J for Johnson, and R for Reed come
+ahead of H for Hitchcock, who, of course, wouldn't
+mind helping out Mr. Wilson by allowing himself
+to be shifted to the third or fourth sitting," Morris
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe it would be a good thing to let the
+alphabet stand and square things with Borah
+and Brandegee," Abe retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"It might even be still better if Mr. Wilson
+would write the King, junior, to be so good and
+postpone his visit until after Inauguration Day,
+1921, and put the entire problem up to the next
+President, whoever he might be," Morris said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He might even be Mr. Wilson," Abe concluded;
+"because, when it comes to a job like
+entertaining this here King, junior, what American
+is anxious to tackle it, even if by doing so he could
+become President even? Am I right or wrong?"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p class="center">THE END</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>NOVELS OF</h3>
+
+<h2>THOMAS HARDY</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The New Thin-Paper Edition of the greatest
+living English novelist is issued in two bindings:
+Red Limp-Leather and Red Flexible
+Cloth, 12mo. Frontispiece in each volume.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>
+<i>DESPERATE REMEDIES</i><br />
+<i>FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD</i><br />
+<i>A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES</i><br />
+<i>THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA</i><br />
+<i>JUDE THE OBSCURE</i><br />
+<i>A LAODICEAN</i><br />
+<i>LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES</i><br />
+<i>THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE</i><br />
+<i>A PAIR OF BLUE EYES</i><br />
+<i>THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE</i><br />
+<i>TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES</i><br />
+<i>THE TRUMPET MAJOR</i><br />
+<i>TWO ON A TOWER</i><br />
+<i>UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE</i><br />
+<i>THE WELL-BELOVED</i><br />
+<i>WESSEX TALES</i><br />
+<i>THE WOODLANDERS</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">HARPER&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BROTHERS</p>
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<span class="smcap">Established 1817</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+LONDON</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>NOVELS OF</h3>
+
+<h2>WILL N. HARBEN</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;His people talk as if they had not been
+in books before, and they talk all the more
+interestingly because they have for the most
+part not been in society, or ever will be.
+They express themselves in the neighborly
+parlance with a fury of fun, of pathos, and
+profanity which is native to their region. Of
+all our localists, as I may call the type of American
+writers whom I think the most national,
+no one has done things more expressive of the
+life he was born to than Mr. Harben.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">William Dean Howells</span>.</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>THE HILLS OF REFUGE</i><br />
+<i>THE INNER LAW</i><br />
+<i>ABNER DANIEL</i><br />
+<i>ANN BOYD. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>DIXIE HART. Frontispiece</i><br />
+<i>GILBERT NEAL. Frontispiece</i><br />
+<i>MAM' LINDA</i><br />
+<i>JANE DAWSON. Frontispiece</i><br />
+<i>PAUL RUNDEL. Frontispiece</i><br />
+<i>POLE BAKER.</i><br />
+<i>SECOND CHOICE. Frontispiece</i><br />
+<i>THE DESIRED WOMAN. Frontispiece</i><br />
+<i>THE GEORGIANS.</i><br />
+<i>THE NEW CLARION. Frontispiece</i><br />
+<i>THE REDEMPTION OF KENNETH GALT. Frontispiece</i><br />
+<i>THE SUBSTITUTE.</i><br />
+<i>WESTERFELT.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Post 8vo, Cloth</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">HARPER&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BROTHERS</p>
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<span class="smcap">Established 1817</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+LONDON</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>BOOKS BY</h3>
+
+<h2>MARGARET DELAND</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>THE RISING TIDE. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>AROUND OLD CHESTER. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>THE COMMON WAY. 16mo</i><br />
+<i>DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>AN ENCORE. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>GOOD FOR THE SOUL. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>THE HANDS OF ESAU. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>THE AWAKENING OF HELENA RICHIE. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>THE IRON WOMAN. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>OLD CHESTER TALES. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>PARTNERS. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>R. J.'S MOTHER. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>THE VOICE. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>THE WAY TO PEACE. Illustrated</i><br />
+<i>WHERE THE LABORERS ARE FEW. Illustrated</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">HARPER&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BROTHERS</p>
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<span class="smcap">Established 1817</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+LONDON</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>BOOKS BY</h3>
+
+<h2>SIR GILBERT PARKER</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>THE WORLD FOR SALE</i><br />
+<i>THE MONEY MASTER</i><br />
+<i>THE JUDGMENT HOUSE</i><br />
+<i>THE RIGHT OF WAY</i><br />
+<i>THE LADDER OF SWORDS</i><br />
+<i>THE WEAVERS</i><br />
+<i>THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG</i><br />
+<i>WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC</i><br />
+<i>THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING</i><br />
+<i>NORTHERN LIGHTS</i><br />
+<i>PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE</i><br />
+<i>AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH</i><br />
+<i>A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS</i><br />
+<i>CUMNER'S SON, AND OTHER SOUTH SEA FOLK</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">HARPER&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BROTHERS</p>
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<span class="smcap">Established 1817</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+LONDON</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things, by 
+Montague Glass
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+</body>
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+Project Gutenberg's Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things, by Montague Glass
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things
+
+Author: Montague Glass
+
+Release Date: November 28, 2006 [EBook #19948]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+
+
+BOOKS BY
+MONTAGUE GLASS
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+WORRYING WON'T WIN
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK
+[ESTABLISHED 1817]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "he gives himself dead away by getting sore."]
+
+
+
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+
+_by_
+
+MONTAGUE GLASS
+
+_Author of "Worrying Won't Win"_
+
+Harper & Brothers Publishers
+New York and London
+
+
+
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+
+Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers
+Printed in the United States of America
+Published September, 1919
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAP.                                                             PAGE
+
+I.     THEY ARRIVE, AND SO DOES THE PRESIDENT                        1
+
+II.    SETTLING THE PRELIMINARIES                                   15
+
+III.   THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO ENGLAND                             24
+
+IV.    EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING SATISFACTORILY--MAYBE               33
+
+V.     THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE--IT NEEDS PUBLICITY               42
+
+VI.    JOINING THE LEGION OF HONOR                                  52
+
+VII.   SOME CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS FOR THE KAISER            62
+
+VIII.  IT ENTERS ON ITS NO-GOLD-CASKET PHASE                        72
+
+IX.    WORRYING SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME, AIN'T IT?                     82
+
+X.     THE NEW HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY                                   92
+
+XI.    IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME
+       FOR TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGES                                   102
+
+XII.   THIS HERE VICTORY LIBERTY LOAN                              112
+
+XIII.  WHEN IS A SECRET TREATY SECRET?                             122
+
+XIV.   THE FIRST DAY OF MAY                                        132
+
+XV.    THE PEACE TREATY AS GOOD READING                            142
+
+XVI.   THE GERMAN ROMAN HOLIDAY AND THE AMERICANIZATION OF
+       AMERICANS                                                   152
+
+XVII.  MR. WILSON'S FAVOR OF THE 20TH ULTO. AND CONTENTS NOTED     162
+
+XVIII. BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC
+       FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS, AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES       172
+
+XIX.   THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES                                182
+
+XX.    JULY THE FIRST AND AFTER                                    192
+
+XXI.   WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS, ECONOMICALLY AND THEATRICALLY        202
+
+XXII.  THEY DISCUSS THE SIGNING OF IT                              212
+
+XXIII. THE RECENT UNPLEASANTNESS IN TOLEDO, OHIO                   222
+
+XXIV.  FEEDING THE PEACE CONFERENCERS AND THE HOUSEHOLD            232
+
+XXV.   WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS INCLUDES
+       LIBELED MILLIONAIRES, ENFORCED PROHIBITION, AND             241
+       SHANTUNG
+
+XXVI.  THE APPROACHING ROYAL VISIT                                 251
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"HE GIVES HIMSELF DEAD AWAY BY GETTING SORE"            _Frontispiece_
+
+"I WOULDN'T BLAME CHAIRMAN CLEMENCEAU NEITHER,
+ BECAUSE IF THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE IS GOING
+ TO END THIS SIDE OF NINETEEN-FIFTY, IT'S GOT
+ TO BE SPEEDED UP SOME"                            _Facing p._      44
+
+"A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE IS SO BADLY PREDICTED
+ TO THE LAPEL-BUTTON HABIT THEY WOULD JOIN
+ ANYTHING"                                             "            52
+
+"... WHICH WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT MR. WILSON
+ STARTED IN--IN A SMALL WAY"                           "           144
+
+
+
+
+POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THEY ARRIVE, AND SO DOES THE PRESIDENT
+
+
+"_Nu_, what's the matter _now_?" Morris Perlmutter asked, as he entered
+the office one morning after the cessation of hostilities on the western
+front.
+
+"_Ai, tzuris!_" Abe moaned in reply, and for at least a minute he
+continued to rock to and fro in his chair and to make incoherent noises
+through his nostrils in the manner of a person suffering either from
+toothache or the recent cancelation of a large order.
+
+"It serves you right," Morris said. "I told you you shouldn't eat that
+liberty roast at Wasserbauer's yesterday. It used to give you the
+indigestion when it was known as _Koenigsburger Klops_, which it is like
+the German Empire now calling itself the German Republic; changing its
+name ain't going to alter its poisonous disposition none."
+
+"That's right!" Abe said. "Make jokes, why don't you? You are worser as
+this here feller Zero."
+
+"What feller Zero?" Morris demanded.
+
+"Zero the emperor what fiddled when Rome was burning," Abe replied.
+"He's got nothing on you. _You_ would fiddle if Rome, Watertown, and
+Ogdensburg was burning."
+
+"I don't know what you are talking about at all," Morris said. "And,
+besides, the feller's name was Nero, not Zero."
+
+"That's what you say," Abe commented, "which you also said that the
+operators was only bluffing and that they wouldn't strike on us in a
+thousand years, and considering that you said this only yesterday,
+Mawruss, it's already wonderful how time flies."
+
+"Well," Morris said, "how could I figure that them lunatics is going to
+pick out the time when we've got practically no work for them and was
+going to fire them, anyway, to call a strike on us?"
+
+"You should _ought_ to have figured that way," Abe declared. "Didn't the
+Kaiser abdicate just before them Germans got ready to kick him out?"
+
+"The king business ain't the garment business," Morris observed.
+
+"I know it ain't," Abe agreed. "Kings has got their worries, too, but
+when it comes to laying awake nights trying to figure out whether them
+designers somewheres in France is going to turn out long, full skirts or
+short, narrow skirts for the fall and winter of nineteen-nineteen and
+nineteen-twenty, Mawruss, I bet yer the entire collection of kings,
+active or retired, doesn't got to take two grains of trional between
+them."
+
+"If everybody worried like _you_ do, Abe," Morris said, "the government
+would got to issue sleeping-powder cards like sugar cards and limit the
+consumption of sleeping-powders to not more than two pounds of
+sleeping-powders per person per month in each household."
+
+"Well, some one has got to do the worrying around here, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "which if it rested with you, y'understand, we could make up a
+line of samples for next season that wouldn't be no more like Paris
+designs than General Pershing looks like his pictures in the magazines."
+
+"Say, for that matter," Morris said, "we are just as good guessers as
+our competitors; on account the way things is going nowadays, nobody is
+going to try to make a trip to Paris to get fashion designs, because if
+he figured on crossing the ocean to buy model gowns for the fall and
+winter of nineteen-nineteen and nineteen-twenty, y'understand, between
+the time that he applied for his passport and the time the government
+issued it to him, y'understand, it would already be the spring and
+summer season of nineteen-twenty-four and nineteen-twenty-five. So the
+best thing we could do is to snoop round among the trade, and whatever
+we find the majority is making up for next year, we would make up the
+same styles also, and that's all there would be _to_ it."
+
+"We wouldn't do nothing of the kind," Abe declared. "I've been thinking
+this thing over, and I come to the conclusion that it's up to you to go
+over to Paris and see what is going on over there."
+
+"I don't got to go to Paris for that, Abe," Morris said. "I can read the
+papers the same like anybody else, and just so long as there is a chance
+that the war would start up again and them hundred-mile guns is going to
+resume operations, I am content to get my ideas of Paris styles at a
+distance of three thousand miles if I never sold another garment as long
+as I live."
+
+"But when it _was_ working yet, it only went off every twenty minutes,"
+Abe said.
+
+"I don't care if it went off every Fourth of July," Morris said,
+"because if I went over there it would be just my luck that the peace
+nogotiations falls through and the Germans invent a gun leaving
+Frankfort ever hour on the hour and arriving in Paris daily, including
+Sundays, without leaving enough trace of me to file a proof of death
+with. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"All right," Abe said. "If _that's_ the way you feel about it, _I_ will
+go to Paris."
+
+"_You_ will go to Paris?" Morris exclaimed.
+
+"Sure!" Abe declared. "The operators is on strike, business is rotten,
+and I'm sick and tired of paying life-insurance premiums, _anyway_.
+Besides, if Leon Sammet could get a passport, why couldn't I?"
+
+"You mean to say that faker is going to Paris to buy model gowns?"
+Morris demanded.
+
+"I seen him on the Subway this morning, and the way he talked about how
+easy he got his passport, you would think that every time he was in
+Washington with a line of them masquerade costumes which Sammet Brothers
+makes up, if he didn't stop in and take anyhow a bit of lunch with the
+Wilsons, y'understand, the President raises the devil with Tumulty why
+didn't he let him _know_ Leon Sammet was in town."
+
+"Then that settles it," Morris declared, reaching for his hat.
+
+"Where are you going?" Abe asked.
+
+"I am going straight down to see Henry D. Feldman and tell that crook he
+should get for me a passport," Morris said.
+
+"You wouldn't positively do nothing of the kind," Abe said. "Did you
+ever hear the like? Wants to go to a lawyer to get a passport! An idea!"
+
+"Well, who would I go to, then--an osteaopath?" Morris asked.
+
+"Leon Sammet told me all about it," Abe said. "You go down to a place on
+Rector Street where you sign an application, and--"
+
+"That's just what I thought," Morris interrupted, "and the least what
+happens to fellers which signs applications without a lawyer,
+y'understand, is that six months later a truck-driver arrives one
+morning and says where should he leave the set of Washington Irving in
+one hundred and fifty-six volumes or the piano with stool and scarf
+complete, as the case may be. So I am going to see Feldman, and if it
+costs me fifteen or twenty dollars, it's anyhow a satisfaction to know
+that when you do things with the advice of a smart crooked lawyer,
+nobody could put nothing over on you outside of your lawyer."
+
+When Morris returned an hour later, however, instead of an appearance of
+satisfaction, his face bore so melancholy an expression that for a few
+minutes Abe was afraid to question him.
+
+"_Nu!_" he said at last. "I suppose you got turned down for being
+overweight or something?"
+
+"What do you mean--overweight?" Morris demanded. "What do you suppose I
+am applying for--a twenty-year endowment passport or one of them tontine
+passports with cash surrender value after three years?"
+
+"Then what is the matter you look so _rachmonos_?" Abe said.
+
+"How _should_ I look with the kind of partner which I've got it?" Morris
+asked. "Paris models he must got to got. Domestic designs ain't good
+enough for him. Such high-grade idees he's got, and I've got to suffer
+for it yet."
+
+"Well, _don't_ go to Europe. What do _I_ care?" Abe said.
+
+"_We_ must go," Morris replied.
+
+"What do you mean--we?" Abe demanded.
+
+"I mean you and me," Morris said. "Feldman says that just so long as it
+is one operation he would charge the same for getting one passport as
+for getting two, excepting the government fee of two dollars. So what do
+you think--I am going to pay Henry D. Feldman two hundred dollars for
+getting me a passport when for two dollars extra I can get one for you
+also?"
+
+"But who is going to look after the store?" Abe exclaimed.
+
+"Say!" Morris retorted, "you've got relations _enough_ working around
+here, which every time you've hired a fresh one, you've given me this
+blood-is-redder-than-water stuff, and now is your chance to prove it. We
+wouldn't be away longer as six weeks at the outside, so go ahead, Abe.
+Here is the application for the passport. Sign your name on the dotted
+line and don't say no more about it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, three weeks later, as they sat in the
+restaurant of their Paris hotel, "in a country where the coffee pretty
+near strangles you, even when it's got cream and sugar in it,
+y'understand, the cooking has _got_ to be good, because in a
+two-dollar-a-day American plan hotel the management figures that no
+matter how rotten the food is, the guests will say, 'Well, anyhow, the
+coffee was good,' and get by with it _that_ way."
+
+"On the other hand, Abe," Morris suggested, "maybe the French hotel
+people figure that if they only make the coffee bad enough, the guests
+would say, 'Well, one good thing, while the food is terrible, it ain't a
+marker on the coffee.'"
+
+"But the food tastes pretty good to me, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"Wait till you've been here a week, Abe," Morris advised him. "Anything
+would taste good to you after what you went through on that boat."
+
+"What do you mean--after what _I_ went through?" Abe demanded. "What I
+went through don't begin to compare with what you went through, which
+honestly, Mawruss, there was times there on that second day out where
+you acted so terrible, understand me, that rather as witness such human
+suffering again, if any one would of really and truly had your interests
+at heart, they would of give a couple of dollars to a steward that he
+should throw you overboard and make an end of your misery."
+
+"Is _that_ so!" Morris retorted. "Well, let me tell you something, Abe.
+If you think _I_ was in a bad way, don't kid yourself, when you lay
+there in your berth for three days without strength enough to take off
+even your collar and necktie, y'understand, that the captain said to the
+first officer ain't it wonderful what an elegant sailor that Mr. Potash
+is or anything _like_ it, understand me, which on more than one occasion
+when I seen the way you looked, Abe, I couldn't help thinking of what
+chances concerns like the Equ_itta_ble takes when they pass a feller as
+A number one on his heart and kidneys, and ain't tried him out on so
+much as a Staten Island ferry-boat to see what kind of a traveler he
+is."
+
+"Listen, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "did we come over here paying
+first-class fares for practically steerage accommodations to discuss
+life insurance, or did we come over here to buy model garments and get
+through with it, because believe me, it is no pleasure for me to stick
+around a country where you couldn't get no sugar or butter in a hotel,
+not if you was to show the head waiter a doctor's certificate with a
+hundred-dollar bill pinned on it. So let us go round to a few of these
+high-grade dressmakers and see how much we are going to get stuck for,
+and have it over with."
+
+Accordingly, they paid for the coffee and milk without sugar and the
+dark sour rolls without butter which nowadays form the usual hotel
+breakfast in France, and set out for the office of the commission
+agent whose place of business is the rendezvous for American
+garment-manufacturers in search of Parisian model gowns. The broad
+avenues in the vicinity of the hotel seemed unusually crowded even to
+people as accustomed to the congested traffic of lower Fifth Avenue as
+Abe and Morris were, but as they proceeded toward the wholesale district
+of Paris the streets became less and less traveled, until at length they
+walked along practically deserted thoroughfares.
+
+"And we thought business was rotten in America," Morris said. "Why,
+there ain't hardly one store open, hardly."
+
+Abe nodded gloomily.
+
+"It looks to me, Mawruss, that if there is any new garments being
+designed over here," he said, "they would be quiet morning gowns
+appropriate for attending something informal like a sale by a receiver
+in supplementary proceedings, or a more or less elaborate afternoon
+costume, not too showy, y'understand, but the kind of model that a
+fashionable Paris dressmaker could wear to a referee in bankruptcy's
+office so as not to make the attending creditors say she was her own
+best customer, understand me."
+
+"Well, what could you expect?" Morris said, as they toiled up the stairs
+to the commission agent's office. "The chances is that up to a couple of
+months ago, in a Paris dressmaker's shop, a customer arrived only every
+other week, whereas a nine-inch bomb arrived every twenty minutes, and
+furthermore, Abe, it was _you_ that suggested this trip, not _me_, so
+now that we are over here, we should ought to make the best of it, and
+if this here commission agent can't show us no new designs, he could,
+anyhow, show us the sights."
+
+But even this consolation was denied them, for when they reached the
+commission agent's door it was locked and barred, as were all the other
+offices on that floor, and bore a placard reading:
+
+
+        FERME
+
+A CAUSE DU JOUR DE FETE
+
+
+"_Nu!_" Morris said, after he had read and re-read the notice a number
+of times, "what are we going to do _now_?"
+
+"This is the last hair," Abe said, "because you know how it is with
+these Frenchers, if they close for a death in the family, it is liable
+to be a matter of weeks already."
+
+"Maybe it says gone to lunch, will be back in half an hour," Morris
+suggested, hopefully.
+
+"Not a chance," Abe declared. "More likely it means this elegant office
+with every modern improvement except an elevator, steam heat, and
+electric light, to be sublet, because it would be just our luck that the
+commission agent is back in New York right now with a line of brand-new
+model gowns, asking our bookkeeper will either of the bosses be back
+soon."
+
+"We wouldn't get back in ten years, I'll tell you that, unless we
+hustle," Morris declared. He led the way down-stairs to the ground
+floor, where, after a few minutes, they managed to attract the attention
+of the _concierge_, who emerged from her shelter at the foot of the
+stairs and in rapid French explained to Abe and Morris that all Paris
+was celebrating with a public holiday the arrival of President Wilson.
+
+"It's a funny thing about the French language," Morris said, as she
+concluded. "Even if you don't understand what the people mean, you could
+'most always tell what they've been eating, which if the French people
+was limited by law to a ton of garlic a month per person, Abe, this lady
+would go to jail for the rest of her life."
+
+"_Attendez!_" said the _concierge_. "_Au dessus il ya un monsieur qui
+parle anglais._"
+
+She motioned for them to wait and ascended the stairs to the floor
+above, where they heard her knock on an office door. Evidently the
+person who opened it was annoyed by the interruption, for his voice--and
+to Abe and Morris it was a strangely familiar voice--was raised in angry
+protest.
+
+"Now listen," said the tenant, "I told you before that I've only got
+this place temporarily, and as long as I am in here I don't want you to
+do no cleaning nor nothing, because the air is none too good here as it
+is, and furthermore--"
+
+He proceeded no farther, however, for Abe and Morris had taken the
+stairs three at a jump and began to wring his hands effusively upon the
+principle of any port in a storm.
+
+"Well, well, well, if it ain't Leon Sammet!" Abe cried, and his manner
+was as cordial as though, instead of their nearest competitor, Leon were
+Potash & Perlmutter's best customer.
+
+"The English language bounces off of that woman like water from a duck's
+neck," Leon said, "which every five minutes she comes up here and talks
+to me in French high speed with the throttle wide open like a racing-car
+already."
+
+"And the exhaust must be something terrible," Abe said.
+
+"I am nearly frozen from opening the windows to let out her
+conversation," Leon said, "and especially this morning, when I thought I
+could get a lot of letter-writing done without being interrupted, on
+account of the holiday."
+
+"So that's the reason why everything is closed up!" Morris exclaimed.
+
+"But Christmas ain't for pretty near two weeks yet," Abe said.
+
+"What has Christmas got to do with it?" Leon retorted. "To-day is a
+holiday because President Wilson arrives in Paris."
+
+"And you are working here?" Abe cried.
+
+"Why not?" Leon asked.
+
+"You mean to say that President Wilson is arriving in Paris to-day and
+you ain't going to see him come in?" Morris exclaimed. "What for an
+American are you, anyway?"
+
+"Say, for that matter, President Wilson has been arriving in New York
+hundreds of times in the past four years," Leon said, "and I 'ain't
+heard that you boys was on the reception committee exactly."
+
+"That's something else again," Abe said. "In New York we've got business
+_enough_ to do without fooling away our time rubbering at parades, but
+President Wilson only comes to Paris once in a lifetime."
+
+"And some of the people back home is kicking because he comes to Paris
+even _that_ often," Leon commented.
+
+"_Let_ 'em kick," Morris declared, "which the way some Americans runs
+down President Wilson only goes to show that it's an old saying and a
+true one that there is no profit for a man in his own country, so go
+ahead and write your letters if you want to, Leon, but Abe and me is
+going down-town to the Champs Elizas and give the President a couple of
+cheers like patriotic American sitsons should ought to do."
+
+"In especially," Abe added, "as it is a legal holiday and we wouldn't
+look at no model garments to-day."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+SETTLING THE PRELIMINARIES
+
+
+"After all, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, as he sat with his partner,
+Morris Perlmutter, in their hotel room on the night after the
+President's arrival in Paris, "a President is only human, and it seems
+to me that if they would of given him a chance to go quietly to a hotel
+and wash up after the trip, y'understand, it would be a whole lot better
+as meeting him at the railroad depot and starting right in with the
+speeches."
+
+"What do you mean--give him a chance to wash up?" Morris asked. "Don't
+you suppose he had a chance to wash up on the train, or do you think him
+and Mrs. Wilson sat up all night in a day-coach?"
+
+"I don't care if they had a whole section," Abe retorted; "it ain't the
+easiest thing in the world to step off a train in a stovepipe hat, with
+a clean shave, after a twenty-hour trip, even if it would of been one of
+them eighteen-hour limiteds even, and begin right away to get off a lot
+of _schmooes_ about he don't know how to express the surprise and
+gratification he feels at such an enthusiastic reception, in especially
+as he probably lay awake half the night trying to memorize the bigger
+part of the speech following the words, 'and now, gentlemen, I wouldn't
+delay you no longer.' So that's why I say if they would have let him go
+to his hotel first, y'understand, why, then he--"
+
+"But Mr. and Mrs. Wilson ain't putting up at no hotel. They are staying
+with a family by the name of Murat," Morris explained.
+
+"Relations to the Wilsons maybe?" Abe inquired.
+
+"Not that I heard tell of," Morris replied.
+
+"Well, whoever they are they've got my sympathy," Abe said; "because
+once, when the Independent Order Mattai Aaron held its annual Grand
+Lodge meeting in New York, me and Rosie put up the Grand Master, by the
+name Louis M. Koppelman, used to was Koppelman & Fine, the Fashion
+Store, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and the way that feller turned the house
+upside down, if he would have stayed another week with us, understand
+me, I would have hired a first-class A number one criminal lawyer to
+defend me and wired the relations for instructions as to how to ship the
+body home."
+
+"I bet yer the Murats feel honored to got Mr. and Mrs. Wilson staying
+with them," Morris said.
+
+"For the first few days maybe," Abe admitted, "but wait till a couple
+weeks go by! I give them until January 1, 1919, and after that Mr. and
+Mrs. Murat would be signaling each other to come up-stairs into the
+maid's room and be holding a few ain't-them-people-got-no-home
+conversations. Also, Mawruss, for the rest of their married life,
+Mawruss, every time the tropic of who invited them in the FIRST place
+comes up at meal-times, y'understand, either Mr. or Mrs. Murat is going
+to get up from the table and lock themselves up in the bedroom for the
+remainder of the evening. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"I wouldn't argue with you," Morris said, "because if I would give you
+the slightest encouragement you are liable to go to work and figure
+where Mrs. Murat is kicking to Mr. Murat that she couldn't make out with
+the housekeeping money while the Wilsons is in Paris, on account of
+having to buy an extra bottle of Grade B milk every day, or something
+like that, which you talk like Mr. and Mrs. Wilson was in Paris on a
+couple of weeks' vacation, whereas the President has come here to settle
+the peace of the world."
+
+"Did I say he didn't?" Abe protested.
+
+"And while you are sitting here talking a lot of nonsense," Morris went
+on, "big things is happening, which with all the questions he has got to
+think about, I bet yer the President _oser_ worries his head about a
+little affair like board and lodging. Also I read in one of them Paris
+editions of an American paper that there come over to France on the same
+steamer with him over three hundred experts--college professors and the
+like--and them fellers is now staying in Paris at various hotels, which,
+if that don't justify Mr. Wilson in putting up with a private family,
+y'understand, I don't know what does!"
+
+"I thought at the time I read about them experts coming over to help
+the President in the Peace Conference that he was letting himself in for
+something," Abe observed.
+
+"I bet yer!" Morris said. "And that's where Colonel House was wise when
+he comes over on a steamer ahead of them, because it is bad enough when
+you are crossing the ocean in winter-time to be President of the United
+States and to have to try not to act otherwise, without having three
+hundred experts dogging your footsteps and thinking up ways to start a
+conversation and swing it towards the subject they are experts in. Which
+I bet yer every time the President tried to get a little exercise by
+walking around the promenade deck after lunch there was an expert on
+Jugo-Slobs laying for him who was all worked up to tell everything he
+knew about Jugo-Slobs in a couple of laps, provided the President lasted
+that long."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "a man which employs experts to ask
+advice from deserves all he gets, Mawruss, because you know how it is
+when you ask an advice from somebody which don't know a thing in the
+world about what he is advising you. He'll talk you deaf, dumb, and
+blind, anyhow. So you can imagine what it must be like when you are
+getting advice from an expert!"
+
+"It seems to me that before the President gets through he will be
+looking around for an expert which is expert in choking off advice from
+experts, otherwise the first time the President consults one of them
+experts, if he's going to wait for the expert to get through, he will
+have to be elected to a third term and then maybe hold over, at that,"
+Morris commented.
+
+"I should think the President would be glad when this Peace Conference
+is over," Abe said.
+
+"Say! For that matter he'll be glad when it's started," Morris said.
+"Which the way it looks now, Abe, the preliminaries of a peace
+conference is harder on a President in the way of speeches and parades
+than two Liberty Loan campaigns and an inauguration. Take, for instance,
+the matter of dinners, and I bet yer before he even goes to London next
+week he would have six meals with the President of France alone--I can't
+remember his name."
+
+"Call him Lefkowitz," Abe said, "I'll know who you mean."
+
+"Well, whatever it is, he looks like a hearty eater, Abe," Morris
+remarked.
+
+"In fact, Mawruss, from what I seen of them French politicians in the
+parade this morning," Abe observed, "none of them looked like they went
+slow on starchy foods and red meats, whereas take the American Peace
+Commissioners, from the President down, and while they don't all of them
+give you the impression that they eat breakfast food for dinner exactly,
+still at the same time if these here peace preliminaries is going to
+include more dinners than parades, the French Commissioners has got them
+under a big handicap."
+
+"Maybe you're right," Morris agreed. "But my idee is that with these
+here preliminary peace dinners it ain't such a bad thing for us if our
+Peace Commissioners wouldn't be such hearty eaters, y'understand,
+because you know how it is when we've got a hard-boiled egg come into
+the place to look over our line, it's a whole lot better to get an idee
+of about how much he expects to buy after lunch than before, in
+especially if we pay for the lunch. So if this here President Lefkowitz,
+or whatever the feller's name is, expects to fill up the President with
+a big meal of them French _a la_ dishes until Mr. Wilson gets so
+good-natured that he is willing to tell not only his life history, but
+also just exactly what he means by a League of Nations, y'understand,
+the dinner might just as well start and end with two poached eggs on
+toast, for all the good it will do."
+
+"Still, it ain't a bad idee to have all these dinners over and done with
+before the business of the Peace Conference begins, Mawruss," Abe
+remarked, "because hafterwards, when Mr. Wilson's attitude on some of
+them fourteen propositions for peace becomes known, y'understand, it
+ain't going to be too pleasant for Mrs. Wilson to be sitting by the side
+of her husband and watch the looks of some of the guests sitting
+opposite during the fish course, for instance, not wishing him no harm,
+but waiting for a good-sized bone to lodge sideways in his throat, or
+something."
+
+"She is used to that from home already, whenever she has a few
+Republican Senators to dinner at the White House," Morris said. "But
+that ain't here nor there, anyhow, because after the Peace Conference
+begins the President will be so busy, y'understand, that sending out one
+of the Assistant Secretaries of State to a Busy Bee lunch-room to bring
+him a couple of sandwiches and some coffee will be the nearest to a
+formal dinner that the President will come to for many a day. Take, for
+instance, the proposition of the Freedom of the Seas, and there's a
+whole lot to be said on both sides by people like yourself which don't
+know one side from the other."
+
+"And I don't want to know, neither," Abe said, "because it wouldn't make
+no difference to me how free the seas was made, once I get back on terra
+cotta, Mawruss; they could not only make the seas free, y'understand,
+but they could also offer big bonuses in addition, and I wouldn't leave
+America again not if they was to give me a life pass good on the
+_Olympic_ or _Aquitania_ with meals included."
+
+"So your idea is that the freedom of the seas means traveling for
+nothing on ocean steamers?" Morris commented.
+
+"Say!" Abe retorted, "why should I bother my head what such things mean
+when I got for a partner a feller which really by rights belongs down at
+the Peace headquarters, along with them other big experts?"
+
+"I never claimed to be an expert, but at the same time, I ain't an
+ignerammus, neither, which even before I left New York, I knew all
+about this here Freedom of the Seas," Morris said, "which the day
+before we sailed I was talking to Henry Binder, of Binder & Baum, and he
+says to me--"
+
+"Excuse me, but what does Binder & Baum know about the Freedom of the
+Seas?" Abe demanded. "They are in the wholesale pants business, ain't
+it?"
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris continued, "and Paderewski is a piano-player, and
+at the same time he went over to Poland to organize the new Polish
+Republic."
+
+"And the result will be that when the new Polish Republic gets started
+under the direction of this here piano-player," Abe said, "and they get
+a new Polish National Anthem, it will be an expert piano-player's idea
+of something which is easy to play, and the consequence is that until
+the next Polish revolution, every time a band plays the Polish National
+Anthem, them poor Polacks would got to stand up for from forty-five
+minutes to an hour while the band struggles to get through with what it
+would have taken Paderewski three minutes at the outside."
+
+"Henry Binder is a college graduate even if he would be in the pants
+business," Morris said, "and he said to me: 'Perlmutter,' he said, 'the
+Freedom of the Seas is like this,' he says. 'You take a country like
+Norway and it stands in the same relation to the big naval powers like
+we would to the other big manufacturers. Now, for instance,' he says,
+'last year we did a business of over two million dollars, and--'"
+
+Abe raised his right hand like a traffic policeman.
+
+"Stop right there, Mawruss," he said, "because if the Freedom of the
+Seas is anything like Binder & Baum doing a business of two million
+dollars last year, I don't believe a word of it, which it wouldn't make
+no difference if Henry Binder was talking about the Freedom of the Seas
+or astronomy, sooner or later he is bound to ring in the large amount of
+goods he is selling, and, anyway, no matter what Henry Binder tells you,
+you must got to reckon ninety-eight per cent. discount before you could
+believe a word he says."
+
+"And do you suppose for one moment that the members of the Peace
+Conference is going to act any different from Henry Binder in that
+respect?" Morris asked. "Every one of the representatives of the
+countries engaged in this here Peace Conference is coming to France with
+a statement of the very least they would accept, and it is pretty
+generally understood that all such statements are subject to a very
+stiff discount, which that is what these here preliminaries is for,
+Abe--to get a line on the discounts before the Peace Conference
+discusses the claims themselves."
+
+"Well, when it comes to the Allies scrapping between themselves about
+League of Nations and Freedoms of Seas, I am content that they should be
+allowed a liberal discount on what they say for what they mean, Mawruss,
+but when it comes to Germany," he concluded, "she's got to pay, and pay
+in full, net cash, and then some."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO ENGLAND
+
+
+"The alphabet ain't what it used to be before the war, Mawruss," Abe
+said, as he read the paper at breakfast in his Paris hotel shortly after
+President Wilson's visit to England. "Former times if a feller
+understood C. O. D. and N. G., y'understand, he could read the papers
+and get sense out of it the same like he would be a college gradgwate,
+already; but nowadays when you pick up a morning paper and read that
+Colonel Harris Lefkowitz, we would say, for example, A. D. C. to the C.
+O. at G. H. Q. of the A. E. F., has been decorated with the D. S. O.,
+you feel that the only way to get a line on what is going on in the
+world is to get posted on this--now--algebry which ambitious young
+shipping-clerks gets fired for studying during office hours."
+
+"Well, if you get mixed up by these here letters, think what it must be
+like for President Wilson to suddenly get one of them English statesmen
+sprung on him by--we would say--the King--where the King says: 'Mr.
+President, shake hands with the Rutt Hon. Duke of Cholomondley,
+K.C.M.G., R.V.O., K.C.B., F.P.A., G.S.I., and sometimes W. and Y.'"
+Morris said, "in especially as I understand Cholomondley is pronounced
+as if written Rabinowitz."
+
+"It would anyhow give the President a tropic for conversation such as
+ain't it the limit what you got to pay to get visiting-cards engraved
+nowadays, which it really and truly must cost the English aristocracy a
+fortune for such things," Abe said, "in particularly if the daughter of
+such a feller gets married with engraved invitations, Mawruss, after he
+had paid the stationery bill, y'understand, he wouldn't got nothing left
+for her dowry."
+
+"Well, I guess the President wasn't in no danger of running out of
+tropics of conversation while he was in England, Abe," Morris said,
+"which during all the spare time Mr. Wilson had on his trip he did
+nothing but hold conversations with Mr. Balfour, and this here Lord
+George, and you could take it from me, Abe, there wasn't many pauses to
+be filled up by Mr. Wilson saying ain't it a funny weather we are having
+nowadays, or something like that."
+
+"How do you know?" Abe asked. "Was you there?"
+
+"I wasn't there," Morris said, "but last night I was speaking in the
+lobby of the hotel to one of them newspaper reporters which made the
+trip with the President, and after I had given the young feller one of
+the cigars we brought with us from New York he got quite friendly and
+told me all about it. It seems, Abe, that the visit was a wonderful
+success, in particular the first day Mr. Wilson was in England. The
+weather was one of the finest days they had in winter over in England
+for years already. Only six inches of rain, and the passage across the
+English Channel was so smooth for this time of the year that less than
+eighty per cent. of the passengers was ill as against the normal
+percentage of 99.31416. As Mr. Wilson had requested that no fuss should
+be made over his visit, things was kept down as much as possible, so
+that, on leaving Calais, the President's boat was escorted by only ten
+torpedo-boat destroyers, a couple battle-ships, three cruisers, and
+eight-twelfths of a dozen assorted submarines. There was also a simple
+and informal escort of about fifty airy-oplanes, the six dirigible
+balloons having been cut out of the program in accordance from the
+President's wishes. However, Abe, all this simplicity was nothing
+compared to the way they acted when the President arrived at Dover.
+There the arrangements was what you might expect when the President of a
+plain, democratic people visits the country of another plain, democratic
+people, Abe. The only people there to meet them was about twenty or
+thirty dukes, a few field-marshals, three regiments of soldiers,
+including the bands, and somebody which the newspaper reporter says he
+at first took for Caruso in the second act of 'Aida' and afterwards
+proved to be the mayor of Dover in his official costume.
+
+"The ceremony of welcoming Mr. and Mrs. Wilson to the shores of England
+was very short, the whole thing being practically over in two hours and
+thirty minutes," Morris continued. "It consisted of either the firing of
+a Presidential salute of twenty-one guns or the playing of the American
+National Anthem by the massed bands of three regiments, the reporter
+says he couldn't tell which, on account he stood behind one of the
+drums. Later the President made a short speech, in which he said: 'May I
+not say how glad I am to land in Dover,' or something to that effect."
+
+"And after that boat-ride from France he would have said so if it had
+been Barren Island, or any other place-just so long as it was free from
+earthquakes and didn't roll none," Abe agreed. "Also, Mawruss," he
+continued, "some day the President is going to begin a speech with, 'May
+I not,' and the chairman of the meeting will take him at his word and
+put it to a standing vote, and it is going to surprise the President how
+few people is going to remain seated on the proposition of whether or
+not he shall continue to begin letters and speeches with, 'May I not.'"
+
+"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "When we get by mail a cancelation and answer
+it, 'Dear Gents, Your favor received,' does that mean we think the
+customer is doing us a favor by canceling an order on us? _Oser a
+Stuck._ And in the same way, when Mr. Wilson says, 'May I not?' nobody
+fools themselves for a minute that the President is asking permission.
+That's just a habit us and him got into, Abe, and in fact, Abe, Mr.
+Wilson's 'May-I-nots' have always meant that not only was he going to
+say what he intended to say, but that he was also going to do it, too.
+So, therefore, you take the speech he made at the Gelthall in London,
+and--"
+
+"But as I understand your story, Mawruss, he only just arrived in
+Dover," Abe said, "so go ahead with your lies, and tell me what happened
+next."
+
+"Well," Morris went on to say, "after the mayor of Dover had presented
+Mr. Wilson with the Freedom of the City in a gold casket--"
+
+"Excuse me, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "but what is this here Freedom of
+the City that mayors is all the time presenting to Mr. Wilson?"
+
+"I don't know," Morris replied, "except that seemingly a Freedom of the
+City always comes in a gold casket."
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe said, "but what does Mr. Wilson gain by all these
+here Freedoms of Cities?"
+
+"Gold caskets," Morris replied, "although I think myself that some of
+these mayors ain't above getting by with a gold-plated silver casket, or
+even a rolled-gold casket, relying on the fact that Mr. Wilson is too
+much of a gentleman to get an appraisal, anyhow till he returns to
+America."
+
+"Well, if I would be Mr. Wilson, I wouldn't take it so particular to act
+too gentlemanly to them mayors," Abe commented, "because I see in the
+papers that when the mayor of London presented him with the Freedom of
+the City, Mr. Wilson got the Freedom part, but he was told that the
+gold casket was in preparation, which I admit that I don't know nothing
+about this here mayor of London, but you know how it is when a customer
+gets married, Mawruss, and we put off sending him a wedding present till
+we could get round to it, y'understand, which we are all human, Mawruss,
+and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if six months from now the
+mayor of London would be going round saying, 'Why should we give that
+feller a gold casket--am I right or wrong?'--and let the whole
+gold-casket thing die a natural death."
+
+"They'll probably come across with it after a few how-about-casket
+cables, and, anyhow, if they didn't, Abe, the English people certainly
+done enough for Mr. Wilson," Morris continued, "because that newspaper
+reporter told me that the reception which Mr. Wilson got in London was
+something enormous, y'understand. The King and Queen was waiting to meet
+him and the station platform was covered with a red-velvet pile carpet
+which was so thick, understand me, that they 'ain't been able as yet to
+locate a couple of suit-cases which was carelessly put down by the Rutt
+Hon. the Duke of Warrington, K.G.Y., Y.M.H.A., First Lord Red Cap in
+Waiting, and sunk completely out of sight while he helped a couple of
+Assistant Red Caps in Waiting, also dukes, load the Presidential
+wardrobe trunks on the Royal Baggage Transfer truck."
+
+"What do you mean--also dukes?" Abe demanded. "Do you mean to say that
+the Red Caps which hustles the King's baggage is dukes?"
+
+"At the very least," Morris declared, "because the Master of the Royal
+Fox-hounds is an earl, Abe, and I leave it to you, Abe, if handling
+baggage ain't a better job than feeding dogs. Also, Abe, there is Lords
+in Waiting and Ladies in Waiting, and it wouldn't surprise me in the
+slightest if during their stay in Buckingham Palace some of the members
+of Mr. Wilson's party which ain't been tipped off have telephoned down
+to the office for towels and kept the Marquis of Hendersonville, Lanes
+County, England, Knight Commander of the Bath, waiting at the bedroom
+door ten minutes, while they went through all their clothes trying to
+find something smaller than a quarter to slip him."
+
+"And do you believe for one moment, Mawruss--if there was a Marquis of
+Hendersonville, which I never heard of such a person, Mawruss--and he
+did happen to be Knight Commander of the Bath, y'understand, that he is
+actually handing out soap and towels in the King of England's palace?"
+Abe inquired.
+
+"Certainly I don't believe it," Morris replied, "and I also don't
+believe that calling anybody Right Honorable is going to make him any
+more right than he is honorable, unless, of course, he is honorable to
+start with and really and truly wants to be right, y'understand. And
+that is what Mr. Wilson went to England to find out, Abe, because it
+ain't going to affect the Peace Conference one way or the other if the
+Master of the Royal Fox-hounds don't know a dawg-biscuit from a
+gingersnap, y'understand, whereas if this here war is going to be
+settled once and for all, Abe, it's quite important that the Right
+Honorable English statesmen should have right and honorable intentions."
+
+"And did Mr. Wilson find out?" Abe asked.
+
+"Sure he did," Morris said, "although from what this here newspaper
+reporter tells me, Abe, there was a whole lot of lost motion about the
+investigation. Take, for instance, the attitude of Mr. Lord George on
+the Freedom of the Seas, for instance, and you would think that in the
+case of a busy man like Mr. Wilson, y'understand, he would of rung him
+up on the telephone, made an appointment for luncheon the next morning,
+and by half past one at the outside they would have got the matter in
+such shape that the only point not settled between 'em would be a
+friendly quarrel as to see who should pay for the eats, y'understand.
+Actually, however, the arrangements for having Mr. Wilson get into touch
+with Lord George was conducted by the Comptroller of the Royal
+Household, and the line of march was down Piccadilly as far as
+Forty-second Street, over to Hyde Park, and by way of Hyde Park west to
+Eighth Avenue to Mr. Lord George's office in the London & Liverpool
+Title Guarantee and Trust Company Building. The order of procession was
+as follows:
+
+"Twelve mounted policemen.
+
+"The band of the King's Own Sixty-ninth Regiment.
+
+"Typographical Union No. 6, Allied Printing Trades Council of Great
+Britain and Ireland.
+
+"William J. Mustard Association, Drum and Fife Corps.
+
+"Household Guards.
+
+"First carriage--Mr. Wilson and the King.
+
+"Second carriage--Mrs. Wilson and the Queen.
+
+"Third carriage--Mr. George Creel.
+
+"Fourth carriage--Master of the Royal Fox-hounds, Master of the Royal
+Buck-hounds, Master of the Royal Stag-hounds, two Masters of Assorted
+hounds.
+
+"Six Motor-cycle Policemen.
+
+"The Stock Exchange closed, and promissory notes falling due on that
+date became automatically payable on the following day. Admission to the
+reviewing-stand was by card, some of which found their way into the
+hands of the speculators, and will shortly be the subject of a John Doe
+investigation by the district attorney of Middlesex County, so the
+newspaper feller told me."
+
+"But what is this here Lord George's attitude towards the Freedom of the
+Seas, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"That the newspaper feller didn't know," Morris said.
+
+"Well, who does know?" Abe insisted.
+
+"Lord George," Morris replied.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING SATISFACTORILY--MAYBE
+
+
+"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said to his partner, Abe Potash, a few
+days after Mr. Wilson's return from his visit to Italy, "up to a short
+time ago hardly anybody in America had ever even heard about Italy's
+claims to the Dalmatian territory."
+
+"Naturally!" Abe replied; "because if there is six people in the whole
+United States which is engaged in the business of selling spotted dogs
+to fire-engine houses, Mawruss, that would be big already."
+
+Morris threw up both hands in a gesture of despair. "What is the use
+talking foreign politics to a feller which thinks that Italy's claims to
+the Dalmatian territory means she wants the exclusive right to make New
+York, Cleveland, Chicago, and St. Louis with a line of spotted dogs for
+fire-engine companies!" he exclaimed.
+
+"And I wouldn't even have known that it meant that much," Abe retorted,
+entirely unabashed, "excepting that six months ago my wife's sister's
+cousin wanted me I should advance her a hundred dollars to pay a lawyer
+he should bring suit against the city for her on account she got bitten
+by one of them fire-house Dalmatians, Mawruss, which up to that time I
+always had an idea they was splashed-up white dogs. So go ahead,
+Mawruss, I'll be the goat. What is Italy's claims to the Dalmatian
+territory?"
+
+"Well, in the first place, Italy thinks she should be awarded all them
+towns where a majority of the people which lives in them speaks
+Italian," Morris said; "like Fiume, Spalato, Ragusa--"
+
+"Also New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, and The Bronx," Abe added; "and if she
+wants to get nasty, Mawruss, she could claim all the territory east of
+Third Avenue, from Ninetieth Street up to the Harlem River, too.
+Furthermore, Mawruss, there is neighborhoods south of Washington Square
+where not only the majority of the people speaks Italian, but the
+minority speaks it also. So you see how complicated things becomes when
+a new beginner like me starts in to talk foreign politics."
+
+"For that matter, all us Americans is new beginners on foreign politics,
+from Mr. Wilson down, Abe," Morris said. "And that is why Mr. Wilson
+done a wise thing when he visited Italy the other day, and took a lot of
+American newspaper fellers with him, because, between you and me, Abe,
+it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some of them reporters went down
+there under the impression that the only thing which distinguished
+Ragusa from Ravioli or Spalato from Spaghetti was the difference in the
+shape of the noodles, but that otherwise they was cooked the same, with
+chicken livers and tomato sauce, which you know how it is in America:
+ninety per cent. of the people gets their education from reading in
+newspapers, and the consequence is that if the American newspaper
+reporters has a sort of hazy idea that Sonnino is either an item on the
+bill of fare, to be passed up on account of having garlic in it, or else
+a tenor which the Metropolitan Opera House ain't given a contract to as
+yet, y'understand, then the American public has got the same sort of
+hazy idea. So Mr. Wilson done the right thing traveling to Italy, even
+if he did have an uncomfortable journey."
+
+"What do you mean--an uncomfortable journey?" Abe demanded. "Why, I
+understand he traveled on the King of Italy's royal train!"
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but when a king is sleeping on a royal
+train in Europe, Abe, he can be pretty near as comfortable as a
+traveling-salesman sitting up all night on a day-coach in America, and
+if he spends two nights on such a royal train, the way President Wilson
+did in going from Paris to Rome, which is about as far as from New York
+to Chicago, y'understand, it wouldn't make no difference how many people
+is waiting at the station to holler 'Long live the King!' understand me,
+he is going to feel half dead, anyway."
+
+"And yet there is people which claims that Mr. Wilson don't give a whoop
+whether he makes himself popular or not," Abe commented, "which before
+I could lay awake two nights on a train, I wouldn't care if every
+newspaper reporter in the United States never got no nearer to Italy
+than a fifty-cent _table d'hote_, including wine."
+
+"Maybe you would care if you was going to Italy to make speeches the way
+Mr. Wilson did," Morris said. "Which if the King of Italy was to go to
+America and make speeches in Italian at the Capitol in Washington, it
+would be just as well if he would bring along an audience of a few dozen
+Italians with him, and not depend on enough barbers, shoe-blacks, and
+vegetable-stand keepers horning in on the proceedings to give the
+Congressmen and Senators a hint as to where the applause should come in.
+In fact, I was speaking to one of them newspaper fellers which went to
+Italy, Abe, and he says that he listened carefully to all the speeches
+which was made in Italian, Mawruss, and that once he thought he heard
+the word Chianti mentioned, but he couldn't say for certain. He told me,
+however, that the correspondent of _The New York Evening Post_ also
+claims that he heard Orlando, the Prime Minister, in a speech delivered
+in Rome, use the words Il Trovatore, but that otherwise the whole thing
+was like having the misfortune to see somebody give an imitation of
+Eddie Foy when you've escaped seeing Eddie Foy in the first place, so
+you can imagine what chance Mr. Wilson would have stood with them
+Italians if the American correspondents hadn't been along to start the
+cries of 'Bravo!' in the right spot.
+
+"So you see, Abe, it's a good thing for them newspaper men to see what
+kind of people the Italians is in their own country," Morris continued,
+"because if this here League of Nations idea is going to be put over by
+Mr. Wilson, Americans should ought to know from the start that Italy is
+a Big League nation and its batting average in this war is just as good
+as the other Big League nations."
+
+"Did any one say it wasn't?" Abe demanded.
+
+"I know they didn't," Morris said. "But just the same, Abe, there's a
+whole lot of people in America which judges the Italians by the way they
+behave in the ice business and 'Cavalleria Rusticana,' and also a feller
+can get a very unfavorable opinion of Italians by being shaved in one of
+them ten-cent palace barber shops, understand me, so even if them
+newspaper men couldn't appreciate the performance without a libretto,
+y'understand, they could anyhow see for themselves that the Italians in
+Italy is doctors and lawyers, clothing-dealers and bankers, just the
+same like the Americans are in America, and if they can pass the word
+back home, with a few details of how it feels to be a foreigner in a
+foreign country, that wouldn't do no harm, neither."
+
+"That is something which an American newspaper correspondent wouldn't
+touch on at all," Abe said, "because I bet that every last one of them
+has already sent back to America an article about this trip to Italy,
+which, when the readers of his newspaper looks at it, Mawruss, not only
+would they think that he understood Sonnino's speech from start to
+finish, y'understand, but also that every time the newspaper feller is
+in Rome, which the article would lead one to believe has been on an
+average of once a week for the past ten years, Mawruss, him and Sonnino
+drink coffee together."
+
+"Ain't he taking a big chance when he writes a thing like that?" Morris
+commented.
+
+"Yow! A chance!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, to read the things that a few of
+these here Washington correspondents used to write when they was in
+America yet, you would think every one of them was pestered to death
+with telephone messages from the White House where Mr. Tumulty says if
+the newspaper feller has got a little spare time that evening the
+President would consider it a big favor if he would step around to the
+White House, as Mr. Wilson would like to ask him an advice about a
+diplomatic note which has just been received from Lord George in regards
+to the Freedom of the Seas or something."
+
+"But don't you suppose the newspaper which a nervy individual like that
+is working for would fire him on the spot?" Morris observed.
+
+"Not at all," Abe said, "because the newspaper-owner likes people to get
+the idea that the newspaper has got such an important feller for a
+Washington correspondent, just as much as the correspondent does
+himself, Mawruss, so you can imagine the bluff some of them fellers is
+going to throw now that they really got something interesting to write
+about like this here Peace Conference. If Mr. Wilson gains all his
+fourteen points, y'understand, the special Paris correspondent of the
+Bridgetown, Pa., _Daily Register_ is going to write home, 'And he could
+have gained fifteen if he would only have listened to me.' Also,
+Mawruss, during the next three months, if the Peace Conference lasts
+that long, the readers of the Cyprus, N. J., _Evening Chronicle_ is
+going to get the idea that President Wilson, Clemenceau, Lord George,
+and a feller by the name of Delos M. Jones, who is writing Peace
+Conference articles for the Cyprus, N. J., _Evening Chronicle_, are in
+secret conference together every day, including Sundays, from 10 A.M. to
+midnight, fixing up the boundaries between Rumania and Servia."
+
+"Well, them boys has got to produce something to make their bosses back
+in America continue paying salary and traveling expenses," Morris said,
+"because from what this here newspaper correspondent tells me, if he
+didn't get his imagination working, all he could write for his paper
+would be descriptions of Paris scenery, including the outside of the
+buildings where on the insides, with the doors locked and the curtains
+pulled, Mr. Wilson and the American Peace Commissioners is openly and
+notoriously carrying on open and notorious peace conversations with the
+other allied Peace Commissioners, and for all the newspaper
+correspondents know to the contrary, Abe, the only point on which them
+Peace Commission fellers ain't breaking up the furniture over is that
+when they come out, y'understand, it is agreed that the newspaper
+correspondents will be told that everything is proceeding
+satisfactorily."
+
+"But I thought Mr. Wilson promised before he left America that the old
+secret diplomacy would be a thing of the past," Abe said.
+
+"So he did," Morris agreed, "and by what I gather from this here
+newspaper man he kept his promise, too, and we now have got a new
+diplomacy, compared to which the fellers who were working under the
+rules of the old secret diplomacy bladded everything they knew."
+
+"But I distinctly read it in the papers the other day that every morning
+at half past ten, Mawruss, Mr. Lansing meets the newspaper
+correspondents and lets them know what's been going on," Abe said.
+
+"He meets them," Morris replied, "but so far as letting them know what
+has been going on is concerned, all he says that everything is
+proceeding satisfactorily and is there any gentleman there which would
+like to ask him any questions, which naturally any newspaper
+correspondent who could ask Mr. Lansing such questions as would make Mr.
+Lansing give out any information he didn't want to give out, wouldn't be
+wasting his time working as a newspaper correspondent, Abe, but would be
+considering offers from the law firm of Hughes, Brandeis, Stanchfield,
+Hughes & Stanchfield to come in as a full partner and take exclusive
+charge of the cross-examination of busted railroad presidents."
+
+"Maybe the reason why Mr. Lansing don't tell them newspaper
+correspondents nothing is that he ain't got nothing to tell them," Abe
+suggested.
+
+"Well, then, if I would be him, Abe, I would make up something," Morris
+said, "because if he don't they will, or anyhow some of them will, and
+there is going to be a lot of stuff printed in American papers where the
+correspondent says he learns from high authority that things ain't going
+so good in the Peace Conference as Mr. Wilson would like, because Mr.
+Wilson is the doctor in the case, and you know how it is when somebody
+is too sick to be seen and the doctor is worried, Abe, he sends down
+word by the nurse that everything is proceeding satisfactorily, and the
+visitor goes away trying to remember did he or did he not throw away
+that fifty-cent black four-in-hand tie he wore to the last funeral he
+went to."
+
+"I got a whole lot of confidence in Mr. Wilson as the doctor for this
+here war-sickness which Europe is suffering from, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"So have I," Morris said: "but you've got to remember that there's a
+whole lot of those doctors on the case, Abe--some of them quack doctors,
+too, and, when the doctors disagree, who is to decide?"
+
+"I don't know," Abe said; "but I think I know who would like to."
+
+"Who?" Morris asked.
+
+"Some of these here Washington newspaper correspondents you was talking
+about," Abe concluded.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE--IT NEEDS PUBLICITY
+
+
+"Well, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, as he and his partner, Morris
+Perlmutter, sat at breakfast in their Paris hotel one Sunday morning, "I
+see that the Peace Conference had a meeting the other day where it was
+regularly moved and seconded that there should be a League of Nations,
+and, in spite of what them Republican Senators back home predicted,
+Mawruss, when Chairman Clemenceau said, 'Contrary minded,' you could of
+heard a pin drop."
+
+"Sure you could," Morris Perlmutter agreed, "because the way this here
+Peace Conference is being run, Abe, when Mr. Clemenceau says: 'All those
+in favor would please say _Aye_,' he ain't _asking_ them, he's TELLING
+them, which I was speaking to the newspaper feller last night, Abe, and
+he says that, compared to the delegates at this here Peace Convention,
+y'understand, the delegates of a New York County Democratic Convention
+are free to act as they please. In fact, Abe, as I understand it, at the
+sewed-up political conventions which they hold it in America, the bosses
+do occasionally let a delegate get up and say a few words which ain't
+on the program exactly, but at this here Peace Convention a delegate who
+tries to get off a speech which 'ain't first been submitted in writing
+ten days in advance should ought to go into training for it by picking
+quarrels with waiters in all-night restaurants.
+
+"Take this here meeting which they held it on Saturday, Abe," Morris
+continued, "and it was terrible the way Chairman Clemenceau jumps, for
+instance, on a feller from Belgium by the name M. Hyman."
+
+"That ain't the same M. Hyman which used to was M. Hyman & Co. in the
+coat-pad business?" Abe inquired.
+
+"This here M. Hyman used to was a Belgium minister in London," Morris
+went on, "which he got up and objected to the way the five big
+nations--America, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan--was, so to
+speak, hogging the convention."
+
+"Well, I think the Reverend Hyman was right, at that," Abe said, "which
+I just finished reading Mr. Wilson's speech at that meeting, Mawruss, in
+which he said that no longer should the select classes govern the rest
+of mankind, y'understand, and after the American, French, British,
+Italian, and Japanese delegates gets through applauding what Mr. Wilson
+says, they select themselves to run the rest of the nations in the
+League of Nations. Naturally an ex-minister like the Reverend Hyman is
+going to say, 'Why don't you practise what you preach?'"
+
+"And if he wouldn't of been an ex-minister, Abe," Morris said, "the
+chances is that Chairman Clemenceau would of whispered a few words into
+the cauliflower ear of one of the sergeants-at-arms, and when the
+session closed, y'understand, the hat-check boy would have had one hat
+left over with the initials M. H. in it which Mr. Hyman didn't have time
+to claim before he hit the car tracks, y'understand, and I wouldn't
+blame Chairman Clemenceau, neither, because, if this here Peace
+Conference is going to end this side of nineteen-fifty, it's got to be
+speeded up some."
+
+[Illustration: "I wouldn't blame Chairman Clemenceau neither, because if
+this here Peace Conference is going to end this side of nineteen fifty,
+it's got to be speeded up some."]
+
+"Nobody says it 'ain't," Abe agreed, "but this here M. Hyman is a
+Belgium and he's got a right to be heard."
+
+"He _would_ have if everybody didn't admit that Belgium shall be
+protected in every which way, Abe," Morris agreed, "but there is also a
+lot of small nations which has got delegates at the Peace Convention,
+like Cuba, y'understand, and some of them South American republics, and,
+once you begin with them fellers, where are you going to leave off?
+Take, for instance, the Committee on Reparation, which has got charge of
+deciding how much money Germany ought to pay for losses suffered by the
+countries which made war on her, y'understand, and there wasn't one of
+them Spanish-American republics which didn't want to get appointed on
+that committee, because, when the Reparation Committee gets to work,
+practically all of them republics is going to come along with claims
+for smoke damages, bills for labor in connection with ripping out the
+fixtures of confiscated German steamers, loss of services of the
+Presidents of such republics by reason of tonsillitis from talking about
+how bravely they would have fought if they had raised an army and navy
+which they didn't, y'understand, and any other claims against Germany
+which they think they might have had a chance to get by with."
+
+"Well, of course there is bound to be a lot of them small republics
+which is going to make a play for a little easy money, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "but the indications is that when the proofs of claims is filed by
+the alleged creditors, y'understand, there would be a couple of them
+comma hounds on the Reparation Committee which would reject such claims
+on the grounds of misplaced semicolons alone. Then six months
+hafterwards, when the representative of one of them republics goes over
+to what used to was the office of the Peace Conference with a revised
+proof of claim, which he has just received by return mail, understand
+me, he would find the premises temporarily occupied by one of them
+crooked special-sale trunk concerns, and that's all there would _be_ to
+it."
+
+"Then you think that this here Peace Conference would only last six
+months, Abe?" Morris asked.
+
+"Sure I do," Abe replied, "and less, even, because right now already the
+interest is beginning to die out, which it wouldn't surprise me in the
+slightest, Mawruss, if in three weeks or so, when Mr. Wilson is
+temporarily out of the cast on account of going home to America to sign
+the new tax bill, y'understand, the attendance of the delegates would
+begin to fall off so bad, understand me, that the Peace Conference
+managers would got to spend a lot of money for putting in advertisements
+that George Clemenceau presents:
+
+
+    "'THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE
+
+The Unparalleled Success of Two Hemispheres
+
+  'Enthralling'                   _Tribune_
+  'Punch with a Kick in It'           _Sun_
+  'Vigor and Suspense'              _World_
+  'Wins Audience'                   _Globe_
+  'Gripping'                         _Mail_
+  'Ausgezeichnet'               _Tageblatt_
+
+              QUAI D'ORSAY
+
+                                    Now.
+
+  Matinees, Saturday, 2:30.'"
+
+
+"And even then they wouldn't get an audience, Abe," Morris said,
+"because those kind of advertisements don't fool nobody but the suckers
+which pays for them, Abe."
+
+"Maybe not," Abe agreed, "but if the delegates stays away, Mawruss, the
+Peace Conference could always get an audience by letting in the
+newspaper correspondents, which I don't care if in addition to Mr. Lord
+George and Colonel House they would got performing at this here Peace
+Conference Douglas Fairbanks and Caruso, it wouldn't be a success as a
+show, _anyhow_, because no theayter could get any audiences if they
+would make it a policy to bar out the newspaper crickets."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris began. "Nobody likes to read in newspapers
+more than I do, Abe. They help to pass away many unpleasant minutes in
+the Subway when a feller would otherwise be figuring on if God forbid
+the brakes shouldn't hold what is going to become of his wife and
+children, y'understand; but, at the same time, from the way this here
+newspaper feller which hogs our cigars is talking, Abe, I gather that
+the big majority of newspaper reporters now in Paris has got the idea
+that this here Peace Conference is being held mainly to give newspaper
+reporters a chance to write home a lot of snappy articles about peace
+conferences, past and present. Although, of course, there is certain
+more or less liberal-minded newspaper men which think that if,
+incidentally, Mr. Wilson puts over the League of Nations and the Freedom
+of the Seas, why, they 'ain't got no serious objections, just so long as
+it don't involve talking the matter over privately without a couple of
+hundred newspaper reporters present."
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but if them newspaper fellers has got such an
+idee, Mawruss, it is Mr. Wilson's own fault, because ever since we got
+into the war, y'understand, Mr. Wilson has been talking about open
+covenants of peace openly arrived at, and even before we went into the
+war he got off the words 'pitiful publicity,' and also it was him and
+not the newspaper men which first give the readers of newspapers to
+understand that the old secret diplomacy was a thing of the past,
+Mawruss, so the consequences was that, when Mr. Wilson come over here,
+the owners of newspapers sent to Paris everybody that was working for
+them--from dramatic crickets to baseball experts--just so long as they
+could write the English language, y'understand, because them
+newspaper-owners figured that, according to Mr. Wilson's own
+suggestions, this here Peace Conference was not only going to be a
+wide-open affair, openly arrived at, y'understand, but also pitifully
+public, whereas not only it ain't wide open, Mawruss, but it is about as
+pitifully public as a conference between the members of the financial
+committee of Tammany Hall on the day before Election. Also, Mawruss, a
+newspaper reporter could arrive at that Peace Conference openly or he
+could arrive at it disguised with false whiskers till his own wife
+wouldn't know him from a Jugo-Slob delegate, y'understand, and he
+couldn't get past the elevator-starter even."
+
+"That was when the conference opened," Morris said; "but I understand
+they are now letting them into the next room and giving them once in a
+while a look through the door during the supper turns when the Polack
+and Servian delegates is performing."
+
+"And that ain't going to do them a whole lot of good, neither," Abe
+declared, "because this here newspaper feller told me last night, when
+he was smoking my last cigar, that he has been mailing back an article a
+day to America ever since the President arrived here and there ain't not
+one of them which has got there yet."
+
+"And I was reading in the America edition of the Paris edition of the
+London edition of the Manchester, England, _Daily News_ that the
+newspaper correspondents couldn't only send back a couple of hundred
+words or so by telegraph, Abe," Morris said, "which the way it looks to
+me, Abe, if some news don't find its way back to America pretty quick
+about this here Peace Conference and Mr. Wilson, y'understand, people
+back home in Washington is going to say to each other, 'I wonder
+whatever become of this here--now--Wilson?' and the friend is going to
+say, '_What_ Wilson?' And the other feller would then say, 'Why, this
+here Woodruff Wilson.' And then the friend would say, 'Oh, HIM! Didn't
+he move away to Paris or something?' And the other feller would then
+say, 'I see where Benny Leonard put up a wonderful fight in Madison
+Square Garden yesterday,' and that's all there would be to THAT
+conversation."
+
+"Maybe it is because of this, and not because of signing the new tax
+bill, that the President is going home in a few days for a short stay
+in America," Abe suggested.
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but what good is them short visits going
+to do him, because I ain't such an optician like you are, Abe. I believe
+that this here Peace Conference is going to last a whole lot longer than
+six months, Abe, and, if Mr. Wilson keeps on going home and coming back,
+maybe the first time he goes back he would get some little newspaper
+publicity out of it, and the second time also, perhaps, but on the third
+when he returns from France only the Democratic newspapers would give
+him more as half a column about it, and later on, when he lands from his
+third to tenth trips, inclusive, all the notice the papers would take
+from it would be that in the ship's news on the ninth page there would
+be a few lines saying that among those returning on the S.S. _George
+Washington_ was J. L. Abrahams, and so on through the B's, C's, and D's
+right straight down to the W's, which you would got to read over several
+times before you would discover the President tucked away as W. Wilson
+between two fellers named Max Wangenheim and Abraham Welinsky."
+
+"There is something in what you say, Mawruss," Abe admitted; "but, at
+the same time, a big man like Mr. Wilson ain't looking to get no
+newspaper notoriety. He is working to become famous."
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris said; "but the only difference between notoriety
+and fame is that with notoriety you get the publicity now, whereas with
+fame you get the publicity fifty years from now, and the publicity which
+Mr. Wilson is going to get fifty years from now ain't going to help him
+a whole lot in the next presidential campaign."
+
+"Mr. Wilson ain't worrying about the next presidential campaign,
+Mawruss," Abe declared. "What he is trying to do is to make a success of
+this here Peace Conference."
+
+"Then he would better get a press agent for it," Morris observed,
+"because, if they don't get some more publicity, it will die on its
+feet."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+JOINING THE LEGION OF HONOR
+
+
+"I see where several Americans took advantage to join the Legion of
+Honor while they was over here," Morris Perlmutter remarked, as he sat
+at luncheon with his partner, Abe Potash, in the restaurant of their
+Paris hotel.
+
+"Some people is crazy for life insurance," Abe Potash commented, "in
+especially if they could combine it with the privilege to make speeches
+at lodge-meetings. Also, Mawruss, a whole lot of people is so badly
+predicted to the lapel-button habit that they would join anything just
+so long as they get a lapel-button to show for it."
+
+[Illustration: "a whole lot of people is so badly predicted to the lapel
+button habit they join anything"]
+
+"But this here Legion of Honor must be a pretty good fraternal-insurance
+proposition at that," Morris observed, "because it says here in the
+paper where several New York bankers has gone into it, which it's a
+mighty hard thing to separate them fellers from their money even with
+first-class, A-number-one, gilt-edged, two-name commercial paper, and if
+this here Legion of Honor was just a lapel-button affair which assessed
+its members every time they had a death claim to pay, you could take it
+from me, Abe, not one of them bankers would of went near it, so maybe
+it would be a good thing if we looked into it, Abe."
+
+"If you want to join this here Legion of Honor, that's _your_ business,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "but I already belong to the Independent Order
+Mattai Aaron, which I've been paying them crooks for three years now
+that I should get a sick benefit fifteen dollars a week without being
+laid up with so much as tonsillitis even."
+
+"About the sick benefit I wasn't thinking about at all," Morris
+declared; "but you take a feller like Sam Feder, president of the
+Kosciusko Bank, for instance, and if we should be maybe next year a
+little short and wanted an accommodation from two to three thousand
+dollars, y'understand, it wouldn't do us no harm if we could give him
+the L. of H. grip for a starter. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "The chances is that when them New York bankers
+gets back to New York they will want to forget all about joining this
+here L. of H."
+
+"Why, what is there so disgraceful about joining the L. of H.?" Morris
+asked.
+
+"Nobody said nothing about its being disgraceful, because lots of
+decent, respectable fellers is liable to make a mistake of that kind,
+understand me," Abe said; "but _you_ take one of these here members of
+the firm of--we would say, for example, J. G. Morgan, y'understand,
+which comes back from Paris after joining this here L. of H., and what
+happens him? The first morning he comes down to the office wearing an
+L. of H. button, Mawruss, everybody from the paying-teller up is going
+to ask him what is the idea of the button, and he is going to spend the
+rest of the day listening to stories about people joining insurance
+fraternities which busted up and left the members with undetermined
+sentences of from three to five years, y'understand. The consequence
+would be that if any of his depositors expect to get an accommodation by
+giving him the L. of H. grip or wearing an L. of H. button,
+y'understand, they might just so well send him an invitation to a
+banquet where, in order to gain his confidence and respect, they are
+going to drink champagne out of an actress's slipper, and be done with
+it. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Well, you couldn't exactly blame them fellers which joined the L. of
+H.," Morris observed, "because Paris has a very funny effect on some of
+the most level-headed Americans which goes there without their families
+and business associates, which if this here League of Nations had been
+fixed up at a Peace Conference held somewheres down on Lower Broadway
+instead of the Quai d'Orsay, Abe, the chances is that the United States
+Senate would of had a whole lot more confidence in it than they have at
+present."
+
+"Say!" Abe explained. "This here League of Nations could of been pulled
+off in Paris or it could of been pulled off in a respectable
+neighborhood like Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, Mawruss, for all the
+spare time it gave the fellers which framed it to indulge in any wild
+night life. Take, for instance, the proposed constitution and by-laws,
+which was printed on three pages of the newspaper the other day,
+Mawruss, and anybody which dictated that _megillah_ to a stenographer
+would be too hoarse for weeks afterwards to order so much as a plain
+Benedictine. Also, Mawruss, nobody which didn't lead a blameless life
+could have a brain clear enough to _understand_ the thing, let alone
+composing it, which last night I sat up till two o'clock this morning
+reading them twenty-six articles, Mawruss, and ten grains of asperin
+hardly touched the headache which I got from it."
+
+"Naturally," Morris said, "because when Mr. Wilson wrote that
+constitution, Abe, he figured that people which is going to read it has
+got a better education as one year in night school."
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, satirically, "but at the same time everybody
+ain't such a natural-born Harvard gradgawate like you are, Mawruss, and
+furthermore, Mawruss, it's a big mistake for Mr. Wilson to go ahead on
+the idea that we _are_, y'understand, because, so far as I remember it,
+the Constitution of the United States didn't say that this was a
+government of the college gradgawates by the college gradgawates for the
+college gradgawates, y'understand; neither did the Declaration of
+Independence start in by saying, 'We, the college gradgawates of the
+United States,' Mawruss. The consequences is that most of us
+ingeramusses which has got one vote apiece, even around last November
+already, begun to feel neglected, and you could take it from me,
+Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson tries to win the confidence of the American
+people with a few more of them documents with the twin-six words in
+them, y'understand, by the time he gets ready to run for President
+again, Mawruss, the only people which is going to vote for him would be
+the Ph.D. and A.M. fellers."
+
+"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, a few days after the conversation above set
+forth, "I see that President Wilson got back to America after a rough
+passage."
+
+"Was he seasick?" Morris asked.
+
+"Not a day," Abe replied.
+
+"Then that accounts for it," Morris commented.
+
+"Accounts for what?" Abe asked.
+
+"Doctor Grayson being an admiral," Morris replied, "which a couple of
+years ago, when Mr. Wilson appointed Doctor Grayson to be an admiral
+over the heads of a couple of hundred fellers which had been captains of
+ships for years already, a lot of people got awful sore about it, and
+now it appears that he got the appointment because he can cure
+seasickness."
+
+"I suppose if Doctor Grayson could cure locomotive ataxia the President
+would of appointed him Director-General of Railroads," Abe remarked.
+
+"For my part, Abe," Morris said, "if I had a good doctor like Doctor
+Grayson attending me, and it was necessary to appoint him to something
+in order to keep him, Abe, I would appoint him a field-marshal, just so
+long as he could make me comfortable on an Atlantic trip in
+winter-time."
+
+"But there isn't no office in the army or navy that President Wilson
+could appoint Doctor Grayson to which would have been a big enough
+reward if Doctor Grayson could have made the President feel comfortable
+in Washington when he got there, Mawruss," Abe said, "which I see by the
+paper this morning that thirty-seven United States Senators, coming from
+every state in the Union except Missouri, suddenly discovered they was
+from Missouri, in particular the Senator from Massachusetts, and not
+only does them Senators want to know what the meaning of that
+constitution of the League of Nations means, but they also give notice
+that, _whatever_ it means, they are going to knife it, _anyway_."
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris said; "they're like a lot of business men you and
+me has had experience with, Abe. They claim a shortage and kick about
+the quality of the shipment before they even start to unpack the goods.
+Why don't they wait till Mr. Wilson goes back and finishes up his job?"
+
+"They haven't got the time," Abe replied, "because the session ends on
+March 4th at noon, just about twenty-four hours before Admiral Grayson
+is paying his first professional call on President Wilson aboard the
+_George Washington_, and by the time Congress gets together again
+President Wilson expects to have the League of Nations proposition sewed
+up so tight that there will be nothing left for them Senators to do but
+to indorse it."
+
+"But, as I understand it, them Senators just loafed away their time
+during the end of the session and didn't pass a whole lot of laws which
+they should ought to have passed, Abe, so that it will be necessary for
+President Wilson to call an extra session in a few days," Morris said.
+
+"That's what them Senators figured," Abe agreed, "but they was mistaken,
+Mawruss, because the President ain't going to run any chances of being
+interrupted while he is working on this here Peace Conference by S O S
+messages from Washington to please come home if he wants to save
+_anything_ out of the wreck Congress is making of the inside of the
+Capitol."
+
+"But I thought that before he went to Europe in the first place, Abe,
+President Wilson said to Congress that it wouldn't make any difference
+to them about his being in Europe, because he was in close touch with
+them, and that the cables and the wireless would make him available just
+as though he was still living in the White House," Morris said.
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe agreed; "but the trouble with that situation was
+that it 'ain't been discovered by the inventors yet how a President can
+shake hands with a Senator by wireless or how he can sit down to dinner
+by wireless with a few Congressmen and make them feel that he is their
+one best friend. Also, Mawruss, it comes high even for a President to
+send cable messages to a Senator which he thinks is getting sore about
+something, such cable messages being in the nature of: 'Hello, Henry,
+what's the good word? Why is it I 'ain't seen you up to the White House
+lately, Henry?' or, 'Where have you been keeping yourself lately,
+Henry?' or, 'Mrs. Lodge and the children all right, Henry?' or something
+like that."
+
+"Say, for that matter, Abe," Morris observed, "President Wilson never
+did a whole lot of jollying when he could have done it over the
+telephone at unlimited local-service rates. In fact, from what I have
+seen of Mr. Wilson, he looks to me like a man who would find it a whole
+lot easier to be easy in his manner toward Congressmen by wireless or by
+cable than face to face."
+
+"Well, you couldn't blame Mr. Wilson exactly, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"because, up to the time he became Governor of New Jersey, his idea of
+being a good mixer was to get together with a couple of LL.D.'s and sit
+up till pretty near nine o'clock knocking the trustees, y'understand. In
+fact, up to the time he resigned from being president of Princeton
+College, life to Mr. Wilson was just correcting one examination paper
+after another, all of which 'ain't got nothing to do with this here
+League of Nations being a good thing, Mawruss," Abe declared.
+
+"And it don't affect the fact that Mr. Wilson is a high-grade,
+A-number-one gentleman, which is doing the best he knows how to make
+good to his country, Abe," Morris declared.
+
+"Did I say he wasn't?" Abe asked.
+
+"Then what are you dragging up his past life for?" Morris demanded.
+
+"What do you mean--dragging up his past life?" Abe rejoined. "The way
+you talk, Mawruss, you would think that being president of a college
+come in two degrees, like grand larceny, and had to be lived down
+through the guilty party getting the respect of the community by years
+of honest work."
+
+"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris protested, "don't try to twist things
+around till it looks like I was knocking Mr. Wilson, and not you."
+
+"I am knocking President Wilson!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, I've got the
+greatest respect for Mr. Wilson, and always did, Mawruss, but it would
+be foolish not to admit that the practice which a President of the
+United States gets in being a college professor is more useful to him in
+framing up a first-class, A-number-one League of Nations than it is in
+getting his political enemies to accept it. Am I wright or wrong?"
+
+"Maybe he would have got them to accept it if he had stayed in touch
+with them personally and managed the Peace Conference by wireless and
+cable," Morris suggested.
+
+"He probably figured that if he wanted to put over this here League of
+Nations it was more necessary for him to be on the job in France than on
+the job in America," Abe said.
+
+"Well," Morris commented, "the next time the United States of America
+has a Peace Conference on its hands, Abe, the President will have to be
+a copartnership instead of an individual, with one member of the firm in
+Washington and the other in Paris."
+
+"But what would Admiral Grayson do?" Abe asked. "He couldn't be in two
+places at the same time."
+
+"Probably the Washington President could find a bright young physician
+in the Treasury Department," Morris concluded, "and promote him to the
+honorary title and salary of Comptroller of the Currency."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+SOME CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS FOR THE KAISER
+
+
+"I see where an American army officer reports that he has investigated
+into the food situation in Germany and that the German people looks
+thin," Abe Potash observed to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.
+
+"That's already German propoganda, Abe," Morris said. "Word come down
+from headquarters that the German people should look thin in order to
+get the sympathy of the American officer, so they looked thin,
+y'understand."
+
+Abe shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe you're right, Mawruss," he said, "but
+all I could say is that them German propoganders which has charge of
+making the German people look thin is wasting their time in Germany,
+because there is plenty people in America which would make them
+propoganders rich for life if they would only come over to New York and
+open an office for giving reduction propoganda at a thousand dollars a
+treatment."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said; "ordinarily, if the German people
+looked thin you would believe them. Also, before the war, if somebody
+went to Germany and people asked him when he come back how was the
+weather there, he didn't say, 'Unless they was putting one over on me,
+it was snowing,' y'understand, but to-day it's different. Nobody has got
+no confidence in the Germans nowadays. In fact, even the Germans
+themselves is losing confidence in them. Take Berlin, for instance, and
+every week the Spartacist, or Red, government has got the support of the
+people from 9:30 A.M. Tuesday until 6 P.M. Thursday, when the German
+people begins to lose confidence in them, so that by 8:30 A.M. Friday
+the Coalition, or Yellow, government comes into power. The Coalition, or
+Yellow, government then keeps the confidence of the people until Sunday
+midnight, when, under the influence of the Sunday night _Ersat
+Delicatessen_ supper, the Germans starts in to suspect that everything
+ain't right with the Yellow government, neither, so back they go to the
+Red government, and they seize Police Headquarters, the Bureau of
+Assessments and Arrears, and desk room in the office of the Deputy
+Commissioner of Water-supply, Gas, and Electricity, and that's the way
+it goes."
+
+"It's a funny thing to me why them colored German governments always
+starts a revolution by seizing Police Headquarters, Mawruss," Abe
+commented.
+
+"That's the way they finance the revolution," Morris replied; "because I
+understand that the night life in Berlin has been going on the same as
+usual, revolution or no revolution, Abe, which I bet yer that as soon
+as the new chief of police is appointed by the Red or Yellow government,
+as the case may be, he don't waste no time, but he right away sends out
+plain-clothes men to the proprietors of them Berlin all-night
+restaurants with positive instructions to close all restaurants at
+eleven sharp and not to accept nothing but gold coin of the present
+standard of weight and fineness."
+
+"And yet it used to be thought that when it comes to graft, Mawruss,
+German officials was like Caesar's ghost," Abe observed--"above
+suspicion."
+
+"That's only another way of them impressions about Germany which us
+Americans has had reversed on us, Abe," Morris said, "which the way our
+idees about what kind of a people the Germans used to was has changed,
+Mawruss, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the old habit the
+Germans had for drinking beer was just a bluff, y'understand, and that
+at heart they was prohibitionists to a man. In fact, Abe, if I would be
+a German Bolshevik with instructions to shoot the Kaiser on sight, I
+should go gunning for a short, stout man with a tooth-brush mustache and
+a holy horror of wearing uniforms, because it's my opinion that all them
+so-called portraits of the Kaiser was issued for the purpose of
+misleading anarchists to shoot at a thin man in a heavily embroidered
+uniform with spike-end mustaches."
+
+"Well, whatever he looks like, Mawruss," Abe said, "if I was him,
+rather than have such a terrible fate hanging over me, y'understand, I
+would telegraph to Berlin for them to send along a good shot while they
+was about it, and have the thing over with quick, Mawruss."
+
+"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "You and me should have hanging over us the
+life which the Kaiser is going to lead from now on! For two hundred and
+fifty dollars a week at a Pallum Beach hotel you could only get a very
+small idea of the hardships the Kaiser will got to undergo in the
+future, Abe."
+
+"But do you mean to told me that after what happened to that English
+lady in Brussels and the captain of the English mail-boat, Mawruss, the
+English ain't going to persecute the Kaiser?" Abe demanded.
+
+"_You_--the English would persecute the Kaiser!" Morris exclaimed.
+"Don't you know that the Kaiser's mother was the King of England's
+father's sister? Do you suppose for a moment that the King of England
+wants a convict in the family?"
+
+"Well, has he got any _mishbocha_ in France, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+"Because if not, Mawruss, it seems to me that now, while all the
+witnesses is in Paris, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the March term
+of the Paris County grand jury to hand down an indictment for murder
+with intent to kill or something."
+
+"That sounds reasonable to anybody not connected with this here Peace
+Conference, Abe," Morris admitted, "but it seems that the Committee for
+Fixing Responsibility says that if they was to hang or shoot the Kaiser
+it would give him an awful drag with the German people, and they don't
+want the Kaiser to get popular again, dead or alive. Their idea is to
+punish him by letting him live on to be an outcast among all the people
+of the earth, except the proprietors of first-class European hotels,
+dealers in high-grade automobiles, expensive jewelry storekeepers,
+fashionable tailors, and a couple of million other people who don't
+attach an awful lot of importance to the moral character of anybody
+which wants to enjoy life and has got the money to do it with. In other
+words, Abe, they claim that, in leaving the Kaiser to his conscience and
+his bank-account they are punishing him a whole lot worse as hanging him
+or shooting him."
+
+"And I suppose that same committee is going to sentence von Tirpitz to
+six months at Monte Carlo, while Ludendorff will probably be confined to
+a Ritz hotel eight hours a day for the rest of his natural life," Abe
+suggested.
+
+"The committee claims not," Morris replied. "It seems that the Kaiser's
+ministers--like von Tirpitz and Ludendorff--is going to get what is
+coming to them, on the grounds that they are guilty of violations of
+international law and 'ain't got no relations among the royal families
+of England or Italy."
+
+"But why not bring the whole fleet over to America, and let the
+authorities dispose of them there?" Abe inquired.
+
+"The Kaiser would be just as much a martyr if he was sentenced in
+America as in Europe," Morris replied.
+
+"Who says anything about sentencing him?" Abe demanded. "All it would be
+necessary to do would be to swear out a warrant against him and leave
+the rest to a couple of headquarters detectives, which, naturally, when
+them fellers would tell him to come along with them, the Kaiser would
+technically resist the arrest by asking what for. This would mean at the
+very least ten stitches in his scalp, Mawruss, not reckoning a couple of
+broken ribs or so when the fingerprints was taken, and, while it
+wouldn't be only a starter in the way of punishment, he would anyhow
+find out that it is one thing to be actually engaged in a modern battle,
+and that looking at it through a high-power telescope while sitting in a
+bomb-proof limousine six miles away is absolutely something else again.
+Later on, Mawruss, when a New York police-court lawyer visited him in
+his cell after the Kaiser had lunched on bread and water and the
+police-court lawyer on what used to be called _Koenigsburger Klops_ and
+is now known as Liberty Roast, understand me, the Kaiser would get just
+an inkling of what it means to be caught in a gas attack without a
+gas-mask."
+
+"You talk like you would got a little experience in the way of sitting
+in prison yourself, Abe," Morris commented.
+
+"I am giving you what practically happened to a feller by the name
+Immerglick which was arrested by mistake on account the police thought
+he looked like an Italian who was wanted for barrel murder, Mawruss,"
+Abe exclaimed, "and if the police behaves this way to a perfect stranger
+which is innocent at that, Mawruss, you could imagine what them fellers
+would do to a well-known guilty party like the Kaiser. But that's
+neither here nor there, Mawruss. What I am trying to do is to work out a
+punishment proposition for the Kaiser which would get by with such a
+sensitive bunch as this here committee to place responsibility seems to
+be."
+
+"Go ahead and have a good time with your pipe-dream, Abe," Morris said.
+"You couldn't make me feel bad, no matter what happens to the Kaiser in
+your imagination."
+
+"Well," Abe continued, "after he is through with trying to get rid of
+the police-court lawyer, Mawruss, he should ought to be arranged before
+the magistrate in a traffic court, y'understand, and should be accused
+of driving at the rate of twenty-two miles an hour, which is two miles
+past the legal speed limit, and then he would find out that all them
+commandants of Ruhleben and the other German prison camps wasn't even
+new beginners in the art of making prisoners feel cheap, because you
+take one of these here traffic-court magistrates which has had years of
+experience bawling out respectable sitsons who has got the misfortune to
+own automobiles, Mawruss, and what such a feller wouldn't do to
+humilitate the Kaiser, y'understand, ain't even dreamt of in German
+prison camps yet."
+
+"I see you still feel sore about getting fined twenty-five dollars for
+driving like a maniac down at Far Rockaway last summer Abe," Morris
+commented.
+
+"How I feel or how I don't feel hain't got nothing to do with it,
+Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle
+policeman which has got the nerve to swear that he could tell inside of
+two miles an hour how fast somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty
+of perjury on the face of it, which I told the judge. 'Judge, your
+Honor,' I says, 'I admit I was going fast,' I says, 'but--'"
+
+"Excuse me," Morris interrupted, "but I thought you was talking about
+how to punish the Kaiser, ain't it, which, while I admit you got some
+pretty good ideas on the subject, Abe, still at the same time there is
+plenty of ways that the Kaiser could get punished in America without
+going to the trouble and expense of arresting him first, Abe. There is a
+whole lot of experiences which the American people pays to go through
+just once, y'understand, which if the Kaiser could be persuaded to take
+them all on, one after the other, Abe, his worst enemies would got to
+pity him. Supposing, for instance, he would start off with one of them
+electric vibrating face massages, Abe, and if he comes through it alive,
+y'understand, he would then be hustled off to one of these here
+strong-arm bunkopathic physicians, which charges five dollars for the
+first visit and never has to quote rates for the second or third visits,
+because once is plenty, y'understand."
+
+"But I thought the idea was not to let anybody have any sympathy for the
+Kaiser, Mawruss," Abe broke in.
+
+"Plenty of fellers I know goes to these here near-doctors," Morris
+declared, "and nobody has got any sympathy for them, neither. Also, Abe,
+I 'ain't got no sympathy for anybody who goes to these here restaurants
+where they run off a cabarattel review, Abe, and yet it's a terrible
+punishment at that, so there's another tip for you if you want any more
+ideas for making the Kaiser suffer."
+
+"Say, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, and if you don't want to
+show the feller no mercy at all, y'understand," Abe said, "what's the
+matter with making him see some of them war plays they was putting on in
+New York last winter?"
+
+"Why only _war_ plays?" Morris asked. "I sat through a couple musical
+shows last winter without the option of a fine, y'understand, and it
+would be a good thing if the Kaiser could see performances like
+that--just to make him realize that in losing his throne, y'understand,
+he has no longer got the power to order the actors shot, together with
+the composer and the man that wrote the jokes."
+
+"But the biggest punishment of all you 'ain't even hinted at yet," Abe
+said, "and it's a punishment which thousands of Americans is getting
+right now without no sympathy from nobody, which its name is:
+
+
+"'Form 1040. United States Internal Revenue
+                 Service
+
+        INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX RETURN
+
+    For Net Incomes of More than $5,000
+
+         FOR CALENDAR YEAR, 1918.'
+
+
+Also, Mawruss, when you consider what the Kaiser done, Mawruss, I ask
+you is it too much that the Committee on Fixing Responsibility should
+order him starved to death or talked to death or any other slow and
+painful death, because such a fate is going to be a happy one compared
+with the thousands of decent, respectable American business men which is
+headed straight for an insane-asylum, trying to fill out
+
+
+"'(a) Totals taxable at 1918 rates (see instructions page 2 under C).
+
+  (b) Totals taxable at 1917 rates (see instructions, included in K (a)
+      page 2).
+
+  (c) Amount of stock dividends (column 4) taxable at 1916 rates
+      (enter as 20).'"
+
+
+"Well, after all, Abe," Morris said, "there's one worser punishment you
+could hand out the Kaiser than filling out this here income tax."
+
+"What's that?" Abe inquired.
+
+"Paying it," Morris said.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+IT ENTERS ON ITS NO-GOLD-CASKET PHASE
+
+
+"When a feller gets his name in the papers as often as Mr. Wilson,
+Mawruss, it don't take long for them highwaymen to get on to him," Abe
+Potash remarked, shortly after Mr. Wilson's return to Paris.
+
+"What highwaymen?" Morris inquired.
+
+"Them presidents of orphan-asylums and homes," Abe said, "and in a way
+it serves Mr. Wilson right, Mawruss, because, instead of keeping it to
+himself that he got stuck over four thousand dollars for tips alone
+while he was in France, y'understand, as soon as he arrived in Boston he
+goes to work and blabs the whole thing to newspaper reporters, and you
+could take it from me, Mawruss, that for the next six months Mr. Wilson
+would be flooded with letters from Associations for the Relief of
+Indignant Armenians, Homes for Chronic Freemasons, and who knows what
+else. So therefore you take this here Carter H. Glass, Mawruss, and he
+naturally comes to the conclusion that Mr. Wilson is an easy mark,
+because--"
+
+"Excuse me, Abe," Morris interrupted, coldly, "but who do you think
+this here Carter H. Glass is, anyway?"
+
+"I don't know," Abe went on, "but whoever he is he probably figured that
+if he was going to get turned down he would anyhow get turned down big,
+because it says here in the paper that he cables Mr. Wilson he should
+please let him have three million dollars for this here Bureau for
+Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers and--"
+
+"Listen, Abe," Morris said, "if you wouldn't know who Carter H. Glass is
+after paying twelve per cent. on all you made over four thousand dollars
+last year, y'understand, nothing that I could say would ever learn you,
+so therefore I 'ain't got no expectations that you are going to remember
+it when I tell you that this here Carter H. Glass is Secretary of the
+Treasurer, and when he cabled Mr. Wilson for three million dollars, it
+ain't so hopeless like it sounds. Also, Abe, while Mr. Wilson gives it
+out to the papers that he got stung four thousand dollars for tips, it
+also appears in the papers that he came home with a few gold caskets and
+things, not to mention one piece of tapestry which the French government
+presented him with, valued at two hundred thousand dollars alone,
+y'understand, and if that kind of publicity is going to give Mr. Wilson
+a reputation as an easy giver-up, Abe, all I can say is that the
+collectors for orphan-asylums and homes don't read the papers no more
+carefully than you do, Abe."
+
+"But why should the Secretary of the United States Treasury got to
+touch Mr. Wilson for?" Abe demanded. "Every day the people of the United
+States is paying into the United States Treasury millions and millions
+dollars income-tax money and all the President owns is a few gold
+caskets which he got presented with, and maybe a little tapestry,
+y'understand. What's the matter with that feller Carter H. Glass? Is he
+afraid he is going to run short if he spends a couple million dollars or
+so? Has he lost his nerve or something?"
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "The Secretary of the Treasury
+'ain't got such a cinch like some people think, y'understand. If the
+Bureau for Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers send over and
+asks the Secretary of the Treasury to be so good and let 'em have for a
+few days three million dollars, understand me, you would naturally think
+that it is one of them dead open-and-shut, why-certainly propositions.
+The impression you have is that the Secretary grabs ahold of the 'phone
+and says to the head of stock to look on the third shelf from the
+elevator shaft is there any more of them million-dollar bills with the
+picture of Rutherford B. Hayes on 'em left, and if not, to send Jake up
+with three hundred of them three-by-seven-inch ten-thousand-dollar
+bills, and that's all there is to it. But as a matter of fact he doesn't
+do nothing of the kind, because nobody could get any money out of the
+Secretary of the Treasury except by an act of Congress."
+
+"Well, it's nothing against Mr. Glass that he is such a tight-wad,
+Mawruss, because that's the kind of man to have as Secretary of the
+Treasurer, Mawruss, which supposing they had one of them easy-come,
+easy-go fellers for Secretary of the Treasurer, Mawruss--somebody who
+would fall for every hard-luck story he hears, y'understand, and how
+long is it going to be before the police is asking him what did he done
+with it all?" Abe said. "So, for my part, Mawruss, they could abuse Mr.
+Glass all they want to, y'understand, but I would be just as well
+satisfied, so far as my income taxes is concerned, if the only way you
+could get money out of him was by a miracle instead of an act of
+Congress. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"Do me the favor, Abe," Morris said, "and don't talk a lot of nonsense
+about a subject about which you don't know nothing about, because when I
+say that nobody could get money out of Carter H. Glass except by an act
+of Congress, y'understand, I ain't talking poetical in a manner of
+speaking. They must actually got to got and act of Congress before
+anybody could get any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury, no
+matter if Mr. Glass would be the most generous feller in existence,
+which, for all I know, he _might_ be. So, therefore, Abe, when Congress
+adjourned without passing the acts which was necessary in order that the
+Secretary of the Treasury should pay the railroads seven hundred and
+fifty million dollars to keep 'em going, y'understand, not to mention
+such chicken-feed like three million dollars for this here Soldiers'
+Relations Bureau and the like, it leaves the country practically broke
+with seven or eight billion dollars in the bank. _Now_ do you understand
+what I am driving into?"
+
+"I think I do," Abe said, "but explain it to me just as if I didn't,
+because what is a mystery to me is, why did Congress adjourn without
+passing them acts, Mawruss?"
+
+"They did it to put Mr. Wilson in bad on account he went to Europe
+without calling an extra session," Morris said.
+
+"I thought Congress got paid by the year and not by the session," Abe
+remarked.
+
+"So they do," Morris continued, "but they said they wanted to stay in
+session while Mr. Wilson was in Europe to _help_ him, and Mr. Wilson
+thought they wanted to stay in session while he was in Europe to knock
+him, and he said: 'Watch! I'll fix them fellers,' and _they_ said:
+'Watch! _We'll_ fix that feller.' And between the two of them, the
+railroads is left dry and high, the War Risks Bureau claims that they
+could only keep going for a week or so, the Soldiers' Relations people
+is sending out J O S signals, and that's the way it goes."
+
+"And who do you think is right, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Mr. Wilson or
+Congress?"
+
+"Well, I ain't exactly prepared to say, y'understand," Morris replied,
+"but it's a question in my mind whether or not there ain't just so much
+need for a Peace Conference in Washington as there is in Paris, and if
+so, Abe, whether Mr. Wilson ain't at the wrong Peace Conference."
+
+"So far as that goes, Mawruss," Abe said, "he might just so well be in
+Washington as in Paris, because the tapestry and gold-casket period of
+this here Conference is already a thing of the past, which I see that
+Mr. Wilson ain't even staying with the Murats no longer."
+
+"Naturally," Morris said, "after the way this here Murat went around
+talking about the League of Nations."
+
+"Why, I thought he was in favor of it!" Abe said.
+
+"He was in favor of it," Morris said, "up to the time Mr. Wilson and
+Lord George had the conference with the Jugo-Slobs where they laid out
+the frontiers by making the ink-bottle represent Bessarabia and the
+mucilage-bottle Macedonia. When Murat saw the library carpet the next
+morning, he began to say that, after all, why shouldn't France control
+her own foreign policy."
+
+"I don't blame him," Abe commented.
+
+"Later on the Polish National Committee called on Mr. Wilson and was
+shown into the parlor before the butler had a chance to put the slip
+covers on the furniture," Morris continued, "and that very evening Murat
+went around saying that if France was going to have to police the
+corridor through West Prussia to Dantzig, he was against articles
+fourteen to twenty, both inclusive, of the League constitution, and
+where could he find a good dry-cleaner."
+
+"That don't surprise me, neither," Abe remarked.
+
+"But it wasn't till the President's body-guard of secret-service men had
+an all-night stud-poker session in the yellow guest-room that he
+actually made speeches against the League of Nations," Morris went on,
+"and at that, the room will never look the same again."
+
+"I wonder if there ain't some kind of property-damage insurance that he
+could have took out against a thing happening like that?" Abe
+speculated.
+
+"I don't know," Morris said, "but if there is, you can bet your life
+that this here Mrs. Bischoffsheim, where the President is staying now,
+has got it."
+
+"And she is going to need it, Mawruss," Abe said, "because what the best
+home-trained men do with cigarettes and fountain-pens, when their minds
+are occupied with business matters, ain't calculated to improve the
+appearance of a bar-room, neither."
+
+"Say!" Morris commented. "The President _oser_ cares what his address is
+in Paris, but I'll bet you he is doing a lot of thinking as to what it
+is going to be in Washington after March 4, 1921."
+
+"It ain't a question of who is going to move _out_ of the White House,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "What people in America is wondering is, Who is
+going to move _in_, which right now there is a couple of generals, five
+or six Senators, and a banker or so which is figuring on not renewing
+the leases of their apartments beyond March 3, 1921, in case they should
+be obliged to go to Washington for four years, or maybe eight."
+
+"Lots of things can happen before the next presidential election,"
+Morris said.
+
+"That's what these Senators and generals thinks," Abe agreed, "and in
+the mean time, Mawruss, nobody has got to press them a whole lot to
+speak at dinners and conventions, which I see that a general made a
+speech at a meeting in memory of Grover Cleveland the other day where he
+didn't refer once to Mr. Wilson, but said that Mr. Cleveland wasn't an
+expert at verbal messages and believed in the Monroe Doctrine."
+
+"Well, suppose the general did say that," Morris said. "What of it?"
+
+"Nothing of it," Abe replied; "but on the other hand, if this here
+general had gone a bit farther, understand me, and said that Grover
+Cleveland never refused to meet Judge Cohalan at the Metropolitan Opera
+House and as a general rule didn't act cold toward a Sinn Fein
+committee, Mawruss, you would got to admit that such remarks is anyhow
+suspicious, ain't it?"
+
+"All it is suspicious of to me, Abe," Morris said, "is that if such a
+general has got ambitions to be President, y'understand, he ain't going
+the right way about it, because fashions in opinions changes like
+fashions in garments, Abe. At this day and date nobody could tell no
+more about what the people of the United States is going to think in
+the fall of 1920 as what they are going to wear in the fall of 1920,
+which it would of been a whole lot better for the general's prospects if
+he would of said that Grover Cleveland was just as expert at verbal
+messages as another great American and believed just as strongly in a
+League of Nations. In fact, Abe, if there was, Heaven forbid, a chance
+of me being nominated for President in 1920, I would lay pipes for
+claiming that it was me that suggested the whole idea of the League of
+Nations to President Wilson in the first place. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"You're right about the Heaven forbid part, anyway," Abe commented.
+
+"Because," Morris continued, as though he had not heard the
+interruption, "what between the people who are willing to take President
+Wilson's word for it and the people who ain't willing to take a United
+States Senator's word for anything, y'understand, this here League of
+Nations looks like a pretty safe proposition for any politician to tie
+up to, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if even some of them
+Senators which signed the round robin would be claiming just before the
+1920 National Conventions that they was never what you might call
+actually against a League of Nations except, as one might say, in a
+manner of speaking, if you know what I mean. Also, Abe, these here
+Senators which is now acting like they would have sworn a solemn oath,
+in addition to the usual amount of swearing about such things, that
+they would never ratify this here League of Nations, y'understand, are
+already beginning to say that they wouldn't ratify it anyhow in its
+present form, understand me, and before they got through, Abe, you could
+take it from me, that when it finally comes up for ratification them
+same Senators is going to go over it again carefully and find that it
+has been amended by inserting two commas in Article two and a semicolon
+in Article twenty-five, and a glad shout of 'Oh, well, this is something
+else again!' will go up, understand me, and after they vote to
+unanimously ratify it they will be telling each other that all you have
+to do is to make a firm stand against Mr. Wilson and he will back right
+down."
+
+"The way it looks to me, Mawruss," Abe commented, "the back-down is on
+the other foot."
+
+"It's fifty-fifty, Abe, because, when the President gets his back up,
+the Senate starts to back down," Morris concluded, "and _vice versa_."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+WORRYING SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME, AIN'T IT?
+
+
+"I see where the Italian delegates to the Peace Conference says that if
+Italy don't get Fiume, Mawruss, there would be a revolution in Italy,"
+Abe Potash remarked to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.
+
+"Any excuse is better than none," Morris Perlmutter commented, "which it
+is very clear to me, Abe, that with the example of Poland in front of
+them, the Italians being also a musical people and seeing that Poland
+has got it a first-class A-number-one pianist like Paderewski for a
+President, y'understand, they are taking the opportunity of Fiume to put
+in Caruso or Scotti or one of them fellers as President."
+
+"They would got to offer their Presidents an awful big salary if they
+expect to compete with the Metropolitan Opera House, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"If Poland could do it, Abe, why couldn't Italy?" Morris said. "Which
+Paderewski didn't have to tune pianos on the side to make a living over
+here, neither, Abe, and, besides, Abe, if they would let Caruso have a
+free hand in the formation of his Cabinet, he would probably get a good
+barytone for Secretary of State, a basso for Secretary of Commerce and
+Labor, De Luca for Secretary of the Treasury, Martinelli for Secretary
+of War, and draw on the Chicago Opera Company for Secretaries of the
+Navy, the Interior, and Agriculture. After that, Abe, all the Italian
+government would got to do would be to move the capital to Milan and
+hold open sessions of the Cabinet at the Scala with a full orchestra,
+and they could take in from ten to twenty thousand dollars at the door,
+daily, in particular if they was to advertise that Caruso would
+positively appear at every session of the Cabinet, y'understand."
+
+"But, joking to one side, Mawruss," Abe declared, "while personally I
+got to admit that up to a short time ago, for all I knew about Fiume,
+y'understand, if somebody would of said to me suddenly, 'Fiume,' I would
+have said, 'Fiume yourself, you dirty loafer!' and the chances is there
+would have been a fight then and there, understand me. Still, I couldn't
+help thinking that as between old friends like the Italians and perfect
+strangers like the Jugo-Slobs, y'understand, Italy should ought to have
+Fiume and anything else she wants within reason and even a couple of
+places not within reason, if she wants them that bad."
+
+"In deciding these things, Abe," Morris said, "Mr. Wilson couldn't
+consider prejudice."
+
+"No?" Abe retorted. "Well, could he consider who discovered America? A
+Jugo-Slob, I suppose, what? But never mind going so far back as
+Christopher Columbus, Mawruss. Take our best workmen right in our own
+shop, Mawruss--them Tonies and them Roccos with all the time a pleasant
+smile no matter how hard we work them, and what are they? Jugo-Slobs or
+Italians? Take it in the city of New York alone, and do we get there
+half a million Jugo-Slobs or half a million Italians? I am asking you?
+Also, Mawruss, I suppose the American people is crazy to see Jugo-Slob
+opera, with wonderful Jugo-Slob singers and composed by Jugo-Slob
+composers, ain't it? Furthermore, Mawruss, when you want to give your
+wife a treat, you take her out and blow her to a good Jugo-Slob _table
+d'hote_, one dollar and a half including wine--what?"
+
+"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "I didn't say a word that Italy
+shouldn't have Fiume."
+
+"I know you didn't," Abe said, "but there's a whole lot of people which
+does, Mawruss, and how they expect to use it for an argument to get the
+millions of Italians in America to subscribe to the next Victory Loan,
+Mawruss, may be perfectly clear to them, Mawruss, but _I_ couldn't see
+it and I doubt if them millions of Italians will be able to see it,
+neither."
+
+"Probably you ain't wrong exactly," Morris said, "but whichever way Mr.
+Wilson thinks is the best for the good of Europe, Abe, that's the way he
+would decide it about Fiume."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe observed, "while I consider that
+Europe, excepting the coffee they give you for breakfast, is a
+high-grade continent, taking it by and large, still at the same time I
+ain't so fanatical about it that if I would be President Wilson, I
+wouldn't once in a while give America a look-in also. Furthermore,
+Mawruss, admitting that Mr. Wilson is acting wonderful in the way he is
+unselfish about America, y'understand, and that he would probably go
+down in history as a great and good man, y'understand, he should ought
+to watch out that he don't act _too_ unselfish about America, Mawruss,
+otherwise he would be going down as a great and good man in French and
+English history and not in American history."
+
+"There is even some people which figures that he would be a great man in
+the history of the world even," Morris interrupted.
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe said, "and that's the trouble with a whole lot of
+people these days, Mawruss. They are figuring on world propositions, and
+what goes on in the next block don't interest them at all. Worrying
+should begin at home, Mawruss, whereas with them world thinkers they
+couldn't get really and truly anxious about the way things is going
+anywheres nearer to the Woolworth Building than the Nevski Prospekt.
+'Ain't you ashamed of yourselves to be kicking about not having a job,'
+they says to the returning American soldiers, 'when thousands of muzhiks
+in Ukrania is idle.' And they go to work and collect dollar after dollar
+for milk to feed Czecho-Slovak babies, with sixty cents after sixty
+cents overhead on the collection, y'understand, while right here in New
+York City families with an income of eighteen dollars a week has got to
+pay twenty cents a quart for grade B milk when the milk-wagon drivers
+ain't on strike."
+
+"People has become European-Americans from reading too much newspapers
+nowadays, Abe," Morris said, "which in these times of one newspaper
+trying to show the others how much more money it is spending for foreign
+cables, y'understand, if you want to see who is murdered in your own
+town, understand me, you are liable to find a couple of lines about it
+'most any part of the paper except in the first four pages, and the
+consequences is that people gets the impression from reading the papers
+that a strike in Berlin is ever so much more important than a strike in
+Hoboken for the simple reason that as the Berlin strike cost the
+newspaper proprietor several hundred dollars for cables, he put it on
+the front page, whereas the strike in Hoboken only cost him seven cents
+car fare for the reporter each way, and therefore it gets slipped in on
+the eleventh page with over it the head-line: 'PLAN AMERICAN ORCHESTRA.
+Chicago's New Philharmonic Is Headed by Mrs. J. Ogden Armour,' the
+orchestra story with the strike head-line having failed to get into the
+paper at all."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "people which reads the newspapers
+don't take the same amount of interests in strikes like they once used
+to did before the United States government organized them Conciliation
+and Arbitration Boards, which nowadays strikes is long, dull affairs
+consisting of the first strike, the arbitration, the decision, the
+second strike, the arbitration, the decision, the third strike, and so
+on for several months, because that's the trouble with arbitration,
+Mawruss: everybody is willing to arbitrate and nobody is willing to be
+decided against."
+
+"Also strikes is becoming too common, Abe," Morris said. "Everybody is
+going on strike nowadays, from milk-wagon drivers to the United States
+Senate, and although the last strike only _begun_ as a strike and ended
+up as a lock-out, y'understand, still the example wasn't good to the
+country, which if the strike fever is going to spread as high up as the
+United States Senate, Abe, where is it going to stop? The first thing
+you know, the members of the Metropolitan Club will be going on strike
+for a minimum of six hundred sturgeon eggs in a ten-dollar portion of
+fresh Astrakhan caviar, and the Amalgamated Bank Presidents of America,
+New York Local No. 1, will be walking out in a body for a minimum wage
+of fifty thousand dollars a year, with a maximum working year of four
+months."
+
+"But even when strikes had no foreign competition in the newspapers,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "the interest in them soon died out, which very few
+people outside the parties concerned ever finds out when a strike ends
+or who wins, and you might even say gives a nickel one way or the other,
+Mawruss."
+
+"It ain't only strikes which affects people like that, Abe," Morris
+commented. "Long-drawn-out murder trials and graft investigations also
+suffers that way, which I bet yer the American newspaper-reading people
+will soon get on to the fact that the newspapers is playing up to their
+cable tolls, y'understand, and everybody will be starting in to read the
+paper at the fourth or fifth page."
+
+"Still, I think that considerable interest was revived in the League of
+Nations and the Peace Conference by the argument that Senator Lodge put
+up last week in Lowell, Massachusetts," Abe said.
+
+"It wasn't _in_ Lowell, but _with_ Lowell," Morris corrected.
+
+"In or with," Abe said, "it caused a whole lot of comment in the
+newspapers, and the people which bought the next morning them papers
+that printed the whole affair in full, Mawruss, skipped as much as two
+or three pages about it."
+
+"Well, they didn't miss much, Abe," Morris said, "because it didn't come
+up to the advertisement."
+
+"What do you mean--the advertisement?" Abe inquired.
+
+"Why, for days already, the newspapers come out with a notice that
+Senator Lodge would argue with this here Lowell, which he is a college
+president and not a town, Abe, the argument to take place in a big hall
+in Boston, and the application for tickets was something tremendous,
+Abe, because you know how arguments about the League of Nations is,
+Abe. Sometimes the parties only use language and sometimes the smaller
+one of the two goes to a hospital, understand me. But, however, in this
+case it must be that the friends of Senator Lodge must have went to him
+and said: 'What do you want to get into an argument with Lowell for?
+Treat him with contempt. What do you care _what_ he says about you? You
+are _doch_ a United States Senator, ain't it?' And the friends of this
+here Lowell also must have went to him and said: 'Listen, Lowell, don't
+make a show of yourself. If Lodge wants to behave himself that way, all
+right; he's only a United States Senator, but you are anyhow president
+of Harvard College, and you can't afford to _act_ that way.' 'Act _what_
+way?' Lowell probably said. 'Do you think I am going to sit down and let
+him walk all over Wilson, which Wilson and me was presidents of colleges
+together for years already?'"
+
+"And besides a college president don't make such big money that he could
+afford to sneeze at his share of the gate receipts, neither," Abe
+commented.
+
+"Be that as it may," Morris said, "they probably figured that it was too
+late to call the thing off, but their friends must have got them
+together and talked Lodge over into behaving like a gentleman, because
+he practically agreed to everything that Lowell said and, so to speak,
+'threw' the whole debate right at the outset, which, reading the reports
+in the newspapers next morning, Abe, it is a wonder to me that the
+referee or the umpire didn't stop it before it had gone the first five
+minutes, even."
+
+"Well, if people is foolish enough to bet on such things, Mawruss," Abe
+commented, "they deserve to lose, ain't it?"
+
+"So the consequences is that some people is now saying that Senator
+Lodge backed down because he didn't have a leg to stand on," Morris
+continued, "while them people which probably made a little easy money on
+Lowell is saying, '_Yow!_ backed down!' and that Lowell is a
+crackerjack, A-number-one arguer, and won the argument on his merits,
+y'understand."
+
+"The whole thing should ought to be investigated by the Massachusetts
+Boxing Commission in order to see that them kind of disgraceful
+exhibitions shouldn't occur again," Abe said, "otherwise this here James
+Butler which is president of Columbia College will fix up an argument
+with another United States Senator, and whoever is now president of
+Princeton College will arrange a frame-up with a Governor of a state or
+somebody, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, college presidents will
+be getting such a reputation as public speakers that the next Republican
+National Convention will be again unloading a college president on us as
+President of the United States."
+
+"Say," Morris protested, "if all college presidents would make as good a
+President as Mr. Wilson done, Abe, I am content that we should have such
+a president for President."
+
+"President Wilson done all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "He done a
+whole lot to add a touch of refinement to what otherwise would of been a
+very rough war, understand me. He's got the respect and admiration of
+the whole world, Mawruss, and I ain't going to say _but_ neither, but
+would say _however_. Mawruss, for the next ten years or so the United
+States of America ain't going to be as quiet as a college exactly. Maybe
+the presidents of colleges will continue to deal with college professors
+and college students which couldn't talk back, Mawruss, but the next
+President of the United States will have to stand an awful lot of
+back-talk from a whole lot of people about taxes, business conditions,
+railroads, and so forth, and instead of coming right back with a snappy
+remark originally made by some big Roman philosopher and letting it go
+at that, Mawruss, he would got to come right back with a plan devised by
+some big Pittsburgh business man and act on it, too."
+
+"There's something in what you say, Abe," Morris admitted.
+
+"So, therefore, if we've got to drag a college president for President,
+Mawruss," Abe concluded, "let's hope he would be anyhow president of a
+business college."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE NEW HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY
+
+
+"I see where a feller by the name Rubin or Robin or something like that,
+which was working as a traveling-salesman for the Red Cross in Russia,
+got examined by Congress the other day," Abe Potash said one morning in
+March, "and in the course of explaining how he come to spend all that
+money for traveling expenses or something, he says that the Bolsheviki
+in Russia is a very much misunderstood people."
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris said; "it is always the case, Abe, that when
+somebody does something which could only be explained on the grounds
+that he would sooner be in jail than _out_, he goes to work and claims
+that nobody understands him."
+
+"But Rubin claims that the reason Bolshevism sprung in the first place
+was that the Bolsheviki was tired of the war," Abe continued, "whereas
+the Allies thought they were quitters."
+
+"What do you mean--whereas?" Morris asked.
+
+"Wait, that ain't the only 'whereas,'" Abe said. "Rubin also said that
+the Allies thinks the Bolsheviki is a bunch of organized murderers,
+_whereas_ the Allies don't understand that the only people murdered by
+them Bolsheviki was the property-owners which objects to their property
+being taken, and that as a matter of fact them poor Bolsheviki are
+simply _obliged_ to take the property, there being no other alternative
+except working for a living."
+
+"_Nebich!_" Morris exclaimed, "and did he say anything else about them
+Bolsheviki that we should ought to break our hearts over, Abe?"
+
+"Rubin didn't, but there is some of these here liberal-minded papers
+which seems to think that what this here Rubin says is not only a big
+boost for the Bolsheviki, but that it should ought to be a lesson to us
+not to pass laws in this country to prevent the Bolsheviki from
+operating over here."
+
+"But we already got laws over here to take care of people which would
+sooner commit murder than work, Abe," Morris said, "and as for being
+liberal-minded about the Bolsheviki, Abe, I am content that after they
+are sentenced they should have all the privilege that the other convicts
+have, and that's as far as I would go."
+
+"Well, you couldn't claim credit for being very funny that way, Mawruss.
+You've got practically all the unliberal-minded people in the United
+States siding with you," Abe declared, "because, being liberal-minded is
+a matter of being able to see only the unpopular side of every question.
+It is the liberal-minded people which thinks there is something to be
+said in favor of the Germans and says it, y'understand. It is the
+liberal-minded people which is always willing to try anything that
+don't seem reasonable to practically everybody."
+
+"And I suppose them liberal-minded people would even approve of Germany
+trying to get out of paying an indemnity by pulling off one of them
+street affairs with shooting which passes for Bolshevik revolution,"
+Morris said, "but the backing of such liberal-minded Americans wouldn't
+help the Germans none, because there would be a whole lot of husky
+parties in khaki going into Germany and acting in such an
+unliberal-minded way that the Germans would wish they would have paid
+the indemnity voluntarily on the instalment plan rather as have it
+collected all in one sum by levy and sale under an execution."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "it is always the case that when the
+creditors begin to scrap among themselves, y'understand, the fraudulent
+bankrupt stands a good chance to get away with the concealed assets,
+ain't it, and in particular in this case where there is so many
+liberal-minded people around which don't want to be too hard on Germany,
+_anyway_."
+
+"I bet yer," Morris said, fervently; "and while this here Peace
+Conference is killing a whole lot of time deliberating how to make this
+the last war, y'understand, they will wake up some fine morning to find
+out that they have really made it the last war but one. Furthermore,
+Abe, this next-to-the-last war wouldn't be a marker to the war we are
+going to have in collecting indemnities from Bolsheviki, because when it
+comes to atrocities, Abe, a Bolshevik government could make the old
+German government look like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
+Children, y'understand."
+
+"Might the Peace Conference would hurry up, maybe," Abe suggested.
+
+"They've got to hurry up if they don't want to be shifted from a Peace
+Conference to a Council of War," Morris said. "Look what has already
+happened in Hungary."
+
+"And yet, Mawruss, you would think that with a nation like the
+Hungarians, which is used to eating in Hungarian restaurants,
+y'understand, a little thing like starvation wouldn't worry them at
+all," Abe said, "so therefore I couldn't understand why the Hungarians
+should have gone Bolshevik from want of food, as the papers says they
+did."
+
+"_My_ paper didn't say it," Morris commented, "and if it did, I wouldn't
+believe it, anyway, because the most you could claim for Bolshevism as a
+cure for starvation is that it keeps the patient so busy worrying about
+his other troubles that he forgets how hungry he is. Furthermore, Abe,
+the way it looks to me, this here Bolshevik revolution in Hungary ain't
+even what the Poor Food Law would call a Bolshevik Type revolution,
+because it is my idea that Lenine and Trotzky could read the papers the
+same like anybody else. So, therefore, when they seen it that all the
+American newspaper correspondents was sending out word that the Peace
+Conference should ought to hurry up its work because of the spread of
+Bolshevism, y'understand, and that the delegates should ought to go easy
+on Germany because, if they didn't, Germany would probably go Bolshevik,
+y'understand, this here Trotzky, which once used to work on a New York
+newspaper but lived it down by changing his name from Bronstein to
+Trotzky, understand me, at once gets up a line of snappy advertisements
+headed:
+
+
+"'WHY BOLSHEVISM?'
+
+
+to the effect that a Revolution a Day Drives Indemnities Away and for
+particulars to write to Trotzky & Lenine, Department M, Petrograd Land
+Title and Trust Building, Petrograd. And, of course, Hungary fell for
+it."
+
+"So you think that this here Hungarian revolution is a fake?" Abe asked.
+
+"It ain't a fake, it's a business," Morris replied, "which I bet yer
+that right now Messrs. Ebert, Scheidemann & Co. is writing Trotzky &
+Lenine they should please quote prices on Bolshevist uprisings as per
+Hungarian sample, F.O.B. Berlin, and also that it wouldn't be only a
+matter of a few days when knocking Germany would be a capital offense in
+Petrograd, upon the grounds that the customer is always right."
+
+"But I understand that in Budapest the working-men is seizing the
+factories and running them themselves," Abe said.
+
+"There's always bound to be a certain number of people which couldn't
+take a job," Morris commented.
+
+"There's no joke about it," Abe declared, "which I see in the paper this
+morning that the new Hungarian Soviet government has directed the
+presidents of banks to put their business in the hands of the clerks and
+that the landlords has got to let the janitors manage the
+apartment-houses."
+
+"The landlords has got to do that in America, whether the government
+tells 'em to or not, Abe," Morris said, "and as for the bank presidents,
+Abe, they might just as well go out and look for another job to-day as
+to wait till next week when them committees of factory-workers will
+start in to make overdrafts at the point of a revolver."
+
+"Things must be terribly mixed up in Hungary, according to the papers,"
+Abe observed.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "in some countries a Bolshevik
+government could be quite disturbing, but take Hungarian cooking, for
+instance, and it wouldn't really make a whole lot of difference if
+_gulyas_ or paprika chicken was cooked by one chef or a committee of
+scullions, Abe, it would be just so miscellaneous and nobody could tell
+from eating it what had been put into it, y'understand. Also, Abe, take
+these here gipsy Hungarian bands, and while there would probably be a
+terrible conglomeration of noises if a committee of players was to start
+in to conduct the Boston Symphonies or the New York Philharmonics,
+y'understand, a committee of gipsy musicians couldn't make a _czardas_
+sound worser than it does, no matter how they disagree as to the way it
+should ought to be played."
+
+"For that matter, there's a lot of things produced in Germany which a
+Soviet government couldn't spoil, neither, Mawruss," Abe said, "like
+music by this here Nathan Strauss, the composer, or _Koenigsburger
+Klops_, now called Liberty Roast, which I see by last Sunday's paper
+that the Kaiser has been talking again."
+
+"And what's that got to do with Germany going Bolshevik?" Morris asked.
+
+"Nothing, except that it partially accounts for it," Abe replied, "which
+a newspaper feller by the name of Begbie called on the Kaiser in
+Holland, and he says the Kaiser couldn't see it at all."
+
+"See what?" Morris asked.
+
+"Why, he couldn't see what people is making such a fuss about," Abe
+said. "He says that, so far as starting this here war is concerned, he
+didn't _say_ nothing, he didn't _do_ nothing, and all he knows about it
+is that he lays the whole thing to the Freemasons."
+
+"You mean the F. A. M.?" Morris asked.
+
+"What other Freemasons is there?" Abe said.
+
+"You're sure he didn't say the Knights of Pythias or the I. O. O. F.,
+because, while I don't belong to the Masons myself, Abe, Rosie's
+sister's husband's brother by the name Harris November has been a
+thirty-sixth degree Mason for years already," Morris declared, "and I'll
+swear that if a gabby feller like him would have known that the Masons
+had anything to do with bringing on the war, Abe, he would of spilled it
+already long since ago."
+
+"Well, of course, I don't know nothing about what Harris November said
+or what he didn't say, Mawruss, but that's what the Kaiser said," Abe
+continued, "and he also had a good deal to say about Queen Victorine of
+England what a wonderful woman she was, _olav hasholom_, and how she
+told him many times he should look out for that low-life of a son of
+hers by the name Edwin."
+
+"But I always thought this here Edwin was such a decent, respectable
+feller," Morris interrupted.
+
+"That's what everybody else thought," Abe went on, "but the Kaiser says
+that many times the old lady says to him he shouldn't have nothing to do
+with Edwin. 'Believe me,' she said, according to the Kaiser, 'he
+wouldn't do you no good intellectually, morally, or socially,' and so
+for that reason the Kaiser wouldn't join the Entente with England,
+France, and Russia."
+
+"Because this here Edwin was at the bottom of it?" Morris inquired.
+
+"That's what the Kaiser _said_," Abe replied.
+
+"Maybe he also caught the poor Czar _selig_ eating with his knife or
+something," Morris suggested.
+
+"That he didn't say, neither," Abe answered, "but he might just so well
+have said it, for all it would go down with me, Mawruss, because we all
+know how kings sow their rolled oats, Mawruss, and any king which
+wouldn't associate with any other king on the grounds of running around
+the streets till all hours of the night or gambling, y'understand, if
+that ain't a case of a pot calling a kettle, I don't know what is."
+
+"And I suppose he topped off them lies by getting religious, ain't it?"
+Morris remarked.
+
+"Naturally," Abe said. "And in particular he got very sore at the
+Freemasons on account of them being atheists."
+
+"That's the first time I hear that about the Freemasons," Morris
+observed. "I think, myself, that he was getting them mixed up with the
+Elks."
+
+"The Elks ain't atheists," Abe said.
+
+"I know they ain't, but at the same time they ain't religious fanatics
+exactly," Morris said, "which to a particular feller like the Kaiser
+would be quite enough, Abe."
+
+"Also, Mawruss," Abe went on, "he claims that the Freemasons is all
+Bolshevists, and in fact, from the way he carried on about the
+Freemasons, you would think he was crazy on the subject."
+
+"Maybe they once turned him down or something," Morris commented, "which
+when I was treasurer of Friendship Lodge, 129, I. O. M. A., before we
+quit giving sick benefits, Abe, we turned down a feller by the name
+Turkeltaub on account of varicose veins, and the way he went around
+calling us all kinds of highwaymen you wouldn't believe at all."
+
+"But the newspaper feller that interviewed him says that the Kaiser
+seems to be in pretty good health, Mawruss," Abe declared.
+
+"That don't make him a good risk, neither," Morris retorted. "I suppose
+the interviewer didn't say how his appetite was."
+
+"What's his appetite got to do with it?" Abe asked.
+
+"Because, in speaking of murderers just before they go to the chair,
+Abe," Morris concluded, "the newspaper always say, 'The condemned man
+ate hearty.'"
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME FOR TRANSATLANTIC
+VOYAGES
+
+
+"I am surprised to see that an old-established and well-settled
+government like Mexico should got a revolution on his hands, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash declared as he skimmed the head-lines in the morning papers.
+
+"What makes you think that Mexico is an old-established and well-settled
+government, Abe?" Morris Perlmutter asked.
+
+"Germany and Hungary do," Abe replied, "which up to the time this here
+General Blanquet lands the other day in Mexico, people was beginning to
+say that why couldn't Germany have one last revolution and stick to it
+and look at Mexico the way she settled down, not having had a single
+revolution to speak of since January fifteenth, nineteen-nineteen."
+
+"Well, I think the reason why the Mexicans 'ain't had a revolution in so
+long isn't because they didn't want to, Abe," Morris said, "but because
+it has taken them all that time to learn the technical terms. You see, a
+really and truly up-to-date revolution couldn't be run off nowadays,
+Abe, unless it is one of them Bolshevik Type revolutions, and in order
+to get the right kind of newspaper publicity for it the management has
+got to know enough Russian not to say _soviet_ when they mean _mir_.
+Also I bet yer when it comes to a zemstvo, the Mexicans don't know even
+now whether you dance it to a guitar and cascanet accompaniment or eat
+it with garlic and chili sauce."
+
+"A feller could make quite some money nowadays from teaching Russian by
+mail to revolutionary socialists," Abe commented.
+
+"That ain't necessary in this country, Abe," Morris said, "because the
+Bolshevik government in Russia has sent over here a feller by the name
+of Martens to give a course in Bolshevism to American working-men."
+
+"And did our government let him land?" Abe asked.
+
+"Seemingly they did," Morris replied, "which is pretty liberal of our
+government when you consider that right now we got American soldiers in
+Russia which is fighting Bolshevism."
+
+"It's even more than liberal, it's crazy," Abe said, "because while I
+believe in free speech, y'understand, Bolshevik speeches ain't free by a
+whole lot. Over in Hungary they became payable in thirty, sixty, and
+ninety days and the only people which ain't ruined by them is the makers
+and indorsers."
+
+"You are right about the makers, Abe," Morris commented. "For the most
+part they are a bunch of no-account foreigners which all they risk by
+making such speeches is hoarseness, y'understand, but some of the
+indorsers of such speeches comes from the best American families, and if
+the time ever comes when there _should_ be a little temporary Bolshevik
+trouble by foreigners in this country who have been encouraged by the
+liberal attitude of the government to think that the worst which could
+happen to them would be ten dollars or ten days, y'understand, them
+indorsers would got to pay the same like any other decent, respectable
+people which ain't Bolsheviks. Take, for example, in Hungary and the
+protelariats is making the middle class give up their bath-rooms to the
+working-people every Saturday night."
+
+"But the protelariats in New York has all got bath-rooms in their
+tenement-houses, Mawruss," Abe protested.
+
+"I know they have, but they'll probably figure that why should they
+trouble themselves to empty the coal out of their bath-tubs, which is
+what them protelariats now use bath-tubs for, Abe, just to save the
+middle class the inconvenience of changing their bath night from
+Saturday to Friday," Morris said, "but at the same time, Abe, it don't
+look to me that a country which has got the modern convenience of
+America is going to go Bolshevik for the next few hundred years, anyway,
+because it is my idee that what makes a people become Bolsheviks is the
+lack of good plumbing and savings-bank accounts, and rather as have the
+privacy of their bath-rooms and their savings-bank accounts invaded,
+the big majority of the American people would declare the United States
+of America an obsolete monarchy with Ivan D. Ivanovitch, alias John D.
+Rockafeller, Jr., as the first Czar, understand me."
+
+"Well, if I would be the United States government I wouldn't let a
+Bolshevik land exactly," Abe declared.
+
+"What do you mean--you wouldn't let him land _exactly_?" Morris asked.
+
+"I mean what I say," Abe said. "I would let him pretty nearly land and
+then tip up the gang-plank. Also, Mawruss, if I would be the United
+States government, I would allow free speech, but not free speakers,
+y'understand, which I would make public speaking a profession the same
+like lawyers, dentists, or doctors, because if nobody could be a public
+speaker without taking a four-year course in public speaking and then
+getting licensed to practise as a public speaker after passing an
+examination, y'understand, he would think anyhow twice before he says
+something in public which would bring him up on charges to show cause
+why he shouldn't have his license to practise as a public speaker taken
+away from him. In other words, Mawruss, the way I would prevent
+Bolshevism is that I would make the sheepskin take the place of the
+soapbox as a necessary article for public speaking, and incidentally in
+the foreign neighborhoods of our big cities, y'understand, not only
+would soap-boxes be used for soap, but it would also go a long way
+towards making bath-tubs used for bathing."
+
+"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "I couldn't help thinking that if
+the feller who talks in public was given less to talk about,
+y'understand, it would help a whole lot, too, which there wouldn't be
+nearly so many loafers go into the Bolshevik line if there wasn't so
+many respectable people engaged in what might be called manufacturing
+Bolshevik supplies, such as army officers which claims that nobody has a
+right to kick if a soldier gets ten years' hard labor for using bad
+grammar in speaking to an officer, y'understand. Also there is a lot of
+state Legislatures in this country which has seemingly formed themselves
+into Societies for the Encouragement of Bolshevism by earning, anyhow,
+the gratitude of canners and cotton manufacturers who have got women and
+children working for them till all hours of the night, y'understand.
+Then again there is the perfectly respectable people which would like to
+make by law a Sunday out of every week-day and a living tomb out of
+Sunday, understand me, and which would have nobody but themselves to
+blame if some day they would got to furnish soap and towels for the
+protelariats in their bath-rooms."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "Bolshevism as a form of government is
+pretty nearly exploded, Mawruss. It is now used principally as a threat
+such as when Germany says if the Polaks get Danzig and West Prussia,
+y'understand, Germany would take up Bolshevism, and Paderewski says if
+the Polaks don't get Danzig, Poland would take up Bolshevism, understand
+me."
+
+"And Paderewski would take up giving piano lessons to raise enough money
+to get out of Poland, Abe," Morris commented, "and he would probably
+have to do so, too, as there ain't much chance of his getting away with
+that Danzig stuff. Also, Abe, we Americans should ought to be the last
+to encourage him to think that he will, Abe, because while I don't know
+how long it is since Danzig, Germany, was Danzig, Poland, I do know that
+it ain't nearly so long ago as Galveston, Texas, was Galveston, Mexico,
+y'understand. So, therefore, if Mr. Wilson lets Poland get back Danzig,
+it wouldn't be long before Mexico would elect Teresa Carreno or Fannie
+Bloomfield Zeisler as President and claim Galveston with a corridor
+taking in San Antonio and Houston, understand me."
+
+"Just the same, I am in favor that Germany should have to give up Danzig
+even if Danzig 'ain't belonged to Poland since 1492 and the only Danzig
+people now speaking Polish as a regular language is the interpreter of
+the First District Magistrate's Court for the City and County of Danzig,
+y'understand," Abe declared. "Furthermore, I think this here Peace
+Conference is taking it too particular about what Germany should or
+shouldn't give up, Mawruss, which if the shoe pinched on the other foot,
+Mawruss, and this here Peace Conference was being held in Berlin or
+Vienna, y'understand, with Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria as the
+Big Four, understand me, there wouldn't be any question as to what
+Allied territory would or wouldn't be given up by the Allies, Mawruss.
+If Germany would have won the war, Mawruss, she would have taken Calais
+and Boulogne with as much argument over it as a golluf-player taking a
+Scotch highball, y'understand, and if France would have threatened to go
+Bolshevik on account of it, Germany would of said, 'Don't do us no
+favors,' understand me, and let it go at that. So, therefore, if the
+people of Danzig couldn't speak Polish, Mawruss, let 'em learn to do so,
+even if it would be necessary for them to go to a nose and throat
+specialist till they got used to the pronunciation."
+
+"Say, for my part I am willing that this here Peace Conference should do
+anything and everything, Abe, just so long as they would get through
+with their work and I wouldn't have to listen no longer to your
+nonsense," Morris declared.
+
+"No nonsense at all," Abe protested. "The thing this here Peace
+Conference should ought to have done from the start was to consider what
+Germany would have done under the circumstances, put the reverse English
+on it, and then let her whoop, which I see by the paper that they are
+now getting ready to make airyoplane journeys across the Atlantic Ocean,
+Mawruss."
+
+"And what's that got to do with this here Peace Conference?" Morris
+asked.
+
+"Nothing," Abe said, "except that I see Mr. Wilson is writing home that
+they should please send over the _George Washington_ in case it should
+be necessary for him to make good any bluff he might throw to the Peace
+Conference that if they don't do as he says, he would leave them flat
+and go back to America. So, therefore, if he has to make good sooner
+than he thinks, he could go home by airyoplane and not wait for the
+_George Washington_."
+
+"I don't think that this here transatlantic airyoplane flying is exactly
+in the President-carrying class just yet, Abe," Morris suggested.
+
+"Neither do I, Mawruss," Abe said, "but the manufacturers of airyoplanes
+seems pretty confident, Mawruss. In fact, I see in the papers that it
+won't be but a matter of a few years when the New York business man
+which has business to do in London, instead of getting on the
+_Mauretania_ in New York and landing six days later in Liverpool,
+y'understand, would be able to take the railroad to Halifax, Nova
+Scotia, spend the night there or anyhow only as many nights there as it
+would be necessary before the steamer sails for Saint John's,
+Newfoundland, and then take the steamer to Saint John's, Newfoundland,
+where there would be a passenger airyoplane in waiting and no
+first-class hotels, y'understand. At Saint John's, such is the strides
+airyoplane-manufacturing has made, Mawruss, he would probably only have
+to stick around for five or six days till the airyoplane was in shape to
+leave, understand me, and in twenty-four hours he would land at the
+Azores, where there ain't no hotels at all, understand me. In less than
+four days more, provided the repairs didn't take longer, he would be on
+his way to Lisbon, Portugal, which he would reach on the following day
+or days. There the same airyoplane or another airyoplane, in case the
+same airyoplane got smashed in landing, would be ready or approximately
+ready to start for Paris, and might even start, you couldn't tell. On
+arriving in Paris, he would be only a few hours by railroad and steamer
+from London, provided he was in shape to travel, which, when you
+consider that only a few years ago flying was in its infancy, Mawruss,
+you've got to admit that nobody could ever have dreamed that it was
+possible to make such a journey."
+
+"Not unless you ate something which disagreed with you before you went
+to sleep," Morris commented, "and even then, Abe, where is the
+advantage?"
+
+"It ain't the advantage, it's the novelty of the thing," Abe said, "and
+I'll bet yer, Mawruss, that if an Airyoplane Company was to open a
+ticket-office in New York to-morrow, Mawruss, men would be standing in
+line to buy accommodations on the first available airyoplane--men with
+wives and families and no life insurance at that."
+
+"They would be the very first ones," Morris agreed, "but the way it
+looks to me, Abe, New York business men which has not business to do
+in London would continue to take twin-screw steamers with bilge
+keels, no matter how unimportant the business they was going to
+transact over there might be, because even the stockholders in
+airyoplane-manufacturing corporations would got to admit that while
+airyoplane-flying ain't in its infancy, exactly, it ain't in the prime
+of life, neither. Also, Abe, as long as gas only costs a dollar
+twenty-five a thousand cubic feet, why should any one want to pull off
+such a high-priced suicide as these here transatlantic airyoplane
+voyages is going to be?"
+
+"Anyhow, the first one has still got to be made yet, Mawruss," Abe
+remarked.
+
+"And even if the tenth one was successful, Abe," Morris concluded, "you
+could take it from me, this here transatlantic airyoplane navigation
+ain't going to put much of a crimp into the business of manufacturing
+seasick remedies. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THIS HERE VICTORY LIBERTY LOAN
+
+
+"The way some people is acting about this here Victory Loan, Mawruss,"
+Abe Potash remarked one morning in April, "you would think that they was
+all presidents of a first national bank and that this here Carter J.
+Glass has already made a big overdraft and if he don't like the line of
+credit they are giving him, he should be so good as to take his account
+somewheres else, y'understand."
+
+"Them same people probably think that investing their money in any
+securities bearing interest at less than fifteen per cent. per annum is,
+so to speak, the equivalence from giving money to orphan-asylums and
+hospitals, understand me," Morris Perlmutter said. "'We already give
+them Liberty Loan _schnorrers_ two hundred dollars toward the expenses
+of their rotten war,' they probably say, 'and _still_ they ain't
+satisfied.'"
+
+"And at that they don't mean nothing by it," Abe said, "because there is
+a whole lot of business men in the United States which couldn't even
+give up the family housekeeping money every week without anyhow saying
+to their wives: 'Here, take my blood; take my life. What do you want
+from me, _anyway_?'"
+
+"Maybe they do and maybe they don't mean nothing by it, Abe," Morris
+said, "but it would be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass
+if everybody would act as his own Victory Bond salesman and try to sell
+himself just one more bond than he has really got any business buying,
+y'understand."
+
+"It would be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass, Mawruss,
+but it would be practically impossible for pretty nearly everybody
+else," Abe remarked, "which human nature is so constituted, Mawruss,
+that the only time a man really and truly uses some high-class,
+silver-tongued salesmanship on himself is when he is trying to persuade
+himself that it is all right for him to do something which he knows in
+his heart it is dead wrong for him to do."
+
+"Well, at least, Abe, in this here Victory Loan Campaign, every man
+should ought to try to put himself in the place of the salesman which is
+trying to sell him some of these Victory Bonds," Morris continued, "so
+we would say, for example, that you would be a Victory Bond salesman,
+Abe, and you are calling on a feller which he is a pretty tough
+proposition in such matters by the name of, we would say, for instance,
+Abe Potash."
+
+"Why don't you make the feller which the salesman is supposed to call on
+a really and truly hard-boiled egg, by the name, we would say, for
+instance, Mawruss Perlmutter?" Abe asked. "Which when you put up to me
+a hypocritical case, Mawruss, why is it you must always start in by
+getting insulted already?"
+
+"What do you mean getting insulted?" Morris asked. "I am only putting
+something up to you for the sake of argument not arguments."
+
+"Well, then, why not be perfectly neuter and call the tough proposition
+which the Victory Bond salesman is visiting, somebody by the name of a
+competitor like Leon Sammet, for instance?" Abe suggested.
+
+"Because I am trying to make you put yourself in the place of the
+Victory Bond salesman who is trying to sell you bonds," Morris declared.
+
+"Put your _own_ self in the place of the Victory Bond salesman," Abe
+exclaimed, "which if you want to give me any hypocritical cases for the
+sake of argument, Mawruss, I have seen the way you practically snap the
+head off a collector for a charitable fund enough times to appreciate
+how you would behave towards a Victory Bond salesman, so go ahead on the
+basis that you are the tough proposition and not me."
+
+"A charitable fund is one thing and this here Victory Loan another,"
+Morris said.
+
+"I know it is," Abe agreed, "but at the same time, Mawruss, a whole lot
+of people feels that if ever they give a couple dollars to an
+orphan-asylum, they practically got vaccinated against future attacks of
+the same complaint, and if three years later the collector for the
+orphan-asylum calls on them again they say: 'Why, I already gave you
+two dollars for that orphan-asylum! What did you done with it all?' And
+I bet yer that just as many people considered that the fifty-dollar bond
+which they bought during the First Liberty Loan Campaign should ought to
+have set up such a strong antiseptic in their system that they would be
+immune to all other Liberty Bond Campaigns, no matter if such campaigns
+would continue until there was, God forbid! a Fiftieth Liberty Loan
+already."
+
+"Some people never even got, so to speak, jabbed the first time," Morris
+observed, "and the way they avoid Liberty Bond salesmen, Abe, you would
+think that such a salesman was a sort of Liberty Bond Typhoid Mary and
+would infect them tightwads with a disease where they were liable to
+break out all over with coupons or something."
+
+"As a matter of fact, Mawruss, that's just the effect which a Liberty
+Bond salesman should ought to have on the right kind of sitson," Abe
+said, "which while I don't mean to say that making a good investment
+like buying of a Liberty Bond should ought to be considered as a
+disease, Mawruss, it should anyhow be infectious and should ought to
+spread so rapidly that everybody in the United States could say they had
+it to the extent of at least one fifty-dollar bond of the Victory Loan."
+
+"But there is over a hundred million people in the United States, Abe,"
+Morris said, "and if they all bought one fifty-dollar bond,
+y'understand, it would make the Victory Loan five billion dollars,
+whereas this here Carter J. Glass is only asking for four billion five
+hundred million."
+
+"Well, to my mind, he's acting too modest, Mawruss," Abe went on,
+"because if we expect Germany to raise the first five billion dollars of
+her indemnity with nothing to show for it but the promise that she would
+have to raise five billion more every two years till the whole indemnity
+was paid, understand me, how much more should we raise over here with
+the promise that it is going to be paid back to us in a few years, with
+interest at the rate of four and three-quarters per cent. per annum?
+Why, under them conditions, Mawruss, any American which would refuse to
+buy a Victory Loan Bond should ought to be considered as applying for
+German sitsonship papers and should ought to be exported to Hamburg,
+where his adopted fellow-sitsons is getting frisked by the German
+government for every cent they possess and ain't getting so much as a
+receipt to show for it."
+
+"For that matter, an American which refuses to buy Victory Liberty Bonds
+should ought to completely lost his memory, Abe," Morris declared.
+"Evidently a feller, if some one starts a conversation about the war, is
+going to say, '_What_ war?' and when it is reminded to his memory that
+as recently ago as last November the papers was printing every day
+columns and columns about the war which was going on in Europe, he would
+probably say: 'Oh, _that_ war! I thought that war was already a thing
+of the past.' And also probably he might even ask, 'Tell me, was there
+many people hurt?'"
+
+"Well, if some folks has got such short memories like all that, and is
+only affected by what they have read in the papers at the latest the day
+before yesterday, Mawruss," Abe said, "why not have the Victory Liberty
+Loan salesmen approach them on the basis of what is going on _now_ in
+Europe? 'You are asked,' such a salesman would say, 'to invest your
+money in a first-class A-number-one security, backed by the United
+States government and bearing interest at the rate of four and
+three-quarters per cent. per annum, and that is the very least you could
+do for your country when you consider that right now,' the salesman
+would say, and he should practise in advance to make his voice sound
+tragical, 'right now _your_ uncles and _my_ uncles is making peace in
+Paris with all the strength of language which they've got in their
+system.
+
+"'Yes, Mr. Sitson,' the salesman should go on to say, 'the government is
+only asking _you_ to invest in interest-bearing cash money, so to speak,
+and what for a sacrifice is _that_ compared to the suffering of _your_
+father-in-laws and _my_ father-in-laws which is bravely standing larynx
+to larynx in the battle area of the Peace Conference while the air is
+filled with the French, Italian, Greek, Jugo-Slob, and Polish remarks?
+_You_ sit here in your comfortable home while the flower of our experts
+and college professors is exposed to all kinds of coffee and cigars.
+Ain't you ashamed to be doing nothing but buy bonds when old and feeble
+men like most of the American Peace delegates is battling with French
+waiters, French taxicab-drivers, French hotel service, and French
+laundry-lists, giving and receiving no mercy, y'understand, and you
+should thank Heaven that your own country has been spared the horrors of
+having on our own soil this here Peace Conference which is now raging in
+Paris, understand me.'"
+
+"That would be anyhow an argument," Morris admitted, "but with these
+here Victory Liberty Bonds it shouldn't ought to be a case of first come
+first serve. With only four and a half billion dollars' worth of Victory
+Liberty Bonds for sale, Abe, seventy-five per cent. of the people of the
+United States should ought to be going around looking as sore as fellers
+that sell tickets in theater box-offices, and when any one asks 'em why,
+they should say: 'Ain't it just my luck! I put off buying my Victory
+Liberty Bonds till April 23d, and when I got round to the bank there
+wasn't one left.' Yes, Abe, instead of Victory Liberty Bond salesmen
+having to go about visiting customers, y'understand, they should ought
+to have luxurious fitted-up offices, and it should ought to be a case of
+when the customer arrives the Victory Liberty Bond salesman should ought
+to be playing auction pinochle or rummy with two other Victory Liberty
+Bond salesmen. Then when the customer says is this the place where they
+sell Victory Liberty Bonds, the salesman says, 'I'll be with you in a
+minute,' and makes the customer stand around without even offering him a
+seat until the salesmen gets through playing two more hands. The
+customer should then make out his own application, y'understand, have
+the exact change ready, and close the door quietly when leaving, and
+that's the way I would sell Victory Liberty Bonds if I was the
+government."
+
+"That's the way you even try to sell garments," Abe commented.
+
+"Because," Morris continued, evading the challenge, "it is my idee that
+it is a privilege to be allowed to buy these here Victory Liberty Bonds,
+and before any one gets that privilege, Abe, he should be made to prove
+that he has done something to deserve it. Yes, Abe, instead of a man
+wearing a button to show that he has bought Liberty Bonds, he should
+ought to go before a notary public and make an oath that he has given up
+his quota to all Red Cross and United War Relief drives and otherwise
+done everything he could do to help win the war if he couldn't fight in
+it, y'understand, and then, and only then, Abe, he should be given a
+button entitling him to buy Victory Liberty Bonds under the conditions I
+have stated."
+
+"But, joking apart, Mawruss, and talking business, not poetry,
+understand me," Abe asked, "do you actually think that this here Victory
+Liberty Loan would be all taken up by them methods? To my mind,
+Mawruss, it would be a whole lot better to look the horse straight in
+the teeth, y'understand, and take it as settled that a lot of people
+which has got the money to buy bonds would go round saying that they
+would be very glad to buy bonds if they only had the money,
+y'understand. To such people, Mawruss, I would remind them again that a
+war, even when you win it, ain't a cash-in-advance proposition. In fact,
+a war ain't even a C. O. D. proposition. Wars is paid for on the
+instalment plan, Mawruss, and while this particular war is over,
+understand me, the bill has still got to be paid, and if such people
+won't lend the government the money to pay for the war, the government
+would have to do what the German government is going to do to the German
+people--instead of touching them for it and paying it back, they would
+frisk them for it and not even say much obliged, y'understand."
+
+"At that, Abe, I ain't worried a whole lot about the result of this
+Victory Liberty Loan," Morris said. "When all is said and done, Abe, the
+American people love their country."
+
+"I know they do," Abe agreed, "but also, Mawruss, there is a whole lot
+of fellers which loves their families and at the same time don't lose no
+sleep nights because they ain't providing for them as they should ought
+to do. So to them people I would say: 'Which would you rather have it as
+a souvenir of the war: Victory Liberty Bonds or tax bills?' Also, 'Would
+you sooner be paid interest or would you sooner pay interest?'"
+
+"In other words, Abe, you would threaten 'em into buying bonds," Morris
+observed.
+
+"Only when it's necessary, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "and that wouldn't
+be in the case of one thousandth of one per cent. of the entire
+population, because the great majority of the people thinks the way I do
+about their money: the government let me make it, and the government
+lets me keep it, and if the government would sooner borrow part of it
+instead of taking it all, Mawruss, that's only the government's good
+nature, which nobody should presume too much on good nature, Mawruss. Am
+I right or wrong?"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+WHEN IS A SECRET TREATY SECRET?
+
+
+"I see where President Wilson sent a letter to the German government
+that they might just so well save the car fare and not send any
+delegates to this here Peace Conference which wouldn't be prepared for
+the worst, Mawruss," Abe Potash said one morning in April.
+
+"You would think, considering how excited the German people gets
+nowadays, that they would have a hard time finding any one to take the
+job of delegate, Abe," Morris Perlmutter suggested, "which the least
+that happens to one of them German delegates after the German people
+finds out what was in the paper he signed is that his executioners would
+claim that the daylight-saving law made it unnecessary for them to wait
+till sunrise, y'understand."
+
+"Well, he would always have the excuse that the only thing he seen of
+the Peace Treaty before he signed it was a dotted line, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "and also, Mawruss, it is just possible that the return half of
+them German peace delegates will read _via_ Amsterdam, and that before
+taking a three years' lease of an Amsterdam apartment some of them
+peace delegates would first visit a ticket-scalper and get that much off
+their minds, anyway."
+
+"And even in Paris them German peace delegates wouldn't be, neither,"
+Morris declared, "which I see that the French government is too safe
+arranging for the accommodation of them German delegates at a hotel next
+to the place where the Peace Treaty is going to be signed, Abe, and the
+lot on which the hotel stands is going to be protected with an egg-proof
+fence eight feet high so that the German delegates can escape any stray
+rotten eggs."
+
+"The fence could be twelve feet high, Mawruss," Abe remarked, "and it
+wouldn't do any good, because nobody could escape rotten eggs in a
+French hotel, Mawruss, rotten coffee, neither. Also, Mawruss, eggs
+'ain't got nothing to do with that fence, because if that fence wouldn't
+be there, Mawruss, when it comes time for them German delegates to sign
+the treaty, Mawruss, the Peace Conference would got to appoint a
+Committee of Resident Buyers to round up them German delegates, on
+account that nobody else but Resident Buyers who is accustomed to
+entertaining their American clients would know where them German
+delegates had disappeared to."
+
+"Well, in a way it is the Peace Conference's own fault because they sent
+word to the German government that they didn't want to deal with no
+messengers, but that the German delegates should all be high-up
+officials, Abe," Morris said, "which seemingly as a general thing the
+higher up a German happens to be, y'understand, the lower down he can
+act. Take, for example, the Crown Prince, Abe, and I always thought that
+no matter how much people abused him, Abe, he could anyhow go home and
+say to his wife whatever I done, I done it all for you, instead of going
+somewhere else and saying it to ballet-dancers, as his wife's mother
+claims."
+
+"I understand he was leading a double life, Mawruss," Abe observed.
+
+"He was leading a double life in spades, Abe," Morris declared, alluding
+to the game of auction pinochle. "Day after day his wife's mother says
+he would leave the house to go down-town to the palace, and instead he
+would go down-town not to the palace and never show up till all hours of
+the morning. Then when his wife asked him where he was putting in his
+time, y'understand, instead of acting reasonable and telling her a phony
+story about being sick and tired of getting stuck at the Reichskanzlei
+night after night, and that he wished the old man would get through
+springing a new chancellor on him every week, understand me, he gives
+himself dead away by getting sore. In fact, Abe, his mother-in-law says
+that the Hohenzollern royal colors is black and blue, anyhow so far as
+the Crown Princess is concerned, and that she made up her mind that she
+wouldn't let her daughter live with him no longer, so the chances is
+that if the German people goes back to the monarchy, they would not
+only got to pay indemnities for what the Crown Prince done, but alimony
+besides."
+
+"Well, even if the mother-in-law couldn't prove what she says about her
+daughter's husband, which very few mother-in-laws can, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "the Crown Princess would be able to get her devorce upon the
+grounds that her husband was convicted of a felony, y'understand, which
+he will be, Mawruss, just so soon as the Peace Conference has finished
+drawing up the indictment."
+
+"Then them German people will be paying her temporary alimony
+permanently for the rest of her life, Abe," Morris said, "because them
+fellers which is drawing the indictments against the Kaiser and the
+Crown Prince seems to be taking their own time about it."
+
+"It's a big job, Mawruss, because you take the indictment against the
+Crown Prince, Mawruss, and the chances is that the first two hundred
+counts alone is for French chateau furniture, and when some one steals
+anything from a French chateau, Mawruss, it's a hundred to one that he
+is guilty not only of larceny, y'understand, but of concealing mortgaged
+property besides, understand me," Abe said, "which it has always been a
+wonder to me, Mawruss, that some of these ladies of the four hundred who
+open tea-rooms for European war relief has never considered doing
+nothing for them Ruined Mortgagees of France, or the Suffering Judgment
+Creditors of Allied Noblemen. Most of our best families has had
+experience some time or another with railroad reorganizations, and you
+would think they would have enough sympathy for them Starving Lienors of
+France, Mawruss, to get up, anyhow, a bazaar. It could be advertised
+with a picture by some big artist like C. G. Gibson, where an old man in
+what used to was a fur overcoat before the moths got into it is bending
+over Liber 2244 of Mortgages, page 391, which is all the old feller has
+got to show for what was once a first lien on some gilt-edged chateau
+property, Mawruss."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "there's a certain number of people
+which nobody has got any sympathy with, like mortgagers, coal dealers,
+head waiters, garage proprietors, and fellers which works in theayter
+ticket-offices, to which, of course, must also be added
+Postmaster-General Burleson."
+
+"And why that feller is so unpopular is a mystery to me, Mawruss," Abe
+said. "You would think, to hear the way the newspapers talk about him,
+that the very least he had done was to mix arsenic with the gum which
+they put on the backs of stamps, whereas, so far as I could see, the
+poor feller is only trying to do his duty and keep down the wages of
+telephone operators, which I don't know how strong telephone operators
+is with the rest of the country, but compared with the hit that they
+make with me, Mawruss, Mr. Burleson would be a general favorite,
+y'understand."
+
+"He was already in bad before them telephone girls struck on him, Abe,"
+Morris said, "and for the very reason, as you say, that he has always
+done his duty as he seen it, which the trouble with them fellers that do
+their duty as they see it is that nobody else could see it, Abe. It is
+also the case that them people which do their duty as they see it
+usually has rotten eyesight, Abe, and when it comes right down to it,
+Abe, there is even some people which claims that Mr. Wilson should also
+consult an oculist to find out if he don't need to have his glasses
+changed. In fact, there's a couple of fellers by the name Orlando and
+Sonnino which seems to think that Mr. Wilson is practically blind so far
+as Fiume is concerned."
+
+"You mean to say they 'ain't settled that Fiume thing yet, Mawruss?" Abe
+asked.
+
+"They did and they didn't," Morris said. "Mr. Wilson give out a long
+statement about it in which he thought he settled it, Abe, and the
+Italian peace delegates said they would go home and leave the Peace
+Conference flat, y'understand, and thought they settled it, but the way
+it looks now, Abe, if the Peace Conference stays in session till they do
+settle it, when Mr. Wilson comes back and explains the Peace Treaty to
+Congress, he will speak with such a strong French accent that only the
+members from Louisiana will be able to understand a word he says."
+
+"But why does Mr. Wilson say that Italy shouldn't have Fiume?" Abe
+inquired.
+
+"Because it doesn't square up with his fourteen points," Morris replied,
+"and seemingly he don't want to stretch a point."
+
+"Well, if he did, Mawruss, it wouldn't be the first time," Abe declared,
+"because if you recollect them fourteen points, which is more than most
+people could, Mawruss, point number one said that there should be open
+covenants of peace openly arrived at, Mawruss, and also something about
+such terms being discussed openly, frankly, and in the public view,
+Mawruss, and the way Mr. Wilson has stretched that point, Mawruss, it'll
+never look like the same point again."
+
+"Say!" Morris interrupted. "As a keep-it-dark proposition, Abe, Mr.
+Wilson 'ain't got nothing on this here Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and the
+firm of Orlando & Sonnino, to say nothing of the Japanese delegates,
+which I suppose you heard about them secret treaties, Abe."
+
+"I never heard tell of them," Abe replied.
+
+"Neither did Mr. Wilson until the other day, which the way it happened
+was this," Morris continued: "Orlando & Sonnino was talking the whole
+thing over in a friendly way with Lloyd George and Mr. Wilson, and Mr.
+Wilson says that when it come right down to it Italy's claims to Trieste
+wasn't what would be called in the language of diplomacy exactly kosher,
+neither, and Sonnino says: 'Is that so? Well, how about our treaty?' And
+although Orlando kicked his partner under the table and Lloyd George
+give him one of them what-are-you-trying-to-do-spoil-everything looks,
+Mr. Wilson caught on right away. 'What treaty?' he asked, and Lloyd
+George says: 'Why, you know what treaty. I was sitting right here when
+Clemenceau told you all about it,' and it appears that all the time Mr.
+Wilson was kidding himself along that if he compromised by letting Italy
+have Trieste, she would pass up Fiume, Abe, it seems she had a secret
+agreement with France and England that she was to have Trieste, anyway."
+
+"No wonder Mr. Wilson feels sore," Abe remarked.
+
+"Wait, that ain't all," Morris said. "Now it appears that Japan has also
+a secret treaty with France and England to get a slice of China which
+formerly belonged to Germany, y'understand, and Mr. Wilson is beginning
+to experience what it is like when you sit in a poker game all evening
+and don't find out till the last round is on that everybody else around
+the table is playing for the house."
+
+"They could all be playing honest at that, Mawruss," Abe suggested.
+
+"Sure they could, with the exception of having a couple of secret
+treaties or so," Morris agreed, "but at the same time, Abe, I wouldn't
+be a bit surprised if since the discovery of these here secret treaties,
+Mr. Wilson has waked up more than once somewheres around three A.M. and
+asked himself did he or did he not need a mandatory, y'understand, and
+also wondered what the folks back home is thinking--particularly a few
+Senators like Lodge and Johnson."
+
+"I don't agree with you, Mawruss," Abe declared. "I think that Mr.
+Wilson will get the better end of the deal, because from what has
+happened in this war, Mawruss, diplomacy is one of them games where the
+feller which don't know how to play it has got a big advantage over the
+feller that does. So, therefore, while the old-time experienced
+diplomatist is saying it never has been done that way and therefore
+couldn't be done, Mawruss, a new beginner like Mr. Wilson has already
+gone to work and done it, which I bet yer right now, Mawruss, that if
+Mr. Wilson don't want Italy to have Fiume she won't get it, and the same
+thing goes for Japan also, Mawruss--secret treaty or no secret treaty."
+
+"Still, there's a whole lot of people in America which would like to see
+Italy get Fiume, Abe," Morris said.
+
+"There was a whole lot of people, Mawruss," Abe said, "but this
+secret-treaty business has killed it, which if Italy wanted to be fair
+about it, why didn't she come right out before the armistice even and
+say, 'Look-a-here, we got a secret treaty and we may as well tell you so
+right from the start'?"
+
+"Then the secret treaty wouldn't been no more secret, Abe," Morris said.
+
+"She would have been doing the manly thing, anyway," Abe said.
+
+"I know she would," Morris admitted, "but that's the difference between
+the old-fashioned Italian diplomacy and the new-fashioned American
+diplomacy. The Italians believe that there should be secret covenants of
+peace secretly arrived at, and we believe that there should be open
+covenants of peace openly arrived at."
+
+"There is also the difference, Mawruss, that the Italians stick to their
+beliefs," Abe concluded, "and we don't."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE FIRST DAY OF MAY
+
+
+"I see where in Genoa they already changed the name of a street which
+only last week they called Wilson Avenue, Mawruss," Abe Potash said one
+morning after the rupture with Orlando.
+
+"Well, that's the trouble with calling articles after the latest popular
+success, Abe," Morris said. "It don't make no difference if it's streets
+or cigars, the first thing you know the people gets a grouch on the
+original of the brand and the manufacturer has got to tear up a few
+thousand Flor de President Wilson labels and go back to calling it the
+Regalia de Ginsburg Brothers, or whatever the name was."
+
+"But in Genoa they didn't go back to the name of the old street,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "They renamed it Fiume Street."
+
+"And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a few Burleson streets was
+changed to Second Class Avenue, Abe," Morris declared, "on account this
+is a time of great ups and downs in the reputations of politicians, not
+to say statesmen, Abe, which six months from now nobody would be able to
+say offhand whether the name was Bela Hanson or Old Kun except the
+immediate family in Budapest or Seattle, as the case may be."
+
+"In a way, Mawruss, the reputations of politicians, not to say
+statesmen, can get to be, so to speak, a nuisance to their
+fellow-countrymen," Abe observed, "which it happens once in a while that
+some politicians and statesmen gets to having such a high regard for
+their reputations, Mawruss, they would sooner injure their country than
+their reputation. Italian statesmen, French statesmen, English
+statesmen, and even, you might say, American statesmen goes about their
+work with one eye on the job in hand and the other eye on a possible
+statue or so at the junction of Main Street and Railroad Avenue in their
+native town, y'understand, with a subscription on the pedestal:
+
+
+                  "'HARRIS J. SONNINO
+
+Erected by His Fellow-Townsmen of East Rome, August 1, 1919.'"
+
+
+"Such an ambition, anyhow, makes the statesmen try to do the right
+thing," Morris observed.
+
+"And it also occasionally makes him do the obstinate thing, Mawruss,"
+Abe continued. "In fact, Mawruss, sometimes I couldn't help wishing that
+it was the custom to have corporations and not men as ambassadors and
+presidents, because it would be such a simple matter when the
+Republicans nominated the Chicago Title Guarantee, Security and Mortgage
+Company for President and the Democrats nominated the Algonquin Trust
+Company, of Pottstown, for the voters of the country to compare the
+statement of assets of each company and judge which was the most
+reliable, y'understand. Also, Mawruss, if the Algonquin Trust Company
+was now President of the United States, understand me, and somebody was
+to say they didn't like the way the President was running things at the
+Peace Conference, y'understand, nobody would have the nerve to arrest
+him for criticizing a great and good corporation like the Algonquin
+Trust Company. Furthermore, Mawruss, if Italy had been represented at
+this here Peace Conference not by Sonnino, but by the Milan Trust
+Company, which no doubt acts as executor, guardian or trustee like any
+other trust company, and therefore why not as ambassador, understand me,
+there never would have been no scrap about Fiume arising from the fact
+that the Milan Trust Company could never go home and face the people of
+Italy without Fiume, and also nobody would have considered that Mr.
+Wilson's statement was a direct slap in the face of the Milan Trust
+Company, Mawruss."
+
+"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "if you are trying to invent this
+_schmooes_ about corporations just so you could knock Mr. Wilson,
+y'understand, such a scheme wouldn't deceive a child even."
+
+"I wouldn't knock President Wilson for anything, Mawruss," Abe retorted.
+"I _couldn't_ knock him, because when I think of Mr. Wilson I see
+before my eyes a good-looking gentleman with a pleasant smile on his
+face, y'understand, and not very far away stands Mrs. Wilson, which, if
+Mr. Wilson didn't put over even one fourteenth of his fourteen points,
+Mawruss, his visit to Europe with Mrs. Wilson wouldn't be wasted,
+Mawruss, because it would have given them people over in the old country
+a chance to see what an American lady is and should ought to be,
+y'understand. But on the other hand, Mawruss, if the Democrats _had_
+elected the Algonquin Trust Company as President of the United States at
+the last election, y'understand, whenever I would think of the President
+of the United States I would see before my eyes a twenty-five-story
+fire-proof building with all the rents raised one hundred and fifty per
+cent. since last January, understand me, and I could go to work and
+knock with a clear conscience."
+
+"But why should you want to knock the President of the United States?"
+Morris demanded.
+
+"Ain't I telling you that I don't want to knock him?" Abe declared. "All
+I am saying is that, if such a thing was possible, it would be a whole
+lot better to have a corporation as President of the United States
+instead of an individual, Mawruss, because corporations don't get sick,
+corporations don't get insulted, a corporation _oser_ cares whether it
+gets cheered or hooted, and finally, Mawruss, a corporation couldn't
+ride around Italy in an open carriage with the King of Italy and give
+the Italian people the impression that all they had to do was to ask
+for Fiume and it was theirs."
+
+"And another thing about a corporation, Abe, is that it ain't a
+copartnership where one partner could get every day a headache from
+listening to the other partner talking a lot of nonsense, Abe," Morris
+declared, "which you must got to remember that, beginning the first of
+May, if you would go to a soda-fountain and say, 'Give me something for
+a headache,' they would give you a United States Internal Revenue stamp
+for which you would got to pay two cents before they would even take the
+cork out of the bromo-asperin bottle."
+
+"What's the difference whether they tax a headache coming or going,
+Mawruss?" Abe commented.
+
+"A whole lot of difference," Morris said. "In the first place, the taxes
+which the country used to collect in one week from people when they were
+catching headaches would be more than equivalence to the taxes which the
+country is going to the taxes which the country is going to collect from
+people curing headaches during the next ten years. Also, Abe, nobody
+thought it was a hardship to pay taxes on a coming headache, whereas
+there will be a terrible howl go up over the tax on the same article in
+the opposite direction."
+
+"At that, I think these here May 1st taxes is going to have a good
+effect on the American people, Mawruss," Abe said, "because there's
+nothing like taxes to make a man wake up and take an interest in the
+way the government is being run."
+
+"A man would got to be an awful sound sleeper in that respect if he
+wasn't roused up a little by the income tax which he has been paying for
+the past four or five years, Abe," Morris said.
+
+"That's only once a year, Mawruss," Abe said, "but these here May 1st
+taxes is going to keep him awake three hundred and sixty-five days out
+of the year. People which thought you was a tightwad if you happened to
+mention that six hundred million dollars of the country's money was used
+up in experimenting with aeroplanes, is now going to shriek in agony
+every time they buy a three-dollar-and-a-quarter shirt that it's a shame
+and a disgrace the way every little secretary in the President's Cabinet
+is gallivanting half over Europe on the people's money, and they'd
+probably be just as hard if the shirt only cost two dollars and a
+quarter, excepting that the luxury tax of ten per cent. is only
+collected from the purchasers of men's shirts of the value of three
+dollars and upwards on amounts in excess of three dollars each. Also,
+Mawruss, people which has just paid eight dollars for a bathrobe on
+which the tax would be ten per cent. of fifty cents, or five cents cash,
+y'understand, is going to say: 'Couldn't that feller travel to and from
+Europe in one state-room the same like anybody else? Must he got to have
+a whole steamboat?' and they will start right in to estimate that the
+cost of keeping a steamboat the size of the _George Washington_ in
+commission is forty-five thousand six hundred and twenty-two dollars and
+thirty-eight cents per diem, and is it any wonder you've got to pay a
+one-cent tax on every orange phosphate, understand me."
+
+"Some people is willing to get in a knock at Mr. Wilson without even so
+much as an orange-phosphate tax for an excuse, Abe," Morris said,
+significantly.
+
+"I know they are," Abe replied, innocently, "and as for
+Postmaster-General Burleson, seemingly he couldn't suit nobody no matter
+what he does. Take, for instance, them fourteen bombs which was mailed
+in New York the other day, Mawruss, and if it wouldn't be that
+Postmaster-General Burleson has probably given strict orders that no
+mail should be forwarded which was short even a half-a-cent
+postage-stamp even, the chances is that every one of them fourteen bombs
+would have been delivered and exploded by now. But suppose that, instead
+of Postmaster-General Burleson, we would have had as Postmaster-General
+some good-natured feller which when his New York representatives called
+him up and told him they were holding fourteen packages there for
+additional postage, would have said: 'Oh, let 'em go. We couldn't afford
+to be small about a little thing like additional postage.' And what
+would have happened? Why, the fourteen judges, mayors, and assorted
+Senators and district attorneys to which them packages was addressed
+would have been lucky if they escaped with nothing worse than singed
+eyebrows, Mawruss. And to-day yet, Mawruss, them fellers which has got
+only Postmaster-General Burleson to thank that they can still riffle a
+deck of cards, understand me, is probably going around beefing about the
+terrible delay in the delivery of mail under the administration of
+Postmaster-General Burleson."
+
+"And do you think that the police will ever find out who sent them
+bombs, Abe?" Morris asked.
+
+"Probably not," Abe replied, "but they will probably find some man or
+men who would have _liked_ to have sent them and would have been _glad_
+to have sent them, and as nobody is going to miss such fellers, Mawruss,
+it probably won't make much difference in the long run if any such case
+of mistaken identity ain't discovered until the sentence is carried out,
+y'understand."
+
+"I see that it says in the paper where the anarchists which sent them
+bombs was celebrating the first day of May, which is the anarchists'
+Fourth of July, Abe," Morris observed, "which, considering all the
+trouble that takes place in Europe with general strikes and riots on the
+first of May, Abe, it's a wonder to me that the constitution of the
+League of Nations didn't contain an article providing that in the
+interests of international peace, y'understand, the month of May should
+hereafter contain thirty days instead of thirty-one, commencing with the
+second day of May, and leave them anarchists up against it for a day to
+celebrate."
+
+"The first of May is the socialists' Fourth of July, not the
+anarchists'," Abe said, "which, while it is possible that these here
+anarchists sent them bombs around the first of May out of compliment to
+their friends the socialists, Mawruss, an anarchist don't attach no
+particular sentiment to the day when a bomb explodes, just so long as it
+does enough damage, Mawruss."
+
+"Just the same, I am in favor of doing away with the first of May,"
+Morris insisted, "and if it ain't practical to abolish the date, Abe,
+let 'em anyhow cut out the celebration. Them general strikes causes a
+whole lot of trouble."
+
+"They do if you take them seriously," Abe agreed, "because in this
+country, at least, Mawruss, only a few people takes part in the May
+first general strike. This year we only had two of our work-people away
+on account of the general strike, and one of them now claims he stayed
+home on account of injuring his hand in one of our buttonhole-machines,
+which I have got proof to show, Mawruss, that when the police threw him
+out of the hall where the meeting was taking place he landed on his
+wrist."
+
+"He should have landed on his neck," Morris observed, "because if them
+socialists get hurt by their nonsense it's their own fault, Abe. They go
+to work and announce a general strike, and naturally the authorities
+takes them seriously and gets ready for trouble with a lot of policemen,
+which you know as well as I do, Abe, when the police gets ready for
+trouble they usually find it, even if they have to make it themselves.
+The consequence is, Abe, that a fractured skull has become practically
+the occupational disease of being a socialist, just the same as
+phosphorus-poisoning attacked people which worked in match-factories in
+the old days before the Swedish manufacturers invented matches which
+strike only on the box one time out of fifty if the weather conditions
+is just right."
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe observed, "but people worked in match-factories
+because they couldn't make a living in any other way, Mawruss, whereas
+nobody compels any one to be a socialist if he don't want to, Mawruss,
+and what enjoyment them socialists get out of it I don't know."
+
+"It gives them, for one thing, the privilege of wearing a red necktie,"
+Morris suggested.
+
+"And that don't make them a first-class risk for accident insurance,"
+Abe concluded, "around the first of May, anyhow."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE PEACE TREATY AS GOOD READING
+
+
+"At last the wind-up of this here Peace Conference seems to be in sight,
+Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, the day
+after the Treaty of Peace was handed to the German plenipotentiaries.
+"As short a time ago since as last week it begun to look like our
+American delegates was going to stay in Paris for the rest of their
+lives, which, according to the tables of mortality prepared by some of
+our leading life-insurance companies, based on the average ages of all
+five of them delegates, would be anyhow until August 1, 1919."
+
+"Well, they seem to have done a pretty good job, Abe," Morris observed.
+"I read over the accounts of the Treaty of Peace, Abe, and what them
+Germans has got to do outside of restoring the skull of the Sultan
+Okwawa under Section Eight of the treaty would keep her busy for fifty
+years yet."
+
+"And who is this here Sultan Okwawa?" Abe inquired.
+
+"I don't know," Morris replied, "but, considering the number of skulls
+which needs restoring on account of what the Germans done during the
+past five years, Abe, and also considering the fact that this is the
+only skull mentioned by name in the Peace Treaty, he must of had some
+pretty influential friends at the Peace Conference. Also, I see that the
+Germans is also to give back the papers belonging to M. Reuher which
+they took in 1871, and, although Section Eight don't say nothing about
+it, I presume that if the papers are returned the finder can keep the
+money which was in the wallet at the time it was lost."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that this here Peace Treaty has got such small
+particulars like that in it?" Abe demanded.
+
+"It don't seem to have overlooked anything, Abe," Morris went on,
+"which, when you consider that Mr. Wilson started in--in a small
+way--with only fourteen points, it's already wonderful how that man
+worked his way up. There must be several hundred thousand points in that
+Peace Treaty, including such points like the Sultan's skull and this
+here Reuher's papers, which Mr. Wilson never even dreamed of when he sat
+down that day in January, 1918, and thought out the original fourteen."
+
+[Illustration: "which when you consider that Mr. Wilson started in--in a
+small way"]
+
+"He probably considered that if we ever licked Germany sufficient to
+make her accept as much as thirty-three and a third per cent. of them
+fourteen points that we would be doing well already," Abe remarked.
+
+"And so did everybody else," Morris agreed. "And now they would got to
+accept a Treaty of Peace which loads up Germany with practically every
+punishment that this here Peace Conference could think of except
+Prohibition."
+
+"I must read that treaty sometime," Abe said. "It sounds like it would
+be quite amusing already."
+
+"Amusing ain't no name for it," Morris said. "The way the American
+people is going to enjoy reading that Treaty of Peace, Abe, would put
+Mr. Wilson not only in the class of favorite American Presidents along
+with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but also would give him an
+insured position as one of America's favorite authors along with Harry
+Bell Wright and Bradstreet. A good American could pass a very profitable
+month or so skimming it over, Abe, which it consists of fifteen
+sections, of which only the head-lines fills three full pages of the
+morning papers."
+
+"Well, how long do you think it would take them German delegates to read
+it, Mawruss?" Abe inquired.
+
+"They ain't going to read it," Morris said. "They're only going to sign
+it, and it ain't a bad idea, neither, because if they did read it, Abe,
+some of them Germans would drop dead along about the second section,
+which describes how much of Germany is left after France, Poland,
+Denmark, and Belgium gets through helping themselves."
+
+"Might they would expire while they was reading the first section,
+maybe," Abe suggested.
+
+"The first section 'ain't got nothing to do with Germany," Morris
+explained. "The first section consists of the constitution of the League
+of Nations."
+
+"Is that the same constitution of the League of Nations which them
+United States Senators raised such a round robin about?" Abe asked.
+
+"It has been changed since then," Morris said. "The amendments consist
+of two commas contributed by ex-President Taft and a semicolon from
+Charles Evans Hughes. Elihu Root also suggested they insert the words
+_as aforesaid_ in the first paragraph and also the words _anything
+hereinbefore contained to the contrary notwithstanding_ in the last
+paragraph, but couldn't get by with it. However, Abe, the League of
+Nations is already such old stuff that people reading it in Section One
+of the Peace Treaty will in all probability skip it the way they did the
+first time it come out, and, anyhow, the real Treaty of Peace, so far as
+the plot and action is concerned, don't start till the second section."
+
+"Could you remember any of the second section?" Abe asked.
+
+"That's the section which tells about how much territory Germany gives
+up to Poland, France, Belgium, and Denmark, and after it goes into
+effect, Abe, it is going to considerably alter the words, if not the
+music, of '_Deutschland, Deutschland, ueber Alles_,'" Morris declared.
+"It also means, Abe, that the school-boys who used to was geography
+sharks and could bound Germany right off the reel, Abe, would now got to
+learn them boundaries all over again and then take half an hour or so
+to tell what they've learned. You see, Abe, the Danzig area, for
+instance, consists of a V made a W by the addition of a similar V on the
+west, including the city of Danzig and--"
+
+"Excuse me," Abe interrupted, "but this here sounds like a clothing
+alteration to me, which, if Germany's boundary was made smaller, why did
+they got to put a couple of V's into it?"
+
+"The V's was put into Poland's boundary, not Germany's," Morris said.
+
+"And I bet that Poland breathes a whole lot easier now that her boundary
+has got a couple of V's in it," Abe commented.
+
+"Them two V's ain't all Poland gets," Morris continued. "She also gets
+the southeastern tip of Silesia beyond and including Oppeln, most of
+Posen and West Prussia, and a line is drawn from--"
+
+"That's all right," Abe said. "I'll take your word for it, Mawruss,
+because, while that might be music to some people's ears, when it comes
+to geography I couldn't tell one note from another. So go ahead and tell
+me what is in the next section."
+
+"The next section is also got in it a little complicated geography,
+Abe," Morris said. "It practically repeats what was said in the last
+section about how much territory Germany gives up, and then proceeds to
+rub it in. You know, of course, about the Sarre Basin."
+
+"I _say_ I do, but don't let that stop you," Abe replied. "Go ahead and
+describe it to me just like as if I didn't."
+
+"Well, to make a long story short before I tell it, Abe," Morris said,
+"the Sarre Valley, which in Germany is like the Scranton and
+Wilkes-Barre section in Pennsylvania, is to be practically owned by
+France for fifteen years. At the end of that time, an election is going
+to be held and the people will vote as to whether they want to stay
+French or go back to Germany."
+
+"And I suppose France will count the votes," Abe commented, "in which
+case she will probably appoint a board of elections consisting of
+whoever happens to be the Philadelphia director of public safety at that
+time, the leader of the Eighth Assembly District of New York City, and a
+couple of Chicago aldermen, Mawruss."
+
+"The Treaty of Peace don't provide for it," Morris said, "but if any
+odds are quoted on the Curb, Abe, it wouldn't be on the result, but the
+size of the majority. There is also the same kind of an election to be
+held in Schleswig-Holstein, without much chance of a recount taking
+place, either, but so far as the rest of Sections Three, Four, and Five
+is concerned, Abe, Germany gives up all her interests in every part of
+the world without the privilege of even having all those in favor please
+saying Aye, y'understand."
+
+"It would have made a big noise, anyhow," Abe declared. "Because the
+only people who ain't in favor of Germany giving up her colonies is
+Germans, and not _all_ Germans at that."
+
+"However, what happens to Germany in the first five sections of this
+here Peace Treaty, Abe, is only, so to speak, the soup and entree of the
+meal which the Allies makes of her," Morris said. "Section Six is where
+the real knife-and-fork work begins, Abe, which it starts right in with
+the German army and reduces it to the size of the Salvation Army,
+exclusive of the doughnut-cooking department."
+
+"I'm surprised that you should compare the Salvation Army to a low-life
+army like the German army," Abe protested.
+
+"I am only talking for the sake of argument, Abe," Morris assured him,
+"which if this here Section Six is carried out, Abe, the new German army
+wouldn't be armed with anything near as dangerous as doughnuts. In fact,
+Abe, the way this here Peace Treaty specifies what arms and ammunition
+the German army should be supplied with, the only thing that it would
+got to remind it that it is an army and not a _Saengerbund_ would be the
+uniforms."
+
+"And I am surprised that the Peace Treaty didn't forbid uniforms also,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "because if it wouldn't of been for his uniforms,
+Mawruss, the chances is that the German people would of caught on to
+that miserable four-flusher of a Kaiser already long since ago, Mawruss.
+Take these here spiked helmets, in particular the ones which is made of
+nickel plate, Mawruss, and only to wear such a thing is liable to bring
+out all the meanness in them naturally mean German soldiers, Mawruss, so
+therefore I am in favor that the Peace Treaty be amended by providing
+that the uniform of the German army should be a three-button, black,
+single-breasted sack suit with no padding in the shoulders, Mawruss, and
+the helmet should be a brown derby hat of the pattern of 1898, and that
+the soldiers agree to wear this derby hat, of the same block and width
+of brim, for at least twenty years, Mawruss, because nothing takes the
+conceit out of a man so much as wearing a funny-looking hat,
+y'understand."
+
+"This here Peace Treaty don't need no outside assistance when it comes
+to taking the conceit out of the German army, and the navy, neither,
+Abe," Morris continued. "In fact, Section Six does the same to the
+German navy as you would like to do to the German army, excepting that,
+instead of derby hats, it refers to battle-ships. In other words, Abe,
+it says that the German navy should have only six small battle-ships and
+that none of them could be replaced inside of twenty years. Just
+consider for a moment how it feels for a speed-bug which once used to
+consider that if he didn't buy himself every three months a new
+special-body twin six, y'understand, that he was living pretty close to
+the cushion, and condemn such a feller to go round for the next twenty
+years in a four-cylinder 1910-model Punkocar, Abe, and you will get some
+small idea of what Admiral von Tirpitz and all them other bloodthirsty
+German admirals feels when they read that part of Section Six which
+refers to the new German navy."
+
+"That wasn't the way they used to feel," Abe declared. "Up to a few days
+ago, Mawruss, von Tirpitz and Hindenburg and all them other German army
+and navy experts was treating this war like it would of been a pinochle
+game, and each of them was busy explaining by post-mortems how if his
+partner hadn't played the hand rotten they would have won by three
+points, not counting the last trick, but what are you going to do with a
+_Strohschneider_ like that, and so forth."
+
+"Did they mention anything about playing with marked cards?" Morris
+asked.
+
+"They did not," Abe said, "nor did they say anything about having
+stacked the cards or dealing off of the bottom of the deck, Mawruss, but
+you would think from the way them fellers acted at Versailles, Mawruss,
+that this here Peace Conference is the breakup of a nice little friendly
+game, y'understand, and that _not_ only should the winners take I. O.
+U's. from the losers, but that it is also up to the winners to serve a
+good delicatessen supper and pay for the lights and attendance."
+
+"That must have been before they heard about the _capora_ which is in
+store for them under Section Seven of this here Peace Treaty, Abe,"
+Morris said, "which in order that there shouldn't be any softening of
+the sound to them German cauliflower ears, Abe, the words _one billion_
+ain't used at all, but instead it speaks about a thousand million
+pounds, Abe, and, while it ain't any harder to raise than one billion
+pounds, it certainly gives you the impression that it is."
+
+"And how many of these thousands of millions of pounds must the German
+people got to pay before they get through?" Abe asked.
+
+"That the Peace Treaty don't say, Abe," Morris replied. "It leaves the
+fixing of the total amount for a commission to be appointed later, Abe,
+and the German people will be notified of their liabilities not later
+than May 1, 1921; but in the mean time, Abe, just to keep up their
+spirits they would got to pay a few instalments of one thousand million
+pounds each."
+
+"But if the instalments is one thousand million pounds each, Mawruss,
+what do you think will be the grand total which Germany would have to
+pay?" Abe asked.
+
+"About the same grand total as the Allies would have been obliged to pay
+if Germany had won," Morris replied.
+
+"And how much would that have been?" Abe inquired.
+
+"All they could raise, Abe," Morris concluded, "plus ten per cent."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE GERMAN ROMAN HOLIDAY AND THE AMERICANIZATION OF AMERICANS
+
+
+"I was speaking to my wife's sister's boy which he is just getting ready
+to gradgawate from High School, Mawruss, and I wish you could hear the
+way that feller talks, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris
+Perlmutter.
+
+"I shall probably got to have that pleasure, Abe," Morris Perlmutter
+replied, "because the first thing your wife's relations does when they
+gradgawate from school or go broke, as the case may be, is to get a job
+in this place and the second thing they do is to get fired."
+
+"Listen, Mawruss," Abe said, "if I would of given jobs in this place to
+the number of relations by marriage which you already stuck me with,
+y'understand, I might just so well run a free business college and be
+done with it, which what I was going to say was that this here young
+feller was telling me that in the old days when the Romans won a war the
+way the Allies did, they used to make the losers walk in a parade so
+that the Roman people could see how them losers suffered."
+
+"And what's that got to do with my giving jobs to my wife's relations?"
+Morris inquired.
+
+"It 'ain't got nothing to do with it, but if you would let me open my
+mouth once in a while and not try to gag me every time I want to tell
+you something, Mawruss," Abe continued, "maybe I could learn you
+something."
+
+"Maybe," Morris admitted, "but when you start in to tell about how smart
+one of your nephews by marriage is, Abe, it generally ends up by our
+paying a few weeks' salary to a young feller which all he learned about
+double entry is making birds with a pen, so I just want to warn you
+before you go any further, Abe, that in the future with me, Abe, if any
+of your nephews is an expert bird-maker with a pen, y'understand, you
+should please find him a job in a millinery concern and let me out."
+
+"I wasn't going to say nothing about giving a job to nobody," Abe
+protested. "All I am trying to tell you is that if the Treaty of Peace,
+which you talked my head off about the other day, contained a section
+that the Germans should walk in a parade and show to the Allies how that
+Peace Treaty made them suffer, Mawruss, Lenine and Trotsky and all the
+other crickets who abuse Mr. Wilson like the New York Republican
+newspapers and the American ladies who are attending that Zurich
+Permanent Peace Convention, would of called the Allies all sorts of
+barbarians, y'understand. However, Mawruss, it only goes to show how
+unnecessary such a section in the Peace Treaty would be, Mawruss,
+because the Germans is now obliging with a wonderful Roman exhibition
+of themselves. In fact, Mawruss, from the lowest to the highest, them
+German people seems to be saying to each other, 'Let's act like real
+Germans and make the worst of it!'"
+
+"Did any one expect anything else from them Germans?" Morris asked.
+
+"Well, from the way this here four-flusher von Brockdorff-Rantzau
+behaved the day they handed him the Peace Treaty, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"it looked like the Germans had made up their minds to be just so
+stiff-necked as they always was, Mawruss, and I begun to think that they
+were going to treat it as a case of _so mechullah, so mechullah_,
+y'understand, but the way them Germans is now crying like children,
+Mawruss, there ain't going to be enough sackcloth and ashes in Germany
+to go around, and them German professors will have to get busy and
+invent some _ersatz_ sackcloth and ashes to supply the demand."
+
+"Crooks are always poor sports, Abe," Morris declared, "in particular
+when they throw themselves on the mercy of the people that they didn't
+intend to show no mercy to themselves. Take this here Ebert, for
+instance, and he don't make no bones about saying that the German people
+relied on President Wilson and the United States of America being easy
+marks, but _ai Tzuris_, what a mistake that was! In effect he says that
+President Wilson on January 22, 1917, made the statement that the victor
+must not force his conditions on the vanquished, and relying on that
+statement, Germany went to work and got into a war with the United
+States because if Germany got licked, y'understand, the worst that can
+happen her is that she makes peace again on her own terms, and then when
+Germany did get licked, see what happens to her. President Wilson
+behaves like a frozen snake in the grass which somebody tries to warm by
+putting the snake into his pants pocket, y'understand, and when the
+snake gets thawed out, understand me, it bites the hand that feeds it,
+and what are you going to do in a case like this?"
+
+"At that, Mawruss, Ebert ain't making near so bad an exhibition of
+himself as this here Prince von Hohenlohe. There was a feller which was
+used to was the German Chancellor, Mawruss," Abe said, "and the dirty
+deals which he helped to put over on the Rumanians and the Russians, by
+way of Treaties of Peace, y'understand, was such that if we would of
+attempted it with the Germans, Mawruss, and the United States Congress
+would of confirmed it, Mawruss, Victor Berger would be fighting to be
+let out of the House of Representatives and to be admitted to
+Leavenworth, instead of _vice versa_, on the grounds that he didn't want
+to associate with no crooks, y'understand, but seemingly this here
+Hohenlohe is suffering from loss of memory as well as loss of
+self-respect, Mawruss, because he is now making speeches in which he is
+weeping all over his already tear-stained copy of the Peace Treaty and
+calling it the Tragedy of Versailles, whereas compared to the Treaty of
+Peace which you might call the Tragedy of Brest-Litovsk, Mawruss, this
+here Versailles Treaty of Peace is a Follies of 1919 with just one laugh
+after another, y'understand."
+
+"And I see also where this here Scheidemann is also figuring very
+largely in this here Roman exhibition the Germans is making of
+themselves, Abe," Morris observed. "He said the other day that the
+Germans would never, never, never--or anyhow not until next Thursday a
+week--sign the Peace Treaty. He put his hand on where a German's heart
+would be if he had one, Abe, and said that no Germans would positively
+and absolutely not submit to any such Treaty of Peace as the one offered
+to them, or that is to say they would not submit to it except on and
+after May 22, 1919, and anyhow, nobody would ever trust President Wilson
+again."
+
+"And yet, Mawruss, when them Germans gets over the first shock of this
+here Peace Treaty and wipe away their tears sufficient to see things a
+little more clearly, y'understand," Abe commented, "it is just barely
+possible that they are going to do some rapid figuring on what they gain
+by not supporting a few thousand princes, not to mention the money which
+that bloodthirsty Kaiser and his family used to draw in salaries and
+commissions, Mawruss, and when these amounts are offset against
+indemnities which the Germans are required to pay under the Peace
+Treaty, Mawruss, it will in all probability be found that the German
+nation is beggared, as this here Scheidemann would say, to the extent of
+$0.831416 per capita per annum by such indemnities. The result is going
+to be that some of them Germans will then begin to figure how maybe it
+was worth that much money per capita per annum to get rid of that
+_rosher_ and they will also begin to realize that it has been worth even
+more than that much per capita per annum to the Allied people to see a
+performance such as the German people continuing to weep in sympathy
+with Ebert and Scheidemann, y'understand, they will be advising them two
+boys to go and take for ten cents apiece some mathematic spirits of
+ammonia and quit their sobbing."
+
+"However, Abe," Morris remarked, "there was a few Americans which
+instead of being in the audience enjoying the performance was back on
+the stage with the Germans and weeping just so hard as any of them. Take
+these here American lady delegates to the small-time Peace Conference
+which is running at Zurich, Switzerland, in opposition to the old
+original Peace Conference in Paris, Abe, and them ladies with their
+voices choked by tears, Abe, passed a resolution that be it resolved
+that the Peace Treaty is already secret diplomacy, that it is the old
+case of the side winning the war getting the spoils, and a lot of other
+resolutions to which the only resolution anybody could pass in answer to
+such resolutions would be, 'Well, what of it?'"
+
+"That only proves to me, Mawruss, how necessary it is, this here
+Americanization work which you read so much about in the papers," Abe
+declared. "Here is four American ladies which is lived in the country
+for some years--in fact, ever since they was born, and that ain't such a
+short time neither, when you see their pictures, Mawruss, and yet them
+ladies talks like they never heard tell of the Star-spangled Banner.
+Seemingly the fact that we licked Germany don't appeal to them at all,
+and so far as these resolutions which they passed between sobs, Mawruss,
+gives any indications, Mawruss, they would like to have seen this here
+European War end in a draw, with perhaps Germany getting just a shade
+the better of it."
+
+"And what has all this got to do with Americanization work, Abe?" Morris
+inquired. "I always thought that Americanization was taking the
+greenhorns which comes to this country from Europe, and teaching them
+how to think and act like Americans."
+
+"That comes afterward, Mawruss," Abe said, "because it seems that ever
+since this here European War, Mawruss, Americanization needs to begin at
+home, Mawruss, and that the first ones to be Americanized should ought
+to be Americans. There is, for instance, Mr. O. G. Villard, who was born
+and raised in this country, Mawruss, which he comes out with a statement
+the other day that them loafers of the Munich soviet who killed all them
+professors and ladies a couple of weeks ago, compared very favorably
+with the legislatures of the states of New York and Pennsylvania,
+Mawruss. Now when you consider that them two legislatures is part of our
+government, Mawruss, the way it looks to me is that if a foreigner had
+said such a thing he would have been Americanized without the option of
+a fine by the nearest city magistrate."
+
+"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "when you read in the papers about
+the New York State Senator Thompson and the goings-on up in Albany, Abe,
+it looks like Americanization should ought to be done at the source,
+y'understand, and then it wouldn't be necessary to Americanize Mr.
+Villard at all."
+
+"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe agreed, "but what I am driving into is that
+Americanization for Americans must appeal very strongly to colored
+Americans, especially the Americanization of those Americans who believe
+that the colored man should ought to be put in his place and don't
+hesitate about designating the place as the end of a rope without the
+trouble and expense of a jury trial, y'understand."
+
+"I would even get a little more personal as that, Abe," Morris declared.
+"I would even say that there should ought to be classes in
+Americanization for those Americans who believe that the religion and
+race origin of certain other Americans makes them eligible to give their
+children's lives to the country and their money to Red Cross and other
+War Drives--but that it don't make them eligible to stay at first-class
+summer hotels or play golluf by first-class country clubs."
+
+"Say," Abe broke in, "there is need of more important Americanization
+among Americans than that, Mawruss. There should ought to be
+Americanization of Americans who think it is American for landlords to
+ask for raises of their rent and un-American for workmen to ask for
+raises of their wages. In fact, this whole Americanization movement
+should ought to be centered on Americanizing out of Americans any
+habits, customs, or schemes they try to put across which is apt to make
+Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans or Assorted
+Foreign-Americans say to one another, 'Well, if that's the way Americans
+behave, give me back my hyphen and let me go home.'"
+
+"Well, after all, Abe, it's a mighty small bunch of Americans which
+ain't Americanized yet," Morris observed.
+
+"I know it," Abe said, "and it's their smallness which makes me sore,
+Mawruss, because no matter how small they are by number, or nature,
+Mawruss, they are the ones that the Turks pulled on us when we protested
+about them poor Armenians _nebich_. Also, Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson should
+protest that the new Polish Republic ain't treating our people as
+equals, y'understand, the new Polish Republic could come right back
+with: 'Neither is any number of summer hotels we could name in the
+Adirondacks Mountains of your own United States.' Also, if the Peace
+Delegates from this country gives a hint to the Greeks that there is
+colonies of Bulgarians living in Greece for years already which wants to
+be Greeks and should ought to have the same voting rights as Greeks,
+y'understand, all Venezuela or whatever the Greek secretary of state has
+got to say is, 'Well, we hold that these people 'ain't got a right to
+vote under a law called the Grandfather Law, which we copied from
+similar laws passed in the states of Georgia, Alabama, and
+Mississippi--in your own United States,' and them poor old Peace
+Delegates of ours wouldn't have a word to say."
+
+"At that, Abe, I think all them disagreeable things in this country is
+going to be changed by the war," Morris suggested.
+
+"Perhaps, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "but considering what changes have
+taken place because of this war, it's wonderful how little changed
+things really are."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+MR. WILSON'S FAVOR OF THE 20TH ULTO. AND CONTENTS NOTED
+
+
+"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, one
+morning recently, "a feller which has got to write to the newspaper to
+say that he didn't say what the newspaper said he said when it reported
+his speech, y'understand, has usually made a pretty rotten speech in the
+first place, and in the second place when he tries to explain what it
+really was that he did say, Mawruss, it practically always sounds worse
+than what the newspaper said he said."
+
+"But what did he say and who said it, Abe?" Morris inquired.
+
+"Ambassador Morgenstimmung or Morgenstern, I couldn't remember which,
+Mawruss," Abe replied, "and although he 'ain't wrote to the newspapers
+yet to deny that he said it, Mawruss, it is only a question of time when
+he would do so, because he either said one thing or the other, but he
+couldn't say both."
+
+"Listen, Abe, if you think that unless you break it to me gradually what
+this here Morgenstern said, it would be too much of a shock to me,"
+Morris announced, "let me tell you that it is a matter of indifference
+to me _what_ he said."
+
+"So it is to 'most everybody else except the immediate family, Mawruss,"
+Abe continued, "but not to keep you in suspense, Mawruss, what this
+Ambassador Morgenstern said was in a speech to the American soldiers in
+Coblenz where he told them that there was going to be another big war in
+which America would got to fight during the next fifteen or twenty
+years, and also that he had every confidence in the League of Nations."
+
+"Well, there's a whole lot of United States Senators which has got the
+same kind of confidence in the League of Nations, Abe," Morris declared.
+"In fact, some of them is confident that the League of Nations will
+bring about a war for us in even less than fifteen years."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "the word _confidence_ has got a whole
+lot of different meanings, Mawruss, and it's quite possible that this
+here Ambassador Morgenstern used the word with reference to the League
+of Nations in its Chatham Square or green-goods meaning, because
+otherwise how could the League of Nations cause another war in less than
+fifteen years, unless, of course, the feller which prophesied it was a
+Republican Senator, which Mr. Morgenstern is not."
+
+"To tell you the truth, Abe," Morris said, "I have heard and read so
+many different things about this here League of Nations that it wouldn't
+surprise me in the least if the final edition of it provided that any
+nation which didn't go to war at least once every three years with some
+other nation or nations, y'understand, should be expelled from the
+League of Nations with costs, y'understand, and in fact, Abe, it is my
+opinion that when some one makes a speech about this here League of
+Nations nowadays, he might just so well write a letter to himself
+denying that he said what the newspaper said he said, and let it go at
+that, because it's a hundred to one that he was the only person who
+didn't skip it when it was printed in its original garbled condition."
+
+"At that, Mawruss, you are going to be really and truly surprised to
+find out what that League of Nations covenant means when it comes up to
+be argued about by the United States Senate," Abe observed, "because a
+great many of them Senators is high-grade, crackerjack, A-number-one
+lawyers on the side, Mawruss, and formerly used to make their livings by
+showing that the contract which the plaintiff made with the defendant
+meant just the opposite to what the plaintiff or defendant meant it to
+mean--or _vice versa_, according to which end of the lawsuit such a
+Senator was arguing on, Mawruss, so you can imagine what is going to
+happen to that League of Nations covenant. Take a level-headed lawyer
+like Senator Hiram S. Johnson of California, Mawruss, which he 'ain't
+got the least disposition to believe that the League of Nations covenant
+means what President Wilson says it means, understand me, and when he
+gets through showing what he thinks it means, and Senator Borah gets
+through showing what _he_ thinks it means, and Senator Reed gets through
+thinking what HE thinks it means, understand me, that League of Nations
+covenant will have as many different meanings as the contested last will
+and testament of a childless millionaire who has married a telephone
+operator on his death-bed to spite his grandnieces and nephews,
+Mawruss."
+
+"Congress will have a lot of other matters to settle before that League
+of Nations comes up, Abe," Morris said, "which I was reading the other
+day the message which President Wilson wrote from Paris, and he
+certainly laid out a lot of work for them to do till he gets back."
+
+"You mean that letter of May 20th where he says: 'Dear Gents: Sorry not
+to be with you and I have been out of touch with things over in America
+so long that you will know a whole lot better than I do what is needed
+in the way of laws,' Mawruss, and then goes to work and tells them what
+is needed to the extent of half a newspaperful?" Abe asked.
+
+"I couldn't remember the exact words," Morris replied.
+
+"Well, I've been expecting every day to see in the newspapers that he
+got an answer from the round robins reading: 'Dear Sir: Yours of the
+20th inst. to hand and contents noted and in reply would say we wouldn't
+positively do nothing of the kind, and in case you are not back with
+samples on or before ten days from date, we will take such steps as we
+may think proper to protect our interests in the matter and oblige,'"
+Abe said, "because if you will remember, Mawruss, them round robins
+wanted Mr. Wilson to let the Senate go on making laws while he was away,
+and the President says, 'You couldn't make no laws till I get back,' and
+then when them round robins asked him when he would be back, he said,
+'I'll be back when I am back,' and now he ain't back, and he has got to
+ask them round robins to go to work with the other Senators and
+Congressmen and make the laws which they wanted to make in the first
+place, Mawruss."
+
+"Then it is going to be some time before he gets back if any such a
+deadlock like that happened, Abe," Morris said, "because I see where it
+says in the papers that Mr. Wilson won't come back until he has signed
+the treaties of peace with Germany and Austria, and France and England
+won't agree to finish up the treaties for Mr. Wilson's signature until
+they know that the United States Senate will ratify them and the United
+States Senate won't ratify them until they are finished up and submitted
+to them signed by Mr. Wilson, and then I didn't read no more about it,
+Abe, because I begun to get dizzy."
+
+"I very often get that way myself nowadays when I am reading in the
+newspapers, Mawruss," Abe said, "in particular when they print them full
+texts, like the full text of the League of Nations Covenant or the full
+text of the President's message. Former times when the papers had in
+'em straight murders and bank robberies from the inside or out, Mawruss,
+and you sat opposite somebody in the Subway who had to move his lips
+while he was reading, you took it for granted that he was an ignoramus
+which had to hear them simple words pronounced, even if it was by his
+own lips, before he could understand them, Mawruss, but you take this
+here letter of the 20th inst., Mawruss, and when you read where
+President Wilson says with reference to telephone and telegraph rates,
+Mawruss, 'there are many confusions and inconsistencies of rates. The
+scientific means by which communication by such instrumentalities could
+missing be rendered more thorough and satisfactory has not been made
+full use of,' understand me, you could move your lips, your scalp,
+Heaven and Earth, Mawruss, and still you couldn't tell what Mr. Wilson
+was driving into."
+
+"Well, I glanced over that Message myself, Abe," Morris said, "and the
+capital I's was sticking up all through it like toothpicks on the
+cashier's desk of an armchair lunch-room, Abe. In just a few lines, Abe,
+Mr. Wilson says, 'I hesitate, I feel, I am conscious, I trust, I may, I
+shall, I dare say, I hope and I shall,' and when he started to say
+something about Woman Suffrage, he undoubtedly begun with 'May I not,'
+but evidently when he showed the first draft to Colonel House or
+somebody, they said, 'Why do you always say, _May I not_'? and after
+discussing such substitutes as '_Doch allow me_,' 'If you 'ain't got no
+objections,' and 'You would excuse me if I would take the liberty,' Abe,
+they decided to use, 'Will you not permit me,' so, therefore, that part
+of the President's message which talks about Woman Suffrage says, 'Will
+you not permit me to speak once more and very earnestly of the proposed
+amendment to the Constitution and so forth,' and that, to my mind, is
+what give President Wilson the idea that it might be a good thing to let
+the manufacture and sale of wine and beer continue after June 30th,
+which he probably argued, 'If I have such a tough time shaking off the
+_May-I-not_ habit, how about them poor fellers which has got the liquor
+habit?'"
+
+"Maybe he figured that way and maybe he didn't, Mawruss," Abe said, "but
+if any one feels that he ought to stock up with a few bottles of wine
+for _kiddush_ or _habdolah_ purposes on or after June 30, 1919, Mawruss,
+he oughtn't to be misled by anything President Wilson said in his letter
+of the 20th ulto., Mawruss, because when it comes to extending the life
+of the beer and wine industry after June 30th, Mawruss, them Senators
+and Representatives is more likely to take suggestions from the
+President of the Anti-Saloon League than from the President of the
+United States."
+
+"And I don't know but what they are right at that, Abe," Morris said,
+"because this here Prohibition is strictly a matter of what the majority
+thinks, Abe."
+
+"But from the howl that has been going up, Mawruss," Abe protested, "it
+looks to me like the majority of people wants the sale of schnapps to
+continue."
+
+"I didn't say it was a question of what they want, Abe," Morris
+declared, "I said it was a question of what the majority thinks, and the
+majority of people thinks that while they can drink schnapps and they
+can let it alone, Abe, the majority of people also think that the
+majority of the people who drink schnapps would be a whole lot better
+off without it. So that's the way it stands, Abe. Nobody wants to leave
+off buying liquor, but nobody wants to take the responsibility of
+letting the sale of liquor continue."
+
+"Also, Mawruss, I've been reading a good many articles in the magazines
+about this here Prohibition lately," Abe declared, "and in every case
+the writer shows how disinterested he is, y'understand, by stating right
+at the start that so far as he is concerned, they could leave off
+selling liquor to-morrow and he would be perfectly satisfied."
+
+"And he is going to have to be, Abe," Morris said, "because that way of
+looking at the liquor question is what has brought about Prohibition.
+Practically everybody who drinks schnapps and enjoys it, Abe, is afraid
+that everybody else who drinks schnapps and _enjoys_ it is going to
+think that he drinks schnapps and enjoys it, so he goes to work and
+pulls this phony unselfish stuff about, 'So-far-as-I-am-concerned, it
+don't make no difference how soon the country goes Prohibition,' and the
+result is that the country is going Prohibition, and nobody even now has
+got nerve enough to admit that it's going to cut him out of a great
+many good times in the future."
+
+"Well, there's one thing about it, Mawruss," Abe declared, "it's going
+to make near-by foreign countries, no matter what the climate may be,
+great summer and winter resorts for these fellers who don't care how
+soon Prohibition goes into effect and who will continue not to care
+until 1 A.M. on July 1, 1919. Yes, Mawruss, this here Prohibition is
+going to give a wonderful boost to the business of building bridges
+across the Rio Grande River and to running lines of steamers between the
+United States and them foreign countries near by where the inhabitants
+have got it figured out that if you drink and enjoy it, you might just
+as well admit it before it's too late to keep the government from not
+taking a joke, if you know what I mean."
+
+"Sure I know what you mean," Morris said, "and it has always seemed to
+me, Abe, that even the Scotch whisky business ain't going to be affected
+so adversely by this here Prohibition, neither, except that the
+merchandise is going to reach its ultimate hobnail liver _via_ Mexico
+and Cuba instead of New York and Chicago, and furthermore, Abe, there
+will be a great demand for sleepers on them northbound trains from
+Mexico, and the berths will only have to be made up once on leaving the
+Mexican frontier. However, the diners won't do much of a business on
+them trains, but they will certainly have to carry extra-large ice-water
+tanks."
+
+"And while I don't wish them drink-and-leave-it-alone fellers no
+particular harm, Mawruss," Abe declared, vehemently, "some time when
+they are traveling on one of them oasis-bound limiteds, Mawruss, it
+would serve them right if it run off the rails or something and shook
+'em up just enough to make them realize the inconvenience their own
+foolishness has brought on them."
+
+"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "I didn't know you was taking this Prohibition
+affair so much to heart, Abe."
+
+"What do you mean--take it so much to heart?" Abe protested. "I take a
+glass of schnapps once in a while, Mawruss, but so far as I am concerned
+this here Prohibition can come into effect this afternoon yet, and it
+wouldn't affect me none."
+
+"I am the same way, Abe. I can drink and I can leave it alone," Morris
+said. "Or, anyhow, I _think_ I can."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS,
+AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES
+
+
+"The way I feel about it is this, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his
+partner, Morris Perlmutter: "It don't make no difference if them two
+boys failed in their intentions, y'understand, they succeeded in making
+millions and millions of people in Paris, Winnipeg, New York, and who
+knows where not, stop hating each other for anyhow a few hours, and
+instead they smiled and shook hands and allowed themselves a recess in
+their regular work of winning strikes, losing strikes, shooting,
+starving, and cheating each other and their countries, while they all
+joined in being glad that Mrs. Hawker and the baby had got the popper
+back home with them and that Grieve was safe with his family or anyhow
+as safe as a young feller can be who is liable to quit his home at any
+moment and do the same wonderful, foolish thing all over again."
+
+"It's too bad that all them strikers and Bolsheviks which is acting as
+senselessly as children, couldn't also act as sensibly as children,
+Abe," Morris Perlmutter observed, "and stop crying long enough to
+forget what they were crying about, y'understand, but they won't. They
+are bound and determined to eat the goose which lays the golden eggs,
+Abe, and the end is going to be that they will find out it ain't a goose
+at all, but that instead of killing a goose that's fit for food they
+have only smashed an incubator that's fit for nothing but laying more
+eggs, and that's the way it goes."
+
+"Well, it's certainly wonderful how popular them two young fellers
+become in the course of a few days, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Which makes
+you think, Mawruss, if such a thing happens to two unknown young men
+like Hawker and Grieve, there is big possibilities in this
+cross-the-ocean flight for fellers which was once highly thought of and
+which nowadays nobody gives a nickel about. Take, for instance, them two
+William J. fellers, Bryan and McAdoo, which only a short time since
+people was reading about it in the papers, Mawruss, and what them
+fellers should ought to do is to hire a good, undependable airyoplane,
+y'understand, and take the first boat for Trespassing, or whatever the
+place is. Then all they have to do is to make a good start, and get
+afterwards rescued by a tramp steamer, and right away they become
+general favorites again. Or the kaiser and the crown prince might try
+it, Mawruss. There must be plenty of airyoplanes laying around Germany
+nowadays which could be picked up for a song, and when word come that it
+had fallen into the Atlantic Ocean with them two birds aboard somewhere
+around one thousand five hundred miles from sixty degrees forty-three
+minutes, y'understand, it might make the Hohenzollerns so popular that
+there would be a counter-revolution or something."
+
+"But suppose they would overdo the thing and not get rescued," Morris
+suggested.
+
+"Well, that would make them popular with _me_, anyhow," Abe said, "and
+there is probably millions of people like me in that respects, Mawruss.
+Still, joking to one side, Mawruss, there is some things which you
+couldn't joke about like what this young feller Read did, which is
+working for the United States navy, Mawruss. There was a young feller
+what took his life in his hands, Mawruss, and yet from the maps which
+the newspapers printed, you would think it was already a dead
+open-and-shut proposition that if the airyoplane was to break down
+anywheres between Trespassing and Europe, Mawruss, there would be
+waiting United States navy ships like taxi-cabs around the Hotel
+Knickerbocker, waiting to pick up this here Read before he even so much
+as got his feet wet, understand me. Yes, Mawruss, right across the whole
+page of the newspaper was strung the _Winthrop_, the _Farragut_, the
+_Cushing_, and other fellers' names up to the number of fourteen
+destroyers, and the way it looked on that map, there was a solid line of
+boats waiting to receive any falling airyoplane all the way from one
+side of the ocean to the other, whereas you know as well as I do,
+Mawruss, you can as much make both ends meet on the Atlantic Ocean with
+fourteen ships as a shipping-clerk with ten children can in New York
+City on a salary of eighteen dollars a week."
+
+"I understand them ships was only fifty miles apart," Morris observed.
+
+"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, "but if that airyoplane was to drop
+anywheres between the second and the forty-ninth mile, Mawruss, them
+ships might just as well have been stationed on the North River between
+Seventy-second and One Hundred and Thirtieth streets, Mawruss, for all
+the good it would have done this young feller Read. Also, Mawruss, if
+they would have had so many destroyers on the Atlantic Ocean that they
+would have run out of regular navy names for them and had to resort to
+the business directory so as to include the Acker, the Merrall, the
+Condit, the Rogers, the Peet, the Browning, the King, the Marshall, and
+the Field, in that collection of ships, Mawruss, that wouldn't of made
+this here Read's life a first-class insurable risk, neither."
+
+"And being picked up by a destroyer ain't such a wonderful _Capora_,
+neither, y'understand," Morris said, "which they tell me that on one of
+them destroyers an admiral even couldn't last out as far as the Battery
+even without anyhow getting pale. Also, Abe, I couldn't see that it
+proved anything when this here Read had the good luck to arrive at
+Lisbon, except that he was a brave young feller and seemingly didn't
+care how much his family worried about him."
+
+"That's what people have always said when anything new in the way of
+transportation was tried, Mawruss, but them people was never the ones
+that deposited the checks when the scheme begun to pay dividends some
+two or three years later," Abe retorted. "The world never made no
+advances with the assistance of the even-so and what-of-it fellers,
+which, when the king and queen of Spain raised a little money on the
+crown jewels, Mawruss, so that Christopher Columbus _olav hasholom_
+could make the first trip across the Atlantic Ocean by water, Mawruss,
+the people which saw in it the first steps towards the _Aquitania_ and
+_Levinathan_ wasn't so plentiful, neither."
+
+"Probably the feller which lent the money on the jewels wasn't so
+enthusiastic about it, at any rate," Morris declared, "because as
+first-class, A-number-one security for a loan, Abe, crown jewels 'ain't
+got very much of an edge on them sympathetic pearls which carries such a
+tremendous overhead for electric light in the store windows where they
+are displayed. Take, for instance, the Austrian crown jewels, Abe, and I
+see in the paper where for years and years everybody took the Austrian
+emperor's word for it that they contained more first-water diamonds than
+could be found in stocks of all the Fifth Avenue jewelers and Follies of
+from 1910 to 1919 chorus ladies combined, and the other day when the
+provisional government tried to sell them Austrian crown jewels to buy
+food for the starving Austrians, y'understand, for what was thought to
+be rubies, diamonds, and pearls weighing from twenty to a hundred
+carats apiece, Abe, they couldn't get an offer of as much as a bowl of
+crackers and milk."
+
+"What do you suppose happened to the originals, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"What _should_ of happened to them?" Morris asked, rhetorically. "I bet
+yer that not once, but hundreds of times, an Austrian emperor has taken
+one of the ladies of the Vienna Opera House ballet to the vaults of the
+Vienna Deposit and Storage Company and just to show her how much he
+thought of her, when she said, '_My, ain't that a gorgeous stone!_' he
+has said, '_Do you really like it?_' and pried it right out of its
+setting right then and there."
+
+"And I also bet yer that when the ballet lady got a valuation on it the
+next day," Abe said, "the pawnbroker said to her, '_Ain't this a diamond
+which the Emperor pried out of his crown for you?_' and when she said,
+'_Yes_,' he says that the fixed loaning value of an imperial pried-out
+diamond was one dollar and eighty-five cents, and from that time on the
+ballet lady would be very much off all emperors."
+
+"It seems to me that in all the other countries of the world where kings
+and emperors still hold on to their jobs, Abe, it wouldn't be a bad
+thing for the government to check up the crown jewels on them, in case
+of emergencies like revolutions or having to pay war indemnities,"
+Morris remarked, "which I wouldn't be surprised if right now the German
+people is figuring on raising several million marks on the German crown
+jewels towards paying the first billion-dollar instalment of the war
+indemnity, and when the government appraiser gets ahold of them, he will
+turn in a report that they are not even using that kind of stuff in
+decorating soda-fountains even."
+
+"In that case the German government will probably try to arrange a
+swop," Abe said, "trusting to luck that the Allied governments having
+agreed to take them crown jewels at the value placed on them by the
+kaiser, will not discover their real value until they've changed hands,
+Mawruss, in which event the German government will claim that the
+substitution took place after the Allies received them and did the
+Allies think they could get away with anything as raw as that."
+
+"Even the Germans 'ain't got such a nerve," Morris commented.
+
+"'Ain't they?" Abe retorted. "Well, how about the counter-claim they are
+now making for an indemnity of $3,048,300,000, _aus gerechnent_? Them
+Germans has got the nerve to claim anything that they think they've got
+the slightest chance of getting away with, Mawruss, so they stick in
+this indemnity which they say they ought to receive from the Allies
+because the blockade which the Allies kept up against Germany during the
+war caused such a shortage in food that one million less German children
+was born during that time."
+
+"Three thousand and forty-eight dollars and thirty cents is a pretty
+high valuation to put on a German, and a new-born German at that,"
+Morris commented. "You're sure that the three thousand and forty-eight
+dollars ain't a mistake? Because thirty cents sounds like the correct
+figures to me, Abe."
+
+"The birth reduction ain't the only item in their bill, Mawruss," Abe
+continued. "They also claim that the blockade prevented the importing of
+rubber, camphor, and quinine."
+
+"And I suppose they claim that tire trouble, moths, and malaria
+increased something terrible," Morris said. "Well, they're going to have
+just as hard a time proving that claim as Senator Reed would that Brazil
+is a nation of colored people, Abe."
+
+"When did Senator Reed say that, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"When he was arguing against the League of Nations, in the Senate the
+other day," Morris replied. "He said that there were fifteen white
+nations in the League and seventeen colored nations, and he reckoned
+Brazil in as one of the colored nations, probably because he confused
+the Brazil population with the Brazil nuts which are sometimes called
+nigger-toes, Abe. However, Abe, he also included Cuba as a colored
+nation, because he claimed that fifty per cent. of the population is
+colored."
+
+"But the President of Cuba and the gentlemen which is running the Cuban
+government ain't colored people, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"That don't make no difference to Senator Reed, Abe," Morris declared.
+"To Senator Reed, anything that's found alive in a stable is a horse,
+Abe; in fact, coming from Missouri, as Senator Reed does, considering
+the size of the colored population of that state, Senator Reed probably
+considers himself a colored man, because Senator Reed is perfectly
+honest in his opinions, Abe. When he argues that Cuba is a colored
+nation, he believes it, so, therefore, when he argues himself into being
+a colored man, he probably believes that he ain't quite so dark a
+colored man as Senator Vardaman, who comes from Mississippi, Abe, but
+only a light colored man, which is of course all nonsense, like Senator
+Reed's arguments. Senator Vardaman is a white man and Senator Reed is a
+white man and they are both of them as white as, but no whiter than, the
+President of Cuba and several million Brazilian gentlemen. But with
+Senator Reed it's a case of any argument is a good argument, so long as
+it is an argument against the League of Nations."
+
+"But as I understand it Senator Vardaman ain't in the Senate no more,"
+Abe said. "He got defeated last election."
+
+"And the way he is heading, Abe," Morris said, "Senator Reed will join
+him next election, because, while nine times out of ten, when it comes
+to re-election, a United States Senator has got things pretty well
+sewed-up, _so_ sewed-up he couldn't have them, that he could make such
+foolish speeches on such an important matter. Furthermore, it don't
+make no difference how wise or how foolish the speeches which Senators
+makes against the League of Nations might be, Abe, it is going to go
+through, _anyhow_."
+
+"What makes you think that?" Abe asked.
+
+"Because I see where the National Democratic Committee met in Chicago
+the other day, and the chairman by the name Cummings threatened that if
+the Senate don't approve the League of Nations Covenant, Mr. Wilson
+would run for President again," Morris said.
+
+"What do you mean--threatened?" Abe demanded. "You talk like Mr. Wilson
+running for President again was something to be scared about."
+
+"I don't talk that way, but Mr. Cummings does," Morris said. "In fact,
+the Democratic National Committee, on the head of what Mr. Cummings
+said, passed a resolution that they were in favor of the prompt
+ratification by the Senate of the Treaty of Peace, including the League
+of Nations, so it would appear that the Democratic National Committee
+ain't so tickled about Mr. Wilson running again, neither."
+
+"Well, if Mr. Wilson don't run again for President on the Democratic
+ticket, Mawruss, who will?" Abe inquired.
+
+"I don't know, and, furthermore, I think that the Democratic National
+Committee is temporarily in the same condition about that proposition as
+Hawker and Grieve was about that cross-Atlantic proposition--also
+temporarily," Morris concluded, "I mean, up in the air."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES
+
+
+"Outside of one poor night watchman _nebich_," Abe Potash said to his
+partner, Morris Perlmutter, "the only people which has really and truly
+suffered from the goings-on of them anarchists is the insurance
+companies, Mawruss."
+
+"In a case like that, Abe, the insurance companies ain't liable under
+their policies," Morris said, "and they wouldn't got to pay no losses
+for the damage when them bombs done it to them buildings."
+
+"Who said anything about the insurance companies paying losses?" Abe
+asked. "I am talking about the insurance companies paying lawyer bills,
+Mawruss, which I never read any of that part of my insurance policies
+that is printed in only such letters as could have been designed in the
+first place by them fellers you read about who go blind from engraving
+the whole of the Constitution of the United States on a ten-cent piece,
+y'understand, but I have no doubt, Mawruss, that it wouldn't make no
+difference if the loss was caused by anything so legitimate as throwing
+a lighted cigarette in a waste-paper basket, understand me, the only
+reason why an insurance company pays any losses at all is that they
+figure it's cheaper to let the policyholder have the money than the
+bunch of murderers they got representing them as their general counsel."
+
+"No doubt you're right," Morris agreed, "but in these here bomb outrages
+Abe, the way the police 'ain't been able to get a clue to so much as a
+suspicious red necktie, y'understand, it looks as though this
+bomb-exploding was going to be such a regular amusement with anarchists
+as pinochle-playing is with clothing salesmen, understand me, so the
+insurance companies would got to make a stand, otherwise they would be
+paying for new stoops for the houses of anybody and everybody who ever
+said an unkind word in public about Lenine and Trotzky."
+
+"It seems to me that the police ain't so smart like they once used to
+be, Mawruss," Abe remarked.
+
+"No, nor never was," Morris said. "In fact, Abe, from the number of
+crimes which has got into the let-bygones-be-bygones stage with the
+police lately, clues ain't of no more use to them fellers at all. What
+them detectives need is that the criminal should leave behind him at the
+scene of the crime a line of snappy, up-to-date advertising containing
+his name, address, and telephone number, otherwise they seem to think
+they have the excuse that they couldn't be expected to perform miracles,
+and let it go at that."
+
+"I see where right here in New York, Mayor Hylan puts the whole thing up
+to the newspapers," Abe observed. "He wrote to a friend the other day
+one of them strictly confidential letters with an agreement on the side
+to ring up the reporters as soon as it was delivered, y'understand, in
+which he said the reason why so many crimes was going undiscovered by
+the police was that the newspapers was unprincipled enough to print that
+a lot of crimes was going undetected by the police, understand me, and
+the consequence was that criminals read it and, relying on the fact that
+the police wouldn't catch them if they committed crimes, they went to
+work and committed crimes."
+
+"And I suppose them criminals' confidence in the police wasn't
+misplaced, neither," Morris suggested.
+
+"Not so far as I've heard," Abe said, "but even if the newspapers
+wouldn't of printed the information, Mawruss, why should Mayor Hylan
+assume that burglars don't write each other letters occasionally, or,
+anyhow, once in a while meet at lunch and talk over business matters?"
+
+"Well, I've noticed that Mayor Hylan, Mayor Thompson, and a lot of other
+Mayors, Senators, and people which is all the time getting into the
+public eye in the same sense as cinders and small insects, Abe, always
+blames the newspapers for everything that goes wrong," Morris remarked,
+"because such people is always doing and saying things that when it gets
+into the newspaper sounds pretty rotten even to themselves, understand
+me, so therefore they begin to think that the newspaper is doing it
+deliberately, and consequently they get a grouch on against all
+newspapers."
+
+"Sure, I know, Mawruss, but that don't excuse the police for not finding
+out who sent them bombs through the mails in the first place," Abe said.
+"It is now beginning to look, Mawruss, that the American police has
+begun to act philosophically about crooks, the way the American public
+has always done, and they shrug their shoulders and say, 'What are you
+going to do with a bunch of crooks like that?'"
+
+"Well, in a way you can't blame the police for not catching them
+bomb-throwers, Abe," Morris said. "They've been so busy arresting people
+for violations of the automobile and traffic laws that they 'ain't
+hardly got time for nothing else, so you see what a pipe it is for
+criminals, Abe. All they have got to do is to keep out of automobiles
+and stick to street cars, and they can rob, murder, and explode bombs,
+and the police would never trouble them at all."
+
+"But considering the number of people which gets arrested every day for
+things like having in their possession a bottle of schnapps, Mawruss, or
+smoking paper cigarettes in the second degree, or against the peace and
+dignity of the people of the State of Kansas or Virginia, and the
+statue in such case made and provided leaving a bottle of near-beer
+uncorked on the window-sill until it worked itself into a condition of
+being fermented or intoxicating liquor under section six sub-section (b)
+of the said act, y'understand, it is surprising to me that the police
+didn't by accident gather in anyhow _one_ of them anarchists, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "because, after all, Mawruss, it can't be that only
+respectable people violate all them prohibition, anti-cigarette, and
+anti-speeding laws, and that, outside of dropping bombs, anarchists is
+otherwise law-abiding."
+
+"At the same time, Abe, I couldn't help feeling sorry for a policeman
+who would arrest an anarchist by accident, especially if he didn't carry
+any accident insurance, because the only way to avoid accidents in
+arresting anarchists is to take a good aim at a safe distance, and let
+somebody else search the body for packages," Morris declared.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I think the reason why them anarchists
+which explode bombs is never discovered, y'understand, ain't up to the
+police at all, but to the contractor which cleans up the scene of the
+explosion," Abe said. "If he would only instruct his workmen to sift the
+rubbish before they cart it away, they might anyhow find a collar-button
+or something, because next to windows, Mawruss, the most breakage caused
+by anarchistic bomb explosions is to anarchists."
+
+"Still, there must be a lot of comparatively uninjured anarchists
+hanging around--anarchists with only a thumb or so missing which the
+police would be able to find if they really and truly used a little
+gumption, Abe," Morris said. "Also if they would keep their ears open,
+there must be lots of noises which now passes for gas-range trouble and
+which if investigated while the experimenter was still in the dancing
+and hand-flipping stage of agony, Abe, might bring to light some of the
+leading spirits in the chemical branch of the American anarchists. Then
+of course there is the other noises which sounds like gas-range
+troubles, and which on investigation proves to be speeches, Abe, and
+while it is probably true that you can't kill ideas by putting the
+people which owns up to them in jail, Abe, I for one am willing to take
+a chance and see how it comes out, because, after all, it ain't ideas
+which makes and explodes bombs, but the people which holds such ideas."
+
+"Also, Mawruss," Abe said, "it is the people which holds such ideas that
+says you can't kill ideas by putting the people what holds them into
+jail, but just so soon as them people gets arrested, not only do they
+claim that they never held such ideas, but they deny that there even
+existed such ideas, and then the noise of the denials they are making is
+drowned out by the noise of the bombs which is being exploded according
+to the ideas they claim they don't hold, and that's the way it goes,
+Mawruss. The chances is that the mystery of who exploded them bombs will
+remain a mystery along with the mystery of how the Peace Treaty come
+into the possession of them New York interests in the form of a volume
+of three hundred and twenty pages, as Senator Lodge says it did."
+
+"To me that ain't no mystery at all, Abe," Morris said. "The chances is
+that them New York interests, whatever they may be, Abe--and I got my
+suspicions, Abe--simply seen it in the Saturday edition of one of them
+New York papers which makes a specialty of book-advertising, an
+advertisement reading:
+
+
+                          "THE PEACE TERMS"
+
+                           READ ABOUT THEM
+
+in this stirring, heart-touching romance. Get it, begin it; you'll read
+every word and wish there was more.
+
+Would it be worth while to risk the happiness of all future time for the
+sake of four years of forbidden pleasure? With the frankness
+characteristic of him, William W. Wilson in his latest work tells what
+happens--economically and spiritually--to the nation who tried it.
+
+
+                          "THE PEACE TERMS"
+
+                                 BY
+
+                          WILLIAM W. WILSON
+
+        Author of _A Thousand Snappy Substitutes for May I Not_, etc.
+
+         30 Illustrations, 320 pages.                     $1.50 net.
+
+                          AT ALL BOOK-STORES
+
+
+so the New York interests give the office-boy three dollars and says to
+him he should go 'round to the news-stands in the nearest subway station
+and buy a couple of them books, y'understand, and for the remainder of
+the afternoon, y'understand, the members of the New York interests which
+'ain't got their feet up on the desk reading them books, is asking the
+members which has if they 'ain't got nothing better to do with their
+time than to put it in reading a lot of nonsense like that, understand
+me."
+
+"But who do you think published it, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "It is already over a month since the first
+edition of that Peace Treaty was handed to the German delegates, and
+what is a little thing like a copyright to them crooks when it comes to
+making a profit of ten cents a volume? I bet yer that Europe is already
+flooded with pirated editions of that Peace Treaty retailing at
+anywheres from twenty-five cents up, and yet them highwaymen claims that
+it is unacceptable to them. As a matter of fact, the German business man
+'ain't found anything nearly so acceptable in a merchandising way since
+the time they began to imitate Gillette safety razors and Kodak cameras.
+They'll probably make enough of the Park Row and Ann Street peddling
+rights alone to pay the first instalment of the reparation indemnity,
+Abe."
+
+"I see where Austria also finds the terms of the Peace Treaty which was
+handed to her unacceptable, Mawruss," Abe remarked.
+
+"Well, for that matter, Abe, there probably ain't a petitentiary in this
+or any other country which ain't filled with crooks who finds the terms
+of their punishment unacceptable," Morris said, "but I never heard it
+advanced as an argument why the sentence should ought to be upset on
+appeal, Abe. Also, Abe, Germany and Austria is in just so good a
+position to accept or not accept their punishment as any other
+defendant would be after he has had his pedigree taken and is handcuffed
+to the deputy-sheriff with the Black Maria backed up against the curb,
+y'understand."
+
+"Well, I suppose I must of lost thousands of dollars serving on juries
+in my time, Mawruss," Abe said, "and I would of lost thousands more if
+every prisoner would of behaved the way Germany and Austria has since
+the judge asked them if they had anything to say why sentence should
+ought to be passed on them. Evidently they must of thought it was up to
+them to make regular after-dinner speeches, leaving out only the
+once-there-was-an-Irishman story."
+
+"And even that 'ain't been left out," Morris said, "which I see that the
+United States Senate has passed a resolution that they are in favor the
+Peace Conference should hear what the delegates from the new Irish
+Republic has got to say."
+
+"Is Ireland a republic now?" Abe asked.
+
+"It's anyhow as much of a republic as the Rhenish Republic is a republic
+or the Kingdom of the Hadjes is a kingdom," Morris continued, "which the
+American delegates let them Hadjes have their say, Abe, and if the
+Hadj-American vote figured very strong in the last presidential election
+or the Hadj-American subscribers to the Victory Loan represented as much
+as .000000001 per cent. of the total amount raised, the newspapers kept
+it pretty quiet, Abe. So, therefore, Abe, leaving out of the question
+altogether that a very big percentage of the highest grade citizens
+which we've got in this country is Irish by ancestry and brains, Abe,
+why shouldn't the Irish have their say before the Peace Conference?"
+
+"For one thing," Abe said, "the delegates to the Peace Conference is
+already pretty well acquainted with what them Irishmen would tell them,
+unless them delegates is deaf, dumb, and blind."
+
+"That's all right, Abe, but a good argument was never the worse for
+being repeated," Morris concluded, "in especially when it comes from
+people which has given us not only good arguments during the past four
+years, but service, blood, and money. Am I right or wrong?"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+JULY THE FIRST AND AFTER
+
+
+"It's already surprising what people will eat if they couldn't get
+anything else," Abe Potash commented one morning in June.
+
+"Not nearly so surprising as what they would drink in the same
+circumstances," Morris Perlmutter remarked.
+
+"Well, I don't know," Abe continued. "Here it stands in the newspapers
+where a professor says that for the information of them men which would
+sooner eat grasshoppers as starve, Mawruss, they taste very much like
+shrimps if you know how shrimps taste, which I am thankful to say that I
+don't, Mawruss, because I never yet had the nerve to eat shrimps on
+account of them looking too much like grasshoppers."
+
+"That's nothing," Morris declared. "In Porto Rico, where they have had
+prohibition now for some time already, the authorities has just found
+out that the people has been drinking so much hair tonic as
+ersat-schnapps, Abe, that the insides of the stomach of a Porto-Rican
+looks like the outside of the President of the new Polish Republic, if
+you know what I mean."
+
+"Well, if the prohibition law is going to be enforced so as to
+confiscate the schnapps which is now being stored away by the people who
+have had an insurance actuary figure out their expectancy of life at ten
+drinks a day for 13.31416 years, Mawruss, or all the cellar will hold,
+y'understand," Abe said, "it won't be much later than July 2d before
+somebody discovers that there's quite a kick to furniture polish or
+6-in-1, Mawruss, and in fact I expect to see after July 1st, 1919, that
+there would be what looks like stove polish, shoe polish,
+automobile-body polish, and silver polish retailing at from one dollar
+to a dollar and a half per hip-pocket-size bottle, which after being
+strained through blotting-paper, y'understand, would net the purchaser
+three drinks of the worst whisky that ever got sold on Chatham Square
+for five cents a glass."
+
+"And I suppose that pretty soon they will be passing a law forbidding
+the manufacture of stove polish and directing that the labels on the
+bottles shall contain the statement:
+
+"Stove Polish by Volume 2, Seventy-five per cent. And in a thimbleful of
+what ain't stove polish in that stove polish, Abe, there wouldn't be no
+more harm than two or three quarts of so much nitroglycerin,
+y'understand," Morris said. "Also on Saturday nights you will see the
+poor women _nebich_ hanging around the swinging doors of paint and color
+stores right up to closing-time to see is their husbands inside, while
+the single men will stagger from house-furnishing store to
+house-furnishing store--or the Poor Men's Clubs, as they call them
+places where stove and silver polish is sold."
+
+"But joking to one side, Mawruss, you don't suppose that the Polaks and
+the Huns and all them foreigners is going to leave off drinking schnapps
+just because of a little thing like a prohibition amendment to the
+Constitution of the United States, do you?" Abe said.
+
+"Why do you limit yourself to Polaks and Huns, Abe?" Morris asked.
+"Believe me, there is fellers whose forefathers was old established
+American citizens before Henry Clay started his cigar business,
+y'understand, and when them boys gets a craving for schnapps after July
+1st, they would _oser_ go to the nearest Carnegie Library and read over
+the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution till that gnawing feeling
+at the pit of the stomach had passed away, understand me. At least, Abe,
+that is what I think is going to happen, and from the number of people
+which is giving out prophecies to the newspapers about what is going to
+happen, and from the way they differ from each other as to what is going
+to happen--not only about prohibition, but about conditions in Europe,
+the Next War, the Kaiser's future, and the next presidential campaign,
+y'understand, it seems to me that anybody could prophesy anything about
+_everything_ and get away with it."
+
+"They could anyhow get away with it till it does happen," Abe commented.
+
+"Sure I know, but generally it don't happen," Morris said. "Take for
+instance where Mr. Vanderlip is going round telling about the terrible
+things which is going to happen in Europe unless something which Mr.
+Vanderlip suggests is done, and take also for instance where Mr. Davison
+is going round telling about the terrible things which is going to
+happen in Europe unless something which Mr. _Davison_ suggests is done,
+y'understand, and while I don't know nothing about Europe, understand
+me, I know something about Mr. Vanderlip, which is that he just lost his
+jobs as director of the War Savings Stamp Campaign and president of the
+National City Bank, and you know as well as I do, Abe, when a man has
+just lost his job things are apt to look pretty black to him, not only
+in Europe, understand me, but in Asia, Africa, and America, and
+sometimes Australia and New Zealand, also."
+
+"Well, how about Mr. Davison?" Abe asked.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "Mr. Davison is a banker and I am a
+garment manufacturer, y'understand, and with me it's like this:
+Conditions in the garment trade is never altogether satisfactory to me,
+Abe. As a garment manufacturer, I can always see where things is going
+to the devil in this country or any other country where I would be doing
+business unless something is done, y'understand, and if anybody would
+ask me what _ought_ to be done, the chances is that I would suggest
+something to be done which wouldn't make it exactly rotten for the
+garment trade, if you know what I mean."
+
+"Mr. Vanderlip and Mr. Davison did good work during the war for a
+dollar a year, Mawruss," Abe said, "and no one should speak nothing but
+good of them."
+
+"Did I say they shouldn't?" Morris retorted. "All I am driving into is
+this, Abe; we've got a lot of big business men which during the war for
+a dollar a year give up their time to advising the United States what it
+should do, y'understand, who are now starting in to advise the world
+what it should do and waiving the dollar, Abe, and if there is anything
+which is calculated to make a man unpopular, Abe, it is giving free
+advice, so therefore I would advise all them dollar-a-year men to--"
+
+"And is any one paying you to give such advice?" Abe asked.
+"Furthermore, Mawruss, nobody asks you for your advice, whereas with
+people like Mr. Vanderlip, Mr. Davison, the Crown Prince, Samuel
+Gompers, and Mary Pickford, y'understand, they couldn't stick their head
+outside the door without a newspaper reporter is standing there and
+starts right in to ask them their opinion about the things which they
+are supposed to know."
+
+"And what is the Crown Prince supposed to know?" Morris asked.
+
+"Not much that Mary Pickford don't about things in general," Abe said,
+"and a good deal less than she does about moving pictures, but otherwise
+I should put them about on a par, except that Mary Pickford has got a
+brighter future, Mawruss, which I see that one of these here newspaper
+fellers got an interview with the Crown Prince which 'ain't been denied
+as yet. It took place in an island in Holland where the Crown Prince is
+living in retirement with a private chef, a private secretary, a couple
+of private valets, his personal physician, and the nine or ten other
+personal attendants that a Hohenzollern cuts himself down to while he is
+roughing it in Holland, Mawruss. When the newspaper feller spoke to him
+he was wearing the uniform of a colonel in the Eighth Pomeranian Crown
+Prince's Own Regiment, which is now known as the William J. Noske
+Association, of black tulle over a midnight-blue satin underdress--the
+whole thing embroidered in gray silk braid and blue beads. A very
+delicate piece of rose point-lace was arranged as a fichu, Mawruss, and
+over it he wore a Lavin cape of black silk jersey with a monkey-fur
+collar and slashed pockets. It would appear from the article which the
+newspaper feller wrote that the Crown Prince didn't seem to be
+especially talkative."
+
+"In these here interviews which newspaper fellers gets in Europe, Abe,"
+Morris commented, "the party interviewed never does seem to be
+talkative. In fact, he hardly figures at all, because such articles
+usually consist of fifty per cent. what a lot of difficulties the
+correspondent was smart enough to overcome in getting the interview,
+twenty-five per cent. description, twenty-two and a quarter what the
+correspondent said to the party interviewed, and not more than two and
+three-quarters per cent. interview."
+
+"Whatever way it was, Mawruss, the Crown Prince didn't exactly unbosom
+himself to this here reporter, but he said enough to show that he wasn't
+far behind Mr. Vanderlip when it comes to taking a dark view of things
+as a result of losing his job, Mawruss," Abe continued.
+
+"Probably he took even a darker view of it than Mr. Vanderlip," Morris
+suggested, "because there are lots of openings for bank president, but
+if you are out of a job as a crown prince, what is it, in particular if
+your reference ain't good?"
+
+"He didn't seem to be worrying about his own future," Abe continued,
+"but he seemed to think that if the old man got tried by the Allies,
+Mawruss, the shock would kill him."
+
+"Many a murderer got tried by the Court of General Sessions, even, and
+subsequently the shock killed them, Abe," Morris said. "What is electric
+chairs for, _anyway_?"
+
+"But he told the reporter that you wouldn't have any idea how old the
+old man is looking," Abe went on.
+
+"He shouldn't take so much wood-cutting exercise," Morris said. "The
+first thing you know, he would injure himself for life, even if he ain't
+going to live long."
+
+"Don't fool yourself, Mawruss," Abe said, "the Kaiser ain't going to die
+from nothing more violent than a rich, unbalanced diet, y'understand,
+and as for the Crown Prince, he's got it all figured out that he will
+return to Germany and go into the farming business, and there ain't no
+provided-I-beat-the-indictment about it, neither, because he knows as
+well as you do that the Allies would never have the nerve to try either
+one of them crooks."
+
+"Nobody seems to have the nerve to do anything nowadays, except the
+Bolshevists, Abe," Morris said, with a sigh. "Here up to a few days ago
+the Bolshevist government of Russia had been running a New York office
+on West Forty-second Street, with gold lettering on the door, a staff of
+stenographers, and a private branch exchange, and the New York police
+didn't pay no more attention to them than if they would of been running
+a poolroom with a roulette-wheel in the rear office. The consequence was
+that when them Bolshevists finally got pulled, Abe, they beefed so
+terrible about how they were being prosecuted in violation of the
+Constitution and the Code of Civil Procedure, y'understand, that you
+would think the bombs which Mr. Palmer and them judges nearly got killed
+with was being exploded pursuant to Section 4244 of the United States
+Revised Statutes and the acts amendatory thereof, Abe."
+
+"And we let them cutthroats do business yet!" Abe exclaimed.
+
+"Well, in a way, I don't blame the Bolshevists for not knowing how to
+take the behavior of the American government towards them, Abe," Morris
+declared. "If we only had one way of treating them and stick _to_ it,
+Abe, it would help people like this here ex-custom-house feller Dudley
+Field Malone and this ex-Red Cross feller Robins to know where they
+stood in the matter of Bolshevism. But when even the United States army
+itself don't know whether it is for the Bolshevists or against them,
+Abe, how could you expect this here Robins to know, either, let alone
+the Bolshevists?"
+
+"But I thought this country was against Bolshevism," Abe said.
+
+"As far as I can gather, Abe, the United States is against Bolshevism
+officially on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and on Saturday from nine
+to twelve, and it is for Admiral Kolchak on Tuesday and Thursday,"
+Morris said. "At any rate, that's what one would think from reading the
+newspapers. Fiume is the same way, Abe. The United States is in favor of
+ceding Fiume to the Italians during three days in the week of eight
+working-hours each, except in the sporting five-star edition, when Fiume
+is going to be internationalized. However, Abe, the United States wants
+to be quite fair about preserving the rights of small nationalities, so
+we concede Fiume to the Jugo-Slobs in at least two editions of the pink
+evening papers and in the special magazine section of the Sunday
+papers."
+
+"Well, the way I feel about Bolshevism, I am against it every day in the
+week, including Sundays, Mawruss," Abe said, "and if I would be running
+a newspaper, I would show them up in every edition from the night
+edition that comes out at half past eight in the morning, down to the
+special ten-o'clock-p.m. extra, which sometimes is delayed till as late
+as five forty-five. Furthermore, while variety makes a spicy life,
+Mawruss, newspapers are supposed to tell you the news, and while it may
+be agreeably exciting to some people when they read on Monday,
+Wednesday, and Friday that the Germans would positively sign the amended
+Treaty of Peace, and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday that they
+positively wouldn't do nothing of the kind, y'understand, I am getting
+so used to it that it don't even make me mad no longer."
+
+"The newspapers has got to suit all tastes, Abe," Morris observed.
+
+"But the taste for Bolshevism ain't a taste, Mawruss, it's a smell," Abe
+concluded, "and whoever has got it shouldn't ought to be encouraged. He
+should ought to be disinfected, and that's all there is to it."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS, ECONOMICALLY AND THEATRICALLY
+
+
+"I see where a minister said the other day he couldn't understand why it
+was that fellers in the theayter business goes to work and puts on the
+kind of shows which they do put on, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, a few
+days after the ministerial controversy over a certain phase of the
+Broadway drama.
+
+"Maybe they got hopes that quite a number of people would pay money to
+see such shows, Abe," Morris suggested, "because so far as I could tell
+from the few fellers in the theayter business whose acquaintance I
+couldn't avoid making, Abe, they are business men the same like other
+business men, y'understand, and what they are trying to do is to suit
+the tastes of their customers."
+
+"But what them ministers claims is that them customers shouldn't ought
+to have such tastes," Abe said.
+
+"That is up to the ministers and not the fellers in the theayter
+business," Morris said. "Theayter managers ain't equipped in the head to
+give people lectures on how terrible it is that people should like to
+see the plays they like to see, because as a general thing a feller in
+the theayter business is the same as a feller in the garment business or
+grocery business--he didn't have to pass no examination to go into such
+a business, and what a theayter feller don't know about delivering
+sermons, Abe, if a minister would know it about the show business,
+y'understand, instead of drawing down three thousand a year telling
+people to do what they don't want to do, understand me, he would be
+looking round for a nice, fully rented, sixteen-story apartment-house in
+which to invest the profits from a show by the name, we would say, for
+example, 'Early to Bed.'"
+
+"But the trouble with the theayter fellers is that they think any show
+which a lot of people would pay money to see, Mawruss, is a good show,"
+Abe declared.
+
+"Why shouldn't the managers think that?" Morris asked. "If the ministers
+had the people trained right, any show which a lot of people would pay
+money to see should _ought_ to be a good show."
+
+"You think the ministers could train people to like a good show!" Abe
+exclaimed. "It's human nature for people to like the kind of show they
+do like, Mawruss, and how could ministers, even if they would be the
+biggest _tzadeekim_ in the world, change human nature?"
+
+"That's what I am trying to tell you, Abe," Morris said. "The theayter
+managers simply supply a demand which already exists, Abe, and they are
+as much to blame for the conditions which creates that demand as you
+could blame a manufacturer of heavy-weight underwear for cold winter
+weather."
+
+"But why should the theayter manager try to supply an unhealthy demand,
+Mawruss?" Abe asked.
+
+"The demand for heavy winter underwear is also unhealthy, Abe," Morris
+said. "In America, where the houses is heated, heavy underwear would
+give you a cold, whereas in Norway and Sweden the demand for heavy
+underwear is healthy because Norway and Sweden houses is like Norway and
+Sweden plays, Abe, they are constructed differently from the American
+fashion. They are built solid, but there ain't no light and heat in
+them, and yet, Abe, the highbrows which is kicking about the American
+style of plays is crazy about these here Norway and Sweden plays and
+want American theayter managers to put on plays like them. In other
+words, Abe, they are arguing in favor of the manufacture and sale of
+heavy winter underwear for an exclusively B. V. D. trade, and so,
+therefore, such high-brows could be ministers or they could be dramatic
+crickets, Abe, but they might just so well save their breath with such
+arguments, because the customer buys what he _wants_ to buy, and what
+the customer _wants_ to buy the manufacturer manufactures, and that's
+all there is _to_ it."
+
+"And now that you have settled this here question of them 'Early to Bed'
+plays, Mawruss," Abe said, "would you kindly tell me what the idea of
+them Germans was in sinking all them white-elephant war-ships which
+everybody with any sense wished was at the bottom of the ocean,
+_anyway_, y'understand?"
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "Them Germans being German,
+y'understand, and having signed an armistice where they agreed to take
+them war-ships to an Allied port and _keep_ them there, y'understand,
+just couldn't resist breaking their word and sinking them war-ships."
+
+"But don't you think, Mawruss, that when the Allies allowed the Germans
+to sign such an armistice they was awful careless," Abe said, "because
+if they wanted them war-ships to stay afloat, Mawruss, all they had to
+do was to make the Germans sign an agreement not to take them war-ships
+to Allied ports and sink them there, and the thing was done."
+
+"How do you know that the Allies didn't get them Germans to agree the
+way they did, so as to get rid of all them war-ships without the trouble
+and expense of blowing them up?" Morris asked.
+
+"I don't know it," Abe admitted, "but even to-day yet, Mawruss, them
+Allied diplomatists is acting like they thought deep down in their
+hearts that there was a little honor--a little truth--left in them
+Germans somewhere, Mawruss, so the chance is that when that armistice
+was signed, the Allies thought that at last the Germans was going to
+stand by a signed agreement. However, it seems to me, Mawruss, that
+there should ought to be an end to this here better-luck-next-time
+attitude towards the Germans' idea of honor on the part of the Allies."
+
+"Well, what are you going to do with such people, Abe?" Morris asked.
+
+"To me it's a business proposition, Mawruss," Abe said, "and the way I
+feel about this here Peace Treaty is that it is nothing but composition
+notes, signed by the Germans without indorsement by anybody. Now you
+know as well as I do, Mawruss, if a bankrupt owes you money and he has
+got _some_ assets, you ain't going to take composition notes for the
+entire amount of debts and let the bankrupt keep the remains of his
+assets, because composition notes without indorsements don't deceive
+nobody, Mawruss. If I get from a bankrupt unindorsed composition notes,
+I simply put them away in my safe and forget about them, which if a
+bankrupt ever paid his unindorsed composition notes he would be adding
+murder to his other crimes on account the holders of such composition
+notes would drop dead from astonishment."
+
+"The death-rate from such a cause among business men ain't high, Abe,"
+Morris commented.
+
+"If I was an accident-insurance company's actuary, I would take a chance
+and leave such a cause of death out of my calculations," Abe agreed. "It
+never happens, and so, therefore, Mawruss, if Germany lives up to the
+terms of the Peace Treaty it would only be because the German signature
+is guaranteed by the indorsement of a large Allied Army of Occupation,
+and, therefore, if we've got to do it first as last, why monkey around
+with a new German Cabinet? Why not close up the Peace Conference _sine
+die_, tell Germany her composition notes ain't acceptable, y'understand,
+and proceed to make a levy and sale with the combined armies of the
+Allies as deputy-sheriffs, Mawruss, because not only are the Germans
+bankrupts, but they are fraudulent bankrupts, and on fraudulent
+bankrupts nobody should have no mercy at all?"
+
+"But don't you think it might be just as well to give the Germans a few
+days' grace and see how this here new Cabinet goes to work?" Morris
+suggested.
+
+"You don't have to know how it works, Mawruss," Abe replied. "All you
+have to do is to know how it was formed and you can guess how it would
+work, which I bet yer that Erzberger got together with von
+Brockdorff-Rantzau and they combed over the list of candidates to get
+just the right kind of people for a German Cabinet, because the ordinary
+tests which they use in England, France, or America, Mawruss, don't
+apply to Germany. You've got to be awful careful in forming a German
+Cabinet, Mawruss, otherwise you are liable to have slipped in on you
+just one decent, respectable man with an idea of keeping his word and
+doing the right thing, Mawruss, and by a little carelessness like that,
+understand me, the whole Cabinet is ruined. However, Mawruss, you could
+take it from me that a couple of experienced Cabinet-formers like this
+here Erzberger and von Brockdorff-Rantzau didn't fall down on their
+job, and I bet yer that every member of the new Cabinet is keeping up
+the best traditions of the good old German spirit, which is to be able
+to look the whole world straight in the eye and lie like the devil,
+y'understand."
+
+"Then you think this Cabinet wouldn't act no different to the other
+Cabinets?" Morris said.
+
+"Not if the Allies don't act different," Abe said, "and where the Allies
+made their first big mistake was the opening session at Versailles, when
+the usher or the janitor or whoever had charge of such things didn't
+take von Brockdorff-Rantzau by the back of his neck and yank him to his
+feet after he started to talk without rising from his chair, because the
+Germans is very quick to take a tip that way, Mawruss. Whatever they put
+over once, they think they could put over again, and since that time all
+arguments the Germans has made about the Peace Treaty have been, so to
+speak, delivered by the German people and the German Cabinet, not only
+seated, y'understand, but also with the feet cocked up on the desk, the
+hat on, and in the corner of the mouth a typical German cigar which is
+made up of equal parts hay and scrap rubber blended with the _Vossicher
+Zeitung_ and beet-tops and smells accordingly."
+
+"Well, it is one of the good qualities of the American people that
+before they get good and sore, as they have a right to do, Abe, they
+will put up with a whole lot of bad manners from people that they deal
+with," Morris said. "Take, for instance, these here foreign-born Reds
+which they held a meeting in Madison Square Garden the other evening,
+and if they said in any other country about the government what they
+said in Madison Square Garden, y'understand, the owner of Madison Square
+Garden would of pocketed thousands of dollars for the moving-picture
+rights of the bayoneting alone. But we don't do business that way. There
+ain't no satisfaction in bayoneting a lot of people for being fresh and
+not knowing how to behave. Fining them and putting them in prison is
+also no relief to our feeling, neither. What we really itch to do, Abe,
+is to act the way a man would act if he gives somebody food and shelter
+in his home, and, as soon as such a _schnorrer_ feels refreshed by what
+he has eaten and the good bed he has slept in, he turns on his host and,
+after insulting the members of the household, tries to wreck the
+furniture and set the house on fire. Such a feller you would first kick
+as many times as you had the strength; you would then duck him in the
+nearest body of water, provided it was muddy enough, and after he had
+come up for the third time you would fish him out and ride him on a rail
+to the town limits and there you would advise him never to show his face
+around them parts again."
+
+"But as I understand this here Red meeting, Mawruss," Abe said, "it was
+something more as not knowing how to behave. Practically every speaker
+told the audience that they should rise up against the government."
+
+"Sure I know, Abe," Morris agreed, "but the audience was composed of
+people who had already made up their minds that they should rise up
+against the government, and there is only one thing which prevents them
+from rising up--they 'ain't got the nerve. Furthermore, them speakers
+could go on advising till they got clergyman's sore throat from the
+violent language they was using, and that audience could sit there being
+advised till the management of Madison Square Garden dispossessed the
+meeting for non-payment of rent, y'understand, and still that audience
+wouldn't have the nerve. Them Reds are a lot of rabbits, Abe. They could
+rise up in Russia and Hungary against a lot of rabbits, y'understand,
+but over here the most them rabbits has got the courage to do is to
+plant a few bombs, of which one or two has been ungrateful enough to
+bite the hand that threw them, understand me, but as soon as them Red
+rabbits discovers that the percentage of mortality among bomb-throwers
+is equal to the death-rate from some such rare disease as
+sleeping-sickness or beriberi, Abe, they wouldn't even have the nerve to
+throw bombs."
+
+"Still, I think the District Attorney should ought to do something about
+that Madison Square meeting, Mawruss," Abe said, "because even if
+Madison Square Garden would have been only one-tenth filled, considering
+the high price of rails in the present steel-market and the distance of
+Madison Square from muddy water, Mawruss, it would be anyhow unpractical
+to duck or ride on rails the number of Reds which attended that
+meeting, even supposing enough respectable people could be found who
+would take the trouble."
+
+"As a matter of fact, Abe," Morris said, "it don't even pay to encourage
+them speech-making Reds by thinking they are important enough to be
+ducked in muddy water. After all, most of them are still young and
+sooner or later they would got to go to work, and once a man goes to
+work in this country it is only a matter of time when he gets up into
+the capitalistic class."
+
+"There is also another thing to be considered about these here Reds,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "As Reds, they couldn't be taken altogether
+seriously, because Reds would be Reds only up to a certain point. After
+that they're Yellow."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THEY DISCUSS THE SIGNING OF IT
+
+
+"Yes, Mawruss, when the history of this here Peace Conference is
+written, y'understand, a whole lot of things which up to now has been
+mysteries will be made very plain to the people which has got
+twenty-five dollars to invest in such a history and the spare time in
+which to read it," Abe Potash said to his partner Morris Perlmutter a
+few days after the treaty was signed.
+
+"There will be a great many people who will try to find the time at
+that," Morris commented, "because I see by the morning paper that one of
+Mr. Wilson's relatives has bought for him in Southern California a piece
+of property especially for Mr. Wilson to write the history of the Peace
+Conference in, and why should he go to all that expense if there wasn't
+a big market for such a history?"
+
+"I wonder did Mr. Wilson have to pay much money for the history rights
+to the Peace Conference?" Abe asked.
+
+"What do you mean--did he pay much money?" Morris exclaimed. "Anybody
+can write a history of the Peace Conference without paying a cent for
+the privilege, and even if they couldn't, y'understand, who is going to
+bid against Mr. Wilson, because when it comes to what actually happened
+at them confidential meetings between Mr. Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lord
+George, Abe, Mr. Wilson had a monopoly of the raw material in the
+history line. He didn't even let Colonel House in on it, so you can bet
+your life if there was any competitors of Mr. Wilson trying to get a few
+ideas for a competing line of popular-price Peace Conference histories,
+Abe, Mr. Wilson didn't exactly unbosom himself to them historians,
+neither, because a diplomatic secret is a diplomatic secret, Abe, but
+when in addition, the diplomat is counting on writing a history of them
+diplomatic doings, Abe, diplomatic secrets become trade secrets."
+
+"It seems to me, Mawruss, that while you couldn't blame Mr. Wilson for
+writing a history of the Peace Conference for a living after he loses
+his job in March, 1921," Abe continued, "still at the same time,
+considering that Mr. Wilson has taken such a prominent part in this here
+Peace Conference, and considering also that Mr. Wilson is only human, no
+matter what Senator Reed might say otherwise, don't you think he is
+going to have a difficult time in deciding for himself just where
+history leaves off and advertising begins?"
+
+"The probabilities is that he wouldn't give himself a shade the worst of
+it, if that's what you mean," Morris observed, "but as to whether or not
+such a history would be the equivalent of an actor writing a criticism
+of his own performance, Abe, that I couldn't say, because the chances is
+that when Lord George gets through with the job of chief Cabinet
+Minister or whatever his job is called, he would also try his hand at
+writing a history, and if that is the case, you could make up your mind
+to it that Clemenceau ain't going to sit down at his time of life and
+let them two historians put it all over him. So, therefore, if Mr.
+Wilson should feel like writing in his history: 'At this point, things
+was at a standstill and nobody seemed to know what to do next, when
+suddenly some one made a suggestion which cleared up the whole
+situation. It was Woodrow Wilson who spoke'--y'understand, he will
+figure that Lord George is probably going to say in his history: 'At
+this point the Peace Conference was up against it and it looked like the
+bottom had fallen out of everything, when like a voice from heaven,
+somebody made a remark which smoothed away all difficulties. It was Lord
+George who came to the rescue.' The consequence will be that both of
+them historians will beat Clemenceau to it, by giving credit for the
+suggestion to the feller who made it, even if it would have been Orlando
+himself."
+
+"But suppose Mr. Wilson actually did make the suggestion, Mawruss, and
+in the interests of telling the strict truth about the matter, he feels
+that he is obliged to mention it in his history," Abe said, "he's bound
+to run up against a big chorus of _Yows!_"
+
+"Well, so far as I could see, nobody compels Mr. Wilson to write a
+history of that Peace Conference if he don't want to," Morris replied,
+"and if he should decide not to do so, he could always rent that
+Southern California property furnished for the season, or if he feels
+that he must occupy it himself for history business purposes, he could
+anyhow write a domestic History of the United States from December 5,
+1918, to July 6, 1919, both inclusive, in which his name need hardly
+occur at all. But joking to one side, Abe, when the history of this here
+Peace Conference gets written, it don't make no difference who writes
+it, he ain't going to be able to ignore Mr. Wilson exactly. In fact,
+Abe, the history of this here Peace Conference is going to be more or
+less principally about Mr. Wilson, and if the feller who writes it
+wouldn't be exactly Senator Lodge, y'understand, the truth is bound to
+leak out that Mr. Wilson did a wonderful job over in Paris. Of course he
+made a whole lot of enemies over here, but then he also made a whole lot
+of peace over there, Abe, and, after all, that is what he went there
+for."
+
+"Still I couldn't help thinking that from a business point of view,
+Mawruss, the Peace Conference suffered a good deal from poor
+management," Abe said. "Take for instance the signing of the Peace
+Treaty in Mirror Hall, Versailles, and properly worked up, the Allies
+could of made enough out of that one show alone to pay for all the ships
+that Germany sank a few days ago, which holding a thing like that in a
+hall, Mawruss, is a sample of what kind of management there was."
+
+"They had the Germans sign that Peace Treaty in that hall because it was
+the same hall where them Germans made the French sign the Peace Treaty
+in 1870," Morris explained.
+
+"Sure I know," Abe said, "but what did they know about such things in
+1870? Even grand opera they gave in halls in them days, which,
+considering the amount of interest there was in the signing of the Peace
+Treaty, Mawruss, I bet yer enough people was turned away from Mirror
+Hall, Versailles, to more than fill five halls of the same size. As it
+was, Mawruss, so many people crowded into that Mirror Hall that nobody
+could see anything, and the consequence was that when Clemenceau begun
+his speech the disorder was something terrible."
+
+"I suppose his opening remark was: 'Koosh! What is this? A
+_Kaffeeklatsch_ or something?'" Morris remarked, satirically.
+
+"It might just so well have been, for all anybody heard of it," Abe went
+on. "In fact, the papers say that all through it there was loud cries
+of, 'Down in front!' from people which had probably bought their tickets
+at the last moment off of a speculator who showed them a diagram of
+Mirror Hall, Batesville, and not Versailles, on which it looked like
+they was getting four good ones in the fifth row, center aisle,
+Mawruss."
+
+"Probably also while Clemenceau was speaking, there was difficulty in
+calling off the score-card and ice-cream-cone venders," Morris said.
+
+"I am telling you just exactly what I read it in the newspapers," Abe
+said, "which there ain't no call to get sarcastic, Mawruss. The signing
+of that treaty was arranged just the same like any other show is
+arranged, except that the arrangements wasn't quite so good. The idea
+was to make it impressive by keeping it very plain, and that is where
+the Allies, to my mind, made a big mistake, because the people to be
+impressed was the Germans, and what sort of an impression would that
+signing of the Peace Treaty by delegates in citizen clothes make on a
+country where a station agent looks like a colonel and a colonel looks
+like the combined annual conventions of the Knights of Pythias and the
+I. O. M. A."
+
+"The chances is that the Allies did the best they could with the short
+time they had for preparation, because you must got to remember that the
+Germans didn't make up their minds to sign till two days before the
+signing, and considering that the President of the United States wears
+only the uniform prescribed by the double-page advertisements of
+Rochester, Chicago, and Baltimore clothing manufacturers for people who
+ride in closed cars, two days is an awful short time to hire a really
+impressive uniform, let alone to have one made to order, Abe," Morris
+said. "Furthermore, Abe, the signing of that Peace Treaty could have
+been put on by the feller that runs off these here Follies with the
+assistance of George M. Cohan and the management of the Metropolitan
+Opera House, y'understand, and the costumes could have been designed by
+Ringling Brothers, with a few hints from Rogers, Peet, understand me,
+and I don't believe them Germans would stick to the terms of the treaty
+anyway."
+
+"Europe should worry about that, Mawruss," Abe said. "The main thing is
+that the peace is signed and the last of our boys would soon be home
+again from Europe, and once we get them back again in this country,
+Mawruss, it _oser_ would make any difference to us whether Germany keeps
+the treaty or she don't keep it, Mawruss, the chances of us sending our
+boys back again is pretty slim."
+
+"But under section ten of the League Covenant, Abe," Morris began, "the
+time might come when we would got to send them."
+
+"Maybe," Abe admitted, "but if any of them European nations has got the
+idea that because Germany is going to be slow pay we would oblige with a
+few million troops, Mawruss, they've got another idea coming. We are a
+nation, not a collection agency, and no amount of section tens is going
+to make us one, either."
+
+"Well, that is the danger of this here League of Nations, Abe," Morris
+said, "and if the Senate ratifies it, we are not only a collection
+agency, but a burglar insurance company as well, and in fact some of the
+Senators goes so far as to say that we ain't so much insuring people
+against the operations of burglars as insuring burglars against the
+loss of their _ganevas_."
+
+"I know the Senators is saying that, and I also know that Mr. Wilson
+says it ain't so," Abe agreed, "but this here fuss about international
+affairs has got what the lawyers calls a statue of limitations running
+against it right now, and I give both Mr. Wilson and the Senate six
+months, and they will be going round saying: 'Do you remember when six
+months ago we got so terrible worked up over that--now--National
+League,' and somebody who is sitting near them will ask, for the sake of
+having things just right, 'You mean that League of Nations, ain't it?'
+and Mr. Wilson will say: 'League of Nations! National League! What's the
+difference? Let's have another round of Old Dr. Turner's Favorite
+Asparagus Tonic and forget about it.'"
+
+"So you think that all this international politics will be forgotten as
+quickly as that?" Morris commented.
+
+"Say!" Abe said, "it won't take long for Mr. Wilson to settle down into
+American ways again. Of course it will be pretty hard for him during the
+first few weeks, whenever he gets a sick headache, to send out for a
+doctor instead of an admiral, and he may miss his evening _schmooes_
+with Clemenceau, Lord George, and Orlando, but any one that will have
+such a lot of _clav hasholom_ times to talk over as Mr. Wilson will for
+the rest of his life, even if he does have to hold out some of the stuff
+for his History of the Peace Conference in three volumes, price
+twenty-five dollars, Mawruss, would never need to play double solitaire
+in order to fill in the time between supper and seeing is the pantry
+window locked in case Mrs. Wilson is nervous that way. Then again there
+is things happening in this country which looked very picayune to Mr.
+Wilson over in France, and which will seem so big when he arrives here
+that almost as soon as he sets his foot on the dock in Hoboken, the
+League of Nations will get marked off in his mind for depreciation as
+much as a new automobile does by merely having the owner's number plates
+attached to it, even if it ain't been run two miles from the agency
+yet."
+
+"I never thought of it that way," Morris admitted, "but it is a fact
+just the same that this here League of Nations is only being operated at
+the present time under a demonstrator's license, so to speak, and as
+soon as it gets its regular number, the manufacturers and the agents
+won't be so sensitive about the knocks that the prospective customers is
+handing it."
+
+"And just so soon as the demonstrations have gone far enough, Mawruss,
+just you watch all the nations of the earth that ain't made up their
+minds whether they want to ride or not, jump aboard," Abe said. "Also,
+Mawruss, this League of Nations is to the United States Senate what a
+new-car proposition is to the head of any respectable family. If the
+wife wants it and the children wants it, it may be that the old man will
+think it over for a couple of weeks, and he may begin by saying that
+the family would get a new car over his dead body, and what do they
+think he is made of, money? y'understand, but sooner or later he is
+going to sign up for that new car, and don't you forget it. And after
+all, Mawruss, if the other big nations is in on this League of Nations,
+we could certainly afford to pay our share of what it costs to run it."
+
+"Maybe we could," Morris concluded, "but if a new League of Nations is
+like a new automobile, we are probably in for an expensive time, because
+with a new car, Abe, it ain't what you run that costs so much money.
+It's what you back into."
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE RECENT UNPLEASANTNESS IN TOLEDO, OHIO
+
+
+"If we would only had our wits about us the day we sent for the
+policeman to put out that feller we had running the elevator, Mawruss,
+we could of made quite a lot of money maybe," Abe Potash remarked to
+Morris Perlmutter a few days after the heavy-weight title changed hands.
+
+"If we would only had our wits about us and you had taken my advice to
+let the feller sleep off his jag instead of hauling in a policeman to
+wake him up and throw him out, Abe," Morris said, "they wouldn't of
+broken, between them, fifty dollars' worth of fixtures and ruined a lot
+of garments on us."
+
+"Well, that's what I mean, Mawruss, which is forty-five thousand people
+could be persuaded into paying anywheres from ten to a hundred dollars
+apiece to see that nine-minute affair in Toledo where the two loafers
+didn't have nothing against one another personally and couldn't of kept
+their minds on the fight anyhow for trying to figure their share of the
+profits, y'understand, what would them forty-five thousand _meshugoyim_
+paid to see for twenty minutes a couple of fellers which they really
+and truly wanted to kill each other without any intermissions of so much
+as two seconds, Mawruss?" Abe said.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris said, "these here fight fans are the
+same like moving-picture fans; they would a whole lot sooner pay out
+money to see the imitation article than the real thing. Tell one of
+these here fight fans that for ten cents you would let him know where at
+half past nine o'clock on Monday morning an iron-molder has got an
+appointment to meet a stevedore who used to be engaged to the
+iron-molder's sister and now refuses to return the twenty-five dollars
+he borrowed from her to get the wedding-ring and the marriage license,
+and the fight fan would ask you what is that _his_ business. Tell a
+moving-picture fan that there is a family over on Tenth Avenue where the
+father is a ringer for William S. Hart and is _also_ in jail,
+y'understand, and that such a family is about to be dispossessed for
+non-payment of rent, understand me, and if you made an offer to such a
+moving-picture fan, that for a contribution of fifteen cents toward
+finding the family a new home, you would show him a close-up of the
+landlord, of the notice to quit and of the court-room of the Municipal
+Court of the City of New York for the Eleventh Judicial District where
+such proceedings are returnable, understand me, the moving-picture fan
+wouldn't come across with a nickel, not even if you undertook to engage
+the entire combined orchestras of the Strand, the Rivoli, and the Rialto
+moving-picture theaters to play 'Hearts and Flowers' while the
+furniture was being piled on the moving-van."
+
+"I wouldn't blame the moving-picture fan at that, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"because if such a moving-picture fan would see one of these here
+harrowing William S. Hart and Mary Pickford incidents in real life,
+Mawruss, when it reached the point where the moving-picture fan's heart
+is going to break unless there would be a quick happy ending,
+y'understand, not only would there _not_ be a happy ending, but also,
+Mawruss, instead of the next incident being a Mack Sennett comedy in
+real life, Mawruss, it might be something so sad, y'understand, that if
+a moving-picture corporation would try to reproduce it on the screen, it
+would cost them a fortune for glycerin alone."
+
+"A moving-picture fan's heart don't break so easy as all that, Abe,"
+Morris said. "Moving-picture fans is like doctors and undertakers, Abe.
+They've got so used to other people's misfortunes that it practically
+don't affect them at all. Moving-picture fans can see William S. Hart
+come out of jail to find his wife married to the detective who not only
+arrested him in the first reel, but is also giving terrible _makkas_ to
+Mr. Hart's youngest child in the second reel, y'understand, and wrings
+that moving-picture fan's heart to the same extent like it would be
+something in a tropical review entitled: 'Eighth Annual Convention of
+the United Ice-men of America, Akron, Ohio. Arrival of the Delegates at
+the Akron, Union, Depot,' y'understand. Yes, Abe, the effect of
+five-reel films on a moving-picture fan's heart is like the effect of
+five-star Scotch whisky on a typical club-man's life. It hardens it to
+such an extent that it practically ceases to do the work for which it
+was originally put into a human body, Abe."
+
+"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I 'ain't got no use for any kind of a
+fan, and that goes for moving-picture fans, fight fans, baseball fans,
+and pinochle fans, not to mention grand-opera fans, first-night theayter
+fans, and every other fan from golluf downwards. Take these here fight
+fans which chartered special trains for Toledo, Ohio, and paid a hundred
+dollars for a ringside seat, Mawruss, and to my mind it would take one
+of these here insanity experts to figure out just what made them do it
+at a time when on account of the raise in rent and living expenses, so
+many heads of families is staying home with their families these hot
+Sundays and reading the papers about the fight fans chartering special
+trains and paying a hundred dollars for ringside seats, and not feeling
+the heat any the less because of reading such things. Also, Mawruss, as
+one business man to another who has had the experience of riding on a
+sleeper and making Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, and Chicago even under
+normal travel conditions, Mawruss, I ask you, where is the pleasure in
+such a trip?"
+
+"Them fight fans don't do it for pleasure, Abe," Morris said. "They do
+it for a reputation."
+
+"A reputation for what?" Morris asked.
+
+"A reputation for having paid the United States Railroad Administration
+twice the regular fare to Toledo for a railroad journey, and also the
+reputation for having paid the manager of this here prize-fight fifty
+times the regular price of a ticket for a legitimate entertainment,"
+Morris replied.
+
+"But what for a reputation is that for a sane man to get?" Abe asked.
+
+"Well," Morris commented, "for that matter, what kind of a reputation
+does the same man get when he pays fifty dollars to reserve a table at a
+Broadway restaurant on New-Year's Eve? That's where your friend the
+insanity expert comes in, Abe. It's the kind of a reputation which the
+people among which such a feller has got it--when they talk about it
+says: 'And suppose he did. What _of_ it?'"
+
+"It seems to me, Mawruss, that when a feller gets the reputation for
+having such a reputation, his friends should ought to tip him off that
+if he don't be mighty careful, the first thing you know he would be
+getting that kind of a reputation," Abe said, "because there is also a
+whole lot of other people among which he got that reputation, who
+wouldn't stop at saying: 'Suppose he did. What _of_ it?' They would try
+to figure out the answer upon the basis that a feller who pays a hundred
+dollars for a ringside seat to see a fight which lasted nine minutes,
+y'understand, and his money, understand me, are soon parted, and the
+first thing you know, Mawruss, that poor nebich of a prize-fight fan
+would be unable to attend the next annual heavy-weight championship of
+the world to be held in Yuma, Arizona, or some such summer resort, in
+August, 1921, simply because the United States Railroad Administration
+refused to accept for his transportation in lieu of cash two thousand
+shares of the Shapiro Texas Oil and Refining Corporation of the par
+value of one hundred dollars apiece, notwithstanding that he also offers
+to throw in a couple of hundred shares of a farm-tractor manufacturing
+corporation and lots 120 to 135, both inclusive, in Block 654 on a map
+filed in the office of the clerk of Atlantic County, New Jersey,
+entitled Map of Property of the East by Southeast, Atlantic City Land
+and Development Company."
+
+"Well, it would serve such a feller right if such a thing did happen to
+him," Morris commented, "because any one who takes an interest in such a
+disgusting affair as this here fight should not only lose his money, but
+he should ought to go to jail."
+
+"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe replied. "And why the newspapers print
+the reports of such a thing is a mystery to me. Here there are
+happenings, happenings over in Europe which is changing the history of
+the world every twenty-four hours, Mawruss, and to this one prize-fight
+which a man has got to be a loafer not to get sick at his stomach over
+it, Mawruss, they are devoting practically the entire newspaper. I give
+you my word, Mawruss, it took me pretty near three hours to read it
+last night."
+
+"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "you would think that a man of
+this here Jeff Willard's fighting record wouldn't of give up so easy."
+
+"Look what he was up against," Abe reminded him. "There 'ain't been a
+fighter in years with this feller Dempsey's speed and science, Mawruss."
+
+"But I don't think that Willard was trained right, Abe," Morris said.
+
+"What do you mean--not trained right?" Abe retorted. "From what the
+newspapers has been saying during the past few weeks, Mawruss, he was in
+wonderful condition, and his sparring partners seemingly could hit him
+on any part of his face and body, and it never seemed to affect him
+any."
+
+"Sure I know," Morris agreed, "but what for a training was that for a
+rough affair like this here prize-fight turned out to be, which if I
+would of been this here Jeff Willard's manager, Abe, I wouldn't of put
+no faith in sparring partners. A sparring partner is only human--that is
+to say, if any prize-fighter could be human--and naturally such a
+sparring partner ain't going to do himself out of a good job by going
+too far and seriously injuring a heavyweight champion. The consequences
+was, Abe, that this here Jeff Willard went into the ring, confident that
+he couldn't be knocked down by a blow from a fighter like Dempsey,
+simply because he had no experience in being knocked down by a blow."
+
+"Maybe he couldn't of been knocked down by a blow from his sparring
+partners," Abe suggested. "Maybe they weren't strong enough."
+
+"That's just what I'm driving into, Abe," Morris said, "which if instead
+of Willard's manager wasting time by trying to have sparring partners
+knock him down, he would have gone to work and had Willard knocked down
+by something which could really and truly knock him down, like a Fifth
+Avenue stage or a heavy automobile delivery truck, y'understand, the
+result might have been very different."
+
+"Sure I know," Abe said, "but you could easy overdo such a training
+method, Mawruss, and end up with an autopsy instead of a prize-fight.
+Also, Mawruss, the way it looked to experts after this here fight had
+been pulled off, where Willard made his mistake was in training to
+receive punishment instead of training to give it."
+
+"Willard didn't believe in training to give punishment," Morris said.
+"If he had believed in it, he could have gone over to Europe and
+received pretty nearly a year and a half of the very best training a
+prize-fighter could get in giving punishment, Abe, and also, Abe, he
+would have avoided getting called a slacker by some of them prize-fight
+fans, who seemed to be sore that Willard should have quit after losing
+only half his teeth and having still another eye to see with, the right
+one being blinded in the first round, Abe."
+
+"Well, the chances is that when Willard goes to consult a doctor, which
+he would probably have to do after the licking he got, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "before he would get the opportunity to tell the doctor that he
+had been in a prize-fight, the doctor will give one look at him and lay
+the whole trouble to abscesses at the roots of the teeth, and he will
+order Willard to go and have the rest of them drawn right away, so he
+might just as well have stayed one more round and let Dempsey finish the
+job. Also, Mawruss, them fight fans _oser_ cared whether Willard had
+served in the army or not. Willard was the loser, and naturally them
+Broadway fight fans didn't have no sympathy with a loser, so even if
+there hadn't been no European war for Willard not to serve in, Mawruss,
+they would of tried to think of some other name to shout at him as he
+staggered out of the ring, like Prohibitionist or League-of-Nationer."
+
+"Of course them fight fans had in a way a right to get sore, Abe,"
+Mawruss remarked, "because a whole lot of them had bet money on Willard
+to win."
+
+"Sure they did," Abe agreed, "but gambling on the personal injuries of
+two human beings, even if they do agree of their own will to see how
+long they can stand such injuries without growing unconscious, Mawruss,
+is my idea of nothing to gamble about. But I suppose the typical fight
+fan don't feel that way about it. Probably when some member of his
+family has got to go through an operation, he wipes away his tears with
+one hand and makes a book on the result with the other. He probably
+offers his friends even money that the party won't come out of the
+ether, one to two that the party wouldn't rally from the shock, and one
+to three against complete recovery inside of a month, or he will make a
+combination offer whereby his friends can play the operation across the
+board as a two or three proposition, Mawruss."
+
+"And his friends, being also prize-fight fans, will probably take him
+up," Morris suggested.
+
+"Certainly they will," Abe concluded, "because to a prize-fight fan
+suffering is not a sight which is to be avoided. It is something which a
+typical prize-fight fan would take a special train and pay a hundred
+dollars any time to see."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+FEEDING THE PEACE CONFERENCERS AND THE HOUSEHOLD
+
+
+"Anybody which don't arrange beforehand what the price is going to be,
+Mawruss, is never overcharged, no matter how much he gets soaked in the
+bill," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, a few days
+after the Hotel Crillon filed its claim against the American peace
+mission for two million francs, "which, if the way the United States
+government arranged with the management of the Hotel Crillon for the
+board and lodging of them Peace Conferencers is any criterium, Mawruss,
+we would got to start a recruiting drive for fifty thousand certified
+public accountants for service abroad, with a chance to see the
+wonderful scenery and bookkeeping of France."
+
+"I thought the United States government didn't make any arrangement with
+the Hotel Crillon before them Peace Conferencers went over, Abe," Morris
+said.
+
+"That's what I mean, Mawruss," Abe said, "which, when President Wilson
+made up his mind to send all them experts over to France he sent for
+Ambassador Sharp and asked him where's a good place for them Indians to
+stay, and Sharp told him the Hotel Crillon, and when Mr. Wilson asked
+him is it a good medium-price place, Mr. Sharp says he shouldn't worry,
+that Jake Crillon is a good feller and wouldn't overcharge nobody,
+y'understand, and for to leave it to Jake, and so Mr. Wilson done so,
+Mawruss, and naturally this is the result."
+
+"Why, what for a bill did the management of the Hotel Crillon put in
+against the United States government, Abe?" Morris asked.
+
+"They 'ain't put in any bill as yet, Mawruss," Abe said. "This here is
+only a preliminary claim of two million francs, on account of the loss
+of regular customers because the hotel has been occupied for such a long
+time by them American Peace Conferencers."
+
+"Well, wouldn't most of the regular customers come back if the
+management promised that after them Peace Conferencers went home they
+would disinfect the hotel and give it a thorough overhauling or
+something?" Morris asked.
+
+"The question 'ain't been argued as yet, Mawruss," Abe said, "but you'll
+have to admit that if two years from now a guest of the Hotel Crillon
+complains to the management of something about his room smelling awful
+peculiar, y'understand, and if the management should go to work and tear
+up the floor and overhaul the plumbing, only to find that it's a case of
+the room not having recovered from an American Jugo-Slob expert holding
+conferences with the Jugo-Slob delegates to the Peace Conference in it,
+understand me, two million francs ain't going to go such a long ways, in
+especially at the present rate of exchange, Mawruss."
+
+"Perhaps you're right, Abe," Morris said. "Perhaps it is better that a
+lump sum like two million francs would be charged rather as go into the
+items themselves, because, for instance, if that American mission to
+negotiate peace had been staying at the hotel which we stayed at, Abe, a
+bill would have been submitted like this, Abe:
+
+
+            "MM. American Mission to Negotiate Peace
+             TO HOTEL SE'ESCROQUERIE ET LONDRES, DR.
+
+            Terms, net cash        800 rooms; 8 baths
+                                       Tel.: 6060 Rivoli
+
+March, 1919:   To entertaining MM. Orlando and Sonnino, as follows:
+  Table overturned and following articles broken:
+    1 inkstand and mucilage-bottle.                         Fr.  24.50
+    1 table-cover damaged by mucilage.                           45.00
+  Chairs injured as follows:
+    1 light chair thrown through window.                         58.00
+    1 heavy chair thrown through window.                         85.00
+  Labor as follows:
+    Sweeping up broken eye-glasses.                               2.00
+    Sweeping up hair.                                             3.00
+    Removing blood-stains from carpet.                            4.50
+Credit:
+  By one unclaimed hat, labeled 'Mike, the Popular Rome Hatter'.   .20
+                                                                 _____
+          Total                                             Fr. 382.40
+
+
+and not only would it have given away a whole lot of diplomatic secrets,
+but the American mission would also have got to pay a luxury tax of ten
+per cent. on the hotel's telephone number and a little mistake of a
+hundred francs in the addition."
+
+"But this here Hotel Crillon was a strictly first-class hotel, Mawruss,"
+Abe said, "and with strictly first-class hotels it's the same in Europe
+as it is in this country, Mawruss; the rates are so fixed that it ain't
+necessary for the management to make mistakes in the bill, while the
+accounting department always figures the overhead so as to include the
+hotel's telephone number, the number of the guest's room, and, in the
+case of mountain-resort hotels, the altitude of the hotel above
+sea-level."
+
+"Well, that's just what I am driving into, Abe," Morris said. "Even when
+hotel bills are submitted weekly and the management has got his signed
+checks to show for it, Abe, nobody never realizes that he owes all that
+money to a hotel, y'understand, and when at the end of the peace
+commission's tenancy the hotel management sends in its final bill, Abe,
+there's going to be considerable argument between Mr. Joseph Grew, the
+secretary of the commission, and all them Peace Conferencers, expert and
+otherwise, as to who ordered what and when, y'understand, which I see by
+the newspapers, Abe, that Mr. Grew has already begun an investigation
+about who authorized the serving of one hundred bottles tchampanyer wine
+on June 14th, and if Mr. Grew couldn't trace the party which signed for
+one hundred bottles tchampanyer wine on June 14th, y'understand, what
+chance does he have of finding out who is responsible for each and
+every one of the hundreds of checks with illegible signatures which is
+bound to show up in the final accounting for such articles as scrambled
+eggs, bacon, and coffee, which any Peace Conferencers might have signed
+for, whether his home town was in a dry state or not, Abe."
+
+"And Mr. Grew wouldn't get no sympathy from the President, neither,
+Mawruss," Abe said, "which, when the morning mail arrives at the White
+House nowadays just as Mr. Wilson is saying to Mrs. Wilson, '_Some_
+coffee, mommer!'--because the average American has got to be home from
+Europe at least a month before a good cup of coffee ceases to become a
+miracle, Mawruss--it won't take more than two letters from Mr. Grew
+asking Mr. Wilson does he remember whether at the conference between
+him, Clemenceau, Lord George, Venezuelas, and Baron Ishii, held in
+Parlor A on March 22d, did or did not somebody order a rye-bread tongue
+sandwich and a split of Evian water, and if so to please sign inclosed
+check for same, _non pro tunc_ as of March 22d, 1919, understand me,
+before the only effect an envelope addressed in the handwriting of Mr.
+Grew will have on Mr. Wilson is that he is going to throw it unopened
+into the waste-paper basket without so much as saying, 'I wonder what
+that _schlemiel_ wants from me _now_.'"
+
+"As a matter of fact, Abe, the price of food 'ain't interested Mr.
+Wilson since a few days ago when he asked Mrs. Wilson, 'How much are we
+paying now for coffee, mommer?' and Mrs. Wilson says fifty-eight cents
+a pound, and Mr. Wilson says for the love of Mike, and then asks what
+she is paying for eggs, and Mrs. Wilson says at Ginsburg's Economy
+Market eighty-five cents a dozen, and Mr. Wilson says he would just as
+lieve have some hash from last night's rib roast, and Mrs. Wilson says
+she doesn't blame him and so would she, but that they are going to have
+that rib roast cold for lunch on account Ginsburg is practically
+_schenking_ his customers rib roast for fifty-five cents a pound,"
+Morris said.
+
+"And how did you come to hear about this conversation, Mawruss?" Abe
+asked.
+
+"I didn't hear about it," Morris replied, "but I presume it took place
+the morning after the newspapers printed the report of the Federal Trade
+Commission about the packing-houses, Abe, because a similar conversation
+happened at my breakfast-table that morning, and I presume it also
+happened at yours."
+
+"Well, it's time that business men begun to take a little interest in
+the cost of what they are eating, Mawruss," Abe said. "On account of the
+increase in the price of food, Mawruss, the business man is now paying
+more money to all the people which is working for him, except his wife."
+
+"Sure, I know," Morris said, "but the business man which is mean enough
+to hold down his wife to twenty dollars a week housekeeping money simply
+because the principle of the closed shop and collective bargaining can't
+be applied to an American household the way it could to a Turkish
+harem, Abe, don't live so well as he used to. Former times when such a
+man complained to his wife that the chicken was a little tough,
+y'understand, she used to say, 'What do you want for twenty dollars a
+week housekeeping money--mocking-birds?' Nowadays, however, the best
+that such a man has got to complain about being tough is round steak,
+and his wife now says, 'What do you want for twenty dollars a week
+housekeeping money--chicken?'"
+
+"And the standard of living for even business men is going down so fast,
+Mawruss, that next year when such a man complains that the tripe is
+tough, she is going to say, 'What do you expect for twenty dollars a
+week housekeeping money--round steak?'" Abe said, "and if them packers
+goes on trying to control the entire bill of fare from soup to cereals,
+Mawruss, it would only be a matter of a few years when such a husband is
+going to complain that the puffed jute is tough, and his wife is going
+to ask him, 'What do you expect for twenty dollars a week housekeeping
+money--ensilage?' which, if something ain't done pretty soon to stop
+dealers boosting the price of food, Mawruss, twenty dollars a week
+housekeeping money ain't going to feed a family of hearty-eating
+canary-birds."
+
+"I suppose that in the end, Abe, the business man would be obliged to
+admit that the high cost of living is just as expensive for his wife as
+it is for his other employees," Morris concluded, "and, without the
+formality of a strike, the wives of business men will be conceded a new
+wage-scale of from thirty to forty dollars, in place of the old scale of
+twenty dollars, for a working-week of one hundred and sixty-eight hours,
+because it don't make no difference if the Senate confirms the League of
+Nations or not, Abe, married business men will never live up to the
+clause which provides for an international working-day of eight
+hours--anyhow, so far as their wives is concerned."
+
+"That ain't the only clause of the Peace Treaty which wouldn't be lived
+up to, Mawruss," Abe said, "because I see that already the Germans is
+having their troubles restoring to the British government this here
+skull of the Sultan Mkwiwa, Mawruss, which, according to Section Eight,
+I think it is, of the Treaty of Peace, was removed from German East
+Africa and taken to Germany."
+
+"But the Germans claim that it was never taken from German East Africa,
+but was buried there, and they misremember the name of the cemetery,"
+Morris declared.
+
+"I know they do, and I couldn't understand their attitude in the matter,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "Why don't they go to work and send England any old
+skull, which a skull is a skull, ain't it?--and one skull is just as
+much like another skull as two pinochle decks with the same backs, and
+who is going to check them up on it no matter what kind of a skull they
+send? Besides, Mawruss, the people who had pull enough to get that skull
+section inserted in the Treaty of Peace is going to be divided into two
+classes when that skull arrives in East Africa, _anyway_--namely, those
+who will throw a bluff that they recognized the skull as the sultan's
+skull as soon as they laid eyes on it, y'understand, and those who will
+refuse to concede that any skull is the sultan's skull. There will also,
+of course, be a large class of East Africans who won't give a nickel one
+way or the other; so if Germany couldn't find the sultan's skull, let
+them send England an _ersatz_ sultan's skull with a genwine sultan's
+label on it. They've been doing that sort of thing for years with
+American safety-razors, American folding-cameras, and American
+typewriters; why should they now take it so particular with a German
+East African sultan?"
+
+"Then you think there is something suspicious about the way Germany is
+acting over this here skull?" Morris suggested.
+
+"I wouldn't call it exactly suspicious, Mawruss," Abe said, "but at the
+same time I wouldn't put it beyond the Germans that, after the Allies
+gets through discussing together whether or not the sultan's skull is
+genwine, they would suddenly awake to the fact that at least two of the
+million-mark bills which Germany paid over in the indemnity,
+y'understand, are _not_. So, therefore, my advice to England is, examine
+the German indemnity carefully, and don't let no returned sultan's skull
+distract your attention, even if it would be made of plaster of Paris
+with a round hold on top for keeping matches in it, and on the bottom a
+sign, reading:
+
+"_Gruess Aus Schveningen_."
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS INCLUDES LIBELED MILLIONAIRES,
+ENFORCED PROHIBITION, AND SHANTUNG
+
+
+"Well I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, recently, "I doubt very
+much if I would be able to say offhand who Arnold Benedict was if I
+would be asked such a question by a smart lawyer in a court-room full of
+reporters, which, if they hadn't happened to be there at that particular
+moment, would of probably gone to their graves without even the faintest
+suspicion that you didn't spell _ignorant idealist_ with two l's,
+y'understand."
+
+"Still, Abe, you've got to admit that plaintiff in a libel suit don't
+deserve much sympathy if he don't post himself before going on the stand
+as to the meaning of the libel, so as to anyhow be able to say that it
+_was_ a libel and not a compliment, understand me," Morris said.
+
+"He took his lawyers' word for it that it was a libel, Mawruss," Abe
+said, "and, anyhow, Mawruss, nobody has got a right to call anybody an
+ignorant philantropist even, no matter how ignorant such a philantropist
+might be about what the word philantropist would mean."
+
+"And do you _know_ what it means?" Morris asked.
+
+"A philantropist is a feller who gives big sums of moneys to
+orphan-asylums, hospitals, and colleges, and if he could afford it he's
+a philantropist, Mawruss, and if he couldn't, then he's a sucker, and
+that is what is called a philantropist," Abe said, "which, if I didn't
+know what it meant, Mawruss, I ain't such an ignorant idealist that I
+would use such a word in front of you and expect you not to try to trip
+me up on it."
+
+"I see you've also been looking up what ignorant idealist means," Morris
+observed.
+
+"And I ain't very peculiar that way, neither, Mawruss," Abe admitted,
+"because I bet yer that in the last two days at least five million
+people has been looking up in the dictionary what that word idealist
+means and not knowing even _then_ what it means, y'understand, and still
+that 'ain't prevented them from knocking Mr. Ford, Mawruss."
+
+"But the fact remains, Abe, that them five million people ain't suing
+nobody for calling them ignorant idealists," Morris interrupted.
+
+"Also, Mawruss, they ain't running one of the largest industrial plants
+in the country on a profit-sharing basis with several thousand
+employees," Abe declared, "which there is a whole lot of big
+manufacturers in this country who could go on the stand at a moment's
+notice and pass a cross-examination with a hundred-per-cent. mark on all
+them words which you read in them medical journals you pick up from the
+doctor's desk in his private office when he excuses himself for a minute
+to answer the 'phone and which you put down so quick and pretend you
+'ain't been reading when he comes back again, if you know what I mean.
+And furthermore, if these same big manufacturers was elected to the
+United States Senate to-morrow they could make a speech against doing
+away with child labor in words of six syllables, y'understand, and would
+probably make such a speech, because the trouble with most big
+manufacturers is not that they are ignorant, understand me, but that
+they ain't idealists, Mawruss."
+
+"Just the same, Abe, a man should ought to know what he don't know and
+side-step it," Morris said.
+
+"But the way it is in this country, Mawruss, a multimillionaire can't
+side-step it. The newspapers won't let him, because if he gets a
+reputation for having made fifty million dollars in the safety-pin
+business, we would say, for example, and news gets so scarce in the
+newspapers that somebody starts a discussion about which is the biggest
+musician, Kreisler _oder_ Zimbalist, y'understand, right away the editor
+sends out reporters to interview the most prominent men in the country
+as to what their opinion is in the matter, and naturally one of the
+first men such a reporter would call on is Harris J. Rosenbaum, the
+Safety-pin King. Now, what is Rosenbaum going to do under the
+circumstances? Is he going to admit to the reporter that up to date he
+has been so busy in his safety-pin plant that he 'ain't had time to
+post himself as to whether Kreisler and Zimbalist is performers on the
+trombone _oder_ the mouth-organ? _Oser!_ He finds out from the reporter
+that these two fellers has got a piece-work wage-scale for playing on
+the fiddle of five dollars a note, net cash, and he says that both of
+them is wonderful fiddlers, y'understand, but that to his mind Kreisler
+plays with more of the artistic temperature than Zimbalist, or if he
+doesn't actually say so, y'understand, the reporter goes back to his
+newspaper and _says_ he said so, and the consequence is that when in
+next Sunday's paper Rosenbaum reads,
+
+
+KREISLER GREATER ARTIST
+SAYS SAFETY-PIN KING,
+
+
+he not only begins to believe that he did say it, but also that it's
+funny how a man can go on for years being an expert on fiddle-playing
+and only find it out by accident, as it were."
+
+"And I suppose that a few months later, on the strength of what he
+_don't_ know about fiddle-playing, Abe," Morris remarked, "Harris J.
+Rosenbaum, the Safety-pin King, is running for United States Senator and
+comes pretty near getting elected, too."
+
+"There don't seem to be no reason why he wouldn't be," Abe declared,
+"because just so long as United States Senators is selected by election
+and not by a competitive examination, Mawruss, there will always be a
+certain percentage of Harris J. Rosenbaums in the United States Senate,
+which you can't keep millionaires out of public office, if they want to
+fool away their time in such things, and after all, Mawruss, it ain't
+having brains which makes a man a millionaire, it's having a million
+dollars."
+
+"Then you don't blame Mr. Ford for the way he has behaved himself, Abe?"
+Morris asked.
+
+"Not in the least," Abe said. "Millionaires behave the way their
+fellow-countrymen encourages them to behave, Mawruss, which to my mind,
+Mawruss, the only way to learn a millionaire like Mr. Ford his place is
+not to notice him and, in particular, not to pay no attention to
+anything he says, and such a millionaire would quick subside and devote
+himself to the manufacture of safety-pins or the best four-cylinder car
+for the money in the world, as the case may be, which I see in the paper
+that the refusal of the United States Senate to confirm the Treaty of
+Peace looks quite certain to them people to whom the winning of the
+Willard-Dempsey fight by Jeff Willard looked quite certain, Mawruss."
+
+"Well, to my mind, Abe, them round-robins is right to look into the
+Treaty and the League of Nations covenant before they confirm them,"
+Morris said. "Also, Abe, you couldn't blame them Senators for getting
+indignant about the Shantung settlement."
+
+"Personally I couldn't blame them and I couldn't praise them, Mawruss,
+because, like a hundred million other people in this country, not being
+in the silk business, Mawruss, I never had the opportunity to find out
+nothing about even where Shantung was on the map till they printed such
+a map in the papers last week, and if you've got to go and look it up on
+a map first to find out whether you should ought to be indignant or not,
+Mawruss, you couldn't get exactly red in the face over Japan taking
+Shantung, unless you are a Senator from the Pacific coast, where people
+have got such a wonderful color in their cheeks that Easterners think
+it's the climate, when, as a matter of fact, it is thinking about
+Japanese unrestricted immigration that does it."
+
+"But the Senators represents the people which elects them, Abe," Morris
+said, "and if it don't take much to make a Californian indignant about
+any little thing he suspects Japan is doing, y'understand, then Senator
+Hiram Johnson has got a right to go 'round looking permanently purple
+over this here Shantung affair. As for the other Senators, Abe, the
+theory on which they talk each other deaf, dumb, and blind is that they
+are doing a job which it is impossible for the hundred million people of
+this country to do for themselves. They are saving their constituents
+the trouble of leaving their homes and spending a lot of time on
+government-controlled railroads, going to and from Washington to make
+their own laws, y'understand. That is what representative government is,
+Abe, and if the people of this country couldn't get indignant over what
+ain't right in this here Treaty of Peace and League of Nations without
+working up such indignation by several days' careful investigation of
+the reasons for getting indignant, then it is up to the United States
+Senate to get indignant for them, even if the individual Senators has
+got to sit up with wet towels 'round their heads and strong black coffee
+stewing on the gas-stove, so as not to fall asleep over the job of
+letting their feelings get the better of their judgment in working up a
+six-hour speech which will give the country the impression that it just
+came pouring out on the spur of the moment as a consequence of the
+Senators' red-hot indignation about this here Shantung."
+
+"It's too bad that the House of Representatives couldn't be mind-readers
+like the Senate, Mawruss, and get off indignant speeches about what is
+making certain sections of the country so indignant, Mawruss, that if
+their Congressmen is going to really and truly represent them, there
+would be a regular epidemic of apoplexy in Washington," Abe said, "which
+I am talking about the enforcement of prohibition, Mawruss."
+
+"For myself, Abe, I couldn't understand why it should be necessary to
+pass a law to enforce a law," Morris remarked, "because, if that is the
+case, what is going to be the end? After they pass this here law to
+enforce the prohibition law, are they going to pass another law to
+enforce the law to enforce prohibition, or do they expect that this here
+enforcement law will enforce itself, and if so, then why couldn't the
+prohibition law be enforced without a law to enforce it?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, a dyed-in-wool Dry could be as hopeful
+as a man could possibly be on soft drinks, and in his heart of hearts he
+must got to know that if Congress would sit from now till the arrival of
+_Elia Hanov'e_ and did nothing all that time but pass an endless chain
+of enforcement laws, prohibition will never be enforced except in the
+proportion of 2.75 enforcement to 97.25 violation, anyhow in those parts
+of the country where the hyphen Americans live and like their beverages
+with a hyphen in it, because, Mawruss, where a hundred per cent. of the
+population of a certain district has been drinking beer and light wines
+since 12 A.M. on Rosh Hashonah in the year one up to and including
+twelve midnight on June 30, 1919, y'understand, and seeing no harm in
+it, understand me, not only would an act of Congress fail to change the
+hearts and conscience of such people, but there could be an earthquake,
+a cyclone, and anything else which a confirmed Dry would call a judgment
+on them people, and still they wouldn't see no harm in it."
+
+"Then what is the country going to do to enforce the prohibition law?"
+Morris asked.
+
+"I don't know," Abe said; "but one thing is certain, you can't change
+people's habits on and after a certain hour on a certain date by putting
+a law into effect on such date. You might just so well expect that, if
+the Senate should confirm the provision handing over Shantung to the
+Japanese, all the Chinamen in Shantung is immediately going to open
+stores for the sale of imitation expensive vases and fake silk
+embroidery, start factories for the manufacture of phony Swedish
+safety-matches, and do all the other things which Japanese do so
+successfully that any reputable business man is willing to take a chance
+on getting indignant about Shantung without even asking his stenographer
+to look it up for him."
+
+"But I thought you thought that prohibition would be a good thing, Abe?"
+Morris said.
+
+"I do," Abe said. "I think brown stewed fish, sweet and sour, the way my
+Rosie cooks it, is a good thing, but at the same time, Mawruss, I
+realize that my taste in this respect is supported only by what you
+might call a very limited public sentiment, consisting of Rosie and me,
+y'understand, and the rest of the household couldn't stand to eat it at
+all. So, therefore, when we have sweet and sour fish we cook for the
+rest of the family eggs or meat, and in that way we have happiness in
+the home. Now a country is a home for the people in it, ain't it, and
+the main thing is that they should stick together and be happy, and how
+could they be happy if even the great majority of the people tells the
+rest what they should and shouldn't eat or drink?"
+
+"But you admit that _schnapps_ is harmful, don't you?" Morris insisted.
+
+"And I also admit that sweet and sour fish ain't exactly a health food,
+Mawruss," Abe said. "In fact, you wouldn't believe what a lot of
+bicarbonate of soda Rosie and me uses up between us after we eat that
+fish; but even so, Mawruss, after you have said all you could say
+against that fish, the fact remains that Rosie and me, we like it."
+
+"Well, even if the people do like booze, and it does them harm, I say
+they shouldn't have it," Morris said.
+
+"I agree with you down to the ground, Mawruss," Abe said. "And I don't
+care if it is booze or sweet and sour, you are still right; but if sweet
+and sour fish was prohibited, although the fish and the onions and the
+sugar and the vinegar which you make it out of _wasn't_, y'understand,
+and in spite of the law, Rosie and me liked it and wanted to continue to
+eat it, the question then is and the question is going to continue to
+be:
+
+"HOW ARE YOU GOING TO STOP IT?"
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE APPROACHING ROYAL VISIT
+
+
+"I see where the King of England, to show his appreciation of what we
+done it during the war, Mawruss, is going to send his eldest son, the
+King of England, junior, or whatever his name is, to visit us," Abe
+Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.
+
+"Yes?" Morris replied. "Well, why don't the King, senior, come himself?"
+
+"You must think that kings has got nothing better to do with their time
+than fool it away on ocean steamers, Mawruss," Abe said. "A king of
+England is a very busy man, Mawruss, which I bet yer right now he is
+dated up as far ahead as Purim, 1921, laying corner-stones, opening
+exhibitions, making the speech of the afternoon or the evening, as the
+case may be, at assorted luncheons, teas, and dinners; trying on
+uniforms; signing warrants at a fee of two guineas and sixpence--not
+including three cents war tax--for the appointment of tea, coffee, or
+cocoa manufacturers as purveyors of tea, coffee, or cocoa to the royal
+household, y'understand, and doing all the other things which a king
+does in England and a prominent Elk does in America."
+
+"Well, anyhow, I suppose the King of England, junior, must of done a lot
+of hard work during the war which makes the King, senior, think that it
+is time the boy had a vacation."
+
+"_Oser!_" Abe said. "So far as I can make out, the young feller made a
+couple of tourist's tours of the battle-fields, Mawruss, and maybe
+helped out once or twice with the corner-stone laying; but otherwise,
+for all the actual fighting he did, instead of being the King of
+England's son during the war, he might just so well have been Mr. Ford's
+son."
+
+"Well, kings, junior or senior, ain't supposed to fight, Abe," Morris
+said. "The most their countries expects of them is that they should
+share the privations of their subjects by reducing the cost of running
+their homes till they are living as economically during war-times as a
+Texas oil millionaire does during peace-times. There was days together
+there, in the terrible winter of 1916-1917, when the only dishes which
+appeared on the tables of European kings, outside of green-turtle soup
+and roast pheasant, was hothouse asparagus and fresh strawberry
+ice-cream, Abe. The sufferings of kings, junior and senior, during the
+war 'ain't half been told in the newspapers, Abe."
+
+"The Kings of England, junior and senior, is very popular in England at
+that, Mawruss," Abe said, "which every week the illustrated papers
+prints picture after picture of both of them Kings looking every inch
+kings, or anyhow openers or better, y'understand; and in fact, Mawruss,
+the English-reading public never seems to get tired of seeing pictures
+of building operations, just so long as there is one of them Kings in it
+laying the corner-stone or turning the first sod of the excavation."
+
+"For that matter, Abe, them brown illustrated supplements to American
+Sunday newspapers which rubs off so on Palm Beach suits and ladies'
+white gloves, 'ain't absolutely declared a boycott on kings' pictures,
+neither," Morris declared. "I suppose that pictures of them Kings with
+or without Marshal Haig reviewing soldiers and handing out medals is
+easy worth several hundred dollars a week to the dry cleaners of New
+York City alone."
+
+"Did I say they didn't?" Abe asked. "Which, considering the trouble and
+expense this country was put to over the Declaration of Independence,
+Mawruss, you would be surprised how much interest a whole lot of ladies
+takes in the English royal family. Here a short time ago the King,
+senior's, father a brother's daughter got married beneath her to one of
+the chief stockholders of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, Mawruss, and
+you would think from the way my Rosie carried on about it that the
+girl's mother was going round saying what did she ever do that her
+daughter should go to work and marry a feller that made his living that
+way, and what a mercy it was the grandmother didn't live to see it; the
+theory being, Mawruss, that when a king's relation marries a healthy
+young chief stockholder with nothing flowing in his veins but the blood
+of a couple of generations of managing directors, y'understand, it is
+the equivalence of a bank president's daughter eloping with a
+professional dancer in a cabaret."
+
+"And when the King, junior, arrives in this country there is going to be
+a lot of disappointment among them ladies which also gets their pictures
+printed by the Sunday supplement sitting around cross-legged in
+ankle-length, awning-striped skirts at dawg-shows, in such a way that
+even the dawgs must feel embarrassed if they've got the ordinary dawg's
+sense of decency, Abe," Morris said, "because I see by the paper that
+the King, senior, has instructed his son that while in New York he
+should live on board the English battle-ship which is bringing him here
+so as not to have no truck with any millionaires."
+
+"I suppose the old man thinks that one managing director's child in the
+royal family is enough," Abe suggested.
+
+"Well," Morris said, "looking at him from the King's standpoint, it will
+save the young feller's mother a lot of anxiety to know that he is safe
+on board an English battle-ship every night instead of running around
+the streets of a country where everybody, up to and including the
+President himself, is the young feller's social inferior."
+
+"And also, you can't blame the old man if he ain't taking no risks when
+the young feller gets home and his mother asks him did he have a good
+time, that two Right Honorable General Practitioners in Waiting would
+got to work over her for an hour or so bringing her out of one swoon
+after another as the result of her son saying, 'I'll _say_ I did,'" Abe
+observed.
+
+"Still, at the same time, Abe," Morris said, "it is going to be a
+wonderful opportunity for the young feller, even if he gets home again,
+he would occasionally use the words, '_You've said it_,' instead of
+'_Quite so_.'"
+
+"But that ain't the idea in the King's sending him over here, Mawruss,"
+Abe said. "The intention is that it is a wonderful opportunity for the
+American people to see how a king looks and at the same time not have it
+come off on your gloves. In other words, Mawruss, it's as a favor to us
+that the young feller is coming over here, and the chances is that his
+personal feelings in the matter is very much the same as yours or mine
+would be if we was about to make Sarahcuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit,
+and Chicago with a line of popular-price garments. We would do it in the
+course of making a living and not for the education of the thing."
+
+"Then my advice to the young feller and his father is that he should
+stay home in these times when the building trade is looking up so, Abe,
+and help out with the corner-stone laying," Morris said, "and give the
+people of this country a real treat by sending over Lord George or
+Marshall Field Haig, which while this here King, junior, is a decent,
+respectable young feller and his father is also a gentleman that nobody
+could say a word against no matter if it does cost the English people
+sixpence in the pound of the ten shillings in the pound which they've
+got to pay income tax in order that the English royal family should
+continue to live in the style to which it has become accustomed during
+the past five hundred years, Abe, still, at the same time, if I could be
+standing on the curb watching Lord George or this here Haig driving by,
+it would give me a real thrill to think that I am at last looking at the
+face of a man who for over four years has been working night and day to
+put over the biggest thing that has ever been put over in the history of
+the world, y'understand; whereas, what for a thrill would I get from
+looking at the face of a man who, putting it big, has been laying as
+many corner-stones as all the bricklayers' unions in the American
+Federation of Labor and has been presiding at as many banquets as this
+here Irving J. Cobb and Gustave Thomas combined?"
+
+"At that, there will be a whole lot of ambulance calls for people who
+has fainted away in the crowds that will collect to see the King,
+junior, drive up Fifth Avenue, Mawruss," Abe said.
+
+"I know there will," Morris said; "and if it rested with me, Abe, I
+wouldn't spend so much as two cents for mathematic spirits of ammonia to
+bring them to, neither, because them crowds in America is helping along
+a European idea which we sent across several million American soldiers
+to wipe out. Them American crowds will be encouraging European kings to
+believe that even in America we still think it is all right for the
+ordinary people of Europe to sacrifice their lives and their property,
+in order that them corner-stone layers shall cop out the credit."
+
+"As a matter of fact, Mawruss," Abe said, "Mr. Wilson invited the young
+feller to visit America."
+
+"_Yow_, President Wilson invited him!" Morris exclaimed. "After the
+experience President Wilson had in Paris staying with the Murats he must
+have a pretty good idea what it means to be eaten out of house and home
+by the people that tags along with a king or a president, which I bet
+yer the most that Mr. Wilson said when he was visiting England last
+Christmas was that he told the King, senior, if he was ever in
+Washington to be sure and look him up, or to not to fail to let him know
+if he was ever in Washington, or that the latch-string was always out at
+the White House, or any one of the hundreds of things that ordinarily
+the most inhospitable person in the world is perfectly safe in saying
+without any one taking him up on it."
+
+"Well, that's where Mr. Wilson made a big mistake, Mawruss," Abe said,
+"because evidently this here King, junior, couldn't take a joke,
+y'understand; which, the way it looks now, Mawruss, even if Mr. Wilson
+had said, 'I hope to see you again sometime,' he would of immediately
+taken out of his vest pocket such a little book which you put
+memorandums in it and said how about August 30, 1919, or would
+September 10th suit Mr. Wilson better, and that's the way it would of
+went."
+
+"Anyhow, that's neither here nor there, Abe," Morris said, "because, no
+matter how many times nowadays Mrs. Wilson is going to ask Mr. Wilson
+why he couldn't of said good-by, King, and let it go at that, because
+such people, if you give them the least little encouragement, they would
+use you like you was running a boarding-house already, understand me, it
+ain't going to improve matters for Mr. Wilson when the young feller does
+arrive."
+
+"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "It wouldn't do that King, junior, no harm to
+rough it a little there at the White House, Mawruss."
+
+"What do you mean--rough it?" Morris demanded. "Don't you suppose the
+President of the United States eats just so good in his own home as the
+King of England does in his, Abe? It would be the least of Mr. Wilson's
+worries if the young feller would expect chicken _a la_ king and fillet
+of kingfish for breakfast, dinner, and supper already, but when it comes
+to making up a list of the guests which would be invited to meet this
+here King of England, junior, that is where Mr. Wilson is wise he would
+get himself run over by a trolley-car or something, and sustain enough
+injuries to keep him confined to his bed from a few days before the
+young feller arrives until the morning after the British ambassador
+successfully slips it to the young feller that the people in Washington
+is beginning to wonder if a king of England 'ain't got no home,
+y'understand."
+
+"But why couldn't Mr. Wilson give one big dinner for the King, junior,
+to which he would invite the Senate and House of Representatives in a
+body, and have the whole thing over at one _schlag_, y'understand?"
+
+"Say," Morris said, "the dining-room at the White House is a big place,
+but it ain't exactly Madison Square Garden, and it ain't even Childs's
+Boardwalk restaurant, neither."
+
+"Then let him invite them to a series of meals in rotation
+alphabetically, and let it go at that," Abe suggested.
+
+"Before that would get him out of his troubles and not hold up the
+confirmation of the Peace Treaty and League of Nations, Abe, Mr. Wilson
+would first got to get an act of Congress passed amending the order of
+the alphabet and making L for Lodge, J for Johnson, and R for Reed come
+ahead of H for Hitchcock, who, of course, wouldn't mind helping out Mr.
+Wilson by allowing himself to be shifted to the third or fourth
+sitting," Morris said.
+
+"Maybe it would be a good thing to let the alphabet stand and square
+things with Borah and Brandegee," Abe retorted.
+
+"It might even be still better if Mr. Wilson would write the King,
+junior, to be so good and postpone his visit until after Inauguration
+Day, 1921, and put the entire problem up to the next President, whoever
+he might be," Morris said.
+
+"He might even be Mr. Wilson," Abe concluded; "because, when it comes to
+a job like entertaining this here King, junior, what American is anxious
+to tackle it, even if by doing so he could become President even? Am I
+right or wrong?"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS OF
+
+THOMAS HARDY
+
+    The New Thin-Paper Edition of the greatest living English novelist
+    is issued in two bindings: Red Limp-Leather and Red Flexible Cloth,
+    12mo. Frontispiece in each volume.
+
+
+_DESPERATE REMEDIES_
+_FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD_
+_A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES_
+_THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA_
+_JUDE THE OBSCURE_
+_A LAODICEAN_
+_LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES_
+_THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE_
+_A PAIR OF BLUE EYES_
+_THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE_
+_TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES_
+_THE TRUMPET MAJOR_
+_TWO ON A TOWER_
+_UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE_
+_THE WELL-BELOVED_
+_WESSEX TALES_
+_THE WOODLANDERS_
+
+
+          HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+NEW YORK    ESTABLISHED 1817    LONDON
+
+
+
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+NOVELS OF
+
+WILL N. HARBEN
+
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+     "His people talk as if they had not been in books before, and they
+     talk all the more interestingly because they have for the most part
+     not been in society, or ever will be. They express themselves in
+     the neighborly parlance with a fury of fun, of pathos, and
+     profanity which is native to their region. Of all our localists, as
+     I may call the type of American writers whom I think the most
+     national, no one has done things more expressive of the life he was
+     born to than Mr. Harben."
+
+WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.
+
+
+_THE HILLS OF REFUGE_
+_THE INNER LAW_
+_ABNER DANIEL_
+_ANN BOYD. Illustrated_
+_DIXIE HART. Frontispiece_
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+_MAM' LINDA_
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+_POLE BAKER._
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+_THE DESIRED WOMAN. Frontispiece_
+_THE GEORGIANS._
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+_THE SUBSTITUTE._
+_WESTERFELT._
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+_THE LADDER OF SWORDS_
+_THE WEAVERS_
+_THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG_
+_WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC_
+_THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING_
+_NORTHERN LIGHTS_
+_PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE_
+_AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH_
+_A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS_
+_CUMNER'S SON, AND OTHER SOUTH SEA FOLK_
+
+
+          HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+NEW YORK    ESTABLISHED 1817    LONDON
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+
+The following typographic errors were corrected:
+p. 55: changed Decclaration to Declaration
+p. 64: changed Kasier to Kaiser
+p. 65: changed single quote to double quote
+p. 69: changed Kasier to Kaiser
+p. 71: added closing parenthesis to end of (b)
+p. 167: added missing word "be" to "by such instrumentalities could
+          rendered"
+p. 204: added missing period
+]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things, by
+Montague Glass
+
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