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diff --git a/19948.txt b/19948.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffeca85 --- /dev/null +++ b/19948.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7238 @@ +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 + + + + +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 +Montague Glass + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE *** + +***** This file should be named 19948.txt or 19948.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/9/4/19948/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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