Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

and not only would it have given away a whole lot of diplomatic secrets, but the American mission would also have got to pay a luxury tax of ten per cent. on the hotel's telephone number and a little mistake of a hundred francs in the addition."

"But this here Hotel Crillon was a strictly first-class hotel, Mawruss," Abe said, "and with strictly first-class hotels it's the same in Europe as it is in this country, Mawruss; the rates are so fixed that it ain't necessary for the management to make mistakes in the bill, while the accounting department always figures the overhead so as to include the hotel's telephone number, the number of the guest's room, and, in the case of mountain-resort hotels, the altitude of the hotel above sea-level."

"Well, that's just what I am driving into, Abe," Morris said. "Even when hotel bills are submitted weekly and the management has got his signed checks to show for it, Abe, nobody never realizes that he owes all that money to a hotel, y'understand, and when at the end of the peace commission's tenancy the hotel management sends in its final bill, Abe, there's going to be considerable argument between Mr. Joseph Grew, the secretary of the commission, and all them Peace Conferencers, expert and otherwise, as to who ordered what and when, y'understand, which I see by the newspapers, Abe, that Mr. Grew has already begun an investigation about who authorized the serving of one hundred bottles tchampanyer wine on June 14th, and if Mr. Grew couldn't trace the party which signed for one hundred bottles tchampanyer wine on June 14th, y'understand, what chance does he have of finding out who is responsible for each and every one of the hundreds of checks with illegible signatures which is bound to show up in the final accounting for such articles as scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee, which any Peace Conferencers might have signed for, whether his home town was in a dry state or not, Abe."

"And Mr. Grew wouldn't get no sympathy from the President, neither, Mawruss," Abe said, "which, when the morning mail arrives at the White House nowadays just as Mr. Wilson is saying to Mrs. Wilson, 'Some coffee, mommer!'—because the average American has got to be home from Europe at least a month before a good cup of coffee ceases to become a miracle, Mawruss—it won't take more than two letters from Mr. Grew asking Mr. Wilson does he remember whether at the conference between him, Clemenceau, Lord George, Venezuelas, and Baron Ishii, held in Parlor A on March 22d, did or did not somebody order a rye-bread tongue sandwich and a split of Evian water, and if so to please sign inclosed check for same, non pro tunc as of March 22d, 1919, understand me, before the only effect an envelope addressed in the handwriting of Mr. Grew will have on Mr. Wilson is that he is going to throw it unopened into the waste-paper basket without so much as saying, 'I wonder what that schlemiel wants from me now.'"

"As a matter of fact, Abe, the price of food 'ain't interested Mr. Wilson since a few days ago when he asked Mrs. Wilson, 'How much are we paying now for coffee, mommer?' and Mrs. Wilson says fifty-eight cents a pound, and Mr. Wilson says for the love of Mike, and then asks what she is paying for eggs, and Mrs. Wilson says at Ginsburg's Economy Market eighty-five cents a dozen, and Mr. Wilson says he would just as lieve have some hash from last night's rib roast, and Mrs. Wilson says she doesn't blame him and so would she, but that they are going to have that rib roast cold for lunch on account Ginsburg is practically schenking his customers rib roast for fifty-five cents a pound," Morris said.

"And how did you come to hear about this conversation, Mawruss?" Abe asked.

"I didn't hear about it," Morris replied, "but I presume it took place the morning after the newspapers printed the report of the Federal Trade Commission about the packing-houses, Abe, because a similar conversation happened at my breakfast-table that morning, and I presume it also happened at yours."

"Well, it's time that business men begun to take a little interest in the cost of what they are eating, Mawruss," Abe said. "On account of the increase in the price of food, Mawruss, the business man is now paying more money to all the people which is working for him, except his wife."

"Sure, I know," Morris said, "but the business man which is mean enough to hold down his wife to twenty dollars a week housekeeping money simply because the principle of the closed shop and collective bargaining can't be applied to an American household the way it could to a Turkish harem, Abe, don't live so well as he used to. Former times when such a man complained to his wife that the chicken was a little tough, y'understand, she used to say, 'What do you want for twenty dollars a week housekeeping money—mocking-birds?' Nowadays, however, the best that such a man has got to complain about being tough is round steak, and his wife now says, 'What do you want for twenty dollars a week housekeeping money—chicken?'"

"And the standard of living for even business men is going down so fast, Mawruss, that next year when such a man complains that the tripe is tough, she is going to say, 'What do you expect for twenty dollars a week housekeeping money—round steak?'" Abe said, "and if them packers goes on trying to control the entire bill of fare from soup to cereals, Mawruss, it would only be a matter of a few years when such a husband is going to complain that the puffed jute is tough, and his wife is going to ask him, 'What do you expect for twenty dollars a week housekeeping money—ensilage?' which, if something ain't done pretty soon to stop dealers boosting the price of food, Mawruss, twenty dollars a week housekeeping money ain't going to feed a family of hearty-eating canary-birds."

"I suppose that in the end, Abe, the business man would be obliged to admit that the high cost of living is just as expensive for his wife as it is for his other employees," Morris concluded, "and, without the formality of a strike, the wives of business men will be conceded a new wage-scale of from thirty to forty dollars, in place of the old scale of twenty dollars, for a working-week of one hundred and sixty-eight hours, because it don't make no difference if the Senate confirms the League of Nations or not, Abe, married business men will never live up to the clause which provides for an international working-day of eight hours—anyhow, so far as their wives is concerned."

"That ain't the only clause of the Peace Treaty which wouldn't be lived up to, Mawruss," Abe said, "because I see that already the Germans is having their troubles restoring to the British government this here skull of the Sultan Mkwiwa, Mawruss, which, according to Section Eight, I think it is, of the Treaty of Peace, was removed from German East Africa and taken to Germany."

"But the Germans claim that it was never taken from German East Africa, but was buried there, and they misremember the name of the cemetery," Morris declared.

"I know they do, and I couldn't understand their attitude in the matter, Mawruss," Abe said. "Why don't they go to work and send England any old skull, which a skull is a skull, ain't it?—and one skull is just as much like another skull as two pinochle decks with the same backs, and who is going to check them up on it no matter what kind of a skull they send? Besides, Mawruss, the people who had pull enough to get that skull section inserted in the Treaty of Peace is going to be divided into two classes when that skull arrives in East Africa, anyway—namely, those who will throw a bluff that they recognized the skull as the sultan's skull as soon as they laid eyes on it, y'understand, and those who will refuse to concede that any skull is the sultan's skull. There will also, of course, be a large class of East Africans who won't give a nickel one way or the other; so if Germany couldn't find the sultan's skull, let them send England an ersatz sultan's skull with a genwine sultan's label on it. They've been doing that sort of thing for years with American safety-razors, American folding-cameras, and American typewriters; why should they now take it so particular with a German East African sultan?"

"Then you think there is something suspicious about the way Germany is acting over this here skull?" Morris suggested.

"I wouldn't call it exactly suspicious, Mawruss," Abe said, "but at the same time I wouldn't put it beyond the Germans that, after the Allies gets through discussing together whether or not the sultan's skull is genwine, they would suddenly awake to the fact that at least two of the million-mark bills which Germany paid over in the indemnity, y'understand, are not. So, therefore, my advice to England is, examine the German indemnity carefully, and don't let no returned sultan's skull distract your attention, even if it would be made of plaster of Paris with a round hold on top for keeping matches in it, and on the bottom a sign, reading:

"Grüss Aus Schveningen."