Chapter II: Part 2

"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."

"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."

"But this here Legion of Honor must be a pretty good fraternal-insurance proposition at that," Morris observed, "because it says here in the paper where several New York bankers has gone into it, which it's a mighty hard thing to separate them fellers from their money even with first-class, A-number-one, gilt-edged, two-name commercial paper, and if this here Legion of Honor was just a lapel-button affair which assessed its members every time they had a death claim to pay, you could take it from me, Abe, not one of them bankers would of went near it, so maybe it would be a good thing if we looked into it, Abe."

"If you want to join this here Legion of Honor, that's _your_ business, Mawruss," Abe said, "but I already belong to the Independent Order Mattai Aaron, which I've been paying them crooks for three years now that I should get a sick benefit fifteen dollars a week without being laid up with so much as tonsillitis even."

"About the sick benefit I wasn't thinking about at all," Morris declared; "but you take a feller like Sam Feder, president of the Kosciusko Bank, for instance, and if we should be maybe next year a little short and wanted an accommodation from two to three thousand dollars, y'understand, it wouldn't do us no harm if we could give him the L. of H. grip for a starter. Am I right or wrong?"

"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "The chances is that when them New York bankers gets back to New York they will want to forget all about joining this here L. of H."

"Why, what is there so disgraceful about joining the L. of H.?" Morris asked.

"Nobody said nothing about its being disgraceful, because lots of decent, respectable fellers is liable to make a mistake of that kind, understand me," Abe said; "but _you_ take one of these here members of the firm of--we would say, for example, J. G. Morgan, y'understand, which comes back from Paris after joining this here L. of H., and what happens him? The first morning he comes down to the office wearing an L. of H. button, Mawruss, everybody from the paying-teller up is going to ask him what is the idea of the button, and he is going to spend the rest of the day listening to stories about people joining insurance fraternities which busted up and left the members with undetermined sentences of from three to five years, y'understand. The consequence would be that if any of his depositors expect to get an accommodation by giving him the L. of H. grip or wearing an L. of H. button, y'understand, they might just so well send him an invitation to a banquet where, in order to gain his confidence and respect, they are going to drink champagne out of an actress's slipper, and be done with it. Am I right or wrong?"

"Well, you couldn't exactly blame them fellers which joined the L. of H.," Morris observed, "because Paris has a very funny effect on some of the most level-headed Americans which goes there without their families and business associates, which if this here League of Nations had been fixed up at a Peace Conference held somewheres down on Lower Broadway instead of the Quai d'Orsay, Abe, the chances is that the United States Senate would of had a whole lot more confidence in it than they have at present."

"Say!" Abe explained. "This here League of Nations could of been pulled off in Paris or it could of been pulled off in a respectable neighborhood like Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, Mawruss, for all the spare time it gave the fellers which framed it to indulge in any wild night life. Take, for instance, the proposed constitution and by-laws, which was printed on three pages of the newspaper the other day, Mawruss, and anybody which dictated that _megillah_ to a stenographer would be too hoarse for weeks afterwards to order so much as a plain Benedictine. Also, Mawruss, nobody which didn't lead a blameless life could have a brain clear enough to _understand_ the thing, let alone composing it, which last night I sat up till two o'clock this morning reading them twenty-six articles, Mawruss, and ten grains of asperin hardly touched the headache which I got from it."

"Naturally," Morris said, "because when Mr. Wilson wrote that constitution, Abe, he figured that people which is going to read it has got a better education as one year in night school."

"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, satirically, "but at the same time everybody ain't such a natural-born Harvard gradgawate like you are, Mawruss, and furthermore, Mawruss, it's a big mistake for Mr. Wilson to go ahead on the idea that we _are_, y'understand, because, so far as I remember it, the Constitution of the United States didn't say that this was a government of the college gradgawates by the college gradgawates for the college gradgawates, y'understand; neither did the Declaration of Independence start in by saying, 'We, the college gradgawates of the United States,' Mawruss. The consequences is that most of us ingeramusses which has got one vote apiece, even around last November already, begun to feel neglected, and you could take it from me, Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson tries to win the confidence of the American people with a few more of them documents with the twin-six words in them, y'understand, by the time he gets ready to run for President again, Mawruss, the only people which is going to vote for him would be the Ph.D. and A.M. fellers."

"Well, Mawruss," Abe said, a few days after the conversation above set forth, "I see that President Wilson got back to America after a rough passage."

"Was he seasick?" Morris asked.

"Not a day," Abe replied.

"Then that accounts for it," Morris commented.

"Accounts for what?" Abe asked.

"Doctor Grayson being an admiral," Morris replied, "which a couple of years ago, when Mr. Wilson appointed Doctor Grayson to be an admiral over the heads of a couple of hundred fellers which had been captains of ships for years already, a lot of people got awful sore about it, and now it appears that he got the appointment because he can cure seasickness."

"I suppose if Doctor Grayson could cure locomotive ataxia the President would of appointed him Director-General of Railroads," Abe remarked.

"For my part, Abe," Morris said, "if I had a good doctor like Doctor Grayson attending me, and it was necessary to appoint him to something in order to keep him, Abe, I would appoint him a field-marshal, just so long as he could make me comfortable on an Atlantic trip in winter-time."

"But there isn't no office in the army or navy that President Wilson could appoint Doctor Grayson to which would have been a big enough reward if Doctor Grayson could have made the President feel comfortable in Washington when he got there, Mawruss," Abe said, "which I see by the paper this morning that thirty-seven United States Senators, coming from every state in the Union except Missouri, suddenly discovered they was from Missouri, in particular the Senator from Massachusetts, and not only does them Senators want to know what the meaning of that constitution of the League of Nations means, but they also give notice that, _whatever_ it means, they are going to knife it, _anyway_."

"Sure, I know," Morris said; "they're like a lot of business men you and me has had experience with, Abe. They claim a shortage and kick about the quality of the shipment before they even start to unpack the goods. Why don't they wait till Mr. Wilson goes back and finishes up his job?"

"They haven't got the time," Abe replied, "because the session ends on March 4th at noon, just about twenty-four hours before Admiral Grayson is paying his first professional call on President Wilson aboard the _George Washington_, and by the time Congress gets together again President Wilson expects to have the League of Nations proposition sewed up so tight that there will be nothing left for them Senators to do but to indorse it."

"But, as I understand it, them Senators just loafed away their time during the end of the session and didn't pass a whole lot of laws which they should ought to have passed, Abe, so that it will be necessary for President Wilson to call an extra session in a few days," Morris said.

"That's what them Senators figured," Abe agreed, "but they was mistaken, Mawruss, because the President ain't going to run any chances of being interrupted while he is working on this here Peace Conference by S O S messages from Washington to please come home if he wants to save _anything_ out of the wreck Congress is making of the inside of the Capitol."

"But I thought that before he went to Europe in the first place, Abe, President Wilson said to Congress that it wouldn't make any difference to them about his being in Europe, because he was in close touch with them, and that the cables and the wireless would make him available just as though he was still living in the White House," Morris said.

"Sure, I know," Abe agreed; "but the trouble with that situation was that it 'ain't been discovered by the inventors yet how a President can shake hands with a Senator by wireless or how he can sit down to dinner by wireless with a few Congressmen and make them feel that he is their one best friend. Also, Mawruss, it comes high even for a President to send cable messages to a Senator which he thinks is getting sore about something, such cable messages being in the nature of: 'Hello, Henry, what's the good word? Why is it I 'ain't seen you up to the White House lately, Henry?' or, 'Where have you been keeping yourself lately, Henry?' or, 'Mrs. Lodge and the children all right, Henry?' or something like that."

"Say, for that matter, Abe," Morris observed, "President Wilson never did a whole lot of jollying when he could have done it over the telephone at unlimited local-service rates. In fact, from what I have seen of Mr. Wilson, he looks to me like a man who would find it a whole lot easier to be easy in his manner toward Congressmen by wireless or by cable than face to face."

"Well, you couldn't blame Mr. Wilson exactly, Mawruss," Abe said, "because, up to the time he became Governor of New Jersey, his idea of being a good mixer was to get together with a couple of LL.D.'s and sit up till pretty near nine o'clock knocking the trustees, y'understand. In fact, up to the time he resigned from being president of Princeton College, life to Mr. Wilson was just correcting one examination paper after another, all of which 'ain't got nothing to do with this here League of Nations being a good thing, Mawruss," Abe declared.

"And it don't affect the fact that Mr. Wilson is a high-grade, A-number-one gentleman, which is doing the best he knows how to make good to his country, Abe," Morris declared.

"Did I say he wasn't?" Abe asked.

"Then what are you dragging up his past life for?" Morris demanded.

"What do you mean--dragging up his past life?" Abe rejoined. "The way you talk, Mawruss, you would think that being president of a college come in two degrees, like grand larceny, and had to be lived down through the guilty party getting the respect of the community by years of honest work."

"Say, lookyhere, Abe," Morris protested, "don't try to twist things around till it looks like I was knocking Mr. Wilson, and not you."

"I am knocking President Wilson!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, I've got the greatest respect for Mr. Wilson, and always did, Mawruss, but it would be foolish not to admit that the practice which a President of the United States gets in being a college professor is more useful to him in framing up a first-class, A-number-one League of Nations than it is in getting his political enemies to accept it. Am I wright or wrong?"

"Maybe he would have got them to accept it if he had stayed in touch with them personally and managed the Peace Conference by wireless and cable," Morris suggested.

"He probably figured that if he wanted to put over this here League of Nations it was more necessary for him to be on the job in France than on the job in America," Abe said.

"Well," Morris commented, "the next time the United States of America has a Peace Conference on its hands, Abe, the President will have to be a copartnership instead of an individual, with one member of the firm in Washington and the other in Paris."

"But what would Admiral Grayson do?" Abe asked. "He couldn't be in two places at the same time."

"Probably the Washington President could find a bright young physician in the Treasury Department," Morris concluded, "and promote him to the honorary title and salary of Comptroller of the Currency."

VII

SOME CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS FOR THE KAISER

"I see where an American army officer reports that he has investigated into the food situation in Germany and that the German people looks thin," Abe Potash observed to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.

"That's already German propoganda, Abe," Morris said. "Word come down from headquarters that the German people should look thin in order to get the sympathy of the American officer, so they looked thin, y'understand."

Abe shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe you're right, Mawruss," he said, "but all I could say is that them German propoganders which has charge of making the German people look thin is wasting their time in Germany, because there is plenty people in America which would make them propoganders rich for life if they would only come over to New York and open an office for giving reduction propoganda at a thousand dollars a treatment."

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said; "ordinarily, if the German people looked thin you would believe them. Also, before the war, if somebody went to Germany and people asked him when he come back how was the weather there, he didn't say, 'Unless they was putting one over on me, it was snowing,' y'understand, but to-day it's different. Nobody has got no confidence in the Germans nowadays. In fact, even the Germans themselves is losing confidence in them. Take Berlin, for instance, and every week the Spartacist, or Red, government has got the support of the people from 9:30 A.M. Tuesday until 6 P.M. Thursday, when the German people begins to lose confidence in them, so that by 8:30 A.M. Friday the Coalition, or Yellow, government comes into power. The Coalition, or Yellow, government then keeps the confidence of the people until Sunday midnight, when, under the influence of the Sunday night _Ersat Delicatessen_ supper, the Germans starts in to suspect that everything ain't right with the Yellow government, neither, so back they go to the Red government, and they seize Police Headquarters, the Bureau of Assessments and Arrears, and desk room in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Water-supply, Gas, and Electricity, and that's the way it goes."

"It's a funny thing to me why them colored German governments always starts a revolution by seizing Police Headquarters, Mawruss," Abe commented.

"That's the way they finance the revolution," Morris replied; "because I understand that the night life in Berlin has been going on the same as usual, revolution or no revolution, Abe, which I bet yer that as soon as the new chief of police is appointed by the Red or Yellow government, as the case may be, he don't waste no time, but he right away sends out plain-clothes men to the proprietors of them Berlin all-night restaurants with positive instructions to close all restaurants at eleven sharp and not to accept nothing but gold coin of the present standard of weight and fineness."

"And yet it used to be thought that when it comes to graft, Mawruss, German officials was like Cæsar's ghost," Abe observed--"above suspicion."

"That's only another way of them impressions about Germany which us Americans has had reversed on us, Abe," Morris said, "which the way our idees about what kind of a people the Germans used to was has changed, Mawruss, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the old habit the Germans had for drinking beer was just a bluff, y'understand, and that at heart they was prohibitionists to a man. In fact, Abe, if I would be a German Bolshevik with instructions to shoot the Kaiser on sight, I should go gunning for a short, stout man with a tooth-brush mustache and a holy horror of wearing uniforms, because it's my opinion that all them so-called portraits of the Kaiser was issued for the purpose of misleading anarchists to shoot at a thin man in a heavily embroidered uniform with spike-end mustaches."

"Well, whatever he looks like, Mawruss," Abe said, "if I was him, rather than have such a terrible fate hanging over me, y'understand, I would telegraph to Berlin for them to send along a good shot while they was about it, and have the thing over with quick, Mawruss."

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "You and me should have hanging over us the life which the Kaiser is going to lead from now on! For two hundred and fifty dollars a week at a Pallum Beach hotel you could only get a very small idea of the hardships the Kaiser will got to undergo in the future, Abe."

"But do you mean to told me that after what happened to that English lady in Brussels and the captain of the English mail-boat, Mawruss, the English ain't going to persecute the Kaiser?" Abe demanded.

"_You_--the English would persecute the Kaiser!" Morris exclaimed. "Don't you know that the Kaiser's mother was the King of England's father's sister? Do you suppose for a moment that the King of England wants a convict in the family?"

"Well, has he got any _mishbocha_ in France, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Because if not, Mawruss, it seems to me that now, while all the witnesses is in Paris, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the March term of the Paris County grand jury to hand down an indictment for murder with intent to kill or something."

"That sounds reasonable to anybody not connected with this here Peace Conference, Abe," Morris admitted, "but it seems that the Committee for Fixing Responsibility says that if they was to hang or shoot the Kaiser it would give him an awful drag with the German people, and they don't want the Kaiser to get popular again, dead or alive. Their idea is to punish him by letting him live on to be an outcast among all the people of the earth, except the proprietors of first-class European hotels, dealers in high-grade automobiles, expensive jewelry storekeepers, fashionable tailors, and a couple of million other people who don't attach an awful lot of importance to the moral character of anybody which wants to enjoy life and has got the money to do it with. In other words, Abe, they claim that, in leaving the Kaiser to his conscience and his bank-account they are punishing him a whole lot worse as hanging him or shooting him."

"And I suppose that same committee is going to sentence von Tirpitz to six months at Monte Carlo, while Ludendorff will probably be confined to a Ritz hotel eight hours a day for the rest of his natural life," Abe suggested.

"The committee claims not," Morris replied. "It seems that the Kaiser's ministers--like von Tirpitz and Ludendorff--is going to get what is coming to them, on the grounds that they are guilty of violations of international law and 'ain't got no relations among the royal families of England or Italy."

"But why not bring the whole fleet over to America, and let the authorities dispose of them there?" Abe inquired.

"The Kaiser would be just as much a martyr if he was sentenced in America as in Europe," Morris replied.

"Who says anything about sentencing him?" Abe demanded. "All it would be necessary to do would be to swear out a warrant against him and leave the rest to a couple of headquarters detectives, which, naturally, when them fellers would tell him to come along with them, the Kaiser would technically resist the arrest by asking what for. This would mean at the very least ten stitches in his scalp, Mawruss, not reckoning a couple of broken ribs or so when the fingerprints was taken, and, while it wouldn't be only a starter in the way of punishment, he would anyhow find out that it is one thing to be actually engaged in a modern battle, and that looking at it through a high-power telescope while sitting in a bomb-proof limousine six miles away is absolutely something else again. Later on, Mawruss, when a New York police-court lawyer visited him in his cell after the Kaiser had lunched on bread and water and the police-court lawyer on what used to be called _Koenigsburger Klops_ and is now known as Liberty Roast, understand me, the Kaiser would get just an inkling of what it means to be caught in a gas attack without a gas-mask."

"You talk like you would got a little experience in the way of sitting in prison yourself, Abe," Morris commented.

"I am giving you what practically happened to a feller by the name Immerglick which was arrested by mistake on account the police thought he looked like an Italian who was wanted for barrel murder, Mawruss," Abe exclaimed, "and if the police behaves this way to a perfect stranger which is innocent at that, Mawruss, you could imagine what them fellers would do to a well-known guilty party like the Kaiser. But that's neither here nor there, Mawruss. What I am trying to do is to work out a punishment proposition for the Kaiser which would get by with such a sensitive bunch as this here committee to place responsibility seems to be."

"Go ahead and have a good time with your pipe-dream, Abe," Morris said. "You couldn't make me feel bad, no matter what happens to the Kaiser in your imagination."

"Well," Abe continued, "after he is through with trying to get rid of the police-court lawyer, Mawruss, he should ought to be arranged before the magistrate in a traffic court, y'understand, and should be accused of driving at the rate of twenty-two miles an hour, which is two miles past the legal speed limit, and then he would find out that all them commandants of Ruhleben and the other German prison camps wasn't even new beginners in the art of making prisoners feel cheap, because you take one of these here traffic-court magistrates which has had years of experience bawling out respectable sitsons who has got the misfortune to own automobiles, Mawruss, and what such a feller wouldn't do to humilitate the Kaiser, y'understand, ain't even dreamt of in German prison camps yet."

"I see you still feel sore about getting fined twenty-five dollars for driving like a maniac down at Far Rockaway last summer Abe," Morris commented.

"How I feel or how I don't feel hain't got nothing to do with it, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle policeman which has got the nerve to swear that he could tell inside of two miles an hour how fast somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty of perjury on the face of it, which I told the judge. 'Judge, your Honor,' I says, 'I admit I was going fast,' I says, 'but--'"

"Excuse me," Morris interrupted, "but I thought you was talking about how to punish the Kaiser, ain't it, which, while I admit you got some pretty good ideas on the subject, Abe, still at the same time there is plenty of ways that the Kaiser could get punished in America without going to the trouble and expense of arresting him first, Abe. There is a whole lot of experiences which the American people pays to go through just once, y'understand, which if the Kaiser could be persuaded to take them all on, one after the other, Abe, his worst enemies would got to pity him. Supposing, for instance, he would start off with one of them electric vibrating face massages, Abe, and if he comes through it alive, y'understand, he would then be hustled off to one of these here strong-arm bunkopathic physicians, which charges five dollars for the first visit and never has to quote rates for the second or third visits, because once is plenty, y'understand."

"But I thought the idea was not to let anybody have any sympathy for the Kaiser, Mawruss," Abe broke in.

"Plenty of fellers I know goes to these here near-doctors," Morris declared, "and nobody has got any sympathy for them, neither. Also, Abe, I 'ain't got no sympathy for anybody who goes to these here restaurants where they run off a cabarattel review, Abe, and yet it's a terrible punishment at that, so there's another tip for you if you want any more ideas for making the Kaiser suffer."

"Say, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, and if you don't want to show the feller no mercy at all, y'understand," Abe said, "what's the matter with making him see some of them war plays they was putting on in New York last winter?"

"Why only _war_ plays?" Morris asked. "I sat through a couple musical shows last winter without the option of a fine, y'understand, and it would be a good thing if the Kaiser could see performances like that--just to make him realize that in losing his throne, y'understand, he has no longer got the power to order the actors shot, together with the composer and the man that wrote the jokes."

"But the biggest punishment of all you 'ain't even hinted at yet," Abe said, "and it's a punishment which thousands of Americans is getting right now without no sympathy from nobody, which its name is:

"'Form 1040. United States Internal Revenue
Service

INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX RETURN

For Net Incomes of More than $5,000

FOR CALENDAR YEAR, 1918.'

Also, Mawruss, when you consider what the Kaiser done, Mawruss, I ask you is it too much that the Committee on Fixing Responsibility should order him starved to death or talked to death or any other slow and painful death, because such a fate is going to be a happy one compared with the thousands of decent, respectable American business men which is headed straight for an insane-asylum, trying to fill out

"'(a) Totals taxable at 1918 rates (see instructions page 2 under C).

(b) Totals taxable at 1917 rates (see instructions, included in K (a)
page 2).

(c) Amount of stock dividends (column 4) taxable at 1916 rates
(enter as 20).'"

"Well, after all, Abe," Morris said, "there's one worser punishment you could hand out the Kaiser than filling out this here income tax."

"What's that?" Abe inquired.

"Paying it," Morris said.

VIII

IT ENTERS ON ITS NO-GOLD-CASKET PHASE

"When a feller gets his name in the papers as often as Mr. Wilson, Mawruss, it don't take long for them highwaymen to get on to him," Abe Potash remarked, shortly after Mr. Wilson's return to Paris.

"What highwaymen?" Morris inquired.

"Them presidents of orphan-asylums and homes," Abe said, "and in a way it serves Mr. Wilson right, Mawruss, because, instead of keeping it to himself that he got stuck over four thousand dollars for tips alone while he was in France, y'understand, as soon as he arrived in Boston he goes to work and blabs the whole thing to newspaper reporters, and you could take it from me, Mawruss, that for the next six months Mr. Wilson would be flooded with letters from Associations for the Relief of Indignant Armenians, Homes for Chronic Freemasons, and who knows what else. So therefore you take this here Carter H. Glass, Mawruss, and he naturally comes to the conclusion that Mr. Wilson is an easy mark, because--"

"Excuse me, Abe," Morris interrupted, coldly, "but who do you think this here Carter H. Glass is, anyway?"

"I don't know," Abe went on, "but whoever he is he probably figured that if he was going to get turned down he would anyhow get turned down big, because it says here in the paper that he cables Mr. Wilson he should please let him have three million dollars for this here Bureau for Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers and--"

"Listen, Abe," Morris said, "if you wouldn't know who Carter H. Glass is after paying twelve per cent. on all you made over four thousand dollars last year, y'understand, nothing that I could say would ever learn you, so therefore I 'ain't got no expectations that you are going to remember it when I tell you that this here Carter H. Glass is Secretary of the Treasurer, and when he cabled Mr. Wilson for three million dollars, it ain't so hopeless like it sounds. Also, Abe, while Mr. Wilson gives it out to the papers that he got stung four thousand dollars for tips, it also appears in the papers that he came home with a few gold caskets and things, not to mention one piece of tapestry which the French government presented him with, valued at two hundred thousand dollars alone, y'understand, and if that kind of publicity is going to give Mr. Wilson a reputation as an easy giver-up, Abe, all I can say is that the collectors for orphan-asylums and homes don't read the papers no more carefully than you do, Abe."

"But why should the Secretary of the United States Treasury got to touch Mr. Wilson for?" Abe demanded. "Every day the people of the United States is paying into the United States Treasury millions and millions dollars income-tax money and all the President owns is a few gold caskets which he got presented with, and maybe a little tapestry, y'understand. What's the matter with that feller Carter H. Glass? Is he afraid he is going to run short if he spends a couple million dollars or so? Has he lost his nerve or something?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "The Secretary of the Treasury 'ain't got such a cinch like some people think, y'understand. If the Bureau for Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers send over and asks the Secretary of the Treasury to be so good and let 'em have for a few days three million dollars, understand me, you would naturally think that it is one of them dead open-and-shut, why-certainly propositions. The impression you have is that the Secretary grabs ahold of the 'phone and says to the head of stock to look on the third shelf from the elevator shaft is there any more of them million-dollar bills with the picture of Rutherford B. Hayes on 'em left, and if not, to send Jake up with three hundred of them three-by-seven-inch ten-thousand-dollar bills, and that's all there is to it. But as a matter of fact he doesn't do nothing of the kind, because nobody could get any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury except by an act of Congress."

"Well, it's nothing against Mr. Glass that he is such a tight-wad, Mawruss, because that's the kind of man to have as Secretary of the Treasurer, Mawruss, which supposing they had one of them easy-come, easy-go fellers for Secretary of the Treasurer, Mawruss--somebody who would fall for every hard-luck story he hears, y'understand, and how long is it going to be before the police is asking him what did he done with it all?" Abe said. "So, for my part, Mawruss, they could abuse Mr. Glass all they want to, y'understand, but I would be just as well satisfied, so far as my income taxes is concerned, if the only way you could get money out of him was by a miracle instead of an act of Congress. Am I right or wrong?"