Chapter III: Part 3

"Do me the favor, Abe," Morris said, "and don't talk a lot of nonsense about a subject about which you don't know nothing about, because when I say that nobody could get money out of Carter H. Glass except by an act of Congress, y'understand, I ain't talking poetical in a manner of speaking. They must actually got to got and act of Congress before anybody could get any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury, no matter if Mr. Glass would be the most generous feller in existence, which, for all I know, he _might_ be. So, therefore, Abe, when Congress adjourned without passing the acts which was necessary in order that the Secretary of the Treasury should pay the railroads seven hundred and fifty million dollars to keep 'em going, y'understand, not to mention such chicken-feed like three million dollars for this here Soldiers' Relations Bureau and the like, it leaves the country practically broke with seven or eight billion dollars in the bank. _Now_ do you understand what I am driving into?"

"I think I do," Abe said, "but explain it to me just as if I didn't, because what is a mystery to me is, why did Congress adjourn without passing them acts, Mawruss?"

"They did it to put Mr. Wilson in bad on account he went to Europe without calling an extra session," Morris said.

"I thought Congress got paid by the year and not by the session," Abe remarked.

"So they do," Morris continued, "but they said they wanted to stay in session while Mr. Wilson was in Europe to _help_ him, and Mr. Wilson thought they wanted to stay in session while he was in Europe to knock him, and he said: 'Watch! I'll fix them fellers,' and _they_ said: 'Watch! _We'll_ fix that feller.' And between the two of them, the railroads is left dry and high, the War Risks Bureau claims that they could only keep going for a week or so, the Soldiers' Relations people is sending out J O S signals, and that's the way it goes."

"And who do you think is right, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Mr. Wilson or Congress?"

"Well, I ain't exactly prepared to say, y'understand," Morris replied, "but it's a question in my mind whether or not there ain't just so much need for a Peace Conference in Washington as there is in Paris, and if so, Abe, whether Mr. Wilson ain't at the wrong Peace Conference."

"So far as that goes, Mawruss," Abe said, "he might just so well be in Washington as in Paris, because the tapestry and gold-casket period of this here Conference is already a thing of the past, which I see that Mr. Wilson ain't even staying with the Murats no longer."

"Naturally," Morris said, "after the way this here Murat went around talking about the League of Nations."

"Why, I thought he was in favor of it!" Abe said.

"He was in favor of it," Morris said, "up to the time Mr. Wilson and Lord George had the conference with the Jugo-Slobs where they laid out the frontiers by making the ink-bottle represent Bessarabia and the mucilage-bottle Macedonia. When Murat saw the library carpet the next morning, he began to say that, after all, why shouldn't France control her own foreign policy."

"I don't blame him," Abe commented.

"Later on the Polish National Committee called on Mr. Wilson and was shown into the parlor before the butler had a chance to put the slip covers on the furniture," Morris continued, "and that very evening Murat went around saying that if France was going to have to police the corridor through West Prussia to Dantzig, he was against articles fourteen to twenty, both inclusive, of the League constitution, and where could he find a good dry-cleaner."

"That don't surprise me, neither," Abe remarked.

"But it wasn't till the President's body-guard of secret-service men had an all-night stud-poker session in the yellow guest-room that he actually made speeches against the League of Nations," Morris went on, "and at that, the room will never look the same again."

"I wonder if there ain't some kind of property-damage insurance that he could have took out against a thing happening like that?" Abe speculated.

"I don't know," Morris said, "but if there is, you can bet your life that this here Mrs. Bischoffsheim, where the President is staying now, has got it."

"And she is going to need it, Mawruss," Abe said, "because what the best home-trained men do with cigarettes and fountain-pens, when their minds are occupied with business matters, ain't calculated to improve the appearance of a bar-room, neither."

"Say!" Morris commented. "The President _oser_ cares what his address is in Paris, but I'll bet you he is doing a lot of thinking as to what it is going to be in Washington after March 4, 1921."

"It ain't a question of who is going to move _out_ of the White House, Mawruss," Abe said. "What people in America is wondering is, Who is going to move _in_, which right now there is a couple of generals, five or six Senators, and a banker or so which is figuring on not renewing the leases of their apartments beyond March 3, 1921, in case they should be obliged to go to Washington for four years, or maybe eight."

"Lots of things can happen before the next presidential election," Morris said.

"That's what these Senators and generals thinks," Abe agreed, "and in the mean time, Mawruss, nobody has got to press them a whole lot to speak at dinners and conventions, which I see that a general made a speech at a meeting in memory of Grover Cleveland the other day where he didn't refer once to Mr. Wilson, but said that Mr. Cleveland wasn't an expert at verbal messages and believed in the Monroe Doctrine."

"Well, suppose the general did say that," Morris said. "What of it?"

"Nothing of it," Abe replied; "but on the other hand, if this here general had gone a bit farther, understand me, and said that Grover Cleveland never refused to meet Judge Cohalan at the Metropolitan Opera House and as a general rule didn't act cold toward a Sinn Fein committee, Mawruss, you would got to admit that such remarks is anyhow suspicious, ain't it?"

"All it is suspicious of to me, Abe," Morris said, "is that if such a general has got ambitions to be President, y'understand, he ain't going the right way about it, because fashions in opinions changes like fashions in garments, Abe. At this day and date nobody could tell no more about what the people of the United States is going to think in the fall of 1920 as what they are going to wear in the fall of 1920, which it would of been a whole lot better for the general's prospects if he would of said that Grover Cleveland was just as expert at verbal messages as another great American and believed just as strongly in a League of Nations. In fact, Abe, if there was, Heaven forbid, a chance of me being nominated for President in 1920, I would lay pipes for claiming that it was me that suggested the whole idea of the League of Nations to President Wilson in the first place. Am I right or wrong?"

"You're right about the Heaven forbid part, anyway," Abe commented.

"Because," Morris continued, as though he had not heard the interruption, "what between the people who are willing to take President Wilson's word for it and the people who ain't willing to take a United States Senator's word for anything, y'understand, this here League of Nations looks like a pretty safe proposition for any politician to tie up to, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if even some of them Senators which signed the round robin would be claiming just before the 1920 National Conventions that they was never what you might call actually against a League of Nations except, as one might say, in a manner of speaking, if you know what I mean. Also, Abe, these here Senators which is now acting like they would have sworn a solemn oath, in addition to the usual amount of swearing about such things, that they would never ratify this here League of Nations, y'understand, are already beginning to say that they wouldn't ratify it anyhow in its present form, understand me, and before they got through, Abe, you could take it from me, that when it finally comes up for ratification them same Senators is going to go over it again carefully and find that it has been amended by inserting two commas in Article two and a semicolon in Article twenty-five, and a glad shout of 'Oh, well, this is something else again!' will go up, understand me, and after they vote to unanimously ratify it they will be telling each other that all you have to do is to make a firm stand against Mr. Wilson and he will back right down."

"The way it looks to me, Mawruss," Abe commented, "the back-down is on the other foot."

"It's fifty-fifty, Abe, because, when the President gets his back up, the Senate starts to back down," Morris concluded, "and _vice versa_."

IX

WORRYING SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME, AIN'T IT?

"I see where the Italian delegates to the Peace Conference says that if Italy don't get Fiume, Mawruss, there would be a revolution in Italy," Abe Potash remarked to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.

"Any excuse is better than none," Morris Perlmutter commented, "which it is very clear to me, Abe, that with the example of Poland in front of them, the Italians being also a musical people and seeing that Poland has got it a first-class A-number-one pianist like Paderewski for a President, y'understand, they are taking the opportunity of Fiume to put in Caruso or Scotti or one of them fellers as President."

"They would got to offer their Presidents an awful big salary if they expect to compete with the Metropolitan Opera House, Mawruss," Abe said.

"If Poland could do it, Abe, why couldn't Italy?" Morris said. "Which Paderewski didn't have to tune pianos on the side to make a living over here, neither, Abe, and, besides, Abe, if they would let Caruso have a free hand in the formation of his Cabinet, he would probably get a good barytone for Secretary of State, a basso for Secretary of Commerce and Labor, De Luca for Secretary of the Treasury, Martinelli for Secretary of War, and draw on the Chicago Opera Company for Secretaries of the Navy, the Interior, and Agriculture. After that, Abe, all the Italian government would got to do would be to move the capital to Milan and hold open sessions of the Cabinet at the Scala with a full orchestra, and they could take in from ten to twenty thousand dollars at the door, daily, in particular if they was to advertise that Caruso would positively appear at every session of the Cabinet, y'understand."

"But, joking to one side, Mawruss," Abe declared, "while personally I got to admit that up to a short time ago, for all I knew about Fiume, y'understand, if somebody would of said to me suddenly, 'Fiume,' I would have said, 'Fiume yourself, you dirty loafer!' and the chances is there would have been a fight then and there, understand me. Still, I couldn't help thinking that as between old friends like the Italians and perfect strangers like the Jugo-Slobs, y'understand, Italy should ought to have Fiume and anything else she wants within reason and even a couple of places not within reason, if she wants them that bad."

"In deciding these things, Abe," Morris said, "Mr. Wilson couldn't consider prejudice."

"No?" Abe retorted. "Well, could he consider who discovered America? A Jugo-Slob, I suppose, what? But never mind going so far back as Christopher Columbus, Mawruss. Take our best workmen right in our own shop, Mawruss--them Tonies and them Roccos with all the time a pleasant smile no matter how hard we work them, and what are they? Jugo-Slobs or Italians? Take it in the city of New York alone, and do we get there half a million Jugo-Slobs or half a million Italians? I am asking you? Also, Mawruss, I suppose the American people is crazy to see Jugo-Slob opera, with wonderful Jugo-Slob singers and composed by Jugo-Slob composers, ain't it? Furthermore, Mawruss, when you want to give your wife a treat, you take her out and blow her to a good Jugo-Slob _table d'hôte_, one dollar and a half including wine--what?"

"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "I didn't say a word that Italy shouldn't have Fiume."

"I know you didn't," Abe said, "but there's a whole lot of people which does, Mawruss, and how they expect to use it for an argument to get the millions of Italians in America to subscribe to the next Victory Loan, Mawruss, may be perfectly clear to them, Mawruss, but _I_ couldn't see it and I doubt if them millions of Italians will be able to see it, neither."

"Probably you ain't wrong exactly," Morris said, "but whichever way Mr. Wilson thinks is the best for the good of Europe, Abe, that's the way he would decide it about Fiume."

"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe observed, "while I consider that Europe, excepting the coffee they give you for breakfast, is a high-grade continent, taking it by and large, still at the same time I ain't so fanatical about it that if I would be President Wilson, I wouldn't once in a while give America a look-in also. Furthermore, Mawruss, admitting that Mr. Wilson is acting wonderful in the way he is unselfish about America, y'understand, and that he would probably go down in history as a great and good man, y'understand, he should ought to watch out that he don't act _too_ unselfish about America, Mawruss, otherwise he would be going down as a great and good man in French and English history and not in American history."

"There is even some people which figures that he would be a great man in the history of the world even," Morris interrupted.

"Sure, I know," Abe said, "and that's the trouble with a whole lot of people these days, Mawruss. They are figuring on world propositions, and what goes on in the next block don't interest them at all. Worrying should begin at home, Mawruss, whereas with them world thinkers they couldn't get really and truly anxious about the way things is going anywheres nearer to the Woolworth Building than the Nevski Prospekt. 'Ain't you ashamed of yourselves to be kicking about not having a job,' they says to the returning American soldiers, 'when thousands of muzhiks in Ukrania is idle.' And they go to work and collect dollar after dollar for milk to feed Czecho-Slovak babies, with sixty cents after sixty cents overhead on the collection, y'understand, while right here in New York City families with an income of eighteen dollars a week has got to pay twenty cents a quart for grade B milk when the milk-wagon drivers ain't on strike."

"People has become European-Americans from reading too much newspapers nowadays, Abe," Morris said, "which in these times of one newspaper trying to show the others how much more money it is spending for foreign cables, y'understand, if you want to see who is murdered in your own town, understand me, you are liable to find a couple of lines about it 'most any part of the paper except in the first four pages, and the consequences is that people gets the impression from reading the papers that a strike in Berlin is ever so much more important than a strike in Hoboken for the simple reason that as the Berlin strike cost the newspaper proprietor several hundred dollars for cables, he put it on the front page, whereas the strike in Hoboken only cost him seven cents car fare for the reporter each way, and therefore it gets slipped in on the eleventh page with over it the head-line: 'PLAN AMERICAN ORCHESTRA. Chicago's New Philharmonic Is Headed by Mrs. J. Ogden Armour,' the orchestra story with the strike head-line having failed to get into the paper at all."

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "people which reads the newspapers don't take the same amount of interests in strikes like they once used to did before the United States government organized them Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, which nowadays strikes is long, dull affairs consisting of the first strike, the arbitration, the decision, the second strike, the arbitration, the decision, the third strike, and so on for several months, because that's the trouble with arbitration, Mawruss: everybody is willing to arbitrate and nobody is willing to be decided against."

"Also strikes is becoming too common, Abe," Morris said. "Everybody is going on strike nowadays, from milk-wagon drivers to the United States Senate, and although the last strike only _begun_ as a strike and ended up as a lock-out, y'understand, still the example wasn't good to the country, which if the strike fever is going to spread as high up as the United States Senate, Abe, where is it going to stop? The first thing you know, the members of the Metropolitan Club will be going on strike for a minimum of six hundred sturgeon eggs in a ten-dollar portion of fresh Astrakhan caviar, and the Amalgamated Bank Presidents of America, New York Local No. 1, will be walking out in a body for a minimum wage of fifty thousand dollars a year, with a maximum working year of four months."

"But even when strikes had no foreign competition in the newspapers, Mawruss," Abe said, "the interest in them soon died out, which very few people outside the parties concerned ever finds out when a strike ends or who wins, and you might even say gives a nickel one way or the other, Mawruss."

"It ain't only strikes which affects people like that, Abe," Morris commented. "Long-drawn-out murder trials and graft investigations also suffers that way, which I bet yer the American newspaper-reading people will soon get on to the fact that the newspapers is playing up to their cable tolls, y'understand, and everybody will be starting in to read the paper at the fourth or fifth page."

"Still, I think that considerable interest was revived in the League of Nations and the Peace Conference by the argument that Senator Lodge put up last week in Lowell, Massachusetts," Abe said.

"It wasn't _in_ Lowell, but _with_ Lowell," Morris corrected.

"In or with," Abe said, "it caused a whole lot of comment in the newspapers, and the people which bought the next morning them papers that printed the whole affair in full, Mawruss, skipped as much as two or three pages about it."

"Well, they didn't miss much, Abe," Morris said, "because it didn't come up to the advertisement."

"What do you mean--the advertisement?" Abe inquired.

"Why, for days already, the newspapers come out with a notice that Senator Lodge would argue with this here Lowell, which he is a college president and not a town, Abe, the argument to take place in a big hall in Boston, and the application for tickets was something tremendous, Abe, because you know how arguments about the League of Nations is, Abe. Sometimes the parties only use language and sometimes the smaller one of the two goes to a hospital, understand me. But, however, in this case it must be that the friends of Senator Lodge must have went to him and said: 'What do you want to get into an argument with Lowell for? Treat him with contempt. What do you care _what_ he says about you? You are _doch_ a United States Senator, ain't it?' And the friends of this here Lowell also must have went to him and said: 'Listen, Lowell, don't make a show of yourself. If Lodge wants to behave himself that way, all right; he's only a United States Senator, but you are anyhow president of Harvard College, and you can't afford to _act_ that way.' 'Act _what_ way?' Lowell probably said. 'Do you think I am going to sit down and let him walk all over Wilson, which Wilson and me was presidents of colleges together for years already?'"

"And besides a college president don't make such big money that he could afford to sneeze at his share of the gate receipts, neither," Abe commented.

"Be that as it may," Morris said, "they probably figured that it was too late to call the thing off, but their friends must have got them together and talked Lodge over into behaving like a gentleman, because he practically agreed to everything that Lowell said and, so to speak, 'threw' the whole debate right at the outset, which, reading the reports in the newspapers next morning, Abe, it is a wonder to me that the referee or the umpire didn't stop it before it had gone the first five minutes, even."

"Well, if people is foolish enough to bet on such things, Mawruss," Abe commented, "they deserve to lose, ain't it?"

"So the consequences is that some people is now saying that Senator Lodge backed down because he didn't have a leg to stand on," Morris continued, "while them people which probably made a little easy money on Lowell is saying, '_Yow!_ backed down!' and that Lowell is a crackerjack, A-number-one arguer, and won the argument on his merits, y'understand."

"The whole thing should ought to be investigated by the Massachusetts Boxing Commission in order to see that them kind of disgraceful exhibitions shouldn't occur again," Abe said, "otherwise this here James Butler which is president of Columbia College will fix up an argument with another United States Senator, and whoever is now president of Princeton College will arrange a frame-up with a Governor of a state or somebody, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, college presidents will be getting such a reputation as public speakers that the next Republican National Convention will be again unloading a college president on us as President of the United States."

"Say," Morris protested, "if all college presidents would make as good a President as Mr. Wilson done, Abe, I am content that we should have such a president for President."

"President Wilson done all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "He done a whole lot to add a touch of refinement to what otherwise would of been a very rough war, understand me. He's got the respect and admiration of the whole world, Mawruss, and I ain't going to say _but_ neither, but would say _however_. Mawruss, for the next ten years or so the United States of America ain't going to be as quiet as a college exactly. Maybe the presidents of colleges will continue to deal with college professors and college students which couldn't talk back, Mawruss, but the next President of the United States will have to stand an awful lot of back-talk from a whole lot of people about taxes, business conditions, railroads, and so forth, and instead of coming right back with a snappy remark originally made by some big Roman philosopher and letting it go at that, Mawruss, he would got to come right back with a plan devised by some big Pittsburgh business man and act on it, too."

"There's something in what you say, Abe," Morris admitted.

"So, therefore, if we've got to drag a college president for President, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "let's hope he would be anyhow president of a business college."

X

THE NEW HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY

"I see where a feller by the name Rubin or Robin or something like that, which was working as a traveling-salesman for the Red Cross in Russia, got examined by Congress the other day," Abe Potash said one morning in March, "and in the course of explaining how he come to spend all that money for traveling expenses or something, he says that the Bolsheviki in Russia is a very much misunderstood people."

"Sure, I know," Morris said; "it is always the case, Abe, that when somebody does something which could only be explained on the grounds that he would sooner be in jail than _out_, he goes to work and claims that nobody understands him."

"But Rubin claims that the reason Bolshevism sprung in the first place was that the Bolsheviki was tired of the war," Abe continued, "whereas the Allies thought they were quitters."

"What do you mean--whereas?" Morris asked.

"Wait, that ain't the only 'whereas,'" Abe said. "Rubin also said that the Allies thinks the Bolsheviki is a bunch of organized murderers, _whereas_ the Allies don't understand that the only people murdered by them Bolsheviki was the property-owners which objects to their property being taken, and that as a matter of fact them poor Bolsheviki are simply _obliged_ to take the property, there being no other alternative except working for a living."

"_Nebich!_" Morris exclaimed, "and did he say anything else about them Bolsheviki that we should ought to break our hearts over, Abe?"

"Rubin didn't, but there is some of these here liberal-minded papers which seems to think that what this here Rubin says is not only a big boost for the Bolsheviki, but that it should ought to be a lesson to us not to pass laws in this country to prevent the Bolsheviki from operating over here."

"But we already got laws over here to take care of people which would sooner commit murder than work, Abe," Morris said, "and as for being liberal-minded about the Bolsheviki, Abe, I am content that after they are sentenced they should have all the privilege that the other convicts have, and that's as far as I would go."

"Well, you couldn't claim credit for being very funny that way, Mawruss. You've got practically all the unliberal-minded people in the United States siding with you," Abe declared, "because, being liberal-minded is a matter of being able to see only the unpopular side of every question. It is the liberal-minded people which thinks there is something to be said in favor of the Germans and says it, y'understand. It is the liberal-minded people which is always willing to try anything that don't seem reasonable to practically everybody."

"And I suppose them liberal-minded people would even approve of Germany trying to get out of paying an indemnity by pulling off one of them street affairs with shooting which passes for Bolshevik revolution," Morris said, "but the backing of such liberal-minded Americans wouldn't help the Germans none, because there would be a whole lot of husky parties in khaki going into Germany and acting in such an unliberal-minded way that the Germans would wish they would have paid the indemnity voluntarily on the instalment plan rather as have it collected all in one sum by levy and sale under an execution."

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "it is always the case that when the creditors begin to scrap among themselves, y'understand, the fraudulent bankrupt stands a good chance to get away with the concealed assets, ain't it, and in particular in this case where there is so many liberal-minded people around which don't want to be too hard on Germany, _anyway_."

"I bet yer," Morris said, fervently; "and while this here Peace Conference is killing a whole lot of time deliberating how to make this the last war, y'understand, they will wake up some fine morning to find out that they have really made it the last war but one. Furthermore, Abe, this next-to-the-last war wouldn't be a marker to the war we are going to have in collecting indemnities from Bolsheviki, because when it comes to atrocities, Abe, a Bolshevik government could make the old German government look like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, y'understand."

"Might the Peace Conference would hurry up, maybe," Abe suggested.

"They've got to hurry up if they don't want to be shifted from a Peace Conference to a Council of War," Morris said. "Look what has already happened in Hungary."

"And yet, Mawruss, you would think that with a nation like the Hungarians, which is used to eating in Hungarian restaurants, y'understand, a little thing like starvation wouldn't worry them at all," Abe said, "so therefore I couldn't understand why the Hungarians should have gone Bolshevik from want of food, as the papers says they did."

"_My_ paper didn't say it," Morris commented, "and if it did, I wouldn't believe it, anyway, because the most you could claim for Bolshevism as a cure for starvation is that it keeps the patient so busy worrying about his other troubles that he forgets how hungry he is. Furthermore, Abe, the way it looks to me, this here Bolshevik revolution in Hungary ain't even what the Poor Food Law would call a Bolshevik Type revolution, because it is my idea that Lenine and Trotzky could read the papers the same like anybody else. So, therefore, when they seen it that all the American newspaper correspondents was sending out word that the Peace Conference should ought to hurry up its work because of the spread of Bolshevism, y'understand, and that the delegates should ought to go easy on Germany because, if they didn't, Germany would probably go Bolshevik, y'understand, this here Trotzky, which once used to work on a New York newspaper but lived it down by changing his name from Bronstein to Trotzky, understand me, at once gets up a line of snappy advertisements headed:

"'WHY BOLSHEVISM?'

to the effect that a Revolution a Day Drives Indemnities Away and for particulars to write to Trotzky & Lenine, Department M, Petrograd Land Title and Trust Building, Petrograd. And, of course, Hungary fell for it."

"So you think that this here Hungarian revolution is a fake?" Abe asked.

"It ain't a fake, it's a business," Morris replied, "which I bet yer that right now Messrs. Ebert, Scheidemann & Co. is writing Trotzky & Lenine they should please quote prices on Bolshevist uprisings as per Hungarian sample, F.O.B. Berlin, and also that it wouldn't be only a matter of a few days when knocking Germany would be a capital offense in Petrograd, upon the grounds that the customer is always right."

"But I understand that in Budapest the working-men is seizing the factories and running them themselves," Abe said.

"There's always bound to be a certain number of people which couldn't take a job," Morris commented.

"There's no joke about it," Abe declared, "which I see in the paper this morning that the new Hungarian Soviet government has directed the presidents of banks to put their business in the hands of the clerks and that the landlords has got to let the janitors manage the apartment-houses."

"The landlords has got to do that in America, whether the government tells 'em to or not, Abe," Morris said, "and as for the bank presidents, Abe, they might just as well go out and look for another job to-day as to wait till next week when them committees of factory-workers will start in to make overdrafts at the point of a revolver."

"Things must be terribly mixed up in Hungary, according to the papers," Abe observed.

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "in some countries a Bolshevik government could be quite disturbing, but take Hungarian cooking, for instance, and it wouldn't really make a whole lot of difference if _gulyas_ or paprika chicken was cooked by one chef or a committee of scullions, Abe, it would be just so miscellaneous and nobody could tell from eating it what had been put into it, y'understand. Also, Abe, take these here gipsy Hungarian bands, and while there would probably be a terrible conglomeration of noises if a committee of players was to start in to conduct the Boston Symphonies or the New York Philharmonics, y'understand, a committee of gipsy musicians couldn't make a _czardas_ sound worser than it does, no matter how they disagree as to the way it should ought to be played."

"For that matter, there's a lot of things produced in Germany which a Soviet government couldn't spoil, neither, Mawruss," Abe said, "like music by this here Nathan Strauss, the composer, or _Koenigsburger Klops_, now called Liberty Roast, which I see by last Sunday's paper that the Kaiser has been talking again."

"And what's that got to do with Germany going Bolshevik?" Morris asked.

"Nothing, except that it partially accounts for it," Abe replied, "which a newspaper feller by the name of Begbie called on the Kaiser in Holland, and he says the Kaiser couldn't see it at all."

"See what?" Morris asked.

"Why, he couldn't see what people is making such a fuss about," Abe said. "He says that, so far as starting this here war is concerned, he didn't _say_ nothing, he didn't _do_ nothing, and all he knows about it is that he lays the whole thing to the Freemasons."

"You mean the F. A. M.?" Morris asked.

"What other Freemasons is there?" Abe said.

"You're sure he didn't say the Knights of Pythias or the I. O. O. F., because, while I don't belong to the Masons myself, Abe, Rosie's sister's husband's brother by the name Harris November has been a thirty-sixth degree Mason for years already," Morris declared, "and I'll swear that if a gabby feller like him would have known that the Masons had anything to do with bringing on the war, Abe, he would of spilled it already long since ago."

"Well, of course, I don't know nothing about what Harris November said or what he didn't say, Mawruss, but that's what the Kaiser said," Abe continued, "and he also had a good deal to say about Queen Victorine of England what a wonderful woman she was, _olav hasholom_, and how she told him many times he should look out for that low-life of a son of hers by the name Edwin."

"But I always thought this here Edwin was such a decent, respectable feller," Morris interrupted.

"That's what everybody else thought," Abe went on, "but the Kaiser says that many times the old lady says to him he shouldn't have nothing to do with Edwin. 'Believe me,' she said, according to the Kaiser, 'he wouldn't do you no good intellectually, morally, or socially,' and so for that reason the Kaiser wouldn't join the Entente with England, France, and Russia."

"Because this here Edwin was at the bottom of it?" Morris inquired.

"That's what the Kaiser _said_," Abe replied.

"Maybe he also caught the poor Czar _selig_ eating with his knife or something," Morris suggested.

"That he didn't say, neither," Abe answered, "but he might just so well have said it, for all it would go down with me, Mawruss, because we all know how kings sow their rolled oats, Mawruss, and any king which wouldn't associate with any other king on the grounds of running around the streets till all hours of the night or gambling, y'understand, if that ain't a case of a pot calling a kettle, I don't know what is."

"And I suppose he topped off them lies by getting religious, ain't it?" Morris remarked.

"Naturally," Abe said. "And in particular he got very sore at the Freemasons on account of them being atheists."

"That's the first time I hear that about the Freemasons," Morris observed. "I think, myself, that he was getting them mixed up with the Elks."

"The Elks ain't atheists," Abe said.

"I know they ain't, but at the same time they ain't religious fanatics exactly," Morris said, "which to a particular feller like the Kaiser would be quite enough, Abe."

"Also, Mawruss," Abe went on, "he claims that the Freemasons is all Bolshevists, and in fact, from the way he carried on about the Freemasons, you would think he was crazy on the subject."

"Maybe they once turned him down or something," Morris commented, "which when I was treasurer of Friendship Lodge, 129, I. O. M. A., before we quit giving sick benefits, Abe, we turned down a feller by the name Turkeltaub on account of varicose veins, and the way he went around calling us all kinds of highwaymen you wouldn't believe at all."

"But the newspaper feller that interviewed him says that the Kaiser seems to be in pretty good health, Mawruss," Abe declared.

"That don't make him a good risk, neither," Morris retorted. "I suppose the interviewer didn't say how his appetite was."

"What's his appetite got to do with it?" Abe asked.

"Because, in speaking of murderers just before they go to the chair, Abe," Morris concluded, "the newspaper always say, 'The condemned man ate hearty.'"

XI

IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME FOR TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGES

"I am surprised to see that an old-established and well-settled government like Mexico should got a revolution on his hands, Mawruss," Abe Potash declared as he skimmed the head-lines in the morning papers.

"What makes you think that Mexico is an old-established and well-settled government, Abe?" Morris Perlmutter asked.

"Germany and Hungary do," Abe replied, "which up to the time this here General Blanquet lands the other day in Mexico, people was beginning to say that why couldn't Germany have one last revolution and stick to it and look at Mexico the way she settled down, not having had a single revolution to speak of since January fifteenth, nineteen-nineteen."

"Well, I think the reason why the Mexicans 'ain't had a revolution in so long isn't because they didn't want to, Abe," Morris said, "but because it has taken them all that time to learn the technical terms. You see, a really and truly up-to-date revolution couldn't be run off nowadays, Abe, unless it is one of them Bolshevik Type revolutions, and in order to get the right kind of newspaper publicity for it the management has got to know enough Russian not to say _soviet_ when they mean _mir_. Also I bet yer when it comes to a zemstvo, the Mexicans don't know even now whether you dance it to a guitar and cascanet accompaniment or eat it with garlic and chili sauce."

"A feller could make quite some money nowadays from teaching Russian by mail to revolutionary socialists," Abe commented.

"That ain't necessary in this country, Abe," Morris said, "because the Bolshevik government in Russia has sent over here a feller by the name of Martens to give a course in Bolshevism to American working-men."

"And did our government let him land?" Abe asked.

"Seemingly they did," Morris replied, "which is pretty liberal of our government when you consider that right now we got American soldiers in Russia which is fighting Bolshevism."

"It's even more than liberal, it's crazy," Abe said, "because while I believe in free speech, y'understand, Bolshevik speeches ain't free by a whole lot. Over in Hungary they became payable in thirty, sixty, and ninety days and the only people which ain't ruined by them is the makers and indorsers."

"You are right about the makers, Abe," Morris commented. "For the most part they are a bunch of no-account foreigners which all they risk by making such speeches is hoarseness, y'understand, but some of the indorsers of such speeches comes from the best American families, and if the time ever comes when there _should_ be a little temporary Bolshevik trouble by foreigners in this country who have been encouraged by the liberal attitude of the government to think that the worst which could happen to them would be ten dollars or ten days, y'understand, them indorsers would got to pay the same like any other decent, respectable people which ain't Bolsheviks. Take, for example, in Hungary and the protelariats is making the middle class give up their bath-rooms to the working-people every Saturday night."

"But the protelariats in New York has all got bath-rooms in their tenement-houses, Mawruss," Abe protested.

"I know they have, but they'll probably figure that why should they trouble themselves to empty the coal out of their bath-tubs, which is what them protelariats now use bath-tubs for, Abe, just to save the middle class the inconvenience of changing their bath night from Saturday to Friday," Morris said, "but at the same time, Abe, it don't look to me that a country which has got the modern convenience of America is going to go Bolshevik for the next few hundred years, anyway, because it is my idee that what makes a people become Bolsheviks is the lack of good plumbing and savings-bank accounts, and rather as have the privacy of their bath-rooms and their savings-bank accounts invaded, the big majority of the American people would declare the United States of America an obsolete monarchy with Ivan D. Ivanovitch, alias John D. Rockafeller, Jr., as the first Czar, understand me."

"Well, if I would be the United States government I wouldn't let a Bolshevik land exactly," Abe declared.

"What do you mean--you wouldn't let him land _exactly_?" Morris asked.

"I mean what I say," Abe said. "I would let him pretty nearly land and then tip up the gang-plank. Also, Mawruss, if I would be the United States government, I would allow free speech, but not free speakers, y'understand, which I would make public speaking a profession the same like lawyers, dentists, or doctors, because if nobody could be a public speaker without taking a four-year course in public speaking and then getting licensed to practise as a public speaker after passing an examination, y'understand, he would think anyhow twice before he says something in public which would bring him up on charges to show cause why he shouldn't have his license to practise as a public speaker taken away from him. In other words, Mawruss, the way I would prevent Bolshevism is that I would make the sheepskin take the place of the soapbox as a necessary article for public speaking, and incidentally in the foreign neighborhoods of our big cities, y'understand, not only would soap-boxes be used for soap, but it would also go a long way towards making bath-tubs used for bathing."

"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "I couldn't help thinking that if the feller who talks in public was given less to talk about, y'understand, it would help a whole lot, too, which there wouldn't be nearly so many loafers go into the Bolshevik line if there wasn't so many respectable people engaged in what might be called manufacturing Bolshevik supplies, such as army officers which claims that nobody has a right to kick if a soldier gets ten years' hard labor for using bad grammar in speaking to an officer, y'understand. Also there is a lot of state Legislatures in this country which has seemingly formed themselves into Societies for the Encouragement of Bolshevism by earning, anyhow, the gratitude of canners and cotton manufacturers who have got women and children working for them till all hours of the night, y'understand. Then again there is the perfectly respectable people which would like to make by law a Sunday out of every week-day and a living tomb out of Sunday, understand me, and which would have nobody but themselves to blame if some day they would got to furnish soap and towels for the protelariats in their bath-rooms."

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "Bolshevism as a form of government is pretty nearly exploded, Mawruss. It is now used principally as a threat such as when Germany says if the Polaks get Danzig and West Prussia, y'understand, Germany would take up Bolshevism, and Paderewski says if the Polaks don't get Danzig, Poland would take up Bolshevism, understand me."

"And Paderewski would take up giving piano lessons to raise enough money to get out of Poland, Abe," Morris commented, "and he would probably have to do so, too, as there ain't much chance of his getting away with that Danzig stuff. Also, Abe, we Americans should ought to be the last to encourage him to think that he will, Abe, because while I don't know how long it is since Danzig, Germany, was Danzig, Poland, I do know that it ain't nearly so long ago as Galveston, Texas, was Galveston, Mexico, y'understand. So, therefore, if Mr. Wilson lets Poland get back Danzig, it wouldn't be long before Mexico would elect Teresa Carreño or Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler as President and claim Galveston with a corridor taking in San Antonio and Houston, understand me."

"Just the same, I am in favor that Germany should have to give up Danzig even if Danzig 'ain't belonged to Poland since 1492 and the only Danzig people now speaking Polish as a regular language is the interpreter of the First District Magistrate's Court for the City and County of Danzig, y'understand," Abe declared. "Furthermore, I think this here Peace Conference is taking it too particular about what Germany should or shouldn't give up, Mawruss, which if the shoe pinched on the other foot, Mawruss, and this here Peace Conference was being held in Berlin or Vienna, y'understand, with Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria as the Big Four, understand me, there wouldn't be any question as to what Allied territory would or wouldn't be given up by the Allies, Mawruss. If Germany would have won the war, Mawruss, she would have taken Calais and Boulogne with as much argument over it as a golluf-player taking a Scotch highball, y'understand, and if France would have threatened to go Bolshevik on account of it, Germany would of said, 'Don't do us no favors,' understand me, and let it go at that. So, therefore, if the people of Danzig couldn't speak Polish, Mawruss, let 'em learn to do so, even if it would be necessary for them to go to a nose and throat specialist till they got used to the pronunciation."

"Say, for my part I am willing that this here Peace Conference should do anything and everything, Abe, just so long as they would get through with their work and I wouldn't have to listen no longer to your nonsense," Morris declared.

"No nonsense at all," Abe protested. "The thing this here Peace Conference should ought to have done from the start was to consider what Germany would have done under the circumstances, put the reverse English on it, and then let her whoop, which I see by the paper that they are now getting ready to make airyoplane journeys across the Atlantic Ocean, Mawruss."

"And what's that got to do with this here Peace Conference?" Morris asked.

"Nothing," Abe said, "except that I see Mr. Wilson is writing home that they should please send over the _George Washington_ in case it should be necessary for him to make good any bluff he might throw to the Peace Conference that if they don't do as he says, he would leave them flat and go back to America. So, therefore, if he has to make good sooner than he thinks, he could go home by airyoplane and not wait for the _George Washington_."

"I don't think that this here transatlantic airyoplane flying is exactly in the President-carrying class just yet, Abe," Morris suggested.

"Neither do I, Mawruss," Abe said, "but the manufacturers of airyoplanes seems pretty confident, Mawruss. In fact, I see in the papers that it won't be but a matter of a few years when the New York business man which has business to do in London, instead of getting on the _Mauretania_ in New York and landing six days later in Liverpool, y'understand, would be able to take the railroad to Halifax, Nova Scotia, spend the night there or anyhow only as many nights there as it would be necessary before the steamer sails for Saint John's, Newfoundland, and then take the steamer to Saint John's, Newfoundland, where there would be a passenger airyoplane in waiting and no first-class hotels, y'understand. At Saint John's, such is the strides airyoplane-manufacturing has made, Mawruss, he would probably only have to stick around for five or six days till the airyoplane was in shape to leave, understand me, and in twenty-four hours he would land at the Azores, where there ain't no hotels at all, understand me. In less than four days more, provided the repairs didn't take longer, he would be on his way to Lisbon, Portugal, which he would reach on the following day or days. There the same airyoplane or another airyoplane, in case the same airyoplane got smashed in landing, would be ready or approximately ready to start for Paris, and might even start, you couldn't tell. On arriving in Paris, he would be only a few hours by railroad and steamer from London, provided he was in shape to travel, which, when you consider that only a few years ago flying was in its infancy, Mawruss, you've got to admit that nobody could ever have dreamed that it was possible to make such a journey."

"Not unless you ate something which disagreed with you before you went to sleep," Morris commented, "and even then, Abe, where is the advantage?"

"It ain't the advantage, it's the novelty of the thing," Abe said, "and I'll bet yer, Mawruss, that if an Airyoplane Company was to open a ticket-office in New York to-morrow, Mawruss, men would be standing in line to buy accommodations on the first available airyoplane--men with wives and families and no life insurance at that."

"They would be the very first ones," Morris agreed, "but the way it looks to me, Abe, New York business men which has not business to do in London would continue to take twin-screw steamers with bilge keels, no matter how unimportant the business they was going to transact over there might be, because even the stockholders in airyoplane-manufacturing corporations would got to admit that while airyoplane-flying ain't in its infancy, exactly, it ain't in the prime of life, neither. Also, Abe, as long as gas only costs a dollar twenty-five a thousand cubic feet, why should any one want to pull off such a high-priced suicide as these here transatlantic airyoplane voyages is going to be?"

"Anyhow, the first one has still got to be made yet, Mawruss," Abe remarked.

"And even if the tenth one was successful, Abe," Morris concluded, "you could take it from me, this here transatlantic airyoplane navigation ain't going to put much of a crimp into the business of manufacturing seasick remedies. Am I right or wrong?"

XII

THIS HERE VICTORY LIBERTY LOAN

"The way some people is acting about this here Victory Loan, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked one morning in April, "you would think that they was all presidents of a first national bank and that this here Carter J. Glass has already made a big overdraft and if he don't like the line of credit they are giving him, he should be so good as to take his account somewheres else, y'understand."

"Them same people probably think that investing their money in any securities bearing interest at less than fifteen per cent. per annum is, so to speak, the equivalence from giving money to orphan-asylums and hospitals, understand me," Morris Perlmutter said. "'We already give them Liberty Loan _schnorrers_ two hundred dollars toward the expenses of their rotten war,' they probably say, 'and _still_ they ain't satisfied.'"

"And at that they don't mean nothing by it," Abe said, "because there is a whole lot of business men in the United States which couldn't even give up the family housekeeping money every week without anyhow saying to their wives: 'Here, take my blood; take my life. What do you want from me, _anyway_?'"

"Maybe they do and maybe they don't mean nothing by it, Abe," Morris said, "but it would be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass if everybody would act as his own Victory Bond salesman and try to sell himself just one more bond than he has really got any business buying, y'understand."

"It would be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass, Mawruss, but it would be practically impossible for pretty nearly everybody else," Abe remarked, "which human nature is so constituted, Mawruss, that the only time a man really and truly uses some high-class, silver-tongued salesmanship on himself is when he is trying to persuade himself that it is all right for him to do something which he knows in his heart it is dead wrong for him to do."

"Well, at least, Abe, in this here Victory Loan Campaign, every man should ought to try to put himself in the place of the salesman which is trying to sell him some of these Victory Bonds," Morris continued, "so we would say, for example, that you would be a Victory Bond salesman, Abe, and you are calling on a feller which he is a pretty tough proposition in such matters by the name of, we would say, for instance, Abe Potash."

"Why don't you make the feller which the salesman is supposed to call on a really and truly hard-boiled egg, by the name, we would say, for instance, Mawruss Perlmutter?" Abe asked. "Which when you put up to me a hypocritical case, Mawruss, why is it you must always start in by getting insulted already?"

"What do you mean getting insulted?" Morris asked. "I am only putting something up to you for the sake of argument not arguments."

"Well, then, why not be perfectly neuter and call the tough proposition which the Victory Bond salesman is visiting, somebody by the name of a competitor like Leon Sammet, for instance?" Abe suggested.