Chapter V: Part 5

"And what's that got to do with my giving jobs to my wife's relations?" Morris inquired.

"It 'ain't got nothing to do with it, but if you would let me open my mouth once in a while and not try to gag me every time I want to tell you something, Mawruss," Abe continued, "maybe I could learn you something."

"Maybe," Morris admitted, "but when you start in to tell about how smart one of your nephews by marriage is, Abe, it generally ends up by our paying a few weeks' salary to a young feller which all he learned about double entry is making birds with a pen, so I just want to warn you before you go any further, Abe, that in the future with me, Abe, if any of your nephews is an expert bird-maker with a pen, y'understand, you should please find him a job in a millinery concern and let me out."

"I wasn't going to say nothing about giving a job to nobody," Abe protested. "All I am trying to tell you is that if the Treaty of Peace, which you talked my head off about the other day, contained a section that the Germans should walk in a parade and show to the Allies how that Peace Treaty made them suffer, Mawruss, Lenine and Trotsky and all the other crickets who abuse Mr. Wilson like the New York Republican newspapers and the American ladies who are attending that Zurich Permanent Peace Convention, would of called the Allies all sorts of barbarians, y'understand. However, Mawruss, it only goes to show how unnecessary such a section in the Peace Treaty would be, Mawruss, because the Germans is now obliging with a wonderful Roman exhibition of themselves. In fact, Mawruss, from the lowest to the highest, them German people seems to be saying to each other, 'Let's act like real Germans and make the worst of it!'"

"Did any one expect anything else from them Germans?" Morris asked.

"Well, from the way this here four-flusher von Brockdorff-Rantzau behaved the day they handed him the Peace Treaty, Mawruss," Abe said, "it looked like the Germans had made up their minds to be just so stiff-necked as they always was, Mawruss, and I begun to think that they were going to treat it as a case of _so mechullah, so mechullah_, y'understand, but the way them Germans is now crying like children, Mawruss, there ain't going to be enough sackcloth and ashes in Germany to go around, and them German professors will have to get busy and invent some _ersatz_ sackcloth and ashes to supply the demand."

"Crooks are always poor sports, Abe," Morris declared, "in particular when they throw themselves on the mercy of the people that they didn't intend to show no mercy to themselves. Take this here Ebert, for instance, and he don't make no bones about saying that the German people relied on President Wilson and the United States of America being easy marks, but _ai Tzuris_, what a mistake that was! In effect he says that President Wilson on January 22, 1917, made the statement that the victor must not force his conditions on the vanquished, and relying on that statement, Germany went to work and got into a war with the United States because if Germany got licked, y'understand, the worst that can happen her is that she makes peace again on her own terms, and then when Germany did get licked, see what happens to her. President Wilson behaves like a frozen snake in the grass which somebody tries to warm by putting the snake into his pants pocket, y'understand, and when the snake gets thawed out, understand me, it bites the hand that feeds it, and what are you going to do in a case like this?"

"At that, Mawruss, Ebert ain't making near so bad an exhibition of himself as this here Prince von Hohenlohe. There was a feller which was used to was the German Chancellor, Mawruss," Abe said, "and the dirty deals which he helped to put over on the Rumanians and the Russians, by way of Treaties of Peace, y'understand, was such that if we would of attempted it with the Germans, Mawruss, and the United States Congress would of confirmed it, Mawruss, Victor Berger would be fighting to be let out of the House of Representatives and to be admitted to Leavenworth, instead of _vice versa_, on the grounds that he didn't want to associate with no crooks, y'understand, but seemingly this here Hohenlohe is suffering from loss of memory as well as loss of self-respect, Mawruss, because he is now making speeches in which he is weeping all over his already tear-stained copy of the Peace Treaty and calling it the Tragedy of Versailles, whereas compared to the Treaty of Peace which you might call the Tragedy of Brest-Litovsk, Mawruss, this here Versailles Treaty of Peace is a Follies of 1919 with just one laugh after another, y'understand."

"And I see also where this here Scheidemann is also figuring very largely in this here Roman exhibition the Germans is making of themselves, Abe," Morris observed. "He said the other day that the Germans would never, never, never--or anyhow not until next Thursday a week--sign the Peace Treaty. He put his hand on where a German's heart would be if he had one, Abe, and said that no Germans would positively and absolutely not submit to any such Treaty of Peace as the one offered to them, or that is to say they would not submit to it except on and after May 22, 1919, and anyhow, nobody would ever trust President Wilson again."

"And yet, Mawruss, when them Germans gets over the first shock of this here Peace Treaty and wipe away their tears sufficient to see things a little more clearly, y'understand," Abe commented, "it is just barely possible that they are going to do some rapid figuring on what they gain by not supporting a few thousand princes, not to mention the money which that bloodthirsty Kaiser and his family used to draw in salaries and commissions, Mawruss, and when these amounts are offset against indemnities which the Germans are required to pay under the Peace Treaty, Mawruss, it will in all probability be found that the German nation is beggared, as this here Scheidemann would say, to the extent of $0.831416 per capita per annum by such indemnities. The result is going to be that some of them Germans will then begin to figure how maybe it was worth that much money per capita per annum to get rid of that _rosher_ and they will also begin to realize that it has been worth even more than that much per capita per annum to the Allied people to see a performance such as the German people continuing to weep in sympathy with Ebert and Scheidemann, y'understand, they will be advising them two boys to go and take for ten cents apiece some mathematic spirits of ammonia and quit their sobbing."

"However, Abe," Morris remarked, "there was a few Americans which instead of being in the audience enjoying the performance was back on the stage with the Germans and weeping just so hard as any of them. Take these here American lady delegates to the small-time Peace Conference which is running at Zurich, Switzerland, in opposition to the old original Peace Conference in Paris, Abe, and them ladies with their voices choked by tears, Abe, passed a resolution that be it resolved that the Peace Treaty is already secret diplomacy, that it is the old case of the side winning the war getting the spoils, and a lot of other resolutions to which the only resolution anybody could pass in answer to such resolutions would be, 'Well, what of it?'"

"That only proves to me, Mawruss, how necessary it is, this here Americanization work which you read so much about in the papers," Abe declared. "Here is four American ladies which is lived in the country for some years--in fact, ever since they was born, and that ain't such a short time neither, when you see their pictures, Mawruss, and yet them ladies talks like they never heard tell of the Star-spangled Banner. Seemingly the fact that we licked Germany don't appeal to them at all, and so far as these resolutions which they passed between sobs, Mawruss, gives any indications, Mawruss, they would like to have seen this here European War end in a draw, with perhaps Germany getting just a shade the better of it."

"And what has all this got to do with Americanization work, Abe?" Morris inquired. "I always thought that Americanization was taking the greenhorns which comes to this country from Europe, and teaching them how to think and act like Americans."

"That comes afterward, Mawruss," Abe said, "because it seems that ever since this here European War, Mawruss, Americanization needs to begin at home, Mawruss, and that the first ones to be Americanized should ought to be Americans. There is, for instance, Mr. O. G. Villard, who was born and raised in this country, Mawruss, which he comes out with a statement the other day that them loafers of the Munich soviet who killed all them professors and ladies a couple of weeks ago, compared very favorably with the legislatures of the states of New York and Pennsylvania, Mawruss. Now when you consider that them two legislatures is part of our government, Mawruss, the way it looks to me is that if a foreigner had said such a thing he would have been Americanized without the option of a fine by the nearest city magistrate."

"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "when you read in the papers about the New York State Senator Thompson and the goings-on up in Albany, Abe, it looks like Americanization should ought to be done at the source, y'understand, and then it wouldn't be necessary to Americanize Mr. Villard at all."

"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe agreed, "but what I am driving into is that Americanization for Americans must appeal very strongly to colored Americans, especially the Americanization of those Americans who believe that the colored man should ought to be put in his place and don't hesitate about designating the place as the end of a rope without the trouble and expense of a jury trial, y'understand."

"I would even get a little more personal as that, Abe," Morris declared. "I would even say that there should ought to be classes in Americanization for those Americans who believe that the religion and race origin of certain other Americans makes them eligible to give their children's lives to the country and their money to Red Cross and other War Drives--but that it don't make them eligible to stay at first-class summer hotels or play golluf by first-class country clubs."

"Say," Abe broke in, "there is need of more important Americanization among Americans than that, Mawruss. There should ought to be Americanization of Americans who think it is American for landlords to ask for raises of their rent and un-American for workmen to ask for raises of their wages. In fact, this whole Americanization movement should ought to be centered on Americanizing out of Americans any habits, customs, or schemes they try to put across which is apt to make Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans or Assorted Foreign-Americans say to one another, 'Well, if that's the way Americans behave, give me back my hyphen and let me go home.'"

"Well, after all, Abe, it's a mighty small bunch of Americans which ain't Americanized yet," Morris observed.

"I know it," Abe said, "and it's their smallness which makes me sore, Mawruss, because no matter how small they are by number, or nature, Mawruss, they are the ones that the Turks pulled on us when we protested about them poor Armenians _nebich_. Also, Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson should protest that the new Polish Republic ain't treating our people as equals, y'understand, the new Polish Republic could come right back with: 'Neither is any number of summer hotels we could name in the Adirondacks Mountains of your own United States.' Also, if the Peace Delegates from this country gives a hint to the Greeks that there is colonies of Bulgarians living in Greece for years already which wants to be Greeks and should ought to have the same voting rights as Greeks, y'understand, all Venezuela or whatever the Greek secretary of state has got to say is, 'Well, we hold that these people 'ain't got a right to vote under a law called the Grandfather Law, which we copied from similar laws passed in the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi--in your own United States,' and them poor old Peace Delegates of ours wouldn't have a word to say."

"At that, Abe, I think all them disagreeable things in this country is going to be changed by the war," Morris suggested.

"Perhaps, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "but considering what changes have taken place because of this war, it's wonderful how little changed things really are."

XVII

MR. WILSON'S FAVOR OF THE 20TH ULTO. AND CONTENTS NOTED

"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, one morning recently, "a feller which has got to write to the newspaper to say that he didn't say what the newspaper said he said when it reported his speech, y'understand, has usually made a pretty rotten speech in the first place, and in the second place when he tries to explain what it really was that he did say, Mawruss, it practically always sounds worse than what the newspaper said he said."

"But what did he say and who said it, Abe?" Morris inquired.

"Ambassador Morgenstimmung or Morgenstern, I couldn't remember which, Mawruss," Abe replied, "and although he 'ain't wrote to the newspapers yet to deny that he said it, Mawruss, it is only a question of time when he would do so, because he either said one thing or the other, but he couldn't say both."

"Listen, Abe, if you think that unless you break it to me gradually what this here Morgenstern said, it would be too much of a shock to me," Morris announced, "let me tell you that it is a matter of indifference to me _what_ he said."

"So it is to 'most everybody else except the immediate family, Mawruss," Abe continued, "but not to keep you in suspense, Mawruss, what this Ambassador Morgenstern said was in a speech to the American soldiers in Coblenz where he told them that there was going to be another big war in which America would got to fight during the next fifteen or twenty years, and also that he had every confidence in the League of Nations."

"Well, there's a whole lot of United States Senators which has got the same kind of confidence in the League of Nations, Abe," Morris declared. "In fact, some of them is confident that the League of Nations will bring about a war for us in even less than fifteen years."

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "the word _confidence_ has got a whole lot of different meanings, Mawruss, and it's quite possible that this here Ambassador Morgenstern used the word with reference to the League of Nations in its Chatham Square or green-goods meaning, because otherwise how could the League of Nations cause another war in less than fifteen years, unless, of course, the feller which prophesied it was a Republican Senator, which Mr. Morgenstern is not."

"To tell you the truth, Abe," Morris said, "I have heard and read so many different things about this here League of Nations that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the final edition of it provided that any nation which didn't go to war at least once every three years with some other nation or nations, y'understand, should be expelled from the League of Nations with costs, y'understand, and in fact, Abe, it is my opinion that when some one makes a speech about this here League of Nations nowadays, he might just so well write a letter to himself denying that he said what the newspaper said he said, and let it go at that, because it's a hundred to one that he was the only person who didn't skip it when it was printed in its original garbled condition."

"At that, Mawruss, you are going to be really and truly surprised to find out what that League of Nations covenant means when it comes up to be argued about by the United States Senate," Abe observed, "because a great many of them Senators is high-grade, crackerjack, A-number-one lawyers on the side, Mawruss, and formerly used to make their livings by showing that the contract which the plaintiff made with the defendant meant just the opposite to what the plaintiff or defendant meant it to mean--or _vice versa_, according to which end of the lawsuit such a Senator was arguing on, Mawruss, so you can imagine what is going to happen to that League of Nations covenant. Take a level-headed lawyer like Senator Hiram S. Johnson of California, Mawruss, which he 'ain't got the least disposition to believe that the League of Nations covenant means what President Wilson says it means, understand me, and when he gets through showing what he thinks it means, and Senator Borah gets through showing what _he_ thinks it means, and Senator Reed gets through thinking what HE thinks it means, understand me, that League of Nations covenant will have as many different meanings as the contested last will and testament of a childless millionaire who has married a telephone operator on his death-bed to spite his grandnieces and nephews, Mawruss."

"Congress will have a lot of other matters to settle before that League of Nations comes up, Abe," Morris said, "which I was reading the other day the message which President Wilson wrote from Paris, and he certainly laid out a lot of work for them to do till he gets back."

"You mean that letter of May 20th where he says: 'Dear Gents: Sorry not to be with you and I have been out of touch with things over in America so long that you will know a whole lot better than I do what is needed in the way of laws,' Mawruss, and then goes to work and tells them what is needed to the extent of half a newspaperful?" Abe asked.

"I couldn't remember the exact words," Morris replied.

"Well, I've been expecting every day to see in the newspapers that he got an answer from the round robins reading: 'Dear Sir: Yours of the 20th inst. to hand and contents noted and in reply would say we wouldn't positively do nothing of the kind, and in case you are not back with samples on or before ten days from date, we will take such steps as we may think proper to protect our interests in the matter and oblige,'" Abe said, "because if you will remember, Mawruss, them round robins wanted Mr. Wilson to let the Senate go on making laws while he was away, and the President says, 'You couldn't make no laws till I get back,' and then when them round robins asked him when he would be back, he said, 'I'll be back when I am back,' and now he ain't back, and he has got to ask them round robins to go to work with the other Senators and Congressmen and make the laws which they wanted to make in the first place, Mawruss."

"Then it is going to be some time before he gets back if any such a deadlock like that happened, Abe," Morris said, "because I see where it says in the papers that Mr. Wilson won't come back until he has signed the treaties of peace with Germany and Austria, and France and England won't agree to finish up the treaties for Mr. Wilson's signature until they know that the United States Senate will ratify them and the United States Senate won't ratify them until they are finished up and submitted to them signed by Mr. Wilson, and then I didn't read no more about it, Abe, because I begun to get dizzy."

"I very often get that way myself nowadays when I am reading in the newspapers, Mawruss," Abe said, "in particular when they print them full texts, like the full text of the League of Nations Covenant or the full text of the President's message. Former times when the papers had in 'em straight murders and bank robberies from the inside or out, Mawruss, and you sat opposite somebody in the Subway who had to move his lips while he was reading, you took it for granted that he was an ignoramus which had to hear them simple words pronounced, even if it was by his own lips, before he could understand them, Mawruss, but you take this here letter of the 20th inst., Mawruss, and when you read where President Wilson says with reference to telephone and telegraph rates, Mawruss, 'there are many confusions and inconsistencies of rates. The scientific means by which communication by such instrumentalities could missing be rendered more thorough and satisfactory has not been made full use of,' understand me, you could move your lips, your scalp, Heaven and Earth, Mawruss, and still you couldn't tell what Mr. Wilson was driving into."

"Well, I glanced over that Message myself, Abe," Morris said, "and the capital I's was sticking up all through it like toothpicks on the cashier's desk of an armchair lunch-room, Abe. In just a few lines, Abe, Mr. Wilson says, 'I hesitate, I feel, I am conscious, I trust, I may, I shall, I dare say, I hope and I shall,' and when he started to say something about Woman Suffrage, he undoubtedly begun with 'May I not,' but evidently when he showed the first draft to Colonel House or somebody, they said, 'Why do you always say, _May I not_'? and after discussing such substitutes as '_Doch allow me_,' 'If you 'ain't got no objections,' and 'You would excuse me if I would take the liberty,' Abe, they decided to use, 'Will you not permit me,' so, therefore, that part of the President's message which talks about Woman Suffrage says, 'Will you not permit me to speak once more and very earnestly of the proposed amendment to the Constitution and so forth,' and that, to my mind, is what give President Wilson the idea that it might be a good thing to let the manufacture and sale of wine and beer continue after June 30th, which he probably argued, 'If I have such a tough time shaking off the _May-I-not_ habit, how about them poor fellers which has got the liquor habit?'"

"Maybe he figured that way and maybe he didn't, Mawruss," Abe said, "but if any one feels that he ought to stock up with a few bottles of wine for _kiddush_ or _habdolah_ purposes on or after June 30, 1919, Mawruss, he oughtn't to be misled by anything President Wilson said in his letter of the 20th ulto., Mawruss, because when it comes to extending the life of the beer and wine industry after June 30th, Mawruss, them Senators and Representatives is more likely to take suggestions from the President of the Anti-Saloon League than from the President of the United States."

"And I don't know but what they are right at that, Abe," Morris said, "because this here Prohibition is strictly a matter of what the majority thinks, Abe."

"But from the howl that has been going up, Mawruss," Abe protested, "it looks to me like the majority of people wants the sale of schnapps to continue."

"I didn't say it was a question of what they want, Abe," Morris declared, "I said it was a question of what the majority thinks, and the majority of people thinks that while they can drink schnapps and they can let it alone, Abe, the majority of people also think that the majority of the people who drink schnapps would be a whole lot better off without it. So that's the way it stands, Abe. Nobody wants to leave off buying liquor, but nobody wants to take the responsibility of letting the sale of liquor continue."

"Also, Mawruss, I've been reading a good many articles in the magazines about this here Prohibition lately," Abe declared, "and in every case the writer shows how disinterested he is, y'understand, by stating right at the start that so far as he is concerned, they could leave off selling liquor to-morrow and he would be perfectly satisfied."

"And he is going to have to be, Abe," Morris said, "because that way of looking at the liquor question is what has brought about Prohibition. Practically everybody who drinks schnapps and enjoys it, Abe, is afraid that everybody else who drinks schnapps and _enjoys_ it is going to think that he drinks schnapps and enjoys it, so he goes to work and pulls this phony unselfish stuff about, 'So-far-as-I-am-concerned, it don't make no difference how soon the country goes Prohibition,' and the result is that the country is going Prohibition, and nobody even now has got nerve enough to admit that it's going to cut him out of a great many good times in the future."

"Well, there's one thing about it, Mawruss," Abe declared, "it's going to make near-by foreign countries, no matter what the climate may be, great summer and winter resorts for these fellers who don't care how soon Prohibition goes into effect and who will continue not to care until 1 A.M. on July 1, 1919. Yes, Mawruss, this here Prohibition is going to give a wonderful boost to the business of building bridges across the Rio Grande River and to running lines of steamers between the United States and them foreign countries near by where the inhabitants have got it figured out that if you drink and enjoy it, you might just as well admit it before it's too late to keep the government from not taking a joke, if you know what I mean."

"Sure I know what you mean," Morris said, "and it has always seemed to me, Abe, that even the Scotch whisky business ain't going to be affected so adversely by this here Prohibition, neither, except that the merchandise is going to reach its ultimate hobnail liver _via_ Mexico and Cuba instead of New York and Chicago, and furthermore, Abe, there will be a great demand for sleepers on them northbound trains from Mexico, and the berths will only have to be made up once on leaving the Mexican frontier. However, the diners won't do much of a business on them trains, but they will certainly have to carry extra-large ice-water tanks."

"And while I don't wish them drink-and-leave-it-alone fellers no particular harm, Mawruss," Abe declared, vehemently, "some time when they are traveling on one of them oasis-bound limiteds, Mawruss, it would serve them right if it run off the rails or something and shook 'em up just enough to make them realize the inconvenience their own foolishness has brought on them."

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "I didn't know you was taking this Prohibition affair so much to heart, Abe."

"What do you mean--take it so much to heart?" Abe protested. "I take a glass of schnapps once in a while, Mawruss, but so far as I am concerned this here Prohibition can come into effect this afternoon yet, and it wouldn't affect me none."

"I am the same way, Abe. I can drink and I can leave it alone," Morris said. "Or, anyhow, I _think_ I can."

XVIII

BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS, AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES

"The way I feel about it is this, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter: "It don't make no difference if them two boys failed in their intentions, y'understand, they succeeded in making millions and millions of people in Paris, Winnipeg, New York, and who knows where not, stop hating each other for anyhow a few hours, and instead they smiled and shook hands and allowed themselves a recess in their regular work of winning strikes, losing strikes, shooting, starving, and cheating each other and their countries, while they all joined in being glad that Mrs. Hawker and the baby had got the popper back home with them and that Grieve was safe with his family or anyhow as safe as a young feller can be who is liable to quit his home at any moment and do the same wonderful, foolish thing all over again."

"It's too bad that all them strikers and Bolsheviks which is acting as senselessly as children, couldn't also act as sensibly as children, Abe," Morris Perlmutter observed, "and stop crying long enough to forget what they were crying about, y'understand, but they won't. They are bound and determined to eat the goose which lays the golden eggs, Abe, and the end is going to be that they will find out it ain't a goose at all, but that instead of killing a goose that's fit for food they have only smashed an incubator that's fit for nothing but laying more eggs, and that's the way it goes."

"Well, it's certainly wonderful how popular them two young fellers become in the course of a few days, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Which makes you think, Mawruss, if such a thing happens to two unknown young men like Hawker and Grieve, there is big possibilities in this cross-the-ocean flight for fellers which was once highly thought of and which nowadays nobody gives a nickel about. Take, for instance, them two William J. fellers, Bryan and McAdoo, which only a short time since people was reading about it in the papers, Mawruss, and what them fellers should ought to do is to hire a good, undependable airyoplane, y'understand, and take the first boat for Trespassing, or whatever the place is. Then all they have to do is to make a good start, and get afterwards rescued by a tramp steamer, and right away they become general favorites again. Or the kaiser and the crown prince might try it, Mawruss. There must be plenty of airyoplanes laying around Germany nowadays which could be picked up for a song, and when word come that it had fallen into the Atlantic Ocean with them two birds aboard somewhere around one thousand five hundred miles from sixty degrees forty-three minutes, y'understand, it might make the Hohenzollerns so popular that there would be a counter-revolution or something."

"But suppose they would overdo the thing and not get rescued," Morris suggested.

"Well, that would make them popular with _me_, anyhow," Abe said, "and there is probably millions of people like me in that respects, Mawruss. Still, joking to one side, Mawruss, there is some things which you couldn't joke about like what this young feller Read did, which is working for the United States navy, Mawruss. There was a young feller what took his life in his hands, Mawruss, and yet from the maps which the newspapers printed, you would think it was already a dead open-and-shut proposition that if the airyoplane was to break down anywheres between Trespassing and Europe, Mawruss, there would be waiting United States navy ships like taxi-cabs around the Hotel Knickerbocker, waiting to pick up this here Read before he even so much as got his feet wet, understand me. Yes, Mawruss, right across the whole page of the newspaper was strung the _Winthrop_, the _Farragut_, the _Cushing_, and other fellers' names up to the number of fourteen destroyers, and the way it looked on that map, there was a solid line of boats waiting to receive any falling airyoplane all the way from one side of the ocean to the other, whereas you know as well as I do, Mawruss, you can as much make both ends meet on the Atlantic Ocean with fourteen ships as a shipping-clerk with ten children can in New York City on a salary of eighteen dollars a week."

"I understand them ships was only fifty miles apart," Morris observed.

"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, "but if that airyoplane was to drop anywheres between the second and the forty-ninth mile, Mawruss, them ships might just as well have been stationed on the North River between Seventy-second and One Hundred and Thirtieth streets, Mawruss, for all the good it would have done this young feller Read. Also, Mawruss, if they would have had so many destroyers on the Atlantic Ocean that they would have run out of regular navy names for them and had to resort to the business directory so as to include the Acker, the Merrall, the Condit, the Rogers, the Peet, the Browning, the King, the Marshall, and the Field, in that collection of ships, Mawruss, that wouldn't of made this here Read's life a first-class insurable risk, neither."

"And being picked up by a destroyer ain't such a wonderful _Capora_, neither, y'understand," Morris said, "which they tell me that on one of them destroyers an admiral even couldn't last out as far as the Battery even without anyhow getting pale. Also, Abe, I couldn't see that it proved anything when this here Read had the good luck to arrive at Lisbon, except that he was a brave young feller and seemingly didn't care how much his family worried about him."

"That's what people have always said when anything new in the way of transportation was tried, Mawruss, but them people was never the ones that deposited the checks when the scheme begun to pay dividends some two or three years later," Abe retorted. "The world never made no advances with the assistance of the even-so and what-of-it fellers, which, when the king and queen of Spain raised a little money on the crown jewels, Mawruss, so that Christopher Columbus _olav hasholom_ could make the first trip across the Atlantic Ocean by water, Mawruss, the people which saw in it the first steps towards the _Aquitania_ and _Levinathan_ wasn't so plentiful, neither."

"Probably the feller which lent the money on the jewels wasn't so enthusiastic about it, at any rate," Morris declared, "because as first-class, A-number-one security for a loan, Abe, crown jewels 'ain't got very much of an edge on them sympathetic pearls which carries such a tremendous overhead for electric light in the store windows where they are displayed. Take, for instance, the Austrian crown jewels, Abe, and I see in the paper where for years and years everybody took the Austrian emperor's word for it that they contained more first-water diamonds than could be found in stocks of all the Fifth Avenue jewelers and Follies of from 1910 to 1919 chorus ladies combined, and the other day when the provisional government tried to sell them Austrian crown jewels to buy food for the starving Austrians, y'understand, for what was thought to be rubies, diamonds, and pearls weighing from twenty to a hundred carats apiece, Abe, they couldn't get an offer of as much as a bowl of crackers and milk."

"What do you suppose happened to the originals, Mawruss?" Abe asked.

"What _should_ of happened to them?" Morris asked, rhetorically. "I bet yer that not once, but hundreds of times, an Austrian emperor has taken one of the ladies of the Vienna Opera House ballet to the vaults of the Vienna Deposit and Storage Company and just to show her how much he thought of her, when she said, '_My, ain't that a gorgeous stone!_' he has said, '_Do you really like it?_' and pried it right out of its setting right then and there."

"And I also bet yer that when the ballet lady got a valuation on it the next day," Abe said, "the pawnbroker said to her, '_Ain't this a diamond which the Emperor pried out of his crown for you?_' and when she said, '_Yes_,' he says that the fixed loaning value of an imperial pried-out diamond was one dollar and eighty-five cents, and from that time on the ballet lady would be very much off all emperors."

"It seems to me that in all the other countries of the world where kings and emperors still hold on to their jobs, Abe, it wouldn't be a bad thing for the government to check up the crown jewels on them, in case of emergencies like revolutions or having to pay war indemnities," Morris remarked, "which I wouldn't be surprised if right now the German people is figuring on raising several million marks on the German crown jewels towards paying the first billion-dollar instalment of the war indemnity, and when the government appraiser gets ahold of them, he will turn in a report that they are not even using that kind of stuff in decorating soda-fountains even."

"In that case the German government will probably try to arrange a swop," Abe said, "trusting to luck that the Allied governments having agreed to take them crown jewels at the value placed on them by the kaiser, will not discover their real value until they've changed hands, Mawruss, in which event the German government will claim that the substitution took place after the Allies received them and did the Allies think they could get away with anything as raw as that."

"Even the Germans 'ain't got such a nerve," Morris commented.

"'Ain't they?" Abe retorted. "Well, how about the counter-claim they are now making for an indemnity of $3,048,300,000, _aus gerechnent_? Them Germans has got the nerve to claim anything that they think they've got the slightest chance of getting away with, Mawruss, so they stick in this indemnity which they say they ought to receive from the Allies because the blockade which the Allies kept up against Germany during the war caused such a shortage in food that one million less German children was born during that time."

"Three thousand and forty-eight dollars and thirty cents is a pretty high valuation to put on a German, and a new-born German at that," Morris commented. "You're sure that the three thousand and forty-eight dollars ain't a mistake? Because thirty cents sounds like the correct figures to me, Abe."

"The birth reduction ain't the only item in their bill, Mawruss," Abe continued. "They also claim that the blockade prevented the importing of rubber, camphor, and quinine."

"And I suppose they claim that tire trouble, moths, and malaria increased something terrible," Morris said. "Well, they're going to have just as hard a time proving that claim as Senator Reed would that Brazil is a nation of colored people, Abe."

"When did Senator Reed say that, Mawruss?" Abe asked.

"When he was arguing against the League of Nations, in the Senate the other day," Morris replied. "He said that there were fifteen white nations in the League and seventeen colored nations, and he reckoned Brazil in as one of the colored nations, probably because he confused the Brazil population with the Brazil nuts which are sometimes called nigger-toes, Abe. However, Abe, he also included Cuba as a colored nation, because he claimed that fifty per cent. of the population is colored."

"But the President of Cuba and the gentlemen which is running the Cuban government ain't colored people, Mawruss," Abe said.

"That don't make no difference to Senator Reed, Abe," Morris declared. "To Senator Reed, anything that's found alive in a stable is a horse, Abe; in fact, coming from Missouri, as Senator Reed does, considering the size of the colored population of that state, Senator Reed probably considers himself a colored man, because Senator Reed is perfectly honest in his opinions, Abe. When he argues that Cuba is a colored nation, he believes it, so, therefore, when he argues himself into being a colored man, he probably believes that he ain't quite so dark a colored man as Senator Vardaman, who comes from Mississippi, Abe, but only a light colored man, which is of course all nonsense, like Senator Reed's arguments. Senator Vardaman is a white man and Senator Reed is a white man and they are both of them as white as, but no whiter than, the President of Cuba and several million Brazilian gentlemen. But with Senator Reed it's a case of any argument is a good argument, so long as it is an argument against the League of Nations."

"But as I understand it Senator Vardaman ain't in the Senate no more," Abe said. "He got defeated last election."

"And the way he is heading, Abe," Morris said, "Senator Reed will join him next election, because, while nine times out of ten, when it comes to re-election, a United States Senator has got things pretty well sewed-up, _so_ sewed-up he couldn't have them, that he could make such foolish speeches on such an important matter. Furthermore, it don't make no difference how wise or how foolish the speeches which Senators makes against the League of Nations might be, Abe, it is going to go through, _anyhow_."

"What makes you think that?" Abe asked.

"Because I see where the National Democratic Committee met in Chicago the other day, and the chairman by the name Cummings threatened that if the Senate don't approve the League of Nations Covenant, Mr. Wilson would run for President again," Morris said.

"What do you mean--threatened?" Abe demanded. "You talk like Mr. Wilson running for President again was something to be scared about."

"I don't talk that way, but Mr. Cummings does," Morris said. "In fact, the Democratic National Committee, on the head of what Mr. Cummings said, passed a resolution that they were in favor of the prompt ratification by the Senate of the Treaty of Peace, including the League of Nations, so it would appear that the Democratic National Committee ain't so tickled about Mr. Wilson running again, neither."

"Well, if Mr. Wilson don't run again for President on the Democratic ticket, Mawruss, who will?" Abe inquired.

"I don't know, and, furthermore, I think that the Democratic National Committee is temporarily in the same condition about that proposition as Hawker and Grieve was about that cross-Atlantic proposition--also temporarily," Morris concluded, "I mean, up in the air."

XIX

THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES

"Outside of one poor night watchman _nebich_," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, "the only people which has really and truly suffered from the goings-on of them anarchists is the insurance companies, Mawruss."

"In a case like that, Abe, the insurance companies ain't liable under their policies," Morris said, "and they wouldn't got to pay no losses for the damage when them bombs done it to them buildings."

"Who said anything about the insurance companies paying losses?" Abe asked. "I am talking about the insurance companies paying lawyer bills, Mawruss, which I never read any of that part of my insurance policies that is printed in only such letters as could have been designed in the first place by them fellers you read about who go blind from engraving the whole of the Constitution of the United States on a ten-cent piece, y'understand, but I have no doubt, Mawruss, that it wouldn't make no difference if the loss was caused by anything so legitimate as throwing a lighted cigarette in a waste-paper basket, understand me, the only reason why an insurance company pays any losses at all is that they figure it's cheaper to let the policyholder have the money than the bunch of murderers they got representing them as their general counsel."

"No doubt you're right," Morris agreed, "but in these here bomb outrages Abe, the way the police 'ain't been able to get a clue to so much as a suspicious red necktie, y'understand, it looks as though this bomb-exploding was going to be such a regular amusement with anarchists as pinochle-playing is with clothing salesmen, understand me, so the insurance companies would got to make a stand, otherwise they would be paying for new stoops for the houses of anybody and everybody who ever said an unkind word in public about Lenine and Trotzky."

"It seems to me that the police ain't so smart like they once used to be, Mawruss," Abe remarked.

"No, nor never was," Morris said. "In fact, Abe, from the number of crimes which has got into the let-bygones-be-bygones stage with the police lately, clues ain't of no more use to them fellers at all. What them detectives need is that the criminal should leave behind him at the scene of the crime a line of snappy, up-to-date advertising containing his name, address, and telephone number, otherwise they seem to think they have the excuse that they couldn't be expected to perform miracles, and let it go at that."

"I see where right here in New York, Mayor Hylan puts the whole thing up to the newspapers," Abe observed. "He wrote to a friend the other day one of them strictly confidential letters with an agreement on the side to ring up the reporters as soon as it was delivered, y'understand, in which he said the reason why so many crimes was going undiscovered by the police was that the newspapers was unprincipled enough to print that a lot of crimes was going undetected by the police, understand me, and the consequence was that criminals read it and, relying on the fact that the police wouldn't catch them if they committed crimes, they went to work and committed crimes."

"And I suppose them criminals' confidence in the police wasn't misplaced, neither," Morris suggested.

"Not so far as I've heard," Abe said, "but even if the newspapers wouldn't of printed the information, Mawruss, why should Mayor Hylan assume that burglars don't write each other letters occasionally, or, anyhow, once in a while meet at lunch and talk over business matters?"

"Well, I've noticed that Mayor Hylan, Mayor Thompson, and a lot of other Mayors, Senators, and people which is all the time getting into the public eye in the same sense as cinders and small insects, Abe, always blames the newspapers for everything that goes wrong," Morris remarked, "because such people is always doing and saying things that when it gets into the newspaper sounds pretty rotten even to themselves, understand me, so therefore they begin to think that the newspaper is doing it deliberately, and consequently they get a grouch on against all newspapers."

"Sure, I know, Mawruss, but that don't excuse the police for not finding out who sent them bombs through the mails in the first place," Abe said. "It is now beginning to look, Mawruss, that the American police has begun to act philosophically about crooks, the way the American public has always done, and they shrug their shoulders and say, 'What are you going to do with a bunch of crooks like that?'"

"Well, in a way you can't blame the police for not catching them bomb-throwers, Abe," Morris said. "They've been so busy arresting people for violations of the automobile and traffic laws that they 'ain't hardly got time for nothing else, so you see what a pipe it is for criminals, Abe. All they have got to do is to keep out of automobiles and stick to street cars, and they can rob, murder, and explode bombs, and the police would never trouble them at all."

"But considering the number of people which gets arrested every day for things like having in their possession a bottle of schnapps, Mawruss, or smoking paper cigarettes in the second degree, or against the peace and dignity of the people of the State of Kansas or Virginia, and the statue in such case made and provided leaving a bottle of near-beer uncorked on the window-sill until it worked itself into a condition of being fermented or intoxicating liquor under section six sub-section (b) of the said act, y'understand, it is surprising to me that the police didn't by accident gather in anyhow _one_ of them anarchists, Mawruss," Abe said, "because, after all, Mawruss, it can't be that only respectable people violate all them prohibition, anti-cigarette, and anti-speeding laws, and that, outside of dropping bombs, anarchists is otherwise law-abiding."

"At the same time, Abe, I couldn't help feeling sorry for a policeman who would arrest an anarchist by accident, especially if he didn't carry any accident insurance, because the only way to avoid accidents in arresting anarchists is to take a good aim at a safe distance, and let somebody else search the body for packages," Morris declared.

"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I think the reason why them anarchists which explode bombs is never discovered, y'understand, ain't up to the police at all, but to the contractor which cleans up the scene of the explosion," Abe said. "If he would only instruct his workmen to sift the rubbish before they cart it away, they might anyhow find a collar-button or something, because next to windows, Mawruss, the most breakage caused by anarchistic bomb explosions is to anarchists."

"Still, there must be a lot of comparatively uninjured anarchists hanging around--anarchists with only a thumb or so missing which the police would be able to find if they really and truly used a little gumption, Abe," Morris said. "Also if they would keep their ears open, there must be lots of noises which now passes for gas-range trouble and which if investigated while the experimenter was still in the dancing and hand-flipping stage of agony, Abe, might bring to light some of the leading spirits in the chemical branch of the American anarchists. Then of course there is the other noises which sounds like gas-range troubles, and which on investigation proves to be speeches, Abe, and while it is probably true that you can't kill ideas by putting the people which owns up to them in jail, Abe, I for one am willing to take a chance and see how it comes out, because, after all, it ain't ideas which makes and explodes bombs, but the people which holds such ideas."

"Also, Mawruss," Abe said, "it is the people which holds such ideas that says you can't kill ideas by putting the people what holds them into jail, but just so soon as them people gets arrested, not only do they claim that they never held such ideas, but they deny that there even existed such ideas, and then the noise of the denials they are making is drowned out by the noise of the bombs which is being exploded according to the ideas they claim they don't hold, and that's the way it goes, Mawruss. The chances is that the mystery of who exploded them bombs will remain a mystery along with the mystery of how the Peace Treaty come into the possession of them New York interests in the form of a volume of three hundred and twenty pages, as Senator Lodge says it did."

"To me that ain't no mystery at all, Abe," Morris said. "The chances is that them New York interests, whatever they may be, Abe--and I got my suspicions, Abe--simply seen it in the Saturday edition of one of them New York papers which makes a specialty of book-advertising, an advertisement reading:

"THE PEACE TERMS"

READ ABOUT THEM

in this stirring, heart-touching romance. Get it, begin it; you'll read every word and wish there was more.

Would it be worth while to risk the happiness of all future time for the sake of four years of forbidden pleasure? With the frankness characteristic of him, William W. Wilson in his latest work tells what happens--economically and spiritually--to the nation who tried it.

"THE PEACE TERMS"

BY

WILLIAM W. WILSON

Author of _A Thousand Snappy Substitutes for May I Not_, etc.

30 Illustrations, 320 pages. $1.50 net.

AT ALL BOOK-STORES

so the New York interests give the office-boy three dollars and says to him he should go 'round to the news-stands in the nearest subway station and buy a couple of them books, y'understand, and for the remainder of the afternoon, y'understand, the members of the New York interests which 'ain't got their feet up on the desk reading them books, is asking the members which has if they 'ain't got nothing better to do with their time than to put it in reading a lot of nonsense like that, understand me."

"But who do you think published it, Mawruss?" Abe asked.

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "It is already over a month since the first edition of that Peace Treaty was handed to the German delegates, and what is a little thing like a copyright to them crooks when it comes to making a profit of ten cents a volume? I bet yer that Europe is already flooded with pirated editions of that Peace Treaty retailing at anywheres from twenty-five cents up, and yet them highwaymen claims that it is unacceptable to them. As a matter of fact, the German business man 'ain't found anything nearly so acceptable in a merchandising way since the time they began to imitate Gillette safety razors and Kodak cameras. They'll probably make enough of the Park Row and Ann Street peddling rights alone to pay the first instalment of the reparation indemnity, Abe."

"I see where Austria also finds the terms of the Peace Treaty which was handed to her unacceptable, Mawruss," Abe remarked.