Chapter VI: Part 6

"However, he has still got half of page thirteen and all of page fourteen to fill up, and the next day he lays for Mr. Lloyd George at the corner of the street and walks along beside him while he tells him he represents the _Interborough Magazine_, which on account of the young feller's American accent Mr. Lloyd George gets the idee at first that he is being asked for the price of a night's lodging, y'understand. So he tells the young feller that he should ought to be ashamed not to be fighting for his country. This brings them to the front door, and when Mr. Lloyd George at last finds out what the young feller really wants, understand me, he says, 'I 'ain't got no time to talk to you now,' which is practically everything the young feller needs to finish up his article.

"He sits up all night and writes a full account, as nearly as he could remember it, not having taken no notes at the time, of just what Mr. Lloyd George said about the 'Youth of the country and universal military service,' y'understand, and also how Mr. Lloyd George spoke at some length of the Cabinet Minister's life in war-times and what little opportunity it gave for meeting and conversing with friends, quoting Mr. Lloyd George's very words, which were, as the young feller distinctly recalled, 'Much as I would like to do so, I find myself quite unable to speak even to you at any greater length,' and that's the way them articles is written, Mawruss."

"I wonder how big the article would of been, supposing the young feller had really and truly talked to Mr. Lloyd George for, say, three to five minutes, Abe," Morris said.

"Then the article wouldn't have been an article no more, Mawruss," Abe concluded. "It would of been a book of four hundred pages by the name: _Lloyd George, The Cabinet Minister and the Man_. Price, two dollars net."

XXII

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON SAVING DAYLIGHT, COAL, AND BREATH

"It ain't a bad scheme at that, Mawruss," Abe Potash said as he laid down the paper which contained an editorial on daylight-saving. "The idee is to get a law passed by the legislature setting the clock ahead one hour in summer-time and get the advantage of the sun rising earlier and setting later so that you don't have to use so much electric light and gas, y'understand, because it's an old saying and a true one, Mawruss, that the sunshine's free for everybody."

"Except the feller in the raincoat business," Morris Perlmutter added.

"Also, Mawruss," Abe continued, evading the interruption, "there's a whole lot of people which 'ain't got enough will power to get up until their folks knock at the door and say it is half past seven and are they going to lay in bed all day, y'understand, which in reality when the clocks are set ahead, Mawruss, it would be only half past six."

"But don't you suppose that lazy people read the newspapers the same like anybody else, Abe?" Morris asked. "Them fellers would know just as good as the people which is trying to wake them up that it is only half past six under Section Two A of Chapter Five Fourteen of the Laws of Nineteen Eighteen entitled 'An Act to Save Daylight in the State of New York for Cities of the First, Second, and Third Classes,' y'understand, and they will turn right over and go on sleeping until eight o'clock, old style, which is two hours after the sun is scheduled to rise in the almanacs published by Kidney Remedy companies from information furnished by the United States government in Washington."

"Of course, Mawruss, I ain't such a big philosopher like you, y'understand," Abe said, "but so far as I could see it ain't going to do a bit of harm if you could get down-town one hour earlier in the summer-time, even though it is going to take an act of the legislature to do it."

"And it would also be a good thing if the legislature would pass an act making a half an hour for lunch thirty minutes long instead of ninety minutes, the way some people has got into the habit of figuring it, Abe," Morris retorted, "but, anyhow, that ain't here nor there. This is a republic, Abe, and if the people wants to kid themselves by putting the clock ahead instead of getting up earlier, Mawruss, the government could easy oblige them, y'understand, but not even the Kaiser and all his generals could make a law that would change the sun from being right straight overhead at twelve o'clock noon, Abe."

"Don't worry about the sun, Mawruss," Abe said. "The sun would stay on the job, war-times or no war-times. Nobody is trying to make laws to kid the sun into getting to work any earlier, Mawruss, but even with this war as an argument, there's a whole lot of people which would be foolish enough to claim pay for a time and a half for the first hour they worked if you was to alter your office hours so that they had to come down-town at seven instead of eight, although you did let them go home an hour earlier in the afternoon."

"Maybe they would," Morris said, "but it seems to me, Abe, that a great deal of time and money is wasted by legislatures making laws for unreasonable people. For instance, if you change the clocks to save time where are you going to stop? The next thing you know the legislature would be trying to save coal by changing the thermometer in winter so that the freezing-point from December first to March first would be forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and then when people living in houses situated in cities of the first, second, and third classes kept their houses up to a sixty-eight-degree new style, which was fifty-five degrees old style, they would be feeling perfectly comfortable under the statue in such case made and provided. Also legislatures would be making laws for the period of the sugar shortage, changing the dials on spring scales by bringing the pounds closer together, so that a pound of sugar would contain sixteen ounces new style, being equivalent to twelve ounces old style."

"It ain't a bad idea at that, Mawruss," Abe said.

"It wouldn't be if the same law provided for changing the size of teaspoons and cups, Abe," Morris said, "and even then there is no way of trusting a bowl of sugar to a sugar hog in the hopes that he wouldn't help himself to four or five spoonfuls, new style, being the equivalent of the three spoonfuls such a _Chozzer_ used to be put into his coffee before the passage of the sugar-spoon law, supposing there was such a law."

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But daylight is different from sugar. The idea is that people should use more of it, Mawruss."

"I am willing," Morris said; "but so far as I could see, there ain't going to be no more daylight after the law goes into effect than there was before, and as for setting the clock one hour ahead, anybody could do that for himself without the legislature passing a law about it."

"Say!" Abe protested. "Legislators don't get paid piece-work. They draw an annual salary, Mawruss; so if they went to pass a law about it, let them do a little something to earn their wages, Mawruss."

"Don't worry about them fellers not earning their wages, Abe," Morris said. "Legislators is like actors, so long as they got their names in the papers they don't care how hard they work, which if you was to allow them fellers to regulate the hours of daylight by legislation, Abe, so as to encourage lazy people to get up earlier, Abe, the first thing you know, so as to encourage aviators to fly higher, they would be passing an act suspending the laws of gravity for the period of the war."

"Well, I believe in that, too, Mawruss," Abe said. "Time enough we should have laws of gravity when we need them, but what is the use going round with a long face before we actually have something to pull a long face over? Am I right or wrong, Mawruss?"

"Tell me, Abe," Morris asked, "what do you think the laws of gravity is, anyhow? No Sunday baseball or something?"

"Well, ain't it?" Abe demanded.

"So that's your idee of the laws of gravity," Morris exclaimed.

"Say!" Abe retorted. "When I got a partner which is a combination of John G. Stanchfield, Judge Brandeis, and the feller what wrote _Hamafteach_, I should worry if I don't know every law in the law-books; so go ahead, Mawruss, I'm listening. What _is_ the laws of gravity?"

"The laws of gravity is this," Morris explained. "If you would throw a ball up in the air, why does it come down?"

"Because I couldn't perform miracles exactly," Abe replied, promptly.

"Neither could the legislature and also President Wilson," Morris said, "because even though you would understand the laws of gravity, which you don't, the baseball comes down according to the laws of gravity, and even though Mr. Wilson does understand the laws of supply and demand, y'understand, if he gets busy and sets a low price on coal, potatoes, wheat, or anything else that people is working to produce for a living and not for the exercise there is in it, y'understand, such people would leave off producing it and go into some other line where the prices ain't regulated."

"They would be suckers if they didn't," Abe commented.

"And the consequence would be that sooner or later, on account of such low prices, y'understand, everybody would have the price, but nobody would have the coal," Morris said, "and that is what is called the law of supply and demand. It ain't a law which was passed by any legislature, Abe. It's a law which made itself, like the law that if you eat too much you'll get stomach trouble, and if you spend too much you'll go broke, and you couldn't sidestep any of them self-made laws by consulting those high-grade crooks which used to specialize in getting million-dollar fees out of finding loopholes in the Interstate Commerce law and the Anti-trust laws, because there's no loopholes in the law of supply and demand."

"Might there ain't no loopholes in the law of supply and demand, maybe," Abe said; "but when Mr. Wilson gave the order to his Coal Administrator to lower the price of coal it's my idee that he was trying to punch a few loopholes in the law of The Public Be Damned, which while it was never passed by no legislature, Mawruss, it ain't self-made, neither, y'understand, but was made by the producer to do away with this here law of gravity, because under the law of The Public Be Damned prices goes up and they never come down, but they keep on going up and up according to that other law, the law of the Sky's the Limit, which no doubt a big philosopher like you, Mawruss, has heard about already."

"In the company of igneramuses, Abe," Morris said, "a feller could easy get a reputation for being a big philosopher, and not know such an awful lot at that."

"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe agreed, heartily; "but even admitting that you don't know an awful lot, Mawruss, there's something in what you say about this here law of supply and demand."

"Well, now that you indorse it, Abe, that makes it, anyhow, an argument," Morris commented.

"But it looks to me like one of them arguments that is pulled by the supply end to put something over on the demand end," Abe continued, "because President Wilson knows just so much about the law of supply and demand as the coal operators does, Mawruss, and when he fixed the price of coal you could bet your life, Mawruss, he made it an even break for the supply people as well as for the demand people."

"And what has all this got to do with setting the clock ahead one hour in summer, Abe, which was what you was talking about in the first place?" Morris demanded.

"Nothing, except that setting the clock ahead so as to save bills for gas and electric light and limiting the price of coal so as the public couldn't be gouged by the coal operators, so far as I could see, is two dead open and shut propositions, Mawruss," Abe said, "which of course I admit that I'm an ignorant man and don't know no more laws than a police-court lawyer, y'understand, but at the same time, Mawruss, I must got to say the way it looks to me it ain't the ignorant men which is blocking the speed of this war. For instance, who is it when Mr. Hoover wants to have millions of bushels wheat by using whole-wheat bread that says whole-wheat bread irritates the lining from the elementry canal? The ignorant man? _Oser!_ He don't know the elementry canal from the Panama Canal, and if he did he couldn't tell you whether elementry canals came lined with Skinner's satin or mohair or just plain unlined with the seams felled. Then, again, who is it that when _any_ order is made by the government which is meant to help along the war takes it like a personal insult direct from Mr. Wilson? The ignorant man? No, Mawruss, it's the feller which thinks that what's the use of having an education if you couldn't seize every opportunity of putting up an argument and using all the long words you've got in your system."

"All right, Abe," Morris said. "I'm converted. Rather as sit here and waste the whole morning I'm content that you should pass a law saving daylight if you want to."

"Don't do me no favors, Mawruss," Abe commented.

"And while you're about it, Abe," Morris concluded, "if you couldn't save it otherwise, have the legislature pass another law that people should save something else for the duration of the war which they ordinarily couldn't live without."

"What's that?" Abe asked.

"Breath," Morris said.

XXIII

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS WHY IS A PLAY-GOER?

"Did you see on the front page of all the newspapers this morning where Klaw & Erlanger has had another split with the Shuberts, Mawruss?" Abe Potash asked, one morning in February.

"Say," Morris Perlmutter replied, "I didn't even know they had ever made up since the time they split before, and, furthermore, Abe, I think that even if the most important news a feller in the newspaper business could get ahold of to print on his front page was an I.O.M.A. convention, instead of the greatest war in history, y'understand, he would be giving his readers a great big jolt compared with the thrill they get when they read about the troubles people has got in the show business."

"Maybe _you_ think so, Mawruss," Abe said, "but Klaw & Erlanger and the Shuberts don't think so, and when you consider that them two concerns control all the theayters in the United States and spends millions of dollars for advertising, Mawruss, a feller in the newspaper business don't show such poor judgment to give them boys a little space on the front page whenever they have their semi-annual split."

"Probably you're right, Abe," Morris said; "but if it was you and me that had a big fight on with our nearest competitors, Abe, advertising it in the newspapers would be the last thing we would be looking for."

"The garment business ain't the theayter business, Mawruss," Abe said. "For instance, being a defendant in a divorce suit don't get any one nowheres in the garment trade, because if a garment-manufacturer would have such a person working for him practically the only effect it would have on his business would be that he would be obliged to neglect it two or three times a day answering telephone inquiries from his wife as to just how he was putting in his time, y'understand, and so far as bringing customers into your place who want to see the lady you got working for you which all the scandal was printed about in the papers, Mawruss, it wouldn't make any difference _what_ the evidence was, you couldn't get your trade interested to the extent even of their coming in to snoop with no intentions to buy, y'understand. But you take it in the theayter business and big fortunes has been made out of rotten plays simply because the theayter-going public wanted to see if the leading lady looked like the pictures which was printed of her in the papers at the time the court denied her the custody of the child, understand me."

"Then you think that there's going to be a big rush on the theayters controlled by Klaw & Erlanger and the Shuberts on account people has been reading in the papers about their scrapping again, Abe?" Morris inquired.

Abe shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think nothing of the kind, Mawruss," Abe said; "but there's a whole lot of fellers in the theayter business which have stories printed about themselves in the Sunday papers where it tells how they used to was in business and finally worked their way into the theayter business and what is their favorite luncheon dish, y'understand, till you would think that the reason people went to see plays was because the manager formerly run a clothing-store in Milwaukee, Wis., and is crazy about liver and bacon, Southern style."

"That would be, anyhow, as good a reason as because the leading lady's home life didn't come up to her husband's expectations," Morris commented.

"Well, no matter for what reason people do it, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "buying tickets for a show is as big a gamble as a home-cooked Welsh rabbit, in especially if you try to go by the advertisements. For instance, in to-day's paper there is three shows advertised as the biggest hit in town, four of them says they got more laughs in them than any other show in town, and there are a lot of assorted 'Biggest Hits in Years,' 'Biggest Hits Since the "Music Master,"' and 'Biggest Hits in New York,' so what chance does an outsider stand of knowing which advertisements is O.K. and which is just pushing the stickers?"

"The plan that I got is never to go on a theayter till the show has been running for at least three months, Abe," Morris advised.

"But if everybody else followed the same plan, Mawruss," Abe commented, "what show is going to run three months?"

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "There would always be plenty of nosy people in New York City which 'ain't got no more to do with their money than to find out if what the crickets has got to say in the newspapers about the new plays is the truth or just kindness of heart, y'understand."

"From what I know of newspaper crickets, Mawruss," Abe said, "when they praise a show they may be mistaken, but they're never kind-hearted."

"If a play runs three months, Abe, it don't make no difference to me whether the newspaper crickets praised it because they had kind hearts or knocked it because they had stomach trouble," Morris said, "I am willing to risk my two dollars, _anyhow_."

"Maybe it would be better all around, Mawruss, if the newspaper crickets printed what they think about a play the day after it closes instead of the day after it opens," Abe observed, "and then they might have something to go by. As it is, a whole lot of newspaper crickets is like doctors which says there is absolutely nothing the matter with the patient only ten days before the automobile cortege leaves his late residence."

"But there is more of them like doctors which says that the patient may live two days and he may live two weeks, y'understand, and four weeks later he is put in Class One and leaves for Camp Upton with the next contingent," Morris said. "Take even 'Hamlet,' Abe, which I can remember since 'way before the Spanish war already, and I bet yer when that show was put on there was some crickets which said that John Drew or whoever it was which first took 'Hamlet' did the best he could with a rotten part and headed the article, 'John Drew scores in dull play at Fifty-first Street Theater.'"

"Even so, Mawruss," Abe said, "that wouldn't feaze J.H. Woods or whoever the manager was which first put on 'Hamlet,' because we would say, for example, that the cricket of the New York _Star-Gazette_ said, 'Hamlet' would be an A-number-one play if it had been written by a pants-presser in his off moments, but as the serious work of a professional play-designer it ain't worth a moment's consideration; also the cricket of the New York _Record_ says, From the liberal applause at the end of the third act 'Hamlet' might have been the most brilliant drama since 'The Easiest Way' instead of a play full of clack-trap scenes and which will positively meet the _capora_ it deserves, y'understand. Furthermore, Mawruss, we would say that every other paper says the same thing and also roasts the play, y'understand, so what does this here Woods do? Does he lay right down and notify the operators that under the by-laws of the Actors' Union they should please consider that they have received the usual two weeks' notice that the show will close the next night? _Oser a Stueck!_ The next day he puts in every paper for two hundred and twenty-five dollars an advertisement:

FIFTY-FIRST STREET THEATER J.H. WOODS ..... LESSEE J.H. WOODS PRESENTS 'HAMLET' THE SEASON'S SENSATION!

An A-number-one play.--_New York Star-Gazette._

Most brilliant drama since 'The Easiest Way.'--_New York Record._

John Drew scores heavily.--_New York Evening Moon._"

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said; "while I admit that the theayter crickets is smart fellers and knows all about the rules and regulations for writing plays, y'understand, so that they can tell at a glance during the first performance if the audience is laughing in violation of what is considered good play construction or crying because the show is sad in a spot where a play shouldn't ought to be sad if the man who wrote it had known his business, y'understand, still at the same time theayter crickets is to me in the same class with these here diet experts. Take a dinner which one of them diet experts approves of, Abe, and the food is O.K., the kitchen is clean, the cooking is just right as to time and temperature of the oven, there's the proper proportions of water and solids, and in fact it's a first-class A-number-one meal from the standpoint of every person which has got anything to do with it, excepting the feller which eats it, and the only objection _he's_ got to it is that it tastes rotten."

"And that would be quite enough to put a restaurant out of business if it served only good meals according to the opinion of diet experts, Mawruss, because diet experts don't buy meals, Mawruss, they only inspect them," Abe commented.

"And even if theayter crickets did pay for their tickets, Abe," Morris continued, "there ain't enough of them to support one of these here little theayters which has got such a small seating-capacity that neither the exits nor the kind of plays they put on has to comply with the fire laws, y'understand. But that ain't here or there, Abe. A theayter cricket is a cricket and not an appraiser, y'understand. He goes to a play to judge the play and not the prospective box-office receipts, Abe, and if on account of his knocking a play which would otherwise make money for the manager and do a lot of harm to the people which goes to the theayter, such a show is put out of business, Abe, then the theayter cricket has done a good job."

"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe said. "But it's just as likely to be the other way about, which you take these here shows the crickets gets all worked up over because they are written by foreigners from Sweden, Mawruss, where a married woman gets to feeling that her husband, her home, and her children ain't exciting enough, y'understand, so she either elopes or commits suicide, understand me, and many a business man has come to breakfast without shaving himself on the day after taking his wife to see such a show and caught her looking at him in an awful peculiar way, y'understand. Then there is other shows which crickets thinks a whole lot of, where a young feller which couldn't get down to business and earn a decent living puts it all over the man who has been financially successful, y'understand, and plenty of young fellers which gets home all hours of the night and couldn't hold a job long enough to remember the telephone number of the firm they work for, comes away from the show feeling that they ain't getting a square deal from their father who has never done a thing to help them in all this life except to feed, clothe, and educate them for twenty-odd years."

"Well, such plays anyhow make you think, Abe," Morris said. "Whereas, when you come away from one of them musical pieces, what do you have to show for it, Abe?"

"A good night's rest, Mawruss," Abe said, "which no one never laid awake all night wondering if his wife or his son has got peculiar notions about not being appreciated from seeing this here Frank Tinney talking to the feller that runs the orchestra in the Winter Garden, Mawruss."

"Then what is your idee of a good show, anyway?" Morris inquired.

"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss, a good show is a show which you got to pay so much money to a speculator for a decent seat, y'understand, that you couldn't enjoy it after you get there," Abe concluded. "And that is a good show."

XXIV

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS SOCIETY--NEW YORK, HUMAN, AND AMERICAN

"I seen Max Feinrubin in the Subway this morning," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter. "He broke two fingers on his left hand last week."

"Why don't he let the shipping-clerk do up the packing-cases?" Morris commented.

"He didn't break his hand on no packing-case," Abe said.

"Well, what _did_ he break it on, then?" Morris asked.

"The shipping-clerk," Abe replied, "which the feller said that this war is a war over property, and every nation that is in it is just as bad as Germany, so Feinrubin asked him did he claim that the United States was just as bad as Germany and he said 'Yes,' and afterward he said that Feinrubin would hear from him later through a lawyer."

"And that is how Feinrubin broke his two fingers," Morris said.

"Well, as a matter of fact, up to that point Feinrubin had only broke one finger, Mawruss," Abe said, "but just before the shipping-clerk went out of the door he said that President Wilson was an enemy to Society, so Feinrubin broke the other finger."

"Serves Feinrubin right," Morris said. "There he was in his own shipping-room with hammers and screw-drivers laying around, and he has to break his fingers yet."

"You probably would've done the same thing," Abe retorted, "if we would got for a shipping-clerk a Socialist who puts up such arguments."

"Well, I don't know," Morris said. "A Socialist would naturally say that this is a war over property because it don't make no difference if it would be a war, an earthquake, a cyclone, or a blizzard, to a Socialist all such troubles is property troubles, just as to a stomach specialist every pain is appendicitis, so if our shipping-clerk would give me a line of argument like that, Abe, instead I would break my fingers on him, y'understand, I would simply dock him fifty cents as an argument that if he wants to talk socialism, he should talk it in his own time and not mine."

"But the feller had no business to tell Feinrubin that President Wilson was an enemy to Society," Abe protested.

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "For that matter I am an enemy to Society, too."

"Never mind," Abe declared. "Lots of Society fellers which never done a day's work in their lives has gone down to Washington to give the country the benefit of their experience, Mawruss, and it's surprising how many Society ladies is also turning right in and giving up their time to the Red Cross and so forth."

"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But there is lots of them which don't, Abe, and you take it on a cold Sunday in February when the superintendent of the apartment-house where you live is keeping the temperature of your flat below sixty-eight degrees by not letting it get up to fifty, y'understand, and it would make a Bolshevik out of the president of a first national bank to see Mrs. J. Van Rensselaer-This and Mrs. H. Twombley-The Other on the front page of the illustrated Sunday supplement, photographed at Pallum Beach on Lincoln's Birthday in practically a pair of stockings apiece, y'understand, which if them people want to wear clothes in Florida that if any one wore them around New York if they didn't get arrested they would anyhow get pneumonia, y'understand, that's _their_ business, Abe, but what I don't understand is, why should they want to advertise it?"

"Well, what is the use of being in Society if you couldn't rub it in on people who ain't?" Abe asked.

"But this is a democracy, Abe," Morris said, "so who cares if he is in Society or not?"

"Don't fool yourself, Mawruss," Abe said. "There wouldn't be no object for Society ladies to advertise that they are in Society if they didn't know that reading such an advertisement would make a whole lot of people feel sore which wants to get into Society, but couldn't."

"And such people calls themselves Americans?" Morris said.

"They not only calls themselves Americans, but they _are_ Americans," Abe said. "Which the main talking points of any one who advertises that they are in Society, whether they do it through publicity in the newspapers, by marrying or dying, y'understand, is that the bride or the deceased, as the case may be, was a descendant of Txvee van Rensselaer Ten Eyck who came in America in sixteen fifty-three and that another great-great-grandfather opened the first ready-to-wear-clothing factory on the American continent in sixteen sixty-six."

"Of course, Abe, you may be right," Morris said, "but it seems to me I read it somewheres how a whole lot of people which is now in Society qualified by settling in Pittsburg along about the time Judge Gary first met Andrew Carnegie."

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But millionaires can get into Society on a cash basis, _nunc pro tunc_, as of May first, sixteen twenty, as the lawyers say, Mawruss, which if a lady is trying to butt into Society on the grounds that her great-great-grandfather, Hyman de Peyster van Rensselaer, _olav hasholom_, came over on the _Mayflower_ and bought all the land on which the town of Hockbridge, Mass., now stands from the Indians in sixteen sixty-six for two hundred dollars, y'understand, it wouldn't do her chances a bit of harm if her husband came over on the White Star Line, third class, just so long as he bought U.S. Steel when it was down to thirty and a quarter in nineteen five and held on to it till it touched one hundred and twenty, y'understand."

"Then what used to was the 'four hundred' must have added a whole lot of ciphers to it in the last few years, Abe," Morris commented.

"Ciphers is right," Abe said. "But that four-hundred figure is a thing of the past along with the population of Detroit before the invention of the automobile, Mawruss, and I guess, nowadays, Society must be running the Knights of Pythias and the Royal Arcanum pretty close on the size of its membership, Mawruss."

"For my part, Abe," Morris said, "I would just as lieve join either of them societies in preference to Society. Take, for instance, these here Vanderbilts which they have been in Society for years already, and what benefit do they get from it? It isn't like as if one of them would be in the wholesale clothing business, for instance, and could get a friend to use his influence with a retailer by saying: 'Mr. Goldman, this is my friend, Mr. Vanderbilt. Him and me was in Society for years, already, and anything in his line you could use would be a personal favor to me,' because any connection with the clothing business, wholesale or retail, bars you out of Society unless the Statue of Limitations has run against it for at least four generations."

"Still, it's a big help to be in Society for certain businesses, Mawruss," Abe said. "Take it in our line, Mawruss, and a feller which was in Society could make a fortune duplicating for the popular-price trade an expensive line of garments such as you would be apt to see at an affair which was run off by somebody 'way up in Society."

"That ain't a bad idee, neither, Abe," Morris said; "and then, Abe, instead of people asking what is the big idee when they see a picture of Mrs. Yosel van Rensselaer Lydig in the illustrated Sunday supplement they could read on it, 'Our Leader--the Mrs. Yosel van Rensselaer Lydig gown; regular sizes, nine fifty; stouts, ten dollars,' which there is no use letting all that good publicity going to waste, Abe, so if a garment-manufacturer couldn't utilize it, a cigar wholesaler could vary his line of cigars called after actresses by naming one of them 'The Mrs. Yosel van Rensselaer Lydig, a mild and aromatic three-for-a-quarter smoke for five cents.'"

"I'm afraid Society people wouldn't be willing to stand for such a thing even in war-times, Mawruss," Abe said.

"Well, I only make the suggestion, Abe, because some states has already passed laws compelling everybody to find a job for the duration of the war, y'understand," Morris said, "and if the courts should hold that sitting on the sand at Pallum Beach and having a photograph taken ain't holding a job within the meaning of the statue in such cases made and provided, Abe, maybe the addition of a little advertising matter to the picture would be enough to keep some Society lady out of jail on the ground that she is working as a model for advertising pictures, y'understand, although, for my part, Abe, I am willing to see anybody who tries to get publicity as a Society person go to jail whether they work or not."

"Why so?" Abe asked.

"Because such publicity is only the start, Abe," Morris said. "It is the first stages of what is the trouble in Germany to-day yet. For years already the Society fellers of Germany, headed by the chief Society feller of Germany, the Kaiser, has been getting their pictures into the paper dressed in soldiers' uniforms till it got to be firmly fixed in the minds of people which wasn't Society fellers that the latest up-to-the-minute idee was wearing a soldier's uniform. Also, Abe, along with such publicity goes the idee that anything Society fellers does is O.K., and it is this just-watch-our-smoke advice of the German Society fellers to the poor German people, _nebich_, which has changed the motto of Germany from '_Hei-lie! Hei-lio! Hei-lie! Hei-lio! Bei uns, geht's immer so!_' to '_Deutschland, Deutschland ueber Alles_,' and that is what brought on the war, Abe."

"You mean to say that when Mrs. Mosha van Rensselaer has her picture taken at Pallum Beach the intention is the same as when the Kaiser used to got printed a photograph of himself as colonel of the One Hundred and First Pomeranian Regiment."

"Toy Pomeranian or regular size, Abe," Morris said, "it don't make no difference, the intention in both cases was to get publicity for the fact that the sitter was a leader of Society, Abe, and so far as the Kaiser was concerned, he soon got the idee that just as the Kaiser was the leader of Society of Germans, y'understand, so Germany was the leader of the Society of Nations, and therefore that Germany should have the biggest army, the biggest navy, the biggest colonies, and the biggest territory."

"And she's going to get the biggest licking, Mawruss," Abe interrupted.

"She's got it coming to her," Morris said, "and then when we've showed Germany that she ain't such an international Society leader like she thought she was, y'understand, the Germans which was rank outsiders in Germany Society is going to look up a lot of old illustrated Sunday supplements, and when the trial comes off before the Berlin County Court of General Sessions the district attorney is going to offer in evidence that well-known picture of the Kaiser and his six sons, and, without leaving the box, the jury will find a verdict of guilty of being German Society leaders in the first degree. Also, Abe, pictures will turn up of one of the Kaiser's hunting parties, and only the people which couldn't be identified on account of being at the edge of the photograph will escape."

"But you don't think anything like that would happen to our Society fellers, Mawruss?" Abe said.

"I think they're perfectly safe for the next hundred years or so, Abe," Morris said, "but, just the same, they should take example by the Society leaders over in Russland, and learn to drink coffee from the saucer and eat with the knife while there is still time."

XXV

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS THIS HERE INCOME TAX

"Didn't I beg you that you shouldn't give to a lawyer that claim against Immerglick which we had for the money we loaned him five years ago?" Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as he pored over form 1040, revised January, 1918, which bore in large black letters the heading, "INDIVIDUAL INCOME-TAX RETURN FOR CALENDAR YEAR 1917."

"Ten hundred and fifty dollars he paid us, and now I don't know should I stick it under A, B, C, D, E, or F."

"I suppose you would rather see Immerglick get away with the whole sum as pay eight per cent. of it to the government," Morris commented.

"I would give the government not only eight per cent., but eighteen per cent., Mawruss, if they would only send round their representative and fill out this here paper themselves, and leave me in peace," Abe said. "I 'ain't done nothing for a month now but write down figures on this rotten blank and scratch them out again, and what is going to be the end of it I don't know."

"All the government asks of you, Abe, is to be honest," Morris said.

"Sure, I know," Abe replied. "But to be honest about fixing up this here income-tax return, Mawruss, you've got to be a lawyer, a certified public accountant, a mind-reader, and one of these here handwriting experts who knows how to write the whole of the Constitution of the United States on the back of a two-cent stamp, which take, for instance, 'N. CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS, &C. (Enter below name and address of each organization and amount paid to each),' and while I 'ain't given away a million dollars to charity in nineteen seventeen exactly, I can see where next year when somebody comes round to _schnoor_ from me five dollars for the Bella Hirshkind Home for Aged and Indignant Females in the Borough of the Bronx, City of New York, y'understand, he's going to get turned down on the grounds that Mr. McAdoo only provided three lines for all charitable contributions and I'm saving them up for the Red Cross, the S.P.C.A., and one orphan asylum with an awful short name."

"Did it occur to you that you could give the Bella Hirshkind Home four dollars and sixty cents and leave it out of your income-tax return altogether?" Morris suggested.

"Listen!" Abe said. "I ain't trying to invent ways of getting around what looks like the only good feature of this here income-tax return, Mawruss. If Mr. McAdoo or President Wilson or whoever it was that fixed up this here paper thought that the average man didn't need more as three lines to put down his charities in, Mawruss, who am I that I should set my opinion up against theirs? Am I right or wrong?"

"Well, for that matter, Abe," Morris said, "if you are up against it for space to fill in about the Bella Hirshkind Home, how many lines did Mr. McAdoo leave me to write in about you and Feigenbaum?"

"Me and Feigenbaum?" Abe repeated.

"Sure!" Morris said. "The time you and him had the argument should it be pronounced Bol_shev_iki or Bolshe_vee_ki."

"Well, I was right, wasn't I?" Abe demanded.

"Certainly you were right," Morris replied. "But the question is, do I put in the fifteen-hundred-dollar order he canceled on us under 'EXPLANATION OF LOSSES OF BUSINESS PROPERTY' or under 'J. GENERAL DEDUCTIONS NOT REPORTED ON PAGE THREE'?"

"Put it in the same place where I would put the money which I lost from having got it a partner which wastes dollars' and dollars' worth of time on me every day by arguing about things which arguing couldn't help," Abe advised. "Because with this here income-tax proposition, Mawruss, if you are going to waste so much time arguing about what you have lost that you couldn't be able to remember by April first what you made, y'understand, you would lose in addition a thousand dollars more and fifty per cent. of the amount of the tax due, and you couldn't have the consolation of blaming it on your partner, neither."

"It seems to me, Abe," Morris commented, "that the government makes a big mistake limiting you to April first, because I already figured my income tax out six times and it comes to a hundred dollars more every time, which if they would only give me till, say, the first of August, y'understand, I might be able to figure it out a couple dozen times more and pay the government some real big money."

"With me, Mawruss," Abe said with a sigh, "sometimes it's more and sometimes it's less, but it only goes to show how if a business man is going to have such a big difference of opinion with himself, Mawruss, what kind of a difference of opinion is he going to have with the collector of internal revenue? So I guess the only thing for me to do is to start all over again and this time I'll multiply the result by two, because if I've got to pay anything extra to the government, y'understand, I'd just as lieve do it without getting indicted first."

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "If they started in to indict everybody which is going to figure up their income tax wrong this year, Abe, the government would got to draft a couple of million grand-jurymen, and then lay off the workers on cantonments and put them to building jails."

"And labor is scarce enough as it is, Mawruss, when you figure the hundreds of thousands of sitsons of this country which has been taken out of active business life during the past sixty days while they were engaged in making up their income-tax returns," Abe said.

"Well, that will simplify things a whole lot next year, Abe," Morris declared, "particularly in the excessive-profits department, because owing to the time they spent in doping out what excessive profits they had last year, the business men of the country won't have any profits this year, excessive or otherwise."

"I should only make enough this year to pay a certified public accountant for fixing up my income-tax return next year, Mawruss, and I shall be satisfied," Abe said, "because who could tell, maybe next year, Mawruss, the government wouldn't stop at wanting to know what your income is and how you made it, but would also insist on knowing how you spent it after it was made, which if business is so bad next year on account of the war, Mawruss, it may be that the government, finding that they couldn't raise enough money with an income tax and an excessive-profits tax, will pass a law calling for a personal-extravagance tax."

"They could get a lot of revenue that way," Morris admitted.

"Yes, and they could get it coming and going," Abe said. "Take, for instance, the hotel and restaurant hat-check business, which I seen it in the papers that a partnership of hat-checkers got into a dissolution lawsuit the other day, and it come out that they made a quarter of a million dollars profit in less than five years, y'understand. Now in a case like that, Mawruss, the government couldn't tax them robbers an additional eight per cent., because hat-checking ain't a profession under 'A. INCOME FROM PROFESSIONS,' any more than burglary is. Neither could the government soak them highwaymen for an excessive-profits tax, because hat-checking ain't a business with an invested capital, not unless you count as capital, _Chutzpah_, gall and a nerve like a rhinoceros. So the only way the government could collect on tips to hat-checkers would be to tax the tipper fifty per cent. and put it up to the hat-checker to collect it at the source from the feller who is foolish enough to give up his money that way."

"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But that wouldn't be a personal-extravagance tax, Abe. That's what I would call a tax on personal cowardice. It's the kind of a tax the government could soak a feller which 'ain't got enough backbone to say 'No' when a head waiter suggests celery and olives at seventy-five cents a throw."

"Whatever it is, I'm in favor of it, Mawruss," Abe said. "Also it should ought to be collected from the feller who lets the barber get away with ten cents extra for a teaspoonful of hair tonic, and as for face massages, there should be a flat rate of five dollars for each offense."

"_Aber_ don't you think that a face massage is its own punishment, Abe?" Morris asked.

"So is attempting suicide," Abe said. "But people go to jail for it, Mawruss."

"Well, anyhow, before the government goes to work and taxes people for that part of their income which they spend foolishly, Abe," Morris said, "they should get busy under the present income-tax law and prevent anybody from getting away with anything under 'J. GENERAL DEDUCTIONS' by claiming a drawback or bad debts arising out of personal loans, which the government is losing thousands and thousands of dollars on many a week-kneed business man who knew when he loaned the money to his wife's relations that he would never even have the nerve enough to ask them to renew their notes even. Then there is other business men which has got a lot of customers on their books who couldn't get credit except by paying such a high price for their goods that if they bust up there would still be a profit, even if they settled for thirty cents on the dollar, and when them business men start to make up their income-tax returns they don't hesitate for a moment to charge off the balance under 'B. BAD DEBTS ARISING FROM SALES (See instructions).'"

"I suppose such business men clears their consciences with the thought that if they had lost the money legitimately playing pinochle, Mawruss, the government wouldn't let them deduct a cent," Abe suggested. "And in a way, Mawruss, they are right, because while you couldn't charge off pinochle losses, I understand Mr. McAdoo holds that you've got to pay income tax on pinochle profits."

"That only goes to show how much Mr. McAdoo knows about pinochle, Abe," Morris said, "because unless, _Gott soll huten_, a feller should drop dead immediately after he cashes in his chips, y'understand, money which you win at pinochle ain't an asset, Abe, it's a loan, and sooner or later you are going to pay it back with interest."

"_You_ argue with Mr. McAdoo!" Abe advised him. "Why, as I understand it, if you are having the game up at your own house, Mawruss, and you happen to draw out ahead you ain't even allowed to deduct nothing for electric light and the delicatessen supper, so strict the government is."

"But do you mean to say that if you have a regular Saturday-night pinochle game and you make a few dollars one Saturday night and drop it the next and so forth, Abe, that the government wouldn't allow you to deduct your losings from your winnings?" Morris asked.

"That's the idee," Abe said. "When you cash in at the end of each game, Mawruss, that constitutes a separate transaction under 'H. OTHER INCOME (including income from partnerships, fiduciaries, except that reported under E, F, and G),' and you don't get no allowances for nothing."

"Well, that settles it," Morris said. "For the fiscal year January first, nineteen eighteen, to December thirty-first, nineteen eighteen, I play pinochle two-handed with my wife, Abe, and then I've always got the come-back that I answered 'No' to question eight, 'Did your wife (or husband) or dependent children derive income from sources independent of your own?'"

"I don't think that Mr. McAdoo would hold that you've got to report money which you win from your wife," Abe said.

"Why not?" Morris asked.

"Because Mr. McAdoo is a married man himself, Mawruss, and he knows that such moneys ain't income," Abe concluded. "They're paper profits, and you never collect on them."

THE END