Explosions91.31416%Gun-shot wounds, including revolvers, air-rifles, machine-guns, cannons, armored tanks, torpedoes, and unclassified8.99999Knife wounds, including razors, cold chisels, pickaxes, and cloth and grass cutting apparatus0.563Natural causes, including hardening of the arteriesa trace."
"What do you mean—natural causes?" Morris said. "When a revolutionist dies a natural death, it's a pure accident."
"Did I say it wasn't?" Abe said. "But at the same time some Russian revolutionists lives longer than others, because being a Russian revolutionistis more or less a matter of training. Take this here feller which is now conducting the Russian revolution under the name of Trotzky, and used to was conducting a New York trolley-car under the name of Braunstein, y'understand, and when the time comes—which itwillcome—when his offices will be surrounded by a mob of a hundred thousand Russian working-men and soldiers, understand me, all that this here TrotzkyaliasBraunstein will do is to shout 'Fares, please,' and he'll go through that crowd of working-men like a—well, like a New York trolley-car conductor going through a crowd of working-men."
"From what is happening in Mexico and Russia," Morris observed, "it seems that when a country gets a revolution on its hands it's like a feller with a boil on his neck. He's going to keep on having them until he gets 'em entirely out of his system."
"Well, Russia has had such an awful siege of them," Abe said, "that you would think she was immune by this time."
"It's the freedom breaking out on her," Morris said.
"It seems, however," said Abe, "that in Russia there are as many kinds of freedom as there are fellers that want a job running a revolution. There was the Kerensky brand of freedom which was quite popular for a while; then Korniloff tried to market another brand of freedom and made a failure of it, and now Trotzky and Lenine are putting out the T. and L. Brand of Self-risingFreedom in red packages, and seem to be doing quite a good business, too."
"Sure I know," Morris agreed. "But you would think that freedom was freedom and that there could be no arguments about it, so why the devil do them poor Russian working-men go on fighting each other, Abe?"
"They want an immediate peace with Germany," Abe said, "and the way it looks now, they would still be fighting each other for an immediate peace with Germany ten years after the war is over, because if them Russian working-men was to get an immediate peaceimmediately, Mawruss, they would have to go to work again, and you know as well as I do, Mawruss, the very last thing that a Russian working-man thinks of, y'understand, is working."
"Well in a way, you couldn't blame the Russians for what is going on in Russland, Abe," Morris said. "For years already the Socialists has been telling them poorNebicheswhat a rotten time the working-men hadbeforethe social revolution, y'understand, and what a good time the working-man is going to haveafterthe social revolution, understand me, but what kind of a time the working-man would haveduringthe social revolution,THATthe Socialists left for them poor Russians to find out for themselves, and when those working-men who come through it alive begin to figure the profit and loss on the transaction, Abe, the whole past life of one of those Socialist leaders is going to flash before his eyesjust before the drop falls, y'understand, and one of his pleasantest recollections—if you can call recollections pleasant on such an occasion—will be the happy days he spent knocking down fares on the Third and Amsterdam Avenue cars."
"Then I take it you 'ain't got a whole lot of sympathy for the Socialists, Mawruss," Abe said.
"Not since when I was a greenhorn I used to work at buttonhole-making, and I heard a Socialist feller on East Houston Street hollering that under a socialistic system the laborer would get the whole fruits of his labor," Morris said. "Pretty near all that night I lay awake figuring to myself that if I could make twelve buttonholes every ten minutes, which would be seventy-two buttonholes an hour or seven hundred and twenty buttonholes a day, Abe, how many buttonholes would I have in a year under a socialistic system, and after I had them, what would I do with them? The consequence was, I overslept myself and came down late to the shop next morning, and it was more than two days before I found another job."
"Well, that ain't much of an argument against socialism," Abe remarked.
"Not to most people it wouldn't be, but it was an awful good argument to me, and I really think it saved me from becoming a Socialist," Morris said.
"You a Socialist!" Abe exclaimed. "How could a feller like you become a Socialist? I belong to the same lodge with you now for ten years, and in all that time you've never had nerveenough to get up and say even so much as 'I second the motion.'"
"But there are two classes of Socialists, Abe—talkers and the listeners, and while I admit the talkers are in the big majority, the work of the listeners is just so important. They are the fellers which try out the ideas of the talkers, the only difference being that while such talkers as Herr Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg gets a lot of publicity out of going to jail for handing out socialistic ideas, y'understand, the funerals which the listeners get for trying such ideas out are very, very private."
"At that, them talking Socialists which is taking shifts with each other in running the Russian government must be putting in a pretty busy time, Mawruss, because there's a whole lot of detail to such a job, and while past experience as a street-car conductor may give the necessary endurance, it don't help out much when it comes to systematizing the day's work of a Russian dictator. For instance, we would say that he goes into office at nine o'clock with the help of the One Hundred and First Kazan Regiment, six companies of Cossacks, and the Tenth Poltava Separate Company of Machine-Gunners. After making a socialistic address to the survivors he washes off the blood and puts on a clean collar, or, in the case of a Bolsheviki dictator, he only washes off the blood.
"The next thing on the program is to ring up a few flag and bunting concerns and ask for representatives to call about taking an order for a fewnational flags. They arrive half an hour later, and after making a socialistic address, y'understand, he picks out a design for immediate delivery, because even a few hours' delay will make a design for a Russian national flag as big a sticker as a nineteen-ten-model runabout.
"When he's got the flag off his mind he next interviews the Russian composers, Glazounow, Borodine, Arensky, and Scriabine, and after making a socialistic address he invites them they should submit a new national anthem, the only requirements being that it should contain a reference to the fact that under the old competitive system the working-man did not receive the whole fruits of his labor, and that delivery should be made not later than twelve-thirtyP.M.He then goes over to the mint to decide upon models for a new gold coinage and to confiscate as much of the old one as they have on hand. After making a socialistic address to the director of the mint and his staff, y'understand, he agrees that the old, clean-shaven Kerensky designs shall be altered by adding whiskers, because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, when it comes to the portrait on a gold coin, nobody is going to take it so particular about the likeness not being so good as long as it ain't plugged.
"He then goes back to his office and prepares a socialistic address to be delivered to the duma, a socialistic address to be delivered to the army, and three or four more socialistic addresses with the names in blank for use in case of emergency,"Abe continued, "and so one way or another he is kept busy right up to the time when word comes that his successor has just left Tsarskoe-Seloe with the Thirty-second Nijni-Novgorod Infantry and a regiment composed of contingents from the Ladies' Aid Society of the First Universalist Church of Minsk, Daughters of the Revolution of Nineteen five, the Y.W.H.A., and the Women's City Club of Odessa. Twenty minutes later he is on board a boat bound for Sweden, and after looking up theGanevesin his state-room he comes up on deck and spends the rest of the trip making socialistic addresses to the crew, the passengers, and the cargo."
"Having to go and live in Sweden ain't such a pleasant fate, neither," Morris observed.
"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "There's only one thing that a Russian revolutionary dictator really and truly worries about."
"What is that?" Morris said.
"Losing his voice," Abe said.
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS THE SUGAR QUESTION
One lump, or two, please?
One lump, or two, please?
"Ain't it terrible the way you couldn't buy no sugar in New York, nowadays, Mawruss?" Abe Potash said, one morning in November.
"Let the peoplenoteat sugar," Morris Perlmutter declared. "These are war-times, Abe."
"Suppose they are war-times," Abe retorted, "must everybody act like they had diabetes? Sugar is just so much a food as butter and milk andgefullte Rinderbrust."
"I know it is," Morris agreed, "but most people eat it because it's sweet, and they like it."
"Then it's your idea that on account of the war people should eat only them foods which they don't like?" Abe inquired.
"That ain'tmyidea, Abe," Morris protested; "I got it from reading letters to the editors written by Pro Bono Publicos and other fellers which is taking advantage of the only opportunity they will ever have to figure in the newspapers outside of thebirths, marriages, and deaths, y'understand. Them fellers all insist that until the war is over everything in the way of sweetening should be left out of American life, and some of 'em even go so far as to claim that we should ought to swear off pepper and salt also. Their idea is that until we lick the Germans the American people should leave off going to the theayter, riding in automobiles, playing golluf, baseball, and auction pinochle, and reading magazines and story-books, y'understand. In fact, they say that the American people should devote themselves to their business, but what business the fellers which is in the show business, the automobile business, and the magazine-publishing business should devote themselves to don't seem to of occurred to these here Pro Bono Publicos at all."
"I guess them newspaper-letter writers which is trying to beat out their own funeral notices must of got their dope from this here Frank J. Vanderlip," Abe commented, "which I read it somewheres that he comes out with a brogan that a dollar spent for unnecessary things is an unpatriotic dollar."
"Sure, I know," Morris said, "but he left it to the spender's judgment as to what was necessary and what was unnecessary, Abe, which even President Wilson himself finds it necessary once in a while to go to a theayter in order to forget the way them Pro Bono Publicos is nagging at him, morning, noon, and night."
"But the country must got to get very busy ifwe expect to win, Mawruss," Abe said, "and them Pro Bonos thinks it's up to them to make the people realize what a serious proposition we've got on our hands."
"That's all right, too," Morris agreed, "but it would be a whole lot more serious if the people becomeMeshuggahfrom melancholia before we got half-way through with the war. Even when times is prosperous only a very few of theLeutetakes more amusement than is necessary for 'em, Abe, and that's why I say that this here Frank J. Vanderlip knew what he was talking about when he didn't say what things was unnecessary. For instance, Abe, if a Pro Bono Publico, on account of the war, cuts out taking a summer vacation for a couple of hundred dollars, and in consequence gets a breakdown from overwork and has to spend five hundred dollars for doctor bills, all you've got to do is to strike a balance and you can see for yourself that he has spent three hundred unnecessary unpatriotic dollars."
"Well, doctors has got to have money to buy Liberty Bonds with the same like anybody else, Mawruss," Abe commented.
"I know they have," Morris agreed, "and that's why I say the great mistake which these here Pro Bonos makes is that the war is going to be fought only with the money which is saved, whereas if them boys had any experience collecting for an orphan asylum or a hospital, Abe, they would know that it ain't the tight-wads which come across. Yes, Abe, you could take it fromme, the very people which is cutting out theayters, automobile rides, and auction pinochle for the duration of the war would think twice before they invest the money they save that way in anything which don't bear interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum."
"You may be right, Mawruss," Abe said, "but arguments about how to finance the war is like double-faced twelve-inch phonograph records. There's a good deal to be said on both sides, which it looks like a dead open-and-shut proposition to me that people couldn't buy no Liberty Bonds with the money they spend for theayter tickets."
"But the feller which runs the theayter could, and he must also got to pay the government a tax on the money which he gets that way," Morris retorted.
"But how about the money which the theayter-owner must got to pay in wages to actors, play-writers, ushers, and theRosherwhich sells tickets in the box-office?" Abe argued.
"Well, how are all them loafers going to buy Liberty Bonds if they wouldn't get their money that way?" Morris asked. "So you see how it is, Abe: the feller which saves all his money for the duration of the war ain't such a bigTzaddikas you would think, because even if he invests the whole thing in Liberty Bonds, which he ain't likely to do, all he gets for his money is Liberty Bonds, and at the same time he is helping to ruin a lot of business men and throw their employees out of their jobs, and incidentally he is also doingthe best he knows how to make the whole country sick and tired of the war.Aberyou take one of them fellers which goes once in a while to the theayter for the duration of the war, y'understand, and indirectly he is handing the government just so much money as the tight-wad, the only difference being that the government ain't paying him no interest on it, and he is also helping to keep the show business going and to pay the wages of the actors and all them other low-lives which makes a living out of the show business."
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But how is the government going to get men for the ammunition-factories if they are busy making automobiles for joy-ridingoderfooling away their time as actors, Mawruss?"
"That is up to the government and not to the Pro Bono Publicos," Morris declared, "which if the theayters has got to be closed, Abe, I would a whole lot sooner have it done by the government as by a bunch of Pro Bono Publicos, which not only never goes to the theayteranyway, but also gets more pleasure from seeing their foolishness printed in the newspaper than you or I would from seeing the Follies of nineteen seventeen to nineteen fifty inclusive."
"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe said, "admitting that all which you say is true, y'understand, I seen a whole lot of fellers which is working as actors during the past few years, Mawruss, and with the exception of six, may be, it wouldoserdo the show business any harmifthem fellers was to become operators on pants, let alone ammunition. It's the same way with the automobile business also. If seventy-five per cent. of the people which runs automobiles was compelled to give them up to-morrow, Mawruss, the thing they would miss most of all would be the bills from the repair-shop robbers. So that's the way it goes, Mawruss. It don't make no difference what a Pro Bono Publico writes to the newspaper, y'understand, he couldn't do a hundredth part as much to make people cut out going to the theayter for the duration of the war as the feller in the show business does when he puts on a rotten show. Also Mr. Vanderlip has got a good line of talk about Americans acting economical, y'understand, but he's practically encouraging the people that they should throw away their money left and right on automobiles, compared to some of them automobile-manufacturers which depends upon their repair departments for their profits."
"I understand that right now, Abe, the automobile business is falling off something terrible," Morris continued, "and the show business also."
"Sure it is," Abe said, "because so soon as the government put taxes on theayter tickets and automobiles, Mawruss, the people was bound to figure it out that it was bad enough they should got to pay taxes on their assets without being soaked ten per cent. on their liabilities also. And if I would be a Pro Bono Publico which,Gott sei dank, I couldn't write good enough English tobreak into the newspapers, Mawruss, the argument I would make is that people should leave off being suckers for the duration of the war, and the whole matter of spending money foolishly on theayter tickets and automobiles would adjust itself without any assistance from the government, y'understand."
"Well, everything else failing, them automobile-dealers and theayter-owners could get up a war bazaar for themselves," Morris suggested, "which I seen it the other day in the papers where they run off a war bazaar in New York and raised over seventy thousand dollars for some fellers in the advertising business."
"Has the advertising business also been affected by the war?" Abe asked.
"The business ofsomeadvertising agents has," replied Morris, "which it seems that the standard rates for advertising agents who solicited advertisements for war-bazaar programs was any sum realized by the bazaar over and above one-tenth of one per cent. of the net proceeds, which the advertising men agreed should be devoted to wounded American soldiers or starving Belgiums, according to the name of the bazaar."
"Maybe them advertising agents earned their money at that, Mawruss," Abe said, "which the average advertising solicitor would need to do a whole lot of talking before he could convince me that an advertisement in a war-bazaar program has got any draught to speak about, because you take a feller in the pants business, y'understand,and if he would get an order for one-twelfth dozen pants out of all the advertisements which he would stick in war-bazaar programs from the beginning of the war up to the time when running a war bazaar first offense is going to be the equivalence of not less than from five to ten years, understand me, it would be big already."
"At the same time," Morris protested, "if people is foolish enough to blow in their money advertising by war-bazaar programs, Abe, it don't seem unreasonable to me that the advertising agents and the starving Belgiums should go fifty-fifty on the proceeds, and the way it looks now, Abe, the New York grand jury is going to agree with me after they get through investigating the bills for advertising in connection with the army and navy bazaars."
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But why should the grand jury investigate only the advertising? Why don't a grand-juryman for once in his life do a little something to earn his salary and investigate what becomes of the articles which young ladies sells chances on at war bazaars? It would also be a slight satisfaction for them easy marks which contributes merchandise to a war bazaar if the grand jury could send out tracers after the goods which remained in stock when the bazaar was officially declared closed by the parties named in the indictment."
"What do you think—a New York grand jury has got nothing else to investigate for the rest of the twentieth century except one war bazaar?"Morris inquired. "The way you talk you would think that they had nothing better to do with their time than the people which goes to war bazaars, which the reason why them advertising men went wrong was that they were practically encouraged to run crooked war bazaars by the hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn't loosen up for charity unless they could get something for their money besides the good they are doing."
"Well, that only goes to show how one minute you argue one way, and the next you say something entirely different again," Abe said.
"Is that so?" Morris exclaimed. "Well, so far as I could see, Abe, you ain't on a strict diet, neither, when it comes to eating your own words."
"Maybe I ain't," Abe admitted, "but it seems to me that people might just so well pass on their money to the Red Cross through war bazaars as pass it on to the government through buying theayter tickets the way you argued a few minutes since."
"The Red Cross is one thing and the government another," Morris retorted. "If people spend money at a war bazaar maybe one per cent. of it reaches the Red Cross and maybe it don't, whereas if they spend at a theayter, the government gets ten per cent. net, and the transaction 'ain't got to be audited by the grand jury, neither."
"Then you ain't in favor that people should give their money to the Red Cross?" Abe said.
"Gott soll huten!" Morris cried. "People should give all they could to the Red Cross and thegovernment also, but while they are doing it, Abe, it ain't no more necessary that they should encourage a crooked advertising agent as that they should ruin a hard-working feller in the show business. Am I right or wrong?"
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS HOW TO PUT THE SPURT IN THE EXPERT
"When does the Shipping Commission expect to begin shipments on those ships?" Abe Potash asked, as he laid down the morning paper a few days after Thanksgiving.
"I don't know," Morris Perlmutter replied. "The way the newspapers was talking last April, Abe, it looked like by the first of September our production would be so far ahead of our orders for ships that President Wilson would have to organize a special department to handle the cancellations, y'understand, but from what I could see now, Abe, by next spring the nearest them Shipping Commission fellers will have come to deliveries on ships is that this here Hurley will be getting writer's cramp from signing letters to the attorneys for the people which ordered ships that in reply to your favor of the tenth inst. would say that we expect to ship the ships not later than July first at the latest, and oblige."
"But I thought that even before we went towar with Germany, Mawruss, a couple of inventors made it an invention of a ship which could be built of yellow pine in ninety days net."
"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But the Shipping Commission couldn't make up their minds whether them yellow-pine ships would be any good even after theywerebuilt, on account some professional experts claimed that yellow pine shrinks in water to the extent of .00031416 milliegrams to the kilowatt-hour, or .000000001 per cent., and other professional experts said, 'Yow.00031416 milliegrams!' and that .00000031416 would be big already, and that also what them first experts didn't know from the shrinkage of yellow pine, understand me."
"Well, why didn't the Shipping Commission build a sample ship from yellow pine?" Abe suggested. "It's already nine months since the war started, and by this time such a ship could have been in the water long enough for them Shipping Commission fellers to judge which experts was right."
"And suppose she did shrink a little," Morris said, "she could have been anyhow disposed of 'as is' to somebody who didn't take it so particular to the fraction of an inch how much yellow pine he gets in a yellow-pine ship."
"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe agreed, "but then, you see, an idee like that would never occur to a professional expert, Mawruss, because it has the one big objection that it might prove the other experts was right when they didn't agree with him,which that is the trouble with professional experts. The important thing to them ain't so much the articles on which they experts, as what big experts they are on such articles.
"Take this here Lewis machine-gun, Mawruss," Abe continued, "and when Colonel Lewis puts it up to the army experts, y'understand, naturally them experts says, 'Well, if we are such big experts on machine-guns, we should ought to know a whole lot more about machine-guns as Colonel Lewis, and what does thatSchlemielknow about machine-guns,anyway?' so they sent Colonel Lewis a notice that they would not be responsible for goods left over thirty days, and the consequence was Colonel Lewis sold his machine-gun to the English army."
"And he didn't have to be such a cracker-jack high-grade A-number-one salesman to do that, neither," Morris commented, "because if his only talking point to the English experts was that the American experts had turned down his gun, y'understand, the English experts would give him a big order without even asking him to unpack his samples."
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But if Colonel Lewis would of had the interests of America at heart, Mawruss, he should ought to have offered his machine-gun to the English experts first, understand me, and after he had got out of the observation ward, which the English experts would just naturally send him to as a dangerous American crank with a foolish idea for a machine-gun,y'understand, the American experts would have taken his entire output at his own terms."
machine guns"'Well, if we are such big experts on machine-guns, we should ought to know a whole lot more about machine-guns as Colonel Lewis, and what does thatSchlemielknow about machine-guns,anyway?'"
"'Well, if we are such big experts on machine-guns, we should ought to know a whole lot more about machine-guns as Colonel Lewis, and what does thatSchlemielknow about machine-guns,anyway?'"
"After all, you can't kick about such mistakes being made, because that's the trouble about being a new beginner in any business," Morris said. "It don't make no difference whether it would be war or pants, Abe, you start out with one big liability, and that is the advice proposition. Twice as many new beginners goes under from accepting what they thought was good advice as from accepting what they thought was good accounts, Abe, and them fellers on the Shipping Commission deserves a great deal of credit that they already made such fine progress. You can just imagine what this here Hurley which he used to was in the railroad business must be up against from his friends which has been in the ship-building business for years already. The chance is that every time Mr. Hurley goes out on the street one of them old ship-building friends comes up to him with that good-advice expression on his face and says: 'Nu, Hurley. How are they coming?' which it don't make a bit of difference to such a feller whether Mr. Hurley would say, 'So, so,' 'Pretty good,' or 'Rotten,' y'understand, he might just as well save his breath, on account the good-advice feller is going to get it off his chest, anyhow.
"'You're lucky at that,' the good-advice feller says, 'because I just met your assistant designer, Jake Rashkin, and he tells me you are getting out a line of whalebacks in pastel shades.'
"'Well, why not?' Hurley says.
"'Why not!' the friend exclaims. 'You mean to tell me that you don't know even that much about the ship-building business, that you would actually go to work and make up for the fall trade a line of whalebacks in pastel shades? Honestly, Hurley, I must say I am surprised at you.' And for the next twenty minutes he gives Hurley the names and dates of six voluntary bankrupts, all of whom started in the ship-building business by making up a line of whalebacks in pastel shades, together with the details of just what them fellers is doing for a living to-day from selling cigars on commission downwards.
"Naturally, Hurley hustles right back to the shop and tells the foreman that if they 'ain't already started on that last batch of whalebacks in pastel shades, not to mind, and he spends the rest of the afternoon getting his operators busy on a couple of hundred oil-burning boats in solid colors, like reds, greens, and blues. The consequence is that the next day at lunch another old friend comes up to him, which used to was in the ship-building business when the record from New York to Liverpool was nineteen days ten hours and forty-five minutes, y'understand, and says: 'Nu, Hurley. How is the busy little ship-builder to-day?'
"'Pretty good,' Hurley says. 'I'm just getting to work on a big line of oil-burners in solid colors, like reds, greens, and blues.'
"'No!' the old ship-builder says.
"'Sure!' Hurley tells him, and after they have said 'No!' and 'Sure!' a couple of dozen times it appears that if a new beginner in the ship-building business lays in a stock of plain-colored oil-burning boats he might just so well kiss himself good-by with his ship-building business and be done with it. Also it seems that the only line of goods for a new beginner in the ship-building business to specialize in is whalebacks in pastel shades, Abe, and that's the way it goes."
"At that we're a whole lot better off as England was when she started in as a new beginner in the war business," Abe commented. "Mr. Hurley was, anyhow, in the railroad business when he took over the ship-building job, and we've got other men which were high-grade dry-goods and hardware men before they threw up their business to help the government branch out into the war business, y'understand, but if we would got to depend on somebody who was trying to run a shipyard with the experience he had got from being national lawn-tennis champion for the years nineteen hundred to nineteen sixteen inclusive, or if President Wilson had the idee that for a man to be the right man in the right place, y'understand, he should ought to have the gumption and business ability which a feller naturally picks up in the course of being an earl or a duke, understand me, the best we could hope for would be a fleet of six rebuilt tugboats by the fall of nineteen fifty."
"It wasn't England's fault that she made sucha mistake, Abe," Morris said. "Up to the time Germany started this war it used to was considered that if nations did got to go to war, y'understand, the best way to go about it was to put it in charge of a good sport like a tennis champion would naturally have to be, and as for the earls and the dukes, the theory on which them fellers fooled away their time was that they was just resting up between wars, Abe, because they was, anyhow, gentlemen, and it was England's idea that all a soldier had to be was a gentleman. But nowadays that's already a thing of the past. The way Germany fixed things with her long-distance cannons, her liquid fire, gas, and Zeppelins, a soldier don't have to be so much of a gentleman as an inventor, a chemist, an engineer, and a general all-around hustler."
"In fact, Mawruss," Abe said, "a German soldier don't need to be a gentleman at all, because when it comes to stealing château furniture, destroying cathedrals, burning houses, and chopping down fruit-trees, any experience as a gentleman wouldn't be much of a help to a German soldier."
"That's what I am telling you, Abe," Morris declared. "Germany has made war a business, y'understand, and she figures that a gentleman in the war business is like a gentleman in the pants business. He ain't going to make any more or better pants by being a gentleman, y'understand, and if we are going to win this war, Abe, we should ought to stop beefing about Germansoldiers not being gentlemen, and take into consideration the fact that while German engineers, chemists, inventors, and submarine-builders may not know whether you play lawn tennis with a cue, mallet, or a full deck of fifty-two cards including the joker, Abe, you can bet your life that they know an awful lot about engineering, chemistry, and building submarines, and they don't need no so-called experts to help them, neither."
"And you can also bet your life, Mawruss, that no German would have turned down Colonel Lewis's machine-guns," Abe said, "the way them experts of ours did."
"Well, what is an expert to do, Abe?" Morris asked. "If he goes to work and recommends the government to give an inventor an order for his invention, he's taking a big chance that the invention wouldn't work, and you know as well as I do, Abe, most American experts play in terrible hard luck. You take these here military experts which gives expert opinions in the newspapers about what is going to happen next on the Balkan front, y'understand, and a feller could make quite a reputation as a military expert by simply coppering their predictions."
"Well, them military experts which writes in the newspapers ain't really experts at all, Mawruss," Abe said. "They're just crickets, like them musical crickets which knows everything there is to know about, we would say, for example, playing on the fiddle excepting how to play on the fiddle."
"Aberwhat is the difference between a professional expert and a professional cricket,anyway?" Morris asked.
"A professional expert is a feller which thinks he knows all about a business because he tried for years and he never could make a success of it," Abe replied, "whereas a professional cricket is a feller which thinks he knows all about a business because he tried for years and he could never even break into it."
"And how could you expect to get from people like that an opinion which ain't on the bias?" Morris concluded.
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON BEING AN OPTICIAN AND LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said as he laid down the morning paper after glancing over the alarming head-lines, "a feller which has got stomach trouble or the toothache nowadays is playing in luck, because when you've got stomach trouble you couldn't think about nothing else, and what is a little thing like stomach trouble to worry over with all thetzuriswhich is happening in the world nowadays?"
"Well, thenhavestomach trouble," Morris Perlmutter advised.
"What do you mean—havestomach trouble?" Abe said. "A man couldn't get stomach trouble the same way he could get drunk, Mawruss. It is something which is just so much beyond your control as red hair or a good tenor voice."
"Sure, I know," Morris agreed. "But what is happening in Russia and Italy is also beyond your control, Abe, so if them Bolsheviki is getting on your nerves, and you hate to pick up the paper for fear of finding that the Germans would havecaptured Venice, understand me, console yourself with the idee that there's a lot of brainy fellers in this country which is doing all they know how to handle the situation over in the old country, and then if you want something near at home to worry about like stomach trouble, y'understand, there's plenty of misfortunate people in orphan asylums and hospitals right here in New York City which will be very glad to have you worry over them in a practical way out of what you've got left when you're through paying income and excise profit taxes, Abe."
"Maybe there is some people which would get so upset over having to give twenty dollars or so to an orphan asylum or a hospital, Mawruss, that for the time being they could forget how General Crozier 'ain't ordered the machine-guns yet," Abe said, "but me I ain't built that way. When it says in the papers where the Germans is sending all their soldiers away from the Russian front to the Italian front, y'understand, it may be that some people could read it and try not to worry by sending five dollars to them Highwaymen for Improving the Condition of the Poor, Mawruss, but whenIread it, Mawruss, I think how it's all up to them Bolsheviki in Russia, and I get awful sore at the poor—in especially the Russian poor."
"What are you worrying your head about what they put in the papers?" Morris asked. "Seventy-five per cent. of the bridge-heads which the Germans capture in the New York morning papers might just so well be French villages, except thatthe reporters would have to look up the names of the villages on the map, because some editors are very particular that way; they insist that the reporter should use the name of a real village, whereas if he puts down that the Germans has captured a bridge-head on the Piave River he could go right out to lunch, and he never even stops to think that if somebody would check up the number of bridge-heads which the Germans has captured that way in the New York morning papers, Abe, the Piave River would got to be covered solid with bridges from end to end."
"But I am just so bad as a reporter, Mawruss—I never stop to think that, neither," Abe admitted. "It's my nature that I couldn't help believing the foolishness which I read in the papers, and if the Germans capture a bridge-head on me in the Sporting Edition with Final Wall Street Complete they might just so well capture it in Italy and be done with it, because if I play cards afterward I couldn't keep my mind on the game, anyhow. Only last Sunday I had a three-hundred-and-fifty hand in spades, with an extra ace and king, understand me, when I happened to think about reading in the paper where the Germans is going to build for next spring submarines in extra sized six hundred feet long, y'understand, and the consequence was I forget to meld a twenty in clubs and lost the hand by eighteen points. Before I fell asleep that night I thought it over that Germany couldn't build such a big submarine as the papers claimed, but by that time I was out three dollarson the hand,anyway, and that's the way war affectsme, Mawruss."
"Well, that's where you are making a big mistake, Abe," Morris commented, "because even when the articles which they print in the newspaper is true, y'understand, if you only stop to figure them out right, Abe, you could get a whole lot of encouragement that way. Take, for instance, when you readviaAmsterdam that General Hindenberg is now commanding the western front, Abe, and with some people that would throw a big scare into 'em, y'understand, but with me not, Abe, because the way I look at it is from experience. I've known lots of fellers from seventy to seventy-five years old, Abe, and in particular my wife's mother's a brother Old Man Baum in the cotton-converting business. There's a feller which he actually went to work and married his stenographer when he was seventy-two, Abe, and, compared to an undertaking like that, running the western front would be child's play, Abe, and yet when all was said and done, if he went to theayter Saturday night and eats afterward a little chickenà laKing, y'understand, it was a case of ringing up a doctor at three o'clock Sunday morning while his wife's relations sat around his flat figuring the inheritance tax. Now, take Hindenberg which he is six months older as Old Man Baum, Abe, and what that feller has went through in the last three years two lifetimes in the cotton-converting business wouldn't be a marker to it, understand me, and still there arepeople which is worried that when he begins to run things on the western front, it is going to be a serious matter for the Allies, instead of the Germans.
"Yes, Abe," Morris continued, "with all the things them Germans has got to attend to on the western front, it's no cinch to have on their hands an old man seventy-two years of age, which, if anything should happen to the oldRosher, like acute indigestion from eating too much gruel or lumbago, y'understand, then real generals on the western front would never hear the end of it."
"Ain't Hindenberg also a real general?" Abe asked.
"Not an old man like that, Abe," Morris replied. "He used to was a real general, but now he is just a mascot for the Germans and a bogey man for us, which I bet yer the most that feller does to help along the war is to wear warm woolen underwear, keep out of draughts, and not get his feet wet under any circumstances at his age. Furthermore, Abe, I ain't so sure that the Germans is withdrawing so many soldiers as they claim from the Russian frontier, neither, y'understand, because the way them Bolsheviki has swung around to Germany must sound to the Kaiser almost too good to be true, and I bet yer also he figures that maybe it isn't because nobody knows better as the Kaiser how much reliance you could place on a deal between one country and another, even when it's in writing and signed by the party to be charged, which, for all any one could tell, whetherRussia is now a government, a co-partnership, a corporation, or only so to speak a voluntary association, Abe, the Kaiser might just as well sign his peace treaty with Pavlowa and Nordkin as with Lenine and Trotzky, so far as binding the Russian people is concerned."
"It ain't a peace treaty which them fellers wants to sign, Mawruss," Abe said. "It's a bill of sale, which I see that Lenine and Trotzky agrees Germany should import goods into Russia free of duty and that she should take Russian Poland and Courland and a lot of other territory, and if that's what is called making peace, Mawruss, then you might just as well say that a lawsuit is compromised by allowing the feller which sues to get a judgment and have the sheriff collect on it."
"And at that, Abe," Morris said, "there ain't a German merchant which wouldn't be only too delighted to swap his rights to import goods into Russia free of dutyafter the warfor three-quarters of a pound of porterhouse steak and a ten-cent loaf of white bread right now, which the way food is so scarce nowadays in Germany, Abe, when a Berlin business man's family gets through with the Sunday dinner, and the servant-girl clears off the table, there's no use asking should she give the bones to the dog, because the chances is theyarethe dog, understand me. As for sugar, we think we've got a kick coming when we could only get two teaspoonfuls to a cup of coffee for five cents, y'understand, whereas in Germany they would consider themselves lucky if they could get twoteaspoonfuls to a gallon of coffee if they had a gallon of coffee in the entire country, understand me. So that's the way it goes in Germany, Abe; the people ask for bread and they give 'em a report on Norwegian steamers sunk by U-boats during the current week, and if one of the steamers was loaded with sugar, y'understand, that ain't going to be much satisfaction to a German which has got a sweet tooth and has been trying to make out with one two-grain saccharin tablet every forty-eight hours, neither."
"But the Germans seems to be making a lot of progress everywheres," Abe said.
"Except at home," Morris declared. "Maybe the German people still feels encouraged when the German army gets ahold of more territory, Abe, but it's a question of a short time now when the German people is going to realize that they don't need no more room to starve in than they've got at present, and that a nation can go broke just as comfortably in nine hundred thousand square miles as it can in nine million square miles."
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, "but one thing Germany has fixed already, Mawruss, and that is that she is going to get a whole lot of customers in Russia."
"Well, if she does," Morris commented, "she'll have to provide the capital to set them customers up in business, and after she has done that, Abe, she will have to hustle around to drum up trade for them Russian customers, because when the Bolsheviki get through with their fine work inRussia, Abe, the Russian people won't have enough purchasing power to make it a fair territory for a salesman with a line of five-and-ten-cent store supplies. So if Germany started this here war to get more trade, she's already licked."
"Then what does she go on fighting for?" Abe asked. "It seems to me that if we saw we couldn't accomplish nothing by going on fighting, Mawruss, we'd stop, ain't it?"
"Sure we would," Morris agreed. "But then, Abe, we 'ain't got nothing to stop us from stopping, because we ain't fighting for the sake of fighting, the way Von Tirpitz, Mackensen, and Ludendorff are doing. Take, for instance, Von Tirpitz, and thatRosherinsists that the U-boats is going to win the war, so it don't make no difference to him how many German sailors goes down in U-boats, he's going to keep on sending out U-boats right up to the time the German people shoots him, and his last words will be that the reason why the U-boats didn't win the war was because they didn't have a fair trial. Then there's Mackensen and Ludendorff which they've gottheiridees about how the war should be won, and they mean to see that their idees continue to have a fair trial till there ain't enough German soldiers alive to give them idees a fair trial, and that's the way it goes, Abe. All the idees that we want to give a fair trial is that we are going to keep on fighting till we've proved to the German people that it don't pay to back up the Von Tirpitz, Ludendorff, and Mackensen idees."
"And how long is this going to take?" Abe inquired.
"Not so long as you think, Abe," Morris replied, "because Germany may have made peace with Russia, but she has still got fighting against her England, France, Italy, America, Starvation, Bad Business, Conceit, Lies, and Stubbornness."
"And in the mean time, Mawruss," Abe said, "what's going to happen to us?"
"Don't worry about us," Morris said. "All America has got to do is to try to be an optician and look on the bright side of things, and she's bound to win out in the end."
THE LIQUOR QUESTION—SHALL IT BE DRY OR EXTRA DRY?