XX

JULY THE FIRST AND AFTER

"It's already surprising what people will eat if they couldn't get anything else," Abe Potash commented one morning in June.

"Not nearly so surprising as what they would drink in the same circ.u.mstances," Morris Perlmutter remarked.

"Well, I don't know," Abe continued. "Here it stands in the newspapers where a professor says that for the information of them men which would sooner eat gra.s.shoppers as starve, Mawruss, they taste very much like shrimps if you know how shrimps taste, which I am thankful to say that I don't, Mawruss, because I never yet had the nerve to eat shrimps on account of them looking too much like gra.s.shoppers."

"That's nothing," Morris declared. "In Porto Rico, where they have had prohibition now for some time already, the authorities has just found out that the people has been drinking so much hair tonic as ersat-schnapps, Abe, that the insides of the stomach of a Porto-Rican looks like the outside of the President of the new Polish Republic, if you know what I mean."

"Well, if the prohibition law is going to be enforced so as to confiscate the schnapps which is now being stored away by the people who have had an insurance actuary figure out their expectancy of life at ten drinks a day for 13.31416 years, Mawruss, or all the cellar will hold, y'understand," Abe said, "it won't be much later than July 2d before somebody discovers that there's quite a kick to furniture polish or 6-in-1, Mawruss, and in fact I expect to see after July 1st, 1919, that there would be what looks like stove polish, shoe polish, automobile-body polish, and silver polish retailing at from one dollar to a dollar and a half per hip-pocket-size bottle, which after being strained through blotting-paper, y'understand, would net the purchaser three drinks of the worst whisky that ever got sold on Chatham Square for five cents a gla.s.s."

"And I suppose that pretty soon they will be pa.s.sing a law forbidding the manufacture of stove polish and directing that the labels on the bottles shall contain the statement:

"Stove Polish by Volume 2, Seventy-five per cent. And in a thimbleful of what ain't stove polish in that stove polish, Abe, there wouldn't be no more harm than two or three quarts of so much nitroglycerin, y'understand," Morris said. "Also on Sat.u.r.day nights you will see the poor women _nebich_ hanging around the swinging doors of paint and color stores right up to closing-time to see is their husbands inside, while the single men will stagger from house-furnishing store to house-furnishing store--or the Poor Men's Clubs, as they call them places where stove and silver polish is sold."

"But joking to one side, Mawruss, you don't suppose that the Polaks and the Huns and all them foreigners is going to leave off drinking schnapps just because of a little thing like a prohibition amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, do you?" Abe said.

"Why do you limit yourself to Polaks and Huns, Abe?" Morris asked.

"Believe me, there is fellers whose forefathers was old established American citizens before Henry Clay started his cigar business, y'understand, and when them boys gets a craving for schnapps after July 1st, they would _oser_ go to the nearest Carnegie Library and read over the Prohibition Amendment to the Const.i.tution till that gnawing feeling at the pit of the stomach had pa.s.sed away, understand me. At least, Abe, that is what I think is going to happen, and from the number of people which is giving out prophecies to the newspapers about what is going to happen, and from the way they differ from each other as to what is going to happen--not only about prohibition, but about conditions in Europe, the Next War, the Kaiser's future, and the next presidential campaign, y'understand, it seems to me that anybody could prophesy anything about _everything_ and get away with it."

"They could anyhow get away with it till it does happen," Abe commented.

"Sure I know, but generally it don't happen," Morris said. "Take for instance where Mr. Vanderlip is going round telling about the terrible things which is going to happen in Europe unless something which Mr.

Vanderlip suggests is done, and take also for instance where Mr. Davison is going round telling about the terrible things which is going to happen in Europe unless something which Mr. _Davison_ suggests is done, y'understand, and while I don't know nothing about Europe, understand me, I know something about Mr. Vanderlip, which is that he just lost his jobs as director of the War Savings Stamp Campaign and president of the National City Bank, and you know as well as I do, Abe, when a man has just lost his job things are apt to look pretty black to him, not only in Europe, understand me, but in Asia, Africa, and America, and sometimes Australia and New Zealand, also."

"Well, how about Mr. Davison?" Abe asked.

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "Mr. Davison is a banker and I am a garment manufacturer, y'understand, and with me it's like this: Conditions in the garment trade is never altogether satisfactory to me, Abe. As a garment manufacturer, I can always see where things is going to the devil in this country or any other country where I would be doing business unless something is done, y'understand, and if anybody would ask me what _ought_ to be done, the chances is that I would suggest something to be done which wouldn't make it exactly rotten for the garment trade, if you know what I mean."

"Mr. Vanderlip and Mr. Davison did good work during the war for a dollar a year, Mawruss," Abe said, "and no one should speak nothing but good of them."

"Did I say they shouldn't?" Morris retorted. "All I am driving into is this, Abe; we've got a lot of big business men which during the war for a dollar a year give up their time to advising the United States what it should do, y'understand, who are now starting in to advise the world what it should do and waiving the dollar, Abe, and if there is anything which is calculated to make a man unpopular, Abe, it is giving free advice, so therefore I would advise all them dollar-a-year men to--"

"And is any one paying you to give such advice?" Abe asked.

"Furthermore, Mawruss, n.o.body asks you for your advice, whereas with people like Mr. Vanderlip, Mr. Davison, the Crown Prince, Samuel Gompers, and Mary Pickford, y'understand, they couldn't stick their head outside the door without a newspaper reporter is standing there and starts right in to ask them their opinion about the things which they are supposed to know."

"And what is the Crown Prince supposed to know?" Morris asked.

"Not much that Mary Pickford don't about things in general," Abe said, "and a good deal less than she does about moving pictures, but otherwise I should put them about on a par, except that Mary Pickford has got a brighter future, Mawruss, which I see that one of these here newspaper fellers got an interview with the Crown Prince which 'ain't been denied as yet. It took place in an island in Holland where the Crown Prince is living in retirement with a private chef, a private secretary, a couple of private valets, his personal physician, and the nine or ten other personal attendants that a Hohenzollern cuts himself down to while he is roughing it in Holland, Mawruss. When the newspaper feller spoke to him he was wearing the uniform of a colonel in the Eighth Pomeranian Crown Prince's Own Regiment, which is now known as the William J. Noske a.s.sociation, of black tulle over a midnight-blue satin underdress--the whole thing embroidered in gray silk braid and blue beads. A very delicate piece of rose point-lace was arranged as a fichu, Mawruss, and over it he wore a Lavin cape of black silk jersey with a monkey-fur collar and slashed pockets. It would appear from the article which the newspaper feller wrote that the Crown Prince didn't seem to be especially talkative."

"In these here interviews which newspaper fellers gets in Europe, Abe,"

Morris commented, "the party interviewed never does seem to be talkative. In fact, he hardly figures at all, because such articles usually consist of fifty per cent. what a lot of difficulties the correspondent was smart enough to overcome in getting the interview, twenty-five per cent. description, twenty-two and a quarter what the correspondent said to the party interviewed, and not more than two and three-quarters per cent. interview."

"Whatever way it was, Mawruss, the Crown Prince didn't exactly unbosom himself to this here reporter, but he said enough to show that he wasn't far behind Mr. Vanderlip when it comes to taking a dark view of things as a result of losing his job, Mawruss," Abe continued.

"Probably he took even a darker view of it than Mr. Vanderlip," Morris suggested, "because there are lots of openings for bank president, but if you are out of a job as a crown prince, what is it, in particular if your reference ain't good?"

"He didn't seem to be worrying about his own future," Abe continued, "but he seemed to think that if the old man got tried by the Allies, Mawruss, the shock would kill him."

"Many a murderer got tried by the Court of General Sessions, even, and subsequently the shock killed them, Abe," Morris said. "What is electric chairs for, _anyway_?"

"But he told the reporter that you wouldn't have any idea how old the old man is looking," Abe went on.

"He shouldn't take so much wood-cutting exercise," Morris said. "The first thing you know, he would injure himself for life, even if he ain't going to live long."

"Don't fool yourself, Mawruss," Abe said, "the Kaiser ain't going to die from nothing more violent than a rich, unbalanced diet, y'understand, and as for the Crown Prince, he's got it all figured out that he will return to Germany and go into the farming business, and there ain't no provided-I-beat-the-indictment about it, neither, because he knows as well as you do that the Allies would never have the nerve to try either one of them crooks."

"n.o.body seems to have the nerve to do anything nowadays, except the Bolshevists, Abe," Morris said, with a sigh. "Here up to a few days ago the Bolshevist government of Russia had been running a New York office on West Forty-second Street, with gold lettering on the door, a staff of stenographers, and a private branch exchange, and the New York police didn't pay no more attention to them than if they would of been running a poolroom with a roulette-wheel in the rear office. The consequence was that when them Bolshevists finally got pulled, Abe, they beefed so terrible about how they were being prosecuted in violation of the Const.i.tution and the Code of Civil Procedure, y'understand, that you would think the bombs which Mr. Palmer and them judges nearly got killed with was being exploded pursuant to Section 4244 of the United States Revised Statutes and the acts amendatory thereof, Abe."

"And we let them cutthroats do business yet!" Abe exclaimed.

"Well, in a way, I don't blame the Bolshevists for not knowing how to take the behavior of the American government towards them, Abe," Morris declared. "If we only had one way of treating them and stick _to_ it, Abe, it would help people like this here ex-custom-house feller Dudley Field Malone and this ex-Red Cross feller Robins to know where they stood in the matter of Bolshevism. But when even the United States army itself don't know whether it is for the Bolshevists or against them, Abe, how could you expect this here Robins to know, either, let alone the Bolshevists?"

"But I thought this country was against Bolshevism," Abe said.

"As far as I can gather, Abe, the United States is against Bolshevism officially on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and on Sat.u.r.day from nine to twelve, and it is for Admiral Kolchak on Tuesday and Thursday,"

Morris said. "At any rate, that's what one would think from reading the newspapers. Fiume is the same way, Abe. The United States is in favor of ceding Fiume to the Italians during three days in the week of eight working-hours each, except in the sporting five-star edition, when Fiume is going to be internationalized. However, Abe, the United States wants to be quite fair about preserving the rights of small nationalities, so we concede Fiume to the Jugo-Slobs in at least two editions of the pink evening papers and in the special magazine section of the Sunday papers."

"Well, the way I feel about Bolshevism, I am against it every day in the week, including Sundays, Mawruss," Abe said, "and if I would be running a newspaper, I would show them up in every edition from the night edition that comes out at half past eight in the morning, down to the special ten-o'clock-p.m. extra, which sometimes is delayed till as late as five forty-five. Furthermore, while variety makes a spicy life, Mawruss, newspapers are supposed to tell you the news, and while it may be agreeably exciting to some people when they read on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that the Germans would positively sign the amended Treaty of Peace, and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sat.u.r.day that they positively wouldn't do nothing of the kind, y'understand, I am getting so used to it that it don't even make me mad no longer."

"The newspapers has got to suit all tastes, Abe," Morris observed.

"But the taste for Bolshevism ain't a taste, Mawruss, it's a smell," Abe concluded, "and whoever has got it shouldn't ought to be encouraged. He should ought to be disinfected, and that's all there is to it."

XXI

WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS, ECONOMICALLY AND THEATRICALLY

"I see where a minister said the other day he couldn't understand why it was that fellers in the theayter business goes to work and puts on the kind of shows which they do put on, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, a few days after the ministerial controversy over a certain phase of the Broadway drama.

"Maybe they got hopes that quite a number of people would pay money to see such shows, Abe," Morris suggested, "because so far as I could tell from the few fellers in the theayter business whose acquaintance I couldn't avoid making, Abe, they are business men the same like other business men, y'understand, and what they are trying to do is to suit the tastes of their customers."

"But what them ministers claims is that them customers shouldn't ought to have such tastes," Abe said.

"That is up to the ministers and not the fellers in the theayter business," Morris said. "Theayter managers ain't equipped in the head to give people lectures on how terrible it is that people should like to see the plays they like to see, because as a general thing a feller in the theayter business is the same as a feller in the garment business or grocery business--he didn't have to pa.s.s no examination to go into such a business, and what a theayter feller don't know about delivering sermons, Abe, if a minister would know it about the show business, y'understand, instead of drawing down three thousand a year telling people to do what they don't want to do, understand me, he would be looking round for a nice, fully rented, sixteen-story apartment-house in which to invest the profits from a show by the name, we would say, for example, 'Early to Bed.'"

"But the trouble with the theayter fellers is that they think any show which a lot of people would pay money to see, Mawruss, is a good show,"

Abe declared.

"Why shouldn't the managers think that?" Morris asked. "If the ministers had the people trained right, any show which a lot of people would pay money to see should _ought_ to be a good show."