XIII

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 the _tzuris_ which is happening in the world nowadays?"

"Well, then _have_ stomach trouble," Morris Perlmutter advised.

"What do you mean--_have_ stomach 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 have captured 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 when _I_ read 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 that the 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 dollars on the hand, _anyway_, and that's the way war affects _me_, 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 read _via_ Amsterdam 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 Sat.u.r.day night and eats afterward a little chicken _a la_ King, 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 are people 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 old _Rosher_, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 n.o.body 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, whether Russia is now a government, a co-partnership, a corporation, or only so to speak a voluntary a.s.sociation, 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 duty _after the war_ for 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 they _are_ the 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 two teaspoonfuls 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 in Russia, 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 that _Rosher_ insists 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 got _their_ idees 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."

XIV

THE LIQUOR QUESTION--SHALL IT BE DRY OR EXTRA DRY?

Light wines don't harm an awful lot of people, for the same reason that there ain't much pneumonia caused by people getting damp from using finger-bowls.

"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, the day after the prohibition amendment was adopted by the House of Representatives, "there's a lot of people going around taking credit for this here prohibition which in reality is living examples of the terrible effects not drinking schnapps has on the human race--suppose any one wanted to argue that way--whereas if you was to put the people wise which is actually responsible for the country going dry, y'understand, they would be too indignant to call you a liar before they could hit you with anything that lay most handy behind the bar from an ice-pick to an empty bottle, understand me."

"I always had an idea myself that what was responsible for prohibition, Abe, was that the people is sore at booze," Morris Perlmutter retorted.

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But the people would be just so sore at candy if the fellers which runs candy-stores acted the way saloon-keepers does, which you take a feller like this here Huyler, or one of the Smiths in the cough-drop business, and we would say his name is Harris Fine, y'understand, and instead of attending to the store and poisining people mit candy, he goes to work to get up the Harris Fine a.s.sociation and gives all the eighteen-dollar-a-week policemen in the neighborhood to understand that it's equivalent to ten dollars in their pockets if they wouldn't take it so particular when members of the Harris Fine a.s.sociation commits a little thing like murder or something, _verstehst du mich_, why the people in the same block which wasn't members of the Harris Fine a.s.sociation would begin to think that candy was getting to have a bad influence on the neighborhood, y'understand.

Then if Harris Fine was to run for alderman and all the loafers of the eighth ward or whatever ward he was alderman of was to meet in the back room of his candy-store, Mawruss, the respectable _Leute_ which couldn't go past Harris Fine's candy-store without hearing somebody talking rotten language would go home and say that it was a shame and a disgrace that the eighth ward should got to have candy-stores in it. Afterward when he has been an alderman for some time, Mawruss, and Harris Fine begins to make a fortune out of the garbage-removal contracts by not removing garbage, y'understand, and also as a side line to candy and ice-cream soda, does an elegant business in asphalt-paving which contains one-tenth of one per cent. asphalt, y'understand, the bad reputation which candy has got it in the eighth ward is going to spread throughout the city, Mawruss, and finally, when the candy feller starts in to make contracts for state roads, candy gets a black eye in the state also, and it's only a question of time before the candy-dealer would go to Washington and put over a rotten deal on the national government, understand me, and then people like you and me which never touches so much as a little piece of peanut-brittle, Mawruss, starts right in and hollers for the national prohibition of all kinds of candy from gum-drops to mixed chocolates and b.u.m-b.u.ms at a dollar and a half a pound."

"You may be right, Abe," Morris said, "but when it comes right down to Bright's disease and charoses of the liver, y'understand, politics 'ain't got nothing to do with it, because it doesn't make no difference to whisky whether a feller voted for Wilson _oder_ Hughes. It would just as lieve ruin the health and prospects of a Republican as a Democrat."

"Whisky might," Abe admitted, "but how about beer and light wines, Mawruss, which you know as well as I do, Mawruss, a loafer must got to drink an awful lot of beer before he gets drunk."

"Well, that's what makes the brewery business good, Abe," Morris said.

"But don't you think in a great number of cases, Mawruss, beer is drunk to squench thirst?" Abe asked.

"That's the way it's drunk in a great number of cases--twenty-four bottles to the case," Morris said; "but if the same people was to drink water the way they drink beer, Abe, instead of thirst you would think it was goldfish that troubled them, which I can get as thirsty as the next one, Abe, but I can usually manage to squench it without making an aquarium out of myself exactly."

"_Aber_ what about light wines?" Abe inquired. "They don't harm an awful lot of people, Mawruss."

"They don't harm an awful lot of people for the same reason that there ain't much pneumonia caused by people getting damp from using finger-bowls, Abe," Morris said, "because so far as I could see the American people feels the same way about light wines as they do about finger-bowls. They could use 'em and they could let 'em alone, and they feel a whole lot more comfortable when they're letting 'em alone than when they're using 'em."

"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe said, "I think a great many people which is prejudiced against light wines on account of heartburn is laying it to the wine instead of the seventy-five-cent Italian table-d'hote dinner which goes with it."

"Yes, and it's just as likely to be the c.o.c.ktail which went before it as the gla.s.s of brandy which came after it, and that's the trouble with beer and light wine, Abe," Morris declared. "They usually ain't the only numbers on the program, and the feller which starts in on beer and light wines, Abe, soon gets such a big repertoire of drinks that he's performing on the bottle day and night, y'understand, which saloon-keepers knows better than anybody else, Abe, because if you would ask a saloon-keeper _oder_ a bartender to have something, y'understand, it's a hundred-to-one proposition that he takes a cigar and not a gla.s.s beer."

"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But once a bartender draws a gla.s.s beer, before he could use it again, he's got to mark off so much for deteriorating that it's practically a total loss, whereas he could always put a cigar back in the case and sell it to somebody else for full price in the usual course of business."

"Well, that's what makes the saloon business a swindle and not a business, Abe," Morris said. "Just imagine, Abe, if you and me, as women's outer-garment manufacturers, was to lay in a line of ready-made men's overcoats in the expectation that after a customer has bought from us a big order he is going to blow me to a forty regular and you to a forty-four stout which we would put right back in stock as soon as his back is turned."

"But even if the liquor business would be a dirty business, Mawruss,"

Abe said, "you've got to consider that there's a whole lot of people which is making a living out of it, like bartenders and fellers working in distilleries, and if they get thrown out of work, y'understand, their wives and children is going to be just as hungry as if the fellers lost their jobs in a respectable business like pants or plumbers' supplies."

"Say," Morris exclaimed, "if you're going to have sympathy for people which would get thrown out of jobs by prohibition, Abe, don't use it all up on bartenders and fellers working in distilleries, because there's a whole lot of other crooks whose families are going to be short of spending-money when liquor-selling stops. Take them boys which is running poker-rooms, faro-games, and roulette-wheels, and alcohol is just as necessary to their operation as ether is to a stomach specialist's, because the human bank-roll is the same as the human appendix, Abe: the success of removing it entirely depends on the giving of the anesthetic. Then there is the lawyers--criminal, accident, and divorce--and it don't make no difference how their clients fell or what they fell from--positions in banks, moving street-cars, or as nice a little woman as any one could wish for, y'understand--schnapps done it, Abe, and when schnapps goes, Abe, the practice of them lawyers goes with it."

"Well, they still got their diplomas, Mawruss," Abe said. "And even though schnapps is prohibited, Mawruss, there will be enough people left with the real-estate habit to give them shysters a living, anyhow, but you take them fellers which has got millions of dollars invested in machinery for the manufacture of headache medicine, Mawruss, and before they will be able to figure out how they can use their plants for the manufacture of war supplies they're going to be their own best customers, which little did them fellers think when they put on their bottles,