* * * KEEP IN A DRY PLACE WELL CORKED * * *

that people was going to take them so seriously as to put 'em right out of business, y'understand."

"But there's also a large number of people which is going to lose their jobs on account of this here prohibition, Abe, and if they get the sympathy of these American sitsons which is laying awake nights worrying about how the Czar is getting along, Abe, it would be big already. I am talking about the temperance lecturers," Morris declared, "which if it wouldn't be for them fellers pretty near convincing everybody that no one could be happy and sober at the same time, Abe, it's my idee that we would of had this here prohibition _sohon_ long since ago already, because those temperance lecturers got their arguments against drinking schnapps so mixed up with Sunday baseball, playing billiards, and going to theayters, picture-galleries, and libraries on Sunday, Abe, that some people which visits New York from small towns in the Middle West still hesitates about going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for fear of getting a hobnailed liver or something."

"At that, Mawruss, this here prohibition is going to hurt some businesses like the jewelry business," Abe said, "which not counting the millions of carats that fellers has bought to square themselves for coming home at all hours of the night, y'understand, there's many a bar pin which would still be in stock if the customer hadn't nerved himself to buying it with a couple of c.o.c.ktails, understand me. Automobiles is the same way, Mawruss, and if the engineering department of the big automobile concerns is now busy on the problem of making alcohol a subst.i.tute for gasolene, Mawruss, you can bet your life that the sales department is just as busy trying to find out something which will be a subst.i.tute for alcohol, because when a feller has made up his mind to buy a five-pa.s.senger touring-car, Mawruss, there ain't many automobile salesmen which could wish a seven-pa.s.senger limousine on him by working him with a couple of cups coffee, y'understand."

"Then there is the show business," Morris observed, "and while I don't mean to say that this here prohibition is going to have any effect on them miserable plays where the girl saves the family at eight-forty-five by marrying the millionaire and discovers at ten-forty-five that she loves him just as much as if he hadn't any rating, so that the show can get out at eleven-five, y'understand, but when enough states has adopted the prohibition amendment to pull it into effect, Abe, the Midnight Follies as a business proposition will be in a cla.s.s with bar fixtures and ma.s.s-kerseno cherries."

"Well, so far as I'm concerned, any show that starts in at twelve o'clock would always have to get along without _my_ trade, prohibition or no prohibition," Abe commented, "even though I could enjoy it on nothing stronger than malted milk."

"Which you couldn't," Morris added, "and there's why the Midnight Follies wouldn't last, because not only is this here prohibition going to kill schnapps, Abe, but it is also going to drive off the market for all articles the demand for which contains more than one per cent.

alcohol."

"And believe me, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "no decent, respectable man is going to miss such articles, neither."

XV

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON PEACE WITH VICTORY AND WITHOUT BROKERS, EITHER

"An offer is anyhow an offer, even if it is turned down, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, the day after Germany proposed terms of peace, "which that time I sold Harris Immerglick them lots in Brownsville, Mawruss, the first proposition he made me I pretty near threw him down the freight-elevator shaft, and when we finally closed the deal I couldn't tell exactly how much I made on them lots--figuring what I paid in taxes and a.s.sessments while I owned 'em, but it must have been, anyhow, five hundred dollars, Mawruss, from the way Immerglick gives me such a cutthroat looks whenever he sees me nowadays."

"Everybody ain't so easy as Harris Immerglick," Morris Perlmutter commented.

"Maybe not," Abe admitted. "But Harris Immerglick didn't want them lots not nearly as bad as the Kaiser wants peace, Mawruss, so while the parties to the proposed contract seems to be at present too wide apart to make a deal likely, Mawruss, at the same time I look to see the Kaiser offer a few concessions."

"Perhaps you're right, Abe," Morris said, "but while the Kaiser may have control of enough property so as to throw in a little here and a little there, y'understand, in the end it will be the boot money which will count, Abe, and before this deal is closed, Abe, you could bet your life that not only would the parties of the first part got to give up Belgium, Servia, Rumania, Poland, and Alsace-Lorraine, but they would also got to pay billions and billions of dollars in cash or certified check upon the delivery of the deed and pa.s.sing of t.i.tle under the said contract, and don't you forget it. So if some of them railroad presidents which is now drawing a hundred thousand a year salary, Abe, has got any hopes that President Wilson would hold up taking over the railroads pending negotiations for peace, y'understand, they must be blessed with sanguinary dispositions, Abe, because it's going to take a long time yet the Kaiser would concede enough to justify the Allies in so much as hesitating on even a single pair of soldiers' pants."

"Say, if anybody thinks the government would let go the railroads when we make peace with Germany, Mawruss, he don't know no more about railroads as he does about governments," Abe declared, "because this war which the government has got with the railroads, meat-packers, oil trusts, and coal-mine owners wouldn't end when we've licked Germany any more than it begun when Von Tirpitz started his submarine campaign. Yes, Mawruss, if we wouldn't leave off fighting Germany till it's agreed that no fellers like Von Tirpitz, Von Buelow, Von Bethmann-Hollweg, and all them other Vons can use German subjects and German property for their own personal purposes, why it's a hundred-to-one proposition that we ain't going to leave off fighting the railroads till it's agreed that them Von Tirpitzes, Von Buelows, and Von Hindenbergs of the American railroads couldn't use the transportation business of this country for stock-gambling purpose as though the railroads was gold and silver mining prospects somewhere out in Nevada and didn't have a thing to do with the food and coal supply of the nation."

"Wait a moment," Morris said, "and I'll ask Jake, the shipping-clerk, to bring you in a b.u.t.ton-box. We 'ain't got no soap-boxes."

"That ain't no soap-box stuff, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "If the government should do the same thing to the meat-packers as they did to the railroads, Mawruss, the arguments of them soap-box orators wouldn't have a soap-box to stand on."

"Well, if the government thinks it is necessary in order to carry on the war, Abe," Morris said, "it will grab the meat business like it has taken over the railroads, but we've got enough to do to supply our soldiers with ammunition without we would spend any time stopping the ammunition of them soap-box fellers."

"Of course I may be wrong, Mawruss," Abe admitted, "but the way I look at it, the war ain't an excuse for not cleaning up at home. On the contrary, Mawruss, I think it is an opportunity for cleaning up, and when I see in the papers where people writes to the editors that the prohibitionists, the women suffragists, and the union laborers should ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting up arguments when the country is so busy over the war, I couldn't help thinking that there must be people over in Germany which is writing to the _Tageszeitung_ and the _Freie Presse_ that the German Social Democrats and Liberals should ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting up arguments about the Kaiser giving them popular government when Germany is so busy over the war. In other words, it's a stand-off, Mawruss, with the exception that the Kaiser 'ain't made no speeches so far that Germany would never make peace with America till the millions of American women which 'ain't got the vote has some say as to how the war should be carried on and what the terms of peace should be."

"Do you mean to say that women not having the vote puts our government in the same cla.s.s with Germany?" Morris demanded.

"I mean to say that the proposition of German men having the vote sounds just so foolish to the Kaiser as the proposition of American women having the vote does to this here Eli U. Root," Abe retorted, "and while there is only one Kaiser in Germany, Mawruss, we've got an awful lot of Roots in America, so until Congress gives women the vote, Mawruss, the Kaiser will continue to have an elegant come-back at President Wilson for that proclamation of his."

"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris said, "I read this here proclamation of Mr. Wilson's when it was published in the papers, and while I admit that it didn't leave so big an impression on me as if it would of been a murder or a divorce case, y'understand, yet as I recollect it, Abe, there was enough room in it, so that if the German terms of peace was sufficiently liberal, y'understand, the German popular government needn't got to be so awful popular but what it could get by, understand me."

"That's my idee, too," Abe declared, "and while I ain't so keen like this here Lord Handsdown or Landsdown, or whatever the feller's name is, that we should jump right in and ask the Kaiser if that's the best he could do and how long would he give us to think it over, y'understand, yet you've got to remember that we've all had experiences with fellers like Harris Immerglick, Mawruss, and if the Allies would go at this thing in a business-like way, y'understand, it might be a case of going ahead with our business, which is war, and at the same time keeping an eye on the brokers in the transaction."

"I don't want to wake you up when you've got such pleasant dreams, Abe,"

Morris interrupted, "but the Allies is going to need all the eyes they've got during the next year or so, and a few binoculars and periscopes wouldn't go so bad, neither."

"All right," Abe said, "then don't keep an eye on the brokers, but just the same we could afford to let the matter rest, because you know what brokers are, Mawruss: when it comes to putting through a swap, the princ.i.p.als could be a couple of hard-boiled eggs that would sooner make a present of their properties to the first-mortgagees than accept the original terms offered, y'understand, but the brokers never give up hope."

"What are you talking about--brokers?" Morris exclaimed. "There ain't no brokers in a peace transaction."

"Ain't there?" Abe retorted. "Well, if this here Czernin ain't the broker representing Austria and Germany, what is he? I can see the feller right now, the way he walks into Trotzky & Lenine's office with one of them real-estater smiles that looks as genwine as a twenty-dollar fur-lined overcoat.

"'_Wie gehts_, Mr. Trotzky!' he says, like it's some one he used to every afternoon drink coffee together ten years ago and has been wondering ever since what's become of him that he 'ain't seen him so long. Only in this case it happens to be Lenine he's talking to.

"'Mr. Trotzky ain't in. This is his partner, Mr. Lenine,' Lenine says.

"'Not Barnett Lenine used to was November & Lenine in the neckwear business?' Czernin says.

"'No,' Lenine says, and although Czernin tries to look like he expected as much, it kind of takes the zip out of him, anyhow.

"'Let's see,' he says, 'this must be Chatskel Lenine, married a daughter of old man Josephthal and has got a sister living in Toledo, Ohio, by the name Rifkin. The husband runs a clothing-store corner of Tenth and Main, ain't it?'

"This time he's got him cornered, and Lenine has to admit it, so Czernin shakes hands with him and gives him the I.O.M.A. grip, with just a suggestion of the Knights of Phthias and Free Sons of Courland.

"'My name is Czernin--Sig Czernin,' he says. 'I see you don't remember me. I met you at the house of a party by the name Linkheimer or Linkman, I forget which, but the brother, Harris Linkheimer--I remember now, it _was_ Linkheimer--went to the Saint Louis Exposition and was never heard of afterward.'

"'My _tzuris_!' Lenine says, but this don't feaze Czernin.

"'You see,' he says, 'I never forget a face.'

"'And you 'ain't got such a bad memory for names, neither,' Lenine tells him.

"'That ain't neither here nor there,' Czernin says, 'because if your name would be O'Brien or something Swedish, even, I got here a proposition, Mr. Lenine, which it's a pleasure to me that I got the opportunity of offering it to you, and even if I do say so myself, y'understand, such a gilt-edged proposition like this here ain't in the market every day.'

"And that's the way Czernin sprung them peace propositions on Lenine & Trotzky, and it don't make no difference that in this particular instance it's practically a case of Lenine & Trotzky accepting whatever proposition the Kaiser wants to put to them, y'understand, when it comes to d.i.c.kering with the Allies which can afford to act so independent to the Kaiser that if Czernin is lucky he won't get thrown down-stairs more than a couple of times, y'understand. He will come right back with the names and family histories of a few more common acquaintances and a couple of more concessions on the part of Germany, time after time, until it'll begin to look like peace is in sight."

"I wish you was right, Abe," Morris said, "but I think you will find that this here peace contract will be in charge of the diplomats and not the real-estaters."

"Well, what's the difference?" Abe asked.

"Probably there ain't any," Morris admitted, "because their methods is practically the same, which when countries goes to war on account of treaties they claim the other country broke, y'understand, it's usually just so much the fault of the diplomats which got 'em to sign the treaties originally, as when business men get into a lawsuit over a real-estate contract, it is the fault of the real-estate brokers in the transaction. So therefore, Abe, unless we want to make a peace treaty with Germany which would sooner or later end up in another war, y'understand, the best thing for America to do is to depend for peace not on brokers _oder_ diplomats, but on airyoplanes and guns with the right kind of soldiers to work 'em. Furthermore, after we've got the Germans back of the Rhine will be plenty of time to talk about entering into peace contracts with the Kaiser, because then there will be nothing left for the _Rosher_ to d.i.c.ker about, and all we will have to do in the way of diplomacy will be to say, 'Sign here,' and he'll sign there."

XVI

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON KEEPING IT DARK

"I got a circular letter from this here Garfield where he says we should keep the temperature of our rooms down to sixty-eight degrees," Abe Potash remarked during the recent below-zero spell in New York.