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AT LOW RATES."

"At the same time, Abe," Morris remarked, "the Germans make things pretty secret when they want to, otherwise how could the Kaiser have kept that mutiny under his chest for over a couple of months?"

"And you could take it from me, Mawruss," Abe said, "before Michaelis let it out in the Reichstag, he might just so well have stopped in at the _Lokal Anzeiger_ office on his way down-town and inserted a couple of lines or so under the head of 'Situations Wanted Males.'"

"Why, I thought you said a Prime Minister never gets fired," Morris said.

"Prime Ministers is one thing and Chancellors another, Mawruss," Abe told him.

"Then I imagine this here Michaelis must be putting in a lot of time nowadays going over his contract to see if he's got any come-back against the party of the first part in case that crook fires him,"

Morris said.

"Well, he can keep on looking till he finds another job," Abe replied, "because the Kaiser is like a lot of other highwaymen in the cutting-up trade, Mawruss. To them fellers the first and most important thing about a contract is the loopholes, y'understand, and after that's fixed they don't care what goes into it, which you take that contract of Michaelis's and I bet yer that a police-court lawyer could drive an armored tank through them paragraphs which is supposed to hold the Kaiser, y'understand, whereas if _Michaelis_ wanted to get out of it, Mawruss, he could go to work and hire Messrs. Hughes, Brandeis, Stanchfield, Hughes & Stanchfield, supposing there was _Gott soll huten_ such a firm of lawyers, and they wouldn't be able to find so much as a comma out of place for him."

"And as a good German, Abe, Michaelis would be awful disappointed if they did," Morris said, "because that's the way the Germans feel toward the Kaiser. He robs 'em, he murders 'em, and he starves their wives and children to death, just so him and his family could run the country, and them poor Heinies says to one another: 'That's the kind of a kaiser to have! A big strong man which he don't give a nickel for n.o.body! He's a wonder, all right, and if we didn't have a feller like that at the head of the country I don't know how we would be able to stand all the trouble that cutthroat and his crook family is causing us--Heaven bless them.'"

"The hopeless part of it is," Abe commented, "that there's no way of putting a nation of ninety million people in a lunatic asylum, even if there was an asylum big enough to hold them, which there ain't, Mawruss."

"And as much as you sympathize with a lunatic, you can't have him going around loose, Abe," Morris said, "so what are we going to do about it?"

"Well, we're trying hard to shut 'em up in Germany again," Abe declared, "and after we've got them there, Mawruss, I am willing to stand my share of the expense that the war should go on long enough to give them lunatics a little home treatment, y'understand, and by home treatment, Mawruss, I mean not only treating the lunatics themselves, but also treating their homes," Abe continued, growing red in the face at the thought of it, "which I only hope that I live long enough to see a moving picture of German homes the same like I seen moving pictures of French homes and Belgian homes, and if that don't sweat the Kaiser-mania out of their systems they are crazy for keeps."

VIII

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON LORDNORTHCLIFFING VERSUS COLONELHOUSING

While Lord Northcliff is colonelhousing over here, Colonel House is lordnorthcliffing over in England, and the main point about their being where they are is that they ain't where the people are which sent them there.

"Well, I see where President Wilson says that women should have the right to vote the same like shipping-clerks and bartenders, Mawruss,"

Abe said, "which it's a funny thing to me the way some people claims they never could see that two and two make four till the war comes along and gives them a brand-new point of view."

"At that, you've got to give President Wilson credit that it only took a war like this here European war to bring him to his senses," Morris Perlmutter said, "whereas with Eli U. Root, Abe, it's got to happen yet another war twice as big as this one, three more revolutions in Russland, and a couple of earthquakes _doch_; before he is even going to say, 'Maybe you're right, but that's my opinion and I stick _to_ it.'"

"In a way, Mawruss, Eli U. Root ain't as unreasonable as he looks," Abe said. "He says that if the women gets the vote, y'understand, they would--"

"Listen, Abe," Morris interrupted, "I don't want to hear what this here Root has got to say about _if_ women voted in America, y'understand, because over four million women does vote in America, and some of them has been voting for years already, and when it comes to talking about _ifs_, Abe, _if_ Eli U. Root 'ain't noticed that four million women vote in this country where Eli U. Root is supposed to understand the language as well as speak it, understand me, what did Mr. Root notice over in Russland, where he neither spoke Russian nor understood it, neither?"

"Don't kid yourself, Mawruss," Abe said. "That feller knows just so good as you do that there's four million women voting in America; also he knows that the women of Colorado, where women vote, don't act no different from the women of Pennsylvania, where women don't vote, but that's an argument in favor of women voting, whereas Root is arguing against it."

"That ain't an argument," Morris protested; "it's a fact."

Abe shrugged his shoulders despairingly.

"What does a first-cla.s.s A-number-one lawyer like Root care about facts if they ain't in his favor?" he asked. "Also, Mawruss, if Mr. Root now comes out in favor of women voting, y'understand, that would be a case of changing his mind, and you know as well as I do, Mawruss, the real brainy fellers of the world never changes their mind."

"Not even when the facts is against them?" Morris asked.

"They don't pay no attention to the facts," Abe said. "You take this here Morris Hillkowitz or Hillquit which he is running for mayor of New York on the Socialistic ticket, and for years already that feller went around saying that it was the people which lived in the two-thousand-a-year apartments and owned expensive automobiles which was squashing the protelariat, y'understand, and now when it comes out in the papers that he is living in a thousand-dollar-a-year apartment and running an expensive automobile, Mawruss, does he turn around and say that it's all a mistake and that in reality it's the protelariat which is squashing the feller with the two-thousand-dollar-a-year apartment and expensive automobile? _Oser a Stuck!_"

"Well, it only goes to show that a feller can even make money by being a Socialist if he only sticks to it long enough," Morris said.

"At that, he's probably got more sympathy mit the protelariat than he ever did, Mawruss, because before he owned an automobile he only _suspected_ what them fellers was missing by being poor. Now he _knows_."

"And I suppose by the time he is running for President on the Socialistic ticket," Morris said, "he'll be owning a steam-yacht and the wrongs of the working cla.s.ses will be pretty near breaking his heart."

"Even so, Mawruss, he won't be changing his mind, and I don't know but what he'll be acting wise, too," Abe said, "because when a politician gets a reputation for carrying a certain line of stable opinions his customers naturally expects that he is going to continue to carry 'em, and when he drops that line and lays in a stock of new stuff in the way of political ideas, y'understand, his customers leave him and he's got to build up his trade over again; and that's no way for a feller to get into the steam-yacht cla.s.s--I don't care if he would be a politician or a garment-manufacturer."

"Well, of course, if a feller's opinions is his living, you couldn't blame him for not changing 'em," Morris said, "_aber_ this here Root is already retired from business, and the chances is that, the way he's got his money invested, it wouldn't make no difference _how_ liberal-minded he was, the corporations would have to pay the coupons, anyway."

"I know they would," Abe agreed, "but you take some of these Senators and Congressmen which they started out before we was at war with Germany to show an attractive line of pro-German ideas--that is to say, attractive to their regular customers out in Wisconsin and Saint Louis, understand me, and people don't figure that them poor fellers has got mortgages falling due on 'em next year and boys to put through college.

For all people knows, Mawruss, this here McLemon which used to make a speciality of speeches warning Americans off of ocean steamships was supporting half his wife's family and widowed sister that way. The chances is that he sees now what a rotten line of argument that was, and he would like to switch over and display some snappy nineteen-seventeen-model speeches about the freedom of the seas for American sitsons, understand me, but you know yourself how it is when your wife has got a large family, Mawruss: if one of her sisters ain't having an emergency operation on you, it's a case of doing something quick to keep her youngest brother out of jail, and either way you are stuck a couple of hundred dollars, so you couldn't blame a Congressman who refuses to change his mind and risk losing his territory, even if all the rest of the country _is_ calling him a regular Benedictine Arnold, y'understand."

"Well, sooner or later some of these big _Machers_ has got to change their minds, otherwise the war will never be over," Morris said. "The Kaiser has said over and over again that, once having put on her shiny armor, y'understand, the Fatherland would never let the sword out of its hand till England was finally crushed and _Gott mit uns_, and Lord George and Lord Northcliff has said the same thing about Germany excepting _Gott mit uns_. Also France in this great hour would never lay down the sword, and _we_ would never lay down the sword. Furthermore to hear Austria talk, and Kerensky, Venizelos, and the King of Rumania, there would be such a continuous demand for swords that it would pay Charles N. Schwab and this here Judge Gary to organize the Consolidated Sword Company or the United States Sword Corporation with a plant covering sixteen acres and an issue of one hundred million dollars preferred stock and two hundred and fifty million dollars common stock and let the cannon and torpedo business go."

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But when the Kaiser says that Germany would never stop fighting till her enemies is in the dust, speaking of Germany as a she-Fatherland, or till its enemies is in the dust, speaking of Germany as an it-Fatherland, Mawruss, if you was a mind-reader, Mawruss, you would see 'way back in the rear of his brain one of them railroad time-table signs: _(GG) Will stop daily after January first, nineteen-nineteen_."

"I hope you are right, Abe," Morris commented, "but I see where this here Lord Northcliff says that the war is really just beginning, and so far as I can discover that goes without foot-notes or notices that care is taken to have same correct, but the company will not be responsible for delays or for errors in the printing, y'understand."

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "I don't know nothing about this here Lord Northcliff. I admit also that I don't know what his standing as a lord is or when he joined. In fact, I don't even know what a lord has to pay for initiation fees and annual dues, let alone what sick benefit he draws and what they pay to the widow in case a lord dies, understand me, but I don't care if this here Northcliff, instead of a lord, was an Elk or an Odd Fellow, y'understand, he can't tell when this war is going to end no more than I can."

"But I understand this here Northcliff is an awful smart feller, Abe,"

Morris said. "He owns already a couple dozen newspapers in the old country, and if he wouldn't have the right dope on this here war, I don't know who would."

"Say!" Abe protested. "n.o.body could get the right dope about this war out of any newspaper, even if he owned it, Mawruss, because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, if the City Edition says the Germans is starving, y'understand, and couldn't last through the winter, understand me, that ain't no guarantee that they wouldn't be getting plenty of food in the Home Edition and starving again in the Five-star Final Sporting Extra with Complete Wall Street, Mawruss, so the way I figure it is that this here Northcliff has got the idea that if he tells us the war is only beginning we are going to brace up, and if he says the chances is the war would last twenty years yet and that half the world would be down and out with starvation and sickness before it is finished up, y'understand, we are going to say: 'This is _great_. We must get in on this.'"

"Maybe that's the way they get results in the newspaper business, Abe,"

Morris remarked, "but in the garment business, if I am trying to turn out a big order, y'understand, I tell the operators that the quicker they get through the sooner they will be finished, y'understand, and I make a point of saying that they are practically on the home stretcher even if they are just beginning."

"That ain't such a bad plan, neither," Abe admitted, "but there should ought to be some way to strike an average between your ideas for hurrying up and this you-would-be-all-right-if-blood-poisoning-don't-set-in encouragement of Lord Northcliff's, Mawruss, so that we wouldn't think we'd got too easy a job, but at the same time we wouldn't feel like throwing away the sponge, neither."

"I think he means well, _anyhow_," Morris said, "which he is trying to tell us that we shouldn't think we've got such a cinch as all that; because you know it used to was before this war started, Abe. Every once in a while at a lodge meeting some Grand Army man, who was also, we would say, for example, in the pants business, would get up and make a speech that if this great and glorious land of ours was to be threatened with an invasion by any foreign king or potentate, y'understand, an army of a million soldiers would spring up overnight, and all his lodge brothers would say ain't it wonderful how an old man like that stays as bright as a dollar, y'understand. _But_, just let the same feller get up and make a speech that if the pants business was to be threatened with a strike by any foreign or domestic walking-delegate, understand me, an army of a million pants-operators would spring up overnight, y'understand, and before he had a chance to sit down even them same lodge brothers would have rung for a Bellevue ambulance and pa.s.sed resolutions of sympathy for his family. And yet, Abe, a learner on pants becomes an expert in six days, whereas it takes six months at the very least to train a soldier."

"That's why Lord Northcliff is making all them discouraging speeches,"

Abe said. "He's a business man, Mawruss, and he appreciates that we are up against a tough business proposition."

"But what I don't understand is: where does Lord Northcliff come in to be neglecting his newspapers the way he does?" Morris said. "Is he an amba.s.sador or something?"

"Well, for that matter," Abe retorted, "where does Colonel House come in to be neglecting the cloth-sponging business or whatever business the Colonel is in? It's a stand-off, Mawruss. While Lord Northcliff is colonelhousing over here, Colonel House is lordnorthcliffing over in England, and just exactly what that _is_, Mawruss, I don't know, but I got a strong suspicion that the main point about their being where they are is that they ain't where the people are which sent them there, if you understand what I mean."