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POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
BOOKS BY
MONTAGUE GLASS
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
WORRYING WON'T WIN
HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK
[ESTABLISHED 1817]
[Illustration: "he gives himself dead away by getting sore."]
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
_by_
MONTAGUE GLASS
_Author of "Worrying Won't Win"_
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1919
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THEY ARRIVE, AND SO DOES THE PRESIDENT 1
II. SETTLING THE PRELIMINARIES 15
III. THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO ENGLAND 24
IV. EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING SATISFACTORILY--MAYBE 33
V. THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE--IT NEEDS PUBLICITY 42
VI. JOINING THE LEGION OF HONOR 52
VII. SOME CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS FOR THE KAISER 62
VIII. IT ENTERS ON ITS NO-GOLD-CASKET PHASE 72
IX. WORRYING SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME, AIN'T IT? 82
X. THE NEW HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY 92
XI. IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME
FOR TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGES 102
XII. THIS HERE VICTORY LIBERTY LOAN 112
XIII. WHEN IS A SECRET TREATY SECRET? 122
XIV. THE FIRST DAY OF MAY 132
XV. THE PEACE TREATY AS GOOD READING 142
XVI. THE GERMAN ROMAN HOLIDAY AND THE AMERICANIZATION OF
AMERICANS 152
XVII. MR. WILSON'S FAVOR OF THE 20TH ULTO. AND CONTENTS NOTED 162
XVIII. BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC
FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS, AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES 172
XIX. THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES 182
XX. JULY THE FIRST AND AFTER 192
XXI. WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS, ECONOMICALLY AND THEATRICALLY 202
XXII. THEY DISCUSS THE SIGNING OF IT 212
XXIII. THE RECENT UNPLEASANTNESS IN TOLEDO, OHIO 222
XXIV. FEEDING THE PEACE CONFERENCERS AND THE HOUSEHOLD 232
XXV. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS INCLUDES
LIBELED MILLIONAIRES, ENFORCED PROHIBITION, AND 241
SHANTUNG
XXVI. THE APPROACHING ROYAL VISIT 251
ILLUSTRATIONS
"HE GIVES HIMSELF DEAD AWAY BY GETTING SORE" _Frontispiece_
"I WOULDN'T BLAME CHAIRMAN CLEMENCEAU NEITHER,
BECAUSE IF THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE IS GOING
TO END THIS SIDE OF NINETEEN-FIFTY, IT'S GOT
TO BE SPEEDED UP SOME" _Facing p._ 44
"A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE IS SO BADLY PREDICTED
TO THE LAPEL-BUTTON HABIT THEY WOULD JOIN
ANYTHING" " 52
"... WHICH WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT MR. WILSON
STARTED IN--IN A SMALL WAY" " 144
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER SETTLE THINGS
I
THEY ARRIVE, AND SO DOES THE PRESIDENT
"_Nu_, what's the matter _now_?" Morris Perlmutter asked, as he entered
the office one morning after the cessation of hostilities on the western
front.
"_Ai, tzuris!_" Abe moaned in reply, and for at least a minute he
continued to rock to and fro in his chair and to make incoherent noises
through his nostrils in the manner of a person suffering either from
toothache or the recent cancelation of a large order.
"It serves you right," Morris said. "I told you you shouldn't eat that
liberty roast at Wasserbauer's yesterday. It used to give you the
indigestion when it was known as _Koenigsburger Klops_, which it is like
the German Empire now calling itself the German Republic; changing its
name ain't going to alter its poisonous disposition none."
"That's right!" Abe said. "Make jokes, why don't you? You are worser as
this here feller Zero."
"What feller Zero?" Morris demanded.
"Zero the emperor what fiddled when Rome was burning," Abe replied.
"He's got nothing on you. _You_ would fiddle if Rome, Watertown, and
Ogdensburg was burning."
"I don't know what you are talking about at all," Morris said. "And,
besides, the feller's name was Nero, not Zero."
"That's what you say," Abe commented, "which you also said that the
operators was only bluffing and that they wouldn't strike on us in a
thousand years, and considering that you said this only yesterday,
Mawruss, it's already wonderful how time flies."
"Well," Morris said, "how could I figure that them lunatics is going to
pick out the time when we've got practically no work for them and was
going to fire them, anyway, to call a strike on us?"
"You should _ought_ to have figured that way," Abe declared. "Didn't the
Kaiser abdicate just before them Germans got ready to kick him out?"
"The king business ain't the garment business," Morris observed.
"I know it ain't," Abe agreed. "Kings has got their worries, too, but
when it comes to laying awake nights trying to figure out whether them
designers somewheres in France is going to turn out long, full skirts or
short, narrow skirts for the fall and winter of nineteen-nineteen and
nineteen-twenty, Mawruss, I bet yer the entire collection of kings,
active or retired, doesn't got to take two grains of trional between
them."
"If everybody worried like _you_ do, Abe," Morris said, "the government
would got to issue sleeping-powder cards like sugar cards and limit the
consumption of sleeping-powders to not more than two pounds of
sleeping-powders per person per month in each household."
"Well, some one has got to do the worrying around here, Mawruss," Abe
said, "which if it rested with you, y'understand, we could make up a
line of samples for next season that wouldn't be no more like Paris
designs than General Pershing looks like his pictures in the magazines."
"Say, for that matter," Morris said, "we are just as good guessers as
our competitors; on account the way things is going nowadays, nobody is
going to try to make a trip to Paris to get fashion designs, because if
he figured on crossing the ocean to buy model gowns for the fall and
winter of nineteen-nineteen and nineteen-twenty, y'understand, between
the time that he applied for his passport and the time the government
issued it to him, y'understand, it would already be the spring and
summer season of nineteen-twenty-four and nineteen-twenty-five. So the
best thing we could do is to snoop round among the trade, and whatever
we find the majority is making up for next year, we would make up the
same styles also, and that's all there would be _to_ it."
"We wouldn't do nothing of the kind," Abe declared. "I've been thinking
this thing over, and I come to the conclusion that it's up to you to go
over to Paris and see what is going on over there."
"I don't got to go to Paris for that, Abe," Morris said. "I can read the
papers the same like anybody else, and just so long as there is a chance
that the war would start up again and them hundred-mile guns is going to
resume operations, I am content to get my ideas of Paris styles at a
distance of three thousand miles if I never sold another garment as long
as I live."
"But when it _was_ working yet, it only went off every twenty minutes,"
Abe said.
"I don't care if it went off every Fourth of July," Morris said,
"because if I went over there it would be just my luck that the peace
nogotiations falls through and the Germans invent a gun leaving
Frankfort ever hour on the hour and arriving in Paris daily, including
Sundays, without leaving enough trace of me to file a proof of death
with. Am I right or wrong?"
"All right," Abe said. "If _that's_ the way you feel about it, _I_ will
go to Paris."
"_You_ will go to Paris?" Morris exclaimed.
"Sure!" Abe declared. "The operators is on strike, business is rotten,
and I'm sick and tired of paying life-insurance premiums, _anyway_.
Besides, if Leon Sammet could get a passport, why couldn't I?"
"You mean to say that faker is going to Paris to buy model gowns?"
Morris demanded.
"I seen him on the Subway this morning, and the way he talked about how
easy he got his passport, you would think that every time he was in
Washington with a line of them masquerade costumes which Sammet Brothers
makes up, if he didn't stop in and take anyhow a bit of lunch with the
Wilsons, y'understand, the President raises the devil with Tumulty why
didn't he let him _know_ Leon Sammet was in town."
"Then that settles it," Morris declared, reaching for his hat.
"Where are you going?" Abe asked.
"I am going straight down to see Henry D. Feldman and tell that crook he
should get for me a passport," Morris said.
"You wouldn't positively do nothing of the kind," Abe said. "Did you
ever hear the like? Wants to go to a lawyer to get a passport! An idea!"
"Well, who would I go to, then--an osteaopath?" Morris asked.
"Leon Sammet told me all about it," Abe said. "You go down to a place on
Rector Street where you sign an application, and--"
"That's just what I thought," Morris interrupted, "and the least what
happens to fellers which signs applications without a lawyer,
y'understand, is that six months later a truck-driver arrives one
morning and says where should he leave the set of Washington Irving in
one hundred and fifty-six volumes or the piano with stool and scarf
complete, as the case may be. So I am going to see Feldman, and if it
costs me fifteen or twenty dollars, it's anyhow a satisfaction to know
that when you do things with the advice of a smart crooked lawyer,
nobody could put nothing over on you outside of your lawyer."
When Morris returned an hour later, however, instead of an appearance of
satisfaction, his face bore so melancholy an expression that for a few
minutes Abe was afraid to question him.
"_Nu!_" he said at last. "I suppose you got turned down for being
overweight or something?"
"What do you mean--overweight?" Morris demanded. "What do you suppose I
am applying for--a twenty-year endowment passport or one of them tontine
passports with cash surrender value after three years?"
"Then what is the matter you look so _rachmonos_?" Abe said.
"How _should_ I look with the kind of partner which I've got it?" Morris
asked. "Paris models he must got to got. Domestic designs ain't good
enough for him. Such high-grade idees he's got, and I've got to suffer
for it yet."
"Well, _don't_ go to Europe. What do _I_ care?" Abe said.
"_We_ must go," Morris replied.
"What do you mean--we?" Abe demanded.
"I mean you and me," Morris said. "Feldman says that just so long as it
is one operation he would charge the same for getting one passport as
for getting two, excepting the government fee of two dollars. So what do
you think--I am going to pay Henry D. Feldman two hundred dollars for
getting me a passport when for two dollars extra I can get one for you
also?"
"But who is going to look after the store?" Abe exclaimed.
"Say!" Morris retorted, "you've got relations _enough_ working around
here, which every time you've hired a fresh one, you've given me this
blood-is-redder-than-water stuff, and now is your chance to prove it. We
wouldn't be away longer as six weeks at the outside, so go ahead, Abe.
Here is the application for the passport. Sign your name on the dotted
line and don't say no more about it."
* * * * *
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, three weeks later, as they sat in the
restaurant of their Paris hotel, "in a country where the coffee pretty
near strangles you, even when it's got cream and sugar in it,
y'understand, the cooking has _got_ to be good, because in a
two-dollar-a-day American plan hotel the management figures that no
matter how rotten the food is, the guests will say, 'Well, anyhow, the
coffee was good,' and get by with it _that_ way."
"On the other hand, Abe," Morris suggested, "maybe the French hotel
people figure that if they only make the coffee bad enough, the guests
would say, 'Well, one good thing, while the food is terrible, it ain't a
marker on the coffee.'"
"But the food tastes pretty good to me, Mawruss," Abe said.
"Wait till you've been here a week, Abe," Morris advised him. "Anything
would taste good to you after what you went through on that boat."
"What do you mean--after what _I_ went through?" Abe demanded. "What I
went through don't begin to compare with what you went through, which
honestly, Mawruss, there was times there on that second day out where
you acted so terrible, understand me, that rather as witness such human
suffering again, if any one would of really and truly had your interests
at heart, they would of give a couple of dollars to a steward that he
should throw you overboard and make an end of your misery."
"Is _that_ so!" Morris retorted. "Well, let me tell you something, Abe.
If you think _I_ was in a bad way, don't kid yourself, when you lay
there in your berth for three days without strength enough to take off
even your collar and necktie, y'understand, that the captain said to the
first officer ain't it wonderful what an elegant sailor that Mr. Potash
is or anything _like_ it, understand me, which on more than one occasion
when I seen the way you looked, Abe, I couldn't help thinking of what
chances concerns like the Equ_itta_ble takes when they pass a feller as
A number one on his heart and kidneys, and ain't tried him out on so
much as a Staten Island ferry-boat to see what kind of a traveler he
is."
"Listen, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "did we come over here paying
first-class fares for practically steerage accommodations to discuss
life insurance, or did we come over here to buy model garments and get
through with it, because believe me, it is no pleasure for me to stick
around a country where you couldn't get no sugar or butter in a hotel,
not if you was to show the head waiter a doctor's certificate with a
hundred-dollar bill pinned on it. So let us go round to a few of these
high-grade dressmakers and see how much we are going to get stuck for,
and have it over with."
Accordingly, they paid for the coffee and milk without sugar and the
dark sour rolls without butter which nowadays form the usual hotel
breakfast in France, and set out for the office of the commission
agent whose place of business is the rendezvous for American
garment-manufacturers in search of Parisian model gowns. The broad
avenues in the vicinity of the hotel seemed unusually crowded even to
people as accustomed to the congested traffic of lower Fifth Avenue as
Abe and Morris were, but as they proceeded toward the wholesale district
of Paris the streets became less and less traveled, until at length they
walked along practically deserted thoroughfares.
"And we thought business was rotten in America," Morris said. "Why,
there ain't hardly one store open, hardly."
Abe nodded gloomily.
"It looks to me, Mawruss, that if there is any new garments being
designed over here," he said, "they would be quiet morning gowns
appropriate for attending something informal like a sale by a receiver
in supplementary proceedings, or a more or less elaborate afternoon
costume, not too showy, y'understand, but the kind of model that a
fashionable Paris dressmaker could wear to a referee in bankruptcy's
office so as not to make the attending creditors say she was her own
best customer, understand me."
"Well, what could you expect?" Morris said, as they toiled up the stairs
to the commission agent's office. "The chances is that up to a couple of
months ago, in a Paris dressmaker's shop, a customer arrived only every
other week, whereas a nine-inch bomb arrived every twenty minutes, and
furthermore, Abe, it was _you_ that suggested this trip, not _me_, so
now that we are over here, we should ought to make the best of it, and
if this here commission agent can't show us no new designs, he could,
anyhow, show us the sights."
But even this consolation was denied them, for when they reached the
commission agent's door it was locked and barred, as were all the other
offices on that floor, and bore a placard reading:
FERME
À CAUSE DU JOUR DE FÊTE
"_Nu!_" Morris said, after he had read and re-read the notice a number
of times, "what are we going to do _now_?"
"This is the last hair," Abe said, "because you know how it is with
these Frenchers, if they close for a death in the family, it is liable
to be a matter of weeks already."
"Maybe it says gone to lunch, will be back in half an hour," Morris
suggested, hopefully.
"Not a chance," Abe declared. "More likely it means this elegant office
with every modern improvement except an elevator, steam heat, and
electric light, to be sublet, because it would be just our luck that the
commission agent is back in New York right now with a line of brand-new
model gowns, asking our bookkeeper will either of the bosses be back
soon."
"We wouldn't get back in ten years, I'll tell you that, unless we
hustle," Morris declared. He led the way down-stairs to the ground
floor, where, after a few minutes, they managed to attract the attention
of the _concierge_, who emerged from her shelter at the foot of the
stairs and in rapid French explained to Abe and Morris that all Paris
was celebrating with a public holiday the arrival of President Wilson.
"It's a funny thing about the French language," Morris said, as she
concluded. "Even if you don't understand what the people mean, you could
'most always tell what they've been eating, which if the French people
was limited by law to a ton of garlic a month per person, Abe, this lady
would go to jail for the rest of her life."
"_Attendez!_" said the _concierge_. "_Au dessus il yà un monsieur qui
parle anglais._"
She motioned for them to wait and ascended the stairs to the floor
above, where they heard her knock on an office door. Evidently the
person who opened it was annoyed by the interruption, for his voice--and
to Abe and Morris it was a strangely familiar voice--was raised in angry
protest.
"Now listen," said the tenant, "I told you before that I've only got
this place temporarily, and as long as I am in here I don't want you to
do no cleaning nor nothing, because the air is none too good here as it
is, and furthermore--"
He proceeded no farther, however, for Abe and Morris had taken the
stairs three at a jump and began to wring his hands effusively upon the
principle of any port in a storm.
"Well, well, well, if it ain't Leon Sammet!" Abe cried, and his manner
was as cordial as though, instead of their nearest competitor, Leon were
Potash & Perlmutter's best customer.
"The English language bounces off of that woman like water from a duck's
neck," Leon said, "which every five minutes she comes up here and talks
to me in French high speed with the throttle wide open like a racing-car
already."
"And the exhaust must be something terrible," Abe said.
"I am nearly frozen from opening the windows to let out her
conversation," Leon said, "and especially this morning, when I thought I
could get a lot of letter-writing done without being interrupted, on
account of the holiday."
"So that's the reason why everything is closed up!" Morris exclaimed.
"But Christmas ain't for pretty near two weeks yet," Abe said.
"What has Christmas got to do with it?" Leon retorted. "To-day is a
holiday because President Wilson arrives in Paris."
"And you are working here?" Abe cried.
"Why not?" Leon asked.
"You mean to say that President Wilson is arriving in Paris to-day and
you ain't going to see him come in?" Morris exclaimed. "What for an
American are you, anyway?"
"Say, for that matter, President Wilson has been arriving in New York
hundreds of times in the past four years," Leon said, "and I 'ain't
heard that you boys was on the reception committee exactly."
"That's something else again," Abe said. "In New York we've got business
_enough_ to do without fooling away our time rubbering at parades, but
President Wilson only comes to Paris once in a lifetime."
"And some of the people back home is kicking because he comes to Paris
even _that_ often," Leon commented.
"_Let_ 'em kick," Morris declared, "which the way some Americans runs
down President Wilson only goes to show that it's an old saying and a
true one that there is no profit for a man in his own country, so go
ahead and write your letters if you want to, Leon, but Abe and me is
going down-town to the Champs Elizas and give the President a couple of
cheers like patriotic American sitsons should ought to do."
"In especially," Abe added, "as it is a legal holiday and we wouldn't
look at no model garments to-day."
II
SETTLING THE PRELIMINARIES
"After all, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, as he sat with his partner,
Morris Perlmutter, in their hotel room on the night after the
President's arrival in Paris, "a President is only human, and it seems
to me that if they would of given him a chance to go quietly to a hotel
and wash up after the trip, y'understand, it would be a whole lot better
as meeting him at the railroad depot and starting right in with the
speeches."
"What do you mean--give him a chance to wash up?" Morris asked. "Don't
you suppose he had a chance to wash up on the train, or do you think him
and Mrs. Wilson sat up all night in a day-coach?"
"I don't care if they had a whole section," Abe retorted; "it ain't the
easiest thing in the world to step off a train in a stovepipe hat, with
a clean shave, after a twenty-hour trip, even if it would of been one of
them eighteen-hour limiteds even, and begin right away to get off a lot
of _schmooes_ about he don't know how to express the surprise and
gratification he feels at such an enthusiastic reception, in especially
as he probably lay awake half the night trying to memorize the bigger
part of the speech following the words, 'and now, gentlemen, I wouldn't
delay you no longer.' So that's why I say if they would have let him go
to his hotel first, y'understand, why, then he--"
"But Mr. and Mrs. Wilson ain't putting up at no hotel. They are staying
with a family by the name of Murat," Morris explained.
"Relations to the Wilsons maybe?" Abe inquired.
"Not that I heard tell of," Morris replied.
"Well, whoever they are they've got my sympathy," Abe said; "because
once, when the Independent Order Mattai Aaron held its annual Grand
Lodge meeting in New York, me and Rosie put up the Grand Master, by the
name Louis M. Koppelman, used to was Koppelman & Fine, the Fashion
Store, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and the way that feller turned the house
upside down, if he would have stayed another week with us, understand
me, I would have hired a first-class A number one criminal lawyer to
defend me and wired the relations for instructions as to how to ship the
body home."
"I bet yer the Murats feel honored to got Mr. and Mrs. Wilson staying
with them," Morris said.
"For the first few days maybe," Abe admitted, "but wait till a couple
weeks go by! I give them until January 1, 1919, and after that Mr. and
Mrs. Murat would be signaling each other to come up-stairs into the
maid's room and be holding a few ain't-them-people-got-no-home
conversations. Also, Mawruss, for the rest of their married life,
Mawruss, every time the tropic of who invited them in the FIRST place
comes up at meal-times, y'understand, either Mr. or Mrs. Murat is going
to get up from the table and lock themselves up in the bedroom for the
remainder of the evening. Am I right or wrong?"
"I wouldn't argue with you," Morris said, "because if I would give you
the slightest encouragement you are liable to go to work and figure
where Mrs. Murat is kicking to Mr. Murat that she couldn't make out with
the housekeeping money while the Wilsons is in Paris, on account of
having to buy an extra bottle of Grade B milk every day, or something
like that, which you talk like Mr. and Mrs. Wilson was in Paris on a
couple of weeks' vacation, whereas the President has come here to settle
the peace of the world."
"Did I say he didn't?" Abe protested.
"And while you are sitting here talking a lot of nonsense," Morris went
on, "big things is happening, which with all the questions he has got to
think about, I bet yer the President _oser_ worries his head about a
little affair like board and lodging. Also I read in one of them Paris
editions of an American paper that there come over to France on the same
steamer with him over three hundred experts--college professors and the
like--and them fellers is now staying in Paris at various hotels, which,
if that don't justify Mr. Wilson in putting up with a private family,
y'understand, I don't know what does!"
"I thought at the time I read about them experts coming over to help
the President in the Peace Conference that he was letting himself in for
something," Abe observed.
"I bet yer!" Morris said. "And that's where Colonel House was wise when
he comes over on a steamer ahead of them, because it is bad enough when
you are crossing the ocean in winter-time to be President of the United
States and to have to try not to act otherwise, without having three
hundred experts dogging your footsteps and thinking up ways to start a
conversation and swing it towards the subject they are experts in. Which
I bet yer every time the President tried to get a little exercise by
walking around the promenade deck after lunch there was an expert on
Jugo-Slobs laying for him who was all worked up to tell everything he
knew about Jugo-Slobs in a couple of laps, provided the President lasted
that long."
"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "a man which employs experts to ask
advice from deserves all he gets, Mawruss, because you know how it is
when you ask an advice from somebody which don't know a thing in the
world about what he is advising you. He'll talk you deaf, dumb, and
blind, anyhow. So you can imagine what it must be like when you are
getting advice from an expert!"
"It seems to me that before the President gets through he will be
looking around for an expert which is expert in choking off advice from
experts, otherwise the first time the President consults one of them
experts, if he's going to wait for the expert to get through, he will
have to be elected to a third term and then maybe hold over, at that,"
Morris commented.
"I should think the President would be glad when this Peace Conference
is over," Abe said.
"Say! For that matter he'll be glad when it's started," Morris said.
"Which the way it looks now, Abe, the preliminaries of a peace
conference is harder on a President in the way of speeches and parades
than two Liberty Loan campaigns and an inauguration. Take, for instance,
the matter of dinners, and I bet yer before he even goes to London next
week he would have six meals with the President of France alone--I can't
remember his name."
"Call him Lefkowitz," Abe said, "I'll know who you mean."
"Well, whatever it is, he looks like a hearty eater, Abe," Morris
remarked.
"In fact, Mawruss, from what I seen of them French politicians in the
parade this morning," Abe observed, "none of them looked like they went
slow on starchy foods and red meats, whereas take the American Peace
Commissioners, from the President down, and while they don't all of them
give you the impression that they eat breakfast food for dinner exactly,
still at the same time if these here peace preliminaries is going to
include more dinners than parades, the French Commissioners has got them
under a big handicap."
"Maybe you're right," Morris agreed. "But my idee is that with these
here preliminary peace dinners it ain't such a bad thing for us if our
Peace Commissioners wouldn't be such hearty eaters, y'understand,
because you know how it is when we've got a hard-boiled egg come into
the place to look over our line, it's a whole lot better to get an idee
of about how much he expects to buy after lunch than before, in
especially if we pay for the lunch. So if this here President Lefkowitz,
or whatever the feller's name is, expects to fill up the President with
a big meal of them French _à la_ dishes until Mr. Wilson gets so
good-natured that he is willing to tell not only his life history, but
also just exactly what he means by a League of Nations, y'understand,
the dinner might just as well start and end with two poached eggs on
toast, for all the good it will do."
"Still, it ain't a bad idee to have all these dinners over and done with
before the business of the Peace Conference begins, Mawruss," Abe
remarked, "because hafterwards, when Mr. Wilson's attitude on some of
them fourteen propositions for peace becomes known, y'understand, it
ain't going to be too pleasant for Mrs. Wilson to be sitting by the side
of her husband and watch the looks of some of the guests sitting
opposite during the fish course, for instance, not wishing him no harm,
but waiting for a good-sized bone to lodge sideways in his throat, or
something."
"She is used to that from home already, whenever she has a few
Republican Senators to dinner at the White House," Morris said. "But
that ain't here nor there, anyhow, because after the Peace Conference
begins the President will be so busy, y'understand, that sending out one
of the Assistant Secretaries of State to a Busy Bee lunch-room to bring
him a couple of sandwiches and some coffee will be the nearest to a
formal dinner that the President will come to for many a day. Take, for
instance, the proposition of the Freedom of the Seas, and there's a
whole lot to be said on both sides by people like yourself which don't
know one side from the other."
"And I don't want to know, neither," Abe said, "because it wouldn't make
no difference to me how free the seas was made, once I get back on terra
cotta, Mawruss; they could not only make the seas free, y'understand,
but they could also offer big bonuses in addition, and I wouldn't leave
America again not if they was to give me a life pass good on the
_Olympic_ or _Aquitania_ with meals included."
"So your idea is that the freedom of the seas means traveling for
nothing on ocean steamers?" Morris commented.
"Say!" Abe retorted, "why should I bother my head what such things mean
when I got for a partner a feller which really by rights belongs down at
the Peace headquarters, along with them other big experts?"
"I never claimed to be an expert, but at the same time, I ain't an
ignerammus, neither, which even before I left New York, I knew all
about this here Freedom of the Seas," Morris said, "which the day
before we sailed I was talking to Henry Binder, of Binder & Baum, and he
says to me--"
"Excuse me, but what does Binder & Baum know about the Freedom of the
Seas?" Abe demanded. "They are in the wholesale pants business, ain't
it?"
"Sure, I know," Morris continued, "and Paderewski is a piano-player, and
at the same time he went over to Poland to organize the new Polish
Republic."
"And the result will be that when the new Polish Republic gets started
under the direction of this here piano-player," Abe said, "and they get
a new Polish National Anthem, it will be an expert piano-player's idea
of something which is easy to play, and the consequence is that until
the next Polish revolution, every time a band plays the Polish National
Anthem, them poor Polacks would got to stand up for from forty-five
minutes to an hour while the band struggles to get through with what it
would have taken Paderewski three minutes at the outside."
"Henry Binder is a college graduate even if he would be in the pants
business," Morris said, "and he said to me: 'Perlmutter,' he said, 'the
Freedom of the Seas is like this,' he says. 'You take a country like
Norway and it stands in the same relation to the big naval powers like
we would to the other big manufacturers. Now, for instance,' he says,
'last year we did a business of over two million dollars, and--'"
Abe raised his right hand like a traffic policeman.
"Stop right there, Mawruss," he said, "because if the Freedom of the
Seas is anything like Binder & Baum doing a business of two million
dollars last year, I don't believe a word of it, which it wouldn't make
no difference if Henry Binder was talking about the Freedom of the Seas
or astronomy, sooner or later he is bound to ring in the large amount of
goods he is selling, and, anyway, no matter what Henry Binder tells you,
you must got to reckon ninety-eight per cent. discount before you could
believe a word he says."
"And do you suppose for one moment that the members of the Peace
Conference is going to act any different from Henry Binder in that
respect?" Morris asked. "Every one of the representatives of the
countries engaged in this here Peace Conference is coming to France with
a statement of the very least they would accept, and it is pretty
generally understood that all such statements are subject to a very
stiff discount, which that is what these here preliminaries is for,
Abe--to get a line on the discounts before the Peace Conference
discusses the claims themselves."
"Well, when it comes to the Allies scrapping between themselves about
League of Nations and Freedoms of Seas, I am content that they should be
allowed a liberal discount on what they say for what they mean, Mawruss,
but when it comes to Germany," he concluded, "she's got to pay, and pay
in full, net cash, and then some."
III
THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO ENGLAND
"The alphabet ain't what it used to be before the war, Mawruss," Abe
said, as he read the paper at breakfast in his Paris hotel shortly after
President Wilson's visit to England. "Former times if a feller
understood C. O. D. and N. G., y'understand, he could read the papers
and get sense out of it the same like he would be a college gradgwate,
already; but nowadays when you pick up a morning paper and read that
Colonel Harris Lefkowitz, we would say, for example, A. D. C. to the C.
O. at G. H. Q. of the A. E. F., has been decorated with the D. S. O.,
you feel that the only way to get a line on what is going on in the
world is to get posted on this--now--algebry which ambitious young
shipping-clerks gets fired for studying during office hours."
"Well, if you get mixed up by these here letters, think what it must be
like for President Wilson to suddenly get one of them English statesmen
sprung on him by--we would say--the King--where the King says: 'Mr.
President, shake hands with the Rutt Hon. Duke of Cholomondley,
K.C.M.G., R.V.O., K.C.B., F.P.A., G.S.I., and sometimes W. and Y.'"
Morris said, "in especially as I understand Cholomondley is pronounced
as if written Rabinowitz."
"It would anyhow give the President a tropic for conversation such as
ain't it the limit what you got to pay to get visiting-cards engraved
nowadays, which it really and truly must cost the English aristocracy a
fortune for such things," Abe said, "in particularly if the daughter of
such a feller gets married with engraved invitations, Mawruss, after he
had paid the stationery bill, y'understand, he wouldn't got nothing left
for her dowry."
"Well, I guess the President wasn't in no danger of running out of
tropics of conversation while he was in England, Abe," Morris said,
"which during all the spare time Mr. Wilson had on his trip he did
nothing but hold conversations with Mr. Balfour, and this here Lord
George, and you could take it from me, Abe, there wasn't many pauses to
be filled up by Mr. Wilson saying ain't it a funny weather we are having
nowadays, or something like that."
"How do you know?" Abe asked. "Was you there?"
"I wasn't there," Morris said, "but last night I was speaking in the
lobby of the hotel to one of them newspaper reporters which made the
trip with the President, and after I had given the young feller one of
the cigars we brought with us from New York he got quite friendly and
told me all about it. It seems, Abe, that the visit was a wonderful
success, in particular the first day Mr. Wilson was in England. The
weather was one of the finest days they had in winter over in England
for years already. Only six inches of rain, and the passage across the
English Channel was so smooth for this time of the year that less than
eighty per cent. of the passengers was ill as against the normal
percentage of 99.31416. As Mr. Wilson had requested that no fuss should
be made over his visit, things was kept down as much as possible, so
that, on leaving Calais, the President's boat was escorted by only ten
torpedo-boat destroyers, a couple battle-ships, three cruisers, and
eight-twelfths of a dozen assorted submarines. There was also a simple
and informal escort of about fifty airy-oplanes, the six dirigible
balloons having been cut out of the program in accordance from the
President's wishes. However, Abe, all this simplicity was nothing
compared to the way they acted when the President arrived at Dover.
There the arrangements was what you might expect when the President of a
plain, democratic people visits the country of another plain, democratic
people, Abe. The only people there to meet them was about twenty or
thirty dukes, a few field-marshals, three regiments of soldiers,
including the bands, and somebody which the newspaper reporter says he
at first took for Caruso in the second act of 'Aïda' and afterwards
proved to be the mayor of Dover in his official costume.
"The ceremony of welcoming Mr. and Mrs. Wilson to the shores of England
was very short, the whole thing being practically over in two hours and
thirty minutes," Morris continued. "It consisted of either the firing of
a Presidential salute of twenty-one guns or the playing of the American
National Anthem by the massed bands of three regiments, the reporter
says he couldn't tell which, on account he stood behind one of the
drums. Later the President made a short speech, in which he said: 'May I
not say how glad I am to land in Dover,' or something to that effect."
"And after that boat-ride from France he would have said so if it had
been Barren Island, or any other place-just so long as it was free from
earthquakes and didn't roll none," Abe agreed. "Also, Mawruss," he
continued, "some day the President is going to begin a speech with, 'May
I not,' and the chairman of the meeting will take him at his word and
put it to a standing vote, and it is going to surprise the President how
few people is going to remain seated on the proposition of whether or
not he shall continue to begin letters and speeches with, 'May I not.'"
"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "When we get by mail a cancelation and answer
it, 'Dear Gents, Your favor received,' does that mean we think the
customer is doing us a favor by canceling an order on us? _Oser a
Stuck._ And in the same way, when Mr. Wilson says, 'May I not?' nobody
fools themselves for a minute that the President is asking permission.
That's just a habit us and him got into, Abe, and in fact, Abe, Mr.
Wilson's 'May-I-nots' have always meant that not only was he going to
say what he intended to say, but that he was also going to do it, too.
So, therefore, you take the speech he made at the Gelthall in London,
and--"
"But as I understand your story, Mawruss, he only just arrived in
Dover," Abe said, "so go ahead with your lies, and tell me what happened
next."
"Well," Morris went on to say, "after the mayor of Dover had presented
Mr. Wilson with the Freedom of the City in a gold casket--"
"Excuse me, Mawruss," Abe interrupted, "but what is this here Freedom of
the City that mayors is all the time presenting to Mr. Wilson?"
"I don't know," Morris replied, "except that seemingly a Freedom of the
City always comes in a gold casket."
"Sure, I know," Abe said, "but what does Mr. Wilson gain by all these
here Freedoms of Cities?"
"Gold caskets," Morris replied, "although I think myself that some of
these mayors ain't above getting by with a gold-plated silver casket, or
even a rolled-gold casket, relying on the fact that Mr. Wilson is too
much of a gentleman to get an appraisal, anyhow till he returns to
America."
"Well, if I would be Mr. Wilson, I wouldn't take it so particular to act
too gentlemanly to them mayors," Abe commented, "because I see in the
papers that when the mayor of London presented him with the Freedom of
the City, Mr. Wilson got the Freedom part, but he was told that the
gold casket was in preparation, which I admit that I don't know nothing
about this here mayor of London, but you know how it is when a customer
gets married, Mawruss, and we put off sending him a wedding present till
we could get round to it, y'understand, which we are all human, Mawruss,
and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if six months from now the
mayor of London would be going round saying, 'Why should we give that
feller a gold casket--am I right or wrong?'--and let the whole
gold-casket thing die a natural death."
"They'll probably come across with it after a few how-about-casket
cables, and, anyhow, if they didn't, Abe, the English people certainly
done enough for Mr. Wilson," Morris continued, "because that newspaper
reporter told me that the reception which Mr. Wilson got in London was
something enormous, y'understand. The King and Queen was waiting to meet
him and the station platform was covered with a red-velvet pile carpet
which was so thick, understand me, that they 'ain't been able as yet to
locate a couple of suit-cases which was carelessly put down by the Rutt
Hon. the Duke of Warrington, K.G.Y., Y.M.H.A., First Lord Red Cap in
Waiting, and sunk completely out of sight while he helped a couple of
Assistant Red Caps in Waiting, also dukes, load the Presidential
wardrobe trunks on the Royal Baggage Transfer truck."
"What do you mean--also dukes?" Abe demanded. "Do you mean to say that
the Red Caps which hustles the King's baggage is dukes?"
"At the very least," Morris declared, "because the Master of the Royal
Fox-hounds is an earl, Abe, and I leave it to you, Abe, if handling
baggage ain't a better job than feeding dogs. Also, Abe, there is Lords
in Waiting and Ladies in Waiting, and it wouldn't surprise me in the
slightest if during their stay in Buckingham Palace some of the members
of Mr. Wilson's party which ain't been tipped off have telephoned down
to the office for towels and kept the Marquis of Hendersonville, Lanes
County, England, Knight Commander of the Bath, waiting at the bedroom
door ten minutes, while they went through all their clothes trying to
find something smaller than a quarter to slip him."
"And do you believe for one moment, Mawruss--if there was a Marquis of
Hendersonville, which I never heard of such a person, Mawruss--and he
did happen to be Knight Commander of the Bath, y'understand, that he is
actually handing out soap and towels in the King of England's palace?"
Abe inquired.
"Certainly I don't believe it," Morris replied, "and I also don't
believe that calling anybody Right Honorable is going to make him any
more right than he is honorable, unless, of course, he is honorable to
start with and really and truly wants to be right, y'understand. And
that is what Mr. Wilson went to England to find out, Abe, because it
ain't going to affect the Peace Conference one way or the other if the
Master of the Royal Fox-hounds don't know a dawg-biscuit from a
gingersnap, y'understand, whereas if this here war is going to be
settled once and for all, Abe, it's quite important that the Right
Honorable English statesmen should have right and honorable intentions."
"And did Mr. Wilson find out?" Abe asked.
"Sure he did," Morris said, "although from what this here newspaper
reporter tells me, Abe, there was a whole lot of lost motion about the
investigation. Take, for instance, the attitude of Mr. Lord George on
the Freedom of the Seas, for instance, and you would think that in the
case of a busy man like Mr. Wilson, y'understand, he would of rung him
up on the telephone, made an appointment for luncheon the next morning,
and by half past one at the outside they would have got the matter in
such shape that the only point not settled between 'em would be a
friendly quarrel as to see who should pay for the eats, y'understand.
Actually, however, the arrangements for having Mr. Wilson get into touch
with Lord George was conducted by the Comptroller of the Royal
Household, and the line of march was down Piccadilly as far as
Forty-second Street, over to Hyde Park, and by way of Hyde Park west to
Eighth Avenue to Mr. Lord George's office in the London & Liverpool
Title Guarantee and Trust Company Building. The order of procession was
as follows:
"Twelve mounted policemen.
"The band of the King's Own Sixty-ninth Regiment.
"Typographical Union No. 6, Allied Printing Trades Council of Great
Britain and Ireland.
"William J. Mustard Association, Drum and Fife Corps.
"Household Guards.
"First carriage--Mr. Wilson and the King.
"Second carriage--Mrs. Wilson and the Queen.
"Third carriage--Mr. George Creel.
"Fourth carriage--Master of the Royal Fox-hounds, Master of the Royal
Buck-hounds, Master of the Royal Stag-hounds, two Masters of Assorted
hounds.
"Six Motor-cycle Policemen.
"The Stock Exchange closed, and promissory notes falling due on that
date became automatically payable on the following day. Admission to the
reviewing-stand was by card, some of which found their way into the
hands of the speculators, and will shortly be the subject of a John Doe
investigation by the district attorney of Middlesex County, so the
newspaper feller told me."
"But what is this here Lord George's attitude towards the Freedom of the
Seas, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"That the newspaper feller didn't know," Morris said.
"Well, who does know?" Abe insisted.
"Lord George," Morris replied.
IV
EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING SATISFACTORILY--MAYBE
"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said to his partner, Abe Potash, a few
days after Mr. Wilson's return from his visit to Italy, "up to a short
time ago hardly anybody in America had ever even heard about Italy's
claims to the Dalmatian territory."
"Naturally!" Abe replied; "because if there is six people in the whole
United States which is engaged in the business of selling spotted dogs
to fire-engine houses, Mawruss, that would be big already."
Morris threw up both hands in a gesture of despair. "What is the use
talking foreign politics to a feller which thinks that Italy's claims to
the Dalmatian territory means she wants the exclusive right to make New
York, Cleveland, Chicago, and St. Louis with a line of spotted dogs for
fire-engine companies!" he exclaimed.
"And I wouldn't even have known that it meant that much," Abe retorted,
entirely unabashed, "excepting that six months ago my wife's sister's
cousin wanted me I should advance her a hundred dollars to pay a lawyer
he should bring suit against the city for her on account she got bitten
by one of them fire-house Dalmatians, Mawruss, which up to that time I
always had an idea they was splashed-up white dogs. So go ahead,
Mawruss, I'll be the goat. What is Italy's claims to the Dalmatian
territory?"
"Well, in the first place, Italy thinks she should be awarded all them
towns where a majority of the people which lives in them speaks
Italian," Morris said; "like Fiume, Spalato, Ragusa--"
"Also New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, and The Bronx," Abe added; "and if she
wants to get nasty, Mawruss, she could claim all the territory east of
Third Avenue, from Ninetieth Street up to the Harlem River, too.
Furthermore, Mawruss, there is neighborhoods south of Washington Square
where not only the majority of the people speaks Italian, but the
minority speaks it also. So you see how complicated things becomes when
a new beginner like me starts in to talk foreign politics."
"For that matter, all us Americans is new beginners on foreign politics,
from Mr. Wilson down, Abe," Morris said. "And that is why Mr. Wilson
done a wise thing when he visited Italy the other day, and took a lot of
American newspaper fellers with him, because, between you and me, Abe,
it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some of them reporters went down
there under the impression that the only thing which distinguished
Ragusa from Ravioli or Spalato from Spaghetti was the difference in the
shape of the noodles, but that otherwise they was cooked the same, with
chicken livers and tomato sauce, which you know how it is in America:
ninety per cent. of the people gets their education from reading in
newspapers, and the consequence is that if the American newspaper
reporters has a sort of hazy idea that Sonnino is either an item on the
bill of fare, to be passed up on account of having garlic in it, or else
a tenor which the Metropolitan Opera House ain't given a contract to as
yet, y'understand, then the American public has got the same sort of
hazy idea. So Mr. Wilson done the right thing traveling to Italy, even
if he did have an uncomfortable journey."
"What do you mean--an uncomfortable journey?" Abe demanded. "Why, I
understand he traveled on the King of Italy's royal train!"