same kind of confidence in the League of Nations, Abe," Morris declared.
"In fact, some of them is confident that the League of Nations will
bring about a war for us in even less than fifteen years."
"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "the word _confidence_ has got a whole
lot of different meanings, Mawruss, and it's quite possible that this
here Ambassador Morgenstern used the word with reference to the League
of Nations in its Chatham Square or green-goods meaning, because
otherwise how could the League of Nations cause another war in less than
fifteen years, unless, of course, the feller which prophesied it was a
Republican Senator, which Mr. Morgenstern is not."
"To tell you the truth, Abe," Morris said, "I have heard and read so
many different things about this here League of Nations that it wouldn't
surprise me in the least if the final edition of it provided that any
nation which didn't go to war at least once every three years with some
other nation or nations, y'understand, should be expelled from the
League of Nations with costs, y'understand, and in fact, Abe, it is my
opinion that when some one makes a speech about this here League of
Nations nowadays, he might just so well write a letter to himself
denying that he said what the newspaper said he said, and let it go at
that, because it's a hundred to one that he was the only person who
didn't skip it when it was printed in its original garbled condition."
"At that, Mawruss, you are going to be really and truly surprised to
find out what that League of Nations covenant means when it comes up to
be argued about by the United States Senate," Abe observed, "because a
great many of them Senators is high-grade, crackerjack, A-number-one
lawyers on the side, Mawruss, and formerly used to make their livings by
showing that the contract which the plaintiff made with the defendant
meant just the opposite to what the plaintiff or defendant meant it to
mean--or _vice versa_, according to which end of the lawsuit such a
Senator was arguing on, Mawruss, so you can imagine what is going to
happen to that League of Nations covenant. Take a level-headed lawyer
like Senator Hiram S. Johnson of California, Mawruss, which he 'ain't
got the least disposition to believe that the League of Nations covenant
means what President Wilson says it means, understand me, and when he
gets through showing what he thinks it means, and Senator Borah gets
through showing what _he_ thinks it means, and Senator Reed gets through
thinking what HE thinks it means, understand me, that League of Nations
covenant will have as many different meanings as the contested last will
and testament of a childless millionaire who has married a telephone
operator on his death-bed to spite his grandnieces and nephews,
Mawruss."
"Congress will have a lot of other matters to settle before that League
of Nations comes up, Abe," Morris said, "which I was reading the other
day the message which President Wilson wrote from Paris, and he
certainly laid out a lot of work for them to do till he gets back."
"You mean that letter of May 20th where he says: 'Dear Gents: Sorry not
to be with you and I have been out of touch with things over in America
so long that you will know a whole lot better than I do what is needed
in the way of laws,' Mawruss, and then goes to work and tells them what
is needed to the extent of half a newspaperful?" Abe asked.
"I couldn't remember the exact words," Morris replied.
"Well, I've been expecting every day to see in the newspapers that he
got an answer from the round robins reading: 'Dear Sir: Yours of the
20th inst. to hand and contents noted and in reply would say we wouldn't
positively do nothing of the kind, and in case you are not back with
samples on or before ten days from date, we will take such steps as we
may think proper to protect our interests in the matter and oblige,'"
Abe said, "because if you will remember, Mawruss, them round robins
wanted Mr. Wilson to let the Senate go on making laws while he was away,
and the President says, 'You couldn't make no laws till I get back,' and
then when them round robins asked him when he would be back, he said,
'I'll be back when I am back,' and now he ain't back, and he has got to
ask them round robins to go to work with the other Senators and
Congressmen and make the laws which they wanted to make in the first
place, Mawruss."
"Then it is going to be some time before he gets back if any such a
deadlock like that happened, Abe," Morris said, "because I see where it
says in the papers that Mr. Wilson won't come back until he has signed
the treaties of peace with Germany and Austria, and France and England
won't agree to finish up the treaties for Mr. Wilson's signature until
they know that the United States Senate will ratify them and the United
States Senate won't ratify them until they are finished up and submitted
to them signed by Mr. Wilson, and then I didn't read no more about it,
Abe, because I begun to get dizzy."
"I very often get that way myself nowadays when I am reading in the
newspapers, Mawruss," Abe said, "in particular when they print them full
texts, like the full text of the League of Nations Covenant or the full
text of the President's message. Former times when the papers had in
'em straight murders and bank robberies from the inside or out, Mawruss,
and you sat opposite somebody in the Subway who had to move his lips
while he was reading, you took it for granted that he was an ignoramus
which had to hear them simple words pronounced, even if it was by his
own lips, before he could understand them, Mawruss, but you take this
here letter of the 20th inst., Mawruss, and when you read where
President Wilson says with reference to telephone and telegraph rates,
Mawruss, 'there are many confusions and inconsistencies of rates. The
scientific means by which communication by such instrumentalities could
missing be rendered more thorough and satisfactory has not been made
full use of,' understand me, you could move your lips, your scalp,
Heaven and Earth, Mawruss, and still you couldn't tell what Mr. Wilson
was driving into."
"Well, I glanced over that Message myself, Abe," Morris said, "and the
capital I's was sticking up all through it like toothpicks on the
cashier's desk of an armchair lunch-room, Abe. In just a few lines, Abe,
Mr. Wilson says, 'I hesitate, I feel, I am conscious, I trust, I may, I
shall, I dare say, I hope and I shall,' and when he started to say
something about Woman Suffrage, he undoubtedly begun with 'May I not,'
but evidently when he showed the first draft to Colonel House or
somebody, they said, 'Why do you always say, _May I not_'? and after
discussing such substitutes as '_Doch allow me_,' 'If you 'ain't got no
objections,' and 'You would excuse me if I would take the liberty,' Abe,
they decided to use, 'Will you not permit me,' so, therefore, that part
of the President's message which talks about Woman Suffrage says, 'Will
you not permit me to speak once more and very earnestly of the proposed
amendment to the Constitution and so forth,' and that, to my mind, is
what give President Wilson the idea that it might be a good thing to let
the manufacture and sale of wine and beer continue after June 30th,
which he probably argued, 'If I have such a tough time shaking off the
_May-I-not_ habit, how about them poor fellers which has got the liquor
habit?'"
"Maybe he figured that way and maybe he didn't, Mawruss," Abe said, "but
if any one feels that he ought to stock up with a few bottles of wine
for _kiddush_ or _habdolah_ purposes on or after June 30, 1919, Mawruss,
he oughtn't to be misled by anything President Wilson said in his letter
of the 20th ulto., Mawruss, because when it comes to extending the life
of the beer and wine industry after June 30th, Mawruss, them Senators
and Representatives is more likely to take suggestions from the
President of the Anti-Saloon League than from the President of the
United States."
"And I don't know but what they are right at that, Abe," Morris said,
"because this here Prohibition is strictly a matter of what the majority
thinks, Abe."
"But from the howl that has been going up, Mawruss," Abe protested, "it
looks to me like the majority of people wants the sale of schnapps to
continue."
"I didn't say it was a question of what they want, Abe," Morris
declared, "I said it was a question of what the majority thinks, and the
majority of people thinks that while they can drink schnapps and they
can let it alone, Abe, the majority of people also think that the
majority of the people who drink schnapps would be a whole lot better
off without it. So that's the way it stands, Abe. Nobody wants to leave
off buying liquor, but nobody wants to take the responsibility of
letting the sale of liquor continue."
"Also, Mawruss, I've been reading a good many articles in the magazines
about this here Prohibition lately," Abe declared, "and in every case
the writer shows how disinterested he is, y'understand, by stating right
at the start that so far as he is concerned, they could leave off
selling liquor to-morrow and he would be perfectly satisfied."
"And he is going to have to be, Abe," Morris said, "because that way of
looking at the liquor question is what has brought about Prohibition.
Practically everybody who drinks schnapps and enjoys it, Abe, is afraid
that everybody else who drinks schnapps and _enjoys_ it is going to
think that he drinks schnapps and enjoys it, so he goes to work and
pulls this phony unselfish stuff about, 'So-far-as-I-am-concerned, it
don't make no difference how soon the country goes Prohibition,' and the
result is that the country is going Prohibition, and nobody even now has
got nerve enough to admit that it's going to cut him out of a great
many good times in the future."
"Well, there's one thing about it, Mawruss," Abe declared, "it's going
to make near-by foreign countries, no matter what the climate may be,
great summer and winter resorts for these fellers who don't care how
soon Prohibition goes into effect and who will continue not to care
until 1 A.M. on July 1, 1919. Yes, Mawruss, this here Prohibition is
going to give a wonderful boost to the business of building bridges
across the Rio Grande River and to running lines of steamers between the
United States and them foreign countries near by where the inhabitants
have got it figured out that if you drink and enjoy it, you might just
as well admit it before it's too late to keep the government from not
taking a joke, if you know what I mean."
"Sure I know what you mean," Morris said, "and it has always seemed to
me, Abe, that even the Scotch whisky business ain't going to be affected
so adversely by this here Prohibition, neither, except that the
merchandise is going to reach its ultimate hobnail liver _via_ Mexico
and Cuba instead of New York and Chicago, and furthermore, Abe, there
will be a great demand for sleepers on them northbound trains from
Mexico, and the berths will only have to be made up once on leaving the
Mexican frontier. However, the diners won't do much of a business on
them trains, but they will certainly have to carry extra-large ice-water
tanks."
"And while I don't wish them drink-and-leave-it-alone fellers no
particular harm, Mawruss," Abe declared, vehemently, "some time when
they are traveling on one of them oasis-bound limiteds, Mawruss, it
would serve them right if it run off the rails or something and shook
'em up just enough to make them realize the inconvenience their own
foolishness has brought on them."
"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "I didn't know you was taking this Prohibition
affair so much to heart, Abe."
"What do you mean--take it so much to heart?" Abe protested. "I take a
glass of schnapps once in a while, Mawruss, but so far as I am concerned
this here Prohibition can come into effect this afternoon yet, and it
wouldn't affect me none."
"I am the same way, Abe. I can drink and I can leave it alone," Morris
said. "Or, anyhow, I _think_ I can."
XVIII
BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS,
AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES
"The way I feel about it is this, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his
partner, Morris Perlmutter: "It don't make no difference if them two
boys failed in their intentions, y'understand, they succeeded in making
millions and millions of people in Paris, Winnipeg, New York, and who
knows where not, stop hating each other for anyhow a few hours, and
instead they smiled and shook hands and allowed themselves a recess in
their regular work of winning strikes, losing strikes, shooting,
starving, and cheating each other and their countries, while they all
joined in being glad that Mrs. Hawker and the baby had got the popper
back home with them and that Grieve was safe with his family or anyhow
as safe as a young feller can be who is liable to quit his home at any
moment and do the same wonderful, foolish thing all over again."
"It's too bad that all them strikers and Bolsheviks which is acting as
senselessly as children, couldn't also act as sensibly as children,
Abe," Morris Perlmutter observed, "and stop crying long enough to
forget what they were crying about, y'understand, but they won't. They
are bound and determined to eat the goose which lays the golden eggs,
Abe, and the end is going to be that they will find out it ain't a goose
at all, but that instead of killing a goose that's fit for food they
have only smashed an incubator that's fit for nothing but laying more
eggs, and that's the way it goes."
"Well, it's certainly wonderful how popular them two young fellers
become in the course of a few days, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Which makes
you think, Mawruss, if such a thing happens to two unknown young men
like Hawker and Grieve, there is big possibilities in this
cross-the-ocean flight for fellers which was once highly thought of and
which nowadays nobody gives a nickel about. Take, for instance, them two
William J. fellers, Bryan and McAdoo, which only a short time since
people was reading about it in the papers, Mawruss, and what them
fellers should ought to do is to hire a good, undependable airyoplane,
y'understand, and take the first boat for Trespassing, or whatever the
place is. Then all they have to do is to make a good start, and get
afterwards rescued by a tramp steamer, and right away they become
general favorites again. Or the kaiser and the crown prince might try
it, Mawruss. There must be plenty of airyoplanes laying around Germany
nowadays which could be picked up for a song, and when word come that it
had fallen into the Atlantic Ocean with them two birds aboard somewhere
around one thousand five hundred miles from sixty degrees forty-three
minutes, y'understand, it might make the Hohenzollerns so popular that
there would be a counter-revolution or something."
"But suppose they would overdo the thing and not get rescued," Morris
suggested.
"Well, that would make them popular with _me_, anyhow," Abe said, "and
there is probably millions of people like me in that respects, Mawruss.
Still, joking to one side, Mawruss, there is some things which you
couldn't joke about like what this young feller Read did, which is
working for the United States navy, Mawruss. There was a young feller
what took his life in his hands, Mawruss, and yet from the maps which
the newspapers printed, you would think it was already a dead
open-and-shut proposition that if the airyoplane was to break down
anywheres between Trespassing and Europe, Mawruss, there would be
waiting United States navy ships like taxi-cabs around the Hotel
Knickerbocker, waiting to pick up this here Read before he even so much
as got his feet wet, understand me. Yes, Mawruss, right across the whole
page of the newspaper was strung the _Winthrop_, the _Farragut_, the
_Cushing_, and other fellers' names up to the number of fourteen
destroyers, and the way it looked on that map, there was a solid line of
boats waiting to receive any falling airyoplane all the way from one
side of the ocean to the other, whereas you know as well as I do,
Mawruss, you can as much make both ends meet on the Atlantic Ocean with
fourteen ships as a shipping-clerk with ten children can in New York
City on a salary of eighteen dollars a week."
"I understand them ships was only fifty miles apart," Morris observed.
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, "but if that airyoplane was to drop
anywheres between the second and the forty-ninth mile, Mawruss, them
ships might just as well have been stationed on the North River between
Seventy-second and One Hundred and Thirtieth streets, Mawruss, for all
the good it would have done this young feller Read. Also, Mawruss, if
they would have had so many destroyers on the Atlantic Ocean that they
would have run out of regular navy names for them and had to resort to
the business directory so as to include the Acker, the Merrall, the
Condit, the Rogers, the Peet, the Browning, the King, the Marshall, and
the Field, in that collection of ships, Mawruss, that wouldn't of made
this here Read's life a first-class insurable risk, neither."
"And being picked up by a destroyer ain't such a wonderful _Capora_,
neither, y'understand," Morris said, "which they tell me that on one of
them destroyers an admiral even couldn't last out as far as the Battery
even without anyhow getting pale. Also, Abe, I couldn't see that it
proved anything when this here Read had the good luck to arrive at
Lisbon, except that he was a brave young feller and seemingly didn't
care how much his family worried about him."
"That's what people have always said when anything new in the way of
transportation was tried, Mawruss, but them people was never the ones
that deposited the checks when the scheme begun to pay dividends some
two or three years later," Abe retorted. "The world never made no
advances with the assistance of the even-so and what-of-it fellers,
which, when the king and queen of Spain raised a little money on the
crown jewels, Mawruss, so that Christopher Columbus _olav hasholom_
could make the first trip across the Atlantic Ocean by water, Mawruss,
the people which saw in it the first steps towards the _Aquitania_ and
_Levinathan_ wasn't so plentiful, neither."
"Probably the feller which lent the money on the jewels wasn't so
enthusiastic about it, at any rate," Morris declared, "because as
first-class, A-number-one security for a loan, Abe, crown jewels 'ain't
got very much of an edge on them sympathetic pearls which carries such a
tremendous overhead for electric light in the store windows where they
are displayed. Take, for instance, the Austrian crown jewels, Abe, and I
see in the paper where for years and years everybody took the Austrian
emperor's word for it that they contained more first-water diamonds than
could be found in stocks of all the Fifth Avenue jewelers and Follies of
from 1910 to 1919 chorus ladies combined, and the other day when the
provisional government tried to sell them Austrian crown jewels to buy
food for the starving Austrians, y'understand, for what was thought to
be rubies, diamonds, and pearls weighing from twenty to a hundred
carats apiece, Abe, they couldn't get an offer of as much as a bowl of
crackers and milk."
"What do you suppose happened to the originals, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"What _should_ of happened to them?" Morris asked, rhetorically. "I bet
yer that not once, but hundreds of times, an Austrian emperor has taken
one of the ladies of the Vienna Opera House ballet to the vaults of the
Vienna Deposit and Storage Company and just to show her how much he
thought of her, when she said, '_My, ain't that a gorgeous stone!_' he
has said, '_Do you really like it?_' and pried it right out of its
setting right then and there."
"And I also bet yer that when the ballet lady got a valuation on it the
next day," Abe said, "the pawnbroker said to her, '_Ain't this a diamond
which the Emperor pried out of his crown for you?_' and when she said,
'_Yes_,' he says that the fixed loaning value of an imperial pried-out
diamond was one dollar and eighty-five cents, and from that time on the
ballet lady would be very much off all emperors."
"It seems to me that in all the other countries of the world where kings
and emperors still hold on to their jobs, Abe, it wouldn't be a bad
thing for the government to check up the crown jewels on them, in case
of emergencies like revolutions or having to pay war indemnities,"
Morris remarked, "which I wouldn't be surprised if right now the German
people is figuring on raising several million marks on the German crown
jewels towards paying the first billion-dollar instalment of the war
indemnity, and when the government appraiser gets ahold of them, he will
turn in a report that they are not even using that kind of stuff in
decorating soda-fountains even."
"In that case the German government will probably try to arrange a
swop," Abe said, "trusting to luck that the Allied governments having
agreed to take them crown jewels at the value placed on them by the
kaiser, will not discover their real value until they've changed hands,
Mawruss, in which event the German government will claim that the
substitution took place after the Allies received them and did the
Allies think they could get away with anything as raw as that."
"Even the Germans 'ain't got such a nerve," Morris commented.
"'Ain't they?" Abe retorted. "Well, how about the counter-claim they are
now making for an indemnity of $3,048,300,000, _aus gerechnent_? Them
Germans has got the nerve to claim anything that they think they've got
the slightest chance of getting away with, Mawruss, so they stick in
this indemnity which they say they ought to receive from the Allies
because the blockade which the Allies kept up against Germany during the
war caused such a shortage in food that one million less German children
was born during that time."
"Three thousand and forty-eight dollars and thirty cents is a pretty
high valuation to put on a German, and a new-born German at that,"
Morris commented. "You're sure that the three thousand and forty-eight
dollars ain't a mistake? Because thirty cents sounds like the correct
figures to me, Abe."
"The birth reduction ain't the only item in their bill, Mawruss," Abe
continued. "They also claim that the blockade prevented the importing of
rubber, camphor, and quinine."
"And I suppose they claim that tire trouble, moths, and malaria
increased something terrible," Morris said. "Well, they're going to have
just as hard a time proving that claim as Senator Reed would that Brazil
is a nation of colored people, Abe."
"When did Senator Reed say that, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"When he was arguing against the League of Nations, in the Senate the
other day," Morris replied. "He said that there were fifteen white
nations in the League and seventeen colored nations, and he reckoned
Brazil in as one of the colored nations, probably because he confused
the Brazil population with the Brazil nuts which are sometimes called
nigger-toes, Abe. However, Abe, he also included Cuba as a colored
nation, because he claimed that fifty per cent. of the population is
colored."
"But the President of Cuba and the gentlemen which is running the Cuban
government ain't colored people, Mawruss," Abe said.