Like the human-hair business and the green-goods business it is not
what it used to be.
"Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said to his partner, Abe Potash, as they
sat in their office one morning in September, "the English language is
practically a brand-new article since the time when I used to went to
night school. In them days when a feller says he is feeling like a king,
it meant that he was feeling like a king, _aber_ to-day yet, if a feller
says he feels like a king it means that he's got stomach and domestic
trouble and that he don't know where the money is coming from to pay his
next week's laundry bill. Czars is the same way, too. Former times when
you called a feller a regular czar you meant he was a regular czar,
_aber_ nowadays if you say somebody is a regular czar it means that the
poor feller couldn't call his soul his own and that he must got to do
what everybody from the shipping-clerk up tells him to do with no back
talk."
"Well, it only goes to show, Mawruss," Abe commented. "There was a czar,
y'understand, which for years was not only making out pretty good as a
czar, y'understand, but had really as you might say been doing something
phenomenal yet. In fact, Mawruss, if three years ago R.G. Dun or
Bradstreet would give it a rating to czars and people in similar lines,
y'understand, compared with the czar already, an old-established house
like Hapsburg's in Vienna would be rated N. to Q., Credit Four, see
foot-note. And to-day, Mawruss, where _is_ he?"
"Say," Morris protested, "any one could have reverses, Abe, because it
don't make no difference if it would be a czar _oder_ a pants
manufacturer, and they both had ratings like John B. Rockafellar even,
along comes two or three bad seasons like the czar had it, y'understand,
and the most you could hope for would be thirty cents on the dollar--ten
cents cash and the balance in notes at three, six, and nine months,
indorsed by a grand duke who has got everything he owns in his wife's
name and 'ain't spent an evening at home with her since way before the
Crimean War already."
"What happened to the Czar, Mawruss," Abe said, "bad seasons didn't done
it. Not reckoning quick assets, like crowns actually in stock,
fixtures, etc., the feller must of owned a couple million _versts_
high-grade real property, to say nothing of his life insurance,
Mawruss."
[Illustration: "I bet yer over half a czar's morning mail already is
circulars from casket concerns alone, Abe."]
"Czars and life insurance ain't in the same dictionary at all, Abe,"
Morris interrupted. "In the insurance business, Abe, czars comes under
the same head as aviators with heart trouble, y'understand. I bet yer
over half a czar's morning mail already is circulars from casket
concerns alone, Abe, so that only goes to show how much you know from
czars."
"Well, I know this much, anyhow," Abe continued. "What put the Czar out
of business, didn't happen this season or last season neither, Mawruss.
It dates back already twenty years ago, which you can take it from me,
Mawruss, it don't make no difference what line a feller would be
in--czars wholesale, czars retail, or czars' supplies and sundries,
including bombproof underwear and the Little Wonder Poison Detector,
y'understand, the moment such a feller marries into the family of his
nearest competitor, Mawruss, he might just as well go down to a lawyer's
office and hand him the names he wants inserted in Schedule A Three of
his petition in bankruptcy."
"Did the Czar marry into such a family?" Morris asked.
"A question!" Abe exclaimed. "Didn't you know that the Czar's wife is
the Kaiser's mother's sister's daughter?"
"Say!" Morris retorted. "I didn't even know that the Kaiser _had_ a
mother. From the heart that feller's got it, you might suppose he was
raised in an incubator and that the only parents he ever knew was a
couple of packages absorbent cotton and an alcohol-lamp."
"Well, that's what I am telling you, Mawruss," Abe said. "With all the
millionaires in Russland which would be tickled to pieces to get a czar
for a son-in-law, y'understand, the feller goes to work and ties up to a
family with somebody like the Kaiser in it, and you know as well as I
do, Mawruss, one crook in your wife's family can stick you worser than
all your poor relations put together."
"Even when your wife's relations are honest, what _is_ it?" Morris
asked.
"_Gewiss!_" Abe agreed. "And can you imagine when such a crook _in_-law
is also your biggest competitor? I bet yer, Mawruss, the poor _nebich_
wasn't home from his honeymoon yet before the Kaiser starts in cutting
prices on him."
"Cutting prices was the least," Morris said. "Take Bulgaria, for
instance, and up to a few years ago that was one of the Czar's best
selling territories. In fact, Abe, whenever the Czar stops off at
Sophia, him and the King of Bulgaria takes coffee together, such good
friends they was."
"Who is Sophia?" Abe asked. "_Also_ a relative of the Kaiser?"
"Sophia is the name of one big town in Bulgaria," Morris replied.
"That's a name for a big town--Sophia," Abe remarked. "Why don't they
call it Lillian Russell and be done with it?"
"They could call it Williamsburg for all the business the Czar done
there after the Kaiser got in his fine work," Morris said.
"And after all, what good did it done him?" Abe added. "Because you know
as well as I do, Mawruss, the Kaiser ain't two jumps ahead of the
sheriff himself. In fact, Mawruss, the king business is to-day like the
human-hair business and the green-goods business. It's practically a
thing of the past."
"Did I say it wasn't?" Morris asked.
"Being a king ain't a business no more, Mawruss. It's just a job," Abe
continued, "and it's a metter of a few months now when the only kings
left will be, so to speak, journeymen kings like the King of England and
the King of Belgium and not boss kings like the King of Austria and the
Kaiser. Why, right now, that Germany is his store, and that the poor
Germans _nebich_ is just salespeople; and he figures that if he wants to
close out his stock and fixtures at a sacrifice and at the same time
work his salespeople to death, what is that _their_ business,
y'understand."
"Well, that's the way the Czar figured," Morris commented. "For, Abe,
the Kaiser has got an idee years already he was running Russland on the
open-shop principle, and before he woke up to the fact that the people
he had been treating right straight along as non-union labor was really
the majority stockholders, y'understand, they had changed the
combination of the safe on him and notified the bank that on and after
said date all checks would be signed by Jacob M. Kerensky as receiver."
"You would think a feller like the Czar would learn something by what
happened to this here Mellen of the New Haven Railroad," Abe said.
"_Yow_ learn!" Morris replied. "Is the Kaiser learning something from
what they done to the Czar?"
"That's a different matter entirely," Abe retorted. "With a relation by
marriage, you naturally figure if he makes a big success that he fell in
soft and that a lucky stiff like him if he gets shot with a gun,
y'understand, the bullet is from gold and it hits him in the pocket yet;
whereas, if he goes broke and 'ain't got a cent left in the world,
y'understand, it's a case of what could you expect from a _Schlemiel_
like that. So instead of learning anything from what happens to the
Czar, I bet yer the Kaiser feels awful sore at him yet. Why, I don't
suppose a day passes without the Kaiser's wife comes to him and says,
'Listen, Popper, Esther (or whatever the Czar's wife's name is) called
me up again this morning; she says Nicholas 'ain't got no work nor
nothing and she was crying something terrible.'
"'Well, if she's going to keep on crying till I find that loafer a job,'
the Kaiser says, 'she's got a long wet spell ahead of her.'
"'She don't want you to find him no job,' the Kaiser's wife tells him.
'All she asks is you should send 'em transportation.'
"'Transportation _nothing_!' the Kaiser says. 'I already sent
transportation to the King of Greece, Ambassador Bernstorff, Doctor
Dernburg, this here boy Ed _und Gott weisst wer nach_. What am I? The
Pennsylvania Railroad or something?'
"'Well, what is he going to do 'way out there in Tobolsk?' she says.
"'If he would only of acted reasonable and killed off a couple million
of them suckers, the way any other king would do, he never would of had
to go to Tobolsk at all,' the Kaiser says.
"'_Aber_ what shall I say to her if she rings up again?' she asks.
"'Say what you please,' the Kaiser answers her, 'but tell Central I
wouldn't pay no reverse charges under no circumstances whatsoever from
nowheres.'"
"And who told _you_ all this, Abe?" Morris asked.
"Nobody," Abe replied. "I figured it out for myself."
"Well, you figured wrong, then," Morris said. "The Kaiser don't act that
way. He ain't human enough, and, furthermore, Abe, the Kaiser don't talk
over the telephone, neither, because if he did, y'understand, it's a
cinch that sooner or later the court physician would be giving out the
cause of death as shock from being connected up with the electric-light
plant by party or parties unknown and Long Live Kaiser Schmooel the
Second--or whatever the Crown Prince's rotten name is."
"Any one who done such a thing in the hopes of making a change for the
better, Mawruss," Abe commented, "would certainly be jumping from the
frying-pan into the soup, because if the Germans got rid of the Kaiser
in favor of the Crown Prince it would be a case of discarding a king and
drawing a deuce."
"Sure I know," Morris said, "but what the Germans need is a new deal all
around. As the game stands now in Germany, Abe, only a limited few sits
in, while the rest of the country hustles the refreshments and pays for
the lights and the cigars, and they're such a poor-spirited bunch,
y'understand, that they 'ain't got nerve enough to suggest a kitty,
even."
"Well, it's too late for them to start a kitty now, Mawruss," Abe said.
"Which you could take it from me, Mawruss, the house is going to be
pulled 'most any day. Several million husky cops is going up the front
stoop right this minute, Mawruss, and while they may have a little
trouble with them--now--ice-box style of doors, it's only a question of
time when they would back up the patrol-wagon, y'understand, because if
the Germans wouldn't close up the game of their own accord, Mawruss, the
Allies must got to do it _for_ them."
"But the Germans don't want us to help 'em," Morris said. "They're
perfectly satisfied as they are."
"I know it," Abe said. "They're a nation of shipping-clerks, Mawruss.
They're in a rut, y'understand. They've all got rotten jobs and they're
scared to death that they're going to lose them. Also the boss works
them like dawgs and makes their lives miserable, y'understand, and yet
they're trembling in their pants for fear he is going to bust up on
them."
"Then I guess it's up to us Allies to show them poor _Chamorrim_ how
they could be bosses for themselves," Morris suggested.
"Sure it is," Abe concluded, "and next year in Tobolsk when the Kaiser
joins his relations by marriage, Mawruss, he's going to pick up the
_Tobolsker Freie Presse_ some morning and see where there has been
incorporated at last the _Deutsche Allgemeine Wohlfahrtfabrik_, with a
capital of a hundred billion marks, to take over the business of the
K.K. Manufacturing Company, and he's going to say the same as everybody
else: 'Well, what do you know about them Heinies? I never thought they
had it in them.'"