Max K. Hindenberg, 83 years old, a clothing merchant, member of the
firm of Hindenberg & Levy, and recording secretary of Sigmund Meyer
Post No. 97 Veterans of the War of 1914-1918, died early yesterday at
his home, 2076 East 8th Street, Potsdam, Germany, yesterday. Deceased
was a native of East Prussia.
And the chances is that ninety-nine out of a hundred people ain't even
going to say to themselves, 'Where did I hear that name before?'"
"That's where you make a big mistake, Mawruss," Abe said. "Hindenberg is
a very popular feller in Germany, and I bet yer that on every map filed
in the county clerks' offices of Prussian real-estate developments
during the past three years there's a Hindenberg Street or a Hindenberg
Avenue, to say nothing of the babies which has been born over there and
named Max Hindenberg Goldsticker or Max Hindenberg Schwartz."
"Sure I know," Morris said, "and you can take my word for it, Abe, along
about nineteen hundred and thirty-five there's going to be a whole lot
of lawyers over in Deutschland making from twenty-five to fifty marks a
throw for putting through motions in the Court of Common Pleas for the
City and County of Berlin that the name of the said applicant, Max H.
Goldsticker or Max H. Schwartz, as the case may or may not be, be and
the same hereby is changed to Frank Pershing Goldsticker or Woodrow W.
Schwartz. Also, Abe, if ever they open up Charlottenberg Heights
overlooking beautiful Lake Hundekehlen as per plat filed in the office
of the register of Brandenburg County, y'understand, there'll be a
Helfferich Place, a Liebknecht Avenue, and even a Bebel Terrace maybe,
but in twenty years from now a German real-estater wouldn't be able even
to give away lots free for nothing on any Hindenberg Street or
Hindenberg Avenue, not if he was to throw in a two-family house with
portable garage complete."
"Well, you could say the same thing about this country, too," Abe
declared, "which twenty years from now, people wouldn't know whether the
word _viereck_ was a fish or a cheese; and as for all them college
professors which got fired recently because they made the mistake of
thinking that a college professor gets paid to fool away his time making
speeches against the government the same like a United States Senator,
y'understand, I couldn't even remember their names to-day yet, so you
can imagine how they're going to go down in history, Mawruss: compared
to them fellers, there are a few thousand notary publics whose names
will be household words already."
"Any man who thinks he is going to make a name for himself by talking or
writing against his country is due to get badly fooled, I don't care if
he would be a college professor, a United States Senator, or an editor,
Abe," Morris said, "because the most he could hope for is the thing what
usually happens him. He gets fired, Abe, and the only reputation a
feller gets by getting fired is the reputation for getting fired, and
that ain't much of a recommendation when he comes to look for another
job."
"The people I am sorry for is the wives of these here professors," Abe
said, "which even when a college professor has got steady work his wife
'ain't got no bed of roses to make both ends meet, neither, and I bet
yer more than one of them ladies will got to do a little plain sewing
for a living on account her husband became so hot-headed over this here
pacifism."
"That's the trouble with them pacifists," Morris concluded. "If they
would only take some of the heat out of their heads and put it into
their feet, Abe, they could hold onto their jobs and their wives
wouldn't got to go to work at all. Am I right or wrong?"