Chapter 13

"Still, I think the District Attorney should ought to do something about that Madison Square meeting, Mawruss," Abe said, "because even if Madison Square Garden would have been only one-tenth filled, considering the high price of rails in the present steel-market and the distance of Madison Square from muddy water, Mawruss, it would be anyhow unpractical to duck or ride on rails the number of Reds which attended that meeting, even supposing enough respectable people could be found who would take the trouble."

"As a matter of fact, Abe," Morris said, "it don't even pay to encourage them speech-making Reds by thinking they are important enough to be ducked in muddy water. After all, most of them are still young and sooner or later they would got to go to work, and once a man goes to work in this country it is only a matter of time when he gets up into the capitalistic class."

"There is also another thing to be considered about these here Reds, Mawruss," Abe said. "As Reds, they couldn't be taken altogether seriously, because Reds would be Reds only up to a certain point. After that they're Yellow."

XXII

THEY DISCUSS THE SIGNING OF IT

"Yes, Mawruss, when the history of this here Peace Conference is written, y'understand, a whole lot of things which up to now has been mysteries will be made very plain to the people which has got twenty-five dollars to invest in such a history and the spare time in which to read it," Abe Potash said to his partner Morris Perlmutter a few days after the treaty was signed.

"There will be a great many people who will try to find the time at that," Morris commented, "because I see by the morning paper that one of Mr. Wilson's relatives has bought for him in Southern California a piece of property especially for Mr. Wilson to write the history of the Peace Conference in, and why should he go to all that expense if there wasn't a big market for such a history?"

"I wonder did Mr. Wilson have to pay much money for the history rights to the Peace Conference?" Abe asked.

"What do you mean--did he pay much money?" Morris exclaimed. "Anybody can write a history of the Peace Conference without paying a cent for the privilege, and even if they couldn't, y'understand, who is going to bid against Mr. Wilson, because when it comes to what actually happened at them confidential meetings between Mr. Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lord George, Abe, Mr. Wilson had a monopoly of the raw material in the history line. He didn't even let Colonel House in on it, so you can bet your life if there was any competitors of Mr. Wilson trying to get a few ideas for a competing line of popular-price Peace Conference histories, Abe, Mr. Wilson didn't exactly unbosom himself to them historians, neither, because a diplomatic secret is a diplomatic secret, Abe, but when in addition, the diplomat is counting on writing a history of them diplomatic doings, Abe, diplomatic secrets become trade secrets."

"It seems to me, Mawruss, that while you couldn't blame Mr. Wilson for writing a history of the Peace Conference for a living after he loses his job in March, 1921," Abe continued, "still at the same time, considering that Mr. Wilson has taken such a prominent part in this here Peace Conference, and considering also that Mr. Wilson is only human, no matter what Senator Reed might say otherwise, don't you think he is going to have a difficult time in deciding for himself just where history leaves off and advertising begins?"

"The probabilities is that he wouldn't give himself a shade the worst of it, if that's what you mean," Morris observed, "but as to whether or not such a history would be the equivalent of an actor writing a criticism of his own performance, Abe, that I couldn't say, because the chances is that when Lord George gets through with the job of chief Cabinet Minister or whatever his job is called, he would also try his hand at writing a history, and if that is the case, you could make up your mind to it that Clemenceau ain't going to sit down at his time of life and let them two historians put it all over him. So, therefore, if Mr. Wilson should feel like writing in his history: 'At this point, things was at a standstill and nobody seemed to know what to do next, when suddenly some one made a suggestion which cleared up the whole situation. It was Woodrow Wilson who spoke'--y'understand, he will figure that Lord George is probably going to say in his history: 'At this point the Peace Conference was up against it and it looked like the bottom had fallen out of everything, when like a voice from heaven, somebody made a remark which smoothed away all difficulties. It was Lord George who came to the rescue.' The consequence will be that both of them historians will beat Clemenceau to it, by giving credit for the suggestion to the feller who made it, even if it would have been Orlando himself."

"But suppose Mr. Wilson actually did make the suggestion, Mawruss, and in the interests of telling the strict truth about the matter, he feels that he is obliged to mention it in his history," Abe said, "he's bound to run up against a big chorus of _Yows!_"

"Well, so far as I could see, nobody compels Mr. Wilson to write a history of that Peace Conference if he don't want to," Morris replied, "and if he should decide not to do so, he could always rent that Southern California property furnished for the season, or if he feels that he must occupy it himself for history business purposes, he could anyhow write a domestic History of the United States from December 5, 1918, to July 6, 1919, both inclusive, in which his name need hardly occur at all. But joking to one side, Abe, when the history of this here Peace Conference gets written, it don't make no difference who writes it, he ain't going to be able to ignore Mr. Wilson exactly. In fact, Abe, the history of this here Peace Conference is going to be more or less principally about Mr. Wilson, and if the feller who writes it wouldn't be exactly Senator Lodge, y'understand, the truth is bound to leak out that Mr. Wilson did a wonderful job over in Paris. Of course he made a whole lot of enemies over here, but then he also made a whole lot of peace over there, Abe, and, after all, that is what he went there for."

"Still I couldn't help thinking that from a business point of view, Mawruss, the Peace Conference suffered a good deal from poor management," Abe said. "Take for instance the signing of the Peace Treaty in Mirror Hall, Versailles, and properly worked up, the Allies could of made enough out of that one show alone to pay for all the ships that Germany sank a few days ago, which holding a thing like that in a hall, Mawruss, is a sample of what kind of management there was."

"They had the Germans sign that Peace Treaty in that hall because it was the same hall where them Germans made the French sign the Peace Treaty in 1870," Morris explained.

"Sure I know," Abe said, "but what did they know about such things in 1870? Even grand opera they gave in halls in them days, which, considering the amount of interest there was in the signing of the Peace Treaty, Mawruss, I bet yer enough people was turned away from Mirror Hall, Versailles, to more than fill five halls of the same size. As it was, Mawruss, so many people crowded into that Mirror Hall that nobody could see anything, and the consequence was that when Clemenceau begun his speech the disorder was something terrible."

"I suppose his opening remark was: 'Koosh! What is this? A _Kaffeeklatsch_ or something?'" Morris remarked, satirically.

"It might just so well have been, for all anybody heard of it," Abe went on. "In fact, the papers say that all through it there was loud cries of, 'Down in front!' from people which had probably bought their tickets at the last moment off of a speculator who showed them a diagram of Mirror Hall, Batesville, and not Versailles, on which it looked like they was getting four good ones in the fifth row, center aisle, Mawruss."

"Probably also while Clemenceau was speaking, there was difficulty in calling off the score-card and ice-cream-cone venders," Morris said.

"I am telling you just exactly what I read it in the newspapers," Abe said, "which there ain't no call to get sarcastic, Mawruss. The signing of that treaty was arranged just the same like any other show is arranged, except that the arrangements wasn't quite so good. The idea was to make it impressive by keeping it very plain, and that is where the Allies, to my mind, made a big mistake, because the people to be impressed was the Germans, and what sort of an impression would that signing of the Peace Treaty by delegates in citizen clothes make on a country where a station agent looks like a colonel and a colonel looks like the combined annual conventions of the Knights of Pythias and the I. O. M. A."

"The chances is that the Allies did the best they could with the short time they had for preparation, because you must got to remember that the Germans didn't make up their minds to sign till two days before the signing, and considering that the President of the United States wears only the uniform prescribed by the double-page advertisements of Rochester, Chicago, and Baltimore clothing manufacturers for people who ride in closed cars, two days is an awful short time to hire a really impressive uniform, let alone to have one made to order, Abe," Morris said. "Furthermore, Abe, the signing of that Peace Treaty could have been put on by the feller that runs off these here Follies with the assistance of George M. Cohan and the management of the Metropolitan Opera House, y'understand, and the costumes could have been designed by Ringling Brothers, with a few hints from Rogers, Peet, understand me, and I don't believe them Germans would stick to the terms of the treaty anyway."

"Europe should worry about that, Mawruss," Abe said. "The main thing is that the peace is signed and the last of our boys would soon be home again from Europe, and once we get them back again in this country, Mawruss, it _oser_ would make any difference to us whether Germany keeps the treaty or she don't keep it, Mawruss, the chances of us sending our boys back again is pretty slim."

"But under section ten of the League Covenant, Abe," Morris began, "the time might come when we would got to send them."

"Maybe," Abe admitted, "but if any of them European nations has got the idea that because Germany is going to be slow pay we would oblige with a few million troops, Mawruss, they've got another idea coming. We are a nation, not a collection agency, and no amount of section tens is going to make us one, either."

"Well, that is the danger of this here League of Nations, Abe," Morris said, "and if the Senate ratifies it, we are not only a collection agency, but a burglar insurance company as well, and in fact some of the Senators goes so far as to say that we ain't so much insuring people against the operations of burglars as insuring burglars against the loss of their _ganevas_."

"I know the Senators is saying that, and I also know that Mr. Wilson says it ain't so," Abe agreed, "but this here fuss about international affairs has got what the lawyers calls a statue of limitations running against it right now, and I give both Mr. Wilson and the Senate six months, and they will be going round saying: 'Do you remember when six months ago we got so terrible worked up over that--now--National League,' and somebody who is sitting near them will ask, for the sake of having things just right, 'You mean that League of Nations, ain't it?' and Mr. Wilson will say: 'League of Nations! National League! What's the difference? Let's have another round of Old Dr. Turner's Favorite Asparagus Tonic and forget about it.'"

"So you think that all this international politics will be forgotten as quickly as that?" Morris commented.

"Say!" Abe said, "it won't take long for Mr. Wilson to settle down into American ways again. Of course it will be pretty hard for him during the first few weeks, whenever he gets a sick headache, to send out for a doctor instead of an admiral, and he may miss his evening _schmooes_ with Clemenceau, Lord George, and Orlando, but any one that will have such a lot of _clav hasholom_ times to talk over as Mr. Wilson will for the rest of his life, even if he does have to hold out some of the stuff for his History of the Peace Conference in three volumes, price twenty-five dollars, Mawruss, would never need to play double solitaire in order to fill in the time between supper and seeing is the pantry window locked in case Mrs. Wilson is nervous that way. Then again there is things happening in this country which looked very picayune to Mr. Wilson over in France, and which will seem so big when he arrives here that almost as soon as he sets his foot on the dock in Hoboken, the League of Nations will get marked off in his mind for depreciation as much as a new automobile does by merely having the owner's number plates attached to it, even if it ain't been run two miles from the agency yet."

"I never thought of it that way," Morris admitted, "but it is a fact just the same that this here League of Nations is only being operated at the present time under a demonstrator's license, so to speak, and as soon as it gets its regular number, the manufacturers and the agents won't be so sensitive about the knocks that the prospective customers is handing it."

"And just so soon as the demonstrations have gone far enough, Mawruss, just you watch all the nations of the earth that ain't made up their minds whether they want to ride or not, jump aboard," Abe said. "Also, Mawruss, this League of Nations is to the United States Senate what a new-car proposition is to the head of any respectable family. If the wife wants it and the children wants it, it may be that the old man will think it over for a couple of weeks, and he may begin by saying that the family would get a new car over his dead body, and what do they think he is made of, money? y'understand, but sooner or later he is going to sign up for that new car, and don't you forget it. And after all, Mawruss, if the other big nations is in on this League of Nations, we could certainly afford to pay our share of what it costs to run it."

"Maybe we could," Morris concluded, "but if a new League of Nations is like a new automobile, we are probably in for an expensive time, because with a new car, Abe, it ain't what you run that costs so much money. It's what you back into."

XXIII

THE RECENT UNPLEASANTNESS IN TOLEDO, OHIO

"If we would only had our wits about us the day we sent for the policeman to put out that feller we had running the elevator, Mawruss, we could of made quite a lot of money maybe," Abe Potash remarked to Morris Perlmutter a few days after the heavy-weight title changed hands.

"If we would only had our wits about us and you had taken my advice to let the feller sleep off his jag instead of hauling in a policeman to wake him up and throw him out, Abe," Morris said, "they wouldn't of broken, between them, fifty dollars' worth of fixtures and ruined a lot of garments on us."

"Well, that's what I mean, Mawruss, which is forty-five thousand people could be persuaded into paying anywheres from ten to a hundred dollars apiece to see that nine-minute affair in Toledo where the two loafers didn't have nothing against one another personally and couldn't of kept their minds on the fight anyhow for trying to figure their share of the profits, y'understand, what would them forty-five thousand _meshugoyim_ paid to see for twenty minutes a couple of fellers which they really and truly wanted to kill each other without any intermissions of so much as two seconds, Mawruss?" Abe said.

"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris said, "these here fight fans are the same like moving-picture fans; they would a whole lot sooner pay out money to see the imitation article than the real thing. Tell one of these here fight fans that for ten cents you would let him know where at half past nine o'clock on Monday morning an iron-molder has got an appointment to meet a stevedore who used to be engaged to the iron-molder's sister and now refuses to return the twenty-five dollars he borrowed from her to get the wedding-ring and the marriage license, and the fight fan would ask you what is that _his_ business. Tell a moving-picture fan that there is a family over on Tenth Avenue where the father is a ringer for William S. Hart and is _also_ in jail, y'understand, and that such a family is about to be dispossessed for non-payment of rent, understand me, and if you made an offer to such a moving-picture fan, that for a contribution of fifteen cents toward finding the family a new home, you would show him a close-up of the landlord, of the notice to quit and of the court-room of the Municipal Court of the City of New York for the Eleventh Judicial District where such proceedings are returnable, understand me, the moving-picture fan wouldn't come across with a nickel, not even if you undertook to engage the entire combined orchestras of the Strand, the Rivoli, and the Rialto moving-picture theaters to play 'Hearts and Flowers' while the furniture was being piled on the moving-van."

"I wouldn't blame the moving-picture fan at that, Mawruss," Abe said, "because if such a moving-picture fan would see one of these here harrowing William S. Hart and Mary Pickford incidents in real life, Mawruss, when it reached the point where the moving-picture fan's heart is going to break unless there would be a quick happy ending, y'understand, not only would there _not_ be a happy ending, but also, Mawruss, instead of the next incident being a Mack Sennett comedy in real life, Mawruss, it might be something so sad, y'understand, that if a moving-picture corporation would try to reproduce it on the screen, it would cost them a fortune for glycerin alone."

"A moving-picture fan's heart don't break so easy as all that, Abe," Morris said. "Moving-picture fans is like doctors and undertakers, Abe. They've got so used to other people's misfortunes that it practically don't affect them at all. Moving-picture fans can see William S. Hart come out of jail to find his wife married to the detective who not only arrested him in the first reel, but is also giving terrible _makkas_ to Mr. Hart's youngest child in the second reel, y'understand, and wrings that moving-picture fan's heart to the same extent like it would be something in a tropical review entitled: 'Eighth Annual Convention of the United Ice-men of America, Akron, Ohio. Arrival of the Delegates at the Akron, Union, Depot,' y'understand. Yes, Abe, the effect of five-reel films on a moving-picture fan's heart is like the effect of five-star Scotch whisky on a typical club-man's life. It hardens it to such an extent that it practically ceases to do the work for which it was originally put into a human body, Abe."

"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I 'ain't got no use for any kind of a fan, and that goes for moving-picture fans, fight fans, baseball fans, and pinochle fans, not to mention grand-opera fans, first-night theayter fans, and every other fan from golluf downwards. Take these here fight fans which chartered special trains for Toledo, Ohio, and paid a hundred dollars for a ringside seat, Mawruss, and to my mind it would take one of these here insanity experts to figure out just what made them do it at a time when on account of the raise in rent and living expenses, so many heads of families is staying home with their families these hot Sundays and reading the papers about the fight fans chartering special trains and paying a hundred dollars for ringside seats, and not feeling the heat any the less because of reading such things. Also, Mawruss, as one business man to another who has had the experience of riding on a sleeper and making Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, and Chicago even under normal travel conditions, Mawruss, I ask you, where is the pleasure in such a trip?"

"Them fight fans don't do it for pleasure, Abe," Morris said. "They do it for a reputation."

"A reputation for what?" Morris asked.

"A reputation for having paid the United States Railroad Administration twice the regular fare to Toledo for a railroad journey, and also the reputation for having paid the manager of this here prize-fight fifty times the regular price of a ticket for a legitimate entertainment," Morris replied.

"But what for a reputation is that for a sane man to get?" Abe asked.

"Well," Morris commented, "for that matter, what kind of a reputation does the same man get when he pays fifty dollars to reserve a table at a Broadway restaurant on New-Year's Eve? That's where your friend the insanity expert comes in, Abe. It's the kind of a reputation which the people among which such a feller has got it--when they talk about it says: 'And suppose he did. What _of_ it?'"

"It seems to me, Mawruss, that when a feller gets the reputation for having such a reputation, his friends should ought to tip him off that if he don't be mighty careful, the first thing you know he would be getting that kind of a reputation," Abe said, "because there is also a whole lot of other people among which he got that reputation, who wouldn't stop at saying: 'Suppose he did. What _of_ it?' They would try to figure out the answer upon the basis that a feller who pays a hundred dollars for a ringside seat to see a fight which lasted nine minutes, y'understand, and his money, understand me, are soon parted, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, that poor nebich of a prize-fight fan would be unable to attend the next annual heavy-weight championship of the world to be held in Yuma, Arizona, or some such summer resort, in August, 1921, simply because the United States Railroad Administration refused to accept for his transportation in lieu of cash two thousand shares of the Shapiro Texas Oil and Refining Corporation of the par value of one hundred dollars apiece, notwithstanding that he also offers to throw in a couple of hundred shares of a farm-tractor manufacturing corporation and lots 120 to 135, both inclusive, in Block 654 on a map filed in the office of the clerk of Atlantic County, New Jersey, entitled Map of Property of the East by Southeast, Atlantic City Land and Development Company."

"Well, it would serve such a feller right if such a thing did happen to him," Morris commented, "because any one who takes an interest in such a disgusting affair as this here fight should not only lose his money, but he should ought to go to jail."

"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe replied. "And why the newspapers print the reports of such a thing is a mystery to me. Here there are happenings, happenings over in Europe which is changing the history of the world every twenty-four hours, Mawruss, and to this one prize-fight which a man has got to be a loafer not to get sick at his stomach over it, Mawruss, they are devoting practically the entire newspaper. I give you my word, Mawruss, it took me pretty near three hours to read it last night."

"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "you would think that a man of this here Jeff Willard's fighting record wouldn't of give up so easy."

"Look what he was up against," Abe reminded him. "There 'ain't been a fighter in years with this feller Dempsey's speed and science, Mawruss."

"But I don't think that Willard was trained right, Abe," Morris said.

"What do you mean--not trained right?" Abe retorted. "From what the newspapers has been saying during the past few weeks, Mawruss, he was in wonderful condition, and his sparring partners seemingly could hit him on any part of his face and body, and it never seemed to affect him any."