Chapter 2

"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--"