Part 3

"'Yon Yonson, the second assistant ambassador,' Bernstorff answers. 'I told him if he got them letters through for me that you would give him an order on the Chancellor for a first-class red eagle, but I guess he'd be satisfied with one of them old-rose eagles, Class Four B, that we used to have piled up there in the corner of the shipping-room.'

"'I wouldn't even give him an order on Mike, the Popular Berlin Hatter, for a two-dollar derby, even,' the Kaiser says. '_Chutzpah!_ Writes me letter after letter with nothing but weather reports in 'em, and he wants me I should give this here Yonson a red eagle yet which costs me thirty-two fifty a dozen wholesale. Seemingly to you, Bernstorff, money is nothing.'

"Here the old man grabs ahold of the expense account again.

"'Honestly, Bernstorff,' he says, 'I don't see how you had the heart to spend all that money when you know how things are here in Berlin. If me and my Gussie sits down once a week to such a piece of meat as _gedampfte Brustdeckel mit Kartoffelpfannkuchen_, y'understand, that's already a feast for us, and as for chicken, I assure you we 'ain't had so much as a soup fowl in the house since my birthday a year ago, and you got the nerve to send me in an expense account like this. Aint it a shame and a disgrace?

1916, May 1. Bolo $4.00 5. Bolo 6.00 9. Bolo 3.25

and every other day for week after week you spent on Bolo anywheres from one to fifteen dollars. Tell me, Bernstorff, how could a man make such a god out of his stomach?'

"'Why, what do you think Bolo is?' Bernstorff asks.

"'I don't _think_ what Bolo is; I _know_ what Bolo is,' the Kaiser tells him, and a dreamy look comes into his eyes. 'Many a time I seen my poor _Grossmutter olav hasholom_ make it. She used to chop up ten onions, five cents' worth parsley, and a big piece _Knoblauch_, add six eggs and a half a pound melted butter, and let simmer slowly. Now take your chicken and--'

"'All right, Boss, I wouldn't argue with you,' Bernstorff says, 'because them amounts represent only the preliminary lunches which I give this here Bolo. Further down you would see where he gets the real big money, and then I'll explain.'

"'Well, explain this,' the old man says. 'Here under date July second, nineteen sixteen, it stand an item:

To blowing up munitions plant $10,000

Who did you get to do it? Caruso?'

"'You couldn't blow up a munitions plant and make a first-class job of it under ten thousand dollars, Boss,' Bernstorff says.

"'Is _that_ so?' the Kaiser tells him. 'Well, let me tell you something, Bernstorff. I've got a pretty good line on what them munitions explosions ought to cost. My eldest boy has been blowing up buildings in France for over three years now, and for what it costs to blow up a factory he could blow up two cathedrals and a chateau.'

"'Have it your own way, Boss,' Bernstorff says, 'but them chateau buildings is so old that they're pretty near falling down, anyway.'

"'Don't give me no arguments,' the Kaiser says. 'I suppose you're going to tell me these here

8 5-12 doz asstd bombs $3,200

was some Saturday specials you picked up in a bargain basement. What was they filled with, rubies?'

"'Bombs is awful high, Boss,' Bernstorff says. 'Ask Dernburg what he used to pay for bombs; ask Von Papen; ask this here judge of the New York Supreme Court--I forget his name; ask anybody; they would tell you the same.'

"'Should I also ask 'em if spies gets paid in America the same like stomach specialists in Germany? Look at this:

To one week's salary 12,235 spies $1,223,500

What have you been doing, Bernstorff? Keeping a steam-yacht on me and charging it up as spies?'

"'Listen, Boss,' Bernstorff says. 'If you would know what an awful strong organization spies has got in the United States, instead you would be talking to me this way you would be thanking your lucky stars that I didn't let 'em run the wage scale up on me no higher than they did. Why, before I left Washington a deputation from Local Number One Amalgamated Spies of North America comes to see me and--'

"'What the devil you are talking nonsense?' the Kaiser shouts. '_Moost_ you got to employ union spies? Couldn't you find thousands and thousands of non-union spies to work for you?'

"'That only goes to show what you know about America,' Bernstorff says. 'There's a whole lot of people in America which would stand for blowing up factories, sinking passenger-steamers, shooting up hospitals, and dropping bombs on kindergartens, y'understand, but when it comes to people employing scab labor, they draw the line. And then again, Boss, spies is very highly thought of in America. Respectable people, like lawyers and doctors, gets arrested every day over there, and even once in a while a minister, y'understand, but a spy--_never_!'

"At this point when it looks like plain sailing for Bernstorff, the Kaiser picks out that fifty-thousand-dollar item, and right there Bernstorff makes his big mistake, for as soon as he starts that Congressmen story the old man begins to figure that if Congressmen are so cheap and spies so dear, y'understand, the only thing to do is to call up the _Polizeiprasidium_ and tell 'em to send around a plain-clothes man right away to number Twenty-six A Schloss Platz, ring Hohenzollern's bell."

"Then you really think that Bernstorff and Von Papen and all them crooks didn't spend the money over here that they claimed they spent," Morris said.

"They probably spent it, all right," Abe replied, "but whether or not they spent it for what they claimed they spent it _for_, Mawruss, _that_ I don't know, because if them fellers didn't stop at arson, dynamiting, and murder, why should they hesitate at petty larceny?"

"But what them boys did in the way of blowing up munitions plants and sinking passenger-steamers was because they loved the Kaiser so much, and instead of arresting Bernstorff for the money he spent, Abe, I bet yer the Kaiser made him a thirty-second degree passed assistant _Geheimrat_ or something," Morris declared.

"Well, there's no accounting for tastes, Mawruss," Abe said, "and if these here Germans is willing to slaughter, rob, and burn because they are in love with a feller which to me has a personality as attractive as the framed insides of the entrance to a safe deposit vault, y'understand, all I can say is that I don't give them no more credit for it than I would to a bookkeeper who committed forgery because he was in love with the third lady from the end in the second row of the original Bowery Burlesquers."

"The wonder to me is that the Kaiser don't see it that way, too," Morris commented.

"That's because when it comes right down _to_ it, Mawruss, the third lady from the end ain't no more stuck on herself than the Kaiser is on _him_self," Abe said. "Them third ladies from the end figure that the poor suckers always _did_ like 'em, and that therefore they are always _going_ to like 'em, so they go ahead and treat their admirers like dawgs and take everything they give 'em, y'understand, and the end of it is that either a third lady becomes so careless that from a perfect thirty-six she comes to be an imperfect fifty-four and has to work for a living, or else she gets pinched for receiving the property which them poor buffaloed admirers of hers handed over to her, and that'll be the end of the Kaiser, too."

"And how soon do you think _that_ will happen?" Morris asked.

"That depends on how soon the Kaiser's admirers gets through with him," Abe said.

"Maybe the Kaiser will quit first," Morris concluded, "because you take them third ladies from the end, Abe, and sooner or later they grow terrible tired of this here--now--fast life."

V

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS ON THE FRONT PAGE AND OFF

What war done ain't a marker on what peace is going to do to a great many of these here front-page propositions which is nowadays accustomed to being continued on page two, column five, y'understand.

"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, as he thrust aside the sporting section one Sunday in October, "a people at war is like a man with a sick wife. Nothing else interests him, which here it stands an account from how them loafers out in Chicago plays baseball for the world's record yet, and for all the effect it has on me, Mawruss, it might just so well be something which catches my eye for the first time in the old newspaper padding which my wife pulls out from under the carpet when she is house-cleaning in the spring of nineteen twenty."

"Well," Morris said, "I must got to confess that when I seen it yesterday how this here Fleisch shoots a home run there in the fifth innings, I--"

"What are you talking nonsense--a home run in the fifth innings!" Abe exclaimed. "The home run was made in the fourth innings. The White Sox didn't make no score in the fifth innings. It was the Giants which made their only run in the fifth. McCarty knocked a three-bagger and Sallee singled and brought him home. _You_ tell _me_ what innings Fleisch shot a home run in!"

"All right, Abe," Morris said, "I wouldn't argue with you, but all I got to say is you're lucky that on account of the war you ain't interested in auction pinochle the way you ain't interested in baseball, otherwise you might get quite a reputation as a gambler."

"I am just so much worried about this war as you are, Mawruss," Abe protested, "but if I couldn't take my mind off of it long enough to find out which ball team is winning the world series I would be a whole lot more worried about myself as I would be about the war, which it don't make no difference how much a man loves his wife, y'understand, if she's only sick on him long enough, Mawruss, he's going to get sufficiently used to it to take in now and then a good show occasionally. In fact, Mawruss, it's a relief to read once in a while in the newspapers something which ain't about the war, like a murder, y'understand, the only drawback being that along about the third day after the discovery of the body, and just when you are getting interested in the thing, General Haig advances another mile on a couple of thousand kilowatt front, y'understand, and for all you can find anything in the newspaper about your murder, y'understand me, the feller needn't have troubled himself to commit it at all."

"Murderers ain't the only people which got swamped by the war," Morris said. "Take William J. Bryan, for example, and up to within a year or so, Abe, the newspaper publicity which William J. Bryan got free, y'understand, William J. Douglas would of paid a quarter of a million dollars for. Take also this here Hobson which sunk the _Merrimac_ and Lindsey M. Garrison, who by resigning from the War Department come within an ace and a couple of pinochle decks thrown in of ruining Mr. Wilson's future prospects, Abe, and there was two fellers which used to get into the newspapers as regularly as Harry K. Thaw and Peruna, and yet, Abe, if any time during the past six months William J. Bryan, Lindsey M. Garrison, and this here Hobson would of been out riding together, and the automobile was to run over a cliff a hundred feet high onto a railroad track and be struck by the cannon-ball express, understand me, the most they could expect to see about it in the papers would be:

NEWS IN BRIEF

An automobile rolled over an embankment at Van Benschoten Avenue and 456th Street, the Bronx, landing in a railroad cut. Its four occupants are in Lincoln Hospital. One of them, George K. Smith, a chauffeur, suffered a fracture of the skull.

More than fifty pawn tickets were found on Peter Krasnick, who was caught in Brooklyn after a chase over a rear fire-escape. He is charged with burglary.

* * * * *

World Wants Work Wonders

And if at the last moment before the reporters goes home for the night word comes that the Germans made another strong attack on Hill Six-sixty-six B, y'understand, they strike out everything except 'World Wants Work Wonders' and let it go at that."

"Referendum and Recall is something else which you used to see a whole lot about in the papers," Abe said, "and while I always ducked 'em myself, at the same time there must be a whole lot of people which is wondering what ever become of 'em since the war started."

"The chances is," Morris declared, "if they was to come across the names Referendum and Recall in the papers to-day, Abe, they would say it's a miracle they escaped as long as they did, because they've got a hazy impression they read it somewheres that the Recollection, the Resurrection, and the Reproduction of the same line was sunk by U-boats about the time they torpedoed the Minnieboska, the Minnietoba, and all them other Minnies."

"Prize-fighting is also got a black eye in the way of newspaper publicity since we went into the war, Mawruss," Abe continued, "and it ain't remarkable, neither, when you look back and think of the pages and pages the newspapers used to print about a couple of loafers trying to hurt each other with gloves on their hands, which, believe me, Mawruss, a green shipping-clerk could give himself worse _Makkas_ nailing up one case of goods than them boys could do to each other in a whole season already."

"I bet yer," Morris said, "and for such a picnic Jeff Willard used to get over a hundred thousand dollars yet."

"Can you imagine how much money one of them aviators over in the old country ought to draw under such a wage scale?" Abe asked. "I read an account of what an aviator has got to do when he goes up in an airyoplane, Mawruss, and at one and the same time while he is balancing himself five thousand feet in the air he takes photographs, shoots off guns, drops bombs, sends wireless telegraphs, and also runs and steers an engine which is so powerful, y'understand, that if you would be running it on dry land, Mawruss, you wouldn't be able to take your mind off of it long enough to think about the high cost of camera supplies, let alone taking pictures yet."

"I wonder if such a young feller has got also a knowledge of bookkeeping and stenography," Morris speculated.

"What difference does that make?" Abe asked.

"Because, Abe, if after the war we could get him to come to work in our place it would pay us to give him a hundred dollars a week even," Morris replied, "on account it would be a cinch, after what he's been used to in his last position, for such a young feller to operate an electric rotary cutting-machine with his left hand and press garments with his right, and he has still got both legs and his head left to keep the books, answer the telephone, run a typewriter and an adding-machine, and fix up a new card index for our credit system."

"At that he would probably throw up the job on account he didn't have enough to do to keep him busy, Mawruss," Abe commented, "and also it's going to be pretty hard for them fellers to settle down after the war gets through, considering all the excitement they've had with their names in the papers and everything."

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "The fact that a feller like Hindenberg is now getting his name in the paper the way it used to was a few years ago with Hannah Elias and Cassie Chadwick ain't no criterion to judge by, Abe, because what war done to make the newspapers forget their old friends Bryan and Evelyn Nesbut ain't a marker on what peace is going to do to a great many of these here front-page propositions which is nowadays accustomed to being continued on page two, column five, y'understand. Why, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if in about five or six years from now, Abe, you are going to take up the paper some morning and read an item like this:

OBITUARY NOTES

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?"

VI

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON HOOVERIZING THE OVERHEAD

When a feller reckons the overhead on the goods he manufactures he figures in one-twelfth of his telephone number, one-twelfth of the year he was born, and one-twelfth of every other number he can remember from his automobile to his street number.

"Of course, Mawruss, I don't claim that Mr. Hoover don't know his business nor nothing like that," Abe Potash said as he finished reading a circular mailed to him by the Food Conservation Director, "but at the same time if I would be permitted to make a suggestion, Mawruss, I would suggest that in addition to following out all the DON'TS in this here food-conservation circular--and also in the interests of being strictly economical, y'understand--the women of the country should learn it genwine Southern cooking, the kind they've got it in two-dollars-a-day American-plan Southern hotels, Mawruss, and not only would people eat much less than they eat at present, but the chances is it would fix some people so they wouldn't eat at all."

"Why _Southern_ cooking?" Morris Perlmutter asked. "For that matter, two-dollar-a-day American-plan Eastern cooking wouldn't make you eat yourself red in the face, neither, which the last time I was in New Bedford they gave me for lunch some fried schrod, and I give you my word, Abe, I'd as lieve eat a pair of feet-proof socks, including the guarantee and the price ticket. But that ain't neither here or there, Abe. Nobody could pin medals on himself for being a small eater in a hotel, Abe, _aber_ the test comes when you arrive home from the store at half past seven and your wife sets before you a plate of _gedampfte Kalbfleisch_ which if a chef in Delmonico's would cook such a thing like that, Abe, the Ritz-Carlton would pay John G. Stanchfield a retainer of one hundred thousand dollars to advise them how the fellow's contract could be broken with Delmonico's so they could get him to come to work for them. And that's why I am telling you, Abe, when you get such a plate of _gedampfte Kalbfleisch_ in front of you, which the steam comes up from it like roses, y'understand, and when you put a piece of it in your mouth it's like--"

"Say, listen," Abe protested, "let me alone, will you? It's only eleven o'clock, and I couldn't go out to lunch for another hour yet."

"That only goes to show what for a stomach patriot you are, Abe," Morris commented. "Even when we are only _talking_ about food you couldn't restrain yourself, so what must it be like when you've got the food actually on the table? I bet yer you don't remember that such a feller as Hoover ever existed at all, let alone what he says about eating reasonable."

"That's all right, Mawruss," Abe said. "Mr. Hoover could talk that way, because maybe his wife ain't such a crank about her cooking like my Rosie is, y'understand, _aber_ if Mr. Hoover would be me, Mawruss, and there comes on the table some _gestoffte Miltz_ which Mrs. Hoover has been breaking her back standing over the stove all the afternoon seeing that it don't stick to the bottom of the kettle, y'understand, and Mr. Hoover takes only a couple slices of it on account of the war, y'understand, what is going to happen then?

"'So,' Mrs. Hoover says, 'you had one of them sixty-cent table-d'hote lunches to-day again, and now of course you 'ain't got no appetite. How many times did I tell you you shouldn't eat that poison?'

"'So sure as I am sitting here, mommer,' Hoover says, 'all I had for my lunch was a Swiss-cheese rye-bread sandwich and a cup coffee.'

"'Then what's the matter you ain't eating?' Mrs. Hoover says. 'Ain't it cooked right?'

"'Certainly it's cooked right,' Hoover says. 'But two pieces is a plenty on account of the war.'

"'On account of the war! I could work my fingers to the bone fixing good food for that man, and he wouldn't eat it on account of the war, _sagt er_,' says Mrs. Hoover.

"'But, listen, mommer--' Hoover tries to tell her.

"'Never mind, any excuse is better than none,' Mrs. Hoover says. 'Turns up his nose at my cooking yet! _Gestoffte Miltz_ ain't good _enough_ for him. I suppose you would like me to give you every day roast duck on twenty dollars a week housekeeping money. Did you ever hear the like? Couldn't eat _gestoffte Miltz_ no more, so tony he gets all of a sudden!'