Worrying Won't Win. Glass Montague
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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 château.'
"'Have it your own way, Boss,' Bernstorff says, 'but them château 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 himself," 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