From the heart that feller's got it, you might suppose he was
raised in an incubator and that the only parents he ever knew was a
couple of packages absorbent cotton and an alcohol-lamp."

"Well, that's what I am telling you, Mawruss," Abe said. "With all the
millionaires in Russland which would be tickled to pieces to get a czar
for a son-in-law, y'understand, the feller goes to work and ties up to a
family with somebody like the Kaiser in it, and you know as well as I
do, Mawruss, one crook in your wife's family can stick you worser than
all your poor relations put together."

"Even when your wife's relations are honest, what _is_ it?" Morris
asked.

"_Gewiss!_" Abe agreed. "And can you imagine when such a crook _in_-law
is also your biggest competitor? I bet yer, Mawruss, the poor _nebich_
wasn't home from his honeymoon yet before the Kaiser starts in cutting
prices on him."

"Cutting prices was the least," Morris said. "Take Bulgaria, for
instance, and up to a few years ago that was one of the Czar's best
selling territories. In fact, Abe, whenever the Czar stops off at
Sophia, him and the King of Bulgaria takes coffee together, such good
friends they was."

"Who is Sophia?" Abe asked. "_Also_ a relative of the Kaiser?"

"Sophia is the name of one big town in Bulgaria," Morris replied.

"That's a name for a big town--Sophia," Abe remarked. "Why don't they
call it Lillian Russell and be done with it?"

"They could call it Williamsburg for all the business the Czar done
there after the Kaiser got in his fine work," Morris said.

"And after all, what good did it done him?" Abe added. "Because you know
as well as I do, Mawruss, the Kaiser ain't two jumps ahead of the
sheriff himself. In fact, Mawruss, the king business is to-day like the
human-hair business and the green-goods business. It's practically a
thing of the past."

"Did I say it wasn't?" Morris asked.

"Being a king ain't a business no more, Mawruss. It's just a job," Abe
continued, "and it's a metter of a few months now when the only kings
left will be, so to speak, journeymen kings like the King of England and
the King of Belgium and not boss kings like the King of Austria and the
Kaiser. Why, right now, that Germany is his store, and that the poor
Germans _nebich_ is just salespeople; and he figures that if he wants to
close out his stock and fixtures at a sacrifice and at the same time
work his salespeople to death, what is that _their_ busi