"I don't want to wake you up when you've got such pleasant dreams, Abe,"
Morris interrupted, "but the Allies is going to need all the eyes
they've got during the next year or so, and a few binoculars and
periscopes wouldn't go so bad, neither."

"All right," Abe said, "then don't keep an eye on the brokers, but just
the same we could afford to let the matter rest, because you know what
brokers are, Mawruss: when it comes to putting through a swap, the
principals could be a couple of hard-boiled eggs that would sooner make
a present of their properties to the first-mortgagees than accept the
original terms offered, y'understand, but the brokers never give up
hope."

"What are you talking about--brokers?" Morris exclaimed. "There ain't no
brokers in a peace transaction."

"Ain't there?" Abe retorted. "Well, if this here Czernin ain't the
broker representing Austria and Germany, what is he? I can see the
feller right now, the way he walks into Trotzky & Lenine's office with
one of them real-estater smiles that looks as genwine as a twenty-dollar
fur-lined overcoat.

"'_Wie gehts_, Mr. Trotzky!' he says, like it's some one he used to
every afternoon drink coffee together ten years ago and has been
wondering ever since what's become of him that he 'ain't seen him so
long. Only in this case it happens to be Lenine he's talking to.

"'Mr. Trotzky ain't in. This is his partner, Mr. Lenine,' Lenine says.

"'Not Barnett Lenine used to was November & Lenine in the neckwear
business?' Czernin says.

"'No,' Lenine says, and although Czernin tries to look like he expected
as much, it kind of takes the zip out of him, anyhow.

"'Let's see,' he says, 'this must be Chatskel Lenine, married a daughter
of old man Josephthal and has got a sister living in Toledo, Ohio, by
the name Rifkin. The husband runs a clothing-store corner of Tenth and
Main, ain't it?'

"This time he's got him cornered, and Lenine has to admit it, so Czernin
shakes hands with him and gives him the I.O.M.A. grip, with just a
suggestion of the Knights of Phthias and Free Sons of Courland.

"'My name is Czernin--Sig Czernin,' he says. 'I see you don't remember
me. I met you at the house of a party by the name Linkheimer or Linkman,
I forget which, but the brother, Harris Linkheimer--I remember now, it
_was_ Linkheimer--went to the Saint Louis Exposition and was never heard
of afterward.'

"'My _tzuris_!' Lenine says, but this don't feaze Czernin.

"'You