on us some such
expert as Nicholas Murray Butler _oder_ the president of the Union
Theological Cemetery."

"At that," Abe said, "I think they'd know more about the price of
garments than Bernstorff did about the price of Congressmen. I always
give that feller credit for more sense than that he should try to
explain an item in his expense account by claiming that

April 3, 1917, To sundries $50,000

was what he paid for bribing the United States Congress."

"Well, say!" Morris exclaimed. "The poor feller had to tell 'em
something, didn't he? Here he is coming back from his trip after losing
his whole territory to his firm's competitors, and naturally he tries to
make a good showing with his expense account, which, believe me, Abe, if
I was a rotten salesman like that, before I would face my employer--and
_such_ an employer, because that _Rosher_ 'ain't got them spike-end
mustaches for nothing, Abe--I would first jump in the river, even if my
expense account showed that I had been staying in a-dollar-and-a-half-a-day
American-plan hotels and had sat up nights in the smoker for big jumps
like from Terre Haute to Paducah."

"Can you imagine the way the Kaiser feels?" Abe said. "I suppose at the
start he was keeping so calm that he bit the end off his fountain pen
and started to light the cap, and probably took one or two puffs before
he noticed anything strange about the flavor, because you could easy
make a mistake like that with a German cigar.

"'_Nu_, Bernstorff,' he says, at last, as he looks at the expense
account, 'before we take up the matter of this here eight-foot shelf of
the world's greatest fiction I would like to hear what you got to say
for yourself, so go ahead mit your lies and make it short.'

"'I suppose you got my letters,' Bernstorff begins, 'the ones I sent you
through the Swede.'

"'What Swede?' the Kaiser says.

"'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 shou