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