he also caught the poor Czar _selig_ eating with his knife or
something," Morris suggested.

"That he didn't say, neither," Abe answered, "but he might just so well
have said it, for all it would go down with me, Mawruss, because we all
know how kings sow their rolled oats, Mawruss, and any king which
wouldn't associate with any other king on the grounds of running around
the streets till all hours of the night or gambling, y'understand, if
that ain't a case of a pot calling a kettle, I don't know what is."

"And I suppose he topped off them lies by getting religious, ain't it?"
Morris remarked.

"Naturally," Abe said. "And in particular he got very sore at the
Freemasons on account of them being atheists."

"That's the first time I hear that about the Freemasons," Morris
observed. "I think, myself, that he was getting them mixed up with the
Elks."

"The Elks ain't atheists," Abe said.

"I know they ain't, but at the same time they ain't religious fanatics
exactly," Morris said, "which to a particular feller like the Kaiser
would be quite enough, Abe."

"Also, Mawruss," Abe went on, "he claims that the Freemasons is all
Bolshevists, and in fact, from the way he carried on about the
Freemasons, you would think he was crazy on the subject."

"Maybe they once turned him down or something," Morris commented, "which
when I was treasurer of Friendship Lodge, 129, I. O. M. A., before we
quit giving sick benefits, Abe, we turned down a feller by the name
Turkeltaub on account of varicose veins, and the way he went around
calling us all kinds of highwaymen you wouldn't believe at all."

"But the newspaper feller that interviewed him says that the Kaiser
seems to be in pretty good health, Mawruss," Abe declared.

"That don't make him a good risk, neither," Morris retorted. "I suppose
the interviewer didn't say how his appetite was."

"What's his appetite got to do with it?" Abe asked.

"Because, in speaking of murderers just before they go to the chair,
Abe," Morris concluded, "the newspaper always say, 'The condemned man
ate hearty.'"

XI

IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME FOR TRANSATLANTIC
VOYAGES

"I am surprised to see that an old-established and well-settled
government like Mexico should got a revolution on his hands, Mawruss,"
Abe Potash declared as he skimmed the head-lines in the morning papers.

"What makes you think that Mexico is an old-established and well-settled
gove