re and
starts right in to ask them their opinion about the things which they
are supposed to know."

"And what is the Crown Prince supposed to know?" Morris asked.

"Not much that Mary Pickford don't about things in general," Abe said,
"and a good deal less than she does about moving pictures, but otherwise
I should put them about on a par, except that Mary Pickford has got a
brighter future, Mawruss, which I see that one of these here newspaper
fellers got an interview with the Crown Prince which 'ain't been denied
as yet. It took place in an island in Holland where the Crown Prince is
living in retirement with a private chef, a private secretary, a couple
of private valets, his personal physician, and the nine or ten other
personal attendants that a Hohenzollern cuts himself down to while he is
roughing it in Holland, Mawruss. When the newspaper feller spoke to him
he was wearing the uniform of a colonel in the Eighth Pomeranian Crown
Prince's Own Regiment, which is now known as the William J. Noske
Association, of black tulle over a midnight-blue satin underdress--the
whole thing embroidered in gray silk braid and blue beads. A very
delicate piece of rose point-lace was arranged as a fichu, Mawruss, and
over it he wore a Lavin cape of black silk jersey with a monkey-fur
collar and slashed pockets. It would appear from the article which the
newspaper feller wrote that the Crown Prince didn't seem to be
especially talkative."

"In these here interviews which newspaper fellers gets in Europe, Abe,"
Morris commented, "the party interviewed never does seem to be
talkative. In fact, he hardly figures at all, because such articles
usually consist of fifty per cent. what a lot of difficulties the
correspondent was smart enough to overcome in getting the interview,
twenty-five per cent. description, twenty-two and a quarter what the
correspondent said to the party interviewed, and not more than two and
three-quarters per cent. interview."

"Whatever way it was, Mawruss, the Crown Prince didn't exactly unbosom
himself to this here reporter, but he said enough to show that he wasn't
far behind Mr. Vanderlip when it comes to taking a dark view of things
as a result of losing his job, Mawruss," Abe continued.

"Probably he took even a darker view of it than Mr. Vanderlip," Morris
suggested, "because there are lots of openings for bank president, but
if you are out of a job as a crown prince, what is it, in particular if
you