dged, two-name commercial paper, and if
this here Legion of Honor was just a lapel-button affair which assessed
its members every time they had a death claim to pay, you could take it
from me, Abe, not one of them bankers would of went near it, so maybe
it would be a good thing if we looked into it, Abe."

"If you want to join this here Legion of Honor, that's _your_ business,
Mawruss," Abe said, "but I already belong to the Independent Order
Mattai Aaron, which I've been paying them crooks for three years now
that I should get a sick benefit fifteen dollars a week without being
laid up with so much as tonsillitis even."

"About the sick benefit I wasn't thinking about at all," Morris
declared; "but you take a feller like Sam Feder, president of the
Kosciusko Bank, for instance, and if we should be maybe next year a
little short and wanted an accommodation from two to three thousand
dollars, y'understand, it wouldn't do us no harm if we could give him
the L. of H. grip for a starter. Am I right or wrong?"

"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "The chances is that when them New York bankers
gets back to New York they will want to forget all about joining this
here L. of H."

"Why, what is there so disgraceful about joining the L. of H.?" Morris
asked.

"Nobody said nothing about its being disgraceful, because lots of
decent, respectable fellers is liable to make a mistake of that kind,
understand me," Abe said; "but _you_ take one of these here members of
the firm of--we would say, for example, J. G. Morgan, y'understand,
which comes back from Paris after joining this here L. of H., and what
happens him? The first morning he comes down to the office wearing an
L. of H. button, Mawruss, everybody from the paying-teller up is going
to ask him what is the idea of the button, and he is going to spend the
rest of the day listening to stories about people joining insurance
fraternities which busted up and left the members with undetermined
sentences of from three to five years, y'understand. The consequence
would be that if any of his depositors expect to get an accommodation by
giving him the L. of H. grip or wearing an L. of H. button,
y'understand, they might just so well send him an invitation to a
banquet where, in order to gain his confidence and respect, they are
going to drink champagne out of an actress's slipper, and be done with
it. Am I right or wrong?"

"Well, you couldn't exactly blame them fellers which joined the L. of