"Then I guess it's up to us Allies to show them poor _Chamorrim_ how they could be bosses for themselves," Morris suggested.
"Sure it is," Abe concluded, "and next year in Tobolsk when the Kaiser joins his relations by marriage, Mawruss, he's going to pick up the _Tobolsker Freie Presse_ some morning and see where there has been incorporated at last the _Deutsche Allgemeine Wohlfahrtfabrik_, with a capital of a hundred billion marks, to take over the business of the K.K. Manufacturing Company, and he's going to say the same as everybody else: 'Well, what do you know about them Heinies? I never thought they had it in them.'"
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON SOAP-BOXERS AND PEACE FELLERS
There is some of them peace fellers which ain't so much scared as they are contrary.
"People 'ain't begun to realize yet what this war really and truly means, Mawruss," Abe Potash said as he finished reading an interview with ex-Ambassador Gerard, in which the ex-ambassador said that people had not yet begun to realize what the war really meant.
"Maybe they don't," Morris Perlmutter agreed, "but for every feller which 'ain't begun to realize what this war really and truly means, Abe, there is a hundred other fellers which 'ain't begun to realize what a number of people there is which goes round saying that people 'ain't begun to realize what this war really and truly means, y'understand. Also, Abe, the same people is going round begging people which is just as patriotic as they are that they should brace up and be patriotic, y'understand, and they are pulling pledges to hold up the hands of the President on other people who has got similar pledges in their breast pockets and pretty near beats 'em to it, understand me, and that's the way it goes."
"Well, if one time out of a hundred they strike somebody who really and truly don't realize what the war means, like you, Mawruss," Abe began, "why, then, their time ain't entirely wasted, neither."
"I realize just so much as you do what this war means, Abe," Morris retorted.
"Maybe you do," Abe admitted, "but you don't talk like you did, Mawruss, otherwise you would know that if out of a hundred Americans only ninety-nine of 'em pledges themselves to hold up the hands of the President, y'understand, and the balance of one claims that we are in this war just to save our investments in Franco-American bonds and that Mr. Wilson is every bit as bad as the Kaiser except that he's clean-shaved, y'understand, then them ninety-nine fellers with the pledges in their breast pockets should ought to convert the balance of one. Because, Mawruss, a nation which is ninety-nine per cent. patriotic is like a fish which is ninety-nine per cent. fresh--all you can notice is the one per cent. which smells bad."