_ CHAPTER XXIV. POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS SOCIETY--NEW YORK, HUMAN, AND AMERICAN
"I seen Max Feinrubin in the Subway this morning," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter. "He broke two fingers on his left hand last week."
"Why don't he let the shipping-clerk do up the packing-cases?" Morris commented.
"He didn't break his hand on no packing-case," Abe said.
"Well, what
did he break it on, then?" Morris asked.
"The shipping-clerk," Abe replied, "which the feller said that this war is a war over property, and every nation that is in it is just as bad as Germany, so Feinrubin asked him did he claim that the United States was just as bad as Germany and he said 'Yes,' and afterward he said that Feinrubin would hear from him later through a lawyer."
"And that is how Feinrubin broke his two fingers," Morris said.
"Well, as a matter of fact, up to that point Feinrubin had only broke one finger, Mawruss," Abe said, "but just before the shipping-clerk went out of the door he said that President Wilson was an enemy to Society, so Feinrubin broke the other finger."
"Serves Feinrubin right," Morris said. "There he was in his own shipping-room with hammers and screw-drivers laying around, and he has to break his fingers yet."
"You probably would've done the same thing," Abe retorted, "if we would got for a shipping-clerk a Socialist who puts up such arguments."
"Well, I don't know," Morris said. "A Socialist would naturally say that this is a war over property because it don't make no difference if it would be a war, an earthquake, a cyclone, or a blizzard, to a Socialist all such troubles is property troubles, just as to a stomach specialist every pain is appendicitis, so if our shipping-clerk would give me a line of argument like that, Abe, instead I would break my fingers on him, y'understand, I would simply dock him fifty cents as an argument that if he wants to talk socialism, he should talk it in his own time and not mine."
"But the feller had no business to tell Feinrubin that President Wilson was an enemy to Society," Abe protested.
"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "For that matter I am an enemy to Society, too."
"Never mind," Abe declared. "Lots of Society fellers which never done a day's work in their lives has gone down to Washington to give the country the benefit of their experience, Mawruss, and it's surprising how many Society ladies is also turning right in and giving up their time to the Red Cross and so forth."
"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But there is lots of them which don't, Abe, and you take it on a cold Sunday in February when the superintendent of the apartment-house where you live is keeping the temperature of your flat below sixty-eight degrees by not letting it get up to fifty, y'understand, and it would make a Bolshevik out of the president of a first national bank to see Mrs. J. Van Rensselaer-This and Mrs. H. Twombley-The Other on the front page of the illustrated Sunday supplement, photographed at Pallum Beach on Lincoln's Birthday in practically a pair of stockings apiece, y'understand, which if them people want to wear clothes in Florida that if any one wore them around New York if they didn't get arrested they would anyhow get pneumonia, y'understand, that's
their business, Abe, but what I don't understand is, why should they want to advertise it?"
"Well, what is the use of being in Society if you couldn't rub it in on people who ain't?" Abe asked.
"But this is a democracy, Abe," Morris said, "so who cares if he is in Society or not?"
"Don't fool yourself, Mawruss," Abe said. "There wouldn't be no object for Society ladies to advertise that they are in Society if they didn't know that reading such an advertisement would make a whole lot of people feel sore which wants to get into Society, but couldn't."
"And such people calls themselves Americans?" Morris said.
"They not only calls themselves Americans, but they
are Americans," Abe said. "Which the main talking points of any one who advertises that they are in Society, whether they do it through publicity in the newspapers, by marrying or dying, y'understand, is that the bride or the deceased, as the case may be, was a descendant of Txvee van Rensselaer Ten Eyck who came in America in sixteen fifty-three and that another great-great-grandfather opened the first ready-to-wear-clothing factory on the American continent in sixteen sixty-six."
"Of course, Abe, you may be right," Morris said, "but it seems to me I read it somewheres how a whole lot of people which is now in Society qualified by settling in Pittsburg along about the time Judge Gary first met Andrew Carnegie."
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But millionaires can get into Society on a cash basis,
nunc pro tunc, as of May first, sixteen twenty, as the lawyers say, Mawruss, which if a lady is trying to butt into Society on the grounds that her great-great-grandfather, Hyman de Peyster van Rensselaer,
olav hasholom, came over on the
Mayflower and bought all the land on which the town of Hockbridge, Mass., now stands from the Indians in sixteen sixty-six for two hundred dollars, y'understand, it wouldn't do her chances a bit of harm if her husband came over on the White Star Line, third class, just so long as he bought U.S. Steel when it was down to thirty and a quarter in nineteen five and held on to it till it touched one hundred and twenty, y'understand."
"Then what used to was the 'four hundred' must have added a whole lot of ciphers to it in the last few years, Abe," Morris commented.
"Ciphers is right," Abe said. "But that four-hundred figure is a thing of the past along with the population of Detroit before the invention of the automobile, Mawruss, and I guess, nowadays, Society must be running the Knights of Pythias and the Royal Arcanum pretty close on the size of its membership, Mawruss."
"For my part, Abe," Morris said, "I would just as lieve join either of them societies in preference to Society. Take, for instance, these here Vanderbilts which they have been in Society for years already, and what benefit do they get from it? It isn't like as if one of them would be in the wholesale clothing business, for instance, and could get a friend to use his influence with a retailer by saying: 'Mr. Goldman, this is my friend, Mr. Vanderbilt. Him and me was in Society for years, already, and anything in his line you could use would be a personal favor to me,' because any connection with the clothing business, wholesale or retail, bars you out of Society unless the Statue of Limitations has run against it for at least four generations."
"Still, it's a big help to be in Society for certain businesses, Mawruss," Abe said. "Take it in our line, Mawruss, and a feller which was in Society could make a fortune duplicating for the popular-price trade an expensive line of garments such as you would be apt to see at an affair which was run off by somebody 'way up in Society."
"That ain't a bad idee, neither, Abe," Morris said; "and then, Abe, instead of people asking what is the big idee when they see a picture of Mrs. Yosel van Rensselaer Lydig in the illustrated Sunday supplement they could read on it, 'Our Leader--the Mrs. Yosel van Rensselaer Lydig gown; regular sizes, nine fifty; stouts, ten dollars,' which there is no use letting all that good publicity going to waste, Abe, so if a garment-manufacturer couldn't utilize it, a cigar wholesaler could vary his line of cigars called after actresses by naming one of them 'The Mrs. Yosel van Rensselaer Lydig, a mild and aromatic three-for-a-quarter smoke for five cents.'"
"I'm afraid Society people wouldn't be willing to stand for such a thing even in war-times, Mawruss," Abe said.
"Well, I only make the suggestion, Abe, because some states has already passed laws compelling everybody to find a job for the duration of the war, y'understand," Morris said, "and if the courts should hold that sitting on the sand at Pallum Beach and having a photograph taken ain't holding a job within the meaning of the statue in such cases made and provided, Abe, maybe the addition of a little advertising matter to the picture would be enough to keep some Society lady out of jail on the ground that she is working as a model for advertising pictures, y'understand, although, for my part, Abe, I am willing to see anybody who tries to get publicity as a Society person go to jail whether they work or not."
"Why so?" Abe asked.
"Because such publicity is only the start, Abe," Morris said. "It is the first stages of what is the trouble in Germany to-day yet. For years already the Society fellers of Germany, headed by the chief Society feller of Germany, the Kaiser, has been getting their pictures into the paper dressed in soldiers' uniforms till it got to be firmly fixed in the minds of people which wasn't Society fellers that the latest up-to-the-minute idee was wearing a soldier's uniform. Also, Abe, along with such publicity goes the idee that anything Society fellers does is O.K., and it is this just-watch-our-smoke advice of the German Society fellers to the poor German people,
nebich, which has changed the motto of Germany from '
Hei-lie! Hei-lio! Hei-lie! Hei-lio! Bei uns, geht's immer so!' to '
Deutschland, Deutschland ueber Alles,' and that is what brought on the war, Abe."
"You mean to say that when Mrs. Mosha van Rensselaer has her picture taken at Pallum Beach the intention is the same as when the Kaiser used to got printed a photograph of himself as colonel of the One Hundred and First Pomeranian Regiment."
"Toy Pomeranian or regular size, Abe," Morris said, "it don't make no difference, the intention in both cases was to get publicity for the fact that the sitter was a leader of Society, Abe, and so far as the Kaiser was concerned, he soon got the idee that just as the Kaiser was the leader of Society of Germans, y'understand, so Germany was the leader of the Society of Nations, and therefore that Germany should have the biggest army, the biggest navy, the biggest colonies, and the biggest territory."
"And she's going to get the biggest licking, Mawruss," Abe interrupted.
"She's got it coming to her," Morris said, "and then when we've showed Germany that she ain't such an international Society leader like she thought she was, y'understand, the Germans which was rank outsiders in Germany Society is going to look up a lot of old illustrated Sunday supplements, and when the trial comes off before the Berlin County Court of General Sessions the district attorney is going to offer in evidence that well-known picture of the Kaiser and his six sons, and, without leaving the box, the jury will find a verdict of guilty of being German Society leaders in the first degree. Also, Abe, pictures will turn up of one of the Kaiser's hunting parties, and only the people which couldn't be identified on account of being at the edge of the photograph will escape."
"But you don't think anything like that would happen to our Society fellers, Mawruss?" Abe said.
"I think they're perfectly safe for the next hundred years or so, Abe," Morris said, "but, just the same, they should take example by the Society leaders over in Russland, and learn to drink coffee from the saucer and eat with the knife while there is still time." _