Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things | Page 6

home."
"I bet yer the Murats feel honored to got Mr. and Mrs. Wilson staying
with them," Morris said.
"For the first few days maybe," Abe admitted, "but wait till a couple
weeks go by! I give them until January 1, 1919, and after that Mr. and
Mrs. Murat would be signaling each other to come up-stairs into the

maid's room and be holding a few ain't-them-people-got-no-home
conversations. Also, Mawruss, for the rest of their married life,
Mawruss, every time the tropic of who invited them in the FIRST place
comes up at meal-times, y'understand, either Mr. or Mrs. Murat is
going to get up from the table and lock themselves up in the bedroom
for the remainder of the evening. Am I right or wrong?"
"I wouldn't argue with you," Morris said, "because if I would give you
the slightest encouragement you are liable to go to work and figure
where Mrs. Murat is kicking to Mr. Murat that she couldn't make out
with the housekeeping money while the Wilsons is in Paris, on account
of having to buy an extra bottle of Grade B milk every day, or
something like that, which you talk like Mr. and Mrs. Wilson was in
Paris on a couple of weeks' vacation, whereas the President has come
here to settle the peace of the world."
"Did I say he didn't?" Abe protested.
"And while you are sitting here talking a lot of nonsense," Morris went
on, "big things is happening, which with all the questions he has got to
think about, I bet yer the President oser worries his head about a little
affair like board and lodging. Also I read in one of them Paris editions
of an American paper that there come over to France on the same
steamer with him over three hundred experts--college professors and
the like--and them fellers is now staying in Paris at various hotels,
which, if that don't justify Mr. Wilson in putting up with a private
family, y'understand, I don't know what does!"
"I thought at the time I read about them experts coming over to help the
President in the Peace Conference that he was letting himself in for
something," Abe observed.
"I bet yer!" Morris said. "And that's where Colonel House was wise
when he comes over on a steamer ahead of them, because it is bad
enough when you are crossing the ocean in winter-time to be President
of the United States and to have to try not to act otherwise, without
having three hundred experts dogging your footsteps and thinking up
ways to start a conversation and swing it towards the subject they are

experts in. Which I bet yer every time the President tried to get a little
exercise by walking around the promenade deck after lunch there was
an expert on Jugo-Slobs laying for him who was all worked up to tell
everything he knew about Jugo-Slobs in a couple of laps, provided the
President lasted that long."
"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "a man which employs experts to ask
advice from deserves all he gets, Mawruss, because you know how it is
when you ask an advice from somebody which don't know a thing in
the world about what he is advising you. He'll talk you deaf, dumb, and
blind, anyhow. So you can imagine what it must be like when you are
getting advice from an expert!"
"It seems to me that before the President gets through he will be
looking around for an expert which is expert in choking off advice from
experts, otherwise the first time the President consults one of them
experts, if he's going to wait for the expert to get through, he will have
to be elected to a third term and then maybe hold over, at that," Morris
commented.
"I should think the President would be glad when this Peace
Conference is over," Abe said.
"Say! For that matter he'll be glad when it's started," Morris said.
"Which the way it looks now, Abe, the preliminaries of a peace
conference is harder on a President in the way of speeches and parades
than two Liberty Loan campaigns and an inauguration. Take, for
instance, the matter of dinners, and I bet yer before he even goes to
London next week he would have six meals with the President of
France alone--I can't remember his name."
"Call him Lefkowitz," Abe said, "I'll know who you mean."
"Well, whatever it is, he looks like a hearty eater, Abe," Morris
remarked.
"In fact, Mawruss, from what I seen of them French politicians in the
parade this morning," Abe observed, "none of them looked like they

went slow on starchy foods and red meats, whereas take the American
Peace Commissioners, from the President down, and while they