with bar fixtures
and mass-kerseno cherries."

"Well, so far as I'm concerned, any show that starts in at twelve
o'clock would always have to get along without _my_ trade, prohibition
or no prohibition," Abe commented, "even though I could enjoy it on
nothing stronger than malted milk."

"Which you couldn't," Morris added, "and there's why the Midnight
Follies wouldn't last, because not only is this here prohibition going
to kill schnapps, Abe, but it is also going to drive off the market for
all articles the demand for which contains more than one per cent.
alcohol."

"And believe me, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "no decent, respectable man is
going to miss such articles, neither."

XV

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON PEACE WITH VICTORY AND WITHOUT BROKERS, EITHER

"An offer is anyhow an offer, even if it is turned down, Mawruss," Abe
Potash said, the day after Germany proposed terms of peace, "which that
time I sold Harris Immerglick them lots in Brownsville, Mawruss, the
first proposition he made me I pretty near threw him down the
freight-elevator shaft, and when we finally closed the deal I couldn't
tell exactly how much I made on them lots--figuring what I paid in taxes
and assessments while I owned 'em, but it must have been, anyhow, five
hundred dollars, Mawruss, from the way Immerglick gives me such a
cutthroat looks whenever he sees me nowadays."

"Everybody ain't so easy as Harris Immerglick," Morris Perlmutter
commented.

"Maybe not," Abe admitted. "But Harris Immerglick didn't want them lots
not nearly as bad as the Kaiser wants peace, Mawruss, so while the
parties to the proposed contract seems to be at present too wide apart
to make a deal likely, Mawruss, at the same time I look to see the
Kaiser offer a few concessions."

"Perhaps you're right, Abe," Morris said, "but while the Kaiser may have
control of enough property so as to throw in a little here and a little
there, y'understand, in the end it will be the boot money which will
count, Abe, and before this deal is closed, Abe, you could bet your life
that not only would the parties of the first part got to give up
Belgium, Servia, Rumania, Poland, and Alsace-Lorraine, but they would
also got to pay billions and billions of dollars in cash or certified
check upon the delivery of the deed and passing of title under the said
contract, and don't you forget it. So if some of them railroad
presidents which is now drawing a hundred thousand a year