nd it would only have been a matter of a short time
when it would have required an expert to tell which was the President
and which was the ex, y'understand."

"I don't agree with you, Mawruss," Abe said. "Where Mr. Wilson has made
his big mistake is that he is conducting this war on the theory of the
old whisky brogan, 'Wilson! That's All.' If he would only of understood
that you couldn't run a restaurant, a garment business, or even a war
without stopping once in a while to jolly the knockers, Mawruss, all
this investigation stuff would never of happened. Why, if I would have
been Mr. Wilson and had a proposition like Mr. Roosevelt on my hands it
wouldn't make no difference how rushed I was, every afternoon him and me
would drink coffee together, and after I had made up my mind what I was
going to do I would put it up to him in such a way that he would think
the suggestion came from him, y'understand. Then I would find out what
it was that Senator Chamberlain preferred, _gefullte Rinderbrust_ or
_Tzimmas_, and whenever we had it for dinner, y'understand, I would have
Senator Chamberlain up to the house and after he had got so full of
_Tzimmas_ that he couldn't argue no more I would tell him what me and
Mr. Roosevelt had agreed upon, and it wouldn't make no difference if I
said to him, 'Am I right or wrong?' or 'Ain't that the sensible view to
take of it?' he would say, 'Sure!' in either case."

"You may be right, Abe," Morris agreed, "but if he was to begin that way
with Roosevelt and Chamberlain, the first thing you know, William
Randolph Hearst would be looking to be invited up for a
five-course-luncheon consultation, and the least Senator Wadsworth and
Senator McKellar would expect would be an occasional Welsh rabbit up at
the White House, which even if Mr. Wilson's conduct of the war didn't
suffer by it, his digestion might, and the end would be, Abe, that every
Senator who couldn't get the ear of the President with, anyhow, a Dutch
lunch, would pull an investigation on him as bad as anything that
Chamberlain ever started."

"It's too bad them fellers couldn't act the way Mr. Taft is behaving,"
Abe said. "There is an ex-President which is really and truly ex,
y'understand, and seemingly don't want to be nothing else, neither."

"Well, Mr. Taft has got a whole lot of sympathy for Mr. Wilson, Abe,"
Morris said. "He knows how it is himself, because when he was President,
y'understand, he also had experience with M