elf, 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
Vander