otograph 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."

XXV

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS THIS HERE INCOME TAX

"Didn't I beg you that you shouldn't give to a lawyer that claim against
Immerglick which we had for the money we loaned him five years ago?" Abe
Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as he pored over form
1040, revised January, 1918, which bore in large black letters the
heading, "INDIVIDUAL INCOME-TAX RETURN FOR CALENDAR YEAR 1917."

"Ten hundred and fifty dollars he paid us, and now I don't know should I
stick it under A, B, C, D, E, or F."

"I suppose you would rather see Immerglick get away with the whole sum
as pay eight per cent. of it to the government," Morris commented.

"I would give the government not only eight per cent., but eighteen per
cent., Mawruss, if they would only send round their representative and
fill out this here paper themselves, and leave me in peace," Abe said.
"I 'ain't done nothing for a month now but write down figures on this
rotten blank and scratch them out again, and what is going to be the
end of it I don't know."

"All the government asks of you, Abe, is to be honest," Morris said.

"Sure, I know," Abe replied. "But to be honest about fixing up this here
income-tax return, Mawruss, you've got to be a lawyer, a certified
public accountant, a mind-reader, and one of these here handwriting
experts who knows how to write the whole of the Constitution of the
United States on the back of a two-cent stamp, which take, for instance,
'N. CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS, &C. (Enter below name and
address of each organization and amount paid to each),' and while I
'ain't given away a million dollars to charity in nineteen seventeen
exactly, I can see where next year when somebody comes round to
_schnoor_ from me five dollars for the Bella Hirshkind Home for Aged and
Indignant Females in the Borough of the Bronx, City of New York,
y'understand, he's going to get turned down on the grounds that Mr.
McAdoo only provided three lines for all charitable contributions and
I'm saving them up for the Red Cross, the S.P.C.A., a