kull as two pinochle decks with the same backs, and
who is going to check them up on it no matter what kind of a skull they
send? Besides, Mawruss, the people who had pull enough to get that skull
section inserted in the Treaty of Peace is going to be divided into two
classes when that skull arrives in East Africa, _anyway_--namely, those
who will throw a bluff that they recognized the skull as the sultan's
skull as soon as they laid eyes on it, y'understand, and those who will
refuse to concede that any skull is the sultan's skull. There will also,
of course, be a large class of East Africans who won't give a nickel one
way or the other; so if Germany couldn't find the sultan's skull, let
them send England an _ersatz_ sultan's skull with a genwine sultan's
label on it. They've been doing that sort of thing for years with
American safety-razors, American folding-cameras, and American
typewriters; why should they now take it so particular with a German
East African sultan?"

"Then you think there is something suspicious about the way Germany is
acting over this here skull?" Morris suggested.

"I wouldn't call it exactly suspicious, Mawruss," Abe said, "but at the
same time I wouldn't put it beyond the Germans that, after the Allies
gets through discussing together whether or not the sultan's skull is
genwine, they would suddenly awake to the fact that at least two of the
million-mark bills which Germany paid over in the indemnity,
y'understand, are _not_. So, therefore, my advice to England is, examine
the German indemnity carefully, and don't let no returned sultan's skull
distract your attention, even if it would be made of plaster of Paris
with a round hold on top for keeping matches in it, and on the bottom a
sign, reading:

"_Gruess Aus Schveningen_."

XXV

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS INCLUDES LIBELED MILLIONAIRES,
ENFORCED PROHIBITION, AND SHANTUNG

"Well I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, recently, "I doubt very
much if I would be able to say offhand who Arnold Benedict was if I
would be asked such a question by a smart lawyer in a court-room full of
reporters, which, if they hadn't happened to be there at that particular
moment, would of probably gone to their graves without even the faintest
suspicion that you didn't spell _ignorant idealist_ with two l's,
y'understand."

"Still, Abe, you've got to admit that plaintiff in a libel suit don't
deserve much sympathy if he don't po