"The Kaiser would be just as much a martyr if he was sentenced in America as in Europe," Morris replied.
"Who says anything about sentencing him?" Abe demanded. "All it would be necessary to do would be to swear out a warrant against him and leave the rest to a couple of headquarters detectives, which, naturally, when them fellers would tell him to come along with them, the Kaiser would technically resist the arrest by asking what for. This would mean at the very least ten stitches in his scalp, Mawruss, not reckoning a couple of broken ribs or so when the fingerprints was taken, and, while it wouldn't be only a starter in the way of punishment, he would anyhow find out that it is one thing to be actually engaged in a modern battle, and that looking at it through a high-power telescope while sitting in a bomb-proof limousine six miles away is absolutely something else again. Later on, Mawruss, when a New York police-court lawyer visited him in his cell after the Kaiser had lunched on bread and water and the police-court lawyer on what used to be called Koenigsburger Klops and is now known as Liberty Roast, understand me, the Kaiser would get just an inkling of what it means to be caught in a gas attack without a gas-mask."
"You talk like you would got a little experience in the way of sitting in prison yourself, Abe," Morris commented.
"I am giving you what practically happened to a feller by the name Immerglick which was arrested by mistake on account the police thought he looked like an Italian who was wanted for barrel murder, Mawruss," Abe exclaimed, "and if the police behaves this way to a perfect stranger which is innocent at that, Mawruss, you could imagine what them fellers would do to a well-known guilty party like the Kaiser. But that's neither here nor there, Mawruss. What I am trying to do is to work out a punishment proposition for the Kaiser which would get by with such a sensitive bunch as this here committee to place responsibility seems to be."
"Go ahead and have a good time with your pipe-dream, Abe," Morris said. "You couldn't make me feel bad, no matter what happens to the Kaiser in your imagination."
"Well," Abe continued, "after he is through with trying to get rid of the police-court lawyer, Mawruss, he should ought to be arranged before the magistrate in a traffic court, y'understand, and should be accused of driving at the rate of twenty-two miles an hour, which is two miles past the legal speed limit, and then he would find out that all them commandants of Ruhleben and the other German prison camps wasn't even new beginners in the art of making prisoners feel cheap, because you take one of these here traffic-court magistrates which has had years of experience bawling out respectable sitsons who has got the misfortune to own automobiles, Mawruss, and what such a feller wouldn't do to humilitate the Kaiser, y'understand, ain't even dreamt of in German prison camps yet."
"I see you still feel sore about getting fined twenty-five dollars for driving like a maniac down at Far Rockaway last summer Abe," Morris commented.
"How I feel or how I don't feel hain't got nothing to do with it, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle policeman which has got the nerve to swear that he could tell inside of two miles an hour how fast somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty of perjury on the face of it, which I told the judge. 'Judge, your Honor,' I says, 'I admit I was going fast,' I says, 'but—'"
"Excuse me," Morris interrupted, "but I thought you was talking about how to punish the Kaiser, ain't it, which, while I admit you got some pretty good ideas on the subject, Abe, still at the same time there is plenty of ways that the Kaiser could get punished in America without going to the trouble and expense of arresting him first, Abe. There is a whole lot of experiences which the American people pays to go through just once, y'understand, which if the Kaiser could be persuaded to take them all on, one after the other, Abe, his worst enemies would got to pity him. Supposing, for instance, he would start off with one of them electric vibrating face massages, Abe, and if he comes through it alive, y'understand, he would then be hustled off to one of these here strong-arm bunkopathic physicians, which charges five dollars for the first visit and never has to quote rates for the second or third visits, because once is plenty, y'understand."
"But I thought the idea was not to let anybody have any sympathy for the Kaiser, Mawruss," Abe broke in.