"Because, Abe, if after the war we could get him to come to work in our place it would pay us to give him a hundred dollars a week even," Morris replied, "on account it would be a cinch, after what he's been used to in his last position, for such a young feller to operate an electric rotary cutting-machine with his left hand and press garments with his right, and he has still got both legs and his head left to keep the books, answer the telephone, run a typewriter and an adding-machine, and fix up a new card index for our credit system."
"At that he would probably throw up the job on account he didn't have enough to do to keep him busy, Mawruss," Abe commented, "and also it's going to be pretty hard for them fellers to settle down after the war gets through, considering all the excitement they've had with their names in the papers and everything."
"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "The fact that a feller like Hindenberg is now getting his name in the paper the way it used to was a few years ago with Hannah Elias and Cassie Chadwick ain't no criterion to judge by, Abe, because what war done to make the newspapers forget their old friends Bryan and Evelyn Nesbut ain't a marker on what peace is going to do to a great many of these here front-page propositions which is nowadays accustomed to being continued on page two, column five, y'understand. Why, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if in about five or six years from now, Abe, you are going to take up the paper some morning and read an item like this:
OBITUARY NOTES
Max K. Hindenberg, 83 years old, a clothing merchant, member of the firm of Hindenberg & Levy, and recording secretary of Sigmund Meyer Post No. 97 Veterans of the War of 1914-1918, died early yesterday at his home, 2076 East 8th Street, Potsdam, Germany, yesterday. Deceased was a native of East Prussia.
And the chances is that ninety-nine out of a hundred people ain't even going to say to themselves, 'Where did I hear that name before?'"
"That's where you make a big mistake, Mawruss," Abe said. "Hindenberg is a very popular feller in Germany, and I bet yer that on every map filed in the county clerks' offices of Prussian real-estate developments during the past three years there's a Hindenberg Street or a Hindenberg Avenue, to say nothing of the babies which has been born over there and named Max Hindenberg Goldsticker or Max Hindenberg Schwartz."
"Sure I know," Morris said, "and you can take my word for it, Abe, along about nineteen hundred and thirty-five there's going to be a whole lot of lawyers over in Deutschland making from twenty-five to fifty marks a throw for putting through motions in the Court of Common Pleas for the City and County of Berlin that the name of the said applicant, Max H. Goldsticker or Max H. Schwartz, as the case may or may not be, be and the same hereby is changed to Frank Pershing Goldsticker or Woodrow W. Schwartz. Also, Abe, if ever they open up Charlottenberg Heights overlooking beautiful Lake Hundekehlen as per plat filed in the office of the register of Brandenburg County, y'understand, there'll be a Helfferich Place, a Liebknecht Avenue, and even a Bebel Terrace maybe, but in twenty years from now a German real-estater wouldn't be able even to give away lots free for nothing on any Hindenberg Street or Hindenberg Avenue, not if he was to throw in a two-family house with portable garage complete."
"Well, you could say the same thing about this country, too," Abe declared, "which twenty years from now, people wouldn't know whether the word viereck was a fish or a cheese; and as for all them college professors which got fired recently because they made the mistake of thinking that a college professor gets paid to fool away his time making speeches against the government the same like a United States Senator, y'understand, I couldn't even remember their names to-day yet, so you can imagine how they're going to go down in history, Mawruss: compared to them fellers, there are a few thousand notary publics whose names will be household words already."
"Any man who thinks he is going to make a name for himself by talking or writing against his country is due to get badly fooled, I don't care if he would be a college professor, a United States Senator, or an editor, Abe," Morris said, "because the most he could hope for is the thing what usually happens him. He gets fired, Abe, and the only reputation a feller gets by getting fired is the reputation for getting fired, and that ain't much of a recommendation when he comes to look for another job."