B918 <=> B920 [BTG XLII Beelzebub in America, p. 919]

“From the pier I went straight to a hotel called the ‘Majestic’ which had been recommended to me by one of my Paris acquaintances and which for some reason or other was additionally, though not officially, called ‘Jewish.’

“Having settled in this Majestic hotel, I went the same day to look up a certain ‘Mister’ there, who also had been recommended to me by still another of my Paris acquaintances.

“By this word ‘Mister’ every being of the male sex is called on that continent who does not wear what is called a ‘skirt.’

“When I found this Mister, to whom I had a letter of introduction, he, as is proper to every genuine American businessman, was up to his eyes in innumerable, as is said there, ‘dollar businesses.’

“I think I might as well remark now at the very beginning of my elucidations about these Americans, that those three-brained beings there, especially the contemporary ones, who constitute the root population on this part of the surface of your planet, are in general almost all occupied only with these dollar businesses.

“On the other hand, with the trades and ‘professions’ indispensable in the process of being-existence, exclusively only those beings are occupied among them, who have gone there from other continents temporarily, and for the purpose, as is said, of ‘earning money.’

“Even in this respect, the surrounding conditions of ordinary being-existence among your contemporary favorites, chiefly among those breeding on this continent, have been transformed so to say, into ‘Tralalaooalalalala,’ or, as our respected teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin would define it, ‘a soap bubble that lasts a long time only in a quiet medium.’