THE STORIES THEY TELL

Here & there last week, as every week, men paused to chat and swap stories:

In Communist Prague, two trash collectors sat in a cafe on St. Wenceslaus Square and compared the grim past with the glorious present. "The worker's lot has improved enormously, of course," said one. "Just the same, before the revolution they promised us that in the future it would be the masters' turn to sweep the streets and collect the garbage. Now what happens? We are still doing the dirty work." The other took a long draught of his beer. "Ah," he replied at last, "you seem to forget: we are now the masters."

In Tel Aviv, Israelis were chuckling at a story about Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan, who was trying to make the ends of his budget meet. It seems that Premier David Ben-Gurion met an old friend on the street one day and asked what he was doing. "Nothing," answered the friend, "nothing at all." "Why, that's preposterous!" said the Premier. "A man as able as you--to be idle. You should be in the government. Name a job and it's yours." "Well," said the friend, "I could use a cabinet post." "Oh, I'm afraid that would be difficult," said Ben-Gurion. "You see, all the posts are filled. Shertok is Foreign Minister. Zisling is Minister of Agriculture. Kaplan is Minister of Finance, and so it goes." "All right," said the friend, "so make me Minister of Air." "But there's no such post," exclaimed the Premier. "What would a Minister of Air do without any aircraft?" The friend gave him a long, shrewd look and shrugged his shoulders. "So," he said, "what is Kaplan doing?"

Socialist Britain had its topsy-turvy aspect as well, and from there last week came a story of a London visitor who was inordinately impressed with the satiny polish given his shoes by a hotel boot boy. Next morning he arose especially early to catch the "boots" and congratulate him. "How did you ever learn to do it?" he asked. The boots drew himself to attention. "As a matter of fact," he replied in the clipped accents of an ex-Guards officer, "my batman taught me."

The Daily Express' irrepressible "Beachcomber" did what he could to explain the government's new multicolored gasoline program. "Considerable confusion," he wrote, "is being caused by the new green petrol which changes to yellow when mixed with the blue dual-purpose petrol. It is difficult to analyze the mixture on the spot and the position is complicated by the similarity between this petrol in its yellow stage and the red petrol which becomes yellow when mixed with the new grey petrol which must be mixed with brown petrol for pleasure trips of more than one-seventh of a mile in a farm tractor."

In Yugoslavia the Marshall Plan and the Tito rule were being bracketed with a broad grin. A visiting diplomat asked a Yugoslav to tell him--in strictest confidence--how the nation felt about Marshal Tito. "One. hundred percent in favor," came the answer. The visitor's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, yes," explained the Yugoslav. "Just add it up: 95% for Marshall, five for Tito."

In Germany a couple of recently returned P.W.'s remembered a tale that had rippled through their Russian prison camp during the war. At one of the Yalta meetings Stalin was reported to have asked F.D.R. about the average earnings of a U.S. worker. "Perhaps $350 a month," said the President. "And how much does he need to live on?" asked the dictator. "Roughly $200." "And what does he do with the remaining $150?" "That," said Roosevelt, "is his business, not mine." Then the President asked, "Now tell me, what does an average worker earn in Russia?" "Oh, some 800 rubles a month." "And how much must he spend to live?" Stalin shrugged. "A thousand rubles." "Then," Roosevelt persisted, "he needs 200 rubles a month more to stay alive. Where does he get that?" "That," said Russia's dictator, "is his business, not mine."

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