very people which is cutting out theayters,
automobile rides, and auction pinochle for the duration of the war would
think twice before they invest the money they save that way in anything
which don't bear interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum."

"You may be right, Mawruss," Abe said, "but arguments about how to
finance the war is like double-faced twelve-inch phonograph records.
There's a good deal to be said on both sides, which it looks like a dead
open-and-shut proposition to me that people couldn't buy no Liberty
Bonds with the money they spend for theayter tickets."

"But the feller which runs the theayter could, and he must also got to
pay the government a tax on the money which he gets that way," Morris
retorted.

"But how about the money which the theayter-owner must got to pay in
wages to actors, play-writers, ushers, and the _Rosher_ which sells
tickets in the box-office?" Abe argued.

"Well, how are all them loafers going to buy Liberty Bonds if they
wouldn't get their money that way?" Morris asked. "So you see how it is,
Abe: the feller which saves all his money for the duration of the war
ain't such a big _Tzaddik_ as you would think, because even if he
invests the whole thing in Liberty Bonds, which he ain't likely to do,
all he gets for his money is Liberty Bonds, and at the same time he is
helping to ruin a lot of business men and throw their employees out of
their jobs, and incidentally he is also doing the best he knows how to
make the whole country sick and tired of the war. _Aber_ you take one of
them fellers which goes once in a while to the theayter for the duration
of the war, y'understand, and indirectly he is handing the government
just so much money as the tight-wad, the only difference being that the
government ain't paying him no interest on it, and he is also helping to
keep the show business going and to pay the wages of the actors and all
them other low-lives which makes a living out of the show business."

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But how is the government going to get men
for the ammunition-factories if they are busy making automobiles for
joy-riding _oder_ fooling away their time as actors, Mawruss?"

"That is up to the government and not to the Pro Bono Publicos," Morris
declared, "which if the theayters has got to be closed, Abe, I would a
whole lot sooner have it done by the government as by a bunch of Pro
Bono Publicos, which not only never goes to the theayter _a