nyway_, but
also gets more pleasure from seeing their foolishness printed in the
newspaper than you or I would from seeing the Follies of nineteen
seventeen to nineteen fifty inclusive."

"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe said, "admitting that all which you
say is true, y'understand, I seen a whole lot of fellers which is
working as actors during the past few years, Mawruss, and with the
exception of six, may be, it would _oser_ do the show business any harm
_if_ them fellers was to become operators on pants, let alone
ammunition. It's the same way with the automobile business also. If
seventy-five per cent. of the people which runs automobiles was
compelled to give them up to-morrow, Mawruss, the thing they would miss
most of all would be the bills from the repair-shop robbers. So that's
the way it goes, Mawruss. It don't make no difference what a Pro Bono
Publico writes to the newspaper, y'understand, he couldn't do a
hundredth part as much to make people cut out going to the theayter for
the duration of the war as the feller in the show business does when he
puts on a rotten show. Also Mr. Vanderlip has got a good line of talk
about Americans acting economical, y'understand, but he's practically
encouraging the people that they should throw away their money left and
right on automobiles, compared to some of them automobile-manufacturers
which depends upon their repair departments for their profits."

"I understand that right now, Abe, the automobile business is falling
off something terrible," Morris continued, "and the show business also."

"Sure it is," Abe said, "because so soon as the government put taxes on
theayter tickets and automobiles, Mawruss, the people was bound to
figure it out that it was bad enough they should got to pay taxes on
their assets without being soaked ten per cent. on their liabilities
also. And if I would be a Pro Bono Publico which, _Gott sei dank_, I
couldn't write good enough English to break into the newspapers,
Mawruss, the argument I would make is that people should leave off being
suckers for the duration of the war, and the whole matter of spending
money foolishly on theayter tickets and automobiles would adjust itself
without any assistance from the government, y'understand."

"Well, everything else failing, them automobile-dealers and
theayter-owners could get up a war bazaar for themselves," Morris
suggested, "which I seen it the other day in the papers where they run
off