he U-boats didn't win
the war was because they didn't have a fair trial. Then there's
Mackensen and Ludendorff which they've got _their_ idees about how the
war should be won, and they mean to see that their idees continue to
have a fair trial till there ain't enough German soldiers alive to give
them idees a fair trial, and that's the way it goes, Abe. All the idees
that we want to give a fair trial is that we are going to keep on
fighting till we've proved to the German people that it don't pay to
back up the Von Tirpitz, Ludendorff, and Mackensen idees."

"And how long is this going to take?" Abe inquired.

"Not so long as you think, Abe," Morris replied, "because Germany may
have made peace with Russia, but she has still got fighting against her
England, France, Italy, America, Starvation, Bad Business, Conceit,
Lies, and Stubbornness."

"And in the mean time, Mawruss," Abe said, "what's going to happen to
us?"

"Don't worry about us," Morris said. "All America has got to do is to
try to be an optician and look on the bright side of things, and she's
bound to win out in the end."

XIV

THE LIQUOR QUESTION--SHALL IT BE DRY OR EXTRA DRY?

Light wines don't harm an awful lot of people, for the same reason
that there ain't much pneumonia caused by people getting damp from
using finger-bowls.

"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, the day after the prohibition amendment
was adopted by the House of Representatives, "there's a lot of people
going around taking credit for this here prohibition which in reality is
living examples of the terrible effects not drinking schnapps has on the
human race--suppose any one wanted to argue that way--whereas if you was
to put the people wise which is actually responsible for the country
going dry, y'understand, they would be too indignant to call you a liar
before they could hit you with anything that lay most handy behind the
bar from an ice-pick to an empty bottle, understand me."

"I always had an idea myself that what was responsible for prohibition,
Abe, was that the people is sore at booze," Morris Perlmutter retorted.

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But the people would be just so sore at
candy if the fellers which runs candy-stores acted the way
saloon-keepers does, which you take a feller like this here Huyler, or
one of the Smiths in the cough-drop business, and we would say his name
is Harris Fine, y'understand, and instead of attending to the store and
p