nk an awful lot of beer before he gets drunk."

"Well, that's what makes the brewery business good, Abe," Morris said.

"But don't you think in a great number of cases, Mawruss, beer is drunk
to squench thirst?" Abe asked.

"That's the way it's drunk in a great number of cases--twenty-four
bottles to the case," Morris said; "but if the same people was to drink
water the way they drink beer, Abe, instead of thirst you would think it
was goldfish that troubled them, which I can get as thirsty as the next
one, Abe, but I can usually manage to squench it without making an
aquarium out of myself exactly."

"_Aber_ what about light wines?" Abe inquired. "They don't harm an awful
lot of people, Mawruss."

"They 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, Abe," Morris said, "because so far as I could see the
American people feels the same way about light wines as they do about
finger-bowls. They could use 'em and they could let 'em alone, and they
feel a whole lot more comfortable when they're letting 'em alone than
when they're using 'em."

"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe said, "I think a great many people
which is prejudiced against light wines on account of heartburn is
laying it to the wine instead of the seventy-five-cent Italian
table-d'hote dinner which goes with it."

"Yes, and it's just as likely to be the cocktail which went before it as
the glass of brandy which came after it, and that's the trouble with
beer and light wine, Abe," Morris declared. "They usually ain't the only
numbers on the program, and the feller which starts in on beer and
light wines, Abe, soon gets such a big repertoire of drinks that he's
performing on the bottle day and night, y'understand, which
saloon-keepers knows better than anybody else, Abe, because if you would
ask a saloon-keeper _oder_ a bartender to have something, y'understand,
it's a hundred-to-one proposition that he takes a cigar and not a glass
beer."

"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But once a bartender draws a glass beer,
before he could use it again, he's got to mark off so much for
deteriorating that it's practically a total loss, whereas he could
always put a cigar back in the case and sell it to somebody else for
full price in the usual course of business."

"Well, that's what makes the saloon business a swindle and not a
business, Abe," Morris said. "Just imagine, A