s, it will cut off practically all the reading that most
New-Yorkers do outside of the newspapers, y'understand. Then again
there's a whole lot of people aside from stockholders in
electric-lighting companies which used to make a good living out of them
sky signs. For instance, what's going to become of the fellers that
manufactured them and the firm of certified public accountants _nebich_
which lost the job of adding up the figures on the meters, because while
any _Schlemiel_ with a good imagination would be trusted to read the
ordinary meter, Abe, the job of figuring the damages on a sky sign which
is eating up a couple of million kilowatt-years every twenty minutes is
something else again."

"And yet, Mawruss, while I 'ain't got such a soft heart that I could
even have sympathy for an electric-lighting company, understand me,
still I am sorry to see them sky signs go," Abe said, "because lots of
fellers from the small towns, members of rotary clubs and the like, used
to get a great deal of pleasure from seeing a kitten made out of three
hundred thousand electric bulbs playing with a spool of silk made out of
five hundred and fifty thousand bulbs, and there was something very
fascinating about watching that automobile tire which used to light up
and go out every once in a while somewheres around the upper end of
Times Square."

"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But if you was spending your good money
for such an advertised tire, Abe, it wouldn't be very fascinating to
watch it blow out every once in a while on account the manufacturer had
to skimp the rubber in order to pay the electric-light bills, Abe, and
if any of them members of rotary clubs is in the dry-goods business and
has to pay fancy prices for spool silk, Abe, they are _oser_ going to
thank the salesmen for the good time they put in while in New York
rubbering at his firm's sky sign, because you know as well as I do, Abe,
when it comes right down to it, nothing costs a customer so much as free
entertainment."

"Of course, Mawruss," Abe said, "the idee of them electric sky signs is
not to entertain, but to advertise, and as an advertising man told me
the other day, Mawruss, the advertised article is just as low in price
as the same article would be if unadvertised, the reason being that the
advertised article's output is greater and that he wanted me to
advertise in the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_."

"Well, certainly, if the output is greater the cost o