to pretty near warm up their cold homes even if it ain't
going to provide food for their families, Mawruss. Furthermore, Mawruss,
five continuous days is going to give them an opportunity to do a lot
more real, hard thinking than they could do if they would have, we would
say, for example, only one hour a day lay-off every other day over a
period of a hundred days, Mawruss, and if at the end of them five days,
Mawruss, they are going to take as much interest in the problems of this
war as they are in the problem of how they are going to catch up with
what they owe for five days' food and rent, Mawruss, I miss my guess,
because Mr. Taft and Professor Jinks may think that them fellers is
going to spend their five days' lockout in looking up war maps and
sticking little colored flags in the positions now held by the French
and German troops or in reading up the life of General Pershing and _My
Three Years in Germany_ by Ambassador Gerard, Mawruss, _but I don't_."

"And yet, Abe, admitting all you say is true, y'understand, what reason
do you got for supposing that before Mr. Garfield shut off the coal he
didn't also consider all these things, when they even occurred to a
feller like you?" Morris asked.

"What do you mean--a feller like me?" Abe demanded. "Thousands of people
the country over is saying the selfsame thing."

"I know they are," Morris said. "And why you and they should think that
what occurred to thousands of people the country over shouldn't also
occur to Mr. Garfield, Abe, is beyond me. Now I don't know no more about
this coal proposition than you do, Abe, but I am willing to take a
chance that when a big man like Garfield, backed up by President Wilson,
does a crazy thing like this, y'understand, he must have had an awful
good reason for it, no matter how good the reasons were against it."

"Did I say he didn't?" Abe said.

"Then why knock the feller?" Morris asked.

"Say, looky here, Mawruss," Abe retorted, "are we living in Germany or
America? An idee! On twenty-four hours' notice the government shuts off
the coal-supply of the country and you expect that all that the people
would say is, '_Omane! Solo!_' ('Amen! Selah!')."

"Well, that's the way a government does business--on short notice, Abe,
which if Mr. Garfield would be one of them take-it-on-the-other-hand
fellers who considers the matter from every angle before he decides,
y'understand, while he would have still got a couple of thousand ang