ment-manufacturer can put in a very
profitable evening there any night if he can only stand the music."

XXI

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS THE MAGAZINE IN WAR-TIMES

"I am just now reading an article by a feller which his name I couldn't
remember, but he used to was a baseball-writer for the New York _Moon,"_
Abe Potash said, as he laid down one of the several weeklies that have
the largest circulation in the United States.

"Is this a time to read about baseball?" Morris Perlmutter asked.

"What do you mean--baseball?" Abe demanded. "I said that the feller
_used_ to was a baseball-writer, but he is now a dramatic cricket."

"With me and dramatic crickets, Abe," Morris said, "it is always
showless Tuesday, which when it comes to knocking plays, Abe, believe
me, I don't need no assistance from nobody."

"Who said he is knocking plays, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "This here
dramatic cricket has just returned from the western front, and he says
that the way it looks now the war would last until--"

"Excuse me for interrupting you, Abe," Morris said, "but is there an
article in that paper by a soldier which used to was a certified public
accountant telling what is going to happen in the show business,
because, if so, it might interest me, y'understand, but what a dramatic
cricket who is also an ex-baseball-writer has got to say about the war,
Abe, would only make me mad, Abe, because there is people writing about
this war which really knows something about it, whereas as a general
proposition it don't make no difference who writes about the show
business, he usually don't know no more about it as, for example, a
baseball-writer."

"That's where you make a big mistake, Mawruss," Abe said. "I have read
articles about the war ever since the war started, and so far as I could
see, Mawruss, the fellers which wrote them might just so well of stayed
at home and got their dope from actors and baseball-players, because you
take, for instance, the fellers which has written about conditions in
Russland, Mawruss, and claims to have their information right on the
spot from the Russian working-men and soldiers, y'understand, and from
the way them fellers is all the time springing _Nitchyvo!_ and _Da!_ in
their articles, Mawruss, it's a hundred-to-one proposition that them two
words was all the Russian they was equipped with to carry on their
conversations with them moujiks."

"For that matter, the fellers which writes th