there is other shows which crickets
thinks a whole lot of, where a young feller which couldn't get down to
business and earn a decent living puts it all over the man who has been
financially successful, y'understand, and plenty of young fellers which
gets home all hours of the night and couldn't hold a job long enough to
remember the telephone number of the firm they work for, comes away from
the show feeling that they ain't getting a square deal from their father
who has never done a thing to help them in all this life except to feed,
clothe, and educate them for twenty-odd years."

"Well, such plays anyhow make you think, Abe," Morris said. "Whereas,
when you come away from one of them musical pieces, what do you have to
show for it, Abe?"

"A good night's rest, Mawruss," Abe said, "which no one never laid awake
all night wondering if his wife or his son has got peculiar notions
about not being appreciated from seeing this here Frank Tinney talking
to the feller that runs the orchestra in the Winter Garden, Mawruss."

"Then what is your idee of a good show, anyway?" Morris inquired.

"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss, a good show is a show which you got to
pay so much money to a speculator for a decent seat, y'understand, that
you couldn't enjoy it after you get there," Abe concluded. "And that is
a good show."

XXIV

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS SOCIETY--NEW YORK, HUMAN, AND AMERICAN

"I seen Max Feinrubin in the Subway this morning," Abe Potash said to
his partner, Morris Perlmutter. "He broke two fingers on his left hand
last week."

"Why don't he let the shipping-clerk do up the packing-cases?" Morris
commented.

"He didn't break his hand on no packing-case," Abe said.

"Well, what _did_ he break it on, then?" Morris asked.

"The shipping-clerk," Abe replied, "which the feller said that this war
is a war over property, and every nation that is in it is just as bad as
Germany, so Feinrubin asked him did he claim that the United States was
just as bad as Germany and he said 'Yes,' and afterward he said that
Feinrubin would hear from him later through a lawyer."

"And that is how Feinrubin broke his two fingers," Morris said.

"Well, as a matter of fact, up to that point Feinrubin had only broke
one finger, Mawruss," Abe said, "but just before the shipping-clerk went
out of the door he said that President Wilson was an enemy to Society,
so Feinrubin broke the other finger."

"Serves Feinrubin r