o has had the experience of riding on a
sleeper and making Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, and Chicago even under
normal travel conditions, Mawruss, I ask you, where is the pleasure in
such a trip?"

"Them fight fans don't do it for pleasure, Abe," Morris said. "They do
it for a reputation."

"A reputation for what?" Morris asked.

"A reputation for having paid the United States Railroad Administration
twice the regular fare to Toledo for a railroad journey, and also the
reputation for having paid the manager of this here prize-fight fifty
times the regular price of a ticket for a legitimate entertainment,"
Morris replied.

"But what for a reputation is that for a sane man to get?" Abe asked.

"Well," Morris commented, "for that matter, what kind of a reputation
does the same man get when he pays fifty dollars to reserve a table at a
Broadway restaurant on New-Year's Eve? That's where your friend the
insanity expert comes in, Abe. It's the kind of a reputation which the
people among which such a feller has got it--when they talk about it
says: 'And suppose he did. What _of_ it?'"

"It seems to me, Mawruss, that when a feller gets the reputation for
having such a reputation, his friends should ought to tip him off that
if he don't be mighty careful, the first thing you know he would be
getting that kind of a reputation," Abe said, "because there is also a
whole lot of other people among which he got that reputation, who
wouldn't stop at saying: 'Suppose he did. What _of_ it?' They would try
to figure out the answer upon the basis that a feller who pays a hundred
dollars for a ringside seat to see a fight which lasted nine minutes,
y'understand, and his money, understand me, are soon parted, and the
first thing you know, Mawruss, that poor nebich of a prize-fight fan
would be unable to attend the next annual heavy-weight championship of
the world to be held in Yuma, Arizona, or some such summer resort, in
August, 1921, simply because the United States Railroad Administration
refused to accept for his transportation in lieu of cash two thousand
shares of the Shapiro Texas Oil and Refining Corporation of the par
value of one hundred dollars apiece, notwithstanding that he also offers
to throw in a couple of hundred shares of a farm-tractor manufacturing
corporation and lots 120 to 135, both inclusive, in Block 654 on a map
filed in the office of the clerk of Atlantic County, New Jersey,
entitled Map of Property of the Ea