"It ain't a bad idea at that, Mawruss," Abe said.

"It wouldn't be if the same law provided for changing the size of teaspoons and cups, Abe," Morris said, "and even then there is no way of trusting a bowl of sugar to a sugar hog in the hopes that he wouldn't help himself to four or five spoonfuls, new style, being the equivalent of the three spoonfuls such a _Chozzer_ used to be put into his coffee before the pa.s.sage of the sugar-spoon law, supposing there was such a law."

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But daylight is different from sugar. The idea is that people should use more of it, Mawruss."

"I am willing," Morris said; "but so far as I could see, there ain't going to be no more daylight after the law goes into effect than there was before, and as for setting the clock one hour ahead, anybody could do that for himself without the legislature pa.s.sing a law about it."

"Say!" Abe protested. "Legislators don't get paid piece-work. They draw an annual salary, Mawruss; so if they went to pa.s.s a law about it, let them do a little something to earn their wages, Mawruss."

"Don't worry about them fellers not earning their wages, Abe," Morris said. "Legislators is like actors, so long as they got their names in the papers they don't care how hard they work, which if you was to allow them fellers to regulate the hours of daylight by legislation, Abe, so as to encourage lazy people to get up earlier, Abe, the first thing you know, so as to encourage aviators to fly higher, they would be pa.s.sing an act suspending the laws of gravity for the period of the war."

"Well, I believe in that, too, Mawruss," Abe said. "Time enough we should have laws of gravity when we need them, but what is the use going round with a long face before we actually have something to pull a long face over? Am I right or wrong, Mawruss?"

"Tell me, Abe," Morris asked, "what do you think the laws of gravity is, anyhow? No Sunday baseball or something?"

"Well, ain't it?" Abe demanded.

"So that's your idee of the laws of gravity," Morris exclaimed.

"Say!" Abe retorted. "When I got a partner which is a combination of John G. Stanchfield, Judge Brandeis, and the feller what wrote _Hamafteach_, I should worry if I don't know every law in the law-books; so go ahead, Mawruss, I'm listening. What _is_ the laws of gravity?"

"The laws of gravity is this," Morris explained. "If you would throw a ball up in the air, why does it come down?"

"Because I couldn't perform miracles exactly," Abe replied, promptly.

"Neither could the legislature and also President Wilson," Morris said, "because even though you would understand the laws of gravity, which you don't, the baseball comes down according to the laws of gravity, and even though Mr. Wilson does understand the laws of supply and demand, y'understand, if he gets busy and sets a low price on coal, potatoes, wheat, or anything else that people is working to produce for a living and not for the exercise there is in it, y'understand, such people would leave off producing it and go into some other line where the prices ain't regulated."

"They would be suckers if they didn't," Abe commented.

"And the consequence would be that sooner or later, on account of such low prices, y'understand, everybody would have the price, but n.o.body would have the coal," Morris said, "and that is what is called the law of supply and demand. It ain't a law which was pa.s.sed by any legislature, Abe. It's a law which made itself, like the law that if you eat too much you'll get stomach trouble, and if you spend too much you'll go broke, and you couldn't sidestep any of them self-made laws by consulting those high-grade crooks which used to specialize in getting million-dollar fees out of finding loopholes in the Interstate Commerce law and the Anti-trust laws, because there's no loopholes in the law of supply and demand."

"Might there ain't no loopholes in the law of supply and demand, maybe,"

Abe said; "but when Mr. Wilson gave the order to his Coal Administrator to lower the price of coal it's my idee that he was trying to punch a few loopholes in the law of The Public Be d.a.m.ned, which while it was never pa.s.sed by no legislature, Mawruss, it ain't self-made, neither, y'understand, but was made by the producer to do away with this here law of gravity, because under the law of The Public Be d.a.m.ned prices goes up and they never come down, but they keep on going up and up according to that other law, the law of the Sky's the Limit, which no doubt a big philosopher like you, Mawruss, has heard about already."

"In the company of igneramuses, Abe," Morris said, "a feller could easy get a reputation for being a big philosopher, and not know such an awful lot at that."

"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe agreed, heartily; "but even admitting that you don't know an awful lot, Mawruss, there's something in what you say about this here law of supply and demand."

"Well, now that you indorse it, Abe, that makes it, anyhow, an argument," Morris commented.

"But it looks to me like one of them arguments that is pulled by the supply end to put something over on the demand end," Abe continued, "because President Wilson knows just so much about the law of supply and demand as the coal operators does, Mawruss, and when he fixed the price of coal you could bet your life, Mawruss, he made it an even break for the supply people as well as for the demand people."

"And what has all this got to do with setting the clock ahead one hour in summer, Abe, which was what you was talking about in the first place?" Morris demanded.

"Nothing, except that setting the clock ahead so as to save bills for gas and electric light and limiting the price of coal so as the public couldn't be gouged by the coal operators, so far as I could see, is two dead open and shut propositions, Mawruss," Abe said, "which of course I admit that I'm an ignorant man and don't know no more laws than a police-court lawyer, y'understand, but at the same time, Mawruss, I must got to say the way it looks to me it ain't the ignorant men which is blocking the speed of this war. For instance, who is it when Mr. Hoover wants to have millions of bushels wheat by using whole-wheat bread that says whole-wheat bread irritates the lining from the elementry ca.n.a.l?

The ignorant man? _Oser!_ He don't know the elementry ca.n.a.l from the Panama Ca.n.a.l, and if he did he couldn't tell you whether elementry ca.n.a.ls came lined with Skinner's satin or mohair or just plain unlined with the seams felled. Then, again, who is it that when _any_ order is made by the government which is meant to help along the war takes it like a personal insult direct from Mr. Wilson? The ignorant man? No, Mawruss, it's the feller which thinks that what's the use of having an education if you couldn't seize every opportunity of putting up an argument and using all the long words you've got in your system."

"All right, Abe," Morris said. "I'm converted. Rather as sit here and waste the whole morning I'm content that you should pa.s.s a law saving daylight if you want to."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "For instance, who is it that says whole-wheat bread irritates the lining from the elementry ca.n.a.l? The ignorant man?

_Oser!_"]

"Don't do me no favors, Mawruss," Abe commented.

"And while you're about it, Abe," Morris concluded, "if you couldn't save it otherwise, have the legislature pa.s.s another law that people should save something else for the duration of the war which they ordinarily couldn't live without."

"What's that?" Abe asked.

"Breath," Morris said.

XXIII

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS WHY IS A PLAY-GOER?

"Did you see on the front page of all the newspapers this morning where Klaw & Erlanger has had another split with the Shuberts, Mawruss?" Abe Potash asked, one morning in February.

"Say," Morris Perlmutter replied, "I didn't even know they had ever made up since the time they split before, and, furthermore, Abe, I think that even if the most important news a feller in the newspaper business could get ahold of to print on his front page was an I.O.M.A. convention, instead of the greatest war in history, y'understand, he would be giving his readers a great big jolt compared with the thrill they get when they read about the troubles people has got in the show business."

"Maybe _you_ think so, Mawruss," Abe said, "but Klaw & Erlanger and the Shuberts don't think so, and when you consider that them two concerns control all the theayters in the United States and spends millions of dollars for advertising, Mawruss, a feller in the newspaper business don't show such poor judgment to give them boys a little s.p.a.ce on the front page whenever they have their semi-annual split."

"Probably you're right, Abe," Morris said; "but if it was you and me that had a big fight on with our nearest compet.i.tors, Abe, advertising it in the newspapers would be the last thing we would be looking for."

"The garment business ain't the theayter business, Mawruss," Abe said.

"For instance, being a defendant in a divorce suit don't get any one nowheres in the garment trade, because if a garment-manufacturer would have such a person working for him practically the only effect it would have on his business would be that he would be obliged to neglect it two or three times a day answering telephone inquiries from his wife as to just how he was putting in his time, y'understand, and so far as bringing customers into your place who want to see the lady you got working for you which all the scandal was printed about in the papers, Mawruss, it wouldn't make any difference _what_ the evidence was, you couldn't get your trade interested to the extent even of their coming in to snoop with no intentions to buy, y'understand. But you take it in the theayter business and big fortunes has been made out of rotten plays simply because the theayter-going public wanted to see if the leading lady looked like the pictures which was printed of her in the papers at the time the court denied her the custody of the child, understand me."

"Then you think that there's going to be a big rush on the theayters controlled by Klaw & Erlanger and the Shuberts on account people has been reading in the papers about their sc.r.a.pping again, Abe?" Morris inquired.

Abe shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think nothing of the kind, Mawruss," Abe said; "but there's a whole lot of fellers in the theayter business which have stories printed about themselves in the Sunday papers where it tells how they used to was in business and finally worked their way into the theayter business and what is their favorite luncheon dish, y'understand, till you would think that the reason people went to see plays was because the manager formerly run a clothing-store in Milwaukee, Wis., and is crazy about liver and bacon, Southern style."

"That would be, anyhow, as good a reason as because the leading lady's home life didn't come up to her husband's expectations," Morris commented.

"Well, no matter for what reason people do it, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "buying tickets for a show is as big a gamble as a home-cooked Welsh rabbit, in especially if you try to go by the advertis.e.m.e.nts. For instance, in to-day's paper there is three shows advertised as the biggest hit in town, four of them says they got more laughs in them than any other show in town, and there are a lot of a.s.sorted 'Biggest Hits in Years,' 'Biggest Hits Since the "Music Master,"' and 'Biggest Hits in New York,' so what chance does an outsider stand of knowing which advertis.e.m.e.nts is O.K. and which is just pushing the stickers?"

"The plan that I got is never to go on a theayter till the show has been running for at least three months, Abe," Morris advised.

"But if everybody else followed the same plan, Mawruss," Abe commented, "what show is going to run three months?"

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "There would always be plenty of nosy people in New York City which 'ain't got no more to do with their money than to find out if what the crickets has got to say in the newspapers about the new plays is the truth or just kindness of heart, y'understand."

"From what I know of newspaper crickets, Mawruss," Abe said, "when they praise a show they may be mistaken, but they're never kind-hearted."

"If a play runs three months, Abe, it don't make no difference to me whether the newspaper crickets praised it because they had kind hearts or knocked it because they had stomach trouble," Morris said, "I am willing to risk my two dollars, _anyhow_."

"Maybe it would be better all around, Mawruss, if the newspaper crickets printed what they think about a play the day after it closes instead of the day after it opens," Abe observed, "and then they might have something to go by. As it is, a whole lot of newspaper crickets is like doctors which says there is absolutely nothing the matter with the patient only ten days before the automobile cortege leaves his late residence."