"Sure it is," Abe said, "because so soon as the government put taxes on theayter tickets and automobiles, Mawruss, the people was bound to figure it out that it was bad enough they should got to pay taxes on their a.s.sets without being soaked ten per cent. on their liabilities also. And if I would be a Pro Bono Publico which, _Gott sei dank_, I couldn't write good enough English to break into the newspapers, Mawruss, the argument I would make is that people should leave off being suckers for the duration of the war, and the whole matter of spending money foolishly on theayter tickets and automobiles would adjust itself without any a.s.sistance from the government, y'understand."

"Well, everything else failing, them automobile-dealers and theayter-owners could get up a war bazaar for themselves," Morris suggested, "which I seen it the other day in the papers where they run off a war bazaar in New York and raised over seventy thousand dollars for some fellers in the advertising business."

"Has the advertising business also been affected by the war?" Abe asked.

"The business of _some_ advertising agents has," replied Morris, "which it seems that the standard rates for advertising agents who solicited advertis.e.m.e.nts for war-bazaar programs was any sum realized by the bazaar over and above one-tenth of one per cent. of the net proceeds, which the advertising men agreed should be devoted to wounded American soldiers or starving Belgiums, according to the name of the bazaar."

"Maybe them advertising agents earned their money at that, Mawruss," Abe said, "which the average advertising solicitor would need to do a whole lot of talking before he could convince me that an advertis.e.m.e.nt in a war-bazaar program has got any draught to speak about, because you take a feller in the pants business, y'understand, and if he would get an order for one-twelfth dozen pants out of all the advertis.e.m.e.nts which he would stick in war-bazaar programs from the beginning of the war up to the time when running a war bazaar first offense is going to be the equivalence of not less than from five to ten years, understand me, it would be big already."

"At the same time," Morris protested, "if people is foolish enough to blow in their money advertising by war-bazaar programs, Abe, it don't seem unreasonable to me that the advertising agents and the starving Belgiums should go fifty-fifty on the proceeds, and the way it looks now, Abe, the New York grand jury is going to agree with me after they get through investigating the bills for advertising in connection with the army and navy bazaars."

"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But why should the grand jury investigate only the advertising? Why don't a grand-juryman for once in his life do a little something to earn his salary and investigate what becomes of the articles which young ladies sells chances on at war bazaars? It would also be a slight satisfaction for them easy marks which contributes merchandise to a war bazaar if the grand jury could send out tracers after the goods which remained in stock when the bazaar was officially declared closed by the parties named in the indictment."

"What do you think--a New York grand jury has got nothing else to investigate for the rest of the twentieth century except one war bazaar?" Morris inquired. "The way you talk you would think that they had nothing better to do with their time than the people which goes to war bazaars, which the reason why them advertising men went wrong was that they were practically encouraged to run crooked war bazaars by the hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn't loosen up for charity unless they could get something for their money besides the good they are doing."

"Well, that only goes to show how one minute you argue one way, and the next you say something entirely different again," Abe said.

"Is that so?" Morris exclaimed. "Well, so far as I could see, Abe, you ain't on a strict diet, neither, when it comes to eating your own words."

"Maybe I ain't," Abe admitted, "but it seems to me that people might just so well pa.s.s on their money to the Red Cross through war bazaars as pa.s.s it on to the government through buying theayter tickets the way you argued a few minutes since."

"The Red Cross is one thing and the government another," Morris retorted. "If people spend money at a war bazaar maybe one per cent. of it reaches the Red Cross and maybe it don't, whereas if they spend at a theayter, the government gets ten per cent. net, and the transaction 'ain't got to be audited by the grand jury, neither."

"Then you ain't in favor that people should give their money to the Red Cross?" Abe said.

"_Gott soll huten!_" Morris cried. "People should give all they could to the Red Cross and the government also, but while they are doing it, Abe, it ain't no more necessary that they should encourage a crooked advertising agent as that they should ruin a hard-working feller in the show business. Am I right or wrong?"

XII

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS HOW TO PUT THE SPURT IN THE EXPERT

"When does the Shipping Commission expect to begin shipments on those ships?" Abe Potash asked, as he laid down the morning paper a few days after Thanksgiving.

"I don't know," Morris Perlmutter replied. "The way the newspapers was talking last April, Abe, it looked like by the first of September our production would be so far ahead of our orders for ships that President Wilson would have to organize a special department to handle the cancellations, y'understand, but from what I could see now, Abe, by next spring the nearest them Shipping Commission fellers will have come to deliveries on ships is that this here Hurley will be getting writer's cramp from signing letters to the attorneys for the people which ordered ships that in reply to your favor of the tenth inst. would say that we expect to ship the ships not later than July first at the latest, and oblige."

"But I thought that even before we went to war with Germany, Mawruss, a couple of inventors made it an invention of a ship which could be built of yellow pine in ninety days net."

"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But the Shipping Commission couldn't make up their minds whether them yellow-pine ships would be any good even after they _were_ built, on account some professional experts claimed that yellow pine shrinks in water to the extent of .00031416 milliegrams to the kilowatt-hour, or .000000001 per cent., and other professional experts said, '_Yow_ .00031416 milliegrams!' and that .00000031416 would be big already, and that also what them first experts didn't know from the shrinkage of yellow pine, understand me."

"Well, why didn't the Shipping Commission build a sample ship from yellow pine?" Abe suggested. "It's already nine months since the war started, and by this time such a ship could have been in the water long enough for them Shipping Commission fellers to judge which experts was right."

"And suppose she did shrink a little," Morris said, "she could have been anyhow disposed of '_as is_' to somebody who didn't take it so particular to the fraction of an inch how much yellow pine he gets in a yellow-pine ship."

"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe agreed, "but then, you see, an idee like that would never occur to a professional expert, Mawruss, because it has the one big objection that it might prove the other experts was right when they didn't agree with him, which that is the trouble with professional experts. The important thing to them ain't so much the articles on which they experts, as what big experts they are on such articles.

"Take this here Lewis machine-gun, Mawruss," Abe continued, "and when Colonel Lewis puts it up to the army experts, y'understand, naturally them experts says, 'Well, if we are such big experts on machine-guns, we should ought to know a whole lot more about machine-guns as Colonel Lewis, and what does that _Schlemiel_ know about machine-guns, _anyway_?' so they sent Colonel Lewis a notice that they would not be responsible for goods left over thirty days, and the consequence was Colonel Lewis sold his machine-gun to the English army."

"And he didn't have to be such a cracker-jack high-grade A-number-one salesman to do that, neither," Morris commented, "because if his only talking point to the English experts was that the American experts had turned down his gun, y'understand, the English experts would give him a big order without even asking him to unpack his samples."

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But if Colonel Lewis would of had the interests of America at heart, Mawruss, he should ought to have offered his machine-gun to the English experts first, understand me, and after he had got out of the observation ward, which the English experts would just naturally send him to as a dangerous American crank with a foolish idea for a machine-gun, y'understand, the American experts would have taken his entire output at his own terms."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Well, if we are such big experts on machine-guns, we should ought to know a whole lot more about machine-guns as Colonel Lewis, and what does that _Schlemiel_ know about machine-guns, _anyway_?'"]

"After all, you can't kick about such mistakes being made, because that's the trouble about being a new beginner in any business," Morris said. "It don't make no difference whether it would be war or pants, Abe, you start out with one big liability, and that is the advice proposition. Twice as many new beginners goes under from accepting what they thought was good advice as from accepting what they thought was good accounts, Abe, and them fellers on the Shipping Commission deserves a great deal of credit that they already made such fine progress. You can just imagine what this here Hurley which he used to was in the railroad business must be up against from his friends which has been in the ship-building business for years already. The chance is that every time Mr. Hurley goes out on the street one of them old ship-building friends comes up to him with that good-advice expression on his face and says: '_Nu_, Hurley. How are they coming?' which it don't make a bit of difference to such a feller whether Mr. Hurley would say, '_So, so_,'

'_Pretty good_,' or '_Rotten_,' y'understand, he might just as well save his breath, on account the good-advice feller is going to get it off his chest, anyhow.

"'You're lucky at that,' the good-advice feller says, 'because I just met your a.s.sistant designer, Jake Rashkin, and he tells me you are getting out a line of whalebacks in pastel shades.'

"'Well, why not?' Hurley says.

"'Why not!' the friend exclaims. 'You mean to tell me that you don't know even that much about the ship-building business, that you would actually go to work and make up for the fall trade a line of whalebacks in pastel shades? Honestly, Hurley, I must say I am surprised at you.'

And for the next twenty minutes he gives Hurley the names and dates of six voluntary bankrupts, all of whom started in the ship-building business by making up a line of whalebacks in pastel shades, together with the details of just what them fellers is doing for a living to-day from selling cigars on commission downwards.

"Naturally, Hurley hustles right back to the shop and tells the foreman that if they 'ain't already started on that last batch of whalebacks in pastel shades, not to mind, and he spends the rest of the afternoon getting his operators busy on a couple of hundred oil-burning boats in solid colors, like reds, greens, and blues. The consequence is that the next day at lunch another old friend comes up to him, which used to was in the ship-building business when the record from New York to Liverpool was nineteen days ten hours and forty-five minutes, y'understand, and says: '_Nu_, Hurley. How is the busy little ship-builder to-day?'

"'Pretty good,' Hurley says. 'I'm just getting to work on a big line of oil-burners in solid colors, like reds, greens, and blues.'

"'No!' the old ship-builder says.

"'Sure!' Hurley tells him, and after they have said 'No!' and 'Sure!' a couple of dozen times it appears that if a new beginner in the ship-building business lays in a stock of plain-colored oil-burning boats he might just so well kiss himself good-by with his ship-building business and be done with it. Also it seems that the only line of goods for a new beginner in the ship-building business to specialize in is whalebacks in pastel shades, Abe, and that's the way it goes."

"At that we're a whole lot better off as England was when she started in as a new beginner in the war business," Abe commented. "Mr. Hurley was, anyhow, in the railroad business when he took over the ship-building job, and we've got other men which were high-grade dry-goods and hardware men before they threw up their business to help the government branch out into the war business, y'understand, but if we would got to depend on somebody who was trying to run a shipyard with the experience he had got from being national lawn-tennis champion for the years nineteen hundred to nineteen sixteen inclusive, or if President Wilson had the idee that for a man to be the right man in the right place, y'understand, he should ought to have the gumption and business ability which a feller naturally picks up in the course of being an earl or a duke, understand me, the best we could hope for would be a fleet of six rebuilt tugboats by the fall of nineteen fifty."

"It wasn't England's fault that she made such a mistake, Abe," Morris said. "Up to the time Germany started this war it used to was considered that if nations did got to go to war, y'understand, the best way to go about it was to put it in charge of a good sport like a tennis champion would naturally have to be, and as for the earls and the dukes, the theory on which them fellers fooled away their time was that they was just resting up between wars, Abe, because they was, anyhow, gentlemen, and it was England's idea that all a soldier had to be was a gentleman.

But nowadays that's already a thing of the past. The way Germany fixed things with her long-distance cannons, her liquid fire, gas, and Zeppelins, a soldier don't have to be so much of a gentleman as an inventor, a chemist, an engineer, and a general all-around hustler."

"In fact, Mawruss," Abe said, "a German soldier don't need to be a gentleman at all, because when it comes to stealing chateau furniture, destroying cathedrals, burning houses, and chopping down fruit-trees, any experience as a gentleman wouldn't be much of a help to a German soldier."

"That's what I am telling you, Abe," Morris declared. "Germany has made war a business, y'understand, and she figures that a gentleman in the war business is like a gentleman in the pants business. He ain't going to make any more or better pants by being a gentleman, y'understand, and if we are going to win this war, Abe, we should ought to stop beefing about German soldiers not being gentlemen, and take into consideration the fact that while German engineers, chemists, inventors, and submarine-builders may not know whether you play lawn tennis with a cue, mallet, or a full deck of fifty-two cards including the joker, Abe, you can bet your life that they know an awful lot about engineering, chemistry, and building submarines, and they don't need no so-called experts to help them, neither."

"And you can also bet your life, Mawruss, that no German would have turned down Colonel Lewis's machine-guns," Abe said, "the way them experts of ours did."

"Well, what is an expert to do, Abe?" Morris asked. "If he goes to work and recommends the government to give an inventor an order for his invention, he's taking a big chance that the invention wouldn't work, and you know as well as I do, Abe, most American experts play in terrible hard luck. You take these here military experts which gives expert opinions in the newspapers about what is going to happen next on the Balkan front, y'understand, and a feller could make quite a reputation as a military expert by simply coppering their predictions."

"Well, them military experts which writes in the newspapers ain't really experts at all, Mawruss," Abe said. "They're just crickets, like them musical crickets which knows everything there is to know about, we would say, for example, playing on the fiddle excepting how to play on the fiddle."

"_Aber_ what is the difference between a professional expert and a professional cricket, _anyway_?" Morris asked.

"A professional expert is a feller which thinks he knows all about a business because he tried for years and he never could make a success of it," Abe replied, "whereas a professional cricket is a feller which thinks he knows all about a business because he tried for years and he could never even break into it."

"And how could you expect to get from people like that an opinion which ain't on the bias?" Morris concluded.