Part 12

"And it would also be a good thing if the legislature would pass an act making a half an hour for lunch thirty minutes long instead of ninety minutes, the way some people has got into the habit of figuring it, Abe," Morris retorted, "but, anyhow, that ain't here nor there. This is a republic, Abe, and if the people wants to kid themselves by putting the clock ahead instead of getting up earlier, Mawruss, the government could easy oblige them, y'understand, but not even the Kaiser and all his generals could make a law that would change the sun from being right straight overhead at twelve o'clock noon, Abe."

"Don't worry about the sun, Mawruss," Abe said. "The sun would stay on the job, war-times or no war-times. Nobody is trying to make laws to kid the sun into getting to work any earlier, Mawruss, but even with this war as an argument, there's a whole lot of people which would be foolish enough to claim pay for a time and a half for the first hour they worked if you was to alter your office hours so that they had to come down-town at seven instead of eight, although you did let them go home an hour earlier in the afternoon."

"Maybe they would," Morris said, "but it seems to me, Abe, that a great deal of time and money is wasted by legislatures making laws for unreasonable people. For instance, if you change the clocks to save time where are you going to stop? The next thing you know the legislature would be trying to save coal by changing the thermometer in winter so that the freezing-point from December first to March first would be forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and then when people living in houses situated in cities of the first, second, and third classes kept their houses up to a sixty-eight-degree new style, which was fifty-five degrees old style, they would be feeling perfectly comfortable under the statue in such case made and provided. Also legislatures would be making laws for the period of the sugar shortage, changing the dials on spring scales by bringing the pounds closer together, so that a pound of sugar would contain sixteen ounces new style, being equivalent to twelve ounces old style."

"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 passage 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 passing 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 pass 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 passing 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 nobody 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 passed 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 Damned, which while it was never passed 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 Damned 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 canal? The ignorant man? _Oser!_ He don't know the elementry canal from the Panama Canal, and if he did he couldn't tell you whether elementry canals 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 pass a law saving daylight if you want to."

"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 pass 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 space 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 competitors, 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 scrapping 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 advertisements. 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 assorted '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 advertisements 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."

"But there is more of them like doctors which says that the patient may live two days and he may live two weeks, y'understand, and four weeks later he is put in Class One and leaves for Camp Upton with the next contingent," Morris said. "Take even 'Hamlet,' Abe, which I can remember since 'way before the Spanish war already, and I bet yer when that show was put on there was some crickets which said that John Drew or whoever it was which first took 'Hamlet' did the best he could with a rotten part and headed the article, 'John Drew scores in dull play at Fifty-first Street Theater.'"

"Even so, Mawruss," Abe said, "that wouldn't feaze J.H. Woods or whoever the manager was which first put on 'Hamlet,' because we would say, for example, that the cricket of the New York _Star-Gazette_ said, 'Hamlet' would be an A-number-one play if it had been written by a pants-presser in his off moments, but as the serious work of a professional play-designer it ain't worth a moment's consideration; also the cricket of the New York _Record_ says, From the liberal applause at the end of the third act 'Hamlet' might have been the most brilliant drama since 'The Easiest Way' instead of a play full of clack-trap scenes and which will positively meet the _capora_ it deserves, y'understand. Furthermore, Mawruss, we would say that every other paper says the same thing and also roasts the play, y'understand, so what does this here Woods do? Does he lay right down and notify the operators that under the by-laws of the Actors' Union they should please consider that they have received the usual two weeks' notice that the show will close the next night? _Oser a Stueck!_ The next day he puts in every paper for two hundred and twenty-five dollars an advertisement:

FIFTY-FIRST STREET THEATER J.H. WOODS ..... LESSEE J.H. WOODS PRESENTS 'HAMLET' THE SEASON'S SENSATION!

An A-number-one play.--_New York Star-Gazette._

Most brilliant drama since 'The Easiest Way.'--_New York Record._

John Drew scores heavily.--_New York Evening Moon._"

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said; "while I admit that the theayter crickets is smart fellers and knows all about the rules and regulations for writing plays, y'understand, so that they can tell at a glance during the first performance if the audience is laughing in violation of what is considered good play construction or crying because the show is sad in a spot where a play shouldn't ought to be sad if the man who wrote it had known his business, y'understand, still at the same time theayter crickets is to me in the same class with these here diet experts. Take a dinner which one of them diet experts approves of, Abe, and the food is O.K., the kitchen is clean, the cooking is just right as to time and temperature of the oven, there's the proper proportions of water and solids, and in fact it's a first-class A-number-one meal from the standpoint of every person which has got anything to do with it, excepting the feller which eats it, and the only objection _he's_ got to it is that it tastes rotten."

"And that would be quite enough to put a restaurant out of business if it served only good meals according to the opinion of diet experts, Mawruss, because diet experts don't buy meals, Mawruss, they only inspect them," Abe commented.

"And even if theayter crickets did pay for their tickets, Abe," Morris continued, "there ain't enough of them to support one of these here little theayters which has got such a small seating-capacity that neither the exits nor the kind of plays they put on has to comply with the fire laws, y'understand. But that ain't here or there, Abe. A theayter cricket is a cricket and not an appraiser, y'understand. He goes to a play to judge the play and not the prospective box-office receipts, Abe, and if on account of his knocking a play which would otherwise make money for the manager and do a lot of harm to the people which goes to the theayter, such a show is put out of business, Abe, then the theayter cricket has done a good job."

"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe said. "But it's just as likely to be the other way about, which you take these here shows the crickets gets all worked up over because they are written by foreigners from Sweden, Mawruss, where a married woman gets to feeling that her husband, her home, and her children ain't exciting enough, y'understand, so she either elopes or commits suicide, understand me, and many a business man has come to breakfast without shaving himself on the day after taking his wife to see such a show and caught her looking at him in an awful peculiar way, y'understand. Then 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 right," Morris said. "There he was in his own shipping-room with hammers and screw-drivers laying around, and he has to break his fingers yet."

"You probably would've done the same thing," Abe retorted, "if we would got for a shipping-clerk a Socialist who puts up such arguments."

"Well, I don't know," Morris said. "A Socialist would naturally say that this is a war over property because it don't make no difference if it would be a war, an earthquake, a cyclone, or a blizzard, to a Socialist all such troubles is property troubles, just as to a stomach specialist every pain is appendicitis, so if our shipping-clerk would give me a line of argument like that, Abe, instead I would break my fingers on him, y'understand, I would simply dock him fifty cents as an argument that if he wants to talk socialism, he should talk it in his own time and not mine."

"But the feller had no business to tell Feinrubin that President Wilson was an enemy to Society," Abe protested.

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "For that matter I am an enemy to Society, too."

"Never mind," Abe declared. "Lots of Society fellers which never done a day's work in their lives has gone down to Washington to give the country the benefit of their experience, Mawruss, and it's surprising how many Society ladies is also turning right in and giving up their time to the Red Cross and so forth."