"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 pass on their money to the Red Cross through war bazaars as pass 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