XVIII
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON THE NEW NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, after Mr. Garfield had announced the five-day shut-down, "one of the hardest things that a patriotic sitson is called on to do nowadays is to have faith in those fellers which is running the Fuel Commission, the Food Commission, and all the other commissions that they ain't such big fools as you would think for."
"Well, you don't think this here Garfield would close up the country for five days unless it would be necessary, ain't it?" Morris Perlmutter retorted.
"Certainly I don't," Abe agreed. "But what is troubling me is that he ain't said as yet for why it is necessary, Mawruss."
"Maybe he 'ain't figured it out yet," Morris suggested. "And even if he didn't, Abe, it stands to reason that if the country don't burn no coal for five days, at the end of five days they would still got the coal they didn't burn, provided they had got any coal at all to start with."
"But as I understand it, Mawruss," Abe said, "not burning coal 'ain't got nothing at all to do mit Mr. Garfield's order that we shouldn't burn no coal. It seems from what ex-President Taft says and also from what a professor by the name of Jinks oder Jenks says, Mawruss, Mr. Garfield done it because the people 'ain't begun to realize that we are at war, Mawruss."
"You mean to say that again the people don't begin to realize we are at war?" Morris exclaimed. "It couldn't be possible, Abe. Here we have had two Liberty Loan campaigns, a military draft which took in every little cross-road village in the country, a war-tax bill that hits everybody and everything, and people like Mr. Taft and Professor Jinks saying day in and day out that the people 'ain't begun to realize we are at war, y'understand, and yet you try to tell me that the people has slipped right back into not beginning to realize we are at war, Abe."
"I don't try to tell you nothing," Abe said. "For my part I think it's time that somebody put them wise, Mawruss."
"What do you mean—put them wise?" Morris demanded. "The people knows that—"