XXI
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS THE MAGAZINE IN WAR-TIMES
"I am just now reading an article by a feller which his name I couldn't remember, but he used to was a baseball-writer for the New York Moon," Abe Potash said, as he laid down one of the several weeklies that have the largest circulation in the United States.
"Is this a time to read about baseball?" Morris Perlmutter asked.
"What do you mean—baseball?" Abe demanded. "I said that the feller used to was a baseball-writer, but he is now a dramatic cricket."
"With me and dramatic crickets, Abe," Morris said, "it is always showless Tuesday, which when it comes to knocking plays, Abe, believe me, I don't need no assistance from nobody."
"Who said he is knocking plays, Mawruss?" Abe protested. "This here dramatic cricket has just returned from the western front, and he says that the way it looks now the war would last until—"
"Excuse me for interrupting you, Abe," Morris said, "but is there an article in that paper by a soldier which used to was a certified public accountant telling what is going to happen in the show business, because, if so, it might interest me, y'understand, but what a dramatic cricket who is also an ex-baseball-writer has got to say about the war, Abe, would only make me mad, Abe, because there is people writing about this war which really knows something about it, whereas as a general proposition it don't make no difference who writes about the show business, he usually don't know no more about it as, for example, a baseball-writer."
"That's where you make a big mistake, Mawruss," Abe said. "I have read articles about the war ever since the war started, and so far as I could see, Mawruss, the fellers which wrote them might just so well of stayed at home and got their dope from actors and baseball-players, because you take, for instance, the fellers which has written about conditions in Russland, Mawruss, and claims to have their information right on the spot from the Russian working-men and soldiers, y'understand, and from the way them fellers is all the time springing Nitchyvo! and Da! in their articles, Mawruss, it's a hundred-to-one proposition that them two words was all the Russian they was equipped with to carry on their conversations with them moujiks."