"For that matter, the fellers which writes the articles about the French end of the war don't seem to have had a nervous breakdown from studying French, neither," Morris observed. "All the French which them fellers puts into their writings is O.U.I., m'sieu, which don't look to me to be any more efficient as C.O.D., m'sieu, when it comes to finding out from a feller which speaks only French what he thinks about the war."
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But a feller which writes such an article ain't aiming to tell what the French people thinks about the war. He is only writing what he thinks French people is thinking about the war; in fact, Mawruss, I've yet got to see the war article which contains as much information about the war and the people fighting in the war as about the feller which is writing the article, and the consequence is that after you put in a whole evening reading such an article you find that you've learned a lot of facts which might be of interest to the war correspondent's family provided he has sent them home money regularly every week and otherwise behaved to them in the past in such a manner that they give a nickel whether he comes back dead or alive."
"Of course there is exceptions, Abe," Morris said. "There is them articles which gives an account of the big battle where if the Allies would of only gone on fighting for one hour longer, Abe, they would of busted through the German line and the war would of been, so to speak, over."
"What big battle was that, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Practically every big battle which a war correspondent has written an article about since the war started," Morris replied, "and also while the article don't exactly say so, y'understand, it leads you to believe that if the feller which wrote it would of been running the battle, Abe, things would of been very different. Then again there is them articles which contains an account of just to prove how cool the English soldiers is, Abe, the war correspondent which wrote it heard about a private which had the hiccoughs during the heavy gunfire and asks some one to scare him so that he can cure his hiccoughs, which to me it don't prove so much how cool the English soldiers is as how some editors of magazines seemingly never go to moving-picture vaudeville shows."
"Editors 'ain't got no time for such nonsense, Mawruss," Abe said. "They got enough to keep 'em busy busheling the jobs them war correspondents turns in on them. Also, Mawruss, running a magazine in war-times ain't such a cinch, neither. Take in the old times before the war, and if a trunk railroad got wrecked, y'understand, people stayed interested long enough so that even if the article about how the head of the guilty banking concern worked his way up didn't appear till three months afterward, it was still good, but you take it to-day, Mawruss, and the chances is that a dozen articles about how Leon Trotzky used to was a feller by the name Braustein which are now slated to be put into the May edition of the magazine is going to be killed along with Trotzky somewheres about the middle of next month. In fact, Mawruss, things happen so thick and fast in this war that three months from now the only thing that people is going to remember about Brest-Litovsk and Galli-Curci will be the hyphens, and they won't be able to say offhand whether or not it was Brest-Litovsk that had the soprano voice or the peace conference."
"Well, if a magazine editor gets stumped for something to take the place of an article which went sour on him, Abe," Morris suggested, "he could always print a story about a beautiful lady spy, and usually does, y'understand, which the way them amateur spy-hunters gets their dope from reading magazines nowadays, Abe, if the magazines prints any more of them beautiful lady-spy stories, y'understand, a beautiful face on a lady is soon going to be as suspicious-looking as Heidelberg dueling scars on a man, and it's bound to have quite an adverse effect on the complexion-cream business."
"But you've got to hand it to these magazine editors, Mawruss," Abe said. "They ain't afraid to print articles which coppers the advertisements in the back pages. I am reading only this morning an article which it says on page twenty-eight of the magazine that people in Berlin is getting made Geheimeraths and having eagles hung on them by the Kaiser in all shades from red to Copenhagen blue for helping out Germany in this war by doing things that ain't one, two, six compared with what a feller in New York does when he buys a fifteen-hundred-dollar automobile, y'understand, and yet on pages thirty, thirty-two, thirty-eight, forty, and all the other pages from forty-one to fifty inclusive, the same magazine prints advertisements of automobiles costing from ten thousand dollars downwards, F.O.B. a freight-car in Detroit which should ought to be filled with ship-building material F.O.B. Newark, N.J."
"That ain't the magazine's fault, Abe," Morris said. "If it wasn't kept going by the money the advertisers pays for such advertisements it wouldn't be able to print them articles telling people it is unpatriotic to buy the automobiles which the advertisement says they should ought to buy."
"Maybe you're right," Abe said, "but in that case when a magazine prints an advertisement by the Charoses Motor Car Company that the new Charoses inclosed models in designs and luxury of appointment surpass the finest motor-carriages of this country and Europe, Mawruss, the editor should add in small letters, 'But see page twenty-eight of this magazine,' and then when the reader turns to page twenty-eight and finds out what the article says about pleasure cars in war-times, y'understand, he would think twice, ain't it?"