"Well, in that case, Abe," Morris suggested, "even if we are a little short of fuel it would of been better for the sugar situation, and maybe also the wool uniforms also, if, instead of getting publicity through investigations, y'understand, the United States Senate would fix up an electric sign for the front of the Capitol at Washington and make Senator Reed the top-liner in big letters like Eva Tanguay or Mr. Louis Mann, because here in America we've got incandescent bulbs to burn, Abe, but we have only one Hoover, and we should ought to take care of him."
"Understand me, Mawruss," Abe declared, emphatically, "it ain't that I object to a certain amount of light being thrown on the mistakes that is made in running the war, if it wasn't that they keep everything so dark about the progress that is also made--the submarines we are sinking, the number of soldiers we've got it in France, and what them boys is doing over there, and while I know there's good reasons for it, maybe it's like this here Broadway proposition--it pays to keep it dark, but it might pay better to keep it light, which I understand that all the lighting company saves in coal by cutting out the sky signs is less than thirty tons a night."
"Thirty tons a night would warm a whole lot of people, Abe," Morris said.
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But even at ten dollars a ton, Mawruss, it would be only a saving of three hundred dollars, which I bet yer some restaurants on Broadway has lost that much money apiece since the lighting orders went into effect."
"That may be," Morris admitted, "but what the Coal Commission is trying to save ain't money, Abe. It's coal. And that is one of the points about this war that people 'ain't exactly realized yet. Money ain't what it once used to was before this war, Abe. You can still make it, lose it, spend it, and save it, but you couldn't sweeten your coffee with it or heat your house with it till there's sugar and coal enough to go around. Also it's only a question of time when money won't get you to Pallum Beach in the winter or Maine in the summer unless the government official in charge of the railroads thinks it is necessary, and also if this war only goes on long enough and wool gets any scarcer, Abe, money won't buy you a new pair of pants even until you can put up a good enough argument with it to convince a government pants inspector that it's a case of either buying a new pair of pants or a frock-coat to make the old ones decent, understand me."