"And yet, Mawruss, while I 'ain't got such a soft heart that I could even have sympathy for an electric-lighting company, understand me, still I am sorry to see them sky signs go," Abe said, "because lots of fellers from the small towns, members of rotary clubs and the like, used to get a great deal of pleasure from seeing a kitten made out of three hundred thousand electric bulbs playing with a spool of silk made out of five hundred and fifty thousand bulbs, and there was something very fascinating about watching that automobile tire which used to light up and go out every once in a while somewheres around the upper end of Times Square."
"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But if you was spending your good money for such an advertised tire, Abe, it wouldn't be very fascinating to watch it blow out every once in a while on account the manufacturer had to skimp the rubber in order to pay the electric-light bills, Abe, and if any of them members of rotary clubs is in the dry-goods business and has to pay fancy prices for spool silk, Abe, they are _oser_ going to thank the salesmen for the good time they put in while in New York rubbering at his firm's sky sign, because you know as well as I do, Abe, when it comes right down to it, nothing costs a customer so much as free entertainment."
"Of course, Mawruss," Abe said, "the idee of them electric sky signs is not to entertain, but to advertise, and as an advertising man told me the other day, Mawruss, the advertised article is just as low in price as the same article would be if unadvertised, the reason being that the advertised article's output is greater and that he wanted me to advertise in the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_."
"Well, certainly, if the output is greater the cost of production is or should ought to be less," Morris observed, "so I think the feller was right at that, Abe."
"That's what I told him," Abe continued, "but I also said that if I would put for fifty cents a day an advertisement in the paper, y'understand, my partner would never let me hear the end of it."
"Is _that_ so!" Morris exclaimed. "Since when did I kick that we shouldn't do no advertising?"
"Never mind," Abe retorted. "I heard you speak often about advertising the same like you done just now about sky signs, which it is already a back-number idee that advertising raised the price of goods to the customer and--"