"But how about the money which the theayter-owner must got to pay in wages to actors, play-writers, ushers, and the _Rosher_ which sells tickets in the box-office?" Abe argued.
"Well, how are all them loafers going to buy Liberty Bonds if they wouldn't get their money that way?" Morris asked. "So you see how it is, Abe: the feller which saves all his money for the duration of the war ain't such a big _Tzaddik_ as you would think, because even if he invests the whole thing in Liberty Bonds, which he ain't likely to do, all he gets for his money is Liberty Bonds, and at the same time he is helping to ruin a lot of business men and throw their employees out of their jobs, and incidentally he is also doing the best he knows how to make the whole country sick and tired of the war. _Aber_ you take one of them fellers which goes once in a while to the theayter for the duration of the war, y'understand, and indirectly he is handing the government just so much money as the tight-wad, the only difference being that the government ain't paying him no interest on it, and he is also helping to keep the show business going and to pay the wages of the actors and all them other low-lives which makes a living out of the show business."
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But how is the government going to get men for the ammunition-factories if they are busy making automobiles for joy-riding _oder_ fooling away their time as actors, Mawruss?"
"That is up to the government and not to the Pro Bono Publicos," Morris declared, "which if the theayters has got to be closed, Abe, I would a whole lot sooner have it done by the government as by a bunch of Pro Bono Publicos, which not only never goes to the theayter _anyway_, but also gets more pleasure from seeing their foolishness printed in the newspaper than you or I would from seeing the Follies of nineteen seventeen to nineteen fifty inclusive."
"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe said, "admitting that all which you say is true, y'understand, I seen a whole lot of fellers which is working as actors during the past few years, Mawruss, and with the exception of six, may be, it would _oser_ do the show business any harm _if_ them fellers was to become operators on pants, let alone ammunition. It's the same way with the automobile business also. If seventy-five per cent. of the people which runs automobiles was compelled to give them up to-morrow, Mawruss, the thing they would miss most of all would be the bills from the repair-shop robbers. So that's the way it goes, Mawruss. It don't make no difference what a Pro Bono Publico writes to the newspaper, y'understand, he couldn't do a hundredth part as much to make people cut out going to the theayter for the duration of the war as the feller in the show business does when he puts on a rotten show. Also Mr. Vanderlip has got a good line of talk about Americans acting economical, y'understand, but he's practically encouraging the people that they should throw away their money left and right on automobiles, compared to some of them automobile-manufacturers which depends upon their repair departments for their profits."