"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But once a bartender draws a glass beer, before he could use it again, he's got to mark off so much for deteriorating that it's practically a total loss, whereas he could always put a cigar back in the case and sell it to somebody else for full price in the usual course of business."
"Well, that's what makes the saloon business a swindle and not a business, Abe," Morris said. "Just imagine, Abe, if you and me, as women's outer-garment manufacturers, was to lay in a line of ready-made men's overcoats in the expectation that after a customer has bought from us a big order he is going to blow me to a forty regular and you to a forty-four stout which we would put right back in stock as soon as his back is turned."
"But even if the liquor business would be a dirty business, Mawruss," Abe said, "you've got to consider that there's a whole lot of people which is making a living out of it, like bartenders and fellers working in distilleries, and if they get thrown out of work, y'understand, their wives and children is going to be just as hungry as if the fellers lost their jobs in a respectable business like pants or plumbers' supplies."
"Say," Morris exclaimed, "if you're going to have sympathy for people which would get thrown out of jobs by prohibition, Abe, don't use it all up on bartenders and fellers working in distilleries, because there's a whole lot of other crooks whose families are going to be short of spending-money when liquor-selling stops. Take them boys which is running poker-rooms, faro-games, and roulette-wheels, and alcohol is just as necessary to their operation as ether is to a stomach specialist's, because the human bank-roll is the same as the human appendix, Abe: the success of removing it entirely depends on the giving of the anesthetic. Then there is the lawyers--criminal, accident, and divorce--and it don't make no difference how their clients fell or what they fell from--positions in banks, moving street-cars, or as nice a little woman as any one could wish for, y'understand--schnapps done it, Abe, and when schnapps goes, Abe, the practice of them lawyers goes with it."
"Well, they still got their diplomas, Mawruss," Abe said. "And even though schnapps is prohibited, Mawruss, there will be enough people left with the real-estate habit to give them shysters a living, anyhow, but you take them fellers which has got millions of dollars invested in machinery for the manufacture of headache medicine, Mawruss, and before they will be able to figure out how they can use their plants for the manufacture of war supplies they're going to be their own best customers, which little did them fellers think when they put on their bottles,