"And how soon do you think _that_ will happen?" Morris asked.
"That depends on how soon the Kaiser's admirers gets through with him," Abe said.
"Maybe the Kaiser will quit first," Morris concluded, "because you take them third ladies from the end, Abe, and sooner or later they grow terrible tired of this here--now--fast life."
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS ON THE FRONT PAGE AND OFF
What war done ain't a marker on what peace is going to do to a great many of these here front-page propositions which is nowadays accustomed to being continued on page two, column five, y'understand.
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe said, as he thrust aside the sporting section one Sunday in October, "a people at war is like a man with a sick wife. Nothing else interests him, which here it stands an account from how them loafers out in Chicago plays baseball for the world's record yet, and for all the effect it has on me, Mawruss, it might just so well be something which catches my eye for the first time in the old newspaper padding which my wife pulls out from under the carpet when she is house-cleaning in the spring of nineteen twenty."
"Well," Morris said, "I must got to confess that when I seen it yesterday how this here Fleisch shoots a home run there in the fifth innings, I--"
"What are you talking nonsense--a home run in the fifth innings!" Abe exclaimed. "The home run was made in the fourth innings. The White Sox didn't make no score in the fifth innings. It was the Giants which made their only run in the fifth. McCarty knocked a three-bagger and Sallee singled and brought him home. _You_ tell _me_ what innings Fleisch shot a home run in!"
"All right, Abe," Morris said, "I wouldn't argue with you, but all I got to say is you're lucky that on account of the war you ain't interested in auction pinochle the way you ain't interested in baseball, otherwise you might get quite a reputation as a gambler."
"I am just so much worried about this war as you are, Mawruss," Abe protested, "but if I couldn't take my mind off of it long enough to find out which ball team is winning the world series I would be a whole lot more worried about myself as I would be about the war, which it don't make no difference how much a man loves his wife, y'understand, if she's only sick on him long enough, Mawruss, he's going to get sufficiently used to it to take in now and then a good show occasionally. In fact, Mawruss, it's a relief to read once in a while in the newspapers something which ain't about the war, like a murder, y'understand, the only drawback being that along about the third day after the discovery of the body, and just when you are getting interested in the thing, General Haig advances another mile on a couple of thousand kilowatt front, y'understand, and for all you can find anything in the newspaper about your murder, y'understand me, the feller needn't have troubled himself to commit it at all."