"Well, to my mind, he's acting too modest, Mawruss," Abe went on, "because if we expect Germany to raise the first five billion dollars of her indemnity with nothing to show for it but the promise that she would have to raise five billion more every two years till the whole indemnity was paid, understand me, how much more should we raise over here with the promise that it is going to be paid back to us in a few years, with interest at the rate of four and three-quarters per cent. per annum? Why, under them conditions, Mawruss, any American which would refuse to buy a Victory Loan Bond should ought to be considered as applying for German sitsonship papers and should ought to be exported to Hamburg, where his adopted fellow-sitsons is getting frisked by the German government for every cent they possess and ain't getting so much as a receipt to show for it."
"For that matter, an American which refuses to buy Victory Liberty Bonds should ought to completely lost his memory, Abe," Morris declared. "Evidently a feller, if some one starts a conversation about the war, is going to say, '_What_ war?' and when it is reminded to his memory that as recently ago as last November the papers was printing every day columns and columns about the war which was going on in Europe, he would probably say: 'Oh, _that_ war! I thought that war was already a thing of the past.' And also probably he might even ask, 'Tell me, was there many people hurt?'"
"Well, if some folks has got such short memories like all that, and is only affected by what they have read in the papers at the latest the day before yesterday, Mawruss," Abe said, "why not have the Victory Liberty Loan salesmen approach them on the basis of what is going on _now_ in Europe? 'You are asked,' such a salesman would say, 'to invest your money in a first-class A-number-one security, backed by the United States government and bearing interest at the rate of four and three-quarters per cent. per annum, and that is the very least you could do for your country when you consider that right now,' the salesman would say, and he should practise in advance to make his voice sound tragical, 'right now _your_ uncles and _my_ uncles is making peace in Paris with all the strength of language which they've got in their system.
