g as a
lord is or when he joined. In fact, I don't even know what a lord has to
pay for initiation fees and annual dues, let alone what sick benefit he
draws and what they pay to the widow in case a lord dies, understand me,
but I don't care if this here Northcliff, instead of a lord, was an Elk
or an Odd Fellow, y'understand, he can't tell when this war is going to
end no more than I can."

"But I understand this here Northcliff is an awful smart feller, Abe,"
Morris said. "He owns already a couple dozen newspapers in the old
country, and if he wouldn't have the right dope on this here war, I
don't know who would."

"Say!" Abe protested. "Nobody could get the right dope about this war
out of any newspaper, even if he owned it, Mawruss, because you know as
well as I do, Mawruss, if the City Edition says the Germans is starving,
y'understand, and couldn't last through the winter, understand me, that
ain't no guarantee that they wouldn't be getting plenty of food in the
Home Edition and starving again in the Five-star Final Sporting Extra
with Complete Wall Street, Mawruss, so the way I figure it is that this
here Northcliff has got the idea that if he tells us the war is only
beginning we are going to brace up, and if he says the chances is the
war would last twenty years yet and that half the world would be down
and out with starvation and sickness before it is finished up,
y'understand, we are going to say: 'This is _great_. We must get in on
this.'"

"Maybe that's the way they get results in the newspaper business, Abe,"
Morris remarked, "but in the garment business, if I am trying to turn
out a big order, y'understand, I tell the operators that the quicker
they get through the sooner they will be finished, y'understand, and I
make a point of saying that they are practically on the home stretcher
even if they are just beginning."

"That ain't such a bad plan, neither," Abe admitted, "but there should
ought to be some way to strike an average between your ideas for hurrying
up and this you-would-be-all-right-if-blood-poisoning-don't-set-in
encouragement of Lord Northcliff's, Mawruss, so that we wouldn't think
we'd got too easy a job, but at the same time we wouldn't feel like
throwing away the sponge, neither."

"I think he means well, _anyhow_," Morris said, "which he is trying to
tell us that we shouldn't think we've got such a cinch as all that;
because you know it used to was before this war started, Abe. Eve