let the feller sleep off his jag instead of hauling in a policeman to
wake him up and throw him out, Abe," Morris said, "they wouldn't of
broken, between them, fifty dollars' worth of fixtures and ruined a lot
of garments on us."

"Well, that's what I mean, Mawruss, which is forty-five thousand people
could be persuaded into paying anywheres from ten to a hundred dollars
apiece to see that nine-minute affair in Toledo where the two loafers
didn't have nothing against one another personally and couldn't of kept
their minds on the fight anyhow for trying to figure their share of the
profits, y'understand, what would them forty-five thousand _meshugoyim_
paid to see for twenty minutes a couple of fellers which they really
and truly wanted to kill each other without any intermissions of so much
as two seconds, Mawruss?" Abe said.

"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris said, "these here fight fans are the
same like moving-picture fans; they would a whole lot sooner pay out
money to see the imitation article than the real thing. Tell one of
these here fight fans that for ten cents you would let him know where at
half past nine o'clock on Monday morning an iron-molder has got an
appointment to meet a stevedore who used to be engaged to the
iron-molder's sister and now refuses to return the twenty-five dollars
he borrowed from her to get the wedding-ring and the marriage license,
and the fight fan would ask you what is that _his_ business. Tell a
moving-picture fan that there is a family over on Tenth Avenue where the
father is a ringer for William S. Hart and is _also_ in jail,
y'understand, and that such a family is about to be dispossessed for
non-payment of rent, understand me, and if you made an offer to such a
moving-picture fan, that for a contribution of fifteen cents toward
finding the family a new home, you would show him a close-up of the
landlord, of the notice to quit and of the court-room of the Municipal
Court of the City of New York for the Eleventh Judicial District where
such proceedings are returnable, understand me, the moving-picture fan
wouldn't come across with a nickel, not even if you undertook to engage
the entire combined orchestras of the Strand, the Rivoli, and the Rialto
moving-picture theaters to play 'Hearts and Flowers' while the
furniture was being piled on the moving-van."

"I wouldn't blame the moving-picture fan at that, Mawruss," Abe said,
"because if such a moving-picture fan would see on