st himself before going on the stand
as to the meaning of the libel, so as to anyhow be able to say that it
_was_ a libel and not a compliment, understand me," Morris said.

"He took his lawyers' word for it that it was a libel, Mawruss," Abe
said, "and, anyhow, Mawruss, nobody has got a right to call anybody an
ignorant philantropist even, no matter how ignorant such a philantropist
might be about what the word philantropist would mean."

"And do you _know_ what it means?" Morris asked.

"A philantropist is a feller who gives big sums of moneys to
orphan-asylums, hospitals, and colleges, and if he could afford it he's
a philantropist, Mawruss, and if he couldn't, then he's a sucker, and
that is what is called a philantropist," Abe said, "which, if I didn't
know what it meant, Mawruss, I ain't such an ignorant idealist that I
would use such a word in front of you and expect you not to try to trip
me up on it."

"I see you've also been looking up what ignorant idealist means," Morris
observed.

"And I ain't very peculiar that way, neither, Mawruss," Abe admitted,
"because I bet yer that in the last two days at least five million
people has been looking up in the dictionary what that word idealist
means and not knowing even _then_ what it means, y'understand, and still
that 'ain't prevented them from knocking Mr. Ford, Mawruss."

"But the fact remains, Abe, that them five million people ain't suing
nobody for calling them ignorant idealists," Morris interrupted.

"Also, Mawruss, they ain't running one of the largest industrial plants
in the country on a profit-sharing basis with several thousand
employees," Abe declared, "which there is a whole lot of big
manufacturers in this country who could go on the stand at a moment's
notice and pass a cross-examination with a hundred-per-cent. mark on all
them words which you read in them medical journals you pick up from the
doctor's desk in his private office when he excuses himself for a minute
to answer the 'phone and which you put down so quick and pretend you
'ain't been reading when he comes back again, if you know what I mean.
And furthermore, if these same big manufacturers was elected to the
United States Senate to-morrow they could make a speech against doing
away with child labor in words of six syllables, y'understand, and would
probably make such a speech, because the trouble with most big
manufacturers is not that they are ignorant, understand me, but that
th