"The way some people is acting about this here Victory Loan, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked one morning in April, "you would think that they was all presidents of a first national bank and that this here Carter J. Glass has already made a big overdraft and if he don't like the line of credit they are giving him, he should be so good as to take his account somewheres else, y'understand."

"Them same people probably think that investing their money in any securities bearing interest at less than fifteen per cent. per annum is, so to speak, the equivalence from giving money to orphan-asylums and hospitals, understand me," Morris Perlmutter said. "'We already give them Liberty Loan schnorrers two hundred dollars toward the expenses of their rotten war,' they probably say, 'and still they ain't satisfied.'"

"And at that they don't mean nothing by it," Abe said, "because there is a whole lot of business men in the United States which couldn't even give up the family housekeeping money every week without anyhow saying to their wives: 'Here, take my blood; take my life. What do you want from me, anyway?'"

"Maybe they do and maybe they don't mean nothing by it, Abe," Morris said, "but it would be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass if everybody would act as his own Victory Bond salesman and try to sell himself just one more bond than he has really got any business buying, y'understand."

"It would be a whole lot easier for this here Carter J. Glass, Mawruss, but it would be practically impossible for pretty nearly everybody else," Abe remarked, "which human nature is so constituted, Mawruss, that the only time a man really and truly uses some high-class, silver-tongued salesmanship on himself is when he is trying to persuade himself that it is all right for him to do something which he knows in his heart it is dead wrong for him to do."

"Well, at least, Abe, in this here Victory Loan Campaign, every man should ought to try to put himself in the place of the salesman which is trying to sell him some of these Victory Bonds," Morris continued, "so we would say, for example, that you would be a Victory Bond salesman, Abe, and you are calling on a feller which he is a pretty tough proposition in such matters by the name of, we would say, for instance, Abe Potash."

"Why don't you make the feller which the salesman is supposed to call on a really and truly hard-boiled egg, by the name, we would say, for instance, Mawruss Perlmutter?" Abe asked. "Which when you put up to me a hypocritical case, Mawruss, why is it you must always start in by getting insulted already?"

"What do you mean getting insulted?" Morris asked. "I am only putting something up to you for the sake of argument not arguments."

"Well, then, why not be perfectly neuter and call the tough proposition which the Victory Bond salesman is visiting, somebody by the name of a competitor like Leon Sammet, for instance?" Abe suggested.

"Because I am trying to make you put yourself in the place of the Victory Bond salesman who is trying to sell you bonds," Morris declared.

"Put your own self in the place of the Victory Bond salesman," Abe exclaimed, "which if you want to give me any hypocritical cases for the sake of argument, Mawruss, I have seen the way you practically snap the head off a collector for a charitable fund enough times to appreciate how you would behave towards a Victory Bond salesman, so go ahead on the basis that you are the tough proposition and not me."

"A charitable fund is one thing and this here Victory Loan another," Morris said.

"I know it is," Abe agreed, "but at the same time, Mawruss, a whole lot of people feels that if ever they give a couple dollars to an orphan-asylum, they practically got vaccinated against future attacks of the same complaint, and if three years later the collector for the orphan-asylum calls on them again they say: 'Why, I already gave you two dollars for that orphan-asylum! What did you done with it all?' And I bet yer that just as many people considered that the fifty-dollar bond which they bought during the First Liberty Loan Campaign should ought to have set up such a strong antiseptic in their system that they would be immune to all other Liberty Bond Campaigns, no matter if such campaigns would continue until there was, God forbid! a Fiftieth Liberty Loan already."

"Some people never even got, so to speak, jabbed the first time," Morris observed, "and the way they avoid Liberty Bond salesmen, Abe, you would think that such a salesman was a sort of Liberty Bond Typhoid Mary and would infect them tightwads with a disease where they were liable to break out all over with coupons or something."

"As a matter of fact, Mawruss, that's just the effect which a Liberty Bond salesman should ought to have on the right kind of sitson," Abe said, "which while I don't mean to say that making a good investment like buying of a Liberty Bond should ought to be considered as a disease, Mawruss, it should anyhow be infectious and should ought to spread so rapidly that everybody in the United States could say they had it to the extent of at least one fifty-dollar bond of the Victory Loan."

"But there is over a hundred million people in the United States, Abe," Morris said, "and if they all bought one fifty-dollar bond, y'understand, it would make the Victory Loan five billion dollars, whereas this here Carter J. Glass is only asking for four billion five hundred million."

"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.

"'Yes, Mr. Sitson,' the salesman should go on to say, 'the government is only asking you to invest in interest-bearing cash money, so to speak, and what for a sacrifice is that compared to the suffering of your father-in-laws and my father-in-laws which is bravely standing larynx to larynx in the battle area of the Peace Conference while the air is filled with the French, Italian, Greek, Jugo-Slob, and Polish remarks? You sit here in your comfortable home while the flower of our experts and college professors is exposed to all kinds of coffee and cigars. Ain't you ashamed to be doing nothing but buy bonds when old and feeble men like most of the American Peace delegates is battling with French waiters, French taxicab-drivers, French hotel service, and French laundry-lists, giving and receiving no mercy, y'understand, and you should thank Heaven that your own country has been spared the horrors of having on our own soil this here Peace Conference which is now raging in Paris, understand me.'"

"That would be anyhow an argument," Morris admitted, "but with these here Victory Liberty Bonds it shouldn't ought to be a case of first come first serve. With only four and a half billion dollars' worth of Victory Liberty Bonds for sale, Abe, seventy-five per cent. of the people of the United States should ought to be going around looking as sore as fellers that sell tickets in theater box-offices, and when any one asks 'em why, they should say: 'Ain't it just my luck! I put off buying my Victory Liberty Bonds till April 23d, and when I got round to the bank there wasn't one left.' Yes, Abe, instead of Victory Liberty Bond salesmen having to go about visiting customers, y'understand, they should ought to have luxurious fitted-up offices, and it should ought to be a case of when the customer arrives the Victory Liberty Bond salesman should ought to be playing auction pinochle or rummy with two other Victory Liberty Bond salesmen. Then when the customer says is this the place where they sell Victory Liberty Bonds, the salesman says, 'I'll be with you in a minute,' and makes the customer stand around without even offering him a seat until the salesmen gets through playing two more hands. The customer should then make out his own application, y'understand, have the exact change ready, and close the door quietly when leaving, and that's the way I would sell Victory Liberty Bonds if I was the government."

"That's the way you even try to sell garments," Abe commented.

"Because," Morris continued, evading the challenge, "it is my idee that it is a privilege to be allowed to buy these here Victory Liberty Bonds, and before any one gets that privilege, Abe, he should be made to prove that he has done something to deserve it. Yes, Abe, instead of a man wearing a button to show that he has bought Liberty Bonds, he should ought to go before a notary public and make an oath that he has given up his quota to all Red Cross and United War Relief drives and otherwise done everything he could do to help win the war if he couldn't fight in it, y'understand, and then, and only then, Abe, he should be given a button entitling him to buy Victory Liberty Bonds under the conditions I have stated."

"But, joking apart, Mawruss, and talking business, not poetry, understand me," Abe asked, "do you actually think that this here Victory Liberty Loan would be all taken up by them methods? To my mind, Mawruss, it would be a whole lot better to look the horse straight in the teeth, y'understand, and take it as settled that a lot of people which has got the money to buy bonds would go round saying that they would be very glad to buy bonds if they only had the money, y'understand. To such people, Mawruss, I would remind them again that a war, even when you win it, ain't a cash-in-advance proposition. In fact, a war ain't even a C. O. D. proposition. Wars is paid for on the instalment plan, Mawruss, and while this particular war is over, understand me, the bill has still got to be paid, and if such people won't lend the government the money to pay for the war, the government would have to do what the German government is going to do to the German people—instead of touching them for it and paying it back, they would frisk them for it and not even say much obliged, y'understand."

"At that, Abe, I ain't worried a whole lot about the result of this Victory Liberty Loan," Morris said. "When all is said and done, Abe, the American people love their country."

"I know they do," Abe agreed, "but also, Mawruss, there is a whole lot of fellers which loves their families and at the same time don't lose no sleep nights because they ain't providing for them as they should ought to do. So to them people I would say: 'Which would you rather have it as a souvenir of the war: Victory Liberty Bonds or tax bills?' Also, 'Would you sooner be paid interest or would you sooner pay interest?'"

"In other words, Abe, you would threaten 'em into buying bonds," Morris observed.

"Only when it's necessary, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "and that wouldn't be in the case of one thousandth of one per cent. of the entire population, because the great majority of the people thinks the way I do about their money: the government let me make it, and the government lets me keep it, and if the government would sooner borrow part of it instead of taking it all, Mawruss, that's only the government's good nature, which nobody should presume too much on good nature, Mawruss. Am I right or wrong?"