"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said; "while I admit that the theayter
crickets is smart fellers and knows all about the rules and regulations
for writing plays, y'understand, so that they can tell at a glance
during the first performance if the audience is laughing in violation of
what is considered good play construction or crying because the show is
sad in a spot where a play shouldn't ought to be sad if the man who
wrote it had known his business, y'understand, still at the same time
theayter crickets is to me in the same class with these here diet
experts. Take a dinner which one of them diet experts approves of, Abe,
and the food is O.K., the kitchen is clean, the cooking is just right as
to time and temperature of the oven, there's the proper proportions of
water and solids, and in fact it's a first-class A-number-one meal from
the standpoint of every person which has got anything to do with it,
excepting the feller which eats it, and the only objection _he's_ got to
it is that it tastes rotten."
"And that would be quite enough to put a restaurant out of business if
it served only good meals according to the opinion of diet experts,
Mawruss, because diet experts don't buy meals, Mawruss, they only
inspect them," Abe commented.
"And even if theayter crickets did pay for their tickets, Abe," Morris
continued, "there ain't enough of them to support one of these here
little theayters which has got such a small seating-capacity that
neither the exits nor the kind of plays they put on has to comply with
the fire laws, y'understand. But that ain't here or there, Abe. A
theayter cricket is a cricket and not an appraiser, y'understand. He
goes to a play to judge the play and not the prospective box-office
receipts, Abe, and if on account of his knocking a play which would
otherwise make money for the manager and do a lot of harm to the people
which goes to the theayter, such a show is put out of business, Abe,
then the theayter cricket has done a good job."
"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe said. "But it's just as likely to be the
other way about, which you take these here shows the crickets gets all
worked up over because they are written by foreigners from Sweden,
Mawruss, where a married woman gets to feeling that her husband, her
home, and her children ain't exciting enough, y'understand, so she
either elopes or commits suicide, understand me, and many a business man
has come to breakfast without shaving himself on the day after taking
his wife to see such a show and caught her looking at him in an awful
peculiar way, y'understand. Then there is other shows which crickets
thinks a whole lot of, where a young feller which couldn't get down to
business and earn a decent living puts it all over the man who has been
financially successful, y'understand, and plenty of young fellers which
gets home all hours of the night and couldn't hold a job long enough to
remember the telephone number of the firm they work for, comes away from
the show feeling that they ain't getting a square deal from their father
who has never done a thing to help them in all this life except to feed,
clothe, and educate them for twenty-odd years."
"Well, such plays anyhow make you think, Abe," Morris said. "Whereas,
when you come away from one of them musical pieces, what do you have to
show for it, Abe?"
"A good night's rest, Mawruss," Abe said, "which no one never laid awake
all night wondering if his wife or his son has got peculiar notions
about not being appreciated from seeing this here Frank Tinney talking
to the feller that runs the orchestra in the Winter Garden, Mawruss."
"Then what is your idee of a good show, anyway?" Morris inquired.
"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss, a good show is a show which you got to
pay so much money to a speculator for a decent seat, y'understand, that
you couldn't enjoy it after you get there," Abe concluded. "And that is
a good show."