Where do you Get that Noise? by Ring Lardner

Well, we played down in Cincy one Saturday to a crowd that might of all came out in one street car without nobody ridin' in the motorman's vest pocket. We was discussin' it that night at supper.

"It's no more'n natural," I says. "The home club's been goin' bad and you can't expect the whole population to fight for a look at 'em."

"Yes," says Carey; "but it ain't only here. It's everywheres. We didn't hardly draw our breath at St. Louis and the receipts o' that last doubleheader at home with Pittsburgh wouldn't buy enough shavin' soap to lather a gnat. All over the circuit it's the same way, and in the other leagues too. It's a off year, maybe; or maybe they's reasons for it that we ain't doped out."

"Well," I says, "the war's hurt business, for one thing, and people ain't got no money to spend on box seats. And then golf's gettin' better all the wile. A man'd naturally rather do some exercisin' himself than watch somebody else do it. Besides that, automobiles has got so cheap that pretty near everybody can buy 'em, and the people that owns 'em takes their friends out in the country instead o' comin' to the ball yard. And besides that," I says, "they's too much baseball and the people's sick of it."

Hawley come in and set down with us wile I was still talkin' yet.

"What's the argument? " he says.

"We was tryin' to figure out why we can't get a quorum out to the games no more," says Carey.

"Well," says Hawley, "you know the real reason, don't you?"

"No," says Carey; "but I bet we're goin' to hear it. I bet you'll say it's on account o' the Gulf Stream."

"Where do you get that noise? " says Hawley. "If you want to know the real reason, the war's the real reason."

"That's what I was sayin'," says I. "The war's hurt business and people ain't got no money to blow on baseball."

"That shows you don't know nothin' about it," says Hawley.

"Then I got you tied," I says, "because you just sprung the same thing yourself."

"No such a thing! " says Hawley. "You're talkin' about the war hurtin' business and I'm talkin' about the war hurtin' baseball."

"What's the difference? " I says.

"All the difference in the world," says Hawley. "If everybody was makin' twicet as much money durin' the war as they made before the war started yet, the baseball crowds wouldn't be no bigger than they have been."

"Come acrost with the answer," says Carey. "The strain's somethin' awful."

"Well, boys," says Hawley, "they ain't nobody in this country that ain't pullin' for one side or the other in this here war. Is that right or wrong?"

"Which do you say it is? " says Carey.

"I say it's right because I know it's right," says Hawley.