mes the smaller
one of the two goes to a hospital, understand me. But, however, in this
case it must be that the friends of Senator Lodge must have went to him
and said: 'What do you want to get into an argument with Lowell for?
Treat him with contempt. What do you care _what_ he says about you? You
are _doch_ a United States Senator, ain't it?' And the friends of this
here Lowell also must have went to him and said: 'Listen, Lowell, don't
make a show of yourself. If Lodge wants to behave himself that way, all
right; he's only a United States Senator, but you are anyhow president
of Harvard College, and you can't afford to _act_ that way.' 'Act _what_
way?' Lowell probably said. 'Do you think I am going to sit down and let
him walk all over Wilson, which Wilson and me was presidents of colleges
together for years already?'"

"And besides a college president don't make such big money that he could
afford to sneeze at his share of the gate receipts, neither," Abe
commented.

"Be that as it may," Morris said, "they probably figured that it was too
late to call the thing off, but their friends must have got them
together and talked Lodge over into behaving like a gentleman, because
he practically agreed to everything that Lowell said and, so to speak,
'threw' the whole debate right at the outset, which, reading the reports
in the newspapers next morning, Abe, it is a wonder to me that the
referee or the umpire didn't stop it before it had gone the first five
minutes, even."

"Well, if people is foolish enough to bet on such things, Mawruss," Abe
commented, "they deserve to lose, ain't it?"

"So the consequences is that some people is now saying that Senator
Lodge backed down because he didn't have a leg to stand on," Morris
continued, "while them people which probably made a little easy money on
Lowell is saying, '_Yow!_ backed down!' and that Lowell is a
crackerjack, A-number-one arguer, and won the argument on his merits,
y'understand."

"The whole thing should ought to be investigated by the Massachusetts
Boxing Commission in order to see that them kind of disgraceful
exhibitions shouldn't occur again," Abe said, "otherwise this here James
Butler which is president of Columbia College will fix up an argument
with another United States Senator, and whoever is now president of
Princeton College will arrange a frame-up with a Governor of a state or
somebody, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, college presidents wi