might just so well have been, for all anybody heard of it," Abe went
on. "In fact, the papers say that all through it there was loud cries
of, 'Down in front!' from people which had probably bought their tickets
at the last moment off of a speculator who showed them a diagram of
Mirror Hall, Batesville, and not Versailles, on which it looked like
they was getting four good ones in the fifth row, center aisle,
Mawruss."

"Probably also while Clemenceau was speaking, there was difficulty in
calling off the score-card and ice-cream-cone venders," Morris said.

"I am telling you just exactly what I read it in the newspapers," Abe
said, "which there ain't no call to get sarcastic, Mawruss. The signing
of that treaty was arranged just the same like any other show is
arranged, except that the arrangements wasn't quite so good. The idea
was to make it impressive by keeping it very plain, and that is where
the Allies, to my mind, made a big mistake, because the people to be
impressed was the Germans, and what sort of an impression would that
signing of the Peace Treaty by delegates in citizen clothes make on a
country where a station agent looks like a colonel and a colonel looks
like the combined annual conventions of the Knights of Pythias and the
I. O. M. A."

"The chances is that the Allies did the best they could with the short
time they had for preparation, because you must got to remember that the
Germans didn't make up their minds to sign till two days before the
signing, and considering that the President of the United States wears
only the uniform prescribed by the double-page advertisements of
Rochester, Chicago, and Baltimore clothing manufacturers for people who
ride in closed cars, two days is an awful short time to hire a really
impressive uniform, let alone to have one made to order, Abe," Morris
said. "Furthermore, Abe, the signing of that Peace Treaty could have
been put on by the feller that runs off these here Follies with the
assistance of George M. Cohan and the management of the Metropolitan
Opera House, y'understand, and the costumes could have been designed by
Ringling Brothers, with a few hints from Rogers, Peet, understand me,
and I don't believe them Germans would stick to the terms of the treaty
anyway."

"Europe should worry about that, Mawruss," Abe said. "The main thing is
that the peace is signed and the last of our boys would soon be home
again from Europe, and once we get them back again i