cause, between you and me, Abe,
it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some of them reporters went down
there under the impression that the only thing which distinguished
Ragusa from Ravioli or Spalato from Spaghetti was the difference in the
shape of the noodles, but that otherwise they was cooked the same, with
chicken livers and tomato sauce, which you know how it is in America:
ninety per cent. of the people gets their education from reading in
newspapers, and the consequence is that if the American newspaper
reporters has a sort of hazy idea that Sonnino is either an item on the
bill of fare, to be passed up on account of having garlic in it, or else
a tenor which the Metropolitan Opera House ain't given a contract to as
yet, y'understand, then the American public has got the same sort of
hazy idea. So Mr. Wilson done the right thing traveling to Italy, even
if he did have an uncomfortable journey."

"What do you mean--an uncomfortable journey?" Abe demanded. "Why, I
understand he traveled on the King of Italy's royal train!"

"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but when a king is sleeping on a royal
train in Europe, Abe, he can be pretty near as comfortable as a
traveling-salesman sitting up all night on a day-coach in America, and
if he spends two nights on such a royal train, the way President Wilson
did in going from Paris to Rome, which is about as far as from New York
to Chicago, y'understand, it wouldn't make no difference how many people
is waiting at the station to holler 'Long live the King!' understand me,
he is going to feel half dead, anyway."

"And yet there is people which claims that Mr. Wilson don't give a whoop
whether he makes himself popular or not," Abe commented, "which before
I could lay awake two nights on a train, I wouldn't care if every
newspaper reporter in the United States never got no nearer to Italy
than a fifty-cent _table d'hote_, including wine."

"Maybe you would care if you was going to Italy to make speeches the way
Mr. Wilson did," Morris said. "Which if the King of Italy was to go to
America and make speeches in Italian at the Capitol in Washington, it
would be just as well if he would bring along an audience of a few dozen
Italians with him, and not depend on enough barbers, shoe-blacks, and
vegetable-stand keepers horning in on the proceedings to give the
Congressmen and Senators a hint as to where the applause should come in.
In fact, I was speaking to one of them newspape