once a week for the past ten years, Mawruss, him and Sonnino
drink coffee together."

"Ain't he taking a big chance when he writes a thing like that?" Morris
commented.

"Yow! A chance!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, to read the things that a few of
these here Washington correspondents used to write when they was in
America yet, you would think every one of them was pestered to death
with telephone messages from the White House where Mr. Tumulty says if
the newspaper feller has got a little spare time that evening the
President would consider it a big favor if he would step around to the
White House, as Mr. Wilson would like to ask him an advice about a
diplomatic note which has just been received from Lord George in regards
to the Freedom of the Seas or something."

"But don't you suppose the newspaper which a nervy individual like that
is working for would fire him on the spot?" Morris observed.

"Not at all," Abe said, "because the newspaper-owner likes people to get
the idea that the newspaper has got such an important feller for a
Washington correspondent, just as much as the correspondent does
himself, Mawruss, so you can imagine the bluff some of them fellers is
going to throw now that they really got something interesting to write
about like this here Peace Conference. If Mr. Wilson gains all his
fourteen points, y'understand, the special Paris correspondent of the
Bridgetown, Pa., _Daily Register_ is going to write home, 'And he could
have gained fifteen if he would only have listened to me.' Also,
Mawruss, during the next three months, if the Peace Conference lasts
that long, the readers of the Cyprus, N. J., _Evening Chronicle_ is
going to get the idea that President Wilson, Clemenceau, Lord George,
and a feller by the name of Delos M. Jones, who is writing Peace
Conference articles for the Cyprus, N. J., _Evening Chronicle_, are in
secret conference together every day, including Sundays, from 10 A.M. to
midnight, fixing up the boundaries between Rumania and Servia."

"Well, them boys has got to produce something to make their bosses back
in America continue paying salary and traveling expenses," Morris said,
"because from what this here newspaper correspondent tells me, if he
didn't get his imagination working, all he could write for his paper
would be descriptions of Paris scenery, including the outside of the
buildings where on the insides, with the doors locked and the curtains
pulled, Mr. Wilson and the Ame