And yet Paris is famous all over the world. No American ever came to Europe without dropping off there to have a look. I once saw the Bal Tabarin crowded with Sunday-school superintendents returning from Jerusalem. And when the sucker gets home he goes around winking and hinting, and so the fake grows. I often think the government ought to take a hand. If the beer is inspected and guaranteed in Germany, why shouldn’t the shows be inspected and guaranteed in Paris?
The Second Man
I guess the trouble is that the Frenchmen themselves never go to their own shows. They don’t know what is going on. They see thousands of Americans starting out every night from the Place de l’Opéra and coming back in the morning all boozed up, and so they assume that everything is up to the mark. You’ll find the same thing in Washington. No Washingtonian has ever been up to the top of the Washington monument. Once the elevator in the monument was out of commission for two weeks, and yet Washington knew nothing about it. When the news got into the papers at last, it came from Macon, Georgia. Some honeymooner from down there had written home about it, roasting the government.
The First Man
Well, me for the good old U. S. A.! These Alps are all right, I guess—but I can’t say I like the coffee.
The Second Man
And it takes too long to get a letter from Jersey City.
The First Man
Yes, that reminds me. Just before I started up here this afternoon my wife got the Ladies’ Home Journal of the month before last. It had been following us around for six weeks, from London to Paris, to Berlin, to Munich, to Vienna, to a dozen other places. Now she’s fixed for the night. She won’t let up until she’s read every word—the advertisements first. And she’ll spend all day to-morrow sending off for things; new collar hooks, breakfast foods, complexion soaps and all that sort of junk. Are you married yourself?