Walters was speaking:
“The first thing I want to see is the Eiffel Tower.”
“Why d'you want to see that?” said the small sergeant with a black mustache and rings round his eyes like a monkey.
“Why, man, don't you know that everything begins from the Eiffel Tower? If it weren't for the Eiffel Tower, there wouldn't be any sky-scrapers....”
“How about the Flatiron Building and Brooklyn Bridge? They were built before the Eiffel Tower, weren't they?” interrupted the man from New York.
“The Eiffel Tower's the first piece of complete girder construction in the whole world,” reiterated Walters dogmatically.
“First thing I'm going to do's go to the Folies Berd-jairs; me for the w.w.'s.”
“Better lay off the wild women, Bill,” said Walters.
“I ain't goin' to look at a woman,” said the sergeant with the black mustache. “I guess I seen enough women in my time, anyway.... The war's over, anyway.”
“You just wait, kid, till you fasten your lamps on a real Parizianne,” said a burly, unshaven man with a corporal's stripes on his arm, roaring with laughter.