"Sure I know," Abe said, "but what did they know about such things in 1870? Even grand opera they gave in halls in them days, which, considering the amount of interest there was in the signing of the Peace Treaty, Mawruss, I bet yer enough people was turned away from Mirror Hall, Versailles, to more than fill five halls of the same size. As it was, Mawruss, so many people crowded into that Mirror Hall that nobody could see anything, and the consequence was that when Clemenceau begun his speech the disorder was something terrible."
"I suppose his opening remark was: 'Koosh! What is this? A Kaffeeklatsch or something?'" Morris remarked, satirically.
"It 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 in this country, Mawruss, it oser would make any difference to us whether Germany keeps the treaty or she don't keep it, Mawruss, the chances of us sending our boys back again is pretty slim."
"But under section ten of the League Covenant, Abe," Morris began, "the time might come when we would got to send them."
"Maybe," Abe admitted, "but if any of them European nations has got the idea that because Germany is going to be slow pay we would oblige with a few million troops, Mawruss, they've got another idea coming. We are a nation, not a collection agency, and no amount of section tens is going to make us one, either."
"Well, that is the danger of this here League of Nations, Abe," Morris said, "and if the Senate ratifies it, we are not only a collection agency, but a burglar insurance company as well, and in fact some of the Senators goes so far as to say that we ain't so much insuring people against the operations of burglars as insuring burglars against the loss of their ganevas."