Everybody laughed. The man with the pince-nez laughed too. “Napoleon had, essentially, the same ideas as Hitler. Actually, I’m against Hitler.” He beamed at Jimmie for praise. Jimmie was unresponsive. “Yes, one hundred per cent against. Don’t like his looks, or his voice. Cheap dunce. I’d have been against Napoleon, too, I suppose. Pushing pigmy. All wars are purely economic, and I think we can safely leave this one to General Winter and General Scorch-the-Earth. If we could only plant that idea in Washington!”
He chuckled. “Emergency!” His voice was scornful. “Do you see any emergency here, Jimmie?”
Jimmie thought that he was going to leave the table. He found himself sitting still, however, and thinking. Finally he drew an uneven breath. “I—I’ve heard people, in England, talking about the parallel between Napoleon and Hitler. We all know a lot about Hitler. Not enough, but a lot. But is anybody here able to tick off Napoleon’s plans for Europe? I mean, the way we can tick off Hitler’s?”
Nobody said anything.
Jimmie looked at the tablecloth, nodding. “Can anybody here say, off-hand, how much time passed between the retreat from Moscow and Waterloo?”
There was silence.
“Was Napoleon exiled by the English the first time, or the second—and who beat him both times? And where?”
Jimmie’s father said, “What’s the idea of this ‘Information, Please’?”
The lean young man went on: “Who was Talleyrand? Certainly, someone—”
The dark woman at the other end of the table said, “Well, a premier. The premier of…” Her voice trailed off.