Part 14 (2/2)
I call that clever advertising. That's the way to get the crowd.
THE SECOND MAN
Yes, these foreigners know the game. They have made millions out of it in Paris. Every time you go to see a musical comedy at home, the second act is laid in Paris, and you see a whole stageful of girls wriggling around, and a lot of old sports having the time of their lives. All your life you hear that Paris is something rich and racy, something that makes New York look like Roanoke, Virginia. Well, you fall for the ballyho and come over to have your fling--and then you find that Paris is largely bunk. I spent a whole week in Paris, trying to find something really awful. I hired one of those Jew guides at five dollars a day and told him to go the limit. I said to him: ”Don't mind _me_. I am twenty-one years old. Let me have the genuine goods.” But the worst he could show me wasn't half as bad as what I have seen in Chicago. Every night I would say to that Jew: ”Come on, now Mr. Cohen; let's get away from these tinhorn shows. Lead me to the real stuff.” Well, I believe the fellow did his darndest, but he always fell down. I almost felt sorry for him. In the end, when I paid him off, I said to him: ”Save up your money, my boy, and come over to the States. Let me know when you land. I'll show you the sights for nothing. This Baracca Cla.s.s atmosphere is killing you.”
THE FIRST MAN
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'Opera and coming back in the morning all boozed up, and so they a.s.sume that everything is up to the mark. You'll find the same thing in Was.h.i.+ngton. No Was.h.i.+ngtonian has ever been up to the top of the Was.h.i.+ngton monument.
Once the elevator in the monument was out of commission for two weeks, and yet Was.h.i.+ngton 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts 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?
THE SECOND MAN
No; not yet.
THE FIRST MAN
Well, then, you don't know how it is. But I guess you play poker.
THE SECOND MAN
Oh, to be sure.
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