Ring Lardner

“ Before they left their own dugout they sang a battle hymn that would make an American dance and scare a German to death. They went through their maneuvers with an incredible amount of pep and acted as if they could hardly wait to get into real action against the boche. Personally, I would have conscientious objections to fighting a Maori.
Then we were shown a gas-mask dress rehearsal. A British gas mask has a sweet scent, like a hospital. You can live in one, they say, for twenty-four hours, no matter what sort of poison the lovely Huns are spraying at you. ”

“ But not for long. Pretty soon in came three of the World’s Greatest Fighters, alias Canadian soldiers, and sat down behind us. Their usher was more persistent than mine.
“What do you want?” demanded one who seemed to be the financial leader. “I already gave you a franc.”
“Un franc pour trois?” said the lady in horror.
“Yes, and that’s enough,” said the Canuck. “Aller!” he added in perfect Canadian.
“Je ne comprend pas,” said the lady.
“Go to the devil then!” said the Canadian in perfect Portuguese.
The lady went somewhere, but whether to the proper destination I do not know. ”

“ A pedestrian has no more rights here than the Kaiser, and it’s almost impossible to cross the street unless you’ve gone through a course of intensive training in Detroit.
There would be little danger if all the crossings were on the upgrade, for the French cars—those which aren’t in the military service—have a desperate time climbing. They have to shift speeds even to run up on the sidewalk, which is one of their favorite sports. But the Loop District of Paris is topographically on the level, and taxis can tear along like an eastbound Russian. ”

“ When we went back on deck, the world’s largest open-face clock was on our left, and on our right the business district of Pelham’s biggest suburb. And immediately surrounding us were Peter James and Ring Once and the lounge steward and the deck steward and the dining-room stewards—in fact, all the stewards we’d seen and a great many we hadn’t.
“We’re trapped,” said Mr. Hanson. “Our only chance for escape is to give them all we’ve got. Be ready with your one-pounders and your silver pieces.” ”

“ An American heard my plea for four new tires, an offset wrench, and a wheel puller.
“It can’t be done,” he said. “All we do is own this place. But the French Government has taken it over and runs it.”
“But this is a United States army car,” I said, “and we’re supposed to be allies of the French.” ”

“ If you die there, the driver is sent a medal for marksmanship.
Taxi fares are cheaper, probably, than anywhere else in the world. They amount to practically nothing if you have an accident—that is, a trip without a collision with something or somebody. But even if you enjoy an average tour and hit a building or another vehicle or a dog or a person, they soak you only about half as much as they would in New York or Chicago, where there are far fewer thrills per drive. ”

“ I have acquired an almost perfect understanding of British, Australian and Canadian, which are somewhat similar, and of Harvard, which I studied a little back home. French and Chinese I find more difficult, and I doubt that any one could master either inside of a month or so.
The red-headed captain remarked on the crowded condition of the trine. That is Australian as well as British for train. The Canadian is like our word, and the French is spelled the same, but is pronounced as if a goat were saying it. Lack of space prevents the publication of the Chinese term. ”

“ I TRY TO GET TO THE AMERICAN CAMP—BUT MEET DISASTER Wednesday, August 22. Paris.
The gentlemen authorized to issue visitors’ passes to the American camp and the various fronts don’t seem to realize that a person may be in a hurry. They fail to appreciate the facts that hanging round Paris is financial ruin and that the world series, which one positively must attend, is drawing nearer every hour.
Permission to go to the British front was requested over a week ago. No reply. Daily calls at our own press bureau produce nothing but promises of a trip somewhere, some time. ”

“ Americans,82 under French tutelage, had constructed a perfect—so we were told—system of ditches and entanglements, and had shown aptitude in learning the offensive and defensive points of this pleasant method of warfare. They were now engaged in bomb-throwing drill. Some of them had tried the baseball throw, but had found the grenades too heavy. Several crooked-arm throws would do things to a person’s elbow. But, according to the officers, the youngsters had done very well with the bowling motion and had surprised the French with their accuracy. ”

“ Before dinner we were plied with cocktails made by our friend, the captain. The ingredients, I believe, were ether, arsenic and carbolic acid in quantities not quite sufficient to cause death.
Eleven of us gathered around the festal board. There were the major and his aids, three British captains, one with a monocle. There was the Harvard professor, and the head of a certain American philanthropical organization, and his secretary. And then there were us, me and Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty and Mr. Somner, upstarts in the so-called journalistic world. ”

“ The American major who owns the car which Mr. Kiley drove down from Le Havre, whither it had been sent by the man who bought it in London for the American major—well, anyway, this American major, he’s in the artillery camp at Such-and-Such, and he wants me to bring it down there for him. I’ve never handled, or, rather, footled one of the little birds, but it’s something everybody should learn, like French and auction and how to swim. ”

“ At an American Camp.
Me and a regular American correspondent, Mr. Bazin, who has been here since before the war, but is still good-natured, took the train from Paris this morning and reached our destination shortly after lunch time. This is one of a string of villages in which the main body of the Expeditionary Forces are billeted.
We were met at the train by one of the correspondents’ cars, a regular he-man of a car from home, with eight cylinders and everything. Each correspondent rents a seat in one of the machines at a cost of sixty dollars a week. ”

“ But France is like America in that Saturday is usually succeeded by Sunday, and when Mr. Kiley arose from his hotel bed and resumed his search for gas he found every garage in town shut up tight. As I remember the United States, garages do not keep holy the Sabbath Day nor any other day. Over here, however, everything closes on Sunday except churches, theaters and saloons. ”

“ The majority of the people, of course, are Indians, and you just can’t make them behave.”
She asked whether either of us had ever been in New York. The captain said he’d passed through there once on the way to Coney Island. She wanted to know if New York was bigger than Paris. “It’s bigger than France,” said Captain Jones.
Monsieur was trying to make a game of her.
“Well, anyway,” said the captain, “you could lose France in Texas.”
What was Texas?
“Texas,” said the captain, “is the place they send soldiers when they’ve been bad. It’s way out west, near Chicago.” ”

“ Living conditions here have it on those in Paris. There are no meatless days, and a hot bath is always available. The town is dark at night, but it’s said to be not for the purpose of saving fuel, but as a measure of protection against air raids.
One of those things was staged last week and a bomb fell uncomfortably close to ye hotel. The dent it made in Mother Earth is clearly visible to the naked eye. I trust the bombers take every other week off. At dinner we met two American naval officers—a captain from Baltimore and a lieutenant from Rockford, which is in Illinois. ”

“ Other figures in the pictures are dogs, foxes and chickens of remarkable size and hue.
“We had a French painter here a few days ago,” said the major. “I purposely seated him where he could look at this picture. He took one look, then asked me to change his seat.”
The major inquired whether I had noticed the picture of the château which decorates the doors of our automobiles.
“When you go out to-morrow,” he said, “you’ll observe that none of the army cars is without its symbol. An artillery car has its picture of a gun. ”

“ At the dock I got into a taxi and asked to be taken to the —— Hotel. Not to my dying day will I forget that first ride in a French taxi. Part of the time we were on the right side of the street,35 part of the time on the left, and never once were we traveling under a hundred and fifty miles an hour. We turned twenty corners and always on one ear. We grazed dozens of frightened pedestrians, many of them men crippled in the war, or by taxis, and women too old to dodge quickly. ”

“ I said. “I’d no idea I’d be so popular.”
“Nos can issue no passes sans a photophie,” says he, so out I went in search of a rapid-fire studio.
The driver pulled up in front of a gallery on the Rue de la Paix, where the artist promised to have six copies of my map printed by midi.
To kill time I rode back to Billy’s rue.
“The car’s on the blink,” said my friend in French. “The connecting rod is lâche and some bearings are burned out. Besides, vous would be a rummy to partir on these tires.” ”

“ General polite conversation ensued, and soon came the inevitable French question: How many American soldiers were there in France? I have heard it asked a million times, and I have heard a million different answers. The captain gave the truthful reply: “I don’t know.”
“I shall myself take me to lunch if monsieur has no objections”
93
“This war,” he said, “should be called the War of Rumors. The war will be over by Christmas. The war won’t be over for ten years. The boche is starving. The Allies are getting fat. The boche has plenty to eat. The Allies are dying of hunger. ”

“ In the fumoir this afternoon a young American wanted a match. He consulted his dictionary and dug out “allumette.” But he thought the t’s were silent and asked Auguste for “allumay.” Auguste disappeared and returned in five minutes with a large glass of lemonade. The cost of that little French lesson was two francs.
I am elected to eat at the “second table.” Our bunch has luncheon at twelve-thirty and dinner at seven. The first table crowd’s hours are eleven and five-thirty. Breakfast is a free-for-all and we sit where we choose. ”

“ Every morning one sees on the deck people one never saw before, and as we have not stopped at any stations since we started, the inference is that certain parties have not found the trip a continuous joy ride. ”

“ But it does seem pathetic that the written and stamped approval, in all colors of the rainbow, of153 the Paris chief of police, the American consul, the British Military Control, the British consul, the French consul in New York, and nearly everybody else in the world, including our own Secretary of State, sufficeth not to convince a minor-league official that an innocent native of Niles, Michigan, isn’t related by marriage to the Hohenzollerns. ”

“ In America a man ordinarily takes the initiative97 in striking up an acquaintance with a woman. He has to speak to her before she’ll speak to him. This would never do in France, where the men are too shy. Then there’s a difference in the way men treat their wives and horses. Americans use whips instead of clubs. And Americans have funny ideas about their homes. Private bedrooms and playrooms are provided for their pets—zebras, lizards and wild cats—and the little fellows are given to understand that they must remain in them and not run all over the house, like one of your cows. ”

“ This young man admitted that he was one of the best football players in Australia. “Maybe I’ve forgotten how now,” he said. “I’ve been over here three years. Just think of it—I traveled twelve thousand miles, or maybe it’s kilos, to mix up in this.”
Baseball, he told me, had taken a strong hold on Australia.
“I don’t hit well,” he said, “but I can catch what you call flies! I can catch the widest flies that are knocked.” ”

“ Soldiers—French, British and American—strolled by constantly, accompanied by more or less beautiful brunettes, and only a few were thoughtless enough not to stop and kiss a few times45 in full view of our table. We also observed the inmates of passing taxis. No matter how wide the back seat, the lady occupant invariably sat on her escort’s lap. A five-passenger car in America is a ten-passenger car in Paris, provided the chauffeur has a girl of his own. ”

“ I thought. “I’ll pick up my baggage on the way back to the garage.”
So I told my driver to stop at the hotel. A telegram was waiting there for me.
“Hold car in Paris,” it said. “Camp may be moved any day.”
This blow fell at fourteen o’clock this afternoon. By half-past fifteen I had called up every steamship office and learned that the next boat for America would leave from England next Wednesday night. I am going to be aboard.
And now I have for sale, at auction:
One pass through the French war zone. ”

“ They told me I’d have to go to the American consul for a visé and then come back for a second registration with the police. Mr. O’Flaherty opined that these jobs should be attended to at once, as my boat train was supposed to leave at nine to-morrow morning. Mr. Payne had a better idea.
“Let’s telephone the steamship office,” he said, “and find out whether your ship is really going to sail on schedule. They usually don’t these days.”
Mr. O’Flaherty did the telephoning, and, sure enough, the blamed thing’s been postponed till Saturday night. ”

“ When a man hasn’t shaved he isn’t at his best, physically, morally, or mentally. When he has he’s got more confidence in himself; his morale is better. Shaving has a psychological effect, and I try to impress my men with the importance of it. They say it’s a difficult operation here, but I guess if the Tommies can do it in the trenches, we can in these billets.”
We remarked on the increasing popularity of mustaches among the men.
“I don’t object to them,” said the major. ”

“ Practically all the suburban savages have zebras, and the Chicago traffic police have a fierce time handling them during their owners’ working hours. They run wild around the streets and in the department stores, and snap at women, especially brunettes.”
We had attained the potato course. The French positively will not serve potatoes as other than a separate course. I was about to help myself to a generous portion when the captain cried: “Here! Better leave those things alone. You know what they do to you.” ”

“ I found that I could read it very easily by consulting the dictionary every time I came to a word.
But the scenery and the people were more interesting than Le Cri, the former especially. Perfect automobile roads, lined with trees; fields, and truck42 gardens in which aged men and women, young girls and little boys were at work; green hills and valleys; winding rivers and brooks, and an occasional château or a town of fascinating architecture—these helped to make us forget the heat and dust of the trip and the ear-splitting shrieks of our engines. ”