Life — September 4, 1913 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ee IEE * First Aid to Ambassadors By John Kendrick Bangs. (Now that a brand new lot of ambassadors are daily sailing for foreign forts. actuated by a! real desire to serve their needs in emergent moments, we have asked Prof. ilberforce Jenkins, the eminent diplomat, to prepare a few short speeches for their use when greeting the rulers of Europe, always a dificult first service for a green ambassador to perform on behalf of his coun- try. Prof. Jenkins has hastily dashed off the following, which he assures us will make the speakers persona grata wherever they are delivered.) On Meeting King George AM very glad to meet your Majesty. I was out at the Tower yesterday after- noon and saw your crown. It is some hat, believe me. Somewhat giddy for us plain Americans, but chaste, and worth two or three dollars on a rough estimate. Person- ally I prefer the honored plug of my chief; a stove-pipe affair, such as you often see on Piccadilly ; but, after all, the hat doesn’t make the man. Your Majesty could wear a white felt beaver and I'd like you just the same. While I think of it, I: want to say to you how much I liked your late father, King—er— King—er—well, never mind his name. I never was strong on names any- how, and your father had so many of ‘em I never could remember half of them, But people who knew the dear old gentleman tell me he was a good sport, and if there's anything-we Americans do like it's a good sport. Fact is, I've always liked your whole family; the only thing about you that I haven't cared especially for being the style of coat your grandfather invented. As between a Prince Albert and a swallowtail give me the swallowtail every time. It’s so much easier getting at your change when you want to tip a Gold-Stick in Waiting, or the Early-Bird of the Back-Stairs, or the Gilt-Edged Equerry of the Royal Runabout. And by the way, what make is your Majesty’s car? Mine's a trolley when I'm back home. . For Use at the Quirinal The first time I ever heard of Rome, your Majesty, was when I was a boy and was requested by my school teacher to point it out on the map. To tell the honest truth, as a real ambassador should always do if he can, I didn’t know the difference between Rome and Kala- mazoo, and the result was I stuck the end of the pointer on a fly speck out about¢wo hundred miles off Guam. But I know better now. What an immortal old town you've got here, and so full of Italians, too—really, there are so many Italians here in Rome that I haven't felt homesick for a minute. They were building a trolley in my town just before I left, and the place swarmed with ‘em, and their presence here in such large numbers gives your beautiful burg a truly homey flavor, not to say aroma. I am enjoying myself hugely, though I find wrestling with the spaghetti in public some stunt, but I'm getting there. { practice with a couple of coils of it in my bathtub every morning for an hour or two, and I’ve got so now I can haul in a hundred feet of it without biting it off. That Forum of yours is a mighty interesting old dust-heap, isn’t it? I'd heard of it before I came, sir, old man Plutarch having been my favorite novelist for many years. It's given me all fifty-seven varieties of thrill to sit there in the twilight and think that right on that spot Brutus and Cassius poked Czsar’s resignation into his vermiform.with their little jack-knives; that once these reaches echoed to the hot-air waves of Col. Kikero; and that nearby that candy-kid Nero played “ Wait Till the Clouds Roll By” while Rome was disappearing in a cinder cloud over on the horizon. Yes, it is nice to be here, and as your famous poet Petrarch said in his exquisite lines to his fiancée— Abelard, I think her name was—/ promessi sposi ¢ vietato fumare, si non e lago di garda! so say I. From the heart, sir—from the heart! At a First Call at the Elysée Well, Mr. President, comment vous rendez-vous? I'm sure glad to get here, Paris up-to this time hasn't been much more than a spot on a pink map to me, but the real thing—well, for sheer sizz it’s got Chicago, Boston and New York frazzled to a fringe. I used to think little old Philadelphia was some Metrollopus, but outside of certain sections of New Orleans and about a mile of San Francisco in the old days before the shake-down, Paris has got 'em all lashed to the mast. There’s more fun to be had out of your one Latin Quarter than I’ve ever found in any million American dollars. It’s almost too good to be true, and I give you my word that I pinch myself every night before going to bed just to find out if I'm really awake. If I wake up in Cincinnati or Yonkers to-morrow morning I'll be the worst disappointed man you've ever heard of since Champ Clark heard from the Baltimore Convention. By the way, is your Champs Elysées any relation to our Champ? Be that as it may, the only thing I don’t like about your country is the general lack of ice water, and the language. My French is about as strong as a stalk of fresh asparagus after it has been boiled for a week, but I'm getting along. I’ve got so now that I can order café au lait with milk, and call for a small cup of demi-tasse comicbooks.com