U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [249]
-212-talking they forgot about the girls. She'd been in the Transvaal during the Boer War and spoke a curious
brand of South African English. "Vous comprennez ve had very fine clientele, every man jack officers, very much elegance, decorum. These johnnies off the veldt . . . get the hel outen here . . . bloody select don't you know. Ve had two salons, one salon English officers, one salon Boer officers, very select, never in al the war make any bloody row, no fight. . . . Vos compatriotes les Americains ce n'est pas comme ça, mes amis. Beaucoup sonofabeetch, make drunk, make bloody row, make sick, naturel ement il y a aussi des gentils garçons comme vous, mes mignons, des veritables gentlemens," and she patted them both on the cheeks with her horny ringed hands. When they left she wanted to kiss them and went with them to the door saying, "Bonsoir mes jolis petits gentlemens." Al the crossing they were never sober after eleven in the morning; it was calm misty weather; they were very happy. One night when he was standing alone in the stern beside the smal gun, Dick was searching his pocket for a cigarette when his fingers felt something hard in the lining of his coat. It was the little compass he had bought to help him across the Spanish border. Guiltily, he fished it out and dropped it overboard.
NEWSREEL XXVII
HER WOUNDED HERO OF WAR A FRAUD
SAYS WIFE IN SUIT
Mid the wars great coise
Stands the red cross noise
She's the rose of no man's land
-213-according to the thousands who had assembled to see the launching and were eyewitnesses of the disaster the scaffold simply seemed to turn over like a gigantic turtle precipitating its occupants into twentyfive feet of water. This was exactly four minutes before the launching was scheduled
Oh that battle of Paree
It's making a bum out of me
BRITISH BEGIN OPERATION ON AFGHAN
FRONTIER
the leading part in world trade which the U.S. is now confidently expected to take, wil depend to a very great extent upon the intel igence and success with which its harbors are utilized and developed
I wanta go home I wanta go home
The bullets they whistle the cannons they roar
I dont want to go to the trenches no more
Oh ship me over the sea
Where the Allemand cant get at me
you have begun a crusade against toys, but if al the German toys were commandeered and destroyed the end of German importations would not yet have been reached HOLDS UP 20 DINERS IN CAFE
LAWHATING GATHERINGS NOT TO BE
ALLOWED IN
CRITICAL TIME THREATENING SOCIAL UPHEAVAL
Oh my I'm too young to die
I wanta go home
Nancy Enjoys Nightlife Despite Raids
TATTOOED WOMAN SOUGHT BY POLICE IN
TRUNK MURDER
ARMY WIFE SLASHED BY ADMIRER
-214-Young Man Al eged to Have Taken Money to Aid in Promotion of a Reserve Officer. It appears that these men were Chinese merchants from Irkutsk, Chita and elsewhere who were proceeding homeward to Harbin carrying their profits for investment in new stocks
Oh that battle of Paree
Its making a bum out of me
Toujours la femme et combien
300,000 RUSSIAN NOBLES SLAIN BY
BOLSHEVIKI
Bankers of This Country, Britain and France to
Safeguard Foreign Investors
these three girls came to France thirteen months ago and were the first concertparty to entertain at the front. They staged a show for the American troops from a flatcar base of a large naval gun three kilometers behind the line on the day of the evening of the drive at Chateau Thierry. After that they were assigned to the Aix-les-Bains leave area where they acted during the day as canteen girls and entertained and danced at night You never knew a place that was so short of men Beaucoup rum beaucoup fun Mother'd never know her loving son
Oh if you want to see that statue of Libertee
Keep away from that battle of Paree
THE CAMERA EYE (35)
there were always two cats the color of hot milk with a little coffee in it with aquamarine eyes and sootblack faces in the window of the laundry opposite the little creamery where we ate breakfast on the Montagne St.
-215-Geneviève huddled between the old squeezedup slate-grey houses of the Latin Quarter leaning over steep smal streets cosy under the fog minute streets lit with differentcolored chalks cluttered with infinitesimal bars res-taurants paintshops and old prints beds bidets faded per-fumery microscopic sizzle of frying butter the Bertha made a snapping noise no louder than a