GUILLOTINE PARTY
47
"That gives me an idea. Why not let them fight the Poles?
The Poles won their last battle before John Sobieski died. And
they all love Poland. They can't run their country. I don't
know how they can stand to live in it. And they'd all love to die
for dear old Poland. And then make it a three-cornered fight
for eighth place, and toss in the Irish. They haven't won a fight
since Saint Patrick booted the snakes out of Ireland, and Saint
Patrick wasn't even an Irishman," Jack Soules said, and they
laughed again.
"But I'm serious. Do you really think there can be an–
other war?" said Mrs. Soules as she munched on a sandwich.
"It won't be a war. It's going to be a defense of civiliza–
tion," said Reynolds with a sneer.
"There cannot be a war. Civilization cannot stand a war.
So that all intelligent men must support the cause of pacifism,"
Morton Brooks said.
"Say, that reminds me of a good story, even if it's an old
saw. The story of the elephants," said Jack Soules.
"Do tell it. It's screaming," said Chuck Smith as he arose
and poured himself coffee.
"Well, a prize of five thousand dollars was offered by a
philanthropist for the best treatise on the subject of the elephant.
It was open to all nationalities. So an Englishman submitted
his contribution, titled
Hunting the Elephant in Darkest Africa.
And a Frenchman sent in a small neat manuscript called
Les
Amours Des Elephants.
A German submitted two volumes
weighing a ton, called Preparation for the
Introduction to the
Systematization and Study of the Sources of a History of the
Elephant.
An American college professor sent in
The Elephant
and Sales Resistance.
A Russian decided to submit a contribu–
tion called
The Elephant: HasHe a Soul?
But he procrastinated.
And he drank tea and vodka, and as the contest drew near, he
talked and talked night after night, asking and pondering the
question of the soul of the elephant. So he finally sent in his
title page. And then a Pole turned in a treatise called
The Ele–
phant and the Polish Question."
They laughed.
"I'm beginning to get jittery. Just think. At sundown, we
will see a man get his head cut off," Alvin said, growing pale,
and Hirschmann arose, dropped his sandwich on the table, turned
livid, walked to the French windows, and stood there, still pale.
"Well let's have some more wine," said Soules, to break the
