U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [333]
"where'l we go?" Walking along the foggy quay, past the shadowy bulk of Nôtre Dâme, they talked scatteringly about Paris and how cold it was. Robbins was a short man with an impudent bossy look on his red face. In the café it was only a little less chil y than in the street. "This climate's going to be the death of me," said Robbins, snuggling his chin down in his overcoat. "Wool y underwear's the only answer, that's one thing I've learned in the army," said Dick laughing.
They settled on a plush bench near the stove at the end of the cigarsmoky giltornamented room. Robbins ordered a bottle of Scotch whiskey, glasses, lemon, sugar and a lot
-358-of hot water. It took a long time to get the hot water, so Robbins poured them each a quarter of a tumbler of the whiskey straight. When he'd drunk his, his face that had been sagging and tired, smoothed out so that he looked ten years younger. "Only way to keep warm in this goddam town's to keep stewed.""Stil I'm glad to be back in little old Paree," said Dick, smiling and stretching his legs out under the table. "Only place in the world to be right at present," said Robbins. " Paris is the hub of the world
. . . unless it's Moscow."
At the word Moscow a Frenchman playing checkers at
the next table brought his eyes up from the board and stared at the two Americans. Dick couldn't make out what there was in his stare; it made him uneasy. The waiter came with the hot water. It wasn't hot enough, so Robbins made a scene and sent it back. He poured out a couple of half-tumblers of straight whiskey to drink while they were wait-ing.
"Is the President going to recognize the soviets?" Dick found himself asking in a low voice.
"I'm betting on it . . . I believe he's sending an un-official mission. Depends a little on oil and manganese . . . it used to be King Coal, but now it's Emperor Petroleum and Miss Manganese, queen consort of steel. That's al in the pink republic of Georgia . . . I hope to get there soon, they say that they have the finest wine and the most beautiful women in the world. By God, I got to get
there. . . . But the oil . . . God damn it, that's what this damned idealist Wilson can't understand, while they're setting him up to big feeds at Buckingham palace the jol y old British army is occupying Mosul, the Karun River, Persia . . . now the latrine news has it that they're in Baku . . . the future oil metropolis of the world."
"I thought the Baku fields were running dry."
"Don't you believe it . . . I just talked to a fel ow who'd been there . . . a funny fel ow, Rasmussen, you
-359-ought to meet him." Dick said hadn't we got plenty of oil at home. Robbins banged his fist on the table.
"You never can have plenty of anything . . . that's the first law of thermodynamics. I never have plenty of whis-key. . . . You're a young fel ow, do you ever have plenty of tail? Wel , neither Standard Oil or the Royal Dutch-Shel can ever have plenty of crude oil." Dick blushed and laughed a little forcedly. He didn't like this fel ow Robbins. The waiter final y came back with boiling water and Robbins made them each a toddy. For a while neither of them said anything. The checkerplayers had gone. Suddenly Robbins turned to Dick and looked in his face with his hazy blue drunkard's eyes: "Wel , what do you boys think about it al ? What do the fel ers in the trenches think?"
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, hel , I don't mean anything. . . . But if they thought the war was lousy wait til they see the peace . . . Oh, boy, wait til they see the peace."
"Down at Tours I don't think anybody thought much about it either way . . . however, I don't think that any-body that's seen it considers war the prize way of settling international difficulties . . . I don't think Blackjack Pershing himself thinks that."
"Oh, listen to him . . . can't be more than twenty-five and he talks like a book by Woodrow Wilson . . . I'm a son of a bitch and