And I smoothed Professor Gluckstein down till he
agreed to furnish the music for us and let the war take care of itself.
The Prof's a good old scout when he ain't got his war bonnet on. He was
darned near crying into his meerschaum pipe with a carved fat lady on it
when I got through telling him about the poor soldiers in the wet and
cold without a thing to smoke. He says: "You're right, madam; with Jake
Frost in the trenches and no tobacco, all men should be brothers under
their hides." And I got that printed in the _Recorder_ for a slogan, and
other foreigners come into line; and things looked pretty good.
Also, I got Doc Sulloway, who happened to be in town, to promise he'd
come and tell some funny anecdotes. He ain't a regular doctor--he just
took it up; a guy with long black curls and a big moustache and a big
hat and diamond pin, that goes round selling Indian Snake Oil off a
wagon. Doc said he'd have his musician, Ed Bemis, come, too. He said Ed
was known far and wide as the world's challenge cornetist. I says all
right, if he'll play something neutral; and Doc says he'll play "Listen
to the Mocking Bird," with variations, and play it so swell you'll
think you're perched right up in the treetops listening to Nature's own
feathered songsters.
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