But if you'll stop and think, you'll realize it
wasn't we Americans who began that!"
"No," said the other, returning my laugh, "but I think it was you
who finished him up as a symbol of elegance, a divinity of the
respectable inane."
Thus chatting, we turned the corner, and came in sight of our goal,
the Excelsior Theatre. And there was the mob!
II
At first, when I saw the mass of people, I thought it was the usual
picture crowd. I said, with a smile, "Can it be that the American
people are not so dead to art after all?" But then I observed that
the crowd seemed to be swaying this way and that; also there seemed
to be a great many men in army uniforms. "Hello!" I exclaimed. "A
row?"
There was a clamor of shouting; the army men seemed to be pulling
and pushing the civilians. When we got nearer, I asked of a
bystander, "What's up?" The answer was: "They don't want 'em to go
in to see the picture."
"Why not?"
"It's German. Hun propaganda!"
Now you must understand, I had helped to win a war, and no man gets
over such an experience at once.
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