AN INTERVIEW WITH VICE-PRESIDENT DAWES

Interviewing Vice-Presidents is always a ticklish business, unless you happen to find one who isn’t ticklish.

So I took General Dawes into my confidence right at the start.

“General Dawes,” I said, “what is your feeling about the Senate?”

“You mean the Roman Senate, do you not?” asked the grizzled warrior.

“Well, yes, now that you speak of it,” I replied. Here was a chance to have some fun at the expense of Catiline.

“The Senate is all right,” said General Dawes. “It is the tribunes of the people that cause all the trouble. They and the lictors.”

“How would you lictor have a glass of beer?” I asked the Vice-President.

Well, that got us to giggling, as you may very well imagine. First I would hit him, and then he would hit me.

“If the Senate rules were to be changed, so that for ‘quorum’ it should read ‘jorum,’ what would you think?” I asked him, spitting out two teeth (good ones, too).

“‘Jorum’ instead of ‘quorum’?” he asked, stalling for time. “What would I think?”

“You heard me, Mr. Vice-President,” I retorted.

“I should say, suh—” he began.

“I didn’t know that you were from the South,” I interrupted.

“I’m not. That was just something caught in my throat.”

At this point, General Dawes looked out the window. “Where are we?” he asked, peering into the darkness. “Is this New Haven we are coming into, porter?”

But the porter was just as much puzzled as General Dawes was, being a Southern Pacific porter on his first trip on the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R.

“I could tell with a bit of litmus paper,” he said.

Quickly I clapped my hand over General Dawes’ mouth.

“Do you ever wonder, Mr. Vice-President,” I asked him, “just what life is all about?”

“Do I?” said General Dawes from behind my palm. “That’s all I ever wonder about.”

“Wasn’t it Voltaire who asked ‘Que suis-je, ou suis-je, ou vais-je, et d’ou suis-je tiré?’”

“That all sounds very silly,” retorted the General in a rage. “And besides, there should be an accent over all those ‘u’s’.”

“The General did not have his nap today,” I explained to the conductor. “He is cross.”

“This is my street anyway,” said the Vice-President, hopping up and getting into his middy-blouse. And, without a word, he was gone.