The American Credo

Chapter 25

--457

That the Germans eat six regular meals a day, and between times stave off their appet.i.te with numerous Schweitzer cheese sandwiches, blutwurst and beer.

--458

That David Belasco teaches his actresses how to express emotion by knocking them down and pulling them around the stage by the hair.

--459

That only Americans travel in the first cla.s.s carriages of foreign railway trains, and that fashionable Englishmen always travel third cla.s.s.

--460

That the whiskey sold in blind pigs contains wood alcohol and causes those who drink it to go blind.

--461

That wealthy society women never wear their pearl necklaces in public, but always keep them at home in safes and wear indistinguishable imitations instead.

--462

That the late Charles Yerkes had no less than twenty girls, for each of whom he provided a Fifth Avenue mansion and a yearly income of $50,000.

--463

That when one goes to a railroad station to meet some one, the train is never on time.

--464

That the theatregoers in the Scandinavian countries care for nothing but Ibsen and Strindberg.

--465

That all doctors write prescriptions illegibly.

--466

That Englishwomen are very cold.

--467

That when the weather man predicts rain it always turns out fair, and that when he predicts fair it always rains.

--468

That lemon juice will remove freckles.

--469

That if a woman wears a string of amber beads she will never get a sore throat.

--470

That no well-bred person ever chews gum.

--471

That all actors sleep till noon, and spend the afternoon calling on women.

--472

That the men who make sauerkraut press it into barrels by jumping on it with their bare feet.

--473

That the moment a n.i.g.g.e.r gets eight dollars, he goes to a dentist and has one of his front teeth filled with gold.

--474

That one never sees a Frenchman drunk, all the souses whom one sees in Paris being Americans.

--475

That a daughter is always a much greater comfort to a mother in after life than a son.

--476

That a man with a weak, receding chin is always a nincomp.o.o.p.