It will therefore be seen how important it was to France that this "industrial triangle" on the Silesian border should belong to Germany. At the conference which designated the border line, Gambetta, representing France, insisted that the line should follow the course of the Iser River ("iser on one side or the other," was the way he is reported to have phrased it), which would divide the pumice deposits into three areas, the fourth being the dummy. This would never do. Experts were called in to see if it might not be possible to so divide the district that France might get a quarter, Germany a quarter and England fifty cents. It was suggested that the line be drawn down through Globe-Wernicke to the mouth of the Iser. As Gambetta said, the line had to be drawn somewhere and it might as well be there. But Lord Hay-Paunceforte, representing England, refused to concede the point and for a time it looked like an open breach. But matters were smoothed over by the holding of a plebiscite in all the towns of Upper Silesia. The result of this plebiscite was taken and exactly reversed by the council, so that the entire Engadine Valley was given to Sweden, who didn't want it anyway. And there the matter now stands. XXV "HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND" By way of egging people on to buy Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf of books, the publishers are resorting to an advertisement in which are depicted two married couples, one reading together by the library table, the other playing some two-handed game of cards which is evidently boring them considerably. The query is "Which One of These Couples Will be the Happier in Five Years?" the implication being that the young people who buy Dr. Eliot's books will, by constant reading aloud to each other from the works of the world's best writers, cement a companionship which will put to shame the illiterate union of the young card players. Granted that most two-handed games of cards _are_ dull enough to result in divorce at the end of five years, they cannot be compared to co-operative family reading as a system of home-wrecking. If this were a betting periodical, we would have ten dollars to place on the chance of the following being the condition of affairs in the literary family at the end of the stated time: (_The husband is reading his evening newspaper. The wife appears, bringing a volume from the Five Foot Shelf. Tonight it is Darwin's "Origin of Species_.") WIFE: Hurry up and finish that paper. We'll never get along in this Darwin if we don't begin earlier than we did last night. HUSBAND: Well, suppose we didn't get along in it. That would suit me all right. WIFE: If you don't want me to read it to you, just say so ... (_after-thought_) if it's so far over your head, just say so. HUSBAND: It's not over my head at all. It's just dull. Why don't you read some more out of that Italian novel? WIFE: Ugh! I hate that. I suppose you'd rather have me read "The Sheik."