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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4551-h.zip b/4551-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebf5b4f --- /dev/null +++ b/4551-h.zip diff --git a/4551-h/4551-h.htm b/4551-h/4551-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8dced3c --- /dev/null +++ b/4551-h/4551-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10180 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Europe Revised, by Irvin S. Cobb + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Europe Revised, by Irvin S. Cobb + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Europe Revised + +Author: Irvin S. Cobb + + +Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4551] +This file was first posted on February 9, 2002 +[Last updated: October 21, 2015] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUROPE REVISED *** + + + + +Text file produced by Kirk Pearson with help from the Volunteers at +The Distributed Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + EUROPE REVISED + </h1> + <h2> + By Irvin S. Cobb + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + To My Small Daughter <br /> <br /> Who bade me shed a tear at the tomb of + Napoleon, <br /> which I was very glad to do, because when I got there + <br /> my feet certainly were hurting me. + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + NOTE + </p> + <p> + The picture on page 81 purporting to show the undersigned leaping head + first into a German feather-bed does the undersigned a cruel injustice. He + has a prettier figure than that—oh, oh, much prettier! + </p> + <p> + The reader is earnestly entreated not to look at the picture on page 81. + It is the only blot on the McCutcheon of this book. + </p> + <p> + Respectfully, + </p> + <p> + The Author. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> Chapter I. We Are Going Away From Here </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> Chapter II. My Bonny Lies over the Ocean—Lies + and Lies and Lies </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> Chapter III. Bathing Oneself on the Other Side + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> Chapter IV. Jacques, the Forsaken </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> Chapter V. When the Seven A.M. Tut-tut leaves for + Anywhere </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> Chapter VI. La Belle France Being the First Stop + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> Chapter VII. Thence On and On to Verbotenland + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> Chapter VIII. A Tale of a String-bean </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> Chapter IX. The Deadly Poulet Routine </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> Chapter X. Modes of the Moment; a Fashion Article + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> Chapter XI. Dressed to Kill </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> Chapter XII. Night Life—with the Life Part + Missing </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> Chapter XIII. Our Friend, the Assassin </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> Chapter XIV. That Gay Paresis </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> Chapter XV. Symptoms of the Disease </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> Chapter XVI. As Done in London </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> Chapter XVII. Britain in Twenty Minutes </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> Chapter XVIII. Guyed or Guided? </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> Chapter XIX. Venice and the Venisons </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> Chapter XX. The Combustible Captain of Vienna + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> Chapter XXI. Old Masters and Other Ruins </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> Chapter XXII. Still More Ruins, Mostly Italian + Ones </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> Chapter XXIII. Muckraking in Old Pompeii </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> Chapter XXIV. Mine Own People </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> Chapter XXV. Be it Ever so Humble </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter I. We Are Going Away From Here + </h2> + <h4> + Foreword. + </h4> + <p> + It has always seemed to me that the principal drawback about the average + guidebook is that it is over-freighted with facts. Guidebooks heretofore + have made a specialty of facts—have abounded in them; facts to be + found on every page and in every paragraph. Reading such a work, you + imagine that the besotted author said to himself, "I will just naturally + fill this thing chock-full of facts"—and then went and did so to the + extent of a prolonged debauch. + </p> + <p> + Now personally I would be the last one in the world to decry facts as + such. In the abstract I have the highest opinion of them. But facts, as + someone has said, are stubborn things; and stubborn things, like stubborn + people, are frequently tiresome. So it occurred to me that possibly there + might be room for a guidebook on foreign travel which would not have a + single indubitable fact concealed anywhere about its person. I have even + dared to hope there might be an actual demand on the part of the general + public for such a guidebook. I shall endeavor to meet that desire—if + it exists. + </p> + <p> + While we are on the subject I wish to say there is probably not a + statement made by me here or hereafter which cannot readily be + controverted. Communications from parties desiring to controvert this or + that assertion will be considered in the order received. The line forms on + the left and parties will kindly avoid crowding. Triflers and professional + controverters save stamps. + </p> + <p> + With these few introductory remarks we now proceed to the first subject, + which is The Sea: Its Habits and Peculiarities, and the Quaint Creatures + Found upon Its Bosom. + </p> + <p> + From the very start of this expedition to Europe I labored under a + misapprehension. Everybody told me that as soon as I had got my sea legs I + would begin to love the sea with a vast and passionate love. As a matter + of fact I experienced no trouble whatever in getting my sea legs. They + were my regular legs, the same ones I use on land. It was my sea stomach + that caused all the bother. First I was afraid I should not get it, and + that worried me no little. Then I got it and was regretful. However, that + detail will come up later in a more suitable place. I am concerned now + with the departure. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere forward a bugle blares; somewhere rearward a bell jangles. On + the deck overhead is a scurry of feet. In the mysterious bowels of the + ship a mighty mechanism opens its metal mouth and speaks out briskly. + Later it will talk on steadily, with a measured and a regular voice; but + now it is heard frequently, yet intermittently, like the click of a blind + man's cane. Beneath your feet the ship, which has seemed until this moment + as solid as a rock, stirs the least little bit, as though it had waked up. + And now a shiver runs all through it and you are reminded of that passage + from Pygmalion and Galatea where Pygmalion says with such feeling: + </p> + <p> + She starts; she moves; she seems to feel the thrill of life along her + keel. + </p> + <p> + You are under way. You are finally committed to the great adventure. The + necessary good-bys have already been said. Those who in the goodness of + their hearts came to see you off have departed for shore, leaving sundry + suitable and unsuitable gifts behind. You have examined your stateroom, + with its hot and cold decorations, its running stewardess, its all-night + throb service, and its windows overlooking the Hudson—a stateroom + that seemed so large and commodious until you put one small submissive + steamer trunk and two scared valises in it. You are tired, and yon white + bed, with the high mudguards on it, looks mighty good to you; but you feel + that you must go on deck to wave a fond farewell to the land you love and + the friends you are leaving behind. + </p> + <p> + You fight your way to the open through companionways full of frenzied + persons who are apparently trying to travel in every direction at once. On + the deck the illusion persists that it is the dock that is moving and the + ship that is standing still. All about you your fellow passengers crowd + the rails, waving and shouting messages to the people on the dock; the + people on the dock wave back and shout answers. About every other person + is begging somebody to tell auntie to be sure to write. You gather that + auntie will be expected to write weekly, if not oftener. + </p> + <p> + As the slice of dark water between boat and dock widens, those who are + left behind begin running toward the pierhead in such numbers that each + wide, bright-lit door-opening in turn suggests a flittering section of a + moving-picture film. The only perfectly calm person in sight is a + gorgeous, gold-laced creature standing on the outermost gunwale of the + dock, wearing the kind of uniform that a rear admiral of the Swiss navy + would wear—if the Swiss had any navy—and holding a speaking + trumpet in his hand. This person is not excited, for he sends + thirty-odd-thousand-ton ships off to Europe at frequent intervals, and so + he is impressively and importantly blase about it; but everybody else is + excited. You find yourself rather that way. You wave at persons you know + and then at persons you do not know. + </p> + <p> + You continue to wave until the man alongside you, who has spent years of + his life learning to imitate a siren whistle with his face, suddenly + twines his hands about his mouth and lets go a terrific blast right in + your ear. Something seems to warn you that you are not going to care for + this man. + </p> + <p> + The pier, ceasing to be a long, outstretched finger, seems to fold back + into itself, knuckle-fashion, and presently is but a part of the oddly + foreshortened shoreline, distinguishable only by the black dot of watchers + clustered under a battery of lights, like a swarm of hiving bees. Out in + midstream the tugs, which have been convoying the ship, let go of her and + scuttle off, one in this direction and one in that, like a brace of teal + ducks getting out of a walrus' way. + </p> + <p> + Almost imperceptibly her nose straightens down the river and soon on the + starboard quarter—how quickly one picks up these nautical terms!—looming + through the harbor mists, you behold the statue of Miss Liberty, in her + popular specialty of enlightening the world. So you go below and turn in. + Anyway, that is what I did; for certain of the larger ships of the Cunard + line sail at midnight or even later, and this was such a ship. + </p> + <p> + For some hours I lay awake, while above me and below me and all about me + the boat settled down to her ordained ship's job, and began drawing the + long, soothing snores that for five days and nights she was to continue + drawing without cessation. There were so many things to think over. I + tried to remember all the authoritative and conflicting advice that had + been offered to me by traveled friends and well-wishers. + </p> + <p> + Let's see, now: On shipboard I was to wear only light clothes, because + nobody ever caught cold at sea. I was to wear the heaviest clothes I had, + because the landlubber always caught cold at sea. I was to tip only those + who served me. I was to tip all hands in moderation, whether they served + me or not. If I felt squeamish I was to do the following things: Eat + something. Quit eating. Drink something. Quit drinking. Stay on deck. Go + below and lie perfectly flat. Seek company. Avoid same. Give it up. Keep + it down. + </p> + <p> + There was but one point on which all of them were agreed. On no account + should I miss Naples; I must see Naples if I did not see another solitary + thing in Europe. Well, I did both—I saw Naples; and now I should not + miss Naples if I never saw it again, and I do not think I shall. As + regards the other suggestions these friends of mine gave me, I learned in + time that all of them were right and all of them were wrong. + </p> + <p> + For example, there was the matter of a correct traveling costume. Between + seasons on the Atlantic one wears what best pleases one. One sees at the + same time women in furs and summer boys in white ducks. Tweed-enshrouded + Englishmen and linen-clad American girls promenade together, giving to the + decks that pleasing air of variety and individuality of apparel only to be + found in southern California during the winter, and in those orthodox + pictures in the book of Robinson Crusoe, where Robinson is depicted as + completely wrapped up in goatskins, while Man Friday is pirouetting round + as nude as a raw oyster and both of them are perfectly comfortable. I used + to wonder how Robinson and Friday did it. Since taking an ocean trip I + understand perfectly. I could do it myself now. + </p> + <p> + There certainly were a lot of things to think over. I do not recall now + exactly the moment when I ceased thinking them over. A blank that was + measurable by hours ensued. I woke from a dream about a scrambled egg, in + which I was the egg, to find that morning had arrived and the ship was + behaving naughtily. + </p> + <p> + Here was a ship almost as long as Main Street is back home, and six + stories high, with an English basement; with restaurants and elevators and + retail stores in her; and she was as broad as a courthouse; and while + lying at the dock she had appeared to be about the most solid and + dependable thing in creation—and yet in just a few hours' time she + had altered her whole nature, and was rolling and sliding and charging and + snorting like a warhorse. It was astonishing in the extreme, and you would + not have expected it of her. + </p> + <p> + Even as I focused my mind on this phenomenon the doorway was stealthily + entered by a small man in a uniform that made him look something like an + Eton schoolboy and something like a waiter in a dairy lunch. I was about + to have the first illuminating experience with an English manservant. This + was my bedroom steward, by name Lubly—William Lubly. My hat is off + to William Lubly—to him and to all his kind. He was always on duty; + he never seemed to sleep; he was always in a good humor, and he always + thought of the very thing you wanted just a moment or two before you + thought of it yourself, and came a-running and fetched it to you. Now he + was softly stealing in to close my port. As he screwed the round, + brass-faced window fast he glanced my way and caught my apprehensive eye. + </p> + <p> + "Good morning, sir," he said, and said it in such a way as to convey a + subtle compliment. + </p> + <p> + "Is it getting rough outside?" I said—I knew about the inside. + "Thank you," he said; "the sea 'as got up a bit, sir—thank you, + sir." + </p> + <p> + I was gratified—nay more, I was flattered. And it was so delicately + done too. I really did not have the heart to tell him that I was not + solely responsible—that I had, so to speak, collaborators; but Lubly + stood ready always to accord me a proper amount of recognition for + everything that happened on that ship. Only the next day, I think it was, + I asked him where we were. This occurred on deck. He had just answered a + lady who wanted to know whether we should have good weather on the day we + landed at Fishguard and whether we should get in on time. Without a + moment's hesitation he told her; and then he turned to me with the air of + giving credit where credit is due, and said: + </p> + <p> + "Thank you, sir—we are just off the Banks, thank you." + </p> + <p> + Lubly ran true to form. The British serving classes are ever like that, + whether met with at sea or on their native soil. They are a great and a + noble institution. Give an English servant a kind word and he thanks you. + Give him a harsh word and he still thanks you. Ask a question of a London + policeman—he tells you fully and then he thanks you. Go into an + English shop and buy something—the clerk who serves you thanks you + with enthusiasm. Go in and fail to buy something—he still thanks + you, but without the enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + One kind of Englishman says Thank you, sir; and one kind—the Cockney + who has been educated—says Thenks; but the majority brief it into a + short but expressive expletive and merely say: Kew. Kew is the commonest + word in the British Isles. Stroidinary runs it a close second, but Kew + comes first. You hear it everywhere. Hence Kew Gardens; they are named for + it. + </p> + <p> + All the types that travel on a big English-owned ship were on ours. I take + it that there is a requirement in the maritime regulations to the effect + that the set must be complete before a ship may put to sea. To begin with, + there was a member of a British legation from somewhere going home on + leave, for a holiday, or a funeral. At least I heard it was a holiday, but + I should have said he was going home for the other occasion. He wore an + Honorable attached to the front of his name and carried several extra + initials behind in the rumble; and he was filled up with that true British + reserve which a certain sort of Britisher always develops while traveling + in foreign lands. He was upward of seven feet tall, as the crow flies, and + very thin and rigid. + </p> + <p> + Viewing him, you got the impression that his framework all ran straight up + and down, like the wires in a bird cage, with barely enough perches + extending across from side to side to keep him from caving in and crushing + the canaries to death. On second thought I judge I had better make this + comparison in the singular number—there would not have been room in + him for more than one canary. + </p> + <p> + Every morning for an hour, and again every afternoon for an hour, he + marched solemnly round and round the promenade deck, always alone and + always with his mournful gaze fixed on the far horizon. As I said before, + however, he stood very high in the air, and it may have been he feared, if + he ever did look down at his feet, he should turn dizzy and be seized with + an uncontrollable desire to leap off and end all; so I am not blaming him + for that. + </p> + <p> + He would walk his hour out to the sixtieth second of the sixtieth minute + and then he would sit in his steamer chair, as silent as a glacier and as + inaccessible as one. If it were afternoon he would have his tea at five + o'clock and then, with his soul still full of cracked ice, he would go + below and dress for dinner; but he never spoke to anyone. His steamer + chair was right-hand chair to mine and often we practically touched + elbows; but he did not see me once. + </p> + <p> + I had a terrible thought. Suppose now, I said to myself—just suppose + that this ship were to sink and only we two were saved; and suppose we + were cast away on a desert island and spent years and years there, never + knowing each other's name and never mingling together socially until the + rescue ship came along—and not even then unless there was some + mutual acquaintance aboard her to introduce us properly! It was indeed a + frightful thought! It made me shudder. + </p> + <p> + Among our company was a younger son going home after a tour of the + Colonies—Canada and Australia, and all that sort of bally rot. I + believe there is always at least one younger son on every well-conducted + English boat; the family keeps him on a remittance and seems to feel + easier in its mind when he is traveling. The British statesman who said + the sun never sets on British possessions spoke the truth, but the + reporters in committing his memorable utterance to paper spelt the keyword + wrong—undoubtedly he meant the other kind—the younger kind. + </p> + <p> + This particular example of the species was in every way up to grade and + sample. A happy combination of open air, open pores and open casegoods + gave to his face the exact color of a slice of rare roast beef; it also + had the expression of one. With a dab of English mustard in the lobe of + one ear and a savory bit of watercress stuck in his hair for a garnish, he + could have passed anywhere for a slice of cold roast beef. + </p> + <p> + He was reasonably exclusive too. Not until the day we landed did he and + the Honorable member of the legation learn—quite by chance—that + they were third cousins—or something of that sort—to one + another. And so, after the relationship had been thoroughly established + through the kindly offices of a third party, they fraternized to the + extent of riding up to London on the same boat-train, merely using + different compartments of different carriages. The English aristocrat is a + tolerably social animal when traveling; but, at the same time, he does not + carry his sociability to an excess. He shows restraint. + </p> + <p> + Also, we had with us the elderly gentleman of impaired disposition, who + had crossed thirty times before and was now completing his thirty-first + trip, and getting madder and madder about it every minute. I saw him only + with his clothes on; but I should say, speaking offhand, that he had at + least fourteen rattles and a button. His poison sacs hung 'way down. + Others may have taken them for dewlaps, but I knew better; they were + poison sacs. + </p> + <p> + It was quite apparent that he abhorred the very idea of having to cross to + Europe on the same ocean with the rest of us, let alone on the same ship. + And for persons who were taking their first trip abroad his contempt was + absolutely unutterable; he choked at the bare mention of such a criminal's + name and offense. You would hear him communing with himself and a Scotch + and soda. + </p> + <p> + "Bah!" he would say bitterly, addressing the soda-bottle. "These idiots + who've never been anywhere talking about this being rough weather! Rough + weather, mind you! Bah! People shouldn't be allowed to go to sea until + they know something about it. Bah!" + </p> + <p> + By the fourth day out his gums were as blue as indigo, and he was so + swelled up with his own venom he looked dropsical. I judged his bite would + have caused death in from twelve to fourteen minutes, preceded by coma and + convulsive rigors. We called him old Colonel Gila Monster or Judge + Stinging Lizard, for short. + </p> + <p> + There was the spry and conversational gentleman who looked like an + Englishman, but was of the type commonly denominated in our own land as + breezy. So he could not have been an Englishman. Once in a while there + comes along an Englishman who is windy, and frequently you meet one who is + drafty; but there was never a breezy Englishman yet. + </p> + <p> + With that interest in other people's business which the close communion of + a ship so promptly breeds in most of us, we fell to wondering who and what + he might be; but the minute the suspect came into the salon for dinner the + first night out I read his secret at a glance. He belonged to a refined + song-and-dance team doing sketches in vaudeville. He could not have been + anything else—he had jet buttons on his evening clothes. + </p> + <p> + There was the young woman—she had elocutionary talents, it turned + out afterward, and had graduated with honors from a school of expression—who + assisted in getting up the ship's concert and then took part in it, both + of those acts being mistakes on her part, as it proved. + </p> + <p> + And there was the official he-beauty of the ship. He was without a wrinkle + in his clothes—or his mind either; and he managed to maneuver so + that when he sat in the smoking room he always faced a mirror. That was + company enough for him. He never grew lonely or bored then. Only one night + he discovered something wrong about one of his eyebrows. He gave a pained + start; and then, oblivious of those of us who hovered about enjoying the + spectacle, he spent a long time working with the blemish. The eyebrow was + stubborn, though, and he just couldn't make it behave; so he grew petulant + and fretful, and finally went away to bed in a huff. Had it not been for + fear of stopping his watch, I am sure he would have slapped himself on the + wrist. + </p> + <p> + This fair youth was one of the delights of the voyage. One felt that if he + had merely a pair of tweezers and a mustache comb and a hand glass he + would never, never be at a loss for a solution of the problem that worries + so many writers for the farm journals—a way to spend the long winter + evenings pleasantly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter II. My Bonny Lies over the Ocean—Lies and Lies and Lies + </h2> + <p> + Of course, we had a bridal couple and a troupe of professional deep-sea + fishermen aboard. We just naturally had to have them. Without them, I + doubt whether the ship could have sailed. The bridal couple were from + somewhere in the central part of Ohio and they were taking their honeymoon + tour; but, if I were a bridal couple from the central part of Ohio and had + never been to sea before, as was the case in this particular instance, I + should take my honeymoon ashore and keep it there. I most certainly + should! This couple of ours came aboard billing and cooing to beat the + lovebirds. They made it plain to all that they had just been married and + were proud of it. Their baggage was brand-new, and the groom's shoes were + shiny with that pristine shininess which, once destroyed, can never be + restored; and the bride wore her going-and-giving-away outfit. + </p> + <p> + Just prior to sailing and on the morning after they were all over the + ship. Everywhere you went you seemed to meet them and they were always + wrestling. You entered a quiet side passage—there they were, + exchanging a kiss—one of the long-drawn, deep-siphoned, sirupy kind. + You stepped into the writing room thinking to find it deserted, and at + sight of you they broke grips and sprang apart, eyeing you like a pair of + startled fawns surprised by the cruel huntsman in a forest glade. At all + other times, though, they had eyes but for each other. + </p> + <p> + A day came, however—and it was the second day out—when they + were among the missing. For two days and two nights, while the good ship + floundered on the tempestuous bosom of the overwrought ocean, they were + gone from human ken. On the afternoon of the third day, the sea being + calmer now, but still sufficiently rough to satisfy the most exacting, a + few hardy and convalescent souls sat in a shawl-wrapped row on the lee + side of the ship. + </p> + <p> + There came two stewards, bearing with them pillows and blankets and rugs. + These articles were disposed to advantage in two steamer chairs. Then the + stewards hurried away; but presently they reappeared, dragging the limp + and dangling forms of the bridal couple from the central part of Ohio. But + oh, my countrymen, what a spectacle! And what a change from what had been! + </p> + <p> + The going-away gown was wrinkled, as though worn for a period of time by + one suddenly and sorely stricken in the midst of health. The bride's once + well-coifed hair hung in lank disarray about a face that was the color of + prime old sage cheese—yellow, with a fleck of green here and there—and + in her wan and rolling eye was the hunted look of one who hears something + unpleasant stirring a long way off and fears it is coming this way. + </p> + <p> + Side by side the stewards stretched them prone on their chairs and tucked + them in. Her face was turned from him. For some time both of them lay + there without visible signs of life—just two muffled, + misery-stricken heaps. Then, slowly and languidly, the youth stretched + forth an arm from his wrappings and fingered the swaddling folds that + enveloped the form of his beloved. + </p> + <p> + It may have been he thought it was about time to begin picking the + coverlid, or it may have been the promptings of reawakened romance, once + more feebly astir within his bosom. At any rate, gently and softly, his + hand fell on the rug about where her shoulder ought to be. She still had + life enough left in her to shake it off—and she did. Hurt, he waited + a moment, then caressed her again. "Stop that!" she cried in a low but + venomous tone. "Don't you dare touch me!" + </p> + <p> + So he touched her no more, but only lay there mute and motionless; and + from his look one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and know how shocked + he was, and how grieved and heartstricken! Love's young dream was o'er! He + had thought she loved him, but now he knew better. Their marriage had been + a terrible mistake and he would give her back her freedom; he would give + it back to her as soon as he was able to sit up. Thus one interpreted his + expression. + </p> + <p> + On the day we landed, however, they were seen again. We were nosing + northward through a dimpled duckpond of a sea, with the Welsh coast on one + side and Ireland just over the way. People who had not been seen during + the voyage came up to breathe, wearing the air of persons who had just + returned from the valley of the shadow and were mighty glad to be back; + and with those others came our bridal couple. + </p> + <p> + I inadvertently stumbled on them in an obscure companionway. Their cheeks + again wore the bloom of youth and health, and they were in a tight clinch; + it was indeed a pretty sight. Love had returned on roseate pinions and the + honeymoon had been resumed at the point where postponed on account of bad + weather. + </p> + <p> + They had not been seasick, though. I heard them say so. They had been + indisposed, possibly from something they had eaten; but they had not been + seasick. Well, I had my own periods of indisposition going over; and if it + had been seasickness I should not hesitate a moment about coming right out + and saying so. In these matters I believe in being absolutely frank and + aboveboard. For the life of me I cannot understand why people will + dissemble and lie about this thing of being seasick. To me their attitude + is a source of constant wonderment. + </p> + <p> + On land the average person is reasonably proud of having been sick—after + he begins to get better. It gives him something to talk about. The pale + and interesting invalid invariably commands respect ashore. In my own list + of acquaintances I number several persons—mainly widowed ladies with + satisfactory incomes—who never feel well unless they are ill. In the + old days they would have had resort to patent medicines and the family lot + at Laurel Grove Cemetery; but now they go in for rest cures and sea + voyages, and the baths at Carlsbad and specialists, these same being main + contributing causes to the present high cost of living, and also helping + to explain what becomes of some of those large life-insurance policies you + read about. Possibly you know the type I am describing—the lady who, + when planning where she will spend the summer, sends for catalogues from + all the leading sanatoriums. We had one such person with us. + </p> + <p> + She had been surgically remodeled so many times that she dated everything + from her last operation. At least six times in her life she had been down + with something that was absolutely incurable, and she was now going to + Homburg to have one of the newest and most fatal German diseases in its + native haunts, where it would be at its best. She herself said that she + was but a mere shell; and for the first few meals she ate like one—like + a large, empty shell with plenty of curves inside it. + </p> + <p> + However, when, after a subsequent period of seclusion, she emerged from + her stateroom wearing the same disheveled look that Jonah must have worn + when he and the whale parted company, do you think she would confess she + had been seasick? Not by any means! She said she had had a raging + headache. But she could not fool me. She had the stateroom next to mine + and I had heard what I had heard. She was from near Boston and she had the + near-Boston accent; and she was the only person I ever met who was seasick + with the broad A. + </p> + <p> + Personally I abhor those evasions, which deceive no one. If I had been + seasick I should not deny it here or elsewhere. For a time I thought I was + seasick. I know now I was wrong—but I thought so. There was + something about the sardels served at lunch—their look or their + smell or something—which seemed to make them distasteful to me; and + I excused myself from the company at the table and went up and out into + the open air. But the deck was unpleasantly congested with great burly + brutes—beefy, carnivorous, overfed creatures, gorged with victuals + and smoking disgustingly strong black cigars, and grinning in an annoying + and meaning sort of way every time they passed a body who preferred to lie + quiet. + </p> + <p> + The rail was also moving up and down in a manner that was annoying and + wearisome for the eye to watch—first tipping up and up and up until + half the sky was hidden, then dipping down and down and down until the + gray and heaving sea seemed ready to leap over the side and engulf us. So + I decided to go below and jot down a few notes. On arriving at my quarters + I changed my mind again. I decided to let the notes wait a while and turn + in. + </p> + <p> + It is my usual custom when turning in to remove the left shoe as well as + the right one and to put on my pajamas; but the pajamas were hanging on a + hook away over on the opposite side of the stateroom, which had suddenly + grown large and wide and full of great distances; and besides, I thought + it was just as well to have the left shoe where I could put my hand on it + when I needed it again. So I retired practically just as I was and + endeavored, as per the admonitions of certain friends, to lie perfectly + flat. No doubt this thing of lying flat is all very well for some people—but + suppose a fellow has not that kind of a figure? + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, I tried. I lay as flat as I could, but the indisposition + persisted; in fact, it increased materially. The manner in which my + pajamas, limp and pendent from that hook, swayed and swung back and forth + became extremely distasteful to me; and if by mental treatment I could + have removed them from there I should assuredly have done so. But that was + impossible. + </p> + <p> + Along toward evening I began to think of food. I thought of it not from + its gastronomic aspect, but rather in the capacity of ballast. I did not + so much desire the taste of it as the feel of it. So I summoned Lubly—he, + at least, did not smile at me in that patronizing, significant way—and + ordered a dinner that included nearly everything on the dinner card except + Lubly's thumb. The dinner was brought to me in relays and I ate it—ate + it all! This step I know now was ill-advised. It is true that for a short + time I felt as I imagine a python in a zoo feels when he is full of + guinea-pigs—sort of gorged, you know, and sluggish, and only + tolerably uncomfortable. + </p> + <p> + Then ensued the frightful denouement. It ensued almost without warning. At + the time I felt absolutely positive that I was seasick. I would have sworn + to it. If somebody had put a Bible on my chest and held it there I would + cheerfully have laid my right hand on it and taken a solemn oath that I + was seasick. Indeed, I believed I was so seasick that I feared—hoped, + rather—I might never recover from it. All I desired at the moment + was to get it over with as quickly and as neatly as possible. + </p> + <p> + As in the case of drowning persons, there passed in review before my eyes + several of the more recent events of my past life—meals mostly. I + shall, however, pass hastily over these distressing details, merely + stating in parentheses, so to speak, that I did not remember those + string-beans at all. I was positive then, and am yet, that I had not eaten + string-beans for nearly a week. But enough of this! + </p> + <p> + I was sure I was seasick; and I am convinced any inexperienced bystander, + had there been one there, would have been misled by my demeanor into + regarding me as a seasick person—but it was a wrong diagnosis. The + steward told me so himself when he called the next morning. He came and + found me stretched prone on the bed of affliction; and he asked me how I + felt, to which I replied with a low and hollow groan—tolerably low + and exceedingly hollow. It could not have been any hollower if I had been + a megaphone. + </p> + <p> + So he looked me over and told me that I had climate fever. We were passing + through the Gulf Stream, where the water was warmer than elsewhere in the + Atlantic Ocean, and I had a touch of climate fever. It was a very common + complaint in that latitude; many persons suffered from it. The symptoms + were akin to seasickness, it was true; yet the two maladies were in no way + to be confused. As soon as we passed out of the Gulf Stream he felt sure I + would be perfectly well. Meantime he would recommend that I get Lubly to + take the rest of my things off and then remain perfectly quiet. He was + right about it too. + </p> + <p> + Regardless of what one may think oneself, one is bound to accept the + statement of an authority on this subject; and if a steward on a big + liner, who has traveled back and forth across the ocean for years, is not + an authority on climate fever, who is? I looked at it in that light. And + sure enough, when we had passed out of the Gulf Stream and the sea had + smoothed itself out, I made a speedy and satisfactory recovery; but if it + had been seasickness I should have confessed it in a minute. I have no + patience with those who quibble and equivocate in regard to their having + been seasick. + </p> + <p> + I had one relapse—a short one, but painful. In an incautious moment, + when I wist not wot I wotted, I accepted an invitation from the chief + engineer to go below. We went below—miles and miles, I think—to + where, standing on metal runways that were hot to the foot, overalled + Scots ministered to the heart and the lungs and the bowels of that ship. + Electricity spat cracklingly in our faces, and at our sides steel shafts + as big as the pillars of a temple spun in coatings of spumy grease; and + through the double skin of her we could hear, over our heads, a mighty + Niagaralike churning as the slew-footed screws kicked us forward + twenty-odd knots an hour. Someone raised the cover of a vat, and peering + down into the opening we saw a small, vicious engine hard at work, + entirely enveloped in twisty, coily, stewy depths of black oil, like a + devil-fish writhing in sea-ooze and cuttle-juice. + </p> + <p> + So then we descended another mile or two to an inferno, full of naked, + sooty devils forever feeding sulphurous pitfires in the nethermost parlors + of the damned; but they said this was the stokehole; and I was in no + condition to argue with them, for I had suddenly begun to realize that I + was far from being a well person. As one peering through a glass darkly, I + saw one of the attendant demons sluice his blistered bare breast with cold + water, so that the sweat and grime ran from him in streams like ink; and + peering in at a furnace door I saw a great angry sore of coals all scabbed + and crusted over. Then another demon, wielding a nine-foot bar daintily as + a surgeon wields a scalpel, reached in and stabbed it in the center, so + that the fire burst through and gushed up red and rich, like blood from a + wound newly lanced. + </p> + <p> + I had seen enough and to spare; but my guide brought me back by way of the + steerage, in order that I might know how the other half lives. There was + nothing here, either of smell or sight, to upset the human stomach—third + class is better fed and better quartered now on those big ships than first + class was in those good old early days—but I had held in as long as + I could and now I relapsed. I relapsed in a vigorous manner—a + whole-souled, boisterous manner. People halfway up the deck heard me + relapsing, and I will warrant some of them were fooled too—they + thought I was seasick. + </p> + <p> + It was due to my attack of climate fever that I missed the most exciting + thing which happened on the voyage. I refer to the incident of the + professional gamblers and the youth from Jersey City. From the very first + there was one passenger who had been picked out by all the knowing + passengers as a professional gambler; for he was the very spit-and-image + of a professional gambler as we have learned to know him in story books. + Did he not dress in plain black, without any jewelry? He certainly did. + Did he not have those long, slender, flexible fingers? Such was, indeed, + the correct description of those fingers. Was not his eye a keen + steely-blue eye that seemed to have the power of looking right through + you? Steely-blue was the right word, all right. Well, then, what more + could you ask? + </p> + <p> + Behind his back sinister yet fascinating rumors circulated. He was the + brilliant but unscrupulous scion of a haughty house in England. He had + taken a first degree at Oxford, over there, and the third one at police + headquarters, over here. Women simply could not resist him. Let him make + up his mind to win a woman and she was a gone gosling. His picture was to + be found in rogues' galleries and ladies' lockets. And sh-h-h! Listen! + Everybody knew he was the identical crook who, disguised in woman's + clothes, escaped in the last lifeboat that left the sinking Titanic. Who + said so? Why—er—everybody said so! + </p> + <p> + It came as a grievous disappointment to all when we found out the truth, + which was that he was the booking agent for a lyceum bureau, going abroad + to sign up some foreign talent for next season's Chautauquas; and the only + gambling he had ever done was on the chance of whether the Tyrolian + Yodelers would draw better than our esteemed secretary of state—or + vice versa. + </p> + <p> + Meantime the real professionals had established themselves cozily and + comfortably aboard, had rigged the trap and cheese-baited it, and were + waiting for the coming of one of the class that is born so numerously in + this country. If you should be traveling this year on one of the large + trans-Atlantic ships, and there should come aboard two young well-dressed + men and shortly afterward a middle-aged well-dressed man with a flat nose, + who was apparently a stranger to the first two; and if on the second night + out in the smoking room, while the pool on the next day's run was being + auctioned, one of the younger men, whom we will call Mr. Y, should appear + to be slightly under the influence of malt, vinous or spirituous liquors—or + all three of them at once—and should, without seeming provocation, + insist on picking a quarrel with the middle-aged stranger, whom we will + call Mr. Z; and if further along in the voyage Mr. Z should introduce + himself to you and suggest a little game of auction bridge for small + stakes in order to while away the tedium of travel; and if it should so + fall out that Mr. Y and his friend Mr. X chanced to be the only available + candidates for a foursome at this fascinating pursuit; and if Mr. Z, being + still hostile toward the sobered and repentant Mr. Y, should decline to + take on either Mr. Y or his friend X as a partner, but chose you instead; + and if on the second or third deal you picked up your cards and found you + had an apparently unbeatable hand and should bid accordingly; and Mr. X + should double you; and Mr. Z, sitting across from you should come + gallantly right back and redouble it; and Mr. Y, catching the spirit of + the moment, should double again—and so on and so forth until each + point, instead of being worth only a paltry cent or two, had accumulated a + value of a good many cents—if all these things or most of them + should befall in the order enumerated—why, then, if I were you, + gentle reader, I would have a care. And I should leave that game and go + somewhere else to have it too—lest a worse thing befall you as it + befell the guileless young Jerseyman on our ship. After he had paid out a + considerable sum on being beaten—by just one card—upon the + playing of his seemingly unbeatable hand and after the haunting and + elusive odor of eau de rodent had become plainly perceptible all over the + ship, he began, as the saying goes, to smell a rat himself, and + straightway declined to make good his remaining losses, amounting to quite + a tidy amount. Following this there were high words, meaning by that low + ones, and accusations and recriminations, and at eventide when the sunset + was a welter of purple and gold, there was a sudden smashing of glassware + in the smoking room and a flurry of arms and legs in a far corner, and a + couple of pained stewards scurrying about saying, "Ow, now, don't do that, + sir, if you please, sir, thank you, sir!" And one of the belligerents came + forth from the melee wearing a lavender eye with saffron trimmings, as + though to match the sunset, and the other with a set of skinned knuckles, + emblematic of the skinning operations previously undertaken. And through + all the ship ran the hissing tongues of scandal and gossip. + </p> + <p> + Out of wild rumor and cross-rumor, certain salient facts were eventually + precipitated like sediment from a clouded solution. It seemed that the + engaging Messrs. X, Y and Z had been induced, practically under false + pretenses to book passage, they having read in the public prints that the + prodigal and card-foolish son of a cheese-paring millionaire father meant + to take the ship too; but he had grievously disappointed them by not + coming aboard at all. Then, when in an effort to make their traveling + expenses back, they uncorked their newest trick and device for inspiring + confidence in gudgeons, the particular gudgeon of their choosing had + refused to pay up. Naturally they were fretful and peevish in the extreme. + It spoiled the whole trip for them. + </p> + <p> + Except for this one small affair it was, on the whole, a pleasant voyage. + We had only one storm and one ship's concert, and at the finish most of us + were strong enough to have stood another storm. And the trip had been + worth a lot to us—at least it had been worth a lot to me, for I had + crossed the ocean on one of the biggest hotels afloat. I had amassed quite + a lot of nautical terms that would come in very handy for stunning the + folks at home when I got back. I had had my first thrill at the sight of + foreign shores. And just by casual contact with members of the British + aristocracy, I had acquired such a heavy load of true British hauteur that + in parting on the landing dock I merely bowed distantly toward those of my + fellow Americans to whom I had not been introduced; and they, having + contracted the same disease, bowed back in the same haughty and distant + manner. + </p> + <p> + When some of us met again, however, in Vienna, the insulation had been + entirely rubbed off and we rushed madly into one another's arms and + exchanged names and addresses; and, babbling feverishly the while, we told + one another what our favorite flower was, and our birthstone and our + grandmother's maiden name, and what we thought of a race of people who + regarded a cup of ostensible coffee and a dab of honey as constituting a + man's-size breakfast. And, being pretty tolerably homesick by that time, + we leaned in toward a common center and gave three loud, vehement cheers + for the land of the country sausage and the home of the buckwheat cake—and, + as giants refreshed, went on our ways rejoicing. + </p> + <p> + That, though, was to come later. At present we are concerned with the trip + over and what we had severally learned from it. I personally had learned, + among other things, that the Atlantic Ocean, considered as such, is a + considerably overrated body. Having been across it, even on so big and + fine and well-ordered a ship as this ship was, the ocean, it seemed to me, + was not at all what it had been cracked up to be. + </p> + <p> + During the first day out it is a novelty and after that a monotony—except + when it is rough; and then it is a doggoned nuisance. Poets without end + have written of the sea, but I take it they stayed at home to do their + writing. They were not on the bounding billow when they praised it; if + they had been they might have decorated the billow, but they would never + have praised it. + </p> + <p> + As the old song so happily put it: My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean! And a lot + of others have lied over it too; but I will not—at least not just + yet. Perhaps later on I may feel moved to do so; but at this moment I am + but newly landed from it and my heart is full of rankling resentment + toward the ocean and all its works. + </p> + <p> + I speak but a sober conviction when I say that the chief advantage to be + derived from taking an ocean voyage is not that you took it, but that you + have it to talk about afterward. And, to my mind, the most inspiring sight + to be witnessed on a trip across the Atlantic is the Battery—viewed + from the ocean side, coming back. + </p> + <p> + Do I hear any seconds to that motion? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter III. Bathing Oneself on the Other Side + </h2> + <p> + My first experience with the bathing habits of the native Aryan stocks of + Europe came to pass on the morning after the night of our arrival in + London. + </p> + <p> + London disappointed me in one regard—when I opened my eyes that + morning there was no fog. There was not the slightest sign of a fog. I had + expected that my room would be full of fog of about the consistency of + Scotch stage dialect—soupy, you know, and thick and bewildering. I + had expected that servants with lighted tapers in their hands would be + groping their way through corridors like caves, and that from the street + without, would come the hoarse-voiced cries of cabmen lost in the + enshrouding gray. You remember Dickens always had them hoarse-voiced. + </p> + <p> + This was what I confidently expected. Such, however, was not to be. I woke + to a consciousness that the place was flooded with indubitable and + undoubted sunshine. To be sure, it was not the sharp, hard sunshine we + have in America, which scours and bleaches all it touches, until the whole + world has the look of having just been clear-starched and hot-ironed. It + was a softened, smoke-edged, pastel-shaded sunshine; nevertheless it was + plainly recognizable as the genuine article. + </p> + <p> + Nor was your London shadow the sharply outlined companion in black who + accompanies you when the weather is fine in America. Your shadow in London + was rather a dim and wavery gentleman who caught up with you as you turned + out of the shaded by-street; who went with you a distance and then shyly + vanished, but was good company while he stayed, being restful, as your + well-bred Englishman nearly always is, and not overly aggressive. + </p> + <p> + There was no fog that first morning, or the next morning, or any morning + of the twenty-odd we spent in England. Often the weather was cloudy, and + occasionally it was rainy; and then London would be drenched in that + wonderful gray color which makes it, scenically speaking, one of the most + fascinating spots on earth; but it was never downright foggy and never + downright cold. English friends used to speak to me about it. They + apologized for good weather at that season of the year, just as natives of + a Florida winter resort will apologize for bad. + </p> + <p> + "You know, old dear," they would say, "this is most unusual—most + stroidinary, in fact. It ought to be raw and nasty and foggy at this time + of the year, and here the cursed weather is perfectly fine—blast + it!" You could tell they were grieved about it, and disappointed too. + Anything that is not regular upsets Englishmen frightfully. Maybe that is + why they enforce their laws so rigidly and obey them so beautifully. + </p> + <p> + Anyway I woke to find the fog absent, and I rose and prepared to take my + customary cold bath. I am much given to taking a cold bath in the morning + and speaking of it afterward. People who take a cold bath every day always + like to brag about it, whether they take it or not. + </p> + <p> + The bathroom adjoined the bedroom, but did not directly connect with it, + being reached by means of a small semi-private hallway. It was a fine, + noble bathroom, white tiled and spotless; and one side of it was occupied + by the longest, narrowest bathtub I ever saw. Apparently English bathtubs + are constructed on the principle that every Englishman who bathes is nine + feet long and about eighteen inches wide, whereas the approximate contrary + is frequently the case. Draped over a chair was the biggest, widest, + softest bathtowel ever made. Shem, Ham and Japhet could have dried + themselves on that bathtowel, and there would still have been enough dry + territory left for some of the animals—not the large, woolly animals + like the Siberian yak, but the small, slick, porous animals such as the + armadillo and the Mexican hairless dog. + </p> + <p> + So I wedged myself into the tub and had a snug-fitting but most luxurious + bath; and when I got back to my room the maid had arrived with the shaving + water. There was a knock at the door, and when I opened it there stood a + maid with a lukewarm pint of water in a long-waisted, thin-lipped pewter + pitcher. There was plenty of hot water to be had in the bathroom, with + faucets and sinks all handy and convenient, and a person might shave + himself there in absolute comfort; but long before the days of pipes and + taps an Englishman got his shaving water in a pewter ewer, and he still + gets it so. It is one of the things guaranteed him under Magna Charta and + he demands it as a right; but I, being but a benighted foreigner, left + mine in the pitcher, and that evening the maid checked me up. + </p> + <p> + "You didn't use the shaving water I brought you to-day, sir!" she said. + "It was still in the jug when I came in to tidy up, sir." + </p> + <p> + Her tone was grieved; so, after that, to spare her feelings, I used to + pour it down the sink. But if I were doing the trip over again I would + drink it for breakfast instead of the coffee the waiter brought me—the + shaving water being warmish and containing, so far as I could tell, no + deleterious substances. And if the bathroom were occupied at the time I + would shave myself with the coffee. I judge it might work up into a thick + and durable lather. It is certainly not adapted for drinking purposes. + </p> + <p> + The English, as a race, excel at making tea and at drinking it after it is + made; but among them coffee is still a mysterious and murky compound full + of strange by-products. By first weakening it and wearing it down with + warm milk one may imbibe it; but it is not to be reckoned among the + pleasures of life. It is a solemn and a painful duty. + </p> + <p> + On the second morning I was splashing in my tub, gratifying that + amphibious instinct which has come down to us from the dim evolutionary + time when we were paleozoic polliwogs, when I made the discovery that + there were no towels in the bathroom. I glanced about keenly, seeking for + help and guidance in such an emergency. Set in the wall directly above the + rim of the tub was a brass plate containing two pushbuttons. One button, + the uppermost one, was labeled Waiter—the other was labeled Maid. + </p> + <p> + This was disconcerting. Even in so short a stay under the roof of an + English hotel I had learned that at this hour the waiter would be + hastening from room to room, ministering to Englishmen engaged in gumming + their vital organs into an impenetrable mass with the national dish of + marmalade; and that the maid would also be busy carrying shaving water to + people who did not need it. Besides, of all the classes I distinctly do + not require when I am bathing, one is waiters and the other is maids. For + some minutes I considered the situation, without making any headway toward + a suitable solution of it; meantime I was getting chilled. So I dried + myself—sketchily—with a toothbrush and the edge of the + window-shade; then I dressed, and in a still somewhat moist state I went + down to interview the management about it. I first visited the information + desk and told the youth in charge there I wished to converse with some one + in authority on the subject of towels. After gazing at me a spell in a + puzzled manner he directed me to go across the lobby to the cashier's + department. Here I found a gentleman of truly regal aspect. His tie was a + perfect dream of a tie, and he wore a frock coat so slim and long and + black it made him look as though he were climbing out of a smokestack. + Presenting the case as though it were a supposititious one purely, I said + to him: + </p> + <p> + "Presuming now that one of your guests is in a bathtub and finds he has + forgotten to lay in any towels beforehand—such a thing might + possibly occur, you know—how does he go about summoning the + man-servant or the valet with a view to getting some?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, sir," he replied, "that's very simple. You noticed two pushbuttons in + your bathroom, didn't you?" + </p> + <p> + "I did," I said, "and that's just the difficulty. One of them is for the + maid and the other is for the waiter." + </p> + <p> + "Quite so, sir," he said, "quite so. Very well, then, sir: You ring for + the waiter or the maid—or, if you should charnce to be in a hurry, + for both of them; because, you see, one of them might charnce to be en—" + </p> + <p> + "One moment," I said. "Let me make my position clear in this matter: This + Lady Susanna—I do not know her last name, but you will doubtless + recall the person I mean, because I saw several pictures of her yesterday + in your national art gallery—this Lady Susanna may have enjoyed + taking a bath with a lot of snoopy old elders lurking round in the + background; but I am not so constituted. I was raised differently from + that. With me, bathing has ever been a solitary pleasure. This may denote + selfishness on my part; but such is my nature and I cannot alter it. All + my folks feel about it as I do. We are a very peculiar family that way. + When bathing we do not invite an audience. Nor do I want one. A crowd + would only embarrass me. I merely desire a little privacy and, here and + there, a towel." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, yes! Quite so, sir," he said; "but you do not understand me. As I + said before, you ring for the waiter or the maid. When one of them comes + you tell them to send you the manservant on your floor; and when he comes + you tell him you require towels, and he goes to the linen cupboard and + gets them and fetches them to you, sir. It's very simple, sir." + </p> + <p> + "But why," I persisted, "why do this thing by a relay system? I don't want + any famishing gentleman in this place to go practically unmarmaladed at + breakfast because I am using the waiter to conduct preliminary + negotiations with a third party in regard to a bathtowel." + </p> + <p> + "But it is so very simple, sir," he repeated patiently. "You ring for the + waiter or the ma—" + </p> + <p> + I checked him with a gesture. I felt that I knew what he meant to say; I + also felt that if any word of mine might serve to put this establishment + on an easy-running basis they could have it and welcome. + </p> + <p> + "Listen!" I said. "You will kindly pardon the ignorance of a poor, red, + partly damp American who has shed his eagle feathers but still has his + native curiosity with him! Why not put a third button in that bathroom + labeled Manservant or Valet or Towel Boy, or something of that general + nature? And then when a sufferer wanted towels, and wanted 'em quick, he + could get them without blocking the wheels of progress and industry. We + may still be shooting Mohawk Indians and the American bison in the streets + of Buffalo, New York; and we may still be saying: 'By Geehosaphat, I swan + to calculate!—anyway, I note that we still say that in all your + leading comic papers; but when a man in my land goes a-toweling, he goes + a-toweling—and that is all there is to it, positively! In our secret + lodges it may happen that the worshipful master calls the august + swordbearer to him and bids him communicate with the grand outer guardian + and see whether the candidate is suitably attired for admission; but in + ordinary life we cut out the middleman wherever possible. Do you get my + drift?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, yes, sir," he said; "but I fear you do not understand me. As I told + you, it's very simple—so very simple, sir. We've never found it + necessary to make a change. You ring for the waiter or for the maid, and + you tell them to tell the manservant—" + </p> + <p> + "All right," I said, breaking in. I could see that his arguments were of + the circular variety that always came back to the starting point. "But, as + a favor to me, would you kindly ask the proprietor to request the head + cook to communicate with the carriage starter and have him inform the + waiter that when in future I ring the bathroom bell in a given manner—to + wit: one long, determined ring followed by three short, passionate rings—it + may be regarded as a signal for towels?" + </p> + <p> + So saying, I turned on my heel and went away, for I could tell he was + getting ready to begin all over again. Later on I found out for myself + that, in this particular hotel, when you ring for the waiter or the maid + the bell sounds in the service room, where those functionaries are + supposed to be stationed; but when you ring for the manservant a small + arm-shaped device like a semaphore drops down over your outer door. But + what has the manservant done that he should be thus discriminated against? + Why should he not have a bell of his own? So far as I might judge, the + poor fellow has few enough pleasures in life as it is. Why should he + battle with the intricacies of a block-signal system when everybody else + round the place has a separate bell? And why all this mystery and mummery + over so simple and elemental a thing as a towel? + </p> + <p> + To my mind, it merely helps to prove that among the English the art of + bathing is still in its infancy. The English claim to have discovered the + human bath and they resent mildly the assumption that any other nation + should become addicted to it; whereas I argue that the burden of the proof + shows we do more bathing to the square inch of surface than the English + ever did. At least, we have superior accommodations for it. + </p> + <p> + The day is gone in this country when Saturday night was the big night for + indoor aquatic sports and pastimes; and no gentleman as was a gentleman + would call on his ladylove and break up her plans for the great weekly + ceremony. There may have been a time in certain rural districts when the + bathing season for males practically ended on September fifteenth, owing + to the water in the horsepond becoming chilled; but that time has passed. + Along with every modern house that is built to-day, in country or town, we + expect bathrooms and plenty of them. With us the presence of a few + bathtubs more or less creates no great amount of excitement—nor does + the mere sight of open plumbing particularly stir our people; whereas in + England a hotelkeeper who has bathrooms on the premises advertises the + fact on his stationery. + </p> + <p> + If in addition to a few bathrooms a Continental hotelkeeper has a decrepit + elevator he makes more noise over it than we do over a Pompeian palmroom + or an Etruscan roofgarden; he hangs a sign above his front door testifying + to his magnificent enterprise in this regard. The Continental may be a + born hotelkeeper, as has been frequently claimed for him; but the trouble + is he usually has no hotel to keep. It is as though you set an interior + decorator to run a livery stable and expected him to make it attractive. + He may have the talents, but he is lacking in the raw material. + </p> + <p> + It was in a London apartment house, out Maida Vale way, that I first + beheld the official bathtub of an English family establishment. It was one + of those bathtubs that flourished in our own land at about the time of the + Green-back craze—a coffin-shaped, boxed-in affair lined with zinc; + and the zinc was suffering from tetter or other serious skin trouble and + was peeling badly. There was a current superstition about the place to the + effect that the bathroom and the water supply might on occasion be heated + with a device known in the vernacular as a geezer. + </p> + <p> + The geezer was a sheet-iron contraption in the shape of a pocket inkstand, + and it stood on a perch in the corner, like a Russian icon, with a small + blue flame flickering beneath it. It looked as though its sire might have + been a snare-drum and its dam a dark lantern, and that it got its looks + from its father and its heating powers from the mother's side of the + family. And the plumbing fixtures were of the type that passed out of + general use on the American side of the water with the Rutherford B. Hayes + administration. I was given to understand that this was a fair sample of + the average residential London bathroom—though the newer apartment + houses that are going up have better ones, they told me. + </p> + <p> + In English country houses the dearth of bathing appliances must be even + more dearthful. I ran through the columns of the leading English fashion + journal and read the descriptions of the large country places that were + there offered for sale or lease. In many instances the advertisements were + accompanied by photographic reproductions in half tone showing magnificent + old places, with Queen Anne fronts and Tudor towers and Elizabethan + entails and Georgian mortgages, and what not. + </p> + <p> + Seeing these views I could conjure up visions of rooks cawing in the elms; + of young curates in flat hats imbibing tea on green lawns; of housekeepers + named Meadows or Fleming, in rustling black silk; of old Giles—fifty + years, man and boy, on the place—wearing a smock frock and leaning + on a pitchfork, with a wisp of hay caught in the tines, lamenting that the + 'All 'asn't been the same, zur, since the young marster was killed ridin' + to 'ounds; and then pensively wiping his eyes on a stray strand of the + hay. + </p> + <p> + With no great stretch of the imagination I could picture a gouty, morose + old lord with a secret sorrow and a brandy breath; I could picture a + profligate heir going deeper and deeper in debt, but refusing to the + bitter end to put the ax to the roots of the ancestral oaks. I could + imagine these parties readily, because I had frequently read about both of + them in the standard English novels; and I had seen them depicted in all + the orthodox English dramas I ever patronized. But I did not notice in the + appended descriptions any extended notice of heating arrangements; most of + the advertisements seemed to slur over that point altogether. + </p> + <p> + And, as regards bathing facilities in their relation to the capacities of + these country places, I quote at random from the figures given: Eighteen + rooms and one bath; sixteen rooms and two baths; fourteen rooms and one + bath; twenty-one rooms and two baths; eleven rooms and one bath; + thirty-four rooms and two baths. Remember that by rooms bedrooms were + meant; the reception rooms and parlors and dining halls and offices, and + the like, were listed separately. + </p> + <p> + I asked a well-informed Englishman how he could reconcile this discrepancy + between bedrooms and bathrooms with the current belief that the English + had a practical monopoly of the habit of bathing. After considering the + proposition at some length he said I should understand there was a + difference in England between taking a bath and taking a tub—that, + though an Englishman might not be particularly addicted to a bath, he must + have his tub every morning. But I submit that the facts prove this + explanation to have been but a feeble subterfuge. + </p> + <p> + Let us, for an especially conspicuous example, take the house that has + thirty-four sleeping chambers and only two baths. Let us imagine the house + to be full of guests, with every bedroom occupied; and, if it is possible + to do so without blushing, let us further imagine a couple of + pink-and-white English gentlemen in the two baths. If preferable, members + of the opposite sex may imagine two ladies. Very well, then; this leaves + the occupants of thirty-two bedrooms all to be provided with large tin + tubs at approximately the same hour of the morning. Where would any + household muster the crews to man all those portable tin tubs? And where + would the proprietor keep his battery of thirty-two tubs when they were + not in use? Not in the family picture gallery, surely! + </p> + <p> + From my readings of works of fiction describing the daily life of the + English upper classes I know full well that the picture gallery is lined + with family portraits; that each canvased countenance there shows the + haughtily aquiline but slightly catarrhal nose, which is a heritage of + this house; that each pair of dark and brooding eyes hide in their depths + the shadow of that dread Nemesis which, through all the fateful centuries, + has dogged this brave but ill-starred race until now, alas! the place must + be let, furnished, to some beastly creature in trade, such as an American + millionaire. + </p> + <p> + Here at this end we have the founder of the line, dubbed a knight on the + gory field of Hastings; and there at that end we have the present heir, a + knighted dub. We know they cannot put the tubs in the family picture + gallery; there is no room. They need an armory for that outfit, and no + armory is specified in the advertisement. + </p> + <p> + So I, for one, must decline to be misled or deceived by specious + generalities. If you are asking me my opinion I shall simply say that the + bathing habit of Merrie England is a venerable myth, and likewise so is + the fresh-air fetish. The error an Englishman makes is that he mistakes + cold air for fresh air. + </p> + <p> + In cold weather an Englishman arranges a few splintered jackstraws, + kindling fashion, in an open grate somewhat resembling in size and shape a + wallpocket for bedroom slippers. On this substructure he gently deposits + one or more carboniferous nodules the size of a pigeon egg, and touches a + match to the whole. In the more fortunate instances the result is a small, + reddish ember smoking intermittently. He stands by and feeds the glow with + a dessert-spoonful of fuel administered at half-hour intervals, and + imagines he really has a fire and that he is really being warmed. + </p> + <p> + Why the English insist on speaking of coal in the plural when they use it + only in the singular is more than I can understand. Conceded that we + overheat our houses and our railroad trains and our hotel lobbies in + America, nevertheless we do heat them. In winter their interiors are + warmer and less damp than the outer air—which is more than can be + said for the lands across the sea, where you have to go outdoors to thaw. + </p> + <p> + If there are any outdoor sleeping porches in England I missed them when I + was there; but as regards the ventilation of an English hotel I may speak + with authority, having patronized one. To begin with, the windows have + heavy shades. Back of these in turn are folding blinds; then long, close + curtains of muslin; then, finally, thick, manifolding, shrouding draperies + of some airproof woolen stuff. At nighttime the maid enters your room, + seals the windows, pulls down the shades, locks the shutters, closes the + curtains, draws the draperies—and then, I think, calks all the + cracks with oakum. When the occupant of that chamber retires to rest he is + as hermetic as old Rameses the First, safe in his tomb, ever dared to hope + to be. That reddish aspect of the face noted in connection with the + average Englishman is not due to fresh air, as has been popularly + supposed; it is due to the lack of it. It is caused by congestion. For + years he has been going along, trying to breathe without having the + necessary ingredients at hand. + </p> + <p> + At that, England excels the rest of Europe in fresh air, just as it excels + it in the matter of bathing facilities. There is some fresh air left in + England—an abundant supply in warm weather, and a stray bit here and + there in cold. On the Continent there is none to speak of. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter IV. Jacques, the Forsaken + </h2> + <p> + In Germany the last fresh air was used during the Thirty Years' War, and + there has since been no demand for any. Austria has no fresh air at all—never + did have any, and therefore has never felt the need of having any. Italy—the + northern part of it anyhow—is also reasonably shy of this commodity. + </p> + <p> + In the German-speaking countries all street cars and all railway trains + sail with battened hatches. In their palmiest days the Jimmy Hope gang + could not have opened a window in a German sleeping car—not without + blasting; and trying to open a window in the ordinary first or second + class carriage provides healthful exercise for an American tourist, while + affording a cheap and simple form of amusement for his fellow passengers. + If, by superhuman efforts and at the cost of a fingernail or two, he + should get one open, somebody else in the compartment as a matter of + principle, immediately objects; and the retired brigadier-general, who is + always in charge of a German train, comes and seals it up again, for that + is the rule and the law; and then the natives are satisfied and sit in + sweet content together, breathing a line of second-handed air that would + choke a salamander. + </p> + <p> + Once, a good many years ago—in the century before the last I think + it was—a member of the Teutonic racial stock was accidentally caught + out in the fresh air and some of it got into his lungs. And, being a + strange and a foreign influence to which the lungs were unused, it + sickened him; in fact I am not sure but that it killed him on the spot. So + the emperors of Germany and Austria got together and issued a joint ukase + on the subject and, so far as the traveling public was concerned, forever + abolished those dangerous experiments. Over there they think a draft is + deadly, and I presume it is if you have never tampered with one. They have + a saying: A little window is a dangerous thing. + </p> + <p> + As with fresh air on the Continent, so also with baths—except + perhaps more so. In deference to the strange and unaccountable desires of + their English-speaking guests the larger hotels in Paris are abundantly + equipped with bathrooms now, but the Parisian boulevardiers continue to + look with darkling suspicion on a party who will deliberately immerse his + person in cold water; their beings seem to recoil in horror from the bare + prospect of such a thing. It is plainly to be seen they think his + intelligence has been attainted by cold water externally applied; they + fear that through a complete undermining of his reason he may next be + committing these acts of violence on innocent bystanders rather than on + himself, as in the present distressing stages of his mania. Especially, I + would say, is this the attitude of the habitue of Montmartre. + </p> + <p> + I can offer no visual proof to back my word; but by other testimony I + venture the assertion that when a boulevardier feels the need of a bath he + hangs a musk bag round his neck—and then, as the saying is, the + warmer the sweeter. His companion of the gentler sex apparently has the + same idea of performing daily ablutions that a tabby cat has. You recall + the tabby-cat system, do you not?—two swipes over the brow with the + moistened paw, one forward swipe over each ear, a kind of circular rubbing + effect across the face—and call it a day! Drowning must be the most + frightful death that a Parisian sidewalk favorite can die. It is not so + much the death itself—it is the attendant circumstances. + </p> + <p> + Across the river, in the older quarters of Paris, there is excitement when + anybody on the block takes a bath—not so much excitement as for a + fire, perhaps, but more than for a funeral. On the eve of the fatal day + the news spreads through the district that to-morrow poor Jacques is going + to take a bath! A further reprieve has been denied him. He cannot put it + off for another month, or even for another two weeks. His doom is nigh at + hand; there is no hope—none! + </p> + <p> + Kindly old Angeline, the midwife, shakes her head sadly as she goes about + her simple duties. + </p> + <p> + On the morrow the condemned man rises early and sees his spiritual + adviser. He eats a hearty breakfast, takes an affectionate leave of his + family and says he is prepared for the worst. At the appointed hour the + tumbrel enters the street, driven by the paid executioner—a + descendant of the original Sanson—and bearing the dread instrument + of punishment, a large oblong tin tub. + </p> + <p> + The rumble of the heavy wheels over the cobbles seems to wake an agonized + chord in every bosom. To-day this dread visitation descends on Jacques; + but who can tell—so the neighbors say to themselves—when the + same fate may strike some other household now happily unconscious! All + along the narrow way sorrow-drooped heads protrude in rows; from every + casement dangle whiskers, lank and stringy with sympathy—for in this + section every true Frenchman has whiskers, and if by chance he has not his + wife has; so that there are whiskers for all. + </p> + <p> + From the window of the doomed wretch's apartments a derrick protrudes—a + crossarm with a pulley and a rope attached. It bears a grimly significant + resemblance to a gallows tree. Under the direction of the presiding + functionary the tub is made fast to the tackle and hoisted upward as + pianos and safes are hoisted in American cities. It halts at the open + casement. It vanishes within. The whole place resounds with low murmurs of + horror and commiseration. + </p> + <p> + Ah, the poor Jacques—how he must suffer! Hark to that low, sickening + thud! 'Tis the accursed soap dropping from his nerveless grasp. Hist to + that sound—like unto a death rattle! It is the water gurgling in the + tub. And what means that low, poignant, smothered gasp? It is the last + convulsive cry of Jacques descending into the depths. All is over! Let us + pray! + </p> + <p> + The tub, emptied but stained, is lowered to the waiting cart. The + executioner kisses the citizen who has held his horse for him during his + absence and departs; the whole district still hums with ill-suppressed + excitement. Questions fly from tongue to tongue. Was the victim brave at + the last? Was he resigned when the dread moment came? And how is the + family bearing up? It is hours before the place settles down again to that + calm which will endure for another month, until somebody else takes a bath + on a physician's prescription. + </p> + <p> + Even in the sanctity of a Paris hotel a bath is more or less a public + function unless you lock your door. All sorts of domestic servitors drift + in, filled with a morbid curiosity to see how a foreigner deports himself + when engaged in this strange, barbaric rite. On the occasion of my first + bath on French soil, after several of the hired help had thus called on me + informally, causing me to cower low in my porcelain retreat, I took + advantage of a moment of comparative quiet to rise drippingly and draw the + latch. I judged the proprietor would be along next, and I was not dressed + for him. The Lady Susanna of whom mention has previously been made must + have stopped at a French hotel at some time of her life. This helps us to + understand why she remained so calm when the elders happened in. + </p> + <p> + Even as now practiced, bathing still remains a comparative novelty in the + best French circles, I imagine. I base this presumption on observations + made during a visit to Versailles. I went to Versailles; I trod with + reverent step those historic precincts adorned with art treasures + uncountable, with curios magnificent, with relics invaluable. I visited + the little palace and the big; I ventured deep into that splendid forest + where, in the company of ladies regarding whom there has been a good deal + of talk subsequently, France's Grandest and Merriest Monarch disported + himself. And I found out what made the Merriest Monarch merry—so far + as I could see, there was not a bathroom on the place. He was a true + Frenchman—was Louis the Fourteenth. + </p> + <p> + In Berlin, at the Imperial Palace, our experience was somewhat similar. + Led by a guide we walked through acres of state drawing rooms and state + dining rooms and state reception rooms and state picture rooms; and we + were told that most of them—or, at least, many of them—were + the handiwork of the late Andreas Schluter. The deceased Schluter was an + architect, a painter, a sculptor, a woodcarver, a decorator, all rolled + into one. He was the George M. Cohan of his time; and I think he also + played the clarinet, being a German. + </p> + <p> + We traversed miles of these Schluter masterpieces. Eventually we heard + sounds of martial music without, and we went to a window overlooking a + paved courtyard; and from that point we presently beheld a fine sight. For + the moment the courtyard was empty, except that in the center stood a + great mass of bronze—by Schluter, I think—a heroic equestrian + statue of Saint George in the act of destroying the first adulterated + German sausage. But in a minute the garrison turned out; and then in + through an arched gateway filed the relief guard headed by a splendid + band, with bell-hung standards jingling at the head of the column and + young officers stalking along as stiff as ramrods, and soldiers marching + with the goosestep. + </p> + <p> + In the German army the private who raises his knee the highest and sticks + his shank out ahead of him the straightest, and slams his foot down the + hardest and jars his brain the painfulest, is promoted to be a corporal + and given a much heavier pair of shoes, so that he may make more noise and + in time utterly destroy his reason. The goosestep would be a great thing + for destroying grasshoppers or cutworms in a plague year in a Kansas + wheatfield. + </p> + <p> + At the Kaiser's palace we witnessed all these sights, but we did not run + across any bathrooms or any bathtubs. However, we were in the public end + of the establishment and I regard it as probable that in the other wing, + where the Kaiser lives when at home, there are plenty of bathrooms. I did + not investigate personally. The Kaiser was out at Potsdam and I did not + care to call in his absence. + </p> + <p> + Bathrooms are plentiful at the hotel where we stopped at Berlin. I had + rather hoped to find the bedroom equipped with an old-fashioned German + feather bed. I had heard that one scaled the side of a German bed on a + stepladder and then fell headlong into its smothering folds like a gallant + fireman invading a burning rag warehouse; but this hotel happened to be + the best hotel that I ever saw outside the United States. It had been + built and it was managed on American lines, plus German domestic service—which + made an incomparable combination—and it was furnished with modern + beds and provided with modern bathrooms. + </p> + <p> + Probably as a delicate compliment to the Kaiser, the bathtowels were + starched until the fringes at the ends bristled up stiffly a-curl, like + the ends of His Imperial Majesty's equally imperial mustache. Just once—and + once only—I made the mistake of rubbing myself with one of those + towels just as it was. I should have softened it first by a hackling + process, as we used to hackle the hemp in Kentucky; but I did not. For two + days I felt like an etching. I looked something like one too. + </p> + <p> + In Vienna we could not get a bedroom with a bathroom attached—they + did not seem to have any—but we were told there was a bathroom just + across the hall which we might use with the utmost freedom. This bathroom + was a large, long, loftly, marble-walled vault. It was as cold as a tomb + and as gloomy as one, and very smelly. Indeed it greatly resembled the + pictures I have seen of the sepulcher of an Egyptian king—only I + would have said that this particular king had been skimpily embalmed by + the royal undertakers in the first place, and then imperfectly packed. The + bathtub was long and marked with scars, and it looked exactly like a + rifled mummy case with the lid missing, which added greatly to the + prevalent illusion. + </p> + <p> + We used this bathroom ad lib.: but when I went to pay the bill I found an + official had been keeping tabs on us, and that all baths taken had been + charged up at the rate of sixty cents apiece. I had provided my own soap + too! For that matter the traveler provides his own soap everywhere in + Europe, outside of England. In some parts soap is regarded as an edible + and in some as a vice common to foreigners; but everywhere except in the + northern countries it is a curio. + </p> + <p> + So in Vienna they made us furnish our own soap and then charged us more + for a bath than they did for a meal. Still, by their standards, I dare say + they were right. A meal is a necessity, but a bath is an exotic luxury; + and, since they have no extensive tariff laws in Austria, it is but fair + that the foreigner should pay the tax. I know I paid mine, one way or + another. + </p> + <p> + Speaking of bathing reminds me of washing; and speaking of washing reminds + me of an adventure I had in Vienna in connection with a white waistcoat—or, + as we would call it down where I was raised, a dress vest. This vest had + become soiled through travel and wear across Europe. At Vienna I intrusted + it to the laundry along with certain other garments. When the bundle came + back my vest was among the missing. + </p> + <p> + The maid did not seem to be able to comprehend the brand of German I use + in casual conversation; so, through an interpreter, I explained to her + that I was shy one white vest. For two days she brought all sorts of vests + and submitted them to me on approval—thin ones and thick ones; old + ones and new ones; slick ones and woolly ones; fringed ones and frayed + ones. I think the woman had a private vest mine somewhere, and went and + tapped a fresh vein on my account every few minutes; but it never was the + right vest she brought me. + </p> + <p> + Finally I told her in my best German, meantime accompanying myself with + appropriate yet graceful gestures, that she need not concern herself + further with the affair; she could just let the matter drop and I would + interview the manager and put in a claim for the value of the lost + garment. She looked at me dazedly a moment while I repeated the injunction + more painstakingly than before; and, at that, understanding seemed to + break down the barriers of her reason and she said, "Ja! Ja!" Then she + nodded emphatically several times, smiled and hurried away and in twenty + minutes was back, bringing with her a begging friar of some monastic order + or other. + </p> + <p> + I would take it as a personal favor if some student of the various + Teutonic tongues and jargons would inform me whether there is any word in + Viennese for white vest that sounds like Catholic priest! However, we + prayed together—that brown brother and I. I do not know what he + prayed for, but I prayed for my vest. + </p> + <p> + I never got it though. I doubt whether my prayer ever reached heaven—it + had such a long way to go. It is farther from Vienna to heaven than from + any other place in the world, I guess—unless it is Paris. That vest + is still wandering about the damp-filled corridors of that hotel, mooing + in a plaintive manner for its mate—which is myself. It will never + find a suitable adopted parent. It was especially coopered to my form by + an expert clothing contractor, and it will not fit anyone else. No; it + will wander on and on, the starchy bulge of its bosom dimly phosphorescent + in the gloaming, its white pearl buttons glimmering spectrally; and after + a while the hotel will get the reputation of being haunted by the ghost of + a flour barrel, and will have a bad name and lose custom. I hope so + anyway. It looks to be my one chance of getting even with the owner for + penalizing me in the matter of baths. + </p> + <p> + From Vienna we went southward into the Tyrolese Alps. It was a wonderful + ride—that ride through the Semmering and on down to Northern Italy. + Our absurdly short little locomotive, drawing our absurdly long train, + went boring in and out of a wrinkly shoulder-seam of the Tyrols like a + stubby needle going through a tuck. I think in thirty miles we threaded + thirty tunnels; after that I was practically asphyxiated and lost count. + </p> + <p> + If I ever take that journey again I shall wear a smoke helmet and be + comfortable. But always between tunnels there were views to be seen that + would have revived one of the Seven Sleepers. Now, on the + great-granddaddy-longlegs of all the spidery trestles that ever were + built, we would go roaring across a mighty gorge, its sides clothed with + perpendicular gardens and vineyards, and with little gray towns clustering + under the ledges on its sheer walls like mud-daubers' nests beneath an + eave. Now, perched on a ridgy outcrop of rock like a single tooth in a + snaggled reptilian jaw, would be a deserted tower, making a fellow think + of the good old feudal days when the robber barons robbed the traveler + instead of as at present, when the job is so completely attended to by the + pirates who weigh and register baggage in these parts. + </p> + <p> + Then—whish, roar, eclipse, darkness and sulphureted hydrogen!—we + would dive into another tunnel and out again—gasping—on a + breathtaking panorama of mountains. Some of them would be standing up + against the sky like the jagged top of a half-finished cutout puzzle, and + some would be buried so deeply in clouds that only their peaked blue noses + showed sharp above the featherbed mattresses of mist in which they were + snuggled, as befitted mountains of Teutonic extraction. And nearly every + eminence was crowned with a ruined castle or a hotel. It was easy to tell + a hotel from a ruin—it had a sign over the door. + </p> + <p> + At one of those hotels I met up with a homesick American. He was marooned + there in the rain, waiting for the skies to clear, so he could do some + mountain climbing; and he was beginning to get moldy from the prevalent + damp. By now the study of bathing habits had become an obsession with me; + I asked him whether he had encountered any bathtubs about the place. He + said a bathtub in those altitudes was as rare as a chamois, and the + chamois was entirely extinct; so I might make my own calculations. But he + said he could show me something that was even a greater curiosity than a + bathtub, and he led me to where a moonfaced barometer hung alongside the + front entrance of the hotel. + </p> + <p> + He said he had been there a week now and had about lost hope; but every + time he threatened to move on, the proprietor would take him out there and + prove that they were bound to have clearing weather within a few hours, + because the barometer registered fair. At that moment streams of chilly + rain-water were coursing down across the dial of the barometer, but it + registered fair even then. He said—the American did—that it + was the most stationary barometer he had ever seen, and the most reliable—not + vacillating and given to moods, like most barometers, but fixed and + unchangeable in its habits. + </p> + <p> + I matched it, though, with a thermometer I saw in the early spring of 1913 + at a coast resort in southern California. An Eastern tourist would venture + out on the windswept and drippy veranda, of a morning after breakfast. He + would think he was cold. He would have many of the outward indications of + being cold. His teeth would be chattering like a Morse sounder, and inside + his white-duck pants his knees would be knocking together with a low, + muffled sound. He would be so prickled with gooseflesh that he felt like + Saint Sebastian; but he would take a look at the thermometer—sixty-one + in the shade! And such was the power of mercury and mind combined over + matter that he would immediately chirk up and feel warm. + </p> + <p> + Not a hundred yards away, at a drug store, was one of those fickle-minded, + variable thermometers, showing a temperature that ranged from fifty-five + on downward to forty; but the hotel thermometer stood firm at sixty-one, + no matter what happened. In a season of trying climatic conditions it was + a great comfort—a boon really—not only to its owner but to his + guests. Speaking personally, however, I have no need to consult the + barometer's face to see what the weather is going to do, or the + thermometer's tube to see what it has done. No person needs to do so who + is favored naturally as I am. I have one of the most dependable soft corns + in the business. + </p> + <p> + Rome is full of baths—vast ruined ones erected by various emperors + and still bearing their names—such as Caracalla's Baths and Titus' + Baths, and so on. Evidently the ancient Romans were very fond of taking + baths. + </p> + <p> + Other striking dissimilarities between the ancient Romans and the modern + Romans are perceptible at a glance. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter V. When the Seven A.M. Tut-tut leaves for Anywhere + </h2> + <p> + Being desirous of tendering sundry hints and observations to such of my + fellow countrymen as may contemplate trips abroad I shall, with their + kindly permission, devote this chapter to setting forth briefly the + following principles, which apply generally to railroad travel in the Old + World. + </p> + <p> + First—On the Continent all trains leave at or about seven A.M. and + reach their destination at or about eleven P.M. You may be going a long + distance or a short one—it makes no difference; you leave at seven + and you arrive at eleven. The few exceptions to this rule are of no + consequence and do not count. + </p> + <p> + Second—A trunk is the most costly luxury known to European travel. + If I could sell my small, shrinking and flat-chested steamer trunk—original + value in New York eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents—for what + it cost me over on the other side in registration fees, excess charges, + mental wear and tear, freightage, forwarding and warehousing bills, tips, + bribes, indulgences, and acts of barratry and piracy, I should be able to + laugh in the income tax's face. In this connection I would suggest to the + tourist who is traveling with a trunk that he begin his land itinerary in + Southern Italy and work northward; thereby, through the gradual shrinkage + in weight, he will save much money on his trunk, owing to the pleasing + custom among the Italian trainhands of prying it open and making a + judicious selection from its contents for personal use and for gifts to + friends and relatives. + </p> + <p> + Third—For the sake of the experience, travel second class once; + after that travel first class—and try to forget the experience. With + the exception of two or three special-fare, so-called de-luxe trains, + first class over there is about what the service was on an accommodation, + mixed-freight-and-passenger train in Arkansas immediately following the + close of the Civil War. + </p> + <p> + Fourth—When buying a ticket for anywhere you will receive a cunning + little booklet full of detachable leaves, the whole constituting a volume + about the size and thickness of one of those portfolios of views that came + into popularity with us at the time of the Philadelphia Centennial. + Surrender a sheet out of your book on demand of the uniformed official who + will come through the train at from five to seven minute intervals. + However, he will collect only a sheet every other trip; on the alternate + trips he will merely examine your ticket with the air of never having seen + it before, and will fold it over, and perforate it with his punching + machine and return it to you. By the time you reach your destination + nothing will be left but the cover; but do not cast this carelessly aside; + retain it until you are filing out of the terminal, when it will be taken + up by a haughty voluptuary with whiskers. If you have not got it you + cannot escape. You will have to go back and live on the train, which is, + indeed, a frightful fate to contemplate. + </p> + <p> + Fifth—Reach the station half an hour before the train starts and + claim your seat; then tip the guard liberally to keep other passengers out + of your compartment. He has no intention of doing so, but it is customary + for Americans to go through this pleasing formality—and it is + expected of them. + </p> + <p> + Sixth—Tip everybody on the train who wears a uniform. Be not afraid + of hurting some one's feelings by offering a tip to the wrong person. + There will not be any wrong person. A tip is the one form of insult that + anybody in Europe will take. + </p> + <p> + Seventh—Before entering the train inhale deeply several times. This + will be your last chance of getting any fresh air until you reach your + destination. For self-defense against the germ life prevailing in the + atmosphere of the unventilated compartments, smoke a German cigar. A + German cigar keeps off any disease except the cholera; it gives you the + cholera. + </p> + <p> + Eighth—Do not linger on the platform, waiting for the locomotive + whistle to blow, or the bell to ring, or somebody to yell "All aboard!" If + you do this you will probably keep on lingering until the following + morning at seven. As a starting signal the presiding functionary renders a + brief solo on a tiny tin trumpet. One puny warning blast from this + instrument sets the whole train in motion. It makes you think of Gabriel + bringing on the Day of Judgment by tootling on a penny whistle. Another + interesting point: The engine does not say Choo-choo as in our country—it + says Tut-tut. + </p> + <p> + Ninth—In England, for convenience in claiming your baggage, change + your name to Xenophon or Zymology—there are always about the baggage + such crowds of persons who have the commoner initials, such as T for + Thompson, J for Jones, and S for Smith. When next I go to England my name + will be Zoroaster—Quintus P. Zoroaster. + </p> + <p> + Tenth—If possible avoid patronizing the so-called refreshment wagons + or dining cars, which are expensive and uniformly bad. Live off the + country. Remember, the country is living off you. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter VI. La Belle France Being the First Stop + </h2> + <p> + Except eighty or ninety other things the British Channel was the most + disappointing thing we encountered in our travels. All my reading on this + subject had led me to expect that the Channel would be very choppy and + that we should all be very seasick. Nothing of the sort befell. The + channel may have been suetty but it was not choppy. The steamer that + ferried us over ran as steadily as a clock and everybody felt as fine as a + fiddle. + </p> + <p> + A friend of mine whom I met six weeks later in Florence had better luck. + He crossed on an occasion when a test was being made of a device for + preventing seasickness. A Frenchman was the inventor and also the + experimenter. This Frenchman had spent valuable years of his life + perfecting his invention. It resembled a hammock swung between uprights. + The supports were to be bolted to the deck of the ship, and when the + Channel began to misbehave the squeamish passenger would climb into the + hammock and fasten himself in; and then, by a system of reciprocating + oscillations, the hammock would counteract the motion of the ship and the + occupant would rest in perfect comfort no matter how high she pitched or + how deep she rolled. At least such was the theory of the inventor; and to + prove it he offered himself as the subject for the first actual + demonstration. + </p> + <p> + The result was unexpected. The sea was only moderately rough; but that + patent hammock bucked like a kicking bronco. The poor Frenchman was the + only seasick person aboard—but he was sick enough for the whole + crowd. He was seasick with a Gallic abandon; he was seasick both ways from + the jack, and other ways too. He was strapped down so he could not get + out, which added no little to the pleasure of the occasion for everybody + except himself. When the steamer landed the captain of the boat told the + distressed owner that, in his opinion, the device was not suited for + steamer use. He advised him to rent it to a riding academy. + </p> + <p> + In crossing from Dover to Calais we had thought we should be going merely + from one country to another; we found we had gone from one world to + another. That narrow strip of uneasy water does not separate two countries—it + separates two planets. + </p> + <p> + Gone were the incredible stiffness and the incurable honesty of the race + that belonged over yonder on those white chalk cliffs dimly visible along + the horizon. Gone were the phlegm and stolidity of those people who + manifest emotion only on the occasions when they stand up to sing their + national anthem: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + God save the King! + The Queen is doing well! +</pre> + <p> + Gone were the green fields of Sussex, which looked as though they had been + taken in every night and brushed and dry-cleaned and then put down again + in the morning. Gone were the trees that Maxfield Parrish might have + painted, so vivid were they in their burnished green-and-yellow coloring, + so spectacular in their grouping. Gone was the five-franc note which I had + intrusted to a sandwich vender on the railroad platform in the vain hope + that he would come back with the change. After that clincher there was no + doubt about it—we were in La Belle France all right, all right! + </p> + <p> + Everything testified to the change. From the pier where we landed, a small + boy, in a long black tunic belted in at his waist, was fishing; he hooked + a little fingerling. At the first tentative tug on his line he set up a + shrill clamor. At that there came running a fat, kindly looking old priest + in a long gown and a shovel hat; and a market woman came, who had arms + like a wrestler and skirts that stuck out like a ballet dancer's; and a + soldier in baggy red pants came; and thirty or forty others of all ages + and sizes came—and they gathered about that small boy and gave him + advice at the top of their voices. And when he yanked out the shining + little silver fish there could not have been more animation and enthusiasm + and excitement if he had landed a full-grown Presbyterian. + </p> + <p> + They were still congratulating him when we pulled out and went tearing + along on our way to Paris, scooting through quaint, stone-walled cities, + each one dominated by its crumbly old cathedral; sliding through open + country where the fields were all diked and ditched with small canals and + bordered with poplars trimmed so that each tree looked like a set of + undertaker's whiskers pointing the wrong way. + </p> + <p> + And in these fields were peasants in sabots at work, looking as though + they had just stepped out of one of Millet's pictures. Even the haystacks + and the scarecrows were different. In England the haystacks had been + geometrically correct in their dimensions—so square and firm and + exact that sections might be sliced off them like cheese, and doors and + windows might be carved in them; but these French haystacks were + devil-may-care haystacks wearing tufts on their polls like headdresses. + The windmills had a rakish air; and the scarecrows in the truck gardens + were debonair and cocky, tilting themselves back on their pins the better + to enjoy the view and fluttering their ragged vestments in a most jaunty + fashion. The land though looked poor—it had a driven, overworked + look to it. + </p> + <p> + Presently, above the clacking voice of our train, we heard a whining roar + without; and peering forth we beheld almost over our heads a big monoplane + racing with us. It seemed a mighty, winged Thunder Lizard that had come + back to link the Age of Stone with the Age of Air. On second thought I am + inclined to believe the Thunder Lizard did not flourish in the Stone Age; + but if you like the simile as much as I like it we will just let it stand. + </p> + <p> + Three times on that trip we saw from the windows of our train aviators out + enjoying the cool of the evening in their airships; and each time the + natives among the passengers jammed into the passageway that flanked the + compartments and speculated regarding the identity of the aviators and the + make of their machines, and argued and shrugged their shoulders and + quarreled and gesticulated. The whole thing was as Frenchy as tripe in a + casserole. + </p> + <p> + I was wrong, though, a minute ago when I said there remained nothing to + remind us of the right little, tight little island we had just quit; for + we had two Englishmen in our compartment—fit and proper + representatives of a certain breed of Englishman. They were tall and lean, + and had the languid eyes and the long, weary faces and the yellow buck + teeth of weary cart-horses, and they each wore a fixed expression of + intense gloom. You felt sure it was a fixed expression because any person + with such an expression would change it if he could do so by anything + short of a surgical operation. And it was quite evident they had come + mentally prepared to disapprove of all things and all people in a foreign + clime. + </p> + <p> + Silently, but none the less forcibly, they resented the circumstance that + others should be sharing the same compartment with them—or sharing + the same train, either, for that matter. The compartment was full, too, + which made the situation all the more intolerable: an elderly English lady + with a placid face under a mid-Victorian bonnet; a young, pretty woman who + was either English or American; the two members of my party, and these two + Englishmen. + </p> + <p> + And when, just as the train was drawing out of Calais, they discovered + that the best two seats, which they had promptly preempted, belonged to + others, and that the seats for which they held reservations faced + rearward, so that they must ride with their backs to the locomotive—why, + that irked them sore and more. I imagine they wrote a letter to the London + Times about it afterward. + </p> + <p> + As is the pleasing habit of traveling Englishmen, they had brought with + them everything portable they owned. Each one had four or five large + handbags, and a carryall, and a hat box, and his tea-caddy, and his plaid + blanket done up in a shawlstrap, and his framed picture of the Death of + Nelson—and all the rest of it; and they piled those things in the + luggage racks until both the racks were chock-full; so the rest of us had + to hold our baggage in our laps or sit on it. One of them was facing me + not more than five or six feet distant. He never saw me though. He just + gazed steadily through me, studying the pattern of the upholstery on the + seat behind me; and I could tell by his look that he did not care for the + upholstering—as very naturally he would not, it being French. + </p> + <p> + We had traveled together thus for some hours when one of them began to + cloud up for a sneeze. He tried to sidetrack it, but it would not be + sidetracked. The rest of us, looking on, seemed to hear that sneeze coming + from a long way off. It reminded me of a musical-sketch team giving an + imitation of a brass band marching down Main Street playing the Turkish + Patrol—dim and faint at first, you know, and then growing louder and + stronger, and gathering volume until it bursts right in your face. + </p> + <p> + Fascinated, we watched his struggles. Would he master it or would it + master him? But he lost, and it was probably a good thing he did. If he + had swallowed that sneeze it would have drowned him. His nose jibed and + went about; his head tilted back farther and farther; his countenance + expressed deep agony, and then the log jam at the bend in his nose went + out with a roar and he let loose the moistest, loudest kerswoosh! that + ever was, I reckon. + </p> + <p> + He sneezed eight times. The first sneeze unbuttoned his waistcoat, the + second unparted his hair, and the third one almost pulled his shoes off; + and after that they grew really violent, until the last sneeze shifted his + cargo and left him with a list to port and his lee scuppers awash. It made + a ruin of him—the Prophet Isaiah could not have remained dignified + wrestling with a sneezing bee of those dimensions—but oh, how it did + gladden the rest of us to behold him at the mercy of the elements and to + note what a sodden, waterlogged wreck they made of him! + </p> + <p> + It was not long after that before we had another streak of luck. The train + jolted over something and a hat fell down from the topmost pinnacle of the + mountain of luggage above and hit his friend on the nose. We should have + felt better satisfied if it had been a coal scuttle; but it was a + reasonably hard and heavy hat and it hit him brim first on the tenderest + part of his nose and made his eyes water, and we were grateful enough for + small blessings. One should not expect too much of an already overworked + Providence. + </p> + <p> + The rest of us were still warm and happy in our souls when, without any + whistle-tooting or bell-clanging or station-calling, we slid silently, + almost surreptitiously, into the Gare du Nord, at Paris. Neither in + England nor on the mainland does anyone feel called on to notify you that + you have reached your destination. + </p> + <p> + It is like the old formula for determining the sex of a pigeon—you + give the suspected bird some corn, and if he eats it he is a he; but if + she eats it she is a she. In Europe if it is your destination you get off, + and if it is not your destination you stay on. On this occasion we stayed + on, feeling rather forlorn and helpless, until we saw that everyone else + had piled off. We gathered up our belongings and piled off too. + </p> + <p> + By that time all the available porters had been engaged; so we took up our + luggage and walked. We walked the length of the trainshed—and then + we stepped right into the recreation hall of the State Hospital for the + Criminal Insane, at Matteawan, New York. I knew the place instantly, + though the decorations had been changed since I was there last. It was a + joy to come on a home institution so far from home—joysome, but a + trifle disconcerting too, because all the keepers had died or gone on + strike or something; and the lunatics, some of them being in uniform and + some in civilian dress, were leaping from crag to crag, uttering maniacal + shrieks. + </p> + <p> + Divers lunatics, who had been away and were just getting back, and sundry + lunatics who were fixing to go away and apparently did not expect ever to + get back, were dashing headlong into the arms of still other lunatics, + kissing and hugging them, and exchanging farewells and sacre-bleuing with + them in the maddest fashion imaginable. From time to time I laid violent + hands on a flying, flitting maniac and detained him against his will, and + asked him for some directions; but the persons to whom I spoke could not + understand me, and when they answered I could not understand them; so we + did not make much headway by that. I could not get out of that asylum + until I had surrendered the covers of our ticket books and claimed our + baggage and put it through the customs office. I knew that; the trouble + was I could not find the place for attending to these details. On a chance + I tried a door, but it was distinctly the wrong place; and an elderly + female on duty there got me out by employing the universal language known + of all peoples. She shook her skirts at me and said Shoo! So I got out, + still toting five or six bags and bundles of assorted sizes and shapes, + and tried all the other doors in sight. + </p> + <p> + Finally, by a process of elimination and deduction, I arrived at the right + one. To make it harder for me they had put it around a corner in an + elbow-shaped wing of the building and had taken the sign off the door. + This place was full of porters and loud cries. To be on the safe side I + tendered retaining fees to three of the porters; and thus by the time I + had satisfied the customs officials that I had no imported spirits or + playing cards or tobacco or soap, or other contraband goods, and had + cleared our baggage and started for the cabstand, we amounted to quite a + stately procession and attracted no little attention as we passed along. + But the tips I had to hand out before the taxi started would stagger the + human imagination if I told you the sum total. + </p> + <p> + There are few finer things than to go into Paris for the first time on a + warm, bright Saturday night. At this moment I can think of but one finer + thing—and that is when, wearied of being short-changed and bilked + and double-charged, and held up for tips or tribute at every step, you are + leaving Paris on a Saturday night—or, in fact, any night. + </p> + <p> + Those first impressions of the life on the boulevards are going to stay in + my memory a long, long time—the people, paired off at the tables of + the sidewalk cafes, drinking drinks of all colors; a little shopgirl + wearing her new, cheap, fetching hat in such a way as to center public + attention on her head and divert it from her feet, which were shabby; two + small errand boys in white aprons, standing right in the middle of the + whirling, swirling traffic, in imminent peril of their lives, while one + lighted his cigarette butt from the cigarette butt of his friend; a + handful of roistering soldiers, singing as they swept six abreast along + the wide, rutty sidewalk; the kiosks for advertising, all thickly + plastered over with posters, half of which should have been in an art + gallery and the other half in a garbage barrel; a well-dressed pair, + kissing in the full glare of a street light; an imitation art student, got + up to look like an Apache, and—no doubt—plenty of real Apaches + got up to look like human beings; a silk-hatted gentleman, stopping with + perfect courtesy to help a bloused workman lift a baby-laden baby carriage + over an awkward spot in the curbing, and the workingman returning thanks + with the same perfect courtesy; our own driver, careening along in a + manner suggestive of what certain East Side friends of mine would call the + Chariot Race from Ben Hirsch; and a stout lady of the middle class sitting + under a cafe awning caressing her pet mole. + </p> + <p> + To the Belgian belongs the credit of domesticating the formerly ferocious + Belgian hare, and the East Indian fakir makes a friend and companion of + the king cobra; but it remained for those ingenious people, the Parisians, + to tame the mole, which other races have always regarded as unbeautiful + and unornamental, and make a cunning little companion of it and spend + hours stroking its fleece. This particular mole belonging to the stout + middle-aged lady in question was one of the largest moles and one of the + curliest I ever saw. It was on the side of her nose. + </p> + <p> + You see a good deal of mole culture going on here. Later, with the + reader's permission, we shall return to Paris and look its inhabitants + over at more length; but for the time being I think it well for us to be + on our travels. In passing I would merely state that on leaving a Paris + hotel you will tip everybody on the premises. + </p> + <p> + Oh, yes—but you will! + </p> + <p> + Let us move southward. Let us go to Sunny Italy, which is called Sunny + Italy for the same reason that the laughing hyena is called the laughing + hyena—not because he laughs so frequently, but because he laughs so + seldom. Let us go to Rome, the Eternal City, sitting on her Seven Hills, + remembering as we go along that the currency has changed and we no longer + compute sums of money in the franc but in the lira. I regret the latter + word is not pronounced as spelled—it would give me a chance to say + that the common coin of Italy is a lira, and that nearly everybody in Rome + is one also. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter VII. Thence On and On to Verbotenland + </h2> + <p> + Ah, Rome—the Roma of the Ancients—the Mistress of the Olden + World—the Sacred City! Ah, Rome, if only your stones could speak! It + is customary for the tourist, taking his cue from the guidebooks, to carry + on like this, forgetting in his enthusiasm that, even if they did speak, + they would doubtless speak Italian, which would leave him practically + where he was before. And so, having said it myself according to formula, I + shall proceed to state the actual facts: + </p> + <p> + If, coming forth from a huge and dirty terminal, you emerge on a splendid + plaza, miserably paved, and see a priest, a soldier and a beggar; a + beautiful child wearing nothing at all to speak of, and a hideous old + woman with the eyes of a Madonna looking out of a tragic mask of a face; a + magnificent fountain, and nobody using the water, and a great, + overpowering smell—yes, you can see a Roman smell; a cart mule with + ten dollars' worth of trappings on him, and a driver with ten cents' worth + on him; a palace like a dream of stone, entirely surrounded by nightmare + hovels; a new, shiny, modern apartment house, and shouldering up against + it a cankered rubbish heap that was once the playhouse of a Caesar, its + walls bearded like a pard's face with tufted laurel and splotched like a + brandy drunkard's with red stains; a church that is a dismal ruin without + and a glittering Aladdin's Cave of gold and gems and porphyry and onyx + within; a wide and handsome avenue starting from one festering stew of + slums and ending in another festering stew of slums; a grimed and broken + archway opening on a lovely hidden courtyard where trees are green and + flowers bloom, and in the center there stands a statue which is worth its + weight in minted silver and which carries more than its weight in dirt—if + in addition everybody in sight is smiling and good-natured and happy, and + is trying to sell you something or wheedle you out of something, or pick + your pocket of something—you need not, for confirmatory evidence, + seek the vast dome of St. Peter's rising yonder in the distance, or the + green tops of the cedars and the dusky clumps of olive groves on the + hillsides beyond—you know you are in Rome. + </p> + <p> + To get the correct likeness of Naples we merely reduce the priests by + one-half and increase the beggars by two-thirds; we richen the color + masses, thicken the dirt, raise the smells to the Nth degree, and set half + the populace to singing. We establish in every second doorway a mother + with her offspring tucked between her knees and forcibly held there while + the mother searches the child's head for a flea; anyhow, it is more + charitable to say it is a flea; and we add a special touch of gorgeousness + to the street pictures. + </p> + <p> + For here a cart is a glory of red tires and blue shafts, and green hubs + and pink body and purple tailgate, with a canopy on it that would have + suited Sheba's Queen; and the mule that draws the cart is caparisoned in + brass and plumage like a circus pony; and the driver wears a broad red + sash, part of a shirt, and half of a pair of pants—usually the front + half. With an outfit such as that, you feel he should be peddling aurora + borealises, or, at the very least, rainbows. It is a distinct shock to + find he has only chianti or cheeses or garbage in stock. + </p> + <p> + In Naples, also, there is, even in the most prosaic thing, a sight to + gladden your eye if you but hold your nose while you look on it. On the + stalls of the truckvenders the cauliflowers and the cabbages are racked up + with an artistic effect we could scarcely equal if we had roses and + orchids to work with; the fishmonger's cart is a study in still life, and + the tripe is what artists call a harmonious interior. + </p> + <p> + Nearly all the hotels in Italy are converted palaces. They may have been + successes as palaces, but, with their marble floors and their high + ceilings, and their dank, dark corridors, they distinctly fail to qualify + as hotels. I should have preferred them remaining unsaved and sinful. I + likewise observed a peculiarity common to hotelkeepers in Italy—they + all look like cats. The proprietor of the converted palace where we + stopped in Naples was the very image of a tomcat we used to own, named + Plutarch's Lives, which was half Maltese and half Mormon. He was a cat + that had a fine carrying voice—though better adapted for concert + work than parlor singing—and a sweetheart in every port. This + hotelkeeper might have been the cat's own brother with clothes on—he + had Plute's roving eye and his bristling whiskers and his sharp white + teeth, and Plute's silent, stealthy tread, and his way of purring softly + until he had won your confidence and then sticking his claw into you. The + only difference was, he stuck you with a bill instead of a claw. + </p> + <p> + Another interesting idiosyncrasy of the Italian hotelkeeper is that he + invariably swears to you his town is the only honest town in Italy, but + begs you to beware of the next town which, he assures you with his hand on + the place where his heart would be if he had a heart, is full of thieves + and liars and counterfeit money and pickpockets. Half of what he tells you + is true—the latter half. + </p> + <p> + The tourist agencies issue pamphlets telling how you may send money or + jewelry by registered mail in Italy, and then append a footnote warning + you against sending money or jewelry by registered mail in Italy. Likewise + you are constantly being advised against carrying articles of value in + your trunk, unless it is most carefully locked, bolted and strapped. It is + good advice too. + </p> + <p> + An American I met on the boat coming home told me he failed to take such + precautions while traveling in Italy; and he said that when he reached the + Swiss border his trunk was so light he had to sit on it to keep it from + blowing off the bus on the way from the station to the hotel, and so empty + that when he opened it at both ends the draft whistling through it gave + him a bad cold. However, he may have exaggerated slightly. + </p> + <p> + If you can forget that you are paying first-class prices for fourth-rate + accommodations—forget the dirt in the carriages and the smells in + the compartments—a railroad journey through the Italian Peninsula is + a wonderful experience. I know it was a wonderful experience for me. + </p> + <p> + I shall not forget the old walled towns of stone perched precariously on + the sloping withers of razorbacked mountains—towns that were old + when the Saviour was born; or the ancient Roman aqueducts, all pocked and + pecked with age, looping their arches across the land for miles on miles; + or the fields, scored and scarified by three thousand years of + unremitting, relentless, everlasting agriculture; or the wide-horned + Italian cattle that browsed in those fields; or yet the woman who darted + to the door of every signal-house we passed and came to attention, with a + long cudgel held flat against her shoulder like a sentry's musket. + </p> + <p> + I do not know why a woman should exhibit an overgrown broomstick when an + Italian train passes a flag station, any more than I know why, when a + squad of Paris firemen march out of the engine house for exercise, they + should carry carbines and knapsacks. I only know that these things are + done. + </p> + <p> + In Tuscany the vineyards make a fine show, for the vines are trained to + grow up from the ground and then are bound into streamers and draped from + one fruit tree or one shade tree to another, until a whole hillside + becomes one long, confusing vista of leafy festoons. The thrifty owner + gets the benefit of his grapes and of his trees, and of the earth below, + too, for there he raises vegetables and grains, and the like. Like + everything else in this land, the system is an old one. I judge it was old + enough to be hackneyed when Horace wrote of it: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Now each man, basking on his slopes, + Weds to his widowed tree the vine; + Then, as he gayly quaffs his wine, + Salutes thee god of all his hopes. +</pre> + <p> + Classical quotations interspersed here and there are wonderful helps to a + guide book, don't you think? + </p> + <p> + In rural Italy there are two other scenic details that strike the American + as being most curious—one is the amazing prevalence of family + washing, and the other is the amazing scarcity of birdlife. To himself the + traveler says: + </p> + <p> + "What becomes of all this intimate and personal display of family apparel + I see fluttering from the front windows of every house in this country? + Everybody is forever washing clothes but nobody ever wears it after it is + washed. And what has become of all the birds?" + </p> + <p> + For the first puzzle there is no key, but the traveler gets the answer to + the other when he passes a meat-dealer's shop in the town and sees spread + on the stalls heaps of pitiably small starlings and sparrows and finches + exposed for sale. An Italian will cook and eat anything he can kill that + has wings on it, from a cassowary to a katydid. + </p> + <p> + Thinking this barbarity over, I started to get indignant; but just in time + I remembered what we ourselves have done to decimate the canvas-back duck + and the wild pigeon and the ricebird and the red-worsted pulse-warmer, and + other pleasing wild creatures of the earlier days in America, now + practically or wholly extinct. And I felt that before I could attend to + the tomtits in my Italian brother's eye I must needs pluck a few buffaloes + out of my own; so I decided, in view of those things, to collect myself + and endeavor to remain perfectly calm. + </p> + <p> + We came into Venice at the customary hour—to wit, eleven P.M.—and + had a real treat as our train left the mainland and went gliding far out, + seemingly right through the placid Adriatic, to where the beaded lights of + Venice showed like a necklace about the withered throat of a + long-abandoned bride, waiting in the rags of her moldered wedding finery + for a bridegroom who comes not. + </p> + <p> + Better even than this was the journey by gondola from the terminal through + narrow canals and under stone bridges where the water lapped with little + mouthing tongues at the walls, and the tall, gloomy buildings almost met + overhead, so that only a tiny strip of star-buttoned sky showed between. + And from dark windows high up came the tinkle of guitars and the sound of + song pouring from throats of silver. And so we came to our hotel, which + was another converted palace; but baptism is not regarded as essential to + salvation in these parts. + </p> + <p> + On the whole, Venice did not impress me as it has impressed certain other + travelers. You see, I was born and raised in one of those Ohio Valley + towns where the river gets emotional and temperamental every year or two. + In my youth I had passed through several of these visitations, when the + family would take the family plate and the family cow, and other + treasures, and retire to the attic floor to wait for the spring rise to + abate; and when really the most annoying phase of the situation for a + housekeeper, sitting on the top landing of his staircase watching the + yellow wavelets lap inch by inch over the keys of the piano, and inch by + inch climb up the new dining-room wallpaper, was to hear a knocking at a + front window upstairs and go to answer it and find that Moscoe Burnett had + come in a john-boat to collect the water tax. + </p> + <p> + The Grand Canal did not stir me as it has stirred some—so far back + as '84 I could remember when Jefferson Street at home looked almost + exactly like that. + </p> + <p> + Going through the Austrian Tyrol, between Vienna and Venice, I met two old + and dear friends in their native haunts—the plush hat and the hot + dog. When such a thing as this happens away over on the other side of the + globe it helps us to realize how small a place this world is after all, + and how closely all peoples are knitted together in common bonds of love + and affection. The hot dog, as found here, is just as we know him + throughout the length and breadth of our own land—a dropsical + Wienerwurst entombed in the depths of a rye-bread sandwich, with a dab of + horse-radish above him to mark his grave; price, creation over, five cents + the copy. + </p> + <p> + The woolly plush hat shows no change either, except that if anything it is + slightly woollier in the Alps than among us. As transplanted, the dinky + little bow at the back is an affectation purely—but in these parts + it is logical and serves a practical and a utilitarian purpose, because + the mountain byways twist and turn and double, and the local beverages are + potent brews; and the weary mountaineer, homeward-bound afoot at the close + of a market day, may by the simple expedient of reaching up and fingering + his bow tell instantly whether he is going or coming. + </p> + <p> + This is also a great country for churches. Every group of chalets that + calls itself a village has at least one long-spired gray church in its + midst, and frequently more than one. In one sweep of hillside view from + our car window I counted seven church steeples. I do not think it was a + particularly good day for churches either; I wished I might have passed + through on a Sunday, when they would naturally be thicker. + </p> + <p> + Along this stretch of railroad the mountaineers come to the stations + wearing the distinctive costume of their own craggy and slabsided hills—the + curling pheasant feather in the hatbrim; the tight-fitting knee-breeches; + the gaudy stockings; and the broad-suspendered belt with rows of huge + brass buttons spangling it up and down and crosswise. Such is your + pleasure at finding these quaint habiliments still in use amid settings so + picturesque that you buy freely of the fancy-dressed individual's wares—for + he always has something to sell. + </p> + <p> + And then as your train pulls out, if by main force and awkwardness you jam + a window open, as I did, and cast your eyes rearward for a farewell peek, + as I did, you will behold him, as I did, pulling off his parade clothes + and climbing into the blue overalls and the jean jumpers of prosaic + civilization, to wait until the next carload lot of foreign tourists rolls + in. The European peasant is indeed a simple, guileless creature—if + you are careless about how you talk. + </p> + <p> + In this district and on beyond, the sight of women doing the bulk of the + hard and dirty farmwork becomes common. You see women plowing; women + hoeing; women carrying incredibly huge bundles of fagots and fodder on + their heads; women hauling heavy carts, sometimes with a straining, + panting dog for a teammate, sometimes unaccompanied except by a stalwart + father or husband, or brother or son, who, puffing a china-bowled pipe, + walks alongside to see that the poor human draft-animals do not shirk or + balk, or shy over the traces. + </p> + <p> + To one coming from a land where no decent man raises his hand against a + woman—except, of course, in self-defense—this is indeed a + startling sight to see; but worse is in store for him when he reaches + Bohemia, on the upper edge of the Austrian Empire. In Bohemia, if there is + a particularly nasty and laborious job to be done, such as spading up + manure in the rain or grubbing sugar-beets out of the half-frozen earth, + they wish it on the dear old grandmother. She always seemed to me to be a + grandmother—or old enough for one anyway. Perhaps, though, it is the + life they lead, and not the years, that bends the backs of these women and + thickens their waists and mats their hair and turns their feet into clods + and their hands into swollen, red monstrosities. + </p> + <p> + Surely the Walrus, in Alice in Wonderland, had Germany in mind when he + said the time had come to speak of cabbages and kings—because + Germany certainly does lead the known world in those two commodities. + Everywhere in Germany you see them—the cabbages by the millions and + the billions, growing rank and purple in the fields and giving promise of + the time when they will change from vegetable to vine and become the + fragrant and luscious trailing sauerkraut; but the kings, in stone or + bronze, stand up in the marketplace or the public square, or on the bridge + abutment, or just back of the brewery, in every German city and town along + the route. + </p> + <p> + By these surface indications alone the most inexperienced traveler would + know he had reached Germany, even without the halt at the custom house on + the border; or the crossing watchman in trim uniform jumping to attention + at every road-crossing; or the beautifully upholstered, handswept state + forests; or the hedges of willow trees along the brooks, sticking up their + stubby, twiggy heads like so many disreputable hearth-brooms; or the young + grain stretching in straight rows crosswise of the weedless fields and + looking, at a distance, like fair green-printed lines evenly spaced on a + wide brown page. Also, one observes everywhere surviving traces that are + unmistakable of the reign of that most ingenious and wideawake of all the + earlier rulers of Germany, King Verboten the Great. + </p> + <p> + In connection with the life and works of this distinguished ruler is told + an interesting legend well worthy of being repeated here. It would seem + that King Verboten was the first crowned head of Europe to learn the value + of keeping his name constantly before the reading public. Rameses the + Third of Egypt—that enterprising old constant advertiser who swiped + the pyramids of all his predecessors and had his own name engraved thereon—had + been dead for many centuries and was forgotten when Verboten mounted the + throne, and our own Teddy Roosevelt would not be born for many centuries + yet to come; so the idea must have occurred to King Verboten + spontaneously, as it were. Therefore he took counsel with himself, saying: + </p> + <p> + "I shall now erect statues to myself. Dynasties change and wars rage, and + folks grow fickle and tear down statues. None of that for your Uncle + Dudley K. Verboten! No; this is what I shall do: On every available site + in the length and breadth of this my realm I shall stick up my name; and, + wherever possible, near to it I shall engrave or paint the names of my two + favorite sons, Ausgang and Eingang—to the end that, come what may, + we shall never be forgotten in the land of our birth." + </p> + <p> + And then he went and did it; and it was a thorough job—so thorough a + job that, to this good year of our Lord you may still see the name of that + wise king everywhere displayed in Germany—on railroad stations and + in railroad trains; on castle walls and dead walls and brewery walls, and + the back fence of the Young Ladies' High School. And nearly always, too, + you will find hard by, over doors and passageways, the names of his two + sons, each accompanied or underscored by the heraldic emblem of their + house—a barbed and feathered arrow pointing horizontally. + </p> + <p> + And so it was that King Verboten lived happily ever after and in the + fullness of time died peacefully in his bed, surrounded by his wives, his + children and his courtiers; and all of them sorrowed greatly and wept, but + the royal signpainter sorrowed most of all. + </p> + <p> + I know that certain persons will contest the authenticity of this passage + of history; they will claim Verboten means in our tongue Forbidden, and + that Ausgang means Outgoing, and Eingang means Incoming—or, in other + words, Exit and Entrance; but surely this could not be so. If so many + things were forbidden, a man in Germany would be privileged only to die—and + probably not that, unless he died according to a given formula; and + certainly no human being with the possible exception of the comedian who + used to work the revolving-door trick in Hanlon's Fantasma, could go out + of and come into a place so often without getting dizzy in the head. No—the + legend stands as stated. + </p> + <p> + Even as it is, there are rules enough in Germany, rules to regulate all + things and all persons. At first, to the stranger, this seems an irksome + arrangement—this posting of rules and orders and directions and + warnings everywhere—but he finds that everyone, be he high or low, + must obey or go to jail; there are no exceptions and no evasions; so that + what is a duty on all is a burden on none. + </p> + <p> + Take the trains, for example. Pretty much all over the Continent the + railroads are state-owned and state-run, but only in Germany are they + properly run. True, there are so many uniformed officials aboard a German + train that frequently there is barely room for the paying travelers to + squeeze in; but the cars are sanitary and the schedule is accurately + maintained, and the attendants are honest and polite and cleanly of person—wherein + lies another point of dissimilarity between them and those scurvy, musty, + fusty brigands who are found managing and operating trains in certain + nearby countries. + </p> + <p> + I remember a cup of coffee I had while going from Paris to Berlin. It was + made expressly for me by an invalided commander-in-chief of the artillery + corps of the imperial army—so I judged him to be by his costume, air + and general deportment—who was in charge of our carriage and also of + the small kitchen at the far end of it. + </p> + <p> + He came into our compartment and bowed and clicked his heels together and + saluted, and wanted to know whether I would take coffee. Recklessly I said + I would. He filled in several blanks of a printed form, and went and + cooked the coffee and brought it back, pausing at intervals as he came + along to fill in other blanks. Would I take cream in my coffee? I would; + so he filled in a couple of blanks. Would I take sugar? I said I would + take two lumps. He put in two lumps and filled in another blank. + </p> + <p> + I really prefer my coffee with three lumps in it; but I noticed that his + printed form was now completely filled in, and I hated to call for a third + lump and put him to the trouble of starting his literary labors all over + again. Besides, by that time the coffee would be cold. So I took it as it + was—with two lumps only—and it was pretty fair coffee for + European coffee. It tasted slightly of the red tape and the chicory, but + it was neatly prepared and promptly served. + </p> + <p> + And so, over historic streams no larger than creeks would be in America, + and by castles and cabbages and kings and cows, we came to Berlin; and + after some of the other Continental cities Berlin seemed a mighty restful + spot to be in, and a good one to tarry in awhile. It has few historical + associations, has Berlin, but we were loaded to the gills with historical + associations by now. It does not excel greatly in Old Masters, but we had + already gazed with a languid eye upon several million Old Masters of all + ages, including many very young ones. It has no ancient monuments and + tombs either, which is a blessing. Most of the statuary in Berlin is new + and shiny and provided with all the modern conveniences—the present + kaiser attended competently to that detail. Wherever, in his capital, + there was space for a statue he has stuck up one in memory of a member of + his own dynasty, beginning with a statue apiece for such earlier rulers as + Otho the Oboe-Player, and Joachim, surnamed the Half-a-Ton—let some + one correct me if I have the names wrong—and finishing up with forty + or fifty for himself. That is, there were forty or fifty of him when I was + there. There are probably more now. + </p> + <p> + In its essentials Berlin suggests a progressive American city, with + Teutonic trimmings. Conceive a bit of New York, a good deal of Chicago, a + scrap of Denver, a slice of Hoboken, and a whole lot of Milwaukee; + conceive this combination as being scoured every day until it shines; + conceive it as beautifully though somewhat profusely governed, and laid + out with magnificent drives, and dotted with big, handsome public + buildings, and full of reasonably honest and more than reasonably kindly + people—and you have Berlin. + </p> + <p> + It was in Berlin that I picked up the most unique art treasure I found + anywhere on my travels—a picture of the composer Verdi that looked + exactly like Uncle Joe Cannon, without the cigar; whereas Uncle Joe Cannon + does not look a thing in the world like Verdi, and probably wouldn't if he + could. + </p> + <p> + I have always regretted that our route through the German Empire took us + across the land of the Hessians after dark, for I wanted to see those + people. You will recollect that when George the Third, of England, first + put into actual use the doctrine of Hands Across the Sea he used the + Hessians. + </p> + <p> + They were hired hands. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter VIII. A Tale of a String-bean + </h2> + <p> + It was at a small dinner party in a home out in Passy—which is to + Paris what Flatbush is to Brooklyn—that the event hereinafter set + forth came to pass. Our host was an American who had lived abroad a good + many years; and his wife, our hostess, was a French woman as charming as + she was pretty and as pretty as she could be. + </p> + <p> + The dinner was going along famously. We had hors-d'oeuvres, the soup and + the hare—all very tasty to look on and very soothing to the palate. + Then came the fowl, roasted, of course—the roast fowl is the + national bird of France—and along with the fowl something + exceedingly appetizing in the way of hearts of lettuce garnished with + breasts of hothouse tomatoes cut on the bias. + </p> + <p> + When we were through with this the servants removed the debris and brought + us hot plates. Then, with the air of one conferring a real treat on us, + the butler bore around a tureen arrangement full of smoking-hot + string-beans. When it came my turn I helped myself—copiously—and + waited for what was to go with the beans. A pause ensued—to my + imagination an embarrassed pause. Seeking a cue I glanced down the table + and back again. There did not appear to be anything to go with the beans. + The butler was standing at ease behind his master's chair—ease for a + butler, I mean—and the other guests, it seemed to me, were waiting + and watching. To myself I said: + </p> + <p> + "Well, sir, that butler certainly has made a J. Henry Fox Pass of himself + this trip! Here, just when this dinner was getting to be one of the + notable successes of the present century, he has to go and derange the + whole running schedule by serving the salad when he should have served the + beans, and the beans when he should have served the salad. It's a + sickening situation; but if I can save it I'll do it. I'll be well bred if + it takes a leg!" + </p> + <p> + So, wearing the manner of one who has been accustomed all his life to + finishing off his dinner with a mess of string-beans, I used my + putting-iron; and from the edge of the fair green I holed out in three. My + last stroke was a dandy, if I do say it myself. The others were game too—I + could see that. They were eating beans as though beans were particularly + what they had come for. Out of the tail of my eye I glanced at our + hostess, sitting next to me on the left. She was placid, calm, perfectly + easy. Again addressing myself mentally I said: + </p> + <p> + "There's a thoroughbred for you! You take a woman who got prosperous + suddenly and is still acutely suffering from nervous culture, and if such + a shipwreck had occurred at her dinner table she'd be utterly prostrated + by now—she'd be down and out—and we'd all be standing back to + give her air; but when they're born in the purple it shows in these big + emergencies. Look at this woman now—not a ripple on the surface—balmy + as a summer evening! But in about one hour from now, Central European + time, I can see her accepting that fool butler's resignation before he's + had time to offer it!" + </p> + <p> + After the beans had been cleared off the right-of-way we had the dessert + and the cheese and the coffee and the rest of it. And, as we used to say + in the society column down home when the wife of the largest advertiser + was entertaining, "at a suitable hour those present dispersed to their + homes, one and all voting the affair to have been one of the most + enjoyable occasions among like events of the season." We all knew our + manners—we had proved that. + </p> + <p> + Personally I was very proud of myself for having carried the thing off so + well but after I had survived a few tables d'hote in France and a few more + in Austria and a great many in Italy, where they do not have anything at + the hotels except tables d'hote, I did not feel quite so proud. For at + this writing in those parts the slender, sylphlike string-bean is not + playing a minor part, as with us. He has the best spot on the evening bill—he + is a headliner. So is the cauliflower; so is the Brussels sprout; so is + any vegetable whose function among our own people is largely scenic. + </p> + <p> + Therefore I treasured the memory of this incident and brought it back with + me; and I tell it here at some length of detail because I know how + grateful my countrywomen will be to get hold of it—I know how + grateful they always are when they learn about a new gastronomical + wrinkle. Mind you, I am not saying that the notion is an absolute novelty + here. For all I know to the contrary, prominent hostesses along the Gold + Coast of the United States—Bar Harbor to Palm Beach inclusive—may + have been serving one lone vegetable as a separate course for years and + years; but I feel sure that throughout the interior the disclosure will + come as a pleasant surprise. + </p> + <p> + The directions for executing this coup are simple and all the deadlier + because they are so simple. The main thing is to invite your chief + opponent as a smart entertainer; you know the one I mean—the woman + who scored such a distinct social triumph in the season of 1912-13 by + being the first woman in town to serve tomato bisque with whipped cream on + it. Have her there by all means. Go ahead with your dinner as though + naught sensational and revolutionary were about to happen. Give them in + proper turn the oysters, the fish, the entree, the bird, the salad. And + then, all by itself, alone and unafraid, bring on a dab of string-beans. + </p> + <p> + Wait until you see the whites of their eyes, and aim and fire at will. + Settle back then, until the first hushed shock has somewhat abated—until + your dazed and suffering rival is glaring about in a well-bred but + flustered manner, looking for something to go with the beans. Hold her eye + while you smile a smile that is compounded of equal parts—superior + wisdom, and gentle contempt for her ignorance—and then slowly, + deliberately, dip a fork into the beans on your plate and go to it. + </p> + <p> + Believe me, it cannot lose. Before breakfast time the next morning every + woman who was at that dinner will either be sending out invitations for a + dinner of her own and ordering beans, or she will be calling up her + nearest and best friend on the telephone to spread the tidings. I figure + that the intense social excitement occasioned in this country a few years + ago by the introduction of Russian salad dressing will be as nothing in + comparison. + </p> + <p> + This stunt of serving the vegetable as a separate course was one of the + things I learned about food during our flittings across Europe, but it was + not the only thing I learned—by a long shot it was not. For example + I learned this—and I do not care what anybody else may say to the + contrary either—that here in America we have better food and more + different kinds of food, and food better cooked and better served than the + effete monarchies of the Old World ever dreamed of. And, quality and + variety considered, it costs less here, bite for bite, than it costs + there. + </p> + <p> + Food in Germany is cheaper than anywhere else almost, I reckon; and, + selected with care and discrimination, a German dinner is an excellently + good dinner. Certain dishes in England—and they are very certain, + for you get them at every meal—are good, too, and not overly + expensive. There are some distinctive Austrian dishes that are not without + their attractions either. Speaking by and large, however, I venture the + assertion that, taking any first-rate restaurant in any of the larger + American cities and balancing it off against any establishment of like + standing in Europe, the American restaurant wins on cuisine, service, + price, flavor and attractiveness. + </p> + <p> + Centuries of careful and constant press-agenting have given French cookery + much of its present fame. The same crafty processes of publicity, + continued through a period of eight or nine hundred years, have endowed + the European scenic effects with a glamour and an impressiveness that + really are not there, if you can but forget the advertising and consider + the proposition on its merits. + </p> + <p> + Take their rivers now—their historic rivers, if you please. You are + traveling—heaven help you—on a Continental train. Between + spells of having your ticket punched or torn apart, or otherwise + mutilated; and getting out at the border to see your trunks ceremoniously + and solemnly unloaded and unlocked, and then as ceremoniously relocked and + reloaded after you have conferred largess on everybody connected with the + train, the customs regulations being mainly devised for the purpose of + collecting not tariff but tips—between these periods, which + constitute so important a feature of Continental travel—you come, + let us say, to a stream. + </p> + <p> + It is a puny stream, as we are accustomed to measure streams, boxed in by + stone walls and regulated by stone dams, and frequently it is mud-colored + and, more frequently still, runs between muddy banks. In the West it would + probably not even be dignified with a regular name, and in the East it + would be of so little importance that the local congressman would not ask + an annual appropriation of more than half a million dollars for the + purposes of dredging, deepening and diking it. But even as you cross it + you learn that it is the Tiber or the Arno, the Elbe or the Po; and, such + is the force of precept and example, you immediately get all excited and + worked up over it. + </p> + <p> + English rivers are beautiful enough in a restrained, well-managed, + landscape-gardened sort of way; but Americans do not enthuse over an + English river because of what it is in itself, but because it happens to + be the Thames or the Avon—because of the distinguished characters in + history whose names are associated with it. + </p> + <p> + Hades gets much of its reputation the same way. + </p> + <p> + I think of one experience I had while touring through what we had learned + to call the Dachshund District. Our route led us alongside a most + inconsequential-looking little river. Its contents seemed a trifle too + liquid for mud and a trifle too solid for water. On the nearer bank was a + small village populated by short people and long dogs. Out in midstream, + making poor headway against the semi-gelid current, was a little + flutter-tailed steamboat panting and puffing violently and kicking up a + lather of lacy spray with its wheelbuckets in a manner to remind you of a + very warm small lady fanning herself with a very large gauze fan, and only + getting hotter at the job. + </p> + <p> + In America that stream would have been known as Mink Creek or Cassidy's + Run, or by some equally poetic title; but when I found out it was the + Danube—no less—I had a distinct thrill. On closer examination + I discovered it to be a counterfeit thrill; but nevertheless, I had it. + </p> + <p> + What applies in the main to the scenery applies in the main to the food. + France has the reputation of breeding the best cooks in the world—and + maybe she does; but when you are calling in France you find most of them + out. They have emigrated to America, where a French chef gets more money + in one year for exercising his art—and gets it easier—than he + could get in ten years at home—and is given better ingredients to + cook with than he ever had at home. + </p> + <p> + The hotel in Paris at which we stopped served good enough meals, all of + them centering, of course, round the inevitable poulet roti; but it took + the staff an everlastingly long time to bring the food to you. If you grew + reckless and ordered anything that was not on the bill it upset the entire + establishment; and before they calmed down and relayed it in to you it was + time for the next meal. Still, I must say we did not mind the waiting; + near at hand a fascinating spectacle was invariably on exhibition. + </p> + <p> + At the next table sat an Italian countess. Anyhow they told me she was an + Italian countess, and she wore jewelry enough for a dozen countesses. + Every time I beheld her, with a big emerald earring gleaming at either + side of her head, I thought of a Lenox Avenue local in the New York + Subway. However, it was not so much her jewelry that proved such a + fascinating sight as it was her pleasing habit of fetching out a + gold-mounted toothpick and exploring the most remote and intricate dental + recesses of herself in full view of the entire dining room, meanwhile + making a noise like somebody sicking a dog on. + </p> + <p> + The Europeans have developed public toothpicking beyond anything we know. + They make an outdoor pastime and function of it, whereas we pursue this + sport more or less privately. Over there, a toothpick is a family heirloom + and is handed down from one generation to another, and is operated in + company ostentatiously. In its use some Europeans are absolutely gifted. + But then we beat the world at open-air gum-chewing—so I reckon the + honors are about even. + </p> + <p> + This particular hotel, in common with all other first-class hotels in + Paris, was forgetful about setting forth on its menu the prices of its + best dishes and its special dishes. I take it this arrangement was devised + for the benefit of currency-quilted Americans. A Frenchman asks the waiter + the price of an unpriced dish and then orders something else; but the + American, as a rule, is either too proud or too foolish to inquire into + these details. At home he is beset by a hideous fear that some waiter will + think he is of a mercenary nature; and when he is abroad this trait in him + is accentuated. So, in his carefree American way, he orders a portion of a + dish of an unspecified value; whereupon the head waiter slips out to the + office and ascertains by private inquiry how large a letter of credit the + American is carrying with him, and comes back and charges him all the + traffic will bear. + </p> + <p> + As for the keeper of a fashionable cafe on a boulevard or in the Rue de la + Paix—well, alongside of him the most rapacious restaurant proprietor + on Broadway is a kindly, Christian soul who is in business for his health—and + not feeling very healthy at that. When you dine at one of the swagger + boulevard places the head waiter always comes, just before you have + finished, and places a display of fresh fruit before you, with a winning + smile and a bow and a gesture, which, taken together, would seem to + indicate that he is extending the compliments of the season and that the + fruit will be on the house; but never did one of the intriguing scoundrels + deceive me. Somewhere, years before, I had read statistics on the cost of + fresh fruit in a Paris restaurant, and so I had a care. The sight of a + bunch of hothouse grapes alone was sufficient to throw me into a cold + perspiration right there at the table; and as for South African peaches, I + carefully walked around them, getting farther away all the time. A peach + was just the same as a pesthouse to me, in Paris. + </p> + <p> + Alas though! no one had warned me about French oysters, and once—just + once—I ate some, which made two mistakes on my part, one financial + and the other gustatory. They were not particularly flavorous oysters as + we know oysters on this side of the ocean. The French oyster is a small, + copper-tinted proposition, and he tastes something like an indisposed + mussel and something like a touch of biliousness; but he is sufficiently + costly for all purposes. The cafe proprietor cherishes him so highly that + he refuses to vulgarize him by printing the asking price on the same menu. + A person in France desirous of making a really ostentatious display of his + affluence, on finding a pearl in an oyster, would swallow the pearl and + wear the oyster on his shirtfront. That would stamp him as a person of + wealth. + </p> + <p> + However, I am not claiming that all French cookery is ultra-exorbitant in + price or of excessively low grade. We had one of the surprises of our + lives when, by direction of a friend who knew Paris, we went to a little + obscure cafe that was off the tourist route and therefore—as yet—unspoiled + and uncommercialized. This place was up a back street near one of the + markets; a small and smellsome place it was, decorated most atrociously. + In the front window, in close juxtaposition, were a platter of French + snails and a platter of sticky confections full of dark spots. There was + no mistaking the snails for anything except snails; but the other articles + were either currant buns or plain buns that had been made in an unscreened + kitchen. + </p> + <p> + Within were marble-topped tables of the Louie-Quince period and stuffy + wall-seats of faded, dusty red velvet; and a waiter in his shirtsleeves + was wandering about with a sheaf of those long French loaves tucked under + his arm like golf sticks, distributing his loaves among the diners. But + somewhere in its mysterious and odorous depths that little bourgeois cafe + harbored an honest-to-goodness cook. He knew a few things about grilling a + pig's knuckle—that worthy person. He could make the knuckle of a pig + taste like the wing of an angel; and what he could do with a skillet, a + pinch of herbs and a calf's sweetbread passed human understanding. + </p> + <p> + Certain animals in Europe do have the most delicious diseases anyway—notably + the calf and the goose, particularly the goose of Strasburg, where the + pate de foie gras comes from. The engorged liver of a Strasburg goose must + be a source of joy to all—except its original owner! + </p> + <p> + Several times we went back to the little restaurant round the corner from + the market, and each time we had something good. The food we ate there + helped to compensate for the terrific disillusionment awaiting us when we + drove out of Paris to a typical roadside inn, to get some of that + wonderful provincial cookery that through all our reading days we had been + hearing about. You will doubtless recall the description, as so frequently + and graphically dished up by the inspired writers of travelogue stuff—the + picturesque, tumbledown place, where on a cloth of coarse linen—white + like snow—old Marie, her wrinkled face abeam with hospitality and + kindness, places the delicious omelet she has just made, and brings also + the marvelous salad and the perfect fowl, and the steaming hot coffee + fragrant as breezes from Araby the Blest, and the vin ordinaire that is + even as honey and gold to the thirsty throat. You must know that passage? + </p> + <p> + We went to see for ourselves. At a distance of half a day's automobile run + from Paris we found an establishment answering to the plans and + specifications. It was shoved jam-up against the road, as is the French + custom; and it was surrounded by a high, broken wall, on which all manner + of excrescences in the shape of tiny dormers and misshapen little towers + hung, like Texas ticks on the ears of a quarantined steer. Within the wall + the numerous ruins that made up the inn were thrown together any fashion, + some facing one way, some facing the other way, and some facing all ways + at once; so that, for the housefly, so numerously encountered on these + premises, it was but a short trip and a merry one from the stable to the + dining room and back again. + </p> + <p> + Sure enough, old Marie was on the job. Not desiring to be unkind or unduly + critical I shall merely state that as a cook old Marie was what we who + have been in France and speak the language fluently would call la limite! + The omelet she turned out for us was a thing that was very firm and + durable, containing, I think, leather findings, with a sprinkling of + chopped henbane on the top. The coffee was as feeble a counterfeit as + chicory usually is when it is masquerading as coffee, and the vin + ordinaire had less of the vin to it and more of the ordinaire than any we + sampled elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + Right here let me say this for the much-vaunted vin ordinaire of Europe: + In the end it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder—not + like the ordinary Egyptian adder, but like a patent adder in the office of + a loan shark, which is the worst stinger of the whole adder family. If + consumed with any degree of freedom it puts a downy coat on your tongue + next morning that causes you to think you inadvertently swallowed the + pillow in your sleep. Good domestic wine costs as much in Europe as good + domestic wine costs in America—possibly more than as much. + </p> + <p> + The souffle potatoes of old Marie were not bad to look on, but I did not + test them otherwise. Even in my own country I do not care to partake of + souffle potatoes unless I know personally the person who blew them up. So + at the conclusion of the repast we nibbled tentatively at the dessert, + which was a pancake with jelly, done in the image of a medicated bandage + but not so tasty as one. And then I paid the check, which was of august + proportions, and we came sadly away, realizing that another happy dream of + youth had been shattered to bits. Only the tablecloth had been as + advertised. It was coarse, but white like snow—like snow three days + old in Pittsburgh. + </p> + <p> + Yet I was given to understand that was a typical rural French inn and + fully up to the standards of such places; but if the manager of a + roadhouse within half a day's ride of New York or Boston or Philadelphia + served such food to his patrons, at such prices, the sheriff would have + him inside of two months; and everybody would be glad of it too—except + the sheriff. Also, no humane man in this country would ask a + self-respecting cow to camp overnight in such outbuildings as abutted on + the kitchen of this particular inn. + </p> + <p> + I am not denying that we have in America some pretty bad country hotels, + where good food is most barbarously mistreated and good beds are rare to + find, but we admit our shortcomings in this regard and we deplore them—we + do not shellac them over with a glamour of bogus romance, with intent to + deceive the foreign visitor to our shores. We warn him in advance of what + he may expect and urge him to carry his rations with him. + </p> + <p> + It is almost unnecessary to add that old Marie gave us veal and poulet + roti. According to the French version of the story of the Flood only two + animals emerged from the Ark when the waters receded—one was an + immature hen and the other was an adolescent calf. At every meal except + breakfast—when they do not give you anything at all—the French + give you veal and poulet roti. If at lunch you had the poulet roti first + and afterward the veal, why, then at dinner they provide a pleasing + variety by bringing on the veal first and the poulet roti afterward. + </p> + <p> + The veal is invariably stringy and coated over with weird sauces, and the + poulet never appears at the table in her recognizable members—such + as wings and drumsticks—but is chopped up with a cleaver into cross + sections, and strange-looking chunks of the wreckage are sent to you. + Moreover they cook the chicken in such a way as to destroy its original + taste, and the veal in such a way as to preserve its original taste, both + being inexcusable errors. + </p> + <p> + Nowhere in the larger Italian cities, except by the exercise of a most + tremendous determination, can you get any real Italian cooking or any real + Italian dishes. At the hotels they feed you on a pale, sad table-d'hote + imitation of French cooking, invariably buttressed with the everlasting + veal and the eternal poulet roti. At the finish of a meal the waiter + brings you, on one plate, two small withered apples and a bunch of + fly-specked sour grapes; and, on another plate, the mortal remains of some + excessively deceased cheese wearing a tinfoil shroud and appropriately + laid out in a small, white, coffin-shaped box. + </p> + <p> + After this had happened to me several times I told the waiter with gentle + irony that he might as well screw the lid back on the casket and proceed + with the obsequies. I told him I was not one of those morbid people who + love to look on the faces of the strange dead. The funeral could not get + under way too soon to suit me. It seemed to me that this funeral was + already several days overdue. That was what I told him. + </p> + <p> + In my travels the best place I ever found to get Italian dishes was a + basement restaurant under an old brownstone house on Forty-seventh Street, + in New York. There you might find the typical dishes of Italy—I defy + you to find them in Italy without a search-warrant. However, while in + Italy the tourist may derive much entertainment and instruction from a + careful study of table manners. + </p> + <p> + In our own land we produce some reasonably boisterous trenchermen, and + some tolerably careless ones too. Several among us have yet to learn how + to eat corn on the ear and at the same time avoid corn in the ear. A dish + of asparagus has been known to develop fine acoustic properties, and in + certain quarters there is a crying need for a sound-proof soup; but even + so, and admitting these things as facts, we are but mere beginners in this + line when compared with our European brethren. + </p> + <p> + In the caskets of memory I shall ever cherish the picture of a + particularly hairy gentleman, apparently of Russian extraction, who + patronized our hotel in Venice one evening. He was what you might call a + human hazard—a golf-player would probably have thought of him in + that connection. He was eating flour dumplings, using his knife for a + niblick all the way round; and he lost every other shot in a concealed + bunker on the edge of the rough; and he could make more noise sucking his + teeth than some people could make playing on a fife. + </p> + <p> + There is a popular belief to the effect that the Neapolitan eats his + spaghetti by a deft process of wrapping thirty or forty inches round the + tines of his fork and then lifting it inboard, an ell at a time. This is + not correct. The true Neapolitan does not eat his spaghetti at all—he + inhales it. He gathers up a loose strand and starts it down his throat. He + then respires from the diaphragm, and like a troupe of trained angleworms + that entire mass of spaghetti uncoils itself, gets up off the plate and + disappears inside him—en masse, as it were—and making him look + like a man who is chinning himself over a set of bead portieres. I fear we + in America will never learn to siphon our spaghetti into us thus. It takes + a nation that has practiced deep breathing for centuries. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter IX. The Deadly Poulet Routine + </h2> + <p> + Under the head of European disillusionments I would rate, along with the + vin ordinaire of the French vineyard and inkworks, the barmaid of Britain. + From what you have heard on this subject you confidently expect the + British barmaid to be buxom, blond, blooming, billowy, buoyant—but + especially blond. On the contrary she is generally brunette, frequently + middle-aged, in appearance often fair-to-middling homely, and in manner + nearly always abounding with a stiffness and hauteur that would do credit + to a belted earl, if the belting had just taken place and the earl was + still groggy from the effects of it. Also, she has the notion of personal + adornment that is common in more than one social stratum of women in + England. If she has a large, firm, solid mound of false hair overhanging + her brow like an impending landslide, and at least three jingly bracelets + on each wrist, she considers herself well dressed, no matter what else she + may or may not be wearing. + </p> + <p> + Often this lady is found presiding over an American bar, which is an + institution now commonly met with in all parts of London. The American bar + of London differs from the ordinary English bar of London in two respects, + namely—there is an American flag draped over the mirror, and it is a + place where they sell all the English drinks and are just out of all the + American ones. If you ask for a Bronx the barmaid tells you they do not + carry seafood in stock and advises you to apply at the fishmongers'—second + turning to the right, sir, and then over the way, sir—just before + you come to the bottom of the road, sir. If you ask for a Mamie Taylor she + gets it confused in her mind with a Sally Lunn and sends out for yeastcake + and a cookbook; and while you are waiting she will give you a genuine + Yankee drink, such as a brandy and soda—or she will suggest that you + smoke something and take a look at the evening paper. + </p> + <p> + If you do smoke something, beware—oh, beware!—of the native + English cigar. When rolled between the fingers it gives off a dry, + rustling sound similar to a shuck mattress. For smoking purposes it is + also open to the same criticisms that a shuck mattress is. The flames + smolder in the walls and then burst through in unexpected places, and the + smoke sucks up the airshaft and mushrooms on your top floor; then the + deadly back draft comes and the fatal firedamp, and when the firemen + arrive you are a ruined tenement. Except the German, the French, the + Belgian, the Austrian and the Italian cigar, the English cigar is the + worst cigar I ever saw. I did not go to Spain; they tell me, though, the + Spanish cigar has the high qualifications of badness. Spanish cigars are + not really cigars at all, I hear; they fall into the classification of + defective flues. + </p> + <p> + Likewise beware of the alleged American cocktail occasionally dispensed, + with an air of pride and accomplished triumph, by the British barmaid of + an American bar. If for purposes of experiment and research you feel that + you must take one, order with it, instead of the customary olive or + cherry, a nice boiled vegetable marrow. The advantage to be derived from + this is that the vegetable marrow takes away the taste of anything else + and does not have any taste of its own. + </p> + <p> + In the eating line the Englishman depends on the staples. He sticks to the + old standbys. What was good enough for his fathers is good enough for him—in + some cases almost too good. Monotony of victuals does not distress him. He + likes his food to be humdrum; the humdrummer the better. + </p> + <p> + Speaking with regard to the whole country, I am sure we have better beef + uniformly in America than in England; but there is at least one restaurant + on the Strand where the roast beef is just a little bit superior to any + other roast beef on earth. English mutton is incomparable, too, and + English breakfast bacon is a joy forever. But it never seems to occur to + an Englishman to vary his diet. I submit samples of the daily menu: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + LUNCHEON DINNER + Roast Beef Boiled Mutton + Boiled Mutton Roast Beef + Potatoes, Boiled Cabbage, Boiled + Cabbage, Boiled Potatoes, Boiled + Jam Tart Custard + Custard Jam Tart + Cheese Coffee + Coffee Cheese + TEA! +</pre> + <p> + I know now why an Englishman dresses for dinner—it enables him to + distinguish dinner from lunch. + </p> + <p> + His regular desserts are worthy of a line. The jam tart is a death-mask + that went wrong and in consequence became morose and heavy of spirit, and + the custard is a soft-boiled egg which started out in life to be a + soft-boiled egg and at the last moment—when it was too late—changed + its mind and tried to be something else. + </p> + <p> + In the City, where lunching places abound, the steamer works overtime and + the stewpan never rests. There is one place, well advertised to American + visitors, where they make a specialty of their beefsteak-and-kidney + pudding. This is a gummy concoction containing steak, kidney, mushroom, + oyster, lark—and sometimes W and Y. Doctor Johnson is said to have + been very fond of it; this, if true, accounts for the doctor's + disposition. A helping of it weighs two pounds before you eat it and ten + pounds afterward. The kidney is its predominating influence. The favorite + flower of the English is not the primrose. It is the kidney. Wherever you + go, among the restaurants, there is always somebody operating on a steamed + flour dumpling for kidney trouble. + </p> + <p> + The lower orders are much addicted to a dish known—if I remember the + name aright—by the euphonious title of Toad in the Hole. Toad in the + Hole consists of a full-grown and fragrant sheep's kidney entombed in an + excavated retreat at the heart of a large and powerful onion, and then + cooked in a slow and painful manner, so that the onion and the kidney may + swap perfumes and flavors. These people do not use this combination for a + weapon or for a disinfectant, or for anything else for which it is + naturally purposed; they actually go so far as to eat it. You pass a + cabmen's lunchroom and get a whiff of a freshly opened Toad in the Hole—and + you imagine it is the German invasion starting and wonder why they are not + removing the women and children to a place of safety. All England smells + like something boiling, just as all France smells like something that + needs boiling. + </p> + <p> + Seemingly the only Londoners who enjoy any extensive variety in their + provender are the slum-dwellers. Out Whitechapel-way the establishment of + a tripe dresser and draper is a sight wondrous to behold, and will almost + instantly eradicate the strongest appetite; but it is not to be compared + with an East End meatshop, where there are skinned sheep faces on slabs, + and various vital organs of various animals disposed about in clumps and + clusters. I was reminded of one of those Fourteenth Street museums of + anatomy—tickets ten cents each; boys under fourteen not admitted. + The East End butcher is not only a thrifty but an inquiring soul. Until I + viewed his shop I had no idea that a sheep could be so untidy inside; and + as for a cow—he finds things in a cow she didn't know she had. + </p> + <p> + Breakfast is the meal at which the Englishman rather excels; in fact + England is the only country in Europe where the natives have the faintest + conception of what a regular breakfast is, or should be. Moreover, it is + now possible in certain London hotels for an American to get hot bread and + ice-water at breakfast, though the English round about look on with + undisguised horror as he consumes them, and the manager only hopes that he + will have the good taste not to die on the premises. + </p> + <p> + It is true that, in lieu of the fresh fruit an American prefers, the + waiter brings at least three kinds of particularly sticky marmalade and, + in accordance with a custom that dates back to the time of the Druids, + spangles the breakfast cloth over with a large number of empty saucers and + plates, which fulfill no earthly purpose except to keep getting in the + way. The English breakfast bacon, however, is a most worthy article, and + the broiled kipper is juicy and plump, and does not resemble a dried + autumn leaf, as our kipper often does. And the fried sole, on which the + Englishman banks his breakfast hopes, invariably repays one for one's + undivided attention. The English boast of their fish; but, excusing the + kipper, they have but three of note—the turbot, the plaice and the + sole. And the turbot tastes like turbot, and the plaice tastes like fish; + but the sole, when fried, is most appetizing. + </p> + <p> + I have been present when the English gooseberry and the English strawberry + were very highly spoken of, too, but with me this is merely hearsay + evidence; we reached England too late for berries. Happily, though, we + came in good season for the green filbert, which is gathered in the fall + of the year, being known then as the Kentish cobnut. The Kentish cob beats + any nut we have except the paper-shell pecan. The English postage stamp is + also much tastier than ours. The space for licking is no larger, if as + large—but the flavor lasts. + </p> + <p> + As I said before, the Englishman has no great variety of things to eat, + but he is always eating them; and when he is not eating them he is + swigging tea. Yet in these regards the German excels him. The Englishman + gains a lap at breakfast; but after that first hour the German leaves him, + hopelessly distanced, far in the rear. It is due to his talents in this + respect that the average Berliner has a double chin running all the way + round, and four rolls of fat on the back of his neck, all closely clipped + and shaved, so as to bring out their full beauty and symmetry, and a + figure that makes him look as though an earthquake had shaken loose + everything on the top floor and it all fell through into his dining room. + </p> + <p> + Your true Berliner eats his regular daily meals—four in number and + all large ones; and in between times he now and then gathers a bite. For + instance, about ten o'clock in the morning he knocks off for an hour and + has a few cups of hard-boiled coffee and some sweet, sticky pastry with + whipped cream on it. Then about four in the afternoon he browses a bit, + just to keep up his appetite for dinner. This, though, is but a snack—say, + a school of Bismarck herring and a kraut pie, some more coffee and more + cake, and one thing and another—merely a preliminary to the real + food, which will be coming along a little later on. Between acts at the + theater he excuses himself and goes out and prepares his stomach for + supper, which will follow at eleven, by drinking two or three steins of + thick Munich beer, and nibbling on such small tidbits as a rosary of + German sausage or the upper half of a raw Westphalia ham. There are + forty-seven distinct and separate varieties of German sausage and three of + them are edible; but the Westphalia ham, in my judgment, is greatly + overrated. It is pronounced Westfailure with the accent on the last part, + where it belongs. + </p> + <p> + In Germany, however, there is a pheasant agreeably smothered in young + cabbage which is delicious and in season plentiful. The only drawback to + complete enjoyment of this dish is that the grasping and avaricious German + restaurant keeper has the confounded nerve to charge you, in our money, + forty cents for a whole pheasant and half a peck of cabbage—say, + enough to furnish a full meal for two tolerably hungry adults and a + growing child. + </p> + <p> + The Germans like to eat and they love a hearty eater. There should never + be any trouble about getting a suitable person to serve us at the Kaiser's + court if the Administration at Washington will but harken to the voice of + experience. To the Germans the late Doctor Tanner would have been a + distinct disappointment in an ambassadorial capacity; but there was a man + who used to live in my congressional district who could qualify in a holy + minute if he were still alive. He was one of Nature's noblemen, untutored + but naturally gifted, and his name was John Wesley Bass. He was the + champion eater of the world, specializing particularly in eggs on the + shell, and cove oysters out of the can, with pepper sauce on them, and + soda crackers on the side. + </p> + <p> + I regret to be compelled to state, however, that John Wesley is no more. + At one of our McCracken County annual fairs, a few years back, he + succumbed to overambition coupled with a mistake in judgment. After he had + established a new world's record by eating at one sitting five dozen raw + eggs he rashly rode on the steam merry-go-round. At the end of the first + quarter of an hour he fainted and fell off a spotted wooden horse and + never spoke again, but passed away soon after being removed to his home in + an unconscious condition. I have forgotten what the verdict of the + coroner's jury was—the attending physician gave it some fancy Latin + name—but among laymen the general judgment was that our fellow + townsman had just naturally been scrambled to death. It was a pity, too—the + German people would have cared for John Wesley as an ambassador. He would + have eaten his way right into their affections. + </p> + <p> + We have the word of history for it that Vienna was originally settled by + the Celts, but you would hardly notice it now. On first impressions you + would say that about Vienna there was a noticeable suggestion—a + perceptible trace—of the Teutonic; and this applies to the Austrian + food in the main. I remember a kind of Wiener-schnitzel, breaded, that I + had in Vienna; in fact for the moment I do not seem to recall much else + about Vienna. Life there was just one Wiener-schnitzel after another. + </p> + <p> + In order to spread sweetness and light, and to the end, furthermore, that + the ignorant people across the salted seas might know something of a land + of real food and much food, and plenty of it and plenty of variety to it, + I would that I might bring an expedition of Europeans to America and + personally conduct it up and down our continent and back and forth + crosswise of it. + </p> + <p> + And if I had the money of a Carnegie or a Rockefeller I would do it, too, + for it would be a greater act of charity than building public libraries or + endowing public baths. I would include in my party a few delegates from + England, where every day is All Soles' Day; and a few sausage-surfeited + Teutons; and some Gauls, wearied and worn by the deadly poulet routine of + their daily life, and a scattering representation from all the other + countries over there. + </p> + <p> + In especial I would direct the Englishman's attention to the broiled + pompano of New Orleans; the kingfish filet of New York; the sanddab of Los + Angeles; the Boston scrod of the Massachusetts coast; and that noblest of + all pan fish—the fried crappie of Southern Indiana. To these and to + many another delectable fishling, would I introduce the poor fellow; and + to him and his fellows I fain would offer a dozen apiece of Smith Island + oysters on the half shell. + </p> + <p> + And I would take all of them to New England for baked beans and brown + bread and codfish balls; but on the way we would visit the shores of Long + Island for a kind of soft clam which first is steamed and then is + esteemed. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, they should each have a broiled + lobster measuring thirty inches from tip to tip, fresh caught out of the + Piscataqua River. + </p> + <p> + Vermont should come to them in hospitality and in pity, offering buckwheat + cakes and maple sirup. But Rhode Island would bring a genuine Yankee + blueberry pie and directions for the proper consumption of it, namely—discarding + knife and fork, to raise a crusty, dripping wedge of blueberry pie in your + hand to your mouth, and to take a first bite, which instantly changes the + ground-floor plan of that pie from a triangle to a crescent; and then to + take a second bite, and then to lick your fingers—and then there + isn't any more pie. + </p> + <p> + Down in Kentucky I should engage Mandy Berry, colored, to fry for them + some spring chickens and make for them a few pones of real cornbread. In + Creole Louisiana they should sample crawfish gumbo; and in Georgia they + should have 'possum baked with sweet potatoes; and in Tidewater Maryland, + terrapin and canvasback; and in Illinois, young gray squirrels on toast; + and in South Carolina, boiled rice with black-eyed peas; and in Colorado, + cantaloupes; and in Kansas, young sweet corn; and in Virginia, country + hams, not cured with chemicals but with hickory smoke and loving hands; + and in Tennessee, jowl and greens. + </p> + <p> + And elsewhere they should have their whacking fill of prairie hen and + suckling pig and barbecued shote, and sure-enough beefsteak, and goobers + hot from the parching box; and scrapple, and yams roasted in hot + wood-ashes; and hotbiscuit and waffles and Parker house rolls—and + the thousand and one other good things that may be found in this our + country, and which are distinctively and uniquely of this country. + </p> + <p> + Finally I would bring them back by way of Richmond, and there I would give + them each an eggnog compounded with fresh cream and made according to a + recipe older than the Revolution. If I had my way about it no living + creature should be denied the right to bury his face in a brimming tumbler + of that eggnog—except a man with a drooping red mustache. + </p> + <p> + By the time those gorged and converted pilgrims touched the Eastern + seaboard again any one of them, if he caught fire, would burn for about + four days with a clear blue flame, and many valuable packing-house + by-products could be gleaned from his ruins. It would bind us all, + foreigner and native alike, in closer ties of love and confidence, and it + would turn the tide of travel westward from Europe, instead of eastward + from America. + </p> + <p> + Let's do it sometime—and appoint me conductor of the expedition! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter X. Modes of the Moment; a Fashion Article + </h2> + <p> + Among the furbearing races the adult male of the French species easily + excels. Some fine peltries are to be seen in Italy, and there is a type of + farming Englishman who wears a stiff set of burnishers projecting out + round his face in a circular effect suggestive of a halo that has slipped + down. In connection with whiskers I have heard the Russians highly + commended. They tell me that, from a distance, it is very hard to + distinguish a muzhik from a bosky dell, whereas a grand duke nearly always + reminds one of something tasty and luxuriant in the line of ornamental + arborwork. The German military man specializes in mustaches, preference + being given to the Texas longhorn mustache, and the walrus and kitty-cat + styles. A dehorned German officer is rarely found and a muley one is + practically unknown. But the French lead all the world in whiskers—both + the wildwood variety and the domesticated kind trained on a trellis. I + mention this here at the outset because no Frenchman is properly dressed + unless he is whiskered also; such details properly appertain to a chapter + on European dress. + </p> + <p> + Probably every freeborn American citizen has at some time in his life + cherished the dream of going to England and buying himself an outfit of + English clothes—just as every woman has had hopes of visiting Paris + and stocking up with Parisian gowns on the spot where they were created, + and where—so she assumes—they will naturally be cheaper than + elsewhere. Those among us who no longer harbor these fancies are the men + and women who have tried these experiments. + </p> + <p> + After she has paid the tariff on them a woman is pained to note that her + Paris gowns have cost her as much as they would cost her in the United + States—so I have been told by women who have invested extensively in + that direction. And though a man, by the passion of the moment, may be + carried away to the extent of buying English clothes, he usually discovers + on returning to his native land that they are not adapted to withstand the + trying climatic conditions and the critical comments of press and public + in this country. What was contemplated as a triumphal reentrance becomes a + footrace to the nearest ready-made clothing store. + </p> + <p> + English clothes are not meant for Americans, but for Englishmen to wear: + that is a great cardinal truth which Americans would do well to ponder. + Possibly you have heard that an Englishman's clothes fit him with an air. + They do so; they fit him with a lot of air around the collar and a great + deal of air adjacent to the waistband and through the slack of the + trousers; frequently they fit him with such an air that he is entirely + surrounded by space, as in the case of a vacuum bottle. Once there was a + Briton whose overcoat collar hugged the back of his neck; so they knew by + that he was no true Briton, but an impostor—and they put him out of + the union. In brief, the kind of English clothes best suited for an + American to wear is the kind Americans make. + </p> + <p> + I knew these things in advance—or, anyway, I should have known them; + nevertheless I felt our trip abroad would not be complete unless I brought + back some London clothes. I took a look at the shop-windows and decided to + pass up the ready-made things. The coat shirt; the shaped sock; the collar + that will fit the neckband of a shirt, and other common American + commodities, seemed to be practically unknown in London. + </p> + <p> + The English dress shirt has such a dinky little bosom on it that by rights + you cannot refer to it as a bosom at all; it comes nearer to being what + women used to call a guimpe. Every show-window where I halted was jammed + to the gunwales with thick, fuzzy, woolen articles and inflammatory plaid + waistcoats, and articles in crash for tropical wear—even through the + glass you could note each individual crash with distinctness. The London + shopkeeper adheres steadfastly to this arrangement. Into his window he + puts everything he has in his shop except the customer. The customer is in + the rear, with all avenues of escape expertly fenced off from him by the + proprietor and the clerks; but the stock itself is in the show-window. + </p> + <p> + There are just two department stores in London where, according to the + American viewpoint, the windows are attractively dressed. One of these + stores is owned by an American, and the other, I believe, is managed by an + American. In Paris there are many shops that are veritable jewel-boxes for + beauty and taste; but these are the small specialty shops, very expensive + and highly perfumed. + </p> + <p> + The Paris department stores are worse jumbles even than the English + department stores. When there is a special sale under way the bargain + counters are rigged up on the sidewalks. There, in the open air, buyer and + seller will chaffer and bicker, and wrangle and quarrel, and kiss and make + up again—for all the world to see. One of the free sights of Paris + is a frugal Frenchman, with his face extensively haired over, pawing like + a Skye terrier through a heap of marked-down lingerie; picking out things + for the female members of his household to wear—now testing some + material with his tongue; now holding a most personal article up in the + sunlight to examine the fabric—while the wife stands humbly, dumbly + by, waiting for him to complete his selections. So far as London was + concerned, I decided to deny myself any extensive orgy in haberdashery. + From similar motives I did not invest in the lounge suit to which an + Englishman is addicted. I doubted whether it would fit the lounge we have + at home—though, with stretching, it might, at that. My choice + finally fell on an English raincoat and a pair of those baggy knee + breeches such as an Englishman wears when he goes to Scotland for the moor + shooting, or to the National Gallery, or any other damp, misty, rheumatic + place. + </p> + <p> + I got the raincoat first. It was built to my measure; at least that was + the understanding; but you give an English tailor an inch and he takes an + ell. This particular tailor seemed to labor under the impression that I + was going to use my raincoat for holding large public assemblies or social + gatherings in—nothing that I could say convinced him that I desired + it for individual use; so he modeled it on a generous spreading design, + big at the bottom and sloping up toward the top like a pagoda. Equipped + with guy ropes and a centerpole it would make a first-rate marquee for a + garden party—in case of bad weather the refreshments could be served + under it; but as a raincoat I did not particularly fancy it. When I put it + on I sort of reminded myself of a covered wagon. + </p> + <p> + Nothing daunted by this I looked up the address of a sporting tailor in a + side street off Regent Street, whose genius was reputed to find an + artistic outlet in knee breeches. Before visiting his shop I disclosed my + purpose to my traveling companion, an individual in whose judgment and + good taste I have ordinarily every confidence, and who has a way of coming + directly to the meat of a subject. + </p> + <p> + "What do you want with a pair of knee breeches?" inquired this person + crisply. + </p> + <p> + "Why—er—for general sporting occasions," I replied. + </p> + <p> + "For instance, what occasions?" + </p> + <p> + "For golfing," I said, "and for riding, you know. And if I should go West + next year they would come in very handy for the shooting." + </p> + <p> + "To begin with," said my companion, "you do not golf. The only extensive + riding I have ever heard of your doing was on railway trains. And if these + knee breeches you contemplate buying are anything like the knee breeches I + have seen here in London, and if you should wear them out West among the + impulsive Western people, there would undoubtedly be a good deal of + shooting; but I doubt whether you would enjoy it—they might hit + you!" + </p> + <p> + "Look here!" I said. "Every man in America who wears duck pants doesn't + run a poultry farm. And the presence of a sailor hat in the summertime + does not necessarily imply that the man under it owns a yacht. I cannot go + back home to New York and face other and older members of the + When-I-Was-in-London Club without some sartorial credentials to show for + my trip. I am firmly committed to this undertaking. Do not seek to + dissuade me, I beg of you. My mind is set on knee breeches and I shan't be + happy until I get them." + </p> + <p> + So saying I betook myself to the establishment of this sporting tailor in + the side street off Regent Street; and there, without much difficulty, I + formed the acquaintance of a salesman of suave and urbane manners. With + his assistance I picked out a distinctive, not to say striking, pattern in + an effect of plaids. The goods, he said, were made of the wool of a Scotch + sheep in the natural colors. They must have some pretty fancy-looking + sheep in Scotland! + </p> + <p> + This done, the salesman turned me over to a cutter, who took me to a small + room where incompleted garments were hanging all about like the quartered + carcasses of animals in a butcher shop. The cutter was a person who + dropped his H's and then, catching himself, gathered them all up again and + put them back in his speech—in the wrong places. He surveyed me + extensively with a square and a measuring line, meantime taking many + notes, and told me to come back on the next day but one. + </p> + <p> + On the day named and at the hour appointed I was back. He had the garments + ready for me. As, with an air of pride, he elevated them for my + inspection, they seemed commodious—indeed, voluminous. I had told + him, when making them, to take all the latitude he needed; but it looked + now as though he had got it confused in his mind with longitude. Those + breeches appeared to be constructed for cargo rather than speed. + </p> + <p> + With some internal misgivings I lowered my person into them while he held + them in position, and when I had descended as far as I could go without + entirely immuring myself, he buttoned the dewdabs at the knees; then he + went round behind me and cinched them in abruptly, so that of a sudden + they became quite snug at the waistline; the only trouble was that the + waistline had moved close up under my armpits, practically eliminating + about a foot and a half of me that I had always theretofore regarded as + indispensable to the general effect. Right in the middle of my back, up + between my shoulder blades there was a stiff, hard clump of something that + bored into my spine uncomfortably. I could feel it quite plainly—lumpy + and rough. + </p> + <p> + "Ow's that, sir?" he cheerily asked me, over my shoulder; but it seemed to + me there was a strained, nervous note in his voice. "A bit of all right—eh, + sir?" + </p> + <p> + "Well," I said, standing on tiptoe in an effort to see over the top, + "you've certainly behaved very generously toward me—I'll say that + much. Midships there appears to be about four or five yards of material I + do not actually need in my business, being, as it happens, neither a harem + favorite nor a professional sackracer. And they come up so high I'm afraid + people will think the gallant coast-guards have got me in a lifebuoy and + are bringing me ashore through the surf." + </p> + <p> + "You'll be wanting them a bit loose, sir, you know," he interjected, still + snuggling close behind me. "All our gentlemen like them loose." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, very well," I said; "perhaps these things are mere details. However, + I would be under deep obligations to you if you'd change 'em from + barkentine to schooner rig, and lower away this gaff-topsail which now + sticks up under my chin, so that I can luff and come up in the wind + without capsizing. And say, what is that hard lump between my shoulders?" + </p> + <p> + "Nothing at all, sir," he said hastily; and now I knew he was flurried. "I + can fix that, sir—in a jiffy, sir." + </p> + <p> + "Anyhow, please come round here in front where I can converse more freely + with you on the subject," I said. I was becoming suspicious that all was + not well with me back there where he was lingering. He came reluctantly, + still half-embracing me with one arm. + </p> + <p> + Petulantly I wrestled my form free, and instantly those breeches seemed to + leap outward in all directions away from me. I grabbed for them, and + barely in time I got a grip on the yawning top hem. Peering down the + cavelike orifice that now confronted me I beheld two spectral white + columns, and recognized them as my own legs. In the same instant, also, I + realized what that hard clump against my spine was, because when he took + his hand away the clump was gone. He had been standing back there with + some eight or nine inches of superfluous waistband bunched up in his fist. + </p> + <p> + The situation was embarrassing, and it would have been still more + embarrassing had I elected to go forth wearing my breeches in their then + state, because, to avoid talk, he would have had to go along too, walking + immediately behind me and holding up the slack. And such a spectacle, with + me filling the tonneau and he back behind on the rumble, would have caused + comment undoubtedly. + </p> + <p> + That pantsmaker was up a stump! He looked reproachfully at me, chidingly + at the breeches and sternly at the tapemeasure—which he wore draped + round his neck like a pet snake—as though he felt convinced one of + us was at fault, but could not be sure which one. + </p> + <p> + "I'm afraid, sir," he said, "that your figure is changing." + </p> + <p> + "I guess you're right," I replied with a soft sigh. "As well as I can + judge I'm not as tall as I was day before yesterday by at least eighteen + inches. And I've mislaid my diaphragm somewhere, haven't I?" + </p> + <p> + "'Ave them off, please, sir," he said resignedly. "I'll 'ave to alter them + to conform, sir. Come back to-morrow." + </p> + <p> + I had them off and he altered them to conform, and I went back on the + morrow; in fact I went back so often that after a while I became really + quite attached to the place. I felt almost like a member of the firm. + Between calls from me the cutter worked on those breeches. He cut them up + and he cut them down; he sheared the back away and shingled the front, and + shifted the buttons to and fro. + </p> + <p> + Still, even after all this, they were not what I should term an + unqualified success. When I sat down in them they seemed to climb up on me + so high, fore and aft, that I felt as short-waisted as a crush hat in a + state of repose. And the only way I could get my hands into the hip + pockets of those breeches was to take the breeches off first. As ear muffs + they were fair but as hip pockets they were failures. Finally I told him + to send my breeches, just as they were, to my hotel address—and I + paid the bill. + </p> + <p> + I brought them home with me. On the day after my arrival I took them to my + regular tailor and laid the case before him. I tried them on for him and + asked him to tell me, as man to man, whether anything could be done to + make those garments habitable. He called his cutter into consultation and + they went over me carefully, meantime uttering those commiserating + clucking sounds one tailor always utters when examining another tailor's + handiwork. After this my tailor took a lump of chalk and charted out a + kind of Queen Rosamond's maze of crossmarks on my breeches and said I + might leave them, and that if surgery could save them he would operate. At + any rate he guaranteed to cut them away sufficiently to admit of my breast + bone coming out into the open once more. + </p> + <p> + In a week—about—he called me on the telephone and broke the + sad news to me. My English riding pants would never ride me again. In + using the shears he had made a fatal slip and had irreparably damaged them + in an essential location. However, he said I need not worry, because it + might have been worse; from what he had already cut out of them he had + garnered enough material to make me a neat outing coat, and by scrimping + he thought he might get a waistcoat to match. + </p> + <p> + I have my English raincoat; it is still in a virgin state so far as + wearing it is concerned. I may yet wear it and I may not. If I wear it and + you meet me on the street—and we are strangers—you should + experience no great difficulty in recognizing me. Just start in at almost + any spot on the outer orbit and walk round and round as though you were + circling a sideshow tent looking for a chance to crawl under the canvas + and see the curiosities for nothing; and after a while, if you keep on + walking as directed, you will come to a person with a plain but + substantial face, and that will be me in my new English raincoat. Then + again I may wear it to a fancy-dress ball sometime. In that case I shall + stencil Pike's Peak or Bust! on the sidebreadth and go as a prairie + schooner. If I can succeed in training a Missouri hound-dog to trail along + immediately behind me the illusion will be perfect. + </p> + <p> + After these two experiences with the English tailor I gave up. Instead of + trying to wear the apparel of the foreigner I set myself to the study of + it. I would avoid falling into the habit of making comparisons between + European institutions and American institutions that are forever favorable + to the American side of the argument. To my way of thinking there is only + one class of tourist-Americans to be encountered abroad worse than the + class who go into hysterical rapture over everything they see merely + because it is European, and that is the class who condemn offhand + everything they see and find fault with everything merely because it is + not American. But I must say that in the matter of outer habiliments the + American man wins the decision on points nearly every whack. + </p> + <p> + In his evening garb, which generally fits him, but which generally is not + pressed as to trouserlegs and coatsleeves, the Englishman makes an + exceedingly good appearance. The swallow-tailed coat was created for the + Englishman and he for it; but on all other occasions the well-dressed + American leads him—leads the world, for that matter. When a + Frenchman attires himself in his fanciest regalia he merely succeeds in + looking effeminate; whereas a German, under similar circumstances, bears a + wadded-in, bulged-out, stuffed-up appearance. I never saw a German in + Germany whose hat was not too small for him—just as I never saw a + Japanese in Occidental garb whose hat was not too large for him—if + it was a derby hat. If a German has on a pair of trousers that flare out + at the bottom and a coat with angel sleeves—I think that is the + correct technical term—and if the front of his coat is spangled over + with the largest-sized horn buttons obtainable he regards himself as being + dressed to the minute. + </p> + <p> + As for the women, I believe even the super-critical mantuamakers of Paris + have begun to concede that, as a nation, the American women are the + best-dressed women on earth. The French women have a way of arranging + their hair and of wearing their hats and of draping their furs about their + throats that is artistic beyond comparison. There may be a word in some + folks' dictionaries fitly to describe it—there is no such word in + mine; but when you have said that much you have said all there is to say. + A French woman's feet are not shod well. French shoes, like all European + shoes, are clumsy and awkward looking. + </p> + <p> + English children are well dressed because they are simply dressed; and the + children themselves, in contrast to the overdressed, overly aggressive + youngsters so frequently encountered in America, are mannerly and + self-effacing, and have sane, simple, childish tastes. Young English girls + are fresh and natural, but frequently frumpy; and the English married + woman is generally dressed in poor taste and appears to have a most + limited wardrobe. Apparently the husband buys all he wants, and then, if + there is any money left over, the wife gets it to spend on herself. + </p> + <p> + Venturing one morning into a London chapel I saw a dowdy little woman of + this type kneeling in a pew, chanting the responses to the service. Her + blouse gaped open all the way down her back and she was saying with much + fervor, "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done." + She had too, but she didn't know it, as she knelt there unconsciously + supplying a personal illustration for the spoken line. + </p> + <p> + The typical highborn English woman has pale blue eyes, a fine complexion + and a clear-cut, rather expressionless face with a profile suggestive of + the portraits seen on English postage stamps of the early Victorian + period; but in the arranging of her hair any French shopgirl could give + her lessons, and any smart American woman could teach her a lot about the + knack of wearing clothes with distinction. + </p> + <p> + In England, that land of caste which is rigid enough to be cast iron, all + men, with the exception of petty tradespeople, dress to match the + vocations they follow. In America no man stays put—he either goes + forward to a circle above the one into which he was born or he slips back + into a lower one; and so he dresses to suit himself or his wife or his + tailor. But in England the professional man advertises his calling by his + clothes. Extreme stage types are ordinary types in London. No Southern + silver-tongued orator of the old-time, string-tied, slouch-hatted, + long-haired variety ever clung more closely to his official makeup than + the English barrister clings to his spats, his shad-bellied coat and his + eye-glass dangling on a cord. At a glance one knows the medical man or the + journalist, the military man in undress or the gentleman farmer; also, by + the same easy method, one may know the workingman and the penny postman. + The workingman has a cap on his head and a neckerchief about his throat, + and the legs of his corduroy trousers are tied up below the knees with + strings—else he is no workingman. + </p> + <p> + When we were in London the postmen were threatening to go on strike. From + the papers I gathered that the points in dispute had to do with better + hours and better pay; but if they had been striking against having to wear + the kind of cap the British Government makes a postman wear, their cause + would have had the cordial support and intense sympathy of every American + in town. + </p> + <p> + It remains for the English clerk to be the only Englishman who seeks, by + the clothes he wears in his hours of ease, to appear as something more + than what he really is. Off duty he fair1y dotes on the high hat of + commerce. Frequently he sports it in connection with an exceedingly short + and bobby sackcoat, and trousers that are four or five inches too short in + the legs for him. The Parisian shopman harbors similar ambitions—only + he expresses them with more attention to detail. The noon hour arriving, + the French shophand doffs his apron and his air of deference. He puts on a + high hat and a frock coat that have been on a peg behind the door all the + morning, gathers up his cane and his gloves; and, becoming on the instant + a swagger and a swaggering boulevardier, he saunters to his favorite + sidewalk cafe for a cordial glassful of a pink or green or purple drink. + When his little hour of glory is over and done with he returns to his + counter, sheds his grandeur and is once more your humble and ingratiating + servitor. + </p> + <p> + In residential London on a Sunday afternoon one beholds some weird and + wonderful costumes. On a Sunday afternoon in a sub-suburb of a Kensington + suburb I saw, passing through a drab, sad side street, a little Cockney + man with the sketchy nose and unfinished features of his breed. He was + presumably going to church, for he carried a large Testament under his + arm. He wore, among other things, a pair of white spats, a long-tailed + coat and a high hat. It was not a regular high hat, either, but one of + those trick-performing hats which, on signal, will lie doggo or else sit + up and beg. And he was riding a bicycle of an ancient vintage! + </p> + <p> + The most impressively got-up civilians in England—or in the world, + either, for that matter—are the assistant managers and the deputy + cashiers of the big London hotels. Compared with them the lilies of the + field are as lilies in the bulb. Their collars are higher, their ties are + more resplendent, their frock coats more floppy as to the tail and more + flappy as to the lapel, than it is possible to imagine until you have seen + it all with your own wondering eyes. They are haughty creatures, too, + austere and full of a starchy dignity; but when you come to pay your bill + you find at least one of them lined up with the valet and the waiter, the + manservant and the maidservant, the ox and the ass, hand out and palm open + to get his tip. Having tipped him you depart feeling ennobled and uplifted—as + though you had conferred a purse of gold on a marquis. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XI. Dressed to Kill + </h2> + <p> + With us it is the dress of the women that gives life and color to the + shifting show of street life. In Europe it is the soldier, and in England + the private soldier particularly. The German private soldier is too stiff, + and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian private + soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the British + Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work—what with his dinky cap + tilted over one eye, and his red tunic that fits him without blemish or + wrinkle, and his snappy little swagger stick flirting the air. As a + picture of a first-class fighting man I know of but one to match him, and + that is a khaki-clad, service-hatted Yankee regular—long may he + wave! + </p> + <p> + There may be something finer in the way of a military spectacle than the + change of horse-guards at Whitehall or the march of the foot-guards across + the green in St. James' Park on a fine, bright morning—but I do not + know what it is. One day, passing Buckingham Palace, I came on a footguard + on duty in one of the little sentry boxes just outside the walls. He did + not look as though he were alive. He looked as though he had been stuffed + and mounted by a most expert taxidermist. From under his bearskin shako + and from over his brazen chin-strap his face stared out unwinking and + solemn and barren of thought. + </p> + <p> + I said to myself: "It is taking a long chance, but I shall ascertain + whether this party has any human emotions." So I halted directly in front + of him and began staring fixedly at his midriff as though I saw a button + unfastened there or a buckle disarranged. For a space of minutes I kept my + gaze on him without cessation. + </p> + <p> + Finally the situation grew painful; but it was not that British grenadier + who grew embarrassed and fidgety—it was the other party to the + transaction. His gaze never shifted, his eyes never wavered—but I + came away feeling all wriggly. + </p> + <p> + In no outward regard whatsoever do the soldiers on the Continent compare + with the soldiers of the British archipelago. When he is not on actual + duty the German private is always going somewhere in a great hurry with + something belonging to his superior officer—usually a riding horse + or a specially heavy valise. On duty and off he wears that woodenness of + expression—or, rather, that wooden lack of expression—which is + found nowhere in such flower of perfection as on the faces of German + soldiers and German toys. + </p> + <p> + The Germans prove they have a sense of humor by requiring their soldiers + to march on parade with the goose step; and the French prove they have + none at all by incasing the defenseless legs of their soldiers in those + foolish red-flannel pants that are manufactured in such profusion up at + the Pantheon. + </p> + <p> + In the event of another war between the two nations I anticipate a + frightful mortality among pants—especially if the French forces + should be retreating. The German soldier is not a particularly good + marksman as marksmen go, but he would have to be the worst shot in the + world to miss a pair of French pants that were going away from him at the + time. + </p> + <p> + Still, when all is said and done, there is something essentially Frenchy + about those red pants. There is something in their length that + instinctively suggests Toulon, something in their breadth that makes you + think of Toulouse. I realize that this joke, as it stands, is weak and + imperfect. If there were only another French seaport called Toubagge I + could round it out and improve it structurally. + </p> + <p> + If the English private soldier is the trimmest, the Austrian officer is + the most beautiful to look on. An Austrian officer is gaudier than the + door-opener of a London cafe or the porter of a Paris hotel. He achieves + effects in gaudiness which even time Italian officer cannot equal. + </p> + <p> + The Italian officer is addicted to cock feathers and horsetails on his + helmet, to bits of yellow and blue let into his clothes, to tufts of red + and green hung on him in unexpected and unaccountable spots. Either the + design of bottled Italian chianti is modeled after the Italian officer or + the Italian officer is modeled after the bottle of chianti—which, + though, I am not prepared to say without further study of the subject. + </p> + <p> + But the Austrian officer is the walking sunset effect of creation. For + color schemes I know of nothing in Nature to equal him except the Grand + Canyon of the Colorado. Circus parades are unknown in Austria—they + are not missed either; after an Austrian officer a street parade would + seem a colorless and commonplace thing. In his uniform he runs to striking + contrasts—canary yellow, with light blue facings; silvers and grays; + bright greens with scarlet slashings—and so on. + </p> + <p> + His collar is the very highest of all high collars and the heaviest with + embroidery; his cloak is the longest and the widest; his boots the most + varnished; his sword-belt the broadest and the shiniest; and the medals on + his bosom are the most numerous and the most glittering. Alf Ringling and + John Philip Sousa would take one look at him—and then, mutually + filled with an envious despair, they would go apart and hold a grand lodge + of sorrow together. Also, he constantly wears his spurs and his sword; he + wears them even when he is in a cafe in the evening listening to the + orchestra, drinking beer and allowing an admiring civilian to pay the + check—and that apparently is every evening. + </p> + <p> + There was one Austrian colonel who came one night into a cafe in Vienna + where we were and sat down at the table next to us; and he put our eyes + right out and made all the lights dim and flickery. His epaulets were two + hairbrushes of augmented size, gold-mounted; his Plimsoll marks were + outlined in bullion, and along his garboard strake ran lines of gold + braid; but strangest of all to observe was the locality where he wore what + appeared to be his service stripes. Instead of being on his sleeves they + were at the extreme southern exposure of his coattails; I presume an + Austrian officer acquires merit by sitting down. + </p> + <p> + This particular officer's saber kept jingling, and so did his spurs, and + so did his bracelet. I almost forgot the bracelet. It was an ornate affair + of gold links fastened on his left wrist with a big gold locket, and it + kept slipping down over his hand and rattling against his cuff. The chain + bracelet locked on the left wrist is very common among Austrian officers; + it adds just the final needed touch. I did not see any of them carrying + lorgnettes or shower bouquets, but I think, in summer they wear veils. + </p> + <p> + One opportunity is afforded the European who is neither a soldier nor a + hotel cashier to dress himself up in comic-opera clothes—and that is + when he a-hunting goes. An American going hunting puts on his oldest and + most serviceable clothes—a European his giddiest, gayest, gladdest + regalia. We were so favored by gracious circumstances as to behold several + Englishmen suitably attired for the chase, and we noted that the + conventional morning costume of an English gentleman expecting to call + informally on a pheasant or something during the course of the forenoon + consisted, in the main, of a perfect dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over + plaits and pockets, with large leather buttons like oak-galls adhering + thickly to it, with a belt high up under the arms and a saucy tail + sticking out behind; knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high + leggings of buff or white, and a special hat—a truly adorable + confection by the world's leading he-milliner. + </p> + <p> + If you dared to wear such an outfit afield in America the very dickeybirds + would fall into fits as you passed—the chipmunks would lean out of + the trees and just naturally laugh you to death! But in a land where the + woodlands are well-kept groves, and the undergrowth, instead of being + weedy and briery, is sweet-scented fern and gorse and bracken, I suppose + it is all eminently correct. + </p> + <p> + Thus appareled the Englishman goes to Scotland to shoot the grouse, the + gillie, the heather cock, the niblick, the haggis and other Scotch game. + Thus appareled he ranges the preserves of his own fat, fair shires in + ardent pursuit of the English rabbit, which pretty nearly corresponds to + the guinea pig, but is not so ferocious; and the English hare, which is + first cousin to our molly cottontail; and the English pheasant—but + particularly the pheasant. + </p> + <p> + There was great excitement while we were in England concerning the + pheasants. Either the pheasants were preying on the mangel-wurzels or the + mangel-wurzels were preying on the pheasants. At any rate it had something + to do with the Land Bill—practically everything that happens in + England has something to do with the Land Bill—and Lloyd George was + in a free state of perspiration over it; and the papers were full of it + and altogether there was a great pother over it. + </p> + <p> + We saw pheasants by the score. We saw them first from the windows of our + railroad carriage—big, beautiful birds nearly as large as barnyard + fowls and as tame, feeding in the bare cabbage patches, regardless of the + train chugging by not thirty yards away; and later we saw them again at + still closer range as we strolled along the haw-and-holly-lined roads of + the wonderful southern counties. They would scuttle on ahead of us, + weaving in and out of the hedgerows; and finally, when we insisted on it + and flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, they would get up, + with a great drumming of wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing + tailfeathers on the part of the cock birds, and go booming away to what + passes in Sussex and Kent for dense cover—meaning by that thickets + such as you may find in the upper end of Central Park. + </p> + <p> + They say King George is one of the best pheasant-shots in England. He also + collects postage stamps when not engaged in his regular regal duties, such + as laying cornerstones for new workhouses and receiving presentation + addresses from charity children. I have never shot pheasants; but, having + seen them in their free state as above described, and having in my youth + collected postage stamps intermittently, I should say, speaking offhand, + that of the two pursuits postage-stamp collecting is infinitely the more + exciting and dangerous. + </p> + <p> + Through the closed season the keepers mind the pheasants, protecting them + from poachers and feeding them on selected grain; but a day comes in + October when the hunters go forth and take their stands at spaced + intervals along a cleared aisle flanking the woods; then the beaters dive + into the woods from the opposite side, and when the tame and trusting + creatures come clustering about their feet expecting provender the beaters + scare them up, by waving their umbrellas at them, I think, and the + pheasants go rocketing into the air—rocketing is the correct + sporting term—go rocketing into the air like a flock of Sunday + supplements; and the gallant gunner downs them in great multitudes, always + taking due care to avoid mussing his clothes. For after all the main + question is not "What did he kill?" but "How does he look?" + </p> + <p> + At that, I hold no brief for the pheasant—except when served with + breadcrumb dressing and currant jelly he is no friend of mine. It ill + becomes Americans, with our own record behind us, to chide other people + for the senseless murder of wild things; and besides, speaking personally, + I have a reasonably open mind on the subject of wild-game shooting. + Myself, I shot a wild duck once. He was not flying at the time. He was, as + the stockword goes, setting. I had no self-reproaches afterward however. + As between that duck and myself I regarded it as an even break—as + fair for one as for the other—because at the moment I myself was, as + we say, setting too. But if, in the interests of true sportsmanship, they + must have those annual massacres I certainly should admire to see what + execution a picked half dozen of American quail hunters, used to + snap-shooting in the cane jungles and brier patches of Georgia and + Arkansas, could accomplish among English pheasants, until such time as + their consciences mastered them and they desisted from slaughter! + </p> + <p> + Be that as it may, pheasant shooting is the last word in the English + sporting calendar. It is a sport strictly for the gentry. Except in the + capacity of innocent bystanders the lower orders do not share in it. It is + much too good for them; besides, they could not maintain the correct + wardrobe for it. The classes derive one substantial benefit from the + institution however. The sporting instinct of the landed Englishman has + led to the enactment of laws under which an ordinary person goes smack to + jail if he is caught sequestrating a clandestine pheasant bird; but it + does not militate against the landowner's peddling off his game after he + has destroyed it. British thrift comes in here. And so in carload lots it + is sold to the marketmen. The result is that in the fall of the year + pheasants are cheaper than chickens; and any person who can afford poultry + on his dinner table can afford pheasants. + </p> + <p> + The Continental hunter makes an even more spectacular appearance than his + British brother. No self-respecting German or French sportsman would think + of faring forth after the incarnate brown hare or the ferocious wood + pigeon unless he had on a green hat with a feather in it; and a green suit + to match the hat; and swung about his neck with a cord a natty fur muff to + keep his hands in between shots; and a swivel chair to sit in while + waiting for the wild boar to come along and be bowled over. + </p> + <p> + Being hunted with a swivel chair is what makes the German wild boar wild. + On occasion, also, the hunter wears, suspended from his belt, a cute + little hanger like a sawed-off saber, with which to cut the throats of his + spoil. Then, when it has spoiled some more, they will serve it at a French + restaurant. + </p> + <p> + It was our fortune to be in France on the famous and ever-memorable + occasion when the official stag of the French Republic met a tragic and + untimely end, under circumstances acutely distressing to all who believe + in the divinity bestowed prerogatives of the nobility. The Paris edition + of the Herald printed the lamentable tale on its front page and I clipped + the account. I offer it here in exact reproduction, including the + headline: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + HUNTING INCIDENT SAID TO BE DUE TO CONSPIRACY +</pre> + <p> + Further details are given in this morning's Figaro of the incident between + Prince Murat and M. Dauchis, the mayor of Saint-Felix, near Clermont, + which was briefly reported in yesterday's Herald. + </p> + <p> + A regular conspiracy was organized by M. Dauchis, it is alleged, in order + to secure the stag Prince Murat and Comte de Valon were hunting in the + forest of La Neuville-en-Hetz. Already, at the outset of the hunt, M. + Dauchis, according to Le Figaro, charged at a huntsman with a little + automobile in which he was driving and threatened to fire. Then when the + stag ran into the wood, near the Trye River, one of his keepers shot it. + In great haste the animal was loaded on another automobile; and before + either the prince or Comte de Valon could interfere it was driven away. + </p> + <p> + While Comte de Valon spurred his horse in pursuit Prince Murat disarmed + the man who had shot the stag, for he was leveling his gun at another + huntsman; but before the gun was wrenched from his hands he had struck + Prince d'Essling, Prince Murat's uncle, across the face with the butt. + </p> + <p> + Meantime Comte de Valon had overtaken the automobile and, though + threatened with revolvers by its occupants, would have recaptured the stag + if the men in charge of it had not taken it into the house of M. Dauchis' + father. + </p> + <p> + The only course left for Prince Murat and Comte de Valon was to lodge a + complaint with the police for assault and for killing the stag, which M. + Dauchis refused to give back. + </p> + <p> + From this you may see how very much more exciting stag hunting is in + France than in America. Comparing the two systems we find but one point of + resemblance—namely, the attempted shooting of a huntsman. In the + North Woods we do a good deal of that sort of thing: however with us it is + not yet customary to charge the prospective victim in a little automobile—that + may come in time. Our best bags are made by the stalking or still-hunting + method. Our city-raised sportsman slips up on his guide and pots him from + a rest. + </p> + <p> + But consider the rest of the description so graphically set forth by Le + Figaro—the intriguing of the mayor; the opposing groups rampaging + round, some on horseback and some in automobile runabouts; the intense + disappointment of the highborn Prince Murat and his uncle, the Prince + d'Essling, and his friend, the Comte de Valon; the implied grief of the + stag at being stricken down by other than noble hands; the action of the + base-born commoner, who shot the stag, in striking the Prince d'Essling + across his pained and aristocratic face with the butt—exact type of + butt and name of owner not being given. Only in its failure to clear up + this important point, and in omitting to give descriptions of the costumes + worn by the two princes and the comte, is Le Figaro's story lacking. They + must have been wearing the very latest creations too. + </p> + <p> + This last brings us back again to the subject of clothes and serves to + remind me that, contrary to a belief prevalent on this side of the water, + good clothes cost as much abroad as they cost here. In England a man may + buy gloves and certain substantial articles of haberdashery in silk and + linen and wool at a much lower figure than in America; and in Italy he + will find crocheted handbags and bead necklaces are to be had cheaper than + at home—provided, of course, he cares for such things as crocheted + handbags and bead necklaces. Handmade laces and embroideries and sundry + other feminine fripperies, so women tell me, are moderately priced on the + Continent, if so be the tourist-purchaser steers clear of the more + fashionable shops and chases the elusive bargain down a back street; but, + quality considered, other things cost as much in Europe as they cost here—and + frequently they cost more. If you buy at the shopkeeper's first price he + has a secret contempt for you; if you haggle him down to a reasonably fair + valuation—say about twice the amount a native would pay for the same + thing—he has a half-concealed contempt for you; if you refuse to + trade at any price he has an open contempt for you; and in any event he + dislikes you because you are an American. So there you are. No matter how + the transaction turns out you have his contempt; it is the only thing he + parts with at cost. + </p> + <p> + It is true that you may buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in London; + so also may you buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in any American + city, but the reasonably affluent American doesn't buy ten-dollar suits at + home. He saves himself up to indulge in that form of idiocy abroad. In + Paris or Rome you may get a five-course dinner with wine for forty cents; + so you may in certain quarters of New York; but in either place the man + who can afford to pay more for his dinner will find it to his ultimate + well-being to do so. Simply because a boarding house in France or Italy is + known as a pension doesn't keep it from being a boarding house—and a + pretty average bad one, as I have been informed by misguided Americans who + tried living at a pension, and afterwards put in a good deal of their + spare time regretting it. + </p> + <p> + Altogether, looking back on my own experiences, I can at this time of + writing think of but two common commodities which, when grade is taken + into the equation, are found to be radically cheaper in Europe than in + America—these two things being taxicabs and counts. For their + cleanliness and smartness of aspect, and their reasonableness of + meter-fare, taxicabs all over Europe are a constant joy to the traveling + American. And, though in the United States counts are so costly that only + the marriageable daughters of the very wealthy may afford to buy them—and + even then, as the count calendars attest, have the utmost difficulty in + keeping them after they are bought—in Continental Europe anywhere + one may for a moderate price hire a true-born count to do almost any small + job, from guiding one through an art gallery to waiting on one at the + table. Counts make indifferent guides, but are middling fair waiters. + </p> + <p> + Outside of the counts and the taxicabs, and the food in Germany, I found + in all Europe just one real overpowering bargain—and that was in + Naples, where, as a general thing, bargains are not what they seem. For + the exceedingly moderate outlay of one lira—Italian—or twenty + cents—American—I secured this combination, to wit, as follows: + </p> + <p> + In the background old Vesuvius, like a wicked, fallen angel, wearing his + plumy, fumy halo of sulphurous hell-smoke; in the middle distance the Bay + of Naples, each larcenous wave-crest in it triple-plated with silvern + glory pilfered from a splendid moon; on the left the riding lights of a + visiting squadron of American warships; on the right the myriad slanted + sails of the coral-fishers' boats, beating out toward Capri, with the + curlew-calls of the fishermen floating back in shrill snatches to meet a + jangle of bell and bugle from the fleet; in the immediate foreground a + competent and accomplished family troupe of six Neapolitan troubadours—men, + women and children—some of them playing guitars and all six of them, + with fine mellow voices and tremendous dramatic effect, singing—the + words being Italian but the air good American—John Brown's Body Lies + a-Moldering in the Grave! + </p> + <p> + I defy you to get more than that for twenty cents anywhere in the world! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XII. Night Life—with the Life Part Missing + </h2> + <p> + In our consideration of this topic we come first to the night life of the + English. They have none. + </p> + <p> + Passing along to the next subject under the same heading, which is the + night life of Paris, we find here so much night life, of such a + delightfully transparent and counterfeit character; so much + made-to-measure deviltry; so many members of the Madcaps' Union engaged on + piece-work; so much delicious, hoydenish derring-do, all carefully + stage-managed and expertly timed for the benefit of North and South + American spenders, to the end that the deliriousness shall abate + automatically in exact proportion as the spenders quit spending—in + short, so much of what is typically Parisian that, really Paris, on its + merits, is entitled to a couple of chapters of its own. + </p> + <p> + All of which naturally brings us to the two remaining great cities of + Mid-Europe—Berlin and Vienna—and leads us to the inevitable + conclusion that the Europeans, in common with all other peoples on the + earth, only succeed—when they try to be desperately wicked—in + being desperately dull; whereas when they seek their pleasures in a + natural manner they present racial slants and angles that are very + interesting to observe and very pleasant to have a hand in. + </p> + <p> + Take the Germans now: No less astute a world traveler than Samuel G. + Blythe is sponsor for the assertion that the Berliners follow the + night-life route because the Kaiser found his capital did not attract the + tourist types to the extent he had hoped, and so decreed that his faithful + and devoted subjects, leaving their cozy hearths and inglenooks, should go + forth at the hour when graveyards yawn—and who could blame them?—to + spend the dragging time until dawn in being merry and bright. So saying + His Majesty went to bed, leaving them to work while he slept. + </p> + <p> + After viewing the situation at first hand the present writer is of the + opinion that Mr. Blythe was quite right in his statements. Certainly + nothing is more soothing to the eye of the onlooker, nothing more restful + to his soul, than to behold a group of Germans enjoying themselves in a + normal manner. And absolutely nothing is quite so ghastly sad as the sight + of those same well-flushed, well-fleshed Germans cavorting about between + the hours of two and four-thirty A.M., trying, with all the pachydermic + ponderosity of Barnum's Elephant Quadrille, to be professionally gay and + cutuppish. The Prussians must love their Kaiser dearly. We sit up with our + friends when they are dead; they stay up for him until they are ready to + die themselves. + </p> + <p> + As is well known Berlin abounds in pleasure palaces, so called. Enormous + places these are, where under one widespreading roof are three or four + separate restaurants of augmented size, not to mention winecellars and + beer-caves below-stairs, and a dancehall or so and a Turkish bath, and a + bar, and a skating rink, and a concert hall—and any number of + private dining rooms. The German mind invariably associates size with + enjoyment. + </p> + <p> + To these establishments, after his regular dinner, the Berliner repairs + with his family, his friend or his guest. There is one especially popular + resort, a combination of restaurant and vaudeville theater, at which one + eats an excellent dinner excellently served, and between courses witnesses + the turns of a first-rate variety bill, always with the inevitable team of + American coon shouters, either in fast colors or of the burnt-cork + variety, sandwiched into the program somewhere. + </p> + <p> + In the Friedrichstrasse there is another place, called the Admiralspalast, + which is even more attractive. Here, inclosing a big, oval-shaped ice + arena, balcony after balcony rises circling to the roof. On one of these + balconies you sit, and while you dine and after you have dined you look + down on a most marvelous series of skating stunts. In rapid and + bewildering succession there are ballets on skates, solo skating numbers, + skating carnivals and skating races. Finally scenery is slid in on runners + and the whole company, in costumes grotesque and beautiful, go through a + burlesque that keeps you laughing when you are not applauding, and + admiring when you are doing neither; while alternating lightwaves from + overhead electric devices flood the picture with shifting, shimmering + tides of color. It is like seeing a Christmas pantomime under an aurora + borealis. In America we could not do these things—at least we never + have done them. Either the performance would be poor or the provender + would be highly expensive, or both. But here the show is wonderful, and + the victuals are good and not extravagantly priced, and everybody has a + bully time. + </p> + <p> + At eleven-thirty or thereabout the show at the ice palace is over—concluding + with a push-ball match between teams of husky maidens who were apparently + born on skates and raised on skates, and would not feel natural unless + they were curveting about on skates. Their skates seem as much a part of + them as tails to mermaids. It is bedtime now for sane folks, but at this + moment a certain madness which does not at all fit in with the true German + temperament descends on the crowd. Some go upstairs to another part of the + building, where there is a dancehall called the Admiralskasino; but, to + the truly swagger, one should hasten to the Palais du Danse on the second + floor of the big Metropolpalast in the Behrenstrasse. This place opens + promptly at midnight and closes promptly at two o'clock in the morning. + </p> + <p> + Inasmuch as the Palais du Danse is an institution borrowed outright from + the French they have adopted a typically French custom here. As the + visitor enters—if he be a stranger—a flunky in gorgeous livery + intercepts him and demands an entrance fee amounting to about a dollar and + a quarter in our money, as I recall. This tariff the American or + Englishman pays, but the practiced Berliner merely suggests to the + doorkeeper the expediency of his taking a long running start and jumping + off into space, and stalks defiantly in without forking over a single + pfennig to any person whatsoever. + </p> + <p> + The Palais du Danse is incomparably the most beautiful ballroom in the + world—so people who have been all over the world agree—and it + is spotlessly clean and free from brackish smells, which is more than can + be said of any French establishment of similar character I have seen. At + the Palais du Danse the patron sits at a table—a table with + something on it besides a cloth being an essential adjunct to complete + enjoyment of an evening of German revelry; and as he sits and drinks he + listens to the playing of a splendid band and looks on at the dancing. + Nothing is drunk except wine—and by wine I mainly mean champagne of + the most sweetish and sickish brand obtainable. Elsewhere, for + one-twentieth the cost, the German could have the best and purest beer + that is made; but he is out now for the big night. Accordingly he + saturates his tissues with the sugary bubble-water of France. He does not + join in the dancing himself. The men dancers are nearly all paid dancers, + I think, and the beautifully clad women who dance are either + professionals, too, or else belong to a profession that is older even than + dancing is. They all dance with a profound German gravity and precision. + Here is music to set a wooden leg a-jigging; but these couples circle and + glide and dip with an incomprehensible decorum and slowness. + </p> + <p> + When we were there, they were dancing the tango or one of its manifold + variations. All Europe, like all America, was, for the moment, tango mad. + While we were in Paris, M. Jean Richepin lectured before the Forty + Immortals of the Five Academies assembled in solemn conclave at the + Institute of France. They are called the Forty Immortals because nobody + can remember the names of more than five of them. He took for his subject + the tango—his motto, in short, being one borrowed from the + conductors in the New York subway—"Mind your step!" + </p> + <p> + While he spoke, which was for an hour or more, the bebadged and beribboned + bosoms of his illustrious compatriots heaved with emotion; their faces—or + such parts of their faces as were visible above the whiskerline—flushed + with enthusiasm, and most vociferously they applauded his masterly + phrasing and his tracing-out of the evolution of the tango, all the way + from its Genesis, as it were, to its Revelation. I judge the revelation + particularly appealed to them—that part of it appeals to so many. + </p> + <p> + After that the tango seemed literally to trail us. We could not escape it. + While we were in Berlin the emperor saw fit officially to forbid the + dancing of the tango by officers of his navy and army. We reached England + just after the vogue for tango teas started. + </p> + <p> + Naturally we went to one of these affairs. It took place at a theater. + Such is the English way of interpreting the poetry of motion—to hire + some one else to do it for you, and—in order to get the worth of + your money—sit and swizzle tea while the paid performer is doing it. + At the tango tea we patronized the tea was up to standard, but the dancing + of the box-ankled professionals was a disappointment. Beforehand I had + been told that the scene on the stage would be a veritable picture. And so + it was—Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair. + </p> + <p> + As a matter of fact the best dancer I saw in Europe was a performing trick + pony in a winter circus in Berlin. I also remember with distinctness of + detail a chorusman who took part in a new Lehar opera, there in Berlin. I + do not remember him for his dancing, because he was no clumsier of foot + than his compatriots in the chorus rank and file; or for his singing, + since I could not pick his voice out from the combined voices of the + others. I remember him because he wore spectacles—not a monocle nor + yet a pair of nose-glasses, but heavy-rimmed, double-lensed German + spectacles with gold bows extending up behind his ears like the roots of + an old-fashioned wisdom tooth. + </p> + <p> + Come to think about it, I know of no reason why a chorusman should not + wear spectacles if he needs them in his business or if he thinks they will + add to his native beauty; but the spectacle of that bolster-built youth, + dressed now as a Spanish cavalier and now as a Venetian gondolier, + prancing about, with his spectacles goggling owlishly out at the audience, + and once in a while, when a gleam from the footlights caught on them, + turning to two red-hot disks set in the middle of his face, was a thing + that is going to linger in my memory when a lot of more important matters + are entirely forgotten. + </p> + <p> + Not even in Paris did the tango experts compare with the tango experts one + sees in America. At this juncture I pause a moment, giving opportunity for + some carping critic to rise and call my attention to the fact that perhaps + the most distinguished of the early school of turkey-trotters bears a + French name and came to us from Paris. To which I reply that so he does + and so he did; but I add then the counter-argument that he came to us by + way of Paris, at the conclusion of a round trip that started in the old + Fourth Ward of the Borough of Manhattan, city of Greater New York; for he + was born and bred on the East Side—and, moreover, was born bearing + the name of a race of kings famous in the south of Ireland and along the + Bowery. And he learned his art—not only the rudiments of it but the + final finished polish of it—in the dancehalls of Third Avenue, where + the best slow-time dancers on earth come from. It was after he had + acquired a French accent and had Gallicized his name, thereby causing a + general turning-over of old settlers in the graveyards of the County + Clare, that he returned to us, a conspicuous figure in the world of art + and fashion, and was able to get twenty-five dollars an hour for teaching + the sons and daughters of our richest families to trip the light fantastic + go. At the same time, be it understood, I am not here to muckrake the past + of one so prominent and affluent in the most honored and lucrative of + modern professions; but facts are facts, and these particular facts are + quoted here to bind and buttress my claim that the best dancers are the + American dancers. + </p> + <p> + After this digression let us hurry right back to that loyal Berliner whom + we left seated in the Palais du Danse on the Behrenstrasse, waiting for + the hour of two in the morning to come. The hour of two in the morning + does come; the lights die down; the dancers pick up their heavy feet—it + takes an effort to pick up those Continental feet—and quit the waxen + floor; the Oberkellner comes round with his gold chain of office dangling + on his breast and collects for the wine, and our German friend, politely + inhaling his yawns, gets up and goes elsewhere to finish his good time. + And, goldarn it, how he does dread it! Yet he goes, faithful soul that he + is. + </p> + <p> + He goes, let us say, to the Pavilion Mascotte—no dancing, but plenty + of drinking and music and food—which opens at two and stays open + until four, when it shuts up shop in order that another place in the + nature of a cabaret may open. And so, between five and six o'clock in the + morning of the new day, when the lady garbagemen and the gentlemen + chambermaids of the German capital are abroad on their several duties, he + journeys homeward, and so, as Mr. Pepys says, to bed, with nothing + disagreeable to look forward to except repeating the same dose all over + again the coming night. This sort of thing would kill anybody except a + Prussian—for, mark you, between intervals of drinking he has been + eating all night; but then a Prussian has no digestion. He merely has + gross tonnage in the place where his digestive apparatus ought to be. + </p> + <p> + The time to see a German enjoying himself is when he is following his own + bent and not obeying the imperial edict of his gracious sovereign. I had a + most excellent opportunity of observing him while engaged in his own + private pursuits of pleasure when by chance one evening, in the course of + a solitary prowl, I bumped into a sort of Berlinesque version of Coney + Island, with the island part missing. It was not out in the suburbs where + one would naturally expect to find such a resort. It was in the very + middle of the city, just round the corner from the cafe district, not more + than half a mile, as the Blutwurst flies, from Unter den Linden. Even at + this distance and after a considerable lapse of time I can still + appreciate that place, though I cannot pronounce it; for it had a name + consisting of one of those long German compound words that run all the way + round a fellow's face and lap over at the back, like a clergyman's collar, + and it had also a subname that no living person could hope to utter unless + he had a thorough German education and throat trouble. You meet such nouns + frequently in Germany. They are not meant to be spoken; you gargle them. + To speak the full name of this park would require two able-bodied persons—one + to start it off and carry it along until his larynx gave out, and the + other to take it up at that point and finish it. + </p> + <p> + But for all the nine-jointed impressiveness of its title this park was a + live, brisk little park full of sideshow tents sheltering mildly amusing, + faked-up attractions, with painted banners flapping in the air and barkers + spieling before the entrances and all the ballyhoos going at full blast—altogether + a creditable imitation of a street fair as witnessed in any American town + that has a good live Elks' Lodge in it. + </p> + <p> + Plainly the place was popular. Germans of all conditions and all ages and + all sizes—but mainly the broader lasts—were winding about in + thick streams in the narrow, crooked alleys formed by the various tents. + They packed themselves in front of each booth where a free exhibition was + going on, and when the free part was over and the regular performance + began they struggled good-naturedly to pay the admission fee and enter in + at the door. + </p> + <p> + And, for a price, there were freaks to be seen who properly belonged on + our side of the water, it seemed to me. I had always supposed them to be + exclusively domestic articles until I encountered them here. There was a + regular Bosco—a genuine Herr He Alive Them Eats—sitting in his + canvas den entirely surrounded by a choice and tasty selection of eating + snakes. The orthodox tattooed man was there, too, first standing up to + display the text and accompanying illustrations on his front cover, and + then turning round so the crowd might read what he said on the other side. + And there was many another familiar freak introduced to our fathers by Old + Dan Rice and to us, their children, through the good offices of Daniel's + long and noble line of successors. + </p> + <p> + A seasonable Sunday is a fine time; and the big Zoological Garden, which + is a favorite place for studying the Berlin populace at the diversions + they prefer when left to their own devices. At one table will be a cluster + of students, with their queer little pill-box caps of all colors, their + close-cropped heads and well-shaved necks, and their saber-scarred faces. + At the next table half a dozen spectacled, long-coated men, who look as + though they might be university professors, are confabbing earnestly. And + at the next table and the next and the next—and so on, until the + aggregate runs into big figures—are family groups—grandsires, + fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles and children, on down to the babies in + arms. By the uncountable thousands they spend the afternoon here, munching + sausages and sipping lager, and enjoying the excellent music that is + invariably provided. At each plate there is a beer mug, for everybody is + forever drinking and nobody is ever drunk. You see a lot of this sort of + thing, not only in the parks and gardens so numerous in and near any + German city but anywhere on the Continent. Seeing it helps an American to + understand a main difference between the American Sabbath and the European + Sunday. We keep it and they spend it. + </p> + <p> + I am given to understand that Vienna night life is the most alluring, the + most abandoned, the most wicked and the wildest of all night life. + Probably this is so—certainly it is the most cloistered and the most + inaccessible. The Viennese does not deliberately exploit his night life to + prove to all the world that he is a gay dog and will not go home until + morning though it kill him—as the German does. Neither does he + maintain it for the sake of the coin to be extracted from the pockets of + the tourist, as do the Parisians. With him his night life is a thing he + has created and which he supports for his own enjoyment. + </p> + <p> + And so it goes on—not out in the open; not press-agented; not + advertised; but behind closed doors. He does not care for the stranger's + presence, nor does he suffer it either—unless the stranger is + properly vouched for. The best theaters in Vienna are small, exclusive + affairs, privately supported, and with seating capacity for a few chosen + patrons. Once he has quit the public cafe with its fine music and its bad + waiters the uninitiated traveler has a pretty lonesome time of it in + Vienna. Until all hours he may roam the principal streets seeking that + fillip of wickedness which will give zest to life and provide him with + something to brag about when he gets back among the home folks again. He + does not find it. Charades would provide a much more exciting means of + spending the evening; and, in comparison with the sights he witnesses, + anagrams and acrostics are positively thrilling. + </p> + <p> + He is tantalized by the knowledge that all about him there are big doings, + but, so far as he is concerned, he might just as well be attending a + Sunday-school cantata. Unless he be suitably introduced he will have never + a chance to shake a foot with anybody or buy a drink for somebody in the + inner circles of Viennese night life. He is emphatically on the outside, + denied even the poor satisfaction of looking in. At that I have a + suspicion, born of casual observation among other races, that the Viennese + really has a better time when he is not trying than when he is trying. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XIII. Our Friend, the Assassin + </h2> + <p> + No taste of the night life of Paris is regarded as complete without a + visit to an Apache resort at the fag-end of it. For orderly and + law-abiding people the disorderly and lawbreaking people always have an + immense fascination anyhow. The average person, though inclined to blink + at whatever prevalence of the criminal classes may exist in his own + community, desires above all things to know at firsthand about the + criminals of other communities. In these matters charity begins at home. + </p> + <p> + Every New Yorker who journeys to the West wants to see a few roadagents; + conversely the Westerner sojourning in New York pesters his New York + friends to lead him to the haunts of the gangsters. It makes no difference + that in a Western town the prize hold-up man is more apt than not to be a + real-estate dealer; that in New York the average run of citizens know no + more of the gangs than they know of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—which + is to say, nothing at all. Human nature comes to the surface just the + same. + </p> + <p> + In Paris they order this thing differently; they exhibit the same spirit + of enterprise that in a lesser degree characterized certain promoters of + rubberneck tours who some years ago fitted up make-believe opium dens in + New York's Chinatown for the awed delectation of out-of-town spectators. + Knowing from experience that every other American who lands in Paris will + crave to observe the Apache while the Apache is in the act of Apaching + round, the canny Parisians have provided a line of up-to-date Apache dens + within easy walking distance of Montmartre; and thither the guides lead + the round-eyed tourist and there introduce him to well-drilled, carefully + made-up Apaches and Apachesses engaged in their customary sports and + pastimes for as long as he is willing to pay out money for the privilege. + </p> + <p> + Being forewarned of this I naturally desired to see the genuine article. I + took steps to achieve that end. Suitably chaperoned by a trio of + transplanted Americans who knew a good bit about the Paris underworld I + rode over miles of bumpy cobblestones until, along about four o'clock in + the morning, our taxicab turned into a dim back street opening off one of + the big public markets and drew up in front of a grimy establishment + rejoicing in the happy and well-chosen name of the Cave of the Innocents. + </p> + <p> + Alighting we passed through a small boozing ken, where a frowzy woman + presided over a bar, serving drinks to smocked marketmen, and at the rear + descended a steep flight of stone steps. At the foot of the stairs we came + on two gendarmes who sat side by side on a wooden bench, having apparently + nothing else to do except to caress their goatees and finger their swords. + Whether the gendarmes were stationed here to keep the Apaches from preying + on the marketmen or the marketmen from preying on the Apaches I know not; + but having subsequently purchased some fresh fruit in that selfsame market + I should say now that if anybody about the premises needed police + protection it was the Apaches. My money would be on the marketmen every + time. + </p> + <p> + Beyond the couchant gendarmes we traversed a low, winding passage cut out + of stone and so came at length to what seemingly had originally been a + winevault, hollowed out far down beneath the foundations of the building. + The ceiling was so low that a tall man must stoop to avoid knocking his + head off. The place was full of smells that had crawled in a couple of + hundred years before and had died without benefit of clergy, and had + remained there ever since. For its chief item of furniture the cavern had + a wicked old piano, with its lid missing, so that its yellowed teeth + showed in a perpetual snarl. I judged some of its most important vital + organs were missing too—after I heard it played. On the walls were + inscribed such words as naughty little boys write on schoolhouse fences in + this country, and more examples of this pleasing brand of literature were + carved on the whittled oak benches and the rickety wooden stools. So much + for the physical furbishings. + </p> + <p> + By rights—by all the hallowed rules and precedents of the American + vaudeville stage!—the denizens of this cozy retreat in the bowels of + the earth should have been wearing high-waisted baggy velvet trousers and + drinking absinthe out of large flagons, and stabbing one another between + the shoulder blades, and ever and anon, in the mystic mazes of the dance, + playing crack-the-whip with the necks and heels of their adoring lady + friends; but such was not found to be the case. In all these essential and + traditional regards the assembled Innocents were as poignantly + disappointing as the costers of London had proved themselves. + </p> + <p> + According to all the printed information on the subject the London coster + wears clothes covered up with pearl buttons and spends his time swapping + ready repartee with his Donah or his Dinah. The costers I saw were barren + of pearl buttons and silent of speech; and almost invariably they had left + their Donahs at home. Similarly these gentlemen habitues of the Cave of + the Innocents wore few or no velvet pants, and guzzled little or none of + the absinthe. Their favorite tipple appeared to be beer; and their female + companions snuggled closely beside them. + </p> + <p> + We stayed among them fully twenty minutes, but not a single person was + stabbed while we were there. It must have been an off-night for stabbings. + </p> + <p> + Still, I judged them to have been genuine exhibits because here, for the + first, last and only time in Paris, I found a shop where a stranger ready + to spend a little money was not welcomed with vociferous enthusiasm. The + paired-off cave-dwellers merely scowled on us as we scrouged past them to + a vacant bench in a far corner. The waiter, though, bowed before us—a + shockheaded personage in the ruins of a dress suit—at the same time + saying words which I took to be complimentary until one of my friends + explained that he had called us something that might be freely translated + as a certain kind of female lobster. Circumscribed by our own inflexible + and unyielding language we in America must content ourselves with calling + a man a plain lobster; but the limber-tongued Gaul goes further than that—he + calls you a female lobster, which seems somehow or other to make it more + binding. + </p> + <p> + However, I do not really think the waiter meant to be deliberately + offensive; for presently, having first served us with beer which for + obvious reasons we did not drink, he stationed himself alongside the + infirm piano and rendered a little ballad to the effect that all men were + spiders and all women were snakes, and all the World was a green poison; + so, right off, I knew what his trouble was, for I had seen many persons + just as morbidly affected as himself down in the malaria belt of the + United States, where everybody has liver for breakfast every morning. The + waiter was bilious—that was what ailed him. + </p> + <p> + For the sake of the conventions I tried to feel apprehensive of grave + peril. It was no use. I felt safe—not exactly comfortable, but + perfectly safe. I could not even muster up a spasm of the spine when a + member of our party leaned over and whispered in my ear that any one of + these gentry roundabout us would cheerfully cut a man's throat for + twenty-five cents. I was surprised, though, at the moderation of the cost; + this was the only cheap thing I had struck in Paris. It was cheaper even + than the same job is supposed to be in the district round Chatham Square, + on the East Side of New York, where the credulous stranger so frequently + is told that he can have a plain murder done for five dollars—or a + fancy murder, with trimmings, for ten; rate card covering other jobs on + application. In America, however, it has been my misfortune that I did not + have the right amount handy; and here in Paris I was handicapped by my + inability to make change correctly. By now I would not have trusted anyone + in Paris to make change for me—not even an Apache. I was sorry for + this, for at a quarter a head I should have been very glad to engage a + troupe of Apaches to kill me about two dollars' worth of cabdrivers and + waiters. For one of the waiters at our hotel I would have been willing to + pay as much as fifty cents, provided they killed him very slowly. Because + of the reasons named, however, I had to come away without making any deal, + and I have always regretted it. + </p> + <p> + At the outset of the chapter immediately preceding this one I said the + English had no night life. This was a slight but a pardonable misstatement + of the actual facts. The Englishman has not so much night life as the + Parisian, the Berliner, the Viennese or the Budapest; but he has more + night life in his town of London than the Roman has in his town of Rome. + In Rome night life for the foreigner consists of going indoors at eventide + and until bedtime figuring up how much money he has been skinned out of + during the course of the day just done—and for the native in going + indoors and counting up how much money he has skinned the foreigner out of + during the day aforesaid. London has its night life, but it ends early—in + the very shank of the evening, so to speak. + </p> + <p> + This is due in a measure to the operation of the early-closing law, which, + however, does not apply if you are a bona-fide traveler stopping at your + own inn. There the ancient tavern law protects you. You may sit at ease + and, if so minded, may drink and eat until daylight doth appear or doth + not appear, as is generally the case in the foggy season. There is another + law, of newer origin, to prohibit the taking of children under a certain + age into a public house. On the passage of this act there at once sprang + up a congenial and lucrative employment for those horrible old-women + drunkards who are so distressingly numerous in the poorer quarters of the + town. Regardless of the weather one of these bedrabbled creatures stations + herself just outside the door of a pub. Along comes a mother with a thirst + and a child. Surrendering her offspring to the temporary care of the hag + the mother goes within and has her refreshment at the bar. When, wiping + her mouth on the back of her hand, she comes forth to reclaim the + youngster she gives the other woman a ha'penny for her trouble, and + eventually the other woman harvests enough ha'penny bits to buy a dram of + gin for herself. On a rainy day I have seen a draggled, + Sairey-Gamp-looking female caring for as many as four damp infants under + the drippy portico of an East End groggery. + </p> + <p> + It is to the cafes that the early-closing law chiefly applies. The cafes + are due to close for business within half an hour after midnight. When the + time for shutting up draws nigh the managers do not put their lingering + patrons out physically. The individual's body is a sacred thing, personal + liberty being most dear to an Englishman. It will be made most dear to you + too—in the law courts—if you infringe on it by violence or + otherwise. No; they have a gentler system than that, one that is free from + noise, excitement and all mussy work. Along toward twelve-thirty o'clock + the waiters begin going about, turning out the lights. The average London + restaurant is none too brightly illuminated to start with, being a dim and + dingy ill-kept place compared with the glary, shiny lobster palace that we + know; so instantly you are made aware of a thickening of the prevalent + gloom. The waiters start in at the far end of the room and turn out a few + lights. Drawing nearer and nearer to you they turn out more lights; and + finally, by way of strengthening the hint, they turn out the lights + immediately above your head, which leaves you in the stilly dark with no + means of seeing your food even; unless you have taken the precaution to + spread phosphorus on your sandwich instead of mustard—which, + however, is seldom done. A better method is to order a portion of one of + the more luminous varieties of imported cheese. + </p> + <p> + The best thing of all, however, is to take your hat and stick and go away + from there. And then, unless you belong to a regular club or carry a card + of admission to one of the chartered all-night clubs that have sprung up + so abundantly in London, and which are uniformly stuffy, stupid places + where the members take their roistering seriously—or as a last + resort, unless you care to sit for a tiresome hour or two in the grill of + your hotel—you might as well be toddling away to bed; that is to + say, you might as well go to bed unless you find the scenes in the street + as worth while as I found them. + </p> + <p> + At this hour London's droning voice has abated to a deep, hoarse snore; + London has become a great, broody giant taking rest that is troubled by + snatches of wakefulness; London's grimy, lined face shows new wrinkles of + shadow; and new and unexpected clumping of colors in monotone and halftone + appear. From the massed-up bulk of things small detached bits stand + vividly out: a flower girl whose flowers and whose girlhood are alike in + the sere and yellow leaf; a soldier swaggering by, his red coat lighting + up the grayish mass about him like a livecoal in an ashheap; a policeman + escorting a drunk to quarters for the night—not, mind you, escorting + him in a clanging, rushing patrol wagon, which would serve to attract + public attention to the distressing state of the overcome one, but + conveying him quietly, unostentatiously, surreptitiously almost, in a + small-wheeled vehicle partaking somewhat of the nature of a baby carriage + and somewhat of the nature of a pushcart. + </p> + <p> + The policeman shoves this along the road jailward and the drunk lies at + rest in it, stretched out full length, with a neat rubber bedspread drawn + up over his prostrate form to screen him from drafts and save his face + from the gaze of the vulgar. Drunkards are treated with the tenderest + consideration in London; for, as you know, Britons never will be slaves—though + some of them in the presence of a title give such imitations of being + slaves as might fool even so experienced a judge as the late Simon Legree; + and—as perchance you may also have heard—an Englishman's souse + is his castle. So in due state they ride him and his turreted souse to the + station house in a perambulator. + </p> + <p> + From midnight to daylight the taxicabs by the countless swarm will be + charging about in every direction—charging, moreover, at the rate of + eight pence a mile. Think that over, ye taxitaxed wretches of New York, + and rend your garments, with lamentations loud! There is this also to be + said of the London taxi service—and to an American it is one of the + abiding marvels of the place—that, no matter where you go, no matter + how late the hour or how outlying and obscure the district, there is + always a trim taxicab just round the next corner waiting to come instantly + at your whistle, and with it a beggar with a bleak, hopeless face, to open + the cab door for you and stand, hat in hand, for the penny you toss him. + </p> + <p> + In the main centers, such as Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus and + Charing Cross, and along the Embankment, the Strand and Pall Mall, they + are as thick as fleas on the Missouri houn' dawg famous in song and story—the + taxis, I mean, though the beggars are reasonably thick also—and they + hop like fleas, bearing you swiftly and surely and cheaply on your way. + The meters are honest, openfaced meters; and the drivers ask no more than + their legal fares and are satisfied with tips within reason. Here in + America we have the kindred arts of taxidermy and taxicabbery; one of + these is the art of skinning animals and the other is the art of skinning + people. The ruthless taxirobber of New York would not last half an hour in + London; for him the jail doors would yawn. + </p> + <p> + Oldtime Londoners deplored the coming of the taxicab and the motorbus, for + their coming meant the entire extinction of the driver of the horse-drawn + bus, who was an institution, and the practical extinction of the hansom + cabby, who was a type and very frequently a humorist too. But an American + finds no fault with the present arrangement; he is amply satisfied with + it. + </p> + <p> + Personally I can think of no more exciting phase of the night life of the + two greatest cities of Europe than the stunt of dodging taxicabs. In + London the peril that lurks for you at every turning is not the result of + carelessness on the part of the drivers; it is due to the rules of the + road. Afoot, an Englishman meeting you on the sidewalk turns, as we do, to + the right hand; but mounted he turns to the left. The foot passenger's + prerogative of turning to the right was one of the priceless heritages + wrested from King John by the barons at Runnymede; but when William the + Conqueror rode into the Battle of Hastings he rode a left-handed horse—and + so, very naturally and very properly, everything on hoof or wheel in + England has consistently turned to the left ever since. I took some pains + to look up the original precedents for these facts and to establish them + historically. + </p> + <p> + The system suits the English mind, but it is highly confusing to an + American who gets into the swirl of traffic at a crossing—and every + London crossing is a swirl of traffic most of the time—and looks + left when he should look right, and looks right when he should be looking + left until the very best he can expect, if he survive at all, is + cross-eyes and nervous prostration. + </p> + <p> + I lost count of the number of close calls from utter and mussy destruction + I had while in London. Sometimes a policeman took pity on me and saved me, + and again, by quick and frenzied leaping, I saved myself; but then the + London cabmen were poor marksmen at best. In front of the Savoy one night + the same cabman in rapid succession had two beautiful shots at me and each + time missed the bull's-eye by a disqualifying margin of inches. A New York + chauffeur who had failed to splatter me all over the vicinage at the first + chance would have been ashamed to go home afterward and look his innocent + little ones in the face. + </p> + <p> + Even now I cannot decide in my own mind which is the more fearsome and + perilous thing—to be afoot in Paris at the mercy of all the maniacs + who drive French motor cars or to be in one of the motor cars at the mercy + of one of the maniacs. Motoring in Paris is the most dangerous sport known—just + as dueling is the safest. There are some arguments to be advanced in favor + of dueling. It provides copy for the papers and harmless excitement for + the participants—and it certainly gives them a chance to get a + little fresh air occasionally, but with motoring it is different. In Paris + there are no rules of the road except just these two—the pedestrian + who gets run over is liable to prosecution, and all motor cars must travel + at top speed. + </p> + <p> + If I live to be a million I shall never get over shuddering as I think + back to a taxicab ride I had in the rush hour one afternoon over a route + that extended from away down near the site of the Bastille to a hotel away + up near the Place Vendome. The driver was a congenital madman, the same as + all Parisian taxicab drivers are; and in addition he was on this occasion + acquiring special merit by being quite drunk. This last, however, was a + detail that did not dawn on my perceptions until too late to cancel the + contract. Once he had got me safely fastened inside his rickety, creaky + devil-wagon he pulled all the stops all the way out and went tearing up + the crowded boulevard like a comet with a can tied to its tail. + </p> + <p> + I hammered on the glass and begged him to slow down—that is, I + hammered on the glass and tried to beg him to slow down. For just such + emergencies I had previously stocked up with two French words—"Doucement!" + and "Vite!" I knew that one of those words meant speed and the other meant + less speed, but in the turmoil of the moment I may have confused them + slightly. Anyhow, to be on the safe side, I yelled "Vite!" a while and + then "Doucement" a while; and then "Doucement" and "Vite!" alternately, + and mixed in a few short, simple Anglo-Saxon cusswords and prayers for + dressing. But nothing I said seemed to have the least effect on that + demoniac scoundrel. Without turning his head he merely shouted back + something unintelligible and threw on more juice. + </p> + <p> + On and on we tore, slicing against the sidewalk, curving and jibbing, + clattering and careening—now going on two wheels and now on four—while + the lunatic shrieked curses of disappointment at the pedestrians who + scuttled away to safety from our charging onslaughts; and I held both + hands over my mouth to keep my heart from jumping out into my lap. + </p> + <p> + I saw, with instantaneous but photographic distinctness, a lady, with a + dog tucked under her arm, who hesitated a moment in our very path. She was + one of the largest ladies I ever saw and the dog under her arm was + certainly the smallest dog I ever saw. You might say the lady was + practically out of dog. I thought we had her and probably her dog too; but + she fell back and was saved by a matter of half an inch or so. I think, + though, we got some of the buttons off her shirtwaist and the back + trimming of her hat. + </p> + <p> + Then there was a rending, tearing crash as we took a fender off a machine + just emerging from a cross street, but my lunatic never checked up at all. + He just flung a curling ribbon of profanity over his shoulder at the other + driver and bounded onward like a bat out of the Bad Place. That was the + hour when my hair began to turn perceptibly grayer. And yet, when by a + succession of miracles we had landed intact at my destination, the fiend + seemed to think he had done a praiseworthy and creditable thing. I only + wish he had been able to understand the things I called him—that is + all I wish! + </p> + <p> + It is by a succession of miracles that the members of his maniacal craft + usually do dodge death and destruction. The providence that watches over + the mentally deficient has them in its care, I guess; and the same + beneficent influence frequently avails to save those who ride behind them + and, to a lesser extent, those who walk ahead. Once in a while a Paris + cabman does have a lucky stroke and garner in a foot traveler. In an + instant a vast and surging crowd convenes. In another instant the road is + impassably blocked. Up rushes a gendarme and worms his way through the + press to the center. He has a notebook in his hand. In this book he enters + the gloating cabman's name, his age, his address, and his wife's maiden + name, if any; and gets his views on the Dreyfus case; and finds out what + he thinks about the separation of church and state; and tells him that if + he keeps on the way he is headed he will be getting the cross of the + Legion of Honor pretty soon. They shake hands and embrace, and the cabman + cuts another notch in his mudguard, and gets back on the seat and drives + on. Then if, by any chance, the victim of the accident still breathes, the + gendarme arrests him for interfering with the traffic. It is a lovely + system and sweetly typical. + </p> + <p> + Under the general classification of thrilling moments in the night life of + Europe I should like to list a carriage trip through the outskirts of + Naples after dark. In the first place the carriage driver is an Italian + driver—which is a shorter way of saying he is the worst driver + living. His idea of getting service out of a horse is, first to snatch him + to a standstill by yanking on the bit and then to force the poor brute + into a gallop by lashing at him with a whip having a particularly loud and + vixenish cracker on it; and at every occasion to whoop at the top of his + voice. In the second place the street is as narrow as a narrow alley, + feebly lighted, and has no sidewalks. And the rutty paving stones which + stretch from housefront to housefront are crawling with people and goats + and dogs and children. Finally, to add zest to the affair, there are lots + of loose cows mooning about—for at this hour the cowherd brings his + stock to the doors of his patrons. In an Italian city the people get their + milk from a cow, instead of from a milkman as with us. The milk is + delivered on the hoof, so to speak. + </p> + <p> + The grown-ups refuse to make way for you to pass and the swarming young + ones repay you for not killing them by pelting pebbles and less pleasant + things into your face. Beggars in all degrees of filth and deformity and + repulsiveness run alongside the carriage in imminent danger from the + wheels, begging for alms. If you give them something they curse you for + not giving them more, and if you give them nothing they spit at you for a + base dog of a heretic. + </p> + <p> + But then, what could you naturally expect from a population that thinks a + fried cuttlefish is edible and a beefsteak is not? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XIV. That Gay Paresis + </h2> + <p> + As you walk along the Rue de la Paix [Footnote: The X being one of the few + silent things in France.] and pay and pay, and keep on paying, your eye is + constantly engaged by two inscriptions that occur and recur with the + utmost frequency. One of these appears in nearly every shopwindow and over + nearly every shopdoor. It says: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + English Spoken Here. +</pre> + <p> + This, I may tell you, is one of the few absolutely truthful and dependable + statements encountered by the tourist in the French capital. Invariably + English is spoken here. It is spoken here during all the hours of the day + and until far into the dusk of the evening; spoken loudly, clearly, + distinctly, hopefully, hopelessly, stridently, hoarsely, despondently, + despairingly and finally profanely by Americans who are trying to make + somebody round the place understand what they are driving at. + </p> + <p> + The other inscription is carved, painted or printed on all public + buildings, on most monuments, and on many private establishments as well. + It is the motto of the French Republic, reading as follows: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Liberality! Economy! Frugality! + [Footnote: Free translation.] +</pre> + <p> + The first word of this—the Liberality part—is applicable to + the foreigner and is aimed directly at him as a prayer, an injunction and + a command; while the rest of it—the Economy and the Frugality—is + competently attended to by the Parisians themselves. The foreigner has + only to be sufficiently liberal and he is assured of a flattering + reception wheresoever his straying footsteps may carry him, whether in + Paris or in the provinces; but wheresoever those feet of his do carry him + he will find a people distinguished by a frugality and inspired by an + economy of the frugalest and most economical character conceivable. In the + streets of the metropolis he is expected, when going anywhere, to hail the + fast-flitting taxicab [Footnote: Stops on signal only—and sometimes + not then.], though the residents patronize the public bus. Indeed, the + distinction is made clear to his understanding from the moment he passes + the first outlying fortress at the national frontier [Footnote: Flag + station.]—since, for the looks of things if for no better reason, he + must travel first-class on the de-luxe trains [Footnote: Diner taken off + when you are about half through eating.], whereas the Frenchmen pack + themselves tightly but frugally into the second-class and the third-class + compartments. + </p> + <p> + Before I went to France I knew Saint Denis was the patron saint of the + French; but I did not know why until I heard the legend connected with his + death. When the executioner on the hill at Montmartre cut off his head the + good saint picked it up and strolled across the fields with it tucked + under his arm—so runs the tale. His head, in that shape, was no + longer of any particular value to him, but your true Parisian is of a + saving disposition. And so the Paris population have worshiped Saint Denis + ever since. Both as a saint and as a citizen he filled the bill. He would + not throw anything away, whether he needed it or not. + </p> + <p> + Paris—not the Paris of the art lover, nor the Paris of the lover of + history, nor yet again the Paris of the worth-while Parisians—but + the Paris which the casual male visitor samples, is the most overrated + thing on earth, I reckon—except alligator-pear salad—and the + most costly. Its system of conduct is predicated, based, organized and + manipulated on the principle that a foreigner with plenty of money and no + soul will be along pretty soon. Hence by day and by night the deadfall is + rigged and the trap is set and baited—baited with a spurious gayety + and an imitation joyousness; but the joyousness is as thin as one coat of + sizing, and the brass shines through the plating; and behind the painted, + parted lips of laughter the sharp teeth of greed show in a glittering + double row. Yet gallus Mr. Fly, from the U.S.A., walks debonairly in, and + out comes Monsieur Spider, ably seconded by Madame Spiderette; and between + them they despoil him with the utmost dispatch. When he is not being + mulcted for large sums he is being nicked for small ones. It is tip, + brother, tip, and keep right on tipping. + </p> + <p> + I heard a story of an American who spent a month in Paris, taking in the + sights and being taken in by them, and another month motoring through the + country. At length he reached the port whence he was to sail for home. He + went aboard the steamer and saw to it that his belongings were properly + stored; and in the privacy of his stateroom he sat down to take an + inventory of his letter of credit, now reduced to a wan and wasted specter + of its once plethoric self. In the midst of casting-up he heard the signal + for departure; and so he went topside of the ship and, stationing himself + on the promenade deck alongside the gang-plank, he raised his voice and + addressed the assembled multitude on the pier substantially as follows: + </p> + <p> + "If"—these were his words—"if there is a single, solitary + individual in this fair land who has not touched me for something of value—if + there be in all France a man, woman or child who has not been tipped by me—let + him, her or it speak now or forever after hold their peace; because, know + ye all men by these presents, I am about to go away from here and if I + stay in my right mind I'm not coming back!" + </p> + <p> + And several persons were badly hurt in the crush; but they were believed + afterward to have been repeaters. + </p> + <p> + I thought this story was overdrawn, but, after traveling over somewhat the + same route which this fellow countryman had taken, I came to the + conclusion that it was no exaggeration, but a true bill in all + particulars. On the night of our second day in Paris we went to a theater + to see one of the topical revues, in which Paris is supposed to excel; and + for sheer dreariness and blatant vulgarity Paris revues do, indeed, excel + anything of a similar nature as done in either England or in America, + which is saying quite a mouthful. + </p> + <p> + In the French revue the members of the chorus reach their artistic limit + in costuming when they dance forth from the wings wearing short and shabby + undergarments over soiled pink fleshings and any time the dramatic + interest begins to run low and gurgle in the pipes a male comedian pumps + it up again by striking or kicking a woman. But to kick her is regarded as + much the more whimsical conceit. This invariably sets the audience rocking + with uncontrollable merriment. Howsomever, I am not writing a critique of + the merits of the performance. If I were I should say that to begin with + the title of the piece was wrong. It should have been called Lapsus + Lingerie—signifying as the Latins would say, "A Mere Slip." At this + moment I am concerned with what happened upon our entrance. + </p> + <p> + At the door a middle-aged female, who was raising a natty mustache, handed + us programs. I paid her for the programs and tipped her. She turned us + over to a stout brunette lady who was cultivating a neat and flossy pair + of muttonchops. This person escorted us down the aisle to where our seats + were; so I tipped her. Alongside our seats stood a third member of the + sisterhood, chiefly distinguished from her confreres by the fact that she + was turning out something very fetching in the way of a brown vandyke; and + after we were seated she continued to stand there, holding forth her hand + toward me, palm up and fingers extended in the national gesture, and + saying something in her native tongue very rapidly. Incidentally she was + blocking the path of a number of people who had come down the aisle + immediately behind us. + </p> + <p> + I thought possibly she desired to see our coupons, so I hauled them out + and exhibited them. She shook her head at that and gabbled faster than + ever. It next occurred to me that perhaps she wanted to furnish us with + programs and was asking in advance for the money with which to pay for + them. I explained to her that I already secured programs from her friend + with the mustache. I did this mainly in English, but partly in French—at + least I employed the correct French word for program, which is programme. + To prove my case I pulled the two programs from my pocket and showed them + to her. She continued to shake her head with great emphasis, babbling on + at an increased speed. The situation was beginning to verge on the + embarrassing when a light dawned on me. She wanted a tip, that was it! She + had not done anything to earn a tip that I could see; and unless one had + been reared in the barbering business she was not particularly attractive + to look on, and even then only in a professional aspect; but I tipped her + and bade her begone, and straightway she bewent, satisfied and smiling. + From that moment on I knew my book. When in doubt I tipped one person—the + person nearest to me. When in deep doubt I tipped two or more persons. And + all was well. + </p> + <p> + On the next evening but one I had another lesson, which gave me further + insight into the habits and customs of these gay and gladsome Parisians. + We were completing a round of the all-night cafes and cabarets. There were + four of us. Briefly, we had seen the Dead Rat, the Abbey, the Bal Tabarin + the Red Mill, Maxim's, and the rest of the lot to the total number of + perhaps ten or twelve. We had listened to bad singing, looked on bad + dancing, sipped gingerly at bad drinks, and nibbled daintily at bad food; + and the taste of it all was as grit and ashes in our mouths. We had + learned for ourselves that the much-vaunted gay life of Paris was just as + sad and sordid and sloppy and unsavory as the so-called gay life of any + other city with a lesser reputation for gay life and gay livers. A scrap + of the gristle end of the New York Tenderloin; a suggestion of a certain + part of New Orleans; a short cross section of the Levee, in Chicago; a dab + of the Barbary Coast of San Francisco in its old, unexpurgated days; a + touch of Piccadilly Circus in London, after midnight, with a top dressing + of Gehenna the Unblest—it had seemed to us a compound of these + ingredients, with a distinctive savor of what was essentially Gallic + permeating through it like garlic through a stew. We had had enough. Even + though we had attended only as onlookers and seekers after local color, we + felt that we had a-plenty of onlooking and entirely too much of local + color; we felt that we should all go into retreat for a season of + self-purification to rid our persons of the one and take a bath in + formaldehyde to rinse our memories clean of the other. But the ruling + spirit of the expedition pointed out that the evening would not be + complete without a stop at a cafe that had—so he said—an + international reputation for its supposed sauciness and its real Bohemian + atmosphere, whatever that might be. Overcome by his argument we piled into + a cab and departed thither. + </p> + <p> + This particular cafe was found, in its physical aspects, to be typical of + the breed and district. It was small, crowded, overheated, underlighted, + and stuffy to suffocation with the mingled aromas of stale drink and cheap + perfume. As we entered a wrangle was going on among a group of young + Frenchmen picturesquely attired as art students—almost a sure sign + that they were not art students. An undersized girl dressed in a shabby + black-and-yellow frock was doing a Spanish dance on a cleared space in the + middle of the floor. We knew her instantly for a Spanish dancer, because + she had a fan in one hand and a pair of castanets in the other. Another + girl, dressed as a pierrot, was waiting to do her turn when the Spanish + dancer finished. Weariness showed through the lacquer of thick cosmetic on + her peaked little face. An orchestra of three pieces sawed wood steadily; + and at intervals, to prove that these were gay and blithesome revels, + somebody connected with the establishment threw small, party-colored balls + of celluloid about. But what particularly caught our attention was the + presence in a far corner of two little darkies in miniature dress suits, + both very wally of eye, very brown of skin, and very shaved as to head, + huddled together there as though for the poor comfort of physical contact. + As soon as they saw us they left their place and sidled up, tickled beyond + measure to behold American faces and hear American voices. + </p> + <p> + They belonged, it seemed, to a troupe of jubilee singers who had been + imported from the States for the delectation of French audiences. At + night, after their work at a vaudeville theater was done, the members of + their company were paired off and sent about to the cafes to earn their + keep by singing ragtime songs and dancing buck dances. These two were + desperately, pathetically homesick. One of them blinked back the tears + when he told us, with the plaintive African quaver in his voice, how long + they had been away from their own country and how happy they would be to + get back to it again. + </p> + <p> + "We suttin'ly is glad to heah somebody talkin' de reg'lar New 'Nited + States talk, same as we does," he said. "We gits mighty tired of all dis + yere French jabberin'!" + </p> + <p> + "Yas, suh," put in his partner; "dey meks a mighty fuss over cullud folks + over yere; but 'tain't noways lak home. I comes from Bummin'ham, Alabama, + myse'f. Does you gen'lemen know anybody in Bummin'ham?" + </p> + <p> + They were the first really wholesome creatures who had crossed our paths + that night. They crowded up close to us and there they stayed until we + left, as grateful as a pair of friendly puppies for a word or a look. + Presently, though, something happened that made us forget these small dark + compatriots of ours. We had had sandwiches all round and a bottle of wine. + When the waiter brought the check it fell haply into the hands of the one + person in our party who knew French and—what was an even more + valuable accomplishment under the present circumstances—knew the + intricate French system of computing a bill. He ran a pencil down the + figures. Then he consulted the price list on the menu and examined the + label on the neck of the wine bottle, and then he gave a long whistle. + "What's the trouble?" asked one of us. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, not much!" he said. "We had a bottle of wine priced at eighteen + francs and they have merely charged us twenty-four francs for it—six + francs overcharge on that one item alone. The total for the sandwiches + should have been six francs, and it is put down at ten francs. And here, + away down at the bottom, I find a mysterious entry of four francs, which + seems to have no bearing on the case at all—unless it be that they + just simply need the money. I expected to be skinned somewhat, but I + object to being peeled. I'm afraid, at the risk of appearing mercenary, + that we'll have to ask our friend for a recount." + </p> + <p> + He beckoned the waiter to him and fired a volley of rapid French in the + waiter's face. The waiter batted his eyes and shrugged his shoulders; then + reversing the operation he shrugged his eyelids and batted his + shoulderblades, meantime endeavoring volubly to explain. Our friend shoved + the check into his hands and waved him away. He was back again in a minute + with the account corrected. That is, it was corrected to the extent that + the wine item had been reduced to twenty-one francs and the sandwiches to + eight francs. + </p> + <p> + By now our paymaster was as hot as a hornet. His gorge rose—his + freeborn, independent American gorge. It rose clear to the ceiling and + threw off sparks and red clinkers. He sent for the manager. The manager + came, all bows and graciousness and rumply shirtfront; and when he heard + what was to be said he became all apologies and indignation. He regretted + more than words could tell that the American gentlemen who deigned to + patronize his restaurant had been put to annoyance. The garcon—here + he turned and burned up that individual with a fiery sideglance—was + a debased idiot and the misbegotten son of a yet greater and still more + debased idiot. The cashier was a green hand and an imbecile besides. It + was incredible, impossible, that the overcharging had been done + deliberately; that was inconceivable. But the honor of his establishment + was at stake. They should both, garcon and cashier, be discharged on the + spot. First, however, he would rectify all mistakes. Would monsieur + intrust the miserable addition to him for a moment, for one short moment? + Monsieur would and did. + </p> + <p> + This time the amount was made right and our friend handed over in payment + a fifty-franc note. With his own hands the manager brought back the + change. Counting it over, the payee found it five francs short. Attention + being directed to this error the manager became more apologetic and more + explanatory than ever, and supplied the deficiency with a shiny new + five-franc piece from his own pocket. And then, when we had gone away from + there and had traveled a homeward mile or two, our friend found that the + new shiny five-franc piece was counterfeit—as false a thing as that + manager's false smile. We had bucked the unbeatable system, and we had + lost. + </p> + <p> + Earlier that same evening we spent a gloom-laden quarter of an hour in + another cafe—one which owes its fame and most of its American + customs to the happy circumstance that in a certain famous comic opera + produced a few years ago a certain popular leading man sang a song + extolling its fascinations. The man who wrote the song must have had a + full-flowered and glamorous imagination, for he could see beauty where + beauty was not. To us there seemed nothing particularly fanciful about the + place except the prices they charged for refreshments. However, something + unusual did happen there once. It was not premeditated though; the + proprietor had nothing to do with it. Had he known what was about to occur + undoubtedly he would have advertised it in advance and sold tickets for + it. + </p> + <p> + By reason of circumstances over which he had no control, but which had + mainly to do with a locked-up wardrobe, an American of convivial mentality + was in his room at his hotel one evening, fairly consumed with loneliness. + Above all things he desired to be abroad amid the life and gayety of the + French capital; but unfortunately he had no clothes except boudoir + clothes, and no way of getting any, either, Which made the situation + worse. He had already tried the telephone in a vain effort to communicate + with a ready-made clothing establishment in the Rue St. Honore. Naturally + he had failed, as he knew he would before he tried. Among Europeans the + telephone is not the popular and handy adjunct of every-day life it is + among us. The English have small use for it because it is, to start with, + a wretched Yankee invention; besides, an Englishman in a hurry takes a + cab, as his father before him did—takes the same cab his father + took, if possible—and the Latin races dislike telephone + conversations because the gestures all go to absolute waste. The French + telephone resembles a dingus for curling the hair. You wrap it round your + head, with one end near your mouth and the other end near your ear, and + you yell in it a while and curse in it a while; and then you slam it down + and go and send a messenger. The hero of the present tale, however, could + not send a messenger—the hotel people had their orders to the + contrary from one who was not to be disobeyed. + </p> + <p> + Finally in stark desperation, maddened by the sounds of sidewalk revelry + that filtered up to him intermittently, he incased his feet in bed-room + slippers, slid a dressing gown over his pajamas, and negotiated a + successful escape from the hotel by means of a rear way. Once in the open + he climbed into a handy cab and was driven to the cafe of his choice, it + being the same cafe mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago. + </p> + <p> + Through a side entrance he made a hasty and unhindered entrance into this + place—not that he would have been barred under any circumstances, + inasmuch as he had brought a roll with him. A person with a cluster of + currency on hand is always suitably dressed in Paris, no matter if he has + nothing else on; and this man had brought much ready cash with him. He + could have gone in fig-leaved like Eve, or fig-leafless like September + Morn, it being remembered that as between these two, as popularly + depicted, Morn wears even less than Eve. So he whisked in handily, and + when he had hidden the lower part of himself under a table he felt quite + at home and proceeded to have a large and full evening. + </p> + <p> + Soon there entered another American, and by that mental telepathy which + inevitably attracts like-spirit to like-spirit he was drawn to the spot + where the first American sat. He introduced himself as one feeling the + need of congenial companionship, and they shook hands and exchanged names, + and the first man asked the second man to be seated; so they sat together + and had something together, and then something more together; and as the + winged moments flew they grew momentarily more intimate. Finally the + newcomer said: + </p> + <p> + "This seems a pretty lachrymose shop. Suppose we go elsewhere and look for + some real doings." + </p> + <p> + "Your proposition interests me strangely," said the first man; "but there + are two reasons—both good ones—why I may not fare forth with + you. Look under the table and you'll see 'em." + </p> + <p> + The second man looked and comprehended, for he was a married man himself; + and he grasped the other's hand in warm and comforting sympathy. + </p> + <p> + "Old Man," he said—for they had already reached the Old Man stage—"don't + let that worry you. Why, I've got more pants than any man with only one + set of legs has any right to have. I've got pants that've never been worn. + You stay right here and don't move until I come back. My hotel is just + round the corner from here." + </p> + <p> + No sooner said than done. He went and in a surprisingly short time was + back, bearing spare trousers with him. Beneath the shielding protection of + the table draperies the succored one slipped them on, and they were a + perfect fit. Now he was ready to go where adventure might await them. They + tarried, though, to finish the last bottle. + </p> + <p> + Over the rim of his glass the second man ventured an opinion on a topic of + the day. Instantly the first man challenged him. It seemed to him + inconceivable that a person with intelligence enough to have amassed so + many pairs of trousers should harbor such a delusion. He begged of his + new-found friend to withdraw the statement, or at least to abate it. The + other man was sorry, but he simply could not do it. He stood ready to + concede almost anything else, but on this particular point he was adamant; + in fact, adamant was in comparison with him as pliable as chewing taffy. + Much as he regretted it, he could not modify his assertion by so much as + one brief jot or one small tittle without violating the consistent + principles of a consistent life. He felt that way about it. All his family + felt that way about it. + </p> + <p> + "Then, sir," said the first man with a rare dignity, "I regret to wound + your feelings; but my sensibilities are such that I cannot accept, even + temporarily, the use of a pair of trousers from the loan collection of a + person who entertains such false and erroneous conceptions. I have the + pleasure, sir, of wishing you good night." + </p> + <p> + With these words he shucked off the borrowed habiliments and slammed them + into the abashed bosom of the obstinate stranger and went back to his + captivity—pantless, 'tis true, but with his honor unimpaired. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XV. Symptoms of the Disease + </h2> + <p> + The majority of these all-night places in Paris are singularly and + monotonously alike. In the early hours of the evening the musicians rest + from their labors; the regular habitues lay aside their air of + professional abandon; with true French frugality the lights burn dim and + low. But anon sounds the signal from the front of the house. Strike up the + band; here comes a sucker! Somebody resembling ready money has arrived. + The lights flash on, the can-canners take the floor, the garcons flit + hither and yon, and all is excitement. + </p> + <p> + Enter the opulent American gentleman. Half a dozen functionaries greet him + rapturously, bowing before his triumphant progress. Others relieve him of + his hat and his coat, so that he cannot escape prematurely. A whole + reception committee escorts him to a place of honor facing the dancing + arena. The natives of the quarter stand in rows in the background, + drinking beer or nothing at all; but the distinguished stranger sits at a + front table and is served with champagne, and champagne only. It is + inferior champagne; but because it is labeled American Brut—what + ever that may denote—and because there is a poster on the bottle + showing the American flag in the correct colors, he pays several times its + proper value for it. From far corners and remote recesses coryphees and + court jesters swarm forth to fawn on him, bask in his presence, glory in + his smile—and sell him something. The whole thing is as mercenary as + passing the hat. Cigarette girls, flower girls and bonbon girls, postcard + venders and confetti dispensers surround him impenetrably, taking him + front, rear, by the right flank and the left; and they shove their wares + in his face and will not take No for an answer; but they will take + anything else. + </p> + <p> + Two years ago at a hunting camp in North Carolina, I thought I had met the + creature with the most acute sense of hearing of any living thing. I refer + to Pearl, the mare. Pearl was an elderly mare, white in color and + therefore known as Pearl. She was most gentle and kind. She was a reliable + family animal too—had a colt every year—but in her + affiliations she was a pronounced reactionary. She went through life + listening for somebody to say Whoa! Her ears were permanently slanted + backward on that very account. She belonged to the Whoa Lodge, which has a + large membership among humans. + </p> + <p> + Riding behind Pearl you uttered the talismanic word in the thinnest thread + of a whisper and instantly she stopped. You could spell Whoa! on your + fingers, and she would stop. You could take a pencil and a piece of paper + out of your pocket and write down Whoa!—and she would stop; but, + compared with a sample assortment of these cabaret satellites, Pearl would + have seemed deaf as a post. Clear across a hundred-foot dance-hall they + catch the sound of a restless dollar turning over in the fob pocket of an + American tourist. + </p> + <p> + And they come a-running and get it. Under the circumstances it requires + self-hypnotism of a high order, and plenty of it, to make an American + think he is enjoying himself. Still, he frequently attains to that happy + comsummation. To begin with, is he not in Gay Paree?—as it is + familiarly called in Rome Center and all points West? He is! Has he not + kicked over the traces and cut loose with intent to be oh, so naughty for + one naughty night of his life? Such are the facts. Finally, and herein + lies the proof conclusive, he is spending a good deal of money and is + getting very little in return for it. Well, then, what better evidence is + required? Any time he is paying four or five prices for what he buys and + does not particularly need it—or want it after it is bought—the + average American can delude himself into the belief that he is having a + brilliant evening. This is a racial trait worthy of the scientific + consideration of Professor Hugo Munsterberg and other students of our + national psychology. So far the Munsterberg school has overlooked it—but + the canny Parisians have not. They long ago studied out every quirk and + wriggle of it, and capitalized it to their own purpose. Liberality! + Economy! Frugality!—there they are, everywhere blazoned forth—Liberality + for you, Economy and Frugality for them. Could anything on earth be fairer + than that? + </p> + <p> + Even so, the rapturous reception accorded to a North American pales to a + dim and flickery puniness alongside the perfect riot and whirlwind of + enthusiasm which marks the entry into an all-night place of a South + American. Time was when, to the French understanding, exuberant + prodigality and the United States were terms synonymous; that time has + passed. Of recent years our young kinsmen from the sister republics nearer + the Equator and the Horn have invaded Paris in numbers, bringing their + impulsive temperaments and their bankrolls with them. Thanks to these + young cattle kings, these callow silver princes from Argentina and Brazil, + from Peru and from Ecuador, a new and more gorgeous standard for money + wasting has been established. You had thought, perchance, there was no + rite and ceremonial quite so impressive as a head waiter in a Fifth Avenue + restaurant squeezing the blood out of a semi-raw canvasback in a silver + duck press for a free spender from Butte or Pittsburgh. I, too, had + thought that; but wait, just wait, until you have seen a maitre d'hotel on + the Avenue de l'Opera, with the smile of the canary-fed cat on his face, + standing just behind a hide-and-tallow baron or a guano duke from + somewhere in Far Spiggottyland, watching this person as he wades into the + fresh fruit—checking off on his fingers each blushing South African + peach at two francs the bite, and each purple cluster of hothouse grapes + at one franc the grape. That spectacle, believe me, is worth the money + every time. + </p> + <p> + There is just one being whom the dwellers of the all-night quarter love + and revere more deeply than they love a downy, squabbling scion of some + rich South American family, and that is a large, broad negro pugilist with + a mouthful of gold teeth and a shirtfront full of yellow diamonds. To an + American—and especially to an American who was reared below Mason + and Dixon's justly popular Line—it is indeed edifying to behold a + black heavyweight fourthrater from South Clark Street, Chicago, taking his + ease in a smart cafe, entirely surrounded by worshipful boulevardiers, + both male and female. + </p> + <p> + Now, as I remarked at an earlier stage of these observations, there is + another Paris besides this—a Paris of history, of art, of + architecture, of literature, of refinement; a Paris inhabited by a people + with a pride in their past, a pluck in their present, and a faith in their + future; a Paris of kindly aristocrats, of thrifty, pious plain people; a + Paris of students and savants and scientists, of great actors and great + scientists and great dramatists. There is one Paris that might well be + burned to its unclean roots, and another Paris that will be glorified in + the minds of mankind forever. And it would be as unfair to say that the + Paris which comes flaunting its tinsel of vice and pinchbeck villainy in + the casual tourist's face is the real Paris, as it would be for a man from + the interior of the United States to visit New York and, after + interviewing one Bowery bouncer, one Tenderloin cabman, and one Broadway + ticket speculator, go back home and say he had met fit representatives of + the predominant classes of New York society and had found them unfit. Yes, + it would be even more unfair. For the alleged gay life of New York touches + at some point of contact or other the lives of most New Yorkers, whereas + in Paris there are numbers of sane and decent folks who seem to know + nothing except by hearsay of what goes on after dark in the Montmartre + district. Besides, no man in the course of a short and crowded stay may + hope to get under the skin of any community, great or small. He merely + skims its surface cuticle; he sees no deeper than the pores and the + hair-roots. The arteries, the frame, the real tissue-structure remain + hidden to him. Therefore the pity seems all the greater that, to the world + at large, the bad Paris should mean all Paris. It is that other and more + wholesome Paris which one sees—a light-hearted, good-natured, polite + and courteous Paris—when one, biding his time and choosing the + proper hour and proper place, goes abroad to seek it out. + </p> + <p> + For the stranger who does at least a part of his sight-seeing after a + rational and orderly fashion, there are pictures that will live in the + memory always: the Madeleine, with the flower market just alongside; the + green and gold woods of the Bois de Boulogne; the grandstand of the + racecourse at Longchamp on a fair afternoon in the autumn; the Opera at + night; the promenade of the Champs-Elysees on a Sunday morning after + church; the Gardens of the Tuileries; the wonderful circling plaza of the + Place Vendome, where one may spend a happy hour if the maniacal + taxi-drivers deign to spare one's life for so unaccountably long a period; + the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli, with their exquisite shops, where every + other shop is a jeweler's shop and every jeweler's shop is just like every + other jeweler's shop—which fact ceases to cause wonder when one + learns that, with a few notable exceptions, all these shops carry their + wares on commission from the stocks of the same manufacturing jewelers; + the old Ile de la Cite, with the second-hand bookstalls stretching along + the quay, and the Seine placidly meandering between its man-made, + man-ruled banks. Days spent here seem short days; but that may be due in + some part to the difference between our time and theirs. In Paris, you + know, the day ends five or six hours earlier than it does in America. + </p> + <p> + The two Palaces of Fine Arts are fine enough; and finer still, on beyond + them, is the great Pont Alexandre III; but, to my untutored instincts, all + three of these, with their clumpings of flag standards and their grouping + of marble allegories, which are so aching-white to the eye in the + sunlight, seemed overly suggestive of a World's Fair as we know such + things in America. Seeing them I knew where the architects who designed + the main approaches and the courts of honor for all our big expositions + got their notions for color schemes and statuary effects. I liked better + those two ancient triumphal arches of St.-Martin and St.-Denis on the + Boulevard St.-Denis, and much better even than these the tremendous sweep + of the Place de la Concorde, which is one of the finest squares in the + world, and the one with the grimmest, bloodiest history, I reckon. + </p> + <p> + The Paris to which these things properly appertain is at its very best and + brightest on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the parks where well-to-do people + drive or ride, and their children play among the trees under the eyes of + nursemaids in the quaint costumes of Normandy, though, for all I know, it + may be Picardy. Elsewhere in these parks the not-so-well-to-do gather in + great numbers; some drinking harmless sirupy drinks at the gay little + refreshment kiosks; some packing themselves about the man who has tamed + the tree sparrows until they come at his call and hive in chattering, + fluttering swarms on his head and his arms and shoulders; some applauding + a favorite game of the middle classes that is being played in every wide + and open space. I do not know its name—could not find anybody who + seemed to know its name—but this game is a kind of glorified + battledore and shuttlecock played with a small, hard ball capable of being + driven high and far by smartly administered strokes of a hide-headed, + rimmed device shaped like a tambourine. It would seem also to be requisite + to its proper playing that each player shall have a red coat and a full + spade beard, and a tremendous amount of speed and skill. If the ball gets + lost in anybody's whiskers I think it counts ten for the opposing side; + but I do not know the other rules. + </p> + <p> + A certain indefinable, unmistakably Gallic flavor or piquancy savors the + life of the people; it disappears only when they cease to be their own + natural selves. A woman novelist, American by birth, but a resident of + several years in Paris, told me a story illustrative of this. The incident + she narrated was so typical that it could never have happened except in + Paris, I thought. She said she was one of a party who went one night to + dine at a little cafe much frequented by artists and art students. The + host was himself an artist of reputation. As they dined there entered a + tall, gloomy figure of a man with a long, ugly face full of flexible + wrinkles; such a figure and such a face as instantly commanded their + attention. This man slid into a seat at a table near their table and had a + frugal meal. He had reached the stage of demitasse and cigarette when he + laid down cup and cigarette and, fetching a bit of cardboard and a crayon + out of his pocket, began putting down lines and shadings; between strokes + he covertly studied the profile of the man who was giving the dinner + party. Not to be outdone the artist hauled out his drawing pad and pencil + and made a quick sketch of the long-faced man. Both finished their jobs + practically at the same moment; and, rising together with low bows, they + exchanged pictures—each had done a rattling good caricature of the + other—and then, without a word having been spoken or a move made + toward striking up an acquaintance, each man sat him down again and + finished his dinner. + </p> + <p> + The lone diner departed first. When the party at the other table had had + their coffee they went round the corner to a little circus—one of + the common type of French circuses, which are housed in permanent wooden + buildings instead of under tents. Just as they entered, the premier clown, + in spangles and peak cap, bounded into the ring. Through the coating of + powder on it they recognized his wrinkly, mobile face: it was the + sketch-making stranger whose handiwork they had admired not half an hour + before. + </p> + <p> + Hearing the tale we went to the same circus and saw the same clown. His + ears were painted bright red—the red ear is the inevitable badge of + the French clown—and he had as a foil for his funning a comic + countryman known on the program as Auguste, which is the customary name of + all comic countrymen in France; and, though I knew only at second hand of + his sketch-making abilities, I am willing to concede that he was the + drollest master of pantomime I ever saw. On leaving the circus, very + naturally we went to the cafe—where the first part of the little + dinner comedy had been enacted. We encountered both artists, professional + or amateur, of blacklead and bristol board, but we met a waiter there who + was an artist—in his line. I ordered a cigar of him, specifying that + the cigar should be of a brand made in Havana and popular in the States. + He brought one cigar on a tray. In size and shape and general aspect it + seemed to answer the required specifications. The little belly band about + its dark-brown abdomen was certainly orthodox and regular; but no sooner + had I lit it and taken a couple of puffs than I was seized with the + conviction that something had crawled up that cigar and died. So I + examined it more closely and I saw then that it was a bad French cigar, + artfully adorned about its middle with a second-hand band, which the + waiter had picked up after somebody else had plucked it off one of the + genuine articles and had treasured it, no doubt, against the coming of + some unsophisticated patron such as I. And I doubt whether that could have + happened anywhere except in Paris either. That is just it, you see. Try as + hard as you please to see the real Paris, the Paris of petty larceny and + small, mean graft intrudes on you and takes a peck at your purse. + </p> + <p> + Go where you will, you cannot escape it. You journey, let us assume, to + the Tomb of Napoleon, under the great dome that rises behind the + wide-armed Hotel des Invalides. From a splendid rotunda you look down to + where, craftily touched by the softened lights streaming in from high + above, that great sarcophagus stands housing the bones of Bonaparte; and + above the entrance to the crypt you read the words from the last will and + testament of him who sleeps here: "I desire that my ashes may repose on + the banks of the Seine, among the French people I have so well loved." And + you reflect that he so well loved them that, to glut his lusting after + power and yet more power, he led sundry hundreds of thousands of them to + massacre and mutilation and starvation; but that is the way of world—conquerors + the world over—and has absolutely nothing to do with this tale. The + point I am trying to get at is, if you can gaze unmoved at this sepulcher + you are a clod. And if you can get away from its vicinity without being + held up and gouged by small grafters you are a wonder. + </p> + <p> + Not tombs nor temples nor sanctuaries are safe from the profane and + polluting feet of the buzzing plague of them. You journey miles away from + this spot to the great cemetery of Pere Lachaise. You trudge past + seemingly unending, constantly unfolding miles of monuments and + mausoleums; you view the storied urns and animated busts that mark the + final resting-places of France's illustrious dead. And as you marvel that + France should have had so many illustrious dead, and that so many of them + at this writing should be so dead, out from behind De Musset's vault or + Marshal Ney's comes a snoopy, smirky wretch to pester you to the + desperation that is red-eyed and homicidal with his picture post cards and + his execrable wooden carvings. + </p> + <p> + You fight the persistent vermin off and flee for refuge to that shrine of + every American who knows his Mark Twain—the joint grave [Footnote: + Being French, and therefore economical, those two are, as it were, + splitting one tomb between them.] of Hell Loisy and Abie Lard [Footnote: + Popular tourist pronunciation.] and lo, in the very shadow of it there + lurks a blood brother to the first pest! I defy you to get out of that + cemetery without buying something of no value from one or the other, or + both of them. The Communists made their last stand in Pere Lachaise. So + did I. They went down fighting. Same here. They were licked to a frazzle. + Ditto, ditto. + </p> + <p> + Next, we will say, Notre Dame draws you. Within, you walk the clattering + flags of its dim, long aisles; without, you peer aloft to view its + gargoyled waterspouts, leering down like nightmares caught in the very act + of leering and congealed into stone. The spirit of the place possesses + you; you conjure up a vision of the little maid Esmeralda and the squat + hunchback who dwelt in the tower above; and at the precise moment a foul + vagabond pounces on you and, with a wink that is in itself an insult and a + smile that should earn for him a kick for every inch of its breadth, he + draws from beneath his coat a set of nasty photographs—things which + no decent man could look at without gagging and would not carry about with + him on his person for a million dollars in cash. By threats and hard words + you drive him off; but seeing others of his kind drawing nigh you run + away, with no particular destination in mind except to discover some spot, + however obscure and remote, where the wicked cease from troubling and the + weary may be at rest for a few minutes. You cross a bridge to the farther + bank of the river and presently you find yourself—at least I found + myself there—in one of the very few remaining quarters of old Paris, + as yet untouched by the scheme of improvement that is wiping out whatever + is medieval and therefore unsanitary, and making it all over, modern and + slick and shiny. + </p> + <p> + Losing yourself—and with yourself your sense of the reality of + things—you wander into a maze of tall, beetle-browed old houses with + tiny windows that lower at you from under their dormered lids like hostile + eyes. Above, on the attic ledges, are boxes of flowers and coops where + caged larks and linnets pipe cheery snatches of song; and on beyond, + between the eaves, which bend toward one another like gossips who would + swap whispered confidences, is a strip of sky. Below are smells of age and + dampness. And there is a rich, nutritious garlicky smell too; and against + a jog in the wall a frowsy but picturesque rag-picker is asleep on a pile + of sacks, with a big sleek cat asleep on his breast. I do not guarantee + the rag-picker. He and his cat may have moved since I was there and saw + them, although they had the look about them both of being permanent + fixtures. + </p> + <p> + You pass a little church, lolling and lopped with the weight of the years; + and through its doors you catch a vista of old pillars and soft + half-lights, and twinkling candles set upon the high altar. Not even the + jimcrackery with which the Latin races dress up their holy places and the + graves of their dead can entirely dispel its abiding, brooding air of + peace and majesty. You linger a moment outside just such a tavern as a + certain ragged poet of parts might have frequented the while he penned his + versified inquiry which after all these centuries is not yet + satisfactorily answered, touching on the approximate whereabouts of the + snows that fell yesteryear and the roses that bloomed yesterweek. + </p> + <p> + Midway of a winding alley you come to an ancient wall and an ancient gate + crowned with the half-effaced quarterings of an ancient house, and you + halt, almost expecting that the rusted hinges will creak a warning and the + wooden halves begrudgingly divide, and that from under the slewed arch + will issue a most gallant swashbuckler with his buckles all buckled and + his swash swashing; hence the name. + </p> + <p> + At this juncture you feel a touch on your shoulder. You spin on your heel, + feeling at your hip for an imaginary sword. But 'tis not Master Francois + Villon, in tattered doublet, with a sonnet. Nor yet is it a jaunty blade, + in silken cloak, with a challenge. It is your friend of the obscene + photograph collection. He has followed you all the way from 1914 clear + back into the Middle Ages, biding his time and hoping you will change your + mind about investing in his nasty wares. + </p> + <p> + With your wife or your sister you visit the Louvre. You look on the Winged + Victory and admire her classic but somewhat bulky proportions, meantime + saying to yourself that it certainly must have been a mighty hard battle + the lady won, because she lost her head and both arms in doing it. You + tire of interminable portraits of the Grand Monarch, showing him grouped + with his wife, the Old-fashioned Square Upright; and his son, the Baby + Grand; and his prime minister, the Lyre; and his brother, the Yellow + Clarinet, and the rest of the orchestra. You examine the space on the wall + where Mona Lisa is or is not smiling her inscrutable smile, depending on + whether the open season for Mona Lisas has come or has passed. Wandering + your weary way past acres of the works of Rubens, and miles of Titians, + and townships of Corots, and ranges of Michelangelos, and quarter sections + of Raphaels, and government reserves of Leonardo da Vincis, you stray off + finally into a side passage to see something else, leaving your wife or + your sister behind in one of the main galleries. You are gone only a + minute or two, but returning you find her furiously, helplessly angry and + embarrassed; and on inquiry you learn she has been enduring the ordeal of + being ogled by a small, wormy-looking creature who has gone without + shaving for two or three years in a desperate endeavor to resemble a real + man. + </p> + <p> + Some day somebody will take a squirt-gun and a pint of insect powder and + destroy these little, hairy caterpillars who infest all parts of Paris and + make it impossible for a respectable woman to venture on the streets + unaccompanied. + </p> + <p> + Let us, for the further adornment and final elaboration of the + illustration, say that you are sitting at one of the small round tables + which make mushroom beds under the awnings along the boulevards. All about + you are French people, enjoying themselves in an easy and a rational and + an inexpensive manner. As for yourself, all you desire is a quiet half + hour in which to read your paper, sip your coffee, and watch the shifting + panorama of street life. That emphatically is all you ask; merely that and + a little privacy. Are you permitted to have it? You are not. + </p> + <p> + Beggars beseech you to look on their afflictions. Sidewalk venders cluster + about you. And if you are smoking the spark of your cigar inevitably draws + a full delegation of those moldy old whiskerados who follow the profession + of collecting butts and quids. They hover about you, watchful as chicken + hawks; and their bleary eyes envy you for each puff you take, until you + grow uneasy and self-reproachful under their glare, and your smoke is + spoiled for you. Very few men smoke well before an audience, even an + audience of their own selection; so before your cigar is half finished you + toss it away, and while it is yet in the air the watchers leap forward and + squabble under your feet for the prize. Then the winner emerges from the + scramble and departs along the sidewalk to seek his next victim, with the + still-smoking trophy impaled on his steel-pointed tool of trade. + </p> + <p> + In desperation you rise up from there and flee away to your hotel and hide + in your room, and lock and double-lock the doors, and begin to study + timetables with a view to quitting Paris on the first train leaving for + anywhere, the only drawback to a speedy consummation of this happy + prospect being that no living creature can fathom the meaning of French + timetables. + </p> + <p> + It is not so much the aggregate amount of which they have despoiled you—it + is the knowledge that every other person in Paris is seeking and planning + to nick you for some sum, great or small; it is the realization that, by + reason of your ignorance of the language and the customs of the land, you + are at their mercy, and they have no mercy—that, as Walter Pater so + succinctly phrases it, that is what gets your goat—and gets it good! + </p> + <p> + So you shake the dust from your feet—your own dust, not Paris' dust—and + you depart per hired hack for the station and per train from the station. + And as the train draws away from the trainshed you behold behind you two + legends or inscriptions, repeated and reiterated everywhere on the walls + of the French capital. + </p> + <p> + One of them says: English Spoken Here! + </p> + <p> + And the other says: Liberality! Economy! Frugality! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XVI. As Done in London + </h2> + <p> + London is essentially a he-town, just as Paris is indubitably a she-town. + That untranslatable, unmistakable something which is not to be defined in + the plain terms of speech, yet which sets its mark on any long-settled + community, has branded them both—the one as being masculine, the + other as being feminine. For Paris the lily stands, the conventionalized, + feminized lily; but London is a lion, a shag-headed, heavy-pawed British + lion. + </p> + <p> + One thinks of Paris as a woman, rather pretty, somewhat regardless of + morals and decidedly slovenly of person; craving admiration, but too + indolent to earn it by keeping herself presentable; covering up the dirt + on a piquant face with rice powder; wearing paste jewels in her earlobes + in an effort to distract criticism from the fact that the ears themselves + stand in need of soap and water. London, viewed in retrospect, seems a + great, clumsy, slow-moving giant, with hair on his chest and soil under + his nails; competent in the larger affairs and careless about the smaller + ones; amply satisfied with himself and disdainful of the opinions of + outsiders; having all of a man's vices and a good share of his virtues; + loving sport for sport's sake and power for its own sake and despising art + for art's sake. + </p> + <p> + You do not have to spend a week or a month or a year in either Paris or + London to note these things. The distinction is wide enough to be seen in + a day; yes, or in an hour. It shows in all the outer aspects. An + overtowering majority of the smart shops in Paris cater to women; a large + majority of the smart shops in London cater to men. It shows in their + voices; for cities have voices just as individuals have voices. New York + is not yet old enough to have found its own sex. It belongs still to the + neuter gender. New York is not even a noun—it's a verb transitive; + but its voice is a female voice, just as Paris' voice is. New York, like + Paris, is full of strident, shrieking sounds, shrill outcries, hysterical + babblings—a women's bridge-whist club at the hour of casting up the + score; but London now is different. London at all hours speaks with a + sustained, sullen, steady, grinding tone, never entirely sinking into + quietude, never rising to acute discords. The sound of London rolls on + like a river—a river that ebbs sometimes, but rarely floods above + its normal banks; it impresses one as the necessary breathing of a + grunting and burdened monster who has a mighty job on his hands and is + taking his own good time about doing it. + </p> + <p> + In London, mind you, the newsboys do not shout their extras. They bear in + their hands placards with black-typed announcements of the big news story + of the day; and even these headings seem designed to soothe rather than to + excite—saying, for example, such things as Special From Liner, in + referring to a disaster at sea, and Meeting in Ulster, when meaning that + the northern part of Ireland has gone on record as favoring civil war + before home rule. + </p> + <p> + The street venders do not bray on noisy trumpets or ring with bells or + utter loud cries to advertise their wares. The policeman does not shout + his orders out; he holds aloft the stripe-sleeved arm of authority and all + London obeys. I think the reason why the Londoners turned so viciously on + the suffragettes was not because of the things the suffragettes clamored + for, but because they clamored for them so loudly. They jarred the public + peace—that must have been it. + </p> + <p> + I can understand why an adult American might go to Paris and stay in Paris + and be satisfied with Paris, if he were a lover of art and millinery in + all their branches; or why he might go to Berlin if he were studying music + and municipal control; or to Amsterdam if he cared for cleanliness and new + cheese; or to Vienna if he were concerned with surgery, light opera, and + the effect on the human lungs of doing without fresh air for long periods + of time; or to Rome if he were an antiquarian and interested in ancient + life; or to Naples if he were an entomologist and interested in insect + life; or to Venice if he liked ruins with water round them; or to Padua if + he liked ruins with no water anywhere near them. No: I'm blessed if I can + think of a single good reason why a sane man should go to Padua if he + could go anywhere else. + </p> + <p> + But I think I know, good and well, why a man might spend his whole + vacation in London and enjoy every minute of it. For this old fogy, old + foggy town of London is a man-sized town, and a man-run town; and it has a + fascination of its own that is as much a part of it as London's grime is; + or London's vastness and London's pettiness; or London's wealth and its + stark poverty; or its atrocious suburbs; or its dirty, trade-fretted + river; or its dismal back streets; or its still more dismal slums—or + anything that is London's. + </p> + <p> + To a man hailing from a land where everything is so new that quite a good + deal of it has not even happened yet, it is a joyful thing to turn off a + main-traveled road into one of the crooked byways in which the older parts + of London abound, and suddenly to come, full face, on a house or a court + or a pump which figured in epochal history or epochal literature of the + English-speaking race. It is a still greater joy to find it—house or + court or pump or what not—looking now pretty much as it must have + looked when good Queen Bess, or little Dick Whittington, or Chaucer the + scribe, or Shakspere the player, came this way. It is fine to be riding + through the country and pass a peaceful green meadow and inquire its name + of your driver and be told, most offhandedly, that it is a place called + Runnymede. Each time this happened to me I felt the thrill of a + discoverer; as though I had been the first traveler to find these spots. + </p> + <p> + I remember that through an open door I was marveling at the domestic + economies of an English barber shop. I use the word economies in this + connection advisedly; for, compared with the average high-polished, + sterilized and antiseptic barber shop of an American city, this shop + seemed a torture cave. In London, pubs are like that, and some dentists' + establishments and law offices—musty, fusty dens very unlike their + Yankee counterparts. In this particular shop now the chairs were hard, + wooden chairs; the looking-glass—you could not rightly call it a + mirror—was cracked and bleary; and an apprentice boy went from one + patron to another, lathering each face; and then the master followed after + him, razor in hand, and shaved the waiting countenances in turn. Flies + that looked as though they properly belonged in a livery stable were + buzzing about; and there was a prevalent odor which made me think that all + the sick pomade in the world had come hither to spend its last declining + hours. I said to myself that this place would bear further study; that + some day, when I felt particularly hardy and daring, I would come here and + be shaved, and afterward would write a piece about it and sell it for + money. So, the better to fix its location in my mind, I glanced up at the + street sign and, behold! I was hard by Drury Lane, where Sweet Nelly once + on a time held her court. + </p> + <p> + Another time I stopped in front of a fruiterer's, my eye having been + caught by the presence in his window of half a dozen draggled-looking, + wilted roasting ears decorated with a placard reading as follows: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + AMERICAN MAIZE OR INDIAN CORN + A VEGETABLE—TO BE BOILED AND THEN + EATEN +</pre> + <p> + I was remarking to myself that these Britishers were surely a strange race + of beings—that if England produced so delectable a thing as green + corn we in America would import it by the shipload and serve it on every + table; whereas here it was so rare that they needs must label it as + belonging to the vegetable kingdom, lest people should think it might be + an animal—when I chanced to look more closely at the building + occupied by the fruiterer and saw that it was an ancient house, + half-timbered above the first floor, with a queer low-browed roof. + Inquiring afterward I learned that this house dated straight back to + Elizabethan days and still on beyond for so many years that no man knew + exactly how many; and I began to understand in a dim sort of way how and + why it was these people held so fast to the things they had and cared so + little for the things they had not. + </p> + <p> + Better than by all the reading you have ever done you absorb a sense and + realization of the splendor of England's past when you go to Westminster + Abbey and stand—figuratively—with one foot on Jonson and + another on Dryden; and if, overcome by the presence of so much + dead-and-gone greatness, you fall in a fit you commit a trespass on the + last resting-place of Macaulay or Clive, or somebody of equal consequence. + More imposing even than Westminster is St. Paul's. I am not thinking so + much of the memorials or the tombs or the statues there, but of the + tattered battleflags bearing the names of battles fought by the English in + every crack and cranny of the world, from Quebec to Ladysmith, and from + Lucknow to Khartum. Beholding them there, draped above the tombs, some + faded but still intact, some mere clotted wisps of ragged silk clinging to + blackened standards, gives one an uplifting conception of the spirit that + has sent the British soldier forth to girth the globe, never faltering, + never slackening pace, never giving back a step to-day but that he took + two steps forward to-morrow; never stopping—except for tea. + </p> + <p> + The fool hath said in his heart that he would go to England and come away + and write something about his impressions, but never write a single, + solitary word about the Englishman's tea-drinking habit, or the + Englishman's cricket-playing habit, or the Englishman's lack of a sense of + humor. I was that fool. But it cannot be done. Lacking these things + England would not be England. It would be Hamlet without Hamlet or the + Ghost or the wicked Queen or mad Ophelia or her tiresome old pa; for most + English life and the bulk of English conversation center about sporting + topics, with the topic of cricket predominating. And at a given hour of + the day the wheels of the empire stop, and everybody in the empire—from + the king in the counting house counting up his money, to the maid in the + garden hanging out the clothes—drops what he or she may be doing and + imbibes tea until further orders. And what oceans of tea they do imbibe! + </p> + <p> + There was an old lady who sat near us in a teashop one afternoon. As well + as might be judged by one who saw her in a sitting posture only, she was + no deeper than any other old lady of average dimensions; but in rapid + succession she tilted five large cups of piping hot tea into herself and + was starting on the sixth when we withdrew, stunned by the spectacle. She + must have been fearfully long-waisted. I had a mental vision of her + interior decorations—all fumed-oak wainscotings and buff-leather + hangings. Still, I doubt whether their four-o'clock-tea habit is any worse + than our five-o'clock cocktail habit. It all depends, I suppose, on + whether one prefers being tanned inside to being pickled. But we are + getting bravely over our cocktail habit, as attested by figures and the + visual evidences, while their tea habit is growing on them—so the + statisticians say. + </p> + <p> + As for the Englishman's sense of humor, or his lack of it, I judge that we + Americans are partly wrong in our diagnosis of that phase of British + character and partly right. Because he is slow to laugh at a joke, we + think he cannot see the point of it without a diagram and a chart. What we + do not take into consideration is that, through centuries of + self-repression, the Englishman has so drilled himself into refraining + from laughing in public—for fear, you see, of making himself + conspicuous—it has become a part of his nature. Indeed, in certain + quarters a prejudice against laughing under any circumstances appears to + have sprung up. + </p> + <p> + I was looking one day through the pages of one of the critical English + weeklies. Nearly all British weeklies are heavy, and this is the heaviest + of the lot. Its editorial column alone weighs from twelve to eighteen + pounds, and if you strike a man with a clubbed copy of it the crime is + assault with a dull blunt instrument, with intent to kill. At the end of a + ponderous review of the East Indian question I came on a letter written to + the editor by a gentleman signing himself with his own name, and reading + in part as follows: + </p> + <p> + SIR: Laughter is always vulgar and offensive. For instance, whatever there + may be of pleasure in a theater—and there is not much—the + place is made impossible by laughter ... No; it is very seldom that + happiness is refined or pleasant to see—merriment that is produced + by wine is false merriment, and there is no true merriment without it ... + Laughter is profane, in fact, where it is not ridiculous. + </p> + <p> + On the other hand the English in bulk will laugh at a thing which among us + would bring tears to the most hardened cheek and incite our rebellious + souls to mayhem and manslaughter. On a certain night we attended a musical + show at one of the biggest London theaters. There was some really clever + funning by a straight comedian, but his best efforts died a-borning; they + drew but the merest ripple of laughter from the audience. Later there was + a scene between a sad person made up as a Scotchman and another equally + sad person of color from the States. These times no English musical show + is complete unless the cast includes a North American negro with his lips + painted to resemble a wide slice of ripe watermelon, singing ragtime + ditties touching on his chicken and his Baby Doll. This pair took the + stage, all others considerately withdrawing; and presently, after a period + of heartrending comicalities, the Scotchman, speaking as though he had a + mouthful of hot oatmeal, proceeded to narrate an account of a fictitious + encounter with a bear. Substantially this dialogue ensued: + </p> + <p> + THE SCOTCHMAN—He was a vurra fierce grizzly bear, ye ken; and he + rushed at me from behind a jugged rock. + </p> + <p> + THE NEGRO—Mistah, you means a jagged rock, don't you? + </p> + <p> + THE SCOTCHMAN—Nay, nay, laddie—a jugged rock. + </p> + <p> + THE NEGRO—Whut's dat you say? Whut—whut is a jugged rock? + </p> + <p> + THE SCOTCHMAN (forgetting his accent)—Why, a rock with a jug on it, + old chap. (A stage wait to let that soak into them in all its full + strength.) A rock with a jug on it would be a jugged rock, wouldn't it—eh? + </p> + <p> + The pause had been sufficient—they had it now. And from all parts of + the house a whoop of unrestrained joy went up. + </p> + <p> + Witnessing such spectacles as this, the American observer naturally begins + to think that the English in mass cannot see a joke that is the least bit + subtle. Nevertheless, however, and to the contrary notwithstanding—as + Colonel Bill Sterritt, of Texas, used to say—England has produced + the greatest natural humorists in the world and some of the greatest + comedians, and for a great many years has supported the greatest comic + paper printed in the English language, and that is Punch. Also, at an + informal Saturday-night dinner in a well-known London club I heard as much + spontaneous repartee from the company at large, and as much quiet humor + from the chairman, as I ever heard in one evening anywhere; but if you + went into that club on a weekday you might suppose somebody was dead and + laid out there, and that everybody about the premises had gone into deep + mourning for the deceased. If any member of that club had dared then to + crack a joke they would have expelled him—as soon as they got over + the shock of the bounder's confounded cheek. Saturday night? Yes. Monday + afternoon? Never! And there you are! + </p> + <p> + Speaking of Punch reminds me that we were in London when Punch, after + giving the matter due consideration for a period of years, came out with a + colored jacket on him. If the Prime Minister had done a Highland fling in + costume at high noon in Oxford Circus it could not have created more + excitement than Punch created by coming out with a colored cover. Yet, to + an American's understanding, the change was not so revolutionary and + radical as all that. Punch's well-known lineaments remained the same. + There was merely a dab of palish yellow here and there on the sheet; at + first glance you might have supposed somebody else had been reading your + copy of Punch at breakfast and had been careless in spooning up his + soft-boiled egg. + </p> + <p> + They are our cousins, the English are; our cousins once removed, 'tis true—see + standard histories of the American Revolution for further details of the + removing—but they are kinsmen of ours beyond a doubt. Even if there + were no other evidences, the kinship between us would still be proved by + the fact that the English are the only people except the Americans who + look on red meat—beef, mutton, ham—as a food to be eaten for + the taste of the meat itself; whereas the other nations of the earth + regard it as a vehicle for carrying various sauces, dressings and + stuffings southward to the stomach. But, to the notice of the American who + is paying them his first visit, they certainly do offer some amazing + contradictions. + </p> + <p> + In the large matters of business the English have been accused of + trickiness, which, however, may be but the voice of envious competition + speaking; but in the small things they surely are most marvelously honest. + Consider their railroad trains now: To a greenhorn from this side the blue + water, a railroad journey out of London to almost any point in rural + England is a succession of surprises, and all pleasant ones. To begin + with, apparently there is nobody at the station whose business it is to + show you to your train or to examine your ticket before you have found + your train for yourself. There is no mad scurrying about at the moment of + departure, no bleating of directions through megaphones. Unchaperoned you + move along a long platform under a grimy shed, where trains are standing + with their carriage doors hospitably ajar, and unassisted you find your + own train and your own carriage, and enter therein. + </p> + <p> + Sharp on the minute an unseen hand—at least I never saw it—slams + the doors and coyly—you might almost say secretively—the train + moves out of the terminal. It moves smoothly and practically without + jarring sounds. There is no shrieking of steel against steel. It is as + though the rails were made of rubber and the wheel-flanges were faced with + noise-proof felt. No conductor comes to punch your ticket, no brakeman to + bellow the stops, no train butcher bleating the gabbled invoice of his + gumdrops, bananas and other best-sellers. + </p> + <p> + Glory be! It is all so peaceful and soothing; as peaceful and as soothing + as the land through which you are gliding when once you have left behind + smoky London and its interminable environs; for now you are in a land that + was finished and plenished five hundred years ago and since then has not + been altered in any material aspect whatsoever. Every blade of grass is in + its right place; every wayside shrub seemingly has been restrained and + trained to grow in exactly the right and the proper way. Streaming by your + car window goes a tastefully arranged succession of the thatched cottages, + the huddled little towns, the meandering brooks, the ancient inns, the + fine old country places, the high-hedged estates of the landed gentry, + with rose-covered lodges at the gates and robust children in the doorways—just + as you have always seen them in the picture books. There are fields that + are velvet lawns, and lawns that are carpets of green cut-plush. England + is the only country I know of that lives up—exactly and precisely—to + its storybook descriptions and its storybook illustrations. + </p> + <p> + Eventually you come to your stopping point; at least you have reason to + believe it may be your stopping point. As well as you may judge by the + signs that plaster the front, the sides, and even the top of the station, + the place is either a beef extract or a washing compound. Nor may you + count on any travelers who may be sharing your compartment with you to set + you right by a timely word or two. Your fellow passengers may pity you for + your ignorance and your perplexity, but they would not speak; they could + not, not having been introduced. A German or a Frenchman would be giving + you gladly what aid he might; but a well-born Englishman who had not been + introduced would ride for nine years with you and not speak. I found the + best way of solving the puzzle was to consult the timecard. If the + timecard said our train would reach a given point at a given hour, and + this was the given hour, then we might be pretty sure this was the given + point. Timetables in England are written by realists, not by gifted + fiction writers of the impressionistic school, as is frequently the case + in America. + </p> + <p> + So, if this timecard says it is time for you to get off you get off, with + your ticket still in your possession; and if it be a small station you go + yourself and look up the station master, who is tucked away in a secluded + cubbyhole somewhere absorbing tea, or else is in the luggage room fussing + with baby carriages and patent-churns. Having ferreted him out in his + hiding-place you hand over your ticket to him and he touches his cap brim + and says "Kew" very politely, which concludes the ceremony so far as you + are concerned. + </p> + <p> + Then, if you have brought any heavy baggage with you in the baggage car—pardon, + I meant the luggage van—you go back to the platform and pick it out + from the heap of luggage that has been dumped there by the train hands. + With ordinary luck and forethought you could easily pick out and claim and + carry off some other person's trunk, provided you fancied it more than + your own trunk, only you do not. You do not do this any more than, having + purchased a second-class ticket, or a third-class, you ride first-class; + though, so far as I could tell, there is no check to prevent a person from + so doing. At least an Englishman never does. It never seems to occur to + him to do so. The English have no imagination. + </p> + <p> + I have a suspicion that if one of our railroads tried to operate its train + service on such a basis of confidence in the general public there would be + a most deceitful hiatus in the receipts from passenger traffic to be + reported to a distressed group of stockholders at the end of the fiscal + year. This, however, is merely a supposition on my part. I may be wrong. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XVII. Britain in Twenty Minutes + </h2> + <p> + To a greater degree, I take it, than any other race the English have + mastered the difficult art of minding their own affairs. The average + Englishman is tremendously knowledgable about his own concerns and + monumentally ignorant about all other things. If an Englishman's business + requires that he shall learn the habits and customs of the Patagonians or + the Chicagoans or any other race which, because it is not British, he + naturally regards as barbaric, he goes and learns them—and learns + them well. Otherwise your Britisher does not bother himself with what the + outlander may or may not do. + </p> + <p> + An Englishman cannot understand an American's instinctive desire to know + about things; we do not understand his lack of curiosity in that + direction. Both of us forget what I think must be the underlying reasons—that + we are a race which, until comparatively recently, lived wide distances + apart in sparsely settled lands, and were dependent on the passing + stranger for news of the rest of the world, where he belongs to a people + who all these centuries have been packed together in their little island + like oats in a bin. London itself is so crowded that the noses of most of + the lower classes turn up—there is not room for them to point + straight ahead without causing a great and bitter confusion of noses; but + whether it points upward or outward or downward the owner of the nose + pretty generally refrains from ramming it into other folks' business. If + he and all his fellows did not do this; if they had not learned to keep + their voices down and to muffle unnecessary noises; if they had not built + tight covers of reserve about themselves, as the oyster builds a shell to + protect his tender tissues from irritation—they would long ago have + become a race of nervous wrecks instead of being what they are, the most + stolid beings alive. + </p> + <p> + In London even royalty is mercifully vouchsafed a reasonable amount of + privacy from the intrusion of the gimlet eye and the chisel nose. Royalty + may ride in Rotten Row of a morning, promenade on the Mall at noon, and + shop in the Regent Street shops in the afternoon, and at all times go + unguarded and unbothered—I had almost said unnoticed. It may be that + long and constant familiarity with the institution of royalty has bred + indifference in the London mind to the physical presence of dukes and + princes and things; but I am inclined to think a good share of it should + be attributed to the inborn and ingrown British faculty for letting other + folks be. + </p> + <p> + One morning as I was walking at random through the aristocratic district, + of which St. James is the solar plexus and Park Lane the spinal cord, I + came to a big mansion where foot-guards stood sentry at the wall gates. + This house was further distinguished from its neighbors by the presence of + a policeman pacing alongside it, and a newspaper photographer setting up + his tripod and camera in the road, and a small knot of passers-by + lingering on the opposite side of the way, as though waiting for somebody + to come along or something to happen. I waited too. In a minute a handsome + old man and a well-set-up young man turned the corner afoot. The younger + man was leading a beautiful stag hound. The photographer touched his hat + and said something, and the younger man smiling a good-natured smile, + obligingly posed in the street for a picture. At this precise moment a + dirigible balloon came careening over the chimneypots on a cross-London + air jaunt; and at the sight of it the little crowd left the young man and + the photographer and set off at a run to follow, as far as they might, the + course of the balloon. Now in America this could not have occurred, for + the balloon man would not have been aloft at such an hour. He would have + been on the earth; moreover he would have been outside the walls of that + mansion house, along with half a million, more or less, of his patriotic + fellow countrymen, tearing his own clothes off and their clothes off, + trampling the weak and sickly underfoot, bucking the doubled and tripled + police lines in a mad, vain effort to see the flagpole on the roof or a + corner of the rear garden wall. For that house was Clarence House, and the + young man who posed so accommodatingly for the photographer was none other + than Prince Arthur of Connaught, who was getting himself married the very + next day. + </p> + <p> + The next day I beheld from a short distance the passing of the bridal + procession. Though there were crowds all along the route followed by the + wedding party, there was no scrouging, no shoving, no fighting, no + disorderly scramble, no unseemly congestion about the chapel where the + ceremony took place. It reminded me vividly of that which inevitably + happens when a millionaire's daughter is being married to a duke in a + fashionable Fifth Avenue church—it reminded me of that because it + was so different. + </p> + <p> + Fortunately for us we were so placed that we saw quite distinctly the + entrance of the wedding party into the chapel inclosure. Personally I was + most concerned with the members of the royal house. As I recollect, they + passed in the following order: + </p> + <p> + His Majesty, King George the Fifth. Her Majesty, Queen Mary, the Other + Four Fifths. Small fractional royalties to the number of a dozen or more. + </p> + <p> + I got a clear view of the side face of the queen. As one looked on her + profile, which was what you might call firm, and saw the mild-looking + little king, who seemed quite eclipsed by her presence, one understood—or + anyway one thought one understood—why an English assemblage, when + standing to chant the national anthem these times, always puts such fervor + and meaning into the first line of it. + </p> + <p> + Only one untoward incident occurred: The inevitable militant lady broke + through the lines as the imperial carriage passed and threw a Votes for + Women handbill into His Majesty's lap. She was removed thence by the + police with the skill and dexterity of long practice. The police were + competently on the job. They always are—which brings me round to the + subject of the London bobby and leads me to venture the assertion that + individually and collectively, personally and officially, he is a splendid + piece of work. The finest thing in London is the London policeman and the + worst thing is the shamefully small and shabby pay he gets. He is majestic + because he represents the majesty of the English law; he is humble and + obliging because, as a servant, he serves the people who make the law. And + always he knows his business. + </p> + <p> + In Charing Cross, where all roads meet and snarl up in the bewildering + semblance of many fishing worms in a can, I ventured out into the roadway + to ask a policeman the best route for reaching a place in a somewhat + obscure quarter. He threw up his arm, semaphore fashion, first to this + point of the compass and then to that, and traffic halted instantly. As + far as the eye might reach it halted; and it stayed halted, too, while he + searched his mind and gave me carefully and painstakingly the directions + for which I sought. In that packed mass of cabs and taxis and buses and + carriages there were probably dukes and archbishops—dukes and + archbishops are always fussing about in London—but they waited until + he was through directing me. It flattered me so that I went back to the + hotel and put on a larger hat. I sincerely hope there was at least one + archbishop. + </p> + <p> + Another time we went to Paddington to take a train for somewhere. + Following the custom of the country we took along our trunks and traps on + top of the taxicab. At the moment of our arrival there were no porters + handy, so a policeman on post outside the station jumped forward on the + instant and helped our chauffeur to wrestle the luggage down on the + bricks. When I, rallying somewhat from the shock of this, thanked him and + slipped a coin into his palm, he said in effect that, though he was + obliged for the shilling, I must not feel that I had to give him anything—that + it was part of his duty to aid the public in these small matters. I shut + my eyes and tried to imagine a New York policeman doing as much for an + unknown alien; but the effort gave me a severe headache. It gave me + darting pains across the top of the skull—at about the spot where he + would probably have belted me with his club had I even dared to ask him to + bear a hand with my baggage. + </p> + <p> + I had a peep into the workings of the system of which the London bobby is + a spoke when I went to what is the very hub of the wheel of the common law—a + police court. I understood then what gave the policeman in the street his + authority and his dignity—and his humility—when I saw how + carefully the magistrate on the bench weighed each trifling cause and each + petty case; how surely he winnowed out the small grain of truth from the + gross and tare of surmise and fiction; how particular he was to give of + the abundant store of his patience to any whining ragpicker or street + beggar who faced him, whether as defendant at the bar, or accuser, or + witness. + </p> + <p> + It was the very body of the law, though, we saw a few days after this when + by invitation we witnessed the procession at the opening of the high + courts. Considered from the stand-points of picturesqueness and + impressiveness it made one's pulses tingle when those thirty or forty men + of the wig and ermine marched in single and double file down the loftily + vaulted hall, with the Lord Chancellor in wig and robes of state leading, + and Sir Rufus Isaacs, knee-breeched and sword-belted, a pace or two behind + him; and then, in turn, the justices; and, going on ahead of them and + following on behind them, knight escorts and ushers and clerks and all the + other human cogs of the great machine. What struck into me deepest, + however, was the look of nearly every one of the judges. Had they been + dressed as longshoremen, one would still have known them for possessors of + the judicial temperament—men born to hold the balances and fitted + and trained to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. So many eagle-beaked + noses, so many hawk-keen eyes, so many smooth-chopped, long-jowled faces, + seen here together, made me think of what we are prone to regard as the + highwater period of American statesmanship—the + Clay-Calhoun-Benton-Webster period. + </p> + <p> + Just watching these men pass helped me to know better than any reading I + had ever done why the English have faith and confidence in their courts. I + said to myself that if I wanted justice—exact justice, heaping high + in time scales—I should come to this shop and give my trade to the + old-established firm; but if I were looking for a little mercy I should + take my custom elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + I cannot tell why I associate it in my mind with this grouped spectacle of + the lords of the law, but somehow the scene to be witnessed in Hyde Park + just inside the Marble Arch of a Sunday evening seems bound up somehow + with the other institution. They call this place London's safety valve. + It's all of that. Long ago the ruling powers discovered that if the + rabidly discontented were permitted to preach dynamite and destruction + unlimited they would not be so apt to practice their cheerful doctrines. + So, without let or hindrance, any apostle of any creed, cult or + propaganda, however lurid and revolutionary, may come here of a Sunday to + meet with his disciples and spout forth the faith that is in him until he + has geysered himself into peace, or, what comes to the same thing, into + speechlessness. + </p> + <p> + When I went to Hyde Park on a certain Sunday rain was falling and the + crowds were not so large as usual, a bored policeman on duty in this + outdoor forum told me; still, at that, there must have been two or three + thousand listeners in sight and not less than twelve speakers. These + latter balanced themselves on small portable platforms placed in rows, + with such short spaces between them that their voices intermingled + confusingly. In front of each orator stood his audience; sometimes they + applauded what he said in a sluggish British way, and sometimes they asked + him questions designed to baffle or perplex him—heckling, I believe + this is called—but there was never any suggestion of disorder and + never any violent demonstration for or against a statement made by him. + </p> + <p> + At the end of the line nearest the Arch, under a flary light, stood an old + bearded man having the look on his face of a kindly but somewhat irritated + moo-cow. At the moment I drew near he was having a long and involved + argument with another controversialist touching on the sense of the word + tabernacle as employed Scripturally, one holding it to mean the fleshly + tenement of the soul and the other an actual place of worship. The old man + had two favorite words—behoove and emit—but behoove was + evidently his choice. As an emitter he was only fair, but he was the best + behoover I ever saw anywhere. + </p> + <p> + The orator next to him was speaking in a soft, sentimental tone, with + gestures gently appropriate. I moved along to him, being minded to learn + what particular brand of brotherly love he might be expounding. In the + same tone a good friend might employ in telling you what to do for chapped + lips or a fever blister he was saying that clergymen and armaments were + useless and expensive burdens on the commonwealth; and, as a remedy, he + was advocating that all the priests and all the preachers in the kingdom + should be loaded on all the dreadnoughts, and then the dreadnoughts should + be steamed to the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean and there cozily + scuttled, with all aboard. + </p> + <p> + There was scattering applause and a voice: "Ow, don't do that! Listen, + 'ere! Hi've got a better plan." But the next speaker was blaring away at + the top of his voice, making threatening faces and waving his clenched + fists aloft and pounding with them on the top of his rostrum. + </p> + <p> + "Now this," I said to myself, "is going to be something worth while. + Surely this person would not be content merely with drowning all the + parsons and sinking all the warships in the hole at the bottom of the sea. + Undoubtedly he will advocate something really radical. I will invest five + minutes with him." + </p> + <p> + I did; but I was sold. He was favoring the immediate adoption of a + universal tongue for all the peoples of the earth—that was all. I + did not catch the name of his universal language, but I judged the one at + which he would excel would be a language with few if any h's in it. After + this disappointment I lost heart and came away. + </p> + <p> + Another phase, though a very different one, of the British spirit of fair + play and tolerance, was shown to me at the National Sporting Club, which + is the British shrine of boxing, where I saw a fight for one of the + championship belts that Lord Lonsdale is forever bestowing on this or that + worshipful fisticuffer. Instead of being inside the ring prying the + fighters apart by main force as he would have been doing in America, the + referee, dressed in evening clothes, was outside the ropes. At a snapped + word from him the fighters broke apart from clinches on the instant. The + audience—a very mixed one, ranging in garb from broadcloths to + shoddies—was as quick to approve a telling blow by the less popular + fighter as to hiss any suggestion of trickiness or fouling on the part of + the favorite. When a contestant in one of the preliminary goes, having + been adjudged a loser on points, objected to the decision and insisted on + being heard in his own behalf, the crowd, though plainly not in sympathy + with his contention, listened to what he had to say. Nobody jeered him + down. + </p> + <p> + Had he been a foreigner and especially had he been an American I am + inclined to think the situation might have been different. I seem to + recall what happened once when a certain middleweight from this side went + over there and broke the British heart by licking the British champion; + and again what happened when a Yankee boy won the Marathon at the Olympic + games in London a few years ago. But as this man was a Briton himself + these other Britons harkened to his sputterings, for England, you know, + grants the right of free speech to all Englishmen—and denies it to + all Englishwomen. + </p> + <p> + The settled Englishman declines always to be jostled out of his hereditary + state of intense calm. They tell of a man who dashed into the reading room + of the Savage Club with the announcement that a lion was loose on the + Strand—a lion that had escaped from a traveling caravan and was + rushing madly to and fro, scaring horses and frightening pedestrians. + </p> + <p> + "Great excitement! Most terrific, old dears—on my word!" he added, + addressing the company. + </p> + <p> + Over the top of the Pink Un an elderly gentleman of a full habit of life + regarded him sourly. + </p> + <p> + "Is that any reason," he inquired, "why a person should rush into a + gentleman's club and kick up such a deuced hullabaloo?" + </p> + <p> + The first man—he must have been a Colonial—gazed at the other + man in amazement. + </p> + <p> + "Well," he asked, "what would you do if you met a savage lion loose on the + Strand?" + </p> + <p> + "Sir, I should take a cab!" + </p> + <p> + And after meeting an Englishman or two of this type I am quite prepared to + say the story might have been a true one. If he met a lion on the Strand + to-day he would take a cab; but if to-morrow, walking in the same place, + he met two lions, he would write a letter to the Times complaining of the + growing prevalence of lions in the public thoroughfares and placing the + blame on the Suffragettes or Lloyd George or the Nonconformists or the + increasing discontent of the working classes—that is what he would + do. + </p> + <p> + On the other hand, if he met a squirrel on a street in America it would be + a most extraordinary thing. Extraordinary would undoubtedly be the word he + would use to describe it. Lions on the Strand would be merely annoying, + but chipmunks on Broadway would constitute a striking manifestation of the + unsettled conditions existing in a wild and misgoverned land; for, you + see, to every right-minded Englishman of the insular variety—and + that is the commonest variety there is in England—whatever happens + at home is but part of an orderly and an ordered scheme of things, whereas + whatever happens beyond the British domains must necessarily be highly + unusual and exceedingly disorganizing. If so be it happens on English soil + he can excuse it. He always has an explanation or an extenuation handy. + But if it happens elsewhere—well, there you are, you see! What was + it somebody once called England—Perfidious Alibi-in', wasn't it? + Anyhow that was what he meant. The party's intentions were good but his + spelling was faulty. + </p> + <p> + An Englishman's newspapers help him to attain this frame of mind; for an + English newspaper does not print sensational stories about Englishmen + residing in England; it prints them about people resident in other lands. + There is a good reason for this and the reason is based on prudence. In + the first place the private life of a private individual is a most holy + thing, with which the papers dare not meddle; besides, the paper that + printed a faked-up tale about a private citizen in England would speedily + be exposed and also extensively sued. As for public men, they are + protected by exceedingly stringent libel laws. As nearly as I might judge, + anything true you printed about an English politician would be libelous, + and anything libelous you printed about him would be true. + </p> + <p> + It befalls, therefore, as I was told on most excellent authority, that + when the editor of a live London daily finds the local grist to be dull + and uninteresting reading he straightway cables to his American + correspondent or his Paris correspondent—these two being his main + standbys for sensations—asking, if his choice falls on the man in + America, for a snappy dispatch, say, about an American train smash-up, or + a Nature freak, or a scandal in high society with a rich man mixed up in + it. He wires for it, and in reply he gets it. I have been in my time a + country correspondent for city papers, and I know that what Mr. Editor + wants Mr. Editor gets. + </p> + <p> + As a result America, to the provincial Englishman's understanding, is a + land where a hunter is always being nibbled to death by sheep; or a + prospective mother is being so badly frightened by a chameleon that her + child is born with a complexion changeable at will and an ungovernable + appetite for flies; or a billionaire is giving a monkey dinner or + poisoning his wife, or something. Also, he gets the idea that a through + train in this country is so called because it invariably runs through the + train ahead of it; and that when a man in Connecticut is expecting a + friend on the fast express from Boston, and wants something to remember + him by, he goes down to the station at train time with a bucket. Under the + headlining system of the English newspapers the derailment of a work-train + in Arizona, wherein several Mexican tracklayers get mussed up, becomes + Another Frightful American Railway Disaster! But a head-on collision, + attended by fatalities, in the suburbs of Liverpool or Manchester is a + Distressing Suburban Incident. Yet the official Blue Book, issued by the + British Board of Trade, showed that in the three months ending March 31, + 1913, 284 persons were killed and 2,457 were injured on railway lines in + the United Kingdom. + </p> + <p> + Just as an English gentleman is the most modest person imaginable, and the + most backward about offering lip-service in praise of his own achievements + or his country's achievements, so, in the same superlative degree, some of + his newspapers are the most blatant of boasters. About the time we were + leaving England the job of remodeling and beautifying the front elevation + of Buckingham Palace reached its conclusion, and a dinner was given to the + workingmen who for some months had been engaged on the contract. It had + been expected that the occasion would be graced by the presence of Their + Majesties; but the king, as I recall, was pasting stamps in the new album + the Czar of Russia sent him on his birthday, and the queen was looking + through the files of Godey's Lady's Book for the year 1874, picking out + suitable costumes for the ladies of her court to wear. At any rate they + could not attend. Otherwise, though, the dinner must have been a success. + Reading the account of it as published next morning in a London paper, I + learned that some of the guests, "with rare British pluck," wore their + caps and corduroys; that others, "with true British independence," smoked + their pipes after dinner; that there was "real British beef" and "genuine + British plum pudding" on the menu; and that repeatedly those present + uttered "hearty British cheers." From top to bottom the column was studded + thick with British thises and British thats. + </p> + <p> + Yet the editorial writers of that very paper are given to frequent and + sneering attacks on the alleged yellowness and the boasting proclivities + of the jingo Yankee sheets; also, they are prone to spasmodic attacks on + the laxity of our marriage laws. Perhaps what they say of us is true; but + for unadulterated nastiness I never saw anything in print to equal the + front page of a so-called sporting weekly that circulates freely in + London, and I know of nothing to compare with the brazen exhibition of a + certain form of vice that is to be witnessed nightly in the balconies of + two of London's largest music halls. It was upon the program of another + London theater that I came across the advertisement of a lady styling + herself "London's Woman Detective" and stating, in so many words, that her + specialties were "Divorce Shadowings" and "Secret Inquiries." Maybe it is + a fact that in certain of our states marriage is not so much a contract as + a ninety-day option, but the lady detective who does divorce shadowing and + advertises her qualifications publicly has not opened up her shop among + us. + </p> + <p> + In the campaign to give the stay-at-home Englishman a strange conception + of his American kinsman the press is ably assisted by the stage. In London + I went to see a comedy written by a deservedly successful dramatist, and + staged, I think, under his personal direction. The English characters in + the play were whimsical and, as nearly as I might judge, true to the + classes they purported to represent. There was an American character in + this piece too—a multimillionaire, of course, and a collector of + pictures—presumably a dramatically fair and realistic drawing of a + wealthy, successful, art-loving American. I have forgotten now whether he + was supposed to be one of our meaty Chicago millionaires, or one of our + oily Cleveland millionaires, or one of our steely Pittsburgh millionaires, + or just a plain millionaire from the country at large; and I doubt whether + the man who wrote the lines had any conception when he did write them of + the fashion in which they were afterward read. Be that as it may, the + actor who essayed to play the American used an inflection, or an accent, + or a dialect, or a jargon—or whatever you might choose to call it—which + was partly of the oldtime drawly Wild Western school of expression and + partly of the oldtime nasal Down East school. I had thought—and had + hoped—that both these actor-created lingoes were happily obsolete; + but in their full flower of perfection I now heard them here in London. + Also, the actor who played the part interpreted the physical angles of the + character in a manner to suggest a pleasing combination of Uncle Joshua + Whitcomb, Mike the Bite, Jefferson Brick and Coal-Oil Johnny, with a + suggestion of Jesse James interspersed here and there. True, he spat not + on the carpet loudly, and he refrained from saying I vum! and Great + Snakes!—quaint conceits that, I am told, every English actor who + respected his art formally employed when wishful to type a stage American + for an English audience; but he bragged loudly and emphatically of his + money and of how he got it and of what he would do with it. I do not + perceive why it is the English, who themselves so dearly love the dollar + after it is translated into terms of pounds, shillings and pence, should + insist on regarding us as a nation of dollar-grabbers, when they only see + us in the act of freely dispensing the aforesaid dollar. + </p> + <p> + They do so regard us, though; and, with true British setness, I suppose + they always will. Even so I think that, though they may dislike us as a + nation, they like us as individuals; and it is certainly true that they + seem to value us more highly than they value Colonials, as they call them—particularly + Canadian Colonials. It would appear that your true Briton can never excuse + another British subject for the shockingly poor taste he displayed in + being born away from home. And, though in time he may forgive us for + refusing to be licked by him, he can never forgive the Colonials for + saving him from being licked in South Africa. + </p> + <p> + When I started in to write this chapter, I meant to conclude it with an + apology for my audacity in undertaking—in any wise—to sum up + the local characteristics of a country where I had tarried for so short a + time, but I have changed my mind about that. I have merely borrowed a page + from the book of rules of the British essayists and novelists who come + over here to write us up. Why, bless your soul, I gave nearly eight weeks + of time to the task of seeing Europe thoroughly, and, of those eight + weeks, I spent upward of three weeks in and about London—indeed, a + most unreasonably long time when measured by the standards of the + Englishman of letters who does a book about us. + </p> + <p> + He has his itinerary all mapped out in advance. He will squander a whole + week on us. We are scarcely worth it, but, such as we are, we shall have a + week of his company! Landing on Monday morning, he will spend Monday in + New York, Tuesday in San Francisco, and Wednesday in New Orleans. Thursday + he will divide between Boston and Chicago, devoting the forenoon to one + and the afternoon to the other. Friday morning he will range through the + Rocky Mountains, and after luncheon, if he is not too fatigued, he will + take a carriage and pop in on Yosemite Valley for an hour or so. + </p> + <p> + But Saturday—all of it—will be given over to the Far + Southland. He is going 'way down South—to sunny South Dakota, in + fact, to see the genuine native American darkies, the real Yankee + blackamoors. Most interesting beings, the blackamoors! They live + exclusively on poultry—fowls, you know—and all their women + folk are named Honey Gal. + </p> + <p> + He will observe them in their hours of leisure, when, attired in their + national costume, consisting of white duck breeches, banjos, and striped + shirts with high collars, they gather beneath the rays of the silvery + Southern moon to sing their tribal melodies on the melon-lined shores of + the old Oswego; and by day he will study them at their customary + employment as they climb from limb to limb of the cottonwood trees, + picking cotton. On Sunday he will arrange and revise his notes, and on + Monday morning he will sail for home. + </p> + <p> + Such is the program of Solomon Grundy, Esquire, the distinguished writing + Englishman; but on his arrival he finds the country to be somewhat larger + than he expected—larger actually than the Midlands. So he + compromises by spending five days at a private hotel in New York, run by a + very worthy and deserving Englishwoman of the middle classes, where one + may get Yorkshire puddings every day; and two days more at a wealthy + tufthunter's million-dollar cottage at Newport, studying the habits and + idiosyncrasies of the common people. And then he rushes back to England + and hurriedly embalms his impressions of us in a large volume, stating it + to be his deliberate opinion that, though we mean well enough, we won't do—really. + He necessarily has to hurry, because, you see, he has a contract to write + a novel or a play—or both a novel and a play—with Lord + Northcliffe as the central figure. In these days practically all English + novels and most English comedies play up Lord Northcliffe as the central + figure. Almost invariably the young English writer chooses him for the + axis about which his plot shall revolve. English journalists who have been + discharged from one of Northcliffe's publications make him their villian, + and English journalists who hope to secure jobs on one of his publications + make him their hero. The literature of a land is in perilous case when it + depends on the personality of one man. One shudders to think what the + future of English fiction would be should anything happen to his Lordship! + </p> + <p> + Business of shuddering! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XVIII. Guyed or Guided? + </h2> + <p> + During our scientific explorations in the Eastern Hemisphere, we met two + guides who had served the late Samuel L. Clemens, one who had served the + late J. Pierpont Morgan, and one who had acted as courier to ex-President + Theodore Roosevelt. After inquiry among persons who were also lately + abroad, I have come to the conclusion that my experience in this regard + was remarkable, not because I met so many as four of the guides who had + attended these distinguished Americans, but because I met so few as four + of them. One man with whom I discussed the matter told of having + encountered, in the course of a brief scurry across Europe, five members + in good standing of the International Association of Former Guides to Mark + Twain. All of them had union cards to prove it too. Others said that in + practically every city of any size visited by them there was a guide who + told of his deep attachment to the memory of Mr. Morgan, and described how + Mr. Morgan had hired him without inquiring in advance what his rate for + professional services a day would be; and how—lingering with wistful + emphasis on the words along here and looking meaningly the while at the + present patron—how very, very generous Mr. Morgan had been in + bestowing gratuities on parting. + </p> + <p> + Our first experience with guides was at Westminster Abbey. As it happened, + this guide was one of the Mark Twain survivors. I think, though, he was + genuine; he had documents of apparent authenticity in his possession to + help him in proving up his title. Anyhow, he knew his trade. He led us up + and down those parts of the Abbey which are free to the general public and + brought us finally to a wicket gate, opening on the royal chapels, which + was as far as he could go. There he turned us over to a severe-looking + dignitary in robes—an archbishop, I judged, or possibly only a canon—who, + on payment by us of a shilling a head, escorted our party through the + remaining inclosures, showing us the tombs of England's queens and kings, + or a good many of them anyway; and the Black Prince's helmet and + breastplate; and the exquisite chapel of Henry the Seventh, and the + ancient chair on which all the kings sat for their coronations, with the + famous Scotch Stone of Scone under it. + </p> + <p> + The chair itself was not particularly impressive. It was not nearly so + rickety and decrepit as the chairs one sees in almost any London barber + shop. Nor was my emotion particularly excited by the stone. I would engage + to get a better-looking one out of the handiest rock quarry inside of + twenty minutes. This stone should not be confused with the ordinary + scones, which also come from Scotland and which are by some regarded as + edible. + </p> + <p> + What did seem to us rather a queer thing was that the authorities of + Westminster should make capital of the dead rulers of the realm and, + except on certain days of the week, should charge an admission fee to + their sepulchers. Later, on the Continent, we sustained an even more + severe shock when we saw royal palaces—palaces that on occasion are + used by the royal proprietors—with the quarters of the monarchs + upstairs and downstairs novelty shops and tourist agencies and + restaurants, and the like of that. I jotted down a few crisp notes + concerning these matters, my intention being to comment on them as + evidence of an incomprehensible thrift on the part of our European + kins-people; but on second thought I decided to refrain from so doing. I + recalled the fact that we ourselves are not entirely free from certain + petty national economies. Abroad we house our embassies up back streets, + next door to bird and animal stores; and at home there is many a public + institution where the doormat says WELCOME! in large letters, but the soap + is chained and the roller towel is padlocked to its little roller. + </p> + <p> + Guides are not particularly numerous in England. Even in the places most + frequented by the sightseer they do not abound in any profusion. At Madame + Tussaud's, for example, we found only one guide. We encountered him just + after we had spent a mournful five minutes in contemplation of + ex-President Taft. Friends and acquaintances of Mr. Taft will be shocked + to note the great change in him when they see him here in wax. He does not + weigh so much as he used to weigh by at least one hundred and fifty + pounds; he has lost considerable height too; his hair has turned another + color and his eyes also; his mustache is not a close fit any more, either; + and he is wearing a suit of English-made clothes. + </p> + <p> + On leaving the sadly altered form of our former Chief Executive we + descended a flight of stone steps leading to the Chamber of Horrors. This + department was quite crowded with parents escorting their children about. + Like America, England appears to be well stocked with parents who make a + custom of taking their young and susceptible offspring to places where the + young ones stand a good chance of being scared into connipshun fits. The + official guide was in the Chamber of Horrors. He was piloting a large + group of visitors about, but as soon as he saw our smaller party he left + them and came directly to us; for they were Scotch and we were Americans, + citizens of the happy land where tips come from. Undoubtedly that guide + knew best. + </p> + <p> + With pride and pleasure he showed us a representative assortment of + England's most popular and prominent murderers. The English dearly love a + murderer. Perhaps that is because they have fewer murderers than we have, + and have less luck than we do in keeping them alive and in good spirits to + a ripe old age. Almost any American community of fair size can afford at + least two murderers—one in jail, under sentence, receiving gifts of + flowers and angel cake from kind ladies, and waiting for the court above + to reverse the verdict in his case because the indictment was shy a comma; + and the other out on bail, awaiting his time for going through the same + procedure. But with the English it is different. + </p> + <p> + We rarely hang anybody who is anybody, and only occasionally make an issue + of stretching the neck of the veriest nobody. They will hang almost + anybody Haman-high, or even higher than that. They do not exactly hang + their murderer before they catch him, but the two events occur in such + close succession that one can readily understand why a confusion should + have arisen in the public mind on these points. First of all, though, they + catch him; and then some morning between ten and twelve they try him. This + is a brief and businesslike formality. While the judge is looking in a + drawer of his desk to see whether the black cap is handy the bailiffs shoo + twelve tradesmen into the jury box. A tradesman is generally chosen for + jury service because he is naturally anxious to get the thing over and + hurry back to his shop before his helper goes to lunch. The judge tells + the jurors to look on the prisoner, because he is going away shortly and + is not expected back; so they take full advantage of the opportunity, + realizing it to be their last chance. Then, in order to comply with the + forms, the judge asks the accused whether he is guilty or not guilty, and + the jurors promptly say he is. His Worship, concurring heartily, fixes the + date of execution for the first Friday morning when the hangman has no + other engagements. It is never necessary to postpone this event through + failure of the condemned to be present. He is always there; there is no + record of his having disappointed an audience. So, on the date named, rain + or shine, he is hanged very thoroughly; but after the hanging is over they + write songs and books about him and revere his memory forevermore. + </p> + <p> + Our guide was pleased to introduce us to the late Mr. Charles Pease, as + done in paraffin, with creped hair and bright, shiny glass eyes. Mr. Pease + was undoubtedly England's most fashionable murderer of the past century + and his name is imperishably enshrined in the British affections. The + guide spoke of his life and works with deep and sincere feeling. He also + appeared to derive unfeigned pleasure from describing the accomplishments + of another murderer, only slightly less famous than the late Mr. Pease. It + seemed that this murderer, after slaying his victim, set to dismembering + the body and boiling it. They boil nearly everything in England. But the + police broke in on him and interrupted the job. + </p> + <p> + Our attention was directed to a large chart showing the form of the + victim, the boiled portions being outlined in red and the unboiled + portions in black. Considered as a murderer solely this particular + murderer may have been deserving of his fame; but when it came to boiling, + that was another matter. He showed poor judgment there. It all goes to + show that a man should stick to his own trade and not try to follow two or + more widely dissimilar callings at the same time. Sooner or later he is + bound to slip up. + </p> + <p> + We found Stratford-upon-Avon to be the one town in England where guides + are really abundant. There are as many guides in Stratford as there are + historic spots. I started to say that there is at least one guide in + Stratford for every American who goes there; but that would be stretching + real facts, because nearly every American who goes to England manages to + spend at least a day in Stratford, it being a spot very dear to his heart. + The very name of it is associated with two of the most conspicuous figures + in our literature. I refer first to Andrew Carnegie; second to William + Shakspere. Shakspere, who wrote the books, was born here; but Carnegie, + who built the libraries in which to keep the books, and who has done some + writing himself, provided money for preserving and perpetuating the + relics. + </p> + <p> + We met a guide in the ancient schoolhouse where the Bard—I am + speaking now of William, not of Andrew—acquired the rudiments of his + education; and on duty at the old village church was another guide, who + for a price showed us the identical gravestone bearing the identical + inscription which, reproduced in a design of burnt wood, is to-day to be + found on the walls of every American household, however humble, whose + members are wishful of imparting an artistic and literary atmosphere to + their home. A third guide greeted us warmly when we drove to the cottage, + a mile or two from the town, where the Hathaway family lived. Here we saw + the high-backed settle on which Shakspere sat, night after night, wooing + Anne Hathaway. I myself sat on it to test it. I should say that the wooing + could not have been particularly good there, especially for a thin man. + That settle had a very hard seat and history does not record that there + was a cushion. Shakspere's affections for the lady must indeed have been + steadfast. Or perhaps he was of stouter build than his pictures show him + to have been. + </p> + <p> + Guides were scattered all over the birthplace house in Stratford in the + ratio of one or more to each room. Downstairs a woman guide presided over + a battery of glass cases containing personal belongings of Shakspere's and + documents written by him and signed by him. It is conceded that he could + write, but he certainly was a mighty poor speller. This has been a failing + of many well-known writers. Chaucer was deficient in this regard; and if + it were not for a feeling of personal modesty I could apply the + illustration nearer home. + </p> + <p> + Two guides accompanied us as we climbed the stairs to the low-roofed room + on the second floor where the creator of Shylock and Juliet was born—or + was not born, if you believe what Ignatius Donnelly had to say on the + subject. But would it not be interesting and valued information if we + could only get the evidence on this point of old Mrs. Shakspere, who + undoubtedly was present on the occasion? A member of our party, an + American, ventured to remark as much to one of the guides; but the latter + did not seem to understand him. So the American told him just to keep + thinking it over at odd moments, and that he would be back again in a + couple of years, if nothing happened, and possibly by that time the guide + would have caught the drift of his observation. On second thought, later + on, he decided to make it three years—he did not want to crowd the + guide, he said, or put too great a burden on his mentality in a limited + space of time. + </p> + <p> + If England harbors few guides the Continent is fairly glutted with them. + After nightfall the boulevards of Paris are so choked with them that in + places there is standing room only. In Rome the congestion is even + greater. In Rome every other person is a guide—and sometimes twins. + I do not know why, in thinking of Europe, I invariably associate the + subject of guides with the subject of tips. The guides were no greedier + for tips than the cabmen or the hotel helpers, or the railroad hands, or + the populace at large. Nevertheless this is true. In my mind I am sure + guides and tips will always be coupled, as surely as any of those standard + team-word combinations of our language that are familiar to all; as firmly + paired off as, for example, Castor and Pollux, or Damon and Pythias, or + Fair and Warmer, or Hay and Feed. When I think of one I know I shall think + of the other. Also I shall think of languages; but for that there is a + reason. + </p> + <p> + Tipping—the giving of tips and the occasional avoidance of giving + them—takes up a good deal of the tourist's time in Europe. At first + reading the arrangement devised by the guidebooks, of setting aside ten + per cent of one's bill for tipping purposes, seems a better plan and a + less costly one than the indiscriminate American system of tipping for + each small service at the time of its performance. The trouble is that + this arrangement does not work out so well in actual practice as it sounds + in theory. On the day of your departure you send for your hotel bill. You + do not go to the desk and settle up there after the American fashion. If + you have learned the ropes you order your room waiter to fetch your bill + to you, and in the privacy of your apartment you pore over the formidable + document wherein every small charge is fully specified, the whole + concluding with an impressive array of items regarding which you have no + prior recollection whatsoever. Considering the total, you put aside an + additional ten per cent, calculated for division on the basis of so much + for the waiter, so much for the boots, so much for the maid and the + porter, and the cashier, and the rest of them. It is not necessary that + you send for these persons in order to confer your farewell remembrances + on them; they will be waiting for you in the hallways. No matter how early + or late the hour of your leaving may be, you find them there in a long and + serried rank. + </p> + <p> + You distribute bills and coins until your ten per cent is exhausted, and + then you are pained to note that several servitors yet remain, lined up + and all expectant, owners of strange faces that you do not recall ever + having seen before, but who are now at hand with claims, real or + imaginary, on your purse. Inasmuch as you have a deadly fear of being + remembered afterward in this hotel as a piker, you continue to dip down + and to fork over, and so by the time you reach the tail end of the + procession your ten per cent has grown to twelve or fifteen per cent, or + even more. + </p> + <p> + As regards the tipping of guides for their services, I hit on a fairly + satisfactory plan, which I gladly reveal here for the benefit of my fellow + man. I think it is a good idea to give the guide, on parting, about twice + as much as you think he is entitled to, which will be about half as much + as he expects. From this starting point you then work toward each other, + you conceding a little from time to time, he abating a trifle here and + there, until you have reached a happy compromise on a basis of + fifty-fifty; and so you part in mutual good will. + </p> + <p> + The average American, on the eve of going to Europe, thinks of the + European as speaking each his own language. He conceives of the Poles + speaking Polar; of the Hollanders talking Hollandaise; of the Swiss as + employing Schweitzer for ordinary conversations and yodeling when + addressing friends at a distance; and so on. Such, however, is rarely the + case. Nearly every person with whom one comes in contact in Europe appears + to have fluent command of several tongues besides his or her own. It is + true this does not apply to Italy, where the natives mainly stick to + Italian; but then, Italian is not a language. It is a calisthenic. + </p> + <p> + Between Rome and Florence, our train stopped at a small way station in the + mountains. As soon as the little locomotive had panted itself to a + standstill the train hands, following their habit, piled off the cars and + engaged in a tremendous confab with the assembled officials on the + platform. Immediately all the loafers in sight drew cards. A drowsy + hillsman, muffled to his back hair in a long brown cloak, and with buskins + on his legs such as a stage bandit wears, was dozing against the wall. He + looked as though he had stepped right out of a comic opera to add + picturesqueness to the scene. He roused himself and joined in; so did a + bearded party who, to judge by his uniform, was either a Knight of Pythias + or a general in the army; so did all the rest of the crowd. In ten seconds + they were jammed together in a hard knot, and going it on the high speed + with the muffler off, fine white teeth shining, arms flying, shoulders + shrugging, spinal columns writhing, mustaches rising and falling, legs + wriggling, scalps and ears following suit. Feeding hour in the parrot cage + at the zoo never produced anything like so noisy and animated a scene. In + these parts acute hysteria is not a symptom; it is merely a state of mind. + </p> + <p> + A waiter in soiled habiliments hurried up, abandoning chances of trade at + the prospect of something infinitely more exciting. He wanted to stick his + oar into the argument. He had a few pregnant thoughts of his own craving + utterance, you could tell that. But he was handicapped into a state of + dumbness by the fact that he needed both arms to balance a tray of wine + and sandwiches on his head. Merely using his voice in that company would + not have counted. He stood it as long as he could, which was not very + long, let me tell you. Then he slammed his tray down on the platform and, + with one quick movement, jerked his coat sleeves back to his elbows, and + inside thirty seconds he had the floor in both hands, as it were. He + conversed mainly with the Australian crawl stroke, but once in a while + switched to the Spencerian free-arm movement and occasionally introduced + the Chautauqua salute with telling effect. + </p> + <p> + On the Continent guides, as a class, excel in the gift of tongues—guides + and hotel concierges. The concierge at our hotel in Berlin was a big, + upstanding chap, half Russian and half Swiss, and therefore qualified by + his breeding to speak many languages; for the Russians are born with split + tongues and can give cards and spades to any talking crow that ever lived; + while the Swiss lag but little behind them in linguistic aptitude. It + seemed such a pity that this man was not alive when the hands knocked off + work on the Tower of Babel; he could have put the job through without + extending himself. No matter what the nationality of a guest might be—and + the guests were of many nationalities—he could talk with that guest + in his own language or in any other language the guest might fancy. I + myself was sorely tempted to try him on Coptic and early Aztec; but I held + off. My Coptic is not what it once was; and, partly through disuse and + partly through carelessness, I have allowed my command of early Aztec to + fall off pretty badly these last few months. + </p> + <p> + All linguistic freakishness is not confined to the Continent. The English, + who are popularly supposed to use the same language we ourselves use, + sometimes speak with a mighty strange tongue. A great many of them do not + speak English; they speak British, a very different thing. An Englishwoman + of breeding has a wonderful speaking voice; as pure as a Boston woman's + and more liquid; as soft as a Southern woman's and with more attention + paid to the R's. But the Cockney type—Wowie! During a carriage ride + in Florence with a mixed company of tourists I chanced to say something of + a complimentary nature about something English, and a little London-bred + woman spoke up and said: "Thenks! It's vurry naice of you to sezzo, 'm + sure." Some of them talk like that—honestly they do! + </p> + <p> + Though Americo-English may not be an especially musical speech, it + certainly does lend itself most admirably to slang purposes. Here again + the Britishers show their inability to utilize the vehicle to the full of + its possibilities. England never produced a Billy Baxter or a George Ade, + and I am afraid she never will. Most of our slang means something; you + hear a new slang phrase and instantly you realize that the genius who + coined it has hit on a happy and a graphic and an illuminating expression; + that at one bound he rose triumphant above the limitations of the language + and tremendously enriched the working vocabulary of the man in the street. + Whereas an Englishman's idea of slinging slang is to scoop up at random + some inoffensive and well-meaning word that never did him any harm and + apply it in the place of some other word, to which the first word is not + related, even by marriage. And look how they deliberately mispronounce + proper names. Everybody knows about Cholmondeley and St. John. But take + the Scandinavian word fjord. Why, I ask you, should the English insist on + pronouncing it Ferguson? + </p> + <p> + At Oxford, the seat of learning, Magdalen is pronounced Maudlin, probably + in subtle tribute to the condition of the person who first pronounced it + so. General-admission day is not the day you enter, but the day you leave. + Full term means three-quarters of a term. An ordinary degree is a degree + obtained by a special examination. An inspector of arts does not mean an + inspector of arts, but a student; and from this point they go right ahead, + getting worse all the time. The droll creature who compiled the Oxford + glossary was a true Englishman. + </p> + <p> + When an Englishman undertakes to wrestle with American slang he makes a + fearful hash of it. In an English magazine I read a short story, written + by an Englishman who is regarded by a good many persons, competent to + judge, as being the cleverest writer of English alive today. The story was + beautifully done from the standpoint of composition; it bristled with + flashing metaphors and whimsical phrasing. The scene of the yarn was + supposed to be Chicago and naturally the principal figure in it was a + millionaire. In one place the author has this person saying, "I reckon + you'll feel pretty mean," and in another place, "I reckon I'm not a man + with no pull." + </p> + <p> + Another character in the story says, "I know you don't cotton to the march + of science in these matters," and speaks of something that is unusual as + being "a rum affair." A walled state prison, presumably in Illinois, is + referred to as a "convict camp"; and its warden is called a "governor" and + an assistant keeper is called a "warder"; while a Chicago daily paper is + quoted as saying that "larrikins" directed the attention of a policeman to + a person who was doing thus and so. + </p> + <p> + The writer describes a "mysterious mere" known as Pilgrim's Pond, "in + which they say"—a prison official is supposed to be talking now—"our + fathers made witches walk until they sank." Descendants of the original + Puritans who went from Plymouth Rock, in the summer of 1621, and founded + Chicago, will recall this pond distinctly. Cotton Mather is buried on its + far bank, and from there it is just ten minutes by trolley to Salem, + Massachusetts. It is stated also in this story that the prairies begin a + matter of thirty-odd miles from Chicago, and that to reach them one must + first traverse a "perfect no man's land." Englewood and South Chicago + papers please copy. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XIX. Venice and the Venisons + </h2> + <p> + Getting back again to guides, I am reminded that our acquaintanceship with + the second member of the Mark Twain brotherhood was staged in Paris. This + gentleman wished himself on us one afternoon at the Hotel des Invalides. + We did not engage him; he engaged us, doing the trick with such finesse + and skill that before we realized it we had been retained to accompany him + to various points of interest in and round Paris. However, we remained + under his control one day only. At nightfall we wrested ourselves free and + fled under cover of darkness to German soil, where we were comparatively + safe. + </p> + <p> + I never knew a man who advanced so rapidly in a military way as he did + during the course of that one day. Our own national guard could not hold a + candle to him. He started out at ten A.M. by being an officer of + volunteers in the Franco-Prussian War; but every time he slipped away and + took a nip out of his private bottle, which was often, he advanced in rank + automatically. Before the dusk of evening came he was a corps commander, + who had been ennobled on the field of battle by the hand of Napoleon the + Third. + </p> + <p> + He took us to Versailles. We did not particularly care to go to Versailles + that day, because it was raining; but he insisted and we went. In spite of + the drizzle we might have enjoyed that wonderful place had he not been + constantly at our elbows, gabbling away steadily except when he excused + himself for a moment and stepped behind a tree, to emerge a moment later + wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Then he would return to us, with an added + gimpiness in his elderly legs, an increased expansion of the chest inside + his tight and shiny frock coat, and a fresh freight of richness on his + breath, to report another deserved promotion. + </p> + <p> + After he had eaten luncheon—all except such portions of it as he + spilled on himself—the colonel grew confidential and chummy. He + tried to tell me an off-color story and forgot the point of it, if indeed + it had any point. He began humming the Marseillaise hymn, but broke off to + say he expected to live to see the day when a column of French troops, + singing that air, would march up Unter den Linden to stack their arms in + the halls of the Kaiser's palace. I did not take issue with him. Every man + is entitled to his own wishes in those matters. But later on, when I had + seen something of the Kaiser's standing army, I thought to myself that + when the French troops did march up Unter den Linden they would find it + tolerably rough sledding, and if there was any singing done a good many of + them probably would not be able to join in the last verse. + </p> + <p> + Immediately following this, our conductor confided to me that he had once + had the honor of serving Mr. Clemens, whom he referred to as Mick Twine. + He told me things about Mr. Clemens of which I had never heard. I do not + think Mr. Clemens ever heard of them either. Then the brigadier—it + was now after three o'clock, and between three and three-thirty he was a + brigadier—drew my arm within his. + </p> + <p> + "I, too, am an author," he stated. "It is not generally known, but I have + written much. I wrote a book of which you may have heard—'The + Wandering Jew.'" And he tapped himself on the bosom proudly. + </p> + <p> + I said I had somehow contracted a notion that a party named Sue—Eugene + Sue—had something to do with writing the work of that name. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, but you are right there, my friend," he said. "Sue wrote 'The + Wandering Jew' the first time—as a novel, merely; but I wrote him + much better—as a satire on the anti-Semitic movement." + </p> + <p> + I surrendered without offering to strike another blow and from that time + on he had his own way with us. The day, as I was pleased to note at the + time, had begun mercifully to draw to a close; we were driving back to + Paris, and he, sitting on the front seat, had just attained the highest + post in the army under the regime of the last Empire, when he said: + </p> + <p> + "Behold, m'sieur! We are now approaching a wine shop on the left. You were + most gracious and kind in the matter of luncheon. Kindly permit me to do + the honors now. It is a very good wine shop—I know it well. Shall we + stop for a glass together, eh?" + </p> + <p> + It was the first time since we landed at Calais that a native-born person + had offered to buy anything, and, being ever desirous to assist in the + celebration of any truly notable occasion, I accepted and the car was + stopped. We were at the portal of the wine shop, when he plucked at my + sleeve, offering another suggestion: + </p> + <p> + "The chauffeur now—he is a worthy fellow, that chauffeur. Shall we + not invite the chauffeur to join us?" + </p> + <p> + I was agreeable to that, too. So he called the chauffeur and the chauffeur + disentangled his whiskers from the steering gear and came and joined us. + The chauffeur and I each had a small glass of light wine, but the general + took brandy. Then ensued a spirited dialogue between him and the woman who + kept the shop. Assuming that I had no interest in the matter, I studied + the pictures behind the bar. Presently, having reduced the woman to a + state of comparative silence, he approached me. + </p> + <p> + "M'sieur," he said, "I regret that this has happened. Because you are a + foreigner and because you know not our language, that woman would make an + overcharge; but she forgot she had me to deal with. I am on guard! See + her! She is now quelled! I have given her a lesson she will not soon + forget. M'sieur, the correct amount of the bill is two-francs-ten. Give it + to her and let us begone!" + </p> + <p> + I still have that guide's name and address in my possession. At parting he + pressed his card on me and asked me to keep it; and I did keep it. I shall + be glad to loan it to any American who may be thinking of going to Paris. + With the card in his pocket, he will know exactly where this guide lives; + and then, when he is in need of a guide he can carefully go elsewhere and + hire a guide. + </p> + <p> + I almost failed to mention that before we parted he tried to induce us to + buy something. He took us miles out of our way to a pottery and urged us + to invest in its wares. This is the main purpose of every guide: to see + that you buy something and afterward to collect his commission from the + shopkeeper for having brought you to the shop. If you engage your guide + through the porter at your hotel you will find that he steers you to the + shops the hotel people have already recommended to you; but if you break + the porter's heart by hiring your guide outside, independently, the guide + steers you to the shops that are on his own private list. + </p> + <p> + Only once I saw a guide temporarily stumped, and that was in Venice. The + skies were leaky that day and the weather was raw; and one of the ladies + of the party wore pumps and silk stockings. For the protection of her + ankles she decided to buy a pair of cloth gaiters; and, stating her + intention, she started to go into a shop that dealt in those articles. The + guide hesitated a moment only, then threw himself in her path. The shops + hereabout were not to be trusted—the proprietors, without exception, + were rogues and extortioners. If madame would have patience for a few + brief moments he would guarantee that she got what she wanted at an honest + price. He seemed so desirous of protecting her that she consented to wait. + </p> + <p> + In a minute, on a pretext, he excused himself and dived into one of the + crooked ways that thread through all parts of Venice and make it possible + for one who knows their windings to reach any part of the city without + using the canals. Two of us secretly followed him. Beyond the first + turning he dived into a shoe shop. Emerging after a while he hurried back + and led the lady to that same shop, and stood by, smiling softly, while + she was fitted with gaiters. Until now evidently gaiters had not been on + his list, but he had taken steps to remedy this; and, though his + commission on a pair of sixty-cent gaiters could not have been very large + yet, as some philosopher has so truly said, every little bit added to what + you have makes just a modicum more. Indeed, the guide never overlooks the + smallest bet. His whole mentality is focused on getting you inside a shop. + Once you are there, he stations himself close behind you, reenforcing the + combined importunities of the shopkeeper and his assembled staff with + gentle suggestions. The depths of self-abasement to which a shopkeeper in + Europe will descend in an effort to sell his goods surpasses the power of + description. The London tradesman goes pretty far in this direction. Often + he goes as far as the sidewalk, clinging to the hem of your garment and + begging you to return for one more look. But the Continentals are still + worse. + </p> + <p> + A Parisian shopkeeper would sell you the bones of his revered grandmother + if you wanted them and he had them in stock; and he would have them in + stock too, because, as I have stated once before, a true Parisian never + throws away anything he can save. I heard of just one single instance + where a customer desirous of having an article and willing to pay the + price failed to get it; and that, I would say, stands without a parallel + in the annals of commerce and barter. + </p> + <p> + An American lady visiting her daughter, an art student in the Latin + Quartier, was walking alone when she saw in a shop window a lace blouse + she fancied. She went inside and by signs, since she knew no French, + indicated that she wished to look at that blouse. The woman in charge + shook her head, declining even to take the garment out of the window. + Convinced now, womanlike, that this particular blouse was the blouse she + desired above all other blouses the American woman opened her purse and + indicated that she was prepared to buy at the shopwoman's own valuation, + without the privilege of examination. The shopwoman showed deep pain at + having to refuse the proposition, but refuse it she did; and the would-be + buyer went home angry and perplexed and told her daughter what had + happened. + </p> + <p> + "It certainly is strange," the daughter said. "I thought everything in + Paris, except possibly Napoleon's tomb, was for sale. This thing will + repay investigation. Wait until I pin my hat on. Does my nose need + powdering?" + </p> + <p> + Her mother led her back to the shop of the blouse and then the puzzle was + revealed. For it was the shop of a dry cleanser and the blouse belonged to + some patron and was being displayed as a sample of the work done inside; + but undoubtedly such a thing never before happened in Paris and probably + never will happen again. + </p> + <p> + In Venice not only the guides and the hotel clerks and porters but even + the simple gondolier has a secret understanding with all branches of the + retail trade. You get into a long, snaky, black gondola and fee the beggar + who pushes you off, and all the other beggars who have assisted in the + pushing off or have merely contributed to the success of the operation by + being present, and you tell your gondolier in your best Italian or your + worst pidgin English where you wish to go. It may be you are bound for the + Rialto; or for the Bridge of Sighs, which is chiefly distinguished from + all the other bridges by being the only covered one in the lot; or for the + house of the lady Desdemona. The lady Desdemona never lived there or + anywhere else, but the house where she would have lived, had she lived, is + on exhibition daily from nine to five, admission one lira. Or perchance + you want to visit one of the ducal palaces that are so numerous in Venice. + These palaces are still tenanted by the descendants of the original + proprietors; one family has perhaps been living in one palace three or + four hundred years. But now the family inhabits the top floor, doing light + housekeeping up there, and the lower floor, where the art treasures, the + tapestries and the family relics are, is in charge of a caretaker, who + collects at the door and then leads you through. + </p> + <p> + Having given the boatman explicit directions you settle back in your + cushion seat to enjoy the trip. You marvel how he, standing at the stern, + with his single oar fitted into a shallow notch of his steering post, + propels the craft so swiftly and guides it so surely by those short, + twisting strokes of his. Really, you reflect, it is rowing by shorthand. + You are feasting your eyes on the wonderful color effects and the + groupings that so enthuse the artist, and which he generally manages to + botch and boggle when he seeks to commit them to canvas; and betweenwhiles + you are wondering why all the despondent cats in Venice should have picked + out the Grand Canal as the most suitable place in which to commit suicide, + when—bump!—your gondola swings up against the landing piles in + front of a glass factory and the entire force of helpers rush out and + seize you by your arms—or by your legs, if handier—and try to + drag you inside, while the affable and accommodating gondolier boosts you + from behind. You fight them off, declaring passionately that you are not + in the market for colored glass at this time. The hired hands protest; and + the gondolier, cheated out of his commission, sorrows greatly, but obeys + your command to move on. At least he pretends to obey it; but a minute + later he brings you up broadside at the water-level doors of a shop + dealing in antiques, known appropriately as antichitas, or at a mosaic + shop or a curio shop. If ever you do succeed in reaching your destination + it is by the exercise of much profanity and great firmness of will. + </p> + <p> + The most insistent and pesky shopkeepers of all are those who hive in the + ground floors of the professedly converted palaces that face on three + sides of the Square of Saint Mark's. You dare not hesitate for the + smallest fractional part of a second in front of a shop here. Lurking + inside the open door is a husky puller-in; and he dashes out and grabs + hold of you and will not let go, begging you in spaghettified English to + come in and examine his unapproachable assortment of bargains. You are not + compelled to buy, he tells you; he only wants you to gaze on his beautiful + things. Believe him not! Venture inside and decline to purchase and he + will think up new and subtle Italian forms of insult and insolence to + visit on you. They will have brass bands out for you if you invest and + brass knuckles if you do not. + </p> + <p> + There is but one way to escape from their everlasting persecutions, and + that is to flee to the center of the square and enjoy the company of the + pigeons and the photographers. They—the pigeons, I mean—belong + to the oldest family in Venice; their lineage is of the purest and most + undefiled. For upward of seven hundred years the authorities of the city + have been feeding and protecting the pigeons, of which these countless + blue-and-bronze flocks are the direct descendants. They are true + aristocrats; and, like true aristocrats, they are content to live on the + public funds and grow fat and sassy thereon, paying nothing in return. + </p> + <p> + No; I take that part back—they do pay something in return; a full + measure. They pay by the beauty of their presence, and they are surely + very beautiful, with their dainty mincing pink feet and the sheen on the + proudly arched breast coverts of the cock birds; and they pay by giving + you their trust and their friendship. To gobble the gifts of dried peas, + which you buy in little cornucopias from convenient venders for + distribution among them, they come wheeling in winged battalions, creaking + and cooing, and alight on your head and shoulders in that perfect + confidence which so delights humans when wild or half-wild creatures + bestow it on us, though, at every opportunity, we do our level best to + destroy it by hunting and harrying them to death. + </p> + <p> + At night, when the moon is up, is the time to visit this spot. Standing + here, with the looming pile of the Doge's Palace bulked behind you, and + the gorgeous but somewhat garish decorations of the great cathedral + softened and soothed into perfection of outline and coloring by the half + light, you can for the moment forget the fallen state of Venice, and your + imagination peoples the splendid plaza for you with the ghosts of its dead + and vanished greatnesses. You conceive of the place as it must have looked + in those old, brave, wicked days, filled all with knights, with red-robed + cardinals and clanking men at arms, with fair ladies and grave senators, + slinking bravos and hired assassins—and all so gay with silk and + satin and glittering steel and spangling gems. + </p> + <p> + By the eye of your mind you see His Illuminated Excellency, the frosted + Christmas card, as he bows low before His Eminence, the pink Easter egg; + you see, half hidden behind the shadowed columns of the long portico, an + illustrated Sunday supplement in six colors bargaining with a stick of + striped peppermint candy to have his best friend stabbed in the back + before morning; you see giddy poster designs carrying on flirtations with + hand-painted valentines; you catch the love-making, overhear the + intriguing, and scent the plotting; you are an eyewitness to a slice out + of the life of the most sinister, the most artistic, and the most + murderous period of Italian history. + </p> + <p> + But by day imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, stops a hole to keep + the wind away; and the wild ass of the ninety-day tour stamps his heedless + hoofs over the spot where sleeps the dust of departed grandeur. By day the + chug of the motor boat routs out old sleepy echoes from cracked and + crannied ruins; the burnished golden frescoes of Saint Mark's blare at you + as with brazen trumpets; every third medieval church has been turned into + a moving-picture place; and the shopkeeping parasites buzz about you in + vermin swarms and bore holes in your pocketbook until it is all one large + painful welt. The emblem of Venice is the winged lion. It should be the + tapeworm. + </p> + <p> + In Rome it appears to be a standing rule that every authenticated guide + shall be a violent Socialist and therefore rampingly anticlerical in all + his views. We were in Rome during the season of pilgrimages. From all + parts of Italy, from Bohemia and Hungary and Spain and Tyrol, and even + from France, groups of peasants had come to Rome to worship in their + mother church and be blessed by the supreme pontiff of their faith. At all + hours of the day they were passing through the streets, bound for Saint + Peter's or the Vatican, the women with kerchiefs over their heads, the men + in their Sunday best, and all with badges and tokens on their breasts. + </p> + <p> + At the head of each straggling procession would be a black-frocked village + priest, at once proud and humble, nervous and exalted. A man might be of + any religion or of no religion at all, and yet I fail to see how he could + watch, unmoved, the uplifted faces of these people as they clumped over + the cobbles of the Holy City, praying as they went. Some of them had been + saving up all their lives, I imagine, against the coming of this great + day; but our guide—and we tried three different ones—never + beheld this sight that he did not sneer at it; and not once did he fail to + point out that most of the pilgrims were middle-aged or old, taking this + as proof of his claim that the Church no longer kept its hold on the + younger people, even among the peasant classes. The still more frequent + spectacle of a marching line of students of one of the holy colleges, with + each group wearing the distinctive insignia of its own country—purple + robes or green sashes, or what not—would excite him to the verge of + a spasm. + </p> + <p> + But then he was always verging on a spasm anyway—spasms were his + normal state. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XX. The Combustible Captain of Vienna + </h2> + <p> + Our guide in Vienna was the most stupid human being I ever saw. He was + profoundly ignorant on a tremendously wide range of subjects; he had a + most complete repertoire of ignorance. He must have spent years of study + to store up so much interesting misinformation. This guide was much + addicted to indulgence of a peculiar form of twisted English and at odd + moments given to the consumption of a delicacy of strictly Germanic + origin, known in the language of the Teutons as a rollmops. A rollmops + consists of a large dilled cucumber, with a pickled herring coiled round + it ready to strike, in the design of the rattlesnake-and-pinetree flag of + the Revolution, the motto in both instances being in effect: "Don't monkey + with the buzz saw!" He carried his rollmops in his pocket and frequently, + in art galleries or elsewhere, would draw it out and nibble it, while + disseminating inaccuracies touching on pictures and statues and things. + </p> + <p> + Among other places, he took us to the oldest church in Vienna. As I now + recollect it was six hundred years old. No; on second thought I will say + it must have been older than that. No church could possibly become so + moldy and mangy looking as that church in only six hundred years. The + object in this church that interested me most was contained in an ornate + glass case placed near the altar and alongside the relics held to be + sacred. It did not exactly please me to gaze at this article; but the + thing had a fascination for me; I will not deny that. + </p> + <p> + It seems that a couple of centuries ago there was an officer in Vienna, a + captain in rank and a Frenchman by birth, who, in the midst of disorders + and licentiousness, lived so godly and so sanctified a life that his + soldiers took it into their heads that he was really a saint, or at least + had the making of a first-rate saint in him, and, therefore, must lead a + charmed life. So—thus runs the tale—some of them laid a wager + with certain Doubting Thomases, also soldiers, that neither by fire nor + water, neither by rope nor poison, could he take harm to himself. Finally + they decided on fire for the test. So they waited until he slept—those + simple, honest, chuckle-headed chaps—and then they slipped in with a + lighted torch and touched him off. + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, the joke certainly was on those soldiers. He burned up with all + the spontaneous enthusiasm of a celluloid comb. For qualities of + instantaneous combustion he must have been the equal of any small-town + theater that ever was built—with one exit. He was practically a + total loss and there was no insurance. + </p> + <p> + They still have him, or what is left of him, in that glass case. He did + not exactly suffer martyrdom—though probably he personally did not + notice any very great difference—and so he has not been canonized; + nevertheless, they have him there in that church. In all Europe I only saw + one sight to match him, and that was down in the crypt under the Church of + the Capuchins, in Rome, where the dissected cadavers of four thousand dead—but + not gone—monks are worked up into decorations. There are altars made + of their skulls, and chandeliers made of their thigh bones; frescoes of + their spines; mosaics of their teeth and dried muscles; cozy corners of + their femurs and pelves and tibiae. There are two classes of travelers I + would strongly advise not to visit the crypt of the Capuchins' Church—those + who are just about to have dinner and want to have it, and those who have + just had dinner and want to keep on having it. + </p> + <p> + At the royal palace in Vienna we saw the finest, largest, and gaudiest + collection of crown jewels extant. That guide of ours seemed to think he + had done his whole duty toward us and could call it a day and knock off + when he led us up to the jewel collections, where each case was surrounded + by pop-eyed American tourists taking on flesh at the sight of all those + sparklers and figuring up the grand total of their valuation in dollars, + on the basis of so many hundreds of carats at so many hundred dollars a + carat, until reason tottered on her throne—and did not have so very + far to totter, either. + </p> + <p> + The display or all those gems, however, did not especially excite me. + There were too many of them and they were too large. A blue Kimberley in a + hotel clerk's shirtfront or a pigeonblood ruby on a faro dealer's little + finger might hold my attention and win my admiration; but where jewels are + piled up in heaps like anthracite in a coal bin they thrill me no more + than the anthracite would. A quart measure of diamonds of the average size + of a big hailstone does not make me think of diamonds but of hailstones. I + could remain as calm in their presence as I should in the presence of a + quart of cracked ice; in fact, calmer than I should remain in the presence + of a quart of cracked ice in Italy, say, where there is not that much ice, + cracked or otherwise. In Italy a bucketful of ice would be worth traveling + miles to see. You could sell tickets for it. + </p> + <p> + In one of the smaller rooms of the palace we came on a casket containing a + necklace of great smoldering rubies and a pair of bracelets to match. They + were as big as cranberries and as red as blood—as red as arterial + blood. And when, on consulting the guidebook, we read the history of those + rubies the sight of them brought a picture to our minds, for they had been + a part of the wedding dowry of Marie Antoinette. Once on a time this + necklace had spanned the slender white throat that was later to be sheared + by the guillotine, and these bracelets had clasped the same white wrists + that were roped together with an ell of hangman's hemp on the day the + desolated queen rode, in her patched and shabby gown, to the Place de la + Revolution. + </p> + <p> + I had seen paintings in plenty and read descriptions galore of that last + ride of the Widow Capet going to her death in the tumbril, with the priest + at her side and her poor, fettered arms twisted behind her, and her white + face bared to the jeers of the mob; but the physical presence of those + precious useless baubles, which had cost so much and yet had bought so + little for her, made more vivid to me than any picture or any story the + most sublime tragedy of The Terror—the tragedy of those two bound + hands. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXI. Old Masters and Other Ruins + </h2> + <p> + It is naturally a fine thing for one, and gratifying, to acquire a + thorough art education. Personally I do not in the least regret the time I + gave and the study I devoted to acquiring mine. I regard those two weeks + as having been well spent. + </p> + <p> + I shall not do it soon again, however, for now I know all about art. Let + others who have not enjoyed my advantages take up this study. Let others + scour the art galleries of Europe seeking masterpieces. All of them + contain masterpieces and most of them need scouring. As for me and mine, + we shall go elsewhere. I love my art, but I am not fanatical on the + subject. There is another side of my nature to which an appeal may be + made. I can take my Old Masters or I can leave them be. That is the way I + am organized—I have self-control. + </p> + <p> + I shall not deny that the earlier stages of my art education were fraught + with agreeable little surprises. Not soon shall I forget the flush of + satisfaction which ran through me on learning that this man Dore's name + was pronounced like the first two notes in the music scale, instead of + like a Cape Cod fishing boat. And lingering in my mind as a fragrant + memory is the day when I first discovered that Spagnoletto was neither a + musical instrument nor something to be served au gratin and eaten with a + fork. Such acquirements as these are very precious to me. + </p> + <p> + But for the time being I have had enough. At this hour of writing I feel + that I am stocked up with enough of Bouguereau's sorrel ladies and + Titian's chestnut ones and Rubens' bay ones and Velasquez's pintos to last + me, at a conservative estimate, for about seventy-five years. I am too + young as a theatergoer to recall much about Lydia Thompson's Blondes, but + I have seen sufficient of Botticelli's to do me amply well for a spell. I + am still willing to walk a good distance to gaze on one of Rembrandt's + portraits of one of his kinfolks, though I must say he certainly did have + a lot of mighty homely relatives; and any time there is a first-rate + Millet or Corot or Meissonier in the neighborhood I wish somebody would + drop me a line, giving the address. As for pictures by Tintoretto, showing + Venetian Doges hobnobbing informally with members of the Holy Family, and + Raphael's angels, and Michelangelo's lost souls, and Guidos, and Murillos, + I have had enough to do me for months and months and months. Nor am I in + the market for any of the dead fish of the Flemish school. Judging by what + I have observed, practically all the Flemish painters were devout + churchmen and painted their pictures on Friday. + </p> + <p> + There was just one drawback to my complete enjoyment of that part of our + European travels we devoted to art. We would go to an art gallery, hire a + guide and start through. Presently I would come to a picture that struck + me as being distinctly worth while. To my untutored conceptions it + possessed unlimited beauty. There was, it seemed to me, life in the + figures, reality in the colors, grace in the grouping. And then, just when + I was beginning really to enjoy it, the guide would come and snatch me + away. + </p> + <p> + He would tell me the picture I thought I admired was of no account + whatsoever—that the artist who painted it had not yet been dead long + enough to give his work any permanent value; and he would drag me off to + look at a cracked and crumbling canvas depicting a collection of saints of + lacquered complexions and hardwood expressions, with cast-iron trees + standing up against cotton batting clouds in the background, and a few + extra halos floating round indiscriminately, like sun dogs on a showery + day, and, up above, the family entrance into heaven hospitably ajar; and + he would command me to bask my soul in this magnificent example of real + art and not waste time on inconsequential and trivial things. Guides have + the same idea of an artist that a Chinaman entertains for an egg. A fresh + egg or a fresh artist will not do. It must have the perfume of antiquity + behind it to make it attractive. + </p> + <p> + At the Louvre, in Paris, on the first day of the two we spent there, we + had for our guide a tall, educated Prussian, who had an air about him of + being an ex-officer of the army. All over the Continent you are constantly + running into men engaged in all manner of legitimate and dubious callings, + who somehow impress you as having served in the army of some other country + than the one in which you find them. After this man had been chaperoning + us about for some hours and we had stopped to rest, he told a good story. + It may not have been true—it has been my experience that very few + good stories are true; but it served aptly to illustrate a certain type of + American tourist numerously encountered abroad. + </p> + <p> + "There were two of them," he said in his excellent English, "a gentleman + and his wife; and from what I saw of them I judged them to be very + wealthy. They were interested in seeing only such things as had been + recommended by the guidebook. The husband would tell me they desired to + see such and such a picture or statue. I would escort them to it and they + would glance at it indifferently, and the gentleman would take out his + lead pencil and check off that particular object in the book; and then he + would say: 'All right—we've seen that; now let's find out what we + want to look at next.' We still serve a good many people like that—not + so many as formerly, but still a good many. + </p> + <p> + "Finally I decided to try a little scheme of my own. I wanted to see + whether I could really win their admiration for something. I picked out a + medium-size painting of no particular importance and, pointing to it, said + impressively: 'Here, m'sieur, is a picture worth a million dollars—without + the frame!' + </p> + <p> + "'What's that?' he demanded excitedly. Then he called to his wife, who had + strayed ahead a few steps. 'Henrietta,' he said, 'come back here—you're + missing something. There's a picture there that's worth a million dollars—and + without the frame, too, mind you!' + </p> + <p> + "She came hurrying back and for ten minutes they stood there drinking in + that picture. Every second they discovered new and subtle beauties in it. + I could hardly induce them to go on for the rest of the tour, and the next + day they came back for another soul-feast in front of it." + </p> + <p> + Later along, that guide confided to me that in his opinion I had a keen + appreciation of art, much keener than the average lay tourist. The + compliment went straight to my head. It was seeking the point of least + resistance, I suppose. I branched out and undertook to discuss art matters + with him on a more familiar basis. It was a mistake; but before I realized + that it was a mistake I was out in the undertow sixty yards from shore, + going down for the third time, with a low gurgling cry. He did not put out + to save me, either; he left me to sink in the heaving and abysmal sea of + my own fathomless ignorance. He just stood there and let me drown. It was + a cruel thing, for which I can never forgive him. + </p> + <p> + In my own defense let me say, however, that this fatal indiscretion was + committed before I had completed my art education. It was after we had + gone from France to Germany, and to Austria, and to Italy, that I learned + the great lesson about art—which is that whenever and wherever you + meet a picture that seems to you reasonably lifelike it is nine times in + ten of no consequence whatsoever; and, unless you are willing to be + regarded as a mere ignoramus, you should straightway leave it and go and + find some ancient picture of a group of overdressed clothing dummies + masquerading as angels or martyrs, and stand before that one and carry on + regardless. + </p> + <p> + When in doubt, look up a picture of Saint Sebastian. You never experience + any difficulty in finding him—he is always represented as wearing + very few clothes, being shot full of arrows to such an extent that clothes + would not fit him anyway. Or else seek out Saint Laurence, who is + invariably featured in connection with a gridiron; or Saint Bartholomew, + who, you remember, achieved canonization through a process of flaying, and + is therefore shown with his skin folded neatly and carried over his arm + like a spring overcoat. + </p> + <p> + Following this routine you make no mistakes. Everybody is bound to accept + you as one possessing a deep knowledge of art, and not mere surface art + either, but the innermost meanings and conceptions of art. Only sometimes + I did get to wishing that the Old Masters had left a little more to the + imagination. They never withheld any of the painful particulars. It seemed + to me they cheapened the glorious end of those immortal fathers of the + faith by including the details of the martyrdom in every picture. Still, I + would not have that admission get out and obtain general circulation. It + might be used against me as an argument that my artistic education was + grounded on a false foundation. + </p> + <p> + It was in Rome, while we were doing the Vatican, that our guide furnished + us with a sight that, considered as a human experience, was worth more to + me than a year of Old Masters and Young Messers. We had pushed our poor + blistered feet—a dozen or more of us—past miles of paintings + and sculptures and relics and art objects, and we were tired—oh, so + tired! Our eyes ached and our shoes hurt us; and the calves of our legs + quivered as we trailed along from gallery to corridor, and from corridor + back to gallery. + </p> + <p> + We had visited the Sistine Chapel; and, such was our weariness, we had + even declined to become excited over Michelangelo's great picture of the + Last Judgment. I was disappointed, too, that he had omitted to include in + his collection of damned souls a number of persons I had confidently and + happily expected would be present. I saw no one there even remotely + resembling my conception of the person who first originated and + promulgated the doctrine that all small children should be told at the + earliest possible moment that there is no Santa Claus. That was a very + severe blow to me, because I had always believed that the descent to + eternal perdition would be incomplete unless he had a front seat. And the + man who first hit on the plan of employing child labor on night shifts in + cotton factories—he was unaccountably absent too. And likewise the + original inventor of the toy pistol; in fact the absentees were entirely + too numerous to suit me. There was one thing, though, to be said in praise + of Michelangelo's Last Judgment; it was too large and too complicated to + be reproduced successfully on a souvenir postal card; and I think we + should all be very grateful for that mercy anyway. + </p> + <p> + As I was saying, we had left the Sistine Chapel a mile or so behind us and + had dragged our exhausted frames as far as an arched upper portico in a + wing of the great palace, overlooking a paved courtyard inclosed at its + farther end by a side wall of Saint Peter's. We saw, in another portico + similar to the one where we had halted and running parallel to it, long + rows of peasants, all kneeling and all with their faces turned in the same + direction. + </p> + <p> + "Wait here a minute," said our guide. "I think you will see something not + included in the regular itinerary of the day." + </p> + <p> + So we waited. In a minute or two the long lines of kneeling peasants + raised a hymn; the sound of it came to us in quavering snatches. Through + the aisle formed by their bodies a procession passed the length of the + long portico and back to the starting point. First came Swiss Guards in + their gay piebald uniforms, carrying strange-looking pikes and halberds; + and behind them were churchly dignitaries, all bared of head; and last of + all came a very old and very feeble man, dressed in white, with a + wide-brimmed white hat—and he had white hair and a white face, which + seemed drawn and worn, but very gentle and kindly and beneficent. + </p> + <p> + He held his right arm aloft, with the first two fingers extended in the + gesture of the apostolic benediction. He was so far away from us that in + perspective his profile was reduced to the miniature proportions of a head + on a postage stamp; but, all the same, the lines of it stood out clear and + distinct. It was his Holiness, Pope Pius the Tenth, blessing a pilgrimage. + </p> + <p> + All the guides in Rome follow a regular routine with the tourist. First, + of course, they steer you into certain shops in the hope that you will buy + something and thereby enable them to earn commissions. Then, in turn, they + carry you to an art gallery, to a church, and to a palace, with stops at + other shops interspersed between; and invariably they wind up in the + vicinity of some of the ruins. Ruins is a Roman guide's middle name; ruins + are his one best bet. In Rome I saw ruins until I was one myself. + </p> + <p> + We devoted practically an entire day to ruins. That was the day we drove + out the Appian Way, glorious in legend and tale, but not quite so + all-fired glorious when you are reeling over its rough and rutted pavement + in an elderly and indisposed open carriage, behind a pair of half-broken + Roman-nosed horses which insist on walking on their hind legs whenever + they tire of going on four. The Appian Way, as at present constituted, is + a considerable disappointment. For long stretches it runs between high + stone walls, broken at intervals by gate-ways, where votive lamps burn + before small shrines, and by the tombs of such illustrious dead as Seneca + and the Horatii and the Curiatii. At more frequent intervals are small + wine groggeries. Being built mainly of Italian marble, which is the most + enduring and the most unyielding substance to be found in all Italy—except + a linen collar that has been starched in an Italian laundry—the + tombs are in a pretty fair state of preservation; but the inns, without + exception, stand most desperately in need of immediate repairing. + </p> + <p> + A cow in Italy is known by the company she keeps; she rambles about, in + and out of the open parlor of the wayside inn, mingling freely with the + patrons and the members of the proprietor's household. Along the Appian + Way a cow never seems to care whom she runs with; and the same is true of + the domestic fowls and the family donkey. A donkey will spend his day in + the doorway of a wine shop when he might just as well be enjoying the more + sanitary and less crowded surroundings of a stable. It only goes to show + what an ass a donkey is. + </p> + <p> + Anon, as the fancy writers say, we skirted one of the many wrecked + aqueducts that go looping across country to the distant hills, like great + stone straddlebugs. In the vicinity of Rome you are rarely out of sight of + one of these aqueducts. The ancient Roman rulers, you know, curried the + favor of the populace by opening baths. A modern ruler could win undying + popularity by closing up a few. + </p> + <p> + We slowed up at the Circus of Romulus and found it a very sad circus, as + such things go—no elevated stage, no hippodrome track, no + centerpole, no trapeze, and only one ring. P. T. Barnum would have been + ashamed to own it. A broken wall, following the lines of an irregular + oval; a cabbage patch where the arena had been; and various tumble-down + farmsheds built into the shattered masonry—this was the Circus of + Romulus. However, it was not the circus of the original Romulus, but of a + degenerate successor of the same name who rose suddenly and fell abruptly + after the Christian era was well begun. Old John J. Romulus would not have + stood for that circus a minute. + </p> + <p> + No ride on the Appian Way is regarded as complete without half an hour's + stop at the Catacombs of Saint Calixtus; so we stopped. Guided by a brown + Trappist, and all of us bearing twisted tapers in our hands, we descended + by stone steps deep under the skin of the earth and wandered through dim, + dank underground passages, where thousands of early Christians had lived + and hid, and held clandestine worship before rude stone altars, and had + died and been buried—died in a highly unpleasant fashion, some of + them. + </p> + <p> + The experience was impressive, but malarial. Coming away from there I had + an argument with a fellow American. He said that if we had these Catacombs + in America we should undoubtedly enlarge them and put in band stands and + lunch places, and altogether make them more attractive for picnic parties + and Sunday excursionists. I contended, on the other hand, that if they + were in America the authorities would close them up and protect the + moldered bones of those early Christians from the vulgar gaze and prying + fingers of every impious relic hunter who might come along. The dispute + rose higher and grew warmer until I offered to bet him fifty dollars that + I was right and he was wrong. He took me up promptly—he had sporting + instincts; I'll say that for him—and we shook hands on it then and + there to bind the wager. I expect to win that bet. + </p> + <p> + We had turned off the Appian Way and were crossing a corner of that + unutterably hideous stretch of tortured and distorted waste known as the + Campagna, which goes tumbling away to the blue Alban Mountains, when we + came on the scene of an accident. A two-wheeled mule cart, proceeding + along a crossroad, with the driver asleep in his canopied seat, had been + hit by a speeding automobile and knocked galley-west. The automobile had + sped on—so we were excitedly informed by some other tourists who had + witnessed the collision—leaving the wreckage bottom side up in the + ditch. The mule was on her back, all entangled in the twisted ruination of + her gaudy gear, kicking out in that restrained and genteel fashion in + which a mule always kicks when she is desirous of protesting against + existing conditions, but is wishful not to damage herself while so doing. + The tourists, aided by half a dozen peasants, had dragged the driver out + from beneath the heavy cart and had carried him to a pile of mucky straw + beneath the eaves of a stable. He was stretched full length on his back, + senseless and deathly pale under the smeared grime on his face. There was + no blood; but inside his torn shirt his chest had a caved-in look, as + though the ribs had been crushed flat, and he seemed not to breathe at + all. Only his fingers moved. They kept twitching, as though his life was + running out of him through his finger ends. One felt that if he would but + grip his hands he might stay its flight and hold it in. + </p> + <p> + Just as we jumped out of our carriage a young peasant woman, who had been + bending over the injured man, set up a shrill outcry, which was instantly + answered from behind us; and looking round we saw, running through the + bare fields, a great, bulksome old woman, with her arms outspread and her + face set in a tragic shape, shrieking as she sped toward us in her + ungainly wallowing course. She was the injured man's mother, we judged—or + possibly his grandmother. + </p> + <p> + There was nothing we could do for the human victim. Our guides, having + questioned the assembled natives, told us there was no hospital to which + he might be taken and that a neighborhood physician had already been sent + for. So, having no desire to look on the grief of his mother—if she + was his mother—a young Austrian and I turned our attention to the + neglected mule. We felt that we could at least render a little first aid + there. We had our pocket-knives out and were slashing away at the twisted + maze of ropes and straps that bound the brute down between the shafts, + when a particularly shrill chorus of shrieks checked us. We stood up and + faced about, figuring that the poor devil on the muck heap had died and + that his people were bemoaning his death. That was not it at all. The + entire group, including the fat old woman, were screaming at us and + shaking their clenched fists at us, warning us not to damage that harness + with our knives. Feeling ran high, and threatened to run higher. + </p> + <p> + So, having no desire to be mobbed on the spot, we desisted and put up our + knives; and after a while we got back into our carriage and drove on, + leaving the capsized mule still belly-up in the debris, lashing out + carefully with her skinned legs at the trappings that bound her; and the + driver was still prone on the dunghill, with his fingers twitching more + feebly now, as though the life had almost entirely fled out of him—a + grim little tragedy set in the edge of a wide and aching desolation! We + never found out his name or learned how he fared—whether he lived or + died, and if he died how long he lived before he died. It is a puzzle + which will always lie unanswered at the back of my mind, and I know that + in odd moments it will return to torment me. I will bet one thing, though—nobody + else tried to cut that mule out of her harness. + </p> + <p> + In the chill late afternoon of a Roman day the guides brought us back to + the city and took us down into the Roman Forum, which is in a hollow + instead of being up on a hill as most folks imagine it to be until they go + to Rome and see it; and we finished up the day at the Golden House of + Nero, hard by the vast ruins of the Coliseum. We had already visited the + Forum once; so this time we did not stay long; just long enough for some + ambitious pickpocket to get a wallet out of my hip pocket while I was + pushing forward with a flock of other human sheep for a better look at the + ruined portico wherein Mark Antony stood when he delivered his justly + popular funeral oration over the body of the murdered Caesar. I never did + admire the character of Mark Antony with any degree of extravagance, and + since this experience I have felt actually bitter toward him. + </p> + <p> + The guidebooks say that no visitor to Rome should miss seeing the Golden + House of Nero. When a guidebook tries to be humorous it only succeeds in + being foolish. Practical jokes are out of place in a guidebook anyway. + Imagine a large, old-fashioned brick smokehouse, which has been struck by + lightning, burned to the roots and buried in the wreckage, and the site + used as a pasture land for goats for a great many years; imagine the + debris as having been dug out subsequently until a few of the foundation + lines are visible; surround the whole with distressingly homely buildings + of a modern aspect, and stir in a miscellaneous seasoning of beggars and + loafers and souvenir venders—and you have the Golden House where + Nero meant to round out a life already replete with incident and abounding + in romance, but was deterred from so doing by reason of being cut down in + the midst of his activities at a comparatively early age. + </p> + <p> + In the presence of the Golden House of Nero I did my level best to + recreate before my mind's eye the scenes that had been enacted here once + on a time. I tried to picture this moldy, knee-high wall, as a great + glittering palace; and yonder broken roadbed as a splendid Roman highway; + and these American-looking tenements on the surrounding hills as the + marble dwellings of the emperors; and all the broken pillars and shattered + porticoes in the distance as arches of triumph and temples of the gods. I + tried to convert the clustering mendicants into barbarian prisoners + clanking by, chained at wrist and neck and ankle; I sought to imagine the + pestersome flower venders as being vestal virgins; the two unkempt + policemen who loafed nearby, as centurions of the guard; the passing + populace as grave senators in snowy togas; the flaunting underwear on the + many clotheslines as silken banners and gilded trappings. I could not make + it. I tried until I was lame in both legs and my back was strained. It was + no go. + </p> + <p> + If I had been a poet or a historian, or a person full of Chianti, I + presume I might have done it; but I am no poet and I had not been + drinking. All I could think of was that the guide on my left had eaten too + much garlic and that the guide on my right had not eaten enough. So in + self-defense I went away and ate a few strands of garlic myself; for I had + learned the great lesson of the proverb: + </p> + <p> + When in Rome be an aroma! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXII. Still More Ruins, Mostly Italian Ones + </h2> + <p> + When I reached Pompeii the situation was different. I could conjure up an + illusion there—the biggest, most vivid illusion I have been + privileged to harbor since I was a small boy. It was worth spending four + days in Naples for the sake of spending half a day in Pompeii; and if you + know Naples you will readily understand what a high compliment that is for + Pompeii. + </p> + <p> + To reach Pompeii from Naples we followed a somewhat roundabout route; and + that trip was distinctly worth while too. It provided a most pleasing + foretaste of what was to come. Once we had cleared the packed and + festering suburbs, we went flanking across a terminal vertebra of the + mountain range that sprawls lengthwise of the land of Italy, like a great + spiny-backed crocodile sunning itself, with its tail in the Tyrrhenian Sea + and its snout in the Piedmonts; and when we had done this we came out on a + highway that skirted the bay. + </p> + <p> + There were gaps in the hills, through which we caught glimpses of the + city, lying miles away in its natural amphitheater; and at that distance + we could revel in its picturesqueness and forget its bouquet of weird + stenches. We could even forget that the automobile we had hired for the + excursion had one foot in the grave and several of its most important + vital organs in the repair shop. I reckon that was the first automobile + built. No; I take that back. It never was a first—it must have been + a second to start with. + </p> + <p> + I once owned a half interest in a sick automobile. It was one of those + old-fashioned, late Victorian automobiles, cut princesse style, with a + plaquette in the back; and it looked like a cross between a fiat-bed job + press and a tailor's goose. It broke down so easily and was towed in so + often by more powerful machines that every time a big car passed it on the + road it stopped right where it was and nickered. Of a morning we would + start out in that car filled with high hopes and bright anticipations, but + eventide would find us returning homeward close behind a bigger + automobile, in a relationship strongly suggestive of the one pictured in + the well-known Nature Group entitled: "Mother Hippo, With Young." We + refused an offer of four hundred dollars for that machine. It had more + than four hundred dollars' worth of things the matter with it. + </p> + <p> + The car we chartered at Naples for our trip to Pompeii reminded me very + strongly of that other car of which I was part owner. Between them there + was a strong family resemblance, not alone in looks but in deportment + also. For patient endurance of manifold ills, for an inexhaustible + capacity in developing new and distressing symptoms at critical moments, + for cheerful willingness to play foal to some other car's dam, they might + have been colts out of the same litter. Nevertheless, between intervals of + breaking down and starting up again, and being helped along by friendly + passer-by automobiles, we enjoyed the ride from Naples. We enjoyed every + inch of it. + </p> + <p> + Part of the way we skirted the hobs of the great witches' caldron of + Vesuvius. On this day the resident demons must have been stirring their + brew with special enthusiasm, for the smoky smudge which always wreathes + its lips had increased to a great billowy plume that lay along the naked + flanges of the devil mountain for miles and miles. Now we would go puffing + and panting through some small outlying environ of the city. Always the + principal products of such a village seemed to be young babies and + macaroni drying in the sun. I am still reasonably fond of babies, but I + date my loss of appetite for imported macaroni from that hour. Now we + would emerge on a rocky headland and below us would be the sea, eternally + young and dimpling like a maiden's cheek; but the crags above were + eternally old and all gashed with wrinkles and seamed with folds, like the + jowls of an ancient squaw. Then for a distance we would run right along + the face of the cliff. Directly beneath us we could see little stone huts + of fishermen clinging to the rocks just above high-water mark, like so + many gray limpets; and then, looking up, we would catch a glimpse of the + vineyards, tucked into man-made terraces along the upper cliffs, like + bundled herbs on the pantry shelves of a thrifty housewife; and still + higher up there would be orange groves and lemon groves and dusty-gray + olive groves. Each succeeding picture was Byzantine in its coloring. + Always the sea was molten blue enamel, and the far-away villages seemed + crafty inlays of mosaic work; and the sun was a disk of hammered Grecian + gold. + </p> + <p> + A man from San Francisco was sharing the car with us, and he came right + out and said that if he were sure heaven would be as beautiful as the Bay + of Naples, he would change all his plans and arrange to go there. He said + he might decide to go there anyhow, because heaven was a place he had + always heard very highly spoken of. And I agreed with him. + </p> + <p> + The sun was slipping down the western sky and was laced with red like a + bloodshot eye, with a Jacob's Ladder of rainbow shafts streaming down from + it to the water, when we turned inland; and after several small minor + stops, while the automobile caught its breath and had the heaves and the + asthma, we came to Pompeii over a road built of volcanic rock. I have + always been glad that we went there on a day when visitors were few. The + very solitude of the place aided the mind in the task of repeopling the + empty streets of that dead city by the sea with the life that was hers + nearly two thousand years ago. Herculaneum will always be buried, so the + scientists say, for Herculaneum was snuggled close up under Vesuvius, and + the hissing-hot lava came down in waves; and first it slugged the doomed + town to death and then slagged it over with impenetrable, flint-hard + deposits. Pompeii, though, lay farther away, and was entombed in dust and + ashes only; so that it has been comparatively easy to unearth it and make + it whole again. Even so, after one hundred and sixty-odd years of more or + less desultory explorations, nearly a third of its supposed area is yet to + be excavated. + </p> + <p> + It was in the year 1592 that an architect named Fontana, in cutting an + aqueduct which was to convey the waters of the Sarno to Torre dell' + Annunziata, discovered the foundations of the Temple of Isis, which stood + near the walls on the inner or land side of the ancient city. It was at + first supposed that he had dug into an isolated villa of some rich Roman; + and it was not until 1748 that prying archaeologists hit on the truth and + induced the Government to send a chain gang of convicts to dig away the + accumulations of earth and tufa. But if it had been a modern Italian city + that was buried, no such mistake in preliminary diagnosis could have + occurred. Anybody would have known it instantly by the smell. I do not + vouch for the dates—I copied them out of the guidebook; but my + experience with Italian cities qualifies me to speak with authority + regarding the other matter. + </p> + <p> + Afoot we entered Pompeii by the restored Marine Gate. Our first step + within the walls was at the Museum, a comparatively modern building, but + containing a fairly complete assortment of the relics that from time to + time have been disinterred in various quarters of the city. Here are wall + cabinets filled with tools, ornaments, utensils, jewelry, furniture—all + the small things that fulfilled everyday functions in the first century of + the Christian era. Here is a kit of surgical implements, and some of the + implements might well belong to a modern hospital. There are foodstuffs—grains + and fruits; wines and oil; loaves of bread baked in 79 A. D. and left in + the abandoned ovens; and a cheese that is still in a fair state of + preservation. It had been buried seventeen hundred years when they found + it; and if only it had been permitted to remain buried a few years longer + it would have been sufficiently ripe to satisfy a Bavarian, I think. + </p> + <p> + Grimmer exhibits are displayed in cases stretched along the center of the + main hall—models of dead bodies discovered in the ruins and + perfectly restored by pouring a bronze composition into the molds that + were left in the hardened pumice after the flesh of these victims had + turned to dust and their bones had crumbled to powder. Huddled together + are the forms of a mother and a babe; and you see how, with her last + conscious thought, the mother tried to cover her baby's face from the + killing rain of dust and blistering ashes. And there is the shape of a man + who wrapped his face in a veil to keep out the fumes, and died so. The + veil is there, reproduced with a fidelity no sculptor could duplicate, and + through its folds you may behold the agony that made his jaw to sag and + his eyes to pop from their sockets. + </p> + <p> + Nearby is a dog, which in its last spasms of pain and fright curled up + worm fashion, and buried its nose in its forepaws and kicked out with its + crooked hind legs. Plainly dogs do not change their emotional natures with + the passage of years. A dog died in Pompeii in 79 A. D. after exactly the + same fashion that a dog might die to-day in the pound at Pittsburgh. + </p> + <p> + From here we went on into the city proper; and it was a whole city, set + off by itself and not surrounded by those jarring modern incongruities + that spoil the ruins of Rome for the person who wishes to give his fancy a + slack rein. It is all here, looking much as it must have looked when Nero + and Caligula reigned, and much as it will still look hundreds of years + hence, for the Government owns it now and guards it and protects it from + the hammer of the vandal and the greed of the casual collector. Here it is—all + of it; the tragic theater and the comic theater; the basilica; the greater + forum and the lesser one; the market place; the amphitheater for the + games; the training school for the gladiators; the temples; the baths; the + villas of the rich; the huts of the poor; the cubicles of the slaves; + shops; offices; workrooms; brothels. + </p> + <p> + The roofs are gone, except in a few instances where they have been + restored; but the walls stand and many of the detached pillars stand too; + and the pavements have endured well, so that the streets remain almost + exactly as they were when this was a city of live beings instead of a tomb + of dead memories, with deep groovings of chariot wheels in the flaggings, + and at each crossing there are stepping stones, dotting the roadbed like + punctuation marks. At the public fountain the well curbs are worn away + where the women rested their water jugs while they swapped the gossip of + the town; and at nearly every corner is a groggery, which in its + appointments and fixtures is so amazingly like unto a family liquor store + as we know it that, venturing into one, I caught myself looking about for + the Business Men's Lunch, with a collection of greasy forks in a glass + receptacle, a crock of pretzels on the counter, and a sign over the bar + reading: No Checks Cashed—This Means You! + </p> + <p> + In the floors the mosaics are as fresh as though newly applied; and the + ribald and libelous Latin, which disappointed litigants carved on the + stones at the back of the law court, looks as though it might have been + scored there last week—certainly not further back than the week + before that. A great many of the wall paintings in the interiors of rich + men's homes have been preserved and some of them are fairly spicy as to + subject and text. It would seem that in these matters the ancient + Pompeiians were pretty nearly as broad-minded and liberal as the modern + Parisians are. The mural decorations I saw in certain villas were almost + suggestive enough to be acceptable matter for publication in a French + comic paper; almost, but not quite. Mr. Anthony Comstock would be an + unhappy man were he turned loose in Pompeii—unhappy for a spell, but + after that exceedingly busy. + </p> + <p> + We lingered on, looking and marveling, and betweenwhiles wondering whether + our automobile's hacking cough had got any better by resting, until the + sun went down and the twilight came. Following the guidebook's advice we + had seen the Colosseum in Rome by moonlight. There was a full moon on the + night we went there. It came heaving up grandly, a great, round-faced, + full-cream, curdy moon, rich with rennet and yellow with butter fats; but + by the time we had worked our way south to Naples a greedy fortnight had + bitten it quite away, until it was reduced to a mere cheese rind of a + moon, set up on end against the delft-blue platter of a perfect sky. We + waited until it showed its thin rim in the heavens, and then, in the + softened half-glow, with the purplish shadows deepening between the + brown-gray walls of the dead city, I just naturally turned my imagination + loose and let her soar. + </p> + <p> + Standing there, with the stage set and the light effects just right, in + fancy I repopulated Pompeii. I beheld it just as it was on a fair, + autumnal morning in 79 A. D. With my eyes half closed, I can see the + vision now. At first the crowds are massed and mingled in confusion, but + soon figures detach themselves from the rest and reveal themselves as + prominent personages. Some of them I know at a glance. Yon tall, imposing + man, with the genuine imitation sealskin collar on his toga, who strides + along so majestically, whisking his cane against his leg, can be no other + than Gum Tragacanth, leading man of the Bon Ton Stock Company, fresh from + his metropolitan triumphs in Rome and at this moment the reigning matinee + idol of the South. This week he is playing Claude Melnotte in The Lady of + Lyons; next week he will be seen in his celebrated characterization of + Matthias in The Bells, with special scenery; and for the regular Wednesday + and Saturday bargain matinees Lady Audley's Secret will be given. + </p> + <p> + Observe him closely. It is evident that he values his art. Yet about him + there is no false ostentation. With what gracious condescension does he + acknowledge the half-timid, half-daring smiles of all the little + caramel-chewing Floras and Faunas who have made it a point to be on Main + Street at this hour! With what careless grace does he doff his laurel + wreath, which is of the latest and most modish fall block, with the bow at + the back, in response to the waved greeting of Mrs. Belladonna Capsicum, + the acknowledged leader of the artistic and Bohemian set, as she sweeps by + in her chariot bound for Blumberg Brothers' to do a little shopping. She + is not going to buy anything—she is merely out shopping. + </p> + <p> + Than this fair patrician dame, none is more prominent in the gay life of + Pompeii. It was she who last season smoked a cigarette in public, and + there is a report now that she is seriously considering wearing an ankle + bracelet; withal she is a perfect lady and belongs to one of the old + Southern families. Her husband has been through the bankruptcy courts + twice and is thinking of going through again. At present he is engaged in + promoting and writing a little life insurance on the side. + </p> + <p> + Now her equipage is lost in the throng and the great actor continues on + his way, making a mental note of the fact that he has promised to attend + her next Sunday afternoon studio tea. Near his own stage door he bumps + into Commodious Rotunda, the stout comedian of the comic theater, and they + pause to swap the latest Lambs' Club repartee. This done, Commodius hauls + out a press clipping and would read it, but the other remembers + providentially that he has a rehearshal on and hurriedly departs. If there + are any press clippings to be read he has a few of his own that will bear + inspection. + </p> + <p> + Superior Maxillary, managing editor of the Pompeiian "Daily News-Courier," + is also abroad, collecting items of interest and subscriptions for his + paper, with preference given to the latter. He enters the Last Chance + Saloon down at the foot of the street and in a minute or two is out again, + wiping his mustache on the back of his hand. We may safely opine that he + has been taking a small ad. out in trade. + </p> + <p> + At the door of the county courthouse, where he may intercept the taxpayers + as they come and go, is stationed our old friend, Colonel Pro Bono + Publico. The Colonel has been running for something or other ever since + Heck was a pup. To-day he is wearing his official campaign smile, for he + is a candidate for county judge, subject to the action of the Republican + party at the October primaries. He is wearing all his lodge buttons and + likewise his G. A. R. pin, for this year he figures on carrying the + old-soldier vote. + </p> + <p> + See who comes now! It is Rigor Mortis, the worthy coroner. At sight of him + the Colonel uplifts his voice in hoarsely jovial salutation: + </p> + <p> + "Rigsy, my boy," he booms, "how are you? And how is Mrs. M. this morning?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, Colonel," answers his friend, "my wife ain't no better. She's + mighty puny and complaining. Sometimes I get to wishing the old lady would + get well—or something!" + </p> + <p> + The Colonel laughs, but not loudly. That wheeze was old in 79. In front of + the drug-store on the corner a score of young bloods, dressed in snappy + togas for Varsity men, are skylarking. They are especially brilliant in + their flashing interchanges of wit and humor, because the Mastodon + Minstrels were here only last week, with a new line of first-part jokes. + Along the opposite side of the street passes Nux Vomica, M.D., with a + small black case in his hand, gravely intent on his professional duties. + Being a young physician, he wears a beard and large-rimmed eyeglasses. + Young Ossius Dome sees him and hails him. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, Doc!" he calls out. "Come over here a minute. I've got some brand-new + limerickii for you. Tertiary Tonsillitis got 'em from a traveling man he + met day before yesterday when he was up in the city laying in his stock of + fall and winter armor." + </p> + <p> + The healer of ills crosses over; and as the group push themselves in + toward a common center I hear the voice of the speaker: + </p> + <p> + "Say, they're all bully; but this is the bullissimus one of the lot. It + goes like this: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "'There was a young maid of Sorrento, + Who said to her—'" +</pre> + <p> + I have regretted ever since that at this juncture I came to and so failed + to get the rest of it. I'll bet that was a peach of a limerick. It started + off so promisingly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXIII. Muckraking in Old Pompeii + </h2> + <p> + It now devolves on me as a painful yet necessary duty to topple from its + pedestal one of the most popular idols of legendary lore. I refer, I + regret to say, to the widely famous Roman sentry of old Pompeii. + </p> + <p> + Personally I think there has been entirely too much of this sort of thing + going on lately. Muckrakers, prying into the storied past, have destroyed + one after another many of the pet characters in history. Thanks to their + meddlesome activities we know that Paul Revere did not take any midnight + ride. On the night in question he was laid up in bed with inflammatory + rheumatism. What happened was that he told the news to Mrs. Revere as a + secret, and she in strict confidence imparted it to the lady living next + door; and from that point on the word traveled with the rapidity of + wildfire. + </p> + <p> + Horatius never held the bridge; he just let the blamed thing go. The boy + did not stand on the burning deck, whence all but him had fled; he was + among the first in the lifeboats. That other boy—the Spartan youth—did + not have his vitals gnawed by a fox; the Spartan youth had been eating + wild grapes and washing them down with spring water. Hence that gnawing + sensation of which so much mention has been made. Nobody hit Billy + Patterson. He acquired his black eye in the same way in which all married + men acquire a black eye—by running against a doorjamb while trying + to find the ice-water pitcher in the dark. He said so himself the next + day. + </p> + <p> + Even Barbara Frietchie is an exploded myth. She did not nail her country's + flag to the window casement. Being a female, she could not nail a flag or + anything else to a window. In the first place, she would have used a wad + of chewing gum and a couple of hairpins. In the second place, had she + recklessly undertaken to nail up a flag with hammer and nails, she would + never have been on hand at the psychological moment to invite Stonewall + Jackson to shoot her old gray head. When General Jackson passed the house + she would have been in the bathroom bathing her left thumb in witch-hazel. + </p> + <p> + Furthermore, she did not have any old gray head. At the time of the + Confederate invasion of Maryland she was only seventeen years old—some + authorities say only seven—and a pronounced blonde. Also, she did + not live in Frederick; and even if she did live there, on the occasion + when the troops went through she was in Baltimore visiting a school + friend. Finally, Frederick does not stand where it stood in the sixties. + The cyclone of 1884 moved it three miles back into the country and twisted + the streets round in such a manner as to confuse even lifelong residents. + These facts have repeatedly been proved by volunteer investigators and are + not to be gainsaid. + </p> + <p> + I repeat that there has been too much of this. If the craze for smashing + all our romantic fixtures persists, after a while we shall have no + glorious traditions left with which to fire the youthful heart at + high-school commencements. But in the interests of truth, and also because + I made the discovery myself, I feel it to be my solemn duty to expose the + Roman sentry, stationed at the gate of Pompeii looking toward the sea, who + died because he would not quit his post without orders and had no orders + to quit. + </p> + <p> + Until now this party has stood the acid test of centuries. Everybody who + ever wrote about the fall of Pompeii, from Plutarch and Pliny the Younger + clear down to Bulwer Lytton and Burton Holmes, had something to say about + him. The lines on this subject by the Greek poet Laryngitis are familiar + to all lovers of that great master of classic verse, and I shall not + undertake to quote from them here. + </p> + <p> + Suffice it to say that the Roman sentry, perishing at his post, has ever + been a favorite subject for historic and romantic writers. I myself often + read of him—how on that dread day when the devil's stew came to a + boil and spewed over the sides of Vesuvius, and death and destruction + poured down to blight the land, he, typifying fortitude and discipline and + unfaltering devotion, stood firm and stayed fast while all about him chaos + reigned and fathers forgot their children and husbands forgot their wives, + and vice versa, though probably not to the same extent; and how finally + the drifting ashes and the choking dust fell thicker upon him and mounted + higher about him, until he died and in time turned to ashes himself, + leaving only a void in the solidified slag. I had always admired that + soldier—not his judgment, which was faulty, but his heroism, which + was immense. To myself I used to say: + </p> + <p> + "That unknown common soldier, nameless though he was, deserves to live + forever in the memory of mankind. He lacked imagination, it is true, but + he was game. It was a glorious death to die—painful, yet splendid. + Those four poor wretches whose shells were found in the prison under the + gladiators' school, with their ankles fast in the iron stocks—I know + why they stayed. Their feet were too large for their own good. But no + bonds except his dauntless will bound him at the portals of the doomed + city. Duty was the only chain that held him. + </p> + <p> + "And to think that centuries and centuries afterward they should find his + monument—a vacant, empty mold in the piled-up pumice! Had I been in + his place I should have created my vacancy much sooner—say, about + thirty seconds after the first alarm went in. But he was one who chose + rather that men should say, 'How natural he looks!' than 'Yonder he goes!' + And he has my sincere admiration. When I go to Pompeii—if ever I do + go there—I shall seek out the spot where he made the supremest + sacrifice to authority that ever any man could make, and I shall tarry a + while in those hallowed precincts!" + </p> + <p> + That was what I said I would do and that was what I did do that afternoon + at Pompeii. I found the gate looking toward the sea and I found all the + other gates, or the sites of them; but I did not find the Roman sentry nor + any trace of him, nor any authentic record of him. I questioned the guides + and, through an interpreter, the curator of the Museum, and from them I + learned the lamentably disillusioning facts in this case. There is no + trace of him because he neglected to leave any trace. + </p> + <p> + Doubtless there was a sentry on guard at the gate when the volcano belched + forth, and the skin of the earth flinched and shivered and split asunder; + but he did not remain for the finish. He said to himself that this was no + place for a minister's son; and so he girded up his loins and he went away + from there. + </p> + <p> + He went away hurriedly—even as you and I. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXIV. Mine Own People + </h2> + <p> + Wherever we went I was constantly on the outlook for a kind of tourist who + had been described to me frequently and at great length by more seasoned + travelers—the kind who wore his country's flag as a buttonhole + emblem, or as a shirtfront decoration; and regarded every gathering and + every halting place as providing suitable opportunity to state for the + benefit of all who might be concerned, how immensely and overpoweringly + superior in all particulars was the land from which he hailed as compared + with all other lands under the sun. I desired most earnestly to overhaul a + typical example of this species, my intention then being to decoy him off + to some quiet and secluded spot and there destroy him in the hope of + cutting down the breed. + </p> + <p> + At length, along toward the fag end of our zigzagging course, I caught up + with him; but stayed my hand and slew not. For some countries, you + understand, are so finicky in the matter of protecting their citizens that + they would protect even such a one as this. I was fearful lest, by + exterminating the object of my homicidal desires, I should bring on + international complications with a friendly Power, no matter however + public-spirited and high-minded my intentions might be. + </p> + <p> + It was in Vienna, in a cafe, and the hour was late. We were just leaving, + after having listened for some hours to a Hungarian band playing waltz + tunes and an assemblage of natives drinking beer, when the sounds of a + dispute at the booth where wraps were checked turned our faces in that + direction. In a thick and plushy voice a short square person of a highly + vulgar aspect was arguing with the young woman who had charge of the check + room. Judging by his tones, you would have said that the nap of his tongue + was at least a quarter of an inch long; and he punctuated his remarks with + hiccoughs. It seemed that his excitement had to do with the disappearance + of a neck-muffler. From argument he progressed rapidly to threats and the + pounding of a fist upon the counter. + </p> + <p> + Drawing nigh, I observed that he wore a very high hat and a very short + sack coat; that his waistcoat was of a combustible plaid pattern with + gaiters to match; that he had taken his fingers many times to the jeweler, + but not once to the manicure; that he was beautifully jingled and + alcoholically boastful of his native land and that—a crowning touch—he + wore flaring from an upper pocket of his coat a silk handkerchief woven in + the design and colors of his country's flag. But, praises be, it was not + our flag that he wore thus. It was the Union Jack. As we passed out into + the damp Viennese midnight he was loudly proclaiming that he "Was'h Bri'sh + subjesch," and that unless something was done mighty quick, would complain + to "Is Majeshy's rep(hic)shenativ' ver' firsch thing 'n morn'." + </p> + <p> + So though I was sorry he was a cousin, I was selfishly and unfeignedly + glad that he was not a brother. Since in the mysterious and unfathomable + scheme of creation it seemed necessary that he should be born somewhere, + still he had not been born in America, and that thought was very pleasing + to me. + </p> + <p> + There was another variety of the tourist breed whose trail I most + earnestly desired to cross. I refer to the creature who must be closely + watched to prevent him, or her, from carrying off valuable relics as + souvenirs, and defacing monuments and statues and disfiguring holy places + with an inconsequential signature. In the flesh—and such a person + must be all flesh and no soul—I never caught up with him, but more + than once I came upon his fresh spoor. + </p> + <p> + In Venice our guide took us to see the nether prisons of the Palace of the + Doges. From the level of the Bridge of Sighs we tramped down flights of + stone stairs, one flight after another, until we had passed the hole + through which the bodies of state prisoners, secretly killed at night, + were shoved out into waiting gondolas and had passed also the room where + pincers and thumbscrew once did their hideous work, until we came to a + cellar of innermost, deepermost cells, fashioned out of the solid rock and + stretching along a corridor that was almost as dark as the cells + themselves. Here, so we were told, countless wretched beings, awaiting the + tardy pleasure of the torturer or the headsman, had moldered in damp and + filth and pitchy blackness, knowing day from night only by the fact that + once in twenty-four hours food would be slipped through a hole in the wall + by unseen hands; lying here until oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of + madness came upon them before the overworked executioner found time to + rack their limbs or lop off their heads. + </p> + <p> + We were told that two of these cells had been preserved exactly as they + were in the days of the Doges, with no alteration except that lights had + been swung from the ceilings. We could well accept this statement as the + truth, for when the guide led us through a low doorway and flashed on an + electric bulb we saw that the place where we stood was round like a jug + and bare as an empty jug, with smooth stone walls and rough stone floor; + and that it contained for furniture just two things—a stone bench + upon which the captive might lie or sit and, let into the wall, a great + iron ring, to which his chains were made fast so that he moved always to + their grating accompaniment and the guard listening outside might know by + the telltale clanking whether the entombed man still lived. + </p> + <p> + There was one other decoration in this hole—a thing more incongruous + even than the modern lighting fixtures; and this stood out in bold black + lettering upon the low-sloped ceiling. A pair of vandals, a man and wife—no + doubt with infinite pains—had smuggled in brush and marking pot and + somehow or other—I suspect by bribing guides and guards—had + found the coveted opportunity of inscribing their names here in the Doges' + black dungeon. With their names they had written their address too, which + was a small town in the Northwest, and after it the legend: "Send us a + postal card." + </p> + <p> + I imagine that then this couple, having accomplished this feat, regarded + their trip to Europe as being rounded out and complete, and went home + again, satisfied and rejoicing. Send them a postal card? Somebody should + send them a deep-dish poison-pie! + </p> + <p> + Looking on this desecration my companion and I grew vocal. We agreed that + our national lawgivers who were even then framing an immigration law with + a view to keeping certain people out of this country, might better be + engaged in framing one with a view to keeping certain people in. Our guide + harkened with a quiet little smile on his face to what we said. + </p> + <p> + "It cannot have been here long—that writing on the ceiling," he + explained for our benefit. "Presently it will be scraped away. But"— + and he shrugged his eloquent Italian shoulders and outspread his hands + fan-fashion—"but what is the use? Others like them will come and do + as they have done. See here and here and here, if you please!" + </p> + <p> + He aimed a darting forefinger this way and that, and looking where he + pointed we saw now how the walls were scarred with the scribbled names of + many visitors. I regret exceedingly to have to report that a majority of + these names had an American sound to them. Indeed, many of the signatures + were coupled with the names of towns and states of the Union. There were + quite a few from Canada, too. What, I ask you, is the wisdom of taking + steps to discourage the cutworm and abate the gypsy-moth when our + government permits these two-legged varmints to go abroad freely and + pollute shrines and wonderplaces with their scratchings, and give the + nations over there a perverted notion of what the real human beings on + this continent are like? + </p> + <p> + For the tourist who has wearied of picture galleries and battlegrounds and + ruins and abbeys, studying other tourists provides a pleasant way of + passing many an otherwise tedious hour. Certain of the European countries + furnish some interesting types—notably Britain, which producing a + male biped of a lachrymose and cheerless exterior, who plods solemnly + across the Continent wrapped in the plaid mantle of his own dignity, never + speaking an unnecessary word to any person whatsoever. And Germany: From + Germany comes a stolid gentleman, who, usually, is shaped like a pickle + mounted on legs and is so extensively and convexedly eyeglassed as to give + him the appearance of something that is about to be served sous cloche. + Caparisoned in strange garments, he stalks through France or Italy with an + umbrella under his arm, his nose being buried so deeply in his guidebook + that he has no time to waste upon the scenery or the people; while some + ten paces in the rear, his wife staggers along in his wake with her skirts + dragging in the dust and her arms pulled half out of their sockets by the + weight of the heavy bundles and bags she is bearing. This person, when + traveling, always takes his wife and much baggage with him. Or, rather, he + takes his wife and she takes the baggage which, by Continental standards, + is regarded as an equal division of burdens. + </p> + <p> + However, for variety and individual peculiarity, our own land offers the + largest assortment in the tourist line, this perhaps being due to the fact + that Americans do more traveling than any other race. I think that in our + ramblings we must have encountered pretty nearly all the known species of + tourists, ranging from sane and sensible persons who had come to Europe to + see and to learn and to study, clear on down through various ramifications + to those who had left their homes and firesides to be uncomfortable and + unhappy in far lands merely because somebody told them they ought to + travel abroad. They were in Europe for the reason that so many people run + to a fire: not because they care particularly for a fire but because so + many others are running to it. I would that I had the time, and you, kind + reader, the patience so that I might enumerate and describe in full detail + all the varieties and sub-varieties of our race that we saw—the + pert, overfed, overpampered children, the aggressive, self-sufficient, + prematurely bored young girls, the money-fattened, boastful vulgarians, + scattering coin by the handful, intent only on making a show and not + realizing that they themselves were the show; the coltish, pimply youths + who thought in order to be high-spirited they must also be impolite and + noisy. Youth will be served, but why, I ask you—why must it so often + be served raw? For contrasts to such as these, we met plenty of people + worth meeting and worth knowing—fine, attractive, well-bred American + men and women, having a decent regard for themselves and for other folks, + too. Indeed this sort largely predominated. But there isn't space for + making a classified list. The one-volume chronicler must content himself + with picking out a few particularly striking types. + </p> + <p> + I remember, with vivid distinctness, two individuals, one an elderly + gentleman from somewhere in the Middle West and the other, an old lady who + plainly hailed from the South. We met the old gentleman in Paris, and the + old lady some weeks later in Naples. Though the weather was moderately + warm in Paris that week he wore red woolen wristlets down over his hands; + and he wore also celluloid cuffs, which rattled musically, with very large + moss agate buttons in them; and for ornamentation his watch chain bore a + flat watch key, a secret order badge big enough to serve as a hitching + weight and a peach-stone carved to look like a fruit basket. Everything + about him suggested health underwear, chewing tobacco and fried mush for + breakfast. His whiskers were cut after a pattern I had not seen in years + and years. In my mind such whiskers were associated with those happy and + long distant days of childhood when we yelled Supe! at a stagehand and + cherished Old Cap Collier as a model of what—if we had luck—we + would be when we grew up. By rights, he belonged in the second act of a + rural Indian play, of a generation or two ago; but here he was, wandering + disconsolately through the Louvre. He had come over to spend four months, + he told us with a heave of the breath, and he still had two months of it + unspent, and he just didn't see how he was going to live through it! + </p> + <p> + The old lady was in the great National Museum at Naples, fluttering about + like a distracted little brown hen. She was looking for the Farnese Bull. + It seemed her niece in Knoxville had told her the Farnese Bull was the + finest thing in the statuary line to be found in all Italy, and until she + had seen that, she wasn't going to see anything else. She had got herself + separated from the rest of her party and she was wandering along about + alone, seeking information regarding the whereabouts of the Farnese Bull + from smiling but uncomprehending custodians and doorkeepers. These persons + she would address at the top of her voice. Plainly she suffered from a + delusion, which is very common among our people, that if a foreigner does + not understand you when addressed in an ordinary tone, he will surely get + your meaning if you screech at him. When we had gone some distance farther + on and were in another gallery, we could still catch the calliope-like + notes of the little old lady, as she besought some one to lead her to the + Farnese Bull. + </p> + <p> + That she came right out and spoke of the Farnese Bull as a bull, instead + of referring to him as a gentleman cow, was evidence of the extent to + which travel had enlarged her vision, for with half an eye anyone could + tell that she belonged to the period of our social development when + certain honest and innocent words were supposed to be indelicate—that + she had been reared in a society whose ideal of a perfect lady was one who + could say limb, without thinking leg. I hope she found her bull, but I + imagine she was disappointed when she did find it. I know I was. The + sculpturing may be of a very high order—the authorities agree that + it is—but I judge the two artists to whom the group is attributed + carved the bull last and ran out of material and so skimped him a bit. The + unfortunate Dirce, who is about to be bound to his horns by the sons of + Antiope, the latter standing by to see that the boys make a good thorough + job of it, is larger really than the bull. You can picture the lady + carrying off the bull but not the bull carrying off the lady. + </p> + <p> + Numerously encountered are the tourists who are doing Europe under a time + limit as exact as the schedule of a limited train. They go through Europe + on the dead run, being intent on seeing it all and therefore seeing none + of it. They cover ten countries in a space of time which a sane person + gives to one; after which they return home exhausted, but triumphant. I + think it must be months before some of them quit panting, and certainly + their poor, misused feet can never again be the feet they were. + </p> + <p> + With them adherence to the time card is everything. If a look at the + calendar shows the day to be Monday, they know they are in Munich, and as + they lope along they get out their guidebooks and study the chapters + devoted to Munich. But if it be Tuesday, then it is Dresden, and they give + their attention to literature dealing with the attractions of Dresden; + seeing Dresden after the fashion of one sitting before a runaway moving + picture film. + </p> + <p> + Then they pack up and depart, galloping, for Prague with their tongues + hanging out. For Wednesday is Prague and Prague is Wednesday—the two + words are synonymous and interchangeable. Surely to such as these, the + places they have visited must mean as much to them, afterward, as the + labels upon their trunks mean to the trunks—just flimsy names pasted + on, all confused and overlapping, and certain to be scraped off in time, + leaving nothing but faint marks upon an indurated surface. + </p> + <p> + There is yet again another type, always of the female gender and generally + middle-aged and very schoolteacherish in aspect, who, in company with a + group of kindred spirits, is viewing Europe under a contract arrangement + by which a worn and wearied-looking gentleman, a retired clergyman + usually, acts as escort and mentor for a given price. I don't know how + much he gets a head for this job; but whatever it is, he earns it + ninety-and-nine times over. This lady tourist is much given to missing + trains and getting lost and having disputes with natives and wearing + rubber overshoes and asking strange questions—but let me illustrate + with a story I heard. + </p> + <p> + The man from Cook's had convoyed his party through the Vatican, until he + brought them to the Apollo Belvidere. As they ranged themselves wearily + about the statue, he rattled off his regular patter without pause or + punctuation: + </p> + <p> + "Here we have the far-famed Apollo Belvidere found about the middle of the + fifteenth century at Frascati purchased by Pope Julius the Second restored + by the great Michelangelo taken away by the French in 1797 but returned in + 1815 made of Carara marble holding in his hand a portion of the bow with + which he slew the Python observe please the beauty of the pose the + realistic attitude of the limbs the noble and exalted expression of the + face of Apollo Belvidere he being known also as Phoebus the god of oracles + the god of music and medicine the son of Leto and Jupiter—" + </p> + <p> + Here he ran out of breath and stopped. For a moment no one spoke. Then from + a flat-chested little spinster came this query in tired yet interested + tones: + </p> + <p> + "Was he—was he married?" + </p> + <p> + He who is intent upon studying the effect of foreign climes upon the + American temperament should by no means overlook the colonies of resident + Americans in the larger European cities, particularly the colonies in such + cities as Paris and Rome and Florence. In Berlin, the American colony is + largely made up of music students and in Vienna of physicians; but in the + other places many folks of many minds and many callings constitute the + groups. Some few have left their country for their country's good and some + have expatriated themselves because, as they explain in bursts of + confidence, living is cheaper in France than it is in America. I suppose + it is, too, if one can only become reconciled to doing without most of the + comforts which make life worth while in America or anywhere else. Included + among this class are many rather unhappy old ladies who somehow impress + you as having been shunted off to foreign parts because there were no + places for them in the homes of their children and their grandchildren. So + now they are spending their last years among strangers, trying with a + desperate eagerness to be interested in people and things for which they + really care not a fig, with no home except a cheerless pension. + </p> + <p> + Also there are certain folk—products, in the main, of the Eastern + seaboard—who, from having originally lived in America and spent most + of their time abroad, have now progressed to the point where they now live + mostly abroad and visit America fleetingly once in a blue moon. As a rule + these persons know a good deal about Europe and very little about the + country that gave them birth. The stock-talk of European literature is at + their tongue's tip. They speak of Ibsen in the tone of one mourning the + passing of a near, dear, personal friend, and as for Zola—ah, how + they miss the influence of his compelling personality! But for the moment + they cannot recall whether Richard K. Fox ran the Police Gazette or wrote + the "Trail of the Lonesome Pine." + </p> + <p> + They are up on the history of the Old World. From memory they trace the + Bourbon dynasty from the first copper-distilled Charles to the last + sourmashed Louis. But as regards our own Revolution, they aren't quite + sure whether it was started by the Boston Tea Party or Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. + Languidly they inquire whether that quaint Iowa character, Uncle Champ + Root, is still Speaker of the House? And so the present Vice-President is + named Elihu Underwood? Or isn't he? Anyway, American politics is such a + bore. But they stand ready, at a minute's notice, to furnish you with the + names, dates and details of all the marriages that have taken place during + the last twenty years in the royal house of Denmark. + </p> + <p> + Some day we shall learn a lesson from Europe. Some fair day we shall begin + to exploit our own historical associations. We shall make shrines of the + spots where Washington crossed the ice to help end one war and where Eliza + did the same thing to help start another. We shall erect stone markers + showing where Charley Ross was last seen and Carrie Nation was first + sighted. We shall pile up tall monuments to Sitting Bull and Nonpareil + Jack Dempsey and the man who invented the spit ball. Perhaps then these + truant Americans will come back oftener from Paris and Florence and abide + with us longer. Meanwhile though they will continue to stay on the other + side. And on second thought, possibly it is just as well for the rest of + us that they do. + </p> + <p> + In Europe I met two persons, born in America, who were openly distressed + over that shameful circumstance and could not forgive their parents for + being so thoughtless and inconsiderate. One was living in England and the + other was living in France; and one was a man and the other was a woman; + and both of them were avowedly regretful that they had not been born + elsewhere, which, I should say, ought to make the sentiment unanimous. I + also heard—at second hand—of a young woman whose father served + this country in an ambassadorial capacity at one of the principal + Continental courts until the administration at Washington had a lucid + interval, and endeared itself to the hearts of practically all Americans + residing in that country by throwing a net over him and yanking him back + home; this young woman was so fearful lest some one might think she + cherished any affection for her native land that once when a legation + secretary manifested a desire to learn the score of the deciding game of a + World's Series between the Giants and the Athletics, she spoke up in the + presence of witnesses and said: + </p> + <p> + "Ah, baseball! How can any sane person be excited over that American game? + Tell me—some one please—how is it played?" + </p> + <p> + Yet she was born and reared in a town which for a great many years has + held a membership in the National League. Let us pass on to a more + pleasant topic. + </p> + <p> + Let us pass on to those well-meaning but temporarily misguided persons who + think they are going to be satisfied with staying on indefinitely in + Europe. They profess themselves as being amply pleased with the present + arrangement. For, no matter how patriotic one may be, one must concede—mustn't + one?—that for true culture one must look to Europe? After all, + America is a bit crude, isn't it, now? Of course some time, say in two or + three years from now, they will run across to the States again, but it + will be for a short visit only. After Europe one can never be entirely + happy elsewhere for any considerable period of time. And so on and so + forth. + </p> + <p> + But as you mention in an offhand way that Cedar Bluff has a modern fire + station now, or that Tulsanooga is going to have a Great White Way of its + own, there are eyes that light up with a wistful light. And when you state + casually, that Polkdale is planning a civic center with the new county + jail at one end and the Carnegie Library at the other, lips begin to + quiver under a weight of sentimental emotion. And a month or so later when + you take the ship which is to bear you home, you find a large delegation + of these native sons of Polkdale and Tulsanooga on board, too. + </p> + <p> + At least we found them on the ship we took. We took her at Naples—a + big comfortable German ship with a fine German crew and a double force of + talented German cooks working overtime in the galley and pantry—and + so came back by the Mediterranean route, which is a most satisfying route, + especially if the sea be smooth and the weather good, and the steerage + passengers picturesque and light-hearted. Moreover the coast of Northern + Africa, lying along the southern horizon as one nears Gibraltar, is one of + the few sights of a European trip that are not disappointing. For, in + fact, it proves to be the same color that it is in the geographies—pale + yellow. It is very unusual to find a country making an earnest effort to + correspond to its own map, and I think Northern Africa deserves honorable + mention in the dispatches on this account. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXV. Be it Ever so Humble + </h2> + <p> + Homeward-bound, a chastened spirit pervades the traveler. He is not quite + so much inclined to be gay and blithesome as he was going. The holiday is + over; the sightseeing is done; the letter of credit is worn and emaciated. + He has been broadened by travel but his pocketbook has been flattened. He + wouldn't take anything for this trip, and as he feels at the present + moment he wouldn't take it again for anything. + </p> + <p> + It is a time for casting up and readjusting. Likewise it is a good time + for going over, in the calm, reflective light of second judgment, the + purchases he has made for personal use and gift-making purposes. These + things seemed highly attractive when he bought them, and when displayed + against a background of home surroundings will, no doubt, be equally + impressive; but just now they appear as rather a sad collection of junk. + His English box coat doesn't fit him any better than any other box would. + </p> + <p> + His French waistcoats develop an unexpected garishness on being displayed + away from their native habitat and the writing outfit which he picked up + in Vienna turns out to be faulty and treacherous and inkily tearful. How + sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a fountain pen—that + weeps! And why, when a fountain pen makes up its mind to cry a spell, does + it crawl clear across a steamer trunk and bury its sobbing countenance in + the bosom of a dress shirt? + </p> + <p> + Likewise the first few days at sea provide opportunity for sorting out the + large and variegated crop of impressions a fellow has been acquiring + during all these crowded months. The way the homeward-bound one feels now, + he would swap any Old Master he ever saw for one peep at a set of sanitary + bath fixtures. Sight unseen, he stands ready to trade two cathedrals and a + royal palace for a union depot. He will never forget the thrill that shook + his soul as he paused beneath the dome of the Pantheon; but he feels that, + not only his soul but all the rest of him, could rally and be mighty + cheerful in the presence of a dozen deep-sea oysters on the half shell—regular + honest-to-goodness North American oysters, so beautifully long, so + gracefully pendulous of shape that the short-waisted person who undertakes + to swallow one whole does so at his own peril. The picture of the Coliseum + bathed in the Italian moonlight will ever abide in his mind; but he would + give a good deal for a large double sirloin suffocated Samuel J. Tilden + style, with fried onions. Beefsteak! Ah, what sweet images come thronging + at the very mention of the word! The sea vanishes magically and before his + entranced vision he sees The One Town, full of regular fellows and real + people. Somebody is going to have fried ham for supper—five thousand + miles away he sniffs the delectable perfume of that fried ham as it seeps + through a crack in the kitchen window and wafts out into the street—and + the word passes round that there is going to be a social session down at + the lodge to-night, followed, mayhap, by a small sociable game of + quarter-limit upstairs over Corbett's drug-store. At this point, our + traveler rummages his Elks' button out of his trunk and gives it an + affectionate polishing with a silk handkerchief. And oh, how he does long + for a look at a home newspaper—packed with wrecks and police news + and municipal scandals and items about the persons one knows, and chatty + mention concerning Congressmen and gunmen and tango teachers and other + public characters. + </p> + <p> + Thinking it all over here in the quiet and privacy of the empty sea, he + realizes that his evening paper is the thing he has missed most. To the + American understanding foreign papers seem fearfully and wonderfully made. + For instance, German newspapers are much addicted to printing their more + important news stories in cipher form. The German treatment of a suspected + crime for which no arrests have yet been made, reminds one of the jokes + which used to appear, a few years ago, in the back part of Harper's + Magazine, where a good story was always being related of Bishop X, + residing in the town of Y, who, calling one afternoon upon Judge Z, said + to Master Egbert, the pet of the household, age four, and so on. A German + newspaper will daringly state that Banker ——, president of the + Bank of —— at —— who is suspected of sequestering + the funds of that institution to his own uses is reported to have departed + by stealth for the city of ——, taking with him the wife of + Herr ——. + </p> + <p> + And such is the high personal honor of the average Parisian news gatherer + that one Paris morning paper, which specializes in actual news as + counter-distinguished from the other Paris papers which rely upon + political screeds to fill their columns, locks its doors and disconnects + its telephones at 8 o'clock in the evening, so that reporters coming in + after that hour must stay in till press time lest some of them—such + is the fear—will peddle all the exclusive stories off to less + enterprising contemporaries. + </p> + <p> + English newspapers, though printed in a language resembling American in + many rudimentary respects, seem to our conceptions weird propositions, + too. It is interesting to find at the tail end of an article a footnote by + the editor stating that he has stopped the presses to announce in + connection with the foregoing that nothing has occurred in connection with + the foregoing which would justify him in stopping the presses to announce + it; or words to that effect. The news stories are frequently set forth in + a puzzling fashion, and the jokes also. That's the principal fault with an + English newspaper joke—it loses so in translation into our own + tongue. + </p> + <p> + Still, when all is said and done, the returning tourist, if he be at all + fair-minded, is bound to confess to himself that, no matter where his + steps or his round trip ticket have carried him, he has seen in every + country institutions and customs his countrymen might copy to their + benefit, immediate or ultimate. Having beheld these things with his own + eyes, he knows that from the Germans we might learn some much-needed + lessons about municipal control and conservation of resources; and from + the French and the Austrians about rational observance of days of rest and + simple enjoyment of simple outdoor pleasures and respect for great + traditions and great memories; and from the Italians, about the blessed + facility of keeping in a good humor; and from the English, about minding + one's own business and the sane rearing of children and obedience to the + law and suppression of unnecessary noises. Whenever I think of this last + God-given attribute of the British race, I shall recall a Sunday we spent + at Brighton, the favorite seaside resort of middle-class London. Brighton + was fairly bulging with excursionists that day. + </p> + <p> + A good many of them were bucolic visitors from up country, but the + majority, it was plain to see, hailed from the city. No steam carousel + shrieked, no ballyhoo blared, no steam pianos shrieked, no barker barked. + Upon the piers, stretching out into the surf, bands played soothingly + softened airs and along the water front, sand-artists and so-called + minstrel singers plied their arts. Some of the visitors fished—without + catching anything—and some listened to the music and some strolled + aimlessly or sat stolidly upon benches enjoying the sea air. To an + American, accustomed at such places to din and tumult and rushing crowds + and dangerous devices for taking one's breath and sometimes one's life, it + was a strange experience, but a mighty restful one. + </p> + <p> + On the other hand there are some things wherein we notably excel—entirely + too many for me to undertake to enumerate them here; still, I think I + might be pardoned for enumerating a conspicuous few. We could teach Europe + a lot about creature comforts and open plumbing and personal cleanliness + and good food and courtesy to women—not the flashy, cheap courtesy + which impels a Continental to rise and click his heels and bend his person + forward from the abdomen and bow profoundly when a strange woman enters + the railway compartment where he is seated, while at the same time he + leaves his wife or sister to wrestle with the heavy luggage; but the + deeper, less showy instinct which makes the average American believe that + every woman is entitled to his protection and consideration when she + really needs it. In the crowded street-car he may keep his seat; in the + crowded lifeboat he gives it up. + </p> + <p> + I almost forgot to mention one other detail in which, so far as I could + judge, we lead the whole of the Old World—dentistry. Probably you + have seen frequent mention in English publications about decayed + gentlewomen. Well, England is full of them. It starts with the teeth. + </p> + <p> + The leisurely, long, slantwise course across the Atlantic gives one time, + also, for making the acquaintance of one's fellow passengers and for + wondering why some of them ever went to Europe anyway. A source of + constant speculation along these lines was the retired hay-and-feed + merchant from Michigan who traveled with us. One gathered that he had done + little else in these latter years of his life except to traipse back and + forth between the two continents. What particularly endeared him to the + rest of us was his lovely habit of pronouncing all words of all languages + according to a fonetic system of his own. "Yes, sir," you would hear him + say, addressing a smoking-room audience of less experienced travelers, "my + idee is that a fellow ought to go over on an English ship, if he likes the + exclusability, and come back on a German ship if he likes the + sociableness. Take my case. The last trip I made I come over on the Lucy + Tanner and went back agin on the Grocer K. First and enjoyed it both ways + immense!" + </p> + <p> + Nor would this chronicle be complete without a passing reference to the + lady from Cincinnati, a widow of independent means, who was traveling with + her two daughters and was so often mistaken for their sister that she + could not refrain from mentioning the remarkable circumstance to you, + providing you did not win her everlasting regard by mentioning it first. + Likewise I feel that I owe the tribute of a line to the elderly Britain + who was engaged in a constant and highly successful demonstration of the + fallacy of the claim set up by medical practitioners, to the effect that + the human stomach can contain but one fluid pint at a time. All day long, + with his monocle goggling glassily from the midst of his face, like one + lone porthole in a tank steamer, he disproved this statement by practical + methods and promptly at nine every evening, when his complexion had + acquired a rich magenta tint, he would be carried below by two + accommodating stewards and put—no, not put, decanted—would be + decanted gently into bed. If anything had happened to the port-light of + that ship, we could have stationed him forward in the bows with his face + looming over the rail and been well within the maritime regulations—his + face had a brilliancy which even the darkness of the night could not dim; + and if the other light had gone out of commission, we could have impressed + the aid of the bilious Armenian lady who was sick every minute and very + sick for some minutes, for she was always of a glassy green color. + </p> + <p> + We learned to wait regularly for the ceremony of seeing Sir Monocle and + his load toted off to bed at nine o'clock every night, just as we learned + to linger in the offing and watch the nimble knife-work when the prize + invalid of the ship's roster had cornered a fresh victim. The prize + invalid, it is hardly worth while to state, was of the opposite sex. So + many things ailed her—by her own confession—that you wondered + how they all found room on the premises at the same time. Her favorite + evening employment was to engage another woman in conversation—preferably + another invalid—and by honeyed words and congenial confidences, to + lead the unsuspecting prey on and on, until she had her trapped, and then + to turn on her suddenly and ridicule the other woman's puny symptoms and + tell her she didn't even know the rudiments of being ill and snap her up + sharply when she tried to answer back. And then she would deliver a final + sting and go away without waiting to bury her dead. The poison was in the + postscript—it nearly always is with that type of female. But + afterward she would justify herself by saying people must excuse her + manner—she didn't mean anything by it; it was just her way, and they + must remember that she suffered constantly. Some day when I have time, I + shall make that lady the topic of a popular song. I have already + fabricated the refrain: Her heart was in the right place, lads, but she + had a floating kidney! + </p> + <p> + Arrives a day when you develop a growing distaste for the company of your + kind, or in fact, any kind. 'Tis a day when the sea, grown frisky, kicks + up its nimble heels and tosses its frothy mane. A cigar tastes wrong then + and the mere sight of so many meat pies and so many German salads at the + entrance to the dining salon gives one acute displeasure. By these signs + you know that you are on the verge of being taken down with climate fever, + which, as I set forth many pages agone, is a malady peculiar to the watery + deep, and by green travelers is frequently mistaken for seasickness, which + indeed it does resemble in certain respects. I may say that I had one + touch of climate fever going over and a succession of touches coming back. + </p> + <p> + At such a time, the companionship of others palls on one. It is well then + to retire to the privacy of one's stateroom and recline awhile. I did a + good deal of reclining, coming back; I was not exactly happy while + reclining, but I was happier than I would have been doing anything else. + Besides, as I reclined there on my cosy bed, a medley of voices would + often float in to me through the half-opened port and I could visualize + the owners of those voices as they sat ranged in steamer chairs, along the + deck. I quote: + </p> + <p> + "You, Raymund! You get down off that rail this minute." ... "My dear, you + just ought to go to mine! He never hesitates a minute about operating, and + he has the loveliest manners in the operating room. Wait a minute—I'll + write his address down for you. Yes, he is expensive, but very, very + thorough." ... "Stew'd, bring me nozher brand' 'n' sozza." ... "Well, now + Mr.—excuse me, I didn't catch your name?—oh yes, Mr. Blosser; + well, Mr. Blosser, if that isn't the most curious thing! To think of us + meeting away out here in the middle of the ocean and both of us knowing + Maxie Hockstein in Grand Rapids. It only goes to show one thing—this + certainly is a mighty small world." ... "Raymund, did you hear what I said + to you!" ... "Do you really think it is becoming? Thank you for saying so. + That's what my husband always says. He says that white hair with a + youthful face is so attractive, and that's one reason why I've never + touched it up. Touched-up hair is so artificial, don't you think?" ... + "Wasn't the Bay of Naples just perfectly swell—the water, you know, + and the land and the sky and everything, so beautiful and everything?" ... + "You Raymund, come away from that lifeboat. Why don't you sit down there + and behave yourself and have a nice time watching for whales?" ... "No, + ma'am, if you're askin' me I must say I didn't care so much for that art + gallery stuff—jest a lot of pictures and statues and junk like that, + so far as I noticed. In fact the whole thing—Yurupp itself—was + considerable of a disappointment to me. I didn't run acros't a single + Knights of Pythias Lodge the whole time and I was over there five months + straight hard-runnin'." ... "Really, I think it must be hereditary; it + runs in our family. I had an aunt and her hair was snow-white at + twenty-one and my grandmother was the same way." ... "Oh yes, the + suffering is something terrible. You've had it yourself in a mild form and + of course you know. The last time they operated on me, I was on the table + an hour and forty minutes—mind you, an hour and forty minutes by the + clock—and for three days and nights they didn't know whether I would + live another minute." + </p> + <p> + A crash of glass. + </p> + <p> + "Stew'd, I ashidently turn' over m' drink—bring me nozher brand' 'n' + sozza." ... "Just a minute, Mr. Blosser, I want to tell my husband about + it—he'll be awful interested. Say, listen, Poppa, this gentleman + here knows Maxie Hockstein out in Grand Rapids." ... "Do you think so, + really? A lot of people have said that very same thing to me. They come up + to me and say 'I know you must be a Southerner because you have such a + true Southern accent.' I suppose I must come by it naturally, for while I + was born in New Jersey, my mother was a member of a very old Virginia + family and we've always been very strong Southern sympathizers and I went + to a finishing school in Baltimore and I was always being mistaken for a + Southern girl." ... "Well, I sure had enough of it to do me for one spell. + I seen the whole shootin' match and I don't regret what it cost me, but, + believe me, little old Keokuk is goin' to look purty good to me when I get + back there. Why, them people don't know no more about makin' a cocktail + than a rabbit." ... "That's her standing yonder talking to the captain. + Yes, that's what so many people say, but as a matter of fact, she's the + youngest one of the two. I say, 'These are my daughters,' and then people + say, 'You mean your sisters.' Still I married very young—at + seventeen—and possibly that helps to explain it." ... "Oh, is that a + shark out yonder? Well, anyway, it's a porpoise, and a porpoise is a kind + of shark, isn't it? When a porpoise grows up, it gets to be a shark—I + read that somewhere. Ain't nature just wonderful?" ... "Raymund Walter + Pelham, if I have to speak to you again, young man, I'm going to take you + to the stateroom and give you something you won't forget in a hurry." ... + "Stew'd, hellup me gellup." + </p> + <p> + Thus the lazy hours slip by and the spell of the sea takes hold on you and + you lose count of the time and can barely muster up the energy to perform + the regular noonday task of putting your watch back half an hour. A + passenger remarks that this is Thursday and you wonder dimly what happened + to Wednesday. + </p> + <p> + Three days more—just three. The realization comes to you with a + joyous shock. Somebody sights a sea-gull. With eager eyes you watch its + curving flight. Until this moment you have not been particularly + interested in sea-gulls. Heretofore, being a sea-gull seemed to you to + have few attractions as a regular career, except that it keeps one out in + the open air; otherwise it has struck you as being rather a monotonous + life with a sameness as to diet which would grow very tiresome in time. + But now you envy that sea-gull, for he comes direct from the shores of the + United States of America and if so minded may turn around and beat you to + them by a margin of hours and hours and hours. Oh, beauteous creature! Oh, + favored bird! + </p> + <p> + Comes the day before the last day. There is a bustle of getting ready for + the landing. Customs blanks are in steady demand at the purser's office. + Every other person is seeking help from every other person, regarding the + job of filling out declarations. The women go about with the guilty look + of plotters in their worried eyes. If one of them fails to slip something + in without paying duty on it she will be disappointed for life. All women + are natural enemies to all excise men. Dirk, the Smuggler, was the father + of their race. + </p> + <p> + Comes the last day. Dead ahead lies a misty, thread-like strip of dark + blue, snuggling down against the horizon, where sea and sky merge. + </p> + <p> + You think it is a cloud bank, until somebody tells you the glorious truth. + It is the Western Hemisphere—your Western Hemisphere. It is New + England. Dear old New England! Charming people—the New Englanders! + Ah, breathes there the man with soul so dead who never to himself has + said, this is my own, my native land? Certainly not. A man with a soul so + dead as that would be taking part in a funeral, not in a sea voyage. Upon + your lips a word hangs poised. What a precious sound it has, what new + meanings it has acquired! There are words in our language which are + singular and yet sound plural, such as politics and whereabouts; there are + words which are plural and yet sound singular, such as Brigham Young, and + there are words which convey their exact significance by their very sound. + They need no word-chandlers, no adjective-smiths to dress them up in the + fine feathers of fancy phrasing. They stand on their own merits. You think + of one such word—a short, sweet word of but four letters. You speak + that word reverently, lovingly, caressingly. + </p> + <p> + Nearer and nearer draws that blessed dark blue strip. Nantucket light is + behind us. Long Island shoulders up alongside. Trunks accumulate in + gangways; so do stewards and other functionaries. You have been figuring + upon the tips which you will bestow upon them at parting; so have they. It + will be hours yet before we land. Indeed, if the fog thickens, we may not + get in before to-morrow, yet people run about exchanging good-byes and + swapping visiting cards and promising one another they will meet again. I + think it is reckless for people to trifle with their luck that way. + </p> + <p> + Forward, on the lower deck, the immigrants cluster, chattering a magpie + chorus in many tongues. The four-and-twenty blackbirds which were baked in + a pie without impairment to the vocal cords have nothing on them. Most of + the women were crying when they came aboard at Naples or Palermo or + Gibraltar. Now they are all smiling. Their dunnage is piled in heaps and + sailors, busy with ropes and chains and things, stumble over it and swear + big round German oaths. + </p> + <p> + Why, gracious! We are actually off Sandy Hook. Dear old Sandy—how + one loves those homely Scotch names! The Narrows are nigh and Brooklyn, + the City Beautiful, awaits us around the second turning to the left. The + pilot boat approaches. Brave little craft! Gallant pilot! Do you suppose + by any chance he has brought any daily papers with him? He has—hurrah + for the thoughtful pilot! Did you notice how much he looked like the + pictures of Santa Claus? + </p> + <p> + We move on more slowly and twice again we stop briefly. The quarantine + officers have clambered up the sides and are among us; and to some of us + they give cunning little thermometers to hold in our mouths and suck on, + and of others they ask chatty, intimate questions with a view to finding + out how much insanity there is in the family at present and just what + percentage of idiocy prevails? Three cheers for the jolly old quarantine + regulations. Even the advance guard of the customhouse is welcomed by one + and all—or nearly all. + </p> + <p> + Between wooded shores which seem to advance to meet her in kindly + greeting, the good ship shoves ahead. For she is a good ship, and later we + shall miss her, but at this moment we feel that we can part from her + without a pang. She rounds a turn in the channel. What is that mass which + looms on beyond, where cloud-combing office buildings scallop the sky and + bridges leap in far-flung spans from shore to shore? That's her—all + right—the high picketed gateway of the nation. That's little old New + York. Few are the art centers there, and few the ruins; and perhaps there + is not so much culture lying round loose as there might be—just + bustle and hustle, and the rush and crush and roar of business and a large + percentage of men who believe in supporting their own wives and one wife + at a time. Crass perhaps, crude perchance, in many ways, but no matter. + All her faults are virtues now. Beloved metropolis, we salute thee! And + also do we turn to salute Miss Liberty. + </p> + <p> + This series of adventure tales began with the Statue of Liberty fading + rearward through the harbor mists. It draws to a close with the same old + lady looming through those same mists and drawing ever closer and closer. + She certainly does look well this afternoon, doesn't she? She always does + look well, somehow. + </p> + <p> + We slip past her and on past the Battery too; and are nosing up the North + River. What a picturesque stream it is, to be sure! And how full of + delightful rubbish! In twenty minutes or less we shall be at the dock. + Folks we know are there now, waiting to welcome us. + </p> + <p> + As close as we can pack ourselves, we gather in the gangways. Some one + raises a voice in song. 'Tis not the Marseillaise hymn that we sing, nor + Die Wacht am Rhein, nor Ava Maria, nor God Save the King; nor yet is it + Columbia the Gem of the Ocean. In their proper places these are all good + songs, but we know one more suitable to the occasion, and so we all join + in. Hark! Happy voices float across the narrowing strip of rolly water + between ship and shore: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "'Mid pleasures and palaces, + Though we may roam, +</pre> + <p> + (Now then, altogether, mates:) + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Be it ever so humble, + There's no place like + HOME!" +</pre> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Europe Revised, by Irvin S. 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Cobb + + +Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4551] +This file was first posted on February 9, 2002 +[Last updated: October 21, 2015] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUROPE REVISED *** + + + + +Produced by Kirk Pearson with help from the Volunteers at +The Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + +EUROPE REVISED + +By Irvin S. Cobb + + +To My Small Daughter + +Who bade me shed a tear at the tomb of Napoleon, which I was very glad +to do, because when I got there my feet certainly were hurting me. + + + + +NOTE + +The picture on page 81 purporting to show the undersigned leaping head +first into a German feather-bed does the undersigned a cruel injustice. +He has a prettier figure than that--oh, oh, much prettier! + +The reader is earnestly entreated not to look at the picture on page 81. +It is the only blot on the McCutcheon of this book. + +Respectfully, + +The Author. + + + + +Chapter I + + + +We Are Going Away From Here + +Foreword.--It has always seemed to me that the principal drawback +about the average guidebook is that it is over-freighted with facts. +Guidebooks heretofore have made a specialty of facts--have abounded in +them; facts to be found on every page and in every paragraph. Reading +such a work, you imagine that the besotted author said to himself, "I +will just naturally fill this thing chock-full of facts"--and then went +and did so to the extent of a prolonged debauch. + +Now personally I would be the last one in the world to decry facts as +such. In the abstract I have the highest opinion of them. But facts, +as someone has said, are stubborn things; and stubborn things, like +stubborn people, are frequently tiresome. So it occurred to me that +possibly there might be room for a guidebook on foreign travel which +would not have a single indubitable fact concealed anywhere about its +person. I have even dared to hope there might be an actual demand on +the part of the general public for such a guidebook. I shall endeavor to +meet that desire--if it exists. + +While we are on the subject I wish to say there is probably not +a statement made by me here or hereafter which cannot readily be +controverted. Communications from parties desiring to controvert this or +that assertion will be considered in the order received. The line +forms on the left and parties will kindly avoid crowding. Triflers and +professional controverters save stamps. + +With these few introductory remarks we now proceed to the first subject, +which is The Sea: Its Habits and Peculiarities, and the Quaint Creatures +Found upon Its Bosom. + +From the very start of this expedition to Europe I labored under a +misapprehension. Everybody told me that as soon as I had got my sea +legs I would begin to love the sea with a vast and passionate love. As a +matter of fact I experienced no trouble whatever in getting my sea legs. +They were my regular legs, the same ones I use on land. It was my sea +stomach that caused all the bother. First I was afraid I should not +get it, and that worried me no little. Then I got it and was regretful. +However, that detail will come up later in a more suitable place. I am +concerned now with the departure. + +Somewhere forward a bugle blares; somewhere rearward a bell jangles. On +the deck overhead is a scurry of feet. In the mysterious bowels of the +ship a mighty mechanism opens its metal mouth and speaks out briskly. +Later it will talk on steadily, with a measured and a regular voice; +but now it is heard frequently, yet intermittently, like the click of +a blind man's cane. Beneath your feet the ship, which has seemed until +this moment as solid as a rock, stirs the least little bit, as though it +had waked up. And now a shiver runs all through it and you are reminded +of that passage from Pygmalion and Galatea where Pygmalion says with +such feeling: + +She starts; she moves; she seems to feel the thrill of life along her +keel. + +You are under way. You are finally committed to the great adventure. The +necessary good-bys have already been said. Those who in the goodness of +their hearts came to see you off have departed for shore, leaving sundry +suitable and unsuitable gifts behind. You have examined your stateroom, +with its hot and cold decorations, its running stewardess, its all-night +throb service, and its windows overlooking the Hudson--a stateroom +that seemed so large and commodious until you put one small submissive +steamer trunk and two scared valises in it. You are tired, and yon white +bed, with the high mudguards on it, looks mighty good to you; but you +feel that you must go on deck to wave a fond farewell to the land you +love and the friends you are leaving behind. + +You fight your way to the open through companionways full of frenzied +persons who are apparently trying to travel in every direction at once. +On the deck the illusion persists that it is the dock that is moving and +the ship that is standing still. All about you your fellow passengers +crowd the rails, waving and shouting messages to the people on the dock; +the people on the dock wave back and shout answers. About every other +person is begging somebody to tell auntie to be sure to write. You +gather that auntie will be expected to write weekly, if not oftener. + +As the slice of dark water between boat and dock widens, those who are +left behind begin running toward the pierhead in such numbers that each +wide, bright-lit door-opening in turn suggests a flittering section of +a moving-picture film. The only perfectly calm person in sight is a +gorgeous, gold-laced creature standing on the outermost gunwale of the +dock, wearing the kind of uniform that a rear admiral of the Swiss navy +would wear--if the Swiss had any navy--and holding a speaking trumpet +in his hand. This person is not excited, for he sends +thirty-odd-thousand-ton ships off to Europe at frequent intervals, and +so he is impressively and importantly blase about it; but everybody else +is excited. You find yourself rather that way. You wave at persons you +know and then at persons you do not know. + +You continue to wave until the man alongside you, who has spent years +of his life learning to imitate a siren whistle with his face, suddenly +twines his hands about his mouth and lets go a terrific blast right in +your ear. Something seems to warn you that you are not going to care for +this man. + +The pier, ceasing to be a long, outstretched finger, seems to fold back +into itself, knuckle-fashion, and presently is but a part of the oddly +foreshortened shoreline, distinguishable only by the black dot of +watchers clustered under a battery of lights, like a swarm of hiving +bees. Out in midstream the tugs, which have been convoying the ship, let +go of her and scuttle off, one in this direction and one in that, like a +brace of teal ducks getting out of a walrus' way. + +Almost imperceptibly her nose straightens down the river and soon on +the starboard quarter--how quickly one picks up these nautical +terms!--looming through the harbor mists, you behold the statue of Miss +Liberty, in her popular specialty of enlightening the world. So you go +below and turn in. Anyway, that is what I did; for certain of the larger +ships of the Cunard line sail at midnight or even later, and this was +such a ship. + +For some hours I lay awake, while above me and below me and all about me +the boat settled down to her ordained ship's job, and began drawing the +long, soothing snores that for five days and nights she was to continue +drawing without cessation. There were so many things to think over. +I tried to remember all the authoritative and conflicting advice that +had been offered to me by traveled friends and well-wishers. + +Let's see, now: On shipboard I was to wear only light clothes, because +nobody ever caught cold at sea. I was to wear the heaviest clothes I +had, because the landlubber always caught cold at sea. I was to tip only +those who served me. I was to tip all hands in moderation, whether they +served me or not. If I felt squeamish I was to do the following things: +Eat something. Quit eating. Drink something. Quit drinking. Stay on +deck. Go below and lie perfectly flat. Seek company. Avoid same. Give it +up. Keep it down. + +There was but one point on which all of them were agreed. On no account +should I miss Naples; I must see Naples if I did not see another +solitary thing in Europe. Well, I did both--I saw Naples; and now I +should not miss Naples if I never saw it again, and I do not think I +shall. As regards the other suggestions these friends of mine gave me, I +learned in time that all of them were right and all of them were wrong. + +For example, there was the matter of a correct traveling costume. +Between seasons on the Atlantic one wears what best pleases one. One +sees at the same time women in furs and summer boys in white ducks. +Tweed-enshrouded Englishmen and linen-clad American girls promenade +together, giving to the decks that pleasing air of variety and +individuality of apparel only to be found in southern California during +the winter, and in those orthodox pictures in the book of Robinson +Crusoe, where Robinson is depicted as completely wrapped up in +goatskins, while Man Friday is pirouetting round as nude as a raw +oyster and both of them are perfectly comfortable. I used to wonder +how Robinson and Friday did it. Since taking an ocean trip I understand +perfectly. I could do it myself now. + +There certainly were a lot of things to think over. I do not recall now +exactly the moment when I ceased thinking them over. A blank that was +measurable by hours ensued. I woke from a dream about a scrambled egg, +in which I was the egg, to find that morning had arrived and the ship +was behaving naughtily. + +Here was a ship almost as long as Main Street is back home, and six +stories high, with an English basement; with restaurants and elevators +and retail stores in her; and she was as broad as a courthouse; and +while lying at the dock she had appeared to be about the most solid and +dependable thing in creation--and yet in just a few hours' time she had +altered her whole nature, and was rolling and sliding and charging and +snorting like a warhorse. It was astonishing in the extreme, and you +would not have expected it of her. + +Even as I focused my mind on this phenomenon the doorway was stealthily +entered by a small man in a uniform that made him look something like an +Eton schoolboy and something like a waiter in a dairy lunch. I was about +to have the first illuminating experience with an English manservant. +This was my bedroom steward, by name Lubly--William Lubly. My hat is off +to William Lubly--to him and to all his kind. He was always on duty; +he never seemed to sleep; he was always in a good humor, and he always +thought of the very thing you wanted just a moment or two before you +thought of it yourself, and came a-running and fetched it to you. Now +he was softly stealing in to close my port. As he screwed the round, +brass-faced window fast he glanced my way and caught my apprehensive +eye. + +"Good morning, sir," he said, and said it in such a way as to convey a +subtle compliment. + +"Is it getting rough outside?" I said--I knew about the inside. "Thank +you," he said; "the sea 'as got up a bit, sir--thank you, sir." + +I was gratified--nay more, I was flattered. And it was so delicately +done too. I really did not have the heart to tell him that I was not +solely responsible--that I had, so to speak, collaborators; but Lubly +stood ready always to accord me a proper amount of recognition for +everything that happened on that ship. Only the next day, I think it +was, I asked him where we were. This occurred on deck. He had just +answered a lady who wanted to know whether we should have good weather +on the day we landed at Fishguard and whether we should get in on time. +Without a moment's hesitation he told her; and then he turned to me with +the air of giving credit where credit is due, and said: + +"Thank you, sir--we are just off the Banks, thank you." + +Lubly ran true to form. The British serving classes are ever like that, +whether met with at sea or on their native soil. They are a great and +a noble institution. Give an English servant a kind word and he thanks +you. Give him a harsh word and he still thanks you. Ask a question of a +London policeman--he tells you fully and then he thanks you. Go into an +English shop and buy something--the clerk who serves you thanks you with +enthusiasm. Go in and fail to buy something--he still thanks you, but +without the enthusiasm. + +One kind of Englishman says Thank you, sir; and one kind--the Cockney +who has been educated--says Thenks; but the majority brief it into a +short but expressive expletive and merely say: Kew. Kew is the commonest +word in the British Isles. Stroidinary runs it a close second, but Kew +comes first. You hear it everywhere. Hence Kew Gardens; they are named +for it. + +All the types that travel on a big English-owned ship were on ours. I +take it that there is a requirement in the maritime regulations to the +effect that the set must be complete before a ship may put to sea. To +begin with, there was a member of a British legation from somewhere +going home on leave, for a holiday, or a funeral. At least I heard it +was a holiday, but I should have said he was going home for the other +occasion. He wore an Honorable attached to the front of his name and +carried several extra initials behind in the rumble; and he was filled +up with that true British reserve which a certain sort of Britisher +always develops while traveling in foreign lands. He was upward of seven +feet tall, as the crow flies, and very thin and rigid. + +Viewing him, you got the impression that his framework all ran straight +up and down, like the wires in a bird cage, with barely enough perches +extending across from side to side to keep him from caving in and +crushing the canaries to death. On second thought I judge I had better +make this comparison in the singular number--there would not have been +room in him for more than one canary. + +Every morning for an hour, and again every afternoon for an hour, he +marched solemnly round and round the promenade deck, always alone +and always with his mournful gaze fixed on the far horizon. As I said +before, however, he stood very high in the air, and it may have been he +feared, if he ever did look down at his feet, he should turn dizzy and +be seized with an uncontrollable desire to leap off and end all; so I am +not blaming him for that. + +He would walk his hour out to the sixtieth second of the sixtieth minute +and then he would sit in his steamer chair, as silent as a glacier and +as inaccessible as one. If it were afternoon he would have his tea at +five o'clock and then, with his soul still full of cracked ice, he would +go below and dress for dinner; but he never spoke to anyone. His steamer +chair was right-hand chair to mine and often we practically touched +elbows; but he did not see me once. + +I had a terrible thought. Suppose now, I said to myself--just suppose +that this ship were to sink and only we two were saved; and suppose we +were cast away on a desert island and spent years and years there, never +knowing each other's name and never mingling together socially until the +rescue ship came along--and not even then unless there was some mutual +acquaintance aboard her to introduce us properly! It was indeed a +frightful thought! It made me shudder. + +Among our company was a younger son going home after a tour of the +Colonies--Canada and Australia, and all that sort of bally rot. I +believe there is always at least one younger son on every well-conducted +English boat; the family keeps him on a remittance and seems to feel +easier in its mind when he is traveling. The British statesman who +said the sun never sets on British possessions spoke the truth, but +the reporters in committing his memorable utterance to paper spelt the +keyword wrong--undoubtedly he meant the other kind--the younger kind. + +This particular example of the species was in every way up to grade and +sample. A happy combination of open air, open pores and open casegoods +gave to his face the exact color of a slice of rare roast beef; it also +had the expression of one. With a dab of English mustard in the lobe of +one ear and a savory bit of watercress stuck in his hair for a garnish, +he could have passed anywhere for a slice of cold roast beef. + +He was reasonably exclusive too. Not until the day we landed did he and +the Honorable member of the legation learn--quite by chance--that they +were third cousins--or something of that sort--to one another. And +so, after the relationship had been thoroughly established through +the kindly offices of a third party, they fraternized to the extent +of riding up to London on the same boat-train, merely using different +compartments of different carriages. The English aristocrat is a +tolerably social animal when traveling; but, at the same time, he does +not carry his sociability to an excess. He shows restraint. + +Also, we had with us the elderly gentleman of impaired disposition, who +had crossed thirty times before and was now completing his thirty-first +trip, and getting madder and madder about it every minute. I saw him +only with his clothes on; but I should say, speaking offhand, that he +had at least fourteen rattles and a button. His poison sacs hung 'way +down. Others may have taken them for dewlaps, but I knew better; they +were poison sacs. + +It was quite apparent that he abhorred the very idea of having to cross +to Europe on the same ocean with the rest of us, let alone on the +same ship. And for persons who were taking their first trip abroad his +contempt was absolutely unutterable; he choked at the bare mention of +such a criminal's name and offense. You would hear him communing with +himself and a Scotch and soda. + +"Bah!" he would say bitterly, addressing the soda-bottle. "These idiots +who've never been anywhere talking about this being rough weather! Rough +weather, mind you! Bah! People shouldn't be allowed to go to sea until +they know something about it. Bah!" + +By the fourth day out his gums were as blue as indigo, and he was so +swelled up with his own venom he looked dropsical. I judged his bite +would have caused death in from twelve to fourteen minutes, preceded by +coma and convulsive rigors. We called him old Colonel Gila Monster or +Judge Stinging Lizard, for short. + +There was the spry and conversational gentleman who looked like an +Englishman, but was of the type commonly denominated in our own land as +breezy. So he could not have been an Englishman. Once in a while there +comes along an Englishman who is windy, and frequently you meet one who +is drafty; but there was never a breezy Englishman yet. + +With that interest in other people's business which the close communion +of a ship so promptly breeds in most of us, we fell to wondering who +and what he might be; but the minute the suspect came into the salon for +dinner the first night out I read his secret at a glance. He belonged to +a refined song-and-dance team doing sketches in vaudeville. He could not +have been anything else--he had jet buttons on his evening clothes. + +There was the young woman--she had elocutionary talents, it turned +out afterward, and had graduated with honors from a school of +expression--who assisted in getting up the ship's concert and then took +part in it, both of those acts being mistakes on her part, as it proved. + +And there was the official he-beauty of the ship. He was without a +wrinkle in his clothes--or his mind either; and he managed to maneuver +so that when he sat in the smoking room he always faced a mirror. That +was company enough for him. He never grew lonely or bored then. Only one +night he discovered something wrong about one of his eyebrows. He gave +a pained start; and then, oblivious of those of us who hovered about +enjoying the spectacle, he spent a long time working with the blemish. +The eyebrow was stubborn, though, and he just couldn't make it behave; +so he grew petulant and fretful, and finally went away to bed in a huff. +Had it not been for fear of stopping his watch, I am sure he would have +slapped himself on the wrist. + +This fair youth was one of the delights of the voyage. One felt that if +he had merely a pair of tweezers and a mustache comb and a hand glass +he would never, never be at a loss for a solution of the problem that +worries so many writers for the farm journals--a way to spend the long +winter evenings pleasantly. + + + + +Chapter II + + + +My Bonny Lies over the Ocean--Lies and Lies and Lies + +Of course, we had a bridal couple and a troupe of professional deep-sea +fishermen aboard. We just naturally had to have them. Without them, I +doubt whether the ship could have sailed. The bridal couple were +from somewhere in the central part of Ohio and they were taking their +honeymoon tour; but, if I were a bridal couple from the central part +of Ohio and had never been to sea before, as was the case in this +particular instance, I should take my honeymoon ashore and keep it +there. I most certainly should! This couple of ours came aboard billing +and cooing to beat the lovebirds. They made it plain to all that they +had just been married and were proud of it. Their baggage was brand-new, +and the groom's shoes were shiny with that pristine shininess +which, once destroyed, can never be restored; and the bride wore her +going-and-giving-away outfit. + +Just prior to sailing and on the morning after they were all over the +ship. Everywhere you went you seemed to meet them and they were always +wrestling. You entered a quiet side passage--there they were, exchanging +a kiss--one of the long-drawn, deep-siphoned, sirupy kind. You stepped +into the writing room thinking to find it deserted, and at sight of you +they broke grips and sprang apart, eyeing you like a pair of startled +fawns surprised by the cruel huntsman in a forest glade. At all other +times, though, they had eyes but for each other. + +A day came, however--and it was the second day out--when they were among +the missing. For two days and two nights, while the good ship floundered +on the tempestuous bosom of the overwrought ocean, they were gone from +human ken. On the afternoon of the third day, the sea being calmer now, +but still sufficiently rough to satisfy the most exacting, a few hardy +and convalescent souls sat in a shawl-wrapped row on the lee side of the +ship. + +There came two stewards, bearing with them pillows and blankets and +rugs. These articles were disposed to advantage in two steamer chairs. +Then the stewards hurried away; but presently they reappeared, dragging +the limp and dangling forms of the bridal couple from the central part +of Ohio. But oh, my countrymen, what a spectacle! And what a change from +what had been! + +The going-away gown was wrinkled, as though worn for a period of time +by one suddenly and sorely stricken in the midst of health. The bride's +once well-coifed hair hung in lank disarray about a face that was the +color of prime old sage cheese--yellow, with a fleck of green here and +there--and in her wan and rolling eye was the hunted look of one who +hears something unpleasant stirring a long way off and fears it is +coming this way. + +Side by side the stewards stretched them prone on their chairs and +tucked them in. Her face was turned from him. For some time both of +them lay there without visible signs of life--just two muffled, +misery-stricken heaps. Then, slowly and languidly, the youth stretched +forth an arm from his wrappings and fingered the swaddling folds that +enveloped the form of his beloved. + +It may have been he thought it was about time to begin picking the +coverlid, or it may have been the promptings of reawakened romance, once +more feebly astir within his bosom. At any rate, gently and softly, his +hand fell on the rug about where her shoulder ought to be. She still had +life enough left in her to shake it off--and she did. Hurt, he waited +a moment, then caressed her again. "Stop that!" she cried in a low but +venomous tone. "Don't you dare touch me!" + +So he touched her no more, but only lay there mute and motionless; +and from his look one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and know how +shocked he was, and how grieved and heartstricken! Love's young dream +was o'er! He had thought she loved him, but now he knew better. Their +marriage had been a terrible mistake and he would give her back her +freedom; he would give it back to her as soon as he was able to sit up. +Thus one interpreted his expression. + +On the day we landed, however, they were seen again. We were nosing +northward through a dimpled duckpond of a sea, with the Welsh coast on +one side and Ireland just over the way. People who had not been seen +during the voyage came up to breathe, wearing the air of persons who had +just returned from the valley of the shadow and were mighty glad to be +back; and with those others came our bridal couple. + +I inadvertently stumbled on them in an obscure companionway. Their +cheeks again wore the bloom of youth and health, and they were in a +tight clinch; it was indeed a pretty sight. Love had returned on roseate +pinions and the honeymoon had been resumed at the point where postponed +on account of bad weather. + +They had not been seasick, though. I heard them say so. They had been +indisposed, possibly from something they had eaten; but they had not +been seasick. Well, I had my own periods of indisposition going over; +and if it had been seasickness I should not hesitate a moment about +coming right out and saying so. In these matters I believe in being +absolutely frank and aboveboard. For the life of me I cannot understand +why people will dissemble and lie about this thing of being seasick. To +me their attitude is a source of constant wonderment. + +On land the average person is reasonably proud of having been +sick--after he begins to get better. It gives him something to talk +about. The pale and interesting invalid invariably commands respect +ashore. In my own list of acquaintances I number several persons--mainly +widowed ladies with satisfactory incomes--who never feel well unless +they are ill. In the old days they would have had resort to patent +medicines and the family lot at Laurel Grove Cemetery; but now they +go in for rest cures and sea voyages, and the baths at Carlsbad and +specialists, these same being main contributing causes to the present +high cost of living, and also helping to explain what becomes of some +of those large life-insurance policies you read about. Possibly you know +the type I am describing--the lady who, when planning where she will +spend the summer, sends for catalogues from all the leading sanatoriums. +We had one such person with us. + +She had been surgically remodeled so many times that she dated +everything from her last operation. At least six times in her life she +had been down with something that was absolutely incurable, and she was +now going to Homburg to have one of the newest and most fatal German +diseases in its native haunts, where it would be at its best. She +herself said that she was but a mere shell; and for the first few meals +she ate like one--like a large, empty shell with plenty of curves inside +it. + +However, when, after a subsequent period of seclusion, she emerged from +her stateroom wearing the same disheveled look that Jonah must have worn +when he and the whale parted company, do you think she would confess +she had been seasick? Not by any means! She said she had had a raging +headache. But she could not fool me. She had the stateroom next to mine +and I had heard what I had heard. She was from near Boston and she had +the near-Boston accent; and she was the only person I ever met who was +seasick with the broad A. + +Personally I abhor those evasions, which deceive no one. If I had been +seasick I should not deny it here or elsewhere. For a time I thought +I was seasick. I know now I was wrong--but I thought so. There was +something about the sardels served at lunch--their look or their smell +or something--which seemed to make them distasteful to me; and I excused +myself from the company at the table and went up and out into the +open air. But the deck was unpleasantly congested with great burly +brutes--beefy, carnivorous, overfed creatures, gorged with victuals and +smoking disgustingly strong black cigars, and grinning in an annoying +and meaning sort of way every time they passed a body who preferred to +lie quiet. + +The rail was also moving up and down in a manner that was annoying and +wearisome for the eye to watch--first tipping up and up and up until +half the sky was hidden, then dipping down and down and down until the +gray and heaving sea seemed ready to leap over the side and engulf us. +So I decided to go below and jot down a few notes. On arriving at my +quarters I changed my mind again. I decided to let the notes wait a +while and turn in. + +It is my usual custom when turning in to remove the left shoe as well as +the right one and to put on my pajamas; but the pajamas were hanging +on a hook away over on the opposite side of the stateroom, which had +suddenly grown large and wide and full of great distances; and besides, +I thought it was just as well to have the left shoe where I could put +my hand on it when I needed it again. So I retired practically just as +I was and endeavored, as per the admonitions of certain friends, to lie +perfectly flat. No doubt this thing of lying flat is all very well for +some people--but suppose a fellow has not that kind of a figure? + +Nevertheless, I tried. I lay as flat as I could, but the indisposition +persisted; in fact, it increased materially. The manner in which my +pajamas, limp and pendent from that hook, swayed and swung back and +forth became extremely distasteful to me; and if by mental treatment I +could have removed them from there I should assuredly have done so. But +that was impossible. + +Along toward evening I began to think of food. I thought of it not from +its gastronomic aspect, but rather in the capacity of ballast. I did +not so much desire the taste of it as the feel of it. So I summoned +Lubly--he, at least, did not smile at me in that patronizing, +significant way--and ordered a dinner that included nearly everything +on the dinner card except Lubly's thumb. The dinner was brought to me in +relays and I ate it--ate it all! This step I know now was ill-advised. +It is true that for a short time I felt as I imagine a python in a zoo +feels when he is full of guinea-pigs--sort of gorged, you know, and +sluggish, and only tolerably uncomfortable. + +Then ensued the frightful denouement. It ensued almost without warning. +At the time I felt absolutely positive that I was seasick. I would have +sworn to it. If somebody had put a Bible on my chest and held it there +I would cheerfully have laid my right hand on it and taken a solemn +oath that I was seasick. Indeed, I believed I was so seasick that I +feared--hoped, rather--I might never recover from it. All I desired at +the moment was to get it over with as quickly and as neatly as possible. + +As in the case of drowning persons, there passed in review before my +eyes several of the more recent events of my past life--meals mostly. +I shall, however, pass hastily over these distressing details, merely +stating in parentheses, so to speak, that I did not remember those +string-beans at all. I was positive then, and am yet, that I had not +eaten string-beans for nearly a week. But enough of this! + +I was sure I was seasick; and I am convinced any inexperienced +bystander, had there been one there, would have been misled by my +demeanor into regarding me as a seasick person--but it was a wrong +diagnosis. The steward told me so himself when he called the next +morning. He came and found me stretched prone on the bed of affliction; +and he asked me how I felt, to which I replied with a low and hollow +groan--tolerably low and exceedingly hollow. It could not have been any +hollower if I had been a megaphone. + +So he looked me over and told me that I had climate fever. We were +passing through the Gulf Stream, where the water was warmer than +elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, and I had a touch of climate fever. It +was a very common complaint in that latitude; many persons suffered +from it. The symptoms were akin to seasickness, it was true; yet the two +maladies were in no way to be confused. As soon as we passed out of the +Gulf Stream he felt sure I would be perfectly well. Meantime he would +recommend that I get Lubly to take the rest of my things off and then +remain perfectly quiet. He was right about it too. + +Regardless of what one may think oneself, one is bound to accept the +statement of an authority on this subject; and if a steward on a big +liner, who has traveled back and forth across the ocean for years, is +not an authority on climate fever, who is? I looked at it in that light. +And sure enough, when we had passed out of the Gulf Stream and the sea +had smoothed itself out, I made a speedy and satisfactory recovery; but +if it had been seasickness I should have confessed it in a minute. I +have no patience with those who quibble and equivocate in regard to +their having been seasick. + +I had one relapse--a short one, but painful. In an incautious moment, +when I wist not wot I wotted, I accepted an invitation from the chief +engineer to go below. We went below--miles and miles, I think--to where, +standing on metal runways that were hot to the foot, overalled Scots +ministered to the heart and the lungs and the bowels of that ship. +Electricity spat cracklingly in our faces, and at our sides steel shafts +as big as the pillars of a temple spun in coatings of spumy grease; and +through the double skin of her we could hear, over our heads, a mighty +Niagaralike churning as the slew-footed screws kicked us forward +twenty-odd knots an hour. Someone raised the cover of a vat, and peering +down into the opening we saw a small, vicious engine hard at work, +entirely enveloped in twisty, coily, stewy depths of black oil, like a +devil-fish writhing in sea-ooze and cuttle-juice. + +So then we descended another mile or two to an inferno, full of naked, +sooty devils forever feeding sulphurous pitfires in the nethermost +parlors of the damned; but they said this was the stokehole; and I was +in no condition to argue with them, for I had suddenly begun to realize +that I was far from being a well person. As one peering through a glass +darkly, I saw one of the attendant demons sluice his blistered bare +breast with cold water, so that the sweat and grime ran from him in +streams like ink; and peering in at a furnace door I saw a great angry +sore of coals all scabbed and crusted over. Then another demon, wielding +a nine-foot bar daintily as a surgeon wields a scalpel, reached in and +stabbed it in the center, so that the fire burst through and gushed up +red and rich, like blood from a wound newly lanced. + +I had seen enough and to spare; but my guide brought me back by way of +the steerage, in order that I might know how the other half lives. +There was nothing here, either of smell or sight, to upset the human +stomach--third class is better fed and better quartered now on those big +ships than first class was in those good old early days--but I had +held in as long as I could and now I relapsed. I relapsed in a vigorous +manner--a whole-souled, boisterous manner. People halfway up the +deck heard me relapsing, and I will warrant some of them were fooled +too--they thought I was seasick. + +It was due to my attack of climate fever that I missed the most exciting +thing which happened on the voyage. I refer to the incident of the +professional gamblers and the youth from Jersey City. From the very +first there was one passenger who had been picked out by all the knowing +passengers as a professional gambler; for he was the very spit-and-image +of a professional gambler as we have learned to know him in story books. +Did he not dress in plain black, without any jewelry? He certainly did. +Did he not have those long, slender, flexible fingers? Such was, +indeed, the correct description of those fingers. Was not his eye a keen +steely-blue eye that seemed to have the power of looking right through +you? Steely-blue was the right word, all right. Well, then, what more +could you ask? + +Behind his back sinister yet fascinating rumors circulated. He was the +brilliant but unscrupulous scion of a haughty house in England. He had +taken a first degree at Oxford, over there, and the third one at police +headquarters, over here. Women simply could not resist him. Let him make +up his mind to win a woman and she was a gone gosling. His picture +was to be found in rogues' galleries and ladies' lockets. And sh-h-h! +Listen! Everybody knew he was the identical crook who, disguised in +woman's clothes, escaped in the last lifeboat that left the sinking +Titanic. Who said so? Why--er--everybody said so! + +It came as a grievous disappointment to all when we found out the truth, +which was that he was the booking agent for a lyceum bureau, going +abroad to sign up some foreign talent for next season's Chautauquas; +and the only gambling he had ever done was on the chance of whether +the Tyrolian Yodelers would draw better than our esteemed secretary of +state--or vice versa. + +Meantime the real professionals had established themselves cozily and +comfortably aboard, had rigged the trap and cheese-baited it, and were +waiting for the coming of one of the class that is born so numerously in +this country. If you should be traveling this year on one of the +large trans-Atlantic ships, and there should come aboard two young +well-dressed men and shortly afterward a middle-aged well-dressed man +with a flat nose, who was apparently a stranger to the first two; and if +on the second night out in the smoking room, while the pool on the next +day's run was being auctioned, one of the younger men, whom we will call +Mr. Y, should appear to be slightly under the influence of malt, vinous +or spirituous liquors--or all three of them at once--and should, without +seeming provocation, insist on picking a quarrel with the middle-aged +stranger, whom we will call Mr. Z; and if further along in the voyage +Mr. Z should introduce himself to you and suggest a little game of +auction bridge for small stakes in order to while away the tedium of +travel; and if it should so fall out that Mr. Y and his friend Mr. +X chanced to be the only available candidates for a foursome at this +fascinating pursuit; and if Mr. Z, being still hostile toward the +sobered and repentant Mr. Y, should decline to take on either Mr. Y or +his friend X as a partner, but chose you instead; and if on the second +or third deal you picked up your cards and found you had an apparently +unbeatable hand and should bid accordingly; and Mr. X should double you; +and Mr. Z, sitting across from you should come gallantly right back and +redouble it; and Mr. Y, catching the spirit of the moment, should double +again--and so on and so forth until each point, instead of being worth +only a paltry cent or two, had accumulated a value of a good many +cents--if all these things or most of them should befall in the order +enumerated--why, then, if I were you, gentle reader, I would have a +care. And I should leave that game and go somewhere else to have it +too--lest a worse thing befall you as it befell the guileless young +Jerseyman on our ship. After he had paid out a considerable sum on being +beaten--by just one card--upon the playing of his seemingly unbeatable +hand and after the haunting and elusive odor of eau de rodent had become +plainly perceptible all over the ship, he began, as the saying goes, to +smell a rat himself, and straightway declined to make good his remaining +losses, amounting to quite a tidy amount. Following this there were high +words, meaning by that low ones, and accusations and recriminations, and +at eventide when the sunset was a welter of purple and gold, there was +a sudden smashing of glassware in the smoking room and a flurry of arms +and legs in a far corner, and a couple of pained stewards scurrying +about saying, "Ow, now, don't do that, sir, if you please, sir, thank +you, sir!" And one of the belligerents came forth from the melee wearing +a lavender eye with saffron trimmings, as though to match the sunset, +and the other with a set of skinned knuckles, emblematic of the skinning +operations previously undertaken. And through all the ship ran the +hissing tongues of scandal and gossip. + +Out of wild rumor and cross-rumor, certain salient facts were eventually +precipitated like sediment from a clouded solution. It seemed that the +engaging Messrs. X, Y and Z had been induced, practically under false +pretenses to book passage, they having read in the public prints that +the prodigal and card-foolish son of a cheese-paring millionaire father +meant to take the ship too; but he had grievously disappointed them +by not coming aboard at all. Then, when in an effort to make their +traveling expenses back, they uncorked their newest trick and device +for inspiring confidence in gudgeons, the particular gudgeon of their +choosing had refused to pay up. Naturally they were fretful and peevish +in the extreme. It spoiled the whole trip for them. + +Except for this one small affair it was, on the whole, a pleasant +voyage. We had only one storm and one ship's concert, and at the finish +most of us were strong enough to have stood another storm. And the trip +had been worth a lot to us--at least it had been worth a lot to me, +for I had crossed the ocean on one of the biggest hotels afloat. I had +amassed quite a lot of nautical terms that would come in very handy for +stunning the folks at home when I got back. I had had my first thrill at +the sight of foreign shores. And just by casual contact with members +of the British aristocracy, I had acquired such a heavy load of true +British hauteur that in parting on the landing dock I merely bowed +distantly toward those of my fellow Americans to whom I had not been +introduced; and they, having contracted the same disease, bowed back in +the same haughty and distant manner. + +When some of us met again, however, in Vienna, the insulation had been +entirely rubbed off and we rushed madly into one another's arms and +exchanged names and addresses; and, babbling feverishly the while, we +told one another what our favorite flower was, and our birthstone and +our grandmother's maiden name, and what we thought of a race of +people who regarded a cup of ostensible coffee and a dab of honey +as constituting a man's-size breakfast. And, being pretty tolerably +homesick by that time, we leaned in toward a common center and gave +three loud, vehement cheers for the land of the country sausage and the +home of the buckwheat cake--and, as giants refreshed, went on our ways +rejoicing. + +That, though, was to come later. At present we are concerned with the +trip over and what we had severally learned from it. I personally had +learned, among other things, that the Atlantic Ocean, considered as +such, is a considerably overrated body. Having been across it, even on +so big and fine and well-ordered a ship as this ship was, the ocean, it +seemed to me, was not at all what it had been cracked up to be. + +During the first day out it is a novelty and after that a +monotony--except when it is rough; and then it is a doggoned nuisance. +Poets without end have written of the sea, but I take it they stayed at +home to do their writing. They were not on the bounding billow when they +praised it; if they had been they might have decorated the billow, but +they would never have praised it. + +As the old song so happily put it: My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean! And a +lot of others have lied over it too; but I will not--at least not just +yet. Perhaps later on I may feel moved to do so; but at this moment I +am but newly landed from it and my heart is full of rankling resentment +toward the ocean and all its works. + +I speak but a sober conviction when I say that the chief advantage to +be derived from taking an ocean voyage is not that you took it, but that +you have it to talk about afterward. And, to my mind, the most +inspiring sight to be witnessed on a trip across the Atlantic is the +Battery--viewed from the ocean side, coming back. + +Do I hear any seconds to that motion? + + + + +Chapter III + + + +Bathing Oneself on the Other Side + +My first experience with the bathing habits of the native Aryan stocks +of Europe came to pass on the morning after the night of our arrival in +London. + +London disappointed me in one regard--when I opened my eyes that morning +there was no fog. There was not the slightest sign of a fog. I had +expected that my room would be full of fog of about the consistency of +Scotch stage dialect--soupy, you know, and thick and bewildering. I +had expected that servants with lighted tapers in their hands would be +groping their way through corridors like caves, and that from the +street without, would come the hoarse-voiced cries of cabmen lost in the +enshrouding gray. You remember Dickens always had them hoarse-voiced. + +This was what I confidently expected. Such, however, was not to be. I +woke to a consciousness that the place was flooded with indubitable and +undoubted sunshine. To be sure, it was not the sharp, hard sunshine we +have in America, which scours and bleaches all it touches, until +the whole world has the look of having just been clear-starched and +hot-ironed. It was a softened, smoke-edged, pastel-shaded sunshine; +nevertheless it was plainly recognizable as the genuine article. + +Nor was your London shadow the sharply outlined companion in black who +accompanies you when the weather is fine in America. Your shadow in +London was rather a dim and wavery gentleman who caught up with you as +you turned out of the shaded by-street; who went with you a distance +and then shyly vanished, but was good company while he stayed, being +restful, as your well-bred Englishman nearly always is, and not overly +aggressive. + +There was no fog that first morning, or the next morning, or any morning +of the twenty-odd we spent in England. Often the weather was cloudy, +and occasionally it was rainy; and then London would be drenched in that +wonderful gray color which makes it, scenically speaking, one of the +most fascinating spots on earth; but it was never downright foggy and +never downright cold. English friends used to speak to me about it. They +apologized for good weather at that season of the year, just as natives +of a Florida winter resort will apologize for bad. + +"You know, old dear," they would say, "this is most unusual--most +stroidinary, in fact. It ought to be raw and nasty and foggy at this +time of the year, and here the cursed weather is perfectly fine--blast +it!" You could tell they were grieved about it, and disappointed too. +Anything that is not regular upsets Englishmen frightfully. Maybe that +is why they enforce their laws so rigidly and obey them so beautifully. + +Anyway I woke to find the fog absent, and I rose and prepared to take +my customary cold bath. I am much given to taking a cold bath in the +morning and speaking of it afterward. People who take a cold bath every +day always like to brag about it, whether they take it or not. + +The bathroom adjoined the bedroom, but did not directly connect with it, +being reached by means of a small semi-private hallway. It was a +fine, noble bathroom, white tiled and spotless; and one side of it +was occupied by the longest, narrowest bathtub I ever saw. Apparently +English bathtubs are constructed on the principle that every Englishman +who bathes is nine feet long and about eighteen inches wide, whereas the +approximate contrary is frequently the case. Draped over a chair was the +biggest, widest, softest bathtowel ever made. Shem, Ham and Japhet could +have dried themselves on that bathtowel, and there would still have been +enough dry territory left for some of the animals--not the large, woolly +animals like the Siberian yak, but the small, slick, porous animals such +as the armadillo and the Mexican hairless dog. + +So I wedged myself into the tub and had a snug-fitting but most +luxurious bath; and when I got back to my room the maid had arrived with +the shaving water. There was a knock at the door, and when I opened +it there stood a maid with a lukewarm pint of water in a long-waisted, +thin-lipped pewter pitcher. There was plenty of hot water to be had in +the bathroom, with faucets and sinks all handy and convenient, and a +person might shave himself there in absolute comfort; but long before +the days of pipes and taps an Englishman got his shaving water in a +pewter ewer, and he still gets it so. It is one of the things guaranteed +him under Magna Charta and he demands it as a right; but I, being but a +benighted foreigner, left mine in the pitcher, and that evening the maid +checked me up. + +"You didn't use the shaving water I brought you to-day, sir!" she said. +"It was still in the jug when I came in to tidy up, sir." + +Her tone was grieved; so, after that, to spare her feelings, I used to +pour it down the sink. But if I were doing the trip over again I would +drink it for breakfast instead of the coffee the waiter brought me--the +shaving water being warmish and containing, so far as I could tell, no +deleterious substances. And if the bathroom were occupied at the time +I would shave myself with the coffee. I judge it might work up into +a thick and durable lather. It is certainly not adapted for drinking +purposes. + +The English, as a race, excel at making tea and at drinking it after it +is made; but among them coffee is still a mysterious and murky compound +full of strange by-products. By first weakening it and wearing it down +with warm milk one may imbibe it; but it is not to be reckoned among the +pleasures of life. It is a solemn and a painful duty. + +On the second morning I was splashing in my tub, gratifying that +amphibious instinct which has come down to us from the dim evolutionary +time when we were paleozoic polliwogs, when I made the discovery that +there were no towels in the bathroom. I glanced about keenly, seeking +for help and guidance in such an emergency. Set in the wall directly +above the rim of the tub was a brass plate containing two pushbuttons. +One button, the uppermost one, was labeled Waiter--the other was labeled +Maid. + +This was disconcerting. Even in so short a stay under the roof of +an English hotel I had learned that at this hour the waiter would +be hastening from room to room, ministering to Englishmen engaged in +gumming their vital organs into an impenetrable mass with the national +dish of marmalade; and that the maid would also be busy carrying shaving +water to people who did not need it. Besides, of all the classes I +distinctly do not require when I am bathing, one is waiters and the +other is maids. For some minutes I considered the situation, without +making any headway toward a suitable solution of it; meantime I was +getting chilled. So I dried myself--sketchily--with a toothbrush and the +edge of the window-shade; then I dressed, and in a still somewhat moist +state I went down to interview the management about it. I first visited +the information desk and told the youth in charge there I wished to +converse with some one in authority on the subject of towels. After +gazing at me a spell in a puzzled manner he directed me to go across +the lobby to the cashier's department. Here I found a gentleman of truly +regal aspect. His tie was a perfect dream of a tie, and he wore a frock +coat so slim and long and black it made him look as though he were +climbing out of a smokestack. Presenting the case as though it were a +supposititious one purely, I said to him: + +"Presuming now that one of your guests is in a bathtub and finds he has +forgotten to lay in any towels beforehand--such a thing might possibly +occur, you know--how does he go about summoning the man-servant or the +valet with a view to getting some?" + +"Oh, sir," he replied, "that's very simple. You noticed two pushbuttons +in your bathroom, didn't you?" + +"I did," I said, "and that's just the difficulty. One of them is for the +maid and the other is for the waiter." + +"Quite so, sir," he said, "quite so. Very well, then, sir: You ring for +the waiter or the maid--or, if you should charnce to be in a hurry, for +both of them; because, you see, one of them might charnce to be en--" + +"One moment," I said. "Let me make my position clear in this matter: +This Lady Susanna--I do not know her last name, but you will doubtless +recall the person I mean, because I saw several pictures of her +yesterday in your national art gallery--this Lady Susanna may have +enjoyed taking a bath with a lot of snoopy old elders lurking round in +the background; but I am not so constituted. I was raised differently +from that. With me, bathing has ever been a solitary pleasure. This may +denote selfishness on my part; but such is my nature and I cannot alter +it. All my folks feel about it as I do. We are a very peculiar family +that way. When bathing we do not invite an audience. Nor do I want one. +A crowd would only embarrass me. I merely desire a little privacy and, +here and there, a towel." + +"Ah, yes! Quite so, sir," he said; "but you do not understand me. As I +said before, you ring for the waiter or the maid. When one of them comes +you tell them to send you the manservant on your floor; and when he +comes you tell him you require towels, and he goes to the linen cupboard +and gets them and fetches them to you, sir. It's very simple, sir." + +"But why," I persisted, "why do this thing by a relay system? I +don't want any famishing gentleman in this place to go practically +unmarmaladed at breakfast because I am using the waiter to conduct +preliminary negotiations with a third party in regard to a bathtowel." + +"But it is so very simple, sir," he repeated patiently. "You ring for +the waiter or the ma--" + +I checked him with a gesture. I felt that I knew what he meant to say; I +also felt that if any word of mine might serve to put this establishment +on an easy-running basis they could have it and welcome. + +"Listen!" I said. "You will kindly pardon the ignorance of a poor, red, +partly damp American who has shed his eagle feathers but still has his +native curiosity with him! Why not put a third button in that bathroom +labeled Manservant or Valet or Towel Boy, or something of that general +nature? And then when a sufferer wanted towels, and wanted 'em quick, he +could get them without blocking the wheels of progress and industry. +We may still be shooting Mohawk Indians and the American bison in +the streets of Buffalo, New York; and we may still be saying: 'By +Geehosaphat, I swan to calculate!--anyway, I note that we still say +that in all your leading comic papers; but when a man in my land +goes a-toweling, he goes a-toweling--and that is all there is to it, +positively! In our secret lodges it may happen that the worshipful +master calls the august swordbearer to him and bids him communicate +with the grand outer guardian and see whether the candidate is suitably +attired for admission; but in ordinary life we cut out the middleman +wherever possible. Do you get my drift?" + +"Oh, yes, sir," he said; "but I fear you do not understand me. As I +told you, it's very simple--so very simple, sir. We've never found it +necessary to make a change. You ring for the waiter or for the maid, and +you tell them to tell the manservant--" + +"All right," I said, breaking in. I could see that his arguments were of +the circular variety that always came back to the starting point. "But, +as a favor to me, would you kindly ask the proprietor to request the +head cook to communicate with the carriage starter and have him inform +the waiter that when in future I ring the bathroom bell in a given +manner--to wit: one long, determined ring followed by three short, +passionate rings--it may be regarded as a signal for towels?" + +So saying, I turned on my heel and went away, for I could tell he was +getting ready to begin all over again. Later on I found out for myself +that, in this particular hotel, when you ring for the waiter or the +maid the bell sounds in the service room, where those functionaries are +supposed to be stationed; but when you ring for the manservant a small +arm-shaped device like a semaphore drops down over your outer door. +But what has the manservant done that he should be thus discriminated +against? Why should he not have a bell of his own? So far as I might +judge, the poor fellow has few enough pleasures in life as it is. Why +should he battle with the intricacies of a block-signal system when +everybody else round the place has a separate bell? And why all this +mystery and mummery over so simple and elemental a thing as a towel? + +To my mind, it merely helps to prove that among the English the art of +bathing is still in its infancy. The English claim to have discovered +the human bath and they resent mildly the assumption that any other +nation should become addicted to it; whereas I argue that the burden of +the proof shows we do more bathing to the square inch of surface than +the English ever did. At least, we have superior accommodations for it. + +The day is gone in this country when Saturday night was the big night +for indoor aquatic sports and pastimes; and no gentleman as was a +gentleman would call on his ladylove and break up her plans for the +great weekly ceremony. There may have been a time in certain rural +districts when the bathing season for males practically ended on +September fifteenth, owing to the water in the horsepond becoming +chilled; but that time has passed. Along with every modern house that +is built to-day, in country or town, we expect bathrooms and plenty of +them. With us the presence of a few bathtubs more or less creates no +great amount of excitement--nor does the mere sight of open plumbing +particularly stir our people; whereas in England a hotelkeeper who has +bathrooms on the premises advertises the fact on his stationery. + +If in addition to a few bathrooms a Continental hotelkeeper has a +decrepit elevator he makes more noise over it than we do over a Pompeian +palmroom or an Etruscan roofgarden; he hangs a sign above his front door +testifying to his magnificent enterprise in this regard. The Continental +may be a born hotelkeeper, as has been frequently claimed for him; but +the trouble is he usually has no hotel to keep. It is as though you set +an interior decorator to run a livery stable and expected him to make +it attractive. He may have the talents, but he is lacking in the raw +material. + +It was in a London apartment house, out Maida Vale way, that I first +beheld the official bathtub of an English family establishment. It was +one of those bathtubs that flourished in our own land at about the time +of the Green-back craze--a coffin-shaped, boxed-in affair lined with +zinc; and the zinc was suffering from tetter or other serious skin +trouble and was peeling badly. There was a current superstition about +the place to the effect that the bathroom and the water supply might on +occasion be heated with a device known in the vernacular as a geezer. + +The geezer was a sheet-iron contraption in the shape of a pocket +inkstand, and it stood on a perch in the corner, like a Russian icon, +with a small blue flame flickering beneath it. It looked as though its +sire might have been a snare-drum and its dam a dark lantern, and +that it got its looks from its father and its heating powers from the +mother's side of the family. And the plumbing fixtures were of the type +that passed out of general use on the American side of the water with +the Rutherford B. Hayes administration. I was given to understand +that this was a fair sample of the average residential London +bathroom--though the newer apartment houses that are going up have +better ones, they told me. + +In English country houses the dearth of bathing appliances must be even +more dearthful. I ran through the columns of the leading English fashion +journal and read the descriptions of the large country places that were +there offered for sale or lease. In many instances the advertisements +were accompanied by photographic reproductions in half tone showing +magnificent old places, with Queen Anne fronts and Tudor towers and +Elizabethan entails and Georgian mortgages, and what not. + +Seeing these views I could conjure up visions of rooks cawing in the +elms; of young curates in flat hats imbibing tea on green lawns; of +housekeepers named Meadows or Fleming, in rustling black silk; of old +Giles--fifty years, man and boy, on the place--wearing a smock frock +and leaning on a pitchfork, with a wisp of hay caught in the tines, +lamenting that the 'All 'asn't been the same, zur, since the young +marster was killed ridin' to 'ounds; and then pensively wiping his eyes +on a stray strand of the hay. + +With no great stretch of the imagination I could picture a gouty, morose +old lord with a secret sorrow and a brandy breath; I could picture a +profligate heir going deeper and deeper in debt, but refusing to the +bitter end to put the ax to the roots of the ancestral oaks. I could +imagine these parties readily, because I had frequently read about both +of them in the standard English novels; and I had seen them depicted in +all the orthodox English dramas I ever patronized. But I did not +notice in the appended descriptions any extended notice of heating +arrangements; most of the advertisements seemed to slur over that point +altogether. + +And, as regards bathing facilities in their relation to the capacities +of these country places, I quote at random from the figures given: +Eighteen rooms and one bath; sixteen rooms and two baths; fourteen rooms +and one bath; twenty-one rooms and two baths; eleven rooms and one bath; +thirty-four rooms and two baths. Remember that by rooms bedrooms were +meant; the reception rooms and parlors and dining halls and offices, and +the like, were listed separately. + +I asked a well-informed Englishman how he could reconcile this +discrepancy between bedrooms and bathrooms with the current belief that +the English had a practical monopoly of the habit of bathing. After +considering the proposition at some length he said I should understand +there was a difference in England between taking a bath and taking a +tub--that, though an Englishman might not be particularly addicted to +a bath, he must have his tub every morning. But I submit that the facts +prove this explanation to have been but a feeble subterfuge. + +Let us, for an especially conspicuous example, take the house that has +thirty-four sleeping chambers and only two baths. Let us imagine the +house to be full of guests, with every bedroom occupied; and, if it is +possible to do so without blushing, let us further imagine a couple +of pink-and-white English gentlemen in the two baths. If preferable, +members of the opposite sex may imagine two ladies. Very well, then; +this leaves the occupants of thirty-two bedrooms all to be provided +with large tin tubs at approximately the same hour of the morning. Where +would any household muster the crews to man all those portable tin tubs? +And where would the proprietor keep his battery of thirty-two tubs when +they were not in use? Not in the family picture gallery, surely! + +From my readings of works of fiction describing the daily life of the +English upper classes I know full well that the picture gallery is lined +with family portraits; that each canvased countenance there shows the +haughtily aquiline but slightly catarrhal nose, which is a heritage +of this house; that each pair of dark and brooding eyes hide in their +depths the shadow of that dread Nemesis which, through all the fateful +centuries, has dogged this brave but ill-starred race until now, alas! +the place must be let, furnished, to some beastly creature in trade, +such as an American millionaire. + +Here at this end we have the founder of the line, dubbed a knight on the +gory field of Hastings; and there at that end we have the present heir, +a knighted dub. We know they cannot put the tubs in the family picture +gallery; there is no room. They need an armory for that outfit, and no +armory is specified in the advertisement. + +So I, for one, must decline to be misled or deceived by specious +generalities. If you are asking me my opinion I shall simply say that +the bathing habit of Merrie England is a venerable myth, and likewise +so is the fresh-air fetish. The error an Englishman makes is that he +mistakes cold air for fresh air. + +In cold weather an Englishman arranges a few splintered jackstraws, +kindling fashion, in an open grate somewhat resembling in size and +shape a wallpocket for bedroom slippers. On this substructure he gently +deposits one or more carboniferous nodules the size of a pigeon egg, and +touches a match to the whole. In the more fortunate instances the result +is a small, reddish ember smoking intermittently. He stands by and +feeds the glow with a dessert-spoonful of fuel administered at half-hour +intervals, and imagines he really has a fire and that he is really being +warmed. + +Why the English insist on speaking of coal in the plural when they use +it only in the singular is more than I can understand. Conceded that +we overheat our houses and our railroad trains and our hotel lobbies +in America, nevertheless we do heat them. In winter their interiors are +warmer and less damp than the outer air--which is more than can be said +for the lands across the sea, where you have to go outdoors to thaw. + +If there are any outdoor sleeping porches in England I missed them when +I was there; but as regards the ventilation of an English hotel I may +speak with authority, having patronized one. To begin with, the windows +have heavy shades. Back of these in turn are folding blinds; then long, +close curtains of muslin; then, finally, thick, manifolding, shrouding +draperies of some airproof woolen stuff. At nighttime the maid enters +your room, seals the windows, pulls down the shades, locks the shutters, +closes the curtains, draws the draperies--and then, I think, calks all +the cracks with oakum. When the occupant of that chamber retires to rest +he is as hermetic as old Rameses the First, safe in his tomb, ever dared +to hope to be. That reddish aspect of the face noted in connection with +the average Englishman is not due to fresh air, as has been popularly +supposed; it is due to the lack of it. It is caused by congestion. For +years he has been going along, trying to breathe without having the +necessary ingredients at hand. + +At that, England excels the rest of Europe in fresh air, just as it +excels it in the matter of bathing facilities. There is some fresh air +left in England--an abundant supply in warm weather, and a stray bit +here and there in cold. On the Continent there is none to speak of. + + + + +Chapter IV + + + +Jacques, the Forsaken + +In Germany the last fresh air was used during the Thirty Years' War, +and there has since been no demand for any. Austria has no fresh air at +all--never did have any, and therefore has never felt the need of having +any. Italy--the northern part of it anyhow--is also reasonably shy of +this commodity. + +In the German-speaking countries all street cars and all railway trains +sail with battened hatches. In their palmiest days the Jimmy Hope gang +could not have opened a window in a German sleeping car--not without +blasting; and trying to open a window in the ordinary first or second +class carriage provides healthful exercise for an American tourist, +while affording a cheap and simple form of amusement for his fellow +passengers. If, by superhuman efforts and at the cost of a fingernail +or two, he should get one open, somebody else in the compartment as +a matter of principle, immediately objects; and the retired +brigadier-general, who is always in charge of a German train, comes +and seals it up again, for that is the rule and the law; and then the +natives are satisfied and sit in sweet content together, breathing a +line of second-handed air that would choke a salamander. + +Once, a good many years ago--in the century before the last I think it +was--a member of the Teutonic racial stock was accidentally caught out +in the fresh air and some of it got into his lungs. And, being a strange +and a foreign influence to which the lungs were unused, it sickened +him; in fact I am not sure but that it killed him on the spot. So the +emperors of Germany and Austria got together and issued a joint ukase on +the subject and, so far as the traveling public was concerned, forever +abolished those dangerous experiments. Over there they think a draft is +deadly, and I presume it is if you have never tampered with one. They +have a saying: A little window is a dangerous thing. + +As with fresh air on the Continent, so also with baths--except perhaps +more so. In deference to the strange and unaccountable desires of +their English-speaking guests the larger hotels in Paris are abundantly +equipped with bathrooms now, but the Parisian boulevardiers continue to +look with darkling suspicion on a party who will deliberately immerse +his person in cold water; their beings seem to recoil in horror from the +bare prospect of such a thing. It is plainly to be seen they think his +intelligence has been attainted by cold water externally applied; they +fear that through a complete undermining of his reason he may next be +committing these acts of violence on innocent bystanders rather than on +himself, as in the present distressing stages of his mania. Especially, +I would say, is this the attitude of the habitue of Montmartre. + +I can offer no visual proof to back my word; but by other testimony I +venture the assertion that when a boulevardier feels the need of a bath +he hangs a musk bag round his neck--and then, as the saying is, the +warmer the sweeter. His companion of the gentler sex apparently has the +same idea of performing daily ablutions that a tabby cat has. You recall +the tabby-cat system, do you not?--two swipes over the brow with the +moistened paw, one forward swipe over each ear, a kind of circular +rubbing effect across the face--and call it a day! Drowning must be the +most frightful death that a Parisian sidewalk favorite can die. It is +not so much the death itself--it is the attendant circumstances. + +Across the river, in the older quarters of Paris, there is excitement +when anybody on the block takes a bath--not so much excitement as for a +fire, perhaps, but more than for a funeral. On the eve of the fatal day +the news spreads through the district that to-morrow poor Jacques is +going to take a bath! A further reprieve has been denied him. He cannot +put it off for another month, or even for another two weeks. His doom is +nigh at hand; there is no hope--none! + +Kindly old Angeline, the midwife, shakes her head sadly as she goes +about her simple duties. + +On the morrow the condemned man rises early and sees his spiritual +adviser. He eats a hearty breakfast, takes an affectionate leave of his +family and says he is prepared for the worst. At the appointed hour the +tumbrel enters the street, driven by the paid executioner--a descendant +of the original Sanson--and bearing the dread instrument of punishment, +a large oblong tin tub. + +The rumble of the heavy wheels over the cobbles seems to wake an +agonized chord in every bosom. To-day this dread visitation descends on +Jacques; but who can tell--so the neighbors say to themselves--when the +same fate may strike some other household now happily unconscious! All +along the narrow way sorrow-drooped heads protrude in rows; from every +casement dangle whiskers, lank and stringy with sympathy--for in this +section every true Frenchman has whiskers, and if by chance he has not +his wife has; so that there are whiskers for all. + +From the window of the doomed wretch's apartments a derrick protrudes--a +crossarm with a pulley and a rope attached. It bears a grimly +significant resemblance to a gallows tree. Under the direction of the +presiding functionary the tub is made fast to the tackle and hoisted +upward as pianos and safes are hoisted in American cities. It halts at +the open casement. It vanishes within. The whole place resounds with low +murmurs of horror and commiseration. + +Ah, the poor Jacques--how he must suffer! Hark to that low, sickening +thud! 'Tis the accursed soap dropping from his nerveless grasp. Hist to +that sound--like unto a death rattle! It is the water gurgling in the +tub. And what means that low, poignant, smothered gasp? It is the last +convulsive cry of Jacques descending into the depths. All is over! Let +us pray! + +The tub, emptied but stained, is lowered to the waiting cart. The +executioner kisses the citizen who has held his horse for him during his +absence and departs; the whole district still hums with ill-suppressed +excitement. Questions fly from tongue to tongue. Was the victim brave +at the last? Was he resigned when the dread moment came? And how is the +family bearing up? It is hours before the place settles down again to +that calm which will endure for another month, until somebody else takes +a bath on a physician's prescription. + +Even in the sanctity of a Paris hotel a bath is more or less a public +function unless you lock your door. All sorts of domestic servitors +drift in, filled with a morbid curiosity to see how a foreigner deports +himself when engaged in this strange, barbaric rite. On the occasion of +my first bath on French soil, after several of the hired help had +thus called on me informally, causing me to cower low in my porcelain +retreat, I took advantage of a moment of comparative quiet to rise +drippingly and draw the latch. I judged the proprietor would be along +next, and I was not dressed for him. The Lady Susanna of whom mention +has previously been made must have stopped at a French hotel at some +time of her life. This helps us to understand why she remained so calm +when the elders happened in. + +Even as now practiced, bathing still remains a comparative novelty +in the best French circles, I imagine. I base this presumption on +observations made during a visit to Versailles. I went to Versailles; +I trod with reverent step those historic precincts adorned with art +treasures uncountable, with curios magnificent, with relics invaluable. +I visited the little palace and the big; I ventured deep into that +splendid forest where, in the company of ladies regarding whom there has +been a good deal of talk subsequently, France's Grandest and Merriest +Monarch disported himself. And I found out what made the Merriest +Monarch merry--so far as I could see, there was not a bathroom on the +place. He was a true Frenchman--was Louis the Fourteenth. + +In Berlin, at the Imperial Palace, our experience was somewhat similar. +Led by a guide we walked through acres of state drawing rooms and state +dining rooms and state reception rooms and state picture rooms; and +we were told that most of them--or, at least, many of them--were the +handiwork of the late Andreas Schluter. The deceased Schluter was an +architect, a painter, a sculptor, a woodcarver, a decorator, all rolled +into one. He was the George M. Cohan of his time; and I think he also +played the clarinet, being a German. + +We traversed miles of these Schluter masterpieces. Eventually we heard +sounds of martial music without, and we went to a window overlooking a +paved courtyard; and from that point we presently beheld a fine sight. +For the moment the courtyard was empty, except that in the center stood +a great mass of bronze--by Schluter, I think--a heroic equestrian statue +of Saint George in the act of destroying the first adulterated German +sausage. But in a minute the garrison turned out; and then in through +an arched gateway filed the relief guard headed by a splendid band, +with bell-hung standards jingling at the head of the column and young +officers stalking along as stiff as ramrods, and soldiers marching with +the goosestep. + +In the German army the private who raises his knee the highest and +sticks his shank out ahead of him the straightest, and slams his foot +down the hardest and jars his brain the painfulest, is promoted to be +a corporal and given a much heavier pair of shoes, so that he may make +more noise and in time utterly destroy his reason. The goosestep would +be a great thing for destroying grasshoppers or cutworms in a plague +year in a Kansas wheatfield. + +At the Kaiser's palace we witnessed all these sights, but we did not run +across any bathrooms or any bathtubs. However, we were in the public end +of the establishment and I regard it as probable that in the other wing, +where the Kaiser lives when at home, there are plenty of bathrooms. I +did not investigate personally. The Kaiser was out at Potsdam and I did +not care to call in his absence. + +Bathrooms are plentiful at the hotel where we stopped at Berlin. I had +rather hoped to find the bedroom equipped with an old-fashioned German +feather bed. I had heard that one scaled the side of a German bed on +a stepladder and then fell headlong into its smothering folds like +a gallant fireman invading a burning rag warehouse; but this hotel +happened to be the best hotel that I ever saw outside the United States. +It had been built and it was managed on American lines, plus German +domestic service--which made an incomparable combination--and it was +furnished with modern beds and provided with modern bathrooms. + +Probably as a delicate compliment to the Kaiser, the bathtowels were +starched until the fringes at the ends bristled up stiffly a-curl, +like the ends of His Imperial Majesty's equally imperial mustache. Just +once--and once only--I made the mistake of rubbing myself with one +of those towels just as it was. I should have softened it first by a +hackling process, as we used to hackle the hemp in Kentucky; but I did +not. For two days I felt like an etching. I looked something like one +too. + +In Vienna we could not get a bedroom with a bathroom attached--they did +not seem to have any--but we were told there was a bathroom just across +the hall which we might use with the utmost freedom. This bathroom was +a large, long, loftly, marble-walled vault. It was as cold as a tomb +and as gloomy as one, and very smelly. Indeed it greatly resembled the +pictures I have seen of the sepulcher of an Egyptian king--only I would +have said that this particular king had been skimpily embalmed by the +royal undertakers in the first place, and then imperfectly packed. The +bathtub was long and marked with scars, and it looked exactly like +a rifled mummy case with the lid missing, which added greatly to the +prevalent illusion. + +We used this bathroom ad lib.: but when I went to pay the bill I found +an official had been keeping tabs on us, and that all baths taken had +been charged up at the rate of sixty cents apiece. I had provided my own +soap too! For that matter the traveler provides his own soap everywhere +in Europe, outside of England. In some parts soap is regarded as an +edible and in some as a vice common to foreigners; but everywhere except +in the northern countries it is a curio. + +So in Vienna they made us furnish our own soap and then charged us more +for a bath than they did for a meal. Still, by their standards, I dare +say they were right. A meal is a necessity, but a bath is an exotic +luxury; and, since they have no extensive tariff laws in Austria, it is +but fair that the foreigner should pay the tax. I know I paid mine, one +way or another. + +Speaking of bathing reminds me of washing; and speaking of washing +reminds me of an adventure I had in Vienna in connection with a white +waistcoat--or, as we would call it down where I was raised, a dress +vest. This vest had become soiled through travel and wear across +Europe. At Vienna I intrusted it to the laundry along with certain other +garments. When the bundle came back my vest was among the missing. + +The maid did not seem to be able to comprehend the brand of German I use +in casual conversation; so, through an interpreter, I explained to her +that I was shy one white vest. For two days she brought all sorts of +vests and submitted them to me on approval--thin ones and thick ones; +old ones and new ones; slick ones and woolly ones; fringed ones and +frayed ones. I think the woman had a private vest mine somewhere, and +went and tapped a fresh vein on my account every few minutes; but it +never was the right vest she brought me. + +Finally I told her in my best German, meantime accompanying myself with +appropriate yet graceful gestures, that she need not concern herself +further with the affair; she could just let the matter drop and I would +interview the manager and put in a claim for the value of the lost +garment. She looked at me dazedly a moment while I repeated the +injunction more painstakingly than before; and, at that, understanding +seemed to break down the barriers of her reason and she said, "Ja! Ja!" +Then she nodded emphatically several times, smiled and hurried away and +in twenty minutes was back, bringing with her a begging friar of some +monastic order or other. + +I would take it as a personal favor if some student of the various +Teutonic tongues and jargons would inform me whether there is any word +in Viennese for white vest that sounds like Catholic priest! However, we +prayed together--that brown brother and I. I do not know what he prayed +for, but I prayed for my vest. + +I never got it though. I doubt whether my prayer ever reached heaven--it +had such a long way to go. It is farther from Vienna to heaven than from +any other place in the world, I guess--unless it is Paris. That vest is +still wandering about the damp-filled corridors of that hotel, mooing in +a plaintive manner for its mate--which is myself. It will never find +a suitable adopted parent. It was especially coopered to my form by an +expert clothing contractor, and it will not fit anyone else. No; it will +wander on and on, the starchy bulge of its bosom dimly phosphorescent in +the gloaming, its white pearl buttons glimmering spectrally; and after a +while the hotel will get the reputation of being haunted by the ghost +of a flour barrel, and will have a bad name and lose custom. I hope so +anyway. It looks to be my one chance of getting even with the owner for +penalizing me in the matter of baths. + +From Vienna we went southward into the Tyrolese Alps. It was a wonderful +ride--that ride through the Semmering and on down to Northern Italy. Our +absurdly short little locomotive, drawing our absurdly long train, went +boring in and out of a wrinkly shoulder-seam of the Tyrols like a stubby +needle going through a tuck. I think in thirty miles we threaded thirty +tunnels; after that I was practically asphyxiated and lost count. + +If I ever take that journey again I shall wear a smoke helmet and be +comfortable. But always between tunnels there were views to be seen +that would have revived one of the Seven Sleepers. Now, on the +great-granddaddy-longlegs of all the spidery trestles that ever were +built, we would go roaring across a mighty gorge, its sides clothed +with perpendicular gardens and vineyards, and with little gray towns +clustering under the ledges on its sheer walls like mud-daubers' nests +beneath an eave. Now, perched on a ridgy outcrop of rock like a single +tooth in a snaggled reptilian jaw, would be a deserted tower, making a +fellow think of the good old feudal days when the robber barons robbed +the traveler instead of as at present, when the job is so completely +attended to by the pirates who weigh and register baggage in these +parts. + +Then--whish, roar, eclipse, darkness and sulphureted hydrogen!--we +would dive into another tunnel and out again--gasping--on a breathtaking +panorama of mountains. Some of them would be standing up against the sky +like the jagged top of a half-finished cutout puzzle, and some would +be buried so deeply in clouds that only their peaked blue noses showed +sharp above the featherbed mattresses of mist in which they were +snuggled, as befitted mountains of Teutonic extraction. And nearly every +eminence was crowned with a ruined castle or a hotel. It was easy to +tell a hotel from a ruin--it had a sign over the door. + +At one of those hotels I met up with a homesick American. He was +marooned there in the rain, waiting for the skies to clear, so he could +do some mountain climbing; and he was beginning to get moldy from +the prevalent damp. By now the study of bathing habits had become an +obsession with me; I asked him whether he had encountered any bathtubs +about the place. He said a bathtub in those altitudes was as rare as a +chamois, and the chamois was entirely extinct; so I might make my own +calculations. But he said he could show me something that was even a +greater curiosity than a bathtub, and he led me to where a moonfaced +barometer hung alongside the front entrance of the hotel. + +He said he had been there a week now and had about lost hope; but every +time he threatened to move on, the proprietor would take him out there +and prove that they were bound to have clearing weather within a few +hours, because the barometer registered fair. At that moment streams of +chilly rain-water were coursing down across the dial of the barometer, +but it registered fair even then. He said--the American did--that it +was the most stationary barometer he had ever seen, and the most +reliable--not vacillating and given to moods, like most barometers, but +fixed and unchangeable in its habits. + +I matched it, though, with a thermometer I saw in the early spring of +1913 at a coast resort in southern California. An Eastern tourist would +venture out on the windswept and drippy veranda, of a morning after +breakfast. He would think he was cold. He would have many of the outward +indications of being cold. His teeth would be chattering like a Morse +sounder, and inside his white-duck pants his knees would be knocking +together with a low, muffled sound. He would be so prickled with +gooseflesh that he felt like Saint Sebastian; but he would take a look +at the thermometer--sixty-one in the shade! And such was the power of +mercury and mind combined over matter that he would immediately chirk up +and feel warm. + +Not a hundred yards away, at a drug store, was one of those +fickle-minded, variable thermometers, showing a temperature that ranged +from fifty-five on downward to forty; but the hotel thermometer stood +firm at sixty-one, no matter what happened. In a season of trying +climatic conditions it was a great comfort--a boon really--not only to +its owner but to his guests. Speaking personally, however, I have no +need to consult the barometer's face to see what the weather is going to +do, or the thermometer's tube to see what it has done. No person needs +to do so who is favored naturally as I am. I have one of the most +dependable soft corns in the business. + +Rome is full of baths--vast ruined ones erected by various emperors and +still bearing their names--such as Caracalla's Baths and Titus' Baths, +and so on. Evidently the ancient Romans were very fond of taking baths. + +Other striking dissimilarities between the ancient Romans and the modern +Romans are perceptible at a glance. + + + + +Chapter V + + + +When the Seven A.M. Tut-tut leaves for Anywhere + +Being desirous of tendering sundry hints and observations to such of my +fellow countrymen as may contemplate trips abroad I shall, with their +kindly permission, devote this chapter to setting forth briefly the +following principles, which apply generally to railroad travel in the +Old World. + +First--On the Continent all trains leave at or about seven A.M. and +reach their destination at or about eleven P.M. You may be going a long +distance or a short one--it makes no difference; you leave at seven +and you arrive at eleven. The few exceptions to this rule are of no +consequence and do not count. + +Second--A trunk is the most costly luxury known to European travel. If I +could sell my small, shrinking and flat-chested steamer trunk--original +value in New York eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents--for what it +cost me over on the other side in registration fees, excess charges, +mental wear and tear, freightage, forwarding and warehousing bills, +tips, bribes, indulgences, and acts of barratry and piracy, I should +be able to laugh in the income tax's face. In this connection I would +suggest to the tourist who is traveling with a trunk that he begin his +land itinerary in Southern Italy and work northward; thereby, through +the gradual shrinkage in weight, he will save much money on his trunk, +owing to the pleasing custom among the Italian trainhands of prying it +open and making a judicious selection from its contents for personal use +and for gifts to friends and relatives. + +Third--For the sake of the experience, travel second class once; after +that travel first class--and try to forget the experience. With the +exception of two or three special-fare, so-called de-luxe trains, first +class over there is about what the service was on an accommodation, +mixed-freight-and-passenger train in Arkansas immediately following the +close of the Civil War. + +Fourth--When buying a ticket for anywhere you will receive a cunning +little booklet full of detachable leaves, the whole constituting a +volume about the size and thickness of one of those portfolios of +views that came into popularity with us at the time of the Philadelphia +Centennial. Surrender a sheet out of your book on demand of the +uniformed official who will come through the train at from five to seven +minute intervals. However, he will collect only a sheet every other +trip; on the alternate trips he will merely examine your ticket with the +air of never having seen it before, and will fold it over, and perforate +it with his punching machine and return it to you. By the time you reach +your destination nothing will be left but the cover; but do not cast +this carelessly aside; retain it until you are filing out of the +terminal, when it will be taken up by a haughty voluptuary with +whiskers. If you have not got it you cannot escape. You will have to +go back and live on the train, which is, indeed, a frightful fate to +contemplate. + +Fifth--Reach the station half an hour before the train starts and claim +your seat; then tip the guard liberally to keep other passengers out of +your compartment. He has no intention of doing so, but it is customary +for Americans to go through this pleasing formality--and it is expected +of them. + +Sixth--Tip everybody on the train who wears a uniform. Be not afraid of +hurting some one's feelings by offering a tip to the wrong person. +There will not be any wrong person. A tip is the one form of insult that +anybody in Europe will take. + +Seventh--Before entering the train inhale deeply several times. This +will be your last chance of getting any fresh air until you reach your +destination. For self-defense against the germ life prevailing in the +atmosphere of the unventilated compartments, smoke a German cigar. A +German cigar keeps off any disease except the cholera; it gives you the +cholera. + +Eighth--Do not linger on the platform, waiting for the locomotive +whistle to blow, or the bell to ring, or somebody to yell "All aboard!" +If you do this you will probably keep on lingering until the following +morning at seven. As a starting signal the presiding functionary renders +a brief solo on a tiny tin trumpet. One puny warning blast from this +instrument sets the whole train in motion. It makes you think of Gabriel +bringing on the Day of Judgment by tootling on a penny whistle. +Another interesting point: The engine does not say Choo-choo as in our +country--it says Tut-tut. + +Ninth--In England, for convenience in claiming your baggage, change your +name to Xenophon or Zymology--there are always about the baggage +such crowds of persons who have the commoner initials, such as T for +Thompson, J for Jones, and S for Smith. When next I go to England my +name will be Zoroaster--Quintus P. Zoroaster. + +Tenth--If possible avoid patronizing the so-called refreshment wagons +or dining cars, which are expensive and uniformly bad. Live off the +country. Remember, the country is living off you. + + + + +Chapter VI + + + +La Belle France Being the First Stop + +Except eighty or ninety other things the British Channel was the most +disappointing thing we encountered in our travels. All my reading on +this subject had led me to expect that the Channel would be very choppy +and that we should all be very seasick. Nothing of the sort befell. The +channel may have been suetty but it was not choppy. The steamer that +ferried us over ran as steadily as a clock and everybody felt as fine as +a fiddle. + +A friend of mine whom I met six weeks later in Florence had better luck. +He crossed on an occasion when a test was being made of a device for +preventing seasickness. A Frenchman was the inventor and also the +experimenter. This Frenchman had spent valuable years of his life +perfecting his invention. It resembled a hammock swung between uprights. +The supports were to be bolted to the deck of the ship, and when the +Channel began to misbehave the squeamish passenger would climb into the +hammock and fasten himself in; and then, by a system of reciprocating +oscillations, the hammock would counteract the motion of the ship +and the occupant would rest in perfect comfort no matter how high she +pitched or how deep she rolled. At least such was the theory of the +inventor; and to prove it he offered himself as the subject for the +first actual demonstration. + +The result was unexpected. The sea was only moderately rough; but that +patent hammock bucked like a kicking bronco. The poor Frenchman was the +only seasick person aboard--but he was sick enough for the whole crowd. +He was seasick with a Gallic abandon; he was seasick both ways from the +jack, and other ways too. He was strapped down so he could not get out, +which added no little to the pleasure of the occasion for everybody +except himself. When the steamer landed the captain of the boat told +the distressed owner that, in his opinion, the device was not suited for +steamer use. He advised him to rent it to a riding academy. + +In crossing from Dover to Calais we had thought we should be going +merely from one country to another; we found we had gone from one world +to another. That narrow strip of uneasy water does not separate two +countries--it separates two planets. + +Gone were the incredible stiffness and the incurable honesty of the +race that belonged over yonder on those white chalk cliffs dimly visible +along the horizon. Gone were the phlegm and stolidity of those people +who manifest emotion only on the occasions when they stand up to sing +their national anthem: + + God save the King! + The Queen is doing well! + +Gone were the green fields of Sussex, which looked as though they had +been taken in every night and brushed and dry-cleaned and then put down +again in the morning. Gone were the trees that Maxfield Parrish might +have painted, so vivid were they in their burnished green-and-yellow +coloring, so spectacular in their grouping. Gone was the five-franc note +which I had intrusted to a sandwich vender on the railroad platform +in the vain hope that he would come back with the change. After that +clincher there was no doubt about it--we were in La Belle France all +right, all right! + +Everything testified to the change. From the pier where we landed, a +small boy, in a long black tunic belted in at his waist, was fishing; +he hooked a little fingerling. At the first tentative tug on his line he +set up a shrill clamor. At that there came running a fat, kindly looking +old priest in a long gown and a shovel hat; and a market woman came, +who had arms like a wrestler and skirts that stuck out like a ballet +dancer's; and a soldier in baggy red pants came; and thirty or forty +others of all ages and sizes came--and they gathered about that small +boy and gave him advice at the top of their voices. And when he yanked +out the shining little silver fish there could not have been more +animation and enthusiasm and excitement if he had landed a full-grown +Presbyterian. + +They were still congratulating him when we pulled out and went tearing +along on our way to Paris, scooting through quaint, stone-walled cities, +each one dominated by its crumbly old cathedral; sliding through open +country where the fields were all diked and ditched with small canals +and bordered with poplars trimmed so that each tree looked like a set of +undertaker's whiskers pointing the wrong way. + +And in these fields were peasants in sabots at work, looking as +though they had just stepped out of one of Millet's pictures. Even the +haystacks and the scarecrows were different. In England the haystacks +had been geometrically correct in their dimensions--so square and firm +and exact that sections might be sliced off them like cheese, and doors +and windows might be carved in them; but these French haystacks were +devil-may-care haystacks wearing tufts on their polls like headdresses. +The windmills had a rakish air; and the scarecrows in the truck gardens +were debonair and cocky, tilting themselves back on their pins the +better to enjoy the view and fluttering their ragged vestments in a most +jaunty fashion. The land though looked poor--it had a driven, overworked +look to it. + +Presently, above the clacking voice of our train, we heard a whining +roar without; and peering forth we beheld almost over our heads a big +monoplane racing with us. It seemed a mighty, winged Thunder Lizard that +had come back to link the Age of Stone with the Age of Air. On second +thought I am inclined to believe the Thunder Lizard did not flourish in +the Stone Age; but if you like the simile as much as I like it we will +just let it stand. + +Three times on that trip we saw from the windows of our train aviators +out enjoying the cool of the evening in their airships; and each time +the natives among the passengers jammed into the passageway that flanked +the compartments and speculated regarding the identity of the aviators +and the make of their machines, and argued and shrugged their shoulders +and quarreled and gesticulated. The whole thing was as Frenchy as tripe +in a casserole. + +I was wrong, though, a minute ago when I said there remained nothing to +remind us of the right little, tight little island we had just quit; for +we had two Englishmen in our compartment--fit and proper representatives +of a certain breed of Englishman. They were tall and lean, and had the +languid eyes and the long, weary faces and the yellow buck teeth of +weary cart-horses, and they each wore a fixed expression of intense +gloom. You felt sure it was a fixed expression because any person with +such an expression would change it if he could do so by anything short +of a surgical operation. And it was quite evident they had come mentally +prepared to disapprove of all things and all people in a foreign clime. + +Silently, but none the less forcibly, they resented the circumstance +that others should be sharing the same compartment with them--or sharing +the same train, either, for that matter. The compartment was full, too, +which made the situation all the more intolerable: an elderly English +lady with a placid face under a mid-Victorian bonnet; a young, pretty +woman who was either English or American; the two members of my party, +and these two Englishmen. + +And when, just as the train was drawing out of Calais, they discovered +that the best two seats, which they had promptly preempted, belonged +to others, and that the seats for which they held reservations +faced rearward, so that they must ride with their backs to the +locomotive--why, that irked them sore and more. I imagine they wrote a +letter to the London Times about it afterward. + +As is the pleasing habit of traveling Englishmen, they had brought with +them everything portable they owned. Each one had four or five large +handbags, and a carryall, and a hat box, and his tea-caddy, and his +plaid blanket done up in a shawlstrap, and his framed picture of the +Death of Nelson--and all the rest of it; and they piled those things in +the luggage racks until both the racks were chock-full; so the rest of +us had to hold our baggage in our laps or sit on it. One of them was +facing me not more than five or six feet distant. He never saw me +though. He just gazed steadily through me, studying the pattern of the +upholstery on the seat behind me; and I could tell by his look that he +did not care for the upholstering--as very naturally he would not, it +being French. + +We had traveled together thus for some hours when one of them began to +cloud up for a sneeze. He tried to sidetrack it, but it would not be +sidetracked. The rest of us, looking on, seemed to hear that sneeze +coming from a long way off. It reminded me of a musical-sketch team +giving an imitation of a brass band marching down Main Street playing +the Turkish Patrol--dim and faint at first, you know, and then growing +louder and stronger, and gathering volume until it bursts right in your +face. + +Fascinated, we watched his struggles. Would he master it or would it +master him? But he lost, and it was probably a good thing he did. If he +had swallowed that sneeze it would have drowned him. His nose jibed and +went about; his head tilted back farther and farther; his countenance +expressed deep agony, and then the log jam at the bend in his nose went +out with a roar and he let loose the moistest, loudest kerswoosh! that +ever was, I reckon. + +He sneezed eight times. The first sneeze unbuttoned his waistcoat, the +second unparted his hair, and the third one almost pulled his shoes off; +and after that they grew really violent, until the last sneeze shifted +his cargo and left him with a list to port and his lee scuppers awash. +It made a ruin of him--the Prophet Isaiah could not have remained +dignified wrestling with a sneezing bee of those dimensions--but oh, how +it did gladden the rest of us to behold him at the mercy of the elements +and to note what a sodden, waterlogged wreck they made of him! + +It was not long after that before we had another streak of luck. +The train jolted over something and a hat fell down from the topmost +pinnacle of the mountain of luggage above and hit his friend on the +nose. We should have felt better satisfied if it had been a coal +scuttle; but it was a reasonably hard and heavy hat and it hit him brim +first on the tenderest part of his nose and made his eyes water, and we +were grateful enough for small blessings. One should not expect too much +of an already overworked Providence. + +The rest of us were still warm and happy in our souls when, without any +whistle-tooting or bell-clanging or station-calling, we slid silently, +almost surreptitiously, into the Gare du Nord, at Paris. Neither in +England nor on the mainland does anyone feel called on to notify you +that you have reached your destination. + +It is like the old formula for determining the sex of a pigeon--you give +the suspected bird some corn, and if he eats it he is a he; but if she +eats it she is a she. In Europe if it is your destination you get off, +and if it is not your destination you stay on. On this occasion we +stayed on, feeling rather forlorn and helpless, until we saw that +everyone else had piled off. We gathered up our belongings and piled off +too. + +By that time all the available porters had been engaged; so we took up +our luggage and walked. We walked the length of the trainshed--and then +we stepped right into the recreation hall of the State Hospital for the +Criminal Insane, at Matteawan, New York. I knew the place instantly, +though the decorations had been changed since I was there last. It was +a joy to come on a home institution so far from home--joysome, but a +trifle disconcerting too, because all the keepers had died or gone on +strike or something; and the lunatics, some of them being in uniform +and some in civilian dress, were leaping from crag to crag, uttering +maniacal shrieks. + +Divers lunatics, who had been away and were just getting back, and +sundry lunatics who were fixing to go away and apparently did not expect +ever to get back, were dashing headlong into the arms of still other +lunatics, kissing and hugging them, and exchanging farewells and +sacre-bleuing with them in the maddest fashion imaginable. From time to +time I laid violent hands on a flying, flitting maniac and detained him +against his will, and asked him for some directions; but the persons to +whom I spoke could not understand me, and when they answered I could not +understand them; so we did not make much headway by that. I could not +get out of that asylum until I had surrendered the covers of our ticket +books and claimed our baggage and put it through the customs office. I +knew that; the trouble was I could not find the place for attending to +these details. On a chance I tried a door, but it was distinctly the +wrong place; and an elderly female on duty there got me out by employing +the universal language known of all peoples. She shook her skirts at me +and said Shoo! So I got out, still toting five or six bags and bundles +of assorted sizes and shapes, and tried all the other doors in sight. + +Finally, by a process of elimination and deduction, I arrived at the +right one. To make it harder for me they had put it around a corner +in an elbow-shaped wing of the building and had taken the sign off the +door. This place was full of porters and loud cries. To be on the safe +side I tendered retaining fees to three of the porters; and thus by +the time I had satisfied the customs officials that I had no imported +spirits or playing cards or tobacco or soap, or other contraband goods, +and had cleared our baggage and started for the cabstand, we amounted +to quite a stately procession and attracted no little attention as we +passed along. But the tips I had to hand out before the taxi started +would stagger the human imagination if I told you the sum total. + +There are few finer things than to go into Paris for the first time on a +warm, bright Saturday night. At this moment I can think of but one finer +thing--and that is when, wearied of being short-changed and bilked and +double-charged, and held up for tips or tribute at every step, you are +leaving Paris on a Saturday night--or, in fact, any night. + +Those first impressions of the life on the boulevards are going to stay +in my memory a long, long time--the people, paired off at the tables +of the sidewalk cafes, drinking drinks of all colors; a little shopgirl +wearing her new, cheap, fetching hat in such a way as to center public +attention on her head and divert it from her feet, which were shabby; +two small errand boys in white aprons, standing right in the middle of +the whirling, swirling traffic, in imminent peril of their lives, while +one lighted his cigarette butt from the cigarette butt of his friend; a +handful of roistering soldiers, singing as they swept six abreast +along the wide, rutty sidewalk; the kiosks for advertising, all thickly +plastered over with posters, half of which should have been in an art +gallery and the other half in a garbage barrel; a well-dressed pair, +kissing in the full glare of a street light; an imitation art student, +got up to look like an Apache, and--no doubt--plenty of real Apaches +got up to look like human beings; a silk-hatted gentleman, stopping +with perfect courtesy to help a bloused workman lift a baby-laden +baby carriage over an awkward spot in the curbing, and the workingman +returning thanks with the same perfect courtesy; our own driver, +careening along in a manner suggestive of what certain East Side friends +of mine would call the Chariot Race from Ben Hirsch; and a stout lady of +the middle class sitting under a cafe awning caressing her pet mole. + +To the Belgian belongs the credit of domesticating the formerly +ferocious Belgian hare, and the East Indian fakir makes a friend and +companion of the king cobra; but it remained for those ingenious people, +the Parisians, to tame the mole, which other races have always regarded +as unbeautiful and unornamental, and make a cunning little companion of +it and spend hours stroking its fleece. This particular mole belonging +to the stout middle-aged lady in question was one of the largest moles +and one of the curliest I ever saw. It was on the side of her nose. + +You see a good deal of mole culture going on here. Later, with the +reader's permission, we shall return to Paris and look its inhabitants +over at more length; but for the time being I think it well for us to be +on our travels. In passing I would merely state that on leaving a Paris +hotel you will tip everybody on the premises. + +Oh, yes--but you will! + +Let us move southward. Let us go to Sunny Italy, which is called Sunny +Italy for the same reason that the laughing hyena is called the laughing +hyena--not because he laughs so frequently, but because he laughs so +seldom. Let us go to Rome, the Eternal City, sitting on her Seven Hills, +remembering as we go along that the currency has changed and we no +longer compute sums of money in the franc but in the lira. I regret the +latter word is not pronounced as spelled--it would give me a chance to +say that the common coin of Italy is a lira, and that nearly everybody +in Rome is one also. + + + + +Chapter VII + + + +Thence On and On to Verbotenland + +Ah, Rome--the Roma of the Ancients--the Mistress of the Olden World--the +Sacred City! Ah, Rome, if only your stones could speak! It is customary +for the tourist, taking his cue from the guidebooks, to carry on like +this, forgetting in his enthusiasm that, even if they did speak, they +would doubtless speak Italian, which would leave him practically where +he was before. And so, having said it myself according to formula, I +shall proceed to state the actual facts: + +If, coming forth from a huge and dirty terminal, you emerge on a +splendid plaza, miserably paved, and see a priest, a soldier and a +beggar; a beautiful child wearing nothing at all to speak of, and a +hideous old woman with the eyes of a Madonna looking out of a tragic +mask of a face; a magnificent fountain, and nobody using the water, and +a great, overpowering smell--yes, you can see a Roman smell; a cart +mule with ten dollars' worth of trappings on him, and a driver with ten +cents' worth on him; a palace like a dream of stone, entirely surrounded +by nightmare hovels; a new, shiny, modern apartment house, and +shouldering up against it a cankered rubbish heap that was once the +playhouse of a Caesar, its walls bearded like a pard's face with tufted +laurel and splotched like a brandy drunkard's with red stains; a church +that is a dismal ruin without and a glittering Aladdin's Cave of gold +and gems and porphyry and onyx within; a wide and handsome avenue +starting from one festering stew of slums and ending in another +festering stew of slums; a grimed and broken archway opening on a lovely +hidden courtyard where trees are green and flowers bloom, and in the +center there stands a statue which is worth its weight in minted silver +and which carries more than its weight in dirt--if in addition everybody +in sight is smiling and good-natured and happy, and is trying to sell +you something or wheedle you out of something, or pick your pocket of +something--you need not, for confirmatory evidence, seek the vast dome +of St. Peter's rising yonder in the distance, or the green tops of the +cedars and the dusky clumps of olive groves on the hillsides beyond--you +know you are in Rome. + +To get the correct likeness of Naples we merely reduce the priests by +one-half and increase the beggars by two-thirds; we richen the color +masses, thicken the dirt, raise the smells to the Nth degree, and set +half the populace to singing. We establish in every second doorway a +mother with her offspring tucked between her knees and forcibly held +there while the mother searches the child's head for a flea; anyhow, it +is more charitable to say it is a flea; and we add a special touch of +gorgeousness to the street pictures. + +For here a cart is a glory of red tires and blue shafts, and green hubs +and pink body and purple tailgate, with a canopy on it that would have +suited Sheba's Queen; and the mule that draws the cart is caparisoned in +brass and plumage like a circus pony; and the driver wears a broad red +sash, part of a shirt, and half of a pair of pants--usually the front +half. With an outfit such as that, you feel he should be peddling aurora +borealises, or, at the very least, rainbows. It is a distinct shock to +find he has only chianti or cheeses or garbage in stock. + +In Naples, also, there is, even in the most prosaic thing, a sight to +gladden your eye if you but hold your nose while you look on it. On the +stalls of the truckvenders the cauliflowers and the cabbages are racked +up with an artistic effect we could scarcely equal if we had roses and +orchids to work with; the fishmonger's cart is a study in still life, +and the tripe is what artists call a harmonious interior. + +Nearly all the hotels in Italy are converted palaces. They may have +been successes as palaces, but, with their marble floors and their +high ceilings, and their dank, dark corridors, they distinctly fail to +qualify as hotels. I should have preferred them remaining unsaved and +sinful. I likewise observed a peculiarity common to hotelkeepers in +Italy--they all look like cats. The proprietor of the converted palace +where we stopped in Naples was the very image of a tomcat we used to +own, named Plutarch's Lives, which was half Maltese and half Mormon. +He was a cat that had a fine carrying voice--though better adapted for +concert work than parlor singing--and a sweetheart in every port. This +hotelkeeper might have been the cat's own brother with clothes on--he +had Plute's roving eye and his bristling whiskers and his sharp white +teeth, and Plute's silent, stealthy tread, and his way of purring softly +until he had won your confidence and then sticking his claw into you. +The only difference was, he stuck you with a bill instead of a claw. + +Another interesting idiosyncrasy of the Italian hotelkeeper is that he +invariably swears to you his town is the only honest town in Italy, but +begs you to beware of the next town which, he assures you with his hand +on the place where his heart would be if he had a heart, is full of +thieves and liars and counterfeit money and pickpockets. Half of what he +tells you is true--the latter half. + +The tourist agencies issue pamphlets telling how you may send money or +jewelry by registered mail in Italy, and then append a footnote warning +you against sending money or jewelry by registered mail in Italy. +Likewise you are constantly being advised against carrying articles +of value in your trunk, unless it is most carefully locked, bolted and +strapped. It is good advice too. + +An American I met on the boat coming home told me he failed to take such +precautions while traveling in Italy; and he said that when he reached +the Swiss border his trunk was so light he had to sit on it to keep it +from blowing off the bus on the way from the station to the hotel, and +so empty that when he opened it at both ends the draft whistling through +it gave him a bad cold. However, he may have exaggerated slightly. + +If you can forget that you are paying first-class prices for fourth-rate +accommodations--forget the dirt in the carriages and the smells in the +compartments--a railroad journey through the Italian Peninsula is a +wonderful experience. I know it was a wonderful experience for me. + +I shall not forget the old walled towns of stone perched precariously on +the sloping withers of razorbacked mountains--towns that were old when +the Saviour was born; or the ancient Roman aqueducts, all pocked and +pecked with age, looping their arches across the land for miles on +miles; or the fields, scored and scarified by three thousand years of +unremitting, relentless, everlasting agriculture; or the wide-horned +Italian cattle that browsed in those fields; or yet the woman who darted +to the door of every signal-house we passed and came to attention, with +a long cudgel held flat against her shoulder like a sentry's musket. + +I do not know why a woman should exhibit an overgrown broomstick when +an Italian train passes a flag station, any more than I know why, when a +squad of Paris firemen march out of the engine house for exercise, they +should carry carbines and knapsacks. I only know that these things are +done. + +In Tuscany the vineyards make a fine show, for the vines are trained +to grow up from the ground and then are bound into streamers and draped +from one fruit tree or one shade tree to another, until a whole hillside +becomes one long, confusing vista of leafy festoons. The thrifty owner +gets the benefit of his grapes and of his trees, and of the earth below, +too, for there he raises vegetables and grains, and the like. Like +everything else in this land, the system is an old one. I judge it was +old enough to be hackneyed when Horace wrote of it: + + Now each man, basking on his slopes, + Weds to his widowed tree the vine; + Then, as he gayly quaffs his wine, + Salutes thee god of all his hopes. + +Classical quotations interspersed here and there are wonderful helps to +a guide book, don't you think? + +In rural Italy there are two other scenic details that strike the +American as being most curious--one is the amazing prevalence of family +washing, and the other is the amazing scarcity of birdlife. To himself +the traveler says: + +"What becomes of all this intimate and personal display of family +apparel I see fluttering from the front windows of every house in this +country? Everybody is forever washing clothes but nobody ever wears it +after it is washed. And what has become of all the birds?" + +For the first puzzle there is no key, but the traveler gets the answer +to the other when he passes a meat-dealer's shop in the town and sees +spread on the stalls heaps of pitiably small starlings and sparrows and +finches exposed for sale. An Italian will cook and eat anything he can +kill that has wings on it, from a cassowary to a katydid. + +Thinking this barbarity over, I started to get indignant; but just +in time I remembered what we ourselves have done to decimate the +canvas-back duck and the wild pigeon and the ricebird and the +red-worsted pulse-warmer, and other pleasing wild creatures of the +earlier days in America, now practically or wholly extinct. And I felt +that before I could attend to the tomtits in my Italian brother's eye I +must needs pluck a few buffaloes out of my own; so I decided, in view of +those things, to collect myself and endeavor to remain perfectly calm. + +We came into Venice at the customary hour--to wit, eleven P.M.--and had +a real treat as our train left the mainland and went gliding far out, +seemingly right through the placid Adriatic, to where the beaded +lights of Venice showed like a necklace about the withered throat of a +long-abandoned bride, waiting in the rags of her moldered wedding finery +for a bridegroom who comes not. + +Better even than this was the journey by gondola from the terminal +through narrow canals and under stone bridges where the water lapped +with little mouthing tongues at the walls, and the tall, gloomy +buildings almost met overhead, so that only a tiny strip of +star-buttoned sky showed between. And from dark windows high up came the +tinkle of guitars and the sound of song pouring from throats of silver. +And so we came to our hotel, which was another converted palace; but +baptism is not regarded as essential to salvation in these parts. + +On the whole, Venice did not impress me as it has impressed certain +other travelers. You see, I was born and raised in one of those Ohio +Valley towns where the river gets emotional and temperamental every year +or two. In my youth I had passed through several of these visitations, +when the family would take the family plate and the family cow, and +other treasures, and retire to the attic floor to wait for the spring +rise to abate; and when really the most annoying phase of the situation +for a housekeeper, sitting on the top landing of his staircase watching +the yellow wavelets lap inch by inch over the keys of the piano, and +inch by inch climb up the new dining-room wallpaper, was to hear a +knocking at a front window upstairs and go to answer it and find that +Moscoe Burnett had come in a john-boat to collect the water tax. + +The Grand Canal did not stir me as it has stirred some--so far back as +'84 I could remember when Jefferson Street at home looked almost exactly +like that. + +Going through the Austrian Tyrol, between Vienna and Venice, I met two +old and dear friends in their native haunts--the plush hat and the hot +dog. When such a thing as this happens away over on the other side of +the globe it helps us to realize how small a place this world is after +all, and how closely all peoples are knitted together in common bonds of +love and affection. The hot dog, as found here, is just as we know +him throughout the length and breadth of our own land--a dropsical +Wienerwurst entombed in the depths of a rye-bread sandwich, with a dab +of horse-radish above him to mark his grave; price, creation over, five +cents the copy. + +The woolly plush hat shows no change either, except that if anything +it is slightly woollier in the Alps than among us. As transplanted, +the dinky little bow at the back is an affectation purely--but in these +parts it is logical and serves a practical and a utilitarian purpose, +because the mountain byways twist and turn and double, and the local +beverages are potent brews; and the weary mountaineer, homeward-bound +afoot at the close of a market day, may by the simple expedient of +reaching up and fingering his bow tell instantly whether he is going or +coming. + +This is also a great country for churches. Every group of chalets that +calls itself a village has at least one long-spired gray church in its +midst, and frequently more than one. In one sweep of hillside view from +our car window I counted seven church steeples. I do not think it was a +particularly good day for churches either; I wished I might have passed +through on a Sunday, when they would naturally be thicker. + +Along this stretch of railroad the mountaineers come to the stations +wearing the distinctive costume of their own craggy and slabsided +hills--the curling pheasant feather in the hatbrim; the tight-fitting +knee-breeches; the gaudy stockings; and the broad-suspendered belt with +rows of huge brass buttons spangling it up and down and crosswise. Such +is your pleasure at finding these quaint habiliments still in use +amid settings so picturesque that you buy freely of the fancy-dressed +individual's wares--for he always has something to sell. + +And then as your train pulls out, if by main force and awkwardness you +jam a window open, as I did, and cast your eyes rearward for a farewell +peek, as I did, you will behold him, as I did, pulling off his parade +clothes and climbing into the blue overalls and the jean jumpers of +prosaic civilization, to wait until the next carload lot of foreign +tourists rolls in. The European peasant is indeed a simple, guileless +creature--if you are careless about how you talk. + +In this district and on beyond, the sight of women doing the bulk of +the hard and dirty farmwork becomes common. You see women plowing; women +hoeing; women carrying incredibly huge bundles of fagots and fodder +on their heads; women hauling heavy carts, sometimes with a straining, +panting dog for a teammate, sometimes unaccompanied except by a stalwart +father or husband, or brother or son, who, puffing a china-bowled pipe, +walks alongside to see that the poor human draft-animals do not shirk or +balk, or shy over the traces. + +To one coming from a land where no decent man raises his hand against +a woman--except, of course, in self-defense--this is indeed a startling +sight to see; but worse is in store for him when he reaches Bohemia, +on the upper edge of the Austrian Empire. In Bohemia, if there is a +particularly nasty and laborious job to be done, such as spading up +manure in the rain or grubbing sugar-beets out of the half-frozen earth, +they wish it on the dear old grandmother. She always seemed to me to be +a grandmother--or old enough for one anyway. Perhaps, though, it is the +life they lead, and not the years, that bends the backs of these women +and thickens their waists and mats their hair and turns their feet into +clods and their hands into swollen, red monstrosities. + +Surely the Walrus, in Alice in Wonderland, had Germany in mind when he +said the time had come to speak of cabbages and kings--because Germany +certainly does lead the known world in those two commodities. Everywhere +in Germany you see them--the cabbages by the millions and the billions, +growing rank and purple in the fields and giving promise of the time +when they will change from vegetable to vine and become the fragrant and +luscious trailing sauerkraut; but the kings, in stone or bronze, stand +up in the marketplace or the public square, or on the bridge abutment, +or just back of the brewery, in every German city and town along the +route. + +By these surface indications alone the most inexperienced traveler would +know he had reached Germany, even without the halt at the custom house +on the border; or the crossing watchman in trim uniform jumping to +attention at every road-crossing; or the beautifully upholstered, +handswept state forests; or the hedges of willow trees along the +brooks, sticking up their stubby, twiggy heads like so many disreputable +hearth-brooms; or the young grain stretching in straight rows +crosswise of the weedless fields and looking, at a distance, like +fair green-printed lines evenly spaced on a wide brown page. Also, one +observes everywhere surviving traces that are unmistakable of the +reign of that most ingenious and wideawake of all the earlier rulers of +Germany, King Verboten the Great. + +In connection with the life and works of this distinguished ruler is +told an interesting legend well worthy of being repeated here. It would +seem that King Verboten was the first crowned head of Europe to learn +the value of keeping his name constantly before the reading public. +Rameses the Third of Egypt--that enterprising old constant advertiser +who swiped the pyramids of all his predecessors and had his own name +engraved thereon--had been dead for many centuries and was forgotten +when Verboten mounted the throne, and our own Teddy Roosevelt would not +be born for many centuries yet to come; so the idea must have occurred +to King Verboten spontaneously, as it were. Therefore he took counsel +with himself, saying: + +"I shall now erect statues to myself. Dynasties change and wars rage, +and folks grow fickle and tear down statues. None of that for your Uncle +Dudley K. Verboten! No; this is what I shall do: On every available site +in the length and breadth of this my realm I shall stick up my name; +and, wherever possible, near to it I shall engrave or paint the names +of my two favorite sons, Ausgang and Eingang--to the end that, come what +may, we shall never be forgotten in the land of our birth." + +And then he went and did it; and it was a thorough job--so thorough a +job that, to this good year of our Lord you may still see the name of +that wise king everywhere displayed in Germany--on railroad stations and +in railroad trains; on castle walls and dead walls and brewery walls, +and the back fence of the Young Ladies' High School. And nearly always, +too, you will find hard by, over doors and passageways, the names of +his two sons, each accompanied or underscored by the heraldic emblem of +their house--a barbed and feathered arrow pointing horizontally. + +And so it was that King Verboten lived happily ever after and in the +fullness of time died peacefully in his bed, surrounded by his wives, +his children and his courtiers; and all of them sorrowed greatly and +wept, but the royal signpainter sorrowed most of all. + +I know that certain persons will contest the authenticity of this +passage of history; they will claim Verboten means in our tongue +Forbidden, and that Ausgang means Outgoing, and Eingang means +Incoming--or, in other words, Exit and Entrance; but surely this could +not be so. If so many things were forbidden, a man in Germany would be +privileged only to die--and probably not that, unless he died according +to a given formula; and certainly no human being with the possible +exception of the comedian who used to work the revolving-door trick +in Hanlon's Fantasma, could go out of and come into a place so often +without getting dizzy in the head. No--the legend stands as stated. + +Even as it is, there are rules enough in Germany, rules to regulate all +things and all persons. At first, to the stranger, this seems an +irksome arrangement--this posting of rules and orders and directions and +warnings everywhere--but he finds that everyone, be he high or low, must +obey or go to jail; there are no exceptions and no evasions; so that +what is a duty on all is a burden on none. + +Take the trains, for example. Pretty much all over the Continent the +railroads are state-owned and state-run, but only in Germany are they +properly run. True, there are so many uniformed officials aboard +a German train that frequently there is barely room for the paying +travelers to squeeze in; but the cars are sanitary and the schedule +is accurately maintained, and the attendants are honest and polite and +cleanly of person--wherein lies another point of dissimilarity between +them and those scurvy, musty, fusty brigands who are found managing and +operating trains in certain nearby countries. + +I remember a cup of coffee I had while going from Paris to Berlin. It +was made expressly for me by an invalided commander-in-chief of the +artillery corps of the imperial army--so I judged him to be by his +costume, air and general deportment--who was in charge of our carriage +and also of the small kitchen at the far end of it. + +He came into our compartment and bowed and clicked his heels together +and saluted, and wanted to know whether I would take coffee. Recklessly +I said I would. He filled in several blanks of a printed form, and went +and cooked the coffee and brought it back, pausing at intervals as he +came along to fill in other blanks. Would I take cream in my coffee? I +would; so he filled in a couple of blanks. Would I take sugar? I said I +would take two lumps. He put in two lumps and filled in another blank. + +I really prefer my coffee with three lumps in it; but I noticed that +his printed form was now completely filled in, and I hated to call for +a third lump and put him to the trouble of starting his literary labors +all over again. Besides, by that time the coffee would be cold. So I +took it as it was--with two lumps only--and it was pretty fair coffee +for European coffee. It tasted slightly of the red tape and the chicory, +but it was neatly prepared and promptly served. + +And so, over historic streams no larger than creeks would be in America, +and by castles and cabbages and kings and cows, we came to Berlin; +and after some of the other Continental cities Berlin seemed a mighty +restful spot to be in, and a good one to tarry in awhile. It has few +historical associations, has Berlin, but we were loaded to the gills +with historical associations by now. It does not excel greatly in +Old Masters, but we had already gazed with a languid eye upon several +million Old Masters of all ages, including many very young ones. It has +no ancient monuments and tombs either, which is a blessing. Most of the +statuary in Berlin is new and shiny and provided with all the modern +conveniences--the present kaiser attended competently to that detail. +Wherever, in his capital, there was space for a statue he has stuck up +one in memory of a member of his own dynasty, beginning with a statue +apiece for such earlier rulers as Otho the Oboe-Player, and Joachim, +surnamed the Half-a-Ton--let some one correct me if I have the names +wrong--and finishing up with forty or fifty for himself. That is, there +were forty or fifty of him when I was there. There are probably more +now. + +In its essentials Berlin suggests a progressive American city, with +Teutonic trimmings. Conceive a bit of New York, a good deal of Chicago, +a scrap of Denver, a slice of Hoboken, and a whole lot of Milwaukee; +conceive this combination as being scoured every day until it shines; +conceive it as beautifully though somewhat profusely governed, and +laid out with magnificent drives, and dotted with big, handsome public +buildings, and full of reasonably honest and more than reasonably kindly +people--and you have Berlin. + +It was in Berlin that I picked up the most unique art treasure I found +anywhere on my travels--a picture of the composer Verdi that looked +exactly like Uncle Joe Cannon, without the cigar; whereas Uncle Joe +Cannon does not look a thing in the world like Verdi, and probably +wouldn't if he could. + +I have always regretted that our route through the German Empire took +us across the land of the Hessians after dark, for I wanted to see those +people. You will recollect that when George the Third, of England, first +put into actual use the doctrine of Hands Across the Sea he used the +Hessians. + +They were hired hands. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + + +A Tale of a String-bean + +It was at a small dinner party in a home out in Passy--which is to Paris +what Flatbush is to Brooklyn--that the event hereinafter set forth +came to pass. Our host was an American who had lived abroad a good many +years; and his wife, our hostess, was a French woman as charming as she +was pretty and as pretty as she could be. + +The dinner was going along famously. We had hors-d'oeuvres, the soup +and the hare--all very tasty to look on and very soothing to the palate. +Then came the fowl, roasted, of course--the roast fowl is the national +bird of France--and along with the fowl something exceedingly appetizing +in the way of hearts of lettuce garnished with breasts of hothouse +tomatoes cut on the bias. + +When we were through with this the servants removed the debris and +brought us hot plates. Then, with the air of one conferring a real treat +on us, the butler bore around a tureen arrangement full of smoking-hot +string-beans. When it came my turn I helped myself--copiously--and +waited for what was to go with the beans. A pause ensued--to my +imagination an embarrassed pause. Seeking a cue I glanced down the +table and back again. There did not appear to be anything to go with the +beans. The butler was standing at ease behind his master's chair--ease +for a butler, I mean--and the other guests, it seemed to me, were +waiting and watching. To myself I said: + +"Well, sir, that butler certainly has made a J. Henry Fox Pass of +himself this trip! Here, just when this dinner was getting to be one of +the notable successes of the present century, he has to go and derange +the whole running schedule by serving the salad when he should have +served the beans, and the beans when he should have served the salad. +It's a sickening situation; but if I can save it I'll do it. I'll be +well bred if it takes a leg!" + +So, wearing the manner of one who has been accustomed all his life +to finishing off his dinner with a mess of string-beans, I used my +putting-iron; and from the edge of the fair green I holed out in three. +My last stroke was a dandy, if I do say it myself. The others were +game too--I could see that. They were eating beans as though beans were +particularly what they had come for. Out of the tail of my eye I glanced +at our hostess, sitting next to me on the left. She was placid, calm, +perfectly easy. Again addressing myself mentally I said: + +"There's a thoroughbred for you! You take a woman who got prosperous +suddenly and is still acutely suffering from nervous culture, and if +such a shipwreck had occurred at her dinner table she'd be utterly +prostrated by now--she'd be down and out--and we'd all be standing back +to give her air; but when they're born in the purple it shows in +these big emergencies. Look at this woman now--not a ripple on the +surface--balmy as a summer evening! But in about one hour from now, +Central European time, I can see her accepting that fool butler's +resignation before he's had time to offer it!" + +After the beans had been cleared off the right-of-way we had the dessert +and the cheese and the coffee and the rest of it. And, as we used to say +in the society column down home when the wife of the largest advertiser +was entertaining, "at a suitable hour those present dispersed to their +homes, one and all voting the affair to have been one of the most +enjoyable occasions among like events of the season." We all knew our +manners--we had proved that. + +Personally I was very proud of myself for having carried the thing off +so well but after I had survived a few tables d'hote in France and a +few more in Austria and a great many in Italy, where they do not have +anything at the hotels except tables d'hote, I did not feel quite +so proud. For at this writing in those parts the slender, sylphlike +string-bean is not playing a minor part, as with us. He has the best +spot on the evening bill--he is a headliner. So is the cauliflower; so +is the Brussels sprout; so is any vegetable whose function among our own +people is largely scenic. + +Therefore I treasured the memory of this incident and brought it back +with me; and I tell it here at some length of detail because I know how +grateful my countrywomen will be to get hold of it--I know how grateful +they always are when they learn about a new gastronomical wrinkle. Mind +you, I am not saying that the notion is an absolute novelty here. For +all I know to the contrary, prominent hostesses along the Gold Coast +of the United States--Bar Harbor to Palm Beach inclusive--may have been +serving one lone vegetable as a separate course for years and years; but +I feel sure that throughout the interior the disclosure will come as a +pleasant surprise. + +The directions for executing this coup are simple and all the deadlier +because they are so simple. The main thing is to invite your chief +opponent as a smart entertainer; you know the one I mean--the woman who +scored such a distinct social triumph in the season of 1912-13 by being +the first woman in town to serve tomato bisque with whipped cream on it. +Have her there by all means. Go ahead with your dinner as though naught +sensational and revolutionary were about to happen. Give them in proper +turn the oysters, the fish, the entree, the bird, the salad. And then, +all by itself, alone and unafraid, bring on a dab of string-beans. + +Wait until you see the whites of their eyes, and aim and fire at +will. Settle back then, until the first hushed shock has somewhat +abated--until your dazed and suffering rival is glaring about in a +well-bred but flustered manner, looking for something to go with the +beans. Hold her eye while you smile a smile that is compounded of equal +parts--superior wisdom, and gentle contempt for her ignorance--and then +slowly, deliberately, dip a fork into the beans on your plate and go to +it. + +Believe me, it cannot lose. Before breakfast time the next morning every +woman who was at that dinner will either be sending out invitations for +a dinner of her own and ordering beans, or she will be calling up her +nearest and best friend on the telephone to spread the tidings. I figure +that the intense social excitement occasioned in this country a few +years ago by the introduction of Russian salad dressing will be as +nothing in comparison. + +This stunt of serving the vegetable as a separate course was one of the +things I learned about food during our flittings across Europe, but it +was not the only thing I learned--by a long shot it was not. For example +I learned this--and I do not care what anybody else may say to the +contrary either--that here in America we have better food and more +different kinds of food, and food better cooked and better served than +the effete monarchies of the Old World ever dreamed of. And, quality +and variety considered, it costs less here, bite for bite, than it costs +there. + +Food in Germany is cheaper than anywhere else almost, I reckon; and, +selected with care and discrimination, a German dinner is an excellently +good dinner. Certain dishes in England--and they are very certain, for +you get them at every meal--are good, too, and not overly expensive. +There are some distinctive Austrian dishes that are not without their +attractions either. Speaking by and large, however, I venture the +assertion that, taking any first-rate restaurant in any of the larger +American cities and balancing it off against any establishment of like +standing in Europe, the American restaurant wins on cuisine, service, +price, flavor and attractiveness. + +Centuries of careful and constant press-agenting have given French +cookery much of its present fame. The same crafty processes of +publicity, continued through a period of eight or nine hundred +years, have endowed the European scenic effects with a glamour and an +impressiveness that really are not there, if you can but forget the +advertising and consider the proposition on its merits. + +Take their rivers now--their historic rivers, if you please. You are +traveling--heaven help you--on a Continental train. Between spells of +having your ticket punched or torn apart, or otherwise mutilated; and +getting out at the border to see your trunks ceremoniously and solemnly +unloaded and unlocked, and then as ceremoniously relocked and reloaded +after you have conferred largess on everybody connected with the +train, the customs regulations being mainly devised for the purpose of +collecting not tariff but tips--between these periods, which constitute +so important a feature of Continental travel--you come, let us say, to a +stream. + +It is a puny stream, as we are accustomed to measure streams, boxed +in by stone walls and regulated by stone dams, and frequently it is +mud-colored and, more frequently still, runs between muddy banks. In the +West it would probably not even be dignified with a regular name, and in +the East it would be of so little importance that the local congressman +would not ask an annual appropriation of more than half a million +dollars for the purposes of dredging, deepening and diking it. But even +as you cross it you learn that it is the Tiber or the Arno, the Elbe or +the Po; and, such is the force of precept and example, you immediately +get all excited and worked up over it. + +English rivers are beautiful enough in a restrained, well-managed, +landscape-gardened sort of way; but Americans do not enthuse over an +English river because of what it is in itself, but because it happens +to be the Thames or the Avon--because of the distinguished characters in +history whose names are associated with it. + +Hades gets much of its reputation the same way. + +I think of one experience I had while touring through what we had +learned to call the Dachshund District. Our route led us alongside a +most inconsequential-looking little river. Its contents seemed a trifle +too liquid for mud and a trifle too solid for water. On the nearer bank +was a small village populated by short people and long dogs. Out in +midstream, making poor headway against the semi-gelid current, was +a little flutter-tailed steamboat panting and puffing violently and +kicking up a lather of lacy spray with its wheelbuckets in a manner to +remind you of a very warm small lady fanning herself with a very large +gauze fan, and only getting hotter at the job. + +In America that stream would have been known as Mink Creek or Cassidy's +Run, or by some equally poetic title; but when I found out it was +the Danube--no less--I had a distinct thrill. On closer examination I +discovered it to be a counterfeit thrill; but nevertheless, I had it. + +What applies in the main to the scenery applies in the main to the food. +France has the reputation of breeding the best cooks in the world--and +maybe she does; but when you are calling in France you find most of them +out. They have emigrated to America, where a French chef gets more money +in one year for exercising his art--and gets it easier--than he could +get in ten years at home--and is given better ingredients to cook with +than he ever had at home. + +The hotel in Paris at which we stopped served good enough meals, all of +them centering, of course, round the inevitable poulet roti; but it took +the staff an everlastingly long time to bring the food to you. If you +grew reckless and ordered anything that was not on the bill it upset the +entire establishment; and before they calmed down and relayed it in to +you it was time for the next meal. Still, I must say we did not mind +the waiting; near at hand a fascinating spectacle was invariably on +exhibition. + +At the next table sat an Italian countess. Anyhow they told me she was +an Italian countess, and she wore jewelry enough for a dozen countesses. +Every time I beheld her, with a big emerald earring gleaming at either +side of her head, I thought of a Lenox Avenue local in the New York +Subway. However, it was not so much her jewelry that proved such +a fascinating sight as it was her pleasing habit of fetching out a +gold-mounted toothpick and exploring the most remote and intricate +dental recesses of herself in full view of the entire dining room, +meanwhile making a noise like somebody sicking a dog on. + +The Europeans have developed public toothpicking beyond anything we +know. They make an outdoor pastime and function of it, whereas we pursue +this sport more or less privately. Over there, a toothpick is a family +heirloom and is handed down from one generation to another, and is +operated in company ostentatiously. In its use some Europeans +are absolutely gifted. But then we beat the world at open-air +gum-chewing--so I reckon the honors are about even. + +This particular hotel, in common with all other first-class hotels in +Paris, was forgetful about setting forth on its menu the prices of +its best dishes and its special dishes. I take it this arrangement was +devised for the benefit of currency-quilted Americans. A Frenchman asks +the waiter the price of an unpriced dish and then orders something +else; but the American, as a rule, is either too proud or too foolish to +inquire into these details. At home he is beset by a hideous fear that +some waiter will think he is of a mercenary nature; and when he is +abroad this trait in him is accentuated. So, in his carefree American +way, he orders a portion of a dish of an unspecified value; whereupon +the head waiter slips out to the office and ascertains by private +inquiry how large a letter of credit the American is carrying with him, +and comes back and charges him all the traffic will bear. + +As for the keeper of a fashionable cafe on a boulevard or in the Rue de +la Paix--well, alongside of him the most rapacious restaurant proprietor +on Broadway is a kindly, Christian soul who is in business for his +health--and not feeling very healthy at that. When you dine at one of +the swagger boulevard places the head waiter always comes, just before +you have finished, and places a display of fresh fruit before you, with +a winning smile and a bow and a gesture, which, taken together, would +seem to indicate that he is extending the compliments of the season and +that the fruit will be on the house; but never did one of the intriguing +scoundrels deceive me. Somewhere, years before, I had read statistics on +the cost of fresh fruit in a Paris restaurant, and so I had a care. The +sight of a bunch of hothouse grapes alone was sufficient to throw me +into a cold perspiration right there at the table; and as for South +African peaches, I carefully walked around them, getting farther away +all the time. A peach was just the same as a pesthouse to me, in Paris. + +Alas though! no one had warned me about French oysters, and once--just +once--I ate some, which made two mistakes on my part, one financial and +the other gustatory. They were not particularly flavorous oysters as we +know oysters on this side of the ocean. The French oyster is a small, +copper-tinted proposition, and he tastes something like an indisposed +mussel and something like a touch of biliousness; but he is sufficiently +costly for all purposes. The cafe proprietor cherishes him so highly +that he refuses to vulgarize him by printing the asking price on the +same menu. A person in France desirous of making a really ostentatious +display of his affluence, on finding a pearl in an oyster, would swallow +the pearl and wear the oyster on his shirtfront. That would stamp him as +a person of wealth. + +However, I am not claiming that all French cookery is ultra-exorbitant +in price or of excessively low grade. We had one of the surprises of our +lives when, by direction of a friend who knew Paris, we went to a +little obscure cafe that was off the tourist route and therefore--as +yet--unspoiled and uncommercialized. This place was up a back street +near one of the markets; a small and smellsome place it was, decorated +most atrociously. In the front window, in close juxtaposition, were a +platter of French snails and a platter of sticky confections full +of dark spots. There was no mistaking the snails for anything except +snails; but the other articles were either currant buns or plain buns +that had been made in an unscreened kitchen. + +Within were marble-topped tables of the Louie-Quince period and stuffy +wall-seats of faded, dusty red velvet; and a waiter in his shirtsleeves +was wandering about with a sheaf of those long French loaves tucked +under his arm like golf sticks, distributing his loaves among the +diners. But somewhere in its mysterious and odorous depths that little +bourgeois cafe harbored an honest-to-goodness cook. He knew a few things +about grilling a pig's knuckle--that worthy person. He could make the +knuckle of a pig taste like the wing of an angel; and what he could do +with a skillet, a pinch of herbs and a calf's sweetbread passed human +understanding. + +Certain animals in Europe do have the most delicious diseases +anyway--notably the calf and the goose, particularly the goose of +Strasburg, where the pate de foie gras comes from. The engorged liver +of a Strasburg goose must be a source of joy to all--except its original +owner! + +Several times we went back to the little restaurant round the corner +from the market, and each time we had something good. The food we ate +there helped to compensate for the terrific disillusionment awaiting +us when we drove out of Paris to a typical roadside inn, to get some of +that wonderful provincial cookery that through all our reading days we +had been hearing about. You will doubtless recall the description, as +so frequently and graphically dished up by the inspired writers of +travelogue stuff--the picturesque, tumbledown place, where on a cloth of +coarse linen--white like snow--old Marie, her wrinkled face abeam with +hospitality and kindness, places the delicious omelet she has just +made, and brings also the marvelous salad and the perfect fowl, and the +steaming hot coffee fragrant as breezes from Araby the Blest, and the +vin ordinaire that is even as honey and gold to the thirsty throat. You +must know that passage? + +We went to see for ourselves. At a distance of half a day's automobile +run from Paris we found an establishment answering to the plans and +specifications. It was shoved jam-up against the road, as is the French +custom; and it was surrounded by a high, broken wall, on which all +manner of excrescences in the shape of tiny dormers and misshapen little +towers hung, like Texas ticks on the ears of a quarantined steer. Within +the wall the numerous ruins that made up the inn were thrown together +any fashion, some facing one way, some facing the other way, and some +facing all ways at once; so that, for the housefly, so numerously +encountered on these premises, it was but a short trip and a merry one +from the stable to the dining room and back again. + +Sure enough, old Marie was on the job. Not desiring to be unkind or +unduly critical I shall merely state that as a cook old Marie was what +we who have been in France and speak the language fluently would call la +limite! The omelet she turned out for us was a thing that was very firm +and durable, containing, I think, leather findings, with a sprinkling +of chopped henbane on the top. The coffee was as feeble a counterfeit +as chicory usually is when it is masquerading as coffee, and the vin +ordinaire had less of the vin to it and more of the ordinaire than any +we sampled elsewhere. + +Right here let me say this for the much-vaunted vin ordinaire of Europe: +In the end it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder--not like +the ordinary Egyptian adder, but like a patent adder in the office of +a loan shark, which is the worst stinger of the whole adder family. If +consumed with any degree of freedom it puts a downy coat on your tongue +next morning that causes you to think you inadvertently swallowed the +pillow in your sleep. Good domestic wine costs as much in Europe as good +domestic wine costs in America--possibly more than as much. + +The souffle potatoes of old Marie were not bad to look on, but I did not +test them otherwise. Even in my own country I do not care to partake of +souffle potatoes unless I know personally the person who blew them +up. So at the conclusion of the repast we nibbled tentatively at +the dessert, which was a pancake with jelly, done in the image of a +medicated bandage but not so tasty as one. And then I paid the check, +which was of august proportions, and we came sadly away, realizing +that another happy dream of youth had been shattered to bits. Only +the tablecloth had been as advertised. It was coarse, but white like +snow--like snow three days old in Pittsburgh. + +Yet I was given to understand that was a typical rural French inn +and fully up to the standards of such places; but if the manager of a +roadhouse within half a day's ride of New York or Boston or Philadelphia +served such food to his patrons, at such prices, the sheriff would have +him inside of two months; and everybody would be glad of it too--except +the sheriff. Also, no humane man in this country would ask a +self-respecting cow to camp overnight in such outbuildings as abutted on +the kitchen of this particular inn. + +I am not denying that we have in America some pretty bad country hotels, +where good food is most barbarously mistreated and good beds are rare +to find, but we admit our shortcomings in this regard and we deplore +them--we do not shellac them over with a glamour of bogus romance, with +intent to deceive the foreign visitor to our shores. We warn him in +advance of what he may expect and urge him to carry his rations with +him. + +It is almost unnecessary to add that old Marie gave us veal and poulet +roti. According to the French version of the story of the Flood only +two animals emerged from the Ark when the waters receded--one was an +immature hen and the other was an adolescent calf. At every meal except +breakfast--when they do not give you anything at all--the French give +you veal and poulet roti. If at lunch you had the poulet roti first and +afterward the veal, why, then at dinner they provide a pleasing variety +by bringing on the veal first and the poulet roti afterward. + +The veal is invariably stringy and coated over with weird sauces, and +the poulet never appears at the table in her recognizable members--such +as wings and drumsticks--but is chopped up with a cleaver into cross +sections, and strange-looking chunks of the wreckage are sent to you. +Moreover they cook the chicken in such a way as to destroy its original +taste, and the veal in such a way as to preserve its original taste, +both being inexcusable errors. + +Nowhere in the larger Italian cities, except by the exercise of a most +tremendous determination, can you get any real Italian cooking or +any real Italian dishes. At the hotels they feed you on a pale, sad +table-d'hote imitation of French cooking, invariably buttressed with the +everlasting veal and the eternal poulet roti. At the finish of a meal +the waiter brings you, on one plate, two small withered apples and a +bunch of fly-specked sour grapes; and, on another plate, the mortal +remains of some excessively deceased cheese wearing a tinfoil shroud and +appropriately laid out in a small, white, coffin-shaped box. + +After this had happened to me several times I told the waiter with +gentle irony that he might as well screw the lid back on the casket and +proceed with the obsequies. I told him I was not one of those morbid +people who love to look on the faces of the strange dead. The funeral +could not get under way too soon to suit me. It seemed to me that this +funeral was already several days overdue. That was what I told him. + +In my travels the best place I ever found to get Italian dishes was +a basement restaurant under an old brownstone house on Forty-seventh +Street, in New York. There you might find the typical dishes of Italy--I +defy you to find them in Italy without a search-warrant. However, while +in Italy the tourist may derive much entertainment and instruction from +a careful study of table manners. + +In our own land we produce some reasonably boisterous trenchermen, and +some tolerably careless ones too. Several among us have yet to learn +how to eat corn on the ear and at the same time avoid corn in the ear. +A dish of asparagus has been known to develop fine acoustic properties, +and in certain quarters there is a crying need for a sound-proof soup; +but even so, and admitting these things as facts, we are but mere +beginners in this line when compared with our European brethren. + +In the caskets of memory I shall ever cherish the picture of a +particularly hairy gentleman, apparently of Russian extraction, who +patronized our hotel in Venice one evening. He was what you might call +a human hazard--a golf-player would probably have thought of him in that +connection. He was eating flour dumplings, using his knife for a niblick +all the way round; and he lost every other shot in a concealed bunker +on the edge of the rough; and he could make more noise sucking his teeth +than some people could make playing on a fife. + +There is a popular belief to the effect that the Neapolitan eats his +spaghetti by a deft process of wrapping thirty or forty inches round the +tines of his fork and then lifting it inboard, an ell at a time. This is +not correct. The true Neapolitan does not eat his spaghetti at all--he +inhales it. He gathers up a loose strand and starts it down his throat. +He then respires from the diaphragm, and like a troupe of trained +angleworms that entire mass of spaghetti uncoils itself, gets up off the +plate and disappears inside him--en masse, as it were--and making him +look like a man who is chinning himself over a set of bead portieres. +I fear we in America will never learn to siphon our spaghetti into us +thus. It takes a nation that has practiced deep breathing for centuries. + + + + +Chapter IX + + + +The Deadly Poulet Routine + +Under the head of European disillusionments I would rate, along with +the vin ordinaire of the French vineyard and inkworks, the barmaid of +Britain. From what you have heard on this subject you confidently expect +the British barmaid to be buxom, blond, blooming, billowy, buoyant--but +especially blond. On the contrary she is generally brunette, frequently +middle-aged, in appearance often fair-to-middling homely, and in manner +nearly always abounding with a stiffness and hauteur that would do +credit to a belted earl, if the belting had just taken place and the +earl was still groggy from the effects of it. Also, she has the notion +of personal adornment that is common in more than one social stratum of +women in England. If she has a large, firm, solid mound of false hair +overhanging her brow like an impending landslide, and at least three +jingly bracelets on each wrist, she considers herself well dressed, no +matter what else she may or may not be wearing. + +Often this lady is found presiding over an American bar, which is an +institution now commonly met with in all parts of London. The American +bar of London differs from the ordinary English bar of London in two +respects, namely--there is an American flag draped over the mirror, and +it is a place where they sell all the English drinks and are just out of +all the American ones. If you ask for a Bronx the barmaid tells you +they do not carry seafood in stock and advises you to apply at the +fishmongers'--second turning to the right, sir, and then over the way, +sir--just before you come to the bottom of the road, sir. If you ask for +a Mamie Taylor she gets it confused in her mind with a Sally Lunn and +sends out for yeastcake and a cookbook; and while you are waiting she +will give you a genuine Yankee drink, such as a brandy and soda--or she +will suggest that you smoke something and take a look at the evening +paper. + +If you do smoke something, beware--oh, beware!--of the native English +cigar. When rolled between the fingers it gives off a dry, rustling +sound similar to a shuck mattress. For smoking purposes it is also open +to the same criticisms that a shuck mattress is. The flames smolder in +the walls and then burst through in unexpected places, and the smoke +sucks up the airshaft and mushrooms on your top floor; then the deadly +back draft comes and the fatal firedamp, and when the firemen arrive you +are a ruined tenement. Except the German, the French, the Belgian, the +Austrian and the Italian cigar, the English cigar is the worst cigar I +ever saw. I did not go to Spain; they tell me, though, the Spanish cigar +has the high qualifications of badness. Spanish cigars are not really +cigars at all, I hear; they fall into the classification of defective +flues. + +Likewise beware of the alleged American cocktail occasionally dispensed, +with an air of pride and accomplished triumph, by the British barmaid +of an American bar. If for purposes of experiment and research you feel +that you must take one, order with it, instead of the customary olive or +cherry, a nice boiled vegetable marrow. The advantage to be derived from +this is that the vegetable marrow takes away the taste of anything else +and does not have any taste of its own. + +In the eating line the Englishman depends on the staples. He sticks to +the old standbys. What was good enough for his fathers is good enough +for him--in some cases almost too good. Monotony of victuals does +not distress him. He likes his food to be humdrum; the humdrummer the +better. + +Speaking with regard to the whole country, I am sure we have better +beef uniformly in America than in England; but there is at least one +restaurant on the Strand where the roast beef is just a little +bit superior to any other roast beef on earth. English mutton is +incomparable, too, and English breakfast bacon is a joy forever. But it +never seems to occur to an Englishman to vary his diet. I submit samples +of the daily menu: + + LUNCHEON DINNER + Roast Beef Boiled Mutton + Boiled Mutton Roast Beef + Potatoes, Boiled Cabbage, Boiled + Cabbage, Boiled Potatoes, Boiled + Jam Tart Custard + Custard Jam Tart + Cheese Coffee + Coffee Cheese + TEA! + +I know now why an Englishman dresses for dinner--it enables him to +distinguish dinner from lunch. + +His regular desserts are worthy of a line. The jam tart is a death-mask +that went wrong and in consequence became morose and heavy of spirit, +and the custard is a soft-boiled egg which started out in life to be a +soft-boiled egg and at the last moment--when it was too late--changed +its mind and tried to be something else. + +In the City, where lunching places abound, the steamer works overtime +and the stewpan never rests. There is one place, well advertised +to American visitors, where they make a specialty of their +beefsteak-and-kidney pudding. This is a gummy concoction containing +steak, kidney, mushroom, oyster, lark--and sometimes W and Y. Doctor +Johnson is said to have been very fond of it; this, if true, accounts +for the doctor's disposition. A helping of it weighs two pounds before +you eat it and ten pounds afterward. The kidney is its predominating +influence. The favorite flower of the English is not the primrose. It +is the kidney. Wherever you go, among the restaurants, there is always +somebody operating on a steamed flour dumpling for kidney trouble. + +The lower orders are much addicted to a dish known--if I remember the +name aright--by the euphonious title of Toad in the Hole. Toad in the +Hole consists of a full-grown and fragrant sheep's kidney entombed in an +excavated retreat at the heart of a large and powerful onion, and then +cooked in a slow and painful manner, so that the onion and the kidney +may swap perfumes and flavors. These people do not use this combination +for a weapon or for a disinfectant, or for anything else for which it +is naturally purposed; they actually go so far as to eat it. You pass +a cabmen's lunchroom and get a whiff of a freshly opened Toad in the +Hole--and you imagine it is the German invasion starting and wonder why +they are not removing the women and children to a place of safety. All +England smells like something boiling, just as all France smells like +something that needs boiling. + +Seemingly the only Londoners who enjoy any extensive variety in their +provender are the slum-dwellers. Out Whitechapel-way the establishment +of a tripe dresser and draper is a sight wondrous to behold, and will +almost instantly eradicate the strongest appetite; but it is not to be +compared with an East End meatshop, where there are skinned sheep faces +on slabs, and various vital organs of various animals disposed about in +clumps and clusters. I was reminded of one of those Fourteenth Street +museums of anatomy--tickets ten cents each; boys under fourteen not +admitted. The East End butcher is not only a thrifty but an inquiring +soul. Until I viewed his shop I had no idea that a sheep could be so +untidy inside; and as for a cow--he finds things in a cow she didn't +know she had. + +Breakfast is the meal at which the Englishman rather excels; in fact +England is the only country in Europe where the natives have the +faintest conception of what a regular breakfast is, or should be. +Moreover, it is now possible in certain London hotels for an American to +get hot bread and ice-water at breakfast, though the English round about +look on with undisguised horror as he consumes them, and the manager +only hopes that he will have the good taste not to die on the premises. + +It is true that, in lieu of the fresh fruit an American prefers, the +waiter brings at least three kinds of particularly sticky marmalade and, +in accordance with a custom that dates back to the time of the Druids, +spangles the breakfast cloth over with a large number of empty saucers +and plates, which fulfill no earthly purpose except to keep getting in +the way. The English breakfast bacon, however, is a most worthy article, +and the broiled kipper is juicy and plump, and does not resemble a dried +autumn leaf, as our kipper often does. And the fried sole, on which the +Englishman banks his breakfast hopes, invariably repays one for one's +undivided attention. The English boast of their fish; but, excusing +the kipper, they have but three of note--the turbot, the plaice and +the sole. And the turbot tastes like turbot, and the plaice tastes like +fish; but the sole, when fried, is most appetizing. + +I have been present when the English gooseberry and the English +strawberry were very highly spoken of, too, but with me this is merely +hearsay evidence; we reached England too late for berries. Happily, +though, we came in good season for the green filbert, which is gathered +in the fall of the year, being known then as the Kentish cobnut. The +Kentish cob beats any nut we have except the paper-shell pecan. The +English postage stamp is also much tastier than ours. The space for +licking is no larger, if as large--but the flavor lasts. + +As I said before, the Englishman has no great variety of things to +eat, but he is always eating them; and when he is not eating them he is +swigging tea. Yet in these regards the German excels him. The Englishman +gains a lap at breakfast; but after that first hour the German leaves +him, hopelessly distanced, far in the rear. It is due to his talents in +this respect that the average Berliner has a double chin running all the +way round, and four rolls of fat on the back of his neck, all closely +clipped and shaved, so as to bring out their full beauty and symmetry, +and a figure that makes him look as though an earthquake had shaken +loose everything on the top floor and it all fell through into his +dining room. + +Your true Berliner eats his regular daily meals--four in number and all +large ones; and in between times he now and then gathers a bite. For +instance, about ten o'clock in the morning he knocks off for an hour and +has a few cups of hard-boiled coffee and some sweet, sticky pastry with +whipped cream on it. Then about four in the afternoon he browses a +bit, just to keep up his appetite for dinner. This, though, is but a +snack--say, a school of Bismarck herring and a kraut pie, some more +coffee and more cake, and one thing and another--merely a preliminary +to the real food, which will be coming along a little later on. Between +acts at the theater he excuses himself and goes out and prepares his +stomach for supper, which will follow at eleven, by drinking two or +three steins of thick Munich beer, and nibbling on such small tidbits +as a rosary of German sausage or the upper half of a raw Westphalia ham. +There are forty-seven distinct and separate varieties of German sausage +and three of them are edible; but the Westphalia ham, in my judgment, is +greatly overrated. It is pronounced Westfailure with the accent on the +last part, where it belongs. + +In Germany, however, there is a pheasant agreeably smothered in young +cabbage which is delicious and in season plentiful. The only drawback +to complete enjoyment of this dish is that the grasping and avaricious +German restaurant keeper has the confounded nerve to charge you, in our +money, forty cents for a whole pheasant and half a peck of cabbage--say, +enough to furnish a full meal for two tolerably hungry adults and a +growing child. + +The Germans like to eat and they love a hearty eater. There should +never be any trouble about getting a suitable person to serve us at the +Kaiser's court if the Administration at Washington will but harken to +the voice of experience. To the Germans the late Doctor Tanner would +have been a distinct disappointment in an ambassadorial capacity; but +there was a man who used to live in my congressional district who could +qualify in a holy minute if he were still alive. He was one of Nature's +noblemen, untutored but naturally gifted, and his name was John Wesley +Bass. He was the champion eater of the world, specializing particularly +in eggs on the shell, and cove oysters out of the can, with pepper sauce +on them, and soda crackers on the side. + +I regret to be compelled to state, however, that John Wesley is no +more. At one of our McCracken County annual fairs, a few years back, he +succumbed to overambition coupled with a mistake in judgment. After he +had established a new world's record by eating at one sitting five dozen +raw eggs he rashly rode on the steam merry-go-round. At the end of the +first quarter of an hour he fainted and fell off a spotted wooden horse +and never spoke again, but passed away soon after being removed to his +home in an unconscious condition. I have forgotten what the verdict of +the coroner's jury was--the attending physician gave it some fancy Latin +name--but among laymen the general judgment was that our fellow townsman +had just naturally been scrambled to death. It was a pity, too--the +German people would have cared for John Wesley as an ambassador. He +would have eaten his way right into their affections. + +We have the word of history for it that Vienna was originally settled by +the Celts, but you would hardly notice it now. On first impressions +you would say that about Vienna there was a noticeable suggestion--a +perceptible trace--of the Teutonic; and this applies to the Austrian +food in the main. I remember a kind of Wiener-schnitzel, breaded, that I +had in Vienna; in fact for the moment I do not seem to recall much else +about Vienna. Life there was just one Wiener-schnitzel after another. + +In order to spread sweetness and light, and to the end, furthermore, +that the ignorant people across the salted seas might know something +of a land of real food and much food, and plenty of it and plenty of +variety to it, I would that I might bring an expedition of Europeans to +America and personally conduct it up and down our continent and back and +forth crosswise of it. + +And if I had the money of a Carnegie or a Rockefeller I would do it, +too, for it would be a greater act of charity than building public +libraries or endowing public baths. I would include in my party a few +delegates from England, where every day is All Soles' Day; and a few +sausage-surfeited Teutons; and some Gauls, wearied and worn by +the deadly poulet routine of their daily life, and a scattering +representation from all the other countries over there. + +In especial I would direct the Englishman's attention to the broiled +pompano of New Orleans; the kingfish filet of New York; the sanddab +of Los Angeles; the Boston scrod of the Massachusetts coast; and that +noblest of all pan fish--the fried crappie of Southern Indiana. To these +and to many another delectable fishling, would I introduce the poor +fellow; and to him and his fellows I fain would offer a dozen apiece of +Smith Island oysters on the half shell. + +And I would take all of them to New England for baked beans and brown +bread and codfish balls; but on the way we would visit the shores of +Long Island for a kind of soft clam which first is steamed and then is +esteemed. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, they should each have a broiled +lobster measuring thirty inches from tip to tip, fresh caught out of the +Piscataqua River. + +Vermont should come to them in hospitality and in pity, offering +buckwheat cakes and maple sirup. But Rhode Island would bring a genuine +Yankee blueberry pie and directions for the proper consumption of it, +namely--discarding knife and fork, to raise a crusty, dripping wedge +of blueberry pie in your hand to your mouth, and to take a first +bite, which instantly changes the ground-floor plan of that pie from a +triangle to a crescent; and then to take a second bite, and then to lick +your fingers--and then there isn't any more pie. + +Down in Kentucky I should engage Mandy Berry, colored, to fry for them +some spring chickens and make for them a few pones of real cornbread. In +Creole Louisiana they should sample crawfish gumbo; and in Georgia +they should have 'possum baked with sweet potatoes; and in Tidewater +Maryland, terrapin and canvasback; and in Illinois, young gray squirrels +on toast; and in South Carolina, boiled rice with black-eyed peas; +and in Colorado, cantaloupes; and in Kansas, young sweet corn; and in +Virginia, country hams, not cured with chemicals but with hickory smoke +and loving hands; and in Tennessee, jowl and greens. + +And elsewhere they should have their whacking fill of prairie hen and +suckling pig and barbecued shote, and sure-enough beefsteak, and +goobers hot from the parching box; and scrapple, and yams roasted in hot +wood-ashes; and hotbiscuit and waffles and Parker house rolls--and +the thousand and one other good things that may be found in this our +country, and which are distinctively and uniquely of this country. + +Finally I would bring them back by way of Richmond, and there I would +give them each an eggnog compounded with fresh cream and made according +to a recipe older than the Revolution. If I had my way about it no +living creature should be denied the right to bury his face in a +brimming tumbler of that eggnog--except a man with a drooping red +mustache. + +By the time those gorged and converted pilgrims touched the Eastern +seaboard again any one of them, if he caught fire, would burn for about +four days with a clear blue flame, and many valuable packing-house +by-products could be gleaned from his ruins. It would bind us all, +foreigner and native alike, in closer ties of love and confidence, +and it would turn the tide of travel westward from Europe, instead of +eastward from America. + +Let's do it sometime--and appoint me conductor of the expedition! + + + + +Chapter X + + + +Modes of the Moment; a Fashion Article + +Among the furbearing races the adult male of the French species easily +excels. Some fine peltries are to be seen in Italy, and there is a type +of farming Englishman who wears a stiff set of burnishers projecting +out round his face in a circular effect suggestive of a halo that has +slipped down. In connection with whiskers I have heard the Russians +highly commended. They tell me that, from a distance, it is very hard +to distinguish a muzhik from a bosky dell, whereas a grand duke nearly +always reminds one of something tasty and luxuriant in the line of +ornamental arborwork. The German military man specializes in mustaches, +preference being given to the Texas longhorn mustache, and the walrus +and kitty-cat styles. A dehorned German officer is rarely found and a +muley one is practically unknown. But the French lead all the world in +whiskers--both the wildwood variety and the domesticated kind trained +on a trellis. I mention this here at the outset because no Frenchman +is properly dressed unless he is whiskered also; such details properly +appertain to a chapter on European dress. + +Probably every freeborn American citizen has at some time in his life +cherished the dream of going to England and buying himself an outfit of +English clothes--just as every woman has had hopes of visiting Paris and +stocking up with Parisian gowns on the spot where they were created, and +where--so she assumes--they will naturally be cheaper than elsewhere. +Those among us who no longer harbor these fancies are the men and women +who have tried these experiments. + +After she has paid the tariff on them a woman is pained to note that her +Paris gowns have cost her as much as they would cost her in the United +States--so I have been told by women who have invested extensively in +that direction. And though a man, by the passion of the moment, may +be carried away to the extent of buying English clothes, he usually +discovers on returning to his native land that they are not adapted to +withstand the trying climatic conditions and the critical comments of +press and public in this country. What was contemplated as a triumphal +reentrance becomes a footrace to the nearest ready-made clothing store. + +English clothes are not meant for Americans, but for Englishmen to wear: +that is a great cardinal truth which Americans would do well to ponder. +Possibly you have heard that an Englishman's clothes fit him with an +air. They do so; they fit him with a lot of air around the collar and a +great deal of air adjacent to the waistband and through the slack of the +trousers; frequently they fit him with such an air that he is entirely +surrounded by space, as in the case of a vacuum bottle. Once there was +a Briton whose overcoat collar hugged the back of his neck; so they knew +by that he was no true Briton, but an impostor--and they put him out +of the union. In brief, the kind of English clothes best suited for an +American to wear is the kind Americans make. + +I knew these things in advance--or, anyway, I should have known them; +nevertheless I felt our trip abroad would not be complete unless I +brought back some London clothes. I took a look at the shop-windows and +decided to pass up the ready-made things. The coat shirt; the shaped +sock; the collar that will fit the neckband of a shirt, and other common +American commodities, seemed to be practically unknown in London. + +The English dress shirt has such a dinky little bosom on it that by +rights you cannot refer to it as a bosom at all; it comes nearer to +being what women used to call a guimpe. Every show-window where I +halted was jammed to the gunwales with thick, fuzzy, woolen articles +and inflammatory plaid waistcoats, and articles in crash for tropical +wear--even through the glass you could note each individual crash +with distinctness. The London shopkeeper adheres steadfastly to this +arrangement. Into his window he puts everything he has in his shop +except the customer. The customer is in the rear, with all avenues of +escape expertly fenced off from him by the proprietor and the clerks; +but the stock itself is in the show-window. + +There are just two department stores in London where, according to the +American viewpoint, the windows are attractively dressed. One of these +stores is owned by an American, and the other, I believe, is managed +by an American. In Paris there are many shops that are veritable +jewel-boxes for beauty and taste; but these are the small specialty +shops, very expensive and highly perfumed. + +The Paris department stores are worse jumbles even than the English +department stores. When there is a special sale under way the bargain +counters are rigged up on the sidewalks. There, in the open air, buyer +and seller will chaffer and bicker, and wrangle and quarrel, and kiss +and make up again--for all the world to see. One of the free sights +of Paris is a frugal Frenchman, with his face extensively haired over, +pawing like a Skye terrier through a heap of marked-down lingerie; +picking out things for the female members of his household to wear--now +testing some material with his tongue; now holding a most personal +article up in the sunlight to examine the fabric--while the wife stands +humbly, dumbly by, waiting for him to complete his selections. So far +as London was concerned, I decided to deny myself any extensive orgy in +haberdashery. From similar motives I did not invest in the lounge suit +to which an Englishman is addicted. I doubted whether it would fit the +lounge we have at home--though, with stretching, it might, at that. My +choice finally fell on an English raincoat and a pair of those baggy +knee breeches such as an Englishman wears when he goes to Scotland for +the moor shooting, or to the National Gallery, or any other damp, misty, +rheumatic place. + +I got the raincoat first. It was built to my measure; at least that was +the understanding; but you give an English tailor an inch and he takes +an ell. This particular tailor seemed to labor under the impression that +I was going to use my raincoat for holding large public assemblies or +social gatherings in--nothing that I could say convinced him that I +desired it for individual use; so he modeled it on a generous spreading +design, big at the bottom and sloping up toward the top like a pagoda. +Equipped with guy ropes and a centerpole it would make a first-rate +marquee for a garden party--in case of bad weather the refreshments +could be served under it; but as a raincoat I did not particularly fancy +it. When I put it on I sort of reminded myself of a covered wagon. + +Nothing daunted by this I looked up the address of a sporting tailor +in a side street off Regent Street, whose genius was reputed to find an +artistic outlet in knee breeches. Before visiting his shop I disclosed +my purpose to my traveling companion, an individual in whose judgment +and good taste I have ordinarily every confidence, and who has a way of +coming directly to the meat of a subject. + +"What do you want with a pair of knee breeches?" inquired this person +crisply. + +"Why--er--for general sporting occasions," I replied. + +"For instance, what occasions?" + +"For golfing," I said, "and for riding, you know. And if I should go +West next year they would come in very handy for the shooting." + +"To begin with," said my companion, "you do not golf. The only extensive +riding I have ever heard of your doing was on railway trains. And if +these knee breeches you contemplate buying are anything like the knee +breeches I have seen here in London, and if you should wear them out +West among the impulsive Western people, there would undoubtedly be +a good deal of shooting; but I doubt whether you would enjoy it--they +might hit you!" + +"Look here!" I said. "Every man in America who wears duck pants doesn't +run a poultry farm. And the presence of a sailor hat in the summertime +does not necessarily imply that the man under it owns a yacht. I +cannot go back home to New York and face other and older members of the +When-I-Was-in-London Club without some sartorial credentials to show +for my trip. I am firmly committed to this undertaking. Do not seek to +dissuade me, I beg of you. My mind is set on knee breeches and I shan't +be happy until I get them." + +So saying I betook myself to the establishment of this sporting +tailor in the side street off Regent Street; and there, without much +difficulty, I formed the acquaintance of a salesman of suave and urbane +manners. With his assistance I picked out a distinctive, not to say +striking, pattern in an effect of plaids. The goods, he said, were made +of the wool of a Scotch sheep in the natural colors. They must have some +pretty fancy-looking sheep in Scotland! + +This done, the salesman turned me over to a cutter, who took me to a +small room where incompleted garments were hanging all about like the +quartered carcasses of animals in a butcher shop. The cutter was a +person who dropped his H's and then, catching himself, gathered them +all up again and put them back in his speech--in the wrong places. He +surveyed me extensively with a square and a measuring line, meantime +taking many notes, and told me to come back on the next day but one. + +On the day named and at the hour appointed I was back. He had the +garments ready for me. As, with an air of pride, he elevated them for my +inspection, they seemed commodious--indeed, voluminous. I had told him, +when making them, to take all the latitude he needed; but it looked +now as though he had got it confused in his mind with longitude. Those +breeches appeared to be constructed for cargo rather than speed. + +With some internal misgivings I lowered my person into them while he +held them in position, and when I had descended as far as I could go +without entirely immuring myself, he buttoned the dewdabs at the knees; +then he went round behind me and cinched them in abruptly, so that of +a sudden they became quite snug at the waistline; the only trouble was +that the waistline had moved close up under my armpits, practically +eliminating about a foot and a half of me that I had always theretofore +regarded as indispensable to the general effect. Right in the middle of +my back, up between my shoulder blades there was a stiff, hard clump of +something that bored into my spine uncomfortably. I could feel it quite +plainly--lumpy and rough. + +"Ow's that, sir?" he cheerily asked me, over my shoulder; but it seemed +to me there was a strained, nervous note in his voice. "A bit of all +right--eh, sir?" + +"Well," I said, standing on tiptoe in an effort to see over the top, +"you've certainly behaved very generously toward me--I'll say that much. +Midships there appears to be about four or five yards of material I do +not actually need in my business, being, as it happens, neither a harem +favorite nor a professional sackracer. And they come up so high I'm +afraid people will think the gallant coast-guards have got me in a +lifebuoy and are bringing me ashore through the surf." + +"You'll be wanting them a bit loose, sir, you know," he interjected, +still snuggling close behind me. "All our gentlemen like them loose." + +"Oh, very well," I said; "perhaps these things are mere details. +However, I would be under deep obligations to you if you'd change 'em +from barkentine to schooner rig, and lower away this gaff-topsail which +now sticks up under my chin, so that I can luff and come up in the +wind without capsizing. And say, what is that hard lump between my +shoulders?" + +"Nothing at all, sir," he said hastily; and now I knew he was flurried. +"I can fix that, sir--in a jiffy, sir." + +"Anyhow, please come round here in front where I can converse more +freely with you on the subject," I said. I was becoming suspicious that +all was not well with me back there where he was lingering. He came +reluctantly, still half-embracing me with one arm. + +Petulantly I wrestled my form free, and instantly those breeches seemed +to leap outward in all directions away from me. I grabbed for them, and +barely in time I got a grip on the yawning top hem. Peering down the +cavelike orifice that now confronted me I beheld two spectral white +columns, and recognized them as my own legs. In the same instant, also, +I realized what that hard clump against my spine was, because when he +took his hand away the clump was gone. He had been standing back there +with some eight or nine inches of superfluous waistband bunched up in +his fist. + +The situation was embarrassing, and it would have been still more +embarrassing had I elected to go forth wearing my breeches in their +then state, because, to avoid talk, he would have had to go along too, +walking immediately behind me and holding up the slack. And such a +spectacle, with me filling the tonneau and he back behind on the rumble, +would have caused comment undoubtedly. + +That pantsmaker was up a stump! He looked reproachfully at me, chidingly +at the breeches and sternly at the tapemeasure--which he wore draped +round his neck like a pet snake--as though he felt convinced one of us +was at fault, but could not be sure which one. + +"I'm afraid, sir," he said, "that your figure is changing." + +"I guess you're right," I replied with a soft sigh. "As well as I can +judge I'm not as tall as I was day before yesterday by at least eighteen +inches. And I've mislaid my diaphragm somewhere, haven't I?" + +"'Ave them off, please, sir," he said resignedly. "I'll 'ave to alter +them to conform, sir. Come back to-morrow." + +I had them off and he altered them to conform, and I went back on the +morrow; in fact I went back so often that after a while I became really +quite attached to the place. I felt almost like a member of the firm. +Between calls from me the cutter worked on those breeches. He cut them +up and he cut them down; he sheared the back away and shingled the +front, and shifted the buttons to and fro. + +Still, even after all this, they were not what I should term an +unqualified success. When I sat down in them they seemed to climb up on +me so high, fore and aft, that I felt as short-waisted as a crush hat +in a state of repose. And the only way I could get my hands into the +hip pockets of those breeches was to take the breeches off first. As ear +muffs they were fair but as hip pockets they were failures. Finally +I told him to send my breeches, just as they were, to my hotel +address--and I paid the bill. + +I brought them home with me. On the day after my arrival I took them to +my regular tailor and laid the case before him. I tried them on for him +and asked him to tell me, as man to man, whether anything could be done +to make those garments habitable. He called his cutter into consultation +and they went over me carefully, meantime uttering those commiserating +clucking sounds one tailor always utters when examining another tailor's +handiwork. After this my tailor took a lump of chalk and charted out a +kind of Queen Rosamond's maze of crossmarks on my breeches and said I +might leave them, and that if surgery could save them he would operate. +At any rate he guaranteed to cut them away sufficiently to admit of my +breast bone coming out into the open once more. + +In a week--about--he called me on the telephone and broke the sad news +to me. My English riding pants would never ride me again. In using the +shears he had made a fatal slip and had irreparably damaged them in an +essential location. However, he said I need not worry, because it +might have been worse; from what he had already cut out of them he had +garnered enough material to make me a neat outing coat, and by scrimping +he thought he might get a waistcoat to match. + +I have my English raincoat; it is still in a virgin state so far as +wearing it is concerned. I may yet wear it and I may not. If I wear +it and you meet me on the street--and we are strangers--you should +experience no great difficulty in recognizing me. Just start in at +almost any spot on the outer orbit and walk round and round as though +you were circling a sideshow tent looking for a chance to crawl under +the canvas and see the curiosities for nothing; and after a while, if +you keep on walking as directed, you will come to a person with a plain +but substantial face, and that will be me in my new English raincoat. +Then again I may wear it to a fancy-dress ball sometime. In that case +I shall stencil Pike's Peak or Bust! on the sidebreadth and go as a +prairie schooner. If I can succeed in training a Missouri hound-dog to +trail along immediately behind me the illusion will be perfect. + +After these two experiences with the English tailor I gave up. Instead +of trying to wear the apparel of the foreigner I set myself to the +study of it. I would avoid falling into the habit of making comparisons +between European institutions and American institutions that are forever +favorable to the American side of the argument. To my way of thinking +there is only one class of tourist-Americans to be encountered abroad +worse than the class who go into hysterical rapture over everything they +see merely because it is European, and that is the class who condemn +offhand everything they see and find fault with everything merely +because it is not American. But I must say that in the matter of outer +habiliments the American man wins the decision on points nearly every +whack. + +In his evening garb, which generally fits him, but which generally is +not pressed as to trouserlegs and coatsleeves, the Englishman makes +an exceedingly good appearance. The swallow-tailed coat was created for +the Englishman and he for it; but on all other occasions the well-dressed +American leads him--leads the world, for that matter. When a Frenchman +attires himself in his fanciest regalia he merely succeeds in looking +effeminate; whereas a German, under similar circumstances, bears a +wadded-in, bulged-out, stuffed-up appearance. I never saw a German +in Germany whose hat was not too small for him--just as I never saw a +Japanese in Occidental garb whose hat was not too large for him--if it +was a derby hat. If a German has on a pair of trousers that flare out +at the bottom and a coat with angel sleeves--I think that is the correct +technical term--and if the front of his coat is spangled over with +the largest-sized horn buttons obtainable he regards himself as being +dressed to the minute. + +As for the women, I believe even the super-critical mantuamakers of +Paris have begun to concede that, as a nation, the American women +are the best-dressed women on earth. The French women have a way of +arranging their hair and of wearing their hats and of draping their furs +about their throats that is artistic beyond comparison. There may be a +word in some folks' dictionaries fitly to describe it--there is no such +word in mine; but when you have said that much you have said all there +is to say. A French woman's feet are not shod well. French shoes, like +all European shoes, are clumsy and awkward looking. + +English children are well dressed because they are simply dressed; +and the children themselves, in contrast to the overdressed, overly +aggressive youngsters so frequently encountered in America, are mannerly +and self-effacing, and have sane, simple, childish tastes. Young English +girls are fresh and natural, but frequently frumpy; and the English +married woman is generally dressed in poor taste and appears to have +a most limited wardrobe. Apparently the husband buys all he wants, and +then, if there is any money left over, the wife gets it to spend on +herself. + +Venturing one morning into a London chapel I saw a dowdy little woman of +this type kneeling in a pew, chanting the responses to the service. Her +blouse gaped open all the way down her back and she was saying with much +fervor, "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done." +She had too, but she didn't know it, as she knelt there unconsciously +supplying a personal illustration for the spoken line. + +The typical highborn English woman has pale blue eyes, a fine complexion +and a clear-cut, rather expressionless face with a profile suggestive +of the portraits seen on English postage stamps of the early Victorian +period; but in the arranging of her hair any French shopgirl could give +her lessons, and any smart American woman could teach her a lot about +the knack of wearing clothes with distinction. + +In England, that land of caste which is rigid enough to be cast iron, +all men, with the exception of petty tradespeople, dress to match the +vocations they follow. In America no man stays put--he either goes +forward to a circle above the one into which he was born or he slips +back into a lower one; and so he dresses to suit himself or his wife or +his tailor. But in England the professional man advertises his calling +by his clothes. Extreme stage types are ordinary types in London. +No Southern silver-tongued orator of the old-time, string-tied, +slouch-hatted, long-haired variety ever clung more closely to his +official makeup than the English barrister clings to his spats, his +shad-bellied coat and his eye-glass dangling on a cord. At a glance one +knows the medical man or the journalist, the military man in undress or +the gentleman farmer; also, by the same easy method, one may know the +workingman and the penny postman. The workingman has a cap on his +head and a neckerchief about his throat, and the legs of his corduroy +trousers are tied up below the knees with strings--else he is no +workingman. + +When we were in London the postmen were threatening to go on strike. +From the papers I gathered that the points in dispute had to do with +better hours and better pay; but if they had been striking against +having to wear the kind of cap the British Government makes a postman +wear, their cause would have had the cordial support and intense +sympathy of every American in town. + +It remains for the English clerk to be the only Englishman who seeks, by +the clothes he wears in his hours of ease, to appear as something more +than what he really is. Off duty he fair1y dotes on the high hat of +commerce. Frequently he sports it in connection with an exceedingly +short and bobby sackcoat, and trousers that are four or five inches +too short in the legs for him. The Parisian shopman harbors similar +ambitions--only he expresses them with more attention to detail. The +noon hour arriving, the French shophand doffs his apron and his air of +deference. He puts on a high hat and a frock coat that have been on a +peg behind the door all the morning, gathers up his cane and his gloves; +and, becoming on the instant a swagger and a swaggering boulevardier, he +saunters to his favorite sidewalk cafe for a cordial glassful of a pink +or green or purple drink. When his little hour of glory is over and done +with he returns to his counter, sheds his grandeur and is once more your +humble and ingratiating servitor. + +In residential London on a Sunday afternoon one beholds some weird +and wonderful costumes. On a Sunday afternoon in a sub-suburb of a +Kensington suburb I saw, passing through a drab, sad side street, a +little Cockney man with the sketchy nose and unfinished features of +his breed. He was presumably going to church, for he carried a large +Testament under his arm. He wore, among other things, a pair of white +spats, a long-tailed coat and a high hat. It was not a regular high hat, +either, but one of those trick-performing hats which, on signal, will +lie doggo or else sit up and beg. And he was riding a bicycle of an +ancient vintage! + +The most impressively got-up civilians in England--or in the world, +either, for that matter--are the assistant managers and the deputy +cashiers of the big London hotels. Compared with them the lilies of the +field are as lilies in the bulb. Their collars are higher, their ties +are more resplendent, their frock coats more floppy as to the tail and +more flappy as to the lapel, than it is possible to imagine until +you have seen it all with your own wondering eyes. They are haughty +creatures, too, austere and full of a starchy dignity; but when you come +to pay your bill you find at least one of them lined up with the valet +and the waiter, the manservant and the maidservant, the ox and the ass, +hand out and palm open to get his tip. Having tipped him you depart +feeling ennobled and uplifted--as though you had conferred a purse of +gold on a marquis. + + + + +Chapter XI + + + +Dressed to Kill + +With us it is the dress of the women that gives life and color to +the shifting show of street life. In Europe it is the soldier, and in +England the private soldier particularly. The German private soldier is +too stiff, and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian +private soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the +British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work--what with his dinky cap +tilted over one eye, and his red tunic that fits him without blemish +or wrinkle, and his snappy little swagger stick flirting the air. As a +picture of a first-class fighting man I know of but one to match him, +and that is a khaki-clad, service-hatted Yankee regular--long may he +wave! + +There may be something finer in the way of a military spectacle than +the change of horse-guards at Whitehall or the march of the foot-guards +across the green in St. James' Park on a fine, bright morning--but I +do not know what it is. One day, passing Buckingham Palace, I came on +a footguard on duty in one of the little sentry boxes just outside the +walls. He did not look as though he were alive. He looked as though he +had been stuffed and mounted by a most expert taxidermist. From under +his bearskin shako and from over his brazen chin-strap his face stared +out unwinking and solemn and barren of thought. + +I said to myself: "It is taking a long chance, but I shall ascertain +whether this party has any human emotions." So I halted directly in +front of him and began staring fixedly at his midriff as though I saw a +button unfastened there or a buckle disarranged. For a space of minutes +I kept my gaze on him without cessation. + +Finally the situation grew painful; but it was not that British +grenadier who grew embarrassed and fidgety--it was the other party to +the transaction. His gaze never shifted, his eyes never wavered--but I +came away feeling all wriggly. + +In no outward regard whatsoever do the soldiers on the Continent compare +with the soldiers of the British archipelago. When he is not on actual +duty the German private is always going somewhere in a great hurry with +something belonging to his superior officer--usually a riding horse or +a specially heavy valise. On duty and off he wears that woodenness of +expression--or, rather, that wooden lack of expression--which is found +nowhere in such flower of perfection as on the faces of German soldiers +and German toys. + +The Germans prove they have a sense of humor by requiring their soldiers +to march on parade with the goose step; and the French prove they have +none at all by incasing the defenseless legs of their soldiers in those +foolish red-flannel pants that are manufactured in such profusion up at +the Pantheon. + +In the event of another war between the two nations I anticipate a +frightful mortality among pants--especially if the French forces should +be retreating. The German soldier is not a particularly good marksman as +marksmen go, but he would have to be the worst shot in the world to miss +a pair of French pants that were going away from him at the time. + +Still, when all is said and done, there is something essentially +Frenchy about those red pants. There is something in their length that +instinctively suggests Toulon, something in their breadth that makes you +think of Toulouse. I realize that this joke, as it stands, is weak and +imperfect. If there were only another French seaport called Toubagge I +could round it out and improve it structurally. + +If the English private soldier is the trimmest, the Austrian officer is +the most beautiful to look on. An Austrian officer is gaudier than the +door-opener of a London cafe or the porter of a Paris hotel. He achieves +effects in gaudiness which even time Italian officer cannot equal. + +The Italian officer is addicted to cock feathers and horsetails on his +helmet, to bits of yellow and blue let into his clothes, to tufts of red +and green hung on him in unexpected and unaccountable spots. Either the +design of bottled Italian chianti is modeled after the Italian officer +or the Italian officer is modeled after the bottle of chianti--which, +though, I am not prepared to say without further study of the subject. + +But the Austrian officer is the walking sunset effect of creation. For +color schemes I know of nothing in Nature to equal him except the Grand +Canyon of the Colorado. Circus parades are unknown in Austria--they are +not missed either; after an Austrian officer a street parade would seem +a colorless and commonplace thing. In his uniform he runs to striking +contrasts--canary yellow, with light blue facings; silvers and grays; +bright greens with scarlet slashings--and so on. + +His collar is the very highest of all high collars and the heaviest with +embroidery; his cloak is the longest and the widest; his boots the most +varnished; his sword-belt the broadest and the shiniest; and the medals +on his bosom are the most numerous and the most glittering. Alf Ringling +and John Philip Sousa would take one look at him--and then, mutually +filled with an envious despair, they would go apart and hold a grand +lodge of sorrow together. Also, he constantly wears his spurs and his +sword; he wears them even when he is in a cafe in the evening listening +to the orchestra, drinking beer and allowing an admiring civilian to pay +the check--and that apparently is every evening. + +There was one Austrian colonel who came one night into a cafe in Vienna +where we were and sat down at the table next to us; and he put our eyes +right out and made all the lights dim and flickery. His epaulets were +two hairbrushes of augmented size, gold-mounted; his Plimsoll marks were +outlined in bullion, and along his garboard strake ran lines of gold +braid; but strangest of all to observe was the locality where he wore +what appeared to be his service stripes. Instead of being on his sleeves +they were at the extreme southern exposure of his coattails; I presume +an Austrian officer acquires merit by sitting down. + +This particular officer's saber kept jingling, and so did his spurs, +and so did his bracelet. I almost forgot the bracelet. It was an ornate +affair of gold links fastened on his left wrist with a big gold locket, +and it kept slipping down over his hand and rattling against his +cuff. The chain bracelet locked on the left wrist is very common among +Austrian officers; it adds just the final needed touch. I did not see +any of them carrying lorgnettes or shower bouquets, but I think, in +summer they wear veils. + +One opportunity is afforded the European who is neither a soldier nor +a hotel cashier to dress himself up in comic-opera clothes--and that is +when he a-hunting goes. An American going hunting puts on his oldest +and most serviceable clothes--a European his giddiest, gayest, gladdest +regalia. We were so favored by gracious circumstances as to behold +several Englishmen suitably attired for the chase, and we noted that the +conventional morning costume of an English gentleman expecting to call +informally on a pheasant or something during the course of the forenoon +consisted, in the main, of a perfect dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over +plaits and pockets, with large leather buttons like oak-galls adhering +thickly to it, with a belt high up under the arms and a saucy tail +sticking out behind; knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high +leggings of buff or white, and a special hat--a truly adorable +confection by the world's leading he-milliner. + +If you dared to wear such an outfit afield in America the very +dickeybirds would fall into fits as you passed--the chipmunks would lean +out of the trees and just naturally laugh you to death! But in a land +where the woodlands are well-kept groves, and the undergrowth, instead +of being weedy and briery, is sweet-scented fern and gorse and bracken, +I suppose it is all eminently correct. + +Thus appareled the Englishman goes to Scotland to shoot the grouse, the +gillie, the heather cock, the niblick, the haggis and other Scotch game. +Thus appareled he ranges the preserves of his own fat, fair shires in +ardent pursuit of the English rabbit, which pretty nearly corresponds to +the guinea pig, but is not so ferocious; and the English hare, which +is first cousin to our molly cottontail; and the English pheasant--but +particularly the pheasant. + +There was great excitement while we were in England concerning the +pheasants. Either the pheasants were preying on the mangel-wurzels or +the mangel-wurzels were preying on the pheasants. At any rate it had +something to do with the Land Bill--practically everything that happens +in England has something to do with the Land Bill--and Lloyd George was +in a free state of perspiration over it; and the papers were full of it +and altogether there was a great pother over it. + +We saw pheasants by the score. We saw them first from the windows of +our railroad carriage--big, beautiful birds nearly as large as barnyard +fowls and as tame, feeding in the bare cabbage patches, regardless of +the train chugging by not thirty yards away; and later we saw them again +at still closer range as we strolled along the haw-and-holly-lined roads +of the wonderful southern counties. They would scuttle on ahead of us, +weaving in and out of the hedgerows; and finally, when we insisted on it +and flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, they would get up, +with a great drumming of wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing +tailfeathers on the part of the cock birds, and go booming away to what +passes in Sussex and Kent for dense cover--meaning by that thickets such +as you may find in the upper end of Central Park. + +They say King George is one of the best pheasant-shots in England. +He also collects postage stamps when not engaged in his regular regal +duties, such as laying cornerstones for new workhouses and receiving +presentation addresses from charity children. I have never shot +pheasants; but, having seen them in their free state as above described, +and having in my youth collected postage stamps intermittently, I should +say, speaking offhand, that of the two pursuits postage-stamp collecting +is infinitely the more exciting and dangerous. + +Through the closed season the keepers mind the pheasants, protecting +them from poachers and feeding them on selected grain; but a day comes +in October when the hunters go forth and take their stands at spaced +intervals along a cleared aisle flanking the woods; then the beaters +dive into the woods from the opposite side, and when the tame and +trusting creatures come clustering about their feet expecting provender +the beaters scare them up, by waving their umbrellas at them, I think, +and the pheasants go rocketing into the air--rocketing is the correct +sporting term--go rocketing into the air like a flock of Sunday +supplements; and the gallant gunner downs them in great multitudes, +always taking due care to avoid mussing his clothes. For after all the +main question is not "What did he kill?" but "How does he look?" + +At that, I hold no brief for the pheasant--except when served with +breadcrumb dressing and currant jelly he is no friend of mine. It ill +becomes Americans, with our own record behind us, to chide other +people for the senseless murder of wild things; and besides, speaking +personally, I have a reasonably open mind on the subject of wild-game +shooting. Myself, I shot a wild duck once. He was not flying at the +time. He was, as the stockword goes, setting. I had no self-reproaches +afterward however. As between that duck and myself I regarded it as an +even break--as fair for one as for the other--because at the moment I +myself was, as we say, setting too. But if, in the interests of true +sportsmanship, they must have those annual massacres I certainly should +admire to see what execution a picked half dozen of American quail +hunters, used to snap-shooting in the cane jungles and brier patches of +Georgia and Arkansas, could accomplish among English pheasants, until +such time as their consciences mastered them and they desisted from +slaughter! + +Be that as it may, pheasant shooting is the last word in the English +sporting calendar. It is a sport strictly for the gentry. Except in the +capacity of innocent bystanders the lower orders do not share in it. It +is much too good for them; besides, they could not maintain the correct +wardrobe for it. The classes derive one substantial benefit from the +institution however. The sporting instinct of the landed Englishman has +led to the enactment of laws under which an ordinary person goes smack +to jail if he is caught sequestrating a clandestine pheasant bird; but +it does not militate against the landowner's peddling off his game after +he has destroyed it. British thrift comes in here. And so in carload +lots it is sold to the marketmen. The result is that in the fall of the +year pheasants are cheaper than chickens; and any person who can afford +poultry on his dinner table can afford pheasants. + +The Continental hunter makes an even more spectacular appearance than +his British brother. No self-respecting German or French sportsman would +think of faring forth after the incarnate brown hare or the ferocious +wood pigeon unless he had on a green hat with a feather in it; and a +green suit to match the hat; and swung about his neck with a cord a +natty fur muff to keep his hands in between shots; and a swivel chair to +sit in while waiting for the wild boar to come along and be bowled over. + +Being hunted with a swivel chair is what makes the German wild boar +wild. On occasion, also, the hunter wears, suspended from his belt, a +cute little hanger like a sawed-off saber, with which to cut the throats +of his spoil. Then, when it has spoiled some more, they will serve it at +a French restaurant. + +It was our fortune to be in France on the famous and ever-memorable +occasion when the official stag of the French Republic met a tragic and +untimely end, under circumstances acutely distressing to all who believe +in the divinity bestowed prerogatives of the nobility. The Paris edition +of the Herald printed the lamentable tale on its front page and I +clipped the account. I offer it here in exact reproduction, including +the headline: + + HUNTING INCIDENT SAID TO BE DUE TO CONSPIRACY + +Further details are given in this morning's Figaro of the incident +between Prince Murat and M. Dauchis, the mayor of Saint-Felix, near +Clermont, which was briefly reported in yesterday's Herald. + +A regular conspiracy was organized by M. Dauchis, it is alleged, in +order to secure the stag Prince Murat and Comte de Valon were hunting in +the forest of La Neuville-en-Hetz. Already, at the outset of the hunt, +M. Dauchis, according to Le Figaro, charged at a huntsman with a little +automobile in which he was driving and threatened to fire. Then when the +stag ran into the wood, near the Trye River, one of his keepers shot it. +In great haste the animal was loaded on another automobile; and before +either the prince or Comte de Valon could interfere it was driven away. + +While Comte de Valon spurred his horse in pursuit Prince Murat disarmed +the man who had shot the stag, for he was leveling his gun at another +huntsman; but before the gun was wrenched from his hands he had struck +Prince d'Essling, Prince Murat's uncle, across the face with the butt. + +Meantime Comte de Valon had overtaken the automobile and, though +threatened with revolvers by its occupants, would have recaptured the +stag if the men in charge of it had not taken it into the house of M. +Dauchis' father. + +The only course left for Prince Murat and Comte de Valon was to lodge a +complaint with the police for assault and for killing the stag, which M. +Dauchis refused to give back. + +From this you may see how very much more exciting stag hunting is in +France than in America. Comparing the two systems we find but one point +of resemblance--namely, the attempted shooting of a huntsman. In the +North Woods we do a good deal of that sort of thing: however with us +it is not yet customary to charge the prospective victim in a little +automobile--that may come in time. Our best bags are made by the +stalking or still-hunting method. Our city-raised sportsman slips up on +his guide and pots him from a rest. + +But consider the rest of the description so graphically set forth by +Le Figaro--the intriguing of the mayor; the opposing groups rampaging +round, some on horseback and some in automobile runabouts; the intense +disappointment of the highborn Prince Murat and his uncle, the Prince +d'Essling, and his friend, the Comte de Valon; the implied grief of the +stag at being stricken down by other than noble hands; the action of the +base-born commoner, who shot the stag, in striking the Prince d'Essling +across his pained and aristocratic face with the butt--exact type of +butt and name of owner not being given. Only in its failure to clear +up this important point, and in omitting to give descriptions of the +costumes worn by the two princes and the comte, is Le Figaro's story +lacking. They must have been wearing the very latest creations too. + +This last brings us back again to the subject of clothes and serves +to remind me that, contrary to a belief prevalent on this side of the +water, good clothes cost as much abroad as they cost here. In England a +man may buy gloves and certain substantial articles of haberdashery in +silk and linen and wool at a much lower figure than in America; and in +Italy he will find crocheted handbags and bead necklaces are to be had +cheaper than at home--provided, of course, he cares for such things as +crocheted handbags and bead necklaces. Handmade laces and embroideries +and sundry other feminine fripperies, so women tell me, are moderately +priced on the Continent, if so be the tourist-purchaser steers clear of +the more fashionable shops and chases the elusive bargain down a back +street; but, quality considered, other things cost as much in Europe +as they cost here--and frequently they cost more. If you buy at the +shopkeeper's first price he has a secret contempt for you; if you haggle +him down to a reasonably fair valuation--say about twice the amount a +native would pay for the same thing--he has a half-concealed contempt +for you; if you refuse to trade at any price he has an open contempt for +you; and in any event he dislikes you because you are an American. So +there you are. No matter how the transaction turns out you have his +contempt; it is the only thing he parts with at cost. + +It is true that you may buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in London; +so also may you buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in any American +city, but the reasonably affluent American doesn't buy ten-dollar suits +at home. He saves himself up to indulge in that form of idiocy abroad. +In Paris or Rome you may get a five-course dinner with wine for forty +cents; so you may in certain quarters of New York; but in either place +the man who can afford to pay more for his dinner will find it to his +ultimate well-being to do so. Simply because a boarding house in France +or Italy is known as a pension doesn't keep it from being a boarding +house--and a pretty average bad one, as I have been informed by +misguided Americans who tried living at a pension, and afterwards put in +a good deal of their spare time regretting it. + +Altogether, looking back on my own experiences, I can at this time of +writing think of but two common commodities which, when grade is taken +into the equation, are found to be radically cheaper in Europe than +in America--these two things being taxicabs and counts. For their +cleanliness and smartness of aspect, and their reasonableness of +meter-fare, taxicabs all over Europe are a constant joy to the traveling +American. And, though in the United States counts are so costly that +only the marriageable daughters of the very wealthy may afford to buy +them--and even then, as the count calendars attest, have the utmost +difficulty in keeping them after they are bought--in Continental Europe +anywhere one may for a moderate price hire a true-born count to do +almost any small job, from guiding one through an art gallery to waiting +on one at the table. Counts make indifferent guides, but are middling +fair waiters. + +Outside of the counts and the taxicabs, and the food in Germany, I +found in all Europe just one real overpowering bargain--and that was in +Naples, where, as a general thing, bargains are not what they seem. +For the exceedingly moderate outlay of one lira--Italian--or twenty +cents--American--I secured this combination, to wit, as follows: + +In the background old Vesuvius, like a wicked, fallen angel, wearing his +plumy, fumy halo of sulphurous hell-smoke; in the middle distance +the Bay of Naples, each larcenous wave-crest in it triple-plated with +silvern glory pilfered from a splendid moon; on the left the riding +lights of a visiting squadron of American warships; on the right the +myriad slanted sails of the coral-fishers' boats, beating out toward +Capri, with the curlew-calls of the fishermen floating back in shrill +snatches to meet a jangle of bell and bugle from the fleet; in the +immediate foreground a competent and accomplished family troupe of six +Neapolitan troubadours--men, women and children--some of them playing +guitars and all six of them, with fine mellow voices and tremendous +dramatic effect, singing--the words being Italian but the air good +American--John Brown's Body Lies a-Moldering in the Grave! + +I defy you to get more than that for twenty cents anywhere in the world! + + + + +Chapter XII + + + +Night Life--with the Life Part Missing + +In our consideration of this topic we come first to the night life of +the English. They have none. + +Passing along to the next subject under the same heading, which is +the night life of Paris, we find here so much night life, of such +a delightfully transparent and counterfeit character; so much +made-to-measure deviltry; so many members of the Madcaps' Union engaged +on piece-work; so much delicious, hoydenish derring-do, all carefully +stage-managed and expertly timed for the benefit of North and South +American spenders, to the end that the deliriousness shall abate +automatically in exact proportion as the spenders quit spending--in +short, so much of what is typically Parisian that, really Paris, on its +merits, is entitled to a couple of chapters of its own. + +All of which naturally brings us to the two remaining great cities of +Mid-Europe--Berlin and Vienna--and leads us to the inevitable conclusion +that the Europeans, in common with all other peoples on the earth, only +succeed--when they try to be desperately wicked--in being desperately +dull; whereas when they seek their pleasures in a natural manner they +present racial slants and angles that are very interesting to observe +and very pleasant to have a hand in. + +Take the Germans now: No less astute a world traveler than Samuel +G. Blythe is sponsor for the assertion that the Berliners follow the +night-life route because the Kaiser found his capital did not attract +the tourist types to the extent he had hoped, and so decreed that +his faithful and devoted subjects, leaving their cozy hearths and +inglenooks, should go forth at the hour when graveyards yawn--and who +could blame them?--to spend the dragging time until dawn in being merry +and bright. So saying His Majesty went to bed, leaving them to work +while he slept. + +After viewing the situation at first hand the present writer is of the +opinion that Mr. Blythe was quite right in his statements. Certainly +nothing is more soothing to the eye of the onlooker, nothing more +restful to his soul, than to behold a group of Germans enjoying +themselves in a normal manner. And absolutely nothing is quite so +ghastly sad as the sight of those same well-flushed, well-fleshed +Germans cavorting about between the hours of two and four-thirty A.M., +trying, with all the pachydermic ponderosity of Barnum's Elephant +Quadrille, to be professionally gay and cutuppish. The Prussians must +love their Kaiser dearly. We sit up with our friends when they are dead; +they stay up for him until they are ready to die themselves. + +As is well known Berlin abounds in pleasure palaces, so called. Enormous +places these are, where under one widespreading roof are three or four +separate restaurants of augmented size, not to mention winecellars and +beer-caves below-stairs, and a dancehall or so and a Turkish bath, and +a bar, and a skating rink, and a concert hall--and any number of private +dining rooms. The German mind invariably associates size with enjoyment. + +To these establishments, after his regular dinner, the Berliner repairs +with his family, his friend or his guest. There is one especially +popular resort, a combination of restaurant and vaudeville theater, +at which one eats an excellent dinner excellently served, and between +courses witnesses the turns of a first-rate variety bill, always with +the inevitable team of American coon shouters, either in fast colors or +of the burnt-cork variety, sandwiched into the program somewhere. + +In the Friedrichstrasse there is another place, called the +Admiralspalast, which is even more attractive. Here, inclosing a big, +oval-shaped ice arena, balcony after balcony rises circling to the roof. +On one of these balconies you sit, and while you dine and after you have +dined you look down on a most marvelous series of skating stunts. In +rapid and bewildering succession there are ballets on skates, solo +skating numbers, skating carnivals and skating races. Finally scenery +is slid in on runners and the whole company, in costumes grotesque and +beautiful, go through a burlesque that keeps you laughing when you +are not applauding, and admiring when you are doing neither; while +alternating lightwaves from overhead electric devices flood the picture +with shifting, shimmering tides of color. It is like seeing a Christmas +pantomime under an aurora borealis. In America we could not do these +things--at least we never have done them. Either the performance would +be poor or the provender would be highly expensive, or both. But here +the show is wonderful, and the victuals are good and not extravagantly +priced, and everybody has a bully time. + +At eleven-thirty or thereabout the show at the ice palace is +over--concluding with a push-ball match between teams of husky maidens +who were apparently born on skates and raised on skates, and would not +feel natural unless they were curveting about on skates. Their skates +seem as much a part of them as tails to mermaids. It is bedtime now for +sane folks, but at this moment a certain madness which does not at all +fit in with the true German temperament descends on the crowd. Some go +upstairs to another part of the building, where there is a dancehall +called the Admiralskasino; but, to the truly swagger, one should hasten +to the Palais du Danse on the second floor of the big Metropolpalast +in the Behrenstrasse. This place opens promptly at midnight and closes +promptly at two o'clock in the morning. + +Inasmuch as the Palais du Danse is an institution borrowed outright +from the French they have adopted a typically French custom here. As +the visitor enters--if he be a stranger--a flunky in gorgeous livery +intercepts him and demands an entrance fee amounting to about a dollar +and a quarter in our money, as I recall. This tariff the American or +Englishman pays, but the practiced Berliner merely suggests to the +doorkeeper the expediency of his taking a long running start and jumping +off into space, and stalks defiantly in without forking over a single +pfennig to any person whatsoever. + +The Palais du Danse is incomparably the most beautiful ballroom in +the world--so people who have been all over the world agree--and it is +spotlessly clean and free from brackish smells, which is more than can +be said of any French establishment of similar character I have seen. At +the Palais du Danse the patron sits at a table--a table with something +on it besides a cloth being an essential adjunct to complete enjoyment +of an evening of German revelry; and as he sits and drinks he listens to +the playing of a splendid band and looks on at the dancing. Nothing +is drunk except wine--and by wine I mainly mean champagne of the most +sweetish and sickish brand obtainable. Elsewhere, for one-twentieth the +cost, the German could have the best and purest beer that is made; but +he is out now for the big night. Accordingly he saturates his tissues +with the sugary bubble-water of France. He does not join in the dancing +himself. The men dancers are nearly all paid dancers, I think, and the +beautifully clad women who dance are either professionals, too, or else +belong to a profession that is older even than dancing is. They all +dance with a profound German gravity and precision. Here is music to set +a wooden leg a-jigging; but these couples circle and glide and dip with +an incomprehensible decorum and slowness. + +When we were there, they were dancing the tango or one of its manifold +variations. All Europe, like all America, was, for the moment, tango +mad. While we were in Paris, M. Jean Richepin lectured before the Forty +Immortals of the Five Academies assembled in solemn conclave at the +Institute of France. They are called the Forty Immortals because nobody +can remember the names of more than five of them. He took for his +subject the tango--his motto, in short, being one borrowed from the +conductors in the New York subway--"Mind your step!" + +While he spoke, which was for an hour or more, the bebadged and +beribboned bosoms of his illustrious compatriots heaved with emotion; +their faces--or such parts of their faces as were visible above the +whiskerline--flushed with enthusiasm, and most vociferously they +applauded his masterly phrasing and his tracing-out of the evolution of +the tango, all the way from its Genesis, as it were, to its Revelation. +I judge the revelation particularly appealed to them--that part of it +appeals to so many. + +After that the tango seemed literally to trail us. We could not escape +it. While we were in Berlin the emperor saw fit officially to forbid +the dancing of the tango by officers of his navy and army. We reached +England just after the vogue for tango teas started. + +Naturally we went to one of these affairs. It took place at a theater. +Such is the English way of interpreting the poetry of motion--to hire +some one else to do it for you, and--in order to get the worth of your +money--sit and swizzle tea while the paid performer is doing it. At the +tango tea we patronized the tea was up to standard, but the dancing of +the box-ankled professionals was a disappointment. Beforehand I had been +told that the scene on the stage would be a veritable picture. And so it +was--Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair. + +As a matter of fact the best dancer I saw in Europe was a performing +trick pony in a winter circus in Berlin. I also remember with +distinctness of detail a chorusman who took part in a new Lehar opera, +there in Berlin. I do not remember him for his dancing, because he was +no clumsier of foot than his compatriots in the chorus rank and file; or +for his singing, since I could not pick his voice out from the combined +voices of the others. I remember him because he wore spectacles--not a +monocle nor yet a pair of nose-glasses, but heavy-rimmed, double-lensed +German spectacles with gold bows extending up behind his ears like the +roots of an old-fashioned wisdom tooth. + +Come to think about it, I know of no reason why a chorusman should not +wear spectacles if he needs them in his business or if he thinks they +will add to his native beauty; but the spectacle of that bolster-built +youth, dressed now as a Spanish cavalier and now as a Venetian +gondolier, prancing about, with his spectacles goggling owlishly out +at the audience, and once in a while, when a gleam from the footlights +caught on them, turning to two red-hot disks set in the middle of his +face, was a thing that is going to linger in my memory when a lot of +more important matters are entirely forgotten. + +Not even in Paris did the tango experts compare with the tango +experts one sees in America. At this juncture I pause a moment, giving +opportunity for some carping critic to rise and call my attention to +the fact that perhaps the most distinguished of the early school of +turkey-trotters bears a French name and came to us from Paris. To +which I reply that so he does and so he did; but I add then the +counter-argument that he came to us by way of Paris, at the conclusion +of a round trip that started in the old Fourth Ward of the Borough of +Manhattan, city of Greater New York; for he was born and bred on the +East Side--and, moreover, was born bearing the name of a race of kings +famous in the south of Ireland and along the Bowery. And he learned +his art--not only the rudiments of it but the final finished polish of +it--in the dancehalls of Third Avenue, where the best slow-time dancers +on earth come from. It was after he had acquired a French accent and +had Gallicized his name, thereby causing a general turning-over of old +settlers in the graveyards of the County Clare, that he returned to us, +a conspicuous figure in the world of art and fashion, and was able to +get twenty-five dollars an hour for teaching the sons and daughters of +our richest families to trip the light fantastic go. At the same time, +be it understood, I am not here to muckrake the past of one so prominent +and affluent in the most honored and lucrative of modern professions; +but facts are facts, and these particular facts are quoted here to bind +and buttress my claim that the best dancers are the American dancers. + +After this digression let us hurry right back to that loyal Berliner +whom we left seated in the Palais du Danse on the Behrenstrasse, waiting +for the hour of two in the morning to come. The hour of two in the +morning does come; the lights die down; the dancers pick up their heavy +feet--it takes an effort to pick up those Continental feet--and quit the +waxen floor; the Oberkellner comes round with his gold chain of office +dangling on his breast and collects for the wine, and our German friend, +politely inhaling his yawns, gets up and goes elsewhere to finish his +good time. And, goldarn it, how he does dread it! Yet he goes, faithful +soul that he is. + +He goes, let us say, to the Pavilion Mascotte--no dancing, but plenty +of drinking and music and food--which opens at two and stays open until +four, when it shuts up shop in order that another place in the nature of +a cabaret may open. And so, between five and six o'clock in the morning +of the new day, when the lady garbagemen and the gentlemen chambermaids +of the German capital are abroad on their several duties, he journeys +homeward, and so, as Mr. Pepys says, to bed, with nothing disagreeable +to look forward to except repeating the same dose all over again +the coming night. This sort of thing would kill anybody except a +Prussian--for, mark you, between intervals of drinking he has been +eating all night; but then a Prussian has no digestion. He merely has +gross tonnage in the place where his digestive apparatus ought to be. + +The time to see a German enjoying himself is when he is following his +own bent and not obeying the imperial edict of his gracious sovereign. +I had a most excellent opportunity of observing him while engaged in +his own private pursuits of pleasure when by chance one evening, in the +course of a solitary prowl, I bumped into a sort of Berlinesque version +of Coney Island, with the island part missing. It was not out in the +suburbs where one would naturally expect to find such a resort. It was +in the very middle of the city, just round the corner from the cafe +district, not more than half a mile, as the Blutwurst flies, from Unter +den Linden. Even at this distance and after a considerable lapse of time +I can still appreciate that place, though I cannot pronounce it; for it +had a name consisting of one of those long German compound words that +run all the way round a fellow's face and lap over at the back, like +a clergyman's collar, and it had also a subname that no living person +could hope to utter unless he had a thorough German education and throat +trouble. You meet such nouns frequently in Germany. They are not meant +to be spoken; you gargle them. To speak the full name of this park would +require two able-bodied persons--one to start it off and carry it along +until his larynx gave out, and the other to take it up at that point and +finish it. + +But for all the nine-jointed impressiveness of its title this park was +a live, brisk little park full of sideshow tents sheltering mildly +amusing, faked-up attractions, with painted banners flapping in the air +and barkers spieling before the entrances and all the ballyhoos going +at full blast--altogether a creditable imitation of a street fair as +witnessed in any American town that has a good live Elks' Lodge in it. + +Plainly the place was popular. Germans of all conditions and all ages +and all sizes--but mainly the broader lasts--were winding about in thick +streams in the narrow, crooked alleys formed by the various tents. They +packed themselves in front of each booth where a free exhibition was +going on, and when the free part was over and the regular performance +began they struggled good-naturedly to pay the admission fee and enter +in at the door. + +And, for a price, there were freaks to be seen who properly belonged on +our side of the water, it seemed to me. I had always supposed them to be +exclusively domestic articles until I encountered them here. There was a +regular Bosco--a genuine Herr He Alive Them Eats--sitting in his canvas +den entirely surrounded by a choice and tasty selection of eating +snakes. The orthodox tattooed man was there, too, first standing up to +display the text and accompanying illustrations on his front cover, and +then turning round so the crowd might read what he said on the other +side. And there was many another familiar freak introduced to our +fathers by Old Dan Rice and to us, their children, through the good +offices of Daniel's long and noble line of successors. + +A seasonable Sunday is a fine time; and the big Zoological Garden, which +is a favorite place for studying the Berlin populace at the diversions +they prefer when left to their own devices. At one table will be a +cluster of students, with their queer little pill-box caps of all +colors, their close-cropped heads and well-shaved necks, and their +saber-scarred faces. At the next table half a dozen spectacled, +long-coated men, who look as though they might be university professors, +are confabbing earnestly. And at the next table and the next and the +next--and so on, until the aggregate runs into big figures--are family +groups--grandsires, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles and children, on +down to the babies in arms. By the uncountable thousands they spend the +afternoon here, munching sausages and sipping lager, and enjoying the +excellent music that is invariably provided. At each plate there is a +beer mug, for everybody is forever drinking and nobody is ever drunk. +You see a lot of this sort of thing, not only in the parks and gardens +so numerous in and near any German city but anywhere on the Continent. +Seeing it helps an American to understand a main difference between the +American Sabbath and the European Sunday. We keep it and they spend it. + +I am given to understand that Vienna night life is the most alluring, +the most abandoned, the most wicked and the wildest of all night life. +Probably this is so--certainly it is the most cloistered and the most +inaccessible. The Viennese does not deliberately exploit his night life +to prove to all the world that he is a gay dog and will not go home +until morning though it kill him--as the German does. Neither does he +maintain it for the sake of the coin to be extracted from the pockets of +the tourist, as do the Parisians. With him his night life is a thing he +has created and which he supports for his own enjoyment. + +And so it goes on--not out in the open; not press-agented; not +advertised; but behind closed doors. He does not care for the stranger's +presence, nor does he suffer it either--unless the stranger is properly +vouched for. The best theaters in Vienna are small, exclusive affairs, +privately supported, and with seating capacity for a few chosen patrons. +Once he has quit the public cafe with its fine music and its bad waiters +the uninitiated traveler has a pretty lonesome time of it in Vienna. +Until all hours he may roam the principal streets seeking that fillip of +wickedness which will give zest to life and provide him with something +to brag about when he gets back among the home folks again. He does not +find it. Charades would provide a much more exciting means of spending +the evening; and, in comparison with the sights he witnesses, anagrams +and acrostics are positively thrilling. + +He is tantalized by the knowledge that all about him there are big +doings, but, so far as he is concerned, he might just as well be +attending a Sunday-school cantata. Unless he be suitably introduced he +will have never a chance to shake a foot with anybody or buy a drink for +somebody in the inner circles of Viennese night life. He is emphatically +on the outside, denied even the poor satisfaction of looking in. At that +I have a suspicion, born of casual observation among other races, that +the Viennese really has a better time when he is not trying than when he +is trying. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + + +Our Friend, the Assassin + +No taste of the night life of Paris is regarded as complete without +a visit to an Apache resort at the fag-end of it. For orderly and +law-abiding people the disorderly and lawbreaking people always have an +immense fascination anyhow. The average person, though inclined to blink +at whatever prevalence of the criminal classes may exist in his own +community, desires above all things to know at firsthand about the +criminals of other communities. In these matters charity begins at home. + +Every New Yorker who journeys to the West wants to see a few roadagents; +conversely the Westerner sojourning in New York pesters his New +York friends to lead him to the haunts of the gangsters. It makes no +difference that in a Western town the prize hold-up man is more apt +than not to be a real-estate dealer; that in New York the average run +of citizens know no more of the gangs than they know of the Metropolitan +Museum of Art--which is to say, nothing at all. Human nature comes to +the surface just the same. + +In Paris they order this thing differently; they exhibit the same spirit +of enterprise that in a lesser degree characterized certain promoters of +rubberneck tours who some years ago fitted up make-believe opium dens in +New York's Chinatown for the awed delectation of out-of-town spectators. +Knowing from experience that every other American who lands in Paris +will crave to observe the Apache while the Apache is in the act of +Apaching round, the canny Parisians have provided a line of up-to-date +Apache dens within easy walking distance of Montmartre; and thither +the guides lead the round-eyed tourist and there introduce him to +well-drilled, carefully made-up Apaches and Apachesses engaged in their +customary sports and pastimes for as long as he is willing to pay out +money for the privilege. + +Being forewarned of this I naturally desired to see the genuine article. +I took steps to achieve that end. Suitably chaperoned by a trio of +transplanted Americans who knew a good bit about the Paris underworld I +rode over miles of bumpy cobblestones until, along about four o'clock in +the morning, our taxicab turned into a dim back street opening off one +of the big public markets and drew up in front of a grimy establishment +rejoicing in the happy and well-chosen name of the Cave of the +Innocents. + +Alighting we passed through a small boozing ken, where a frowzy woman +presided over a bar, serving drinks to smocked marketmen, and at the +rear descended a steep flight of stone steps. At the foot of the stairs +we came on two gendarmes who sat side by side on a wooden bench, having +apparently nothing else to do except to caress their goatees and finger +their swords. Whether the gendarmes were stationed here to keep the +Apaches from preying on the marketmen or the marketmen from preying on +the Apaches I know not; but having subsequently purchased some fresh +fruit in that selfsame market I should say now that if anybody about the +premises needed police protection it was the Apaches. My money would be +on the marketmen every time. + +Beyond the couchant gendarmes we traversed a low, winding passage cut +out of stone and so came at length to what seemingly had originally +been a winevault, hollowed out far down beneath the foundations of the +building. The ceiling was so low that a tall man must stoop to avoid +knocking his head off. The place was full of smells that had crawled in +a couple of hundred years before and had died without benefit of clergy, +and had remained there ever since. For its chief item of furniture +the cavern had a wicked old piano, with its lid missing, so that its +yellowed teeth showed in a perpetual snarl. I judged some of its most +important vital organs were missing too--after I heard it played. On +the walls were inscribed such words as naughty little boys write on +schoolhouse fences in this country, and more examples of this pleasing +brand of literature were carved on the whittled oak benches and the +rickety wooden stools. So much for the physical furbishings. + +By rights--by all the hallowed rules and precedents of the American +vaudeville stage!--the denizens of this cozy retreat in the bowels of +the earth should have been wearing high-waisted baggy velvet trousers +and drinking absinthe out of large flagons, and stabbing one another +between the shoulder blades, and ever and anon, in the mystic mazes +of the dance, playing crack-the-whip with the necks and heels of their +adoring lady friends; but such was not found to be the case. In all +these essential and traditional regards the assembled Innocents were as +poignantly disappointing as the costers of London had proved themselves. + +According to all the printed information on the subject the London +coster wears clothes covered up with pearl buttons and spends his time +swapping ready repartee with his Donah or his Dinah. The costers I saw +were barren of pearl buttons and silent of speech; and almost invariably +they had left their Donahs at home. Similarly these gentlemen habitues +of the Cave of the Innocents wore few or no velvet pants, and guzzled +little or none of the absinthe. Their favorite tipple appeared to be +beer; and their female companions snuggled closely beside them. + +We stayed among them fully twenty minutes, but not a single person +was stabbed while we were there. It must have been an off-night for +stabbings. + +Still, I judged them to have been genuine exhibits because here, for +the first, last and only time in Paris, I found a shop where a +stranger ready to spend a little money was not welcomed with vociferous +enthusiasm. The paired-off cave-dwellers merely scowled on us as we +scrouged past them to a vacant bench in a far corner. The waiter, +though, bowed before us--a shockheaded personage in the ruins of a dress +suit--at the same time saying words which I took to be complimentary +until one of my friends explained that he had called us something +that might be freely translated as a certain kind of female lobster. +Circumscribed by our own inflexible and unyielding language we in +America must content ourselves with calling a man a plain lobster; but +the limber-tongued Gaul goes further than that--he calls you a female +lobster, which seems somehow or other to make it more binding. + +However, I do not really think the waiter meant to be deliberately +offensive; for presently, having first served us with beer which for +obvious reasons we did not drink, he stationed himself alongside the +infirm piano and rendered a little ballad to the effect that all men +were spiders and all women were snakes, and all the World was a green +poison; so, right off, I knew what his trouble was, for I had seen many +persons just as morbidly affected as himself down in the malaria belt +of the United States, where everybody has liver for breakfast every +morning. The waiter was bilious--that was what ailed him. + +For the sake of the conventions I tried to feel apprehensive of +grave peril. It was no use. I felt safe--not exactly comfortable, but +perfectly safe. I could not even muster up a spasm of the spine when a +member of our party leaned over and whispered in my ear that any one +of these gentry roundabout us would cheerfully cut a man's throat for +twenty-five cents. I was surprised, though, at the moderation of the +cost; this was the only cheap thing I had struck in Paris. It was +cheaper even than the same job is supposed to be in the district round +Chatham Square, on the East Side of New York, where the credulous +stranger so frequently is told that he can have a plain murder done +for five dollars--or a fancy murder, with trimmings, for ten; rate card +covering other jobs on application. In America, however, it has been my +misfortune that I did not have the right amount handy; and here in Paris +I was handicapped by my inability to make change correctly. By now I +would not have trusted anyone in Paris to make change for me--not even +an Apache. I was sorry for this, for at a quarter a head I should +have been very glad to engage a troupe of Apaches to kill me about two +dollars' worth of cabdrivers and waiters. For one of the waiters at our +hotel I would have been willing to pay as much as fifty cents, provided +they killed him very slowly. Because of the reasons named, however, I +had to come away without making any deal, and I have always regretted +it. + +At the outset of the chapter immediately preceding this one I said +the English had no night life. This was a slight but a pardonable +misstatement of the actual facts. The Englishman has not so much night +life as the Parisian, the Berliner, the Viennese or the Budapest; but he +has more night life in his town of London than the Roman has in his town +of Rome. In Rome night life for the foreigner consists of going indoors +at eventide and until bedtime figuring up how much money he has been +skinned out of during the course of the day just done--and for the +native in going indoors and counting up how much money he has skinned +the foreigner out of during the day aforesaid. London has its night +life, but it ends early--in the very shank of the evening, so to speak. + +This is due in a measure to the operation of the early-closing law, +which, however, does not apply if you are a bona-fide traveler stopping +at your own inn. There the ancient tavern law protects you. You may sit +at ease and, if so minded, may drink and eat until daylight doth appear +or doth not appear, as is generally the case in the foggy season. There +is another law, of newer origin, to prohibit the taking of children +under a certain age into a public house. On the passage of this act +there at once sprang up a congenial and lucrative employment for those +horrible old-women drunkards who are so distressingly numerous in the +poorer quarters of the town. Regardless of the weather one of these +bedrabbled creatures stations herself just outside the door of a +pub. Along comes a mother with a thirst and a child. Surrendering her +offspring to the temporary care of the hag the mother goes within and +has her refreshment at the bar. When, wiping her mouth on the back of +her hand, she comes forth to reclaim the youngster she gives the +other woman a ha'penny for her trouble, and eventually the other woman +harvests enough ha'penny bits to buy a dram of gin for herself. On a +rainy day I have seen a draggled, Sairey-Gamp-looking female caring for +as many as four damp infants under the drippy portico of an East End +groggery. + +It is to the cafes that the early-closing law chiefly applies. The cafes +are due to close for business within half an hour after midnight. +When the time for shutting up draws nigh the managers do not put their +lingering patrons out physically. The individual's body is a sacred +thing, personal liberty being most dear to an Englishman. It will be +made most dear to you too--in the law courts--if you infringe on it by +violence or otherwise. No; they have a gentler system than that, one +that is free from noise, excitement and all mussy work. Along toward +twelve-thirty o'clock the waiters begin going about, turning out the +lights. The average London restaurant is none too brightly illuminated +to start with, being a dim and dingy ill-kept place compared with the +glary, shiny lobster palace that we know; so instantly you are made +aware of a thickening of the prevalent gloom. The waiters start in at +the far end of the room and turn out a few lights. Drawing nearer +and nearer to you they turn out more lights; and finally, by way of +strengthening the hint, they turn out the lights immediately above your +head, which leaves you in the stilly dark with no means of seeing your +food even; unless you have taken the precaution to spread phosphorus +on your sandwich instead of mustard--which, however, is seldom done. +A better method is to order a portion of one of the more luminous +varieties of imported cheese. + +The best thing of all, however, is to take your hat and stick and go +away from there. And then, unless you belong to a regular club or carry +a card of admission to one of the chartered all-night clubs that have +sprung up so abundantly in London, and which are uniformly stuffy, +stupid places where the members take their roistering seriously--or as +a last resort, unless you care to sit for a tiresome hour or two in the +grill of your hotel--you might as well be toddling away to bed; that is +to say, you might as well go to bed unless you find the scenes in the +street as worth while as I found them. + +At this hour London's droning voice has abated to a deep, hoarse snore; +London has become a great, broody giant taking rest that is troubled by +snatches of wakefulness; London's grimy, lined face shows new wrinkles +of shadow; and new and unexpected clumping of colors in monotone and +halftone appear. From the massed-up bulk of things small detached bits +stand vividly out: a flower girl whose flowers and whose girlhood are +alike in the sere and yellow leaf; a soldier swaggering by, his red coat +lighting up the grayish mass about him like a livecoal in an ashheap; +a policeman escorting a drunk to quarters for the night--not, mind you, +escorting him in a clanging, rushing patrol wagon, which would serve to +attract public attention to the distressing state of the overcome one, +but conveying him quietly, unostentatiously, surreptitiously almost, +in a small-wheeled vehicle partaking somewhat of the nature of a baby +carriage and somewhat of the nature of a pushcart. + +The policeman shoves this along the road jailward and the drunk lies +at rest in it, stretched out full length, with a neat rubber bedspread +drawn up over his prostrate form to screen him from drafts and save +his face from the gaze of the vulgar. Drunkards are treated with the +tenderest consideration in London; for, as you know, Britons never will +be slaves--though some of them in the presence of a title give such +imitations of being slaves as might fool even so experienced a judge +as the late Simon Legree; and--as perchance you may also have heard--an +Englishman's souse is his castle. So in due state they ride him and his +turreted souse to the station house in a perambulator. + +From midnight to daylight the taxicabs by the countless swarm will be +charging about in every direction--charging, moreover, at the rate of +eight pence a mile. Think that over, ye taxitaxed wretches of New York, +and rend your garments, with lamentations loud! There is this also to +be said of the London taxi service--and to an American it is one of the +abiding marvels of the place--that, no matter where you go, no matter +how late the hour or how outlying and obscure the district, there +is always a trim taxicab just round the next corner waiting to come +instantly at your whistle, and with it a beggar with a bleak, hopeless +face, to open the cab door for you and stand, hat in hand, for the penny +you toss him. + +In the main centers, such as Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus and +Charing Cross, and along the Embankment, the Strand and Pall Mall, they +are as thick as fleas on the Missouri houn' dawg famous in song and +story--the taxis, I mean, though the beggars are reasonably thick +also--and they hop like fleas, bearing you swiftly and surely and +cheaply on your way. The meters are honest, openfaced meters; and the +drivers ask no more than their legal fares and are satisfied with tips +within reason. Here in America we have the kindred arts of taxidermy and +taxicabbery; one of these is the art of skinning animals and the other +is the art of skinning people. The ruthless taxirobber of New York would +not last half an hour in London; for him the jail doors would yawn. + +Oldtime Londoners deplored the coming of the taxicab and the motorbus, +for their coming meant the entire extinction of the driver of the +horse-drawn bus, who was an institution, and the practical extinction of +the hansom cabby, who was a type and very frequently a humorist too. +But an American finds no fault with the present arrangement; he is amply +satisfied with it. + +Personally I can think of no more exciting phase of the night life of +the two greatest cities of Europe than the stunt of dodging taxicabs. In +London the peril that lurks for you at every turning is not the result +of carelessness on the part of the drivers; it is due to the rules of +the road. Afoot, an Englishman meeting you on the sidewalk turns, as +we do, to the right hand; but mounted he turns to the left. The foot +passenger's prerogative of turning to the right was one of the priceless +heritages wrested from King John by the barons at Runnymede; but +when William the Conqueror rode into the Battle of Hastings he rode a +left-handed horse--and so, very naturally and very properly, everything +on hoof or wheel in England has consistently turned to the left ever +since. I took some pains to look up the original precedents for these +facts and to establish them historically. + +The system suits the English mind, but it is highly confusing to an +American who gets into the swirl of traffic at a crossing--and every +London crossing is a swirl of traffic most of the time--and looks left +when he should look right, and looks right when he should be looking +left until the very best he can expect, if he survive at all, is +cross-eyes and nervous prostration. + +I lost count of the number of close calls from utter and mussy +destruction I had while in London. Sometimes a policeman took pity on me +and saved me, and again, by quick and frenzied leaping, I saved myself; +but then the London cabmen were poor marksmen at best. In front of the +Savoy one night the same cabman in rapid succession had two beautiful +shots at me and each time missed the bull's-eye by a disqualifying +margin of inches. A New York chauffeur who had failed to splatter me all +over the vicinage at the first chance would have been ashamed to go home +afterward and look his innocent little ones in the face. + +Even now I cannot decide in my own mind which is the more fearsome and +perilous thing--to be afoot in Paris at the mercy of all the maniacs who +drive French motor cars or to be in one of the motor cars at the mercy +of one of the maniacs. Motoring in Paris is the most dangerous sport +known--just as dueling is the safest. There are some arguments to +be advanced in favor of dueling. It provides copy for the papers and +harmless excitement for the participants--and it certainly gives them a +chance to get a little fresh air occasionally, but with motoring it is +different. In Paris there are no rules of the road except just these +two--the pedestrian who gets run over is liable to prosecution, and all +motor cars must travel at top speed. + +If I live to be a million I shall never get over shuddering as I think +back to a taxicab ride I had in the rush hour one afternoon over a route +that extended from away down near the site of the Bastille to a hotel +away up near the Place Vendome. The driver was a congenital madman, the +same as all Parisian taxicab drivers are; and in addition he was on +this occasion acquiring special merit by being quite drunk. This last, +however, was a detail that did not dawn on my perceptions until too late +to cancel the contract. Once he had got me safely fastened inside his +rickety, creaky devil-wagon he pulled all the stops all the way out and +went tearing up the crowded boulevard like a comet with a can tied to +its tail. + +I hammered on the glass and begged him to slow down--that is, I +hammered on the glass and tried to beg him to slow down. For just +such emergencies I had previously stocked up with two French +words--"Doucement!" and "Vite!" I knew that one of those words meant +speed and the other meant less speed, but in the turmoil of the moment +I may have confused them slightly. Anyhow, to be on the safe side, +I yelled "Vite!" a while and then "Doucement" a while; and then +"Doucement" and "Vite!" alternately, and mixed in a few short, simple +Anglo-Saxon cusswords and prayers for dressing. But nothing I said +seemed to have the least effect on that demoniac scoundrel. Without +turning his head he merely shouted back something unintelligible and +threw on more juice. + +On and on we tore, slicing against the sidewalk, curving and jibbing, +clattering and careening--now going on two wheels and now on four--while +the lunatic shrieked curses of disappointment at the pedestrians who +scuttled away to safety from our charging onslaughts; and I held both +hands over my mouth to keep my heart from jumping out into my lap. + +I saw, with instantaneous but photographic distinctness, a lady, with a +dog tucked under her arm, who hesitated a moment in our very path. She +was one of the largest ladies I ever saw and the dog under her arm +was certainly the smallest dog I ever saw. You might say the lady was +practically out of dog. I thought we had her and probably her dog too; +but she fell back and was saved by a matter of half an inch or so. I +think, though, we got some of the buttons off her shirtwaist and the +back trimming of her hat. + +Then there was a rending, tearing crash as we took a fender off a +machine just emerging from a cross street, but my lunatic never checked +up at all. He just flung a curling ribbon of profanity over his shoulder +at the other driver and bounded onward like a bat out of the Bad Place. +That was the hour when my hair began to turn perceptibly grayer. +And yet, when by a succession of miracles we had landed intact at my +destination, the fiend seemed to think he had done a praiseworthy and +creditable thing. I only wish he had been able to understand the things +I called him--that is all I wish! + +It is by a succession of miracles that the members of his maniacal craft +usually do dodge death and destruction. The providence that watches +over the mentally deficient has them in its care, I guess; and the same +beneficent influence frequently avails to save those who ride behind +them and, to a lesser extent, those who walk ahead. Once in a while a +Paris cabman does have a lucky stroke and garner in a foot traveler. +In an instant a vast and surging crowd convenes. In another instant +the road is impassably blocked. Up rushes a gendarme and worms his way +through the press to the center. He has a notebook in his hand. In this +book he enters the gloating cabman's name, his age, his address, and his +wife's maiden name, if any; and gets his views on the Dreyfus case; and +finds out what he thinks about the separation of church and state; and +tells him that if he keeps on the way he is headed he will be getting +the cross of the Legion of Honor pretty soon. They shake hands and +embrace, and the cabman cuts another notch in his mudguard, and gets +back on the seat and drives on. Then if, by any chance, the victim of +the accident still breathes, the gendarme arrests him for interfering +with the traffic. It is a lovely system and sweetly typical. + +Under the general classification of thrilling moments in the night life +of Europe I should like to list a carriage trip through the outskirts of +Naples after dark. In the first place the carriage driver is an Italian +driver--which is a shorter way of saying he is the worst driver living. +His idea of getting service out of a horse is, first to snatch him to a +standstill by yanking on the bit and then to force the poor brute into +a gallop by lashing at him with a whip having a particularly loud and +vixenish cracker on it; and at every occasion to whoop at the top of his +voice. In the second place the street is as narrow as a narrow alley, +feebly lighted, and has no sidewalks. And the rutty paving stones which +stretch from housefront to housefront are crawling with people and goats +and dogs and children. Finally, to add zest to the affair, there are lots +of loose cows mooning about--for at this hour the cowherd brings his +stock to the doors of his patrons. In an Italian city the people get +their milk from a cow, instead of from a milkman as with us. The milk is +delivered on the hoof, so to speak. + +The grown-ups refuse to make way for you to pass and the swarming young +ones repay you for not killing them by pelting pebbles and less pleasant +things into your face. Beggars in all degrees of filth and deformity +and repulsiveness run alongside the carriage in imminent danger from the +wheels, begging for alms. If you give them something they curse you for +not giving them more, and if you give them nothing they spit at you for +a base dog of a heretic. + +But then, what could you naturally expect from a population that thinks +a fried cuttlefish is edible and a beefsteak is not? + + + + +Chapter XIV + + + +That Gay Paresis + +As you walk along the Rue de la Paix [Footnote: The X being one of the +few silent things in France.] and pay and pay, and keep on paying, your +eye is constantly engaged by two inscriptions that occur and recur with +the utmost frequency. One of these appears in nearly every shopwindow +and over nearly every shopdoor. It says: + + English Spoken Here. + +This, I may tell you, is one of the few absolutely truthful and +dependable statements encountered by the tourist in the French capital. +Invariably English is spoken here. It is spoken here during all the +hours of the day and until far into the dusk of the evening; spoken +loudly, clearly, distinctly, hopefully, hopelessly, stridently, +hoarsely, despondently, despairingly and finally profanely by Americans +who are trying to make somebody round the place understand what they are +driving at. + +The other inscription is carved, painted or printed on all public +buildings, on most monuments, and on many private establishments as +well. It is the motto of the French Republic, reading as follows: + + Liberality! Economy! Frugality! + [Footnote: Free translation.] + +The first word of this--the Liberality part--is applicable to the +foreigner and is aimed directly at him as a prayer, an injunction and +a command; while the rest of it--the Economy and the Frugality--is +competently attended to by the Parisians themselves. The foreigner +has only to be sufficiently liberal and he is assured of a flattering +reception wheresoever his straying footsteps may carry him, whether in +Paris or in the provinces; but wheresoever those feet of his do carry +him he will find a people distinguished by a frugality and inspired by +an economy of the frugalest and most economical character conceivable. +In the streets of the metropolis he is expected, when going anywhere, +to hail the fast-flitting taxicab [Footnote: Stops on signal only--and +sometimes not then.], though the residents patronize the public bus. +Indeed, the distinction is made clear to his understanding from the +moment he passes the first outlying fortress at the national frontier +[Footnote: Flag station.]--since, for the looks of things if for +no better reason, he must travel first-class on the de-luxe trains +[Footnote: Diner taken off when you are about half through eating.], +whereas the Frenchmen pack themselves tightly but frugally into the +second-class and the third-class compartments. + +Before I went to France I knew Saint Denis was the patron saint of the +French; but I did not know why until I heard the legend connected with +his death. When the executioner on the hill at Montmartre cut off his +head the good saint picked it up and strolled across the fields with it +tucked under his arm--so runs the tale. His head, in that shape, was no +longer of any particular value to him, but your true Parisian is of a +saving disposition. And so the Paris population have worshiped Saint +Denis ever since. Both as a saint and as a citizen he filled the bill. +He would not throw anything away, whether he needed it or not. + +Paris--not the Paris of the art lover, nor the Paris of the lover of +history, nor yet again the Paris of the worth-while Parisians--but the +Paris which the casual male visitor samples, is the most overrated thing +on earth, I reckon--except alligator-pear salad--and the most costly. +Its system of conduct is predicated, based, organized and manipulated on +the principle that a foreigner with plenty of money and no soul will be +along pretty soon. Hence by day and by night the deadfall is rigged +and the trap is set and baited--baited with a spurious gayety and an +imitation joyousness; but the joyousness is as thin as one coat of +sizing, and the brass shines through the plating; and behind the +painted, parted lips of laughter the sharp teeth of greed show in +a glittering double row. Yet gallus Mr. Fly, from the U.S.A., walks +debonairly in, and out comes Monsieur Spider, ably seconded by Madame +Spiderette; and between them they despoil him with the utmost dispatch. +When he is not being mulcted for large sums he is being nicked for small +ones. It is tip, brother, tip, and keep right on tipping. + +I heard a story of an American who spent a month in Paris, taking in the +sights and being taken in by them, and another month motoring through +the country. At length he reached the port whence he was to sail for +home. He went aboard the steamer and saw to it that his belongings were +properly stored; and in the privacy of his stateroom he sat down to take +an inventory of his letter of credit, now reduced to a wan and wasted +specter of its once plethoric self. In the midst of casting-up he +heard the signal for departure; and so he went topside of the ship and, +stationing himself on the promenade deck alongside the gang-plank, +he raised his voice and addressed the assembled multitude on the pier +substantially as follows: + +"If"--these were his words--"if there is a single, solitary individual +in this fair land who has not touched me for something of value--if +there be in all France a man, woman or child who has not been tipped +by me--let him, her or it speak now or forever after hold their peace; +because, know ye all men by these presents, I am about to go away from +here and if I stay in my right mind I'm not coming back!" + +And several persons were badly hurt in the crush; but they were believed +afterward to have been repeaters. + +I thought this story was overdrawn, but, after traveling over somewhat +the same route which this fellow countryman had taken, I came to +the conclusion that it was no exaggeration, but a true bill in all +particulars. On the night of our second day in Paris we went to a +theater to see one of the topical revues, in which Paris is supposed to +excel; and for sheer dreariness and blatant vulgarity Paris revues do, +indeed, excel anything of a similar nature as done in either England or +in America, which is saying quite a mouthful. + +In the French revue the members of the chorus reach their artistic limit +in costuming when they dance forth from the wings wearing short and +shabby undergarments over soiled pink fleshings and any time the +dramatic interest begins to run low and gurgle in the pipes a male +comedian pumps it up again by striking or kicking a woman. But to kick +her is regarded as much the more whimsical conceit. This invariably sets +the audience rocking with uncontrollable merriment. Howsomever, I am not +writing a critique of the merits of the performance. If I were I should +say that to begin with the title of the piece was wrong. It should have +been called Lapsus Lingerie--signifying as the Latins would say, "A +Mere Slip." At this moment I am concerned with what happened upon our +entrance. + +At the door a middle-aged female, who was raising a natty mustache, +handed us programs. I paid her for the programs and tipped her. She +turned us over to a stout brunette lady who was cultivating a neat and +flossy pair of muttonchops. This person escorted us down the aisle to +where our seats were; so I tipped her. Alongside our seats stood a third +member of the sisterhood, chiefly distinguished from her confreres by +the fact that she was turning out something very fetching in the way of +a brown vandyke; and after we were seated she continued to stand there, +holding forth her hand toward me, palm up and fingers extended in +the national gesture, and saying something in her native tongue very +rapidly. Incidentally she was blocking the path of a number of people +who had come down the aisle immediately behind us. + +I thought possibly she desired to see our coupons, so I hauled them out +and exhibited them. She shook her head at that and gabbled faster than +ever. It next occurred to me that perhaps she wanted to furnish us with +programs and was asking in advance for the money with which to pay for +them. I explained to her that I already secured programs from her +friend with the mustache. I did this mainly in English, but partly in +French--at least I employed the correct French word for program, which +is programme. To prove my case I pulled the two programs from my pocket +and showed them to her. She continued to shake her head with great +emphasis, babbling on at an increased speed. The situation was beginning +to verge on the embarrassing when a light dawned on me. She wanted a +tip, that was it! She had not done anything to earn a tip that I could +see; and unless one had been reared in the barbering business she +was not particularly attractive to look on, and even then only in +a professional aspect; but I tipped her and bade her begone, and +straightway she bewent, satisfied and smiling. From that moment on I +knew my book. When in doubt I tipped one person--the person nearest to +me. When in deep doubt I tipped two or more persons. And all was well. + +On the next evening but one I had another lesson, which gave me further +insight into the habits and customs of these gay and gladsome Parisians. +We were completing a round of the all-night cafes and cabarets. There +were four of us. Briefly, we had seen the Dead Rat, the Abbey, the Bal +Tabarin the Red Mill, Maxim's, and the rest of the lot to the total +number of perhaps ten or twelve. We had listened to bad singing, looked +on bad dancing, sipped gingerly at bad drinks, and nibbled daintily at +bad food; and the taste of it all was as grit and ashes in our mouths. +We had learned for ourselves that the much-vaunted gay life of Paris was +just as sad and sordid and sloppy and unsavory as the so-called gay life +of any other city with a lesser reputation for gay life and gay livers. +A scrap of the gristle end of the New York Tenderloin; a suggestion of +a certain part of New Orleans; a short cross section of the Levee, +in Chicago; a dab of the Barbary Coast of San Francisco in its old, +unexpurgated days; a touch of Piccadilly Circus in London, after +midnight, with a top dressing of Gehenna the Unblest--it had seemed to +us a compound of these ingredients, with a distinctive savor of what was +essentially Gallic permeating through it like garlic through a stew. +We had had enough. Even though we had attended only as onlookers and +seekers after local color, we felt that we had a-plenty of onlooking +and entirely too much of local color; we felt that we should all go into +retreat for a season of self-purification to rid our persons of the +one and take a bath in formaldehyde to rinse our memories clean of the +other. But the ruling spirit of the expedition pointed out that the +evening would not be complete without a stop at a cafe that had--so he +said--an international reputation for its supposed sauciness and its +real Bohemian atmosphere, whatever that might be. Overcome by his +argument we piled into a cab and departed thither. + +This particular cafe was found, in its physical aspects, to be +typical of the breed and district. It was small, crowded, overheated, +underlighted, and stuffy to suffocation with the mingled aromas of stale +drink and cheap perfume. As we entered a wrangle was going on among a +group of young Frenchmen picturesquely attired as art students--almost a +sure sign that they were not art students. An undersized girl dressed in +a shabby black-and-yellow frock was doing a Spanish dance on a cleared +space in the middle of the floor. We knew her instantly for a Spanish +dancer, because she had a fan in one hand and a pair of castanets in the +other. Another girl, dressed as a pierrot, was waiting to do her turn +when the Spanish dancer finished. Weariness showed through the lacquer +of thick cosmetic on her peaked little face. An orchestra of three +pieces sawed wood steadily; and at intervals, to prove that these were +gay and blithesome revels, somebody connected with the establishment +threw small, party-colored balls of celluloid about. But what +particularly caught our attention was the presence in a far corner of +two little darkies in miniature dress suits, both very wally of eye, +very brown of skin, and very shaved as to head, huddled together there +as though for the poor comfort of physical contact. As soon as they saw +us they left their place and sidled up, tickled beyond measure to behold +American faces and hear American voices. + +They belonged, it seemed, to a troupe of jubilee singers who had been +imported from the States for the delectation of French audiences. At +night, after their work at a vaudeville theater was done, the members of +their company were paired off and sent about to the cafes to earn their +keep by singing ragtime songs and dancing buck dances. These two were +desperately, pathetically homesick. One of them blinked back the tears +when he told us, with the plaintive African quaver in his voice, how +long they had been away from their own country and how happy they would +be to get back to it again. + +"We suttin'ly is glad to heah somebody talkin' de reg'lar New 'Nited +States talk, same as we does," he said. "We gits mighty tired of all dis +yere French jabberin'!" + +"Yas, suh," put in his partner; "dey meks a mighty fuss over cullud +folks over yere; but 'tain't noways lak home. I comes from Bummin'ham, +Alabama, myse'f. Does you gen'lemen know anybody in Bummin'ham?" + +They were the first really wholesome creatures who had crossed our paths +that night. They crowded up close to us and there they stayed until we +left, as grateful as a pair of friendly puppies for a word or a look. +Presently, though, something happened that made us forget these small +dark compatriots of ours. We had had sandwiches all round and a bottle +of wine. When the waiter brought the check it fell haply into the hands +of the one person in our party who knew French and--what was an even +more valuable accomplishment under the present circumstances--knew the +intricate French system of computing a bill. He ran a pencil down the +figures. Then he consulted the price list on the menu and examined the +label on the neck of the wine bottle, and then he gave a long whistle. +"What's the trouble?" asked one of us. + +"Oh, not much!" he said. "We had a bottle of wine priced at eighteen +francs and they have merely charged us twenty-four francs for it--six +francs overcharge on that one item alone. The total for the sandwiches +should have been six francs, and it is put down at ten francs. And here, +away down at the bottom, I find a mysterious entry of four francs, which +seems to have no bearing on the case at all--unless it be that they just +simply need the money. I expected to be skinned somewhat, but I object +to being peeled. I'm afraid, at the risk of appearing mercenary, that +we'll have to ask our friend for a recount." + +He beckoned the waiter to him and fired a volley of rapid French in the +waiter's face. The waiter batted his eyes and shrugged his shoulders; +then reversing the operation he shrugged his eyelids and batted his +shoulderblades, meantime endeavoring volubly to explain. Our friend +shoved the check into his hands and waved him away. He was back again +in a minute with the account corrected. That is, it was corrected to the +extent that the wine item had been reduced to twenty-one francs and the +sandwiches to eight francs. + +By now our paymaster was as hot as a hornet. His gorge rose--his +freeborn, independent American gorge. It rose clear to the ceiling and +threw off sparks and red clinkers. He sent for the manager. The manager +came, all bows and graciousness and rumply shirtfront; and when he +heard what was to be said he became all apologies and indignation. He +regretted more than words could tell that the American gentlemen who +deigned to patronize his restaurant had been put to annoyance. The +garcon--here he turned and burned up that individual with a fiery +sideglance--was a debased idiot and the misbegotten son of a yet greater +and still more debased idiot. The cashier was a green hand and an +imbecile besides. It was incredible, impossible, that the overcharging +had been done deliberately; that was inconceivable. But the honor of +his establishment was at stake. They should both, garcon and cashier, be +discharged on the spot. First, however, he would rectify all mistakes. +Would monsieur intrust the miserable addition to him for a moment, for +one short moment? Monsieur would and did. + +This time the amount was made right and our friend handed over in +payment a fifty-franc note. With his own hands the manager brought back +the change. Counting it over, the payee found it five francs short. +Attention being directed to this error the manager became more +apologetic and more explanatory than ever, and supplied the deficiency +with a shiny new five-franc piece from his own pocket. And then, when +we had gone away from there and had traveled a homeward mile or two, +our friend found that the new shiny five-franc piece was counterfeit--as +false a thing as that manager's false smile. We had bucked the +unbeatable system, and we had lost. + +Earlier that same evening we spent a gloom-laden quarter of an hour in +another cafe--one which owes its fame and most of its American customs +to the happy circumstance that in a certain famous comic opera produced +a few years ago a certain popular leading man sang a song extolling its +fascinations. The man who wrote the song must have had a full-flowered +and glamorous imagination, for he could see beauty where beauty was not. +To us there seemed nothing particularly fanciful about the place except +the prices they charged for refreshments. However, something unusual did +happen there once. It was not premeditated though; the proprietor had +nothing to do with it. Had he known what was about to occur undoubtedly +he would have advertised it in advance and sold tickets for it. + +By reason of circumstances over which he had no control, but which +had mainly to do with a locked-up wardrobe, an American of convivial +mentality was in his room at his hotel one evening, fairly consumed with +loneliness. Above all things he desired to be abroad amid the life and +gayety of the French capital; but unfortunately he had no clothes except +boudoir clothes, and no way of getting any, either, Which made the +situation worse. He had already tried the telephone in a vain effort +to communicate with a ready-made clothing establishment in the Rue St. +Honore. Naturally he had failed, as he knew he would before he tried. +Among Europeans the telephone is not the popular and handy adjunct of +every-day life it is among us. The English have small use for it +because it is, to start with, a wretched Yankee invention; besides, an +Englishman in a hurry takes a cab, as his father before him did--takes +the same cab his father took, if possible--and the Latin races dislike +telephone conversations because the gestures all go to absolute waste. +The French telephone resembles a dingus for curling the hair. You wrap +it round your head, with one end near your mouth and the other end near +your ear, and you yell in it a while and curse in it a while; and then +you slam it down and go and send a messenger. The hero of the present +tale, however, could not send a messenger--the hotel people had their +orders to the contrary from one who was not to be disobeyed. + +Finally in stark desperation, maddened by the sounds of sidewalk revelry +that filtered up to him intermittently, he incased his feet in bed-room +slippers, slid a dressing gown over his pajamas, and negotiated a +successful escape from the hotel by means of a rear way. Once in the +open he climbed into a handy cab and was driven to the cafe of his +choice, it being the same cafe mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago. + +Through a side entrance he made a hasty and unhindered entrance into +this place--not that he would have been barred under any circumstances, +inasmuch as he had brought a roll with him. A person with a cluster of +currency on hand is always suitably dressed in Paris, no matter if he +has nothing else on; and this man had brought much ready cash with +him. He could have gone in fig-leaved like Eve, or fig-leafless like +September Morn, it being remembered that as between these two, as +popularly depicted, Morn wears even less than Eve. So he whisked in +handily, and when he had hidden the lower part of himself under a table +he felt quite at home and proceeded to have a large and full evening. + +Soon there entered another American, and by that mental telepathy which +inevitably attracts like-spirit to like-spirit he was drawn to the spot +where the first American sat. He introduced himself as one feeling the +need of congenial companionship, and they shook hands and exchanged +names, and the first man asked the second man to be seated; so they sat +together and had something together, and then something more together; +and as the winged moments flew they grew momentarily more intimate. +Finally the newcomer said: + +"This seems a pretty lachrymose shop. Suppose we go elsewhere and look +for some real doings." + +"Your proposition interests me strangely," said the first man; "but +there are two reasons--both good ones--why I may not fare forth with +you. Look under the table and you'll see 'em." + +The second man looked and comprehended, for he was a married man +himself; and he grasped the other's hand in warm and comforting +sympathy. + +"Old Man," he said--for they had already reached the Old Man +stage--"don't let that worry you. Why, I've got more pants than any man +with only one set of legs has any right to have. I've got pants that've +never been worn. You stay right here and don't move until I come back. +My hotel is just round the corner from here." + +No sooner said than done. He went and in a surprisingly short time was +back, bearing spare trousers with him. Beneath the shielding protection +of the table draperies the succored one slipped them on, and they were +a perfect fit. Now he was ready to go where adventure might await them. +They tarried, though, to finish the last bottle. + +Over the rim of his glass the second man ventured an opinion on a topic +of the day. Instantly the first man challenged him. It seemed to him +inconceivable that a person with intelligence enough to have amassed so +many pairs of trousers should harbor such a delusion. He begged of his +new-found friend to withdraw the statement, or at least to abate it. The +other man was sorry, but he simply could not do it. He stood ready +to concede almost anything else, but on this particular point he was +adamant; in fact, adamant was in comparison with him as pliable +as chewing taffy. Much as he regretted it, he could not modify his +assertion by so much as one brief jot or one small tittle without +violating the consistent principles of a consistent life. He felt that +way about it. All his family felt that way about it. + +"Then, sir," said the first man with a rare dignity, "I regret to wound +your feelings; but my sensibilities are such that I cannot accept, even +temporarily, the use of a pair of trousers from the loan collection of +a person who entertains such false and erroneous conceptions. I have the +pleasure, sir, of wishing you good night." + +With these words he shucked off the borrowed habiliments and slammed +them into the abashed bosom of the obstinate stranger and went back to +his captivity--pantless, 'tis true, but with his honor unimpaired. + + + + +Chapter XV + + + +Symptoms of the Disease + +The majority of these all-night places in Paris are singularly and +monotonously alike. In the early hours of the evening the musicians +rest from their labors; the regular habitues lay aside their air of +professional abandon; with true French frugality the lights burn dim and +low. But anon sounds the signal from the front of the house. Strike +up the band; here comes a sucker! Somebody resembling ready money +has arrived. The lights flash on, the can-canners take the floor, the +garcons flit hither and yon, and all is excitement. + +Enter the opulent American gentleman. Half a dozen functionaries greet +him rapturously, bowing before his triumphant progress. Others relieve +him of his hat and his coat, so that he cannot escape prematurely. A +whole reception committee escorts him to a place of honor facing +the dancing arena. The natives of the quarter stand in rows in the +background, drinking beer or nothing at all; but the distinguished +stranger sits at a front table and is served with champagne, and +champagne only. It is inferior champagne; but because it is labeled +American Brut--what ever that may denote--and because there is a poster +on the bottle showing the American flag in the correct colors, he pays +several times its proper value for it. From far corners and remote +recesses coryphees and court jesters swarm forth to fawn on him, bask +in his presence, glory in his smile--and sell him something. The whole +thing is as mercenary as passing the hat. Cigarette girls, flower girls +and bonbon girls, postcard venders and confetti dispensers surround him +impenetrably, taking him front, rear, by the right flank and the left; +and they shove their wares in his face and will not take No for an +answer; but they will take anything else. + +Two years ago at a hunting camp in North Carolina, I thought I had met +the creature with the most acute sense of hearing of any living thing. I +refer to Pearl, the mare. Pearl was an elderly mare, white in color +and therefore known as Pearl. She was most gentle and kind. She was +a reliable family animal too--had a colt every year--but in her +affiliations she was a pronounced reactionary. She went through life +listening for somebody to say Whoa! Her ears were permanently slanted +backward on that very account. She belonged to the Whoa Lodge, which has +a large membership among humans. + +Riding behind Pearl you uttered the talismanic word in the thinnest +thread of a whisper and instantly she stopped. You could spell Whoa! on +your fingers, and she would stop. You could take a pencil and a piece of +paper out of your pocket and write down Whoa!--and she would stop; but, +compared with a sample assortment of these cabaret satellites, Pearl +would have seemed deaf as a post. Clear across a hundred-foot dance-hall +they catch the sound of a restless dollar turning over in the fob pocket +of an American tourist. + +And they come a-running and get it. Under the circumstances it requires +self-hypnotism of a high order, and plenty of it, to make an American +think he is enjoying himself. Still, he frequently attains to that +happy comsummation. To begin with, is he not in Gay Paree?--as it is +familiarly called in Rome Center and all points West? He is! Has he not +kicked over the traces and cut loose with intent to be oh, so naughty +for one naughty night of his life? Such are the facts. Finally, and +herein lies the proof conclusive, he is spending a good deal of money +and is getting very little in return for it. Well, then, what better +evidence is required? Any time he is paying four or five prices for +what he buys and does not particularly need it--or want it after it is +bought--the average American can delude himself into the belief that +he is having a brilliant evening. This is a racial trait worthy of +the scientific consideration of Professor Hugo Munsterberg and other +students of our national psychology. So far the Munsterberg school has +overlooked it--but the canny Parisians have not. They long ago studied +out every quirk and wriggle of it, and capitalized it to their own +purpose. Liberality! Economy! Frugality!--there they are, everywhere +blazoned forth--Liberality for you, Economy and Frugality for them. +Could anything on earth be fairer than that? + +Even so, the rapturous reception accorded to a North American pales to +a dim and flickery puniness alongside the perfect riot and whirlwind +of enthusiasm which marks the entry into an all-night place of a +South American. Time was when, to the French understanding, exuberant +prodigality and the United States were terms synonymous; that time has +passed. Of recent years our young kinsmen from the sister republics +nearer the Equator and the Horn have invaded Paris in numbers, bringing +their impulsive temperaments and their bankrolls with them. Thanks to +these young cattle kings, these callow silver princes from Argentina and +Brazil, from Peru and from Ecuador, a new and more gorgeous standard for +money wasting has been established. You had thought, perchance, there +was no rite and ceremonial quite so impressive as a head waiter in a +Fifth Avenue restaurant squeezing the blood out of a semi-raw canvasback +in a silver duck press for a free spender from Butte or Pittsburgh. I, +too, had thought that; but wait, just wait, until you have seen a maitre +d'hotel on the Avenue de l'Opera, with the smile of the canary-fed cat +on his face, standing just behind a hide-and-tallow baron or a guano +duke from somewhere in Far Spiggottyland, watching this person as he +wades into the fresh fruit--checking off on his fingers each blushing +South African peach at two francs the bite, and each purple cluster of +hothouse grapes at one franc the grape. That spectacle, believe me, is +worth the money every time. + +There is just one being whom the dwellers of the all-night quarter love +and revere more deeply than they love a downy, squabbling scion of some +rich South American family, and that is a large, broad negro pugilist +with a mouthful of gold teeth and a shirtfront full of yellow diamonds. +To an American--and especially to an American who was reared below Mason +and Dixon's justly popular Line--it is indeed edifying to behold a black +heavyweight fourthrater from South Clark Street, Chicago, taking his +ease in a smart cafe, entirely surrounded by worshipful boulevardiers, +both male and female. + +Now, as I remarked at an earlier stage of these observations, there is +another Paris besides this--a Paris of history, of art, of architecture, +of literature, of refinement; a Paris inhabited by a people with a pride +in their past, a pluck in their present, and a faith in their future; a +Paris of kindly aristocrats, of thrifty, pious plain people; a Paris +of students and savants and scientists, of great actors and great +scientists and great dramatists. There is one Paris that might well be +burned to its unclean roots, and another Paris that will be glorified in +the minds of mankind forever. And it would be as unfair to say that the +Paris which comes flaunting its tinsel of vice and pinchbeck villainy +in the casual tourist's face is the real Paris, as it would be for a +man from the interior of the United States to visit New York and, after +interviewing one Bowery bouncer, one Tenderloin cabman, and one Broadway +ticket speculator, go back home and say he had met fit representatives +of the predominant classes of New York society and had found them unfit. +Yes, it would be even more unfair. For the alleged gay life of New York +touches at some point of contact or other the lives of most New Yorkers, +whereas in Paris there are numbers of sane and decent folks who seem +to know nothing except by hearsay of what goes on after dark in the +Montmartre district. Besides, no man in the course of a short and +crowded stay may hope to get under the skin of any community, great or +small. He merely skims its surface cuticle; he sees no deeper than +the pores and the hair-roots. The arteries, the frame, the real +tissue-structure remain hidden to him. Therefore the pity seems all +the greater that, to the world at large, the bad Paris should mean +all Paris. It is that other and more wholesome Paris which one sees--a +light-hearted, good-natured, polite and courteous Paris--when one, +biding his time and choosing the proper hour and proper place, goes +abroad to seek it out. + +For the stranger who does at least a part of his sight-seeing after a +rational and orderly fashion, there are pictures that will live in the +memory always: the Madeleine, with the flower market just alongside; +the green and gold woods of the Bois de Boulogne; the grandstand of the +racecourse at Longchamp on a fair afternoon in the autumn; the Opera +at night; the promenade of the Champs-Elysees on a Sunday morning after +church; the Gardens of the Tuileries; the wonderful circling plaza of +the Place Vendome, where one may spend a happy hour if the maniacal +taxi-drivers deign to spare one's life for so unaccountably long a +period; the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli, with their exquisite shops, +where every other shop is a jeweler's shop and every jeweler's shop is +just like every other jeweler's shop--which fact ceases to cause wonder +when one learns that, with a few notable exceptions, all these +shops carry their wares on commission from the stocks of the same +manufacturing jewelers; the old Ile de la Cite, with the second-hand +bookstalls stretching along the quay, and the Seine placidly meandering +between its man-made, man-ruled banks. Days spent here seem short days; +but that may be due in some part to the difference between our time and +theirs. In Paris, you know, the day ends five or six hours earlier than +it does in America. + +The two Palaces of Fine Arts are fine enough; and finer still, on beyond +them, is the great Pont Alexandre III; but, to my untutored instincts, +all three of these, with their clumpings of flag standards and their +grouping of marble allegories, which are so aching-white to the eye in +the sunlight, seemed overly suggestive of a World's Fair as we know such +things in America. Seeing them I knew where the architects who designed +the main approaches and the courts of honor for all our big expositions +got their notions for color schemes and statuary effects. I liked better +those two ancient triumphal arches of St.-Martin and St.-Denis on the +Boulevard St.-Denis, and much better even than these the tremendous +sweep of the Place de la Concorde, which is one of the finest squares in +the world, and the one with the grimmest, bloodiest history, I reckon. + +The Paris to which these things properly appertain is at its very best +and brightest on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the parks where well-to-do +people drive or ride, and their children play among the trees under the +eyes of nursemaids in the quaint costumes of Normandy, though, for all I +know, it may be Picardy. Elsewhere in these parks the not-so-well-to-do +gather in great numbers; some drinking harmless sirupy drinks at the gay +little refreshment kiosks; some packing themselves about the man who +has tamed the tree sparrows until they come at his call and hive in +chattering, fluttering swarms on his head and his arms and shoulders; +some applauding a favorite game of the middle classes that is being +played in every wide and open space. I do not know its name--could not +find anybody who seemed to know its name--but this game is a kind of +glorified battledore and shuttlecock played with a small, hard ball +capable of being driven high and far by smartly administered strokes +of a hide-headed, rimmed device shaped like a tambourine. It would seem +also to be requisite to its proper playing that each player shall have +a red coat and a full spade beard, and a tremendous amount of speed and +skill. If the ball gets lost in anybody's whiskers I think it counts ten +for the opposing side; but I do not know the other rules. + +A certain indefinable, unmistakably Gallic flavor or piquancy savors the +life of the people; it disappears only when they cease to be their own +natural selves. A woman novelist, American by birth, but a resident +of several years in Paris, told me a story illustrative of this. The +incident she narrated was so typical that it could never have happened +except in Paris, I thought. She said she was one of a party who went +one night to dine at a little cafe much frequented by artists and art +students. The host was himself an artist of reputation. As they dined +there entered a tall, gloomy figure of a man with a long, ugly face +full of flexible wrinkles; such a figure and such a face as instantly +commanded their attention. This man slid into a seat at a table near +their table and had a frugal meal. He had reached the stage of demitasse +and cigarette when he laid down cup and cigarette and, fetching a bit of +cardboard and a crayon out of his pocket, began putting down lines and +shadings; between strokes he covertly studied the profile of the man who +was giving the dinner party. Not to be outdone the artist hauled out his +drawing pad and pencil and made a quick sketch of the long-faced man. +Both finished their jobs practically at the same moment; and, rising +together with low bows, they exchanged pictures--each had done a +rattling good caricature of the other--and then, without a word having +been spoken or a move made toward striking up an acquaintance, each man +sat him down again and finished his dinner. + +The lone diner departed first. When the party at the other table had had +their coffee they went round the corner to a little circus--one of the +common type of French circuses, which are housed in permanent wooden +buildings instead of under tents. Just as they entered, the premier +clown, in spangles and peak cap, bounded into the ring. Through the +coating of powder on it they recognized his wrinkly, mobile face: it was +the sketch-making stranger whose handiwork they had admired not half an +hour before. + +Hearing the tale we went to the same circus and saw the same clown. His +ears were painted bright red--the red ear is the inevitable badge of the +French clown--and he had as a foil for his funning a comic countryman +known on the program as Auguste, which is the customary name of all +comic countrymen in France; and, though I knew only at second hand of +his sketch-making abilities, I am willing to concede that he was the +drollest master of pantomime I ever saw. On leaving the circus, very +naturally we went to the cafe--where the first part of the little dinner +comedy had been enacted. We encountered both artists, professional or +amateur, of blacklead and bristol board, but we met a waiter there who +was an artist--in his line. I ordered a cigar of him, specifying that +the cigar should be of a brand made in Havana and popular in the States. +He brought one cigar on a tray. In size and shape and general aspect +it seemed to answer the required specifications. The little belly band +about its dark-brown abdomen was certainly orthodox and regular; but no +sooner had I lit it and taken a couple of puffs than I was seized with +the conviction that something had crawled up that cigar and died. So I +examined it more closely and I saw then that it was a bad French cigar, +artfully adorned about its middle with a second-hand band, which the +waiter had picked up after somebody else had plucked it off one of the +genuine articles and had treasured it, no doubt, against the coming of +some unsophisticated patron such as I. And I doubt whether that could +have happened anywhere except in Paris either. That is just it, you +see. Try as hard as you please to see the real Paris, the Paris of petty +larceny and small, mean graft intrudes on you and takes a peck at your +purse. + +Go where you will, you cannot escape it. You journey, let us assume, +to the Tomb of Napoleon, under the great dome that rises behind the +wide-armed Hotel des Invalides. From a splendid rotunda you look down +to where, craftily touched by the softened lights streaming in from high +above, that great sarcophagus stands housing the bones of Bonaparte; and +above the entrance to the crypt you read the words from the last will +and testament of him who sleeps here: "I desire that my ashes may +repose on the banks of the Seine, among the French people I have so well +loved." And you reflect that he so well loved them that, to glut his +lusting after power and yet more power, he led sundry hundreds of +thousands of them to massacre and mutilation and starvation; but that is +the way of world--conquerors the world over--and has absolutely nothing +to do with this tale. The point I am trying to get at is, if you can +gaze unmoved at this sepulcher you are a clod. And if you can get away +from its vicinity without being held up and gouged by small grafters you +are a wonder. + +Not tombs nor temples nor sanctuaries are safe from the profane and +polluting feet of the buzzing plague of them. You journey miles away +from this spot to the great cemetery of Pere Lachaise. You trudge +past seemingly unending, constantly unfolding miles of monuments and +mausoleums; you view the storied urns and animated busts that mark the +final resting-places of France's illustrious dead. And as you marvel +that France should have had so many illustrious dead, and that so many +of them at this writing should be so dead, out from behind De Musset's +vault or Marshal Ney's comes a snoopy, smirky wretch to pester you to +the desperation that is red-eyed and homicidal with his picture post +cards and his execrable wooden carvings. + +You fight the persistent vermin off and flee for refuge to that shrine +of every American who knows his Mark Twain--the joint grave [Footnote: +Being French, and therefore economical, those two are, as it were, +splitting one tomb between them.] of Hell Loisy and Abie Lard [Footnote: +Popular tourist pronunciation.] and lo, in the very shadow of it there +lurks a blood brother to the first pest! I defy you to get out of that +cemetery without buying something of no value from one or the other, or +both of them. The Communists made their last stand in Pere Lachaise. +So did I. They went down fighting. Same here. They were licked to a +frazzle. Ditto, ditto. + +Next, we will say, Notre Dame draws you. Within, you walk the clattering +flags of its dim, long aisles; without, you peer aloft to view its +gargoyled waterspouts, leering down like nightmares caught in the +very act of leering and congealed into stone. The spirit of the place +possesses you; you conjure up a vision of the little maid Esmeralda and +the squat hunchback who dwelt in the tower above; and at the precise +moment a foul vagabond pounces on you and, with a wink that is in itself +an insult and a smile that should earn for him a kick for every inch +of its breadth, he draws from beneath his coat a set of nasty +photographs--things which no decent man could look at without gagging +and would not carry about with him on his person for a million dollars +in cash. By threats and hard words you drive him off; but seeing others +of his kind drawing nigh you run away, with no particular destination in +mind except to discover some spot, however obscure and remote, where +the wicked cease from troubling and the weary may be at rest for a +few minutes. You cross a bridge to the farther bank of the river and +presently you find yourself--at least I found myself there--in one of +the very few remaining quarters of old Paris, as yet untouched by +the scheme of improvement that is wiping out whatever is medieval and +therefore unsanitary, and making it all over, modern and slick and +shiny. + +Losing yourself--and with yourself your sense of the reality of +things--you wander into a maze of tall, beetle-browed old houses with +tiny windows that lower at you from under their dormered lids like +hostile eyes. Above, on the attic ledges, are boxes of flowers and +coops where caged larks and linnets pipe cheery snatches of song; and +on beyond, between the eaves, which bend toward one another like gossips +who would swap whispered confidences, is a strip of sky. Below are +smells of age and dampness. And there is a rich, nutritious garlicky +smell too; and against a jog in the wall a frowsy but picturesque +rag-picker is asleep on a pile of sacks, with a big sleek cat asleep on +his breast. I do not guarantee the rag-picker. He and his cat may have +moved since I was there and saw them, although they had the look about +them both of being permanent fixtures. + +You pass a little church, lolling and lopped with the weight of the +years; and through its doors you catch a vista of old pillars and soft +half-lights, and twinkling candles set upon the high altar. Not even the +jimcrackery with which the Latin races dress up their holy places and +the graves of their dead can entirely dispel its abiding, brooding air +of peace and majesty. You linger a moment outside just such a tavern as +a certain ragged poet of parts might have frequented the while he +penned his versified inquiry which after all these centuries is not yet +satisfactorily answered, touching on the approximate whereabouts of the +snows that fell yesteryear and the roses that bloomed yesterweek. + +Midway of a winding alley you come to an ancient wall and an ancient +gate crowned with the half-effaced quarterings of an ancient house, and +you halt, almost expecting that the rusted hinges will creak a warning +and the wooden halves begrudgingly divide, and that from under the +slewed arch will issue a most gallant swashbuckler with his buckles all +buckled and his swash swashing; hence the name. + +At this juncture you feel a touch on your shoulder. You spin on your +heel, feeling at your hip for an imaginary sword. But 'tis not Master +Francois Villon, in tattered doublet, with a sonnet. Nor yet is it a +jaunty blade, in silken cloak, with a challenge. It is your friend of +the obscene photograph collection. He has followed you all the way from +1914 clear back into the Middle Ages, biding his time and hoping you +will change your mind about investing in his nasty wares. + +With your wife or your sister you visit the Louvre. You look on the +Winged Victory and admire her classic but somewhat bulky proportions, +meantime saying to yourself that it certainly must have been a mighty +hard battle the lady won, because she lost her head and both arms in +doing it. You tire of interminable portraits of the Grand Monarch, +showing him grouped with his wife, the Old-fashioned Square Upright; +and his son, the Baby Grand; and his prime minister, the Lyre; and his +brother, the Yellow Clarinet, and the rest of the orchestra. You +examine the space on the wall where Mona Lisa is or is not smiling her +inscrutable smile, depending on whether the open season for Mona Lisas +has come or has passed. Wandering your weary way past acres of the works +of Rubens, and miles of Titians, and townships of Corots, and ranges of +Michelangelos, and quarter sections of Raphaels, and government reserves +of Leonardo da Vincis, you stray off finally into a side passage to see +something else, leaving your wife or your sister behind in one of the +main galleries. You are gone only a minute or two, but returning you +find her furiously, helplessly angry and embarrassed; and on inquiry +you learn she has been enduring the ordeal of being ogled by a small, +wormy-looking creature who has gone without shaving for two or three +years in a desperate endeavor to resemble a real man. + +Some day somebody will take a squirt-gun and a pint of insect powder and +destroy these little, hairy caterpillars who infest all parts of Paris +and make it impossible for a respectable woman to venture on the streets +unaccompanied. + +Let us, for the further adornment and final elaboration of the +illustration, say that you are sitting at one of the small round tables +which make mushroom beds under the awnings along the boulevards. All +about you are French people, enjoying themselves in an easy and a +rational and an inexpensive manner. As for yourself, all you desire is a +quiet half hour in which to read your paper, sip your coffee, and watch +the shifting panorama of street life. That emphatically is all you ask; +merely that and a little privacy. Are you permitted to have it? You are +not. + +Beggars beseech you to look on their afflictions. Sidewalk venders +cluster about you. And if you are smoking the spark of your cigar +inevitably draws a full delegation of those moldy old whiskerados who +follow the profession of collecting butts and quids. They hover about +you, watchful as chicken hawks; and their bleary eyes envy you for each +puff you take, until you grow uneasy and self-reproachful under their +glare, and your smoke is spoiled for you. Very few men smoke well before +an audience, even an audience of their own selection; so before your +cigar is half finished you toss it away, and while it is yet in the air +the watchers leap forward and squabble under your feet for the prize. +Then the winner emerges from the scramble and departs along the sidewalk +to seek his next victim, with the still-smoking trophy impaled on his +steel-pointed tool of trade. + +In desperation you rise up from there and flee away to your hotel and +hide in your room, and lock and double-lock the doors, and begin to +study timetables with a view to quitting Paris on the first train +leaving for anywhere, the only drawback to a speedy consummation of this +happy prospect being that no living creature can fathom the meaning of +French timetables. + +It is not so much the aggregate amount of which they have despoiled +you--it is the knowledge that every other person in Paris is seeking and +planning to nick you for some sum, great or small; it is the realization +that, by reason of your ignorance of the language and the customs of the +land, you are at their mercy, and they have no mercy--that, as Walter +Pater so succinctly phrases it, that is what gets your goat--and gets it +good! + +So you shake the dust from your feet--your own dust, not Paris' +dust--and you depart per hired hack for the station and per train from +the station. And as the train draws away from the trainshed you +behold behind you two legends or inscriptions, repeated and reiterated +everywhere on the walls of the French capital. + +One of them says: English Spoken Here! + +And the other says: Liberality! Economy! Frugality! + + + + +Chapter XVI + + + +As Done in London + +London is essentially a he-town, just as Paris is indubitably a +she-town. That untranslatable, unmistakable something which is not to +be defined in the plain terms of speech, yet which sets its mark on +any long-settled community, has branded them both--the one as being +masculine, the other as being feminine. For Paris the lily stands, the +conventionalized, feminized lily; but London is a lion, a shag-headed, +heavy-pawed British lion. + +One thinks of Paris as a woman, rather pretty, somewhat regardless of +morals and decidedly slovenly of person; craving admiration, but too +indolent to earn it by keeping herself presentable; covering up the dirt +on a piquant face with rice powder; wearing paste jewels in her +earlobes in an effort to distract criticism from the fact that the +ears themselves stand in need of soap and water. London, viewed in +retrospect, seems a great, clumsy, slow-moving giant, with hair on his +chest and soil under his nails; competent in the larger affairs and +careless about the smaller ones; amply satisfied with himself and +disdainful of the opinions of outsiders; having all of a man's vices and +a good share of his virtues; loving sport for sport's sake and power for +its own sake and despising art for art's sake. + +You do not have to spend a week or a month or a year in either Paris or +London to note these things. The distinction is wide enough to be seen +in a day; yes, or in an hour. It shows in all the outer aspects. An +overtowering majority of the smart shops in Paris cater to women; a +large majority of the smart shops in London cater to men. It shows in +their voices; for cities have voices just as individuals have voices. +New York is not yet old enough to have found its own sex. It belongs +still to the neuter gender. New York is not even a noun--it's a verb +transitive; but its voice is a female voice, just as Paris' voice is. +New York, like Paris, is full of strident, shrieking sounds, shrill +outcries, hysterical babblings--a women's bridge-whist club at the hour +of casting up the score; but London now is different. London at all +hours speaks with a sustained, sullen, steady, grinding tone, never +entirely sinking into quietude, never rising to acute discords. The +sound of London rolls on like a river--a river that ebbs sometimes, but +rarely floods above its normal banks; it impresses one as the necessary +breathing of a grunting and burdened monster who has a mighty job on his +hands and is taking his own good time about doing it. + +In London, mind you, the newsboys do not shout their extras. They bear +in their hands placards with black-typed announcements of the big news +story of the day; and even these headings seem designed to soothe rather +than to excite--saying, for example, such things as Special From Liner, +in referring to a disaster at sea, and Meeting in Ulster, when meaning +that the northern part of Ireland has gone on record as favoring civil +war before home rule. + +The street venders do not bray on noisy trumpets or ring with bells or +utter loud cries to advertise their wares. The policeman does not shout +his orders out; he holds aloft the stripe-sleeved arm of authority +and all London obeys. I think the reason why the Londoners turned +so viciously on the suffragettes was not because of the things the +suffragettes clamored for, but because they clamored for them so loudly. +They jarred the public peace--that must have been it. + +I can understand why an adult American might go to Paris and stay +in Paris and be satisfied with Paris, if he were a lover of art and +millinery in all their branches; or why he might go to Berlin if he were +studying music and municipal control; or to Amsterdam if he cared for +cleanliness and new cheese; or to Vienna if he were concerned with +surgery, light opera, and the effect on the human lungs of doing without +fresh air for long periods of time; or to Rome if he were an antiquarian +and interested in ancient life; or to Naples if he were an entomologist +and interested in insect life; or to Venice if he liked ruins with water +round them; or to Padua if he liked ruins with no water anywhere near +them. No: I'm blessed if I can think of a single good reason why a sane +man should go to Padua if he could go anywhere else. + +But I think I know, good and well, why a man might spend his whole +vacation in London and enjoy every minute of it. For this old fogy, old +foggy town of London is a man-sized town, and a man-run town; and it has +a fascination of its own that is as much a part of it as London's grime +is; or London's vastness and London's pettiness; or London's wealth and +its stark poverty; or its atrocious suburbs; or its dirty, trade-fretted +river; or its dismal back streets; or its still more dismal slums--or +anything that is London's. + +To a man hailing from a land where everything is so new that quite a +good deal of it has not even happened yet, it is a joyful thing to turn +off a main-traveled road into one of the crooked byways in which the +older parts of London abound, and suddenly to come, full face, on a +house or a court or a pump which figured in epochal history or epochal +literature of the English-speaking race. It is a still greater joy to +find it--house or court or pump or what not--looking now pretty much as +it must have looked when good Queen Bess, or little Dick Whittington, or +Chaucer the scribe, or Shakspere the player, came this way. It is fine +to be riding through the country and pass a peaceful green meadow and +inquire its name of your driver and be told, most offhandedly, that it +is a place called Runnymede. Each time this happened to me I felt the +thrill of a discoverer; as though I had been the first traveler to find +these spots. + +I remember that through an open door I was marveling at the domestic +economies of an English barber shop. I use the word economies in this +connection advisedly; for, compared with the average high-polished, +sterilized and antiseptic barber shop of an American city, this shop +seemed a torture cave. In London, pubs are like that, and some dentists' +establishments and law offices--musty, fusty dens very unlike their +Yankee counterparts. In this particular shop now the chairs were hard, +wooden chairs; the looking-glass--you could not rightly call it a +mirror--was cracked and bleary; and an apprentice boy went from one +patron to another, lathering each face; and then the master followed +after him, razor in hand, and shaved the waiting countenances in turn. +Flies that looked as though they properly belonged in a livery stable +were buzzing about; and there was a prevalent odor which made me think +that all the sick pomade in the world had come hither to spend its last +declining hours. I said to myself that this place would bear further +study; that some day, when I felt particularly hardy and daring, I would +come here and be shaved, and afterward would write a piece about it +and sell it for money. So, the better to fix its location in my mind, +I glanced up at the street sign and, behold! I was hard by Drury Lane, +where Sweet Nelly once on a time held her court. + +Another time I stopped in front of a fruiterer's, my eye having been +caught by the presence in his window of half a dozen draggled-looking, +wilted roasting ears decorated with a placard reading as follows: + + AMERICAN MAIZE OR INDIAN CORN + A VEGETABLE--TO BE BOILED AND THEN + EATEN + +I was remarking to myself that these Britishers were surely a strange +race of beings--that if England produced so delectable a thing as green +corn we in America would import it by the shipload and serve it on every +table; whereas here it was so rare that they needs must label it as +belonging to the vegetable kingdom, lest people should think it might be +an animal--when I chanced to look more closely at the building occupied +by the fruiterer and saw that it was an ancient house, half-timbered +above the first floor, with a queer low-browed roof. Inquiring afterward +I learned that this house dated straight back to Elizabethan days and +still on beyond for so many years that no man knew exactly how many; +and I began to understand in a dim sort of way how and why it was these +people held so fast to the things they had and cared so little for the +things they had not. + +Better than by all the reading you have ever done you absorb a sense and +realization of the splendor of England's past when you go to Westminster +Abbey and stand--figuratively--with one foot on Jonson and another +on Dryden; and if, overcome by the presence of so much dead-and-gone +greatness, you fall in a fit you commit a trespass on the last +resting-place of Macaulay or Clive, or somebody of equal consequence. +More imposing even than Westminster is St. Paul's. I am not thinking +so much of the memorials or the tombs or the statues there, but of the +tattered battleflags bearing the names of battles fought by the English +in every crack and cranny of the world, from Quebec to Ladysmith, and +from Lucknow to Khartum. Beholding them there, draped above the tombs, +some faded but still intact, some mere clotted wisps of ragged silk +clinging to blackened standards, gives one an uplifting conception of +the spirit that has sent the British soldier forth to girth the globe, +never faltering, never slackening pace, never giving back a step to-day +but that he took two steps forward to-morrow; never stopping--except for +tea. + +The fool hath said in his heart that he would go to England and come +away and write something about his impressions, but never write a +single, solitary word about the Englishman's tea-drinking habit, or the +Englishman's cricket-playing habit, or the Englishman's lack of a sense +of humor. I was that fool. But it cannot be done. Lacking these things +England would not be England. It would be Hamlet without Hamlet or the +Ghost or the wicked Queen or mad Ophelia or her tiresome old pa; for +most English life and the bulk of English conversation center about +sporting topics, with the topic of cricket predominating. And at a given +hour of the day the wheels of the empire stop, and everybody in the +empire--from the king in the counting house counting up his money, to +the maid in the garden hanging out the clothes--drops what he or she may +be doing and imbibes tea until further orders. And what oceans of tea +they do imbibe! + +There was an old lady who sat near us in a teashop one afternoon. As +well as might be judged by one who saw her in a sitting posture only, +she was no deeper than any other old lady of average dimensions; but +in rapid succession she tilted five large cups of piping hot tea into +herself and was starting on the sixth when we withdrew, stunned by the +spectacle. She must have been fearfully long-waisted. I had a mental +vision of her interior decorations--all fumed-oak wainscotings and +buff-leather hangings. Still, I doubt whether their four-o'clock-tea +habit is any worse than our five-o'clock cocktail habit. It all depends, +I suppose, on whether one prefers being tanned inside to being pickled. +But we are getting bravely over our cocktail habit, as attested by +figures and the visual evidences, while their tea habit is growing on +them--so the statisticians say. + +As for the Englishman's sense of humor, or his lack of it, I judge that +we Americans are partly wrong in our diagnosis of that phase of British +character and partly right. Because he is slow to laugh at a joke, we +think he cannot see the point of it without a diagram and a chart. +What we do not take into consideration is that, through centuries of +self-repression, the Englishman has so drilled himself into refraining +from laughing in public--for fear, you see, of making himself +conspicuous--it has become a part of his nature. Indeed, in certain +quarters a prejudice against laughing under any circumstances appears to +have sprung up. + +I was looking one day through the pages of one of the critical English +weeklies. Nearly all British weeklies are heavy, and this is the +heaviest of the lot. Its editorial column alone weighs from twelve to +eighteen pounds, and if you strike a man with a clubbed copy of it the +crime is assault with a dull blunt instrument, with intent to kill. At +the end of a ponderous review of the East Indian question I came on a +letter written to the editor by a gentleman signing himself with his own +name, and reading in part as follows: + +SIR: Laughter is always vulgar and offensive. For instance, whatever +there may be of pleasure in a theater--and there is not much--the place +is made impossible by laughter ... No; it is very seldom that happiness +is refined or pleasant to see--merriment that is produced by wine is +false merriment, and there is no true merriment without it ... Laughter +is profane, in fact, where it is not ridiculous. + +On the other hand the English in bulk will laugh at a thing which +among us would bring tears to the most hardened cheek and incite our +rebellious souls to mayhem and manslaughter. On a certain night we +attended a musical show at one of the biggest London theaters. There was +some really clever funning by a straight comedian, but his best efforts +died a-borning; they drew but the merest ripple of laughter from the +audience. Later there was a scene between a sad person made up as a +Scotchman and another equally sad person of color from the States. These +times no English musical show is complete unless the cast includes a +North American negro with his lips painted to resemble a wide slice of +ripe watermelon, singing ragtime ditties touching on his chicken and +his Baby Doll. This pair took the stage, all others considerately +withdrawing; and presently, after a period of heartrending comicalities, +the Scotchman, speaking as though he had a mouthful of hot oatmeal, +proceeded to narrate an account of a fictitious encounter with a bear. +Substantially this dialogue ensued: + +THE SCOTCHMAN--He was a vurra fierce grizzly bear, ye ken; and he rushed +at me from behind a jugged rock. + +THE NEGRO--Mistah, you means a jagged rock, don't you? + +THE SCOTCHMAN--Nay, nay, laddie--a jugged rock. + +THE NEGRO--Whut's dat you say? Whut--whut is a jugged rock? + +THE SCOTCHMAN (forgetting his accent)--Why, a rock with a jug on it, +old chap. (A stage wait to let that soak into them in all its full +strength.) A rock with a jug on it would be a jugged rock, wouldn't +it--eh? + +The pause had been sufficient--they had it now. And from all parts of +the house a whoop of unrestrained joy went up. + +Witnessing such spectacles as this, the American observer naturally +begins to think that the English in mass cannot see a joke that is +the least bit subtle. Nevertheless, however, and to the contrary +notwithstanding--as Colonel Bill Sterritt, of Texas, used to +say--England has produced the greatest natural humorists in the world +and some of the greatest comedians, and for a great many years has +supported the greatest comic paper printed in the English language, +and that is Punch. Also, at an informal Saturday-night dinner in a +well-known London club I heard as much spontaneous repartee from the +company at large, and as much quiet humor from the chairman, as I ever +heard in one evening anywhere; but if you went into that club on a +weekday you might suppose somebody was dead and laid out there, and +that everybody about the premises had gone into deep mourning for the +deceased. If any member of that club had dared then to crack a joke +they would have expelled him--as soon as they got over the shock of +the bounder's confounded cheek. Saturday night? Yes. Monday afternoon? +Never! And there you are! + +Speaking of Punch reminds me that we were in London when Punch, after +giving the matter due consideration for a period of years, came out with +a colored jacket on him. If the Prime Minister had done a Highland fling +in costume at high noon in Oxford Circus it could not have created more +excitement than Punch created by coming out with a colored cover. Yet, +to an American's understanding, the change was not so revolutionary and +radical as all that. Punch's well-known lineaments remained the same. +There was merely a dab of palish yellow here and there on the sheet; at +first glance you might have supposed somebody else had been reading +your copy of Punch at breakfast and had been careless in spooning up his +soft-boiled egg. + +They are our cousins, the English are; our cousins once removed, 'tis +true--see standard histories of the American Revolution for further +details of the removing--but they are kinsmen of ours beyond a doubt. +Even if there were no other evidences, the kinship between us would +still be proved by the fact that the English are the only people except +the Americans who look on red meat--beef, mutton, ham--as a food to be +eaten for the taste of the meat itself; whereas the other nations of the +earth regard it as a vehicle for carrying various sauces, dressings and +stuffings southward to the stomach. But, to the notice of the American +who is paying them his first visit, they certainly do offer some amazing +contradictions. + +In the large matters of business the English have been accused of +trickiness, which, however, may be but the voice of envious competition +speaking; but in the small things they surely are most marvelously +honest. Consider their railroad trains now: To a greenhorn from this +side the blue water, a railroad journey out of London to almost any +point in rural England is a succession of surprises, and all pleasant +ones. To begin with, apparently there is nobody at the station whose +business it is to show you to your train or to examine your ticket +before you have found your train for yourself. There is no mad scurrying +about at the moment of departure, no bleating of directions through +megaphones. Unchaperoned you move along a long platform under a grimy +shed, where trains are standing with their carriage doors hospitably +ajar, and unassisted you find your own train and your own carriage, and +enter therein. + +Sharp on the minute an unseen hand--at least I never saw it--slams the +doors and coyly--you might almost say secretively--the train moves +out of the terminal. It moves smoothly and practically without jarring +sounds. There is no shrieking of steel against steel. It is as though +the rails were made of rubber and the wheel-flanges were faced with +noise-proof felt. No conductor comes to punch your ticket, no brakeman +to bellow the stops, no train butcher bleating the gabbled invoice of +his gumdrops, bananas and other best-sellers. + +Glory be! It is all so peaceful and soothing; as peaceful and as +soothing as the land through which you are gliding when once you have +left behind smoky London and its interminable environs; for now you are +in a land that was finished and plenished five hundred years ago and +since then has not been altered in any material aspect whatsoever. Every +blade of grass is in its right place; every wayside shrub seemingly has +been restrained and trained to grow in exactly the right and the proper +way. Streaming by your car window goes a tastefully arranged succession +of the thatched cottages, the huddled little towns, the meandering +brooks, the ancient inns, the fine old country places, the high-hedged +estates of the landed gentry, with rose-covered lodges at the gates and +robust children in the doorways--just as you have always seen them in +the picture books. There are fields that are velvet lawns, and lawns +that are carpets of green cut-plush. England is the only country I know +of that lives up--exactly and precisely--to its storybook descriptions +and its storybook illustrations. + +Eventually you come to your stopping point; at least you have reason to +believe it may be your stopping point. As well as you may judge by +the signs that plaster the front, the sides, and even the top of the +station, the place is either a beef extract or a washing compound. Nor +may you count on any travelers who may be sharing your compartment with +you to set you right by a timely word or two. Your fellow passengers +may pity you for your ignorance and your perplexity, but they would +not speak; they could not, not having been introduced. A German or a +Frenchman would be giving you gladly what aid he might; but a well-born +Englishman who had not been introduced would ride for nine years with +you and not speak. I found the best way of solving the puzzle was to +consult the timecard. If the timecard said our train would reach a given +point at a given hour, and this was the given hour, then we might be +pretty sure this was the given point. Timetables in England are written +by realists, not by gifted fiction writers of the impressionistic +school, as is frequently the case in America. + +So, if this timecard says it is time for you to get off you get off, +with your ticket still in your possession; and if it be a small station +you go yourself and look up the station master, who is tucked away in +a secluded cubbyhole somewhere absorbing tea, or else is in the luggage +room fussing with baby carriages and patent-churns. Having ferreted him +out in his hiding-place you hand over your ticket to him and he touches +his cap brim and says "Kew" very politely, which concludes the ceremony +so far as you are concerned. + +Then, if you have brought any heavy baggage with you in the baggage +car--pardon, I meant the luggage van--you go back to the platform and +pick it out from the heap of luggage that has been dumped there by the +train hands. With ordinary luck and forethought you could easily pick +out and claim and carry off some other person's trunk, provided you +fancied it more than your own trunk, only you do not. You do not do this +any more than, having purchased a second-class ticket, or a third-class, +you ride first-class; though, so far as I could tell, there is no check +to prevent a person from so doing. At least an Englishman never does. It +never seems to occur to him to do so. The English have no imagination. + +I have a suspicion that if one of our railroads tried to operate its +train service on such a basis of confidence in the general public there +would be a most deceitful hiatus in the receipts from passenger traffic +to be reported to a distressed group of stockholders at the end of the +fiscal year. This, however, is merely a supposition on my part. I may be +wrong. + + + + +Chapter XVII + + + +Britain in Twenty Minutes + +To a greater degree, I take it, than any other race the English have +mastered the difficult art of minding their own affairs. The average +Englishman is tremendously knowledgable about his own concerns and +monumentally ignorant about all other things. If an Englishman's +business requires that he shall learn the habits and customs of the +Patagonians or the Chicagoans or any other race which, because it is not +British, he naturally regards as barbaric, he goes and learns them--and +learns them well. Otherwise your Britisher does not bother himself with +what the outlander may or may not do. + +An Englishman cannot understand an American's instinctive desire to +know about things; we do not understand his lack of curiosity in +that direction. Both of us forget what I think must be the underlying +reasons--that we are a race which, until comparatively recently, lived +wide distances apart in sparsely settled lands, and were dependent on +the passing stranger for news of the rest of the world, where he belongs +to a people who all these centuries have been packed together in their +little island like oats in a bin. London itself is so crowded that the +noses of most of the lower classes turn up--there is not room for them +to point straight ahead without causing a great and bitter confusion of +noses; but whether it points upward or outward or downward the owner +of the nose pretty generally refrains from ramming it into other folks' +business. If he and all his fellows did not do this; if they had not +learned to keep their voices down and to muffle unnecessary noises; +if they had not built tight covers of reserve about themselves, as +the oyster builds a shell to protect his tender tissues from +irritation--they would long ago have become a race of nervous wrecks +instead of being what they are, the most stolid beings alive. + +In London even royalty is mercifully vouchsafed a reasonable amount +of privacy from the intrusion of the gimlet eye and the chisel nose. +Royalty may ride in Rotten Row of a morning, promenade on the Mall at +noon, and shop in the Regent Street shops in the afternoon, and at all +times go unguarded and unbothered--I had almost said unnoticed. It may +be that long and constant familiarity with the institution of royalty +has bred indifference in the London mind to the physical presence of +dukes and princes and things; but I am inclined to think a good share +of it should be attributed to the inborn and ingrown British faculty for +letting other folks be. + +One morning as I was walking at random through the aristocratic +district, of which St. James is the solar plexus and Park Lane the +spinal cord, I came to a big mansion where foot-guards stood sentry at +the wall gates. This house was further distinguished from its neighbors +by the presence of a policeman pacing alongside it, and a newspaper +photographer setting up his tripod and camera in the road, and a small +knot of passers-by lingering on the opposite side of the way, as though +waiting for somebody to come along or something to happen. I waited too. +In a minute a handsome old man and a well-set-up young man turned the +corner afoot. The younger man was leading a beautiful stag hound. The +photographer touched his hat and said something, and the younger man +smiling a good-natured smile, obligingly posed in the street for a +picture. At this precise moment a dirigible balloon came careening over +the chimneypots on a cross-London air jaunt; and at the sight of it the +little crowd left the young man and the photographer and set off at a +run to follow, as far as they might, the course of the balloon. Now in +America this could not have occurred, for the balloon man would not have +been aloft at such an hour. He would have been on the earth; moreover he +would have been outside the walls of that mansion house, along with half +a million, more or less, of his patriotic fellow countrymen, tearing +his own clothes off and their clothes off, trampling the weak and sickly +underfoot, bucking the doubled and tripled police lines in a mad, vain +effort to see the flagpole on the roof or a corner of the rear garden +wall. For that house was Clarence House, and the young man who posed so +accommodatingly for the photographer was none other than Prince Arthur +of Connaught, who was getting himself married the very next day. + +The next day I beheld from a short distance the passing of the bridal +procession. Though there were crowds all along the route followed by +the wedding party, there was no scrouging, no shoving, no fighting, no +disorderly scramble, no unseemly congestion about the chapel where the +ceremony took place. It reminded me vividly of that which inevitably +happens when a millionaire's daughter is being married to a duke in a +fashionable Fifth Avenue church--it reminded me of that because it was +so different. + +Fortunately for us we were so placed that we saw quite distinctly the +entrance of the wedding party into the chapel inclosure. Personally I +was most concerned with the members of the royal house. As I recollect, +they passed in the following order: + +His Majesty, King George the Fifth. Her Majesty, Queen Mary, the Other +Four Fifths. Small fractional royalties to the number of a dozen or +more. + +I got a clear view of the side face of the queen. As one looked on her +profile, which was what you might call firm, and saw the mild-looking +little king, who seemed quite eclipsed by her presence, one +understood--or anyway one thought one understood--why an English +assemblage, when standing to chant the national anthem these times, +always puts such fervor and meaning into the first line of it. + +Only one untoward incident occurred: The inevitable militant lady broke +through the lines as the imperial carriage passed and threw a Votes for +Women handbill into His Majesty's lap. She was removed thence by the +police with the skill and dexterity of long practice. The police were +competently on the job. They always are--which brings me round to the +subject of the London bobby and leads me to venture the assertion +that individually and collectively, personally and officially, he is +a splendid piece of work. The finest thing in London is the London +policeman and the worst thing is the shamefully small and shabby pay he +gets. He is majestic because he represents the majesty of the English +law; he is humble and obliging because, as a servant, he serves the +people who make the law. And always he knows his business. + +In Charing Cross, where all roads meet and snarl up in the bewildering +semblance of many fishing worms in a can, I ventured out into the +roadway to ask a policeman the best route for reaching a place in a +somewhat obscure quarter. He threw up his arm, semaphore fashion, +first to this point of the compass and then to that, and traffic halted +instantly. As far as the eye might reach it halted; and it stayed +halted, too, while he searched his mind and gave me carefully and +painstakingly the directions for which I sought. In that packed mass +of cabs and taxis and buses and carriages there were probably dukes +and archbishops--dukes and archbishops are always fussing about in +London--but they waited until he was through directing me. It flattered +me so that I went back to the hotel and put on a larger hat. I sincerely +hope there was at least one archbishop. + +Another time we went to Paddington to take a train for somewhere. +Following the custom of the country we took along our trunks and traps +on top of the taxicab. At the moment of our arrival there were no +porters handy, so a policeman on post outside the station jumped forward +on the instant and helped our chauffeur to wrestle the luggage down on +the bricks. When I, rallying somewhat from the shock of this, thanked +him and slipped a coin into his palm, he said in effect that, though +he was obliged for the shilling, I must not feel that I had to give him +anything--that it was part of his duty to aid the public in these small +matters. I shut my eyes and tried to imagine a New York policeman doing +as much for an unknown alien; but the effort gave me a severe headache. +It gave me darting pains across the top of the skull--at about the spot +where he would probably have belted me with his club had I even dared to +ask him to bear a hand with my baggage. + +I had a peep into the workings of the system of which the London bobby +is a spoke when I went to what is the very hub of the wheel of the +common law--a police court. I understood then what gave the policeman in +the street his authority and his dignity--and his humility--when I saw +how carefully the magistrate on the bench weighed each trifling cause +and each petty case; how surely he winnowed out the small grain of truth +from the gross and tare of surmise and fiction; how particular he was to +give of the abundant store of his patience to any whining ragpicker +or street beggar who faced him, whether as defendant at the bar, or +accuser, or witness. + +It was the very body of the law, though, we saw a few days after this +when by invitation we witnessed the procession at the opening of the +high courts. Considered from the stand-points of picturesqueness and +impressiveness it made one's pulses tingle when those thirty or forty +men of the wig and ermine marched in single and double file down the +loftily vaulted hall, with the Lord Chancellor in wig and robes of state +leading, and Sir Rufus Isaacs, knee-breeched and sword-belted, a pace or +two behind him; and then, in turn, the justices; and, going on ahead of +them and following on behind them, knight escorts and ushers and clerks +and all the other human cogs of the great machine. What struck into me +deepest, however, was the look of nearly every one of the judges. Had +they been dressed as longshoremen, one would still have known them for +possessors of the judicial temperament--men born to hold the balances +and fitted and trained to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. So many +eagle-beaked noses, so many hawk-keen eyes, so many smooth-chopped, +long-jowled faces, seen here together, made me think of what we are +prone to regard as the highwater period of American statesmanship--the +Clay-Calhoun-Benton-Webster period. + +Just watching these men pass helped me to know better than any reading I +had ever done why the English have faith and confidence in their courts. +I said to myself that if I wanted justice--exact justice, heaping high +in time scales--I should come to this shop and give my trade to the +old-established firm; but if I were looking for a little mercy I should +take my custom elsewhere. + +I cannot tell why I associate it in my mind with this grouped spectacle +of the lords of the law, but somehow the scene to be witnessed in Hyde +Park just inside the Marble Arch of a Sunday evening seems bound up +somehow with the other institution. They call this place London's safety +valve. It's all of that. Long ago the ruling powers discovered that +if the rabidly discontented were permitted to preach dynamite and +destruction unlimited they would not be so apt to practice their +cheerful doctrines. So, without let or hindrance, any apostle of any +creed, cult or propaganda, however lurid and revolutionary, may come +here of a Sunday to meet with his disciples and spout forth the faith +that is in him until he has geysered himself into peace, or, what comes +to the same thing, into speechlessness. + +When I went to Hyde Park on a certain Sunday rain was falling and the +crowds were not so large as usual, a bored policeman on duty in this +outdoor forum told me; still, at that, there must have been two or three +thousand listeners in sight and not less than twelve speakers. These +latter balanced themselves on small portable platforms placed in rows, +with such short spaces between them that their voices intermingled +confusingly. In front of each orator stood his audience; sometimes they +applauded what he said in a sluggish British way, and sometimes they +asked him questions designed to baffle or perplex him--heckling, I +believe this is called--but there was never any suggestion of disorder +and never any violent demonstration for or against a statement made by +him. + +At the end of the line nearest the Arch, under a flary light, stood an +old bearded man having the look on his face of a kindly but somewhat +irritated moo-cow. At the moment I drew near he was having a long and +involved argument with another controversialist touching on the sense of +the word tabernacle as employed Scripturally, one holding it to mean the +fleshly tenement of the soul and the other an actual place of worship. +The old man had two favorite words--behoove and emit--but behoove was +evidently his choice. As an emitter he was only fair, but he was the +best behoover I ever saw anywhere. + +The orator next to him was speaking in a soft, sentimental tone, with +gestures gently appropriate. I moved along to him, being minded to learn +what particular brand of brotherly love he might be expounding. In +the same tone a good friend might employ in telling you what to do +for chapped lips or a fever blister he was saying that clergymen and +armaments were useless and expensive burdens on the commonwealth; +and, as a remedy, he was advocating that all the priests and all the +preachers in the kingdom should be loaded on all the dreadnoughts, +and then the dreadnoughts should be steamed to the deepest part of the +Atlantic Ocean and there cozily scuttled, with all aboard. + +There was scattering applause and a voice: "Ow, don't do that! Listen, +'ere! Hi've got a better plan." But the next speaker was blaring away at +the top of his voice, making threatening faces and waving his clenched +fists aloft and pounding with them on the top of his rostrum. + +"Now this," I said to myself, "is going to be something worth while. +Surely this person would not be content merely with drowning all the +parsons and sinking all the warships in the hole at the bottom of the +sea. Undoubtedly he will advocate something really radical. I will +invest five minutes with him." + +I did; but I was sold. He was favoring the immediate adoption of a +universal tongue for all the peoples of the earth--that was all. I did +not catch the name of his universal language, but I judged the one at +which he would excel would be a language with few if any h's in it. +After this disappointment I lost heart and came away. + +Another phase, though a very different one, of the British spirit of +fair play and tolerance, was shown to me at the National Sporting Club, +which is the British shrine of boxing, where I saw a fight for one of +the championship belts that Lord Lonsdale is forever bestowing on this +or that worshipful fisticuffer. Instead of being inside the ring prying +the fighters apart by main force as he would have been doing in America, +the referee, dressed in evening clothes, was outside the ropes. At a +snapped word from him the fighters broke apart from clinches on +the instant. The audience--a very mixed one, ranging in garb from +broadcloths to shoddies--was as quick to approve a telling blow by the +less popular fighter as to hiss any suggestion of trickiness or fouling +on the part of the favorite. When a contestant in one of the preliminary +goes, having been adjudged a loser on points, objected to the decision +and insisted on being heard in his own behalf, the crowd, though plainly +not in sympathy with his contention, listened to what he had to say. +Nobody jeered him down. + +Had he been a foreigner and especially had he been an American I am +inclined to think the situation might have been different. I seem to +recall what happened once when a certain middleweight from this side +went over there and broke the British heart by licking the British +champion; and again what happened when a Yankee boy won the Marathon +at the Olympic games in London a few years ago. But as this man was +a Briton himself these other Britons harkened to his sputterings, +for England, you know, grants the right of free speech to all +Englishmen--and denies it to all Englishwomen. + +The settled Englishman declines always to be jostled out of his +hereditary state of intense calm. They tell of a man who dashed into the +reading room of the Savage Club with the announcement that a lion was +loose on the Strand--a lion that had escaped from a traveling caravan +and was rushing madly to and fro, scaring horses and frightening +pedestrians. + +"Great excitement! Most terrific, old dears--on my word!" he added, +addressing the company. + +Over the top of the Pink Un an elderly gentleman of a full habit of life +regarded him sourly. + +"Is that any reason," he inquired, "why a person should rush into a +gentleman's club and kick up such a deuced hullabaloo?" + +The first man--he must have been a Colonial--gazed at the other man in +amazement. + +"Well," he asked, "what would you do if you met a savage lion loose on +the Strand?" + +"Sir, I should take a cab!" + +And after meeting an Englishman or two of this type I am quite prepared +to say the story might have been a true one. If he met a lion on the +Strand to-day he would take a cab; but if to-morrow, walking in the +same place, he met two lions, he would write a letter to the +Times complaining of the growing prevalence of lions in the public +thoroughfares and placing the blame on the Suffragettes or Lloyd George +or the Nonconformists or the increasing discontent of the working +classes--that is what he would do. + +On the other hand, if he met a squirrel on a street in America it would +be a most extraordinary thing. Extraordinary would undoubtedly be the +word he would use to describe it. Lions on the Strand would be merely +annoying, but chipmunks on Broadway would constitute a striking +manifestation of the unsettled conditions existing in a wild and +misgoverned land; for, you see, to every right-minded Englishman of +the insular variety--and that is the commonest variety there is in +England--whatever happens at home is but part of an orderly and an +ordered scheme of things, whereas whatever happens beyond the +British domains must necessarily be highly unusual and exceedingly +disorganizing. If so be it happens on English soil he can excuse it. +He always has an explanation or an extenuation handy. But if it happens +elsewhere--well, there you are, you see! What was it somebody once +called England--Perfidious Alibi-in', wasn't it? Anyhow that was what he +meant. The party's intentions were good but his spelling was faulty. + +An Englishman's newspapers help him to attain this frame of mind; for +an English newspaper does not print sensational stories about Englishmen +residing in England; it prints them about people resident in other +lands. There is a good reason for this and the reason is based on +prudence. In the first place the private life of a private individual is +a most holy thing, with which the papers dare not meddle; besides, the +paper that printed a faked-up tale about a private citizen in England +would speedily be exposed and also extensively sued. As for public men, +they are protected by exceedingly stringent libel laws. As nearly as I +might judge, anything true you printed about an English politician would +be libelous, and anything libelous you printed about him would be true. + +It befalls, therefore, as I was told on most excellent authority, that +when the editor of a live London daily finds the local grist to be +dull and uninteresting reading he straightway cables to his American +correspondent or his Paris correspondent--these two being his main +standbys for sensations--asking, if his choice falls on the man in +America, for a snappy dispatch, say, about an American train smash-up, +or a Nature freak, or a scandal in high society with a rich man mixed up +in it. He wires for it, and in reply he gets it. I have been in my time +a country correspondent for city papers, and I know that what Mr. Editor +wants Mr. Editor gets. + +As a result America, to the provincial Englishman's understanding, is +a land where a hunter is always being nibbled to death by sheep; or a +prospective mother is being so badly frightened by a chameleon that her +child is born with a complexion changeable at will and an ungovernable +appetite for flies; or a billionaire is giving a monkey dinner or +poisoning his wife, or something. Also, he gets the idea that a through +train in this country is so called because it invariably runs through +the train ahead of it; and that when a man in Connecticut is expecting a +friend on the fast express from Boston, and wants something to remember +him by, he goes down to the station at train time with a bucket. Under +the headlining system of the English newspapers the derailment of a +work-train in Arizona, wherein several Mexican tracklayers get mussed +up, becomes Another Frightful American Railway Disaster! But a head-on +collision, attended by fatalities, in the suburbs of Liverpool or +Manchester is a Distressing Suburban Incident. Yet the official Blue +Book, issued by the British Board of Trade, showed that in the three +months ending March 31, 1913, 284 persons were killed and 2,457 were +injured on railway lines in the United Kingdom. + +Just as an English gentleman is the most modest person imaginable, +and the most backward about offering lip-service in praise of his own +achievements or his country's achievements, so, in the same superlative +degree, some of his newspapers are the most blatant of boasters. About +the time we were leaving England the job of remodeling and beautifying +the front elevation of Buckingham Palace reached its conclusion, and a +dinner was given to the workingmen who for some months had been engaged +on the contract. It had been expected that the occasion would be graced +by the presence of Their Majesties; but the king, as I recall, was +pasting stamps in the new album the Czar of Russia sent him on his +birthday, and the queen was looking through the files of Godey's Lady's +Book for the year 1874, picking out suitable costumes for the ladies of +her court to wear. At any rate they could not attend. Otherwise, though, +the dinner must have been a success. Reading the account of it as +published next morning in a London paper, I learned that some of the +guests, "with rare British pluck," wore their caps and corduroys; that +others, "with true British independence," smoked their pipes after +dinner; that there was "real British beef" and "genuine British plum +pudding" on the menu; and that repeatedly those present uttered "hearty +British cheers." From top to bottom the column was studded thick with +British thises and British thats. + +Yet the editorial writers of that very paper are given to frequent and +sneering attacks on the alleged yellowness and the boasting proclivities +of the jingo Yankee sheets; also, they are prone to spasmodic attacks +on the laxity of our marriage laws. Perhaps what they say of us is true; +but for unadulterated nastiness I never saw anything in print to equal +the front page of a so-called sporting weekly that circulates freely in +London, and I know of nothing to compare with the brazen exhibition of a +certain form of vice that is to be witnessed nightly in the balconies of +two of London's largest music halls. It was upon the program of another +London theater that I came across the advertisement of a lady styling +herself "London's Woman Detective" and stating, in so many words, that +her specialties were "Divorce Shadowings" and "Secret Inquiries." Maybe +it is a fact that in certain of our states marriage is not so much a +contract as a ninety-day option, but the lady detective who does divorce +shadowing and advertises her qualifications publicly has not opened up +her shop among us. + +In the campaign to give the stay-at-home Englishman a strange conception +of his American kinsman the press is ably assisted by the stage. +In London I went to see a comedy written by a deservedly successful +dramatist, and staged, I think, under his personal direction. The +English characters in the play were whimsical and, as nearly as I might +judge, true to the classes they purported to represent. There was an +American character in this piece too--a multimillionaire, of course, and +a collector of pictures--presumably a dramatically fair and realistic +drawing of a wealthy, successful, art-loving American. I have forgotten +now whether he was supposed to be one of our meaty Chicago millionaires, +or one of our oily Cleveland millionaires, or one of our steely +Pittsburgh millionaires, or just a plain millionaire from the country +at large; and I doubt whether the man who wrote the lines had any +conception when he did write them of the fashion in which they were +afterward read. Be that as it may, the actor who essayed to play the +American used an inflection, or an accent, or a dialect, or a jargon--or +whatever you might choose to call it--which was partly of the oldtime +drawly Wild Western school of expression and partly of the oldtime +nasal Down East school. I had thought--and had hoped--that both these +actor-created lingoes were happily obsolete; but in their full flower of +perfection I now heard them here in London. Also, the actor who played +the part interpreted the physical angles of the character in a manner to +suggest a pleasing combination of Uncle Joshua Whitcomb, Mike the Bite, +Jefferson Brick and Coal-Oil Johnny, with a suggestion of Jesse James +interspersed here and there. True, he spat not on the carpet loudly, and +he refrained from saying I vum! and Great Snakes!--quaint conceits that, +I am told, every English actor who respected his art formally employed +when wishful to type a stage American for an English audience; but he +bragged loudly and emphatically of his money and of how he got it and of +what he would do with it. I do not perceive why it is the English, who +themselves so dearly love the dollar after it is translated into terms +of pounds, shillings and pence, should insist on regarding us as a +nation of dollar-grabbers, when they only see us in the act of freely +dispensing the aforesaid dollar. + +They do so regard us, though; and, with true British setness, I suppose +they always will. Even so I think that, though they may dislike us as a +nation, they like us as individuals; and it is certainly true that they +seem to value us more highly than they value Colonials, as they call +them--particularly Canadian Colonials. It would appear that your true +Briton can never excuse another British subject for the shockingly poor +taste he displayed in being born away from home. And, though in time he +may forgive us for refusing to be licked by him, he can never forgive +the Colonials for saving him from being licked in South Africa. + +When I started in to write this chapter, I meant to conclude it with an +apology for my audacity in undertaking--in any wise--to sum up the local +characteristics of a country where I had tarried for so short a time, +but I have changed my mind about that. I have merely borrowed a page +from the book of rules of the British essayists and novelists who come +over here to write us up. Why, bless your soul, I gave nearly eight +weeks of time to the task of seeing Europe thoroughly, and, of those +eight weeks, I spent upward of three weeks in and about London--indeed, +a most unreasonably long time when measured by the standards of the +Englishman of letters who does a book about us. + +He has his itinerary all mapped out in advance. He will squander a whole +week on us. We are scarcely worth it, but, such as we are, we shall have +a week of his company! Landing on Monday morning, he will spend Monday +in New York, Tuesday in San Francisco, and Wednesday in New Orleans. +Thursday he will divide between Boston and Chicago, devoting the +forenoon to one and the afternoon to the other. Friday morning he will +range through the Rocky Mountains, and after luncheon, if he is not too +fatigued, he will take a carriage and pop in on Yosemite Valley for an +hour or so. + +But Saturday--all of it--will be given over to the Far Southland. He +is going 'way down South--to sunny South Dakota, in fact, to see the +genuine native American darkies, the real Yankee blackamoors. +Most interesting beings, the blackamoors! They live exclusively on +poultry--fowls, you know--and all their women folk are named Honey Gal. + +He will observe them in their hours of leisure, when, attired in their +national costume, consisting of white duck breeches, banjos, and striped +shirts with high collars, they gather beneath the rays of the silvery +Southern moon to sing their tribal melodies on the melon-lined shores +of the old Oswego; and by day he will study them at their customary +employment as they climb from limb to limb of the cottonwood trees, +picking cotton. On Sunday he will arrange and revise his notes, and on +Monday morning he will sail for home. + +Such is the program of Solomon Grundy, Esquire, the distinguished +writing Englishman; but on his arrival he finds the country to be +somewhat larger than he expected--larger actually than the Midlands. So +he compromises by spending five days at a private hotel in New York, run +by a very worthy and deserving Englishwoman of the middle classes, where +one may get Yorkshire puddings every day; and two days more at a wealthy +tufthunter's million-dollar cottage at Newport, studying the habits and +idiosyncrasies of the common people. And then he rushes back to England +and hurriedly embalms his impressions of us in a large volume, stating +it to be his deliberate opinion that, though we mean well enough, we +won't do--really. He necessarily has to hurry, because, you see, he has +a contract to write a novel or a play--or both a novel and a play--with +Lord Northcliffe as the central figure. In these days practically all +English novels and most English comedies play up Lord Northcliffe as the +central figure. Almost invariably the young English writer chooses him +for the axis about which his plot shall revolve. English journalists +who have been discharged from one of Northcliffe's publications make him +their villian, and English journalists who hope to secure jobs on one +of his publications make him their hero. The literature of a land is +in perilous case when it depends on the personality of one man. One +shudders to think what the future of English fiction would be should +anything happen to his Lordship! + +Business of shuddering! + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + + +Guyed or Guided? + +During our scientific explorations in the Eastern Hemisphere, we met two +guides who had served the late Samuel L. Clemens, one who had served +the late J. Pierpont Morgan, and one who had acted as courier to +ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. After inquiry among persons who were +also lately abroad, I have come to the conclusion that my experience +in this regard was remarkable, not because I met so many as four of the +guides who had attended these distinguished Americans, but because I met +so few as four of them. One man with whom I discussed the matter told of +having encountered, in the course of a brief scurry across Europe, five +members in good standing of the International Association of Former +Guides to Mark Twain. All of them had union cards to prove it too. +Others said that in practically every city of any size visited by them +there was a guide who told of his deep attachment to the memory of Mr. +Morgan, and described how Mr. Morgan had hired him without inquiring +in advance what his rate for professional services a day would be; and +how--lingering with wistful emphasis on the words along here and looking +meaningly the while at the present patron--how very, very generous Mr. +Morgan had been in bestowing gratuities on parting. + +Our first experience with guides was at Westminster Abbey. As it +happened, this guide was one of the Mark Twain survivors. I think, +though, he was genuine; he had documents of apparent authenticity in +his possession to help him in proving up his title. Anyhow, he knew his +trade. He led us up and down those parts of the Abbey which are free to +the general public and brought us finally to a wicket gate, opening on +the royal chapels, which was as far as he could go. There he turned us +over to a severe-looking dignitary in robes--an archbishop, I judged, +or possibly only a canon--who, on payment by us of a shilling a head, +escorted our party through the remaining inclosures, showing us the +tombs of England's queens and kings, or a good many of them anyway; and +the Black Prince's helmet and breastplate; and the exquisite chapel of +Henry the Seventh, and the ancient chair on which all the kings sat for +their coronations, with the famous Scotch Stone of Scone under it. + +The chair itself was not particularly impressive. It was not nearly so +rickety and decrepit as the chairs one sees in almost any London barber +shop. Nor was my emotion particularly excited by the stone. I would +engage to get a better-looking one out of the handiest rock quarry +inside of twenty minutes. This stone should not be confused with the +ordinary scones, which also come from Scotland and which are by some +regarded as edible. + +What did seem to us rather a queer thing was that the authorities of +Westminster should make capital of the dead rulers of the realm and, +except on certain days of the week, should charge an admission fee to +their sepulchers. Later, on the Continent, we sustained an even more +severe shock when we saw royal palaces--palaces that on occasion +are used by the royal proprietors--with the quarters of the monarchs +upstairs and downstairs novelty shops and tourist agencies and +restaurants, and the like of that. I jotted down a few crisp notes +concerning these matters, my intention being to comment on them as +evidence of an incomprehensible thrift on the part of our European +kins-people; but on second thought I decided to refrain from so doing. +I recalled the fact that we ourselves are not entirely free from certain +petty national economies. Abroad we house our embassies up back streets, +next door to bird and animal stores; and at home there is many a public +institution where the doormat says WELCOME! in large letters, but the +soap is chained and the roller towel is padlocked to its little roller. + +Guides are not particularly numerous in England. Even in the places +most frequented by the sightseer they do not abound in any profusion. At +Madame Tussaud's, for example, we found only one guide. We encountered +him just after we had spent a mournful five minutes in contemplation of +ex-President Taft. Friends and acquaintances of Mr. Taft will be shocked +to note the great change in him when they see him here in wax. He does +not weigh so much as he used to weigh by at least one hundred and fifty +pounds; he has lost considerable height too; his hair has turned another +color and his eyes also; his mustache is not a close fit any more, +either; and he is wearing a suit of English-made clothes. + +On leaving the sadly altered form of our former Chief Executive we +descended a flight of stone steps leading to the Chamber of Horrors. +This department was quite crowded with parents escorting their children +about. Like America, England appears to be well stocked with parents who +make a custom of taking their young and susceptible offspring to places +where the young ones stand a good chance of being scared into connipshun +fits. The official guide was in the Chamber of Horrors. He was piloting +a large group of visitors about, but as soon as he saw our smaller party +he left them and came directly to us; for they were Scotch and we were +Americans, citizens of the happy land where tips come from. Undoubtedly +that guide knew best. + +With pride and pleasure he showed us a representative assortment of +England's most popular and prominent murderers. The English dearly love +a murderer. Perhaps that is because they have fewer murderers than we +have, and have less luck than we do in keeping them alive and in good +spirits to a ripe old age. Almost any American community of fair +size can afford at least two murderers--one in jail, under sentence, +receiving gifts of flowers and angel cake from kind ladies, and waiting +for the court above to reverse the verdict in his case because the +indictment was shy a comma; and the other out on bail, awaiting his +time for going through the same procedure. But with the English it is +different. + +We rarely hang anybody who is anybody, and only occasionally make an +issue of stretching the neck of the veriest nobody. They will hang +almost anybody Haman-high, or even higher than that. They do not exactly +hang their murderer before they catch him, but the two events occur in +such close succession that one can readily understand why a confusion +should have arisen in the public mind on these points. First of all, +though, they catch him; and then some morning between ten and twelve +they try him. This is a brief and businesslike formality. While the +judge is looking in a drawer of his desk to see whether the black cap is +handy the bailiffs shoo twelve tradesmen into the jury box. A tradesman +is generally chosen for jury service because he is naturally anxious to +get the thing over and hurry back to his shop before his helper goes to +lunch. The judge tells the jurors to look on the prisoner, because he is +going away shortly and is not expected back; so they take full advantage +of the opportunity, realizing it to be their last chance. Then, in +order to comply with the forms, the judge asks the accused whether he +is guilty or not guilty, and the jurors promptly say he is. His Worship, +concurring heartily, fixes the date of execution for the first Friday +morning when the hangman has no other engagements. It is never necessary +to postpone this event through failure of the condemned to be present. +He is always there; there is no record of his having disappointed +an audience. So, on the date named, rain or shine, he is hanged very +thoroughly; but after the hanging is over they write songs and books +about him and revere his memory forevermore. + +Our guide was pleased to introduce us to the late Mr. Charles Pease, +as done in paraffin, with creped hair and bright, shiny glass eyes. Mr. +Pease was undoubtedly England's most fashionable murderer of the +past century and his name is imperishably enshrined in the British +affections. The guide spoke of his life and works with deep and sincere +feeling. He also appeared to derive unfeigned pleasure from describing +the accomplishments of another murderer, only slightly less famous than +the late Mr. Pease. It seemed that this murderer, after slaying his +victim, set to dismembering the body and boiling it. They boil nearly +everything in England. But the police broke in on him and interrupted +the job. + +Our attention was directed to a large chart showing the form of the +victim, the boiled portions being outlined in red and the unboiled +portions in black. Considered as a murderer solely this particular +murderer may have been deserving of his fame; but when it came to +boiling, that was another matter. He showed poor judgment there. It all +goes to show that a man should stick to his own trade and not try to +follow two or more widely dissimilar callings at the same time. Sooner +or later he is bound to slip up. + +We found Stratford-upon-Avon to be the one town in England where guides +are really abundant. There are as many guides in Stratford as there are +historic spots. I started to say that there is at least one guide +in Stratford for every American who goes there; but that would be +stretching real facts, because nearly every American who goes to England +manages to spend at least a day in Stratford, it being a spot very dear +to his heart. The very name of it is associated with two of the most +conspicuous figures in our literature. I refer first to Andrew Carnegie; +second to William Shakspere. Shakspere, who wrote the books, was born +here; but Carnegie, who built the libraries in which to keep the books, +and who has done some writing himself, provided money for preserving and +perpetuating the relics. + +We met a guide in the ancient schoolhouse where the Bard--I am speaking +now of William, not of Andrew--acquired the rudiments of his education; +and on duty at the old village church was another guide, who for a price +showed us the identical gravestone bearing the identical inscription +which, reproduced in a design of burnt wood, is to-day to be found on +the walls of every American household, however humble, whose members are +wishful of imparting an artistic and literary atmosphere to their home. +A third guide greeted us warmly when we drove to the cottage, a mile +or two from the town, where the Hathaway family lived. Here we saw the +high-backed settle on which Shakspere sat, night after night, wooing +Anne Hathaway. I myself sat on it to test it. I should say that the +wooing could not have been particularly good there, especially for a +thin man. That settle had a very hard seat and history does not record +that there was a cushion. Shakspere's affections for the lady must +indeed have been steadfast. Or perhaps he was of stouter build than his +pictures show him to have been. + +Guides were scattered all over the birthplace house in Stratford in the +ratio of one or more to each room. Downstairs a woman guide presided +over a battery of glass cases containing personal belongings of +Shakspere's and documents written by him and signed by him. It is +conceded that he could write, but he certainly was a mighty poor +speller. This has been a failing of many well-known writers. Chaucer was +deficient in this regard; and if it were not for a feeling of personal +modesty I could apply the illustration nearer home. + +Two guides accompanied us as we climbed the stairs to the low-roofed +room on the second floor where the creator of Shylock and Juliet was +born--or was not born, if you believe what Ignatius Donnelly had to say +on the subject. But would it not be interesting and valued information +if we could only get the evidence on this point of old Mrs. Shakspere, +who undoubtedly was present on the occasion? A member of our party, +an American, ventured to remark as much to one of the guides; but the +latter did not seem to understand him. So the American told him just to +keep thinking it over at odd moments, and that he would be back again +in a couple of years, if nothing happened, and possibly by that time the +guide would have caught the drift of his observation. On second thought, +later on, he decided to make it three years--he did not want to crowd +the guide, he said, or put too great a burden on his mentality in a +limited space of time. + +If England harbors few guides the Continent is fairly glutted with them. +After nightfall the boulevards of Paris are so choked with them that +in places there is standing room only. In Rome the congestion is even +greater. In Rome every other person is a guide--and sometimes twins. +I do not know why, in thinking of Europe, I invariably associate the +subject of guides with the subject of tips. The guides were no greedier +for tips than the cabmen or the hotel helpers, or the railroad hands, or +the populace at large. Nevertheless this is true. In my mind I am +sure guides and tips will always be coupled, as surely as any of those +standard team-word combinations of our language that are familiar to +all; as firmly paired off as, for example, Castor and Pollux, or Damon +and Pythias, or Fair and Warmer, or Hay and Feed. When I think of one +I know I shall think of the other. Also I shall think of languages; but +for that there is a reason. + +Tipping--the giving of tips and the occasional avoidance of giving +them--takes up a good deal of the tourist's time in Europe. At first +reading the arrangement devised by the guidebooks, of setting aside ten +per cent of one's bill for tipping purposes, seems a better plan and a +less costly one than the indiscriminate American system of tipping for +each small service at the time of its performance. The trouble is that +this arrangement does not work out so well in actual practice as it +sounds in theory. On the day of your departure you send for your hotel +bill. You do not go to the desk and settle up there after the American +fashion. If you have learned the ropes you order your room waiter to +fetch your bill to you, and in the privacy of your apartment you +pore over the formidable document wherein every small charge is fully +specified, the whole concluding with an impressive array of items +regarding which you have no prior recollection whatsoever. Considering +the total, you put aside an additional ten per cent, calculated for +division on the basis of so much for the waiter, so much for the boots, +so much for the maid and the porter, and the cashier, and the rest of +them. It is not necessary that you send for these persons in order to +confer your farewell remembrances on them; they will be waiting for you +in the hallways. No matter how early or late the hour of your leaving +may be, you find them there in a long and serried rank. + +You distribute bills and coins until your ten per cent is exhausted, and +then you are pained to note that several servitors yet remain, lined up +and all expectant, owners of strange faces that you do not recall +ever having seen before, but who are now at hand with claims, real or +imaginary, on your purse. Inasmuch as you have a deadly fear of being +remembered afterward in this hotel as a piker, you continue to dip +down and to fork over, and so by the time you reach the tail end of the +procession your ten per cent has grown to twelve or fifteen per cent, or +even more. + +As regards the tipping of guides for their services, I hit on a fairly +satisfactory plan, which I gladly reveal here for the benefit of my +fellow man. I think it is a good idea to give the guide, on parting, +about twice as much as you think he is entitled to, which will be about +half as much as he expects. From this starting point you then work +toward each other, you conceding a little from time to time, he abating +a trifle here and there, until you have reached a happy compromise on a +basis of fifty-fifty; and so you part in mutual good will. + +The average American, on the eve of going to Europe, thinks of the +European as speaking each his own language. He conceives of the Poles +speaking Polar; of the Hollanders talking Hollandaise; of the Swiss +as employing Schweitzer for ordinary conversations and yodeling when +addressing friends at a distance; and so on. Such, however, is rarely +the case. Nearly every person with whom one comes in contact in Europe +appears to have fluent command of several tongues besides his or her +own. It is true this does not apply to Italy, where the natives +mainly stick to Italian; but then, Italian is not a language. It is a +calisthenic. + +Between Rome and Florence, our train stopped at a small way station in +the mountains. As soon as the little locomotive had panted itself to a +standstill the train hands, following their habit, piled off the cars +and engaged in a tremendous confab with the assembled officials on the +platform. Immediately all the loafers in sight drew cards. A drowsy +hillsman, muffled to his back hair in a long brown cloak, and with +buskins on his legs such as a stage bandit wears, was dozing against the +wall. He looked as though he had stepped right out of a comic opera to +add picturesqueness to the scene. He roused himself and joined in; so +did a bearded party who, to judge by his uniform, was either a Knight of +Pythias or a general in the army; so did all the rest of the crowd. In +ten seconds they were jammed together in a hard knot, and going it on +the high speed with the muffler off, fine white teeth shining, arms +flying, shoulders shrugging, spinal columns writhing, mustaches rising +and falling, legs wriggling, scalps and ears following suit. Feeding +hour in the parrot cage at the zoo never produced anything like so noisy +and animated a scene. In these parts acute hysteria is not a symptom; it +is merely a state of mind. + +A waiter in soiled habiliments hurried up, abandoning chances of trade +at the prospect of something infinitely more exciting. He wanted to +stick his oar into the argument. He had a few pregnant thoughts of his +own craving utterance, you could tell that. But he was handicapped into +a state of dumbness by the fact that he needed both arms to balance a +tray of wine and sandwiches on his head. Merely using his voice in that +company would not have counted. He stood it as long as he could, which +was not very long, let me tell you. Then he slammed his tray down on the +platform and, with one quick movement, jerked his coat sleeves back to +his elbows, and inside thirty seconds he had the floor in both hands, as +it were. He conversed mainly with the Australian crawl stroke, but once +in a while switched to the Spencerian free-arm movement and occasionally +introduced the Chautauqua salute with telling effect. + +On the Continent guides, as a class, excel in the gift of +tongues--guides and hotel concierges. The concierge at our hotel in +Berlin was a big, upstanding chap, half Russian and half Swiss, and +therefore qualified by his breeding to speak many languages; for the +Russians are born with split tongues and can give cards and spades to +any talking crow that ever lived; while the Swiss lag but little behind +them in linguistic aptitude. It seemed such a pity that this man was not +alive when the hands knocked off work on the Tower of Babel; he could +have put the job through without extending himself. No matter what +the nationality of a guest might be--and the guests were of many +nationalities--he could talk with that guest in his own language or in +any other language the guest might fancy. I myself was sorely tempted to +try him on Coptic and early Aztec; but I held off. My Coptic is not what +it once was; and, partly through disuse and partly through carelessness, +I have allowed my command of early Aztec to fall off pretty badly these +last few months. + +All linguistic freakishness is not confined to the Continent. The +English, who are popularly supposed to use the same language we +ourselves use, sometimes speak with a mighty strange tongue. A great +many of them do not speak English; they speak British, a very different +thing. An Englishwoman of breeding has a wonderful speaking voice; as +pure as a Boston woman's and more liquid; as soft as a Southern woman's +and with more attention paid to the R's. But the Cockney type--Wowie! +During a carriage ride in Florence with a mixed company of tourists +I chanced to say something of a complimentary nature about something +English, and a little London-bred woman spoke up and said: "Thenks! +It's vurry naice of you to sezzo, 'm sure." Some of them talk like +that--honestly they do! + +Though Americo-English may not be an especially musical speech, it +certainly does lend itself most admirably to slang purposes. Here again +the Britishers show their inability to utilize the vehicle to the full +of its possibilities. England never produced a Billy Baxter or a George +Ade, and I am afraid she never will. Most of our slang means something; +you hear a new slang phrase and instantly you realize that the genius +who coined it has hit on a happy and a graphic and an illuminating +expression; that at one bound he rose triumphant above the limitations +of the language and tremendously enriched the working vocabulary of the +man in the street. Whereas an Englishman's idea of slinging slang is to +scoop up at random some inoffensive and well-meaning word that never did +him any harm and apply it in the place of some other word, to which +the first word is not related, even by marriage. And look how +they deliberately mispronounce proper names. Everybody knows about +Cholmondeley and St. John. But take the Scandinavian word fjord. Why, I +ask you, should the English insist on pronouncing it Ferguson? + +At Oxford, the seat of learning, Magdalen is pronounced Maudlin, +probably in subtle tribute to the condition of the person who first +pronounced it so. General-admission day is not the day you enter, but +the day you leave. Full term means three-quarters of a term. An ordinary +degree is a degree obtained by a special examination. An inspector of +arts does not mean an inspector of arts, but a student; and from +this point they go right ahead, getting worse all the time. The droll +creature who compiled the Oxford glossary was a true Englishman. + +When an Englishman undertakes to wrestle with American slang he makes a +fearful hash of it. In an English magazine I read a short story, written +by an Englishman who is regarded by a good many persons, competent to +judge, as being the cleverest writer of English alive today. The story +was beautifully done from the standpoint of composition; it bristled +with flashing metaphors and whimsical phrasing. The scene of the yarn +was supposed to be Chicago and naturally the principal figure in it was +a millionaire. In one place the author has this person saying, "I reckon +you'll feel pretty mean," and in another place, "I reckon I'm not a man +with no pull." + +Another character in the story says, "I know you don't cotton to the +march of science in these matters," and speaks of something that is +unusual as being "a rum affair." A walled state prison, presumably in +Illinois, is referred to as a "convict camp"; and its warden is called a +"governor" and an assistant keeper is called a "warder"; while a Chicago +daily paper is quoted as saying that "larrikins" directed the attention +of a policeman to a person who was doing thus and so. + +The writer describes a "mysterious mere" known as Pilgrim's Pond, "in +which they say"--a prison official is supposed to be talking now--"our +fathers made witches walk until they sank." Descendants of the original +Puritans who went from Plymouth Rock, in the summer of 1621, and founded +Chicago, will recall this pond distinctly. Cotton Mather is buried on +its far bank, and from there it is just ten minutes by trolley to Salem, +Massachusetts. It is stated also in this story that the prairies begin a +matter of thirty-odd miles from Chicago, and that to reach them one must +first traverse a "perfect no man's land." Englewood and South Chicago +papers please copy. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + + +Venice and the Venisons + +Getting back again to guides, I am reminded that our acquaintanceship +with the second member of the Mark Twain brotherhood was staged in +Paris. This gentleman wished himself on us one afternoon at the Hotel +des Invalides. We did not engage him; he engaged us, doing the trick +with such finesse and skill that before we realized it we had been +retained to accompany him to various points of interest in and round +Paris. However, we remained under his control one day only. At nightfall +we wrested ourselves free and fled under cover of darkness to German +soil, where we were comparatively safe. + +I never knew a man who advanced so rapidly in a military way as he did +during the course of that one day. Our own national guard could not +hold a candle to him. He started out at ten A.M. by being an officer of +volunteers in the Franco-Prussian War; but every time he slipped away +and took a nip out of his private bottle, which was often, he advanced +in rank automatically. Before the dusk of evening came he was a corps +commander, who had been ennobled on the field of battle by the hand of +Napoleon the Third. + +He took us to Versailles. We did not particularly care to go to +Versailles that day, because it was raining; but he insisted and we +went. In spite of the drizzle we might have enjoyed that wonderful place +had he not been constantly at our elbows, gabbling away steadily except +when he excused himself for a moment and stepped behind a tree, to +emerge a moment later wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Then he would +return to us, with an added gimpiness in his elderly legs, an increased +expansion of the chest inside his tight and shiny frock coat, and a +fresh freight of richness on his breath, to report another deserved +promotion. + +After he had eaten luncheon--all except such portions of it as he +spilled on himself--the colonel grew confidential and chummy. He tried +to tell me an off-color story and forgot the point of it, if indeed it +had any point. He began humming the Marseillaise hymn, but broke off to +say he expected to live to see the day when a column of French troops, +singing that air, would march up Unter den Linden to stack their arms in +the halls of the Kaiser's palace. I did not take issue with him. Every +man is entitled to his own wishes in those matters. But later on, when +I had seen something of the Kaiser's standing army, I thought to myself +that when the French troops did march up Unter den Linden they would +find it tolerably rough sledding, and if there was any singing done a +good many of them probably would not be able to join in the last verse. + +Immediately following this, our conductor confided to me that he had +once had the honor of serving Mr. Clemens, whom he referred to as Mick +Twine. He told me things about Mr. Clemens of which I had never heard. +I do not think Mr. Clemens ever heard of them either. Then the +brigadier--it was now after three o'clock, and between three and +three-thirty he was a brigadier--drew my arm within his. + +"I, too, am an author," he stated. "It is not generally known, but I +have written much. I wrote a book of which you may have heard--'The +Wandering Jew.'" And he tapped himself on the bosom proudly. + +I said I had somehow contracted a notion that a party named Sue--Eugene +Sue--had something to do with writing the work of that name. + +"Ah, but you are right there, my friend," he said. "Sue wrote 'The +Wandering Jew' the first time--as a novel, merely; but I wrote him much +better--as a satire on the anti-Semitic movement." + +I surrendered without offering to strike another blow and from that time +on he had his own way with us. The day, as I was pleased to note at the +time, had begun mercifully to draw to a close; we were driving back to +Paris, and he, sitting on the front seat, had just attained the highest +post in the army under the regime of the last Empire, when he said: + +"Behold, m'sieur! We are now approaching a wine shop on the left. You +were most gracious and kind in the matter of luncheon. Kindly permit me +to do the honors now. It is a very good wine shop--I know it well. Shall +we stop for a glass together, eh?" + +It was the first time since we landed at Calais that a native-born +person had offered to buy anything, and, being ever desirous to assist +in the celebration of any truly notable occasion, I accepted and the car +was stopped. We were at the portal of the wine shop, when he plucked at +my sleeve, offering another suggestion: + +"The chauffeur now--he is a worthy fellow, that chauffeur. Shall we not +invite the chauffeur to join us?" + +I was agreeable to that, too. So he called the chauffeur and the +chauffeur disentangled his whiskers from the steering gear and came and +joined us. The chauffeur and I each had a small glass of light wine, but +the general took brandy. Then ensued a spirited dialogue between him +and the woman who kept the shop. Assuming that I had no interest in the +matter, I studied the pictures behind the bar. Presently, having reduced +the woman to a state of comparative silence, he approached me. + +"M'sieur," he said, "I regret that this has happened. Because you are a +foreigner and because you know not our language, that woman would make +an overcharge; but she forgot she had me to deal with. I am on guard! +See her! She is now quelled! I have given her a lesson she will not soon +forget. M'sieur, the correct amount of the bill is two-francs-ten. Give +it to her and let us begone!" + +I still have that guide's name and address in my possession. At parting +he pressed his card on me and asked me to keep it; and I did keep it. I +shall be glad to loan it to any American who may be thinking of going +to Paris. With the card in his pocket, he will know exactly where this +guide lives; and then, when he is in need of a guide he can carefully go +elsewhere and hire a guide. + +I almost failed to mention that before we parted he tried to induce us +to buy something. He took us miles out of our way to a pottery and urged +us to invest in its wares. This is the main purpose of every guide: to +see that you buy something and afterward to collect his commission from +the shopkeeper for having brought you to the shop. If you engage your +guide through the porter at your hotel you will find that he steers you +to the shops the hotel people have already recommended to you; but +if you break the porter's heart by hiring your guide outside, +independently, the guide steers you to the shops that are on his own +private list. + +Only once I saw a guide temporarily stumped, and that was in Venice. The +skies were leaky that day and the weather was raw; and one of the ladies +of the party wore pumps and silk stockings. For the protection of her +ankles she decided to buy a pair of cloth gaiters; and, stating her +intention, she started to go into a shop that dealt in those articles. +The guide hesitated a moment only, then threw himself in her path. +The shops hereabout were not to be trusted--the proprietors, without +exception, were rogues and extortioners. If madame would have patience +for a few brief moments he would guarantee that she got what she wanted +at an honest price. He seemed so desirous of protecting her that she +consented to wait. + +In a minute, on a pretext, he excused himself and dived into one of +the crooked ways that thread through all parts of Venice and make it +possible for one who knows their windings to reach any part of the city +without using the canals. Two of us secretly followed him. Beyond the +first turning he dived into a shoe shop. Emerging after a while he +hurried back and led the lady to that same shop, and stood by, smiling +softly, while she was fitted with gaiters. Until now evidently gaiters +had not been on his list, but he had taken steps to remedy this; and, +though his commission on a pair of sixty-cent gaiters could not have +been very large yet, as some philosopher has so truly said, every little +bit added to what you have makes just a modicum more. Indeed, the guide +never overlooks the smallest bet. His whole mentality is focused on +getting you inside a shop. Once you are there, he stations himself close +behind you, reenforcing the combined importunities of the shopkeeper +and his assembled staff with gentle suggestions. The depths of +self-abasement to which a shopkeeper in Europe will descend in an +effort to sell his goods surpasses the power of description. The London +tradesman goes pretty far in this direction. Often he goes as far as the +sidewalk, clinging to the hem of your garment and begging you to return +for one more look. But the Continentals are still worse. + +A Parisian shopkeeper would sell you the bones of his revered +grandmother if you wanted them and he had them in stock; and he would +have them in stock too, because, as I have stated once before, a true +Parisian never throws away anything he can save. I heard of just one +single instance where a customer desirous of having an article and +willing to pay the price failed to get it; and that, I would say, stands +without a parallel in the annals of commerce and barter. + +An American lady visiting her daughter, an art student in the Latin +Quartier, was walking alone when she saw in a shop window a lace blouse +she fancied. She went inside and by signs, since she knew no French, +indicated that she wished to look at that blouse. The woman in charge +shook her head, declining even to take the garment out of the window. +Convinced now, womanlike, that this particular blouse was the blouse she +desired above all other blouses the American woman opened her purse and +indicated that she was prepared to buy at the shopwoman's own valuation, +without the privilege of examination. The shopwoman showed deep pain +at having to refuse the proposition, but refuse it she did; and the +would-be buyer went home angry and perplexed and told her daughter what +had happened. + +"It certainly is strange," the daughter said. "I thought everything in +Paris, except possibly Napoleon's tomb, was for sale. This thing will +repay investigation. Wait until I pin my hat on. Does my nose need +powdering?" + +Her mother led her back to the shop of the blouse and then the puzzle +was revealed. For it was the shop of a dry cleanser and the blouse +belonged to some patron and was being displayed as a sample of the work +done inside; but undoubtedly such a thing never before happened in Paris +and probably never will happen again. + +In Venice not only the guides and the hotel clerks and porters but even +the simple gondolier has a secret understanding with all branches of +the retail trade. You get into a long, snaky, black gondola and fee the +beggar who pushes you off, and all the other beggars who have assisted +in the pushing off or have merely contributed to the success of the +operation by being present, and you tell your gondolier in your best +Italian or your worst pidgin English where you wish to go. It may be you +are bound for the Rialto; or for the Bridge of Sighs, which is chiefly +distinguished from all the other bridges by being the only covered one +in the lot; or for the house of the lady Desdemona. The lady Desdemona +never lived there or anywhere else, but the house where she would +have lived, had she lived, is on exhibition daily from nine to five, +admission one lira. Or perchance you want to visit one of the ducal +palaces that are so numerous in Venice. These palaces are still tenanted +by the descendants of the original proprietors; one family has perhaps +been living in one palace three or four hundred years. But now the +family inhabits the top floor, doing light housekeeping up there, and +the lower floor, where the art treasures, the tapestries and the family +relics are, is in charge of a caretaker, who collects at the door and +then leads you through. + +Having given the boatman explicit directions you settle back in your +cushion seat to enjoy the trip. You marvel how he, standing at the +stern, with his single oar fitted into a shallow notch of his steering +post, propels the craft so swiftly and guides it so surely by those +short, twisting strokes of his. Really, you reflect, it is rowing by +shorthand. You are feasting your eyes on the wonderful color effects and +the groupings that so enthuse the artist, and which he generally +manages to botch and boggle when he seeks to commit them to canvas; and +betweenwhiles you are wondering why all the despondent cats in Venice +should have picked out the Grand Canal as the most suitable place in +which to commit suicide, when--bump!--your gondola swings up against +the landing piles in front of a glass factory and the entire force +of helpers rush out and seize you by your arms--or by your legs, if +handier--and try to drag you inside, while the affable and accommodating +gondolier boosts you from behind. You fight them off, declaring +passionately that you are not in the market for colored glass at this +time. The hired hands protest; and the gondolier, cheated out of his +commission, sorrows greatly, but obeys your command to move on. At least +he pretends to obey it; but a minute later he brings you up broadside at +the water-level doors of a shop dealing in antiques, known appropriately +as antichitas, or at a mosaic shop or a curio shop. If ever you do +succeed in reaching your destination it is by the exercise of much +profanity and great firmness of will. + +The most insistent and pesky shopkeepers of all are those who hive in +the ground floors of the professedly converted palaces that face on +three sides of the Square of Saint Mark's. You dare not hesitate for the +smallest fractional part of a second in front of a shop here. Lurking +inside the open door is a husky puller-in; and he dashes out and grabs +hold of you and will not let go, begging you in spaghettified English to +come in and examine his unapproachable assortment of bargains. You are +not compelled to buy, he tells you; he only wants you to gaze on +his beautiful things. Believe him not! Venture inside and decline to +purchase and he will think up new and subtle Italian forms of insult and +insolence to visit on you. They will have brass bands out for you if you +invest and brass knuckles if you do not. + +There is but one way to escape from their everlasting persecutions, and +that is to flee to the center of the square and enjoy the company of the +pigeons and the photographers. They--the pigeons, I mean--belong to +the oldest family in Venice; their lineage is of the purest and most +undefiled. For upward of seven hundred years the authorities of the city +have been feeding and protecting the pigeons, of which these countless +blue-and-bronze flocks are the direct descendants. They are true +aristocrats; and, like true aristocrats, they are content to live on the +public funds and grow fat and sassy thereon, paying nothing in return. + +No; I take that part back--they do pay something in return; a full +measure. They pay by the beauty of their presence, and they are surely +very beautiful, with their dainty mincing pink feet and the sheen on the +proudly arched breast coverts of the cock birds; and they pay by giving +you their trust and their friendship. To gobble the gifts of dried +peas, which you buy in little cornucopias from convenient venders +for distribution among them, they come wheeling in winged battalions, +creaking and cooing, and alight on your head and shoulders in that +perfect confidence which so delights humans when wild or half-wild +creatures bestow it on us, though, at every opportunity, we do our level +best to destroy it by hunting and harrying them to death. + +At night, when the moon is up, is the time to visit this spot. Standing +here, with the looming pile of the Doge's Palace bulked behind you, +and the gorgeous but somewhat garish decorations of the great cathedral +softened and soothed into perfection of outline and coloring by the half +light, you can for the moment forget the fallen state of Venice, and +your imagination peoples the splendid plaza for you with the ghosts of +its dead and vanished greatnesses. You conceive of the place as it must +have looked in those old, brave, wicked days, filled all with knights, +with red-robed cardinals and clanking men at arms, with fair ladies and +grave senators, slinking bravos and hired assassins--and all so gay with +silk and satin and glittering steel and spangling gems. + +By the eye of your mind you see His Illuminated Excellency, the frosted +Christmas card, as he bows low before His Eminence, the pink Easter egg; +you see, half hidden behind the shadowed columns of the long portico, an +illustrated Sunday supplement in six colors bargaining with a stick of +striped peppermint candy to have his best friend stabbed in the back +before morning; you see giddy poster designs carrying on flirtations +with hand-painted valentines; you catch the love-making, overhear the +intriguing, and scent the plotting; you are an eyewitness to a slice +out of the life of the most sinister, the most artistic, and the most +murderous period of Italian history. + +But by day imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, stops a hole to +keep the wind away; and the wild ass of the ninety-day tour stamps his +heedless hoofs over the spot where sleeps the dust of departed grandeur. +By day the chug of the motor boat routs out old sleepy echoes from +cracked and crannied ruins; the burnished golden frescoes of Saint +Mark's blare at you as with brazen trumpets; every third medieval +church has been turned into a moving-picture place; and the shopkeeping +parasites buzz about you in vermin swarms and bore holes in your +pocketbook until it is all one large painful welt. The emblem of Venice +is the winged lion. It should be the tapeworm. + +In Rome it appears to be a standing rule that every authenticated guide +shall be a violent Socialist and therefore rampingly anticlerical in all +his views. We were in Rome during the season of pilgrimages. From all +parts of Italy, from Bohemia and Hungary and Spain and Tyrol, and even +from France, groups of peasants had come to Rome to worship in their +mother church and be blessed by the supreme pontiff of their faith. At +all hours of the day they were passing through the streets, bound for +Saint Peter's or the Vatican, the women with kerchiefs over their heads, +the men in their Sunday best, and all with badges and tokens on their +breasts. + +At the head of each straggling procession would be a black-frocked +village priest, at once proud and humble, nervous and exalted. A man +might be of any religion or of no religion at all, and yet I fail to see +how he could watch, unmoved, the uplifted faces of these people as they +clumped over the cobbles of the Holy City, praying as they went. Some of +them had been saving up all their lives, I imagine, against the +coming of this great day; but our guide--and we tried three different +ones--never beheld this sight that he did not sneer at it; and not once +did he fail to point out that most of the pilgrims were middle-aged or +old, taking this as proof of his claim that the Church no longer kept +its hold on the younger people, even among the peasant classes. The +still more frequent spectacle of a marching line of students of one of +the holy colleges, with each group wearing the distinctive insignia of +its own country--purple robes or green sashes, or what not--would excite +him to the verge of a spasm. + +But then he was always verging on a spasm anyway--spasms were his normal +state. + + + + +Chapter XX + + + +The Combustible Captain of Vienna + +Our guide in Vienna was the most stupid human being I ever saw. He was +profoundly ignorant on a tremendously wide range of subjects; he had a +most complete repertoire of ignorance. He must have spent years of study +to store up so much interesting misinformation. This guide was much +addicted to indulgence of a peculiar form of twisted English and at +odd moments given to the consumption of a delicacy of strictly Germanic +origin, known in the language of the Teutons as a rollmops. A rollmops +consists of a large dilled cucumber, with a pickled herring coiled round +it ready to strike, in the design of the rattlesnake-and-pinetree flag +of the Revolution, the motto in both instances being in effect: "Don't +monkey with the buzz saw!" He carried his rollmops in his pocket and +frequently, in art galleries or elsewhere, would draw it out and nibble +it, while disseminating inaccuracies touching on pictures and statues +and things. + +Among other places, he took us to the oldest church in Vienna. As I now +recollect it was six hundred years old. No; on second thought I will say +it must have been older than that. No church could possibly become so +moldy and mangy looking as that church in only six hundred years. The +object in this church that interested me most was contained in an ornate +glass case placed near the altar and alongside the relics held to be +sacred. It did not exactly please me to gaze at this article; but the +thing had a fascination for me; I will not deny that. + +It seems that a couple of centuries ago there was an officer in Vienna, +a captain in rank and a Frenchman by birth, who, in the midst of +disorders and licentiousness, lived so godly and so sanctified a life +that his soldiers took it into their heads that he was really a saint, +or at least had the making of a first-rate saint in him, and, therefore, +must lead a charmed life. So--thus runs the tale--some of them laid a +wager with certain Doubting Thomases, also soldiers, that neither +by fire nor water, neither by rope nor poison, could he take harm to +himself. Finally they decided on fire for the test. So they waited until +he slept--those simple, honest, chuckle-headed chaps--and then they +slipped in with a lighted torch and touched him off. + +Well, sir, the joke certainly was on those soldiers. He burned up with +all the spontaneous enthusiasm of a celluloid comb. For qualities of +instantaneous combustion he must have been the equal of any small-town +theater that ever was built--with one exit. He was practically a total +loss and there was no insurance. + +They still have him, or what is left of him, in that glass case. He +did not exactly suffer martyrdom--though probably he personally did +not notice any very great difference--and so he has not been canonized; +nevertheless, they have him there in that church. In all Europe I only +saw one sight to match him, and that was down in the crypt under the +Church of the Capuchins, in Rome, where the dissected cadavers of four +thousand dead--but not gone--monks are worked up into decorations. There +are altars made of their skulls, and chandeliers made of their thigh +bones; frescoes of their spines; mosaics of their teeth and dried +muscles; cozy corners of their femurs and pelves and tibiae. There are +two classes of travelers I would strongly advise not to visit the crypt +of the Capuchins' Church--those who are just about to have dinner and +want to have it, and those who have just had dinner and want to keep on +having it. + +At the royal palace in Vienna we saw the finest, largest, and gaudiest +collection of crown jewels extant. That guide of ours seemed to think he +had done his whole duty toward us and could call it a day and knock +off when he led us up to the jewel collections, where each case was +surrounded by pop-eyed American tourists taking on flesh at the sight of +all those sparklers and figuring up the grand total of their valuation +in dollars, on the basis of so many hundreds of carats at so many +hundred dollars a carat, until reason tottered on her throne--and did +not have so very far to totter, either. + +The display or all those gems, however, did not especially excite me. +There were too many of them and they were too large. A blue Kimberley +in a hotel clerk's shirtfront or a pigeonblood ruby on a faro dealer's +little finger might hold my attention and win my admiration; but where +jewels are piled up in heaps like anthracite in a coal bin they thrill +me no more than the anthracite would. A quart measure of diamonds of the +average size of a big hailstone does not make me think of diamonds but +of hailstones. I could remain as calm in their presence as I should in +the presence of a quart of cracked ice; in fact, calmer than I should +remain in the presence of a quart of cracked ice in Italy, say, where +there is not that much ice, cracked or otherwise. In Italy a bucketful +of ice would be worth traveling miles to see. You could sell tickets for +it. + +In one of the smaller rooms of the palace we came on a casket containing +a necklace of great smoldering rubies and a pair of bracelets to match. +They were as big as cranberries and as red as blood--as red as arterial +blood. And when, on consulting the guidebook, we read the history of +those rubies the sight of them brought a picture to our minds, for they +had been a part of the wedding dowry of Marie Antoinette. Once on a time +this necklace had spanned the slender white throat that was later to +be sheared by the guillotine, and these bracelets had clasped the same +white wrists that were roped together with an ell of hangman's hemp on +the day the desolated queen rode, in her patched and shabby gown, to the +Place de la Revolution. + +I had seen paintings in plenty and read descriptions galore of that +last ride of the Widow Capet going to her death in the tumbril, with the +priest at her side and her poor, fettered arms twisted behind her, and +her white face bared to the jeers of the mob; but the physical presence +of those precious useless baubles, which had cost so much and yet had +bought so little for her, made more vivid to me than any picture or +any story the most sublime tragedy of The Terror--the tragedy of those +two bound hands. + + + + +Chapter XXI + + + +Old Masters and Other Ruins + +It is naturally a fine thing for one, and gratifying, to acquire a +thorough art education. Personally I do not in the least regret the time +I gave and the study I devoted to acquiring mine. I regard those two +weeks as having been well spent. + +I shall not do it soon again, however, for now I know all about art. Let +others who have not enjoyed my advantages take up this study. Let others +scour the art galleries of Europe seeking masterpieces. All of them +contain masterpieces and most of them need scouring. As for me and mine, +we shall go elsewhere. I love my art, but I am not fanatical on the +subject. There is another side of my nature to which an appeal may be +made. I can take my Old Masters or I can leave them be. That is the way +I am organized--I have self-control. + +I shall not deny that the earlier stages of my art education were +fraught with agreeable little surprises. Not soon shall I forget the +flush of satisfaction which ran through me on learning that this man +Dore's name was pronounced like the first two notes in the music scale, +instead of like a Cape Cod fishing boat. And lingering in my mind as a +fragrant memory is the day when I first discovered that Spagnoletto was +neither a musical instrument nor something to be served au gratin and +eaten with a fork. Such acquirements as these are very precious to me. + +But for the time being I have had enough. At this hour of writing I +feel that I am stocked up with enough of Bouguereau's sorrel ladies and +Titian's chestnut ones and Rubens' bay ones and Velasquez's pintos to +last me, at a conservative estimate, for about seventy-five years. I +am too young as a theatergoer to recall much about Lydia Thompson's +Blondes, but I have seen sufficient of Botticelli's to do me amply well +for a spell. I am still willing to walk a good distance to gaze on one +of Rembrandt's portraits of one of his kinfolks, though I must say he +certainly did have a lot of mighty homely relatives; and any time there +is a first-rate Millet or Corot or Meissonier in the neighborhood I wish +somebody would drop me a line, giving the address. As for pictures by +Tintoretto, showing Venetian Doges hobnobbing informally with members +of the Holy Family, and Raphael's angels, and Michelangelo's lost souls, +and Guidos, and Murillos, I have had enough to do me for months and +months and months. Nor am I in the market for any of the dead fish of +the Flemish school. Judging by what I have observed, practically all +the Flemish painters were devout churchmen and painted their pictures on +Friday. + +There was just one drawback to my complete enjoyment of that part of our +European travels we devoted to art. We would go to an art gallery, hire +a guide and start through. Presently I would come to a picture that +struck me as being distinctly worth while. To my untutored conceptions +it possessed unlimited beauty. There was, it seemed to me, life in the +figures, reality in the colors, grace in the grouping. And then, just +when I was beginning really to enjoy it, the guide would come and snatch +me away. + +He would tell me the picture I thought I admired was of no account +whatsoever--that the artist who painted it had not yet been dead long +enough to give his work any permanent value; and he would drag me off to +look at a cracked and crumbling canvas depicting a collection of saints +of lacquered complexions and hardwood expressions, with cast-iron trees +standing up against cotton batting clouds in the background, and a few +extra halos floating round indiscriminately, like sun dogs on a showery +day, and, up above, the family entrance into heaven hospitably ajar; and +he would command me to bask my soul in this magnificent example of real +art and not waste time on inconsequential and trivial things. Guides +have the same idea of an artist that a Chinaman entertains for an egg. +A fresh egg or a fresh artist will not do. It must have the perfume of +antiquity behind it to make it attractive. + +At the Louvre, in Paris, on the first day of the two we spent there, we +had for our guide a tall, educated Prussian, who had an air about him +of being an ex-officer of the army. All over the Continent you are +constantly running into men engaged in all manner of legitimate and +dubious callings, who somehow impress you as having served in the army +of some other country than the one in which you find them. After this +man had been chaperoning us about for some hours and we had stopped to +rest, he told a good story. It may not have been true--it has been my +experience that very few good stories are true; but it served aptly to +illustrate a certain type of American tourist numerously encountered +abroad. + +"There were two of them," he said in his excellent English, "a gentleman +and his wife; and from what I saw of them I judged them to be very +wealthy. They were interested in seeing only such things as had been +recommended by the guidebook. The husband would tell me they desired +to see such and such a picture or statue. I would escort them to it and +they would glance at it indifferently, and the gentleman would take out +his lead pencil and check off that particular object in the book; and +then he would say: 'All right--we've seen that; now let's find out +what we want to look at next.' We still serve a good many people like +that--not so many as formerly, but still a good many. + +"Finally I decided to try a little scheme of my own. I wanted to see +whether I could really win their admiration for something. I picked out +a medium-size painting of no particular importance and, pointing to +it, said impressively: 'Here, m'sieur, is a picture worth a million +dollars--without the frame!' + +"'What's that?' he demanded excitedly. Then he called to his wife, +who had strayed ahead a few steps. 'Henrietta,' he said, 'come back +here--you're missing something. There's a picture there that's worth a +million dollars--and without the frame, too, mind you!' + +"She came hurrying back and for ten minutes they stood there drinking +in that picture. Every second they discovered new and subtle beauties +in it. I could hardly induce them to go on for the rest of the tour, and +the next day they came back for another soul-feast in front of it." + +Later along, that guide confided to me that in his opinion I had a +keen appreciation of art, much keener than the average lay tourist. The +compliment went straight to my head. It was seeking the point of least +resistance, I suppose. I branched out and undertook to discuss art +matters with him on a more familiar basis. It was a mistake; but before +I realized that it was a mistake I was out in the undertow sixty yards +from shore, going down for the third time, with a low gurgling cry. He +did not put out to save me, either; he left me to sink in the heaving +and abysmal sea of my own fathomless ignorance. He just stood there and +let me drown. It was a cruel thing, for which I can never forgive him. + +In my own defense let me say, however, that this fatal indiscretion was +committed before I had completed my art education. It was after we +had gone from France to Germany, and to Austria, and to Italy, that I +learned the great lesson about art--which is that whenever and wherever +you meet a picture that seems to you reasonably lifelike it is nine +times in ten of no consequence whatsoever; and, unless you are willing +to be regarded as a mere ignoramus, you should straightway leave it +and go and find some ancient picture of a group of overdressed clothing +dummies masquerading as angels or martyrs, and stand before that one and +carry on regardless. + +When in doubt, look up a picture of Saint Sebastian. You never +experience any difficulty in finding him--he is always represented as +wearing very few clothes, being shot full of arrows to such an extent +that clothes would not fit him anyway. Or else seek out Saint Laurence, +who is invariably featured in connection with a gridiron; or Saint +Bartholomew, who, you remember, achieved canonization through a process +of flaying, and is therefore shown with his skin folded neatly and +carried over his arm like a spring overcoat. + +Following this routine you make no mistakes. Everybody is bound to +accept you as one possessing a deep knowledge of art, and not mere +surface art either, but the innermost meanings and conceptions of art. +Only sometimes I did get to wishing that the Old Masters had left a +little more to the imagination. They never withheld any of the painful +particulars. It seemed to me they cheapened the glorious end of those +immortal fathers of the faith by including the details of the martyrdom +in every picture. Still, I would not have that admission get out and +obtain general circulation. It might be used against me as an argument +that my artistic education was grounded on a false foundation. + +It was in Rome, while we were doing the Vatican, that our guide +furnished us with a sight that, considered as a human experience, was +worth more to me than a year of Old Masters and Young Messers. We had +pushed our poor blistered feet--a dozen or more of us--past miles +of paintings and sculptures and relics and art objects, and we were +tired--oh, so tired! Our eyes ached and our shoes hurt us; and the +calves of our legs quivered as we trailed along from gallery to +corridor, and from corridor back to gallery. + +We had visited the Sistine Chapel; and, such was our weariness, we had +even declined to become excited over Michelangelo's great picture of the +Last Judgment. I was disappointed, too, that he had omitted to include +in his collection of damned souls a number of persons I had confidently +and happily expected would be present. I saw no one there even remotely +resembling my conception of the person who first originated and +promulgated the doctrine that all small children should be told at the +earliest possible moment that there is no Santa Claus. That was a very +severe blow to me, because I had always believed that the descent to +eternal perdition would be incomplete unless he had a front seat. And +the man who first hit on the plan of employing child labor on night +shifts in cotton factories--he was unaccountably absent too. And +likewise the original inventor of the toy pistol; in fact the absentees +were entirely too numerous to suit me. There was one thing, though, to +be said in praise of Michelangelo's Last Judgment; it was too large and +too complicated to be reproduced successfully on a souvenir postal card; +and I think we should all be very grateful for that mercy anyway. + +As I was saying, we had left the Sistine Chapel a mile or so behind us +and had dragged our exhausted frames as far as an arched upper portico +in a wing of the great palace, overlooking a paved courtyard inclosed +at its farther end by a side wall of Saint Peter's. We saw, in another +portico similar to the one where we had halted and running parallel to +it, long rows of peasants, all kneeling and all with their faces turned +in the same direction. + +"Wait here a minute," said our guide. "I think you will see something +not included in the regular itinerary of the day." + +So we waited. In a minute or two the long lines of kneeling peasants +raised a hymn; the sound of it came to us in quavering snatches. Through +the aisle formed by their bodies a procession passed the length of the +long portico and back to the starting point. First came Swiss Guards in +their gay piebald uniforms, carrying strange-looking pikes and halberds; +and behind them were churchly dignitaries, all bared of head; and last +of all came a very old and very feeble man, dressed in white, with a +wide-brimmed white hat--and he had white hair and a white face, which +seemed drawn and worn, but very gentle and kindly and beneficent. + +He held his right arm aloft, with the first two fingers extended in the +gesture of the apostolic benediction. He was so far away from us that +in perspective his profile was reduced to the miniature proportions of +a head on a postage stamp; but, all the same, the lines of it stood out +clear and distinct. It was his Holiness, Pope Pius the Tenth, blessing a +pilgrimage. + +All the guides in Rome follow a regular routine with the tourist. First, +of course, they steer you into certain shops in the hope that you will +buy something and thereby enable them to earn commissions. Then, in +turn, they carry you to an art gallery, to a church, and to a palace, +with stops at other shops interspersed between; and invariably they wind +up in the vicinity of some of the ruins. Ruins is a Roman guide's middle +name; ruins are his one best bet. In Rome I saw ruins until I was one +myself. + +We devoted practically an entire day to ruins. That was the day we +drove out the Appian Way, glorious in legend and tale, but not quite +so all-fired glorious when you are reeling over its rough and rutted +pavement in an elderly and indisposed open carriage, behind a pair of +half-broken Roman-nosed horses which insist on walking on their hind +legs whenever they tire of going on four. The Appian Way, as at present +constituted, is a considerable disappointment. For long stretches it +runs between high stone walls, broken at intervals by gate-ways, +where votive lamps burn before small shrines, and by the tombs of such +illustrious dead as Seneca and the Horatii and the Curiatii. At more +frequent intervals are small wine groggeries. Being built mainly of +Italian marble, which is the most enduring and the most unyielding +substance to be found in all Italy--except a linen collar that has been +starched in an Italian laundry--the tombs are in a pretty fair state of +preservation; but the inns, without exception, stand most desperately in +need of immediate repairing. + +A cow in Italy is known by the company she keeps; she rambles about, in +and out of the open parlor of the wayside inn, mingling freely with the +patrons and the members of the proprietor's household. Along the Appian +Way a cow never seems to care whom she runs with; and the same is true +of the domestic fowls and the family donkey. A donkey will spend his day +in the doorway of a wine shop when he might just as well be enjoying the +more sanitary and less crowded surroundings of a stable. It only goes to +show what an ass a donkey is. + +Anon, as the fancy writers say, we skirted one of the many wrecked +aqueducts that go looping across country to the distant hills, like +great stone straddlebugs. In the vicinity of Rome you are rarely out +of sight of one of these aqueducts. The ancient Roman rulers, you know, +curried the favor of the populace by opening baths. A modern ruler could +win undying popularity by closing up a few. + +We slowed up at the Circus of Romulus and found it a very sad circus, as +such things go--no elevated stage, no hippodrome track, no centerpole, +no trapeze, and only one ring. P. T. Barnum would have been ashamed +to own it. A broken wall, following the lines of an irregular oval; +a cabbage patch where the arena had been; and various tumble-down +farmsheds built into the shattered masonry--this was the Circus of +Romulus. However, it was not the circus of the original Romulus, but +of a degenerate successor of the same name who rose suddenly and fell +abruptly after the Christian era was well begun. Old John J. Romulus +would not have stood for that circus a minute. + +No ride on the Appian Way is regarded as complete without half an hour's +stop at the Catacombs of Saint Calixtus; so we stopped. Guided by a +brown Trappist, and all of us bearing twisted tapers in our hands, we +descended by stone steps deep under the skin of the earth and wandered +through dim, dank underground passages, where thousands of early +Christians had lived and hid, and held clandestine worship before rude +stone altars, and had died and been buried--died in a highly unpleasant +fashion, some of them. + +The experience was impressive, but malarial. Coming away from there I +had an argument with a fellow American. He said that if we had these +Catacombs in America we should undoubtedly enlarge them and put in band +stands and lunch places, and altogether make them more attractive for +picnic parties and Sunday excursionists. I contended, on the other hand, +that if they were in America the authorities would close them up and +protect the moldered bones of those early Christians from the vulgar +gaze and prying fingers of every impious relic hunter who might come +along. The dispute rose higher and grew warmer until I offered to bet +him fifty dollars that I was right and he was wrong. He took me up +promptly--he had sporting instincts; I'll say that for him--and we shook +hands on it then and there to bind the wager. I expect to win that bet. + +We had turned off the Appian Way and were crossing a corner of that +unutterably hideous stretch of tortured and distorted waste known as the +Campagna, which goes tumbling away to the blue Alban Mountains, when we +came on the scene of an accident. A two-wheeled mule cart, proceeding +along a crossroad, with the driver asleep in his canopied seat, had been +hit by a speeding automobile and knocked galley-west. The automobile had +sped on--so we were excitedly informed by some other tourists who had +witnessed the collision--leaving the wreckage bottom side up in the +ditch. The mule was on her back, all entangled in the twisted ruination +of her gaudy gear, kicking out in that restrained and genteel fashion +in which a mule always kicks when she is desirous of protesting against +existing conditions, but is wishful not to damage herself while so +doing. The tourists, aided by half a dozen peasants, had dragged the +driver out from beneath the heavy cart and had carried him to a pile of +mucky straw beneath the eaves of a stable. He was stretched full length +on his back, senseless and deathly pale under the smeared grime on his +face. There was no blood; but inside his torn shirt his chest had a +caved-in look, as though the ribs had been crushed flat, and he seemed +not to breathe at all. Only his fingers moved. They kept twitching, as +though his life was running out of him through his finger ends. One felt +that if he would but grip his hands he might stay its flight and hold it +in. + +Just as we jumped out of our carriage a young peasant woman, who had +been bending over the injured man, set up a shrill outcry, which was +instantly answered from behind us; and looking round we saw, running +through the bare fields, a great, bulksome old woman, with her arms +outspread and her face set in a tragic shape, shrieking as she sped +toward us in her ungainly wallowing course. She was the injured man's +mother, we judged--or possibly his grandmother. + +There was nothing we could do for the human victim. Our guides, having +questioned the assembled natives, told us there was no hospital to which +he might be taken and that a neighborhood physician had already been +sent for. So, having no desire to look on the grief of his mother--if +she was his mother--a young Austrian and I turned our attention to the +neglected mule. We felt that we could at least render a little first +aid there. We had our pocket-knives out and were slashing away at the +twisted maze of ropes and straps that bound the brute down between the +shafts, when a particularly shrill chorus of shrieks checked us. We +stood up and faced about, figuring that the poor devil on the muck heap +had died and that his people were bemoaning his death. That was not it +at all. The entire group, including the fat old woman, were screaming at +us and shaking their clenched fists at us, warning us not to damage that +harness with our knives. Feeling ran high, and threatened to run higher. + +So, having no desire to be mobbed on the spot, we desisted and put up +our knives; and after a while we got back into our carriage and drove +on, leaving the capsized mule still belly-up in the debris, lashing out +carefully with her skinned legs at the trappings that bound her; and the +driver was still prone on the dunghill, with his fingers twitching more +feebly now, as though the life had almost entirely fled out of him--a +grim little tragedy set in the edge of a wide and aching desolation! We +never found out his name or learned how he fared--whether he lived or +died, and if he died how long he lived before he died. It is a puzzle +which will always lie unanswered at the back of my mind, and I know +that in odd moments it will return to torment me. I will bet one thing, +though--nobody else tried to cut that mule out of her harness. + +In the chill late afternoon of a Roman day the guides brought us back +to the city and took us down into the Roman Forum, which is in a hollow +instead of being up on a hill as most folks imagine it to be until they +go to Rome and see it; and we finished up the day at the Golden House of +Nero, hard by the vast ruins of the Coliseum. We had already visited the +Forum once; so this time we did not stay long; just long enough for some +ambitious pickpocket to get a wallet out of my hip pocket while I was +pushing forward with a flock of other human sheep for a better look +at the ruined portico wherein Mark Antony stood when he delivered his +justly popular funeral oration over the body of the murdered Caesar. +I never did admire the character of Mark Antony with any degree of +extravagance, and since this experience I have felt actually bitter +toward him. + +The guidebooks say that no visitor to Rome should miss seeing the Golden +House of Nero. When a guidebook tries to be humorous it only succeeds in +being foolish. Practical jokes are out of place in a guidebook anyway. +Imagine a large, old-fashioned brick smokehouse, which has been struck +by lightning, burned to the roots and buried in the wreckage, and the +site used as a pasture land for goats for a great many years; imagine +the debris as having been dug out subsequently until a few of the +foundation lines are visible; surround the whole with distressingly +homely buildings of a modern aspect, and stir in a miscellaneous +seasoning of beggars and loafers and souvenir venders--and you have the +Golden House where Nero meant to round out a life already replete with +incident and abounding in romance, but was deterred from so doing +by reason of being cut down in the midst of his activities at a +comparatively early age. + +In the presence of the Golden House of Nero I did my level best to +recreate before my mind's eye the scenes that had been enacted here once +on a time. I tried to picture this moldy, knee-high wall, as a great +glittering palace; and yonder broken roadbed as a splendid Roman +highway; and these American-looking tenements on the surrounding hills +as the marble dwellings of the emperors; and all the broken pillars and +shattered porticoes in the distance as arches of triumph and temples of +the gods. I tried to convert the clustering mendicants into barbarian +prisoners clanking by, chained at wrist and neck and ankle; I sought to +imagine the pestersome flower venders as being vestal virgins; the two +unkempt policemen who loafed nearby, as centurions of the guard; +the passing populace as grave senators in snowy togas; the flaunting +underwear on the many clotheslines as silken banners and gilded +trappings. I could not make it. I tried until I was lame in both legs +and my back was strained. It was no go. + +If I had been a poet or a historian, or a person full of Chianti, +I presume I might have done it; but I am no poet and I had not been +drinking. All I could think of was that the guide on my left had eaten +too much garlic and that the guide on my right had not eaten enough. So +in self-defense I went away and ate a few strands of garlic myself; for +I had learned the great lesson of the proverb: + +When in Rome be an aroma! + + + + +Chapter XXII + + + +Still More Ruins, Mostly Italian Ones + +When I reached Pompeii the situation was different. I could conjure +up an illusion there--the biggest, most vivid illusion I have been +privileged to harbor since I was a small boy. It was worth spending four +days in Naples for the sake of spending half a day in Pompeii; and if +you know Naples you will readily understand what a high compliment that +is for Pompeii. + +To reach Pompeii from Naples we followed a somewhat roundabout route; +and that trip was distinctly worth while too. It provided a most +pleasing foretaste of what was to come. Once we had cleared the packed +and festering suburbs, we went flanking across a terminal vertebra of +the mountain range that sprawls lengthwise of the land of Italy, like +a great spiny-backed crocodile sunning itself, with its tail in the +Tyrrhenian Sea and its snout in the Piedmonts; and when we had done this +we came out on a highway that skirted the bay. + +There were gaps in the hills, through which we caught glimpses of the +city, lying miles away in its natural amphitheater; and at that distance +we could revel in its picturesqueness and forget its bouquet of weird +stenches. We could even forget that the automobile we had hired for the +excursion had one foot in the grave and several of its most important +vital organs in the repair shop. I reckon that was the first automobile +built. No; I take that back. It never was a first--it must have been a +second to start with. + +I once owned a half interest in a sick automobile. It was one of those +old-fashioned, late Victorian automobiles, cut princesse style, with a +plaquette in the back; and it looked like a cross between a fiat-bed job +press and a tailor's goose. It broke down so easily and was towed in so +often by more powerful machines that every time a big car passed it on +the road it stopped right where it was and nickered. Of a morning +we would start out in that car filled with high hopes and bright +anticipations, but eventide would find us returning homeward close +behind a bigger automobile, in a relationship strongly suggestive of +the one pictured in the well-known Nature Group entitled: "Mother +Hippo, With Young." We refused an offer of four hundred dollars for +that machine. It had more than four hundred dollars' worth of things the +matter with it. + +The car we chartered at Naples for our trip to Pompeii reminded me very +strongly of that other car of which I was part owner. Between them there +was a strong family resemblance, not alone in looks but in deportment +also. For patient endurance of manifold ills, for an inexhaustible +capacity in developing new and distressing symptoms at critical moments, +for cheerful willingness to play foal to some other car's dam, they +might have been colts out of the same litter. Nevertheless, between +intervals of breaking down and starting up again, and being helped along +by friendly passer-by automobiles, we enjoyed the ride from Naples. We +enjoyed every inch of it. + +Part of the way we skirted the hobs of the great witches' caldron of +Vesuvius. On this day the resident demons must have been stirring their +brew with special enthusiasm, for the smoky smudge which always wreathes +its lips had increased to a great billowy plume that lay along the +naked flanges of the devil mountain for miles and miles. Now we would +go puffing and panting through some small outlying environ of the city. +Always the principal products of such a village seemed to be young +babies and macaroni drying in the sun. I am still reasonably fond of +babies, but I date my loss of appetite for imported macaroni from that +hour. Now we would emerge on a rocky headland and below us would be the +sea, eternally young and dimpling like a maiden's cheek; but the crags +above were eternally old and all gashed with wrinkles and seamed with +folds, like the jowls of an ancient squaw. Then for a distance we would +run right along the face of the cliff. Directly beneath us we could +see little stone huts of fishermen clinging to the rocks just above +high-water mark, like so many gray limpets; and then, looking up, we +would catch a glimpse of the vineyards, tucked into man-made terraces +along the upper cliffs, like bundled herbs on the pantry shelves of a +thrifty housewife; and still higher up there would be orange groves and +lemon groves and dusty-gray olive groves. Each succeeding picture was +Byzantine in its coloring. Always the sea was molten blue enamel, and +the far-away villages seemed crafty inlays of mosaic work; and the sun +was a disk of hammered Grecian gold. + +A man from San Francisco was sharing the car with us, and he came right +out and said that if he were sure heaven would be as beautiful as the +Bay of Naples, he would change all his plans and arrange to go there. He +said he might decide to go there anyhow, because heaven was a place he +had always heard very highly spoken of. And I agreed with him. + +The sun was slipping down the western sky and was laced with red like +a bloodshot eye, with a Jacob's Ladder of rainbow shafts streaming down +from it to the water, when we turned inland; and after several small +minor stops, while the automobile caught its breath and had the heaves +and the asthma, we came to Pompeii over a road built of volcanic rock. +I have always been glad that we went there on a day when visitors +were few. The very solitude of the place aided the mind in the task of +repeopling the empty streets of that dead city by the sea with the life +that was hers nearly two thousand years ago. Herculaneum will always +be buried, so the scientists say, for Herculaneum was snuggled close up +under Vesuvius, and the hissing-hot lava came down in waves; and first +it slugged the doomed town to death and then slagged it over with +impenetrable, flint-hard deposits. Pompeii, though, lay farther +away, and was entombed in dust and ashes only; so that it has been +comparatively easy to unearth it and make it whole again. Even so, after +one hundred and sixty-odd years of more or less desultory explorations, +nearly a third of its supposed area is yet to be excavated. + +It was in the year 1592 that an architect named Fontana, in cutting +an aqueduct which was to convey the waters of the Sarno to Torre dell' +Annunziata, discovered the foundations of the Temple of Isis, which +stood near the walls on the inner or land side of the ancient city. It +was at first supposed that he had dug into an isolated villa of some +rich Roman; and it was not until 1748 that prying archaeologists hit on +the truth and induced the Government to send a chain gang of convicts +to dig away the accumulations of earth and tufa. But if it had been +a modern Italian city that was buried, no such mistake in preliminary +diagnosis could have occurred. Anybody would have known it instantly +by the smell. I do not vouch for the dates--I copied them out of the +guidebook; but my experience with Italian cities qualifies me to speak +with authority regarding the other matter. + +Afoot we entered Pompeii by the restored Marine Gate. Our first step +within the walls was at the Museum, a comparatively modern building, but +containing a fairly complete assortment of the relics that from time +to time have been disinterred in various quarters of the city. Here +are wall cabinets filled with tools, ornaments, utensils, jewelry, +furniture--all the small things that fulfilled everyday functions in +the first century of the Christian era. Here is a kit of surgical +implements, and some of the implements might well belong to a modern +hospital. There are foodstuffs--grains and fruits; wines and oil; loaves +of bread baked in 79 A. D. and left in the abandoned ovens; and a +cheese that is still in a fair state of preservation. It had been buried +seventeen hundred years when they found it; and if only it had been +permitted to remain buried a few years longer it would have been +sufficiently ripe to satisfy a Bavarian, I think. + +Grimmer exhibits are displayed in cases stretched along the center +of the main hall--models of dead bodies discovered in the ruins and +perfectly restored by pouring a bronze composition into the molds that +were left in the hardened pumice after the flesh of these victims had +turned to dust and their bones had crumbled to powder. Huddled together +are the forms of a mother and a babe; and you see how, with her last +conscious thought, the mother tried to cover her baby's face from the +killing rain of dust and blistering ashes. And there is the shape of a +man who wrapped his face in a veil to keep out the fumes, and died +so. The veil is there, reproduced with a fidelity no sculptor could +duplicate, and through its folds you may behold the agony that made his +jaw to sag and his eyes to pop from their sockets. + +Nearby is a dog, which in its last spasms of pain and fright curled up +worm fashion, and buried its nose in its forepaws and kicked out with +its crooked hind legs. Plainly dogs do not change their emotional +natures with the passage of years. A dog died in Pompeii in 79 A. D. +after exactly the same fashion that a dog might die to-day in the pound +at Pittsburgh. + +From here we went on into the city proper; and it was a whole city, set +off by itself and not surrounded by those jarring modern incongruities +that spoil the ruins of Rome for the person who wishes to give his fancy +a slack rein. It is all here, looking much as it must have looked when +Nero and Caligula reigned, and much as it will still look hundreds of +years hence, for the Government owns it now and guards it and protects +it from the hammer of the vandal and the greed of the casual collector. +Here it is--all of it; the tragic theater and the comic theater; the +basilica; the greater forum and the lesser one; the market place; the +amphitheater for the games; the training school for the gladiators; the +temples; the baths; the villas of the rich; the huts of the poor; the +cubicles of the slaves; shops; offices; workrooms; brothels. + +The roofs are gone, except in a few instances where they have been +restored; but the walls stand and many of the detached pillars stand +too; and the pavements have endured well, so that the streets remain +almost exactly as they were when this was a city of live beings instead +of a tomb of dead memories, with deep groovings of chariot wheels in the +flaggings, and at each crossing there are stepping stones, dotting the +roadbed like punctuation marks. At the public fountain the well curbs +are worn away where the women rested their water jugs while they swapped +the gossip of the town; and at nearly every corner is a groggery, which +in its appointments and fixtures is so amazingly like unto a family +liquor store as we know it that, venturing into one, I caught myself +looking about for the Business Men's Lunch, with a collection of greasy +forks in a glass receptacle, a crock of pretzels on the counter, and a +sign over the bar reading: No Checks Cashed--This Means You! + +In the floors the mosaics are as fresh as though newly applied; and the +ribald and libelous Latin, which disappointed litigants carved on the +stones at the back of the law court, looks as though it might have been +scored there last week--certainly not further back than the week before +that. A great many of the wall paintings in the interiors of rich +men's homes have been preserved and some of them are fairly spicy as +to subject and text. It would seem that in these matters the ancient +Pompeiians were pretty nearly as broad-minded and liberal as the modern +Parisians are. The mural decorations I saw in certain villas were almost +suggestive enough to be acceptable matter for publication in a French +comic paper; almost, but not quite. Mr. Anthony Comstock would be an +unhappy man were he turned loose in Pompeii--unhappy for a spell, but +after that exceedingly busy. + +We lingered on, looking and marveling, and betweenwhiles wondering +whether our automobile's hacking cough had got any better by resting, +until the sun went down and the twilight came. Following the guidebook's +advice we had seen the Colosseum in Rome by moonlight. There was a full +moon on the night we went there. It came heaving up grandly, a great, +round-faced, full-cream, curdy moon, rich with rennet and yellow with +butter fats; but by the time we had worked our way south to Naples a +greedy fortnight had bitten it quite away, until it was reduced to a +mere cheese rind of a moon, set up on end against the delft-blue platter +of a perfect sky. We waited until it showed its thin rim in the heavens, +and then, in the softened half-glow, with the purplish shadows deepening +between the brown-gray walls of the dead city, I just naturally turned +my imagination loose and let her soar. + +Standing there, with the stage set and the light effects just right, +in fancy I repopulated Pompeii. I beheld it just as it was on a fair, +autumnal morning in 79 A. D. With my eyes half closed, I can see the +vision now. At first the crowds are massed and mingled in confusion, but +soon figures detach themselves from the rest and reveal themselves +as prominent personages. Some of them I know at a glance. Yon tall, +imposing man, with the genuine imitation sealskin collar on his toga, +who strides along so majestically, whisking his cane against his leg, +can be no other than Gum Tragacanth, leading man of the Bon Ton Stock +Company, fresh from his metropolitan triumphs in Rome and at this moment +the reigning matinee idol of the South. This week he is playing +Claude Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons; next week he will be seen in +his celebrated characterization of Matthias in The Bells, with special +scenery; and for the regular Wednesday and Saturday bargain matinees +Lady Audley's Secret will be given. + +Observe him closely. It is evident that he values his art. Yet about him +there is no false ostentation. With what gracious condescension does +he acknowledge the half-timid, half-daring smiles of all the little +caramel-chewing Floras and Faunas who have made it a point to be on Main +Street at this hour! With what careless grace does he doff his laurel +wreath, which is of the latest and most modish fall block, with the +bow at the back, in response to the waved greeting of Mrs. Belladonna +Capsicum, the acknowledged leader of the artistic and Bohemian set, as +she sweeps by in her chariot bound for Blumberg Brothers' to do a little +shopping. She is not going to buy anything--she is merely out shopping. + +Than this fair patrician dame, none is more prominent in the gay life +of Pompeii. It was she who last season smoked a cigarette in public, and +there is a report now that she is seriously considering wearing an ankle +bracelet; withal she is a perfect lady and belongs to one of the old +Southern families. Her husband has been through the bankruptcy courts +twice and is thinking of going through again. At present he is engaged +in promoting and writing a little life insurance on the side. + +Now her equipage is lost in the throng and the great actor continues on +his way, making a mental note of the fact that he has promised to attend +her next Sunday afternoon studio tea. Near his own stage door he bumps +into Commodious Rotunda, the stout comedian of the comic theater, and +they pause to swap the latest Lambs' Club repartee. This done, Commodius +hauls out a press clipping and would read it, but the other remembers +providentially that he has a rehearshal on and hurriedly departs. If +there are any press clippings to be read he has a few of his own that +will bear inspection. + +Superior Maxillary, managing editor of the Pompeiian "Daily +News-Courier," is also abroad, collecting items of interest and +subscriptions for his paper, with preference given to the latter. He +enters the Last Chance Saloon down at the foot of the street and in a +minute or two is out again, wiping his mustache on the back of his hand. +We may safely opine that he has been taking a small ad. out in trade. + +At the door of the county courthouse, where he may intercept the +taxpayers as they come and go, is stationed our old friend, Colonel Pro +Bono Publico. The Colonel has been running for something or other ever +since Heck was a pup. To-day he is wearing his official campaign smile, +for he is a candidate for county judge, subject to the action of the +Republican party at the October primaries. He is wearing all his lodge +buttons and likewise his G. A. R. pin, for this year he figures on +carrying the old-soldier vote. + +See who comes now! It is Rigor Mortis, the worthy coroner. At sight of +him the Colonel uplifts his voice in hoarsely jovial salutation: + +"Rigsy, my boy," he booms, "how are you? And how is Mrs. M. this +morning?" + +"Well, Colonel," answers his friend, "my wife ain't no better. She's +mighty puny and complaining. Sometimes I get to wishing the old lady +would get well--or something!" + +The Colonel laughs, but not loudly. That wheeze was old in 79. In front +of the drug-store on the corner a score of young bloods, dressed in +snappy togas for Varsity men, are skylarking. They are especially +brilliant in their flashing interchanges of wit and humor, because +the Mastodon Minstrels were here only last week, with a new line of +first-part jokes. Along the opposite side of the street passes Nux +Vomica, M.D., with a small black case in his hand, gravely intent on +his professional duties. Being a young physician, he wears a beard and +large-rimmed eyeglasses. Young Ossius Dome sees him and hails him. + +"Oh, Doc!" he calls out. "Come over here a minute. I've got some +brand-new limerickii for you. Tertiary Tonsillitis got 'em from a +traveling man he met day before yesterday when he was up in the city +laying in his stock of fall and winter armor." + +The healer of ills crosses over; and as the group push themselves in +toward a common center I hear the voice of the speaker: + +"Say, they're all bully; but this is the bullissimus one of the lot. It +goes like this: + + "'There was a young maid of Sorrento, + Who said to her--'" + +I have regretted ever since that at this juncture I came to and so +failed to get the rest of it. I'll bet that was a peach of a limerick. +It started off so promisingly. + + + + +Chapter XXIII + + + +Muckraking in Old Pompeii + +It now devolves on me as a painful yet necessary duty to topple from +its pedestal one of the most popular idols of legendary lore. I refer, I +regret to say, to the widely famous Roman sentry of old Pompeii. + +Personally I think there has been entirely too much of this sort of +thing going on lately. Muckrakers, prying into the storied past, have +destroyed one after another many of the pet characters in history. +Thanks to their meddlesome activities we know that Paul Revere did not +take any midnight ride. On the night in question he was laid up in bed +with inflammatory rheumatism. What happened was that he told the news to +Mrs. Revere as a secret, and she in strict confidence imparted it to the +lady living next door; and from that point on the word traveled with the +rapidity of wildfire. + +Horatius never held the bridge; he just let the blamed thing go. The boy +did not stand on the burning deck, whence all but him had fled; he was +among the first in the lifeboats. That other boy--the Spartan youth--did +not have his vitals gnawed by a fox; the Spartan youth had been eating +wild grapes and washing them down with spring water. Hence that gnawing +sensation of which so much mention has been made. Nobody hit Billy +Patterson. He acquired his black eye in the same way in which all +married men acquire a black eye--by running against a doorjamb while +trying to find the ice-water pitcher in the dark. He said so himself the +next day. + +Even Barbara Frietchie is an exploded myth. She did not nail her +country's flag to the window casement. Being a female, she could not +nail a flag or anything else to a window. In the first place, she would +have used a wad of chewing gum and a couple of hairpins. In the second +place, had she recklessly undertaken to nail up a flag with hammer and +nails, she would never have been on hand at the psychological moment +to invite Stonewall Jackson to shoot her old gray head. When General +Jackson passed the house she would have been in the bathroom bathing her +left thumb in witch-hazel. + +Furthermore, she did not have any old gray head. At the time of the +Confederate invasion of Maryland she was only seventeen years old--some +authorities say only seven--and a pronounced blonde. Also, she did not +live in Frederick; and even if she did live there, on the occasion when +the troops went through she was in Baltimore visiting a school friend. +Finally, Frederick does not stand where it stood in the sixties. The +cyclone of 1884 moved it three miles back into the country and +twisted the streets round in such a manner as to confuse even lifelong +residents. These facts have repeatedly been proved by volunteer +investigators and are not to be gainsaid. + +I repeat that there has been too much of this. If the craze for smashing +all our romantic fixtures persists, after a while we shall have no +glorious traditions left with which to fire the youthful heart at +high-school commencements. But in the interests of truth, and also +because I made the discovery myself, I feel it to be my solemn duty to +expose the Roman sentry, stationed at the gate of Pompeii looking toward +the sea, who died because he would not quit his post without orders and +had no orders to quit. + +Until now this party has stood the acid test of centuries. Everybody +who ever wrote about the fall of Pompeii, from Plutarch and Pliny the +Younger clear down to Bulwer Lytton and Burton Holmes, had something to +say about him. The lines on this subject by the Greek poet Laryngitis +are familiar to all lovers of that great master of classic verse, and I +shall not undertake to quote from them here. + +Suffice it to say that the Roman sentry, perishing at his post, has +ever been a favorite subject for historic and romantic writers. I myself +often read of him--how on that dread day when the devil's stew came to +a boil and spewed over the sides of Vesuvius, and death and destruction +poured down to blight the land, he, typifying fortitude and discipline +and unfaltering devotion, stood firm and stayed fast while all about +him chaos reigned and fathers forgot their children and husbands forgot +their wives, and vice versa, though probably not to the same extent; and +how finally the drifting ashes and the choking dust fell thicker upon +him and mounted higher about him, until he died and in time turned to +ashes himself, leaving only a void in the solidified slag. I had always +admired that soldier--not his judgment, which was faulty, but his +heroism, which was immense. To myself I used to say: + +"That unknown common soldier, nameless though he was, deserves to live +forever in the memory of mankind. He lacked imagination, it is true, +but he was game. It was a glorious death to die--painful, yet splendid. +Those four poor wretches whose shells were found in the prison under the +gladiators' school, with their ankles fast in the iron stocks--I know +why they stayed. Their feet were too large for their own good. But no +bonds except his dauntless will bound him at the portals of the doomed +city. Duty was the only chain that held him. + +"And to think that centuries and centuries afterward they should find +his monument--a vacant, empty mold in the piled-up pumice! Had I been +in his place I should have created my vacancy much sooner--say, about +thirty seconds after the first alarm went in. But he was one who chose +rather that men should say, 'How natural he looks!' than 'Yonder he +goes!' And he has my sincere admiration. When I go to Pompeii--if ever +I do go there--I shall seek out the spot where he made the supremest +sacrifice to authority that ever any man could make, and I shall tarry a +while in those hallowed precincts!" + +That was what I said I would do and that was what I did do that +afternoon at Pompeii. I found the gate looking toward the sea and I +found all the other gates, or the sites of them; but I did not find the +Roman sentry nor any trace of him, nor any authentic record of him. I +questioned the guides and, through an interpreter, the curator of the +Museum, and from them I learned the lamentably disillusioning facts in +this case. There is no trace of him because he neglected to leave any +trace. + +Doubtless there was a sentry on guard at the gate when the volcano +belched forth, and the skin of the earth flinched and shivered and split +asunder; but he did not remain for the finish. He said to himself that +this was no place for a minister's son; and so he girded up his loins +and he went away from there. + +He went away hurriedly--even as you and I. + + + + +Chapter XXIV + + + +Mine Own People + +Wherever we went I was constantly on the outlook for a kind of tourist +who had been described to me frequently and at great length by more +seasoned travelers--the kind who wore his country's flag as a buttonhole +emblem, or as a shirtfront decoration; and regarded every gathering and +every halting place as providing suitable opportunity to state for the +benefit of all who might be concerned, how immensely and overpoweringly +superior in all particulars was the land from which he hailed as +compared with all other lands under the sun. I desired most earnestly to +overhaul a typical example of this species, my intention then being to +decoy him off to some quiet and secluded spot and there destroy him in +the hope of cutting down the breed. + +At length, along toward the fag end of our zigzagging course, I caught +up with him; but stayed my hand and slew not. For some countries, you +understand, are so finicky in the matter of protecting their citizens +that they would protect even such a one as this. I was fearful lest, +by exterminating the object of my homicidal desires, I should bring on +international complications with a friendly Power, no matter however +public-spirited and high-minded my intentions might be. + +It was in Vienna, in a cafe, and the hour was late. We were just +leaving, after having listened for some hours to a Hungarian band +playing waltz tunes and an assemblage of natives drinking beer, when +the sounds of a dispute at the booth where wraps were checked turned +our faces in that direction. In a thick and plushy voice a short square +person of a highly vulgar aspect was arguing with the young woman who +had charge of the check room. Judging by his tones, you would have said +that the nap of his tongue was at least a quarter of an inch long; and +he punctuated his remarks with hiccoughs. It seemed that his excitement +had to do with the disappearance of a neck-muffler. From argument +he progressed rapidly to threats and the pounding of a fist upon the +counter. + +Drawing nigh, I observed that he wore a very high hat and a very short +sack coat; that his waistcoat was of a combustible plaid pattern with +gaiters to match; that he had taken his fingers many times to the +jeweler, but not once to the manicure; that he was beautifully jingled +and alcoholically boastful of his native land and that--a crowning +touch--he wore flaring from an upper pocket of his coat a silk +handkerchief woven in the design and colors of his country's flag. But, +praises be, it was not our flag that he wore thus. It was the Union +Jack. As we passed out into the damp Viennese midnight he was loudly +proclaiming that he "Was'h Bri'sh subjesch," and that unless something +was done mighty quick, would complain to "Is Majeshy's rep(hic)shenativ' +ver' firsch thing 'n morn'." + +So though I was sorry he was a cousin, I was selfishly and unfeignedly +glad that he was not a brother. Since in the mysterious and unfathomable +scheme of creation it seemed necessary that he should be born somewhere, +still he had not been born in America, and that thought was very +pleasing to me. + +There was another variety of the tourist breed whose trail I most +earnestly desired to cross. I refer to the creature who must be closely +watched to prevent him, or her, from carrying off valuable relics as +souvenirs, and defacing monuments and statues and disfiguring holy +places with an inconsequential signature. In the flesh--and such a +person must be all flesh and no soul--I never caught up with him, but +more than once I came upon his fresh spoor. + +In Venice our guide took us to see the nether prisons of the Palace of +the Doges. From the level of the Bridge of Sighs we tramped down flights +of stone stairs, one flight after another, until we had passed the hole +through which the bodies of state prisoners, secretly killed at night, +were shoved out into waiting gondolas and had passed also the room where +pincers and thumbscrew once did their hideous work, until we came to a +cellar of innermost, deepermost cells, fashioned out of the solid rock +and stretching along a corridor that was almost as dark as the cells +themselves. Here, so we were told, countless wretched beings, awaiting +the tardy pleasure of the torturer or the headsman, had moldered in damp +and filth and pitchy blackness, knowing day from night only by the fact +that once in twenty-four hours food would be slipped through a hole in +the wall by unseen hands; lying here until oftentimes death or the cruel +mercy of madness came upon them before the overworked executioner found +time to rack their limbs or lop off their heads. + +We were told that two of these cells had been preserved exactly as they +were in the days of the Doges, with no alteration except that lights had +been swung from the ceilings. We could well accept this statement as the +truth, for when the guide led us through a low doorway and flashed on an +electric bulb we saw that the place where we stood was round like a jug +and bare as an empty jug, with smooth stone walls and rough stone floor; +and that it contained for furniture just two things--a stone bench upon +which the captive might lie or sit and, let into the wall, a great iron +ring, to which his chains were made fast so that he moved always to +their grating accompaniment and the guard listening outside might know +by the telltale clanking whether the entombed man still lived. + +There was one other decoration in this hole--a thing more incongruous +even than the modern lighting fixtures; and this stood out in bold black +lettering upon the low-sloped ceiling. A pair of vandals, a man and +wife--no doubt with infinite pains--had smuggled in brush and marking +pot and somehow or other--I suspect by bribing guides and guards--had +found the coveted opportunity of inscribing their names here in the +Doges' black dungeon. With their names they had written their address +too, which was a small town in the Northwest, and after it the legend: +"Send us a postal card." + +I imagine that then this couple, having accomplished this feat, regarded +their trip to Europe as being rounded out and complete, and went home +again, satisfied and rejoicing. Send them a postal card? Somebody should +send them a deep-dish poison-pie! + +Looking on this desecration my companion and I grew vocal. We agreed +that our national lawgivers who were even then framing an immigration +law with a view to keeping certain people out of this country, might +better be engaged in framing one with a view to keeping certain people +in. Our guide harkened with a quiet little smile on his face to what we +said. + +"It cannot have been here long--that writing on the ceiling," he +explained for our benefit. "Presently it will be scraped away. But"-- +and he shrugged his eloquent Italian shoulders and outspread his hands +fan-fashion--"but what is the use? Others like them will come and do as +they have done. See here and here and here, if you please!" + +He aimed a darting forefinger this way and that, and looking where he +pointed we saw now how the walls were scarred with the scribbled names +of many visitors. I regret exceedingly to have to report that a majority +of these names had an American sound to them. Indeed, many of the +signatures were coupled with the names of towns and states of the Union. +There were quite a few from Canada, too. What, I ask you, is the wisdom +of taking steps to discourage the cutworm and abate the gypsy-moth when +our government permits these two-legged varmints to go abroad freely and +pollute shrines and wonderplaces with their scratchings, and give the +nations over there a perverted notion of what the real human beings on +this continent are like? + +For the tourist who has wearied of picture galleries and battlegrounds +and ruins and abbeys, studying other tourists provides a pleasant way +of passing many an otherwise tedious hour. Certain of the European +countries furnish some interesting types--notably Britain, which +producing a male biped of a lachrymose and cheerless exterior, who plods +solemnly across the Continent wrapped in the plaid mantle of his own +dignity, never speaking an unnecessary word to any person whatsoever. +And Germany: From Germany comes a stolid gentleman, who, usually, +is shaped like a pickle mounted on legs and is so extensively and +convexedly eyeglassed as to give him the appearance of something that +is about to be served sous cloche. Caparisoned in strange garments, he +stalks through France or Italy with an umbrella under his arm, his nose +being buried so deeply in his guidebook that he has no time to waste +upon the scenery or the people; while some ten paces in the rear, his +wife staggers along in his wake with her skirts dragging in the dust +and her arms pulled half out of their sockets by the weight of the heavy +bundles and bags she is bearing. This person, when traveling, always +takes his wife and much baggage with him. Or, rather, he takes his wife +and she takes the baggage which, by Continental standards, is regarded +as an equal division of burdens. + +However, for variety and individual peculiarity, our own land offers the +largest assortment in the tourist line, this perhaps being due to the +fact that Americans do more traveling than any other race. I think that +in our ramblings we must have encountered pretty nearly all the known +species of tourists, ranging from sane and sensible persons who had +come to Europe to see and to learn and to study, clear on down through +various ramifications to those who had left their homes and firesides to +be uncomfortable and unhappy in far lands merely because somebody told +them they ought to travel abroad. They were in Europe for the reason +that so many people run to a fire: not because they care particularly +for a fire but because so many others are running to it. I would that +I had the time, and you, kind reader, the patience so that I +might enumerate and describe in full detail all the varieties and +sub-varieties of our race that we saw--the pert, overfed, overpampered +children, the aggressive, self-sufficient, prematurely bored young +girls, the money-fattened, boastful vulgarians, scattering coin by +the handful, intent only on making a show and not realizing that they +themselves were the show; the coltish, pimply youths who thought in +order to be high-spirited they must also be impolite and noisy. Youth +will be served, but why, I ask you--why must it so often be served raw? +For contrasts to such as these, we met plenty of people worth meeting +and worth knowing--fine, attractive, well-bred American men and women, +having a decent regard for themselves and for other folks, too. Indeed +this sort largely predominated. But there isn't space for making a +classified list. The one-volume chronicler must content himself with +picking out a few particularly striking types. + +I remember, with vivid distinctness, two individuals, one an elderly +gentleman from somewhere in the Middle West and the other, an old lady +who plainly hailed from the South. We met the old gentleman in Paris, +and the old lady some weeks later in Naples. Though the weather was +moderately warm in Paris that week he wore red woolen wristlets +down over his hands; and he wore also celluloid cuffs, which rattled +musically, with very large moss agate buttons in them; and for +ornamentation his watch chain bore a flat watch key, a secret order +badge big enough to serve as a hitching weight and a peach-stone carved +to look like a fruit basket. Everything about him suggested health +underwear, chewing tobacco and fried mush for breakfast. His whiskers +were cut after a pattern I had not seen in years and years. In my mind +such whiskers were associated with those happy and long distant days +of childhood when we yelled Supe! at a stagehand and cherished Old Cap +Collier as a model of what--if we had luck--we would be when we grew up. +By rights, he belonged in the second act of a rural Indian play, of a +generation or two ago; but here he was, wandering disconsolately through +the Louvre. He had come over to spend four months, he told us with a +heave of the breath, and he still had two months of it unspent, and he +just didn't see how he was going to live through it! + +The old lady was in the great National Museum at Naples, fluttering +about like a distracted little brown hen. She was looking for the +Farnese Bull. It seemed her niece in Knoxville had told her the Farnese +Bull was the finest thing in the statuary line to be found in all Italy, +and until she had seen that, she wasn't going to see anything else. +She had got herself separated from the rest of her party and she +was wandering along about alone, seeking information regarding the +whereabouts of the Farnese Bull from smiling but uncomprehending +custodians and doorkeepers. These persons she would address at the top +of her voice. Plainly she suffered from a delusion, which is very common +among our people, that if a foreigner does not understand you when +addressed in an ordinary tone, he will surely get your meaning if you +screech at him. When we had gone some distance farther on and were in +another gallery, we could still catch the calliope-like notes of the +little old lady, as she besought some one to lead her to the Farnese +Bull. + +That she came right out and spoke of the Farnese Bull as a bull, instead +of referring to him as a gentleman cow, was evidence of the extent to +which travel had enlarged her vision, for with half an eye anyone could +tell that she belonged to the period of our social development when +certain honest and innocent words were supposed to be indelicate--that +she had been reared in a society whose ideal of a perfect lady was one +who could say limb, without thinking leg. I hope she found her bull, but +I imagine she was disappointed when she did find it. I know I was. The +sculpturing may be of a very high order--the authorities agree that it +is--but I judge the two artists to whom the group is attributed carved +the bull last and ran out of material and so skimped him a bit. The +unfortunate Dirce, who is about to be bound to his horns by the sons +of Antiope, the latter standing by to see that the boys make a good +thorough job of it, is larger really than the bull. You can picture the +lady carrying off the bull but not the bull carrying off the lady. + +Numerously encountered are the tourists who are doing Europe under a +time limit as exact as the schedule of a limited train. They go through +Europe on the dead run, being intent on seeing it all and therefore +seeing none of it. They cover ten countries in a space of time which a +sane person gives to one; after which they return home exhausted, but +triumphant. I think it must be months before some of them quit panting, +and certainly their poor, misused feet can never again be the feet they +were. + +With them adherence to the time card is everything. If a look at the +calendar shows the day to be Monday, they know they are in Munich, and +as they lope along they get out their guidebooks and study the chapters +devoted to Munich. But if it be Tuesday, then it is Dresden, and they +give their attention to literature dealing with the attractions of +Dresden; seeing Dresden after the fashion of one sitting before a +runaway moving picture film. + +Then they pack up and depart, galloping, for Prague with their tongues +hanging out. For Wednesday is Prague and Prague is Wednesday--the two +words are synonymous and interchangeable. Surely to such as these, the +places they have visited must mean as much to them, afterward, as the +labels upon their trunks mean to the trunks--just flimsy names pasted +on, all confused and overlapping, and certain to be scraped off in time, +leaving nothing but faint marks upon an indurated surface. + +There is yet again another type, always of the female gender and +generally middle-aged and very schoolteacherish in aspect, who, in +company with a group of kindred spirits, is viewing Europe under a +contract arrangement by which a worn and wearied-looking gentleman, a +retired clergyman usually, acts as escort and mentor for a given price. +I don't know how much he gets a head for this job; but whatever it is, +he earns it ninety-and-nine times over. This lady tourist is much given +to missing trains and getting lost and having disputes with natives +and wearing rubber overshoes and asking strange questions--but let me +illustrate with a story I heard. + +The man from Cook's had convoyed his party through the Vatican, until he +brought them to the Apollo Belvidere. As they ranged themselves wearily +about the statue, he rattled off his regular patter without pause or +punctuation: + +"Here we have the far-famed Apollo Belvidere found about the middle of +the fifteenth century at Frascati purchased by Pope Julius the Second +restored by the great Michelangelo taken away by the French in 1797 but +returned in 1815 made of Carara marble holding in his hand a portion of +the bow with which he slew the Python observe please the beauty of +the pose the realistic attitude of the limbs the noble and exalted +expression of the face of Apollo Belvidere he being known also as +Phoebus the god of oracles the god of music and medicine the son of Leto +and Jupiter--" + +Here he ran out of breath and stopped. For a moment no one spoke. +Then from a flat-chested little spinster came this query in tired yet +interested tones: + +"Was he--was he married?" + +He who is intent upon studying the effect of foreign climes upon +the American temperament should by no means overlook the colonies of +resident Americans in the larger European cities, particularly the +colonies in such cities as Paris and Rome and Florence. In Berlin, the +American colony is largely made up of music students and in Vienna of +physicians; but in the other places many folks of many minds and many +callings constitute the groups. Some few have left their country for +their country's good and some have expatriated themselves because, as +they explain in bursts of confidence, living is cheaper in France +than it is in America. I suppose it is, too, if one can only become +reconciled to doing without most of the comforts which make life worth +while in America or anywhere else. Included among this class are many +rather unhappy old ladies who somehow impress you as having been shunted +off to foreign parts because there were no places for them in the homes +of their children and their grandchildren. So now they are spending +their last years among strangers, trying with a desperate eagerness to +be interested in people and things for which they really care not a fig, +with no home except a cheerless pension. + +Also there are certain folk--products, in the main, of the Eastern +seaboard--who, from having originally lived in America and spent most of +their time abroad, have now progressed to the point where they now live +mostly abroad and visit America fleetingly once in a blue moon. As a +rule these persons know a good deal about Europe and very little about +the country that gave them birth. The stock-talk of European literature +is at their tongue's tip. They speak of Ibsen in the tone of one +mourning the passing of a near, dear, personal friend, and as for +Zola--ah, how they miss the influence of his compelling personality! But +for the moment they cannot recall whether Richard K. Fox ran the Police +Gazette or wrote the "Trail of the Lonesome Pine." + +They are up on the history of the Old World. From memory they trace +the Bourbon dynasty from the first copper-distilled Charles to the last +sourmashed Louis. But as regards our own Revolution, they aren't quite +sure whether it was started by the Boston Tea Party or Mrs. O'Leary's +Cow. Languidly they inquire whether that quaint Iowa character, +Uncle Champ Root, is still Speaker of the House? And so the present +Vice-President is named Elihu Underwood? Or isn't he? Anyway, American +politics is such a bore. But they stand ready, at a minute's notice, to +furnish you with the names, dates and details of all the marriages that +have taken place during the last twenty years in the royal house of +Denmark. + +Some day we shall learn a lesson from Europe. Some fair day we shall +begin to exploit our own historical associations. We shall make shrines +of the spots where Washington crossed the ice to help end one war and +where Eliza did the same thing to help start another. We shall erect +stone markers showing where Charley Ross was last seen and Carrie Nation +was first sighted. We shall pile up tall monuments to Sitting Bull and +Nonpareil Jack Dempsey and the man who invented the spit ball. Perhaps +then these truant Americans will come back oftener from Paris and +Florence and abide with us longer. Meanwhile though they will continue +to stay on the other side. And on second thought, possibly it is just as +well for the rest of us that they do. + +In Europe I met two persons, born in America, who were openly distressed +over that shameful circumstance and could not forgive their parents for +being so thoughtless and inconsiderate. One was living in England and +the other was living in France; and one was a man and the other was a +woman; and both of them were avowedly regretful that they had not +been born elsewhere, which, I should say, ought to make the sentiment +unanimous. I also heard--at second hand--of a young woman whose father +served this country in an ambassadorial capacity at one of the principal +Continental courts until the administration at Washington had a lucid +interval, and endeared itself to the hearts of practically all Americans +residing in that country by throwing a net over him and yanking him +back home; this young woman was so fearful lest some one might think she +cherished any affection for her native land that once when a legation +secretary manifested a desire to learn the score of the deciding game of +a World's Series between the Giants and the Athletics, she spoke up in +the presence of witnesses and said: + +"Ah, baseball! How can any sane person be excited over that American +game? Tell me--some one please--how is it played?" + +Yet she was born and reared in a town which for a great many years +has held a membership in the National League. Let us pass on to a more +pleasant topic. + +Let us pass on to those well-meaning but temporarily misguided persons +who think they are going to be satisfied with staying on indefinitely in +Europe. They profess themselves as being amply pleased with the +present arrangement. For, no matter how patriotic one may be, one must +concede--mustn't one?--that for true culture one must look to Europe? +After all, America is a bit crude, isn't it, now? Of course some time, +say in two or three years from now, they will run across to the States +again, but it will be for a short visit only. After Europe one can never +be entirely happy elsewhere for any considerable period of time. And so +on and so forth. + +But as you mention in an offhand way that Cedar Bluff has a modern fire +station now, or that Tulsanooga is going to have a Great White Way of +its own, there are eyes that light up with a wistful light. And when you +state casually, that Polkdale is planning a civic center with the new +county jail at one end and the Carnegie Library at the other, lips begin +to quiver under a weight of sentimental emotion. And a month or so +later when you take the ship which is to bear you home, you find a large +delegation of these native sons of Polkdale and Tulsanooga on board, +too. + +At least we found them on the ship we took. We took her at Naples--a big +comfortable German ship with a fine German crew and a double force of +talented German cooks working overtime in the galley and pantry--and so +came back by the Mediterranean route, which is a most satisfying route, +especially if the sea be smooth and the weather good, and the steerage +passengers picturesque and light-hearted. Moreover the coast of Northern +Africa, lying along the southern horizon as one nears Gibraltar, is one +of the few sights of a European trip that are not disappointing. For, in +fact, it proves to be the same color that it is in the geographies--pale +yellow. It is very unusual to find a country making an earnest effort +to correspond to its own map, and I think Northern Africa deserves +honorable mention in the dispatches on this account. + + + + +Chapter XXV + + + +Be it Ever so Humble + +Homeward-bound, a chastened spirit pervades the traveler. He is not +quite so much inclined to be gay and blithesome as he was going. The +holiday is over; the sightseeing is done; the letter of credit is worn +and emaciated. He has been broadened by travel but his pocketbook has +been flattened. He wouldn't take anything for this trip, and as he feels +at the present moment he wouldn't take it again for anything. + +It is a time for casting up and readjusting. Likewise it is a good time +for going over, in the calm, reflective light of second judgment, the +purchases he has made for personal use and gift-making purposes. These +things seemed highly attractive when he bought them, and when displayed +against a background of home surroundings will, no doubt, be equally +impressive; but just now they appear as rather a sad collection of +junk. His English box coat doesn't fit him any better than any other box +would. + +His French waistcoats develop an unexpected garishness on being +displayed away from their native habitat and the writing outfit which +he picked up in Vienna turns out to be faulty and treacherous and inkily +tearful. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a fountain +pen--that weeps! And why, when a fountain pen makes up its mind to cry +a spell, does it crawl clear across a steamer trunk and bury its sobbing +countenance in the bosom of a dress shirt? + +Likewise the first few days at sea provide opportunity for sorting out +the large and variegated crop of impressions a fellow has been acquiring +during all these crowded months. The way the homeward-bound one feels +now, he would swap any Old Master he ever saw for one peep at a set +of sanitary bath fixtures. Sight unseen, he stands ready to trade two +cathedrals and a royal palace for a union depot. He will never forget +the thrill that shook his soul as he paused beneath the dome of the +Pantheon; but he feels that, not only his soul but all the rest of him, +could rally and be mighty cheerful in the presence of a dozen deep-sea +oysters on the half shell--regular honest-to-goodness North American +oysters, so beautifully long, so gracefully pendulous of shape that the +short-waisted person who undertakes to swallow one whole does so at his +own peril. The picture of the Coliseum bathed in the Italian moonlight +will ever abide in his mind; but he would give a good deal for a large +double sirloin suffocated Samuel J. Tilden style, with fried onions. +Beefsteak! Ah, what sweet images come thronging at the very mention of +the word! The sea vanishes magically and before his entranced vision he +sees The One Town, full of regular fellows and real people. Somebody is +going to have fried ham for supper--five thousand miles away he sniffs +the delectable perfume of that fried ham as it seeps through a crack in +the kitchen window and wafts out into the street--and the word passes +round that there is going to be a social session down at the lodge +to-night, followed, mayhap, by a small sociable game of quarter-limit +upstairs over Corbett's drug-store. At this point, our traveler rummages +his Elks' button out of his trunk and gives it an affectionate polishing +with a silk handkerchief. And oh, how he does long for a look at a home +newspaper--packed with wrecks and police news and municipal scandals +and items about the persons one knows, and chatty mention concerning +Congressmen and gunmen and tango teachers and other public characters. + +Thinking it all over here in the quiet and privacy of the empty sea, he +realizes that his evening paper is the thing he has missed most. To the +American understanding foreign papers seem fearfully and wonderfully +made. For instance, German newspapers are much addicted to printing +their more important news stories in cipher form. The German treatment +of a suspected crime for which no arrests have yet been made, reminds +one of the jokes which used to appear, a few years ago, in the back part +of Harper's Magazine, where a good story was always being related of +Bishop X, residing in the town of Y, who, calling one afternoon upon +Judge Z, said to Master Egbert, the pet of the household, age four, +and so on. A German newspaper will daringly state that Banker ----, +president of the Bank of ---- at ---- who is suspected of sequestering +the funds of that institution to his own uses is reported to have +departed by stealth for the city of ----, taking with him the wife of +Herr ----. + +And such is the high personal honor of the average Parisian news +gatherer that one Paris morning paper, which specializes in actual news +as counter-distinguished from the other Paris papers which rely upon +political screeds to fill their columns, locks its doors and disconnects +its telephones at 8 o'clock in the evening, so that reporters coming in +after that hour must stay in till press time lest some of them--such is +the fear--will peddle all the exclusive stories off to less enterprising +contemporaries. + +English newspapers, though printed in a language resembling American in +many rudimentary respects, seem to our conceptions weird propositions, +too. It is interesting to find at the tail end of an article a footnote +by the editor stating that he has stopped the presses to announce in +connection with the foregoing that nothing has occurred in connection +with the foregoing which would justify him in stopping the presses to +announce it; or words to that effect. The news stories are frequently +set forth in a puzzling fashion, and the jokes also. That's the +principal fault with an English newspaper joke--it loses so in +translation into our own tongue. + +Still, when all is said and done, the returning tourist, if he be at all +fair-minded, is bound to confess to himself that, no matter where his +steps or his round trip ticket have carried him, he has seen in every +country institutions and customs his countrymen might copy to their +benefit, immediate or ultimate. Having beheld these things with his own +eyes, he knows that from the Germans we might learn some much-needed +lessons about municipal control and conservation of resources; and from +the French and the Austrians about rational observance of days of rest +and simple enjoyment of simple outdoor pleasures and respect for great +traditions and great memories; and from the Italians, about the blessed +facility of keeping in a good humor; and from the English, about minding +one's own business and the sane rearing of children and obedience to the +law and suppression of unnecessary noises. Whenever I think of this +last God-given attribute of the British race, I shall recall a Sunday we +spent at Brighton, the favorite seaside resort of middle-class London. +Brighton was fairly bulging with excursionists that day. + +A good many of them were bucolic visitors from up country, but the +majority, it was plain to see, hailed from the city. No steam carousel +shrieked, no ballyhoo blared, no steam pianos shrieked, no barker +barked. Upon the piers, stretching out into the surf, bands played +soothingly softened airs and along the water front, sand-artists and +so-called minstrel singers plied their arts. Some of the visitors +fished--without catching anything--and some listened to the music and +some strolled aimlessly or sat stolidly upon benches enjoying the sea +air. To an American, accustomed at such places to din and tumult +and rushing crowds and dangerous devices for taking one's breath and +sometimes one's life, it was a strange experience, but a mighty restful +one. + +On the other hand there are some things wherein we notably +excel--entirely too many for me to undertake to enumerate them here; +still, I think I might be pardoned for enumerating a conspicuous few. We +could teach Europe a lot about creature comforts and open plumbing +and personal cleanliness and good food and courtesy to women--not the +flashy, cheap courtesy which impels a Continental to rise and click his +heels and bend his person forward from the abdomen and bow profoundly +when a strange woman enters the railway compartment where he is seated, +while at the same time he leaves his wife or sister to wrestle with +the heavy luggage; but the deeper, less showy instinct which makes the +average American believe that every woman is entitled to his protection +and consideration when she really needs it. In the crowded street-car he +may keep his seat; in the crowded lifeboat he gives it up. + +I almost forgot to mention one other detail in which, so far as I could +judge, we lead the whole of the Old World--dentistry. Probably you have +seen frequent mention in English publications about decayed gentlewomen. +Well, England is full of them. It starts with the teeth. + +The leisurely, long, slantwise course across the Atlantic gives one +time, also, for making the acquaintance of one's fellow passengers and +for wondering why some of them ever went to Europe anyway. A source +of constant speculation along these lines was the retired hay-and-feed +merchant from Michigan who traveled with us. One gathered that he had +done little else in these latter years of his life except to traipse +back and forth between the two continents. What particularly endeared +him to the rest of us was his lovely habit of pronouncing all words of +all languages according to a fonetic system of his own. "Yes, sir," +you would hear him say, addressing a smoking-room audience of less +experienced travelers, "my idee is that a fellow ought to go over on an +English ship, if he likes the exclusability, and come back on a German +ship if he likes the sociableness. Take my case. The last trip I made I +come over on the Lucy Tanner and went back agin on the Grocer K. First +and enjoyed it both ways immense!" + +Nor would this chronicle be complete without a passing reference to the +lady from Cincinnati, a widow of independent means, who was traveling +with her two daughters and was so often mistaken for their sister that +she could not refrain from mentioning the remarkable circumstance to +you, providing you did not win her everlasting regard by mentioning it +first. Likewise I feel that I owe the tribute of a line to the +elderly Britain who was engaged in a constant and highly successful +demonstration of the fallacy of the claim set up by medical +practitioners, to the effect that the human stomach can contain but one +fluid pint at a time. All day long, with his monocle goggling glassily +from the midst of his face, like one lone porthole in a tank steamer, he +disproved this statement by practical methods and promptly at nine every +evening, when his complexion had acquired a rich magenta tint, he would +be carried below by two accommodating stewards and put--no, not put, +decanted--would be decanted gently into bed. If anything had happened to +the port-light of that ship, we could have stationed him forward in +the bows with his face looming over the rail and been well within the +maritime regulations--his face had a brilliancy which even the darkness +of the night could not dim; and if the other light had gone out of +commission, we could have impressed the aid of the bilious Armenian lady +who was sick every minute and very sick for some minutes, for she was +always of a glassy green color. + +We learned to wait regularly for the ceremony of seeing Sir Monocle +and his load toted off to bed at nine o'clock every night, just as we +learned to linger in the offing and watch the nimble knife-work when +the prize invalid of the ship's roster had cornered a fresh victim. The +prize invalid, it is hardly worth while to state, was of the opposite +sex. So many things ailed her--by her own confession--that you wondered +how they all found room on the premises at the same time. Her +favorite evening employment was to engage another woman in +conversation--preferably another invalid--and by honeyed words and +congenial confidences, to lead the unsuspecting prey on and on, until +she had her trapped, and then to turn on her suddenly and ridicule +the other woman's puny symptoms and tell her she didn't even know the +rudiments of being ill and snap her up sharply when she tried to answer +back. And then she would deliver a final sting and go away without +waiting to bury her dead. The poison was in the postscript--it nearly +always is with that type of female. But afterward she would justify +herself by saying people must excuse her manner--she didn't mean +anything by it; it was just her way, and they must remember that she +suffered constantly. Some day when I have time, I shall make that lady +the topic of a popular song. I have already fabricated the refrain: Her +heart was in the right place, lads, but she had a floating kidney! + +Arrives a day when you develop a growing distaste for the company of +your kind, or in fact, any kind. 'Tis a day when the sea, grown frisky, +kicks up its nimble heels and tosses its frothy mane. A cigar tastes +wrong then and the mere sight of so many meat pies and so many German +salads at the entrance to the dining salon gives one acute displeasure. +By these signs you know that you are on the verge of being taken down +with climate fever, which, as I set forth many pages agone, is a malady +peculiar to the watery deep, and by green travelers is frequently +mistaken for seasickness, which indeed it does resemble in certain +respects. I may say that I had one touch of climate fever going over and +a succession of touches coming back. + +At such a time, the companionship of others palls on one. It is well +then to retire to the privacy of one's stateroom and recline awhile. I +did a good deal of reclining, coming back; I was not exactly happy while +reclining, but I was happier than I would have been doing anything else. +Besides, as I reclined there on my cosy bed, a medley of voices would +often float in to me through the half-opened port and I could visualize +the owners of those voices as they sat ranged in steamer chairs, along +the deck. I quote: + +"You, Raymund! You get down off that rail this minute." ... "My +dear, you just ought to go to mine! He never hesitates a minute about +operating, and he has the loveliest manners in the operating room. Wait +a minute--I'll write his address down for you. Yes, he is expensive, but +very, very thorough." ... "Stew'd, bring me nozher brand' 'n' sozza." +... "Well, now Mr.--excuse me, I didn't catch your name?--oh yes, Mr. +Blosser; well, Mr. Blosser, if that isn't the most curious thing! To +think of us meeting away out here in the middle of the ocean and both +of us knowing Maxie Hockstein in Grand Rapids. It only goes to show one +thing--this certainly is a mighty small world." ... "Raymund, did you +hear what I said to you!" ... "Do you really think it is becoming? Thank +you for saying so. That's what my husband always says. He says that +white hair with a youthful face is so attractive, and that's one reason +why I've never touched it up. Touched-up hair is so artificial, don't +you think?" ... "Wasn't the Bay of Naples just perfectly swell--the +water, you know, and the land and the sky and everything, so beautiful +and everything?" ... "You Raymund, come away from that lifeboat. Why +don't you sit down there and behave yourself and have a nice time +watching for whales?" ... "No, ma'am, if you're askin' me I must say I +didn't care so much for that art gallery stuff--jest a lot of pictures +and statues and junk like that, so far as I noticed. In fact the whole +thing--Yurupp itself--was considerable of a disappointment to me. I +didn't run acros't a single Knights of Pythias Lodge the whole time +and I was over there five months straight hard-runnin'." ... "Really, +I think it must be hereditary; it runs in our family. I had an aunt and +her hair was snow-white at twenty-one and my grandmother was the same +way." ... "Oh yes, the suffering is something terrible. You've had +it yourself in a mild form and of course you know. The last time they +operated on me, I was on the table an hour and forty minutes--mind you, +an hour and forty minutes by the clock--and for three days and nights +they didn't know whether I would live another minute." + +A crash of glass. + +"Stew'd, I ashidently turn' over m' drink--bring me nozher brand' 'n' +sozza." ... "Just a minute, Mr. Blosser, I want to tell my husband about +it--he'll be awful interested. Say, listen, Poppa, this gentleman +here knows Maxie Hockstein out in Grand Rapids." ... "Do you think so, +really? A lot of people have said that very same thing to me. They come +up to me and say 'I know you must be a Southerner because you have such +a true Southern accent.' I suppose I must come by it naturally, for +while I was born in New Jersey, my mother was a member of a very old +Virginia family and we've always been very strong Southern sympathizers +and I went to a finishing school in Baltimore and I was always being +mistaken for a Southern girl." ... "Well, I sure had enough of it to +do me for one spell. I seen the whole shootin' match and I don't regret +what it cost me, but, believe me, little old Keokuk is goin' to look +purty good to me when I get back there. Why, them people don't know no +more about makin' a cocktail than a rabbit." ... "That's her standing +yonder talking to the captain. Yes, that's what so many people say, but +as a matter of fact, she's the youngest one of the two. I say, 'These +are my daughters,' and then people say, 'You mean your sisters.' Still +I married very young--at seventeen--and possibly that helps to explain +it." ... "Oh, is that a shark out yonder? Well, anyway, it's a porpoise, +and a porpoise is a kind of shark, isn't it? When a porpoise grows +up, it gets to be a shark--I read that somewhere. Ain't nature just +wonderful?" ... "Raymund Walter Pelham, if I have to speak to you again, +young man, I'm going to take you to the stateroom and give you something +you won't forget in a hurry." ... "Stew'd, hellup me gellup." + +Thus the lazy hours slip by and the spell of the sea takes hold on you +and you lose count of the time and can barely muster up the energy to +perform the regular noonday task of putting your watch back half an +hour. A passenger remarks that this is Thursday and you wonder dimly +what happened to Wednesday. + +Three days more--just three. The realization comes to you with a joyous +shock. Somebody sights a sea-gull. With eager eyes you watch its curving +flight. Until this moment you have not been particularly interested +in sea-gulls. Heretofore, being a sea-gull seemed to you to have few +attractions as a regular career, except that it keeps one out in the +open air; otherwise it has struck you as being rather a monotonous life +with a sameness as to diet which would grow very tiresome in time. But +now you envy that sea-gull, for he comes direct from the shores of the +United States of America and if so minded may turn around and beat +you to them by a margin of hours and hours and hours. Oh, beauteous +creature! Oh, favored bird! + +Comes the day before the last day. There is a bustle of getting ready +for the landing. Customs blanks are in steady demand at the purser's +office. Every other person is seeking help from every other person, +regarding the job of filling out declarations. The women go about with +the guilty look of plotters in their worried eyes. If one of them fails +to slip something in without paying duty on it she will be disappointed +for life. All women are natural enemies to all excise men. Dirk, the +Smuggler, was the father of their race. + +Comes the last day. Dead ahead lies a misty, thread-like strip of dark +blue, snuggling down against the horizon, where sea and sky merge. + +You think it is a cloud bank, until somebody tells you the glorious +truth. It is the Western Hemisphere--your Western Hemisphere. It is New +England. Dear old New England! Charming people--the New Englanders! Ah, +breathes there the man with soul so dead who never to himself has said, +this is my own, my native land? Certainly not. A man with a soul so dead +as that would be taking part in a funeral, not in a sea voyage. Upon +your lips a word hangs poised. What a precious sound it has, what new +meanings it has acquired! There are words in our language which are +singular and yet sound plural, such as politics and whereabouts; there +are words which are plural and yet sound singular, such as Brigham +Young, and there are words which convey their exact significance by +their very sound. They need no word-chandlers, no adjective-smiths to +dress them up in the fine feathers of fancy phrasing. They stand on +their own merits. You think of one such word--a short, sweet word of but +four letters. You speak that word reverently, lovingly, caressingly. + +Nearer and nearer draws that blessed dark blue strip. Nantucket light +is behind us. Long Island shoulders up alongside. Trunks accumulate in +gangways; so do stewards and other functionaries. You have been figuring +upon the tips which you will bestow upon them at parting; so have they. +It will be hours yet before we land. Indeed, if the fog thickens, we may +not get in before to-morrow, yet people run about exchanging good-byes +and swapping visiting cards and promising one another they will meet +again. I think it is reckless for people to trifle with their luck that +way. + +Forward, on the lower deck, the immigrants cluster, chattering a magpie +chorus in many tongues. The four-and-twenty blackbirds which were baked +in a pie without impairment to the vocal cords have nothing on them. +Most of the women were crying when they came aboard at Naples or Palermo +or Gibraltar. Now they are all smiling. Their dunnage is piled in heaps +and sailors, busy with ropes and chains and things, stumble over it and +swear big round German oaths. + +Why, gracious! We are actually off Sandy Hook. Dear old Sandy--how one +loves those homely Scotch names! The Narrows are nigh and Brooklyn, the +City Beautiful, awaits us around the second turning to the left. The +pilot boat approaches. Brave little craft! Gallant pilot! Do you suppose +by any chance he has brought any daily papers with him? He has--hurrah +for the thoughtful pilot! Did you notice how much he looked like the +pictures of Santa Claus? + +We move on more slowly and twice again we stop briefly. The quarantine +officers have clambered up the sides and are among us; and to some of us +they give cunning little thermometers to hold in our mouths and suck on, +and of others they ask chatty, intimate questions with a view to finding +out how much insanity there is in the family at present and just what +percentage of idiocy prevails? Three cheers for the jolly old quarantine +regulations. Even the advance guard of the customhouse is welcomed by +one and all--or nearly all. + +Between wooded shores which seem to advance to meet her in kindly +greeting, the good ship shoves ahead. For she is a good ship, and later +we shall miss her, but at this moment we feel that we can part from +her without a pang. She rounds a turn in the channel. What is that mass +which looms on beyond, where cloud-combing office buildings scallop +the sky and bridges leap in far-flung spans from shore to shore? That's +her--all right--the high picketed gateway of the nation. That's little +old New York. Few are the art centers there, and few the ruins; and +perhaps there is not so much culture lying round loose as there might +be--just bustle and hustle, and the rush and crush and roar of business +and a large percentage of men who believe in supporting their own wives +and one wife at a time. Crass perhaps, crude perchance, in many ways, +but no matter. All her faults are virtues now. Beloved metropolis, we +salute thee! And also do we turn to salute Miss Liberty. + +This series of adventure tales began with the Statue of Liberty fading +rearward through the harbor mists. It draws to a close with the same +old lady looming through those same mists and drawing ever closer and +closer. She certainly does look well this afternoon, doesn't she? She +always does look well, somehow. + +We slip past her and on past the Battery too; and are nosing up the +North River. What a picturesque stream it is, to be sure! And how full +of delightful rubbish! In twenty minutes or less we shall be at the +dock. Folks we know are there now, waiting to welcome us. + +As close as we can pack ourselves, we gather in the gangways. Some one +raises a voice in song. 'Tis not the Marseillaise hymn that we sing, nor +Die Wacht am Rhein, nor Ava Maria, nor God Save the King; nor yet is it +Columbia the Gem of the Ocean. In their proper places these are all good +songs, but we know one more suitable to the occasion, and so we all join +in. Hark! Happy voices float across the narrowing strip of rolly water +between ship and shore: + + "'Mid pleasures and palaces, + Though we may roam, + +(Now then, altogether, mates:) + + Be it ever so humble, + There's no place like + HOME!" + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Europe Revised, by Irvin S. Cobb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUROPE REVISED *** + +***** This file should be named 4551.txt or 4551.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/5/4551/ + +Produced by Kirk Pearson with help from the Volunteers at +The Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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