Part 7

It is now about half-past six. Fish is still rushing in at one end from the ship and is rushing in at the other from the rail-vans. The porters are throwing the fish at the dealers’ stalls (registering each hit in their notebooks), and the dealers are throwing it on to the floor or throwing it at each other or trying to throw it at a retailer, who always puts on a haughty air and passes on to the next stall, till he gets too entangled in the game and finds that he has bought twenty-four stone of whiting at twopence a pound; then he throws it at some more porters, and the porters dash outside and throw it at the carts, and the carts clatter away to Kensington, and my wife buys a whiting at tenpence a pound, and the circle of fish organization is complete.

At about this point it is a good thing to pass on to Covent Garden and buy some flowers.

Little Bits of London

IV

THE BLOATER SHOW

The last time I was at Olympia--as everybody says at the door--it was a Horse Show. But this time it is much the same. There they stand in their stalls, the dear, magnificent, patient creatures, with their glossy coats and their beautiful curves, their sensitive radiators sniffing for something over the velvet ropes. Panting, I know they are, to be out in the open again; and yet I fancy they enjoy it all in a way. It would be ungrateful if they did not; for, after all, the whole thing has been arranged for them. The whole idea of the Show is to let the motors inspect the bloaters--and not what you think. (You don’t know what bloaters are? Well, I can’t explain without being rude.)

All the year round they can study _ad nauseam_ their own individual bloaters; but this is the only occasion on which they have the whole world of bloaters paraded in front of them for inspection. Now only can they compare notes and exchange grievances.

And how closely they study the parade. Here is a pretty limousine, a blonde; see how she watches the two huge exhibits in front of her. They are very new bloaters, and one of them--oh, horror!--one of them is going to buy. He has never bought before; she knows his sort. He will drive her to death; he may even drive her himself; he will stroke her lovely coat in a familiar, proprietary fashion; he will show her off unceasingly to other bloaters till she is hot all over and the water boils in her radiator. He will hold forth with a horrible intimacy and a yet more horrible ignorance on the most private secrets of her inner life. Not one throb of her young cylinders will be sacred, yet never will he understand her as she would like to be understood. He will mess her with his muddy boots; He will scratch her paint; he will drop tobacco-ash all over the cushions--though not from pipes; cigars only....

There--he has bought her. It is a tragedy. Let us move on.

Here is a little _coupé_--a smart young creature with a nice blue coat, fond of town, I should say, but quite at home in the country. She also is inspecting two bloaters. But these two are very shy. In fact, they are not really bloaters at all; they are rather a pair of nicemannered fresh herrings, not long mated. The male had something to do with that war, I should think; the _coupé_ would help him a good deal. The lady likes her because she is dark-blue. The other one likes her because of something to do with her works; but he is very reverent and tactful about it. He seems to know that he is being scrutinized, for he is nervous, and scarcely dares to speak about her to the groom in the top-hat. He will drive her himself; he will look after her himself; he will know all about her, all about her moods and fancies and secret failings; he will humour and coax her, and she will serve him very nobly.

Already, you see, they have given her a name--“Jane,” I think they said; they will creep off into the country with her when the summer comes, all by themselves; they will plunge into the middle of thick forests and sit down happily in the shade at midday and look at her; and she will love them.

But the question is---- Ah, they are shaking their heads; they are edging away. She is too much. They look back sadly as they go. Another tragedy....

Now I am going to be a bloater myself. Here is a jolly one, though her stable-name is much too long. She is a Saloon-de-Luxe and she only costs £2125 (why 5, I wonder--why not 6?). I can run to that, _surely_. At any rate I can climb up and sit down on her cushions; none of the grooms are looking. Dark blue, I see, like Jane. That is the sort of car I prefer. I am like the lady herring; I don’t approve of all this talk about the _insides_ of things; it seems to me to be rather indecent--unless, of course, you do it very nicely, like that young herring. When you go and look at a horse you don’t ask how its sweetbread is arranged, or what is the principle of its lever. Then why should you...?

Well, here we are, and very comfortable too. But why do none of these cars have any means of communication between the owner and the man next to the chauffeur? There is always a telephone to the chauffeur, but none to the overflow guest on the box. So that when the host sees an old manor-house which he thinks the guest hasn’t noticed he has to hammer on the glass and do semaphore; and the guest thinks he is being asked if he is warm enough.

Otherwise, though, this is a nice car. It is very cosy in here. Dark, and quiet, and warm. I could go to sleep in here.

* * * * *

What? What’s that? No, I don’t really want to buy it, thank you. I just wanted to see if it was a good sleeping car. As a matter of fact I think it is. But I don’t like the colour. And what I really want is a _cabriolet_. Good afternoon. thank you....

A pleasant gentleman, that. I wish I could have bought the saloon. She would have liked me. So would he, I expect.

Well, we had better go home. I shan’t buy any more cars today. And we won’t go up to the gallery; there is nothing but oleo-plugs and graphite-grease up there. That sort of thing spoils the romance.

Ah, here is dear Jane again! What a pity it was-- Hullo, they have come back--that nice young couple. They are bargaining--they are beating him down. No, he is beating them up. Go on--go on. Yes, you can run to that--_of course_ you can. Sell those oil shares. Look at her--_look_ at her! You can’t leave her here for one of the bloaters. He wavers; he consults. “Such a lovely colour.” Ah, that’s done it! He has decided. He has bought. She has bought. They have bought. Hurrah!

Little Bits of London

V

BOND STREET

I find it very difficult to walk slowly down Bond Street as one ought to do; I always feel so guilty. Most of the people there look scornfully at me as if I belonged to Whitechapel, and the rest look suspiciously at me as if I belonged to Bond Street. My clothes are neither good enough or bad enough. So I hurry through with the tense expression of a man who is merely using Bond Street as a thoroughfare, because it is the way to his dentist--as indeed in my case it is. But recently I _did_ saunter in the proper way, and I took a most thrilling inventory of the principal classes of shops, the results of which have now been tabulated by my statistical department.

For instance, do you know how many shops in the street sell things for ladies to wear (not including boots, jewellery or shoes)? No? Well, there are thirty-three. Not many, is it? But then there are twenty-one jewellers (including pearl shops) and eight boot and/or shoe shops; so that, with two sort of linen places, which may fairly be reckoned as female, the ladies’ total is sixty-four. I only counted a hundred and fifty shops altogether. Of that total, nine are places where men can buy things to wear, and ten are places where they can buy things to smoke; I have charitably debited all the cigarette-shops to the men, even the ones where the cigarettes are tipped with rose-leaves and violet petals. But even if I do that and give the men the two places where you can buy guns and throw in the one garden-seat shop, we are left with the following result:--

FEMININE SHOPS. MASCULINE SHOPS.

Dress 33 Dress 9 Jewellers 21 Tobacco 10 Boots and Shoes 8 Motors 9 Sort of Linen Places 2 Guns 2 Dog Bureau 1 Garden Seats 1 -- -- 65 31

From these figures a firm of Manchester actuaries has drawn the startling conclusion that Bond Street is more used by women than by men. It may be so. But a more interesting question is, how do all these duplicates manage to carry on, considering the very reasonable prices they charge? At one point there are three jewellers in a row, with another one opposite. Not far off there are three cigarette-shops together, madly defying each other with gold-tips and silver-tips, cork-tips and velvet-tips, rose-tips and lily-tips. There is only one book-shop, of course, but there are about nine picture-places. How do they all exist? It is mysterious.

Especially when you consider how much trouble they take to avoid attracting attention. There are still one or two window-dressers who lower the whole tone of the street by adhering to the gaudy-overcrowded style; but the majority, in a violent reaction from that, seem to have rushed to the wildest extremes of the simple-unobtrusive. They are delightful, I think, those reverent little windows with the chaste curtains and floors of polished walnut, in the middle of which reposes delicately a single toque, a single chocolate, or a single pearl. Some of the picture-places are among the most modest. There is one window which suggests nothing but the obscure branch of a highly decayed bank in the dimmest cathedral town. On the dingy screen which entirely fills the window is written simply in letters which time has almost erased, “JOHN SMITH--Pictures.” Nothing could be less enticing. Yet inside, I daresay, fortunes are made daily. I noticed no trace of this method at the Advertisers’ Exhibition; they might give it a trial.

Now no doubt you fondly think that Bond Street is wholly devoted to luxuries; perhaps you have abandoned your dream of actually buying something in Bond Street? You are wrong. To begin with, there are about ten places where you can buy food, and, though there is no pub, now, there is a café (with a license). There are two grocers and a poulterer. There is even a fish-shop--you didn’t know that, did you? I am bound to say it seemed to have only the very largest fish, but they were obviously fish.

Anyone can go shopping in Bond Street. I knew a clergyman once who went in and asked for a back-stud. He was afterwards unfrocked for riotous living, but the stud was produced. You can buy a cauliflower in Bond Street--if you know the ropes. There is a shop which merely looks like a very beautiful florist’s. There are potatoes in the window, it is true, but they are “hot-house” ones; inside there is no trace of a common vegetable. But if you ask facetiously for a cauliflower (as I did) the young lady will disappear below ground and actually return with a real cauliflower (_de luxe_, of course). I remember few more embarassing episodes.

And if you like to inquire at the magnificent provision-merchant’s, he too will conjure up from the magic cellars boot-cream and metal-polish and all those vulgar groceries which make life possible. That is the secret of Bond Street. Beneath that glittering display of luxurious trivialities there are vast reserves of solid prosaic necessaries, only waiting to be asked for. A man could live exclusively on Bond Street. I don’t know where you would buy your butcher’s meat, but I have a proud fancy that, if you went in and said something to one of those sleek and sorrowful jewellers, he too would vanish underground and blandly return to you with a jewelled steak or a plush chop.

Many years ago, they tell me, there _was_ a butcher in Bond Street. Perhaps you dealt there. For my part I was not eating much meat in those days. But I can imagine his window--a perfect little grotto of jasper and onyx, with stalactites of pure gold, and in the middle, resting on a genuine block of Arctic ice, an exquisite beef-sausage. I wish he could come back.

It is difficult to realize that there is anything but shop-windows in Bond Street, but I like to think that, up there in those upper stories which one never sees, there does dwell a self-contained little community for whom Bond Street is merely the village street, down which the housewives pass gossiping each morning to the greengrocer’s or the fishmonger’s, and never purchase any pearls at all.

When the butcher comes back I think I shall join them.

The Little Guiggols

[I understand that there is a dearth of the kind of horrible little plays which the public really wants. It ought not to be difficult to meet that want. Nearly everybody I know is good at dialogues but can’t do plots; personally I teem with plots, but am not so good at dialogue. So I propose to present you with the ground plan--the _scenario_--of a few really sensational, thrilling and, on the whole, unpleasant playlets, and you can do the rest.]

I

THE MISSING STAR

(_Based on an old legend, and also, I am sorry to say, on fact._)

The scene is the interior of a small tent at a country fair. Through the open door can be seen the back of Bert, who is shouting madly, “Walk up! Walk up! Now showin’--the Performin’ Fleas! Edward! Edward! Does everything but talk. Walk up! Walk up!” Seven or eight people file sheepishly into the tent and stand reverently in front of the small table under the single bright light--a soldier and his love, two small boys, a highly respectable mater and paterfamilias, with Reginald in an Eton collar, also a young man who may be a barrister, or possibly one of those writing fellows. They do not look at each other; _they are ashamed_.

The red velvet curtain is drawn across the door of the tent, muffling the wild noises of the fair.

Mr. Slint, the little showman, adjusts his gold pince-nez and speaks; the audience close round the table and crane their necks. Mr. Slint speaks in the patronizing, almost contemptuous, tones of the expert lecturer who has something unique to offer.

_Mr. Slint_ (_quietly_). I now show you the Performing Fleas. The fleas are common fleas, trained by myself. Perseverance and patience is alone required.

_The Writing Fellow_ (_intelligently_). You never use the whip?

_Mr. Slint_ (_taking no notice_). Now the nature of the flea is to ’op; it is _not_ the nature of the flea to _walk_. I ’ave trained the fleas to walk. I will now show you the flea as newly captured. Being still untrained, ’e still ’ops, you see.

He produces a miniature kennel, to which is attached “by a ’uman ’air” an undeniable flea. The flea hops gallantly, but is clearly impeded from doing its best jumps by the human hair.

We are now shown a second flea which is “only half-trained.” He has certainly forgotten how to hop. Indeed he seems to be suffering from congenital inertia. He scrambles a centimetre or two and sometimes makes a sort of flutter off the ground, but he rather suggests a solicitor learning to fly than a flea learning to walk.

_Mr. S._ I will now show you the flea when fully trained.

He opens a small cardboard box which seems to be full of toy four-wheelers and hansom-cabs. They are made of some metal, brightly painted, with substantial metal wheels. One of these vehicles is placed on the lighted board and begins to move. It is drawn by Eustace. It moves at a steady pace towards the materfamilias.

_Reginald_ (_suddenly, in a high piping voice_). How does he feed them, mother?

_The Materfamilias._ Hush, dear.

_Mr. S._ (_impassive_). The fleas are fed on the ’uman arm. (_An after-thought_) My own.

_Reginald_ (_an imaginative child_). Does he feed them one at a time or all together, mother?

_The M.F._ Hush, dear.

_Mr. S._ I will now show you Edward, champion flea of the world.

Edward is indeed a magnificent creature. He is drawing a light racing hansom and he shows an amazing turn of speed. Eustace with his heavy old four-wheeler has a long start, but in a moment Edward is up with him; he has passed him.

Reginald (_breathlessly_). Mother, he’s _running_!

And so he is. He is making a bee-line for the M.F. _Will he reach her?_ No. Mr. Slint has coolly picked up Edward’s hansom and is showing him to the spectators through a magnifying-glass. The limelight is thrown on to Edward’s swarthy features and by an ingenious use of the cinema we are now shown a striking “close-up” of Edward’s expression as he is passed round before the people in the tent, hanging in his tiny collar at the end of the human hair. Rage, hatred, mortification, boredom, and what can only be described as the lust for blood are indicated in turn by the rolling eyes, the mobile lips. And, as he passes before the M.F., he wears a look of thwarted ambition which makes one shudder.

Now comes the final spectacle. Out of the little box Mr. Slint rapidly takes cab after cab and sets them on the white board, line abreast. Each cab is drawn by a single devoted flea. On the right of the line is Edward, on the left is Eustace. In perfect order the fleas advance, dressing by the right....

It is a moving sight. There is something very sinister in that steady, noiseless, calculated progress--for I need not say that the fleas are moving _away_ from Mr. Slint: they are moving with machine-like precision towards Reginald. No, they have changed direction. Edward has given them “Right incline!” They are moving with machine-like precision, silent, inexorable, cabs and all, towards the materfamilias.

_R._ (_Shrilly, still worried_). Do they have to be unharnessed for meals, mother?

_The M.F._ Hush, dear.

Mr. Slint purrs on about his patience and perseverance. Suddenly there is a stir on the right of the line; there has been an accident; Edward’s wheels are locked with the careless four-wheeler’s on his left. A scurry, a sharp cry from Mr. Slint and Edward has disappeared.

Mr. Slint acts promptly. The door of the tent is barred. He announces to the cowering spectators that a valuable artiste is missing and that those present are to be searched before leaving. (_He suspects foul play._)

Suddenly he makes a dart at the M.F. and from her shoulder--oh, horror!--he takes a _Thing_. “Larceny!” he cries; “I mean abduction. Quick Bert, the police.”

_The Paterfamilias._ Spare her, sir. She is a mother.

_A policeman_ (_entering_). Now then, what’s this ’ere?

_Mr. S._ (_moved by who knows what chivalrous impulse_). Madam, I have wronged you. This is not Edward. It is one of yours. (_He replaces the Thing._)

_The M.F._ (_shrieking_). Oh, oh! The _shame_ of it!

_Reginald._ _I_ know, mother! Put it on the table. If it’s Edward it will walk: if it’s one of--if it’s not, it will hop.

The Thing is placed solemnly upon the table. All crowd around and watch for the issue. The flea does not walk. On the other hand it does not hop. Nothing happens. The flea is dead.

_So no one will ever know._

The M.F. swoons away....

CURTAIN

The Little Guiggols

II

THE LURCH

[_Tyltyl._ “It seems hardly worth while, then, to take so much trouble.”--_The Betrothal._]

I am afraid this little Guiggol has somehow got mixed up With M. Maeterlinck; but the two schools have, of course, a good deal in common, so it should work out fairly well.

The play opens in The Place Which is Neither Here nor There; it seems to be a high hill entirely surrounded by fog. The unfortunate _Bill Tyl_ and his sister _Methyl_[3] are doing their utmost to die, driven on by the sinister figure of _Indigestion_, which grows larger and larger as the play progresses. They meet with a good deal of opposition in their simple project, and when the play begins they have already been to the House of Uncles and The Abode of the Half-Baked for permission to die; but they always find that before they can do it they have to go to just _one_ more place for information and advice. It is like walking up one of those tiresome mountains which never seem to have a top; or it is like trying to find out which Government Department is _really_ responsible; or it is like.... But enough.

[3] Who afterwards gave her name to the celebrated spirits.

_Bill_ and _Methyl_ have now been told that they cannot die until they have gone down and rescued all the people who have been left in The Lurch during their lives; so they are discovered standing on the hill preparing to go down to The Lurch. _Indigestion_ endeavours to dissuade them, saying that they had much better go down the other side of the hill into The Limbo. But the seductive figure of _Food_ intervenes, gorgeously dressed in aspic, and eventually prevails.

At this point there is a jolly bit of dialogue.--

_Bill_ (_profoundly_). Food is good.

_The Oldest Uncle_ (_I forget how he got there_). Food is very good.

_Food_ (_mysteriously_). The food which you eat is good, but the food which you do not eat is better.

_Methyl_ (_frightened_). What does she mean?

_Bill._ I do not know what she means.

_Food._ I do not know what I mean.

_The O. U._ I do not know what the author means.

_M._ Does anybody know what he means?

_Indigestion._ He does not mean anything.

_Bill._ Oh, oh! I wish he would mean something.

_Ind._ He is pulling your leg.

The next scene is The Lurch itself, a very horrible place, where we see all the people who have been left in it wishing they could get out of it; or at least we don’t see them because the whole place is full of a dense fog; but they are there, groping about and contemplating unutterably the opaque immensities of boredom. Their hands move visibly through the vast gloom, plying the instruments of Destiny; most of them knitting. You see, they are nearly all old maids. None of them can be got out of The Lurch until those who left them in it remember them and return. There are also, of course, large crowds of old men in all stages of decay. Many of them are Colonels who have been left in The Lurch by the Government and naturally there is no hope for them. It is all extremely sad.

In low tones they do a little dialogue, like sheep bleating on the Mountains of Eternity.

_The Oldest Old Maid._ Will he never come?

_The Oldest Old Maid But One._ He will never come.

_A Frightfully Old Man._ The fog is very foggy.

_The O. O. M._ It is difficult to see things in a fog.

_The O. O. M. B. O._ If he came I should not see him.

_An Awfully Old Colonel._ You are lucky.

_The O. O. M. B. O._ I am not lucky.

_The O. O. M._ She is not lucky.

_A. F. O. M._ There must be some mistake.

_An A. O. C._ You are not waiting for the Government. That is what I meant.

_The O. O. M._ Oh, oh! He meant something.

_A. F. O. M._ There must be some mistake.

_The O. O. M. B. O._ Oh, oh! Somebody is coming.

_Bill_ and his party come in on all-fours. You cannot see them because of the fog, but you can hear them coughing. It is terrible. There is a scene of intense intensity while _Bill Tyl_ and _Methyl_ crawl about trying to find the people they have come to find. _Bill_ keeps finding the _Awfully Old Colonel_ by mistake, and this causes a great deal of emotion. The one he is after is _The Oldest Old Maid But One_, and, as she says nothing but “Oh, Oh, I cannot smell him,” instead of saying, “Here I am, Bill,” it is very difficult to identify her.

But suddenly _Methyl_ remembers that in all her blameless life _she has never left anyone in The Lurch_. (Wood-wind, _sotto voce_--and strings, _vibrato_.) The rule is that anyone who comes down to The Lurch and remembers things like that may rescue everyone who is in The Lurch at the time.

This gives general satisfaction and the whole party sets off to the top, Old Maids and all.