Part 10

In these troubled days there is little room for the exercise of the graces of life. Our ears are deaf to the gentle voice of urbanity. The delicacies of intercourse have been trodden underfoot, and lie withered and broken. Even the quality of mercy has been standardized and put into uniform. Throughout the world to-day, everything is organized, and to organize a beautiful movement or emotion is to brutalize it: while lubricating its mechanism you ossify its soul. Thank God, there is still left a little spontaneity. Human impulse may be bruised and broken, but it is a fiery thing, and hard to train to harness or to destroy; and I can assure you that the Americans are grateful for it wherever it finds expression.

One evening, just before curfew--it was night according to the Government, but the sky said quite clearly that it was evening--I was standing at my favourite coffee-stall near King's Cross, eating hard-boiled eggs and drinking introspective coffee, and chatting with the boss on the joy of life.

"Met any of the Americans?" I asked, anxious to get his opinion of them.

"Met any? Crowds of 'em."

"What do you think of 'em?"

"Oh, I dunno. Bit of a change after all these other foreigners. 'Strewth--d'yeh know, when a Cockney like yesself comes along to the stall I feel like dropping down dead--'strewth, I do. Never get none o' the usual 'appy crowd along now," he went on, mopping the sloppy counter.

"But how do the Americans strike you?"

"The Americans? Well...." He folded his arms, which with him is the flourish preliminary to an oration. Here is his opinion, which I think sums up the American character pretty aptly:--

"The Americans. Well, nice, likeable fellers I've alwis found 'em. Don't 'alf make for my stall when they come out o' the station. Like it better, they say, than Lady Dardy Dinkum's canteen inside. And eat.... Fair clear me out every time they come. I get on with 'em top-'ole. There's something about 'em--I dunno what, some kind o' kiddishness--but not that exac'ly--a sort of----"

"Fresh delight in simple things," I suggested, drawing on my Pelmanized Bartlett.

"That's jest it. Mad about London, y'know. Why, I bin in London yers an' yers, and it don't worry me. Wants to know which is the oldest building in London, and where that bloke put 'is cloak in the mud for some Queen, an' where Cromwell was executed, and 'ow many generals is buried in Westminster Abbey. 'Ow should I know anything about Westminster Abbey? I live in Camden Town. I got me business t'attend to.

"There's a friend of mine, Mr. 'Ankin, the gentleman what takes the tickets at Baker Street--'e met two of 'em t'other day. Navy boys--from the country, I should think. D'you know, they spent the 'ole mornin' ridin' up and down the movin' staircase--yerce, and would 'ave spent the afternoon, too, on'y one of 'em tried to run up the staircase what was comin' down an'.... Well, I dessay it was good practice for 'em, but, as Mr. 'Ankin told 'em, it's safer to monkey with a U-boat than with a movin' staircase. And anyway, 'e'll be out of hospital before 'is ship's moved.

"Yerce, I like the Americans--what I've seen of 'em. No swank about 'em, y'know--officers an' men, just alike, all pals together. Confidence. That's what they got. Talks to yeh matey-like--know what I mean--man to man kind o' thing. Funny the way they looks at England, though. I s'pose they seen it on the map and it looked smallish. One feller come round the stall t'other night, an' 'e'd got two days' leave an' thought 'e could do Stratford-on-Avon, Salisbury Cathedral, Chester, Brighton, Edinburgh Castle, an' the spot o' blood where that American gel, Marry Queener Scots, murdered 'er boy--all in two days. 'Ustle, I believe they calls it over there. So I told 'im to start 'ustlin' right away, else, when 'e got back, 'e'd find 'imself waiting on the carpet, waiting for the good old C.B. Likeable boys, though. 'Ere's to 'em. No, I'll 'ave a ginger-ale. I don't drink me own coffee--not when I'm drinkin' anyone's 'ealth, like. Well, _Attaboy_, as they say over there."

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