Chapter 7

However, it appeared that at this house the first reader had just been obliged to take a vacation owing to ill-health occasioned by too assiduous application to her task of attempting to keep somewhere abreast of the incoming flood of manuscripts. She was, it seems, a large elderly lady who had tried out her own talents as a novelist without marked success some twenty years ago. Her niece, a miss of twenty or so, who had a fancy for an editorial career and who had vainly been seeking a situation of this character for some time, found a windfall in the instant need for a substitute first reader. It was with some petulance, it struck me, that she yanked the door open one day. She was, apparently, showing some one about her office. "All that," she said, waving her hand toward my case, "practically untouched; and mountains besides. I don't know how I'm to get away with it. I suppose I'll have to do a couple every night." I don't know what time it was, but the light was going and the young lady had got into bed when she began to read me, propped up against her knees. She yawned now and then and sighed repeatedly as she shifted back my pages. I thought I noticed that her, knees swayed, just perceptibly, at times. Then suddenly my support sank to one side; I started to slide, and would have plunged to the floor, very nearly pulling her after me, if the disturbance had not as suddenly caught the young lady back into wild consciousness, and she grabbed me and her knees and the slipping bedclothes all in a lump. Shortly after this she turned back to see how I ended, and then went to sleep comfortably, lights out.

I did not see the report the young lady wrote of me, but I had occasion to think that she declared I was rather stupid. However, I got another reading. I was given next to a young man, not, so I understood, a regular reader, but a member of the advertising department who was frequently called on to help weed out manuscript, who took me home with him and threw me onto a couch littered with books and papers. Here I stayed for ever so long. One day I heard the young man say to his wife, nodding toward me: "I ought to try to get that unfortunate thing off my hands before my vacation, but I never seem to get around to it." As, alack-a-day! he did not get around to me before that occasion, I went, packed in the bottom of a trunk, with the young man and his wife on their annual holiday. In my pitchy gaol I had, of course, no means of calculating the flight of time, but when I next saw the light, after what seemed to me an interminable spell, I appeared to be the occasion of some excitement. The young man brought me up after several vigorous dives into the bottom of the trunk, as his wife was saying with much energy: "Well, of course, you can do as you please, but if I were you I'd telegraph an answer right straight back that I did not propose to spend my vacation working for them. The idea! After all you do!" "Oh, well," was the young man's reply, "some poor dog of an author wrote the thing, and it's only right that he should have some kind of an answer within a reasonable time. I ought to have got around to it long ago."

Whatever the kind-hearted young man may have said about me I was given yet another chance. A very business-like chap "took a shot at me," as he expressed it, one forenoon at his desk, I was considerably distressed, however, by the confusion and the multiplicity of interruptions to which his attention to me was subject. When I thought of the sacred privacy devoted to my creation, the whole-hearted consecration of my dear parent's life-blood to my being, I felt that such a reading was little short of criminally unjust. And how could any one be expected to savour my power and my charm in the midst of such distractions? The business-like chap sat somewhere near the middle of a vast floor ranged with desks. In his immediate neighbourhood a score or more of typewriters were clicking and perhaps half as many telephones were going. The chap's own telephone rang, it seemed to me, every five or six pages, and, resting me the while on his knee, he expectantly awaited the outcome of his secretary's answering conversation. At frequent intervals he was consulted by colleagues as to this and that: covers, jackets, electros, fall catalogues, what not? Nevertheless, he got through me in rather brisk order. At my conclusion I observed no tears in his eyes. And, it was evident, he settled my hash, as the phrase is, at this house.

I certainly felt sick at heart in that express car back to the corn belt. My poor parent, when I again met him, unwrapped me very tenderly, and sat for a long time turning me through very dully. I stayed on his desk for several days, and then fared forth again on my quest, valued this trip at a hundred dollars.

After the initial formalities, I fell this time first into the hands of a driving sort of fellow who had the air of being perpetually up to his neck in work, and who handed me to his wife with the remark: "Here's another job for you tomorrow. Make a careful, working synopsis of the story, and I'll dip into the manuscript here and there when I come home to get a line on the style and general character of the thing." The next night, after rustling energetically through me, he wrote out his report, and, passing it to his wife, said: "There are no outright mis-statements of fact as to the plot in that, are there?"

I next fell in the way of a fashionable character just leaving for a week-end, who read me in the smoking-car on his way up into the country. He burned several holes in my pages with the falling ash of his cigarettes. He read me in bits between scraps of conversation with his seat neighbour and recesses of enjoyment of the flying scenery. And he found it rather awkward holding me balanced on his legs crooked up against the seat in front of him. This, my precarious position, led to a grievous calamity. I toppled and fell, and my reader, making a swooping clutch at me as I went, but the more scattered my pages over the polluted floor of the car. An evil draught carried my third page underneath a seat, the third forward from my reader. It was an anguishing thing, but I could not cry out, I could not tell him: as my reader, cursing me heartily (for what I cannot admit was my fault) gathered me up, he neglected to crawl far enough under the seat before him to perceive my page three.

But it does not fall within the scope of my present design to extend this chronicle to the length of an autobiography. With what pain and labour my poor parent recovered from his memory, and then very imperfectly, of course, my third page; how he grew more melancholy of countenance at each of my successive returns to the house of my birth and formative years; how I sometimes remained away for months at a time, and how once an office boy mis-addressed me to a lady in New Jersey who very graciously herself forwarded me to my parent; how my poor parent was obliged at length by the increasing dilapidation of my appearance to go to the expense of having me completely re-typed by a public typist, and how directly after this he entirely re-wrote, expanded, and elaborated me at the instigation of one firm of publishers; how I was read by a delightful old lady who knitted in her office as she read; by a lady of cosmopolitan mien who had me together with many other manuscripts sent to her home in a box, and who consumed innumerable cigarettes as she perused me; by a young gentleman who I am sure had a morning "hang over" at his desk; by a tough-looking customer who wore his hat at his desk; by a young lady of futurist aspect who took me home to her studio; by an old, old man who seemed to "see" me quite, and by many more--all this I may merely indicate.

One very striking phenomenon I should by no means fail to mention, and this uncanny fact may be illustrated thus: If an object is blue or if it is yellow it will be recognised by all men as being blue or yellow, as the case may be. One will not say of it, "See that lurid yellow object," to have another reply, "What! that object directly before us? I see nothing yellow about it; it is as black as ink." But I was apparently exactly like such an impossible object. I was, figuratively speaking, no colour of my own and I was all colours. One, so to speak, saw me as green, another as white, and yet another as orange, while some saw quite red as they looked at me. That is, my character consisted altogether, it seemed, in the amazingly diverse reactions I inspired in my successive readers. I was intolerably dull, I was abundantly entertaining, I was over-subtle, I was painfully obvious, I was exceedingly humorous, and I lacked all humour.

How, at length, a group of editorial gamblers succeeded in coming sufficiently into harmony about me to render a composite verdict that I would be a fair publishing risk; but how the title my poor parent had given me it was unanimously held wouldn't do at all; and how I got another in book committee meeting; how, after I was (wonderful thing!) "accepted," I lay in a safe until I thought I should crumble away with age; and how I was suddenly brought forth and hastily read by the manufacturing department for ideas for my cover to be, and then by the advertising department for "copy dope," before being rushed to the composing room--of these things I have not time to speak further, as I am now on the press, and am rapidly ceasing to be merely a manuscript.

IX

"YOU ARE AN AMERICAN"

"Lavender, sweet lavender, Who will buy my sweet blooming lavender? Buy it once, you'll buy it twice, And make your clothes sweet and nice!"

She was a wretched-looking creature, with a great basket; and it was so she sang through the street. By this you know where we are, for this is one of the old cries of London town.

For the sake of my clothes, and for the noble pleasure of associating for an instant with the original of a coloured print of old London types, I bought a sprig of lavender. "Thank you, sir," she said.

I saw it coming; ah! yes, by now I knew she would. "You are an American, sir," she added, eyeing me with interest.

You would think that since the "American invasion" first began ever so long ago, some time after Dicky Davis "discovered" London, they, the British, would have seen enough of us to have become accustomed to us by now. But, as you have found, it is not so--we are a strange race from over the sea.

"You are an American, sir," said the barmaid. She was a huge young woman who could have punched my head in. I am not so delicate, either. And she had a pug nose.

"I do not so much care for American ladies," she said. "I think they are a bit hard, don't you?" Then, perhaps feeling that she may have offended me, she quickly added: "Not of course that I doubt that there are maidenlike ladies in America."

They are a curious people, these English, with their nice ideas, even among barmaids, of the graces of a mellow society. For some time I could not understand why she was so beautiful. Then I perceived that it was because of her nose. She looked just like the goddesses of the Elgin marbles, whose noses are broken, you know. Still I doubt whether it would be a good idea for a man to break his wife's nose in order to make her more beautiful.

I will grave her name here on the tablet of fame, so that when you go again to London you may be able to see her. It is Elizabeth.

He was a cats' meat man. And on his arm he carried a basket in which was a heap of bits of horse flesh (such I have been told it is), each on a sliver of stick. There was a little dog playing about near by. "Would you care to treat that dog to a ha'penny's worth of meat, sir?" asked the man.

I had never before treated a dog to anything, though treating is an American habit. So I "set up" the dog to a ha'penny's worth of meat. "Thank you, sir," said the cats' meat man. I saw by the light come into his eye that he had recognised me. "You are------" he began. "I know it," I said; "I am."

I looked at the wretched dog. Would he too accuse me? But he ate his meat and said never a word. Perhaps he was not an Englishman. No, I think he was a tourist, too, like myself. I was glad I had befriended him in an alien land.

"What is the price of this?" I asked. "Thri'pence?" I inquired, reading a sign.

"Three pence," pronounced the attendant very distinctly. It was but his way of saying, "You are an American."

I went into an office to see a man I know. "How are you?" I said in my democratic way to the very small office boy. "You are looking better than when I saw you last," I remarked with pleasant home humour.

"I never saw you before, sir," replied the office boy. "He is an American," I heard him, apologising for me, tell the typist.

Some considerable while after this I went to this office again. I had quite forgotten the office boy. I handed him my card. A bright lad, he. "I'm feeling much better, sir," he said.

In Pall Mall there is a steamship office in the window of which is displayed a miniature sheet of water. At opposite sides of this little ocean are small dabs of clay, one labelled England, the other America. Tiny ships ply back and forth between the two countries. Observers cannot make out how it is that these little boats turn about as they do, apparently of their own accord. And the scene has continually a number of spectators. (This was before the war.)

One day I was looking in at this window, very much interested in this problem. Standing next to me was a fine specimen of a Pall Mallian, with his silk "topper," his black tail coat, his buttonhole, his checked trowsers, his large grey spats, his shining boots, his stick and his glass on its ribbon, apparently equally absorbed. I turned to him after a hit--a quite natural thing to do, I thought--and, "How the deuce do you suppose that thing works?" I said.

The tall gentleman slowly turned. Slowly, stiffly, with an aristocratic gesture, he raised his arm and placed his glass in his eye, for a moment. I was frozen by his blank stare, quite through. Then he lifted his eyebrow; the glass dropped and bounded before him on its ribbon. And he turned and walked away. Walked away, I dare say, to his frowning club, to tell how he had just been set upon in the street and insulted by some strange ruffian. But, you see, I didn't know; I was an American.

To Epsom I went in a cart to see the Derby. It was at Epsom, you know, that the King's horse was thrown several seasons ago by a suffragette who lost her life in the act. Well, most of the fine gentlemen of England, I think, were there, all in splendid tall grey hats and with their field glasses slung over their shoulders. And a horde of the cleverest crooks in Europe also.

There I had my pocket "cut" by a pickpocket. That is the way they go through you in England, neatly lift your pocket out. I thought this was an interesting thing, so I told it about that I had had my pocket cut, but I did not see any international significance in the affair.

The achievement, however, I discovered was much relished by my hearers in England. I, an American, had come over there and had my pocket cut. He, the crook, an Englishman very probably, had been "cuter" than I; he had "had" me, an American.

It is a curious thing, and a fact not generally known, I believe, that all decayed taxicab drivers in London, those who are unfortunate, have fallen from a high estate. Each and every one of them used to drive the London to Oxford coach in the days of 'orses.

I met a number of these personages, fat, with remarkably red faces and large honeycombed noses. Not at all like the alert, athletic lads, a type of mechanical engineer, who have arisen as cabbies with the advent of taxis. What do they know about 'orses?

It was such an old boy who drove me from the neighbourhood of Russell Square, where I was stopping, to Chelsea, where I went into lodgings. He frequently had the pleasure of driving Americans, he remarked. "Thank you, sir," he said.

I required to have my shoes repaired, and I inquired of my landlord where might be found a good cobbler. He told me that there was an excellent one in Battersea. "In Battersea!" I said. "Is there none in Chelsea? How am I to get my shoes clear over to Battersea?"

"Why," he replied, "we will send the cobbler a card and he'll send some one over for the boots and----"

"And then, I suppose," I said, "he will send us another card saying that the boots are done and so on. And in the meantime I could have had the boots repaired and worn out again."

Naturally I was for wrapping up the shoes in a piece of newspaper and setting out straight off to find a cobbler. But my landlord would not hear of such a thing at all. "Of course you are an American," he said.

I gathered that while such a proceeding might be all right in my country it wouldn't do in England. He did not want lodgers, I understood, going in and out of his house with parcels under their arms. It would reflect on him. He was a man with a lively mind, and he told me a little story.

"How do you like the new lodger?" asked the first housemaid of the second.

"Oh, he's very nice indeed," replied the second housemaid. "But he's not a gentleman. He helped me carry the coals upstairs yesterday."

"Could you spare me a trifle, sir?" asked the errand man in my street. "I haven't had tea today."

It's a funny thing, that; isn't it?--our just being all "Americans" (when we are not referred to as "Yankees" or "Yanks"). We are never United Statesians. It is the "American Ambassador," and the "American Consul-General." I have even heard Dr. Wilson referred to as the "President of America."

One day I saw a tourist. He was an American, a young man I knew in New York. I found him going into the Houses of Parliament. I was fond of going in there frequently, and said I would accompany him.

With an easy stride, at a speed I should say of about two miles an hour, he walked straight through the Houses of Parliament; through the Norman porch, through the King's robing room, the Royal or Victoria gallery, the Prince's chamber, the sumptuously decorated House of Peers, the Peers' lobby, the spacious central hall, the Commons' corridor and the House of Commons; glancing about him the while at art and architecture, lavish magnificence and the eternal garments and symbols of history. Returning to the central hall, we passed through St. Stephen's and Westminster Hall and arrived again in the street.

"How long did it take us to do that?" said my friend, questioning his watch.

"Oh, about fifteen minutes," I replied.

He said he thought he would go across the way and "do" the Abbey next while he was in the neighbourhood.

I suppose I could have helped him in the matter of despatch, but I didn't think of it at the time. Later I heard of two Americans who drove up to the abbey in a taxi. Leaping out, one said to the other: "You do the outside and I'll do the inside, and that way we'll save a lot of time."

The thing a man does in America, of course, when he gets into a railroad train is to light a cigar and begin talking to the fellow next to him. There were two of us in the railway carriage compartment on my way down into Surrey. I made a number of amiable observations; I asked a number of pleasant questions. My object was to while away the time in human companionship. "Quite so," was his reply to observations.

In replying to questions he would commit himself to nothing; he wouldn't even say that he didn't know. "I shouldn't undertake to say, sir," was his answer. And then, certainly, there was no possibility of pursuing the subject further.

He wasn't reading a paper; he wasn't doing anything but gaze straight in front of him. I concluded that he was "sore" at me; I concluded that he was a surly bear, anyway. And so an hour or so passed in utter silence.

The pretty landscape whirled by; we went through a hundred tunnels (more or less); the little engine gave a shrill little squeak now and then; at old, old railway stations, that remind one agreeably of jails, rough-looking men in black shirt sleeves and corduroy waistcoats ran out to the train to open the carriage doors, and I forgot the gentleman altogether. Till at length we came to his station.

When he had got out he turned to latch the door, and putting his head in at the window, he said to me in the pleasantest manner possible: "Good aufternoon, sir." He wasn't sore at me a bit! That was simply his fashion of travelling, in silence.

I was going into the countryside, to the country places where the old men have pleasant faces and the maidens quiet eyes. To fare forth upon the King's highway, to hedgerows and blossoms and the old lanes of Merrie England, to mount again the old red hills, bird enchanted, and dip the valleys bright with sward, to the wind on the heath, brother, to hills and the sea, to lonely downs, to hold converse with simple shepherd men, and, when even fell, the million tinted, to seek some ancient inn for warmth in the inglenook, and bite and drop, and where, when the last star lamp in the valley had expired, I would rest my weary bones until the sweet choral of morning birds called me on my way.

There was an ancient character going along the road. He walked with a staff, a crooked stick. His coatless habit was the colour of clay; his legs were bound about just below the knee by a strap (wherein, at one side, he carried his pipe), so that his trowsers flared at the bottom like a sailor's; over his shoulder he bore a flat straw basket. Under his chin were whiskers; his eyes were merry and bright and his cheeks just like fine rosy apples, with a great high light on each. I asked of him the way and we trudged along together. "You are from Mericy," he said with delight.

He told me about himself. He was seventy-four and he had never had "a single schooling" in his life. Capel was his home, a village of about twenty houses which we were approaching, thirty miles or so from London. The last time he been to London was when he was fifteen. He had then seen some fireworks there. No fireworks in Capel, he said, had ever been able to touch him since. He had been pushing on, he said, pushing on, pushing on all the while.

"You were not born in Capel, then?" I said.

Born in Capel! Why, he had been born seven miles from Capel.

The difficulty was that I had overlooked the fact that everybody goes out of London town at Whitsuntide. Village and county town I tried and I could not find where to lay my head. Everything was, as they say in England, "full up." It was coming on to rain and the night fell chill and black. Would I have to use my rucksack for a pillow and sleep in the fields?

At length I found a man--it was at quaint Godalming, I think, where the famous Charterhouse School is--who could not give me a room, but offered me a bed and breakfast at half a crown. "There's another fellow up there," he said. "But he's a nice, quiet fellow; something like yourself," he said. "I think you'll like him."

"You are an American," remarked my landlord. I sat with him in his little parlour behind the bar. It had a gun over the mantelpiece, a great deal of painted china and a group of stuffed birds in a glass case. He asked me if I liked reading, because, if I did, he had an old dictionary to which I was welcome at any time.

At length it was the hour for bed. I followed my heavy host with his candle up difficult stairs. "I think they're all asleep," he said.

"They're all asleep!" I exclaimed. "Who are?"

"Why," replied my landlord, "there are five of them, you know. But they are nice quiet fellows. Something like yourself," he added. "I think you will like them."