Whenever we spend a week in London we never seem to find time for the
things we really want to do. After dinner, on our last night at home, I say
to Angela, "Let's see--have we any engagements this trip?"
And Angela answers, "Don't you remember? We're dining with the Hewetsons on
Thursday, and on Saturday the Etheridges are taking us to a symphony
concert. Then there's your sister."
"Oh, ring her up, and suggest we come to dinner on Sunday. We don't want to
waste a proper night on Nellie."
"All right. That leaves us four evenings for ourselves. I suppose you want
to see the Quartermasters' Exhibition at Olympia?"
"What's that?"
"I can't think which part of the newspapers you read. Why, they've had
columns and columns about it."
"Ah, that's how I missed it. I only look at the 'late news.' It seems a
waste of time to read the rest."
"Well, it's an exhibition showing the wonderful work done by Quartermasters
in the War. There are Quartermasters checking stores----"
"Are they shown wondering where they ought to stand on a battalion parade?"
"I don't know about that; but we see them indenting for coal----"
"And regretting their inability to issue same?"
"Very likely. Anyhow, everything is arranged practically under the actual
conditions. The exhibition started in an Army hut in St. James's Park, but
proved such a success it had to be moved to Olympia. Why, Mr. CHURCHILL was
there one day this week."
"Did he make a speech?"
"He either made a speech or left by a side-door. I can't remember now, but
I know he was there."
"Why can't we go in the afternoon?"
"They say it's better at night, because the whole place is lit up by
hurricane lanterns and looks like fairyland."
"Oh, very well. That leaves us three evenings. We----"
"There's this French season at the Central. The papers say that no one who
appreciates good acting can afford to miss that. It's packed, I believe....
Besides, one finds one's French comes back very easily. By the end of the
evening I can generally follow most of what they say."
"H'm. We shan't be able to see ROBEY and BERRY and GRAVES and LESLIE HENSON
and DELYSIA in two nights."
"No-o.... Besides, everybody says one ought to see this Japanese man in
_Romeo and Juliet_. I hear the way he swarms up the creeper in the balcony
scene is quite too wonderful. They made him do it four times the first
night."
Thus we are left with six evenings of duty and one of enjoyment, unless
Angela happens to hear that there is a 'cellist from Spitzbergen or a
Bolshevik soprano whom it is social death not to be able to discuss. In
that case we get no fun at all.
The Hewetsons, who live in London and can enjoy all these opportunities for
improvement and still have time for Mr. ROBEY and the rest, think me a
terrible Philistine. But, as I pointed out to Hewetson, he suffers just as
acutely when he has a holiday and goes to Paris. Hewetson holds that there
is only one theatre in Paris, the Varietes. But by the time he has
accompanied Mrs. H. to the Francais, the Opera, the Opera Comique and the
Odeon, to say nothing of the Theatre des Arts, he is due back at the
office. When I explained this to him, his whole attitude changed at once,
and he implored me to accept his subscription for shares in my company. But
his heart-rending account of his last visit to Paris, before the War, when
he and Mrs. H. spent two days hunting round the Louvre (Musee) under the
impression that the RODINS were kept there, suggested a wider scope for my
schemes, and it seemed to me that the only fair way of acknowledging this
was to make Hewetson a director.
And now I must tell you about my company, for, although we are in danger of
becoming over-capitalised, there are still one or two shares we are willing
to sacrifice, practically at par. The company is known as High-brows, Ltd.,
and is "designed to meet the requirements" of the countless thousands who
detect a familiar note in the conversation with Angela just recorded. The
idea is simple and, like all simple ideas, great. We buy a house in each of
the chief capitals of the civilised world, and to this house the visitor
hurries as soon as he has left his luggage at the hotel. Each house will be
arranged in the same manner, so that no knowledge of the language of the
country is required to enable the stranger to find his way about.
The ground floor will consist of one large hall or room, combining the
functions of waiting-room and Fine Art Gallery. Reproductions of the
principal pictures and statues of the national museums will occupy two
walls and the centre carpet, the remaining walls being hung with the more
astonishing examples of contemporary painters. (We are not anticipating any
inquiries for contemporary sculpture). A minimum of ten minutes is allowed
for this room. When your turn arrives you mount to the first floor, which
you find divided into two parts. In each of these a cinematograph is
installed, one "featuring" prominent artists in the standard dramas of the
particular country--works like _Le Cid_, _Macbeth_, _Faust_, or _Peer
Gynt_; while the other runs through the more discussed scenes of any
current entertainment which conceivably one "ought to see."
The first of these programmes is designed primarily for foreigners, and is
meant to save them the fatigue of a visit to national or subsidised
theatres, where these exist. The second is intended to meet the
requirements of natives. Each bill will last an hour, and, though clients
are entitled to see both performances, full-time attendance at either
carries with it the right to proceed to the next floor. Here again are two
more rooms. In the first of these a gramophone renders in turn the leading
vocalists and instrumentalists (serious) of the country. (Say
half-an-hour.) So far you will have been put to a minimum expenditure of
one hour and forty minutes, and, as only five minutes is allowed for the
last room, the time total cannot be considered excessive.
In this last room is nothing but a row of desks. You wait your turn before
one of these; then you hand in your name and receive a pass. On this is
printed a certificate that you, the above-mentioned, are acquainted with
the masterpieces tabulated overleaf. Thus in less than two hours (inclusive
of possible delay in the waiting-room) you are free to spend your holiday
exactly as you choose. It is hoped that in time these certificates may come
to be accepted as carrying complete immunity, for at least a month, from
every form of intellectual treat.
Hewetson wanted the certificates to be issued in the waiting-room. He said
it would save time. But I decided that, if the prestige of the institutions
and their certificates is to be kept up, unscrupulous people must have no
chance of obtaining a pass and slipping away without going up-stairs.
Indeed, I am adding an elaborate system of checks, by which it will become
impossible to reach the Discharge Bureau without spending the requisite
time in each room. The first room is the danger. In the crush people might
escape to the cinemas before their ten minutes is up. My idea is to hand to
each entrant a lump of High-brow stickjaw, guaranteed not to dissolve in
less than the stipulated period, and to station a lynx-eyed dentist at the
foot of the stairs....
Hewetson in his simple-minded way also wanted the company to be called the
Holiday-makers' Enjoyment League, or the Society of Art-Dodgers, or some
such name. He even thought the houses should be painted in bright
attractive colours. I pointed out to him that they should be uninviting and
dull in appearance, and that a uniform sobriety, a suggestion of yearning
and uplift, in every feature of the company's appeal would not only allow
thousands of hypocrites, like Angela, to seek relief at our doors, but
would actually confer on people like Hewetson and me a stamp of that same
intellectual passion from whose manifestations we are engaged in escaping.
* * * * *
"SWANSEA AND DISTRICT RUGBY LEAGUE.